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Title: The Siege of the Seven Suitors
Author: Meredith Nicholson
Illustrator: C. Coles Phillips
Reginald Birch
Release Date: April 24, 2011 [EBook #35942]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS ***
Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "Hezekiah"]
The Siege of
The Seven Suitors
BY
MEREDITH NICHOLSON
AUTHOR OF "THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY C. COLES PHILLIPS
AND REGINALD BIRCH
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1910
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published October 1910_
TO
THE HONORABLE THOMAS R. MARSHALL
MY DEAR GOVERNOR:--It was ordered by the franchises of destiny that you
become the chief executive of a state in which the telling of tales
brightened the hunter's camp-fire and cheered the lonely pioneer's
cabin before our people learned the uses of ink; and the supreme
fitness of this lies in the fact that you are yourself the best of
story-tellers and entitled, for your excellence in this particular, as
well as for weightier reasons, to sit at the head of the table in that
commonwealth to which we are both bound by many and dear ties.
The morning brings to your mail-box so many demands, necessitating the
most varied and delicate balancings and adjustments, that I serve you
ill in adding to your burdens the little packet that contains this
tale. Pray consider, however, that I have hidden it discreetly beneath
a pile of documents touching nearly the state's business; or that I
hastily serve it upon you in the highway, an unsanctioned writ from
that high court of letters in which I am the least valiant among the
bailiffs.
Sincerely yours,
M. N.
MACKINAC ISLAND,
_August_ 10, 1910.
CONTENTS
I. MY FRIEND WIGGINS IS INTRODUCED
II. THE BEGINNING OF MY ADVENTURE
III. I FALL INTO A BRIAR PATCH
IV. WE DINE IN THE GUN-ROOM
V. THE STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF A CHIMNEY
VI. I DELIVER A MESSAGE
VII. NINE SILK HATS CROSS A STILE
VIII. CECILIA'S SILVER NOTE-BOOK
IX. I MEET A PLAYFUL GHOST
X. MY BEFUDDLEMENT INCREASES
XI. I PLAY TRUANT
XII. THE RIDDLE OF THE SIBYL'S LEAVES
XIII. I DISCOVER TWO GHOSTS
XIV. LADY'S SLIPPER
XV. LOSS OF THE SILVER NOTE-BOOK
XVI. JACK O' LANTERN
XVII. SEVEN GOLD REEDS
XVIII. TROUBLE AT THE PRESCOTT ARMS
XIX. THE GHOST OF ADONIRAM CALDWELL
XX. HEZEKIAH PARTITIONS THE KINGDOM
THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS
I
MY FRIEND WIGGINS IS INTRODUCED
I dined with Hartley Wiggins at the Hare and Tortoise on an evening in
October, not very long ago. It may be well to explain that the Hare
and Tortoise is the smallest and most select of clubs, whose windows
afford a pleasant view of Gramercy Park. The club is comparatively
young, and it is our joke that we are so far all tortoises, creeping
through our several professions without aid from any hare. I hasten to
explain that I am a chimney doctor. Wiggins is a lawyer; at least I
have seen his name in a list of graduates of the Harvard Law School,
and he has an office down-town where I have occasionally found him
sedately playing solitaire while he waited for some one to take him out
to luncheon. He spends his summers on a South Dakota ranch, from which
he derives a considerable income. When tough steaks are served from
the club grill, we always attribute them to the cattle on Wiggins's
hills. Or if the lamb is ancient, we declare it to be of Wiggins's
shepherding. It is the way of our humor to hold Wiggins responsible
for things. His good nature is usually equal to the worst we can do to
him. He is the kind of fellow that one instinctively indicts without
hearing testimony. We all know perfectly well that Wiggins's ranch is
a wheat ranch.
Wiggins is an athlete, and his summers in the West and persistent
training during the winter in town keep him in fine condition. As I
faced him to-night in our favorite corner of the Hare and Tortoise
dining-room, the physical man was fit enough; but I saw at once that he
was glum and dispirited. He had through many years honored me with his
confidence, and I felt that to-night, after we got well started, I
should hear what was on his mind. I hoped to cheer him with the story
of a visit I had by chance paid that afternoon to the Asolando
Tea-Room; for though Wiggins is a most practical person, I imagined
that he would be diverted by my description of a place which, I felt
sure, nothing could tempt him to visit. I shall never forget the look
he gave me when I remarked, at about his third spoonful of soup:
"By the way, I dropped into an odd place this afternoon. Burne-Jones
buns, maccaroons, and all that sort of thing. They call it the
Asolando."
I was ambling on, expecting to sharpen his curiosity gradually as I
recited the joys of the tea-room; but at "Asolando" his spoon dropped,
and he stared at me blankly. It should be known that Wiggins is not a
man whose composure is lightly shaken. The waiter who served us
glanced at him in surprise, a fact which I mention merely to confirm my
assertion that the dropping of a spoon into his soup was an
extraordinary occurrence in Wiggins's life. Wiggins was a proper
person. On the ranch, twenty miles from a railroad, he always dressed
for dinner.
"The Asolando," I repeated, to break the spell of his blank stare.
"Know the place?"
He recovered in a moment, but he surveyed me quizzically before
replying.
"Of course I have heard of the Asolando, but I thought you did n't go
in for that sort of thing. It's a trifle girlish, you know."
"That's hardly against it! I found the girlishness altogether
attractive."
"You always were tolerably susceptible, but broiled butterflies and
moth-wings soufflé seem to me rather pale food for a man in your
vigorous health."
"They must have discriminated in your favor; I saw no such things,
though to be sure I was afraid to quibble over the waitress's
suggestions. May I ask when you were there?"
"Oh, I dropped in quite accidentally one day last spring. I saw the
sign, and remembered that somebody had spoken of the place, and I was
tired, and it was a long way to the club, and"--
Dissimulation is not an art as Wiggins attempts to practice it at
times. He is by nature the most straightforward of mortals. It was
clear that he was withholding something, and I resolved to get to the
bottom of it.
"I don't think the Asolando is a place that would attract either of us,
and yet the viands are good as such stuff goes, and the gentle
hand-maidens are restful to the eye,--Pippa, Francesca, Gloria, and the
rest of 'em."
Wiggins pried open his artichoke with the care of a botanist. He had
regained his composure, but I saw that the subject interested him.
"You were there this afternoon?" he inquired.
"Yes, my first and only appearance."
"And this is Monday."
"The calendar has said it."
"So you settled your bill with Pippa! I believe this was her day."
"Then you really do know the inner workings of the Asolando," I
continued; "I thought you would show your hand presently. Then it is
perhaps Gloria, Beatrice or Francesca who minds the till on Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays, alternating with Pippa, who took my coin
to-day. It's a pretty idea. It has the delicacy of an arrangement by
Whistler or the charm of a line in Rossetti. So you have seen the
blessed damozel at the cash-desk."
"On the contrary I was never there on Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday,
and I therefore passed no coin to Francesca, Gloria or Beatrice. My
only visit was on a day last May, and my recollection of the system is
doubtless imperfect."
"Then beyond doubt I saw Pippa. She makes the change on Monday,
Wednesday and Friday. Her eyelashes are a trifle too long for the
world's peace."
"I dare say. I have n't your charming knack, Ames, of picking up
acquaintances, so you must n't expect me to form life-long friendships
with young women at cash-desks. I suppose it did n't occur to you that
those young women who tend till and serve the tables in there are
persons of education and taste. The Asolando is not a common hashery.
I sometimes fear that so much crawling through chimneys is clouding
your intellect. It ought to have been clear even to your smoky
chimney-pot that those girls in there are not the kind you can ask to
meet you by the old mill at the fall of dewy eve, or who write notes to
popular romantic actors. There's not a girl in that place who has n't
a social position as good as yours or mine. The Asolando's a kind of
fad, you know, Ames; it's not a tavern within the meaning of the
inn-keepers' act, where common swine are fed for profit. The servants
serve for love of the cause; it's a sort of cult. But I suppose you
are incapable of grasping it. There was always something sordid in
you, and I'm pained to find that you're getting worse."
Wiggins had, before now, occasionally taken this attitude toward me,
and it was always with a view to obscuring some real issue between us.
He requires patience; it is a mistake to attempt to crowd him; but give
him rope and he will twist his own halter.
We sparred further without result. I had suggested a topic that had
clearly some painful association for my friend. He drank his coffee
gloomily and lighted a cigar much blacker than the one I knew to be his
favorite in the Hare and Tortoise humidor. He excused himself shortly,
and I had a glimpse of him later, in the writing-room, engaged upon
letters, a fact in itself disquieting, for Wiggins never wrote letters,
and it was he who had favored making the Hare and Tortoise writing-room
into a den for pipe-smokers. The epistolary habit, he maintained, was
one that should be discouraged.
I was moodily turning over the evening newspapers when Jewett turned
up. Jewett always knows everything. I shall not call him a gossip,
but he comes as near deserving the name as a man dares who lectures on
the Renaissance before clubs and boarding-schools. Jewett knows his
Botticelli, but his knowledge of his contemporaries is equally exact.
He dropped the ball into the green of my immediate interest with a neat
approach-shot.
"Too bad about old Wiggy," he remarked with his preluding sigh.
"What's the matter with Wiggins?" I demanded.
"Ah! He has n't told you? Thought he told you everything."
This was meant for a stinger, and I felt the bite of it.
"You do me too much honor. Wiggins is not a man to throw around his
confidences."
"And I rather fancy that his love-affairs in particular are locked in
his bosom."
Jewett was a master of the art of suggestion; he took an unnecessarily
long time to light a cigar so that his words might sink deep into my
consciousness.
"Saw her once last spring. Got a sight draft from the Bank of Eros.
Followed her across the multitudinous sea. Bang!"
"But Wiggy has n't been abroad. Wiggy was on his Dakota ranch all
summer. He's all tanned from the sun, just as he is every fall," I
persisted.
"Wrote you from out there, did he? Sent you picture-postals showing
him herding his cattle, or whatever the beasts are? Kept in touch with
you all the time, did he? I tell you his fine color is due to
Switzerland, not Dakota."
"Wiggins is n't a letter-writer, nor the sort of person who wants to
paper your house with picture-postals. His not writing does n't mean
that he was n't on his ranch," I replied, annoyed by Jewett's manner.
"Never dropped you before, though, I wager," he chirruped. "I tell you
he saw Miss Cecilia Hollister at the Asolando tea-shop: just a glimpse;
but almost immediately he went abroad in pursuit of her. The
chevalier--that's her aunt Octavia--was along and another niece. My
sister saw the bunch of them in Geneva, where the chevalier was
breaking records. A whole troop of suitors followed them everywhere.
My sister knows the girl--Cecilia--and she's known Wiggy all her life.
She's just home and told me about it last night. She thinks the
chevalier has some absurd scheme for marrying off the girl. It's all
very queer, our Wiggy being mixed up in it."
"Don't be absurd, Jewett. There's nothing unusual in a man being in
love; that's one fashion that does n't change much. I venture to say
that Wiggins will prove a formidable suitor. Wiggins is a gentleman,
and the girl would be lucky to get him."
"Quite right, my dear Ames; but alas! there are others. The
competition is encouraged by the aunt, the veteran chevalier. My
sister says the chevalier seems to favor the suit of a Nebraska
philosopher who rejoices in the melodious name of Dick."
Jewett was playing me for all his story was worth, and enjoying himself
immensely.
"For Heaven's sake, go on!"
"Nice girl, this Cecilia. You know the Hollisters,--oodles of money in
the family. The chevalier's father scored big in
baby-buggies--responsible for the modern sleep-inducing perambulators;
sold out to a trust. The father of Wiggins's inamorata had started in
to be a marine painter. A founder of this club, come to think of it,
but dropped out long ago. You have heard of him--Bassford Hollister.
Funny thing his having to give up art. Great gifts for the marine, but
never could overcome tendency to seasickness. Honest! Every time he
painted a wave it upset him horribly. The doctors could n't help him.
Next tried his hand at the big gulches down-town. There was a chance
there to hit off the metropolitan sky-line and become immortal by doing
it first; but a new trouble developed. Doing the high buildings made
him dizzy! Honest! He was good, too, and would have made a place, but
he had to cut it out. He was so torn up over his two failures that he
blew in his share of the perambulator money in riotous living. Lost
his wife into the bargain, and has settled down to a peaceful life up
in Westchester County in one of these cute little bungalows the
real-estate operators build for you if you pay a dollar down for a
picture of an acre lot."
"And the daughter?"
"Well, Bassford Hollister has two daughters. It's the older one that
has stolen Wiggins's heart away. She's Cecilia, you know. Very
literary and that sort of thing, and pushed tea and cookies at the
Asolando when that idiocy was opened. Wiggins saw her there last
spring. Miss Hollister, the aunt,--whom I 'm fond of calling the
chevalier,--picked up her nieces about that time and hauled them off to
Europe, and Wiggins scampered after them. I don't know what they did
to Wiggy, but you see how he acts. I rather imagine that the chevalier
did n't smile on his suit. She's a holy terror, that woman, with an
international reputation for doing weird and most unaccountable things.
She draws a sort of royalty on all the baby-buggies in creation; it
amounts to a birth-tax, in contravention of the free guarantees of the
Constitution. The people will rise against it some day.
"She's plausible enough, but she's the past mistress of ulterior
motive. She got Fortner, the mural painter, up to a place she used to
have at Newport a few years ago, ostensibly to do a frieze or
something, and she made him teach her to fire a gun. You know Fortner,
with his artistic ideals! And he did n't know any more about guns than
a flea. It was droll, decidedly droll. But she kept him there a
month,--wouldn't let him off the reservation; but she paid him his fee
just the same, though he never painted a stroke. When he got back to
town, he was a wreck. It was just like being in jail. I warn you to
let her alone. If you should undertake to fix her flues she's likely
to put you to work digging potatoes. She's no end of a case."
"Well, Wiggins is a good fellow, one of the very best," I remarked, as
I absorbed these revelations, "and it is n't the girl's aunt he wants
to marry."
"He's a capital fellow," affirmed Jewett, "and that's why it's a sin
this had to happen to him. There's no telling where this affair may
lead him. There's something queer in the wind, all right. The
chevalier has brother Bassford where he can't whimper; I rather fancy
he feeds from her hand. His girls have n't any prospects except
through the chevalier. Nice girls, so I'm told; but between the father
with his vertiginous tendencies and a lunatic aunt who holds the family
money-bags, I don't see much ahead of them. Miss Cecilia Hollister is
living with her aunt; it's a sort of compulsory sequestration; she has
to do it whether she wants to or not. I rather fancy it's to keep her
away from Wiggins."
"And the other sister; where does she come in?"
"Not important, I fancy. Rumor is silent touching her. In fact I 've
never heard anything of her. But this Cecilia is no end handsome and
proud. Poor old Wiggy!"
I was already ashamed of myself for having encouraged Jewett to discuss
Wiggins's affairs, and was about to leave him, when he snorted, in a
disagreeable way he had, at some joke that had occurred to him, and he
continued chuckling to himself to attract my attention. My frown did
not dismay him.
[Illustration: He continued chuckling to himself to attract my
attention.]
"I knew there was something," he was saying, "about Miss Cecilia's
younger sister, and I've just recalled it. The girl has a most
extraordinary name, quite the most remarkable you ever heard."
He laughed until he was purple in the face. I did not imagine that any
name known to feminine nomenclature could be so humorous.
"Hezekiah! Bang! That's the little sister's name. Bassford Hollister
had been saving that name for a son, who never appeared, to do honor to
old Hezekiah, the perambulator-chap. So they named the girl for her
grand-dad. Bang! One of the apostles, Hezekiah!"
I waited for his mirth to wear itself out, and then rose, to terminate
the interview with an adequate dramatic dismissal.
"You poor pagan," I remarked, with such irony as I could command; "it's
too bad you insist on revealing the abysmal depths of your ignorance:
Hezekiah was not an apostle, but a mighty king before the day of
apostles."
I left him blinking, and unconvinced as to Hezekiah's proper place in
history.
Wiggins, I learned at the office, had, within half an hour, left the
club hurriedly in a cab, taking a trunk with him. He had mentioned no
mail-address to the clerk.
And this was very unlike Wiggins.
CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNING OF MY ADVENTURE
Wiggins's strange conduct and Jewett's dark hints so disturbed me that
the very next afternoon I again sought the Asolando Tea-Room, feeling
that in its atmosphere I might best weigh the few facts I possessed
touching my friend's love-affairs.
Those who care for details in these matters may be interested to know
that the Asolando is tucked away among print-shops and exclusive
haberdashers, a stone's throw from Fifth Avenue. The Asolando Tea-Room
has a history of its own, but it is not the office of this chronicler
to record it. Weightier matters are ahead of us; and it must suffice
that the Asolando is sacred to wooers of the flute of Pan, secession
photographers, and confident believers in an early revival of the
poetic drama. One of my friends, who has probably done more to
popularize Nietzsche than any other American, had frequently urged me
to visit the Asolando, where, he declared, the daintiest imaginable
luncheons could be obtained at nominal prices; but I should not have
paid this second visit had it not been for Jewett's history.
It was common gossip in studios where I loafed between my professional
engagements, that the monthly deficit at the Asolando was cared for by
a retired banker whose weakness is sonnet-sequences. As to the truth
of this I have no opinion. It will suffice if I convey in the fewest
possible lines a suggestion of the tranquillity, the charming cloistral
peace of the little room, with its Arts and Crafts chairs and tables,
its racks of books, its portraits of Browning, Rossetti, Burne-Jones
and kindred spirits; nor should I fail to mention the delightful
inadvertence with which neatly framed excerpts from the bright page of
British song are scattered along the walls. Nowhere else, many had
averred, was one so likely to learn of the latest Celtic poet, or of a
newly-discovered Keats letter; and lest injustice be done in these
suggestions to the substantial scholarly attainments of the habitués, I
must record that it was over a cup of tea in the Asolando that Bennett
made the first notes for his revolutionary essay on the Sapphic
fragments in a dog-eared text still treasured among the Room's
memorabilia.
I chose a table, sat down, and suggested (one does not order at the
Asolando) a few articles from the card an attendant handed me.
"We 're out of the Paracelsus ginger-cookies," she replied, "but I
recommend a Ruskin sandwich with our own special chocolate. The
whipped cream is unusually fine to-day."
She eyed me with a severity to which I was not accustomed, and I
acquiesced without parley in her suggestion. Before leaving me she
placed on my table the latest minor poet, in green and gold.
It was nearly three o'clock, and there were few customers in the
Asolando. At the next table two women were engaged in conversation in
the subdued tones the place compelled. I surmised from the amount and
variety of their impedimenta and their abstracted air, peculiar to
those who partake of lobster salad with an eye on the 4.18, that they
were suburbanites. One of them drew from her net shopping-bag several
sheets of robin's-egg blue note-paper and began to read. By the jingle
of the rhymes and the flow of the rhythm it was clear even to my
ignorant lay mind that her offering was a _chant-royale_. When she had
concluded her reading her friend silently pressed her hand, and after a
subdued debate for possession of the check, they took their departure,
bound, I surmised, for some muse-haunted Lesbos among the hills of New
Jersey.
I was now alone in the Asolando. The attending deities in their snowy
gowns had vanished behind the screen at the rear of the room; the food
and drink with which I had been promptly served proved excellent; even
the minor poet in green and gold had held my attention, though
imitations of Coventry Patmore's odes bore me as a rule. Near the
street, half-concealed behind a mosque-like grill, sat the cashier,
reading. A bundle of joss-sticks in a green jar beside this young
woman sent a thin smoke into the air. Her head was bent above her book
in quiet attention; the light from an electric lamp made a glow of her
golden hair. She was an incident of the general picture, a part of a
scene that contained no jarring note. A man who could devise, in the
heart of the great city, a place so instinct with repose, so lulling to
all the senses, was not less than a public benefactor, and I resolved
on the spot to purchase and read, at any sacrifice, the
sonnet-sequences of the reputed angel of the Asolando.
It was at this moment that the adventure--for it shall have no meaner
name--actually began. My eyes were still enjoying the Rossetti-like
vision in the cashier's tiny booth, when a figure suddenly darkened the
street door just beyond her. The girl lifted her head. On the instant
the lamp-key clicked as she extinguished her light, and the aureoled
head ceased to be. And coming toward me down the shop I beheld a lady,
a lady of years, who passed the cashier's desk with her eyes intent
upon the room's inner recesses. Her gown, of a new fashionable gray,
was of the severest tailor cut. Her hat was a modified fedora, gray
like the gown, and adorned with a single gray feather. She was short,
slight, erect, and moved with a quick bird-like motion, pausing and
glancing at the vacant tables that lay between me and the door. Her
air of abstraction became her, and she merged pleasantly into the
color-scheme of the room. As her glance ranged the wall I thought that
she searched for some favorite flower of song among the framed
quotations, but I saw now that her gaze was bent too low for this. She
appeared to be engaged in a calculation of some sort, and she raised a
lorgnette to assist her in counting the tables. The cashier passed
behind her unseen and vanished. I heard the newcomer reciting:--
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven;" and at seven her eyes rested
upon me with a look that mingled surprise and annoyance. She took a
step toward me, and I started to rise, but she said quickly:--
"I beg your pardon, but this seems to be the seventh table."
[Illustration: "I beg your pardon, but this seems to be the seventh
table."]
"Now that you call my attention to it," I remarked, gaining my feet, "I
am bound to concede the point. If by any chance I am intruding"--
"Not in the least. On the other hand I beg that you remain where you
are;" and without further ado she sank into a chair opposite my own.
I tinkled a tiny crystal bell that was among the table-furnishings, and
a waitress appeared and handed the lady who had thus introduced herself
to my acquaintance a copy of the tiny card on which the articles of
refreshment offered by the Asolando were indicated within a border of
hand-painted field daisies.
"Never mind that," said the lady in gray, ignoring the card. "You may
bring me a caviare sandwich and a cocktail,--a pink
one--providing,--providing,"--and she held the waitress with her
eye,--"you have the imported caviare and your bar-keeper knows the
proper frappé of the spirit-lifter I have named."
"Pardon me, madam," replied the waitress icily, "but you have mistaken
the place. The Asolando serves nothing stronger than the pure water of
its own fount of Castalia; intoxicants are not permitted here."
"Intoxicants!" repeated the old lady with asperity. "Do I look like a
person given to intoxication? I dare say your Castalia water is
nothing but Croton whose flavor has been destroyed by distillation.
You may bring me the sandwich I have mentioned and with it a pot of
tea. Yes, thank you; lemon with the tea."
As the girl vanished with the light tread that marked the service of
the place, I again made as to rise, but the old lady lifted her hand
with a delaying gesture.
"Pray remain. It is not unlikely that we have friends and ideas in
common, and as you were seated at the seventh table it is possible that
some ordering of fate has brought us together."
She took from me, in the hand which she had now ungloved, the copy of
my minor poet, glanced at it scornfully, and tossed it upon the floor
with every mark of disdain.
"What species of mental disorder does this place represent?" she
demanded.
"It is sacred to the fine arts, apparently; an endowed tea-room, where
persons of artistic ideals may come to refresh body and soul. Such at
least seems to be the programme. This is only my second visit, but I
have long heard it spoken of by artists, poets, and others of my
friends."
"I am sixty-two years old, young man, and I beg to inform you that I
consider the Asolando the most preposterous thing I have ever heard of
in this most preposterous city. And from a casual glimpse of you I
feel justified in saying that a man in your apparent physical health
might be in better business than frequenting, in mid-afternoon, a shop
that seems to be a remarkably stupid expression of twentieth-century
anæmia."
"Attendance here is not compulsory," I remarked defensively.
"If you imply that I must have sought the place voluntarily, let me
correct your false impression immediately. I dropped in here for the
excellent reason that this shop is the seventh in numerical progression
from Fifth Avenue."
"You were not guided by any feeling of interest, then, but rather by
superstition?"
"That remark is unworthy of a man of your apparent intelligence. I was
born on the seventh of November, and all the great events of my life
have occurred on the seventh of the month. If you were to suggest that
I am of an adventurous or romantic nature, I should readily acquiesce;
but the sevens in my life have been so potent an influence in all my
affairs that my belief in that numeral has become almost a religious
faith; and if you have been a reader of Scripture you will understand
that one does not become a pagan in ascribing to seven all manner of
subtle influences."
I was relieved to find that she accepted the tea and sandwiches the
waitress had brought without parley. It is with shame I confess that
in the first moments of my encounter I believed her capable of
quarreling with a waitress; but she thanked the girl pleasantly,
lifting her head with a smile that illumined her face attractively.
Her demand for a cocktail had not been wholly convincing as to her
sincerity, and I wondered whether she were not playing a part of some
kind. She suggested pleasant and wholesome things--tiny gardens with
neat borders of box and primly-ordered beds of spicy, old-fashioned
pinks before the day of carnations, and the verbenas, heliotrope, and
honeysuckle we associate with our grandmothers' taste in floriculture.
Or perhaps I strike nearer the gold with an intimation of a sunny
window-ledge, banked neatly and not too abundantly in geraniums.
In any event the impression was wholly agreeable. I had to do with a
lady and a lady of no mean degree. The marks of breeding were upon
her, and she spoke with that quiet authority that is the despair of the
vain and vulgar. Her features were small and delicate; her ringless
hands were perfectly formed, and both face and hands belied the age to
which she had so frankly confessed. She was more than twice my age,
and there was not the slightest reason why she should not address me if
it pleased her to do so; and her obsession as to the potency of the
numeral seven was not in itself proof of an ill-balanced mind. I
recalled that my own mother had, throughout her life, imputed all
manner of occult powers and influences to the number thirteen, and I
have myself always been averse to walking beneath a ladder. Musing
thus, I reached the conclusion that this encounter was very likely the
sort of thing that happened to patrons of the Asolando. My time has,
however, a certain value, and I began to wonder just how I should
escape. I was about to excuse myself when my companion suddenly put
down her cup and addressed me with a directness that seemed habitual in
her.
"I have formed an excellent opinion of your bringing up from the manner
in which you have suffered my advances, if I may so call them. You act
and speak like a gentleman of education. I imagine from your being in
this strange place that you may be a water-colorist or a designer of
_l'art-nouveau_ wall-papers, though I trust for your own sake that I am
mistaken. Or it may be that you are a magazine poet, though when I
tell you that I read no poets but Isaiah and Walt Whitman, you will
understand that mere verse does not attract me. All this"--and she
indicated the mottoes on the wall with a slight movement of the
head--"is the sheerest rubbish, a form of disease. Will you kindly
tell me the nature of your occupation?"
I produced one of my professional cards.
+-----------------------------+
| |
| ARNOLD AMES |
| |
| CONSULTANT IN CHIMNEYS |
| Suite 92, Landon Building |
| |
+-----------------------------+
She read it aloud without glasses and mused a moment.
"This is very curious," she remarked, placing my card in a silver case
she drew from her pocket. "This is very curious indeed. It was only
yesterday that my friend General Glendenning was speaking of you. He
told me that you had rendered him the greatest service in adjusting
several flues in his country house at Shinnecock. My own fireplaces
doubtless require attention, and you may consider yourself retained. I
shall make an early appointment with you. You will find my name and
residence sufficiently described on this card."
+-----------------------------+
| |
| _Miss Hollister_ |
| |
| HOPEFIELD MANOR |
| |
+-----------------------------+
"Oh!" I exclaimed, bowing. "Any further introduction is unnecessary,
Miss Hollister."
"The name is familiar? I recall that General Glendenning mentioned
that you were related to the Ames family of Hartford, and your mother
was a Farquhar of Charlottesville, Virginia. If you bear your father's
name, I dare say it was he whom I met ten years ago in Paris. There is
no reason, therefore, why we should not be the best of friends."
She continued to talk as she drew on her gloves, and I saw, as her eyes
rested on mine from time to time during this process, that they were
the most kindly and humorous eyes in the world. Her face was scarcely
wrinkled, but the hair that showed under the small plain hat was evenly
and beautifully gray. It was a kind fate indeed that had led me back
to the Asolando, and introduced me to the aunt of Wiggins's inamorata.
It may well be believed that I was immediately interested, attentive,
absorbed. As she smoothed her gloves, Miss Hollister continued to
speak in a low musical voice that was devoid of any of the quavers of
age.
"On the day I reached my sixtieth year, Mr. Ames, I decided that my
humdrum life must cease. The strictest conventions had guided me from
earliest childhood. My experience of life had been limited to those
things which women of education and means enjoy--or suffer, as you
please to take it. I resolved that for the years that remained to me I
should seek to enjoy myself after my own fashion. To sit in the
inglenook and knit, with no human companionship but sick kittens, with
dull monotony broken only by visits from dutiful clergymen in pursuit
of alms for foreign missions, was not for me. Two years ago I
chartered a yacht and cruised among the Lesser Antilles, enjoying many
adventures. Later I crossed the Andes; and I have just returned from
Switzerland, where I accomplished some of the most difficult ascents.
I have a clipping bureau engaged to inform me of all rumors of hidden
treasure and sunken ships, and I hope that of this something may come,
as I retain a marine engineer and corps of divers and can leave at an
hour's notice for any likely hunting-ground. This may strike you as
the most whimsical self-indulgence. Tell me candidly whether my
remarks so affect you."
"If it were not that your benefactions of all kinds have given you
noble eminence among American philanthropists, I might be less biased
in favor of the sort of thing you describe; but your gifts to
orphanages, colleges, hospitals"--
"Ah!" she interrupted; "enough of that. Philanthropy in these times is
only selfish exploitation, the recreation of the conscience-stricken.
But you see no reason why," she pursued eagerly, "if I wished to dig up
the Caribbean Sea in search of Spanish doubloons, I should not do so?
Answer me frankly, without the slightest fear."
"I assure you, Miss Hollister, that such projects appeal to me
strongly. I have often lamented that my own lot fell in these
eventless times. As an architect I proved something of a failure; as a
chimney-doctor I lead a useful life, but the very usefulness of it
bores me. And besides, many people take me for a sweep."
"I dare say they do, for unfortunately many people are fools. But I am
bent upon adventure. It has dawned upon me that every day has its
possibilities, that the right turn at any corner may bring me face to
face with the most stirring encounters. My age protects me where youth
must timidly turn back. My physician pronounces me good for ten years
more of active life, and I intend to keep amused. If I were a young
man like you, I should crawl through chimneys no more, but take to the
open road. I resent the harsh clang of these meaningless years. As I
walked among the hills that lie behind the Manor this morning I heard
the bugles calling. Out there in the Avenue at this hour there are
miles of fat dowagers in padded broughams who think of nothing but
clothes and food. And speaking of food," she continued, with a droll
turn, "I am convinced that the caviare in that sandwich was never
nearer Russia than Casco Bay."
She drew out her watch, and noting the hour, concluded:--
"Clearly we have much in common. I should like to ask you further as
to your unusual profession, but errands summon me elsewhere. However,
something tells me we shall meet again."
She rose in her swift bird-like fashion and passed lightly down the
room and through the door. She had left a dollar beside her plate to
pay her check, which I noted called for only forty cents. I glanced at
the cashier's desk. The aureoled head had not reappeared; but
immediately I heard a voice murmuring beside me. I had believed myself
alone, and in my surprise I thought some wizardry had made audible one
of the verses on the wall.
"What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture"--
It was she whose aureoled head I had marked earlier in the receipt of
custom, the girl who had vanished as Miss Hollister appeared. She wore
the snowy vestments of the other attending vestals, with the difference
that the cap that crowned the waitresses was omitted in her case. This
I took to be the Asolando's tribute to her adorable head, which clearly
did not need the electric light or other adventitious aid to invoke its
lovely glow. The line she had spoken hung goldenly upon the air. She
was not tall, and her eyes, I saw, were brown. She had clearly not
climbed far the stairway of her years, but her serenity was the least
bit disconcerting.
"Pardon me," I began, "but I am an ignorant Philistine, and cannot cap
the verse you have quoted."
"There is no reason why you should do so. It is the rule of the
Asolando that we shall attract the attention of customers when
necessary by speaking a line of verse. We are not allowed to open a
conversation, no matter how imperative, with 'Listen,' or the even more
vulgar 'Say.'"
"A capital idea, of which I heartily approve, but now that I am a
waiting auditor, eager"--
"It's merely the check, if you please," she interrupted coldly. "My
desk is closed, and the Room will refuse further patrons for the next
hour, as the executive committee of the Shelley Society meets here at
four o'clock and the Asolando is denied to outsiders."
"This, then, is my dismissal? The lady who joined me here for a time
left a dollar, which, you will see, is somewhat in excess of her check.
My own charge of fifty cents is so moderate that I cannot do less than
leave a dollar also."
"Thank you," she replied, unshaken by my generosity. "The tips at the
Asolando all go to the Sweetness and Light Club, which is just now
engaged in circulating Matthew Arnold's poems in leaflet form in the
jobbing district."
"I sympathize with that propaganda," I replied, gathering up my hat and
stick, "and am delighted to contribute to its support. And now I dare
say you would be glad to be rid of me. The Asolando has tolerated me
longer than my slight purchases justified."
I bowed and had turned away, when she arrested me with the line,--
"My good blade carves the casques of men."
I turned toward her. Several of the waitresses were now engaged in
rearranging the tables, but they seemed not to heed us.
"Permit me to inquire," she asked, "whether the lady who joined you
here expressed any interest in the life beautiful as it is exemplified
in the Asolando?"
"I am constrained to say that she did not. She spoke of the Asolando
in the most contumelious terms."
The golden head bowed slightly, and a smile hovered about her lips; but
her amusement at my answer was more eloquently stated in her eyes.
"I must explain that my sole excuse for addressing you is that we are
required to learn, where possible, just why strangers seek the
Asolando."
"In the case of the lady to whom you refer, it was a matter of this
being the seventh shop from the corner; and my own appearance was due
to the idlest curiosity, inspired by enthusiastic descriptions of the
Asolando's atmosphere and rumors of the cheapness of its food."
"The reasons are quite ample," was her only comment, and her manner did
not encourage further conversation.
"May I ask," I persisted, "whether the Asolando's staff is permanent,
and whether, if I return another day."
"I take it that you do not mean to be impertinent, so I will answer
that my service here is limited to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
On the other days Pippa is in the cash-booth. My name at the Asolando
is Francesca."
"I had guessed it might be Lalage or Chloris," I ventured.
She shook her head gravely.
"Kindly write your name in the visitors' book at the door as you pass
out."
There was no ignoring this hint. I thought she smiled as I left her.
III
I FALL INTO A BRIAR PATCH
Miss Hollister's summons lay on my desk the next morning and was of the
briefest. I was requested to call at Hopefield Manor at four o'clock
the following afternoon, being Thursday. A trap would meet me at
Katonah, and it was suggested that I come prepared to spend the night,
so that the condition of the flues might be discussed and any necessary
changes planned during the evening. The note, signed Octavia
Hollister, was written in a flowing hand, on a wholly impeccable note
sheet stamped Hopefield Manor, Katonah.
Before taking the train I sought Wiggins by telephone at his office,
and at the Hare and Tortoise, where he lodged, but without learning
anything as to his whereabouts. His office did not answer, but
Wiggins's office had never been responsive to the telephone, so this
was not significant. The more I considered his conduct during the
recital of my visit to the Asolando the more I wondered; and in spite
of my wish to ignore utterly Jewett's revelations as to Wiggins's
summer abroad, I was forced to the conclusion that Jewett had not lied.
I had known Wiggins long, and this was the first time that I had ever
been conscious of any withholding of confidence on his part; and on my
own I had not merely confided all my hopes and aims to him, but I had
leaned upon him often in my perplexities. There was, indeed, a kind of
boyish compact between us, that we should support each other through
all difficulties. This, as I remembered, dated back to our prep
school-days and had been reinforced by a fearsome oath, inspired
doubtless by some dark fiction that had captivated our youthful
imaginations. His failure to tell me of his summer abroad or of his
interest in the Hollisters when I had afforded him so excellent an
opening by my reference to the Asolando emphasized the seriousness of
his plight. His reserve hid, I knew, a diffident and sensitive nature,
and it was wholly possible that if his affair with Cecilia Hollister
had not prospered he had fled to his ranch there to wrestle in
seclusion with his disappointment. My mind was busy with such
speculations as I sped toward Katonah, where I found the trap from
Hopefield Manor awaiting me.
"It's rather poor going over the hills; about five miles, sir," said
the driver, as we set off.
This sort of thing was wholly usual in the nature of my vocation. The
flues in country houses seem much more willful and obdurate than those
in town, a fact which I have frequently discussed with architects, and
I had been met in just this way at many stations within a radius of
fifty miles of New York, and carried to houses whose chimneys were
provocative of wrath and indignation in their owners.
This was the first week in October. There was just zest enough in the
air to make a top coat comfortable. The team of blacks spoke well for
Miss Hollister's stable, and the liveried driver kept them moving
steadily, but eased the pace as we rose on the frequent slopes to the
shoulders of pleasant hills. The immediate neighborhood into which we
were wending was unknown to me, though I saw familiar landmarks. I am
not one to quibble over the efforts of man to supplement the work of
nature, so that I confess without shame that the Croton lakes, to my
cockney eye, merge flawlessly into this landscape. It is not for me to
raise the cry of utilitarianism against these saucerfuls of blue water,
merely because the fluid thus caught and held bubbles and sparkles
later in the taps of the Manhattaners. Early frosts had already
wrought their miracle in the foliage, and the battle-banners of
winter's vanguard flashed along the horizons. I rejoiced that my
business, vexatious enough in many ways, yet afforded me so charming an
outing as this.
Presently we climbed a hill that shouldered its way well above its
fellows and came out upon a broad ridge, where we entered at once a
noble gateway set in an old stone wall, and struck off smartly along a
fine bit of macadam. The house, the driver informed me, was a quarter
of a mile from the gate. The way led through a wild woodland in which
elms and maples predominated; and before this had grown monotonous we
came abruptly upon an Italian garden, beyond which rose the house. I
knew it at once for one of Pepperton's sound performances; Pepperton is
easily our best man in domestic Tudor, and the whole setting of
Hopefield Manor, the sunken garden, the superb view, the billowing
fields and woodlands beyond, all testified to a taste which no ignorant
owner had thwarted. The house was Tudor, but in no servile sense: it
was also Pepperton. I lifted my eyes with immediate professional
interest to the chimney-pots on the roof. It occurred to me on the
instant that I had never before been called to retouch any of
Pepperton's work. Pep knew as much as I about flue-construction; I had
an immense respect for Pep, and as my specializing in chimneys had been
a subject of frequent chaffing between us, I anticipated with a chuckle
the pleasure I should have later in telling him that at last one of his
flues had required my services.
My good opinion of Miss Hollister did not diminish as I stepped within
the broad hall. Houses have their own manner of speech, and Hopefield
Manor spoke to all the senses in accents of taste and refinement. A
servant took my bag and ushered me into a charming library. A fire
smouldered lazily in the great fireplace; there was, in the room, the
faintest scent of burnt wood; but the smoke rose in the flue in a
perfectly mannerly fashion, and on thrusting in my hand I felt a good
draught of air. I instinctively knelt on the hearth and peered up, but
saw nothing unworkmanlike: Pepperton was not a fellow to leave obvious
mistakes behind him. But possibly this was not one of the recalcitrant
fireplaces I had been called to inspect; and I rose and was continuing
my enjoyment of the beautiful room, when I became conscious, by rather
curious and mixed processes not wholly of the eye, that a young woman
had drawn back the light portieres--they were dark brown, with borders
of burnt orange--and stood gravely gazing at me. She held the curtains
apart--they made, indeed, a kind of frame for her; but as our eyes met
she advanced at once and spoke my name.
[Illustration: She held the curtains apart.]
"You are Mr. Ames. My aunt expected you. I regret to say that she is
not in the house just now, but she will doubtless return for tea. I am
her niece. Won't you sit down?"
As she found a seat for herself, I made bold to survey her with some
particularity. She carried her fine height with beautiful dignity.
She was a creature of grace, and it was a grace of strength, the
suppleness and ease that mark our later outdoor American woman. She
could do her miles over these hills,--I was sure of that. Her fine
olive face, crowned with dark hair, verified the impression I had
gathered from Jewett, that she was a woman of cultivation. She had
read the poets; Dante and Petrarch spoke from her eyes. Cecilia was no
bad name for her; she suggested heavenly harmonies! And as for
Jewett's story of Wiggins's infatuation, I was content: if this was the
face that had shattered the frowning towers of Wiggins's Ilium and sent
him to brood disconsolate upon his broad acres in Dakota, my heart went
out to him, for his armor had been pierced by arrows worthy of its
metal.
She was talking, meanwhile, of the day and its buoyant air and of the
tapestries hung in the woodlands, in a voice deep with rare intimations
of viol chords.
"It's very quiet here. It doesn't seem possible that we are so near
the city. My aunt chose the place with care, and she made no mistake
about it. Yes; the house was built by Mr. Pepperton, but not for us.
My aunt bought it of the estate of the gentleman who built it. This
will be her first winter here."
She made no reference to the object of my visit, and I wondered if she
knew just how I came there. A man-servant wheeled in a portable
tea-table and placed it beside a particular chair, lighted the lamp
under the kettle, and silently departed. And with the stage thus
disposed Miss Hollister herself appeared. She greeted me without
surprise and much as she might have spoken to any guest in her house.
I had sometimes been treated as though I were the agent of a
decorator's shop, or a delinquent plumber, by the people whom I served;
but Miss Hollister and her niece established me upon a plane that was
wholly social. I was made to feel that it was the most natural thing
in the world for me to be there, having tea, with no business ahead of
me but to be agreeable. The fact that I had come to correct the
distemper of their flues was utterly negligible. I remembered with
satisfaction that I had journeyed from town in a new business suit that
made the best of my attenuated figure, and I will not deny that I felt
at ease.
Miss Hollister talked briskly as she made the tea.
"I was over at the kennels when you came. I believe the kennel-master
is a rascal, Cecilia. I have no opinion of him whatever."
"He was highly recommended," replied the niece. "It's not his fault
that the fox terriers were sick."
"I dare say it is n't," said the old lady, measuring the tea; "but it's
his fault that he whipped one of those Cuban hounds,--I 'm sure he
whipped her. The poor beast was afraid to crawl out when I called her
this afternoon."
"We were warned against those dogs, Aunt Octavia; but I must admit that
they have lovely eyes."
Miss Cecilia's manner toward her aunt left nothing to be desired; it
was wholly deferential and kind, and her dignity, I surmised, was equal
to any emergency that might rise between them.
"Do you ever shoot behind traps?" demanded Miss Hollister abruptly.
The question surprised me. I did not shoot behind traps or anywhere
else, for that matter; but it delighted me to find that her unusual
interests, as she had touched upon them at the Asolando, were part of a
consistent scheme of life. She talked of her experiments with
different guns and traps, her arms folded, her eyes reverting
occasionally to the kettle. It was all in the shells, she said.
Before she had begun filling her own cartridges she had no end of
trouble.
"It is not necessary for you to take tea if you don't care for it, Mr.
Ames," she said, as I rose and handed the first cup to Cecilia. "If
you will touch the bell at your elbow you may have liquids of quite
another sort. It may interest you to know that this temperance wave
that is sweeping the country does not interest me in the least. Our
great Americans of the old times were gentlemen who took their liquor
with no cowardly fear of public censure. You will find my sideboard
well stocked after the fashion of old times; and I have with my own
hand placed in your room a quart of Scotch given me at the distillery
four years ago by its proprietor, Lord Mertondale. A case of like
quality is yours at any moment you choose to press the button at the
head of your bed."
"You are most generous, Miss Hollister. Tea will suffice for the
moment. It is fitting that I should take it here, it having been a
weakness for tea as well as curiosity and chance that threw me in your
way at the Asolando."
"That absurd, that preposterous hole in the wall!"
She put down her cup and faced me, continuing: "Mr. Ames, I will not
deny that if it had not been for General Glendenning's cordial
indorsement of you, and the further fact that I had met your late
father, I should not have invited you to my house on the occasion to
which you refer. My contempt for the Asolando and the things it stands
for is beyond such language as a lady may use before the young."
I laughed at her earnestness; but on turning toward Miss Cecilia I saw
that she was placidly stirring her cup. It might be that one was not
expected to manifest amusement in Miss Hollister's utterances; and I
was anxious to adjust myself to the proper key in my intercourse, no
matter how brief it might be, with this remarkable old lady.
In my embarrassment I rose and offered the bread and butter to Cecilia,
who declined it. The austerity of her rejection rather unnerved me.
"To think, that with all the opportunities for adventure that offer in
this day and generation, any one should waste time on the idiotic
worship of a lot of silly moulders of literary patisserie! It is
beyond me, Mr. Ames, and when I recall that your late father commanded
a cavalry regiment in the Civil War, I fall back upon the privilege of
my age to beg that you will hereafter give the Asolando a wide berth."
"I assure you, Miss Hollister, that I have no wish to become an habitué
of the place. And yet you will pardon me if I repeat that, but for it,
I should not now be enjoying the hospitality of Hopefield Manor."
She lifted her head from her cup and bowed; but I was immediately
interested in the fact that her niece was speaking.
"I think Aunt Octavia is hard on the Asolando," she was saying. "Aunt
Octavia is interested in the revival of romance, and romance without
poetry seems to me wholly impossible. The Asolando makes no
pretensions to be more than an incident in a real movement whose aim is
the diffusion of poetic fire,--it is merely a shrine where the divine
lamp is never allowed to fail or falter."
"And if, Cecilia Hollister, you think that sandwiches named for
Browning's poems or macaroons dedicated to Walter Pater can assist
foolish virgins in keeping their lamps filled, I give you the word of
an old woman that you are in danger of a complete loss of your mind.
The age is decadent, and I know no better way of restoring the race to
its ancient vim and energy than by sending men back to the camp and
field or to sail the high seas in new armadas. The men of this age
have become a lot of sordid shopkeepers, and to my moral sense the
looting of cities is far more honorable than the creation of trusts and
the manipulation of prices, though I cannot deny that but for my late
father's zeal in destroying his competitors in the baby-buggy business
we might not now be enjoying the delicate fragrance of caravan tea."
I continued to flounder in my anxiety to determine just how Miss
Hollister wished to be taken. She spoke with the utmost seriousness
and with the earnestness of deep conviction. If the aims of the
Asolando were absurd, what might be said of the declarations of this
old lady in favor of a return to the age of sword and buckler!
I again turned to Cecilia, thinking that I should find a twinkle in her
eye that might solve the riddle and make easier my responses to her
aunt's appeals. Her reply did not help me greatly:--
"I assure you, Mr. Ames, that the Asolando is a very harmless place,
and that as a matter of fact its aims are wholly consonant with those
of Aunt Octavia. I myself served there for a time, and those were
among the most delightful days of my life."
"And you might still be handing about the Rossetti éclairs in that
smothery little place if I had not rescued you from your bondage. I
assure you, Mr. Ames, that my niece is a perfectly healthy young woman,
to whom all such rubbish is really abhorrent."
I expected Miss Cecilia to rouse at this; but she ignored her aunt's
fling, saying merely,--
"There are times when I miss the Asolando."
"Mr. Ames," began Miss Octavia presently in her crisp, direct fashion,
which had the effect of leading me, in my anxiety to appear ready with
answers, to take a flattering view of my own courage and
resourcefulness,--"Mr. Ames, are you equal to the feat of swimming a
moat under a shattering fire from the castle?"
"I have every reason to think I am, Miss Hollister," I replied modestly.
"And if a white hand waved to you from the grilled window of the lonely
tower, would you ride on indifferently or pause and thunder at the
gate?"
"White hands have never waved to me, save occasionally when I have gone
a-riding in the Sixth Avenue elevated, but it is my honest belief that
my sword would promptly leave its scabbard if the hand ever waved from
the ivied tower."
She nodded her pleasure in this avowal. For a chimney-doctor I was
doing well. In fact, as I submitted to Miss Octavia's examination, I
felt equal to charging a brigade single-handed. Something about the
woman made it possible and pleasant to be absurd.
