to those few leaves of paper in their silver case, but if Miss Octavia
and Hezekiah were interested in it as well as Cecilia, it must have a
significance wholly unrelated to its intrinsic value. It is the way of
professional detectives to suggest impossible theories merely to
conceal their own plans and intentions, and as I had reached a point
where my tongue was astonishingly glib in subterfuge and evasion, I
suggested that it might perhaps have been one of the new servants, or
indeed the Swedish maid.
"We will look into the matter, Miss Hollister. At breakfast I shall
have something to report. Meanwhile silence is the word!"
Miss Octavia was carrying the invincible John Stewart Dick away to the
billiard-room. He glared at me murderously as he trailed glumly after
the lady of the manor. The others were crowding about Cecilia again,
and I yielded to them willingly. As I sauntered toward the door Ormsby
detained me a moment. His manner was arrogant and he hissed rather
than spoke.
"I'm directed to command your presence at the Prescott Arms to-morrow
at twelve o'clock. The business is important."
"I regret, my dear brother, that I shall be unable to sit with you at
that hour in committee of the whole, and for two reasons. The first is
that I am paired with Lord Arrowood. You refused to take him into your
base compact, and allowed him to be thrown out of the inn for not
paying his bill. The act was deficient in generosity and gallantry."
"Then I suppose you would think it a fine thing for such a pauper to
marry a woman like that,--like that, I say?" and he jerked his head
toward Cecilia.
"I consider a lord of Arrowood as good as the proprietor of a
knitting-mill any day, if you press me for an opinion," I replied
amiably.
"And this from a chimney-sweep?" he sneered.
"You flatter me, my dear sir. I've renounced soot and become a
gentleman adventurer merely to prevent a type that long illumined
popular fiction from becoming extinct. I advise you to fill the void
existing in the heavy-villain class; believe me, your talents would
carry you far. Study Dumas and forget the wool-market, and you will
lead a happier life. My second reason for declining to meet you at the
Arms at twelve to-morrow is merely that the hour is inconvenient. I
assume that you mean to urge luncheon upon me, and I never eat before
one. My doctor has warned me to avoid early luncheons if I would
preserve my figure, of which you may well believe me justly proud."
"You're a coward, that's all there is to that. I dare you to come!"
"Well, as I think of it I 'd rather be dared than invited. If I find
it quite convenient I shall drop in. But you need n't keep the waffles
hot for me. Good evening."
It did not seem possible that I, the timid, uncombative and unathletic,
had thus cavalierly addressed a dignified gentleman in a white
waistcoat who was perfectly capable of knocking me down with a slap in
the face. Valor, I aver, is only another of the offsprings of
necessity.
XVI
JACK O' LANTERN
I hurried back to the trunk-room and had soon gained the roof. The
moon was harassed by flying clouds that obscured it fitfully, and a
keen wind swept the hills. I crept over the several levels of roof
thinking that any moment I should come upon Hezekiah; I searched a
second time, peering behind chimney-pots, and into dark angles; but to
my disappointment and chagrin my young lady of the single slipper was
nowhere in sight. I found, however, lying near the library chimney, a
trunk-tray that required no explanation. With this Hezekiah had
blocked the flue, and I smiled as I pictured her tip-toeing to reach
the chimney-crock, and dropping the tray across the top. How gleefully
she must have chuckled as she waited for the flue to fill and send the
smoke ebbing back into the library, to the discomfiture of her aunt and
sister and the suitors gathered about the hearth! The spirit of
mischief never whispered into a prettier ear a trick better calculated
to cause confusion.
I had thought Hezekiah secure when I locked the trunk-room door, but I
had not counted upon the versatility and resourcefulness of that young
person. I dropped to the second roof-level and inspected the
down-spouts, but it was incredible that she had sought the earth by
this means. I swung myself to a third level, and after much groping
for my bearings, decided that an athletic girl of Hezekiah's
venturesome disposition might, if she set no great store by her neck,
clamber off the kitchen-roof by means of a tall maple whose branches
now raspingly called attention to their slight contact with the house.
It was here that the walls of Hopefield thrust themselves into the
shoulder of a rough rocky knoll, and it was perfectly clear now that
the chambers of the earlier house around which the mansion had been
built were neatly enfolded by the walls on the east side.
