THE MYSTERY OF A VISION
Barnes awoke in the morning to the reveille of robins and thrushes.
With chirp and whistle and flute note, they sang him from his hearty
sleep to a still heartier realization of a new-born day. For a moment,
from the motherly lap of his broad bed, he blinked at the dimity
curtains and the age-ripened hautboy. What strange caravanserai was
this? It was always a pleasure to wake to the memory of the long tramp
of the preceding day--to trace his path from the brisk setting out of
the previous morning to the final lagging steps at dusk. To-day he
traced his course as far as the letter-box and then came to himself as
though fresh from a plunge in a mountain brook. But he had no time to
think about it before there was a timid knock at the door.
“Yes?” called Barnes.
“Your warm water, sir?”
“Come in.”
John stepped over the threshold. His stride was confident. He was bold
enough in the daytime whatever he might be at night.
“Miss Schuyler’s compliments, sir, and we breakfast at eight.”
“What time is it now?”
“Seven, sir.”
“Very well. My compliments in return to Eleanor and I will be ready at
eight.”
John betrayed wonder. Barnes reviewed his speech. Then he himself
betrayed even more wonder.
“Did you hear, John?” he demanded sternly, in a clumsy attempt to
retrieve himself. “My compliments to my aunt,” he paused, “and I will
be ready at eight.”
“Yes, sir.”
Barnes unconsciously looked about for his dress-suit case. Then he
remembered that he had checked it to the next village, thinking at
first to ride through. He did not have so much as a razor. He glanced
at John’s smooth-shaven face, hesitated, and then asked,
“John--didn’t I leave a razor behind me? Seems to me I remember a
black-handled one. If you could find it--”
Now John was in many respects an admirable man in his calling. If he
was positive no razor had been left, he had at least a razor of his own.
“I will see if I can find it, sir,” he said.
He was back in five minutes with the entire outfit which he placed
upon the dresser without a word. Barnes was immensely pleased with his
cleverness, while John, who had been the really clever one, remained
impassive. Furthermore, being in high good humor at the success of the
ruse which had saved him from the humiliation of borrowing from the
man, Barnes leaped from his bed so suddenly that John jumped half way
to the door.
“What’s the trouble?” inquired Barnes.
“You came so suddenly, sir.”
“Perhaps I _was_ a bit abrupt. The morning gets into your blood.”
“It’s the Arctic weather I presume, sir.”
“Yes. Ah, yes, that is probably it.”
He began to lather his face but John still delayed, shuffling a bit
nervously.
“You left ‘The Lucky Find’ well, sir?” he ventured with an apologetic
cough. It was as though he spoke of a lady. It was as though he spoke
of an intimate friend in whom he took great interest.
“Pretty well, thank you,” answered Barnes in some surprise.
“I reads as how you brought twenty million in gold out of the country
last year, sir.”
“I?”
“Oh, not you alone, sir, but all the mines together. I didn’t know but
what ‘The Lucky Find’ had a share in it, as the sayin’ goes.”
Barnes caught his breath. Then he carefully lathered one ear. It
didn’t need lathering any more than his shoes. It was something of an
automatic movement.
“Let me see,” he asked quietly, “how much stock did you have?”
“Not much, sir. I haven’t saved as much as I might. But when I saw the
papers you sent on to the mistress, I mailed what I had. It was only a
thousand, sir.”
“Yes, I remember now. A thousand dollars.”
Barnes turned back to the mirror. He wiped the lather from his ear.
“Bring my trousers, John.”
The man obeyed.
“Reach in the right hand side pocket.”
John brought out two five-dollar bills.
“Put one of them back.”
John obeyed and held the other one in his hand uncertainly.
“That,” said Barnes, “is our first annual dividend. It should have been
sent to you before.”
“Thank you, sir. I didn’t hope for so much, but--”
“You may go,” said Barnes, picking up his razor.
Barnes completed his dressing with dispatch. It occurred to him that if
he hurried he might possibly beat out Aunt Philomela, and so have a few
words with the girl before she came down.
As he stepped into the living-room, Aunt Philomela greeted him with a
curt nod.
