I bent to lift the prostrate form of the unhappy woman who had been
placed in my care. As I did so I heard something like a snarl over
my shoulder, and, turning, saw Nixon stretching eager arms toward his
mistress, whose fall he had doubtless heard.
“Let me! let me!” he cried, his old form trembling almost to the point
of incapacity.
“We will lift her together,” I rejoined; and though his eyes sparkled
irefully, he accepted my help and together we carried her into her own
room and laid her on a lounge. I have had some training as a nurse
and, perceiving that Mrs. Packard had simply fainted, I was not at all
alarmed, but simply made an effort to restore her with a calmness that
for some reason greatly irritated the old man.
“Shall I call Ellen? Shall I call Letty?” he kept crying, shifting from
one foot to another in a frightened and fussy way that exasperated me
almost beyond endurance. “She doesn’t breathe; she is white, white! Oh,
what will the mayor say? I will call Letty.”
But I managed to keep him under control and finally succeeded
in restoring Mrs. Packard--a double task demanding not a little
self-control and discretion. When the flutter of her eyelids showed that
she would soon be conscious, I pointed out these signs of life to my
uneasy companion and hinted very broadly that the fewer people Mrs.
Packard found about her on coming to herself, the better she would be
pleased. His aspect grew quite ferocious at this, and for a moment I
almost feared him; but as I continued to urge the necessity of avoiding
any fresh cause of agitation in one so weak, he gradually shrank
back from my side where he had kept a jealous watch until now, and
reluctantly withdrew into the hall.
Another moment and Mrs. Packard had started to rise; but, on seeing
me and me only standing before her, she fell wearily back, crying in a
subdued way, which nevertheless was very intense:
“Don’t, don’t let him come in--see me--or know. I must be by myself; I
must be! Don’t you see that I am frightened?”
The words came out with such force I was startled. Leaning over her,
with the natural sympathy her condition called for, I asked quietly but
firmly:
“Whom do you mean by him? There is only one person in the hall, and that
is your butler.”
“Hasn’t Mr. Packard returned?”
“No, Madam.”
“But I thought I saw him looking at me.”
Her eyes were wild, her body shaking with irrepressible agitation.
“You were mistaken. Mayor Packard has not yet come home.”
At this double assurance, she sank back satisfied, but still trembling
and very white.
“It is Mr. Packard I meant,” she whispered presently. “Stay with me
and, when he comes in, tell him what will keep him from looking in or
speaking to me. Promise!” She was growing wild again. “Promise, if you
would be of any use to me.”
“I do promise.” At which I felt her hand grasp mine with grateful
pressure. “Don’t you wish some assistance from me? Your dress--I tried
to loosen it, but failed to find the end of the cord. Shall I try
again?”
“No, no; that is, I will do it myself.”
I did not see how she could, for her waist was laced up the back, but
I saw that she was too eager to have me go to remember this, and
recognizing the undesirability of irritating her afresh, I simply asked
if she wished me to remain within call.
But even this was more than she wanted.
“No. I am better now. I shall be better yet when quite alone.” Then
suddenly: “Who knows of this--this folly of mine?”
“Only Nixon and myself. The girls have gone to bed.”
“Nixon I can trust not to speak of it. Tell him to go. You, I know, will
remember only long enough to do for me what I have just asked.”
“Mrs. Packard, you may trust me.” The earnest, confiding look, which for
a moment disturbed the melancholy of her large eyes, touched me closely
as I shut the door between us.
“Now what is the meaning of this mystery?” I asked myself after I had
seen Nixon go downstairs, shaking his head and casting every now
and then a suspicious glance behind him. “It is not as trivial as it
appears. That laugh was tragedy to her, not comedy.” And when I paused
to recollect its tone I did not wonder at its effect upon her mind,
strained as it undoubtedly was by some secret sorrow or perplexity.
And from whose lips had that laugh sprung? Not from ghostly ones. Such
an explanation I could not accept, and how could Mrs. Packard? From
whose, then? If I could settle this fact I might perhaps determine to
what extent its effect was dependent upon its source. The butler denied
having even heard it. Was this to be believed? Did not this very denial
prove that it was he and no other who had thus shocked the proprieties
of this orderly household? It certainly seemed so; yet where all was
strange, this strange and incomprehensible denial of a self-evident fact
by the vindictive Nixon might have its source in some motive unsuggested
by the circumstances. Certainly, Nixon’s mistress appeared to have a
great deal of confidence in him.
I wished that more had been told me about the handsome secretary. I
wished that fate would give me another opportunity for seeing that
gentleman and putting the same direct question to him I had put to
Nixon.
Scarcely had this thought crossed my mind before a loud ring at the
telephone disturbed the quiet below and I heard the secretary’s voice in
reply. A minute after he appeared at the foot of the stairs. His aspect
was one of embarrassment, and he peered aloft in a hesitating way, as if
he hardly knew how to proceed.
Taking advantage of this hesitation, I ran softly down to meet him.
“Any message for Mrs. Packard?” I asked.
He looked relieved.
“Yes, from his Honor. The mayor is unavoidably detained and may not be
home till morning.”
“I will tell her.” Then, as he reached for his overcoat, I risked all on
one venture, and enlarging a little on the facts, said:
“Excuse me, but was it you we heard laughing down-stairs a few minutes
ago? Mrs. Packard feared it might be some follower of the girls’.”
Pausing in the act of putting on his coat, he met my look with an air of
some surprise.
“I am not given to laughing,” he remarked; “certainly not when alone.”
“But you heard this laugh?”
He shook his head. His manner was perfectly courteous, almost cordial.
“If I did, it made no impression on my mind. I am extremely busy just
now, working up the mayor’s next speech.” And with a smile and bow in
every way suited to his fine appearance, he took his hat from the rack
and left the house.
