The Hollow of Her Hand

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"Oh, it--it must be a dream!" cried Hetty Castleton, her eyes swimming.
"I can't believe--" Suddenly she caught herself up, and tried to
smile. "I don't see why you do this for me. I do not deserve--"

"You have done me a service," said Mrs. Wrandall, her manner so
peculiar that the girl again assumed the stare of perplexity and
wonder that had been paramount since their meeting: as if she were
on the verge of grasping a great truth.

"What CAN you mean?"

Sara laid her hands on the girl's shoulders and looked steadily
into the puzzled eyes for a moment before speaking.

"My girl," she said, ever so gently, "I shall not ask what your
life has been; I do not care. I shall not ask for references. You
are alone in the world and you need a friend. I too am alone. If
you will come to me I will do everything in my power to make you
comfortable and--contented. Perhaps it will be impossible to make
you happy. I promise faithfully to help you, to shield you, to repay
you for the thing you have done for me. You could not have fallen
into gentler hands than mine will prove to be. That much I swear
to you on my soul, which is sacred. I bear you no ill-will. I have
nothing to avenge."

Hetty drew back, completely mystified.

"Who are you?" she murmured, still staring.

"I am Challis Wrandall's wife."

CHAPTER IV

WHILE THE MOB WAITED

The next day but one, in the huge old-fashioned mansion of
the Wrandalls in lower Fifth Avenue, in the drawing-room directly
beneath the chamber in which Challis was born, the impressive but
grimly conventional funeral services were held.

Contrasting sharply with the sombre, absolutely correct atmosphere
of the gloomy interior was the exterior display of joyous curiosity
that must have jarred severely on the high-bred sensibilities
of the chief mourners, not to speak of the invited guests who had
been obliged to pass between rows of gaping bystanders in order to
reach the portals of the house of grief, and who must have reckoned
with extreme distaste the cost of subsequent departure. A dozen
raucous-voiced policemen were employed to keep back the hundreds
that thronged the sidewalk and blocked the street. Curiosity was
rampant. Ever since the moment that the body of Challis Wrandall
was carried into the house of his father, a motley, varying crowd
of people shifted restlessly in front of the mansion, filled with
gruesome interest in the absolutely unseen, animated by the sly
hope that something sensational might happen if they waited long
enough.

Men, women, children struggled for places nearest the tall iron
fence surrounding the spare yard, and gazed with awed but wistful
eyes at the curtained windows and at the huge bow of crepe on the
massive portals. In hushed voices they spoke of the murder and
expressed a single opinion among them all: the law ought to make
short work of her! If this thing had happened in England, said
they who scoff at our own laws, there wouldn't be any foolishness
about the business: the woman would be buried in quick-lime before
you could know what you were talking about. The law in this country
is a joke, said they, with great irritability. Why can't we do the
business up, sharp and quick, as they do in England? Get it over
with, that's the ticket. What's the sense of dragging it out for a
year? Send 'em to the chair or hang 'em while everybody's interested,
not when the thing's half forgotten. Who wants to see a person
hanged after the crime's been forgotten? And then, think of the
saving to the State? Hang 'em, men or women, and in a couple of
years' time there wouldn't be a tenth part of the murders we have
now. Statistics prove, went on the wise ones, that only one out of
every hundred is hanged. What's that? The jury system is rotten!
No sirree, we are 'way behind England in that respect. Just look
at that big murder case in London last month! Remember it? Murderer
was hanged inside of three weeks after he was caught. That's the
way to do it! And the London police catch 'em too. Our police stand
around doing nothing until the criminal has got a week's start, and
then--oh, well, what can you expect? "Now if I was at the head of
the New York department I'd have that woman behind the bars before
night, that's what I'd do. You bet your life, I would," said more
than one. And no one questioned his ability to do so.

And then all of them would growl at the policemen who pushed them
back from the gates, and call them "scabs" and "mutts" in repressed
tones, and snarl under their breath that they wouldn't be pushing
people around like that if they didn't have stars and clubs and a
great idea of their own importance. "If it wasn't for the family at
home dependin' on me for support, I'd take a punch at that stiff,
so help me God, even if I went to the Island for it!"

And so it WAS and ever shall be, world without end.

