The park was beautifully kept. Remembering the native wildness and
virgin seclusion of the Western forest, he could not help contrasting it
with the conservative gardening of this pretty woodland, every rood
of which had been patrolled by keepers and rangers, and preserved and
fostered hundreds of years before he was born, until warmed for human
occupancy. At times the avenue was crossed by grass drives, where
the original woodland had been displaced, not by the exigency of a
“clearing” for tillage, as in his own West, but for the leisurely
pleasure of the owner. Then, a few hundred yards from the house
itself,--a quaint Jacobean mansion,--he came to an open space where the
sylvan landscape had yielded to floral cultivation, and so fell upon a
charming summer-house, or arbor, embowered with roses. It must have
been the one of which his uncle had spoken, for there, to his wondering
admiration, sat two little maids before a rustic table, drinking tea
demurely, yes, with all the evident delight of a childish escapade from
their elders. While in the picturesque quaintness of their attire
there was still a formal suggestion of the sect to which their father
belonged, their summer frocks--differing in color, yet each of the same
subdued tint--were alike in cut and fashion, and short enough to show
their dainty feet in prim slippers and silken hose that matched their
frocks. As the afternoon sun glanced through the leaves upon their pink
cheeks, tied up in quaint hats by ribbons under their chins, they made a
charming picture. At least Paul thought so as he advanced towards them,
hat in hand. They looked up at his approach, but again cast down their
eyes with demure shyness; yet he fancied that they first exchanged
glances with each other, full of mischievous intelligence.
“I am your cousin Paul,” he said smilingly, “though I am afraid I am
introducing myself almost as briefly as your father just now excused
himself to me. He told me I would find you here, but he himself was
hastening on a Samaritan mission.”
“With a box in his hand?” said the girls simultaneously, exchanging
glances with each other again.
“With a box containing some restorative, I think,” responded Paul, a
little wonderingly.
“Restorative! So THAT'S what he calls it now, is it?” said one of the
girls saucily. “Well, no one knows what's in the box, though he always
carries it with him. Thee never sees him without it”--
“And a roll of paper,” suggested the other girl.
“Yes, a roll of paper--but one never knows what it is!” said the
first speaker. “It's very strange. But no matter now, Paul. Welcome to
Hawthorn Hall. I am Jane Bunker, and this is Dorcas.” She stopped,
and then, looking down demurely, added, “Thee may kiss us both, cousin
Paul.”
The young man did not wait for a second invitation, but gently touched
his lips to their soft young cheeks.
“Thee does not speak like an American, Paul. Is thee really and truly
one?” continued Jane.
Paul remembered that he had forgotten his dialect, but it was too late
now.
“I am really and truly one, and your own cousin, and I hope you will
find me a very dear”--
“Oh!” said Dorcas, starting up primly. “You must really allow me to
withdraw.” To the young man's astonishment, she seized her parasol, and,
with a youthful affectation of dignity, glided from the summer-house and
was lost among the trees.
“Thy declaration to me was rather sudden,” said Jane quietly, in answer
to his look of surprise, “and Dorcas is peculiarly sensitive and less
like the 'world's people' than I am. And it was just a little cruel,
considering that she has loved thee secretly all these years, followed
thy fortunes in America with breathless eagerness, thrilled at thy
narrow escapes, and wept at thy privations.”
“But she has never seen me before!” said the astounded Paul.
“And thee had never seen me before, and yet thee has dared to propose to
me five minutes after thee arrived, and in her presence.”
“But, my dear girl!” expostulated Paul.
“Stand off!” she said, rapidly opening her parasol and interposing
it between them. “Another step nearer--ay, even another word of
endearment--and I shall be compelled--nay, forced,” she added in a lower
voice, “to remove this parasol, lest it should be crushed and ruined!”
“I see,” he said gloomily, “you have been reading novels; but so have
I, and the same ones! Nevertheless, I intended only to tell you that I
hoped you would always find me a kind friend.”
She shut her parasol up with a snap. “And I only intended to tell thee
that my heart was given to another.”
“You INTENDED--and now?”
“Is it the 'kind friend' who asks?”
“If it were not?”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Ah!”
“Oh!”
“But thee loves another?” she said, toying with her cup.
He attempted to toy with his, but broke it. A man lacks delicacy in this
kind of persiflage. “You mean I am loved by another,” he said bluntly.
“You dare to say that!” she said, flashing, in spite of her prim
demeanor.
