IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE.
The morning was long and lonely to Helen, who wondered what there was
for a girl to do when all was over and settled. She felt that she ought
to have been up and spoken with Craig before he left. He expected it,
she knew, for he had asked Celine if she were awake, and when told she
was still sleeping, had given the girl a note for her.
“Darling,” it said, “I hoped I might have seen you this morning for a
moment, but as I cannot I send you a line to tell you how happy I am,
and that I shall count the days before I can return. God bless you, and
keep you in safety. Craig.”
Helen had received scores of love letters, but none which affected her
like these few words, which wrung the hot tears from her eyes as she
read them.
“I am not half good enough for him, and when he comes back I shall tell
him so, and make him believe it. I don’t like to be engaged!” she said,
as she dressed herself leisurely, dispensing with the services of
Celine, as she would rather be alone.
Her mother, who had waited breakfast till she came down, noticed her
languor and depression, and asked if she were ill.
“No,” Helen answered, “I am not ill. I am engaged; that’s all. Mr. Mason
asked me to be his wife when we were driving yesterday, and I told him I
would. You are glad, I know.”
Mrs. Tracy was delighted. What she so much desired had come to pass, and
she began at once to plan a grand wedding and an elaborate trousseau.
“You know the diamonds are to be yours when you are married,” she said,
“and they must have modern settings. I’ll ask Mr. Hilton for them, and
we will look them over together.”
“But you’ll not tell him why you wish to see them. No one is to know
that till Craig comes back,” Helen said, in some alarm.
“Of course not,” her mother replied, as she left the room for the
office.
Mark, who knew her errand, unlocked the safe at once and bade her look
in.
“I wish to take them to my room,” Mrs. Tracy said, and with the boxes
she returned to her salon, where the stones were examined and admired,
and the change in their setting discussed. “I shall rather hate to part
with them,” Mrs. Tracy said, “especially the pin and cross. I do not
care so much for the ear-rings, they are so heavy.”
“And they are all I do care for, so you can have the pin and cross,”
Helen replied, as she fitted the rings in her ears and turned in the
sunlight to see them sparkle. “I think I shall keep them just as they
are. I like their hanging, instead of clinging close to my ears. I’ll
take them back,” she continued, and gathering up the boxes she went to
the office, where she found Mark alone. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she
said, turning her head coquettishly from side to side.
“Are you going to wear them?” he asked.
“Oh, no; I am just showing you how much they add to me,” she replied.
Mark said they were very fine, and began to unlock the safe to put them
away, while Helen took one of them from her ear. The clasp to the other
was bent, and after trying in vain to unclasp it, she gave a cry of
pain.
“Oh-h! it’s cutting my flesh. What shall I do?”
“Can I help you?” Mark said.
“Perhaps so,” and she turned her small pink ear to him and stood very
still while he loosened the refractory ring, his hands touching her hair
and cheek and making her blush as she thanked him and stepped back.
He did not speak of Craig, but he asked how she was going to pass the
day without her usual drive.
“I shall not miss it,” she said; “there is such a thing as being driven
too much,” and she looked at him in a way which made it hard for him to
keep back the words he was intending to say before Craig Mason returned.
But not in the office. He had the time and place arranged, and he said,
“As you cannot drive suppose you take a walk after tea. The evening will
be fine. There is a full moon, you know.”
Helen assented readily. Here was something to think of; something to
do,—and all the ennui of the morning was gone. That afternoon there came
a telegram from Craig, who said, “We reached home safely. Shall return
on Saturday, instead of Monday, as I first proposed.”
“How like him,—making love by telegraph. We shall probably exchange
postals for good mornings when we are married,” Helen said with a laugh
Craig would not have been pleased to hear.
“He was very thoughtful to let you know he would be back sooner than you
expected him, and shows his kind heart,” her mother suggested.
“I suppose it was,” Helen replied, as she tore up the telegram, and
tossing the pieces into the waste basket went to dress herself for the
anticipated walk.
“Where are you going?” her mother asked, when after tea she saw her
putting on her hat and jacket.
