|I MEANT to ask Mrs. Brane the next morning to excuse me from my work of
cataloguing the books of her husband's library. I had no courage to face
Paul Dabney. Unluckily, Mrs. Brane did not come down to breakfast. She
had a severe headache. I did not like to disturb her with my request,
nor did I like to give up my duty without permission, for the catalogue
was nearly completed and Mrs. Brane was very impatient about it, so I
dragged myself into the bookroom at the usual time. Paul Dabney was not
yet there. He breakfasted late, going out first for a long tramp and a
swim. I hoped that he would not come at all this morning.
I went languidly to work. I did not feel the slightest interest to know
whether or not Sara Lorrence had taken advantage of the decoying of Paul
Dabney and had made an investigation of the Russian book-shelves. I felt
utterly wretched and drained of life, and of the desire to live.
When at last Paul Dabney's footstep came along the hall, and, somewhat
hesitatingly, in at the door, I did not turn my head. He stopped at
sight of me, and stood still. I could feel that his eyes were on me,
and I struggled against a nervous curiosity to see the expression of his
look. But I would not yield. I kept on doggedly, taking down a volume,
dusting it, clapping its leaves together, putting it back and making a
note of its title and author in the book that Mrs. Brane had given me
for the purpose. My face burned, my finger-tips turned to ice. Anger,
disgust, shame, seemed to have taken the place of the blood along my
veins. At last, “You are not as affable a companion by day as you are
by night,” drawled the young man, and came strolling a step nearer to me
across the floor.
“I know you made me promise,” he went on, “not to speak of any moonlight
madness by the common light of day, but, strangely enough, your spell
does n't hold. I feel quite able to break my word to you now.”
He paused. I wondered if he could feel the tumult of my helpless rage.
“I have been very much afraid of you,” he said, “but that is changed. No
man can be afraid of the serpent he has fondled, even when he knows that
its fang is as poisonous as sin. I am not afraid of you at all.”
The book slid to the floor. My head seemed to bend of its own weight
to meet my hands. A great strangling burst of laughter tore my throat,
pealed from my lips, filled the room. I laughed like a maniac. I rocked
with laughter. Then, staggering to my feet, I went over to the window
bench, and sat there sobbing and crying as though my heart must break.
Paul Dabney shut the door, swore, paced the room, at last came over to
me and bade me, roughly, to “stop my noise.”
“Don't make a fool of yourself,” he said coldly. “You won't make one of
me, I assure you.”
At that I looked up at him through a veil of tears, showing him a face
that must have been as simple as an angry child's.
“Look at me, Paul Dabney,” I gasped. “Look hard--as hard as you looked
yesterday afternoon down there near the swamp after I had saved
your life. And, when you have looked, tell me what you know about
me--me--me--Janice Gale.”
He caught me by the hands and looked. My tears, falling, left my vision
clear, and his face showed so haunted and haggard and spent, so wronged,
that with a welcome rush, tenderness and pity and understanding came
back for a moment to my heart. I realized, for just that moment, what he
must be suffering from this dreadful tangle in which he had been caught.
How could he know me for what I really was when that demon came to him
with my face and voice and hands and eyes? And yet--the moment passed
and left me hard again--I felt that he ought to have known. Some glimmer
of the truth should have come to him. In fact, after a moment he dropped
my hands and put his own over his eyes. He went over to the window and
stood there, staring out, unseeing, I was sure. His shoulders sagged,
his whole slight, energetic body drooped. I saw his fist shut and open
at his side. After a long time, he turned and came slowly back to stand
before me.
“Janice Gale,” he said, in a changed and much more gentle voice, “I wish
you would tell me what the accursed--mystery means. Do you remember last
night? Do you remember--do your lips remember our kisses? I can't look
at the sweetness and the sorrow of them and believe it. Is this your
real self, or is that? Are you possessed by a night-demon, or is this a
mask of youth and innocence? I do believe you must be a victim of that
strange psychic affliction of a divided personality. Janice--tell me, do
you know what you do”--he dropped his voice as a man who speaks of
ghostly and unhallowed things--“after you have gone to sleep?”
