PERKINS
MISS DERRICK left the room, and Perkins stood motionless as though she
welcomed its silence. Her eyes took on a strange expression as she
scanned this apartment, with every least detail of which she was utterly
familiar. The paneling ran nearly to the ceiling, and was topped by a
narrow shelf. The west wall was dominated by the fireplace, and in the
corner, placed at a slight angle from the wall itself, was the big desk.
Sitting there, one looked not out through the French window, but almost
directly at the door from the main hall. The desk was already littered
with Derrick’s manuscript, and toward it Perkins moved as in a dream.
She put one thin hand on the smooth leather surface, then bent over the
massive frame, searching, it seemed, in the manner of one who hopes she
may not find. Her attitude suggested that she had done this many times
before, and always with the same result; but it did not affect the swift
and silent touch with which she fingered the heavy mahogany corners and
deep, carved molding of its intricate design. Presently she shook her
head with a sort of patient resolution and turned on the portrait a look
of extraordinary inquiry, as though Millicent’s eyes, peering from the
pigment, could have directed her—if they only would. The picture might
have been alive, so keen was her regard, so expectant of an answer.
Evening had drawn on, and the study became peopled with soft mysterious
shadows in which she stood like a priestess before some half-veiled
shrine. She made no movement toward the lamp but in the gloom progressed
without a sound from point to point, with here and there a lingering
touch to furniture and woodwork. These intimate caresses blended her the
more completely with all that surrounded her till she was merged and
absorbed into the bodily human presentment of wood and stone. Finally
she came directly under the portrait, bent her head in an attitude of
profound thought, and remained quite motionless. She was standing thus
when the front hall door opened and Derrick’s whistle sounded cheerily
outside.
At that the maid smiled to herself with sudden pleasure, crossed the
room swiftly, and became occupied with the tea-tray. Derrick entered. He
did not see her at first and started at a slight rattle of china.
“Jove, Perkins, you made me jump! I thought you were part of the room.”
She did not answer. He sent her a quick searching glance, stood by the
mantel, and, taking out his pipe, watched her silently. How amazingly
she fitted into everything! No, he could not imagine Beech Lodge without
this woman.
“You will want to work now, sir?”
He nodded. “Yes, I think I will”; then, suddenly, “I say, how did you
know I wanted to work?”
She gave a queer, twisted smile, the first he had seen on that ageless
face—a strange and almost grotesquely communicable look, with which she
stepped at once from the rôle of servant and became a sort of
administrator of something yet to be explained. But there was no lack of
respect in her manner.
“I thought perhaps you might, sir.”
She took out the tray and, returning in a moment, adjusted the heavy
curtains over the French window. He watched her light the desk-lamp and
turn it low, feeling rested and soothed by every deft and noiseless
movement. His senses were comforted by the indescribable certainty of
her touch, which gave him an extraordinary feeling of confidence—in
something. And Perkins must know what this was. Presently he went to the
desk and fingered his manuscript. It struck him that what he had already
written was a little unreal and undirected. It didn’t go deep enough.
“Shall I make up the fire, sir?”
“No, thank you. It’s not worth while till after dinner. But I’d like the
lamp higher.”
She came slowly toward him. “Have you really seen this room by
firelight, sir?”
He looked at her curiously and instantly pictured this ancient chamber
with warm shadows flickering over its mellow casements. Depth and
warmth; that’s what it would be, had always been. He knew this much.
“Perhaps you might make up the fire after all. Good suggestion!”
She obeyed, and he watched the effect—more fascinating than he had
imagined. The study took on a new and ghostly beauty. Its dancing
shadows were populous with fantasy that died and was born while he
stared. There were tenants of the past here that no change of ownership
could ever displace; reminders of spoken things that had drifted from
vanished lips; echoes of songs whose lilt had never become silent. It
had ceased to be a room. It was a palace of dream and vision. And in the
background stood Perkins.
“By George!” he said under his breath.
“I thought you’d like it, sir.”
She was half invisible, and he started violently. “It’s wonderful, but I
expected that.”
“Yes, it’s strange how one can tell.”
He glanced at her, as though he had known her all his life. “There is
something about this room, and I felt it the first time I came in. How
old is it?”
“It has no age, sir.”
Derrick did not seem surprised. “I thought you’d say that.” He paused;
then as though resuming some previous talk, “Who else has felt it?”