"If a king or an emperor of Europe should ask you to inspect his
chimneys, would you be content to perform your service in the most
expeditious and professional manner and depart with a nominal fee?"
"Decidedly not, Miss Hollister. On the other hand I should nurse the
job for all it was worth, plunder the public treasury, explore the
dungeons, make love to the princesses, and free the rightful heir to
the throne from his cell beneath the bosom of the lake."
My friends at the Hare and Tortoise would have heard this avowal with
some surprise, for no man's life had ever been tamer than mine. I am
by nature timid, and fall but a little short of being afraid of the
dark. Prayers for deliverance from battle, murder, and sudden death
cannot be too strongly expressed for me. My answer had, however,
pleased Miss Octavia, and she clapped her hands with pleasure.
"Cecilia," she cried, "something told me, that afternoon at the
Asolando, that my belief in the potential seven was not ill-placed, and
now you see that in introducing myself to Mr. Ames at the seventh table
from the door, in the seventh shop from Fifth Avenue, I was led to a
meeting with a gentleman I had been predestined to know."
As we talked further, a servant appeared and laid fresh logs across the
still-smouldering fire. This I thought would suggest to Miss Hollister
the professional character of my visit; but the fire kindled readily,
the smoke rose freely in the flue; and Miss Hollister paid no attention
to it other than to ask the man whether the fuel he had taken from a
carved box at the right of the hearth was apple-wood from the upper
orchard or cherry from a tree which, it appeared, she had felled
herself. It was apple-wood, the man informed her, and she continued
talking. The merits of chain-armor, I think it was, that held us for
half an hour, Cecilia and I listening with respect to what, in my
ignorance, seemed a remarkable fund of knowledge on this recondite
subject.
"We dine at seven, Mr. Ames, and you may amuse yourself as you like
until that hour. Cecilia, you may order dinner in the gun-room
to-night."
"Certainly, Aunt Octavia."
Once more I glanced at the girl, hoping that some glimmer in her eyes
would set me right and establish a common understanding and sympathy
between us; but she was moving out of the room at her aunt's side. The
man who had tended the fire met me in the hall and, conducting me to my
room, suggested various offices that he was ready to perform for my
comfort. The house faced south, and my windows, midway of the east
wing, afforded a fine view of the hills. The room was large enough for
a chamber of state, and its furniture was massive. A four-poster
invited to luxurious repose; half a dozen etchings by famous
artists--Parrish and Van Elten among them--hung upon the walls; and on
a table beside the bed stood a handsome decanter and glasses,
reinforced by the quart of Scotch which Miss Hollister had recommended
for my refreshment.
My bag had been opened and my things put out, so that, there being more
than an hour to pass before I need dress for dinner, I went below and
explored the garden and wandered off along a winding path that stole
with charming furtiveness toward a venerable orchard of gnarled apple
trees. From the height thus gained I looked down upon the house, and
caught a glimpse beyond it of one of the chain of lakes, on which the
westering sun glinted goldenly. Thus seeing the house from a new
angle, I was impressed as I had not been at first by its size: it was a
huge establishment, and I thought with envy of Pepperton, to whom such
ample commissions were not rare. Pepperton, I recalled a little
bitterly, had arrived; whereas I, who had enjoyed exactly his own
training for the architect's profession, had failed at it and been
obliged to turn my hand to the doctoring of chimneys. But I am not a
morbid person, and it is my way to pluck such joy as I may from the
fleeting moment; and as I reflected upon the odd circumstance of my
being there, my spirits rose. Miss Hollister was beyond question a
singular person, but her whims were amusing. I felt that she was less
cryptic than her niece, and the thought of Cecilia drove me back upon
Jewett's story of Wiggins's interest in that quarter. I resolved to
write to Wiggins when I got back to town the next day and abuse him
roundly for running off without so much as good-bye. That, most
emphatically, was not like dear old Wiggins!
I had been sitting on a stone wall watching the shadows lengthen. I
rose now and followed the wall toward a highway along which wagons and
an occasional motor-car had passed during my revery. The sloping
pasture was rough and frequently sent me along at a trot. The wall
that marked the boundary at the roadside was hidden by a tangle of
raspberry bushes, and my foot turning on a stone concealed in the wild
grasses, I fell clumsily and rolled a dozen yards into a tangle of the
berry bushes. As I picked myself up I heard voices in the road, but
should have thought nothing of it, had I not seen through a break in
the vines, and almost within reach of my hand, Cecilia Hollister
talking earnestly to some one not yet disclosed. She was hatless, but
had flung a golf-cape over her shoulders. The red scarlet lining of
the hood turned up about her neck made an effective setting for her
noble head.
"Oh, I can't tell you! I can't help you! I must n't even appear to
give you any advantage. I went into it with my eyes open, and I 'm in
honor bound not to tell you anything. You have said
nothing--nothing,--remember that. There is absolutely nothing between
us."
"But I must say everything! I refuse to be blinded by these absurd
restrictions, whatever they are. It's not fair,--it's inviting me into
a game where the cards are not all on the table. I 've come to make an
end of it!"
My hands had suffered by contact with the briars, and I had been
ministering to them with my handkerchief; but I fell back upon the
slope in my astonishment at this colloquy. Cecilia Hollister I had
seen plainly enough, though the man's back had been toward me; but
anywhere on earth I should have known Wiggins's voice. I protest that
it is not my way to become an eavesdropper voluntarily, but to disclose
myself now was impossible. If it had not been Wiggins--but Wiggins
would never have understood or forgiven; nor could I have explained
plausibly to Cecilia Hollister that I had not followed her from the
house to spy upon her. I should have made the noise of an invading
army if I had attempted to effect an exit by creeping out through the
windrow of crisp leaves in which I lay; and to turn back and ascend the
slope the way I had come would have been to advertise my presence to
the figures in the road. There seemed nothing for me but to keep still
and hope that this discussion between Cecilia Hollister and Hartley
Wiggins would not be continued within earshot. To my relief they moved
a trifle farther on; but I still heard their voices.
[Illustration: This discussion between Cecilia Hollister and Hartley
Wiggins.]
"I cannot listen to you. Now that I 'm committed I cannot honorably
countenance you at all; and I can explain nothing. I came here to meet
you only to tell you this. You must go--please! And do not attempt to
see me in this way again."
I was grateful that Wiggins's voice sank so low in his reply that I did
not hear it; but I knew that he was pleading hard. Then a motor
flashed by, and when the whir of its passing had ceased, the voices
were inaudible; but a moment later I heard a light quick step beyond
the wall, and Cecilia passed hurriedly, her face turned toward the
house. The cape was drawn tightly about her shoulders, and she walked
with her head bowed.
I breathed a sigh of relief, and when I felt safe from detection
climbed the slope.
Pausing on the crest to survey the landscape, I saw a man, wearing a
derby hat and a light top-coat, leaning against a fence that inclosed a
pasture. As I glanced in his direction he moved away hastily toward
the road below. The feeling of being watched is not agreeable, and I
could not account for him. As he passed out of sight, still another
man appeared, emerging from a strip of woodland farther on. Even
through the evening haze I should have said that he was a gentleman.
The two men apparently bore no relation to each other, though they were
walking in the same direction, bound, I judged, for the highway below.
I had an uncomfortable feeling that they had both been observing me,
though for what purpose I could not imagine. Then once more, just as I
was about to enter the Italian garden from a fallow field that hung
slightly above it, a third man appeared as mysteriously as though he
had sprung from the ground, and ran at a sharp dog-trot along the
fence, headed, like the others, for the road. In the third instance
the stranger undoubtedly took pains to hide his face, but he, too, was
well dressed and wore a top-coat and a fedora hat of current style.
I did not know why these gentlemen were ranging the neighborhood or
what object they had in view; but their several appearances had
interested me, and I went on into the house well satisfied that events
of an unusual character were likely to mark my visit to the home of
Miss Octavia Hollister.
IV
WE DINE IN THE GUN-ROOM
Cecilia sat reading alone when I entered the library shortly before the
dinner-hour. She put down her book and we fell into fitful talk.
"I took a walk after tea. I always feel that sunsets are best seen
from the fields; you can't quite do them justice from windows," she
began.
She seemed preoccupied, but this may have been the interpretation of my
conscience, whose twinges reminded me unpleasantly of my precipitation
into the briar bushes at the foot of the pasture, where I had witnessed
her meeting with Wiggins. My admiration gained new levels. Her black
evening gown became her; a band of velvet circled her throat,
emphasizing its firm whiteness. It seemed incredible that I had seen
her so recently, in the filmy dusk, talking with so much earnestness to
Hartley Wiggins. It was my impression, gained from the few sentences I
had overheard by the road, that she did not repulse him, but that some
mysterious, difficult barrier kept them apart. Where, I wondered, was
Wiggins now, and what were to be the further incidents of this singular
affair?
While we waited for Miss Hollister to appear, she continued to speak of
her joy in the hills. It is not every one who can admire a sunset with
sincerity, but she conveyed the spirit of the phenomena that had
attended the lowering of the bright targe of day in terms and tones
that were delightfully natural and convincing. And yet the far-away
look in her eyes suggested inevitably the scene I had witnessed and the
phrases I had caught by the roadside. Wiggins was in her recollection
of the glowing landscape,--I was confident of this; and poor Wiggins
was even now wandering these hills, no doubt, brooding upon his
troubles under the clear October stars.
Dinner was announced the moment Miss Hollister entered, and I walked
out between them. Miss Octavia Hollister was a surprising person, but
in nothing was she so delightfully wayward as in the gowns she wore.
My ignorance of such matters is immeasurable, but I fancy that she
designed her own raiment and that her ideas were thereupon carried out
by a tailor of skill. At the Asolando and when we had met at tea in
her own house, she had worn the severest of tailored gowns, with short
skirt and a coat into whose pockets she was fond of thrusting her
hands. To-night the material was lavender silk trimmed in white, but
the skirt had not lengthened, and over a white silk waist she wore a
kind of cut-away coat that matched the skirt. An aigrette in her
lovely white hair contributed a piquant note to the whole impression.
As we passed down the hall she talked with great animation of the Hague
Tribunal, just then holding a prominent place in the newspapers for
some reason that has escaped me.
"The whole thing is absurd; perfectly absurd! I know of nothing that
would contribute more to human enjoyment than a real war between
Germany and England. The Hague idea is pure sentimentalism,--if
sentimentalism can ever be said to be pure. I will go further and say
that I consider it positively immoral."
This new view of the matter left me stammering. Cecilia, I saw, had no
intention of helping me over these difficult hurdles that were
constantly popping up in my conversations with her aunt. This
delightful old lady in lavender, the mistress of a house whose luxury
and peace were antipodal to any hint of war, continued to baffle me.
She had ordered dinner in the gun-room, but I thought this merely a
turn of her humor; and I was taken aback when she led the way into a
low, heavily raftered room, where electric sconces of an odd type were
thrust at irregular intervals along the walls, which were otherwise
hung with arms of many sorts in orderly combinations. They were not
the litter of antique shops, I saw in a hasty glance, but rifles and
guns of the latest patterns, and beside the sideboard stood a gun-rack
and a cabinet which I assumed contained still other and perhaps
deadlier weapons. At one end of the room, and just behind Miss
Hollister, was a sunburst of swords, which gleamed with a kind of
mockery behind her white head.
The small round table was conventionally set, but this only added to
the grimness of the encompassing arsenal. A bowl of crimson roses in
the centre of the snowy cloth would ordinarily have mitigated the
effect of the grim walls; but I confess that the color reminded me a
little too sombrely of the ugly business for which this steel had been
designed. But for the presence of Miss Cecilia, who was essentially
typical of our twentieth-century American woman, I think I might
readily have yielded to the illusion that I was the guest of some
eccentric chatelaine who had invited me to dine with her in a bastion
of her fortress before ordering me to some chamber of horrors for
execution.
There seemed to be no reason why one of those keen blades on the wall
might not find its way through my ribs between a highly satisfactory
plate of _potage à la tortue_ and a bit of sea-bass that would have
honored any kitchen in the land. No reference was made to the
character of the room; I felt, in fact, that Cecilia rather pleaded
with her eyes that I should make no reference to it. And Miss
Hollister remarked quite casually as though in comment upon my
thoughts:--
"Consistency has buried its thousands and habit its tens of thousands.
We should live, Mr. Ames, for the changes and chances of this troubled
life. Between an opera-box and a villa at Newport many of my best
friends have perished."
"I have thought myself that Thoreau had the right idea,"--I began
hopefully; but she raised her finger warningly.
"Mr. Ames, the mention of Henry David Thoreau is wholly distasteful to
me. A man who will deliberately choose to whittle lead-pencils for
chipmunks and write a book about a moist sand-pile like Cape Cod
arouses no sympathy in me. And these well-meaning women who are
forever gathering autumn leaves, or who tire you in spring by telling
you they have found the first pussy-willow feathering, and who make all
Nature odious by their general goo-gooings, bore me to death. There is
no such thing possible as the simple life. I give you my word for it
that it is only in the most complex existence that the spirit of man
can thrive."
I am only a chimney-doctor; I have never been able to make any headway
in discussing things æsthetic, sentimental or spiritual with persons of
sound conviction in such matters. A bishop with whom I once roamed the
English cathedrals confessed to me his sincere belief that in the days
of the inquisition the gridiron would have been my rightful portion. I
was fearful lest my hostess should suggest the mediæval church as a
topic, and this I knew would be disastrous. As an abbess she would, I
fancied, have ruled with an iron hand. But with startling abruptness
she put down her fork, and bending her wonderfully direct gaze upon me,
asked a question that caused me to strangle on a bit of asparagus.
"I imagine, Mr. Ames, that you are a member of some of the better clubs
in town. If by any chance you belong to the Hare and Tortoise,--the
name of which has always pleased me,--do you by any chance happen to
enjoy the acquaintance of Mr. Hartley Wiggins?"
Cecilia lifted her head. I saw that she had been as startled as I. It
crossed my mind that a denial of any acquaintance with Wiggins might
best serve him in the circumstances; but I am not, I hope, without a
sense of shame, and I responded promptly:--
"Yes, I know him well. We are old friends. I always see a good deal
of him during the winter. His summers are spent usually on his ranch
in the west. We dined together two days ago at the Hare and Tortoise,
just before he left for the west."
"You will pardon me if I say that it is wholly to his credit that he
has forsworn the professions and identified himself with the honorable
calling of the husbandman."
"We met Mr. Wiggins while traveling abroad last summer," interposed
Cecilia, meeting my eyes quite frankly.
"Met him! Did you say met him, Cecilia? On the contrary we found him
waiting for us at the dock the morning we sailed," corrected Miss
Hollister, "and we never lost him a day in three months of rapid
travel. I had never met him before, but I cannot deny that he made
himself exceedingly agreeable. If, as I suspected, he had deliberately
planned to travel on the same steamer with my two nieces, I have only
praise for his conduct, for in these days, Mr. Ames, it warms my heart
to find young men showing something of the old chivalric ardor in their
affairs of the heart."
"I 'm sure Mr. Wiggins made himself very agreeable," remarked Cecilia
colorlessly.
"For myself," retorted Miss Hollister, "I should speak even more
strongly. He repeatedly served us with tact and delicacy; and I recall
with the greatest satisfaction his vigorous chastisement of our courier
in Cologne, where that person was found to have treated us in the most
treacherous manner. He had, in fact, in collusion with an inn-keeper,
connived at the loss of our baggage to delay our departure, even after
I had pronounced the cathedral the greatest architectural monstrosity
in Europe."
"Oh, Aunt Octavia, you didn't really mean that!" And Cecilia laughed
for the first time. Her color had risen, and her dark eyes lit with
pleasure.
"I had formed so high an opinion of Mr. Wiggins," Miss Octavia
continued, "that I learned with sincerest regret that his ancestors
were Tories and took no part in the struggle for American independence.
There are times when I seriously question the wisdom of the colonists
in breaking with the mother country; but certainly no man of character
in that day could have hesitated as to his proper course."
Then, as though by intention, Miss Hollister dropped upon the smooth
current of our talk a sentence that drove the color from Cecilia's
face. At once the girl was cold again, and I felt embarrassed and
uncomfortable that a friend of mine had been brought into the
conversation to my befuddlement. The situation was trying, but in
spite of this it grew steadily more interesting.
"Hezekiah and Mr. Wiggins were the best of friends," was Miss
Hollister's remark.
Cecilia's eyes were on her plate; but her aunt went on in her blithest
fashion:--
"You may not know that Hezekiah is another niece, Cecilia's sister.
She was named, at my suggestion, for my father, there being no son in
the family, and I trust that so unusual a name in a young girl does not
strike you as indefensible."
"On the contrary, it seems to me wholly refreshing and delightful. As
I recall the Sunday-school of my youth, Hezekiah was a monarch of great
authority, whose animosity toward Sennacherib was justified in the
fullest degree. The very name bristles with spears, and is musical
with the trumpets of Israel. Nothing would make me happier than to
meet the young lady who bears this illustrious name."
"As to your knowledge of ancient history, Mr. Ames," began Miss
Hollister, as she helped herself to the cheese,--sweets, I noted, were
not included in the very ample meal I had enjoyed,--"it is clear that
you were well taught in your youth. I am not surprised, however, for I
should have expected nothing less of a son of the late General Ames of
Hartford. As to meeting my niece Hezekiah, I fear that that is at
present impossible. While Cecilia remains with me, Hezekiah's duty is
to her father, and I must say in all kindness that Hezekiah's ways,
like those of Providence and the custom-house, are beyond my feeble
understanding. In a word, Mr. Ames, Hezekiah is different."
"Hezekiah," added Cecilia with feeling, "is a dear."
"Please don't bring sentimentalism to the table!" cried Miss Hollister.
"Mr. Wiggins once informed me in a moment of forgetfulness,--it was at
Fontainebleau, I remember, when Hezekiah persisted in reminding a
one-armed French colonel who was hanging about that we named cities in
America for Bismarck,--it was there at the inn, that Mr. Wiggins
confided to me his belief that Hezekiah bears a strong resemblance to
the common or domestic peach. As a single peach at that place was
charged in the bill at ten francs, the remark was ill-timed, to say the
least. But Mr. Wiggins was so contrite when I rebuked him, that I
allowed him to pay for our luncheon,--no small matter, indeed, for
Hezekiah's appetite is nothing if not robust."
The table-talk had yielded little light on the subject of Wiggins's
predicament, whatever that might be; but these references to the absent
Hezekiah had set a troop of interrogation points to dancing on the
frontiers of my curiosity. Miss Hollister had given so many turns to
the conversation that I could reach no conclusion as to her feeling
toward Wiggins or Hezekiah Hollister; and as for Cecilia, I was unable
to determine whether she was a prisoner at Hopefield Manor or the
willing and devoted companion of her aunt.
In this bewildered state of mind, while we lingered over our coffee,
the servant appeared with a card for each of the ladies. I saw Cecilia
start as she read the name.
"Mr. Wiggins! How remarkable that he should have appeared just as we
were speaking of him," said Miss Hollister. "Be sure the gentleman is
comfortable in the library, James. We shall be in at once. Mr. Ames,
you will of course be delighted to meet your friend here, and you will
assist us in dispensing our meagre hospitality."
V
THE STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF A CHIMNEY
There was no reason in the world why Hartley Wiggins should not call
upon two ladies living in Westchester County, and I must say that he
appeared to advantage in Miss Hollister's library.
He had got into his evening clothes somewhere, perhaps at a neighboring
inn, or maybe at the house of a friend; for he could not possibly have
motored into town and back since his interview with Cecilia in the
highway. He had impressed the clerk at the Hare and Tortoise with the
idea that he had left New York for a long absence, and he had
apparently camped at the gates of Hopefield to be near Cecilia.
When he had paid his compliments to the ladies, he turned to me with an
almost imperceptible lifting of the brows; but he was cordial enough.
If he was surprised or disappointed at seeing me, his manner did not
betray the feeling.
"Glad to see you, Ames. Rather nice weather, this."
"Even Dakota could n't do better," I affirmed with a grin; but he
ignored the fling.
"It is quite remarkable, Mr. Wiggins, that you should have appeared
just when you did, for we had been speaking of you, and I had been
telling Mr. Ames of our travels abroad and in particular of the
thumping you very properly gave our courier at Cologne. And I shall
not deny that I mentioned also our brief discussion of the peach-crop
at Fontainebleau."
Cecilia stirred restlessly; Wiggins shot a glance of inquiry in my
direction; and I felt decidedly ill at ease. Miss Hollister crossed to
the fireplace and poked the logs.
Just what part Hezekiah Hollister played in the situation was beyond
me. If I had not witnessed Wiggins's clandestine meeting with Cecilia,
matters would have been clearer to my comprehension; but his appearance
at the house, after the colloquy I had overheard from the briar patch,
was in itself inexplicable. Cecilia was a woman, therefore to be
wooed, and yet she had indicated by her words to him that the wooing,
independently of her feeling and inclination, might not go forward with
entire freedom. Miss Hollister's singular references to Hezekiah--a
person about whom my curiosity was now a good deal aroused--added to
the mystery that enfolded the library.
"Our American peaches are not what they were in my youth. Cold storage
destroys the flavor. I have not tasted a decent peach for twenty
years."
This was pretty tame, I admit; but I felt that I must say something.
Responsive to Miss Hollister's energetic prodding, the flames in the
fireplace leaped into the great throat of the chimney with a roar. She
turned, her back to the blaze, and looked upon her guests benignantly.
"If all your flues draw like that one, they are not seriously in need
of doctoring," I remarked, feeling that flues were a safer topic than
the peach-crop.
"Flues are nothing if not erratic," replied Miss Hollister. The
subject did not appear to interest her; nor had she, by the remotest
suggestion, referred to the object of my coming. I had sniffed vainly
in the halls above and below for any trace of the stale smoke which
usually greeted me at once on my arrival at the house of a client. The
air of Hopefield Manor was as sweet as that of a June meadow. Wiggins
remarked to me that I doubtless knew the Manor had been designed by
Pepperton, whom we both knew well.
"This is Pep's masterpiece. He need do nothing better to keep his grip
at the top," he said.
"I consider it a great privilege to be permitted to visit a house
designed by a dear friend and occupied by a lady peculiarly fitted to
appreciate and adorn it."
I thought rather well of this as I spoke the words; but neither Cecilia
nor Wiggins rose to it as I hoped they might.
"You have a neat turn for the direct compliment," said Miss Hollister
promptly. "The house was built, you may not know, for a manufacturer
of umbrellas, who died before he had occupied it, in circumstances I
may later disclose to you; which accounts, Mr. Ames, for that figure of
Cupid under a pink parasol on the drawing-room ceiling. At the first
opportunity I shall remove it, as baby Cupids are irreconcilable with
the militant love-making I admire. I consider umbrellas detestable,
and never carry one when I can command a mackintosh."
"When I 'm on the ranch I wear a slicker," said Wiggins. "It's
bullet-proof, and that I have found at times a decided advantage."
We discussed mackintoshes for at least ten minutes, with far more
sprightliness than I had imagined the subject could evoke. Then Miss
Hollister, after a turn up and down the room, paused beside me.
"Mr. Ames," she said, "would you care to join me in a game of
billiards? I 'm not in my best form, but I think we might profitably
knock the balls for half an hour."
I acquiesced with alacrity. I assumed it to be Miss Hollister's
purpose to leave Cecilia and Wiggins alone. I should be rendering
Wiggins and Cecilia a service by withdrawing, and I was glad of a
chance to escape.
To my infinite surprise they both protested, not in mere polite murmurs
but with considerable vehemence.
"It's quite cool to-night, and I don't believe you ought to use the
billiard-room until the plumber has fixed the radiator," said Cecilia.
"And if you knew Mr. Ames's game I 'm sure you would n't care to waste
time on him," piped Wiggins, whom I had frequently vanquished in
billiard bouts at the Hare and Tortoise, where, I may say modestly, I
had long been considered one of the most formidable of the club's
players.
Both he and Cecilia had risen, and we stood, I remember, just before
the hearth, during this exchange. At this moment, a singular thing
happened. The fire that had been sweeping in a broad wave-like curve
into the chimney was checked suddenly. I had repeatedly marked the
admirable draught, the facile grace of the flame as it rose and
vanished. The cessation of the draught was unmarked by any of those
premonitory symptoms by which a fire usually gives warning of evil
intentions. The upward current of air had ceased utterly and without
apparent cause. We were all aware of a choking, a gasping in the deep
flue, which could not be accounted for by any natural stoppage incident
to chimneys--the dislodging of masonry, or a packing of soot. The
former was hardly possible and the house was not old enough to make the
latter theory plausible. From my survey of the flue on my arrival in
the afternoon, I judged that this particular chimney had been little
used.
The smoke now rolled out in billows and drove us back from the hearth.
I seized the tongs and poker and began readjusting the logs, without,
however, any hope of correcting a difficulty that lay patently in the
upper regions of the flue itself. The smoke, after a courageous effort
to rise, encountered an obstruction of some sort and ebbed back upon
the hearth and out into the room. My efforts to stop the trouble by
shifting the logs were futile, as I expected them to be, and I
retreated quickly, making, I fear, no very gallant appearance as I
mopped my face and eyes.
[Illustration: I seized the tongs and poker and began readjusting the
logs.]
"Well," exclaimed Miss Hollister, who had rung for a servant to open
the doors and windows, "this is certainly most extraordinary. What
solution do you offer, Mr. Ames?"
"The matter requires investigation. I can't venture an opinion until I
have made a thorough investigation. The night is perfectly quiet and
the wind is hardly responsible. I think we had better abandon the room
until I can solve this riddle in the morning."
The prompt opening of the windows and doors caused the slow dispersion
of the smoke, but the lights in the room still shone dimly as through a
fog.
"It's beastly," ejaculated Wiggins, coughing. "I did n't suppose
Pepperton would put a flue like that into a house. He ought to be
shot."
"It is fortunate," said Miss Hollister, "that Mr. Ames is on the
ground. He now has a case that will test his most acute powers of
diagnosis."
The logs that had burned so brightly before the chimney choked still
held their flames stubbornly, and I had advised against pouring water
upon them, fearing to crack the brick and stonework. We were about to
adjourn to the drawing-room; Miss Hollister and the others had in fact
reached the door, leaving me alone before the hearth. Then, as I stood
half-blinded watching the smoke pour out into the room, and more
puzzled than I had ever been before in any of my employments, the
chimney, with a deep intake of breath, began drawing the smoke upward
again; the flames caught and spread with renewed ardor; and when the
trio still loitering in the hall returned in answer to my exclamation
of surprise, the flue had recovered its composure and was behaving in a
sane and normal manner.
There is, I imagine, nothing pertaining to the life of man (unless it
be rival climates, motor-cars or pianos) that so inspires incompetent,
irrelevant and immaterial criticism as wayward fireplaces. It is part
of my business to listen respectfully to opinions, to receive with an
appearance of credulity the theories of others; and those advanced in
Miss Hollister's library were not below the average to which I was
accustomed.
"A swallow undoubtedly fell into the chimney-pot and then got itself
out again," suggested Cecilia.
"The logs must have been wet. The sap had n't dried out yet," proposed
Wiggins.
"The wood was as dry as tinder," averred Miss Hollister, not without
irritation. "And one swallow does not make a summer or a chimney
smoke. It must have been a changing current of air. I was reading a
book on ballooning the other day, and it is remarkable how the air
currents change."
"That is quite possible, as the air cools rapidly after sunset at this
season, and that is bound to have an effect on the quality and
resistance of the atmosphere," I replied sagely.
"Perhaps," suggested Miss Hollister, with one of those flashes of
animation that were so delightful in her, "perhaps it was a ghost!
Will you tell us, Mr. Ames, whether in your experience you have ever
known a chimney ghost?"
As I had no opinion of my own as to what had caused the chimney's brief
aberration, I was glad to follow Miss Hollister's lead.
"I have had several experiences with ghosts," I began, "though I should
not like you to think that I profess any special genius for the
analysis of psychical phenomena. But there was a house at Shinnecock
that was reputed to be haunted. The living-room chimney behaved
damnably. The house was one of Buffington's. Buffington, you know,
was quite capable of building a house and omitting any stairway. We
used to say at the club that he ought to have specialized in
fire-engine houses, where the men don't use stairways but slide down a
pole. Well, the living-room chimney in this particular house could n't
be made to draw with a team of elephants, and it had also the
reputation of being haunted. Strange flutings of the weirdest and most
distressing kind were often heard at night. The owner gave up in
despair and moved out, turning the house over to me. After eliminating
all other possibilities, I decided that the piping spook must be
related to the disorder in the chimney. It served two fireplaces, and
I proceeded to knock the kinks out of it so it did n't tie knots in a
plumb-line as at first; but, believe me, when it stopped smoking it
still whistled, in the most fantastical fashion. I was living in the
house, with only the servants about, and for a week gave my whole
thought to this flue. The ghostly flutist was an amateur, but he tried
his hand at every sort of tune, from 'Sally in our Alley' to the jewel
song in Faust. The whistling did n't begin till nearly midnight, and
continued usually for about an hour. I tried in every way to lure him
into the open, and I fell downstairs one night as I crept about in the
dark trying to trace the sound. And to what palpable and mundane
source do you suppose I traced that ghost?"
"I never should guess," murmured Cecilia, "unless it was merely the
weird whistling of the wind."
"Nothing so poetical, I'm sorry to confess. It was the butler! In his
nightly cups his soul inclined to music, and being a timid soul,
fearful of the cynical tongues of the other servants, he crawled into
the ash-dump in the cellar, which communicated with the several
fireplaces above, and there indulged himself gently upon the tuneful
reed. The night I caught him he was breathing the wild strains of
Brunhilde's Battle-Cry into the tube, and it was shuddersome, I can
tell you! I took it upon myself to discharge him on the spot, and the
grateful owner returned the next day."
"The presence of a ghost in this house would give me the greatest
pleasure," declared Miss Hollister, who had listened intently to my
recital. "I should look upon a ghost's appearance at Hopefield Manor
as a great compliment. If any reputable, decent ghost should by any
chance take up his residence in this house, I should give him every
encouragement."
Miss Hollister seemed to have forgotten the proposed game of billiards.
The chimney's lawless demonstration had, in fact, given a new turn to
the evening. We discussed ghosts for half an hour, and then, without
having enjoyed any opportunity for a single private word with Cecilia,
Wiggins rose to leave. He shook hands all around and bowed from the
door. It was in my mind to follow, making a pretext of walking with
him to the station or of helping him find his car; but nothing in his
good-night to me encouraged such attentions, and as I pondered, the
outer door closed upon my irresolution.
At the stroke of ten Miss Hollister rose and excused herself. "We
breakfast at eight, Mr. Ames. I trust the hour does not conflict with
your habits."
I assured her that the hour was wholly agreeable, and she gave me her
hand with great dignity.
When I turned toward Cecilia she had moved to a seat close by the
hearth and was gazing dreamily into the fire, now a bed of glowing
coals.
"It was odd," I remarked.
"You mean the chimney?"
"Yes. It was quite unaccountable. I confess that I never knew a
chimney's mood to change so abruptly."
She sat silent for several minutes, and then she lifted her head and
her eyes met mine.
"Pardon me, Mr. Ames, but did my aunt ask you here to examine the
chimneys? I did n't quite understand. We have been here only a week;
the weather has been warm, and I believe this fire had not been lighted
before to-day. You will pardon my frankness, but I can't quite
understand why my aunt invited you here if you came professionally. I
thought when you appeared this afternoon that you were a guest--nothing
more--or less."
"You had heard nothing of any trouble with the fireplaces? Then I am
in the dark as much as you. As I understood it, I was called here to
examine the flues; but now that I think of it, she did not say
explicitly that her chimneys were behaving badly, though that was of
course implied. I naturally assumed that she summoned me here in my
professional capacity. I was a stranger to your aunt; she would hardly
have invited me otherwise."
She turned again to the fire as though referring to it for counsel.
Her perplexity was no greater than my own. It was certainly an
extraordinary experience to be invited to a strange house where my
services had not been needed, and to find that an apparently sound
chimney had begun to smoke at once as though in mockery of my presence.
"I imagine, however, that your aunt acts a good deal on impulse. Her
asking me here may have been only a whim."
"Please don't imagine that your coming has not been agreeable to me,"
Cecilia protested. "My aunt is quite capable of inviting a stranger to
the house. She met you, I believe, at the Asolando. I hope you
understand that it is only because I am in deep trouble, Mr. Ames,
trouble of the gravest nature, that I have ventured to speak to you in
this way of my aunt, for whom I have all respect and affection."
She had never, I was sure, been lovelier than at this moment. Her eyes
filled, but she lifted her head proudly. Whatever the trouble might be
I was sorry for it on her own account; and if it involved Hartley
Wiggins my sympathy went out to him also. On an impulse I spoke of him.
"I was surprised to meet Hartley Wiggins here. He 's a dear friend of
mine, you know. I thought he had gone to his ranch. He left the Hare
and Tortoise very abruptly a few nights ago just after we had dined
together. He must be stopping somewhere in the neighborhood."
"It's quite possible. And there's an inn, you know. I fancy he drove
over from there."
"I hadn't thought of that; the Prescott Arms, I suppose you mean."
She nodded, but she was clearly not interested in me, and when I found
myself failing dismally to divert her thoughts to cheerfuller channels,
I rose and bade her good-night.
The servant who had previously attended me appeared promptly when I
reached my room, bearing a tray, with biscuits and a bottle of ale. He
gave me an envelope addressed in a hand I already knew as Miss
Octavia's, and I opened and read:--
"The following I either detest or distrust, so kindly refrain from
mentioning them while you are a guest of Hopefield Manor:--
Automobiles.
Mashed Potatoes.
Whiskers.
Chopin's Concerto in E Minor (op. 11).
Bishop's Coadjutor.
Limericks.
Cats.
OCTAVIA HOLLISTER."
I absorbed this with a glass of ale. There were seven items, I noted,
and I had no serious quarrel with her attitude toward any of them; but
just what these matters had to do with me or my presence in her house I
could not determine. She had referred to me in the note as a guest--I
had noted that; and I did know, moreover, that Miss Octavia Hollister
possessed a quaint and delicate humor; and I looked forward with the
pleasantest anticipations to our further meetings.
Before I slept I threw up my window and stepped out upon a narrow
balcony that afforded a capital view of the fields and woods to the
east. The night was fine, with the sky bright with stars and moon. As
my eyes dropped from the horizon to the near landscape, I saw a man
perched on a knoll in the midst of a corn-field. He stood as rigid as
a sentry on duty, or like a forlorn commander, counting the spears of
his tattered battalions. I was not sure that he saw me, for the
balcony was slightly shadowed, but at any rate, he was sharply outlined
to my vision. His derby hat and overcoat gave him an odd appearance as
he stood brooding above the corn. Then he vanished suddenly, though,
as he retired toward the highway, I followed him for some time by the
shaking and jerking of the corn-stalks.
I lay awake far into the night, considering the events of the day. Of
these the curious stoppage of the library chimney was the least
interesting. I doubted whether it would ever recur. The love-affair
of Hartley Wiggins was, however, a matter of importance to me, his
friend, and I determined to make every effort to see him the next day
and learn the exact status of his affair with Cecilia Hollister.
VI
I DELIVER A MESSAGE
I was aroused at six o'clock the next morning by the sound of
gun-shots, and springing out of bed I beheld, in an open pasture beyond
the stable-yard, the indomitable Miss Hollister engaged in the pleasing
pastime of breaking clay pigeons with a fowling-piece. Her Swedish
maid stood by with a formidable pad of paper, keeping score. A boy
pulled the trap for her, and she threw up her gun and blazed away with
a practised hand. Her small, slight, tense figure, awaiting the
launching of the target, the quick up-bring of the gun as she sighted,
and the pause, following the firing of the shot, in which she bent
forward rigidly watching the result, were features of a picture which I
would not have missed. My eye could not follow the curving disc in its
flight, but when the shot told, the bursting clay made a little patch
of dust in the air that was plainly visible from where I sat. Beyond
the stable-roofs, on a broad stretch of pasture whose aftermath made a
green field about her, and against a background of the more distant
woods' tapestry, Miss Octavia Hollister was a figure to admire. And I
will write it down here and be done with it, that it has been my good
fortune to know many delightful women, but I have never known one more
interesting or charming than Miss Octavia Hollister. The spirit of
deathless youth was in her heart; and youth's gay pennants fluttered
about her, as the reports of her gun fell cheerily upon the crisp
morning air, a rebuke and a challenge to all indolent souls.
[Illustration: She threw up her gun and blazed away with a practised
hand.]
I made myself presentable as quickly as possible and went forth to
report to her. She nodded pleasantly as I greeted her immediately
after she had scored a capital shot. A second gun was produced, and I
saw that it was not without satisfaction that she observed my lack of
prowess. One out of five was the best I could do, whereas she smashed
three with the greatest ease.
On alternate mornings, she informed me, she shot glass balls with a
rifle, a sport which she declared to be superior to pigeon-shooting in
the severity of its demand upon the nerve and eye.
"If I had known you would be up so early I should have sent coffee to
your room," she remarked as we walked toward the house. "Very likely
your lack of luck with the birds is attributable entirely to the
impoverished state of your stomach."
Breakfast was served on a delightful sun-porch that I had not before
seen. Cecilia appeared promptly, having in fact been gathering fall
flowers for some time, I judged, from the considerable armful of
chrysanthemums, asters, dahlias and marigolds, which we found her
arranging for the table. She seemed in excellent spirits, and greeted
us most amiably.
"I heard the artillery booming and thought an army had descended. It's
a great regret to me, Mr. Ames, that I have never been able to make any
headway at the traps. I suffer from chronic and incurable gun-shyness.
I 'm sorry archery has gone out. I think I might have done better with
the long bow."
"Pinkle!" exclaimed Miss Hollister disdainfully. "I cured myself of
gun-shyness easily enough by having the gardener follow me about
whenever I took my daily walks, firing a gun at irregular intervals
just behind me. I was threatened with deafness when I began, but the
agitation of my tympanums by the explosions of my gun has corrected the
difficulty. I have mentioned my discovery of this remedy to a
distinguished aurist, and he is preparing a paper on the subject--not,
however, without my permission--which he expects to read shortly before
one of the most learned societies in Europe. Cecilia, the chops are
overdone again; please remind me to speak to the cook about it. If it
were not that he is so expert in detecting spurious steam-mill
corn-meal, which is constantly sold as a substitute for the Boydville
water-ground article, I should discharge him for this. An ill-broiled
chop can do much to shake one's faith in human nature. If I wanted to
eat grilled patent leather I should order it."
In spite of her sharp observations it was quite clear to me that Miss
Hollister's was the gentlest and sweetest of natures. I fully believed
that her whims were the honest expression of a revolt against the
tedious and conventional, and nothing in my later acquaintance
disturbed this opinion. It was her privilege to do as she liked, and
if she preferred cracking clay saucers with a shot-gun to knitting or
darning stockings or gossiping, it was no one's business.
The mail arrived and was placed by her plate before we left the table.
She opened first a bulky envelope containing cuttings from a clipping
bureau, and she mused aloud upon these as she read.
"This persistent story of a sunken galleon off the Bolivian coast
sounds plausible, but I fear it is the work of some bright young
journalist. Our minister in that benighted country does n't take any
stock in it. I had a cable from him yesterday. If he had given the
story credence I should have gone down at once with a steamer and crew
of divers. The imaginative young newspaper men continue romancing,
however; and it costs me five cents a clipping."
She next opened a letter that roused her to vigorous declamation.
"Cecilia," she began, "here is a letter from that Mrs. Stanford we met
in Berne. She encloses a card that indicates her wish to be called
Mrs. Appleby now, having, I believe, spent a few months since our
meeting in one of our American States where the marital tie readily
evaporates, and shaken Stanford, whom I have heard spoken of in the
highest terms by persons of character. We live in an era of horseless
carriages, wireless telegraphy, husbandless wives and wifeless
husbands. I have hit upon a formula which I am tempted to utilize
hereafter when I meet husbandless women. When they are introduced I
shall ask:--
Shaken,
Or taken?
signifying in the first instance a loss by way of Nevada, or, in the
second, through the pearlier gates of that Paradise which is the hope
of us all. Mr. Ames, as the butler has gone to sleep in the pantry,
you will kindly pass the salt."
She had handed Cecilia a number of letters, which the girl opened and
then to my surprise meekly turned over to her aunt. Miss Hollister
surveyed them critically.
"I thought," she remarked, "that that young Henderson who was so
attentive to you at Madrid was an impostor, and this note settles the
matter. He flirted outrageously with Hezekiah behind your back. He
asks if he may call upon you here. If he were the nephew of Colonel
Abner Henderson of Roanoke, as he represented himself to be, he would
not ask if he might call upon you, but would have appeared at once in
his proper person to pay his addresses. An unchivalrous and wobbly
character, who evidently expects you to make the advances. But such
are the youth of our time. And besides, Cecilia, his stationery leaves
much to be desired. As for these other gentlemen we need not discuss
them. Their actions must speak for them."
Miss Hollister, having thus dismissed her niece's correspondents, rose
and led the way to the library. Cecilia seemed in no wise depressed by
her aunt's fling at Mr. Henderson, whoever he might be, but threw the
notes upon the flames that blazed merrily in the fireplace.
I suggested immediately that as I had come to Hopefield Manor to
inspect the flues I should now be about my business; but to my surprise
Miss Hollister evinced no interest whatever in the matter. Her tone
and manner implied that the condition of her chimneys was wholly
negligible.
"There is no haste, Mr. Ames. I have suffered all my life from the
ill-considered and hurried work of professional men. Even the
clergy--and I have enjoyed the acquaintance of many--are quite reckless
in giving opinions. I once asked the Bishop of Waxahaxie--was it
Waxahaxie, Cecilia, or Tallahassee?--well, it does n't matter
anyhow--whether he honestly believed there are no women angels. He
replied with unusual frankness for one in holy orders that he did n't
know, but added that he was sure there are angel women. Just for that
impertinence I cut in two my subscription to his cathedral
building-fund. When I ask an expert opinion of an educated person I
don't intend to be put off with mere persiflage. And to return to my
chimneys, I beg that you give me the result of your most serious
deliberations. At this hour I ride; Cecilia, will you dress
immediately and accompany me?"
She disappeared at once and I stared mutely after her. I am by no
means an idler, and this cool indifference to the value of my time
would ordinarily have enraged me; but I believe I laughed, and when I
turned to Cecilia I found her smiling.
"I 'm glad, Mr. Ames, that you are a person of humor. My aunt's
conduct verifies what I said to you last night--that the flues in this
house have given us no trouble; that they have indeed had little chance
to do so in the short time we have spent here. It is true that this
one acted queerly last night, and I have wondered about its temporary
sulkiness a good deal. It will be well, of course, for you to go over
it, and all the others in the house. It is no joke that my aunt is a
believer in thoroughness, and one of these days, when she is ready to
talk of chimneys, she will subject you to a most rigid examination."
"One of these days? Why, I have looked at the time-table, and it is my
present intention to take the 12:03 into town. I have appointments at
my office for the afternoon. I assure you, Miss Hollister, that I 'm a
man of engagements, particularly at this season."
I remembered what Jewett had told me of Fortner, the painter, and his
detention at Newport by Miss Octavia Hollister. I had no intention of
being immured in any such fashion, and I was about to protest further
when Cecilia took a step toward me, and after a glance at the door
spoke in a low tone and with great earnestness.
"Mr. Ames, I have every reason to believe that you are a gentleman, and
in that confident belief I 'm going to ask a favor of you. You have
said that you know Mr. Hartley Wiggins well."
"I know no man better. You might not have inferred it from his manner
last night, but he was undoubtedly surprised and embarrassed by my
presence, and did not act quite like himself."'
"I think I understand the cause of that. If I should ask you to see
him to-day and give him a message for me, could you do so?"
"It will be an honor to serve you; and a very simple matter, as I
should see him on my own account if he is still in the neighborhood."
"He is doubtless at the Prescott Arms. My message is a verbal one.
Please urge him not to make any effort to see me, and not to call here
again. But at the same time, as the chimney smoked just as we were
about to be left alone last night, I think--I think"--she hesitated a
moment--"You may say that his interests have not been jeopardized by
his temerity in calling."
In her pause before concluding this curious commission her eyes
searched mine deeply, and I felt that she had not lightly entrusted me
with this singular errand. Her dark eyes held mine an instant after
she had spoken; then she smiled, and her face showed relief.
"Ask for anything you want. Aunt Octavia despises motors, so there 's
no car here, but you will find plenty of horses and traps. Order
whatever pleases you. I shall expect to meet you at dinner if not at
luncheon--and so"--she smiled again--"will Aunt Octavia."
She nodded to me from the door, and I heard her running lightly
upstairs.
Left to my own devices I rang the bell and ordered the library fire
extinguished and the hearth cleaned. This required a little time; but
the house man obeyed me readily, and soon, clad in my professional
overalls and jumper, I was going carefully over the flue whose behavior
had been so unaccountable the previous night. Guided by the servant I
inspected the three fireplaces in the upper chambers that were served
by flues in this chimney and finally dropped my torch and plumb-line
from the chimney-pot. Never in all my experience had I seen better
flues; but remembering my ghost at Shinnecock, I had the ashes thrown
out of the dump in the cellar and found the chute in perfect order. I
learned by inquiry that the other flues worked perfectly, but I
nevertheless scrutinized them carefully. My freedom of the house
afforded an excellent opportunity for a study of its beautiful
construction. It was modern in every sense, with no dark, mysterious
corners in which goblins might lurk. I prowled about with increasing
admiration for Pepperton, and with a deepening sense of my own failure
in the art which he adorned.
My professional labors were finished. I was quite ready for Miss
Hollister's most searching inquiries. As for the library flue, I had
decided that a little care in piling the logs in the hearth would
obviate the possibility of any recurrence of the difficulty. And I
thereupon hurried to my room, and after a tub (my vocation encouraged
frequent tubbing) chose from the stable a neat trap for one horse.
Thus equipped I set out to find Wiggins.
The Prescott Arms is an inn that sprang into being with the advent of
motoring. The tourist is advised of his approach to it by signs swung
at the crossways, and its plaster and timber walls are in plain sight
from one of the excellent state roads. Gasoline and other liquids are
offered there; one may have tea or an ampler meal on short notice; and
a few guests may be lodged in case of necessity. I remembered it well,
having several times found it a haven on motor-flights with friends.
As I drove into the entrance I saw Wiggins pacing the long veranda. He
waved a hand and came out to meet me, and when I had rid myself of the
trap he suggested that we take a walk.
[Illustration: As I drove into the entrance.]
His manner was not cordial, and he wore the haggard look of a man on
bad terms with his pillow. I attributed his appearance to
preoccupation with his love-affair. When we had withdrawn a little way
from the inn he turned on me sharply.
"Well?" he demanded.
"Well," I laughed.
"Oh, you needn't take that tone about it! Your being here is something
that requires explanation; and your being _there_"--he flung out his
arm toward Hopefield Manor--"your presence there is not a laughing
matter."
"My dear Wiggins, I came here in a spirit of friendship, and you treat
me like a pickpocket. I must say that if you had not acted like a clam
the other night at the club, but had told me what was in the wind, we
might not be meeting now like ancient enemies instead of old and
intimate friends."
He vouchsafed no reply, but threw himself down under a scarlet maple
and began to whittle a stick, while I went on with my story.
"I met Miss Octavia Hollister in the Asolando the day after our last
dinner at the club. I had dropped into the tea-room merely to look at
the place again. I had never seen her before in all my life. She is a
whimsical old lady--but a lady, you must admit that--and we exchanged
cards. On learning my occupation she at once declared that I must come
up here to look at her chimneys. She made an appointment by mail for
yesterday afternoon. It is not my fault that she treated me like a
guest, or that she introduced me of necessity to her niece Cecilia.
And now I have finished my work, and after I have made my report I
shall probably not meet her again. As for Miss Cecilia Hollister, I
can only say, my dear Wiggins, that she is a rarely beautiful woman,
and that if you wish to marry her you have my very best wishes for your
success and happiness."
