The sinister mark
"They were interesting children, very interesting. All children and
young people are, of course; but these two were more so than any I
ever came in contact with. Rosamond was beautiful beyond anything I,
or anybody, ever saw, I think. I used to delight in taking pictures of
her. I could show you a dozen up in the gallery. And she was always
more than glad to sit for me. She knew pretty well how she looked.
Didn't need any one to tell her, and who could blame anything so lovely
as that for knowing it was lovely? Might as well blame a water-lily
that looks at itself all day in a pond.... But Anne, poor little
Anne--she was always my favourite."
Peter glanced up in surprise. That Anne Blake should have appealed,
even as a child, to any one, least of all to this gentle, sweet old
chap, was a decidedly new thought to him. Perhaps it was just because
he was so gentle, Peter reminded himself, and because she was the
daughter of Anne Blakeslie----Walter Lord went on, with a little laugh--
"She was always an odd little thing. I remember one time when Anne sent
for me--her father was very ill; she had heard of it, and wanted me to
take him a message. Well, I went up there, and little Anne, who must
have been about five years old, happened to meet me, just at the edge
of the woods, near the house. She was shy, and started to run, but I
called her and told her my name and gave her some candy, one of those
long peppermint sticks we used to like. She took it and thanked me
very prettily, and then she ran on ahead, and I heard her say to her
mother, in such a funny little awed tone, 'Mother! Mr. God's coming to
see you.'"
Peter laughed and the old man chuckled softly.
"She certainly was an odd little thing--Anne. She was shy, naturally,
and was not as fond of coming up into the gallery as her sister was,
because she was afraid that I would want to take her picture, a thing
she absolutely refused to let me do. I did entice her into the gallery
sometimes, with books and candy, and some of the other little things
that children love. I had an idea that it might be nice to get a
photograph of her for her mother. I had plenty of Rosamond, but had
never been able to overcome Anne's prejudice against sitting for me."
"What a funny idea for a kid to have," said Peter, thoughtfully.
"I know some boys would almost as soon go to a dentist as to a
photographer, but I never knew a girl, of any age, who didn't love it."
"Well," said Walter Lord, slowly, "Anne had her reason, poor little
thing. She was high-strung, and sensitive almost to the point of
obsession about----But there"--he broke off--"she might have trusted
me. I'd never have put the poor child--Anne Blakeslie's child--to
shame.... And I finally got what I was after." Even though many
years had passed, there was a little triumph in his voice at the
recollection. "I got her to playing with a doll in the sitter's chair,
and I caught her one day in just the position I wanted. Would you like
to see? I know just where----"
"I certainly would," said Peter.
Walter Lord jumped quickly up from his chair, threw the end of a
cigarette out of the window, and disappeared up a small back stairway
which led directly from the room. Peter heard him walking about
overhead for a moment. Presently he reappeared, with something in his
hand.
He laid it down, and lighted a lamp on the table, for the room was now
almost dark.
"There she is," he said, leaning over Peter's shoulder, and pointing to
the little old photograph. "And, whatever chance has happened to her,
I'll wager that's the only photograph in existence of Anne Curwood."
CHAPTER XVIII
ROSAMOND'S SECRET
Peter took the yellowed card in his hands and looked at it long and
eagerly. For nearly a month past he would have been ready to pay almost
any price for a portrait of Anne Blake, and now, here in his hand, he
held the thing he had been wishing for--and, for his purpose, it might
as well have been a piece of blank pasteboard--or so he thought at the
moment.
The child face of Anne Curwood was shown in profile, facing the left.
The tell-tale mark, which had probably changed but little in the
succeeding years, the birthmark by which Peter hoped to identify her
without shadow of doubt, appeared not at all. This was the way in which
Walter Lord had shielded a child's sensitiveness. He had, with careful
purpose, selected a view which showed the little face unmarred.
That there was a hidden disfigurement Peter had no reasonable doubt,
both because of what Lord had already said and because of his own
previous knowledge, but he must make sure. He must force Lord to tell
him.
"Why, she's a beautiful little kid," Peter said, abruptly. "I thought,
from what you said, she must be as ugly as the dickens. Why in the
world was she so funny about letting you----"
"Poor little thing! It wasn't funny," said the old man,
compassionately. "If either you or I had the same reason, we'd have
felt the same way."
"But I don't see----" Peter began.
"No, you don't," said Lord, quickly. "I took very good pains that no
one should see it."
"See--what?" persisted Peter.
"Why," said the old man, hesitatingly, "the little thing was born with
a dreadful mark on the other side of her face, the right side."
("I knew it was the right side," thought Peter, swiftly. "That would
have been the side in shadow, when the cabman saw Anne Blake standing
before her sister's dressing table. I told O'Malley it must be the
right side." He was thinking this even while he listened attentively.)
"That's why I took her in profile," Lord was saying--"so it wouldn't
show, you see. The child was painfully sensitive about it and so was
her mother, though of course not to the same extent. I wanted them
both to be pleased, and I knew Anne Blakeslie must hate to be reminded
of--of----Oh, Mr. Clancy, such a horrible experience.... I hate, even
now, to think of it."
