which the thirteen white stars floated dimly on the dull blue field.
It had been bound tightly about a packet of papers which Miss Octavia
asked Pepperton to examine.
"These are commissions appointing a certain Adoniram Caldwell to
various positions in the Continental Army. Adoniram had the right
stuff in him; here he's discharged as a private to become an ensign;
rose from ensign to colonel, and seems to have been in most of the big
doings. 'For gallantry in the recent engagement at Stony Point, on
recommendation of General Anthony Wayne'--by Jove, that does rather
carry you back!"
Half a dozen of these documents traced Adoniram Caldwell's career to
the end of the Revolution and his retirement from the military service
with the rank of colonel. A sealed letter attached to these
commissions next held our attention. The ends were dovetailed in the
old style before the day of envelopes, and evidently care had been
taken in folding and sealing it. The superscription, in a round bold
hand, without flourishes, read: "To Whom It May Concern."
"I suppose it concerns us as much as anybody," remarked Miss Octavia.
"What do you say, gentlemen; shall we open it?"
We all demanded breathlessly that she break the seal, and we were soon
bending over her with our lights. The ink had blurred and in spots
rust had obliterated the writing:--
"I, Roger Hartley Wiggins, sometime known as Adoniram Caldwell"--
"Hartley Wiggins!" we gasped; and I felt Cecilia's hand clasp my arm.
Miss Octavia continued reading, and as she was obliged to pause often
and refer illegible lines to the rest of us, I have copied the
following from the letter itself, with only slight changes of
punctuation and spelling.
"I, Roger Hartley Wiggins, sometime known as Adoniram Caldwell, having
now resumed my proper name, and being about to marry, and having begun
the construction of a habitation for myself wherein to end my days,
truthfully set forth these matters:
"My father, Hiram Wiggins of Rhode Island, having supported the
royalist cause in our late war for Independence, and angered by my
friendliness to the patriots, and he, with ... brothers and sister
having returned to England after the evacuation of Boston, I joined the
Continental troops under General Putnam on Long Island, in July, 1776,
serving in various commands thereafter, to the best of my ability, to
the end.... My father has now returned to Rhode Island, and has, I
learn, been making inquiries touching my whereabouts and condition, so
that I have every hope that we may become reconciled. Yet as my
services to the Country were against his wishes and caused so much
harshness and heartache, and being now come into a part of the country
where I am unknown, I am decided to resume my rightful name, that my
wife and children may bear it and in the hope that I may myself yet add
to it some honor....
"Nor shall my wife or any children that may be born to me, know from me
... (_badly blurred_.) Yet not caring to destroy my sword, which I
bore with some credit, nor these testimonials of respect and confidence
I received as Adoniram Caldwell at various times and from various
personages of renown, both civilians and in the military service, I
place them under my house now building, where I hope in God's care to
end my days in peace. I would in like case make like choice again."
Ten lines following this were wholly illegible, but just before the
date (June 17, 1789), and the signature, which was written large, was
this:--
"God preserve these American states that they endure in unity and
concord forever!"
We had all been moved by the reading of this long-lost letter, and Miss
Octavia's voice had faltered several times. As I turned to Cecilia
once or twice during the recital of the dead patriot's message, I saw
tears brimming her eyes.
"Mr. Wiggins once told me that his great-grandfather had lived
somewhere in Westchester County, but I fancy he had no idea that
Hopefield was the identical spot," remarked Miss Octavia. "It seems
incredible, and yet I dare say the hand of fate is in it."
"Oh, it's so wonderful; so beyond belief!" cried Cecilia, reverently
folding the letter, which, I observed, she retained in her own hands.
"It's wonderful," added Miss Octavia promptly, taking the sword, which
Pepperton had with difficulty drawn from its battered scabbard, "that
even a discerning woman like me could have been so mistaken. I recall
with humility that last Fourth of July, at Berlin, I reprimanded Mr.
Wiggins severely because his family had not been represented in the war
for American Independence. By the irony of circumstances it becomes my
duty to present to him the very sword that his admirable
great-grandfather bore in that momentous struggle. I shall, with his
permission, place a bronze tablet on the outer wall of this house to
preserve the patriot's memory."
Several copies of New York newspapers, half a dozen French gold coins,
the miniature of a woman's face, which we assumed to be that of Roger
Wiggins's mother or sister, were briefly examined; then by Miss
Octavia's orders we carefully returned everything to the chest.