“No, but YOU did just now! You said your sister loved me!”
“Did I?” she said dreamily. “Dear! dear! That's the trouble of trying to
talk like Mr. Blank's delightful dialogues. One gets so mixed!”
“Yet you will be a sister to me?” he said. “'Tis an old American joke,
but 'twill serve.”
There was a long silence.
“Had thee not better go to sister Dorcas? She is playing with the cows,”
said Jane plaintively.
“You forget,” he returned gravely, “that, on page 27 of the novel we
have both read, at this point he is supposed to kiss her.”
She had forgotten, but they both remembered in time. At this moment a
scream came faintly from the distance. They both started, and rose.
“It is sister Dorcas,” said Jane, sitting down again and pouring out
another cup of tea. “I have always told her that one of those Swiss cows
would hook her.”
Paul stared at her with a strange revulsion of feeling. “I could
save Dorcas,” he muttered to himself, “in less time than it takes to
describe.” He paused, however, as he reflected that this would depend
entirely upon the methods of the writer of this description. “I could
rescue her! I have only to take the first clothes-line that I find,
and with that knowledge and skill with the lasso which I learned in the
wilds of America, I could stop the charge of the most furious ruminant.
I will!” and without another word he turned and rushed off in the
direction of the sound.
*****
He had not gone a hundred yards before he paused, a little bewildered.
To the left could still be seen the cobalt lake with the terraced
background; to the right the rugged mountains. He chose the latter.
Luckily for him a cottager's garden lay in his path, and from a line
supported by a single pole depended the homely linen of the cottager. To
tear these garments from the line was the work of a moment (although
it represented the whole week's washing), and hastily coiling the rope
dexterously in his hand, he sped onward. Already panting with exertion
and excitement, a few roods farther he was confronted with a spectacle
that left him breathless.
A woman--young, robust, yet gracefully formed--was running ahead of him,
driving before her with an open parasol an animal which he instantly
recognized as one of that simple yet treacherous species most feared by
the sex--known as the “Moo Cow.”
For a moment he was appalled by the spectacle. But it was only for a
moment! Recalling his manhood and her weakness, he stopped, and bracing
his foot against a stone, with a graceful flourish of his lasso around
his head, threw it in the air. It uncoiled slowly, sped forward with
unerring precision, and missed! With the single cry of “Saved!” the fair
stranger sank fainting in his arms! He held her closely until the color
came back to her pale face. Then he quietly disentangled the lasso from
his legs.
“Where am I?” she said faintly.
“In the same place,” he replied, slowly but firmly. “But,” he added,
“you have changed!”
She had, indeed, even to her dress. It was now of a vivid brick red, and
so much longer in the skirt that it seemed to make her taller. Only her
hat remained the same.
“Yes,” she said, in a low, reflective voice and a disregard of her
previous dialect, as she gazed up in his eyes with an eloquent lucidity,
“I have changed, Paul! I feel myself changing at those words you uttered
to Jane. There are moments in a woman's life that man knows nothing
of; moments bitter and cruel, sweet and merciful, that change her whole
being; moments in which the simple girl becomes a worldly woman; moments
in which the slow procession of her years is never noted--except by
another woman! Moments that change her outlook on the world and her
relations to it--and her husband's relations! Moments when the maid
becomes a wife, the wife a widow, the widow a re-married woman, by a
simple, swift illumination of the fancy. Moments when, wrought upon by
a single word--a look--an emphasis and rising inflection, all logical
sequence is cast away, processes are lost--inductions lead nowhere.
Moments when the inharmonious becomes harmonious, the indiscreet
discreet, the inefficient efficient, and the inevitable evitable. I
mean,” she corrected herself hurriedly--“You know what I mean! If you
have not felt it you have read it!”
“I have,” he said thoughtfully. “We have both read it in the same novel.
She is a fine writer.”
“Ye-e-s.” She hesitated with that slight resentment of praise of another
woman so delightful in her sex. “But you have forgotten the Moo Cow!”
and she pointed to where the distracted animal was careering across the
lawn towards the garden.
“You are right,” he said, “the incident is not yet closed. Let us pursue
it.”
They both pursued it. Discarding the useless lasso, he had recourse to a
few well-aimed epithets. The infuriated animal swerved and made directly
towards a small fountain in the centre of the garden. In attempting to
clear it, it fell directly into the deep cup-like basin and remained
helplessly fixed, with its fore-legs projecting uneasily beyond the rim.
