MISS MYSTERY ARRIVES
Anyone who has arrived at the railroad station of a New England village,
after dark on a very cold winter night, the train late, no one to meet
him, and no place engaged for board and lodging, will know the desolation
of such a situation.
New England’s small railroad stations are much alike, the crowds that
alight from the trains are much alike, the people waiting on the platform
for the arriving travelers are much alike, but there came into Corinth
one night a passenger who was not at all like the fellow passengers on
that belated train. It was a train from New York, due in Corinth at
five-forty, but owing to the extreme cold weather, and various untoward
freezings occasioned thereby, the delays were many and long and the train
drew into the station shortly after seven o’clock.
Tired, hungry and impatient, the travelers crowded out of the train and
stamped through the snow to the vehicles awaiting them, or footed it to
their nearby homes.
The passenger who was unlike the others stepped down from the car
platform, and holding her small suitcase firmly, crossed the track and
entered the station waiting room. She went to the ticket window but found
there no attendant. Impatiently she tapped her little foot on the old
board floor but no one appeared.
“Agent,” she called out, rapping with her knuckles on the window shelf,
“Agent,—where are you?”
“Who’s there? What d’y’ want?” growled a surly voice, and a head appeared
at the ticket window.
“I want somebody to look after me! I’m alone, and I want a porter, and I
want a conveyance and I want some information.”
“Oh, you do! Well, I can’t supply porters nor yet conveyances; but
information I may be able to give you.”
“Very well then,” and a pair of big, dark eyes seemed to pierce his very
brain. “Then tell me where I can find the best accommodations in
Corinth.”
The now roused agent looked more interestedly at the inquirer.
He saw a mere slip of a girl, young, slender, and very alert of manner.
Her dark, grave little face was oval, and her eyes had a strange uncanny
way of roving quickly about, and coming suddenly back, greatly
disconcerting the stolid ticket agent.
This agent was not unused to girls,—a college town is often invaded by
hordes of smart young women, pretty girls and gay hoydens. Many Junes he
had sold tickets or given information to hundreds of feminine inquirers
but none had ever seemed quite like this one.
“Best accommodations?” he repeated stupidly.
“You heard me, then! About when do you propose to reply?”
Still he gazed at her in silence, running over in his mind the various
boarding houses, and finding none he thought she’d like.
“There’s a rule of the Railroad Company that questions must be answered
the same day they’re asked,” she said, witheringly, and picking up her
suitcase she started for the door, feeling that any one she might find
would know more than this dummy.
“Wait,—oh, I say, miss, wait a minute.”
“I did,” she said coolly, proceeding to the door.
“But,—oh, hold on,—try Old Salt Adams,—you couldn’t do better.”
“Where is it?” she deigned to pause a moment, and he replied quickly:
“He’s right outside,—hurry up out,—you can catch him!”
Here was something she could understand, and she hurried up out, just in
time to see an old man with long white beard jump into his sleigh and
begin to tuck fur robes about him.
“He sprang to his sleigh,—to his team gave a whistle,—” she quoted to
herself, and then cried out, “Hey, there, Santa Claus, give me a lift?”
“You engaged for our house?” the man called back, and as she shook her
head, he gathered up his reins.
“Can’t take any one not engaged,” he called back, “Giddap!”
“Wait,—wait! I command you!” The sharp, clear young voice rang out
through the cold winter air, and Old Saltonstall Adams paused to listen.
“Ho, ho,” he chuckled, “you command me, do you? Now, I haven’t been
commanded for something like fifty years.”
“Oh, don’t stop to fuss,” the girl exclaimed, angrily. “Don’t you see I’m
cold, hungry and very uncomfortable? You have a boarding house,—I want
board,—now, you take me in. Do you hear?”
“Sure I hear, but, miss, we’ve only so many rooms and they’re all
occupied or engaged.”
“Some are engaged, but as yet unoccupied?” The dark eyes challenged him,
and Adams mumbled,—“Well, that’s about it.”
“Very well, I will occupy one until the engager comes along. Let me get
in. No, I can manage my suitcase myself. You get my trunk,—here’s the
check. Or will you send for that tomorrow?”
“Why wait? Might’s well get it now—if so be you’re bound to bide. ’Fraid
to wait in the sleigh alone?”
“I’m afraid of nothing,” was the disdainful answer, and the girl pulled
the fur robes up around her as she sat in the middle of the back seat.
