|I WAS surprised to find, when I examined myself in the glass next
morning, that I did not look like a person that has seen a ghost. I had
rather more color than usual and my eyes were bright; also the fact
that I had controlled and overcome my nerves seemed to have acted like
a tonic to my whole system. In some mysterious way I had tapped a whole
reservoir of nervous strength and resilience. The same thing often
happens physically: one is tired to the very point of exhaustion, one
goes on, there is a renewal of strength, the effort that seems about
to crack the muscles suddenly lightens, becomes almost easy again. I
suppose the nervous system is subject to the same rules. At any rate, in
my case, the explanation works.
Without any exaggerated horror I dressed again in my Quaker costume and
I went down to breakfast. There must have been something in my face,
however, for Mrs. Brane, after we had had our coffee, began to look at
me rather searchingly, and at last she said, “You are getting very thin,
Janice, do you know that?”
“I had n't noticed it. Perhaps.”
“Not perhaps at all. Certainly. Your gown is beginning to hang on you
and your face is just a wedge between all that hair. You look a little
feverish too. Suppose you try to take a little more exercise and fresh
air. After all, keeping house at 'The Pines' does not demand so much
strenuous desk work, does it? And now that Paul Dabney is away, you can
neglect that endless library work.”
“Has he gone for good?” I asked, as lightly as possible, though my heart
fell.
“No, my dear. You will still be able to torment him with your proud
'Maisie' looks and ways. He is coming back this evening on the afternoon
train. He'll be late for tea, but we'll wait for him, shall we? He did
n't want to be met, said he would walk up. I think he dreads that long,
poky ride with old George nursing old Gregory through the sand. When
you're a young man who flies about the country in a motor, 'The Pines'
vehicle must be an instrument of torture. Janice, suppose you put on
your cloak and hat and come out with me for a nice long walk. It would
do us both good, I have n't had any heart for exercise. There seems to
be nothing to live for now--but Dr. Haverstock--”
“You think Dr. Haverstock something to live for?” I asked, rather
puzzled.
She laughed a little and blushed a great deal. “Mercy, no! I meant to
say, 'But Dr. Haverstock has told me that I must take more exercise'--I
don't know why I stopped that way--absent-mindedness. I was looking
through the window at one of those men.”
“Do you think they are very useful members of society, Mrs. Brane? They
seem to do very little work.”
She gave me an odd, half-amused, half-embarrassed look.
“They think they are useful, poor fellows! They are my pet charity.”
“Oh,” said I blankly. I was not sure whether she was joking or not.
“Come on, Janice. Don't worry your head over my extravagances. Your duty
is just to be a nice, cheerful, young companion for me. It's a help
to me to see that fiery gold head of yours moving about this musty old
house. Don't wear your hat. It's not cold, and I love to see the sun on
your hair.”
I tried to suppress my little shiver, but couldn't. She interpreted it
very naturally, however. “Oh, it is n't a bit cold, not a bit.”
So we went out into the mild, soft day, and I went without my hat for
the sake of letting her see the sun on my hair. As we walked down the
ill-weeded drive on which the labors of the two men had made little or
no impression, I wondered if narrow, green eyes under a mass of just
such hair were watching us from some secret post of observation. I
thought that I could feel them boring into my back. I could not restrain
a backward look. The old house stood quietly, its long windows blank
except for an upper one, out of which Sara was shaking a pillow. I
wondered why she should be working in the nursery, but I did n't like to
draw Mrs. Brane's attention to the fact.
To my surprise Mrs. Brane was a very energetic walker. She stepped along
briskly on her tiny feet, and a faint color came into her poor, wistful
face.
“I should be a different person, Janice,” she sighed, “if I could get
away from this place and live in some more bracing climate, or some more
cheerful country. How lovely Paris would be!”
She laughed her hollow, little laugh.
“My husband lived in Paris for a long time. Before that he was in
Russia. He knew a great deal of Russian, even dialects. He was a great
traveler. I met him at Aix-les-Bains. He was taking the baths, and so
was I. We were both invalids, and I suppose it was a sort of bond. But
invalids should not be allowed to marry. Of course, we had no serious
disease; it was rheumatism with him, and nervous prostration with me. I
wonder if there is n't such a thing as a nerve-germ, Janice.”