As the moon cruised into a patch of clear sky something white fluttered
from a maple limb, and I bent and pulled it free. I took counsel of a
match behind the kitchen chimney, and found that it was a handkerchief
that had been knotted to the tip of the bough. No one but Hezekiah
would have thought of marking her trail in this fashion. I held it to
my face, and that faint perfume that had been a mystifying
accompaniment of the passing of the mansion ghost became nothing more
unreal than the orris in Hezekiah's handkerchief-case. The wind
whipped the bit of linen spitefully in my hands. I reasoned that if
Hezekiah the inexplicable had not meant for me to know the manner of
her exit she need not have left this plain hint behind; but the swaying
maple bough did not tempt me. I hurried back across the roof to secure
the trunk-tray, resolved to dispose of it, seek the open, and find the
errant Hezekiah if she still lingered in the neighborhood.
I looked off across the windy landscape before descending, and as my
eyes ranged the dark I caught the glimmer of a light, as of a lantern
borne in the hand, in the meadow beyond the garden. It paused, and was
swung back and forth by its unseen bearer. It shed a curious yellow
light and not the white flame of the common lantern; and now it rose a
trifle higher and slowly resolved itself into a weird fantastic face.
Three minutes later I was out of the house, using the backstairs to
avoid the company in the library, and had crossed the garden and
crawled through the hedge. As I rose to my feet a voice greeted me
cheerfully,--
"Well done, Chimney-Man! You were a little slow hitting the trail, but
you do pretty well, considering. How did you manage with Aunt Octavia
about that slipper? I had a narrow escape in the second-floor hall,
when I came out of Cecilia's room. I must have lowered a record
getting upstairs. And one shoe is n't a bit comfortable. Allow me to
relieve you!"
"Here's your slipper. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"For losing my slipper? I thought Cinderella had made that
respectable."
She placed her hand on my shoulder, lifted her foot, and drew the pump
on with a single tug.
"Well, what did Aunt Octavia say?"
"Oh, she had thoughts too dark to express. You probably heard what we
said. It was she who found the slipper!"
Hezekiah laughed. The wind caught up that laugh and whisked it away
jealously.
"She found it and carried it to you, Chimney-Man, and I skipped just as
you began that beautiful story about finding it in Beacon Street.
Hurry and tell me how you got me out of it."
"How did you know I would try to explain it? You did a perfectly
foolhardy thing in roaming the house that way, scaring Lord Arrowood
nearly to death, to say nothing of me. Why should I help you?"
"Oh, you're a man and I was just a little girl who had lost her
slipper," she replied. "I was sure you would fix it up."
"Well, I like your nerve, Hezekiah! I had to lie horribly to explain
the slipper, and Miss Octavia did n't swallow more than half my yarn."
"Oh, well, if it was a good story, Aunt Octavia would n't mind. She'd
have minded, though, if you had n't tried to get me out of it. That's
the way with Aunt Octavia. I hope you made a romantic tale of it."
"I can't say that it would place me among the great masters of fiction,
Hezekiah, but as lies go I think it had merit. And I 'll improve if I
stay here much longer."
"Oh, you'll stay all right. Aunt Octavia has no intention of letting
you go. When she left the Asolando that afternoon she met you, she had
her plans all made for kidnapping you."
"She did n't tell you so, did she?"
"No; because I have n't seen her and I'm not supposed to see her, you
know, until Cecilia is all fixed."
"Married?"
"Um," replied Hezekiah.
She drew from behind a boulder by which we stood a pumpkin of portable
size, which I surmised had been carved into the most hideous of jack o'
lanterns by the shrewd hand of Hezekiah. I took it from her with the
excuse of relieving her, but really to turn the light of the fearsome
thing more directly upon her. The wind blew her hair about her face;
hers was an elfish face to-night. With a pleasant tingling I met her
eyes. The light of a jack o' lantern is not of the earth earthy. Even
when you know perfectly well that it's only a candle stuck in a
pumpkin, you are not fully satisfied of its mundane character. In its
glow one becomes a conspirator, ready for treason, stratagems and
spoils. More concretely, in these moments a small archipelago of
freckles revealed itself about Hezekiah's nose and caused my heart to
palpitate strangely. Her sun-browned cheek was perilously near. I
hoped that she would bend forever over the lantern, so that I might not
lose the tiny shadows of her lashes, or, again, the laughter of her
brown eyes as she glanced up to ask my judgment as to the security of
the candle. She viewed her handiwork with feigned solicitude, the tip
of her tongue showing between her lips. Then the mirth in her bubbled
out, and she drew away and clapped her hands together like a child.
