A QUERULOUS OLD AUNT
It was daylight when the girls awakened and the sun was streaming into
their bedroom. Nann leaped to her feet. “It must be late,” she declared
as she felt under her pillow for her wristwatch. She drew it forth, but
with it came a piece of crumpled yellow paper on which in small red
letters was written, “In twelve days you shall know all.”
Dories luckily had not as yet opened her eyes and Nann was sitting on the
edge of the bed with her back toward her companion. For a moment she
looked into space meditatively. Should she keep all knowledge of that bit
of paper to herself? She decided that she would, and slipping it into the
pocket of her sweater-coat, which hung on a chair, she rose and walked
across the room to gaze at the door. She remembered distinctly that she
had locked it. How could anyone have entered? Not for one moment did the
girl believe that their visitor had been a ghostly apparition that could
pass through walls and locked doors.
“Hmm! I see,” she concluded after a second’s scrutiny. “I did lock the
door, but I removed the key and put it on the table. A pass-key evidently
admitted our visitor.” Then, while dressing, Nann continued to
soliloquize. “I wonder if the person who walks the cliff carrying the
lantern was our visitor. Perhaps it’s the old Colonel himself or his
man-servant who hides during the day under the leaning part of the roof,
but who walks forth at night for exercise and air, although surely there
must be air enough in a house that has only one wall.”
Having completed her toilet, she shook her friend. “If you don’t wake up
soon, you won’t be downstairs in time for breakfast,” she exclaimed.
Dories sat up with a startled cry. “Oh, Nann,” she pleaded. “Don’t go
down and leave me up here alone, please don’t! I’ll be dressed before you
can say Jack Robinson, if only you will wait.”
“Well, I’ll be opening this window. I want to see the ocean.” As Nann
spoke, she lifted the hook and swung out the blind, then exclaimed:
“How wonderfully blue the water is! Oho, someone is out in the cove with
a flat-bottomed boat. Why, I do believe it is our friend Gibralter. Come
to think of it, he did say that he had been saving his money for ever so
long to buy what he calls a sailing punt.”
Nann leaned out of the open window and waved her handkerchief. Then she
turned back to smile at her friend. “It is Gib and he’s sailing toward
shore. Do hurry, Dori, let’s run down to the beach and call to him.”
Tiptoeing down the flight of stairs, the two girls, taking hands,
scrambled over the bank to the hard sand that was glistening in the sun.
The boy, having seen them, turned his boat toward shore, and, as there
was very little wind, he let the sail flap and began rowing.
The tide was low and there was almost no surf.
“Want to come out?” he called as soon as he was within hailing distance.
“Oh, how I wish we could,” Nann, the fearless, replied, “but we have
duties to attend to first. Come back in about an hour and maybe we’ll be
ready to go.”
“All right-ho!” the sea breeze brought to them, then the lad turned into
the rising wind, pulled in the sheet and scudded away from the shore.
“That surely looks like jolly sport,” Nann declared as, with arms locked,
the two girls stood on a boulder, watching for a moment. Then, “We ought
to go in, for Great-Aunt Jane may have awakened,” Dories said.
When the girls tiptoed to the chamber on the lower floor, they found Miss
Moore unusually fretful. “What a noisy night it was,” she declared,
peevishly. “I came to this place for a complete rest and I just couldn’t
sleep a wink. I don’t see why you girls have to walk around in the night.
Don’t you know that you are right over my head and every noise you make
sounds as though it were right in this very room?”
“I’m sorry you were disturbed, Aunt Jane,” Dories said, but she was
indeed puzzled. Neither she nor Nann had awakened from the hour that they
retired until sunrise.
When the girls were in the kitchen preparing breakfast, Dories asked,
“Nann, do you think that Great-Aunt Jane may be—I don’t like to say it,
but you know how elderly people do, sometimes, wander mentally.”
“No, dear,” the other replied, “I do not think that is true of your
aunt.” Then chancing to put her hand in the pocket of her sweater-coat,
and feeling there the crumpled paper, Nann drew it out and handed it to
Dories.
“Why, where did you find it?” that astonished maiden inquired when she
had read the finely written words, “In twelve days you shall know all.”
“Under my pillow,” was the reply, “and so you see who ever leaves these
messages has no desire to harm us, hence there is no reason for us to be
afraid. At first I thought that I would not tell you, but I want you to
understand that your Great Aunt Jane may have heard footsteps over her
head last night, even though we did not awaken.”
