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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/15591-8.txt b/15591-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f573aa --- /dev/null +++ b/15591-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10140 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Woman Named Smith, by Marie Conway Oemler + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Woman Named Smith + + +Author: Marie Conway Oemler + +Release Date: April 8, 2005 [eBook #15591] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN NAMED SMITH*** + + +E-text prepared by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 15591-h.htm or 15591-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/9/15591/15591-h/15591-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/9/15591/15591-h.zip) + + + + + +A WOMAN NAMED SMITH + +by + +MARIE CONWAY OEMLER + +Author of _Slippy McGee_, etc. + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers New York + +1919 + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece illustration: "Sophy," he said, +"I have found the lost key of Hynds House"] + + + + + + To + + ELIZABETH HEYWARD OEMLER + + _Sometimes my Little Girl._ + + + When you were yet an Awful Baby, + And bawled o' bed-time, I said "Maybe + It is not best to spank or scold her: + Suppose a fairy-tale were told her?" + And gave you then, to my undoing, + The wolf Red Riding-Hood pursuing; + Sang Mother Goose her artless rhyming; + Showed Jack the Magic Beanstalk climbing; + Three Little Pigs were so appealing, + You set up sympathetic squealing! + Then, Bitsybet, you had your mother-- + _You bawled until I told another!_ + + The Awful Baby's gone. Here lately + You bear your little self sedately. + You've shed your rompers; you want dresses + Prinked out with frillies; fluff your tresses; + Delight your daddy, aunts, and mother; + And sisterly set straight your brother. + Your bib-and-tucker days abolished, + Your manners and your nails are polished. + One baby trait remains, thank glory! + You're still a glutton for a story. + Still, Bitsybet, you beg another: + So here's one for you from + + YOUR MOTHER. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I THE SCARLET WITCH DEPARTS + II AND ARIEL MAKES MUSIC + III THE DEAR LITTLE GOD! + IV THE HYNDSES OF HYNDS HOUSE + V "THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF" + VI GLAMOURY + VII A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR + VIII PEACOCKS AND IVORY + IX THE JUDGMENT OF SPRING + X THE FOREST OF ARDEN + XI THE JINNEE INTERVENES + XII MAN PROPOSES + XIII FIRES OF YESTERDAY + XIV THE TALISMAN + XV THE HEART OF HYNDS HOUSE + XVI THE DEVILL HIS RAINBOW + XVII ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS + XVIII THE GREATEST GIFT + XIX DEEP WATERS + XX HARBOR + + + + +CHARACTERS + + +SOPHY: A woman named Smith. + +ALICIA GAINES: Flower o' the Peach. + +NICHOLAS JELNIK: Peacocks and Ivory. + +DOCTOR RICHARD GEDDES: _Coeur-de-Lion._ + +THE AUTHOR: Himself. + +THE SECRETARY: A Pleasant Person. + +MISS EMMELINE PHELPS-PARSONS: of Boston, Massachusetts. + +MISS MARTHA HOPKINS: "Clothed in White Samite." + +JUDGE GATCHELL: The Law. + +SCHMETZ AND RIEDRIECH: Workmen and Visionaries. + +THE JINNEE: A Son of the Prophet. + +SOPHRONISBA SCARLETT: "The Scarlett Witch." + +THE HYNDSES OF HYNDS HOUSE. + +PAYING GUESTS. + +THE PEOPLE OF HYNDSVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA. + +MARY MAGDALEN; QUEEN-OF-SHEEBA; FERNOLIA: Important Persons. + +BORIS: A Russian Wolfhound. + +THE BLACK FAMILY: A Witch's Cat's Kittens. + +BEAUTIFUL DOG: Last but not Least. + + + + + +A WOMAN NAMED SMITH + + +CHAPTER I + +THE SCARLETT WITCH DEPARTS + + +If it had been humanly possible for Great-Aunt Sophronisba Scarlett +to lug her place in Hyndsville, South Carolina, along with her into +the next world, plump it squarely in the middle of the Elysian +Fields, plaster it over with "No Trespassing" signs, and then settle +herself down to a blissful eternity of serving writs upon the angels +for flying over her fences without permission, and setting the saved +by the ears in general, she would have done so and felt that heaven +was almost as desirable a place as South Carolina. But as even she +couldn't impose her will upon the next world, and there was nobody +in this one she hated less than she did me--possibly because she had +never laid eyes on me--she willed me Hynds House and what was left +of the Hynds fortune; tying this string to her bequest: I must +occupy Hynds House within six months, and I couldn't rent it, or +attempt to sell it, without forfeiture of the entire estate. + +I can fancy the ancient beldam sniggering sardonically the while she +figured to herself the chagrined astonishment, the helpless wrath, +of her watchfully waiting neighbors, when they should discover that +historic Hynds House, dating from the beginning of things +Carolinian, had passed into the unpedigreed hands of a woman named +Smith. I can fancy her balefully exact perception of the attitude so +radically conservative a community must needs assume toward such an +intruder as myself, foisted upon it, so to speak, by an enemy who +never failed to turn the trick. + +Because I'm not a Hynds, at all. Great Aunt Sophronisba was my aunt +not by blood but by marriage; she having, when she was no longer +what is known as a spring chicken, met my Great-Uncle Johnny +Scarlett and scandalized all Hyndsville by marrying him out of hand. + +I have heard that she was insanely in love with him, and I believe +it; nothing short of an over-mastering passion could have induced +one of the haughty Hyndses to marry a person with such family +connections as his. For my father, George Smith, was a ruddy +English ship-chandler who pitched upon Boston for a home, and lived +with his family in the rooms above his shop; and my grandmother +Smith dropped her "aitches" with the cheerful ease of one to the +manner born, bless her stout old Cockney heart! I can remember her +hearing me my spelling-lesson of a night, her spectacles far down on +her old button of a nose, her white curls bobbing from under her +cap. + +"What! Carn't spell 'saloon'? Listen, then, Miss: There's a hess and +a hay and a hell and two hoes and a henn! Now, then, d 'ye spell +it!" + +Not that Mrs. Johnny ever accepted us. It was borne in upon the +Smiths that undesirable in-laws are outlaws. This despite the fact +that my mother's pink-and-white English face was a gentler copy of +what her uncle's had been in his youth; and that when I came along, +some years after the dear old man's death, I was named Sophronisba +at Mrs. Johnny's urgent request. + +After Great-Uncle Johnny died, as if the last tie which bound her to +ordinary humanity had snapped, his widow retired into a seclusion +from which she emerged only to sue somebody. She said the world was +being turned topsyturvy by people who were allowed to misbehave to +their betters, and who needed to be taught a lesson and their proper +place; and that so long as she retained her faculties, she would do +her duty in that respect, please God! + +She did her duty so well in that respect that the Hynds fortune, +which even civil war and reconstruction hadn't been able altogether +to wreck, dwindled to a mere fifteen thousand dollars; and she +wasn't on speaking terms with anybody but Judge Gatchell, her +lawyer. She would have quarreled with him, too, had she dared. + +To the minister, who bearded her for her soul's sake every now and +then, she spoke in words brief and curt: + +"You here again? Wanted to see me, hey? Well, you've done it. Now +get out!" + +And in the meantime the years passed and my own immediate family +passed with them; but still the gaunt old woman lived on in her +gaunt old house, becoming in time a myth to me, and to Hyndsville as +well; where they referred to her, succinctly, as "the Scarlet +Witch." I heard from her directly only once, and that was the year +she sent me a red flannel petticoat for a Christmas present. After +that, as if she'd done her worst, she ignored me altogether. + +My mother had wanted me to be a school-teacher, in her eyes the acme +of respectability. But as it happens, there are two things I +wouldn't be: one's a school-teacher, the other a minister's wife. +If I had to marry the average minister, I should infallibly hate all +church-goers; if I had to teach the average school-child and wrestle +with the average school-board, I should end by burning joss-sticks +to Herod. + +So I disappointed my mother by becoming a typist. After her death I +secured a foothold in a New York house--I'd always wanted to live in +New York--and went up, step by step, from what may be called a +rookie in the outside office, to private secretary to the Head. And +I'd been a business woman for all of seventeen years when Great-Aunt +Sophronisba Scarlett departed at the age of ninety-eight years and +eleven months, and willed that I should take up my life in the house +where she had dropped hers. + +"Oh, Sophy!" cried Alicia Gaines, the one person in the world who +didn't call me Miss Smith. "Oh, Sophy, it's like a fairy-story come +true! Think of falling heir to an old, old, old lady's old, old, old +house, in South Carolina! I hope there's a big old door with a +fan-light, and a Greeky front with white pillars, and a big old +hall, and a big old garden--" + +"And an old stove that smokes and old windows that rattle and an old +roof that leaks, and maybe big, big old rats that squeak o' nights," +I said darkly. For the first rapture of the astonishing news was +beginning to wear thin, and doubt was appearing in spots. + +"Sophy Smith! Why, if such a wonderful, beautiful, unexpected thing +had happened to _me_--" Alicia's blue eyes misted. I have known her +since the day she was born, next door to us in Boston, and she is +the only person I have ever seen who can cry and look pretty while +she's doing it; also, she can cry and laugh at the same time, being +Irish. Some foolish people, who have been deceived by Alicia +Gaines's baby stare and complexion, have said she hasn't sense +enough to get in out of a shower of rain. This is, of course, a +libel. But what's the odds, when every male being in sight would +rush to her aid with an umbrella? + +After her mother's death I fell heir to Alicia, who, like me, was an +only child, and without relatives. Lately, I'd gotten her into our +filing-department. She didn't belong in a business office, she whose +proper background should have been an adoring husband and the latest +thing in pink-and-white babies. + +"But somebody's got to think of stoves and roofs and rats and such, +or there'd be no living in any old house," I reminded her, +practically. "My dear girl, don't you realize that this thing isn't +all beer and skittles?" + +Alicia wrinkled her white forehead. + +"Consider me, a hardy late-summer plant forced to uproot and +transplant myself to a soil which may not in the least agree with +me. Why, this means changing all my fixed habits, to trot off to +live in an old house that is probably haunted by the cross-grained +ghost of a lady of ninety-nine!" + +"If I were a ghost, you'd be the very last person on earth I'd want +to tackle, Sophy," remarked Alicia, dimpling. "And as for that new +soil, why, you'll bloom in it! You--well, Sophy dear, up to now you +have been root-bound; you've never had a chance to grow, much less +to blossom. Now you can do both." + +I who was confidential secretary to the Head, looked at the girl who +was admittedly the worst file-clerk on record; and she looked back +at me, nodding her bright head with young wisdom. + +"I hope," she said, wistfully, "that there'll be all sorts of lovely +things in your house, Sophy,--old mirrors, old books, old pictures, +old furniture, old china. Lord send you'll find an attic! All my +life I've day-dreamed of finding an attic that's been shut up and +forgotten for ages and ages, and discovering all sorts of lovely +things in all sorts of hiding-places. When I think my day-dream may +come true for you, Sophy, it almost reconciles me to the pain of +parting from you; though what on earth I'm to do without you, +goodness only knows!" She was sitting on my bed, kimonoed, +slippered, and braided. And now she looked at me with a suddenly +quivering chin. + +"Alicia," said I, "ever since I discovered that there's no mistake +about that lawyer's letter--that Hynds House is unaccountably, but +undoubtedly mine and I've got to live in it if I want to keep it--it +has been borne in upon me that you are just about the worst +file-clerk on earth. You're a navy-blue failure in a business +office. Business isn't your _motif_. Now, will you resign the job +you fill execrably, and accept one you can fill beyond all +praise--come South with me, share half-and-half whatever comes, and +help make that old house a happy home for us both?" + +"Don't joke." Her lips went white. "Please, please, Sophy dear, +don't joke like that! I--well, I just couldn't bear it." + +"I never joke," I said indignantly. "You little goose, did you +imagine for one minute that I contemplated leaving you here by +yourself, any more than I contemplate going down there by myself, if +I can help it? Stop to think for a moment, Alicia. You have been +like a little sister to me, ever since you were born. And--I'm +alone, except for you--and not in my first youth--and not +beautiful--and not gifted." + +At that she hurled herself off my bed and cried upon my shoulder, +with her slim arms around my neck. Those young arms were beginning +to make me feel wistful. If things had been different--if I had been +lovely like the Scarletts, instead of looking like the Smiths--there +might have been-- + +Well, I don't look like the Scarletts; so there wasn't. The best I +could do was to drop a kiss on Alicia's forehead, where the bright +young hair begins to break into curls. + +And that is how, neither of us having the faintest notion of what +was in store for us, Alicia Gaines and I turned our backs upon New +York and set our faces toward Hynds House. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AND ARIEL MAKES MUSIC + + +We had wired Judge Gatchell when to expect us, but the venerable +negro hackman who was on the lookout for us explained that the judge +had a "misery in the laigs" which confined him to his room, and that +he advised us to go to the hotel for a while. + +We couldn't, for wasn't our own house waiting for us? A minute later +we had bundled into the ancient hack and were bumping and splashing +through unpaved streets, getting wet, gray glimpses of old houses in +old gardens, and every now and then a pink crape-myrtle blushing in +the pouring rain. Hyndsville was, it seemed, one of those sprawling, +easy-going old Carolina towns that liked plenty of elbow-room and +wasn't particular about architectural order. Hynds House itself was +on the extreme edge of things. + +The hack presently stopped before a high iron gate in a waist-high +brick wall with a spiked iron railing on top of it, the whole +overrun with weeds and creepers. Of Hynds House itself one couldn't +see anything but a stack of chimneys above a forest of trees. + +The gate creaked and groaned on its rusty hinges; then we were +walking up a weedy, rain-soaked path where untrimmed branches +slapped viciously at our faces, and tough brambles, like snares and +gins, tried to catch our feet. On each side was a jungle. Of a +sudden the path turned, widened into a fairly cleared space; and +Hynds House was before us. + +We had expected a fair-sized dwelling-house in its garden. And there +confronted us, glooming under the gray and threatening sky that +seemed the only proper and fitting canopy for it, what looked like a +pile reared in medieval Europe rather than a home in America. Its +stained brick walls, partly covered with ivy and lichens; its +smokeless chimneys; its barred doors; its many shuttered windows, +like blind eyes--all appeared deliberately to thrust aside human +habitancy. + + _A residence for woman, child, and man, + A dwelling-place,--and yet no habitation; + A House,--but under some prodigious ban + Of Excommunication._ + +Yet there was nothing ruinous about it, for the Hyndses had sought +to build it as the old Egyptians sought to build their temples--to +last forever, to defy time and decay. It was not only meant to be a +place for Hyndses to be born and live and die in: it was a monument +to Family Pride, a brick-and-granite symbol of place and power. + +The walls were of an immense thickness, the corners further +strengthened with great blocks of granite. The house had but two +stories, with an attic under its sloping roofs, but it gave an +effect of height as well as of solidity. Behind it was another brick +building, the lower part of which had been used for stables and +carriage house, and the upper portion as quarters for the house +slaves, in the old days. Another smaller building, slate-roofed and +ivy covered, was the spring-house, with a clear, cold little spring +still bubbling away as merrily in its granite basin, as if all the +Hyndses were not dead and gone. And there was a deep well, protected +by a round stone wall, with a cupola-like roof supported by four +slender pillars. And everything was dank and weedy and splotched +with mildew and with mold. + + _O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear + A sense of mystery the spirit daunted + And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, + The place is Haunted!_ + +When we opened the great front door, above which was the fan-light +of Alicia's hope, just as the round front porch had the big pillars, +a damp and moldy air met us. The house had not been opened since +Sophronisba's funeral, and everything--stairs, settles, tables, +cabinets, pictures, the chairs backed inhospitably against the wall +as if to prevent anybody from sitting in them--was covered with a +shrouding pall of dust. + +The hall was cross-shaped, the side passage running between the back +drawing-room and library on one side, and the dining-room and two +locked rooms on the other. It was a nice place, that side passage, +with a fireplace and settles; and beautiful windows opening upon the +tangled garden. All the down-stairs walls were paneled: precious +woods were not so hard to come by when Hynds House was built. It was +lovely, of course, but depressingly dark. + +We got one of the big windows open, and let some stale damp air out +and some fresh damp air in. Then, having despatched our hackman for +certain necessities, Alicia and I turned and stared at each other, +another Alicia and Sophy staring back at us from a dim and dusty +mirror opposite. If, at that moment, I could have heard the familiar +buzzer at my elbow! If I could have heard the good everyday New York +"Miss Smith, attend to this, please"! God wot, if I had not +literally burned my bridges behind me--Oh, oh, I had! + +"The garden around this house,"--Alicia spoke in a +whisper--"stretches to the end of the world and then laps over. It +hasn't been trimmed since Adam and Eve moved out. But those +crape-myrtle trees are quite the loveliest things left over from +Paradise, and I'm glad we came here to see them with our own eyes! +Brace up, Sophy! We'll feel heaps better when we've had something to +eat. Aren't you frightfully hungry, and doesn't a chill suspicion +strike you, somewhere around the wishbone, that if that Ancient +Mariner of a hackman doesn't get back soon we shall starve?" + +At that moment, from somewhere--it seemed to us from up-stairs--a +sudden flood of sweetest sound poured goldenly through that sad, +dim, dusty house, as if a blithe spirit had slipped in unawares and +was bidding us welcome. For a few wonderful moments the exquisite +music filled the dark old place and banished gloom and neglect and +decay; then, with a pattering scamper, as of the bare, rosy feet of +a beloved and mischievous child making a rush for his crib, it went +as suddenly as it had come. There was nothing to break the silence +but the swishing downpour of the outside rain. + +When I could speak: "It came from up-stairs! Somebody's playing a +violin up-stairs. I'm going up-stairs to find out who it is." + +Alicia demurred: "It may be a real person, Sophy!--a real person +with a real violin. But I'd rather believe it's Ariel's self, come +out of those pink crape-myrtles. Don't go up-stairs, please, Sophy!" + +"Nonsense!" said I. "Somebody's played a violin and I mean to know +who he is!" + +And up-stairs I went, into a huge dark hall, with the cross-passage +cutting it, and closed doors everywhere. At the front end was a most +beautiful window, opening doorlike upon a tiny iron bird-cage of a +balcony, hung up Southern fashion under the roof of the pillared +front porch. At the rear a more ordinary door opened upon the broad +veranda that ran the full width of the house. Both door and window +were closed, and bolted on the inside, and the big, dark, dusty +rooms which I resolutely entered were quite empty, their fireplaces +boarded up, their windows close-shuttered. There was no sign +anywhere of violin or player. I went down-stairs just as wise as I +had gone up. + +"I told you it was Ariel!" Alicia stood by the open window--our +windows are sunk into the walls, and cased with solid black walnut +as Impervious to decay as the granite itself--and leaned out to the +wet and dripping garden. + +"Sophy," said she, in her high, sweet voice that carries like a +thrush's. "Sophy, the best thing about this world is, that the best +things in it aren't really _real_. This is one of its enchanted +places. Sycorax used to live in this house: that's what you feel +about it yet. But now she's gone, her spell is lifting, and Hynds +House is going to come alive and be young again!" + +"At least," I grumbled, "admit that the dust inside and the rain +outside and the weeds and mud are real; and I'm really hungry!" + +"Me too!" Alicia assented instantly and ungrammatically. "Oh, for a +square meal!" She thrust her charming head out far enough for the +rain to splatter on her bright hair and whip it into curls, and +bring a deeper shade of pink to her cheeks, and a deeper blue +to her eyes. "Ariel!" she fluted, "Spirit of the Violin, I'm +hungry--earthily, worm-of-the-dustly, unromantically hungry! Send us +something to eat." + +"Why don't you rap on one of the tables," I suggested ironically, +"and call up your high spirits to do your bidding?" + +"My high spirits won't be above making you a soothing cup of coffee +just as soon as that ancient African returns. In the meantime, +let's look around us." + +People had forests to draw from when they built rooms like those in +Hynds House. There were eight of them on the first floor. On one +side the two drawing-rooms, the library, and behind that a room +evidently used for an office. We didn't know it then, of course, but +that library was treasure trove. Almost every book and pamphlet +covering the early American settlements, that is of any value at +all, is in Hynds House library; we have some pamphlets that even the +British Museum lacks. + +The rooms had enough furniture to stock half a dozen antique-shops, +all of it in a shocking state, the brocades in tatters, the carvings +caked with dust. You couldn't see yourself in the tarnished mirrors, +the portraits were black with dirt, and most of the prints were +badly stained. Alicia swooped upon a pair of china dogs with mauve +eyes and black spots and sloppy red tongues, on a what-not in a +corner. She said she had been aching for a china dog ever since she +was born. + +"Oh, Sophy!" cried she, dancing, "wasn't it heavenly of that old +soul to die and leave you two whole china dogs! I wouldn't want +sure-enough dogs that looked like these, but as china dogs they're +perfect! And cast your eyes about you, Sophy! Have you ever in all +your life seen a house that needed so much done to it as this house +does? + + "'If seven maids with seven mops, + Swept it for half a year, + Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, + 'That that would make it clear?' + 'I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, + 'And--' + +"Sophy! I shall clean some of these windows myself. Did you know +that Queen Victoria, when she was a child, had the same virtuous +inclination? Well, she had, and you see how she turned out!" + +"I don't believe it!" + +"Don't be skeptical!--Look at that pink mustache-cup over there on +that little table! Who do you suppose had a mustache and drank out +of that cup? It couldn't have been Sophronisba herself? _I_ +insist that it was a black-mustached Confederate with a red sash +around his waist. I adore Confederates! They're the most glamorous, +romantic figures in American history. I wish a black mustache went +along with the cup and the house; don't you? It would make things so +much more interesting!" And she began to sing, at the top of her +voice, in the sad and faded room that hadn't heard a singing voice +these many, many years: + + "'Arrah, Missis McGraw,' the Captain said, + 'Will ye make a sojer av your son Ted? + Wid a g-r-rand mus-tache, an' a three-cocked hat, + Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that! + _You like that--tooroo looroo loo!_ + _Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that!_'" + +If Great-Aunt Sophronisba's ghost, and the scandalized ghosts of all +the haughy Hyndses ever intended to walk, now was the accepted time! +And as if that graceless ballad were the signal for something to +happen, upon the hall window-shutter sounded three loud, imperative +knocks. + +Alicia dashed down the hall. + +"Sophy!" she called, breathlessly, "Sophy!" + +Framed in the open window, with the dripping trees and the slanting +rain behind him, was the bizarre, the astounding figure of a +gnomelike negro in a terra-cotta robe fastened about the waist with +a girdle made of a twisted black shawl with the most beautiful +Persian border and fringe. A striped silk scarf was bound +turban-wise about his head, from which tufts of snowy wool +protruded. From his ears hung crescent-shaped silver ear-rings +studded with coral and turquoise; a necklace of the same barbaric +magnificence was about his neck, and his arms were covered with +bracelets. His deep-set eyes, his flat nose, his mouth set in a +thousand fine wrinkles, the whole aspect of him, breathed a sly and +impish drollery. He glanced from Alicia to me with the smiling +malice of a jinnee delighted to mystify mortals. Then with a rapid +movement he shifted the umbrella he carried over a large +linen-covered tray, eased the latter upon the deep window-ledge, and +beckoned with a very black and beringed hand. + +"For _us_?" breathed Alicia. + +With a fine flourish he swept aside the linen covering. And there +was golden-brown chicken, white rice, cream gravy, hot biscuit, cool +sliced tomatoes with sprigs of green parsley, fresh butter, fresh +cream, a great slab of heavenly cake, a wicker basket of Elberta +peaches, rain-cooled, odorous, delicious, and a pot of steaming +coffee. On the edge of the tray was a cluster of rain-washed roses. + +"No," Alicia doubted, "this is not true: it can't be!--Sophy, do you +see it, too?" + +He motioned her to take the tray; and his ear-rings swung, and all +his bracelets set up a silver tinkling. An automobile honked outside +in the street shut off by our garden trees, and a dog barked. Our +jinnee cocked a cautious head and a listening ear, thrust the tray +upon Alicia, and with inconceivable swiftness vanished around a +corner. + +"Let's hurry and eat it before it, too, takes to its heels," said +Alicia, practically. Without further ado we dragged forward a small +table, and fell to. Aladdin probably tasted fare like that, the +first time he rubbed the magic lamp. + +When we had polished the last chicken bone, and had that comfortable +feeling that nothing can give so thoroughly as a good meal, Alicia +carefully examined the china and silver. + +"Old blue-and-white English china; English silver initialed 'R.H.G.' +Sophy, handle this prayerfully: it's an apostle spoon. Think of +having a jinnee fetch you your coffee, and of stirring it with an +apostle spoon." + +She spoke reverently. Alicia is the sort who flattens her nose +against antique-shop windows, and would go without dessert for a +month of Sundays and trudge afoot to save carfare, if thereby she +might buy an old print, or a bit of pottery; just as I am content to +admire the print or the pottery in the shop window, feeling sure +that when they are finally sold to somebody better able to buy them, +something else I can admire just as much will take their place. Mine +is a philosophy not altogether to be despised, though Alicia rejects +it. She handled the blue-and-white ware with tender hands, laid the +silver together, and set the tray upon the window-ledge. Then, on a +leaf of my pocket memorandum--she never carries one of her own--she +scribbled the following absurdity and pinned it to the linen cover: + + Ariel, accept the gratitude of mortals set down hungry in + the house of Sycorax. Gay and kind spirit, when we broke + your bread you broke her spell: the wishbone of your chicken + has cooked her goose! Maker of Music, Donator of Dinners, + thanks! + +"And now," said she, "having been serenaded, and satisfied with +nothing short of perfection, let's go up-stairs, Sophy, and decide +where we shall sleep to-night." + +We chose the front room because of a gate-legged table that Alicia +wanted to say her prayers beside, and because of the particularly +fine portrait of a colonial gentleman above the mantel, a very +handsome man in claret-colored satin, with a vest of flowered gold +brocade, a gold-hilted sword upon which his fine fingers rested, and +a pair of silk-stockinged legs of which he seemed complacently +aware. + +"I wish you weren't dead," Alicia told him regretfully. "Your taste +in clothes is above all praise, though I fancy you were somewhat too +vain of your legs, sir. I never knew before that men had legs like +that, did you, Sophy?" + +"I take no pleasure in the legs of a man." I quoted the Psalmist +acridly enough. + +"Don't pay any attention to Sophy," Alicia advised the portrait, +naughtily. "Just to prove how much we both admire you, you shall +have Ariel's roses." She had brought them up-stairs with us, and now +she walked over to the mantel to place them beneath the picture. + +"Why!" exclaimed Alicia, "why!" and she held up nothing more +remarkable than a package of cigarettes, evidently left there +recently, for it was not dusty. + +"I dare say Judge Gatchell forgot it, when he was looking over the +house. That reminds me: the silver you admired so much was marked +'G.' Then, in all probability, Judge Gatchell sent us that spread, +and very thoughtful it was of him, I must say." + +"Rheumatic old judges don't smoke superfine cigarettes, Sophy, nor +send black tray-bearers in terra-cotta robes out on rainy days for +the entertainment of strange ladies. No: this is something, or +somebody, _young_. But since when did Ariel take to tobacco?" + +"Let's go down-stairs," I suggested, "and wait for that old darky, +if he is a real darky and ever means to return." I did not fancy +those big forlorn rooms, with their great beds that didn't seem made +for people to sleep and dream in, but to stay awake and worry over +their sins--and then die in. + +The down-stairs halls had grown darker, and the rain came down in a +gray sheet, so that the open window seemed a hole cut into it. The +tray we had left on the window-ledge was gone. In its place was +nothing more romantic than a freshly filled and trimmed kerosene +lamp, two candles, and a box of matches. + +When our Jehu finally returned he rummaged out some firewood from +the sooty kitchen and built us a fire in the hall. He was a pleasant +old negro, garrulous and kindly, by name Adam King, or, as he +informed us, "Unc' Adam" to all Hyndsville folks. + +"Uncle Adam," Alicia asked, while he was drying himself before the +blazing logs, "Uncle Adam, who's the violinist around here?" + +Uncle Adam looked at the Yankee lady a bit doubtfully. The old +fellow was slightly deaf, but he would have died rather than admit +it. + +"Wellum," he told us, "since ol' Mis' Scarlett's gone, folks does +say de doctor is. Dat's 'cause ob de Hynds' blood in 'im. All dem +Hyndses was natchelly de violentest kind o' pussons, an' Doctor, he +ain't behin' de do'." He rubbed his hands and chuckled. "Lawd, yes! +I know de Doctor, man an' boy, an' he suttinly rips an' ta'hs when +he's riled! You ought ter seen 'im de day ol' Mis' Scarlett let fly +wid 'er shot-gun an' blowed de tails spang off'n two of 'is hens an' +de haid off'n 'is prize rooster! De fowls come thoo' de haidge, an' +ol' Mis' grab 'er gun an' blaze away. De Doctor hear de squallation, +an' come flyin' outer de office an' right ovah de haidge. I 'uz +totin' fiahwood fo' ol' Mis' dat day, an' I drap een de bushes; it +ain't no place fo' sensible niggahs when white folks grab shot-guns. +Doctor see me an' holler: 'Adam! git outer dem bushes, you ol' fool! +You my witness what dis hellion's done to my fowls!' + +"Ol' Mis' Scarlett she s'anter ter de winder wid 'er gun sort o' +hangin' loose, an' holler: 'Adam! Come outer dem bushes 'fo' I +pickle yo' hide! You my witness ob dis ruffian trispassin' on my +prop'ty an' cussin' an' seducin' a ol' woman widout 'er consent,' +she says. 'Has I retched my age,' says ol' Mis' Scarlett, 'to have +his fowls ruinin' my gyardin', an' him whut's a dunghill rooster +himself flyin' ovah my fences unbeknownst?' + +"'If there evah was a leather-hided ol' hen ripe foh roastin' on +Beelzebub's own griddle, it's you, you gallows ol' witch!' says +Doctor, shakin' 'is fist up at her. + +"'Aha! I got a plain case!' says ol' Mis', grim-like. 'I'll have a +warrant out foh you dis day, Geddes, you owdacious villyum!' + +"And she done it. Yas'm. An' dey done sont de shariff atter me for +witness, all two bofe o' dem." + +"Well, and what did you do?" I asked, curiously. I was getting a +side-light on Great-Aunt Sophronisba. + +"Me? I got on muh knees an' wrastled wid de speret," said Uncle +Adam. "I done tuck mah troubles to de Lawd, whichin He _'bleeged_ +ter know I cyant deal wid ol' Mis' Scarlett an' de Doctor. Missis, I +prayed!" + +"Oh! And what happened then?" + +The old man looked around him, cautiously, and lowered his voice: +"Wellum, Mis' Scarlett she tuck an' went an' up an' died. Yessum! +She done daid. An' next thing we-all heah, she 'd went an' lef de +Hynds place to youna, 'stead ob de Doctor, or dat furriner." + +"She had Hynds relatives, then? I didn't know." + +"Wellum, de Doctor an' ol' Mis' Scarlett wuz cousins. Dat's how come +dey could fight so powerful. Ain't you nevah had no relations to +fight wid, ma'ams?" + +We explained, regretfully, that we hadn't. + +"Den you ain't nevah knowed, an' you ain't nevah gwine ter knew, +whut real, sho-nough fightin' _is_," said Unc' Adam, with +conviction. + +"You mentioned a foreigner," hinted Alicia. + +The old man shook his head deprecatingly. "Don't seem lak I evah +able to rickermembah dat boy's name, nohow. His grampa' 'uz a Hynds, +likewise his ma, but she 'sisted on marryin' er furriner, an' de +boy takes atter de furriners 'stead er we-all. 'Taint de po' boy's +fault, but ol' Mis' Scarlett hated 'im wuss 'n pizen. De only notice +she take er de boy is ter warrant 'im fo' trispassin'. Dat 's how +come folkses ter say--" he paused suddenly. + +"Well, what do folks say?" I wanted to know. + +"Well, Missis," he admitted, "dey say it's natchel to fight wid yo' +kin whilst you 're livin', but 'taint natchel ter carry de fight +inter de grave-yahd. Dat's whut she done, ma'ams. An' folks is +outdone wid 'er, whichin' she ain't lef de Hynds place to de +Hyndses, but done tuhn it ovah ter--uh--ah--" + +"To a Yankee woman named Smith?" + +"Yessum, dat's it." + +"Had either the Doctor or the foreigner any real claim or right to +this property, do you know?" + +"No, ma'am, we-all 'lows dey ain't got no mo' law-right dan whut +you's got. Ol' Mis' Scarlett ain't _'bleeged_ ter lef it to de +Hyndses, but folks thinks she oughter done it, an' dey's powerful +riled 'cause she ain't. Dey minds dis wuss'n all de warrantin' an' +rampagin' an' rucusses she cut up whilst she wuz wid us." + +"I see," said I, thoughtfully. + +"Missises," said the old man, anxiously, "you-all ain't meanin' ter +stay hyuh to-night, is you?" He seemed really distressed at the +notion. "Lemme take you-all to de hotel, please, Missises! Don't +stay hyuh to-night!" + +"Why not? What's the matter with this house?" + +Again he looked around him, stealthily. + +"It's h'anted!" said he, desperately. "Missis, listen: I 'uz comin' +home from prayer-meetin', 'bout two weeks ago, walkin' back er dis +same place in de dark ob de moon. An' all ob a suddin I hyuh de +pianner in de pahlor, _ting-a-ling-a-ling! ting-a-ling-a-ling!_ I +say, 'Who de name er Gawd in ol' Mis' Scarlett's pahlor, when dey +ain't nobody in it?' I look thoo de haidge, an' dey's one weenchy +light in de room, an' whilst I'm lookin', it goes out! An' de +pianner, she's a-playin' right along! Yessum, de pianner, she's er +tingalingin' by 'erself in de middle o' de night!" + +"And who was playing it, Uncle Adam?" + +"Dat's what I axin yit: who playin' Mis' Scarlett's pianner when dey +wasn't nobody in de house?" + +"Why didn't you find out?" + +"Who, me?" cried the old man, with horror. "If I could er borried a +extra pahr er laigs from er yaller dawg, I'd a did it right den, so 's +I could run twict faster 'n I done!--Whichin' please, ma'ams, lemme +take you-all ter de hotel." + +When he saw that he couldn't prevail upon us to do so, he left us +regretfully, shaking his head. He would come back early in the +morning to do anything we might require. But he wouldn't stay +overnight in Hynds House for any consideration. No negro in the +county would. + +"Alicia," said I, when we had had a cup of tea made over our spirit +lamp, and firelight and lamplight made the place less depressing and +eerie, "Alicia, that terrible old woman has played me, like an ace +up her sleeve, against her neighbors and her family. She has left me +a house that needs everything done to it except to burn it down and +rebuild it, and a garden that will have to be cleared out with +dynamite. And she has seen to it that I have the preconceived +prejudice of all Hyndsville." + +Alicia's pretty, soft lips closed firmly. + +"Here we are and here we stay!" she said determinedly. "Nobody's +been disinherited to make room for us. Sophy, in all our lives we +have never had a chance to make a real home. Well, then, Hynds House +is our chance, and I'd just like to see anybody take it away from +us!" + +"Up, Guards, and at 'em!" said I, smiling at her tone. I am slower +than she, but even more stubborn, as the English are. + +"Tell your admiral that if he gets in my way I will blow his ships +out of the water!" said Alicia, gallantly. + +But when we went up-stairs, we took good care to lock our door, and +bolt it, too. Alicia said her prayers kneeling by the gate-legged +table, snuggled into bed between the clean sheets we had brought +with us, tucked a china dog under her chin, and went to sleep like +the child that she was. I said the Shepherd's Psalm and went to +sleep, too. + +I was awakened suddenly, and found myself sitting up in bed, staring +wildly about the strange room. The house was breathlessly still. My +heart pounded against my ribs, the blood beat in my ears. I was +oppressed with a nameless terror, an anguished sense that something +had happened, something irremediable. The feeling was so strong that +my throat closed chokingly. + +I am particular in thus setting it down, because it was an +experience that all of us under that roof had to undergo. You had to +fight it, shut your mind against it, oppose your will to it like a +stone wall, refuse to let it master you. Then, as if defeated, it +would go as suddenly, as inexplicably, as it had come. + +That's what I did then, more by instinct than reason. But I was +exhausted when I finally got back to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE DEAR LITTLE GOD! + + +When we went over Hynds House the next morning and took stock, I +began to entertain very, very peculiar feelings toward Great-Aunt +Sophronisba Scarlett, who, it would appear, had given me a white +elephant which I could neither hire out for its keep, nor yet sell +out of hand. I had to live in Hynds House, and Hynds House as it +stood wasn't to be lived in. + +The rain had ceased, and from the outside jungle came innumerable +calls of birds, and fresh and woodsy odors; but the whole aspect of +the place was grim and forbidding. At the back, where there wasn't +such an overgrowth, the lane had been closed, barricaded with +barbed-wire entanglements, and fairly bristled with thistles and "No +Trespassing" signs. + +"All this house needs is a mortuary tablet set up over the front +door." + +But Alicia demurred. + +"I'm not a bit disheartened," she declared stoutly. "There's just +one thing to be done to this house--first make it beautiful, and +then make it pay. It can be done. It's going to be done. It's _got_ +to be done. And when it's done--we'll have a home. Vision it as it's +going to be, Sophy--rosewood and mahogany and walnut, old brass and +china and prints and portraits, the sort of things we've only been +able to dream of up to now. Why, this house has been waiting for us! +We were born to come here and make it over: it's _our_ house!" +Alicia, has the gay courage of the Irish. + +The heavy iron knocker on the front door resounded clamorously. + +"Uncle Adam thinks we've been ha'nted out of existence, and he's +hammering to wake the dead," said I. + +But it wasn't Uncle Adam to whom we opened the door. An enormous, +square-shouldered man stood there, looking from me to Alicia with +bright, keen blue eyes behind glasses. He was so big, so +magnificently proportioned, that he held one's attention, at first, +by mere size. Then one had time to observe that although he hadn't +the sleek and careful grooming of successful New Yorkers, he wore +his clothes as, say, Coeur de Lion must have worn mail. He hadn't +the brisk business manner, either; but there radiated from him an +assured authority, as of one used to having his orders obeyed +without question. No one could pass him over with a casual eye. I +have known people who hated him frankly and heartily; I have known +people who adored him. I have never known any one who was lukewarm +where he was concerned. + +"Which of you is Miss Smith?" he asked, in a very pleasant voice. +"Miss Smith, I'm your next-door neighbor, house to the right: +Doctor Richard Geddes, at your service." + +We gave him to understand, with the usual polite commonplaces, that +we were pleased to make his acquaintance, and ushered him into the +dilapidated drawing-room. + +"I'd have come over yesterday, when I learned you'd arrived, except +that my cook was suddenly seized with the notion she'd been +conjured, and I had to--er--stand by and persuade her she wasn't. +Swore she had my lunch ready, as usual; swore she'd placed it on a +tray, left it on the kitchen table for a few minutes, and when she +came back from the pantry, not ten feet away, the tray was gone. +Vanished. Disappeared. Nowhere to be found. She flopped on the floor +and howled. She weighs two hundred and forty pounds and I hadn't a +derrick handy. I had to roll her up on bed-slats. You've never had a +conjured two-hundred-and-forty-pounder on your hands, have you? No? +Well, then, don't. _But_ if you ever do, try a bed-slat. This +morning she discovered the tray in its usual place, dishes and +silver intact, nothing missing. She's looking for the end of the +world." + +"O-o-h!" quavered Alicia, while I could feel my knees knocking +together. "O-o-o-h! How very, very singular! And--and was that all?" + +"All! Wasn't that enough? I've had burned biscuit and muddy coffee, +because my cook's got liver and nerves, and insists it's her soul," +said the doctor, grimly. "I've given her to understand that if she +hasn't got her soul saved before to-night, I'll physic it out of her +and hang her hide on the bushes, inside out, _salted_." He added, +hastily: "In the meantime, I hope you haven't fared too badly in +this mildewed jail?" + +"Thank you, no," Alicia said demurely. "We have fared very well." + +"Glad to hear it." The big man looked at her with the frank pleasure +all masculinity evinces at sight of Alicia. And then he asked, +abruptly: + +"Has Jelnik called yet?--gray house on the other side of you.--No? I +dare say he's off on one of his prowls then. A bit of a lunatic, but +a very charming fellow, Jelnik, though your amiable predecessor, +Miss Smith, chose to consider him a sort of outlawed tom-cat, and +warned him off with a shot-gun." The doctor paused, stroked his +beard, and regarded me earnestly. + +"Having heired the old girl's domain, I hope you won't consider it +necessary to heir her--er--prejudices," he remarked hopefully. "Bad +lot, Sophronisba. Very bad!" + +"Mrs. Scarlett," I reminded him gently, "was my relative only by +marriage." + +"Cousin of mine; mother's relative. Not on speaking-, only on +fighting-terms," he interjected. + +I remembered what Uncle Adam had told us; and I'm afraid I eyed him +a bit harder than politeness warranted. + +"I discern by your eye, Miss Smith," said the doctor, "that you +think a blood relation is more likely to walk in that old demon's +footsteps than an outsider is. My dear lady, under ordinary +circumstances and with _human_ neighbors, I'm as meek as Moses; I am +a lamb, a veritable lamb! As for your aunt, she was a man-eating, +saber-toothed tigress!" + +"Not my aunt, Doctor Geddes; your cousin." + +"Your aunt-by-marriage. It's just as bad. Anyhow, she preferred you +to any of us, didn't she?" + +"Perhaps because she didn't know _me_." + +"Have it so. _But_ she did whatever she did because she was an old +devil of a woman, and an old devil of a woman can give points to +Satan. If," cried the doctor, vehemently, "there is one great reason +why a man should be glad he's a man, it is because he will never +live to be an old woman!" + +"That depends upon one's point of view," I told him firmly. "Now, +I'm glad I'm a woman because I shall never live to be an old man. +Old ladies are far, far nicer. Have you ever known an old lady who +thought herself captivating? Have you ever known any old man who +didn't think he could be if he wished?" + +"Yes," shouted the doctor, "and no!--in both cases! There is no sex +in fools. There is no age limit, either." + +"The Talmud says: 'An old woman in the house is a blessing; but an +old man is a nuisance.'" + +"I don't give a bobtailed scat what the Talmud says. I know what I +know.--Miss Gaines, I leave it to you." + +"Why, I like them both, when they're nice; and I'm sorry for them +both when they're not." And she added, with a naïve air of +confidence: "But I think I like young men better than either, as a +rule." + +The doctor removed his hat again, and sat down. His eyebrows went +up, his eyes crinkled. + +"Miss Alicia Gaines," he said genially, "I perceive you are a +girl-child of fine promise.--As for us, Miss Smith, what have we to +do with age and foolishness, who, as yet, have neither? Let's get +down to business. What are you going to do about the lane behind +Hynds House? We had the use of that lane this hundred years and +more, until the devil got too strong in Sophronisba and she shut it +up. Now, shall you keep the lane closed, or shall you dismiss the +injunctions?" + +"I shall have to consult Judge Gatchell." + +"Gatchell's a fossilized remains. He's got no more blood in his +liver than a flea. Gatchell would hang his grandmother on a point of +law. Why should you, or any other ordinarily intelligent person, be +guided by Gatchell?" + +"By whom, then, shall I be guided? You?" I wondered. + +"That's not in my line," replied the doctor, shortly, and thrust his +hands into his gloves. "In the meantime, ladies, I'm your next-door +neighbor; I have no wife to gossip about you, no children to annoy +you; I'm far enough away to keep you from smelling my pipe; and I +shall quarrel with you only when I can't help it. In return, I have +but one favor to beg of you: don't use a shot-gun on my prize +chickens! Get a dog and train him to chase them home, if they get +into your yard. Or catch them and throw them over the hedge. I'll +pay any damages within reason. And please send for your cat." + +"We have a cat?" + +"You have. After Sophronisba's death, Mandy took her in; or rather, +Mandy was afraid to turn her out, for it's bad luck to cross a +witch's cat. In return for this charity the hussy immediately +foisted upon us two wholly unnecessary kittens. Mandy wouldn't allow +them to be decently drowned, for it's worse luck yet to tamper with +a witch's cat's kittens, particularly when they're as black as the +hinges of Gehenna. Mandy thinks their mother had them black as a +delicate mark of respect for the late crone." + +"Send them over, please. Black cats will just go with this house. It +was very thoughtful of that cat to have two black kittens ready for +us, and very kind of you to let them stay with you until we came." + +"I? I abhor the whole tribe of cats!" cried the doctor. "Don't thank +my kindness: thank Mandy's idiocy, of which she has more than her +just share. To my mind, the best place for cats is under the grape +arbor." + +"Let us strike a bargain. You keep your chickens in your own yard, +and we'll keep our cats in our own house." + +"Compromise: you get a dog," suggested the doctor. + +"Perhaps I may. I've always wanted a poodle." + +"I said a _dog_!" said the doctor, lifting his lip. "A poodle! In +Hynds House! The lamented Sophronisba had a bloodhound." + +"The lamented Sophronisba could have what she chose. This +Sophronisba prefers a poodle." + +"_Sophronisba?_ What! Another one? Good God!" cried the doctor. "All +right! Get a poodle. Keep the cats. Get a parrot--and an orphan +with the itch--and a hyena--and a blunderbuss! _Her name is +Sophronisba_!--I--oh, Lord, where's Jelnik? I have got to go and +warn Jelnik!" And he made for the door. + +At that Alicia laughed. Peal upon peal, like silver bells, +irrepressibly, infectiously, irresistibly, Alicia laughed. She cries +with her eyes open and her mouth shut, and she laughs with her eyes +shut and her mouth open. The effect is beyond all words enchanting. +The doctor paused in his headlong flight. + +"All right: laugh!" he said, darkly. "But I shall warn Jelnik, none +the less!" And muttering: "_Sophronisba!_ Lord have mercy on us! +_Sophronisba!_" he departed hastily. + +"What a nice neighbor!" commented Alicia. She added, musingly: +"Sophy, this is an enchanted place--a place where one has good +meals, bad advice, and black cats showered on one, free and gratis. +All one has to do is to stand still and take things as they come!" + +"And hope one won't follow in the footsteps of one's predecessor, +who was an unmitigated old devil." + +"At least," said Alicia, laughing, "_he_'ll never live to be an old +woman, will he, Sophy?" + +"The man has the tact of a cannibal--" + +"The shoulders of a Hercules--" + +"An abominable temper--" + +"And a beautiful beard. Somehow, Sophy, I rather approve of a beard, +on somebody his size. I decidedly approve of a beard!" + +"If his miserable hens come over here, I shall most certainly--" + +"Keep the eggs. We'll tell him so when he comes again." + +"Comes again? What, and my name Sophronisba?" + +"My own grandmother had the second sight; and _I_ don't need +spectacles," said Alicia. "Sophy, that man has come into our lives +to stay. I feel it in my bones! It's not an unpleasant feeling," she +finished gracelessly. + +When Unc' Adam presently put in his appearance, he was profoundly +impressed and respectful: we were brisk, unhaunted, and unafraid, +after a night in Hynds House! The three colored women who had come +with him, induced by cupidity and curiosity to enter ol' Mis' +Scarlett's ill-omened domain, at first hung back. They were plainly +prepared to bolt at the first unusual noise. + +Of the three, one--by name Mary Magdalen--proved to be a +heaven-born, predestinated cook; and her we persuaded, by bribery, +cajolery, and subornation of scruples, to remain with us +permanently. Only, she flatly refused to stay on the place +overnight. Darkness shouldn't catch Mary Magdalen under the Scarlett +Witch's roof-tree. + +There are certain gifted beings who possess the secret of bringing +order out of chaos; for them the total depravity of inanimate +objects has no terrors; inanimate objects become docile to their +will. Such a one was Mary Magdalen. In two days she had transformed +a sooty cavern into a clean and orderly kitchen. For she was a +singing and a scourful woman, and her Sign was the speretual and the +scrubbing-brush. It is true that she put a precious old Spode +tea-pot on the stove and boiled the tea in it; that she hung her wig +and the dish-towel on the same nail; and that she immediately asked +for a white stocking foot to use as a coffee-bag. + +"But don't you-all go bust no new pai'h," she advised economically. +"Ah 'd rathah make mah coffee in a ol' white stockin' foot any day, +jes' so you ain't done wo' out de toes too much." + +"Sophy," said the horror-struck Alicia, "that woman must be watched +until we can buy a percolater. Suppose she's got 'a ol' white +stockin' foot' of her own!" + +Despite which there never was, never will be, such another cook as +Mary Magdalen. It is true she wasn't amenable to discipline, and +reason wasn't her guiding-lamp. And nothing--not bribes, threats, +entreaties, prayers, orders, commands, moral suasion--could break +her of doing just what she wanted to do just when and how she wanted +to do it. You'd be entertaining your dearest enemies, serene in the +consciousness that your house was a credit to your good management; +and behold, Mary Magdalen in the drawing-room door, with her wig +askew and her hands rolled in her apron: + +"Oh, Miss Sophy!" + +"Well?" say you, resignedly, with a feigned smile; "what is it, Mary +Magdalen?" + +"Miss Sophy, you know we-all's sugah?" + +"Yes." + +"Wellum, Miss Sophy, 't ain't any." + +"I have already ordered more, Mary Magdalen." + +"An' you know ouah flouah, Miss Sophy?" + +"I--" + +"Us ain't got a Gawd's speck!" + +Then she would beam upon the visitors, all of whom were known to +her. + +"Howdy, Miss Sally! How you-all comin' on? Ah comin' 'round to see +de baby soon 's Ah gits chanst." Or, "Lawsy me, Miss Jinny, dat boy +o' yo's is jes' natchelly bustin' outer da clo'es wid growin', ain't +he? He jes' de spit o' he pa, bless 'im!" + +Which untoward confidence didn't seem to surprise our visitors. They +had Mary Magdalens of their own. + +A few days later Doctor Geddes sent us Schmetz, the gardener, a +gnarled little man with a peppery temper, a torrential flow of +Alsatian French, and a tireless energy. I don't know why nor how +Schmetz had come to Hyndsville, except that somehow he had acquired +a small farm near by and couldn't get away from it. He explained to +us, gently but firmly, that if we wouldn't meddle after the manner +of women, but would leave his job in his own hands, it would be +better for us, and for the garden. We meekly acquiescing, he called +in helpers and with a wave of his hand set hoe and ax and spade to +work. + +The weather had changed into days of deep blue skies, splendid days +full of the warmth of potential power; and nights filled with +fragrance, nights of fierce beauty, and the glamour of golden moons, +and the thrilling melody of that feathered Israfel, the +mocking-bird. Through our open windows immense moths, spirits of the +summer nights, drifted in on enameled and jeweled wings and circled +in a fire-worshiping dance around our light. + +Those were wonderful days. For that was a house of surprises, a +house full of laid-by things. One never knew what one was going to +find. One morning it might be a Ridgway jug all delicate vine leaves +and faun heads, or an old blue-and-white English platter, or a piece +of fine salt-glaze. On the top shelf of a long-locked closet, pushed +back in the corner, you'd discover a full set of the most beautiful +sapphire glassware, and a pagoda work-box with ivory corners; and on +a lower shelf, wrapped in half a moth-eaten shawl, two glowing +luster jugs in proof condition. Mary Magdalen salvaged a fine china +sillabub stand, with little white-and-gold covered cups on it, from +a sooty box under a kitchen cupboard. A back drawer of the dusty +office desk yielded up half a dozen exquisite prints. And I'm sure +Alicia will remember even in heaven the ecstasy she experienced when +a battered bureau gave into her hands the adorable Bow figures of +Kitty Clive and Woodward the actor, she pink-and-white, petticoated +and furbelowed, lovely as when London went mad over her, and he +cocked-hatted and ruffled and dandified; and neither with so much as +the least littlest chip to mar their perfection. + +Or a hair trunk would reveal little frocks stitched by hand, and a +pair of tiny flat slippers with strings gone to dust like the little +feet that had worn them. With these were two dolls, one dressed in +sprigged India muslin and lace, with a shepherdess hat glued on her +painted head; the other dressed in a poke-bonnet, a satin sack, and +a much-flounced skirt. They had evidently belonged to "Lydia, our +Darling Child," whose name, in unsteady letters, was painfully set +down in the printed picture-books at the bottom of the trunk. These +things that had belonged to a "darling child" so long dead lent the +grim old house a softening touch. Poor old house, whose little +children had all gone, so long ago! + +It was the day we were taking up the beautiful old carpet in the +back drawing-room. Alicia was rejoicing for the thousandth time over +this treasure of hand-woven French art. Of a sudden, horrible yells +rose from the garden, and a shrieking negro went by the window like +an arrow. We caught "Murder!--Ol' Witch!--Corpses!" as he +disappeared. Uncle Adam, catching his panic, bolted with him; the +two negro women followed. Only Mary Magdalen, amazonian arms bare, a +rolling-pin grasped in a formidable fist, stood like a rock of +defense behind us. + +"Ah jes' wants to catch any ol' corpses trapesin' 'round mah +kitchin, trackin' up mah clean flo', an Ah 'll suah settle day hash +once fo' all!" trumpeted Mary Magdalen. + +Outside, Schmetz was jumping up and down, flapping his arms, and +screaming in voluble French: + +"Name of a dog! Senseless Senegambians, remain! Iron-skulled +offspring of the union of a black mule and a pickax, cease to fly!" + +"What is the matter? For heaven's sake? what is the matter?" I +shouted. + +"We done dig up de corpses! We done fin' wha'h dat ol' witch 'oman +bury de bodies!" howled a workman in reply. + +"Imbeciles, asses, beings without brains, listen to me!" shrieked +Schmetz, this time in good English. "This corpse is not alive! Never +yet was he alive! Return, sons of perdition, and assist me to raise +him--may he fall upon your brain-pans of donkeys!" + +As if that had been all that was needed, the last wavering workman +flung down his shovel and took to his heels, running like a rabbit +and roaring as he ran. + +"Schmetz!" called a clear and peremptory voice. "Schmetz! what's the +matter over there?" + +"Ah! It is Monsieur Jelnik!" bawled Schmetz. "_Nom de Dieu_, +Monsieur Jelnik, come with a great quickness! I have dug from the +earth the leetle boy of stone--you know him, _hein_? Those niggers, +_sacrement_! they think they have uncovered the deceased corpse, the +victim of Madame the late mistress, with which she made her spells +of a sorceress." + +"What!" said the voice. "You've found the statue, Schmetz? Ask, my +good fellow, if it is permitted that I come and view it." + +"Why, of course!" said I, quickly. + +"Thank you," said the voice. + +There had been a great space cleared in our garden, and on the edge +of this, in removing a stubborn gum-tree, the negroes had uncovered +what they supposed to be the body of one murdered. Upon our knees, +with Schmetz helping us, we were trying to tear away the rotten +coverings, and the dirt and mold. And there, beautiful despite the +stains disfiguring him, lay the boy Love. The marble pedestal from +which he had been removed lay near him. On the base, decipherable, +was the sculptor's name, and on one side, in small letters, +"_Brought from Italy, 1803, by R.H._" + +"Why, he is perfect!" cried Alicia, joyfully. "Oh, who could have +been so stupid and so cruel as to hide away something so lovely? +Poor dear little god, aren't you glad to get out of that grave and +come back to the sun? Aren't you grateful, little god, that Sophy +and I came to Hynds House?" + +And at that moment a tall, slim, dark-skinned young man walked up, +hands behind his back, and stood there regarding us with eyes as +clear and cool as mountain water when the sunlight is upon it and +golden flecks come and go in its brown depths. The exquisitely +aquiline features, the small black mustache, an indescribably proud +and high-bred ease and grace of manner and bearing, were oddly +exotic and even more oddly fascinating. His slenderness was as +strong as a tempered sword-blade, his quietness was trained power in +repose. And the hair of his head was so black that a purplish shadow +rested upon it, and so thick that one was minded of Absalom: + + ... in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as + Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot to the + crown of his head there was no blemish in him. + + And when he polled his head (for it was at every year's end + that he polled it: because the hair was heavy on him, + therefore he polled it:), he weighed the hair of his head at + two hundred shekels after the king's weight. + +He was so vivid and so new to me that my whole being was breathless +with the wonder of him. I knew, of course, that he did not belong +to _my_ world at all. King's sons are for princesses, for those +human birds of paradise that flash, beautiful and fortunate, in +larger spheres than those prosaic paths trodden by a workaday woman +named Smith. + +"What have you found?" he asked, in a delightful voice. + +Alicia looked up. Her face was like the break of day for youngness +and freshness, and a wisp of a bright curl misbehaved itself on her +cheek, a flirtatious curl that knew exactly how to make the most of +its opportunities. The young man's eyes approved of it. + +"We have found Love!" cried Alicia, breathlessly. "Sophy and I have +found Love in our garden! Isn't it wonderful and impossible and +exciting and delightful? But it's true! And it just goes with this +whole place!" cried Alicia, morning-eyed and May-faced. + +The young man's glance came back to me. I should hate to be +untruthful, and have to meet so straight a glance! + +"Why, yes. It is impossible, and, like all impossible things, +perfectly true," he agreed, with the golden flecks dancing in and +out of his eyes and a slow and lazy smile, a sort of secret smile, +curving his beautiful, mocking mouth. "Fancy finding Love, of all +things, in Sophronisba's garden!" A fine black line of eyebrow went +up whimsically. "And now that you have found him," said Mr. Jelnik, +"hadn't you better let me help you set him up?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HYNDSES OF HYNDS HOUSE + + +When the fine weather had taken the kinks out of Judge Gatchell's +joints, he came to see us--a tall, thin, punctilious, saturnine old +gentleman with frosty Scotch eyes and the complexion of a pair of +washed khaki trousers. Chaos reigned in Hynds House then, and he was +forced to pick his way, like an elderly and cautious cat, between +piled-up chairs, tables, and rolls of carpet. In the most stately +manner he parted the tails of his skirted coat, seated himself upon +the sofa, placed his hat beside him, drew up the knees of his black +broadcloth trousers, took off and wiped his spectacles with great +thoroughness and deliberation upon a large silk handkerchief, +replaced them upon the middle of his Roman nose, cleared his throat, +pursed his lips, and drily but clearly talked business. + +Great-Aunt Sophronisba would have left a much larger fortune had she +been less addicted to lawsuits. You wouldn't think an old soul of +almost a hundred could find very much chance to brew mischief, +would you? You didn't know Great-Aunt Sophronisba! + +I was informed that the case of Scarlett vs. Geddes had been +automatically closed by the death of the plaintiff; _but_ I had +inherited along with Hynds House: + +The case of Scarlett vs. The Vestry and Pastor of St. Polycarp's +Church, from whom Mrs. Scarlett sought to recover three +paintings--"Faith," "Hope," and "Charity"--which her father had +commissioned a visiting artist to paint, and had then presented to +St. Polycarp's, with the stipulation that they should "forever hang +in the sacred edifice, reminding the brethren of the Cardinal +Virtues of the Christian Religion." + +They did hang in the church for a century. Then, when the Ladies' +Missionary Society was helping "do over" the parsonage, a faded +Faith, a dulled Hope, and a fly-specked Charity were transported +thither. Whereupon suit was immediately brought by the donor's +daughter, who averred that the church had lost all right and title +to the paintings by an action directly contrary to her father's +will, and insisted that they should be turned over to herself as +sole heiress. It was a nice little case, and called forth an +imposing array of counsel. Mrs. Scarlett had added a codicil to her +will, leaving _me_ her claim to the three paintings "fraudulently +withheld by the pastor and vestrymen of St. Polycarp's Church." + +There was, too, the question of the lot on Lafayette Street, between +Zion Church on the one hand, and the Y.M.C.A. on the other. Both had +tried to buy it; and both had been refused with contumely. Instead, +that nice old lady ran up extra-sized bill-boards. Every time the +Zionist brethren looked out of their side windows of a Sunday, they +had ample opportunity to learn considerable about the art of +advertising on bill-boards. And if a circus happened to be coming to +Hyndsville, they could count on every child in their Sunday school +missing his lesson, unless the text, by a fortunate chance, happened +to touch upon the prophet Daniel. + +And when the Y.M.C.A. people looked out of _their_ side windows, +Sophronisba's alluring bill-boards besought them to smoke only +certain cigarettes and to be sure to look for the trademark on their +playing-cards. Naturally, this made the Y.M.C.A. secretaries very, +very happy. + +A weather-beaten picket fence protected the lot upon the street +front; the bill-boards formed the side attractions; and in the +center front was the monument, a stone of stumbling and offense. It +was a neat, plain granite obelisk, which bore this inscription: + + This Stone is Erected + By the Affection + of + Sophronisba Hynds Scarlett + To Commemorate the Many Virtues + of + The Most Perfect Gentleman in Hyndsville + Her Bloodhound + NIPPER + +"There should have been an open season for Sophronisba," Alicia said +with conviction. Then she put her head down and laughed. + +The judge looked at her over his glasses, doubtfully. With a slight +edge to his voice he referred to the several prosecutions "for +wanton and wilful trespassings" upon the closed, barbed-wire lane +behind Hynds House. As the strip in question was not a public +thoroughfare, and Mrs. Scarlett had rock-ribbed titles covering it, +she could close it; and she did, greatly to the inconvenience of her +immediate neighbors, particularly Doctor Richard Geddes. + +"There is something to be said for Mrs. Scarlett's methods," said +the judge dryly. "The Lafayette Street bill-boards are the +best-paying ones in Hyndsville. As to closing the lane, Miss Smith, +let me remind you that Doctor Geddes, although an estimable man and +a very able physician, is not at all backward in coming forward in a +quarrel. He greatly angered my late client." + +"Nevertheless, that barbed wire comes down. He may use the lane +whenever he wants to," I decided. + +The judge bowed. "And now," he said, politely, "let us take up the +case of Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, if you please. It was Mrs. Scarlett's +wish that you should be fully informed concerning Mr. Jelnik's +antecedents, that you might be on your guard." + +"Against Mr. Jelnik? But, good heavens, why? Why?" I was beginning +to get angry. "Let me see: I am to make myself odious to Mr. Jelnik, +and I am to refuse to allow a physician to run his car through a +barren strip of weeds and sand, because they are her relatives and +she hated her relatives. I am to vex the souls of harmless +Christians with bill-posters of the world, the flesh, and the devil, +and I'm to pay taxes on a lot that's been turned into a cemetery for +a hound dog. I'm to fight St. Polycarp's Church, for a couple of +chromos I should probably loathe.--I don't like pictures of cardinal +virtues, anyhow. It altogether depends on who possesses them as to +whether I can stand for the cardinal virtues themselves." + +"Faith looking up, and Charity looking down, and Hope hanging to an +anchor, _something_ like Britannia-Rules-the-Waves. Make the church +keep them, please, Sophy!" begged Alicia. + +Judge Gatchell made an odd noise in his throat. + +"One of my little granddaughters, taken to Saint Polycarp's by her +mother, asked, 'Mamma, who is that big woman up there with the +pick-axe?' And they told her," said the Judge, scathingly, "they +told her it was _Hope_! + +"When the vestry came to me about the case, I reminded them that +Aholah and Aholibah were damned for doting upon paintings on the +wall, painted in vermilion, which in plain English is Scarlett!" A +covenanting gleam shot into his frosty eyes, and the old fighting +Scotch blood showed for a second in his lank cheek. He was a godly +man, and when he saw confusion in the ranks of the Philistines, he +rejoiced. + +"I can't help who was damned," said I. "My job is to live in peace +with my neighbors. St. Polycarp's people may hang their Virtues +wherever they please, for all of me." + +Did a faint, faint shade of regret flit over the parchment-like +face? It seemed so to me. But he said, composedly: + +"You must act according to your best judgment. And now, please, let +us go back to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik." + +We rather prided ourselves upon the possession of so pleasant a +neighbor, and we said so. He had helped us with our garden, and it +was he who selected the spot upon which the resurrected Love should +be set up. + +"Ah, yes, the statue, brought from Italy by Richard Hynds, a great +grandfather of his. Did he tell you anything about Richard?" asked +the judge. + +"Nothing." + +"I shall have to go a long way back, more than a hundred years, to +make you understand," said the judge. "When I was a boy some of the +oldest folk here in Hyndsville used to say that Hynds House never +should have come to Freeman Hynds, Mrs. Scarlett's father; but to +Richard Hynds, his elder brother--that same Richard whose initials +are cut in the base of the statue he brought in his pagan +godlessness from Italy, and which his brother afterward buried, +wishing to remove all trace of him and his follies. + +"You are to understand that it was the unwritten law of the Hyndses' +that this house should come to the eldest son. Primogeniture is of +course foreign to American ideas, but this is an old house, Miss +Smith. When it was built, American ideas hadn't been born. And the +Hyndses were a law to themselves. + +"The then head of the house was James Hampden Hynds, a man of an +immense pride, a rigid sense of duty, and the nicest notions of +honor. He had two sons, Richard, and the younger brother, Freeman. +The daughters do not count: it is with these two sons we are +concerned. + +"From every account Freeman Hynds was a good man, a quiet, +God-fearing, methodical man, attentive to his affairs, and +meticulously exact in all his dealings; not warm-hearted, perhaps, +but just. But as if the bad blood of the entire family had come to a +head in one man, Richard was born a roisterer and a spendthrift. + +"He grew up a magnificent young scapegrace, reckless to the point of +madness, and with that inherent love of risk that is the very breath +of life to such men. Despite these defects there is no doubt that +his was one of those personalities that win love without effort. So +of course it was a foregone conclusion that he should win the girl +that his younger brother, among others, adored to distraction. + +"His family hoped that his love for his young wife would change him +for the better. But there was something tamelessly wild in Richard +Hynds. He would have done very well, very well indeed, in the +_Golden Hind_ with Drake, or in the _Jesus_ with Morgan. He did not +fit in a gentler generation, and a mild life had no charm for him. +Gossip buzzed with his name, even in a day when gentlemen were +permitted to behave pretty much as they pleased. + +"Up to this time there had never been anything altogether +unpardonable charged against him. But one fine morning the Hynds +jewels were missing. Remember that the Hyndses had always been a +wealthy and powerful family. The theft of those jewels was no +trumpery affair. For generations they had been adding to that +collection--sometimes a lustrous pearl, sometimes a flawless +emerald; once it was a sapphire that had belonged to a French queen, +once a pair of rubies that had hung in the ears of a duchess beloved +of King Charles. + +"Richard's mother happened to be a meek and quiet body, deeply +religious, something of a Quakeress, so she wore them but seldom. It +was upon the occasion of a ball to be given in honor of Freeman's +twenty-first birthday that the question of what jewels his mother +should wear came up, and the strong-box in which they were kept was +opened. Only the settings remained. + +"When the clamor quieted and sane questions began to be asked, +suspicion fastened upon Richard Hynds. His affairs were chaotic, his +needs imperative and desperate. He had been heard to ask his mother +if she intended wearing what he called 'the Hynds fortune' at +Freeman's ball. He knew, of course, where they were kept--in the +anteroom of his mother's apartment. It was not only possible but +easy for him to gain access to them. + +"Let us consider the case without prejudice: Here is a young man--a +gambler, a wastrel--with pressing debts, and clamoring creditors +threatening what might be considered dishonor. Within reach of this +young man's hand are certain very valuable properties which he might +even consider his own, since they would in time descend to him. His +mother's resources are exhausted, his father's heart steeled against +further advancements. Cause and effect, you see--debts: missing +jewels. + +"The case not only formed two factions in public opinion; it split +the Hynds family itself. His two sisters, and his cousin Jessamine, +raised in this house, believed him guilty. His mother and his wife +believed in his innocence and refused to hear a word against him. +These two things only did Richard Hynds salvage in that utter wreck +and catastrophe--his mother's faith and his wife's love. + +"He lost his father's. This was a man, who, under his pleasant +exterior of a landed gentleman, was rigid and inflexible. He had +already borne a great deal, remember; but this was disgrace, an +indelible stain upon a stainless name. Therefore this father, who +was at the same time a just and good man, disinherited his favorite +child and eldest son. House, slaves, lands, money, the great +position of the head of a powerful family, came to Freeman Hynds, +my late client's father, born five years later than his brother, on +the twentieth day of September, 1785--a long time ago! a long time +ago! + +"Richard was disgraced, and a beggar. And it seemed that the rod +that had lain in pickle for the Hyndses for their pride, was brought +forth to scourge them all. For Richard, desperate, distracted, +careless of what happened to him, rode out one day through a pelting +rain. Result, congested lungs; the poor wastrel, who had no wish to +live, was soon satisfactorily dead. + +"When James Hampden got that news, he rose up from his chair, laid +the book he had been reading--it was Baxter's 'Saint's Rest'--down +on the library table and fell as if lightning had struck him. +Apoplexy, it was said; a thrust through the heart, I should call it. +Richard the sinner was none the less Richard his first-born. + +"Hard upon the heels of these two disasters came a third, the case +of Jessamine Hynds. This Jessamine--a highly gifted, imperious +creature, proud as Lucifer, after the manner of the Hyndses--was an +orphan, reared in Hynds House. She was some several years older than +her cousins, to whom she was greatly attached. The trouble so preyed +upon her that she became melancholy, and one fine day disappeared +and was never afterward found. There was great hue and cry made for +her, and men riding hither and yon, for this was a Hynds woman, and +her story touched popular imagination, so that she is supposed," +said the lawyer dryly, "to wander around Hynds House o' nights, +crying for Richard and searching for the lost jewels. + +"After the death of James Hampden Hynds, it was discovered that he +had added a singular enough codicil to his will. This codicil +provided that in the event the jewels were found intact, and Richard +Hynds's innocence thereby incontrovertibly established, Hynds House +as it stood should revert to him as eldest son, after the custom of +the family. _But_ until the jewels were recovered, Richard and his +heirs were to have exactly--nothing. And nothing is what Richard and +his heirs got." + +"And was he really guilty?" breathed Alicia. Her sympathy was +instantly with Richard. That is exactly like Alicia, who is sorry +for the fatted calf, and the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, and +Esau swindled out of his birthright; had she been one of the wise +virgins she would have trimmed the lamps of all the foolish ones and +waked them up in time. + +"In theory," said the judge, "a man is innocent until he is proved +guilty. In practice, he is guilty until he can prove his innocence." + +"And was nothing, absolutely nothing, ever heard or known +further?--nothing that would justify his mother's faith, or comfort +his poor young wife's heart?" + +"There was but one incident to which even the most credulous could +attach the slightest importance. You shall judge for yourself +whether it deserved any. Freeman Hynds, riding about the plantation +after his habit, was thrown from his horse and died from the +injuries sustained. He recovered consciousness for a few minutes +before he died; some said he never really regained it. Be that as it +may, the dying man cried out, in a voice of great anguish and +affliction: '_Richard! Brother Richard! The jewels--the jewels!_' He +struggled to say more, and failed; looked into the concerned faces +around him, with the awful look of the soul about to depart; +struggled to raise himself; and fell back upon his pillow a corpse. + +"Some--they were in the majority--said, sensibly enough, that the +pain and disgrace of his brother's downfall had haunted the poor +gentleman's death-bed, and occasioned that last sad cry. Some few +said he had wished to confess a thing heavy upon his conscience, who +had taken his brother's place as Jacob took Esau's. Richard's wife, +of course, was of these latter. She went to her grave a passionate +believer in the innocence of her husband, whom she averred to have +been a deeply wronged and cruelly used man; and, for heaven's sake, +who do you suppose she claimed had wronged him? Freeman! She +couldn't prove anything; she hadn't the ghost of a clue to hang the +ghost of an accusation upon; yet, womanlike, she clung to her +notion, and she taught it to her son as one teaches a holy creed. + +"The Hyndses were excellent haters. Freeman's daughter, born into an +atmosphere of family disruption, abhorred the very memory of her +uncle, and hated her uncle's wife, the woman who doubted and led +others to doubt her father's honesty. This hatred she discovered for +Richard's son, who, as he grew older, referred to Freeman as 'my +Uncle Judas.' + +"This second Richard became in time a highly successful physician, a +man honored and beloved by this community. There was no wildness in +_him_, nor in his son, the third Richard. His granddaughter Sarah +Hynds married Professor Doctor Max Jelnik, the celebrated Viennese +alienist, whom she met abroad. Your next-door neighbor is Sarah's +son, born somewhere in Hungary, I believe. Both the young man's +parents are dead, and I understand he has led a vagrant and +irresponsible life, preferring to rove about rather than follow his +father's profession, to which he was educated. + +"My late client, indeed, held that he had inherited the deplorable +characteristics of the first Richard. She asserted--she allowed +herself great freedom of speech--that you can't make a silk purse +out of a sow's ear. It displeased her that he should come to +Hyndsville. She thought it showed a malignant nature and a peculiar +shamelessness that he chose to reside next door to Hynds House, from +which his great-great-grandfather had been so ignominously driven. +Her first meeting with the young man bred in her an ineradicable +dislike." + +Now what really happened is this: The fences having been neglected, +and in consequence fallen down, and the hedge broken in many places, +Mr. Jelnik, just come to Hyndsville, thoughtlessly and perhaps +ignorantly crossed the sacred Scarlett boundaries. Up-stairs behind +her blind, like an ancient spider in her web, the old lady spied +him. She flung open the window and leaned out. + +"Who are you that prowl about other peoples' yards like a thievish +cat?" she demanded peremptorily. + +The young man looked up, uncovering his beautiful head. + +"I am Nicholas Jelnik. And I pray your pardon, Madame: I did not +mean to intrude," and he made as if to go. + +"Jelnik!" said she, in a hoarse and croaking voice. "Jelnik! Aha! I +know your breed! I smell the blood in you--bad blood! rotten bad +blood! You've a bad face, young man: a scoundrelly face, the face of +a fellow whose grandfather robbed his house and shamed his name! And +why have you come near Hynds House, at this hour of the day? He, he, +he! _I_ know, _I_ know!" + +Lost in astonishment, Jelnik remained staring up at her. The +apparition of this venerable vixen, who had hated Richard's son and +now hated him of a later generation, who had seen those that had +talked to Richard himself in his ill-fated lifetime, so stirred his +imagination that it deprived him of utterance. All he could do was +to stand still and stare and stare and stare. He had never seen +anybody so old--she was nearly a hundred, and looked a thousand--and +he stared at the old, old, wrinkled, yellow face, the unhuman face, +in which the beady black eyes burned with wicked fire; at the nearly +bald head, thinly covered with a floating wisp or so of wool-like +white hair; at the claw-like, shriveled, yellow hands, the stringy +neck, the whole sexless meager wreck of what had been a woman. It +was a stare made up of wonder, and instinctive dislike, and human +pity, and young disgust. She raised her voice: + +"Did you not see those signs? Scoundrel, puppy, foreign-born poacher, +didn't you see my sign-boards?" And as she looked down at +him--Richard's blood alive and red in a youthful and beautiful body: +and _she_ what she was--she fell into one of those futile and +dreadful fits of rage to which the evil old are subject; and mumbled +with her skinny bags of lips, and shook and nodded her deathly head, +and waved her claw-like hands, screeching insults and abuse. + +The pity died out of Jelnik's face. He regarded her with his +father's eyes, the calm, impersonal, passionless gaze of the trained +alienist. She was an unlovely exhibition, to be studied critically. +In some subtle manner she understood, for she jerked herself out of +her anger, and fell silent, regarding him with a glance as +brilliantly, deadly bright as a tarantula's. The cold, relentless +hate of that glance chilled him. He forced himself to bow to her +again, and to beat a dignified retreat, when his inclination was to +take to his heels like a school-boy caught pilfering apples. + +The next morning a bailiff presented Mr. Nicholas Jelnik with a +notice forbidding him to enter the grounds of Hynds House without +the written permission of the owner, and threatening prosecution +should he disobey. + +"The Hyndses, as I have said, are good haters," finished Judge +Gatchell. + +"And so she left Hynds House to me," said I without, I am afraid, +much gratitude. + +"It was hers, to dispose of as she chose." The lawyer spoke crisply. +"If you have any scruples, dismiss them. My late client understood +that it was far better for the estate to fall into the hands of a +sensible woman like yourself than into the keeping of a young man +with what foolish people like to call the artistic temperament, +which in plain English means a person who can't earn his salt in any +useful, sensible business. + +"You doubt this? Let us consider this same artistic temperament and +its results," continued the judge, making a wry face. "Once or twice +it has been my bad fortune to meet it. One trifling scamp I have in +mind, painted. A house, a fence, a barn, even a sign-board? Not at +all, but messes he called 'The Sea,' one doesn't know why, save that +the things slightly resembled raw oysters. However, the women raved +over him. His laundress and his landlady had good cause to rave! + +"He wrote, too. A text-book, a title, a will, a deed, a business +letter? Far from it! He wrote _poetry_, if you please! The little +wretch wrote _poetry_! That's what the artistic temperament leads a +man to! Bah! I hate, I despise, I abhor, the artistic temperament!" + +We looked at the judge, open-mouthed. "Who would have thought the +old man to have had so much blood in him?" + +"There have been times," admitted the judge, subsiding, "when I +radically disagreed with my late client; when I opposed her +strongly. But when she willed her whole estate to you, Miss Smith, +instead of to Nicholas Jelnik, I heartily approved. Understand, I +have no personal bias, no animosity against this young man; but he +is, I am told, more or less of an artist, and one might as well +leave an estate to an anarchist at once. I have expressed this +opinion to the town at large, and I seldom express my opinion +publicly," finished the old jurist stiffly. + +I heard that opinion with mingled emotions. + +"But we like Mr. Jelnik," I said at last. "The injunction against +him doesn't hold water. Personally, I feel like apologizing to him." + +"Oh, no! One can't afford to cuddle an old vendetta, as Abishag +dry-nursed old King David. I always _hated_ Abishag!" Alicia said +naïvely. + +"My late client," said the judge enigmatically, "hadn't counted on +_you_." He almost succeeded in looking human when he said it, and +his eyes upon Alicia weren't at all frosty. Then he folded his +papers, replaced them in his wallet, wiped his glasses, shot his +cuffs, hoped we'd find Hynds House all we'd hoped, hoped the town +would be to our liking, hoped he could be of further service to us, +bowed creakily, and took his departure. + +"Sophy," said Alicia, after a long pause, "if ever I had to +rechristen this house, I'd call it Hornets' Nest." + + * * * * * + +We had not attended church on our first Sunday, because we were too +tired. But on our second Sunday we plucked up heart of grace and +went to St. Polycarp's. + +The old town wore an air of Sabbath peace and quietness infinitely +soothing to the spirit. People passed and repassed us. We knew they +knew who we were. The old gentlemen, indeed, bowed to us with +stately uncoverings of the head; the rest regarded us with the sort +of impersonal and perfunctory interest one bestows upon +uninteresting passing strangers. Nobody spoke to us, though the eyes +of the young men were not unaware of Alicia's fairness. + +In a great city, of course, one takes that sort of thing for +granted; but in this small town, where everybody knew and spoke to +everybody else, the effect was chilling. + +"Talk about the sunny South!" murmured Alicia. "Why, my teeth want +to chatter!" + +During the services I was conscious of covert glances in our +direction, but whenever a pair of feminine eyes met mine, they slid +off like lizards and glided another way, with calculated Christian +indifference. They weren't hostile, nor unfriendly: they were just +deliberately indifferent. Nobody had the faintest notion of being +heedful of us strangers among them; and I should be sorry for angels +who expected to be entertained unawares in South Carolina! + +When the congregation had filed out and gone about its leisurely +business, the minister and his wife came forward to greet us. They +were a bit nervous, remembering the diabolic uproar about Faith, +Hope, and Charity. Mr. Haile was a mild-mannered little man of the +saved-sheep type, with box-plaited teeth and a bleating voice. His +wife had the worried face and the anxious eyes of the minister's +helpmeet, and the painfully ready smile for newcomers who might, or +might not, prove desirable parishioners. + +She wanted to be nice to us as a Christian woman to women, but not +too nice as the minister's wife of a church whose members looked +upon us as interlopers. I had deputed Judge Gatchell to inform the +trustees that the suit was dropped. I suppose Mrs. Haile was timid +about broaching the delicate subject, for she ignored it with a +nervous intensity that made me feel sorry for her. She and Mr. Haile +would call just as soon as it was convenient for us to receive +visitors; and then they shook hands with us, and I think they +breathed a sigh of relief. + +"Oh, Sophy! And we've got to keep on going there!--next Sunday, and +Sunday after next Sunday, and maybe every Sunday after that until we +die! Perhaps after a while some of them will bow to us, or maybe +even say, 'How do you do?' _but_ we'll feel as if we'd been put in +cold storage every time we enter that door!" wailed Alicia. + +"It is our Father's house," I reminded her. + +"But I don't want to be made to feel like a spanked child, in +anybody's house!" Alicia said, resentfully. + +"You say that because you're Irish." + +"You say I say it because I'm Irish because you're English." Then +she screwed up her mouth like a coral button, and squinted her eyes: +"I'm Irish, and you're English, and we're both American. Sophy, +let's join my Irish and your English to our Yankee, and teach this +town a lesson!" + +"Barkis is willin'. But in the meantime let's go home and see what +Mary Magdalen has for lunch." + +We walked slowly, enjoying the calm, lovely late-summer day. +Hyndsville at its best was a big, green, sprawling old town, a +quaint, unpainted, leisurely, flowery, bird-haunted place, with +glorious trees, and do-as-they-please, independent gardens. Nobody +ever seemed to be in a hurry, and at first we used to wonder how +they ever got anything done, or kept pace with the moving world; yet +they did. Only, they did it without haste and without noise. And +they were _always_ polite. Though they should take your substance, +your reputation, or even, perhaps, your life, they would do it like +ladies and gentlemen. + +We paused a while, just inside the big brick-pillared gate, and +looked up the oak-arched garden path toward our house. Of course one +can't expect an old fortress of a brick house that's been neglected +for more than three quarters of a century to look spick and span +inside of a brief fortnight, but already Hynds House was sitting up, +so to speak, and taking notice. + +Life had begun to flow back into it. Mary Magdalen had brought a dog +with her--a yellow dog of unknown ancestry, of shamefaced demeanor, +a ropy tail, splay feet, and a rolling eye; named, she and heaven +alone knew why, Beautiful Dog. + +He shunned Alicia and me because we were white people: Beautiful Dog +was intuitively aware that colored people's dogs must meet white +people with suspicion, aloofness, and reserve. When we fatuously +sought to make friends with him, he tucked his tail between his +legs, and shivered as if we made goose-flesh come out on his spine; +and once when I took him by his rope collar he fell down and +shrieked. But just let Mary Magdalen roll out an unctious, "Whah is +yuh, Beaut'ful Dawg?" and his ears and tail went up, he curveted, +and made uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from ear +to ear. + +Doctor Geddes's Mandy had brought over the black kittens and their +mother. Mary Magdalen made sure of their staying at home by the +simple process of buttering their paws. In South Carolina, when you +want a cat to stay in your house, you butter its paws and let it +lick the butter off leisurely, the while you whisper in its left +ear: "_Stay in my house for keeps, cat!_" The cat will ever +thereafter play Ruth to your Naomi. + +Our cat was Mrs. Belinda Black, and her children were Potty Black +and Sir Thomas More Black, this last being a creature of noble mien +and a meditative turn of mind. + +"Homage and praise to Bast, the cat-headed, the wise one, the great +goddess!" purred Alicia, stroking Mrs. Belinda Black's satiny head. +"And may Sekhet the Cat of the Sun aid me, a devotee at her shrine, +to butter the paws of some two-legged cats in Hyndsville!" + +"You-all's dinnah 's waitin'." Mary Magdalen stubbornly held to the +notion that any meal eaten between breakfast and night was dinner; +lunch being sandwiches and fried chicken taken out of a basket at +church picnics and eaten out of one's hand, or lap, for choice. +"What was de text to-day, Miss Sophy? Ah sort o' likes to chaw easy +on a mout'ful o' text whilst Ah 'm washin' up mah dishes." + +We gave her the text, which happened to be one that fills every +negro's heart with undiluted joy: "O ye dry bones, hear the word of +the Lord." And we had the satisfaction of hearing her rolling out, +to the clatter of pans and pots: + + "Dry bones in de valley, + Ma-a-ah, La-a-awd! + Whut yuh gwine do wid dem dry bones, + Ma-ah-ah La-a-a-w-wd" + +while we went up-stairs to change our frocks. We were still sharing +one room then, finding it more convenient. And there, in front of +our door, in a nest of ferns and mosses, was a great cluster of wild +flowers, summer's last and autumn's first children. They had been +gathered in no ordered garden, but taken from the skirts of the +fields and the bosom of the woods; and Carolina the opulent, the +beautiful, the free-handed, does not deck herself niggardly. + +Alicia's face that had been so wistful lighted with a sudden joy. +She gave a happy cry: + +"Ariel!" she cried, "Ariel! Oh, what a heavenly thing, what a +_human_ thing to do! And to-day, too, just when we need a little bit +of friendliness!" She looked around with a queer, shy smile. + +"Ariel!" she called, "Ariel, no matter who comes, or goes, or what +happens in Hynds House, _we_ believe in you. Don't leave us, Ariel! +Maker of music, bringer of blossoms, stay!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF" + + +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, with an uplift of his fine black brows and a +satirical smile, once diagnosed the case of Great-Aunt Sophronisba +Scarlett as "congenital Hyndsitis"; Doctor Richard Geddes said you'd +only to take a glance at her house to see that she was predestined +to be damned. _I_ know that she was so hidebound in her prejudices, +so virulently conservative, so constitutionally opposed to change, +that anything savoring of modernity was anathema to her. + +That old woman would as lief have had what remained of her teeth +pulled out as have parted with anything once brought into Hynds +House. She preserved everything, good, bad, indifferent. You'd find +luster cider jugs, maybe a fine toby, old Chinese ginger jars, and +the quaintest of Dutch schnapps bottles, cheek by jowl with an iron +warming-pan, a bootjack, a rusty leather bellows, and a box packed +with empty patent-medicine bottles, under the pantry shelf. A +helmet creamer would be full of little rolls of twine, odd buttons, +a wad of beeswax, a piece of asafetida, elastic bands, and corks. +She had used a Ridgway platter with a view of the Hudson River on +it, as a dinner plate for her hound, for we found it wrapped up, +with "Nipper's platter" scrawled on the paper. + +By and large, it wasn't an easy task to renovate a brick barracks +finished in 1735, and occupied for ninety-nine years by a lady of +Sophronisba's parts; though I sha'n't tell how we had to tackle it +room by room, nor of the sweating hours spent in, so to speak, +separating the sheep things from the goat things. I can't help +stopping for a minute, though, to gloat over the front drawing-room +that presently emerged, with a cleaned carpet that proved to be a +marvel of hand-woven French art, rosewood sofas and chairs +upholstered in royal blue and rubbed to satiny-browny blackness, two +gloriously inlaid tables, and a Venetian mirror between two windows. + +We gave the place of honor on the white marble mantel to a porcelain +painting Alicia found in a work-box--the picture of a woman in gray +brocade sprigged with pink-and-blue posies, a lace fichu about her +slim shoulders, and a cap with a rose in it covering her parted +brown hair. The little boy leaning against her knees had darker blue +eyes, and fairer hair pushed back from a bold and manly forehead. +The painting was about the size of a modern cabinet photograph, and, +though pleasing and spirited, was evidently the work of a gifted +amateur. What gave it potent meaning and appeal was the inscription +lettered on the back: + + _Mrs. Lydia Hariott Hynds & Rich'd. Hynds Ag'd 7 + Paint'd for Col'nl. J.H. Hynds by his + Affec. Neece Jessamine_ + +You couldn't help loving him, the little "Richard Ag'd 7." There was +that in the face which won you instantly; it was so clear-eyed, so +gallant, so brave, so _honest_. So we gave him and his pretty, meek +mother the place of honor in the room that had once heard his +laughter and seen her tears. And we brought down-stairs the fine +painting of Colonel James Hampden, who was the splendid colonial in +claret-color that we had so much admired, and hung him and a smaller +painting marked, "Jessamine, Aged 22" where they could look down on +those two. + +These were the only pictures allowed in that room, and they gave to +it an atmosphere flavored most sweetly of yesterday. Indeed, I think +they must have approved of the room altogether, for we hadn't +changed so much as we'd restored it. Even the glass shades that +use'd to shield their wax candles were in their old places. There +was their old-world atmosphere of stateliness; their Chinese jars, +their English vases, their beautiful old Chelsea figures; and the +sampler so painstakingly + + _Work'd by Ann Eliza Hynds + Ag'd 9 Yrs. 2 Mos., Nov'r, 1757_ + +that had been carefully framed and mounted as a small fire-screen, +perhaps for Ann Eliza's lady mama or proud grandmother. It was such +human and intimate things, the mute mementoes of children who had +passed, that made us begin to love Hynds House, for all its bigness +and uncanniness and dilapidation. + +We did discover one human touch laid upon the place by Sophronisba +herself. She had gathered together a full set of small, hand-colored +photographs of Confederate generals, wrapped them in a hand-made +Confederate flag, into which was tucked a receipt signed by Judah +Benjamin for Hynds silver melted into a bar and given to the Cause, +written, "The glory is departed," across the package, and hidden it. +Alicia, who had a hankering after Confederates, herself, put the +photographs in a leather-covered album at least as old as +themselves, and kept them sacredly. She said these were America's +own vanquished and vanished Trojans, and that one got a lump in the +throat remembering how + + Fallen are those walls that were so good, + And corn grows now where Troy town stood. + +Schmetz brought us our upholsterer, Riedriech the cabinet-maker, +most cunning of craftsmen, who knew all there is to know about old +furniture and just what should and shouldn't be done to it. In +addition he was a grizzled, bearded, shambling old angel who clung +to a reeking pipe and Utopian notions, a pestilent and whole-hearted +socialist who would call the President of the United States or the +president of the Plumbers' Union "Comrade" equally, and who put +propagandist literature in everything but our hair. + +"Mr. Riedriech," you would say reproachfully, "yesterday I +discovered Karl Marx and Jean Jaurès lurking behind my coffee-pot +and Fourier under the butter-dish. To-day I find Karl Kautsky in +ambush behind the cream-jug and Frederick Engels under the rolls." + +Riedriech would regard you paternally, placidly, benevolently, +through his large, brass-rimmed spectacles: + +"So? Little by little the drop of water the granite wears away. I +give you the little leaflet, the little pamphlet, _und_ by and by +comes the little hole in your head." + +Thank heaven the doctor next door didn't hear that! + +Alicia knew how to handle the old visionary with innocent but +consummate skill. Looking at the kind old bear with her Irish eyes: + +"It must be a wonderful thing to have such mastery of one's tools, +to know exactly what to do and how to do it," she would sigh. +"'Tisn't everybody can be a master craftsman!" + +"I show you in a little while what iss cabinet-making!" he said +proudly. "I do more yet by you," he added charitably, "then make +over for you chairs and tables and such, already: I make over for +you your little mind." + +The old socialist did indeed show us what cabinet-making can be. He +turned the office behind the library into a workroom, and from it +Sophronisba's tattered and torn and forlorn old things emerged, +piece by piece, in shining rosewood and walnut and mahogany majesty. +If you love old furniture; if it gives you a thrill just to touch a +period chair of incomparable grace, or the smooth surface of an old +table, or the curve of a carved sofa, you'll understand Alicia's +open rapture and my more sedate delight. + +The tiled fireplace in the library was really the feature of +Hynds House. There wasn't any mantel: the fireplace was sunk into +the wall, and above it and the book-cases on each side was a +space filled with more relics than all the rest of the house +contained--portraits, signed and framed documents, letters, old +flags, and a whole arsenal of weapons. Above the fireplace hung the +portrait of Freeman Hynds--thin, dark, austere, more like a +Cameronian Scotsman than a Carolina gentleman of an easy habit of +life. + +However, it was not portrait or relics that made the room +remarkable, but the tiles, each a portrait of a Revolutionary hero. +Laurens, Marion, Lafayette, Pulaski, von Steuben--there they were in +buff and blue, martial, in cocked hats, and with such awe-inspiring +noses! The center and largest tile was, of course, the Father of his +Country, without the hat, but with the nose, and above him the +original flag, with the thirteen stars for the thirteen weak-kneed +little states that were to grow into the great empire of freedom +that the high-nosed, high-hearted soldiers fought for and founded. +Alicia and I touched those tiles with reverence. They were the pride +of our hearts. + +As often happens in the South, there were bedrooms on the lower +floor; two of them, in fact, on one side of the hall. The front one +had been not only locked but padlocked; the windows had been nailed +on the inside, and heavy wooden shutters nailed on the outside. So +long had the room been closed that dry-rot had set in. The silk +quilt on the four-poster was falling to pieces, the linen was as +yellow as beeswax, and the sheets made one think of the Flying +Dutchman's sails. This room was of almost monastic severity: an +ascetic or a stern soldier might have occupied it. Besides the bed +it contained four chairs, a clothes-press, a secretary, and a +shaving-stand. On a small table near the bed were a Wedgwood mortar +with a heavy pestle, a medicine glass, and a pewter candlestick +turned as black as iron. The press in the corner still held a few +clothes, threadbare and sleazy, and in the desk were some dry +letters and a Business Book--at least, that's how it was +marked--with lists of names, each having an occupation or task set +down opposite it, I suppose the names of long-dead slaves. On the +fly-leaf was written, in a neat and very legible hand, "_Freeman +Hynds_." + +"Sophy!" Alicia's voice had an edge of awe. "This must have been his +room. I believe he died here, in this very bed. And afterward they +shut the room up; and it hasn't been opened until now." + +We looked at the old bed, and seemed to see him there, trying to +raise himself, crying out so piteously upon dead Richard's name, +only to fall back a dead man himself. What had he wanted to tell, as +he lay there dying? His painted face in the library was not a bad +man's face. It was proud, stern, stubborn, bigoted; a dark, unhappy +face, but neither an evil nor a cruel one. What was it that really +lay between those two brothers? After more than a hundred years, we +were as much in the dark as they in whose day it had happened and +whose lives it had wrecked. + +We built a fire in the long-disused chimney to take the dampness out +of the room, and forced open the windows to let in the good sun and +wind. Over in one corner, pushed in between the clothes-press and +the side wall, was, of all things, a prie-dieu; and upon it a dusty +Bible with his name on the fly-leaf. Nor was it a book kept for idle +show; it plainly had been read, perhaps wept over by a tortured +heart, for it fell open at that cry of all sad hearts, the +Fifty-first Psalm. I was moving this prie-dieu, when my foot slipped +on the bare floor and I dropped it with a crash. Fortunately it was +not injured. But what had looked like a mere line of carving on the +outer edge of the small shelf--rather a thick and heavy shelf now +that one examined it carefully--had been struck smartly, releasing a +cunning spring. There opened out a thin slit of a drawer, just big +enough to hold a flat book bound in leather and stamped with two +letters, "F.H." On the fly-leaf appeared, in his own neat, fine +script, "_The Diary of Freeman Hynds, Esqr._" + +The thing seemed incredible, impossible. His own daughter had +evidently been unaware of the existence of this book, which he had +not had time to destroy. And we, as by a miracle, had fallen upon +it--and perhaps the truth! + +It was written in so fine and small a hand as was only possible to +the users of goose-quill pens; and this tiny, faded, brown writing +on the yellowed pages covered a period of years. He had not been one +to waste words. Once or twice, as we hurriedly turned the pages, +appeared the name "Emily." Mostly it seemed a dry, uninteresting +thing, a mere memorandum, where a single entry might cover a whole +year. + +It was impossible for us to stop our work to read it then and there, +or to do more than give it a cursory glance. We turned feverishly to +those years that covered, as we figured, the period of the Hynds +tragedy. And he had written: + + This day was Accus'd Rich'd. my Bro. of robbing us of our + Jewells. He protests he knows Naught & my Mthr. believes him + as doth Emily. Has a true Heart, Emily. Horrid Confusion & + my Fthr. Confound'd. + +Impatiently I turned over the pages, raging to read the end, my +heart pounding and fluttering. + + Two nights since dy'd Scipio, son of old Shooba's wife, the + which did send for me-- + +Thus far had I read, Alicia and I sitting head to head on the hall +stairs. In came Schmetz the gardener, raving, gesticulating, and +after him old Uncle Adam, stepping delicately, and with a placating +smile on his wrinkled countenance. + +"Those bulbs that I have planted under the windows of you," raved +Schmetz, "the demon hens of _le docteur_ Geddes are with their paws +upturning! They upturn with rapidity and completeness, led by a +shameless hog of a rooster. Is it the orders of you that I devastate +those fowls, Mademoiselle?" + +Schmetz was furiously angry, and small wonder. Those had been choice +bulbs, some of which he had presented me from his own cherished +store--freesias, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and the starred +narcissus, "such as Proserpine let fall, from Dis's wagon." + +"Oh, our flowers!" wailed Alicia, springing to her feet; "and we +counting on those bulbs for Christmas!" + +I shut Freeman's diary with a snap. Hens were more immediate. + +"Put it in the drawer of the library table," called Alicia, running +out with Schmetz at her heels. "We'll read it to-night." + +When I had done so, closing the door after me, I too ran outside, +where some enormous black-and-white hens, led by the biggest rooster +I had ever seen, were completing the utter destruction of our +flower bed. + +We charged down upon them, and they ran to and fro, after the stupid +fashion of fowls. Back and forth Alicia, Schmetz, and I chased those +brutes; but Adam stood with folded hands, looking on from a safe and +sane distance. He refused to have anything to do with Geddes fowls +in ol' Mis' Scarlett's yard. Just then the huge rooster ran into my +skirts, all but upsetting me. It was the work of a strenuous moment +to seize him by the wings and so hold him. + +Left to their own devices, the hens scuttled back to their own +domain through a break in the palings on our side of the hedge, +while in my hands the rooster squawked and plunged and kicked and +struggled; it was like trying to hold a feathered hyena. + +I was very angry. I had lost my bulb bed. I couldn't wring the neck +of the raider, much as I should have liked to do so, but with an arm +made strong by a just and righteous rage I lifted that big brute +high above my head and hurled him over into his own yard. He sailed +through the air like a black and white plane. + +"_Damn! Oh, damn!_" said somebody on the other side of the hedge. +There was a horrible grunt, as of one getting all the wind knocked +out of him, a scuffle, and the squawks of the big rooster, to which +the hens dutifully added a deafening chorus. + +"The brute--has just about--murdered me!" grunted Doctor Richard +Geddes. + +We stood in stricken silence. Swiftly, noiselessly, Uncle Adam faded +from sight, putting a solid section of Hynds House between himself +and what he felt was coming battle. Uncle Adam had no wish to have +to pray me to death, and he wasn't going to run any risks with +Doctor Richard Geddes. Where that irascible gentleman was concerned, +Uncle Adam, like Br'er Rabbit, would "trus' no mistakes." + +A second later, red-faced, half-breathless, but with the light of +battle in his eyes, Doctor Geddes appeared, mounted on a ladder on +his side of the hedge. + +"Who shot off that rooster?" + +"_Monsieur le docteur_, the hens of you began this affray," +explained Schmetz, politely. "They are fowls abandoned in their +morals, horrible in their habits, and shameless in their behavior. +And the husband of these wretches, Monsieur, is a bandit, a brigand, +an assassin, fit only to be guillotined. Observe, Monsieur, it +happened thus--" + +"Schmetz," snapped the doctor, "shut up!--Now then, I want to know +who fired off that rooster." + +"I did!" I said valiantly. "Look at my bulbs! Just look at my +bulbs!" + +"Look at my stomach!" roared the doctor. "Just look at my stomach!" + +"_Mon Dieu! O mon Dieu_!" cried Schmetz, dancing up and down. +"Monsieur, again I implore that you will remain calm and listen to +the voice of reason! Your hens, creatures malicious and accursed--" + +"Why should I look at your horrid stomach?" said I, outraged. "I +think you had better get down off that ladder and go away!" + +"Why should you? Because, you jade, you've all but driven a +twenty-pound rooster clean through it--beak, spurs and tail +feathers--that's why!" bawled the doctor. "Gad! I shall be black and +blue for a fortnight! I'm colicky now: I need a mustard-plaster!" + +"_Two_ mustard-plasters," I insisted severely: "one on your tongue +and the other on your temper!" + +"Temper?" flared the doctor, and flung up his arms. "_Temper?_ +Here's a minx that's all but murdered me, and yet has the stark +effrontery to blather about temper! You've a bad one yourself, let +me tell you! You've the worst, outside of your late aunt--" + +"Grand-aunt-in-law; your own cousin-by-blood, whom you greatly +resemble in that same matter of family temper, I am given to +understand." + +"Gatchell told you that!" cried the doctor, wrathfully. +"Fish-blooded old mummy! _His_ place is in a Canopic jar! Gatchell +hasn't had a thought since 1845." + +"Well, if he satisfied himself so long ago as 1845 that you have a +frightful temper and that your hens are unutterable nuisances, I see +no reason why he should change his mind," I said, frigidly. "You +have; and your hens are; and your rooster is a _demon_!" + +"Straight out of the pit; undoubtedly they were hatched under +Satan's wings. Monsieur, believe me, Schmetz, when I tell you so." + +"Didn't you ask me," I demanded, "to throw them over into your yard +when they invaded my premises? Very well: I threw one over and you +caught it. Why, then, should you complain?" + +"Oh, yes, I caught it!" A horrible sneer twisted his countenance. + +Schmetz fell to praying aloud. But he couldn't remember anything +save the grace before meat, so he prayed that, in a sonorous voice. +For he is a pious man. + +The doctor's nose wrinkled and his lips stretched: "_Sophronisba!_" +he hissed, and, having hurled this hand-grenade, scuttled down the +ladder like a boy of ten. + +Alicia sank upon the ground and rocked to and fro. For a minute I +wanted to catch her by the shoulders and shake her soundly; but +catching her eye instead, I also fell into helpless laughter. +Leaning on his spade, Schmetz stared at us, shaking his grizzled +head. + +"Name of a cat!" murmured the puzzled Alsatian, and fell to +salvaging such bulbs as weren't utterly ruined. We were all busy at +this, when a head again appeared over the hedge--a big, leonine head +with a tossing mane and a tameless beard. An enormous pair of +shoulders followed, a tree-trunk of a leg was swung over, and Doctor +Richard Geddes dropped into our garden like a great cat. He strolled +over, hands in pockets, and looking down at grubbing us, asked +politely: "Making a garden?" + +"Oh, no," Alicia told him sweetly, "we're laying out a chicken-run." + +"Er--what I came over to say, is that I've got some fine bulbs, +myself, this year, particularly fine bulbs--eh, Schmetz?--and more +than I need for myself. Will you share them with me, Miss Smith? +Please! I--well, I'd be really grateful if you would," said this +overgrown boy. + +"We'll be enchanted," Alicia said instantly. "When can we have +them, please?" + +"Now!" cried the doctor, with brightening eyes. "By jingo, I'll get +'em this minute, and plant 'em for you, too!" + +And he did. He was on his knees, trowel in hand, shouting to +Riedriech, who had come outside for a few minutes' happy arguing +with his good friend the doctor, that the socialist argument boiled +down amounts to about this--that one should do without boiled eggs +for breakfast now, in order that the proletariat may have baked hen +for dinner in the millennium; which is lunacy; anybody with a +modicum of brains-- + +"Brains!" snorted Riedriech. "What is it you know about brains? _No_ +doctor knows what is on the inside of brains! You make tinkerings +mit the inside plumbings, _Gott bewahre_! and cut up womens and cats +and such-like poor little dumb beasts and says you, 'Now I know all +about the brains of man.' It is right there where you are wrong, +Comrade Geddes!" + +"_Habet!_" said Comrade Geddes. + +"Look you," said the old visionary, with sudden passion, "look you +on the little bulb here, so dirty and ugly you hide him in the +ground quick. So! But by and by comes up green shoots, and blossoms. +So it is with the great thoughts of men, the deep race-thoughts, +Comrade Geddes--seeds, bulbs, germs, all of them, in the ugly husks +of the common people. Out of our muck and grime they come, the +little green shoots which the fool will say is poison, maybe, but +which the wise know and labor and make room for. I, Riedriech, and +workers like me, we go into our graves nothing but husks. But it is +out of the buried hearts of us comes green things growing; and +then--_die Blumen! die Blumen!_" said the cabinet-maker, with a +still, far-away look. + +"And," he finished, with a sad smile, "it is _our_ flowers that you +put in vases of gold on your altars. And you say, 'Listen: Jesus the +carpenter talks plain words to his fishermen friends.' And, 'Hush! +Burns the plowman makes songs in the field!'" + +The doctor looked up, and his eyes were very tender; his smile made +me wonder. With a swift, friendly hand he patted the rougher hand of +the other. And it was at this opportune moment that Mary Magdalen +led around a corner of Hynds House no less personages than Mrs. +Haile and Miss Martha Hopkins. Their eyes fell upon Doctor Richard +Geddes. They looked at each other. They looked at Alicia and me. And +I knew their thoughts: "Sirens, both of you!" said Miss Hopkins's +eyes. + +"How do you do, Doctor Geddes!" said both ladies, as demurely as +cats. _I_ should have felt like a boy caught stealing jam. He went +right on planting bulbs. + +"Hello, Martha. What's on the carpet now?" he greeted that lady, +airily. "Writing another paper on 'The Ironic Note in Chivalry'? How +about 'The Effect of the Pre-Raphaelites upon the Feeble-minded'? Or +is it the 'Relation of the Child to Its Mother,' this time?" + +"You will have your little joke, Doctor," smiled Miss Hopkins, a +dish-faced blonde with a cultured expression. + +"Joke?" The doctor stared up at her. "Joke? Gad, I'd like to believe +it!" He turned to Alicia and me, politely: "Miss Hopkins," he +informed us, "moves among us clothed in white samite. She is our +center of culture; Hyndsville revolves around her." + +He went on putting a bulb in the place prepared for it. His eyebrows +twitched slightly, but his mouth was smileless; Miss Hopkins was +smiling, and not at all displeased. Mrs. Haile was bland and blank, +as befits a minister's wife. Alicia's eyes were downcast, but a +wicked dimple came and went in her cheek. She looked ravishingly +pretty, the bright hair breaking into curls about her temples, her +young face colored like a rose. I do not blame Doctor Richard +Geddes for stopping in his work to stare at her with unabashed +pleasure, but I do not think it was diplomatic. + +Mrs. Haile apologized for calling when we were so very busy. They +had just stopped in passing, because they were reorganizing their +missionary society and wanted to see if they couldn't interest us in +the good work. Their day-school in Mozambique needed another +teacher, and their hospital in Bechuanaland had to have more beds. + +Doctor Geddes got to his feet, slapped our garden soil from his +knees, and shook his tawny mane. His eyes were no longer sweet. + +"Miss Smith and Miss Gaines, thank you for the opportunity of +playing in the sand in pleasant company. Mrs. Haile, Miss Hopkins, I +go to attend some home-grown niggers who of course don't need a +hospital, nor even a decent school, in our Christian midst. Ladies, +good afternoon!" He made a fleering motion of the hand and was gone. +Mrs. Haile and Miss Hopkins smiled indulgently. Evidently, Doctor +Geddes was one brother they were willing to forgive though he +offended them until seventy times seven. + +Alicia and Miss Martha Hopkins walked down the garden path together +and Mrs. Haile fell into step with me. In a low voice she thanked +me, hurriedly, for having dropped that dreadful suit. And were +we--she hesitated--were we going to be regular communicants? + +I didn't want to go to St. Polycarp's any more, and it was on the +tip of my tongue to give a politely evasive reply, when our eyes met +and held each other. I saw the naked truth in hers--the pitiful +truth of the slim, poor, aristocratic little parish; the old church +overtaken and surpassed by its more modern and middle-class rivals; +and the minister's family struggling along on a salary that would +have made a hod-carrier strike. She was neatly dressed; she looked +like a gentle-woman, but one in straightened circumstances. I made a +rapid mental calculation. + +"Why, yes, I think I can say we shall. Now, Mrs. Haile, I am a +business woman, and if I speak bluntly you must pardon it. Miss +Gaines and I can give two hundred dollars a year between us--fifty +for the church; one hundred and fifty to be added to the minister's +present salary." + +I knew what that meant to her, and she must have known I knew, but +she didn't show it by so much as the quiver of an eyelash. Only a +faint, faint color showed in her sallow cheek, and she bowed, +half-formally, half-friendly. + +"Thank you, Miss Smith," said she, gallantly. And she added, with a +glimmer of humor in her worried eyes: "As you say you're a business +woman, may I say I hope you will get your money's worth?" + +At that I laughed, and she with me. + +We walked down our garden path, chatting innocuously and amiably, +until of a sudden they caught sight of the little Love, the gay, +charming, naked little Love, holding his torch above his +curl-crowned head. You miss him, when you come up the broad drive +from the front gate, for Nicholas Jelnik put him in the secretest, +greenest, sweetest spot in all our garden, and you must go down a +winding path to find him. + +"So it wasn't an idle tale: they did find it, really!" breathed Miss +Hopkins, staring with all her eyes. And I knew with great certainty +why _she_ had come to Hynds House that afternoon. + +"Forgotten all these many years, and now here, like the dead come to +life!" murmured Mrs. Haile, abstractedly. "How strange!" + +"It was said he bought it for his mother, because it looked so like +himself as a child," said Miss Hopkins. Then she remembered her +duty, held up two fingers before her eyes, and squinted through them +critically: + +"Charming, but don't you think the pose strained? It's an example of +eighteenth-century work, placid enough, but it lacks that plastic, +fluidic serenity, that divine new touch of truth, that is +revivifying art since the great Rodin lighted the torch anew." + +Heaven knows what else she said. It sounded like a paper on art to +me, and I have a terror of papers on art. They are, Alicia informs +me, purple piffle. Yet Alicia drank in every word Miss Hopkins +uttered, though the dimple came and went in her cheek. + +"You seem interested in art, Miss Gaines." Having torn the poor +little peasant Love to tatters, Miss Hopkins descended to us +groundlings. + +"I don't always seem to know what art is," admitted Alicia, +dovelike. + +The lady who "moved among us clothed in white samite" smiled +encouragingly. + +"That is because you are really little more than a child," she said +kindly. "When you begin to _grow_, you will improve your mind." + +Alicia puckered her brows. "Ah, but I'm Irish!" she said, seriously, +"and the Irish hate to have to improve their minds. I imagine it +takes an able-bodied mind to stand intensive cultivation," she +added, guilelessly. + +Miss Hopkins smiled: it was a masterpiece, that smile! + +"But why, may I ask, did you choose such a situation for the +statue?" she inquired critically. "Now, _I_ should never dream of +tucking it in such an out-of-the-way place!" + +The pucker came back to Alicia's brow. + +"Shouldn't you?" she wondered. "I shall make a point of mentioning +that to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, if you don't mind. You see, he chose +that spot, and we rather like it, ourselves." + +Miss Hopkins stopped dead short, and Mrs. Haile started in spite of +herself. Evidently, the situation was beyond them. Didn't we _know_? +How much had Judge Gatchell seen fit to tell us? Alicia had dropped +a bomb-shell that before night would detonate in every house in +Hyndsville. They haven't very much to talk about in small towns, +except one another, and when a plump mouse of gossip frisks about +whisking his tail, why, it is cat nature to pounce upon it. + +"Mr. Jelnik!" said Miss Hopkins, with an accent. "Oh, I see. +Well--he is a neighbor, of course. Certainly if Mr. Jelnik selected +that particular spot for the statue--he of all people has the best +right to do so--and to have his wishes considered." + +"Of course. He has lived abroad, and seen everything of art there is +to see," Alicia agreed, placidly. Which wasn't at all what Miss +Hopkins meant. + +We could see those two women turning the thing over and over in +their minds--Nicholas Jelnik, last heir and descendant of Richard +Hynds, tactily (perhaps even gladly; for had they not just witnessed +the behavior of Doctor Richard Geddes?) accepting the interlopers in +the house of his fathers! Nicholas Jelnik selecting the site for the +statue Richard had brought home in pride, and Freeman had buried in +sorrow! Miss Hopkins's stare dismissed me, shifted to Alicia, and +discovered the cause of this shameless surrender of family pride. +Her lips tightened. With politely cold hopes that we should like +Hyndsville, and warmer hopes that we would join the missionary +society, they left us. + +"Wedge Number One: The poor dear heathen, Sophy!" smiled Alicia. +"The P.D.H. can be a very present help in times of social trouble, +can't he? I shall attend that missionary meeting, and take stock. +Incidentally (For goodness' sake, don't look so scandalized, Sophy +Smith! this is a fight for our lives, so to speak!) incidentally, I +shan't do the P.D.H. any harm. He won't be a bit worse than he was +before, which is promising." She put two fingers before her laughing +eyes, squinted through them, and drawled: + +"You lack subtlety, Miss Smith. Cultivate your imagination, my +dear!" in Miss Hopkins's best voice. + +Riedriech stuck his grizzled head out at a window, cautiously: + +"Fräulein, she hass gone?" And seeing that the coast was clear, +he added, vehemently: "Cultivate the mindt! Cultivate the +imatchination! _Ach, lieber Gott! Dornröschen_, cultivate you the +_heart_. It iss not what the woman thinks, but what she loves, what +she feels, which makes of the world a home-place for men und +_kinder_." The good old Jew nodded his head vigorously at the girl, +smiled, and went back to his work. And Schmetz came and finished the +bulb bed by covering it carefully with two thicknesses of +chicken-wire. + +That night, just before we went up-stairs, I went into the library +after Freeman Hynds's diary, which we were simply burning to read. I +opened the table drawer in which I had placed it. The drawer was +quite empty. The little flat book was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GLAMOURY + + +Alicia insisted that we were living in a fairy-story, and had better +enjoy every shining minute while it lasted. But, as I pointed out, +the cost of restoring Hynds House was appallingly real, so real that +it left a big, big hole in the bank-account. It is true that we who +never really had had a home since we were little children, and then +the most modest sort, had gotten such a home as comes to but few. +But--one doesn't get something for nothing! + +We had done our part for Hynds House; now Hynds House had to do its +part for us. It had to earn its keep, and ours. We had known that +from the beginning, and Alicia mapped out the entire plan of how +it was to be done; a plan which I at first looked upon as the +fairy-storiest part of the whole thing! + +To-night we sat facing each other across the library table, with a +great pile of receipted bills between us, the total of which made me +feel pale. Alicia, however, was cheerfully figuring away on her own +hook; and presently she shoved a list of addresses across to me. + +The first two were the head of our old firm, and the one celebrity +I had ever seen or spoken to, a novelist and lecturer with +record-breaking best sellers to his account. He once had some +business dealings with our firm, and I attended to the details, +thereby winning his cantankerous approval. He had very bad manners, +of which he was totally unashamed, and very good morals, of which +he was somewhat doubtful, as they didn't smack of genius; a notion +that he was a superior sort of Sherlock Holmes, having the +truffle-hound's flair for discovering and following up clews and +unraveling mysteries, most of which didn't exist outside of his own +eager mind; and such a genuine passion for old and beautiful things +as Balzac had. It was upon this last foundation that Alicia was +building. + +"He has written that the average wealthy modern home is a +combination of Pullman Palace Car and Gehenna. And that the +so-called crime wave which sweeps recurrently over American cities, +is very likely nothing more than the inevitable reaction of our +damnable house decorations upon our immature intellects." Alicia +repeated it dreamily. "I have chosen for him the upper southwestern +room with the sunset effect and the pineapple four-poster. It has a +claw-footed desk of block mahogany, three hand-carved walnut chairs, +two Rembrandt prints, and a French prie-dieu with a purple velvet +cover embroidered with green and gold swastikas. He has a purple +soul with gold tassels on it, himself, Sophy, and he should be +willing to pay a thumping price for it. That room is worth at least +two lectures and one best seller, not to mention what he'll get out +of the rest of the house." + +"First catch your hare," I reminded her skeptically. + +"First set your trap, and you can reckon on hare nature to do the +rest. A few good photographs of this house, along with the +information that it runs back to the beginning of things American +and has never been exploited, will fetch him at a hand-gallop. Add a +hint that we have our own brand of family spook, and you couldn't +keep him away if you tried. The only trouble is that he may walk off +with your brass tongs up his trouser-leg, or a print or two tucked +under his shirt." + +We had decided that we would have a series of photographs of the +house, with all particularly good points stressed; such as, say, the +library fireplace, the fan-light window at the end of the upper +hall, the pillared front porch, and a corner of the drawing-room. + +Also--and this was the great thing, calling for a heavy outlay--we +would advertise in some two or three of the ultra periodicals, the +advertisement to carry a stunning little cut of our front porch. We +decided to run the risk of expending more money than we could really +afford, because the people that advertisement was meant to attract +would in the long run pay for it. + +"Our prices will be predacious, piratical, prohibitive, and +profitable. We shall stop just this side of highway robbery. +Therefore our demands will be cheerfully, nay, willingly met; and +everybody, including you and me, Sophy, will be satisfied and +happy!" + +"_Boarders!_" said I, limply, "_boarders_--in Hynds House!" + +"Perish the thought! We have possibly the most interesting and +beautiful old house in America. It's one of the few really historic +houses left in the whole South. It has seen the Indians, it has seen +the British, it has seen Sherman's men, and escaped them all. Well, +then, we propose to allow certain of the elect, who can afford it, +to come and live in Hynds House for a while. They will be willing to +pay a round sum for the privilege. That's all." + +"Oh, is it, indeed! And will they?" + +"Won't they, though!" Alicia spoke confidently. "Now draft me a +letter to the Head, setting forth the many reasons why himself, his +wife, their car, and her Chow, can't afford to miss Hynds House on +their trip South this season. You might explain that Mary Magdalen +is our cook, and the Queen of Sheba our hand-maid. Also, please help +me decide in which of these magazines we had better advertise +first." + +"But the cost!" I wailed. "We have spent so sinfully much already! +And the place is eating its head off, with nothing coming in. Since +I took down those bill-boards, actually the price of that Lafayette +Street lot has gone down. Nobody seems anxious to buy it any more." + +"Change your mind about selling it; hint that you're considering an +ice-cream parlor and a movie theater," said the girl who'd been the +worst file-clerk. "In the meantime, Sophy, you have sense enough to +understand that we've spent so much money we've got to spend more to +get some of it back.--I vote we start in this one, Sophy," and she +laid her finger upon the most expensive and ultra of all the +magazines! + +"But that is for _millionaires_!" said I, aghast. + +"So is Hynds House," insisted Alicia, coolly. "How much did you say +was in the bank?" + +I was afraid to hear my own voice mention that insignificant sum; +for, when one considered Hynds House, the little we had was +beggarly; so I wrote it down, and pushed the paper across to her. +Instead of looking scared, Alicia Gaines looked delighted! + +"All that?" And round chin on pink palm, she fell to studying me +with as much curiosity as if she had just met me and were puzzled to +get at the real Me. Then she nodded, and snatching a sheet of paper, +began to figure again, pausing every now and then to regard me with +slitted eyes. At the end of ten strenuous minutes she pushed the +paper over to me, and watched me grow all but apoplectic as I +studied it. It was an entertaining list, beginning with a hat and +ending with silk stockings. With all sorts of wonderful things in +between--for me, you understand. Things like "One brown frock, with +something cloudy-yellow about it." ("Sophy, blondes can stand yellow +wonderfully well; I suggest a bronze, instead of a duller brown.") + +"Why, I have plenty of clothes!" I protested. + +"Business-woman-of-a-certain-age, general-utility, +will-stand-wear-and-tear clothes. Not a stitch of Hyndshousey +clothes among them. No _happy_, glad-I'm-alive-and-a woman clothes. +Here's where you cease to look merely useful, respectable, and +responsible, and begin to look the Lady of the Castle. There's quite +as much philosophy and good morals in looking like a butterfly as +there is in resembling a caterpillar." + +"_Why_ should I have more clothes?" I demanded. + +"Because." And she added, with a fleeting smile, "And then catch +your hare." + +"Alicia!" said I, scandalized. "Alicia Gaines, do you realize I am +thirty-six years old?" + +"You wouldn't be if you just had sense enough to forget to remember +it." This resentfully. + +"No? Would you mind telling me how I might become such an +accomplished forgetter?" + +"Why, there's nothing easier! When you really wish to forget to +remember something, Sophy, all you have to do is to remember to +forget it!" And then, with real earnestness: "Sophy, it's the better +part of wisdom to look like the job you want to hold down. Your job +is holding down Hynds House. And we are up against things, Sophy, +you and I. We have got to win out because it means--all this." Her +eyes swept over the beautiful old room with an immense pride and +affection. + +"We have just _got_ to keep Hynds House, if only to teach these +Hyndsville women a lesson." She spoke after a pause. "Sophy, they +flatten their ears and arch their backs at sight of us; and whenever +there's a good chance for a wipe of a paw, why, we catch it across +the nose. Now I," she admitted frankly, "am naturally full of cat +feelings myself. I will not do what _you_ want to do--walk off +looking aggrieved, after the fashion of Old Dog Tray. I will repay +in kind, retaliate in true lady-cat manner. And these,"--she began +to smile--"these shall be our weapons of offense and defense. It +will be a gorgeous struggle; however, my forebears came from +Kilkenny!" + +I laughed, but indeed I did not feel any too optimistic. Holding +down Hynds House was no easy task, and the town was not disposed to +make it easier for us. While we had been busy renovating, while our +hands were so full of work that every minute was occupied, we hadn't +felt our isolation. It was only when we had time to pause and look +around us, that the stubborn, quiet hostility of the town's attitude +to the new owner of Hynds House was borne in upon us. + +Not that anything overt was done by any one. Nor was there the +slightest breach of politeness: they were as punctiliously polite +when chance brought us into contact with them, as well-bred folk are +to strangers whose further acquaintance they have no desire to +cultivate. The vestrymen of St. Polycarp's had expressed their +appreciation of Miss Smith's action in promptly dropping the suit +against them; she was welcome to come and worship God in their +church, and to do her duty by the heathen. Such ladies as happened +to belong to the missionary society spoke to us pleasantly in the +church vestibule. The minister and his wife were as sincerely, +duteously courteous. But that was all. Not a house in Hyndsville +opened its doors to us. They simply would not accept the interloper +that the malignity of the Scarlett Witch had put in possession of +that which should have gone back to Richard's last heir, or failing +him, to Richard Geddes. + +The fact that these two descendants of the Hyndses did not seem to +see and do their duty as members of that illustrious family, but +shamelessly made friends with the aliens, did not raise us in the +town's estimation. Quite the contrary. Nor were they even faintly +angry with Mr. Jelnik and Doctor Geddes, who were, so to say, +unsuspicious Israelites coaxed into the Canaanitish camp. + +I admit that I considered Doctor Richard Geddes undiplomatic in his +behavior. It never once occurred to that lordly gentleman, who had +had his own way ever since he was born, that he should stop now to +consider the feelings or the prejudices of Hyndsville. It wasn't +that he meant to champion _us_. It never occurred to him that we +needed championing. He simply liked us because he liked us. We +pleased him. That sufficed, so far as he was concerned. + +I had begun really to like the doctor, myself. But I wished to +heaven he weren't, at that critical time, so tactless. For instance, +I have been peremptorily taken by an elbow and led willy-nilly to +his waiting car, on Lafayette Street, which is our principal +thoroughfare, under the calm, appraising, watching eyes of all +feminine Hyndsville. Not one of whom would fail to remark, casually: + +"Oh, _did_ you see that Miss Smith with Doctor Geddes this morning? +Men are so unsuspicious, aren't they!" + +I couldn't explain the situation to him, of course, any more than I +could explain to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik that _his_ presence in Hynds +House, while pleasing to us, was disquieting and displeasing to +others. + +It was to be expected that this handsome young man, who kept his +affairs so strictly to himself that nobody knew anything about them, +should arouse the avid curiosity and hold the breathless interest of +a little town where everybody had always known everybody else's +business. + +Why had he come to Hyndsville? To find the Hynds jewels, after a +century? Didn't he know that the Scarlett Witch had the eye of an +eagle for the glitter of gold and would long since have discovered +whatever of value had been in Hynds House? Why didn't he consult +older members of the community, who could furnish him with +immensely interesting side-lights on the Hyndses? + +Mr. Jelnik never explained. He didn't ask anybody anything. He +didn't even employ Hyndsville negroes, who could be expected to +gossip: his household consisted of a stately bronze-colored +man-servant who was reputed to be a pagan, and the huge wolf-hound, +Boris, his constant companion. + +When Doctor Geddes was delicately sounded, the big man explained +that he himself had but recently made the acquaintance of his young +kinsman; Jelnik was a first-rate chap, declared the doctor; +immensely clever, as befitted his father's son; altogether likeable, +but a bit of a lunatic, like all the Hyndses. + +It was natural, too, that the young ladies in a small town where +young men are at a premium should have noticed this one particularly +and expected a like interest on his part. The inexplicable Jelnik +failed to exhibit it. There was but one house that he visited, and +that was Hynds House. + +Whatever his reasons for this may have been, and the town named +several, the fact remains that Hynds House would never have been so +beautiful, the restoration wouldn't have been so nearly perfect, had +it not been for the critical taste of Mr. Jelnik. He had the +European knowledge of beautiful things, and, toward the finer graces +of life, the attitude of Paris, of Rome, of Vienna, rather than of +New York, of Chicago, or of, say, Atlanta. + +There was a glamour about the man. Whatever he did or said had an +indefinable, delightful significance; what he left undone was full +of meaning. His mere presence ornamented and colored common moments +so that they glowed, and remained in the memory with a rainbow light +upon them. He was never hurried or flurried, any more than sun and +sky and trees and tides are; and he was just as vital, and quite as +baffling. + +We accepted him at first as part of the fairy-story into which +Destiny had pitchforked us. He belonged to Hynds House, so to speak, +and there one might meet him upon common ground. But sometimes when +I happened to glance up I would find him watching us with those +reflective eyes that were so full of light and at the same time so +inscrutable. And then he would smile, his Dionysiac smile that made +him all at once so far off and so foreign that I knew, with a +sinking heart, that he didn't belong at all; that this beautiful and +brilliant bird of passage was lightening for but a very brief space +my sober skies. + +Alicia said he made her think of peacocks and ivory. He delighted +and dazzled her, though he did not disquiet her as he did me, +perhaps because she, too, was young and beautiful, and I--wasn't. + +It will be seen, then, that our position, take it by and large, +wasn't one that called for flags and buntings. Life didn't look a +bit rose-colored to me as I sat there that night, drafting a letter +to the Head. Of a sudden arose clamor in the hall, and howls, +hideously loud at that hour and in that quiet house. There came the +noise of running feet, and there burst into the lighted library, +with gray faces and rolling eyes, our two lately acquired colored +maids, Fernolia the thin one, and Queen of Sheba, fat and brown. + +"Good heavens! What's the matter?" I asked, fearfully. It had been a +terrible task to break in those two handmaids, to train them _not_ +to take part in the conversation at table, _not_ to take off cap, +and hair, not to do the thousand and one undisciplined and +disorderly things they did do. + +"Ghostes! Sperets! Ha'nts!" chattered the colored women. "Ol' Mis' +Scarlett's walkin' in de ca'iage house!" + +"Nonsense!" At the same time I felt myself turning pale, and +goose-flesh coming out on my spine. + +"No, ma'am, Miss Sophy, 't ain't nonsense. It's ha'nts!" protested +Fernolia. She was the brighter of the two, but given to embroidering +her facts. + +"Yessum, I done saw 'er," corroborated Queenasheeba. (That's how one +pronounced her name.) + +The two occupied a very pleasant room above the carriage house, a +room that had overcome their unwillingness to stay overnight at +Hynds House. Queenasheeba was just dozing, when she was awakened by +Fernolia, who had been sitting by the window. Both of them, peering +through the scrim curtains, saw a tall white figure disappear into +the spring-house. A few minutes later, to their horror, they heard +Something moving downstairs in the carriage house--Something like +the clank of a chain--footsteps--and then silence. Almost paralyzed +with terror, the two women clung together. _Anything_ might be +expected of ol' Mis' Scarlett! However, nothing further happened. +With shaking hands Queenasheeba relighted the lamp. Then, snatching +up such clothes as they could grab, the two fled to us. + +Mary Magdalen and Beautiful Dog always departed after dinner. Except +for the Black family and the two canaries, Alicia and I had big, +lonesome Hynds House to ourselves. Mr. Jelnik's gray cottage, set +amid Lombardy poplars and thick shrubberies, was some distance +away, and we didn't know whether Doctor Geddes was at home or not. +It is true we had firearms, a pair of pistols having been literally +forced upon us by the doctor, who fretted and fumed about our +staying there alone. Both of us were more afraid of those pistols +than of any possible ghostly intruder. + +Nevertheless, I went up-stairs and fetched them. Alicia took one as +she might have taken a rattlesnake, and I held the other. Armed +thus, carrying torch-light and lantern, and with the two gray-faced, +half-clad negro women following us, one carrying our brass poker and +the other the tongs, we marched upon the carriage house. + +The big barnlike place, lately cleaned and whitewashed, looked +painfully empty. In one of the stalls the hay purchased for our +recently acquired Jersey cow gave off a pleasant odor. Over in one +corner, in a neat, clean, orderly array, were Schmetz's tools. A +little farther on was our chicken feed, in covered barrels. + +We went from empty stall to empty stall, to reassure the women; +there wasn't so much as a cobweb in any of them. All the down-stairs +windows were heavily barred with iron and further protected, like +the doors, with heavy oaken shutters studded with iron nail-heads. +The two small rooms in the rear had once been used as a jail for +recalcitrant slaves; they held now nothing deadlier than Schmetz's +flower pots and seedlings. Every shutter was closed, and the iron +bars looked reassuringly strong; also, the walls are three feet +thick. + +"You were dreaming, you silly women! I told you you were dreaming!" +said I, and had turned to go, reassured and relieved, when Alicia's +nose wrinkled. I could hardly keep from sniffing, myself. + +In the carriage-house was a faint, indeterminable scent, the ghost +of the ghost of fragrance, so elusive that one sensed rather than +smelled it, so pervasive and haunting that one could not miss it. +And it certainly had nothing to do with the wholesome odor of hay +and cow feed, or the smell of whitewash and oiled tools. + +"Yes, you were dreaming." Alicia began to edge the colored women +toward the doors. "But as you've had a scare," she added pleasantly, +"I'll give you a new lace collar, Queenasheeba, and you a red +ribbon, Fernolia, to wear to church next Sunday, just to prove to +you that being awake is heaps better than having nightmares." + +We padlocked the big doors after us, and went through the rooms +up-stairs. They, too, had been freshly cleaned and calcimined. And +they, too, were quite empty. + +Despite which, Fernolia and Queenasheeba were firmly, tearfully, +shiveringly certain they had seen nothing less than ol' Mis' +Scarlett's ha'nt. They had the worst possible opinion of ol' Miss +Scarlett: she had been bad enough living--but as a spook! We had to +let them lug their bedding over and sleep in the room next to ours; +we had to give them sweet lavender to quiet their nerves. I am sure +they would have bolted incontinently if they hadn't been too scared +to venture outside. + +"If I could catch that ghost I'd shake it!" declared Alicia. And we +went back to our figuring, with a sort of desperate courage. "_Now_ +will you get those clothes, Sophy Smith?" she resumed, through her +teeth, and the pink came back to her cheek, and her eyes deepened. +"And do you agree to stick it out, you and I shoulder to shoulder, +town or no town, ha'nts or no ha'nts; and win out?" + +"Yes!" said I. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR + + +Wire from The Author, New York City, to Miss S. Smith, Hyndsville, +South Carolina: + + Photos received. Furniture noted. It's pretty, but is it + art? + +Wire from Miss Smith to The Author: + + What is Art? + +Wire from The Author: + + Sometimes an invention of the devil. Is your stuff Madison + Avenue or Grand Rapids? Reply. + +Wire from Miss Smith: + + Madison Avenue and Grand Rapids hadn't been invented when + Hynds House was furnished. + +Wire from The Author: + + Maybe not, but mightn't be same furniture. Have been stung + before. Can't be genuine. Too much of it. + +Wire from Miss Smith: + + Please yourself. + +Wire from The Author: + + Coming to investigate. Won't sleep in anything but pineapple + bed; won't sit in anything but carved chair; can't pray + without prie-dieu. If spurious will publicly gibbet you and + probably burn your house down. Hold southwest room my + arrival. + +Alicia laughed, and cuddled those yellow slips. + +"I knew this was an enchanted place!" she cried. "Oh, Sophy, it's +working! He's coming, he's coming, and he's the biggest ever, and +he's going to _stay_! Sophy, think of the advertising!" + +"He will probably be detestable. Geniuses are generally horrid to +live with. And there will be something the matter with his +digestion; there is always something the matter with their +digestion." + +"From swallowing all the flattery shoveled upon them, poor dears," +Alicia explained charitably. "Don't worry about his digestion: leave +it to Mary Magdalen's waffles. Hooray! Hynds House stock is +booming!" + +It was. + +From the head of our firm: + + _My dear Miss Smith_: + + I have your interesting letter and the delightful + photographs, which have so completely charmed Mrs. + Westmacote and me that we have decided it wouldn't be good + business to miss Hynds House on our trip South this year. + + Mrs. Westmacote asks if you could also accommodate a cousin + of hers, Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, a lady deeply + interested in the colonial homes of America. + + You must allow me heartily to congratulate you upon your + great good fortune in falling heir to such a wonderful old + place; and to wish you many happy and prosperous years in + it. + + I shall telegraph you when to expect us. With all good + wishes, + + Yours faithfully, + GEORGE PEABODY WESTMACOTE. + +Letter from Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, of Boston: + + _Dear Miss Smith_: + + My cousin Mrs. Westmacote, whom I have been visiting, showed + me your letter and the enchanting photographs of your house + which you were kind enough to send Mr. Westmacote. Hynds + House is just the one place I have long been looking + for!--an unspoiled colonial house, with historic + associations! + + It is perfect! I must see with my own eyes those Chelsea + figures on your drawing-room mantel, the luster and + Washington jugs in the dining-room, and the cabinets in the + hall. + + Sincerely yours, + EMMELINE PHELPS-PARSONS. + + P.S. I hope it is really true that there is an Influence in + Hynds House? I do so greatly long to come in contact with + the Occult and the Unknown! + +"Somewhere on the firing-line of fifty," mused Alicia. "A lady with +a soul. Don't you hear dear old Boston calling you, Sophy? Here's +one to put Miss Martha Hopkins's light under a bushel basket!" + +We had several other inquirers; and chose from them Mr. Chetwynd +Harrison-Gore and his daughter, English folk "doing" America and +delighted to include a Carolina colonial house in their trip; a +suffrage leader, whose throat needed a rest; and Morenas, the +illustrator. It seemed that Hynds House offered to each one +something that had been craved for. + +The Author pounced upon us two or three days before we expected him, +to take stock after his own fashion. I have heard The Author +commended for "the humor of his rare smile and the keen, kind +intellectuality of his remarkable eyes." Well, the smile was rare +enough; and of course there isn't any doubt about the man's +intellectuality. For the rest, he proved to be a tall, lanky, +stooping person, with a thin tanned face, outstanding ears, a high +nose, and long, blue-gray eyes half-hidden under drooping lids and +behind glasses. His hair was just hair. And he had the sort of +mustache that bristled like a cat's when he twisted his lip. + +So far as monetary success, and efficacious press-agents, and the +adulation, admiration, emulation, and envy of his contemporaries +went, he had nothing to complain of. He was lionized, quoted, +courted, flattered, reviewed, viewed through rose-colored +spectacles; and disillusioned, discontented, cynical, selfish, and, +of course, most horribly bored. He was gun-shy of women; he +suspected them of wanting to marry him. He was wary of men; he +suspected them of wanting to exploit him. He loathed children, who +were generally obstreperous and unnecessary editions of parents he +didn't admire. He didn't even trust the beautiful works of men's +hands. They, even they, were too often faked! If you had dug up the +indubitable mummy of the first Pharaoh from under the oldest of the +pyramids, The Author would have turned him over on his back and +hunted for the trade-mark of The Modern Mummy-makers: London, Paris, +and New York; Catalogue on Request. + +He stalked through Hynds House with slitted eyes and bristling +mustache--business of silent sleuth on the trail of the +furniture-fakir! He'd pause at each door and with an eagle glance +take a comprehensive survey; then, defensively, offensively, he +examined things in detail. From our rambling attics to our vast and +cavernous cellars did he go; and not a word crossed his lips until +he had completed this conandoyley examination. Then: + +"Telegraph form if you have one, please," he requested briefly. "I +wish to wire for my car. Put Johnson in the room next mine. +Johnson's my secretary." He looked at Alicia, reflectively. "Amiable +ass, Johnson," he volunteered. Then he went over to the tiled +fireplace--we were in the library--and bent worshipfully before it. + +"The finest bit of tile-work on this continent," he said, in a +hushed voice. "Absolutely perfect. And it belongs to a woman named +Smith!" + +"We know just how you feel about it," Alicia told him +sympathetically, while The Author turned red to his ears. "I have +often felt like that myself, when something I particularly wanted +was bought by somebody I was sure couldn't properly appreciate it. I +dare say I was mistaken," admitted Alicia, "just as mistaken as you +are now in thinking that Sophy and I aren't worthy of those tiles. +We are--all the more so because we never before had anything like +them." + +The spoiled darling of success looked at us intently; and a most +curious change came over his clever, bad-tempered face. His eyes are +as bright as ice, and have somewhat the same cold light in them. Now +a thaw set in and melted them, and a mottled red spread over his +sallow cheeks. + +"Miss Gaines," he said, abruptly, "your doll-baby face does your +intelligence an injustice--Miss Smith, I apologize." And before the +astonished and indignant Alicia could summon a withering retort, he +added heartily: "This whole place is quite the real thing, you +know--almost too good to be true and too true to be good. Would you +mind telling me how you happened to think of letting me in on it, +eh?" + +"Because we knew it _was_ the real thing," Alicia replied, +truthfully. + +"Do you know,"--The Author was plainly pleased--"that that is one of +the very nicest things that's ever been said to me? Because I really +_do_ know above a bit about genuine stuff." + +"It must be a great relief to you to hear something pleasant about +yourself that is also something true," I said with sympathy. The +Author grinned like a hyena, and Alicia giggled. "Because you must +be bored to extinction, having to listen to all sorts of people +ascribe to you all sorts of virtues that no one man could possibly +possess and remain human." I was remembering some of the fulsome +flubdub I'd read about him. + +"Hark to her!" grinned The Author. "What! you don't believe all the +nice things you've read about me?" + +"I do not." + +"You don't in the least look or write like a dehumanized saint, you +know," supplemented Alicia, laughing. + +"What _do_ I look like, then?" He sat on the edge of a table and +cuddled a bony knee. Behind his glasses his eyes began to twinkle. + +"You look more like yourself than you do like your photographs," +decided Alicia. + +The Author threw up his hands. + +"And now, tell me this, please: How, when, where, and from whom, did +you acquire the supreme art of aiding and abetting an old house to +grow young again without losing its character?" + +"We were born," Alicia explained, "with the inherent desire to do +just what we have been able to do here. This house gave us our big +chance. But it wouldn't have been so--so in keeping with itself," +she was feeling for the right words, "if it hadn't been for Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik." + +The Author pricked up his intellectual ears. His eyes narrowed. + +"Jelnik? I knew a Jelnik, an Austrian alienist; met him at dinner at +the American Ambassador's in Vienna; quiet, unassuming, pleasant +man, and one of the greatest doctors in Europe." + +"Mr. Jelnik is Doctor Jelnik's son." + +"What!" shrieked The Author. And with unfeigned amazement: "In the +name of high heaven, what is Jelnik's son doing _here_?" + +"Mr. Jelnik's mother was a Miss Hynds. She met and married your +doctor abroad." + +That sixth sense possessed by him to an unusual degree, warned him +that he was on the trail of Copy. + +"May I ask questions?" he demanded. + +"Of course." + +"You inherited this property from an old aunt, I believe?" + +"She wasn't my aunt, really. She married my mother's uncle, Johnny +Scarlett." + +"I see. And Jelnik's mother was a Miss Hynds. How long has he been +here?" + +"For some time before we came." + +"Near neighbor of yours?" + +"Yes," Alicia put in; "and Doctor Richard Geddes is our neighbor on +the other side. His grandmother was a Miss Hynds." + +"Pardon a writer-man's curiosity," begged The Author, smiling. "But +this house is unusual, very unusual. While I am here I shall look up +its history. It should make good copy." + +Having a pretty shrewd idea of The Author's powers of finding out +what he wanted to find out, we thought it better that he should hear +that history, as we knew it. If the mystery had ever been solved, +the tragedy of Hynds House would have had but passing interest for +The Author. But the undiscovered piqued and puzzled him and aroused +his combative egotism. + +From the pictured face of Freeman--dark, stern, uncommunicative--he +trotted back to the drawing room to look again at the boyish face of +little Richard leaning against his pretty mother's knees; at the +haughty, handsome face of James Hampden; and at beautiful dark +Jessamine, who had a long black curl straying across the shoulder of +a blue frock, and a curled red lip, and a breast of snow. + +"Freeman was not a crook; his face is hard, stern, bigoted, +secretive, but honest. Yet if he didn't do it himself what was he +trying to tell when death cut off his wind? If he did it, where did +he hide the plunder? Here in this house? His family must have known +every nook and cranny as well as he did himself, and he could be +sure they'd pull it to pieces in the search that would ensue. + +"If Richard were the thief, to whom did he give the loot? If the +gems had been put upon the market, some trace of them must have been +discovered. Remains: Who got them? Where did they go?" + +"That's what the unhappy people in this house asked a century ago, +and there was no answer," I remarked, soberly. + +"And that poor woman Jessamine went mad trying to solve it!" he +said, looking at her with commiseration. And after a pause: "And so +the lady who left her husband's grandniece the house of her +forebears was Freeman's daughter: and the Austrian doctor's son is +Richard's great-great-grandson! I meet Jelnik _père_ in Vienna, and +come to Hyndsville, South Carolina, to meet Jelnik _fils_. H'm! +Decidedly, the situation has nice possibilities!" + +Whereupon he took note-book and fountain-pen from his coat pocket +and in the most composed manner began to jot down the outstanding +features of Hynds House history. + +"It will give me something to puzzle over while I'm here," he +remarked, complacently. It did! + +The Author approved of Hynds House. It had all the charm of a new +and quaint field of exploration and research, and there was nothing +in it to offend his hypercritical judgment. I have a shrewd +suspicion that Mary Magdalen's cooking played no mean part in his +satisfaction. His prowess as a trencherman aroused the admiration +and respect of Fernolia, who waited on table. Fernolia had learned +to admire herself in her smart apron and cap, and to serve +creditably enough. Only twice did she fall from grace; once was the +morning The Author broke his own record for waffles. Fernolia, +excited and astonished, placed the last platter before him, raised +the cover with a flourish, and remarked with deep meaning: + +"_Dem's all!_" + +The second time was when we had what Mary Magdalen calls "mulatto +rice," which is a dish built upon a firm foundation of small strips +of bacon, onion, stewed tomatoes, and rice, and a later and last +addition of deliciously browned country sausages. Fernolia, beaming +upon The Author hospitably, broke her parole: + +"You ain't called to skimp yo'self none on dat rice," she told him +confidentially. "De cook done put yo' name in de pot _big_. She say +she glad we-all got man in de house to 'preciate vittles. Yes-_suh_, +Ma'y Magdalen aim to make you bust yo' buttonholes whilst you hab de +chanst." + +I am told that The Author always makes a great hit when he tells +that on himself, and is considered tremendously clever because he +can imitate Fernolia's soft South Carolina drawl. + +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, whom he managed to meet within the week, +aroused The Author's professional interest. For once his tried and +tested powers of turning other people's minds inside out failed +utterly. His innocent-sounding queries, his adroit leads, were +smilingly turned aside. The defense, so far as Mr. Jelnik was +concerned, was ridiculously simple: he didn't want to talk about +himself and he didn't do it. + +He was perfectly willing to talk, when the humor seized him, and he +did talk, brilliantly, wittily, freely, and impersonally. The +egoistic "I" was conspicuous by its absence. And while he talked you +could see the agile antennæ of The Author's winged mind feeling +after the soul-string that might lead him through the mazes of this +unusual character. That he could be deftly diverted filled The +Author with chagrin mingled with wonder. + +He manoeuvered for an invitation to the gray cottage and secured +it with suspicious ease; called, and had a glass of most excellent +wine in his host's simplest of bachelor living-rooms; made the +closer acquaintance of Boris--he didn't care for dogs--and of +self-contained, dark-faced Daoud, Mr. Jelnik's East Indian +man-servant; and came home dissatisfied and determined. He scented +"copy," and a born writer after copy is, next to an Apache after a +scalp or a Dyak after his enemy's head, the most ruthless of created +beings. He will pick his mother's naked soul to pieces, bore into +his wife's living brain, dissect his daughter's quivering heart, +tear across his sister's mind, rip up his father's life and his best +friend's character, lay bare the tomb itself, and make for himself +an ink of tears and blood that he may write what he finds. Of such +is the kingdom of Genius. + +And in the meantime the wondrous news that The Author himself was +staying at Hynds House, percolated through Hyndsville and soaked to +the bone. The Author was too big a figure to be ignored, even by +South Carolina people. Something had to be done. But how shall one +become acquainted with a notoriously unfriendly and gun-shy +celebrity, a personage of such note that every utterance means +newspaper space; and at the same time manage utterly to ignore and +cast into outer darkness the people with whom the great one is +staying? + +The town felt itself put upon its mettle. The first move was made by +Miss Martha Hopkins. It was understood that if anybody could clear +the way, carry a difficult position with skill and aplomb, that +somebody was Miss Martha Hopkins. + +She didn't bear down directly upon The Author: that would have been +crude. She opened her campaign by a flank movement upon Alicia and +me, in her capacity of secretary and treasurer of the missionary +society. + +Miss Hopkins sailed into Hynds House on a perfect afternoon, to +discuss with us a proposed rummage-sale which was to benefit the +heathen. She wasn't really worrying about the heathen: he had all +the rest of his benighted life to get himself saved in, hadn't he? +All the while she sat there and talked about him, she was really +loaded to the muzzle with pertinent remarks to affluent authors. + +She had come with the hope of chancing upon the great man himself; +and, failing that, she meant to pump Alicia and me of enough +material to, say, enable her to use a part of her stock of pet +adjectives in the paper she would prepare for the next meeting of +the literary society. She had a pretty stock of adjectives--plump, +purple words like _lyric_, and _liquid_, and _plastic_, and +_subtile_, and _poignancy_, with every now and then a _chiaoscuro_ +thrown in for good measure; and a whole melting-pot full of "rare +emotional experiences," "art that was almost intuitive in its +passion, so subtly did it"--oh, do all sorts of things!--and +"handling the plastic outlines of the theme with rare emotional +skill and mastery of technique," "purest lyricism lifted to heights +of poignancy,"--all that sort of stuff, you know. Next time a +writer, or, better still, a fiddler or a pianist comes to your town, +look in your home paper the morning after, and you'll see it. + +As it happened, The Author was not at home. His secretary had +arrived a day or two before, and after unloading a systemful of copy +upon that faithful beast of burden, The Author had given himself a +half-holiday with old Riedriech, who knew quite enough about old +furniture to win his interest and affection. + +Miss Hopkins, then, had Alicia and me to herself. Sedately we +discussed rummage-sales, and the effect of cotton shirts upon the +adolescent cannibal; and all the while Miss Hopkins was stealthily +watching doors and windows and hoping that high heaven would send +The Author to her hands. We hadn't so much as mentioned his name. It +pleased us to sit there and watch her trying to make us do so. + +The iron knocker on the front door sounded. And ushered in by +Queenasheeba, there stood Nicholas Jelnik with great gray Boris +beside him, and beauty and glamour and romance upon him like a +light. Miss Hopkins had seen him on the streets, but hadn't met him +personally. I don't think she relished the fact that she had to come +to Hynds House to do so. Nor could she save herself from the crudity +of staring with all her eyes at this handsome offshoot of the +Hyndses, with what in a less polite person might well have been +called avid curiosity. + +"Miss Leetchy," (he had gaily borrowed Fernolia's pronunciation of +Alicia's name), "I have brought you the butter-scotch your soul +hankers after. I fear you can never hope to grow up, Miss Leetchy, +while you cherish a jejune passion for butter-scotch." + +"Oh, I don't know. It might have been fudge!" Alicia replied airily. +"But thank you, Mr. Jelnik: it was very nice of you to remember." + +"Yes. I have such an excellent memory," said he, blandly. "Miss +Smith, this preserved ginger is laid at your shrine. If you offer me +a piece or two, I shall accept with thanks: I like preserved ginger, +myself.--Boris, you'll prefer butter-scotch. You may ask Miss Gaines +to give you a piece." + +Miss Hopkins, it appeared, despised butter-scotch, and abhorred +preserved ginger. + +"I saw The Author hiking across lots a while since. Nice, +open-hearted, neighborly man, The Author.--Oh, by the way, Miss +Smith: is it, or is it not written in the Book of Darwin that the +gadfly is one of the distinct evolutionary links in the descent of +man?" + +"Good heavens, certainly not!" cried Miss Hopkins. And she looked +strangely upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik. + +"No? Thank you. I was in doubt," murmured Mr. Jelnik. The golden +flecks danced in and out of his eyes. "But we were speaking of The +Author: may I ask how The Author appeals to you as a human being, +Miss Hopkins?" + +"I do not know him as a human being," Miss Hopkins admitted. + +Mr. Jelnik looked surprised. His eyebrows went up. + +"Oh, come, now!" he demurred. "He isn't so bad as all _that_!" + +"Oh, dear me, no!" Alicia protested, in a shocked voice. "He may +have abrupt manners and say unexpected things, but he is perfectly +respectable, Miss Hopkins! There's never been a _breath_ against his +character. I thought you knew," purred the hussy, demurely. "Why, +he's dined at the White House, and lunched and motored and yachted +with royalties, and lectured before the D.A.R.'s themselves! And he +belongs to at least a dozen societies. There are,"--Alicia was +enjoying her naughty self immensely--"good authors and bad authors. +Sometimes the bad authors are good, and sometimes the good authors +are bad. But our author is more than either: he's It!" + +"You entirely and strangely misunderstand me." Miss Hopkins spoke +with the deadly gentleness of suppressed fury. "I had no slightest +intention of reflecting upon the character of so eminent a writer, +with whose career, Miss Gaines, I am thoroughly familiar. I was +merely trying to explain that I had never met him." + +"Oh, I see. Of course! I should have remembered that!" + +Miss Hopkins's entire contempt for Alicia's mentality overcame any +suspicion she might have entertained. Also, she had come determined +to discover what she could about The Author, and she was not one +lightly to be put aside. She said, smiling tolerantly: + +"Of course you should! But mayn't I congratulate _you_ upon knowing +him? Having him here in Hynds House almost justifies turning the old +place into a boarding-house, doesn't it?" + +"The Author," Mr. Jelnik remarked gently, "has a very sensitive +soul. I shudder to think what the effect upon him would be were he +to hear himself referred to as a boarder. My dear Miss Hopkins, +never, never let him hear you designate him 'boarder'!" + +"Who's talking about boarders?" asked a hearty voice, and Doctor +Richard Geddes came in like a gale of mountain air. + +"Miss Hopkins. She thinks The Author's presence almost justifies the +turning of Hynds House into a boarding-house," answered Mr. Jelnik. +He added, thoughtfully, "Curious notion; isn't it?" + +"Martha has plenty more," said the doctor, bluntly. "Boarding-house? +Well, supposing? What was it before? A hyena-cage, Martha, a +hyena-cage, into which you'd be the last to venture your nose, my +dear woman! I say, put on your bonnets, all of you, and let's have a +spin in the fresh air. The roads are gorgeous. You can come too, +Jelnik: there's room for five." + +Mr. Jelnik was desolated: he had a pressing engagement. Miss Hopkins +rose precipitately. She also had an engagement; besides, she liked +to walk. People needed to walk more than they did. The reason why +one saw so many bad figures nowadays, was that people lolled around +in automobiles instead of walking. + +"Well, walking is certainly good for you, Martha. It helps you to +reduce," the doctor agreed. Miss Hopkins said dryly that the little +walking she intended to do just then wouldn't affect her weight any. +And that Doctor Geddes should himself take to walking: men always +got fat as they neared fifty. + +"Fat! Fifty!" roared the doctor, with enraged astonishment. "Why, +I'm not by some years as old as you are, Martha! You were several +classes ahead of me in school, don't you remember? I am exactly +thirty-nine years old, and as you know everything else, you ought to +know that!" + +Miss Hopkins studied him with a balefully level eye. + +"You really can't blame anybody for forgetting it, Richard," she +said, ambiguously. + +"You are to recollect, Geddes, that a woman is always as young as +she looks," (Mr. Jelnik bowed, smilingly, to Miss Hopkins), "and a +man is older than he feels," he added, for the doctor's benefit. + +"All right. Let's say I feel as good as Martha looks," the doctor's +momentary ill humor vanished. Miss Hopkins smiled. She had stuck her +claws into him and drawn blood; but her fur was still ruffled. + +Mr. Jelnik made his adieus, Boris offering each of us a polite paw. + +"And now," the doctor ordered briskly, "to your spinning, jades, to +your spinning! Into my car, the three of you! No, Martha, I will +_not_ take a refusal; you shall not walk: you've got to come along, +if I have to tuck you under my arm. I don't care if you never +reduce. What do you want to reduce for, anyhow? You're all right +just as you are! There! are you satisfied?" + +We stood by passively while the masterful doctor heckled and hustled +the unhappy Center of Culture into his car. With heaven knows what +feelings, she found herself seated beside me, Sophy Smith, while +Alicia, beside the doctor, tossed gay remarks over her shoulder. +Miss Hopkins realized that all Hyndsville would witness what she +herself knew to be high-handed capture by force, but which must +hideously resemble capitulation; and she also realized that +explanations never explain. + +I respected her misery enough to keep silent, and she made no +attempt to converse. Her hat slid forward at a rakish angle over one +ear, and her hair blew about her face in stringy wisps, as the +doctor broke the speed laws on the long, level stretches of quiet +roads. When we came to a rough spot she bounced up and down (one +might hear her breath exhaled in a--well, yes, in a grunt) but she +made no complaint, uttered no protest. She was a shackled and +voiceless victim, until we finally drew up at her own gate, after an +hour's jaunt, and allowed her to escape. + +"Why, Martha, our little spin has given you a fine color!" remarked +the doctor, genuinely pleased. Two conspicuously red spots shone in +Miss Hopkins's cheeks, and her eyes were extremely bright. "We'll +have to take you out with us again," he added, genially. + +"Shall you, Richard?" muttered Miss Hopkins, and scuttled up her +front path, + + Like one who in a lonesome wood + Doth walk in fear and dread, + Because he knows a frightful fiend + Doth close behind him tread! + +By and large, I should say that the honors were with Alicia. + +The Author's secretary was pacing up and down the garden when we +reached home, with Potty Black careering after him and every now and +then dashing into the shrubbery to put to flight Beautiful Dog, who +was also enamored of the young man with the nice smile and the good +brown eyes. He had a great affection for animals, as they seemed to +understand. + +Beautiful Dog laid aside, for his sake, his fear of white people, +and slunk after him fawningly, wagging what did duty as a tail, and +showing every tooth in an ear-to-ear grin. At sight of us, Beautiful +Dog gave a dismal yelp and disappeared. + +"Let's sit in the library," coaxed the secretary. "I want you +please to allow me to hold in my hands your copy of 'Purchas his +Pilgrimes.' The Author dreams about that book out loud. Oh, yes, +another thing I want to ask you: what sort of perfume do you use, +and where do you get it?" + +My scalp prickled. + +"I noticed it in the upper hall last night," went on the secretary, +innocently. "It was pervasive, but at the same time so delicate, so +elusive, that I couldn't determine what it was. I am very sensitive +to perfumes." + +"So are we," Alicia told him. "And if what you think you smelled is +what we think we smell, it isn't a--a regular perfume. It's a--a--a +something that belongs to Hynds House." + +The library was flooded with the ruddy light of sunset. Every bit of +color in the big room stood out against a golden background, and a +great golden spear fell across the dark, brooding face of Freeman +Hynds above the old tiled fireplace. In that rosy glow he seemed to +look down at us with living eyes. + +"Is that so?" The secretary stopped; and his head went up and his +nose wrinkled. For the "something that belonged to Hynds House" +walked upon the air with invisible feet. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PEACOCKS AND IVORY + + +"Sophy, do you remember the night we talked it over, and decided to +come here, and you were afraid of the new soil's effect upon +yourself?" + +"Of course. Why?" + +"Oh, because." + +"Because why?" + +"Just because.--I wish to gracious you had a little saving vanity, +Sophy Smith!" + +"And what, then, is _this_?" I asked ironically, and rustled my +skirts. For the Westmacotes were to arrive that night, in time for +dinner, and I, standing before the mirror in my room, was what +Alicia called "really dressed" for the first time in my life. + +"From your point of view, this is a business necessity. From mine, +it is applied morality. Why, Sophy, you're _stunning_! Here, sit +down: I have to loosen up that hair a bit." + +"Now!" said she, when she had critically surveyed her finished work +and found it good, "Now, Sophy Smith, you are no longer efficient +and utilitarian; you are effective and decorative, thank heaven!" + +Really, clothes do make a tremendous difference, after all. Why, +I--Well, I no longer looked root-bound. + +"I said you'd put out new leaves and begin to bloom!" Alicia +exulted. We bowed to the Sophy in the glass, a small and slender +person with quantities of fair hair, a round white chin, and steady +blue eyes. For the rest, she had a short nose and the rather wide +mouth of a boy. She wasn't what you'd call a beautiful person, but +she wasn't displeasing to the eye. + +"_Vale_, plain Sophy Smith!" cried Alicia, "_Ave_, dear Lady of +Hynds House! We who about to live salute you!" + +The Westmacotes were delighted with Alicia. The Head had noticed her +just about as much as a Head notices a pale file-clerk in a white +shirt-waist and a black skirt. This radiant rose-maiden--"little +Dawn-rose," old Riedriech called her--was new to him; and so, I +fancy, was a Miss Smith in such a frock as I was wearing. He, as +well as his wife and Miss Phelps-Parsons, accepted us at our +face-value, with the background of Hynds House outlining us. + +Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons was a lady with a soul. She said she +had psychic consciousness and a clear green aura, and that she had +been an Egyptian priestess in Thebes, in the time of Sesostris. In +proof of this she showed us a fine little bronze Osiris holding a +whip in one hand and the ankh in the other. ("My dear, the moment I +saw him, I knew I had once prayed to him!") and she always wore a +scarab ring. She had bought both in an antique-shop just off +Washington Street. I thought this rather a far cry from Thebes, +myself, but The Author insisted that if a Theban vestal of the time +of Sesostris _had_ to reincarnate, she would naturally and +inevitably come to life a Boston one. + +The Author hadn't taken any too kindly to the notion of other people +coming to Hynds House. He grumbled that he had hoped he had at last +found a quiet haven, a place that fitted him like a glove; he +protested piercingly against having it "cluttered up with +uninteresting, gobbling, gabbling, ordinary people." + +"You came too late. You should have been here with Great-Aunt +Sophronisba," Alicia told him, tartly. "You'd have been ideal +companions, both of you beware-of-the-doggy, hair-trigger-tempery, +all-to-your-selfish." + +The Author gasped, and rubbed his eyes. Never, never, in all his +pampered life, had one so spoken to him. + +"Why, of all the cheek!" exploded The Author. "Am I to be flouted +thus by a piece of pink-and-whiteness just escaped from the nursery +pap-spoon?" + +"Out of the mouths of babes--" insinuated Alicia. + +The Author grinned. And his grin is redeeming. + +"Sweet-and near-twenty," he explained. "I am not exactly +all-to-myselfish, but I demand plenty of elbow-room in my existence. +Generally speaking, my own society bores me less than the society of +the mutable many. I like Hynds House. And I like you two women. You +are not tiresome to the ear, wearisome to the mind, nor displeasing +to the eye. I am even sensible of a distinct feeling of satisfaction +in knowing that you are somewhere around the house. You belong. But +I'm hanged if I want to see strangers come in. I object to +strangers. Why are strangers necessary?" + +"For the same reason that you were." + +"I?" The Author's eyebrows were almost lost in his hair. "My dear, +deluded child, I knew this house, and you, and Sophy Smith, before +you were born! I knew you," The Author declared unblushingly, +"before _I_ was born! Now, am I a stranger?" + +"Then you ought to know why Sophy and I have just got to have +people, the sort of people who are coming." She paused. "_We_ +haven't best-seller royalties piled up to the roof!" + +"No," said The Author, bitterly, "but I have. That's why I am +forever plagued with strangers. That's why, when I discover a place +and people that suit me to perfection, I can't keep 'em to myself! +Oh, da--drat it all, anyhow!" + +"But they aren't coming to see you. They're coming to see Hynds +House," Alicia reminded him soothingly. "Besides, I don't think +they're the sort of folks that care much for authors," she finished, +encouragingly. + +"They'll care about _me_" grumbled The Author glumly. "But let 'em +come and be hanged to them! I shall take--" + +"Soothing syrup?" + +"Long walks!" snarled The Author. "I shall work all night and be +invisible all day." + +The Westmacotes, as Alicia said, didn't greatly care for authors, +though they sat up and took polite notice of this one. (One owed +that to one's self-respect.) Only Miss Emmeline paid more than +passing attention to him, though her interest really centered in Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik, who was dining with us that night, as was Doctor +Richard Geddes. + +Mr. Jelnik's presence had the effect of lightening The Author's +gloom. His eyes brightened, his dejection changed into alertness, +and there began that subtle game of under-the-surface thrust and +parry that seemed inevitable when the two met. Mr. Westmacote +listened with quiet enjoyment. His dinner was to his taste, Hynds +House more than came up to his expectations, Alicia was Cinderella +after the fairy's wand had passed over her, _I_ had ceased to be a +mere person and become a personage; and he found here such men as +Doctor Geddes, The Author, and Nicholas Jelnik. The Head smiled at +his wife, and was at peace with the world. + +Miss Emmeline had already discovered the Lowestoft and Spode pieces +in our built-in cupboards; that there were two perfect apostle jugs +in the cabinet in the hall: that our Chelsea figures were lovelier +than any she had heretofore seen; and that Hynds House, in which +everything was genuine, had an atmosphere that appealed to her soul, +or maybe matched her clear-green aura. Anyhow, the house reached out +for Miss Emmeline as with hands and laid its spell upon her +enduringly. + +She sat beside me, with Alicia's pet album of Confederate generals +on her knees. + +"I never thought I'd have a sentimental regard for rebels," she +confessed. "But, oh, they were gallant and romantic figures, when +one looks at their old photographs here in Hynds House. I am +Massachusetts to the bone, but I don't want to hear 'Marching +through Georgia' while I'm here!" + +Mr. Jelnik, overhearing her, laughed. "Perhaps I may find for you +something more in keeping with Hynds House," he said, and sauntered +over to the old piano. Unexpectedly it came to life. And he began to +sing: + + It was the silent, solemn hour + When night and morning meet, + In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, + And stood at William's feet. + Her face was like an April morn + Clad in a wintry cloud: + And clay-cold was her lily hand, + That held her sable shroud. + +The Author shaded his eyes with his hand, his gaze riveted upon the +singer. Alicia leaned forward, lips parted, face like an uplifted +flower, eyes large with wonder and delight. The Confederate generals +slid from Miss Emmeline's lap and lay face downward, forgotten. +Westmacote's faded little wife, who had no children, crept closer to +her big husband; and gently, unobtrusively, he reached out and took +her hand in his warm grasp. + + Why did you promise love to me + And not that promise keep? + Why did you swear mine eyes were bright, + Yet leave those eyes to weep? + Why did you say my face was fair, + And yet that face forsake? + How could you win my virgin heart, + Yet leave that heart to break? + +I am sure there is no lovelier and more touching ballad in all our +English treasury than that sad, simple, and most beautiful old song. +And he had set it to an air as simple and as perfect as its own +words, an old-world air that suited it and his rich and flexible +voice. + +"Why, Jelnik!" exclaimed Doctor Geddes, in a voice of pure +astonishment, "I knew you could tinkle out a tune on a piano, but, +man, I didn't dream it was in you to sing like this!" And he stared +at his cousin. + +"I'd make bold to swear that Mr. Jelnik has a dozen more surprises +up his sleeve, if he chose to let us see them," The Author said +pleasantly. + +"My father's system of education included music. For which I praise +him in the gates," Mr. Jelnik replied casually. + +"'Tinkle out a tune on a piano'!" breathed Alicia, and cast a look +of deep disdain upon the blundering doctor. "Why, I've never in all +my life heard anybody sing like that!" + +But I saw him through a mist, and felt my heart ache and burn in my +breast, and wondered what he was doing here in my house that might +have been his house, and how I was going to walk through my life +after he had gone out of it. + +I had a wild desire to run outside into the dark night and the +hushed garden, away from everybody and weep and weep, despairingly. +Because a veil had been torn from my eyes this night, and I knew +that the cruellest thing that can happen to a woman had happened to +me. There could be but one thing more bitter--that he or anybody +else in the world should know it. + +So I sat there, dumb, while everybody else said pleasant things to +him, their voices sounding afar, far off. + +After a while we went into the living-room where our new piano is, +and he played for us--Hungarian things, I think. Then he drifted +into Chopin, and Alicia stood by and turned his music for him. + +"Those two," whispered Miss Emmeline, "are the most idyllic figures +I have ever seen." I think she sighed as she said it. "Youth is the +most beautiful thing in the world," she added. + +The Westmacotes, weary after a long journey, retired early. Mr. +Jelnik and Doctor Geddes had gone off together. The secretary had to +finish a chapter. The Author lingered to ask, oddly enough, if I had +the original plan of Hynds House. Did I know who designed it? + +"Why don't you interview Judge Gatchell?" + +"I did. He was polite and friendly enough, but knows no more than +is strictly legal. He told me he found Hynds House here when he +arrived and expected to leave it here when he departed. And Geddes +knows no more. Geddes isn't interested in Hynds House by itself," +finished The Author, with a crooked smile. + +"Perhaps Mr. Jelnik may have some family papers." + +"Perhaps he may. I'd give something for a whack at those papers, +Miss Smith." + +"Why not ask him to let you see them, then?" + +"Tut, tut!" said The Author, crossly, and took himself off. + +When I was kimonoed, braided, and slippered, Alicia in like raiment +came in from her room next to mine, sat down on the floor, and +leaned her head against my knees, with her cheek against my hand. + +For a while, as women do, we discussed the events of the evening. +Both of us had deep cause for gratification; yet both of us were +strangely subdued. + +"Sophy, Peacocks and Ivory is a very wonderful person, isn't he?" +hesitated Alicia, after a long pause. She didn't lift her head; and +the cheek against my hand was warmer than usual. + +"Yes," I agreed, quietly, "so wonderful that something never to be +replaced will have gone out of our lives when he goes away, and +doesn't come back any more. For that is what the Nicholas Jelniks +do, my dear." + +"Is it?" Again she spoke after a pause. "I wonder! Somehow, +I--Sophy, he belongs here. He's--why, Sophy, he's a part of the +glamour." + +"I'm afraid glamour hasn't part nor place in plain folks' lives." + +"But we aren't plain folks any more, either, Sophy," she insisted. +"Why--why--_we're_ part of the glamour, too!" + +"That is just about half true." + +Alicia ignored this. She asked, instead: + +"Did you hear what that great blundering doctor said about tinkling +out a tune on a piano?" + +I could hear Mr. Jelnik praised by her or doubted by The Author. But +somehow I could not bear any criticism of Doctor Geddes just then. I +said stiffly: + +"I have learned to appreciate Doctor Geddes." + +"You are far too fair-minded not to." Presently: "Sophy?" + +"Uh-huh." + +"We aren't ever going to be sorry we came here--together--are we, +Sophy? And we won't ever let anybody come between us. Not anybody. +Not The Author--nor his secretary--nor whatever guests come--nor Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik--nor--nor Doctor Richard Geddes." Her head pressed +closer to my knees. + +"We came first, you and I," said Alicia, in a muffled whisper. "We +are more to each other than any of them can be to us. You'll +remember that, won't you?" + +"I will remember, you absurd Alicia!" But I did not ask my dear girl +what her incoherent words might mean. I did not ask why the soft +cheek against my hand was wet. + +As I have said before, Hynds House is but two stories high, with +deep cellars under it, and an immense attic overhead; an attic all +cut up into nooks and corners, and twists and turns, and sloping +roofs and dormer windows, and two or three shallow steps going up +here, and two or three more going down there, and passages and doors +where you'd never look for them. We had never been able fully to +explore our attic. It was Ali Baba's cave to us, with half its +treasures unguessed and every trunk and box whispering, "Say 'Open, +Sesame,' to me, and see what you'll find!" + +While I was sitting with Alicia's head against my knee, a light, +swift footstep sounded overhead in the attic, followed by a sort of +stumble, as if somebody had slipped on one of those unexpected +steps. Alicia rose quickly. + +"Sophy," she breathed, "I have thought, once or twice, that I heard +somebody walking in the attic." + +"We will soon find out who it is, then," said I. Noiselessly we +stole out into the hall, past the sleeping Westmacotes, and Miss +Emmeline Phelps-Parsons who so longed to come in closer contact with +the occult and unknown. We moved like ghosts, ourselves, our +felt-soled mules making no sound. + +The Author opened his door just as we approached it, and held up an +imperious finger. + +"Did you hear it, too?" he whispered. And walking ahead of us, he +stole up the cork-screw stairway at the end of the side hall, lifted +the latch of the attic door, and stepped inside. + +It was frightfully dark up there. If you peered through the +uncurtained windows you could see tree-tops tossing like black waves +against the dark sky, and in between them rolling clouds, and little +bright patchwork spaces of stars. And it was so quiet you could hear +your heart beat, and your breathing seemed to rattle in your ears. +We strained our eyes, seeking to pierce the gloom, stealing forward +step by step. A board creaked, noisily; and then--I could have sworn +it--then something seemed to move across one of the dormer windows. +It was so vague, so shadowy, that one could not distinguish its +outline; one could only think that something moved. + +The Author gave an exclamation and switched on his electric torch, +trying to focus the circle of light upon that particular window. +There was nothing there. Only, it seemed to me that something, +incredibly swift and silent, flashed down one of the bewildering +turns to which our attic is addicted. But when we ran forward, the +passage was empty. We brought up at the red brick square of one of +the chimney stacks. + +Almost savagely The Author flashed his light over every inch of wall +and floor. Nothing. But on the close and musty air stole, not a +sound, but a scent. + +The Author swung around and trotted back. The window across which we +thought we had seen something move was fastened from the inside, and +there were one or two wooden boxes and a leather-covered trunk in +the dormer recess. He sniffed hound-like around these, and with an +exclamation leaned over. Behind the trunk crouched--Potty Black, +with a mouse clamped in her jaws. + +"For heaven's sake!" cried Alicia. "The cat! Sophy, what we heard +was the cat!" + +"Let us go," said The Author. And feeling rather silly, we trailed +after him. + +"You see," said I, "there is nothing. There never is anything." + +"Come in my room for a minute," The Author whispered, and there was +that in his voice which made us obey. + +Inside his door, he opened his hand. In his palm was a soiled and +crumpled scrap of tough, parchment-like paper about the size of an +ordinary playing-card, so frayed and creased that one had difficulty +in deciphering the writing on it. There clung to it a faint and +unforgetable scent. + +"It was behind the trunk, partly under the cat's black paw. I +smelled it when I leaned over, and I thought we might as well have a +look at it." said The Author. + +And on the following page is what The Author had found. + +'"Shades of E.A. Poe, and Robert Louis the Beloved! What have we +here?" cried The Author, joyously, and stood on one leg like a +stork. "Was there a Hynds woman named Helen? 'Turn Hellen's Key +three tens and three?' Some keyhole! I say, Miss Smith, let me keep +this for a while, will you?" + +"Do, Sophy, let him keep it!" pleaded Alicia. + + + {~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~} + { _Turne Hellens Keye_ } + { _Three Tennes & Three_ } + { _Ye Watcher in ye Darke Thoult See_ } + { } + { (*B*) } + { } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { } + { _As Neede Shall Rise_ } + { _So Mote It Bee_ } + { } + '~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~' + +"I'll take the best care of it, Miss Smith; indeed I will!" The +Author promised. "Look here: I'll lock it in the clothes-closet, in +the breast pocket of my coat." As he spoke, he opened the +cedar-lined closet, that was almost as big as a modern hall bedroom, +and put the paper in the breast pocket of his coat. Locking the +door, he placed the key under his pillow, and beside it a new and +businesslike Colt automatic. + +"There!" said The Author, confidently. "Nobody can get into that +closet without first tackling _me_. Now you girls go to bed. +To-morrow we'll tackle the unraveling." + +And we, remembering of a sudden that we were pig-tailed and +kimonoed, and that The Author himself resembled a step-ladder with a +shawl draped around it, departed hurriedly. + +He was late at the breakfast-table next morning. Gloom and +abstraction sat visibly upon him. He left his secretary to bear the +brunt of conversation with the Westmacotes and Miss Emmeline. For +once he failed to do justice to Mary Magdalen's hot biscuit, and +ignored Fernolia's astonished and concerned stare; even a whispered, +"Honey, is you-all got a misery anywheres?" failed to rouse him. I +found him, after a while, waiting for me in the library. + +"Miss Smith,"--The Author strode restlessly up and down--"this house +has a peculiar effect upon people; a very peculiar effect. Since I +came here, I have learned to walk in my sleep." And seeing my look +of astonishment, "I walked in my sleep last night. And I took that +bit of doggerel out of my coat pocket, locked the closet door, and +replaced the key under my pillow." + +"How strange! And where did you put it?" I wondered. + +"Exactly: where did I put it?" repeated The Author, rumpling his +hair with both hands. "That's what I want to know, myself. I've +looked everywhere in my room, and in Johnson's, and I can't find +the thing. It's gone," and he stalked out, with his shoulders +hunched to his ears. + +I sat still, staring out at the window. There was a thing I hadn't +told The Author, or even Alicia. I had no idea what the "bit of +doggerel" meant, if, indeed, it meant anything. But when I had held +Freeman Hynds's old diary in my hands, between the two pages +following the last entry had been a creased and soiled piece of +paper. I had seen it out of the tail of my eye, as the saying is. It +was only a glimpse, but one trained to handle many papers, as I had +been, has a quick and an accurate eye. And I knew that the paper +found by The Author in the attic, and now lost again, was the paper +I had seen in Freeman Hynds's diary. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE JUDGMENT OF SPRING + + +Judge Gatchell's nephews and nieces, brought by that punctilious +gentleman to call upon Miss Alicia Gaines, found her enchanting and +cried it to the circumambient air. It was as if the voice of April +had summoned the cohorts of Spring. For fresh-faced boys of a sudden +appeared in increasing numbers; and flower-faced girls came +fluttering into Hynds House like butterflies. They cared for its +history and its hatreds not a fig: what has April to do with last +November? The faith of Youth has a clearer-eyed wisdom, a sweeter, +sounder justice than the sourer verdict of the mature. For theirs is +the judgment of Spring. By this sign they conquer. + +Susy Gatchell enlisted Mary Meade and Helen Fenwick, and these three +held all younger Hyndsville in the hollow of their pink palms. After +which, as Doctor Richard Geddes told me wrathfully, you "couldn't +put your foot down without running the risk of stepping on some +little cockerel trying to crow around Hynds House." + +The tide was turning in our direction. Also, we were in daily +contact with really worth-while people, people that otherwise we +should have met only in books, magazines, and newspapers. And they +liked us. The amazing miracle was that we, also we, were their sort +of folk! + +I knew I was being given unbuyable things. One could not live under +the same roof with thin dark Luis Morenas and view what magic his +pencil worked, without learning somewhat of the holiness of creative +work. One couldn't listen to The Author without being somewhat +brightened by his daring wit, his glowing genius; nor live face to +face with big Westmacote without revering the broadness of the +American master spirit, to which Big Business is only a part of the +Great Game. As for Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, it didn't take +Alicia and me long to discover what real depths underlay that +Boston-spinster mind of hers. + +And you simply couldn't breathe the same air with The +Suffragist--who appeared with two trunks, three valises, and a +type-writer, all covered with "Votes for Women!" stickers--without +an expansion of the chest. She gave you the impression of having +been dressed by machinery out of gear, and of then having been +whacked flat with a shovel. When she clapped on what she called a +hat, you wondered whether a heron hadn't built its nest on her +head. But when she began to speak, you listened with the ears of +your immortal soul stretched wide. Women worshiped her, though Mr. +Jelnik's eyes danced, and Westmacote's military mustache bristled a +bit, and she all but drove Doctor Richard Geddes, who had notions of +his own, out of his senses. + +"Stop trying to argue with me, my dear man," she'd say in her rich +voice, "but come and let us reason together. I haven't heard one +word of reason from you yet!" And she'd let loose one of her +rollicking laughs that set the doctor's teeth on edge and made The +Author shudder. The Author snarled to me that she laughed like a +rolling-mill and reasoned like a head-on collision. He put her in +his new book, clothes and all. Just as Luis Morenas, with an edged +smile on his thin lips, made rapid-fire sketches of her. _He_ called +her "The Future-Maker." + +Now, shouldn't Alicia and I have been happy? And yet we weren't. +Alicia's laugh wasn't so frequent. I would catch her watching me, +with an odd, troubled, anxious speculation in her eyes. She had a +habit of blushing suddenly, and as quickly paling. And quietly, but +none the less surely and definitely, she had begun to avoid Doctor +Richard Geddes. It wasn't that she ceased to be friendly; but she +placed between herself and him one of those women-built, +impalpable, impassable barriers which baffled, puzzled men are +unable to tear down. It was impossible, I thought, that she should +remain blind to his open passion for herself: he was anything but +subtle, was Richard of the Lionheart. A blind man could have told, +from the mere sound of his voice, a deaf man from the mere +expression of his eyes, that Alicia had the big doctor's whole +heart. + +On his side, he was in deep waters. His ruddy color faded; his face +took on a fixed, grim intensity. And when he watched the girl +flirting now with this boy, now with that, after the innocent +fashion of natural girls, but always reserving a friendlier smile, a +more eager greeting, for Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, I was so sorry for +Doctor Richard that I couldn't help trying, covertly, to console +him. + +It so happened that Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, daughter of the +Puritans though she was, nevertheless had a distinct liking for what +she termed Episcopacy. She was pleased with old St. Polycarp's. She +liked Mrs. Haile, to whom she happened to mention that her +opportunities for studying the life of native women and children in +the East had been rather unusually good, since she had visited many +missionary stations in China and India. Things were languishing just +then, and Mrs. Haile looked at Miss Emmeline almost imploringly: +would she, could she, give the ladies a little lecture?--tell us +things first-hand, so to speak? + +Miss Emmeline reflected. She looked at Alicia and me. + +"Could we have it in your delightful library?" she wondered. "That +beautiful old room has a soul which speaks to mine. Dear Miss Smith, +would it be too much to ask you to let me have my little talk, a +very informal little lecture, in wonderful old Hynds House?" + +Mrs. Haile turned a sort of greenish pink. It wasn't for her to +suggest, after that, that it might be better to have the lecture in +the parsonage; any more than for me to hint, without ungraciousness, +that it might be just as well not to have it in Hynds House. Alicia +shot me one quizzical, Irish-blue glance when I said, "Yes." + +And that's how, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, all Hyndsville came +to Hynds House to hear Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons tell them "How +to Reach the Women of the East." Somehow, I rather think they were +as curious about two Yankee women as they were about those Eastern +women of whom Miss Emmeline was talking. I'm sure Hynds House was +just as interesting to them as Mohammedan harems and Indian zenanas. + +Miss Emmeline really spoke well, and her audience was interested in +her, in her theme, and in Hynds House. The Suffragist picked up the +thread where the less gifted woman dropped it, and in simple, living +phrases drove home the great truth of the sisterhood of all women. + +Which, of course, called for tea, and some of Mary Magdalen's +cookies. It was the cookies that caught The Author. Coming in from a +long and hungry prowl, he spied Fernolia crossing the hall with a +huge platter, got one tantalizing, mouth-watering odor, and dashed +after her, bent upon robbery. A second later he found himself in a +room full of women. Hyndsville was meeting The Author! + +Alicia introduced him, pleasantly. And, "Talk about angels--" said +she, gaily, "We have just this minute stopped talking about the +heathen! And may I give you a cup of tea?" + +"And a dozen or so cookies, please. Thank heaven for the heathen! +What is home without the heathen?--Without sugar, Miss Gaines, +without sugar! And for charity's sake, no lemon!" + +He sipped his tea and munched his cookies, with his head on one side +and the air of a thievish jackdaw; and proceeded, after his wont, to +extract such pith as the situation offered. + +"Doctor Johnson," Miss Martha Hopkins remembered, as she watched him +drinking his fourth cup of tea, "Doctor Johnson was also addicted +to tea-drinking. Most great literary men are, I believe." + +"It isn't possible you consider old Johnson a great literary man!" +The Author's eyebrows climbed into his hair. + +"Why! wasn't he?" Her eyes widened. She had as much respect for Dr. +Johnson as Miss Deborah Jenkyns had, though of course she never read +him. Life is too short. + +"Why! was he?" asked The Author. "Outside of Boswell--and _he_ was a +fool--I've never known anybody who thought he amounted to much." + +The Suffragist looked up. "Nelson had his Southey, Boswell had his +Johnson, and Mr. Modern Best-seller may well profit by their +example." And she smiled grimly. + +The Author's lip lifted. "Oh, but you couldn't do it!" he purred. +"And if I offered you the job you'd excuse your incapacity on the +ground that there wasn't anything to write about. I know you!" He +took another cooky. + +"Yes, I dare say I'd blurt out the truth. Women are like that," +admitted The Suffragist. + +"The female of the species is more deadly than the male," conceded +The Author. "Nevertheless," he raised his tea-cup gallantly, "To the +ladies!" He got up, leisurely. "And now I go," said he, "to paint +the lily and adorn the rose. In short, to set forth in adequate and +remunerative language the wit, wisdom, virtue, beauty, and +ornateness of woman as she thinks men think she is. Nature," +reflected The Author, smiling at The Suffragist, "made me a writer. +The devil, the editors, and the women have made me a best-seller." +And he departed, a cooky in each hand. + +That night one of the Gatchell boys took Alicia to a dance. She was +in blue and white, like an angel, and the Gatchell boy trod on air. +But to me came Doctor Richard Geddes, and threw himself into a +wing-chair. + +"Sophronisba Two," he asked, we being alone in the library, "what +have I done to offend Alicia?" + +"Is Alicia offended?" + +"Isn't she?" wondered the doctor. "She won't let me get near enough +to find out," he added gloomily. "And it isn't just. She ought to +know that--well, that I'd rather cut off my right hand than give her +real cause for offense. I'm going to ask you a straight, man +question; is that girl a--a flirt? She is not a--jilt?" + +"Heaven forbid!" + +"Does she care for anybody else?" + +"On my honor, I don't know." + +"It couldn't be any of these whipper-snappers of boys: she's not +that sort," worried the doctor. "Sophy, is it--Jelnik?" + +My heart stood still. I could make no reply. + +"I don't know. My dear friend, I don't know!" + +"It would be the most natural thing in the world," he reflected. +"Jelnik looks like Prince Charming himself. And, for all his surface +indolence, there's genius in the man. Why shouldn't she be taken +with him?" + +We looked at each other. + +"I see," said the doctor, quietly. "Now, little friend, what +concerns you and me is our dear girl's happiness. Does Jelnik care, +do you think?" + +"I don't know!" I said again. I felt like one on the rack. It seemed +to me I could hear my heart-strings stretching and snapping. "But +what is one girl's affection to a man born to be loved by women?" + +"He is indifferent to women, for the most part," the doctor said +thoughtfully. "He is so free from vanity, and at the same time so +reserved, that one has difficulty in getting at his real feelings." + +"She, also, is free from petty vanity," I told him. "She has an +innocent, happy pleasure in her own youth and prettiness, but hers +is the unspoiled heart of a child." + +"Who should know it better than I, that am a great hulking, +bad-tempered fellow twice her age!" groaned the doctor. "Yet, Sophy, +_I_ could make her happier than Jelnik could. Dear and lovely as she +is, she couldn't make him happy, either--Don't you think I'm a fool, +Sophy?" + +"No," said I, smiling wanly; "I don't." + +"This business of being in love is a damnable arrangement. Here was +I," he grumbled, "busy, reasonably happy, with a sound mind in a +sound body, and a digestion that was a credit to me. And along comes +a girl, and everything's changed! My work doesn't fill my days, my +food is bitter in my mouth, and I wake up in the night saying to +myself, 'You fool, you're chasing rainbows!' Sophy, don't you ever +fall in love with somebody you know you can't have! It's hell!" + +I didn't tell him I knew it. + +One of his men came to tell him he was needed urgently. As it meant +a thirty-mile trip and the night was cold, I made him wait for a cup +of coffee and an omelet." + +"Miss Smith--" + +"You said 'Sophy' a while ago. 'Sophy' sounds all right to me." + +"It sounds fine to me, too, Sophy." And he reached out and seized my +hand with a grip that made me wince. + +"I told you I was a bear!" he said, regretfully. + +When Alicia returned, she came, as usual, to my room. + +"I am tired!" she yawned, and curled herself up on the bed. + +"Didn't you have a nice time?" + +"Oh, I suppose so! Everybody was lovely to me, and I could have +divided my dances. These Southerners are easy to love, aren't they? +I find it very easy for me! And oh, Sophy, there's to be a picnic +day after to-morrow, at the Meade plantation, in my honor, if you +please! We go by automobile.--I never thought I could get tired +dancing, Sophy. But I am. Tired!" + +"Go to bed and sleep it off." + +"Did you have time to make out that grocery list? They've been +overcharging us on butter." + +"Yes: I finished it after Doctor Geddes left" + +"Oh! He was here, then?" She yawned again. + +"Yes. But somebody sent for him, and he had to cut his visit short." + +Alicia frowned. + +"I wonder he keeps so healthy, running out at all hours of the +night; and heaven knows how he manages about meals! His cook told me +that sometimes he has to rush away in the middle of a meal, and +sometimes he misses one altogether." + +"I remembered that, so I made him wait for a cup of coffee and an +omelet." + +She reached over and squeezed my hand. "You're always thinking about +other people's comfort, Sophy." She paused, and looked at me +half-questioningly: + +"I wish he had somebody to look after him," she said in a low voice, +"somebody like you." She added, as if to herself: "He takes two +lumps of sugar in his coffee, one in his tea, wants dry toast, and +likes his omelet _buttered_." + +And when I stared at her, she slipped nearer, and laid her cheek +against mine. + +"Sophy," in a soft whisper, "you've made up to me for my father and +my mother, and for the sisters and brothers I never had. We're all +sorts and conditions of folks, aren't we, Sophy?--but none like you, +Sophy; not any one of them all like you!" + +At that moment, through the open window, there stole in on the night +air the faintest whisper of music. It wasn't mournful, it wasn't +joyful, but both together; a singing voice, a crying voice, wild and +sweet, part of the night and the trees and the wind, and part, I +think, of the secretest something in the human heart. We had no idea +where it came from; out of the sky, perhaps! + +Somebody ran down-stairs, and a moment later the front door opened +softly. The Author had heard, and was afoot. But even as he stepped +outside, Ariel's ghostly music ceased. There was nothing; nobody; +only the night. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE FOREST OF ARDEN + + +I had seen Alicia whirl away in the Meades' big car. I had seen the +Westmacotes and Miss Emmeline off on what they termed a nature-hunt. +The Author and his secretary were up to the eyes in a new chapter; +The Suffragist was spreading the glad tidings; and Riedriech and +Schmetz had Luis Morenas in hand for the afternoon, visioning the +United States of the World, while he snatched sketches of the +visionaries. + +The Author, Mr. Johnson, and I, lunched together. + +"Miss Smith," began The Author abruptly, "did you know this house +was built by British and French master masons? No? Well, it was. +Judge Gatchell's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were +solicitors for this estate, and the judge at last very kindly +allowed me to look through a great batch of papers in his +possession. From these I discovered that one of the Hyndses visited +England in 1727, joined the new lodge lately established there, and +brought one of the brethren, an architect, back to America with +him. Another came from France. These three planned and built this +house, and did it pretty well, too. + +"This house-builder, Walsingham Hynds, made his house a sort of +lodge for the brethren, just as in later times his grandsons +sheltered the brethren of those societies that fathered the American +Revolution. Gatchell tells me there is a legend of the master of +Hynds House entertaining British officers and at the same time +hiding the forfeited rebels they were hunting. I'd like to know," +The Author added, reflectively, "where he hid them." + +"An old house like this has dozens of places where one could be +hidden without much danger of detection," remarked Mr. Johnson. + +"I'm pretty sure of that," agreed The Author, emphatically. + +"You should be, since you did a neat little bit of hiding on your +own account," Mr. Johnson reminded him. + +The Author was nettled. He had never found the paper lost out of the +closet in his own room, though he had never given up a tentative +search for it. + +"Well, it's confoundedly odd I never did such a thing before," he +grumbled. + +"What is odd is that I myself was waked out of my sleep that night +by the most oppressive sense of misery and hopelessness I have ever +experienced," Mr. Johnson said seriously. "It was so overpowering +that it made me think of Saint Theresa's description of her torment +in that oven in the wall of hell which had by kindly forethought on +the part of the devil been arranged for her permanent tenancy. Of +course, it was just a nightmare," he added, doubtfully; "or perhaps +a fit of indigestion." + +"Indigestion takes many forms," I remarked, as lightly as I could. +"And you must remember you've been warned that Hynds House is +haunted. Why, the servants insist they've seen ol' Mis' Scarlett's +h'ant!" + +"Ah!" nodded The Author. "And I smell a mysterious perfume, I walk +in my sleep for the first and only time in my life, and I hide where +it can't be found a paper with an uncouth jingle and some dots on +it, Johnson and I have the same nightmare. And I have heard +footsteps. All hallucinations, of course! I will say this much for +Hynds House: I never had a hallucination until I came here. By the +way, did I merely imagine I heard a violin last night?" + +"Oh, no: I heard it, too." Mr. Johnson looked at The Author with a +concerned face. "You're getting a bit off your nerves, Chief. +Anybody might play a violin." + +"Anybody might, but few do play it as I thought I heard it played +last night. Who's the player, Miss Smith?" + +"I haven't the slightest idea. Alicia thinks it's a spirit that +lives in the crape-myrtle trees." + +I was beginning to be aweary of The Author's shrewd eyes and +persistent questioning, and I was heartily glad when he had to go +back to his work. + +That was a gray and windless afternoon, and the house was full of +those bluish shadows that belong to gray days; it was charged, even +more than usual, with mystery: the whole atmosphere tingled with it +as with electricity. I couldn't read. I have never been able to play +upon any musical instrument, much as I love music. I do not sing, +either, except in a small-beer voice; and when I tried to sew I +pricked my fingers with the needle. I went into the kitchen, +consulted with Mary Magdalen as to the evening's dinner, weighed and +measured such ingredients as she needed, saw that the two maids were +following instructions, tried to make friends with Beautiful Dog, +until he howled with anguish and affliction and fled as from +pestilence; and, unable to endure the house any longer, put on my +hat and set out upon one of those aimless walks one takes in a land +where all walks are lovely. + +Automobiles came and went upon the public road, and to escape them +I crossed a wooden foot-bridge spanning a weedy ditch, struck into a +path bordering a wide field followed it aimlessly for a while, and +before I knew it was in the Enchanted Wood. + +The Enchanted Wood was carpeted with brown and sweet-smelling +pine-needles, with green clumps of honeysuckle breaking out here and +there in moist spots. There were cassena bushes, full of vivid +scarlet berries; and crooked, gray-green cedars; and brown boles of +pine-trees; and the shallowest, gayest, absurdest little thread of a +brook giggling as it went about its important business of keeping a +lip of woodland green. + +It was very, very still there, somewhat as Gethsemane might have +been, I fancy. I had wanted to be alone, that I might wrestle with +my trouble. Yet now that I was facing it, my spirit quailed. Never +had I felt so desolate, or dreamed that the human heart could bear +such anguish. + +If I had had the faintest warning, that I might have saved myself! +If I had never come to Hynds House at all, but had lived my busy, +matter-of-fact, quiet life! Yet the idea of never having seen him, +never having loved him, was more cruel than the cruellest suffering +that loving entailed. It was harder even than the thought that +Alicia and I cared for the same man, who perhaps cared for neither +of us. At that I fell into an agony of weeping. + +That passed. I was spent and empty. But the calm of acceptance had +come. I wasn't to lose my grip, nor wear the willow. The idea of me, +Sophy Smith, wearing the willow, aroused my English common-sense. I +refused to be ridiculous. + +And then I looked up and saw him coming toward me, his great dog +trotting at his side. I pulled myself together, and smiled; for +Boris was thrusting his friendly nose into my palm, and rubbing his +fine head against my shoulder, and his master had dropped lightly +down beside me. + +I had not seen Mr. Jelnik for several days, and it struck me +painfully that the man was pale, that his step dragged, and the +brightness of his beauty was dimmed. He looked older, more careworn. +If he was glad to see me, it was at first a troubled gladness, for +he started, and bit his lip. I wondered, not with jealousy, but with +pain, if there was somebody, some beautiful and high-born lady, at +sight of whom his heart might have leaped as mine did now. Was it, +perhaps, to forget such a one that he had exiled himself? + +"You are such a serene, restful little person!" he said presently, +and a change came over his tired face; "and I am such a restless +one! You soothe me like a cool hand on a hot forehead." + +"Restless?--you? Why, I thought you the serenest person I had ever +known." + +His mocking, gentle smile curved his lips. But his eyes were not +laughing. For a fleeting, flashing second the whirlpools and the +depths were bared in them. Then the veil fell, the surface lights +came out and danced. + +"My father was an excellent teacher," he said, indifferently. "The +whole object of his training was self-control. He was really a very +wonderful man, my father. But he overlooked one highly important +factor in my make-up, my Hynds blood." + +I made no reply. I was wondering, perplexedly, how I, I of all +people, should have been picked up and enmeshed in the web of these +Hyndses and their fate. + +"Thank you," said he, gratefully, "for your silence. Most women +would have talked, for the good of my soul. Why don't you talk?" + +"Because I have nothing to say." + +"You evidently inherited a God-sent reticence from your British +forebears. The British have 'illuminating flashes of silence.' It is +one of their saving graces." + +I proved it. + +Mr. Jelnik, with a whimsical, sidewise glance, drew nearer. + +"Why, instead of sitting at the foot of a pine-tree, which is also a +reticent creature, are you not sitting at the feet of our friend The +Author, who is perfectly willing to illumine the universe? Very +bright man, The Author. How do you like his secretary?" + +"Mr. Johnson? Oh, very much indeed! He is charming!" + +"I find him so myself. But he is melting wax before the fire of +feminine eyes. A man in love is a sorry spectacle!" + +"Is he?" + +"_Ach_, yes! Consider my cousin Richard Geddes, for instance." + +At that I winced, remembering the doctor's eyes when he had spoken +of Alicia and of this man. I looked at Mr. Jelnik now, wonderingly. +If he knew that much, hadn't he any heart? He stopped short. A +wrinkle came between his black brows. + +"I am not to speak lightly of my Cousin Richard, I perceive." + +"No. Please, please, no!" + +"I hadn't meant to. Richard," said Mr. Jelnik, gravely, "is a good +man." + +"Oh, yes! Indeed, yes! And--and he has a deep affection for _you_, +Mr. Jelnik." + +"We Hyndses are the deuce and all for affection. We take it in such +deadly earnest that we store up a fine lot of trouble for +ourselves." His face darkened. + +I had been right, then, in supposing that there was somebody, +perhaps half the world away, for whom he cared. _And he didn't care +for Alicia._ I was sure of that. + +"Don't go!" he begged, as I stirred. "Stay with me for a little +while: I need you. I am tired, I am bored, I am disgusted with +things as they are. There is nothing new under the sun, and all is +vanity and vexation of spirit. Also, I am fronting the forks of a +dilemma: Shall I shake the dust of Hyndsville from my foot, yield to +the _Wanderlust_ and go what our worthy friend Judge Gatchell calls +'tramping,' or shall I stay here yet awhile? I can't make up my +mind!" + +"Do you want to go?" + +"Yes and no. Hold: let's toss for it and let the fall of the coin +decide." He took from his pocket a thin silver foreign coin, and +showed it me. + +"Heads, I go. Tails, I stay," he said, and tossed it into the air. +It fell beside me, out of his reach. With a swift hand I picked it +up. + +"Well?" he asked, indifferently. + +My hand shut down upon it. There was the sound of wind in my ears, +and my heart pounded, and my sight blurred. Then somebody--oh, +surely not I!--in a low, clear, modulated voice spoke: + +"_You will have to stay, Mr. Jelnik_," said the voice, pleasantly. +"_It is tails._" + +And all the while the inside Me, the real Me, was crying accusingly: +"Oh, _liar! liar! It is heads!_" + +Did he smile? I do not know. He did not look at me for the minute, +but stared instead at the gray-blue, shadowed woods, the brown boles +of the pines, the bright trickle of water playing it was a real +brook. + +"Tails it is. I stay," he said presently. And with a swift movement +he reached out and lightly patted my hand with the coin in it. + +"Well, it's decided. You have got me for a next-door neighbor for a +while longer, Miss Smith. No, don't go yet." + +So I stayed, who would have stayed in the Pit to be near him, or +walked out of heaven to follow him, had he called me. + +"Do you know," he spoke in a plaintive voice--"that I haven't had +any lunch? I forgot to go home for lunch! Boris, go get me something +to eat, old chap!" + +Boris hung out a tongue like a flag, looked in his man's eyes, and +vanished, running as only the thoroughbred wolf-hound can run. + +"I am so tired! Should you mind if I kept my dog's place warm at +your feet, Miss Smith?" And he stretched his long length on the +pine-needles, his hands under his head, his face upturned. + +"I wish I had a pillow!" he complained. + +I scooped up an armful of the pine-needles, while he watched me +lazily, and packed it over and between the roots of the pine-tree. + +"You're a Sister of Charity," said he, gratefully. "But I can't +afford to scratch my neck." And coolly he took a fold of my brown +silk skirt, patted it over the straw, and with a sigh of +satisfaction rested his head upon it. + +"This is very pleasant!" he sighed. Presently: "Your hair looks just +as a woman's hair ought to look, under that brown hat," he said +drowsily, "soft and fair. And after this, I shall order some +brown-silk cushion-covers. I never knew anything could feel so +comfortable and restful!" He closed his eyes. + +I sat there, hands locked tightly together, and looked down at his +beautiful head, his slim and boyish body; and I felt an aching sense +of resentment. No man has any business to be like that, and then +come into the life of a woman named Smith. + +He did not move, nor did I. We might have been creatures motionless +under a spell, in that Enchanted Wood; until from the outside world +came Boris, carrying a wicker basket, in which sandwiches, fruit, a +small bottle of wine, and a silver drinking-cup had been carefully +packed. + +"Boris is used to playing courier." His master patted him +affectionately. "Come, Miss Smith. By the way, that isn't your real +name, though. Your name is Woman-in-the-Woods. Mine is--" + +"Fortunatus." + +He raised his brows. "I was about to say 'Man-who-is-Hungry,'" +he finished, pleasantly. "I once knew an Indian named +Tail-feathers-going-over-the-Hill. It taught me the value of +being explicit as to one's name. Here, you shall have the cup, +and I'll drink out of the bottle. Some of these fine days, +Woman-in-the-Woods, I shall take you on a jaunt with me and +Boris." + +"It sounds promising," I admitted, cautiously. + +"It is more. You shall learn all the fine points of out-of-door +housekeeping.--Drink your wine, Woman-in-the-Woods. You were pale, +very pale, when I came upon you. I was afraid something had been +troubling you." + +"Something troubles everybody." + +"Oh, bromidic Miss Smith!--Drink your wine, please. And do not look +doubtfully upon that sandwich. My man knows how to build them." + +His man did. The sandwich was manna. The wine evidently came from +heaven. + +"Now you have a color. I say, is Morenas going to do you, too?" + +"Good gracious, no! But he has sketched Alicia a dozen times at +least." + +"And me," said Mr. Jelnik, gloomily. "There's no evading the brute. +I turn like a weathercock; and there he is, with corrugated brow and +slitted eyes, studying me! And the baleful eye of The Author also +pursues me. Between them, I feel skinned." + +"Mr. Morenas says you are a rare but quite perfect type," I told +him, mischievously. + +The young man shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "Am I a type, +Woman-in-the-Woods?" he asked. + +"Indeed, you are absolutely different from anybody else." And then, +terrified, I turned red. + +"Oh, I know! You didn't mean it either as a brick-bat or a bouquet, +merely the truth as you see it. You are transparently truthful, +fundamentally truthful, and at the same time the American business +woman! You can't understand how that intrigues me!" + +And then, quite simply and boyishly, he began to talk about +himself. I got glimpses of a boyhood spent partly in a stately home +in Vienna, and partly roaming about the great Hungarian estate which +his mother loved, and to which the two returned summer after summer, +until her death. Then student days, and after that, foot-loose +wanderings up and down the earth and across the seven seas. + +His grandmother had dropped courtesies to kings; and mine had +dropped "aitches." His father had been a European celebrity, mine a +ship-chandler in Boston, U.S.A. Yet here we two were; and he might +have been a high-spirited and most beautiful little boy picnicking +with a sedate and old-maidish little girl. + +"How old should you imagine me?" he flung the question like a +challenge, as if he had divined my thoughts. + +"Oh, say, thirteen, going on fourteen." + +"Dear Woman-in-the-Woods, I am thirty-three." + +"You are older than I thought." + +"You are younger than you think. And you betray the fact," he +smiled. + +"I have never been very young; probably I shall never be very old." + +"You will always be exactly the right age," said Nicholas Jelnik. +"For you will always be a little girl, and a young maiden, and a +grown woman, and a bit of an old maid, and something of a +grandmother. That is a wonderful, a very, very wonderful +combination!" + +I looked at him with more than doubt. But no, he was not poking fun, +though the rich color had come into his cheek, and the golden lights +flickered mischievously in his eyes. + +"And I forgot to add, also a business woman!" he finished gaily. +"_Herr Gott_, but it took a business woman to tackle old Hynds House +and gather together such folks as you have there now!" + +"Alicia was the head and front of _that_. I merely helped." + +"Alicia," said Mr. Jelnik, "is a darling girl. Alicia is everything +a girl ought to be." But there was not in eyes or voice that light +and tone that crept into Doctor Richard's when he named her. My dear +girl's tender face--so true and beautiful and loving--rose before +me, and all she had meant to me, been to me, crowded upon my heart. +I said what I had never intended to say to any one: + +"Why, Alicia's my--my _child_, to me! Don't you understand?" + +"Dear Woman, yes!" His voice was melted gold. + +The ridiculous little brook went whish-whis-sssh; and the bluish +shadows melted into gray; and a chill came creeping, creeping, into +the air. + +"Before you go," said Nicholas Jelnik, "I should like to give you a +talisman, to turn Miss Smith into Woman-in-the-Woods every now and +then." And with his pocket-knife he cut a sharp line down the thin +old coin he had tossed, worked at it for a few minutes with a pocket +file and a stone, and then with his fingers that looked so slim but +were strong as steel nippers. The coin broke in halves. + +"Half for you," said Mr. Jelnik, "and half for me, to commemorate a +comradely afternoon, and to mark a decision. We'll consider it a +token, a charm, a talisman--what you will. And if ever I really and +truly need a Woman-in-the-Woods to help me, why, I'll send my half +to her; and she'll obey the summons instantly and without question. +And if ever she needs a man--like me, say--why, she'll send her +half, and he'll come, instantly and without question." He was +smiling as he spoke. Now he paused to look at me earnestly. "Because +we are going to be real friends, you and I; are we not?" + +I hesitated. How could we two be real friends, when the balance +between us was so uneven, so unequal? He saw the hesitation, +momentary as it was, and looked at me with something of astonishment +and a hint of hurt. + +"I have never," he said, proudly, "had to ask for friendship. Yet I +do desire yours, who are such a grave, brave, true little thing, +such a valiant-for-truth, stand-fast little thing! You have the one +quality that I, born wanderer, foot-loose rolling-stone, need most +in this world, unchanging, loyal, unquestioning steadfastness." + +I considered this. It is true that I hold fast, for that is the +English way. + +"But outside of that one thing," I told him, "I have nothing else." + +"No?--She hasn't," said he, in a teasing tone, "anything to give, +except unbuyable truth. She has nothing to offer except Friendship's +very self!--this poor, poor Miss Smith!" + +Now, heaven alone knows why, but at that my eyes filled with foolish +tears. If he saw them--and they ran down my cheek in spite of me--he +mercifully gave no sign. Instead he held out his fine brown hand, +and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips with foreign +grace. + +"We two are friends, then--through thick and thin, above doubting, +and without fear or reproach. That is so, _hein_?" + +"Yes!" I promised. + +So, walking slowly, as if loath to go, we two went out of the +Enchanted Wood and left the Forest of Arden behind us. + +When I was again in my own room, and had taken off the brown frock, +I held against my cheek, for a long, long minute, that fold against +which his head had rested; I fingered the broken coin; I looked long +and long at the hand his lips had touched; and though I had told a +shameless lie, I was not at all ashamed. + +I have often read that women do not and cannot love men, but only +love to be loved by them. Only a man could have been stupid enough +to say that; and, then he didn't know. The woman hadn't told him. + +"I say! Haven't you got on a new frock to-night? My word, it's +scrumptious!" remarked The Author, after dinner. I was wearing a +black-and-blue frock, and he had seen it before, as I explained with +some surprise. + +He adjusted his glasses, frowned, and shook his head. + +"I am becoming unobservant," he said crossly. "This place is playing +the very deuce with my mental processes! But stay: surely your hair +is arranged differently? It wasn't brought over your ears like that, +the first time I saw you, I know it wasn't!" + +"It is curled a little and fluffed a little; that's what makes it +look different," I told him patiently. + +"Then that frock is curled a little and fluffed a little, and that's +what makes it look different, too," The Author decided, and stared +at me critically. "You are improving," he told me, with +condescension. + +"You are _not_!" I was goaded to reply. + +The Author merely grinned. + +"Do you know," he asked, "if that man Jelnik is coming to-night? I +hope so. Unusual man. Can't think why he buries himself here! Our +old friend Gatchell doesn't seem to admire him. I wonder why?" + +"I can't possibly imagine," I replied equably, "unless it is that +the judge grows old." + +"Hah!" The Author's eyebrows went up truculently. "And is it a sign +of advancing age and mental decrepitude not to admire this fellow?" + +But I laughed at him. + +"You're all alike, you women." A wicked light snapped into his eyes. +"Hear, dear lady, the Bard of the Congaree, the Poet Laureate of +South Carolina, Coogle for your benefit," hissed The Author, and +repeated, balefully: + + Alas, poor woman, with eyes of sparkling fire, + Thy heart is often won by mankind's gay attire! + So weak thou art, so very weak at best, + Thou canst not look beyond a satin-lined vest! + + I've seen thee ofttimes cast a-winning glance, + And be carried away, as it were within a trance, + By the gay apparel of some dishonest youth + Whose bosom heaved with not a single truth! + +He was so outrageously funny that I forgave his impertinence. His +face relaxed, and his eyes twinkled. He was in high feather the +remainder of the evening. He was, in fact, so good-humoredly witty +that the boys and girls Alicia had brought home clustered about him +like golden bees. + +"Miss Smith," whispered Miss Emmeline, under cover of their +laughter, "may I have a word with you?" + +We drifted into the library; and she seated herself, folded her +hands, and said tremulously: + +"My dear, my wish has been granted. I have really come in contact +with the Unknown! I have seen something, Miss Smith!" I looked at +her steadily. "Just before dawn," Miss Emmeline continued, "I woke +up, with a curious, indefinable, uneasy sense of trouble, as if +something had happened and I was remembering it, say. I saw how +foolish it was to allow a mere nightmare to worry me, though I am +not subject to nightmares, my conscience and my digestion being +quite all right, thank heaven! Gradually the impression faded. I was +just dropping to sleep again, when I heard the faintest imaginable +footfall, almost as if somebody were walking upon the air itself. +And then, Miss Smith, there stole across my room a figure. There was +nothing terrifying about it: it was merely a figure, that was all, +and so I was not frightened. It came from my clothes-closet, went +into the next room, and vanished. For when I arose and followed, +there was no trace of it. And the doors were locked. Now, was not +that remarkable?" + +"Very," said I, with dry lips. + +"I should have thought I was dreaming," went on Miss Emmeline, "save +that there lingered in the air, for some time, a faint and very +delicate--" + +"Perfume," I finished. + +Miss Emmeline started, and seized my hand. + +"Then you have experienced it, too?" + +"I have detected the perfume," I admitted, "but I have never seen +anything. Dear Miss Emmeline, would it be too much to ask you to +keep this to yourself, for a while at least? People are so easily +frightened; and wild stories spread and grow." + +Miss Emmeline nodded. "Of course I'll keep it quiet," she promised +kindly. "I shall, however, write down the occurrence for the Society +for Psychical Research, without giving actual names and place." To +this I raised no objection. But it was with a troubled mind that I +left Miss Emmeline. + +I was destined to hear one more confidence that night, unwittingly +this time. I had gone down-stairs to place, ready to Mary Magdalen's +hand in the morning, the materials for the breakfast. This entails +work, but it insures successful handling of household economics. +Having weighed and measured what was necessary, and seen that the +inquisitive Black family occupied their proper quarters on the lower +veranda, I went back up-stairs. The Author's door was slightly ajar, +and I could hear him walking up and down, as he does when he +dictates; for he is a restless man. + +"Johnson," The Author was saying as I passed, my slippered feet +making no sound, "Johnson, that Sophy woman intrigues me. Hanged if +she doesn't, Johnson!" + +"I like Miss Smith, myself. She reminds me very much of my mother," +said Johnson's cordial voice in reply. + +"But I don't like the way things look here, at all, Johnson!" fumed +The Author. "What's his game, anyhow? What's he after? What's he +here for? Does she know, or suspect? Or doesn't she, Johnson?" The +Author asked, earnestly. "Look here: somebody's got to protect that +Sophy woman against Nicholas Jelnik!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE JINNEE INTERVENES + + +Just before he went back North, Luis Morenas good-naturedly agreed +to exhibit his new sketches for the delectation of such folk as we +cared to ask to view them--this to please Alicia, whom he called +Flower o' the Peach. + +Now an exhibit of Morenas sketches would have been an art event in +the Biggest City itself. But think of it in Hyndsville, where few +worth-while things ever happened; and imagine the polite +wire-pulling for invitations that ensued! + +It wasn't my fault that I couldn't ask the whole town to come to my +house to see those brilliant sketches. I would have done so with all +my heart, but there was a section of Hyndsville I couldn't reach. It +was locked up behind bars of pride and prejudice of its own +building; and losing by it, of course, since one can't be exclusive +without at the same time being excluded. To shut other folks out you +have first got to shut yourself in. + +For instance, figure to yourself Miss Martha Hopkins. She had +visited as far north as Atlanta; and she had relatives in +Charleston, as she would have condescendingly informed arch-angels, +principalities, powers, thrones, and dominions. But she wasn't +blessed with much of this world's goods, and most of the time she +stayed home and improved her mind. She took herself with profound +seriousness. She seemed to think that the better part of wisdom +consists in knowing who said this and who didn't say that--"as Mr. +Arnold Bennett expresses it," "as Mr. H.G. Wells remarks," "as Mr. +James Huneker writes,"--she was the only person in all Hyndsville +who could write up music and art, and she wasn't even afraid to use +the word _sex_ in its most modern acceptance; though in South +Carolina you refer to the ladies as "the fair sex" if you're a +gentleman, and to the gentlemen as "the stronger sex" if you're a +lady. You understand that "male and female created He them," and you +let it go at that. Miss Martha Hopkins, then, was daring; she was +also exclusive. + +I suppose if I had been younger I could have smiled at Miss Martha, +as Susy Gatchell and her graceless friends did, but somehow she +appeared to me a creature trying to peck at the world and peek at +the stars through the bars of a bird-cage. That's why, when I met +her a morning or two before the Morenas exhibit, I asked her if she +wouldn't like to see it. I knew that, once asked, she could be kept +away by nothing short of an earthquake or a deluge. Yet-- + +"Thank you, Miss Smith, I shall be glad to look over the sketches." +And she added blandly: "Four o'clock, did you say? Very well, I will +come. It is one's moral duty to encourage men of talent." + +"Whoop!" cried The Author, joyously, when I told him that. "Revenge +yourself, Morenas: sketch her, man! sketch her!" + +Morenas laughed. "Put her in one of your books and make her talk," +he suggested slyly. "You have a genius for making a woman talk like +an idiot." + +"That's because he does the talking for her, himself," said Alicia, +impudently. + +"It pays, it pays!" smiled The Author. "I draw from life." + +"Nature-fakir!" Alicia mocked. + +"My dear fellow, _I_ draw. _You_ draw and quarter," said Morenas. + +The Author flung out his arms, grandiloquently. + + You may as well try to change the course + Of yonder sun + To north, and south, + As to try to subdue by criticism + This heart of verse, + Or close this mouth! + +he cried, thumping his chest. "Come on, Johnson: let's leave these +knockers to fate--and Miss Martha Hopkins!" + +Miss Martha Hopkins came, she saw, and she had a perfectly beautiful +time. As a matter of fact, everybody that could come, did come. And +the very smartest and prettiest of the younger set served tea. Oh, +yes, decidedly the tables were turning! + +Despite which, Alicia and I were not happy. It seemed to me that a +veil had fallen between us, for we were shy with each other. Both +suffered, and each dreaded that the other should know. + +I was grateful that The Author's mind was too taken up with Hynds +House history to focus itself upon us. The Author spent his spare +hours rummaging through such dusty and musty records as might throw +some light upon the Hyndses. In the old office were many faded +plantation and household books, and he was able to glean enough from +these to confirm the methodical carefulness of Freeman Hynds. There +were, too, dry receipts for "monies Paid by Mr. Rich. Hynds" for +some old slave; or a brief notice that "By Orders Mr. Richd. Hynds, +no Women shall be Whipt"; or "Bought by Mr. R. Hynds & Charg'd to +his Acct., one Crippl'd Black Childe namd Scipio from Vanham's Sale, +& Given to Sukey his Mother." Another time it would be a list of +Christmas gifts: "One Colour'd Head Kerchief for Nancy. One Flute +for Blind Sam. One Shoulder Cape for Kitty my Nurse. One +Horn-handl'd Knife for Agrippa. One Pckt. Tobacco & a Jorum of Rum +for Shooba." + +Over against these items were others: "By Orders Mr. Freeman Hynds, +Juba to Receive Twenty light Lashes for Malingering; Black Tom to be +Shipt to River Bottom Plantation for the Chastning of his Spiritt; +Bread & Water & Irons 3 Dayes & Nights for Shooba for Frighting of +his Fellowes & other Evil Behaviour." + +This was interesting enough, but not conclusive. All that The Author +could find only deepened his uncertainty, and this made him +abominably cross, an ill temper increased by the presence of Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik, who came and went, unruffled, aloof, with +inscrutable eyes and a gently mocking smile. + +The Harrison-Gores came shortly after Morenas left. The Englishman +was a pink-faced old gentleman in a shabby Norfolk suit and with the +very thinnest legs on record--"mocking-bird legs," Fernolia called +them. His daughter was a gray-eyed Minerva with the skin of a baby +and the walk of a Highland piper. They found Carolina people +charming, and they secured some valuable data for their book, "The +Beginnings of American History." Everything in Hynds House pleased +them, even The Author. + +Other people who do not enter into this story came and went during +that winter. But they were merely millionaires--people who motored +around the lovely country, ate Mary Magdalen's hot biscuit and fried +chicken, slept in our four-posters, paid their stiff bills +thankfully, and went about their business as good millionaires +should, and generally do. Only one out of them all was disagreeable; +he wanted to buy Hynds House out of hand for a proposed club of +which he was to be founder and president. + +"It'd be just what the bunch would like," he told me. "All we'd have +to do would be to paint these wooden walls a nice cheerful light +color, change one room into a smoker, another into a billiard-room, +and a third into a grill, add some gun-racks and leather +wing-chairs, and we'd be right up to the minute in club-houses!" + +When I explained that I couldn't sell he offered to compromise on +two of the carved marble mantels, the library tiles, and two inlaid +tables, "at double what you'd get from anybody else." And when I +wouldn't even let him have these trifles, he was disgusted and took +no pains to conceal it. He was rude to Alicia, who snubbed him with +terrible thoroughness, a proceeding which made him call loudly for +his "bill" and his car. The last we heard of him was his bullying +voice bawling at his sullen chauffeur. + +"That pig," said The Author to me, with fury, "is undoubtedly the +lineal descendant of the one Gadarene swine that hadn't decency +enough to rush down the slope with the rest of the herd and drown +himself." + +Busy as I was, it wasn't over easy for me to find time to revisit +that brown and sweet-smelling spot in the Forest of Arden where on a +gray afternoon, I had met Nicholas Jelnik and received from him a +kiss on the palm, and a broken coin. And I wanted to go back there, +as ghosts may desire to revisit the glimpses of the moon. + +That is why, on the first free afternoon I had, I changed into the +selfsame brown frock, put on the brown hat with the yellow quill in +it, and slipped out of Hynds House alone. It wasn't a gray afternoon +this time, but a clear, bright, sun-shiny one, all blue and gold and +green, and with the pleasantest of friendly winds a-frolicking, and +a pine-scented air with a pungent and a vital bite to it. + +I went along the highroad for a while, crossed the weedy, ferny +ditch that separated it from the fallow fields beyond, and struck +into the deserted foot-path that leads to the Enchanted Wood. + +It was very lonesome, very peaceful. I could see the pine-trees I +love swaying and rocking against the blue, blue sky; I could catch +the low-hummed tune they crooned to themselves and the winds; I +could sniff a thousand woodsy odors. Spears of sunlight made bright +blobs on the brown grass; and every littlest bush and shrub wore a +shimmering halo, as you see the blessed ones backgrounded in old +pictures. There was a bird twittering somewhere; occasionally a twig +snapped with a quick, secret sharpness; and once a thin brown rabbit +took to his heels, right under my feet. + +I stopped from time to time to sense the feel of the afternoon, to +drink the air and be healed. In a few minutes I should be within the +forest and hear the little brook giggling to itself as it scurried +over its brown pathway. And then I heard--something--and turned. + +The deep and weedy ditch, crowded with high stalks of last year's +goldenrod and fennel, edged all that pathway, draining the entire +field. Crawling snakelike through it he had followed me. And now +here he was, suddenly erect on the path behind me, looking at me +with narrowed eyes under his flat forehead. + +I wasn't afraid--at first. Nothing like him had ever crossed my +path, and I stared at him with more of disgust and aversion than +terror. + +He was tall and bony, immensely powerful, and his black skin showed +with a grayish shine upon it through the rents in his rags. His +gray-black, horny toes protruded through what once had been shoes, +and a shapeless, colorless felt hat covered his bullet head. His +corded black arms emerged from the torn sleeves of his checked +shirt, and his hairy chest was naked. There came from him an +indescribable reek of tobacco, whisky, filthy clothes, and the +beastlike odor of an unclean body. He was beardless, and his +gorilla-like nostrils twitched, his forehead wrinkled. His eyes were +mere pin-points, with a sort of red glare far back in them; his +mouth was like a dirty red muzzle. He was a prowling tramp, of the +worst sort. + +Involuntarily he stopped in his tracks as I faced him, his hands +hanging loosely at his sides. His eyes swept greedily over +me--silver mesh-purse, wrist-watch, the brooch at my throat, the +rings on my fingers. + +"Whut yuh doin' hyuh, w'ite lady?" he asked in a thick voice, and +grinned. And quite suddenly such a fear as I had not dreamed could +be felt by a mortal took me by the heart and squeezed it as with an +iron hand. + +"Whut foh yuh come by mah field, lil w'ite lady?" he purred. "Ah'm +takin' lil snooze in de ditch grass, an' dey yuh comes, wakin' me +up! Whut yuh wake me up for, w'ite gal?" Leering, he began with a +gliding, stealthy movement to advance. + +"Stop!" cried I, in a voice that wasn't mine, it was so sharp and +thin and reedy. "Go back--where you came from! Don't you dare to +take another step! Go back!" + +The hands hooked into outstretched claws. His head sunk between his +shoulders. Of the eyes, only red pin-points showed in the twitching +face. I stood stone-still, struck into utter immobility. My brain +was trying to urge me to fly, fly! This is the Black Death, Sophy! +the Black Death! + +He, too, stood of a sudden stone-still, as if rooted to the ground. +His eyes widened, and stared, as if he saw something over and beyond +me. I didn't dare turn my head. It might be a trick, to divert +attention for a fatal second. + +The claws clenched into balled fists, the lips drew back, showing +blackened and decayed teeth. Bristling like an aroused beast, his +forehead wrinkling, his nostrils twitching, he made an inarticulate, +growling, brute-like noise in his throat. His head twisted sideways. +Of a sudden the sweat burst out upon his face, and he began to back +away, warily. + +And then something swift and dark sped by, bounding on light and +flying feet; something that must have come from my forest. It was +The Jinnee! God be praised, it was The Jinnee, his dark robe giving +an odd effect of flying, his eyes living vengeance, his face like +Fate carved in ebony. + +I saw him leap, and close in upon the horror; I heard a sort of +wolfish yapping. The Black Death disappeared. And then I, too, was +falling, falling into infinite blackness and blankness, with one red +flash when I struck my head. + +Half-conscious, half-hearing, altogether unseeing, I thought there +were two Voices near me. I couldn't understand what they said. One +of the Voices was gently and persistently applying cold and soothing +applications to my forehead. Another Voice chafed my hands. I +thought one said, "Achmet," and the other replied, "Sahib." I knew I +must be dreaming. But it was a pleasant dream enough. + +Quite suddenly somebody said in good, anxious English: + +"Thank God! you are better!" + +I had opened my eyes. There was the whish-whish-whishing little +brook, the good brown pines, with their heavenly odor. And there was +the face of Nicholas Jelnik, bent over me. And beside him, gravely +concerned and troubled, Boris. + +I looked from one to the other, both so clear-eyed, so kind, so +_safe_; and then I remembered. + +"Sophy! Sophy!" He had his arms around me, in a close, protecting +clasp, while Boris pawed my skirts, and cried over me in loving, +honest dog fashion, and licked my wet cheek with his affectionate +tongue. I slipped my arm around the big dog's neck, and clung to the +two of them. And it seemed to me that while I clung thus, with my +head bent and my face hidden, one of them kissed my hair. + +"It never occurred to me--that there might be danger for you," he +was whispering. "To have that horror come near you--oh, my God! Oh, +my God!" + +I was terrified at sight of his face, dead-white, with eyes of +steel, and straight lips, and pinched nostrils; the terrible face of +the avenging white man, a face as inexorable as judgment. I hid my +own before it, and trembled; and yet was glad that I had seen it. + +I stammered: "There was--a devil--and then a Jinnee came. And I +heard--sounds. Then I fell. Did--did The Jinnee--" My voice died in +my throat. + +His eyes were ice, his mouth a grim, pale line. + +"That has been attended to," he said composedly. + +He blamed himself for having been thoughtless. "But I was so glad to +have you come here, that afternoon, that I could think of nothing +else!" And it seemed that this particular bit of woodland was his, +bought because its quiet beauty pleased him. He was in the habit of +coming here frequently; it had never occurred to him that danger +could lurk near it. + +"I thought I heard--somebody calling somebody else 'Achmet.'" I told +him, confusedly. "And there was a Jinnee, really there was. And two +Voices. Who brought me here? Did you find me, over there?" + +"You were not hard to carry," he said evasively. + +"But The Jinnee?" + +"The Jinnee did exactly what a good Jinnee always does, his duty. +Having done it, he disappeared. Didn't I tell you you're not to +think of what's happened? It is finished," said Mr. Jelnik, +peremptorily. + +I asked no more questions. + +"Do you think you are able to walk now?" he asked. + +I tried to, with shaking knees. At the edge of the field I grew +faint again, and staggered, and was unpleasantly sick. + +"You simply cannot appear in Hynds House in this shape, and invite +comment and question," said Mr. Jelnik, anxiously. His fine brows +wrinkled. "I have it: you will stop at my house for a few minutes, +and I'll give you a cordial, that will put you to rights." + +I went staggering along beside him, making desperate efforts to hold +myself erect. The pathway squirmed and wriggled like a snake, the +trees and bushes bowed, the sky bobbed up and down. + +He took me by by-paths so cunningly hidden that you might pass up +and down the highroad daily and never suspect their existence. We +went between cassenas and cedars and young laurels, branchy to the +roots. And then I was walking down a path bordered with Lombardy +poplars; and then I was sitting on a couch in Mr. Jelnik's +living-room, while he bathed my face with scented water, and +afterward held a small glass to my lips. The fluid I swallowed went +tingling through my whole body like friendly fire. + +I stole a woman-glance around the room that The Author had been so +anxious to investigate. It was altogether a man's room, the scoured +floor partly covered with a handsome rug, and the divan on which I +was sitting covered with another. On both sides of the big fireplace +were crowded book-shelves, above which hung weapons gathered from +the four corners of the earth. There were two or three deep, +comfortable arm-chairs, a square table, a couple of Winchesters in a +corner, and near the window a flat, old-fashioned desk, above which +hung two small portraits, evidently his parents, for the gentleman +with stars and crosses on his braided uniform, a sword at his side, +and a plumed hat in his hand, bore a striking resemblance to Mr. +Jelnik; and the stately blond lady had a family resemblance to +Doctor Richard Geddes. + +Mr. Jelnik touched a bell near the door, and a tall, copper-colored +man in spotless white appeared. At the merest gesture of an uplifted +finger the copper-colored one bowed, vanished, and returned ten +minutes later with a tiny cup of black coffee and a couple of thin +wafers. + +"I shall have to insist upon the coffee; and I advise the wafers," +said Mr. Jelnik, pleasantly. So I drank the coffee, nibbled the +wafers, and felt better. + +The copper-colored man, standing still as a statue, waited until I +had finished, took the cup, bowed, and disappeared. He was a stately +impressive person, rather like a shah in disguise. Mr. Jelnik +addressed him as "Daoud." + +I had risen. I was trying to straighten my sadly flattened brown +hat, and to smooth my frock, stained with damp earth, and water. A +quick step sounded on the porch, somebody knocked, and without +waiting for an answer, opened the door, impatiently, and strode into +the room. With a fold of my disheveled frock in my hand, I looked up +and met the angry and astonished eyes of The Author. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MAN PROPOSES + + +The Author closed the door and leaned against it. His piercing +glance jumped from Nicholas Jelnik's face to mine, with a prolonged +and savage scrutiny. No detail of my appearance escaped him--my +reddened eyelids, my pallor, my nervousness, my dishevelment. His +eyes narrowed, his jaw hardened. + +"What are you doing here?" he demanded, roughly. "Come! At least one +may hope for the truth from _you_!" + +Mr. Jelnik gave him a level look. There was that in it which brought +an angry red to The Author's thin face. + +"Let me answer for her: just at present Miss Smith is getting ready +to go home." + +The Author struggled to keep his rising temper in hand. + +"I asked you a plain question, Miss Smith!" His peremptory tone +jangled my strained nerves. + +"Mr. Jelnik has answered you: I am getting ready to go home." + +The Author stamped. + +"Don't talk nonsense! Again I ask you, what are you doing here? Have +you lost your senses? Why have you been weeping? It is plain that +you have been weeping. Miss Smith, why do I find you here--alone?" + +"I do not like your manner of questioning me," I said, indignantly. + +"My dear fellow," protested Mr. Jelnik, "you _are_ behaving +unmannerly, you know. The simple truth is, I was so fortunate +as to be of assistance to Miss Smith. She had an unpleasant +experience--fell and gave her head such a nasty bump, that it made +her faint. I'm afraid I splashed her a bit when I was trying to +revive her. I thought best to bring her here and give her a +stimulant. She didn't want to stagger home and alarm the whole +household unnecessarily." + +"Is this true?" The Author asked me, rudely. + +"You heard what Mr. Jelnik said!" I flamed. + +"One allows somewhat more license to genius than might be accorded +ordinary mortals; but really, you know, there are limits," Mr. +Jelnik reminded him. "You're beginning to be rather a nuisance. It's +unfortunate to have to remind a man, in one's own house, that he's a +nuisance." + +"I think you are, too!" I told The Author--"bursting into people's +houses like an East-Side policeman, asking outrageous questions in +an outrageous manner, and then questioning the answers one is +patient enough to give you! What right have you got to ask _any_ +questions?" + +"I'd rather like to know that, myself," put in Mr. Jelnik. + +The Author straightened his shoulders, drew himself up to his full +height, and folded his arms. He is an impressively tall man. + +"Should you?" said he, quietly. "Well, I'll tell you--the right of +an honest man to protect the woman he happens to want to marry." + +I sat down, suddenly. I'm afraid my eyes popped, and I know my mouth +fell open. I had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik's eyes and mouth open, too. After an astounded moment: + +"Isn't this rather sudden?" wondered Mr. Jelnik. "Who'd suspect this +fellow of volcanic possibilities?" + +"I do Miss Smith no dishonor when I ask her to be my wife," said The +Author, haughtily. "_I_ am no adventurer. She can never suspect _me_ +of ulterior motives!" + +"Heavens, no! Like Cæsar's wife, you are above suspicion; which, of +course, gives you the right to suspect everybody else! But you were +about to propose to Miss Smith in due form, were you not? Miss +Smith, you will permit me to withdraw? I have never before been a +third party to a proposal of marriage, and I confess I do not +exactly understand what is expected of me," said Mr. Jelnik, +delicately. + +The Author smiled wryly. + +"You succeed in making me appear a fool," he admitted. "That is no +mean achievement, young man! I merely wished to set myself straight +with Miss Smith, to leave her no room for doubt as to my absolute +honesty of purpose toward her; and you," said The Author, gulping, +"you have made me _bray_! I wish you'd clear out. You _are_ in the +way, if you want the truth. And," he added, clenching his hands, +"you can think yourself lucky that you're getting out with a whole +skin, da--confound you!" + +Mr. Jelnik smiled so sweetly that I was terrified. + +"Oh, a whole skin!" he repeated, thoughtfully. "My good sir, I was +born with a whole skin, and I rather expect to die with one." He +looked at The Author reflectively: "Of course, I don't know what +Miss Smith's feelings may be in regard to you, _but_ if I thought +you were seriously annoying her, I give you my word I should pitch +you out of the window without further ado. Miss Smith," he turned to +me, his eyes gentling with compassion, "I am more sorry than I can +say that you should be called upon to endure this further strain. +You will, I trust, forgive my unwilling share in it. Now, shall I +leave you?" + +"No, stay," said I, flatly. + +Mr. Jelnik sat down, and with unruffled composure, waited for The +Author to unbosom himself further. + +"Miss Smith," The Author spoke after a pause,--and oh, I give him +credit for his courage at that trying moment!--"Miss Smith, I have +placed myself, and you also, in what appears to be rather an absurd +position. I am sorry. But I meant exactly what I said. I base my +right to question you upon the fact that I intended asking you to +marry me. You need a protector, if ever woman did. I offer you the +protection of my name." + +I sat on the divan and stared at him owlishly. He went striding up +and down the room, pausing every now and then to look down at me. + +"When I came to Hyndsville," he went on, "nothing was farther from +my thoughts than the desire to marry _anybody_. I have never +considered myself a marrying man. But I find myself liking you, Miss +Smith, better than I have ever liked any other woman, and for better +reasons. You would make me an excellent wife, the only sort of wife +a man like me could endure. And I think I should make you a good +husband. I am not really so great a bear," he added, hastily, "as +at times I appear to be. I should really try to make you happy. Now +then, what have you to say?" + +What could any woman say in such circuit stances? _I_ said nothing, +but slid down on Nicholas Jelnik's divan and howled. + +"Didn't I tell you she'd had a bad time and wasn't herself? Now I +hope you're satisfied!" raged Mr. Jelnik. + +"It's as much your fault as mine!" snarled The Author. "Miss Smith, +for heaven's sake don't cry like that! My dear girl, stop it. You +run me distracted, Miss Smith!--Give her some vinegar or something, +Jelnik! Confound you, Jelnik!--why don't you do something? Burn a +feather under her nose! Make her stop it, Jelnik! She'll kill +herself, if she keeps on crying like that! Here!" cried The Author, +desperately; and tried to push back my hair and all but scalped me. + +"Get away!" said Mr. Jelnik. "I'll try to quiet her. Miss Smith, if +you don't stop crying, I shall slap you! Do you understand me, Miss +Smith? Stop it this minute, or I shall slap you!" He thrust an arm +around my shoulders and pulled me erect, none too gently. + +"I--I--I ca-ca-ca--n't!" + +"You can!" he snapped. "Stop it! Sophy, _shut up!_" + +I was so astonished that in the middle of a howl I blinked, and +gasped, and gulped, and stopped! + +"Ring the bell, by the door," Mr. Jelnik told The Author, curtly. +And when Daoud appeared, he ordered: "Cordial--top shelf; and some +ice-water." + +Five minutes later a forlorn and red-eyed wreck was sitting up +looking at two wretched, embarrassed men. Thank Heaven, they looked +just as miserable as they should have felt! Daoud brought me scented +water, and I bathed my face. Then I patted into shape the hair that +The Author had pulled awry, and said in the cold, accusing, +I-die-a-martyr-to-your-stupidity voice that women punish men with: + +"I think I shall go home." + +With a chastened, hang-dog air The Author rose to accompany me, +casting a withering look upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, who despised The +Author for a bungling and intrusive idiot, and let his glance convey +the fact. He was sorry for me, with a compassionate understanding of +what I had been through. But I wanted neither his sorrow nor his +compassion. He had punished The Author, but he hadn't saved _me_ +from a ridiculous and painful situation. I gave him a limp hand, and +had the satisfaction of leaving him thoroughly uncomfortable. + +When we reached our gate The Author, who had trudged beside me in +gloomy silence, laid his hand upon my arm. + +"I shall not ask you to answer me at once. But I do ask you to +consider carefully what I have said, and to realize that I mean +every word of it. And--and--I'm sorry it came about in this wise, +Sophy," he finished, with a touch of compunction. + +"So am I." And then I went up-stairs, and crept into bed. My head +ached frightfully, my heart throbbed and fluttered. I was so +unnerved that it seemed a burden to be alive. And then, mercifully, +I fell asleep, and didn't wake until Alicia brought me a +breakfast-tray the next morning. + +"My goodness, Sophy, you must have had a terrific headache!" she +exclaimed. "Why, your lips are bloodless, and you've black circles +under your eyes!" + +"I'm all right this morning," I said, hastily. "But you look pale, +yourself. Aren't you rather overdoing things, Leetchy?" + +"No: I'm as sound as a trivet!" said she. And then: "Sophy, guess +who was here last evening." Her eyes began to shine. "Mrs. Cheshire +Scarboro; no less!" And she paused, to let that highly important +statement sink in. + +Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was the Leader of the Opposition. She'd had +a lifelong feud with old Sophronisba, who said that when the Lord +wanted to try himself out in the way of a fool, He made Cissy +Scarboro. They hated each other as only relations can hate. +Naturally, Mrs. Scarboro resented our presence in Hynds House. She +said Hyndsville ought to show us what it thought of the outrage. +Under her leadership, Hyndsville showed us. + +Mrs. Scarboro was a very important person in Hyndsville. She ruled +the older and more conservative portion of it, and although the +younger set at times rebelled and went its own way, her power was +very real. That she had changed her mind, or at least her tactics, +in regard to us was important news. + +"She came with Mr. and Mrs. Haile," Alicia continued. "It was the +first time she had ever been inside Hynds House. Think of that, +Sophy! There were some girls here, and a few boys, naturally, Jimmy +Scarboro among them. Should you think that accounted for his mama's +presence, Sophy? And we sat around like adoring mice, listening to +The Author's sky-rockets going off. Doctor Geddes wouldn't let us +sing, wouldn't even let us have music, because you mustn't be +disturbed. He thinks a whole lot of you, Sophy." + +"I think a whole lot of him. I never thought I could like that man +as much as I do." + +I was determined to show Miss Alicia Gaines that no matter how much, +or for whatever reasons she had changed for the worse toward him, I, +at least, had changed for the better. But she listened listlessly. +For which cause, being resentful, I said not one word to her about +The Author. + +The thought of The Author confused me. I wasn't so much flattered as +astounded. He was not offering me a light honor: The Author's name +meant a great deal. Who, then, was I, a woman named Smith, to say +nay to this miraculous possibility? Was it not rather for me to +accept, meekly, the high gift that the gods in a sportive moment +chose to toss to me? Yea, verily. And yet-- My hand stole to the half +of a thin old foreign coin hidden in my breast. + +The Author behaved with exemplary patience and dignity. He went +about his own work and left me to mine, and though I knew I was +under his hawklike watchfulness, his matter-of-fact manner set me at +my ease. You can't dread to meet a man, of a morning, who pays more +attention to his batter-cakes than to you. + +I was just beginning to breathe freely, when Doctor Richard Geddes +came over one afternoon, and, finding me in our living-room with +only the Black family to keep me company, flung himself into an +arm-chair, seized Sir Thomas More Black by the scruff, and pulled +his whiskers and rubbed his fur the wrong way until Sir Thomas More +scratched him with thoroughness. + +"Get out, then, you black hellion!" growled the doctor. Sir Thomas +More got out. He hadn't wanted to stay in the first place. + +"Shall I bind your hand for you?" I asked. But the doctor refused. +He tapped his foot on the floor, and hemmed, and looked at me +strangely. Then: + +"Sophronisba Two, you consider me a reasonably decent sort, don't +you?" + +"That goes without saying." + +"Think I'd make a woman a reasonably good husband?" + +"I do," said I, truthfully. Whatever ailed the man? + +"Good! And I," the doctor said, deliberately, "know that you'd make +any man more than a reasonably good wife. Should you like to be +mine, Sophronisba Two?" + +The jump I gave threw Potty Black off my knees. + +"You're ill, wandering in your wits, you poor man!" I was genuinely +alarmed. "Isn't there something I can do for you, doctor?" + +"There is: you can marry me, if you want to," replied the doctor, +soberly. "Honestly, my dear girl, I'd be kind to you. I like and +admire and respect you more than I can tell you, Sophy." + +"My dear friend," I said, when I caught my breath, "I like, admire, +and respect you, too. But people who marry each other need something +more than that. They--well, they need--love." + +His shoulders twitched. + +"This business of love is the devil's own invention!" he cried. +"It's safer and saner to like and respect people than to love them, +and lots harder. Now, what do you say to marrying me?" + +"I say you had no such notion in your head the last time you and I +talked together. When did it seize you?" I demanded, suspiciously. + +"I began to think about it seriously--er--ah--some days ago," he +said, reddening. + +"What day, to be exact?" + +"Well," said he, resentfully, "it occurred to me last Wednesday, if +you want to be so all-fired sure!" + +"What happened last Wednesday to make you think of asking me to +marry you?" + +The doctor looked at me very much as a little boy looks at a +grown-up who is holding a soapy wash-cloth in one hand and an ear in +the other. + +"What do you want to know for?" + +"Because. I just want to know because. Well?" He squirmed, and was +silent. "Was it because you have ceased to care for Alicia, +already?" His glare answered that question. "No? Why, then, didn't +you ask Alicia, instead of coming to me for second choice? Look +here, Doctor Richard Geddes: if I was not firmly and truly your +friend, I should be furious, do you understand? Or," I added, +darkly, "I might even revenge myself by taking you at your word!" + +"Sophronisba Two!" The doctor looked at, me piteously. + +"Why didn't you ask Alicia?" I persisted, inexorably. + +"I did!" gulped the doctor. "But she said she couldn't. She said, +why didn't I care for you instead of her? You were so much +better--and--and I'd be happier with you, for I'd have the most +unselfish angel--" he stopped miserably. + +"Well?" + +"Well, I kept turning it over in my mind; and the more I thought of +it, the clearer I perceived that with a wife like you I'd be a +better and a more worth-while man. I--I think so much of you, Sophy, +that I'm telling you the whole truth," he finished. + +"That's why I'm going to keep on being friends with you--better +friends than ever," I told him. + +"You're going to marry me, then, Sophy?" + +"Didn't you just hear me tell you I meant to keep on being friends +with you?" + +"You won't, then?" + +"I won't, then." + +"Yet there are good reasons why you might reconsider your decision," +he said, after a pause. "We are so diametrically opposed it would +seem inevitable we should marry each other. Why, Sophy, we've got +enough to quarrel happily about for the rest of our lives. For +instance, do you sleep with all your windows open?" + +"I close two, and leave two open." + +"Every window open, day and night, hot or cold, rain or shine," said +the doctor, firmly. "Do you use pillows?" + +"Two." + +"None at all. Sleep with your head flat. How many blankets?" + +"Two, and a comfort." + +"One army blanket, except in extremely cold weather," said the +doctor. "Do you like a pipe?" + +"It always makes me sick. I peculiarly and particularly loathe and +detest a pipe." + +"A pipe, my dear, deluded woman, is a comfort, a stay, a prop to a +man's soul, an aid to meditation and repose. I insist upon a +pipe--within moderation, of course. Do you like parrots? Sophy, are +you capable of supporting a parrot? I have already perceived your +reprehensible fondness for cats." He looked at his scratched hand. + +"I have always wanted a parrot. I think they're the most--" + +"Damnable brutes!" finished the doctor. "Gad, I'd as lief live in +the house with Sophronisba One! It is not moral to like a parrot. +What do you think of stewed rhubarb?" + +I made a wry face. I abhor stewed rhubarb. Somehow, it always makes +me think of orphans in long-waisted gingham dresses with white china +buttons down the back. One way of punishing children for losing +their parents is to make them wear dark gingham dresses with china +buttons down the back and to eat stewed rhubarb for dessert. + +"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are," pronounced +the doctor. "It's a sign of moral rectitude to eat stewed rhubarb. +Now, as to science: what is your attitude toward evolution?" + +"Well, I think plenty of men turn themselves into monkeys, but I +refuse to believe that God ever turned a monkey into a man." + +"Ha!" mused the doctor, pulling his nose; "I see! Do you insist +upon a sacrosanct meal hour? Are your meal hours fixed, even as the +laws of the Medes and the Persians?" + +"How else, pray, shall one run one's house with any degree of +system?" I wanted to know. + +"Bunk!" snorted the doctor. "_I_ eat when I'm hungry! Now, lastly, +sister, tell me truthfully: are you a Democrat or a Republican?" + +"I don't see much difference: they're both of them nothing but +_men_." + +"I knew it!" The doctor shook his head with sad triumph. "She'd +scratch Brown, because she didn't like the expression of his ears, +and vote for Jones, because he had such beautiful whiskers! My dear, +dear woman, can't you see that it's almost a law of nature for you +and me, who don't agree about anything, to marry each other?" + +"I don't even agree with you as to that!" said I, and fell into +helpless laughter. + +"It rather looks like flying in the face of Providence not to," he +warned me. "In the meantime--" + +"In the meantime, let us be grateful Alicia didn't put the notion +into your head to ask somebody who might have taken you seriously." + +"That means you don't, and won't." He drew a long breath. "But +we're good friends; aren't we, Sophy?" + +"If a man never does anything worse than ask a woman to marry him, +he will probably retain her friendship until she dies," I replied. + +"Provided she refuses him," the doctor said, gratefully. And bending +down, he kissed me brotherly on the cheek, an honest and resounding +smack; at which opportune moment Alicia walked in. + +Wholly unabashed, the doctor spoke pleasantly to Alicia, shook hands +with me effusively, and went off whistling. All was right with the +world. I'd refused him, you understand! Instead of being enraged and +offended, I found myself giggling. + +That night, as Alicia didn't come in my room, I went into hers. + +"I know what you've come to tell me, Sophy dear," she said, +directly. "I've seen it for some time. And I'm glad as glad--glad +with all my heart, Sophy." Her voice was tenderness itself, her eyes +melted. But the hand on my hand was cold. "I love you a great deal, +Sophy," she whispered. "More than anybody else in the world, I +think." + +"And was it because you loved me, dear girl, that you put the absurd +notion of asking me to marry him into Doctor Geddes's head?" + +"Absurd notion?" repeated Alicia. "Absurd notion? But he asked you! +Didn't he ask you?" + +"As to that, he told me I could marry him if I wanted to," I +admitted. "Oh, Leetchy, it was funny, though! If you could have seen +the poor dear, trying to martyr himself, just to oblige you--" + +"You _refused_ him?" breathlessly. + +"Of course. There wasn't anything to say but 'No.'" + +"But--I saw--" + +"You saw him kiss me on the cheek? Honey, that wasn't love: that was +gratitude!" + +"I don't understand!" stammered Alicia, twisting her hands. "Why, +you cared for him--I thought you cared." + +"Of course I care for him! But not like that! Good heavens, Alicia, +however did you get such a notion? My dear, if I loved you less, or +him more, I should never, never be able to forgive either of you. As +it is, we'll forget it." + +At that Alicia began to cry. + +"Oh, what have I done?" she whimpered. "Sophy, you don't know--what +I've done!" + +"You haven't done anything that can't be undone," said I, +comfortably. "You and I, my dear, fell into a Hynds House maze. Now +we're out of it!" And thinking she would be better by herself, I +kissed her good night. + +Out of Hynds House maze, indeed! I had only to step back into my own +room to have it again enmesh me. For on the prie-dieu that had once +held Freeman Hynds's Bible and now held mine, was the lost diary. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FIRES OF YESTERDAY + + +I wasn't frightened, of course. There isn't anything terrifying in +finding a little old leather-covered book on a prie-dieu by one's +bedside. But it was some minutes before I could induce myself to +take up that yellowed old diary and examine it. + +It begins the year of Freeman's return from college, "a Finish'd +Young Gentleman." He has refused to go abroad, considering that "our +Young Gentlemen have enough Fripperies & Fopperies at Home without +bringing worse Ones from Abroad." Brother Richard has been abroad +more than once, and Freeman does not "find him Improv'd save in +Outer Elegancies." + +The only person that "much Travelling hath not Spoil'd," he finds, +is Mistress Emily Hope of Hope Plantation. "Shee was a Sweet Child," +he remembers; and now that the dew of their youth is upon them both, +he finds her "of a Graceful and Delicate Shape, with the Most +Beautiful Countenance in the World, a Sweet & Modest Demeanour, a +Sprightly Wit, an Accomplish'd Mind, & a Heart Fix'd upon Virtue." + +The estates are near each other, the families intimate friends. +Emily seems to like the boy. At any rate, she doesn't repel him. And +then returns Richard--the gay, the handsome, the irresistible +Richard--who adds to the stalwart comeliness of a colonial gentleman +the style, the grace, the cultivated manners of the Old World. + +Almost fiercely Freeman notes the effect he produces, and how "Women +do catch an Admiration for him as't were a Pox." + +Then he begins to set down, grimly, "The Sums my Father hath paid +for My Brother's Debts." A little later, he adds: "You Might Pour +the Atlantic Ocean full of Gold through his Pocketts & Overnight +would He empty Them." Richard, also, "Makes Choice of rake-hell +Companions," to his father's growing unease and indignation, his +mother's distress. But "Good God! how is all Forgiven the Beautiful, +the Gift'd!" + +"Jezebel herself, that carries her Head so High, wears her Heart +upon her Sleeve, een like a simple Milkmaid! 'Tis a Rare Spectacle. +Sure there's a Fatality about this Man!" + + * * * * * + +"This Day dress'd I in my new Blue Cloathes, the which become me not +Ill & riding over to Hope Plant'n did ask for Emily's Hand. Alas, +'Tis even as my Fears foretold! Shee loves me Not. 'Tis Richard +alone hath her Heart. + +"I do Fear Shee will sup Sorrow & drink Tears that setts her +Affection upon the Unstable. Shee's too Mild, too Tender, hath not a +Firm enough Hand to restrain him. He should een have ta'en Madame +Jezebel. Hath a Grand Passion for him. Will not lightly wear the +Willow." + + * * * * * + +"This Day did Richard my Brother Wed Emily Hope," he records, after +a six-months' silence. "All say 'tis a most Noble Mating. My Mother +in a Gown from London Town, & our Finest Gems, enow to make a +Dutchess envious of a Carolina Lady. My Father in high Spiritts. + +"I danc'd with the Bridesmaids, but Salut'd not the Bride, the Which +noted Madame Jezebel. Was Handsomer than ever I did See her, many +thinking her Handsomer than the Bride. Had a great Following, the +which the Hussy treat'd with Disdain. + +"'Have you Kiss'd the Bride, Sir?' says shee, a-mocking of me after +her Wont. 