IV

About a week after the fair I went one afternoon to call on Mrs. Durant,

and found Cranch just leaving. His greeting, as he hurried by, was curt

and almost hostile, and his handsome countenance so disturbed and pale

that I hardly recognized him. I was sure there could be nothing personal

in his manner; we had always been on good terms, and, next to Mrs.

Durant, I suppose I was his nearest friend at Harpledon—if ever one

could be said to get near Waldo Cranch! After he had passed me I stood

hesitating at Mrs. Durant’s open door—front doors at Harpledon were

always open in those friendly days, except, by the way, Cranch’s own,

which the stern Catherine kept chained and bolted. Since meeting me

could not have been the cause of his anger, it might have been excited

by something which had passed between Mrs. Durant and himself; and if

that were so, my call was probably inopportune. I decided not to go in,

and was turning away when I heard hurried steps, and Mrs. Durant’s

voice. “Waldo!” she said.

I suppose I had always assumed that she called him so; yet the familiar

appellation startled me, and made me feel more than ever in the way.

None of us had ever given Cranch his Christian name.

Mrs. Durant checked her steps, perceiving that the back in the doorway

was not Cranch’s but mine. “Oh, do come in,” she murmured, with an

attempt at ease.

In the little drawing-room I turned and looked at her. She, too, was

visibly disturbed; not angry, as he had been, but showing, on her white

face and reddened lids, the pained reflection of his anger. Was it

against her, then, that he had manifested it? Probably she guessed my

thought, or felt her appearance needed to be explained, for she added

quickly: “Mr. Cranch has just gone. Did he speak to you?”

“No. He seemed in a great hurry.”

“Yes.... I wanted to beg him to come back ... to try to quiet him....”

She saw my bewilderment, and picked up a copy of an illustrated magazine

which had been tossed on the sofa. “It’s that—” she said.

The pages fell apart at an article entitled: “Colonial Harpledon,” the

greater part of which was taken up by a series of clever sketches signed

by the Boston architect whom she had brought to Cranch’s a few months

earlier.

Of the six or seven drawings, four were devoted to the Cranch house. One

represented the façade and its pillared gates, a second the garden front

with the windowless side of the wing, the third a corner of the box

garden surrounding the Chinese summer house; while the fourth, a

full-page drawing, was entitled: “The back of the slaves’ quarters and

service-court: quaint window-grouping.”

On that picture the magazine had opened; it was evidently the one which

had been the subject of discussion between my hostess and her visitor.

“You see ... you see....” she cried.

“This picture? Well, what of it? I suppose it’s the far side of the

wing—the side we’ve never any of us seen.”

“Yes; that’s just it. He’s horribly upset....”

“Upset about what? I heard him tell the architect he could come back

some other day and see the wing ... some day when the maids were not

sitting in the court; wasn’t that it?”

She shook her head tragically. “He didn’t mean it. Couldn’t you tell by

the sound of his voice that he didn’t?”

Her tragedy airs were beginning to irritate me. “I don’t know that I pay

as much attention as all that to the sound of his voice.”

She coloured, and choked back her tears. “I know him so well; I’m always

sorry to see him lose his self-control. And then he considers me

responsible.”

“You?”

“It was I who took the wretched man there. And of course it was an

indiscretion to do that drawing; he was never really authorized to come

back. In fact, Mr. Cranch gave orders to Catherine and all the other

servants not to let him in if he did.”

“Well—?”

“One of the maids seems to have disobeyed the order; Mr. Cranch imagines

she was bribed. He has been staying in Boston, and this morning, on the

way back, he saw this magazine at the book-stall at the station. He was

so horrified that he brought it to me. He came straight from the train

without going home, so he doesn’t yet know how the thing happened.”

“It doesn’t take much to horrify him,” I said, again unable to restrain

a faint sneer. “What’s the harm in the man’s having made that sketch?”

“Harm?” She looked surprised at my lack of insight. “No actual harm, I

suppose; but it was very impertinent; and Mr. Cranch resents such

liberties intensely. He’s so punctilious.”

“Well, we Americans are not punctilious, and being one himself, he ought

to know it by this time.”

