MYSTERIES.
"Come, Master Lionel! It's time to be stirring. Your bath's ready and
breakfast will be before you are dressed. Miss Lucy says you are not
to delay, and to open your window when you leave your room, and to be
in your place in the breakfast-room when she comes down to lead
morning worship. Now, don't go to sleep any more, that's a good boy,
and make me climb three flights of stairs again, just for nothing at
all. Hear?"
"Yes, ma'am, I hear," responded Towsley, sleepily. But he was much
mixed in his ideas at that moment, and quite mistook Mary for her
mistress; also that he had been instructed by his benefactress, during
the past evening, as to his demeanor toward the servants of the house,
whom he was to treat with all kindness, yet not to "ma'am" nor
"mister," as seemed natural to an Alley-trained boy.
"I can trust you, can I?" again demanded the voice outside the
half-closed door.
"Yes. I'm awake. But, say, Mary!"
"Well, what is it?"
"Did you say bath? Have I got to wash myself again? They washed me at
the hospital enough to kill. I won't be dirty again this winter."
Mary laughed. "The idea! Did you ever hear of a young gentleman as
didn't take his bath every day? Ridic'lous. Come, step lively. Here's
a bath-robe by the door used to belong to the other Lionel. Miss Lucy
says, wear it."
Towsley had seen such robes in the shop windows; and as he folded this
one about him and thrust his feet into the warm little slippers, also
provided, he had a curious feeling that he was thus investing himself
with his new life.
But this made him very unhappy. Odd! that a boy who had never had a
home should be homesick! Yet that was the real name of the miserable,
sinking sensation at his heart; and as he crossed the hall to the
bathroom, his face was the picture of woe.
However he had no idea of disobedience; and though it was with a
shiver of repugnance that he stepped into the porcelain tub, his
emotions underwent a sudden and radical change.
"Hi! this is nicer than swimming! And them towels--for me! Ain't they
prime! I wonder what Shiner would say if he could see 'em."
This was an unfortunate suggestion. It almost, though not quite,
overset the exhilaration of the bath, and as he stepped out upon the
rug he seemed to see the reproachful face of his mate looking up at
him and questioning:
"Why ain't I in it, too?"
"Why wasn't he? Why did I happen to be the one, just the only one, who
should skate bang into Miss Lucy and be taken in and done for? And I
couldn't skate, either. I was just a-learning. Pshaw! I wish I hadn't.
I wish--I wish. 'Bout this time, I s'pose, the fellows have near sold
out. There'll be some running on the down-town cars, though, and the
gents that go to business late; bankers and lawyers and such. I s'pose
somebody's got my route, already. If a chap gets out the line--there's
another hops into his place--spang! I wonder----"
But just there Lionel Towsley's reflections became so sombre that some
very unusual tears crept into his eyes. This fact restored him to a
sense of his own foolishness.
"Shucks! if I ain't crying! I--Towsley! Well, that beats all. I ain't
never done it since I can remember, only now I'm adopted I 'pear to be
losing all my snap. Is that the way with rich folks always? Am I a
rich one, now, just because I stay in Miss Lucy's house? Well, I can't
let myself get to be a girl, even if I do live like one."
Then the lad remembered Doctor Frank and that, although the gentleman
wore fine attire, he was the manliest person he knew. Yet he was
evidently wealthy, since he could afford to give away, or advance--to
penniless Towsley this seemed the same thing--a five-dollar suit of
clothing. So he hurried himself and brushed his hair, as far as he
could reach around; and he tried to use all the accessories of his
toilet which Miss Lucy had provided and he could understand. In his
efforts he forgot to be so lonely; and it was a really bright-faced
little fellow who presented himself in the breakfast-room, where the
house mistress sat waiting, and who addressed her very respectfully:
"Good-morning, Miss Armacost. Am I late? I guess I fooled 'round some.
I--I ain't got used to things yet."
"Good-morning, my child. Did you rest well?"
"Prime. I hope you did, too," he replied, sitting down upon a chair
near her own.
Yet she did not look as if she had, and the child opened his lips to
remark this; but she motioned him to be quiet, and immediately took up
the Bible lying ready on a little stand beside her. He noticed that
all the servants were present, sitting in an orderly row upon one side
of the room, which was very still. Then Miss Lucy read a portion of
the Word and offered a brief prayer, to which Towsley listened in a
scared sort of way. For she mentioned him in her petition, asking for
a blessing upon the new relation established between them.