'What a Fine Thing is a Love-Match, Master Freeman!' + +"'Have you Wish'd the Bridegroom Joy?' says I. The woman anger'd me. + +"'May Heaven send him all the Happiness he Deserves!' cries shee. +'Sure, you'll echo that yourself, Master Freeman!' 'Tis a jibing +Wench. Would to God Richard had Wedded her!" + +Then came dry notes of a visit to Kinsfolk in Virginia. Freeman +seems to have been away from home for some time. When he returns, it +is to chronicle in brief his brother's downward course. "They have +sold Hope Plantation and Most of the Slaves. 'Tis an evil Chance." + +"I shall be Twenty-one next month, though I feel a Thousand. We +shall have a Ball, after the Custom of our House. 'Tis to be a Grand +Affair. I do think my Parents are somewhat Tender of Conscience to +meward. Though my Father Loves me not as he Loves my Brother, yet he +begins to Lean upon me more & More Heavily. My poor Mother is a +Little Envious of these Dry Virtues of mine, seeing her Darling is +like to come to Shipwreck for Lack of them. Yet had he Fortune & +Beauty & Emily!" + +The next entry records the loss of the Hynds jewels. "'Tis a great +Mystery!" One is sorely puzzled here. There is no getting at what +Freeman really thinks. Coldly, tritely, he sets down the bald, bare +facts of the tragedies that wrecked the Hyndses. + +With a strange lack of emotion he chronicles Richard's death, and +adds: "At the Pleasure of God his Birth fell upon a Wednesday, at +Sun-rising, the which was by some Accounted Favourable. His Death +came upon a Friday, at Noone, it Raining heavily." + +Then comes his father's sudden death; and this curious item: + +"Despite his Anguish & Affliction of Spiritt upon that Date, he did +tell me Part, after the Custom of our House, the morning of my +Twenty-first Birthday. Alas, when he was Stricken, upon the News of +Richard's Demise, he had no Chance to tell me All, nor was there +among his Papers the Keye nor any Clue to It. When J. call'd us, he +was Beyond Speech & shee Hystericall with Affright. Thus the Whole +Secret perishes, since Without the Keye & his Instructions 'twould +be Impossible to Proceed." + + * * * * * + +"This evening came Capt. B., the worst of the Plundering Crew that +pluck'd Richard. 'Sirrah,' says he, impudently, 'thy Brother owe'd +me three thousand pounds.' And he pulls me out a great fistfull of +Billets. + +"'Sirrah,' says I, 'my Brother owes his Wife and Orphan'd Infant +three thousand times more than that. There be Debts of Nature which +precede so-called Debts of Honour. Each billet in thy hand, thou +swindling runnigate, calls for a bullet. Begone, lest _I_ owe thee +a horse-whipping.' + +"'Anan!' says he, 'and one of you a Thief! _That_ for Honour, in the +mouth of a Hynds!' And snapp'd me his fingers under my Nose. + +"We arrang'd a Meeting, though 'T was Foolish to Risk myself, with +the Roof tottering over my Mother's Head. My fellow Pompey, Mr. G. +Dalzell, Mr. F. Mayne, & Dr. Baltassar Bobo with me. Two of his +scoundrelly Associates with him. His ball graz'd my arm above the +Elbow & Burnt the Linen of my Shirt. Mine Finish'd him. 'T was too +great an Honour & more than he Deserv'd, to die by the Hand of a +Gentleman." + +A little later: "This morn disappear'd my Cozen Jessamine. + +"Nothing discover'd of her Whereabouts," he records from time to +time. + +"This morn saw I Emily & Richard's little Son. 'T is a Fine child, +much Resembling my Brother. Emily turn'd her Face away, drawing down +of her Widow's Weeds, & turn'd also the Babe's face aside. I felt +Embitter'd." + +By this time he has taken over the whole Hynds estate as heir. He +mentions his sisters' marriages, notes that they have received their +dowers, and so dismisses them. + +His mother has been dead some time when he marries. One wonders what +the bride was like, whom he commends for "Housekeeping Virtues, so +that the Servants instantly Obey, there is no Pilfering & Loitering, +& the House moves like Clockwork." + +He must have been like clockwork, himself. There seems less and less +human emotion in him. The birth of his only child gets this: + +"This day was born Sophronisba Harriott Hynds, nam'd for her +Estimable Mother. I am told 'Tis a fine healthy Child." + +Casually thereafter he mentions "my Daughter." Twice her mother +"Requested me to Chastise her for Unchristian Temper," which +chastisement he seems to have administered with thoroughness and a +rattan, in his office. On the second occasion, "I whip'd her +Severely & did at the same Time admonish her to Ask Pardon of God. +Whereupon she Yell'd Aloud & did Seize the Calf of my Leg & Bite me, +Causing me Great Physical Pain and Mental Anguish. How sharper than +a Serpent's Tooth is an Ungrateful Child!" + +(Oh, Ungrateful Child, I do not find it in my heart to blame you +overmuch. Somehow I can't feel sorry that you bit him, Sophronisba!) + +"This day died my Wife, an Estimable Helpmeet. I shall sadly Lack +her Management of the House." In spite of which, he buys more land. +Life seems to run smoothly enough. "The Lord hath bless'd me with +Abundance. They that Spoke evil of me are Astonied & made Asham'd. +The Lord hath done it." + +Then comes this last entry: + +"Two nights since died Scipio, son of old Shooba's last Wife, the +which did send for me, Urgently entreating of my Presence. 'T was +ever a Simple-minded Creature & found a faithful Servant, wherefore +I did go to him. + +"He was greatly in Dread of Dying, for that he was in mortal Terrour +of old Shooba, fearing to Meet that Evil Being outside of the Flesh. +Had been with Shooba when the wretched Creature passed away, a +harden'd Heathen among Convert'd & Profess'd Christians. Said he was +a Snake Soul. + +"The man was craz'd with Fear, dreading Shooba to be even then in +the Room. And indeed the Tale he whisper'd me was enough to Craze a +Christian Man, & hath all but crack'd mine own Witts. If 't were not +for the Paper he slip't into my Palm, I should sett it down for a +Phantazy, one of old Shooba's evil Spells. Most merciful God, how +came he by that Paper if the Tale be untrue? + +"Greatly am I upsett by this Improbable & Frightful Thing. Sure this +requires Prayer & Fasting, lest I be Delud'd." + +Between the pages following this last entry was a piece of yellowed +paper, the paper that had been lost from the Author's coat pocket, +in the locked closet of his room. + +After a while I managed to work the slit of a drawer open, and to +this hiding-place I returned Freeman's diary, and with it the +faintly scented bit of paper that The Author mourned. + + * * * * * + +The failure of her matrimonial plans for me did not occasion Miss +Alicia Gaines overmuch grief. She seemed to have dismissed the whole +matter from her mind. Restored to her old time gaiety, she sang like +a thrush as she worked. She bubbled over with the sheer joy of +living, until the very sight of her gladdened one. And she simply +couldn't make her feet behave! She danced with the broom one +morning, to the great amusement of our scholarly old Englishman. + +"I'm supposed to be somewhat of an old stick myself: why not try me, +instead of the broom?" he suggested slyly. Instantly she took him at +his word, and danced him up and down the hall until he was +breathless. + +"This," panted the scholar, "is a fair sample of what the Irish do +to the English." + +"We do lead you a pretty dance, don't we, dear John Bull?" dimpled +Alicia. + +"You do, you engaging baggage!" he admitted. "But," he added, in a +tone of satisfaction, "we manage to keep step, my dear! Oh, yes, we +manage to keep step!" And he trotted off, chuckling. + +"There are times," said The Author to me, darkly, "when the +terrifying tirelessness of youth gives me a vertigo. Come away, Miss +Smith. Leave that kitten to chase her own shadow up the wall." + + "Cross-patch, draw the latch, + Sit by the fire and spin--yarns!" + +chanted Alicia. + +"Go away, you pink-and-white delusion!" said The Author, severely. +"You have made Scholarship and Wisdom put on cap and bells and +prance like a morris-dancer. Isn't that mischief enough for one +day?" + +Alicia has a round, snow-white chin, and when she tilts it the curve +of her throat is distracting. + +"On second thoughts," said The Author, critically, "I discover that +I do not wholly disapprove of you. Come outside. I wish to talk +about the venerable, and yet common design that tops every outside +window and door of this house.--What do you call that design, may I +ask?" + +"Why, everybody knows the Greek fret!" said Alicia, staring at it. +"It's as old as the hills." + +"Exactly," agreed The Author. "The Greek fret is as old as the hill. +And, with the single exception of the swastika, it is the design +most universally known to man. You may find it on a bit of ancient +Greek pottery, or on a crumbling wall in Yucatan. Many people refer +to it as the Greek key." + +Something began to glimmer in my mind--the vaguest, most tenuous +shadow of an idea; a tantalizing, hide-and-seek phantom of a +thought. + + "_Turne Hellens Keye + Three Tennes and Three_," + +he quoted the doggerel verse. + +We looked at him mutely. + +"It is a tiresome truism," he went on, reflectively, "that what lies +close to the eye often escapes observation. For instance, these +windows have been staring at me daily, each with its nice little +eyebrow of design, and I overlooked the design until my subconscious +mind suggested to me that here, in all probability, lies Hellen's +Keye." + +I remembered the entry in Freeman's diary, concerning the loss of a +"Keye," which hadn't been found among his father's papers, and of a +secret which had died with the older man. + +"I think I told you," said The Author, "that this house was built by +master masons, shortly after the Grand Lodge was established in +London. Thirty-three is rather a significant number. Yet, how to +apply it," he paused, frowning. + +"Without disturbing a Watcher in the Dark?" Alicia made light of +The Authors itch for mystery. "Aren't you rather forgetting the +Watcher in the Dark? Teller of tales, isn't it moon-stuff you're +trying to spin?" + +"Who talks of a Watcher in the Dark?" asked a pleasant voice. +Accompanied by Mr. Johnson, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik had strolled up +unperceived. + +"The Author," Alicia explained, mischievously, "is trying to make +sense out of nonsense." + +"That," said Mr. Jelnik, smiling, "is not an uncommon occupation." + +"It's all about a bit of doggerel we found on a scrap of paper in +the attic," I told him. And I quoted it, adding: "There was a column +of dots under it. The Author laments that he lost it, before he had +chance to unravel it." + +"I lost it, walking in my sleep," said The Author, disagreeably. + +"And now he's trying to make us believe that the design in the +brick-work above our windows, just because it's the Greek fret, is +Hellen's Keye," Alicia said, jestingly. + +"Well, you know, if a thing means _anything_, it's got to mean +_something_," put in Mr. Johnson. + +"Ain't it the truth, though?" hissed The Author, with fury. + +Mr. Johnson was saved from stammering explanations by the irruption +of Beautiful Dog, who at sound of his voice had wriggled, and +cringed, and fawned his way out of the shrubbery, cocking a wary eye +to see that none of the Black family was around. Beautiful Dog +rolled his eyes at his god, swung his tail, waggled his ears, made +uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from ear to ear. +He was so utterly absurd that he claimed everybody's amused +attention. + +"Why, old chap! You're rather glad to see your friends, aren't you?" +the secretary said in his pleasant voice. + +Beautiful Dog yelped with rapture, darted back into the shrubbery, +and a moment later emerged and laid at his adored one's feet all his +treasure, a chewed slipper. He tried to say that precious as this +gift undoubtedly was, he gave it willingly, joyfully. But scenting +other white people too near, he backed off, and fled. + +The Author's eyes followed him. + +"I wonder if I'd have been equal to that, myself, if I'd been born a +nigger dog with an ingrained distrust of the white man?" he +questioned. "Gad! it comes near being the real thing, Johnson!" + +The secretary looked at the slipper lying at his feet: "I wonder +where he found that, now?" + +I was wondering the same thing, and so was Alicia. + +"Let's show Beautiful Dog the Chinese politeness of being decent +enough not to accept his gift when he's decent enough to offer it," +she suggested. + +"Yes, throw it into the shrubbery and let him find it. That may +raise white people somewhat in his estimation," I added, hastily. + +Instantly Mr. Jelnik picked it up and tossed it among the bushes. +His action seemed the merest polite compliance with my request, and +he barely glanced at the object he cast away. Yet it was really +worth a second glance. Chewed, frayed, and torn, it had once been of +finest red Morocco leather; and it was such a flat and heelless +slipper as no native Hyndsville foot had ever worn. It was The +Jinnee's slipper. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE TALISMAN + + +Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was far from the fool her cousin Sophronisba +had credited her with being. She had sufficient cleverness to +understand that Hyndsville wasn't big enough to hold two factions. +For a faction was forming with Hynds House as its storm-center, and +it was one which threatened Mrs. Scarboro's hitherto unquestioned +sovereignty. Jimmy Scarboro himself, a most personable youth, was +one of the ringleaders of revolt. + +A weaker woman would have kept up the fight. Mrs. Scarboro +understood that to spend one's powers trying to hold an untenable +position is a proof not of valor but of stupidity. She quietly +declared a truce, sending out, in the form of an invitation to one +of her sacred card-parties, tentative notice that she would consider +joining forces. We recognized the olive-branch, seriously extended. +The next move was ours. + +"There's a time to fight, and a time to leave off fighting," Alicia +decided. "Here's where we disarm. When these people come from under +the shade of the dear old family tree, they're quite human. We have +got to let them give themselves the opportunity to discover that +we're human, too." + +It wasn't necessary to explain things to The Author, because a +portion of his brain is purely and cattily feminine. That's why he +is a genius. No man is a genius whose brain isn't bisexual. + +"I shall have to lay aside a cherished prejudice and lend this lady +the light of my countenance, although I loathe card-parties. I abhor +cards, outside of draw-poker on shipboard, with a crook of sorts +sitting in to lend the game a fillip. Despite the fact that poor +Mrs. Scarboro couldn't lay hands on a decent crook to save her life, +I think I shall go, and thereby acquire merit," he concluded, with +the air of a martyr. + +I looked at him gratefully. + +"I'll wager that little Sophy thinks she wants to go because she +desires to be friends and neighbors. 'Behold how good and how +pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!'--You're a +transparent person, you Sophy!" + +"But I do desire to be friends with them. I have to live here all +the rest of my life, haven't I?" + +"Not necessarily," replied The Author, arching his eyebrows. "For +instance, you can live in New York any time you want to, Sophy." + +"I've never told you that you might call me Sophy," I parried, +hastily. + +"Oh, but I like to call you Sophy," he responded airily. "And +really, you shouldn't mind. I've called people lots worse things +than Sophy, in my time! But then," he added, "I didn't happen to +like them. As for you, I find you a very likeable being, Sophy; upon +my word, extremely likeable!" + +"Thank you," said I. I wasn't anxious to hear The Author tell me how +likable he found me; at least, not yet. + + * * * * * + +For pride's sake as well as for the sake of custom--and in South +Carolina custom has all the power of a fetish--Mrs. Scarboro would +have died rather than vary by one jot or tittle her usual +refreshments, or wear a new frock, on that particular night. Yet the +occasion, despite its mild diversions, was distinctly epochal, in +that it marked the reunion of Hyndsville. Even Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, +for the first time, put in his decorative appearance, to The +Author's fidgety surprise. He played a highly creditable game of +bridge. And after a while he sang "Believe Me if All Those Endearing +Young Charms," so exquisitely that a hushed and rapturous silence +fell upon everybody, and the old ladies and gentlemen present held +their hands before misty eyes. They used to sing that song when the +old men were boy soldiers marching off to the tune of "The Bonnie +Blue Flag," and the old ladies were ringleted girls in hoop-skirts +bidding them good-by. + +"My dear boy," Mrs. Scarboro told him, with great feeling, "you have +been forgetting that you're a cousin of mine. Your mother and I were +girls together. I want you to meet some other old friends of hers +and your grandfather's," and she carried him off to a group of those +wonderful old ladies who grow to purest perfection in South +Carolina--low-voiced lovely old ladies, dressed in black silk, with +cameo brooches at their throats, and lace caps on their white hair. + +A little group of old gentlemen immediately foregathered with them. +They knew who was and wasn't kin to Sally Hynds's son, unto the +seventh generation. + +"They've begun on the begats," chuckled The Author, "First Book of +Chronicles, Chapters One to Four." + +"Jelnik's really kin to them, and he ought to pay for the +privilege," said Mr. Johnson. + +The Author looked at the old ladies, on whose delicate withered +hands the wedding-rings hung loosely, and at the erect old gentlemen +with white goatees, and something whimsically tender came into his +clever face. + +"It is worth the price," he said, very gently--for him. + +"Now, that was your soul speaking!" said Miss Emmeline, warmly. +Instantly The Author wrinkled his nose, bristled his mustache, and +looked like a hyena. Miss Martha Hopkins, worshipfully observant of +the great man, caught his eye at that moment and thought he was +scowling at _her_. She looked so stricken that The Author presently +strolled over and sat down beside her, to her fluttering delight. +But discovering that she was wholly unacquainted with the original +verse of J. Gordon Coogler of Columbia, he first bitterly reproached +her for neglecting home-made talent, and then proceeded to make sure +that she would remember the Bard of the Congaree so long as she +lived. + +"Not know Coogler!" cried The Author, shrilly; "ignorant of the bard +raised, so to speak, around your own door-step? Horrible! Listen to +this!" said he, accusingly: + + "Fair lady, on that snowy neck and half-clad bosom + Which you so publicly reveal to man, + There's not a single outward stain or speck. + Would that you had given but half the care + To the training of your intellect and heart, + As you have given to that spotless neck!" + +"Gracious Heavens!" gasped Miss Martha, who showed a modest +salt-cellar in the mildest of Vs. + +"Is it possible you don't like him?" demanded The Author, amazedly. +"But, my dear woman! Coogler's--why, Coogler's ginger-pop to a +thirsty world!" + +"I--I don't drink ginger-pop!" confessed the be-deviled Center of +Culture, foggily. + + "Alas! for the South, her books have grown fewer, + She never was much given to literature," + +quoted The Author, pensively. + +She was speechless. The shameless Author, fixing upon her a last +long, lingering look of sorrowful reproach, said with emotion: + + "From early youth to the frost of age + Man's days have been a mixture + Of all that constitutes in life + A dark and gloomy picture." + +And he stalked off, leaving Miss Martha Hopkins in a state of mind. + +"Friend Author," Alicia murmured, as he paused beside her, "I wish +you were my own dear little boy for just five merry minutes. I'd +show you," she declared, divided between Irish mirth and human pity +for Miss Martha, "I'd show you what a hair-brush could accomplish!" + +"Too late!" regretted The Author, shaking his head. "But," he +suggested, brightening, "couldn't you wish to be my own dear little +girl, instead?" + +"This is so sudden!" murmured Alicia, coyly. + +"Deluding devilette!" breathed The Author, "get thee behind me!" + +That evening was the first time I had ever heard myself called +"pretty." I was used to "businesslike" and "efficient" and +"trustworthy"--all excellent terms, in their way, but not such happy +things, any one of them, as "pretty." + +"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked The Author. "Something over +the hills and far away? Because you look as Maude Adams used to look +when she first played 'Peter Pan.'" + +I hoped it might be true, because-- + +I looked up then and met Mr. Nicholas Jelnik's dark eyes. They were +falcon eyes, but now there was something in them that made me, to my +rage and confusion and chagrin, blush like a silly school-girl. When +I again ventured to glance in his direction he was patiently and +politely listening to a white-goateed, game-legged U.C.V. refight +the Civil War with so fiery a zest that he presently caught another +veteran a resounding crack on the funny-bone with the gold-headed +stick he was flourishing. Both gentlemen half rose, the one making +wry faces and rubbing his elbow, the other bowing and apologetic. + +"Pahdon me, Majah! My deah suh, pahdon me! But I was just tellin' +this boy about the day in the Wilderness his grandfathah Hynds took +a Yankee bullet out of my leg with a paih of silvah scissahs and +bandaged it with the tail of his shirt. + +"'I've lost my niggah and my instruments, Sam,' says the doctah, +'but that's no reason why the damyankees should have the +satisfaction of killin' a puffeckly good rebel, when there's not +enough to go around now. Hold your leg still,' says he, rollin' up +his sleeves, 'an' with the help of God and my scissahs and my +shirt-tail, I'll save it for you.' An' he did. I walked home from +Appomattox on that same leg, suh," said the veteran, and brought his +stick down on the toes of it with a force that made him utter a +muffled bellow. + +The other, still nursing an outraged elbow, smiled sweetly. + +"Thanks, Sam," he drawled. + +The Author chuckled appreciatively. "And to think we Americans rush +abroad, when the republic of South Carolina is right next-door to +us!" he murmured. + +A gentle change was creeping over Hynds House, perhaps because of +the delightful old ladies who had begun to come there. Old +gentlemen, too, formed the pleasant habit of dropping in, beguiled +by the artful Author, waited upon son-like by his secretary, +foregathered with as kith and kin by the Englishman, mint-juleped by +the three of them, enchanted by Alicia, and teaed and caked and +beloved by me. Even our cats adored them. The Black family could +spot a Confederate veteran as far off as the front gate, and would +rush wildly to meet him, rubbing and roaching and purring in and out +of his old legs. The Author insisted that their passion for U.C.V.'s +was an inherited trait with our cats, and that we ourselves were +merely acquired characteristics. + +In April, just before Miss Emmeline was to return to Boston, and the +Englishman and his daughter were to go back home, Alicia and I +decided to give a farewell dance. It was to be in costume. + +Hyndsville was pleasantly excited. Never had there been such +rummaging of attics, such searchings of old trunks! We rummaged our +attic, too. I selected a yellow brocade trimmed with seed-pearls and +cascades of lace, and Alicia chose a skimpy blue satin frock with a +round neck, an upstanding lace collar, and absurd little puffed +sleeves. The Englishman was a Puritan, his daughter a Quakeress, +Mr. Johnson a Huguenot Lover, Miss Emmeline a Colonial Lady, Doctor +Geddes a bearded and belted Boyar, and The Author a painfully +realistic Mephistopheles, his eyebrows corked upward and his +mustache waxed into points. Mr. Jelnik sent regrets. + +We had waxed the floors, and moved most of the furniture out of the +big front drawing-room; and this and the wide halls were used for a +ball-room, just as they had been used in the old days. The older +people played cards in the living-room and library. Every now and +then, between pauses, some masked and brilliant figure, like a +bright ghost from the past, would steal in to look over their +shoulders and whisper in their ears. + +But those grandparents weren't content to sit down and play cards +while others footed it. Not they! They danced the Lancers, and a +polka or two, and waltzed and dipped and bowed to "Comin' through +the Rye" while all the masqueraders lined up against the walls to +admire and applaud. And after the gayest sort of a buffet supper, +the prizes that had been won by a belle and a trooper of '61--she in +her grandmother's crinoline and he in his grandfather's gray +jacket--were turned over by acclaim to a sprightly lady of seventy +and her sprightlier partner of seventy-five, for coming disguised as +old folks. The Author made the presentation speech. He began it by +saying that in South Carolina any man might well be excused for +falling in love with his grandmother. + +Then the oldsters began to depart, with laughter and gay good +nights. It had been a delightful affair, one of those affairs that +go with a swing and a rhythm all their own, and that one remembers +with a pleasant taste in the mouth. + +Only the more indefatigable youngsters remained. They hadn't the +slightest intention of foregoing half a night's dancing. They danced +in the hall to the music of the victrola, while the regular +musicians were being fêted in the kitchen by Mary Magdalen, +Queenasheeba, and Fernolia. + +I missed my fan, and went into the drawing-room to look for it. The +room was quite empty for the moment, and looked lonesome for all its +blazing lights. A cool, sweet night wind came in through the open +windows, refreshingly. And quite suddenly there was framed in one of +them a figure more exotic, more bizarre, than any of our maskers had +been. + +His dark robe was folded over his breast, and the silver shaft of a +knife showed in his red girdle. His white wool stuck out from under +his red fez, and his ear-rings gleamed against his black cheeks, and +the bracelets on his wiry arms made a faint tinkling as he leaned +forward. Emboldened by his twinkling eyes, his crooked, friendly +smile, eager to question him, I drew nearer. He stretched out his +hand, and slipped into mine the half of a broken coin. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE HEART OF HYNDS HOUSE + + +I stood staring at the broken coin in my hand with a sort of +stupefaction, while The Jinnee moved slowly away from the window. I +had received a summons I could not ignore. Had I not promised, +smilingly indeed, but sincerely, to answer that call whenever and +however it should come? + +The music had ceased for the moment, and the big hall was quite +empty, for the dancers had trooped into the dining-room, from which +came laughter and chattering voices, and the chink of silver and +china. The great front doors were wide open. I slipped unseen into +the darkly bright, whispering night. + +The moon was high in the heavens, for it was past midnight; the wind +was chill upon my shoulders, the dew silvery under my feet. There +was an odor abroad--the ineffable odor of sleepily stirring spring, +of young new leaves budding, of tender grass, growing like a baby's +hair. + +At some distance ahead I could just distinguish the dark figure of +the messenger, flitting soundless as a shadow. And then, to my +infinite relief, out of the shrubbery stepped Boris, and thrust his +doggy nose into my hand. I laid hold of his collar, and he trotted +sedately beside me. + +I had half expected to be led to the gray-gabled cottage, but The +Jinnee stole along in the shadow of the hedge, stopped beside the +spring-house, and held up his hand. + +"In the name of God!" said I, involuntarily. + +"The compassionate, the merciful!" finished The Jinnee, and turning +to the east made a profound reverence. There was something so simple +and so sincere in his manner that my momentary fear subsided. + +"But why have I been sent for? Why are _you_ here?" I wondered. + +He folded his arms upon his breast, and in a sing-song voice, +curiously unlike any other I had ever heard, answered parrotlike: + +"This is the word of the master: Take to the fair-haired lady the +broken coin, my sign, and she will remember her word to me. Verily, +for the sign's sake, she will follow without fear." + +"The master is not ill, then?" + +"In his body he is well. But of the spirit of man, and what help he +needs, there is but one judge, namely, God." + +"He has need of me?" + +"He sends the token by me, Achmet." And he stood there with a +motionless patience, waiting. + +Achmet! I remembered an afternoon in the Enchanted Wood, and that +name ringing in my ears--Achmet! + +"I will follow you," I said. And instantly The Jinnee pushed open +the unlocked door of the spring-house and stepped inside. + +I hesitated for a moment, turning my head toward Hynds House, +blazing with lights. I could hear voices, laughter, snatches of +song. From the kitchen Mary Magdalen's great, rich, unctuous laugh +rolled out like an organ peal. Silhouetted against the lighted +library window was one of our big black cats, with an arched back +and an uplifted and expressive tail. + +"I wait," said a quiet voice. And, clutching Boris by the collar, I +stepped inside the door. + +It was dark in there; only a faint and broken light came through the +one window, set high in the wall. Boris's eyes were balls of fire, +and his feet made a stealthy, scuffling sound on the flagged floor. +The little spring bubbling in its stone basin was like a whispering, +secretive voice. + +Achmet stooped down, over in one corner. Then, shading a very modern +flash-light with a fold of his robe, he showed me one of the square +flags lifted, and a black hole yawning in the floor. + +I backed away. With a crooked, sly smile, The Jinnee snapped his +fingers at Boris. The big dog jerked himself free of my hand and +disappeared. + +"Now!" said The Jinnee. And like one in a dream I gathered my +lace-trimmed skirts in my hand and backed down a spider-web stairway +that barely gave one foothold. Achmet waited until I reached the +bottom, then he, too, backed in, and I heard the flagstone fall to +over my head. + +There was a moment of utter and awful blackness and stillness. I was +upon the point of shrieking, when something cold and friendly +touched my hand: Boris was nosing me. The Jinnee, at the bottom of +the steps, showed the light. + +We were in a circular shaft, narrowing upward like an inverted +funnel. It was quite clean and dry, lined with hard cement. +Branching from it were two wedge-shaped openings, just wide enough +to allow one person at a time to walk through. + +The Jinnee plunged into one of these, and Boris and I followed. +There was nothing else for us to do. + +"This is safest way. If I come through house, I am seen. Not want +that," said Achmet, over his shoulder. + +I made no reply. I was wondering what The Author would have said had +he seen us at that moment--The Jinnee shuffling ahead in heelless +slippers and Oriental dress, upon his woolly head a red fez with a +silver crescent on it, and on his breast a string of _saphies_, +verses from the Koran, in exquisite Arabic script, framed in flat +round pieces of silver and strung on a chain. Boris, larger and +nobler even than most of his breed, paced behind him. Then came I, a +slim blonde woman, with fair hair powdered, in a dress a century +old. + +The passage wasn't quite six feet high, and so still that you +could hear the beating of your heart. Achmet's slippers went +_scuf-scuf-scuf_. Boris swayed from side to side, his tongue +lolling, his eyes phosphorescent. He resembled those ghost-hounds +of old stories, terrific beasts that follow the Wild Huntsman. + +We went down some steps. I shouldn't have been surprised had I found +myself climbing the beanstalk after Jack. Dazedly I thought: "I'll +wake up in the morning and tell them at the breakfast-table what a +wonderful dream I had." I could fancy the Lady with the Soul +clasping her hands, and The Author crinkling his eyes, and Alicia +laughing. + +This last passage, which, I learned afterward, ran under the +carriage house, presently crooked like an elbow and led us into a +windowless and stone-floored little room, under the cellar. On the +opposite side of the room was the opening of another such passage, +with stone steps leading to it. On these steps sat Nicholas Jelnik. + +He got to his feet and stood looking at me. A momentary red rushed +to his cheek, and his eyes flashed. Boris, tongue out, tail wagging, +rubbed against him, and the master's hand dropped between the +speaking eyes with a swift caress. + +"Good dog! You came with her!" + +"And I. Am I not also a good dog?" asked The Jinnee, jealously. + +Mr. Jelnik's reply I did not understand, but Achmet made a +respectful salutation, and his grin was the grin of a little boy. + +"Sophy!" said Nicholas Jelnik, and his voice shook, "Sophy! Oh, I +knew you would come!" He gave a low, pleased laugh. "And now she is +here, she doesn't even ask why I have sent for her!" + +"The mistress," said Achmet, "should have been of the Faith. May +Allah enlighten her!" + +"Sit down here beside me for a few minutes, Sophy, and rest," said +Mr. Jelnik, seating himself. "And do not look so pale, my little +comrade." + +"I thought--that you might be ill," I faltered. "I thought--that you +needed me." + +"I am not ill, but I do need you," he said quickly, and took my hand +in a firm clasp. The touch of that hand brought me out of my +trance-like state. It was all right, and the most natural thing in +the world, that I should be sitting in this windowless vault, with +two candles and a shadowy lantern burning dimly in the still air, an +old black Jinnee squatting on his heels watching me, a great +wolf-hound stretched beside him. Wasn't Nicholas Jelnik holding my +hand? + +"Sophy," he said directly, "I have found the lost Key of Hynds +House." I looked at him dumbly. "I have reached that point where I +can tell you everything, little friend. Thank Heaven you have come!" +But of a sudden his-forehead was damp. + +"You will remember," he said, after a moment's silence, and still +holding my hand--and I think that now he held it as he had once held +his mother's--"when I talked to you about my childhood and my +mother, I told you she had made me more of an American than an +Austrian. This old home-town of her people, this old house, the +mystery that blackened the Hynds name, were as real to me as the +scenes and people that actually surrounded me. + +"When I was older, she turned over to me all her family papers, and +I sifted and assorted and reduced them to system and order. I found +among them Richard Hynds's own brief account of the affair, and +copies of letters to his father, but the bulk of the papers +consisted of such data as his son and namesake could gather. This +formed a copious mass, for he had set down every least circumstance +that he thought might have any bearing upon his father's case. These +papers, guarded so jealously, bequeathed to his successors the +sacred task of righting Richard Hynds. + +"In Richard's short statement, left for his little son, he, as +rightful heir of Hynds House, mentions the secret passages and tells +how they may be entered. He had been taught that much, himself, on +reaching his majority. But there was one vital secret that hadn't +been revealed to Richard, for not until the head of Hynds House knew +he was about to die did he give to his successor the Key to the +hidden room; the room concealed so cunningly that without the Key +one could never hope to find it. They planned and built wonderfully +well, those old master work-men. They meant that secret room to be +the strong-box, the inviolate hiding-place which should keep what +might be entrusted to it. It was, as it were, the heart of Hynds +House. + +"Remember that Richard's father died of a stroke of apoplexy, and +without speaking. Thus Freeman would know no more than Richard did. +There was but one person alive who knew, and that was--" + +"A slave?" I whispered, remembering Freeman's diary. + +"A slave, an unlettered slave. How he discovered it I do not know. +But he did discover it. He knew, and the Hyndses did not. In regard +to this same slave, a curious item was set down by Richard's son: + +"'This day Black Shooba's son told me of a heathen song Shooba made +before he died and swore him to forget not. 'Tis a strange chaunt: + + "I, Shooba, the Snake Soul, make me a Song. + In the night I sing it for my Snake. + My Snake showed me a Secret Thing. + Two Eyes and Two Eyes looked upon One Eye. + One Eye is open and sees, and sees not. + This my Snake showed me, in the Dark. + But the Strong Ones, the White Ones, + They have no Snake. Ho! Never shall they see it!"' + +"Sounds like a stark raving, doesn't it? One can fancy the doctor +feeling a bit ashamed of himself when he wrote it down. + +"I rather fancied it raving, myself, until one day I came across--" +here he paused, and looked at me intently--"a yellowed slip of paper +between the pages of an old diary that had been accidentally +discovered. I knew then that there was really something to be +discovered, and that I had not been a visionary sentimentalist when +I yielded to my mother's last expressed wish that I should come +here and search. + +"I suppose," he went on dreamily, "that it was in my blood, the +desire to come here to Hyndsville, like a homing bird. But when my +mother died, the ties that bound me to her country seemed to be in a +measure loosened. Then, too, the _Wanderlust_ had me in its grip. I +put aside the profession my father had bred me to, left my affairs +in what I thought capable hands, and indulged my desire to wander up +and down the earth and sail the seven seas. It was upon one of these +prowls that I came upon my old Achmet here, and induced a master who +didn't love him to part with him." And he looked at the old man with +whimsical tenderness. + +"I am your slave," spoke up The Jinnee, sturdily. "I am the fostered +offspring of my master's bounty. May he live a thousand years!" + +That shocked my Yankee ears. Achmet smiled his crooked smile. + +"Why did the sahiba follow when I showed her a broken coin?" he +asked. + +"Because I knew that Mr. Jelnik needed me." + +"Even in the bowels of the earth?" I was silent. + +"Because he is the master!" said The Jinnee. "Therefore you obeyed. +He is the master. Wherefore am I, Achmet, his slave." Oh, shame +upon you, Sophy Smith, for there was that in you, and that not the +least divine part, which was in full accord with black Achmet! + +"Achmet's ideas are of the immutable East," said Mr. Jelnik, with a +faint smile. "He is archaic." And dismissing this persiflage with a +wave of the hand, he continued: + +"Behold me, then, footing it up and down the highways and byways of +the world. But it was as if I had disobeyed the dead, and they would +give me no rest. So presently I stopped short and came to +Hyndsville. + +"With Richard's directions in my possession, it was comparatively +easy for me to find the passageways, and after the old woman's death +I had chance to examine the house room by room. And sometimes, +Sophy, when I have been alone in this tragic old place--" he paused, +and looked at me with a puzzled frown--"it has seemed to me that +there were--well, secret influences, say; things outside of our +sphere. I have felt a sense of horror and despair descend upon my +spirit, a weight almost too heavy to bear. Sometimes it would be so +powerful, so insistent, so vivid, that I had to fly from it. + +"Then I happened to remember something that a gipsy, an old, old man +reputed to be very wise, told me when I was a boy. He said that +troubled spirits can be soothed and sent hence by music. It is the +old and sure charm, as David found when he played upon the harp and +drove the evil spirit out of Saul the king. I brought my violin and +tried it. And," said the cosmopolitan Mr. Jelnik, "the gipsy was +right." + +"Ah, yes, I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that +first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and +dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough +for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen +window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while +his cook's broad back was turned. Achmet was willing enough to play +the obliging Jinnee. You had your dinner, and I had a bit of +harmless amusement. It pleased me to hear Alicia call me Ariel. It +pleased me to stand by, to protect you, if that should be necessary. +Achmet and I took turns in safeguarding you at night. + +"You will understand"--he gave me a straight, clear, proud +look--"that it was never my desire to mystify or to frighten you. +But I couldn't take you offhand into my confidence, could I? I had +to find out something more about you. Remember, too, that my search +in no wise jeopardizes your interests. + +"Day after day, night after night, Sophy, I have pored over +old papers, or burrowed mole-like into the black recesses of +Hynds House. Bit by bit I have pieced scraps of evidence +together--Shooba's savage chant with Scipio's dying whisper in +Freeman's ear, and these two with a rude verse and a line of +dots. But there the thread snapped. + +"Do you remember the morning you told me, The Author's guess that +'Hellen's Keye' was the Greek fret, the design over all the windows +and doors of Hynds House? The trail was plain then. I was to follow +the line of the Greek key for three and thirty turnings, when I +should come upon a sign. I tried and tried. And to-night--I reached +the end of it, Sophy. I found it." Again his forehead was damp, and +his pallor, if possible, deepened. + +I rose as if on springs. The hair of my head rose, too, I thought, +and my scalp tingled. + +"Found what?" + +"The hidden room that the masters built for the master of Hynds +House." He stopped, and a shudder passed over him. His hand closed +upon mine, and it was deathly cold. + +"You have been in a secret room?--here in Hynds House?" I asked +incredulously. + +"Yes," said he in a whisper. "I opened the door--and went in. The +room hadn't been opened for a hundred years, Sophy. There was a +table in one corner, and I went over to it. There was something +else there, too, Sophy." He moistened his lips, and looked at me +with dilated eyes. + +"What?" I asked; "in God's name, what?" + +"The thief," said Nicholas Jelnik. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE DEVILL HIS RAINBOW + + +I was taken with a cold grue. + +"Is it--murder?" It seemed to me that the still room shook and +echoed to the barely whispered word, that the candles stirred and +flickered as in a wind of passing wings. + +"Not in the sense you mean," he replied. "But whatever it may be, +Sophy, this thing has got to be met and faced by us two together. It +concerns you now, as well as me." He stood up as he spoke. "And +now," he asked, "are you strong enough to come with me?" + +I gathered the living spirit within me and looked him in his eyes. + +"Yes," I said steadily. + +"Allah! but here is a woman a man may serve without shame to his +beard!" quoth The Jinnee, wagging his old white head. And with Boris +stretched beside him he resigned himself to wait with the tireless +patience of the East. + +If the other passages had been narrow, that which we now entered was +worse. It was so narrow that the wall on each side seemed about to +close in and crush us, like those frightful sliding walls that +became a living coffin for the victims of medieval cruelty. Always +one was confronted by solid brick walls; and to turn back was to +meet others seemingly risen to cut off all escape. For this passage +follows the simple and yet intricate pattern of the Greek key. Thus: + + [Illustration: Plan of Passage and Secret Chamber] + +I fancied myself doomed to spend a frightful eternity of burrowing +through brick wormholes which led nowhere. I lost all sense of +location, time, and direction. I wasn't even sure of my own identity +any more: things like this couldn't happen to a woman named Smith! +Just when I reached the stage where I was ready to drop down and lie +there unmoving until I died, he turned his head and gave me a +comradely smile of assurance and trust. I plucked up heart of grace +and staggered on. Of a sudden he stopped. The pale circle of the +flash-light moved up, inch by inch, steadied, and stayed on one +spot. + +I found myself staring fixedly at the old and familiar enough symbol +of the rayed eye within the triangle. It was not commonplace or +familiar set up there in that secret and awesome place and seen by a +pale light. There was about it a stark and stern solemnity, such as +suggested the winged circle of immortality carved above the +rock-hewn doors of the tombs of Egyptian kings. Higher than a tall +man's head, it was painted on bricks of a lighter hue than the +surrounding ones, and when the light touched it it seemed to leap +out of the dark like a thing alive, a thing that watched with an +unwinking and terrifying intensity. + +I remembered Shooba's savage chant of the One Eye that his Snake had +shown him; and the doggerel verse on the frayed paper in Freeman's +diary. + +"The Watcher in the Dark!" I stammered; "the Watcher in the Dark! +Why--why, that paper was the Key itself!" + +"Exactly. And a very simple key, though it took me a heartbreaking +length of time to turn it. The cipher was easy enough. It falls +apart into the figures three, five, seven, and nine; it was also +the simplest train of reasoning to apply these figures to the column +of dots. Only, I hadn't the remotest idea what the dots themselves +represented. Nor did it occur to me that the tortuous turnings of +any of the passageways of Hynds House might follow the pattern of +the Greek key, until The Author called your attention to the design +over the outside windows. Clever man, The Author! + +"I lost the paper in the attic the night you heard me stumble on the +stairs. Fortunately, The Author put it in his coat in the closet and +locked the door on the outside. You can enter any room in the Hynds +House through those closet-walls, Sophy. They're paneled, remember. +I hated to have to go through The Author's pockets like a burglar, +but I had to have the key." + +He handed me the flash-light. + +"Now for the column of dots, each of which represents a brick," he +said, and began to count, from the first dark brick immediately +under the center of the triangle. At the third brick he paused; I +could see his fingers moving around the white line that, apparently, +held it in place. And that third brick, which looked so solidly +placed, turned as upon a pivot and swung out sideways. Still +counting from top to bottom, he paused at the fifth, the seventh, +and the ninth, and they, too, behaved in the same manner. As the +ninth one turned, that which had seemed a section of solid wall rose +soundlessly from the floor and left in its place an opening, a door, +as it were, some six feet high and about eighteen inches wide. + +"It is not brick at all, but painted wood. A really wonderful bit of +work," explained Mr. Jelnik. + +I could only stare, owlishly. + +"You are wondering where we are?" He answered the unspoken question: +"Above the library, between the outside wall and the chimney-stacks. +You'd have to tear the house down to find it, without the Key." As +he spoke, he was lighting two of the candles Achmet had provided us +with, and although his hand was quite steady, he had become +frightfully pale. I, too, felt myself growing paler, felt again the +cold grue, as if the wind of death had stirred my hair. + +"Reach into my breast pocket and you'll find a small vial. Put a +drop of the contents on your handkerchief and hold it against your +mouth for a moment," said Mr. Jelnik, with a sharp glance at me. + +I obeyed mechanically. The scent had an indescribably tingling, +spicy odor, and left a cool and grateful sensation in one's parched +and dry throat. My blurred vision cleared, my dull and throbbing +head was relieved. + +"An Alexandrine Copt gave me that," he said, watching its effect +with satisfaction. "He told me he had gotten it from a temple +papyrus, and that it was undoubtedly one of the lost perfumes of +Punt, used by the higher priesthood in their mysteries. Once a year +he sends me such a tiny vial as you see. I could hardly have +survived my searchings in this house, without that saving perfume. +Do you feel able to go on?" + +"Yes." + +"Come, then," and with that he stepped through the opening, and I +after him. + +The room was not large--perhaps some nine feet high, some eight feet +wide. The walls were of such exquisitely grooved and polished red +mahogany that the candle-light was reflected in them as in mirrors; +one seemed to be surrounded by twinkling red stars. On each side of +the opening stood a tall and narrow cabinet, somewhat like a +high-boy, and in one corner was a chest with iron clasps and +handles. Over in another corner was a heavy, medium-sized square +table, on which stood a blackened candelabrum and a tarnished +silver-gilt cup. There were two chairs drawn up to this table. On +one of them, fallen forward, was something. + +Mr. Jelnik placed the candles in the empty sconces. We two stood +looking down, he with pity, I with a mounting, sick horror, at the +thing before us--the poor, huddled thing that had lain there so +long. For it was not, as one might suppose at first glance, a frayed +and threadbare mantle flung across one corner of the table. By the +long black hair it was a woman, and a young woman. + +She had on what must once have been a most beautiful brown silk +dress, trimmed with quantities of fine lace, and looped up over a +stiff brocaded petticoat. Her skeleton feet were in the smallest of +low-cut shoes, the tarnished silver buckles of which were set with +rhinestones. Her head rested on her arm, outflung across the table. +The other arm hung limp, and the fingers pointed downward, as if +accusingly. She had quantities of glorious black hair, and this +alone had death respected; nothing else of her loveliness remained. +Under her fleshless hand lay the soiled and yellowed papers she had +written, and over which, in biting mockery, she had kept watch and +ward. + +"Who is it? Oh, God, God!--who is it?" I gasped, and heard my voice +rattling in my throat like a dying woman's. As, perhaps her voice +had rattled, here in the dark. The thought of her, sitting here in +awful loneliness these long, long years, while life, all unknowing, +ebbed and flowed within reach of her, made me shudder. + +"It is Jessamine Hynds, lost Jessamine Hynds," said her kinsman of +a later day, looking down upon the wreck of her with compassion. + +"But how--how--why did she come here? To die thus--Oh, my God! my +God!" + +"I saw the papers under her hand, and her name written upon the +first page," he said. "What further things she has written, I do not +know. I waited, Sophy, until we should read it together." He smiled +at me wanly. "I could bear it better, with you beside me. You see +how much I need you!" And he took the papers from her and spread +them upon the table. What she had written I shall insert here, as +its properest place. + + I, Jessamine Hynds, Gentlewoman, being of sound Mind (though + they do say I am mad) but of infirm Body, the which I am + shortly to be rid of, do state and declare before God that + it was I who did take the Hynds Jewells, being help'd + thereto by black Shooba the witch doctor, who was my + father's man before my Uncle James Bought him at the Publick + Outcry of our Effects. + + As to the Why & Wherefore I have act'd thus, thou knowest, + thou cruel God, who made me a beggar'd Orphan, a poor + dependant in this House of Pride! + + Yet, God, thou knoweth I lov'd them well enow until Richard + came home the last Time from Abroad, a Young Man in the + Beauty of his Youth, who saw not Jessamine the poor Cozzen, + but Jessamine the fair woman. He would have me sing him + Ballads, he would hang Entranc'd upon the Spinet when I + play'd. Now would he fetch me a flower for my hair, placing + of it himself. And now 't was a knot of ribband for my + dress, and himself fetch'd home broach and ear-rings for my + Birthday Gift, saying in my ear no fairer woman's face had + gladded his eyes since he left home. And by the clipt Hedge + on a May night he kiss'd me. Alas, oh blind high God, alas, + alas! + + 'T was Wondrous to see how even the Servants did catch the + Humour, they waiting upon me Marvelous ready. Until came my + dear Aunt, smiling sickly, and laying of her Hand upon my + Sholder said she must speak for mine own Good. Richard was + but a young Man, wild & headlong, and I a fair Woman thrown + in his Way in an empty betweenwhiles ere his own true love + came. See to it, Jessamine, says she, that a Boy's + short-liv'd Fancy makes not a mock of thee, at thy years, + that should know better! + + Mine Uncle ever twitt'd me for liking of Books, & laugh'd + when I beg'd I might have my Chance of Becoming an Artist. + "What," says he, "a Hynds woman painting of strange folks + their faces? Out upon thy notion, Jessamine!" And my Cozzens + laugh'd and said, Ever did Gentlemen dislike a Learn'd + Female. Should have gotten me a good Husband this Ten Years + since but for my Shrew's Temper & Vanity of Books. + + To cure me they did Cruelly bait me to Marry the Pursy Ninny + that hath the Plantation beyond the Hopes, he that hath been + Ogling of me for years. Could scratch the Wretch his eyes + Out! Puffeth with his mouth in a way hateful to me & hath + pig's jowls. Yet were all they fair mad I should marry me + this Paragon. Should have a home of mine Own, worthy a Lady. + Aye,--and be out of the way, lest I lead Richard Astray. + + Mine Uncle chid me for Ingratitude to God in that I stamp'd + my foot and said No! But Richard laugh'd at the idea of + Jessamine wedding yon tun. Quoth Richard, "Let Jessamine be, + all of ye! she is meat for his masters." Freeman smil'd + sourly, & shrug'd. I love not Freeman, nor do I hate him + overmuch though he call'd me "Madame Jezebel." + + And then came Emily home from Visiting of her Aunts in + London Town. And they made a Marriage between her and + Richard, Richard that was mine. He had lov'd me an they had + let us be. Once pledg'd, he had held fast to his word. Nor + would I, for his own Soul's sake, have let him go. There is + none, none under the sun but me alone, was strong enough to + have sav'd Richard. + + 'T is true, as men judge such things, his Conduct to me was + but Gallant Pleasantry, such as Fine Gentlemen do show to + Favour'd Ladies. And he did Spare my Pride. Never did he + show by word or Deed, or admit to any, that I had car'd more + Deeply than he. But Emily knew. I knew she knew. Saw it in + her Eyes, that look'd on me with Pity. I will not brok that + any mortal Woman shall Pity me! + + Secretly I suffer'd, suffer'd so that a Burning fire crept & + crept into my Brain and Stay'd, nor has left me, Day or + Night. And in all the World was no one I might Weep before, + or that would Comfort me and leave me Unasham'd, save + Shooba, the witch doctor, whom the slaves Fear for that he + hath a Snake-soul and makes Charms and casts Spells. + + 'T is true, that Shooba hath a Spiritt. When it worketh upon + him he is Dull and Overcast and may not Labour untill it be + gone. And then will he rise and Speak strange and sometimes + Terrible things, and Prophesy. In the old times my Father + smil'd, and let him be. But here 't is otherwise. When + Shooba's Spiritt made him Heavy and Sleepy, and when he woke + again and Spoke, mine Uncle's new Overseer had the old man + Whip't. Twice did this Happen before I knew of It. + + Then went I to the Overseer, with Indignation, and said: + "Do not whip Shooba, any more. 'T is Monstrous, to Whip an + old man that hath a Spiritt! 'T is not true he makes + dissentions and plots Revolt among the slaves. 'T is not + true he is lazy & will not Work. There is no better Workman + than Shooba. 'T is only true you are a cruel man and misuse + your Power." + + Flick'd with his Whip his worsted Stockings. Said in a + hateful voice: "'Taint your place, Miss, to be a-giving of + orders to the Overseer. I take orders only from them that + has the right to Give 'em. When I think that old Nigger + ought to be whipt, whipt he 'll be." + + Then march'd he to mine Uncle and ask'd was Mistress + Jessamine to oversee the Overseer, and call him hard Names + for the whipping of a Troublesome Nigger? And my Uncle fell + into a Fury With me. Allowed the wretch to Triumph. Shooba + was whipt again. I saw his Back. + + Once old Shooba cur'd me of a pestilent Fever, with Simples, + when I was a little Child, and our Leech had given me Over, + nor did he Bleed me once. Now Shooba's Back was Bleeding, + and I might not help him! + + Now in the night I had gone secretly to his Hut to fetch him + such poor little Comforts as I might secretly get & give. He + took them, & look'd at me long & long, with his brooding, + deep, strange eyes. + + "For the man that whipt me, I have sent forth my Snake. My + Snake will have a Thing to say to him. The man will die. + Then laughed he, and hugg'd his knees.--And 't is true + Meekins the Overseer one week later was bitten by a Serpent + in the Field and died an Unlovely Death. + + "Missy," whispered Shooba, "in my country when I young, + chief get mad with chief more stronger, not fight with + spears. Call Witch doctor and make Medicine. Stronger + chief, him come dead one day soon. Maybe bumbye you and me + make some Medicine?" My lips curl'd somewhat. Poor old + Shooba making medicine against the Hyndses. "You go now and + think some. I stay here, and think some, too. Maybe one time + you find medicine. Maybe one time my Snake find." + + I went away, smiling sadly. 'T would need strong medicine to + heal me and Shooba! + + Now Time pass'd, and they fell to planning for Freeman's + Ball. 'T was to be a Grand affair, and there was Talk of my + Aunt's Frock, and wearing of the Hynds Jewells. And + Richard's Wife was to be Allow'd to wear the Queen's + Emerald. + + Came Emily to me in secret, and says she, "Come, Jessamine, + be Friends with me. My Mind is Fix'd you shall Outshine all + the other Ladies. I have the very Frock for you, just new + come from London, a lustrous thing will make you glow & + Sparkle like a Ruby. We shall make it a State Secret, + Jessamine. Not a word shall be breath'd, but you shall burst + upon them all like a Meteor!" + + I do admit that ever was something Noble & Generous in + Emily, that something in myself did Honour. I had thank'd + her Thought, but that Richard came in & kiss'd her for it, + saying he een Lov'd her the Better for that she lov'd his + haughty Cozzen. But, O God, they Two went away Hand in Hand! + He forgot me for her sake, so completely that he said not + even, "Good-by." + + That night went I to Shooba secretly, and said, "Is thy + Snake awake? For A Thought is in my mind." Then took we + Counsel together. Shooba is a man most cunning in all manner + of Herbs and Simples. They in Hynds House began for to sleep + sweetly and soundly, but felt no ill Effects. Nay, they rose + betimes most pleasantly rest'd & refresh'd. + + Then did Shooba and I, who thus had undisturb'd Access to + my Aunt's room, work swiftly until Dawn. Three nights and a + half night did we two work, before our Task was compleat'd, + the Kernell's filch'd from the Nuts, and the Empty Shells + left for my lady's adorning of herself at my lord's + birth-night Ball. + + Oh, 't was a rare, rare Jest! I laugh'd and old Shooba + laugh'd. And I did chap them atween my hands, those flaming + Bawbles, as children chap chaff. And they did sparkle & glow + like the Devill his Rainbow! All day was I Happy, Hugging of + my Secret to my Heart. + + Emily had the brown dress brought Secretly into the House, & + Made for me in mine Own Room. Once was she wishful I might + wear one of the Hynds Rubies, just for one Night, but I chid + her, saying that already the Frock was more than Enough. + Indeed 't is a beautiful Dress. Will serve me well for a + Shroud. + + Ever came the Ball nearer & nearer, and all we a-flutter, I + with my hands overfull, my hours overcrowd'd, with Helping + of them. I could not have slept in peace did I not know what + was a-coming. + + And then open'd they the Safe in my Aunt's morning-room. + Shall be such a Howling from the Damn'd on the Day of + Judgment as went up from Hynds House that day! Makes me to + think of the text, And there shall be weeping and wailing + and gnashing of teeth. + + Lord, how did they run Hither & Thither, what Wailing & + Reproaching & Accusing & Screeching! How did my dear Aunt's + eyes grow Redder than ever Mine had been! How did my Proud + Uncle find his Lofty Crest Lower'd, and was in that Honour + of his Scourg'd more Cruelly than ever old Shooba's Back had + been! How, too, was _her_ Happiness burst like a Bubble, + that had been so rainbow Bright! In that house all wept save + me alone. Nor did one of them so much as dream in 's sleep + of suspecting Jessamine Hynds! + + And then--oh, God! oh, God--Richard, my Richard, that I + Lov'd more than mine own Soul, died! As a Candle is snuff'd + out, so went Richard that was so comely and so strong. I had + only thought to Punish him, Make them all Suffer to Pay me + for mine own Suffering. Never, never, had I meant that + Richard should Die. 'Twas a Thunder-bolt upon my Head, 'twas + Lightning splitting my Heart. + + 'Twas I brought the News of Richard's death to my Uncle + James. Was sitting in the Library pretending for to read. + Then came I in, and clos'd the Door, and said: + + "_Richard is dead._" How the man star'd! Had a ruddy face, + very Handsome. Before my eyes it pal'd and pinch'd. I said + again: "Don't you understand? _Richard is dead._" + + As a tree falls, he fell. I knew his Time was come, and + gently I rais'd him. He claw'd at his Breast and mouth'd + "Richard--Freeman--Pocket-book--The Key, the Key!" Look'd at + me piteously. 'Twould melt one's Heart to see his Eyes. + + I did thrust my hand into the breast of his blue + Broad-cloath Coat, and draw forth his Pocket-Book. 'Twas in + Dark Green leather, & upon it the Arms of our House. There + were bank-notes in't, some silver, two or three folded + papers, and one in a small silk Cover, put by itself. I saw + his Fading Eyes brighten as I held it up. He maw'd, + "Key--Freeman--" and puff'd with his Lips, and fell + Unconscious. I slipt the Book back into his breast, put the + silk-covered paper in mine own, and ran out of the Room, + Calling Loudly for help. + + He dy'd that Night. And when I look'd at the "Key" 'twas + naught but a silly Verse. Yet I was doubtful of Giving it to + Freeman. Instead, I did show it to old Shooba. + + "I will ask my Snake if he knows anything of Keyes," said + Shooba. And remembering the Overseer, I did not smile, but + gave him the Paper. I like not to think of Shooba's Snake. + + Then buried we mine Uncle in the Hynds tomb and my Aunt was + left to wander ghostlike, seeking for what she should never + find.--Oh, why did not they leave Richard and me alone! + + I repent not. But I am Troubled because of Richard who comes + in the Night and looks at me, and asks, without anger, only + with Sorrow, "_Was it well done, Jessamine?_" I answer, + weeping; "Richard, it was to be. You made me Love you, + Richard, and you put me by. For which Cause, and for that + their Pride was beyond Bearing, did I pull down the Roof of + Hynds House over their heads, and these my Hands did push + you into your Grave. But go you back to Sleep, my dearest + Dear. I shall Find mine Own Grave shortly, and then I shall + be able to come closer to you. When I am Dead, Richard, you + will understand." + + Sometimes he will go, looking at me over his Sholder with + Eyes so sad that for Pity I must weep mine own eyes Blind. + But sometimes he will say, in a Voice none may hear but me: + "Cruel, cruel Jessamine! You shall not come near me even + when you are Dead: You shall be Farther from me than when we + two walk'd Quick under the Sun. Never, never did you truly + Love me: I know, the Dead being Wiser than the Living! 'T is + Emily Lov'd me truest." + + And oh, thou awful, far-off God, I cannot make him + Understand! And unless I can make him understand, I am lost! + My misery, my misery! He will not listen. I am dying of this + thing! + + Now did Shooba's Death-in-Life come upon him once more, and + for a day and a night he lay Stark. And in the Sleep his + Snake came and show'd him the untying of the Knot, and the + Turning of the Keye. In proof whereof Shooba took me by the + hand & Show'd me the Watcher in the Darke. + + "Do but one thing more for me, old Shooba: Put out the Fire + in my Brain, Shooba, for I would Sleep. And I would Sleep + here, in Secret, where none but the Watcher may see." + + For a while he ponder'd, Watching of me with still eyes. + + "Not good to stay awake too long. You shall Sleep," he said. + + Last night he Brought me the Pinch of Powder that is an Open + Door. To what? I know not. But I go without Fear, because + without Hope. So shall I sleep in the secret Chamber, and it + maybe I shall Dream that Richard lightly Lov'd and as + lightly Left me. Whereof Richard Died. And, that Freeman + thinks his Brother Guilty and a Thief: A Hynds a Thief! so + that Hynds House hangs Heavy above his head. And that Emily + begins to Hate Freeman, who Loves her. She thinks he hath + play'd Judas. I shall have Pleasant dreams! + + Never shall they Find where Shooba hid the Gems, between a + night and a morning. Never shall any look upon my face more, + nor read what I have written, nor know what I have done. I + repent not, O God! What I am I am, Not I but Thou hast + created me! Having liv'd mine own Life, I do die mine Own + Death. + + JESSAMINE HYNDS. + +"This is the Horror that we have--felt!" I babbled. "She's been +sitting here--by herself--all the time--" and my voice failed me, +remembering that dark and anguished sense of guilt and ruin, of +unease and terror, that at times fell upon one in the night like a +smothering garment. Cold drops came upon my forehead, when I +reflected that we had been living under the same roof with This, and +we all unknowing. And I began to whimper: "I cannot stay even one +night more under the same roof with her. I cannot! I cannot!" + +"Sophy," said Nicholas Jelnik's quiet voice, "I brought you here +because I relied upon your courage, your common sense, and your +charity." + +I gulped. In the most matter-of-fact manner, he gave me another +whiff of that incomparable perfume, and I felt my taut nerves +steady. Not untruthfully had the Coptic physician claimed magic +qualities for that perfume. + +Mr. Jelnik said gently: "Had you been other than you are, I would +not have dared call you to my aid to-night. But when I discovered +the real thief--and she Jessamine Hynds--I could not bear that any +other eyes than yours should see her as she is. And--I want you to +be with me when I find the jewels." + +The jewels? I blinked at him. Immersed in the tragedy of the woman +Jessamine, her piteous fate had put all thought of everything save +herself out of my mind. + +"Shooba hid them, between a night and a morning. Shooba brought her +here, between a night and a morning. Where should the jewels be but +here?" + +At his words the grim and mocking ghost of that terrible old +African, who had been whipped for falling into trances, and who had +so tragically revenged himself and his slighted mistress, seemed to +rise behind all that remained of her. + +"Yes, he would put them where she could keep watch over them. Why +should she come here, make her way through those dreadful passages, +save for that? Think of her stealing out of her room in the dead of +night, coming alive to what she knew was her tomb, shutting that +door upon herself--" I looked at the tarnished cup, and hoped that +the witch doctor's potion had given her a speedy sleep. I looked at +the blackened candelabrum, and wondered whether that candle had gone +out before she had, or whether her head had fallen upon her arm, and +she had died wide-eyed in the black, black dark. The cold grue shook +me again, and I beat my hands together for terror and pity. + +"Do not think of that!" said Mr. Jelnik. "Death rectifies human +wrongs, and all of them have long, long since been healed of their +hurts. Come, let us find the jewels. We are losing time." + +We opened the cabinets first. They held papers that had been +precious in their day--old deeds, old charters and grants, with the +king's seals and the signatures of the Lords Proprietors upon them; +correspondence, a casual glance at which showed Revolutionary +activities--a hanging matter once, but harmless enough now; a box of +foreign coins, all gold; a charge, in medieval Latin, on fine +parchment, which exquisitely illuminated initial letters; a plain +silver chalice and a patten; some threadbare robes and regalia, and +a gavel; a most carefully done chart of the Hynds family, ending, +however, with Colonel James Hampden Hynds himself; two letters, and +a miniature of Charles the First; letters signed, "Yours, B. +Franklin," "Yours, John Hancock"; several from "Geo. Washington." + +The chest held two uniforms, one British, the other buff and blue; a +pair of pistols, spurs, and a sword. The buff-and-blue uniform was +worn and stained, with a burnt and ragged hole in the breast. It had +belonged, said the slip pinned to it, to "Captain Lewis De Lacy +Hynds, my youngest Brother, the youngest of our House, who Fell +Gloriously at the Battle of Cowpens." + +And that was all. Although we examined every inch of that floor, +every board of the walls, and made the most scrupulously careful +search of the cabinets and the chest. I even dared pass my hands +over Jessamine herself. + +Shooba the witch doctor had done the unexpected. Wherever he might +have hidden them between a night and a morning, he had not hidden +the Hynds jewels in the secret room of Hynds House. And she who +alone could have solved the mystery and told us the truth, lay there +with a lipless mouth. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS + + +We gave over the futile search at last. Mr. Jelnik sat down and took +his head in his hands, for the moment a prey to overwhelming +disappointment. I could have wept for him. Presently: + +"Is it so hard to lose that which you never possessed?" I ventured +to ask. + +"It is always bitter to fail." + +"But you haven't really failed. You have succeeded in proving that +both Richard and Freeman were the victims of an insane jealousy and +a terrible revenge." + +"Jessamine's confession might well be set aside: insane people often +accuse themselves of crimes committed only in their own disordered +brains. The one indisputable proof would be the jewels in my hands." +He added, with a faint smile: "I should have liked to see those +accursed things made clean by your wearing them, Sophy." + +"I don't want them!" I said, and my head went up. "I don't care +_that_ for all the Hynds jewels ever lost! I wouldn't have come here +to-night for their sake or mine, not if they were worth an empire's +ransom! I wanted them for Richard's sake, and--and yours." + +"I know, I know. At first I wanted them for him and me, too. +Afterward I wanted them for him and for you, Sophy." + +"For me? _I_ have no right to them. What have _I_ to do with Hynds +jewels?" And then I stopped. If Jessamine's confession were +true--and I believed in my heart that every word Jessamine had +written was the truth--what right had I to Hynds House itself? "As +to that, I have no right to Hynds House, either. It is yours," I +said. + +He stared at me thoughtfully. + +"It is yours," I repeated, gaining courage. "I am an outsider, to +whom this house was left from motives of malice and revenge. Mr. +Jelnik, this thing must be set straight. We will show Jessamine's +confession and clear Richard's name. We will bring Freeman's diary +forward to prove the truth of our assertions. Then you can come into +your own." + +"Ah!" said Mr. Jelnik, gently, "I see. Quite simple, and perfectly +feasible. And after I have taken Hynds House, what of you? What do +you get?" + +"I get out," I said briefly. And a horrid qualm came over me. Leave +Hynds House, forever? Go away from Hyndsville, leaving this +friendlier, pleasanter, happier life behind? + +"You are forgetting my training," I reminded him, trying to keep my +voice steady. "I can always do what I did before I came here. I--I'm +really an excellent private secretary, Mr. Jelnik." + +"That," said Mr. Jelnik, smiling curiously, "may very well be. But I +think the stars in their courses fought to bring you here. And I +really do not at all relish the notion of your turning backward into +a private secretary, although there is, of course, the alternative +of The Author. And what of Alicia?" + +"Alicia's sense of justice is quite as well developed as mine," I +told him proudly. + +"Alicia is a dear girl," he agreed. "But, my dear lady, your plan +wouldn't hold water in any court. This place isn't mine, legally or +morally, though the jewels would be if I could find them. If ever I +do find them, which is highly improbable, I may be tempted to make +you an offer of exchange." + +"You don't want Hynds House? Richard's house? You won't take Hynds +House?" + +"I don't want Hynds House. I won't take Hynds House. Further, if +anybody on earth but you made me such an offer, in such +circumstances, I should find it hard to forgive. Even from you I +hardly think I could bear it twice." A bright red showed in his +cheeks for an instant, his nostrils quivered, his whole face was a +blaze of pride. "What! Nicholas Jelnik accept gifts from women?" + +"As good and proud men as Nicholas Jelnik have accepted gifts from +women, and been none the worse for it," said I, tartly. "You offered +me your jewels. Why shouldn't I offer you my house?--particularly +when it should have been your house. I also have my pride, Mr. +Jelnik!" + +The hauteur went out of his face, and something sweet and quizzical +and boyish flooded it. + +"Keep Hynds House, dear, dear Donna Quixotta," said he, gently. "You +have given me something I needed a thousand times more." + +Now, although we had not found the jewels, we had found Jessamine +Hynds, and there remained to be done a thing that called for what +strength of will and courage we possessed. And we had need to make +haste. Already more time had been consumed than we bargained for. + +Mr. Jelnik fetched a deep breath, and went over to the Thing in the +chair. There was in his manner neither repugnance nor horror, +nothing but an almost divine compassion. Never, never, had I +respected the courage, the honor, the mercy of man so greatly as I +did then. + +It was a ghastly task; I do not like to remember it. In the hot, dry +air of the room without windows she had become, not a bleached +skeleton, but a shriveled, fleshless, blackened mummy. The hair +still clung tightly to the skull, the discolored skin was stretched +over the bony contour of the face; the lips had shriveled away from +the teeth, which showed in a sort of jeering grin. And--well, we had +to tie her hair, like a rope, around her chest and arms; and I tore +the ruffles off my petticoat, to tie her skirts at the knees and +ankles. + +The brown frock was low-necked and short-sleeved, too. And the +picture of her, down-stairs, showed her with so red a lip, so round +an arm, so soft, so white a bosom! + + Thou might'st think thou hadst drunk the water of Paradise + who had tasted the nectar of her lip.... The ends of her + ringlets fell into the hand like as the sleeve of the + generous in the hand of the needy. + +Oh, Jessamine! + +She had been so splendidly tall a woman, that as he held her grisly +head upon his shoulder the little shoes that rattled upon her +shriveled feet were well below his knees. One great rope of her +blue-black hair escaped and fell down the back of his white +coat, and as he moved it moved, too, with a lazy and languid +coquettishness horribly travesting youth and beauty. It was such +wonderful hair! Small wonder young Richard had praised its dark +splendor, and kissed its shining folds to his undoing! + +"Jessamine," Nicholas Jelnik said as he bent over her, "you shall +have your chance to rest. You shall sleep under the open sky. Nature +shall have you, Jessamine, and make you over into something of +loveliness and of peace." + +"Because she loved much, much shall be forgiven her," I whispered. +Ah! At the last, who but Him of Galilee shall speak for us? + +Never, until I shall be what she was then, shall I be able to forget +that return journey. Mr. Jelnik walked ahead, holding her on one +arm, and carrying the flash-light with his free hand. I followed +with a candle that burned with a low and reddish glare and gave off +a heavy, waxy odor in the still air. Whenever the faintest draft +lifted the dull flame, we two living creatures seemed to recede into +darkness, while the light sought her out and stayed upon her. The +motion of his body shook her lightly, and she gave forth a dry and +stealthy rattling, an uneasy rustling. One hand hung down, with a +loose, loose bracelet jingling on the brittle brown wrist. And her +poor little feet with the rotting shoes upon them moved delicately, +as if they trod the impalpable air. Once her head struck, with a +hollow thud, as we turned a corner. It was almost more than flesh +and blood could bear,--like things you were afraid of when you were +a child in the dark--the candles melting audibly, and walls, walls, +pressing us in. + +I think it took us years to reach the room where Achmet waited. At +sight of what the master bore, The Jinnee started up and called upon +God the Lord Paramount, Help of the Faithful. Then, like the fine +old fighter he was, he squared his shoulders, folded his arms, and +waited orders. Boris, with a deep-throated, smothered growl of fear +and protest, bared his teeth and sidled against him, bristling and +trembling. + +We consulted briefly. Mr. Jelnik was for leaving her there in the +cellar room, until a fitter opportunity offered to give her +sepulture. But to this I vehemently objected. I could not have +stayed another hour in that house while I knew she was in it. I +wanted Jessamine Hynds consigned to the grave from which she had +been too long kept. I wanted her to sleep in the brown bosom of the +earth, with the impartial grass to cover her, and roses to blow over +her by and by, when summer should have come back to South Carolina. + +Achmet led the way, and presently we were in the spring-house. When +I am feverish I dream of that last climb up the spidery stair, with +Jessamine's jaws widened into a soundless laugh, and The Jinnee's +light playing at hide-and-seek upon her. + +I knelt down and plunged my face into the cold spring-water, and +drank and drank. How good it was! And how grateful to my lungs was +the outside air, so sweet, so fresh, so clean! I loved the friendly +trees waving in the good wind, I blessed the friendly stars. + +We stopped at Mr. Jelnik's house, and the man Daoud appeared in +answer to a low-voiced summons and fetched me a most beautiful +shawl, which I found extremely comfortable. A stately and stoical +personage was Daoud, unlike shy black Achmet, who hid himself from +observation so thoroughly that people in Hyndsville were not aware +of his existence. I sat on the steps while for Jessamine Hynds was +fetched a length of canvas, a linen sheet, and a gray army blanket. +Achmet appeared with spades. And so we set out. + +The old cemetery in Hyndsville, unlike the newer one in which folks +take a sort of ghastly pride, one lot differing from another lot in +glory, is an unpretentious place, enclosed by crumbling walls, the +iron gates of which have rusted ajar. It is a grassy, bird-haunted, +tree-shaded spot, with some dozen or so old family vaults, some +modest monuments that bear stately names, some raised marble slabs +supported on carved and slender legs, like Death's own little +card-tables, some stones let flat into the earth, with names and +dates long since erased by rain and wind and fallen leaf. Nobody +comes here any more. Sophronisba Scarlett was the first and last to +be interred in the old cemetery within the memory of the present +generation. + +We went down dismal paths where the night wind sighed a miserere in +the cedars, and things of the dark scurried away with furtive +noises, or flapped ill-omened black wings overhead. In a corner +shaded by cypresses was the Hynds vault, a venerable affair with a +slate roof. Outside, in an inclosed space were some marble-covered +graves and in a corner the simplest of all, one marked "R.H." Emily +slept beside him, and their son beside her. But on the farther side, +next the wall, was room for one more sleeper. And here, while Mr. +Jelnik laid down his burden, Daoud and Achmet began to dig. + +She lay there in the ghostly light and shade, so utterly cast aside +and forgotten, so unloved, so unwept, so far removed from every +human tie, that terror and pity filled my heart. While Daoud and +Achmet were making ready her bed, Nicholas Jelnik and I spread out +the length of canvas, and wrapped her securely in the sheet and +blanket. We folded her claws upon the empty breast in which had once +pulsed the passionate heart of Jessamine Hynds, and spread her hair +over what had been her face. + +Over in a sheltered spot behind the vault clambered a huge, +overgrown, briery rose, and by some sweet impatience of nature one +shoot had budded before its time. I broke off the small, pale roses +and placed them in her grasp. But Mr. Jelnik took from his breast a +pearl and silver crucifix, and this, reverently, he laid upon hers. + +"It was my father's grandmother's. She held it when she was dying. +She was an old saint. It would please her to know that her crucifix +should stay, one holy thing, with Jessamine Hynds." + +"'_Verily, the gate of repentance is not nor shall be shut upon +God's creatures until the sun shall rise in the west_,'" The Jinnee +quoted his Prophet And he broke off two of his _saphies_, each with +a holy verse written upon it, and dropped them upon her out of pure +charity. + +Daoud, who was intelligent and orthodox where Achmet was emotional +and tender, was evidently not altogether sure of the wisdom of this +proceeding; but he was not too orthodox to stand up arrow-straight, +face the East, and pray for her. + +So we wrapped her, brown silk dress and yellowed laces, and long +black hair, in the strip of canvas, and gave her to the earth. The +last thing we saw, thank God! before the blanket fell over her for +the last time, was the silver crucifix shining out of the roses in +her hands. + +Daoud and Achmet, their spades over their shoulders, left the +cemetery, the latter the strangest, quaintest, most outlandish +figure ever seen on a Carolina road. Mr. Jelnik and I, with Boris +close beside us, walked more slowly. + +"Shall you go on with the search?" I ventured presently. + +"But where shall I begin now?" he wondered. "I have searched +everything and every place searchable." + +"If Shooba hid them anywhere outside of that room, it must have been +in some place that Jessamine herself knew and could get at if she +wished; some particular place where nobody would dream of looking +for them. Women always choose hiding-places like that, and the +notion would suit Shooba's grim humor," I said. + +"They who knew every nook and cranny of the house searched it pretty +thoroughly at the time," he reminded me. "I have fine-combed it +myself." + +"I am so sorry! I wanted you to find them. But the fact that you +didn't surely couldn't make very much difference to you. One's +happiness doesn't depend upon anything so problematical." + +He hesitated. "Aside from their value, which is by no means +inconsiderable, I--well, they would have made certain things easier +for me. I should then have been in a better position to do what I +want to do." + +"Oh! You had some definite plan which hinged upon your finding +them?" + +He was silent for a space, as if considering within himself just how +far he could admit me into his confidence. + +"At first, it was a matter of family pride with me to clear up this +mystery. Later--I wanted to have the Hynds jewels in my possession, +that I might ask the woman I love to marry me." His voice vibrated +like a violin string. + +I took the blow standing. I did not wince, though it had come +unexpectedly. Of course I had known all along that there must be +some lady whom he loved, a woman of that world to which he himself +belonged. But I couldn't for the life of me imagine how the finding +or the not finding of the Hynds jewels could have any bearing upon +the case. I couldn't understand how any woman, any real woman, could +let such a thing come between her and Nicholas Jelnik. + +When we had walked a little farther: "Doesn't she know you care for +her?" + +"Who knows what any woman knows or thinks? She may really care for +another man." + +"There is another man?" + +"There is always another man. Her feeling for me may be nothing but +pure kindness, for she is kindness itself." + +"Still, I think you should tell her," I said, with such a heavy +heart! + +He shook his head. "There are reasons why my faith might be +questioned, my motives doubted; and I couldn't bear that." + +"But if you are perfectly sure of your own feelings, if there is +absolutely no doubt in your mind that you love her--" + +"Love her? I never thought," he said, "that any woman could mean so +much to a man! I never dreamed that just one woman could be in +herself all that a man needs to hold fast to! Love her? I have been +all over the world and I have seen many women in many lands, but +never any woman of them all, save that one, for me! It was a +revelation to me, that I could care so much. Ah! I wish I could make +it plain just how much I do care!" + +I had not known until that moment how much the heart can bear of +anguish and not break. + +"I hope she loves you just as much in return, Mr. Jelnik. I hope +with all my heart you will be happy, both of you." + +"I hope she does! I hope we shall!" he cried, with ardor. "Why, if +I could be sure she cares for me, like that, if I could know that +all other men counted as little with her as all other women count +with me! But I am not sure. And I do not take it lightly, for my +woman must be more to me than most women mean to most men. Well, it +is on the knees of the gods." + +I stole a covert glance at him as he walked beside me. It seemed to +me he had never been so beautiful. But his beauty hurt me. I felt +old, very, very old, and sad, and tired. The salt taste of tears was +in my mouth. My feet dragged. + +We entered that strip of land which on a time old Sophronisba +barb-wired and barricaded against her neighbors, and which touched +the Jelnik grounds in the rear. We were to cut through his garden +and enter mine by the gap in the hedge behind the spring-house +and I hoped to get into the house and up-stairs to my own room +unperceived. + +The gray cottage lay dark and silent, but there were lights in Hynds +House although the night was upon the verge of morning. A gray +light, upon which was stealing a primrose tinge, was already in the +sky. It was, in fact, four o'clock. I was so mortally tired that for +a moment I sat down on his steps. + +"It's been pretty rough on you, Sophy. One woman in a thousand +could have gone through this night's experience without going to +pieces," said Mr. Jelnik, with feeling. And then: + +"Sophy!" cried a frightened and hysterical voice. "Oh, is that you, +at last, Sophy?" And turning a corner of the gray cottage, Alicia, +Doctor Geddes, and The Author confronted us. They were still in +costume, and the Mephistophelian effect of The Author was such as +would turn any actor green with envy. Ensued a pregnant pause. It +was a lovely situation! It reduced me, for one, to idiocy. + +"Sophy! Jelnik!" exploded Doctor Geddes, with a gesture of rage and +astonishment. + +"Yes. It is I. What is the matter? Why aren't you home and in bed? +What are you doing here, at this hour?" I asked, stupidly. + +Here The Author, all in red tights, cape, and doublet, snatched his +red cap with the cock's feather in it off his head, and bowed +diabolically: + +"Let us ask you that same question: Why aren't _you_ home and in +bed? What are _you_ doing here at this hour?" + +"After everybody had gone home, I ran up to your room, +Sophy--and--and you were gone. You weren't in the house. I looked +everywhere; and you'd disappeared, as if the earth had opened and +swallowed you." Alicia's voice was trembling. + +"Oh, Sophy, I was so frightened, so horribly frightened! I kept +thinking every minute you must come. I kept looking and waiting, and +still you didn't come. I telephoned Doctor Geddes, when I couldn't +stand it any longer. And then The Author came down-stairs. And oh, +Sophy, there was such an unearthly, clammy, waiting sort of feeling +in the house--all those lights, all those empty rooms--I felt as if +something terrible must be happening!" She clung to me as she spoke, +kissing me, and shook, and wept. "And when you still didn't come, +and we couldn't find you anywhere, The Author suggested that we +should come over here and enlist Mr. Jelnik. + +"When we got here, there wasn't a soul in this house. Not even the +dog. We went back to Hynds House, and walked through our garden, and +then came back here, because we didn't know what else to do. Oh, +Sophy!" I patted her shoulders, mumbling that she mustn't cry, it +was ail right. + +"Miss Gaines, I am dreadfully sorry you should have been frightened. +But there really wasn't the least occasion for alarm. Because Miss +Smith was with _me_," said Mr. Jelnik calmly. + +Alicia looked at him, trying to read his face in the wan light. Her +world, as it were, was rocking under her feet. She looked at me; and +I said nothing. To save my life I couldn't speak of Jessamine Hynds +then, nor talk coherently of that night's experience. I couldn't +betray Nicholas Jelnik's secrets, nor mention the Watcher in the +Dark, nor that dreadful red-walled room. So I merely patted Alicia's +shoulder, while she held fast to me as if I might again disappear. + +"That is exactly what we should like you to explain, Mr. Jelnik, if +you please," said The Author, with deadly politeness. "You must +pardon us if we disagree with your assertion that Miss Gaines had no +real occasion for alarm." + +"Miss Smith and I," said Mr. Jelnik, stiffening, at the tone, "found +it absolute necessary to leave Hynds House for a short while +to-night, to attend to--an affair of some importance to us both, but +which concerns no one else on earth." Under the grave politeness his +voice had an edge of irritation. "I repeat that I am sincerely sorry +Miss Alicia was frightened. For my share in that, I crave her +pardon. I ask all of you to accept this apology as an explanation +which is final." + +"I for one shall do no such thing!" cried The Author, hotly. "Are +we impertinent children to be thus lightly dismissed? Of course, if +Miss Smith herself--" + +"You have neither right nor authority to cross-question Miss Smith," +interposed Mr. Jelnik, sharply. But Doctor Geddes broke in, with +mounting anger and astonishment: + +"Of course we've got the right and the reason to question both of +you! You might just as well come off your high horse; you've behaved +very badly, Jelnik! To induce Sophy to scuttle off in the middle of +the night, without a word to anybody, and go wild-goose-chasing with +you, was an unworthy action. I wouldn't have believed it of you, +Jelnik; I thought you had more common sense--not to speak of Sophy +herself. Gad, I'd like to shake the pair of you!" And he stamped his +feet. + +"Doctor Richard Geddes," said Mr. Jelnik, in dangerously low and +honeyed tones, "I find you insufferable. You have the instincts and +the manners of a navvy." + +"Mr. Jelnik!" cried The Author. "Mr. Jelnik, honor me, please, by +considering my instincts and manners infinitely worse than Doctor +Geddes's. I, Mr. Jelnik, at this instant feel within me the +instincts of a cave man and I hone for the thigh-bone of an aurochs +to prove it to you. Do you know what I think of you, Mr. Jelnik? I +consider you a man without conscience and without scruples, sir!" + +"My faith! The man even talks like a serial!" said Mr. Jelnik, +weariedly. "My dear, good sir, while we're by way of indulging in +personalities permit me to inform you that you annoy me by existing. +As to your behavior to Miss Smith--" + +"_My_ behavior to Miss Smith?" shrieked The Author, stamping with +fury, "_my_ behavior to Miss Smith? You had better set about +explaining _your_ behavior to Miss Smith! You're a rascal, Mr. +Jelnik!" + +"You, my dear sir, are worse: you're an ass," said Mr. Jelnik, and +fetched a sigh of tiredness. "Would to heaven somebody would fetch +you a halter!" + +"Jelnik," choked Doctor Geddes, "a man who behaves as you're +behaving to-night runs the risk of getting himself shot. You're my +own cousin, but--" + +Mr. Jelnik turned at bay. + +"Doctor Geddes," said he, in a razor-edged voice, "it is no light +affliction to be kin to the Hyndses!--What do you want me to +explain? I have already told you it was necessary for Miss Smith and +me to attend to a matter that is none of your business. In return, +you hold us up like brigands. Would it make a dent in your armor of +righteous meddling, if I were to remind you that you are seriously +annoying Miss Smith?" + +"Not a dent!" roared the doctor. "And if it annoys Sophy to be asked +a straight question by those who have her interest at heart, let her +be annoyed and take shame to herself!" + +Alicia began to cry. + +"Oh, Sophy!" wailed Alicia, "whatever is the matter with us, anyhow? +What is wrong, Sophy? Why are we quarreling? What are we quarreling +about, Sophy?" + +I put my hands to my head. "I don't know. That is. I can't tell. I +mean. I can't think, at all! + +"Doctor Geddes has spoken like an honest man," said The Author, +standing flat-footed in his pointed red shoes. "Mr. Jelnik, I ask +you plainly: Why do I find Miss Smith here at this hour? Why and +wherefore the mystery? Let me remind you that I have asked Miss +Smith to marry me, and that she hasn't as yet given me her answer," +he finished, significantly. + +"Why, Sophy!" gasped Alicia. "Why, Sophy Smith!" + +"Holy Moses!" gasped Doctor Geddes. "What, man, you too? Well, then, +if it comes to that, I can call you to account, Jelnik, because _I_ +asked Sophy to marry me, too. In my case she had sense enough to +say 'No' at once." + +"You know he did, Sophy!" Alicia corroborated him tearfully. "You +told me so yourself, though you never so much as opened your mouth +about The Author; and I don't think that was a bit like you, Sophy. +And why you refused the doctor, I can't for the life of me imagine!" + +"Can't you? Well, _I_ can," snorted the doctor, and drew Alicia +closer to him. She put both her hands around his arm. + +"What!" gulped The Author, rocking on his red toes, and wrinkling +his nose until his waxed mustache stood out with infernal effect, +and his corked eyebrows climbed into his hair. "What! You, Geddes? +My sainted aunt! Why, man alive, I thought that you--that is I'd +have sworn that you--" Here The Author's breath mercifully failed +him. + +I was dumb as a sheep in the hands of the slayers. I could only +blink at these dear people who were tormenting me. I thought of +Jessamine Hynds in her brown silk frock, with the crucifix in her +skeleton fingers and the earth fresh over her. And I couldn't say a +word. And while I stood thus silent, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik walked up +and took my hand in his warm and comforting clasp, and looked at me +with kindling, starry eyes, and laughed a deep-chested laugh. + +"Gentlemen and Miss Gaines," said Mr. Jelnik, in a ringing and +vibrant voice, "permit me to inform you that I also have asked Miss +Smith to marry me. And she has done me the honor to accept me." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE GREATEST GIFT + + +The Author threw his short cape backward, laid one hand upon the +hilt of his sword, doffed his cap, and made a sweeping courtesy. + +"Prettily played, Mr. Jelnik!" said he, admiringly. "May one be +permitted to congratulate you, upon your indubitably dramatic +instinct?" + +"All things are permitted; but not all things are expedient," Mr. +Jelnik replied evenly. + +"Oh, we know who can quote scripture!" cried The Author; and looked +longingly at the other's naked throat. + +At which point Doctor Geddes, coming as it were out of a trance, +took the situation in hand. + +"Have done with this nonsense!" he ordered sharply. "Alicia, get +Sophy home; she looks more dead than alive. Jelnik, your declaration +puts a new complexion on this affair; but let me tell you flatly I +don't like your method of announcing engagements." + +"Suppose you waive criticism and look after Sophy," suggested Mr. +Jelnik. He walked up to his cousin and looked straight in his eyes: +"Richard, you're not such a fool as to dare doubt _us_?" + +"Eh?" blinked the doctor, "what? Doubt _Sophy_? I should say not! +And you--oh, well, you're a bit of a fool yourself at times, Jelnik, +and this seems to be one of the times; but I don't doubt you. +However," said the doctor, grimly, "I should like to whale some +sense into you with a club!" + +"An ax would be more to the point," murmured The Author, +regretfully. + +"In the meantime, Richard," said Mr. Jelnik, with a faint smile, +"take Sophy home, please." + +I have a vague recollection of swallowing something that the doctor +told me to swallow. Then came blessed oblivion, a sleep so profound +that I didn't even dream, and didn't awake until that afternoon; to +find the tender face of Alicia again bent over me. + +I waited for her to ask at least one of the many questions she must +have been longing to ask. But Alicia shook her head. + +"Sophy," said she, loyally, "you haven't got to tell me one single, +solitary thing unless you really want to. But--isn't this just a bit +sudden? I was--surprised." + +"So was I." + +"You see, Sophy, I never once dreamed--" + +"That he cared for me? Neither did I." + +"No. That you cared for him," Alicia puckered her brows. + +"My dear girl," I was trying to feel my way toward letting her have +the truth, "listen: whether or not he is engaged to me, Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik really loves some lady that neither you nor I know. He told +me so himself." + +It took Alicia some moments to recover from that! + +"And yet you're going to marry him, Sophy?" + +"You heard him announce our engagement." + +"I can't understand!" sighed Alicia. "Oh, Sophy, sometimes I could +wish we had never come to Hynds House!" + +"It had to be," I said dully. + +"And--The Author?" ventured Alicia, after a pause. "He thinks you +belong to him by right of discovery. He doesn't accept Mr. Jelnik's +announcement as final. He told me this morning that his offer stood +until you actually married somebody else. The Author isn't used to +being crossed, and he doesn't quite know how to take it." + +"It is on the knees of the gods," I repeated, weariedly. + +Came a gentle tap at the door, and following it the fresh, kind face +of Miss Emmeline. + +"Are you trying to rival the Seven Sleepers?" she asked, gaily, and +laid a bunch of carnations on my knees by way of offering. "Judge +Gatchell sent them to me this morning," she explained, with an +October blush. For the sallow old jurist had taken so great a liking +to the Boston reincarnation of a Theban vestal, and was in +consequence so rejuvenated, himself, that all Hyndsville was holding +up the hands of astonishment and biting the finger of conjecture. + +"My dears," said Miss Emmeline, presently, "I want to tell you the +singular dream I had last night, or rather this morning. I was quite +tired, for I do not often dance," admitted Miss Emmeline, who had +nevertheless danced with a zest that rivaled that of the youngest, +"so I must have fallen asleep immediately upon retiring. Well, then, +I dreamed that all those old Hyndses whose portraits are down-stairs +were gathered together in the library, to bid farewell to a member +of the family who was going away--that beautiful creature who +disappeared and was never afterward found. Now, aren't dreams +absurd? She was setting out upon a long journey dressed in a +low-necked, short-sleeved brown silk dress trimmed with quantities +of fine lace. And for goodness' sake what do you think that woman +wore over it for a traveling-cloak? Nothing more or less than a gray +army blanket, a corner of which was thrown over her head like a +hood and quite concealed her face. + +"She moved away slowly, holding her blanket as an Indian does. +And as she passed me by--for I was standing in the door--a fold +slipped, and what do you think she was holding to her breast? A +pearl-and-silver crucifix. You can't imagine how I felt when I saw +it!" + +I knew how I felt when I had seen it, but that I couldn't tell Miss +Emmeline. Instead, I held the carnations to my face, to hide my +whitening lips. For once the Boston lady had come into actual +contact with the occult and the unknown. + +"She went out by the back door," continued Miss Emmeline, "and I ran +to the window and saw her gray-blanketed figure disappear down the +lane, behind the hedge that separates Mr. Jelnik's grounds from +yours. And all the Hyndses called: '_Jessamine, good-by!_' But she +never turned her head once, nor spoke, nor gave a sign that she +heard. She just _went_, leaving me staring after her. I stared so +hard that I woke myself up. Now, my dears, wasn't that an odd sort +of dream? And so vivid, too! Why, I can hear those voices yet!" + +"Well, I'm glad she went," said Alicia. "Ladies that do up their +heads in blankets and won't answer when they're spoken to, ought to +go." + +Mrs. Scarboro, Judge Gatchell, and one of my old ladies were dining +with us that night, for which I thanked Heaven. Judge Gatchell +discovered in himself a fund of sly humor that astonished everybody, +and Miss Emmeline was like a November rose, sweet with a shy and +belated girlishness, rarer for a touch of frost. And The Author was +in a fairly good humor because they let him alone. + +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik dutifully put in his appearance after dinner. +The Author was balefully polite to him, Alicia shyly friendly. I had +on a new frock, and the knowledge that it was becoming gave me a +courage I should otherwise have lacked. A new frock, pink powder, +and a smile, have saved many a fainting feminine soul where prayer +and fasting had failed. + +The gentleman who had blandly announced my engagement to himself +only last night assumed no airs of proprietorship, but was placidly +content to let me sit and talk to Mr. Johnson, who was holding forth +on the merits of our Rhode Island Reds as against either barred +Plymouth Rocks or White Leghorns, and the variety of vegetables and +small fruits in our kitchen-garden, so admirably planned by Schmetz, +so carefully and neighborly looked after both by him and Riedriech. +From gardens, Mr. Johnson went to cattle; he had a delight in cows, +and our cow was a Jersey with a cream-colored complexion, large +black eyes, and the sentimental temperament. We called her the +Kissing Cow, because she couldn't see the secretary without trying +to bestow upon him slobbering salutes. + +He paused in his homely talk to smile at something The Author had +just said. Then his eyes strayed to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, being +talked to by Mrs. Scarboro and an apple-faced Confederate with +pellucid blue eyes and a renowned trigger-finger. + +"That is the most gifted--and detached--human being I have ever +known," said the secretary. "But it is his misfortune to have no +saving responsibilities. What he needs is to fall in love with the +right woman and marry her." + +"You mean he should marry some great lady, some dazzling beauty? +Naturally." + +"Heaven forbid!" said the secretary, with unexpected vigor. "No, no, +Miss Smith, that is not what such a man as Nicholas Jelnik needs!" + +"But it may be what he wants," said I. + +"I should never think so, myself," Mr. Johnson replied thoughtfully; +"and I have seen a good deal of him. No, Jelnik doesn't want great +beauty; he has enough of it himself. For the same reason, he doesn't +want brilliant qualities. He needs quiet, dependable goodness, the +changeless and unswerving affection of a steadfast heart." + +But I could not agree with this simple-minded young man, who had in +himself the qualities he named. Why, if Nicholas Jelnik asked only +for a changeless love, _I_ could have given him full measure, even +to the running over thereof! + +"What was Johnson talking to you about, that you both looked so +earnest?" Mr. Jelnik wanted to know presently. + +"Oh, just things; flowers and fruits and animals." + +"And people?" + +"People always end by talking about people." + +"Johnson's opinions are generally sound, because he himself is sound +to the core," said Mr. Jelnik, quietly. + +"Miss Emmeline says he has got a limpid soul. The Author says it's +really a sound liver. However that may be, one couldn't live in the +same house with him without conceiving a real affection for him. He +is a very easy person to love." + +Mr. Jelnik's eyebrows went up. "Don't love him too much, please, +Sophy. If you feel that you really ought to love somebody, love +_me_." The golden lights were in his eyes. + +At that moment I both loved and hated him. + +"Mr. Jelnik," said I, in as low a tone as his own, "it isn't fair to +talk to me like this. You did what you did to save me from +annoyance--and--and--misunderstanding. But you are perfectly free: +I have no idea of holding you to such an engagement, no, nor of +feeling myself bound by it, either." + +"I understand, perfectly, Sophy," he said, after a pause. "And now, +may I ask you one or two plain questions, please?" + +"I think you may." + +"You never cared for Geddes?" + +"Good heavens, no! Besides, he--" + +"Wants Alicia? That's obvious. But what about The Author? I'm not +enamored of him, myself, but he's an immensely able and clever man. +How many brilliant social lights would be willing to shine at the +head of his table! What are you going to do about The Author, +Sophy?" + +"What are _you_ going to do about the lady you are really in love +with?" I countered. + +"I'm waiting to find out," said he, coolly. "Answer my question, +please: Do you imagine you love him, Sophy?" + +"It is not unpleasant to me that he should wish me to do so," I +admitted. + +"I see. You are trying to persuade yourself that you should accept +him." + +"I am not growing younger," I said, with an effort. "Remember, too, +that Alicia will be leaving me presently, and I shall then be +utterly alone. That is not a pleasing prospect--not to a woman." + +"Nor to a man, either, but better that than a loveless marriage." He +reflected for a moment. "If you are sure you care for the man, tell +him truthfully every incident of last night. Otherwise, I do not +feel like sharing my affairs with him; I do not want to drag +Jessamine Hynds out of her grave to gratify his curiosity. For he +has the curiosity of a cat, along with the obstinacy of a mule." + +I smiled, wanly. "I gather that I'm not to tell him anything. What +further?" I wanted to know, not without irony. + +"This, then: that you keep on being engaged to me." + +I looked at him incredulously. + +"For the time being, Sophy, submit to my tentative claim. If you +decide to let your--ah--common sense induce you to make what must be +called a brilliant marriage, tell me, and I will go at once. In the +meantime, Sophy, I am your friend, to whom your happiness is as dear +as his own. Will you believe that?" + +It was not in me to doubt him. "Yes," I said. "And if--the lady you +told me about--you understand--you will tell me, too, will you not? +I should like to know, for your happiness is as much to me as mine +could possibly be to you." + +"That's the most promising thing you've said yet," he said. "All +right, Sophy: the minute I find out she cares more for me than she +does for anybody else, I shall certainly let you know. In the +meanwhile, don't let being engaged bear too heavily on your spirits. +_I_ find it very pleasant and exhilarating!" + +"I don't think you ought to talk like that," I demurred. + +"I can't help it: I never was engaged before, and it goes to my +tongue." + +"I never was, either. But it doesn't go to _mine_," I reminded him, +with dignity. + +"Sophy, you are the only woman in the world who can reproach a man +with her nose and get away with it," he said irrelevantly. "You have +the most eloquent little nose, Sophy!" + +I looked at him reprovingly. + +"I adore being engaged to you, Sophy," said he, unabashed. "Being +engaged to you has a naïve freshness that enchants me. It's +romantic, it has the sharp tang of uncertainty, the zest of high +adventure. Think how exciting it's going to be to wake o' mornings +thinking: 'Here is a whole magic day to be engaged to Sophy in!' By +the way, would you mind addressing me as 'Nicholas'? It is customary +under the circumstances, I believe." + +"I do not like the name of Nicholas." + +"I feared so, seeing the extreme care with which you avoid it. That +is why I suggest that you should immediately begin to use it. +Practice makes perfect. Observe with what ease I manage to say +'Sophy' already," he said airily. "I'm glad your hair's just that +blonde, and soft, Sophy. I couldn't possibly be engaged to a woman +who didn't have hair like yours." + +I looked at his, and said with conviction: + +"How absurd! Black hair is incomparably more beautiful!" + +His eyes danced. + +"Sophy!" said he, in a thrilling whisper, "Sophy, _The Author's hair +is brindle_!" + +I got up and incontinently left him. And I saw with stern joy how +Mrs. Scarboro again seized upon and made him listen to tales of his +grandfather, until in desperation he fled to the piano, and played +Hungarian music with such effect that even The Author was moved to +rapture. + +"Jelnik!" said The Author, enthusiastically, "I shall put you in my +next book. Gad, man, what a magnificent scoundrel I shall make of +you!" A remark which scandalized Mrs. Scarboro and startled my dear +old lady, but didn't phase Mr. Jelnik. + +I found myself growing more and more confounded and confused. Was I, +or wasn't I, engaged to a man who had never asked me to marry him? +In the vernacular, I didn't know where I was at any more. + +Alicia added to this confusion. + +"Sophy," said she, some time later, "isn't it just possible you +misunderstood Mr. Jelnik? About his being in love with somebody +else, I mean." + +"I don't know what makes you think so." + +"Don't you? I'll show you," she said, and swung me around to face a +mirror. "_That's_ what makes me think so. Sophy Smith, unless he's a +liar--and Peacocks and Ivory couldn't be a liar to save his +life--the woman Nicholas Jelnik loves looks back at you every time +you look in the glass." + +I shook my head. I have never been able to tell pleasant lies to +myself. + +"Well, we'll see what we'll see! I told you once before that you +hadn't caught up with the change in yourself." And she kissed me and +laughed. It came to me that she couldn't have cared much for him, +herself, to be able to laugh that light-heartedly. + + * * * * * + +When Miss Emmeline and the English folk were leaving Hynds House, +everybody in Hyndsville turned out to say "Good-by." Even our lanky +old Judge was on hand, with a great bunch of carnations and a huge +box of bonbons for Miss Emmeline. + +"Sophy," Miss Emmeline said, smiling, "I don't see anything left for +me to do but come back to Hyndsville, do you?" + +"No, I don't. And come soon. Hynds House won't feel the same without +you. I thought of all she had taught me by just being her fine, +frank self, and looked at her gratefully. She looked back at me +quizzically, and of a sudden she slipped her arm around my +shoulders. + +"Sophy Smith," said she, softly, "I have met many women in my time, +many far more brilliant and beautiful, and what the world calls +gifted, than you. But I have met none with a greater capacity for +unselfish loving. It's easy enough to win love, a harder thing to +keep it, but divinest of all to give it and keep on giving it. And +there's where your great gift lies, Sophy." And she kissed me, with +misty eyes, and such a tender face! + +That put such a friendly, warm glow in my heart that I was sorry to +part even with the Englishman's daughter, Athena though she was, and +I mortally afraid of her. As for her father, he was bewailing the +parting with Alicia, whose Irishness was a manna in the wilderness +to him. + +"It's like saying good-by to the Fountain of Youth," he lamented. +"You're more than a pretty girl: you're the eternal feminine in +Irish!" + +"She's the Eternal Irish in proper English, that's what she is!" +said The Author darkly, and looked so wise that everybody looked +respectful, though nobody knew what he meant. Perhaps he didn't +know, himself. + +After the train had gone, Doctor Geddes hustled us into his waiting +car. + +"I'm going to take you for a quiet spin in the country, to make the +better acquaintance of Madame Spring-in-Carolina," he said. A few +minutes later he swung the car into a lonesome and lovely road edged +with pines, and sassafras, and sumach, and cassena bushes, and +festooned with vines. Madame Spring-in-Carolina had coaxed the green +things to come out and grow, and the people of the sky to try their +jeweled wings in her fine new sunlight. The Judas-tree was red, the +dogwood white, the honey-locust a breath from Eden. A blossomy wind +came out of the heart of the world, and there were birds everywhere, +impudently eloquent. + +We didn't want to talk, or even to think; we just wanted to be alive +and glad with everything else. The very car seemed to feel something +of this intoxication, for as it went flying down the road it hummed +and purred and sang snatches of the Song of Speed to itself. We +turned a corner, I remember. And then there was a frightful lurch +and jar, and the big car bounded into the air, and turned over in +the ditch. I remember the rear wheels turning with a grinding, +spitting noise. + +When I woke up, Alicia was sitting by the side of the road, with the +doctor's head in her lap, and I was lying on the grass near by. Her +eyes were big and blank in a bloodless face, and the curling ends of +her long bright hair hung in the dust. There was a cruel red mark on +her forehead. Otherwise she was quite uninjured. I wasn't conscious +of any pain myself--not then, at least. + +"Sophy," Alicia said, impersonally, "Doctor Geddes is dead." And she +fell to stroking his cheek lightly, with one finger; "quite dead. +Without one word to me, Sophy!" + +The figure on the ground looked dreadfully still and helpless. There +was something ghastly wrong in seeing so strong a man lie so still +and helpless. And the road, an unfrequented one, was unutterably +lonesome. There was nothing, nobody in sight--nothing but the +buzzard, black against the blue sky, tipping his wings to the wind. + +"You must go for help," I mumbled. + +"I dare not leave him. I know he's dead, Sophy. But--he might open +his eyes, just once more. You see, he didn't know, before he--died, +that I was very much in love with him--oh, terribly in love with +him, Sophy!--from the first time I saw him standing in our door. I +thought you cared for him, too, Sophy dear--and I sent him away from +me-- And now he has gotten himself killed." With a gentle touch she +pushed back the thick reddish hair from his forehead. She looked at +me imploringly: "Don't let him be dead, Sophy! For God's sake, +Sophy, don't let him be dead! Make him open his eyes, Sophy!" + +A negro teamster came upon us, recognized the doctor, shrieked, and +set off for help, lashing his mules into a mad run. But Alicia never +moved, and I huddled beside her, numb and silent, looking at the +white face upon her knees. With all the impatience wiped out, it was +a fine face, at once strong and sweet. + +"Richard," said Alicia, "Richard, if I had been killed, and you +begged and prayed me from your breaking heart to listen to you, to +understand that you'd cared for me, only me, all along, _somehow_ +I'd manage to let you know I understood. Richard, listen to me! Open +your eyes, Richard. Please, please, Richard, open your eyes!" + +Her voice was so piteous that I fell to weeping. And, by the mercy +of God, Richard opened his eyes and stared with blue blankness +straight into Alicia's quivering, anguished face. + +"Richard," said she, bending down to him, "my dear, dear love, keep +your eyes open just a little longer, until I can make you +understand. Oh, Richard, I cared! Indeed, indeed, I cared!" + +The blue stare never wavered. It gathered intensity. + +"Don't, don't look at me like that, Richard!" cried Alicia, +beginning to sob wildly. "Don't--don't look so--so _angelic_, dear. +Look like your own self at me, Richard! Oh, darling, for our dear +God's mercy's sake, please, please try to look bad-tempered just +once more!" + +His pale lips twitched curiously. He sighed. Then he murmured +something that sounded like "not sure." + +"Not sure?" wept Alicia. "Oh, my heart, my heart!" + +"I think--could die in peace--say 'I love you, Richard,'" murmured +the doctor. + +"Oh, I do, I do love you, Richard--_frightfully_!" sobbed Alicia. "I +love you with all my heart!" + +The corpse sat up, and for a dead man he showed considerable life. +Painfully he rose, and stood staggering on his feet, big, pale, +shaken, with a bump the size of an egg on the side of his head, but +with such shining blue eyes! He put out a big hand and lifted +Alicia from the ground. + +"Leetchy," said Doctor Geddes, "if you ever take back what you've +said I shall be sorry I wasn't killed. But I don't mind staying +alive if you'll keep on loving me. If I stay alive, will you marry +me, Leetchy?" + +"If you don't, I can't m-m-marry any-anybody at all!" wailed Alicia. + +"Amen!" said the doctor. "Now stop crying, and put your hand into my +pocket, and you'll find something that's been owing you this long +time, Leetchy." + +Alicia blinked, and rubbed her eyes, then slipped her hand into his +breast pocket and drew forth a small, square, satin-lined box; an +inviting box. + +"Richard!" she exclaimed, "why, Richard!" Then: "Of all the +impudence!" cried Alicia, scandalized. "Why, you haven't even +_asked_ me! Whoever in this world heard of buying a girl's ring +before she's said 'Yes'?" + +"Alicia," said Doctor Richard Geddes, "I'm your Man, and you know +it. And you're my Girl, and I know it. Here, let's see if this thing +fits." + +Meekly Alicia, the impudent, the flirt, held out her slim hand. + +"That's settled, thank God!" said the doctor. And he swept her +clear off her feet, and kissed her with thoroughness and enthusiasm. + +"Richard! People are coming! They'll see you!" + +"Let 'em!" + +I sat there quietly, and stared at the two of them with a sort of +vacant watchfulness. My hat was gone, my hairpins had taken unto +themselves wings, and my hair, covered with dust, hung about me like +a veil. I was just beginning to be conscious of pain. It was a +shuddering pain, new and cruel, and I winced. The next minute Alicia +was kneeling beside me, and her face had again become quite +colorless. + +"Sophy!" her voice sounded shrill and far off. "Sophy, you said you +were all right!--Richard, look at Sophy!" + +I felt the doctor's swift, deft hands upon me. And more pain. People +were arriving now. Cars stopped, and excited men and women +surrounded us. One tall figure leaped from the first car and reached +us ahead of all others. + +"Geddes!" cried a voice. "Thank God, Geddes! We were told you'd been +killed outright! Alicia all right, too?" Then: "Sophy!" This time it +was a cry of terror. "Never tell me it's Sophy!" + +I saw his face bent over me. Then a red mist came, and then +everything went dark. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +DEEP WATERS + + +Somewhere, far, far off, a faint and feeble little light glimmered, +one small point of light in vast blackness. In the whole universe +there wasn't anything or anybody but just that tiny light, and swift +black water, and drowning me. Something deep within me--I think +occultists call it the body-spirit--was clamoring frantically to +hold fast to the light, because if that went under I should go +under, too. I tried to keep my eyes upon the trembling spark. + +Whereupon the light changed to a sound, the monotonous insistence of +which forced me to be worriedly aware of it. It was--why, it was a +voice, calling, over and over and over again, "_Sophy! Sophy!_" + +Somebody was calling _me_. With an immense effort I managed to raise +my eyelids. I was lying in a bed, and caught a drowsy, fleeting +glimpse of four posts. + + Four posts upon my bed, + Four angels for my head, + Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John + Bless the bed that I lie on! + +Granny used to say that for me at night; only she had said "four +hangels for my 'ead," at which I used to giggle into my pillows. I +hadn't felt so close to Granny since I was little Sophy, in the +rooms over our shop in Boston. She was somewhere around me; if I +went to sleep now, she'd be there when I woke up in the morning. But +the sound that was a calling voice wouldn't let me go to sleep. +Slowly, heavily, I managed to get my eyes open again. + +"Look at me!" said the voice imperiously. Two large dark eyes caught +my wavering glance and held it, as in a vise. "Sophy! Sophy! _I need +you._" + +Said another voice, then, brokenly: "For mercy's sake, Jelnik, let +her go in peace!" + +"No, she sha'n't die. I won't have it!--Sophy, come back! It is I +who call you, Sophy. Come back!" + +My stiff lips moved. "Must go--sleep," I tried to say. + +"No, I forbid you to go to sleep, Sophy!" His dark eyes, full of +life and compelling power, held my tired and dimmed ones, his firm, +warm hands held my cold and inert fingers. "My love, my dear love, +stay. You have got to stay, Sophy. Don't you understand? You can't +go, Sophy!" + +My dulled brain stumblingly laid hold upon a thought: _Nicholas +Jelnik was calling me. He was calling me because he loved me._ One +simply can't go down into sleep and darkness, when a miracle like +that is climbing like the morning-star into one's skies. + +"Stay!" he said, his lips against my ear. "Sophy! My love, my dear +love, stay!" + +But although he held me close, I could feel myself being drawn away. +There must have been that in my straining glance that made him +aware, for of a sudden he cried out, lifted me bodily in his arms, +and kissed me on the mouth. + +My heart quite stopped beating, as a spent runner pauses, that he +may gather new strength to go on. With a sigh I fell back; but not +into the water and the dark. + +"By God, you've pulled her through, Jelnik!" cried the voice of +Richard Geddes. + +Came vague sounds, stirs, movements, hands upon me. Then oblivion +again. + +I woke up one pleasant forenoon to find a brisk and capable young +woman in white sitting in my room, her head bent over the piece of +linen she was hemming. She was a healthy, handsome young woman, with +hard, firm cheeks, hard, firm lips, and professional eyes and +glasses. She glanced up and met my wan stare. + +"What are you doing here, if you please?" I asked politely. + +"I have been nursing you, Miss Smith. You have been quite ill, you +know." + +I lay there looking at that self-contained, trained young woman, +with feelings of almost ludicrous astonishment. I remembered the +skidding car; and Richard Geddes lying with his head on Alicia's +knees, and how we had both thought him dead; and myself sitting in +the dust; and then the pain. But it was astounding news that I had +been very badly hurt full three weeks ago! + +Alicia stole in and, seeing me awake, tried to smile, but cried +instead, with a wet cheek against my hand. A few minutes later +Doctor Geddes himself appeared. It was enough to scandalize any +self-contained nurse to see a six-foot-three doctor behave in the +most abandoned and unbedside manner! + +"Sophy!" gulped the doctor, "oh, deuce take you, Sophronisba Two, +what do you mean by scaring honest folks half out of their wits?" + +The nurse was destined to receive another shock. Richard of the Lion +Heart dropped down on his knees beside Alicia, and laid his bearded +cheek against my wan one, and for a while couldn't speak. Alicia +tried to get her slender arms around him, and couldn't. + +"I think," ventured the nurse, in level tones, "that the patient +had better not be excited. Shall I give her a stimulant, doctor?" + +"The patient's on the highroad to getting well," said the doctor. +"And we're the best of all stimulants, aren't we, Sophy?" + +When I began to get stronger, the dream which had haunted my illness +came back with astonishing vividness and haunted my waking hours. I +knew it was a dream, for of course I hadn't been in black water, I +hadn't strained toward a light upon the flood, and of course, I +hadn't really heard Nicholas Jelnik calling my name; and the kiss +was part of the fantasy. I watched him stealthily, this cool, +collected, impersonal young man, to whom even the efficient nurse +was astonishingly respectful, and pure laughter seized me at the +idea of _his_ crying aloud, being as agitated, as passionate, as +fiercely insistent, as he had been in the vision. + +I ventured to put a part of the vagary to the acid test: + +"Alicia, I wasn't thrown out again, into water, was I?" + +"No. That was delirium, dear. You were frightfully ill for a while, +Sophy." Her face paled. "So ill that The Author fled, because he +wouldn't stay in the house and see--what we expected to see. He said +it would permanently shatter his nerves. But he has wired every day +since." + +"It was sensible of him to go. And it's kind of him to wire." I said +no more about the water. + +"Everybody has been kind. And it wasn't duty kindness, either. It +was kind kindness!" said Alicia, lucidly. "Do you know what they're +saying in Hyndsville now? They're saying old Sophronisba played a +joke on herself." She left me to digest that as best I might. + +It isn't pleasant to be ill anywhere. But it isn't altogether +unpleasant to be on the sick list in South Carolina. Everybody is +anxious about you. Old ladies with palm-leaf fans in their tireless +hands come and sit with you. They aren't brilliant old ladies, you +understand. I know some whose secular library consists of the +Complete Works of John Esten Cooke, Gilmore Simms's War Poems of the +South, and a thumbed copy of Father Ryan. But add to these the +Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Imitation of Christ, and +it doesn't make such a bad showing. It's astonishing how soothing +the companionship of women fed upon this pabulum can be, when the +things of the world are of necessity set aside for a space, and the +simpler things of the spirit draw near. + +Old gentlemen in well-brushed clothes and immaculate, exquisitely +darned linen, call daily with small gifts of fruit and flowers, and +send you messages from which you infer that the sun won't be able to +shine properly until you come outside again. And there isn't a +housekeeper of your acquaintance who hasn't got you on her mind: +there are sent to you steaming bowls of perfect soup, flaky rolls +and golden cake, jeweled jellies, and cool, enticing, trembly things +in glass dishes. And when you can sit up for more than an hour or +two at a time, why, then you know what it really means to have South +Carolina neighbors. + +Doctor Geddes made me spend my days in the garden that Schmetz had +labored upon with such loving-kindness, and that in consequence was +become a marvel of bloom and scent. Every butterfly in South +Carolina must have visited that garden. I hadn't known there were +that many butterflies in the world. All the florist-shop windows in +New York, that I had once paused before with envy and longing, were +stinted and poor and pale before the living, out-o'-doors wonder of +it. Florist shops haven't any bees, nor birds, nor butterflies, nor +trees that wave their green branches at you like friendly hands. + +A flowering vine festooned the marble Love, and one great scarlet +spray of bloom flamed upon his marble torch, "so lyrically," Miss +Martha Hopkins said, that she was moved to write a poem about it. I +thought it a very nice poem, and I said so, when she read it to us. +But Doctor Geddes, who doesn't care for poetry, except Robert +Burns's, rubbed his nose. + +"Oh, well, your grandmother and your aunts used to make +antimacassars and wall-pockets and paper flowers," he ruminated. +"Why shouldn't you make poetry if you feel like it?" + +"You are to be pitied, Richard," said Miss Martha, with crushing +charity. "Such a disposition! And the older you grow the worse it +gets." + +"Confound it, Martha!--" + +"I do," said she. + +Alicia looked at Richard with impersonal eyes. She looked at the +ruffled center of culture. + +"Don't pay any attention to him, Miss Martha," she said, with a +charming smile. "Your poem is very pretty, and he knows it." + +"He means well," said Miss Martha, resignedly. + +"Now, you look here, Martha!" the doctor said angrily, "I won't have +anybody telling me to my face I mean well. You might as well call me +a fool outright." + +"You are far from being a fool, Richard. And you do mean well. +Everybody knows that." + +He turned appealingly to his dear Leetchy, and received his first +lesson in Domestic Science. + +"Miss Martha is right, Richard," she decided. + +"Leetchy," the doctor asked, when the mollified Miss Hopkins had +departed, "why did Martha go off grinning?" + +"How should I know?" wondered Alicia, innocently. Then she looked at +him with Irish eyes: "Have you had your lunch, dear?" she asked. + +"Lunch?" He looked bewildered. + +"Because I'm going to fix Sophy's lunch now, and you may have yours +with her, if you like. I love to wait on you, Richard," she added, +and a beautiful color flooded her face. + +He caught his breath. When she went back to the house, his eyes +followed her adoringly. + +"Sophy," he said, huskily, "what does she see in me? Do you think +I'm good enough for _her_, Sophy?" + +"I think you are quite good enough even for Alicia." + +When he had gone, Alicia sat with her head against my knees. Of late +a touching gravity, a sweet seriousness, had settled upon her. Her +love for the big doctor was singularly clear-eyed and far-seeing. +There were going to be times when every ounce of skill, tact, +patience, love itself, would be called upon, for the reins must be +gossamer-light, invisible, but always firm and sure, that should +guide and tone down so impatient and fiery a nature as his. It was +very easy to love him; it wasn't always going to be easy to live +with him, and Alicia knew it. But she also knew, with a faith beyond +all failing, that this was her high, destined, heaven-ordained job. + +"Sophy darlin', I'm deplorably young, am I not?" she sighed. + +"You'll get over it." + +"Do you think I'll make him a good wife, Sophy?" + +"I am absolutely certain," I said, "that you'll make him a good +husband. Which is far more important." + +Alicia hugged my knees, and laughed. Then, seeing Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik approaching, she scrambled to her feet, picked up the tray of +empty dishes, and went back to the house. + +Neither she nor the doctor had asked me so much as one question +about Mr. Jelnik. As if by tacit understanding that subject was +avoided. And because I hadn't anything to tell them, I, too, held my +peace. + +He raised my hand to his lips, dropped into a chair, and bared his +forehead to the soft wind. + +"How good that feels!" he sighed. "Fräulein, may one smoke?" And +receiving permission he smoked for a while, comfortably, leaning +back with half-closed eyes. + +"Achmet salaams to you, _hanoum_," he said presently. "You have won +his heart of a true believer. Even Daoud demands daily news of you." + +"I particularly like The Jinnee. I should like to have him around +me. And Daoud is highly ornamental." + +"When is The Author coming back? Or is he coming back?" he asked +abruptly. + +"Oh, yes. He will be here for the wedding. So will Miss Emmeline." + +After a long pause, and with an evident effort: + +"I have been thinking," he said, "that perhaps it was unfortunate I +came between you and The Author. Perhaps," he added deliberately, +"it would have been better had you let your common sense gain the +day." + +I don't know why, but just at that moment the dear and haunting +dream of having been lifted out of deep waters and kissed back to +life, cradled in this man's arms, came to me with peculiar +poignancy. Of a sudden I laughed aloud. + +"Oh, I'm just remembering a dream I had, when I was ill," I told +him, in answer to his look of surprise. + +"It must have been a very amusing dream," said he, staring at me +thoughtfully. + +"Oh, very! Quite absurd. But go on. You were by way of advising me +to marry The Author, were you not?" + +His hands on the arms of the wicker chair clenched. He half rose, +thought better of it, and sank back. + +"I was saying that it might have been better for you," he said, +breathing quickly. "In all probability you would have accepted him, +had I not been here to--blunder into the affair." + +"He mightn't have asked me, if you hadn't been here to blunder into +the affair," said I, composedly. "Let us drop the subject, please. I +shall never marry The Author." It gave me a sense of relief and +freedom to hear myself say that. "I can't marry The Author." + +He went pale. "Sophy--you can't marry me, either," he said. + +"Of course not." I wondered at myself for being so calm and +collected. "I knew that all along. You care for another woman. You +told me so, you know." + +"I told you no such thing," he said. "I told you I cared for a +woman, but that there was another man. Now I've just been told she +has no idea of accepting the other man. In spite of all he has to +offer, she isn't going to marry him." His face was at once ecstatic +and tortured. "_Why_ won't you marry the other man, Sophy?" + +"Because of a dream I dreamed, when I was sick," I said +noncommittally. + +"Ah! And did you dream that somebody called you--and held you--and +wouldn't let you go?" + +"I never told you!" I cried. + +"No need, Sophy. It was to me you came back." Of a sudden his head +drooped. "And now I can't marry you!" + +"Why can't you?" + +"Because I'm a beggar." + +Nicholas Jelnik a beggar couldn't find lodgment in my brain. I could +only stare at him incredulously. + +"I learned some time ago that things were not altogether right over +yonder, but I hadn't the ghost of an idea that my entire estate was +involved; that while I'd been 'tramping'--I'll use Judge Gatchell's +word--the men in whose hands I placed too much power had taken +advantage of it. A very common, every-day story, you see. + +"Remains the fact that I'm stripped to the bone. The estate's wiped +out. And," he added, with a grave smile, "I haven't even discovered +the mythical Hynds jewels. Now you see, Sophy, why I can't marry +you." + +"I see why you think you can't." + +He flushed to the roots of his black hair. Hynds-Jelnik pride rose +in arms. + +"I should cut rather a sorry figure marrying the owner of Hynds +House, in the present circumstances," he said curtly. "You will +remember that The Author called me an adventurer! I have told you I +have nothing." + +"Aren't you forgetting your profession?" + +"No. But I neglected that, too, Sophy. The _Wanderlust_ had me in +its grip." + +"What do you propose to do?" + +"I shall leave here, put in some months of hard study, and then +fight my way upward. My father was the greatest alienist of his +generation, and I was trained under his eye. But in the meantime--" + +"Yes. In the meantime, what of _me_?" I asked. + +He winced as if he had been struck. "You are free," he said, in a +whisper. + +"I am free to be free, and you're free to set me free. You never +asked me to marry you, in the first place," I agreed quietly. + +Stupefaction seized him. He put his hands to his head. + +"Why, Sophy! Why, Sophy!" he stammered. Of a sudden he straightened +his shoulders, and stood erect: "Miss Smith," he said, with grave +politeness, "will you do me the honor to marry me?" and he waited. + +"It is rather a belated request, Mr. Jelnik. Besides, you haven't +told me why you want to marry me," said I, sedately. + +"You are well aware that I love you, Sophy. And I think you care for +me in return. Why did you turn that coin when it meant 'Go,' and bid +me, instead, 'Stay'? Was it because you cared, Sophy?" + +"Yes, Mr. Jelnik: it was because I cared. I cared enough to tell +a--a lie. And--I shall say yes to your other question, Mr. Jelnik." + +But he shook his head. "Ah, no, my dear! You'd be called upon to +make too many sacrifices. I couldn't bear that!" + +"A man needn't be worried about the sacrifices a woman makes for him +when she knows he loves her." + +"Not in normal circumstances; not when he can give as much as he +takes." + +"Hynds House," I said, "is costing me a steep and bitter price, Mr. +Jelnik!" + +"Do I not also pay?" he asked fiercely. + +"Oh, you have your pride!" said I, wearily; "Hynds pride!" + +"A poor enough possession, Sophy, but all that remains to me," he +said gently. "Is it a light thing for Nicholas Jelnik to say to the +woman he loves, 'I cannot marry you: I am a beggar'? Is it such a +small sacrifice to give you up, Sophy?" + +"It would appear so." + +"You crucify me!" he said, in a choking voice. "Good God, don't you +understand that I love you?" + +"I don't understand anything, except that you are going away from +me. And I have waited for you all my life," I said. + +"And I for you! and I for you!" he said passionately. "Don't make it +too hard for me, Sophy!" + +"If you go away from me," I gasped, "I think I shall die. +Nicholas--I can't bear it! It was easier for me when I thought you +loved somebody else. But now that I know you love _me_" and I +paused. + +He took a step forward, but stopped. His arms fell to his sides. + +"Not as a beggar!" he said. "Not as a beggar! Never that, for +Nicholas Jelnik! I love you too much for that, Sophy. I love you not +only for yourself, but for my own best self, too, my dearest." + +For a moment he stood there, regarding me fixedly. It was a long +look, of suffering, of love, of pride, of unyielding resolve. Then +he lifted my hand to his lips, bowed, and left me. + +I sat staring over the garden. I wondered if, somewhere on the other +side of things, Great-Aunt Sophronisba wasn't snickering. