A MONTH had gone by. August was already drifting into September. School
loomed ahead but we hardly gave it a thought. Each day as it came along
was too absorbing, for Eve and I agreed that the business of making an
old house come to life again was about the most thrilling experience in
the world.
Yes, Aunt Cal had really moved into Craven House. After much
deliberation and lengthy conferences with her lawyer, she had at last
yielded to the combined persuasion of Miss Blossom, Mrs. Viner, Eve and
myself and decided to give up the little cottage in Fishers Haven and
make the old place she had loved as a child her permanent home. So the
first of August had seen us established. Painters, plumbers and paper
hangers had overrun the place. Miss Blossom had closed her own house in
the village for the time being in order to help get things going. And
from the day when she and Aunt Cal had gone to work with broom and
scrub brush, all the latter’s doubts and misgivings seemed magically to
disappear. It was as if, with the vanquishing of dust and cobwebs,
something equally oppressive had vanished from Aunt Cal’s mind. Her
figure seemed actually to grow more erect and her eyes to grow brighter.
Today we were waiting for Michael to come. He’d formed the habit of
stopping on his way down from the farm. Sometimes it was his advice
Aunt Cal wanted about grading the lawn or the laying out of paths or
flowerbeds. Sometimes he was needed to bolster up the flagging energies
of our man of all work. For Gopher, though freed of the charge hanging
over him through the intervention of Mr. Templeton and Captain Trout,
did not take kindly to the job with which Aunt Cal had provided him.
“Tillin’ the soil” he stated was out of his line as, I strongly
suspected, was labor of any sort. But with Aunt Cal’s sharp eyes never
long withdrawn and the knowledge that but for her he would now be
sojourning in a far less pleasant place, he kept grimly at it. I used
to feel sorry for him sometimes as I saw him stop to wipe his seamed,
weatherbeaten face and gaze sadly down the road. And some fine morning,
I felt sure, when the wind blew from the sea, Aunt Cal would come out
to give directions for the day’s work and he just wouldn’t be there.
“Well, here’s your letter at last!” Eve came up the newly graveled
path. She’d been to town with Miss Rose to do some errands and get the
mail. My heart gave the little leap that it always does at the sight of
the thin paper envelope, bearing the Chinese stamp. Aunt Cal came out
to listen as I read it aloud:
“My dear daughter:
Your account of your adventures at Craven House gave us quite as
much of a thrill as they must have given you. I am immensely
pleased that Calliope has decided to move into the old place. I
remember it well. Your mother and I stopped there with you when you
were three years old, and your curious recollection of the cupboard
by the fireplace undoubtedly dates from that visit.
Your mother had come down for a last visit with your grandmother
Poole before we sailed for the East. It was just after your Aunt
Cal had married and gone West to live. We stopped for a call on
Captain Judd Craven, a fine old man of the best seafaring
traditions. We were grieved to get the news of his death the
following year.
I recall the big front parlor and the jar of some sort of incense
on the cabinet. Very likely you got a good whiff of it, one that
your sensitive nerves of smell have never forgotten. The
associative power of odors is well known, and so the cupboard and
particularly the china duck which you say it contained became
associated in your mind with the strange new smell. Thus when you
smelled it again, even after the lapse of thirteen years, the
particular brain cells into which the memory had been packed away
released the recollection. I have heard of many similar instances,
but few which have led to so dramatic a development as in your
case.”
“Well, well, that does beat all!” exclaimed Aunt Cal. “And to think of
your being only three at the time!”
“I think it’s perfectly weird!” said Eve.
“Not weird at all,” I said. “Just perfectly normal and scientific as
Dad explains. And I must say I’m glad to have it established that I’m
not subject to trances or—what was it—cataleptic fits as Hamish so
darkly hinted!”
“There’s Michael, and in a clean shirt too, if my eyes do not deceive
me! Let’s go tell him about it, he’ll be frightfully interested.”
Hurriedly skimming through the rest of my letter—leaving the real
reading of it till bedtime—I followed Eve across the yard. Aunt Cal
went inside again to superintend the cutting of the cake, leaving the
big front door wide open as it stood most of the time nowadays. This
was against all the conventions of Old Beecham, but Aunt Cal was too
busy just now to give much thought to the conventions.