“Only Mr. Millicent since I came here, and his daughter. It was
different with Mrs. Millicent, and she was frightened.”
“I think I understand that, too. Was this his favorite room?”
“Yes, that is his desk. I think that at the end he was frightened as
well.”
“And you found him. How was that?”
She made an indefinite gesture. “They sent for me.”
Again he felt nothing of surprise. “Yes, because they had seen and knew.
But why did you stay here after it happened?”
Perkins took one long, uncertain breath. “I did go away for a week, but
I couldn’t stay. It was all silent in London where I went. Then I knew
that it—that they would not let me remain away, so I had to come back.”
She gazed round this well-remembered room and seemed to signal that she
acknowledged its potency.
Derrick looked at the littered desk and into the mask-like face. Her
eyes were alight now, and not those of a lonely woman. She was, as it
were, surrounded by friends. He wondered if they would ever be his
friends.
“Do you mind talking like this? I think I understand, but most people
wouldn’t.”
“It makes me happier. For two years there have been no living words
about it. I could never find any one who understood at all since it
happened, and Miss Millicent would not speak.” She hesitated, and sent
him the faintest smile. “For the last two days the house has been
amused.”
“How?” he demanded. Beech Lodge seemed to be stirring about him, and
with slow palpitations of a monstrous life, throbbing in one vast pulse
on which Perkins kept a cool, knowledgeable finger. It moved and
breathed.
“It was at the men who came to take the inventory. They were such
children; though one of them, and he was quite old, guessed at something
in a general way. The other could never hear or see anything.”
He nodded and, turning, caught a yellow flicker that touched the
portrait into a strange similitude of life. Millicent’s eyes were
speaking now, strange things to which he had no key. But only for a
little while. The key was not far away. There came over Derrick the
profound conviction that this was all arranged. It belonged to the cycle
of appointed things. The stage was all set. If he could but keep his
ears tuned to the elusive vibrations that permeated this solitary
dwelling, he might decipher its mystery. And Perkins was part of it.
“Is that like Mr. Millicent?”
She nodded, with no surprise that he should know whose portrait it was.
“Yes, and there was something about him very like you, sir. Not in
appearance, but the other thing. He once told me that he began to hear
and understand a little while he was a child. They commenced to talk
before he left his first school. I’m glad, sir, that Miss Derrick does
not understand.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because she told me not to be lonely, as if one could. She thinks I’m a
little mad, and that’s why I’m willing to stay here and not ask high
wages.”
He did not answer, beginning now to perceive why he had been led to this
isolated spot. Millicent stared down at him, and he was persuaded that
from the picture proceeded a thin appeal for help—or was it for
revenge?—Millicent whose life had been so suddenly snuffed
out—Millicent who had been afraid before he died. Afraid of what?
“You’re not afraid too, sir, are you? It’s no use if you are.”
He shook his head, scanning thoughtfully the books, the prints, the dull
paneling, and heavy oaken floor.
“You believe,” he said slowly, “that all this has sucked in year after
year something from mortality, something that is never quite lost, till,
in time, wood and stone and paper become something much more than this,
and radiate back to us, if we can only catch it, the wisdom and courage
and love and evil they have so long absorbed. You believe all this,
Perkins?”
Her eyes opened wide, filling with a strange light. She was no longer an
impassive, middle-aged woman, the servant of the house, but a creature
vibrant with feeling, as one who has unleashed her soul. Her lips moved
inaudibly, as at some mystic shrine.
“Wisdom and courage and love and evil,” she repeated in an awed whisper.
“Yes, yes, that’s it, all of it. Last time it was evil in Beech Lodge.
The evil had been here for months and years, growing stronger and
stronger. It began when Mr. Millicent got back from the East, and it
never stopped. I tried to silence it but failed, and then it silenced
him. The evil was too strong.”
“But it’s over now,” said Derrick steadily.
“No, it’s here yet, in this room,” she pointed to the portrait. “He
knows. He’s been trying to tell me but cannot.”
“From whom does it come?”
“Wait, sir; you’re not ready yet. Nothing is quite ready, but it will be
soon. That’s why you came. The others will come, too.”