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +HARBOR + + +"My faith, but I'm glad you're entirely well again, Sophy!" wrote +The Author, in his small, fine, hypercritical script. "You make the +world a pleasanter place by being alive in it. People like you +should inculcate in themselves the fixed and unalterable habit of +being alive. They should firmly refuse to be anything else. I call +this to your attention, in the hope that you will see your bounden +duty and do it. + +"When I thought you were going to quit, I ran away. That was a +calamity I could not stand by and witness, without disaster. +However, Jelnik stayed! + +"Your nurse (I do not like Miss Ransome, though I respect, admire, +and fear her. Her emotions are carbolized, her heart is sterilized, +her personality has the mathematical perfection of something turned +out by a super-machine: like, say, the last word in machine-guns. +None of the divine imperfection of your hand-wrought, artist-stuff +there! I forgive her for existing, because she is intelligent and +useful, two things that, without lying like a Christian and a +gentleman, one may not say of many women, and seldom of one woman at +the same time), your nurse gave me a highly interesting, impersonal, +scientific account of what happened after my flight. Her testimony +was all the more valuable in that she was, as she said, only +'psychologically interested.' She reminded me that Empedocles is +said to have recalled a young woman from death by the same means, +i.e., the insistent repetition of her name; which proved to Miss +Ransome that the poor old ancients had 'anticipated, though of +course unscientifically, some of the principles of modern +psychology.' _Eheu!_ + +"It proved something else to me, Sophy--that I had too willingly +underestimated Mr. Nicholas Jelnik. There is very much more to that +young man than I like to admit. + +"He would have made such a perfect villain: I could have made a work +of art of him, as a villain! And now I can't, because he isn't. This +chagrins me. It upsets my notions of the fitness of things. More +yet: he loves you, Sophy, more than I do, or ever could. + +"Does this astound you? Come and let us reason together: the spirit +moves me to speak out in meeting. + +"You are the only woman I have ever been willing to marry. That I +should wish to marry you astonished me far, far more than it did +you. At the same time it delighted me by its very unexpectedness. It +gave me a brand-new emotion, and brand-new emotions aren't every-day +affairs, let me tell you! You brought something naïve, unusual, +fresh, perplexing, into a bored existence. And then you refused to +spoil it! That added to the quality of the unusualness. The ninety +and nine would have subjected me to the acid test of matrimony, with +the later and inevitable alimony. The saving hundredth sees to it +that I shall keep my illusions! O rare dear wise Sophy! How shall I +repay you? + +"For I shall be able to indulge in day-dreams now. I shall not grow +old cynically. There _are_ unselfish, true-hearted, valiant women. +There _are_ women who will not marry men for position, name, fame, +power, money; no, nor for anything but love. How do I know? Because +you don't love me, my dear. But you do love Nicholas Jelnik. You had +not come back from the gates of death else, Sophy. + +"Marry him. You will bring him the quiet strength and sureness he +needs. A temperamental man, a finely organized, highly gifted, +sensitive, and intellectual man needs just such affection as yours, +as unshakable as the sun, as faithful as the fixed stars. That you +should love him almost makes me believe in the direct intervention +of divine Providence in his behalf. My own innate and troublesome +decency forces me to add that he is worth it. He has altogether +_too_ much, confound him! + +"Do you know that while you lay ill, he came and told me about the +finding of Jessamine Hynds, showed me her statement, told me, in +short, the whole story? I was consumed with envy, malice, and all +uncharitableness; to think that such a thing should or could happen +right under my nose, and I all unwitting! And you, too, Sophy, went +through such an experience! I'd give a year of my life to have been +with you. + +"When Jelnik had finished, and I'd caught my breath, I apologized +for having been a dam' nuisance. He explained, delicately, +soothingly, with exquisite politeness, that literary folks of +consequence _have_ to be dam' nuisances at times. It's the price +they pay. + +"And now let me speak to you, my little Sophy, as your loving and +loyal friend: _Hold fast to Jelnik._ I knew his father. The position +he occupied wasn't exactly royal, but the elect addressed him as +'thou.' And you have learned somewhat of the Hyndses. In consequence, +your Jelnik is a mixture of South-Carolina-Viennese-Hynds-Jelnik +pride, beside which Satan's is as mild, meek, and innocuous as a +properly raised Anglican curate. Don't meet his pride with pride. +Meet it with _you_, Sophy. Most of us have been loved in our time, +but how few of us have been permitted really to love! That you have +in full measure this heavenliest of all powers, is your hope and his. + +"There are times I'm almost sorry you didn't love _me_, Sophy. I +should then have passed my days in a state of pleasant bewilderment, +trying to figure out how the deuce it happened. Or should I, though? +H'm! I might have gotten used to being married to you, and that +would have spelled boredom. The thought makes me shudder. + +"Johnson and I are coming down for Leetchy's wedding, of course. +That pink-and-white piece of Irishry will rule Geddes to perfection. +There's the steel under the velvet, the cat's claws under that satin +paw of hers--more power to it! I have two prints and a piece of +Cloisonné for her that I am sorely tempted to keep for myself. I +have more than once bought things to give to friends, and then found +myself unable to do so. I shouldn't be able to give these to anybody +but one of the ladies of Hynds House. + +"Johnson mopes. The youngest Meade girl, she with the dimples, the +pink cheeks, the fluffy hair, and the fluffier brains, is the cause. +He sighs for everything and everybody. For Mary Magdalen's batter +cakes. For the Black family. For the Kissing Cow, and for Beautiful +Dog. Hynds House is a fatal place! + +"So we are coming back to it, as soon as we may. I kiss your hand, +Madame, and beg you to understand that so long as we two live you +are never going to be able, for any considerable length of time, to +get rid of, + Your affectionate friend, + THE AUTHOR." + +I was able to read between the lines, and my heart warmed to The +Author. At the same time the letter saddened me, in so far as it +referred to Mr. Jelnik. + +Refuse to let him go? But I couldn't keep him. I knew now that he +had to go, that it was the best thing, the only thing. Doctor Geddes +helped me to see that. The doctor tried, at first, to keep his +cousin in Hyndsville. Why shouldn't Nicholas go into partnership +with him? Why shouldn't Nicholas share everything the open-hearted, +open-handed doctor had? + +Mr. Jelnik smiled, thanked him, and put the offer by. And I knew he +was right. + + * * * * * + +It had been a rainy day and was now one of those afternoons that +have the rawness of autumn, though summer is still present. It was +so chilly that a fire burned in the library fireplace, before which +I was sitting. The wind was from the northeast, and the trees and +bushes slanted before it. Potty Black and I had the library all to +our alone-selves, for Alicia was spending the day with Mary Meade, +one of her bridesmaids. + +The wedding was less than six weeks off, and preparations were under +way. It was to be a home wedding, the first to take place in Hynds +House since Richard's day, and somehow that lent the occasion the +rose color of romance. It was thus a part of Hynds House history, +something Hyndsville couldn't take lightly. Alicia's wedding was a +town affair, in which everybody was delightfully interested. + +Besides, the bridegroom himself was a Hynds on his mother's side, as +Hyndsville ladies remembered, when they sat on our front porch +working on wonderful bits of embroidered things for the bride. It +was then I learned in fullest detail the whole history of +Hyndsville, of the Hyndses, and of Great-Aunt Sophronisba in +particular. I fancy that the Witch of Endor's neighbors must have +had just such an opinion of her as these Hyndsville folk had of +Great-Aunt Sophronisba. + +South Carolina people always talk in terms of three generations. +When they say something about you, they remember something about +your mother or your grandfather at the same time, and they tell +that, too. There is a fearsome frankness about the conversation of +the born South Carolinian that The Author says is only to be matched +in an English country house when the county families are gathered +together. Like this, for instance: + +"No, my dear, I can't say I'm surprised at Sally's running away and +getting married. Let's see: her grandfather was a Dampier, wasn't +he? Didn't one of the Dampiers murder somebody, or something like +that? It seems to me I have heard dear Mama relate some such +circumstance." + +"Oh, _no_, Mary! It wasn't _murder_! He shot one of the Abercrombies +in a duel, that's all. He was really a very fine man! They had a +dispute about a horse, and Mr. Abercrombie struck Mr. Dampier's +little negro groom over the head with his crop. After that, of +course, there was nothing to do but challenge him. You must be +thinking of Barton Bailey, Eliza DuFour's grandfather on her +mother's side. _He_ was a complete scoundrel. His poor wife (she was +a Garrett; very dull, poor thing, like all the Garretts, but at +least the Garretts were honest, which is more than even charity can +say for the Baileys) his wife led a martyr's life with him. Or +maybe you're thinking of Tiger Bill Pendarvis. A most _awful_ +person!--almost an out-law!" + +Mrs. Scarboro looked up, bit off a thread, and said placidly: + +"Oh, awful! He was a cousin of mine on dear Papa's side of the +family. Papa and Mama used to say that they never could understand +why Cousin Sophronisba Hynds didn't pick out Tiger Bill instead of +pouncing upon a perfectly innocent little Englishman." + +I sat and listened. One thing was joyously clear and plain to me. +They liked and trusted me enough now to talk about their own people +before me, which is the high sign of fellowship in South Carolina. +But learn, O outsider, that silence is golden, so far as _you_ are +concerned. Wisely did I hold my peace, and devoutly thank the Lord +that times had changed for the better. + +For a great deal of that change I had to thank my dear girl, so much +more clever and tactful than I. And so I would not cloud her last +days with me by letting her see that I was unhappy. Only, I was glad +this afternoon to be by myself for a breathing-space. It rests one's +face occasionally to take off one's smile. I took off mine, then, +and let down the corners of my mouth. + +The door leading to the hall was half open. The house was full of +blue-gray shadows, and had a drowsy hush upon it, a pleasanter hush +than it used to know. One heard the rushing wind outside, and above +it Mary Magdalen singing one of her interminable "speretuals." + +A slinking shadow stole through the hall, a wary yellow head +appeared in the door, and Beautiful Dog sneaked into the room. +Beautiful Dog had not known a happy day since the departure of Mr. +Johnson. Not all the coddlings of the cook, nor the blandishments of +sympathetic housemaids consoled him for the absence of his god. He +grew thinner, if that could be possible. His tail hung at half-mast, +his ears were a signal of mourning. Queenasheeba said he looked like +"sumpin' 'at happened to a dawg." + +One hope sustained Beautiful Dog's drooping spirit--the hope that he +might suddenly turn a corner, or enter a room, and find the adored +Johnson smiling kindly at him. Wherefore he dared the to-be-shunned +presence of other white people. He nerved himself to enter tabooed +domains. Love sustained him. He knew he had no business there, just +as our cats knew it and, whenever they caught him at it, visited +swift and dire punishment upon him. Beautiful Dog dared even the +cats, those black nightmares of his existence. + +He met my glance, paused, and cringed. But as I made no hostile +movement, and seemed disposed to be friendly, Beautiful Dog grinned +half-heartedly, wagged his rope of a tail dejectedly, and advanced +farther. Then he paused again, head on one side, ears forlornly +flopping, and made an awkward motion with his fore paws, expressive +of doubtful trust and painful inquiry. His god had been wont to +choose this particular room by preference. Did I know where he was? +When he was coming back? + +Beautiful Dog glanced wistfully at the empty chair over by the +window. Once or twice his god had allowed him to lie beside that +chair while he read, and if Beautiful Dog happened to raise his +head, a kind hand happened to fall upon it. He hadn't forgotten. His +desire now was to sneak over to the chair and sniff at it. Perhaps +by some exquisite miracle his man might suddenly appear in his old +place. Can't miracles happen for Beautiful Dogs as well as for other +folks, when times and seasons are propitious? + +Beautiful Dog took another step toward the chair. And then there +paced into the library, and caught him in the rear, his arch +enemy--Sir Thomas More Black. The great cat took one look at the +nigger dog trespassing upon forbidden ground. You could see Sir +Thomas More swell with rage and astonishment, and then lengthen out +like an accordion. Without a sound he launched himself upon the +intruder. And at the same instant and actuated by the same motive, +Potty Black, who had been sweetly and peacefully dozing on my lap, +rose up with slitted eyes, bottle-brushed her tail, and hurled +herself into the fray. + +Attacked front and rear, Beautiful Dog was at hideous disadvantage. +He launched himself sidewise; he didn't even have time to howl. He +fell over his own splay feet as he ran, butted into chairs and +tables, twisted, turned, whirled, dodged, but always presented just +the right spot to be clawed. He couldn't dash to the door and +escape: the cats were too swift for him. They kept their bewildered +victim circling around the middle of the room. + +I was sorry for Beautiful Dog, for my sleek, petted, purring pussies +had turned into raging black tornadoes edged with a lightning of +claws. If the aristocratic Black Family had been raised in +Hooligan's Alley itself, on the soft side of the ash-bins, they +couldn't have behaved more villainously. Alas! they were _cats_, +just as people are people. + +I snatched up the brass-headed poker, the readiest thing to my hand. +I merely wished to shoo off the Blacks with it. But as I rose from +my chair with a _scat_! upon my lips, Beautiful Dog, seeing out of +the tail of his eye a chance to escape, dashed headlong into me. He +came with such force that I fell backward, and the poker flew out of +my hand and came _crack_! upon the sacred tiles of Hynds House +library. There was an ominous clatter, for no less than the Father +of his Country himself had fallen out of his place. At the same +instant Beautiful Dog gained the door, with both cats upon his hind +quarters; with one prolonged yell of terror he made for safety and +Mary Magdalen. + +I picked myself and the tile up. Thank Heaven, it wasn't broken. The +blow had loosened the cement that held it in place, and where it had +been was a small square hole. + +I looked at that hole doubtfully. There oughtn't to be any hole +there at all. That was a curious way to fix tiles, such precious +tiles as ours. I slipped my hand in and tentatively tested the black +wall, and discovered that the other tiles, as might be expected, had +been properly put in; that is, against a solid background. + +I put my hand farther into the aperture. It was larger than might be +expected, and most cunningly contrived--a hollow space some ten +inches in width, and possibly a foot deep. There was something in +it. + +Now I am mortally afraid of rats and mice, and what I had touched +had the sleazy feel of frayed silk. It might be a rat's nest! I took +a sliver of lightwood from the fire, and with this examined the +black interior, before I ventured my fingers again. It wasn't a +rat's nest in the corner. It was a package. A package, or rather a +sizable buckskin bag carefully tied together with thongs of the same +material, and this wrapped in a piece of silk that tore and went to +pieces even as I fingered it. + +Even then I didn't guess! I thought it was, perhaps, a Revolutionary +hoard, maybe such another collection of old coins as we had found in +the room without windows. + +The silk dropped away like rotting leaves, but the buckskin bag was +stout and in perfect condition. So many and so hard were the knots +in the thongs that I had to use my penknife to cut them. And having +done so, I poured the contents of the bag on the library table. + +It was, as I have said, a gray day. But the fires of a century's +sunsets flamed and flashed in that library! Ruby, sapphire, diamond, +emerald, pearl--how they glowed and glimmered! How they shone and +sparkled! For the moment there fell upon me that madness that jewels +bring upon women, a sort of wild delight in their hard, bright +beauty, an ecstasy, an intoxication. I poured them from one hand to +the other, I held the greatest to my cheek. The loveliness of them +went to my head. "I did chap them atween my hands, as children chap +chaff. They did glow like the Devill his rainbow," Jessamine had +said. And remembering her, the delight vanished. + +With stunning force the meaning of this discovery came home to me. I +had found the unfindable! This, this was where Shooba had hidden +them between a night and a morning, Shooba the "skilfullest workman +on Hynds place." One fancied him here, in the dead of night, while +all Hynds House slept a drugged sleep. It would suit his sardonic +humor, his impish malice, to hide them where the Hyndses must pass +them daily; and, himself a slave, to hide them behind the pictured +semblance of Washington. The grim irony of the thing! And not the +cunning of man, but the antics of a cur, a yellow nigger dog, had +outwitted the cunning of the old witch doctor! Beautiful Dog had +brought to light that which Jessamine had died alone in the dark +rather than reveal. + +There was one thing more in the buckskin bag, wrapped separately. +When I got this separate package open, I found three frayed, black +feathers bound together with a strand of black hair, a piece of +yellow wax with two slivers of what I think was bone thrust through +it crosswise, and a small semblance of a snake, rudely carved out of +wood. There was, too, some dust, or powder, that must once have +been leaves, or perhaps roots. These unchancy things and the bag +that held them I dropped into the fire, breathing a sigh of relief +to see its red tooth seize upon them. The wax made a hissing noise, +and the dust of leaves, or whatever it was, burned with a bright, +fierce flame. + +Then with feverish haste I got the Hynds jewels back into the +buckskin bag. I hadn't the faintest notion as to their actual value, +though I knew it must be considerable--enough to make up to Nicholas +Jelnik the losses he had sustained; enough to decide his fate--and +mine. Even now he was packing to go; even now there were "For Sale" +signs on the gray cottage. + +I ran into our living-room, snatched my sewing-bag from the +sewing-stand, and dropped the heavy bag into it. That looked more +commonplace. + +The clamor from the kitchen, incident upon Beautiful Dog's having +taken refuge under Mary Magdalen's skirts, had died down. I knew +that Beautiful Dog was licking his wounds after defeat, and the +Black cats, sedate and mild-mannered, were licking their paws after +victory. I determined that from that afternoon Beautiful Dog should +become an honored and important institution in Hynds House. If I had +to choose a new family escutcheon, I think I should insist upon +having Beautiful Dog rampant upon it! + +When I went outside, the garden was a gray-green gloom of flying +leaves and twisting tree-branches bending before the stiff northeast +gale. It was wild weather--weather that sent the blood tingling +through the veins and whipped red into one's cheeks. + +I got into Mr. Jelnik's grounds through the hedge behind the +spring-house, and ran like a hare through his garden. I had to +hammer upon his door before I could make Achmet hear me, so loud and +surf-like was the noise of the wind in the trees. + +The Jinnee stepped back and salaamed, his hands upon his breast. +Then he laid a finger upon his lips, for from up-stairs came the +wailing outcry of a violin. + +The Jinnee looked thin and old. His garments hung loose upon his +shrunken frame. There was trouble in that house, he told me. The +master had wished to send Daoud away. Daoud had refused to go. To +leave one's lord when calamity came upon him was to shame one's +beard. It was the act of the infidel, not the behavior of the +faithful, and Daoud had threatened to shave his beard, put on the +dress of a pilgrim, and beg his way from Hyndsville to Mecca. He was +even now kneeling upon a prayer-mat reciting a four-bow prayer. As +for the master, for two days he had not eaten; he merely swallowed +a cup of coffee in the morning because Achmet wept. This afternoon +he had fled to his violin for relief. Verily, God was afflicting +them! "The bad fortune of the good turns his face to heaven, even as +the good fortune of the bad bends his head to the earth. It is the +will of God: _Islam_!" said The Jinnee, simply. + +"I must see Mr. Jelnik, now, this minute! I have news for him," I +said hastily. + +The Jinnee looked doubtful. Plainly, he didn't want his master +disturbed, even by me. "I have never seen him like this before," he +told me. "Listen!" + +Came the cries of the violin, heart-rending cries of regret and +despair, followed by furious protests; then a nobler grief, and +love, and longing. + +"After a while it will pray for him. Then Satan the stoned, whom may +God confound, will depart from him," said Achmet. + +"But in the meantime I must see him, immediately." + +"He goes to-morrow. That is why he is afflicted to-day," said The +Jinnee. "I think, _hanoum_, he would go without seeing you again. It +is a grievous thing to say to one's beloved, 'I leave you.' I have +said it. I was young then. I am old now, but I have not forgotten." + +I unfastened the chain from my neck. A half-coin swung from it as a +pendant. + +"Place this in his hand. It is a sign. It has power to lay the evil +spirit which troubles this house," I told him gravely. + +He seized upon it with an eager hand. "In the name of God!" said The +Jinnee, and fairly flew out of the room. + +A minute later, his violin grasped in one hand, my chain in the +other, Nicholas Jelnik appeared. His appearance shocked me. The mask +was off; here was stark and naked misery. + +"Nicholas!" I said, "Nicholas!" + +"You should not have come!" he said roughly. "Why have you come? I +did not want you to see me--thus. Is it not enough for me to +suffer?" And he made an impatient, imploring gesture. His lips +quivered. + +"Put aside the violin, Ariel," I said. "But keep the coin." + +He stiffened, as if he braced himself for further blows. But he laid +aside the violin, and with a supreme effort of will got himself in +hand. That early training in self-control worked a miracle now. Here +was no longer the wild, white-lipped musician, but a pale, proud +young man who faced me with stately politeness. + +"I have another gift for you, Nicholas Jelnik." To save my life I +couldn't keep my voice from shaking, my eyes from glittering, my +cheeks from flaming. "Do not go, old Jinnee. Stay and see what gift +I bring the master." + +Then it occurred to me that it would be dangerous should strange or +greedy eyes look upon what my sewing-bag hid. The thought frightened +me." + +"You are sure there is none to see? Achmet, there is no stranger +around?" + +"We are alone," said the black man, quietly. Both of them seemed +astonished and concerned. + +Reassured, I drew forth the heavy buckskin bag and placed it in +Nicholas Jelnik's hands. + +"From Hynds House--and me--and oh, Nicholas, from Beautiful Dog, +too!" I said, and laughed and cried. + +For the moment he didn't understand. He thought it some loving +woman-foolishness of Sophy's, some woman-gift she had made for him. +I knew, for he gave me a glance of tenderness. And then he opened +the bag, and staggered like a drunken man, and sank into the nearest +chair, trembling like a leaf in the wind. The Hynds fortune had come +back to the last of Richard's blood. + +When the mist cleared from my eyes, I saw old Achmet on the floor, +with his hands upraised and tears running down his black cheeks +like rain, unashamedly and unaffectedly pouring out praises and +thanksgivings to his Creator. + +"Hold out your skirts, Sophy!" cried Nicholas Jelnik, and poured the +glittering things into my lap, boyishly. He was beautiful again, +radiant and young-eyed as the choiring cherubim. There were two +exquisite, pear-shaped ear-ring drops among the Hynds jewels, and +these he took, threaded upon my chain on either side the broken +coin, and hung around my neck. He held a ruby against my lip and +turquoises near my eyes, and laughed. + +"These for Hynds House, Sophy!" he cried, and laughed again to see +my lips tremble. "What? It is not these you want? Choose for +yourself, then. I promised you the best of them, you know." + +"I want none of them," I said. + +"No? Take them, then, Achmet, and put them away," said Mr. Jelnik, +in a matter-of-fact voice. "You will guard them for me, for the time +being. And tell Daoud I have changed my mind about sending him away. +He can change his about shaving his beard, and save himself the +trouble of begging his way to Mecca." + +I stood up in silence, and held out my skirt apron-wise, while The +Jinnee as silently removed the Hynds jewels. Then he tied the +buckskin bag, concealed it in a fold of his robe, and left the room. + +"Now, Sophy," said Mr. Jelnik, facing me, "you offered Hynds House +to me once, and I refused it because I didn't have the price. I told +you at the time that if ever I had the Hynds jewels in my +possession, I might be tempted to make you an offer of exchange. I +am going to make you an offer now. I should like to live in Hynds +House, Sophy. I don't think I could be happy anywhere else. You see, +Sophy, I'm going to spend the rest of my life here in America, +become an American citizen. Now, what about Hynds House?" + +"You may have it," I said. + +"At my own price?" he demanded. + +"At your own price. Did you think I would haggle with you?" + +"No. It's I who intend to haggle with you. I'm going to make a +tremendous bargain. There's something that must go with the house. +Something that's worth more than all the Hyndses ever had in all +their lives. _You_, Sophy. My sweetheart, come!" And he stood there +shining-eyed, and held out his arms. + +"Once I sent for you. Once I called you. And both times you came to +me, Sophy. You came because you are mine. _Come!_" said Nicholas +Jelnik. And the golden lights danced in and out of his eyes that +were like brown mountain water when the sun is upon it, and his hair +was like Absalom's. + + _In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as + Absalom for his beauty; from the sole of his foot to the + crown of his head there was no blemish in him._ + +And caught by the surge and power, as it were of the very wave of +life itself, I was swept into those outstretched arms. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN NAMED SMITH*** + + +******* This file should be named 15591-8.txt or 15591-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/9/15591 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: A Woman Named Smith</p> +<p>Author: Marie Conway Oemler</p> +<p>Release Date: April 8, 2005 [eBook #15591]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN NAMED SMITH***</p> +<br /><br /><h3>E-text prepared by Janet Kegg<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (https://www.pgdp.net)</h3><br /><br /> +<hr class="full" /> +<div style="height: 2em;"><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<a name="image-0001"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/front.jpg" width="286" height="450" +alt="'Sophy,' he said, 'I have found the lost key of +Hynds House'" /> +</center> +<h5>"Sophy," he said, "I have found the lost key of +Hynds House"</h5> + +<hr class="full" /> +<div style="height: 340px"><img src="images/cover.jpg" +width="220" height="340" align="left" alt="dustcover" /> + +<h1> + A WOMAN NAMED SMITH +</h1> +<h5> +BY</h5> +<h2> +MARIE CONWAY OEMLER +</h2> +<p class="center"> +<span class="sc">author of <br /> + SLIPPY McGEE, Etc.</span> +</p> + +<a name="image-0002"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/decoration.gif" width="50" height="46" +alt="title page decoration" /> +</center> +<p> </p> + +<p class="note"> +GROSSET & DUNLAP<br /> + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK +</p> +</div> +<h4>1919</h4> +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="center"> + To +</p> +<p class="center"> + + ELIZABETH HEYWARD OEMLER +</p> +<p class="center"> + <i>Sometimes my Little Girl</i>. +</p> +<p class="verse3"> + When you were yet an Awful Baby, <br /> + And bawled o' bed-time, I said "Maybe <br /> + It is not best to spank or scold her: <br /> + Suppose a fairy-tale were told her?" <br /> + And gave you then, to my undoing, <br /> + The wolf Red Riding-Hood pursuing; <br /> + Sang Mother Goose her artless rhyming; <br /> + Showed Jack the Magic Beanstalk climbing; <br /> + Three Little Pigs were so appealing, <br /> + You set up sympathetic squealing! <br /> + Then, Bitsybet, you had your mother— <br /> + <i>You bawled until I told another!</i> +</p> +<p class="verse3"> + The Awful Baby's gone. Here lately <br /> + You bear your little self sedately. <br /> + You've shed your rompers; you want dresses <br /> + Prinked out with frillies; fluff your tresses; <br /> + Delight your daddy, aunts, and mother; <br /> + And sisterly set straight your brother. <br /> + Your bib-and-tucker days abolished, <br /> + Your manners and your nails are polished. <br /> + One baby trait remains, thank glory! <br /> + You're still a glutton for a story. <br /> + Still, Bitsybet, you beg another: <br /> + So here's one for you from +</p> + <p class="closing2"> <small> YOUR MOTHER.</small> +</p> + + +<hr class="long" /> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0001"> +i. The Scarlet Witch Departs +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0002"> +ii. And Ariel Makes Music +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0003"> +iii. The Dear Little God! +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0004"> +iv. The Hyndses of Hynds House +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0005"> +v. "Thy Neighbor as Thyself" +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0006"> +vi. Glamoury +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0007"> +vii. A Bright Particular Star +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0008"> +viii. Peacocks and Ivory +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0009"> +ix. The Judgment of Spring +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0010"> +x. The Forest of Arden +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0011"> +xi. The Jinnee Intervenes +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0012"> +xii. Man Proposes +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0013"> +xiii. Fires of Yesterday +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0014"> +xiv. The Talisman +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0015"> +xv. The Heart of Hynds House +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0016"> +xvi. The Devill His Rainbow +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0017"> +xvii. On the Knees of the Gods +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0018"> +xviii. The Greatest Gift +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0019"> +xix. Deep Waters +</a></p> +<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH0020"> +xx. Harbor +</a></p> + + +<p class="note">[<span class="sc">illustrations:</span> <a href="#image-0001"><i>frontispiece</i></a> +<a href="#image-0003"><i>key</i></a> <a href="#image-0004"><i>plan</i></a>] +</p> + + + + +<hr class="long" /> + +<h3> + CHARACTERS +</h3> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Sophy:</span> <i>A woman named Smith.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Alicia Gaines:</span> <i>Flower o' the Peach.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Nicholas Jelnik:</span> <i>Peacocks and Ivory.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Doctor Richard Geddes:</span> <i>Cœur-de-Lion.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">The Author:</span> <i>Himself.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">The Secretary:</span> <i>A Pleasant Person.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons:</span> <i>of Boston, Massachusetts.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Miss Martha Hopkins:</span> "<i>Clothed in White Samite.</i>" +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Judge Gatchell:</span> <i>The Law.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Schmetz and Riedriech:</span> <i>Workmen and Visionaries.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">The Jinnee:</span> <i>A Son of the Prophet.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Sophronisba Scarlett:</span> "<i>The Scarlett Witch.</i>" +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">The Hyndses of Hynds House.</span> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Paying Guests.</span> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">The People of Hyndsville, South Carolina.</span> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Mary Magdalen; Queen-of-Sheeba; Fernolia:</span> <i>Important Persons.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Boris:</span> <i>A Russian Wolfhound.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">The Black Family:</span> <i>A Witch's Cat's Kittens.</i> +</p> +<p class="char"> +<span class="sc">Beautiful Dog:</span> <i>Last but not Least.</i> +</p> + +<hr class="long" /> + +<h2> + A WOMAN NAMED SMITH +</h2> +<hr class="long" /> + +<a name="2HCH0001"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER I +</h2> +<h3> + THE SCARLETT WITCH DEPARTS +</h3> +<p> +If it had been humanly possible for Great-Aunt Sophronisba Scarlett +to lug her place in Hyndsville, South Carolina, along with her into +the next world, plump it squarely in the middle of the Elysian +Fields, plaster it over with "No Trespassing" signs, and then settle +herself down to a blissful eternity of serving writs upon the angels +for flying over her fences without permission, and setting the saved +by the ears in general, she would have done so and felt that heaven +was almost as desirable a place as South Carolina. But as even she +couldn't impose her will upon the next world, and there was nobody +in this one she hated less than she did me—possibly because she had +never laid eyes on me—she willed me Hynds House and what was left +of the Hynds fortune; tying this string to her bequest: I must +occupy Hynds House within six months, and I couldn't rent it, or +attempt to sell it, without forfeiture of the entire estate. +</p> +<p> +I can fancy the ancient beldam sniggering sardonically the while she +figured to herself the chagrined astonishment, the helpless wrath, +of her watchfully waiting neighbors, when they should discover that +historic Hynds House, dating from the beginning of things +Carolinian, had passed into the unpedigreed hands of a woman named +Smith. I can fancy her balefully exact perception of the attitude so +radically conservative a community must needs assume toward such an +intruder as myself, foisted upon it, so to speak, by an enemy who +never failed to turn the trick. +</p> +<p> +Because I'm not a Hynds, at all. Great Aunt Sophronisba was my aunt +not by blood but by marriage; she having, when she was no longer +what is known as a spring chicken, met my Great-Uncle Johnny +Scarlett and scandalized all Hyndsville by marrying him out of hand. +</p> +<p> +I have heard that she was insanely in love with him, and I believe +it; nothing short of an over-mastering passion could have induced +one of the haughty Hyndses to marry a person with such family +connections as his. For my father, George Smith, was a ruddy +English ship-chandler who pitched upon Boston for a home, and lived +with his family in the rooms above his shop; and my grandmother +Smith dropped her "aitches" with the cheerful ease of one to the +manner born, bless her stout old Cockney heart! I can remember her +hearing me my spelling-lesson of a night, her spectacles far down on +her old button of a nose, her white curls bobbing from under her +cap. +</p> +<p> +"What! Carn't spell 'saloon'? Listen, then, Miss: There's a hess and +a hay and a hell and two hoes and a henn! Now, then, d 'ye spell +it!" +</p> +<p> +Not that Mrs. Johnny ever accepted us. It was borne in upon the +Smiths that undesirable in-laws are outlaws. This despite the fact +that my mother's pink-and-white English face was a gentler copy of +what her uncle's had been in his youth; and that when I came along, +some years after the dear old man's death, I was named Sophronisba +at Mrs. Johnny's urgent request. +</p> +<p> +After Great-Uncle Johnny died, as if the last tie which bound her to +ordinary humanity had snapped, his widow retired into a seclusion +from which she emerged only to sue somebody. She said the world was +being turned topsyturvy by people who were allowed to misbehave to +their betters, and who needed to be taught a lesson and their proper +place; and that so long as she retained her faculties, she would do +her duty in that respect, please God! +</p> +<p> +She did her duty so well in that respect that the Hynds fortune, +which even civil war and reconstruction hadn't been able altogether +to wreck, dwindled to a mere fifteen thousand dollars; and she +wasn't on speaking terms with anybody but Judge Gatchell, her +lawyer. She would have quarreled with him, too, had she dared. +</p> +<p> +To the minister, who bearded her for her soul's sake every now and +then, she spoke in words brief and curt: +</p> +<p> +"You here again? Wanted to see me, hey? Well, you've done it. Now +get out!" +</p> +<p> +And in the meantime the years passed and my own immediate family +passed with them; but still the gaunt old woman lived on in her +gaunt old house, becoming in time a myth to me, and to Hyndsville as +well; where they referred to her, succinctly, as "the Scarlet +Witch." I heard from her directly only once, and that was the year +she sent me a red flannel petticoat for a Christmas present. After +that, as if she'd done her worst, she ignored me altogether. +</p> +<p> +My mother had wanted me to be a school-teacher, in her eyes the acme +of respectability. But as it happens, there are two things I +wouldn't be: one's a school-teacher, the other a minister's wife. +If I had to marry the average minister, I should infallibly hate all +church-goers; if I had to teach the average school-child and wrestle +with the average school-board, I should end by burning joss-sticks +to Herod. +</p> +<p> +So I disappointed my mother by becoming a typist. After her death I +secured a foothold in a New York house—I'd always wanted to live in +New York—and went up, step by step, from what may be called a +rookie in the outside office, to private secretary to the Head. And +I'd been a business woman for all of seventeen years when Great-Aunt +Sophronisba Scarlett departed at the age of ninety-eight years and +eleven months, and willed that I should take up my life in the house +where she had dropped hers. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Sophy!" cried Alicia Gaines, the one person in the world who +didn't call me Miss Smith. "Oh, Sophy, it's like a fairy-story come +true! Think of falling heir to an old, old, old lady's old, old, old +house, in South Carolina! I hope there's a big old door with a +fan-light, and a Greeky front with white pillars, and a big old +hall, and a big old garden—" +</p> +<p> +"And an old stove that smokes and old windows that rattle and an old +roof that leaks, and maybe big, big old rats that squeak o' nights," +I said darkly. For the first rapture of the astonishing news was +beginning to wear thin, and doubt was appearing in spots. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy Smith! Why, if such a wonderful, beautiful, unexpected thing +had happened to <i>me</i>—" Alicia's blue eyes misted. I have known her +since the day she was born, next door to us in Boston, and she is +the only person I have ever seen who can cry and look pretty while +she's doing it; also, she can cry and laugh at the same time, being +Irish. Some foolish people, who have been deceived by Alicia +Gaines's baby stare and complexion, have said she hasn't sense +enough to get in out of a shower of rain. This is, of course, a +libel. But what's the odds, when every male being in sight would +rush to her aid with an umbrella? +</p> +<p> +After her mother's death I fell heir to Alicia, who, like me, was an +only child, and without relatives. Lately, I'd gotten her into our +filing-department. She didn't belong in a business office, she whose +proper background should have been an adoring husband and the latest +thing in pink-and-white babies. +</p> +<p> +"But somebody's got to think of stoves and roofs and rats and such, +or there'd be no living in any old house," I reminded her, +practically. "My dear girl, don't you realize that this thing isn't +all beer and skittles?" +</p> +<p> +Alicia wrinkled her white forehead. +</p> +<p> +"Consider me, a hardy late-summer plant forced to uproot and +transplant myself to a soil which may not in the least agree with +me. Why, this means changing all my fixed habits, to trot off to +live in an old house that is probably haunted by the cross-grained +ghost of a lady of ninety-nine!" +</p> +<p> +"If I were a ghost, you'd be the very last person on earth I'd want +to tackle, Sophy," remarked Alicia, dimpling. "And as for that new +soil, why, you'll bloom in it! You—well, Sophy dear, up to now you +have been root-bound; you've never had a chance to grow, much less +to blossom. Now you can do both." +</p> +<p> +I who was confidential secretary to the Head, looked at the girl who +was admittedly the worst file-clerk on record; and she looked back +at me, nodding her bright head with young wisdom. +</p> +<p> +"I hope," she said, wistfully, "that there'll be all sorts of lovely +things in your house, Sophy,—old mirrors, old books, old pictures, +old furniture, old china. Lord send you'll find an attic! All my +life I've day-dreamed of finding an attic that's been shut up and +forgotten for ages and ages, and discovering all sorts of lovely +things in all sorts of hiding-places. When I think my day-dream may +come true for you, Sophy, it almost reconciles me to the pain of +parting from you; though what on earth I'm to do without you, +goodness only knows!" She was sitting on my bed, kimonoed, +slippered, and braided. And now she looked at me with a suddenly +quivering chin. +</p> +<p> +"Alicia," said I, "ever since I discovered that there's no mistake +about that lawyer's letter—that Hynds House is unaccountably, but +undoubtedly mine and I've got to live in it if I want to keep it—it +has been borne in upon me that you are just about the worst +file-clerk on earth. You're a navy-blue failure in a business +office. Business isn't your <i>motif</i>. Now, will you resign the job +you fill execrably, and accept one you can fill beyond all +praise—come South with me, share half-and-half whatever comes, and +help make that old house a happy home for us both?" +</p> +<p> +"Don't joke." Her lips went white. "Please, please, Sophy dear, +don't joke like that! I—well, I just couldn't bear it." +</p> +<p> +"I never joke," I said indignantly. "You little goose, did you +imagine for one minute that I contemplated leaving you here by +yourself, any more than I contemplate going down there by myself, if +I can help it? Stop to think for a moment, Alicia. You have been +like a little sister to me, ever since you were born. And—I'm +alone, except for you—and not in my first youth—and not +beautiful—and not gifted." +</p> +<p> +At that she hurled herself off my bed and cried upon my shoulder, +with her slim arms around my neck. Those young arms were beginning +to make me feel wistful. If things had been different—if I had been +lovely like the Scarletts, instead of looking like the Smiths—there +might have been— +</p> +<p> +Well, I don't look like the Scarletts; so there wasn't. The best I +could do was to drop a kiss on Alicia's forehead, where the bright +young hair begins to break into curls. +</p> +<p> +And that is how, neither of us having the faintest notion of what +was in store for us, Alicia Gaines and I turned our backs upon New +York and set our faces toward Hynds House. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0002"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER II +</h2> +<h3> + AND ARIEL MAKES MUSIC +</h3> +<p> +We had wired Judge Gatchell when to expect us, but the venerable +negro hackman who was on the lookout for us explained that the judge +had a "misery in the laigs" which confined him to his room, and that +he advised us to go to the hotel for a while. +</p> +<p> +We couldn't, for wasn't our own house waiting for us? A minute later +we had bundled into the ancient hack and were bumping and splashing +through unpaved streets, getting wet, gray glimpses of old houses in +old gardens, and every now and then a pink crape-myrtle blushing in +the pouring rain. Hyndsville was, it seemed, one of those sprawling, +easy-going old Carolina towns that liked plenty of elbow-room and +wasn't particular about architectural order. Hynds House itself was +on the extreme edge of things. +</p> +<p> +The hack presently stopped before a high iron gate in a waist-high +brick wall with a spiked iron railing on top of it, the whole +overrun with weeds and creepers. Of Hynds House itself one couldn't +see anything but a stack of chimneys above a forest of trees. +</p> +<p> +The gate creaked and groaned on its rusty hinges; then we were +walking up a weedy, rain-soaked path where untrimmed branches +slapped viciously at our faces, and tough brambles, like snares and +gins, tried to catch our feet. On each side was a jungle. Of a +sudden the path turned, widened into a fairly cleared space; and +Hynds House was before us. +</p> +<p> +We had expected a fair-sized dwelling-house in its garden. And there +confronted us, glooming under the gray and threatening sky that +seemed the only proper and fitting canopy for it, what looked like a +pile reared in medieval Europe rather than a home in America. Its +stained brick walls, partly covered with ivy and lichens; its +smokeless chimneys; its barred doors; its many shuttered windows, +like blind eyes—all appeared deliberately to thrust aside human +habitancy. +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>A residence for woman, child, and man, <br /> + A dwelling-place,—and yet no habitation; <br /> + A House,—but under some prodigious ban <br /> + Of Excommunication</i>. +</p> +<p> +Yet there was nothing ruinous about it, for the Hyndses had sought +to build it as the old Egyptians sought to build their temples—to +last forever, to defy time and decay. It was not only meant to be a +place for Hyndses to be born and live and die in: it was a monument +to Family Pride, a brick-and-granite symbol of place and power. +</p> +<p> +The walls were of an immense thickness, the corners further +strengthened with great blocks of granite. The house had but two +stories, with an attic under its sloping roofs, but it gave an +effect of height as well as of solidity. Behind it was another brick +building, the lower part of which had been used for stables and +carriage house, and the upper portion as quarters for the house +slaves, in the old days. Another smaller building, slate-roofed and +ivy covered, was the spring-house, with a clear, cold little spring +still bubbling away as merrily in its granite basin, as if all the +Hyndses were not dead and gone. And there was a deep well, protected +by a round stone wall, with a cupola-like roof supported by four +slender pillars. And everything was dank and weedy and splotched +with mildew and with mold. +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + <i>O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear <br /> + A sense of mystery the spirit daunted <br /> + And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, <br /> + The place is Haunted!</i> +</p> +<p> +When we opened the great front door, above which was the fan-light +of Alicia's hope, just as the round front porch had the big pillars, +a damp and moldy air met us. The house had not been opened since +Sophronisba's funeral, and everything—stairs, settles, tables, +cabinets, pictures, the chairs backed inhospitably against the wall +as if to prevent anybody from sitting in them—was covered with a +shrouding pall of dust. +</p> +<p> +The hall was cross-shaped, the side passage running between the back +drawing-room and library on one side, and the dining-room and two +locked rooms on the other. It was a nice place, that side passage, +with a fireplace and settles; and beautiful windows opening upon the +tangled garden. All the down-stairs walls were paneled: precious +woods were not so hard to come by when Hynds House was built. It was +lovely, of course, but depressingly dark. +</p> +<p> +We got one of the big windows open, and let some stale damp air out +and some fresh damp air in. Then, having despatched our hackman for +certain necessities, Alicia and I turned and stared at each other, +another Alicia and Sophy staring back at us from a dim and dusty +mirror opposite. If, at that moment, I could have heard the familiar +buzzer at my elbow! If I could have heard the good everyday New York +"Miss Smith, attend to this, please"! God wot, if I had not +literally burned my bridges behind me—Oh, oh, I had! +</p> +<p> +"The garden around this house,"—Alicia spoke in a +whisper—"stretches to the end of the world and then laps over. It +hasn't been trimmed since Adam and Eve moved out. But those +crape-myrtle trees are quite the loveliest things left over from +Paradise, and I'm glad we came here to see them with our own eyes! +Brace up, Sophy! We'll feel heaps better when we've had something to +eat. Aren't you frightfully hungry, and doesn't a chill suspicion +strike you, somewhere around the wishbone, that if that Ancient +Mariner of a hackman doesn't get back soon we shall starve?" +</p> +<p> +At that moment, from somewhere—it seemed to us from up-stairs—a +sudden flood of sweetest sound poured goldenly through that sad, +dim, dusty house, as if a blithe spirit had slipped in unawares and +was bidding us welcome. For a few wonderful moments the exquisite +music filled the dark old place and banished gloom and neglect and +decay; then, with a pattering scamper, as of the bare, rosy feet of +a beloved and mischievous child making a rush for his crib, it went +as suddenly as it had come. There was nothing to break the silence +but the swishing downpour of the outside rain. +</p> +<p> +When I could speak: "It came from up-stairs! Somebody's playing a +violin up-stairs. I'm going up-stairs to find out who it is." +</p> +<p> +Alicia demurred: "It may be a real person, Sophy!—a real person +with a real violin. But I'd rather believe it's Ariel's self, come +out of those pink crape-myrtles. Don't go up-stairs, please, Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +"Nonsense!" said I. "Somebody's played a violin and I mean to know +who he is!" +</p> +<p> +And up-stairs I went, into a huge dark hall, with the cross-passage +cutting it, and closed doors everywhere. At the front end was a most +beautiful window, opening doorlike upon a tiny iron bird-cage of a +balcony, hung up Southern fashion under the roof of the pillared +front porch. At the rear a more ordinary door opened upon the broad +veranda that ran the full width of the house. Both door and window +were closed, and bolted on the inside, and the big, dark, dusty +rooms which I resolutely entered were quite empty, their fireplaces +boarded up, their windows close-shuttered. There was no sign +anywhere of violin or player. I went down-stairs just as wise as I +had gone up. +</p> +<p> +"I told you it was Ariel!" Alicia stood by the open window—our +windows are sunk into the walls, and cased with solid black walnut +as Impervious to decay as the granite itself—and leaned out to the +wet and dripping garden. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," said she, in her high, sweet voice that carries like a +thrush's. "Sophy, the best thing about this world is, that the best +things in it aren't really <i>real</i>. This is one of its enchanted +places. Sycorax used to live in this house: that's what you feel +about it yet. But now she's gone, her spell is lifting, and Hynds +House is going to come alive and be young again!" +</p> +<p> +"At least," I grumbled, "admit that the dust inside and the rain +outside and the weeds and mud are real; and I'm really hungry!" +</p> +<p> +"Me too!" Alicia assented instantly and ungrammatically. "Oh, for a +square meal!" She thrust her charming head out far enough for the +rain to splatter on her bright hair and whip it into curls, and +bring a deeper shade of pink to her cheeks, and a deeper blue +to her eyes. "Ariel!" she fluted, "Spirit of the Violin, I'm +hungry—earthily, worm-of-the-dustly, unromantically hungry! Send us +something to eat." +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you rap on one of the tables," I suggested ironically, +"and call up your high spirits to do your bidding?" +</p> +<p> +"My high spirits won't be above making you a soothing cup of coffee +just as soon as that ancient African returns. In the meantime, +let's look around us." +</p> +<p> +People had forests to draw from when they built rooms like those in +Hynds House. There were eight of them on the first floor. On one +side the two drawing-rooms, the library, and behind that a room +evidently used for an office. We didn't know it then, of course, but +that library was treasure trove. Almost every book and pamphlet +covering the early American settlements, that is of any value at +all, is in Hynds House library; we have some pamphlets that even the +British Museum lacks. +</p> +<p> +The rooms had enough furniture to stock half a dozen antique-shops, +all of it in a shocking state, the brocades in tatters, the carvings +caked with dust. You couldn't see yourself in the tarnished mirrors, +the portraits were black with dirt, and most of the prints were +badly stained. Alicia swooped upon a pair of china dogs with mauve +eyes and black spots and sloppy red tongues, on a what-not in a +corner. She said she had been aching for a china dog ever since she +was born. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Sophy!" cried she, dancing, "wasn't it heavenly of that old +soul to die and leave you two whole china dogs! I wouldn't want +sure-enough dogs that looked like these, but as china dogs they're +perfect! And cast your eyes about you, Sophy! Have you ever in all +your life seen a house that needed so much done to it as this house +does? +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "'If seven maids with seven mops, <br /> + Swept it for half a year, <br /> + Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, <br /> + 'That that would make it clear?' <br /> + 'I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, <br /> + 'And—' +</p> +<p> +"Sophy! I shall clean some of these windows myself. Did you know +that Queen Victoria, when she was a child, had the same virtuous +inclination? Well, she had, and you see how she turned out!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't believe it!" +</p> +<p> +"Don't be skeptical!—Look at that pink mustache-cup over there on +that little table! Who do you suppose had a mustache and drank out +of that cup? It couldn't have been Sophronisba herself? <i>I</i> +insist that it was a black-mustached Confederate with a red sash +around his waist. I adore Confederates! They're the most glamorous, +romantic figures in American history. I wish a black mustache went +along with the cup and the house; don't you? It would make things so +much more interesting!" And she began to sing, at the top of her +voice, in the sad and faded room that hadn't heard a singing voice +these many, many years: +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "'Arrah, Missis McGraw,' the Captain said, <br /> + 'Will ye make a sojer av your son Ted? <br /> + Wid a g-r-rand mus-tache, an' a three-cocked hat, <br /> + Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that! <br /> + <i>You like that—tooroo looroo loo!</i> <br /> + <i>Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that!</i>'" +</p> +<p> +If Great-Aunt Sophronisba's ghost, and the scandalized ghosts of all +the haughy Hyndses ever intended to walk, now was the accepted time! +And as if that graceless ballad were the signal for something to +happen, upon the hall window-shutter sounded three loud, imperative +knocks. +</p> +<p> +Alicia dashed down the hall. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy!" she called, breathlessly, "Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +Framed in the open window, with the dripping trees and the slanting +rain behind him, was the bizarre, the astounding figure of a +gnomelike negro in a terra-cotta robe fastened about the waist with +a girdle made of a twisted black shawl with the most beautiful +Persian border and fringe. A striped silk scarf was bound +turban-wise about his head, from which tufts of snowy wool +protruded. From his ears hung crescent-shaped silver ear-rings +studded with coral and turquoise; a necklace of the same barbaric +magnificence was about his neck, and his arms were covered with +bracelets. His deep-set eyes, his flat nose, his mouth set in a +thousand fine wrinkles, the whole aspect of him, breathed a sly and +impish drollery. He glanced from Alicia to me with the smiling +malice of a jinnee delighted to mystify mortals. Then with a rapid +movement he shifted the umbrella he carried over a large +linen-covered tray, eased the latter upon the deep window-ledge, and +beckoned with a very black and beringed hand. +</p> +<p> +"For <i>us</i>?" breathed Alicia. +</p> +<p> +With a fine flourish he swept aside the linen covering. And there +was golden-brown chicken, white rice, cream gravy, hot biscuit, cool +sliced tomatoes with sprigs of green parsley, fresh butter, fresh +cream, a great slab of heavenly cake, a wicker basket of Elberta +peaches, rain-cooled, odorous, delicious, and a pot of steaming +coffee. On the edge of the tray was a cluster of rain-washed roses. +</p> +<p> +"No," Alicia doubted, "this is not true: it can't be!—Sophy, do you +see it, too?" +</p> +<p> +He motioned her to take the tray; and his ear-rings swung, and all +his bracelets set up a silver tinkling. An automobile honked outside +in the street shut off by our garden trees, and a dog barked. Our +jinnee cocked a cautious head and a listening ear, thrust the tray +upon Alicia, and with inconceivable swiftness vanished around a +corner. +</p> +<p> +"Let's hurry and eat it before it, too, takes to its heels," said +Alicia, practically. Without further ado we dragged forward a small +table, and fell to. Aladdin probably tasted fare like that, the +first time he rubbed the magic lamp. +</p> +<p> +When we had polished the last chicken bone, and had that comfortable +feeling that nothing can give so thoroughly as a good meal, Alicia +carefully examined the china and silver. +</p> +<p> +"Old blue-and-white English china; English silver initialed 'R.H.G.' +Sophy, handle this prayerfully: it's an apostle spoon. Think of +having a jinnee fetch you your coffee, and of stirring it with an +apostle spoon." +</p> +<p> +She spoke reverently. Alicia is the sort who flattens her nose +against antique-shop windows, and would go without dessert for a +month of Sundays and trudge afoot to save carfare, if thereby she +might buy an old print, or a bit of pottery; just as I am content to +admire the print or the pottery in the shop window, feeling sure +that when they are finally sold to somebody better able to buy them, +something else I can admire just as much will take their place. Mine +is a philosophy not altogether to be despised, though Alicia rejects +it. She handled the blue-and-white ware with tender hands, laid the +silver together, and set the tray upon the window-ledge. Then, on a +leaf of my pocket memorandum—she never carries one of her own—she +scribbled the following absurdity and pinned it to the linen cover: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Ariel, accept the gratitude of mortals set down hungry in + the house of Sycorax. Gay and kind spirit, when we broke + your bread you broke her spell: the wishbone of your chicken + has cooked her goose! Maker of Music, Donator of Dinners, + thanks! +</p> +<p> +"And now," said she, "having been serenaded, and satisfied with +nothing short of perfection, let's go up-stairs, Sophy, and decide +where we shall sleep to-night." +</p> +<p> +We chose the front room because of a gate-legged table that Alicia +wanted to say her prayers beside, and because of the particularly +fine portrait of a colonial gentleman above the mantel, a very +handsome man in claret-colored satin, with a vest of flowered gold +brocade, a gold-hilted sword upon which his fine fingers rested, and +a pair of silk-stockinged legs of which he seemed complacently +aware. +</p> +<p> +"I wish you weren't dead," Alicia told him regretfully. "Your taste +in clothes is above all praise, though I fancy you were somewhat too +vain of your legs, sir. I never knew before that men had legs like +that, did you, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"I take no pleasure in the legs of a man." I quoted the Psalmist +acridly enough. +</p> +<p> +"Don't pay any attention to Sophy," Alicia advised the portrait, +naughtily. "Just to prove how much we both admire you, you shall +have Ariel's roses." She had brought them up-stairs with us, and now +she walked over to the mantel to place them beneath the picture. +</p> +<p> +"Why!" exclaimed Alicia, "why!" and she held up nothing more +remarkable than a package of cigarettes, evidently left there +recently, for it was not dusty. +</p> +<p> +"I dare say Judge Gatchell forgot it, when he was looking over the +house. That reminds me: the silver you admired so much was marked +'G.' Then, in all probability, Judge Gatchell sent us that spread, +and very thoughtful it was of him, I must say." +</p> +<p> +"Rheumatic old judges don't smoke superfine cigarettes, Sophy, nor +send black tray-bearers in terra-cotta robes out on rainy days for +the entertainment of strange ladies. No: this is something, or +somebody, <i>young</i>. But since when did Ariel take to tobacco?" +</p> +<p> +"Let's go down-stairs," I suggested, "and wait for that old darky, +if he is a real darky and ever means to return." I did not fancy +those big forlorn rooms, with their great beds that didn't seem made +for people to sleep and dream in, but to stay awake and worry over +their sins—and then die in. +</p> +<p> +The down-stairs halls had grown darker, and the rain came down in a +gray sheet, so that the open window seemed a hole cut into it. The +tray we had left on the window-ledge was gone. In its place was +nothing more romantic than a freshly filled and trimmed kerosene +lamp, two candles, and a box of matches. +</p> +<p> +When our Jehu finally returned he rummaged out some firewood from +the sooty kitchen and built us a fire in the hall. He was a pleasant +old negro, garrulous and kindly, by name Adam King, or, as he +informed us, "Unc' Adam" to all Hyndsville folks. +</p> +<p> +"Uncle Adam," Alicia asked, while he was drying himself before the +blazing logs, "Uncle Adam, who's the violinist around here?" +</p> +<p> +Uncle Adam looked at the Yankee lady a bit doubtfully. The old +fellow was slightly deaf, but he would have died rather than admit +it. +</p> +<p> +"Wellum," he told us, "since ol' Mis' Scarlett's gone, folks does +say de doctor is. Dat's 'cause ob de Hynds' blood in 'im. All dem +Hyndses was natchelly de violentest kind o' pussons, an' Doctor, he +ain't behin' de do'." He rubbed his hands and chuckled. "Lawd, yes! +I know de Doctor, man an' boy, an' he suttinly rips an' ta'hs when +he's riled! You ought ter seen 'im de day ol' Mis' Scarlett let fly +wid 'er shot-gun an' blowed de tails spang off'n two of 'is hens an' +de haid off'n 'is prize rooster! De fowls come thoo' de haidge, an' +ol' Mis' grab 'er gun an' blaze away. De Doctor hear de squallation, +an' come flyin' outer de office an' right ovah de haidge. I 'uz +totin' fiahwood fo' ol' Mis' dat day, an' I drap een de bushes; it +ain't no place fo' sensible niggahs when white folks grab shot-guns. +Doctor see me an' holler: 'Adam! git outer dem bushes, you ol' fool! +You my witness what dis hellion's done to my fowls!' +</p> +<p> +"Ol' Mis' Scarlett she s'anter ter de winder wid 'er gun sort o' +hangin' loose, an' holler: 'Adam! Come outer dem bushes 'fo' I +pickle yo' hide! You my witness ob dis ruffian trispassin' on my +prop'ty an' cussin' an' seducin' a ol' woman widout 'er consent,' +she says. 'Has I retched my age,' says ol' Mis' Scarlett, 'to have +his fowls ruinin' my gyardin', an' him whut's a dunghill rooster +himself flyin' ovah my fences unbeknownst?' +</p> +<p> +"'If there evah was a leather-hided ol' hen ripe foh roastin' on +Beelzebub's own griddle, it's you, you gallows ol' witch!' says +Doctor, shakin' 'is fist up at her. +</p> +<p> +"'Aha! I got a plain case!' says ol' Mis', grim-like. 'I'll have a +warrant out foh you dis day, Geddes, you owdacious villyum!' +</p> +<p> +"And she done it. Yas'm. An' dey done sont de shariff atter me for +witness, all two bofe o' dem." +</p> +<p> +"Well, and what did you do?" I asked, curiously. I was getting a +side-light on Great-Aunt Sophronisba. +</p> +<p> +"Me? I got on muh knees an' wrastled wid de speret," said Uncle +Adam. "I done tuck mah troubles to de Lawd, whichin He <i>'bleeged</i> +ter know I cyant deal wid ol' Mis' Scarlett an' de Doctor. Missis, I +prayed!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh! And what happened then?" +</p> +<p> +The old man looked around him, cautiously, and lowered his voice: +"Wellum, Mis' Scarlett she tuck an' went an' up an' died. Yessum! +She done daid. An' next thing we-all heah, she 'd went an' lef de +Hynds place to youna, 'stead ob de Doctor, or dat furriner." +</p> +<p> +"She had Hynds relatives, then? I didn't know." +</p> +<p> +"Wellum, de Doctor an' ol' Mis' Scarlett wuz cousins. Dat's how come +dey could fight so powerful. Ain't you nevah had no relations to +fight wid, ma'ams?" +</p> +<p> +We explained, regretfully, that we hadn't. +</p> +<p> +"Den you ain't nevah knowed, an' you ain't nevah gwine ter knew, +whut real, sho-nough fightin' <i>is</i>," said Unc' Adam, with +conviction. +</p> +<p> +"You mentioned a foreigner," hinted Alicia. +</p> +<p> +The old man shook his head deprecatingly. "Don't seem lak I evah +able to rickermembah dat boy's name, nohow. His grampa' 'uz a Hynds, +likewise his ma, but she 'sisted on marryin' er furriner, an' de +boy takes atter de furriners 'stead er we-all. 'Taint de po' boy's +fault, but ol' Mis' Scarlett hated 'im wuss 'n pizen. De only notice +she take er de boy is ter warrant 'im fo' trispassin'. Dat 's how +come folkses ter say—" he paused suddenly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, what do folks say?" I wanted to know. +</p> +<p> +"Well, Missis," he admitted, "dey say it's natchel to fight wid yo' +kin whilst you 're livin', but 'taint natchel ter carry de fight +inter de grave-yahd. Dat's whut she done, ma'ams. An' folks is +outdone wid 'er, whichin' she ain't lef de Hynds place to de +Hyndses, but done tuhn it ovah ter—uh—ah—" +</p> +<p> +"To a Yankee woman named Smith?" +</p> +<p> +"Yessum, dat's it." +</p> +<p> +"Had either the Doctor or the foreigner any real claim or right to +this property, do you know?" +</p> +<p> +"No, ma'am, we-all 'lows dey ain't got no mo' law-right dan whut +you's got. Ol' Mis' Scarlett ain't <i>'bleeged</i> ter lef it to de +Hyndses, but folks thinks she oughter done it, an' dey's powerful +riled 'cause she ain't. Dey minds dis wuss'n all de warrantin' an' +rampagin' an' rucusses she cut up whilst she wuz wid us." +</p> +<p> +"I see," said I, thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +"Missises," said the old man, anxiously, "you-all ain't meanin' ter +stay hyuh to-night, is you?" He seemed really distressed at the +notion. "Lemme take you-all to de hotel, please, Missises! Don't +stay hyuh to-night!" +</p> +<p> +"Why not? What's the matter with this house?" +</p> +<p> +Again he looked around him, stealthily. +</p> +<p> +"It's h'anted!" said he, desperately. "Missis, listen: I 'uz comin' +home from prayer-meetin', 'bout two weeks ago, walkin' back er dis +same place in de dark ob de moon. An' all ob a suddin I hyuh de +pianner in de pahlor, <i>ting-a-ling-a-ling! ting-a-ling-a-ling!</i> I +say, 'Who de name er Gawd in ol' Mis' Scarlett's pahlor, when dey +ain't nobody in it?' I look thoo de haidge, an' dey's one weenchy +light in de room, an' whilst I'm lookin', it goes out! An' de +pianner, she's a-playin' right along! Yessum, de pianner, she's er +tingalingin' by 'erself in de middle o' de night!" +</p> +<p> +"And who was playing it, Uncle Adam?" +</p> +<p> +"Dat's what I axin yit: who playin' Mis' Scarlett's pianner when dey +wasn't nobody in de house?" +</p> +<p> +"Why didn't you find out?" +</p> +<p> +"Who, me?" cried the old man, with horror. "If I could er borried a +extra pahr er laigs from er yaller dawg, I'd a did it right den, so 's +I could run twict faster 'n I done!—Whichin' please, ma'ams, lemme +take you-all ter de hotel." +</p> +<p> +When he saw that he couldn't prevail upon us to do so, he left us +regretfully, shaking his head. He would come back early in the +morning to do anything we might require. But he wouldn't stay +overnight in Hynds House for any consideration. No negro in the +county would. +</p> +<p> +"Alicia," said I, when we had had a cup of tea made over our spirit +lamp, and firelight and lamplight made the place less depressing and +eerie, "Alicia, that terrible old woman has played me, like an ace +up her sleeve, against her neighbors and her family. She has left me +a house that needs everything done to it except to burn it down and +rebuild it, and a garden that will have to be cleared out with +dynamite. And she has seen to it that I have the preconceived +prejudice of all Hyndsville." +</p> +<p> +Alicia's pretty, soft lips closed firmly. +</p> +<p> +"Here we are and here we stay!" she said determinedly. "Nobody's +been disinherited to make room for us. Sophy, in all our lives we +have never had a chance to make a real home. Well, then, Hynds House +is our chance, and I'd just like to see anybody take it away from +us!" +</p> +<p> +"Up, Guards, and at 'em!" said I, smiling at her tone. I am slower +than she, but even more stubborn, as the English are. +</p> +<p> +"Tell your admiral that if he gets in my way I will blow his ships +out of the water!" said Alicia, gallantly. +</p> +<p> +But when we went up-stairs, we took good care to lock our door, and +bolt it, too. Alicia said her prayers kneeling by the gate-legged +table, snuggled into bed between the clean sheets we had brought +with us, tucked a china dog under her chin, and went to sleep like +the child that she was. I said the Shepherd's Psalm and went to +sleep, too. +</p> +<p> +I was awakened suddenly, and found myself sitting up in bed, staring +wildly about the strange room. The house was breathlessly still. My +heart pounded against my ribs, the blood beat in my ears. I was +oppressed with a nameless terror, an anguished sense that something +had happened, something irremediable. The feeling was so strong that +my throat closed chokingly. +</p> +<p> +I am particular in thus setting it down, because it was an +experience that all of us under that roof had to undergo. You had to +fight it, shut your mind against it, oppose your will to it like a +stone wall, refuse to let it master you. Then, as if defeated, it +would go as suddenly, as inexplicably, as it had come. +</p> +<p> +That's what I did then, more by instinct than reason. But I was +exhausted when I finally got back to sleep. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0003"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER III +</h2> +<h3> + THE DEAR LITTLE GOD! +</h3> +<p> +When we went over Hynds House the next morning and took stock, I +began to entertain very, very peculiar feelings toward Great-Aunt +Sophronisba Scarlett, who, it would appear, had given me a white +elephant which I could neither hire out for its keep, nor yet sell +out of hand. I had to live in Hynds House, and Hynds House as it +stood wasn't to be lived in. +</p> +<p> +The rain had ceased, and from the outside jungle came innumerable +calls of birds, and fresh and woodsy odors; but the whole aspect of +the place was grim and forbidding. At the back, where there wasn't +such an overgrowth, the lane had been closed, barricaded with +barbed-wire entanglements, and fairly bristled with thistles and "No +Trespassing" signs. +</p> +<p> +"All this house needs is a mortuary tablet set up over the front +door." +</p> +<p> +But Alicia demurred. +</p> +<p> +"I'm not a bit disheartened," she declared stoutly. "There's just +one thing to be done to this house—first make it beautiful, and +then make it pay. It can be done. It's going to be done. It's <i>got</i> +to be done. And when it's done—we'll have a home. Vision it as it's +going to be, Sophy—rosewood and mahogany and walnut, old brass and +china and prints and portraits, the sort of things we've only been +able to dream of up to now. Why, this house has been waiting for us! +We were born to come here and make it over: it's <i>our</i> house!" +Alicia, has the gay courage of the Irish. +</p> +<p> +The heavy iron knocker on the front door resounded clamorously. +</p> +<p> +"Uncle Adam thinks we've been ha'nted out of existence, and he's +hammering to wake the dead," said I. +</p> +<p> +But it wasn't Uncle Adam to whom we opened the door. An enormous, +square-shouldered man stood there, looking from me to Alicia with +bright, keen blue eyes behind glasses. He was so big, so +magnificently proportioned, that he held one's attention, at first, +by mere size. Then one had time to observe that although he hadn't +the sleek and careful grooming of successful New Yorkers, he wore +his clothes as, say, Cœur de Lion must have worn mail. He hadn't +the brisk business manner, either; but there radiated from him an +assured authority, as of one used to having his orders obeyed +without question. No one could pass him over with a casual eye. I +have known people who hated him frankly and heartily; I have known +people who adored him. I have never known any one who was lukewarm +where he was concerned. +</p> +<p> +"Which of you is Miss Smith?" he asked, in a very pleasant voice. +"Miss Smith, I'm your next-door neighbor, house to the right: +Doctor Richard Geddes, at your service." +</p> +<p> +We gave him to understand, with the usual polite commonplaces, that +we were pleased to make his acquaintance, and ushered him into the +dilapidated drawing-room. +</p> +<p> +"I'd have come over yesterday, when I learned you'd arrived, except +that my cook was suddenly seized with the notion she'd been +conjured, and I had to—er—stand by and persuade her she wasn't. +Swore she had my lunch ready, as usual; swore she'd placed it on a +tray, left it on the kitchen table for a few minutes, and when she +came back from the pantry, not ten feet away, the tray was gone. +Vanished. Disappeared. Nowhere to be found. She flopped on the floor +and howled. She weighs two hundred and forty pounds and I hadn't a +derrick handy. I had to roll her up on bed-slats. You've never had a +conjured two-hundred-and-forty-pounder on your hands, have you? No? +Well, then, don't. <i>But</i> if you ever do, try a bed-slat. This +morning she discovered the tray in its usual place, dishes and +silver intact, nothing missing. She's looking for the end of the +world." +</p> +<p> +"O-o-h!" quavered Alicia, while I could feel my knees knocking +together. "O-o-o-h! How very, very singular! And—and was that all?" +</p> +<p> +"All! Wasn't that enough? I've had burned biscuit and muddy coffee, +because my cook's got liver and nerves, and insists it's her soul," +said the doctor, grimly. "I've given her to understand that if she +hasn't got her soul saved before to-night, I'll physic it out of her +and hang her hide on the bushes, inside out, <i>salted</i>." He added, +hastily: "In the meantime, I hope you haven't fared too badly in +this mildewed jail?" +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, no," Alicia said demurely. "We have fared very well." +</p> +<p> +"Glad to hear it." The big man looked at her with the frank pleasure +all masculinity evinces at sight of Alicia. And then he asked, +abruptly: +</p> +<p> +"Has Jelnik called yet?—gray house on the other side of you.—No? I +dare say he's off on one of his prowls then. A bit of a lunatic, but +a very charming fellow, Jelnik, though your amiable predecessor, +Miss Smith, chose to consider him a sort of outlawed tom-cat, and +warned him off with a shot-gun." The doctor paused, stroked his +beard, and regarded me earnestly. +</p> +<p> +"Having heired the old girl's domain, I hope you won't consider it +necessary to heir her—er—prejudices," he remarked hopefully. "Bad +lot, Sophronisba. Very bad!" +</p> +<p> +"Mrs. Scarlett," I reminded him gently, "was my relative only by +marriage." +</p> +<p> +"Cousin of mine; mother's relative. Not on speaking-, only on +fighting-terms," he interjected. +</p> +<p> +I remembered what Uncle Adam had told us; and I'm afraid I eyed him +a bit harder than politeness warranted. +</p> +<p> +"I discern by your eye, Miss Smith," said the doctor, "that you +think a blood relation is more likely to walk in that old demon's +footsteps than an outsider is. My dear lady, under ordinary +circumstances and with <i>human</i> neighbors, I'm as meek as Moses; I am +a lamb, a veritable lamb! As for your aunt, she was a man-eating, +saber-toothed tigress!" +</p> +<p> +"Not my aunt, Doctor Geddes; your cousin." +</p> +<p> +"Your aunt-by-marriage. It's just as bad. Anyhow, she preferred you +to any of us, didn't she?" +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps because she didn't know <i>me</i>." +</p> +<p> +"Have it so. <i>But</i> she did whatever she did because she was an old +devil of a woman, and an old devil of a woman can give points to +Satan. If," cried the doctor, vehemently, "there is one great reason +why a man should be glad he's a man, it is because he will never +live to be an old woman!" +</p> +<p> +"That depends upon one's point of view," I told him firmly. "Now, +I'm glad I'm a woman because I shall never live to be an old man. +Old ladies are far, far nicer. Have you ever known an old lady who +thought herself captivating? Have you ever known any old man who +didn't think he could be if he wished?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes," shouted the doctor, "and no!—in both cases! There is no sex +in fools. There is no age limit, either." +</p> +<p> +"The Talmud says: 'An old woman in the house is a blessing; but an +old man is a nuisance.'" +</p> +<p> +"I don't give a bobtailed scat what the Talmud says. I know what I +know.—Miss Gaines, I leave it to you." +</p> +<p> +"Why, I like them both, when they're nice; and I'm sorry for them +both when they're not." And she added, with a naïve air of +confidence: "But I think I like young men better than either, as a +rule." +</p> +<p> +The doctor removed his hat again, and sat down. His eyebrows went +up, his eyes crinkled. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Alicia Gaines," he said genially, "I perceive you are a +girl-child of fine promise.—As for us, Miss Smith, what have we to +do with age and foolishness, who, as yet, have neither? Let's get +down to business. What are you going to do about the lane behind +Hynds House? We had the use of that lane this hundred years and +more, until the devil got too strong in Sophronisba and she shut it +up. Now, shall you keep the lane closed, or shall you dismiss the +injunctions?" +</p> +<p> +"I shall have to consult Judge Gatchell." +</p> +<p> +"Gatchell's a fossilized remains. He's got no more blood in his +liver than a flea. Gatchell would hang his grandmother on a point of +law. Why should you, or any other ordinarily intelligent person, be +guided by Gatchell?" +</p> +<p> +"By whom, then, shall I be guided? You?" I wondered. +</p> +<p> +"That's not in my line," replied the doctor, shortly, and thrust his +hands into his gloves. "In the meantime, ladies, I'm your next-door +neighbor; I have no wife to gossip about you, no children to annoy +you; I'm far enough away to keep you from smelling my pipe; and I +shall quarrel with you only when I can't help it. In return, I have +but one favor to beg of you: don't use a shot-gun on my prize +chickens! Get a dog and train him to chase them home, if they get +into your yard. Or catch them and throw them over the hedge. I'll +pay any damages within reason. And please send for your cat." +</p> +<p> +"We have a cat?" +</p> +<p> +"You have. After Sophronisba's death, Mandy took her in; or rather, +Mandy was afraid to turn her out, for it's bad luck to cross a +witch's cat. In return for this charity the hussy immediately +foisted upon us two wholly unnecessary kittens. Mandy wouldn't allow +them to be decently drowned, for it's worse luck yet to tamper with +a witch's cat's kittens, particularly when they're as black as the +hinges of Gehenna. Mandy thinks their mother had them black as a +delicate mark of respect for the late crone." +</p> +<p> +"Send them over, please. Black cats will just go with this house. It +was very thoughtful of that cat to have two black kittens ready for +us, and very kind of you to let them stay with you until we came." +</p> +<p> +"I? I abhor the whole tribe of cats!" cried the doctor. "Don't thank +my kindness: thank Mandy's idiocy, of which she has more than her +just share. To my mind, the best place for cats is under the grape +arbor." +</p> +<p> +"Let us strike a bargain. You keep your chickens in your own yard, +and we'll keep our cats in our own house." +</p> +<p> +"Compromise: you get a dog," suggested the doctor. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps I may. I've always wanted a poodle." +</p> +<p> +"I said a <i>dog</i>!" said the doctor, lifting his lip. "A poodle! In +Hynds House! The lamented Sophronisba had a bloodhound." +</p> +<p> +"The lamented Sophronisba could have what she chose. This +Sophronisba prefers a poodle." +</p> +<p> +"<i>Sophronisba?</i> What! Another one? Good God!" cried the doctor. "All +right! Get a poodle. Keep the cats. Get a parrot—and an orphan +with the itch—and a hyena—and a blunderbuss! <i>Her name is +Sophronisba</i>!—I—oh, Lord, where's Jelnik? I have got to go and +warn Jelnik!" And he made for the door. +</p> +<p> +At that Alicia laughed. Peal upon peal, like silver bells, +irrepressibly, infectiously, irresistibly, Alicia laughed. She cries +with her eyes open and her mouth shut, and she laughs with her eyes +shut and her mouth open. The effect is beyond all words enchanting. +The doctor paused in his headlong flight. +</p> +<p> +"All right: laugh!" he said, darkly. "But I shall warn Jelnik, none +the less!" And muttering: "<i>Sophronisba!</i> Lord have mercy on us! +<i>Sophronisba!</i>" he departed hastily. +</p> +<p> +"What a nice neighbor!" commented Alicia. She added, musingly: +"Sophy, this is an enchanted place—a place where one has good +meals, bad advice, and black cats showered on one, free and gratis. +All one has to do is to stand still and take things as they come!" +</p> +<p> +"And hope one won't follow in the footsteps of one's predecessor, +who was an unmitigated old devil." +</p> +<p> +"At least," said Alicia, laughing, "<i>he</i>'ll never live to be an old +woman, will he, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"The man has the tact of a cannibal—" +</p> +<p> +"The shoulders of a Hercules—" +</p> +<p> +"An abominable temper—" +</p> +<p> +"And a beautiful beard. Somehow, Sophy, I rather approve of a beard, +on somebody his size. I decidedly approve of a beard!" +</p> +<p> +"If his miserable hens come over here, I shall most certainly—" +</p> +<p> +"Keep the eggs. We'll tell him so when he comes again." +</p> +<p> +"Comes again? What, and my name Sophronisba?" +</p> +<p> +"My own grandmother had the second sight; and <i>I</i> don't need +spectacles," said Alicia. "Sophy, that man has come into our lives +to stay. I feel it in my bones! It's not an unpleasant feeling," she +finished gracelessly. +</p> +<p> +When Unc' Adam presently put in his appearance, he was profoundly +impressed and respectful: we were brisk, unhaunted, and unafraid, +after a night in Hynds House! The three colored women who had come +with him, induced by cupidity and curiosity to enter ol' Mis' +Scarlett's ill-omened domain, at first hung back. They were plainly +prepared to bolt at the first unusual noise. +</p> +<p> +Of the three, one—by name Mary Magdalen—proved to be a +heaven-born, predestinated cook; and her we persuaded, by bribery, +cajolery, and subornation of scruples, to remain with us +permanently. Only, she flatly refused to stay on the place +overnight. Darkness shouldn't catch Mary Magdalen under the Scarlett +Witch's roof-tree. +</p> +<p> +There are certain gifted beings who possess the secret of bringing +order out of chaos; for them the total depravity of inanimate +objects has no terrors; inanimate objects become docile to their +will. Such a one was Mary Magdalen. In two days she had transformed +a sooty cavern into a clean and orderly kitchen. For she was a +singing and a scourful woman, and her Sign was the speretual and the +scrubbing-brush. It is true that she put a precious old Spode +tea-pot on the stove and boiled the tea in it; that she hung her wig +and the dish-towel on the same nail; and that she immediately asked +for a white stocking foot to use as a coffee-bag. +</p> +<p> +"But don't you-all go bust no new pai'h," she advised economically. +"Ah 'd rathah make mah coffee in a ol' white stockin' foot any day, +jes' so you ain't done wo' out de toes too much." +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," said the horror-struck Alicia, "that woman must be watched +until we can buy a percolater. Suppose she's got 'a ol' white +stockin' foot' of her own!" +</p> +<p> +Despite which there never was, never will be, such another cook as +Mary Magdalen. It is true she wasn't amenable to discipline, and +reason wasn't her guiding-lamp. And nothing—not bribes, threats, +entreaties, prayers, orders, commands, moral suasion—could break +her of doing just what she wanted to do just when and how she wanted +to do it. You'd be entertaining your dearest enemies, serene in the +consciousness that your house was a credit to your good management; +and behold, Mary Magdalen in the drawing-room door, with her wig +askew and her hands rolled in her apron: +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Miss Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +"Well?" say you, resignedly, with a feigned smile; "what is it, Mary +Magdalen?" +</p> +<p> +"Miss Sophy, you know we-all's sugah?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"Wellum, Miss Sophy, 't ain't any." +</p> +<p> +"I have already ordered more, Mary Magdalen." +</p> +<p> +"An' you know ouah flouah, Miss Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"I—" +</p> +<p> +"Us ain't got a Gawd's speck!" +</p> +<p> +Then she would beam upon the visitors, all of whom were known to +her. +</p> +<p> +"Howdy, Miss Sally! How you-all comin' on? Ah comin' 'round to see +de baby soon 's Ah gits chanst." Or, "Lawsy me, Miss Jinny, dat boy +o' yo's is jes' natchelly bustin' outer da clo'es wid growin', ain't +he? He jes' de spit o' he pa, bless 'im!" +</p> +<p> +Which untoward confidence didn't seem to surprise our visitors. They +had Mary Magdalens of their own. +</p> +<p> +A few days later Doctor Geddes sent us Schmetz, the gardener, a +gnarled little man with a peppery temper, a torrential flow of +Alsatian French, and a tireless energy. I don't know why nor how +Schmetz had come to Hyndsville, except that somehow he had acquired +a small farm near by and couldn't get away from it. He explained to +us, gently but firmly, that if we wouldn't meddle after the manner +of women, but would leave his job in his own hands, it would be +better for us, and for the garden. We meekly acquiescing, he called +in helpers and with a wave of his hand set hoe and ax and spade to +work. +</p> +<p> +The weather had changed into days of deep blue skies, splendid days +full of the warmth of potential power; and nights filled with +fragrance, nights of fierce beauty, and the glamour of golden moons, +and the thrilling melody of that feathered Israfel, the +mocking-bird. Through our open windows immense moths, spirits of the +summer nights, drifted in on enameled and jeweled wings and circled +in a fire-worshiping dance around our light. +</p> +<p> +Those were wonderful days. For that was a house of surprises, a +house full of laid-by things. One never knew what one was going to +find. One morning it might be a Ridgway jug all delicate vine leaves +and faun heads, or an old blue-and-white English platter, or a piece +of fine salt-glaze. On the top shelf of a long-locked closet, pushed +back in the corner, you'd discover a full set of the most beautiful +sapphire glassware, and a pagoda work-box with ivory corners; and on +a lower shelf, wrapped in half a moth-eaten shawl, two glowing +luster jugs in proof condition. Mary Magdalen salvaged a fine china +sillabub stand, with little white-and-gold covered cups on it, from +a sooty box under a kitchen cupboard. A back drawer of the dusty +office desk yielded up half a dozen exquisite prints. And I'm sure +Alicia will remember even in heaven the ecstasy she experienced when +a battered bureau gave into her hands the adorable Bow figures of +Kitty Clive and Woodward the actor, she pink-and-white, petticoated +and furbelowed, lovely as when London went mad over her, and he +cocked-hatted and ruffled and dandified; and neither with so much as +the least littlest chip to mar their perfection. +</p> +<p> +Or a hair trunk would reveal little frocks stitched by hand, and a +pair of tiny flat slippers with strings gone to dust like the little +feet that had worn them. With these were two dolls, one dressed in +sprigged India muslin and lace, with a shepherdess hat glued on her +painted head; the other dressed in a poke-bonnet, a satin sack, and +a much-flounced skirt. They had evidently belonged to "Lydia, our +Darling Child," whose name, in unsteady letters, was painfully set +down in the printed picture-books at the bottom of the trunk. These +things that had belonged to a "darling child" so long dead lent the +grim old house a softening touch. Poor old house, whose little +children had all gone, so long ago! +</p> +<p> +It was the day we were taking up the beautiful old carpet in the +back drawing-room. Alicia was rejoicing for the thousandth time over +this treasure of hand-woven French art. Of a sudden, horrible yells +rose from the garden, and a shrieking negro went by the window like +an arrow. We caught "Murder!—Ol' Witch!—Corpses!" as he +disappeared. Uncle Adam, catching his panic, bolted with him; the +two negro women followed. Only Mary Magdalen, amazonian arms bare, a +rolling-pin grasped in a formidable fist, stood like a rock of +defense behind us. +</p> +<p> +"Ah jes' wants to catch any ol' corpses trapesin' 'round mah +kitchin, trackin' up mah clean flo', an Ah 'll suah settle day hash +once fo' all!" trumpeted Mary Magdalen. +</p> +<p> +Outside, Schmetz was jumping up and down, flapping his arms, and +screaming in voluble French: +</p> +<p> +"Name of a dog! Senseless Senegambians, remain! Iron-skulled +offspring of the union of a black mule and a pickax, cease to fly!" +</p> +<p> +"What is the matter? For heaven's sake? what is the matter?" I +shouted. +</p> +<p> +"We done dig up de corpses! We done fin' wha'h dat ol' witch 'oman +bury de bodies!" howled a workman in reply. +</p> +<p> +"Imbeciles, asses, beings without brains, listen to me!" shrieked +Schmetz, this time in good English. "This corpse is not alive! Never +yet was he alive! Return, sons of perdition, and assist me to raise +him—may he fall upon your brain-pans of donkeys!" +</p> +<p> +As if that had been all that was needed, the last wavering workman +flung down his shovel and took to his heels, running like a rabbit +and roaring as he ran. +</p> +<p> +"Schmetz!" called a clear and peremptory voice. "Schmetz! what's the +matter over there?" +</p> +<p> +"Ah! It is Monsieur Jelnik!" bawled Schmetz. "<i>Nom de Dieu</i>, +Monsieur Jelnik, come with a great quickness! I have dug from the +earth the leetle boy of stone—you know him, <i>hein</i>? Those niggers, +<i>sacrement</i>! they think they have uncovered the deceased corpse, the +victim of Madame the late mistress, with which she made her spells +of a sorceress." +</p> +<p> +"What!" said the voice. "You've found the statue, Schmetz? Ask, my +good fellow, if it is permitted that I come and view it." +</p> +<p> +"Why, of course!" said I, quickly. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," said the voice. +</p> +<p> +There had been a great space cleared in our garden, and on the edge +of this, in removing a stubborn gum-tree, the negroes had uncovered +what they supposed to be the body of one murdered. Upon our knees, +with Schmetz helping us, we were trying to tear away the rotten +coverings, and the dirt and mold. And there, beautiful despite the +stains disfiguring him, lay the boy Love. The marble pedestal from +which he had been removed lay near him. On the base, decipherable, +was the sculptor's name, and on one side, in small letters, +"<i>Brought from Italy, 1803, by R.H.</i>" +</p> +<p> +"Why, he is perfect!" cried Alicia, joyfully. "Oh, who could have +been so stupid and so cruel as to hide away something so lovely? +Poor dear little god, aren't you glad to get out of that grave and +come back to the sun? Aren't you grateful, little god, that Sophy +and I came to Hynds House?" +</p> +<p> +And at that moment a tall, slim, dark-skinned young man walked up, +hands behind his back, and stood there regarding us with eyes as +clear and cool as mountain water when the sunlight is upon it and +golden flecks come and go in its brown depths. The exquisitely +aquiline features, the small black mustache, an indescribably proud +and high-bred ease and grace of manner and bearing, were oddly +exotic and even more oddly fascinating. His slenderness was as +strong as a tempered sword-blade, his quietness was trained power in +repose. And the hair of his head was so black that a purplish shadow +rested upon it, and so thick that one was minded of Absalom: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + ... in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as + Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot to the + crown of his head there was no blemish in him. +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + And when he polled his head (for it was at every year's end + that he polled it: because the hair was heavy on him, + therefore he polled it:), he weighed the hair of his head at + two hundred shekels after the king's weight. +</p> +<p> +He was so vivid and so new to me that my whole being was breathless +with the wonder of him. I knew, of course, that he did not belong +to <i>my</i> world at all. King's sons are for princesses, for those +human birds of paradise that flash, beautiful and fortunate, in +larger spheres than those prosaic paths trodden by a workaday woman +named Smith. +</p> +<p> +"What have you found?" he asked, in a delightful voice. +</p> +<p> +Alicia looked up. Her face was like the break of day for youngness +and freshness, and a wisp of a bright curl misbehaved itself on her +cheek, a flirtatious curl that knew exactly how to make the most of +its opportunities. The young man's eyes approved of it. +</p> +<p> +"We have found Love!" cried Alicia, breathlessly. "Sophy and I have +found Love in our garden! Isn't it wonderful and impossible and +exciting and delightful? But it's true! And it just goes with this +whole place!" cried Alicia, morning-eyed and May-faced. +</p> +<p> +The young man's glance came back to me. I should hate to be +untruthful, and have to meet so straight a glance! +</p> +<p> +"Why, yes. It is impossible, and, like all impossible things, +perfectly true," he agreed, with the golden flecks dancing in and +out of his eyes and a slow and lazy smile, a sort of secret smile, +curving his beautiful, mocking mouth. "Fancy finding Love, of all +things, in Sophronisba's garden!" A fine black line of eyebrow went +up whimsically. "And now that you have found him," said Mr. Jelnik, +"hadn't you better let me help you set him up?" +</p> +<a name="2HCH0004"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER IV +</h2> +<h3> + THE HYNDSES OF HYNDS HOUSE +</h3> +<p> +When the fine weather had taken the kinks out of Judge Gatchell's +joints, he came to see us—a tall, thin, punctilious, saturnine old +gentleman with frosty Scotch eyes and the complexion of a pair of +washed khaki trousers. Chaos reigned in Hynds House then, and he was +forced to pick his way, like an elderly and cautious cat, between +piled-up chairs, tables, and rolls of carpet. In the most stately +manner he parted the tails of his skirted coat, seated himself upon +the sofa, placed his hat beside him, drew up the knees of his black +broadcloth trousers, took off and wiped his spectacles with great +thoroughness and deliberation upon a large silk handkerchief, +replaced them upon the middle of his Roman nose, cleared his throat, +pursed his lips, and drily but clearly talked business. +</p> +<p> +Great-Aunt Sophronisba would have left a much larger fortune had she +been less addicted to lawsuits. You wouldn't think an old soul of +almost a hundred could find very much chance to brew mischief, +would you? You didn't know Great-Aunt Sophronisba! +</p> +<p> +I was informed that the case of Scarlett vs. Geddes had been +automatically closed by the death of the plaintiff; <i>but</i> I had +inherited along with Hynds House: +</p> +<p> +The case of Scarlett vs. The Vestry and Pastor of St. Polycarp's +Church, from whom Mrs. Scarlett sought to recover three +paintings—"Faith," "Hope," and "Charity"—which her father had +commissioned a visiting artist to paint, and had then presented to +St. Polycarp's, with the stipulation that they should "forever hang +in the sacred edifice, reminding the brethren of the Cardinal +Virtues of the Christian Religion." +</p> +<p> +They did hang in the church for a century. Then, when the Ladies' +Missionary Society was helping "do over" the parsonage, a faded +Faith, a dulled Hope, and a fly-specked Charity were transported +thither. Whereupon suit was immediately brought by the donor's +daughter, who averred that the church had lost all right and title +to the paintings by an action directly contrary to her father's +will, and insisted that they should be turned over to herself as +sole heiress. It was a nice little case, and called forth an +imposing array of counsel. Mrs. Scarlett had added a codicil to her +will, leaving <i>me</i> her claim to the three paintings "fraudulently +withheld by the pastor and vestrymen of St. Polycarp's Church." +</p> +<p> +There was, too, the question of the lot on Lafayette Street, between +Zion Church on the one hand, and the Y.M.C.A. on the other. Both had +tried to buy it; and both had been refused with contumely. Instead, +that nice old lady ran up extra-sized bill-boards. Every time the +Zionist brethren looked out of their side windows of a Sunday, they +had ample opportunity to learn considerable about the art of +advertising on bill-boards. And if a circus happened to be coming to +Hyndsville, they could count on every child in their Sunday school +missing his lesson, unless the text, by a fortunate chance, happened +to touch upon the prophet Daniel. +</p> +<p> +And when the Y.M.C.A. people looked out of <i>their</i> side windows, +Sophronisba's alluring bill-boards besought them to smoke only +certain cigarettes and to be sure to look for the trademark on their +playing-cards. Naturally, this made the Y.M.C.A. secretaries very, +very happy. +</p> +<p> +A weather-beaten picket fence protected the lot upon the street +front; the bill-boards formed the side attractions; and in the +center front was the monument, a stone of stumbling and offense. It +was a neat, plain granite obelisk, which bore this inscription: +</p> +<p class="center"> + This Stone is Erected <br /> + By the Affection <br /> + of <br /> + Sophronisba Hynds Scarlett <br /> + To Commemorate the Many Virtues <br /> + of <br /> + The Most Perfect Gentleman in Hyndsville <br /> + Her Bloodhound <br /> + NIPPER <br /> +</p> +<p> +"There should have been an open season for Sophronisba," Alicia said +with conviction. Then she put her head down and laughed. +</p> +<p> +The judge looked at her over his glasses, doubtfully. With a slight +edge to his voice he referred to the several prosecutions "for +wanton and wilful trespassings" upon the closed, barbed-wire lane +behind Hynds House. As the strip in question was not a public +thoroughfare, and Mrs. Scarlett had rock-ribbed titles covering it, +she could close it; and she did, greatly to the inconvenience of her +immediate neighbors, particularly Doctor Richard Geddes. +</p> +<p> +"There is something to be said for Mrs. Scarlett's methods," said +the judge dryly. "The Lafayette Street bill-boards are the +best-paying ones in Hyndsville. As to closing the lane, Miss Smith, +let me remind you that Doctor Geddes, although an estimable man and +a very able physician, is not at all backward in coming forward in a +quarrel. He greatly angered my late client." +</p> +<p> +"Nevertheless, that barbed wire comes down. He may use the lane +whenever he wants to," I decided. +</p> +<p> +The judge bowed. "And now," he said, politely, "let us take up the +case of Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, if you please. It was Mrs. Scarlett's +wish that you should be fully informed concerning Mr. Jelnik's +antecedents, that you might be on your guard." +</p> +<p> +"Against Mr. Jelnik? But, good heavens, why? Why?" I was beginning +to get angry. "Let me see: I am to make myself odious to Mr. Jelnik, +and I am to refuse to allow a physician to run his car through a +barren strip of weeds and sand, because they are her relatives and +she hated her relatives. I am to vex the souls of harmless +Christians with bill-posters of the world, the flesh, and the devil, +and I'm to pay taxes on a lot that's been turned into a cemetery for +a hound dog. I'm to fight St. Polycarp's Church, for a couple of +chromos I should probably loathe.—I don't like pictures of cardinal +virtues, anyhow. It altogether depends on who possesses them as to +whether I can stand for the cardinal virtues themselves." +</p> +<p> +"Faith looking up, and Charity looking down, and Hope hanging to an +anchor, <i>something</i> like Britannia-Rules-the-Waves. Make the church +keep them, please, Sophy!" begged Alicia. +</p> +<p> +Judge Gatchell made an odd noise in his throat. +</p> +<p> +"One of my little granddaughters, taken to Saint Polycarp's by her +mother, asked, 'Mamma, who is that big woman up there with the +pick-axe?' And they told her," said the Judge, scathingly, "they +told her it was <i>Hope</i>! +</p> +<p> +"When the vestry came to me about the case, I reminded them that +Aholah and Aholibah were damned for doting upon paintings on the +wall, painted in vermilion, which in plain English is Scarlett!" A +covenanting gleam shot into his frosty eyes, and the old fighting +Scotch blood showed for a second in his lank cheek. He was a godly +man, and when he saw confusion in the ranks of the Philistines, he +rejoiced. +</p> +<p> +"I can't help who was damned," said I. "My job is to live in peace +with my neighbors. St. Polycarp's people may hang their Virtues +wherever they please, for all of me." +</p> +<p> +Did a faint, faint shade of regret flit over the parchment-like +face? It seemed so to me. But he said, composedly: +</p> +<p> +"You must act according to your best judgment. And now, please, let +us go back to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik." +</p> +<p> +We rather prided ourselves upon the possession of so pleasant a +neighbor, and we said so. He had helped us with our garden, and it +was he who selected the spot upon which the resurrected Love should +be set up. +</p> +<p> +"Ah, yes, the statue, brought from Italy by Richard Hynds, a great +grandfather of his. Did he tell you anything about Richard?" asked +the judge. +</p> +<p> +"Nothing." +</p> +<p> +"I shall have to go a long way back, more than a hundred years, to +make you understand," said the judge. "When I was a boy some of the +oldest folk here in Hyndsville used to say that Hynds House never +should have come to Freeman Hynds, Mrs. Scarlett's father; but to +Richard Hynds, his elder brother—that same Richard whose initials +are cut in the base of the statue he brought in his pagan +godlessness from Italy, and which his brother afterward buried, +wishing to remove all trace of him and his follies. +</p> +<p> +"You are to understand that it was the unwritten law of the Hyndses' +that this house should come to the eldest son. Primogeniture is of +course foreign to American ideas, but this is an old house, Miss +Smith. When it was built, American ideas hadn't been born. And the +Hyndses were a law to themselves. +</p> +<p> +"The then head of the house was James Hampden Hynds, a man of an +immense pride, a rigid sense of duty, and the nicest notions of +honor. He had two sons, Richard, and the younger brother, Freeman. +The daughters do not count: it is with these two sons we are +concerned. +</p> +<p> +"From every account Freeman Hynds was a good man, a quiet, +God-fearing, methodical man, attentive to his affairs, and +meticulously exact in all his dealings; not warm-hearted, perhaps, +but just. But as if the bad blood of the entire family had come to a +head in one man, Richard was born a roisterer and a spendthrift. +</p> +<p> +"He grew up a magnificent young scapegrace, reckless to the point of +madness, and with that inherent love of risk that is the very breath +of life to such men. Despite these defects there is no doubt that +his was one of those personalities that win love without effort. So +of course it was a foregone conclusion that he should win the girl +that his younger brother, among others, adored to distraction. +</p> +<p> +"His family hoped that his love for his young wife would change him +for the better. But there was something tamelessly wild in Richard +Hynds. He would have done very well, very well indeed, in the +<i>Golden Hind</i> with Drake, or in the <i>Jesus</i> with Morgan. He did not +fit in a gentler generation, and a mild life had no charm for him. +Gossip buzzed with his name, even in a day when gentlemen were +permitted to behave pretty much as they pleased. +</p> +<p> +"Up to this time there had never been anything altogether +unpardonable charged against him. But one fine morning the Hynds +jewels were missing. Remember that the Hyndses had always been a +wealthy and powerful family. The theft of those jewels was no +trumpery affair. For generations they had been adding to that +collection—sometimes a lustrous pearl, sometimes a flawless +emerald; once it was a sapphire that had belonged to a French queen, +once a pair of rubies that had hung in the ears of a duchess beloved +of King Charles. +</p> +<p> +"Richard's mother happened to be a meek and quiet body, deeply +religious, something of a Quakeress, so she wore them but seldom. It +was upon the occasion of a ball to be given in honor of Freeman's +twenty-first birthday that the question of what jewels his mother +should wear came up, and the strong-box in which they were kept was +opened. Only the settings remained. +</p> +<p> +"When the clamor quieted and sane questions began to be asked, +suspicion fastened upon Richard Hynds. His affairs were chaotic, his +needs imperative and desperate. He had been heard to ask his mother +if she intended wearing what he called 'the Hynds fortune' at +Freeman's ball. He knew, of course, where they were kept—in the +anteroom of his mother's apartment. It was not only possible but +easy for him to gain access to them. +</p> +<p> +"Let us consider the case without prejudice: Here is a young man—a +gambler, a wastrel—with pressing debts, and clamoring creditors +threatening what might be considered dishonor. Within reach of this +young man's hand are certain very valuable properties which he might +even consider his own, since they would in time descend to him. His +mother's resources are exhausted, his father's heart steeled against +further advancements. Cause and effect, you see—debts: missing +jewels. +</p> +<p> +"The case not only formed two factions in public opinion; it split +the Hynds family itself. His two sisters, and his cousin Jessamine, +raised in this house, believed him guilty. His mother and his wife +believed in his innocence and refused to hear a word against him. +These two things only did Richard Hynds salvage in that utter wreck +and catastrophe—his mother's faith and his wife's love. +</p> +<p> +"He lost his father's. This was a man, who, under his pleasant +exterior of a landed gentleman, was rigid and inflexible. He had +already borne a great deal, remember; but this was disgrace, an +indelible stain upon a stainless name. Therefore this father, who +was at the same time a just and good man, disinherited his favorite +child and eldest son. House, slaves, lands, money, the great +position of the head of a powerful family, came to Freeman Hynds, +my late client's father, born five years later than his brother, on +the twentieth day of September, 1785—a long time ago! a long time +ago! +</p> +<p> +"Richard was disgraced, and a beggar. And it seemed that the rod +that had lain in pickle for the Hyndses for their pride, was brought +forth to scourge them all. For Richard, desperate, distracted, +careless of what happened to him, rode out one day through a pelting +rain. Result, congested lungs; the poor wastrel, who had no wish to +live, was soon satisfactorily dead. +</p> +<p> +"When James Hampden got that news, he rose up from his chair, laid +the book he had been reading—it was Baxter's 'Saint's Rest'—down +on the library table and fell as if lightning had struck him. +Apoplexy, it was said; a thrust through the heart, I should call it. +Richard the sinner was none the less Richard his first-born. +</p> +<p> +"Hard upon the heels of these two disasters came a third, the case +of Jessamine Hynds. This Jessamine—a highly gifted, imperious +creature, proud as Lucifer, after the manner of the Hyndses—was an +orphan, reared in Hynds House. She was some several years older than +her cousins, to whom she was greatly attached. The trouble so preyed +upon her that she became melancholy, and one fine day disappeared +and was never afterward found. There was great hue and cry made for +her, and men riding hither and yon, for this was a Hynds woman, and +her story touched popular imagination, so that she is supposed," +said the lawyer dryly, "to wander around Hynds House o' nights, +crying for Richard and searching for the lost jewels. +</p> +<p> +"After the death of James Hampden Hynds, it was discovered that he +had added a singular enough codicil to his will. This codicil +provided that in the event the jewels were found intact, and Richard +Hynds's innocence thereby incontrovertibly established, Hynds House +as it stood should revert to him as eldest son, after the custom of +the family. <i>But</i> until the jewels were recovered, Richard and his +heirs were to have exactly—nothing. And nothing is what Richard and +his heirs got." +</p> +<p> +"And was he really guilty?" breathed Alicia. Her sympathy was +instantly with Richard. That is exactly like Alicia, who is sorry +for the fatted calf, and the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, and +Esau swindled out of his birthright; had she been one of the wise +virgins she would have trimmed the lamps of all the foolish ones and +waked them up in time. +</p> +<p> +"In theory," said the judge, "a man is innocent until he is proved +guilty. In practice, he is guilty until he can prove his innocence." +</p> +<p> +"And was nothing, absolutely nothing, ever heard or known +further?—nothing that would justify his mother's faith, or comfort +his poor young wife's heart?" +</p> +<p> +"There was but one incident to which even the most credulous could +attach the slightest importance. You shall judge for yourself +whether it deserved any. Freeman Hynds, riding about the plantation +after his habit, was thrown from his horse and died from the +injuries sustained. He recovered consciousness for a few minutes +before he died; some said he never really regained it. Be that as it +may, the dying man cried out, in a voice of great anguish and +affliction: '<i>Richard! Brother Richard! The jewels—the jewels!</i>' He +struggled to say more, and failed; looked into the concerned faces +around him, with the awful look of the soul about to depart; +struggled to raise himself; and fell back upon his pillow a corpse. +</p> +<p> +"Some—they were in the majority—said, sensibly enough, that the +pain and disgrace of his brother's downfall had haunted the poor +gentleman's death-bed, and occasioned that last sad cry. Some few +said he had wished to confess a thing heavy upon his conscience, who +had taken his brother's place as Jacob took Esau's. Richard's wife, +of course, was of these latter. She went to her grave a passionate +believer in the innocence of her husband, whom she averred to have +been a deeply wronged and cruelly used man; and, for heaven's sake, +who do you suppose she claimed had wronged him? Freeman! She +couldn't prove anything; she hadn't the ghost of a clue to hang the +ghost of an accusation upon; yet, womanlike, she clung to her +notion, and she taught it to her son as one teaches a holy creed. +</p> +<p> +"The Hyndses were excellent haters. Freeman's daughter, born into an +atmosphere of family disruption, abhorred the very memory of her +uncle, and hated her uncle's wife, the woman who doubted and led +others to doubt her father's honesty. This hatred she discovered for +Richard's son, who, as he grew older, referred to Freeman as 'my +Uncle Judas.' +</p> +<p> +"This second Richard became in time a highly successful physician, a +man honored and beloved by this community. There was no wildness in +<i>him</i>, nor in his son, the third Richard. His granddaughter Sarah +Hynds married Professor Doctor Max Jelnik, the celebrated Viennese +alienist, whom she met abroad. Your next-door neighbor is Sarah's +son, born somewhere in Hungary, I believe. Both the young man's +parents are dead, and I understand he has led a vagrant and +irresponsible life, preferring to rove about rather than follow his +father's profession, to which he was educated. +</p> +<p> +"My late client, indeed, held that he had inherited the deplorable +characteristics of the first Richard. She asserted—she allowed +herself great freedom of speech—that you can't make a silk purse +out of a sow's ear. It displeased her that he should come to +Hyndsville. She thought it showed a malignant nature and a peculiar +shamelessness that he chose to reside next door to Hynds House, from +which his great-great-grandfather had been so ignominously driven. +Her first meeting with the young man bred in her an ineradicable +dislike." +</p> +<p> +Now what really happened is this: The fences having been neglected, +and in consequence fallen down, and the hedge broken in many places, +Mr. Jelnik, just come to Hyndsville, thoughtlessly and perhaps +ignorantly crossed the sacred Scarlett boundaries. Up-stairs behind +her blind, like an ancient spider in her web, the old lady spied +him. She flung open the window and leaned out. +</p> +<p> +"Who are you that prowl about other peoples' yards like a thievish +cat?" she demanded peremptorily. +</p> +<p> +The young man looked up, uncovering his beautiful head. +</p> +<p> +"I am Nicholas Jelnik. And I pray your pardon, Madame: I did not +mean to intrude," and he made as if to go. +</p> +<p> +"Jelnik!" said she, in a hoarse and croaking voice. "Jelnik! Aha! I +know your breed! I smell the blood in you—bad blood! rotten bad +blood! You've a bad face, young man: a scoundrelly face, the face of +a fellow whose grandfather robbed his house and shamed his name! And +why have you come near Hynds House, at this hour of the day? He, he, +he! <i>I</i> know, <i>I</i> know!" +</p> +<p> +Lost in astonishment, Jelnik remained staring up at her. The +apparition of this venerable vixen, who had hated Richard's son and +now hated him of a later generation, who had seen those that had +talked to Richard himself in his ill-fated lifetime, so stirred his +imagination that it deprived him of utterance. All he could do was +to stand still and stare and stare and stare. He had never seen +anybody so old—she was nearly a hundred, and looked a thousand—and +he stared at the old, old, wrinkled, yellow face, the unhuman face, +in which the beady black eyes burned with wicked fire; at the nearly +bald head, thinly covered with a floating wisp or so of wool-like +white hair; at the claw-like, shriveled, yellow hands, the stringy +neck, the whole sexless meager wreck of what had been a woman. It +was a stare made up of wonder, and instinctive dislike, and human +pity, and young disgust. She raised her voice: +</p> +<p> +"Did you not see those signs? Scoundrel, puppy, foreign-born poacher, +didn't you see my sign-boards?" And as she looked down at +him—Richard's blood alive and red in a youthful and beautiful body: +and <i>she</i> what she was—she fell into one of those futile and +dreadful fits of rage to which the evil old are subject; and mumbled +with her skinny bags of lips, and shook and nodded her deathly head, +and waved her claw-like hands, screeching insults and abuse. +</p> +<p> +The pity died out of Jelnik's face. He regarded her with his +father's eyes, the calm, impersonal, passionless gaze of the trained +alienist. She was an unlovely exhibition, to be studied critically. +In some subtle manner she understood, for she jerked herself out of +her anger, and fell silent, regarding him with a glance as +brilliantly, deadly bright as a tarantula's. The cold, relentless +hate of that glance chilled him. He forced himself to bow to her +again, and to beat a dignified retreat, when his inclination was to +take to his heels like a school-boy caught pilfering apples. +</p> +<p> +The next morning a bailiff presented Mr. Nicholas Jelnik with a +notice forbidding him to enter the grounds of Hynds House without +the written permission of the owner, and threatening prosecution +should he disobey. +</p> +<p> +"The Hyndses, as I have said, are good haters," finished Judge +Gatchell. +</p> +<p> +"And so she left Hynds House to me," said I without, I am afraid, +much gratitude. +</p> +<p> +"It was hers, to dispose of as she chose." The lawyer spoke crisply. +"If you have any scruples, dismiss them. My late client understood +that it was far better for the estate to fall into the hands of a +sensible woman like yourself than into the keeping of a young man +with what foolish people like to call the artistic temperament, +which in plain English means a person who can't earn his salt in any +useful, sensible business. +</p> +<p> +"You doubt this? Let us consider this same artistic temperament and +its results," continued the judge, making a wry face. "Once or twice +it has been my bad fortune to meet it. One trifling scamp I have in +mind, painted. A house, a fence, a barn, even a sign-board? Not at +all, but messes he called 'The Sea,' one doesn't know why, save that +the things slightly resembled raw oysters. However, the women raved +over him. His laundress and his landlady had good cause to rave! +</p> +<p> +"He wrote, too. A text-book, a title, a will, a deed, a business +letter? Far from it! He wrote <i>poetry</i>, if you please! The little +wretch wrote <i>poetry</i>! That's what the artistic temperament leads a +man to! Bah! I hate, I despise, I abhor, the artistic temperament!" +</p> +<p> +We looked at the judge, open-mouthed. "Who would have thought the +old man to have had so much blood in him?" +</p> +<p> +"There have been times," admitted the judge, subsiding, "when I +radically disagreed with my late client; when I opposed her +strongly. But when she willed her whole estate to you, Miss Smith, +instead of to Nicholas Jelnik, I heartily approved. Understand, I +have no personal bias, no animosity against this young man; but he +is, I am told, more or less of an artist, and one might as well +leave an estate to an anarchist at once. I have expressed this +opinion to the town at large, and I seldom express my opinion +publicly," finished the old jurist stiffly. +</p> +<p> +I heard that opinion with mingled emotions. +</p> +<p> +"But we like Mr. Jelnik," I said at last. "The injunction against +him doesn't hold water. Personally, I feel like apologizing to him." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no! One can't afford to cuddle an old vendetta, as Abishag +dry-nursed old King David. I always <i>hated</i> Abishag!" Alicia said +naïvely. +</p> +<p> +"My late client," said the judge enigmatically, "hadn't counted on +<i>you</i>." He almost succeeded in looking human when he said it, and +his eyes upon Alicia weren't at all frosty. Then he folded his +papers, replaced them in his wallet, wiped his glasses, shot his +cuffs, hoped we'd find Hynds House all we'd hoped, hoped the town +would be to our liking, hoped he could be of further service to us, +bowed creakily, and took his departure. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," said Alicia, after a long pause, "if ever I had to +rechristen this house, I'd call it Hornets' Nest." +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +We had not attended church on our first Sunday, because we were too +tired. But on our second Sunday we plucked up heart of grace and +went to St. Polycarp's. +</p> +<p> +The old town wore an air of Sabbath peace and quietness infinitely +soothing to the spirit. People passed and repassed us. We knew they +knew who we were. The old gentlemen, indeed, bowed to us with +stately uncoverings of the head; the rest regarded us with the sort +of impersonal and perfunctory interest one bestows upon +uninteresting passing strangers. Nobody spoke to us, though the eyes +of the young men were not unaware of Alicia's fairness. +</p> +<p> +In a great city, of course, one takes that sort of thing for +granted; but in this small town, where everybody knew and spoke to +everybody else, the effect was chilling. +</p> +<p> +"Talk about the sunny South!" murmured Alicia. "Why, my teeth want +to chatter!" +</p> +<p> +During the services I was conscious of covert glances in our +direction, but whenever a pair of feminine eyes met mine, they slid +off like lizards and glided another way, with calculated Christian +indifference. They weren't hostile, nor unfriendly: they were just +deliberately indifferent. Nobody had the faintest notion of being +heedful of us strangers among them; and I should be sorry for angels +who expected to be entertained unawares in South Carolina! +</p> +<p> +When the congregation had filed out and gone about its leisurely +business, the minister and his wife came forward to greet us. They +were a bit nervous, remembering the diabolic uproar about Faith, +Hope, and Charity. Mr. Haile was a mild-mannered little man of the +saved-sheep type, with box-plaited teeth and a bleating voice. His +wife had the worried face and the anxious eyes of the minister's +helpmeet, and the painfully ready smile for newcomers who might, or +might not, prove desirable parishioners. +</p> +<p> +She wanted to be nice to us as a Christian woman to women, but not +too nice as the minister's wife of a church whose members looked +upon us as interlopers. I had deputed Judge Gatchell to inform the +trustees that the suit was dropped. I suppose Mrs. Haile was timid +about broaching the delicate subject, for she ignored it with a +nervous intensity that made me feel sorry for her. She and Mr. Haile +would call just as soon as it was convenient for us to receive +visitors; and then they shook hands with us, and I think they +breathed a sigh of relief. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Sophy! And we've got to keep on going there!—next Sunday, and +Sunday after next Sunday, and maybe every Sunday after that until we +die! Perhaps after a while some of them will bow to us, or maybe +even say, 'How do you do?' <i>but</i> we'll feel as if we'd been put in +cold storage every time we enter that door!" wailed Alicia. +</p> +<p> +"It is our Father's house," I reminded her. +</p> +<p> +"But I don't want to be made to feel like a spanked child, in +anybody's house!" Alicia said, resentfully. +</p> +<p> +"You say that because you're Irish." +</p> +<p> +"You say I say it because I'm Irish because you're English." Then +she screwed up her mouth like a coral button, and squinted her eyes: +"I'm Irish, and you're English, and we're both American. Sophy, +let's join my Irish and your English to our Yankee, and teach this +town a lesson!" +</p> +<p> +"Barkis is willin'. But in the meantime let's go home and see what +Mary Magdalen has for lunch." +</p> +<p> +We walked slowly, enjoying the calm, lovely late-summer day. +Hyndsville at its best was a big, green, sprawling old town, a +quaint, unpainted, leisurely, flowery, bird-haunted place, with +glorious trees, and do-as-they-please, independent gardens. Nobody +ever seemed to be in a hurry, and at first we used to wonder how +they ever got anything done, or kept pace with the moving world; yet +they did. Only, they did it without haste and without noise. And +they were <i>always</i> polite. Though they should take your substance, +your reputation, or even, perhaps, your life, they would do it like +ladies and gentlemen. +</p> +<p> +We paused a while, just inside the big brick-pillared gate, and +looked up the oak-arched garden path toward our house. Of course one +can't expect an old fortress of a brick house that's been neglected +for more than three quarters of a century to look spick and span +inside of a brief fortnight, but already Hynds House was sitting up, +so to speak, and taking notice. +</p> +<p> +Life had begun to flow back into it. Mary Magdalen had brought a dog +with her—a yellow dog of unknown ancestry, of shamefaced demeanor, +a ropy tail, splay feet, and a rolling eye; named, she and heaven +alone knew why, Beautiful Dog. +</p> +<p> +He shunned Alicia and me because we were white people: Beautiful Dog +was intuitively aware that colored people's dogs must meet white +people with suspicion, aloofness, and reserve. When we fatuously +sought to make friends with him, he tucked his tail between his +legs, and shivered as if we made goose-flesh come out on his spine; +and once when I took him by his rope collar he fell down and +shrieked. But just let Mary Magdalen roll out an unctious, "Whah is +yuh, Beaut'ful Dawg?" and his ears and tail went up, he curveted, +and made uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from ear +to ear. +</p> +<p> +Doctor Geddes's Mandy had brought over the black kittens and their +mother. Mary Magdalen made sure of their staying at home by the +simple process of buttering their paws. In South Carolina, when you +want a cat to stay in your house, you butter its paws and let it +lick the butter off leisurely, the while you whisper in its left +ear: "<i>Stay in my house for keeps, cat!</i>" The cat will ever +thereafter play Ruth to your Naomi. +</p> +<p> +Our cat was Mrs. Belinda Black, and her children were Potty Black +and Sir Thomas More Black, this last being a creature of noble mien +and a meditative turn of mind. +</p> +<p> +"Homage and praise to Bast, the cat-headed, the wise one, the great +goddess!" purred Alicia, stroking Mrs. Belinda Black's satiny head. +"And may Sekhet the Cat of the Sun aid me, a devotee at her shrine, +to butter the paws of some two-legged cats in Hyndsville!" +</p> +<p> +"You-all's dinnah 's waitin'." Mary Magdalen stubbornly held to the +notion that any meal eaten between breakfast and night was dinner; +lunch being sandwiches and fried chicken taken out of a basket at +church picnics and eaten out of one's hand, or lap, for choice. +"What was de text to-day, Miss Sophy? Ah sort o' likes to chaw easy +on a mout'ful o' text whilst Ah 'm washin' up mah dishes." +</p> +<p> +We gave her the text, which happened to be one that fills every +negro's heart with undiluted joy: "O ye dry bones, hear the word of +the Lord." And we had the satisfaction of hearing her rolling out, +to the clatter of pans and pots: +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "Dry bones in de valley, <br /> + Ma-a-ah, La-a-awd! <br /> + Whut yuh gwine do wid dem dry bones, <br /> + Ma-ah-ah La-a-a-w-wd" +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +while we went up-stairs to change our frocks. We were still sharing +one room then, finding it more convenient. And there, in front of +our door, in a nest of ferns and mosses, was a great cluster of wild +flowers, summer's last and autumn's first children. They had been +gathered in no ordered garden, but taken from the skirts of the +fields and the bosom of the woods; and Carolina the opulent, the +beautiful, the free-handed, does not deck herself niggardly. +</p> +<p> +Alicia's face that had been so wistful lighted with a sudden joy. +She gave a happy cry: +</p> +<p> +"Ariel!" she cried, "Ariel! Oh, what a heavenly thing, what a +<i>human</i> thing to do! And to-day, too, just when we need a little bit +of friendliness!" She looked around with a queer, shy smile. +</p> +<p> +"Ariel!" she called, "Ariel, no matter who comes, or goes, or what +happens in Hynds House, <i>we</i> believe in you. Don't leave us, Ariel! +Maker of music, bringer of blossoms, stay!" +</p> +<a name="2HCH0005"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER V +</h2> +<h3> + "THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF" +</h3> +<p> +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, with an uplift of his fine black brows and a +satirical smile, once diagnosed the case of Great-Aunt Sophronisba +Scarlett as "congenital Hyndsitis"; Doctor Richard Geddes said you'd +only to take a glance at her house to see that she was predestined +to be damned. <i>I</i> know that she was so hidebound in her prejudices, +so virulently conservative, so constitutionally opposed to change, +that anything savoring of modernity was anathema to her. +</p> +<p> +That old woman would as lief have had what remained of her teeth +pulled out as have parted with anything once brought into Hynds +House. She preserved everything, good, bad, indifferent. You'd find +luster cider jugs, maybe a fine toby, old Chinese ginger jars, and +the quaintest of Dutch schnapps bottles, cheek by jowl with an iron +warming-pan, a bootjack, a rusty leather bellows, and a box packed +with empty patent-medicine bottles, under the pantry shelf. A +helmet creamer would be full of little rolls of twine, odd buttons, +a wad of beeswax, a piece of asafetida, elastic bands, and corks. +She had used a Ridgway platter with a view of the Hudson River on +it, as a dinner plate for her hound, for we found it wrapped up, +with "Nipper's platter" scrawled on the paper. +</p> +<p> +By and large, it wasn't an easy task to renovate a brick barracks +finished in 1735, and occupied for ninety-nine years by a lady of +Sophronisba's parts; though I sha'n't tell how we had to tackle it +room by room, nor of the sweating hours spent in, so to speak, +separating the sheep things from the goat things. I can't help +stopping for a minute, though, to gloat over the front drawing-room +that presently emerged, with a cleaned carpet that proved to be a +marvel of hand-woven French art, rosewood sofas and chairs +upholstered in royal blue and rubbed to satiny-browny blackness, two +gloriously inlaid tables, and a Venetian mirror between two windows. +</p> +<p> +We gave the place of honor on the white marble mantel to a porcelain +painting Alicia found in a work-box—the picture of a woman in gray +brocade sprigged with pink-and-blue posies, a lace fichu about her +slim shoulders, and a cap with a rose in it covering her parted +brown hair. The little boy leaning against her knees had darker blue +eyes, and fairer hair pushed back from a bold and manly forehead. +The painting was about the size of a modern cabinet photograph, and, +though pleasing and spirited, was evidently the work of a gifted +amateur. What gave it potent meaning and appeal was the inscription +lettered on the back: +</p> +<p class="center"> + <i>Mrs. Lydia Hariott Hynds & Rich<sup><small>d</small></sup>. Hynds Ag'd 7 <br /> + Paint'd for Col<sup><small>nl</small></sup>. J. H. Hynds by his <br /> + Affec. Neece Jessamine</i> +</p> +<p> +You couldn't help loving him, the little "Richard Ag'd 7." There was +that in the face which won you instantly; it was so clear-eyed, so +gallant, so brave, so <i>honest</i>. So we gave him and his pretty, meek +mother the place of honor in the room that had once heard his +laughter and seen her tears. And we brought down-stairs the fine +painting of Colonel James Hampden, who was the splendid colonial in +claret-color that we had so much admired, and hung him and a smaller +painting marked, "Jessamine, Aged 22" where they could look down on +those two. +</p> +<p> +These were the only pictures allowed in that room, and they gave to +it an atmosphere flavored most sweetly of yesterday. Indeed, I think +they must have approved of the room altogether, for we hadn't +changed so much as we'd restored it. Even the glass shades that +use'd to shield their wax candles were in their old places. There +was their old-world atmosphere of stateliness; their Chinese jars, +their English vases, their beautiful old Chelsea figures; and the +sampler so painstakingly +</p> +<p class="center"> + <i>Work'd by Ann Eliza Hynds <br /> + Ag'd 9 Yrs. 2 Mos., Nov'r, 1757</i> +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +that had been carefully framed and mounted as a small fire-screen, +perhaps for Ann Eliza's lady mama or proud grandmother. It was such +human and intimate things, the mute mementoes of children who had +passed, that made us begin to love Hynds House, for all its bigness +and uncanniness and dilapidation. +</p> +<p> +We did discover one human touch laid upon the place by Sophronisba +herself. She had gathered together a full set of small, hand-colored +photographs of Confederate generals, wrapped them in a hand-made +Confederate flag, into which was tucked a receipt signed by Judah +Benjamin for Hynds silver melted into a bar and given to the Cause, +written, "The glory is departed," across the package, and hidden it. +Alicia, who had a hankering after Confederates, herself, put the +photographs in a leather-covered album at least as old as +themselves, and kept them sacredly. She said these were America's +own vanquished and vanished Trojans, and that one got a lump in the +throat remembering how +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + Fallen are those walls that were so good, <br /> + And corn grows now where Troy town stood. +</p> +<p> +Schmetz brought us our upholsterer, Riedriech the cabinet-maker, +most cunning of craftsmen, who knew all there is to know about old +furniture and just what should and shouldn't be done to it. In +addition he was a grizzled, bearded, shambling old angel who clung +to a reeking pipe and Utopian notions, a pestilent and whole-hearted +socialist who would call the President of the United States or the +president of the Plumbers' Union "Comrade" equally, and who put +propagandist literature in everything but our hair. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Riedriech," you would say reproachfully, "yesterday I +discovered Karl Marx and Jean Jaurès lurking behind my coffee-pot +and Fourier under the butter-dish. To-day I find Karl Kautsky in +ambush behind the cream-jug and Frederick Engels under the rolls." +</p> +<p> +Riedriech would regard you paternally, placidly, benevolently, +through his large, brass-rimmed spectacles: +</p> +<p> +"So? Little by little the drop of water the granite wears away. I +give you the little leaflet, the little pamphlet, <i>und</i> by and by +comes the little hole in your head." +</p> +<p> +Thank heaven the doctor next door didn't hear that! +</p> +<p> +Alicia knew how to handle the old visionary with innocent but +consummate skill. Looking at the kind old bear with her Irish eyes: +</p> +<p> +"It must be a wonderful thing to have such mastery of one's tools, +to know exactly what to do and how to do it," she would sigh. +"'Tisn't everybody can be a master craftsman!" +</p> +<p> +"I show you in a little while what iss cabinet-making!" he said +proudly. "I do more yet by you," he added charitably, "then make +over for you chairs and tables and such, already: I make over for +you your little mind." +</p> +<p> +The old socialist did indeed show us what cabinet-making can be. He +turned the office behind the library into a workroom, and from it +Sophronisba's tattered and torn and forlorn old things emerged, +piece by piece, in shining rosewood and walnut and mahogany majesty. +If you love old furniture; if it gives you a thrill just to touch a +period chair of incomparable grace, or the smooth surface of an old +table, or the curve of a carved sofa, you'll understand Alicia's +open rapture and my more sedate delight. +</p> +<p> +The tiled fireplace in the library was really the feature of +Hynds House. There wasn't any mantel: the fireplace was sunk into +the wall, and above it and the book-cases on each side was a +space filled with more relics than all the rest of the house +contained—portraits, signed and framed documents, letters, old +flags, and a whole arsenal of weapons. Above the fireplace hung the +portrait of Freeman Hynds—thin, dark, austere, more like a +Cameronian Scotsman than a Carolina gentleman of an easy habit of +life. +</p> +<p> +However, it was not portrait or relics that made the room +remarkable, but the tiles, each a portrait of a Revolutionary hero. +Laurens, Marion, Lafayette, Pulaski, von Steuben—there they were in +buff and blue, martial, in cocked hats, and with such awe-inspiring +noses! The center and largest tile was, of course, the Father of his +Country, without the hat, but with the nose, and above him the +original flag, with the thirteen stars for the thirteen weak-kneed +little states that were to grow into the great empire of freedom +that the high-nosed, high-hearted soldiers fought for and founded. +Alicia and I touched those tiles with reverence. They were the pride +of our hearts. +</p> +<p> +As often happens in the South, there were bedrooms on the lower +floor; two of them, in fact, on one side of the hall. The front one +had been not only locked but padlocked; the windows had been nailed +on the inside, and heavy wooden shutters nailed on the outside. So +long had the room been closed that dry-rot had set in. The silk +quilt on the four-poster was falling to pieces, the linen was as +yellow as beeswax, and the sheets made one think of the Flying +Dutchman's sails. This room was of almost monastic severity: an +ascetic or a stern soldier might have occupied it. Besides the bed +it contained four chairs, a clothes-press, a secretary, and a +shaving-stand. On a small table near the bed were a Wedgwood mortar +with a heavy pestle, a medicine glass, and a pewter candlestick +turned as black as iron. The press in the corner still held a few +clothes, threadbare and sleazy, and in the desk were some dry +letters and a Business Book—at least, that's how it was +marked—with lists of names, each having an occupation or task set +down opposite it, I suppose the names of long-dead slaves. On the +fly-leaf was written, in a neat and very legible hand, "<i>Freeman +Hynds</i>." +</p> +<p> +"Sophy!" Alicia's voice had an edge of awe. "This must have been his +room. I believe he died here, in this very bed. And afterward they +shut the room up; and it hasn't been opened until now." +</p> +<p> +We looked at the old bed, and seemed to see him there, trying to +raise himself, crying out so piteously upon dead Richard's name, +only to fall back a dead man himself. What had he wanted to tell, as +he lay there dying? His painted face in the library was not a bad +man's face. It was proud, stern, stubborn, bigoted; a dark, unhappy +face, but neither an evil nor a cruel one. What was it that really +lay between those two brothers? After more than a hundred years, we +were as much in the dark as they in whose day it had happened and +whose lives it had wrecked. +</p> +<p> +We built a fire in the long-disused chimney to take the dampness out +of the room, and forced open the windows to let in the good sun and +wind. Over in one corner, pushed in between the clothes-press and +the side wall, was, of all things, a prie-dieu; and upon it a dusty +Bible with his name on the fly-leaf. Nor was it a book kept for idle +show; it plainly had been read, perhaps wept over by a tortured +heart, for it fell open at that cry of all sad hearts, the +Fifty-first Psalm. I was moving this prie-dieu, when my foot slipped +on the bare floor and I dropped it with a crash. Fortunately it was +not injured. But what had looked like a mere line of carving on the +outer edge of the small shelf—rather a thick and heavy shelf now +that one examined it carefully—had been struck smartly, releasing a +cunning spring. There opened out a thin slit of a drawer, just big +enough to hold a flat book bound in leather and stamped with two +letters, "F.H." On the fly-leaf appeared, in his own neat, fine +script, "<i>The Diary of Freeman Hynds, Esqr.