"It struck me that you were pretty well established there," he blurted.
"I confess that I took it for granted you were not there wholly on a
professional errand; and I won't deny, Ames, that I was not pleased to
see you."
"You honor me in assuming that I might aspire to the hand of so
splendid a woman as Cecilia Hollister; but, my dear Wiggins, I tell you
I never laid eyes on her until last night."
"But you had been to the Asolando," he persisted, hacking away doggedly
at his stick.
"Of course I had. I told you I had. I told you the whole story. But
I did not see Cecilia Hollister there. She was n't there! I fancy
that after you saw her there last spring and became infatuated with her
and followed her to Europe instead of going to Dakota to harvest your
blooming wheat--after that bit of history she never returned to the
Asolando. Your lack of frankness in all this has pained me. And you
left it for a gossiping chap like Jewett to tell me the whole story.
And to cap your duplicity you sneaked out of the club the other night
while Jewett was talking to me and let the club people think you were
bound for your ranch. I call it rather low down, Wiggins, after all
the years we have known each other. My slate is clean; how about
yours?"
He threw the stick at a sparrow whose chirp irritated him from a stone
fence beyond us, and turned toward me a countenance on which dejection,
humiliation, and chagrin were written large.
"Damn it all!" he bellowed, "I believe I 'm losing my mind. I don't
know what I 'm doing. That old woman up there is responsible for all
this. She 's as crazy as a March hare,--crazier! And she 's made a
prisoner of that girl. I tell you Cecilia Hollister is the grandest
girl in the world."
"Go it, son! Those descendants of Cæsar's legions at work in the road
down there are pausing to listen. Try to affect calmness if you don't
feel it. I agree to all you say of Miss Cecilia. And please get it
into your noddle that I have no intention of becoming your rival for
her hand. But I must beg of you also not to speak in such terms of her
aunt. She 's the most delightful woman I ever met."
"Mad, I tell you, quite mad!"
"Wise,--with the most beautiful wisdom; you simply don't understand
her."
"I know all I want to about her. If she were not insane she would not
build a wall of mystery about her niece and keep me camping out here
not knowing where I stand. I tell you, Ames, that woman is a
malevolent being; she 's perfectly fiendish."
There is no way of answering a man in this humor save by laughter; and
I laughed long and loud, to the consternation of the Italian
road-laborers who were now swallowing their luncheons a short distance
away from us.
Wiggins sulked awhile and then addressed me seriously.
"I didn't tell you I was going abroad, because the situation made
explanations difficult. I could hardly tell you that I was about to
race over Europe after a waitress I had seen in a tea-room. You 're
always so confoundedly suspicious. It would have an odd sound even now
if she were--well, if she were a waitress instead of what you know her
to be. And my animosity toward Miss Octavia Hollister is due to the
fact that after I had been as courteous to her all summer long as I
could, and thought myself tolerably established in her mind as a decent
person and a gentleman, she suddenly shuts Cecilia up in that
house,--bought it on purpose, I fancy,--and Cecilia herself is
compelled to take on an air of mystery, warning me to keep away,
suggesting the darkest possibilities, but giving me no hint whatever of
the reason for her conduct."
"Let us confine ourselves to Miss Octavia for a moment. While you were
acting as cavalier to her party abroad she was friendly; then she
suddenly changed. Now there must be some explanation of that."
"Well, for one thing, she flew off at a tangent about my ancestors. We
were in Berlin on the Fourth of July and got to talking about the
American revolution. She asked me what my people had done for the
patriotic cause. The painful fact is that most of them were Tories;
but my great-grandfather broke with his father and brothers, joined
Washington's army, and fought through the whole business. But to save
the feelings of the rest of them, who went to England till it was all
over, he changed his name. There's no mention of him in the war
records anywhere. I've had experts working on it, but they can't find
any trace of him. He was greatly embittered by the estrangement from
his people, and though he had a farm in this very neighborhood
somewhere--I 've thought sometime I 'd look it up and try to get hold
of it--he never mentioned his military experiences even to his own
children. Usually Miss Hollister changes front if you give her time.
I've heard her say that we'd have been better off if we'd never broken
with England; but she persists in prodding that weak place in my armor."
"That's very dark, Wiggy. If she keeps it up you'll have to dig up
your great-grandfather someway. The spiritualists might call him on
long distance. But let us turn to Miss Cecilia. I don't for a moment
believe that she is a victim of ancestor worship. The perambulator
rampant adorns the Hollister shield to the exclusion of everything
else. From what you say Cecilia has not repelled you; on the other
hand she has frankly given you to understand that you must not press
your suit at this time for reasons she sees fit to withhold. A little
more patience, a little calm deliberation and less violent language,
and in due course the girl is yours. Now what do you fancy is the
cause of Cecilia's abrupt change of attitude?"
He refused to meet my eyes, but turned away as though to conceal an
embarrassment whose cause I could not surmise. When he spoke it was in
a voice husky with emotion.
"Am I a cad? Am I beneath the contempt of decent people?"
"It's possible, Wiggy, that you are. Go on with it."
"Well, you know," he began diffidently, "Cecilia has a sister."
I grinned, but his scowl brought me to myself again.
"Yes. And her name is Hezekiah. The name pleases me."
"She was with Miss Octavia in her gallop over Europe, so I saw a good
deal of her necessarily. She is younger than Cecilia; she's a good
deal of a kid,--the sort that never grows up, you know."
"Just like her aunt Octavia!"
"Bah! Don't mention that woman. Hezekiah is a very pretty girl; and I
suppose,--well, when you are thrown with a girl that way, seeing her
constantly"--
I clapped my hand on his knee as the light began to dawn upon me.
"You old rascal, you don't need to add a single word! I dare say you
are guilty. I can see it in your eye. After waiting till you reached
years of discretion before beginning an attack upon womankind, you
began mowing them down in platoons. So they come running now that you
've got a start. Oh, Wiggy, and I believed you immune! And you 're
trying to drive 'em tandem."
The thing was funny, knowing Wiggins as I did, and I gave expression to
my mirth; but his fierce demeanor quickly brought me back to the
serious contemplation of his difficulty.
"That, you shameless wretch, would be a sufficient reason for Miss
Octavia's aloofness,--your double-faced dealing with her nieces? You
confirm my impression that she is a wise woman. And Cecilia, I take
it, may be deeply embarrassed by her sister's infatuation for you. You
certainly have made a tangle of things, you heart-wrecker, you
conscienceless deceiver! But where, may I ask, does this Hezekiah keep
herself?"
"Oh, she's with her father. They have a bungalow over the hills there,
several miles from Hopefield Manor."
"Well, I hope you are no longer toying with her affections. Of course
you don't see her any more?"
"Well," he mumbled, "I did see her this morning. But I could n't help
it. It was the merest chance. I met her in the road when I was out
taking a walk. She 's always turning up,--she's the most unaccountable
young person."
"I suppose, Wiggy, that if you stand in the road and Miss Hezekiah
Hollister strolls by on her way to market, you fancy that she is
pursuing you. As Miss Octavia has well said, this is not a chivalrous
age. I 'm deeply disappointed in you. Your conduct and your attitude
toward this trusting young girl are disgraceful."
He rose and flung up his arms despairingly. It was much easier to
laugh at Wiggins than to be angry at him; but I recalled the message
which Cecilia had entrusted to me, and this, I thought, might give him
some comfort.
"Miss Cecilia asked me this morning to say to you that you must not try
to see her again; you must keep away from the house."
This obviously increased his dejection.
"But," I added, "I was to say that she thought nothing had yet occurred
to interfere with your ambitions, as you were not permitted to see her
alone last night. The chimney, you may remember, began playing pranks
just at the moment when Miss Hollister and I were about to adjourn to
the billiard-room, so a tête-à-tête between you and Cecilia was
impossible."
"She told you to see me?"
"She certainly did. I confess that my message does n't seem luminous,
but I have a feeling that she meant to be kind. It may be that she is
giving you time to disentangle yourself from the delectable Hezekiah's
meshes. I can't elucidate; I merely convey information. But answer
honestly if you can: has Cecilia ever by word or act refused you?"
"No," he replied grimly; "she 's never given me the chance!"
He asked me to luncheon, and on the way back to the inn, after
inquiring my plans for returning to town, he proposed that I delay my
departure until the following day. What he wanted, and he put it
bluntly, was a friend at court, and as I had seemingly satisfied him of
my entire good faith and of my devotion to his interests, he begged
that I prolong my stay in Miss Hollister's house, giving as my excuse
the condition of the chimneys of Hopefield Manor. He brushed aside my
plea of other engagements and appealed to our old friendship. He was
taking his troubles hard, and I felt that he really needed counsel and
support in the involved state of his affairs. I did not see how my
continued presence under Miss Hollister's roof could materially assist
him, and the thought of remaining there when there was no work to be
done was repugnant to my sense of professional honor; but he was so
persistent that I finally yielded.
While we ate luncheon I sought by every means to divert his thoughts to
other channels. After we were seated in the dining-room four other men
followed, exercising considerable care in placing themselves as far
from one another as possible. A few moments later a motor hummed into
the driveway, and we heard its owner ordering his chauffeur to return
to town and hold himself subject to telephone call. This latest
arrival appeared shortly in the dining-room, and surveying the rest of
us with a disdainful air, sought a table in the remotest corner of the
room. Others appeared, until eight in all had entered. The presence
of these men at this hour, their air of aloofness, and the care they
exercised in isolating themselves, interested me. They appeared to be
gentlemen; they were, indeed, suggestive of the ampler metropolitan
world; and one of them was unmistakably a foreigner.
While Wiggins appeared to ignore them, I was conscious that he reviewed
the successive arrivals with every manifestation of contempt. One of
these glum gentlemen seemed familiar; I could not at once recall him,
but something in his manner teased my memory for a moment before I
placed him. Then it dawned upon me that he was the third man I had met
in the field overhanging the garden after my eavesdropping experience
the day before. I thought it as well, however, not to mention this
fact, or to speak of the man I had seen so grimly posted in the midst
of the cornfield. I was an observer, a looker-on, at Hopefield, and my
immediate business was the collecting of information.
"Will you kindly tell me, Wiggy, who these strange gentlemen are and
just what has brought them here at this hour? They seem greatly
preoccupied, and the last one, in particular, surveyed you with a
murderous eye. If we could be translated to some such inn as this in
the environs of Paris, I should conclude that a duel was imminent and
that these gentlemen were assembling to meet after their coffee
to-morrow morning for an affair of honor."
"I know them; they are guests of the inn. Most of them were more or
less companions in our procession across Europe last summer. The one
in the tan suit is Henderson; you must have heard of him. The short
dark chap of atrabilous countenance is John Stewart Dick, who pretends
to be a philosopher. As for the others"--
He dismissed them with a jerk of the head. My wits struggled with his
explanation. It is my way to wish to reduce information to plain terms.
"Are these gentlemen, then, your rivals for the hand of Miss Cecilia
Hollister? If so, they are a solemn band of suitors, I must confess."
"You have hit it, Ames. They are suitors, assembled from all parts of
the world."
"Nice-looking fellows, except the chap with the monocle, who has just
ordered rather more liquor than a gentleman should drink at this hour."
"That is Lord Arrowood. I have feared at times that Miss Octavia
favored him."
"Possibly, but not likely. But how long is this thing going to last?
If you fellows are going to hang on here until Miss Cecilia Hollister
has chosen one of you for her husband, I shudder for your nerves. I
imagine that any one of these gentlemen is likely to begin shooting
across his plate at any minute. Such a situation would become
intolerable very quickly if I were in the game and forced to lodge
here."
"I hope," replied Wiggins with heat, "that you don't imagine these
fellows can crowd me out! I 've paid for a month's lodging in advance,
and if you will stand by me I 'm going to win."
"Spoken like a man, my dear Wiggins! You may count on me to the sweet
or bitter end, even if I pull down all the superb chimneys with which
Pepperton adorned that house up yonder."
He silently clasped my hand. A little later I telephoned from the inn
to my office explaining my absence and instructing my assistant to
visit several pressing clients; and I instructed the valet at the Hare
and Tortoise to send me a week's supply of linen and an odd suit or two.
At about three o'clock I left Wiggins in first-rate spirits and set out
on my return to Hopefield Manor. I felt the eyes of the eight other
suitors, who were scattered at intervals along the verandah, glued to
my back as I drove out of the inn yard.
VII
NINE SILK HATS CROSS A STILE
A girl in a white sweater sat on a stone wall and munched a red apple;
but this is to anticipate.
I had made a wrong turn on leaving the Prescott Arms, and I came out
presently near Katonah village. I got my bearings of a shopkeeper and
started again for Hopefield Manor; but the mid-afternoon was warm, and
the hills were steep, and as Miss Hollister's admirable cob showed
signs of weariness, I drove into a fence-corner and loosened the mare's
check. On a sunny slope several hundred yards above the highway lay an
orchard, advertised to the larcenous eye by the ruddiest of red apples.
Not in many years had I robbed an orchard, and I felt irresistibly
drawn toward the gnarled trees, which were still, in their old age,
abundantly fruitful.
When I reached the orchard I found it quite isolated, with only fallow
fields, seamed with stone fences, stretching on either hand. A spring
near by sent the slenderest of brooks flashing down the slope. There
was no house in sight anywhere, and the neglected orchard flaunted its
bright fruit with pathetic bravado. I drew down a bough and plucked my
first apple, tasted, and found it good. At my palate's first
responsive titillation, something whizzed past my ear, and following
the flight of the missile, I saw an apple of goodly size fall and roll
away into the grass. I had imagined myself utterly alone, and even
now, as I looked guiltily around, no one was in sight. The apple had
passed my ear swiftly and at an angle quite un-Newtonian. It had been
fairly aimed at my head, and the law of gravitation did not account for
it. As I continued my scrutiny of the landscape, I was addressed by a
voice whose accents were not objurgatory. Rather, the tone was
good-natured and indulgent, if not indeed a trifle patronizing. The
words were these:--
"Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!"
It was then that, lifting my eyes, I beheld, sitting lengthwise of the
wall, with her feet drawn comfortably under her, a girl in a white
sweater, bareheaded, munching an apple. There was no question of
identity: it was the girl whose head behind the cashier's grill of the
Asolando had interested me on the occasion of my second visit to the
tea-room. In soliciting my attention by reciting a line of verse, she
had merely followed the rule of the tea-room in like circumstances.
The casting of the apple at my head possessed the virtue of novelty,
but now that her shot was fired and her line spoken, she addressed
herself again to her apple. Her manner implied indifference; but her
unconcern was that of a trout not wishing to discourage the fisherman,
feigning a languid interest in a familiar fly dropped at its nose.
While I tried to think of something to say, I pecked at my own apple,
but kept an eye on her. She concluded her repast calmly and flung away
the core.
"I mentioned soup," she remarked. "The courses are mixed. We have
partaken of fruit. Are you fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring?"
"Daughter of Eve, I will be anything you like. I 'm obliged for the
apple, and I apologize for having entered Eden uninvited."
"It's not my Eden. Nobody invited me. But it's not too much to say
that these apples are grand."
"I 'm glad we 're both in the same boat. I 'm a trespasser myself. I
don't even know the name of the owner. But if you have had only one
apple, two more are coming to you, if you follow Atalanta's precedent."
"I don't follow precedents, and I 've forgotten the name of the boy who
threw the apples in the race. It does n't matter, though; nothing
matters very much."
Her hands clasped her knees. Her skirt was short, and I was conscious
that she wore tan shoes. She continued to regard me with lazy
curiosity. She seemed younger than at the Asolando. Not more than
eighteen times had apples reddened on the bough in her lifetime! She
was even slenderer and more youthful in her sweater than in the snowy
vestments of the Asolando. Her hair which, in the glow of the lamp at
Asolando cash-desk had been golden, was to-day burnished copper, and
was brushed straight back from her forehead and tied with a black
ribbon.
"I quite agree with your philosophy. Nothing is of great importance."
"So it's not your orchard?" she asked.
"The thought flatters me. I own no lands nor ships at sea. I 'm a
chimney doctor, and if necessary I 'll apologize for it."
"You needn't submit testimonials; I take the swallows out of my own
chimneys."
"That requires a deft hand, and I 'm sure you 're considerate of the
swallows."
"You may come up here and sit on the wall if you care to. I saw you
driving in a trap. I hope your horse is n't afraid of motors; motors
speed scandalously on that road."
"I am not in the least worried about my horse. It's borrowed. As you
remarked, this is a nice orchard. I like it here."
"If you are going to be silly, you will find me little inclined to
nonsense."
"Shall we talk of the Asolando? I haven't been back since I saw you
there. And yet,--let me see, is n't this your day there?"
She seemed greatly amused; and her laughter rose with a fountain-like
spontaneity, and fell, a splash of musical sound, on the mellow air of
the orchard. She had changed her position as I joined her, sitting
erect, and kicking her heels lazily against the wall.
"Mr. Chimney Man, something terrible happened just after you left that
afternoon. I was bounced, fired; I lost my job."
"Incredible! I 'm sure it was not for any good cause. I can testify
that you were a model of attention; you were surpassingly discreet.
You repelled me in the most delicate manner when I intimated that I
should come often on the days that you made the change."
"The sad part of it was that that was not only my last day but my
first! I had never been there before, except for a nibble now and then
when I was in town. But I could n't stand it. It was like being in
jail; in fact, I think jail would be preferable. But I 'm glad I spent
that one day there. It proved what I have long believed, that I am a
barbarian. That poetry on the walls of the Asolando made me tired, not
that it is n't good poetry, but that the walls of a tea-shop are no
place for it. I always suspect that people who like their poetry
framed, and who have uplift mottoes stuck in mirrors where they can
study them while they brush their hair in the morning, never really get
any poetry inside of them. You need a place like this for poetry,--an
old orchard, with blue sky and a crumbly wall to sit on. I tried the
Asolando as a lark, really, not because I 'm deeply entertained by that
sort of thing. They dispensed with my company because I remarked to
one of the silly girls who are making the Asolando their life-work that
I thought the English Pre-Raphaelites had carried the dish-face rather
too far. The girl to whom I uttered this heresy was so shocked she
dropped a tea-cup,--you know how brittle everything is in there,--and I
came home. You were really the only adventure I got out of my day
there. And I did n't find you entirely satisfactory."
"Thank you, Francesca, for these confidences. And having lost your
position you are now free to roam the hills and dream on orchard walls.
Your scheme of life is to my liking. I can see with half an eye that
you were born for the open, and that the walls of no prison-house can
ever hold you again."
She nodded a dreamy acquiescence. Then she turned two very brown eyes
full upon me and demanded:--
"What is your name, please?"
I mentioned it.
"And you doctor chimneys? That sounds very amusing."
"I 'm glad you like it. Most people think it absurd."
"What are you doing here? There's not a chimney in sight."
"Oh, I have a commission in the neighborhood. Hopefield Manor; you may
have heard of Miss Hollister's place."
"Of course; every one knows of her."
"And now that I think of it, it was she about whom you asked in the
Asolando that afternoon. You wanted to know what she said about the
tea-room."
"I remember perfectly."
She was quiet for a moment, then she threw back her head and laughed
that rare laugh of hers.
"You might let me into the joke."
"It would n't mean anything to you. I have a lot of private jokes that
are for my own consumption."
"Your way of laughing is adorable. I hope to hear more of it. In the
Asolando you repulsed me in a manner that won my admiration, but I
venture to say now that, if you roam these pastures, I am the grass
beneath your feet; and if yonder tuneful water be sacred to you, I sit
beside the brook to learn its song."
"You talk well, sir, but from your tone I fear you can't forget that we
met first in the Asolando. That day of my life is past, and I am by no
means what you might call an Asolandad. I don't seem to impress you
with that fact. I 'm a human being, not to be picked like a red apple,
or trampled upon like grass, or listened to as though I were a foolish
little brook. I 'm greatly given to the highway, and I prefer macadam.
I like asphalt pavements, too, for the matter of that. I should love a
motor, but lacking the coin I pedal a bicycle. My wheel lies down
there in the bushes. You see, Mr. Chimney Man, I am a plain-spoken
person and have no intention of deceiving you. My name was Francesca
for one day only. It may interest you to know that my real name is
Hezekiah."
"Hezekiah!"
I must have shouted it; she seemed startled by my violence.
"You have pronounced it correctly," she remarked.
"Then you are Cecilia's sister and Miss Hollister's niece."
"Guilty."
"And you live?"--
"Over there somewhere, beyond that ridge," and she waved her hand
vaguely toward the village and laughed again.
"Pray tell me what this particular joke is: it must be immensely
funny," I urged, struggling with these new facts.
"Oh, it's Aunt Octavia! She will be the death of me yet! You know the
girl who waited on Aunt Octavia that afternoon took all that artistic
nonsense as seriously as a funeral, and she told me after you left,
with the greatest horror, that Aunt Octavia had asked for a cocktail!"
That laugh rippled off again to carry joy along the planet-trails above
us. "But you know," she resumed, "that Aunt Octavia never drank a
cocktail in her life,--and would n't! She does n't know a cocktail
from soothing syrup! She pines for adventures. She is just like a
boarding-school girl who has read her first romance of the young
American engineer in a South American republic, shooting the insurgents
full of tortillas and marrying the president's dark-eyed daughter. She
reads pirate books and is crazy about buried chests and pieces of
eight. And they say I 'm just like her! She is the most perfectly
killing person in the world!"
Hezekiah laughed again.
So this was the child whose devotion had rendered Wiggins so miserable,
and the sister of whom Cecilia Hollister and her aunt had spoken so
strangely. I had not suspected it. She was as unlike Cecilia as
possible, and the difference lay in her independent spirit and bubbling
humor. Her individuality was more pronounced. You took her, without
debate, on her own ground; and though she had expressed a preference
for macadam, she seemed related to the days when maidens sat on sunny
walls and were not disappointed in their expectation that light-footed
youths, or mayhap winged sons of the Olympians, would reward patient
waiting. But at the same time she struck the note of modernity. Her
flings at the Asolando were reassuring; she was a healthy-minded,
vigorous young woman whose nature protested against affectation and
pose. She rebelled against closed doors, whether those of town or
country. I am myself much of a cockney, and not averse to asphalt and
streets ablaze with electric banners. My imagination sprang to meet
this Hezekiah. I had, in fact, a feeling that I had waited for her
somewhere in some earlier incarnation. She jumped down from the wall,
shook three apples from a tree, and sustained them in the air with the
deftness and certainty of practised _jonglerie_. Her absorption was
complete, and when she wearied of this sport, she flung the apples
away, one after the other, with a boy's free swing of the arm. Herrick
would have delighted in her; Dobson would have spun her bright hair
into a rondeau; but only Aldrich, with a twinkle in his eye, could have
brought her up to date in a dozen chiming couplets. I felt that no
matter how much one admired and respected this Hezekiah one would never
deal with her in the phrases of drawing-rooms. Her charming
inadvertences made this impossible; and it was the part of discretion
to await her own initiative.
She had gone on up to the crest of the orchard, and stood clearly
limned against the sky, her hands thrust into the pockets of her
sweater. She appeared to be intent upon something that lay beyond, and
half turned her head and summoned me by whistling. I liked this better
than the quotation method of address. It was a clear shrill pipe, that
whistle, and she emphasized it further by a peremptory wave of her arm.
When I stood beside her I was surprised to find that the site commanded
a wide area, including the unmistakable roofs and chimneys of Hopefield
Manor half a mile distant.
[Illustration: She emphasized it further by a peremptory wave of her
arm.]
"You will see something funny down there in a minute. They are out of
sight now, but there 's a stile--the kind with steps, just beyond those
trees. It's in a path that leads from the Prescott Arms to Aunt
Octavia's. Look!"
My eyes discovered the stile. It was set in a wall that was, she told
me, the boundary dividing Hopefield Manor from another estate nearer
our position.
Suddenly a silk hat bobbed in the path beyond the stile; it rose as its
owner mounted the steps; it paused an instant when the top of the stile
was reached; then quickly descended, and came toward us, a black blot
above a black coat. I was about to ask her the meaning of this
apparition when a second silk hat bobbed in the path and then rose like
its predecessor, descending and keeping on its way until hidden from
our sight by shrubbery. A third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
eighth, and ninth followed. Nine gentlemen in silk hats crossing a
stile in a lonely pasture between woodlands; so much was plain to the
eye from our vantage-ground; but I groped blindly for an explanation of
this spectacle. The bobbing hats and dark coats suggested wanderers
from some dark Plutonian cave, bent upon mischief to the upper world.
Their step was jaunty; they moved as though drilled to the same cadence.
We waited a moment, expecting that another figure might join the
strange procession, but nine was the correct count. I looked down to
find Hezekiah checking them off on the fingers of her slim brown hand.
"Has there been a funeral and are they the returning pall-bearers?" I
inquired.
"Not yet," she replied.
Her face showed amusement; the twitching of her lips encouraged hope
that another of those delightful laughs was imminent.
"It was positively weird," I said. "It reminds me of a dream I used to
have, when I was a boy, of a long line of Chinamen running along the
top of a great wall,--an interminable procession. I must have dreamed
that dream a hundred times. I could hear the pigtails of those fellows
flapping against their backs as they trotted along, and the soft
scraping of their sandals on the smooth surface of the wall. But the
pot hats are equally eerie and unaccountable to my dull
twentieth-century senses. Pray tell me the answer, Hezekiah."
"Oh, those are Cecilia's suitors. They've been to Aunt Octavia's to
tea. They 're staying at the Prescott Arms probably."
"They 're terribly formal. I can't get rid of the impression of
sombreness created by those fellows. You 'd hardly expect them to
tramp cross country in those duds. Such grandeur should go on wheels."
"Oh, they are afraid of Aunt Octavia! She won't allow a motor on her
grounds; and I suppose they 're afraid they might break some other rule
if they went on any kind of wheels. She 's rather exacting, you know,
my aunt Octavia."
"I was at the Prescott for luncheon to-day, and I must have seen these
gentlemen there."
"Oh, _you_ were at the Prescott?"
Almost for the first time her manner betrayed surprise; but mischief
danced in the brown eyes. With Wiggins's confession as to the havoc he
had played with Hezekiah's confiding heart fresh in my memory, I felt a
delicacy about telling her that it was to see Wiggins that I had
visited the inn. But to my surprise she introduced the subject of
Wiggins immediately, and with laughter struggling for one of those
fountain-like splashes that were so beguiling.
"Oh, Wiggy is staying there! Do you know Wiggy?"
"Know Wiggy, Hezekiah? I know no man better."
"Wiggy is no end of fun, isn't he? I've heard him speak of you. You
are his friend the Chimney Man. He was the last man over the stile.
Did you notice that he lingered a moment longer at the top than the
others? From his being the ninth man I imagine that he was the last to
leave the house, and he probably felt that this set him apart from the
others. Wiggy is nothing if not shy and retiring."
A heart-broken, love-lorn girl did not speak here. She whistled softly
to herself as we descended. The air was cooling rapidly, and the west
was hung in scarlet and purple and gold. The horse neighed in the road
below, and I knew that I must be on my way to the Manor.
"Hezekiah," I said, when I had drawn her bicycle from its hiding-place,
"you 'd better leave your wheel here and let me drive you home. It's
late and there 's frost in the air. I imagine it's some distance to
your house."
"Thank you, Mr. Chimney Man; but it is much farther to Aunt Octavia's,
for you have to make a long circuit around the hills. And besides, as
we met in the orchard, it would be altogether too commonplace a
conclusion of our adventure for you to drive me home behind a mere
horse. But tell me this: what do you think of Wiggy's chances?"
"Of winning your sister? I should say from my knowledge of Wiggins
that he is a man much given to staying in a game once the cards are
shuffled."
She nodded, standing beside her wheel, her hands on the bars. Her
manner was contemplative; her eyes for a moment were deep, shadowless
pools of reverie.
"Then you think he knows the game?"
There seemed to be something beneath the surface meaning of her words,
but I answered:--
"Wiggy's affairs have been few, and while he may not know the game in
all its intricacies, he has a shrewd if rather slow mind, and besides,
he has asked my help in the matter."
"One of these speak-for-yourself-John situations, then? Well, I should
say, Mr. Chimney Man, I should say"--
She made ready for flight, looking ahead to be sure of a clear
thoroughfare.
"I should say," she concluded, settling her skirts, "that that
indicates considerable intelligence on Wiggy's part."
The tires rolled smoothly away; the gravel crunching, the pebbles
popping. The white sweater clasped a straight back snugly; then
suddenly, as the wheels gained momentum, she bent low for a spurt, and
her rapidly receding figure became a gray blur in the purple dusk.
VIII
CECILIA'S SILVER NOTE-BOOK
Miss Octavia was in the gayest spirits at dinner that night, and struck
afield at once with one of her amusing dicta.
"Human beings," she said, "may be divided into two groups,--interesting
and uninteresting; but idiots abound in both classes."
Cecilia and I discussed this with more or less gravity, until we had
exhausted the possibilities, Miss Octavia following with apparent
interest and setting us off at a new tangent when our enthusiasm
lagged. She referred in no way whatever to her chimneys, nor did she
ask me how I had spent the day. I felt the pleading of Cecilia's eyes
that I should accept the situation as it stood, and having already
agreed to Wiggins's suggestion that I abide in Miss Hollister's house
as a spy,--for this was the ignoble fact,--I felt the threads of
conspiracy binding me fast. So far as my hostess was concerned, I was
now less a guest than a member of the household.
The variety of subjects that Miss Octavia suggested was amazing. From
aeronautics to the negro question, from polar exploration to the
political conditions in Bulgaria, she passed with the jauntiest
insouciance and apparently with a considerable fund of information to
support her positions. She knew many people in all walks of life. I
remember that she spoke with the greatest freedom of the Governor of
Indiana, whom she had met on a railway journey. She quoted this
gentleman's utterances with keenest zest. His anecdotal range she
declared to be the widest and raciest she had ever encountered in a
considerable acquaintance with public characters. She thought the
Hoosier statesman eminently fitted by reason of his acute sense of
humor for the office of president.
"That man," said Miss Octavia, "was splendidly equipped for handling
the most perplexing affairs of state. It seemed absurd that his public
services should be limited to the petty business of a commonwealth
whose chief products are pawpaws, persimmons, and politics. The
governor told me that before his election he had been sorely beset by
reformers. They had teased him persistently to express his views on
the most absurd questions. They wanted him to promise all manner of
things before they gave him their support. And finally, to appease
them, he answered that he would combine their questions in one and
reply to all that, the earth being round, he would, if elected, do all
in his power to make it square. This he found to be perfectly
satisfactory to the reformers. Solomon was a mere tyro in wisdom
compared with that man. You would n't expect so much sagacity in one
who, by his own frank confession, had been raised on fried meat, and
who declared that if grand opera were attempted in his state he would
suspend the writ of habeas corpus and call out the militia to suppress
it."
I was not at all sure whether the governor whom she quoted with so
great delight was an actual person or a myth upon whom Miss Octavia
hung her own whimsicalities; but as if to rebuke my skepticism, she
dwelt on this personage at considerable length, inviting my own and
Cecilia's questions as to her knowledge of him.
"I didn't suppose," remarked Cecilia provocatively, "that Indiana was
really a place that you could go to on trains, but a kind of imaginary
kingdom like Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld or Grunewald or Zenda, or an extinct
place in Asia where lions crouch upon the ruins in the moonlight."
"Indiana," said Miss Octavia sternly, "is a commonwealth for which I
have always had the greatest veneration, and which, in due course, I
hope to visit. In the early seventies my father, the late Hezekiah
Hollister, invested a considerable part of his fortune in Indiana
farm-mortgages. On these investments the interest was paid with only
the greatest reluctance and in the most fitful fashion. This, I think,
argues for a keen sense of humor in the Hoosier people. Interest is
something that I should never think of paying in any circumstances, as
I have always considered it immoral. My father, keenly enjoying the
playfulness of the Hoosiers in this particular, saved himself from loss
merely by raising the price of baby-cabs throughout the world, and gave
the mortgages as a free gift to the Society for the Amelioration of the
Condition of Good Indians. All the good Indians being dead, the
society had no expenses except officers' salaries, and as the Hoosiers
gave up politics for a season and raised enough corn to pay their
debts, the society became enormously rich."
As we rose from the table Miss Octavia declared that she must show me
the pie-pantry. I was now so accustomed to her ways that I should not
have been in the least surprised if she had proposed opening a steel
vault filled with a mummified Egyptian dynasty.
"The gentleman who built this house," she explained, "had already grown
rich in the manufacture of the famous ribless umbrella before he
acquired a second fortune from a nostrum warranted to cure dyspepsia.
He was inordinately fond of pies, and in order that this form of pastry
might never be absent from his home, he had a special pantry built to
which he might adjourn at his pleasure without any fear of finding the
cupboard bare."
She led the way through the butler's pantry and into a small cupboarded
room adjoining the table-linen closet. At her command the butler threw
open the doors, and disclosed lines of shelves so arranged as to
accommodate, in the most compact and orderly form imaginable, several
dozens of pies. These pastries, in the pans as they had come from the
oven, peeped out invitingly. Miss Octavia explained their presence in
her usual impressive manner.
"It was one of the conditions of the sale of this house to me by the
original owner's executors that the pie-vault should be kept filled at
all times, whether I am in residence here or not. He felt greatly
indebted to pie for the success of the dyspepsia cure. It had widened
and steadily increased the market for the cure, and pie was to him a
consecrated and sacred food. It was his habit to eat a pie every night
before retiring, and on the nightmares thus inspired he had planned the
strategy of all his campaigns against dyspepsia. The man had elements
of greatness, and these shelves are a monument to his genius. In order
to keep perfect my title to this property it is necessary for me to
maintain a pastry-cook, and as I do not myself care greatly for
pie--though contrary to common experience I have found it a splendid
antephialtic--the total output is distributed among the people of the
neighborhood every second day. The station agent at Bedford is a heavy
consumer, and a retired physician at Mt. Kisco has a standing order for
a dozen a week. My niece Hezekiah, of whom you have heard me speak, is
partial to a particular type of pie and one only. It is the gooseberry
that delights Hezekiah's palate, and under G in File 3, in the corner
behind you, there is even now a gooseberry pie that I shall send to
Hezekiah, who, for reasons I need not explain, does not now visit here."
"But the dyspepsia man--you speak of him as though he were dead."
"Your assumption is correct, Mr. Ames. The builder of Hopefield died
only a few weeks after he had established himself in this house.
Having entered upon the enjoyment of his well-earned leisure, and made
it unnecessary that he should ever go pieless to bed, he gave himself
up for a fortnight to a mad indulgence in meringues, and died after
great suffering, steadily refusing his own medicine to the end."
We still lingered in the pie-crypt after this diverting recital, while
Miss Octavia entertained me with her views on pies.
"The soul-color of pies varies greatly, Mr. Ames. It has always seemed
to me that apple-pie stands for the homelier virtues of our
civilization; it is substantial, nutritious and filling. The custard
and lemon varieties are feminine, and do not, perhaps for that reason,
appeal to me. Cherry-pie at its best is the last and final expression
of the pie genus, and where cooks have been careful in eliminating the
seeds, and the juice hasn't made sodden dough of the crust, a
cherry-pie meets the soul's highest demands. Grape and raisin-pie are
on my cook's _index expurgatorius_; I consider them neither palatable
nor respectable. But rhubarb is the most odious pie of all, in my
judgment. It suggests the pharmacopoeia--only that and no thing more.
You will pardon me for mentioning the matter, but one of my gardeners,
a Swiss, crawled in here two nights ago and stole a rhubarb-pie, which,
I rejoice to say, made him hideously ill. The R's, you will notice,
are placed near the floor and within easy reach of any larcenous hand.
The ease of his approach was his undoing. The pumpkin variety reaches
almost the same lofty heights as the cherry. When not over-dosed with
spices, a pumpkin-pie conveys a sense of the October landscape that is
the despair of the best painters. In the gooseberry I find a certain
raciness, or if I may use the expression, zip, that is highly
stimulating. Both qualities you will observe in Hezekiah if you come
to know her well. The thought of blackberry or raspberry-pie depresses
me, but huckleberry buoys the spirit again. The huckleberry seems to
me to voice a protest, and unless managed with the greatest neatness
and circumspection it is bound to stimulate the laundry business. As
any one who would eat a cooked strawberry would steal a sick baby's
rattle, I need hardly say that the strawberry-pies, even in their
season, shall have no place on these shelves."
"So it is the gooseberry that Miss Hezekiah prefers," I remarked with
feigned carelessness, as we walked toward the library.
"It is, Mr. Ames; and I trust that your inquiry implies no reflection
on Hezekiah's judgment."
"Quite the reverse, Miss Hollister. It is not going too far to say
that I have formed a high opinion of Miss Hezekiah, and that I should
deal harshly with any one who ventured to criticise her in any
particular."
"Will you kindly inform me just when you made the acquaintance of my
younger niece? I should greatly dislike to believe you guilty of
dissimulation, but when Hezekiah was mentioned in the gun-room last
night your silence led me to assume that she was wholly unknown to you."
"She was, I assure you, at the dinner-hour last night; but I met her
quite by chance this afternoon, in an orchard at no great distance from
this house."
I did not think it necessary to mention the Asolando, as Hezekiah
herself had taken pains to avoid her aunt in the tea room. It was
clear that my words had interested Miss Octavia. She paused in the
hall, and bent her head in thought for a moment.
"May I inquire whether she referred in any way to Mr. Wiggins in this
interview?"
"She did, Miss Hollister," I replied; and I could not help smiling as I
remembered Hezekiah's laughter at the mention of my friend. My smile
did not escape Miss Octavia.
"Just how, may I ask, did she refer to Mr. Wiggins?"
"As though she thought him the funniest of human beings. She laughed
deliciously at the bare mention of his name."
"It was not your impression, then, that she was deeply enamored of him;
that she was eating her heart out for him?"
"Decidedly not, Miss Hollister. She gave me quite a different idea."
"You relieve me greatly. Mr. Wiggins's sense of humor is the
slightest, and I should not in the least fancy him for Hezekiah. And
besides, I am not yet ready to arrange a marriage for her."
She laid the slightest stress on the final pronoun. It was a fair
inference, then, that Miss Cecilia's affairs were being "arranged;"
when they had been determined, a husband would be found for Hezekiah.
But had there ever existed before, anywhere in the Copernican system, a
wealthy aunt so delightfully irresponsible, so vertiginous in her
mental processes, so happily combining the maddest quixotism with the
bold spirit of the Elizabethan mariners! My faith in the real
sweetness and kindliness of her nature was unshaken by her
capriciousness. I did not doubt that her intentions toward her nieces
were the friendliest, no matter what strange devices she might employ
to bend those young women to her purposes.
She disappeared in the hall without excuse, and I entered the library
to find Cecilia sitting alone by the fire. She put aside a book she
had been reading, and seeing that her aunt had not followed me, asked
at once as to my visit to the inn.
"I conveyed your message," I answered; "but you have seen Mr. Wiggins
since, unless I am greatly mistaken."
"Yes; he called this afternoon. We had several callers at the
tea-hour. I had rather expected you back."
"The fact is," I replied, "that after I had taken luncheon at the
Prescott Arms, I got lost among the hills, and while in the act of
robbing an apple-orchard I came most unexpectedly upon your sister."
"Hezekiah!"
"The same; and oddly enough, I had met her before, though I did n't
realize it was she until the meeting in the orchard. It was in the
Asolando that I saw her; she was at the cashier's wicket the afternoon
I met your aunt there."
She seemed puzzled for a moment; then her eyes brightened, and she
laughed; but her laugh was not like Hezekiah's. Cecilia's mirth had
its own expression. It was touched with a sweet gravity, and her
laughter was such as one would expect from the Milo if that divine
marble were to yield to mirth. Cecilia grew upon me: there was magic
in her loveliness; she was a finished product. It seemed inconceivable
that she and the fair-haired girl with whom I had exchanged banter in
the upland orchard were daughters of one mother.
"You have given me information, Mr. Ames. I did not know that Hezekiah
had ever been connected with the Asolando."
"Oh, it was only that one historic day. She says the place was
unbearable. She jarred the holiest chords of the divine lyre by harsh
comments on the Pre-Raphaelite profile. One of the devotees was so
shocked that she dropped a plate or something, and, to put it coarsely,
Hezekiah got the bounce."
My description of Hezekiah's brief tenure of office at the Asolando
seemed to amuse Cecilia greatly.
"There is no one like my sister," she said; "there never was and there
never will be any one half so charming. Hezekiah is an original, who
breaks all the rules and yet always sends the ball over the net. And
it is because she is so inexpressibly dear and precious that I am
anxious that nothing shall ever hurt her,--nothing mar the sweet,
beautiful child-spirit in her."
It was my turn to laugh now. Cecilia's manifestation of maternal
solicitude for Hezekiah seemed absurd. For Hezekiah, in her way, was
older; Hezekiah had raced with Diana and plucked arrows from her
girdle; she had heard Homer at the roadside singing of Achilles' shield.
"Hezekiah is reasonably safe, I should say, because she is so amazingly
swift of foot and eye, and so nimble of speech. She is not to be
caught in a net or tripped with a word."
"I suppose that is so," remarked Cecilia soberly. "You thought her
happy when you met her to-day? She did not strike you as being a girl
with a wound in her heart? She was n't particularly _triste_?"
"Not more so than sunlight on rippled water or the song of the lark
ascending."
"Of course you made no reference to Mr. Wiggins? If I had imagined you
would meet her I should have"--
She ended with an embarrassment that I now understood, and I broke in
cheerfully.
"We did mention him. She asked me if I had seen him, and it was the
thought of him that evoked her merriest laughter."
She shook her head and sighed; then her manner changed abruptly.
"You delivered my message to Mr. Wiggins?"
"I did. He is badly out of sorts and sees nothing clearly. He is very
bitter toward your aunt. He thinks she has treated him outrageously."
"Aunt Octavia has done nothing of the kind," she replied with spirit.
"Mr. Wiggins has no right to speak of Aunt Octavia save in terms of
kindness. If her wits are sharper than his, it is not her fault, that
I can see! But there are matters here that I do not understand, Mr.
Ames. I trust you, as my aunt evidently does, or I should not be
talking to you as I am; and I am moved to ask a favor of you,--a favor
of considerable weight in view of the fact that you are a professional
man with doubtless many pressing calls upon your time."
I bowed humbly before this compliment. My time had been lightly
appraised by Miss Octavia and again by Wiggins. A long telegram from
my assistant that reached me while I dressed for dinner had urged my
immediate attendance upon my office. Some of my best clients, now
reopening their houses for the winter, were in desperate straits. From
the number of appeals for help reported by my assistant I judged that
all the chimneys in the republic had grown obstreperous. But Father
Time learned early in his career that to women his scythe's edge has no
terrors. In this instance I must admit that if Cecilia Hollister
wished to cut a few days out of my reasonable expectation of life it
was not for me to plead sick chimneys as an excuse for declining to
serve her.
In fact, I had never found myself so close upon the heels of the
adventure that we all crave as since making the acquaintance of the
Hollisters. Octavia Hollisters do not occur in the life of every young
man, and both Cecilia and Hezekiah had taken strong hold upon my
imagination. Wiggins's place among the dramatis personæ would in
itself have compelled my sympathetic attention; and the nine silk hats
that I had seen bobbing over the stile still danced before my eyes.
"Miss Hollister," I said, "my time is yours to command. My office is
well organized, and I am sure that my assistant is equal to any demands
that may be made upon him. Pray state in what manner I may serve you."
"I am going far, I know, Mr. Ames, but I beg that you will not be in
haste to leave my aunt's house. She must have been strongly prejudiced
in your favor, or she would not have asked you here on so short
acquaintance. I am confident that she has no thought of your leaving.
She expressed her great liking for you at luncheon, and I am sure that
she will see to it that you do not lack for entertainment. I assume
that you must have gathered from what Mr. Wiggins told you of my
acquaintance with him the peculiar plight in which I am placed."
I bowed. If she groped in the dark and needed my help in finding the
light, I was not the man to desert her. I had dropped my plumb-line
into too many dark chimneys not to feel the fascination of mystery. As
I expressed again my entire willingness to abide at Hopefield Manor as
long as she wished, the footman announced Mr. Hartley Wiggins.
We had hardly exchanged greetings before another man was announced, and
then another. I should say that it was at intervals of about three
minutes that the sedate servant appeared in the curtained doorway and
announced a caller, until nine had been admitted. My spirits soared
high as the gentlemen from the Prescott Arms appeared one after the
other. The earlier arrivals rose to greet the later ones,--and as they
were all in evening clothes I experienced, as when I had seen the same
gentlemen in their afternoon raiment crossing the stile, a sense of
something fantastic and eerie in them. There was nothing unusual about
them, taken as individuals; collectively they were like life-size
studies in black and white that had stepped from their frames for an
evening's recreation. Cecilia introduced me in the order of their
arrival; and in the interest of brevity, and to avoid confusion, I
tabulate them here, with a notation as to their residence and
occupation, taking such data from the notebook in which, at subsequent
dates, I set down the facts which are the basis of this chronicle.
HARTLEY WIGGINS, Lawyer and Farmer; Hare and Tortoise Club, New York.
LINNÆUS B. HENDERSON, Planter; Roanoke, Virginia.
CECIL HUGH, LORD ARROWOOD, no occupation; Arrowood, Hants, England.
DANIEL P. ORMSBY, Manufacturer of Knit Goods; Utica, New York.
S. FORREST HUME, Lecturer on Scandinavian Literature, Occidental
University; Long Trail, Oklahoma.
JOHN STEWART DICK, Pragmatist; Omaha, Nebraska.
PENDENNIS J. ARBUTHNOT, Banker and Horseman; Lexington, Kentucky.
PERCIVAL B. SHALLENBERGER, Novelist and Small Fruits; Sycamore, Indiana.
GEORGE W. GORSE, Capitalist; Redlands, California.
We rose and stood in our several places when, a moment later, Miss
Octavia entered. She greeted the suitors graciously, and then, in her
most charming manner, called one after the other to sit beside her on a
long davenport, the time apportioned being weighed with nicety, so that
none might feel himself slighted or preferred. These interviews
consumed more than half an hour, and the movement thus occasioned gave
considerable animation to the scene.
It may seem ridiculous that nine gentlemen thus paying court to a young
woman should call upon her at the same hour, but I must say that the
gravity of the suitors and the entire sobriety of Cecilia did not
affect me humorously. Nor did I feel at all out of place in this
strange company. I found myself agreeably engaged for several minutes
in discussing Ibsen with the Oklahoma professor, who proved to be a
delightful fellow. His experience of life was apparently wide, and he
told me with an engaging frankness of his meeting with the Hollisters
in France and of his pursuit of them over many weary parasangs the
previous summer. As no one had elected his courses in the university
at the beginning of the fall term, he had been granted a leave of
absence, and this accounted for his freedom to press his suit at
Hopefield Manor at this season. He was a big fellow, with clean-cut
features, and bore himself with a manly determination that I found
attractive.
He alone, I may say, of the nine men who had thus appeared in Miss
Octavia's library, met me in a cordial spirit. Even Wiggins seemed not
wholly pleased to find me there again, though he had asked me to
remain. The manner of the others expressed either disdain, suspicion,
or fierce hostility, and Lord Arrowood, who was older than the others
and a man well advanced toward middle age, glared at me so savagely
with his pale blue eyes, that I should have laughed in his face in any
other circumstances.
When the last man rose from the davenport, Miss Octavia called me to
her side. She seemed contrite at having neglected me during the day,
but assured me that later she hoped to place an entire day at my
disposal. As we talked, the nine suitors sat in a semicircle about
Cecilia, while the group listened to an anecdotal exchange between
Professor Hume and Henderson, the Virginia planter. My opinion of
Cecilia Hollister as a girl of high spirit, able to carry off any
situation no matter how difficult, rose to new altitudes as I watched
her. If this strange wooing _en bloc_ was not to her liking, she
certainly made the best of it. She capped Henderson's best story with
a better one, in negro dialect, and no professional entertainer could
have improved upon her recital. As she finished we all joined in the
general laugh, Lord Arrowood's guffaw booming out a trifle
boisterously, when Miss Octavia quietly rose and excused herself.
