conservatories. Patty was so entertained, that she had entirely
forgotten the passage of time, until she came face to face with a clock
in the gable of the carriage house; then she suddenly realized that St.
Ursula's luncheon had been served three quarters of an hour before--and
that she was in a starving condition.
"Oh, goodness gracious! I forgot all about luncheon!"
"Is it a very grave crime to forget about luncheon?"
"Well," said Patty, with a sigh, "I sort of miss it."
"I might furnish you with enough to sustain life for a short time," he
suggested.
"Oh, could you?" she asked relievedly.
She was accustomed to having a table spread three times a day, and she
cared little who furnished it.
"Just some milk," she said modestly, "and some bread and butter
and--er--cookies. Then, you see, I won't have to go back till four
o'clock when they come from the station, and maybe I can slip in without
being missed."
"You just wait in the pavilion, and I'll see what the gardener's cottage
can supply us."
He was back in fifteen minutes, chuckling as he lugged a big hamper.
"We'll have a picnic," he proposed.
"Oh, let's!" said Patty joyously. She did not mind eating with him in
the least, for he had washed his hands, and appeared quite clean.
She helped him unpack the hamper and set the table in the little
pavilion beside the fountain. He had lettuce sandwiches, a pat of
cottage cheese, a jug of milk, orange marmalade, sugar cookies, and
gingerbread hot from the oven.
"What a perfectly bully spread!" she cried.
He held out his hand.
"Another penny!"
Patty peered into an empty pocket.
"You'll have to charge it. I've used up all my ready money."
The spring sun was warm, the fountain was splashing, the wind was
sprinkling the pavilion floor with white magnolia petals. Patty helped
herself to marmalade with a happy sigh of contentment.
"The most fun in the world is to run away from the things you ought to
do," she pronounced.
He acknowledged this immoral truth with a laugh.
"I suppose you ought to be working?" she asked.
"There are one or two little matters that might be the better for my
attention."
"And aren't you glad you're not doing them?"
"Bully glad!"
She held out her hand.
"Give it back."
The cent returned to her pocket, and the meal progressed gaily. Patty
was in an elated frame of mind, and Patty's elation was catching.
Escaping from bounds, trespassing on a private estate, planting onions,
and picnicking in the Italian garden with the head gardener--she had
never had such a dizzying whirl of adventures. The head gardener also
seemed to enjoy the sensation of offering sanctuary to a runaway school
girl. Their appreciation of the lark was mutual.
As Patty, with painstaking honesty, was dividing the last of the
gingerbread into two exact halves, she was startled by the sound of a
footstep on the gravel path behind; and there walked into their party a
groom--a crimson-faced, gaping young man who stood mechanically bobbing
his head. Patty stared back a touch apprehensively. She hoped that she
hadn't got her friend into trouble. It was very possibly against the
rules for gardeners to entertain runaway school girls in the Italian
garden. The groom continued to stare and to duck his head, and her
companion rose and faced him.
"Well?" he inquired with a note of sharpness. "What do you want?"
"Beg pardon, sir, but this telegram come, and Richard says it might be
important, sir, and he says for me to find you, sir."
He received the telegram, ran his eyes over it, scribbled an answer on
the back with a gold pencil which he extracted from his pocket, and
dismissed the man with a curt nod. The envelope had fluttered to the
table and lay there face up. Patty inadvertently glanced at the address,
and as the truth flashed across her, she hid her head against the back
of the stone seat in a gale of laughter. Her companion looked
momentarily sheepish, then he too laughed.
"You have enjoyed the privilege of telling me exactly how rude you think
I am. Not even the reporters always allow themselves that pleasure."
"Oh, but that was before I knew you! I think now that you have perfectly
beautiful manners."
He bowed his thanks.
"I shall endeavor to have better in the future. It will be my pleasure
to put my greenhouses at the disposal of the young ladies of St.
Ursula's some afternoon soon."
"Really?" she smiled. "That's awfully nice of you!"
They repacked the hamper and divided the crumbs among the goldfish in
the fountain.
"And now," he inquired, "which will you visit first--the picture gallery
or the orchids?"
Patty emerged from the orchid house at four o'clock, her arms filled
with an unprecedented collection for Conny's book. The big yellow
four-in-hand coach was standing outside the stable being washed. She
examined it interestedly.
"Should you like to have me drive you home on that?"