</i>" +</p> +<p> +The thing seemed incredible, impossible. His own daughter had +evidently been unaware of the existence of this book, which he had +not had time to destroy. And we, as by a miracle, had fallen upon +it—and perhaps the truth! +</p> +<p> +It was written in so fine and small a hand as was only possible to +the users of goose-quill pens; and this tiny, faded, brown writing +on the yellowed pages covered a period of years. He had not been one +to waste words. Once or twice, as we hurriedly turned the pages, +appeared the name "Emily." Mostly it seemed a dry, uninteresting +thing, a mere memorandum, where a single entry might cover a whole +year. +</p> +<p> +It was impossible for us to stop our work to read it then and there, +or to do more than give it a cursory glance. We turned feverishly to +those years that covered, as we figured, the period of the Hynds +tragedy. And he had written: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + This day was Accus'd Rich'd. my Bro. of robbing us of our + Jewells. He protests he knows Naught & my Mthr. believes him + as doth Emily. Has a true Heart, Emily. Horrid Confusion & + my Fthr. Confound'd. +</p> +<p> +Impatiently I turned over the pages, raging to read the end, my +heart pounding and fluttering. +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Two nights since dy'd Scipio, son of old Shooba's wife, the + which did send for me— +</p> +<p> +Thus far had I read, Alicia and I sitting head to head on the hall +stairs. In came Schmetz the gardener, raving, gesticulating, and +after him old Uncle Adam, stepping delicately, and with a placating +smile on his wrinkled countenance. +</p> +<p> +"Those bulbs that I have planted under the windows of you," raved +Schmetz, "the demon hens of <i>le docteur</i> Geddes are with their paws +upturning! They upturn with rapidity and completeness, led by a +shameless hog of a rooster. Is it the orders of you that I devastate +those fowls, Mademoiselle?" +</p> +<p> +Schmetz was furiously angry, and small wonder. Those had been choice +bulbs, some of which he had presented me from his own cherished +store—freesias, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and the starred +narcissus, "such as Proserpine let fall, from Dis's wagon." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, our flowers!" wailed Alicia, springing to her feet; "and we +counting on those bulbs for Christmas!" +</p> +<p> +I shut Freeman's diary with a snap. Hens were more immediate. +</p> +<p> +"Put it in the drawer of the library table," called Alicia, running +out with Schmetz at her heels. "We'll read it to-night." +</p> +<p> +When I had done so, closing the door after me, I too ran outside, +where some enormous black-and-white hens, led by the biggest rooster +I had ever seen, were completing the utter destruction of our +flower bed. +</p> +<p> +We charged down upon them, and they ran to and fro, after the stupid +fashion of fowls. Back and forth Alicia, Schmetz, and I chased those +brutes; but Adam stood with folded hands, looking on from a safe and +sane distance. He refused to have anything to do with Geddes fowls +in ol' Mis' Scarlett's yard. Just then the huge rooster ran into my +skirts, all but upsetting me. It was the work of a strenuous moment +to seize him by the wings and so hold him. +</p> +<p> +Left to their own devices, the hens scuttled back to their own +domain through a break in the palings on our side of the hedge, +while in my hands the rooster squawked and plunged and kicked and +struggled; it was like trying to hold a feathered hyena. +</p> +<p> +I was very angry. I had lost my bulb bed. I couldn't wring the neck +of the raider, much as I should have liked to do so, but with an arm +made strong by a just and righteous rage I lifted that big brute +high above my head and hurled him over into his own yard. He sailed +through the air like a black and white plane. +</p> +<p> +"<i>Damn! Oh, damn!</i>" said somebody on the other side of the hedge. +There was a horrible grunt, as of one getting all the wind knocked +out of him, a scuffle, and the squawks of the big rooster, to which +the hens dutifully added a deafening chorus. +</p> +<p> +"The brute—has just about—murdered me!" grunted Doctor Richard +Geddes. +</p> +<p> +We stood in stricken silence. Swiftly, noiselessly, Uncle Adam faded +from sight, putting a solid section of Hynds House between himself +and what he felt was coming battle. Uncle Adam had no wish to have +to pray me to death, and he wasn't going to run any risks with +Doctor Richard Geddes. Where that irascible gentleman was concerned, +Uncle Adam, like Br'er Rabbit, would "trus' no mistakes." +</p> +<p> +A second later, red-faced, half-breathless, but with the light of +battle in his eyes, Doctor Geddes appeared, mounted on a ladder on +his side of the hedge. +</p> +<p> +"Who shot off that rooster?" +</p> +<p> +"<i>Monsieur le docteur</i>, the hens of you began this affray," +explained Schmetz, politely. "They are fowls abandoned in their +morals, horrible in their habits, and shameless in their behavior. +And the husband of these wretches, Monsieur, is a bandit, a brigand, +an assassin, fit only to be guillotined. Observe, Monsieur, it +happened thus—" +</p> +<p> +"Schmetz," snapped the doctor, "shut up!—Now then, I want to know +who fired off that rooster." +</p> +<p> +"I did!" I said valiantly. "Look at my bulbs! Just look at my +bulbs!" +</p> +<p> +"Look at my stomach!" roared the doctor. "Just look at my stomach!" +</p> +<p> +"<i>Mon Dieu! O mon Dieu</i>!" cried Schmetz, dancing up and down. +"Monsieur, again I implore that you will remain calm and listen to +the voice of reason! Your hens, creatures malicious and accursed—" +</p> +<p> +"Why should I look at your horrid stomach?" said I, outraged. "I +think you had better get down off that ladder and go away!" +</p> +<p> +"Why should you? Because, you jade, you've all but driven a +twenty-pound rooster clean through it—beak, spurs and tail +feathers—that's why!" bawled the doctor. "Gad! I shall be black and +blue for a fortnight! I'm colicky now: I need a mustard-plaster!" +</p> +<p> +"<i>Two</i> mustard-plasters," I insisted severely: "one on your tongue +and the other on your temper!" +</p> +<p> +"Temper?" flared the doctor, and flung up his arms. "<i>Temper?</i> +Here's a minx that's all but murdered me, and yet has the stark +effrontery to blather about temper! You've a bad one yourself, let +me tell you! You've the worst, outside of your late aunt—" +</p> +<p> +"Grand-aunt-in-law; your own cousin-by-blood, whom you greatly +resemble in that same matter of family temper, I am given to +understand." +</p> +<p> +"Gatchell told you that!" cried the doctor, wrathfully. +"Fish-blooded old mummy! <i>His</i> place is in a Canopic jar! Gatchell +hasn't had a thought since 1845." +</p> +<p> +"Well, if he satisfied himself so long ago as 1845 that you have a +frightful temper and that your hens are unutterable nuisances, I see +no reason why he should change his mind," I said, frigidly. "You +have; and your hens are; and your rooster is a <i>demon</i>!" +</p> +<p> +"Straight out of the pit; undoubtedly they were hatched under +Satan's wings. Monsieur, believe me, Schmetz, when I tell you so." +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you ask me," I demanded, "to throw them over into your yard +when they invaded my premises? Very well: I threw one over and you +caught it. Why, then, should you complain?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes, I caught it!" A horrible sneer twisted his countenance. +</p> +<p> +Schmetz fell to praying aloud. But he couldn't remember anything +save the grace before meat, so he prayed that, in a sonorous voice. +For he is a pious man. +</p> +<p> +The doctor's nose wrinkled and his lips stretched: "<i>Sophronisba!</i>" +he hissed, and, having hurled this hand-grenade, scuttled down the +ladder like a boy of ten. +</p> +<p> +Alicia sank upon the ground and rocked to and fro. For a minute I +wanted to catch her by the shoulders and shake her soundly; but +catching her eye instead, I also fell into helpless laughter. +Leaning on his spade, Schmetz stared at us, shaking his grizzled +head. +</p> +<p> +"Name of a cat!" murmured the puzzled Alsatian, and fell to +salvaging such bulbs as weren't utterly ruined. We were all busy at +this, when a head again appeared over the hedge—a big, leonine head +with a tossing mane and a tameless beard. An enormous pair of +shoulders followed, a tree-trunk of a leg was swung over, and Doctor +Richard Geddes dropped into our garden like a great cat. He strolled +over, hands in pockets, and looking down at grubbing us, asked +politely: "Making a garden?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no," Alicia told him sweetly, "we're laying out a chicken-run." +</p> +<p> +"Er—what I came over to say, is that I've got some fine bulbs, +myself, this year, particularly fine bulbs—eh, Schmetz?—and more +than I need for myself. Will you share them with me, Miss Smith? +Please! I—well, I'd be really grateful if you would," said this +overgrown boy. +</p> +<p> +"We'll be enchanted," Alicia said instantly. "When can we have +them, please?" +</p> +<p> +"Now!" cried the doctor, with brightening eyes. "By jingo, I'll get +'em this minute, and plant 'em for you, too!" +</p> +<p> +And he did. He was on his knees, trowel in hand, shouting to +Riedriech, who had come outside for a few minutes' happy arguing +with his good friend the doctor, that the socialist argument boiled +down amounts to about this—that one should do without boiled eggs +for breakfast now, in order that the proletariat may have baked hen +for dinner in the millennium; which is lunacy; anybody with a +modicum of brains— +</p> +<p> +"Brains!" snorted Riedriech. "What is it you know about brains? <i>No</i> +doctor knows what is on the inside of brains! You make tinkerings +mit the inside plumbings, <i>Gott bewahre</i>! and cut up womens and cats +and such-like poor little dumb beasts and says you, 'Now I know all +about the brains of man.' It is right there where you are wrong, +Comrade Geddes!" +</p> +<p> +"<i>Habet!</i>" said Comrade Geddes. +</p> +<p> +"Look you," said the old visionary, with sudden passion, "look you +on the little bulb here, so dirty and ugly you hide him in the +ground quick. So! But by and by comes up green shoots, and blossoms. +So it is with the great thoughts of men, the deep race-thoughts, +Comrade Geddes—seeds, bulbs, germs, all of them, in the ugly husks +of the common people. Out of our muck and grime they come, the +little green shoots which the fool will say is poison, maybe, but +which the wise know and labor and make room for. I, Riedriech, and +workers like me, we go into our graves nothing but husks. But it is +out of the buried hearts of us comes green things growing; and +then—<i>die Blumen! die Blumen!</i>" said the cabinet-maker, with a +still, far-away look. +</p> +<p> +"And," he finished, with a sad smile, "it is <i>our</i> flowers that you +put in vases of gold on your altars. And you say, 'Listen: Jesus the +carpenter talks plain words to his fishermen friends.' And, 'Hush! +Burns the plowman makes songs in the field!'" +</p> +<p> +The doctor looked up, and his eyes were very tender; his smile made +me wonder. With a swift, friendly hand he patted the rougher hand of +the other. And it was at this opportune moment that Mary Magdalen +led around a corner of Hynds House no less personages than Mrs. +Haile and Miss Martha Hopkins. Their eyes fell upon Doctor Richard +Geddes. They looked at each other. They looked at Alicia and me. And +I knew their thoughts: "Sirens, both of you!" said Miss Hopkins's +eyes. +</p> +<p> +"How do you do, Doctor Geddes!" said both ladies, as demurely as +cats. <i>I</i> should have felt like a boy caught stealing jam. He went +right on planting bulbs. +</p> +<p> +"Hello, Martha. What's on the carpet now?" he greeted that lady, +airily. "Writing another paper on 'The Ironic Note in Chivalry'? How +about 'The Effect of the Pre-Raphaelites upon the Feeble-minded'? Or +is it the 'Relation of the Child to Its Mother,' this time?" +</p> +<p> +"You will have your little joke, Doctor," smiled Miss Hopkins, a +dish-faced blonde with a cultured expression. +</p> +<p> +"Joke?" The doctor stared up at her. "Joke? Gad, I'd like to believe +it!" He turned to Alicia and me, politely: "Miss Hopkins," he +informed us, "moves among us clothed in white samite. She is our +center of culture; Hyndsville revolves around her." +</p> +<p> +He went on putting a bulb in the place prepared for it. His eyebrows +twitched slightly, but his mouth was smileless; Miss Hopkins was +smiling, and not at all displeased. Mrs. Haile was bland and blank, +as befits a minister's wife. Alicia's eyes were downcast, but a +wicked dimple came and went in her cheek. She looked ravishingly +pretty, the bright hair breaking into curls about her temples, her +young face colored like a rose. I do not blame Doctor Richard +Geddes for stopping in his work to stare at her with unabashed +pleasure, but I do not think it was diplomatic. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Haile apologized for calling when we were so very busy. They +had just stopped in passing, because they were reorganizing their +missionary society and wanted to see if they couldn't interest us in +the good work. Their day-school in Mozambique needed another +teacher, and their hospital in Bechuanaland had to have more beds. +</p> +<p> +Doctor Geddes got to his feet, slapped our garden soil from his +knees, and shook his tawny mane. His eyes were no longer sweet. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Smith and Miss Gaines, thank you for the opportunity of +playing in the sand in pleasant company. Mrs. Haile, Miss Hopkins, I +go to attend some home-grown niggers who of course don't need a +hospital, nor even a decent school, in our Christian midst. Ladies, +good afternoon!" He made a fleering motion of the hand and was gone. +Mrs. Haile and Miss Hopkins smiled indulgently. Evidently, Doctor +Geddes was one brother they were willing to forgive though he +offended them until seventy times seven. +</p> +<p> +Alicia and Miss Martha Hopkins walked down the garden path together +and Mrs. Haile fell into step with me. In a low voice she thanked +me, hurriedly, for having dropped that dreadful suit. And were +we—she hesitated—were we going to be regular communicants? +</p> +<p> +I didn't want to go to St. Polycarp's any more, and it was on the +tip of my tongue to give a politely evasive reply, when our eyes met +and held each other. I saw the naked truth in hers—the pitiful +truth of the slim, poor, aristocratic little parish; the old church +overtaken and surpassed by its more modern and middle-class rivals; +and the minister's family struggling along on a salary that would +have made a hod-carrier strike. She was neatly dressed; she looked +like a gentle-woman, but one in straightened circumstances. I made a +rapid mental calculation. +</p> +<p> +"Why, yes, I think I can say we shall. Now, Mrs. Haile, I am a +business woman, and if I speak bluntly you must pardon it. Miss +Gaines and I can give two hundred dollars a year between us—fifty +for the church; one hundred and fifty to be added to the minister's +present salary." +</p> +<p> +I knew what that meant to her, and she must have known I knew, but +she didn't show it by so much as the quiver of an eyelash. Only a +faint, faint color showed in her sallow cheek, and she bowed, +half-formally, half-friendly. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Miss Smith," said she, gallantly. And she added, with a +glimmer of humor in her worried eyes: "As you say you're a business +woman, may I say I hope you will get your money's worth?" +</p> +<p> +At that I laughed, and she with me. +</p> +<p> +We walked down our garden path, chatting innocuously and amiably, +until of a sudden they caught sight of the little Love, the gay, +charming, naked little Love, holding his torch above his +curl-crowned head. You miss him, when you come up the broad drive +from the front gate, for Nicholas Jelnik put him in the secretest, +greenest, sweetest spot in all our garden, and you must go down a +winding path to find him. +</p> +<p> +"So it wasn't an idle tale: they did find it, really!" breathed Miss +Hopkins, staring with all her eyes. And I knew with great certainty +why <i>she</i> had come to Hynds House that afternoon. +</p> +<p> +"Forgotten all these many years, and now here, like the dead come to +life!" murmured Mrs. Haile, abstractedly. "How strange!" +</p> +<p> +"It was said he bought it for his mother, because it looked so like +himself as a child," said Miss Hopkins. Then she remembered her +duty, held up two fingers before her eyes, and squinted through them +critically: +</p> +<p> +"Charming, but don't you think the pose strained? It's an example of +eighteenth-century work, placid enough, but it lacks that plastic, +fluidic serenity, that divine new touch of truth, that is +revivifying art since the great Rodin lighted the torch anew." +</p> +<p> +Heaven knows what else she said. It sounded like a paper on art to +me, and I have a terror of papers on art. They are, Alicia informs +me, purple piffle. Yet Alicia drank in every word Miss Hopkins +uttered, though the dimple came and went in her cheek. +</p> +<p> +"You seem interested in art, Miss Gaines." Having torn the poor +little peasant Love to tatters, Miss Hopkins descended to us +groundlings. +</p> +<p> +"I don't always seem to know what art is," admitted Alicia, +dovelike. +</p> +<p> +The lady who "moved among us clothed in white samite" smiled +encouragingly. +</p> +<p> +"That is because you are really little more than a child," she said +kindly. "When you begin to <i>grow</i>, you will improve your mind." +</p> +<p> +Alicia puckered her brows. "Ah, but I'm Irish!" she said, seriously, +"and the Irish hate to have to improve their minds. I imagine it +takes an able-bodied mind to stand intensive cultivation," she +added, guilelessly. +</p> +<p> +Miss Hopkins smiled: it was a masterpiece, that smile! +</p> +<p> +"But why, may I ask, did you choose such a situation for the +statue?" she inquired critically. "Now, <i>I</i> should never dream of +tucking it in such an out-of-the-way place!" +</p> +<p> +The pucker came back to Alicia's brow. +</p> +<p> +"Shouldn't you?" she wondered. "I shall make a point of mentioning +that to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, if you don't mind. You see, he chose +that spot, and we rather like it, ourselves." +</p> +<p> +Miss Hopkins stopped dead short, and Mrs. Haile started in spite of +herself. Evidently, the situation was beyond them. Didn't we <i>know</i>? +How much had Judge Gatchell seen fit to tell us? Alicia had dropped +a bomb-shell that before night would detonate in every house in +Hyndsville. They haven't very much to talk about in small towns, +except one another, and when a plump mouse of gossip frisks about +whisking his tail, why, it is cat nature to pounce upon it. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Jelnik!" said Miss Hopkins, with an accent. "Oh, I see. +Well—he is a neighbor, of course. Certainly if Mr. Jelnik selected +that particular spot for the statue—he of all people has the best +right to do so—and to have his wishes considered." +</p> +<p> +"Of course. He has lived abroad, and seen everything of art there is +to see," Alicia agreed, placidly. Which wasn't at all what Miss +Hopkins meant. +</p> +<p> +We could see those two women turning the thing over and over in +their minds—Nicholas Jelnik, last heir and descendant of Richard +Hynds, tactily (perhaps even gladly; for had they not just witnessed +the behavior of Doctor Richard Geddes?) accepting the interlopers in +the house of his fathers! Nicholas Jelnik selecting the site for the +statue Richard had brought home in pride, and Freeman had buried in +sorrow! Miss Hopkins's stare dismissed me, shifted to Alicia, and +discovered the cause of this shameless surrender of family pride. +Her lips tightened. With politely cold hopes that we should like +Hyndsville, and warmer hopes that we would join the missionary +society, they left us. +</p> +<p> +"Wedge Number One: The poor dear heathen, Sophy!" smiled Alicia. +"The P.D.H. can be a very present help in times of social trouble, +can't he? I shall attend that missionary meeting, and take stock. +Incidentally (For goodness' sake, don't look so scandalized, Sophy +Smith! this is a fight for our lives, so to speak!) incidentally, I +shan't do the P.D.H. any harm. He won't be a bit worse than he was +before, which is promising." She put two fingers before her laughing +eyes, squinted through them, and drawled: +</p> +<p> +"You lack subtlety, Miss Smith. Cultivate your imagination, my +dear!" in Miss Hopkins's best voice. +</p> +<p> +Riedriech stuck his grizzled head out at a window, cautiously: +</p> +<p> +"Fräulein, she hass gone?" And seeing that the coast was clear, +he added, vehemently: "Cultivate the mindt! Cultivate the +imatchination! <i>Ach, lieber Gott! Dornröschen</i>, cultivate you the +<i>heart</i>. It iss not what the woman thinks, but what she loves, what +she feels, which makes of the world a home-place for men und +<i>kinder</i>." The good old Jew nodded his head vigorously at the girl, +smiled, and went back to his work. And Schmetz came and finished the +bulb bed by covering it carefully with two thicknesses of +chicken-wire. +</p> +<p> +That night, just before we went up-stairs, I went into the library +after Freeman Hynds's diary, which we were simply burning to read. I +opened the table drawer in which I had placed it. The drawer was +quite empty. The little flat book was gone. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0006"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VI +</h2> +<h3> + GLAMOURY +</h3> +<p> +Alicia insisted that we were living in a fairy-story, and had better +enjoy every shining minute while it lasted. But, as I pointed out, +the cost of restoring Hynds House was appallingly real, so real that +it left a big, big hole in the bank-account. It is true that we who +never really had had a home since we were little children, and then +the most modest sort, had gotten such a home as comes to but few. +But—one doesn't get something for nothing! +</p> +<p> +We had done our part for Hynds House; now Hynds House had to do its +part for us. It had to earn its keep, and ours. We had known that +from the beginning, and Alicia mapped out the entire plan of how +it was to be done; a plan which I at first looked upon as the +fairy-storiest part of the whole thing! +</p> +<p> +To-night we sat facing each other across the library table, with a +great pile of receipted bills between us, the total of which made me +feel pale. Alicia, however, was cheerfully figuring away on her own +hook; and presently she shoved a list of addresses across to me. +</p> +<p> +The first two were the head of our old firm, and the one celebrity +I had ever seen or spoken to, a novelist and lecturer with +record-breaking best sellers to his account. He once had some +business dealings with our firm, and I attended to the details, +thereby winning his cantankerous approval. He had very bad manners, +of which he was totally unashamed, and very good morals, of which +he was somewhat doubtful, as they didn't smack of genius; a notion +that he was a superior sort of Sherlock Holmes, having the +truffle-hound's flair for discovering and following up clews and +unraveling mysteries, most of which didn't exist outside of his own +eager mind; and such a genuine passion for old and beautiful things +as Balzac had. It was upon this last foundation that Alicia was +building. +</p> +<p> +"He has written that the average wealthy modern home is a +combination of Pullman Palace Car and Gehenna. And that the +so-called crime wave which sweeps recurrently over American cities, +is very likely nothing more than the inevitable reaction of our +damnable house decorations upon our immature intellects." Alicia +repeated it dreamily. "I have chosen for him the upper southwestern +room with the sunset effect and the pineapple four-poster. It has a +claw-footed desk of block mahogany, three hand-carved walnut chairs, +two Rembrandt prints, and a French prie-dieu with a purple velvet +cover embroidered with green and gold swastikas. He has a purple +soul with gold tassels on it, himself, Sophy, and he should be +willing to pay a thumping price for it. That room is worth at least +two lectures and one best seller, not to mention what he'll get out +of the rest of the house." +</p> +<p> +"First catch your hare," I reminded her skeptically. +</p> +<p> +"First set your trap, and you can reckon on hare nature to do the +rest. A few good photographs of this house, along with the +information that it runs back to the beginning of things American +and has never been exploited, will fetch him at a hand-gallop. Add a +hint that we have our own brand of family spook, and you couldn't +keep him away if you tried. The only trouble is that he may walk off +with your brass tongs up his trouser-leg, or a print or two tucked +under his shirt." +</p> +<p> +We had decided that we would have a series of photographs of the +house, with all particularly good points stressed; such as, say, the +library fireplace, the fan-light window at the end of the upper +hall, the pillared front porch, and a corner of the drawing-room. +</p> +<p> +Also—and this was the great thing, calling for a heavy outlay—we +would advertise in some two or three of the ultra periodicals, the +advertisement to carry a stunning little cut of our front porch. We +decided to run the risk of expending more money than we could really +afford, because the people that advertisement was meant to attract +would in the long run pay for it. +</p> +<p> +"Our prices will be predacious, piratical, prohibitive, and +profitable. We shall stop just this side of highway robbery. +Therefore our demands will be cheerfully, nay, willingly met; and +everybody, including you and me, Sophy, will be satisfied and +happy!" +</p> +<p> +"<i>Boarders!</i>" said I, limply, "<i>boarders</i>—in Hynds House!" +</p> +<p> +"Perish the thought! We have possibly the most interesting and +beautiful old house in America. It's one of the few really historic +houses left in the whole South. It has seen the Indians, it has seen +the British, it has seen Sherman's men, and escaped them all. Well, +then, we propose to allow certain of the elect, who can afford it, +to come and live in Hynds House for a while. They will be willing to +pay a round sum for the privilege. That's all." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, is it, indeed! And will they?" +</p> +<p> +"Won't they, though!" Alicia spoke confidently. "Now draft me a +letter to the Head, setting forth the many reasons why himself, his +wife, their car, and her Chow, can't afford to miss Hynds House on +their trip South this season. You might explain that Mary Magdalen +is our cook, and the Queen of Sheba our hand-maid. Also, please help +me decide in which of these magazines we had better advertise +first." +</p> +<p> +"But the cost!" I wailed. "We have spent so sinfully much already! +And the place is eating its head off, with nothing coming in. Since +I took down those bill-boards, actually the price of that Lafayette +Street lot has gone down. Nobody seems anxious to buy it any more." +</p> +<p> +"Change your mind about selling it; hint that you're considering an +ice-cream parlor and a movie theater," said the girl who'd been the +worst file-clerk. "In the meantime, Sophy, you have sense enough to +understand that we've spent so much money we've got to spend more to +get some of it back.—I vote we start in this one, Sophy," and she +laid her finger upon the most expensive and ultra of all the +magazines! +</p> +<p> +"But that is for <i>millionaires</i>!" said I, aghast. +</p> +<p> +"So is Hynds House," insisted Alicia, coolly. "How much did you say +was in the bank?" +</p> +<p> +I was afraid to hear my own voice mention that insignificant sum; +for, when one considered Hynds House, the little we had was +beggarly; so I wrote it down, and pushed the paper across to her. +Instead of looking scared, Alicia Gaines looked delighted! +</p> +<p> +"All that?" And round chin on pink palm, she fell to studying me +with as much curiosity as if she had just met me and were puzzled to +get at the real Me. Then she nodded, and snatching a sheet of paper, +began to figure again, pausing every now and then to regard me with +slitted eyes. At the end of ten strenuous minutes she pushed the +paper over to me, and watched me grow all but apoplectic as I +studied it. It was an entertaining list, beginning with a hat and +ending with silk stockings. With all sorts of wonderful things in +between—for me, you understand. Things like "One brown frock, with +something cloudy-yellow about it." ("Sophy, blondes can stand yellow +wonderfully well; I suggest a bronze, instead of a duller brown.") +</p> +<p> +"Why, I have plenty of clothes!" I protested. +</p> +<p> +"Business-woman-of-a-certain-age, general-utility, +will-stand-wear-and-tear clothes. Not a stitch of Hyndshousey +clothes among them. No <i>happy</i>, glad-I'm-alive-and-a woman clothes. +Here's where you cease to look merely useful, respectable, and +responsible, and begin to look the Lady of the Castle. There's quite +as much philosophy and good morals in looking like a butterfly as +there is in resembling a caterpillar." +</p> +<p> +"<i>Why</i> should I have more clothes?" I demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Because." And she added, with a fleeting smile, "And then catch +your hare." +</p> +<p> +"Alicia!" said I, scandalized. "Alicia Gaines, do you realize I am +thirty-six years old?" +</p> +<p> +"You wouldn't be if you just had sense enough to forget to remember +it." This resentfully. +</p> +<p> +"No? Would you mind telling me how I might become such an +accomplished forgetter?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, there's nothing easier! When you really wish to forget to +remember something, Sophy, all you have to do is to remember to +forget it!" And then, with real earnestness: "Sophy, it's the better +part of wisdom to look like the job you want to hold down. Your job +is holding down Hynds House. And we are up against things, Sophy, +you and I. We have got to win out because it means—all this." Her +eyes swept over the beautiful old room with an immense pride and +affection. +</p> +<p> +"We have just <i>got</i> to keep Hynds House, if only to teach these +Hyndsville women a lesson." She spoke after a pause. "Sophy, they +flatten their ears and arch their backs at sight of us; and whenever +there's a good chance for a wipe of a paw, why, we catch it across +the nose. Now I," she admitted frankly, "am naturally full of cat +feelings myself. I will not do what <i>you</i> want to do—walk off +looking aggrieved, after the fashion of Old Dog Tray. I will repay +in kind, retaliate in true lady-cat manner. And these,"—she began +to smile—"these shall be our weapons of offense and defense. It +will be a gorgeous struggle; however, my forebears came from +Kilkenny!" +</p> +<p> +I laughed, but indeed I did not feel any too optimistic. Holding +down Hynds House was no easy task, and the town was not disposed to +make it easier for us. While we had been busy renovating, while our +hands were so full of work that every minute was occupied, we hadn't +felt our isolation. It was only when we had time to pause and look +around us, that the stubborn, quiet hostility of the town's attitude +to the new owner of Hynds House was borne in upon us. +</p> +<p> +Not that anything overt was done by any one. Nor was there the +slightest breach of politeness: they were as punctiliously polite +when chance brought us into contact with them, as well-bred folk are +to strangers whose further acquaintance they have no desire to +cultivate. The vestrymen of St. Polycarp's had expressed their +appreciation of Miss Smith's action in promptly dropping the suit +against them; she was welcome to come and worship God in their +church, and to do her duty by the heathen. Such ladies as happened +to belong to the missionary society spoke to us pleasantly in the +church vestibule. The minister and his wife were as sincerely, +duteously courteous. But that was all. Not a house in Hyndsville +opened its doors to us. They simply would not accept the interloper +that the malignity of the Scarlett Witch had put in possession of +that which should have gone back to Richard's last heir, or failing +him, to Richard Geddes. +</p> +<p> +The fact that these two descendants of the Hyndses did not seem to +see and do their duty as members of that illustrious family, but +shamelessly made friends with the aliens, did not raise us in the +town's estimation. Quite the contrary. Nor were they even faintly +angry with Mr. Jelnik and Doctor Geddes, who were, so to say, +unsuspicious Israelites coaxed into the Canaanitish camp. +</p> +<p> +I admit that I considered Doctor Richard Geddes undiplomatic in his +behavior. It never once occurred to that lordly gentleman, who had +had his own way ever since he was born, that he should stop now to +consider the feelings or the prejudices of Hyndsville. It wasn't +that he meant to champion <i>us</i>. It never occurred to him that we +needed championing. He simply liked us because he liked us. We +pleased him. That sufficed, so far as he was concerned. +</p> +<p> +I had begun really to like the doctor, myself. But I wished to +heaven he weren't, at that critical time, so tactless. For instance, +I have been peremptorily taken by an elbow and led willy-nilly to +his waiting car, on Lafayette Street, which is our principal +thoroughfare, under the calm, appraising, watching eyes of all +feminine Hyndsville. Not one of whom would fail to remark, casually: +</p> +<p> +"Oh, <i>did</i> you see that Miss Smith with Doctor Geddes this morning? +Men are so unsuspicious, aren't they!" +</p> +<p> +I couldn't explain the situation to him, of course, any more than I +could explain to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik that <i>his</i> presence in Hynds +House, while pleasing to us, was disquieting and displeasing to +others. +</p> +<p> +It was to be expected that this handsome young man, who kept his +affairs so strictly to himself that nobody knew anything about them, +should arouse the avid curiosity and hold the breathless interest of +a little town where everybody had always known everybody else's +business. +</p> +<p> +Why had he come to Hyndsville? To find the Hynds jewels, after a +century? Didn't he know that the Scarlett Witch had the eye of an +eagle for the glitter of gold and would long since have discovered +whatever of value had been in Hynds House? Why didn't he consult +older members of the community, who could furnish him with +immensely interesting side-lights on the Hyndses? +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik never explained. He didn't ask anybody anything. He +didn't even employ Hyndsville negroes, who could be expected to +gossip: his household consisted of a stately bronze-colored +man-servant who was reputed to be a pagan, and the huge wolf-hound, +Boris, his constant companion. +</p> +<p> +When Doctor Geddes was delicately sounded, the big man explained +that he himself had but recently made the acquaintance of his young +kinsman; Jelnik was a first-rate chap, declared the doctor; +immensely clever, as befitted his father's son; altogether likeable, +but a bit of a lunatic, like all the Hyndses. +</p> +<p> +It was natural, too, that the young ladies in a small town where +young men are at a premium should have noticed this one particularly +and expected a like interest on his part. The inexplicable Jelnik +failed to exhibit it. There was but one house that he visited, and +that was Hynds House. +</p> +<p> +Whatever his reasons for this may have been, and the town named +several, the fact remains that Hynds House would never have been so +beautiful, the restoration wouldn't have been so nearly perfect, had +it not been for the critical taste of Mr. Jelnik. He had the +European knowledge of beautiful things, and, toward the finer graces +of life, the attitude of Paris, of Rome, of Vienna, rather than of +New York, of Chicago, or of, say, Atlanta. +</p> +<p> +There was a glamour about the man. Whatever he did or said had an +indefinable, delightful significance; what he left undone was full +of meaning. His mere presence ornamented and colored common moments +so that they glowed, and remained in the memory with a rainbow light +upon them. He was never hurried or flurried, any more than sun and +sky and trees and tides are; and he was just as vital, and quite as +baffling. +</p> +<p> +We accepted him at first as part of the fairy-story into which +Destiny had pitchforked us. He belonged to Hynds House, so to speak, +and there one might meet him upon common ground. But sometimes when +I happened to glance up I would find him watching us with those +reflective eyes that were so full of light and at the same time so +inscrutable. And then he would smile, his Dionysiac smile that made +him all at once so far off and so foreign that I knew, with a +sinking heart, that he didn't belong at all; that this beautiful and +brilliant bird of passage was lightening for but a very brief space +my sober skies. +</p> +<p> +Alicia said he made her think of peacocks and ivory. He delighted +and dazzled her, though he did not disquiet her as he did me, +perhaps because she, too, was young and beautiful, and I—wasn't. +</p> +<p> +It will be seen, then, that our position, take it by and large, +wasn't one that called for flags and buntings. Life didn't look a +bit rose-colored to me as I sat there that night, drafting a letter +to the Head. Of a sudden arose clamor in the hall, and howls, +hideously loud at that hour and in that quiet house. There came the +noise of running feet, and there burst into the lighted library, +with gray faces and rolling eyes, our two lately acquired colored +maids, Fernolia the thin one, and Queen of Sheba, fat and brown. +</p> +<p> +"Good heavens! What's the matter?" I asked, fearfully. It had been a +terrible task to break in those two handmaids, to train them <i>not</i> +to take part in the conversation at table, <i>not</i> to take off cap, +and hair, not to do the thousand and one undisciplined and +disorderly things they did do. +</p> +<p> +"Ghostes! Sperets! Ha'nts!" chattered the colored women. "Ol' Mis' +Scarlett's walkin' in de ca'iage house!" +</p> +<p> +"Nonsense!" At the same time I felt myself turning pale, and +goose-flesh coming out on my spine. +</p> +<p> +"No, ma'am, Miss Sophy, 't ain't nonsense. It's ha'nts!" protested +Fernolia. She was the brighter of the two, but given to embroidering +her facts. +</p> +<p> +"Yessum, I done saw 'er," corroborated Queenasheeba. (That's how one +pronounced her name.) +</p> +<p> +The two occupied a very pleasant room above the carriage house, a +room that had overcome their unwillingness to stay overnight at +Hynds House. Queenasheeba was just dozing, when she was awakened by +Fernolia, who had been sitting by the window. Both of them, peering +through the scrim curtains, saw a tall white figure disappear into +the spring-house. A few minutes later, to their horror, they heard +Something moving downstairs in the carriage house—Something like +the clank of a chain—footsteps—and then silence. Almost paralyzed +with terror, the two women clung together. <i>Anything</i> might be +expected of ol' Mis' Scarlett! However, nothing further happened. +With shaking hands Queenasheeba relighted the lamp. Then, snatching +up such clothes as they could grab, the two fled to us. +</p> +<p> +Mary Magdalen and Beautiful Dog always departed after dinner. Except +for the Black family and the two canaries, Alicia and I had big, +lonesome Hynds House to ourselves. Mr. Jelnik's gray cottage, set +amid Lombardy poplars and thick shrubberies, was some distance +away, and we didn't know whether Doctor Geddes was at home or not. +It is true we had firearms, a pair of pistols having been literally +forced upon us by the doctor, who fretted and fumed about our +staying there alone. Both of us were more afraid of those pistols +than of any possible ghostly intruder. +</p> +<p> +Nevertheless, I went up-stairs and fetched them. Alicia took one as +she might have taken a rattlesnake, and I held the other. Armed +thus, carrying torch-light and lantern, and with the two gray-faced, +half-clad negro women following us, one carrying our brass poker and +the other the tongs, we marched upon the carriage house. +</p> +<p> +The big barnlike place, lately cleaned and whitewashed, looked +painfully empty. In one of the stalls the hay purchased for our +recently acquired Jersey cow gave off a pleasant odor. Over in one +corner, in a neat, clean, orderly array, were Schmetz's tools. A +little farther on was our chicken feed, in covered barrels. +</p> +<p> +We went from empty stall to empty stall, to reassure the women; +there wasn't so much as a cobweb in any of them. All the down-stairs +windows were heavily barred with iron and further protected, like +the doors, with heavy oaken shutters studded with iron nail-heads. +The two small rooms in the rear had once been used as a jail for +recalcitrant slaves; they held now nothing deadlier than Schmetz's +flower pots and seedlings. Every shutter was closed, and the iron +bars looked reassuringly strong; also, the walls are three feet +thick. +</p> +<p> +"You were dreaming, you silly women! I told you you were dreaming!" +said I, and had turned to go, reassured and relieved, when Alicia's +nose wrinkled. I could hardly keep from sniffing, myself. +</p> +<p> +In the carriage-house was a faint, indeterminable scent, the ghost +of the ghost of fragrance, so elusive that one sensed rather than +smelled it, so pervasive and haunting that one could not miss it. +And it certainly had nothing to do with the wholesome odor of hay +and cow feed, or the smell of whitewash and oiled tools. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, you were dreaming." Alicia began to edge the colored women +toward the doors. "But as you've had a scare," she added pleasantly, +"I'll give you a new lace collar, Queenasheeba, and you a red +ribbon, Fernolia, to wear to church next Sunday, just to prove to +you that being awake is heaps better than having nightmares." +</p> +<p> +We padlocked the big doors after us, and went through the rooms +up-stairs. They, too, had been freshly cleaned and calcimined. And +they, too, were quite empty. +</p> +<p> +Despite which, Fernolia and Queenasheeba were firmly, tearfully, +shiveringly certain they had seen nothing less than ol' Mis' +Scarlett's ha'nt. They had the worst possible opinion of ol' Miss +Scarlett: she had been bad enough living—but as a spook! We had to +let them lug their bedding over and sleep in the room next to ours; +we had to give them sweet lavender to quiet their nerves. I am sure +they would have bolted incontinently if they hadn't been too scared +to venture outside. +</p> +<p> +"If I could catch that ghost I'd shake it!" declared Alicia. And we +went back to our figuring, with a sort of desperate courage. "<i>Now</i> +will you get those clothes, Sophy Smith?" she resumed, through her +teeth, and the pink came back to her cheek, and her eyes deepened. +"And do you agree to stick it out, you and I shoulder to shoulder, +town or no town, ha'nts or no ha'nts; and win out?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes!" said I. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0007"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VII +</h2> +<h3> + A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR +</h3> +<p> +Wire from The Author, New York City, to Miss S. Smith, Hyndsville, +South Carolina: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Photos received. Furniture noted. It's pretty, but is it + art? +</p> +<p> +Wire from Miss Smith to The Author: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + What is Art? +</p> +<p> +Wire from The Author: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Sometimes an invention of the devil. Is your stuff Madison + Avenue or Grand Rapids? Reply. +</p> +<p> +Wire from Miss Smith: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Madison Avenue and Grand Rapids hadn't been invented when + Hynds House was furnished. +</p> +<p> +Wire from The Author: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Maybe not, but mightn't be same furniture. Have been stung + before. Can't be genuine. Too much of it. +</p> +<p> +Wire from Miss Smith: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Please yourself. +</p> +<p> +Wire from The Author: +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Coming to investigate. Won't sleep in anything but pineapple + bed; won't sit in anything but carved chair; can't pray + without prie-dieu. If spurious will publicly gibbet you and + probably burn your house down. Hold southwest room my + arrival. +</p> +<p> +Alicia laughed, and cuddled those yellow slips. +</p> +<p> +"I knew this was an enchanted place!" she cried. "Oh, Sophy, it's +working! He's coming, he's coming, and he's the biggest ever, and +he's going to <i>stay</i>! Sophy, think of the advertising!" +</p> +<p> +"He will probably be detestable. Geniuses are generally horrid to +live with. And there will be something the matter with his +digestion; there is always something the matter with their +digestion." +</p> +<p> +"From swallowing all the flattery shoveled upon them, poor dears," +Alicia explained charitably. "Don't worry about his digestion: leave +it to Mary Magdalen's waffles. Hooray! Hynds House stock is +booming!" +</p> +<p> +It was. +</p> +<p> +From the head of our firm: +</p> + +<div class="bquote"> + <p class="noindent"> +<i>My dear Miss Smith</i>: +</p> +<p> + I have your interesting letter and the delightful + photographs, which have so completely charmed Mrs. + Westmacote and me that we have decided it wouldn't be good + business to miss Hynds House on our trip South this year. +</p> +<p> + Mrs. Westmacote asks if you could also accommodate a cousin + of hers, Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, a lady deeply + interested in the colonial homes of America. +</p> +<p> + You must allow me heartily to congratulate you upon your + great good fortune in falling heir to such a wonderful old + place; and to wish you many happy and prosperous years in + it. +</p> +<p> + I shall telegraph you when to expect us. With all good + wishes, +</p> +<p class="closing"> + Yours faithfully, <br /> + <small>GEORGE PEABODY WESTMACOTE.</small> +</p> +</div> +<p> +Letter from Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, of Boston: +</p> +<div class="bquote"> +<p class="noindent"> + <i>Dear Miss Smith</i>: +</p> +<p> + My cousin Mrs. Westmacote, whom I have been visiting, showed + me your letter and the enchanting photographs of your house + which you were kind enough to send Mr. Westmacote. Hynds + House is just the one place I have long been looking + for!—an unspoiled colonial house, with historic + associations! +</p> +<p> + It is perfect! I must see with my own eyes those Chelsea + figures on your drawing-room mantel, the luster and + Washington jugs in the dining-room, and the cabinets in the + hall. +</p> +<p class="closing"> + Sincerely yours, <br /> + <small>EMMELINE PHELPS-PARSONS.</small> +</p> +<p> + P.S. I hope it is really true that there is an Influence in + Hynds House? I do so greatly long to come in contact with + the Occult and the Unknown! +</p> +</div> +<p> +"Somewhere on the firing-line of fifty," mused Alicia. "A lady with +a soul. Don't you hear dear old Boston calling you, Sophy? Here's +one to put Miss Martha Hopkins's light under a bushel basket!" +</p> +<p> +We had several other inquirers; and chose from them Mr. Chetwynd +Harrison-Gore and his daughter, English folk "doing" America and +delighted to include a Carolina colonial house in their trip; a +suffrage leader, whose throat needed a rest; and Morenas, the +illustrator. It seemed that Hynds House offered to each one +something that had been craved for. +</p> +<p> +The Author pounced upon us two or three days before we expected him, +to take stock after his own fashion. I have heard The Author +commended for "the humor of his rare smile and the keen, kind +intellectuality of his remarkable eyes." Well, the smile was rare +enough; and of course there isn't any doubt about the man's +intellectuality. For the rest, he proved to be a tall, lanky, +stooping person, with a thin tanned face, outstanding ears, a high +nose, and long, blue-gray eyes half-hidden under drooping lids and +behind glasses. His hair was just hair. And he had the sort of +mustache that bristled like a cat's when he twisted his lip. +</p> +<p> +So far as monetary success, and efficacious press-agents, and the +adulation, admiration, emulation, and envy of his contemporaries +went, he had nothing to complain of. He was lionized, quoted, +courted, flattered, reviewed, viewed through rose-colored +spectacles; and disillusioned, discontented, cynical, selfish, and, +of course, most horribly bored. He was gun-shy of women; he +suspected them of wanting to marry him. He was wary of men; he +suspected them of wanting to exploit him. He loathed children, who +were generally obstreperous and unnecessary editions of parents he +didn't admire. He didn't even trust the beautiful works of men's +hands. They, even they, were too often faked! If you had dug up the +indubitable mummy of the first Pharaoh from under the oldest of the +pyramids, The Author would have turned him over on his back and +hunted for the trade-mark of The Modern Mummy-makers: London, Paris, +and New York; Catalogue on Request. +</p> +<p> +He stalked through Hynds House with slitted eyes and bristling +mustache—business of silent sleuth on the trail of the +furniture-fakir! He'd pause at each door and with an eagle glance +take a comprehensive survey; then, defensively, offensively, he +examined things in detail. From our rambling attics to our vast and +cavernous cellars did he go; and not a word crossed his lips until +he had completed this conandoyley examination. Then: +</p> +<p> +"Telegraph form if you have one, please," he requested briefly. "I +wish to wire for my car. Put Johnson in the room next mine. +Johnson's my secretary." He looked at Alicia, reflectively. "Amiable +ass, Johnson," he volunteered. Then he went over to the tiled +fireplace—we were in the library—and bent worshipfully before it. +</p> +<p> +"The finest bit of tile-work on this continent," he said, in a +hushed voice. "Absolutely perfect. And it belongs to a woman named +Smith!" +</p> +<p> +"We know just how you feel about it," Alicia told him +sympathetically, while The Author turned red to his ears. "I have +often felt like that myself, when something I particularly wanted +was bought by somebody I was sure couldn't properly appreciate it. I +dare say I was mistaken," admitted Alicia, "just as mistaken as you +are now in thinking that Sophy and I aren't worthy of those tiles. +We are—all the more so because we never before had anything like +them." +</p> +<p> +The spoiled darling of success looked at us intently; and a most +curious change came over his clever, bad-tempered face. His eyes are +as bright as ice, and have somewhat the same cold light in them. Now +a thaw set in and melted them, and a mottled red spread over his +sallow cheeks. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Gaines," he said, abruptly, "your doll-baby face does your +intelligence an injustice—Miss Smith, I apologize." And before the +astonished and indignant Alicia could summon a withering retort, he +added heartily: "This whole place is quite the real thing, you +know—almost too good to be true and too true to be good. Would you +mind telling me how you happened to think of letting me in on it, +eh?" +</p> +<p> +"Because we knew it <i>was</i> the real thing," Alicia replied, +truthfully. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know,"—The Author was plainly pleased—"that that is one of +the very nicest things that's ever been said to me? Because I really +<i>do</i> know above a bit about genuine stuff." +</p> +<p> +"It must be a great relief to you to hear something pleasant about +yourself that is also something true," I said with sympathy. The +Author grinned like a hyena, and Alicia giggled. "Because you must +be bored to extinction, having to listen to all sorts of people +ascribe to you all sorts of virtues that no one man could possibly +possess and remain human." I was remembering some of the fulsome +flubdub I'd read about him. +</p> +<p> +"Hark to her!" grinned The Author. "What! you don't believe all the +nice things you've read about me?" +</p> +<p> +"I do not." +</p> +<p> +"You don't in the least look or write like a dehumanized saint, you +know," supplemented Alicia, laughing. +</p> +<p> +"What <i>do</i> I look like, then?" He sat on the edge of a table and +cuddled a bony knee. Behind his glasses his eyes began to twinkle. +</p> +<p> +"You look more like yourself than you do like your photographs," +decided Alicia. +</p> +<p> +The Author threw up his hands. +</p> +<p> +"And now, tell me this, please: How, when, where, and from whom, did +you acquire the supreme art of aiding and abetting an old house to +grow young again without losing its character?" +</p> +<p> +"We were born," Alicia explained, "with the inherent desire to do +just what we have been able to do here. This house gave us our big +chance. But it wouldn't have been so—so in keeping with itself," +she was feeling for the right words, "if it hadn't been for Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik." +</p> +<p> +The Author pricked up his intellectual ears. His eyes narrowed. +</p> +<p> +"Jelnik? I knew a Jelnik, an Austrian alienist; met him at dinner at +the American Ambassador's in Vienna; quiet, unassuming, pleasant +man, and one of the greatest doctors in Europe." +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Jelnik is Doctor Jelnik's son." +</p> +<p> +"What!" shrieked The Author. And with unfeigned amazement: "In the +name of high heaven, what is Jelnik's son doing <i>here</i>?" +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Jelnik's mother was a Miss Hynds. She met and married your +doctor abroad." +</p> +<p> +That sixth sense possessed by him to an unusual degree, warned him +that he was on the trail of Copy. +</p> +<p> +"May I ask questions?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"Of course." +</p> +<p> +"You inherited this property from an old aunt, I believe?" +</p> +<p> +"She wasn't my aunt, really. She married my mother's uncle, Johnny +Scarlett." +</p> +<p> +"I see. And Jelnik's mother was a Miss Hynds. How long has he been +here?" +</p> +<p> +"For some time before we came." +</p> +<p> +"Near neighbor of yours?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes," Alicia put in; "and Doctor Richard Geddes is our neighbor on +the other side. His grandmother was a Miss Hynds." +</p> +<p> +"Pardon a writer-man's curiosity," begged The Author, smiling. "But +this house is unusual, very unusual. While I am here I shall look up +its history. It should make good copy." +</p> +<p> +Having a pretty shrewd idea of The Author's powers of finding out +what he wanted to find out, we thought it better that he should hear +that history, as we knew it. If the mystery had ever been solved, +the tragedy of Hynds House would have had but passing interest for +The Author. But the undiscovered piqued and puzzled him and aroused +his combative egotism. +</p> +<p> +From the pictured face of Freeman—dark, stern, uncommunicative—he +trotted back to the drawing room to look again at the boyish face of +little Richard leaning against his pretty mother's knees; at the +haughty, handsome face of James Hampden; and at beautiful dark +Jessamine, who had a long black curl straying across the shoulder of +a blue frock, and a curled red lip, and a breast of snow. +</p> +<p> +"Freeman was not a crook; his face is hard, stern, bigoted, +secretive, but honest. Yet if he didn't do it himself what was he +trying to tell when death cut off his wind? If he did it, where did +he hide the plunder? Here in this house? His family must have known +every nook and cranny as well as he did himself, and he could be +sure they'd pull it to pieces in the search that would ensue. +</p> +<p> +"If Richard were the thief, to whom did he give the loot? If the +gems had been put upon the market, some trace of them must have been +discovered. Remains: Who got them? Where did they go?" +</p> +<p> +"That's what the unhappy people in this house asked a century ago, +and there was no answer," I remarked, soberly. +</p> +<p> +"And that poor woman Jessamine went mad trying to solve it!" he +said, looking at her with commiseration. And after a pause: "And so +the lady who left her husband's grandniece the house of her +forebears was Freeman's daughter: and the Austrian doctor's son is +Richard's great-great-grandson! I meet Jelnik <i>père</i> in Vienna, and +come to Hyndsville, South Carolina, to meet Jelnik <i>fils</i>. H'm! +Decidedly, the situation has nice possibilities!" +</p> +<p> +Whereupon he took note-book and fountain-pen from his coat pocket +and in the most composed manner began to jot down the outstanding +features of Hynds House history. +</p> +<p> +"It will give me something to puzzle over while I'm here," he +remarked, complacently. It did! +</p> +<p> +The Author approved of Hynds House. It had all the charm of a new +and quaint field of exploration and research, and there was nothing +in it to offend his hypercritical judgment. I have a shrewd +suspicion that Mary Magdalen's cooking played no mean part in his +satisfaction. His prowess as a trencherman aroused the admiration +and respect of Fernolia, who waited on table. Fernolia had learned +to admire herself in her smart apron and cap, and to serve +creditably enough. Only twice did she fall from grace; once was the +morning The Author broke his own record for waffles. Fernolia, +excited and astonished, placed the last platter before him, raised +the cover with a flourish, and remarked with deep meaning: +</p> +<p> +"<i>Dem's all!</i>" +</p> +<p> +The second time was when we had what Mary Magdalen calls "mulatto +rice," which is a dish built upon a firm foundation of small strips +of bacon, onion, stewed tomatoes, and rice, and a later and last +addition of deliciously browned country sausages. Fernolia, beaming +upon The Author hospitably, broke her parole: +</p> +<p> +"You ain't called to skimp yo'self none on dat rice," she told him +confidentially. "De cook done put yo' name in de pot <i>big</i>. She say +she glad we-all got man in de house to 'preciate vittles. Yes-<i>suh</i>, +Ma'y Magdalen aim to make you bust yo' buttonholes whilst you hab de +chanst." +</p> +<p> +I am told that The Author always makes a great hit when he tells +that on himself, and is considered tremendously clever because he +can imitate Fernolia's soft South Carolina drawl. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, whom he managed to meet within the week, +aroused The Author's professional interest. For once his tried and +tested powers of turning other people's minds inside out failed +utterly. His innocent-sounding queries, his adroit leads, were +smilingly turned aside. The defense, so far as Mr. Jelnik was +concerned, was ridiculously simple: he didn't want to talk about +himself and he didn't do it. +</p> +<p> +He was perfectly willing to talk, when the humor seized him, and he +did talk, brilliantly, wittily, freely, and impersonally. The +egoistic "I" was conspicuous by its absence. And while he talked you +could see the agile antennæ of The Author's winged mind feeling +after the soul-string that might lead him through the mazes of this +unusual character. That he could be deftly diverted filled The +Author with chagrin mingled with wonder. +</p> +<p> +He manœuvered for an invitation to the gray cottage and secured +it with suspicious ease; called, and had a glass of most excellent +wine in his host's simplest of bachelor living-rooms; made the +closer acquaintance of Boris—he didn't care for dogs—and of +self-contained, dark-faced Daoud, Mr. Jelnik's East Indian +man-servant; and came home dissatisfied and determined. He scented +"copy," and a born writer after copy is, next to an Apache after a +scalp or a Dyak after his enemy's head, the most ruthless of created +beings. He will pick his mother's naked soul to pieces, bore into +his wife's living brain, dissect his daughter's quivering heart, +tear across his sister's mind, rip up his father's life and his best +friend's character, lay bare the tomb itself, and make for himself +an ink of tears and blood that he may write what he finds. Of such +is the kingdom of Genius. +</p> +<p> +And in the meantime the wondrous news that The Author himself was +staying at Hynds House, percolated through Hyndsville and soaked to +the bone. The Author was too big a figure to be ignored, even by +South Carolina people. Something had to be done. But how shall one +become acquainted with a notoriously unfriendly and gun-shy +celebrity, a personage of such note that every utterance means +newspaper space; and at the same time manage utterly to ignore and +cast into outer darkness the people with whom the great one is +staying? +</p> +<p> +The town felt itself put upon its mettle. The first move was made by +Miss Martha Hopkins. It was understood that if anybody could clear +the way, carry a difficult position with skill and aplomb, that +somebody was Miss Martha Hopkins. +</p> +<p> +She didn't bear down directly upon The Author: that would have been +crude. She opened her campaign by a flank movement upon Alicia and +me, in her capacity of secretary and treasurer of the missionary +society. +</p> +<p> +Miss Hopkins sailed into Hynds House on a perfect afternoon, to +discuss with us a proposed rummage-sale which was to benefit the +heathen. She wasn't really worrying about the heathen: he had all +the rest of his benighted life to get himself saved in, hadn't he? +All the while she sat there and talked about him, she was really +loaded to the muzzle with pertinent remarks to affluent authors. +</p> +<p> +She had come with the hope of chancing upon the great man himself; +and, failing that, she meant to pump Alicia and me of enough +material to, say, enable her to use a part of her stock of pet +adjectives in the paper she would prepare for the next meeting of +the literary society. She had a pretty stock of adjectives—plump, +purple words like <i>lyric</i>, and <i>liquid</i>, and <i>plastic</i>, and +<i>subtile</i>, and <i>poignancy</i>, with every now and then a <i>chiaoscuro</i> +thrown in for good measure; and a whole melting-pot full of "rare +emotional experiences," "art that was almost intuitive in its +passion, so subtly did it"—oh, do all sorts of things!—and +"handling the plastic outlines of the theme with rare emotional +skill and mastery of technique," "purest lyricism lifted to heights +of poignancy,"—all that sort of stuff, you know. Next time a +writer, or, better still, a fiddler or a pianist comes to your town, +look in your home paper the morning after, and you'll see it. +</p> +<p> +As it happened, The Author was not at home. His secretary had +arrived a day or two before, and after unloading a systemful of copy +upon that faithful beast of burden, The Author had given himself a +half-holiday with old Riedriech, who knew quite enough about old +furniture to win his interest and affection. +</p> +<p> +Miss Hopkins, then, had Alicia and me to herself. Sedately we +discussed rummage-sales, and the effect of cotton shirts upon the +adolescent cannibal; and all the while Miss Hopkins was stealthily +watching doors and windows and hoping that high heaven would send +The Author to her hands. We hadn't so much as mentioned his name. It +pleased us to sit there and watch her trying to make us do so. +</p> +<p> +The iron knocker on the front door sounded. And ushered in by +Queenasheeba, there stood Nicholas Jelnik with great gray Boris +beside him, and beauty and glamour and romance upon him like a +light. Miss Hopkins had seen him on the streets, but hadn't met him +personally. I don't think she relished the fact that she had to come +to Hynds House to do so. Nor could she save herself from the crudity +of staring with all her eyes at this handsome offshoot of the +Hyndses, with what in a less polite person might well have been +called avid curiosity. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Leetchy," (he had gaily borrowed Fernolia's pronunciation of +Alicia's name), "I have brought you the butter-scotch your soul +hankers after. I fear you can never hope to grow up, Miss Leetchy, +while you cherish a jejune passion for butter-scotch." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I don't know. It might have been fudge!" Alicia replied airily. +"But thank you, Mr. Jelnik: it was very nice of you to remember." +</p> +<p> +"Yes. I have such an excellent memory," said he, blandly. "Miss +Smith, this preserved ginger is laid at your shrine. If you offer me +a piece or two, I shall accept with thanks: I like preserved ginger, +myself.—Boris, you'll prefer butter-scotch. You may ask Miss Gaines +to give you a piece." +</p> +<p> +Miss Hopkins, it appeared, despised butter-scotch, and abhorred +preserved ginger. +</p> +<p> +"I saw The Author hiking across lots a while since. Nice, +open-hearted, neighborly man, The Author.—Oh, by the way, Miss +Smith: is it, or is it not written in the Book of Darwin that the +gadfly is one of the distinct evolutionary links in the descent of +man?" +</p> +<p> +"Good heavens, certainly not!" cried Miss Hopkins. And she looked +strangely upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +"No? Thank you. I was in doubt," murmured Mr. Jelnik. The golden +flecks danced in and out of his eyes. "But we were speaking of The +Author: may I ask how The Author appeals to you as a human being, +Miss Hopkins?" +</p> +<p> +"I do not know him as a human being," Miss Hopkins admitted. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik looked surprised. His eyebrows went up. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, come, now!" he demurred. "He isn't so bad as all <i>that</i>!" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, dear me, no!" Alicia protested, in a shocked voice. "He may +have abrupt manners and say unexpected things, but he is perfectly +respectable, Miss Hopkins! There's never been a <i>breath</i> against his +character. I thought you knew," purred the hussy, demurely. "Why, +he's dined at the White House, and lunched and motored and yachted +with royalties, and lectured before the D.A.R.'s themselves! And he +belongs to at least a dozen societies. There are,"—Alicia was +enjoying her naughty self immensely—"good authors and bad authors. +Sometimes the bad authors are good, and sometimes the good authors +are bad. But our author is more than either: he's It!" +</p> +<p> +"You entirely and strangely misunderstand me." Miss Hopkins spoke +with the deadly gentleness of suppressed fury. "I had no slightest +intention of reflecting upon the character of so eminent a writer, +with whose career, Miss Gaines, I am thoroughly familiar. I was +merely trying to explain that I had never met him." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I see. Of course! I should have remembered that!" +</p> +<p> +Miss Hopkins's entire contempt for Alicia's mentality overcame any +suspicion she might have entertained. Also, she had come determined +to discover what she could about The Author, and she was not one +lightly to be put aside. She said, smiling tolerantly: +</p> +<p> +"Of course you should! But mayn't I congratulate <i>you</i> upon knowing +him? Having him here in Hynds House almost justifies turning the old +place into a boarding-house, doesn't it?" +</p> +<p> +"The Author," Mr. Jelnik remarked gently, "has a very sensitive +soul. I shudder to think what the effect upon him would be were he +to hear himself referred to as a boarder. My dear Miss Hopkins, +never, never let him hear you designate him 'boarder'!" +</p> +<p> +"Who's talking about boarders?" asked a hearty voice, and Doctor +Richard Geddes came in like a gale of mountain air. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Hopkins. She thinks The Author's presence almost justifies the +turning of Hynds House into a boarding-house," answered Mr. Jelnik. +He added, thoughtfully, "Curious notion; isn't it?" +</p> +<p> +"Martha has plenty more," said the doctor, bluntly. "Boarding-house? +Well, supposing? What was it before? A hyena-cage, Martha, a +hyena-cage, into which you'd be the last to venture your nose, my +dear woman! I say, put on your bonnets, all of you, and let's have a +spin in the fresh air. The roads are gorgeous. You can come too, +Jelnik: there's room for five." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik was desolated: he had a pressing engagement. Miss Hopkins +rose precipitately. She also had an engagement; besides, she liked +to walk. People needed to walk more than they did. The reason why +one saw so many bad figures nowadays, was that people lolled around +in automobiles instead of walking. +</p> +<p> +"Well, walking is certainly good for you, Martha. It helps you to +reduce," the doctor agreed. Miss Hopkins said dryly that the little +walking she intended to do just then wouldn't affect her weight any. +And that Doctor Geddes should himself take to walking: men always +got fat as they neared fifty. +</p> +<p> +"Fat! Fifty!" roared the doctor, with enraged astonishment. "Why, +I'm not by some years as old as you are, Martha! You were several +classes ahead of me in school, don't you remember? I am exactly +thirty-nine years old, and as you know everything else, you ought to +know that!" +</p> +<p> +Miss Hopkins studied him with a balefully level eye. +</p> +<p> +"You really can't blame anybody for forgetting it, Richard," she +said, ambiguously. +</p> +<p> +"You are to recollect, Geddes, that a woman is always as young as +she looks," (Mr. Jelnik bowed, smilingly, to Miss Hopkins), "and a +man is older than he feels," he added, for the doctor's benefit. +</p> +<p> +"All right. Let's say I feel as good as Martha looks," the doctor's +momentary ill humor vanished. Miss Hopkins smiled. She had stuck her +claws into him and drawn blood; but her fur was still ruffled. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik made his adieus, Boris offering each of us a polite paw. +</p> +<p> +"And now," the doctor ordered briskly, "to your spinning, jades, to +your spinning! Into my car, the three of you! No, Martha, I will +<i>not</i> take a refusal; you shall not walk: you've got to come along, +if I have to tuck you under my arm. I don't care if you never +reduce. What do you want to reduce for, anyhow? You're all right +just as you are! There! are you satisfied?" +</p> +<p> +We stood by passively while the masterful doctor heckled and hustled +the unhappy Center of Culture into his car. With heaven knows what +feelings, she found herself seated beside me, Sophy Smith, while +Alicia, beside the doctor, tossed gay remarks over her shoulder. +Miss Hopkins realized that all Hyndsville would witness what she +herself knew to be high-handed capture by force, but which must +hideously resemble capitulation; and she also realized that +explanations never explain. +</p> +<p> +I respected her misery enough to keep silent, and she made no +attempt to converse. Her hat slid forward at a rakish angle over one +ear, and her hair blew about her face in stringy wisps, as the +doctor broke the speed laws on the long, level stretches of quiet +roads. When we came to a rough spot she bounced up and down (one +might hear her breath exhaled in a—well, yes, in a grunt) but she +made no complaint, uttered no protest. She was a shackled and +voiceless victim, until we finally drew up at her own gate, after an +hour's jaunt, and allowed her to escape. +</p> +<p> +"Why, Martha, our little spin has given you a fine color!" remarked +the doctor, genuinely pleased. Two conspicuously red spots shone in +Miss Hopkins's cheeks, and her eyes were extremely bright. "We'll +have to take you out with us again," he added, genially. +</p> +<p> +"Shall you, Richard?" muttered Miss Hopkins, and scuttled up her +front path, +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + Like one who in a lonesome wood <br /> + Doth walk in fear and dread, <br /> + Because he knows a frightful fiend <br /> + Doth close behind him tread! +</p> +<p> +By and large, I should say that the honors were with Alicia. +</p> +<p> +The Author's secretary was pacing up and down the garden when we +reached home, with Potty Black careering after him and every now and +then dashing into the shrubbery to put to flight Beautiful Dog, who +was also enamored of the young man with the nice smile and the good +brown eyes. He had a great affection for animals, as they seemed to +understand. +</p> +<p> +Beautiful Dog laid aside, for his sake, his fear of white people, +and slunk after him fawningly, wagging what did duty as a tail, and +showing every tooth in an ear-to-ear grin. At sight of us, Beautiful +Dog gave a dismal yelp and disappeared. +</p> +<p> +"Let's sit in the library," coaxed the secretary. "I want you +please to allow me to hold in my hands your copy of 'Purchas his +Pilgrimes.' The Author dreams about that book out loud. Oh, yes, +another thing I want to ask you: what sort of perfume do you use, +and where do you get it?" +</p> +<p> +My scalp prickled. +</p> +<p> +"I noticed it in the upper hall last night," went on the secretary, +innocently. "It was pervasive, but at the same time so delicate, so +elusive, that I couldn't determine what it was. I am very sensitive +to perfumes." +</p> +<p> +"So are we," Alicia told him. "And if what you think you smelled is +what we think we smell, it isn't a—a regular perfume. It's a—a—a +something that belongs to Hynds House." +</p> +<p> +The library was flooded with the ruddy light of sunset. Every bit of +color in the big room stood out against a golden background, and a +great golden spear fell across the dark, brooding face of Freeman +Hynds above the old tiled fireplace. In that rosy glow he seemed to +look down at us with living eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Is that so?" The secretary stopped; and his head went up and his +nose wrinkled. For the "something that belonged to Hynds House" +walked upon the air with invisible feet. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0008"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER VIII +</h2> +<h3> + PEACOCKS AND IVORY +</h3> +<p> +"Sophy, do you remember the night we talked it over, and decided to +come here, and you were afraid of the new soil's effect upon +yourself?" +</p> +<p> +"Of course. Why?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, because." +</p> +<p> +"Because why?" +</p> +<p> +"Just because.—I wish to gracious you had a little saving vanity, +Sophy Smith!" +</p> +<p> +"And what, then, is <i>this</i>?" I asked ironically, and rustled my +skirts. For the Westmacotes were to arrive that night, in time for +dinner, and I, standing before the mirror in my room, was what +Alicia called "really dressed" for the first time in my life. +</p> +<p> +"From your point of view, this is a business necessity. From mine, +it is applied morality. Why, Sophy, you're <i>stunning</i>! Here, sit +down: I have to loosen up that hair a bit." +</p> +<p> +"Now!" said she, when she had critically surveyed her finished work +and found it good, "Now, Sophy Smith, you are no longer efficient +and utilitarian; you are effective and decorative, thank heaven!" +</p> +<p> +Really, clothes do make a tremendous difference, after all. Why, +I—Well, I no longer looked root-bound. +</p> +<p> +"I said you'd put out new leaves and begin to bloom!" Alicia +exulted. We bowed to the Sophy in the glass, a small and slender +person with quantities of fair hair, a round white chin, and steady +blue eyes. For the rest, she had a short nose and the rather wide +mouth of a boy. She wasn't what you'd call a beautiful person, but +she wasn't displeasing to the eye. +</p> +<p> +"<i>Vale</i>, plain Sophy Smith!" cried Alicia, "<i>Ave</i>, dear Lady of +Hynds House! We who about to live salute you!" +</p> +<p> +The Westmacotes were delighted with Alicia. The Head had noticed her +just about as much as a Head notices a pale file-clerk in a white +shirt-waist and a black skirt. This radiant rose-maiden—"little +Dawn-rose," old Riedriech called her—was new to him; and so, I +fancy, was a Miss Smith in such a frock as I was wearing. He, as +well as his wife and Miss Phelps-Parsons, accepted us at our +face-value, with the background of Hynds House outlining us. +</p> +<p> +Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons was a lady with a soul. She said she +had psychic consciousness and a clear green aura, and that she had +been an Egyptian priestess in Thebes, in the time of Sesostris. In +proof of this she showed us a fine little bronze Osiris holding a +whip in one hand and the ankh in the other. ("My dear, the moment I +saw him, I knew I had once prayed to him!") and she always wore a +scarab ring. She had bought both in an antique-shop just off +Washington Street. I thought this rather a far cry from Thebes, +myself, but The Author insisted that if a Theban vestal of the time +of Sesostris <i>had</i> to reincarnate, she would naturally and +inevitably come to life a Boston one. +</p> +<p> +The Author hadn't taken any too kindly to the notion of other people +coming to Hynds House. He grumbled that he had hoped he had at last +found a quiet haven, a place that fitted him like a glove; he +protested piercingly against having it "cluttered up with +uninteresting, gobbling, gabbling, ordinary people." +</p> +<p> +"You came too late. You should have been here with Great-Aunt +Sophronisba," Alicia told him, tartly. "You'd have been ideal +companions, both of you beware-of-the-doggy, hair-trigger-tempery, +all-to-your-selfish." +</p> +<p> +The Author gasped, and rubbed his eyes. Never, never, in all his +pampered life, had one so spoken to him. +</p> +<p> +"Why, of all the cheek!" exploded The Author. "Am I to be flouted +thus by a piece of pink-and-whiteness just escaped from the nursery +pap-spoon?" +</p> +<p> +"Out of the mouths of babes—" insinuated Alicia. +</p> +<p> +The Author grinned. And his grin is redeeming. +</p> +<p> +"Sweet-and near-twenty," he explained. "I am not exactly +all-to-myselfish, but I demand plenty of elbow-room in my existence. +Generally speaking, my own society bores me less than the society of +the mutable many. I like Hynds House. And I like you two women. You +are not tiresome to the ear, wearisome to the mind, nor displeasing +to the eye. I am even sensible of a distinct feeling of satisfaction +in knowing that you are somewhere around the house. You belong. But +I'm hanged if I want to see strangers come in. I object to +strangers. Why are strangers necessary?" +</p> +<p> +"For the same reason that you were." +</p> +<p> +"I?" The Author's eyebrows were almost lost in his hair. "My dear, +deluded child, I knew this house, and you, and Sophy Smith, before +you were born! I knew you," The Author declared unblushingly, +"before <i>I</i> was born! Now, am I a stranger?" +</p> +<p> +"Then you ought to know why Sophy and I have just got to have +people, the sort of people who are coming." She paused. "<i>We</i> +haven't best-seller royalties piled up to the roof!" +</p> +<p> +"No," said The Author, bitterly, "but I have. That's why I am +forever plagued with strangers. That's why, when I discover a place +and people that suit me to perfection, I can't keep 'em to myself! +Oh, da—drat it all, anyhow!" +</p> +<p> +"But they aren't coming to see you. They're coming to see Hynds +House," Alicia reminded him soothingly. "Besides, I don't think +they're the sort of folks that care much for authors," she finished, +encouragingly. +</p> +<p> +"They'll care about <i>me</i>" grumbled The Author glumly. "But let 'em +come and be hanged to them! I shall take—" +</p> +<p> +"Soothing syrup?" +</p> +<p> +"Long walks!" snarled The Author. "I shall work all night and be +invisible all day." +</p> +<p> +The Westmacotes, as Alicia said, didn't greatly care for authors, +though they sat up and took polite notice of this one. (One owed +that to one's self-respect.) Only Miss Emmeline paid more than +passing attention to him, though her interest really centered in Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik, who was dining with us that night, as was Doctor +Richard Geddes. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik's presence had the effect of lightening The Author's +gloom. His eyes brightened, his dejection changed into alertness, +and there began that subtle game of under-the-surface thrust and +parry that seemed inevitable when the two met. Mr. Westmacote +listened with quiet enjoyment. His dinner was to his taste, Hynds +House more than came up to his expectations, Alicia was Cinderella +after the fairy's wand had passed over her, <i>I</i> had ceased to be a +mere person and become a personage; and he found here such men as +Doctor Geddes, The Author, and Nicholas Jelnik. The Head smiled at +his wife, and was at peace with the world. +</p> +<p> +Miss Emmeline had already discovered the Lowestoft and Spode pieces +in our built-in cupboards; that there were two perfect apostle jugs +in the cabinet in the hall: that our Chelsea figures were lovelier +than any she had heretofore seen; and that Hynds House, in which +everything was genuine, had an atmosphere that appealed to her soul, +or maybe matched her clear-green aura. Anyhow, the house reached out +for Miss Emmeline as with hands and laid its spell upon her +enduringly. +</p> +<p> +She sat beside me, with Alicia's pet album of Confederate generals +on her knees. +</p> +<p> +"I never thought I'd have a sentimental regard for rebels," she +confessed. "But, oh, they were gallant and romantic figures, when +one looks at their old photographs here in Hynds House. I am +Massachusetts to the bone, but I don't want to hear 'Marching +through Georgia' while I'm here!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik, overhearing her, laughed. "Perhaps I may find for you +something more in keeping with Hynds House," he said, and sauntered +over to the old piano. Unexpectedly it came to life. And he began to +sing: +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + It was the silent, solemn hour <br /> + When night and morning meet, <br /> + In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, <br /> + And stood at William's feet. <br /> + Her face was like an April morn <br /> + Clad in a wintry cloud: <br /> + And clay-cold was her lily hand, <br /> + That held her sable shroud. +</p> +<p> +The Author shaded his eyes with his hand, his gaze riveted upon the +singer. Alicia leaned forward, lips parted, face like an uplifted +flower, eyes large with wonder and delight. The Confederate generals +slid from Miss Emmeline's lap and lay face downward, forgotten. +Westmacote's faded little wife, who had no children, crept closer to +her big husband; and gently, unobtrusively, he reached out and took +her hand in his warm grasp. +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + Why did you promise love to me <br /> + And not that promise keep? <br /> + Why did you swear mine eyes were bright, <br /> + Yet leave those eyes to weep? <br /> + Why did you say my face was fair, <br /> + And yet that face forsake? <br /> + How could you win my virgin heart, <br /> + Yet leave that heart to break? +</p> +<p> +I am sure there is no lovelier and more touching ballad in all our +English treasury than that sad, simple, and most beautiful old song. +And he had set it to an air as simple and as perfect as its own +words, an old-world air that suited it and his rich and flexible +voice. +</p> +<p> +"Why, Jelnik!" exclaimed Doctor Geddes, in a voice of pure +astonishment, "I knew you could tinkle out a tune on a piano, but, +man, I didn't dream it was in you to sing like this!" And he stared +at his cousin. +</p> +<p> +"I'd make bold to swear that Mr. Jelnik has a dozen more surprises +up his sleeve, if he chose to let us see them," The Author said +pleasantly. +</p> +<p> +"My father's system of education included music. For which I praise +him in the gates," Mr. Jelnik replied casually. +</p> +<p> +"'Tinkle out a tune on a piano'!" breathed Alicia, and cast a look +of deep disdain upon the blundering doctor. "Why, I've never in all +my life heard anybody sing like that!" +</p> +<p> +But I saw him through a mist, and felt my heart ache and burn in my +breast, and wondered what he was doing here in my house that might +have been his house, and how I was going to walk through my life +after he had gone out of it. +</p> +<p> +I had a wild desire to run outside into the dark night and the +hushed garden, away from everybody and weep and weep, despairingly. +Because a veil had been torn from my eyes this night, and I knew +that the cruellest thing that can happen to a woman had happened to +me. There could be but one thing more bitter—that he or anybody +else in the world should know it. +</p> +<p> +So I sat there, dumb, while everybody else said pleasant things to +him, their voices sounding afar, far off. +</p> +<p> +After a while we went into the living-room where our new piano is, +and he played for us—Hungarian things, I think. Then he drifted +into Chopin, and Alicia stood by and turned his music for him. +</p> +<p> +"Those two," whispered Miss Emmeline, "are the most idyllic figures +I have ever seen." I think she sighed as she said it. "Youth is the +most beautiful thing in the world," she added. +</p> +<p> +The Westmacotes, weary after a long journey, retired early. Mr. +Jelnik and Doctor Geddes had gone off together. The secretary had to +finish a chapter. The Author lingered to ask, oddly enough, if I had +the original plan of Hynds House. Did I know who designed it? +</p> +<p> +"Why don't you interview Judge Gatchell?" +</p> +<p> +"I did. He was polite and friendly enough, but knows no more than +is strictly legal. He told me he found Hynds House here when he +arrived and expected to leave it here when he departed. And Geddes +knows no more. Geddes isn't interested in Hynds House by itself," +finished The Author, with a crooked smile. +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps Mr. Jelnik may have some family papers." +</p> +<p> +"Perhaps he may. I'd give something for a whack at those papers, +Miss Smith." +</p> +<p> +"Why not ask him to let you see them, then?" +</p> +<p> +"Tut, tut!" said The Author, crossly, and took himself off. +</p> +<p> +When I was kimonoed, braided, and slippered, Alicia in like raiment +came in from her room next to mine, sat down on the floor, and +leaned her head against my knees, with her cheek against my hand. +</p> +<p> +For a while, as women do, we discussed the events of the evening. +Both of us had deep cause for gratification; yet both of us were +strangely subdued. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy, Peacocks and Ivory is a very wonderful person, isn't he?" +hesitated Alicia, after a long pause. She didn't lift her head; and +the cheek against my hand was warmer than usual. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," I agreed, quietly, "so wonderful that something never to be +replaced will have gone out of our lives when he goes away, and +doesn't come back any more. For that is what the Nicholas Jelniks +do, my dear." +</p> +<p> +"Is it?" Again she spoke after a pause. "I wonder! Somehow, +I—Sophy, he belongs here. He's—why, Sophy, he's a part of the +glamour." +</p> +<p> +"I'm afraid glamour hasn't part nor place in plain folks' lives." +</p> +<p> +"But we aren't plain folks any more, either, Sophy," she insisted. +"Why—why—<i>we're</i> part of the glamour, too!" +</p> +<p> +"That is just about half true." +</p> +<p> +Alicia ignored this. She asked, instead: +</p> +<p> +"Did you hear what that great blundering doctor said about tinkling +out a tune on a piano?" +</p> +<p> +I could hear Mr. Jelnik praised by her or doubted by The Author. But +somehow I could not bear any criticism of Doctor Geddes just then. I +said stiffly: +</p> +<p> +"I have learned to appreciate Doctor Geddes." +</p> +<p> +"You are far too fair-minded not to." Presently: "Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"Uh-huh." +</p> +<p> +"We aren't ever going to be sorry we came here—together—are we, +Sophy? And we won't ever let anybody come between us. Not anybody. +Not The Author—nor his secretary—nor whatever guests come—nor Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik—nor—nor Doctor Richard Geddes." Her head pressed +closer to my knees. +</p> +<p> +"We came first, you and I," said Alicia, in a muffled whisper. "We +are more to each other than any of them can be to us. You'll +remember that, won't you?" +</p> +<p> +"I will remember, you absurd Alicia!" But I did not ask my dear girl +what her incoherent words might mean. I did not ask why the soft +cheek against my hand was wet. +</p> +<p> +As I have said before, Hynds House is but two stories high, with +deep cellars under it, and an immense attic overhead; an attic all +cut up into nooks and corners, and twists and turns, and sloping +roofs and dormer windows, and two or three shallow steps going up +here, and two or three more going down there, and passages and doors +where you'd never look for them. We had never been able fully to +explore our attic. It was Ali Baba's cave to us, with half its +treasures unguessed and every trunk and box whispering, "Say 'Open, +Sesame,' to me, and see what you'll find!" +</p> +<p> +While I was sitting with Alicia's head against my knee, a light, +swift footstep sounded overhead in the attic, followed by a sort of +stumble, as if somebody had slipped on one of those unexpected +steps. Alicia rose quickly. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," she breathed, "I have thought, once or twice, that I heard +somebody walking in the attic." +</p> +<p> +"We will soon find out who it is, then," said I. Noiselessly we +stole out into the hall, past the sleeping Westmacotes, and Miss +Emmeline Phelps-Parsons who so longed to come in closer contact with +the occult and unknown. We moved like ghosts, ourselves, our +felt-soled mules making no sound. +</p> +<p> +The Author opened his door just as we approached it, and held up an +imperious finger. +</p> +<p> +"Did you hear it, too?" he whispered. And walking ahead of us, he +stole up the cork-screw stairway at the end of the side hall, lifted +the latch of the attic door, and stepped inside. +</p> +<p> +It was frightfully dark up there. If you peered through the +uncurtained windows you could see tree-tops tossing like black waves +against the dark sky, and in between them rolling clouds, and little +bright patchwork spaces of stars. And it was so quiet you could hear +your heart beat, and your breathing seemed to rattle in your ears. +We strained our eyes, seeking to pierce the gloom, stealing forward +step by step. A board creaked, noisily; and then—I could have sworn +it—then something seemed to move across one of the dormer windows. +It was so vague, so shadowy, that one could not distinguish its +outline; one could only think that something moved. +</p> +<p> +The Author gave an exclamation and switched on his electric torch, +trying to focus the circle of light upon that particular window. +There was nothing there. Only, it seemed to me that something, +incredibly swift and silent, flashed down one of the bewildering +turns to which our attic is addicted. But when we ran forward, the +passage was empty. We brought up at the red brick square of one of +the chimney stacks. +</p> +<p> +Almost savagely The Author flashed his light over every inch of wall +and floor. Nothing. But on the close and musty air stole, not a +sound, but a scent. +</p> +<p> +The Author swung around and trotted back. The window across which we +thought we had seen something move was fastened from the inside, and +there were one or two wooden boxes and a leather-covered trunk in +the dormer recess. He sniffed hound-like around these, and with an +exclamation leaned over. Behind the trunk crouched—Potty Black, +with a mouse clamped in her jaws. +</p> +<p> +"For heaven's sake!" cried Alicia. "The cat! Sophy, what we heard +was the cat!" +</p> +<p> +"Let us go," said The Author. And feeling rather silly, we trailed +after him. +</p> +<p> +"You see," said I, "there is nothing. There never is anything." +</p> +<p> +"Come in my room for a minute," The Author whispered, and there was +that in his voice which made us obey. +</p> +<p> +Inside his door, he opened his hand. In his palm was a soiled and +crumpled scrap of tough, parchment-like paper about the size of an +ordinary playing-card, so frayed and creased that one had difficulty +in deciphering the writing on it. There clung to it a faint and +unforgetable scent. +</p> +<p> +"It was behind the trunk, partly under the cat's black paw. I +smelled it when I leaned over, and I thought we might as well have a +look at it." said The Author. +</p> +<p> +And on the following page is what The Author had found. +</p> +<p> +'"Shades of E.A. Poe, and Robert Louis the Beloved! What have we +here?" cried The Author, joyously, and stood on one leg like a +stork. "Was there a Hynds woman named Helen? 'Turn Hellen's Key +three tens and three?' Some keyhole! I say, Miss Smith, let me keep +this for a while, will you?" +</p> +<p> +"Do, Sophy, let him keep it!" pleaded Alicia. +</p> +<a name="image-0003"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<img src="images/key.gif" width="246" height="350" +alt="Key: Turne Hellens Keye Three Tennes & Three..." /> +</center> + +<p> +"I'll take the best care of it, Miss Smith; indeed I will!" The +Author promised. "Look here: I'll lock it in the clothes-closet, in +the breast pocket of my coat." As he spoke, he opened the +cedar-lined closet, that was almost as big as a modern hall bedroom, +and put the paper in the breast pocket of his coat. Locking the +door, he placed the key under his pillow, and beside it a new and +businesslike Colt automatic. +</p> +<p> +"There!" said The Author, confidently. "Nobody can get into that +closet without first tackling <i>me</i>. Now you girls go to bed. +To-morrow we'll tackle the unraveling." +</p> +<p> +And we, remembering of a sudden that we were pig-tailed and +kimonoed, and that The Author himself resembled a step-ladder with a +shawl draped around it, departed hurriedly. +</p> +<p> +He was late at the breakfast-table next morning. Gloom and +abstraction sat visibly upon him. He left his secretary to bear the +brunt of conversation with the Westmacotes and Miss Emmeline. For +once he failed to do justice to Mary Magdalen's hot biscuit, and +ignored Fernolia's astonished and concerned stare; even a whispered, +"Honey, is you-all got a misery anywheres?" failed to rouse him. I +found him, after a while, waiting for me in the library. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Smith,"—The Author strode restlessly up and down—"this house +has a peculiar effect upon people; a very peculiar effect. Since I +came here, I have learned to walk in my sleep." And seeing my look +of astonishment, "I walked in my sleep last night. And I took that +bit of doggerel out of my coat pocket, locked the closet door, and +replaced the key under my pillow." +</p> +<p> +"How strange! And where did you put it?" I wondered. +</p> +<p> +"Exactly: where did I put it?" repeated The Author, rumpling his +hair with both hands. "That's what I want to know, myself. I've +looked everywhere in my room, and in Johnson's, and I can't find +the thing. It's gone," and he stalked out, with his shoulders +hunched to his ears. +</p> +<p> +I sat still, staring out at the window. There was a thing I hadn't +told The Author, or even Alicia. I had no idea what the "bit of +doggerel" meant, if, indeed, it meant anything. But when I had held +Freeman Hynds's old diary in my hands, between the two pages +following the last entry had been a creased and soiled piece of +paper. I had seen it out of the tail of my eye, as the saying is. It +was only a glimpse, but one trained to handle many papers, as I had +been, has a quick and an accurate eye. And I knew that the paper +found by The Author in the attic, and now lost again, was the paper +I had seen in Freeman Hynds's diary. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0009"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER IX +</h2> +<h3> + THE JUDGMENT OF SPRING +</h3> +<p> +Judge Gatchell's nephews and nieces, brought by that punctilious +gentleman to call upon Miss Alicia Gaines, found her enchanting and +cried it to the circumambient air. It was as if the voice of April +had summoned the cohorts of Spring. For fresh-faced boys of a sudden +appeared in increasing numbers; and flower-faced girls came +fluttering into Hynds House like butterflies. They cared for its +history and its hatreds not a fig: what has April to do with last +November? The faith of Youth has a clearer-eyed wisdom, a sweeter, +sounder justice than the sourer verdict of the mature. For theirs is +the judgment of Spring. By this sign they conquer. +</p> +<p> +Susy Gatchell enlisted Mary Meade and Helen Fenwick, and these three +held all younger Hyndsville in the hollow of their pink palms. After +which, as Doctor Richard Geddes told me wrathfully, you "couldn't +put your foot down without running the risk of stepping on some +little cockerel trying to crow around Hynds House." +</p> +<p> +The tide was turning in our direction. Also, we were in daily +contact with really worth-while people, people that otherwise we +should have met only in books, magazines, and newspapers. And they +liked us. The amazing miracle was that we, also we, were their sort +of folk! +</p> +<p> +I knew I was being given unbuyable things. One could not live under +the same roof with thin dark Luis Morenas and view what magic his +pencil worked, without learning somewhat of the holiness of creative +work. One couldn't listen to The Author without being somewhat +brightened by his daring wit, his glowing genius; nor live face to +face with big Westmacote without revering the broadness of the +American master spirit, to which Big Business is only a part of the +Great Game. As for Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, it didn't take +Alicia and me long to discover what real depths underlay that +Boston-spinster mind of hers. +</p> +<p> +And you simply couldn't breathe the same air with The +Suffragist—who appeared with two trunks, three valises, and a +type-writer, all covered with "Votes for Women!" stickers—without +an expansion of the chest. She gave you the impression of having +been dressed by machinery out of gear, and of then having been +whacked flat with a shovel. When she clapped on what she called a +hat, you wondered whether a heron hadn't built its nest on her +head. But when she began to speak, you listened with the ears of +your immortal soul stretched wide. Women worshiped her, though Mr. +Jelnik's eyes danced, and Westmacote's military mustache bristled a +bit, and she all but drove Doctor Richard Geddes, who had notions of +his own, out of his senses. +</p> +<p> +"Stop trying to argue with me, my dear man," she'd say in her rich +voice, "but come and let us reason together. I haven't heard one +word of reason from you yet!" And she'd let loose one of her +rollicking laughs that set the doctor's teeth on edge and made The +Author shudder. The Author snarled to me that she laughed like a +rolling-mill and reasoned like a head-on collision. He put her in +his new book, clothes and all. Just as Luis Morenas, with an edged +smile on his thin lips, made rapid-fire sketches of her. <i>He</i> called +her "The Future-Maker." +</p> +<p> +Now, shouldn't Alicia and I have been happy? And yet we weren't. +Alicia's laugh wasn't so frequent. I would catch her watching me, +with an odd, troubled, anxious speculation in her eyes. She had a +habit of blushing suddenly, and as quickly paling. And quietly, but +none the less surely and definitely, she had begun to avoid Doctor +Richard Geddes. It wasn't that she ceased to be friendly; but she +placed between herself and him one of those women-built, +impalpable, impassable barriers which baffled, puzzled men are +unable to tear down. It was impossible, I thought, that she should +remain blind to his open passion for herself: he was anything but +subtle, was Richard of the Lionheart. A blind man could have told, +from the mere sound of his voice, a deaf man from the mere +expression of his eyes, that Alicia had the big doctor's whole +heart. +</p> +<p> +On his side, he was in deep waters. His ruddy color faded; his face +took on a fixed, grim intensity. And when he watched the girl +flirting now with this boy, now with that, after the innocent +fashion of natural girls, but always reserving a friendlier smile, a +more eager greeting, for Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, I was so sorry for +Doctor Richard that I couldn't help trying, covertly, to console +him. +</p> +<p> +It so happened that Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, daughter of the +Puritans though she was, nevertheless had a distinct liking for what +she termed Episcopacy. She was pleased with old St. Polycarp's. She +liked Mrs. Haile, to whom she happened to mention that her +opportunities for studying the life of native women and children in +the East had been rather unusually good, since she had visited many +missionary stations in China and India. Things were languishing just +then, and Mrs. Haile looked at Miss Emmeline almost imploringly: +would she, could she, give the ladies a little lecture?—tell us +things first-hand, so to speak? +</p> +<p> +Miss Emmeline reflected. She looked at Alicia and me. +</p> +<p> +"Could we have it in your delightful library?" she wondered. "That +beautiful old room has a soul which speaks to mine. Dear Miss Smith, +would it be too much to ask you to let me have my little talk, a +very informal little lecture, in wonderful old Hynds House?" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Haile turned a sort of greenish pink. It wasn't for her to +suggest, after that, that it might be better to have the lecture in +the parsonage; any more than for me to hint, without ungraciousness, +that it might be just as well not to have it in Hynds House. Alicia +shot me one quizzical, Irish-blue glance when I said, "Yes." +</p> +<p> +And that's how, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, all Hyndsville came +to Hynds House to hear Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons tell them "How +to Reach the Women of the East." Somehow, I rather think they were +as curious about two Yankee women as they were about those Eastern +women of whom Miss Emmeline was talking. I'm sure Hynds House was +just as interesting to them as Mohammedan harems and Indian zenanas. +</p> +<p> +Miss Emmeline really spoke well, and her audience was interested in +her, in her theme, and in Hynds House. The Suffragist picked up the +thread where the less gifted woman dropped it, and in simple, living +phrases drove home the great truth of the sisterhood of all women. +</p> +<p> +Which, of course, called for tea, and some of Mary Magdalen's +cookies. It was the cookies that caught The Author. Coming in from a +long and hungry prowl, he spied Fernolia crossing the hall with a +huge platter, got one tantalizing, mouth-watering odor, and dashed +after her, bent upon robbery. A second later he found himself in a +room full of women. Hyndsville was meeting The Author! +</p> +<p> +Alicia introduced him, pleasantly. And, "Talk about angels—" said +she, gaily, "We have just this minute stopped talking about the +heathen! And may I give you a cup of tea?" +</p> +<p> +"And a dozen or so cookies, please. Thank heaven for the heathen! +What is home without the heathen?—Without sugar, Miss Gaines, +without sugar! And for charity's sake, no lemon!" +</p> +<p> +He sipped his tea and munched his cookies, with his head on one side +and the air of a thievish jackdaw; and proceeded, after his wont, to +extract such pith as the situation offered. +</p> +<p> +"Doctor Johnson," Miss Martha Hopkins remembered, as she watched him +drinking his fourth cup of tea, "Doctor Johnson was also addicted +to tea-drinking. Most great literary men are, I believe." +</p> +<p> +"It isn't possible you consider old Johnson a great literary man!" +The Author's eyebrows climbed into his hair. +</p> +<p> +"Why! wasn't he?" Her eyes widened. She had as much respect for Dr. +Johnson as Miss Deborah Jenkyns had, though of course she never read +him. Life is too short. +</p> +<p> +"Why! was he?" asked The Author. "Outside of Boswell—and <i>he</i> was a +fool—I've never known anybody who thought he amounted to much." +</p> +<p> +The Suffragist looked up. "Nelson had his Southey, Boswell had his +Johnson, and Mr. Modern Best-seller may well profit by their +example." And she smiled grimly. +</p> +<p> +The Author's lip lifted. "Oh, but you couldn't do it!" he purred. +"And if I offered you the job you'd excuse your incapacity on the +ground that there wasn't anything to write about. I know you!" He +took another cooky. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, I dare say I'd blurt out the truth. Women are like that," +admitted The Suffragist. +</p> +<p> +"The female of the species is more deadly than the male," conceded +The Author. "Nevertheless," he raised his tea-cup gallantly, "To the +ladies!" He got up, leisurely. "And now I go," said he, "to paint +the lily and adorn the rose. In short, to set forth in adequate and +remunerative language the wit, wisdom, virtue, beauty, and +ornateness of woman as she thinks men think she is. Nature," +reflected The Author, smiling at The Suffragist, "made me a writer. +The devil, the editors, and the women have made me a best-seller." +And he departed, a cooky in each hand. +</p> +<p> +That night one of the Gatchell boys took Alicia to a dance. She was +in blue and white, like an angel, and the Gatchell boy trod on air. +But to me came Doctor Richard Geddes, and threw himself into a +wing-chair. +</p> +<p> +"Sophronisba Two," he asked, we being alone in the library, "what +have I done to offend Alicia?" +</p> +<p> +"Is Alicia offended?" +</p> +<p> +"Isn't she?" wondered the doctor. "She won't let me get near enough +to find out," he added gloomily. "And it isn't just. She ought to +know that—well, that I'd rather cut off my right hand than give her +real cause for offense. I'm going to ask you a straight, man +question; is that girl a—a flirt? She is not a—jilt?" +</p> +<p> +"Heaven forbid!" +</p> +<p> +"Does she care for anybody else?" +</p> +<p> +"On my honor, I don't know." +</p> +<p> +"It couldn't be any of these whipper-snappers of boys: she's not +that sort," worried the doctor. "Sophy, is it—Jelnik?" +</p> +<p> +My heart stood still. I could make no reply. +</p> +<p> +"I don't know. My dear friend, I don't know!" +</p> +<p> +"It would be the most natural thing in the world," he reflected. +"Jelnik looks like Prince Charming himself. And, for all his surface +indolence, there's genius in the man. Why shouldn't she be taken +with him?" +</p> +<p> +We looked at each other. +</p> +<p> +"I see," said the doctor, quietly. "Now, little friend, what +concerns you and me is our dear girl's happiness. Does Jelnik care, +do you think?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't know!" I said again. I felt like one on the rack. It seemed +to me I could hear my heart-strings stretching and snapping. "But +what is one girl's affection to a man born to be loved by women?" +</p> +<p> +"He is indifferent to women, for the most part," the doctor said +thoughtfully. "He is so free from vanity, and at the same time so +reserved, that one has difficulty in getting at his real feelings." +</p> +<p> +"She, also, is free from petty vanity," I told him. "She has an +innocent, happy pleasure in her own youth and prettiness, but hers +is the unspoiled heart of a child." +</p> +<p> +"Who should know it better than I, that am a great hulking, +bad-tempered fellow twice her age!" groaned the doctor. "Yet, Sophy, +<i>I</i> could make her happier than Jelnik could. Dear and lovely as she +is, she couldn't make him happy, either—Don't you think I'm a fool, +Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"No," said I, smiling wanly; "I don't." +</p> +<p> +"This business of being in love is a damnable arrangement. Here was +I," he grumbled, "busy, reasonably happy, with a sound mind in a +sound body, and a digestion that was a credit to me. And along comes +a girl, and everything's changed! My work doesn't fill my days, my +food is bitter in my mouth, and I wake up in the night saying to +myself, 'You fool, you're chasing rainbows!' Sophy, don't you ever +fall in love with somebody you know you can't have! It's hell!" +</p> +<p> +I didn't tell him I knew it. +</p> +<p> +One of his men came to tell him he was needed urgently. As it meant +a thirty-mile trip and the night was cold, I made him wait for a cup +of coffee and an omelet." +</p> +<p> +"Miss Smith—" +</p> +<p> +"You said 'Sophy' a while ago. 'Sophy' sounds all right to me." +</p> +<p> +"It sounds fine to me, too, Sophy." And he reached out and seized my +hand with a grip that made me wince. +</p> +<p> +"I told you I was a bear!" he said, regretfully. +</p> +<p> +When Alicia returned, she came, as usual, to my room. +</p> +<p> +"I am tired!" she yawned, and curled herself up on the bed. +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you have a nice time?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I suppose so! Everybody was lovely to me, and I could have +divided my dances. These Southerners are easy to love, aren't they? +I find it very easy for me! And oh, Sophy, there's to be a picnic +day after to-morrow, at the Meade plantation, in my honor, if you +please! We go by automobile.—I never thought I could get tired +dancing, Sophy. But I am. Tired!" +</p> +<p> +"Go to bed and sleep it off." +</p> +<p> +"Did you have time to make out that grocery list? They've been +overcharging us on butter." +</p> +<p> +"Yes: I finished it after Doctor Geddes left" +</p> +<p> +"Oh! He was here, then?" She yawned again. +</p> +<p> +"Yes. But somebody sent for him, and he had to cut his visit short." +</p> +<p> +Alicia frowned. +</p> +<p> +"I wonder he keeps so healthy, running out at all hours of the +night; and heaven knows how he manages about meals! His cook told me +that sometimes he has to rush away in the middle of a meal, and +sometimes he misses one altogether." +</p> +<p> +"I remembered that, so I made him wait for a cup of coffee and an +omelet." +</p> +<p> +She reached over and squeezed my hand. "You're always thinking about +other people's comfort, Sophy." She paused, and looked at me +half-questioningly: +</p> +<p> +"I wish he had somebody to look after him," she said in a low voice, +"somebody like you." She added, as if to herself: "He takes two +lumps of sugar in his coffee, one in his tea, wants dry toast, and +likes his omelet <i>buttered</i>." +</p> +<p> +And when I stared at her, she slipped nearer, and laid her cheek +against mine. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," in a soft whisper, "you've made up to me for my father and +my mother, and for the sisters and brothers I never had. We're all +sorts and conditions of folks, aren't we, Sophy?—but none like you, +Sophy; not any one of them all like you!" +</p> +<p> +At that moment, through the open window, there stole in on the night +air the faintest whisper of music. It wasn't mournful, it wasn't +joyful, but both together; a singing voice, a crying voice, wild and +sweet, part of the night and the trees and the wind, and part, I +think, of the secretest something in the human heart. We had no idea +where it came from; out of the sky, perhaps! +</p> +<p> +Somebody ran down-stairs, and a moment later the front door opened +softly. The Author had heard, and was afoot. But even as he stepped +outside, Ariel's ghostly music ceased. There was nothing; nobody; +only the night. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0010"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER X +</h2> +<h3> + THE FOREST OF ARDEN +</h3> +<p> +I had seen Alicia whirl away in the Meades' big car. I had seen the +Westmacotes and Miss Emmeline off on what they termed a nature-hunt. +The Author and his secretary were up to the eyes in a new chapter; +The Suffragist was spreading the glad tidings; and Riedriech and +Schmetz had Luis Morenas in hand for the afternoon, visioning the +United States of the World, while he snatched sketches of the +visionaries. +</p> +<p> +The Author, Mr. Johnson, and I, lunched together. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Smith," began The Author abruptly, "did you know this house +was built by British and French master masons? No? Well, it was. +Judge Gatchell's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were +solicitors for this estate, and the judge at last very kindly +allowed me to look through a great batch of papers in his +possession. From these I discovered that one of the Hyndses visited +England in 1727, joined the new lodge lately established there, and +brought one of the brethren, an architect, back to America with +him. Another came from France. These three planned and built this +house, and did it pretty well, too. +</p> +<p> +"This house-builder, Walsingham Hynds, made his house a sort of +lodge for the brethren, just as in later times his grandsons +sheltered the brethren of those societies that fathered the American +Revolution. Gatchell tells me there is a legend of the master of +Hynds House entertaining British officers and at the same time +hiding the forfeited rebels they were hunting. I'd like to know," +The Author added, reflectively, "where he hid them." +</p> +<p> +"An old house like this has dozens of places where one could be +hidden without much danger of detection," remarked Mr. Johnson. +</p> +<p> +"I'm pretty sure of that," agreed The Author, emphatically. +</p> +<p> +"You should be, since you did a neat little bit of hiding on your +own account," Mr. Johnson reminded him. +</p> +<p> +The Author was nettled. He had never found the paper lost out of the +closet in his own room, though he had never given up a tentative +search for it. +</p> +<p> +"Well, it's confoundedly odd I never did such a thing before," he +grumbled. +</p> +<p> +"What is odd is that I myself was waked out of my sleep that night +by the most oppressive sense of misery and hopelessness I have ever +experienced," Mr. Johnson said seriously. "It was so overpowering +that it made me think of Saint Theresa's description of her torment +in that oven in the wall of hell which had by kindly forethought on +the part of the devil been arranged for her permanent tenancy. Of +course, it was just a nightmare," he added, doubtfully; "or perhaps +a fit of indigestion." +</p> +<p> +"Indigestion takes many forms," I remarked, as lightly as I could. +"And you must remember you've been warned that Hynds House is +haunted. Why, the servants insist they've seen ol' Mis' Scarlett's +h'ant!" +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" nodded The Author. "And I smell a mysterious perfume, I walk +in my sleep for the first and only time in my life, and I hide where +it can't be found a paper with an uncouth jingle and some dots on +it, Johnson and I have the same nightmare. And I have heard +footsteps. All hallucinations, of course! I will say this much for +Hynds House: I never had a hallucination until I came here. By the +way, did I merely imagine I heard a violin last night?" +</p> +<p> +"Oh, no: I heard it, too." Mr. Johnson looked at The Author with a +concerned face. "You're getting a bit off your nerves, Chief. +Anybody might play a violin." +</p> +<p> +"Anybody might, but few do play it as I thought I heard it played +last night. Who's the player, Miss Smith?" +</p> +<p> +"I haven't the slightest idea. Alicia thinks it's a spirit that +lives in the crape-myrtle trees." +</p> +<p> +I was beginning to be aweary of The Author's shrewd eyes and +persistent questioning, and I was heartily glad when he had to go +back to his work. +</p> +<p> +That was a gray and windless afternoon, and the house was full of +those bluish shadows that belong to gray days; it was charged, even +more than usual, with mystery: the whole atmosphere tingled with it +as with electricity. I couldn't read. I have never been able to play +upon any musical instrument, much as I love music. I do not sing, +either, except in a small-beer voice; and when I tried to sew I +pricked my fingers with the needle. I went into the kitchen, +consulted with Mary Magdalen as to the evening's dinner, weighed and +measured such ingredients as she needed, saw that the two maids were +following instructions, tried to make friends with Beautiful Dog, +until he howled with anguish and affliction and fled as from +pestilence; and, unable to endure the house any longer, put on my +hat and set out upon one of those aimless walks one takes in a land +where all walks are lovely. +</p> +<p> +Automobiles came and went upon the public road, and to escape them +I crossed a wooden foot-bridge spanning a weedy ditch, struck into a +path bordering a wide field followed it aimlessly for a while, and +before I knew it was in the Enchanted Wood. +</p> +<p> +The Enchanted Wood was carpeted with brown and sweet-smelling +pine-needles, with green clumps of honeysuckle breaking out here and +there in moist spots. There were cassena bushes, full of vivid +scarlet berries; and crooked, gray-green cedars; and brown boles of +pine-trees; and the shallowest, gayest, absurdest little thread of a +brook giggling as it went about its important business of keeping a +lip of woodland green. +</p> +<p> +It was very, very still there, somewhat as Gethsemane might have +been, I fancy. I had wanted to be alone, that I might wrestle with +my trouble. Yet now that I was facing it, my spirit quailed. Never +had I felt so desolate, or dreamed that the human heart could bear +such anguish. +</p> +<p> +If I had had the faintest warning, that I might have saved myself! +If I had never come to Hynds House at all, but had lived my busy, +matter-of-fact, quiet life! Yet the idea of never having seen him, +never having loved him, was more cruel than the cruellest suffering +that loving entailed. It was harder even than the thought that +Alicia and I cared for the same man, who perhaps cared for neither +of us. At that I fell into an agony of weeping. +</p> +<p> +That passed. I was spent and empty. But the calm of acceptance had +come. I wasn't to lose my grip, nor wear the willow. The idea of me, +Sophy Smith, wearing the willow, aroused my English common-sense. I +refused to be ridiculous. +</p> +<p> +And then I looked up and saw him coming toward me, his great dog +trotting at his side. I pulled myself together, and smiled; for +Boris was thrusting his friendly nose into my palm, and rubbing his +fine head against my shoulder, and his master had dropped lightly +down beside me. +</p> +<p> +I had not seen Mr. Jelnik for several days, and it struck me +painfully that the man was pale, that his step dragged, and the +brightness of his beauty was dimmed. He looked older, more careworn. +If he was glad to see me, it was at first a troubled gladness, for +he started, and bit his lip. I wondered, not with jealousy, but with +pain, if there was somebody, some beautiful and high-born lady, at +sight of whom his heart might have leaped as mine did now. Was it, +perhaps, to forget such a one that he had exiled himself? +</p> +<p> +"You are such a serene, restful little person!" he said presently, +and a change came over his tired face; "and I am such a restless +one! You soothe me like a cool hand on a hot forehead." +</p> +<p> +"Restless?—you? Why, I thought you the serenest person I had ever +known." +</p> +<p> +His mocking, gentle smile curved his lips. But his eyes were not +laughing. For a fleeting, flashing second the whirlpools and the +depths were bared in them. Then the veil fell, the surface lights +came out and danced. +</p> +<p> +"My father was an excellent teacher," he said, indifferently. "The +whole object of his training was self-control. He was really a very +wonderful man, my father. But he overlooked one highly important +factor in my make-up, my Hynds blood." +</p> +<p> +I made no reply. I was wondering, perplexedly, how I, I of all +people, should have been picked up and enmeshed in the web of these +Hyndses and their fate. +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," said he, gratefully, "for your silence. Most women +would have talked, for the good of my soul. Why don't you talk?" +</p> +<p> +"Because I have nothing to say." +</p> +<p> +"You evidently inherited a God-sent reticence from your British +forebears. The British have 'illuminating flashes of silence.' It is +one of their saving graces." +</p> +<p> +I proved it. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik, with a whimsical, sidewise glance, drew nearer. +</p> +<p> +"Why, instead of sitting at the foot of a pine-tree, which is also a +reticent creature, are you not sitting at the feet of our friend The +Author, who is perfectly willing to illumine the universe? Very +bright man, The Author. How do you like his secretary?" +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Johnson? Oh, very much indeed! He is charming!" +</p> +<p> +"I find him so myself. But he is melting wax before the fire of +feminine eyes. A man in love is a sorry spectacle!" +</p> +<p> +"Is he?" +</p> +<p> +"<i>Ach</i>, yes! Consider my cousin Richard Geddes, for instance." +</p> +<p> +At that I winced, remembering the doctor's eyes when he had spoken +of Alicia and of this man. I looked at Mr. Jelnik now, wonderingly. +If he knew that much, hadn't he any heart? He stopped short. A +wrinkle came between his black brows. +</p> +<p> +"I am not to speak lightly of my Cousin Richard, I perceive." +</p> +<p> +"No. Please, please, no!" +</p> +<p> +"I hadn't meant to. Richard," said Mr. Jelnik, gravely, "is a good +man." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes! Indeed, yes! And—and he has a deep affection for <i>you</i>, +Mr. Jelnik." +</p> +<p> +"We Hyndses are the deuce and all for affection. We take it in such +deadly earnest that we store up a fine lot of trouble for +ourselves." His face darkened. +</p> +<p> +I had been right, then, in supposing that there was somebody, +perhaps half the world away, for whom he cared. <i>And he didn't care +for Alicia.</i> I was sure of that. +</p> +<p> +"Don't go!" he begged, as I stirred. "Stay with me for a little +while: I need you. I am tired, I am bored, I am disgusted with +things as they are. There is nothing new under the sun, and all is +vanity and vexation of spirit. Also, I am fronting the forks of a +dilemma: Shall I shake the dust of Hyndsville from my foot, yield to +the <i>Wanderlust</i> and go what our worthy friend Judge Gatchell calls +'tramping,' or shall I stay here yet awhile? I can't make up my +mind!" +</p> +<p> +"Do you want to go?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes and no. Hold: let's toss for it and let the fall of the coin +decide." He took from his pocket a thin silver foreign coin, and +showed it me. +</p> +<p> +"Heads, I go. Tails, I stay," he said, and tossed it into the air. +It fell beside me, out of his reach. With a swift hand I picked it +up. +</p> +<p> +"Well?" he asked, indifferently. +</p> +<p> +My hand shut down upon it. There was the sound of wind in my ears, +and my heart pounded, and my sight blurred. Then somebody—oh, +surely not I!—in a low, clear, modulated voice spoke: +</p> +<p> +"<i>You will have to stay, Mr. Jelnik</i>," said the voice, pleasantly. +"<i>It is tails.</i>" +</p> +<p> +And all the while the inside Me, the real Me, was crying accusingly: +"Oh, <i>liar! liar! It is heads!</i>" +</p> +<p> +Did he smile? I do not know. He did not look at me for the minute, +but stared instead at the gray-blue, shadowed woods, the brown boles +of the pines, the bright trickle of water playing it was a real +brook. +</p> +<p> +"Tails it is. I stay," he said presently. And with a swift movement +he reached out and lightly patted my hand with the coin in it. +</p> +<p> +"Well, it's decided. You have got me for a next-door neighbor for a +while longer, Miss Smith. No, don't go yet." +</p> +<p> +So I stayed, who would have stayed in the Pit to be near him, or +walked out of heaven to follow him, had he called me. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know," he spoke in a plaintive voice—"that I haven't had +any lunch? I forgot to go home for lunch! Boris, go get me something +to eat, old chap!" +</p> +<p> +Boris hung out a tongue like a flag, looked in his man's eyes, and +vanished, running as only the thoroughbred wolf-hound can run. +</p> +<p> +"I am so tired! Should you mind if I kept my dog's place warm at +your feet, Miss Smith?" And he stretched his long length on the +pine-needles, his hands under his head, his face upturned. +</p> +<p> +"I wish I had a pillow!" he complained. +</p> +<p> +I scooped up an armful of the pine-needles, while he watched me +lazily, and packed it over and between the roots of the pine-tree. +</p> +<p> +"You're a Sister of Charity," said he, gratefully. "But I can't +afford to scratch my neck." And coolly he took a fold of my brown +silk skirt, patted it over the straw, and with a sigh of +satisfaction rested his head upon it. +</p> +<p> +"This is very pleasant!" he sighed. Presently: "Your hair looks just +as a woman's hair ought to look, under that brown hat," he said +drowsily, "soft and fair. And after this, I shall order some +brown-silk cushion-covers. I never knew anything could feel so +comfortable and restful!" He closed his eyes. +</p> +<p> +I sat there, hands locked tightly together, and looked down at his +beautiful head, his slim and boyish body; and I felt an aching sense +of resentment. No man has any business to be like that, and then +come into the life of a woman named Smith. +</p> +<p> +He did not move, nor did I. We might have been creatures motionless +under a spell, in that Enchanted Wood; until from the outside world +came Boris, carrying a wicker basket, in which sandwiches, fruit, a +small bottle of wine, and a silver drinking-cup had been carefully +packed. +</p> +<p> +"Boris is used to playing courier." His master patted him +affectionately. "Come, Miss Smith. By the way, that isn't your real +name, though. Your name is Woman-in-the-Woods. Mine is—" +</p> +<p> +"Fortunatus." +</p> +<p> +He raised his brows. "I was about to say 'Man-who-is-Hungry,'" +he finished, pleasantly. "I once knew an Indian named +Tail-feathers-going-over-the-Hill. It taught me the value of +being explicit as to one's name. Here, you shall have the cup, +and I'll drink out of the bottle. Some of these fine days, +Woman-in-the-Woods, I shall take you on a jaunt with me and +Boris." +</p> +<p> +"It sounds promising," I admitted, cautiously. +</p> +<p> +"It is more. You shall learn all the fine points of out-of-door +housekeeping.—Drink your wine, Woman-in-the-Woods. You were pale, +very pale, when I came upon you. I was afraid something had been +troubling you." +</p> +<p> +"Something troubles everybody." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, bromidic Miss Smith!—Drink your wine, please. And do not look +doubtfully upon that sandwich. My man knows how to build them." +</p> +<p> +His man did. The sandwich was manna. The wine evidently came from +heaven. +</p> +<p> +"Now you have a color. I say, is Morenas going to do you, too?" +</p> +<p> +"Good gracious, no! But he has sketched Alicia a dozen times at +least." +</p> +<p> +"And me," said Mr. Jelnik, gloomily. "There's no evading the brute. +I turn like a weathercock; and there he is, with corrugated brow and +slitted eyes, studying me! And the baleful eye of The Author also +pursues me. Between them, I feel skinned." +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Morenas says you are a rare but quite perfect type," I told +him, mischievously. +</p> +<p> +The young man shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "Am I a type, +Woman-in-the-Woods?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +"Indeed, you are absolutely different from anybody else." And then, +terrified, I turned red. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I know! You didn't mean it either as a brick-bat or a bouquet, +merely the truth as you see it. You are transparently truthful, +fundamentally truthful, and at the same time the American business +woman! You can't understand how that intrigues me!" +</p> +<p> +And then, quite simply and boyishly, he began to talk about +himself. I got glimpses of a boyhood spent partly in a stately home +in Vienna, and partly roaming about the great Hungarian estate which +his mother loved, and to which the two returned summer after summer, +until her death. Then student days, and after that, foot-loose +wanderings up and down the earth and across the seven seas. +</p> +<p> +His grandmother had dropped courtesies to kings; and mine had +dropped "aitches." His father had been a European celebrity, mine a +ship-chandler in Boston, U.S.A. Yet here we two were; and he might +have been a high-spirited and most beautiful little boy picnicking +with a sedate and old-maidish little girl. +</p> +<p> +"How old should you imagine me?" he flung the question like a +challenge, as if he had divined my thoughts. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, say, thirteen, going on fourteen." +</p> +<p> +"Dear Woman-in-the-Woods, I am thirty-three." +</p> +<p> +"You are older than I thought." +</p> +<p> +"You are younger than you think. And you betray the fact," he +smiled. +</p> +<p> +"I have never been very young; probably I shall never be very old." +</p> +<p> +"You will always be exactly the right age," said Nicholas Jelnik. +"For you will always be a little girl, and a young maiden, and a +grown woman, and a bit of an old maid, and something of a +grandmother. That is a wonderful, a very, very wonderful +combination!" +</p> +<p> +I looked at him with more than doubt. But no, he was not poking fun, +though the rich color had come into his cheek, and the golden lights +flickered mischievously in his eyes. +</p> +<p> +"And I forgot to add, also a business woman!" he finished gaily. +"<i>Herr Gott</i>, but it took a business woman to tackle old Hynds House +and gather together such folks as you have there now!" +</p> +<p> +"Alicia was the head and front of <i>that</i>. I merely helped." +</p> +<p> +"Alicia," said Mr. Jelnik, "is a darling girl. Alicia is everything +a girl ought to be." But there was not in eyes or voice that light +and tone that crept into Doctor Richard's when he named her. My dear +girl's tender face—so true and beautiful and loving—rose before +me, and all she had meant to me, been to me, crowded upon my heart. +I said what I had never intended to say to any one: +</p> +<p> +"Why, Alicia's my—my <i>child</i>, to me! Don't you understand?" +</p> +<p> +"Dear Woman, yes!" His voice was melted gold. +</p> +<p> +The ridiculous little brook went whish-whis-sssh; and the bluish +shadows melted into gray; and a chill came creeping, creeping, into +the air. +</p> +<p> +"Before you go," said Nicholas Jelnik, "I should like to give you a +talisman, to turn Miss Smith into Woman-in-the-Woods every now and +then." And with his pocket-knife he cut a sharp line down the thin +old coin he had tossed, worked at it for a few minutes with a pocket +file and a stone, and then with his fingers that looked so slim but +were strong as steel nippers. The coin broke in halves. +</p> +<p> +"Half for you," said Mr. Jelnik, "and half for me, to commemorate a +comradely afternoon, and to mark a decision. We'll consider it a +token, a charm, a talisman—what you will. And if ever I really and +truly need a Woman-in-the-Woods to help me, why, I'll send my half +to her; and she'll obey the summons instantly and without question. +And if ever she needs a man—like me, say—why, she'll send her +half, and he'll come, instantly and without question." He was +smiling as he spoke. Now he paused to look at me earnestly. "Because +we are going to be real friends, you and I; are we not?" +</p> +<p> +I hesitated. How could we two be real friends, when the balance +between us was so uneven, so unequal? He saw the hesitation, +momentary as it was, and looked at me with something of astonishment +and a hint of hurt. +</p> +<p> +"I have never," he said, proudly, "had to ask for friendship. Yet I +do desire yours, who are such a grave, brave, true little thing, +such a valiant-for-truth, stand-fast little thing! You have the one +quality that I, born wanderer, foot-loose rolling-stone, need most +in this world, unchanging, loyal, unquestioning steadfastness." +</p> +<p> +I considered this. It is true that I hold fast, for that is the +English way. +</p> +<p> +"But outside of that one thing," I told him, "I have nothing else." +</p> +<p> +"No?—She hasn't," said he, in a teasing tone, "anything to give, +except unbuyable truth. She has nothing to offer except Friendship's +very self!—this poor, poor Miss Smith!" +</p> +<p> +Now, heaven alone knows why, but at that my eyes filled with foolish +tears. If he saw them—and they ran down my cheek in spite of me—he +mercifully gave no sign. Instead he held out his fine brown hand, +and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips with foreign +grace. +</p> +<p> +"We two are friends, then—through thick and thin, above doubting, +and without fear or reproach. That is so, <i>hein</i>?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes!" I promised. +</p> +<p> +So, walking slowly, as if loath to go, we two went out of the +Enchanted Wood and left the Forest of Arden behind us. +</p> +<p> +When I was again in my own room, and had taken off the brown frock, +I held against my cheek, for a long, long minute, that fold against +which his head had rested; I fingered the broken coin; I looked long +and long at the hand his lips had touched; and though I had told a +shameless lie, I was not at all ashamed. +</p> +<p> +I have often read that women do not and cannot love men, but only +love to be loved by them. Only a man could have been stupid enough +to say that; and, then he didn't know. The woman hadn't told him. +</p> +<p> +"I say! Haven't you got on a new frock to-night? My word, it's +scrumptious!" remarked The Author, after dinner. I was wearing a +black-and-blue frock, and he had seen it before, as I explained with +some surprise. +</p> +<p> +He adjusted his glasses, frowned, and shook his head. +</p> +<p> +"I am becoming unobservant," he said crossly. "This place is playing +the very deuce with my mental processes! But stay: surely your hair +is arranged differently? It wasn't brought over your ears like that, +the first time I saw you, I know it wasn't!" +</p> +<p> +"It is curled a little and fluffed a little; that's what makes it +look different," I told him patiently. +</p> +<p> +"Then that frock is curled a little and fluffed a little, and that's +what makes it look different, too," The Author decided, and stared +at me critically. "You are improving," he told me, with +condescension. +</p> +<p> +"You are <i>not</i>!" I was goaded to reply. +</p> +<p> +The Author merely grinned. +</p> +<p> +"Do you know," he asked, "if that man Jelnik is coming to-night? I +hope so. Unusual man. Can't think why he buries himself here! Our +old friend Gatchell doesn't seem to admire him. I wonder why?" +</p> +<p> +"I can't possibly imagine," I replied equably, "unless it is that +the judge grows old." +</p> +<p> +"Hah!" The Author's eyebrows went up truculently. "And is it a sign +of advancing age and mental decrepitude not to admire this fellow?" +</p> +<p> +But I laughed at him. +</p> +<p> +"You're all alike, you women." A wicked light snapped into his eyes. +"Hear, dear lady, the Bard of the Congaree, the Poet Laureate of +South Carolina, Coogle for your benefit," hissed The Author, and +repeated, balefully: +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + Alas, poor woman, with eyes of sparkling fire, <br /> + Thy heart is often won by mankind's gay attire! <br /> + So weak thou art, so very weak at best, <br /> + Thou canst not look beyond a satin-lined vest! +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + I've seen thee ofttimes cast a-winning glance, <br /> + And be carried away, as it were within a trance,<br /> + By the gay apparel of some dishonest youth <br /> + Whose bosom heaved with not a single truth! +</p> +<p> +He was so outrageously funny that I forgave his impertinence. His +face relaxed, and his eyes twinkled. He was in high feather the +remainder of the evening. He was, in fact, so good-humoredly witty +that the boys and girls Alicia had brought home clustered about him +like golden bees. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Smith," whispered Miss Emmeline, under cover of their +laughter, "may I have a word with you?" +</p> +<p> +We drifted into the library; and she seated herself, folded her +hands, and said tremulously: +</p> +<p> +"My dear, my wish has been granted. I have really come in contact +with the Unknown! I have seen something, Miss Smith!" I looked at +her steadily. "Just before dawn," Miss Emmeline continued, "I woke +up, with a curious, indefinable, uneasy sense of trouble, as if +something had happened and I was remembering it, say. I saw how +foolish it was to allow a mere nightmare to worry me, though I am +not subject to nightmares, my conscience and my digestion being +quite all right, thank heaven! Gradually the impression faded. I was +just dropping to sleep again, when I heard the faintest imaginable +footfall, almost as if somebody were walking upon the air itself. +And then, Miss Smith, there stole across my room a figure. There was +nothing terrifying about it: it was merely a figure, that was all, +and so I was not frightened. It came from my clothes-closet, went +into the next room, and vanished. For when I arose and followed, +there was no trace of it. And the doors were locked. Now, was not +that remarkable?" +</p> +<p> +"Very," said I, with dry lips. +</p> +<p> +"I should have thought I was dreaming," went on Miss Emmeline, "save +that there lingered in the air, for some time, a faint and very +delicate—" +</p> +<p> +"Perfume," I finished. +</p> +<p> +Miss Emmeline started, and seized my hand. +</p> +<p> +"Then you have experienced it, too?" +</p> +<p> +"I have detected the perfume," I admitted, "but I have never seen +anything. Dear Miss Emmeline, would it be too much to ask you to +keep this to yourself, for a while at least? People are so easily +frightened; and wild stories spread and grow." +</p> +<p> +Miss Emmeline nodded. "Of course I'll keep it quiet," she promised +kindly. "I shall, however, write down the occurrence for the Society +for Psychical Research, without giving actual names and place." To +this I raised no objection. But it was with a troubled mind that I +left Miss Emmeline. +</p> +<p> +I was destined to hear one more confidence that night, unwittingly +this time. I had gone down-stairs to place, ready to Mary Magdalen's +hand in the morning, the materials for the breakfast. This entails +work, but it insures successful handling of household economics. +Having weighed and measured what was necessary, and seen that the +inquisitive Black family occupied their proper quarters on the lower +veranda, I went back up-stairs. The Author's door was slightly ajar, +and I could hear him walking up and down, as he does when he +dictates; for he is a restless man. +</p> +<p> +"Johnson," The Author was saying as I passed, my slippered feet +making no sound, "Johnson, that Sophy woman intrigues me. Hanged if +she doesn't, Johnson!" +</p> +<p> +"I like Miss Smith, myself. She reminds me very much of my mother," +said Johnson's cordial voice in reply. +</p> +<p> +"But I don't like the way things look here, at all, Johnson!" fumed +The Author. "What's his game, anyhow? What's he after? What's he +here for? Does she know, or suspect? Or doesn't she, Johnson?" The +Author asked, earnestly. "Look here: somebody's got to protect that +Sophy woman against Nicholas Jelnik!" +</p> +<a name="2HCH0011"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XI +</h2> +<h3> + THE JINNEE INTERVENES +</h3> +<p> +Just before he went back North, Luis Morenas good-naturedly agreed +to exhibit his new sketches for the delectation of such folk as we +cared to ask to view them—this to please Alicia, whom he called +Flower o' the Peach. +</p> +<p> +Now an exhibit of Morenas sketches would have been an art event in +the Biggest City itself. But think of it in Hyndsville, where few +worth-while things ever happened; and imagine the polite +wire-pulling for invitations that ensued! +</p> +<p> +It wasn't my fault that I couldn't ask the whole town to come to my +house to see those brilliant sketches. I would have done so with all +my heart, but there was a section of Hyndsville I couldn't reach. It +was locked up behind bars of pride and prejudice of its own +building; and losing by it, of course, since one can't be exclusive +without at the same time being excluded. To shut other folks out you +have first got to shut yourself in. +</p> +<p> +For instance, figure to yourself Miss Martha Hopkins. She had +visited as far north as Atlanta; and she had relatives in +Charleston, as she would have condescendingly informed arch-angels, +principalities, powers, thrones, and dominions. But she wasn't +blessed with much of this world's goods, and most of the time she +stayed home and improved her mind. She took herself with profound +seriousness. She seemed to think that the better part of wisdom +consists in knowing who said this and who didn't say that—"as Mr. +Arnold Bennett expresses it," "as Mr. H.G. Wells remarks," "as Mr. +James Huneker writes,"—she was the only person in all Hyndsville +who could write up music and art, and she wasn't even afraid to use +the word <i>sex</i> in its most modern acceptance; though in South +Carolina you refer to the ladies as "the fair sex" if you're a +gentleman, and to the gentlemen as "the stronger sex" if you're a +lady. You understand that "male and female created He them," and you +let it go at that. Miss Martha Hopkins, then, was daring; she was +also exclusive. +</p> +<p> +I suppose if I had been younger I could have smiled at Miss Martha, +as Susy Gatchell and her graceless friends did, but somehow she +appeared to me a creature trying to peck at the world and peek at +the stars through the bars of a bird-cage. That's why, when I met +her a morning or two before the Morenas exhibit, I asked her if she +wouldn't like to see it. I knew that, once asked, she could be kept +away by nothing short of an earthquake or a deluge. Yet— +</p> +<p> +"Thank you, Miss Smith, I shall be glad to look over the sketches." +And she added blandly: "Four o'clock, did you say? Very well, I will +come. It is one's moral duty to encourage men of talent." +</p> +<p> +"Whoop!" cried The Author, joyously, when I told him that. "Revenge +yourself, Morenas: sketch her, man! sketch her!" +</p> +<p> +Morenas laughed. "Put her in one of your books and make her talk," +he suggested slyly. "You have a genius for making a woman talk like +an idiot." +</p> +<p> +"That's because he does the talking for her, himself," said Alicia, +impudently. +</p> +<p> +"It pays, it pays!" smiled The Author. "I draw from life." +</p> +<p> +"Nature-fakir!" Alicia mocked. +</p> +<p> +"My dear fellow, <i>I</i> draw. <i>You</i> draw and quarter," said Morenas. +</p> +<p> +The Author flung out his arms, grandiloquently. +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + You may as well try to change the course <br /> + Of yonder sun <br /> + To north, and south,<br /> + As to try to subdue by criticism <br /> + This heart of verse,<br /> + Or close this mouth! +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +he cried, thumping his chest. "Come on, Johnson: let's leave these +knockers to fate—and Miss Martha Hopkins!" +</p> +<p> +Miss Martha Hopkins came, she saw, and she had a perfectly beautiful +time. As a matter of fact, everybody that could come, did come. And +the very smartest and prettiest of the younger set served tea. Oh, +yes, decidedly the tables were turning! +</p> +<p> +Despite which, Alicia and I were not happy. It seemed to me that a +veil had fallen between us, for we were shy with each other. Both +suffered, and each dreaded that the other should know. +</p> +<p> +I was grateful that The Author's mind was too taken up with Hynds +House history to focus itself upon us. The Author spent his spare +hours rummaging through such dusty and musty records as might throw +some light upon the Hyndses. In the old office were many faded +plantation and household books, and he was able to glean enough from +these to confirm the methodical carefulness of Freeman Hynds. There +were, too, dry receipts for "monies Paid by Mr. Rich. Hynds" for +some old slave; or a brief notice that "By Orders Mr. Richd. Hynds, +no Women shall be Whipt"; or "Bought by Mr. R. Hynds & Charg'd to +his Acct., one Crippl'd Black Childe namd Scipio from Vanham's Sale, +& Given to Sukey his Mother." Another time it would be a list of +Christmas gifts: "One Colour'd Head Kerchief for Nancy. One Flute +for Blind Sam. One Shoulder Cape for Kitty my Nurse. One +Horn-handl'd Knife for Agrippa. One Pckt. Tobacco & a Jorum of Rum +for Shooba." +</p> +<p> +Over against these items were others: "By Orders Mr. Freeman Hynds, +Juba to Receive Twenty light Lashes for Malingering; Black Tom to be +Shipt to River Bottom Plantation for the Chastning of his Spiritt; +Bread & Water & Irons 3 Dayes & Nights for Shooba for Frighting of +his Fellowes & other Evil Behaviour." +</p> +<p> +This was interesting enough, but not conclusive. All that The Author +could find only deepened his uncertainty, and this made him +abominably cross, an ill temper increased by the presence of Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik, who came and went, unruffled, aloof, with +inscrutable eyes and a gently mocking smile. +</p> +<p> +The Harrison-Gores came shortly after Morenas left. The Englishman +was a pink-faced old gentleman in a shabby Norfolk suit and with the +very thinnest legs on record—"mocking-bird legs," Fernolia called +them. His daughter was a gray-eyed Minerva with the skin of a baby +and the walk of a Highland piper. They found Carolina people +charming, and they secured some valuable data for their book, "The +Beginnings of American History." Everything in Hynds House pleased +them, even The Author. +</p> +<p> +Other people who do not enter into this story came and went during +that winter. But they were merely millionaires—people who motored +around the lovely country, ate Mary Magdalen's hot biscuit and fried +chicken, slept in our four-posters, paid their stiff bills +thankfully, and went about their business as good millionaires +should, and generally do. Only one out of them all was disagreeable; +he wanted to buy Hynds House out of hand for a proposed club of +which he was to be founder and president. +</p> +<p> +"It'd be just what the bunch would like," he told me. "All we'd have +to do would be to paint these wooden walls a nice cheerful light +color, change one room into a smoker, another into a billiard-room, +and a third into a grill, add some gun-racks and leather +wing-chairs, and we'd be right up to the minute in club-houses!" +</p> +<p> +When I explained that I couldn't sell he offered to compromise on +two of the carved marble mantels, the library tiles, and two inlaid +tables, "at double what you'd get from anybody else." And when I +wouldn't even let him have these trifles, he was disgusted and took +no pains to conceal it. He was rude to Alicia, who snubbed him with +terrible thoroughness, a proceeding which made him call loudly for +his "bill" and his car. The last we heard of him was his bullying +voice bawling at his sullen chauffeur. +</p> +<p> +"That pig," said The Author to me, with fury, "is undoubtedly the +lineal descendant of the one Gadarene swine that hadn't decency +enough to rush down the slope with the rest of the herd and drown +himself." +</p> +<p> +Busy as I was, it wasn't over easy for me to find time to revisit +that brown and sweet-smelling spot in the Forest of Arden where on a +gray afternoon, I had met Nicholas Jelnik and received from him a +kiss on the palm, and a broken coin. And I wanted to go back there, +as ghosts may desire to revisit the glimpses of the moon. +</p> +<p> +That is why, on the first free afternoon I had, I changed into the +selfsame brown frock, put on the brown hat with the yellow quill in +it, and slipped out of Hynds House alone. It wasn't a gray afternoon +this time, but a clear, bright, sun-shiny one, all blue and gold and +green, and with the pleasantest of friendly winds a-frolicking, and +a pine-scented air with a pungent and a vital bite to it. +</p> +<p> +I went along the highroad for a while, crossed the weedy, ferny +ditch that separated it from the fallow fields beyond, and struck +into the deserted foot-path that leads to the Enchanted Wood. +</p> +<p> +It was very lonesome, very peaceful. I could see the pine-trees I +love swaying and rocking against the blue, blue sky; I could catch +the low-hummed tune they crooned to themselves and the winds; I +could sniff a thousand woodsy odors. Spears of sunlight made bright +blobs on the brown grass; and every littlest bush and shrub wore a +shimmering halo, as you see the blessed ones backgrounded in old +pictures. There was a bird twittering somewhere; occasionally a twig +snapped with a quick, secret sharpness; and once a thin brown rabbit +took to his heels, right under my feet. +</p> +<p> +I stopped from time to time to sense the feel of the afternoon, to +drink the air and be healed. In a few minutes I should be within the +forest and hear the little brook giggling to itself as it scurried +over its brown pathway. And then I heard—something—and turned. +</p> +<p> +The deep and weedy ditch, crowded with high stalks of last year's +goldenrod and fennel, edged all that pathway, draining the entire +field. Crawling snakelike through it he had followed me. And now +here he was, suddenly erect on the path behind me, looking at me +with narrowed eyes under his flat forehead. +</p> +<p> +I wasn't afraid—at first. Nothing like him had ever crossed my +path, and I stared at him with more of disgust and aversion than +terror. +</p> +<p> +He was tall and bony, immensely powerful, and his black skin showed +with a grayish shine upon it through the rents in his rags. His +gray-black, horny toes protruded through what once had been shoes, +and a shapeless, colorless felt hat covered his bullet head. His +corded black arms emerged from the torn sleeves of his checked +shirt, and his hairy chest was naked. There came from him an +indescribable reek of tobacco, whisky, filthy clothes, and the +beastlike odor of an unclean body. He was beardless, and his +gorilla-like nostrils twitched, his forehead wrinkled. His eyes were +mere pin-points, with a sort of red glare far back in them; his +mouth was like a dirty red muzzle. He was a prowling tramp, of the +worst sort. +</p> +<p> +Involuntarily he stopped in his tracks as I faced him, his hands +hanging loosely at his sides. His eyes swept greedily over +me—silver mesh-purse, wrist-watch, the brooch at my throat, the +rings on my fingers. +</p> +<p> +"Whut yuh doin' hyuh, w'ite lady?" he asked in a thick voice, and +grinned. And quite suddenly such a fear as I had not dreamed could +be felt by a mortal took me by the heart and squeezed it as with an +iron hand. +</p> +<p> +"Whut foh yuh come by mah field, lil w'ite lady?" he purred. "Ah'm +takin' lil snooze in de ditch grass, an' dey yuh comes, wakin' me +up! Whut yuh wake me up for, w'ite gal?" Leering, he began with a +gliding, stealthy movement to advance. +</p> +<p> +"Stop!" cried I, in a voice that wasn't mine, it was so sharp and +thin and reedy. "Go back—where you came from! Don't you dare to +take another step! Go back!" +</p> +<p> +The hands hooked into outstretched claws. His head sunk between his +shoulders. Of the eyes, only red pin-points showed in the twitching +face. I stood stone-still, struck into utter immobility. My brain +was trying to urge me to fly, fly! This is the Black Death, Sophy! +the Black Death! +</p> +<p> +He, too, stood of a sudden stone-still, as if rooted to the ground. +His eyes widened, and stared, as if he saw something over and beyond +me. I didn't dare turn my head. It might be a trick, to divert +attention for a fatal second. +</p> +<p> +The claws clenched into balled fists, the lips drew back, showing +blackened and decayed teeth. Bristling like an aroused beast, his +forehead wrinkling, his nostrils twitching, he made an inarticulate, +growling, brute-like noise in his throat. His head twisted sideways. +Of a sudden the sweat burst out upon his face, and he began to back +away, warily. +</p> +<p> +And then something swift and dark sped by, bounding on light and +flying feet; something that must have come from my forest. It was +The Jinnee! God be praised, it was The Jinnee, his dark robe giving +an odd effect of flying, his eyes living vengeance, his face like +Fate carved in ebony. +</p> +<p> +I saw him leap, and close in upon the horror; I heard a sort of +wolfish yapping. The Black Death disappeared. And then I, too, was +falling, falling into infinite blackness and blankness, with one red +flash when I struck my head. +</p> +<p> +Half-conscious, half-hearing, altogether unseeing, I thought there +were two Voices near me. I couldn't understand what they said. One +of the Voices was gently and persistently applying cold and soothing +applications to my forehead. Another Voice chafed my hands. I +thought one said, "Achmet," and the other replied, "Sahib." I knew I +must be dreaming. But it was a pleasant dream enough. +</p> +<p> +Quite suddenly somebody said in good, anxious English: +</p> +<p> +"Thank God! you are better!" +</p> +<p> +I had opened my eyes. There was the whish-whish-whishing little +brook, the good brown pines, with their heavenly odor. And there was +the face of Nicholas Jelnik, bent over me. And beside him, gravely +concerned and troubled, Boris. +</p> +<p> +I looked from one to the other, both so clear-eyed, so kind, so +<i>safe</i>; and then I remembered. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy! Sophy!" He had his arms around me, in a close, protecting +clasp, while Boris pawed my skirts, and cried over me in loving, +honest dog fashion, and licked my wet cheek with his affectionate +tongue. I slipped my arm around the big dog's neck, and clung to the +two of them. And it seemed to me that while I clung thus, with my +head bent and my face hidden, one of them kissed my hair. +</p> +<p> +"It never occurred to me—that there might be danger for you," he +was whispering. "To have that horror come near you—oh, my God! Oh, +my God!" +</p> +<p> +I was terrified at sight of his face, dead-white, with eyes of +steel, and straight lips, and pinched nostrils; the terrible face of +the avenging white man, a face as inexorable as judgment. I hid my +own before it, and trembled; and yet was glad that I had seen it. +</p> +<p> +I stammered: "There was—a devil—and then a Jinnee came. And I +heard—sounds. Then I fell. Did—did The Jinnee—" My voice died in +my throat. +</p> +<p> +His eyes were ice, his mouth a grim, pale line. +</p> +<p> +"That has been attended to," he said composedly. +</p> +<p> +He blamed himself for having been thoughtless. "But I was so glad to +have you come here, that afternoon, that I could think of nothing +else!" And it seemed that this particular bit of woodland was his, +bought because its quiet beauty pleased him. He was in the habit of +coming here frequently; it had never occurred to him that danger +could lurk near it. +</p> +<p> +"I thought I heard—somebody calling somebody else 'Achmet.'" I told +him, confusedly. "And there was a Jinnee, really there was. And two +Voices. Who brought me here? Did you find me, over there?" +</p> +<p> +"You were not hard to carry," he said evasively. +</p> +<p> +"But The Jinnee?" +</p> +<p> +"The Jinnee did exactly what a good Jinnee always does, his duty. +Having done it, he disappeared. Didn't I tell you you're not to +think of what's happened? It is finished," said Mr. Jelnik, +peremptorily. +</p> +<p> +I asked no more questions. +</p> +<p> +"Do you think you are able to walk now?" he asked. +</p> +<p> +I tried to, with shaking knees. At the edge of the field I grew +faint again, and staggered, and was unpleasantly sick. +</p> +<p> +"You simply cannot appear in Hynds House in this shape, and invite +comment and question," said Mr. Jelnik, anxiously. His fine brows +wrinkled. "I have it: you will stop at my house for a few minutes, +and I'll give you a cordial, that will put you to rights." +</p> +<p> +I went staggering along beside him, making desperate efforts to hold +myself erect. The pathway squirmed and wriggled like a snake, the +trees and bushes bowed, the sky bobbed up and down. +</p> +<p> +He took me by by-paths so cunningly hidden that you might pass up +and down the highroad daily and never suspect their existence. We +went between cassenas and cedars and young laurels, branchy to the +roots. And then I was walking down a path bordered with Lombardy +poplars; and then I was sitting on a couch in Mr. Jelnik's +living-room, while he bathed my face with scented water, and +afterward held a small glass to my lips. The fluid I swallowed went +tingling through my whole body like friendly fire. +</p> +<p> +I stole a woman-glance around the room that The Author had been so +anxious to investigate. It was altogether a man's room, the scoured +floor partly covered with a handsome rug, and the divan on which I +was sitting covered with another. On both sides of the big fireplace +were crowded book-shelves, above which hung weapons gathered from +the four corners of the earth. There were two or three deep, +comfortable arm-chairs, a square table, a couple of Winchesters in a +corner, and near the window a flat, old-fashioned desk, above which +hung two small portraits, evidently his parents, for the gentleman +with stars and crosses on his braided uniform, a sword at his side, +and a plumed hat in his hand, bore a striking resemblance to Mr. +Jelnik; and the stately blond lady had a family resemblance to +Doctor Richard Geddes. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik touched a bell near the door, and a tall, copper-colored +man in spotless white appeared. At the merest gesture of an uplifted +finger the copper-colored one bowed, vanished, and returned ten +minutes later with a tiny cup of black coffee and a couple of thin +wafers. +</p> +<p> +"I shall have to insist upon the coffee; and I advise the wafers," +said Mr. Jelnik, pleasantly. So I drank the coffee, nibbled the +wafers, and felt better. +</p> +<p> +The copper-colored man, standing still as a statue, waited until I +had finished, took the cup, bowed, and disappeared. He was a stately +impressive person, rather like a shah in disguise. Mr. Jelnik +addressed him as "Daoud." +</p> +<p> +I had risen. I was trying to straighten my sadly flattened brown +hat, and to smooth my frock, stained with damp earth, and water. A +quick step sounded on the porch, somebody knocked, and without +waiting for an answer, opened the door, impatiently, and strode into +the room. With a fold of my disheveled frock in my hand, I looked up +and met the angry and astonished eyes of The Author. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0012"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XII +</h2> +<h3> + MAN PROPOSES +</h3> +<p> +The Author closed the door and leaned against it. His piercing +glance jumped from Nicholas Jelnik's face to mine, with a prolonged +and savage scrutiny. No detail of my appearance escaped him—my +reddened eyelids, my pallor, my nervousness, my dishevelment. His +eyes narrowed, his jaw hardened. +</p> +<p> +"What are you doing here?" he demanded, roughly. "Come! At least one +may hope for the truth from <i>you</i>!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik gave him a level look. There was that in it which brought +an angry red to The Author's thin face. +</p> +<p> +"Let me answer for her: just at present Miss Smith is getting ready +to go home." +</p> +<p> +The Author struggled to keep his rising temper in hand. +</p> +<p> +"I asked you a plain question, Miss Smith!" His peremptory tone +jangled my strained nerves. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Jelnik has answered you: I am getting ready to go home." +</p> +<p> +The Author stamped. +</p> +<p> +"Don't talk nonsense! Again I ask you, what are you doing here? Have +you lost your senses? Why have you been weeping? It is plain that +you have been weeping. Miss Smith, why do I find you here—alone?" +</p> +<p> +"I do not like your manner of questioning me," I said, indignantly. +</p> +<p> +"My dear fellow," protested Mr. Jelnik, "you <i>are</i> behaving +unmannerly, you know. The simple truth is, I was so fortunate +as to be of assistance to Miss Smith. She had an unpleasant +experience—fell and gave her head such a nasty bump, that it made +her faint. I'm afraid I splashed her a bit when I was trying to +revive her. I thought best to bring her here and give her a +stimulant. She didn't want to stagger home and alarm the whole +household unnecessarily." +</p> +<p> +"Is this true?" The Author asked me, rudely. +</p> +<p> +"You heard what Mr. Jelnik said!" I flamed. +</p> +<p> +"One allows somewhat more license to genius than might be accorded +ordinary mortals; but really, you know, there are limits," Mr. +Jelnik reminded him. "You're beginning to be rather a nuisance. It's +unfortunate to have to remind a man, in one's own house, that he's a +nuisance." +</p> +<p> +"I think you are, too!" I told The Author—"bursting into people's +houses like an East-Side policeman, asking outrageous questions in +an outrageous manner, and then questioning the answers one is +patient enough to give you! What right have you got to ask <i>any</i> +questions?" +</p> +<p> +"I'd rather like to know that, myself," put in Mr. Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +The Author straightened his shoulders, drew himself up to his full +height, and folded his arms. He is an impressively tall man. +</p> +<p> +"Should you?" said he, quietly. "Well, I'll tell you—the right of +an honest man to protect the woman he happens to want to marry." +</p> +<p> +I sat down, suddenly. I'm afraid my eyes popped, and I know my mouth +fell open. I had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik's eyes and mouth open, too. After an astounded moment: +</p> +<p> +"Isn't this rather sudden?" wondered Mr. Jelnik. "Who'd suspect this +fellow of volcanic possibilities?" +</p> +<p> +"I do Miss Smith no dishonor when I ask her to be my wife," said The +Author, haughtily. "<i>I</i> am no adventurer. She can never suspect <i>me</i> +of ulterior motives!" +</p> +<p> +"Heavens, no! Like Cæsar's wife, you are above suspicion; which, of +course, gives you the right to suspect everybody else! But you were +about to propose to Miss Smith in due form, were you not? Miss +Smith, you will permit me to withdraw? I have never before been a +third party to a proposal of marriage, and I confess I do not +exactly understand what is expected of me," said Mr. Jelnik, +delicately. +</p> +<p> +The Author smiled wryly. +</p> +<p> +"You succeed in making me appear a fool," he admitted. "That is no +mean achievement, young man! I merely wished to set myself straight +with Miss Smith, to leave her no room for doubt as to my absolute +honesty of purpose toward her; and you," said The Author, gulping, +"you have made me <i>bray</i>! I wish you'd clear out. You <i>are</i> in the +way, if you want the truth. And," he added, clenching his hands, +"you can think yourself lucky that you're getting out with a whole +skin, da—confound you!" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik smiled so sweetly that I was terrified. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, a whole skin!" he repeated, thoughtfully. "My good sir, I was +born with a whole skin, and I rather expect to die with one." He +looked at The Author reflectively: "Of course, I don't know what +Miss Smith's feelings may be in regard to you, <i>but</i> if I thought +you were seriously annoying her, I give you my word I should pitch +you out of the window without further ado. Miss Smith," he turned to +me, his eyes gentling with compassion, "I am more sorry than I can +say that you should be called upon to endure this further strain. +You will, I trust, forgive my unwilling share in it. Now, shall I +leave you?" +</p> +<p> +"No, stay," said I, flatly. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik sat down, and with unruffled composure, waited for The +Author to unbosom himself further. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Smith," The Author spoke after a pause,—and oh, I give him +credit for his courage at that trying moment!—"Miss Smith, I have +placed myself, and you also, in what appears to be rather an absurd +position. I am sorry. But I meant exactly what I said. I base my +right to question you upon the fact that I intended asking you to +marry me. You need a protector, if ever woman did. I offer you the +protection of my name." +</p> +<p> +I sat on the divan and stared at him owlishly. He went striding up +and down the room, pausing every now and then to look down at me. +</p> +<p> +"When I came to Hyndsville," he went on, "nothing was farther from +my thoughts than the desire to marry <i>anybody</i>. I have never +considered myself a marrying man. But I find myself liking you, Miss +Smith, better than I have ever liked any other woman, and for better +reasons. You would make me an excellent wife, the only sort of wife +a man like me could endure. And I think I should make you a good +husband. I am not really so great a bear," he added, hastily, "as +at times I appear to be. I should really try to make you happy. Now +then, what have you to say?" +</p> +<p> +What could any woman say in such circuit stances? <i>I</i> said nothing, +but slid down on Nicholas Jelnik's divan and howled. +</p> +<p> +"Didn't I tell you she'd had a bad time and wasn't herself? Now I +hope you're satisfied!" raged Mr. Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +"It's as much your fault as mine!" snarled The Author. "Miss Smith, +for heaven's sake don't cry like that! My dear girl, stop it. You +run me distracted, Miss Smith!—Give her some vinegar or something, +Jelnik! Confound you, Jelnik!—why don't you do something? Burn a +feather under her nose! Make her stop it, Jelnik! She'll kill +herself, if she keeps on crying like that! Here!" cried The Author, +desperately; and tried to push back my hair and all but scalped me. +</p> +<p> +"Get away!" said Mr. Jelnik. "I'll try to quiet her. Miss Smith, if +you don't stop crying, I shall slap you! Do you understand me, Miss +Smith? Stop it this minute, or I shall slap you!" He thrust an arm +around my shoulders and pulled me erect, none too gently. +</p> +<p> +"I—I—I ca-ca-ca—n't!" +</p> +<p> +"You can!" he snapped. "Stop it! Sophy, <i>shut up!</i>" +</p> +<p> +I was so astonished that in the middle of a howl I blinked, and +gasped, and gulped, and stopped! +</p> +<p> +"Ring the bell, by the door," Mr. Jelnik told The Author, curtly. +And when Daoud appeared, he ordered: "Cordial—top shelf; and some +ice-water." +</p> +<p> +Five minutes later a forlorn and red-eyed wreck was sitting up +looking at two wretched, embarrassed men. Thank Heaven, they looked +just as miserable as they should have felt! Daoud brought me scented +water, and I bathed my face. Then I patted into shape the hair that +The Author had pulled awry, and said in the cold, accusing, +I-die-a-martyr-to-your-stupidity voice that women punish men with: +</p> +<p> +"I think I shall go home." +</p> +<p> +With a chastened, hang-dog air The Author rose to accompany me, +casting a withering look upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, who despised The +Author for a bungling and intrusive idiot, and let his glance convey +the fact. He was sorry for me, with a compassionate understanding of +what I had been through. But I wanted neither his sorrow nor his +compassion. He had punished The Author, but he hadn't saved <i>me</i> +from a ridiculous and painful situation. I gave him a limp hand, and +had the satisfaction of leaving him thoroughly uncomfortable. +</p> +<p> +When we reached our gate The Author, who had trudged beside me in +gloomy silence, laid his hand upon my arm. +</p> +<p> +"I shall not ask you to answer me at once. But I do ask you to +consider carefully what I have said, and to realize that I mean +every word of it. And—and—I'm sorry it came about in this wise, +Sophy," he finished, with a touch of compunction. +</p> +<p> +"So am I." And then I went up-stairs, and crept into bed. My head +ached frightfully, my heart throbbed and fluttered. I was so +unnerved that it seemed a burden to be alive. And then, mercifully, +I fell asleep, and didn't wake until Alicia brought me a +breakfast-tray the next morning. +</p> +<p> +"My goodness, Sophy, you must have had a terrific headache!" she +exclaimed. "Why, your lips are bloodless, and you've black circles +under your eyes!" +</p> +<p> +"I'm all right this morning," I said, hastily. "But you look pale, +yourself. Aren't you rather overdoing things, Leetchy?" +</p> +<p> +"No: I'm as sound as a trivet!" said she. And then: "Sophy, guess +who was here last evening." Her eyes began to shine. "Mrs. Cheshire +Scarboro; no less!" And she paused, to let that highly important +statement sink in. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was the Leader of the Opposition. She'd had +a lifelong feud with old Sophronisba, who said that when the Lord +wanted to try himself out in the way of a fool, He made Cissy +Scarboro. They hated each other as only relations can hate. +Naturally, Mrs. Scarboro resented our presence in Hynds House. She +said Hyndsville ought to show us what it thought of the outrage. +Under her leadership, Hyndsville showed us. +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Scarboro was a very important person in Hyndsville. She ruled +the older and more conservative portion of it, and although the +younger set at times rebelled and went its own way, her power was +very real. That she had changed her mind, or at least her tactics, +in regard to us was important news. +</p> +<p> +"She came with Mr. and Mrs. Haile," Alicia continued. "It was the +first time she had ever been inside Hynds House. Think of that, +Sophy! There were some girls here, and a few boys, naturally, Jimmy +Scarboro among them. Should you think that accounted for his mama's +presence, Sophy? And we sat around like adoring mice, listening to +The Author's sky-rockets going off. Doctor Geddes wouldn't let us +sing, wouldn't even let us have music, because you mustn't be +disturbed. He thinks a whole lot of you, Sophy." +</p> +<p> +"I think a whole lot of him. I never thought I could like that man +as much as I do." +</p> +<p> +I was determined to show Miss Alicia Gaines that no matter how much, +or for whatever reasons she had changed for the worse toward him, I, +at least, had changed for the better. But she listened listlessly. +For which cause, being resentful, I said not one word to her about +The Author. +</p> +<p> +The thought of The Author confused me. I wasn't so much flattered as +astounded. He was not offering me a light honor: The Author's name +meant a great deal. Who, then, was I, a woman named Smith, to say +nay to this miraculous possibility? Was it not rather for me to +accept, meekly, the high gift that the gods in a sportive moment +chose to toss to me? Yea, verily. And yet— My hand stole to the half +of a thin old foreign coin hidden in my breast. +</p> +<p> +The Author behaved with exemplary patience and dignity. He went +about his own work and left me to mine, and though I knew I was +under his hawklike watchfulness, his matter-of-fact manner set me at +my ease. You can't dread to meet a man, of a morning, who pays more +attention to his batter-cakes than to you. +</p> +<p> +I was just beginning to breathe freely, when Doctor Richard Geddes +came over one afternoon, and, finding me in our living-room with +only the Black family to keep me company, flung himself into an +arm-chair, seized Sir Thomas More Black by the scruff, and pulled +his whiskers and rubbed his fur the wrong way until Sir Thomas More +scratched him with thoroughness. +</p> +<p> +"Get out, then, you black hellion!" growled the doctor. Sir Thomas +More got out. He hadn't wanted to stay in the first place. +</p> +<p> +"Shall I bind your hand for you?" I asked. But the doctor refused. +He tapped his foot on the floor, and hemmed, and looked at me +strangely. Then: +</p> +<p> +"Sophronisba Two, you consider me a reasonably decent sort, don't +you?" +</p> +<p> +"That goes without saying." +</p> +<p> +"Think I'd make a woman a reasonably good husband?" +</p> +<p> +"I do," said I, truthfully. Whatever ailed the man? +</p> +<p> +"Good! And I," the doctor said, deliberately, "know that you'd make +any man more than a reasonably good wife. Should you like to be +mine, Sophronisba Two?" +</p> +<p> +The jump I gave threw Potty Black off my knees. +</p> +<p> +"You're ill, wandering in your wits, you poor man!" I was genuinely +alarmed. "Isn't there something I can do for you, doctor?" +</p> +<p> +"There is: you can marry me, if you want to," replied the doctor, +soberly. "Honestly, my dear girl, I'd be kind to you. I like and +admire and respect you more than I can tell you, Sophy." +</p> +<p> +"My dear friend," I said, when I caught my breath, "I like, admire, +and respect you, too. But people who marry each other need something +more than that. They—well, they need—love." +</p> +<p> +His shoulders twitched. +</p> +<p> +"This business of love is the devil's own invention!" he cried. +"It's safer and saner to like and respect people than to love them, +and lots harder. Now, what do you say to marrying me?" +</p> +<p> +"I say you had no such notion in your head the last time you and I +talked together. When did it seize you?" I demanded, suspiciously. +</p> +<p> +"I began to think about it seriously—er—ah—some days ago," he +said, reddening. +</p> +<p> +"What day, to be exact?" +</p> +<p> +"Well," said he, resentfully, "it occurred to me last Wednesday, if +you want to be so all-fired sure!" +</p> +<p> +"What happened last Wednesday to make you think of asking me to +marry you?" +</p> +<p> +The doctor looked at me very much as a little boy looks at a +grown-up who is holding a soapy wash-cloth in one hand and an ear in +the other. +</p> +<p> +"What do you want to know for?" +</p> +<p> +"Because. I just want to know because. Well?" He squirmed, and was +silent. "Was it because you have ceased to care for Alicia, +already?" His glare answered that question. "No? Why, then, didn't +you ask Alicia, instead of coming to me for second choice? Look +here, Doctor Richard Geddes: if I was not firmly and truly your +friend, I should be furious, do you understand? Or," I added, +darkly, "I might even revenge myself by taking you at your word!" +</p> +<p> +"Sophronisba Two!" The doctor looked at, me piteously. +</p> +<p> +"Why didn't you ask Alicia?" I persisted, inexorably. +</p> +<p> +"I did!" gulped the doctor. "But she said she couldn't. She said, +why didn't I care for you instead of her? You were so much +better—and—and I'd be happier with you, for I'd have the most +unselfish angel—" he stopped miserably. +</p> +<p> +"Well?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I kept turning it over in my mind; and the more I thought of +it, the clearer I perceived that with a wife like you I'd be a +better and a more worth-while man. I—I think so much of you, Sophy, +that I'm telling you the whole truth," he finished. +</p> +<p> +"That's why I'm going to keep on being friends with you—better +friends than ever," I told him. +</p> +<p> +"You're going to marry me, then, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"Didn't you just hear me tell you I meant to keep on being friends +with you?" +</p> +<p> +"You won't, then?" +</p> +<p> +"I won't, then." +</p> +<p> +"Yet there are good reasons why you might reconsider your decision," +he said, after a pause. "We are so diametrically opposed it would +seem inevitable we should marry each other. Why, Sophy, we've got +enough to quarrel happily about for the rest of our lives. For +instance, do you sleep with all your windows open?" +</p> +<p> +"I close two, and leave two open." +</p> +<p> +"Every window open, day and night, hot or cold, rain or shine," said +the doctor, firmly. "Do you use pillows?" +</p> +<p> +"Two." +</p> +<p> +"None at all. Sleep with your head flat. How many blankets?" +</p> +<p> +"Two, and a comfort." +</p> +<p> +"One army blanket, except in extremely cold weather," said the +doctor. "Do you like a pipe?" +</p> +<p> +"It always makes me sick. I peculiarly and particularly loathe and +detest a pipe." +</p> +<p> +"A pipe, my dear, deluded woman, is a comfort, a stay, a prop to a +man's soul, an aid to meditation and repose. I insist upon a +pipe—within moderation, of course. Do you like parrots? Sophy, are +you capable of supporting a parrot? I have already perceived your +reprehensible fondness for cats." He looked at his scratched hand. +</p> +<p> +"I have always wanted a parrot. I think they're the most—" +</p> +<p> +"Damnable brutes!" finished the doctor. "Gad, I'd as lief live in +the house with Sophronisba One! It is not moral to like a parrot. +What do you think of stewed rhubarb?" +</p> +<p> +I made a wry face. I abhor stewed rhubarb. Somehow, it always makes +me think of orphans in long-waisted gingham dresses with white china +buttons down the back. One way of punishing children for losing +their parents is to make them wear dark gingham dresses with china +buttons down the back and to eat stewed rhubarb for dessert. +</p> +<p> +"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are," pronounced +the doctor. "It's a sign of moral rectitude to eat stewed rhubarb. +Now, as to science: what is your attitude toward evolution?" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I think plenty of men turn themselves into monkeys, but I +refuse to believe that God ever turned a monkey into a man." +</p> +<p> +"Ha!" mused the doctor, pulling his nose; "I see! Do you insist +upon a sacrosanct meal hour? Are your meal hours fixed, even as the +laws of the Medes and the Persians?" +</p> +<p> +"How else, pray, shall one run one's house with any degree of +system?" I wanted to know. +</p> +<p> +"Bunk!" snorted the doctor. "<i>I</i> eat when I'm hungry! Now, lastly, +sister, tell me truthfully: are you a Democrat or a Republican?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't see much difference: they're both of them nothing but +<i>men</i>." +</p> +<p> +"I knew it!" The doctor shook his head with sad triumph. "She'd +scratch Brown, because she didn't like the expression of his ears, +and vote for Jones, because he had such beautiful whiskers! My dear, +dear woman, can't you see that it's almost a law of nature for you +and me, who don't agree about anything, to marry each other?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't even agree with you as to that!" said I, and fell into +helpless laughter. +</p> +<p> +"It rather looks like flying in the face of Providence not to," he +warned me. "In the meantime—" +</p> +<p> +"In the meantime, let us be grateful Alicia didn't put the notion +into your head to ask somebody who might have taken you seriously." +</p> +<p> +"That means you don't, and won't." He drew a long breath. "But +we're good friends; aren't we, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"If a man never does anything worse than ask a woman to marry him, +he will probably retain her friendship until she dies," I replied. +</p> +<p> +"Provided she refuses him," the doctor said, gratefully. And bending +down, he kissed me brotherly on the cheek, an honest and resounding +smack; at which opportune moment Alicia walked in. +</p> +<p> +Wholly unabashed, the doctor spoke pleasantly to Alicia, shook hands +with me effusively, and went off whistling. All was right with the +world. I'd refused him, you understand! Instead of being enraged and +offended, I found myself giggling. +</p> +<p> +That night, as Alicia didn't come in my room, I went into hers. +</p> +<p> +"I know what you've come to tell me, Sophy dear," she said, +directly. "I've seen it for some time. And I'm glad as glad—glad +with all my heart, Sophy." Her voice was tenderness itself, her eyes +melted. But the hand on my hand was cold. "I love you a great deal, +Sophy," she whispered. "More than anybody else in the world, I +think." +</p> +<p> +"And was it because you loved me, dear girl, that you put the absurd +notion of asking me to marry him into Doctor Geddes's head?" +</p> +<p> +"Absurd notion?" repeated Alicia. "Absurd notion? But he asked you! +Didn't he ask you?" +</p> +<p> +"As to that, he told me I could marry him if I wanted to," I +admitted. "Oh, Leetchy, it was funny, though! If you could have seen +the poor dear, trying to martyr himself, just to oblige you—" +</p> +<p> +"You <i>refused</i> him?" breathlessly. +</p> +<p> +"Of course. There wasn't anything to say but 'No.'" +</p> +<p> +"But—I saw—" +</p> +<p> +"You saw him kiss me on the cheek? Honey, that wasn't love: that was +gratitude!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't understand!" stammered Alicia, twisting her hands. "Why, +you cared for him—I thought you cared." +</p> +<p> +"Of course I care for him! But not like that! Good heavens, Alicia, +however did you get such a notion? My dear, if I loved you less, or +him more, I should never, never be able to forgive either of you. As +it is, we'll forget it." +</p> +<p> +At that Alicia began to cry. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, what have I done?" she whimpered. "Sophy, you don't know—what +I've done!" +</p> +<p> +"You haven't done anything that can't be undone," said I, +comfortably. "You and I, my dear, fell into a Hynds House maze. Now +we're out of it!" And thinking she would be better by herself, I +kissed her good night. +</p> +<p> +Out of Hynds House maze, indeed! I had only to step back into my own +room to have it again enmesh me. For on the prie-dieu that had once +held Freeman Hynds's Bible and now held mine, was the lost diary. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0013"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XIII +</h2> +<h3> + FIRES OF YESTERDAY +</h3> +<p> +I wasn't frightened, of course. There isn't anything terrifying in +finding a little old leather-covered book on a prie-dieu by one's +bedside. But it was some minutes before I could induce myself to +take up that yellowed old diary and examine it. +</p> +<p> +It begins the year of Freeman's return from college, "a Finish'd +Young Gentleman." He has refused to go abroad, considering that "our +Young Gentlemen have enough Fripperies & Fopperies at Home without +bringing worse Ones from Abroad." Brother Richard has been abroad +more than once, and Freeman does not "find him Improv'd save in +Outer Elegancies." +</p> +<p> +The only person that "much Travelling hath not Spoil'd," he finds, +is Mistress Emily Hope of Hope Plantation. "Shee was a Sweet Child," +he remembers; and now that the dew of their youth is upon them both, +he finds her "of a Graceful and Delicate Shape, with the Most +Beautiful Countenance in the World, a Sweet & Modest Demeanour, a +Sprightly Wit, an Accomplish'd Mind, & a Heart Fix'd upon Virtue." +</p> +<p> +The estates are near each other, the families intimate friends. +Emily seems to like the boy. At any rate, she doesn't repel him. And +then returns Richard—the gay, the handsome, the irresistible +Richard—who adds to the stalwart comeliness of a colonial gentleman +the style, the grace, the cultivated manners of the Old World. +</p> +<p> +Almost fiercely Freeman notes the effect he produces, and how "Women +do catch an Admiration for him as't were a Pox." +</p> +<p> +Then he begins to set down, grimly, "The Sums my Father hath paid +for My Brother's Debts." A little later, he adds: "You Might Pour +the Atlantic Ocean full of Gold through his Pocketts & Overnight +would He empty Them." Richard, also, "Makes Choice of rake-hell +Companions," to his father's growing unease and indignation, his +mother's distress. But "Good God! how is all Forgiven the Beautiful, +the Gift'd!" +</p> +<p> +"Jezebel herself, that carries her Head so High, wears her Heart +upon her Sleeve, een like a simple Milkmaid! 'Tis a Rare Spectacle. +Sure there's a Fatality about this Man!" +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +"This Day dress'd I in my new Blue Cloathes, the which become me not +Ill & riding over to Hope Plant'n did ask for Emily's Hand. Alas, +'Tis even as my Fears foretold! Shee loves me Not. 'Tis Richard +alone hath her Heart. +</p> +<p> +"I do Fear Shee will sup Sorrow & drink Tears that setts her +Affection upon the Unstable. Shee's too Mild, too Tender, hath not a +Firm enough Hand to restrain him. He should een have ta'en Madame +Jezebel. Hath a Grand Passion for him. Will not lightly wear the +Willow." +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +"This Day did Richard my Brother Wed Emily Hope," he records, after +a six-months' silence. "All say 'tis a most Noble Mating. My Mother +in a Gown from London Town, & our Finest Gems, enow to make a +Dutchess envious of a Carolina Lady. My Father in high Spiritts. +</p> +<p> +"I danc'd with the Bridesmaids, but Salut'd not the Bride, the Which +noted Madame Jezebel. Was Handsomer than ever I did See her, many +thinking her Handsomer than the Bride. Had a great Following, the +which the Hussy treat'd with Disdain. +</p> +<p> +"'Have you Kiss'd the Bride, Sir?' says shee, a-mocking of me after +her Wont. 'What a Fine Thing is a Love-Match, Master Freeman!' +</p> +<p> +"'Have you Wish'd the Bridegroom Joy?' says I. The woman anger'd me. +</p> +<p> +"'May Heaven send him all the Happiness he Deserves!' cries shee. +'Sure, you'll echo that yourself, Master Freeman!' 'Tis a jibing +Wench. Would to God Richard had Wedded her!" +</p> +<p> +Then came dry notes of a visit to Kinsfolk in Virginia. Freeman +seems to have been away from home for some time. When he returns, it +is to chronicle in brief his brother's downward course. "They have +sold Hope Plantation and Most of the Slaves. 'Tis an evil Chance." +</p> +<p> +"I shall be Twenty-one next month, though I feel a Thousand. We +shall have a Ball, after the Custom of our House. 'Tis to be a Grand +Affair. I do think my Parents are somewhat Tender of Conscience to +meward. Though my Father Loves me not as he Loves my Brother, yet he +begins to Lean upon me more & More Heavily. My poor Mother is a +Little Envious of these Dry Virtues of mine, seeing her Darling is +like to come to Shipwreck for Lack of them. Yet had he Fortune & +Beauty & Emily!" +</p> +<p> +The next entry records the loss of the Hynds jewels. "'Tis a great +Mystery!" One is sorely puzzled here. There is no getting at what +Freeman really thinks. Coldly, tritely, he sets down the bald, bare +facts of the tragedies that wrecked the Hyndses. +</p> +<p> +With a strange lack of emotion he chronicles Richard's death, and +adds: "At the Pleasure of God his Birth fell upon a Wednesday, at +Sun-rising, the which was by some Accounted Favourable. His Death +came upon a Friday, at Noone, it Raining heavily." +</p> +<p> +Then comes his father's sudden death; and this curious item: +</p> +<p> +"Despite his Anguish & Affliction of Spiritt upon that Date, he did +tell me Part, after the Custom of our House, the morning of my +Twenty-first Birthday. Alas, when he was Stricken, upon the News of +Richard's Demise, he had no Chance to tell me All, nor was there +among his Papers the Keye nor any Clue to It. When J. call'd us, he +was Beyond Speech & shee Hystericall with Affright. Thus the Whole +Secret perishes, since Without the Keye & his Instructions 'twould +be Impossible to Proceed." +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +"This evening came Capt. B., the worst of the Plundering Crew that +pluck'd Richard. 'Sirrah,' says he, impudently, 'thy Brother owe'd +me three thousand pounds.' And he pulls me out a great fistfull of +Billets. +</p> +<p> +"'Sirrah,' says I, 'my Brother owes his Wife and Orphan'd Infant +three thousand times more than that. There be Debts of Nature which +precede so-called Debts of Honour. Each billet in thy hand, thou +swindling runnigate, calls for a bullet. Begone, lest <i>I</i> owe thee +a horse-whipping.' +</p> +<p> +"'Anan!' says he, 'and one of you a Thief! <i>That</i> for Honour, in the +mouth of a Hynds!' And snapp'd me his fingers under my Nose. +</p> +<p> +"We arrang'd a Meeting, though 'T was Foolish to Risk myself, with +the Roof tottering over my Mother's Head. My fellow Pompey, Mr. G. +Dalzell, Mr. F. Mayne, & Dr. Baltassar Bobo with me. Two of his +scoundrelly Associates with him. His ball graz'd my arm above the +Elbow & Burnt the Linen of my Shirt. Mine Finish'd him. 'T was too +great an Honour & more than he Deserv'd, to die by the Hand of a +Gentleman." +</p> +<p> +A little later: "This morn disappear'd my Cozen Jessamine. +</p> +<p> +"Nothing discover'd of her Whereabouts," he records from time to +time. +</p> +<p> +"This morn saw I Emily & Richard's little Son. 'T is a Fine child, +much Resembling my Brother. Emily turn'd her Face away, drawing down +of her Widow's Weeds, & turn'd also the Babe's face aside. I felt +Embitter'd." +</p> +<p> +By this time he has taken over the whole Hynds estate as heir. He +mentions his sisters' marriages, notes that they have received their +dowers, and so dismisses them. +</p> +<p> +His mother has been dead some time when he marries. One wonders what +the bride was like, whom he commends for "Housekeeping Virtues, so +that the Servants instantly Obey, there is no Pilfering & Loitering, +& the House moves like Clockwork." +</p> +<p> +He must have been like clockwork, himself. There seems less and less +human emotion in him. The birth of his only child gets this: +</p> +<p> +"This day was born Sophronisba Harriott Hynds, nam'd for her +Estimable Mother. I am told 'Tis a fine healthy Child." +</p> +<p> +Casually thereafter he mentions "my Daughter." Twice her mother +"Requested me to Chastise her for Unchristian Temper," which +chastisement he seems to have administered with thoroughness and a +rattan, in his office. On the second occasion, "I whip'd her +Severely & did at the same Time admonish her to Ask Pardon of God. +Whereupon she Yell'd Aloud & did Seize the Calf of my Leg & Bite me, +Causing me Great Physical Pain and Mental Anguish. How sharper than +a Serpent's Tooth is an Ungrateful Child!" +</p> +<p> +(Oh, Ungrateful Child, I do not find it in my heart to blame you +overmuch. Somehow I can't feel sorry that you bit him, Sophronisba!) +</p> +<p> +"This day died my Wife, an Estimable Helpmeet. I shall sadly Lack +her Management of the House." In spite of which, he buys more land. +Life seems to run smoothly enough. "The Lord hath bless'd me with +Abundance. They that Spoke evil of me are Astonied & made Asham'd. +The Lord hath done it." +</p> +<p> +Then comes this last entry: +</p> +<p> +"Two nights since died Scipio, son of old Shooba's last Wife, the +which did send for me, Urgently entreating of my Presence. 'T was +ever a Simple-minded Creature & found a faithful Servant, wherefore +I did go to him. +</p> +<p> +"He was greatly in Dread of Dying, for that he was in mortal Terrour +of old Shooba, fearing to Meet that Evil Being outside of the Flesh. +Had been with Shooba when the wretched Creature passed away, a +harden'd Heathen among Convert'd & Profess'd Christians. Said he was +a Snake Soul. +</p> +<p> +"The man was craz'd with Fear, dreading Shooba to be even then in +the Room. And indeed the Tale he whisper'd me was enough to Craze a +Christian Man, & hath all but crack'd mine own Witts. If 't were not +for the Paper he slip't into my Palm, I should sett it down for a +Phantazy, one of old Shooba's evil Spells. Most merciful God, how +came he by that Paper if the Tale be untrue? +</p> +<p> +"Greatly am I upsett by this Improbable & Frightful Thing. Sure this +requires Prayer & Fasting, lest I be Delud'd." +</p> +<p> +Between the pages following this last entry was a piece of yellowed +paper, the paper that had been lost from the Author's coat pocket, +in the locked closet of his room. +</p> +<p> +After a while I managed to work the slit of a drawer open, and to +this hiding-place I returned Freeman's diary, and with it the +faintly scented bit of paper that The Author mourned. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +The failure of her matrimonial plans for me did not occasion Miss +Alicia Gaines overmuch grief. She seemed to have dismissed the whole +matter from her mind. Restored to her old time gaiety, she sang like +a thrush as she worked. She bubbled over with the sheer joy of +living, until the very sight of her gladdened one. And she simply +couldn't make her feet behave! She danced with the broom one +morning, to the great amusement of our scholarly old Englishman. +</p> +<p> +"I'm supposed to be somewhat of an old stick myself: why not try me, +instead of the broom?" he suggested slyly. Instantly she took him at +his word, and danced him up and down the hall until he was +breathless. +</p> +<p> +"This," panted the scholar, "is a fair sample of what the Irish do +to the English." +</p> +<p> +"We do lead you a pretty dance, don't we, dear John Bull?" dimpled +Alicia. +</p> +<p> +"You do, you engaging baggage!" he admitted. "But," he added, in a +tone of satisfaction, "we manage to keep step, my dear! Oh, yes, we +manage to keep step!" And he trotted off, chuckling. +</p> +<p> +"There are times," said The Author to me, darkly, "when the +terrifying tirelessness of youth gives me a vertigo. Come away, Miss +Smith. Leave that kitten to chase her own shadow up the wall." +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "Cross-patch, draw the latch,<br /> + Sit by the fire and spin—yarns!" +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +chanted Alicia. +</p> +<p> +"Go away, you pink-and-white delusion!" said The Author, severely. +"You have made Scholarship and Wisdom put on cap and bells and +prance like a morris-dancer. Isn't that mischief enough for one +day?" +</p> +<p> +Alicia has a round, snow-white chin, and when she tilts it the curve +of her throat is distracting. +</p> +<p> +"On second thoughts," said The Author, critically, "I discover that +I do not wholly disapprove of you. Come outside. I wish to talk +about the venerable, and yet common design that tops every outside +window and door of this house.—What do you call that design, may I +ask?" +</p> +<p> +"Why, everybody knows the Greek fret!" said Alicia, staring at it. +"It's as old as the hills." +</p> +<p> +"Exactly," agreed The Author. "The Greek fret is as old as the hill. +And, with the single exception of the swastika, it is the design +most universally known to man. You may find it on a bit of ancient +Greek pottery, or on a crumbling wall in Yucatan. Many people refer +to it as the Greek key." +</p> +<p> +Something began to glimmer in my mind—the vaguest, most tenuous +shadow of an idea; a tantalizing, hide-and-seek phantom of a +thought. +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + "<i>Turne Hellens Keye <br /> + Three Tennes and Three</i>," +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +he quoted the doggerel verse. +</p> +<p> +We looked at him mutely. +</p> +<p> +"It is a tiresome truism," he went on, reflectively, "that what lies +close to the eye often escapes observation. For instance, these +windows have been staring at me daily, each with its nice little +eyebrow of design, and I overlooked the design until my subconscious +mind suggested to me that here, in all probability, lies Hellen's +Keye." +</p> +<p> +I remembered the entry in Freeman's diary, concerning the loss of a +"Keye," which hadn't been found among his father's papers, and of a +secret which had died with the older man. +</p> +<p> +"I think I told you," said The Author, "that this house was built by +master masons, shortly after the Grand Lodge was established in +London. Thirty-three is rather a significant number. Yet, how to +apply it," he paused, frowning. +</p> +<p> +"Without disturbing a Watcher in the Dark?" Alicia made light of +The Authors itch for mystery. "Aren't you rather forgetting the +Watcher in the Dark? Teller of tales, isn't it moon-stuff you're +trying to spin?" +</p> +<p> +"Who talks of a Watcher in the Dark?" asked a pleasant voice. +Accompanied by Mr. Johnson, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik had strolled up +unperceived. +</p> +<p> +"The Author," Alicia explained, mischievously, "is trying to make +sense out of nonsense." +</p> +<p> +"That," said Mr. Jelnik, smiling, "is not an uncommon occupation." +</p> +<p> +"It's all about a bit of doggerel we found on a scrap of paper in +the attic," I told him. And I quoted it, adding: "There was a column +of dots under it. The Author laments that he lost it, before he had +chance to unravel it." +</p> +<p> +"I lost it, walking in my sleep," said The Author, disagreeably. +</p> +<p> +"And now he's trying to make us believe that the design in the +brick-work above our windows, just because it's the Greek fret, is +Hellen's Keye," Alicia said, jestingly. +</p> +<p> +"Well, you know, if a thing means <i>anything</i>, it's got to mean +<i>something</i>," put in Mr. Johnson. +</p> +<p> +"Ain't it the truth, though?" hissed The Author, with fury. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Johnson was saved from stammering explanations by the irruption +of Beautiful Dog, who at sound of his voice had wriggled, and +cringed, and fawned his way out of the shrubbery, cocking a wary eye +to see that none of the Black family was around. Beautiful Dog +rolled his eyes at his god, swung his tail, waggled his ears, made +uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from ear to ear. +He was so utterly absurd that he claimed everybody's amused +attention. +</p> +<p> +"Why, old chap! You're rather glad to see your friends, aren't you?" +the secretary said in his pleasant voice. +</p> +<p> +Beautiful Dog yelped with rapture, darted back into the shrubbery, +and a moment later emerged and laid at his adored one's feet all his +treasure, a chewed slipper. He tried to say that precious as this +gift undoubtedly was, he gave it willingly, joyfully. But scenting +other white people too near, he backed off, and fled. +</p> +<p> +The Author's eyes followed him. +</p> +<p> +"I wonder if I'd have been equal to that, myself, if I'd been born a +nigger dog with an ingrained distrust of the white man?" he +questioned. "Gad! it comes near being the real thing, Johnson!" +</p> +<p> +The secretary looked at the slipper lying at his feet: "I wonder +where he found that, now?" +</p> +<p> +I was wondering the same thing, and so was Alicia. +</p> +<p> +"Let's show Beautiful Dog the Chinese politeness of being decent +enough not to accept his gift when he's decent enough to offer it," +she suggested. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, throw it into the shrubbery and let him find it. That may +raise white people somewhat in his estimation," I added, hastily. +</p> +<p> +Instantly Mr. Jelnik picked it up and tossed it among the bushes. +His action seemed the merest polite compliance with my request, and +he barely glanced at the object he cast away. Yet it was really +worth a second glance. Chewed, frayed, and torn, it had once been of +finest red Morocco leather; and it was such a flat and heelless +slipper as no native Hyndsville foot had ever worn. It was The +Jinnee's slipper. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0014"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XIV +</h2> +<h3> + THE TALISMAN +</h3> +<p> +Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was far from the fool her cousin Sophronisba +had credited her with being. She had sufficient cleverness to +understand that Hyndsville wasn't big enough to hold two factions. +For a faction was forming with Hynds House as its storm-center, and +it was one which threatened Mrs. Scarboro's hitherto unquestioned +sovereignty. Jimmy Scarboro himself, a most personable youth, was +one of the ringleaders of revolt. +</p> +<p> +A weaker woman would have kept up the fight. Mrs. Scarboro +understood that to spend one's powers trying to hold an untenable +position is a proof not of valor but of stupidity. She quietly +declared a truce, sending out, in the form of an invitation to one +of her sacred card-parties, tentative notice that she would consider +joining forces. We recognized the olive-branch, seriously extended. +The next move was ours. +</p> +<p> +"There's a time to fight, and a time to leave off fighting," Alicia +decided. "Here's where we disarm. When these people come from under +the shade of the dear old family tree, they're quite human. We have +got to let them give themselves the opportunity to discover that +we're human, too." +</p> +<p> +It wasn't necessary to explain things to The Author, because a +portion of his brain is purely and cattily feminine. That's why he +is a genius. No man is a genius whose brain isn't bisexual. +</p> +<p> +"I shall have to lay aside a cherished prejudice and lend this lady +the light of my countenance, although I loathe card-parties. I abhor +cards, outside of draw-poker on shipboard, with a crook of sorts +sitting in to lend the game a fillip. Despite the fact that poor +Mrs. Scarboro couldn't lay hands on a decent crook to save her life, +I think I shall go, and thereby acquire merit," he concluded, with +the air of a martyr. +</p> +<p> +I looked at him gratefully. +</p> +<p> +"I'll wager that little Sophy thinks she wants to go because she +desires to be friends and neighbors. 'Behold how good and how +pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!'—You're a +transparent person, you Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +"But I do desire to be friends with them. I have to live here all +the rest of my life, haven't I?" +</p> +<p> +"Not necessarily," replied The Author, arching his eyebrows. "For +instance, you can live in New York any time you want to, Sophy." +</p> +<p> +"I've never told you that you might call me Sophy," I parried, +hastily. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, but I like to call you Sophy," he responded airily. "And +really, you shouldn't mind. I've called people lots worse things +than Sophy, in my time! But then," he added, "I didn't happen to +like them. As for you, I find you a very likeable being, Sophy; upon +my word, extremely likeable!" +</p> +<p> +"Thank you," said I. I wasn't anxious to hear The Author tell me how +likable he found me; at least, not yet. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +For pride's sake as well as for the sake of custom—and in South +Carolina custom has all the power of a fetish—Mrs. Scarboro would +have died rather than vary by one jot or tittle her usual +refreshments, or wear a new frock, on that particular night. Yet the +occasion, despite its mild diversions, was distinctly epochal, in +that it marked the reunion of Hyndsville. Even Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, +for the first time, put in his decorative appearance, to The +Author's fidgety surprise. He played a highly creditable game of +bridge. And after a while he sang "Believe Me if All Those Endearing +Young Charms," so exquisitely that a hushed and rapturous silence +fell upon everybody, and the old ladies and gentlemen present held +their hands before misty eyes. They used to sing that song when the +old men were boy soldiers marching off to the tune of "The Bonnie +Blue Flag," and the old ladies were ringleted girls in hoop-skirts +bidding them good-by. +</p> +<p> +"My dear boy," Mrs. Scarboro told him, with great feeling, "you have +been forgetting that you're a cousin of mine. Your mother and I were +girls together. I want you to meet some other old friends of hers +and your grandfather's," and she carried him off to a group of those +wonderful old ladies who grow to purest perfection in South +Carolina—low-voiced lovely old ladies, dressed in black silk, with +cameo brooches at their throats, and lace caps on their white hair. +</p> +<p> +A little group of old gentlemen immediately foregathered with them. +They knew who was and wasn't kin to Sally Hynds's son, unto the +seventh generation. +</p> +<p> +"They've begun on the begats," chuckled The Author, "First Book of +Chronicles, Chapters One to Four." +</p> +<p> +"Jelnik's really kin to them, and he ought to pay for the +privilege," said Mr. Johnson. +</p> +<p> +The Author looked at the old ladies, on whose delicate withered +hands the wedding-rings hung loosely, and at the erect old gentlemen +with white goatees, and something whimsically tender came into his +clever face. +</p> +<p> +"It is worth the price," he said, very gently—for him. +</p> +<p> +"Now, that was your soul speaking!" said Miss Emmeline, warmly. +Instantly The Author wrinkled his nose, bristled his mustache, and +looked like a hyena. Miss Martha Hopkins, worshipfully observant of +the great man, caught his eye at that moment and thought he was +scowling at <i>her</i>. She looked so stricken that The Author presently +strolled over and sat down beside her, to her fluttering delight. +But discovering that she was wholly unacquainted with the original +verse of J. Gordon Coogler of Columbia, he first bitterly reproached +her for neglecting home-made talent, and then proceeded to make sure +that she would remember the Bard of the Congaree so long as she +lived. +</p> +<p> +"Not know Coogler!" cried The Author, shrilly; "ignorant of the bard +raised, so to speak, around your own door-step? Horrible! Listen to +this!" said he, accusingly: +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "Fair lady, on that snowy neck and half-clad bosom <br /> + Which you so publicly reveal to man,<br /> + There's not a single outward stain or speck.<br /> + Would that you had given but half the care <br /> + To the training of your intellect and heart,<br /> + As you have given to that spotless neck!" +</p> +<p> +"Gracious Heavens!" gasped Miss Martha, who showed a modest +salt-cellar in the mildest of Vs. +</p> +<p> +"Is it possible you don't like him?" demanded The Author, amazedly. +"But, my dear woman! Coogler's—why, Coogler's ginger-pop to a +thirsty world!" +</p> +<p> +"I—I don't drink ginger-pop!" confessed the be-deviled Center of +Culture, foggily. +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "Alas! for the South, her books have grown fewer, <br /> + She never was much given to literature," +</p> +<p class="noindent"> +quoted The Author, pensively. +</p> +<p> +She was speechless. The shameless Author, fixing upon her a last +long, lingering look of sorrowful reproach, said with emotion: +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "From early youth to the frost of age <br /> + Man's days have been a mixture <br /> + Of all that constitutes in life <br /> + A dark and gloomy picture." +</p> +<p> +And he stalked off, leaving Miss Martha Hopkins in a state of mind. +</p> +<p> +"Friend Author," Alicia murmured, as he paused beside her, "I wish +you were my own dear little boy for just five merry minutes. I'd +show you," she declared, divided between Irish mirth and human pity +for Miss Martha, "I'd show you what a hair-brush could accomplish!" +</p> +<p> +"Too late!" regretted The Author, shaking his head. "But," he +suggested, brightening, "couldn't you wish to be my own dear little +girl, instead?" +</p> +<p> +"This is so sudden!" murmured Alicia, coyly. +</p> +<p> +"Deluding devilette!" breathed The Author, "get thee behind me!" +</p> +<p> +That evening was the first time I had ever heard myself called +"pretty." I was used to "businesslike" and "efficient" and +"trustworthy"—all excellent terms, in their way, but not such happy +things, any one of them, as "pretty." +</p> +<p> +"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked The Author. "Something over +the hills and far away? Because you look as Maude Adams used to look +when she first played 'Peter Pan.'" +</p> +<p> +I hoped it might be true, because— +</p> +<p> +I looked up then and met Mr. Nicholas Jelnik's dark eyes. They were +falcon eyes, but now there was something in them that made me, to my +rage and confusion and chagrin, blush like a silly school-girl. When +I again ventured to glance in his direction he was patiently and +politely listening to a white-goateed, game-legged U.C.V. refight +the Civil War with so fiery a zest that he presently caught another +veteran a resounding crack on the funny-bone with the gold-headed +stick he was flourishing. Both gentlemen half rose, the one making +wry faces and rubbing his elbow, the other bowing and apologetic. +</p> +<p> +"Pahdon me, Majah! My deah suh, pahdon me! But I was just tellin' +this boy about the day in the Wilderness his grandfathah Hynds took +a Yankee bullet out of my leg with a paih of silvah scissahs and +bandaged it with the tail of his shirt. +</p> +<p> +"'I've lost my niggah and my instruments, Sam,' says the doctah, +'but that's no reason why the damyankees should have the +satisfaction of killin' a puffeckly good rebel, when there's not +enough to go around now. Hold your leg still,' says he, rollin' up +his sleeves, 'an' with the help of God and my scissahs and my +shirt-tail, I'll save it for you.' An' he did. I walked home from +Appomattox on that same leg, suh," said the veteran, and brought his +stick down on the toes of it with a force that made him utter a +muffled bellow. +</p> +<p> +The other, still nursing an outraged elbow, smiled sweetly. +</p> +<p> +"Thanks, Sam," he drawled. +</p> +<p> +The Author chuckled appreciatively. "And to think we Americans rush +abroad, when the republic of South Carolina is right next-door to +us!" he murmured. +</p> +<p> +A gentle change was creeping over Hynds House, perhaps because of +the delightful old ladies who had begun to come there. Old +gentlemen, too, formed the pleasant habit of dropping in, beguiled +by the artful Author, waited upon son-like by his secretary, +foregathered with as kith and kin by the Englishman, mint-juleped by +the three of them, enchanted by Alicia, and teaed and caked and +beloved by me. Even our cats adored them. The Black family could +spot a Confederate veteran as far off as the front gate, and would +rush wildly to meet him, rubbing and roaching and purring in and out +of his old legs. The Author insisted that their passion for U.C.V.'s +was an inherited trait with our cats, and that we ourselves were +merely acquired characteristics. +</p> +<p> +In April, just before Miss Emmeline was to return to Boston, and the +Englishman and his daughter were to go back home, Alicia and I +decided to give a farewell dance. It was to be in costume. +</p> +<p> +Hyndsville was pleasantly excited. Never had there been such +rummaging of attics, such searchings of old trunks! We rummaged our +attic, too. I selected a yellow brocade trimmed with seed-pearls and +cascades of lace, and Alicia chose a skimpy blue satin frock with a +round neck, an upstanding lace collar, and absurd little puffed +sleeves. The Englishman was a Puritan, his daughter a Quakeress, +Mr. Johnson a Huguenot Lover, Miss Emmeline a Colonial Lady, Doctor +Geddes a bearded and belted Boyar, and The Author a painfully +realistic Mephistopheles, his eyebrows corked upward and his +mustache waxed into points. Mr. Jelnik sent regrets. +</p> +<p> +We had waxed the floors, and moved most of the furniture out of the +big front drawing-room; and this and the wide halls were used for a +ball-room, just as they had been used in the old days. The older +people played cards in the living-room and library. Every now and +then, between pauses, some masked and brilliant figure, like a +bright ghost from the past, would steal in to look over their +shoulders and whisper in their ears. +</p> +<p> +But those grandparents weren't content to sit down and play cards +while others footed it. Not they! They danced the Lancers, and a +polka or two, and waltzed and dipped and bowed to "Comin' through +the Rye" while all the masqueraders lined up against the walls to +admire and applaud. And after the gayest sort of a buffet supper, +the prizes that had been won by a belle and a trooper of '61—she in +her grandmother's crinoline and he in his grandfather's gray +jacket—were turned over by acclaim to a sprightly lady of seventy +and her sprightlier partner of seventy-five, for coming disguised as +old folks. The Author made the presentation speech. He began it by +saying that in South Carolina any man might well be excused for +falling in love with his grandmother. +</p> +<p> +Then the oldsters began to depart, with laughter and gay good +nights. It had been a delightful affair, one of those affairs that +go with a swing and a rhythm all their own, and that one remembers +with a pleasant taste in the mouth. +</p> +<p> +Only the more indefatigable youngsters remained. They hadn't the +slightest intention of foregoing half a night's dancing. They danced +in the hall to the music of the victrola, while the regular +musicians were being fêted in the kitchen by Mary Magdalen, +Queenasheeba, and Fernolia. +</p> +<p> +I missed my fan, and went into the drawing-room to look for it. The +room was quite empty for the moment, and looked lonesome for all its +blazing lights. A cool, sweet night wind came in through the open +windows, refreshingly. And quite suddenly there was framed in one of +them a figure more exotic, more bizarre, than any of our maskers had +been. +</p> +<p> +His dark robe was folded over his breast, and the silver shaft of a +knife showed in his red girdle. His white wool stuck out from under +his red fez, and his ear-rings gleamed against his black cheeks, and +the bracelets on his wiry arms made a faint tinkling as he leaned +forward. Emboldened by his twinkling eyes, his crooked, friendly +smile, eager to question him, I drew nearer. He stretched out his +hand, and slipped into mine the half of a broken coin. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0015"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XV +</h2> +<h3> + THE HEART OF HYNDS HOUSE +</h3> +<p> +I stood staring at the broken coin in my hand with a sort of +stupefaction, while The Jinnee moved slowly away from the window. I +had received a summons I could not ignore. Had I not promised, +smilingly indeed, but sincerely, to answer that call whenever and +however it should come? +</p> +<p> +The music had ceased for the moment, and the big hall was quite +empty, for the dancers had trooped into the dining-room, from which +came laughter and chattering voices, and the chink of silver and +china. The great front doors were wide open. I slipped unseen into +the darkly bright, whispering night. +</p> +<p> +The moon was high in the heavens, for it was past midnight; the wind +was chill upon my shoulders, the dew silvery under my feet. There +was an odor abroad—the ineffable odor of sleepily stirring spring, +of young new leaves budding, of tender grass, growing like a baby's +hair. +</p> +<p> +At some distance ahead I could just distinguish the dark figure of +the messenger, flitting soundless as a shadow. And then, to my +infinite relief, out of the shrubbery stepped Boris, and thrust his +doggy nose into my hand. I laid hold of his collar, and he trotted +sedately beside me. +</p> +<p> +I had half expected to be led to the gray-gabled cottage, but The +Jinnee stole along in the shadow of the hedge, stopped beside the +spring-house, and held up his hand. +</p> +<p> +"In the name of God!" said I, involuntarily. +</p> +<p> +"The compassionate, the merciful!" finished The Jinnee, and turning +to the east made a profound reverence. There was something so simple +and so sincere in his manner that my momentary fear subsided. +</p> +<p> +"But why have I been sent for? Why are <i>you</i> here?" I wondered. +</p> +<p> +He folded his arms upon his breast, and in a sing-song voice, +curiously unlike any other I had ever heard, answered parrotlike: +</p> +<p> +"This is the word of the master: Take to the fair-haired lady the +broken coin, my sign, and she will remember her word to me. Verily, +for the sign's sake, she will follow without fear." +</p> +<p> +"The master is not ill, then?" +</p> +<p> +"In his body he is well. But of the spirit of man, and what help he +needs, there is but one judge, namely, God." +</p> +<p> +"He has need of me?" +</p> +<p> +"He sends the token by me, Achmet." And he stood there with a +motionless patience, waiting. +</p> +<p> +Achmet! I remembered an afternoon in the Enchanted Wood, and that +name ringing in my ears—Achmet! +</p> +<p> +"I will follow you," I said. And instantly The Jinnee pushed open +the unlocked door of the spring-house and stepped inside. +</p> +<p> +I hesitated for a moment, turning my head toward Hynds House, +blazing with lights. I could hear voices, laughter, snatches of +song. From the kitchen Mary Magdalen's great, rich, unctuous laugh +rolled out like an organ peal. Silhouetted against the lighted +library window was one of our big black cats, with an arched back +and an uplifted and expressive tail. +</p> +<p> +"I wait," said a quiet voice. And, clutching Boris by the collar, I +stepped inside the door. +</p> +<p> +It was dark in there; only a faint and broken light came through the +one window, set high in the wall. Boris's eyes were balls of fire, +and his feet made a stealthy, scuffling sound on the flagged floor. +The little spring bubbling in its stone basin was like a whispering, +secretive voice. +</p> +<p> +Achmet stooped down, over in one corner. Then, shading a very modern +flash-light with a fold of his robe, he showed me one of the square +flags lifted, and a black hole yawning in the floor. +</p> +<p> +I backed away. With a crooked, sly smile, The Jinnee snapped his +fingers at Boris. The big dog jerked himself free of my hand and +disappeared. +</p> +<p> +"Now!" said The Jinnee. And like one in a dream I gathered my +lace-trimmed skirts in my hand and backed down a spider-web stairway +that barely gave one foothold. Achmet waited until I reached the +bottom, then he, too, backed in, and I heard the flagstone fall to +over my head. +</p> +<p> +There was a moment of utter and awful blackness and stillness. I was +upon the point of shrieking, when something cold and friendly +touched my hand: Boris was nosing me. The Jinnee, at the bottom of +the steps, showed the light. +</p> +<p> +We were in a circular shaft, narrowing upward like an inverted +funnel. It was quite clean and dry, lined with hard cement. +Branching from it were two wedge-shaped openings, just wide enough +to allow one person at a time to walk through. +</p> +<p> +The Jinnee plunged into one of these, and Boris and I followed. +There was nothing else for us to do. +</p> +<p> +"This is safest way. If I come through house, I am seen. Not want +that," said Achmet, over his shoulder. +</p> +<p> +I made no reply. I was wondering what The Author would have said had +he seen us at that moment—The Jinnee shuffling ahead in heelless +slippers and Oriental dress, upon his woolly head a red fez with a +silver crescent on it, and on his breast a string of <i>saphies</i>, +verses from the Koran, in exquisite Arabic script, framed in flat +round pieces of silver and strung on a chain. Boris, larger and +nobler even than most of his breed, paced behind him. Then came I, a +slim blonde woman, with fair hair powdered, in a dress a century +old. +</p> +<p> +The passage wasn't quite six feet high, and so still that you +could hear the beating of your heart. Achmet's slippers went +<i>scuf-scuf-scuf</i>. Boris swayed from side to side, his tongue +lolling, his eyes phosphorescent. He resembled those ghost-hounds +of old stories, terrific beasts that follow the Wild Huntsman. +</p> +<p> +We went down some steps. I shouldn't have been surprised had I found +myself climbing the beanstalk after Jack. Dazedly I thought: "I'll +wake up in the morning and tell them at the breakfast-table what a +wonderful dream I had." I could fancy the Lady with the Soul +clasping her hands, and The Author crinkling his eyes, and Alicia +laughing. +</p> +<p> +This last passage, which, I learned afterward, ran under the +carriage house, presently crooked like an elbow and led us into a +windowless and stone-floored little room, under the cellar. On the +opposite side of the room was the opening of another such passage, +with stone steps leading to it. On these steps sat Nicholas Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +He got to his feet and stood looking at me. A momentary red rushed +to his cheek, and his eyes flashed. Boris, tongue out, tail wagging, +rubbed against him, and the master's hand dropped between the +speaking eyes with a swift caress. +</p> +<p> +"Good dog! You came with her!" +</p> +<p> +"And I. Am I not also a good dog?" asked The Jinnee, jealously. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik's reply I did not understand, but Achmet made a +respectful salutation, and his grin was the grin of a little boy. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy!" said Nicholas Jelnik, and his voice shook, "Sophy! Oh, I +knew you would come!" He gave a low, pleased laugh. "And now she is +here, she doesn't even ask why I have sent for her!" +</p> +<p> +"The mistress," said Achmet, "should have been of the Faith. May +Allah enlighten her!" +</p> +<p> +"Sit down here beside me for a few minutes, Sophy, and rest," said +Mr. Jelnik, seating himself. "And do not look so pale, my little +comrade." +</p> +<p> +"I thought—that you might be ill," I faltered. "I thought—that you +needed me." +</p> +<p> +"I am not ill, but I do need you," he said quickly, and took my hand +in a firm clasp. The touch of that hand brought me out of my +trance-like state. It was all right, and the most natural thing in +the world, that I should be sitting in this windowless vault, with +two candles and a shadowy lantern burning dimly in the still air, an +old black Jinnee squatting on his heels watching me, a great +wolf-hound stretched beside him. Wasn't Nicholas Jelnik holding my +hand? +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," he said directly, "I have found the lost Key of Hynds +House." I looked at him dumbly. "I have reached that point where I +can tell you everything, little friend. Thank Heaven you have come!" +But of a sudden his-forehead was damp. +</p> +<p> +"You will remember," he said, after a moment's silence, and still +holding my hand—and I think that now he held it as he had once held +his mother's—"when I talked to you about my childhood and my +mother, I told you she had made me more of an American than an +Austrian. This old home-town of her people, this old house, the +mystery that blackened the Hynds name, were as real to me as the +scenes and people that actually surrounded me. +</p> +<p> +"When I was older, she turned over to me all her family papers, and +I sifted and assorted and reduced them to system and order. I found +among them Richard Hynds's own brief account of the affair, and +copies of letters to his father, but the bulk of the papers +consisted of such data as his son and namesake could gather. This +formed a copious mass, for he had set down every least circumstance +that he thought might have any bearing upon his father's case. These +papers, guarded so jealously, bequeathed to his successors the +sacred task of righting Richard Hynds. +</p> +<p> +"In Richard's short statement, left for his little son, he, as +rightful heir of Hynds House, mentions the secret passages and tells +how they may be entered. He had been taught that much, himself, on +reaching his majority. But there was one vital secret that hadn't +been revealed to Richard, for not until the head of Hynds House knew +he was about to die did he give to his successor the Key to the +hidden room; the room concealed so cunningly that without the Key +one could never hope to find it. They planned and built wonderfully +well, those old master work-men. They meant that secret room to be +the strong-box, the inviolate hiding-place which should keep what +might be entrusted to it. It was, as it were, the heart of Hynds +House. +</p> +<p> +"Remember that Richard's father died of a stroke of apoplexy, and +without speaking. Thus Freeman would know no more than Richard did. +There was but one person alive who knew, and that was—" +</p> +<p> +"A slave?" I whispered, remembering Freeman's diary. +</p> +<p> +"A slave, an unlettered slave. How he discovered it I do not know. +But he did discover it. He knew, and the Hyndses did not. In regard +to this same slave, a curious item was set down by Richard's son: +</p> +<p> +"'This day Black Shooba's son told me of a heathen song Shooba made +before he died and swore him to forget not. 'Tis a strange chaunt: +</p> +<p class="verse"> + "I, Shooba, the Snake Soul, make me a Song.<br /> + In the night I sing it for my Snake. <br /> + My Snake showed me a Secret Thing. <br /> + Two Eyes and Two Eyes looked upon One Eye. <br /> + One Eye is open and sees, and sees not. <br /> + This my Snake showed me, in the Dark. <br /> + But the Strong Ones, the White Ones, <br /> + They have no Snake. Ho! Never shall they see it!"' +</p> +<p> +"Sounds like a stark raving, doesn't it? One can fancy the doctor +feeling a bit ashamed of himself when he wrote it down. +</p> +<p> +"I rather fancied it raving, myself, until one day I came across—" +here he paused, and looked at me intently—"a yellowed slip of paper +between the pages of an old diary that had been accidentally +discovered. I knew then that there was really something to be +discovered, and that I had not been a visionary sentimentalist when +I yielded to my mother's last expressed wish that I should come +here and search. +</p> +<p> +"I suppose," he went on dreamily, "that it was in my blood, the +desire to come here to Hyndsville, like a homing bird. But when my +mother died, the ties that bound me to her country seemed to be in a +measure loosened. Then, too, the <i>Wanderlust</i> had me in its grip. I +put aside the profession my father had bred me to, left my affairs +in what I thought capable hands, and indulged my desire to wander up +and down the earth and sail the seven seas. It was upon one of these +prowls that I came upon my old Achmet here, and induced a master who +didn't love him to part with him." And he looked at the old man with +whimsical tenderness. +</p> +<p> +"I am your slave," spoke up The Jinnee, sturdily. "I am the fostered +offspring of my master's bounty. May he live a thousand years!" +</p> +<p> +That shocked my Yankee ears. Achmet smiled his crooked smile. +</p> +<p> +"Why did the sahiba follow when I showed her a broken coin?" he +asked. +</p> +<p> +"Because I knew that Mr. Jelnik needed me." +</p> +<p> +"Even in the bowels of the earth?" I was silent. +</p> +<p> +"Because he is the master!" said The Jinnee. "Therefore you obeyed. +He is the master. Wherefore am I, Achmet, his slave." Oh, shame +upon you, Sophy Smith, for there was that in you, and that not the +least divine part, which was in full accord with black Achmet! +</p> +<p> +"Achmet's ideas are of the immutable East," said Mr. Jelnik, with a +faint smile. "He is archaic." And dismissing this persiflage with a +wave of the hand, he continued: +</p> +<p> +"Behold me, then, footing it up and down the highways and byways of +the world. But it was as if I had disobeyed the dead, and they would +give me no rest. So presently I stopped short and came to +Hyndsville. +</p> +<p> +"With Richard's directions in my possession, it was comparatively +easy for me to find the passageways, and after the old woman's death +I had chance to examine the house room by room. And sometimes, +Sophy, when I have been alone in this tragic old place—" he paused, +and looked at me with a puzzled frown—"it has seemed to me that +there were—well, secret influences, say; things outside of our +sphere. I have felt a sense of horror and despair descend upon my +spirit, a weight almost too heavy to bear. Sometimes it would be so +powerful, so insistent, so vivid, that I had to fly from it. +</p> +<p> +"Then I happened to remember something that a gipsy, an old, old man +reputed to be very wise, told me when I was a boy. He said that +troubled spirits can be soothed and sent hence by music. It is the +old and sure charm, as David found when he played upon the harp and +drove the evil spirit out of Saul the king. I brought my violin and +tried it. And," said the cosmopolitan Mr. Jelnik, "the gipsy was +right." +</p> +<p> +"Ah, yes, I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that +first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and +dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough +for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen +window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while +his cook's broad back was turned. Achmet was willing enough to play +the obliging Jinnee. You had your dinner, and I had a bit of +harmless amusement. It pleased me to hear Alicia call me Ariel. It +pleased me to stand by, to protect you, if that should be necessary. +Achmet and I took turns in safeguarding you at night. +</p> +<p> +"You will understand"—he gave me a straight, clear, proud +look—"that it was never my desire to mystify or to frighten you. +But I couldn't take you offhand into my confidence, could I? I had +to find out something more about you. Remember, too, that my search +in no wise jeopardizes your interests. +</p> +<p> +"Day after day, night after night, Sophy, I have pored over +old papers, or burrowed mole-like into the black recesses of +Hynds House. Bit by bit I have pieced scraps of evidence +together—Shooba's savage chant with Scipio's dying whisper in +Freeman's ear, and these two with a rude verse and a line of +dots. But there the thread snapped. +</p> +<p> +"Do you remember the morning you told me, The Author's guess that +'Hellen's Keye' was the Greek fret, the design over all the windows +and doors of Hynds House? The trail was plain then. I was to follow +the line of the Greek key for three and thirty turnings, when I +should come upon a sign. I tried and tried. And to-night—I reached +the end of it, Sophy. I found it." Again his forehead was damp, and +his pallor, if possible, deepened. +</p> +<p> +I rose as if on springs. The hair of my head rose, too, I thought, +and my scalp tingled. +</p> +<p> +"Found what?" +</p> +<p> +"The hidden room that the masters built for the master of Hynds +House." He stopped, and a shudder passed over him. His hand closed +upon mine, and it was deathly cold. +</p> +<p> +"You have been in a secret room?—here in Hynds House?" I asked +incredulously. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," said he in a whisper. "I opened the door—and went in. The +room hadn't been opened for a hundred years, Sophy. There was a +table in one corner, and I went over to it. There was something +else there, too, Sophy." He moistened his lips, and looked at me +with dilated eyes. +</p> +<p> +"What?" I asked; "in God's name, what?" +</p> +<p> +"The thief," said Nicholas Jelnik. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0016"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XVI +</h2> +<h3> + THE DEVILL HIS RAINBOW +</h3> +<p> +I was taken with a cold grue. +</p> +<p> +"Is it—murder?" It seemed to me that the still room shook and +echoed to the barely whispered word, that the candles stirred and +flickered as in a wind of passing wings. +</p> +<p> +"Not in the sense you mean," he replied. "But whatever it may be, +Sophy, this thing has got to be met and faced by us two together. It +concerns you now, as well as me." He stood up as he spoke. "And +now," he asked, "are you strong enough to come with me?" +</p> +<p> +I gathered the living spirit within me and looked him in his eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Yes," I said steadily. +</p> +<p> +"Allah! but here is a woman a man may serve without shame to his +beard!" quoth The Jinnee, wagging his old white head. And with Boris +stretched beside him he resigned himself to wait with the tireless +patience of the East. +</p> +<p> +If the other passages had been narrow, that which we now entered was +worse. It was so narrow that the wall on each side seemed about to +close in and crush us, like those frightful sliding walls that +became a living coffin for the victims of medieval cruelty. Always +one was confronted by solid brick walls; and to turn back was to +meet others seemingly risen to cut off all escape. For this passage +follows the simple and yet intricate pattern of the Greek key. Thus: +</p> +<a name="image-0004"><!--IMG--></a> +<center> +<a href="images/plan-large.png"><img src="images/plan.gif" width="400" height="219" +alt="Plan of Passage and Secret Chamber" /></a> +</center> + +<p> +I fancied myself doomed to spend a frightful eternity of burrowing +through brick wormholes which led nowhere. I lost all sense of +location, time, and direction. I wasn't even sure of my own identity +any more: things like this couldn't happen to a woman named Smith! +Just when I reached the stage where I was ready to drop down and lie +there unmoving until I died, he turned his head and gave me a +comradely smile of assurance and trust. I plucked up heart of grace +and staggered on. Of a sudden he stopped. The pale circle of the +flash-light moved up, inch by inch, steadied, and stayed on one +spot. +</p> +<p> +I found myself staring fixedly at the old and familiar enough symbol +of the rayed eye within the triangle. It was not commonplace or +familiar set up there in that secret and awesome place and seen by a +pale light. There was about it a stark and stern solemnity, such as +suggested the winged circle of immortality carved above the +rock-hewn doors of the tombs of Egyptian kings. Higher than a tall +man's head, it was painted on bricks of a lighter hue than the +surrounding ones, and when the light touched it it seemed to leap +out of the dark like a thing alive, a thing that watched with an +unwinking and terrifying intensity. +</p> +<p> +I remembered Shooba's savage chant of the One Eye that his Snake had +shown him; and the doggerel verse on the frayed paper in Freeman's +diary. +</p> +<p> +"The Watcher in the Dark!" I stammered; "the Watcher in the Dark! +Why—why, that paper was the Key itself!" +</p> +<p> +"Exactly. And a very simple key, though it took me a heartbreaking +length of time to turn it. The cipher was easy enough. It falls +apart into the figures three, five, seven, and nine; it was also +the simplest train of reasoning to apply these figures to the column +of dots. Only, I hadn't the remotest idea what the dots themselves +represented. Nor did it occur to me that the tortuous turnings of +any of the passageways of Hynds House might follow the pattern of +the Greek key, until The Author called your attention to the design +over the outside windows. Clever man, The Author! +</p> +<p> +"I lost the paper in the attic the night you heard me stumble on the +stairs. Fortunately, The Author put it in his coat in the closet and +locked the door on the outside. You can enter any room in the Hynds +House through those closet-walls, Sophy. They're paneled, remember. +I hated to have to go through The Author's pockets like a burglar, +but I had to have the key." +</p> +<p> +He handed me the flash-light. +</p> +<p> +"Now for the column of dots, each of which represents a brick," he +said, and began to count, from the first dark brick immediately +under the center of the triangle. At the third brick he paused; I +could see his fingers moving around the white line that, apparently, +held it in place. And that third brick, which looked so solidly +placed, turned as upon a pivot and swung out sideways. Still +counting from top to bottom, he paused at the fifth, the seventh, +and the ninth, and they, too, behaved in the same manner. As the +ninth one turned, that which had seemed a section of solid wall rose +soundlessly from the floor and left in its place an opening, a door, +as it were, some six feet high and about eighteen inches wide. +</p> +<p> +"It is not brick at all, but painted wood. A really wonderful bit of +work," explained Mr. Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +I could only stare, owlishly. +</p> +<p> +"You are wondering where we are?" He answered the unspoken question: +"Above the library, between the outside wall and the chimney-stacks. +You'd have to tear the house down to find it, without the Key." As +he spoke, he was lighting two of the candles Achmet had provided us +with, and although his hand was quite steady, he had become +frightfully pale. I, too, felt myself growing paler, felt again the +cold grue, as if the wind of death had stirred my hair. +</p> +<p> +"Reach into my breast pocket and you'll find a small vial. Put a +drop of the contents on your handkerchief and hold it against your +mouth for a moment," said Mr. Jelnik, with a sharp glance at me. +</p> +<p> +I obeyed mechanically. The scent had an indescribably tingling, +spicy odor, and left a cool and grateful sensation in one's parched +and dry throat. My blurred vision cleared, my dull and throbbing +head was relieved. +</p> +<p> +"An Alexandrine Copt gave me that," he said, watching its effect +with satisfaction. "He told me he had gotten it from a temple +papyrus, and that it was undoubtedly one of the lost perfumes of +Punt, used by the higher priesthood in their mysteries. Once a year +he sends me such a tiny vial as you see. I could hardly have +survived my searchings in this house, without that saving perfume. +Do you feel able to go on?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes." +</p> +<p> +"Come, then," and with that he stepped through the opening, and I +after him. +</p> +<p> +The room was not large—perhaps some nine feet high, some eight feet +wide. The walls were of such exquisitely grooved and polished red +mahogany that the candle-light was reflected in them as in mirrors; +one seemed to be surrounded by twinkling red stars. On each side of +the opening stood a tall and narrow cabinet, somewhat like a +high-boy, and in one corner was a chest with iron clasps and +handles. Over in another corner was a heavy, medium-sized square +table, on which stood a blackened candelabrum and a tarnished +silver-gilt cup. There were two chairs drawn up to this table. On +one of them, fallen forward, was something. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik placed the candles in the empty sconces. We two stood +looking down, he with pity, I with a mounting, sick horror, at the +thing before us—the poor, huddled thing that had lain there so +long. For it was not, as one might suppose at first glance, a frayed +and threadbare mantle flung across one corner of the table. By the +long black hair it was a woman, and a young woman. +</p> +<p> +She had on what must once have been a most beautiful brown silk +dress, trimmed with quantities of fine lace, and looped up over a +stiff brocaded petticoat. Her skeleton feet were in the smallest of +low-cut shoes, the tarnished silver buckles of which were set with +rhinestones. Her head rested on her arm, outflung across the table. +The other arm hung limp, and the fingers pointed downward, as if +accusingly. She had quantities of glorious black hair, and this +alone had death respected; nothing else of her loveliness remained. +Under her fleshless hand lay the soiled and yellowed papers she had +written, and over which, in biting mockery, she had kept watch and +ward. +</p> +<p> +"Who is it? Oh, God, God!—who is it?" I gasped, and heard my voice +rattling in my throat like a dying woman's. As, perhaps her voice +had rattled, here in the dark. The thought of her, sitting here in +awful loneliness these long, long years, while life, all unknowing, +ebbed and flowed within reach of her, made me shudder. +</p> +<p> +"It is Jessamine Hynds, lost Jessamine Hynds," said her kinsman of +a later day, looking down upon the wreck of her with compassion. +</p> +<p> +"But how—how—why did she come here? To die thus—Oh, my God! my +God!" +</p> +<p> +"I saw the papers under her hand, and her name written upon the +first page," he said. "What further things she has written, I do not +know. I waited, Sophy, until we should read it together." He smiled +at me wanly. "I could bear it better, with you beside me. You see +how much I need you!" And he took the papers from her and spread +them upon the table. What she had written I shall insert here, as +its properest place. +</p> +<div class="bquote"> +<p> I, Jessamine Hynds, Gentlewoman, being of sound Mind (though + they do say I am mad) but of infirm Body, the which I am + shortly to be rid of, do state and declare before God that + it was I who did take the Hynds Jewells, being help'd + thereto by black Shooba the witch doctor, who was my + father's man before my Uncle James Bought him at the Publick + Outcry of our Effects. +</p> +<p> + As to the Why & Wherefore I have act'd thus, thou knowest, + thou cruel God, who made me a beggar'd Orphan, a poor + dependant in this House of Pride! +</p> +<p> + Yet, God, thou knoweth I lov'd them well enow until Richard + came home the last Time from Abroad, a Young Man in the + Beauty of his Youth, who saw not Jessamine the poor Cozzen, + but Jessamine the fair woman. He would have me sing him + Ballads, he would hang Entranc'd upon the Spinet when I + play'd. Now would he fetch me a flower for my hair, placing + of it himself. And now 't was a knot of ribband for my + dress, and himself fetch'd home broach and ear-rings for my + Birthday Gift, saying in my ear no fairer woman's face had + gladded his eyes since he left home. And by the clipt Hedge + on a May night he kiss'd me. Alas, oh blind high God, alas, + alas! +</p> +<p> + 'T was Wondrous to see how even the Servants did catch the + Humour, they waiting upon me Marvelous ready. Until came my + dear Aunt, smiling sickly, and laying of her Hand upon my + Sholder said she must speak for mine own Good. Richard was + but a young Man, wild & headlong, and I a fair Woman thrown + in his Way in an empty betweenwhiles ere his own true love + came. See to it, Jessamine, says she, that a Boy's + short-liv'd Fancy makes not a mock of thee, at thy years, + that should know better! +</p> +<p> + Mine Uncle ever twitt'd me for liking of Books, & laugh'd + when I beg'd I might have my Chance of Becoming an Artist. + "What," says he, "a Hynds woman painting of strange folks + their faces? Out upon thy notion, Jessamine!" And my Cozzens + laugh'd and said, Ever did Gentlemen dislike a Learn'd + Female. Should have gotten me a good Husband this Ten Years + since but for my Shrew's Temper & Vanity of Books. +</p> +<p> + To cure me they did Cruelly bait me to Marry the Pursy Ninny + that hath the Plantation beyond the Hopes, he that hath been + Ogling of me for years. Could scratch the Wretch his eyes + Out! Puffeth with his mouth in a way hateful to me & hath + pig's jowls. Yet were all they fair mad I should marry me + this Paragon. Should have a home of mine Own, worthy a Lady. + Aye,—and be out of the way, lest I lead Richard Astray. +</p> +<p> + Mine Uncle chid me for Ingratitude to God in that I stamp'd + my foot and said No! But Richard laugh'd at the idea of + Jessamine wedding yon tun. Quoth Richard, "Let Jessamine be, + all of ye! she is meat for his masters." Freeman smil'd + sourly, & shrug'd. I love not Freeman, nor do I hate him + overmuch though he call'd me "Madame Jezebel." +</p> +<p> + And then came Emily home from Visiting of her Aunts in + London Town. And they made a Marriage between her and + Richard, Richard that was mine. He had lov'd me an they had + let us be. Once pledg'd, he had held fast to his word. Nor + would I, for his own Soul's sake, have let him go. There is + none, none under the sun but me alone, was strong enough to + have sav'd Richard. +</p> +<p> + 'T is true, as men judge such things, his Conduct to me was + but Gallant Pleasantry, such as Fine Gentlemen do show to + Favour'd Ladies. And he did Spare my Pride. Never did he + show by word or Deed, or admit to any, that I had car'd more + Deeply than he. But Emily knew. I knew she knew. Saw it in + her Eyes, that look'd on me with Pity. I will not brok that + any mortal Woman shall Pity me! +</p> +<p> + Secretly I suffer'd, suffer'd so that a Burning fire crept & + crept into my Brain and Stay'd, nor has left me, Day or + Night. And in all the World was no one I might Weep before, + or that would Comfort me and leave me Unasham'd, save + Shooba, the witch doctor, whom the slaves Fear for that he + hath a Snake-soul and makes Charms and casts Spells. +</p> +<p> + 'T is true, that Shooba hath a Spiritt. When it worketh upon + him he is Dull and Overcast and may not Labour untill it be + gone. And then will he rise and Speak strange and sometimes + Terrible things, and Prophesy. In the old times my Father + smil'd, and let him be. But here 't is otherwise. When + Shooba's Spiritt made him Heavy and Sleepy, and when he woke + again and Spoke, mine Uncle's new Overseer had the old man + Whip't. Twice did this Happen before I knew of It. +</p> +<p> + Then went I to the Overseer, with Indignation, and said: + "Do not whip Shooba, any more. 'T is Monstrous, to Whip an + old man that hath a Spiritt! 'T is not true he makes + dissentions and plots Revolt among the slaves. 'T is not + true he is lazy & will not Work. There is no better Workman + than Shooba. 'T is only true you are a cruel man and misuse + your Power." +</p> +<p> + Flick'd with his Whip his worsted Stockings. Said in a + hateful voice: "'Taint your place, Miss, to be a-giving of + orders to the Overseer. I take orders only from them that + has the right to Give 'em. When I think that old Nigger + ought to be whipt, whipt he 'll be." +</p> +<p> + Then march'd he to mine Uncle and ask'd was Mistress + Jessamine to oversee the Overseer, and call him hard Names + for the whipping of a Troublesome Nigger? And my Uncle fell + into a Fury With me. Allowed the wretch to Triumph. Shooba + was whipt again. I saw his Back. +</p> +<p> + Once old Shooba cur'd me of a pestilent Fever, with Simples, + when I was a little Child, and our Leech had given me Over, + nor did he Bleed me once. Now Shooba's Back was Bleeding, + and I might not help him! +</p> +<p> + Now in the night I had gone secretly to his Hut to fetch him + such poor little Comforts as I might secretly get & give. He + took them, & look'd at me long & long, with his brooding, + deep, strange eyes. +</p> +<p> + "For the man that whipt me, I have sent forth my Snake. My + Snake will have a Thing to say to him. The man will die. + Then laughed he, and hugg'd his knees.—And 't is true + Meekins the Overseer one week later was bitten by a Serpent + in the Field and died an Unlovely Death. +</p> +<p> + "Missy," whispered Shooba, "in my country when I young, + chief get mad with chief more stronger, not fight with + spears. Call Witch doctor and make Medicine. Stronger + chief, him come dead one day soon. Maybe bumbye you and me + make some Medicine?" My lips curl'd somewhat. Poor old + Shooba making medicine against the Hyndses. "You go now and + think some. I stay here, and think some, too. Maybe one time + you find medicine. Maybe one time my Snake find." +</p> +<p> + I went away, smiling sadly. 'T would need strong medicine to + heal me and Shooba! +</p> +<p> + Now Time pass'd, and they fell to planning for Freeman's + Ball. 'T was to be a Grand affair, and there was Talk of my + Aunt's Frock, and wearing of the Hynds Jewells. And + Richard's Wife was to be Allow'd to wear the Queen's + Emerald. +</p> +<p> + Came Emily to me in secret, and says she, "Come, Jessamine, + be Friends with me. My Mind is Fix'd you shall Outshine all + the other Ladies. I have the very Frock for you, just new + come from London, a lustrous thing will make you glow & + Sparkle like a Ruby. We shall make it a State Secret, + Jessamine. Not a word shall be breath'd, but you shall burst + upon them all like a Meteor!" +</p> +<p> + I do admit that ever was something Noble & Generous in + Emily, that something in myself did Honour. I had thank'd + her Thought, but that Richard came in & kiss'd her for it, + saying he een Lov'd her the Better for that she lov'd his + haughty Cozzen. But, O God, they Two went away Hand in Hand! + He forgot me for her sake, so completely that he said not + even, "Good-by." +</p> +<p> + That night went I to Shooba secretly, and said, "Is thy + Snake awake? For A Thought is in my mind." Then took we + Counsel together. Shooba is a man most cunning in all manner + of Herbs and Simples. They in Hynds House began for to sleep + sweetly and soundly, but felt no ill Effects. Nay, they rose + betimes most pleasantly rest'd & refresh'd. +</p> +<p> + Then did Shooba and I, who thus had undisturb'd Access to + my Aunt's room, work swiftly until Dawn. Three nights and a + half night did we two work, before our Task was compleat'd, + the Kernell's filch'd from the Nuts, and the Empty Shells + left for my lady's adorning of herself at my lord's + birth-night Ball. +</p> +<p> + Oh, 't was a rare, rare Jest! I laugh'd and old Shooba + laugh'd. And I did chap them atween my hands, those flaming + Bawbles, as children chap chaff. And they did sparkle & glow + like the Devill his Rainbow! All day was I Happy, Hugging of + my Secret to my Heart. +</p> +<p> + Emily had the brown dress brought Secretly into the House, & + Made for me in mine Own Room. Once was she wishful I might + wear one of the Hynds Rubies, just for one Night, but I chid + her, saying that already the Frock was more than Enough. + Indeed 't is a beautiful Dress. Will serve me well for a + Shroud. +</p> +<p> + Ever came the Ball nearer & nearer, and all we a-flutter, I + with my hands overfull, my hours overcrowd'd, with Helping + of them. I could not have slept in peace did I not know what + was a-coming. +</p> +<p> + And then open'd they the Safe in my Aunt's morning-room. + Shall be such a Howling from the Damn'd on the Day of + Judgment as went up from Hynds House that day! Makes me to + think of the text, And there shall be weeping and wailing + and gnashing of teeth. +</p> +<p> + Lord, how did they run Hither & Thither, what Wailing & + Reproaching & Accusing & Screeching! How did my dear Aunt's + eyes grow Redder than ever Mine had been! How did my Proud + Uncle find his Lofty Crest Lower'd, and was in that Honour + of his Scourg'd more Cruelly than ever old Shooba's Back had + been! How, too, was <i>her</i> Happiness burst like a Bubble, + that had been so rainbow Bright! In that house all wept save + me alone. Nor did one of them so much as dream in 's sleep + of suspecting Jessamine Hynds! +</p> +<p> + And then—oh, God! oh, God—Richard, my Richard, that I + Lov'd more than mine own Soul, died! As a Candle is snuff'd + out, so went Richard that was so comely and so strong. I had + only thought to Punish him, Make them all Suffer to Pay me + for mine own Suffering. Never, never, had I meant that + Richard should Die. 'Twas a Thunder-bolt upon my Head, 'twas + Lightning splitting my Heart. +</p> +<p> + 'Twas I brought the News of Richard's death to my Uncle + James. Was sitting in the Library pretending for to read. + Then came I in, and clos'd the Door, and said: +</p> +<p> + "<i>Richard is dead.</i>" How the man star'd! Had a ruddy face, + very Handsome. Before my eyes it pal'd and pinch'd. I said + again: "Don't you understand? <i>Richard is dead.</i>" +</p> +<p> + As a tree falls, he fell. I knew his Time was come, and + gently I rais'd him. He claw'd at his Breast and mouth'd + "Richard—Freeman—Pocket-book—The Key, the Key!" Look'd at + me piteously. 'Twould melt one's Heart to see his Eyes. +</p> +<p> + I did thrust my hand into the breast of his blue + Broad-cloath Coat, and draw forth his Pocket-Book. 'Twas in + Dark Green leather, & upon it the Arms of our House. There + were bank-notes in't, some silver, two or three folded + papers, and one in a small silk Cover, put by itself. I saw + his Fading Eyes brighten as I held it up. He maw'd, + "Key—Freeman—" and puff'd with his Lips, and fell + Unconscious. I slipt the Book back into his breast, put the + silk-covered paper in mine own, and ran out of the Room, + Calling Loudly for help. +</p> +<p> + He dy'd that Night. And when I look'd at the "Key" 'twas + naught but a silly Verse. Yet I was doubtful of Giving it to + Freeman. Instead, I did show it to old Shooba. +</p> +<p> + "I will ask my Snake if he knows anything of Keyes," said + Shooba. And remembering the Overseer, I did not smile, but + gave him the Paper. I like not to think of Shooba's Snake. +</p> +<p> + Then buried we mine Uncle in the Hynds tomb and my Aunt was + left to wander ghostlike, seeking for what she should never + find.—Oh, why did not they leave Richard and me alone! +</p> +<p> + I repent not. But I am Troubled because of Richard who comes + in the Night and looks at me, and asks, without anger, only + with Sorrow, "<i>Was it well done, Jessamine?</i>" I answer, + weeping; "Richard, it was to be. You made me Love you, + Richard, and you put me by. For which Cause, and for that + their Pride was beyond Bearing, did I pull down the Roof of + Hynds House over their heads, and these my Hands did push + you into your Grave. But go you back to Sleep, my dearest + Dear. I shall Find mine Own Grave shortly, and then I shall + be able to come closer to you. When I am Dead, Richard, you + will understand." +</p> +<p> + Sometimes he will go, looking at me over his Sholder with + Eyes so sad that for Pity I must weep mine own eyes Blind. + But sometimes he will say, in a Voice none may hear but me: + "Cruel, cruel Jessamine! You shall not come near me even + when you are Dead: You shall be Farther from me than when we + two walk'd Quick under the Sun. Never, never did you truly + Love me: I know, the Dead being Wiser than the Living! 'T is + Emily Lov'd me truest." +</p> +<p> + And oh, thou awful, far-off God, I cannot make him + Understand! And unless I can make him understand, I am lost! + My misery, my misery! He will not listen. I am dying of this + thing! +</p> +<p> + Now did Shooba's Death-in-Life come upon him once more, and + for a day and a night he lay Stark. And in the Sleep his + Snake came and show'd him the untying of the Knot, and the + Turning of the Keye. In proof whereof Shooba took me by the + hand & Show'd me the Watcher in the Darke. +</p> +<p> + "Do but one thing more for me, old Shooba: Put out the Fire + in my Brain, Shooba, for I would Sleep. And I would Sleep + here, in Secret, where none but the Watcher may see." +</p> +<p> + For a while he ponder'd, Watching of me with still eyes. +</p> +<p> + "Not good to stay awake too long. You shall Sleep," he said. +</p> +<p> + Last night he Brought me the Pinch of Powder that is an Open + Door. To what? I know not. But I go without Fear, because + without Hope. So shall I sleep in the secret Chamber, and it + maybe I shall Dream that Richard lightly Lov'd and as + lightly Left me. Whereof Richard Died. And, that Freeman + thinks his Brother Guilty and a Thief: A Hynds a Thief! so + that Hynds House hangs Heavy above his head. And that Emily + begins to Hate Freeman, who Loves her. She thinks he hath + play'd Judas. I shall have Pleasant dreams! +</p> +<p> + Never shall they Find where Shooba hid the Gems, between a + night and a morning. Never shall any look upon my face more, + nor read what I have written, nor know what I have done. I + repent not, O God! What I am I am, Not I but Thou hast + created me! Having liv'd mine own Life, I do die mine Own + Death. +</p> +<p class="ar"> Jessamine Hynds. +</p> +</div> +<p> +"This is the Horror that we have—felt!" I babbled. "She's been +sitting here—by herself—all the time—" and my voice failed me, +remembering that dark and anguished sense of guilt and ruin, of +unease and terror, that at times fell upon one in the night like a +smothering garment. Cold drops came upon my forehead, when I +reflected that we had been living under the same roof with This, and +we all unknowing. And I began to whimper: "I cannot stay even one +night more under the same roof with her. I cannot! I cannot!" +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," said Nicholas Jelnik's quiet voice, "I brought you here +because I relied upon your courage, your common sense, and your +charity." +</p> +<p> +I gulped. In the most matter-of-fact manner, he gave me another +whiff of that incomparable perfume, and I felt my taut nerves +steady. Not untruthfully had the Coptic physician claimed magic +qualities for that perfume. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik said gently: "Had you been other than you are, I would +not have dared call you to my aid to-night. But when I discovered +the real thief—and she Jessamine Hynds—I could not bear that any +other eyes than yours should see her as she is. And—I want you to +be with me when I find the jewels." +</p> +<p> +The jewels? I blinked at him. Immersed in the tragedy of the woman +Jessamine, her piteous fate had put all thought of everything save +herself out of my mind. +</p> +<p> +"Shooba hid them, between a night and a morning. Shooba brought her +here, between a night and a morning. Where should the jewels be but +here?" +</p> +<p> +At his words the grim and mocking ghost of that terrible old +African, who had been whipped for falling into trances, and who had +so tragically revenged himself and his slighted mistress, seemed to +rise behind all that remained of her. +</p> +<p> +"Yes, he would put them where she could keep watch over them. Why +should she come here, make her way through those dreadful passages, +save for that? Think of her stealing out of her room in the dead of +night, coming alive to what she knew was her tomb, shutting that +door upon herself—" I looked at the tarnished cup, and hoped that +the witch doctor's potion had given her a speedy sleep. I looked at +the blackened candelabrum, and wondered whether that candle had gone +out before she had, or whether her head had fallen upon her arm, and +she had died wide-eyed in the black, black dark. The cold grue shook +me again, and I beat my hands together for terror and pity. +</p> +<p> +"Do not think of that!" said Mr. Jelnik. "Death rectifies human +wrongs, and all of them have long, long since been healed of their +hurts. Come, let us find the jewels. We are losing time." +</p> +<p> +We opened the cabinets first. They held papers that had been +precious in their day—old deeds, old charters and grants, with the +king's seals and the signatures of the Lords Proprietors upon them; +correspondence, a casual glance at which showed Revolutionary +activities—a hanging matter once, but harmless enough now; a box of +foreign coins, all gold; a charge, in medieval Latin, on fine +parchment, which exquisitely illuminated initial letters; a plain +silver chalice and a patten; some threadbare robes and regalia, and +a gavel; a most carefully done chart of the Hynds family, ending, +however, with Colonel James Hampden Hynds himself; two letters, and +a miniature of Charles the First; letters signed, "Yours, B. +Franklin," "Yours, John Hancock"; several from "Geo. Washington." +</p> +<p> +The chest held two uniforms, one British, the other buff and blue; a +pair of pistols, spurs, and a sword. The buff-and-blue uniform was +worn and stained, with a burnt and ragged hole in the breast. It had +belonged, said the slip pinned to it, to "Captain Lewis De Lacy +Hynds, my youngest Brother, the youngest of our House, who Fell +Gloriously at the Battle of Cowpens." +</p> +<p> +And that was all. Although we examined every inch of that floor, +every board of the walls, and made the most scrupulously careful +search of the cabinets and the chest. I even dared pass my hands +over Jessamine herself. +</p> +<p> +Shooba the witch doctor had done the unexpected. Wherever he might +have hidden them between a night and a morning, he had not hidden +the Hynds jewels in the secret room of Hynds House. And she who +alone could have solved the mystery and told us the truth, lay there +with a lipless mouth. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0017"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XVII +</h2> +<h3> + ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS +</h3> +<p> +We gave over the futile search at last. Mr. Jelnik sat down and took +his head in his hands, for the moment a prey to overwhelming +disappointment. I could have wept for him. Presently: +</p> +<p> +"Is it so hard to lose that which you never possessed?" I ventured +to ask. +</p> +<p> +"It is always bitter to fail." +</p> +<p> +"But you haven't really failed. You have succeeded in proving that +both Richard and Freeman were the victims of an insane jealousy and +a terrible revenge." +</p> +<p> +"Jessamine's confession might well be set aside: insane people often +accuse themselves of crimes committed only in their own disordered +brains. The one indisputable proof would be the jewels in my hands." +He added, with a faint smile: "I should have liked to see those +accursed things made clean by your wearing them, Sophy." +</p> +<p> +"I don't want them!" I said, and my head went up. "I don't care +<i>that</i> for all the Hynds jewels ever lost! I wouldn't have come here +to-night for their sake or mine, not if they were worth an empire's +ransom! I wanted them for Richard's sake, and—and yours." +</p> +<p> +"I know, I know. At first I wanted them for him and me, too. +Afterward I wanted them for him and for you, Sophy." +</p> +<p> +"For me? <i>I</i> have no right to them. What have <i>I</i> to do with Hynds +jewels?" And then I stopped. If Jessamine's confession were +true—and I believed in my heart that every word Jessamine had +written was the truth—what right had I to Hynds House itself? "As +to that, I have no right to Hynds House, either. It is yours," I +said. +</p> +<p> +He stared at me thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +"It is yours," I repeated, gaining courage. "I am an outsider, to +whom this house was left from motives of malice and revenge. Mr. +Jelnik, this thing must be set straight. We will show Jessamine's +confession and clear Richard's name. We will bring Freeman's diary +forward to prove the truth of our assertions. Then you can come into +your own." +</p> +<p> +"Ah!" said Mr. Jelnik, gently, "I see. Quite simple, and perfectly +feasible. And after I have taken Hynds House, what of you? What do +you get?" +</p> +<p> +"I get out," I said briefly. And a horrid qualm came over me. Leave +Hynds House, forever? Go away from Hyndsville, leaving this +friendlier, pleasanter, happier life behind? +</p> +<p> +"You are forgetting my training," I reminded him, trying to keep my +voice steady. "I can always do what I did before I came here. I—I'm +really an excellent private secretary, Mr. Jelnik." +</p> +<p> +"That," said Mr. Jelnik, smiling curiously, "may very well be. But I +think the stars in their courses fought to bring you here. And I +really do not at all relish the notion of your turning backward into +a private secretary, although there is, of course, the alternative +of The Author. And what of Alicia?" +</p> +<p> +"Alicia's sense of justice is quite as well developed as mine," I +told him proudly. +</p> +<p> +"Alicia is a dear girl," he agreed. "But, my dear lady, your plan +wouldn't hold water in any court. This place isn't mine, legally or +morally, though the jewels would be if I could find them. If ever I +do find them, which is highly improbable, I may be tempted to make +you an offer of exchange." +</p> +<p> +"You don't want Hynds House? Richard's house? You won't take Hynds +House?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't want Hynds House. I won't take Hynds House. Further, if +anybody on earth but you made me such an offer, in such +circumstances, I should find it hard to forgive. Even from you I +hardly think I could bear it twice." A bright red showed in his +cheeks for an instant, his nostrils quivered, his whole face was a +blaze of pride. "What! Nicholas Jelnik accept gifts from women?" +</p> +<p> +"As good and proud men as Nicholas Jelnik have accepted gifts from +women, and been none the worse for it," said I, tartly. "You offered +me your jewels. Why shouldn't I offer you my house?—particularly +when it should have been your house. I also have my pride, Mr. +Jelnik!" +</p> +<p> +The hauteur went out of his face, and something sweet and quizzical +and boyish flooded it. +</p> +<p> +"Keep Hynds House, dear, dear Donna Quixotta," said he, gently. "You +have given me something I needed a thousand times more." +</p> +<p> +Now, although we had not found the jewels, we had found Jessamine +Hynds, and there remained to be done a thing that called for what +strength of will and courage we possessed. And we had need to make +haste. Already more time had been consumed than we bargained for. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik fetched a deep breath, and went over to the Thing in the +chair. There was in his manner neither repugnance nor horror, +nothing but an almost divine compassion. Never, never, had I +respected the courage, the honor, the mercy of man so greatly as I +did then. +</p> +<p> +It was a ghastly task; I do not like to remember it. In the hot, dry +air of the room without windows she had become, not a bleached +skeleton, but a shriveled, fleshless, blackened mummy. The hair +still clung tightly to the skull, the discolored skin was stretched +over the bony contour of the face; the lips had shriveled away from +the teeth, which showed in a sort of jeering grin. And—well, we had +to tie her hair, like a rope, around her chest and arms; and I tore +the ruffles off my petticoat, to tie her skirts at the knees and +ankles. +</p> +<p> +The brown frock was low-necked and short-sleeved, too. And the +picture of her, down-stairs, showed her with so red a lip, so round +an arm, so soft, so white a bosom! +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + Thou might'st think thou hadst drunk the water of Paradise + who had tasted the nectar of her lip.... The ends of her + ringlets fell into the hand like as the sleeve of the + generous in the hand of the needy. +</p> +<p> +Oh, Jessamine! +</p> +<p> +She had been so splendidly tall a woman, that as he held her grisly +head upon his shoulder the little shoes that rattled upon her +shriveled feet were well below his knees. One great rope of her +blue-black hair escaped and fell down the back of his white +coat, and as he moved it moved, too, with a lazy and languid +coquettishness horribly travesting youth and beauty. It was such +wonderful hair! Small wonder young Richard had praised its dark +splendor, and kissed its shining folds to his undoing! +</p> +<p> +"Jessamine," Nicholas Jelnik said as he bent over her, "you shall +have your chance to rest. You shall sleep under the open sky. Nature +shall have you, Jessamine, and make you over into something of +loveliness and of peace." +</p> +<p> +"Because she loved much, much shall be forgiven her," I whispered. +Ah! At the last, who but Him of Galilee shall speak for us? +</p> +<p> +Never, until I shall be what she was then, shall I be able to forget +that return journey. Mr. Jelnik walked ahead, holding her on one +arm, and carrying the flash-light with his free hand. I followed +with a candle that burned with a low and reddish glare and gave off +a heavy, waxy odor in the still air. Whenever the faintest draft +lifted the dull flame, we two living creatures seemed to recede into +darkness, while the light sought her out and stayed upon her. The +motion of his body shook her lightly, and she gave forth a dry and +stealthy rattling, an uneasy rustling. One hand hung down, with a +loose, loose bracelet jingling on the brittle brown wrist. And her +poor little feet with the rotting shoes upon them moved delicately, +as if they trod the impalpable air. Once her head struck, with a +hollow thud, as we turned a corner. It was almost more than flesh +and blood could bear,—like things you were afraid of when you were +a child in the dark—the candles melting audibly, and walls, walls, +pressing us in. +</p> +<p> +I think it took us years to reach the room where Achmet waited. At +sight of what the master bore, The Jinnee started up and called upon +God the Lord Paramount, Help of the Faithful. Then, like the fine +old fighter he was, he squared his shoulders, folded his arms, and +waited orders. Boris, with a deep-throated, smothered growl of fear +and protest, bared his teeth and sidled against him, bristling and +trembling. +</p> +<p> +We consulted briefly. Mr. Jelnik was for leaving her there in the +cellar room, until a fitter opportunity offered to give her +sepulture. But to this I vehemently objected. I could not have +stayed another hour in that house while I knew she was in it. I +wanted Jessamine Hynds consigned to the grave from which she had +been too long kept. I wanted her to sleep in the brown bosom of the +earth, with the impartial grass to cover her, and roses to blow over +her by and by, when summer should have come back to South Carolina. +</p> +<p> +Achmet led the way, and presently we were in the spring-house. When +I am feverish I dream of that last climb up the spidery stair, with +Jessamine's jaws widened into a soundless laugh, and The Jinnee's +light playing at hide-and-seek upon her. +</p> +<p> +I knelt down and plunged my face into the cold spring-water, and +drank and drank. How good it was! And how grateful to my lungs was +the outside air, so sweet, so fresh, so clean! I loved the friendly +trees waving in the good wind, I blessed the friendly stars. +</p> +<p> +We stopped at Mr. Jelnik's house, and the man Daoud appeared in +answer to a low-voiced summons and fetched me a most beautiful +shawl, which I found extremely comfortable. A stately and stoical +personage was Daoud, unlike shy black Achmet, who hid himself from +observation so thoroughly that people in Hyndsville were not aware +of his existence. I sat on the steps while for Jessamine Hynds was +fetched a length of canvas, a linen sheet, and a gray army blanket. +Achmet appeared with spades. And so we set out. +</p> +<p> +The old cemetery in Hyndsville, unlike the newer one in which folks +take a sort of ghastly pride, one lot differing from another lot in +glory, is an unpretentious place, enclosed by crumbling walls, the +iron gates of which have rusted ajar. It is a grassy, bird-haunted, +tree-shaded spot, with some dozen or so old family vaults, some +modest monuments that bear stately names, some raised marble slabs +supported on carved and slender legs, like Death's own little +card-tables, some stones let flat into the earth, with names and +dates long since erased by rain and wind and fallen leaf. Nobody +comes here any more. Sophronisba Scarlett was the first and last to +be interred in the old cemetery within the memory of the present +generation. +</p> +<p> +We went down dismal paths where the night wind sighed a miserere in +the cedars, and things of the dark scurried away with furtive +noises, or flapped ill-omened black wings overhead. In a corner +shaded by cypresses was the Hynds vault, a venerable affair with a +slate roof. Outside, in an inclosed space were some marble-covered +graves and in a corner the simplest of all, one marked "R.H." Emily +slept beside him, and their son beside her. But on the farther side, +next the wall, was room for one more sleeper. And here, while Mr. +Jelnik laid down his burden, Daoud and Achmet began to dig. +</p> +<p> +She lay there in the ghostly light and shade, so utterly cast aside +and forgotten, so unloved, so unwept, so far removed from every +human tie, that terror and pity filled my heart. While Daoud and +Achmet were making ready her bed, Nicholas Jelnik and I spread out +the length of canvas, and wrapped her securely in the sheet and +blanket. We folded her claws upon the empty breast in which had once +pulsed the passionate heart of Jessamine Hynds, and spread her hair +over what had been her face. +</p> +<p> +Over in a sheltered spot behind the vault clambered a huge, +overgrown, briery rose, and by some sweet impatience of nature one +shoot had budded before its time. I broke off the small, pale roses +and placed them in her grasp. But Mr. Jelnik took from his breast a +pearl and silver crucifix, and this, reverently, he laid upon hers. +</p> +<p> +"It was my father's grandmother's. She held it when she was dying. +She was an old saint. It would please her to know that her crucifix +should stay, one holy thing, with Jessamine Hynds." +</p> +<p> +"'<i>Verily, the gate of repentance is not nor shall be shut upon +God's creatures until the sun shall rise in the west</i>,'" The Jinnee +quoted his Prophet And he broke off two of his <i>saphies</i>, each with +a holy verse written upon it, and dropped them upon her out of pure +charity. +</p> +<p> +Daoud, who was intelligent and orthodox where Achmet was emotional +and tender, was evidently not altogether sure of the wisdom of this +proceeding; but he was not too orthodox to stand up arrow-straight, +face the East, and pray for her. +</p> +<p> +So we wrapped her, brown silk dress and yellowed laces, and long +black hair, in the strip of canvas, and gave her to the earth. The +last thing we saw, thank God! before the blanket fell over her for +the last time, was the silver crucifix shining out of the roses in +her hands. +</p> +<p> +Daoud and Achmet, their spades over their shoulders, left the +cemetery, the latter the strangest, quaintest, most outlandish +figure ever seen on a Carolina road. Mr. Jelnik and I, with Boris +close beside us, walked more slowly. +</p> +<p> +"Shall you go on with the search?" I ventured presently. +</p> +<p> +"But where shall I begin now?" he wondered. "I have searched +everything and every place searchable." +</p> +<p> +"If Shooba hid them anywhere outside of that room, it must have been +in some place that Jessamine herself knew and could get at if she +wished; some particular place where nobody would dream of looking +for them. Women always choose hiding-places like that, and the +notion would suit Shooba's grim humor," I said. +</p> +<p> +"They who knew every nook and cranny of the house searched it pretty +thoroughly at the time," he reminded me. "I have fine-combed it +myself." +</p> +<p> +"I am so sorry! I wanted you to find them. But the fact that you +didn't surely couldn't make very much difference to you. One's +happiness doesn't depend upon anything so problematical." +</p> +<p> +He hesitated. "Aside from their value, which is by no means +inconsiderable, I—well, they would have made certain things easier +for me. I should then have been in a better position to do what I +want to do." +</p> +<p> +"Oh! You had some definite plan which hinged upon your finding +them?" +</p> +<p> +He was silent for a space, as if considering within himself just how +far he could admit me into his confidence. +</p> +<p> +"At first, it was a matter of family pride with me to clear up this +mystery. Later—I wanted to have the Hynds jewels in my possession, +that I might ask the woman I love to marry me." His voice vibrated +like a violin string. +</p> +<p> +I took the blow standing. I did not wince, though it had come +unexpectedly. Of course I had known all along that there must be +some lady whom he loved, a woman of that world to which he himself +belonged. But I couldn't for the life of me imagine how the finding +or the not finding of the Hynds jewels could have any bearing upon +the case. I couldn't understand how any woman, any real woman, could +let such a thing come between her and Nicholas Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +When we had walked a little farther: "Doesn't she know you care for +her?" +</p> +<p> +"Who knows what any woman knows or thinks? She may really care for +another man." +</p> +<p> +"There is another man?" +</p> +<p> +"There is always another man. Her feeling for me may be nothing but +pure kindness, for she is kindness itself." +</p> +<p> +"Still, I think you should tell her," I said, with such a heavy +heart! +</p> +<p> +He shook his head. "There are reasons why my faith might be +questioned, my motives doubted; and I couldn't bear that." +</p> +<p> +"But if you are perfectly sure of your own feelings, if there is +absolutely no doubt in your mind that you love her—" +</p> +<p> +"Love her? I never thought," he said, "that any woman could mean so +much to a man! I never dreamed that just one woman could be in +herself all that a man needs to hold fast to! Love her? I have been +all over the world and I have seen many women in many lands, but +never any woman of them all, save that one, for me! It was a +revelation to me, that I could care so much. Ah! I wish I could make +it plain just how much I do care!" +</p> +<p> +I had not known until that moment how much the heart can bear of +anguish and not break. +</p> +<p> +"I hope she loves you just as much in return, Mr. Jelnik. I hope +with all my heart you will be happy, both of you." +</p> +<p> +"I hope she does! I hope we shall!" he cried, with ardor. "Why, if +I could be sure she cares for me, like that, if I could know that +all other men counted as little with her as all other women count +with me! But I am not sure. And I do not take it lightly, for my +woman must be more to me than most women mean to most men. Well, it +is on the knees of the gods." +</p> +<p> +I stole a covert glance at him as he walked beside me. It seemed to +me he had never been so beautiful. But his beauty hurt me. I felt +old, very, very old, and sad, and tired. The salt taste of tears was +in my mouth. My feet dragged. +</p> +<p> +We entered that strip of land which on a time old Sophronisba +barb-wired and barricaded against her neighbors, and which touched +the Jelnik grounds in the rear. We were to cut through his garden +and enter mine by the gap in the hedge behind the spring-house +and I hoped to get into the house and up-stairs to my own room +unperceived. +</p> +<p> +The gray cottage lay dark and silent, but there were lights in Hynds +House although the night was upon the verge of morning. A gray +light, upon which was stealing a primrose tinge, was already in the +sky. It was, in fact, four o'clock. I was so mortally tired that for +a moment I sat down on his steps. +</p> +<p> +"It's been pretty rough on you, Sophy. One woman in a thousand +could have gone through this night's experience without going to +pieces," said Mr. Jelnik, with feeling. And then: +</p> +<p> +"Sophy!" cried a frightened and hysterical voice. "Oh, is that you, +at last, Sophy?" And turning a corner of the gray cottage, Alicia, +Doctor Geddes, and The Author confronted us. They were still in +costume, and the Mephistophelian effect of The Author was such as +would turn any actor green with envy. Ensued a pregnant pause. It +was a lovely situation! It reduced me, for one, to idiocy. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy! Jelnik!" exploded Doctor Geddes, with a gesture of rage and +astonishment. +</p> +<p> +"Yes. It is I. What is the matter? Why aren't you home and in bed? +What are you doing here, at this hour?" I asked, stupidly. +</p> +<p> +Here The Author, all in red tights, cape, and doublet, snatched his +red cap with the cock's feather in it off his head, and bowed +diabolically: +</p> +<p> +"Let us ask you that same question: Why aren't <i>you</i> home and in +bed? What are <i>you</i> doing here at this hour?" +</p> +<p> +"After everybody had gone home, I ran up to your room, +Sophy—and—and you were gone. You weren't in the house. I looked +everywhere; and you'd disappeared, as if the earth had opened and +swallowed you." Alicia's voice was trembling. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Sophy, I was so frightened, so horribly frightened! I kept +thinking every minute you must come. I kept looking and waiting, and +still you didn't come. I telephoned Doctor Geddes, when I couldn't +stand it any longer. And then The Author came down-stairs. And oh, +Sophy, there was such an unearthly, clammy, waiting sort of feeling +in the house—all those lights, all those empty rooms—I felt as if +something terrible must be happening!" She clung to me as she spoke, +kissing me, and shook, and wept. "And when you still didn't come, +and we couldn't find you anywhere, The Author suggested that we +should come over here and enlist Mr. Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +"When we got here, there wasn't a soul in this house. Not even the +dog. We went back to Hynds House, and walked through our garden, and +then came back here, because we didn't know what else to do. Oh, +Sophy!" I patted her shoulders, mumbling that she mustn't cry, it +was ail right. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Gaines, I am dreadfully sorry you should have been frightened. +But there really wasn't the least occasion for alarm. Because Miss +Smith was with <i>me</i>," said Mr. Jelnik calmly. +</p> +<p> +Alicia looked at him, trying to read his face in the wan light. Her +world, as it were, was rocking under her feet. She looked at me; and +I said nothing. To save my life I couldn't speak of Jessamine Hynds +then, nor talk coherently of that night's experience. I couldn't +betray Nicholas Jelnik's secrets, nor mention the Watcher in the +Dark, nor that dreadful red-walled room. So I merely patted Alicia's +shoulder, while she held fast to me as if I might again disappear. +</p> +<p> +"That is exactly what we should like you to explain, Mr. Jelnik, if +you please," said The Author, with deadly politeness. "You must +pardon us if we disagree with your assertion that Miss Gaines had no +real occasion for alarm." +</p> +<p> +"Miss Smith and I," said Mr. Jelnik, stiffening, at the tone, "found +it absolute necessary to leave Hynds House for a short while +to-night, to attend to—an affair of some importance to us both, but +which concerns no one else on earth." Under the grave politeness his +voice had an edge of irritation. "I repeat that I am sincerely sorry +Miss Alicia was frightened. For my share in that, I crave her +pardon. I ask all of you to accept this apology as an explanation +which is final." +</p> +<p> +"I for one shall do no such thing!" cried The Author, hotly. "Are +we impertinent children to be thus lightly dismissed? Of course, if +Miss Smith herself—" +</p> +<p> +"You have neither right nor authority to cross-question Miss Smith," +interposed Mr. Jelnik, sharply. But Doctor Geddes broke in, with +mounting anger and astonishment: +</p> +<p> +"Of course we've got the right and the reason to question both of +you! You might just as well come off your high horse; you've behaved +very badly, Jelnik! To induce Sophy to scuttle off in the middle of +the night, without a word to anybody, and go wild-goose-chasing with +you, was an unworthy action. I wouldn't have believed it of you, +Jelnik; I thought you had more common sense—not to speak of Sophy +herself. Gad, I'd like to shake the pair of you!" And he stamped his +feet. +</p> +<p> +"Doctor Richard Geddes," said Mr. Jelnik, in dangerously low and +honeyed tones, "I find you insufferable. You have the instincts and +the manners of a navvy." +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Jelnik!" cried The Author. "Mr. Jelnik, honor me, please, by +considering my instincts and manners infinitely worse than Doctor +Geddes's. I, Mr. Jelnik, at this instant feel within me the +instincts of a cave man and I hone for the thigh-bone of an aurochs +to prove it to you. Do you know what I think of you, Mr. Jelnik? I +consider you a man without conscience and without scruples, sir!" +</p> +<p> +"My faith! The man even talks like a serial!" said Mr. Jelnik, +weariedly. "My dear, good sir, while we're by way of indulging in +personalities permit me to inform you that you annoy me by existing. +As to your behavior to Miss Smith—" +</p> +<p> +"<i>My</i> behavior to Miss Smith?" shrieked The Author, stamping with +fury, "<i>my</i> behavior to Miss Smith? You had better set about +explaining <i>your</i> behavior to Miss Smith! You're a rascal, Mr. +Jelnik!" +</p> +<p> +"You, my dear sir, are worse: you're an ass," said Mr. Jelnik, and +fetched a sigh of tiredness. "Would to heaven somebody would fetch +you a halter!" +</p> +<p> +"Jelnik," choked Doctor Geddes, "a man who behaves as you're +behaving to-night runs the risk of getting himself shot. You're my +own cousin, but—" +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik turned at bay. +</p> +<p> +"Doctor Geddes," said he, in a razor-edged voice, "it is no light +affliction to be kin to the Hyndses!—What do you want me to +explain? I have already told you it was necessary for Miss Smith and +me to attend to a matter that is none of your business. In return, +you hold us up like brigands. Would it make a dent in your armor of +righteous meddling, if I were to remind you that you are seriously +annoying Miss Smith?" +</p> +<p> +"Not a dent!" roared the doctor. "And if it annoys Sophy to be asked +a straight question by those who have her interest at heart, let her +be annoyed and take shame to herself!" +</p> +<p> +Alicia began to cry. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, Sophy!" wailed Alicia, "whatever is the matter with us, anyhow? +What is wrong, Sophy? Why are we quarreling? What are we quarreling +about, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +I put my hands to my head. "I don't know. That is. I can't tell. I +mean. I can't think, at all! +</p> +<p> +"Doctor Geddes has spoken like an honest man," said The Author, +standing flat-footed in his pointed red shoes. "Mr. Jelnik, I ask +you plainly: Why do I find Miss Smith here at this hour? Why and +wherefore the mystery? Let me remind you that I have asked Miss +Smith to marry me, and that she hasn't as yet given me her answer," +he finished, significantly. +</p> +<p> +"Why, Sophy!" gasped Alicia. "Why, Sophy Smith!" +</p> +<p> +"Holy Moses!" gasped Doctor Geddes. "What, man, you too? Well, then, +if it comes to that, I can call you to account, Jelnik, because <i>I</i> +asked Sophy to marry me, too. In my case she had sense enough to +say 'No' at once." +</p> +<p> +"You know he did, Sophy!" Alicia corroborated him tearfully. "You +told me so yourself, though you never so much as opened your mouth +about The Author; and I don't think that was a bit like you, Sophy. +And why you refused the doctor, I can't for the life of me imagine!" +</p> +<p> +"Can't you? Well, <i>I</i> can," snorted the doctor, and drew Alicia +closer to him. She put both her hands around his arm. +</p> +<p> +"What!" gulped The Author, rocking on his red toes, and wrinkling +his nose until his waxed mustache stood out with infernal effect, +and his corked eyebrows climbed into his hair. "What! You, Geddes? +My sainted aunt! Why, man alive, I thought that you—that is I'd +have sworn that you—" Here The Author's breath mercifully failed +him. +</p> +<p> +I was dumb as a sheep in the hands of the slayers. I could only +blink at these dear people who were tormenting me. I thought of +Jessamine Hynds in her brown silk frock, with the crucifix in her +skeleton fingers and the earth fresh over her. And I couldn't say a +word. And while I stood thus silent, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik walked up +and took my hand in his warm and comforting clasp, and looked at me +with kindling, starry eyes, and laughed a deep-chested laugh. +</p> +<p> +"Gentlemen and Miss Gaines," said Mr. Jelnik, in a ringing and +vibrant voice, "permit me to inform you that I also have asked Miss +Smith to marry me. And she has done me the honor to accept me." +</p> +<a name="2HCH0018"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XVIII +</h2> +<h3> + THE GREATEST GIFT +</h3> +<p> +The Author threw his short cape backward, laid one hand upon the +hilt of his sword, doffed his cap, and made a sweeping courtesy. +</p> +<p> +"Prettily played, Mr. Jelnik!" said he, admiringly. "May one be +permitted to congratulate you, upon your indubitably dramatic +instinct?" +</p> +<p> +"All things are permitted; but not all things are expedient," Mr. +Jelnik replied evenly. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, we know who can quote scripture!" cried The Author; and looked +longingly at the other's naked throat. +</p> +<p> +At which point Doctor Geddes, coming as it were out of a trance, +took the situation in hand. +</p> +<p> +"Have done with this nonsense!" he ordered sharply. "Alicia, get +Sophy home; she looks more dead than alive. Jelnik, your declaration +puts a new complexion on this affair; but let me tell you flatly I +don't like your method of announcing engagements." +</p> +<p> +"Suppose you waive criticism and look after Sophy," suggested Mr. +Jelnik. He walked up to his cousin and looked straight in his eyes: +"Richard, you're not such a fool as to dare doubt <i>us</i>?" +</p> +<p> +"Eh?" blinked the doctor, "what? Doubt <i>Sophy</i>? I should say not! +And you—oh, well, you're a bit of a fool yourself at times, Jelnik, +and this seems to be one of the times; but I don't doubt you. +However," said the doctor, grimly, "I should like to whale some +sense into you with a club!" +</p> +<p> +"An ax would be more to the point," murmured The Author, +regretfully. +</p> +<p> +"In the meantime, Richard," said Mr. Jelnik, with a faint smile, +"take Sophy home, please." +</p> +<p> +I have a vague recollection of swallowing something that the doctor +told me to swallow. Then came blessed oblivion, a sleep so profound +that I didn't even dream, and didn't awake until that afternoon; to +find the tender face of Alicia again bent over me. +</p> +<p> +I waited for her to ask at least one of the many questions she must +have been longing to ask. But Alicia shook her head. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," said she, loyally, "you haven't got to tell me one single, +solitary thing unless you really want to. But—isn't this just a bit +sudden? I was—surprised." +</p> +<p> +"So was I." +</p> +<p> +"You see, Sophy, I never once dreamed—" +</p> +<p> +"That he cared for me? Neither did I." +</p> +<p> +"No. That you cared for him," Alicia puckered her brows. +</p> +<p> +"My dear girl," I was trying to feel my way toward letting her have +the truth, "listen: whether or not he is engaged to me, Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik really loves some lady that neither you nor I know. He told +me so himself." +</p> +<p> +It took Alicia some moments to recover from that! +</p> +<p> +"And yet you're going to marry him, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"You heard him announce our engagement." +</p> +<p> +"I can't understand!" sighed Alicia. "Oh, Sophy, sometimes I could +wish we had never come to Hynds House!" +</p> +<p> +"It had to be," I said dully. +</p> +<p> +"And—The Author?" ventured Alicia, after a pause. "He thinks you +belong to him by right of discovery. He doesn't accept Mr. Jelnik's +announcement as final. He told me this morning that his offer stood +until you actually married somebody else. The Author isn't used to +being crossed, and he doesn't quite know how to take it." +</p> +<p> +"It is on the knees of the gods," I repeated, weariedly. +</p> +<p> +Came a gentle tap at the door, and following it the fresh, kind face +of Miss Emmeline. +</p> +<p> +"Are you trying to rival the Seven Sleepers?" she asked, gaily, and +laid a bunch of carnations on my knees by way of offering. "Judge +Gatchell sent them to me this morning," she explained, with an +October blush. For the sallow old jurist had taken so great a liking +to the Boston reincarnation of a Theban vestal, and was in +consequence so rejuvenated, himself, that all Hyndsville was holding +up the hands of astonishment and biting the finger of conjecture. +</p> +<p> +"My dears," said Miss Emmeline, presently, "I want to tell you the +singular dream I had last night, or rather this morning. I was quite +tired, for I do not often dance," admitted Miss Emmeline, who had +nevertheless danced with a zest that rivaled that of the youngest, +"so I must have fallen asleep immediately upon retiring. Well, then, +I dreamed that all those old Hyndses whose portraits are down-stairs +were gathered together in the library, to bid farewell to a member +of the family who was going away—that beautiful creature who +disappeared and was never afterward found. Now, aren't dreams +absurd? She was setting out upon a long journey dressed in a +low-necked, short-sleeved brown silk dress trimmed with quantities +of fine lace. And for goodness' sake what do you think that woman +wore over it for a traveling-cloak? Nothing more or less than a gray +army blanket, a corner of which was thrown over her head like a +hood and quite concealed her face. +</p> +<p> +"She moved away slowly, holding her blanket as an Indian does. +And as she passed me by—for I was standing in the door—a fold +slipped, and what do you think she was holding to her breast? A +pearl-and-silver crucifix. You can't imagine how I felt when I saw +it!" +</p> +<p> +I knew how I felt when I had seen it, but that I couldn't tell Miss +Emmeline. Instead, I held the carnations to my face, to hide my +whitening lips. For once the Boston lady had come into actual +contact with the occult and the unknown. +</p> +<p> +"She went out by the back door," continued Miss Emmeline, "and I ran +to the window and saw her gray-blanketed figure disappear down the +lane, behind the hedge that separates Mr. Jelnik's grounds from +yours. And all the Hyndses called: '<i>Jessamine, good-by!</i>' But she +never turned her head once, nor spoke, nor gave a sign that she +heard. She just <i>went</i>, leaving me staring after her. I stared so +hard that I woke myself up. Now, my dears, wasn't that an odd sort +of dream? And so vivid, too! Why, I can hear those voices yet!" +</p> +<p> +"Well, I'm glad she went," said Alicia. "Ladies that do up their +heads in blankets and won't answer when they're spoken to, ought to +go." +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Scarboro, Judge Gatchell, and one of my old ladies were dining +with us that night, for which I thanked Heaven. Judge Gatchell +discovered in himself a fund of sly humor that astonished everybody, +and Miss Emmeline was like a November rose, sweet with a shy and +belated girlishness, rarer for a touch of frost. And The Author was +in a fairly good humor because they let him alone. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik dutifully put in his appearance after dinner. +The Author was balefully polite to him, Alicia shyly friendly. I had +on a new frock, and the knowledge that it was becoming gave me a +courage I should otherwise have lacked. A new frock, pink powder, +and a smile, have saved many a fainting feminine soul where prayer +and fasting had failed. +</p> +<p> +The gentleman who had blandly announced my engagement to himself +only last night assumed no airs of proprietorship, but was placidly +content to let me sit and talk to Mr. Johnson, who was holding forth +on the merits of our Rhode Island Reds as against either barred +Plymouth Rocks or White Leghorns, and the variety of vegetables and +small fruits in our kitchen-garden, so admirably planned by Schmetz, +so carefully and neighborly looked after both by him and Riedriech. +From gardens, Mr. Johnson went to cattle; he had a delight in cows, +and our cow was a Jersey with a cream-colored complexion, large +black eyes, and the sentimental temperament. We called her the +Kissing Cow, because she couldn't see the secretary without trying +to bestow upon him slobbering salutes. +</p> +<p> +He paused in his homely talk to smile at something The Author had +just said. Then his eyes strayed to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, being +talked to by Mrs. Scarboro and an apple-faced Confederate with +pellucid blue eyes and a renowned trigger-finger. +</p> +<p> +"That is the most gifted—and detached—human being I have ever +known," said the secretary. "But it is his misfortune to have no +saving responsibilities. What he needs is to fall in love with the +right woman and marry her." +</p> +<p> +"You mean he should marry some great lady, some dazzling beauty? +Naturally." +</p> +<p> +"Heaven forbid!" said the secretary, with unexpected vigor. "No, no, +Miss Smith, that is not what such a man as Nicholas Jelnik needs!" +</p> +<p> +"But it may be what he wants," said I. +</p> +<p> +"I should never think so, myself," Mr. Johnson replied thoughtfully; +"and I have seen a good deal of him. No, Jelnik doesn't want great +beauty; he has enough of it himself. For the same reason, he doesn't +want brilliant qualities. He needs quiet, dependable goodness, the +changeless and unswerving affection of a steadfast heart." +</p> +<p> +But I could not agree with this simple-minded young man, who had in +himself the qualities he named. Why, if Nicholas Jelnik asked only +for a changeless love, <i>I</i> could have given him full measure, even +to the running over thereof! +</p> +<p> +"What was Johnson talking to you about, that you both looked so +earnest?" Mr. Jelnik wanted to know presently. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, just things; flowers and fruits and animals." +</p> +<p> +"And people?" +</p> +<p> +"People always end by talking about people." +</p> +<p> +"Johnson's opinions are generally sound, because he himself is sound +to the core," said Mr. Jelnik, quietly. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Emmeline says he has got a limpid soul. The Author says it's +really a sound liver. However that may be, one couldn't live in the +same house with him without conceiving a real affection for him. He +is a very easy person to love." +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik's eyebrows went up. "Don't love him too much, please, +Sophy. If you feel that you really ought to love somebody, love +<i>me</i>." The golden lights were in his eyes. +</p> +<p> +At that moment I both loved and hated him. +</p> +<p> +"Mr. Jelnik," said I, in as low a tone as his own, "it isn't fair to +talk to me like this. You did what you did to save me from +annoyance—and—and—misunderstanding. But you are perfectly free: +I have no idea of holding you to such an engagement, no, nor of +feeling myself bound by it, either." +</p> +<p> +"I understand, perfectly, Sophy," he said, after a pause. "And now, +may I ask you one or two plain questions, please?" +</p> +<p> +"I think you may." +</p> +<p> +"You never cared for Geddes?" +</p> +<p> +"Good heavens, no! Besides, he—" +</p> +<p> +"Wants Alicia? That's obvious. But what about The Author? I'm not +enamored of him, myself, but he's an immensely able and clever man. +How many brilliant social lights would be willing to shine at the +head of his table! What are you going to do about The Author, +Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"What are <i>you</i> going to do about the lady you are really in love +with?" I countered. +</p> +<p> +"I'm waiting to find out," said he, coolly. "Answer my question, +please: Do you imagine you love him, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"It is not unpleasant to me that he should wish me to do so," I +admitted. +</p> +<p> +"I see. You are trying to persuade yourself that you should accept +him." +</p> +<p> +"I am not growing younger," I said, with an effort. "Remember, too, +that Alicia will be leaving me presently, and I shall then be +utterly alone. That is not a pleasing prospect—not to a woman." +</p> +<p> +"Nor to a man, either, but better that than a loveless marriage." He +reflected for a moment. "If you are sure you care for the man, tell +him truthfully every incident of last night. Otherwise, I do not +feel like sharing my affairs with him; I do not want to drag +Jessamine Hynds out of her grave to gratify his curiosity. For he +has the curiosity of a cat, along with the obstinacy of a mule." +</p> +<p> +I smiled, wanly. "I gather that I'm not to tell him anything. What +further?" I wanted to know, not without irony. +</p> +<p> +"This, then: that you keep on being engaged to me." +</p> +<p> +I looked at him incredulously. +</p> +<p> +"For the time being, Sophy, submit to my tentative claim. If you +decide to let your—ah—common sense induce you to make what must be +called a brilliant marriage, tell me, and I will go at once. In the +meantime, Sophy, I am your friend, to whom your happiness is as dear +as his own. Will you believe that?" +</p> +<p> +It was not in me to doubt him. "Yes," I said. "And if—the lady you +told me about—you understand—you will tell me, too, will you not? +I should like to know, for your happiness is as much to me as mine +could possibly be to you." +</p> +<p> +"That's the most promising thing you've said yet," he said. "All +right, Sophy: the minute I find out she cares more for me than she +does for anybody else, I shall certainly let you know. In the +meanwhile, don't let being engaged bear too heavily on your spirits. +<i>I</i> find it very pleasant and exhilarating!" +</p> +<p> +"I don't think you ought to talk like that," I demurred. +</p> +<p> +"I can't help it: I never was engaged before, and it goes to my +tongue." +</p> +<p> +"I never was, either. But it doesn't go to <i>mine</i>," I reminded him, +with dignity. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy, you are the only woman in the world who can reproach a man +with her nose and get away with it," he said irrelevantly. "You have +the most eloquent little nose, Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +I looked at him reprovingly. +</p> +<p> +"I adore being engaged to you, Sophy," said he, unabashed. "Being +engaged to you has a naïve freshness that enchants me. It's +romantic, it has the sharp tang of uncertainty, the zest of high +adventure. Think how exciting it's going to be to wake o' mornings +thinking: 'Here is a whole magic day to be engaged to Sophy in!' By +the way, would you mind addressing me as 'Nicholas'? It is customary +under the circumstances, I believe." +</p> +<p> +"I do not like the name of Nicholas." +</p> +<p> +"I feared so, seeing the extreme care with which you avoid it. That +is why I suggest that you should immediately begin to use it. +Practice makes perfect. Observe with what ease I manage to say +'Sophy' already," he said airily. "I'm glad your hair's just that +blonde, and soft, Sophy. I couldn't possibly be engaged to a woman +who didn't have hair like yours." +</p> +<p> +I looked at his, and said with conviction: +</p> +<p> +"How absurd! Black hair is incomparably more beautiful!" +</p> +<p> +His eyes danced. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy!" said he, in a thrilling whisper, "Sophy, <i>The Author's hair +is brindle</i>!" +</p> +<p> +I got up and incontinently left him. And I saw with stern joy how +Mrs. Scarboro again seized upon and made him listen to tales of his +grandfather, until in desperation he fled to the piano, and played +Hungarian music with such effect that even The Author was moved to +rapture. +</p> +<p> +"Jelnik!" said The Author, enthusiastically, "I shall put you in my +next book. Gad, man, what a magnificent scoundrel I shall make of +you!" A remark which scandalized Mrs. Scarboro and startled my dear +old lady, but didn't phase Mr. Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +I found myself growing more and more confounded and confused. Was I, +or wasn't I, engaged to a man who had never asked me to marry him? +In the vernacular, I didn't know where I was at any more. +</p> +<p> +Alicia added to this confusion. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," said she, some time later, "isn't it just possible you +misunderstood Mr. Jelnik? About his being in love with somebody +else, I mean." +</p> +<p> +"I don't know what makes you think so." +</p> +<p> +"Don't you? I'll show you," she said, and swung me around to face a +mirror. "<i>That's</i> what makes me think so. Sophy Smith, unless he's a +liar—and Peacocks and Ivory couldn't be a liar to save his +life—the woman Nicholas Jelnik loves looks back at you every time +you look in the glass." +</p> +<p> +I shook my head. I have never been able to tell pleasant lies to +myself. +</p> +<p> +"Well, we'll see what we'll see! I told you once before that you +hadn't caught up with the change in yourself." And she kissed me and +laughed. It came to me that she couldn't have cared much for him, +herself, to be able to laugh that light-heartedly. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +When Miss Emmeline and the English folk were leaving Hynds House, +everybody in Hyndsville turned out to say "Good-by." Even our lanky +old Judge was on hand, with a great bunch of carnations and a huge +box of bonbons for Miss Emmeline. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," Miss Emmeline said, smiling, "I don't see anything left for +me to do but come back to Hyndsville, do you?" +</p> +<p> +"No, I don't. And come soon. Hynds House won't feel the same without +you. I thought of all she had taught me by just being her fine, +frank self, and looked at her gratefully. She looked back at me +quizzically, and of a sudden she slipped her arm around my +shoulders. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy Smith," said she, softly, "I have met many women in my time, +many far more brilliant and beautiful, and what the world calls +gifted, than you. But I have met none with a greater capacity for +unselfish loving. It's easy enough to win love, a harder thing to +keep it, but divinest of all to give it and keep on giving it. And +there's where your great gift lies, Sophy." And she kissed me, with +misty eyes, and such a tender face! +</p> +<p> +That put such a friendly, warm glow in my heart that I was sorry to +part even with the Englishman's daughter, Athena though she was, and +I mortally afraid of her. As for her father, he was bewailing the +parting with Alicia, whose Irishness was a manna in the wilderness +to him. +</p> +<p> +"It's like saying good-by to the Fountain of Youth," he lamented. +"You're more than a pretty girl: you're the eternal feminine in +Irish!" +</p> +<p> +"She's the Eternal Irish in proper English, that's what she is!" +said The Author darkly, and looked so wise that everybody looked +respectful, though nobody knew what he meant. Perhaps he didn't +know, himself. +</p> +<p> +After the train had gone, Doctor Geddes hustled us into his waiting +car. +</p> +<p> +"I'm going to take you for a quiet spin in the country, to make the +better acquaintance of Madame Spring-in-Carolina," he said. A few +minutes later he swung the car into a lonesome and lovely road edged +with pines, and sassafras, and sumach, and cassena bushes, and +festooned with vines. Madame Spring-in-Carolina had coaxed the green +things to come out and grow, and the people of the sky to try their +jeweled wings in her fine new sunlight. The Judas-tree was red, the +dogwood white, the honey-locust a breath from Eden. A blossomy wind +came out of the heart of the world, and there were birds everywhere, +impudently eloquent. +</p> +<p> +We didn't want to talk, or even to think; we just wanted to be alive +and glad with everything else. The very car seemed to feel something +of this intoxication, for as it went flying down the road it hummed +and purred and sang snatches of the Song of Speed to itself. We +turned a corner, I remember. And then there was a frightful lurch +and jar, and the big car bounded into the air, and turned over in +the ditch. I remember the rear wheels turning with a grinding, +spitting noise. +</p> +<p> +When I woke up, Alicia was sitting by the side of the road, with the +doctor's head in her lap, and I was lying on the grass near by. Her +eyes were big and blank in a bloodless face, and the curling ends of +her long bright hair hung in the dust. There was a cruel red mark on +her forehead. Otherwise she was quite uninjured. I wasn't conscious +of any pain myself—not then, at least. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," Alicia said, impersonally, "Doctor Geddes is dead." And she +fell to stroking his cheek lightly, with one finger; "quite dead. +Without one word to me, Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +The figure on the ground looked dreadfully still and helpless. There +was something ghastly wrong in seeing so strong a man lie so still +and helpless. And the road, an unfrequented one, was unutterably +lonesome. There was nothing, nobody in sight—nothing but the +buzzard, black against the blue sky, tipping his wings to the wind. +</p> +<p> +"You must go for help," I mumbled. +</p> +<p> +"I dare not leave him. I know he's dead, Sophy. But—he might open +his eyes, just once more. You see, he didn't know, before he—died, +that I was very much in love with him—oh, terribly in love with +him, Sophy!—from the first time I saw him standing in our door. I +thought you cared for him, too, Sophy dear—and I sent him away from +me— And now he has gotten himself killed." With a gentle touch she +pushed back the thick reddish hair from his forehead. She looked at +me imploringly: "Don't let him be dead, Sophy! For God's sake, +Sophy, don't let him be dead! Make him open his eyes, Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +A negro teamster came upon us, recognized the doctor, shrieked, and +set off for help, lashing his mules into a mad run. But Alicia never +moved, and I huddled beside her, numb and silent, looking at the +white face upon her knees. With all the impatience wiped out, it was +a fine face, at once strong and sweet. +</p> +<p> +"Richard," said Alicia, "Richard, if I had been killed, and you +begged and prayed me from your breaking heart to listen to you, to +understand that you'd cared for me, only me, all along, <i>somehow</i> +I'd manage to let you know I understood. Richard, listen to me! Open +your eyes, Richard. Please, please, Richard, open your eyes!" +</p> +<p> +Her voice was so piteous that I fell to weeping. And, by the mercy +of God, Richard opened his eyes and stared with blue blankness +straight into Alicia's quivering, anguished face. +</p> +<p> +"Richard," said she, bending down to him, "my dear, dear love, keep +your eyes open just a little longer, until I can make you +understand. Oh, Richard, I cared! Indeed, indeed, I cared!" +</p> +<p> +The blue stare never wavered. It gathered intensity. +</p> +<p> +"Don't, don't look at me like that, Richard!" cried Alicia, +beginning to sob wildly. "Don't—don't look so—so <i>angelic</i>, dear. +Look like your own self at me, Richard! Oh, darling, for our dear +God's mercy's sake, please, please try to look bad-tempered just +once more!" +</p> +<p> +His pale lips twitched curiously. He sighed. Then he murmured +something that sounded like "not sure." +</p> +<p> +"Not sure?" wept Alicia. "Oh, my heart, my heart!" +</p> +<p> +"I think—could die in peace—say 'I love you, Richard,'" murmured +the doctor. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I do, I do love you, Richard—<i>frightfully</i>!" sobbed Alicia. "I +love you with all my heart!" +</p> +<p> +The corpse sat up, and for a dead man he showed considerable life. +Painfully he rose, and stood staggering on his feet, big, pale, +shaken, with a bump the size of an egg on the side of his head, but +with such shining blue eyes! He put out a big hand and lifted +Alicia from the ground. +</p> +<p> +"Leetchy," said Doctor Geddes, "if you ever take back what you've +said I shall be sorry I wasn't killed. But I don't mind staying +alive if you'll keep on loving me. If I stay alive, will you marry +me, Leetchy?" +</p> +<p> +"If you don't, I can't m-m-marry any-anybody at all!" wailed Alicia. +</p> +<p> +"Amen!" said the doctor. "Now stop crying, and put your hand into my +pocket, and you'll find something that's been owing you this long +time, Leetchy." +</p> +<p> +Alicia blinked, and rubbed her eyes, then slipped her hand into his +breast pocket and drew forth a small, square, satin-lined box; an +inviting box. +</p> +<p> +"Richard!" she exclaimed, "why, Richard!" Then: "Of all the +impudence!" cried Alicia, scandalized. "Why, you haven't even +<i>asked</i> me! Whoever in this world heard of buying a girl's ring +before she's said 'Yes'?" +</p> +<p> +"Alicia," said Doctor Richard Geddes, "I'm your Man, and you know +it. And you're my Girl, and I know it. Here, let's see if this thing +fits." +</p> +<p> +Meekly Alicia, the impudent, the flirt, held out her slim hand. +</p> +<p> +"That's settled, thank God!" said the doctor. And he swept her +clear off her feet, and kissed her with thoroughness and enthusiasm. +</p> +<p> +"Richard! People are coming! They'll see you!" +</p> +<p> +"Let 'em!" +</p> +<p> +I sat there quietly, and stared at the two of them with a sort of +vacant watchfulness. My hat was gone, my hairpins had taken unto +themselves wings, and my hair, covered with dust, hung about me like +a veil. I was just beginning to be conscious of pain. It was a +shuddering pain, new and cruel, and I winced. The next minute Alicia +was kneeling beside me, and her face had again become quite +colorless. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy!" her voice sounded shrill and far off. "Sophy, you said you +were all right!—Richard, look at Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +I felt the doctor's swift, deft hands upon me. And more pain. People +were arriving now. Cars stopped, and excited men and women +surrounded us. One tall figure leaped from the first car and reached +us ahead of all others. +</p> +<p> +"Geddes!" cried a voice. "Thank God, Geddes! We were told you'd been +killed outright! Alicia all right, too?" Then: "Sophy!" This time it +was a cry of terror. "Never tell me it's Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +I saw his face bent over me. Then a red mist came, and then +everything went dark. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0019"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XIX +</h2> +<h3> + DEEP WATERS +</h3> +<p> +Somewhere, far, far off, a faint and feeble little light glimmered, +one small point of light in vast blackness. In the whole universe +there wasn't anything or anybody but just that tiny light, and swift +black water, and drowning me. Something deep within me—I think +occultists call it the body-spirit—was clamoring frantically to +hold fast to the light, because if that went under I should go +under, too. I tried to keep my eyes upon the trembling spark. +</p> +<p> +Whereupon the light changed to a sound, the monotonous insistence of +which forced me to be worriedly aware of it. It was—why, it was a +voice, calling, over and over and over again, "<i>Sophy! Sophy!</i>" +</p> +<p> +Somebody was calling <i>me</i>. With an immense effort I managed to raise +my eyelids. I was lying in a bed, and caught a drowsy, fleeting +glimpse of four posts. +</p> +<p class="verse2"> + Four posts upon my bed, <br /> + Four angels for my head,<br /> + Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John <br /> + Bless the bed that I lie on! +</p> +<p> +Granny used to say that for me at night; only she had said "four +hangels for my 'ead," at which I used to giggle into my pillows. I +hadn't felt so close to Granny since I was little Sophy, in the +rooms over our shop in Boston. She was somewhere around me; if I +went to sleep now, she'd be there when I woke up in the morning. But +the sound that was a calling voice wouldn't let me go to sleep. +Slowly, heavily, I managed to get my eyes open again. +</p> +<p> +"Look at me!" said the voice imperiously. Two large dark eyes caught +my wavering glance and held it, as in a vise. "Sophy! Sophy! <i>I need +you.</i>" +</p> +<p> +Said another voice, then, brokenly: "For mercy's sake, Jelnik, let +her go in peace!" +</p> +<p> +"No, she sha'n't die. I won't have it!—Sophy, come back! It is I +who call you, Sophy. Come back!" +</p> +<p> +My stiff lips moved. "Must go—sleep," I tried to say. +</p> +<p> +"No, I forbid you to go to sleep, Sophy!" His dark eyes, full of +life and compelling power, held my tired and dimmed ones, his firm, +warm hands held my cold and inert fingers. "My love, my dear love, +stay. You have got to stay, Sophy. Don't you understand? You can't +go, Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +My dulled brain stumblingly laid hold upon a thought: <i>Nicholas +Jelnik was calling me. He was calling me because he loved me.</i> One +simply can't go down into sleep and darkness, when a miracle like +that is climbing like the morning-star into one's skies. +</p> +<p> +"Stay!" he said, his lips against my ear. "Sophy! My love, my dear +love, stay!" +</p> +<p> +But although he held me close, I could feel myself being drawn away. +There must have been that in my straining glance that made him +aware, for of a sudden he cried out, lifted me bodily in his arms, +and kissed me on the mouth. +</p> +<p> +My heart quite stopped beating, as a spent runner pauses, that he +may gather new strength to go on. With a sigh I fell back; but not +into the water and the dark. +</p> +<p> +"By God, you've pulled her through, Jelnik!" cried the voice of +Richard Geddes. +</p> +<p> +Came vague sounds, stirs, movements, hands upon me. Then oblivion +again. +</p> +<p> +I woke up one pleasant forenoon to find a brisk and capable young +woman in white sitting in my room, her head bent over the piece of +linen she was hemming. She was a healthy, handsome young woman, with +hard, firm cheeks, hard, firm lips, and professional eyes and +glasses. She glanced up and met my wan stare. +</p> +<p> +"What are you doing here, if you please?" I asked politely. +</p> +<p> +"I have been nursing you, Miss Smith. You have been quite ill, you +know." +</p> +<p> +I lay there looking at that self-contained, trained young woman, +with feelings of almost ludicrous astonishment. I remembered the +skidding car; and Richard Geddes lying with his head on Alicia's +knees, and how we had both thought him dead; and myself sitting in +the dust; and then the pain. But it was astounding news that I had +been very badly hurt full three weeks ago! +</p> +<p> +Alicia stole in and, seeing me awake, tried to smile, but cried +instead, with a wet cheek against my hand. A few minutes later +Doctor Geddes himself appeared. It was enough to scandalize any +self-contained nurse to see a six-foot-three doctor behave in the +most abandoned and unbedside manner! +</p> +<p> +"Sophy!" gulped the doctor, "oh, deuce take you, Sophronisba Two, +what do you mean by scaring honest folks half out of their wits?" +</p> +<p> +The nurse was destined to receive another shock. Richard of the Lion +Heart dropped down on his knees beside Alicia, and laid his bearded +cheek against my wan one, and for a while couldn't speak. Alicia +tried to get her slender arms around him, and couldn't. +</p> +<p> +"I think," ventured the nurse, in level tones, "that the patient +had better not be excited. Shall I give her a stimulant, doctor?" +</p> +<p> +"The patient's on the highroad to getting well," said the doctor. +"And we're the best of all stimulants, aren't we, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +When I began to get stronger, the dream which had haunted my illness +came back with astonishing vividness and haunted my waking hours. I +knew it was a dream, for of course I hadn't been in black water, I +hadn't strained toward a light upon the flood, and of course, I +hadn't really heard Nicholas Jelnik calling my name; and the kiss +was part of the fantasy. I watched him stealthily, this cool, +collected, impersonal young man, to whom even the efficient nurse +was astonishingly respectful, and pure laughter seized me at the +idea of <i>his</i> crying aloud, being as agitated, as passionate, as +fiercely insistent, as he had been in the vision. +</p> +<p> +I ventured to put a part of the vagary to the acid test: +</p> +<p> +"Alicia, I wasn't thrown out again, into water, was I?" +</p> +<p> +"No. That was delirium, dear. You were frightfully ill for a while, +Sophy." Her face paled. "So ill that The Author fled, because he +wouldn't stay in the house and see—what we expected to see. He said +it would permanently shatter his nerves. But he has wired every day +since." +</p> +<p> +"It was sensible of him to go. And it's kind of him to wire." I said +no more about the water. +</p> +<p> +"Everybody has been kind. And it wasn't duty kindness, either. It +was kind kindness!" said Alicia, lucidly. "Do you know what they're +saying in Hyndsville now? They're saying old Sophronisba played a +joke on herself." She left me to digest that as best I might. +</p> +<p> +It isn't pleasant to be ill anywhere. But it isn't altogether +unpleasant to be on the sick list in South Carolina. Everybody is +anxious about you. Old ladies with palm-leaf fans in their tireless +hands come and sit with you. They aren't brilliant old ladies, you +understand. I know some whose secular library consists of the +Complete Works of John Esten Cooke, Gilmore Simms's War Poems of the +South, and a thumbed copy of Father Ryan. But add to these the +Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Imitation of Christ, and +it doesn't make such a bad showing. It's astonishing how soothing +the companionship of women fed upon this pabulum can be, when the +things of the world are of necessity set aside for a space, and the +simpler things of the spirit draw near. +</p> +<p> +Old gentlemen in well-brushed clothes and immaculate, exquisitely +darned linen, call daily with small gifts of fruit and flowers, and +send you messages from which you infer that the sun won't be able to +shine properly until you come outside again. And there isn't a +housekeeper of your acquaintance who hasn't got you on her mind: +there are sent to you steaming bowls of perfect soup, flaky rolls +and golden cake, jeweled jellies, and cool, enticing, trembly things +in glass dishes. And when you can sit up for more than an hour or +two at a time, why, then you know what it really means to have South +Carolina neighbors. +</p> +<p> +Doctor Geddes made me spend my days in the garden that Schmetz had +labored upon with such loving-kindness, and that in consequence was +become a marvel of bloom and scent. Every butterfly in South +Carolina must have visited that garden. I hadn't known there were +that many butterflies in the world. All the florist-shop windows in +New York, that I had once paused before with envy and longing, were +stinted and poor and pale before the living, out-o'-doors wonder of +it. Florist shops haven't any bees, nor birds, nor butterflies, nor +trees that wave their green branches at you like friendly hands. +</p> +<p> +A flowering vine festooned the marble Love, and one great scarlet +spray of bloom flamed upon his marble torch, "so lyrically," Miss +Martha Hopkins said, that she was moved to write a poem about it. I +thought it a very nice poem, and I said so, when she read it to us. +But Doctor Geddes, who doesn't care for poetry, except Robert +Burns's, rubbed his nose. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, well, your grandmother and your aunts used to make +antimacassars and wall-pockets and paper flowers," he ruminated. +"Why shouldn't you make poetry if you feel like it?" +</p> +<p> +"You are to be pitied, Richard," said Miss Martha, with crushing +charity. "Such a disposition! And the older you grow the worse it +gets." +</p> +<p> +"Confound it, Martha!—" +</p> +<p> +"I do," said she. +</p> +<p> +Alicia looked at Richard with impersonal eyes. She looked at the +ruffled center of culture. +</p> +<p> +"Don't pay any attention to him, Miss Martha," she said, with a +charming smile. "Your poem is very pretty, and he knows it." +</p> +<p> +"He means well," said Miss Martha, resignedly. +</p> +<p> +"Now, you look here, Martha!" the doctor said angrily, "I won't have +anybody telling me to my face I mean well. You might as well call me +a fool outright." +</p> +<p> +"You are far from being a fool, Richard. And you do mean well. +Everybody knows that." +</p> +<p> +He turned appealingly to his dear Leetchy, and received his first +lesson in Domestic Science. +</p> +<p> +"Miss Martha is right, Richard," she decided. +</p> +<p> +"Leetchy," the doctor asked, when the mollified Miss Hopkins had +departed, "why did Martha go off grinning?" +</p> +<p> +"How should I know?" wondered Alicia, innocently. Then she looked at +him with Irish eyes: "Have you had your lunch, dear?" she asked. +</p> +<p> +"Lunch?" He looked bewildered. +</p> +<p> +"Because I'm going to fix Sophy's lunch now, and you may have yours +with her, if you like. I love to wait on you, Richard," she added, +and a beautiful color flooded her face. +</p> +<p> +He caught his breath. When she went back to the house, his eyes +followed her adoringly. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy," he said, huskily, "what does she see in me? Do you think +I'm good enough for <i>her</i>, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"I think you are quite good enough even for Alicia." +</p> +<p> +When he had gone, Alicia sat with her head against my knees. Of late +a touching gravity, a sweet seriousness, had settled upon her. Her +love for the big doctor was singularly clear-eyed and far-seeing. +There were going to be times when every ounce of skill, tact, +patience, love itself, would be called upon, for the reins must be +gossamer-light, invisible, but always firm and sure, that should +guide and tone down so impatient and fiery a nature as his. It was +very easy to love him; it wasn't always going to be easy to live +with him, and Alicia knew it. But she also knew, with a faith beyond +all failing, that this was her high, destined, heaven-ordained job. +</p> +<p> +"Sophy darlin', I'm deplorably young, am I not?" she sighed. +</p> +<p> +"You'll get over it." +</p> +<p> +"Do you think I'll make him a good wife, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"I am absolutely certain," I said, "that you'll make him a good +husband. Which is far more important." +</p> +<p> +Alicia hugged my knees, and laughed. Then, seeing Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik approaching, she scrambled to her feet, picked up the tray of +empty dishes, and went back to the house. +</p> +<p> +Neither she nor the doctor had asked me so much as one question +about Mr. Jelnik. As if by tacit understanding that subject was +avoided. And because I hadn't anything to tell them, I, too, held my +peace. +</p> +<p> +He raised my hand to his lips, dropped into a chair, and bared his +forehead to the soft wind. +</p> +<p> +"How good that feels!" he sighed. "Fräulein, may one smoke?" And +receiving permission he smoked for a while, comfortably, leaning +back with half-closed eyes. +</p> +<p> +"Achmet salaams to you, <i>hanoum</i>," he said presently. "You have won +his heart of a true believer. Even Daoud demands daily news of you." +</p> +<p> +"I particularly like The Jinnee. I should like to have him around +me. And Daoud is highly ornamental." +</p> +<p> +"When is The Author coming back? Or is he coming back?" he asked +abruptly. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, yes. He will be here for the wedding. So will Miss Emmeline." +</p> +<p> +After a long pause, and with an evident effort: +</p> +<p> +"I have been thinking," he said, "that perhaps it was unfortunate I +came between you and The Author. Perhaps," he added deliberately, +"it would have been better had you let your common sense gain the +day." +</p> +<p> +I don't know why, but just at that moment the dear and haunting +dream of having been lifted out of deep waters and kissed back to +life, cradled in this man's arms, came to me with peculiar +poignancy. Of a sudden I laughed aloud. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, I'm just remembering a dream I had, when I was ill," I told +him, in answer to his look of surprise. +</p> +<p> +"It must have been a very amusing dream," said he, staring at me +thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, very! Quite absurd. But go on. You were by way of advising me +to marry The Author, were you not?" +</p> +<p> +His hands on the arms of the wicker chair clenched. He half rose, +thought better of it, and sank back. +</p> +<p> +"I was saying that it might have been better for you," he said, +breathing quickly. "In all probability you would have accepted him, +had I not been here to—blunder into the affair." +</p> +<p> +"He mightn't have asked me, if you hadn't been here to blunder into +the affair," said I, composedly. "Let us drop the subject, please. I +shall never marry The Author." It gave me a sense of relief and +freedom to hear myself say that. "I can't marry The Author." +</p> +<p> +He went pale. "Sophy—you can't marry me, either," he said. +</p> +<p> +"Of course not." I wondered at myself for being so calm and +collected. "I knew that all along. You care for another woman. You +told me so, you know." +</p> +<p> +"I told you no such thing," he said. "I told you I cared for a +woman, but that there was another man. Now I've just been told she +has no idea of accepting the other man. In spite of all he has to +offer, she isn't going to marry him." His face was at once ecstatic +and tortured. "<i>Why</i> won't you marry the other man, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"Because of a dream I dreamed, when I was sick," I said +noncommittally. +</p> +<p> +"Ah! And did you dream that somebody called you—and held you—and +wouldn't let you go?" +</p> +<p> +"I never told you!" I cried. +</p> +<p> +"No need, Sophy. It was to me you came back." Of a sudden his head +drooped. "And now I can't marry you!" +</p> +<p> +"Why can't you?" +</p> +<p> +"Because I'm a beggar." +</p> +<p> +Nicholas Jelnik a beggar couldn't find lodgment in my brain. I could +only stare at him incredulously. +</p> +<p> +"I learned some time ago that things were not altogether right over +yonder, but I hadn't the ghost of an idea that my entire estate was +involved; that while I'd been 'tramping'—I'll use Judge Gatchell's +word—the men in whose hands I placed too much power had taken +advantage of it. A very common, every-day story, you see. +</p> +<p> +"Remains the fact that I'm stripped to the bone. The estate's wiped +out. And," he added, with a grave smile, "I haven't even discovered +the mythical Hynds jewels. Now you see, Sophy, why I can't marry +you." +</p> +<p> +"I see why you think you can't." +</p> +<p> +He flushed to the roots of his black hair. Hynds-Jelnik pride rose +in arms. +</p> +<p> +"I should cut rather a sorry figure marrying the owner of Hynds +House, in the present circumstances," he said curtly. "You will +remember that The Author called me an adventurer! I have told you I +have nothing." +</p> +<p> +"Aren't you forgetting your profession?" +</p> +<p> +"No. But I neglected that, too, Sophy. The <i>Wanderlust</i> had me in +its grip." +</p> +<p> +"What do you propose to do?" +</p> +<p> +"I shall leave here, put in some months of hard study, and then +fight my way upward. My father was the greatest alienist of his +generation, and I was trained under his eye. But in the meantime—" +</p> +<p> +"Yes. In the meantime, what of <i>me</i>?" I asked. +</p> +<p> +He winced as if he had been struck. "You are free," he said, in a +whisper. +</p> +<p> +"I am free to be free, and you're free to set me free. You never +asked me to marry you, in the first place," I agreed quietly. +</p> +<p> +Stupefaction seized him. He put his hands to his head. +</p> +<p> +"Why, Sophy! Why, Sophy!" he stammered. Of a sudden he straightened +his shoulders, and stood erect: "Miss Smith," he said, with grave +politeness, "will you do me the honor to marry me?" and he waited. +</p> +<p> +"It is rather a belated request, Mr. Jelnik. Besides, you haven't +told me why you want to marry me," said I, sedately. +</p> +<p> +"You are well aware that I love you, Sophy. And I think you care for +me in return. Why did you turn that coin when it meant 'Go,' and bid +me, instead, 'Stay'? Was it because you cared, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"Yes, Mr. Jelnik: it was because I cared. I cared enough to tell +a—a lie. And—I shall say yes to your other question, Mr. Jelnik." +</p> +<p> +But he shook his head. "Ah, no, my dear! You'd be called upon to +make too many sacrifices. I couldn't bear that!" +</p> +<p> +"A man needn't be worried about the sacrifices a woman makes for him +when she knows he loves her." +</p> +<p> +"Not in normal circumstances; not when he can give as much as he +takes." +</p> +<p> +"Hynds House," I said, "is costing me a steep and bitter price, Mr. +Jelnik!" +</p> +<p> +"Do I not also pay?" he asked fiercely. +</p> +<p> +"Oh, you have your pride!" said I, wearily; "Hynds pride!" +</p> +<p> +"A poor enough possession, Sophy, but all that remains to me," he +said gently. "Is it a light thing for Nicholas Jelnik to say to the +woman he loves, 'I cannot marry you: I am a beggar'? Is it such a +small sacrifice to give you up, Sophy?" +</p> +<p> +"It would appear so." +</p> +<p> +"You crucify me!" he said, in a choking voice. "Good God, don't you +understand that I love you?" +</p> +<p> +"I don't understand anything, except that you are going away from +me. And I have waited for you all my life," I said. +</p> +<p> +"And I for you! and I for you!" he said passionately. "Don't make it +too hard for me, Sophy!" +</p> +<p> +"If you go away from me," I gasped, "I think I shall die. +Nicholas—I can't bear it! It was easier for me when I thought you +loved somebody else. But now that I know you love <i>me</i>" and I +paused. +</p> +<p> +He took a step forward, but stopped. His arms fell to his sides. +</p> +<p> +"Not as a beggar!" he said. "Not as a beggar! Never that, for +Nicholas Jelnik! I love you too much for that, Sophy. I love you not +only for yourself, but for my own best self, too, my dearest." +</p> +<p> +For a moment he stood there, regarding me fixedly. It was a long +look, of suffering, of love, of pride, of unyielding resolve. Then +he lifted my hand to his lips, bowed, and left me. +</p> +<p> +I sat staring over the garden. I wondered if, somewhere on the other +side of things, Great-Aunt Sophronisba wasn't snickering. +</p> +<a name="2HCH0020"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<div style="height: 4em;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<h2> + CHAPTER XX +</h2> +<h3> + HARBOR +</h3> +<p> +"My faith, but I'm glad you're entirely well again, Sophy!" wrote +The Author, in his small, fine, hypercritical script. "You make the +world a pleasanter place by being alive in it. People like you +should inculcate in themselves the fixed and unalterable habit of +being alive. They should firmly refuse to be anything else. I call +this to your attention, in the hope that you will see your bounden +duty and do it. +</p> +<p> +"When I thought you were going to quit, I ran away. That was a +calamity I could not stand by and witness, without disaster. +However, Jelnik stayed! +</p> +<p> +"Your nurse (I do not like Miss Ransome, though I respect, admire, +and fear her. Her emotions are carbolized, her heart is sterilized, +her personality has the mathematical perfection of something turned +out by a super-machine: like, say, the last word in machine-guns. +None of the divine imperfection of your hand-wrought, artist-stuff +there! I forgive her for existing, because she is intelligent and +useful, two things that, without lying like a Christian and a +gentleman, one may not say of many women, and seldom of one woman at +the same time), your nurse gave me a highly interesting, impersonal, +scientific account of what happened after my flight. Her testimony +was all the more valuable in that she was, as she said, only +'psychologically interested.' She reminded me that Empedocles is +said to have recalled a young woman from death by the same means, +i.e., the insistent repetition of her name; which proved to Miss +Ransome that the poor old ancients had 'anticipated, though of +course unscientifically, some of the principles of modern +psychology.' <i>Eheu!</i> +</p> +<p> +"It proved something else to me, Sophy—that I had too willingly +underestimated Mr. Nicholas Jelnik. There is very much more to that +young man than I like to admit. +</p> +<p> +"He would have made such a perfect villain: I could have made a work +of art of him, as a villain! And now I can't, because he isn't. This +chagrins me. It upsets my notions of the fitness of things. More +yet: he loves you, Sophy, more than I do, or ever could. +</p> +<p> +"Does this astound you? Come and let us reason together: the spirit +moves me to speak out in meeting. +</p> +<p> +"You are the only woman I have ever been willing to marry. That I +should wish to marry you astonished me far, far more than it did +you. At the same time it delighted me by its very unexpectedness. It +gave me a brand-new emotion, and brand-new emotions aren't every-day +affairs, let me tell you! You brought something naïve, unusual, +fresh, perplexing, into a bored existence. And then you refused to +spoil it! That added to the quality of the unusualness. The ninety +and nine would have subjected me to the acid test of matrimony, with +the later and inevitable alimony. The saving hundredth sees to it +that I shall keep my illusions! O rare dear wise Sophy! How shall I +repay you? +</p> +<p> +"For I shall be able to indulge in day-dreams now. I shall not grow +old cynically. There <i>are</i> unselfish, true-hearted, valiant women. +There <i>are</i> women who will not marry men for position, name, fame, +power, money; no, nor for anything but love. How do I know? Because +you don't love me, my dear. But you do love Nicholas Jelnik. You had +not come back from the gates of death else, Sophy. +</p> +<p> +"Marry him. You will bring him the quiet strength and sureness he +needs. A temperamental man, a finely organized, highly gifted, +sensitive, and intellectual man needs just such affection as yours, +as unshakable as the sun, as faithful as the fixed stars. That you +should love him almost makes me believe in the direct intervention +of divine Providence in his behalf. My own innate and troublesome +decency forces me to add that he is worth it. He has altogether +<i>too</i> much, confound him! +</p> +<p> +"Do you know that while you lay ill, he came and told me about the +finding of Jessamine Hynds, showed me her statement, told me, in +short, the whole story? I was consumed with envy, malice, and all +uncharitableness; to think that such a thing should or could happen +right under my nose, and I all unwitting! And you, too, Sophy, went +through such an experience! I'd give a year of my life to have been +with you. +</p> +<p> +"When Jelnik had finished, and I'd caught my breath, I apologized +for having been a dam' nuisance. He explained, delicately, +soothingly, with exquisite politeness, that literary folks of +consequence <i>have</i> to be dam' nuisances at times. It's the price +they pay. +</p> +<p> +"And now let me speak to you, my little Sophy, as your loving and +loyal friend: <i>Hold fast to Jelnik.</i> I knew his father. The position +he occupied wasn't exactly royal, but the elect addressed him as +'thou.' And you have learned somewhat of the Hyndses. In consequence, +your Jelnik is a mixture of South-Carolina-Viennese-Hynds-Jelnik +pride, beside which Satan's is as mild, meek, and innocuous as a +properly raised Anglican curate. Don't meet his pride with pride. +Meet it with <i>you</i>, Sophy. Most of us have been loved in our time, +but how few of us have been permitted really to love! That you have +in full measure this heavenliest of all powers, is your hope and his. +</p> +<p> +"There are times I'm almost sorry you didn't love <i>me</i>, Sophy. I +should then have passed my days in a state of pleasant bewilderment, +trying to figure out how the deuce it happened. Or should I, though? +H'm! I might have gotten used to being married to you, and that +would have spelled boredom. The thought makes me shudder. +</p> +<p> +"Johnson and I are coming down for Leetchy's wedding, of course. +That pink-and-white piece of Irishry will rule Geddes to perfection. +There's the steel under the velvet, the cat's claws under that satin +paw of hers—more power to it! I have two prints and a piece of +Cloisonné for her that I am sorely tempted to keep for myself. I +have more than once bought things to give to friends, and then found +myself unable to do so. I shouldn't be able to give these to anybody +but one of the ladies of Hynds House. +</p> +<p> +"Johnson mopes. The youngest Meade girl, she with the dimples, the +pink cheeks, the fluffy hair, and the fluffier brains, is the cause. +He sighs for everything and everybody. For Mary Magdalen's batter +cakes. For the Black family. For the Kissing Cow, and for Beautiful +Dog. Hynds House is a fatal place! +</p> +<p> +"So we are coming back to it, as soon as we may. I kiss your hand, +Madame, and beg you to understand that so long as we two live you +are never going to be able, for any considerable length of time, to +get rid of, +</p> +<p class="closing3"> Your affectionate friend, +</p> +<p class="ar"> + The Author." +</p> +<p> +I was able to read between the lines, and my heart warmed to The +Author. At the same time the letter saddened me, in so far as it +referred to Mr. Jelnik. +</p> +<p> +Refuse to let him go? But I couldn't keep him. I knew now that he +had to go, that it was the best thing, the only thing. Doctor Geddes +helped me to see that. The doctor tried, at first, to keep his +cousin in Hyndsville. Why shouldn't Nicholas go into partnership +with him? Why shouldn't Nicholas share everything the open-hearted, +open-handed doctor had? +</p> +<p> +Mr. Jelnik smiled, thanked him, and put the offer by. And I knew he +was right. +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +It had been a rainy day and was now one of those afternoons that +have the rawness of autumn, though summer is still present. It was +so chilly that a fire burned in the library fireplace, before which +I was sitting. The wind was from the northeast, and the trees and +bushes slanted before it. Potty Black and I had the library all to +our alone-selves, for Alicia was spending the day with Mary Meade, +one of her bridesmaids. +</p> +<p> +The wedding was less than six weeks off, and preparations were under +way. It was to be a home wedding, the first to take place in Hynds +House since Richard's day, and somehow that lent the occasion the +rose color of romance. It was thus a part of Hynds House history, +something Hyndsville couldn't take lightly. Alicia's wedding was a +town affair, in which everybody was delightfully interested. +</p> +<p> +Besides, the bridegroom himself was a Hynds on his mother's side, as +Hyndsville ladies remembered, when they sat on our front porch +working on wonderful bits of embroidered things for the bride. It +was then I learned in fullest detail the whole history of +Hyndsville, of the Hyndses, and of Great-Aunt Sophronisba in +particular. I fancy that the Witch of Endor's neighbors must have +had just such an opinion of her as these Hyndsville folk had of +Great-Aunt Sophronisba. +</p> +<p> +South Carolina people always talk in terms of three generations. +When they say something about you, they remember something about +your mother or your grandfather at the same time, and they tell +that, too. There is a fearsome frankness about the conversation of +the born South Carolinian that The Author says is only to be matched +in an English country house when the county families are gathered +together. Like this, for instance: +</p> +<p> +"No, my dear, I can't say I'm surprised at Sally's running away and +getting married. Let's see: her grandfather was a Dampier, wasn't +he? Didn't one of the Dampiers murder somebody, or something like +that? It seems to me I have heard dear Mama relate some such +circumstance." +</p> +<p> +"Oh, <i>no</i>, Mary! It wasn't <i>murder</i>! He shot one of the Abercrombies +in a duel, that's all. He was really a very fine man! They had a +dispute about a horse, and Mr. Abercrombie struck Mr. Dampier's +little negro groom over the head with his crop. After that, of +course, there was nothing to do but challenge him. You must be +thinking of Barton Bailey, Eliza DuFour's grandfather on her +mother's side. <i>He</i> was a complete scoundrel. His poor wife (she was +a Garrett; very dull, poor thing, like all the Garretts, but at +least the Garretts were honest, which is more than even charity can +say for the Baileys) his wife led a martyr's life with him. Or +maybe you're thinking of Tiger Bill Pendarvis. A most <i>awful</i> +person!—almost an out-law!" +</p> +<p> +Mrs. Scarboro looked up, bit off a thread, and said placidly: +</p> +<p> +"Oh, awful! He was a cousin of mine on dear Papa's side of the +family. Papa and Mama used to say that they never could understand +why Cousin Sophronisba Hynds didn't pick out Tiger Bill instead of +pouncing upon a perfectly innocent little Englishman." +</p> +<p> +I sat and listened. One thing was joyously clear and plain to me. +They liked and trusted me enough now to talk about their own people +before me, which is the high sign of fellowship in South Carolina. +But learn, O outsider, that silence is golden, so far as <i>you</i> are +concerned. Wisely did I hold my peace, and devoutly thank the Lord +that times had changed for the better. +</p> +<p> +For a great deal of that change I had to thank my dear girl, so much +more clever and tactful than I. And so I would not cloud her last +days with me by letting her see that I was unhappy. Only, I was glad +this afternoon to be by myself for a breathing-space. It rests one's +face occasionally to take off one's smile. I took off mine, then, +and let down the corners of my mouth. +</p> +<p> +The door leading to the hall was half open. The house was full of +blue-gray shadows, and had a drowsy hush upon it, a pleasanter hush +than it used to know. One heard the rushing wind outside, and above +it Mary Magdalen singing one of her interminable "speretuals." +</p> +<p> +A slinking shadow stole through the hall, a wary yellow head +appeared in the door, and Beautiful Dog sneaked into the room. +Beautiful Dog had not known a happy day since the departure of Mr. +Johnson. Not all the coddlings of the cook, nor the blandishments of +sympathetic housemaids consoled him for the absence of his god. He +grew thinner, if that could be possible. His tail hung at half-mast, +his ears were a signal of mourning. Queenasheeba said he looked like +"sumpin' 'at happened to a dawg." +</p> +<p> +One hope sustained Beautiful Dog's drooping spirit—the hope that he +might suddenly turn a corner, or enter a room, and find the adored +Johnson smiling kindly at him. Wherefore he dared the to-be-shunned +presence of other white people. He nerved himself to enter tabooed +domains. Love sustained him. He knew he had no business there, just +as our cats knew it and, whenever they caught him at it, visited +swift and dire punishment upon him. Beautiful Dog dared even the +cats, those black nightmares of his existence. +</p> +<p> +He met my glance, paused, and cringed. But as I made no hostile +movement, and seemed disposed to be friendly, Beautiful Dog grinned +half-heartedly, wagged his rope of a tail dejectedly, and advanced +farther. Then he paused again, head on one side, ears forlornly +flopping, and made an awkward motion with his fore paws, expressive +of doubtful trust and painful inquiry. His god had been wont to +choose this particular room by preference. Did I know where he was? +When he was coming back? +</p> +<p> +Beautiful Dog glanced wistfully at the empty chair over by the +window. Once or twice his god had allowed him to lie beside that +chair while he read, and if Beautiful Dog happened to raise his +head, a kind hand happened to fall upon it. He hadn't forgotten. His +desire now was to sneak over to the chair and sniff at it. Perhaps +by some exquisite miracle his man might suddenly appear in his old +place. Can't miracles happen for Beautiful Dogs as well as for other +folks, when times and seasons are propitious? +</p> +<p> +Beautiful Dog took another step toward the chair. And then there +paced into the library, and caught him in the rear, his arch +enemy—Sir Thomas More Black. The great cat took one look at the +nigger dog trespassing upon forbidden ground. You could see Sir +Thomas More swell with rage and astonishment, and then lengthen out +like an accordion. Without a sound he launched himself upon the +intruder. And at the same instant and actuated by the same motive, +Potty Black, who had been sweetly and peacefully dozing on my lap, +rose up with slitted eyes, bottle-brushed her tail, and hurled +herself into the fray. +</p> +<p> +Attacked front and rear, Beautiful Dog was at hideous disadvantage. +He launched himself sidewise; he didn't even have time to howl. He +fell over his own splay feet as he ran, butted into chairs and +tables, twisted, turned, whirled, dodged, but always presented just +the right spot to be clawed. He couldn't dash to the door and +escape: the cats were too swift for him. They kept their bewildered +victim circling around the middle of the room. +</p> +<p> +I was sorry for Beautiful Dog, for my sleek, petted, purring pussies +had turned into raging black tornadoes edged with a lightning of +claws. If the aristocratic Black Family had been raised in +Hooligan's Alley itself, on the soft side of the ash-bins, they +couldn't have behaved more villainously. Alas! they were <i>cats</i>, +just as people are people. +</p> +<p> +I snatched up the brass-headed poker, the readiest thing to my hand. +I merely wished to shoo off the Blacks with it. But as I rose from +my chair with a <i>scat</i>! upon my lips, Beautiful Dog, seeing out of +the tail of his eye a chance to escape, dashed headlong into me. He +came with such force that I fell backward, and the poker flew out of +my hand and came <i>crack</i>! upon the sacred tiles of Hynds House +library. There was an ominous clatter, for no less than the Father +of his Country himself had fallen out of his place. At the same +instant Beautiful Dog gained the door, with both cats upon his hind +quarters; with one prolonged yell of terror he made for safety and +Mary Magdalen. +</p> +<p> +I picked myself and the tile up. Thank Heaven, it wasn't broken. The +blow had loosened the cement that held it in place, and where it had +been was a small square hole. +</p> +<p> +I looked at that hole doubtfully. There oughtn't to be any hole +there at all. That was a curious way to fix tiles, such precious +tiles as ours. I slipped my hand in and tentatively tested the black +wall, and discovered that the other tiles, as might be expected, had +been properly put in; that is, against a solid background. +</p> +<p> +I put my hand farther into the aperture. It was larger than might be +expected, and most cunningly contrived—a hollow space some ten +inches in width, and possibly a foot deep. There was something in +it. +</p> +<p> +Now I am mortally afraid of rats and mice, and what I had touched +had the sleazy feel of frayed silk. It might be a rat's nest! I took +a sliver of lightwood from the fire, and with this examined the +black interior, before I ventured my fingers again. It wasn't a +rat's nest in the corner. It was a package. A package, or rather a +sizable buckskin bag carefully tied together with thongs of the same +material, and this wrapped in a piece of silk that tore and went to +pieces even as I fingered it. +</p> +<p> +Even then I didn't guess! I thought it was, perhaps, a Revolutionary +hoard, maybe such another collection of old coins as we had found in +the room without windows. +</p> +<p> +The silk dropped away like rotting leaves, but the buckskin bag was +stout and in perfect condition. So many and so hard were the knots +in the thongs that I had to use my penknife to cut them. And having +done so, I poured the contents of the bag on the library table. +</p> +<p> +It was, as I have said, a gray day. But the fires of a century's +sunsets flamed and flashed in that library! Ruby, sapphire, diamond, +emerald, pearl—how they glowed and glimmered! How they shone and +sparkled! For the moment there fell upon me that madness that jewels +bring upon women, a sort of wild delight in their hard, bright +beauty, an ecstasy, an intoxication. I poured them from one hand to +the other, I held the greatest to my cheek. The loveliness of them +went to my head. "I did chap them atween my hands, as children chap +chaff. They did glow like the Devill his rainbow," Jessamine had +said. And remembering her, the delight vanished. +</p> +<p> +With stunning force the meaning of this discovery came home to me. I +had found the unfindable! This, this was where Shooba had hidden +them between a night and a morning, Shooba the "skilfullest workman +on Hynds place." One fancied him here, in the dead of night, while +all Hynds House slept a drugged sleep. It would suit his sardonic +humor, his impish malice, to hide them where the Hyndses must pass +them daily; and, himself a slave, to hide them behind the pictured +semblance of Washington. The grim irony of the thing! And not the +cunning of man, but the antics of a cur, a yellow nigger dog, had +outwitted the cunning of the old witch doctor! Beautiful Dog had +brought to light that which Jessamine had died alone in the dark +rather than reveal. +</p> +<p> +There was one thing more in the buckskin bag, wrapped separately. +When I got this separate package open, I found three frayed, black +feathers bound together with a strand of black hair, a piece of +yellow wax with two slivers of what I think was bone thrust through +it crosswise, and a small semblance of a snake, rudely carved out of +wood. There was, too, some dust, or powder, that must once have +been leaves, or perhaps roots. These unchancy things and the bag +that held them I dropped into the fire, breathing a sigh of relief +to see its red tooth seize upon them. The wax made a hissing noise, +and the dust of leaves, or whatever it was, burned with a bright, +fierce flame. +</p> +<p> +Then with feverish haste I got the Hynds jewels back into the +buckskin bag. I hadn't the faintest notion as to their actual value, +though I knew it must be considerable—enough to make up to Nicholas +Jelnik the losses he had sustained; enough to decide his fate—and +mine. Even now he was packing to go; even now there were "For Sale" +signs on the gray cottage. +</p> +<p> +I ran into our living-room, snatched my sewing-bag from the +sewing-stand, and dropped the heavy bag into it. That looked more +commonplace. +</p> +<p> +The clamor from the kitchen, incident upon Beautiful Dog's having +taken refuge under Mary Magdalen's skirts, had died down. I knew +that Beautiful Dog was licking his wounds after defeat, and the +Black cats, sedate and mild-mannered, were licking their paws after +victory. I determined that from that afternoon Beautiful Dog should +become an honored and important institution in Hynds House. If I had +to choose a new family escutcheon, I think I should insist upon +having Beautiful Dog rampant upon it! +</p> +<p> +When I went outside, the garden was a gray-green gloom of flying +leaves and twisting tree-branches bending before the stiff northeast +gale. It was wild weather—weather that sent the blood tingling +through the veins and whipped red into one's cheeks. +</p> +<p> +I got into Mr. Jelnik's grounds through the hedge behind the +spring-house, and ran like a hare through his garden. I had to +hammer upon his door before I could make Achmet hear me, so loud and +surf-like was the noise of the wind in the trees. +</p> +<p> +The Jinnee stepped back and salaamed, his hands upon his breast. +Then he laid a finger upon his lips, for from up-stairs came the +wailing outcry of a violin. +</p> +<p> +The Jinnee looked thin and old. His garments hung loose upon his +shrunken frame. There was trouble in that house, he told me. The +master had wished to send Daoud away. Daoud had refused to go. To +leave one's lord when calamity came upon him was to shame one's +beard. It was the act of the infidel, not the behavior of the +faithful, and Daoud had threatened to shave his beard, put on the +dress of a pilgrim, and beg his way from Hyndsville to Mecca. He was +even now kneeling upon a prayer-mat reciting a four-bow prayer. As +for the master, for two days he had not eaten; he merely swallowed +a cup of coffee in the morning because Achmet wept. This afternoon +he had fled to his violin for relief. Verily, God was afflicting +them! "The bad fortune of the good turns his face to heaven, even as +the good fortune of the bad bends his head to the earth. It is the +will of God: <i>Islam</i>!" said The Jinnee, simply. +</p> +<p> +"I must see Mr. Jelnik, now, this minute! I have news for him," I +said hastily. +</p> +<p> +The Jinnee looked doubtful. Plainly, he didn't want his master +disturbed, even by me. "I have never seen him like this before," he +told me. "Listen!" +</p> +<p> +Came the cries of the violin, heart-rending cries of regret and +despair, followed by furious protests; then a nobler grief, and +love, and longing. +</p> +<p> +"After a while it will pray for him. Then Satan the stoned, whom may +God confound, will depart from him," said Achmet. +</p> +<p> +"But in the meantime I must see him, immediately." +</p> +<p> +"He goes to-morrow. That is why he is afflicted to-day," said The +Jinnee. "I think, <i>hanoum</i>, he would go without seeing you again. It +is a grievous thing to say to one's beloved, 'I leave you.' I have +said it. I was young then. I am old now, but I have not forgotten." +</p> +<p> +I unfastened the chain from my neck. A half-coin swung from it as a +pendant. +</p> +<p> +"Place this in his hand. It is a sign. It has power to lay the evil +spirit which troubles this house," I told him gravely. +</p> +<p> +He seized upon it with an eager hand. "In the name of God!" said The +Jinnee, and fairly flew out of the room. +</p> +<p> +A minute later, his violin grasped in one hand, my chain in the +other, Nicholas Jelnik appeared. His appearance shocked me. The mask +was off; here was stark and naked misery. +</p> +<p> +"Nicholas!" I said, "Nicholas!" +</p> +<p> +"You should not have come!" he said roughly. "Why have you come? I +did not want you to see me—thus. Is it not enough for me to +suffer?" And he made an impatient, imploring gesture. His lips +quivered. +</p> +<p> +"Put aside the violin, Ariel," I said. "But keep the coin." +</p> +<p> +He stiffened, as if he braced himself for further blows. But he laid +aside the violin, and with a supreme effort of will got himself in +hand. That early training in self-control worked a miracle now. Here +was no longer the wild, white-lipped musician, but a pale, proud +young man who faced me with stately politeness. +</p> +<p> +"I have another gift for you, Nicholas Jelnik." To save my life I +couldn't keep my voice from shaking, my eyes from glittering, my +cheeks from flaming. "Do not go, old Jinnee. Stay and see what gift +I bring the master." +</p> +<p> +Then it occurred to me that it would be dangerous should strange or +greedy eyes look upon what my sewing-bag hid. The thought frightened +me." +</p> +<p> +"You are sure there is none to see? Achmet, there is no stranger +around?" +</p> +<p> +"We are alone," said the black man, quietly. Both of them seemed +astonished and concerned. +</p> +<p> +Reassured, I drew forth the heavy buckskin bag and placed it in +Nicholas Jelnik's hands. +</p> +<p> +"From Hynds House—and me—and oh, Nicholas, from Beautiful Dog, +too!" I said, and laughed and cried. +</p> +<p> +For the moment he didn't understand. He thought it some loving +woman-foolishness of Sophy's, some woman-gift she had made for him. +I knew, for he gave me a glance of tenderness. And then he opened +the bag, and staggered like a drunken man, and sank into the nearest +chair, trembling like a leaf in the wind. The Hynds fortune had come +back to the last of Richard's blood. +</p> +<p> +When the mist cleared from my eyes, I saw old Achmet on the floor, +with his hands upraised and tears running down his black cheeks +like rain, unashamedly and unaffectedly pouring out praises and +thanksgivings to his Creator. +</p> +<p> +"Hold out your skirts, Sophy!" cried Nicholas Jelnik, and poured the +glittering things into my lap, boyishly. He was beautiful again, +radiant and young-eyed as the choiring cherubim. There were two +exquisite, pear-shaped ear-ring drops among the Hynds jewels, and +these he took, threaded upon my chain on either side the broken +coin, and hung around my neck. He held a ruby against my lip and +turquoises near my eyes, and laughed. +</p> +<p> +"These for Hynds House, Sophy!" he cried, and laughed again to see +my lips tremble. "What? It is not these you want? Choose for +yourself, then. I promised you the best of them, you know." +</p> +<p> +"I want none of them," I said. +</p> +<p> +"No? Take them, then, Achmet, and put them away," said Mr. Jelnik, +in a matter-of-fact voice. "You will guard them for me, for the time +being. And tell Daoud I have changed my mind about sending him away. +He can change his about shaving his beard, and save himself the +trouble of begging his way to Mecca." +</p> +<p> +I stood up in silence, and held out my skirt apron-wise, while The +Jinnee as silently removed the Hynds jewels. Then he tied the +buckskin bag, concealed it in a fold of his robe, and left the room. +</p> +<p> +"Now, Sophy," said Mr. Jelnik, facing me, "you offered Hynds House +to me once, and I refused it because I didn't have the price. I told +you at the time that if ever I had the Hynds jewels in my +possession, I might be tempted to make you an offer of exchange. I +am going to make you an offer now. I should like to live in Hynds +House, Sophy. I don't think I could be happy anywhere else. You see, +Sophy, I'm going to spend the rest of my life here in America, +become an American citizen. Now, what about Hynds House?" +</p> +<p> +"You may have it," I said. +</p> +<p> +"At my own price?" he demanded. +</p> +<p> +"At your own price. Did you think I would haggle with you?" +</p> +<p> +"No. It's I who intend to haggle with you. I'm going to make a +tremendous bargain. There's something that must go with the house. +Something that's worth more than all the Hyndses ever had in all +their lives. <i>You</i>, Sophy. My sweetheart, come!" And he stood there +shining-eyed, and held out his arms. +</p> +<p> +"Once I sent for you. Once I called you. And both times you came to +me, Sophy. You came because you are mine. <i>Come!</i>" said Nicholas +Jelnik. And the golden lights danced in and out of his eyes that +were like brown mountain water when the sun is upon it, and his hair +was like Absalom's. +</p> +<p class="bquote"> + <i>In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as + Absalom for his beauty; from the sole of his foot to the + crown of his head there was no blemish in him.</i> +</p> +<p> +And caught by the surge and power, as it were of the very wave of +life itself, I was swept into those outstretched arms. +</p> +<div style="height: 1em;"><br /><br /><br /></div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN NAMED SMITH***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 15591-h.txt or 15591-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/9/15591">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/5/9/15591</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: A Woman Named Smith + + +Author: Marie Conway Oemler + +Release Date: April 8, 2005 [eBook #15591] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN NAMED SMITH*** + + +E-text prepared by Janet Kegg and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed +Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 15591-h.htm or 15591-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/9/15591/15591-h/15591-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/9/15591/15591-h.zip) + + + + + +A WOMAN NAMED SMITH + +by + +MARIE CONWAY OEMLER + +Author of _Slippy McGee_, etc. + +Grosset & Dunlap +Publishers New York + +1919 + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece illustration: "Sophy," he said, +"I have found the lost key of Hynds House"] + + + + + + To + + ELIZABETH HEYWARD OEMLER + + _Sometimes my Little Girl._ + + + When you were yet an Awful Baby, + And bawled o' bed-time, I said "Maybe + It is not best to spank or scold her: + Suppose a fairy-tale were told her?" + And gave you then, to my undoing, + The wolf Red Riding-Hood pursuing; + Sang Mother Goose her artless rhyming; + Showed Jack the Magic Beanstalk climbing; + Three Little Pigs were so appealing, + You set up sympathetic squealing! + Then, Bitsybet, you had your mother-- + _You bawled until I told another!_ + + The Awful Baby's gone. Here lately + You bear your little self sedately. + You've shed your rompers; you want dresses + Prinked out with frillies; fluff your tresses; + Delight your daddy, aunts, and mother; + And sisterly set straight your brother. + Your bib-and-tucker days abolished, + Your manners and your nails are polished. + One baby trait remains, thank glory! + You're still a glutton for a story. + Still, Bitsybet, you beg another: + So here's one for you from + + YOUR MOTHER. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + I THE SCARLET WITCH DEPARTS + II AND ARIEL MAKES MUSIC + III THE DEAR LITTLE GOD! + IV THE HYNDSES OF HYNDS HOUSE + V "THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF" + VI GLAMOURY + VII A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR + VIII PEACOCKS AND IVORY + IX THE JUDGMENT OF SPRING + X THE FOREST OF ARDEN + XI THE JINNEE INTERVENES + XII MAN PROPOSES + XIII FIRES OF YESTERDAY + XIV THE TALISMAN + XV THE HEART OF HYNDS HOUSE + XVI THE DEVILL HIS RAINBOW + XVII ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS + XVIII THE GREATEST GIFT + XIX DEEP WATERS + XX HARBOR + + + + +CHARACTERS + + +SOPHY: A woman named Smith. + +ALICIA GAINES: Flower o' the Peach. + +NICHOLAS JELNIK: Peacocks and Ivory. + +DOCTOR RICHARD GEDDES: _Coeur-de-Lion._ + +THE AUTHOR: Himself. + +THE SECRETARY: A Pleasant Person. + +MISS EMMELINE PHELPS-PARSONS: of Boston, Massachusetts. + +MISS MARTHA HOPKINS: "Clothed in White Samite." + +JUDGE GATCHELL: The Law. + +SCHMETZ AND RIEDRIECH: Workmen and Visionaries. + +THE JINNEE: A Son of the Prophet. + +SOPHRONISBA SCARLETT: "The Scarlett Witch." + +THE HYNDSES OF HYNDS HOUSE. + +PAYING GUESTS. + +THE PEOPLE OF HYNDSVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA. + +MARY MAGDALEN; QUEEN-OF-SHEEBA; FERNOLIA: Important Persons. + +BORIS: A Russian Wolfhound. + +THE BLACK FAMILY: A Witch's Cat's Kittens. + +BEAUTIFUL DOG: Last but not Least. + + + + + +A WOMAN NAMED SMITH + + +CHAPTER I + +THE SCARLETT WITCH DEPARTS + + +If it had been humanly possible for Great-Aunt Sophronisba Scarlett +to lug her place in Hyndsville, South Carolina, along with her into +the next world, plump it squarely in the middle of the Elysian +Fields, plaster it over with "No Trespassing" signs, and then settle +herself down to a blissful eternity of serving writs upon the angels +for flying over her fences without permission, and setting the saved +by the ears in general, she would have done so and felt that heaven +was almost as desirable a place as South Carolina. But as even she +couldn't impose her will upon the next world, and there was nobody +in this one she hated less than she did me--possibly because she had +never laid eyes on me--she willed me Hynds House and what was left +of the Hynds fortune; tying this string to her bequest: I must +occupy Hynds House within six months, and I couldn't rent it, or +attempt to sell it, without forfeiture of the entire estate. + +I can fancy the ancient beldam sniggering sardonically the while she +figured to herself the chagrined astonishment, the helpless wrath, +of her watchfully waiting neighbors, when they should discover that +historic Hynds House, dating from the beginning of things +Carolinian, had passed into the unpedigreed hands of a woman named +Smith. I can fancy her balefully exact perception of the attitude so +radically conservative a community must needs assume toward such an +intruder as myself, foisted upon it, so to speak, by an enemy who +never failed to turn the trick. + +Because I'm not a Hynds, at all. Great Aunt Sophronisba was my aunt +not by blood but by marriage; she having, when she was no longer +what is known as a spring chicken, met my Great-Uncle Johnny +Scarlett and scandalized all Hyndsville by marrying him out of hand. + +I have heard that she was insanely in love with him, and I believe +it; nothing short of an over-mastering passion could have induced +one of the haughty Hyndses to marry a person with such family +connections as his. For my father, George Smith, was a ruddy +English ship-chandler who pitched upon Boston for a home, and lived +with his family in the rooms above his shop; and my grandmother +Smith dropped her "aitches" with the cheerful ease of one to the +manner born, bless her stout old Cockney heart! I can remember her +hearing me my spelling-lesson of a night, her spectacles far down on +her old button of a nose, her white curls bobbing from under her +cap. + +"What! Carn't spell 'saloon'? Listen, then, Miss: There's a hess and +a hay and a hell and two hoes and a henn! Now, then, d 'ye spell +it!" + +Not that Mrs. Johnny ever accepted us. It was borne in upon the +Smiths that undesirable in-laws are outlaws. This despite the fact +that my mother's pink-and-white English face was a gentler copy of +what her uncle's had been in his youth; and that when I came along, +some years after the dear old man's death, I was named Sophronisba +at Mrs. Johnny's urgent request. + +After Great-Uncle Johnny died, as if the last tie which bound her to +ordinary humanity had snapped, his widow retired into a seclusion +from which she emerged only to sue somebody. She said the world was +being turned topsyturvy by people who were allowed to misbehave to +their betters, and who needed to be taught a lesson and their proper +place; and that so long as she retained her faculties, she would do +her duty in that respect, please God! + +She did her duty so well in that respect that the Hynds fortune, +which even civil war and reconstruction hadn't been able altogether +to wreck, dwindled to a mere fifteen thousand dollars; and she +wasn't on speaking terms with anybody but Judge Gatchell, her +lawyer. She would have quarreled with him, too, had she dared. + +To the minister, who bearded her for her soul's sake every now and +then, she spoke in words brief and curt: + +"You here again? Wanted to see me, hey? Well, you've done it. Now +get out!" + +And in the meantime the years passed and my own immediate family +passed with them; but still the gaunt old woman lived on in her +gaunt old house, becoming in time a myth to me, and to Hyndsville as +well; where they referred to her, succinctly, as "the Scarlet +Witch." I heard from her directly only once, and that was the year +she sent me a red flannel petticoat for a Christmas present. After +that, as if she'd done her worst, she ignored me altogether. + +My mother had wanted me to be a school-teacher, in her eyes the acme +of respectability. But as it happens, there are two things I +wouldn't be: one's a school-teacher, the other a minister's wife. +If I had to marry the average minister, I should infallibly hate all +church-goers; if I had to teach the average school-child and wrestle +with the average school-board, I should end by burning joss-sticks +to Herod. + +So I disappointed my mother by becoming a typist. After her death I +secured a foothold in a New York house--I'd always wanted to live in +New York--and went up, step by step, from what may be called a +rookie in the outside office, to private secretary to the Head. And +I'd been a business woman for all of seventeen years when Great-Aunt +Sophronisba Scarlett departed at the age of ninety-eight years and +eleven months, and willed that I should take up my life in the house +where she had dropped hers. + +"Oh, Sophy!" cried Alicia Gaines, the one person in the world who +didn't call me Miss Smith. "Oh, Sophy, it's like a fairy-story come +true! Think of falling heir to an old, old, old lady's old, old, old +house, in South Carolina! I hope there's a big old door with a +fan-light, and a Greeky front with white pillars, and a big old +hall, and a big old garden--" + +"And an old stove that smokes and old windows that rattle and an old +roof that leaks, and maybe big, big old rats that squeak o' nights," +I said darkly. For the first rapture of the astonishing news was +beginning to wear thin, and doubt was appearing in spots. + +"Sophy Smith! Why, if such a wonderful, beautiful, unexpected thing +had happened to _me_--" Alicia's blue eyes misted. I have known her +since the day she was born, next door to us in Boston, and she is +the only person I have ever seen who can cry and look pretty while +she's doing it; also, she can cry and laugh at the same time, being +Irish. Some foolish people, who have been deceived by Alicia +Gaines's baby stare and complexion, have said she hasn't sense +enough to get in out of a shower of rain. This is, of course, a +libel. But what's the odds, when every male being in sight would +rush to her aid with an umbrella? + +After her mother's death I fell heir to Alicia, who, like me, was an +only child, and without relatives. Lately, I'd gotten her into our +filing-department. She didn't belong in a business office, she whose +proper background should have been an adoring husband and the latest +thing in pink-and-white babies. + +"But somebody's got to think of stoves and roofs and rats and such, +or there'd be no living in any old house," I reminded her, +practically. "My dear girl, don't you realize that this thing isn't +all beer and skittles?" + +Alicia wrinkled her white forehead. + +"Consider me, a hardy late-summer plant forced to uproot and +transplant myself to a soil which may not in the least agree with +me. Why, this means changing all my fixed habits, to trot off to +live in an old house that is probably haunted by the cross-grained +ghost of a lady of ninety-nine!" + +"If I were a ghost, you'd be the very last person on earth I'd want +to tackle, Sophy," remarked Alicia, dimpling. "And as for that new +soil, why, you'll bloom in it! You--well, Sophy dear, up to now you +have been root-bound; you've never had a chance to grow, much less +to blossom. Now you can do both." + +I who was confidential secretary to the Head, looked at the girl who +was admittedly the worst file-clerk on record; and she looked back +at me, nodding her bright head with young wisdom. + +"I hope," she said, wistfully, "that there'll be all sorts of lovely +things in your house, Sophy,--old mirrors, old books, old pictures, +old furniture, old china. Lord send you'll find an attic! All my +life I've day-dreamed of finding an attic that's been shut up and +forgotten for ages and ages, and discovering all sorts of lovely +things in all sorts of hiding-places. When I think my day-dream may +come true for you, Sophy, it almost reconciles me to the pain of +parting from you; though what on earth I'm to do without you, +goodness only knows!" She was sitting on my bed, kimonoed, +slippered, and braided. And now she looked at me with a suddenly +quivering chin. + +"Alicia," said I, "ever since I discovered that there's no mistake +about that lawyer's letter--that Hynds House is unaccountably, but +undoubtedly mine and I've got to live in it if I want to keep it--it +has been borne in upon me that you are just about the worst +file-clerk on earth. You're a navy-blue failure in a business +office. Business isn't your _motif_. Now, will you resign the job +you fill execrably, and accept one you can fill beyond all +praise--come South with me, share half-and-half whatever comes, and +help make that old house a happy home for us both?" + +"Don't joke." Her lips went white. "Please, please, Sophy dear, +don't joke like that! I--well, I just couldn't bear it." + +"I never joke," I said indignantly. "You little goose, did you +imagine for one minute that I contemplated leaving you here by +yourself, any more than I contemplate going down there by myself, if +I can help it? Stop to think for a moment, Alicia. You have been +like a little sister to me, ever since you were born. And--I'm +alone, except for you--and not in my first youth--and not +beautiful--and not gifted." + +At that she hurled herself off my bed and cried upon my shoulder, +with her slim arms around my neck. Those young arms were beginning +to make me feel wistful. If things had been different--if I had been +lovely like the Scarletts, instead of looking like the Smiths--there +might have been-- + +Well, I don't look like the Scarletts; so there wasn't. The best I +could do was to drop a kiss on Alicia's forehead, where the bright +young hair begins to break into curls. + +And that is how, neither of us having the faintest notion of what +was in store for us, Alicia Gaines and I turned our backs upon New +York and set our faces toward Hynds House. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AND ARIEL MAKES MUSIC + + +We had wired Judge Gatchell when to expect us, but the venerable +negro hackman who was on the lookout for us explained that the judge +had a "misery in the laigs" which confined him to his room, and that +he advised us to go to the hotel for a while. + +We couldn't, for wasn't our own house waiting for us? A minute later +we had bundled into the ancient hack and were bumping and splashing +through unpaved streets, getting wet, gray glimpses of old houses in +old gardens, and every now and then a pink crape-myrtle blushing in +the pouring rain. Hyndsville was, it seemed, one of those sprawling, +easy-going old Carolina towns that liked plenty of elbow-room and +wasn't particular about architectural order. Hynds House itself was +on the extreme edge of things. + +The hack presently stopped before a high iron gate in a waist-high +brick wall with a spiked iron railing on top of it, the whole +overrun with weeds and creepers. Of Hynds House itself one couldn't +see anything but a stack of chimneys above a forest of trees. + +The gate creaked and groaned on its rusty hinges; then we were +walking up a weedy, rain-soaked path where untrimmed branches +slapped viciously at our faces, and tough brambles, like snares and +gins, tried to catch our feet. On each side was a jungle. Of a +sudden the path turned, widened into a fairly cleared space; and +Hynds House was before us. + +We had expected a fair-sized dwelling-house in its garden. And there +confronted us, glooming under the gray and threatening sky that +seemed the only proper and fitting canopy for it, what looked like a +pile reared in medieval Europe rather than a home in America. Its +stained brick walls, partly covered with ivy and lichens; its +smokeless chimneys; its barred doors; its many shuttered windows, +like blind eyes--all appeared deliberately to thrust aside human +habitancy. + + _A residence for woman, child, and man, + A dwelling-place,--and yet no habitation; + A House,--but under some prodigious ban + Of Excommunication._ + +Yet there was nothing ruinous about it, for the Hyndses had sought +to build it as the old Egyptians sought to build their temples--to +last forever, to defy time and decay. It was not only meant to be a +place for Hyndses to be born and live and die in: it was a monument +to Family Pride, a brick-and-granite symbol of place and power. + +The walls were of an immense thickness, the corners further +strengthened with great blocks of granite. The house had but two +stories, with an attic under its sloping roofs, but it gave an +effect of height as well as of solidity. Behind it was another brick +building, the lower part of which had been used for stables and +carriage house, and the upper portion as quarters for the house +slaves, in the old days. Another smaller building, slate-roofed and +ivy covered, was the spring-house, with a clear, cold little spring +still bubbling away as merrily in its granite basin, as if all the +Hyndses were not dead and gone. And there was a deep well, protected +by a round stone wall, with a cupola-like roof supported by four +slender pillars. And everything was dank and weedy and splotched +with mildew and with mold. + + _O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear + A sense of mystery the spirit daunted + And said, as plain as whisper in the ear, + The place is Haunted!_ + +When we opened the great front door, above which was the fan-light +of Alicia's hope, just as the round front porch had the big pillars, +a damp and moldy air met us. The house had not been opened since +Sophronisba's funeral, and everything--stairs, settles, tables, +cabinets, pictures, the chairs backed inhospitably against the wall +as if to prevent anybody from sitting in them--was covered with a +shrouding pall of dust. + +The hall was cross-shaped, the side passage running between the back +drawing-room and library on one side, and the dining-room and two +locked rooms on the other. It was a nice place, that side passage, +with a fireplace and settles; and beautiful windows opening upon the +tangled garden. All the down-stairs walls were paneled: precious +woods were not so hard to come by when Hynds House was built. It was +lovely, of course, but depressingly dark. + +We got one of the big windows open, and let some stale damp air out +and some fresh damp air in. Then, having despatched our hackman for +certain necessities, Alicia and I turned and stared at each other, +another Alicia and Sophy staring back at us from a dim and dusty +mirror opposite. If, at that moment, I could have heard the familiar +buzzer at my elbow! If I could have heard the good everyday New York +"Miss Smith, attend to this, please"! God wot, if I had not +literally burned my bridges behind me--Oh, oh, I had! + +"The garden around this house,"--Alicia spoke in a +whisper--"stretches to the end of the world and then laps over. It +hasn't been trimmed since Adam and Eve moved out. But those +crape-myrtle trees are quite the loveliest things left over from +Paradise, and I'm glad we came here to see them with our own eyes! +Brace up, Sophy! We'll feel heaps better when we've had something to +eat. Aren't you frightfully hungry, and doesn't a chill suspicion +strike you, somewhere around the wishbone, that if that Ancient +Mariner of a hackman doesn't get back soon we shall starve?" + +At that moment, from somewhere--it seemed to us from up-stairs--a +sudden flood of sweetest sound poured goldenly through that sad, +dim, dusty house, as if a blithe spirit had slipped in unawares and +was bidding us welcome. For a few wonderful moments the exquisite +music filled the dark old place and banished gloom and neglect and +decay; then, with a pattering scamper, as of the bare, rosy feet of +a beloved and mischievous child making a rush for his crib, it went +as suddenly as it had come. There was nothing to break the silence +but the swishing downpour of the outside rain. + +When I could speak: "It came from up-stairs! Somebody's playing a +violin up-stairs. I'm going up-stairs to find out who it is." + +Alicia demurred: "It may be a real person, Sophy!--a real person +with a real violin. But I'd rather believe it's Ariel's self, come +out of those pink crape-myrtles. Don't go up-stairs, please, Sophy!" + +"Nonsense!" said I. "Somebody's played a violin and I mean to know +who he is!" + +And up-stairs I went, into a huge dark hall, with the cross-passage +cutting it, and closed doors everywhere. At the front end was a most +beautiful window, opening doorlike upon a tiny iron bird-cage of a +balcony, hung up Southern fashion under the roof of the pillared +front porch. At the rear a more ordinary door opened upon the broad +veranda that ran the full width of the house. Both door and window +were closed, and bolted on the inside, and the big, dark, dusty +rooms which I resolutely entered were quite empty, their fireplaces +boarded up, their windows close-shuttered. There was no sign +anywhere of violin or player. I went down-stairs just as wise as I +had gone up. + +"I told you it was Ariel!" Alicia stood by the open window--our +windows are sunk into the walls, and cased with solid black walnut +as Impervious to decay as the granite itself--and leaned out to the +wet and dripping garden. + +"Sophy," said she, in her high, sweet voice that carries like a +thrush's. "Sophy, the best thing about this world is, that the best +things in it aren't really _real_. This is one of its enchanted +places. Sycorax used to live in this house: that's what you feel +about it yet. But now she's gone, her spell is lifting, and Hynds +House is going to come alive and be young again!" + +"At least," I grumbled, "admit that the dust inside and the rain +outside and the weeds and mud are real; and I'm really hungry!" + +"Me too!" Alicia assented instantly and ungrammatically. "Oh, for a +square meal!" She thrust her charming head out far enough for the +rain to splatter on her bright hair and whip it into curls, and +bring a deeper shade of pink to her cheeks, and a deeper blue +to her eyes. "Ariel!" she fluted, "Spirit of the Violin, I'm +hungry--earthily, worm-of-the-dustly, unromantically hungry! Send us +something to eat." + +"Why don't you rap on one of the tables," I suggested ironically, +"and call up your high spirits to do your bidding?" + +"My high spirits won't be above making you a soothing cup of coffee +just as soon as that ancient African returns. In the meantime, +let's look around us." + +People had forests to draw from when they built rooms like those in +Hynds House. There were eight of them on the first floor. On one +side the two drawing-rooms, the library, and behind that a room +evidently used for an office. We didn't know it then, of course, but +that library was treasure trove. Almost every book and pamphlet +covering the early American settlements, that is of any value at +all, is in Hynds House library; we have some pamphlets that even the +British Museum lacks. + +The rooms had enough furniture to stock half a dozen antique-shops, +all of it in a shocking state, the brocades in tatters, the carvings +caked with dust. You couldn't see yourself in the tarnished mirrors, +the portraits were black with dirt, and most of the prints were +badly stained. Alicia swooped upon a pair of china dogs with mauve +eyes and black spots and sloppy red tongues, on a what-not in a +corner. She said she had been aching for a china dog ever since she +was born. + +"Oh, Sophy!" cried she, dancing, "wasn't it heavenly of that old +soul to die and leave you two whole china dogs! I wouldn't want +sure-enough dogs that looked like these, but as china dogs they're +perfect! And cast your eyes about you, Sophy! Have you ever in all +your life seen a house that needed so much done to it as this house +does? + + "'If seven maids with seven mops, + Swept it for half a year, + Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, + 'That that would make it clear?' + 'I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, + 'And--' + +"Sophy! I shall clean some of these windows myself. Did you know +that Queen Victoria, when she was a child, had the same virtuous +inclination? Well, she had, and you see how she turned out!" + +"I don't believe it!" + +"Don't be skeptical!--Look at that pink mustache-cup over there on +that little table! Who do you suppose had a mustache and drank out +of that cup? It couldn't have been Sophronisba herself? _I_ +insist that it was a black-mustached Confederate with a red sash +around his waist. I adore Confederates! They're the most glamorous, +romantic figures in American history. I wish a black mustache went +along with the cup and the house; don't you? It would make things so +much more interesting!" And she began to sing, at the top of her +voice, in the sad and faded room that hadn't heard a singing voice +these many, many years: + + "'Arrah, Missis McGraw,' the Captain said, + 'Will ye make a sojer av your son Ted? + Wid a g-r-rand mus-tache, an' a three-cocked hat, + Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that! + _You like that--tooroo looroo loo!_ + _Wisha, Missis McGraw, wouldn't you like that!_'" + +If Great-Aunt Sophronisba's ghost, and the scandalized ghosts of all +the haughy Hyndses ever intended to walk, now was the accepted time! +And as if that graceless ballad were the signal for something to +happen, upon the hall window-shutter sounded three loud, imperative +knocks. + +Alicia dashed down the hall. + +"Sophy!" she called, breathlessly, "Sophy!" + +Framed in the open window, with the dripping trees and the slanting +rain behind him, was the bizarre, the astounding figure of a +gnomelike negro in a terra-cotta robe fastened about the waist with +a girdle made of a twisted black shawl with the most beautiful +Persian border and fringe. A striped silk scarf was bound +turban-wise about his head, from which tufts of snowy wool +protruded. From his ears hung crescent-shaped silver ear-rings +studded with coral and turquoise; a necklace of the same barbaric +magnificence was about his neck, and his arms were covered with +bracelets. His deep-set eyes, his flat nose, his mouth set in a +thousand fine wrinkles, the whole aspect of him, breathed a sly and +impish drollery. He glanced from Alicia to me with the smiling +malice of a jinnee delighted to mystify mortals. Then with a rapid +movement he shifted the umbrella he carried over a large +linen-covered tray, eased the latter upon the deep window-ledge, and +beckoned with a very black and beringed hand. + +"For _us_?" breathed Alicia. + +With a fine flourish he swept aside the linen covering. And there +was golden-brown chicken, white rice, cream gravy, hot biscuit, cool +sliced tomatoes with sprigs of green parsley, fresh butter, fresh +cream, a great slab of heavenly cake, a wicker basket of Elberta +peaches, rain-cooled, odorous, delicious, and a pot of steaming +coffee. On the edge of the tray was a cluster of rain-washed roses. + +"No," Alicia doubted, "this is not true: it can't be!--Sophy, do you +see it, too?" + +He motioned her to take the tray; and his ear-rings swung, and all +his bracelets set up a silver tinkling. An automobile honked outside +in the street shut off by our garden trees, and a dog barked. Our +jinnee cocked a cautious head and a listening ear, thrust the tray +upon Alicia, and with inconceivable swiftness vanished around a +corner. + +"Let's hurry and eat it before it, too, takes to its heels," said +Alicia, practically. Without further ado we dragged forward a small +table, and fell to. Aladdin probably tasted fare like that, the +first time he rubbed the magic lamp. + +When we had polished the last chicken bone, and had that comfortable +feeling that nothing can give so thoroughly as a good meal, Alicia +carefully examined the china and silver. + +"Old blue-and-white English china; English silver initialed 'R.H.G.' +Sophy, handle this prayerfully: it's an apostle spoon. Think of +having a jinnee fetch you your coffee, and of stirring it with an +apostle spoon." + +She spoke reverently. Alicia is the sort who flattens her nose +against antique-shop windows, and would go without dessert for a +month of Sundays and trudge afoot to save carfare, if thereby she +might buy an old print, or a bit of pottery; just as I am content to +admire the print or the pottery in the shop window, feeling sure +that when they are finally sold to somebody better able to buy them, +something else I can admire just as much will take their place. Mine +is a philosophy not altogether to be despised, though Alicia rejects +it. She handled the blue-and-white ware with tender hands, laid the +silver together, and set the tray upon the window-ledge. Then, on a +leaf of my pocket memorandum--she never carries one of her own--she +scribbled the following absurdity and pinned it to the linen cover: + + Ariel, accept the gratitude of mortals set down hungry in + the house of Sycorax. Gay and kind spirit, when we broke + your bread you broke her spell: the wishbone of your chicken + has cooked her goose! Maker of Music, Donator of Dinners, + thanks! + +"And now," said she, "having been serenaded, and satisfied with +nothing short of perfection, let's go up-stairs, Sophy, and decide +where we shall sleep to-night." + +We chose the front room because of a gate-legged table that Alicia +wanted to say her prayers beside, and because of the particularly +fine portrait of a colonial gentleman above the mantel, a very +handsome man in claret-colored satin, with a vest of flowered gold +brocade, a gold-hilted sword upon which his fine fingers rested, and +a pair of silk-stockinged legs of which he seemed complacently +aware. + +"I wish you weren't dead," Alicia told him regretfully. "Your taste +in clothes is above all praise, though I fancy you were somewhat too +vain of your legs, sir. I never knew before that men had legs like +that, did you, Sophy?" + +"I take no pleasure in the legs of a man." I quoted the Psalmist +acridly enough. + +"Don't pay any attention to Sophy," Alicia advised the portrait, +naughtily. "Just to prove how much we both admire you, you shall +have Ariel's roses." She had brought them up-stairs with us, and now +she walked over to the mantel to place them beneath the picture. + +"Why!" exclaimed Alicia, "why!" and she held up nothing more +remarkable than a package of cigarettes, evidently left there +recently, for it was not dusty. + +"I dare say Judge Gatchell forgot it, when he was looking over the +house. That reminds me: the silver you admired so much was marked +'G.' Then, in all probability, Judge Gatchell sent us that spread, +and very thoughtful it was of him, I must say." + +"Rheumatic old judges don't smoke superfine cigarettes, Sophy, nor +send black tray-bearers in terra-cotta robes out on rainy days for +the entertainment of strange ladies. No: this is something, or +somebody, _young_. But since when did Ariel take to tobacco?" + +"Let's go down-stairs," I suggested, "and wait for that old darky, +if he is a real darky and ever means to return." I did not fancy +those big forlorn rooms, with their great beds that didn't seem made +for people to sleep and dream in, but to stay awake and worry over +their sins--and then die in. + +The down-stairs halls had grown darker, and the rain came down in a +gray sheet, so that the open window seemed a hole cut into it. The +tray we had left on the window-ledge was gone. In its place was +nothing more romantic than a freshly filled and trimmed kerosene +lamp, two candles, and a box of matches. + +When our Jehu finally returned he rummaged out some firewood from +the sooty kitchen and built us a fire in the hall. He was a pleasant +old negro, garrulous and kindly, by name Adam King, or, as he +informed us, "Unc' Adam" to all Hyndsville folks. + +"Uncle Adam," Alicia asked, while he was drying himself before the +blazing logs, "Uncle Adam, who's the violinist around here?" + +Uncle Adam looked at the Yankee lady a bit doubtfully. The old +fellow was slightly deaf, but he would have died rather than admit +it. + +"Wellum," he told us, "since ol' Mis' Scarlett's gone, folks does +say de doctor is. Dat's 'cause ob de Hynds' blood in 'im. All dem +Hyndses was natchelly de violentest kind o' pussons, an' Doctor, he +ain't behin' de do'." He rubbed his hands and chuckled. "Lawd, yes! +I know de Doctor, man an' boy, an' he suttinly rips an' ta'hs when +he's riled! You ought ter seen 'im de day ol' Mis' Scarlett let fly +wid 'er shot-gun an' blowed de tails spang off'n two of 'is hens an' +de haid off'n 'is prize rooster! De fowls come thoo' de haidge, an' +ol' Mis' grab 'er gun an' blaze away. De Doctor hear de squallation, +an' come flyin' outer de office an' right ovah de haidge. I 'uz +totin' fiahwood fo' ol' Mis' dat day, an' I drap een de bushes; it +ain't no place fo' sensible niggahs when white folks grab shot-guns. +Doctor see me an' holler: 'Adam! git outer dem bushes, you ol' fool! +You my witness what dis hellion's done to my fowls!' + +"Ol' Mis' Scarlett she s'anter ter de winder wid 'er gun sort o' +hangin' loose, an' holler: 'Adam! Come outer dem bushes 'fo' I +pickle yo' hide! You my witness ob dis ruffian trispassin' on my +prop'ty an' cussin' an' seducin' a ol' woman widout 'er consent,' +she says. 'Has I retched my age,' says ol' Mis' Scarlett, 'to have +his fowls ruinin' my gyardin', an' him whut's a dunghill rooster +himself flyin' ovah my fences unbeknownst?' + +"'If there evah was a leather-hided ol' hen ripe foh roastin' on +Beelzebub's own griddle, it's you, you gallows ol' witch!' says +Doctor, shakin' 'is fist up at her. + +"'Aha! I got a plain case!' says ol' Mis', grim-like. 'I'll have a +warrant out foh you dis day, Geddes, you owdacious villyum!' + +"And she done it. Yas'm. An' dey done sont de shariff atter me for +witness, all two bofe o' dem." + +"Well, and what did you do?" I asked, curiously. I was getting a +side-light on Great-Aunt Sophronisba. + +"Me? I got on muh knees an' wrastled wid de speret," said Uncle +Adam. "I done tuck mah troubles to de Lawd, whichin He _'bleeged_ +ter know I cyant deal wid ol' Mis' Scarlett an' de Doctor. Missis, I +prayed!" + +"Oh! And what happened then?" + +The old man looked around him, cautiously, and lowered his voice: +"Wellum, Mis' Scarlett she tuck an' went an' up an' died. Yessum! +She done daid. An' next thing we-all heah, she 'd went an' lef de +Hynds place to youna, 'stead ob de Doctor, or dat furriner." + +"She had Hynds relatives, then? I didn't know." + +"Wellum, de Doctor an' ol' Mis' Scarlett wuz cousins. Dat's how come +dey could fight so powerful. Ain't you nevah had no relations to +fight wid, ma'ams?" + +We explained, regretfully, that we hadn't. + +"Den you ain't nevah knowed, an' you ain't nevah gwine ter knew, +whut real, sho-nough fightin' _is_," said Unc' Adam, with +conviction. + +"You mentioned a foreigner," hinted Alicia. + +The old man shook his head deprecatingly. "Don't seem lak I evah +able to rickermembah dat boy's name, nohow. His grampa' 'uz a Hynds, +likewise his ma, but she 'sisted on marryin' er furriner, an' de +boy takes atter de furriners 'stead er we-all. 'Taint de po' boy's +fault, but ol' Mis' Scarlett hated 'im wuss 'n pizen. De only notice +she take er de boy is ter warrant 'im fo' trispassin'. Dat 's how +come folkses ter say--" he paused suddenly. + +"Well, what do folks say?" I wanted to know. + +"Well, Missis," he admitted, "dey say it's natchel to fight wid yo' +kin whilst you 're livin', but 'taint natchel ter carry de fight +inter de grave-yahd. Dat's whut she done, ma'ams. An' folks is +outdone wid 'er, whichin' she ain't lef de Hynds place to de +Hyndses, but done tuhn it ovah ter--uh--ah--" + +"To a Yankee woman named Smith?" + +"Yessum, dat's it." + +"Had either the Doctor or the foreigner any real claim or right to +this property, do you know?" + +"No, ma'am, we-all 'lows dey ain't got no mo' law-right dan whut +you's got. Ol' Mis' Scarlett ain't _'bleeged_ ter lef it to de +Hyndses, but folks thinks she oughter done it, an' dey's powerful +riled 'cause she ain't. Dey minds dis wuss'n all de warrantin' an' +rampagin' an' rucusses she cut up whilst she wuz wid us." + +"I see," said I, thoughtfully. + +"Missises," said the old man, anxiously, "you-all ain't meanin' ter +stay hyuh to-night, is you?" He seemed really distressed at the +notion. "Lemme take you-all to de hotel, please, Missises! Don't +stay hyuh to-night!" + +"Why not? What's the matter with this house?" + +Again he looked around him, stealthily. + +"It's h'anted!" said he, desperately. "Missis, listen: I 'uz comin' +home from prayer-meetin', 'bout two weeks ago, walkin' back er dis +same place in de dark ob de moon. An' all ob a suddin I hyuh de +pianner in de pahlor, _ting-a-ling-a-ling! ting-a-ling-a-ling!_ I +say, 'Who de name er Gawd in ol' Mis' Scarlett's pahlor, when dey +ain't nobody in it?' I look thoo de haidge, an' dey's one weenchy +light in de room, an' whilst I'm lookin', it goes out! An' de +pianner, she's a-playin' right along! Yessum, de pianner, she's er +tingalingin' by 'erself in de middle o' de night!" + +"And who was playing it, Uncle Adam?" + +"Dat's what I axin yit: who playin' Mis' Scarlett's pianner when dey +wasn't nobody in de house?" + +"Why didn't you find out?" + +"Who, me?" cried the old man, with horror. "If I could er borried a +extra pahr er laigs from er yaller dawg, I'd a did it right den, so 's +I could run twict faster 'n I done!--Whichin' please, ma'ams, lemme +take you-all ter de hotel." + +When he saw that he couldn't prevail upon us to do so, he left us +regretfully, shaking his head. He would come back early in the +morning to do anything we might require. But he wouldn't stay +overnight in Hynds House for any consideration. No negro in the +county would. + +"Alicia," said I, when we had had a cup of tea made over our spirit +lamp, and firelight and lamplight made the place less depressing and +eerie, "Alicia, that terrible old woman has played me, like an ace +up her sleeve, against her neighbors and her family. She has left me +a house that needs everything done to it except to burn it down and +rebuild it, and a garden that will have to be cleared out with +dynamite. And she has seen to it that I have the preconceived +prejudice of all Hyndsville." + +Alicia's pretty, soft lips closed firmly. + +"Here we are and here we stay!" she said determinedly. "Nobody's +been disinherited to make room for us. Sophy, in all our lives we +have never had a chance to make a real home. Well, then, Hynds House +is our chance, and I'd just like to see anybody take it away from +us!" + +"Up, Guards, and at 'em!" said I, smiling at her tone. I am slower +than she, but even more stubborn, as the English are. + +"Tell your admiral that if he gets in my way I will blow his ships +out of the water!" said Alicia, gallantly. + +But when we went up-stairs, we took good care to lock our door, and +bolt it, too. Alicia said her prayers kneeling by the gate-legged +table, snuggled into bed between the clean sheets we had brought +with us, tucked a china dog under her chin, and went to sleep like +the child that she was. I said the Shepherd's Psalm and went to +sleep, too. + +I was awakened suddenly, and found myself sitting up in bed, staring +wildly about the strange room. The house was breathlessly still. My +heart pounded against my ribs, the blood beat in my ears. I was +oppressed with a nameless terror, an anguished sense that something +had happened, something irremediable. The feeling was so strong that +my throat closed chokingly. + +I am particular in thus setting it down, because it was an +experience that all of us under that roof had to undergo. You had to +fight it, shut your mind against it, oppose your will to it like a +stone wall, refuse to let it master you. Then, as if defeated, it +would go as suddenly, as inexplicably, as it had come. + +That's what I did then, more by instinct than reason. But I was +exhausted when I finally got back to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE DEAR LITTLE GOD! + + +When we went over Hynds House the next morning and took stock, I +began to entertain very, very peculiar feelings toward Great-Aunt +Sophronisba Scarlett, who, it would appear, had given me a white +elephant which I could neither hire out for its keep, nor yet sell +out of hand. I had to live in Hynds House, and Hynds House as it +stood wasn't to be lived in. + +The rain had ceased, and from the outside jungle came innumerable +calls of birds, and fresh and woodsy odors; but the whole aspect of +the place was grim and forbidding. At the back, where there wasn't +such an overgrowth, the lane had been closed, barricaded with +barbed-wire entanglements, and fairly bristled with thistles and "No +Trespassing" signs. + +"All this house needs is a mortuary tablet set up over the front +door." + +But Alicia demurred. + +"I'm not a bit disheartened," she declared stoutly. "There's just +one thing to be done to this house--first make it beautiful, and +then make it pay. It can be done. It's going to be done. It's _got_ +to be done. And when it's done--we'll have a home. Vision it as it's +going to be, Sophy--rosewood and mahogany and walnut, old brass and +china and prints and portraits, the sort of things we've only been +able to dream of up to now. Why, this house has been waiting for us! +We were born to come here and make it over: it's _our_ house!" +Alicia, has the gay courage of the Irish. + +The heavy iron knocker on the front door resounded clamorously. + +"Uncle Adam thinks we've been ha'nted out of existence, and he's +hammering to wake the dead," said I. + +But it wasn't Uncle Adam to whom we opened the door. An enormous, +square-shouldered man stood there, looking from me to Alicia with +bright, keen blue eyes behind glasses. He was so big, so +magnificently proportioned, that he held one's attention, at first, +by mere size. Then one had time to observe that although he hadn't +the sleek and careful grooming of successful New Yorkers, he wore +his clothes as, say, Coeur de Lion must have worn mail. He hadn't +the brisk business manner, either; but there radiated from him an +assured authority, as of one used to having his orders obeyed +without question. No one could pass him over with a casual eye. I +have known people who hated him frankly and heartily; I have known +people who adored him. I have never known any one who was lukewarm +where he was concerned. + +"Which of you is Miss Smith?" he asked, in a very pleasant voice. +"Miss Smith, I'm your next-door neighbor, house to the right: +Doctor Richard Geddes, at your service." + +We gave him to understand, with the usual polite commonplaces, that +we were pleased to make his acquaintance, and ushered him into the +dilapidated drawing-room. + +"I'd have come over yesterday, when I learned you'd arrived, except +that my cook was suddenly seized with the notion she'd been +conjured, and I had to--er--stand by and persuade her she wasn't. +Swore she had my lunch ready, as usual; swore she'd placed it on a +tray, left it on the kitchen table for a few minutes, and when she +came back from the pantry, not ten feet away, the tray was gone. +Vanished. Disappeared. Nowhere to be found. She flopped on the floor +and howled. She weighs two hundred and forty pounds and I hadn't a +derrick handy. I had to roll her up on bed-slats. You've never had a +conjured two-hundred-and-forty-pounder on your hands, have you? No? +Well, then, don't. _But_ if you ever do, try a bed-slat. This +morning she discovered the tray in its usual place, dishes and +silver intact, nothing missing. She's looking for the end of the +world." + +"O-o-h!" quavered Alicia, while I could feel my knees knocking +together. "O-o-o-h! How very, very singular! And--and was that all?" + +"All! Wasn't that enough? I've had burned biscuit and muddy coffee, +because my cook's got liver and nerves, and insists it's her soul," +said the doctor, grimly. "I've given her to understand that if she +hasn't got her soul saved before to-night, I'll physic it out of her +and hang her hide on the bushes, inside out, _salted_." He added, +hastily: "In the meantime, I hope you haven't fared too badly in +this mildewed jail?" + +"Thank you, no," Alicia said demurely. "We have fared very well." + +"Glad to hear it." The big man looked at her with the frank pleasure +all masculinity evinces at sight of Alicia. And then he asked, +abruptly: + +"Has Jelnik called yet?--gray house on the other side of you.--No? I +dare say he's off on one of his prowls then. A bit of a lunatic, but +a very charming fellow, Jelnik, though your amiable predecessor, +Miss Smith, chose to consider him a sort of outlawed tom-cat, and +warned him off with a shot-gun." The doctor paused, stroked his +beard, and regarded me earnestly. + +"Having heired the old girl's domain, I hope you won't consider it +necessary to heir her--er--prejudices," he remarked hopefully. "Bad +lot, Sophronisba. Very bad!" + +"Mrs. Scarlett," I reminded him gently, "was my relative only by +marriage." + +"Cousin of mine; mother's relative. Not on speaking-, only on +fighting-terms," he interjected. + +I remembered what Uncle Adam had told us; and I'm afraid I eyed him +a bit harder than politeness warranted. + +"I discern by your eye, Miss Smith," said the doctor, "that you +think a blood relation is more likely to walk in that old demon's +footsteps than an outsider is. My dear lady, under ordinary +circumstances and with _human_ neighbors, I'm as meek as Moses; I am +a lamb, a veritable lamb! As for your aunt, she was a man-eating, +saber-toothed tigress!" + +"Not my aunt, Doctor Geddes; your cousin." + +"Your aunt-by-marriage. It's just as bad. Anyhow, she preferred you +to any of us, didn't she?" + +"Perhaps because she didn't know _me_." + +"Have it so. _But_ she did whatever she did because she was an old +devil of a woman, and an old devil of a woman can give points to +Satan. If," cried the doctor, vehemently, "there is one great reason +why a man should be glad he's a man, it is because he will never +live to be an old woman!" + +"That depends upon one's point of view," I told him firmly. "Now, +I'm glad I'm a woman because I shall never live to be an old man. +Old ladies are far, far nicer. Have you ever known an old lady who +thought herself captivating? Have you ever known any old man who +didn't think he could be if he wished?" + +"Yes," shouted the doctor, "and no!--in both cases! There is no sex +in fools. There is no age limit, either." + +"The Talmud says: 'An old woman in the house is a blessing; but an +old man is a nuisance.'" + +"I don't give a bobtailed scat what the Talmud says. I know what I +know.--Miss Gaines, I leave it to you." + +"Why, I like them both, when they're nice; and I'm sorry for them +both when they're not." And she added, with a naive air of +confidence: "But I think I like young men better than either, as a +rule." + +The doctor removed his hat again, and sat down. His eyebrows went +up, his eyes crinkled. + +"Miss Alicia Gaines," he said genially, "I perceive you are a +girl-child of fine promise.--As for us, Miss Smith, what have we to +do with age and foolishness, who, as yet, have neither? Let's get +down to business. What are you going to do about the lane behind +Hynds House? We had the use of that lane this hundred years and +more, until the devil got too strong in Sophronisba and she shut it +up. Now, shall you keep the lane closed, or shall you dismiss the +injunctions?" + +"I shall have to consult Judge Gatchell." + +"Gatchell's a fossilized remains. He's got no more blood in his +liver than a flea. Gatchell would hang his grandmother on a point of +law. Why should you, or any other ordinarily intelligent person, be +guided by Gatchell?" + +"By whom, then, shall I be guided? You?" I wondered. + +"That's not in my line," replied the doctor, shortly, and thrust his +hands into his gloves. "In the meantime, ladies, I'm your next-door +neighbor; I have no wife to gossip about you, no children to annoy +you; I'm far enough away to keep you from smelling my pipe; and I +shall quarrel with you only when I can't help it. In return, I have +but one favor to beg of you: don't use a shot-gun on my prize +chickens! Get a dog and train him to chase them home, if they get +into your yard. Or catch them and throw them over the hedge. I'll +pay any damages within reason. And please send for your cat." + +"We have a cat?" + +"You have. After Sophronisba's death, Mandy took her in; or rather, +Mandy was afraid to turn her out, for it's bad luck to cross a +witch's cat. In return for this charity the hussy immediately +foisted upon us two wholly unnecessary kittens. Mandy wouldn't allow +them to be decently drowned, for it's worse luck yet to tamper with +a witch's cat's kittens, particularly when they're as black as the +hinges of Gehenna. Mandy thinks their mother had them black as a +delicate mark of respect for the late crone." + +"Send them over, please. Black cats will just go with this house. It +was very thoughtful of that cat to have two black kittens ready for +us, and very kind of you to let them stay with you until we came." + +"I? I abhor the whole tribe of cats!" cried the doctor. "Don't thank +my kindness: thank Mandy's idiocy, of which she has more than her +just share. To my mind, the best place for cats is under the grape +arbor." + +"Let us strike a bargain. You keep your chickens in your own yard, +and we'll keep our cats in our own house." + +"Compromise: you get a dog," suggested the doctor. + +"Perhaps I may. I've always wanted a poodle." + +"I said a _dog_!" said the doctor, lifting his lip. "A poodle! In +Hynds House! The lamented Sophronisba had a bloodhound." + +"The lamented Sophronisba could have what she chose. This +Sophronisba prefers a poodle." + +"_Sophronisba?_ What! Another one? Good God!" cried the doctor. "All +right! Get a poodle. Keep the cats. Get a parrot--and an orphan +with the itch--and a hyena--and a blunderbuss! _Her name is +Sophronisba_!--I--oh, Lord, where's Jelnik? I have got to go and +warn Jelnik!" And he made for the door. + +At that Alicia laughed. Peal upon peal, like silver bells, +irrepressibly, infectiously, irresistibly, Alicia laughed. She cries +with her eyes open and her mouth shut, and she laughs with her eyes +shut and her mouth open. The effect is beyond all words enchanting. +The doctor paused in his headlong flight. + +"All right: laugh!" he said, darkly. "But I shall warn Jelnik, none +the less!" And muttering: "_Sophronisba!_ Lord have mercy on us! +_Sophronisba!_" he departed hastily. + +"What a nice neighbor!" commented Alicia. She added, musingly: +"Sophy, this is an enchanted place--a place where one has good +meals, bad advice, and black cats showered on one, free and gratis. +All one has to do is to stand still and take things as they come!" + +"And hope one won't follow in the footsteps of one's predecessor, +who was an unmitigated old devil." + +"At least," said Alicia, laughing, "_he_'ll never live to be an old +woman, will he, Sophy?" + +"The man has the tact of a cannibal--" + +"The shoulders of a Hercules--" + +"An abominable temper--" + +"And a beautiful beard. Somehow, Sophy, I rather approve of a beard, +on somebody his size. I decidedly approve of a beard!" + +"If his miserable hens come over here, I shall most certainly--" + +"Keep the eggs. We'll tell him so when he comes again." + +"Comes again? What, and my name Sophronisba?" + +"My own grandmother had the second sight; and _I_ don't need +spectacles," said Alicia. "Sophy, that man has come into our lives +to stay. I feel it in my bones! It's not an unpleasant feeling," she +finished gracelessly. + +When Unc' Adam presently put in his appearance, he was profoundly +impressed and respectful: we were brisk, unhaunted, and unafraid, +after a night in Hynds House! The three colored women who had come +with him, induced by cupidity and curiosity to enter ol' Mis' +Scarlett's ill-omened domain, at first hung back. They were plainly +prepared to bolt at the first unusual noise. + +Of the three, one--by name Mary Magdalen--proved to be a +heaven-born, predestinated cook; and her we persuaded, by bribery, +cajolery, and subornation of scruples, to remain with us +permanently. Only, she flatly refused to stay on the place +overnight. Darkness shouldn't catch Mary Magdalen under the Scarlett +Witch's roof-tree. + +There are certain gifted beings who possess the secret of bringing +order out of chaos; for them the total depravity of inanimate +objects has no terrors; inanimate objects become docile to their +will. Such a one was Mary Magdalen. In two days she had transformed +a sooty cavern into a clean and orderly kitchen. For she was a +singing and a scourful woman, and her Sign was the speretual and the +scrubbing-brush. It is true that she put a precious old Spode +tea-pot on the stove and boiled the tea in it; that she hung her wig +and the dish-towel on the same nail; and that she immediately asked +for a white stocking foot to use as a coffee-bag. + +"But don't you-all go bust no new pai'h," she advised economically. +"Ah 'd rathah make mah coffee in a ol' white stockin' foot any day, +jes' so you ain't done wo' out de toes too much." + +"Sophy," said the horror-struck Alicia, "that woman must be watched +until we can buy a percolater. Suppose she's got 'a ol' white +stockin' foot' of her own!" + +Despite which there never was, never will be, such another cook as +Mary Magdalen. It is true she wasn't amenable to discipline, and +reason wasn't her guiding-lamp. And nothing--not bribes, threats, +entreaties, prayers, orders, commands, moral suasion--could break +her of doing just what she wanted to do just when and how she wanted +to do it. You'd be entertaining your dearest enemies, serene in the +consciousness that your house was a credit to your good management; +and behold, Mary Magdalen in the drawing-room door, with her wig +askew and her hands rolled in her apron: + +"Oh, Miss Sophy!" + +"Well?" say you, resignedly, with a feigned smile; "what is it, Mary +Magdalen?" + +"Miss Sophy, you know we-all's sugah?" + +"Yes." + +"Wellum, Miss Sophy, 't ain't any." + +"I have already ordered more, Mary Magdalen." + +"An' you know ouah flouah, Miss Sophy?" + +"I--" + +"Us ain't got a Gawd's speck!" + +Then she would beam upon the visitors, all of whom were known to +her. + +"Howdy, Miss Sally! How you-all comin' on? Ah comin' 'round to see +de baby soon 's Ah gits chanst." Or, "Lawsy me, Miss Jinny, dat boy +o' yo's is jes' natchelly bustin' outer da clo'es wid growin', ain't +he? He jes' de spit o' he pa, bless 'im!" + +Which untoward confidence didn't seem to surprise our visitors. They +had Mary Magdalens of their own. + +A few days later Doctor Geddes sent us Schmetz, the gardener, a +gnarled little man with a peppery temper, a torrential flow of +Alsatian French, and a tireless energy. I don't know why nor how +Schmetz had come to Hyndsville, except that somehow he had acquired +a small farm near by and couldn't get away from it. He explained to +us, gently but firmly, that if we wouldn't meddle after the manner +of women, but would leave his job in his own hands, it would be +better for us, and for the garden. We meekly acquiescing, he called +in helpers and with a wave of his hand set hoe and ax and spade to +work. + +The weather had changed into days of deep blue skies, splendid days +full of the warmth of potential power; and nights filled with +fragrance, nights of fierce beauty, and the glamour of golden moons, +and the thrilling melody of that feathered Israfel, the +mocking-bird. Through our open windows immense moths, spirits of the +summer nights, drifted in on enameled and jeweled wings and circled +in a fire-worshiping dance around our light. + +Those were wonderful days. For that was a house of surprises, a +house full of laid-by things. One never knew what one was going to +find. One morning it might be a Ridgway jug all delicate vine leaves +and faun heads, or an old blue-and-white English platter, or a piece +of fine salt-glaze. On the top shelf of a long-locked closet, pushed +back in the corner, you'd discover a full set of the most beautiful +sapphire glassware, and a pagoda work-box with ivory corners; and on +a lower shelf, wrapped in half a moth-eaten shawl, two glowing +luster jugs in proof condition. Mary Magdalen salvaged a fine china +sillabub stand, with little white-and-gold covered cups on it, from +a sooty box under a kitchen cupboard. A back drawer of the dusty +office desk yielded up half a dozen exquisite prints. And I'm sure +Alicia will remember even in heaven the ecstasy she experienced when +a battered bureau gave into her hands the adorable Bow figures of +Kitty Clive and Woodward the actor, she pink-and-white, petticoated +and furbelowed, lovely as when London went mad over her, and he +cocked-hatted and ruffled and dandified; and neither with so much as +the least littlest chip to mar their perfection. + +Or a hair trunk would reveal little frocks stitched by hand, and a +pair of tiny flat slippers with strings gone to dust like the little +feet that had worn them. With these were two dolls, one dressed in +sprigged India muslin and lace, with a shepherdess hat glued on her +painted head; the other dressed in a poke-bonnet, a satin sack, and +a much-flounced skirt. They had evidently belonged to "Lydia, our +Darling Child," whose name, in unsteady letters, was painfully set +down in the printed picture-books at the bottom of the trunk. These +things that had belonged to a "darling child" so long dead lent the +grim old house a softening touch. Poor old house, whose little +children had all gone, so long ago! + +It was the day we were taking up the beautiful old carpet in the +back drawing-room. Alicia was rejoicing for the thousandth time over +this treasure of hand-woven French art. Of a sudden, horrible yells +rose from the garden, and a shrieking negro went by the window like +an arrow. We caught "Murder!