She pondered again. “It’s his Spanish blood, I suppose ... he’s

frightfully proud.” As if this were a misfortune, she added: “I’m very

sorry for him.”

“So am I, if such trifles upset him.”

Her brows lightened. “Ah, that’s what I tell him—such things _are_

trifles, aren’t they? As I said just now: ‘Your life’s been too

fortunate, too prosperous. That’s why you’re so easily put out.’”

“And what did he answer?”

“Oh, it only made him angrier. He said: ‘I never expected that from

_you_’—that was when he rushed out of the house.” Her tears flowed over,

and seeing her so genuinely perturbed I restrained my impatience, and

took leave after a few words of sympathy.

Never had Harpledon seemed to me more like a tea-cup than with that

silly tempest convulsing it. That there should be grown-up men who could

lose their self-command over such rubbish, and women to tremble and weep

with them! For a moment I felt the instinctive irritation of normal man

at such foolishness; yet before I reached my own door I was as

mysteriously perturbed as Mrs. Durant.

The truth was, I had never thought of Cranch as likely to lose his

balance over trifles. He had never struck me as unmanly; his quiet

manner, his even temper, showed a sound sense of the relative importance

of things. How then could so petty an annoyance have thrown him into

such disorder?

I stopped short on my threshold, remembering his face as he brushed past

me. “Something _is_ wrong; really wrong,” I thought. But what? Could it

be jealousy of Mrs. Durant and the Boston architect? The idea would not

bear a moment’s consideration, for I remembered _her_ face too. “Oh,

well, if it’s his silly punctilio,” I grumbled, trying to reassure

myself, and remaining, after all, as much perplexed as before.

All the next day it poured, and I sat at home among my books. It must

have been after ten in the evening when I was startled by a ring. The

maids had gone to bed, and I went to the door, and opened it to Mrs.

Durant. Surprised at the lateness of her visit, I drew her in out of the

storm. She had flung a cloak over her light dress, and the lace scarf on

her head dripped with rain. Our houses were only a few hundred yards

apart, and she had brought no umbrella, nor even exchanged her evening

slippers for heavier shoes.

I took her wet cloak and scarf and led her into the library. She stood

trembling and staring at me, her face like a marble mask in which the

lips were too rigid for speech; then she laid a sheet of note-paper on

the table between us. On it was written, in Waldo Cranch’s beautiful

hand: “My dear friend, I am going away on a journey. You will hear from

me,” with his initials beneath. Nothing more. The letter bore no date.

I looked at her, waiting for an explanation. None came. The first word

she said was: “Will you come with me—now, at once?”

“Come with you—where?”

“To his house—before he leaves. I’ve only just got the letter, and I

daren’t go alone....”

“Go to Cranch’s house? But I ... at this hour.... What is it you are

afraid of?” I broke out, suddenly looking into her eyes.

She gave me back my look, and her rigid face melted. “I don’t know—any

more than you do! That’s why I’m afraid.”

“But I know nothing. What on earth has happened since I saw you

yesterday?”

“Nothing till I got this letter.”

“You haven’t seen him?”

“Not since you saw him leave my house yesterday.”

“Or had any message—any news of him?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’ve just sat and remembered his face.”

My perplexity grew. “But surely you can’t imagine.... If you’re as

frightened as that you must have some other reason for it,” I insisted.

She shook her head wearily. “It’s the having none that frightens me. Oh,

do come!”

“You think his leaving in this way means that he’s in some kind of

trouble?”

“In dreadful trouble.”

“And you don’t know why?”

“No more than you do!” she repeated.

I pondered, trying to avoid her entreating eyes. “But at this hour—come,

do consider! I don’t know Cranch so awfully well. How will he take it?

You say he made a scene yesterday about that silly business of the

architect’s going to his house without leave....”

“That’s just it. I feel as if his going away might be connected with

that.”

“But then he’s mad!” I exclaimed.

“No; not mad. Only—desperate.”

