Part 37 (1/2)
Somehow he made me understand that the tramp who was sick at their house had kept calling out in his delirium for Gertrude and declaring he had found her, that she need not hide, for he would surely find her wherever she hid. The servants talked of it, and George knew it a day or two ago.
I do not know whether he suspected anything or not. Very likely he could hardly tell himself. Finally one of the girls told Mrs. Weston, and she acted very strangely. She wanted to have a description of the man, and at last she insisted on going herself to peep at him, to see what he was like. George happened to come home just at the time Mrs. Weston had crept up to the door of the shed-chamber. Some exclamation of hers when she saw her husband roused the sick man, who sat up in bed and screamed that he knew his wife's voice, and he would see her. George caught her by the arm, pushed the door wide open with his foot, and led her into the chamber. She held back, and cried out, and the tramp, half wild with delirium, sprang out of bed, shouting to George: ”Take your hands off of my wife!”
George declares that even then he should not have believed the tramp was really speaking the truth if Gertrude hadn't confirmed it. He thought the man was out of his head, and the worst of his suspicion was that the stranger had known Mrs. Weston somewhere. As soon as the tramp spoke, however, she fell down on her knees and caught George's hand, crying over and over: ”I thought he was dead! I thought he was dead!” It must have been a fearful thing for both of them; and then Gertrude fainted dead away at George's feet. The girl who had been taking care of the tramp was out of the room at the moment, but she heard George calling, and came in time to take her mistress away; while George got the tramp back to bed, and soothed him into some sort of quiet. Then he rushed over here. I urged him to go back at once, telling him his wife would want him, and that it might after all be a mistake.
”I don't want ever to set eyes on her again,” he declared doggedly.
”She's cheated me. She told me I was the first man she ever cared for, and I never had a hint she'd been married. She made a fool of me, but thank G.o.d I'm out of that mess.”
”What do you mean?” I asked him. ”You are talking about your wife.”
”She isn't my wife, I tell you,” persisted he. ”I'll never live with her again.”
He must have seen how he shocked me, and at last he was persuaded to go home. I know I must see him to-morrow, and I have a cowardly desire to run away. I have a hateful feeling of repulsion against him, but that is something to be overcome. At any rate both he and his poor wife need a friend if they ever did, and I must do the best I can.
I cannot wonder George should be deeply hurt by finding that Mrs. Weston had a husband before and did not tell him. She can hardly have loved him or she must have been honest with him. It may have been through her love and fear of losing him that she did not dare to tell; though from what I have seen of her I haven't thought her much given to sentiment.
How dreadful it must be to live a life resting on concealment. I have very likely been uncharitable in judging her, for she must always have been uneasy and of course could not be her true self.
October 29. Some rumor of the truth has flown about the town, as I was sure when I saw Aunt Naomi coming up the walk this forenoon. Sometimes I think she sees written on walls and fences the things which have happened or been said in the houses which they surround. She has almost a second sight; and if I wished to do anything secret I would not venture to be in the same county with her.
She seated herself comfortably in a patch of suns.h.i.+ne, and looked with the greatest interest at the mahonia in bloom on the flower-stand by the south window. She spoke of the weather and of Peter's silliness, told me where the sewing-circle was to be next week, and approached the real object of her call with the deliberation of a cat who is creeping up behind a mouse. When she did speak, she startled me.
”I suppose you know that tramp over to the Westons' died this morning,”
she remarked, so carelessly it might have seemed an accident if her eye had not fairly gleamed with eagerness.
”Died!” I echoed.
”Yes, he's dead,” she went on. ”He had some sort of excitement yesterday, they say, and it seems to have been the end of him.”
She watched me as if to see whether I would give any sign of knowing more of the matter than she did, but for once I hope I baffled her penetration. I made some ordinary comment, which could not have told her much.
”It's very queer a tramp should go to that particular house to die,”
observed Aunt Naomi, as if she were stating an abstract truth in which she had no especial interest.
I asked what there was especially odd about it.
”Well, for one thing,” she answered, ”he asked the way there particularly.”
I inquired how she knew.
”Al Demmons met him on the Rim road,” she continued, not choosing, apparently, to answer my question directly, ”and this man wanted to know where a man named Weston lived who'd married a woman from the West called something Al Demmons couldn't remember. Al Demmons said that George Weston was the only Weston in town, and that he had married a girl named West. Then the man said something about 'that used to be her name.' It's all pretty queer, I think.”
To this I did not respond. I would not get into a discussion which would give Aunt Naomi more material for talk. After a moment of silence, she said:--
”Well, the man's dead now, and I suppose that's the end of him. I don't suppose Mrs. Weston's likely to tell much about him.”
”Aunt Naomi,” I returned, feeling that even if all the traditions of respect for my elders were broken I must speak, ”doesn't it seem to you harm might come of talking about this tramp as if he were some mysterious person connected with Mrs. Weston's life before she came to Tuskamuck? It isn't strange that somebody should have known her, and when once a tramp has had help from a person he hangs on.”
She regarded me with a shrewd look.