“Just to the post office and round the square,” Helen replied.
“Alone? Without Celine?” Mrs. Tracy said in some surprise.
“Yes, without Celine, but not alone. Mr. Hilton is going with me,” Helen
answered, a little defiantly, in anticipation of her mother’s next
remark.
“Do you think it proper to be walking in the evening with a comparative
stranger? Do you think Mr. Mason would like it?”
“Oh, bother, mamma! Don’t be so prudish. I am to be trusted, and so is
Mr. Hilton. As for Craig he will not object. I am not going to tie
myself up in a bag because I am engaged. By-by, don’t worry about me.”
She kissed her hand and went out to the piazza, where Mark was waiting
for her, with a light in his eyes and a ring in his voice she had never
heard or seen before, and which put her on her guard. They went first to
the post office where the evening mail was being distributed and where
Helen found a letter from Craig, mailed in Boston at 4 o’clock and
written after the telegram had been sent. Mark, who was standing apart
from her, only saw that she had a letter and crushed it hastily into her
pocket. Leaving the office they walked slowly around the square until
they came to the turn in the road which led past the old ruin. The sun
had been down for half an hour or more, and the full moon was pouring a
flood of light upon it, making it look rather ghostly and weird, with
the woodbine dropping from the chimney and a lilac tree brushing against
one of the broken windows.
“Have you ever been in my ancestral hall?” Mark asked.
“No, and I don’t believe I care to visit it,” Helen replied.
“Oh, yes, you do. All the young people in town come here. It is quite a
rendezvous for lovers,” Mark urged.
“But we are not lovers,” Helen said, and he replied, “Very true, but we
can go in for all that. Perhaps we may see the ghost, if there is one.
She comes in the moonlight, they say, as well as in the rain. You surely
are not afraid?”
Helen was not afraid, and only held back from a feeling that it was not
quite the thing to do. At last her love of adventure overcame her sense
of propriety, and she followed Mark to the rear of the house where a
door had fallen from its hinges, giving them free access to the
building. Through the lane to this door a path had been worn by many
feet, and Helen could well believe that it was a rendezvous for lovers,
who either had no fear of ’Tina, or came hoping to see her. “It would
have been a great deal more romantic for Craig to have told his love
here than while holding Dido in to keep her from running and screaming
at the top of his voice to make me hear, the wheels made such a clatter
over the stones and ruts,” she thought, as she followed Mark in to what
had been the family room where ’Tina sat when the tragedy outside went
on and where the baby boy called so often for his mother. Through the
paneless window the moonlight was shining, making the room almost as
light as day, except in the corners where dark shadows lay. Something
was stirring in one of them and with a cry of fear Helen pressed close
to Mark, who took her hand and led her to an old settee which stood by
the wide fire place.
“It is only a rat; the house is full of them,” he explained, as he sat
down beside her.
“Oh-h! I have a mortal terror of rats and mice, too. Let’s go,” Helen
cried as she drew her feet up from the door.
“No, not yet,” Mark said. “There’s a chair somewhere in which you can
put your feet and be safe from the marauders.”
He found the chair and brought it to her; then resuming his seat he
continued: “I am afraid you are not pleased with my ancestral halls.”
Now that she was in no danger from the rats, Helen was less nervous and
began to look around her with some curiosity.
“It is a creepy kind of place and the last I should choose for a
rendezvous,” she said. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because there is something I must say to you which I can say better
here than where we would be liable to interruptions,” Mark replied,
putting his arm on the back of the settee where it would be very
convenient for it to drop across her shoulders. “I told you the story of
this house in the cemetery, by ’Tina’s grave, and only the fact that I
had known you so short a time prevented me from telling you another
story which I have brought you here to listen to. You have heard it many
times, for I know your reputation, and I believe that when you came to
Ridgefield Craig Mason was your object.”
Helen did not speak, and Mark continued: “I have watched events closely.