I stood irresolute. It was evident that I had to do with a woman whose

nerves were in fiddle-strings. What had reduced them to that state I

could not conjecture, unless, indeed, she were keeping back the vital

part of her confession. But that, queerly enough, was not what I

suspected. For some reason I felt her to be as much in the dark over the

whole business as I was; and that added to the strangeness of my

dilemma.

“Do you know in the least what you’re going for?” I asked at length.

“No, no, no—but come!”

“If he’s there, he’ll kick us out, most likely; kick _me_ out, at any

rate.”

She did not answer; I saw that in her anguish she was past speaking.

“Wait till I get my coat,” I said.

She took my arm, and side by side we hurried in the rain through the

shuttered village. As we passed the Selwick house I saw a light burning

in old Miss Selwick’s bedroom window. It was on the tip of my tongue to

say: “Hadn’t we better stop and ask Aunt Lucilla what’s wrong? She knows

more about Cranch than any of us!”

Then I remembered Cranch’s expression the last time Aunt Lucilla’s

legend of the hobby-horse had been mentioned before him—the day we were

planning the jumble sale—and a sudden shiver checked my pleasantry. “He

looked then as he did when he passed me in the doorway yesterday,” I

thought; and I had a vision of my ancient relative, sitting there

propped up in her bed and looking quietly into the unknown while all the

village slept. Was she aware, I wondered, that we were passing under her

window at that moment, and did she know what would await us when we

reached our destination?

V

Mrs. Durant, in her thin slippers, splashed on beside me through the

mud.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, stopping short with a gasp, “look at the lights!”

We had crossed the green, and were groping our way under the dense

elm-shadows, and there before us stood the Cranch house, all its windows

illuminated. It was the only house in the village except Miss Selwick’s

that was not darkened and shuttered.

“Well, he can’t be gone; he’s giving a party, you see,” I said

derisively.

My companion made no answer. She only pulled me forward, and yielding

once more I pushed open the tall entrance gates. In the brick path I

paused. “Do you still want to go in?” I asked.

“More than ever!” She kept her tight clutch on my arm, and I walked up

the path at her side and rang the bell.

The sound went on jangling for a long time through the stillness; but no

one came to the door. At length Mrs. Durant laid an impatient hand on

the door-panel. “But it’s open!” she exclaimed.

It was probably the first time since Waldo Cranch had come back to live

in the house that unbidden visitors had been free to enter it. We looked

at each other in surprise and I followed Mrs. Durant into the lamplit

hall. It was empty.

With a common accord we stood for a moment listening; but not a sound

came to us, though the doors of library and drawing-room stood open, and

there were lighted lamps in both rooms.

“It’s queer,” I said, “all these lights, and no one about.”

My companion had walked impulsively into the drawing-room and stood

looking about at its familiar furniture. From the panelled wall,

distorted by the wavering lamp-light, the old Spanish ancestress glared

down duskily at us out of the shadows. Mrs. Durant had stopped short—a

sound of voices, agitated, discordant, a strange man’s voice among them,

came to us from across the hall. Silently we retraced our steps, opened

the dining-room door, and went in. But here also we found emptiness; the

talking came from beyond, came, as we now perceived, from the wing which

none of us had ever entered. Again we hesitated and looked at each

other. Then “Come!” said Mrs. Durant in a resolute tone; and again I

followed her.

She led the way into a large pantry, airy, orderly, well-stocked with

china and glass. That too was empty; and two doors opened from it. Mrs.

Durant passed through the one on the right, and we found ourselves, not,

as I had expected, in the kitchen, but in a kind of vague unfurnished

anteroom. The quarrelling voices had meanwhile died out; we seemed once

more to have the mysterious place to ourselves. Suddenly, beyond another

closed door, we heard a shrill crowing laugh. Mrs. Durant dashed at this

last door and it let us into a large high-studded room. We paused and

looked about us. Evidently we were in what Cranch had always described

as the lumber-room on the ground floor of the wing. But there was no

lumber in it now. It was scrupulously neat, and fitted up like a big and

rather bare nursery; and in the middle of the floor, on a square of

drugget, stood a great rearing black and white animal: my Aunt Lucilla’s

hobby-horse....

