A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK--WITH “FEATURES”
BABE seized upon Eleanor’s engagement as the best possible excuse for a
week-end party.
“Living in a castle is rather a fright,” she confided to Betty. “John
doesn’t mind it, because he’s always lived in a near-castle. I get
lost. I’m afraid of the butler. The English housekeeper drops her
aitches so fast that I can’t tell what she wants to ask me. I forget
the names of my horses. And when John is in town I haven’t anybody to
play with.”
“Seems to me you’re not a very enthusiastic newly-wed,” Betty told her
laughingly.
“Oh, yes, I am,” Babe declared very earnestly. “I love John, and I love
Father Morton, and I love my house. Only I rattle around in it like a
pea in a band-box. While I’m growing up to fit my surroundings I’ve got
to have the assistance of all my friends. Will you come to my party,
Betty? I’m going to ask Father Morton, because he knows Mr. Blake, and
besides he missed all the fun of the wedding.”
So Betty, resolving to “’tend up” to business strictly for the rest of
the year, took another week-end off to celebrate the engagement, see
Babe’s gorgeous mansion, and help make up to Mr. Morton for losing the
wedding--all on her account, as he persisted in saying.
Babe’s house, which had been Mr. Morton’s wedding gift to her, was up
on the Hudson, in a suburb so discreetly removed from the noise and
dust of the railroad that nobody lived there except “carriage people.”
The wide roads wound in sweeping curves along the river, between
lilac hedges, now capped with snow. In front, Babe’s territory sloped
through great gardens to the water; behind she had a real wood of her
own. Inside the house the stately rooms were crowded with expensive
furniture and beautiful bric-à-brac. Mr. Morton had taken Babe shopping
and bought everything she had as much as stopped to look at. A famous
decorator had been sent up to arrange the house and fill in the
gaps. There was a fireplace taken bodily from a Florentine palace,
a Rembrandt that had once graced a royal gallery, a rug that men had
spent their whole lives in weaving.
“I shall never know what we’ve got,” sighed Babe, as she led the way
through her domain. “Father Morton loves to surprise people. He says I
haven’t discovered half the special features that he’s put in just to
amuse me.”
“If I were you I should feel like a princess in a fairy tale,” sighed
little Helen Adams, who had never in her life imagined anything half so
splendid.
“I don’t,” said Babe stoutly. “Princesses have to wear long velvet
dresses and look sweet all the time. Just as soon as I dare, I’m going
to get rid of at least half the servants, so I can roll up my sleeves
and go down to the kitchen. I learned to make bread at cooking-school
before I was married, and it was a picnic.” Babe paused and gazed
joyously at her guests. “I’ve thought what would be a picnic to do
right on this very afternoon, before you’ve even seen the rest of the
house. To play hide-and-go-seek.”
“Babe,” began Mary Brooks sternly, “you’re still the Perfect Infant.
Do you think it befits married ladies like you and me to indulge in
children’s games?”
Babe answered by running down the long hall, pulling the reluctant Mary
after her.
“John,” she cried when they reached the little library that John had
seized upon for his den and in which he was now entertaining the
masculine portion of the house party, “John, we’re going to play
hide-and-seek all over the house. Isn’t that a grand idea?”
“Great,” agreed the devoted John.
“Then come along, everybody,” ordered Babe. “Will you play too, Father
Morton?”
“Of course I will,” said Jasper J. Morton testily. “One of the things
this house is intended for is a good game of hide-and-seek. I didn’t
forget that you were a little tomboy, child. I didn’t expect you to
grow up all at once just because you’d promised to love and obey my boy
John.” Jasper J. Morton paused to chuckle. “Some of the best features
of this house are still undiscovered. Maybe they’ll come out in the
course of this game.”
Babe hugged him rapturously. “We discovered the hidden bowling-alley
last week,” she said. “You were a duck to put in so many surprises
right under my very nose, when I thought I was picking out everything
and doing all the planning myself.”
Mr. Morton laughed gleefully. “You like my surprises, do you?