I drew back more mystified than ever. Which of these two men had told me
a lie? One, both, or neither? Impossible to determine. As I try never
to waste gray matter, I resolved to spend no further energy on this
question, but simply to await the next development.
It came unexpectedly and was of an entirely different nature from any I
had anticipated.
I had not retired, not knowing at what moment the mayor might return
or what I might be called upon to do when he did. It will be remembered
that one of my windows looked out upon the next house. I approached it
to see if my ever watchful neighbors had retired. Their window was
dark, but I observed what was of much more vital interest to me at that
moment. It was that I was not the only one awake and stirring in our
house. The light from a room diagonally below me poured in a stream on
the opposite wall, and it took but a moment’s consideration for me to
decide that the shadow I saw crossing and recrossing this brilliant
square was cast by Mrs. Packard.
My first impulse was to draw back--(that was the lady’s impulse not
quite crushed out of me by the occupation circumstances had compelled
me to take up)--my next, to put out my own light and seat myself at the
post of observation thus afforded me. The excuse I gave myself for this
was plausible enough. Mrs. Packard had been placed in my charge and, if
all was not right with her, it was my business to know it.
Accordingly I sat and watched each movement of my mysterious charge as
it was outlined on the telltale wall before me, and saw enough in one
half-hour to convince me that something very vigorous and purposeful was
going on in the room so determinedly closed against every one, even her
own husband.
What?
The moving silhouette of her figure, which was all that I could see, was
not perfect enough in detail for me to determine. She was busy at some
occupation which took her from one end of the room to the other; but
after watching her shadow for an hour I was no surer than at first as to
what that occupation was. It was a serious one, I saw, and now and
then the movements I watched gave evidence of frantic haste, but their
character stood unrevealed till suddenly the thought came:
“She is rummaging bureau-drawers and emptying boxes,--in other words,
packing a bag or trunk.”
Should I be witness to a flight? I thought it very likely, especially
when I heard the faint sound of a door opening below, followed by the
swish of silken skirts. I recalled Mayor Packard’s fears and began to
suspect that they were not groundless.
This called for action, and I was about to open my door and rush out
when I was deterred by the surprising discovery that the steps I heard
were coming up rather than going down, and that in another moment
she would be in the hall outside, possibly on her way to the nursery,
possibly with the intention of coming to my own room.
Greatly taken aback, I stood with my ear to the door, listening
intently. Yes, she has reached the top of the stairs and is stopping no,
she passes the nursery door, she is coming my way. What shall I say to
her,--how account for my comfortable wrapper and the fact that I have
not yet been abed? Had I but locked my door! Could I but lock it now,
unseen and unheard before the nearing step should pause! But the very
attempt were folly; no, I must stand my ground and--Ah! the step
has paused, but not at my door. There is a third one on this hall,
communicating, as I knew, with a covered staircase leading to the attic.
It was at this she stopped and it was up this staircase she went as
warily and softly as its creaking boards would allow; and while I
marveled as to what had taken her aloft so late, I heard her steps over
my head and knew that she had entered the room directly above mine.
Striking a match, I consulted my watch. It was just ten minutes to
three. Hardly knowing what my duty was in the circumstances, I blew out
the match and stood listening while the woman who was such a mystery
to all her friends moved about overhead in much the same quick and
purposeful way as had put life into her shadow while she was in her own
room.
“Packing! Nothing less and nothing more,” was my now definite decision.
“That is a trunk she is dragging forward. What a hurry she is in, and
how little she cares whether anybody hears her!”
So little did she care that during the next few minutes of acute
attention I distinguished the flinging down of article after article
on to the floor, as well as many other movements betraying haste or
irritation.
Suddenly I heard her give a bound, then the sound of a heavy lid falling
and then, after a minute or two of complete silence, the soft pat-pat of
her slippered feet descending the stair.
Half-past three.
Waiting till she was well down the second flight, I pushed my door ajar
and, flying down the hall, peered over the balustrade in time to see
her entering her room. She held a lighted candle in her hand and by its
small flame I caught a full glimpse of her figure. To my astonishment
and even to my dismay she was still in the gown she had refused to have
me unlace,--a rich yellow satin in which she must have shone resplendent
a few hours before. She had not even removed the jewels from her neck.
Whatever had occupied her, whatever had taken her hither and thither
through the house, moving furniture out of her way, lifting heavy boxes,
opening dust-covered trunks, had been of such moment to her as to
make her entirely oblivious of the rich and delicate apparel she thus
wantonly sacrificed. But it was not this alone which attracted my
attention. In her hand she held a paper, and the sight of that paper and
the way she clutched it rather disturbed my late conclusions. Had her
errand been one of search rather than of arrangement? and was this
crumpled letter the sole result of a half-hour’s ransacking in an attic
room at the dead of night? I was fain to think so, for in the course of
another half-hour her light went out. Relieved that she had not left the
house, I was still anxious as to the cause of her strange conduct.
Mayor Packard did not come in till daybreak. He found me waiting for him
in the lower hall.
“Well?” he eagerly inquired.
“Mrs. Packard is asleep, I hope. A shrill laugh, ringing through the
house shortly after her return, gave her a nervous shock and she begged
that she might be left undisturbed till morning.”
He turned from hanging up his overcoat, and gave me a short stare.
“A laugh!” he repeated. “Who could have laughed like that? We are not a
very jolly crowd here.”
“I don’t know, sir. I thought it must have been either Mr. Steele or
Nixon, the butler, but each denied it. There was no one else in this
part of the house.”
“Mrs. Packard is very sensitive just now,” he remarked. Then as he
turned away toward the library door: “I will throw myself on a lounge. I
have but an hour or two before me, as I have my preparations to make
for leaving town on the early morning train. I shall have some final
instructions to give you.”