This gave the matter a dignity and importance really startling to the
waif. If he and what happened to him were worth mentioning to the Lord
he had no right to grumble about them; and, during that few moments
upon his knees, there was born in the boy's heart a self-respect that
was never after to forsake him.
But when they had taken their places at the table, and Mary was
passing the food, he saw how Miss Lucy's hand shook, and inquired,
anxiously:
"Miss Lucy, are you sick? What makes you tremble so? Are you cold?
Can I get you something?"
She was much pleased by his quick observation, yet shook her head in a
way that made him understand he was to ask no more questions while
Mary remained in the room. After she had served them and gone, he
ventured again:
"Didn't you sleep as nice as I did, Miss Lucy? You look awful tired."
The little lady regarded him very attentively for a moment. Then she
inquired:
"Lionel, if I tell you a secret, will you keep it?"
"Yes, indeed. I will. Hope to die if I don't."
"Needn't say that. It wouldn't be true. But there was something very
queer going on here last night; and it kept me awake, and I'm all
upset this morning."
Even to herself it seemed strange that Miss Armacost should turn to
this stranger child for sympathy, when she would not allow herself to
do so toward any of the servants who had known her so long.
"What was it, Miss Lucy? P'raps I can find out what it was. I'd like
to if I could. I'd like to, first rate. I heard what you said when you
were praying, and I ain't going to forget. I'd rather be back to my
old place in the Square, with my papers under my arm, but if I can't
help myself--if the Lord's took a hand in it--I'd like to be the next
best thing I can. That's to help you, ain't it?"
The mistress of the mansion gasped. This was frankness, indeed,--a
frankness most unflattering to herself, but it served to rouse and
brace her jaded nerves. She replied, a little sharply:
"If you don't like it you needn't stay. That is, after you've given
the matter a good trial, and I have. That's fair for both sides.
But--hark! There it goes again!"
At that instant, the electric door-bell rang in a peculiar, prolonged,
and rather gentle fashion. Towsley couldn't understand why Miss Lucy's
face paled still further; nor why, after Mary had answered the
summons, she should slam the door viciously, and almost run back along
the hall to her own quarters.
Miss Lucy touched the table bell and summoned her; then inquired, in
as calm a voice as she could command:
"What was it, this time, Mary?"
"The same old story, ma'am; nothing."
"Very well. You may go."
"Yes, ma'am. I think I will. Cook and I are both talking of going. You
see, _we've_ been hearing it this two or three days, and we wouldn't
dare to stay in a house that had a 'haunt.'"
"Nonsense. There is nothing of the sort. Some reasonable explanation
will be found. You may return to your dusting."
"Yes, ma'am. But if it happens again, just once, please, ma'am, I'd
like to be let off, and I'll try to find somebody to take my place if
you want me to."
Miss Armacost vouchsafed no response to this suggestion, and pretended
to sip her coffee. Yet her hand shook so that she set the cup down,
and, as soon as Mary had disappeared again, folded her arms and looked
toward the eager-faced boy opposite, in a helpless sort of way.
"What did she mean by that, Miss Lucy?"
Then she told him. How for several days before she had herself heard
it, there had been a most mysterious ringing at the front door-bell;
that the servants had as often answered the summons, yet found nobody
demanding admittance; that they believed there was some ghostly
influence at work; that being superstitious, like all the colored
race, they had decided it would be unsafe for them to remain in the
house; that at frequent intervals, all last night and now this
morning, as Lionel had himself observed, the ringing had again
occurred.
"It's very, very distracting and uncomfortable. I'm quite upset by it,
and don't know what to do."
"It's electric, ain't it?"
"What? The bell? Yes, certainly."
"Then I'd send for a 'lectrician. He'd find out the trouble in a
jiffy. But, shucks! wouldn't it be prime!"
"What would be prime?" Yet Miss Lucy sighed in relief, as she added:
"What an extremely simple thing; and why didn't I think of it before?"
"Don't know, except 'cause you didn't."
"Hm'm. Immediately after breakfast I'll send for a man. Now--my
goodness! What's all this?"
The glances of both flew to the windows which were on a level with the
street. There were four of these lace-draped windows, two in front and
two upon the side. At each was a small face peering in, and at some
there were two faces.
Towsley forgot everything. All the changed conditions of his life, his
determination to be very thoughtful of Miss Lucy, the gentlemanly
behavior which belonged to a boy who lived in the finest house upon
the Avenue. They were faces that he knew,--every one! They, were the
faces of Shiner, and Battles, and Toothless, and Whistling Jerry.
Behind these, Tom the Bugler, and Larry Lameleg.