“I wondered,” absently. I was busy with my own thoughts, and she was a
great chatterer.
“I think old houses get saturated with nerve-germs, truly I do. That's
the real explanation of ghosts. I am sure rooms are haunted by the
sorrows and mournful preoccupations of the people that die in them. I
am not very superstitious, and I am so glad that you are n't. I trembled
for you. You see those other housekeepers--”
“Do tell me about the other housekeepers,” I begged, “especially the one
just before me. What was she like?”
“Oh, a little, fat thing, white as wax, very bustling, but with no real
ability. She stayed with me for some time, though, and I was beginning
to think that--you know, Janice, I owe you an apology.”
“Why, dear Mrs. Brane?”
“Because I never told you about those three housekeepers and their
alarms. It was rather shabby of me not to warn you. But, you see, I did
n't want to suggest fears to you. I hope I won't suggest them now. But
all my other housekeepers have been haunted.”
“Haunted?” I asked with as much surprise as I could assume.
“Yes; the first heard a voice in the wall, and the second knew that some
one was in her room at night. The third was so badly frightened that she
would n't tell me what happened at all.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don't know. She went away leaving me no address, and I've never heard
a word of her since. At first I thought she might have made away with
something, some money or jewelry, but I have never missed anything.”
“Mrs. Brane,” I asked hesitatingly, “what is your explanation of these
apparitions, of the things that alarmed the housekeepers, of the things
that frightened Delia and Annie and Jane?”
As we talked, we had been coming down the long hill on top of which
stood “The Pines,” and now were beginning to go towards that swamp, with
its black, smothered stream, across which George had driven me on the
day of my arrival. I did not like the direction of our walk; I did
not like the swamp nor my memory of the oily-looking stream under the
twisted, sprawling trees, draped with Spanish moss. But I supposed it
was Mrs. Brane's business, and not mine. Besides, I was now interested
in what she was saying.
She listened to my question, and seemed to ponder her reply rather
doubtfully. At last she made up her mind to some measure of frankness.
“Of course, I have a sort of explanation of my own for their leaving,”
she said; “rather a suspicion than an explanation. But, Janice,” she
looked about her, drew closer and spoke very low, “if I tell you this
suspicion you must promise to keep it very strictly to yourself. I
am going against orders in speaking of it at all. And against my own
resolution, too. But I feel as if I must have a confidante, and I do
think that you are a person to be trusted.”
“Oh, Mrs. Brane,” I said half-tearfully, “indeed, indeed I am. You will
not be sorry if you tell me everything, everything that has to do with
these queer happenings at 'The Pines.'”
We came down the sandy slope to the bridge and on it we paused, leaning
against the rail and looking far down at the sluggish, gray water.
The black roots of the trees crawled down into it like snakes from the
banks. It was the stillest, deadliest-looking water I have ever seen.
“Just underneath this bridge there is a quicksand,” said Mrs. Brane; “a
mule was lost here two years ago, and a poor, half-witted negress killed
herself by letting herself drop down from the bridge. Was n't it a
dreadful death to choose--slow and suffocating? Ugh!”
“I hate this place,” I said half angrily; “why do we stay here? Let's go
and do our talking somewhere else.”
“I have a fancy to tell you here,” she half laughed. The laugh ended in
a little shriek. “Janice! There's some one under the bridge!”
I clutched the rail and leaned forward, though God knows, I was in no
mind for horrid sights. This was neither horrid nor ghostly, however;
no drowned negress haunting the scene of her death. The discreet,
bewhiskered face of Henry Lorrence looked respectfully up at us. He was
squatting on the bank of the stream under the shadow of the bridge, his
coat lay beside him, and he was busy with some tools.
“What are you doing, Henry?” asked Mrs. Brane in rather a shrill voice.
She had been startled.
