UNRAVELING THE MYSTERIES
Uncle Pieter and Cousin Andy were no less interested than Janet in the
notes which she had found in the secret room, now no longer a secret
from the family. But Mr. Van Meter had given direction that all
entrances should be closed and that the affair should not be made the
matter of gossip.
Having before deciphered the often blurred writing on the old paper,
Jannet was commissioned to read the messages to her uncle and cousin in
the library. She did so, and they lost none of their point by being
read by the still excited Jannet. She had often been told at school
that she read with expression, but she did not see the approving,
smiling glance with which her uncle looked at her cousin, as she read.
When she had finished, her uncle said, "It all fits in nicely with the
genealogy so far as we have it. This house, the old one, I mean, was
finished about the time of the Revolution and this room may have been
an afterthought, very convenient for the owner, as it happened. I know
that it was often headquarters for our troops, and probably it harbored
the necessary spies. I will commission you, Jannet, to look carefully
through all the trunks for old letters or messages of any sort that may
tell us more of the history than we already know. From some source your
mother knew much about the old stories, but I can not think that she
knew of this secret way."
"She would have told you," said Jannet.
"I am not so sure," said Mr. Van Meter, soberly. "She would have told
my father, perhaps."
A rap on the door interrupted the conversation at this point. It was
Old P'lina who entered at Mr. Van Meter's invitation of "Come in."
Paulina stood unbendingly just inside the door. "I saw the woman Hepsy
sent me to and she says that Vittoria was not there last night. Then I
went to see Herman at the shop and he acted as though it was none of my
business where Vittoria was. That was all."
Without waiting for comment or question, Paulina turned and went away.
Andy, looking at Jannet, smiled at her. "You can scarcely get used to
our gentle P'lina, can you, Jannet?'
"She is certainly the most sudden person I ever saw!"
Mr. Van Meter did not smile. He sat in thought for a moment, then
arose. "I shall see the young man himself. I want to talk to Vittoria
and I do not propose to wait until she may have gone away. If she is
going to marry Herman, he certainly will have some news of her soon."
With this explanation, Mr. Van Meter left the room. Jannet remained,
talking to her cousin till she heard Jan's rapid footsteps in the hall.
"He's looking for me, I suspect, Cousin Andy," she said, hurrying out.
"Here I am, Jan, if you want to see me."
"You are the very little Dutchwoman I'm looking for. Come on. I want to
show you how I got into your room. I didn't go that round-about way
through the attic, nor up a ladder through a tool house! Our ancestor
had one more way of getting in and out."
"But it was so funny, Jan, that you should have come to that particular
room on that particular night!"
"Not so very. I intended to stay all night with Chick and then changed
my mind. But we fooled around, and I didn't want to wake anybody up. So
I opened the back door with a key I have and went to bed. Then I was
too cold and I got up to prowl around after a blanket or something.
There wasn't a thing in the closet where Paulina keeps all the extra
things, and I could get into your room, I knew, though it was always
kept locked. I didn't even try the door, but went in, without a light,
fumbled around and finally drew off a comforter that was over the foot.
I knew, you see, that you were expected, but I didn't have the least
idea that you were there. If I had happened to touch your face,--wow!"
"Was the bed kept made up, that you knew you would find something?"
"No, but I took a chance that it was made up for you. See?"
"Why didn't you tell me all this before?"
"I didn't know how you would take it till I got acquainted with you.
Then, to tell the truth, I rather hated to do it."
"You need not have hesitated. You needed that comforter and I had
enough without it anyhow. But I surely did wonder about it, and with
all the ghost stories and all, well, I haven't known what to make of
everything."
The next few minutes were most engaging, for Jan showed his cousin how
one portion of a panel apparently dropped down into the floor and made
a low opening large enough for one person to enter from the hall into
the room. "Mercy, Jan, I'll never sleep in peace now, if there are two
ways of getting in beside the door!"
"Put bolts on 'em, Jannet. I'll fix it."
"Ask Uncle Pieter first, Jan. Then I'll be glad to have you do it. But
I want it kept possible to open in this way. It's so thrilling, you
know."
"Yes, isn't it? But it is hard to forgive you, Jannet, for finding this
out about the secret room first."
"I only followed the ghost, Jan. But you don't know how I wondered what
the secret was that you had with Paulina, and oh, did you send a little
message to your mother by Paulina that you were home?"
