THE CLOSED HOUSE
"It's all right," said Lily. "Don't you remember I told you the house
was lent to my artist friend by the folks who own it and who've gone
away for the summer to the seashore? The front door and windows were
boarded up, I guess, like they always are, before the house was lent.
My friend lives in the back part, and the caretaker looks after
everything, but it's awful nice. You needn't be afraid you're goin' to
waste your grand dress. Say, it's some swell street, ain't it?"
Lily talked fast and slid an arm through Win's in the thin silk kimono
cloak, encouraging her to mount the steps. But Win objected to being
hustled. She paused to look up at the house front which--like all its
neighbours except a big, lighted building at the corner, that had the
air of being a club--had apparently been put to sleep for the summer
months.
The dark-brown façades were expressionless as the faces of mummies.
Smooth boards had been neatly fitted into the window frames and made
to cover front doors. There seemed at first glance to be no way in,
but as Winifred slowly ascended the steps of the fourth house from the
corner, she made out the lines of a little door cut in the boards
which protected the big one. There was no handle to break the smooth,
unpainted surface of wood--old, well-seasoned wood which had evidently
served the same purpose year after year--but there was a small,
inconspicuous keyhole, and into this Miss Leavitt deftly fixed a key
which she took from her hand bag.
"My friend sent me this," she explained, "to save us waiting, 'cause
there's only one servant, and he might be busy. Say, this is real fun,
ain't it?"
"It's--it's quite like a sort of adventure," Win answered "I had no
idea the house would be shut up, or---"
"It'll make it all the cooler," said Lily. She had got the little door
open, and the space between it and the house door it protected could
be seen in the street lights, like a miniature vestibule. "Squeeze in
and feel around till you find the electric bell," she went on. "Some
one'll open the real door, and I can lock up behind us."
"Why lock up?" argued Win, hesitating. "Aren't there others coming?"
"My, yes, unless they're all here. But it wouldn't do to leave a
cover-up door like this standing open. If the police happened along
and saw, they'd think there was something wrong and make my friend a
whole lot of bother."
Win saw the force of this explanation, and stooping to pass through
the low aperture, found herself close to a pretentiously carved
portal. The electric bell revealed itself to groping fingers, and to
her surprise a few seconds after she had touched it, without hearing a
sound, the door opened.
In the dimness of a hall or large vestibule the figure of a man
loomed black against dark gray. Win could see of him only that he was
tall and straight and prim, like a well-trained servant, and his voice
was a servant's voice as he said: "Please be a little careful, miss,
not to trip. We have to keep it rather dark here, but there's plenty
of light inside Let me show you through the hall."
Win thanked him, but turned inside the door to ask: "Aren't you
coming, Miss Leavitt?" (They had never been upon Christian name
terms.)
"Yes, I'm just turning the key," replied Lily. "Go along. I'll
follow."
Win went on through the dusk, dimly seeing panelled walls. She heard
the door shut sharply behind her and supposed that Lily had come in,
but at the same instant another door opened ahead and a soft wave of
rosy light flowed out.
"Walk in, if you please, miss," requested the tall servant standing
attentive, and mechanically Win obeyed.
Lily Leavitt had not exaggerated--this was a "swell house," and "cool
as snow." The room into which she had been ushered was a dining-room,
and at first glance was all one rosy glow--walls, drawn curtains,
thick, mossy carpet, brocade-upholstered furniture, lamps and candle
shades. The table was a shining bunch of lilies in a garden of
deep-red roses seen at sunset, and the glitter of silver and gleam of
glass was a bright sprinkle of dewdrops catching the red western
light.
It was so long since Win had been in a pretty room or had seen a
charmingly decorated table that for a few seconds she lost herself in
the sheer joy of beauty. The sunset-garden simile flashed into her
mind and pleased her. She was glad that she had come. The guests might
be uninteresting, of the Lily Leavitt sort, and the artists might be
so called only by themselves. The room might be over-gorgeous by
daylight, but it was beautiful thus lighted, with a rosy radiance from
above, bringing out the whiteness of damask, the snow purity of
camellias crowding a crystal bowl, and the ruby splendour of
strawberries piled on their own leaves.