Shortly, old Salt returned with the trunk on his shoulder, and put it in
the front with himself, and they started.
“Don’t try to talk,” he called back to her, as the horses began a rapid
trot. “I can’t hear you against this wind.”
“I’ve no intention of talking,” the girl replied, but the man couldn’t
hear her. The wind blew fiercely. It was snowing a little, and the drifts
sent feathery clouds through the air. The trees, coated with ice from a
recent sleet storm, broke off crackling bits of ice as they passed. The
girl looked about, at first curiously, and then timidly, as if frightened
by what she saw.
It was not a long ride, and they stopped before a large house, showing
comfortably lighted windows and a broad front door that swung open even
as the girl was getting down from the sleigh.
“For the land sake!” exclaimed a brisk feminine voice, “this ain’t Letty!
Who in the earth have you got here?”
“I don’t know,” Old Salt Adams replied, truthfully. “Take her along,
mother, and give her a night’s lodging.”
“But where is Letty? Didn’t she come?”
“Now can’t you see she didn’t come? Do you s’pose I left her at the
station? Or dumped her out along the road? No—since you will have it, she
didn’t come. She _didn’t_ come!”
Old Salt drove on toward the barns, and Mrs. Adams bade the girl go into
the house.
The landlady followed, and as she saw the strange guest she gazed at her
in frank curiosity.
“You want a room, I s’pose,” she began. “But, I’m sorry to say we haven’t
one vacant—”
“Oh, I’ll take Letty’s. She didn’t come, you see, so I can take her room
for tonight.”
“Letty wouldn’t like that.”
“But I would. And I’m here and Letty isn’t. Shall we go right up?”
Picking up her small suitcase, the girl started and then stepped back for
the woman to lead the way.
“Not quite so fast—_if_ you please. What is your name?”
As the landlady’s tone changed to a sterner inflection, the girl likewise
grew dignified.
“My name is Anita Austin,” she said, coldly. “I came here because I was
told it was the best house in Corinth.”
“Where are you from?”
“New York City.”
“What address?”
“Plaza Hotel.”
By this time the strange dark eyes had done their work. A steady glance
from Anita Austin seemed to compel all the world to do her bidding. At
any rate, Mrs. Adams took the suitcase, and without a further word
conducted the stranger upstairs.
She took her into an attractive bedroom, presumably made ready for the
absent Letty.
“This will do,” Miss Austin said, calmly. “Will you send me up a tray of
supper? I don’t want much, and I prefer not to come down to dinner.”
“Land sake, dinner’s over long ago. You want some tea, ’n’ bread, ’n’
butter, ’n’ preserves, ’n’ cake?”
“Yes, thank you, that sounds good. Send it in half an hour.”
To her guest Mrs. Adams showed merely a face of acquiescence, but once
outside the door, and released from the spell of those eerie eyes, she
remarked to herself, “For the land sake!” with great emphasis.
“Well, what do you know about that!” Old Salt Adams cried, when, after
she had started him on his supper, his wife related the episode.
“I can’t make her out,” Mrs. Adams said, thoughtfully. “But I don’t like
her. And I won’t keep her. Tomorrow, you take her over to Belton’s.”
“Just as you say. But I thought her kinda interesting looking. You can’t
say she isn’t that.”
“Maybe so, to some folks. Not to me. And Letty’ll come tomorrow, so that
girl’ll have to get out of the room.”
Meanwhile “that girl” was eagerly peering out of her window.
She tried to discern which were the lights of the college buildings, but
through the still lightly falling snow, she could see but little, and
after a time, she gave up the effort. She drew her head back into the
room just as a tap at the door announced her supper.
“Thank you,” she said to the maid who brought it. “Set it on that stand,
please. It looks very nice.”
And then, sitting comfortably in an easy chair, robed in warm dressing
gown and slippers, Miss Anita Austin devoted a pleasant half hour to the
simple but thoroughly satisfactory meal.
This finished, she wrote some letters. Not many, indeed, but few as they
were, the midnight hour struck before she sealed the last envelope and
wrote the last address.
Then, prepared for bed, she again looked from the window, and gazed long
into the night.
“Corinth,” she whispered, “Oh, Corinth, what do you hold for me? What
fortune or misfortune will you bring me? What fortune or misfortune shall
I bring to others? Oh, Justice, Justice, what crimes are committed in thy
name!”
The next morning Anita appeared in the dining-room at the breakfast hour.