Newsboys, hoarse-voiced and pipe-voiced, mingled with the crowd,
and shrieked their extras under the very noses of the always-aloof
Wrandalls, who up to this day had turned them up at the sight of
a vulgar extra, but who now looked down them with a trembling of
the nostrils that left no room for doubt as to their present state
of mind.

Up to the very portals these assiduous peddlers yelped for pennies
and gave in exchange the latest headlines. "All about Mr. Challis
Wran'all's fun'ral!" "Horrible extry!" Ding-donging the thing in
the very ears of the dead man himself!

Motor after motor, carriage after carriage, rolled up to the curb
and emptied its sober-faced, self-conscious occupants in front
of the door with the great black bow; with each arrival the crowd
surged forward, and names were muttered in undertones, passing from
lip to lip until every one in the street knew that Mr. So-and-So,
Mrs. This-or-That, the What-do-you-call-ems and others of the
city's most exclusive but most garishly advertised society leaders
had entered the house of mourning. It was a great show for the
plebeian spectators. Much better than Miss So-and-So's wedding,
said one woman who had attended the aforesaid ceremony as a unit
in the well-dressed mob that almost wrecked the carriages in the
desire to see the terrified bride. Better than a circus, said a man
who held his little daughter above the heads of the crowd so that
she might see the fine lady in a wild-beast fur. Swellest funeral
New York ever had, remarked another, excepting one 'way back when
he was a kid.

At the corner below stood two patrol wagons, also waiting.

Inside the house sat the carefully selected guests, hushed and
stiff and gratified. (Not because they were attending a funeral,
but because the occasion served to separate them from the chaff:
they were the elect.) It would be going too far to intimate that
they were proud of themselves, but it is not stretching it very
much to say that they counted noses with considerable satisfaction
and were glad that they had not been left out. The real, high-water
mark in New York society was established at this memorable function.
It was quite plain to every one that Mrs. Wrandall,--THE Mrs.
Wrandall,--had made out the list of guests to be invited to the
funeral of her son. It was a blue-stocking affair. You couldn't
imagine anything more so. Afterwards, the two hundred who were
there looked with utmost pity and not a little scorn on the other
two hundred who failed to get in, notwithstanding there was ample
room in the spacious house for all of them. There wasn't a questionable
guest in the house, unless one were to question the right of the
dead man's widow to be there--and, after all, she was upstairs with
the family. Even so, she was a Wrandall--remotely, of course, but
recognisable.

Yes, they counted noses, so to say. As one after the other arrived
and was ushered into the huge drawing-room, he or she was accorded
a congratulatory look from those already assembled, a tribute
returned with equal amiability. Each one noted who else was there,
and each one said to himself that at last they really had something
all to themselves. It was truly a pleasure, a relief, to be able to
do something without being pushed about by people who didn't belong
but thought they did. They sat back,--stiffly, of course,--and in
utter stillness confessed that there could be such a thing as the
survival of the fittest. Yes, there wasn't a nose there that couldn't
be counted with perfect serenity. It was a notable occasion.

Mrs. Wrandall, the elder, had made out the list. She did not consult
her daughter-in-law in the matter. It is true that Sara forestalled
her in a way by sending word, through Leslie, that she would be pleased
if Mrs. Wrandall would issue invitations to as many of Challis's
friends as she deemed advisable. As for herself, she had no wish
in the matter; she would be satisfied with whatever arrangements
the family cared to make.

It is not to be supposed, from the foregoing, that Mrs. Wrandall,
the elder, was not stricken to the heart by the lamentable death
of her idol. He WAS her idol. He was her first-born, he was her
love-born. He came to her in the days when she loved her husband
without much thought of respecting him. She was beginning to
regard him as something more than a lover when Leslie came, so it
was different. When their daughter Vivian was born, she was plainly
annoyed but wholly respectful. Mr. Wrandall was no longer the lover;
he was her lord and master. The head of the house of Wrandall was
a person to be looked up to, to be respected and admired by her,
for he was a very great man, but he was dear to her only because
he was the father of Challis, the first-born.

In the order of her nature, Challis therefore was her most dearly
beloved, Vivian the least desired and last in her affections as
well as in sequence.

