_In Which the Remorseless and Inexorable Results of Psychical Research
Are Revealed to the Very Young_
At intervals for the next ten minutes her fresh, sweet, fascinating voice
came to him where he stood in the yard; then he heard it growing fainter,
more distant, receding; then silence.
Listening, he suddenly heard a far, rushing sound from subterranean
depths--like a load of coal being put in--then a frightened cry.
He sprang into the basement, ran through laundry and kitchen. The cellar
door swung wide open above the stairs which ran down into darkness; and
as he halted to listen Clarence dashed up out of the depths, scuttled
around the stairs and fled upward into the silent regions above.
"Betty!" he cried, forgetting in his alarm the lesser conventions, "where
are you?"
"Oh, dear--oh, dear!" she wailed. "I am in such a dreadful plight. Could
you help me, please?"
"Are you hurt?" he asked. Fright made his voice almost inaudible. He
struck a match with shaking fingers and ran down the cellar stairs.
"Betty! Where are you?"
"Oh, I am here--in the coal."
"What?"
"I--I can't seem to get out; I stepped into the coal pit in the dark and
it all--all slid with me and over me and I'm in it up to the shoulders."
Another match flamed; he saw a stump of a candle, seized it, lighted it,
and, holding it aloft, gazed down upon the most heart rending spectacle
he had ever witnessed.
The next instant he grasped a shovel and leaped to the rescue. She was
quite calm about it; the situation was too awful, the future too hopeless
for mere tears. What had happened contained all the dignified elements of
a catastrophe. They both realized it, and when, madly shoveling, he at
last succeeded in releasing her she leaned her full weight on his own,
breathing rapidly, and suffered him to support and guide her through the
flame-shot darkness to the culinary regions above.
Here she sank down on a chair for one moment in utter collapse. Then she
looked up, resolutely steadying her voice:
"Could anything on earth more awful have happened to a girl?" she asked,
lips quivering in spite of her. She stretched out what had once been a
pair of white gloves, she looked down at what had been a delicate summer
gown of white. "How," she asked with terrible calmness, "am I to get to
Oyster Bay?"
He dropped on to a kitchen chair opposite her, clasping his coal-stained
hands between his knees, utterly incapable of speech.
She looked at her shoes--once snowy white; with a shudder she stripped
the soiled gloves from elbow to wrist and flung them aside. Her arms and
hands formed a starling contrast to the remainder of the ensemble.
"What," she asked, "am I to do?"
"The thing to do," he said, "is to telephone to your family at Oyster
Bay."
"The telephone has been disconnected. So has the water--we can't even
w-wash our hands!" she faltered.
He said: "I can go out and telephone to your family to send a maid with
some clothes for you--if you don't mind being left alone in an empty
house for a little while."
"No, I don't; but," she gazed uncertainly at the black opening of the
cellar, "but, please, don't be gone very long, will you?"
He promised fervidly. She gave him the number and her family's name, and
he left by the basement door.
He was gone a long time, during which, for a while, she paced the floor,
unaffectedly wringing her hands and contemplating herself and her
garments in the laundry looking-glass.
At intervals she tried to turn on the water, hoping for a few drops at
least; at intervals she sat down to wait for him; then, the inaction
becoming unendurable, musing goaded her into motion, and she ascended to
the floor above, groping through the dimness in futile search for
Clarence. She heard him somewhere in obscurity, scurrying under furniture
at her approach, evidently too thoroughly demoralized to recognize her
voice. So, after a while, she gave it up and wandered down to the pantry,
instinct leading her, for she was hungry and thirsty; but she knew there
could be nothing eatable in a house closed for the summer.
She lifted the pantry window and opened the blinds; noon sunshine flooded
the place, and she began opening cupboards and refrigerators, growing
hungrier every moment.
Then her eyes fell upon dozens of bottles of Apollinaris, and with a
little cry of delight she knelt down, gathered up all she could carry,
and ran upstairs to the bathroom adjoining her own bedchamber.
"At least," she said to herself, "I can cleanse myself of this dreadful
coal!" and in a few moments she was reveling, elbow deep, in a marble
basin brimming with Apollinaris.
