THE DOOR IN THE WALL
Spring had advanced to that season of damp, hot, sunny days and rainy
nights when all things are growing at such speed that shrubs and trees
are top-heavy with their new green shoots and are easily shaken by the
wind, while people feel restless and uneasy and would like to be doing
something different from the tasks before them. Elizabeth often found
school dull and oppressive, with the air of the room close, with her
feet shuffling beneath her desk from the long hours of quiet and with
her thoughts wandering so far away that the page of her book was only a
blur before her. Every day, when she walked home, she would make a
detour up Somerset Lane just to look at the cottage, to notice how green
the vegetable garden was growing, how the pea vines were tall enough to
be swinging in the wind.
Once she came across Mr. Reynolds, strolling on the lawn for a breath of
air, Dick perched in solemn state upon his shoulder. She questioned him
at once as to Miss Miranda’s term of absence and what her sudden
departure might mean.
“I did not quite understand it myself,” he answered, seeming to be as
distressed as Betsey in his vague, absent-minded way. “She seemed to
decide on going very much of a sudden, but—I do not quite know—it
appears to me that she had been a little uneasy for some time, a little
troubled when people came suddenly to the door. Well, well, perhaps the
journey will quiet her.”
He turned to go back to his shop. He did not invite Betsey to enter,
probably, indeed, he had forgotten all about her the moment he crossed
the doorstep.
There came Friday afternoon a month, it seemed, from the last Friday,
when Miss Miranda had gone away. As Elizabeth walked along the lane,
feeling the air hot and heavy with coming rain, she hesitated a moment
at the turning, listening to the muttered thunder in the distance and
knowing that a downpour was not far off. From the breathlessness of the
whole world about her and the increasing blackness overhead, she
realized that this was to be no such spring shower as had once delayed
her on that same road, but a real and furious thunderstorm. Yet she
could not refrain from turning up the hill, so anxious was she to know
whether or not Miss Miranda had returned. She felt hopeful at least of
getting, through Mr. Reynolds’ vague answers to her questions, or from
Michael’s grunted yes or no, some information as to when the mistress of
the house might be expected. There was no one in sight to-day, however,
for the lawn was vacant, the garden empty and the windows closed and
blank as though even Mr. Reynolds and the sour woman in the kitchen had
deserted the place. She lingered at the gate, lonely and disappointed.
“I’ll walk down through the garden and see how the onions and the ducks
are getting on,” she said to herself. “It’s not going to rain so very
soon.”
She knew at heart that this was not true, that the tenseness of the air
meant that the storm must break any moment, and that the boiling clouds
just becoming visible over the edge of the hill contained thunder and
lightning and a deluge of rain. Nevertheless she pressed on, anxious to
be of service to her friend, thinking that there might be some young
chickens to rescue or some wayward ducklings to drive in out of the
storm. Reaching the gate of the poultry yard she found that the motherly
old hens had been as thoughtful as she, for they had long since hustled
their young charges under shelter, leaving only the old red cock to
strut about the place and cast his eye upward at the threatening clouds.
She was leaning over the gate, laughing at his absurd dignity, when the
whole sky above her was streaked with a blinding flash of light and the
very hill seemed to rock under the following thunder. The big drops
began to fall, faster and faster, until a white sheet of rain swept
across the garden almost before she could seek refuge in the open door
of the tool shed.
How it poured, so that trickling streams were running down the paths and
pools were collecting before her very feet! What was it doing to the
garden laid out on the long slope, all that flood of water rushing from
the top of the hill to the valley below? A good many times she had heard
Michael comment to Miss Miranda on just such a possibility.
“’Tis a good bit of ground you have, but steeper by far than it should
be. In grass it was well enough, but in garden stuff, I’m not so
certain. A hard rain on this hillside would cut the rows and wash out
the young plants something cruel. I wish it were more of a level.”