“Mendin' up the bridge, ma'am,” said Henry thickly, for his mouth was
full of rusty-looking nails. “There's a couple of weak planks here,
ma'am, that I noticed the other afternoon, and they seemed to me
dangerous to life and limb over this here stream at such a height. If
a person fell through, ma'am, there would n't be much chance for him,
would there?”
“I should think not. You're quite right.”
“Better wait till I've got it fixed before you goes acrost, ma'am. It
will be a matter of a few hours, and I ain't sure't will be safe then.
The whole bridge should be rebuilt.”
“We'll stay on this side,” said Mrs. Brane; “we can go back and walk
along the ridge. I don't think the air is particularly healthy down in
this swamp, anyway, even at this time of the year. We won't be back this
way, Henry. Make a good job of it.”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Henry, with one of his servile, thin-lipped smiles,
“I mean to make a regular good job.”
He began to hammer away vigorously. He had quite an assortment of tools,
a saw and an axe and some planks. It really looked as if he were going
to make a thorough good job of it, and I hoped he would. A fall through
the bridge into that thick, gray, turbid water with its faint odor of
rottenness--it was not a pleasant thought. And even a very loud crying
for help would not reach “The Pines.” There was no nearer place, and the
road led only to us. Not a nice spot for an accident at all!
Mrs. Brane and I hastened back to the higher ground, where we found a
path, soft with pine needles, where the sunlight sifted through wide
branches to the red-brown, hushed earth.
“You see,” she said, “there is no safe place for confidence. If I had
not happened to see Henry at just that instant, he would have heard
my suspicions, and Heaven knows what effect they might have had on his
dull, honest, old mind!”
An honest, old mind, indeed!--if my own suspicions were correct. I
wondered if the whiskers were false. Henry was really too perfect an
image of the reliable old family servant. He might have been copied from
a book.
“Well, here we can look about us, at any rate,” I said; “there's no
place for eavesdroppers to hide in.”
“After all, there is n't so much to tell. If I knew more, why, then,
there would be no mystery, and I should be safely away from 'The Pines.'
You see, I suspect that there has been an attempt at burglary which has
failed.”
“An attempt at burglary? Oh, Mrs. Brane!” This was almost as perfect an
imitation of the stereotyped exclamation of perfect ignorance as Henry's
get-up was of the English house-servant. I blushed at it, but Mrs. Brane
did not notice.
“My husband died of paralysis, a sudden stroke. He could not speak. And
that is why I have never been able to leave 'The Pines.'”
“I don't understand,” said I, honestly this time.
“Of course you don't. You see, there were secrets in my husband's life.
He had an adventurous past. I fear he was very wild.” She sighed, but I
could see that his wildness was a pleasure to her. She was one of those
foolish women to whose sheltered virtue the fancy picture of daring vice
appeals very strongly. I was far wiser than she. There were some sordid
memories in my life.
“When he married me, he was a man of quite forty-five, and he reformed
completely. I think he had had a shock, a fright of some kind which
served as a warning. Sometimes I fancied that he lived under a dread of
trouble. Certainly, he was very watchful and secret in his ways, and,
from being such a globe-trotter, he became the veriest stick-at-home.
He never left 'The Pines,' winter or summer, though he would send Robbie
and me away,”--she gave the pitiful, little sigh that came always now
with Robbie's name. “He was not at all rich, though we were sufficiently
comfortable on my small fortune. But at times he talked like a very
wealthy man. He made plans, he was very strange about it. At last,
towards the end of his life he began to drop hints. He would tell me
that some day Robbie would be rich beyond dreams; that, if he died, I
would be left provided for like a queen. He said, always very fearfully,
very stealthily, that he had left everything to me, everything--and of
course I thought I knew that he had very little to leave. He said that I
must be braver than he had been. 'With a little caution, Edna, a very
little caution, you can reap the fruits of it all.' Of course I
questioned him, but he teased me and pretended that he had been talking
nonsense. He made his will, though, at about this time, and left me
everything he had, everything, and he underlined the 'everything.' One
night we were sitting at dinner. He had been perfectly well all day, but
he had taken a ride in the sun and complained of a slight headache. We
had wine for dinner. I've never been able to touch a drop since--is n't
it odd? Suddenly, while he was talking, he put his hand to his head. 61
feel queer,' he said, and his voice was thick. He grabbed the arms of
his chair, and fixed his eyes upon me. 'Perhaps I had better tell you
now, Edna,' the words were all heavy and blurred, 'it is in the house,
you know--the old part.' He stood up, went over to the door, closed it
carefully; he looked into the pantry to be sure that the waitress was
not there. He came back and stood beside my chair, looking down at me.