As the stain of the coal disappeared she remembered a rose-colored
morning gown reposing in her bedroom clothespress; and she found more
than that there--rose stockings and slippers and a fragrant pile of
exquisitely fine and more intimate garments, so tempting in their
freshness that she hurried with them into the dressing room; then began
to make rapid journeys up and downstairs, carrying dozens of quarts of
Apollinaris to the big porcelain tub, into which she emptied them,
talking happily to herself all the time.
"If he returns I can talk to him over the banisters!... He's a nice
boy.... Such a funny boy not to remember me.... And I've thought of him
quite often.... I wonder if I've time for just one, delicious plunge?"
She listened; ran to the front windows and looked out through the blinds.
He was nowhere in sight.
Ten minutes later, delightfully refreshed, she stood regarding herself in
her lovely rose-tinted morning gown, patting her bright hair into
discipline with slim, deft fingers, a half-smile on her lips, lids
closing a trifle over the pensive violet eyes.
"Now," she said aloud, "I'll talk to him over the banisters when he
returns; it's a little ungracious, I suppose, after all he has done, but
it's more conventional.... And I'll sit here and read until they send
somebody from Sandcrest with a gown I can travel in.... And then we'll
catch Clarence and call a cab----"
A distant tinkling from the area bell interrupted her.
"Oh, dear," she exclaimed, "I quite forgot that I had to let him in!"
Another tinkle. She cast a hurried and doubtful glance over her attire.
It was designed for the intimacy of her boudoir.
"I--I _couldn't_ talk to him out of the window! I've been shocking enough
as it is!" she thought; and, finger tips on the banisters, she ran down
the three stairs and appeared at the basement grille, breathless,
radiant, forgetting, as usual, her self-consciousness in thinking of him,
a habit of this somewhat harebrained and headlong girl which had its root
in perfect health of body and wholesomeness of mind.
"I found some clothes--not the sort I can go out in!" she said, laughing
at his astonishment, as she unlocked the grille. "So, please, overlook my
attire; I was _so_ full of coal dust! and I found sufficient Apollinaris
for my necessities.... _What_ did they say at Sandcrest?"
He said very soberly: "We've got to discuss this situation. Perhaps I had
better come in for a few minutes--if you don't mind."
"No, I don't mind.... Shall we sit in the drying room?" leading the way.
"Now tell me what is the matter? You rather frighten me, you know. Is--is
anything wrong at Sandcrest?"
"No, I suppose not." He touched his flushed face with his handkerchief;
"I couldn't get Oyster Bay on the 'phone."
"W-why not?"
"The wires are out of commission as far as Huntington; there's no use--I
tried everything! Telegraph and telephone wires were knocked out in this
morning's electric storm, it seems."
She gazed at him, hands folded on her knee, left leg crossed over, foot
swinging.
"This," she said calmly, "is becoming serious. Will you tell me what I am
to do?"
"Haven't you anything to travel in?"
"Not one solitary rag."
"Then--you'll have to stay here to-night and send for some of your
friends--you surely know somebody who is still in town, don't you?"
"I really don't. This is the middle of July. I don't know a woman in
town."
He was silent.
"Besides," she said, "we have no light, no water, nothing to eat in the
house, no telephone to order anything----"
He said: "I foresaw that you would probably be obliged to remain here, so
when I left the telephone office I took the liberty of calling a taxi and
visiting the electric light people, the telephone people and the nearest
plumber. It seems he is your own plumber--Quinn, I believe his name is;
and he's coming in half an hour to turn on the water."
"Did you think of doing all that?" she asked, astonished.
"Oh, that wasn't anything. And I ventured to telephone the Plaza to serve
luncheon and dinner here for you----"
"You _did?_"
"And I wired to Dooley's Agency to send you a maid for to-day----"
"That was perfectly splendid of you!"
"They promised to send one as soon as possible.... And I think that may
be the plumber now," as a tinkle came from the area bell.
It was not the plumber; it was waiters bearing baskets full of silver,
china, table linen, ice, fruits, confections, cut flowers, and, in
warmers, a most delectable luncheon.
Four impressive individuals commanded by a butler formed the
processional, filing solemnly up the basement stairs to the dining room,
where they instantly began to lay the table with dexterous celerity.
In the drying room below Betty and Beekman Brown stood confronting each
other.
"I suppose," began Brown with an effort, "that I had better go now."