"Yes, how did you know that?"
"Oh, I just remember that your mother read something and looked as
cross as she ever looks and she was a little embarrassed, I thought,
when she excused herself. And then you came just as if you had just
arrived, and told me a whopper about coming from Chick's!"
"That was no whopper. I _had_ come. I rode over there early, but of
course it wasn't the _first_ time I had come from there."
The matter of his early appearance at this time had also to be
explained, but Jan related how school was closing early and how he and
Chick decided not to wait a minute after examinations if they could get
permission to leave, from parents and school authorities. "Think of all
that was going on at the farm and I missing it! Mother expected me this
time, but I wrote her to let me surprise you."
It occurred to Jannet that she had not had anything to eat, and she
felt a little faint, to her own surprise. "What's the matter, Jannet?"
asked Jan, suddenly noticing how she looked.
"Why, I'm hungry, I believe. We had some cookies and fudge and lemonade
last night but that isn't very staying."
"Haven't you had any _breakfast_? Believe _me_, I never forget my
meals. Come with me, child. If Daphne doesn't fill you up with
griddle-cakes, then my name is Mike!"
Laughing, but not so sorry for the stout young arm that led her along,
Jannet willingly made the descent to the kitchen, where kind old Daphne
fussed over her and stirred up a fresh supply of batter for her cakes.
Jan, quite at home with the cook, made some cocoa, which might have
been better had he followed Daphne's directions; but the result was hot
and stimulating at least. "Now you go and lie down somewhere, honey,
and git some sleep," said Daphne, who had heard what she was not
supposed to hear from Hepsy, who at last understood the visit to her
room in the "dead of night."
Jannet needed no coaxing to take the advice thus offered. Well
fortified and comfortable after her hot cakes, cocoa and real maple
syrup, she was escorted to the library by Jan and tucked on the
davenport there with a light cover suitable to the warm day. Jan
thought that she would sleep better there than in her own room, all
things considered, but Jannet knew that she could sleep anywhere. Jan
drew the curtain with its fringes before the alcove in which the
davenport stood. From little windows the soft breeze came in gently.
Jannet never knew when Jan went away, so quickly did she sink into
slumber.
It must have been in the late afternoon when she wakened. She had not
known when Cousin Di and Jan came and looked at her, and debated
whether to waken her for dinner or not, nor when Uncle Pieter came and
looked down upon her with a smile. "Poor little Jannetje Jan," he said,
pulling the curtains together and going back to his desk to wait for
some one.
It was when conversation was going on between her uncle and some one
else that she wakened. "You can wait outside, Herman," she heard her
uncle say. "It will be better for Vittoria to talk to me alone, and I
can assure you that she will receive every courtesy."
Jannet felt very uncomfortable, though at first still drowsy. But after
all, she was the one who made the first discovery. It was not
eavesdropping, she hoped, and she could not help it, anyway. She almost
drowsed off to sleep again in the first few minutes, while Vittoria was
answering Mr. Van Meter's questions about where she had been. Vittoria
was decidedly sulky and did not want to answer any questions. Finally
Mr. Van Meter told her that perfect frankness was her only course. "So
far as I know, you have done no real harm in playing the ghost, but we
want to know why you did it, and of course we want no more of it. It
was most dangerous for the girls to be locked in and frightened."
"You don't intend to send me away, then, till I get married?"
"Not as long as you make no trouble for us. And we want no gossip about
this, either, for our own sakes and that of you and Herman."
This seemed to relieve Vittoria, who began to talk. "I did it first to
get even with Paulina who scared me once. I told her that I did not
believe in the family ghosts. She did, but since nothing happened, she
made something happen and I caught her at it, hiding in the attic where
I had my box with my savings in it. She was more scared than I was, for
she really believes in ghosts.
"Then,--well, Mrs. Van Meter told me to make all the trouble I could
for you, and she was the one that found that secret room and played
ghost sometimes. She sent me back here."