I wanted to tell him, but I wanted more strongly to triumph over him.
The rush of tenderness had passed. I could not forget the insult of
his tone to me, the jeering, biting contempt of his speeches. I longed
passionately to bring him down to my feet, to humble him, and then--to
raise him up. Love is a cruel sort of madness, a monster perfectionist.
My love for him could not forgive his blindness. He ought to have known,
he ought to have seen my soul too clearly to be so easy a dupe, and his
love for me ought to have driven him shuddering from those other lips.
It ought to have been his shield and weapon of defense, instead of his
lure.
“I have nothing to confess,” I told him coldly. “Why should I confess to
you? You have come to this house to persecute and to insult me. How do
you dare”--I shook with a resurgent rage and disgust--“to speak to me
of--_kisses?_ When are you going away from this house? Or must I go,
and begin to struggle again, to hunt for work? If I had a brother or a
father or any protector strong enough to deal with the sort of man you
are, I should have you horse-whipped for your conduct to me! Oh, I
could strike you myself! I hate and loathe you!” I sobbed, having worked
myself up almost to the frenzy of the past night. “I want to punish you!
You have hurt and shamed me!” I fought for self-control. “Thank God! It
will soon be over.”
I stood up, and tried to pass him. He held out his arms to bar me, and,
looking down at me, his face flushed and quivering, he said between his
teeth: “When it is over, as you must know, my dear Sphinx, one of us two
will be dead. I am not the first man, I fancy, that you have driven to
madness or worse. I hope I shall have the strength to make the world
safe from you before I go. That's what I live for now, though you've
made my life rather more of a hell than even I ever thought life could
be made.”
Our eyes met, and the looks crossed like swords.
“Let me go out. Your faith is not much greater than your skill, Master
Detective-Lover. I think the outcome will astonish you. Let me go out, I
say.”
He moved away, grim and pale, his jaws set, and I went out.
On my way to my room Mary met me in the hall. “I want to speak to you,”
she began; then broke off, “Oh, Miss Gale, dear, how bad you look!” she
said.
I was so glad to see her dear, honest, trusting, truthful face that I
put my head down on her shoulder, and cried like a baby in her arms. She
made me go to my room and lie down, she bathed my face and laid a cold,
wet cloth across my temples.
“Poor blessed girl!” she said in her nursey way, “she's all wore out.
Poor soul! Poor pretty!” A dozen such absurd and comforting ejaculations
she made use of, how comforting my poor motherless youth had never till
then let me know. When I was quieter she brought her sewing and sat
beside my bed, rocking and humming. She asked no questions; just told me
when I tried to apologize to “hush now and try to get a little nap.” And
actually I did go to sleep.
I woke up as though on the crest of a resurgent wave of life. I sat on
my bed and smiled at Mary; then, gathering my knees in my hands, I said,
“Now, I'm all right again, nursey; tell me what you wanted to ask me
when you met me in the hall.”
It was extraordinary how calm and clear I felt, how sufficient to myself
and able to meet what was coming and bring it to a triumphant end. With
what good and healing spirits do we sometimes walk when we are asleep.
“Don't hesitate, dear Mary. I'm done with my nonsense now. I'm perfectly
able to face any domestic crisis, from ghosts to broken china.”
“Well, ma'am,” said Mary, beginning to rock in an indignant, staccato
fashion--there are as many ways of rocking as there are moods in the one
who rocks--“it's that there Sara. Never, in all my days of service in
the old country and here, have I met with the like of her!”
“In what way? I mean, what _is_ she like?”
“Why, ma'am, she's like a whited sepulcher”--this time she pronounced it
“sep-looker”--“that's what she's like. She's as smooth and
soft-spoken as a pet dove, that she is”--Mary's similes were quite
extraordinary--“she fair coos, and so full of her 'ma'ams' and 'if you
pleases.' She's a good worker, too, steady and quiet, too quiet to
be nacheral. And, indeed, ma'am, nacheral it ain't, not for her. A
murderess at heart, miss, that's what she is.”