Independently of their being surprises, I mean. When young people build
a house they never think of the most important things. For instance,
there’s no reason, just because you’re going to have a new house, why
you shouldn’t keep to some of the good old ways. Most new houses are no
earthly good for little tomboys to play in. Do you hear that, Watson?
Too bad I got this place started before I met you. You’d have learned a
lot of things about your business if you’d built this house for me.”
“I don’t doubt that, sir,” said Jim dutifully.
“Keep your eyes open this afternoon,” Mr. Morton advised him
mysteriously. “There are features in this house that the head of your
firm wouldn’t be capable of inventing. Architects are like sheep--they
follow the last fashions. Now when I’ve been abroad, I’ve studied
buildings over there. When I see a good thing in some old house in
a little moss-grown town like Harding, I remember it. I also study
character. Just as Morton Hall is adapted to Miss B. A. and her
protégées, so this place is adapted to John and this little tomboy.
I exercise prevision when I build. Why, I foresaw this very game of
hide-and-seek, so to speak. Just give a little study to the habits and
tastes of your clients, my boy, and you’ll make a name for yourself.
That’s the way to build; study character and exercise foresight.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Jim respectfully.
“Eny, meeny, miny, mo,” began Babe hastily, having had quite enough of
architectural theories. The lot of being “it” first fell upon her, and
John’s den was chosen as goal.
“Remember,” Babe told them, “you can go anywhere except to the kitchen.
I shouldn’t dare to chase you there. Open any door that you see----”
“Particularly any door you don’t quite see,” put in Jasper J. Morton
mysteriously.
“It’s too early for skeletons,” laughed John, “so you needn’t be
afraid of the closets.”
“I shall count my hundred awfully fast,” announced Babe, suiting the
action to the words with a promptness that sent her guests scuttling
for hiding-places.
The first person to be caught was Helen Adams, who confessed that she
hadn’t dared to go into any rooms but the down-stairs ones that were
obviously meant for guests; and nobody had gone far or had happened
upon any very difficult hiding-places. But the next time, led by Babe,
the party ranged far afield, and it took so long to find them all that
a ten-minute limit was arranged; after ten minutes’ hunting those who
were not found could “come in free.” Nobody was surprised that Dick
and Eleanor should forget this privilege at the end of a round, but
when Betty had twice failed to appear Babe declared that she must have
found one of Father Morton’s real hiding-places, and the whole party
started off in search of her. Up-stairs and down again they went,
opening closets, hunting in chests, under beds, behind portières. Babe
declared that she was at last learning the way around her domain, and
discovering any number of extra cupboards and closets; but neither she
nor anybody else discovered Betty.
At four the butler caught his flyaway little mistress long enough to
announce to her that tea was served in the yellow drawing-room.
“We shall have to go,” she said sadly, rounding up her guests. “I
shouldn’t dare to tell him that we were too busy playing hide-and-seek.
Besides, I’m hungry, for one. Betty will hear us all in there together,
and know we’ve given her up and come out. Let’s all shout together ‘We
give up’!”
So the big house echoed to their chanted “We give up,” and then they
repaired to the yellow drawing-room, where Babe sat on a carved oak
throne and poured tea, from a wonderful silver pot wreathed with
dragons, into cups so fragile that you could have crushed them as you
would a flower. There were muffins and crackers and sweet sandwiches
and nuts and ginger, all of which tasted very good to the hungry
“hiders.” And in the midst of tea there was an excitement, in the shape
of a telegram summoning Mr. Morton, Senior, to a conference on board a
train that would reach this station in less than ten minutes.
“Have to miss dinner, I suppose, but I’ll be back to-night sure,” he
grumbled as Babe pulled on his coat, John found his gloves and hat, a
valet packed his bag, in case of emergency, and the butler rang for
the chauffeur to bring around a limousine. “Where’s Miss B. A.?” he
demanded as the car appeared. “Hasn’t she come out yet? Well, if the
rest of you have any gumption, you’ll take her dare and find her. I
say, Watson, you know how a house is built, and you know that Miss B.