Strangely enough, the three of them perfected a curiously significant
record of conjugal endowments. Challis had always been the wild,
wayward, unrestrained one, and by far the most lovable; Leslie,
almost as good looking but with scarcely a noticeable trace of the
charm that made his brother attractive; Vivian, handsome, selfish
and as cheerless as the wind that blows across the icebergs in the
north. Challis had been born with a widely enveloping heart and an
elastic conscience; Leslie with a brain and a soul and not much of
a heart, as things go; Vivian with a soul alone, which belonged to
God, after all, and not to her. Of course she had a heart, but it
was only for the purpose of pumping blood to remote extremities, and
had nothing whatever to do with anything so unutterably extraneous
as love, charity or self-sacrifice.

As for Mr. Redmond Wrandall he was a very proper and dignified
gentleman, and old for his years.

Secretly, Vivian was his favourite. Moreover, possessing the
usual contrariness of man, and having been at one time or other, a
hot-blooded lover, he professed--also in secret--a certain admiration
for the beautiful, warm-hearted wife of his eldest son. He looked
upon her from a man's point of view. He couldn't help that. Not
once, but many times, had he said to himself that perhaps Challis
was lucky to have got her instead of one of the girls his mother
had chosen for him out of the minute elect.

It may be seen, or rather surmised, that if the house of Wrandall
had not been so admirably centred under its own vine and fig tree,
it might have become divided against itself without much of an
effort.

Mrs. Redmond Wrandall was the vine and fig tree.

And now they had brought her dearly beloved son home to her,
murdered and--disgraced. If it had been either of the others, she
could have said: "God's will be done." Instead, she cried out that
God had turned against her.

Leslie had had the bad taste--or perhaps it was misfortune--to
blurt out an agonised "I told you so" at a time when the family
was sitting numb and hushed under the blight of the first horrid
blow. He did not mean to be unfeeling. It was the truth bursting
from his unhappy lips.

"I knew Chal would come to this--I knew it," he had said. His arm
was about the quivering shoulders of his mother as he said it.

She looked up, a sob breaking in her throat. For a long time she
looked into the face of her second son.

"How can you--how dare you say such a thing as that?" she cried,
aghast.

He coloured, and drew her closer to him.

"I--I didn't mean it," he faltered.

"You have always taken sides against him," began his mother.

"Please, mother," he cried miserably.

"You say this to me NOW," she went on. "You who are left to take
his place in my affection.--Why, Leslie, I--I--"

Vivian interposed. "Les is upset, mamma darling. You know he loved
Challis as deeply as any of us loved him."

Afterwards the girl said to Leslie when they were quite alone:
"She will never forgive you for that, Les. It was a beastly thing
to say."

He bit his lip, which trembled. "She's never cared for me as she
cared for Chal. I'm sorry if I've made it worse."

"See here, Leslie, was Chal so--so--"

"Yes. I meant what I said a while ago. It was sure to happen to
him one time or another. Sara's had a lot to put up with."

"Sara! If she had been the right sort of a wife, this never would
have happened."

"After all is said and done, Vivie, Sara's in a position to rub it
in on us if she's of a mind to do so. She won't do it, of course,
but--I wonder if she isn't gloating, just the same."

"Haven't we treated her as one of us?" demanded she, dabbing her
handkerchief in her eyes. "Since the wedding, I mean. Haven't we
been kind to her?"

"Oh, I think she understands us perfectly," said her brother.

"I wonder what she will do now?" mused Vivian, in that speech
casting her sister-in-law out of her narrow little world as one
would throw aside a burnt-out match.

"She will profit by experience," said he, with some pleasure in a
superior wisdom.

In Mrs. Wrandall's sitting-room at the top of the broad stairway,
sat the family,--that is to say, the IMMEDIATE family,--a solemn-faced
footman in front of the door that stood fully ajar so that the
occupants might hear the words of the minister as they ascended,
sonorous and precise, from the hall below. A minister was he who
knew the buttered side of his bread. His discourse was to be a
beautiful one. He stood at the front of the stairs and faced the
assembled listeners in the hall, the drawing-room and the entresol,
but his infinitely touching words went up one flight and lodged.

Sara Wrandall sat a little to the left of and behind Mrs. Redmond
Wrandall, about whom were grouped the three remaining Wrandalls,
father, son and daughter, closely drawn together. Well to the fore
were Wrandall uncles and cousins and aunts, and one or two carefully
chosen blood-relations to the mistress of the house, whose hand
had long been set against kinsmen of less exalted promise.