"Oh, I'd love it!" Patty dimpled. "But I'm afraid it wouldn't be wise,"
she added on second thought. "No, I am sure it wouldn't be wise," she
firmly turned her back. Her eyes fell on the road, and an apprehensive
light sprang to her face.
"There's the hearse!"
"The hearse?"
"Yes, the school wagonette. I think I'd better be going."
He accompanied her back, through the vegetable garden and the enchanted
wood, and held her flowers while she crawled under the fence, tearing a
hole in the other shoulder of her blouse.
They shook hands through the barbed wire.
"I've enjoyed both the onions and the orchids," said Patty politely,
"and particularly the gingerbread. And if I ever have any convict
friends in need of employment, I may send them to you?"
"Do so," he urged. "I will find them a job here."
She started off, then turned to wave good-by to him.
"I've had a perfectly bully time!"
"A penny!" he called.
Patty laughed and ran.
XI
The Lemon Pie and the Monkey-Wrench
Evalina Smith was a morbid young person who loved to dabble in the
supernatural. Her taste in literature was for Edgar A. Poe. In religion
she inclined toward spiritualism. Her favorite amusement was to gather a
few shuddering friends about her, turn out the gas, and tell ghost
stories. She had an extensive repertoire of ghoulish incidents, that
were not fiction but the actual experience of people she knew. She had
even had one or two spiritual adventures herself; and she would set
forth the details with wide eyes and lowered voice, while her auditors
held one another's hands and shivered. The circle in which Evalina
moved had not much sense of humor.
One Saturday evening St. Ursula's School was in an unusually social
mood. Evalina was holding a ghost party in her room in the East Wing;
Nancy Lee had invited her ten dearest friends to a birthday spread in
Center; the European History class was celebrating the completion of the
Thirty-Years War by a molasses-candy pull in the kitchen; and Kid McCoy
was conducting a potato race down the length of the South Corridor--the
entrance fee a postage stamp, the prize sealed up in a large bandbox and
warranted to be worth a quarter.
Patty, who was popular, had been invited to all four of the functions.
She had declined Nancy's spread, because Mae Van Arsdale, her particular
enemy, was invited; but had accepted the other invitations, and was
busily spending the evening as an itinerant guest.
She carried her potato, insecurely balanced on a teaspoon, over one
table and under another, through a hoop suspended from the ceiling, and
deposited it in the wastebasket at the end of the corridor, in exactly
two minutes and forty-seven seconds. (Kid McCoy had a stop-watch.) This
was far ahead of anyone else's record, and Patty lingered hopefully a
few minutes in the neighborhood of the bandbox; but a fresh inrush of
entries postponed the bestowal of the prize, so she left the judges to
settle the question at their leisure, and drifted on to Evalina's room.
She found it dark, except for the fitful blue flare of alcohol and salt
burning in a fudge pan. The guests were squatting about on sofa
cushions, looking decidedly spotty in the unbecoming light. Patty
silently dropped down on a vacant cushion, and lent polite attention to
Evalina, who at the moment held the floor.
"Well, you know, I had a very remarkable experience myself last summer.
Happening to visit a spiritualist camp, I attended a materializing
séance."
"What's that?" asked Rosalie Patton.
"A séance in which spirits appear to mediums in the material form they
occupied during life," Evalina condescendingly explained. Rosalie was
merely an invited guest. She did not belong to the inner cult.
"Oh!" said Rosalie, vaguely enlightened.
"I didn't really expect anything to happen," Evalina continued, "and I
was just thinking how foolish I was to have wasted that dollar, when the
medium shut her eyes and commenced to tremble. She said she saw the
spirit of a beautiful young girl who had passed over five years before.
The girl was dressed in white and her clothes were dripping wet, and she
carried in her hand a monkey-wrench."
"A monkey-wrench!" cried Patty. "What on earth--"
"I don't know any more than you do," said Evalina impatiently. "I'm just
telling what happened. The Medium couldn't get her full name, but she
said her first name commenced with 'S.' And instantly, it came over me
that it was my Cousin Susan who fell into a well and was drowned. I
hadn't thought of her for years, but the description answered perfectly.
And I asked the medium, and after a little, she said yes, it was Susan,
and that she had come to send me a warning."
Evalina allowed an impressive pause to follow, while her auditors leaned
forward in strained attention.
"A warning!" breathed Florence Hissop.
"Yes. She told me never to eat lemon pie."