Today we had been working from early dawn, getting ready for our first
social event. It was to be—somewhat to Aunt Cal’s dismay—a garden
party.
We found Michael standing in the middle of the garden, surveying the
arrangements. “Well,” inquired Eve, “is your Majesty pleased?”
He grinned at her. “Say,” he said, “am I going to be the only man at
this party?”
“No, don’t worry. Captain Trout’s coming and perhaps Mr. Templeton and
Hattie May wrote that she and Hamish would drive down if she could
possibly manage it. But listen to the explanation Sandy’s just had of
her vision the day we discovered the cupboard!”
“I object to having it called a vision!” I said. “It was just a
memory—coming out.”
When I had finished reading him what Father had written, Michael said,
“That’s mighty interesting! And what a piece of luck that you happened
to make that visit here when you were a kid.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered really,” I said. “Aunt Cal has
never told us just what Carter Craven said in that note he sent her but
I think he must have told her where the will was, at least he gave her
a clue.”
“Yes,” put in Eve, “but how do we know that Gopher would ever have
given her the note at all if we hadn’t cornered him like a rat in a
hole. Just like it to slip his mind—he’s got about the slipperiest
mind I ever had the pleasure to deal with.”
“He hasn’t done so badly with this garden though,” Michael observed.
“Would you ever have believed it could look so lovely!” Eve asked.
“Yes. You can do most anything with land if you put enough time and
patience into it, providing of course the soil’s fairly good. Next
year, I hope it will look even better.”
“In the spring!” Eve said, her eyes shining a little. “Oh, I do hope I
shall see it in the spring when the daffodils and tulips first come up!”
“And I’ll probably be grubbing for exams about that time!” Michael
said. “But maybe I can get away for a week-end. I’d like to see how
those bulbs come up.”
“And us and Circe?” Eve asked teasingly. “Shan’t you want to see us?”
“I hope the frost next winter doesn’t crack that new arm I made for
her,” he answered, ignoring the question and looking across to where,
above the clean bowl of the fountain, the restored statue stood, veiled
today in white cheesecloth.
Miss Rose drove up just then with Mrs. Viner and we hurried out to
greet our first guest. “My, how pretty everything looks!” she murmured
as we escorted her to a seat. “Seems ’sif that golden glow there by the
wall sort of lights up the whole place! And how that larkspur by the
fountain has come on! What pride Emily Craven used to take in her
larkspur.”
“Next year,” remarked Aunt Cal, coming up, “I shall have asters and
mignonette in that bed too.”
“There comes a car up the hill,” I cried. “Maybe it’s Hattie May and
Hamish!”
“No,” Michael shook his head. “It’s Captain Trout in Fishers Haven’s
one and only taxicab.”
Just behind came a string of other cars, bearing the members of the
Ladies Civic Betterment Society.
Miss Rose in a large flowered muslin, which made her look for all the
world like a mammoth piece of upholstery, moved among the guests,
banishing all vestige of stiffness with her good natured small talk and
banter.
“Bless my boots, what a transformation!” exclaimed Captain Trout. “How
delighted the old Cap’n would be if he could see it!” he added, turning
to Aunt Cal.
“Yes,” she agreed simply, “I think he would approve of what we have
done.”
“How is Daisy June getting along?” I asked. “Do you think she misses us
any?”
“Well, now I can’t say that I’ve noticed her a-pinin’,” he chuckled.
“She’s still able to take a running jump at my back when I ain’t
looking.”
“Adam loves it here,” I said. “You ought to see him walk down the hall,
waving his tail, as if he were the lost heir restored to his patrimony.”
“Yeah, that’s like him—Caliph always did put on airs!” The Captain
chuckled at his own wit.
Gopher dressed in his borrowed white trousers appeared awkwardly
carrying a tray. “Hi, Biscuits, what you got here?” Captain Trout
demanded.