I gasped at the sight; but in spite of its strangeness it did not detain

me long, for at the farther end of the room, before a fire protected by

a tall nursery fender, I had seen something stranger still. Two little

boys in old-fashioned round jackets and knickerbockers knelt by the

hearth, absorbed in the building of a house of blocks. Mrs. Durant saw

them at the same moment. She caught my arm as if she were about to fall,

and uttered a faint cry.

The sound, low as it was, produced a terrifying effect on the two

children. Both of them dropped their blocks, turned around as if to dart

at us, and then stopped short, holding each other by the hand, and

staring and trembling as if we had been ghosts.

At the opposite end of the room, we stood staring and trembling also;

for it was they who were the ghosts to our terrified eyes. It must have

been Mrs. Durant who spoke first.

“Oh ... the poor things....” she said in a low choking voice.

The little boys stood there, motionless and far off, among the ruins of

their house of blocks. But, as my eyes grew used to the faint

light—there was only one lamp in the big room—and as my shaken nerves

adjusted themselves to the strangeness of the scene, I perceived the

meaning of Mrs. Durant’s cry.

The children before us were not children; they were two tiny withered

men, with frowning foreheads under their baby curls, and

heavy-shouldered middle-aged bodies. The sight was horrible, and

rendered more so by the sameness of their size and by their

old-fashioned childish dress. I recoiled; but Mrs. Durant had let my arm

go, and was moving softly forward. Her own arms outstretched, she

advanced toward the two strange beings. “You poor poor things, you,” she

repeated, the tears running down her face.

I thought her tender tone must have drawn the little creatures; but as

she advanced they continued to stand motionless, and then suddenly—each

with the same small falsetto scream—turned and dashed toward the door.

As they reached it, old Catherine appeared and held out her arms to

them.

“Oh, my God—how dare you, madam? My young gentlemen!” she cried.

They hid their dreadful little faces in the folds of her skirt, and

kneeling down she put her arms about them and received them on her

bosom. Then, slowly, she lifted up her head and looked at us.

I had always, like the rest of Harpledon, thought of Catherine as a

morose old Englishwoman, civil enough in her cold way, but yet

forbidding. Now it seemed to me that her worn brown face, in its harsh

folds of gray hair, was the saddest I had ever looked upon.

“How could you, madam; oh, how could you? Haven’t we got enough else to

bear?” she asked, speaking low above the cowering heads on her breast.

Her eyes were on Mrs. Durant.

The latter, white and trembling, gave back the look. “Enough else? Is

there _more_, then?”

“There’s everything—.” The old servant got to her feet, keeping her two

charges by the hand. She put her finger to her lips, and stooped again

to the dwarfs. “Master Waldo, Master Donald, you’ll come away now with

your old Catherine. No one’s going to harm us, my dears; you’ll just go

upstairs and let Janey Sampson put you to bed, for it’s very late; and

presently Catherine’ll come up and hear your prayers like every night.”

She moved to the door; but one of the dwarfs hung back, his forehead

puckering, his eyes still fixed on Mrs. Durant in indescribable horror.

“Good Dobbin,” cried he abruptly, in a piercing pipe.

“No, dear, no; the lady won’t touch good Dobbin,” said Catherine. “It’s

the young gentlemen’s great pet,” she added, glancing at the Roman steed

in the middle of the floor. She led the changelings away, and a moment

later returned. Her face was ashen-white under its swarthiness, and she

stood looking at us like a figure of doom.

“And now, perhaps,” she said, “you’ll be good enough to go away too.”

“Go away?” Mrs. Durant, instead, came closer to her. “How can I—when

I’ve just had this from your master?” She held out the letter she had

brought to my house.

Catherine glanced coldly at the page and returned it to her.

“He says he’s going on a journey. Well, he’s been, madam; been and come

back,” she said.

“Come back? Already? He’s in the house, then? Oh, do let me—” Mrs.

Durant dropped back before the old woman’s frozen gaze.

“He’s lying overhead, dead on his bed, madam—just as they carried him up

from the beach. Do you suppose, else, you’d have ever got in here and

seen the young gentlemen? He rushed out and died sooner than have them

seen, the poor lambs; him that was their father, madam. And here you and

this gentleman come thrusting yourselves in....”