Several packets of letters we did not open.
"Arnold," she said when we had closed the chest, "will you and Mr.
Pepperton kindly carry that box to my room? No servant's hand shall
touch it; and I shall myself give it to Mr. Wiggins at the earliest
opportunity."
We had lost track of time in those hidden rooms, preserved by the whim
of one man that the secret of another might be discovered, and found
with surprise, after the chest had been carried to Miss Octavia's
apartments, that it was after seven o'clock. We had been in the hidden
rooms for more than three hours.
"We shall have much to talk about to-night, and I fancy we are all a
good deal shaken. It's not often we receive a letter from a dead man,
so we shall admit no callers to-night unless, indeed, Mr. Wiggins
should chance to come," announced Miss Octavia. "The next time Hartley
Wiggins visits this house he shall come as a conquering hero."
"I hope so," replied Cecilia brokenly.
We were still at dinner when the cards of Dick and the other suitors I
had last seen at the Prescott Arms were brought in; but Wiggins made no
sign, and I wondered.
XX
HEZEKIAH PARTITIONS THE KINGDOM
The man who looked after my needs handed me a note the next morning
which added fresh hazards to Cecilia's already perilous plight.
"Left with the gardener before six o'clock by a boy from the village.
Said it was most confidential, sir."
I waited till he had left the room before opening it. A square white
envelope addressed to Arnold Ames, Esq., Hopefield Manor, told me
nothing, and the handwriting was inscrutable. It slanted slightly
upward; the small letters were half-printed and quaintly shaded. If a
woman's, she had scorned the rail-fence models of the boarding-schools;
if a man's--but I knew its gender well enough! The white note sheet
within was unadorned, and the same pen had traced compactly, within the
widest possible margins, the following:--
GOOSEBERRY BUNGALOW,
Before Breakfast.
DEAR CHIMNEYS:--Pep stopped here yesterday to see B.H. He and C. old
pals. Watch him. Where's Wig? H.H.
The initials were superfluous, and yet the sight of them pleased me
mightily. In her semi-printing she curved the pillars of the H's like
parentheses, so that they bore an amusing resemblance to four men
striding forward against a storm. The report of a chief of scouts
smuggled through the enemy's lines could not have improved on her
billet for succinctness, and the information conveyed was startling
enough. We had been dealing with a company of suitors outside the
barricade; now came warning of the presence of a strange knight within
the gates who greatly multiplied the perils of the situation. The
compact between the suitors at the inn was a thing of the past, and I
now expected them to exercise all the ingenuity of which desperate
lovers are capable in pressing their claims. The fact that both
Wiggins and Pepperton were old friends of mine did not make my task
easier. I not only felt it incumbent on me to prevent Dick, the holder
of the clue, from taking advantage of it, but knowing Cecilia's own
attitude of mind and heart toward Wiggins I wished to save Pepperton
the pain of rejection if it could be done.
But what did Hezekiah mean by the question with which she ended her
note? If Wiggins, smarting under Cecilia's treatment of him the day
before, had quit the field, here was a pretty how-d 'ye-do f Miss
Octavia's refusal to countenance telephones made it necessary for me to
leave Hopefield to learn what had become of Wiggins, and I realized
that I must act promptly if I saved the day for him. His conduct first
and last had been spiritless, and I was out of patience with him. It
seemed impossible to formulate any plan amidst these multiplying
uncertainties. If Wiggins had decamped, Dick knew it and would lay his
plans accordingly. I felt that it was base ingratitude on Wiggins's
part to ask me to watch his interests while he went roaming
indifferently over the country. One or two consoling reflections
remained, however: Dick believed me to be a suitor for Cecilia's hand,
and this doubtless caused him considerable uneasiness; and he did not
know that Pepperton, whose acquaintance with Cecilia antedated the
European flight, had to be reckoned with. I wished Pepperton had kept
out of it.
Breakfast that morning was interminably long. Miss Octavia was never
more thoroughly amusing, never more drolly inadvertent. She attacked
Pepperton for all the evils in American architecture, and in particular
took him to task for some house he had built at Newport which she
pronounced the most hideous pile of marble on American soil. From her
packet of newspaper-cuttings she drew a letter her brother Bassford had
written to the "Sun,"--the writing of letters to newspapers was, it
seemed, one of his weaknesses,--protesting against the quality of the
music ground from the New York hurdy-gurdies. The selections were
execrable; the fierce tempo at which the instruments were driven had
caused an alarming increase in insanity, in proof of which he adduced
statistics. He demanded municipal censorship, and volunteered to sit
on the proposed commission of critics without pay.