About five minutes later, when the company had plunged into another
series of anecdotes, I suddenly became conscious that the fireplace,
near which I sat, had all at once begun to act strangely. Much in the
manner of its performance the previous night, it abruptly gasped and
choked; the smoke ballooned in a great swirl and then poured out into
the room.
After my examination of the flues in the morning, I had dismissed them
from my mind, and this extraordinary behavior of the library fireplace
astounded me. It is not in reason that a perfectly normal fireplace,
built in the most approved fashion, and with chimneys that rise into as
clear an ether as October can bestow, could act so monstrously without
the intervention of some malign agency. We had discussed all the
possibilities the previous night, and I was not anxious to hear further
lay opinions. The chimney's conduct was annoying, the more so that to
my professional sense it was inexplicable.
Lord Arrowood had retreated discreetly toward the door, and the others
had risen and stood close behind Cecilia, whose gaze was bent rather
accusingly upon me.
A dark thought had crossed my mind. As our eyes met, I felt that she
had read my suspicions and did not wholly reject them. Henderson was
valiantly poking the logs, while one or two of the other men gave him
the benefit of their advice. I crossed the hall to the drawing-room,
but no one was there. I went back to the billiard-room, but saw
nothing of Miss Octavia. Cecilia had rung for the footman, and I
passed him in the hall on his way to answer her summons. I stopped him
with an inquiry on my lips; but I could not ask the question; even in
my perplexity as to the cause of the chimney's remarkable performances
I did not so far forget myself as to communicate my suspicion to a
servant.
"Nothing, Thomas," I said; and the man passed on.
It was possible, of course, that Miss Octavia knew more than she cared
to tell about the erratic ways of the library chimney, or she might
indeed be the cause of its vagaries. Sufficient time had elapsed after
her retirement from the library to allow her to gain the roof and clap
a stopper on the chimney-pot. This did not however account for the
fact that on the previous evening she had been present in the library
when the same chimney had manifested a similar sulkiness. I was still
pondering these things when I heard loud laughter from the library, and
on returning found the logs again blazing in the fireplace, from which
the smoke rose demurely in the flue.
"This fireplace is like a geyser, Mr. Ames," said Cecilia, "and spurts
smoke at regular intervals. As I remember, the clock on the stair was
striking nine last night when the smoke poured out, and there--it is
striking nine now!"
She tossed her head slightly; and this was, I thought, in disdain of
the suspicion that must still have shown itself a little stubbornly in
my face.
I withdrew again in a few minutes, and followed the great chimney's
course upward. Miss Octavia's apartments were at the front of the
house, her sitting-room windows looking out upon the Italian garden.
Her doors were closed, but I knew from my examination in the morning
that the flue of her fireplace tapped the chimney that rose from the
drawing-room, and had nothing whatever to do with the library chimney.
From the fourth floor I gained the roof, by the route followed on my
inspection of the house in the morning. The smoke from the library
chimney was rising in the crisp, still air blithely. I leaned upon the
crenelations and looked off across the hills, enjoying the loveliness
of the sky, in which the planets throbbed superbly. There was nothing
to be learned here, and I crept back to the trap-door through which I
had come, made it fast, and continued on down to the library.
There, somewhat to my surprise, I found that in my absence all but Hume
had taken their departure. As I paused unseen in the doorway, I caught
words that were clearly not intended for my ear.
Cecilia sat by the long table near the fireplace; Hume stood before
her, his arms folded.
"You are kind; you do me great honor, Professor Hume, but under no
circumstances can I become your wife."
I retreated hastily to the billiard-room, where I took a cue from the
rack and amused myself for perhaps fifteen minutes, when, hearing the
outer door close and knowing that Hume had departed with his congee, I
returned to the library.
Cecilia sat where I had left her, and at first glance I thought she was
reading; but she turned quickly as I crossed the room. She held in her
hand an oblong silver trinket not larger than a card-case. A short
pencil similar to those affixed to dance-cards was attached to it by a
slight cord, and she had, I inferred, been making a notation of some
kind on a leaf of the silver-bound booklet. Even after she had looked
up and smiled at me, her eyes sought the page before her; then she
closed the covers and clasped the pretty toy in her hand. As though to
divert my attention she recurred at once to the chimney, in a vein of
light irony.
"You see," she said, "there is ample reason for your remaining here.
You would hardly find anywhere else so interesting a test of your
professional powers as Hopefield Manor offers. The house is haunted
beyond question, and I can see that you are not a man to leave two
defenseless women to the mercy of a ghost who drops down chimneys at
will."
I suffered her chaff for several minutes, then I asked point-blank:--
"Pardon me, but have you the slightest idea that Miss Octavia is behind
this? It is not possible that she was responsible last night; but she
was not on this floor a while ago when the smoke poured in here. I
should be glad to hear your opinion."
"I saw that you suspected her before you left the room, Mr. Ames, and I
must say that the idea is in no way creditable to you. If you
entertain such a suspicion you must supply a motive, and just what
motive would you attribute to my Aunt Octavia in this instance?"
Her tone and manner piqued me, or I should not have answered as I did.
"It is possible," I said, "that some of these gentlemen who came here
to-night were not to her liking, and it may have occurred to her to get
rid of them by the obviously successful method of smoking them out."
She rose, still clasping the little silver-backed note-book, and looked
me over with amusement in her face and eyes.
"You are almost too ingenious, Mr. Ames. I hope that by breakfast-time
you will have some more plausible solution of the problem. Good-night."
And so, tightly clasping the little book, she left the room. I
followed her to the door, and at the turn of the stair she glanced down
and nodded. Her face, as it hung above me for an instant, seemed
transfigured with happiness.
But, as will appear, my adventures for the day were not concluded.
IX
I MEET A PLAYFUL GHOST
It was not yet ten o'clock, and I was dismayed at the thought of being
left to my own devices in this big country-house, at an hour when the
talk at the Hare and Tortoise usually became worth while. I sat down
and began to turn over the periodicals on the library table, but I was
in no mood for reading.
The butler appeared and offered me drink, but the thought of drinking
alone did not appeal to me. I repelled the suggestion coldly; but
after I had dropped my eyes to the English review I had taken up, I was
conscious that he stood his ground.
"Beg pardon, sir."
"Well?"
"Hit's a bit hod about the chimney, sir."
The professional man in me was at once alert. The chimney's conduct
was inexplicable enough, but I was in no humor to brook the theories of
a stupid servant. Still, he might know something, so I nodded for him
to go on.
He glanced over his shoulder and came a step nearer.
"They say in the village, sir, that the 'ouse is 'aunted."
"What?"
"'Aunted, sir."
"Who say it, James?"
"The liveryman told the coachman, and the 'ousemaid got hit from a
seamstress. Hit's werry queer, sir."
"Rubbish, James. I 'm amazed that a person of your station should
listen to a liveryman's gossip. There 's the chimney, it's working
perfectly. Some shift of air-currents causes it to puff a little smoke
into this room occasionally, but those things are not related to the
supernatural. We 'll find some way of correcting it in a day or two."
"Werry good, sir. But begging pardon, the chimney hain't hall. Hit
walks, if I may so hexpress hit."
"Walks?" I exclaimed, sitting up and throwing down my review. "What
walks?"
"You 'ear hit, sir, hin the walls. Hit goes right through the solid
brick, most hunaccountable."
"You hear a mouse in the walls and think it's a ghost? But you forget,
James, that this is a new house,--only a year or so old,--and spooks
don't frequent such places. If it were an old place, it might be
possible that the creaking of floors and the settling of walls would
cause uneasiness in nervous people. The ghost tradition usually rests
on some ugly fact. But here nothing of the kind is present."
"Hit was one of 'is majesty's horfficers, sir," he answered hoarsely.
[Illustration: "Hit was one of 'is majesty's horfficers, sir," he
answered hoarsely.]
It flashed over me that this big stolid fellow was out of his head; but
sane or mad he was clearly greatly disturbed. It was best, I thought,
on either hypothesis, to speak to him peremptorily, and I rose, the
better to deal with the situation.
"What nonsense is this you have in your head? You 're in the United
States, and there are n't any majesty's soldiers to deal with. You
forget that you 're not in England now."
"But this 'ere country used to be Henglish, you may recall, sir. The
story the coachman got hin the village goes back to the hold times,
sir, when the colonies was hin rebellion, if I may so call hit, sir,
and 'is majesty's troops was puttin' down the rebellion hin these
parts. Some American rebels chased a British soldier from hover near
White Plains to these 'ere woods as they was then, and they 'anged 'im,
sir, right where this 'ere 'ouse stands, if I may make so free."
"Ah! This is a revolutionary relic, then?"
"You 'ave got hit, sir," he sputtered eagerly. "They 'anged the man
right 'ere where the 'ouse stands."
"That's not a bad story, James. And what does your mistress say about
it?"
"Well, sir; hit's the talk hin the village that that's why she bought
the place, sir. She rather fancies ghosts and the like, as you may
know, sir."
"Be careful what you say, James. Miss Hollister is a noble and wise
lady, and you do well to give her your best service."
"We're all fond of 'er, sir, though she's a bit troubled hin the 'ead,
if I may make so bold. She says a good ghost is a hasset."
I did not at once catch 'asset' with an aspirate, but when he repeated
it, I laughed in spite of myself.
"You 'd better go to bed, James. And don't encourage talk among the
other servants about this ghost. I know something about the building
of houses, and I 'll give these walls a good looking over. Good-night."
It was apparent that my interview had not cheered him greatly. He
turned at the door, to ask if I would put out the lights, and fear was
so clearly written upon his big red face that I dismissed him sharply.
I made myself comfortable for an hour, smoking a cigar over an article
on English politics, and while I read, a big log placidly burned itself
to ashes. I found the switch and snapped out the library lights. When
I had gained the second floor I turned off the lights in the hall
below, and as I looked down the well to make sure I had turned the
right key, the third floor lights suddenly died and I was left in
darkness. This was the least bit disconcerting. I was quite sure that
the upper lights had remained burning brightly after the darkening of
the lower hall, so that it was hardly possible that the one switch had
cut off both lights.
Standing by the rail that guarded the well, I peered upward, thinking
that some one above me was manipulating another switch; but the silence
was as complete as the blackness. I was about to turn from the rail to
the wall to find the switch, but at this moment, as my face was still
lifted in the intentness with which I was listening, something brushed
my cheek,--something soft of touch and swift of movement. As I gripped
the rail I felt this touch once, twice, thrice. Then my hand sought
the wall madly, and with so bad an aim that it was quite a minute
before I found the switch-plate and snapped all the keys. The stair,
and the halls above and below me sprang into being again, and I stood
blinking stupidly upward.
Though I was in a modern house thoroughly lighted by electricity, I
cannot deny that this incident, following so quickly upon the butler's
story, occasioned a moment's acute horripilation, accompanied by an
uncomfortable tremor of the legs. As already hinted, I lay no claim to
great valor. As for ghosts, I am half persuaded of their existence,
and after witnessing a presentation of Hamlet, always feel that
Shakespeare is as safe a guide in such matters as the destructive
scientific critics.
There were various plausible explanations of the failure of the lights.
Some switch that I did not know of, perhaps in the third-floor hall,
might have been turned; or the power house in the village might have
been shifting dynamos. Either solution of the riddle was credible.
But the ghostly touch on my face could not be accounted for so readily.
Leaving the lights on, I continued to the third floor, and examined the
switch, and sought in other ways to explain these phenomena. My
composure returned more slowly than I care to confess, and I think it
was probably in my mind that the ghost of King George's dead soldier
might be lying in wait for me; but I saw and heard nothing. The doors
of the unused chambers on the third floor were closed, and I did not
feel justified in trying them. The servants were housed on this floor,
at the rear of the house, and a door that cut off their quarters proved
on examination to be tightly locked.
The fourth floor was only a half-story, used for storage purposes. The
roof was gained, I recalled, by an iron ladder and a hatchway in a
trunk-room. I ran down to my room and found a candle, to be armed
against any further fickleness of the lights, and set out for the
fourth floor. I had changed my coat, and with a couple of candles and
a box of matches started for the roof. My courage had risen now, and I
was ready for any further adventure that the night might hold for me.
Miss Hollister and Cecilia were both in their rooms, presumably asleep;
the servants doubtless had their doors barred against ghostly visitors,
and the house was mine to explore as I pleased.
I think I was humming slightly as I mounted the stair, which, in
keeping with the general luxuriousness that characterized the
furnishing of the house, was thickly carpeted even to the fourth floor.
I was slipping my hand along the rail, and mounting, I dare say, a
little jauntily as I screwed my courage to an unfamiliar notch, when
suddenly, midway of the first half, and just before I reached the turn
where the stair broke, the lights failed again, with startling
abruptness. This was carrying the joke pretty far, and instantly I
clapped my hand to my pocket for the box of safety-matches, dug it out,
and then in my haste dropped the lid essential to ignition, and stooped
to find it.
The stair had narrowed on this flight, and as I sought with futile
eagerness to regain the box-lid, I could have sworn that some one
passed me. Still half-stooping, I stretched out my arms and clasped
empty air, and so suddenly had I thrown myself forward, that I lost my
balance and rolled downward the space of half a dozen treads before I
recovered myself. I was badly scared and hardly less angry at having
missed through my own clumsiness the joy of grappling with the ghost of
one of King George's soldiers; but the matches having been lost in the
pitch-darkness of the stair, I could get my bearings again only by
clinging to the stair-rail until I found the second-floor switch. I
should say that two full minutes had passed between the loss of the
matches and my flashing on of the lamps. From top to bottom the lights
shone brightly; but no one was visible and I heard no sound in any part
of the house.
As I began to analyze my sensations during the temporary eclipse of the
lights, I was conscious of two things. The being, human or other, that
had passed me had been light of step and fleet of motion. There had
been something uncanny in the ease and speed of that passing. I was
without conviction as to its direction, whether up or down, though I
inclined to the former notion for the reason that the employment of a
concealed switch above seemed the more reasonable argument. And a
faint, an almost imperceptible scent, as of a flower, had seemed to be
a part of the passing. Mine is a sensitive nostril, and I was
confident that it did not betray me in this. The sensation stirred by
that faintest of odors had been agreeable; there was nothing suggestive
of grave-mold or cerecloth about it. There was in fact something
rather delightfully human and contemporaneous in this fellow that
pleased and reassured me. That scamp of a revolutionary British
soldier, resenting as was his right the application of hemp to his
precious neck, had still a grace in him, and a ghost who prowls
undaunted about an electric-lighted house in this twentieth century,
having his whim with the switches, cannot be an utterly bad fellow. My
respect for all who are doomed to walk the night rose as, leaving the
lights on clear to the lower hall, I gathered up my matches and started
again for the roof. The trunk-room door opened readily, as on my
morning inspection of the chimney-pots, but as I glanced up, I saw that
the hatch was open. Through the aperture shone the heavens, a square
of stars, and bright with the moon's radiance. Pocketing my matches, I
ran nimbly up the ladder.
X
MY BEFUDDLEMENT INCREASES
I had been surprised to find the hatch open, but it is not too much to
say that I was greatly astonished by what I saw on the moon-flooded
roof. There, midway of a flat area that lay between the two larger
chimney-pots, two persons were intently engaged, not in ghostly
promenading or posturing, or even in audible conversation, but in a
spirited bout with foils! The clicking and scraping of the steel
testified unmistakably to the reality of their presence. And I was
grateful for those sounds! It needed only silence to tumble me back
down the trap with chattering teeth, but these were beyond question
corporeal beings, albeit rendered weird and fantastical by the oddity
of their playground and the soft effulgence of the moon. The vigor of
the onset and the skill of the antagonists held me spellbound. I stood
with head and shoulders thrust through the opening, staring at this
unusual spectacle, and not sure but that after all my eyes were
tricking me.
"_Touché!_"
It was a woman's voice, faint from breathlessness. She threw off her
mask and dropped her foil, and with a most human and feminine gesture
put up her hands to adjust her hair. It was Cecilia Hollister, in a
short skirt and fencing coat!
Her opponent was a man, and as he too flung off his mask I saw that he
was a gentleman of years. If Miss Cecilia Hollister chose to meet
strange men on the roof of her aunt's house and practice the fencer's
art with them, it was no affair of mine, and I was about to withdraw
when the stranger swung round and saw me. His sudden exclamation
caused the girl to turn, and as a reasonable frankness has always
seemed to me essential to a nice discretion, I crawled out on the roof.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Hollister, but if I had known you were here I
should not have intruded. The vagaries of the library chimney have
been on my mind, and I was about to have another peep into yonder pot."
She stood at her ease, with one hand resting lightly against the
inexplicable chimney in question, and still somewhat spent from her
exercise.
[Illustration: She stood at her ease, with one hand resting lightly
against the inexplicable chimney.]
"Father," she said, turning to the stranger who stood near, "this is
Mr. Ames, who is Aunt Octavia's guest."
The light of the gibbous moon enabled me to discern pretty clearly the
form and features of Mr. Bassford Hollister. And I find, in looking
over my notes, that I accepted as a matter of course the singular
meeting with my hostess's brother. I had grown so used to the ways of
the Hollisters I already knew, that the meeting with another member of
the family at eleven o'clock at night on the roof of this remarkable
house gave me no great shock of surprise. He was tall, slender and
dark, with fine eyes that suggested Cecilia's. His close-trimmed beard
was slightly gray: but he bore himself erect, and I had already seen
that he was alert of arm and eye and nimble of foot.
He put on his coat, which had been lying across one of the
crenelations, and covered his head with a small soft hat.
"This will do for to-night, Cecilia. You had the best of me. We 'll
try again another time. I 'm glad you stopped us, Mr. Ames. We 'd had
enough."
He seemed in no wise disturbed by my appearance, nor in any haste to
leave. This meeting between the father and daughter, I reasoned, could
hardly have been a matter of chance, and it must have been in Cecilia's
mind that some sort of explanation would not be amiss.
"Father and I have fenced together for years," she said. "My sister
Hezekiah does not care for the sport. As you have already seen that my
aunt Octavia is an unusual woman, given to many whims, I will not deny
to you that at present my father is _persona non grata_ in this house.
I beg to assure you that nothing to his discredit or mine has
contributed to that situation, nor can our meeting here to-night be
construed as detrimental to him or to me. In meeting my father in this
way I have in a sense broken faith with my aunt Octavia, but I assure
you, Mr. Ames, that it is only the natural affection for a daughter
that led my father to seek me here in this clandestine fashion."
Cecilia had spoken steadily, but her voice broke as she concluded, and
she walked quickly toward the hatchway. Her father stepped before me
to give her his hand through the opening.
I withdrew to the edge of the roof while a few words passed between
them that seemed to be on his part an expostulation and on hers an
earnest denial and plea. He passed her the foils and masks and she
vanished; whereupon he addressed himself to me.
"I had learned from both my daughters of your presence in my sister's
house, and I had expected to meet you, sooner or later. This is a
strange business, a strange business."
He had drawn out a pipe, which he filled and lighted dexterously. The
flame of his match gave me better acquaintance with his face. He
leaned against the serrated roof-guard with the greatest composure, his
hat tilted to one side, and drew his pipe to a glow. I had not
forgotten my encounter with the ghost on the stair, and as I waited for
him to speak, I was trying to identify him with the mysterious agency
that had tampered with the lights, and passed so ghostly a hand across
my face in the stair-well. I could hardly say that there had not been
time for either Bassford Hollister or his daughter to have reached the
roof after my experiences on the stair; and yet they had been engaged
so earnestly at the moment of my appearance at the hatchway that it was
improbable that either could have played ghost and flown to the roof
before I reached it. And eliminating the ghost altogether, I had yet
to learn how Bassford Hollister had gained entrance to the house. It
seemed best to drop speculations and wait for him to declare himself.
"You must understand, Mr. Ames, that my daughters, both of them, are
very dear to me. It is the great grief of my life that owing to
matters beyond my control I have been unable to care for them as I
should like to do. This being the case, I have been obliged to allow
them to accept many favors from my only sister Octavia. This in
ordinary circumstances would not be repugnant to my pride; but my
sister is a very unusual person. She must do for my children in her
own way, and while I was prepared, in agreeing that they should accept
her bounty, for some whimsical manifestation of her eccentric
character, I did not imagine that she would go so far as to shut me out
from all knowledge of her plans for them. That, Mr. Ames, is what has
happened."
His voice rose and fell mournfully. He puffed his pipe for a moment
and continued:--
"Cecilia, being the older, was to be launched first. Hezekiah was to
be cared for in due season. Last summer Octavia took them both abroad.
As you are aware, they are young women of unusual distinction of
appearance and manner, and they attracted a great deal of attention.
From what I hear, a troop of suitors followed them about. That sort of
thing would appeal to Octavia; to me it is most repellent, but I had
already committed myself, agreeing that Octavia should manage in her
own fashion. There is now something forward here which I do not
understand. I have an idea that Octavia has contrived some
preposterous scheme for choosing a husband for Cecilia that is in
keeping with her odd fashion of transacting all her business. I do not
know its nature, and by the terms of her agreement Cecilia is not to
disclose the method to be employed to me,--not even to me, her own
father. You must agree, Ames, that that is rather rubbing it in."
"But you don't assume that your daughter is not to be a free agent in
the matter? You don't believe that some unworthy and improper man is
to be forced upon her?"
"That, sir, is exactly what I fear!"
"You will pardon me, but I cannot for a moment believe that Miss
Hollister would risk her niece's happiness even to satisfy her own
peculiar humor. Your sister is a shrewd woman, and her heart, I am
convinced, is the kindest. Among the suitors now camped at the
Prescott Arms there must be some one whom your daughter approves, and I
see no reason why he should not ultimately be her choice. Now that you
have broached the matter, I make free to say that one of these suitors
is an old friend of mine. Hartley Wiggins by name, and that he is a
man of the highest character and a gentleman in the strictest sense."
He had been listening to me with the greatest composure, but at the
mention of Wiggins's name he started and nervously clutched my arm.
"That man may be all that you say," he cried chokingly, "but he has
acted infamously toward both my daughters. He is a rogue, and a most
despicable fellow. He has flirted outrageously with Hezekiah while at
the same time pretending to be deeply interested in Cecilia. I say to
you in all candor that a man who will trifle with the affections of a
child like Hezekiah is a villain, nothing less."
"But, my dear sir, is it not possible that you do him a great wrong?
May it not be the other way round, that Hezekiah is trifling with
Wiggins's affections? He 's a splendid fellow, Hartley Wiggins, but he
's a little slow, that's all. And between two superb young women like
your daughters a man may be pardoned for doubts and hesitations; a case
of being happy with either if t'other dear charmer were only away. To
put it quite concretely, I will say that in my own very slight
acquaintance with these young women I feel the spell of both. Your
sister, I take it, is anxious not to show partiality for any of these
men, and yet I dare say she probably feels kindly disposed toward
Wiggins. His worst crime seems to be that he chose Tory ancestors!
The thing is bound to straighten itself out."
He tossed his head impatiently.
"Has it occurred to you that Octavia's interest in this Hartley Wiggins
may be due to a trifling and immaterial fact?"
"Nothing beyond his indubitable eligibility."
"Then let me tell you what I suspect. Both his names contain seven
letters. My sister is slightly cracked as to the number seven. I
swear to you my belief that the fact that his names contain seven
letters each is at the bottom of all this. Incredible, my dear sir,
but wholly possible!"
"Then, such being the case, why does n't she show her hand openly? If
she believes that Wiggins with his septenary names is ordained by the
seven original pleiades to marry your daughter Cecilia, I should think
that by the same token she would have sought a man rejoicing in the
noble name of Septimus. You send conjecture far when once you
entertain so absurd an idea."
"You think my assumption unlikely?" he asked eagerly.
"I certainly do, Mr. Hollister. But I confess that I had never counted
the letters in Wiggins's name before, and your suggestion is
interesting. And this whole idea of the potential seven in our affairs
has possibilities. If seven at all, why is n't it possible that your
sister has Jacob in mind and the seven years he served for Rachel? You
may as well assume that, as Wiggins is specially favored in the number
of letters in his singularly prosaic and unromantic name, it is Miss
Hollister's plan to keep him dallying seven years."
He seized me by the arm and forced me back against the battlements,
then stood off and eyed me fiercely.
"You speak of serving and of service! Will you tell me just why you
are here and what brings you into this affair! My daughter Hezekiah is
the frankest person alive, and she told me of her meetings with you and
that you had been to the Asolando,--where she spent a day in the
sheerest spirit of mischief. That was the beginning of all our
troubles, that damned hole with its insane confectionery and poetry.
If Cecilia, in a misguided notion of earning her own living, had not
gone there and worn an apron for a week before I dragged her out, she
would never have met Wiggins. And now will you kindly tell me just
what you are doing in my sister's house, where I have to come like a
thief in the night to see one of my own children?"
This fierce deliverance touched me nearly: I doubted my ability to
explain to one of these amazing Hollisters just how I came to be
sojourning in the house of another of the family without any business
that would bear scrutiny. I hastened to declare my profession, and
that I had been summoned by Miss Hollister to examine her chimneys. I
could not, however, tell him that until my arrival the chimneys had
behaved themselves admirably!
"You've admitted your friendship for this Wiggins person; that's
enough," he said when I had concluded. "I advise you to leave the
house at once. I tell you he 's got to be eliminated from the
situation. Understand, that I do not threaten you with violence, but I
will not promise to abstain from visiting heavy punishment upon that
fellow. And you? A chimney-doctor? I am a man of considerable
knowledge of the world, and I say to you very candidly that I don't
believe there is any such profession."
"Then let me tell you," I replied, not without heat, "that I am a
graduate in architecture, and that if you will do me the honor to
consult a list of the alumni of the Institute of Technology, you will
find that I was graduated there not without credit. And as for
remaining in this house, I beg to inform you, Mr. Hollister, that as I
am your sister's guest and as she is perfectly competent to manage her
own affairs, I shall stay here as long as it pleases her to ask me to
remain. And now, one other matter. How did you gain this roof
to-night, when by your own admission you are not on such terms with
your sister as would justify you in entering it openly?"
The moonlight did not fail to convey the contempt in his face, but I
thought he grinned as he answered quietly:--
"You don't seem to understand, young man, that you are entitled to no
explanations from me. If my sister has her sense of a joke, I assure
you that I have mine. I came here to see my daughter. As I taught her
to fence when she was ten years old and as she is particularly expert,
and moreover, as in my present condition of poverty I have been obliged
to forego the pleasure of metropolitan life and to give up my
membership in the Fencers' Club, you can hardly deny my right to meet
my own daughter for a brief bout anywhere I please. You strike me as a
singularly fresh young person. It would be a positive grief to me to
feel that my conduct had displeased you. And now, as the night grows
chill, I shall beg you to precede me into the house by the way you
came."
"But first," I persisted, "let me ask a question. It is possible that
you yourself have some preference among your daughter's several
suitors, Mr. Hollister. Would you object to telling me which one you
would choose for Miss Cecilia?"
"Beyond question, the man for Cecilia, if I have any voice in the
matter, is Lord Arrowood."
"Arrowood!" I exclaimed. "You surprise me greatly. I saw him at the
inn, and he seemed to me the most insignificant and uninteresting one
of the lot."
"That proves you a person of poor gifts of discernment, Mr. Ames;" and
his tone and manner were quite reminiscent of his sister's ways; and
his further explanation proved him even more worthily the brother of
his sister.
"As I was obliged," he began, "owing to an unfortunate physical
handicap, to abandon my art, that of a marine painter, I have given my
attention for a number of years to the study of the Irish situation.
Between the various political parties of Great Britain, poor Ireland
can never regain her ancient power. But I see no reason why she should
not become once more a free and independent nation. I have gone deeply
into Irish history, and I may modestly say that I probably know that
history from the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion to the death of
Gladstone better than any other living man. I met Arrowood by chance
in the highway yesterday, and I found that he holds exactly my ideas."
"But Arrowood isn't an Irishman," I interjected; "neither, I should
say, are you!"
"That's not to the point. Neither was Napoleon a Frenchman strictly
speaking; nor was Lafayette an American. A friend of mine in Wall
Street is ready, when the time is ripe, to finance the scheme by
selling bonds to the multitudes of Irish office-holders throughout the
United States,--most of whom are not unknown to the banks."
"And I suppose you and Arrowood would sit jointly in the seat of the
ancient kings in Dublin after you had effected your _coup_."
"You lose your bet, Mr. Ames. We have agreed that, as the mayors of
Boston for many years have been Irishmen, and as they have, by their
prowess in holding the natives in subordination, demonstrated the
highest political sagacity, we could not do better than take one of
these rulers of the old Puritan capital and place him on the Irish
throne. The keen humor of that move would so tickle all interested
powers, that the investiture and coronation of the new ruler would be
accomplished without firing a shot."
This certainly had the true Hollister touch! Miss Octavia herself
could not have devised a more delightful scheme.
"And so," Mr. Bassford Hollister concluded, "I naturally incline toward
Arrowood, though he is so poor that he was obliged to come over in the
steerage to continue his wooing of my daughter."
He let himself down into the dark trunk-room, waited for me
courteously, and walked by my side to the stairway, both of us
maintaining silence. I was deeply curious to know how he had entered
and whether he expected to go down the front way and out the main door.
We kept together to the third-floor hall,--I could have sworn to that;
then suddenly, just as we reached the stairway, out went the lights,
and we were in utter darkness. I smothered an exclamation, clutched my
matches and struck a light, and as the stick flamed slowly, I looked
about for Bassford Hollister; but he had vanished as suddenly and
completely as though a trap had yawned beneath us and swallowed him. I
found the third-floor switch and it responded immediately, flooding the
stair-well to the lower hall, but I neither saw nor heard anything more
of Hollister.
Astounded by this performance, I continued on to the lower floor to
have a look around, and there, calmly reading by the library table, sat
Miss Octavia!
"Late hours, Mr. Ames!" she cried. "I supposed you had retired long
ago."
I was still the least bit ruffled by that last transaction on the
stair, and I demanded a little curtly:--
"Pardon my troubling you; but may I inquire, Miss Hollister, how long
you have been sitting here?"
The clock on the stair began to strike twelve, and she listened
composedly to a few of the deep-toned strokes before replying.
"Just half an hour. I thought some one knocked at my door about an
hour ago. The lights were on and I came down, saw a magazine that had
escaped my eye before, and here you find me."
"Some one knocked at your door?"
"I thought so. You know, the servants have an idea that the place is
haunted, and I thought that if I sat here the ghost might take it upon
himself to walk. I confess to a slight disappointment that it is only
you who have appeared. I suppose it was n't you who knocked at my
door?"
"No," I replied, laughing a little at her manner, "not unless it was
you who switched off the lights as I was coming down from the fourth
floor. I have been studying this chimney from the roof. I know
something of the ways of electric switches, and they don't usually move
of their own accord."
"Your coming to this house has been the greatest joy to me, Mr. Ames.
I should not have imagined, in a chance look at you, that you were
psychical, and yet such is clearly the fact. I assure you that I have
not touched any switch since I left my room. It was unnecessary, as I
found the lights on. And I acquit you of rapping, rapping at my
chamber-door. It gives me the greatest satisfaction to assume that the
house is haunted, and at any time you find the ghost, I beg that you
will lose no time in presenting me. If the prowler is indeed one of
King George's soldiers, hanged during the Revolution on the site of
this house, I should like to have words with him. I have just been
reading an article on the political corruption in Philadelphia in this
magazine. It bears every evidence of truth, but if half of it is
fiction I still feel that, as an American citizen, though denied the
inalienable right of representation assured me in the Constitution, we
owe that ghost an apology; for certainly nothing was gained by throwing
off the British yoke, and that poor soldier died in a worthy cause."
She wore a remarkable lavender dressing-gown, and a night-cap such as I
had never seen outside a museum. As she concluded her speech, spoken
in that curious lilting tone which, from the beginning, had left me in
doubt as to the seriousness of all her statements, she rose and, still
clasping her magazine, made me a courtesy and was soon mounting the
stair.
I heard her door close a minute later, and then, feeling that I had
earned the right to repose, I went to my room and to bed.
XI
I PLAY TRUANT
I slept late, and on going down found the table set in the
breakfast-room. A pleasant inadvertence marked the choice of
eating-places at Hopefield Manor; I was never quite sure where I should
find a table spread. No one was about, and I was seized with that mild
form of panic familiar to the guest who finds himself late to a meal.
As I paused uncertainly in the door, viewing the table, set, I noticed,
for only one person, Miss Octavia entered briskly, her slight figure
concealed by a prodigious gingham apron.
"Good-morrow, merry gentleman," she began blithely. "The most
delightful thing has happened. Without the slightest warning, without
the faintest intimation of their dissatisfaction, the house-servants
have departed, with the single exception of my personal maid, who,
being a Swede and therefore singularly devoid of emotion, was unshaken
by the ghost-rumors that have sent the rest of my staff scampering over
the hills."
She lighted the coffee-machine lamp in her most tranquil fashion, and
begged me to be seated.
"I have already breakfasted," she continued, "and Cecilia is even now
preparing you an omelet with her own hand. I beg to reassure you, as
my guest, that the _émeute_ of the servants causes me not the slightest
annoyance. From reading the comic papers you may have gained an
impression that the loss of servants is a tragic business in any
household, but nothing so petty can disturb me. Cecilia is an
excellent cook; and I myself shall not starve so long as I have
strength to crack an egg or lift a stove-lid. And besides, I still
retain my early trust in Providence. I do not doubt that before
nightfall a corps of excellent servants will again be on duty here.
Very likely they are even now bound for this place, coming from the wet
coasts of Ireland, from Liverpool, from lonely villages in Scandinavia.
The average woman would merely fret herself into a sanatorium if
confronted with the problem I face this morning, but I hope you will
testify in future to the fact that I faced this day in the cheeriest
and most hopeful spirit."
"Not only shall I do so, Miss Hollister," I replied, trying to catch
her own note, "but it will, throughout my life, give me the greatest
satisfaction to set your cause aright. To that extent let me be
Horatio to your Hamlet."
"Thank you, milord," she returned, with the utmost gravity. "And may I
say further that the incident gives the stamp of authenticity to my
ghost? I was obliged to pay those people double wages to lure them
from the felicities of the city, and they must have been a good deal
alarmed to have left so precipitately. You must excuse me now, as it
is necessary for me to do the pastry-cook's work this morning, that
individual having fled with the rest, and it being incumbent on me, to
maintain my fee-simple in this property, to make a dozen pies before
high noon. But first I must visit the stables, where I believe the
coachman still lingers, having been prevented from joining the stampede
of the house-servants by the painful twinges of gout."
With this she left me, and I began pecking at a grape-fruit. It had
been in my mind as I dressed that morning to play truant and visit the
city. It was almost imperative that I take a look at my office, and I
had resolved upon a plan which would, I believed, give me the key to
the ghost mystery. If Pepperton had built that house he must know
whether he had contrived any secret passages that would afford exits
and entrances not apparent to the eye. It would be an easy matter to
run into the city, explain myself to my assistant, and get hold of
Pepperton. My mind was made up, and I had even consulted a time-table
and chosen one of the express trains. As I sat at the table absorbed
in my plans for the day, my nerves received a sudden shock. I had
heard no one enter, yet a voice at my shoulder murmured casually:
"Hast thou seen ghosts? Hast thou at midnight heard"--
It was the voice of Hezekiah, I knew, before I faced her. She wore a
blue sailor-waist with a broad red ribbon tied under the collar, and a
blue tam o' shanter capped her head. She bore a tray that contained my
omelet, a plate of toast, and other sundries incidental to a
substantial breakfast, which she distributed deftly upon the table.
"How did you get here?" I blurted, my nerves still out of control.
"The kitchen door, sir. I had ridden into the garden, and seeing Aunt
Octavia heading for the stables and Cecilia at the kitchen window, I
pedaled boldly in. Cecilia wanted to borrow my bicycle, and being a
good little sister, I gave it to her. She also said that you required
food, so I told her to go and I would carry you your breakfast. I
shall skip myself in a minute. You may draw your own coffee. Mind the
machine; it tips if you are n't careful."
She went to the window and peered out toward the stables.
"May I ask, Daughter of Kings, where your sister has gone so suddenly?"
"Certainly. She 's off for town to chase a cook and a few other people
to run this hotel. I heard at the post-office that the whole camp had
deserted, so I ran over to see what was doing; and just for that I 've
got to walk home."
"But your aunt said that Providence would take care of the servant
question; she expected a whole corps of ideal servants to come straying
in during the day."
Hezekiah laughed. (It is not right for any girl to be as pretty as
Hezekiah, or to laugh as musically.) She told me to sit down, and as I
did so she passed the toast and helped herself to a slice into which
she set her fine white teeth neatly, watching me with the merriest of
twinkles in her brown eyes.
"Cecilia has n't Aunt Octavia's confidence in Providence, so she 's
taking a shot at the employment agencies. She has left a note on the
kitchen table to inform Aunt Octavia that she had forgotten an
engagement with the dentist and has gone to catch the ten-eighteen."
"That, Hezekiah, is a lie. It isn't quite square to deceive your aunt
that way," I remarked soberly.
Hezekiah laughed again.
"You absurdity! Don't you know Aunt Octavia yet! She will be
perfectly overjoyed when she comes back and finds that note from
Cecilia. She likes disappearances, mysteries, and all that kind of
thing. But it is barely possible that you will have to wash the
dishes. I can't, you see, for I 'm not supposed to come on the
reservation at all--not until Cecilia has found a husband. Is n't it
perfectly delicious?"
"All of that, Daughter of Kings! I think that as soon as I can regain
confidence in my own sanity I shall like it myself. But,"--and I
watched her narrowly,--"you see, Hezekiah, there is really a ghost, you
know."
Once more that divine mirth in her bubbled mellowly. She had walked
guardedly to the window and turned swiftly with a mockery of fear in
her face.
"Aunt Octavia approaches, and I must be off. But that ghost, Mr.
Chimney-Man,--when you find him, please let me know. There are a lot
of things I want to ask some reliable ghost about the hereafter."
With this she fled, and I heard the front door close smartly after her.
An instant later Miss Octavia appeared and asked solicitously how I
liked my omelette.
"The coachman has been telling me a capital ghost-story. He believes
them to be beneficent and declares that he will under no circumstances
leave my employment."
She sat down and folded her arms upon the table. For the first time I
believed that she was serious. There was, in fact, a troubled look on
her sweet, whimsical face. It occurred to me that the loss of her
servants was not really the slight matter she had previously made of it.
"Mr. Ames, will you pardon me for asking you a question of the most
intimate character? It is only after much hesitation that I do so."
I bowed encouragingly, my curiosity fully aroused.
"You may ask me anything in the world, Miss Hollister."
"Then I wish you would tell me whether,--I can't express the dislike I
feel in doing this,--but can you tell me whether you have seen in the
hands of my niece Cecilia a small--a very small, silver-backed
note-book."
"Yes, I have," I answered, greatly surprised.
"And may I ask whether,--and again I must plead my deep concern as an
excuse for making such an inquiry,--whether you by any chance saw her
making any notation in that book?"
I recalled the silver-bound book perfectly, but had attached no
importance to it; but if Cecilia's fortunes were so intimately related
to it as Miss Hollister's manner implied, I felt that I must be careful
of my answer. I was trying to recall the precise moment at which I had
entered the library the preceding evening after Hume's departure, and
while I was intent upon this my silence must have been prolonged. I
felt obliged to make an answer of some sort, and yet I did not relish
the thought of conveying information that might distress and embarrass
a noble girl like Cecilia Hollister. Something in my face must have
conveyed a hint of this inner conflict to Miss Hollister, for she rose
suddenly, holding up her hand as though to silence me. She seemed
deeply moved, and cried in agitation:--
"Do not answer me! The question was quite unfair,--quite unfair,--and
yet I assure you that at the moment I made the inquiry, I felt
justified."
She retreated toward the door as I rose; and then with her composure
fully restored she courtesied gracefully.
"Luncheon here will be a buffet affair to-day, as I shall be engaged
with matters of pastry. I'm sure, however, that you will find
employment until dinner-time, when my house will be fully in order
again."
I intended that this should be a busy day, so without making
explanations I went to the stable, told the coachman I wished to be
driven to the station, and was soon whizzing over the hills toward
Katonah. The coachman, an Irishman, introduced the subject of the
ghost as soon as we were out of sight of the house.
"The ole lady's dipped; she's dipped, sir," he remarked leadingly.
"It's catching," I answered; "so you'd better forget it."
He thereupon settled glumly to his driving. As we crossed the bridge
near where I had first encountered Hezekiah in the apple-orchard, I
spied her trudging across a meadow, and she waved her hand gaily.
Meadows and streams and stars! Of such were Hezekiah's kingdom.
I wondered how Wiggins and the other gentlemen at the Prescott Arms
were faring. My question was partially answered a second later, as we
passed the road that forked off to the inn. On a stone by the roadside
sat Lord Arrowood, desolately guarding a kit-bag and a suit-case. He
was dressed in a shabby Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, and sucked a
pipe.
[Illustration: On a stone by the roadside sat Lord Arrowood.]
I bade the driver pause, and greeted the nobleman affably.
"Can I give you a lift? You seem to be bound for the station, and I'm
taking a train myself."
"No, thanks," he replied sharply. "They're a lot of
bounders,--bounders, I say!"
"Ah! Of whom do you speak, Lord Arrowood?" I asked glancing at my
watch.
"Those scoundrels at the inn. They have thrown me out. Thrown me
out--me!"
"Hard lines, for a fact; but if you are interested in trains"--
"I refuse to leave the county!" he shouted. "If they think they're
going to get rid of me they're mistaken. Bounders, I say, bounders!"
He uttered this opprobrious term with great bitterness, and crossed his
legs, as though to emphasize his permanence upon the boulder. Patience
on a monument is not more eternally planted. He seemed in no mood for
conversation, so I sped on, with no time to lose.
I gained the step of the chair-car attached to the ten-eighteen with
some loss of dignity, the porter yanking me aboard under the
conductor's scornful eye. The Katonah passengers were still in the
aisle, and as I surveyed them I saw Cecilia take a seat in the middle
of the car. She was just unfolding a newspaper when I moved to a seat
behind her and bade her good-morning.
The look she gave me in turning round had in it something of Hezekiah's
quizzical humor. This interested me, because I had not previously seen
any but the most superficial resemblance between the sisters. Her
cheeks were aglow from her sprint on the wheel. The short skirt and
the shirt waist are the true vesture of emancipated woman. Cecilia
Hollister, whose apparel at home had struck me as rather formal, seemed
this morning quite a new being. She drew a folded veil from the pocket
of her jacket, removed her hat, and pinned the veil to it. She kept
the hat in her lap, however, and went on talking.
"We are both truants. You must have breakfasted in a hurry to have
caught this train."
"Not at all. I enjoyed a brief conversation with your sister, and
after she had gone, your aunt came back and lingered for a moment."
"She told you, I suppose, that Providence would look after the servant
question."
"She did, just that."
"Well, Providence is hardly equal to getting enough servants to run
that place, so I'm going to assist Providence a little."
"You become the vicaress of Providence? I admire your spirit."
"It's mere self-preservation. Aunt Octavia would have me chained to
the kitchen if I did n't do something about it."
She had permitted me to settle with the conductor, and when I had
completed this transaction I found that she had drawn from her purse
the little silver booklet about which Miss Octavia had inquired so
anxiously. She held this close to her eyes, so that I had a clear view
of the silver backs, on one of which "C.H." was engraved in neat
script. The subjoined pencil she held poised ready for use, touching
the tip of it absent-mindedly to her tongue. She raised her eyes with
the far-away look still in them.
"Can you tell me how to spell Arrowood,--is it one or two w's?"
"One, I think the noble lord uses."
She seemed to write the name, and I saw her counting on her fingers,
touching them lightly on the open page of the book.
Then she dropped it into her purse, which she thrust back carefully
into her pocket. She sighed, and was silent for a moment. We were
passing a series of huge signs built like a barricade along the right
of way, and on one of these I observed with fresh interest an
advertisement whose counterpart I had seen often about New York, but
without ever observing it attentively. It drew a laugh from me now.
It represented an infant in a perambulator, behind which stood the
effigy of a capped and aproned nurse. A legend was inscribed on the
board to this effect:--
HUSH! Baby's asleep.
It's a HOLLISTER PERAMBULATOR!
"If it's a Hollister," I remarked as a second of these flew by the
window, "it's perfect."
"Oh, those things!" she exclaimed.
"I was n't referring to the perambulator necessarily. Anything that's
Hollister must be good."
"We're out of the business, except that Aunt Octavia gets a dollar for
every one that's made; but the trust keeps the name."
"The trust could hardly change your name. You will have to do that
yourself."
"You've been talking to Hezekiah. That's the way people always talk to
her."
"It's certainly not the way I've been talking to you; but we've run
away from school, and I'm disposed to make the most of it. Our
conversation at your aunt's has been so high up in the air, that it's
pleasant to come down to earth and tune it to the less strenuous note
of a twentieth-century railway journey."
"That, Mr. Ames, may depend upon the point of view."
"But you will make it yours, won't you? You see, I've always dreamed
of adventures, but since I met your aunt in the Asolando they've been
coming a little too fast. There's that ghost business. Now I 'm going
to catch that ghost to-night, if it's the last thing I do!"
"Well, I'm not the ghost, and neither is my father, if that's what's in
your mind. Tell me just what you have seen and heard."
I gave her the story in detail, and my recital seemed to amuse her
greatly.
"You thought it was Aunt Octavia herself at first, then you thought I
was the spook, and now you are not fully persuaded that it is not my
father. I will take you into my confidence this far--that I don't know
how father got into the house last night. He wrote a note asking me to
meet him on the roof and bring the foils. That was not unlike him, as
he is the dearest father in the world, and his whims are just as jolly
in their way as Aunt Octavia's. I was sure that Aunt Octavia had
retired for the night, so I changed my dress and carried the foils up
through the trunk-room. I had hardly reached there before my father
appeared. The whole situation--my being there and all that--has
distressed father a great deal; so I let you see me cry a little. I
promise never to do it again."
Mirth brightened the eyes she turned upon me now.
"You think," she asked, "that those lights could n't have winked out
twice by themselves while you were on the stairway."
"I am positive of it. And somebody--a being of some sort--passed me on
the stairway. It might imaginably have been you!"
"But I tell you positively it was not."
"Then it might have been your father. A man who can enter a house at
will might easily play any manner of other tricks. His disappearance
after I had gone down into the house with him was just as mysterious as
the ghost."
"It was natural for father not to want you to know how he got in; the
motive for that would be the fact that he is not supposed to see me or
communicate with me in any way. But you 've got to get a
ghost-_motif_."
"I think I have one," I said.
"Then all the rest is easy. To whom does this ghost-_motif_ lead you?"
"I need hardly say; for it must have occurred to you that there is one
member of the Hollister family we have n't mentioned in this
connection."
"If you mean Hezekiah"--
"None other!"
The surprise in her face was not feigned,--I was confident of
this,--and the questions evoked by my answer at once danced in her eyes.
"If Hezekiah should be caught in the house just now we should all pay
dearly for her rashness. Believe me, this is true. Some day you may
know the whys and wherefores; at present no one may know. There is
this, however,--if Hezekiah or my father should be found at Hopefield
Manor, anywhere on the premises, while I am there, the consequences
would be disastrous,--more so than I dare tell you. But why should
Hezekiah wish to prowl about there at night,--to assume for a moment
that she is doing it?"
Her manner was wholly earnest. It was plain that she had entered into
some sort of a compact with her aunt, and no doubt the arrangement was
in the characteristic whimsical vein of which I had enjoyed personal
experience. I did not wish to press Cecilia for explanations she might
not be free to make, but I ventured a suggestion or two.
