THE GIRL IN GRAY
My first thought was to find the crypt door and return
through the tunnel before Bates reached the house.
The chapel was open, and by lighting matches I found
my way to the map and panel. I slipped through and
closed the opening; then ran through the passage with
gratitude for the generous builder who had given it a
clear floor and an ample roof. In my haste I miscalculated
its length and pitched into the steps under the
trap at a speed that sent me sprawling. In a moment
more I had jammed the trap into place and was running
up the cellar steps, breathless, with my cap
smashed down over my eyes.
I heard Bates at the rear of the house and knew I had
won the race by a scratch. There was but a moment in
which to throw my coat and cap under the divan, slap
the dust from my clothes and seat myself at the great
table, where the candles blazed tranquilly.
Bates’ step was as steady as ever—there was not the
slightest hint of excitement in it—as he came and stood
within the door.
“Beg pardon, Mr. Glenarm, did you wish anything,
sir?”
“Oh, no, thank you, Bates.”
“I had stepped down to the village, sir, to speak to
the grocer. The eggs he sent this morning were not
quite up to the mark. I have warned him not to send
any of the storage article to this house.”
“That’s right, Bates.” I folded my arms to hide my
hands, which were black from contact with the passage,
and faced my man servant. My respect for his rascally
powers had increased immensely since he gave me my
coffee. A contest with so clever a rogue was worth
while.
“I’m grateful for your good care of me, Bates. I had
expected to perish of discomfort out here, but you are
treating me like a lord.”
“Thank you, Mr. Glenarm. I do what I can, sir.”
He brought fresh candles for the table candelabra,
going about with his accustomed noiseless step. I felt
a cold chill creep down my spine as he passed behind
me on these errands. His transition from the rôle of
conspirator to that of my flawless servant was almost
too abrupt.
I dismissed him as quickly as possible, and listened
to his step through the halls as he went about locking
the doors. This was a regular incident, but I was aware
to-night that he exercised what seemed to me a particular
care in settling the bolts. The locking-up process
had rather bored me before; to-night the snapping of
bolts was particularly trying.
When I heard Bates climbing to his own quarters I
quietly went the rounds on my own account and found
everything as tight as a drum.
In the cellar I took occasion to roll some barrels of
cement into the end of the corridor, to cover and block
the trap door. Bates had no manner of business in that
part of the house, as the heating apparatus was under
the kitchen and accessible by an independent stairway.
I had no immediate use for the hidden passage to the
chapel—and I did not intend that my enemies should
avail themselves of it. Morgan, at least, knew of it and,
while he was not likely to trouble me at once, I had resolved
to guard every point in our pleasant game.
I was tired enough to sleep when I went to my room,
and after an eventless night, woke to a clear day and
keener air.
“I’m going to take a little run into the village, Bates,”
I remarked at breakfast.
“Very good, sir. The weather’s quite cleared.”
“If any one should call I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned his impenetrable face toward me as I rose.
There was, of course, no chance whatever that any one
would call to see me; the Reverend Paul Stoddard was
the only human being, except Bates, Morgan and the
man who brought up my baggage, who had crossed the
threshold since my arrival.
I really had an errand in the village. I wished to
visit the hardware store and buy some cartridges, but
Pickering’s presence in the community was a disturbing
factor in my mind. I wished to get sight of him,—
to meet him, if possible, and see how a man, whose
schemes were so deep, looked in the light of day.
As I left the grounds and gained the highway Stoddard
fell in with me.
“Well, Mr. Glenarm, I’m glad to see you abroad so
early. With that library of yours the temptation must
be strong to stay within doors. But a man’s got to subject
himself to the sun and wind. Even a good wetting
now and then is salutary.”
“I try to get out every day,” I answered. “But I’ve
chiefly limited myself to the grounds.”
“Well, it’s a fine estate. The lake is altogether
charming in summer. I quite envy you your fortune.”
He walked with a long swinging stride, his hands
thrust deep into his overcoat pockets. It was difficult
to accept the idea of so much physical strength being
wasted in the mere business of saying prayers in a girls’
school. Here was a fellow who should have been captain
of a ship or a soldier, a leader of forlorn hopes. I
felt sure there must be a weakness of some sort in him.
Quite possibly it would prove to be a mild estheticism
that delighted in the savor of incense and the mournful
cadence of choral vespers. He declined a cigar and this
rather increased my suspicions.
The village hack, filled with young women, passed at
a gallop, bound for the station, and we took off our hats.
“Christmas holidays,” explained the chaplain. “Practically
all the students go home.”
“Lucky kids, to have a Christmas to go home to!”
“I suppose Mr. Pickering got away last night?” he
observed, and my pulse quickened at the name.
“I haven’t seen him yet,” I answered guardedly.
