Irma Leese

    Elenor Murray landing in New York,
    After a weary voyage, none too well,
    Staid in the city for a week and then
    Upon a telegram from Irma Leese,
    Born Irma Fouche, her aunt who lived alone
    This summer in the Fouche house near LeRoy,
    Came west to visit Irma Leese and rest.

    For Elenor Murray had not been herself
    Since that hard spring when in the hospital,
    Caring for soldiers stricken with the flu,
    She took bronchitis, after weeks in bed
    Rose weak and shaky, crept to health again
    Through egg-nogs, easy strolls about Bordeaux.
    And later went to Nice upon a furlough
    To get her strength again.

    But while she saw
    Her vital flame burn brightly, as of old
    On favored days, yet for the rest the flame
    Sputtered or sank a little. So she thought
    How good it might be to go west and stroll
    About the lovely country of LeRoy,
    And hear the whispering cedars by a window
    In the Fouche mansion where this Irma Leese,
    Her aunt, was summering. So she telegraphed,
    And being welcomed, went.

        This stately house,
    Built sixty years before by Arthur Fouche,
    A brick home with a mansard roof, an oriel
    That looked between the cedars, and a porch
    With great Ionic columns, from the street
    Stood distantly amid ten acres of lawn,
    Trees, flower plots - belonged to Irma Leese,
    Who had reclaimed it from a chiropractor,
    To cleanse the name of Fouche from that indignity,
    And bring it in the family again,
    Since she had spent her girlhood, womanhood
    To twenty years amid its twenty rooms.
    For Irma Leese at twenty years had married
    And found herself at twenty-five a widow,
    With money left her, then had tried again,
    And after years dissolved the second pact,
    And made a settlement, was rich in fact,
    Now forty-two. Five years before had come
    And found the house she loved a sanitarium,
    A chiropractor's home. And as she stood
    Beside the fence and saw the oriel,
    Remembered all her happiness on this lawn
    With brothers and with sisters, one of whom
    Was Elenor Murray's mother, then she willed
    To buy the place and spend some summers here.
    And here she was the summer Elenor Murray
    Returned from France.

    And Irma Leese had said:
    "Here is your room, it has the oriel,
    And there's the river and the hills for you.
    Have breakfast in your room what hour you will,
    Rise when you will. We'll drive and walk and rest,
    Run to Chicago when we have a mind.
    I have a splendid chauffeur now and maids.
    You must grow strong and well."

        And Elenor Murray
    Gasped out her happiness for the pretty room,
    And stood and viewed the river and the hills,
    And wept a little on the gentle shoulder
    Of Irma Leese.

    And so the days had passed
    Of walking, driving, resting, many talks;
    For Elenor Murray spoke to Irma Leese
    Of tragic and of rapturous days in France,
    And Irma Leese, though she had lived full years,
    Had scarcely lived as much as Elenor Murray,
    And could not hear enough from Elenor Murray
    Of the war and France, but mostly she would urge
    Her niece to tell of what affairs of love
    Had come to her. And Elenor Murray told
    Of Gregory Wenner, save she did not tell
    The final secret, with a gesture touched
    The story off by saying: It was hopeless,
    I went into religion to forget.
    But on a day she said to Irma Leese:
    "I almost met my fate at Nice," then sketched
    A hurried picture of a brief romance.
    But Elenor Murray told her nothing else
    Of loves or men. But all the while the aunt
    Weighed Elenor Murray, on a day exclaimed:
    "I see myself in you, and you are like
    Your Aunt Corinne who died in ninety-two.
    I'll tell you all about your Aunt Corinne
    Some day when we are talking, but I see
    You have the Fouche blood - we are lovers all.
    Your mother is a lover, Elenor,
    If you would know it."

    "O, your Aunt Corinne
    She was most beautiful, but unfortunate.
    Her husband was past sixty when she married,
    And she was thirty-two. He was distinguished,
    Had money and all that, but youth is all,
    Is everything for love, and she was young,
    And he was old."

    A week or two had passed
    Since Elenor Murray came to Irma Leese,
    When on a morning fire broke from the eaves
    And menaced all the house; but maids and gardeners
    With buckets saved the house, while Elenor Murray
    And Irma Leese dipped water from the barrels
    That stood along the ell.

        A week from that
    A carpenter was working at the eaves
    Along the ell, and in the garret knelt
    To pry up boards and patch. When as he pried
    A board up, he beheld between the rafters
    A package of old letters stained and frayed,
    Tied with a little ribbon almost dust.
    And when he went down-stairs, delivered it
    To Irma Leese and said: Here are some letters
    I found up in the garret under the floor,
    I pried up in my work.