Craig is interested in you. How could it be otherwise, but I do not
believe he will ever have the courage to declare himself. He is not a
ladies’ man,—is not your style. He is a student, self-absorbed and
quiet, caring nothing for the things which make your world. He is the
soul of honor, and a splendid fellow, with no fault or bad habit, such
as most men have. He neither smokes, nor drinks, nor swears, and is as
pure in thought and speech as a woman,—purer than many.”
“Then why are you running him down?” Helen asked, and Mark replied, “I
am not running him down, and I hardly know why I am speaking of him at
all, except that it seems as if he were near us, or that I was taking an
unfair advantage of his absence.”
Helen’s hand was in her pocket clutching Craig’s letter, with a view to
bring it out and declare what he was to her. But she didn’t. Years
after, when so much was said of hypnotism, she recalled that night and
said she was hypnotized, but she did not think so then. She only knew
that the man beside her talking of the man to whom she was engaged had a
power over her which she did not try to analyze, nor resist. His arm had
dropped from the settee and was lying across her shoulders and she did
not shake it off, as he went on:
“I respect Mr. Mason highly, but he is not the one to make you happy.
Domesticity is his idea of married life. Yours is different. He has
hobbies. The present one is Browning, for whom you do not care a rap.”
“How do you know that?” Helen asked sharply, and Mark replied, “I know
it as I know you, and Craig does not. You cannot help making believe,
and with him it passes for the real coin. If you were his wife there
would come an awakening which he would find it hard to forget.”
“You are complimentary, I must say, and if you brought me here to
lecture me and tell me how unfit I am to be anybody’s wife, I think it
time we were going,” Helen said, making an effort to rise.
Mark held her back, his arm encircling her now so tightly that she was
close against his side.
“I know I have not been very complimentary thus far, and I dare say no
man has ever talked to you as I am talking in order to show you that I
know you thoroughly, and that with all your faults I love you, and have
since the night you came and I carried you in my arms through the rain.
Something then in the touch of your hands as I put you down gave me an
inkling of your responsive nature and I have watched you closely since;
have seen every little coquettish air and grace, and known, when you
dazzled me with your smile and eyes, that it meant nothing except as a
pastime for you; and yet, I have gone on loving you and sworn to win
you. Nor am I without hope. You have given me every reason to think I
was not indifferent to you and that is why I am telling you of my love
and I warn you not to trifle with me. Uncle Zacheus does not believe in
heredity, but I know there is enough of my great-grandmother’s nature in
me to send me to the devil, or make me one, if circumstances were
favorable. If the woman I loved and who I had reason to believe loved me
thwarted and scorned me, I should not murder her, but there is in me a
fire which would burn out all the good and deliver me over to the evil
one.”
His voice was almost a whisper as he poured out the full measure of his
love, while Helen sat still, knowing that his arm was drawing her to him
and that his face was close to hers. He made no allusion to the
difference in their positions. He put himself on an equality with
herself and she respected him for it and knew that she loved him if it
were possible for her to love any one. She had no intention to be false
to Craig, on whose letter she still kept her hand, meaning to bring it
out and show it at the last. She told herself that she had expected
something like this and knew that she was very happy and wished it might
go on forever.
Mark was waiting for her to speak, and she must bring out the letter.
She did not dare let go her hold on it, for it seemed to her as if she
were holding on to Craig as long as she felt the touch of the paper he
had handled. Tears, which came to her so easily, were pouring down her
cheeks. She must wipe them away; as Mark had taken one of her hands she
had no alternative but to withdraw the other from her pocket and in so
doing lost her grip in more ways than one.
“You do love me a little?” Mark pleaded and lifting her tear drenched
face to his she answered, “Yes, a little. I can’t help it, but—”
She did not finish the sentence for the kisses pressed upon her lips
brought her to her senses.
“Mark! Mr. Hilton! How dare you take such a liberty. No man has ever
kissed me since my father died,—not even Mr. Mason, and I am engaged to
him! It happened yesterday, when we were driving. This letter is from
him.”
She took it from her pocket as she sprang to her feet and held it as a
barrier between herself and Mark, who had also risen and whose face was
white as the moonlight falling over it.