The sailor set down the cups of raspberry sherbet with an apologetic
grin. “Say, Skipper,” he whispered hoarsely, “like to have me stir you
up a batch of flapjacks ’fore you go?”
“No, no, certainly not!” Captain Trout took one of the pink filled
glasses and passed it to Mrs. Viner. He helped himself to another.
At last came the moment when the sun touched the top of the
fountain—the moment I had been waiting for. At a nod from Aunt Cal,
Michael disappeared into the house. A moment later I got his signal
from the cellar window. Everybody stopped talking as I advanced to the
fountain and, reaching up, pulled the cord which held the veil about
the statue.
At the same instant, Michael turned the tap in the cellar and the water
gushed forth in a myriad sparkling rainbow streams. Everybody clapped!
It was exactly as if the delicate figure of the Enchantress poised
there had really waved her wand and performed a miracle!
A belated car came puffing up the hill, a green roadster covered with
dust. From the seat Hattie May waved frantically. Eve flew down the
path, I after her. Hamish peered out at the group about the fountain.
“Say,” he demanded, “we ain’t too late for the refreshments are we?”
“No, indeed, there’s lots left,” I told him laughing.
“We had a blow-out of course,” Hattie May said as she climbed out. “My
how pretty everything looks!”
As we came up the path Hamish caught sight of Gopher collecting plates.
“My aunt!” he exclaimed, “Mean to say you let that fellow go round
loose?”
“Oh,” giggled Eve. “he’s quite tame now really—just like the garden.
You’d be surprised!”
Eve came out with a heaping tray. “Hasn’t anything more queer been
happenin’, I suppose?” Hamish inquired hopefully between mouthfuls.
“No, I’m afraid not,” I answered. “No more mysteries—except of course
what became of the china duck. And I’m afraid that’ll never be solved.”
Hamish set down his empty plate regretfully. “By the way,” he remarked,
“I brought along a few little souvenirs I picked up on the way. They’re
out in the car.”
“More gifts! Oh, Hamish!”
After the other guests had departed Hamish distributed his presents.
There was a vanity case for Aunt Cal whose countenance to date has been
innocent of make-up; shell-covered workboxes for Eve and me; a
combination pocket knife and can opener for Michael and a huge
heart-shaped box of chocolates for Miss Rose.
“Oh, you cruel boy,” Miss Rose cried, “to tempt me so!” She selected a
plump one before passing the box.
As Aunt Cal turned to walk with Mr. Templeton to his car Hattie May
whispered quite loudly, “I must say, Sandy, that your aunt has changed.
Why she’s like a different person almost.”
“Hush!” I warned, “It’s all Circe’s doing! Magic, you know!”
“I guess more likely it’s two living Circes that have done the trick,”
said Miss Rose slyly, selecting another chocolate.
“Oh, you mean you and—and Gopher?” Eve inquired mischievously.
Miss Rose giggled. “Fancy me on a fountain! No, it’s a fact, Cal told
me so herself, that she’d never have had the gumption to go ahead with
everything if it hadn’t been for you girls. She said she wanted Sandra
to have a place to come to that she’d feel was a real home.”
“Oh, Miss Rose,” I cried, “did she really say that?”
Aunt Cal came back down the path, Adam at her heels. “Well now that
that’s over,” she said, “we’ll be able to settle down to normal living
again! Michael thinks I should put that south pasture into potatoes
next year. What do you think, Rose?”
“Farmer Gilpatrick advises!” Eve twinkled at him.
“Well?” he inquired challengingly, “what’s the matter with that?
Suppose I should turn into a farmer, what then?”
“Why, then,” she returned, “you’ll buy a farm next to ours—next to
Craven House I mean—and make it the very finest, most scientific,
up-to-date farm in the whole countryside.”
“Well, you might do worse,” Hamish remarked solemnly. “I read the other
day where a fellow was out plowin’ up a field and what d’you s’pose he
turned up? An old gold piece, yes sir! And come to find out when he dug
down there was a whole lot of ’em buried where some early settler
fellow had hid ’em when the Indians was comin’. What d’you think of
that!”
“That settles it!” laughed Michael. “I shall become a farmer.”