I thought Mrs. Durant would reel under the shock; but she stood quiet,

very quiet—it was almost as if the blow had mysteriously strengthened

her.

“He’s dead? He’s killed himself?” She looked slowly about the trivial

tragic room. “Oh, now I understand,” she said.

Old Catherine faced her with grim lips. “It’s a pity you didn’t

understand sooner, then; you and the others, whoever they was, forever

poking and prying; till at last that miserable girl brought in the

police on us—”

“The police?”

“They was here, madam, in this house, not an hour ago, frightening my

young gentlemen out of their senses. When word came that my master had

been found on the beach they went down there to bring him back. Now

they’ve gone to Hingham to report his death to the coroner. But there’s

one of them in the kitchen, mounting guard. Over what, I wonder? As if

my young gentlemen could run away! Where in God’s pity would they go?

Wherever it is, I’ll go with them; I’ll never leave them.... And here we

were at peace for thirty years, till you brought that man to draw the

pictures of the house....”

For the first time Mrs. Durant’s strength seemed to fail her; her body

drooped, and she leaned her weight against the door. She and the

housekeeper stood confronted, two stricken old women staring at each

other; then Mrs. Durant’s agony broke from her. “Don’t say I did

it—don’t say that!”

But the other was relentless. As she faced us, her arms outstretched,

she seemed still to be defending her two charges. “What else would you

have me say, madam? You brought that man here, didn’t you? And he was

determined to see the other side of the wing, and my poor master was

determined he shouldn’t.” She turned to me for the first time. “It was

plain enough to you, sir, wasn’t it? To me it was, just coming and going

with the tea-things. And the minute your backs was turned, Mr. Cranch

rang, and gave me the order: ‘That man’s never to set foot here again,

you understand.’ And I went out and told the other three; the cook, and

Janey, and Hannah Oast, the parlour-maid. I was as sure of the cook and

Janey as I was of myself; but Hannah was new, she hadn’t been with us

not above a year, and though I knew all about her, and had made sure

before she came that she was a decent close-mouthed girl, and one that

would respect our ... our misfortune ... yet I couldn’t feel as safe

about her as the others, and of her temper I wasn’t sure from the first.

I told Mr. Cranch so, often enough; I said: ‘Remember, now, sir, not to

put her pride up, won’t you?’ For she was jealous, and angry, I think,

at never being allowed to see the young gentlemen, yet knowing they were

there, as she _had_ to know. But their father would never have any but

me and Janey Sampson about them.

“Well—and then, in he came yesterday with those accursèd pictures. And

however had the man got in? And where was Hannah? And it must have been

her doing ... and swearing and cursing at her ... and me crying to him

and saying: ‘For God’s sake, sir, let be, let be ... don’t stir the

matter up ... just let me talk to her....’ And I went in to my little

boys, to see about their supper; and before I was back, I heard a trunk

bumping down the stairs, and the gardener’s lad outside with a

wheel-barrow, and Hannah Oast walking away out of the gate like a

ramrod. ‘Oh, sir, what have you done? Let me go after her!’ I begged and

besought him; but my master, very pale, but as calm as possible, held me

back by the arm, and said: ‘Don’t you worry, Catherine. It passed off

very quietly. We’ll have no trouble from her.’ ‘No trouble, sir, from

Hannah Oast? Oh, for pity’s sake, call her back and let me smooth it

over, sir!’ But the girl was gone, and he wouldn’t leave go of my arm

nor yet listen to me, but stood there like a marble stone and saw her

drive away, and wouldn’t stop her. ‘I’d die first, Catherine,’ he said,

his kind face all changed to me, and looking like that old Spanish

she-devil on the parlour wall, that brought the curse on us.... And this

morning the police came. The gardener got wind of it, and let us know

they was on the way; and my master sat and wrote a long time in his

room, and then walked out, looking very quiet, and saying to me he was

going to the post office, and would be back before they got here. And

the next we knew of him was when they carried him up to his bed just

now.... And perhaps we’d best give thanks that he’s at rest in it. But,

oh, my young gentlemen ... my young gentlemen!”