His friends were they, his jolly little comrades; who had heard of
what had befallen him and had come to condole with him. The mere sight
of them brought back the atmosphere so familiar to him: of the alleys
and their freedom, of Newspaper Square with its hurry and bustle and
eager life! It was too much for Towsley, and with a shout of rapture
he rushed to the basement entrance, out upon the street, into the very
arms of his mates.
"Say, it was true, then, ain't it?" demanded Tom the Bugler. "What was
in our paper last night, and that our man saw up in the park? You
dressed up in another boy's clothes and lost yourself in the snow,
didn't you? Must been a dumb one to do that. Right here in Baltimore
city where you've lived all your life. Say, was it bad in hospital? Be
you goin' to stay here? What's the lady doin'? She looks--she looks
kind of funny, don't she?"
Lionel Towsley glanced back through the window into the room he had
deserted, and his heart sank. Miss Lucy had pushed aside from the
table and was watching him with a white, disappointed face. It had
been such a little while that she had had him, and yet he had become
so dear. She had been so ready, so eager to bestow every comfort and
benefit upon him, and he had seemed so deserving; yet now, at a
glance, he was back in the old ways among his rude companions, and she
and her offered love were quite forgotten.
"Say, Tows, you're a regular swell now, ain't you? My! see them fine
clothes! Look at the pockets of 'em. Money? Money in the pockets,
Tows? Give us a nickel all round, you nabob, you. Rides in a sleigh
every day, he does, and never thinks no more of Newspaper Square and
nights on the old steam holes, he don't!" gibed Battles fiercely.
But Lionel scarcely heard this taunt. A bitter struggle was tearing
his manly, loving, loyal little heart--the claims of his old life and
his own loneliness on the one side; the claims of Miss Lucy's
generosity and her loneliness upon the other. He didn't need her, he
thought; but she needed him. She needed him very much. It was his duty
to be good to her; and, like many another child under similar
circumstances, at that moment Towsley felt that the word "duty" was
the most disagreeable one in the language. He took a second real good
look at Miss Lucy still sitting, waiting, and this time he saw
something in her face that made everything quite easy.
"She understands!" he thought, and then he nodded to her with a happy
smile. A second later, with a hurried, "Wait a minute, fellows!" he
had darted back into the breakfast-room and, now indifferent to the
stares of his comrades, flung his arms about the lady's neck, crying:
"It's all right, dear Miss Armacost! I'm not a-going to run away with
them. But I've just thought of something and I want it, I want it--oh!
so much! It's a little thing! But I want, I do want, before I give up
the newspaper business to get just one 'beat' on th' others. May I?
May I just go down to the office, and before anybody else gets hold of
it, get our ghost story in? It would make a whopper, it would! I'll
carry the boys away with me, and I won't let on a bit, and I'll come
back surely. Just this once, may I? I never had a chance before?"
It struck even Towsley himself as an odd circumstance that he should
ask this permission; he who had never before consulted anybody as to
his goings or comings; or that he should wait so eagerly for her
reply.
But Miss Lucy scarcely heard him. She was thinking of something else.
The clasp of those young arms about her neck thrilled her with a joy
unspeakable. With such an expression as it now wore, Towsley's face
seemed, indeed, that of the lost, innocent Lionel restored to life.
She was ready and anxious to give him all he desired, even to the half
of her kingdom; and she comprehended less of what he was just then
saying, than what he had so greatly desired on the previous evening.
"Yes, my dear. You may. We will certainly hire the great stage, and
give a ride to as many as it will hold. You shall tell me just what
you want, and I will gratify you if it is possible."
"Thank you--oh! thank you!" he cried, and dashed a kiss at her. At
that moment, however, he was more loyal to his paper than generous to
his friends, and he ran out hastily.
His mates beheld and construed this action after their own way.
"Pshaw! She's give him the go-by. He ain't no swell. Anybody could
work the 'doption racket for just one night, he could. Let's chase
him. If she's give him money, he must treat!" cried Battles
contemptuously.
So, in a twinkling, the place was deserted, and Miss Lucy sat alone
trying to understand just what had happened.
The silence about her was complete, and continued for a long time.
"What did he mean? Evidently not what I did, or had in mind," pondered
the perplexed mistress of the house on the Avenue; and, as if in
answer to her unspoken question, again there fell upon the stillness
that startling, inexplicable ringing of a bell.
"Oh oh! There is that uncanny sound again! What can cause it? I don't
wonder the servants are frightened. I am, myself; though I know, of
course, there are no such things as ghosts. And yet----"
As if in derision of her doubt, once more the bell pealed; this time
both for long and violently.