“Let us leave it there,” she said, “and forget it--and all that has
gone before. Believe me,” she added, with a faint sigh, “it is best. Our
paths diverge from this moment. I go to the summer-house, and you go to
the Hall, where my father is expecting you.” He would have detained her
a moment longer, but she glided away and was gone.
Left to himself again, that slight sense of bewilderment which had
clouded his mind for the last hour began to clear away; his singular
encounter with the girls strangely enough affected him less strongly
than his brief and unsatisfactory interview with his uncle. For, after
all, he was his host, and upon him depended his stay at Hawthorn Hall.
The mysterious and slighting allusions of his cousins to the old man's
eccentricities also piqued his curiosity. Why had they sneered at his
description of the contents of the package he carried--and what did
it really contain? He did not reflect that it was none of his
business,--people in his situation seldom do,--and he eagerly hurried
towards the Hall. But he found in his preoccupation he had taken the
wrong turning in the path, and that he was now close to the wall which
bounded and overlooked the highway. Here a singular spectacle presented
itself. A cyclist covered with dust was seated in the middle of the
road, trying to restore circulation to his bruised and injured leg by
chafing it with his hands, while beside him lay his damaged bicycle. He
had evidently met with an accident. In an instant Paul had climbed the
wall and was at his side.
“Can I offer you any assistance?” he asked eagerly.
“Thanks--no! I've come a beastly cropper over something or other on
this road, and I'm only bruised, though the machine has suffered worse,”
replied the stranger, in a fresh, cheery voice. He was a good-looking
fellow of about Paul's own age, and the young American's heart went out
towards him.
“How did it happen?” asked Paul.
“That's what puzzles me,” said the stranger. “I was getting out of
the way of a queer old chap in the road, and I ran over something that
seemed only an old scroll of paper; but the shock was so great that
I was thrown, and I fancy I was for a few moments unconscious. Yet I
cannot see any other obstruction in the road, and there's only that bit
of paper.” He pointed to the paper,--a half-crushed roll of ordinary
foolscap, showing the mark of the bicycle upon it.
A strange idea came into Paul's mind. He picked up the paper and
examined it closely. Besides the mark already indicated, it showed two
sharp creases about nine inches long, and another exactly at the point
of the impact of the bicycle. Taking a folded two-foot rule from
his pocket, he carefully measured these parallel creases and made an
exhaustive geometrical calculation with his pencil on the paper. The
stranger watched him with awed and admiring interest. Rising, he again
carefully examined the road, and was finally rewarded by the discovery
of a sharp indentation in the dust, which, on measurement and comparison
with the creases in the paper and the calculations he had just made,
proved to be identical.
“There was a solid body in that paper,” said Paul quietly; “a
parallelogram exactly nine inches long and three wide.”
“I say! you're wonderfully clever, don't you know,” said the stranger,
with unaffected wonder. “I see it all--a brick.”
Paul smiled gently and shook his head. “That is the hasty inference of
an inexperienced observer. You will observe at the point of impact of
your wheel the parallel crease is CURVED, as from the yielding of the
resisting substances, and not BROKEN, as it would be by the crumbling of
a brick.”
“I say, you're awfully detective, don't you know! just like that
fellow--what's his name?” said the stranger admiringly.
The words recalled Paul to himself. Why was he acting like a detective?
and what was he seeking to discover? Nevertheless, he felt impelled
to continue. “And that queer old chap whom you met--why didn't he help
you?”
“Because I passed him before I ran into the--the parallelogram, and I
suppose he didn't know what happened behind him?”
“Did he have anything in his hand?”
“Can't say.”
“And you say you were unconscious afterwards?”
“Yes!”
“Long enough for the culprit to remove the principal evidence of his
crime?”
“Come! I say, really you are--you know you are!”
“Have you any secret enemy?”
“No.”
“And you don't know Mr. Bunker, the man who owns this vast estate?”
“Not at all. I'm from Upper Tooting.”
“Good afternoon,” said Paul abruptly, and turned away.
It struck him afterwards that his action might have seemed uncivil, and
even inhuman, to the bruised cyclist, who could hardly walk. But it was
getting late, and he was still far from the Hall, which, oddly enough,
seemed to be no longer visible from the road. He wandered on for some
time, half convinced that he had passed the lodge gates, yet hoping to
find some other entrance to the domain. Dusk was falling; the rounded
outlines of the park trees beyond the wall were solid masses of shadow.
