MUSIC AND APPARITIONS
Where, indeed, was good Jane Potter! The least troublesome, the most
self-effacing, staidest girl of them all.
"Didn't she ride home with _you_?"
"Why no. I supposed she did with _you_. That is--I never thought."
"But--somebody should have thought!" cried Dorothy, diverted from her
own unhappiness by this strange happening.
"Yes, and that 'somebody' should have been myself," admitted Mr. Seth,
after question had followed question and paling faces had turned
toward one another.
"Are you sure she isn't in her room?" asked Helena.
"Sure as sure. I thought it funny she didn't come to clean herself, I
mean put on her afternoon things; but I guessed she was too tired,
and, anyway, Jane never gets mussed up as I do," answered Molly
Martin, tears rising in her eyes.
The Master rose from his unfinished meal.
"Then we've left her behind and the poor child will be terrified. I'll
have one of the work horses put to the pony cart at once, and go back
for her. I'd like one of you lads to go with me. I might need
somebody."
Jim rose and Herbert, and, oddly enough, Mr. Winters nodded to
Herbert; adding to Dorothy:
"Have a bottle of milk and some food, besides a heavy wrap sent out to
the cart. She will have missed her supper."
"But you and Herbert are missing yours, too. I shall send something
extra for you two and mind you eat it. I--I'm sure you'll find Jane
all right only maybe frightened," said Dorothy, doing her utmost to
banish anxiety from her friends, though she felt troubled enough in
her own mind. If it had been any other girl but Jane, the steady!
However, there was the long evening to get through, even though the
rescuing party made their best speed. Many miles stretched between the
old mansion and this with the distance to cover twice; and all the
time there lay on the hostess's heart the burden of her own personal
grief. But she mustn't think of that. She must not. She was a Calvert,
no matter what Aunt Betty said. A gentlewoman.
Only yesterday Helena had explained that a gentlewoman, "in society,"
had no thought save for the comfort of others. Well, she was in
"society" now, and--She almost wished she wasn't! She'd rather have
been a poor little girl, unknowing her own name, who'd never dreamed
of being an heiress and who'd have been free to run away and hide and
cry her eyes out--if she wished!
So she put her best efforts to her task of entertaining and a jolly
evening followed; though now and then one or another would pause in
the midst of a game and ask:
"Ought we to be carrying on like this, while we don't know what's
happened to Janie?" Then the spirit of fun would sway them all again;
for, as Alfaretta practically put it: "Whether we laugh or cry don't
make any difference to her. Time enough to solemn down when we find
out she's hurt."
They were rather noisily singing the old round of "Three Blind Mice,"
with each particular "mouse" putting itself into its neighbors' way,
so that the refrain never would come out in the proper order, when it
was caught up by lusty voices in the outer hall and Mr. Seth's deep
tones leading.
"They've come! They've come--and it must be all right, else they
wouldn't sing like that!" cried Molly Martin, infinitely relieved on
her friend's and room-mate's account; she and the sedate Jane being as
close chums as Dolly and the other Molly were.
"The Campbells Are Coming," whistled Herbert merrily, and with the air
of a courtier led the embarrassed Jane into the midst of the circle.
She jerked her hand away with the reproof:
"Don't be silly! I've made trouble enough without acting foolish over
it."
She seemed so completely ashamed of herself that Dorothy pitied her
and hastened to put her arm about her and say:
"Why should you think of trouble to anybody else since you're--alive?"
"Alive! Did you think I might be dead, then? That makes it worse,
still. I was never in the slightest danger. I was only just a--dunce."
"You couldn't ever be that, Jane Potter!" cried Molly Martin,
enthusiastically embracing the restored one from her other side.
But Jane shook herself free from the caresses of both and calmly
explained:
"Since you'll all want to know I may as well tell just how thoughtless
I was. I wanted to find that secret staircase Jim had told about, and
the hidden chamber above it, under the roof. I couldn't at first. It
led out of the paneled chamber, he said, where all the side walls
looked like doors and only one of them would move. Finally, after I'd
tried 'em all, and that took some time, I slid one open. It was the
secret stair; nothing but a close sealed cupboard, so little that even
I could hardly squeeze up it. It wasn't a regular stair, only tiny
three-cornered pieces of board nailed in the back angles, first one
side and then another. They are far apart and some are gone. I thought
I'd never get up the thing, but I hadn't stayed behind to be worsted
by a sort of old grain-chute like that."
"Weren't you scared? Didn't you feel as if some enemy were after you?"