“Then of course he hasn’t gone!” and these words,
uttered in the big clergyman’s deep tones, seemed wholly
plausible. There was, to be sure, nothing so unlikely as
that Arthur Pickering, executor of my grandfather’s
estate, would come to Glenarm without seeing me.
“Sister Theresa told me this morning he was here.
He called on her and Miss Devereux last night. I
haven’t seen him myself. I thought possibly I might
run into him in the village. His car’s very likely on the
station switch.”
“No doubt we shall find him there,” I answered easily.
The Annandale station presented an appearance of
unusual gaiety when we reached the main street of the
village. There, to be sure, lay a private car on the
siding, and on the platform was a group of twenty or
more girls, with several of the brown-habited Sisters of
St. Agatha. There was something a little foreign in
the picture; the girls in their bright colors talking
gaily, the Sisters in their somber garb hovering about,
suggesting France or Italy rather than Indiana.
“I came here with the idea that St. Agatha’s was a
charity school,” I remarked to the chaplain.
“Not a bit of it! Sister Theresa is really a swell, you
know, and her school is hard to get into.”
“I’m glad you warned me in time. I had thought of
sending over a sack of flour occasionally, or a few bolts
of calico to help on the good work. You’ve saved my
life.”
“I probably have. I might mention your good intentions
to Sister Theresa.”
“Pray don’t. If there’s any danger of meeting her
on that platform—”
“No; she isn’t coming down, I’m sure. But you
ought to know her,—if you will pardon me. And Miss
Devereux is charming,—but really I don’t mean to be
annoying.”
“Not in the least. But under the circumstances,—
the will and my probationary year,—you can understand—”
“Certainly. A man’s affairs are his own, Mr. Glenarm.”
We stepped upon the platform. The private car was
on the opposite side of the station and had been
switched into a siding of the east and west road. Pickering
was certainly getting on. The private car, even
more than the yacht, is the symbol of plutocracy, and
gaping rustics were evidently impressed by its grandeur.
As I lounged across the platform with Stoddard, Pickering
came out into the vestibule of his car, followed by
two ladies and an elderly gentleman. They all descended
and began a promenade of the plank walk.
Pickering saw me an instant later and came up hurriedly,
with outstretched hand.
“This is indeed good fortune! We dropped off here
last night rather unexpectedly to rest a hot-box and
should have been picked up by the midnight express for
Chicago; but there was a miscarriage of orders somewhere
and we now have to wait for the nine o’clock, and
it’s late. If I’d known how much behind it was I
should have run out to see you. How are things going?”
“As smooth as a whistle! It really isn’t so bad when
you face it. And the fact is I’m actually at work.”
“That’s splendid. The year will go fast enough,
never fear. I suppose you pine for a little human society
now and then. A man can never strike the right
medium in such things. In New York we are all rushed
to death. I sometimes feel that I’d like a little rustication
myself. I get nervous, and working for corporations
is wearing. The old gentleman there is Taylor,
president of the Interstate and Western. The ladies
are his wife and her sister. I’d like to introduce
you.” He ran his eyes over my corduroys and leggings
amiably. He had not in years addressed me so pleasantly.
Stoddard had left me to go to the other end of the
platform to speak to some of the students. I followed
Pickering rather loathly to where the companions of
his travels were pacing to and fro in the crisp morning
air.
I laugh still whenever I remember that morning at
Annandale station. As soon as Pickering had got me
well under way in conversation with Taylor, he excused
himself hurriedly and went off, as I assumed, to be sure
the station agent had received orders for attaching the
private car to the Chicago express. Taylor proved to be
a supercilious person,—I believe they call him Chilly
Billy at the Metropolitan Club,—and our efforts to converse
were pathetically unfruitful. He asked me the
value of land in my county, and as my ignorance on this
subject was vast and illimitable, I could see that he was
forming a low opinion of my character and intelligence.
The two ladies stood by, making no concealment of their
impatience. Their eyes were upon the girls from St.
Agatha’s on the other platform, whom they could see
beyond me. I had jumped the conversation from Indiana
farm-lands to the recent disorders in Bulgaria,
which interested me more, when Mrs. Taylor spoke
abruptly to her sister.
“That’s she—the one in the gray coat, talking to the
clergyman. She came a moment ago in the carriage.”
“The one with the umbrella? I thought you said—”
Mrs. Taylor glanced at her sister warningly, and
they both looked at me. Then they sought to detach
themselves and moved away. There was some one on
the farther side of the platform whom they wished to see,
and Taylor, not understanding their manoeuver—he was
really anxious, I think, not to be left alone with me—
started down the platform after them, I following. Mrs.
Taylor and her sister walked to the end of the platform
and looked across, a biscuit-toss away, to where Stoddard
stood talking to the girl I had already heard described
as wearing a gray coat and carrying an umbrella.