Vittoria paused, perhaps half afraid to go on, but her listener made no
comment. "I did it once in a while, half for fun, too, to scare Hepsy
and Paulina, but you never heard any of it, so why would your wife want
me to do it? Then, when the girls were here, I didn't want them
snooping around where I had my box, so I concluded that I'd give them a
good scare. I did, too, but Jannet almost caught me last night. And
when Hepsy told me that she asked about what perfume I used, I knew
that she knew. I went to a show with Herman first and I had some of
Hepsy's new perfume on my handkerchief and on my dress. I did not think
of it when I slipped on the things I wore to scare them.
"I whipped around, ahead of Jannet, and went around through the attic
again to get my things; and then I was going to stay all night in Jan's
room, but I heard them coming and went the other way, sticking the
things under Jan's bed. They found them, Paulina said. I went to stay
all night with a girl I knew, not where I usually stay. That was all."
"Paulina said that you went into the trunks to get your costume."
"Perhaps she thought so; but I never opened a trunk. These things I
found in a box that was tied up in paper and in the back part of the
attic."
"Very well, Vittoria. Have your box taken out of the attic and do not
go there again, please. I would put my savings in the bank, or if you
care to give them to me, I will put them in my safe. Now I want to ask
you if you remember some incidents connected with my sister, Jannet's
mother."
Jannet, behind the curtains, was thoroughly awake by this time and with
half a mind to go out now, for perhaps she should not hear what was to
follow. She sat up, but decided not to go out. Vittoria was in the mood
to tell now. Her uncle's voice was not unkind and she knew that
Vittoria must be relieved to think that she need not lose her place and
the money which she wanted to make.
"I have kept it in mind," her uncle continued, "that you served my
former wife very faithfully, even if mistakenly at times. She had
trained you and had given you some education. It was to be expected
that you should have a regard for her." Then Jannet heard her uncle
tell Vittoria the incident of the telegram and what Paulina had said.
Vittoria remembered the occasion. "Yes, I'll tell you more, Mr. Van
Meter," she said excitedly. "I did not care very much for your wife
when she stood over me and threatened me with all sorts of things if I
did not tear up a letter that had come to you. 'It is from his precious
sister,' she said, 'and I shall say to my husband, if he asks, that I
have not destroyed any of his mail.' And the telegram was from her,
too, and she begged you to help her find her husband and baby."
There was silence for a little. Jannet heard her uncle's slow tapping
on his desk. Finally he said, "Do you remember anything else, Vittoria?
Were there any other letters?"
"One little letter that I had to tear up for her. There may have been
other telegrams, but I did not know about them if there were. She was
watching for the mail in those days, or had me do it."
"I see. Well, Vittoria, this is very valuable information to me. I can
not feel very happy over what you did, Vittoria, but it would do no
good now to punish you in any way, even if I could. You had part in
what was a very dreadful thing."
"Oh, yes, sir!" To Jannet's surprise, she heard Vittoria sobbing a
little. "I was only sixteen, but I knew better; but I thought since
they all died, it did not make so much difference,--until she came."
"It may have made the difference that we could have saved my sister,
Vittoria, and that Jannet need not have been in a boarding school for
years. But you are not so much to blame as the one who ordered you to
do it. It must have been a shock to you when we discovered Jannet.
Well, Vittoria, we can not help the past. We have all made mistakes.
Try to be a good girl and a good wife to Herman. I will have some work
for him when I build the new barn."
"Oh, thank you, sir, I'll--," but Vittoria's voice was tearful, and
Jannet heard her uncle open and close the door. Vittoria had gone, too
upset to say another word. She had come in sullen and hard, and left
all touched and softened by Mr. Van Meter's treatment of her.
Jannet was proud of her uncle, and when he immediately crossed the room
and parted the curtains to see if she were awake, she looked lovingly
up into his rather troubled eyes to tell him so. "O uncle, you were so
good to Vittoria! I was afraid that I ought not to be here, but I was
more afraid to come out."
"I knew that you were there, my child, but I'd like to be alone now for
a little while."
Jannet clung to his arm a minute, then ran out and to her room to get
some more of the attic dust off in her tub and make herself quite fresh
for supper. Her previous toilet had been made quite hastily and
superficially, she knew.
Hepsy waited upon them at supper, but Jannet knew that a chastened and
more considerate Vittoria would be helping to-morrow. Cousin Diana and
Jan had their turn at the portfolio and its messages after supper, when
they all gathered for a while in the living room. Then a sober Uncle
Pieter took them, to put them away in his desk, and they saw no more of
him that evening.