"Hezekiah may be entering the house and playing ghost for amusement,
merely in a spirit of childish rebellion against the interdiction that
forbids her the house. That is quite plausible, Hezekiah being the
spirited young person we know her to be. And it may amuse her, too, to
plug the chimneys at a time when her sister is enjoying the visits of
suitors. Without quite realizing that such was her animus, she may be
the least,--the very least bit jealous!"
Cecilia flushed and her eyes flashed indignantly. She bent toward me
eagerly.
"Please do not say such a thing! You must not even think it!"
"She may be a little forlorn, alone in your father's house over the
hills at times when you are surrounded by admirers, and it is my
assumption from what I have learned in one way and another of your
flight abroad last summer, that some of these gentlemen now established
at the Prescott Arms are known to her."
"Oh, all of them, certainly."
"And Hartley Wiggins among the rest?"
"That, Mr. Ames, is most unkind," she declared earnestly. "She has
told me that she was not in the least interested in Mr. Wiggins."
"And she told me the same thing, but I do not feel sure of it! But
what if she is! You are not really interested in him yourself!"
In the library at Hopefield Manor I should not have thought of speaking
to Cecilia Hollister in any such fashion; but the flying train gave
wings to my daring. I was surprised at my own temerity, and more
surprised that she did not seem to resent my new manner of speech. She
did not, however, vouchsafe any reply to my statement, but changed the
subject abruptly.
My description of the ghost had taken considerable time, and we were
now running through the tunnels and would soon be at the end of our
journey. She put on her hat and veil without making it necessary for
us to discontinue our talk. A certain languor that had marked her at
her aunt's vanished. There was a clearer light in her eye, and as I
helped her into her coat I felt that here was a woman to whose high
qualities I had done scant justice.
"I count on finishing my errand and taking the two-seven," she remarked.
"That's a short time to allow yourself. I've heard that it's a dreary
business chasing the employment agencies."
"Not if you know where not to go. If you 'll get me a machine of some
sort I 'll be off at once."
"I fear I shan't conclude my own business so soon; but if you will
honor me at luncheon?"--
This last was at the door of a taxicab I had found for her.
"Sorry, Mr. Ames, but it's out of the question. I hope to see you at
dinner to-night. And please"--
"Yes, Miss Hollister"--
"Please remember that you are Aunt Octavia's guest, and don't annoy her
by failing to appear at dinner. You know you have n't fixed that
chimney yet!"
Her smile left me well in the air; I stood staring after the very
commonplace cab as it rolled away with her, my mind a whirling chaos of
emotion. The crowd jostled me impatiently; for other people, not
breathing celestial ether from an hour of Cecilia Hollister's society,
were bent upon the day's business.
I set off at once for Pepperton's office, where I learned that the
architect was out of town; but his chief clerk greeted me courteously.
I told him frankly that I wanted to look at the plans of Hopefield
Manor to enable me to learn the exact lines of the chimneys. He
confessed surprise that they were causing trouble, and expressed regret
that they were not in the office.
"Miss Hollister sent for them this morning, and I have just given them
to a young woman who bore a note from her. Ordinarily I should not
have let them go, but the note was peremptory, and Miss Hollister is a
friend of Mr. Pepperton's, you know, and a person I'm sure he would not
refuse. We're at work now on plans for a cathedral she proposes
building for the Bishop of Manila."
I was not surprised that Octavia Hollister should be building
cathedrals in the Orient,--I was beyond that,--but I was taken aback to
find that she had anticipated me in my rush for the plans of her house.
Clearly, I was dealing with a woman who was not only immensely amusing
but exceedingly shrewd as well. Could it be possible after all that
she was herself playing ghost merely for her own entertainment! She
was capable of it; but I had satisfied myself that she could not have
performed the tricks of which I had been the victim the night previous
unless she possessed some rare vanishing power like that of the East
Indian mystics.
"May I ask who came for the plans?"
"I judged the young woman to be a maid, or perhaps she was Miss
Hollister's secretary."
I had given little heed during my short stay at Hopefield Manor to Miss
Hollister's personal attendant. I had passed her in the halls once or
twice, a young woman of twenty-five, I should say, fair-haired and
blue-eyed. She might herself be the ghost, now that I thought of it;
but this seemed the most unlikely hypothesis possible,--and there was
no difficulty in accounting for her flight to town, for there were many
horses and vehicles in the Hopefield stable, and trains were frequent.
"If there is anything further, Mr. Ames"--
I roused myself to find the chief clerk regarding me impatiently, and I
thanked him and hurried away.
At my own office my assistant pounced upon me wrathfully. He was half
wild over the pressure of vexatious business, and had just been
engaging in a long-distance conversation with a country gentleman at
Lenox which had left him in bad temper. I was explaining to him the
seriousness of my errands at Hopefield, rather unconvincingly I fear,
and the fact that I must return at once, when the office-boy entered my
private room to say that three gentlemen wished to see me immediately.
They had submitted cards, but had refused to state the nature of their
business. It was with a distinct sensation of surprise that I read the
names respectively of Percival B. Shallenberger, Daniel P. Ormsby, and
John Stewart Dick.
"Show the gentlemen in," I said promptly, greatly to the disgust of my
assistant, who retired to deal with several clients whom I had passed
in the reception-room fiercely walking the floor.
I had imagined all the suitors established at the Prescott Arms. As
the three appeared clad in light automobiling coats, I could not
forbear a smile at their grim appearance. Shallenberger, the novelist,
and Ormsby, the knit-goods manufacturer, were big men; Dick was much
shorter, though of compact and sturdy build. They growled surlily in
response to my greeting, and Ormsby closed the door behind them. Dick
seemed to be the designated spokesman, and he advanced to the desk
behind which I sat, with a stride and manner that advertised his
belligerent frame of mind.
"Mr. Ames," he began, "we have come here to speak for ourselves and
certain other gentlemen who are staying for a time at the Prescott
Arms."
"Gentlemen of the committee, welcome to our office," I replied, greatly
amused by his ferocity.
My tone caused the others to draw in defensively behind him.
"We want you to understand that your conduct in accompanying a lady
that I shall not name to the city is an act we cannot pass in silence.
Your conduct in going to Hopefield Manor was in itself an affront to
us, but your behavior this morning passes all bounds. We have come,
sir, to demand an explanation!"
At a glance this was a situation I dare not take seriously. In any
circumstances the fact that these men had followed me to my office to
rebuke me for accompanying Cecilia Hollister to town was absurd. This
young Mr. Dick was absurd in himself. His gray cap had twisted itself
oddly to the side of his head, and a bang of black hair lay at a
piratical angle across his forehead. Behind him Ormsby, the knit-goods
man, tugged at a brown moustache; Shallenberger's blue eyes snapped
wrathfully.
"Mr. Dick," I said soberly, "I have heard of you as the original
pragmatist of Nebraska, and as I am a mere ignorant chimney-doctor, to
whom the later philosophical meaning of that term is only so much punk,
I must identify you with that more obvious meaning of the word which is
within my grasp. Mr. Dick, and gentlemen of the committee, you are
meddlesome persons!"
"Meddlesome!" cried Dick, heatedly, and leaning toward me across my
desk, "do I correctly understand, sir, that you mean to insult us?"
"Nothing could be further from my purpose. But I cannot permit you to
imagine that I'm going to allow you to beard me in my office and
criticise my conduct in regard to Miss Cecilia Hollister or anybody
else. As a philosopher from the fertile corn-lands of Nebraska, I
salute you with admiration; as a critic of my ways and manners, I show
you the door!"
This I did a bit jauntily, and I had a feeling that I was playing my
part well. But the young man before me seemed to swell with the rage
that surged within him. He broke out furiously, beating the air with
his fist.
"You not only insult this committee, but you speak with intentional
disrespect of my native state, and of the great philosophical school of
which I am a disciple. Am I right?"
"You are eminently right, Mr. Dick. Neither the corn, the
philosophical schools, nor the packing-house statistics of your native
Omaha interest me a particle. So far as I am personally concerned you
may go back to your wigwam on the tawny Missouri as soon as you please."
"Then," he broke forth explosively, "then, sir, by Minerva's pale brow,
and by all the gods at once, I brand you"--
"Put the brand on hot, little one! Make it a good strong curse while
you're about it!"
He choked with rage for a moment; then he controlled himself with
painful effort.
"My personal grievances must wait," continued Dick, brokenly, "but
speaking for the committee I wish to say that your attentions to the
young lady whom you have dared, sir, to name, are obnoxious to us."
"Nothing less than that!" added Shallenberger.
"We will not stand for it," growled Ormsby's heavy bass.
"Mr. Shallenberger," I replied evenly, "as a member of the great
Hoosier school of novelists I have the most profound respect for your
talents. My office-boy is dead to the world for weeks after the
appearance of a novel from your pen. But your interference in my
private affairs is beyond all reason. And as for you, Mr. Ormsby, I
dare say your knit-goods are worthy of the fame of the pent-up Utica
from which you come. But to you and all of you, I bid defiance. I
return to Hopefield Manor by the four-fourteen express."
I rose and bowed coldly in dismissal; but the trio stood their ground
stubbornly.
"I tell you, sir, our organization is complete!" declared Dick. "We
signed a gentleman's agreement only last night, for the express purpose
of excluding you, and you cannot enter as a competitor. You are only
an outsider, and we don't intend to have you interfering with our
affairs."
"By the pink left ear of Venus!" I blurted, "is it a trust?"
"You put it coarsely, Mr. Ames, but"--
"A suitors' trust? Then if I read the newspapers correctly, your
organization is against public policy and in contravention of the
anti-trust law. But may I inquire why, if you have perfected a
combination of Miss Hollister's suitors, I found Lord Arrowood this
morning sitting on a stone by the roadside, evidently in the greatest
dejection. Can it be possible that an insurgent has crept into your
organization and incurred the displeasure of the regulars?"
"We ruled him out," Shallenberger burst forth, "because he was a
foreigner and not entitled to a place among free-born Americans! That
is one reason; and for another, the colors of his half-hose were an
offense to me, personally."
"And for another reason," interposed Ormsby, "he had no money with
which to pay his board at the Prescott Arms. For this just cause the
landlord ejected him shortly after breakfast this morning."
"Then there is already a rift in the lute!" I returned. "No trust of
suitors is stronger than its weakest link. By the bloody footprints of
our forefathers on the snows of Valley Forge, I stand for the right of
the American girl to choose where she will. You may perch on the hills
about Hopefield Manor, and besiege Cecilia Hollister till the end of
time, but my hand is raised against your unrighteous compact, and I am
in the fight to stay! Go back to the Prescott Arms, gentlemen, and
assure your associates in this hideous compact of my most distinguished
consideration and tell them to go to the devil."
I had gone to the St. Parvenu Hotel to call upon a Washington lady who
had been making life a burden to my assistant, and on coming out into
Fifth Avenue shortly after one, bethought me of the Asolando Tea-Room.
My interview with the committee of the suitors had driven from my mind
practically every consideration and every interest not centred in
Hopefield Manor. My thoughts turned gratefully to the Asolando, where
only a few days ago I had been precipitated into the strangest
adventures my eventless life had known.
A strange face was visible at the cashier's desk as I entered the
tea-room. I passed on, finding the place quite full, but I took it as
a good omen that the seventh table from the right was unoccupied, and I
hastily appropriated it. A waitress appeared promptly, murmuring,--
"There are no birds in last year's nest,"--
and recommended a Locker-Lampson sandwich, whose contents the girl told
me were secret, but it proved to be wholly palatable. As I drank my
tea and ate the sandwich I surveyed the decorated menu card with
interest, and found pleasurable excitement in discovering an item
directing attention to "Pickles _à la_ Hezekiah, 15 cents."
The delightful Hezekiah must, then, have impressed herself upon the
_deus ex machina_ of the Asolando on her brief day there, thus to have
won this recognition. And further on I noted, among the desserts,
_Pêche Cécilie_, with even greater interest and satisfaction. Miss
Hollister's nieces were among ten thousand young women, and it was
quite believable that their brief tenure of office in the tea-room had
fixed them permanently in the heart of the unknown proprietor.
The girl at the cash-desk was reading, her head bent as demurely as
Hezekiah's had been on that memorable afternoon; but I did not care for
the stranger's profile. I tried to fancy Cecilia in cap and apron
serving these tables, but my imagination was not equal to the task.
Cecilia occupied my mind now. The visit of the furious suitors to my
office had stirred in me thoughts and aspirations that had never known
harborage in my breast before. The presumption of those fellows had
exceeded anything I had known in my contact with human kind, and
instead of frightening me away from Hopefield Manor, they had called my
own attention to the strategic importance of my present position as a
guest in Miss Octavia's house. Here was a siege of suitors indeed; but
I was resolved to make the most of my position within the barricade.
As these thoughts ran through my mind, I was finishing my _Pêche
Cécilie_ (I spurn all sweets ordinarily), when I became interested in
the unusual conduct of a young woman who had entered the front door
briskly and walked with a business-like air to the cashier's desk. The
girl within the wicket rose promptly, opened the screen, and without
parley of any sort, emptied the contents of her till into the visitor's
reticule. With a nod and a smile and a moment's careless survey of the
room, the girl departed, swinging the reticule in her hand. A long
roll she carried under her arm confirmed my identification. It was
Miss Octavia Hollister's Swedish maid; and the roll, beyond
peradventure, contained the plans she had obtained at Pepperton's
office.
The girl was well-featured, neat of figure, and becomingly gowned, and
as I watched her leave the shop the lightness of her step, something
smooth and flowing in her movements, interested me. I did not know
what business she had to be robbing the Asolando money-drawer, but it
was altogether possible that she was the Hopefield ghost!
On the whole, when I had finally torn myself away from my
assistant,--who made no attempt to conceal his doubts as to my
sanity,--and had settled myself in the four-fourteen express with the
afternoon papers, I was fully satisfied with the day's adventures.
XII
THE RIDDLE OF THE SIBYL'S LEAVES
I had told the coachman in the morning not to trouble to meet me on my
return, and I engaged the village liveryman to drive me to the house
for hire. As we approached Hopefield I saw the Napoleonic figure of
John Stewart Dick in the roadway. He had evidently been waiting for
me. He held up his hand with the superb, impersonal scorn of a Fifth
Avenue policeman, and the driver checked his horse.
"I gave you warning," he said impressively. "If you return to the
house the consequences will be upon your own head."
"Thank you," I replied courteously. "You lay yourself open to the
severest penalties of the law in attempting to intimidate me. I have
enlisted for the whole campaign. Sick chimneys require my immediate
professional attention. If my bark sink, 't is to another sea. Be
good, dear child, let those who will be clever; and kindly omit
flowers."
As the driver slapped his reins, Dick sprang out of the way, muttering
words that proved the shallowness of his philosophic temper. The
liveryman expressed his disapproval of the pragmatist in profane terms
as we entered the grounds.
"There's a heap o' talk in the village," he observed. "They do say the
old lady 's cracked, if I may so speak of her; and that there's ghosts
in the house. And the conduct of the gentlemen at the Prescott is most
remarkable. The word 's passed that they're all dippy about the young
Miss Hollister that lives with her aunt. I reckon all rich people are
a bit cracked. It appears to go with the money. Mr. Bassford
Hollister,--he's the old lady's brother,--he's just as bad as any of
'em. I've drove in these parts fifteen year, and I 've worked a heap
for the rich, but I never seen nothin' like the Hollisters. They say
Mr. Bassford is about broke now. Had his share of the baby-wagon money
and blew it in, and now the old lady's marryin' off the girls and he
gets no money out of her if he takes a hand in that game. She's doin'
it to suit herself. That Bassford is always up to somethin' queer.
Yesterday he sat in the village street countin' the number of people he
saw chewin' gum. Hung around the school-house watchin' the children to
see how many had their jaws goin'. Takin' notes just like the census
man and tax assessor. Told our doctor in the village he was figurin'
the amount of horse-power the American people put into gum-chewing
every year, and expects to find some way of usin' it to run machinery.
It's harmless, Doc says. He calls it just the Hollister idiosyncrasy,
if that's the word. But I reckon it's idiotsyncrasy all right. I wish
you good luck of your place, sir."
He evidently believed me to be some sort of upper servant, and this
added to my joy of the day. With my good humor augmented by the
interview, I entered the house. A strange footman admitted me, and I
went to my room at once without meeting any one else.
The man followed me with a penciled note, signed with Cecilia's
initials, requesting my presence below as soon as possible, as she
wished to see me before dinner. The thought that she wished to see me
at any time filled me with elation; and her few lines scratched on a
correspondence card were a pleasing addendum to our conversation of the
morning. I only wondered whether I should find her the sober, reserved
young woman of our earlier acquaintance, or whether she would choose to
renew the good comradeship of our talk on the train. The finding of my
assistant's telegraphed resignation on my dressing-table, to take
effect in January, had not the slightest effect upon the lofty minarets
in which my fancy now found lodgment. It pleased me to believe that
fighting blood still pulsed in the last of the house of Ames, and that
I had hurled defiance at the organized band of suitors that guarded the
Hopefield gates and picketed the surrounding hills.
My question as to which Cecilia I should find in the library was
quickly answered. Her frank smile, the candor of her eyes, confessed a
new tie between us; we were becoming conspirators within the main
conspiracy, whatever its character might be.
"As to Providence and the cook--what luck?" I asked.
"Oh, I managed that very easily. I ran into some friends who were
going abroad for the winter. They have a staff of unusual servants,
and were anxious to keep them together until their return. I promptly
engaged them all, and they are even now installed. I came up on the
train with them, and as they are unusually intelligent and biddable,
they agreed to stray in in a casual and desultory way through the
afternoon. Aunt Octavia really believed, or pretended she did, which
is just as good, that Providence had sent them, and was delighted. The
laundress--the last to appear--has just arrived, and Aunt Octavia is in
fine humor. She did n't even ask me how I came off in my encounter at
the dentist's. She had filled the pie-pantry and had a good time while
I was gone."
"Well, I have had an adventure of my own," I remarked, after expressing
my relief that she had solved the servant difficulty with so much ease.
"A committee of gentlemen waited on me in my office on a matter of
grave importance."
She lifted her brows, and folded her hands upon her knees--it was a
pretty way she had.
"Was it the freedom of the city, or some high recognition of your
professional ability, Mr. Ames?"
"Oh, far more exciting! Three gentlemen, representing the suitors'
trust now maintaining headquarters at the Prescott Arms, warned me
solemnly to keep off the grass. In other words, I am not to interfere
with their designs upon the heart of Miss Cecilia Hollister."
She flung open a fan, held it at arm's length, and scrutinized the
daffodils that were traced upon it.
"So they dared you?"
"So they dared me. And I took the dare."
"Why?"
Her eyes met mine gravely, but behind her pretty _moue_ a smile lurked
delightfully.
[Illustration: Her eyes met mine gravely.]
"If I should tell you now it would be flirting, which is a sin."
"I had imagined, Mr. Ames, that that sort of thing came easy to you.
But if it's sinful, of course"--
"But you do not rule me out! You will give me a chance"--
My earnestness caused her manner to change suddenly. Her beautiful
gravity came like a swift falling of starlit twilight. I had never
been so happy as at this moment. Preposterous as were the
circumstances of my presence in the house, the juxtaposition of Cecilia
Hollister gave me unalloyed delight. The animosity of the gentlemen at
the Prescott Arms--an animosity which the interview in my office had
doubtless intensified--quickened my satisfaction in thus being within
the walls that guarded the lady of their adoration. She had not
answered me, and I felt my heart pounding in the silence.
"I want to serve you, now, hereafter, and always," I added. "These men
can have no claim upon you greater than that of any other man who
dares!"
"No, none whatever," she replied firmly.
"And the mystery, the whole story, is in the little silver book!"
She started, flushed, and then laughter visited her lips and eyes. The
book was not in her hands nor in sight anywhere, but I felt that I was
on the right track, and that the little trinket had to do with her
plight and her compact with her aunt. Best of all, the fact that I had
chanced upon this clue gave her happiness. There was no debating that.
"You had best have a care, Mr. Ames. You have spoken words that would
be treasonable if they came from me, and I must not countenance them."
"But you will tolerate from me words that you would not permit another
to speak? Do I go too far?"
She bent her head to one side,--with the slightest inclination, as of a
rose touched by a vagrant wind.
"If I could only half believe in you," she said, "you might really
serve me. So those gentlemen warned you away! Their presumption is
certainly astounding."
"They know nothing of the silver book!"
"They know less than you do,--and you have a good deal to learn, you
know."
"I am dull enough, but I have no ambition but to read the riddle of the
sibyl's leaves. That and the laying of the ghost are my immediate
business. As for the gentlemen at the Prescott, including my old
friend Hartley Wiggins, I am not in the least afraid of them. My hand
is raised against them. If it's a case of the test of Ulysses over
again, I 'm as likely as any of them to bend the bow."
I thought this well spoken, but she seemed amused, though without
unkindness, by the earnestness of my speech.
"If your wit is equal to your valor, you may go far. But"--and she
turned her eyes full upon me--"we must play the game according to the
rules."
"And as for Hartley Wiggins"--
She sat up very straight, and the sudden disdain in her face startled
me. I had forgotten my eavesdropping in the clump of raspberries on
the day of my arrival. Certainly Wiggins had been decidedly in the
race then, and my heart thumped in resentment as I recalled her own
message, all compact of encouragement, which I had borne to Wiggins at
the Prescott Arms.
"I will tell you something, Mr. Ames. This afternoon, as I drove from
the station, I came round by the lake, merely to cool my eyes on the
water, and I saw Mr. Wiggins and my sister seated on a wall in an old
orchard. They were so busily engaged that they did not see me. At
least he did not; but I think Hezekiah did."
"Hezekiah," I answered, relieved by the nature of her disclosure, which
could not but prejudice Wiggins' case, "Hezekiah is fond of orchards.
I dare say this was the same one in which I had a charming talk with
her myself. Doubtless she was amusing herself with Wiggins just as she
did with me. She finds the genus homo entertaining."
"She is the dearest girl in the world,--the sweetest, the loveliest,
the brightest. Mr. Wiggins has treated her outrageously. He has taken
advantage of her youth and susceptible nature."
"His punishment is sure," I answered complacently. "Hezekiah laughed
when I mentioned his name. And you frown to-day at the thought of him."
"Aunt Octavia is coming," she remarked, feigning at once a careless
air; but I was content that she let my remark pass unchallenged.
Miss Octavia's entrances were always effective. She appeared to-night
charmingly gowned, but the bright twinkle in her eyes made it clear
that no matter of dress could affect her humor or spirit. She greeted
me, as she always did, as though our acquaintance were a matter of
years rather than of days. I even imagined that she seemed pleased to
find me back again. She asked no questions as to my day's occupations,
but as we went in to dinner sallied forth cheerfully upon a description
of her own activities.
"After I had baked my required quota of pies this morning, I sought
recreation at the traps. The stable-boy who has been pulling the
string for me having struck-work, it most providentially happened that
I espied Lord Arrowood hanging on the edge of the maple tangle beyond
the barn. I summoned him at once and put him to work managing the
traps for me, finding him most efficient. He seemed extremely
despondent, and after I had satisfied myself that two out of three was
not an impossible record for one of my years, I brought him to the
house and made tea for him. I left the room for a moment--I had taken
him into the kitchen where, during the incumbency of the regular cook I
hardly dare venture myself, and he made himself comfortable quite near
the range. The pies on which I had been engaged all morning lay
cooling near him. I had composed twenty-nine pies,--I am an excellent
mathematician, and I could not have been mistaken in the count. What
was my amazement to find, after his lordship's departure, that one pie
was missing! The pan in which it was baked I discerned later, jammed
into a barrel of excellent Minnesota flour. My absence from the room
was the briefest; his lordship must indeed be a prestidigitateur to
have made way with the pie so expeditiously."
"His lordship was doubtless hungry," I suggested. "Even nobility must
eat. I passed Lord Arrowood in the highway early this morning, sitting
upon a stone, with sundry items of hand-baggage reposing beside him. I
have rarely seen any one so depressed."
"He belongs to an ancient house," remarked Miss Octavia. "He is
descended from either Hengist or Horsa,--I forget which, but it does
not greatly matter. The missing pie, I may add, was an effect in
Westchester pippin; and as our American experiment in self-government
bores him, I take it as significant that he chanced upon food that is
the veritable sacrament of democracy."
"Now that the little matter of the servants has been adjusted, we must
have a care lest the newly-arrived phalanx, which Providence so kindly
sent to you to-day, is not stampeded by any further manifestations of
the troubled spirit of the unfortunate Briton who was hanged on the
site of this house."
"Mr. Ames," replied Miss Octavia impressively, "that matter is entirely
in your hands."
"But if I could see the plans of this house, I should be better able to
grapple with his ghostship."
I had thrown this out in the hope of eliciting some remark from her
touching the Swedish maid's visit to Pepperton's office; but Miss
Octavia met my gaze unflinchingly.
"You are a clever man, Mr. Ames, and I have every confidence that you
will not only solve the mystery of the library chimney but find the
ghost that switched off the lights on the stair last night. I prefer
that you should accomplish these feats without any help from the plans.
I myself have no suggestions. I am gratified that you are meeting the
emergencies that have risen here with so much determination, but it is
what I should expect of the son of Arnold Ames of Hartford.
Opportunity is all that any of us need to find ourselves truly great,
and if, in the ordinary course of our lives, the gate does not open
freely, we are justified in picking the lock. When I determined to
seek adventures in my old age, I resolved that I should miss no chance,
and that I should be prepared for any beckoning of the hand of fate.
An odd fancy struck me at the beginning of my new life that Boston
would some day be the starting-point of some interesting experience.
This has not yet developed, but in order that I may be prepared for
anything that may occur I keep a blue-silk umbrella constantly checked
at the Parker House. The presence of the little brass check in my
purse is a constant reminder that Boston may one day call me."
A discussion of the Parker House umbrella followed, Cecilia and I
joining, and it proved so fruitful a topic that it carried us to our
coffee.
Coffee-making, in a machine she had herself contrived, was always
attended with rites that required deliberation, and while she performed
them Miss Hollister continued to amuse us.
"You may not know," she remarked, in one of her charming irrelevant
outbursts, "that the most important furniture transactions effected in
this country are those negotiated daily by the head-waiters of the
Fifth Avenue restaurants. Such is, I assure you, the fact. These
gentlemen, who have attained front rank among our predatory rich, allow
no one to dine at the inns they dominate who does not first purchase a
table and chairs at a profit of at least two hundred per cent over the
original Grand Rapids cost, the furniture thus purchased reverting in
every case to the party of the first part after the purchasers have
eaten to their satisfaction. The Fifth Avenue head-waiters are not
only the most absolute autocrats of our time, but the most acute
students of human nature among us. The sale of the tables by the lords
of the dining-rooms is alone worth a fortune every season at our
fashionable victualing houses and, in addition, the humbler members of
the minor orders of waiters, who merely fetch and carry, are obliged to
share their gratuities with their august chiefs."
"The system is iniquitous," I declared. "It's enough to pay two prices
for the food without buying the hotel furniture."
"The system, Mr. Ames, is wholly admirable, if you will pardon me for
expressing a difference of opinion. We cannot do less than admire the
austere genius before which mere plutocrats and men of affairs meekly
bow. In making my own investments I would rather have the advice of
Alphonse at the Hotel Pallida than that of the president of the
strongest trust company on Manhattan Island. The varying size of the
sums he receives for the dining-room furniture is the best possible
indication of the condition of the market. When a citizen of Pittsburg
will pay no more than one hundred dollars for the use of a table to eat
from at the Pallida you may be sure that a panic impends. By the way,
I proposed to Alphonse last winter the organization of a limited
company of leading head-waiters to control the waiting industry of
Fifth Avenue. It was my idea that some special forms of torture might
be devised for calculating persons--usually readers of New York letters
in provincial newspapers--who think a waiter entitled to only ten per
cent of the bill, and this could best be managed by an arrangement
between the five or six magnates who control the more gilded and
imposing refectories. I suggested the placing of a special mark in the
hats of the ten-per-cent fiends, so that wherever they dine the symbol
of their indiscreet frugalities would be apparent to the initiated eye.
It is another of my notions that the head-waiter and his humble slave
should present a formal bill for their services, while the hotel or
restaurant should merely be tipped. In this way the more important
service would receive its due consideration. The sole office of the
proprietor is to provide the head-waiter a place in which to follow his
profession. Alphonse is impressed with my ideas, and has even offered
to make me a director of the company."
"I suppose that you won the regard of Alphonse, the magnificent, only
by the most princely tips through many years of acquaintance, Miss
Hollister."
"On the other hand, Mr. Ames, I never gave him a cent in my life; but
last Christmas, in recognition of his friendliness in warning me
against an alligator-pear salad, at a moment when that vegetable was at
the turn of the season, I knit him a pair of blue worsted bed-room
slippers, which he received with the liveliest expressions of delight."
Three suitors were announced at this moment, and I slipped away without
excuses, while Miss Octavia and Cecilia adjourned to the library.
The ghost, I had sworn, should not baffle me another night.
XIII
I DISCOVER TWO GHOSTS
As I crossed the second-floor hall, I passed the Swedish maid, walking
toward Miss Octavia's room. I was somewhat annoyed to find, on looking
over my shoulder to make sure of her destination, that she, too, had
paused, her hand on Miss Octavia's door, and was watching me with
interest. She vanished immediately; but to throw her off the track I
went to my own room, closed the door noisily, and then came out quickly
and ran up to the third floor.
Bassford Hollister's mysterious exit had lingered in my mind as the
most curious incident of the eventful Friday night. Having been
baffled in my effort to get hold of the architect's plans, my thought
now was to await in the upper part of the house a repetition of the
various phenomena that had so puzzled me. By the process of exclusion
I had eliminated nearly every plausible theory, but if the ghost
manifested himself with any sort of periodicity (and the hour of the
chimney's queer behavior had been nine) I was now prepared to meet him
in the regions he had chosen for his exploits. When it is remembered
that I had always been most timorous, not at all anxious to shine in
any heroic performances, it will be understood that the atmosphere of
Hopefield Manor was exerting a stimulating effect upon my courage. Or,
more likely, my inherent cowardice had been brought into subjection by
my curiosity.
I had a pretty accurate knowledge by this time of the position and
function of all the electric switches between the lower hall and the
fourth floor, but I tested them as I ascended, glancing down now and
then to make sure I was not observed. From the sound of voices in the
library I judged that most of Cecilia's suitors must now have arrived,
and so much the better, I argued; for with Miss Octavia and her niece
fully occupied, I could the better carry on my ghost-hunt above stairs.
At a quarter before nine I switched off the lights on the third and
fourth floors, and established myself at the head of the stairway, and
quite near the trunk-room door. This door I had opened, as I fancied
that if Bassford Hollister were at the bottom of the business, he would
probably wish to find his way to the roof again. So far as I was able
to manage it, the stage was in readiness for the entrance of the
goblin. And I may record my impression, that as we wait for a
visitation of this sort, it is with a degree of credence in things
supernatural, to which we would not ordinarily confess. In spite of
ourselves we expect something to appear, something unearthly,
impalpable, and unresponsive to those tests we apply to the known and
understood.
The clock below struck nine upon these meditations, and almost upon the
last stroke I heard a sound that set my nerves tingling. I crouched in
the dark waiting. Some one was coming toward me, but from where? The
bottom of a well at midnight was not blacker than the fourth floor, but
the switch lay ready to my hand, and my pockets were stuffed with
matches of the sort that light anywhere. The stairways were all
carpeted, as I have said, and yet some one was ascending bare treads,
lightly, and with delays that suggested a furtive purpose. Meanwhile,
as a background for this unreality, murmurs of talk and occasional
laughter rose from the library.
This concealed stairway, wherever it was, could not be of interminable
length, and I had counted, I think, fifteen steps of that strange
ascent when it ceased. I heard a fumbling as of some one seeking a
latch, and suddenly a light current of air swept by me, but its clean
fresh quality was not in itself disturbing. I stooped and struck a
match smartly on the carpet and at the same time clicked the switch. I
should say that not more than ten seconds passed from the moment the
soft rush of air had first advertised the opening of a passage near me
until the hall was flooded with the glow of the electric lamps
overhead. My match had also performed its office, but finding the
electric current behaving itself normally, I blew it out. What I saw
now interested me immensely.
In the solid wall, near the stair, and almost directly opposite the
trunk-room, a narrow door had swung outward,--a neat contrivance, so
light in its construction that it still swayed on its concealed hinges
from the touch of the hand that had released it. How it had opened or
what had become of the prowler who had unlatched it remained to be
discovered. It seemed impossible that whoever or whatever had climbed
the hidden stairway had descended, nor had I been conscious of a
ghostly passing as on the previous night. I had only my senses to
apply to this problem, and their efficiency was minimized for a moment
by fear.
The opening in the wall engaged my attention at once, and I was
steadied by the thought that here was a practical matter susceptible of
investigation. I stepped within the door and lighted a candle; and
just as the wick caught fire, click went a switch somewhere, and out
went the hall lamps. But having, so to speak, put my foot to the
mysterious stair I would not turn back, and I continued on down the
steps.
Great was my astonishment to find that I had apparently stepped from a
new into an old house. The stair treads were worn by long use, the
plaster walls that inclosed them were battered and cracked, and I
seemed to have plunged from the glory of Hopefield into some dim lost
passage of a domicile of another era, that lay within or beneath the
walls of the Manor. As I slowly descended, holding high my candle, I
recalled, not without a qualm, the story of the British soldier whom
tradition or superstition linked to the site of Miss Hollister's
property. This stairway might certainly have been built in the early
days of the republic, and it refuted my disdain of the ghost-myth on
the theory that new houses are inhospitable to spirits.
At the foot of the stair I found two rooms, one on either side of a
small hall, and these, also, were clearly part of an old house that
seemed to be somehow merged into the Hollister mansion. I remembered
now that the mansion stood wedged against a rough spur of rock, and
that the front and rear entrances were upon different levels, and it
was conceivable that the back part of the mansion might inclose these
rooms of an earlier house that had occupied the same site; why they
should have been retained was beyond me.
Through the carefully-preserved windows, many-paned and quaint, of
these hidden rooms, the infolding walls of the new house were blank and
black. An odd thing indeed, that Pepperton should have lent himself to
the preservation of a commonplace and thoroughly uninteresting relic,
for beyond doubt he must have countenanced it; and Miss Hollister's
prompt removal of the plans from the architect's office became more
enigmatical than ever.
One door only remained in this shell of the old house, and I hastened
to fling it open, still lighting my way with a candle. Before me lay
the coal cellar, at which I had merely glanced on the morning after my
installation at Hopefield. I now began to get my bearings. I
remembered two iron lids in the cemented surface of an area on the east
side of the house where fuel was deposited, and mounting a few steps
that were of recent construction, and had evidently been built to
afford communication between the remnant of the old house and the
subterranean portion of the new, I found to my relief and satisfaction
beneath one of these openings a short ladder, through which the court
might be reached. Here, then, the manner of ghostly ingress was
illustrated by perfectly plausible means. The lid of the coal-hole was
entirely withdrawn, and a bar of moonlight lay brightening upon a pile
of anthracite at the foot of the ladder.
The ghost I believed to be still in the upper halls of the house, and
now that I was in a position to watch the ladder by which he had
entered I felt confident that I had cut off his retreat. I was
surveying the cellar, when I heard faint sounds in a new direction.
Far away under the house, and remote from the secret steps, some one
was moving toward me, and rapidly, too! The ghost that I believed to
have disappeared into the fourth-floor hall must then have changed the
line of his retreat and descended by one of the regular stairways.
I blew out my candle and stood with my back to the wall of the long
corridor on which opened the various store-rooms, the heating plant,
laundry and other accessories of the modern house. My ghost was coming
in haste,--a haste that did not harmonize with the stately tread of the
spooks of popular superstition. A slower pace and I should doubtless
have fled before him; but quick light steps echoed in the dark
corridor, and I gathered courage from the thought that ghosts create
echoes no more than they cast shadows.
As the steps drew nearer I prepared myself to spring upon him. I must
unconsciously have taken a step, for he paused suddenly, stood still
for a moment, then turned and scampered back the way he had come.
After him I went as fast as I could run. The cement-paved corridor was
four or five feet wide, and I plunged through the dark at my best
speed. At the end of the corridor I was pretty certain of my quarry,
and I made ready to grapple with him. Then as I plunged into the wall
my hands touched a man's face and for a moment clutched the collar of
his coat. He had been waiting for me to strike the wall, and as he
slipped out of my grasp he ran back toward the coal cellar. I had
struck the wall with a force that knocked the wind out of me, but I got
myself together with the loss of only an instant and renewed pursuit.
I had no fear but that, if he attempted to reach the open by means of
the coal-hole, I should catch him on the ladder, and I sprinted for all
I was worth to make sure of him.
My fleeting grasp of the man's collar and the agility with which he had
slipped from my clasp had settled the ghost question, and I had now
resolved the intruder into a common thief. As we neared the coal
cellar I increased my pace, and felt myself gaining on him; though in
the dark I saw nothing until I glimpsed the faint light from the
coal-hole.
It had evidently occurred to him by this time that if he tried to climb
the ladder I could easily pull him down by the legs; and when he
reached the cross hall, he turned quickly and dived through the opening
into the hidden chambers. I lost no time in following, but the fellow
put up a good race, and as I reached the old stairway he was mounting
it two steps at a time, as I judged from the sound. I had hoped to
catch and dispose of him without alarming the house, but it seemed
inevitable now that the chase would end in such fashion as to arouse
the company assembled in the library.
I heard him stumble and fall headlong at the door above; then he shot
off into the still darkened hall, and when I had gained the top I lost
track of him for a moment. I paused and was about to strike a match,
when he resumed his flight, and I was forced to grapple with the fact
that some one else was pursuing him. I held my match unstruck upon
this new disclosure, and stepped back within the concealed door and
waited. Up and down the hall, two persons were running, and when they
reached the ends of the corridor I heard hands touch the wall and the
sound of dodging, and then almost instantly the two runners flashed by
me again. The hall was so dark that I saw nothing, but as the runners
passed the door I felt the rush of air caused by their flight.
Three or four times this had happened, and then, still without having
made a light, I thrust out my foot at the next return of the unseen
runners. Some one tripped and fell headlong, and I promptly flung
myself upon him.
My prisoner's resistance engaged my best attention a moment, but when I
had sat upon his legs and got hold of his struggling hands, some one
stole softly by me. My prisoner, too, heard and was attentive. Not
only did I experience the same sensation as on the previous night, of a
passing near by, but I was conscious of the same faint perfume, as of a
flower-scent half-caught in a garden at night, that had added to my
mystification before. Then without the slightest warning the lights
flashed on, and a door closed somewhere, but it was not the hidden one
leading down into the remnant of the old house, for my prisoner's head
and shoulders lay across its threshold. He sighed deeply, bringing my
dazed wits back to him, and I found myself gazing into the blinking
eyes of Lord Arrowood.
"Bounders, I say, bounders!" he gasped.
"In the circumstances, Lord Arrowood, I should not call names. Will
you tell me what you mean by running through this house in this
fashion? Stand up and give an account of yourself."
I helped him to his feet and bent over the stair-rail leading down to
the third floor. Evidently our strange transactions beneath and above
had not disturbed the assembled suitors and their hostesses; but in
common decency Lord Arrowood must be disposed of promptly; there was no
doubt about that.
"I was an ass to try it," muttered his lordship, pulling his tie into
shape. "And now I want to get out. I want to go away from here."
He was tugging at the belt of his Norfolk coat, and something between
it and his waistcoat evidently gave him concern. It did not seem
possible that he was really a thief, with chattels concealed on his
person, but he continued to smooth his jacket anxiously, meanwhile
eyeing me apprehensively. He puffed hard from his recent game of
hide-and-seek, and his face was wet with perspiration. Our
conversation was carried on in half-whispers. He was so crestfallen
that if it had n't been for the necessity of maintaining silence I
should have laughed outright.
"Out with it, my lord. What have you stuck in your coat?"
"They're bounders, all the rest of 'em," he asserted doggedly, "but I
believe you to be a gentleman."
"I thank you, Lord Arrowood, for this mark of confidence; but you have
led me a hot chase through this house, and it is clear that you have
something tucked under your coat that you have seized feloniously.
We're standing here in the light, and our voices may at any moment
attract Miss Hollister and the others in the library. Open your coat!
I declare that even if you have lifted a bit of the Hollister plate I
will let you go. My lord, if you please, stand and unfold yourself!"
Reluctantly, shamefacedly, and still breathing hard from his late
exertions, Lord Arrowood of Arrowood, Hants, England, obeyed me. There
were five buttons to the close-fitting jacket, and the loosening of
every succeeding one seemed to give him pain. Then with his head
slightly lifted as though in disdain of me, he held out for my
observation a pie, in the pan in which it had been baked! The top
crust was browned to a nicety; its edges were crimped neatly; and in
spite of the fact that I had so lately dined sumptuously at Miss
Hollister's hospitable board, at sight of this alluring pastry I
experienced the sharp twinges of aroused appetite.
[Illustration: He held out for my observation a pie.]
"Now you have it, and I hope you are satisfied," said Lord Arrowood.
"Kindly allow me to retire by the way I came."
"First," I replied, sobered by the gravity of his manner, "it would
interest me as a student of character to know just what species of pie
lured you to this burglarious deed."
"I have reason to think," he answered, with tears in his eyes, "that it
is a gooseberry. I was damned hungry, if you must know the truth, and
having sampled the old lady's pies this morning, and had nothing to eat
since, I saw the coal-hole open and ladder beneath, and the rest of it
was easy. If you and the other chap had n't chased me all over the
estate, I 'd have been off with my pie and no harm done. The old lady
's insane, you know, and has no manner of use for pies. The house is
haunted in the bargain. When you had about winded me down in the
cellar and cut me off from the ladder and chased me up here, the ghost
took a hand, and if you had n't tripped me and sat on me the spirits
would certainly have nailed me. O Lord, what a night!"
"It's your impression then that when you got up here somebody else
broke into the game."
"Quite that, only I should say some_thing_, not some_body_. It was a
lighter step than yours. It had its hand on me once; but I could n't
touch it. Damn me," he concluded hoarsely, "it was n't there to touch!"
"You are sure you speak the truth when you say that the coal-hole was
open and that you found the ladder there when you came?"
"No manner of doubt of it. As I have already said, I believe you to be
a gentleman, and between gentlemen certain confidences may pass that
would n't be possible between a gentleman and those _canaille_ down
there."
He jerked his head scornfully to indicate the suitors below.
I bowed with such dignity as is possible in addressing a nobleman whom
you have just caught in the act of lifting a gooseberry-pie from a
lady's pantry,--a pie which you hold perforce in your hands.
"The fact is that I was without the price of food; and to repeat, I was
beastly hungry."
"Poverty and hunger, my lord, are pardonable sins. And I dare say that
Miss Hollister would be highly pleased to know that a gentleman of your
high position--she told me herself that you were descended from the
Jutish chiefs--had paid so high a compliment to the excellence of her
pastry. Your only error, as I view the matter, lies in the fact that
you have laid felonious hands upon a gooseberry-pie. All gooseberry
pastries are sacred to Hezekiah. My impressions of Hezekiah are the
pleasantest, and I cannot allow you to intervene between her and the
pie I hold in my hands. If you will accompany me below, I will
undertake to gain access to the pie vault, return this pie to its
proper place, and hand you, at the foot of the ladder, an apple-pie in
place of it. I dare say it never will be missed; but from what I know
of Hezekiah, any trifling with her appetite would be a crime indictable
at common law."
His lordship seemed reassured, and we were about to descend by the
concealed stair when he arrested me.
"Mr. Ames, you are a gentleman, and possess a generous heart. We
understand each other perfectly. And as I have every reason to believe
that my suit is hopeless, I ask the loan of five dollars until I can
confer with my friend the British consul at New York. I shall sail at
once for England."
I was moved to pity by his humility. A man who, finding himself
reduced to larceny by hunger, and being unable to win the woman of his
choice, meekly yields to the inevitable, is not a fair mark for
contumely. He stepped down before me into the dark stairway, and I
closed the door after me and followed him.
I found my way to the pie pantry without difficulty, returned the
gooseberry-pie to its proper shelf, chose an apple-pie and gave it,
with a five-dollar note, to Lord Arrowood.
At the bottom of the ladder he pressed my hand feelingly, and expressed
his gratitude in terms that would have touched a harder heart than mine.
Then having closed the coal-hole and hidden the ladder under a pile of
wood, I resumed my pursuit of the ghost.
XIV
LADY'S SLIPPER
I lighted my way with a candle through the lost chambers of the old
house, up the hidden stairway, and out into the fourth-floor hall
again. The old stair, I found on closer observation, reached only from
the second to the fourth floor, and below this had been pieced with
lumber carefully preserved from the earlier house. There was nothing
so strange after all about the hidden stairway, though I was convinced
that this had been no idea of Pepperton's, but that he had merely
obeyed the orders of his eccentric client, the umbrella and
dyspepsia-cure millionaire.
I had no sooner let myself through the secret door into the upper hall
than I was aware of a disturbance in the library below. I heard
exclamations from the men, and as I ran down toward the third floor
Miss Octavia's voice rose above the tumult.
"We must have patience, gentlemen. Chimneys are subject to moods just
like human beings; and we are fortunate in having in the house a
gentleman who is an expert in such matters. I do not doubt that Mr.
Ames even now has his hand upon the chimney's pulse, and that he will
soon solve this perplexing problem."
"If you wait for that man to mend your chimney you will wait until
doomsday."
So spake John Stewart Dick, taking his vengeance of me with my client
and hostess. I might have forgiven him; but I could not forgive
Hartley Wiggins.
"He does n't know any more about chimneys than the man in the moon," my
old friend was saying, between coughs.
And then quite unmistakably I smelt smoke, and bending further over the
rail and peering down the stair-well I saw smoke pouring from the
library into the hall. It seemed to be in greater volume to-night than
at previous manifestations. A gray-blue cloud was filling the lower
hall and rising toward me. I ran quickly to the third floor, to the
chamber whose fireplace was served by the library chimney. The lights
in the third-floor hall winked out as I opened the door,--I heard a
step behind me somewhere; but I did not trouble about this. The switch
inside the unused guest-chamber responded readily to my touch, and on
kneeling by the hearth I found it cold, as I had expected. There was
absolutely no way of choking the library flue at this point, for, as I
had established earlier, all the fireplaces in this chimney had their
independent flues. Pepperton would never have built them otherwise,
and no one but a skilled mason could have tapped the library flue here
or higher up, and the work could not have been done without much noise
and labor.
The hall outside was still dark, and I did not try the switch. The
pursuit was better carried on in darkness, and I had by this time
become accustomed to rapid locomotion through unlighted passages. I
leaned over the stair-well and heard exclamations of surprise at the
sudden cessation of the smoke, which had evidently abated as abruptly
as it had begun. The windows and doors had been opened, and the
company had returned to the library.
"Quite extraordinary. Really quite remarkable!" they were saying
below. I heard Cecilia's light laughter as the odd ways of the chimney
were discussed. And as I stood thus peering down and listening, the
Swedish maid's blonde head appeared below me, bending over the
well-rail on the second floor. She too was taking note of affairs in
the library, and as I watched her she lifted her head and her eyes met
mine. Then, while we still stared at each other, the second-floor
lights went out with familiar abruptness, and as I craned my neck to
peer into the blackness above me I experienced once more that ghostly
passing as of some light, unearthly thing across my face. I reached
for it wildly with my hands, but it seemed to be caught away from me;
and then as I fought the air madly, it brushed my cheek again. I have
no words to describe the strange effect of that touch. I felt my scalp
creep and cold chills ran down my spine. It seemingly came from above,
and it was not like a hand, unless a hand of wonderful lightness!
Certainly no human arm could reach down the stair-well to where I
stood. And in that touch to-night there was something akin to a
gentle, lingering caress as it swept slowly across my face and eyes.
I waited for its recurrence a moment, but it came no more. Then on a
sudden prompting I stole swiftly to the fourth floor, lighted my
candle, and gazed about. I thought it well to let the electric light
alone, for my ghost had once too often plunged me into darkness at
critical moments, and a candle in my hands was not subject to his
trickery.
