FIRST AID TO THE INJURED
As regards the gray lady whose seeming apparition had spread such
wide alarm, anyone curious to know something of the ghostly Ladye
Ysobel Ippynge (she was believed to have been poisoned by her
husband, Sir Gyles Ippynge, Knight, and first earl of Ippingford in
the early part of the twelfth century) will find a true account of
her pious life and tragic death in a volume entitled, "Kronicon
Uxorium," in the Bodleian library of Oxford, written by the monk Abel
of Ipswich and printed in London in 1529.
The pious Lady Ysobel would have been sore distressed had she known
what a fearful pother her counterfeit presentment (by Hester Storm)
would one day cause. What had really happened was perfectly simple,
although the consequences were complicated and far-reaching. When
Hester came to the bottom of the stairs she had turned out of her way
in the darkness and passed close to a pedestal supporting a suit of
armor that kept impressive guard there in the ancestral hall. So
close had she passed that the cord of her electric lamp had caught on
one of the links in the coat of mail, whereupon, in her plunge away
from this ghostly restraint, she had toppled over the grim warrior,
pedestal and all, with a crash and rattle of his various resounding
parts that had alarmed the entire establishment. And this uproar had
terrified Mrs. Baxter all the more because she was already quivering
with superstitious dread after reading that creepy tale of Bulwer
Lytton's, "A Strange Story"; in fact, it was to seek relief from this
obsession that the agitated lady had gone downstairs for some
sulphonal sleeping tablets that she had left in the conservatory.
And the silent, silver-draped apparition, looming suddenly in the
shadows, had done the rest.
For the Storm girl it was an incredibly narrow escape. A mere matter
of seconds decided her fate. If young Baxter had carried a candle
she would have been discovered. If Mrs. Baxter's candle had not been
extinguished by that lady's fall she would also have been discovered.
As it was, Hester had time to flee across the dark conservatory and
out into the park (by the unlocked door) before Bob, blundering and
stumbling through the hall and library, had reached his fainting
mother.
It may be added that Hester's quick impersonation of the gray lady
was not entirely inspirational. She had heard old Mrs. Pottle refer
to the specter that haunted Ipping House that very evening; and,
while she watched at the lodge for the Baxter automobile, her
thoughts had turned to the shivery legend when she heard An Petronia,
with motherly tenderness, putting to bed the four "Pottles" (who
seemed wakeful) and assuring them that "the dray lady would tum and
det them," if they didn't go to sleep.
It must not be supposed, however, that either the gray lady or her
understudy, Hester Storm, was responsible for the series of
happenings at Ipping House that ended in converting that comfortably
appointed English home into as uncompromising a wilderness, as far as
the relatives were concerned, as the most resourceful Swiss Family
Robinson could hope to be wrecked upon. There was another agency at
work; to-wit, Parker.
Parker, at this particular time, was the only indoors man at Ipping
House, his rank being that of butler, footman, and valet combined.
For sympathetic and politic reasons, Parker had given notice on the
very same day that Mrs. Edge had received her congé from Mr. Baxter.
In appearance Parker was of the candle-complexioned,
patent-leather-haired type that nature seems to have distributed
impartially between the pulpits and pantries of Great Britain.
Parker's greatest personal asset was a subtle fluidity of temperament
which caused visitors at a house where he had been engaged only the
week before to believe that he was an old family retainer. It was to
this priceless gift that Parker owed his success in New York, where
he had spent ten profitable years and adorned many expensive houses,
seldom staying long in any one place as new accessories to social
elegance outbid each other for his services. It was in New York that
Parker's face took on its expression of impeccable superiority, the
envy of more than one bishop, an expression acquired through his
practice of combining with his office of butler (for an extra charge,
of course) that of private tutor of social usages to his employers.
In the eyes of Mrs. Edge, and to quote her own words, Parker was the
"cream of gentlemen." Between Mrs. Edge and the "cream of gentlemen"
there was an understanding. When the Baxters returned to New York in
the autumn and the house would be closed for the winter, a small but
desirable hotel at Inwich (the next village beyond Millbrook) would
be reopened under the management of Mr. and Mrs. Parker.
Hiram Baxter, in spite of his homely American speech, which grated
painfully on the butler's fine cockney ear, somehow commanded the
respect of this "cream of gentlemen," who felt that there was good
material in him. He would like to have taken Baxter in hand. He
longed to tell him that detachable cuffs and collars were not
permissible; that a black bow tie, if one must wear such a thing in
the daytime, should not have its ends tucked under the flaps of the
collar. Twice Parker had deliberately hidden the silver clasps with
which Hiram suspended his serviette to the lapels of his coat.