"That is just like brother Bassford! When I begin speaking to him
again I shall point out the error of his ways. I always miss the
hurdy-gurdies when I 'm in the country, and I believe I shall buy one
and have it play me to sleep at night. The faster the tempo the
sweeter the slumber. I should certainly do so," she concluded, with
that indefinable smile that always left one wondering, "if it were not
that my new laundress is a graduate of the Sandusky-Ottumwa
Conservatory of Music, and I fear the toreador's song on wheels might
be painful to one of her taste and temperament."
When we left the table at about half-past ten Miss Octavia insisted
that we must visit the kennels. A friend had just sent her a fine
Airedale, and she wished to make sure the kennel-master was treating
the dog properly. Later we were all to ride.
I made haste to excuse myself, saying that personal matters required
attention.
"Certainly, Arnold, you shall do as you like. Mr. Pepperton is a
difficult bird to catch, so we hope for you at luncheon, and of course
we expect you for dinner."
Pepperton looked at me inquiringly. I judged that he had known Miss
Octavia a good many years; the tone of their intercourse was intimate;
and yet he plainly was at a loss to understand just how I came to be so
thoroughly established in her good graces. I confess that as I glance
back over these pages it looks odd to me!
As I paced the hall waiting for a horse to be saddled, Pepperton led me
out on the terrace above the garden.
"I'm bursting with a great secret, old man. I'm going to be married."
"What!"
"I'm going to be married."
I grasped a chair to support myself. This was almost too much. Could
it be possible that Hezekiah had miscalculated the list of rejections
in the silver-bound book, or that Cecilia herself had been deceived?
Pepperton misread my agitation, and with a hearty laugh clapped me on
the shoulder.
"Oh, I'm not intruding on your preserves, old man! Cecilia is the
second finest girl in the world, that's all. I'm engaged to Miss
Gaylord, of Stockbridge. I 'm telling a few old friends, in advance of
the formal announcement to be made next week at a dance the Gaylords
are giving."
I crushed his hand in both my own, and seeing that he misconstrued the
fervor of my emotion I hastened to set myself right.
"You're a lucky dog as usual, Pep. But you don't understand about
Cecilia Hollister. It's not I; I 'm not in the running at all; but
Hartley Wiggins is! I'm here trying to help him score."
"What's this? You're here to represent Wiggy?"
"Well, he did n't exactly send me here, but when I came I found that
Wiggy was n't playing the game with quite the necessary zipology.
There's more required than appears,--a little of the dash and snap of
the old adventures,--the ready tongue, the eager, thirsty sword!"
Pepperton pursed his lips and looked me over carefully with a twinkle
in his eye.
"You are contributing those elements! You are octaviaized, is that
it?" Pepperton laughed until the tears came.
"I prefer hollisterized as the broader term. Brother Bassford has it
too, and there's always Hezekiah!"
"Ah! Hezekiah the unpredictable! I knew there was a skirt fluttering
somewhere. I saw her yesterday; stopped to see Bassford, who's a good
old chap. Hezekiah of the teasing eyes was whitewashing the
chicken-coop, and Michael Angelo could n't have done it better."
"Pep," I said, lowering my voice, "if you love me, keep close to
Cecilia all day. You're an engaged man and in practice. Give an
imitation of devotion. Keep her out of doors; keep male human beings
away from her. Don't fail me in this. I 've got to pull off the
greatest coup of my life to-day. There's a band of outlaws hanging
round here who will propose to Cecilia the first chance they get--and
they must NOT. Wig 's got to speak before night or lose out forever.
No; not a word of explanation; you've got to take my word for it."
"I'll be the goat; go ahead, but build a fire under Wiggins; I can't
stay here forever."
Pepperton's engagement smoothed out one wrinkle, and I felt sure that I
could trust him as an ally. The groom was holding my horse in the
porte-cochere, and I mounted and rode away to the Prescott Arms.
I found Ormsby, Shallenberger, Arbuthnot, Henderson, Hume, and Gorse
glumly sitting in a semicircle before the hall fireplace. Deepest
gloom pervaded the inn. I have rarely seen melancholy so darkly
stamped upon the human countenance. They turned indifferently and
glared as they recognized me. Shallenberger alone rose and greeted me.