Molly Breckenridge interrupted to ask.
Jane coolly sat down and glanced contemptuously at the questioner. All
the company felt a trifle disappointed by Jane's manner. They had
expected a more exciting revelation.
"What should I be afraid of? I haven't any enemies, as I know."
"But it must have been very dark in such a place, a shut-in box like
that," protested Helena, who as well as the others thought Jane might
have made more out of her adventure.
"No, it wasn't, not there. The panel-door let the light through from
the big room where there are no blinds or curtains. All the light
there was--only dusk, you know--came through. It was at the top, after
I'd climbed off the top step into the hidden chamber that it got
dark--black as night. Because, you see, I accidentally hit my foot
against the trap-door and it fell shut. That's all. I ain't dead, you
see, and there's nothing to be sorry for except the trouble I gave Mr.
Winters and this boy. I've told them I was sorry, so that's all there
can be done about it now. Anyway I've learned something, and that is
how a prisoner must feel, shut up in a box like that."
A sort of groan came from the further side of the room where the
Master had sunk into a great chair as if he were utterly weary. Then
he said:
"I'm glad Jane is so philosophical. I think she doesn't know just how
dangerous her situation was. The 'hidden chamber' under the roof was
nothing but a closely sealed box, without any possible ventilation.
Nobody could have lived long shut up in that space, breathing the
vitiated air. It was well we found her, and you must all thank God for
a tragedy averted. Nor would I have thought of looking there for her
if Jim hadn't remembered talking with her about the place and told
Herbert just as we started. He'd inspected it himself, had read of it,
yet even I who had visited that old mansion many times didn't know of
its existence."
"Oh! I wish you'd told us all, Jim Barlow, when we were there! I think
it was selfish mean of you not to, when we were sight-seeing on
purpose," pouted Jolly Molly.
"Wish't I had, now, since you all seem to care. I didn't think then
anybody--I mean--I didn't think at all, except for myself," frankly
answered the lad, which made them laugh again and so restored their
ordinary mood.
"Well, it's about breaking up time. I move that Dorothy C. give us a
bit of music from her violin," said the Master, smiling upon his
beloved child.
She smiled in return but it was such a wan little attempt that it
pained more than pleased him. Something was sorely troubling sunshiny
Dolly and he wondered what, not knowing the purport of her begging
letter to Mrs. Calvert nor what the telegram had said. He feared she
was still grieving about the lost one hundred dollars and could
sympathize in that, for he also grieved and puzzled. He made up his
mind to ask her about it at the first opportunity; meanwhile, there
was the obliging girl already tuning her violin and asking from her
place beside the mantel piece:
"What shall it be--when I've done squeaking this way?"
"Yankee Doodle!" "God Save the King!" cried Herbert and Melvin,
together; and immediately she began, first a strain of one, then the
other, till even the mischievous petitioners cried that they had had
enough of that medley and would be glad of a change.
One after another she played the selections asked, watching with
curiosity which all the others shared, the strange effect her music
had on Luna. The waif now seemed to consider herself entirely one of
the Party--the "Silent Partner," Danny called her; for though she
never spoke she had learned to keep close to some one or other of the
young folks, and so to avoid that big room where Dinah had placed her
earlier on her visit. She took no part in any of their games but
watched them with that vacant smile upon her wrinkled face, keeping
out of the way of being jostled by cuddling down in some corner just
as the twins did. Indeed, there was a close intimacy between the three
"uninvited"; the little ones promptly realizing that no matter how
mischievous they had been and how much they deserved punishment, they
would be unmolested in Luna's neighborhood. She paid scant attention
to them, no more than she did to anything, except gay colors and
music. She slept much of the time, and just as the twins did; cuddled
upon the floor or lounge or wherever drowsiness had overcome her. Yet
let even the faintest strain of music be heard and she would instantly
arouse, her eyes wide open and her head bent forward as one intently
listening; and the strangest part of this attraction was that she
dumbly realized the sort of melody she heard.
At the jumble of the two national airs she had smiled, then frowned,
and finally looked distressed. It was this expression upon the dull
face she watched that had made Dorothy give over that nonsense, even
more than the protests of her mates; and now as Molly begged:
"Something of your own making-up, Dolly Doodles!" she let her bow
wander idly over the strings, until a sort of rhythmic measure came to
her; fragments she knew of many compositions but bound into a sheaf,
as it were, by a theme of her own.