Just what he had dreaded was evidently happening now. Rain and wind
rushed furiously over the garden, flattening the peas, tearing at the
furrows, plowing deep trenches where rivulets of water went streaming
down. Once in a quieter shower she had seen Michael working with a hoe,
opening proper channels to carry off the rain, making little ditches
here and there where the water could flow away without doing harm. It
was plain that if the garden was to be saved from the ravages of this
seasonable storm, some such thing must be done now.
“Well,” she thought determinedly, “I wasn’t of much use in the workshop,
but I can do something here at least.”
It had rankled a little for some days after that other emergency, to
remember that it was David and not herself, who had been of service.
She took a hoe from behind the door and ran out into the rain. In a
moment her hat was blown away, her clothes were soaked and water was
streaming down her face. She struggled valiantly with the torrents that
were pouring through the garden. At first she was slow and awkward, but
presently she gained skill by experiment so that she could open channels
where they were most needed and could forestall the cutting of cruel
gashes all across the rows of the best vegetables. Energy and good will
she had in plenty and with abundance of these she toiled, wet, muddy,
slipping in the crumbling soil, thinking sometimes that she was beaten
but still fighting desperately to rescue what she could. At last slowly,
very slowly, the struggle turned from a losing battle to a winning one,
the proper ditches were made and maintained, the rain softened from a
deluge to a quiet shower, the water flowed harmlessly away between the
corn and the cabbages and Betsey stopped to draw breath and survey what
she had done. The peas and onions showed unbroken rows, the beans had
been little damaged, the bulk of the garden’s crop had been saved. It
was only then that she realized how excited she had been and how wet and
weary she was. She jumped with startled suddenness when a voice spoke
behind her.
“You’ve done that none so bad,” it said slowly. “There’s not many that’s
so willing to keep a garden from being ruined by the rain and fewer yet
would have the wits to know how.”
She turned to see Michael Martin sitting on an upturned bucket, smoking
calmly away at his stump of a black pipe, rain dripping from the rim of
his battered hat.
“I remembered seeing you carry off the rain in the same way last week,”
Betsey answered, “so I thought I’d try it myself. But I didn’t know that
you were anywhere near.”
“That was but an April shower,” he rejoined, “such as a stiff old man
could get the better of, but I’ve known this long time that I wasn’t
able any more to fight one of these unseasonable thunderstorms. The
ground here lies well for the sun but ill for the rain, as I’m always
telling Miss Miranda. She’ll be glad and thankful that you have saved
her crop! And how it did rain, as though it were Saint Swithin’s Day
itself!”
“And how long have you been sitting there?” demanded Betsey. “You might
at least have told me what to do.”
“I came out thinking to try what I could myself, but when I saw you at
the work, I could tell that you knew what you were about, so where was
the use of wasting any words. I just waited in case you needed any help,
but you managed better alone than with an old man to hinder. I’ve no
doubt that your hands are blistered and that you’ll find your back
aching to-morrow, but you have saved the garden. It will be something
Miss Reynolds will be glad to hear when she comes home.”
“Is she coming soon? Where did she go?” Elizabeth inquired eagerly.
“Now that I don’t know,” Michael answered with a sigh. “She decided
within an hour and off she went. It might have been to consult her
cousin that looks after her business affairs and that used to live here
when he was a boy.”
“What was her cousin’s name?”
The rain had almost ceased, so Elizabeth laid aside her hoe, stretched
her cramped fingers and went to stand in front of Michael and ply him
with questions. Such a talkative mood was so rare in him that she
feared, any second, it might pass away, and, since here at last was some
one who could and would tell her more of Miss Miranda, she trembled lest
silence should come suddenly upon him before she had heard what she
wished to know. The rain was pattering from her skirts, her feet sank
every moment deeper into the mud, but she feared to move or turn away
lest the spell should break. Good fortune seemed to be with her,
however, for Michael talked on and on, relighting his pipe as often as
the water quenched it, and answering her queries to the best of his
ability.