"It's fortunate they don't have no English visitors, leastways none
that matters," had been Parker's reflection. Had it been otherwise
his sense of fastidious shame would have compelled him to give
notice. Not even that '66 brandy, upon the question of whose merits
Parker and Anton were in such perfect accord, could have induced him
to stay.
And now he was turning his back on these liquid joys and two months'
wages into the bargain. To be separated from Mrs. Edge was out of
the question. She was his fiancée, also the lease of the "Golden
Horseshoe" was in her name. The wily Parker, however, saw in the
ghost incident a way of visiting his resentment on the Baxter
household, and he set about it at once.
At the time of the night alarm Parker had been the first to reach the
hall from the servants' wing, and, striking a match, had discovered
the figure in armor lying on its face. With an instinctive alacrity,
born of former kindly and remunerative ministrations to elderly
gentlemen who had "dined," Parker lifted the helpless dummy to his
feet and replaced the helmet, which had rolled some distance along
the oak floor.
A moment later, when Bob appeared, supporting his mother to the
stairs, the butler heard Mrs. Baxter exclaim with hysterical triumph:
"There, you can see for yourself, Bob, it wasn't the armor; it's
standing up--it never fell down at all----"
Bob raised his candle to inspect the warrior. "Did you pick up the
armor, Parker?" he asked.
"No, Mr. Robert; it was standing up just like it is now, sir."
"You can go back to bed, Parker. I'll take a turn round the house
myself. Good-night."
"Good-night, sir; thank you, sir."
The next day at noon the cook and the first and second housemaids
gave three days' notice. It was thought advisable not to tell
Eleanor, and, after a consultation with Hiram, Betty engaged a new
cook and one housemaid by telephone from a London agency.
That afternoon the cook confided to the laundress, in a frightened
whisper, that she had been told in strict secrecy by Parker, who got
it from Gibson, Mrs. Baxter's maid, that Mrs. Baxter had a white mark
on her forehead she would carry to her grave, made by the icy fingers
of the Gray Lady. The story spread among the servants like an
epidemic.
As night came on the last remnant of courage accumulated in the
daylight oozed away, the frightened females refused to be separated
and passed the night on sofas and chairs in the servants' parlor.
As for Mrs. Baxter, the shock she had received was no mean tribute to
Hester's histrionic power. Nothing could remove from Eleanor's mind
the conviction that she had actually beheld the supernatural shape of
Lady Ysobel Ippynge, dead and buried these hundreds of years.
Mingled with her physical distress, there was a childish sense of
outrage in that, having survived a unique and painful adventure, she
should, by its belittlement, be robbed of the distinction she felt to
be her due.
"If," reasoned the aggrieved lady, "the shock to my nerves isn't
proof enough that I have really seen a ghost, then it is because of
my great self-control; and all the thanks you get for self-control is
to be told that you have nothing the matter with you."
Very well, she would cease to cast this pearl of self-control before
the swine of unsympathy. She would let them know how really ill she
was. And so, aggravated by the well-meant but irritating optimism of
her family, Eleanor Baxter's "nerves" grew daily worse until, on the
afternoon of her third day in bed, Hiram telephoned to a nerve
specialist in London, who took the first train for Ippingford and
informed the suffering lady, after a careful examination, that she
was on the verge of complete nervous prostration. This was the first
sensible remark Eleanor had heard for a week.
"Don't give yourself a moment's worry, Mr. Baxter," said the doctor,
as Hiram put him aboard the train. "All your wife really needs is a
change of air. Better take her down to Brighton."
"Hm! Brighton! Swell place by the sea, ain't it?"
"It's quite a fashionable resort, just what Mrs. Baxter needs."
"No ghosts there?" chuckled the big fellow.
"No ghosts," laughed the doctor, as he waved farewell.
Hiram sent Bob back in the automobile and walked home. With this
mention of Brighton there had come to him an idea that he wanted to
work out, an idea having to do with his general plan of reducing
expenses. If a stay at the seashore was what Eleanor needed, why not
give her enough of it, say a fortnight or a month? And, if they were
going to be away a month, why not close Ipping House and get rid of a
raft of servants? And why not---- then frowning he thought of his
relatives and of his favorite purpose regarding them as he had
outlined it to the Bishop of Bunchester, and then he thought
apprehensively of Eleanor.
"Holy cats!" he muttered. "It's goin' to be a job, but I'll do it."
That evening, after dinner, he went to his wife's room and asked her
carelessly how she would like to go down to Brighton for a week or
two. Eleanor beamed. She would love it. Was he really going to
take her? How soon? Could they stay a whole fortnight in Brighton?
Hiram assured her most considerately that they could stay a whole
month in Brighton, if she wished. And they would start the next day.