He experienced a remarkable sensation of having lost all physical
weight, and seemed to catch a low singing note as of a myriad of tiny
voices, the far murmur of those who approached from the unknown. He
could see Perkins, still motionless, and feel his own body, but this had
no significance. As the wireless operator tunes his set till it
abstracts from the invisible only that which is carried by its own
individual wave-length and remains unaffected by all others, so Derrick
began to pick up a series of vibrations that in a queer and remote
fashion he recognized, but could not as yet interpret. Then he caught
his own tones.
“So this air is full of that which can never die or disappear, and may
save or destroy as it is written. It destroyed Millicent and may be the
undoing of others unless it is brought to naught.”
“How else could it be?” Perkins covered her pale face, bent her head,
and disappeared.
Derrick stared at the portrait, his features transfigured with something
that was not altogether wonder. It was all unreal yet enormously real.
What surprised him most was that he should be admitted so readily to
this “no man’s land” where mystery, like a cloaked figure, moved among
the shadows of tragedy. How much was here? How much of it was his own
fancy? Who was the real Millicent, the man within the man who had been
afraid before he died? How and why did Millicent die? Did evil take on
an embodiment and, emerging like an apparition from the unknown, butcher
him where he sat? Derrick pictured him, shrinking back into his chair
with starting eyes while something moved closer, closer. And then—
A knock sounded at the door.
“If you please, sir, the inventory men would like to come in for a
moment.” The impassive mask had fallen over her face again.
“Eh! I thought they had finished.” He spoke jerkily, aware that the
study had suddenly become void and silent. “All right, they may come.”
A shuffle of footsteps in the hall, and Mr. Jarrad entered
deferentially, hat in hand. He was followed by Dawkins. The younger man
looked amused, and a trifle superior.
“I beg pardon for disturbing you like this, sir, but on looking over our
notes I find that my colleague has omitted to make an entry concerning
this desk.”
“Anything the matter with the desk?” asked Derrick curiously.
“No, sir, it’s merely the point of its physical condition, which would
naturally affect any possible question of dilapidations. When I examined
it I noticed a large stain on the leather, quite faint and dull. It’s
the sort of thing one generally finds on desks of this character,
especially when there happen to be young people in the family. I did not
detect it till for some reason I made a second inspection. Now it seems
that either I did not mention this for record or, if I did, my colleague
failed to make the entry. So with your permission I’ll show it to him.”
Derrick felt no surprise. “Certainly,” he said mechanically. “Do you
need more light?”
Mr. Jarrad shook his head, advanced to the desk, reverentially moved a
sheaf of manuscript, put on his glasses, and bent low over the glossy
surface. Dawkins stood at his elbow looking openly incredulous.
“I can’t see anything, just the same,” said the latter, “and a stain is
a stain.”
Mr. Jarrad shifted the lamp and peered hard. “Curious,” he murmured to
himself. “How very curious! I could have sworn that—ah—there, my
friend,” he nodded with satisfaction, “you can see it now. It seems a
little more difficult to place than the last time, but there it is, and
quite large.” He ran a thin finger over an irregular outline. “In a
certain light it might be almost invisible. Very faint, I admit, but
surely your young eyes are as sharp as my glasses?”
Dawkins scrutinized, nodded, mumbled an apology, and made an entry in
the large book. Mr. Jarrad turned to Derrick.
“That’s what I referred to, sir, and it’s not my habit to overlook small
things. The foundation of a sound inventory business is system plus what
might be called perception.”
“Perception?”
“Yes, sir. It involves a certain amount of sensitiveness, strange as
that may sound, and the ability to perceive and record what is usually,
in fact one might almost say always, missed by the casual observer. It’s
not altogether a matter of training, either, but of instinct. Possibly
there’s not one man in a hundred who would have spotted that; and if I
were fanciful, sir, I would hazard the opinion that the desk was trying
to hide it, which is of course absurd. In fact, though I see that you
yourself have been sitting here, I am sure you did not observe it. Thank
you, sir, and good night! We’ll be of no further trouble now.”
This oration being delivered in his very best manner, and the dignity of
his profession thus established, Mr. Jarrad retired. When the steps died
out, Derrick looked for himself. Close under the lamp he discerned a
shadowy blotch of irregular shape, a rough pool with a tone a shade
darker than the leather. It had apparently been subjected to hard
rubbing. It was a discoloration of no particular hue, but as he gazed he
knew without doubt that it had been made two years previously by the
life-blood of Henry Millicent.