“His name was Don, Mr. Donald Reynolds he is now, and I find it hard to
remember when I see him, that they were ever little things here together
and he was her Cousin Don. I never liked the lad, and began to mistrust
him from the first I knew of him, when his face was just beginning to
look keen and sharp and he was learning to think it was a great joke
that he could so easily get the better of the other two, Miss Miranda
and Mr. Ted, and shape things to go all his way. Now he is rich and
prosperous and beginning to grow fat, but still he has that sharp,
selfish face. He has forgotten how to be kind to Miss Miranda, he has
forgotten how good she was to him when he was a snub-nosed boy with long
legs and skinned knees and the both of them with no mother. Yes, he has
forgotten all that, has Mr. Donald Reynolds.”
“And you think she has gone somewhere to consult him?” Elizabeth asked.
“She goes to see him rarely, more often he comes here. And she dreads
his coming always. I begin to know when it is time for another visit
from him, when she starts at the creaking of the gate and begins to look
frightened when she hears a step coming up the path. She has been in
worse uneasiness than ever, these last weeks, so I’m thinking she just
decided that it was better to dare than to dread, so she was off to see
him and have it over.”
“But why,” persisted Betsey, “why should she be afraid of her own cousin
when he grew up with her?”
“It’s past my understanding,” Michael admitted, “and I’ve thought and
wondered over it until my mind was all at sea. I’m not of her kind, so
it’s a puzzle that I can’t solve. It has something to do with her old
father, and that machine he is making, that far I have got, but no
farther. He is a clever one, the old man; he has been famous once and
I’ll wager you, when that piece of work is done, he will make the world
talk of him again. But there’s something wrong and if one but knew what
it was, maybe it could be put right. When I knew them first they were
all so happy, living there in the big house at the summit of the hill,
they seemed to have everything in life there was to wish for, but since
then the house has burned and Mr. Ted has gone away to the wars, and
there’s things gone badly awry. Miss Miranda doesn’t pretend that this
big garden and these ducks and hens are here for her own pleasure, she
owns that she must have the money that she makes by them, but it’s my
belief that not even you and I know how much she needs it.”
His damp pipe, rebellious at last, refused to be rekindled, which
delayed him for a long minute.
“She has cut herself off from most of her old friends,” he went on, when
he was once more puffing vigorously, “for fear they might be asking
questions or offering help in a way that would hurt her. She is too
proud to endure either. But—” he raised his little gray eyes and looked
at Betsey keenly, “but you’re of a different sort, the sort that she
does not fear and that can be a true friend to her none the less. She is
fond of you, I’ve seen that in these days you have worked with her in
the garden. Be good to her, Miss Betsey, and stay near to her. Find out
her trouble if you can and help her. For it’s as true as that there are
Saints in Heaven, it’s help she needs.”
He got up as though all that he had been saying had led up to this and
now he had finished.
“But—” gasped Betsey, “but, please tell me first—”
His square jaw shut so firmly that she knew there was no use in going
on. The strange mood of fluent speech had left him. Pocketing his pipe
and pulling his wet hat down over his forehead, he stumped off down the
muddy furrow, never looking back. The rain had ceased entirely now and
the sun had come breaking through the clouds with that brilliant
clearness that often follows a storm. It made the drenched green rows
glisten and the new corn, bowing before the wind, sparkle and drop
jewels as the gusts passed by. Betsey slowly lifted one heavy foot out
of the mud and then the other, and walked very thoughtfully up the path.
On Saturday and Sunday she went away into the country with some friends
of her own age to stay at a distant country place and to spend the quick
hours in very happy holiday-making, returning to school on Monday
morning with more energy and cheerfulness than she had known for a week.
Affairs of various kinds kept her occupied so late that it was not until
the long daylight hour after dinner that she was free to hasten away up
Somerset Lane. As she came to the gate she saw with delight that there
were lights in the upper windows, that the doors stood open and that the
whole place had a more cheerful look than it had recently worn. Even
Dick, sitting on the gate post and conversing with himself in happy
gutturals, seemed trying to announce that the mistress of the house was
once more at home.