The girl in gray crossed the track quickly and addressed
the two women cordially. Taylor’s back was to
her and he was growing eloquent in a mild well-bred
way over the dullness of our statesmen in not seeing the
advantages that would accrue to the United States in
fostering our shipping industry. His wife, her sister
and the girl in gray were so near that I could hear
plainly what they were saying. They were referring
apparently to the girl’s refusal of an invitation to accompany
them to California.
“So you can’t go—it’s too bad! We had hoped that
when you really saw us on the way you would relent,”
said Mrs. Taylor.
“But there are many reasons; and above all Sister
Theresa needs me.”
It was the voice of Olivia, a little lower, a little more
restrained than I had known it.
“But think of the rose gardens that are waiting for
us out there!” said the other lady. They were showing
her the deference that elderly women always have for
pretty girls.
“Alas, and again alas!” exclaimed Olivia. “Please
don’t make it harder for me than necessary. But I gave
my promise a year ago to spend these holidays in Cincinnati.”
She ignored me wholly, and after shaking hands with
the ladies returned to the other platform. I wondered
whether she was overlooking Taylor on purpose to cut
me.
Taylor was still at his lecture on the needs of our
American merchant marine when Pickering passed hurriedly,
crossed the track and began speaking earnestly
to the girl in gray.
“The American flag should command the seas. What
we need is not more battle-ships but more freight carriers—”
Taylor was saying.
But I was watching Olivia Gladys Armstrong. In a
long skirt, with her hair caught up under a gray toque
that matched her coat perfectly, she was not my Olivia
of the tam-o’-shanter, who had pursued the rabbit; nor
yet the unsophisticated school-girl, who had suffered my
idiotic babble; nor, again, the dreamy rapt organist of
the chapel. She was a grown woman with at least
twenty summers to her credit, and there was about her
an air of knowing the world, and of not being at all a
person one would make foolish speeches to. She spoke
to Pickering gravely. Once she smiled dolefully and
shook her head, and I vaguely strove to remember where
I had seen that look in her eyes before. Her gold beads,
which I had once carried in my pocket, were clasped
tight about the close collar of her dress; and I was glad,
very glad, that I had ever touched anything that belonged
to her.
“As the years go by we are going to dominate trade
more and more. Our manufactures already lead the
world, and what we make we’ve got to sell, haven’t we?”
demanded Taylor.
“Certainly, sir,” I answered warmly.
Who was Olivia Gladys Armstrong and what was
Arthur Pickering’s business with her? And what was
it she had said to me that evening when I had found her
playing on the chapel organ? So much happened that
day that I had almost forgotten, and, indeed, I had
tried to forget I had made a fool of myself for the edification
of an amusing little school-girl. “I see you
prefer to ignore the first time I ever saw you,” she had
said; but if I had thought of this at all it had been
with righteous self-contempt. Or, I may have flattered
my vanity with the reflection that she had eyed me—
her hero, perhaps—with wistful admiration across the
wall.
Meanwhile the Chicago express roared into Annandale
and the private car was attached. Taylor watched
the trainmen with the cool interest of a man for whom
the proceeding had no novelty, while he continued to
dilate upon the nation’s commercial opportunities. I
turned perforce, and walked with him back toward the
station, where Mrs. Taylor and her sister were talking
to the conductor.
Pickering came running across the platform with several
telegrams in his hand. The express had picked up
the car and was ready to continue its westward journey.
“I’m awfully sorry, Glenarm, that our stop’s so
short,”—and Pickering’s face wore a worried look as he
addressed me, his eyes on the conductor.
“How far do you go?” I asked.
“California. We have interests out there and I have
to attend some stock-holders’ meetings in Colorado in
January.”
“Ah, you business men! You business men!” I said
reproachfully. I wished to call him a blackguard then
and there, and it was on my tongue to do so, but I concluded
that to wait until he had shown his hand fully
was the better game.
The ladies entered the car and I shook hands with
Taylor, who threatened to send me his pamphlet on
The Needs of American Shipping, when he got back to
New York.
“It’s too bad she wouldn’t go with us. Poor girl!
this must be a dreary hole for her; she deserves wider
horizons,” he said to Pickering, who helped him upon
the platform of the car with what seemed to be unnecessary
precipitation.
“You little know us,” I declared, for Pickering’s
benefit. “Life at Annandale is nothing if not exciting.
The people here are indifferent marksmen or there’d be
murders galore.”
“Mr. Glenarm is a good deal of a wag,” explained
Pickering dryly, swinging himself aboard as the train
started.
“Yes; it’s my humor that keeps me alive,” I responded,
and taking off my hat, I saluted Arthur Pickering
with my broadest salaam.