What a wonderful sight after months of the Hands restaurant and free
lunches with five-cent chocolate in busy drug stores! Oh, yes, she was
glad she had come, and she must look, look, look at this beautiful
picture, so that she might remember its details and hold it before her
eyes, like a delicately painted transparency, in front of future
realities.
But it was in carrying out this intention, in taking in the details,
that Win's heart suddenly bounded and then missed a beat. The table
had two chairs drawn up to it. It was small and round, and on it only
two places were laid.
Win turned her head and looked for Lily Leavitt. Lily was not there,
neither was the tall, respectable servant. But a smiling man in
evening dress was just coming into the room with the ingratiating air
of one who is a little late for an appointment.
"How do you do, Miss Child?" Jim Logan cordially inquired, holding out
his hand. "This is mighty good of you!"
A thousand thoughts whirled after each other through the girl's head,
like the mechanical horses on a circular toy race course, such as she
had often sold at Peter Rolls's. Round and round they wildly turned
for an instant, then began to slow down.
This house was closed for the summer. The front was boarded up, and
perhaps the back windows also. No lights could be seen, and probably
no sounds heard. Two places only were laid for supper. Lily, then, had
gone--had always meant to go and leave her here, had been bribed to
bring her and go. Oh, but it must have been a big bribe this time, for
surely Lily Leavitt would never dare look her in the face again! One
of them would have to disappear from the mantle department of the
Hands. Was Logan giving Lily enough money to make up for a sacrifice
of all those commissions, or did Lily think that after to-night
she--Winifred Child--would never come back to Peter Rolls's?
As that question asked itself loud bells jangled in Win's head. She
felt as if she were losing her senses. But no, she must not--must not
do that. Never in her life had she so much need to keep them all as
now, in this locked house, where she had no help to hope for save what
her own wits might give, and no one could hear or see what happened to
her except this smiling man and his well-trained servant. For all
outside this was an empty house.
She steadied herself, the more readily because something in the narrow
eyes twinkling into hers said that Jim Logan had expected her to
scream and make a scene. Never until now had she imagined it possible
to be afraid of him. In the park, when he had stopped his car to
follow and speak to her, she had been a little startled, a good deal
annoyed. Then, when Ursus had opportunely arrived to frighten him
away as easily as the _Spider_ frightened _Miss Muffet_, she had been
impishly amused.
In Toys at Peter Rolls's she had been vexed, irritated, but never
hotly angry. The young man's persistence had not seemed serious enough
to call "persecution." She had rather enjoyed "shunting" him off upon
Lily Leavitt, and thwarting him through Cupid and Earl Usher. It had
never occurred to her that behind the unfailing smile and the
twinkling gray eyes the brutal ferocity of the animal might lurk.
She had thought that he had forgotten her long ago and turned his
attentions elsewhere. What girl, unless silly and Victorian, would be
afraid of a dude who lived for the sleekness of his hair and the
spick-and-spanness of his clothes? Yet now Win was afraid, and she did
not think it was because she had suddenly become silly or Victorian.
This aquiline-faced young man with the prominent jaw was looking at
her as the primitive brute looks at the prey under his paws, and if he
smiled and twinkled, it was but as the primitive brute might purr.
Winifred thought of this, and she thought, too, that when the prey had
presence of mind to feign sleep or death the brute was said not to
kill, after all.
She did not put her hand into the hand that Logan held out, but
neither did she turn to run from him. "This is quite a surprise," she
remarked quietly.
"A pleasant surprise, I hope," he suggested.
"A sort of practical joke, I suppose," the girl said.
"Well, yes, that's just what it is," Logan smiled, evidently wondering
at her calmness and not sure whether to take it as a good or bad omen.
"It seemed to be the only way I could get you to accept any
invitation of mine."
"Rather a high-handed way!" said Win, shrugging her shoulders.
"Still--here I am. This seems to be a nice house. Is it yours?"