She had been through a great strain. It was no joke to see a ghost,
he understood that. They ought to have known better than to take a
house that had a ghost in it. And then, as tactfully as he could,
the old boy came around to his point that it might be just as well to
close Ipping House and--and give the ghost a rest.
Eleanor's eyes narrowed dangerously as she watched him from her lace
pillow.
"Close Ipping House?" she repeated in a cold, even tone. "Do you
realize what you are saying?"
Hiram took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief,
first blowing on them deliberately.
"Sure I do; that's why I'm sayin' it. If we shut this house we can
fire the servants, all of 'em; then, when we come back we can get new
ones, half as many and twice as good. Don't look at me that way,
dearie. I hate like everything to disappoint you, but----" he
reached over and stroked her white hand tenderly, "you know what I
said about expenses? Well, I meant it then and I mean it now. We've
got to economize."
"What about my relatives? Our guests?" the wife demanded angrily.
"I guess your relatives'll have to take their chances in a new deal,
Eleanor. I'm goin' to have a little talk with 'em to-morrow morning.
I told 'em at dinner. Don't worry, I ain't goin' to say a thing but
what's for their good. Bet ye three dollars and a half, when ye hear
my little speech--
"Hear your speech?" she blazed. "Do you think anything could induce
me to be present while you humiliate members of my family? I think
it's abominable."
"Hold on! There ain't anything humiliating in a little honest work."
"Work?" she gasped. "Hiram, you don't mean--you're not going to put
my relatives--to work?"
Hiram shifted his legs with exasperating calmness, pulled at his
short, gray mustache, and was about to reply, when Robert strolled in
cheerily and went at once to Eleanor's bedside.
"How's the little mother to-night?" he asked affectionately.
Whereupon, to his surprise and to Hiram's great discomfiture, the
lady burst into a flood of tears.
"I'm so unhappy," she wailed. "Your father is treating me
most--unkindly and--and----" her words were lost in hysterical
sobbing.
Whereupon Baxter stalked out of the room like a rumpled Newfoundland
dog, leaving Bob to administer filial comfort and smelling salts, the
result being that Eleanor was presently able to give her a son a
tearful version of Hiram's iconoclastic purposes. Bob listened with
an amused and incredulous smile.
"Don't you know, Mother," he reasoned, "that Dad's bark is always
worse than his bite? He won't close Ipping House! not a bit of it.
I'll talk to him and--what you need is sleep, especially if you're
going to Brighton to-morrow."
"I suppose you're right," sighed Eleanor. "You're a dear boy, Bob.
Send Gibson here. Tell her to bring a hot water bag and my sulphonal
tablets. And do speak to your father. Tell him I can't bear it if
he closes Ipping House."
"I'll tell him. Good-night, little Mother. There! It's going to be
all right." He kissed her lovingly and stole out of the room.
A few moments later young Baxter joined his father in the library,
where the old man was frowning over important papers that he had
brought up from town with him that evening. Things were going badly,
the news from America was most unsatisfactory, and the father and
son, weary and troubled, sat discussing it until long after midnight.
"There's some deviltry behind all this," declared the grizzled old
fellow, pounding his fist on the table. "There's crooked work in
this copper campaign. Why, that Henderson outfit seems to know what
we're doing every day, just as if they had eyes in this room. I tell
you there's a leak, Bob, but----" he glowered about the spacious
walls under his heavy, black brows.
"Are you sure of this new secretary?" whispered the son.
Hiram's eyes softened, as they rested on the winding stair. "Am I
sure of her? Sure of _her_?" Then with a chuckle: "Say, what do you
think of my new secretary?"
Bob answered quite seriously: "She seems to be a nice girl, but she's
too pretty."
"Think so?"
"I don't believe in very pretty girls for business positions."
"Don't, eh? Well, you can take it from me, my boy, that this
partic'lar pretty girl is all right."
Bob glanced at his watch, then rose and stretched himself.
"Half-past two! We can't do any more to-night, Dad. By the way," he
suddenly remembered his promise to his mother, "you're not thinking
of closing Ipping House?"
Hiram was silent a moment, then, slipping his thumbs into the
arm-holes of his waistcoat, he spoke with a wise drawl.
"Bob, after you've been married a while you'll find that a man thinks
a lot o' things and then, when his wife gets at him with the
water-works, why he just takes it out in thinkin'."
"Then Ipping House stays open--just as it is."
"There may be some modifications in the 'just as it is' part of it,
but--well, yes, Ipping House stays open."
"I'm glad of that. And the relatives? You're not really going to
put the relatives to work, are you?"
Hiram closed his jaws with a vigorous snap. "Am I? You just show up
in this library to-morrow morning right after breakfast and watch me
give the English aristocracy a little of Hiram Baxter's first aid to
the injured. Good-night, Son."