Mrs. Adams scanned her sharply, and looked a little disapprovingly at the
short, scant skirt and slim, silken legs of her new boarder.
Anita, her dark eyes scanning her hostess with equal sharpness, seemed to
express an equal disapproval of the country-cut gingham and huge white
apron.
Not at all obtuse, Mrs. Adams sensed this, and her tone was a little more
deferential than she had at first intended to make it.
“Will you sit here, please, Miss Austin?” she indicated a chair next
herself.
“No, thank you, I’ll sit by my friend,” and the girl slipped into a
vacant chair next Saltonstall Adams.
Old Salt gave a furtive glance at his wife, and suppressed a chuckle at
her surprise.
“This is Mr. Tyler’s place,” he said to the usurper, “but I expect he’ll
let you have it this once.”
“I mean to have it all the time,” and Anita nodded gravely at her host.
“All the time is this one meal only,” crisply put in Mrs. Adams. “I’m
sorry, Miss Austin, but we can’t keep you here. I have no vacant room.”
The entrance of some other people gave Anita a chance to speak in an
undertone to Mr. Adams, and she said;
“You’ll let me stay till Letty comes, won’t you? I suppose you are boss
in your own house.”
As a matter of fact almost any phrase would have described the man better
than “boss in his own house,” but the idea tickled his sense of irony,
and he chuckled as he replied, “You bet I am! Here you stay—as long as
you want to.”
“You’re my friend, then?” and an appealing glance was shot at him from
beneath long, curling lashes, that proved the complete undoing of
Saltonstall Adams.
“To the death!” he whispered, in mock dramatic manner.
Anita gave a shiver. “What a way to put it!” she cried. “I mean to live
forever, sir!”
“Doubtless,” Old Salt returned, placidly. “You’re a freak—aren’t you?”
“That isn’t a very pretty way of expressing it, but I suppose I am,” and
a mutinous look passed over the strange little face.
In repose, the face was oval, serene, and regular of feature. But when
the girl smiled or spoke or frowned, changes took place, and the mobile
countenance grew soft with laughter or hard with scorn.
And scorn was plainly visible when, a moment later, Adams introduced
Robert Tyler, a fellow boarder, to Miss Austin.
She gave him first a conventional glance, then, as he dropped into the
chair next hers, and said,
“Only too glad to give up my place to a peach,” she turned on him a
flashing glance, that, as he expressed it afterward, “wiped him off the
face of the earth.”
Nor could he reinstate himself in her good graces. He tried a penitent
attitude, bravado, jocularity and indifference, but one and all failed to
engage her interest or even attention. She answered his remarks with
calm, curt speeches that left him baffled and uncertain whether he wanted
to bow down and worship her, or wring her neck.
Old Salt Adams took this all in, his amusement giving way to curiosity
and then to wonder. Who was this person, who looked like a young, very
young girl, yet who had all the mental powers of an experienced woman?
What was she and what her calling?
The other boarders appeared, those nearest Anita were introduced, and
most of them considered her merely a pretty, new guest. Her manners were
irreproachable, her demeanor quiet and graceful, yet as Adams covertly
watched her, he felt as if he were watching an inactive volcano.
The meal over, he detained her a moment in the dining-room.
“Why are you here, Miss Austin?” he said, courteously; “what is your
errand in Corinth?”
“I am an artist,” she said, looking at him with her mysterious intent
gaze. “Or, perhaps I should say an art student. I’ve been told that there
are beautiful bits of winter scenery available for subjects here, and I
want to sketch. Please, Mr. Adams, let me stay here until Letty comes.”
A sudden twinkle in her eye startled the old man, and he said quickly,
“How do you know she isn’t coming?”
That, in turn, surprised Anita, but she only smiled, and replied, “I saw
a telegram handed to Mrs. Adams at breakfast—and then she looked
thoughtfully at me, and—oh, well, I just sort of knew it was to say Letty
couldn’t come.”
“You witch! You uncanny thing! If I should take you over to Salem, they’d
burn you!”
“I’ll ride over on a broomstick some day, and see if they will,” she
returned, gleefully.
And then along came Nemesis, in the person of the landlady.
“I’m sorry, Miss Austin,” she began, but the girl interrupted her.
“Please, Mrs. Adams,” she said, pleadingly, “don’t say any thing to make
me sorry, too! Now, you want to say you haven’t any room for me—but that
isn’t true; so you don’t know what to say to get rid of me. But—why do
you want to get rid of me?”
