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Mrs. Balfame

[Pg 247] <h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> Three days before the date set for the opening of the trial, Mrs. Balfame deferred to the advice of her counsel and friends and received the women reporters—not only the four depending upon Miss Crumley, but a representative of every Woman's Page in New York and Brooklyn. They presented themselves in a body at three o'clock in the afternoon and were conducted upstairs by the fluttered Mrs. Larks, who had anticipated them with all the chairs in the jail. They crowded into the little sitting-room, and were given time to dispose themselves before the door leading into the bedroom opened and Mrs. Balfame entered. She bowed composedly and, with a slight diffident smile, walked to the chair reserved for her. Her weeds were relieved by white crêpe at the neck and wrists, but to two of the newspaper women who had interviewed her a year since as the founder of the Friday and the Country clubs, she had lost her haunting air of girlhood; there was not a line in her beautiful skin nor a gleam of silver in her abundant brown hair, but she had suddenly entered upon the full maturity of her years, and what she may have lost in charm they decided she had gained in subtle force. The other women agreed that she looked as cold and chaste as Diana, quite incapable of any of those mortal passions that drive fallible Earthians into crime. It was an ordeal, and she drew a long breath. [Pg 248] "You—you wish to interview me?" Miss Sarah Austin, whose brilliant parts were generally recognised and whose creative fervour was suspected by few, had been elected to the office of spokeswoman and replied promptly: "Indeed we do, Mrs. Balfame, and before asking you any of the tiresome questions without which there could be no interview, we should be glad to know if you read the woman's pages in our newspapers and realise that we are all friends and shout our belief in your innocence from the housetops?" "Yes, oh yes," murmured Mrs. Balfame stiffly, but with a more spontaneous smile. "That is the reason I finally consented to see you. I do not like being interviewed. But you have been very kind, and I am grateful." There was a deep murmur, and after Miss Austin had thanked her prettily for her appreciation of their modest efforts, she continued in a brisk and businesslike manner: "Now, Mrs. Balfame, what we should like is your story. We have been warned by Mr. Rush that we cannot ask you whom you suspect, much less the reasons upon which you found your suspicions—ah!" Her final vocative was expressed in an angry gurgle. Rush had entered. He was so close to panic at the prospect of facing a roomful of women unsupported by a single male that his face was almost terrifying in its strength, but it had suddenly occurred to him that although these girls had agreed to write their interviews at the Dobton Inn and submit them to his censorship, it was possible one or more would slip over to New York, bent upon sheer sensationalism. [Pg 249] "You must excuse me," he said with a valiant assault upon the lighter mood, "but my client is in the witness box, you see, and must be protected by counsel." Miss Austin swung about and faced him with a faint satiric smile. "Oh, very well," she said. "You may stay; but I for one shall not adjust my hat." It is a curious fact that newspaper women are seldom, if ever, of the masculine type; their sheer femininity, indeed, is almost as invariable as their air of physical weariness. Not one of the little company laughed with a more than perfunctory appreciation of their captain's wit, and several stared at Rush, fascinated by his harsh masculinity, the peculiar atmosphere of tense-alertness in which he seemed to have his being, the magnetism which was more an emanation from an almost perpetual concentration of his mental forces than from any of the lighter physical attributes. He folded his arms and leaned against the door, and it is only fair to the cause of woman to state that hardly one of these, whose ages ranged from twenty to thirty-six, was unwomanly enough, despite the fact that she earned her bread in daily competition with man, to give Mrs. Balfame her whole attention thereafter. While keeping their business heads, they uncovered a corner of their hearts to the sun, and quickened, however faintly, in its glow. "Now," Miss Austin resumed, "we will, counsel permitting, ask you to give us your story of that night. As you have been misquoted and there has been so much speculative stuff published about you, there surely can be no objection to that." And she squared her shoulders upon Mr. Rush. [Pg 250] Mrs. Balfame looked at her counsel with a gracious deference, and he nodded. "No harm in that," he said curtly. "Tell them practically the story you would tell if you took the stand. There's only one story to tell, and it is as well the public should bear it in mind while reading the reports of the witnesses for the prosecution." "That means he's rehearsed her," whispered Miss Lauretta Lea, who had reported many trials, to Miss Tracy, who was a novice. "But that's all right." "Well, I suppose I should begin with the scene at the Club—that is to say, I do not care to speak of it in detail,—quite aside from a natural regard for good taste,—but it seems to have been given a unique importance." "Just so," said Miss Austin encouragingly. "Do let us have your version. The public simply longs for it." "Well—I should tell you first that, although my husband was sometimes irritable, he really was a good husband and we never had any vulgar quarrels. It was only when he was not quite himself that he sometimes said more than he meant, and he never quite forgot himself as he did that day out at the Country Club. "I was playing bridge in one of the smaller rooms when I heard his voice pitched in a very excited key. I knew that something unusual had occurred, and went out into the large central room at once. There I saw him at the upper end of the room surrounded by several of the men, who