"I hope there is no bad news," he said chokingly.
"Bad news?"
"I mean Miss Hollister--Miss Cecilia. We were all deeply grieved last
night to hear of her sudden illness; there's always something so
terrible in the very name of diphtheria."
My wits had been so sharpened by my late adventures that I readily
accounted for these false tidings. Dick was absent; Dick alone would
have been equal to this diabolical plot for keeping his rival suitors
away from Hopefield. The despair in those faces taxed my gravity
severely.
"It is extremely sad, but the first diagnosis was erroneous," I
answered. "I think it more likely to prove to be chicken-pox when the
truth is known."
"Not diphtheria?"
"No immediate danger of diphtheria, I assure you," I replied; "though
of course, with winter coming on and all that, one must be prepared for
the worst."
While he repeated this to the others, I sought the clerk, who promptly
handed me a note which Wiggins had left late the previous afternoon, to
be delivered in case I called. He had gone to spend a day or two with
Orton, the playwright, who was at his country house, in the hills
beyond Mt. Kisco, rehearsing a new piece, in which a friend of
Hartley's was to star. I gained the telephone-booth in one jump, and
in five minutes I was bawling wildly into Orton's ear. I had known him
well in the Hare and Tortoise, and he answered my demand for Wiggins
with the heart-breaking news that Hartley had ridden off with some
other guests in the house--Orton did n't know where.
"I threw them out; I've got to rewrite my third act; I don't care
whether they ever come back," boomed Orton's voice.
"If you don't send Wiggins back to me at Hopefield as fast as he can
get there, my third act is ruined."
"What?"
"Tell Wiggins to come back on the run; tell him the world's coming to
an end any minute."
"I'll be glad to get rid of him," snapped Orton, in the harried tone of
a man whose third act has wilted in rehearsal.
As I came perspiring out of the telephone-booth I found the suitors
engaged in eager but subdued debate by the hearth. They could hardly
have heard my bleatings over the telephone, but they were greatly
concerned about something. Shallenberger, who was apparently the only
one willing to approach me, followed me to the veranda.
"Those fellows in there don't understand this. Dick told us all last
night, after we had called at the house and been refused admittance,
that Miss Cecilia was ill with diphtheria. I remember that it was Dick
who rang the bell and gave our cards to the footman. It was quite
singular, you know, our being turned away, unless something had been
wrong."
I bowed gravely. They had been turned away for the very simple reason
that, after unearthing Adoniram Caldwell's effects in the secret rooms
of her house, Miss Octavia had not cared to be troubled with suitors.
The haughty Nebraskan had drawn upon his imagination for the rest.
"And I understood you to say a moment ago that Miss Hollister's malady
is not diphtheria, but chicken-pox?" Shallenberger persisted with
almost laughable trepidation. "These gentlemen, I regret to say, go so
far as to doubt your word."
"That, Mr. Shallenberger, is their privilege. But it seems to me that
when I merely tried to mitigate the terrible news imparted by Dick, you
are rank ingrates for questioning my far less doubtful story. Anything
between you gentlemen and Mr. Dick is, of course, none of my affair,
for whether considered as a set, group or bunch I am done with the
whole lot of you. Farewell!"
I decided as I rode away that nothing was to be gained by going in
search of Wiggins. Orton had purposely made his house difficult of
access, and the roads in that neighborhood are many and devious. Orton
had banished his guests that he might tinker his play in peace, and
knowing his temper, I was sure that Wiggins and the rest of them would
keep out of his way till the pangs of hunger drove them back.
I had ridden half a mile toward Hopefield, when I espied a woman riding
rapidly toward me, and as she drew nearer I identified her as Hezekiah,
mounted on a horse I recognized as one of the best in Miss Octavia's
stables. Hezekiah rode astride, as a woman should, her bicycle skirt
serving well as a habit. She rode as a boy rides who loves freedom and
quickened pulses and the rush of wind across his face. She was
hatless, for which the sun and I were both grateful. The big bow at
the back of her head turned the dial back to sixteen.
[Illustration: I espied a woman riding rapidly toward me.]
She drew rein and fished what seemed to be salted almonds from her
sweater pocket. She filliped one of these into the air, and caught it
in her mouth with a lazy toss of the head that showed the firm contour
of her lovely throat. I had never seen her more self-possessed.