The hall was perfectly quiet. The door leading down the hidden stair
was invisible, and I had not yet learned how it might be opened from
the hall, though Mr. Bassford Hollister had undoubtedly left the house
by this means after my interview with him on the roof. And reminded of
the roof, I opened the trunk-room door and peered in. The candle-light
slowly crept into its dark corners, and looking up I marked the
presence of the trap-door secure in the opening. As I stood on the
threshold of the trunk-piled room, my hand on the knob and the candle
thrust well before me, I heard a slight furtive movement to my left and
behind the door. I was quite satisfied now that I was about to solve
some of the mysteries of the night, and to make sure I was
unobserved--for having gone so far alone I wanted no partners in my
investigations--I listened to the murmur of talk below for a moment,
then cautiously advanced my candle further into the room. I was not
yet so valiant, even after all my night-prowlings and explorations of
hidden chambers, but that I thrust the light in well ahead of me and
bent my wrist so that the candle's rays might dispel the last shadow
that lurked behind the door before I suffered my eyes to look upon the
goblin. I took one step and then cautiously another, until the whole
of the trunk-room was well within range of my vision.
And there, seated on a prodigious trunk frescoed with labels of a dozen
foreign inns, I beheld Hezekiah!
[Illustration: Seated on a prodigious trunk frescoed with labels of a
dozen foreign inns, I beheld Hezekiah!]
As I recall it she was very much at her ease. She sat on one foot and
the other beat the trunk lightly. She was bareheaded, and the
candle-light was making acquaintance with the gold in her hair. She
wore her white sweater, as on that day in the orchard; and with much
gravity, as our eyes met, she thrust a hand into its pocket and drew
out a cracker. I was not half so surprised at finding her there as I
was at her manner now that she was caught. She seemed neither
distressed, astonished nor afraid.
"Well, Miss Hezekiah," I said, "I half suspected you all along."
"Wise Chimney-Man! You were a little slow about it though."
"I was indeed. You gave me a run for my money."
She finished her cracker at the third bite, slapped her hands together
to free them of possible crumbs, and was about to speak, when she
jumped lightly from the trunk, bent her head toward the door, and then
stepped back again and faced me imperturbably.
"And now that you've found me, Mr. Chimney-Man, the joke's on you after
all."
She laid her hand on the door and swung it nearly shut. I had heard
what she had heard: Miss Octavia was coming upstairs! She had
exchanged a few words with the Swedish maid on the second-floor
landing, and Hezekiah's quick ear had heard her. But Hezekiah's
equanimity was disconcerting: even with her aunt close at hand she
showed not the slightest alarm. She resumed her seat on the trunk, and
her heel thumped it tranquilly.
"The joke's on you, Mr. Chimney-Man, because now that you 've caught me
playing tricks you've got to get me out of trouble."
"What if I don't?"
"Oh, nothing," she answered indifferently, looking me squarely in the
eye.
"But your aunt would make no end of a row; and you would cause your
sister to lose out with Miss Octavia. As I understand it, you 're
pledged to keep off the reservation. It was part of the family
agreement."
"But I'm here, Chimney-pot, so what are you going to do about it?"
"Mr. Ames! If you are ghost-hunting in this part of the house"--
It was Miss Octavia's voice. She was seeking me, and would no doubt
find me. The sequestration of Hezekiah became now an urgent and
delicate matter.
"You caught me," said Hezekiah, calmly, "and now you've got to get me
out; and I wish you good luck! And besides, I lost one of my shoes
somewhere, and you've got to find that."
In proof of her statement she submitted a shoeless, brown-stockinged
foot for my observation.
"The one I lost was like this," and Hezekiah thrust forth a neat tan
pump, rather the worse for wear. "I was on the second floor a bit
ago," she began, "and lost my slipper."
"In what mischief, pray?"
"Mr. Ames," called Miss Octavia, her voice close at hand.
"I wanted to see something in Cecilia's room; so I opened her door and
walked in, that's all," Hezekiah replied.
"Wicked Hezekiah! Coming into the house is bad enough in all the
circumstances. Entering your sister's room is a grievous sin."
"If, Mr. Ames, you are still seeking an explanation of that chimney's
behavior"--
It was Miss Octavia, now just outside the door.
"Don't leave that trunk, Hezekiah," I whispered. "I'll do the best I
can."
Miss Octavia met me smilingly as I faced her in the hall. She had
switched on the lights, and my candle burned yellowly in the white
electric glow.
Miss Octavia held something in her hand. It required no second glance
to tell me that she had found Hezekiah's slipper.
"Mr. Ames," she began, "as you have absented yourself from the library
all evening, I assume that you have been busy studying my chimneys and
seeking for the ghost of that British soldier who was so wantonly slain
upon the site of this house."
"I am glad to say that not only is your surmise correct, Miss
Hollister, but that I have made great progress in both directions."
"Do you mean to say that you have really found traces of the ghost?"
"Not only that, Miss Hollister, but I have met the ghost face to
face,--even more, I have had speech with him!"
Her face brightened, her eyes flashed. It was plain that she was
immensely pleased.
"And are you able to say, from your encounter, that he is in fact a
British subject, uneasily haunting this house in America long after the
Declaration of Independence and Washington's Farewell Address have
passed into literature?"
"You have never spoken a truer word, Miss Hollister. The ghost with
whom or which I have had speech is still a loyal subject of the King of
England. But by means which I am not at liberty to disclose, I have
persuaded him not to visit this house again."
"Then," said Miss Hollister, "I cannot do less than express my
gratitude; though I regret that you did not first allow me to meet him.
Still, I dare say that we shall find his bones buried somewhere beneath
my foundations. Please assure me that such is your expectation."
She was leading me into deep water, but I had skirted the coasts of
truth so far; and with Hezekiah on my hands I felt that it was
necessary to satisfy Miss Hollister in every particular.
"To-morrow, Miss Hollister, I shall take pleasure in showing you
certain hidden chambers in this house which I venture to say will
afford you great pleasure. I have to-night discovered a link between
the mansion as you know it and an earlier house whose timbers may
indeed hide the bones of that British soldier."
"And as for the chimney?"
"And as for the chimney, I give you my word as a professional man that
it will never annoy you again, and I therefore beg that you dismiss the
subject from your mind."
I saw that she was about to recur to the shoe she held in her hand and
at which she glanced frequently with a quizzical expression. This,
clearly, was an issue that must be met promptly, and I knew of no
better way than by lying. Hezekiah herself had plainly stated, on the
morning of that long, eventful day, when she walked into the
breakfast-room in her aunt's absence and explained Cecilia's trip to
town, that it was perfectly fair to dissimulate in making explanations
to Miss Hollister; that, in fact, Miss Octavia enjoyed nothing better
than the injection of fiction into the affairs of the matter-of-fact
day. Here, then, was my opportunity. Hezekiah had thrown the
responsibility of contriving her safe exit upon my hands. No doubt,
while I held the door against her aunt, that remarkable young woman was
coolly sitting on the trunk within, eating another cracker and awaiting
my experiments in the gentle art of lying.
"Miss Hollister," I began boldly, "the slipper you hold in your hand
belongs to me, and if you have no immediate use for it I beg that you
allow me to relieve you of it."
"It is yours, Mr. Ames?"
A lifting of the brows, a widening of the eyes, denoted Miss Octavia's
polite surprise.
"Beyond any question it is my property," I asserted.
"Your words interest me greatly, Mr. Ames. As you know, the grim hard
life of the twentieth century palls upon me, and I am deeply interested
in everything that pertains to adventure and romance. Tell me more, if
you are free to do so, of this slipper which I now return to you."
I received Hezekiah's worn little pump into my hands as though it were
an object of high consecration, and with a gravity which I hope matched
Miss Octavia's own. I was, I think, by this time completely
hollisterized, if I may coin the word.
"As I am nothing if not frank, Miss Hollister, I will confess to you
that this shoe came into my possession in a very curious way. One day
last spring I was in Boston, having been called there on professional
business. In the evening, I left my hotel for a walk, crossed the
Common, took a turn through the Public Garden, where many devoted
lovers adorned the benches, and then strolled aimlessly along Beacon
Street."
"I know that historic thoroughfare well," interrupted Miss Hollister,
"as my friend Miss Prudence Biddeford has lived there for half a
century, and once, while I was staying in her house, she gave me her
recipe for Boston brown bread, thereby placing me greatly in her debt."
"Then, being acquainted with the neighborhood and its sublimated social
atmosphere, you will be interested in the experience I am about to
describe," I continued, reassured by Miss Octavia's sympathetic
attention to my recital. "I was passing a house which I have not since
been able to identify exactly, though I have several times revisited
Boston in the hope of doing so, when suddenly and without any warning
whatever this slipper dropped at my feet. All the houses in the
neighborhood seemed deserted, with windows and doors tightly boarded,
and my closest scrutiny failed to discover any opening from which that
slipper might have been flung. The region is so decorous, and acts of
violence are so foreign to its dignity and repose, that I could scarce
believe that I held that bit of tan leather in my hand. Nor did its
unaccountable precipitation into the street seem the act of a
housemaid, nor could I believe that a nursery governess had thus sought
diversion from the roof above. I hesitated for a moment not knowing
how to meet this emergency; then I boldly attacked the bell of the
house from which I believed the slipper to have proceeded. I rang
until a policeman, whose speech was fragrant of the Irish coasts, bade
me desist, informing me that the family had only the previous day left
for the shore. The house he assured me was utterly vacant. That, Miss
Hollister, is all there is of the story. But ever since I have carried
that slipper with me. It was in my pocket to-night as I traversed the
upper halls of your house, seeking the ghost of that British soldier,
and I had just discovered my loss when I heard you calling. In
returning it you have conferred upon me the greatest imaginable favor.
I have faith that sometime, somewhere, I shall find the owner of that
slipper. Would you not infer, from its diminutive size, and the fine,
suggestive delicacy of its outlines that the owner is a person of
aristocratic lineage and of breeding? I will confess that nothing is
nearer my heart than the hope that one day I shall meet the young
lady--I am sure she must be young--who wore that slipper and dropped it
as it seemed from the clouds, at my feet there in sedate Beacon Street,
that most solemn of residential sanctuaries."
"Mr. Ames," began Miss Hollister instantly, with an assumed severity
that her smile belied, "I cannot recall that my niece Hezekiah ever
visited in Beacon Street; yet I dare say that if she had done so and a
young man of your pleasing appearance had passed beneath her window,
one of her slippers might very easily have become detached from
Hezekiah's foot and fallen with a nice calculation directly in front of
you. But now, Mr. Ames, will you kindly carry your candle into that
trunk-room?"
And I had been pluming myself upon the completeness of my
hollisterization! There was nothing for me but to obey, and my heart
sank as my imagination pictured Hezekiah's discomfiture when we should
find her seated on the huge trunk behind the door. And that stockinged
foot already called in appealing accents to the shoe I held in my hand!
The foundations of the world shook as I remembered the compact by which
Hezekiah was excluded from the house, and realized what the impending
discovery would mean to Cecilia, her father, and the wayward Hezekiah,
too! But I was in for it. Miss Octavia indicated by an imperious nod
that I was to precede her into the trunk-room, and I strode before her
with my candle held high.
But the sprites of mystery were still abroad at Hopefield. The room
was unoccupied save for the trunks. Hezekiah had vanished. Instead of
sitting there to await the coming of her aunt, she had silently
departed, without leaving a trace. Miss Hollister glanced up at the
trap-door in the ceiling, and so did I. It was closed, but I did not
doubt that Hezekiah had crawled through it and taken herself to the
roof. Miss Octavia would probably order me at once to the battlements;
but worse was to come.
"Mr. Ames," she said, "will you kindly lift the lid of that largest
trunk."
I had not thought of this, and I shuddered at the possibilities.
She indicated the trunk upon which Hezekiah had sat and nibbled her
cracker not more than ten minutes before. Could it be possible that
when I lifted the cover that golden head would be found beneath? My
life has known no blacker moment than that in which I flung back the
lid of that trunk. I averted my eyes in dread of the impending
disclosure and held the candle close.
But the trunk was empty, incredibly empty! My courage rose again, and
I glanced at Miss Octavia triumphantly. I even jerked out the trays to
allay any lingering suspicion. Why had I ever doubted Hezekiah? Who
was she, the golden-haired daughter of kings, to be caught in a trunk?
She had slipped up the ladder while I talked to her aunt and was even
now hiding on the roof; but it was not for me to make so treasonable a
suggestion. Miss Octavia might press the matter further if she liked,
but I would not help her to trap Hezekiah.
Miss Hollister did not, to my surprise and relief, suggest an
inspection of the roof. She nodded her head gravely and passed out
into the hall.
"Mr. Ames, if I implied a moment ago that I doubted your story of the
dropping of that tan pump from a Beacon Street roof or window, I now
tender you my sincerest apologies."
She put out her hand, smiling charmingly.
"Pray return to the occupations which were engaging you when I
interrupted you. You have never stood higher in my regard than at this
moment. To-morrow you may tell me all you please of the ghost and the
mysteries of this house, and I dare say we shall find the bones of that
British soldier somewhere beneath the foundations. As for that
trifling bit of leather you hold in your hand, it's rather passé for
Beacon Street. The next time you tell that story I suggest that you
play your game of drop the slipper from a window in Rittenhouse Square,
Philadelphia. Still, as I always keep an umbrella in the check-room of
the Parker House, I would not have you imagine that I look upon Boston
as an unlikely scene for romance. The last time I was there a Mormon
missionary pressed a tract upon me in the subway, and I can't deny that
I found it immensely interesting."
XV
LOSS OF THE SILVER NOTE-BOOK
Hezekiah on the roof was safe for a time. Miss Octavia's gentle
rejection of my Beacon Street anecdote and her intimation that Hezekiah
had been an unbilled participant in the comedy of the ghost had been
disquieting, and in my relief at her abandonment of the search I
loitered on downstairs with my hostess. I wished to impress her with
the idea that I was without urgent business. Hezekiah would, beyond
doubt, amuse herself after her own fashion on the roof until I was
ready to release her. As I had quietly locked the trunk-room door and
carried the key in my pocket I was reasonably sure of this. Humility
is best acquired through tribulation, and as Hezekiah sat among the
chimney-crocks nursing one stockinged foot and waiting for me to turn
up with her lost slipper, it would do her no harm to nibble the bitter
fruit of repentance with another biscuit. I should find her much less
sure of herself when I saw fit to seek her on the roof. It was a
pretty comedy we were playing, but it was best that she should not too
complacently take all the curtains. Hezekiah's naughtiness had been
diverting up to a point now reached and passed, but the time had
arrived for remonstrance, admonition, discipline. And it should be my
grateful task to point out the error of her ways and urge her into
safer avenues of conduct. Such were my reflections as I attended Miss
Octavia in her descent.
The memoranda of my adventures at Hopefield Manor fall under two
general headings. On the one hand was the ghost and the library
chimney; on the other the extraordinary gathering of Cecilia's suitors.
As I followed at Miss Octavia's side, she seemed to have dismissed the
ghost and the fractious chimney from her mind; her humor changed
completely. As in the morning when, unaccountably abandoning her
habitual high-flown speech, she had asked me about Cecilia's silver
note-book, she seemed troubled; and when we had reached the second
floor she paused and lost herself in unwonted preoccupation.
"Let us sit here a moment," she said, indicating a long davenport in
the broad hall. For the first time her manner betrayed weariness. She
laid her hand quietly on my arm and looked at me fixedly. "Arnold,"
she said,--"you will let me call you Arnold, won't you?" she added
plaintively, and never in my life had I been so touched by anything so
sweet and gentle and kind,--"Arnold, if an old woman like me should do
a very foolish thing in following her own whims and then find that she
had probably committed herself to a course likely to cause unhappiness,
what would you advise her to do about it?"
"Miss Hollister," I answered, "if you trusted Providence this morning
to send you a corps of servants when yours had been most unfortunately
scattered by ghosts or rumors of ghosts, why will you not continue to
have confidence that your affairs will always be directed by agencies
equally alert and beneficent?"
She flashed upon me that rare wonderful smile of hers; she looked me in
the eyes quizzically with her head bent slightly to one side; but for
once her usual readiness seemed to have forsaken her. Could it be
possible that she was losing faith in her own play-world, and that the
tuneful trumpets of adventure and romance which she had set vibrating
on her own key jarred dully in her ears? It passed swiftly through my
mind that it was incumbent on me to win her back to complete belief in
the potency of the oracles that had called to her old age. She had
dipped her paddle into bright waters and had splashed up all manner of
gay imaginings, and what disasters awaited her now if she beached her
argosy and found no gold at the end of the rainbow! It occurred to me,
prosaic man and chimney-doctor that I was, that no one should be
disappointed who has heard the dream-gods calling at twilight, or
wakened to the chanting of the capstan-song, or heard the timbers
creaking in the stout old caravel of romance as it wallows in the seas
that wash the happy isles. I had not crawled through so many chimneys
but that I still believed that dreams come true, not because they will
but because they must! And in the case of Miss Octavia Hollister I
felt a great responsibility; for what irremediable loss might not
result to a world too little given these days to dreaming, if she, who
at sixty had turned her heart trustfully to adventure, should find only
sorrow and disappointment? The thing must not be! I was feeling the
least bit elated over my success in solving the riddle of the ghost,
and I knew that the hidden chambers and stair would delight her when I
revealed them on the morrow; so I quite honestly sought to restore her
to the joy of life. I felt that she was waiting for me to speak
further, and I plunged ahead.
"Our meeting in the Asolando was the most interesting thing that ever
happened to me, Miss Hollister. I was rapidly becoming hopelessly
cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears as to
the promise of life held out to us in the nursery, where, indeed, all
education should begin and end. Your appearance at the Asolando that
afternoon was well-timed to save me from death in a world that was
rapidly losing for me all its illusion and witchery. But now that you
have so readily won me back to the true faith, I beg of you do not
yourself revert to the dreary workaday world from which you rescued me."
I had never in my life spoken more sincerely. I had never been so
happy as since I knew her, and I was pleading for myself as well as for
her--there where, from her own doorstep and in her own garden, one who
listened attentively might hear the faint roar of trains bound toward
the teeming city along iron highways. It was with relief that I saw my
words had struck home. She touched my hand lightly; then she took it
in both her own.
"You really believe that; you are not merely trying to please me?"
"I was never half so much in earnest! Please go on in the way you have
begun. And have no fear that the charts will mislead you, or that the
seas will grind your bark on hidden shoals. Shipwreck, you know, is
one of the greatest joys of our adventures,--we have to be wrecked
first before we find the island of the treasure-chests."
She sighed softly, but I felt that her spirits were rising.
"But those men down there? How shall I manage that?" she asked eagerly.
I snapped my fingers. We must get back into the air again. And it was
remarkable how readily my long-untried wings bore me upward. The
earth, after all, does not bind us so fast!
"I don't know the game; but I have found out a lot of things without
being told, so tell me nothing! Remember that I have something quite
remarkable, startling even, to show you to-morrow. I have even
overcome, you know, the obstacle you placed in the way of my
discoveries by sending in ahead of me this morning for the plans of the
house."
I watched her narrowly, but she was in no wise discomfited.
"Well, I burned them the moment Hilda brought them back," she laughed.
"I had faith in you, and I wanted you to manage it all for yourself. I
rather guessed that you would go to Pepperton. That was when I still
believed."
"But you must go on believing. Make-believing is the main cornerstone
and the keystone of the arch of the happy life."
"You are sure you are not mocking a foolish old woman?"
"You are the wisest woman I ever knew!" I asserted, and my heart was in
the words.
"I believe you have persuaded me; but Cecilia"--
She was again at the point of loosening her hold upon the cord that
linked her shallop to Ariel's isle, but my own youth was resurgent in
me.
I rose hastily, the better to break the current of her thought.
"Those men down there! They are in the hands of a higher fate than we
control. I don't know the game"--
"But if"--she broke in.
"But if you gave away the secret, explained it to me, you would throw
me back into my darkest chimney to hope no more. Leave it to me; trust
me; lean upon me! I assure you that all will be well."
She bent her head and yielded herself to reverie for a moment. Then
she sprang to her feet in that indescribably light, graceful way that
erased at least fifty of her years from the reckoning, and was herself
again.
"Arnold Ames," she said, laughing a little but gazing up at me with
unmistakable confidence and liking in her eyes, "we will go through
with this to the end. And whether that slipper really fell at your
feet in Beacon Street or in the even less likely precincts of
Rittenhouse Square, or under the windows of the Spanish Embassy in
Washington, I believe that you are my good knight, and that you will
see me safely through this singular adventure."
And I, Arnold Ames, but lately a student of chimneys, bent and kissed
Miss Octavia's hand.
[Illustration: And I bent and kissed Miss Octavia's hand.]
She led the way to the library, where I thought it well to appear for a
moment, and I was heartily glad that I did so. It was joy enough for
any man that he should have earned such glances of hatred and suspicion
as the suitors bent upon me. There they were, some standing, some
seated, about Cecilia. I bowed low from the door, feeling that to
offer my hand to these gentlemen in their present temper would be too
severe a strain upon their manners. As Miss Octavia appeared, several
of them advanced courteously and engaged her in conversation. She
found a seat and called the others to her, on the plea that she wished
to ask them their opinion touching some matter,--I believe it was a
late rumor that Andree, who had gone ballooning to discover the
Hyperboreans, had been heard of somewhere.
Cecilia appeared distrait, and I wondered what new turn her affairs had
taken. She rose as I crossed the room, and from her manner I judged
that she welcomed this chance of addressing me.
"You have scorned the library to-night. Has there been trouble? Is
Aunt Octavia alarmed about anything?"
I was sure that this inquiry covered some ulterior question. Hartley
Wiggins, listening with a bored air to Miss Octavia's discussion of
Andree's fate, glanced in our direction with manifest displeasure in
our propinquity. Cecilia Hollister was a beautiful, charming woman of
the world, but I felt her spell less to-night. It may be that the
presence of Hezekiah's slipper in my inside coat-pocket, pressing
rather insistently against my ribs, acted as a counter-irritant. I
certainly could not imagine myself possessed of one of Cecilia's
slippers! If I had tried my fictitious Beacon Street episode on
Cecilia, she would undoubtedly have expressed her scorn of me. The
hollisteritis germ, that had heretofore infected me only
intermittently, was now exerting its full tonic power. In trying to
hold Miss Octavia to her covenants with the lords of romance, I had
strengthened my own confidence in their bold emprise. The gravity with
which the suitors gave heed to Miss Octavia's ideas on arctic
ballooning touched my humor. Cecilia had but to state her perplexity
and I would interest myself promptly in her business. If I had been
asked that night to enlist in the most hopeless causes I should have
done so without a quibble, and died cheerfully under any barricade.
Our time was short; at any moment the suitors might cease covertly
glaring at me, drift away from Miss Octavia, and interpose themselves
between me and the girl on whom they had set their collective hearts.
"You are in difficulty, Miss Cecilia," I said; "please tell me in what
way I may serve you."
"I don't know why I should appeal to you"--
"No reason is necessary. I have told you before that you need only to
command me. We may be interrupted at any moment. Pray go on."
"I have lost an article of the greatest value to me. It has been taken
from my room."
For a moment only I read distrust and suspicion in her eyes as it
occurred to her that I had access to every part of the house; but my
manner seemed to restore her confidence. And she could not have
forgotten that her own father had met her secretly on the roof of a
house that was denied him, and that I was perfectly cognizant of the
fact.
"I am sure you can be of assistance," she said. "There's something
behind this ghost-story; some one has been in and about the house; you
believe that?"
"Yes. There has really been a sort of ghost, you know."
She shrugged her shoulders. Cecilia had no patience with ghosts, and
we were losing time. My conversation with Cecilia was annoying
Wiggins, as was plain from his nervousness. Wiggins's courtesy was
unfailing, but there are points at which the restraints of civilization
snap. Cecilia realized that time passed and that she had not stated
her difficulty. She now lowered her voice and spoke with great
earnestness.
"I went to my room for a moment, while Aunt Octavia was above, with you
I suppose, just after the chimney gave another of its strange
demonstrations. I remembered that I had left my little silver-bound
book, that I usually carry with me, on my dressing-room table. It
contains a memorandum of great importance to me. It positively cannot
be duplicated. I am sure it was there when I came down to dinner. But
it was not on my dressing-table or anywhere to be found."
"You may be mistaken as to where you left it. You would not be
absolutely positive that you left it on the dressing-table?"
"There is not the slightest question about it. I had been looking at
it just before dinner. I had sent you a note, you know, immediately
after you came back, and hurried down to see you."
"Yes. I recall that. You were in the library when I came down. And I
think I remember having seen the little trinket,--slightly smaller than
a card-case, silver-backed and only a few leaves. You had it in your
hand the other night when I came in after Mr. Hume had left."
She flushed slightly at this, but readily acquiesced in my description.
Miss Octavia's inquiry as to whether I had seen the book came back to
me; and no less clearly her withdrawal of her question almost the
moment she had spoken it.
I felt the sudden impingement of Hezekiah's slipper upon my own
conscience, if I may so state the matter. Hezekiah, playing ghost, had
confessed to me that she had visited Cecilia's room. Hezekiah, amusing
herself with the library chimney and frightening the servants by
stealing into the forbidden house through the coal-hole, was a culprit
to be scolded and forgiven; but what of Hezekiah mischievously filching
an article of real value to her sister! I did not like this turn of
affairs. I must get back to the roof, find Hezekiah, and compel her to
return the silver book. Only by tactfully managing this could I serve
well all the members of the house of Hollister. But first I must leave
Cecilia with a tranquil mind.
"I thank you for confiding this matter to me, Miss Hollister. Please
do not attach suspicion to any one until I have seen you again."
"But if you should be unable to restore"--
"I assure you that the book is not lost. It has been mislaid, that's
all. I shall return it to you at breakfast. I give you my word."
"Do you really mean it?" she faltered. "Please keep this from Aunt
Octavia! I can't tell you how important it is that she be kept in
ignorance of my loss. The consequences, if she knew, might be very
distressing."
I could not for the life of me see what great importance could attach
to those few leaves of paper in their silver case, but if Miss Octavia
and Hezekiah were interested in it as well as Cecilia, it must have a
significance wholly unrelated to its intrinsic value. It is the way of
professional detectives to suggest impossible theories merely to
conceal their own plans and intentions, and as I had reached a point
where my tongue was astonishingly glib in subterfuge and evasion, I
suggested that it might perhaps have been one of the new servants, or
indeed the Swedish maid.
"We will look into the matter, Miss Hollister. At breakfast I shall
have something to report. Meanwhile silence is the word!"
Miss Octavia was carrying the invincible John Stewart Dick away to the
billiard-room. He glared at me murderously as he trailed glumly after
the lady of the manor. The others were crowding about Cecilia again,
and I yielded to them willingly. As I sauntered toward the door Ormsby
detained me a moment. His manner was arrogant and he hissed rather
than spoke.
"I'm directed to command your presence at the Prescott Arms to-morrow
at twelve o'clock. The business is important."
"I regret, my dear brother, that I shall be unable to sit with you at
that hour in committee of the whole, and for two reasons. The first is
that I am paired with Lord Arrowood. You refused to take him into your
base compact, and allowed him to be thrown out of the inn for not
paying his bill. The act was deficient in generosity and gallantry."
"Then I suppose you would think it a fine thing for such a pauper to
marry a woman like that,--like that, I say?" and he jerked his head
toward Cecilia.
"I consider a lord of Arrowood as good as the proprietor of a
knitting-mill any day, if you press me for an opinion," I replied
amiably.
"And this from a chimney-sweep?" he sneered.
"You flatter me, my dear sir. I've renounced soot and become a
gentleman adventurer merely to prevent a type that long illumined
popular fiction from becoming extinct. I advise you to fill the void
existing in the heavy-villain class; believe me, your talents would
carry you far. Study Dumas and forget the wool-market, and you will
lead a happier life. My second reason for declining to meet you at the
Arms at twelve to-morrow is merely that the hour is inconvenient. I
assume that you mean to urge luncheon upon me, and I never eat before
one. My doctor has warned me to avoid early luncheons if I would
preserve my figure, of which you may well believe me justly proud."
"You're a coward, that's all there is to that. I dare you to come!"
"Well, as I think of it I 'd rather be dared than invited. If I find
it quite convenient I shall drop in. But you need n't keep the waffles
hot for me. Good evening."
It did not seem possible that I, the timid, uncombative and unathletic,
had thus cavalierly addressed a dignified gentleman in a white
waistcoat who was perfectly capable of knocking me down with a slap in
the face. Valor, I aver, is only another of the offsprings of
necessity.
XVI
JACK O' LANTERN
I hurried back to the trunk-room and had soon gained the roof. The
moon was harassed by flying clouds that obscured it fitfully, and a
keen wind swept the hills. I crept over the several levels of roof
thinking that any moment I should come upon Hezekiah; I searched a
second time, peering behind chimney-pots, and into dark angles; but to
my disappointment and chagrin my young lady of the single slipper was
nowhere in sight. I found, however, lying near the library chimney, a
trunk-tray that required no explanation. With this Hezekiah had
blocked the flue, and I smiled as I pictured her tip-toeing to reach
the chimney-crock, and dropping the tray across the top. How gleefully
she must have chuckled as she waited for the flue to fill and send the
smoke ebbing back into the library, to the discomfiture of her aunt and
sister and the suitors gathered about the hearth! The spirit of
mischief never whispered into a prettier ear a trick better calculated
to cause confusion.
I had thought Hezekiah secure when I locked the trunk-room door, but I
had not counted upon the versatility and resourcefulness of that young
person. I dropped to the second roof-level and inspected the
down-spouts, but it was incredible that she had sought the earth by
this means. I swung myself to a third level, and after much groping
for my bearings, decided that an athletic girl of Hezekiah's
venturesome disposition might, if she set no great store by her neck,
clamber off the kitchen-roof by means of a tall maple whose branches
now raspingly called attention to their slight contact with the house.
It was here that the walls of Hopefield thrust themselves into the
shoulder of a rough rocky knoll, and it was perfectly clear now that
the chambers of the earlier house around which the mansion had been
built were neatly enfolded by the walls on the east side.
As the moon cruised into a patch of clear sky something white fluttered
from a maple limb, and I bent and pulled it free. I took counsel of a
match behind the kitchen chimney, and found that it was a handkerchief
that had been knotted to the tip of the bough. No one but Hezekiah
would have thought of marking her trail in this fashion. I held it to
my face, and that faint perfume that had been a mystifying
accompaniment of the passing of the mansion ghost became nothing more
unreal than the orris in Hezekiah's handkerchief-case. The wind
whipped the bit of linen spitefully in my hands. I reasoned that if
Hezekiah the inexplicable had not meant for me to know the manner of
her exit she need not have left this plain hint behind; but the swaying
maple bough did not tempt me. I hurried back across the roof to secure
the trunk-tray, resolved to dispose of it, seek the open, and find the
errant Hezekiah if she still lingered in the neighborhood.
I looked off across the windy landscape before descending, and as my
eyes ranged the dark I caught the glimmer of a light, as of a lantern
borne in the hand, in the meadow beyond the garden. It paused, and was
swung back and forth by its unseen bearer. It shed a curious yellow
light and not the white flame of the common lantern; and now it rose a
trifle higher and slowly resolved itself into a weird fantastic face.
Three minutes later I was out of the house, using the backstairs to
avoid the company in the library, and had crossed the garden and
crawled through the hedge. As I rose to my feet a voice greeted me
cheerfully,--
"Well done, Chimney-Man! You were a little slow hitting the trail, but
you do pretty well, considering. How did you manage with Aunt Octavia
about that slipper? I had a narrow escape in the second-floor hall,
when I came out of Cecilia's room. I must have lowered a record
getting upstairs. And one shoe is n't a bit comfortable. Allow me to
relieve you!"
"Here's your slipper. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"For losing my slipper? I thought Cinderella had made that
respectable."
She placed her hand on my shoulder, lifted her foot, and drew the pump
on with a single tug.
"Well, what did Aunt Octavia say?"
"Oh, she had thoughts too dark to express. You probably heard what we
said. It was she who found the slipper!"
Hezekiah laughed. The wind caught up that laugh and whisked it away
jealously.
"She found it and carried it to you, Chimney-Man, and I skipped just as
you began that beautiful story about finding it in Beacon Street.
Hurry and tell me how you got me out of it."
"How did you know I would try to explain it? You did a perfectly
foolhardy thing in roaming the house that way, scaring Lord Arrowood
nearly to death, to say nothing of me. Why should I help you?"
"Oh, you're a man and I was just a little girl who had lost her
slipper," she replied. "I was sure you would fix it up."
"Well, I like your nerve, Hezekiah! I had to lie horribly to explain
the slipper, and Miss Octavia did n't swallow more than half my yarn."
"Oh, well, if it was a good story, Aunt Octavia would n't mind. She'd
have minded, though, if you had n't tried to get me out of it. That's
the way with Aunt Octavia. I hope you made a romantic tale of it."
"I can't say that it would place me among the great masters of fiction,
Hezekiah, but as lies go I think it had merit. And I 'll improve if I
stay here much longer."
"Oh, you'll stay all right. Aunt Octavia has no intention of letting
you go. When she left the Asolando that afternoon she met you, she had
her plans all made for kidnapping you."
"She did n't tell you so, did she?"
"No; because I have n't seen her and I'm not supposed to see her, you
know, until Cecilia is all fixed."
"Married?"
"Um," replied Hezekiah.
She drew from behind a boulder by which we stood a pumpkin of portable
size, which I surmised had been carved into the most hideous of jack o'
lanterns by the shrewd hand of Hezekiah. I took it from her with the
excuse of relieving her, but really to turn the light of the fearsome
thing more directly upon her. The wind blew her hair about her face;
hers was an elfish face to-night. With a pleasant tingling I met her
eyes. The light of a jack o' lantern is not of the earth earthy. Even
when you know perfectly well that it's only a candle stuck in a
pumpkin, you are not fully satisfied of its mundane character. In its
glow one becomes a conspirator, ready for treason, stratagems and
spoils. More concretely, in these moments a small archipelago of
freckles revealed itself about Hezekiah's nose and caused my heart to
palpitate strangely. Her sun-browned cheek was perilously near. I
hoped that she would bend forever over the lantern, so that I might not
lose the tiny shadows of her lashes, or, again, the laughter of her
brown eyes as she glanced up to ask my judgment as to the security of
the candle. She viewed her handiwork with feigned solicitude, the tip
of her tongue showing between her lips. Then the mirth in her bubbled
out, and she drew away and clapped her hands together like a child.
"Come!" she cried. "If you are good and won't begin preaching about my
sins, I'll show you the funniest thing you ever saw in your life."
In my joy of seeing her I was neglecting Cecilia's commission. Very
likely Hezekiah had forgotten all about her theft; hers, I reasoned,
was a nature that delighted in the nearest pleasure. I would follow
her jack o' lantern round the world for the chance of seeing the fun
brighten in her brown eyes, but I had made a promise to Cecilia and I
meant to fulfill it.
She led me now across the meadow, over a stone wall, up a steep slope,
and by devious ways through a strip of woodland. I bore the jack o'
lantern,--she had bidden me do it, with some notion, I did not
question, of making me _particeps criminis_ in whatever mischief was
afoot. Dignified conduct in a man of twenty-eight, in his best evening
clothes, carrying a jack o' lantern over stone walls, under clumps of
briar, and through woods whose boughs clawed the night wildly! The
moon lost and found under the flying scud was in keeping with the
general irresponsibility of a world ruled by Hezekiah.
She swung along ahead of me with the greatest ease and certainty.
Occasionally she flung some word back at me or whistled a few bars of a
tune, and when I slipped and nearly fell on a smooth slope she laughed
mockingly and bade me not lose the pumpkin. Once, when a boy, I stole
a watermelon and bore it a mile to the rendezvous of my pirate band
camped at a riverside; but carrying a pumpkin, even a hollow one, is
attended with manifold discomforts. It would help, I reflected, to
know just what I was lugging it for, but Hezekiah vouchsafed nothing.
When I threatened to drop the grinning gargoyle she laughed and told me
to trot along and not be silly; and a moment later she stopped and
demanded that I repeat fully the story I had told her aunt of the
finding of the slipper.
"You are better than I thought you were, Chimney-Man!" she declared,
when I had concluded and added her aunt's comment. "You may be sure
that tickled Aunt Octavia. You can lie almost as well as an architect.
Aunt Octavia says architects are better liars than dress-makers."
"It was my weakness for the truth that caused me to abandon
architecture. For heaven's sake, what are you up to?"
I had kept little account of the direction of our flight, and I was
surprised that we had now reached the stile over which I had watched
the passing of the suitors on the afternoon of my meeting with Hezekiah
in the orchard.
"This is the appointed place," she remarked, taking the pumpkin from me
and dropping down on the far side of the stile.
"Hezekiah, I've trotted across most of Westchester County after you,
and my arm is paralyzed from carrying that pumpkin. I must know what
you're up to right here, or I'll go home. Besides, there's a mist
falling and you'll be soaked. What do you suppose your father thinks
of your absence at this time of night?"
"Oh, he'll never forgive me for not letting him in on this. This is
the grandest thing I ever thought of. Sit on this step and gently
incline your ear toward the house. It's about time those gentlemen
were leaving Cecilia, and they'll be galloping for their inn in a
minute, and then"--
Hezekiah whistled the rest of it.
While we waited, she bade me reset the candle and snuff the wick, which
I did of necessity with my fingers. Sitting on a stile with a pretty
girl is an experience that has been commended by the balladists, but
surely this felicity loses nothing where the night is fine. When you
get used to sitting in a drizzle in your dress-suit, while your
shirt-bosom assumes the consistency of a gum shoe and your collar glues
itself odiously to your neck, I dare say the ordeal may be borne
cheerfully, but my expressions of discomfort seemed only to amuse
Hezekiah. While we waited for I knew not what, I tried once or twice
to revert to the silver note-book, but without success. Hezekiah was a
mistress of the art of evasion with her tongue as well as her feet!
"Wait till the evening performance is over and I'll talk about that.
'Sh! Quiet! Crawl over there out of the way, and when I say run, beat
it for the road."
These last phrases were uttered in a whisper, her face close to my ear.
She gave me a little push, and I withdrew a few yards and waited. The
ground, I may say, was wet, and the drizzle had become a monotonous
autumn rain.
The light of the lantern fell warmly upon Hezekiah's face as she held
its illumined countenance toward her, crouching on the stile-steps. I
heard now what her keener ear had caught earlier--the tramp of feet
along the path. The suitors were returning to the inn, and the voices
of one or two of them reached me. One--I thought it was Ormsby--was
execrating the weather. They were stepping along briskly, and my
remembrance of their retreat over this same stile through the amber
evening dusk was so vivid that I knew just how they would appear if a
light suddenly fell upon the path.
[Illustration: The light of the lantern fell warmly upon Hezekiah's
face.]
The nature of Hezekiah's undertaking suddenly dawned upon me. No one
but Hezekiah could ever have devised anything so preposterous, so
utterly lawless; but in spite of myself I waited in breathless
eagerness for the outcome. I could not have interfered now, if I had
wished to do so, without betraying her and involving myself in a
predicament that could not redound to my credit.
Nearer and nearer came the patter of feet, and I heard, for I could not
see, the scraping of Hezekiah's slipper,--a wet little shoe by now!--as
she crept higher on our side of the stile. The first suitor groped
blindly for the steps, slipped on the wet plank, growled, and rose to
try again. That growl marked for me the leader of the van. Hartley
Wiggins, beyond a doubt, and in no good humor, I guessed! The others,
I judged, had trodden upon one another's heels at the moment Wiggins
stumbled. Thus let us imagine their approach--six gentlemen in top
hats headed for a stile on a chilly night of rain.
It was at this strategic moment that Hezekiah pushed into the middle of
the stile-platform, its grinning face turned toward the advancing
suitors, the jack o' lantern her hand had fashioned.
I marked its position by its faint glow an instant, but an instant
only. The world reeled for a moment before the sharp cry of a man in
fear. It cut the dark like a lash, and close upon it the second man
yelled, in a different key, but no less in accents of terror. The
first arrival had flung himself back, and so close upon him pressed the
others and so unexpected was the halt, that the nine men seemed to have
flung themselves together and to be struggling to escape from the
hideous thing that had interposed itself in their path.
All was over in a moment. In the midst of the panic the lantern winked
out, and instantly Hezekiah was beside me.
"Skip!" she commanded in a whisper; and catching my hand she led me off
at a brisk run. When we had gone a dozen rods she paused. We heard
voices from the stile, where the gentlemen were still engaged in
disentangling themselves; and then the planks boomed to their steps as
they crossed. They talked loudly among themselves discussing the cause
of their discomfiture. The lantern, I may add, had been knocked off
the stile by the thoughtful Hezekiah when she blew out the light.
A moment more and all sounds of the suitors had died away. I stood
alone with Hezekiah in the midst of a meadow. She was breathing hard.
Suddenly she threw up her head, struck her hands together, and stamped
her foot upon the wet sod. I had waited for an outburst of laughter
now that we were safely out of the way, but I had reasoned without my
Hezekiah. Her mood was not the mood of mirth.
"Well, Hezekiah," I said when I had got my wind, "you pulled off your
joke, but you don't seem to be enjoying it. What's the matter?"
"Oh, that Hartley Wiggins! I might have known it!"
"Known what?" I asked, pricking up my ears.
"That he would be afraid of a pumpkin with a candle inside of it. Did
you hear that yell?"
"Anybody would have yelled," I suggested. "I think I should have
dropped dead if you'd tried it on me."
"No, you would n't," she asserted with unexpected flattery.
"Don't be deceived, Hezekiah; I should have been scared to death if
that thing had popped up in front of me."
"I don't believe it. I gave you a worse test than that. When I
switched off the lights and swung a feather duster down the stair-well
by a string and tickled your face you did n't make a noise like a
circus calliope scaring horses in Main Street, Podunk. But that
Wiggins man!"
"He's a friend of mine and as brave as a lion. Out in Dakota the
sheriff used to get him to go in and quiet things when the boys were
shooting up the town."
"Maybe; but he shied at a pumpkin and can be no true knight of mine.
Cecilia may have him. I always suspected that he was n't the real
thing. Why, he's even afraid of Aunt Octavia!"
"Well, I rather think _we 'd_ better be!"
I wanted to laugh, but I did not dare. I was not prepared for the
humor in which the panic of the suitors had left her. I did not quite
make out--and I am uncertain to this day--whether she had really wished
to test the courage of her sister's lovers or whether she had yielded
to a mischievous impulse in carrying the jack o' lantern to the stile
and thrusting it before those serious-minded gentlemen as they returned
from Hopefield. In any event Hartley Wiggins was out of it so far as
she, Hezekiah, was concerned. She trudged doggedly across the field
until we came presently to the highway.
"My wheel's in the weeds somewhere; please pull it out for me. I'm
going home."
"But not alone; I can't let you do that, Hezekiah."
"Oh, cheer up!" she laughed, aroused by my lugubrious tone. "And
here's something you asked me for. Don't drop it. It's Cecilia's
memorandum-book. Give it back to her, and be sure no one sees it, and
you need n't look into it yourself. And we've got to have a talk about
it and Cecilia. Let me see. There's an iron bridge across an arm of
that little lake over there, and just beyond it a big fallen tree.
To-morrow at nine o'clock I'll be there. I've got to tell you
something, Chimney-Man, without really telling you. You'll be there,
won't you?"
"I'll be there if I'm alive, Hezekiah."
I had found the wheel and lighted the lamp. She scouted my suggestion
that I find a horse and drive her home. The lighting of the lamp
required time owing to the wind and rain; but when its thin ribbon of
light fell clearly upon the road, she seized the handle-bars and was
ready to mount without ado.
She gave me her hand,--it was a cold, wet little hand, but there was a
good friendly grip in it. This was the first time I had touched
Hezekiah's hand, and I mention it because as I write I feel again the
pressure of her slim cold fingers.
"Sorry you spoiled your clothes, but it was in a good cause. And you
're a nice boy, Chimney-Man!"
She shot away into the darkness, and the lamp's glow on the road
vanished in an instant; but before I lost her quite, her cheery whistle
blew back to me reassuringly.
XVII
SEVEN GOLD REEDS
I woke the next morning to the banging of Miss Octavia's fowling-piece.
In spite of the crowding incidents of the day and night I had slept
soundly, and save for a stiffness of the legs I was none the worse for
my wetting. The service of the house was perfect, and in response to
my ring a man appeared who declared himself competent to knock my dress
clothes into shape again.
I should hardly have believed that so much history had been made in a
night, if it had not been for certain indubitable evidence: Cecilia's
silver note-book; Hezekiah's handkerchief, which I had forgotten to
return to her; and a patch of tallow grease from the jack o' lantern
that had attached itself firmly to my coat-cuff.
Cecilia met me at the foot of the stairs, looking rather worn, I
thought. We were safe from interruption a moment longer, as her aunt's
gun was still booming, and I followed her to the library.
"Please don't tell me you have failed," she cried tearfully. "That
little book means so much, so very much to us all!"
"Here it is, Miss Hollister," I said, placing it in her hand without
parley. "I beg to assure you that I return it just as you saw it last.
Please satisfy yourself that it has not been tampered with in any way.
I have not opened it; and it has not left my hand since I recovered it."
She had almost snatched it from me, and she turned slightly away and
ran hurriedly over the leaves.
In her relief she laughed happily; and with one of her charming,
graceful gestures she gave me her hand.
"I thank you, Mr. Ames; thank you! thank you! You have rendered me the
greatest service. And I hope you were able to do so without serious
inconvenience to yourself."
"On the other hand it was the smallest matter, and instead of being a
trouble I found the greatest pleasure in recovering it."
I stood with my hands thrust carelessly into my trousers pockets,
rocking slightly upon my heels to convey a sense of the unimportance of
my service. It was a manner I had cultivated to meet the surprise and
gratitude of my clients when I had brought a seemingly incurable flue
into a state of subjection. I think I may have appeared a little
bored, as though I had accomplished a feat that was rather unworthy of
my powers. A doctor who prescribes the wrong pill and finds to his
amazement that it cures the patient, might improve upon that manner,
but not greatly.
"You naturally wonder, Miss Hollister, how I found this trinket so
readily. And in order that you may not suspect perfectly innocent
persons, I will tell you exactly how I came by it. It was your belief
that you had left it on your dressing-table. But as a memorandum-book
of any character pertains to a writing-desk rather than to a
dressing-table, my interest centred at once upon such writing-table as
you doubtless have in your room."
"There is a writing-desk, in the corner by the window, but"--
"Ah, you are about to repeat your belief that you left the book on the
dressing-table and that it could not have moved to the desk. May I ask
whether you did not, just before you came down to dinner, scribble me a
line asking for an interview?"
"Why, yes; I remember that perfectly."
"You wrote in some haste, as indicated by the handwriting in your
message. It is possible that you wrote and destroyed one note, or
perhaps two, before you had expressed yourself exactly to your liking.
We are all of us, with any sort of feeling for style, prone to just
such rejections."
"It is possible that I did," she replied, coloring slightly. "I was
extremely anxious to see you."
"Very well, then; is it not possible that in throwing the rejected
correspondence cards into the waste-paper basket that stands beside
your desk,--there is such a basket, is there not?"
"Yes," she replied breathlessly.
"Is it not possible, then, that that little booklet, hardly heavier
than paper itself, may have been brushed off without your seeing it?"
"It is possible; I must admit that it is possible; but"--
"It is on that 'but' that any theory implicating another hand must
break. What I have indicated is exactly what must have happened. To
the nice care that characterizes the house-keeping of this
establishment we must now turn. I find that when I go to my own room
after dinner it is always in perfect order,--pens restored to the rack
on my writing-table, brushes laid straight on the dressing-table, and
so on. The well-trained maid who cares for your room, seeing scraps of
paper in the basket by your desk, naturally carried it off. When I
accepted your commission last night I went directly to the cellar,
sought the bin into which waste paper is thrown, and found among old
envelopes and other litter this small trinket, which but for my
promptness might have been lost forever."