A. is worth finding----”
“Train’s whistling, dad,” broke in John.
“Then the automobile speed limit has got to go smash again,” said
Jasper J. Morton resignedly, jumping into the car. “Find her, Watson.
She’s worth it,” he called back, waving his hand spasmodically as the
car shot round a curve and out of sight.
Most of the young people had gathered in the hall to see Mr. Morton
off, but little Helen Adams, feeling rather shy and out-of-place, had
crept back into the drawing-room, which, lighted only by the fire and
the candles on the tea-table, seemed so rich and dim and lovely that to
be alone in it made her give a long deep sigh of joy and satisfaction
and wonder at the idea of plain little Helen Chase Adams spending the
week-end with a gay house party in such a splendid place.
She had just seated herself in a great cushioned chair by the fire to
enjoy it all--Helen was one of the people who must be alone to drink
their pleasures to the full--when she heard a little tap on the wall so
close to her that it made her jump. But in a minute she settled back
again comfortably. “Mice or a bit of loose plaster,” she decided. But
an instant later there came a little low moan--an eery sort of muffled
cry--and this time she screamed and jumped quite out of her chair. The
door had just been shut after Mr. Morton, and Babe came running in,
followed by all the others, and at a respectful distance by the stately
butler, to ask what the matter was.
“Why, I don’t know,” said Helen anxiously. “Something or somebody cried
out in another room, and it sounded so near me and so queer, some way,
that I screamed. I’m sorry I frightened all the rest of you too.”
“Mamie the parlor-maid always gives a heartrending shriek when she
breaks one of my favorite wedding presents,” suggested Babe mournfully.
“It was probably Mamie--only why should she be dusting and breaking
things at this time of day?”
“Why indeed?” demanded Madeline scornfully. “Did it sound like a
pathetic parlor-maid, Helen?”
“It didn’t sound like any real person,” Helen explained slowly. “It was
muffled and far away and choked--like a--why, like a ghost!”
“Exactly,” cried Madeline triumphantly. “Babe, don’t you see what’s
happened? One of the highly advertised features of your domicile has
come to light. Your respected father-in-law, realizing that no castle
is complete without a ghost--he remembered Babbie’s, probably--built in
one, warranted to appear to persons sitting alone in the firelight. And
you try to pretend it’s only a parlor-maid in distress.”
“I hope it wasn’t Betty in distress,” put in Eleanor Watson.
“I’m really afraid she’s locked in somewhere,” said Babe anxiously.
“Didn’t a girl in an old story once hide in a chest in a game like
this, and get faint and finally smother? Did the noise sound as if it
could have been Betty, Helen?”
Helen confessed that it might have been almost anything.
“Thomas,” Babe turned to the butler, “will you please take two of the
servants and hunt in the cellar for Miss Wales? I’ll take the up-stairs
rooms, and John, you and the men hunt down here, and then go up to the
attic. Open all the chests and cupboards. Oh, dear, I wish this house
wasn’t so big!”
Search “up-stairs, down-stairs, and in my lady’s chamber” revealed no
Betty. Eleanor, passing the door of the yellow drawing-room, thought
she heard another cry, but when, reinforced by Dick and John, she went
in to listen for its repetition, all was still. Nobody was under the
furniture or in the next room, and the open fires in both rooms made
the chimney an impossible retreat. But it was from near the chimney
that Eleanor thought the cry had come, and Helen had been sitting near
the fire when it sounded in her ear.
“She must be in one of the secret chambers that Mr. Morton broadly
hinted at,” said Madeline finally. “But why, if she went in, doesn’t
she come out?”
Jim Watson had been frenziedly active in searching chests and
cupboards. Now he was knocking on the wall near the fireplace and
running back and forth between the two adjoining rooms, taking note of
the position and thickness of the partitions.
“There’s a passage between these rooms,” he announced at last, “and
a shaft or a staircase or something running up in this corner.
See--there’s a square taken out. But how you get in, I can’t see.”