“Engaged to Craig Mason!” he said, seizing her arm with a grasp which
made her wince with pain. “You are engaged to Craig Mason, and have sat
here and listened to me without a word! Are you woman, or a demon?”
“Don’t speak to me like that, and let go my arm! You hurt! I tried to
tell you, but couldn’t, you influence me so, and——” Helen said, putting
her hands over her face and crying out loud.
In a moment Mark’s anger left him, and his great love came surging back.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I was a brute, but you took me by surprise. Sit
down until you are more composed.”
He felt for a moment as if the earth were slipping from him, leaving him
utterly stranded; then his indomitable will came to the rescue and he
was himself again, quiet, tender, earnest, with his magnetic powers in
full swing. She had said, “You influence me so,” and this gave him
courage. Taking her hands from her face he held them in his and said to
her jestingly, “You say no man has ever kissed you since your father
died, and you are engaged to Mr. Mason. I am afraid he did not claim his
privileges.”
“He couldn’t; he had all he could do to keep Dido from running away, and
the wheels made such a racket I couldn’t hear half he was saying,” Helen
replied between a sob and a laugh as she recalled Craig’s love making,
so different from the one she had just experienced.
Her spirits were returning and with them her blunted sense of right and
wrong, and when the moon looked into the room at a different angle from
what it was looking then, there were no tears on her face and her head
was on Mark Hilton’s shoulder, as if that were its rightful resting
place. Love was triumphant. Conscience had been smothered, or if it
pricked at all it was quieted with the thought, “I could not help it,
and Craig will soon get over it.”
Everything was settled as to what to do and how to do it, Mark
suggesting and Helen yielding to whatever he proposed. She knew her
mother would be hard to meet and Craig would be harder.
“We must be quick,” she said, “or I shall change my mind. I don’t
believe I could endure the look on Craig’s face when he knows how false
I am.”
Mark was fully aware of this. He knew the girl better than she knew
herself. Opposition from her mother and reproach from Craig would upset
her and he did not mean her to come in contact with either. Fortunately
for him it had been arranged that morning that he should go to New York
the next night on business for Mr. Taylor. If Helen could be there at
the same time all would go well. Could she manage it?
“I think so. Yes, I am sure I can,” she said, as they went back to the
hotel, where they found Mrs. Tracy very anxious to know what had kept
her daughter so long.
“The night is so fine that I wanted to enjoy it and see if it would help
my head which aches awfully. I must go to bed at once,” Helen said.
She was longing to be alone and think what she was doing. It seemed to
her that she was in a vise from which she could not escape, and Mark
held her even in her room.
“I cannot go back now,” she said, “and I would not if I could. I do not
love Craig Mason and I do love Mark Hilton. The world will call it a
mesalliance and I suppose it is, but love laughs at such things. It
would be more honorable to stay and meet Craig face to face and ask for
a release. But I can’t do it. With mother going into hysterics, as she
certainly would, I might yield.”
She was removing her jacket and felt Craig’s letter in the pocket. It
was crumpled and tear stained, for she had kept it in her hands before
her face when she was crying. She studied the address,—“Miss Helen
Tracy, Prospect House, Ridgefield, Mass.,” carefully, and with a little
choking in her throat.
“It is like him,” she thought. “Every letter precise and square and
plain as print.”
Then she wondered what was inside. How had he addressed her? Was it a
genuine love letter or not? She could easily ascertain by opening it,
but something in the better part of her nature made her shrink from
doing this. She had separated herself from Craig and the letter did not
belong to her.
“I’ll return it unopened in the one I must write him,” she finally
decided, and putting it away she tried to sleep, but could not.
Her conscience was not at rest, although she told herself she was very
happy, or should be when it was over and people had ceased to talk.
“It will cause a great commotion in this quiet town and give them
something to gossip about for a month,” she said, “and I can almost hear
Mr. Taylor’s ‘I’ll be dumbed,’ when it comes to his ears.”
She laughed when she thought of that, and burying her face in her pillow
tried, by counting a hundred backwards and every other device she had
ever heard of, to sleep, but in vain, and morning found her just as
wakeful as she had been when she first sought her bed.