"It does n't seem possible," she faltered.
"Oh," I laughed easily, "possible or impossible, you could not on the
witness-stand swear that the book had not dropped into the waste-paper
basket precisely as I have described."
"No, I suppose I couldn't," she answered slowly.
My powers of mendacity were improving; but her relief at holding the
book again in her hand was so great that she would probably have
believed anything.
"You see," she said, clasping the book tight, "this was given me for a
particular purpose and it contains a memorandum of greatest importance.
And I was in a panic when I found that it was gone, for my recollection
of certain items I had recorded here was confused, and there was no
possible way of setting myself straight. Now all is clear again. I
feel that I make poor acknowledgment of your service; but if, at any
time"--
"Pray think no more of it," I replied; and at this moment Miss
Hollister appeared and called us to breakfast.
"If it is perfectly agreeable to you, Arnold, I will hear the story of
the finding of the ghost at four o'clock, or just before tea. I have
sent a telegram to Mr. Pepperton asking him to be present. He 's at
his country home in Redding and can very easily motor down. As no
motors are allowed on my premises he shall be met at the gate with a
trap."
"You have sent for Pepperton!" I exclaimed.
"That is exactly what I have done, and as he knows that I never accept
apologies under any circumstances, he will not disappoint me. In
addition to reprimanding him for not telling me of the secret passage
in this house, I have another matter that concerns you, Arnold, which I
wish to lay before him. The new cook that Providence sent to my
kitchen yesterday is the best we have had, Cecilia, and I beg that you
both indulge yourselves in a second helping of country scrambled eggs."
Miss Octavia made no further allusion to the incidents of the night,
but went on turning over her mail. I have neglected to say that her
library contained a most remarkable array of books in praise of man's
fortitude and daring. I have learned later that these had been
assembled for her by a distinguished scholar, and many of them were
rare editions. A "Karlamagnus Saga" elbowed Malory and the "Reali di
Francia;" and Roland's horn challenged in all languages. She greatly
admired and had often visited the Chateau de Luynes, and had a
portfolio filled with water-color and pen-and-ink drawings of it. Such
books as Viollet-le-Duc's "Dictionnaire du Mobilier Français" I
constantly found lying spread open on the library table. She read
German and French readily, and declared her purpose to attack old
French that she might pursue certain obscure _chansons de geste_ which,
an Oxford professor had told her, were not susceptible of adequate
translation. Why should one read the news of the day when the news of
all time was available! Magazines and reviews she tolerated, but no
newspaper was as good as Froissart. She therefore read newspapers only
through a clipping bureau, which sent her items bearing upon her own
peculiar interests. By some error the story of a heavy embezzlement in
a city bank had that day crept in among a number of cuttings relating
to a ship that had been found somewhere off the Chilean coast with all
sails set and everything in perfect order, but with not a soul on
board. She expressed her bitterest contempt for men in responsible
positions who betrayed their trusts: highway robbery she thought a much
nobler crime, as the robber dignified his act by exposing himself to
personal danger.
"In our day, Arnold," she said, placing her knife and fork carefully on
her plate, "in our day the ten commandments have lost their moral
significance and retain, I fear, only a very slight literary interest."
She reminded Cecilia of an appointment to ride that morning; in the
early afternoon she was to install a new kennel-master; and otherwise
there was a full day ahead of her. It was a cheerful breakfast table.
A letter from my assistant confirming his telegraphed resignation did
not disturb me; Miss Octavia showed no further signs of abandoning her
quest of the golden coasts of youth, and Cecilia, having recovered her
notebook, faced the new day cheerfully.
A little later I met Miss Hollister in the hall dressed for her ride.
"Arnold, you may ride whenever you like. I may have forgotten to
mention it. What have you on hand this morning?"
"An appointment with a lady," I replied.
"If you are about to meet the owner of that Beacon Street slipper I
wish you good luck."
She was drawing on her gauntlets, and turned away to hide a smile, I
thought; then she tapped me lightly with her riding-crop.
"Cecilia's silver note-book was missing last night. She told me of her
loss with tears. She has it again this morning. Did you restore it?"
"It was my good fortune to do so."
"Then allow me to add my thanks to hers. You are an unusually
practical person, Arnold Ames, as well as the possessor of an
imagination that pleases me. You are becoming more and more essential
to me. Cecilia approaches, and I cannot say more at this time."
When they had ridden out of the porte-cochère I set off across the
fields to keep my tryst with Hezekiah. The air had been washed sweet
and clean by the rain of the night, and sky was never bluer. I was
surprised at my own increasing detachment from the world. Nothing that
had happened before the Asolando mattered greatly; my meeting with Miss
Octavia Hollister had marked a climacteric from which all events must
now be reckoned. I had embarked with high hope in a profession to
which I had been drawn from youth, had failed utterly to find clients,
and had therefore taken up the doctoring of flues, a vocation whose
honors are few and dubious, and in which I felt it to be damning praise
that I was called the best in America. My days at Hopefield were the
happiest of my life. Few as they had been, they had changed my gray
bleak course into a path bright with promise. The world had been too
much with me, and I had escaped from it as completely as though I had
stepped upon another planet "where all is possible and all unknown."
I reached the fallen tree that Hezekiah had appointed as our
trysting-place a little ahead of time, and indulged in pleasant
speculations while I waited. I was looking toward the hills expecting
her to come skimming along the highway on her bicycle, when a splash
caused me to turn to the lake. Dull of me not to have known that
Hezekiah would contrive a new entrance for a scene so charmingly set as
this! She had stolen upon me in a light skiff, and laughed to see how
her silent approach startled me. She dropped one oar and used the
other as a paddle, driving the boat with a sure hand through the reeds
into the bank.
"'Tis morning and the days are long!"
Such was Hezekiah's greeting as she jumped ashore. She wore a dark
green skirt and coat, and a narrow four-in-hand cravat tied under a
flannel collar that clasped her throat snugly. A boy's felt hat, with
the brim pinned up in front, covered her head.
"You seem none the worse for your wetting, Hezekiah. You must have
been soaked."
"So must you, Chimneys, but you look as fit as I feel, and I never felt
better. Did they catch you crawling in last night?"
"I did n't see a soul. You know I'm an old member of the family now.
Nobody was ever as nice to me as your Aunt Octavia."
"How about Cecilia?"
"Having found her silver note-book and given it back to her before
breakfast, I may say that our relations are altogether cordial."
"Are you in love with her--yet?" asked Hezekiah, carelessly, tossing a
pebble into the lake. The "yet" was so timed that it splashed with the
pebble.
"No; not--yet," I replied.
"It will come," said Hezekiah a little ruefully, casting a pebble
farther upon the crinkled water.
"You mean, Hezekiah, that men always fall in love with your sister."
She nodded.
"Well, she's a good deal of a girl."
"Beautiful and no end cultivated. They all go crazy about her."
"You mean Hartley Wiggins and his fellow-bandits at the Prescott Arms."
"Yes; and lots of others."
"And sometimes, Hezekiah, it has seemed to you that she got all the
admiration, and that you did n't get your share. So when her suitors
began a siege of the castle whose gates were locked against you, you
plugged the chimney with a trunk-tray, and played at being ghost and
otherwise sought to terrify your sister's lovers."
"That's not nice, Chimneys. You mean that I'm jealous."
"No. I don't mean that you are jealous now: I throw it into the remote
and irrevocable past. You were jealous. You don't care so much now.
And I hope you will care less!"
"That is being impertinent. If you talk that way I shall call you Mr.
Ames and go home!"
"You can't do that, Hezekiah."
"I should like to know why not? If you say I 'm jealous of Cecilia
now, or that I ever was, I shall be very, very angry. For it's not
true."
"No. You see things very differently now. You told me only last night
that Cecilia might have Hartley Wiggins. Assuming that she wants him!
And you and he have been good friends, have n't you? You had good
times on the other side. And while Cecilia was in town assisting
Providence in finding your aunt a cook, you went walking with him."
"I did, I did!" mocked Hezekiah. "And why do you suppose I did?"
"Because Wiggy's the best of fellows; a solid, substantial citizen, who
raises wheat to make bread out of."
"And angel food and ginger cookies," added Hezekiah, feeling absently
in the pockets of her coat. "No, Chimneys, you 're a nice boy and you
don't yell like a wild man when a feather-duster hits you in the dark;
but there are some things you don't know yet."
"I am here to grow wise at the feet of Hezekiah, Daughter of Kings.
Open the book of wisdom and teach me the alphabet, but don't be sad if
I balk at the grammar."
"I never knew all the alphabet myself," said Hezekiah dolefully; then
she laughed abruptly. "I was bounced from two convents and no end of
Hudson River and Fifth Avenue education shops."
"The brutality of that, Hezekiah, wrings my heart! Yet you are the
best teacher I ever had, and I thought I was educated when I met you.
But I had only been to school, which is different. Not until the first
time our eyes met, not until that supreme moment"--
"Mr. Ames," Hezekiah interrupted, in the happiest possible imitation of
Miss Octavia's manner, "if you think that, because I am a poor lone
girl who knows nothing of the great, wide world, I am a fair mark for
your cajolery, I assure you that you were never more mistaken in your
life!"
"You ought n't to mimic your aunt. It is n't respectful; and besides
you have something to tell me. What's all this rumpus about Cecilia's
silver memorandum-book? Suppose we discuss that and get through with
it."
We were sitting on the fallen tree, which lay partly in the lake, and
Hezekiah leaned over and broke off a number of reeds from the thicket
at the water's edge. Out of her pocket she drew a small penknife and
trimmed them uniformly.
"You see," she began, biting her lip in the earnestness of her labor,
"I'm going to tell you something, and yet I 'm not going to tell you.
So far as you and I have gone you 've been tolerably satisfactory. If
I did n't think you had some wits in your head I should n't have
bothered with you at all. That's frank, is n't it?"
"It certainly is. But I'm terribly fussed for fear I may not be equal
to this new ordeal."
"If you fail we shall never meet again; that's all there is to that.
Now listen real hard. You know something about it already, but not the
main point. Aunt Octavia got father to consent to let her marry us
off--Cecilia and me. Cecilia, being older, came first. I was to keep
out of the way, and father and I were not to come to Aunt Octavia's new
house up there or meddle in any way. While we were abroad I was
treated as a little girl, and not as a grown-up at all. But you see I
'm really nineteen, and some of Cecilia's suitors were nice to me when
we were traveling. They were nice to me on Cecilia's account, you
know."
"Of course. You're so hard to look at, it must have been painful to
them to be nice to you,--almost like taking poison! Go on, Hezekiah!"
"You need n't interrupt me like that. Well, as part of the
understanding, and Cecilia agreed to it,--she thought she had to for
papa's sake,--she was to marry a particular man. Do you understand me,
a particular man? Aunt Octavia gave her the little note-book--she
bought it at a shop in Paris at the time Cecilia consented to the
plan--and she was to keep a sort of diary, so that she'd know when the
right man turned up. Now we will drop the note-book for a minute; only
I'll say that Cecilia was to keep the book all to herself and not show
it to any one, not even to Aunt Octavia, you know, until the right man
had asked Cecilia to marry him. Now who do you suppose, Mr. Ames, that
man is?"
I watched her hands as they deftly cut and fashioned the dry reeds.
The air grew warm as the sun climbed to the zenith, and Hezekiah flung
aside her coat. The breeze caught the ends of her tie and snapped them
behind her. She was wholly absorbed in her task, and no boy could have
managed a pocket-knife better. The first reed she made a trifle longer
than her hand; the succeeding ones she trimmed to graduated lessening
lengths, till seven in all had been cut, and then she notched them.
"Seven," she murmured, laying them neatly in order on her knee. "I
remember the right number by a poem I read the other day in an old
magazine."
She reached down and plucked several long leaves of tough grass with
which she began to bind the reeds together, repeating,--
"Seven gold reeds grew tall and slim,
Close by the river's beaded brim.
"Syrnix the naiad flitted past:
Pan, the goat-hoofed, followed fast.
"It will be easier," said Hezekiah, "if you hold the pipes while I tie
them."
I found this propinquity wholly agreeable. It was pleasant to sit on a
log beside Hezekiah. It seemed no far cry to the storied Mediterranean
and Pan and dryads and naiads, as Hezekiah bound her reeds to the music
of couplets. There was no self-consciousness in her recitation; she
seemed to be telling me of something that she had seen herself an hour
ago.
"He spread his arms to clasp her there
Just as she vanished into air.
"And to his bosom warm and rough
Drew the gold reeds close enough.
"I don't remember the rest," she broke off. "But there! That's a pipe
fit for any shepherd."
She put it to her lips and blew. I shall not pretend that the result
was melodious: she whistled much better without the reeds; but the
sight of her, sitting on the fallen tree beside the lake, beating time
with her foot, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed in a mockery
of rapture at the shrill, wheezy uncertainties and ineptitudes she
evoked, thrilled me with new and wonderful longings. A heart, a spirit
like hers would never grow old! She was next of kin to all the
elusive, fugitive company of the elf-world. And on such a pipe as she
had strung together beside that pond, to this day Sicilian shepherd
boys whistle themselves into tune with Theocritus!
[Illustration: She put it to her lips and blew.]
"Take it," she said; "I can't tell you more than I have; and yet it is
all there, Chimneys. Read the riddle of the reeds if you can."
I took the pipe and turned it over carefully in my hands; but I fear my
thoughts were rather of the hands that had fashioned it, the fingers
that had danced nimbly upon the stops.
"There are seven reeds,--seven," she affirmed.
She amused herself by skipping pebbles over the surface of the water
while I pondered. And I deliberated long, for one did not like to
blunder before Hezekiah! Then I jumped up and called to her.
"One, two, three, four, five, six--seven! Not until the seventh man
offers himself shall Cecilia have a husband! Is that the answer?"
For a moment Hezekiah watched the widening ripples made by the casting
of her last pebble; then she came back and resumed her seat.
"You have done well, Chimney Man; and now I 'll not make you guess any
more, though I found it all out for myself. When Aunt Octavia gave
that memorandum-book to Cecilia, I knew it must have something to do
with the seventh man. You know I love all Aunt Octavia's nonsense
because it's the kind of foolishness I like myself, and the idea of a
pretty little note-book to write down proposals in was precisely the
sort of thing that would have occurred to my aunt. And it was in the
bargain, too, that she herself should not in any way interfere, or try
to influence the course of events: it should be the seventh suitor,
willy-nilly. And I suspect she's been a little scared too."
"She has indeed! She was almost ready to throw the whole scheme over
last night. Your naughtiness had got on her nerves."
"You missed the target that time: Aunt Octavia loves my naughtiness,
and I think she has really been afraid Sir Pumpkin Wiggins would catch
me. Now I did n't roam my aunt's house just for fun. I was doing my
best to keep Cecilia from getting into some scrape about that
seventh-suitor plan. I found out by chance how to get into Hopefield,
and about the hidden stairway and the old rooms tucked away there.
Papa really discovered that. A carpenter in Katonah who worked on the
house helped to build papa's bungalow, and he told us how that ruin
came to be there. That dyspepsia-cure man, who also immortalized
himself by inventing the ribless umbrella, was very superstitious. He
believed that if he built an entirely new house he would die. So he
had his architect build around and retain those two rooms and that
stairway of a house that had been on the ground almost since the
Revolution. Mr. Pepperton, the architect, humored him, but hid the
remains of the relic as far out of sight as possible."
"Trust Pep for that! And he did it neatly!"
"Yes; but it did n't save the umbrella-man; he died anyhow; or maybe
his pies killed him. Papa was so curious about it that he took me with
him one night just before Aunt Octavia moved here, and he and I found
the rooms and the stair and the secret spring by which, if you know
just where to poke the wall in the fourth-floor hall, you can disappear
as mysteriously as you please."
"But how on earth did you darken the halls so easily? You nearly gave
me heart-disease doing that!"
"Oh, that was a mere matter of a young lady in haste! When I found how
easily I could pass you on the stair it became a fascinating game, and
it was no end of fun to see just how long it would take you to catch
me."
"I wish, Hezekiah, that you would stay caught!"
"Be very, very careful, sir! We're talking business now. There's
another ordeal for you before you dare become sentimental."
"Then hasten; let us be after it."
"Things are in a serious predicament, I can tell you. I was frightened
when I looked into that note-book,--I did n't like to do that, but I
had to assist Providence a little. Five men have already got their
quietus."
"Then why don't they clear out, and stop their nonsense?"
"Oh, it's their pride, I suppose; and every man probably thinks that
when Cecilia has seen a little more of him in particular, in contrast
with the others, he will win her favor. They 're afraid of one
another, those men; that's the reason they've been herding together so
close since that first day you came. Mr. Wiggins was taking it for
granted that he was the whole thing--just like the man!--and those
others forced him to join in some sort of arrangement by which they
were to hang together. These calls in a bunch came from that, as
though any one of them would n't take advantage of the others if he saw
a chance! Some of this I got from Wiggy himself, the rest I just
guessed."
"But you may not know that they sent a delegation after me into town,
to warn me off the grass."
"That was Mr. Dick. He never saw me when Cecilia was around. And he
was terribly snippy sometimes, and supercilious; but I'm going to get
even with him. I've about underlined him for number six," she
concluded, with the manner of a queen who, about to give her chief
executioner his orders for the day, glances calmly over the list of
victims.
"That's a good idea; Dick is insufferable; I hope you have n't counted
wrong."
"As we were saying, about the note-book," she resumed, "the fifth man
has already been respectfully declined. The dates of the proposals are
written in the note-book; so I learned from the book that Mr. Ormsby,
Mr. Arbuthnot, and Mr. Gorse had proposed on the steamer. Professor
Hume, as you know, tried his luck at Hopefield; and Lord Arrowood must
have stopped Cecilia as she was riding to the station on my bicycle
yesterday morning. His goose is cooked."
"His gooseberry pie was cooked, but I took it away from him. No pie
sacred to Hezekiah can be confiscated by an indigent lord so long as I
keep my present health and spirits. It's the close season for lords in
Westchester County; I potted the last one. By the way, he thought you
were a real ghost when you were playing tag with him in the dark."
"He stopped to tell papa good-bye and spoke very highly of you; papa
and you are the only gentlemen he met in America. But now we come to
Mr. Wiggins."
"We do; and why in the name of all that is beautiful and good has n't
he tried his luck?"
"Because, knowing Cecilia's admiration for him," replied Hezekiah
demurely, "I have kept him so diverted that he has n't been able to
bring himself to the scratch."
She examined the palm of her hand critically to allow me time to grasp
this.
"You did n't want him to blunder in as the first, fourth, or sixth man?"
Hezekiah gravely nodded her pretty head.
"And while you were engaged in this sisterly labor, Cecilia has been
afraid that you were seriously interested in him!"
"That is like Cecilia. She's fine, and would n't cause me trouble for
anything;" and there was no doubt of Hezekiah's sincerity.
"But now that I see the light and understand all this, how can we make
sure that Wiggy will be on the spot at the right moment? While we sit
here, he may be the sixth man! There's my friend, the eminent thinker
from Nebraska; he's likely to kneel before Cecilia at any moment, and
Henderson and Shallenberger are not asleep."
"That's all true; and you've got to fix it."
"You're leaving the fate of Wiggins and your sister in my hands?
That's a heavy responsibility, Hezekiah. I might take care of Wiggy by
asking Cecilia to marry me, being careful to have him appear
johnny-on-the-spot when I had been duly declined."
"Um, I should n't take any chances if I were you," she replied,
feigning to look at an imaginary bird in a tree-top; "for if you had
counted wrong and were really the seventh man, she would have to accept
you!"
"Hezekiah!"
"Oh, I really did n't mean what you thought I meant. We don't need to
discuss it any more. That's the ordeal I've arranged for you," she
answered, and set her lips sternly.
"But, my dear Hezekiah, by what means can this be effected? I don't
dare tell him the combination he's playing against or sit on him until
his hour strikes."
"Certainly not; you must n't tell him or anybody else. You know the
plan; but you're not supposed to; and nobody must know I've meddled.
Meanwhile, Cecilia must expose herself to proposals at all times. Aunt
Octavia's heart would be broken if she thought Providence had been
tampered with. She likes Wiggy well enough, except that his ancestors
were all Tories and he can't be a son of the Revolution."
"Too bad; it was very careless of him not to do better about his
ancestors; but he can't change that now."
"Well, you've behaved with considerable intelligence so far, and now
with your friend's fate in your hands you will need to use great
judgment and tact in all that follows. I wash my hands of the whole
business."
She rose quickly and pointed to her coat.
"Drop it into the boat for me, Chimneys. We meet in funny places,
don't we? Papa expects me for luncheon, and I must row back and get my
bicycle. You? No, you can't go along; you've got a lot of thinking to
do, and you'd better be doing it."
XVIII
TROUBLE AT THE PRESCOTT ARMS
A few minutes later, as I swung along the highway toward the Prescott
Arms, I saw Cecilia Hollister riding toward me at a lively gallop. She
crossed the bridge without checking her horse, and then, with a hurried
glance over her shoulder, she pointed with her crop to a by-way that
led deviously into a strip of forest and vanished.
I hurried after her, and found her waiting for me in a quiet lane. She
had dismounted and seemed greatly disturbed as I addressed her. Her
horse, a superb Estabrook thoroughbred, had evidently been pushed hard.
Cecilia had taken off her hat, and was giving a touch to the wayward
strands of hair that had been shaken loose in her flight. The color
glowed in her dark cheeks, and her eyes were bright with excitement.
"I hadn't expected to meet you; I thought you rode off with your aunt
toward Mt. Kisco."
"We did; but on our way home Aunt Octavia stopped to call on a friend,
and as I did n't feel in a mood for visits this morning I rode on
alone."
She spoke further of her aunt's friend, of whom I had never heard
before, to calm herself before touching upon the cause of her wild ride
or her wish to speak to me. She pinned on her hat and drew on her
riding-gloves while I helped to make conversation, and soon regained
her composure. The haste with which she had withdrawn into the wood,
and the imperative wave of her crop by which she had bidden me follow
her, indicated that something of importance had happened and that she
wished to confide in me.
"I was walking my horse in the road beyond Bedford, just after I left
Aunt Octavia, when who should ride up beside me but Mr. Wiggins. He
had evidently been following me."
She expected me to express surprise; and with the information that
Hezekiah had just imparted fresh in my mind I dare say she was not
disappointed in the effect of her words. I was thinking rapidly and
fearfully. If my friend had sought her in the highway and offered
himself in some fresh accession of ardor, he might even now be a
rejected and hopeless man; but I was unwilling to believe that this had
happened.
"Hartley is fond of riding, and nothing could be more natural than for
him to have his horse sent out from town."
"Oh, it's natural enough," she cried; "but I was greatly taken aback
when he rode up beside me."
"An old friend joining you in the highway, on a bright October morning!
I can't for the life of me see anything surprising or alarming in that,
Miss Hollister."
"But only yesterday, you remember I told you I had seen him walking
with my sister."
"It's perfectly easy to talk to Hezekiah! It seems to me that that
only shows a friendly attitude toward all the family. Let us deal with
facts if I am to help you. I understand perfectly that Hartley Wiggins
wishes to marry you; and that being the case I see no reason why he
should n't be courteous to your sister. I 've always heard that it's
the proper thing to be polite to the sisters, cousins, and aunts of
one's prospective wife. I know of no more delightful occupation than
listening to Hezekiah. Just now, for an hour or so, I have been
enjoying her conversation myself. Nothing could be more refreshing or
stimulating. She is an unusual young woman, and most amazingly wise."
"You have seen Hezekiah this morning!" she exclaimed.
"I have indeed. I hope I may say that she and I are becoming good
friends. I am learning to understand her; though, believe me, I don't
speak boastingly. However, this morning we got on famously together.
But won't you continue and tell me what happened in the road when
Hartley rode up beside you?"
"Oh, nothing happened; really nothing! Nothing could have happened,
for the excellent reason that I ran away from him. It was n't what he
did or said; it was the fear of what he might say!"
"If it had been Mr. Dick who had joined you in exactly the same way in
the highway, you would not have minded in the least, Miss Hollister.
Is n't that the truth?"
Her hand that had rested on the pommel of her saddle dropped to her
side, and she stood erect, her eyes wide with wonder.
"What do you mean?" she gasped.
"I mean exactly what I have said; that if it had been that strutting
young philosopher from the West you would--well, you would have allowed
him to say what was in his mind, no matter whether it had been his
latest thought on Kantianism, the weather, or his admiration for
yourself. Am I not right?"
"I wonder, I wonder"--she faltered, drawing away, the better to observe
me.
"You wonder how much I know! To relieve your mind without parleying
further, I will say to you that I know everything."
"Then Aunt Octavia must have told you; and that seems incredible. It
was distinctly understood"--
"Your aunt told me nothing. Not by words did any one tell me."
"Not by words?" she asked, eyeing me wonderingly and clearly fearing
that I might be playing some trick upon her. "Then can it be that
Hezekiah--but no! Hezekiah does n't know!"
"Trust Hezekiah for not telling secrets," I answered evasively. "Give
me credit for some imagination. The air of Hopefield is stimulating,
and in the few days I have spent in your aunt's house I have learned
much that I never dreamed of before. I am not at all the person you
greeted with so much courtesy in the library when I arrived there, a
chimney-doctor and an ignorant person, a few afternoons ago,--called,
as I thought, to prescribe for flues that proved to be in admirable
condition, but really summoned by higher powers to assist the fates in
the proper and orderly performance of their duties to several members
of the house of Hollister,--yourself among them."
"I don't understand it; you are wholly inexplicable."
"I am the simplest and least guileful of beings, I assure you. Yet I
have done some things here not in the slightest way related to chimney
doctoring; and something else I expect to do for which I believe you
will thank me through all the years of your life."
"Ah, if you really know, that is possible!" she sighed wearily. "I am
very tired of it all. I was very foolish ever to have agreed to Aunt
Octavia's plan. You have seen those men,--any one of them might, you
know"-- And she shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
"Any one of them might be the seventh man! There, you see I do know!
And I mean to help you!"
She was immensely relieved; there was no question of that. Gratitude
shone in her eyes; and then, as I marvelled at their beautiful dark
depths, fear suddenly possessed them. The change in her was startling.
Several motors had swept by in the outer road while we talked; they
were faintly visible through the trees; and just now we both heard a
horse and caught a fleeting glimpse of Hartley Wiggins, riding slowly
with bowed head toward the inn. Cecilia's horse flung up his head, but
she clapped her hands upon his nostrils and held them there to prevent
his whinnying until that figure of despair had passed out of hearing.
I was smitten with sorrow for Hartley Wiggins. I could put myself in
his place and imagine his feelings as he rode like a defeated general
back to the inn, there to face the other suitors after the humiliating
experience which Cecilia Hollister had just described. In his
ignorance of the cause of her eagerness to escape from him, he no doubt
believed that he had all unconsciously made himself intolerable to her.
It was plain that that glimpse of him had touched Cecilia's pity; if I
had doubted the sincerity of her regard for him before, I spurned the
thought now. I was anxious to requicken hope in her,--an odd office
for me to assume when in my own affairs I had always yielded my sword
readily to the blue devils! Yet during my short stay at Hopefield I
had already found it possible to restore Miss Octavia's confidence in
her own chosen destiny, and in this delicate love-affair between
Cecilia Hollister and my best friend I proffered counsel and sympathy
with an assurance that astonished me.
"I have told you enough, Miss Hollister, to make it clear that I am in
a position to help you. Believe me, I have no other business before me
but to complete the service I have undertaken."
"But there is always"--she began, then ceased abruptly, and lifted her
head proudly--"there is always Mr. Wiggins's attitude toward my sister.
Not for anything in the world would I cause her the slightest
unhappiness. You must see that, now that you know her."
I laughed aloud. Cecilia's concern for Hezekiah's happiness was so
absurd that I could not restrain my mirth for a moment. Displeasure
showed promptly in Cecilia's face.
"I am sorry if you doubt my sincerity, Mr. Ames. I will put the matter
directly, to make sure I have not been misunderstood heretofore, and
say that if Hezekiah is interested in Hartley Wiggins and cares for him
in the least,--you know she is young and susceptible,--I shall take
care that he never sees me again."
"Pardon me, but maybe you don't quite understand Hezekiah!"
"Is it possible, then, that you do?" she inquired coldly. "I imagine
your opportunities for seeing her have not been numerous."
"Well, it is n't so much a matter of seeing her, when you've read of
her all your life and dreamed about her. She's in every fairy story
that ever was written; she dances through the mythologies of all races.
Hers is the kingdom of the pure in heart. Her mind is like a beautiful
bright meadow by the sea, and her thoughts the dipping of swallow-wings
on lightly swaying grasses."
Cecilia's manner changed, and she smiled.
"You seem to have an attack of something; it looks serious. You have
n't known her long enough to find out so much!"
"Longer than you would believe. She and I sat on the shore together
when Ulysses sailed by; we were among those present at the sack of
Troy; we heard Roland's ivory trumpet at Roncesvalles."
"Such words from you amaze me. I didn't imagine there was so much
romance in chimneys."
"They are full of it! Commend me to an open fire, with a flue that
knows its business, and a dream or two! I 've renounced my profession.
I shall hereafter offer myself as adviser to persons in need of
illusions; we 'd all be poets if we dared!"
I helped her into the saddle, and she looked down at me with amusement
in her eyes. My praise of Hezekiah had pleased her, and I felt, as
when we journeyed together into town, her kindly, human qualities. The
perplexities and embarrassments resulting from her compact with her
aunt had doubtless checked the natural flow of her spirits. She talked
on buoyantly, though I was eager to be off, to avert the catastrophe
that only her flight had prevented and which Wiggins might at any
moment precipitate. She gathered up her reins.
"You are not coming home for luncheon? Then I shall see you at four.
I hope the hiding-place of the ghost will prove interesting. Aunt
Octavia has built her hopes high, and I may add that she has expressed
the greatest admiration of you to me. On her ride this morning she
declared that great things are in store for you. I hope so, too, Mr.
Ames."
She gave me her hand and rode away, and before I had reached the
highway she was across the bridge and galloping rapidly homeward.
The inn was a mile distant, and I set off at a brisk pace, turning over
in my mind various projects for controlling the characters now upon the
stage in such manner that Wiggins should become the seventh man.
Cecilia could not always run away from him without violating the terms
of her aunt's stipulation; and it was unlikely that she would attempt
further to guide or thwart the pointing finger of fate. I relied
little upon any arrangement effected among the suitors to stand
together. Hume had already found a chance to speak. Lord Arrowood had
bitten the dust and turned his face homeward, and Wiggins had been near
the brink only that morning. It was unlikely that any of the active
candidates remaining would stumble upon the key to the situation, which
Hezekiah had given into my keeping.
It was well on toward two o'clock when I approached the inn. Before
long the suitors would depart for their afternoon call at the Manor,
which was an established event of the day. Just as I was about to
enter the gate I was arrested by an imperious voice calling, and John
Stewart Dick came running toward me. He had evidently been expecting
me, and I paused, thinking him about to renew his attack upon me. To
my surprise he greeted me cordially, even offering his hand.
"You thought you would come after all. Well, I'm glad you did. I've
decided that there should be peace between us."
In stature he was the shortest of the suitors, but what he lacked in
height was compensated for by a tremendous dignity. A dark Napoleonic
lock lay across his forehead, and his clear-cut profile otherwise
suggested the Corsican, the resemblance being, I wickedly assumed, one
that the philosopher encouraged.
"You have several times addressed me, Mr. Ames, in a spirit of
contumely which I have hesitated to punish by the chastisement you
deserve; but I am willing to let bygones be bygones."
His changed tone put me on guard, but it was impossible for me to take
him seriously. In spite of the fact that he was a vigorous muscular
young fellow who could have threshed me without trouble, I could not
resist the impulse he always roused in me to address him in language
any self-respecting man would resent.
"Chant the _dies iræ_ with considerable _allegro_, Plato, for I am
hungry and would fain pay for food at the adjacent inn."
"I will overlook the coarseness of your humor," he rejoined haughtily.
"My own time is as valuable as yours. You have sneered at my
attainments as a philosopher; but I will pass that for the present. I
am disposed to treat you magnanimously. You have an excellent opinion
of yourself; you have come here as an intruder upon the rights of those
of us who followed Cecilia Hollister across Europe and home to America;
but in spite of this I waive my rights in your favor. I had intended
to offer myself to Miss Hollister this afternoon, with every hope of
success, but I yield to you. My only request is that you inform me at
once when you have learned her decision."
He clapped on his cap and folded his arms, clearly satisfied with the
expressions of surprise to which my feelings betrayed me. Could it be
possible that he had guessed the truth, perhaps by deductive processes
of which I was ignorant? Whether he had reasoned from some remark
thrown out by Miss Octavia as to the influence of seven in the affairs
of life and her application of that fateful principle to the choice of
a husband for Cecilia, I could not guess, but assuming that he had
caught that clue, he might readily enough have managed the rest.
Having crossed on the steamer with the suitor host, a man of his
intelligence might readily enough have kept track of the vanquished.
In any case he had hit upon me as a likely victim, and on the plea of
generously waiting till I had tried my luck he hoped to thrust me
forward as the sixth suitor, and immediately thereafter project himself
as the inevitable seventh man. The whole situation was rendered
perilously complex by the knowledge that, unaided, he had possessed
himself of so much dangerous information. I must not, however, allow
him to see what I suspected.
"My dear professor, there's an ancient warning against the Greeks
bearing gifts. You must give me time to inspect the horse."
"Are you questioning my good faith?"
"Be it far from me! I'm a good deal tickled though by your genial
assumption that if I offered myself to this lady I should be declined
with thanks. You have fretted yourself into a state of mind that bodes
ill for American philosophy."
He was again belligerent. It may have occurred to him that I might
know as much as he, but at any rate he grinned; it was a saturnine grin
I did not like.
"I'm starving to death at the door of an inn, and you must excuse me.
Have you seen Hartley Wiggins lately?"
"I have, indeed! He's taken to lonely horseback rides; he's off
somewhere now. He has n't the stamina for a contest like this. One by
one the autumn leaves are falling," he added, with special intention,
"and I have given you your chance."
"Thanks, light-bringing Socrates from the lands of the Ogalallas! For
so much courtesy I shall take pleasure in reading all your posthumous
works. Let us cease being absurd."
He laid his hand on my arm and lowered his tone.
"Don't be an ass. If you and I both know what's underneath all this
mystery we might come to an understanding."
"I don't follow you. Please make a light, like a man about to have an
idea."
"You mean that you don't understand?" He eyed me doubtfully, uncertain
whether I knew or not.
"You have implied that I am incapable of understanding; suppose we let
it go at that."
With this I left him and entered the low-raftered office--it was really
a pleasant lounging-room, unspoiled by the usual hotel-office
paraphernalia. Dick had followed close behind, and as I paused,
hearing voices raised angrily in the dining-room beyond, I turned to
him for an explanation. As the suitors had been the only guests of the
inn since their advent, having stipulated that the proprietor should
exclude other applicants for meals or lodging, I attributed the
commotion to strife in their own ranks. Dick nodded sullenly and bade
me keep on.
"You 'd better take a look at those fellows. I 've quit them--quite
out of it; remember that."
The dining-room door was slightly ajar, and I flung it open.
Ormsby, Shallenberger, Henderson, Hume, Gorse, and Arbuthnot had been
engaged with cards at a round table in an alcove, but some dispute
having apparently risen, they stood in their places engaged in
acrimonious debate. As near as I could determine, some one of them--I
think it was Ormsby--wished to abandon the game, which had been
undertaken to determine in what order they should be permitted to pay
visits to Hopefield in future, the calls _en masse_ having grown
intolerable. They were so absorbed in their argument that they failed
to note my appearance, and I stood unobserved within the door. The
dialogue between the card-players was swift and hot.
"It's no good, I tell you!" cried Ormsby. "There's no fairness in this
unless all take their chances together!"
"You ought to have thought of that before we began. This was your
scheme, but because the cards are running against you, you want to
quit. I say we'll go on!" This from Henderson, who struck the table
sharply as he concluded.
"You knew Wiggins and Dick were n't going in when we started, and you
are not likely to get them in now. Your anxiety to cut the rest of us
out by any means seems to have unsettled your mind," shouted Gorse. "I
say let's drop this and stand to our original agreement that no man
speak till the end of the fortnight."
"After that whole scheme has been torn to pieces like paper! There's
been nothing fair in this business from the start! We ought to have
kept Arrowood here and held together. And we ought to have got rid of
that Ames fellow--he did n't belong in this at all; and instead of
protecting ourselves against outsiders we have sat here like a lot of
fools while he's been making himself agreeable there in the
house--right there in the house!"
Ormsby's voice rose to a disagreeable squeak as he closed with this
indictment of me. Hume fidgeted uneasily, and met my eye so warily
that I wondered whether he suspected that I knew of his breach of faith
with the other suitors. Much dallying with Scandinavian literature had
not lightened his heart, and there was nothing in Ibsen to which he
could refer his present plight. Shallenberger seemed to be the only
one of the group who had not lost his senses. He was in the farther
corner of the alcove, out of sight from the door, but I heard him
distinctly as he addressed the other suitors with rising anger.
"We're acting like cads, and cads of the most contemptible sort! I
only agreed to this game to satisfy Ormsby. The idea of our sitting
here to draw cards to determine the order in which we shall offer
ourselves to the noblest and most beautiful woman in the world would be
coarse and vulgar if it were not so ridiculous! The men who had their
chance on the steamer or after we came here--and I don't pretend to
know who they are--ought in decency to have left the field. We seem to
have forgotten that we pretend to be gentlemen; or, far less
pardonable, that we pay court to a lady. Damn you all! I refuse to
have anything more to do with you, and if you try to interfere with my
affairs in any way I'll smash your heads collectively or separately as
you prefer!"
My interest in this colloquy had led me further into the room, and
hearing my step they all turned and faced me. Dick had continued at my
side, but the black looks they sent our way were intended, I thought,
rather for me. Shallenberger, having taken himself out of the tangle,
leaned against the wall and filled his pipe with unconcern. My
appearance roused Ormsby to a fresh outburst.
"You're responsible! If you had n't forced yourself upon the ladies at
Hopefield there would n't have been any of this trouble!"
"You're only an impostor anyhow. You went to the house to fix a
chimney, and seem to think you 're engaged to spend the rest of your
natural life there!" protested Henderson, twisting the ends of his
moustache.
Then they dropped me and assailed Dick.
"We'd like to know what you expect to gain by dropping out! You got
cold feet mighty sudden!" bellowed Ormsby.
Gorse and Henderson paid similar tributes to the apostate, whose
melancholy grin only deepened. Shallenberger was pacing the floor
slowly and puffing his pipe. Hume and Arbuthnot growled occasionally,
but shared, I thought, Shallenberger's changed feeling.
My silence had been effective up to this time, but I was afraid to risk
it longer. Dick, I imagined, had kept close to me for fear of missing
any part of the altercation he knew my appearance would provoke. The
more vociferous suitors had howled themselves hoarse and glared at me
while I considered the situation. Henderson rallied for a final shot.
"A good horsewhipping is what you deserve," he cried, leveling his
finger at me.
"Gentlemen," I began, not without inward quaking, "you have spoken loud
naughty words to me, and in reply I must say that your vocal efforts
suggest only the melodies of the braying jackass, and that your
manners, to speak mildly, are susceptible of considerable improvement."
"You leave this neighborhood within an hour!" boomed Ormsby; and in his
efforts to free himself from his chair it fell backward with a crash
that echoed through the long room.
"Then summon the coroner by telephone, for I shall not be taken alive,"
I answered quietly, trying to recall my youthful delight in Porthos,
Athos, and Aramis. "I should dislike to change the mild color-scheme
of this pleasant dining-room, but as sure as you lay hands on me, these
walls will become a playground for any corpuscles you carry in your
loathsome persons."
"Come along, let us put him out," Henderson was saying in an aside to
Ormsby.
"You were playing a game here for a stake not yours for the winning," I
continued. "Now I suggest that you shuffle the pack,--you three, who
are so full of valor,--shuffle the pack, I say, and draw for the jack
of clubs. Whoever is the fortunate man I shall take pleasure in
pitching through yonder very charming casement."
"Agreed!" cried Henderson, and the three flung themselves into their
chairs.
The alacrity of their consent had unnerved me for a moment.
D'Artagnan, I was sure, would have fought them all, but I consoled
myself, as the cards rattled on the bare table, with the reflection
that, considering the fact that I had never in my life laid violent
hands on a fellow-being, I was conducting myself with admirable
assurance. My weight has always hung well within one hundred and
thirty, and physicians have told me that I was incapable of taking on
flesh or muscle. Any one of these men could easily toss me through the
window I had indicated as a means of their own exit.
Shallenberger caught my eye and indicated with a slight jerk of the
head that I had better run before it was too late. The painstaking
care with which Henderson had fallen upon the cards was disquieting, to
put it mildly. Dick nudged me in the ribs and offered to hold my coat.
"It will not be necessary," I replied carelessly. "Tender your
services to the other gentlemen."
I felt the cold sweat gathering on my brow. The three had begun to
draw cards, and I heard them slap the bits of pasteboard smartly upon
the table as they lifted them from the deck and, finding the jack of
clubs still undrawn, waited the next turn. I had no idea that a pack
of cards would dissolve so readily by the drawing process, and my
memory ceased trying to recall the adventures of D'Artagnan and hovered
with ominous persistence about the mad don of La Mancha. I cannot say
now whether I stood my ground out of sheer physical inability to run or
from an accession of courage due to the remembrance of my success in
detecting the Hopefield ghost. In any case I affected coolness as I
waited, even throwing out my arms to "shoot" my cuffs once or twice,
and yawning.
"Come, gentlemen, hurry: let us not waste time here," I exclaimed
impatiently.
"If Ormsby turns up the card you're a dead man," Dick was muttering
gloomily.
"They're all alike to me," I replied loudly. "Mr. Ormsby is very
beautiful; I shall hope not to disfigure him permanently;" but as I
spoke my tongue was a wobbly dry clapper in my mouth.
I was bending over now, watching the three men pick up the cards, and
once, when I misread the jack of spades for the jack of clubs, a
shudder passed over me. They were down to the last card, and Ormsby's
hand was on it. I recall that a group of steins on a shelf over
Henderson's head seemed to be dancing wildly. Then I looked at the
floor to steady myself, and hope leaped within me, for there, by
Ormsby's foot,--a large and heavy one,--lay an upturned card, the jack
of clubs, whose lone symbol magnified itself enormously in my amazed
eyes.
At this moment, I became conscious that something had occurred to
distract the attention of the other men, who were staring at some one
who had entered noiselessly.
"Gentlemen, you seem immensely interested in the turn of those cards.
I am glad to have arrived at the critical moment. Mr. Ormsby, will you
kindly lift the remaining card from the table?"
Miss Octavia stood beside me. She was dressed in a dark brown
riding-habit; the feather in her fedora hat emphasized her usual brisk
air. She swung her riding-crop lightly in her hand, and bent over the
table with the deepest interest.
Ormsby turned up the card. It was the ten of diamonds.
"Gentlemen," I cried, pointing to the card, "what trick is this? Can
it be possible that you have been trifling with me in a fashion for
which men have died the world over by sword and pistol!"
"Kindly explain, Arnold, the nature of this difficulty," Miss Octavia
commanded.
"Simply this, Miss Hollister, if I must answer; I had offered to fight
these three gentlemen in order. It was agreed that the man who drew
the jack of clubs from the pack with which they had been playing should
be my first victim. They have shuffled their own cards and have drawn
the whole pack and there is no jack of clubs in the pack! The only
possible explanation is one to which I hesitate to apply the obvious
plain Saxon terms."
"It dropped out, that's all! You don't dare pretend that we threw out
the jack to avoid drawing it!" protested Ormsby, though I saw from the
glances the trio exchanged that they suspected one another. Ormsby and
Gorse bent down to look for the missing card, but before they found it
I stepped forward and drove my fist upon the table with all the power I
could put into the blow.
"Stop!" I cried. "I gave you every opportunity to stand up and take a
trouncing, but I need hardly say that after this contemptible knavery I
refuse to soil my hands on you!"
"Do you insinuate"--began Henderson, jumping to his feet.
"Gentlemen," said Miss Hollister, lifting the riding-crop, "it is
perfectly clear to me that Mr. Ames has gone as far as any gentleman
need go in protecting his honor. I do not offer myself as an
arbitrator here, but I advise my young friend that nothing further is
required of him in this deplorable affair."
With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the three piles of
cards that lay on the table as they had been stacked when drawn.
[Illustration: With one sweep of her crop she brushed to the floor the
three piles of cards.]
"Arnold," she said, with indescribable dignity, "will you kindly attend
me to my horse?"
XIX
THE GHOST OF ADONIRAM CALDWELL
A stable-boy held Miss Octavia's horse at the inn-door. Her face, her
figure, her voice expressed outraged dignity as she tested the
saddle-girth.
"You need never tell me what had happened to provoke your wrath, for
that is none of my affair; but I wish to say that your conduct and
bearing won my highest approval. They had undoubtedly hidden the jack
of clubs to avoid the drubbing you would have administered to the
unfortunate man who would have drawn that card if it had been in the
pack."
"I was not in the slightest danger at any time, Miss Hollister," I
protested. "By one of those tricks of fate to which you and I are
becoming so accustomed, the card had fallen to the floor unnoticed. If
you had not arrived so opportunely the lost jack would have been
discovered, the cards reshuffled, and very likely Mr. Ormsby would have
been dusting the inn-floor with me at this very minute."
"I refuse to believe any such thing," declared Miss Octavia, who had
mounted and continued speaking from the saddle. "Your perfect
confidence was admirable, and I shudder to think of the terrible
punishment you would have given them. I do not particularly dislike
Mr. Ormsby, though the possibility of Cecilia marrying him has troubled
me not a little as I have recalled the unromantic aspect of Utica as
seen from the car-windows; but it is much to your credit that you
defied them all and brought them to the fighting-point, and then, by a
stroke of cleverness it pleased me to witness, placed them
irretrievably in the wrong."
If Miss Octavia wished to view my performances in this flattering light
it seemed unnecessary and unkind to object. Now that I was in the open
again with a whole skin I was not averse to the victor's crown; I would
even wear it tilted slightly over one ear. Birds have been killed by
shots that missed the real target; bunker sands are rich in gutta
percha and good intentions. I was a fraud, but a cheerful one.
"It was only a pleasant incident of the day's work, Miss Hollister.
I'm going to engage a squire and take to the open road as soon as all
this is over."
"As soon as all what is over!" she demanded, eyeing me keenly.
"Oh, the work I've undertaken to do here. I flatter myself that I have
made some progress; but within twenty-four hours I dare say that we
shall have seen the end."
"Your words are not wholly luminous, Arnold."
"It is much better that it should be so. You have trusted me so far,
and I have no intention of failing you now. If I say that the crisis
is near at hand in a certain matter that interests you greatly, you
will understand that I am not striking ignorantly in the dark."
"If you know what I suspect you know, Arnold Ames, you are even
shrewder than I thought you, and you had already taken a high place in
my regard. The curtains of the windows just behind you have shown
considerable agitation since we have been speaking, not due, I think,
to the wind, as there is no air stirring. Those gentlemen you have
just vanquished are timidly watching you. Your daring and prowess have
greatly alarmed them. You may be sure they will think twice before
provoking your wrath again."
"I devoutly hope they will," I replied, glancing carelessly over my
shoulder, and catching a glimpse of Henderson as he drew hastily out of
sight. "But will you tell me just how you came to visit the inn at
this particular hour?"
"Nothing could be simpler. I had luncheon at the house of a friend on
whom I called. Cecilia had left me to continue her ride alone, and on
my way home I thought I would ride by the Prescott Arms to see how the
guests were faring. You see,"--she paused and gave a twitch to her hat
to prolong my suspense,--"you see, I own the Prescott Arms!"