“Oh, do try to see,” begged Babe eagerly. “You know Father Morton said
you could learn a lot from this house. I wish we knew for sure that she
was in there and”--Babe choked a little--“all right.”
“Knock hard on the wall,” suggested Mr. Blake. “Maybe she’ll hear that
better than our talking, and answer it.”
Regardless of priceless wall-hangings Babe seized a pair of brass tongs
and pounded on the wall as if she meant to break it down.
“Go easy, Babe,” advised Madeline, but Babe only pounded harder.
“If she’s in there we want to know that she’s all right,” declared Babe
hotly. “And then we’ve got to get her out if we have to batter down
this wall to do it.”
“How will you know Betty’s knock from a ghost’s?” demanded Madeline
flippantly, but no one paid any attention to her because just at that
moment a faint knock did sound on the other side of the wall.
Babe gave a little cry of relief. “Then she isn’t suffocated! That
story has just been haunting me. Now, Mr. Watson, you know how a house
is built, to quote Father Morton. You must find how to get to her.”
Jim looked as if he wanted to use the tongs as a battering-ram, but he
refrained. “I’ll try up-stairs,” he said. “Maybe the entrance is there.”
“I’ll show you which rooms are over these,” volunteered John.
But there was no opening up-stairs.
It was Helen Adams who made the next suggestion. “If a stairway goes
up, mightn’t it go down too? Perhaps you can enter from the cellar.”
And sure enough half-way down the cellar stairs Jim discovered a little
door.
“May be a snap lock that’s kept her in,” he muttered irritably. “Hold
it open, Eleanor. Here, Thomas, let’s have your electric bug. Hello,
Betty! Betty, I say!”
“Here I am,” called a faint, frightened little voice from up above.
“Here I am, but where I am I don’t know, and I think I’ve sprained my
ankle.”
Ensconced on the couch in John’s den Betty had her belated tea, while
Babe rubbed the turned ankle vigorously, and the others stood around
listening to the tale of ghostly adventures.
“I got in up-stairs,” Betty explained, “through a sliding panel sort of
thing that opens out of that curved part of the hall.”
“Of course,” Jim put in. “We looked on the other side.”
[Illustration: THE OTHERS STOOD AROUND LISTENING]
“I shut the door so no one else would find it,” explained Betty, “and
of course it was pretty dark, though there is a little high window
opening into the hall to light the first part of the passage.”
“I know--looks like a ventilator,” interrupted Jim again.
“But when I came to the flight of stairs, I didn’t see them,” Betty
took up her story, “and I wasn’t expecting stairs, so I fell most of
the way down and landed with one foot under me. I was frightened and
the pain made me faint. I called once, but nobody answered. I felt as
if I was in an old dungeon, like those we saw in France, and if I moved
or called rats would come and bite me, or I should drop into a well and
drown. Besides, I hadn’t the least idea how to get back. Of course it
was perfectly silly. I called once more after a long while, and once
I thought I heard some one scream. And then, ages after, there were
knocks and I knocked back. That’s all. Did some one really scream or
did I imagine that?”
“I did. I thought it was a ghost,” explained Helen.
Betty laughed. “I’m pursued by ghosts these days. The Morton Hall girls
hear them, and Dorothy and poor little Shirley Ware--why, I wonder
if there could be a secret passageway at Miss Dick’s! It’s an old,
rambling sort of house. I must ask about it when I go back.”
But by the time Betty had spent a week on a couch at Babe’s, recovering
from her sprained ankle, her mind was so full of more important things
which must be attended to “at once if not sooner,” to quote Emily’s
delightful formula, that she quite forgot to inquire of Miss Dick about
the secret passage. It was better, too, perhaps, to let sleeping dogs
lie. Shirley was back at school again, and her wan little face must be
a sad reminder to any big girl who had played a practical joke on her.
Miss Dick still felt sure that there had been no joke--that Shirley had
conjured up a ghost out of her own imagination. It would be a bad plan,
possibly, to stir the matter up again.