Esther Adams looked at the girl and that look was her undoing.
Such a pathetic face, such pleading eyes, such a wistful curved mouth,
the landlady couldn’t resist, and against her will, against her better
judgment, she said, “Well, then, stay, you poor little thing. But you
must tell me more about yourself. I don’t know who you are.”
“I don’t know, myself,” the strange girl returned. “Do we, any of us know
who we are? We go through this world, strangers to each other—don’t we?
And also, strangers to ourselves.” Her eyes took on a faraway, mystical
look. “If I find out who I am, I’ll let you know.”
Then a dazzling smile broke over her face, they heard a musical ripple of
laughter, and she was gone.
They heard her steps, as she ran upstairs to her room, and the two
Adamses looked at each other.
“Daffy,” said Mrs. Adams. “A little touched, poor child. I believe she
has run away from home or from her keepers. We’ll hear the truth soon.
They’ll be looking for her.”
“Perhaps,” said her husband, doubtfully. “But that isn’t the way I size
her up. She’s nobody’s fool, that girl. Wish you’d seen her give Bob
Tyler his comeuppance!”
“What’d she say?”
“’Twasn’t what she said, so much as the look she gave him! He almost went
through the floor. Well, she says she’s a painter of scenery and
landscapes. Let her stay a few days, till I size her up.”
“You size her up!” returned his wife, with good-natured contempt. “If she
smiles on you or gives you a bit of taffy-talk, you’ll size her up for an
angel! I’m not so sure she isn’t quite the opposite!”
Meanwhile the subject of their discussion was arraying herself for a
walk. Equipped with storm boots and fur coat, she set out to inspect
Corinth. A jaunty fur cap, with one long, red quill feather gave her
still more the appearance of an elf or gnome, and many of the Adams house
boarders watched the little figure as she set forth to brave the icy
streets.
Apparently she had no fixed plan of procedure, for at each corner, she
looked about, and chose her course at random. The snow had ceased during
the night, and it was very cold, with a clear sunshiny frostiness in the
air that made the olive cheeks red and glowing.
Reaching a bridge, she paused and stood looking over the slight railing
into the frozen ravine below.
Long she stood, until passers-by began to stare at her. She was unaware
of this, absorbed in her thoughts and oblivious to all about her.
Pinckney Payne, coming along, saw her, and, as he would have expressed
it, fell for her at once.
“Don’t do it, sister!” he said, pausing beside her. “Don’t end your young
life on this glorious day! Suicide is a mess, at best. Take my advice and
cut it out!”
She turned, ready to freeze him with a glance more icy even than the
landscape, but his frank, roguish smile disarmed her.
“Freshman?” she said, patronizingly, but it didn’t abash him.
“Yep. Pinckney Payne, if you must know. Commonly called Pinky.”
“I don’t wonder,” and she noticed his red cheeks. “Well, now that you’re
properly introduced, tell me some of the buildings. What’s that one?”
“Dormitories. And that,” pointing, “is the church.”
“Really! And that beautiful colonnade one?”
“That’s Doctor Waring’s home. Him as is going to be next Prexy.”
“And that? And that?”
He replied to all her questions, and kept his eyes fastened on her
bewitching face. Never had Pinky seen a girl just like this. She looked
so young, so merry, and yet her restless, roving eyes seemed full of
hidden fire and tempestuous excitement.
“Where you from?” he said, abruptly. “Where you staying?”
“At Mrs. Adams,” she returned, “is it a good house?”
“Best in town. Awful hard to get into. Always full up. Relative of hers?”
“No, just a boarder. I chanced to get a room some one else engaged and
couldn’t use.”
“You’re lucky. Met Bob Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t like him! I see that. Met Gordon Lockwood?”
“No; who’s he?”
“He’s Doctor Waring’s secretary, but he’s mighty worthwhile on his own
account. I say, may I come to see you?”
“Thank you, no. I’m not receiving callers—yet.”
“Well, you will be soon—because I’m coming. I say my aunt lives next door
to Adams’. May I bring her to call on you?”
“Not yet, please. I’m not settled.”
“Soon’s you say the word, then. My aunt is Mrs. Bates, and she’s a love.
She’s going to marry Doctor Waring—so you see we’re the right sort of
people.”
“There are no right sort of people,” said the girl, and, turning, she
walked away.