The room was dark. A forgotten French clock ticked madly and
tinkled its quarter-hours with surpassing sprightliness. Time went
on regardless. One of the Wrandall uncles, obeying a look from his
wife, tiptoed across the room and tried to find a way to subdue
the jingling disturber. But it chimed in his face, and he put his
black kid glove over his lips. The floor creaked horribly as he
went back to his chair.

Beside Sara Wrandall, on the small pink divan, sat a stranger in
this sombre company: a young woman in black, whose pale face was
uncovered, and whose lashes were lifted so rarely that one could
not know of the deep, real pain that lay behind them, in her Irish
blue eyes.

She had arrived at the house an hour or two before the time set for
the ceremony, in company with the widow. True to her resolution,
the widow of Challis Wrandall had remained away from the home of
his people until the last hour. She had been consulted, to be sure,
in regard to the final arrangements, but the meetings had taken
place in her own apartment, many blocks distant from the house in
lower Fifth Avenue. The afternoon before she had received Redmond
Wrandall and Leslie, his son. She had not sent for them. They came
perfunctorily and not through any sense of obligation. These two
at least knew that sympathy was not what she wanted, but peace.
Twice during the two trying days, Leslie had come to see her. Vivian
telephoned.

On the occasion of his first visit, Leslie had met the guest in the
house. The second time he called, he made it a point to ask Sara
all about her.

It was he who gently closed the door after the two women when, on
the morning of the funeral, they entered the dark, flower-laden
room in which stood the casket containing the body of his brother.
He left them alone together in that room for half an hour or more,
and it was he who went forward to meet them when they came forth.
Sara leaned on his arm as she ascended the stairs to the room where
the others were waiting. The ashen-faced girl followed, her eyes
lowered, her gloved hands clenched.

Mrs. Wrandall, the elder, kissed Sara and drew her down beside her
on the couch. To her own surprise, as well as that of the others,
Sara broke down and wept bitterly. After all, she was sorry for
Challis's mother. It was the human instinct; she could not hold
out against it. And the older woman put away the ancient grudge
she held against this mortal enemy and dissolved into tears of real
compassion.

A little later she whispered brokenly in Sara's ear: "My dear, my
dear, this has brought us together. I hope you will learn to love
me."

Sara caught her breath, but uttered no word. She looked into her
mother-in-law's eyes, and smiled through her tears. The Wrandalls,
looking on in amaze, saw the smile reflected in the face of the
older woman. Then it was that Vivian crossed quickly and put her
arms about the shoulders of her sister-in-law. The white flag on
both sides.

Hetty Castleton stood alone and wavering, just inside the door. No
stranger situation could be imagined than the one in which this
unfortunate girl found herself at the present moment. She was virtually
in the hands of those who would destroy her; she was in the house
of those who most deeply were affected by her act on that fatal
night. Among them all she stood, facing them, listening to the
moans and sobs, and yet her limbs did not give way beneath her....

Some one gently touched her arm. It was Leslie. She shrank back,
a fearful look in her eyes. In the semi-darkness he failed to note
the expression.

"Won't you sit here?" he asked, indicating the little pink divan
against the wall. "Forgive me for letting you stand so long."

She looked about her, the wild light still in her eyes. She was
like a rat in a trap.

Her lips parted, but the word of thanks did not come forth. A
strange, inarticulate sound, almost a gasp, came instead. Pallid
as a ghost, she dropped limply to the divan, and dug her fingers
into the satiny seat. As if fascinated, she stared over the black
heads of the three women immediately in front of her at the full
length portrait hanging where the light from the hall fell full
upon it: the portrait of a dashing youth in riding togs.

A moment later Sara Wrandall came over and sat beside her. The girl
shivered as with a mighty chill when the warm hand of her friend
fell upon hers and enveloped it in a firm clasp.

"His mother kissed me," whispered Sara. "Did you see?"

The girl could not reply. She could only stare at the open door.
A small, hatchet-faced man had come up from below and was nodding
his head to Leslie Wrandall,--a man with short side whiskers, and
a sepulchral look in his eyes. Then, having received a sign from
Leslie, he tiptoed away. Almost instantly the voices of people
singing softly came from some distant, remote part of the house.

And then, a little later, the perfectly modulated voice of a man
in prayer.

Back of her, Wrandalls; beside her, Wrandalls; beneath her, friends
of the Wrandalls; outside, the rabble, those who would join with
these black, raven-like spectres in tearing her to pieces if they
but knew!