I was startled. I gripped my knees more tightly.
“Yes, miss. Up to this mornin', though I can't say I had a likin' for
her, for that would n't be the truth, and I always hold to my mother's
sayin' of 'tell the truth and shame the devil'; but this mornin', ma'am,
I run into her quite by accident, a-standin' in the nursery--and what
she should be doin' in my blessed lamb's room I can't say, and a-cursin'
and a-swearin', and her face like a fury--O Lor', miss! I can't give you
no notion of what she was like, nor the langwidge; filth it was, ma'am,
though I should n't use the word. And, miss, I made sure it was you she
was in a rage with, a-stampin' and a-mouthin' there like the foul fiend.
She did n't know I was seein' her first-off, but when she did, the
shameless hussy went on as bad as before. Never did I see nor hear the
like of it. I tried to shame her, but it was like tryin' to shame a
witch's caldron, a-boilin' with cats' tongues and vipers', and dead
men's hands. Awful it was, to make your blood run cold! Miss Gale, you
had n't ought to keep the creature in the house. It ain't safe.”
“Could you find out why she was so angry?”
“Indeed, ma'am, there was so much cursin' and sputterin' that I could
n't make out much sense to her, but it was somethin' about bein' made a
mock of and gettin' nothin' for your pains. She'd been glum all mornin',
miss, I seen that, and I'd left her alone. Her and Henry had been havin'
words at breakfast time, but _this_ was fair awful. Seems like as if she
had just kept the whole rumpus in her wickit breast till it boiled over
and she run into the nursery and let it go off, like some poison bottle
with the cork blown away, if you know what I mean. Miss, it ain't safe
to keep her in the house!”
I laughed a little.
“No, Mary, I don't believe it is very safe.”
“Yes, miss. And that's not all. There is doin's I don't like in this
house, and I'd have come to you before, but it seems like I've made you
so much trouble in this place and you've been lookin' peaky--”
“You've been a perfect godsend to me, Mary!” I cried. “Please tell
me anything, everything. Never hesitate to come to me. Never delay an
instant.”
“Well, ma'am, there's two or three things that has been vexin' me,
little things in themselves, but not reg'lar--now, that's what I say,
ma'am, you can stand anything so long as it's reg'lar. In the old
country now, as I told you, I worked in a haunted house, and the help
was told to expect a ghost and it come reg'lar every night a-draggin'
its chains up the stairs; but, bless me, did we mind it? Not a bit.'T
was all reg'lar and seemly, if you know what I mean, nothin' that you
could n't expect and prepare your mind for. What I don't like about the
happenin's here is they're most irreg'lar. There's no tellin' whatever
where they'll break out nor how.”
This typically English distinction as to the desirable regularity of
apparitions amused me so much that I did not hurry Mary in her story.
She got back to it presently.
“Miss Gale, you know that long, gray cloak of yours with the rose-silk
linin'?”
“Yes, Mary.” My heart did beat a trifle faster.
“And the little hat you leave with the cloak down in the front hall on
the rack behind the door?”
“Yes, Mary.”....
“Well, miss,”--the rocking grew impressive, portentous, climatic.
“Somebody has been usin' 'em at night.”
“Oh, Mary!”
“Yes, miss. And it must' 'a' been that Sara. Like as not she sneaks off
and meets some feller down the road, or even over to Pine Cone. And her
a married woman! Pleased she'd be to fix the blame of her bad doin's on
you. What would Mrs. Brane think, miss, if she seen you, one of these
moonlight nights as bright as day, a-walkin' away from her house at some
unseemly hour. Ir-reg'lar, she'd call it! Yes, miss. It makes my blood
boil!”
“It is certainly not a pleasant idea,” I said dryly--“No, miss; to put
it mild, not pleasant, not a bit. Well, miss, I found your cloak this
morn-in' hangin' in its place and the hem drenched with dew. You can see
for yourself if you go down in the hall. Now, it stands to reason, if
you'd worn it yourself, the hem would n't'a' touched the grass hardly,
but a short woman like Sara is--”
“Unless I had sat down on a low rustic bench,” I put in.