“Well, if you are not afraid, I’ll try not to be,” Dories assured her
friend, but in her heart she knew that she would be glad indeed when the
twelve days were over.
Later when Dories went into her aunt’s room to remove the breakfast tray,
she bent over the bed to arrange the pillows more comfortably. Then she
tripped about, tidying the room. Chancing to turn, she found the dark,
deeply sunken eyes of the elderly woman watching her with an expression
that was hard to define. Jane Moore smiled faintly at the girl, and there
was a tone of wistfulness in her voice as she said, “I suppose you and
Nann will be away all day again.”
“Why, Aunt Jane,” Dories heard herself saying as she went to the bedside,
“were you lonely? Would you like to have me stay for a while this morning
and read to you?”
Even as she spoke she seemed to see her mother’s smiling face and hear
her say, “The only ghosts that haunt us are the memories of loving deeds
left undone and kind words that might have been spoken.” As yet Dories
had not even thought of trying to do anything to add to her aunt’s
pleasure. She was gratified to see the brightening expression. “Well,
that would be nice! If you will read to me until I fall asleep, I shall
indeed be glad.”
Nann, who had come to the door, had heard, and, as the girls left the
room, she slipped an arm about her friend, saying, “That was mighty nice
of you, Dori, for I know how much pleasanter it would be for you to go
for a boat ride with Gibralter. I’ll stay with you if you wish.”
“No, indeed, Nann. You go and see if you can’t find another clue to the
mystery.”
“I feel in my bones that we will,” that maiden replied as she poured hot
water over the few breakfast dishes. “It would be rather a good joke
on—well—on the ghost, if we solved the mystery sooner than twelve days.
Don’t you think so?”
“But there are so many things that puzzle us,” Dories protested. “I wish
we might catch whoever it is leaving those messages. That, at least,
would be one mystery solved.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Nann said brightly. “Let’s put on our thinking caps
and try to find some way to trap the ghost tonight. Well, good-bye for
now! Gib and I will be back soon, I am sure. I’m just wild to go for a
little sail with him in his queer punt boat.”
Dories stood in the open front door watching as her friend ran lightly
across the hard sand, climbed to a boulder and beckoned to the boy who
was not far away.
With a half sigh Dories went into her aunt’s room. Catching a glimpse of
her own reflection in a mirror she was surprised to behold a fretful
expression which plainly told that she was doing something that she did
not want to do in the least. She smiled, and then turning toward the bed,
she asked, “What shall I read, Aunt Jane?”
“Are there any books in the living room?” the elderly woman inquired. The
girl shook her head. “There are shelves, but the books have been
removed.”
There was a sudden brightening of the deeply sunken eyes. “I recall now,”
the older woman said, “the books were packed in a box and taken up to the
loft. Suppose you go up there and select any book that you would like to
read.”
For one panicky moment Dories felt that she must refuse to go alone to
that loft room which she believed was haunted. She had never been up
there without Nann.
“Well, are you going?” The inquiry was not impatient, but it was puzzled.
“Yes, Aunt Jane, I’ll go at once.” There was nothing for the girl to do
but go. Taking the key from its place in the kitchen, she began to ascend
the outdoor stairway. How she did wish that she were as fearless as Nann.
The door opened when the key turned, and Dories stood looking about her
as though she half believed that someone would appear, either from under
the bed or from behind the curtains that sheltered one corner.
There was no sound, and, moreover, the loft room was flooded with
sunlight. The box, holding the books, was readily found. Dories
approached it, lifted the cover and was about to search for an
interesting title when a mouse leaped out, scattering gnawed bits of
paper. Seizing the book on top, Dories fled.
“What is the matter?” her aunt inquired when, almost breathless, the girl
entered her room.
“Oh—I—I thought it was—but it wasn’t—it was only a mouse.”
“Of course it was only a mouse,” Miss Moore said. “I sincerely hope that
a niece of mine is not a coward.”
“I hope not, Aunt Jane.” Then the girl for the first time glanced at the
book she held. The title was “Famous Ghost Stories of England and
Ireland.”
“Very entertaining, indeed,” the elderly woman remarked, as she settled
back among the pillows, and there was nothing for Dories to do but read
one hair-raising tale after another. Often she glanced at her
wrist-watch. It was almost noon. Why didn’t Nann come?