The full moon, presently rising, restored them again to symmetry, and at
last he, to his relief, came upon the massive gateway. Two lions ramped
in stone on the side pillars. He thought it strange that he had not
noticed the gateway on his previous entrance, but he remembered that he
was fully preoccupied with the advancing figure of his uncle. In a few
minutes the Hall itself appeared, and here again he was surprised that
he had overlooked before its noble proportions and picturesque outline.
Its broad terraces, dazzlingly white in the moonlight; its long line of
mullioned windows, suffused with a warm red glow from within, made it
look like part of a wintry landscape--and suggested a Christmas card.
The venerable ivy that hid the ravages time had made in its walls looked
like black carving. His heart swelled with strange emotions as he gazed
at his ancestral hall. How many of his blood had lived and died there;
how many had gone forth from that great porch to distant lands! He tried
to think of his father--a little child--peeping between the balustrades
of that terrace. He tried to think of it, and perhaps would have
succeeded had it not occurred to him that it was a known fact that his
uncle had bought the estate and house of an impoverished nobleman only
the year before. Yet--he could not tell why--he seemed to feel higher
and nobler for that trial.
The terrace was deserted, and so quiet that as he ascended to it his
footsteps seemed to echo from the walls. When he reached the portals,
the great oaken door swung noiselessly on its hinges--opened by some
unseen but waiting servitor--and admitted him to a lofty hall, dark
with hangings and family portraits, but warmed by a red carpet the whole
length of its stone floor. For a moment he waited for the servant to
show him to the drawing-room or his uncle's study. But no one appeared.
Believing this to be a part of the characteristic simplicity of the
Quaker household, he boldly entered the first door, and found himself in
a brilliantly lit and perfectly empty drawing-room. The same experience
met him with the other rooms on that floor--the dining-room displaying
an already set, exquisitely furnished and decorated table, with chairs
for twenty guests! He mechanically ascended the wide oaken staircase
that led to the corridor of bedrooms above a central salon. Here he
found only the same solitude. Bedroom doors yielded to his touch, only
to show the same brilliantly lit vacancy. He presently came upon one
room which seemed to give unmistakable signs of HIS OWN occupancy.
Surely there stood his own dressing-case on the table! and his own
evening clothes carefully laid out on another, as if fresh from a
valet's hands. He stepped hastily into the corridor--there was no one
there; he rang the bell--there was no response! But he noticed that
there was a jug of hot water in his basin, and he began dressing
mechanically.
There was little doubt that he was in a haunted house, but this did not
particularly disturb him. Indeed, he found himself wondering if it could
be logically called a haunted house--unless he himself was haunting it,
for there seemed to be no other there. Perhaps the apparitions would
come later, when he was dressed. Clearly it was not his uncle's
house--and yet, as he had never been inside his uncle's house, he
reflected that he ought not to be positive.
He finished dressing and sat down in an armchair with a kind of
thoughtful expectancy. But presently his curiosity became impatient of
the silence and mystery, and he ventured once more to explore the house.
Opening his bedroom door, he found himself again upon the deserted
corridor, but this time he could distinctly hear a buzz of voices from
the drawing-room below. Assured that he was near a solution of the
mystery, he rapidly descended the broad staircase and made his way to
the open door of the drawing-room. But although the sound of voices
increased as he advanced, when he entered the room, to his utter
astonishment, it was as empty as before.
Yet, in spite of his bewilderment and confusion, he was able to
follow one of the voices, which, in its peculiar distinctness and
half-perfunctory tone, he concluded must belong to the host of the
invisible assembly.
“Ah,” said the voice, greeting some unseen visitor, “so glad you have
come. Afraid your engagements just now would keep you away.” Then the
voice dropped to a lower and more confidential tone. “You must take down
Lady Dartman, but you will have Miss Morecamp--a clever girl--on the
other side of you. Ah, Sir George! So good of you to come. All well at
the Priory? So glad to hear it.” (Lower and more confidentially.) “You
know Mrs. Monkston. You'll sit by her. A little cut up by her husband
losing his seat. Try to amuse her.”
Emboldened by desperation, Paul turned in the direction of the voice.
“I am Paul Bunker,” he said hesitatingly. “I'm afraid you'll think me
intrusive, but I was looking for my uncle, and”--
“Intrusive, my dear boy! The son of my near neighbor in the country
intrusive? Really, now, I like that! Grace!” (the voice turned in
another direction) “here is the American nephew of our neighbor Bunker
at Widdlestone, who thinks he is 'a stranger.'”