“I trust three-fingered Bill didn’t disturb your dreams,” he observed
with polite interest.
The girl was nowhere to be seen.
“Bah. Something worse,” snapped Aunt Philomela as though she held him
directly responsible for it. “It was half a walrus.”
“Perhaps that is the Thing John was looking for,” he suggested.
He turned towards the window in the hope that he might discover Miss
Van Patten in the flower-gardens. They blossomed just beyond--a medley
of sweet alyssum, mignonette, heliotrope, cosmos, and marigolds. She
was not there.
“To what do you refer by the Thing?” demanded Aunt Philomela.
“The Thing he looked for under the bed.”
The color stole into her cheeks making them look more than ever like
cameos.
“In these days, with so many strangers on the road, one cannot be too
careful,” she avowed.
“No,” he admitted, “I understand that many estimable persons even in
New York make it a habit to look under their beds.”
At length Miss Van Patten came in. She was in white again with a loose
crimson tie at her throat. She looked as though she might have been in
the garden after all--growing there like the other flowers for she had
a freshness that only the dew can give. She greeted him with a smile
that brightened the room like the sun.
“Daddy is in better spirits than I’ve seen him for a year,” she
exclaimed. “He asked for you as soon as he woke up.”
“Perhaps then I had better step up there for a minute before breakfast.”
“Would you? He’s waiting so impatiently.”
“I’ll go at once.”
“He repeated to me what you told him. You didn’t tell us all.”
She blushed prettily, timid at sharing with him a secret in which her
aunt for the moment was not included.
“Most everything,” he replied uneasily.
“You don’t mind because he told me?”
She feared that he might consider it in the light of a confidence
betrayed.
“No,” he answered sincerely.
But lest she go further into the subject he turned abruptly and made
his way again to the room of shadows.
Aunt Philomela at once faced her niece.
“What is this great secret?” she demanded somewhat piqued.
“I’m not sure that I ought to tell you,” replied the girl with a
tinkling laugh which was like the ripple of water over pebbles.
“Pardon my presumption,” snapped the aunt cuttingly, as she assumed her
state dignity.
This consisted of standing so erect that she crinkled, drawing her chin
the slightest bit in, and folding her hands at the level of her waist.
The girl promptly stepped forward and kissed her.
“It was partly of you he spoke.”
Aunt Philomela drew back with a more genuine emotion.
“What an impertinence!” she exclaimed.
“Daddy evidently asked him if he saw any change in you.”
“Of all--”
“And Mr. Barnes told him he thought you had grown younger.”
“I shall thank William not to discuss me in the future.”
“Oh, but your ears would have burned if you’d heard the rest.”
“What wonder! To allow a stranger to discuss such intimate matters
is--is almost indecent.”
“Remember it was as Joe that Mr. Barnes spoke. But,” she added
thoughtfully, “I’m not sure Joe himself would have spoken so
beautifully.”
“The bold, young fellow.”
“The most wonderful thing of all,” continued the girl, her eyes growing
wistful, “was the way he talked to Daddy about mother. How was he able
to do that when he never knew her--never saw her?”
“Your mother,” replied Aunt Philomela, soberly, “would never forgive me
if she knew I countenanced such goings on.”
“How was he able to do it?” repeated Eleanor, her thoughts spanning a
decade.
Aunt Philomela scanned the girl’s face anxiously, lovingly.
“La, dear,” she murmured.
“He spoke of her eyes--describing them as woodland pools at twilight.
You remember mother’s eyes were just like that.”
“Yes, dear. They were like that--like your eyes.”
“He spoke of the tender sweetness of her face--of her black hair with
the gold in it. You remember the gold in mother’s hair?”
“Yes, dear. Your hair is much the same.”
“He even described her skin. He said it was like ivory with rose in it.”
“Yes,” answered Aunt Philomela, noting the rose now in the ivory of her
niece’s cheeks.
“That sounded almost as though he were standing in front of mother,
didn’t it? It is as though he saw a vision!”
Aunt Philomela pressed her lips firmly together. When, a moment later
Barnes himself came in, she kept her eyes fixed upon her niece.
“Eleanor,” she announced, “I shall ask Carl to come over this morning.”