"Come!" she cried. "If you are good and won't begin preaching about my
sins, I'll show you the funniest thing you ever saw in your life."
In my joy of seeing her I was neglecting Cecilia's commission. Very
likely Hezekiah had forgotten all about her theft; hers, I reasoned,
was a nature that delighted in the nearest pleasure. I would follow
her jack o' lantern round the world for the chance of seeing the fun
brighten in her brown eyes, but I had made a promise to Cecilia and I
meant to fulfill it.
She led me now across the meadow, over a stone wall, up a steep slope,
and by devious ways through a strip of woodland. I bore the jack o'
lantern,--she had bidden me do it, with some notion, I did not
question, of making me _particeps criminis_ in whatever mischief was
afoot. Dignified conduct in a man of twenty-eight, in his best evening
clothes, carrying a jack o' lantern over stone walls, under clumps of
briar, and through woods whose boughs clawed the night wildly! The
moon lost and found under the flying scud was in keeping with the
general irresponsibility of a world ruled by Hezekiah.
She swung along ahead of me with the greatest ease and certainty.
Occasionally she flung some word back at me or whistled a few bars of a
tune, and when I slipped and nearly fell on a smooth slope she laughed
mockingly and bade me not lose the pumpkin. Once, when a boy, I stole
a watermelon and bore it a mile to the rendezvous of my pirate band
camped at a riverside; but carrying a pumpkin, even a hollow one, is
attended with manifold discomforts. It would help, I reflected, to
know just what I was lugging it for, but Hezekiah vouchsafed nothing.
When I threatened to drop the grinning gargoyle she laughed and told me
to trot along and not be silly; and a moment later she stopped and
demanded that I repeat fully the story I had told her aunt of the
finding of the slipper.
"You are better than I thought you were, Chimney-Man!" she declared,
when I had concluded and added her aunt's comment. "You may be sure
that tickled Aunt Octavia. You can lie almost as well as an architect.
Aunt Octavia says architects are better liars than dress-makers."
"It was my weakness for the truth that caused me to abandon
architecture. For heaven's sake, what are you up to?"
I had kept little account of the direction of our flight, and I was
surprised that we had now reached the stile over which I had watched
the passing of the suitors on the afternoon of my meeting with Hezekiah
in the orchard.
"This is the appointed place," she remarked, taking the pumpkin from me
and dropping down on the far side of the stile.
"Hezekiah, I've trotted across most of Westchester County after you,
and my arm is paralyzed from carrying that pumpkin. I must know what
you're up to right here, or I'll go home. Besides, there's a mist
falling and you'll be soaked. What do you suppose your father thinks
of your absence at this time of night?"
"Oh, he'll never forgive me for not letting him in on this. This is
the grandest thing I ever thought of. Sit on this step and gently
incline your ear toward the house. It's about time those gentlemen
were leaving Cecilia, and they'll be galloping for their inn in a
minute, and then"--
Hezekiah whistled the rest of it.
While we waited, she bade me reset the candle and snuff the wick, which
I did of necessity with my fingers. Sitting on a stile with a pretty
girl is an experience that has been commended by the balladists, but
surely this felicity loses nothing where the night is fine. When you
get used to sitting in a drizzle in your dress-suit, while your
shirt-bosom assumes the consistency of a gum shoe and your collar glues
itself odiously to your neck, I dare say the ordeal may be borne
cheerfully, but my expressions of discomfort seemed only to amuse
Hezekiah. While we waited for I knew not what, I tried once or twice
to revert to the silver note-book, but without success. Hezekiah was a
mistress of the art of evasion with her tongue as well as her feet!
"Wait till the evening performance is over and I'll talk about that.
'Sh! Quiet! Crawl over there out of the way, and when I say run, beat
it for the road."
These last phrases were uttered in a whisper, her face close to my ear.
She gave me a little push, and I withdrew a few yards and waited. The
ground, I may say, was wet, and the drizzle had become a monotonous
autumn rain.
The light of the lantern fell warmly upon Hezekiah's face as she held
its illumined countenance toward her, crouching on the stile-steps. I
heard now what her keener ear had caught earlier--the tramp of feet
along the path. The suitors were returning to the inn, and the voices
of one or two of them reached me. One--I thought it was Ormsby--was
execrating the weather. They were stepping along briskly, and my
remembrance of their retreat over this same stile through the amber
evening dusk was so vivid that I knew just how they would appear if a
light suddenly fell upon the path.