His face was flushed. 'You will find the paper,' he began; and then the
words began to come queer, he struggled with them, his tongue seemed to
stick to his mouth. Suddenly he threw up his arms and fell down on the
floor.” Mrs. Brane wiped her eyes. “Poor Theodore! Poor fellow! He never
spoke again. He lived for several days, and his eyes followed me about
so anxiously, so yearningly, but he was entirely helpless, could not
move a finger, could not make a sound. He died and left me tormented by
the secret that he could not tell. It has been like a curse. It _has_
been a curse. It has killed Robbie. I believe that it will some day kill
me.”
Here the poor woman sank down on a log and cried. I comforted her as
well as I could, and begged her to forget this miserable business. “No
problematic fortune is worth so much misery and distress,” I said, “and
if, in all this time, in spite of your searching--and I suppose you have
searched very thoroughly--”
“Oh, yes,” she sighed, “I have worn myself out with it. Every scrap of
paper in the house has been gone over a hundred times, every drawer and
closet. Why, since Sara stirred me up with her cleaning in the old
part of the house, I have been over everything again during this last
fortnight, but with not the slightest result.”
“You see. It is useless. And, dear Mrs. Brane, I hope you won't mind
my suggesting it, but, perhaps, the whole idea is a mistake, or some
fantastic obsession of your husband's mind. He was ill towards the last,
probably more ill than you knew. You may be wasting your health and life
in the pursuit of a mere chimera. You have no further suspicions of any
attempt at burglary, have you?”
“No.” My words had had some effect. She stood up and began to walk home
thoughtfully and calmly. “No. There have been no disturbances for a long
time. Sara and Henry have not been frightened nor have you. Mary has
seen no ghosts. Perhaps you are right, dear, and the whole thing is a
fiction.” She sighed. One does not relinquish the hope of a fabulous
fortune without a sigh.
We were rather silent on the way home. I was planning an interview with
Sara, my first move in the difficult and dangerous game that I had set
myself to play. I was frightened, yes, but terribly interested. I left
Mrs. Brane after lunch and went down to the kitchen. Sara was seated
by the table peeling potatoes, the most commonplace and respectable of
figures. She lifted her large, handsome face and stood up, setting down
the bowl.
“Go on with your work, Sara,” I said, “I shall not keep you but a
moment.”
She sat down and I stood there, my hand resting on the table. My heart
was beating fast, and I was conscious of a tightening in my throat.
Unconsciously, I narrowed my eyes, and tightened my lips till my
expression must have been something like that mask of wickedness I had
seen in the doorway of the book-room. I spoke in a low, hard voice,
level and cruel, and I put my whole theory to the test at once;
foolishly enough, I think, for I might have given myself away if my
guess had not been correct in this detail.
“How goes it, _Maida?_” I asked. It was the name the Baron had used.
She started; the knife stopped its work. She looked up, glancing
nervously about the room.
“God!” she said. “You're gettin' nervy, ain't you?”
No speech could have been more unlike the speech of the smooth and
respectful Sara.
I smiled as evilly as I could. “Once in a while I take a risk, that's
all. Don't refer to it again. But answer my questions, will you?
Anything new?”
“God, no! I'm about done with this game. Housework is no holiday to me,
and since they nabbed the Nobleman my heart's gone out of me. Our game's
about up, unless we get that--“here she used a string of vile,
whispered epithets--“this afternoon, and I don't think it's likely. He's
got nine lives, that cat of a Hovey!”
My heart thumped. I dared not ask her meaning.