    Then Irma Leese
    Looked at the letters, saw her sister's hand,
    Corinne's upon the letters, opened, read,
    And saw the story which she knew before
    Brought back in this uncanny way, the hand
    Which wrote the letters six and twenty years
    Turned back to dust. And when her niece came in
    She showed the letters, said, "I'll let you read,
    I'll tell you all about them":

    "When Corinne
    Was nineteen, very beautiful and vital,
    Red-cheeked, a dancer, bubbling like new wine,
    A catch, as you may know, you see this house
    Was full of laughter then, so many children.
    We had our parties, too, and young men thought,
    Each one of us would have a dowry splendid -
    A young man from Chicago came along,
    A lawyer there, but lately come from Pittsburgh
    To practice, win his way. I knew this man.
    He was a handsome dog with curly hair,
    Blue eyes and sturdy figure. Well, Corinne
    Quite lost her heart. He came here to a dance,
    And so the game commenced. And father thought
    The fellow was not right, but all of us,
    Your mother and myself said, yes he is,
    And we conspired to help Corinne and smooth
    The path of confidence. But later on
    Corinne was not so buoyant, would not talk
    With me, your mother freely. Then at last
    Her eyes were sometimes red; we knew she wept.
    And, then Corinne was sent away. Well, here
    You'll guess the rest. Her health was breaking down,
    That's true enough; the world could think its thoughts,
    And say his love grew cold, or she found out
    The black-leg that he was, and he was that.
    But Elenor, the truth was more than that,
    Corinne had been betrayed, she went away
    To right herself - these letters prove the case,
    Which all the gossips, busy as they were,
    Could not make out. The paper at LeRoy
    Had printed that she went to pay a visit
    To relatives in the east. Three months or so
    She came back well and rosy. But meanwhile
    Your grandfather had paid this shabby scoundrel
    A sum of money, I forget the sum,
    To get these letters of your Aunt Corinne -
    These letters here. This matter leaked, of course.
    And then we let the story take this form
    And moulded it a little to this form:
    The fellow was a scoundrel - this was proved
    When he took money to return her letters.
    They were love letters, they had been engaged,
    She thought him worthy, found herself deceived
    Proved, too, by taking money, when at first
    He looked with honorable eyes to young Corinne,
    And won her trust. And so Corinne lived here
    Ten years or more, at thirty married the judge,
    Her senior thirty years, and went away.
    She bore a child and died - look Elenor
    Here are the letters which she took and nailed
    Beneath the garret floor. We'll read them through,
    And then I'll burn them."

        Irma Leese rose up
    And put the letters in her desk and said:
    "Let's ride along the river." So they rode,
    But as they rode, the day being clear and mild
    The fancy took them to Chicago, where
    They lunched and spent the afternoon, returning
    At ten o'clock that night.

    And the next morning
    When Irma Leese expected Elenor
    To rise and join her, asked for her, a maid
    Told Irma Leese that Elenor had gone
    To walk somewhere. And all that day she waited.
    But as night came, she fancied Elenor
    Had gone to see her mother, once rose up
    To telephone, then stopped because she felt
    Elenor might have plans she would not wish
    Her mother to get wind of - let it go.
    But when night came, she wondered, fell asleep
    With wondering and worry.

        But next morning
    As she was waiting for the car to come
    To motor to LeRoy, and see her sister,
    Elenor's mother, in a casual way,
    Learn if her niece was there, and waiting read
    The letters of Corinne, the telephone
    Rang in an ominous way, and Irma Leese
    Sprang up to answer, got the tragic word
    Of Elenor Murray found beside the river.
    Left all the letters spilled upon her desk
    And motored to the river, to LeRoy
    Where Coroner Merival took the body.

        Just
    As Irma Leese departed, in the room
    A sullen maid revengeful for the fact
    She was discharged, was leaving in a day,
    Entered and saw the letters, read a little,
    And gathered them, went to her room and packed
    Her telescope and left, went to LeRoy,
    And gave a letter to this one and that,
    Until the servant maids and carpenters
    And some lubricous fellows at LeRoy
    Who made companions of these serving maids,
    Had each a letter of the dead Corinne,
    Which showed at last, after some twenty years,
    Of silence and oblivion, to LeRoy
    With memory to refresh, that poor Corinne
    Had given her love, herself, had been betrayed,
    Abandoned by a scoundrel.

        Merival,
    The Coroner, when told about the letters,
    For soon the tongues were wagging in LeRoy,
    Went here and there to find them, till he learned
    What quality of love the dead Corinne
    Had given to this man. Then shook his head,
    Resolved to see if he could not unearth
    In Elenor Murray's life some faithless lover
    Who sought her death.

    The letters' riffle crawled
    Through shadows of the waters of LeRoy
    Until it looked a snake, was seen as such
    In Tokio by Franklin Hollister,
    The son of dead Corinne; it seemed a snake:
    He heard the coroner through neglect or malice
    Had let the letters scatter - not the truth; -
    The coroner had gathered up the letters,
    Befriending Irma Leese; she got them back
    Through Merival. The riffle's just the same.
    And hence this man in Tokio is crazed
    For shame and fear - for fear the girl he loves
    Will hear his mother's story and break off
    Her marriage promise.

    So in reckless rage
    He posts a letter off to Lawyer Hood,
    Chicago, Illinois - the coroner
    Gets all the story through this Lawyer Hood,
    Long after Elenor's inquest is at end.
    Meantime he cools, is wiser, thinks it bad
    To stir the scandal with a suit at law.
    And then when cooled he hears from Lawyer Hood
    Who tells him what the truth is. So it ends.

    *        *        *        *        *

    These letters and the greenish wave that coiled
    At Tokio is beyond the coroner's eye
    Fixed on the water where the pebble fell: -
    This death of Elenor, circles close at hand
    Engage his interest. Now he seeks to learn
    About her training and religious life.
    And hears of Miriam Fay, a friend he thinks,
    And confidant of her religious life,
    Head woman of the school where Elenor
    Learned chemistry, materia medica,
    Anatomy, to fit her for the work
    Of nursing. And he writes this Miriam Fay
    And Miriam Fay responds. The letter comes
    Before the jury. Here is what she wrote: -