[Illustration: The light of the lantern fell warmly upon Hezekiah's
face.]
The nature of Hezekiah's undertaking suddenly dawned upon me. No one
but Hezekiah could ever have devised anything so preposterous, so
utterly lawless; but in spite of myself I waited in breathless
eagerness for the outcome. I could not have interfered now, if I had
wished to do so, without betraying her and involving myself in a
predicament that could not redound to my credit.
Nearer and nearer came the patter of feet, and I heard, for I could not
see, the scraping of Hezekiah's slipper,--a wet little shoe by now!--as
she crept higher on our side of the stile. The first suitor groped
blindly for the steps, slipped on the wet plank, growled, and rose to
try again. That growl marked for me the leader of the van. Hartley
Wiggins, beyond a doubt, and in no good humor, I guessed! The others,
I judged, had trodden upon one another's heels at the moment Wiggins
stumbled. Thus let us imagine their approach--six gentlemen in top
hats headed for a stile on a chilly night of rain.
It was at this strategic moment that Hezekiah pushed into the middle of
the stile-platform, its grinning face turned toward the advancing
suitors, the jack o' lantern her hand had fashioned.
I marked its position by its faint glow an instant, but an instant
only. The world reeled for a moment before the sharp cry of a man in
fear. It cut the dark like a lash, and close upon it the second man
yelled, in a different key, but no less in accents of terror. The
first arrival had flung himself back, and so close upon him pressed the
others and so unexpected was the halt, that the nine men seemed to have
flung themselves together and to be struggling to escape from the
hideous thing that had interposed itself in their path.
All was over in a moment. In the midst of the panic the lantern winked
out, and instantly Hezekiah was beside me.
"Skip!" she commanded in a whisper; and catching my hand she led me off
at a brisk run. When we had gone a dozen rods she paused. We heard
voices from the stile, where the gentlemen were still engaged in
disentangling themselves; and then the planks boomed to their steps as
they crossed. They talked loudly among themselves discussing the cause
of their discomfiture. The lantern, I may add, had been knocked off
the stile by the thoughtful Hezekiah when she blew out the light.
A moment more and all sounds of the suitors had died away. I stood
alone with Hezekiah in the midst of a meadow. She was breathing hard.
Suddenly she threw up her head, struck her hands together, and stamped
her foot upon the wet sod. I had waited for an outburst of laughter
now that we were safely out of the way, but I had reasoned without my
Hezekiah. Her mood was not the mood of mirth.
"Well, Hezekiah," I said when I had got my wind, "you pulled off your
joke, but you don't seem to be enjoying it. What's the matter?"
"Oh, that Hartley Wiggins! I might have known it!"
"Known what?" I asked, pricking up my ears.
"That he would be afraid of a pumpkin with a candle inside of it. Did
you hear that yell?"
"Anybody would have yelled," I suggested. "I think I should have
dropped dead if you'd tried it on me."
"No, you would n't," she asserted with unexpected flattery.
"Don't be deceived, Hezekiah; I should have been scared to death if
that thing had popped up in front of me."
"I don't believe it. I gave you a worse test than that. When I
switched off the lights and swung a feather duster down the stair-well
by a string and tickled your face you did n't make a noise like a
circus calliope scaring horses in Main Street, Podunk. But that
Wiggins man!"
"He's a friend of mine and as brave as a lion. Out in Dakota the
sheriff used to get him to go in and quiet things when the boys were
shooting up the town."
"Maybe; but he shied at a pumpkin and can be no true knight of mine.
Cecilia may have him. I always suspected that he was n't the real
thing. Why, he's even afraid of Aunt Octavia!"
"Well, I rather think _we 'd_ better be!"
I wanted to laugh, but I did not dare. I was not prepared for the
humor in which the panic of the suitors had left her. I did not quite
make out--and I am uncertain to this day--whether she had really wished
to test the courage of her sister's lovers or whether she had yielded
to a mischievous impulse in carrying the jack o' lantern to the stile
and thrusting it before those serious-minded gentlemen as they returned
from Hopefield. In any event Hartley Wiggins was out of it so far as
she, Hezekiah, was concerned. She trudged doggedly across the field
until we came presently to the highway.
"My wheel's in the weeds somewhere; please pull it out for me. I'm
going home."
"But not alone; I can't let you do that, Hezekiah."