were apparently trying to induce him to leave. He was shouting and saying such extraordinary things that my first impression was that he was ill or had lost his mind. [Pg 251] "I reasoned with him, and as it did no good and as I was deeply hurt and mortified, I left him to the men and returned to the bridge-room. There, in spite of the kindness of my friends, I found I was too overcome to play, and Dr. Anna Steuer offered to drive me home. That is all, as far as the scene at the clubhouse is concerned, except that I cannot sufficiently emphasise that he never had acted in a similar manner before. If he had, I should not have continued to live with him—not that I should have obtained a divorce, for I do not approve of the institution; but I should have moved out. I have a little money of my own, left me by my father." "Ah—yes. Thanks. And after you were in your own house? Do you mind? Of course, we have read the story you told the men, but we should like our own story. Perhaps you may have thought of some other points since." "Yes, there are one or two. I had entirely forgotten in the agitation of that time that I went below, after packing my husband's suitcase, to get a drink of filtered water and thought I heard some one try the kitchen door. I also thought I heard some one upstairs, and called the name of my maid. Of course, a good deal will be made of this omission, but considering the terrible circumstances and the fact that I never had been interviewed before, I do not find it in the least remarkable. "But, of course, you want me to begin at the beginning." And in her pleasant shallow voice, she told the story she had immediately concocted for her friends. As Miss Austin asked a few questions in the endeavour to inject some essence of personality into the[Pg 252] bald story, Rush permitted the sensation of dismay with which he had listened to take implacable form. He never had heard a less convincing story on the witness stand. Mrs. Balfame had talked glibly, far too glibly. It was evident to the least initiated that she had been rehearsed. Was her mind really as colourless as her voice? Had she no sense of drama? He had hoped that the excitement of this interview, coming after weeks of supreme monotony, would kindle her to animation and a natural enrichment of vocabulary; and, witnessing its effect upon these friendly women, she would be encouraged to simulate both on the witness-stand. It was a pity, he reflected bitterly, that a woman who could lie to her counsel with such a fine front of innocence could not "put over" the large dramatic lie that would help him so materially in his difficult task. Miss Austin, despairing of colour, made a shift with psychology. "Would you mind telling us, Mrs. Balfame, if you feel a very great dread of the trial? We realise that it must loom a terrible ordeal." "Oh, of course, the mere thought of all that publicity horrifies me whenever I permit myself to think of it, but it has to be, and that is the end of it, since the real culprit will not come forward. But I feel confident I shall not break down under the strain. I might have done so if the trial had followed immediately upon my arrest, but all these weeks in jail have prepared me for anything." "But you are not terrified—of—of the outcome? We know and rejoice that the chances are all in your favour, but men are so queer." "I am not in the least terrified. It is impossible to[Pg 253] convict an innocent woman in this country; and then"—inclining her head graciously to the watchful Rush,—"I have the first criminal lawyer in Brabant County to defend me. It is a detestable thought,—to be stared at in the courtroom as if I were an object in a museum,—but I shall keep thinking that in a few days at most it will be over and that I shall then return to the private life I love." "Yes. And would you mind telling us something of your plans? Shall you continue to live in Elsinore?" "I shall go far away, to Europe, if possible. I suppose I shall return in time. Of course" (in hasty afterthought) "I should not be contented for very long without my friends; they have grown to be doubly valuable—and valued—during this long term of incarceration. But I must travel for a while." "That is quite natural. How normal you are, dear Mrs. Balfame!" It was Miss Lauretta Lea who spoke up with enthusiasm. "You are just a sweet, serene, normal woman who couldn't commit a violent act if you tried. Be sure the public shall see you as you are. I don't wonder your friends adore you. Don't mind being stared at. The more people that see you, the more friends you will have." Her eyes moved to Rush, and she was rewarded by a smile that expressed relief. She was a very experienced reporter and knew exactly how he felt. "And believe me," she said as they trooped down the stairs, having passed before the Balfame throne and received a limp handshake of dismissal, "that poor man's worried half to death. He'll get about as much help from her on the stand as he would from a tired codfish.[Pg 254] But she really is a divinely sweet woman and lovely to look at, and so I'll sob over her for all I'm worth and seclude from the cynical and the sentimental that she has distilled crystal in her veins." "Did you ever know such a perfectly rotten interview!" Miss Austin was scowling fiercely. "The men did a thousand times better because they took her by surprise, but even they cursed her. I figure out she has made up her Friday Club mind to look the marble goddess minus every female instinct, including a natural desire to shoot a brute of a husband. But I wish she had brain enough to put it over with some pep. She was afraid to be dramatic,—or couldn't be,—and so she was trying to be literary—" "I don't agree with you!" And arguing and scolding, they wended their disapproving way over to the Dobton Inn and sat them down at tables to make the most of their bare material. "No censorship needed here," growled Miss Austin. "She froze my very imagination." <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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