With this she rode away, and not caring to risk a further meeting with
the angry suitors from whom Miss Octavia had rescued me by so narrow a
margin, I set off across the fields toward Hopefield. From the stile I
saw Miss Octavia in the highway half a mile distant, sending her horse
along at a spirited canter. I reached the house without further
adventures, was served with a cold luncheon in my room, and by the time
I had changed my clothes Miss Octavia sent me word that Pepperton had
arrived.
Miss Octavia and the architect were conversing earnestly when I reached
the library; and from the abruptness with which they ceased on my
entrance I imagined that I had been the subject of their talk.
Pepperton is not only one of the finest architects America has
produced, but one of the jolliest of fellows. He grasped my hand
cordially and pointed to the fireplace.
"So you've at last found one of my jobs to overhaul, have you! You
must n't let this get out on me, old man; it would shatter my
reputation!"
"Please observe that the flue is drawing splendidly now," I answered.
"A ghost had been strolling up and down the chimney, but now that I
have found his lair he will not trouble Miss Hollister's fireplaces
again."
"I have waited for your arrival, Mr. Pepperton, that we might have the
benefit of your knowledge of the house in following the trail of this
ghost which Arnold has discovered. But we must give Arnold credit for
effecting the discovery alone and unaided. I destroyed the plans I
obtained from your office so that Arnold might be fully tested as to
his capacity for managing the most difficult situations."
When Miss Octavia first referred to me as Arnold, Pepperton raised his
brows a trifle; the second time he glanced at me laughingly. He seemed
greatly amused by Miss Octavia's seriousness, but her amiable attitude
toward me clearly puzzled him.
"It takes a good man to uncover a thing I try to hide. I said nothing
to you, Miss Hollister, about the retention within the walls of this
house of parts of an old one that formerly occupied the site, for the
reason that I thought you might refuse to buy the estate. The
gentleman for whom I built Hopefield was superstitious, as many men of
advanced years are, as to the building of a new house, and as the site
he chose is one of the finest in the county he compelled me to
construct this house--which is the most satisfactory I have built--in
such manner enough of the old should be kept intact to soothe his
superstitious soul with the idea that he had merely altered an old
house, not built a new one. As it is the architect's business to yield
to such caprices I obeyed him strictly. So there are two rooms of an
old farmhouse hidden under the east wing, and it amused me, once I had
got into it, to preserve part of the old stairway, and connect the
retained chambers with the upper hall of this house. I had to patch
the original stair, which was only one flight, with discarded lumber
from the old house, but I flatter myself that I managed it neatly. I
even saved the old nails to avert the wrath of the evil spirits. When
the umbrella and dyspepsia-cure man died,--for he did die, as you
know,--I believed the secret had died with him, as he was very
sensitive about his superstitions. Most of the laborers on that part
of the job were brought from a long distance, and I supposed they never
really knew just what we were doing. I might have known, though, that
if a fellow as clever as Ames got to pecking at the house the trick
would be discovered. But the chimney, old man,--what on earth was the
matter with it?"
"It will never happen again, and I promised the ghost never to tell how
it was done."
"You were quite right in doing that, Arnold,--a ghost's secrets should
be sacred; but let us now proceed to the hidden chambers," said Miss
Hollister, rising without further ado.
She summoned Cecilia, to whom we explained matters briefly, and at
Pepperton's suggestion the four of us went directly to the fourth
floor, so that Miss Octavia might see the whole contrivance in the most
effective manner possible.
My awkward pen falters in the attempt to convey any idea of Miss
Octavia's delight in Pepperton's revelation; she kept repeating her
admiration of his genius, and her praise of my cleverness, which, to
protect Hezekiah, I was forced to accept meekly. When in broad
daylight Pepperton found and pressed the spring in the upper hall and
the hidden door opened, with a slowness that indicated a realization of
its own dramatic value, Miss Octavia cried out gleefully, like a child
that witnesses the manipulation of a new and wonderful toy.
"To think, Cecilia, that I should never have known of this if that
chimney had not smoked!"--a remark that caused Pepperton to glance at
me curiously. He knew as well as I did that with ordinary care every
flue in that house would have drawn splendidly. "Beyond any question,"
Miss Octavia kept asserting, "beneath the chambers of the old house
down there we shall find the bones of that British soldier who perished
here; or it is even possible that a chest of hidden treasure is
concealed beneath the floor. What do you yourself suspect, Mr.
Pepperton?"
We were lighting candles preparatory to stepping down into the dark
stairway, and Pepperton was plainly hard put to keep from laughing.
"I assure you, Miss Hollister, that I have told you all I know about
the rooms down there. I 'm not very strong in the ghost-faith; and our
friend the umbrella-man never dreamed of such a thing, I assure you,
not even after he had satisfied his fierce craving for pie."
Miss Octavia followed Pepperton slowly, pausing frequently to hold her
candle close to the stair-walls, whose rough surfaces confirmed all
that Pepperton had said of the preservation of the old timbers. I had
brought a handful of candles, and when we had reached the dark rooms
beneath, I lighted these and set them up in the black corners of the
old rooms, in which, Miss Octavia remarked, not even the wall paper had
been disturbed. The exit into the coal-cellar, and concealed openings
left for ventilation which had escaped me before, were now pointed out
by the architect, who kept laughing at the huge joke of it all.
Cecilia murmured her surprise repeatedly as we continued the
examination; nothing quite like this had ever happened in the world
before, but even as we walked through those hidden rooms my thoughts
reverted to the crisis so near at hand in her affairs. I had pledged
myself to her service, but I saw no way yet of assuring the proper
sequence of proposals. The ultimate seventh must be Wiggins; but how
could I manage the penultimate sixth! Cecilia's own apparent freedom
from care on this tour of inspection deepened my sense of
responsibility to all concerned. Dick might by now have persuaded some
one of the others at the inn to offer himself, thus closing the gap,
and I had determined that the Westerner should not outwit me. It was
some consolation to know that while Cecilia was in these lost rooms in
my company, she was safe from Dick's machinations.
My thoughts were, however, given a new direction by Miss Octavia. She
had been scrutinizing the floor closely, asking us all to bring our
candles to bear upon it, that she might search thoroughly for any signs
of a trapdoor beneath which the bones of the British soldier might
repose.
"You can't tell me," she averred in her own peculiar vein, "that a
house as old as this has been preserved merely to divert calamity from
a superstitious gentleman engaged in the manufacture of ribless
umbrellas and a dyspepsia cure."
Miss Octavia Hollister was a woman to be humored; we all knew this; but
I realized with a pang that she was about to be disappointed. I had
expected her to forget the British soldier in the perfectly tangible
joy of secret springs and ghostly chambers; and if I had foreseen her
persistence in clinging to the tradition of the ill-fated Briton I
should have taken the trouble to hide a few bones under the flooring.
Miss Octavia had brought a stick from the coal-room, and was thumping
the floor with it even while Pepperton tried to discourage her further
investigations. We were all ranged about her with our candles, and
these, with the others I had thrust into the corners, lighted the room
well.
"I'm afraid you've seen the whole of it, Miss Hollister," said
Pepperton. "The old house was built after the Revolution, I judge, but
your British soldier was probably left hanging to a tree and never
buried at all."
"Mr. Pepperton," she replied, holding the candle so close to the
architect that he blinked, "it would be far from me to question your
knowledge of history, but I should not be at all surprised if the
builder of this old house had fought on the seas with John Paul Jones,
and had buried beneath these walls the very sea-chest that had been his
companion on many eventful voyages."
Pepperton gasped at the absurdity of this, and then suppressed his
mirth with difficulty. Cecilia faintly expostulated; but I knew Miss
Octavia would not be dissuaded, and I thought it as well to facilitate
her search and be done with it. A sailor with rings in his ears and a
cutlass dangling at his side might have come home from the wars and
established himself on a farm in Westchester County and even buried his
sea-chest under the floor of his house, but in all likelihood he never
had. It was not my office, however, to advise Miss Octavia Hollister
in such matters. Pepperton had changed his tune and seemed anxious to
follow my lead. To him she was an eccentric old woman, whose wealth
alone gained her indulgence in such preposterous obsessions as this;
but my own feelings were those of regret that she must so quickly be
disillusioned. To me she had become an incarnation of the play-spirit
that never grows old, and there may have risen in me an honest belief
that what this unusual woman sought she would somehow find. Once or
twice when the uneven worn flooring had boomed hollowly under her stick
I had knelt promptly to examine the planks, and had thus disposed of
several false alarms. Pepperton feigned interest for a time, but was
becoming bored. Cecilia studied the quaint pattern of the wall paper,
which she said ought to be reproduced, as nothing in contemporaneous
designs equaled it.
Miss Octavia had been over the floors of the two rooms twice, and was
about to desist. Her less frequent appeals to the rest of us for
confirmation of some suspected change in the responses to her thumping
indicated disappointment. She made her last stand in the corner of the
smaller room, and as we all stood holding our lights, we were conscious
that the dull monotonous thump suddenly changed its tone. We all
noticed it at the same instant, and exchanged glances of surprise.
"Do you hear that, gentlemen?"
She subdued her gratification in the rebuking glance she gave us. Calm
and unhurried, she rested a moment on her stick, with the candle's soft
glow about her, a smile ineffably sweet on her face.
"The timbers may have rotted away underneath. We did n't raise these
floors," said Pepperton; but we both dropped to our knees and brought
all the candle-light to bear upon the flooring. Dust and mortar,
shaken loose in the destruction of the house, filled the cracks.
Pepperton, deeply absorbed, continued to sound the corner with his
knuckles.
"It really looks as though these boards had been cut for some purpose,"
he said, whipping out his knife.
I ran to the kindling-room and found a hatchet, and when I returned he
had dug the dirt out of the edges of the floor-planks. Silence held us
all as I set to prying up the boards.
"I beg of you to exercise the greatest care, gentlemen. If bones are
interred here we must do them no sacrilege," warned Miss Octavia.
By this time we all, I think, began to believe that the flooring might
really have been cut in this corner of the old room to permit the
hiding of something. The room had grown hot, and Cecilia opened the
cellar-windows outside to admit air. The old planks clung stubbornly
their joists, but after I had loosened one, the others came up quickly
and the smell of dry earth filled the room. Pepperton had, at Miss
Octavia's direction, brought a chisel and crowbar from the tool-room in
the cellar, and he stood ready with these when I tore up the last
board, disclosing an oblong space about five feet long and slightly
over three feet wide. It was possible that this was the whole story,
but Pepperton began driving the bar vigorously into the close-packed
soil. As he loosened the earth I scooped it out, and we soon had
penetrated about six inches beneath the surface.
We were all excited now. The edge of the bar struck repeatedly against
something that resisted sharply. It might have been a root, but when
Pepperton shifted the point of attack the same booming sound answered
to the prodding. Pepperton now thought it might be only an empty cask
or a box of no interest whatever; but Miss Octavia, hovering close with
a candle, encouraged us to go on, and was fertile in suggestions as to
the most expeditious manner of resurrecting whatever might be buried
there. We were pretty well satisfied from the soundings that the
hidden object was somewhat shorter and narrower than the hole itself.
"Quite naturally so," observed Miss Octavia, "for a man who buries a
treasure has to allow himself room for getting at it."
We worked on silently, Pepperton loosening the soil with the bar while
I shoveled it out. In half an hour we had revealed a long flat wooden
surface, which to our anxious imaginations was the lid of some sort of
box.
"It's sound red cedar," pronounced Pepperton, examining the wood where
the tools had splintered it.
"Of course it's cedar," replied Miss Octavia, bending down to it. "I
knew it would be cedar. It always is!"
We paused to laugh at her confident tone, and Cecilia suggested that as
there was still a good deal to do before we could free the box, we
should send for some of the servants to complete the work.
"I would n't take a thousand dollars for my chance at this," Pepperton
answered; and we fell to again.
It must have been nearly six o'clock when we dragged out into that
candle-lighted chamber a stout, well-fashioned box. The earth clung to
its sides jealously, and it was bound with strips of brass that shone
brightly where the scraping of our tools had burnished it. We pried
off the heavy lock with a good deal of difficulty, and when it was free
Miss Octavia asserted her right to the treasure-trove with much
calmness.
"I should never forgive myself if I allowed this opportunity to pass;
you must permit me to have the first look."
"Certainly, Miss Hollister; if it had n't been for you this chest would
have remained hidden to the end of all time," Pepperton replied.
We gathered close about her as she knelt beside the box. My hand shook
as I held my candle, and I think Miss Octavia was the only one in the
room who showed no nervousness. Cecilia sighed deeply several times,
and Pepperton mopped his face with his handkerchief. The lid did not
yield as readily as we had expected, and it was necessary to resort to
the hatchet and chisel again; but we were careful that it should be
Miss Octavia's hand that finally raised the lid.
We all exclaimed in various keys as the light fell upon the open chest.
The musty odor of old garments greeted us at once. The box was well
filled, and its contents were neatly arranged. Miss Octavia first
lifted out the remnants of a military uniform that lay on top.
[Illustration: Miss Octavia first lifted out the remnants of a military
uniform that lay on top.]
"It's his ragged regimentals!" cried Cecilia, as we unfolded an
officer's coat of blue and buff, sadly decrepit and faded; "and he was
not a British soldier at all, but an American patriot."
Time and service had dealt even more harshly with an American flag on
which the thirteen white stars floated dimly on the dull blue field.
It had been bound tightly about a packet of papers which Miss Octavia
asked Pepperton to examine.
"These are commissions appointing a certain Adoniram Caldwell to
various positions in the Continental Army. Adoniram had the right
stuff in him; here he's discharged as a private to become an ensign;
rose from ensign to colonel, and seems to have been in most of the big
doings. 'For gallantry in the recent engagement at Stony Point, on
recommendation of General Anthony Wayne'--by Jove, that does rather
carry you back!"
Half a dozen of these documents traced Adoniram Caldwell's career to
the end of the Revolution and his retirement from the military service
with the rank of colonel. A sealed letter attached to these
commissions next held our attention. The ends were dovetailed in the
old style before the day of envelopes, and evidently care had been
taken in folding and sealing it. The superscription, in a round bold
hand, without flourishes, read: "To Whom It May Concern."
"I suppose it concerns us as much as anybody," remarked Miss Octavia.
"What do you say, gentlemen; shall we open it?"
We all demanded breathlessly that she break the seal, and we were soon
bending over her with our lights. The ink had blurred and in spots
rust had obliterated the writing:--
"I, Roger Hartley Wiggins, sometime known as Adoniram Caldwell"--
"Hartley Wiggins!" we gasped; and I felt Cecilia's hand clasp my arm.
Miss Octavia continued reading, and as she was obliged to pause often
and refer illegible lines to the rest of us, I have copied the
following from the letter itself, with only slight changes of
punctuation and spelling.
"I, Roger Hartley Wiggins, sometime known as Adoniram Caldwell, having
now resumed my proper name, and being about to marry, and having begun
the construction of a habitation for myself wherein to end my days,
truthfully set forth these matters:
"My father, Hiram Wiggins of Rhode Island, having supported the
royalist cause in our late war for Independence, and angered by my
friendliness to the patriots, and he, with ... brothers and sister
having returned to England after the evacuation of Boston, I joined the
Continental troops under General Putnam on Long Island, in July, 1776,
serving in various commands thereafter, to the best of my ability, to
the end.... My father has now returned to Rhode Island, and has, I
learn, been making inquiries touching my whereabouts and condition, so
that I have every hope that we may become reconciled. Yet as my
services to the Country were against his wishes and caused so much
harshness and heartache, and being now come into a part of the country
where I am unknown, I am decided to resume my rightful name, that my
wife and children may bear it and in the hope that I may myself yet add
to it some honor....
"Nor shall my wife or any children that may be born to me, know from me
... (_badly blurred_.) Yet not caring to destroy my sword, which I
bore with some credit, nor these testimonials of respect and confidence
I received as Adoniram Caldwell at various times and from various
personages of renown, both civilians and in the military service, I
place them under my house now building, where I hope in God's care to
end my days in peace. I would in like case make like choice again."
Ten lines following this were wholly illegible, but just before the
date (June 17, 1789), and the signature, which was written large, was
this:--
"God preserve these American states that they endure in unity and
concord forever!"
We had all been moved by the reading of this long-lost letter, and Miss
Octavia's voice had faltered several times. As I turned to Cecilia
once or twice during the recital of the dead patriot's message, I saw
tears brimming her eyes.
"Mr. Wiggins once told me that his great-grandfather had lived
somewhere in Westchester County, but I fancy he had no idea that
Hopefield was the identical spot," remarked Miss Octavia. "It seems
incredible, and yet I dare say the hand of fate is in it."
"Oh, it's so wonderful; so beyond belief!" cried Cecilia, reverently
folding the letter, which, I observed, she retained in her own hands.
"It's wonderful," added Miss Octavia promptly, taking the sword, which
Pepperton had with difficulty drawn from its battered scabbard, "that
even a discerning woman like me could have been so mistaken. I recall
with humility that last Fourth of July, at Berlin, I reprimanded Mr.
Wiggins severely because his family had not been represented in the war
for American Independence. By the irony of circumstances it becomes my
duty to present to him the very sword that his admirable
great-grandfather bore in that momentous struggle. I shall, with his
permission, place a bronze tablet on the outer wall of this house to
preserve the patriot's memory."
Several copies of New York newspapers, half a dozen French gold coins,
the miniature of a woman's face, which we assumed to be that of Roger
Wiggins's mother or sister, were briefly examined; then by Miss
Octavia's orders we carefully returned everything to the chest.
Several packets of letters we did not open.
"Arnold," she said when we had closed the chest, "will you and Mr.
Pepperton kindly carry that box to my room? No servant's hand shall
touch it; and I shall myself give it to Mr. Wiggins at the earliest
opportunity."
We had lost track of time in those hidden rooms, preserved by the whim
of one man that the secret of another might be discovered, and found
with surprise, after the chest had been carried to Miss Octavia's
apartments, that it was after seven o'clock. We had been in the hidden
rooms for more than three hours.
"We shall have much to talk about to-night, and I fancy we are all a
good deal shaken. It's not often we receive a letter from a dead man,
so we shall admit no callers to-night unless, indeed, Mr. Wiggins
should chance to come," announced Miss Octavia. "The next time Hartley
Wiggins visits this house he shall come as a conquering hero."
"I hope so," replied Cecilia brokenly.
We were still at dinner when the cards of Dick and the other suitors I
had last seen at the Prescott Arms were brought in; but Wiggins made no
sign, and I wondered.
XX
HEZEKIAH PARTITIONS THE KINGDOM
The man who looked after my needs handed me a note the next morning
which added fresh hazards to Cecilia's already perilous plight.
"Left with the gardener before six o'clock by a boy from the village.
Said it was most confidential, sir."
I waited till he had left the room before opening it. A square white
envelope addressed to Arnold Ames, Esq., Hopefield Manor, told me
nothing, and the handwriting was inscrutable. It slanted slightly
upward; the small letters were half-printed and quaintly shaded. If a
woman's, she had scorned the rail-fence models of the boarding-schools;
if a man's--but I knew its gender well enough! The white note sheet
within was unadorned, and the same pen had traced compactly, within the
widest possible margins, the following:--
GOOSEBERRY BUNGALOW,
Before Breakfast.
DEAR CHIMNEYS:--Pep stopped here yesterday to see B.H. He and C. old
pals. Watch him. Where's Wig? H.H.
The initials were superfluous, and yet the sight of them pleased me
mightily. In her semi-printing she curved the pillars of the H's like
parentheses, so that they bore an amusing resemblance to four men
striding forward against a storm. The report of a chief of scouts
smuggled through the enemy's lines could not have improved on her
billet for succinctness, and the information conveyed was startling
enough. We had been dealing with a company of suitors outside the
barricade; now came warning of the presence of a strange knight within
the gates who greatly multiplied the perils of the situation. The
compact between the suitors at the inn was a thing of the past, and I
now expected them to exercise all the ingenuity of which desperate
lovers are capable in pressing their claims. The fact that both
Wiggins and Pepperton were old friends of mine did not make my task
easier. I not only felt it incumbent on me to prevent Dick, the holder
of the clue, from taking advantage of it, but knowing Cecilia's own
attitude of mind and heart toward Wiggins I wished to save Pepperton
the pain of rejection if it could be done.
But what did Hezekiah mean by the question with which she ended her
note? If Wiggins, smarting under Cecilia's treatment of him the day
before, had quit the field, here was a pretty how-d 'ye-do f Miss
Octavia's refusal to countenance telephones made it necessary for me to
leave Hopefield to learn what had become of Wiggins, and I realized
that I must act promptly if I saved the day for him. His conduct first
and last had been spiritless, and I was out of patience with him. It
seemed impossible to formulate any plan amidst these multiplying
uncertainties. If Wiggins had decamped, Dick knew it and would lay his
plans accordingly. I felt that it was base ingratitude on Wiggins's
part to ask me to watch his interests while he went roaming
indifferently over the country. One or two consoling reflections
remained, however: Dick believed me to be a suitor for Cecilia's hand,
and this doubtless caused him considerable uneasiness; and he did not
know that Pepperton, whose acquaintance with Cecilia antedated the
European flight, had to be reckoned with. I wished Pepperton had kept
out of it.
Breakfast that morning was interminably long. Miss Octavia was never
more thoroughly amusing, never more drolly inadvertent. She attacked
Pepperton for all the evils in American architecture, and in particular
took him to task for some house he had built at Newport which she
pronounced the most hideous pile of marble on American soil. From her
packet of newspaper-cuttings she drew a letter her brother Bassford had
written to the "Sun,"--the writing of letters to newspapers was, it
seemed, one of his weaknesses,--protesting against the quality of the
music ground from the New York hurdy-gurdies. The selections were
execrable; the fierce tempo at which the instruments were driven had
caused an alarming increase in insanity, in proof of which he adduced
statistics. He demanded municipal censorship, and volunteered to sit
on the proposed commission of critics without pay.
"That is just like brother Bassford! When I begin speaking to him
again I shall point out the error of his ways. I always miss the
hurdy-gurdies when I 'm in the country, and I believe I shall buy one
and have it play me to sleep at night. The faster the tempo the
sweeter the slumber. I should certainly do so," she concluded, with
that indefinable smile that always left one wondering, "if it were not
that my new laundress is a graduate of the Sandusky-Ottumwa
Conservatory of Music, and I fear the toreador's song on wheels might
be painful to one of her taste and temperament."
When we left the table at about half-past ten Miss Octavia insisted
that we must visit the kennels. A friend had just sent her a fine
Airedale, and she wished to make sure the kennel-master was treating
the dog properly. Later we were all to ride.
I made haste to excuse myself, saying that personal matters required
attention.
"Certainly, Arnold, you shall do as you like. Mr. Pepperton is a
difficult bird to catch, so we hope for you at luncheon, and of course
we expect you for dinner."
Pepperton looked at me inquiringly. I judged that he had known Miss
Octavia a good many years; the tone of their intercourse was intimate;
and yet he plainly was at a loss to understand just how I came to be so
thoroughly established in her good graces. I confess that as I glance
back over these pages it looks odd to me!
As I paced the hall waiting for a horse to be saddled, Pepperton led me
out on the terrace above the garden.
"I'm bursting with a great secret, old man. I'm going to be married."
"What!"
"I'm going to be married."
I grasped a chair to support myself. This was almost too much. Could
it be possible that Hezekiah had miscalculated the list of rejections
in the silver-bound book, or that Cecilia herself had been deceived?
Pepperton misread my agitation, and with a hearty laugh clapped me on
the shoulder.
"Oh, I'm not intruding on your preserves, old man! Cecilia is the
second finest girl in the world, that's all. I'm engaged to Miss
Gaylord, of Stockbridge. I 'm telling a few old friends, in advance of
the formal announcement to be made next week at a dance the Gaylords
are giving."
I crushed his hand in both my own, and seeing that he misconstrued the
fervor of my emotion I hastened to set myself right.
"You're a lucky dog as usual, Pep. But you don't understand about
Cecilia Hollister. It's not I; I 'm not in the running at all; but
Hartley Wiggins is! I'm here trying to help him score."
"What's this? You're here to represent Wiggy?"
"Well, he did n't exactly send me here, but when I came I found that
Wiggy was n't playing the game with quite the necessary zipology.
There's more required than appears,--a little of the dash and snap of
the old adventures,--the ready tongue, the eager, thirsty sword!"
Pepperton pursed his lips and looked me over carefully with a twinkle
in his eye.
"You are contributing those elements! You are octaviaized, is that
it?" Pepperton laughed until the tears came.
"I prefer hollisterized as the broader term. Brother Bassford has it
too, and there's always Hezekiah!"
"Ah! Hezekiah the unpredictable! I knew there was a skirt fluttering
somewhere. I saw her yesterday; stopped to see Bassford, who's a good
old chap. Hezekiah of the teasing eyes was whitewashing the
chicken-coop, and Michael Angelo could n't have done it better."
"Pep," I said, lowering my voice, "if you love me, keep close to
Cecilia all day. You're an engaged man and in practice. Give an
imitation of devotion. Keep her out of doors; keep male human beings
away from her. Don't fail me in this. I 've got to pull off the
greatest coup of my life to-day. There's a band of outlaws hanging
round here who will propose to Cecilia the first chance they get--and
they must NOT. Wig 's got to speak before night or lose out forever.
No; not a word of explanation; you've got to take my word for it."
"I'll be the goat; go ahead, but build a fire under Wiggins; I can't
stay here forever."
Pepperton's engagement smoothed out one wrinkle, and I felt sure that I
could trust him as an ally. The groom was holding my horse in the
porte-cochère, and I mounted and rode away to the Prescott Arms.
I found Ormsby, Shallenberger, Arbuthnot, Henderson, Hume, and Gorse
glumly sitting in a semicircle before the hall fireplace. Deepest
gloom pervaded the inn. I have rarely seen melancholy so darkly
stamped upon the human countenance. They turned indifferently and
glared as they recognized me. Shallenberger alone rose and greeted me.
"I hope there is no bad news," he said chokingly.
"Bad news?"
"I mean Miss Hollister--Miss Cecilia. We were all deeply grieved last
night to hear of her sudden illness; there's always something so
terrible in the very name of diphtheria."
My wits had been so sharpened by my late adventures that I readily
accounted for these false tidings. Dick was absent; Dick alone would
have been equal to this diabolical plot for keeping his rival suitors
away from Hopefield. The despair in those faces taxed my gravity
severely.
"It is extremely sad, but the first diagnosis was erroneous," I
answered. "I think it more likely to prove to be chicken-pox when the
truth is known."
"Not diphtheria?"
"No immediate danger of diphtheria, I assure you," I replied; "though
of course, with winter coming on and all that, one must be prepared for
the worst."
While he repeated this to the others, I sought the clerk, who promptly
handed me a note which Wiggins had left late the previous afternoon, to
be delivered in case I called. He had gone to spend a day or two with
Orton, the playwright, who was at his country house, in the hills
beyond Mt. Kisco, rehearsing a new piece, in which a friend of
Hartley's was to star. I gained the telephone-booth in one jump, and
in five minutes I was bawling wildly into Orton's ear. I had known him
well in the Hare and Tortoise, and he answered my demand for Wiggins
with the heart-breaking news that Hartley had ridden off with some
other guests in the house--Orton did n't know where.
"I threw them out; I've got to rewrite my third act; I don't care
whether they ever come back," boomed Orton's voice.
"If you don't send Wiggins back to me at Hopefield as fast as he can
get there, my third act is ruined."
"What?"
"Tell Wiggins to come back on the run; tell him the world's coming to
an end any minute."
"I'll be glad to get rid of him," snapped Orton, in the harried tone of
a man whose third act has wilted in rehearsal.
As I came perspiring out of the telephone-booth I found the suitors
engaged in eager but subdued debate by the hearth. They could hardly
have heard my bleatings over the telephone, but they were greatly
concerned about something. Shallenberger, who was apparently the only
one willing to approach me, followed me to the veranda.
"Those fellows in there don't understand this. Dick told us all last
night, after we had called at the house and been refused admittance,
that Miss Cecilia was ill with diphtheria. I remember that it was Dick
who rang the bell and gave our cards to the footman. It was quite
singular, you know, our being turned away, unless something had been
wrong."
I bowed gravely. They had been turned away for the very simple reason
that, after unearthing Adoniram Caldwell's effects in the secret rooms
of her house, Miss Octavia had not cared to be troubled with suitors.
The haughty Nebraskan had drawn upon his imagination for the rest.
"And I understood you to say a moment ago that Miss Hollister's malady
is not diphtheria, but chicken-pox?" Shallenberger persisted with
almost laughable trepidation. "These gentlemen, I regret to say, go so
far as to doubt your word."
"That, Mr. Shallenberger, is their privilege. But it seems to me that
when I merely tried to mitigate the terrible news imparted by Dick, you
are rank ingrates for questioning my far less doubtful story. Anything
between you gentlemen and Mr. Dick is, of course, none of my affair,
for whether considered as a set, group or bunch I am done with the
whole lot of you. Farewell!"
I decided as I rode away that nothing was to be gained by going in
search of Wiggins. Orton had purposely made his house difficult of
access, and the roads in that neighborhood are many and devious. Orton
had banished his guests that he might tinker his play in peace, and
knowing his temper, I was sure that Wiggins and the rest of them would
keep out of his way till the pangs of hunger drove them back.
I had ridden half a mile toward Hopefield, when I espied a woman riding
rapidly toward me, and as she drew nearer I identified her as Hezekiah,
mounted on a horse I recognized as one of the best in Miss Octavia's
stables. Hezekiah rode astride, as a woman should, her bicycle skirt
serving well as a habit. She rode as a boy rides who loves freedom and
quickened pulses and the rush of wind across his face. She was
hatless, for which the sun and I were both grateful. The big bow at
the back of her head turned the dial back to sixteen.
[Illustration: I espied a woman riding rapidly toward me.]
She drew rein and fished what seemed to be salted almonds from her
sweater pocket. She filliped one of these into the air, and caught it
in her mouth with a lazy toss of the head that showed the firm contour
of her lovely throat. I had never seen her more self-possessed.
"Do you care much for this horse?" she asked, carelessly.
"It's a good horse; I fancy Miss Octavia thinks so herself. There are
places, Hezekiah, where they hang people for horse-stealing."
"Thought I might need one to-day, so I borrowed him,--through the back
way to the old red barn. The coachman is an ancient chum, and Aunt
Octavia would never mind even if she knew. And she will know all
right! Anyhow, my rear tire had been patched once too often, and there
is a satisfaction in a horse! Where's our sensitive and impressionable
Wiggy? Saw him riding over toward Kisco yesterday P.M. with chin on
his chest,--dreadful riding form."
"Wiggins is at Orton's,--the playwright's, you know. I've telephoned
him to hustle back, but he's out of our reach somewhere. I could n't
speak to him direct; had to leave a message for him."
"Just like Wiggy to die on the last lap. What did you make out of
brother Pepperton?"
"Your note scared me,--thanks so much for your note,--but he's all
right. Engaged to another girl."
"Ah," she sighed, "it's comforting that Cecilia could n't keep them all
going all the time."
We rode along together, our horses in a walk, and I told her everything
I knew of the condition of affairs, including a true account of my
experiences at the inn the day before and of the finding of the old
chest belonging to Wiggins's great-grandfather,--her brown eyes opened
wide at this,--concluding with the diphtheria stratagem and Dick's
menace to Cecilia's happiness.
"He's really a bright little boy. Coming home on the steamer he gave
me a post-graduate course in pragmatism that I've found helpful in
keeping house for papa. It's too bad we have to lay a trap for Mr.
Dick."
"Is it? Just how are we to manage that, Hezekiah?"
"Oh, that will be easy enough. He's pretty desperate, and since the
compact between the suitors has gone to pieces he knows he will have to
show his hand pretty soon. He thinks you are wild about Cecilia. He
lays great stress on his thinking powers, and he probably argues that
you are bound to pop pretty soon. It's just as well he thinks so, but
we must finish this up to-day; I'll be a nervous wreck if we don't
close the books to-night. There's your friend Dick now."
She indicated a high point in the main road, where it crossed the ridge
from which she had shown me--it seemed, oh, very long ago!--the
procession of suitors crossing the stile. Dick, mounted, was gazing
off across the fields toward Hopefield. Man and horse were so distant
as to create the illusion of an equestrian statue on a high pedestal.
"Napoleon before Waterloo," I suggested.
"He does look like Napoleon, doesn't he?" she laughed. "He's a bit
fussed to-day. He knows that Wiggy 's not at the inn, and that you are
up to something, and to little Mr. Dick the architect probably looks
like one of those mysterious knights you read about, who suddenly
appears at the tournament all canned in an ice-cream freezer, with a
tin pail over his head. Mr. Pepperton's presence no doubt worries him,
as I don't think they ever met. Cecilia and Mr. Pepperton are
riding--I dodged them just before I struck you, walking their horses in
the most loverlike fashion in a lane over yonder; but if Mr. Pepperton
is really engaged it's all right, though if I were the other girl I
think I'd be anxious."
"Pep's playing the game, that's all. What are you going to do now?"
She glanced at the sun; I fancy that it was with such a scanning of the
heavens that her sisters a thousand years before had noted the time.
"This is my pie-day. There's undoubtedly a gooseberry-pie waiting for
me at the bungalow, and papa will expect me for luncheon. I 'd ask you
to come too, only you 'll have all you can do to keep Mr. Dick from
persuading somebody to be the sixth man, so he can slip in as number
seven. If we get through to-day all right, you may come for luncheon
to-morrow, maybe. Papa told me he liked you; he said you were very
decent that night you met him on the roof of Aunt Octavia's house."
"My compliments to your father. I hope to be able to persuade him to
extend his paternal arm to include me. Aunt Octavia must be my aunt,
too!"
"Really!" cried Hezekiah, with indescribable mockery; and she wheeled
her horse and was gone like the wind.
Luncheon at Hopefield passed without incident; and afterward Cecilia
retired to help her aunt with her correspondence, while Pepperton and I
lounged about the house and smoked. I told him of my ineffectual
efforts to reach Wiggins, and he volunteered to find a motor and search
for him; but I pointed out the futility of this, and renewed my appeal
that he stay on guard at Hopefield.
At about three o'clock Cecilia reappeared. Her color was high and her
eyes were unusually brilliant. I knew that she fully realized that the
crisis was near, but she asked no questions and her manner reassured me
of her confidence. We idled on the stone terrace above the
frost-smitten garden, which in its ruin still satisfied the eye with
color. I had purposely drawn some chairs to a corner well screened by
vines, so that I could note the approach of any visitors who came cross
country by way of the stile.
We were hardly seated before Dick entered the garden, followed
immediately by the six other suitors I had last seen at the inn. They
ranged themselves on a stone bench facing the house at the end of one
of the paths. They wore sack coats and hats in a variety of styles, so
that they did not present quite the bizarre effect produced by their
frock coats and silk tiles. They surveyed the house sadly, bowed their
heads upon their sticks, and seemed to have come to stay. The siege,
then, had become a practical matter!
"Why don't the gentlemen come in?" asked Cecilia, peering through the
vines.
"Hush! There's a rumor that you are terribly ill; they've come merely
to pay their tribute of respect by waiting in the garden. You had
better go quietly into the house. The shock of seeing you in your
usual health might be too much for them."
"But I can't! I must be accessible at all times," she cried, looking
helplessly from me to Pepperton, who was all at sea for an explanation.
"If that impression is abroad, I shall appear at once."
"Then you and Pepperton must patrol the terrace here; you are lovers
for all I know. Ignore them utterly in your absorption with one
another. If any one approaches you, Pepperton, ask Miss Hollister to
marry you."
"Me!" gasped Pepperton.
"No; it can't be done that way," Cecilia interposed. "Mr. Pepperton
has told me of his engagement. I can't be party to a fraud, a trick.
I can't countenance it at all. It would ruin everything!"
"Then stay right here; pace back and forth, and I'll manage the rest.
I don't for the life of me know how, but I'll do it."
As Cecilia and Pepperton stepped from behind the screen of vines, the
men on the benches lifted their heads; then I heard murmurs of
amazement and chagrin, and caught a fleeting glimpse of Dick tearing
through the hedge with his late companions tumbling after in fierce
pursuit.
I ran to the stable and found a horse, feeling that I must be in a
position to move rapidly if I saw Wiggins approaching. If Dick eluded
his wrathful pursuers he would be on the lookout somewhere, awaiting
his own time, and if he saw Wiggins rushing madly for the house, he
might yet circumvent us.
I satisfied myself that Cecilia and Pepperton were still plainly
visible from the garden, and I knew that for the time she was safe. I
gained the high point in the road from which Hezekiah and I had
observed Dick on guard at noon, and waited. Remembering the fine
figure the philosopher had made against the sky, I dismounted and
rested by a stone wall where I could watch with less risk of being seen
from a distance.
I at once saw matters that interested me immensely. Dick had thrown
off the other suitors, and was rapidly crossing the fields toward
Hopefield. When I caught sight of him, he was just leaving the orchard
where Hezekiah and I had held our memorable interview. A long stretch
of rough pasture lay before him, and he settled down to a quick trot.
He took several fences without lessening his gait, crossed the stile
like a flash a little later, and was out of sight.
As I turned to my horse I heard the swift patter of hoofs, and saw a
man and woman galloping furiously toward me. They were rapidly nearing
the ridge, and their horses were springing over the firm white road in
prodigious leaps. Wiggins had got my message; Hezekiah had met him in
the road and was urging him on! Here indeed was a situation to stir
the heart, and the blood sang in my ears as I watched them. I waved my
arm as they checked their horses for the long climb. The riders had
lost their hats in their mad race, and Wiggins's horse was nearly done
for. As they came still nearer, I saw that Wiggins had taken fire at
last.
"Orton said some one was killed,--who--what--who"--
"I just picked him up five minutes ago; he doesn't know anything," said
Hezekiah; "and you dare n't tell him--remember the rules! What's
doing?" she inquired coolly.
She bade Wiggins exchange horses with her, and while he was readjusting
the saddle-girths I explained to Hezekiah the situation at Hopefield
and told her of Dick's scamper across the fields.
"There's no use fooling with this thing any more. I'll take Wiggy to
the house and lock him up until I 've been numbered six,--it's safest."
"Not much it isn't. I don't intend that Cecilia shall have the
pleasure of refusing you."
"I'd like to know why not. It's only to fill the gap."
"Oh!" said Hezekiah, "that would be an embarrassment to me all the rest
of my life. Listen carefully. Take Wiggy in by the back way, and give
him a picture-book to look at. Leave Cecilia alone on the terrace when
you're all ready, and see what happens. If Dick's on his way to the
house he's going to do something, and he must feel the edge of my
displeasure. I owe him a few on general principles."
"What does all this mean? You say there 's nothing wrong at the
house?" began Wiggins as we left Hezekiah and started toward Hopefield.
"Nothing whatever the matter; everything perfectly all right; but
you've got to keep mum now and do what I tell you. I've worked hard
for you, old man, and when it's all over I'm going to send you a bill
for professional services. Come!"
I urged my horse to his utmost, and Wiggins rode steadily beside me.
The fright Orton had given him had done my friend good, and I felt that
I was dealing with a live man at last. Our speed did not permit
conversation, but feeling that Wiggins was entitled to some further
assurance, I waited until we were climbing our last hill to add a word.
"I'll tell you all about this after we have a good-night cigar
to-night. You know I told you I was going to help, and if nothing goes
wrong and Hezekiah does n't fail, you will see the world with new eyes
before you sleep."
We rode direct to the stable, and I took Wiggins to my room by the back
stairs and bade him help himself to my raiment. He was perfectly
tractable, and I was glad to see that he trusted implicitly to my
guidance.
I met Miss Octavia in the lower hall. She was just in from the
kennels. Her new Airedale was a perfect specimen of the breed, she
declared, and she announced her intention of exhibiting him at all the
reputable bench shows in America.
"I hope, Arnold, that you have not been without entertainment to-day."
"Miss Hollister, the three musketeers were fat monks asleep under the
sunny wall of a monastery compared with me!"
"I am glad you are not bored. By the way, if you should by any chance
see Hezekiah, you will kindly intimate to her that if she returns that
Estabrook mare she borrowed this morning in reasonably good condition,
I will overlook her indiscretion in taking it from the stable without
permission."
She did not wait for a reply, but continued on to her room, and I went
direct to the terrace. Cecilia and Pepperton were just going into the
house to look up a book or piece of music which they had been
discussing. Cecilia was making herself interesting, as she so well
knew how to do, and she seemed in no wise anxious.
"We had forgotten tea," she said. "Aunt Octavia has just ordered it."
"She and Mr. Pepperton may have their tea. I believe the air outside
will do you good for a little longer,--so if you don't mind, Pepperton,
Miss Hollister will resume her promenade alone."
Pep has told me since that he thought me quite mad that afternoon. I
bade Cecilia patrol the long terrace slowly. She turned up the collar
of the covert coat and obeyed, laughing a little nervously but asking
no questions. The scene could not have been more charmingly set. The
great house loomed darkly behind her; beneath lay the garden, over
which the dusk was stealing goldenly.
She paused suddenly as I watched from the window, and I stepped out to
see what had attracted her attention. There into the garden from its
farther entrance filed the six suitors who had previously come to sit
beneath the windows of their stricken lady! Having failed to visit
their wrath upon the perfidious Dick they had changed their clothes and
returned to Hopefield. If Hezekiah had not expressly commanded me not
to become the sixth man, I should have offered myself on the spot, and
waited only until Cecilia had made the inevitable answer before
summoning Wiggins to end the whole affair. Such, however, was not to
be the order of events.
The procession, headed by Ormsby, was within a few yards of the
terrace. Cecilia, apparently unconscious of their proximity, continued
her promenade. In a moment she must recognize them, ask them into the
house, give them tea, and otherwise destroy my hope of securing her
happiness before the day's end.
A chorus of yelps and barks, as of dogs suddenly released, greeted my
ear. The oncoming suitors heard it too, and the line wobbled
uncertainly. Then round the house swept mastiffs, hounds, terriers,--a
collection of prize-winners such as few kennels ever boasted, loping
gayly in unwonted freedom toward unknown and forbidden pastures.
The vanguard of fox-terriers leaped down into the garden, with the rest
of the pack at their heels. Happy dogs, to find grown men ready for a
gambol! Six coat-tails streamed from the hips of six gentlemen in a
hurry. Several battered hats mixed with geraniums were retained later
as spoils of war by the gardener. That garden had been built for
repose and contemplative amblings, not for panic and flight. The
disorder was superior in picturesqueness to that which attended the
pumpkin stampede; at least it struck me at the moment as funnier; and I
have never since been able to attend a day wedding without appearing
idiotic--the procession of ushers suggests possibilities that are too
much for me. Four of the suitors found one of the proper exits into
the road; two leaped the box-hedge on the other side without shaking a
leaf.
I ran round the house, stumbling through the rear-guard of the truant
canines, and passing the kennel-master, who had rallied the stable men
and was in hot pursuit.
"Somebody turned 'em out--turned 'em out!" he shouted, and swept
profanely by. The gate of the kennel-yard stood open. A familiar
figure, running low, paused, and then sprinted nimbly along the paddock
fence. A white sweater was distinguishable for a moment on a stone
wall, then it followed a pair of enchanted heels into oblivion.
Time had been passing swiftly, and the shadows were deepening. I
retraced my steps toward the terrace, hearing the cries of pursued and
pursuers growing fainter. I had not yet gained a position from which I
could see Cecilia, when a man appeared some distance ahead of me,
walking guardedly in one of the garden-plots. He came uncertainly,
pausing to glance about, yet evidently led toward the terrace by a
definite purpose. All may be fair in love and war, but I confess to a
feeling of pity for John Stewart Dick as I watched him slowly advancing
to his fate. He was going boldly now, and I felt a sudden liking for
him; nor can I believe that he was other than a manly fellow with sound
brains and a good heart.
I reasoned, as I marked his approach to the terrace, that he had been
loitering in the neighborhood, probably watching Cecilia and Pepperton,
and when the architect retired, he had assumed that the sixth man had
spoken. The appearance of his former comrades of the inn had doubtless
disturbed him as it had me; then, thanks to the resourceful Hezekiah,
they had been routed and the coast was clear. I think it likely that
the sight of Cecilia sombrely pacing the terrace in the darkening
shadows was too much for his philosophic poise, or like the rest of us
who were actors in that comedy, he may have felt that any end was
better than the doubts and uncertainties that beset us.
I watched him draw nearer to Cecilia as I have watched deer go down to
a lake to drink. He would speak now; I was confident of it; and I
stole round to the side entrance and sent word to Wiggins to go to the
drawing-room and wait for me.
Miss Octavia and Pepperton still lingered over their tea-cups. The row
made by the fugitives from her kennels had not, it seemed, penetrated
to the library, and Miss Octavia bade me join the talk, which had to
do, I remember, with some project for a national hall of fame that had
incurred her characteristic displeasure. A hall of immortal rascals in
pillories she thought far likelier to please the masses.
In fifteen minutes I saw Cecilia crossing the hall. She stopped where
I could see her quite plainly, and thrust her hand into the pocket of
her coat. Out flashed the silver note-book. She made a swift notation
with the pencil that now, I knew, wrote the fate of the sixth man.
I went out and spoke to her, and walked beside her to the drawing-room
door, where Hartley Wiggins was waiting.
Miss Octavia had risen when I returned to the library, and it was time
to dress for dinner.
"Just a moment, Miss Hollister. Something of great interest is about
to occur;" and I made excuses for detaining her for perhaps five
minutes,--not more.
"You have never yet deceived me, Arnold Ames, and such is my confidence
in you that if you tell me that something interesting will soon occur,
I have no reason to doubt you. It is worth remembering, however, that
fowl is not improved by prolonged roasting."
I heard Wiggins laugh in the hall, and Miss Octavia raised her head.
Then Cecilia came into the room, and walked directly to her aunt.
"Aunt Octavia, here is the little silver notebook you gave me in Paris;
I have just written Mr. Wiggins's name in it, and as I have no further
use for the book, I return it with my love and thanks."
Without a word, Miss Octavia turned to the wall and pressed the button
twice.
"William," she said as the butler appeared, "you may serve Oriana '97,
and be careful not to freeze it to death; and the hour for dinner is
changed to eight. Arnold, you may yourself drive to Gooseberry
Bungalow for my brother and niece. They dine with me to-night."
Hezekiah and I built our bungalow in the orchard where on that October
afternoon I found her munching a red apple on the stone wall. She is
the most scrupulous of housewives, and only now took me to task for
scattering the hearth with fragments of the notes from which this
narrative has been written. She has just been reading these last
pages, with meditative brown eyes, and not without occasionally
reaching for the pen and retouching some sentence in which, she says,
soot from my chimney-doctoring days has clogged the ink. Cecilia and
Wiggins live at Hopefield across the fields. Miss Octavia insisted on
this, for the reason that the sword of Hartley's great-grandfather,
found in the chest under the old house, gives him inalienable rights to
the premises. Miss Octavia and her brother Bassford are traveling
abroad and enjoying those mild adventures to which they are both
temperamentally inclined. As Miss Octavia carried with her the Parker
House umbrella-check I am confident of her early return.
My name is joined to Pepperton's on his office-door. Pepperton
proposed this arrangement, with so many assurances of faith in me that
I could not refuse him; but I knew well enough that Miss Octavia had
first put it into his head. So while I have called myself a
chimney-doctor in these pages, I am again an architect, and the new
cathedral now rising at Waxahaxie is, let me modestly note, the work of
my hand.
"You ought to say something more about the Asolando," Hezekiah has just
murmured at my shoulder. "Everybody will ask whether we ever went back
there."
"Of course we go back there, Hezekiah, every time you come to town and
can get hold of me. Will that be enough?"
"You'd better explain that Aunt Octavia started the tea-room and still
owns it, and makes money out of it, though she rarely goes there, but
sends Freda the maid to collect the profits. And it won't do any harm
to say that when she met you there that day, she decided at once that
you would be a proper husband for me. Any one who reads your book will
want to know that."
Hezekiah is always right; so here endeth the chronicle.
The Riverside Press
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