"Do you care much for this horse?" she asked, carelessly.
"It's a good horse; I fancy Miss Octavia thinks so herself. There are
places, Hezekiah, where they hang people for horse-stealing."
"Thought I might need one to-day, so I borrowed him,--through the back
way to the old red barn. The coachman is an ancient chum, and Aunt
Octavia would never mind even if she knew. And she will know all
right! Anyhow, my rear tire had been patched once too often, and there
is a satisfaction in a horse! Where's our sensitive and impressionable
Wiggy? Saw him riding over toward Kisco yesterday P.M. with chin on
his chest,--dreadful riding form."
"Wiggins is at Orton's,--the playwright's, you know. I've telephoned
him to hustle back, but he's out of our reach somewhere. I could n't
speak to him direct; had to leave a message for him."
"Just like Wiggy to die on the last lap. What did you make out of
brother Pepperton?"
"Your note scared me,--thanks so much for your note,--but he's all
right. Engaged to another girl."
"Ah," she sighed, "it's comforting that Cecilia could n't keep them all
going all the time."
We rode along together, our horses in a walk, and I told her everything
I knew of the condition of affairs, including a true account of my
experiences at the inn the day before and of the finding of the old
chest belonging to Wiggins's great-grandfather,--her brown eyes opened
wide at this,--concluding with the diphtheria stratagem and Dick's
menace to Cecilia's happiness.
"He's really a bright little boy. Coming home on the steamer he gave
me a post-graduate course in pragmatism that I've found helpful in
keeping house for papa. It's too bad we have to lay a trap for Mr.
Dick."
"Is it? Just how are we to manage that, Hezekiah?"
"Oh, that will be easy enough. He's pretty desperate, and since the
compact between the suitors has gone to pieces he knows he will have to
show his hand pretty soon. He thinks you are wild about Cecilia. He
lays great stress on his thinking powers, and he probably argues that
you are bound to pop pretty soon. It's just as well he thinks so, but
we must finish this up to-day; I'll be a nervous wreck if we don't
close the books to-night. There's your friend Dick now."
She indicated a high point in the main road, where it crossed the ridge
from which she had shown me--it seemed, oh, very long ago!--the
procession of suitors crossing the stile. Dick, mounted, was gazing
off across the fields toward Hopefield. Man and horse were so distant
as to create the illusion of an equestrian statue on a high pedestal.
"Napoleon before Waterloo," I suggested.
"He does look like Napoleon, doesn't he?" she laughed. "He's a bit
fussed to-day. He knows that Wiggy 's not at the inn, and that you are
up to something, and to little Mr. Dick the architect probably looks
like one of those mysterious knights you read about, who suddenly
appears at the tournament all canned in an ice-cream freezer, with a
tin pail over his head. Mr. Pepperton's presence no doubt worries him,
as I don't think they ever met. Cecilia and Mr. Pepperton are
riding--I dodged them just before I struck you, walking their horses in
the most loverlike fashion in a lane over yonder; but if Mr. Pepperton
is really engaged it's all right, though if I were the other girl I
think I'd be anxious."
"Pep's playing the game, that's all. What are you going to do now?"
She glanced at the sun; I fancy that it was with such a scanning of the
heavens that her sisters a thousand years before had noted the time.
"This is my pie-day. There's undoubtedly a gooseberry-pie waiting for
me at the bungalow, and papa will expect me for luncheon. I 'd ask you
to come too, only you 'll have all you can do to keep Mr. Dick from
persuading somebody to be the sixth man, so he can slip in as number
seven. If we get through to-day all right, you may come for luncheon
to-morrow, maybe. Papa told me he liked you; he said you were very
decent that night you met him on the roof of Aunt Octavia's house."
"My compliments to your father. I hope to be able to persuade him to
extend his paternal arm to include me. Aunt Octavia must be my aunt,
too!"
"Really!" cried Hezekiah, with indescribable mockery; and she wheeled
her horse and was gone like the wind.
Luncheon at Hopefield passed without incident; and afterward Cecilia
retired to help her aunt with her correspondence, while Pepperton and I
lounged about the house and smoked. I told him of my ineffectual
efforts to reach Wiggins, and he volunteered to find a motor and search
for him; but I pointed out the futility of this, and renewed my appeal
that he stay on guard at Hopefield.