Miss Miranda said nothing of her journey except to thank Elizabeth most
warmly and gratefully for saving the garden in her absence.
“You should hear Michael sing your praises,” she said. “He has so little
to say of any one that it is amazing to hear how he talks of you. He
cannot make up his mind whether we have saved our season’s crop through
your resourcefulness or because last week he buried a luckpenny at the
head of the garden. But I know what I think!”
They went out together to inspect the whole place, to wonder at the
growth of the vegetables after the rain, and to admire the plumpness of
the ducks and the white Leghorn chicks, hatched while Miss Miranda was
away. Betsey noticed that her friend still looked worn and anxious and
that the old trick of looking quickly over her shoulder when a step went
past the gate, was not gone. But of her journey she still said nothing.
“I think,” Miss Miranda remarked at last, “that it would be pleasant to
walk over to the big house—or where the big house stood—and look at the
flowers there. The peonies should be out by now. I was thinking of them
to-day, of how cool and white they were and what banks of them should be
blooming under the dining-room windows. The air feels close to-night,
but there is nearly always a breeze stirring under the pine trees across
the slope of the hill.”
The high gray wall that edged the lawn by the cottage was, as Elizabeth
knew, the boundary of the grounds belonging to the big, ruined house.
She had looked often at the gate, with its round archway, but she had
never passed through it and into the crooked path beyond. The lock was
rusty and difficult to turn, she noted, as though Miss Miranda did not
often pass that way herself. She felt a flutter of excitement as they
went through the gate, feeling that she was about to explore some of
those mysteries that had been puzzling more people than herself alone.
The peonies were out indeed, great white drifts of them in a long row
below a broken wall. It was not easy to realize that the heaps of
blackened stones, covered with vines and lusty wild shrubs, had ever
stood for a real dwelling with dining and living rooms and windows
opening on the garden. Just facing them, was a stretch of wall still
partly unbroken, showing a few windows and a door, charred and blackened
by the cruel fire, but still firm on its hinges. A very old cherry tree
with a twisted black trunk spread its branches just above. It gave
Betsey a creepy feeling to look at that closed entrance and think what
ruin and desolation lay behind it.
What had been the lawn was still green and smooth, bordered by a great
half circle of pine trees. In the very center of the level stretch of
turf was a broad round pool of clear water with a rim of cool gray stone
just showing in the thick grass. There was a breeze as Miss Miranda had
promised, a gentle wind that moved the heavy branches of the pines and
touched the surface of the water. Elizabeth knelt in the grass to peer
into the basin, to watch a few lazy fish swimming here and there and to
see the mirrored green of the tree-tops all about the edge, with a
circle of blue sky reflected in the center.
“You should see it a little later, after dark,” said Miss Miranda,
leaning over her shoulder to look in also. “That opening between the two
biggest trees gives space to reflect the sunset and show the evening
star. My father taught me all the stars by showing them to me in the
pool; even now I think of June as the time when the Northern Crown
shines there in the middle of the basin and of August as when the Swan
spreads her wings from one edge to the other.”
Perhaps Miss Miranda realized suddenly that she had said more than she
intended, for never before had she dropped a hint that this great ruined
place had once been her home.
“Look at old Dick,” she observed as though to forestall any questioning;
“I thought that he would be coming after us.”
The solemn figure of the crow came hopping along the path, pausing to
peer under stones or behind bushes for snails. With great dignity he
stepped across the grass to sit on the rim of the pool.
“Is it deep?” Elizabeth asked, looking down into the quiet water that
reflected Dick’s image so clearly.
“It is at one side, but not at the other,” Miss Miranda answered. “Just
here you can touch the bottom if you stretch your arm, but it slopes
sharply and is deep enough for swimming over at the other edge. Watch
the water and, as it grows darker, you will see the stars come out. Just
above the reflection of that tallest pine tree will be the big stars of
the Lion, and the curve of the Sickle.”