It was a minor, moving melody and slowly but effectually touched the
heart of every listener. Melvin leaned back in his chair and closed
his eyes, picturing to his sometime homesick soul a far-away Yarmouth
garden, with roses such as bloomed no other where and a sweet-faced,
widowed mother gently tending them.
Helena pondered if she did right to be in this house, a guest, with
her own home so near and her parents thus deserted of both their
children, and unconsciously she sighed.
James Barlow and Jane Potter, after the habit of each, drifted into
thought of the wide field of learning and the apparent hopelessness of
ever crossing far beyond its boundaries. "The worst of studying is
that it makes you see how little bit you can ever know;" considered
the ambitious lad, while Jane regretted that she had not been left in
peace in that old house from which she had been rescued and so have
had the chance of her life to learn history on the spot.
More or less, all within the sound of that violin grew thoughtful; but
it was upon poor, "unfinished" Luna that the greatest stress was
wrought. She did not rise to her feet but began to creep toward the
player, inch by inch, almost imperceptibly advancing as if drawn
forward by some invisible force.
Presently they all became aware of her movement and of nothing else,
save that low undercurrent of melody that wailed and sobbed from the
delicate instrument, as the player's own emotions ruled her fingers.
Even the Master sat erect, he who made a study of all mankind, touched
and influenced beyond himself with speculations concerning this aged
woman who was still a child.
"Music! Who knows but that was the key to unlock her closed
intelligence? Oh! what a pity that it came so late! But how sad is
Dorothy's mood to evoke such almost unearthly strains! It's getting
too much for her and for that helpless creature. I must stop it;"
thought the farrier, but didn't put his thought into action. Just then
he could not.
"Makes me think of a snake charmer I saw once," whispered Monty Stark
to Littlejohn.
"Ssh! Luna's cryin'! Did you ever see the beat? Alfy Babcock, stop
snivellin' as if you was at a first class funeral!" returned master
Smith, himself swallowing rather hard as he happened to think of his
mother bringing in her own firewood.
Luna had reached the spot directly before Dorothy and was on her knees
looking up with a timid, fascinated stare. Her small hands were so
tightly clasped that their large veins seemed bursting, and great
tears chased one another down her pink, wrinkled cheeks. Her close
cropped head was thrown back and her back was toward the windows over
which no curtains had been drawn. In her gay frock, which firelight
and lamplight touched to a brilliant flame color, she must have
appeared to one beyond the panes like a suppliant child begging pardon
for some grave misdoing.
Suddenly Alfaretta screamed, and Molly Breckenridge promptly echoed
her; then bounded to Dorothy's side and snatched the violin from her
hands.
"Stop it, Dolly, stop it! I couldn't help doing that, for in another
minute you'd have had me and--and everybody crazy! What made you----"
"Why, Alfaretta! Whatever is the matter? Why do you stand like that,
pointing out into the night as if you'd seen a ghost?" demanded Jane
Potter, going to her schoolmate and shaking her vigorously. "Don't
yell again. It's--it's more frightful to hear you than it was to be
locked up in that hidden chamber, with a spring-locked trap shut
between you and liberty." Which was the only admission this
self-contained young person ever gave that she had once known fear.
Alfy gulped, shivered, and slowly answered:
"So I did. It--was a ghost. Or--or--just the same as one!
A--lookin'--a lookin' right through the window--with his face--big
and white--He--he wore a hat----"
"Wise ghost! Not to cavort around bare-headed on a damp September
night!" cried Monty, as much to reassure his own shaken nerves as
those of the mountain girl.
"Dorothy's music was so strange--weird you might say--that she's made
us all feel spooky; but we have no apparitions at Deerhurst, let me
tell you," said Herbert, consolingly.
"Huh! You may say what you like, but that one apparited all right. I
seen it with my very own eyes and nobody else's!" retorted Alfaretta,
with such decision and twisting of good English that those who heard
her laughed loudly.
The laughter effectually banished "spookiness" and as now poor Luna
sank down upon the floor in her accustomed drowsiness, her enwrapt
mood already forgotten, the Master lifted her in his strong arms and
carried her away to Dinah and to bed. But as he went he cast one keen
glance toward the windows, where nothing could now be seen--if ever
had been--save the dimly outlined trees beyond. Yet even he almost
jumped when Jim, having followed him from the room, touched his arm
and asked:
"What do you s'pose sent old Oliver Sands to peekin' in our windows?"
[Illustration: THE GHOST AT THE WINDOW.
_Dorothy's House Party._]