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 _a 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,
_Peche Cecilie_, 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 _Peche
Cecilie_ (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