"It's my father's. We're all supposed to be somewhere else for the
summer. But I run in sometimes. My servant looks after me. He's as
devoted as the servants in books. I pay him to be. There's nothing I
want done that he wouldn't do."
"He appears to have made you a very nice supper." Win's eyes rested on
the table.
"Nothing could be too good for you. If I've got you here--well, sort
of under false pretences--there'll be no false pretences about
anything else now I _have_ got you. There's a little surprise in those
flowers by your plate. I hope you'll like it."
"A peace offering?" suggested Win lightly.
"Yes. And a love token. You know I've been in love with you, you
bewitching thing, just madly in love, since that night in the park. I
never rested till I saw you again at Peter Rolls's. And then I knew I
couldn't rest until---"
"Wait!" exclaimed Win, putting out both hands to hold him off as he
came close. "Wait--_please!_" She still spoke lightly. "I'm your
guest. I quite understand that 'might makes right!' But there's
another law--the law of hospitality, isn't there? This is--a great
adventure. Let me get into the spirit of it before you say or do any
more. Give me time--to breathe. Where may I put my cloak? Perhaps
you've a long mirror somewhere? I want to see if I'm beautiful enough
for my background."
Logan yielded to the hands which pushed him away. It charmed him that
this tall, spirited creature was taking things in a debonair way. He
thought it splendid that she should talk of an adventure and of
entering into the spirit of it. If she had made a fuss and tried to
escape and refused to eat supper with him, there would have been some
pleasure in conquering, but not the same pleasure there would be in a
jolly little supper with a pretty girl who gayly acknowledged that the
"joke was on her," and then making love to her afterward.
Not that he quite trusted the strange creature yet. She might be like
a kitten that submits to be petted while lying in wait for its chance
to spring. But this kitten might lie in wait as long as it liked. The
chance to spring wouldn't come. By and by the kitten would discover
that fact if the hope were in its mind, for he meant business this
time.
"There's a room next door my mother and sister use for their boudoir,"
he said graciously. "It's full of long mirrors, and you can have all
the electric light you want, but the furniture's covered up. The
dining-room and my den are the only places that are shipshape, I'm
afraid."
Logan walked out into the hall and threw open one of the doors that
opened into it. "Here you are!" he announced, switching on a blaze of
electric light that showed a small room shrouded in white covers. "The
first thing you see is a life-size picture of yourself. I guess that's
what you want."
"You have guessed right. You deserve a prize," Win answered.
In the lighted boudoir a mirror faced the door.
"Will you give me a few minutes to myself?" she asked. "I may just as
well confess that this surprise of yours has--gone to my head a
little, as your champagne probably will--when I drink it. The hot
weather has been taking it out of me horribly, and I'm not very
strong. If I may sit still for five minutes and shut my eyes and
think, why--I'm sure I shall be a more amusing guest at supper."
Logan, who had touched the electric-light switch inside the door,
stood on the threshold, barring the way. Win did not try to push past
him, nor did she show any impatience, nor even eagerness. He stared
her in the eyes as if to ask: "What trick do you hope to play, I
wonder? Do you think I'm such a blamed idiot as to leave a way out
open after all the trouble and expense I've put myself to on your
account?"
But being perfectly sure that there was no way out, no trick in her
power seemed worth worrying about--unless she had some melodramatic
little bottle of poison concealed about her which she would drain and
die, like the heroine of an old-fashioned play. He was certain that
the brave, vital young creature who had seized his fancy would do
nothing of the kind, however, and he felt that it was safe to humour
her.
"You can even go to sleep on the sofa, if you like, provided you'll
promise to dream of me," he said, "and if you'll let me come and wake
you up. Oh, I've caught you looking at the keyhole! There's no key in
it, you see, for me to lock you in--or for you to lock me out."
"Neither of us would be so medieval, would we?" she laughed. "That
would be a silly way to begin the evening. Now that I am here I am
going to make the very, very best of it, I promise you!"
"That's right! You're the girl of my heart!" said Logan, and, stepping
away from the door, let her walk into the lighted boudoir.
Gently and slowly, almost coquettishly, she shut him out, smiling into
his face until the oak panels had closed between him and her.