The twilight fell as they sat there talking until, it seemed to Betsey
almost by magic, there was the bright star twinkling in the water just
as Miss Miranda had said, with other pinpoints of light that grew
gradually clearer to show the golden Sickle and the white blur of the
Milky Way.
“It is strange how I always loved to watch them,” Miss Miranda said,
peering into the quiet water as intently as Betsey; “I used to see all
the Signs of the Zodiac, that I believed from their name were so
mysterious, but that were pictured here so plainly, month by month, that
they became as simple as every day. Michael believes that good or ill
fortune all goes by luck or charms; some people think that it depends
only on what star is the ascendant. He always maintained, after the
house was burned, that it was because, when we set out on the journey
that left it all alone, we none of us touched both sides of the gatepost
as we went through the last time. And it was at the time when the group
of stars called the Crab, the most unlucky constellation of them all,
was shining in the pool. But I know it was only a bolt of lightning and
a wooden roof and nobody at hand to save the place. It was burned to the
ground almost before the neighbors saw the smoke and flames among the
trees.”
“But don’t you want to rebuild it? Don’t you love it? Don’t you want to
live here again?” Betsey asked eagerly.
Miss Miranda did not answer. It was evident that Elizabeth had put
questions that she had no right to ask, so she pursued the matter no
farther. The rising breeze had begun to stir the water once more, so
that the stars rocked and twinkled and turned into long streaks of
glimmering light. Dick had fluttered across the grass, mounted the
broken house wall and now sat there in the dusk, cawing loudly.
“He must see something there behind the wall,” observed Elizabeth. “Oh,
what is that?”
For Dick, bent on some marauding errand, had swooped down out of their
sight, with a harsh cry that was answered immediately by the voice of
some unseen person within the house. The blackened door burst open and
there came through, first Dick, flying pell mell, then a dark figure
outlined for a moment in the doorway. The brighter western sky showed
beyond the roofless house, throwing the bent head and broad shoulders
into sharp relief. The breeze, driving through the open door, swept
forth a flutter of papers, the loose pages of a battered book, that
spread far and wide across the grass.
“I beg your pardon,” said a voice, “I didn’t know any one was here, I
thought it was only that mischievous Dick.”
The speaker came forward. It was David Warren.
“I come up here to read in the evenings sometimes,” he explained in some
embarrassment. “It is so quiet and cool, and the sunset light lasts late
here on the hill. There is a bit of ceiling left at the corner inside
the wall that makes a dry place to keep some books. But I hadn’t meant
to be trespassing. I had laid my pocketknife on a stone and Dick’s eye
caught it at once.”
He began to gather up the scattered papers which were drifting more and
more wildly across the lawn. Betsey ran to give assistance while Miss
Miranda assured him that he was not trespassing and was welcome to what
hospitality the desolate house afforded. As for Dick he perched on a
branch overhead, rocking back and forth apparently with mirth over the
mischief he had wrought. He swelled his feathers and gave voice to his
one great accomplishment.
“Good morning,” he said in his rasping, squeaking voice, “good morning,
good morning!”
It was the only thing he had learned to say, and he never made the
effort except at moments when he was completely satisfied with himself
and all the world.
They sat, all three, beside the pool for a little until the water was
sprinkled thick with dancing lights. David was asking many eager
questions in regard to Mr. Reynolds’ machine. Had there been any more
accidents? Were the new experiments turning out well? Did Mr. Reynolds
feel encouraged? There were many other queries besides, about gas
turbines and lubricating systems, too technical for even Miss Miranda to
be able to answer. They both walked home with Elizabeth through the warm
dark and left her at her door. She had not much to say, for something
was puzzling her greatly. In gathering up the scattered papers she had
found one among the rest that looked strangely and disagreeably
familiar. The light was dim but she could not mistake the drawing, that
intricate and much-hated figure, the frustum of a pyramid. She could not
conceive why David Warren should be troubling his head with such
matters. Indeed, there seemed to be a good many things that she could
not understand at all.