“Well, _miss_, was you out last night?”
“No, Mary--unless I've been walking in my sleep.”
She looked a little startled, and stared at me with round, anxious eyes
to which tears came.
“Oh, miss, I don't think it. Really and truly I don't.”
She had not seen the strand of red-gold hair about Robbie's fingers
and the kind soul had diligently weeded out any suspicions even of my
unconscious complicity in Robbie's death.
“Nor do I, Mary dear. In fact, I was broad awake all last night. I
never closed my eyes. Perhaps I drank too much coffee after dinner, or,
perhaps, it was the moon.”
“There now!” The rocking became triumphant. “That proves it. Sara, it
must'a' been.”
“What else, Mary? What are the other little things?”
“Why, ma'am, it seems foolish to mention 'em, but I just think I kinder
ought.”
“Indeed you ought, Mary.”
“I had to go down to the kitchen late last Friday night. Mrs. Brane
could n't sleep, and I thought I'd give her a glass of warm milk same as
I ust to give my poor lamb. Well, miss, I found the kitchen door locked;
the one at the foot of the back stairs, not the one that goes outdoors,
which nacherly would be fastened at night. The key was n't on my side of
the door, so it stands to reason't was locked on the kitchen side, and
Sara and Henry must'a' been in that kitchen, though it was dark, not a
glimmer under the door or through the keyhole, and not a sound--or else
they'd gone out the back way. Why should Sara lock her kitchen door and
go round the other way? Don't it seem a bit odd to you, ma'am? And when
I axed her the next mornin', she kinder snarled like and told me to mind
my own business, that the kitchen door was her affair, and that if I
valued my soul I'd best keep to my bed nights in this house.”
We were silent for a moment while I digested this sinister injunction,
and the rocker “registered” the indignation of a respectable
Englishwoman.
“Anything else, Mary?” I asked at last.
Mary stopped rocking. She folded her hands on her work and her round
eyes took on a doubting, puzzled look.
“Yes, ma'am. One other thing. And maybe it means naught, and, maybe,
it means a lot. Deviltry it must be of some kind, I says, or else mere
foolishness.” She paused, and I saw her face pucker tearfully. “You know
how I did love that pitiful little Robbie, miss?”
“Yes, Mary dear.”
“Well, times when I feel like my heart would bust out with grievin', I
go off and away by myself somewhere and kinder mourn.”
“Yes, you dear, faithful soul!”
“And I'm like to choose some spot that 'minds me of my lamb.”
“Yes.”
“Well, 't was only this mornin' that I woke up and missed him out of
common, so sweet he was when he waked up, and cheery as a robin! So, 't
was early, early mornin', the sun just up, and I crep' out quiet and
went out to the garden and sat down in the arbor where I ust to sit and
watch the little darlin' at his play--well, miss, I have to tell you
that I sat there cryin' like a baby, and 't was a while before I seen
that there lay a paper under the bench, like as if it might have fallen
there from a body's pocket. I picked it up, and't was covered with
heathenish writin'. Here. I kep' it in my apron to show you, miss.”
She took the paper from her pocket, and I sprang up and seized it
eagerly. I had no doubt whatever that it had been lost by my double as
she sat with Paul last night. It was a letter in the Russian script. I
read it rapidly.
“Ever dear and honored madame, I await the summons of your necessity. A
message received here”--there followed a name and address of some town
in the county, unknown to me--“will bring me to Pine Cone in a few hours
by motor-cycle. I hold myself at your commands, and will lend you the
service of my knowledge in translating the Slavonic curiosity you have
described to me so movingly. I need not remind you of your promises.
One knows that they are never broken, even to death. Appoint a place
and hour. Meet me or send some accredited messenger. It could all be
arranged between sunrise and sunset or--should you prefer--between
sunset and sunrise. Do not forget your faithful servant, and the servant
of that Eternal Eye that watches the good and evil of this earthly
life.”