Sara went on, only it was certainly Maida that spoke in the coarse,
breathless, furtive voice. “If the Nobleman has talked, they're coming
back for us. There's a dozen chances the bridge trick won't work. And,
even if it does, the whole pack will be down here to investigate. All
very well for you to say that we need just twenty-four free hours to
pull the thing off, but I tell you what, madam, Jaffrey and me are
gettin' pretty sick--we'd like a glimpse of them jools.”
One phrase of this speech had struck me deaf and half blind. I made a
sign of caution to the horrible creature, and I went out. I stopped
in the hall to look at the tall grandfather's clock ticking loudly and
solemnly. It was already very nearly five o'clock. Paul Dabney's train
was in, and he was on his way to “The Pines.” I stood there stupidly
repeating “the bridge trick” over and over to myself. The bridge trick!
Henry had had a saw and an axe. He might just as easily have been
weakening a plank as strengthening it. Had it not been for my presence,
his entire reliance on my skill in diverting Mrs. Brane's suspicion, we
should not have seen him at his work. But thinking me his leader, the
real instigator of the crime, he had probably decided that for some
reason I had brought Mrs. Brane purposely to watch him at his task. It
was five o'clock. Paul Dabney would be near the bridge. He was probably
bringing with him a detective, this Hovey, of whom Sara had spoken so
vilely. And the red-haired woman did not mean them to reach “The Pines”
that night. By this time she probably had some knowledge of the secret
of the bookcase, and she must feel that she had successfully frightened
away my desire to take out a book at night. She would rob the bookcase
some time within the next twenty-four hours, before any one found the
smothered bodies of Paul Dabney and his companion, and with her treasure
she would be off. Sara and Henry would give notice. I stood there as
though movement were impossible, and yet I knew that everything depended
upon haste.
I began to reckon out the time. The train got in to Pine Cone at
four-thirty, and it would probably be late. It was always late. It
would take two men walking at a brisk pace at least an hour to reach the
swamp. It was now just five o'clock. I had thirty minutes, therefore, in
which to save the secret of the bookcase and to rescue the man I loved.
It would take me at least twenty minutes to get to the bridge; once
below the top of the hill I could run as fast as I liked. Every second
was valuable now. I went into the bookroom and shut the door. Kneeling
on the floor I tumbled out the books as I had seen the Baron, doubtless
Sara's “Nobleman,” do. Then I removed the middle shelf and began tapping
softly with my fingers. There was the hollow spot, and there, just back
of the shelf I had removed, was a tiny metal projection. I pushed it.
Down dropped a little sliding panel, and I thrust my hand into the
shallow opening. I was cold and shuddering with haste and fear and
excitement. My fingers touched a paper, and I drew it out. I did not
even glance at it. I hid it in my dress, closed the panel, restored the
shelf, and returned the books as quickly and quietly as I could. Then I
went out into the hall.
The clock had ticked away fifteen of my precious minutes. If the train
was late, I still had time. I went out of the front door and began,
with as good an air of careless sauntering as I could force my body to
assume, to stroll down the winding driveway. I longed to take a short
cut, but I did not dare. I was sure that my double was on the watch.
She would not leave that driveway unguarded on such an afternoon. I felt
that my life was not a thing to wager on at that moment. I doubted if I
should be allowed to reach the bridge alive. The utter importance of
my doing so gave me the courage to use some strategy. I actually forced
myself to return, still sauntering, to the house and I got a parasol.
Then I walked around to the high-walled garden. Here I strolled about
for a few moments, and then slipped away, plunged through a dense mass
of bushes at the back, followed the rough course of a tiny stream, and,
climbing a stone wall, came out on the road below the hill and several
feet outside of “The Pines” gateway. My return for a parasol and the
changed direction of my walk would be certain to divert suspicion of my
going towards the bridge. Nevertheless, I felt like a mouse who allows
itself a little hope when the watchful cat, her tail twitching, her
terrible eyes half shut, allows it to creep a perilous little distance
from her claws. As soon as I was well out of sight of the house, I
chose a short cut at random, shut my parasol, and ran as I had never run
before.