"Oh, cheer up!" she laughed, aroused by my lugubrious tone. "And
here's something you asked me for. Don't drop it. It's Cecilia's
memorandum-book. Give it back to her, and be sure no one sees it, and
you need n't look into it yourself. And we've got to have a talk about
it and Cecilia. Let me see. There's an iron bridge across an arm of
that little lake over there, and just beyond it a big fallen tree.
To-morrow at nine o'clock I'll be there. I've got to tell you
something, Chimney-Man, without really telling you. You'll be there,
won't you?"
"I'll be there if I'm alive, Hezekiah."
I had found the wheel and lighted the lamp. She scouted my suggestion
that I find a horse and drive her home. The lighting of the lamp
required time owing to the wind and rain; but when its thin ribbon of
light fell clearly upon the road, she seized the handle-bars and was
ready to mount without ado.
She gave me her hand,--it was a cold, wet little hand, but there was a
good friendly grip in it. This was the first time I had touched
Hezekiah's hand, and I mention it because as I write I feel again the
pressure of her slim cold fingers.
"Sorry you spoiled your clothes, but it was in a good cause. And you
're a nice boy, Chimney-Man!"
She shot away into the darkness, and the lamp's glow on the road
vanished in an instant; but before I lost her quite, her cheery whistle
blew back to me reassuringly.
XVII
SEVEN GOLD REEDS
I woke the next morning to the banging of Miss Octavia's fowling-piece.
In spite of the crowding incidents of the day and night I had slept
soundly, and save for a stiffness of the legs I was none the worse for
my wetting. The service of the house was perfect, and in response to
my ring a man appeared who declared himself competent to knock my dress
clothes into shape again.
I should hardly have believed that so much history had been made in a
night, if it had not been for certain indubitable evidence: Cecilia's
silver note-book; Hezekiah's handkerchief, which I had forgotten to
return to her; and a patch of tallow grease from the jack o' lantern
that had attached itself firmly to my coat-cuff.
Cecilia met me at the foot of the stairs, looking rather worn, I
thought. We were safe from interruption a moment longer, as her aunt's
gun was still booming, and I followed her to the library.
"Please don't tell me you have failed," she cried tearfully. "That
little book means so much, so very much to us all!"
"Here it is, Miss Hollister," I said, placing it in her hand without
parley. "I beg to assure you that I return it just as you saw it last.
Please satisfy yourself that it has not been tampered with in any way.
I have not opened it; and it has not left my hand since I recovered it."
She had almost snatched it from me, and she turned slightly away and
ran hurriedly over the leaves.
In her relief she laughed happily; and with one of her charming,
graceful gestures she gave me her hand.
"I thank you, Mr. Ames; thank you! thank you! You have rendered me the
greatest service. And I hope you were able to do so without serious
inconvenience to yourself."
"On the other hand it was the smallest matter, and instead of being a
trouble I found the greatest pleasure in recovering it."
I stood with my hands thrust carelessly into my trousers pockets,
rocking slightly upon my heels to convey a sense of the unimportance of
my service. It was a manner I had cultivated to meet the surprise and
gratitude of my clients when I had brought a seemingly incurable flue
into a state of subjection. I think I may have appeared a little
bored, as though I had accomplished a feat that was rather unworthy of
my powers. A doctor who prescribes the wrong pill and finds to his
amazement that it cures the patient, might improve upon that manner,
but not greatly.
"You naturally wonder, Miss Hollister, how I found this trinket so
readily. And in order that you may not suspect perfectly innocent
persons, I will tell you exactly how I came by it. It was your belief
that you had left it on your dressing-table. But as a memorandum-book
of any character pertains to a writing-desk rather than to a
dressing-table, my interest centred at once upon such writing-table as
you doubtless have in your room."
"There is a writing-desk, in the corner by the window, but"--
"Ah, you are about to repeat your belief that you left the book on the
dressing-table and that it could not have moved to the desk. May I ask
whether you did not, just before you came down to dinner, scribble me a
line asking for an interview?"
"Why, yes; I remember that perfectly."
"You wrote in some haste, as indicated by the handwriting in your
message. It is possible that you wrote and destroyed one note, or
perhaps two, before you had expressed yourself exactly to your liking.
We are all of us, with any sort of feeling for style, prone to just
such rejections."
"It is possible that I did," she replied, coloring slightly. "I was
extremely anxious to see you."
"Very well, then; is it not possible that in throwing the rejected
correspondence cards into the waste-paper basket that stands beside
your desk,--there is such a basket, is there not?"
"Yes," she replied breathlessly.