Patty choked with sudden laughter. Evalina cast her a look and went on.
"The medium shivered again and came out of the trance, and she couldn't
remember a thing she had said! When I told her about the monkey-wrench
and the lemon pie, she was just as much puzzled as I was. She said that
the messages that came from the spirit world were often inexplicable;
though they might seem to deal with trivial things, yet in reality they
contained a deep and hidden truth. Probably some day I would have an
enemy who would try to poison me with lemon pie, and I must never, on
_any_ account, taste it again."
"And haven't you?" Patty asked.
"Never," said Evalina sadly.
Patty composed her features into an expression of scientific inquiry.
"Do you think the medium told the truth?"
"I've never had any cause to doubt it."
"Then you really believe in ghosts?"
"In spirits?" Evalina amended gently. "Many strange things happen that
cannot be explained in any other manner."
"What would you do if her spirit should appear to you? Would you be
scared?"
"Certainly not!" said Evalina, with dignity. "I was very fond of Cousin
Susan. I have no cause to fear her spirit."
The smell of boiling molasses penetrated from below; Patty excused
herself and turned toward the kitchen. The spiritual heights on which
Evalina dwelt, she found a trifle too rare for ordinary breathing.
The candy was on the point of being poured into pans.
"Here, Patty!" Priscilla ordered, "you haven't done any work. Run down
to the storeroom and get some butter to keep our hands from sticking."
Patty obligingly accompanied the cook to the cellar, with not a thought
in the world beyond butter. On a shelf in the storeroom stood
to-morrow's dessert--a row of fifteen lemon pies, with neatly decorated
tops of white meringue. As Patty looked at them, she was suddenly
assailed by a wicked temptation; she struggled with it for a moment of
sanity, but in the end she fell. While Nora's head was bent over the
butter tub, Patty opened the window and deftly plumped a pie through the
iron grating onto the ledge without. By the time Nora raised her head,
the window was shut again, and Patty was innocently translating the
label on a bottle of olive oil.
As they pulled their candy in a secluded corner of the kitchen, Patty
hilariously confided her plan to Conny and Priscilla. Conny was always
game for whatever mischief was afoot, but Priscilla sometimes needed
urging. She was--most inconveniently--beginning to develop a moral
nature, and the other two, who as yet were comfortably un-moral,
occasionally found her difficult to coerce.
Priscilla finally lent a grudging consent, while Conny enthusiastically
volunteered to acquire a monkey-wrench. Being captain of sports, she
could manage the matter better than Patty. On a flying visit to the
stables, ostensibly to consult with Martin as to a re-marking of the
tennis courts, she singled out from his tool bench the monkey-wrench of
her choice, casually covered it with her sweater, and safely bore it
away. She and Patty conveyed their booty by devious secret ways to
Paradise Alley. A great many alarms were given on the passage, a great
deal of muffled giggling ensued, but finally the monkey-wrench and the
pie--slightly damaged as to its meringue top, but still distinctly
recognizable as lemon--were safely cached under Patty's bed to await
their part in the night's adventure.
"Lights-out" as usual, rang at nine-thirty, but it rang to deaf ears. A
spirit of restless festivity was abroad. The little girls in the "Baby
Ward" larked about the halls in a pillow fight, until they were sternly
ordered to bed by the Dowager herself. It was close to ten o'clock when
the candy-pullers washed their sticky hands and turned upstairs.
Patty found a delegation of potato racers waiting with the news that she
had won the prize. An interested crowd gathered to watch her open the
box; it contained a tin funeral wreath that had been displayed that
winter in the window of the village undertaker--Kid had bought it cheap,
owing to fly specks that would not rub off. The wreath was hoisted on
the end of a shinny stick and marched through the corridor to the tune
of "John Brown's Body," while Mademoiselle ineffectually wrung her hands
and begged for quiet.
"_Mes chères enfantes_--it is ten o'clock. _Soyez tranquilles._
Patty--_Mon Dieu_--How you are bad! Margarite McCoy, you do not listen
to me? _Nous verrons!_ Go to your room, dis in-stant! You do not belong
in my hall. Children! I implore. Go to bed--all--_tout de suite_!"
The procession cheered and marched on, until Miss Lord descended from
the East and commanded silence. Miss Lord when incensed was effectual.