“We all knew of your expected arrival at Widdlestone--it was so good
of you to waive ceremony and join us,” said a well-bred feminine voice,
which Paul at once assumed to belong to the hostess. “But I must find
some one for your dinner partner. Mary” (here her voice was likewise
turned away), “this is Mr. Bunker, the nephew of an old friend and
neighbor in Upshire;” (the voice again turned to him), “you will take
Miss Morecamp in. My dear” (once again averted), “I must find some one
else to console poor dear Lord Billingtree with.” Here the hostess's
voice was drowned by fresh arrivals.
Bewildered and confused as he was, standing in this empty desert of
a drawing-room, yet encompassed on every side by human voices, so
marvelous was the power of suggestion, he seemed to almost feel the
impact of the invisible crowd. He was trying desperately to realize his
situation when a singularly fascinating voice at his elbow unexpectedly
assisted him. It was evidently his dinner partner.
“I suppose you must be tired after your journey. When did you arrive?”
“Only a few hours ago,” said Paul.
“And I dare say you haven't slept since you arrived. One doesn't on the
passage, you know; the twenty hours pass so quickly, and the experience
is so exciting--to US at least. But I suppose as an American you are
used to it.”
Paul gasped. He had passively accepted the bodiless conversation,
because it was at least intelligible! But NOW! Was he going mad?
She evidently noticed his silence. “Never mind,” she continued, “you
can tell me all about it at dinner. Do you know I always think that
this sort of thing--what we're doing now,--this ridiculous formality
of reception,--which I suppose is after all only a concession to our
English force of habit,--is absurd! We ought to pass, as it were,
directly from our houses to the dinner-table. It saves time.”
“Yes--no--that is--I'm afraid I don't follow you,” stammered Paul.
There was a slight pout in her voice as she replied: “No matter now--we
must follow them--for our host is moving off with Lady Billingtree, and
it's our turn now.”
So great was the illusion that he found himself mechanically offering
his arm as he moved through the empty room towards the door. Then he
descended the staircase without another word, preceded, however, by
the sound of his host's voice. Following this as a blind man might, he
entered the dining-room, which to his discomfiture was as empty as the
salon above. Still following the host's voice, he dropped into a chair
before the empty table, wondering what variation of the Barmecide feast
was in store for him. Yet the hum of voices from the vacant chairs
around the board so strongly impressed him that he could almost believe
that he was actually at dinner.
“Are you seated?” asked the charming voice at his side.
“Yes,” a little wonderingly, as his was the only seat visibly occupied.
“I am so glad that this silly ceremony is over. By the way, where are
you?”
Paul would have liked to answer, “Lord only knows!” but he reflected
that it might not sound polite. “Where am I?” he feebly repeated.
“Yes; where are you dining?”
It seemed a cool question under the circumstances, but he answered
promptly,--
“With you.”
“Of course,” said the charming voice; “but where are you eating your
dinner?”
Considering that he was not eating anything, Paul thought this cooler
still. But he answered briefly, “In Upshire.”
“Oh! At your uncle's?”
“No,” said Paul bluntly; “in the next house.”
“Why, that's Sir William's--our host's--and he and his family are here
in London. You are joking.”
“Listen!” said Paul desperately. Then in a voice unconsciously lowered
he hurriedly told her where he was--how he came there--the empty
house--the viewless company! To his surprise the only response was a
musical little laugh. But the next moment her voice rose higher with an
unmistakable concern in it, apparently addressing their invisible host.
“Oh, Sir William, only think how dreadful. Here's poor Mr. Bunker, alone
in an empty house, which he has mistaken for his uncle's--and without
any dinner!”
“Really; dear, dear! How provoking! But how does he happen to be WITH
US? James, how is this?”
“If you please, Sir William,” said a servant's respectful voice,
“Widdlestone is in the circuit and is switched on with the others. We
heard that a gentleman's luggage had arrived at Widdlestone, and we
telegraphed for the rooms to be made ready, thinking we'd have her
ladyship's orders later.”
A single gleam of intelligence flashed upon Paul. His luggage--yes, had
been sent from the station to the wrong house, and he had unwittingly
followed. But these voices! whence did they come? And where was the
actual dinner at which his host was presiding? It clearly was not at
this empty table.