Peter did not say, "Don't think of it, then." He wanted to hear, to
learn every detail. He did not want to miss even a remote chance. So
he looked eagerly, inquiringly, into the old man's face, but said
nothing.
"It was awful, terrible," Walter Lord went on as Peter knew he must
now that he was fully started. "It wasn't so very long before Anne
and Rosamond were born. She was--she had gone into the woods to pick
blackberries or something I think.... There was a sort of clearing
behind some big rocks not so very far from the house.... And there--I
learned it all much later--she came upon a vicious, half-witted tramp,
who was harbouring up on the mountain. He was squatting on the ground,
dressing a chicken he'd stolen, and she didn't see him until she was
right beside him.... He looked at her--and leaped up. She was a woman,
beautiful--alone, and, as he thought, far from help. He bent over, and
crept toward her, with his hands all bloody.... She screamed--and--and
he caught her by the throat----"
The old man lifted his clenched hands and pressed them, quivering,
against his forehead. Peter sat in horrified silence.
"If she hadn't screamed"--Walter Lord went on, after a moment--"if
she hadn't been able to fight, and keep on screaming--God"----Again
he paused, but after a long, shuddering breath, continued--"Curwood
was inside the house, but he heard her. He had almost a sixth sense
of direction, and all his senses were preternaturally acute, but he
was blind! Think of it! To be blind, and to hear someone--someone you
loved--calling--calling for help!
"He got there--just in time. The fiend heard him coming and made off
through the woods.... Anne was ill, terribly ill, and for a long time
it seemed as if she could not live. It was a fearful time for--for
everyone who cared for her.
"A few days before her little twin babies were born, the body of
the--of the wretch was found at the bottom of a cliff. There were black
marks of fingers on his throat--but he was known to be a worthless
scoundrel--and the coroner's jury brought in a verdict of accidental
death."
There was a long silence, broken only by the call of an owl away off in
the woods--"Who-o-o--Who----"
After a time Walter Lord went on, in a slightly altered tone:
"I don't know how it was, but little Rosamond never showed the
slightest effect of her mother's fearful experience, while Anne, poor
little Anne, not only will bear, as long as she lives, a terrible
birthmark, but her whole character seemed to be affected by it. Whether
it was the shock to her mother's entire nervous system, or whether it
was because she was not like other children, I can't tell, but she was
painfully, almost morbidly, shy and retiring. She came down here to
school only when she was forced to do so, and the rest of the time she
spent with her father, whom she positively adored. I think the fact
that he was blind and could not see how badly she was disfigured may
have had something to do with it, for on this point she was abnormally
sensitive and self-conscious. I don't believe, strange as it may seem,
that her father ever knew anything about it. There was no necessity,
and I can't think any one would have been cruel enough to tell him. The
few times I saw them together he showed no consciousness that there was
anything amiss with his little favourite, Anne. He would stroke her
smooth little face and call her his 'beautiful, little, dear girl.' In
fact, so far as he could tell, there was no striking difference in the
appearance of the two children, for in feature they were almost exactly
alike, as you may be able to see from these photographs."
Peter studied them again, as they lay, side by side, in the warm glow
of the lamp. It had not struck him before, but as he compared them,
feature by feature, he could see that in childhood, at least, the two
little twin sisters must have looked startlingly alike, though even at
that time the expression of the two faces was strikingly dissimilar.
There was the same thick, rich, dark hair, the same smooth, broad
brow, the same delicate modelling of feature, but in the case
of Mary--(Rosamond, he corrected himself)--the eyes and mouth
were laughing, careless, and gay, while Anne's were serious and
quiet--almost tragic--a thing not good to see in one so young.
"All kinds of possibilities there," thought Peter, with a slight shake
of the head. "Plenty of intelligence and nervous force--a kind of
courage, too, I should imagine, with a strong little chin like that....
The devil's own lay-out for a girl, handicapped as she was----"
Walter Lord, looking at the portraits and not at Peter, did not notice
his abstraction.
"Yes," he said, "they did look a lot alike, in a way, but even at
that, the resemblance was only physical, and they showed more and more
difference as they grew up. Their father died when they were about
fifteen, and after that her mother had more difficulty than ever in
controlling Rosamond. I saw a good deal of them at that time, and
though she talked little about it, I could see that she was worried.
Even at that age, Rosamond was careless, reckless, and extravagant. She
always longed for finery, and when I brought books for little Anne, I
always took a bit of ribbon or some such foolishness to Rosamond. It
was wonderful to see what the child could do with the few things at
her disposal. She had a sense of dress and adornment that was really
remarkable."
(Peter remembered that he had read, somewhere, that Mary Blake was the
most skilfully costumed woman on the stage.)
"Little Anne had it, too, in a different way. Her clothes were always
quiet and pretty and suitable. Dress seemed to be a kind of instinct
with both of the girls, but Rosamond's taste was almost--almost
theatrical."