The peace of conquest settled for a time over Paradise Alley, and she
returned to her own camp. But a fresh hub-bub broke out, when it was
discovered that someone had sprinkled granulated sugar, in liberal
quantities, through every bed in the Alley. Patty and Conny would have
been suspected, had their own sheets not yielded a plentiful harvest. It
was another half hour before the beds were remade, and the school
finally composed to sleep.
When the teacher on duty had made her last rounds, and everything was
quiet, Patty turned back the covers of her bed and cautiously stepped to
the floor. She was still fully clothed, except that she had changed her
shoes for softer soled bedroom slippers, better fitted for nocturnal
adventures. Priscilla and Conny joined her. Fortunately a full moon
shone high in the sky, and they needed no artificial light. Aided by her
two assistants, Patty draped the sheets of her bed about her into two
voluminous wings, and fastened them securely with safety pins. A pillow
slip was pulled over her head and the corners tied into ears. They
hesitated a moment with scissors suspended.
"Hurry up and cut a nose," Patty whispered. "I'm smothering!"
"It seems sort of too bad to spoil a perfectly good pillow slip," said
Priscilla, with a slight access of conscience.
"I'll drop some money in the missionary box," Patty promised.
The nose and eyes were cut; a grinning mouth and devilishly curved
eyebrows were added with burnt cork. The pillow slip was tied firmly
about her neck to allow no chance of slipping, the ears waved
lopsidedly; she was the most amazing specter that ever left a
respectable grave.
These preparations had occupied some time. It was already ten minutes of
twelve.
"I'll wait till the stroke of midnight," said Patty. "Then I'll flutter
into Evalina's room, and wave my wings, and whisper, 'Come!' The
monkey-wrench and the pie, I'll leave on the foot of her bed, so she'll
know she wasn't dreaming."
"What if she screams?" asked Priscilla.
"She won't scream. She loves ghosts--especially Cousin Susan. She said
to-night she'd be glad to meet her."
"But what if she does scream?" persisted Priscilla.
"Oh, that's easy! I'll dash back and pop into bed. Before anybody wakes,
I'll be sound asleep."
They made a reconnoitering excursion into the empty corridors to make
sure that all was quiet. Only regular breathing issued from open doors.
Evalina fortunately lived in a single, but unfortunately, it was at the
extreme end of the East Wing in the opposite corner of the building from
Patty's own domicile. Conny and Priscilla, in bedroom slippers and
kimonos, tiptoed after Patty as she took her flight down the length of
the Alley. She sailed back and forth and waved her wings in the
moonlight that streamed through the skylight in the central hall. The
two spectators clung together and shivered delightedly. In spite of
having been behind the scenes and assisted at the make-up, they received
a distinct sensation--what it would be to one suddenly wakened from
sleep, to a believer in ghosts, they were a bit apprehensive to
consider. At the entrance to the East Wing, they handed Patty her pie
and monkey-wrench, and retreated to their own neighborhood. In case of
an uproar, they did not wish to be discovered too far from home.
Patty flitted on down the corridor, past yawning doors, into Evalina's
room, where she took up a central position in a patch of moonlight. A
few sepulchral "Comes!" brought no response. Evalina was a sound
sleeper.
Patty shook the foot of the bed. The sleeper stirred slightly but slept
on. This was annoying. The ghost had no mind to make noise enough to
disturb the neighbors. She laid the pie and the monkey-wrench on the
counterpane, and shook the bed again, with the insistence of an
earthquake. As she was endeavoring to resume her properties, Evalina
sat up and clutched the bed clothes about her neck with a frenzied jerk.
Patty just had time to save the pie--the monkey-wrench went to the floor
with a crash; and the crash, to Patty's startled senses, was echoed and
intensified from far down the hall. She had no chance to wave her wings
or murmur, "Come." Evalina did not wait for her cue. She opened her
mouth as wide as it would open, and emitted shriek after shriek of such
ear-splitting intensity, that Patty, for a moment, was too aghast to
move. Then, still hugging the pie in her arms, she turned and ran.
[Illustration: Evalina sat up and clutched the bedclothes about her
neck]
To her consternation the cries were answered ahead. The whole house
seemed to be awake and shrieking. She could hear doors banging and
frightened voices demanding the cause of the tumult. She was making a
quick dash for her own room, trusting to the confusion and darkness to
make good her escape, when Miss Lord, gaily attired in a flowered
bath-robe, appeared at the end of the corridor. Patty was headed
straight for her arms. With a gasp of terror, she turned back toward
the shrieking Evalina.