Sitting, with his hand to his head, Leslie Wrandall found himself
staring at the face of this stranger among them; not with any
definable interest, but because she happened to be in his line of
vision and her face was so singularly white that it stood out in
cameo-like relief against all this ebony setting.

The droning voice came up from below, each well-chosen word distinct
and clear: tribute beautiful to the irreproachable character of the
deceased. Leslie watched the face of the girl, curiously fascinated
by the set, emotionless features, and yet without a conscious interest
in her. He was dully sensible to the fact that she was beautiful,
uncommonly beautiful. It did not occur to him to feel that she was
out of place among them, that she belonged downstairs. Somehow
she was a part of the surroundings, like the spectre at the feast.

If he could have witnessed all that transpired while Sara was in
the room below with her guest--her companion, as he had come to
regard her without having in fact been told as much,--he would have
been lost in a maze of the most overwhelming emotions.

To go back: The door had barely closed behind the two women when
Hetty's trembling knees gave way beneath her. With a low moan of
horror, she slipped to the floor, covering her face with her hands.

Sara knelt beside her.

"Come," she said gently, but firmly; "I must exact this much of
you. If we are to go on together, as we have planned, you must
stand beside me at his bier. Together we must look upon him for the
last time. You must see him as I saw him up there in the country.
I had my cruel blow that night. It is your turn now. I will not
blame you for what you did. But if you expect me to go on believing
that you did a brave thing that night, you must convince me that
you are not a coward now. It is the only test I shall put you to.
Come; I know it is hard, I know it is terrible, but it is the true
test of your ability to go through with it to the end. I shall know
then that you have the courage to face anything that may come up."

She waited a long time, her hand on the girl's shoulder. At last
Hetty arose.

"You are right," she said hoarsely. "I should not be afraid."

Later on, they sat over against the wall beyond the casket, into
which they had peered with widely varying emotions. Sara had said:

"You know that I loved him."

The girl put her hands to her eyes and bowed her head.

"Oh, how can you be so merciful to me?"

"Because he was not," said Sara, white-lipped. Hetty glanced at
the half-averted face with queer, indescribable expression in her
eyes.

Then her nerves gave way. She shrank away from the casket,
whimpering like a frightened child, mouttering, almost gibbering
in the extremity of despair. She had lived in dread of this ordeal;
it had been promised the day before by Sara Wrandall, whose will
was law to her. Now she had come to the very apex of realisation.
She felt that her mind was going, that her blood was freezing. In
response to a sudden impulse she sprang up and ran, blindly and
without thought, bringing up against the wall with such force that
she dropped to the floor, quite insensible.

When she regained her senses, she was lying back in Sara Wrandall's
arms, and a soft faraway voice was pleading with her to wake, to
say something, to open her eyes.

If Leslie Wrandall could have looked in upon them at that moment,
or at any time during the half an hour that followed, he would have
known who was the slayer of his brother, but it is doubtful if he
could have had the heart to denounce her to the world.

When they were ready to leave the room, Hetty had regained control
of her nerves to a most surprising extent, a condition unmistakably
due to the influence of the older woman.

"I can trust myself now, Mrs. Wrandall," said Hetty steadily as
they hesitated for an instant before turning the knob of the door.

"Then, I shall ask YOU to open the door," said Sara, drawing back.

Without a word or a look, Hetty opened the door and permitted the
other to pass out before her. Then she followed, closing it gently,
even deliberately, but not without a swift glance over her shoulder
into the depths of the room they were leaving.

Of the two, Sara Wrandall was the paler as they went up the broad
staircase with Leslie.

The funeral oration by the Rev. Dr. Maltby dragged on. Among all
his hearers there was but one who believed the things he said of
Challis Wrandall, and she was one of two persons who, so the saying
goes, are the last to find a man out; his mother and his sister.
But in this instance the mother was alone. The silent, attentive
guests on the lower floor listened in grim approval: Dr. Maltby
was doing himself proud. Not one but all of them knew that Maltby
KNEW. And yet how soothing he was.

Thus afterwards, to his wife, on the way home after a fruitful
silence, spoke Colonel Berkimer, well known to the Tenderloin:

"When I die, my dear, I want you to be sure to have Maltby in for
the sermon. He's really wonderful."

"You don't mean to say you BELIEVED all that he said," cried his
wife.

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