She realized by now that she was in a trap.
A narrow passage led from the East Wing to the servants' quarters. She
dived into this. If she could reach the back stairs it would mean
safety. She pushed the door open a crack, and to her horror, was
confronted by a worse uproar. The servants' quarters were in a state of
panic. She saw Maggie dashing past, wrapped in a pink striped blanket,
while above the general confusion rose Norah's rich brogue:
"Help! Murther! I seen a bur-r-gu-lar!"
She shut the door and shrank back into the passage. Behind her Evalina
was still hysterically wailing:
"I saw a ghost! I saw a ghost!"
Before her the cry of "Burglars!" was growing louder.
Utterly bewildered at this double demonstration, Patty flattened herself
against the wall in the friendly darkness of the passage, while she
soulfully thanked Heaven that the proposed electric lights had not yet
been installed. A dozen voices were calling for matches, but no one
seemed to find any. She pantingly tugged at the pillowcase fastened
about her neck; but Conny had tied it firmly with a white hair ribbon,
and the knot was behind. In any case, even if she could remove her
masquerade, she was lost if they found her; for she was still wearing
the white dress of the evening, and not even Patty's imagination could
compass an excuse for that at twelve o'clock at night.
The search was growing nearer; she caught the glimmer of a light ahead.
At any moment they might open the door of the passage. The linen closet
was the only refuge at hand--and that was very temporary. She felt for
the door handle and slipped inside. If she could find a pile of sheets,
she might dive to the bottom and hope to escape notice, being mostly
sheet herself. But it was Saturday, and all the linen had gone down. A
long, slippery, inclined chute connected the room with the laundry in
the basement two floors below. Steps were already audible in the
passage. She heard Miss Lord's voice say:
"Bring a light! We'll search the linen closet."
Patty did not hesitate. In imagination she could already feel the
pressure of Miss Lord's grasp upon her shoulder. A broken neck was
preferable.
Still hugging the lemon pie--in all her excitement she had clasped it
firmly--she climbed into the chute, stretched her feet out straight in
front, and pushed off. For two breathless seconds she dashed through
space, then her feet hit the trap door at the bottom, and she shot into
the laundry.
One instant earlier, the door from the kitchen stairs had cautiously
opened, and a man had darted into the laundry. He had just had time to
cast a glance of boundless relief about the empty, moonlit room, when
Patty and the pie catapulted against him. They went down together in a
whirl of waving wings. Patty being on top picked herself up first. She
still clutched her pie--at least what was left of it; the white meringue
was spread over the man's hair and face; but the lemon part was still
intact. The man sat up dazedly, rubbed the meringue from his eyes, cast
one look at his assailant, and staggered to his feet. He flattened
himself against the wall with arms thrown wide for support.
"Holy gee!" he choked. "What in hell uv I got into?"
Patty excused his language, as he did not appear to know that he was
addressing a lady. He seemed to be laboring under the impression that
she was the devil.
Her pillow slip by now was very much askew; one ear pointed northward,
the other southeast, and she could only see out of one eye. It was very
hot inside and she was gasping for breath. For a palpitating moment they
merely stared and panted. Then Patty's mind began to work.
"I suppose," she suggested, "you are the burglar they are screaming
about?"
The man leaned back limply and stared, his wide, frightened eyes
shining through a fringe of meringue.
"I," said Patty, completing the introduction, "am the ghost."
He muttered something under his breath. She could not make out whether
he was praying or swearing.
"Don't be afraid," she added kindly. "I won't hurt you."
"Is it a bloomin' insane asylum?"
"Just a girl's school."
"Gosh!" he observed.
"Hush!" said Patty. "They're coming this way now!"
The sound of running feet became audible in the kitchen above, while
bass voices were added to the shrill soprano that had sounded the former
tocsin. The men had arrived from the stables. The burglar and the ghost
regarded each other for a moment of suspended breathing; their mutual
danger drew them together. Patty hesitated an instant, while she studied
his face as it showed through the interstices of the meringue. He had
honest blue eyes and yellow curls. She suddenly stretched out a hand
and grasped him by an elbow.
"Quick! They'll be here in a minute. I know a place to hide. Come with
me."
She pushed him unresisting down a passage and into a storeroom, boarded
off from the main cellar, where the scenery of the dramatic society was
kept.
"Get down on your hands and knees and follow me," she ordered, as she
stooped low and dived behind a pile of canvas.