--Ol' Witch!--Corpses!" as he +disappeared. Uncle Adam, catching his panic, bolted with him; the +two negro women followed. Only Mary Magdalen, amazonian arms bare, a +rolling-pin grasped in a formidable fist, stood like a rock of +defense behind us. + +"Ah jes' wants to catch any ol' corpses trapesin' 'round mah +kitchin, trackin' up mah clean flo', an Ah 'll suah settle day hash +once fo' all!" trumpeted Mary Magdalen. + +Outside, Schmetz was jumping up and down, flapping his arms, and +screaming in voluble French: + +"Name of a dog! Senseless Senegambians, remain! Iron-skulled +offspring of the union of a black mule and a pickax, cease to fly!" + +"What is the matter? For heaven's sake? what is the matter?" I +shouted. + +"We done dig up de corpses! We done fin' wha'h dat ol' witch 'oman +bury de bodies!" howled a workman in reply. + +"Imbeciles, asses, beings without brains, listen to me!" shrieked +Schmetz, this time in good English. "This corpse is not alive! Never +yet was he alive! Return, sons of perdition, and assist me to raise +him--may he fall upon your brain-pans of donkeys!" + +As if that had been all that was needed, the last wavering workman +flung down his shovel and took to his heels, running like a rabbit +and roaring as he ran. + +"Schmetz!" called a clear and peremptory voice. "Schmetz! what's the +matter over there?" + +"Ah! It is Monsieur Jelnik!" bawled Schmetz. "_Nom de Dieu_, +Monsieur Jelnik, come with a great quickness! I have dug from the +earth the leetle boy of stone--you know him, _hein_? Those niggers, +_sacrement_! they think they have uncovered the deceased corpse, the +victim of Madame the late mistress, with which she made her spells +of a sorceress." + +"What!" said the voice. "You've found the statue, Schmetz? Ask, my +good fellow, if it is permitted that I come and view it." + +"Why, of course!" said I, quickly. + +"Thank you," said the voice. + +There had been a great space cleared in our garden, and on the edge +of this, in removing a stubborn gum-tree, the negroes had uncovered +what they supposed to be the body of one murdered. Upon our knees, +with Schmetz helping us, we were trying to tear away the rotten +coverings, and the dirt and mold. And there, beautiful despite the +stains disfiguring him, lay the boy Love. The marble pedestal from +which he had been removed lay near him. On the base, decipherable, +was the sculptor's name, and on one side, in small letters, +"_Brought from Italy, 1803, by R.H._" + +"Why, he is perfect!" cried Alicia, joyfully. "Oh, who could have +been so stupid and so cruel as to hide away something so lovely? +Poor dear little god, aren't you glad to get out of that grave and +come back to the sun? Aren't you grateful, little god, that Sophy +and I came to Hynds House?" + +And at that moment a tall, slim, dark-skinned young man walked up, +hands behind his back, and stood there regarding us with eyes as +clear and cool as mountain water when the sunlight is upon it and +golden flecks come and go in its brown depths. The exquisitely +aquiline features, the small black mustache, an indescribably proud +and high-bred ease and grace of manner and bearing, were oddly +exotic and even more oddly fascinating. His slenderness was as +strong as a tempered sword-blade, his quietness was trained power in +repose. And the hair of his head was so black that a purplish shadow +rested upon it, and so thick that one was minded of Absalom: + + ... in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as + Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot to the + crown of his head there was no blemish in him. + + And when he polled his head (for it was at every year's end + that he polled it: because the hair was heavy on him, + therefore he polled it:), he weighed the hair of his head at + two hundred shekels after the king's weight. + +He was so vivid and so new to me that my whole being was breathless +with the wonder of him. I knew, of course, that he did not belong +to _my_ world at all. King's sons are for princesses, for those +human birds of paradise that flash, beautiful and fortunate, in +larger spheres than those prosaic paths trodden by a workaday woman +named Smith. + +"What have you found?" he asked, in a delightful voice. + +Alicia looked up. Her face was like the break of day for youngness +and freshness, and a wisp of a bright curl misbehaved itself on her +cheek, a flirtatious curl that knew exactly how to make the most of +its opportunities. The young man's eyes approved of it. + +"We have found Love!" cried Alicia, breathlessly. "Sophy and I have +found Love in our garden! Isn't it wonderful and impossible and +exciting and delightful? But it's true! And it just goes with this +whole place!" cried Alicia, morning-eyed and May-faced. + +The young man's glance came back to me. I should hate to be +untruthful, and have to meet so straight a glance! + +"Why, yes. It is impossible, and, like all impossible things, +perfectly true," he agreed, with the golden flecks dancing in and +out of his eyes and a slow and lazy smile, a sort of secret smile, +curving his beautiful, mocking mouth. "Fancy finding Love, of all +things, in Sophronisba's garden!" A fine black line of eyebrow went +up whimsically. "And now that you have found him," said Mr. Jelnik, +"hadn't you better let me help you set him up?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE HYNDSES OF HYNDS HOUSE + + +When the fine weather had taken the kinks out of Judge Gatchell's +joints, he came to see us--a tall, thin, punctilious, saturnine old +gentleman with frosty Scotch eyes and the complexion of a pair of +washed khaki trousers. Chaos reigned in Hynds House then, and he was +forced to pick his way, like an elderly and cautious cat, between +piled-up chairs, tables, and rolls of carpet. In the most stately +manner he parted the tails of his skirted coat, seated himself upon +the sofa, placed his hat beside him, drew up the knees of his black +broadcloth trousers, took off and wiped his spectacles with great +thoroughness and deliberation upon a large silk handkerchief, +replaced them upon the middle of his Roman nose, cleared his throat, +pursed his lips, and drily but clearly talked business. + +Great-Aunt Sophronisba would have left a much larger fortune had she +been less addicted to lawsuits. You wouldn't think an old soul of +almost a hundred could find very much chance to brew mischief, +would you? You didn't know Great-Aunt Sophronisba! + +I was informed that the case of Scarlett vs. Geddes had been +automatically closed by the death of the plaintiff; _but_ I had +inherited along with Hynds House: + +The case of Scarlett vs. The Vestry and Pastor of St. Polycarp's +Church, from whom Mrs. Scarlett sought to recover three +paintings--"Faith," "Hope," and "Charity"--which her father had +commissioned a visiting artist to paint, and had then presented to +St. Polycarp's, with the stipulation that they should "forever hang +in the sacred edifice, reminding the brethren of the Cardinal +Virtues of the Christian Religion." + +They did hang in the church for a century. Then, when the Ladies' +Missionary Society was helping "do over" the parsonage, a faded +Faith, a dulled Hope, and a fly-specked Charity were transported +thither. Whereupon suit was immediately brought by the donor's +daughter, who averred that the church had lost all right and title +to the paintings by an action directly contrary to her father's +will, and insisted that they should be turned over to herself as +sole heiress. It was a nice little case, and called forth an +imposing array of counsel. Mrs. Scarlett had added a codicil to her +will, leaving _me_ her claim to the three paintings "fraudulently +withheld by the pastor and vestrymen of St. Polycarp's Church." + +There was, too, the question of the lot on Lafayette Street, between +Zion Church on the one hand, and the Y.M.C.A. on the other. Both had +tried to buy it; and both had been refused with contumely. Instead, +that nice old lady ran up extra-sized bill-boards. Every time the +Zionist brethren looked out of their side windows of a Sunday, they +had ample opportunity to learn considerable about the art of +advertising on bill-boards. And if a circus happened to be coming to +Hyndsville, they could count on every child in their Sunday school +missing his lesson, unless the text, by a fortunate chance, happened +to touch upon the prophet Daniel. + +And when the Y.M.C.A. people looked out of _their_ side windows, +Sophronisba's alluring bill-boards besought them to smoke only +certain cigarettes and to be sure to look for the trademark on their +playing-cards. Naturally, this made the Y.M.C.A. secretaries very, +very happy. + +A weather-beaten picket fence protected the lot upon the street +front; the bill-boards formed the side attractions; and in the +center front was the monument, a stone of stumbling and offense. It +was a neat, plain granite obelisk, which bore this inscription: + + This Stone is Erected + By the Affection + of + Sophronisba Hynds Scarlett + To Commemorate the Many Virtues + of + The Most Perfect Gentleman in Hyndsville + Her Bloodhound + NIPPER + +"There should have been an open season for Sophronisba," Alicia said +with conviction. Then she put her head down and laughed. + +The judge looked at her over his glasses, doubtfully. With a slight +edge to his voice he referred to the several prosecutions "for +wanton and wilful trespassings" upon the closed, barbed-wire lane +behind Hynds House. As the strip in question was not a public +thoroughfare, and Mrs. Scarlett had rock-ribbed titles covering it, +she could close it; and she did, greatly to the inconvenience of her +immediate neighbors, particularly Doctor Richard Geddes. + +"There is something to be said for Mrs. Scarlett's methods," said +the judge dryly. "The Lafayette Street bill-boards are the +best-paying ones in Hyndsville. As to closing the lane, Miss Smith, +let me remind you that Doctor Geddes, although an estimable man and +a very able physician, is not at all backward in coming forward in a +quarrel. He greatly angered my late client." + +"Nevertheless, that barbed wire comes down. He may use the lane +whenever he wants to," I decided. + +The judge bowed. "And now," he said, politely, "let us take up the +case of Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, if you please. It was Mrs. Scarlett's +wish that you should be fully informed concerning Mr. Jelnik's +antecedents, that you might be on your guard." + +"Against Mr. Jelnik? But, good heavens, why? Why?" I was beginning +to get angry. "Let me see: I am to make myself odious to Mr. Jelnik, +and I am to refuse to allow a physician to run his car through a +barren strip of weeds and sand, because they are her relatives and +she hated her relatives. I am to vex the souls of harmless +Christians with bill-posters of the world, the flesh, and the devil, +and I'm to pay taxes on a lot that's been turned into a cemetery for +a hound dog. I'm to fight St. Polycarp's Church, for a couple of +chromos I should probably loathe.--I don't like pictures of cardinal +virtues, anyhow. It altogether depends on who possesses them as to +whether I can stand for the cardinal virtues themselves." + +"Faith looking up, and Charity looking down, and Hope hanging to an +anchor, _something_ like Britannia-Rules-the-Waves. Make the church +keep them, please, Sophy!" begged Alicia. + +Judge Gatchell made an odd noise in his throat. + +"One of my little granddaughters, taken to Saint Polycarp's by her +mother, asked, 'Mamma, who is that big woman up there with the +pick-axe?' And they told her," said the Judge, scathingly, "they +told her it was _Hope_! + +"When the vestry came to me about the case, I reminded them that +Aholah and Aholibah were damned for doting upon paintings on the +wall, painted in vermilion, which in plain English is Scarlett!" A +covenanting gleam shot into his frosty eyes, and the old fighting +Scotch blood showed for a second in his lank cheek. He was a godly +man, and when he saw confusion in the ranks of the Philistines, he +rejoiced. + +"I can't help who was damned," said I. "My job is to live in peace +with my neighbors. St. Polycarp's people may hang their Virtues +wherever they please, for all of me." + +Did a faint, faint shade of regret flit over the parchment-like +face? It seemed so to me. But he said, composedly: + +"You must act according to your best judgment. And now, please, let +us go back to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik." + +We rather prided ourselves upon the possession of so pleasant a +neighbor, and we said so. He had helped us with our garden, and it +was he who selected the spot upon which the resurrected Love should +be set up. + +"Ah, yes, the statue, brought from Italy by Richard Hynds, a great +grandfather of his. Did he tell you anything about Richard?" asked +the judge. + +"Nothing." + +"I shall have to go a long way back, more than a hundred years, to +make you understand," said the judge. "When I was a boy some of the +oldest folk here in Hyndsville used to say that Hynds House never +should have come to Freeman Hynds, Mrs. Scarlett's father; but to +Richard Hynds, his elder brother--that same Richard whose initials +are cut in the base of the statue he brought in his pagan +godlessness from Italy, and which his brother afterward buried, +wishing to remove all trace of him and his follies. + +"You are to understand that it was the unwritten law of the Hyndses' +that this house should come to the eldest son. Primogeniture is of +course foreign to American ideas, but this is an old house, Miss +Smith. When it was built, American ideas hadn't been born. And the +Hyndses were a law to themselves. + +"The then head of the house was James Hampden Hynds, a man of an +immense pride, a rigid sense of duty, and the nicest notions of +honor. He had two sons, Richard, and the younger brother, Freeman. +The daughters do not count: it is with these two sons we are +concerned. + +"From every account Freeman Hynds was a good man, a quiet, +God-fearing, methodical man, attentive to his affairs, and +meticulously exact in all his dealings; not warm-hearted, perhaps, +but just. But as if the bad blood of the entire family had come to a +head in one man, Richard was born a roisterer and a spendthrift. + +"He grew up a magnificent young scapegrace, reckless to the point of +madness, and with that inherent love of risk that is the very breath +of life to such men. Despite these defects there is no doubt that +his was one of those personalities that win love without effort. So +of course it was a foregone conclusion that he should win the girl +that his younger brother, among others, adored to distraction. + +"His family hoped that his love for his young wife would change him +for the better. But there was something tamelessly wild in Richard +Hynds. He would have done very well, very well indeed, in the +_Golden Hind_ with Drake, or in the _Jesus_ with Morgan. He did not +fit in a gentler generation, and a mild life had no charm for him. +Gossip buzzed with his name, even in a day when gentlemen were +permitted to behave pretty much as they pleased. + +"Up to this time there had never been anything altogether +unpardonable charged against him. But one fine morning the Hynds +jewels were missing. Remember that the Hyndses had always been a +wealthy and powerful family. The theft of those jewels was no +trumpery affair. For generations they had been adding to that +collection--sometimes a lustrous pearl, sometimes a flawless +emerald; once it was a sapphire that had belonged to a French queen, +once a pair of rubies that had hung in the ears of a duchess beloved +of King Charles. + +"Richard's mother happened to be a meek and quiet body, deeply +religious, something of a Quakeress, so she wore them but seldom. It +was upon the occasion of a ball to be given in honor of Freeman's +twenty-first birthday that the question of what jewels his mother +should wear came up, and the strong-box in which they were kept was +opened. Only the settings remained. + +"When the clamor quieted and sane questions began to be asked, +suspicion fastened upon Richard Hynds. His affairs were chaotic, his +needs imperative and desperate. He had been heard to ask his mother +if she intended wearing what he called 'the Hynds fortune' at +Freeman's ball. He knew, of course, where they were kept--in the +anteroom of his mother's apartment. It was not only possible but +easy for him to gain access to them. + +"Let us consider the case without prejudice: Here is a young man--a +gambler, a wastrel--with pressing debts, and clamoring creditors +threatening what might be considered dishonor. Within reach of this +young man's hand are certain very valuable properties which he might +even consider his own, since they would in time descend to him. His +mother's resources are exhausted, his father's heart steeled against +further advancements. Cause and effect, you see--debts: missing +jewels. + +"The case not only formed two factions in public opinion; it split +the Hynds family itself. His two sisters, and his cousin Jessamine, +raised in this house, believed him guilty. His mother and his wife +believed in his innocence and refused to hear a word against him. +These two things only did Richard Hynds salvage in that utter wreck +and catastrophe--his mother's faith and his wife's love. + +"He lost his father's. This was a man, who, under his pleasant +exterior of a landed gentleman, was rigid and inflexible. He had +already borne a great deal, remember; but this was disgrace, an +indelible stain upon a stainless name. Therefore this father, who +was at the same time a just and good man, disinherited his favorite +child and eldest son. House, slaves, lands, money, the great +position of the head of a powerful family, came to Freeman Hynds, +my late client's father, born five years later than his brother, on +the twentieth day of September, 1785--a long time ago! a long time +ago! + +"Richard was disgraced, and a beggar. And it seemed that the rod +that had lain in pickle for the Hyndses for their pride, was brought +forth to scourge them all. For Richard, desperate, distracted, +careless of what happened to him, rode out one day through a pelting +rain. Result, congested lungs; the poor wastrel, who had no wish to +live, was soon satisfactorily dead. + +"When James Hampden got that news, he rose up from his chair, laid +the book he had been reading--it was Baxter's 'Saint's Rest'--down +on the library table and fell as if lightning had struck him. +Apoplexy, it was said; a thrust through the heart, I should call it. +Richard the sinner was none the less Richard his first-born. + +"Hard upon the heels of these two disasters came a third, the case +of Jessamine Hynds. This Jessamine--a highly gifted, imperious +creature, proud as Lucifer, after the manner of the Hyndses--was an +orphan, reared in Hynds House. She was some several years older than +her cousins, to whom she was greatly attached. The trouble so preyed +upon her that she became melancholy, and one fine day disappeared +and was never afterward found. There was great hue and cry made for +her, and men riding hither and yon, for this was a Hynds woman, and +her story touched popular imagination, so that she is supposed," +said the lawyer dryly, "to wander around Hynds House o' nights, +crying for Richard and searching for the lost jewels. + +"After the death of James Hampden Hynds, it was discovered that he +had added a singular enough codicil to his will. This codicil +provided that in the event the jewels were found intact, and Richard +Hynds's innocence thereby incontrovertibly established, Hynds House +as it stood should revert to him as eldest son, after the custom of +the family. _But_ until the jewels were recovered, Richard and his +heirs were to have exactly--nothing. And nothing is what Richard and +his heirs got." + +"And was he really guilty?" breathed Alicia. Her sympathy was +instantly with Richard. That is exactly like Alicia, who is sorry +for the fatted calf, and the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, and +Esau swindled out of his birthright; had she been one of the wise +virgins she would have trimmed the lamps of all the foolish ones and +waked them up in time. + +"In theory," said the judge, "a man is innocent until he is proved +guilty. In practice, he is guilty until he can prove his innocence." + +"And was nothing, absolutely nothing, ever heard or known +further?--nothing that would justify his mother's faith, or comfort +his poor young wife's heart?" + +"There was but one incident to which even the most credulous could +attach the slightest importance. You shall judge for yourself +whether it deserved any. Freeman Hynds, riding about the plantation +after his habit, was thrown from his horse and died from the +injuries sustained. He recovered consciousness for a few minutes +before he died; some said he never really regained it. Be that as it +may, the dying man cried out, in a voice of great anguish and +affliction: '_Richard! Brother Richard! The jewels--the jewels!_' He +struggled to say more, and failed; looked into the concerned faces +around him, with the awful look of the soul about to depart; +struggled to raise himself; and fell back upon his pillow a corpse. + +"Some--they were in the majority--said, sensibly enough, that the +pain and disgrace of his brother's downfall had haunted the poor +gentleman's death-bed, and occasioned that last sad cry. Some few +said he had wished to confess a thing heavy upon his conscience, who +had taken his brother's place as Jacob took Esau's. Richard's wife, +of course, was of these latter. She went to her grave a passionate +believer in the innocence of her husband, whom she averred to have +been a deeply wronged and cruelly used man; and, for heaven's sake, +who do you suppose she claimed had wronged him? Freeman! She +couldn't prove anything; she hadn't the ghost of a clue to hang the +ghost of an accusation upon; yet, womanlike, she clung to her +notion, and she taught it to her son as one teaches a holy creed. + +"The Hyndses were excellent haters. Freeman's daughter, born into an +atmosphere of family disruption, abhorred the very memory of her +uncle, and hated her uncle's wife, the woman who doubted and led +others to doubt her father's honesty. This hatred she discovered for +Richard's son, who, as he grew older, referred to Freeman as 'my +Uncle Judas.' + +"This second Richard became in time a highly successful physician, a +man honored and beloved by this community. There was no wildness in +_him_, nor in his son, the third Richard. His granddaughter Sarah +Hynds married Professor Doctor Max Jelnik, the celebrated Viennese +alienist, whom she met abroad. Your next-door neighbor is Sarah's +son, born somewhere in Hungary, I believe. Both the young man's +parents are dead, and I understand he has led a vagrant and +irresponsible life, preferring to rove about rather than follow his +father's profession, to which he was educated. + +"My late client, indeed, held that he had inherited the deplorable +characteristics of the first Richard. She asserted--she allowed +herself great freedom of speech--that you can't make a silk purse +out of a sow's ear. It displeased her that he should come to +Hyndsville. She thought it showed a malignant nature and a peculiar +shamelessness that he chose to reside next door to Hynds House, from +which his great-great-grandfather had been so ignominously driven. +Her first meeting with the young man bred in her an ineradicable +dislike." + +Now what really happened is this: The fences having been neglected, +and in consequence fallen down, and the hedge broken in many places, +Mr. Jelnik, just come to Hyndsville, thoughtlessly and perhaps +ignorantly crossed the sacred Scarlett boundaries. Up-stairs behind +her blind, like an ancient spider in her web, the old lady spied +him. She flung open the window and leaned out. + +"Who are you that prowl about other peoples' yards like a thievish +cat?" she demanded peremptorily. + +The young man looked up, uncovering his beautiful head. + +"I am Nicholas Jelnik. And I pray your pardon, Madame: I did not +mean to intrude," and he made as if to go. + +"Jelnik!" said she, in a hoarse and croaking voice. "Jelnik! Aha! I +know your breed! I smell the blood in you--bad blood! rotten bad +blood! You've a bad face, young man: a scoundrelly face, the face of +a fellow whose grandfather robbed his house and shamed his name! And +why have you come near Hynds House, at this hour of the day? He, he, +he! _I_ know, _I_ know!" + +Lost in astonishment, Jelnik remained staring up at her. The +apparition of this venerable vixen, who had hated Richard's son and +now hated him of a later generation, who had seen those that had +talked to Richard himself in his ill-fated lifetime, so stirred his +imagination that it deprived him of utterance. All he could do was +to stand still and stare and stare and stare. He had never seen +anybody so old--she was nearly a hundred, and looked a thousand--and +he stared at the old, old, wrinkled, yellow face, the unhuman face, +in which the beady black eyes burned with wicked fire; at the nearly +bald head, thinly covered with a floating wisp or so of wool-like +white hair; at the claw-like, shriveled, yellow hands, the stringy +neck, the whole sexless meager wreck of what had been a woman. It +was a stare made up of wonder, and instinctive dislike, and human +pity, and young disgust. She raised her voice: + +"Did you not see those signs? Scoundrel, puppy, foreign-born poacher, +didn't you see my sign-boards?" And as she looked down at +him--Richard's blood alive and red in a youthful and beautiful body: +and _she_ what she was--she fell into one of those futile and +dreadful fits of rage to which the evil old are subject; and mumbled +with her skinny bags of lips, and shook and nodded her deathly head, +and waved her claw-like hands, screeching insults and abuse. + +The pity died out of Jelnik's face. He regarded her with his +father's eyes, the calm, impersonal, passionless gaze of the trained +alienist. She was an unlovely exhibition, to be studied critically. +In some subtle manner she understood, for she jerked herself out of +her anger, and fell silent, regarding him with a glance as +brilliantly, deadly bright as a tarantula's. The cold, relentless +hate of that glance chilled him. He forced himself to bow to her +again, and to beat a dignified retreat, when his inclination was to +take to his heels like a school-boy caught pilfering apples. + +The next morning a bailiff presented Mr. Nicholas Jelnik with a +notice forbidding him to enter the grounds of Hynds House without +the written permission of the owner, and threatening prosecution +should he disobey. + +"The Hyndses, as I have said, are good haters," finished Judge +Gatchell. + +"And so she left Hynds House to me," said I without, I am afraid, +much gratitude. + +"It was hers, to dispose of as she chose." The lawyer spoke crisply. +"If you have any scruples, dismiss them. My late client understood +that it was far better for the estate to fall into the hands of a +sensible woman like yourself than into the keeping of a young man +with what foolish people like to call the artistic temperament, +which in plain English means a person who can't earn his salt in any +useful, sensible business. + +"You doubt this? Let us consider this same artistic temperament and +its results," continued the judge, making a wry face. "Once or twice +it has been my bad fortune to meet it. One trifling scamp I have in +mind, painted. A house, a fence, a barn, even a sign-board? Not at +all, but messes he called 'The Sea,' one doesn't know why, save that +the things slightly resembled raw oysters. However, the women raved +over him. His laundress and his landlady had good cause to rave! + +"He wrote, too. A text-book, a title, a will, a deed, a business +letter? Far from it! He wrote _poetry_, if you please! The little +wretch wrote _poetry_! That's what the artistic temperament leads a +man to! Bah! I hate, I despise, I abhor, the artistic temperament!" + +We looked at the judge, open-mouthed. "Who would have thought the +old man to have had so much blood in him?" + +"There have been times," admitted the judge, subsiding, "when I +radically disagreed with my late client; when I opposed her +strongly. But when she willed her whole estate to you, Miss Smith, +instead of to Nicholas Jelnik, I heartily approved. Understand, I +have no personal bias, no animosity against this young man; but he +is, I am told, more or less of an artist, and one might as well +leave an estate to an anarchist at once. I have expressed this +opinion to the town at large, and I seldom express my opinion +publicly," finished the old jurist stiffly. + +I heard that opinion with mingled emotions. + +"But we like Mr. Jelnik," I said at last. "The injunction against +him doesn't hold water. Personally, I feel like apologizing to him." + +"Oh, no! One can't afford to cuddle an old vendetta, as Abishag +dry-nursed old King David. I always _hated_ Abishag!" Alicia said +naively. + +"My late client," said the judge enigmatically, "hadn't counted on +_you_." He almost succeeded in looking human when he said it, and +his eyes upon Alicia weren't at all frosty. Then he folded his +papers, replaced them in his wallet, wiped his glasses, shot his +cuffs, hoped we'd find Hynds House all we'd hoped, hoped the town +would be to our liking, hoped he could be of further service to us, +bowed creakily, and took his departure. + +"Sophy," said Alicia, after a long pause, "if ever I had to +rechristen this house, I'd call it Hornets' Nest." + + * * * * * + +We had not attended church on our first Sunday, because we were too +tired. But on our second Sunday we plucked up heart of grace and +went to St. Polycarp's. + +The old town wore an air of Sabbath peace and quietness infinitely +soothing to the spirit. People passed and repassed us. We knew they +knew who we were. The old gentlemen, indeed, bowed to us with +stately uncoverings of the head; the rest regarded us with the sort +of impersonal and perfunctory interest one bestows upon +uninteresting passing strangers. Nobody spoke to us, though the eyes +of the young men were not unaware of Alicia's fairness. + +In a great city, of course, one takes that sort of thing for +granted; but in this small town, where everybody knew and spoke to +everybody else, the effect was chilling. + +"Talk about the sunny South!" murmured Alicia. "Why, my teeth want +to chatter!" + +During the services I was conscious of covert glances in our +direction, but whenever a pair of feminine eyes met mine, they slid +off like lizards and glided another way, with calculated Christian +indifference. They weren't hostile, nor unfriendly: they were just +deliberately indifferent. Nobody had the faintest notion of being +heedful of us strangers among them; and I should be sorry for angels +who expected to be entertained unawares in South Carolina! + +When the congregation had filed out and gone about its leisurely +business, the minister and his wife came forward to greet us. They +were a bit nervous, remembering the diabolic uproar about Faith, +Hope, and Charity. Mr. Haile was a mild-mannered little man of the +saved-sheep type, with box-plaited teeth and a bleating voice. His +wife had the worried face and the anxious eyes of the minister's +helpmeet, and the painfully ready smile for newcomers who might, or +might not, prove desirable parishioners. + +She wanted to be nice to us as a Christian woman to women, but not +too nice as the minister's wife of a church whose members looked +upon us as interlopers. I had deputed Judge Gatchell to inform the +trustees that the suit was dropped. I suppose Mrs. Haile was timid +about broaching the delicate subject, for she ignored it with a +nervous intensity that made me feel sorry for her. She and Mr. Haile +would call just as soon as it was convenient for us to receive +visitors; and then they shook hands with us, and I think they +breathed a sigh of relief. + +"Oh, Sophy! And we've got to keep on going there!--next Sunday, and +Sunday after next Sunday, and maybe every Sunday after that until we +die! Perhaps after a while some of them will bow to us, or maybe +even say, 'How do you do?' _but_ we'll feel as if we'd been put in +cold storage every time we enter that door!" wailed Alicia. + +"It is our Father's house," I reminded her. + +"But I don't want to be made to feel like a spanked child, in +anybody's house!" Alicia said, resentfully. + +"You say that because you're Irish." + +"You say I say it because I'm Irish because you're English." Then +she screwed up her mouth like a coral button, and squinted her eyes: +"I'm Irish, and you're English, and we're both American. Sophy, +let's join my Irish and your English to our Yankee, and teach this +town a lesson!" + +"Barkis is willin'. But in the meantime let's go home and see what +Mary Magdalen has for lunch." + +We walked slowly, enjoying the calm, lovely late-summer day. +Hyndsville at its best was a big, green, sprawling old town, a +quaint, unpainted, leisurely, flowery, bird-haunted place, with +glorious trees, and do-as-they-please, independent gardens. Nobody +ever seemed to be in a hurry, and at first we used to wonder how +they ever got anything done, or kept pace with the moving world; yet +they did. Only, they did it without haste and without noise. And +they were _always_ polite. Though they should take your substance, +your reputation, or even, perhaps, your life, they would do it like +ladies and gentlemen. + +We paused a while, just inside the big brick-pillared gate, and +looked up the oak-arched garden path toward our house. Of course one +can't expect an old fortress of a brick house that's been neglected +for more than three quarters of a century to look spick and span +inside of a brief fortnight, but already Hynds House was sitting up, +so to speak, and taking notice. + +Life had begun to flow back into it. Mary Magdalen had brought a dog +with her--a yellow dog of unknown ancestry, of shamefaced demeanor, +a ropy tail, splay feet, and a rolling eye; named, she and heaven +alone knew why, Beautiful Dog. + +He shunned Alicia and me because we were white people: Beautiful Dog +was intuitively aware that colored people's dogs must meet white +people with suspicion, aloofness, and reserve. When we fatuously +sought to make friends with him, he tucked his tail between his +legs, and shivered as if we made goose-flesh come out on his spine; +and once when I took him by his rope collar he fell down and +shrieked. But just let Mary Magdalen roll out an unctious, "Whah is +yuh, Beaut'ful Dawg?" and his ears and tail went up, he curveted, +and made uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from ear +to ear. + +Doctor Geddes's Mandy had brought over the black kittens and their +mother. Mary Magdalen made sure of their staying at home by the +simple process of buttering their paws. In South Carolina, when you +want a cat to stay in your house, you butter its paws and let it +lick the butter off leisurely, the while you whisper in its left +ear: "_Stay in my house for keeps, cat!_" The cat will ever +thereafter play Ruth to your Naomi. + +Our cat was Mrs. Belinda Black, and her children were Potty Black +and Sir Thomas More Black, this last being a creature of noble mien +and a meditative turn of mind. + +"Homage and praise to Bast, the cat-headed, the wise one, the great +goddess!" purred Alicia, stroking Mrs. Belinda Black's satiny head. +"And may Sekhet the Cat of the Sun aid me, a devotee at her shrine, +to butter the paws of some two-legged cats in Hyndsville!" + +"You-all's dinnah 's waitin'." Mary Magdalen stubbornly held to the +notion that any meal eaten between breakfast and night was dinner; +lunch being sandwiches and fried chicken taken out of a basket at +church picnics and eaten out of one's hand, or lap, for choice. +"What was de text to-day, Miss Sophy? Ah sort o' likes to chaw easy +on a mout'ful o' text whilst Ah 'm washin' up mah dishes." + +We gave her the text, which happened to be one that fills every +negro's heart with undiluted joy: "O ye dry bones, hear the word of +the Lord." And we had the satisfaction of hearing her rolling out, +to the clatter of pans and pots: + + "Dry bones in de valley, + Ma-a-ah, La-a-awd! + Whut yuh gwine do wid dem dry bones, + Ma-ah-ah La-a-a-w-wd" + +while we went up-stairs to change our frocks. We were still sharing +one room then, finding it more convenient. And there, in front of +our door, in a nest of ferns and mosses, was a great cluster of wild +flowers, summer's last and autumn's first children. They had been +gathered in no ordered garden, but taken from the skirts of the +fields and the bosom of the woods; and Carolina the opulent, the +beautiful, the free-handed, does not deck herself niggardly. + +Alicia's face that had been so wistful lighted with a sudden joy. +She gave a happy cry: + +"Ariel!" she cried, "Ariel! Oh, what a heavenly thing, what a +_human_ thing to do! And to-day, too, just when we need a little bit +of friendliness!" She looked around with a queer, shy smile. + +"Ariel!" she called, "Ariel, no matter who comes, or goes, or what +happens in Hynds House, _we_ believe in you. Don't leave us, Ariel! +Maker of music, bringer of blossoms, stay!" + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF" + + +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, with an uplift of his fine black brows and a +satirical smile, once diagnosed the case of Great-Aunt Sophronisba +Scarlett as "congenital Hyndsitis"; Doctor Richard Geddes said you'd +only to take a glance at her house to see that she was predestined +to be damned. _I_ know that she was so hidebound in her prejudices, +so virulently conservative, so constitutionally opposed to change, +that anything savoring of modernity was anathema to her. + +That old woman would as lief have had what remained of her teeth +pulled out as have parted with anything once brought into Hynds +House. She preserved everything, good, bad, indifferent. You'd find +luster cider jugs, maybe a fine toby, old Chinese ginger jars, and +the quaintest of Dutch schnapps bottles, cheek by jowl with an iron +warming-pan, a bootjack, a rusty leather bellows, and a box packed +with empty patent-medicine bottles, under the pantry shelf. A +helmet creamer would be full of little rolls of twine, odd buttons, +a wad of beeswax, a piece of asafetida, elastic bands, and corks. +She had used a Ridgway platter with a view of the Hudson River on +it, as a dinner plate for her hound, for we found it wrapped up, +with "Nipper's platter" scrawled on the paper. + +By and large, it wasn't an easy task to renovate a brick barracks +finished in 1735, and occupied for ninety-nine years by a lady of +Sophronisba's parts; though I sha'n't tell how we had to tackle it +room by room, nor of the sweating hours spent in, so to speak, +separating the sheep things from the goat things. I can't help +stopping for a minute, though, to gloat over the front drawing-room +that presently emerged, with a cleaned carpet that proved to be a +marvel of hand-woven French art, rosewood sofas and chairs +upholstered in royal blue and rubbed to satiny-browny blackness, two +gloriously inlaid tables, and a Venetian mirror between two windows. + +We gave the place of honor on the white marble mantel to a porcelain +painting Alicia found in a work-box--the picture of a woman in gray +brocade sprigged with pink-and-blue posies, a lace fichu about her +slim shoulders, and a cap with a rose in it covering her parted +brown hair. The little boy leaning against her knees had darker blue +eyes, and fairer hair pushed back from a bold and manly forehead. +The painting was about the size of a modern cabinet photograph, and, +though pleasing and spirited, was evidently the work of a gifted +amateur. What gave it potent meaning and appeal was the inscription +lettered on the back: + + _Mrs. Lydia Hariott Hynds & Rich'd. Hynds Ag'd 7 + Paint'd for Col'nl. J.H. Hynds by his + Affec. Neece Jessamine_ + +You couldn't help loving him, the little "Richard Ag'd 7." There was +that in the face which won you instantly; it was so clear-eyed, so +gallant, so brave, so _honest_. So we gave him and his pretty, meek +mother the place of honor in the room that had once heard his +laughter and seen her tears. And we brought down-stairs the fine +painting of Colonel James Hampden, who was the splendid colonial in +claret-color that we had so much admired, and hung him and a smaller +painting marked, "Jessamine, Aged 22" where they could look down on +those two. + +These were the only pictures allowed in that room, and they gave to +it an atmosphere flavored most sweetly of yesterday. Indeed, I think +they must have approved of the room altogether, for we hadn't +changed so much as we'd restored it. Even the glass shades that +use'd to shield their wax candles were in their old places. There +was their old-world atmosphere of stateliness; their Chinese jars, +their English vases, their beautiful old Chelsea figures; and the +sampler so painstakingly + + _Work'd by Ann Eliza Hynds + Ag'd 9 Yrs. 2 Mos., Nov'r, 1757_ + +that had been carefully framed and mounted as a small fire-screen, +perhaps for Ann Eliza's lady mama or proud grandmother. It was such +human and intimate things, the mute mementoes of children who had +passed, that made us begin to love Hynds House, for all its bigness +and uncanniness and dilapidation. + +We did discover one human touch laid upon the place by Sophronisba +herself. She had gathered together a full set of small, hand-colored +photographs of Confederate generals, wrapped them in a hand-made +Confederate flag, into which was tucked a receipt signed by Judah +Benjamin for Hynds silver melted into a bar and given to the Cause, +written, "The glory is departed," across the package, and hidden it. +Alicia, who had a hankering after Confederates, herself, put the +photographs in a leather-covered album at least as old as +themselves, and kept them sacredly. She said these were America's +own vanquished and vanished Trojans, and that one got a lump in the +throat remembering how + + Fallen are those walls that were so good, + And corn grows now where Troy town stood. + +Schmetz brought us our upholsterer, Riedriech the cabinet-maker, +most cunning of craftsmen, who knew all there is to know about old +furniture and just what should and shouldn't be done to it. In +addition he was a grizzled, bearded, shambling old angel who clung +to a reeking pipe and Utopian notions, a pestilent and whole-hearted +socialist who would call the President of the United States or the +president of the Plumbers' Union "Comrade" equally, and who put +propagandist literature in everything but our hair. + +"Mr. Riedriech," you would say reproachfully, "yesterday I +discovered Karl Marx and Jean Jaures lurking behind my coffee-pot +and Fourier under the butter-dish. To-day I find Karl Kautsky in +ambush behind the cream-jug and Frederick Engels under the rolls." + +Riedriech would regard you paternally, placidly, benevolently, +through his large, brass-rimmed spectacles: + +"So? Little by little the drop of water the granite wears away. I +give you the little leaflet, the little pamphlet, _und_ by and by +comes the little hole in your head." + +Thank heaven the doctor next door didn't hear that! + +Alicia knew how to handle the old visionary with innocent but +consummate skill. Looking at the kind old bear with her Irish eyes: + +"It must be a wonderful thing to have such mastery of one's tools, +to know exactly what to do and how to do it," she would sigh. +"'Tisn't everybody can be a master craftsman!" + +"I show you in a little while what iss cabinet-making!" he said +proudly. "I do more yet by you," he added charitably, "then make +over for you chairs and tables and such, already: I make over for +you your little mind." + +The old socialist did indeed show us what cabinet-making can be. He +turned the office behind the library into a workroom, and from it +Sophronisba's tattered and torn and forlorn old things emerged, +piece by piece, in shining rosewood and walnut and mahogany majesty. +If you love old furniture; if it gives you a thrill just to touch a +period chair of incomparable grace, or the smooth surface of an old +table, or the curve of a carved sofa, you'll understand Alicia's +open rapture and my more sedate delight. + +The tiled fireplace in the library was really the feature of +Hynds House. There wasn't any mantel: the fireplace was sunk into +the wall, and above it and the book-cases on each side was a +space filled with more relics than all the rest of the house +contained--portraits, signed and framed documents, letters, old +flags, and a whole arsenal of weapons. Above the fireplace hung the +portrait of Freeman Hynds--thin, dark, austere, more like a +Cameronian Scotsman than a Carolina gentleman of an easy habit of +life. + +However, it was not portrait or relics that made the room +remarkable, but the tiles, each a portrait of a Revolutionary hero. +Laurens, Marion, Lafayette, Pulaski, von Steuben--there they were in +buff and blue, martial, in cocked hats, and with such awe-inspiring +noses! The center and largest tile was, of course, the Father of his +Country, without the hat, but with the nose, and above him the +original flag, with the thirteen stars for the thirteen weak-kneed +little states that were to grow into the great empire of freedom +that the high-nosed, high-hearted soldiers fought for and founded. +Alicia and I touched those tiles with reverence. They were the pride +of our hearts. + +As often happens in the South, there were bedrooms on the lower +floor; two of them, in fact, on one side of the hall. The front one +had been not only locked but padlocked; the windows had been nailed +on the inside, and heavy wooden shutters nailed on the outside. So +long had the room been closed that dry-rot had set in. The silk +quilt on the four-poster was falling to pieces, the linen was as +yellow as beeswax, and the sheets made one think of the Flying +Dutchman's sails. This room was of almost monastic severity: an +ascetic or a stern soldier might have occupied it. Besides the bed +it contained four chairs, a clothes-press, a secretary, and a +shaving-stand. On a small table near the bed were a Wedgwood mortar +with a heavy pestle, a medicine glass, and a pewter candlestick +turned as black as iron. The press in the corner still held a few +clothes, threadbare and sleazy, and in the desk were some dry +letters and a Business Book--at least, that's how it was +marked--with lists of names, each having an occupation or task set +down opposite it, I suppose the names of long-dead slaves. On the +fly-leaf was written, in a neat and very legible hand, "_Freeman +Hynds_." + +"Sophy!" Alicia's voice had an edge of awe. "This must have been his +room. I believe he died here, in this very bed. And afterward they +shut the room up; and it hasn't been opened until now." + +We looked at the old bed, and seemed to see him there, trying to +raise himself, crying out so piteously upon dead Richard's name, +only to fall back a dead man himself. What had he wanted to tell, as +he lay there dying? His painted face in the library was not a bad +man's face. It was proud, stern, stubborn, bigoted; a dark, unhappy +face, but neither an evil nor a cruel one. What was it that really +lay between those two brothers? After more than a hundred years, we +were as much in the dark as they in whose day it had happened and +whose lives it had wrecked. + +We built a fire in the long-disused chimney to take the dampness out +of the room, and forced open the windows to let in the good sun and +wind. Over in one corner, pushed in between the clothes-press and +the side wall, was, of all things, a prie-dieu; and upon it a dusty +Bible with his name on the fly-leaf. Nor was it a book kept for idle +show; it plainly had been read, perhaps wept over by a tortured +heart, for it fell open at that cry of all sad hearts, the +Fifty-first Psalm. I was moving this prie-dieu, when my foot slipped +on the bare floor and I dropped it with a crash. Fortunately it was +not injured. But what had looked like a mere line of carving on the +outer edge of the small shelf--rather a thick and heavy shelf now +that one examined it carefully--had been struck smartly, releasing a +cunning spring. There opened out a thin slit of a drawer, just big +enough to hold a flat book bound in leather and stamped with two +letters, "F.H." On the fly-leaf appeared, in his own neat, fine +script, "_The Diary of Freeman Hynds, Esqr._" + +The thing seemed incredible, impossible. His own daughter had +evidently been unaware of the existence of this book, which he had +not had time to destroy. And we, as by a miracle, had fallen upon +it--and perhaps the truth! + +It was written in so fine and small a hand as was only possible to +the users of goose-quill pens; and this tiny, faded, brown writing +on the yellowed pages covered a period of years. He had not been one +to waste words. Once or twice, as we hurriedly turned the pages, +appeared the name "Emily." Mostly it seemed a dry, uninteresting +thing, a mere memorandum, where a single entry might cover a whole +year. + +It was impossible for us to stop our work to read it then and there, +or to do more than give it a cursory glance. We turned feverishly to +those years that covered, as we figured, the period of the Hynds +tragedy. And he had written: + + This day was Accus'd Rich'd. my Bro. of robbing us of our + Jewells. He protests he knows Naught & my Mthr. believes him + as doth Emily. Has a true Heart, Emily. Horrid Confusion & + my Fthr. Confound'd. + +Impatiently I turned over the pages, raging to read the end, my +heart pounding and fluttering. + + Two nights since dy'd Scipio, son of old Shooba's wife, the + which did send for me-- + +Thus far had I read, Alicia and I sitting head to head on the hall +stairs. In came Schmetz the gardener, raving, gesticulating, and +after him old Uncle Adam, stepping delicately, and with a placating +smile on his wrinkled countenance. + +"Those bulbs that I have planted under the windows of you," raved +Schmetz, "the demon hens of _le docteur_ Geddes are with their paws +upturning! They upturn with rapidity and completeness, led by a +shameless hog of a rooster. Is it the orders of you that I devastate +those fowls, Mademoiselle?" + +Schmetz was furiously angry, and small wonder. Those had been choice +bulbs, some of which he had presented me from his own cherished +store--freesias, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths, and the starred +narcissus, "such as Proserpine let fall, from Dis's wagon." + +"Oh, our flowers!" wailed Alicia, springing to her feet; "and we +counting on those bulbs for Christmas!" + +I shut Freeman's diary with a snap. Hens were more immediate. + +"Put it in the drawer of the library table," called Alicia, running +out with Schmetz at her heels. "We'll read it to-night." + +When I had done so, closing the door after me, I too ran outside, +where some enormous black-and-white hens, led by the biggest rooster +I had ever seen, were completing the utter destruction of our +flower bed. + +We charged down upon them, and they ran to and fro, after the stupid +fashion of fowls. Back and forth Alicia, Schmetz, and I chased those +brutes; but Adam stood with folded hands, looking on from a safe and +sane distance. He refused to have anything to do with Geddes fowls +in ol' Mis' Scarlett's yard. Just then the huge rooster ran into my +skirts, all but upsetting me. It was the work of a strenuous moment +to seize him by the wings and so hold him. + +Left to their own devices, the hens scuttled back to their own +domain through a break in the palings on our side of the hedge, +while in my hands the rooster squawked and plunged and kicked and +struggled; it was like trying to hold a feathered hyena. + +I was very angry. I had lost my bulb bed. I couldn't wring the neck +of the raider, much as I should have liked to do so, but with an arm +made strong by a just and righteous rage I lifted that big brute +high above my head and hurled him over into his own yard. He sailed +through the air like a black and white plane. + +"_Damn! Oh, damn!_" said somebody on the other side of the hedge. +There was a horrible grunt, as of one getting all the wind knocked +out of him, a scuffle, and the squawks of the big rooster, to which +the hens dutifully added a deafening chorus. + +"The brute--has just about--murdered me!" grunted Doctor Richard +Geddes. + +We stood in stricken silence. Swiftly, noiselessly, Uncle Adam faded +from sight, putting a solid section of Hynds House between himself +and what he felt was coming battle. Uncle Adam had no wish to have +to pray me to death, and he wasn't going to run any risks with +Doctor Richard Geddes. Where that irascible gentleman was concerned, +Uncle Adam, like Br'er Rabbit, would "trus' no mistakes." + +A second later, red-faced, half-breathless, but with the light of +battle in his eyes, Doctor Geddes appeared, mounted on a ladder on +his side of the hedge. + +"Who shot off that rooster?" + +"_Monsieur le docteur_, the hens of you began this affray," +explained Schmetz, politely. "They are fowls abandoned in their +morals, horrible in their habits, and shameless in their behavior. +And the husband of these wretches, Monsieur, is a bandit, a brigand, +an assassin, fit only to be guillotined. Observe, Monsieur, it +happened thus--" + +"Schmetz," snapped the doctor, "shut up!--Now then, I want to know +who fired off that rooster." + +"I did!" I said valiantly. "Look at my bulbs! Just look at my +bulbs!" + +"Look at my stomach!" roared the doctor. "Just look at my stomach!" + +"_Mon Dieu! O mon Dieu_!" cried Schmetz, dancing up and down. +"Monsieur, again I implore that you will remain calm and listen to +the voice of reason! Your hens, creatures malicious and accursed--" + +"Why should I look at your horrid stomach?" said I, outraged. "I +think you had better get down off that ladder and go away!" + +"Why should you? Because, you jade, you've all but driven a +twenty-pound rooster clean through it--beak, spurs and tail +feathers--that's why!" bawled the doctor. "Gad! I shall be black and +blue for a fortnight! I'm colicky now: I need a mustard-plaster!" + +"_Two_ mustard-plasters," I insisted severely: "one on your tongue +and the other on your temper!" + +"Temper?" flared the doctor, and flung up his arms. "_Temper?_ +Here's a minx that's all but murdered me, and yet has the stark +effrontery to blather about temper! You've a bad one yourself, let +me tell you! You've the worst, outside of your late aunt--" + +"Grand-aunt-in-law; your own cousin-by-blood, whom you greatly +resemble in that same matter of family temper, I am given to +understand." + +"Gatchell told you that!" cried the doctor, wrathfully. +"Fish-blooded old mummy! _His_ place is in a Canopic jar! Gatchell +hasn't had a thought since 1845." + +"Well, if he satisfied himself so long ago as 1845 that you have a +frightful temper and that your hens are unutterable nuisances, I see +no reason why he should change his mind," I said, frigidly. "You +have; and your hens are; and your rooster is a _demon_!" + +"Straight out of the pit; undoubtedly they were hatched under +Satan's wings. Monsieur, believe me, Schmetz, when I tell you so." + +"Didn't you ask me," I demanded, "to throw them over into your yard +when they invaded my premises? Very well: I threw one over and you +caught it. Why, then, should you complain?" + +"Oh, yes, I caught it!" A horrible sneer twisted his countenance. + +Schmetz fell to praying aloud. But he couldn't remember anything +save the grace before meat, so he prayed that, in a sonorous voice. +For he is a pious man. + +The doctor's nose wrinkled and his lips stretched: "_Sophronisba!_" +he hissed, and, having hurled this hand-grenade, scuttled down the +ladder like a boy of ten. + +Alicia sank upon the ground and rocked to and fro. For a minute I +wanted to catch her by the shoulders and shake her soundly; but +catching her eye instead, I also fell into helpless laughter. +Leaning on his spade, Schmetz stared at us, shaking his grizzled +head. + +"Name of a cat!" murmured the puzzled Alsatian, and fell to +salvaging such bulbs as weren't utterly ruined. We were all busy at +this, when a head again appeared over the hedge--a big, leonine head +with a tossing mane and a tameless beard. An enormous pair of +shoulders followed, a tree-trunk of a leg was swung over, and Doctor +Richard Geddes dropped into our garden like a great cat. He strolled +over, hands in pockets, and looking down at grubbing us, asked +politely: "Making a garden?" + +"Oh, no," Alicia told him sweetly, "we're laying out a chicken-run." + +"Er--what I came over to say, is that I've got some fine bulbs, +myself, this year, particularly fine bulbs--eh, Schmetz?--and more +than I need for myself. Will you share them with me, Miss Smith? +Please! I--well, I'd be really grateful if you would," said this +overgrown boy. + +"We'll be enchanted," Alicia said instantly. "When can we have +them, please?" + +"Now!" cried the doctor, with brightening eyes. "By jingo, I'll get +'em this minute, and plant 'em for you, too!" + +And he did. He was on his knees, trowel in hand, shouting to +Riedriech, who had come outside for a few minutes' happy arguing +with his good friend the doctor, that the socialist argument boiled +down amounts to about this--that one should do without boiled eggs +for breakfast now, in order that the proletariat may have baked hen +for dinner in the millennium; which is lunacy; anybody with a +modicum of brains-- + +"Brains!" snorted Riedriech. "What is it you know about brains? _No_ +doctor knows what is on the inside of brains! You make tinkerings +mit the inside plumbings, _Gott bewahre_! and cut up womens and cats +and such-like poor little dumb beasts and says you, 'Now I know all +about the brains of man.' It is right there where you are wrong, +Comrade Geddes!" + +"_Habet!_" said Comrade Geddes. + +"Look you," said the old visionary, with sudden passion, "look you +on the little bulb here, so dirty and ugly you hide him in the +ground quick. So! But by and by comes up green shoots, and blossoms. +So it is with the great thoughts of men, the deep race-thoughts, +Comrade Geddes--seeds, bulbs, germs, all of them, in the ugly husks +of the common people. Out of our muck and grime they come, the +little green shoots which the fool will say is poison, maybe, but +which the wise know and labor and make room for. I, Riedriech, and +workers like me, we go into our graves nothing but husks. But it is +out of the buried hearts of us comes green things growing; and +then--_die Blumen! die Blumen!_" said the cabinet-maker, with a +still, far-away look. + +"And," he finished, with a sad smile, "it is _our_ flowers that you +put in vases of gold on your altars. And you say, 'Listen: Jesus the +carpenter talks plain words to his fishermen friends.' And, 'Hush! +Burns the plowman makes songs in the field!'" + +The doctor looked up, and his eyes were very tender; his smile made +me wonder. With a swift, friendly hand he patted the rougher hand of +the other. And it was at this opportune moment that Mary Magdalen +led around a corner of Hynds House no less personages than Mrs. +Haile and Miss Martha Hopkins. Their eyes fell upon Doctor Richard +Geddes. They looked at each other. They looked at Alicia and me. And +I knew their thoughts: "Sirens, both of you!" said Miss Hopkins's +eyes. + +"How do you do, Doctor Geddes!" said both ladies, as demurely as +cats. _I_ should have felt like a boy caught stealing jam. He went +right on planting bulbs. + +"Hello, Martha. What's on the carpet now?" he greeted that lady, +airily. "Writing another paper on 'The Ironic Note in Chivalry'? How +about 'The Effect of the Pre-Raphaelites upon the Feeble-minded'? Or +is it the 'Relation of the Child to Its Mother,' this time?" + +"You will have your little joke, Doctor," smiled Miss Hopkins, a +dish-faced blonde with a cultured expression. + +"Joke?" The doctor stared up at her. "Joke? Gad, I'd like to believe +it!" He turned to Alicia and me, politely: "Miss Hopkins," he +informed us, "moves among us clothed in white samite. She is our +center of culture; Hyndsville revolves around her." + +He went on putting a bulb in the place prepared for it. His eyebrows +twitched slightly, but his mouth was smileless; Miss Hopkins was +smiling, and not at all displeased. Mrs. Haile was bland and blank, +as befits a minister's wife. Alicia's eyes were downcast, but a +wicked dimple came and went in her cheek. She looked ravishingly +pretty, the bright hair breaking into curls about her temples, her +young face colored like a rose. I do not blame Doctor Richard +Geddes for stopping in his work to stare at her with unabashed +pleasure, but I do not think it was diplomatic. + +Mrs. Haile apologized for calling when we were so very busy. They +had just stopped in passing, because they were reorganizing their +missionary society and wanted to see if they couldn't interest us in +the good work. Their day-school in Mozambique needed another +teacher, and their hospital in Bechuanaland had to have more beds. + +Doctor Geddes got to his feet, slapped our garden soil from his +knees, and shook his tawny mane. His eyes were no longer sweet. + +"Miss Smith and Miss Gaines, thank you for the opportunity of +playing in the sand in pleasant company. Mrs. Haile, Miss Hopkins, I +go to attend some home-grown niggers who of course don't need a +hospital, nor even a decent school, in our Christian midst. Ladies, +good afternoon!" He made a fleering motion of the hand and was gone. +Mrs. Haile and Miss Hopkins smiled indulgently. Evidently, Doctor +Geddes was one brother they were willing to forgive though he +offended them until seventy times seven. + +Alicia and Miss Martha Hopkins walked down the garden path together +and Mrs. Haile fell into step with me. In a low voice she thanked +me, hurriedly, for having dropped that dreadful suit. And were +we--she hesitated--were we going to be regular communicants? + +I didn't want to go to St. Polycarp's any more, and it was on the +tip of my tongue to give a politely evasive reply, when our eyes met +and held each other. I saw the naked truth in hers--the pitiful +truth of the slim, poor, aristocratic little parish; the old church +overtaken and surpassed by its more modern and middle-class rivals; +and the minister's family struggling along on a salary that would +have made a hod-carrier strike. She was neatly dressed; she looked +like a gentle-woman, but one in straightened circumstances. I made a +rapid mental calculation. + +"Why, yes, I think I can say we shall. Now, Mrs. Haile, I am a +business woman, and if I speak bluntly you must pardon it. Miss +Gaines and I can give two hundred dollars a year between us--fifty +for the church; one hundred and fifty to be added to the minister's +present salary." + +I knew what that meant to her, and she must have known I knew, but +she didn't show it by so much as the quiver of an eyelash. Only a +faint, faint color showed in her sallow cheek, and she bowed, +half-formally, half-friendly. + +"Thank you, Miss Smith," said she, gallantly. And she added, with a +glimmer of humor in her worried eyes: "As you say you're a business +woman, may I say I hope you will get your money's worth?" + +At that I laughed, and she with me. + +We walked down our garden path, chatting innocuously and amiably, +until of a sudden they caught sight of the little Love, the gay, +charming, naked little Love, holding his torch above his +curl-crowned head. You miss him, when you come up the broad drive +from the front gate, for Nicholas Jelnik put him in the secretest, +greenest, sweetest spot in all our garden, and you must go down a +winding path to find him. + +"So it wasn't an idle tale: they did find it, really!" breathed Miss +Hopkins, staring with all her eyes. And I knew with great certainty +why _she_ had come to Hynds House that afternoon. + +"Forgotten all these many years, and now here, like the dead come to +life!" murmured Mrs. Haile, abstractedly. "How strange!" + +"It was said he bought it for his mother, because it looked so like +himself as a child," said Miss Hopkins. Then she remembered her +duty, held up two fingers before her eyes, and squinted through them +critically: + +"Charming, but don't you think the pose strained? It's an example of +eighteenth-century work, placid enough, but it lacks that plastic, +fluidic serenity, that divine new touch of truth, that is +revivifying art since the great Rodin lighted the torch anew." + +Heaven knows what else she said. It sounded like a paper on art to +me, and I have a terror of papers on art. They are, Alicia informs +me, purple piffle. Yet Alicia drank in every word Miss Hopkins +uttered, though the dimple came and went in her cheek. + +"You seem interested in art, Miss Gaines." Having torn the poor +little peasant Love to tatters, Miss Hopkins descended to us +groundlings. + +"I don't always seem to know what art is," admitted Alicia, +dovelike. + +The lady who "moved among us clothed in white samite" smiled +encouragingly. + +"That is because you are really little more than a child," she said +kindly. "When you begin to _grow_, you will improve your mind." + +Alicia puckered her brows. "Ah, but I'm Irish!" she said, seriously, +"and the Irish hate to have to improve their minds. I imagine it +takes an able-bodied mind to stand intensive cultivation," she +added, guilelessly. + +Miss Hopkins smiled: it was a masterpiece, that smile! + +"But why, may I ask, did you choose such a situation for the +statue?" she inquired critically. "Now, _I_ should never dream of +tucking it in such an out-of-the-way place!" + +The pucker came back to Alicia's brow. + +"Shouldn't you?" she wondered. "I shall make a point of mentioning +that to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, if you don't mind. You see, he chose +that spot, and we rather like it, ourselves." + +Miss Hopkins stopped dead short, and Mrs. Haile started in spite of +herself. Evidently, the situation was beyond them. Didn't we _know_? +How much had Judge Gatchell seen fit to tell us? Alicia had dropped +a bomb-shell that before night would detonate in every house in +Hyndsville. They haven't very much to talk about in small towns, +except one another, and when a plump mouse of gossip frisks about +whisking his tail, why, it is cat nature to pounce upon it. + +"Mr. Jelnik!" said Miss Hopkins, with an accent. "Oh, I see. +Well--he is a neighbor, of course. Certainly if Mr. Jelnik selected +that particular spot for the statue--he of all people has the best +right to do so--and to have his wishes considered." + +"Of course. He has lived abroad, and seen everything of art there is +to see," Alicia agreed, placidly. Which wasn't at all what Miss +Hopkins meant. + +We could see those two women turning the thing over and over in +their minds--Nicholas Jelnik, last heir and descendant of Richard +Hynds, tactily (perhaps even gladly; for had they not just witnessed +the behavior of Doctor Richard Geddes?) accepting the interlopers in +the house of his fathers! Nicholas Jelnik selecting the site for the +statue Richard had brought home in pride, and Freeman had buried in +sorrow! Miss Hopkins's stare dismissed me, shifted to Alicia, and +discovered the cause of this shameless surrender of family pride. +Her lips tightened. With politely cold hopes that we should like +Hyndsville, and warmer hopes that we would join the missionary +society, they left us. + +"Wedge Number One: The poor dear heathen, Sophy!" smiled Alicia. +"The P.D.H. can be a very present help in times of social trouble, +can't he? I shall attend that missionary meeting, and take stock. +Incidentally (For goodness' sake, don't look so scandalized, Sophy +Smith! this is a fight for our lives, so to speak!) incidentally, I +shan't do the P.D.H. any harm. He won't be a bit worse than he was +before, which is promising." She put two fingers before her laughing +eyes, squinted through them, and drawled: + +"You lack subtlety, Miss Smith. Cultivate your imagination, my +dear!" in Miss Hopkins's best voice. + +Riedriech stuck his grizzled head out at a window, cautiously: + +"Fraeulein, she hass gone?" And seeing that the coast was clear, +he added, vehemently: "Cultivate the mindt! Cultivate the +imatchination! _Ach, lieber Gott! Dornroeschen_, cultivate you the +_heart_. It iss not what the woman thinks, but what she loves, what +she feels, which makes of the world a home-place for men und +_kinder_." The good old Jew nodded his head vigorously at the girl, +smiled, and went back to his work. And Schmetz came and finished the +bulb bed by covering it carefully with two thicknesses of +chicken-wire. + +That night, just before we went up-stairs, I went into the library +after Freeman Hynds's diary, which we were simply burning to read. I +opened the table drawer in which I had placed it. The drawer was +quite empty. The little flat book was gone. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +GLAMOURY + + +Alicia insisted that we were living in a fairy-story, and had better +enjoy every shining minute while it lasted. But, as I pointed out, +the cost of restoring Hynds House was appallingly real, so real that +it left a big, big hole in the bank-account. It is true that we who +never really had had a home since we were little children, and then +the most modest sort, had gotten such a home as comes to but few. +But--one doesn't get something for nothing! + +We had done our part for Hynds House; now Hynds House had to do its +part for us. It had to earn its keep, and ours. We had known that +from the beginning, and Alicia mapped out the entire plan of how +it was to be done; a plan which I at first looked upon as the +fairy-storiest part of the whole thing! + +To-night we sat facing each other across the library table, with a +great pile of receipted bills between us, the total of which made me +feel pale. Alicia, however, was cheerfully figuring away on her own +hook; and presently she shoved a list of addresses across to me. + +The first two were the head of our old firm, and the one celebrity +I had ever seen or spoken to, a novelist and lecturer with +record-breaking best sellers to his account. He once had some +business dealings with our firm, and I attended to the details, +thereby winning his cantankerous approval. He had very bad manners, +of which he was totally unashamed, and very good morals, of which +he was somewhat doubtful, as they didn't smack of genius; a notion +that he was a superior sort of Sherlock Holmes, having the +truffle-hound's flair for discovering and following up clews and +unraveling mysteries, most of which didn't exist outside of his own +eager mind; and such a genuine passion for old and beautiful things +as Balzac had. It was upon this last foundation that Alicia was +building. + +"He has written that the average wealthy modern home is a +combination of Pullman Palace Car and Gehenna. And that the +so-called crime wave which sweeps recurrently over American cities, +is very likely nothing more than the inevitable reaction of our +damnable house decorations upon our immature intellects." Alicia +repeated it dreamily. "I have chosen for him the upper southwestern +room with the sunset effect and the pineapple four-poster. It has a +claw-footed desk of block mahogany, three hand-carved walnut chairs, +two Rembrandt prints, and a French prie-dieu with a purple velvet +cover embroidered with green and gold swastikas. He has a purple +soul with gold tassels on it, himself, Sophy, and he should be +willing to pay a thumping price for it. That room is worth at least +two lectures and one best seller, not to mention what he'll get out +of the rest of the house." + +"First catch your hare," I reminded her skeptically. + +"First set your trap, and you can reckon on hare nature to do the +rest. A few good photographs of this house, along with the +information that it runs back to the beginning of things American +and has never been exploited, will fetch him at a hand-gallop. Add a +hint that we have our own brand of family spook, and you couldn't +keep him away if you tried. The only trouble is that he may walk off +with your brass tongs up his trouser-leg, or a print or two tucked +under his shirt." + +We had decided that we would have a series of photographs of the +house, with all particularly good points stressed; such as, say, the +library fireplace, the fan-light window at the end of the upper +hall, the pillared front porch, and a corner of the drawing-room. + +Also--and this was the great thing, calling for a heavy outlay--we +would advertise in some two or three of the ultra periodicals, the +advertisement to carry a stunning little cut of our front porch. We +decided to run the risk of expending more money than we could really +afford, because the people that advertisement was meant to attract +would in the long run pay for it. + +"Our prices will be predacious, piratical, prohibitive, and +profitable. We shall stop just this side of highway robbery. +Therefore our demands will be cheerfully, nay, willingly met; and +everybody, including you and me, Sophy, will be satisfied and +happy!" + +"_Boarders!_" said I, limply, "_boarders_--in Hynds House!" + +"Perish the thought! We have possibly the most interesting and +beautiful old house in America. It's one of the few really historic +houses left in the whole South. It has seen the Indians, it has seen +the British, it has seen Sherman's men, and escaped them all. Well, +then, we propose to allow certain of the elect, who can afford it, +to come and live in Hynds House for a while. They will be willing to +pay a round sum for the privilege. That's all." + +"Oh, is it, indeed! And will they?" + +"Won't they, though!" Alicia spoke confidently. "Now draft me a +letter to the Head, setting forth the many reasons why himself, his +wife, their car, and her Chow, can't afford to miss Hynds House on +their trip South this season. You might explain that Mary Magdalen +is our cook, and the Queen of Sheba our hand-maid. Also, please help +me decide in which of these magazines we had better advertise +first." + +"But the cost!" I wailed. "We have spent so sinfully much already! +And the place is eating its head off, with nothing coming in. Since +I took down those bill-boards, actually the price of that Lafayette +Street lot has gone down. Nobody seems anxious to buy it any more." + +"Change your mind about selling it; hint that you're considering an +ice-cream parlor and a movie theater," said the girl who'd been the +worst file-clerk. "In the meantime, Sophy, you have sense enough to +understand that we've spent so much money we've got to spend more to +get some of it back.--I vote we start in this one, Sophy," and she +laid her finger upon the most expensive and ultra of all the +magazines! + +"But that is for _millionaires_!" said I, aghast. + +"So is Hynds House," insisted Alicia, coolly. "How much did you say +was in the bank?" + +I was afraid to hear my own voice mention that insignificant sum; +for, when one considered Hynds House, the little we had was +beggarly; so I wrote it down, and pushed the paper across to her. +Instead of looking scared, Alicia Gaines looked delighted! + +"All that?" And round chin on pink palm, she fell to studying me +with as much curiosity as if she had just met me and were puzzled to +get at the real Me. Then she nodded, and snatching a sheet of paper, +began to figure again, pausing every now and then to regard me with +slitted eyes. At the end of ten strenuous minutes she pushed the +paper over to me, and watched me grow all but apoplectic as I +studied it. It was an entertaining list, beginning with a hat and +ending with silk stockings. With all sorts of wonderful things in +between--for me, you understand. Things like "One brown frock, with +something cloudy-yellow about it." ("Sophy, blondes can stand yellow +wonderfully well; I suggest a bronze, instead of a duller brown.") + +"Why, I have plenty of clothes!" I protested. + +"Business-woman-of-a-certain-age, general-utility, +will-stand-wear-and-tear clothes. Not a stitch of Hyndshousey +clothes among them. No _happy_, glad-I'm-alive-and-a woman clothes. +Here's where you cease to look merely useful, respectable, and +responsible, and begin to look the Lady of the Castle. There's quite +as much philosophy and good morals in looking like a butterfly as +there is in resembling a caterpillar." + +"_Why_ should I have more clothes?" I demanded. + +"Because." And she added, with a fleeting smile, "And then catch +your hare." + +"Alicia!" said I, scandalized. "Alicia Gaines, do you realize I am +thirty-six years old?" + +"You wouldn't be if you just had sense enough to forget to remember +it." This resentfully. + +"No? Would you mind telling me how I might become such an +accomplished forgetter?" + +"Why, there's nothing easier! When you really wish to forget to +remember something, Sophy, all you have to do is to remember to +forget it!" And then, with real earnestness: "Sophy, it's the better +part of wisdom to look like the job you want to hold down. Your job +is holding down Hynds House. And we are up against things, Sophy, +you and I. We have got to win out because it means--all this." Her +eyes swept over the beautiful old room with an immense pride and +affection. + +"We have just _got_ to keep Hynds House, if only to teach these +Hyndsville women a lesson." She spoke after a pause. "Sophy, they +flatten their ears and arch their backs at sight of us; and whenever +there's a good chance for a wipe of a paw, why, we catch it across +the nose. Now I," she admitted frankly, "am naturally full of cat +feelings myself. I will not do what _you_ want to do--walk off +looking aggrieved, after the fashion of Old Dog Tray. I will repay +in kind, retaliate in true lady-cat manner. And these,"--she began +to smile--"these shall be our weapons of offense and defense. It +will be a gorgeous struggle; however, my forebears came from +Kilkenny!" + +I laughed, but indeed I did not feel any too optimistic. Holding +down Hynds House was no easy task, and the town was not disposed to +make it easier for us. While we had been busy renovating, while our +hands were so full of work that every minute was occupied, we hadn't +felt our isolation. It was only when we had time to pause and look +around us, that the stubborn, quiet hostility of the town's attitude +to the new owner of Hynds House was borne in upon us. + +Not that anything overt was done by any one. Nor was there the +slightest breach of politeness: they were as punctiliously polite +when chance brought us into contact with them, as well-bred folk are +to strangers whose further acquaintance they have no desire to +cultivate. The vestrymen of St. Polycarp's had expressed their +appreciation of Miss Smith's action in promptly dropping the suit +against them; she was welcome to come and worship God in their +church, and to do her duty by the heathen. Such ladies as happened +to belong to the missionary society spoke to us pleasantly in the +church vestibule. The minister and his wife were as sincerely, +duteously courteous. But that was all. Not a house in Hyndsville +opened its doors to us. They simply would not accept the interloper +that the malignity of the Scarlett Witch had put in possession of +that which should have gone back to Richard's last heir, or failing +him, to Richard Geddes. + +The fact that these two descendants of the Hyndses did not seem to +see and do their duty as members of that illustrious family, but +shamelessly made friends with the aliens, did not raise us in the +town's estimation. Quite the contrary. Nor were they even faintly +angry with Mr. Jelnik and Doctor Geddes, who were, so to say, +unsuspicious Israelites coaxed into the Canaanitish camp. + +I admit that I considered Doctor Richard Geddes undiplomatic in his +behavior. It never once occurred to that lordly gentleman, who had +had his own way ever since he was born, that he should stop now to +consider the feelings or the prejudices of Hyndsville. It wasn't +that he meant to champion _us_. It never occurred to him that we +needed championing. He simply liked us because he liked us. We +pleased him. That sufficed, so far as he was concerned. + +I had begun really to like the doctor, myself. But I wished to +heaven he weren't, at that critical time, so tactless. For instance, +I have been peremptorily taken by an elbow and led willy-nilly to +his waiting car, on Lafayette Street, which is our principal +thoroughfare, under the calm, appraising, watching eyes of all +feminine Hyndsville. Not one of whom would fail to remark, casually: + +"Oh, _did_ you see that Miss Smith with Doctor Geddes this morning? +Men are so unsuspicious, aren't they!" + +I couldn't explain the situation to him, of course, any more than I +could explain to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik that _his_ presence in Hynds +House, while pleasing to us, was disquieting and displeasing to +others. + +It was to be expected that this handsome young man, who kept his +affairs so strictly to himself that nobody knew anything about them, +should arouse the avid curiosity and hold the breathless interest of +a little town where everybody had always known everybody else's +business. + +Why had he come to Hyndsville? To find the Hynds jewels, after a +century? Didn't he know that the Scarlett Witch had the eye of an +eagle for the glitter of gold and would long since have discovered +whatever of value had been in Hynds House? Why didn't he consult +older members of the community, who could furnish him with +immensely interesting side-lights on the Hyndses? + +Mr. Jelnik never explained. He didn't ask anybody anything. He +didn't even employ Hyndsville negroes, who could be expected to +gossip: his household consisted of a stately bronze-colored +man-servant who was reputed to be a pagan, and the huge wolf-hound, +Boris, his constant companion. + +When Doctor Geddes was delicately sounded, the big man explained +that he himself had but recently made the acquaintance of his young +kinsman; Jelnik was a first-rate chap, declared the doctor; +immensely clever, as befitted his father's son; altogether likeable, +but a bit of a lunatic, like all the Hyndses. + +It was natural, too, that the young ladies in a small town where +young men are at a premium should have noticed this one particularly +and expected a like interest on his part. The inexplicable Jelnik +failed to exhibit it. There was but one house that he visited, and +that was Hynds House. + +Whatever his reasons for this may have been, and the town named +several, the fact remains that Hynds House would never have been so +beautiful, the restoration wouldn't have been so nearly perfect, had +it not been for the critical taste of Mr. Jelnik. He had the +European knowledge of beautiful things, and, toward the finer graces +of life, the attitude of Paris, of Rome, of Vienna, rather than of +New York, of Chicago, or of, say, Atlanta. + +There was a glamour about the man. Whatever he did or said had an +indefinable, delightful significance; what he left undone was full +of meaning. His mere presence ornamented and colored common moments +so that they glowed, and remained in the memory with a rainbow light +upon them. He was never hurried or flurried, any more than sun and +sky and trees and tides are; and he was just as vital, and quite as +baffling. + +We accepted him at first as part of the fairy-story into which +Destiny had pitchforked us. He belonged to Hynds House, so to speak, +and there one might meet him upon common ground. But sometimes when +I happened to glance up I would find him watching us with those +reflective eyes that were so full of light and at the same time so +inscrutable. And then he would smile, his Dionysiac smile that made +him all at once so far off and so foreign that I knew, with a +sinking heart, that he didn't belong at all; that this beautiful and +brilliant bird of passage was lightening for but a very brief space +my sober skies. + +Alicia said he made her think of peacocks and ivory. He delighted +and dazzled her, though he did not disquiet her as he did me, +perhaps because she, too, was young and beautiful, and I--wasn't. + +It will be seen, then, that our position, take it by and large, +wasn't one that called for flags and buntings. Life didn't look a +bit rose-colored to me as I sat there that night, drafting a letter +to the Head. Of a sudden arose clamor in the hall, and howls, +hideously loud at that hour and in that quiet house. There came the +noise of running feet, and there burst into the lighted library, +with gray faces and rolling eyes, our two lately acquired colored +maids, Fernolia the thin one, and Queen of Sheba, fat and brown. + +"Good heavens! What's the matter?" I asked, fearfully. It had been a +terrible task to break in those two handmaids, to train them _not_ +to take part in the conversation at table, _not_ to take off cap, +and hair, not to do the thousand and one undisciplined and +disorderly things they did do. + +"Ghostes! Sperets! Ha'nts!" chattered the colored women. "Ol' Mis' +Scarlett's walkin' in de ca'iage house!" + +"Nonsense!" At the same time I felt myself turning pale, and +goose-flesh coming out on my spine. + +"No, ma'am, Miss Sophy, 't ain't nonsense. It's ha'nts!" protested +Fernolia. She was the brighter of the two, but given to embroidering +her facts. + +"Yessum, I done saw 'er," corroborated Queenasheeba. (That's how one +pronounced her name.) + +The two occupied a very pleasant room above the carriage house, a +room that had overcome their unwillingness to stay overnight at +Hynds House. Queenasheeba was just dozing, when she was awakened by +Fernolia, who had been sitting by the window. Both of them, peering +through the scrim curtains, saw a tall white figure disappear into +the spring-house. A few minutes later, to their horror, they heard +Something moving downstairs in the carriage house--Something like +the clank of a chain--footsteps--and then silence. Almost paralyzed +with terror, the two women clung together. _Anything_ might be +expected of ol' Mis' Scarlett! However, nothing further happened. +With shaking hands Queenasheeba relighted the lamp. Then, snatching +up such clothes as they could grab, the two fled to us. + +Mary Magdalen and Beautiful Dog always departed after dinner. Except +for the Black family and the two canaries, Alicia and I had big, +lonesome Hynds House to ourselves. Mr. Jelnik's gray cottage, set +amid Lombardy poplars and thick shrubberies, was some distance +away, and we didn't know whether Doctor Geddes was at home or not. +It is true we had firearms, a pair of pistols having been literally +forced upon us by the doctor, who fretted and fumed about our +staying there alone. Both of us were more afraid of those pistols +than of any possible ghostly intruder. + +Nevertheless, I went up-stairs and fetched them. Alicia took one as +she might have taken a rattlesnake, and I held the other. Armed +thus, carrying torch-light and lantern, and with the two gray-faced, +half-clad negro women following us, one carrying our brass poker and +the other the tongs, we marched upon the carriage house. + +The big barnlike place, lately cleaned and whitewashed, looked +painfully empty. In one of the stalls the hay purchased for our +recently acquired Jersey cow gave off a pleasant odor. Over in one +corner, in a neat, clean, orderly array, were Schmetz's tools. A +little farther on was our chicken feed, in covered barrels. + +We went from empty stall to empty stall, to reassure the women; +there wasn't so much as a cobweb in any of them. All the down-stairs +windows were heavily barred with iron and further protected, like +the doors, with heavy oaken shutters studded with iron nail-heads. +The two small rooms in the rear had once been used as a jail for +recalcitrant slaves; they held now nothing deadlier than Schmetz's +flower pots and seedlings. Every shutter was closed, and the iron +bars looked reassuringly strong; also, the walls are three feet +thick. + +"You were dreaming, you silly women! I told you you were dreaming!" +said I, and had turned to go, reassured and relieved, when Alicia's +nose wrinkled. I could hardly keep from sniffing, myself. + +In the carriage-house was a faint, indeterminable scent, the ghost +of the ghost of fragrance, so elusive that one sensed rather than +smelled it, so pervasive and haunting that one could not miss it. +And it certainly had nothing to do with the wholesome odor of hay +and cow feed, or the smell of whitewash and oiled tools. + +"Yes, you were dreaming." Alicia began to edge the colored women +toward the doors. "But as you've had a scare," she added pleasantly, +"I'll give you a new lace collar, Queenasheeba, and you a red +ribbon, Fernolia, to wear to church next Sunday, just to prove to +you that being awake is heaps better than having nightmares." + +We padlocked the big doors after us, and went through the rooms +up-stairs. They, too, had been freshly cleaned and calcimined. And +they, too, were quite empty. + +Despite which, Fernolia and Queenasheeba were firmly, tearfully, +shiveringly certain they had seen nothing less than ol' Mis' +Scarlett's ha'nt. They had the worst possible opinion of ol' Miss +Scarlett: she had been bad enough living--but as a spook! We had to +let them lug their bedding over and sleep in the room next to ours; +we had to give them sweet lavender to quiet their nerves. I am sure +they would have bolted incontinently if they hadn't been too scared +to venture outside. + +"If I could catch that ghost I'd shake it!" declared Alicia. And we +went back to our figuring, with a sort of desperate courage. "_Now_ +will you get those clothes, Sophy Smith?" she resumed, through her +teeth, and the pink came back to her cheek, and her eyes deepened. +"And do you agree to stick it out, you and I shoulder to shoulder, +town or no town, ha'nts or no ha'nts; and win out?" + +"Yes!" said I. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR + + +Wire from The Author, New York City, to Miss S. Smith, Hyndsville, +South Carolina: + + Photos received. Furniture noted. It's pretty, but is it + art? + +Wire from Miss Smith to The Author: + + What is Art? + +Wire from The Author: + + Sometimes an invention of the devil. Is your stuff Madison + Avenue or Grand Rapids? Reply. + +Wire from Miss Smith: + + Madison Avenue and Grand Rapids hadn't been invented when + Hynds House was furnished. + +Wire from The Author: + + Maybe not, but mightn't be same furniture. Have been stung + before. Can't be genuine. Too much of it. + +Wire from Miss Smith: + + Please yourself. + +Wire from The Author: + + Coming to investigate. Won't sleep in anything but pineapple + bed; won't sit in anything but carved chair; can't pray + without prie-dieu. If spurious will publicly gibbet you and + probably burn your house down. Hold southwest room my + arrival. + +Alicia laughed, and cuddled those yellow slips. + +"I knew this was an enchanted place!" she cried. "Oh, Sophy, it's +working! He's coming, he's coming, and he's the biggest ever, and +he's going to _stay_! Sophy, think of the advertising!" + +"He will probably be detestable. Geniuses are generally horrid to +live with. And there will be something the matter with his +digestion; there is always something the matter with their +digestion." + +"From swallowing all the flattery shoveled upon them, poor dears," +Alicia explained charitably. "Don't worry about his digestion: leave +it to Mary Magdalen's waffles. Hooray! Hynds House stock is +booming!" + +It was. + +From the head of our firm: + + _My dear Miss Smith_: + + I have your interesting letter and the delightful + photographs, which have so completely charmed Mrs. + Westmacote and me that we have decided it wouldn't be good + business to miss Hynds House on our trip South this year. + + Mrs. Westmacote asks if you could also accommodate a cousin + of hers, Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, a lady deeply + interested in the colonial homes of America. + + You must allow me heartily to congratulate you upon your + great good fortune in falling heir to such a wonderful old + place; and to wish you many happy and prosperous years in + it. + + I shall telegraph you when to expect us. With all good + wishes, + + Yours faithfully, + GEORGE PEABODY WESTMACOTE. + +Letter from Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, of Boston: + + _Dear Miss Smith_: + + My cousin Mrs. Westmacote, whom I have been visiting, showed + me your letter and the enchanting photographs of your house + which you were kind enough to send Mr. Westmacote. Hynds + House is just the one place I have long been looking + for!--an unspoiled colonial house, with historic + associations! + + It is perfect! I must see with my own eyes those Chelsea + figures on your drawing-room mantel, the luster and + Washington jugs in the dining-room, and the cabinets in the + hall. + + Sincerely yours, + EMMELINE PHELPS-PARSONS. + + P.S. I hope it is really true that there is an Influence in + Hynds House? I do so greatly long to come in contact with + the Occult and the Unknown! + +"Somewhere on the firing-line of fifty," mused Alicia. "A lady with +a soul. Don't you hear dear old Boston calling you, Sophy? Here's +one to put Miss Martha Hopkins's light under a bushel basket!" + +We had several other inquirers; and chose from them Mr. Chetwynd +Harrison-Gore and his daughter, English folk "doing" America and +delighted to include a Carolina colonial house in their trip; a +suffrage leader, whose throat needed a rest; and Morenas, the +illustrator. It seemed that Hynds House offered to each one +something that had been craved for. + +The Author pounced upon us two or three days before we expected him, +to take stock after his own fashion. I have heard The Author +commended for "the humor of his rare smile and the keen, kind +intellectuality of his remarkable eyes." Well, the smile was rare +enough; and of course there isn't any doubt about the man's +intellectuality. For the rest, he proved to be a tall, lanky, +stooping person, with a thin tanned face, outstanding ears, a high +nose, and long, blue-gray eyes half-hidden under drooping lids and +behind glasses. His hair was just hair. And he had the sort of +mustache that bristled like a cat's when he twisted his lip. + +So far as monetary success, and efficacious press-agents, and the +adulation, admiration, emulation, and envy of his contemporaries +went, he had nothing to complain of. He was lionized, quoted, +courted, flattered, reviewed, viewed through rose-colored +spectacles; and disillusioned, discontented, cynical, selfish, and, +of course, most horribly bored. He was gun-shy of women; he +suspected them of wanting to marry him. He was wary of men; he +suspected them of wanting to exploit him. He loathed children, who +were generally obstreperous and unnecessary editions of parents he +didn't admire. He didn't even trust the beautiful works of men's +hands. They, even they, were too often faked! If you had dug up the +indubitable mummy of the first Pharaoh from under the oldest of the +pyramids, The Author would have turned him over on his back and +hunted for the trade-mark of The Modern Mummy-makers: London, Paris, +and New York; Catalogue on Request. + +He stalked through Hynds House with slitted eyes and bristling +mustache--business of silent sleuth on the trail of the +furniture-fakir! He'd pause at each door and with an eagle glance +take a comprehensive survey; then, defensively, offensively, he +examined things in detail. From our rambling attics to our vast and +cavernous cellars did he go; and not a word crossed his lips until +he had completed this conandoyley examination. Then: + +"Telegraph form if you have one, please," he requested briefly. "I +wish to wire for my car. Put Johnson in the room next mine. +Johnson's my secretary." He looked at Alicia, reflectively. "Amiable +ass, Johnson," he volunteered. Then he went over to the tiled +fireplace--we were in the library--and bent worshipfully before it. + +"The finest bit of tile-work on this continent," he said, in a +hushed voice. "Absolutely perfect. And it belongs to a woman named +Smith!" + +"We know just how you feel about it," Alicia told him +sympathetically, while The Author turned red to his ears. "I have +often felt like that myself, when something I particularly wanted +was bought by somebody I was sure couldn't properly appreciate it. I +dare say I was mistaken," admitted Alicia, "just as mistaken as you +are now in thinking that Sophy and I aren't worthy of those tiles. +We are--all the more so because we never before had anything like +them." + +The spoiled darling of success looked at us intently; and a most +curious change came over his clever, bad-tempered face. His eyes are +as bright as ice, and have somewhat the same cold light in them. Now +a thaw set in and melted them, and a mottled red spread over his +sallow cheeks. + +"Miss Gaines," he said, abruptly, "your doll-baby face does your +intelligence an injustice--Miss Smith, I apologize." And before the +astonished and indignant Alicia could summon a withering retort, he +added heartily: "This whole place is quite the real thing, you +know--almost too good to be true and too true to be good. Would you +mind telling me how you happened to think of letting me in on it, +eh?" + +"Because we knew it _was_ the real thing," Alicia replied, +truthfully. + +"Do you know,"--The Author was plainly pleased--"that that is one of +the very nicest things that's ever been said to me? Because I really +_do_ know above a bit about genuine stuff." + +"It must be a great relief to you to hear something pleasant about +yourself that is also something true," I said with sympathy. The +Author grinned like a hyena, and Alicia giggled. "Because you must +be bored to extinction, having to listen to all sorts of people +ascribe to you all sorts of virtues that no one man could possibly +possess and remain human." I was remembering some of the fulsome +flubdub I'd read about him. + +"Hark to her!" grinned The Author. "What! you don't believe all the +nice things you've read about me?" + +"I do not." + +"You don't in the least look or write like a dehumanized saint, you +know," supplemented Alicia, laughing. + +"What _do_ I look like, then?" He sat on the edge of a table and +cuddled a bony knee. Behind his glasses his eyes began to twinkle. + +"You look more like yourself than you do like your photographs," +decided Alicia. + +The Author threw up his hands. + +"And now, tell me this, please: How, when, where, and from whom, did +you acquire the supreme art of aiding and abetting an old house to +grow young again without losing its character?" + +"We were born," Alicia explained, "with the inherent desire to do +just what we have been able to do here. This house gave us our big +chance. But it wouldn't have been so--so in keeping with itself," +she was feeling for the right words, "if it hadn't been for Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik." + +The Author pricked up his intellectual ears. His eyes narrowed. + +"Jelnik? I knew a Jelnik, an Austrian alienist; met him at dinner at +the American Ambassador's in Vienna; quiet, unassuming, pleasant +man, and one of the greatest doctors in Europe." + +"Mr. Jelnik is Doctor Jelnik's son." + +"What!" shrieked The Author. And with unfeigned amazement: "In the +name of high heaven, what is Jelnik's son doing _here_?" + +"Mr. Jelnik's mother was a Miss Hynds. She met and married your +doctor abroad." + +That sixth sense possessed by him to an unusual degree, warned him +that he was on the trail of Copy. + +"May I ask questions?" he demanded. + +"Of course." + +"You inherited this property from an old aunt, I believe?" + +"She wasn't my aunt, really. She married my mother's uncle, Johnny +Scarlett." + +"I see. And Jelnik's mother was a Miss Hynds. How long has he been +here?" + +"For some time before we came." + +"Near neighbor of yours?" + +"Yes," Alicia put in; "and Doctor Richard Geddes is our neighbor on +the other side. His grandmother was a Miss Hynds." + +"Pardon a writer-man's curiosity," begged The Author, smiling. "But +this house is unusual, very unusual. While I am here I shall look up +its history. It should make good copy." + +Having a pretty shrewd idea of The Author's powers of finding out +what he wanted to find out, we thought it better that he should hear +that history, as we knew it. If the mystery had ever been solved, +the tragedy of Hynds House would have had but passing interest for +The Author. But the undiscovered piqued and puzzled him and aroused +his combative egotism. + +From the pictured face of Freeman--dark, stern, uncommunicative--he +trotted back to the drawing room to look again at the boyish face of +little Richard leaning against his pretty mother's knees; at the +haughty, handsome face of James Hampden; and at beautiful dark +Jessamine, who had a long black curl straying across the shoulder of +a blue frock, and a curled red lip, and a breast of snow. + +"Freeman was not a crook; his face is hard, stern, bigoted, +secretive, but honest. Yet if he didn't do it himself what was he +trying to tell when death cut off his wind? If he did it, where did +he hide the plunder? Here in this house? His family must have known +every nook and cranny as well as he did himself, and he could be +sure they'd pull it to pieces in the search that would ensue. + +"If Richard were the thief, to whom did he give the loot? If the +gems had been put upon the market, some trace of them must have been +discovered. Remains: Who got them? Where did they go?" + +"That's what the unhappy people in this house asked a century ago, +and there was no answer," I remarked, soberly. + +"And that poor woman Jessamine went mad trying to solve it!" he +said, looking at her with commiseration. And after a pause: "And so +the lady who left her husband's grandniece the house of her +forebears was Freeman's daughter: and the Austrian doctor's son is +Richard's great-great-grandson! I meet Jelnik _pere_ in Vienna, and +come to Hyndsville, South Carolina, to meet Jelnik _fils_. H'm! +Decidedly, the situation has nice possibilities!" + +Whereupon he took note-book and fountain-pen from his coat pocket +and in the most composed manner began to jot down the outstanding +features of Hynds House history. + +"It will give me something to puzzle over while I'm here," he +remarked, complacently. It did! + +The Author approved of Hynds House. It had all the charm of a new +and quaint field of exploration and research, and there was nothing +in it to offend his hypercritical judgment. I have a shrewd +suspicion that Mary Magdalen's cooking played no mean part in his +satisfaction. His prowess as a trencherman aroused the admiration +and respect of Fernolia, who waited on table. Fernolia had learned +to admire herself in her smart apron and cap, and to serve +creditably enough. Only twice did she fall from grace; once was the +morning The Author broke his own record for waffles. Fernolia, +excited and astonished, placed the last platter before him, raised +the cover with a flourish, and remarked with deep meaning: + +"_Dem's all!_" + +The second time was when we had what Mary Magdalen calls "mulatto +rice," which is a dish built upon a firm foundation of small strips +of bacon, onion, stewed tomatoes, and rice, and a later and last +addition of deliciously browned country sausages. Fernolia, beaming +upon The Author hospitably, broke her parole: + +"You ain't called to skimp yo'self none on dat rice," she told him +confidentially. "De cook done put yo' name in de pot _big_. She say +she glad we-all got man in de house to 'preciate vittles. Yes-_suh_, +Ma'y Magdalen aim to make you bust yo' buttonholes whilst you hab de +chanst." + +I am told that The Author always makes a great hit when he tells +that on himself, and is considered tremendously clever because he +can imitate Fernolia's soft South Carolina drawl. + +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, whom he managed to meet within the week, +aroused The Author's professional interest. For once his tried and +tested powers of turning other people's minds inside out failed +utterly. His innocent-sounding queries, his adroit leads, were +smilingly turned aside. The defense, so far as Mr. Jelnik was +concerned, was ridiculously simple: he didn't want to talk about +himself and he didn't do it. + +He was perfectly willing to talk, when the humor seized him, and he +did talk, brilliantly, wittily, freely, and impersonally. The +egoistic "I" was conspicuous by its absence. And while he talked you +could see the agile antennae of The Author's winged mind feeling +after the soul-string that might lead him through the mazes of this +unusual character. That he could be deftly diverted filled The +Author with chagrin mingled with wonder. + +He manoeuvered for an invitation to the gray cottage and secured +it with suspicious ease; called, and had a glass of most excellent +wine in his host's simplest of bachelor living-rooms; made the +closer acquaintance of Boris--he didn't care for dogs--and of +self-contained, dark-faced Daoud, Mr. Jelnik's East Indian +man-servant; and came home dissatisfied and determined. He scented +"copy," and a born writer after copy is, next to an Apache after a +scalp or a Dyak after his enemy's head, the most ruthless of created +beings. He will pick his mother's naked soul to pieces, bore into +his wife's living brain, dissect his daughter's quivering heart, +tear across his sister's mind, rip up his father's life and his best +friend's character, lay bare the tomb itself, and make for himself +an ink of tears and blood that he may write what he finds. Of such +is the kingdom of Genius. + +And in the meantime the wondrous news that The Author himself was +staying at Hynds House, percolated through Hyndsville and soaked to +the bone. The Author was too big a figure to be ignored, even by +South Carolina people. Something had to be done. But how shall one +become acquainted with a notoriously unfriendly and gun-shy +celebrity, a personage of such note that every utterance means +newspaper space; and at the same time manage utterly to ignore and +cast into outer darkness the people with whom the great one is +staying? + +The town felt itself put upon its mettle. The first move was made by +Miss Martha Hopkins. It was understood that if anybody could clear +the way, carry a difficult position with skill and aplomb, that +somebody was Miss Martha Hopkins. + +She didn't bear down directly upon The Author: that would have been +crude. She opened her campaign by a flank movement upon Alicia and +me, in her capacity of secretary and treasurer of the missionary +society. + +Miss Hopkins sailed into Hynds House on a perfect afternoon, to +discuss with us a proposed rummage-sale which was to benefit the +heathen. She wasn't really worrying about the heathen: he had all +the rest of his benighted life to get himself saved in, hadn't he? +All the while she sat there and talked about him, she was really +loaded to the muzzle with pertinent remarks to affluent authors. + +She had come with the hope of chancing upon the great man himself; +and, failing that, she meant to pump Alicia and me of enough +material to, say, enable her to use a part of her stock of pet +adjectives in the paper she would prepare for the next meeting of +the literary society. She had a pretty stock of adjectives--plump, +purple words like _lyric_, and _liquid_, and _plastic_, and +_subtile_, and _poignancy_, with every now and then a _chiaoscuro_ +thrown in for good measure; and a whole melting-pot full of "rare +emotional experiences," "art that was almost intuitive in its +passion, so subtly did it"--oh, do all sorts of things!--and +"handling the plastic outlines of the theme with rare emotional +skill and mastery of technique," "purest lyricism lifted to heights +of poignancy,"--all that sort of stuff, you know. Next time a +writer, or, better still, a fiddler or a pianist comes to your town, +look in your home paper the morning after, and you'll see it. + +As it happened, The Author was not at home. His secretary had +arrived a day or two before, and after unloading a systemful of copy +upon that faithful beast of burden, The Author had given himself a +half-holiday with old Riedriech, who knew quite enough about old +furniture to win his interest and affection. + +Miss Hopkins, then, had Alicia and me to herself. Sedately we +discussed rummage-sales, and the effect of cotton shirts upon the +adolescent cannibal; and all the while Miss Hopkins was stealthily +watching doors and windows and hoping that high heaven would send +The Author to her hands. We hadn't so much as mentioned his name. It +pleased us to sit there and watch her trying to make us do so. + +The iron knocker on the front door sounded. And ushered in by +Queenasheeba, there stood Nicholas Jelnik with great gray Boris +beside him, and beauty and glamour and romance upon him like a +light. Miss Hopkins had seen him on the streets, but hadn't met him +personally. I don't think she relished the fact that she had to come +to Hynds House to do so. Nor could she save herself from the crudity +of staring with all her eyes at this handsome offshoot of the +Hyndses, with what in a less polite person might well have been +called avid curiosity. + +"Miss Leetchy," (he had gaily borrowed Fernolia's pronunciation of +Alicia's name), "I have brought you the butter-scotch your soul +hankers after. I fear you can never hope to grow up, Miss Leetchy, +while you cherish a jejune passion for butter-scotch." + +"Oh, I don't know. It might have been fudge!" Alicia replied airily. +"But thank you, Mr. Jelnik: it was very nice of you to remember." + +"Yes. I have such an excellent memory," said he, blandly. "Miss +Smith, this preserved ginger is laid at your shrine. If you offer me +a piece or two, I shall accept with thanks: I like preserved ginger, +myself.--Boris, you'll prefer butter-scotch. You may ask Miss Gaines +to give you a piece." + +Miss Hopkins, it appeared, despised butter-scotch, and abhorred +preserved ginger. + +"I saw The Author hiking across lots a while since. Nice, +open-hearted, neighborly man, The Author.--Oh, by the way, Miss +Smith: is it, or is it not written in the Book of Darwin that the +gadfly is one of the distinct evolutionary links in the descent of +man?" + +"Good heavens, certainly not!" cried Miss Hopkins. And she looked +strangely upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik. + +"No? Thank you. I was in doubt," murmured Mr. Jelnik. The golden +flecks danced in and out of his eyes. "But we were speaking of The +Author: may I ask how The Author appeals to you as a human being, +Miss Hopkins?" + +"I do not know him as a human being," Miss Hopkins admitted. + +Mr. Jelnik looked surprised. His eyebrows went up. + +"Oh, come, now!" he demurred. "He isn't so bad as all _that_!" + +"Oh, dear me, no!" Alicia protested, in a shocked voice. "He may +have abrupt manners and say unexpected things, but he is perfectly +respectable, Miss Hopkins! There's never been a _breath_ against his +character. I thought you knew," purred the hussy, demurely. "Why, +he's dined at the White House, and lunched and motored and yachted +with royalties, and lectured before the D.A.R.'s themselves! And he +belongs to at least a dozen societies. There are,"--Alicia was +enjoying her naughty self immensely--"good authors and bad authors. +Sometimes the bad authors are good, and sometimes the good authors +are bad. But our author is more than either: he's It!" + +"You entirely and strangely misunderstand me." Miss Hopkins spoke +with the deadly gentleness of suppressed fury. "I had no slightest +intention of reflecting upon the character of so eminent a writer, +with whose career, Miss Gaines, I am thoroughly familiar. I was +merely trying to explain that I had never met him." + +"Oh, I see. Of course! I should have remembered that!" + +Miss Hopkins's entire contempt for Alicia's mentality overcame any +suspicion she might have entertained. Also, she had come determined +to discover what she could about The Author, and she was not one +lightly to be put aside. She said, smiling tolerantly: + +"Of course you should! But mayn't I congratulate _you_ upon knowing +him? Having him here in Hynds House almost justifies turning the old +place into a boarding-house, doesn't it?" + +"The Author," Mr. Jelnik remarked gently, "has a very sensitive +soul. I shudder to think what the effect upon him would be were he +to hear himself referred to as a boarder. My dear Miss Hopkins, +never, never let him hear you designate him 'boarder'!" + +"Who's talking about boarders?" asked a hearty voice, and Doctor +Richard Geddes came in like a gale of mountain air. + +"Miss Hopkins. She thinks The Author's presence almost justifies the +turning of Hynds House into a boarding-house," answered Mr. Jelnik. +He added, thoughtfully, "Curious notion; isn't it?" + +"Martha has plenty more," said the doctor, bluntly. "Boarding-house? +Well, supposing? What was it before? A hyena-cage, Martha, a +hyena-cage, into which you'd be the last to venture your nose, my +dear woman! I say, put on your bonnets, all of you, and let's have a +spin in the fresh air. The roads are gorgeous. You can come too, +Jelnik: there's room for five." + +Mr. Jelnik was desolated: he had a pressing engagement. Miss Hopkins +rose precipitately. She also had an engagement; besides, she liked +to walk. People needed to walk more than they did. The reason why +one saw so many bad figures nowadays, was that people lolled around +in automobiles instead of walking. + +"Well, walking is certainly good for you, Martha. It helps you to +reduce," the doctor agreed. Miss Hopkins said dryly that the little +walking she intended to do just then wouldn't affect her weight any. +And that Doctor Geddes should himself take to walking: men always +got fat as they neared fifty. + +"Fat! Fifty!" roared the doctor, with enraged astonishment. "Why, +I'm not by some years as old as you are, Martha! You were several +classes ahead of me in school, don't you remember? I am exactly +thirty-nine years old, and as you know everything else, you ought to +know that!" + +Miss Hopkins studied him with a balefully level eye. + +"You really can't blame anybody for forgetting it, Richard," she +said, ambiguously. + +"You are to recollect, Geddes, that a woman is always as young as +she looks," (Mr. Jelnik bowed, smilingly, to Miss Hopkins), "and a +man is older than he feels," he added, for the doctor's benefit. + +"All right. Let's say I feel as good as Martha looks," the doctor's +momentary ill humor vanished. Miss Hopkins smiled. She had stuck her +claws into him and drawn blood; but her fur was still ruffled. + +Mr. Jelnik made his adieus, Boris offering each of us a polite paw. + +"And now," the doctor ordered briskly, "to your spinning, jades, to +your spinning! Into my car, the three of you! No, Martha, I will +_not_ take a refusal; you shall not walk: you've got to come along, +if I have to tuck you under my arm. I don't care if you never +reduce. What do you want to reduce for, anyhow? You're all right +just as you are! There! are you satisfied?" + +We stood by passively while the masterful doctor heckled and hustled +the unhappy Center of Culture into his car. With heaven knows what +feelings, she found herself seated beside me, Sophy Smith, while +Alicia, beside the doctor, tossed gay remarks over her shoulder. +Miss Hopkins realized that all Hyndsville would witness what she +herself knew to be high-handed capture by force, but which must +hideously resemble capitulation; and she also realized that +explanations never explain. + +I respected her misery enough to keep silent, and she made no +attempt to converse. Her hat slid forward at a rakish angle over one +ear, and her hair blew about her face in stringy wisps, as the +doctor broke the speed laws on the long, level stretches of quiet +roads. When we came to a rough spot she bounced up and down (one +might hear her breath exhaled in a--well, yes, in a grunt) but she +made no complaint, uttered no protest. She was a shackled and +voiceless victim, until we finally drew up at her own gate, after an +hour's jaunt, and allowed her to escape. + +"Why, Martha, our little spin has given you a fine color!" remarked +the doctor, genuinely pleased. Two conspicuously red spots shone in +Miss Hopkins's cheeks, and her eyes were extremely bright. "We'll +have to take you out with us again," he added, genially. + +"Shall you, Richard?" muttered Miss Hopkins, and scuttled up her +front path, + + Like one who in a lonesome wood + Doth walk in fear and dread, + Because he knows a frightful fiend + Doth close behind him tread! + +By and large, I should say that the honors were with Alicia. + +The Author's secretary was pacing up and down the garden when we +reached home, with Potty Black careering after him and every now and +then dashing into the shrubbery to put to flight Beautiful Dog, who +was also enamored of the young man with the nice smile and the good +brown eyes. He had a great affection for animals, as they seemed to +understand. + +Beautiful Dog laid aside, for his sake, his fear of white people, +and slunk after him fawningly, wagging what did duty as a tail, and +showing every tooth in an ear-to-ear grin. At sight of us, Beautiful +Dog gave a dismal yelp and disappeared. + +"Let's sit in the library," coaxed the secretary. "I want you +please to allow me to hold in my hands your copy of 'Purchas his +Pilgrimes.' The Author dreams about that book out loud. Oh, yes, +another thing I want to ask you: what sort of perfume do you use, +and where do you get it?" + +My scalp prickled. + +"I noticed it in the upper hall last night," went on the secretary, +innocently. "It was pervasive, but at the same time so delicate, so +elusive, that I couldn't determine what it was. I am very sensitive +to perfumes." + +"So are we," Alicia told him. "And if what you think you smelled is +what we think we smell, it isn't a--a regular perfume. It's a--a--a +something that belongs to Hynds House." + +The library was flooded with the ruddy light of sunset. Every bit of +color in the big room stood out against a golden background, and a +great golden spear fell across the dark, brooding face of Freeman +Hynds above the old tiled fireplace. In that rosy glow he seemed to +look down at us with living eyes. + +"Is that so?" The secretary stopped; and his head went up and his +nose wrinkled. For the "something that belonged to Hynds House" +walked upon the air with invisible feet. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +PEACOCKS AND IVORY + + +"Sophy, do you remember the night we talked it over, and decided to +come here, and you were afraid of the new soil's effect upon +yourself?" + +"Of course. Why?" + +"Oh, because." + +"Because why?" + +"Just because.--I wish to gracious you had a little saving vanity, +Sophy Smith!" + +"And what, then, is _this_?" I asked ironically, and rustled my +skirts. For the Westmacotes were to arrive that night, in time for +dinner, and I, standing before the mirror in my room, was what +Alicia called "really dressed" for the first time in my life. + +"From your point of view, this is a business necessity. From mine, +it is applied morality. Why, Sophy, you're _stunning_! Here, sit +down: I have to loosen up that hair a bit." + +"Now!" said she, when she had critically surveyed her finished work +and found it good, "Now, Sophy Smith, you are no longer efficient +and utilitarian; you are effective and decorative, thank heaven!" + +Really, clothes do make a tremendous difference, after all. Why, +I--Well, I no longer looked root-bound. + +"I said you'd put out new leaves and begin to bloom!" Alicia +exulted. We bowed to the Sophy in the glass, a small and slender +person with quantities of fair hair, a round white chin, and steady +blue eyes. For the rest, she had a short nose and the rather wide +mouth of a boy. She wasn't what you'd call a beautiful person, but +she wasn't displeasing to the eye. + +"_Vale_, plain Sophy Smith!" cried Alicia, "_Ave_, dear Lady of +Hynds House! We who about to live salute you!" + +The Westmacotes were delighted with Alicia. The Head had noticed her +just about as much as a Head notices a pale file-clerk in a white +shirt-waist and a black skirt. This radiant rose-maiden--"little +Dawn-rose," old Riedriech called her--was new to him; and so, I +fancy, was a Miss Smith in such a frock as I was wearing. He, as +well as his wife and Miss Phelps-Parsons, accepted us at our +face-value, with the background of Hynds House outlining us. + +Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons was a lady with a soul. She said she +had psychic consciousness and a clear green aura, and that she had +been an Egyptian priestess in Thebes, in the time of Sesostris. In +proof of this she showed us a fine little bronze Osiris holding a +whip in one hand and the ankh in the other. ("My dear, the moment I +saw him, I knew I had once prayed to him!") and she always wore a +scarab ring. She had bought both in an antique-shop just off +Washington Street. I thought this rather a far cry from Thebes, +myself, but The Author insisted that if a Theban vestal of the time +of Sesostris _had_ to reincarnate, she would naturally and +inevitably come to life a Boston one. + +The Author hadn't taken any too kindly to the notion of other people +coming to Hynds House. He grumbled that he had hoped he had at last +found a quiet haven, a place that fitted him like a glove; he +protested piercingly against having it "cluttered up with +uninteresting, gobbling, gabbling, ordinary people." + +"You came too late. You should have been here with Great-Aunt +Sophronisba," Alicia told him, tartly. "You'd have been ideal +companions, both of you beware-of-the-doggy, hair-trigger-tempery, +all-to-your-selfish." + +The Author gasped, and rubbed his eyes. Never, never, in all his +pampered life, had one so spoken to him. + +"Why, of all the cheek!" exploded The Author. "Am I to be flouted +thus by a piece of pink-and-whiteness just escaped from the nursery +pap-spoon?" + +"Out of the mouths of babes--" insinuated Alicia. + +The Author grinned. And his grin is redeeming. + +"Sweet-and near-twenty," he explained. "I am not exactly +all-to-myselfish, but I demand plenty of elbow-room in my existence. +Generally speaking, my own society bores me less than the society of +the mutable many. I like Hynds House. And I like you two women. You +are not tiresome to the ear, wearisome to the mind, nor displeasing +to the eye. I am even sensible of a distinct feeling of satisfaction +in knowing that you are somewhere around the house. You belong. But +I'm hanged if I want to see strangers come in. I object to +strangers. Why are strangers necessary?" + +"For the same reason that you were." + +"I?" The Author's eyebrows were almost lost in his hair. "My dear, +deluded child, I knew this house, and you, and Sophy Smith, before +you were born! I knew you," The Author declared unblushingly, +"before _I_ was born! Now, am I a stranger?" + +"Then you ought to know why Sophy and I have just got to have +people, the sort of people who are coming." She paused. "_We_ +haven't best-seller royalties piled up to the roof!" + +"No," said The Author, bitterly, "but I have. That's why I am +forever plagued with strangers. That's why, when I discover a place +and people that suit me to perfection, I can't keep 'em to myself! +Oh, da--drat it all, anyhow!" + +"But they aren't coming to see you. They're coming to see Hynds +House," Alicia reminded him soothingly. "Besides, I don't think +they're the sort of folks that care much for authors," she finished, +encouragingly. + +"They'll care about _me_" grumbled The Author glumly. "But let 'em +come and be hanged to them! I shall take--" + +"Soothing syrup?" + +"Long walks!" snarled The Author. "I shall work all night and be +invisible all day." + +The Westmacotes, as Alicia said, didn't greatly care for authors, +though they sat up and took polite notice of this one. (One owed +that to one's self-respect.) Only Miss Emmeline paid more than +passing attention to him, though her interest really centered in Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik, who was dining with us that night, as was Doctor +Richard Geddes. + +Mr. Jelnik's presence had the effect of lightening The Author's +gloom. His eyes brightened, his dejection changed into alertness, +and there began that subtle game of under-the-surface thrust and +parry that seemed inevitable when the two met. Mr. Westmacote +listened with quiet enjoyment. His dinner was to his taste, Hynds +House more than came up to his expectations, Alicia was Cinderella +after the fairy's wand had passed over her, _I_ had ceased to be a +mere person and become a personage; and he found here such men as +Doctor Geddes, The Author, and Nicholas Jelnik. The Head smiled at +his wife, and was at peace with the world. + +Miss Emmeline had already discovered the Lowestoft and Spode pieces +in our built-in cupboards; that there were two perfect apostle jugs +in the cabinet in the hall: that our Chelsea figures were lovelier +than any she had heretofore seen; and that Hynds House, in which +everything was genuine, had an atmosphere that appealed to her soul, +or maybe matched her clear-green aura. Anyhow, the house reached out +for Miss Emmeline as with hands and laid its spell upon her +enduringly. + +She sat beside me, with Alicia's pet album of Confederate generals +on her knees. + +"I never thought I'd have a sentimental regard for rebels," she +confessed. "But, oh, they were gallant and romantic figures, when +one looks at their old photographs here in Hynds House. I am +Massachusetts to the bone, but I don't want to hear 'Marching +through Georgia' while I'm here!" + +Mr. Jelnik, overhearing her, laughed. "Perhaps I may find for you +something more in keeping with Hynds House," he said, and sauntered +over to the old piano. Unexpectedly it came to life. And he began to +sing: + + It was the silent, solemn hour + When night and morning meet, + In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, + And stood at William's feet. + Her face was like an April morn + Clad in a wintry cloud: + And clay-cold was her lily hand, + That held her sable shroud. + +The Author shaded his eyes with his hand, his gaze riveted upon the +singer. Alicia leaned forward, lips parted, face like an uplifted +flower, eyes large with wonder and delight. The Confederate generals +slid from Miss Emmeline's lap and lay face downward, forgotten. +Westmacote's faded little wife, who had no children, crept closer to +her big husband; and gently, unobtrusively, he reached out and took +her hand in his warm grasp. + + Why did you promise love to me + And not that promise keep? + Why did you swear mine eyes were bright, + Yet leave those eyes to weep? + Why did you say my face was fair, + And yet that face forsake? + How could you win my virgin heart, + Yet leave that heart to break? + +I am sure there is no lovelier and more touching ballad in all our +English treasury than that sad, simple, and most beautiful old song. +And he had set it to an air as simple and as perfect as its own +words, an old-world air that suited it and his rich and flexible +voice. + +"Why, Jelnik!" exclaimed Doctor Geddes, in a voice of pure +astonishment, "I knew you could tinkle out a tune on a piano, but, +man, I didn't dream it was in you to sing like this!" And he stared +at his cousin. + +"I'd make bold to swear that Mr. Jelnik has a dozen more surprises +up his sleeve, if he chose to let us see them," The Author said +pleasantly. + +"My father's system of education included music. For which I praise +him in the gates," Mr. Jelnik replied casually. + +"'Tinkle out a tune on a piano'!" breathed Alicia, and cast a look +of deep disdain upon the blundering doctor. "Why, I've never in all +my life heard anybody sing like that!" + +But I saw him through a mist, and felt my heart ache and burn in my +breast, and wondered what he was doing here in my house that might +have been his house, and how I was going to walk through my life +after he had gone out of it. + +I had a wild desire to run outside into the dark night and the +hushed garden, away from everybody and weep and weep, despairingly. +Because a veil had been torn from my eyes this night, and I knew +that the cruellest thing that can happen to a woman had happened to +me. There could be but one thing more bitter--that he or anybody +else in the world should know it. + +So I sat there, dumb, while everybody else said pleasant things to +him, their voices sounding afar, far off. + +After a while we went into the living-room where our new piano is, +and he played for us--Hungarian things, I think. Then he drifted +into Chopin, and Alicia stood by and turned his music for him. + +"Those two," whispered Miss Emmeline, "are the most idyllic figures +I have ever seen." I think she sighed as she said it. "Youth is the +most beautiful thing in the world," she added. + +The Westmacotes, weary after a long journey, retired early. Mr. +Jelnik and Doctor Geddes had gone off together. The secretary had to +finish a chapter. The Author lingered to ask, oddly enough, if I had +the original plan of Hynds House. Did I know who designed it? + +"Why don't you interview Judge Gatchell?" + +"I did. He was polite and friendly enough, but knows no more than +is strictly legal. He told me he found Hynds House here when he +arrived and expected to leave it here when he departed. And Geddes +knows no more. Geddes isn't interested in Hynds House by itself," +finished The Author, with a crooked smile. + +"Perhaps Mr. Jelnik may have some family papers." + +"Perhaps he may. I'd give something for a whack at those papers, +Miss Smith." + +"Why not ask him to let you see them, then?" + +"Tut, tut!" said The Author, crossly, and took himself off. + +When I was kimonoed, braided, and slippered, Alicia in like raiment +came in from her room next to mine, sat down on the floor, and +leaned her head against my knees, with her cheek against my hand. + +For a while, as women do, we discussed the events of the evening. +Both of us had deep cause for gratification; yet both of us were +strangely subdued. + +"Sophy, Peacocks and Ivory is a very wonderful person, isn't he?" +hesitated Alicia, after a long pause. She didn't lift her head; and +the cheek against my hand was warmer than usual. + +"Yes," I agreed, quietly, "so wonderful that something never to be +replaced will have gone out of our lives when he goes away, and +doesn't come back any more. For that is what the Nicholas Jelniks +do, my dear." + +"Is it?" Again she spoke after a pause. "I wonder! Somehow, +I--Sophy, he belongs here. He's--why, Sophy, he's a part of the +glamour." + +"I'm afraid glamour hasn't part nor place in plain folks' lives." + +"But we aren't plain folks any more, either, Sophy," she insisted. +"Why--why--_we're_ part of the glamour, too!" + +"That is just about half true." + +Alicia ignored this. She asked, instead: + +"Did you hear what that great blundering doctor said about tinkling +out a tune on a piano?" + +I could hear Mr. Jelnik praised by her or doubted by The Author. But +somehow I could not bear any criticism of Doctor Geddes just then. I +said stiffly: + +"I have learned to appreciate Doctor Geddes." + +"You are far too fair-minded not to." Presently: "Sophy?" + +"Uh-huh." + +"We aren't ever going to be sorry we came here--together--are we, +Sophy? And we won't ever let anybody come between us. Not anybody. +Not The Author--nor his secretary--nor whatever guests come--nor Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik--nor--nor Doctor Richard Geddes." Her head pressed +closer to my knees. + +"We came first, you and I," said Alicia, in a muffled whisper. "We +are more to each other than any of them can be to us. You'll +remember that, won't you?" + +"I will remember, you absurd Alicia!" But I did not ask my dear girl +what her incoherent words might mean. I did not ask why the soft +cheek against my hand was wet. + +As I have said before, Hynds House is but two stories high, with +deep cellars under it, and an immense attic overhead; an attic all +cut up into nooks and corners, and twists and turns, and sloping +roofs and dormer windows, and two or three shallow steps going up +here, and two or three more going down there, and passages and doors +where you'd never look for them. We had never been able fully to +explore our attic. It was Ali Baba's cave to us, with half its +treasures unguessed and every trunk and box whispering, "Say 'Open, +Sesame,' to me, and see what you'll find!" + +While I was sitting with Alicia's head against my knee, a light, +swift footstep sounded overhead in the attic, followed by a sort of +stumble, as if somebody had slipped on one of those unexpected +steps. Alicia rose quickly. + +"Sophy," she breathed, "I have thought, once or twice, that I heard +somebody walking in the attic." + +"We will soon find out who it is, then," said I. Noiselessly we +stole out into the hall, past the sleeping Westmacotes, and Miss +Emmeline Phelps-Parsons who so longed to come in closer contact with +the occult and unknown. We moved like ghosts, ourselves, our +felt-soled mules making no sound. + +The Author opened his door just as we approached it, and held up an +imperious finger. + +"Did you hear it, too?" he whispered. And walking ahead of us, he +stole up the cork-screw stairway at the end of the side hall, lifted +the latch of the attic door, and stepped inside. + +It was frightfully dark up there. If you peered through the +uncurtained windows you could see tree-tops tossing like black waves +against the dark sky, and in between them rolling clouds, and little +bright patchwork spaces of stars. And it was so quiet you could hear +your heart beat, and your breathing seemed to rattle in your ears. +We strained our eyes, seeking to pierce the gloom, stealing forward +step by step. A board creaked, noisily; and then--I could have sworn +it--then something seemed to move across one of the dormer windows. +It was so vague, so shadowy, that one could not distinguish its +outline; one could only think that something moved. + +The Author gave an exclamation and switched on his electric torch, +trying to focus the circle of light upon that particular window. +There was nothing there. Only, it seemed to me that something, +incredibly swift and silent, flashed down one of the bewildering +turns to which our attic is addicted. But when we ran forward, the +passage was empty. We brought up at the red brick square of one of +the chimney stacks. + +Almost savagely The Author flashed his light over every inch of wall +and floor. Nothing. But on the close and musty air stole, not a +sound, but a scent. + +The Author swung around and trotted back. The window across which we +thought we had seen something move was fastened from the inside, and +there were one or two wooden boxes and a leather-covered trunk in +the dormer recess. He sniffed hound-like around these, and with an +exclamation leaned over. Behind the trunk crouched--Potty Black, +with a mouse clamped in her jaws. + +"For heaven's sake!" cried Alicia. "The cat! Sophy, what we heard +was the cat!" + +"Let us go," said The Author. And feeling rather silly, we trailed +after him. + +"You see," said I, "there is nothing. There never is anything." + +"Come in my room for a minute," The Author whispered, and there was +that in his voice which made us obey. + +Inside his door, he opened his hand. In his palm was a soiled and +crumpled scrap of tough, parchment-like paper about the size of an +ordinary playing-card, so frayed and creased that one had difficulty +in deciphering the writing on it. There clung to it a faint and +unforgetable scent. + +"It was behind the trunk, partly under the cat's black paw. I +smelled it when I leaned over, and I thought we might as well have a +look at it." said The Author. + +And on the following page is what The Author had found. + +'"Shades of E.A. Poe, and Robert Louis the Beloved! What have we +here?" cried The Author, joyously, and stood on one leg like a +stork. "Was there a Hynds woman named Helen? 'Turn Hellen's Key +three tens and three?' Some keyhole! I say, Miss Smith, let me keep +this for a while, will you?" + +"Do, Sophy, let him keep it!" pleaded Alicia. + + + {~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~} + { _Turne Hellens Keye_ } + { _Three Tennes & Three_ } + { _Ye Watcher in ye Darke Thoult See_ } + { } + { (*B*) } + { } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { . . . . . } + { } + { _As Neede Shall Rise_ } + { _So Mote It Bee_ } + { } + '~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~' + +"I'll take the best care of it, Miss Smith; indeed I will!" The +Author promised. "Look here: I'll lock it in the clothes-closet, in +the breast pocket of my coat." As he spoke, he opened the +cedar-lined closet, that was almost as big as a modern hall bedroom, +and put the paper in the breast pocket of his coat. Locking the +door, he placed the key under his pillow, and beside it a new and +businesslike Colt automatic. + +"There!" said The Author, confidently. "Nobody can get into that +closet without first tackling _me_. Now you girls go to bed. +To-morrow we'll tackle the unraveling." + +And we, remembering of a sudden that we were pig-tailed and +kimonoed, and that The Author himself resembled a step-ladder with a +shawl draped around it, departed hurriedly. + +He was late at the breakfast-table next morning. Gloom and +abstraction sat visibly upon him. He left his secretary to bear the +brunt of conversation with the Westmacotes and Miss Emmeline. For +once he failed to do justice to Mary Magdalen's hot biscuit, and +ignored Fernolia's astonished and concerned stare; even a whispered, +"Honey, is you-all got a misery anywheres?" failed to rouse him. I +found him, after a while, waiting for me in the library. + +"Miss Smith,"--The Author strode restlessly up and down--"this house +has a peculiar effect upon people; a very peculiar effect. Since I +came here, I have learned to walk in my sleep." And seeing my look +of astonishment, "I walked in my sleep last night. And I took that +bit of doggerel out of my coat pocket, locked the closet door, and +replaced the key under my pillow." + +"How strange! And where did you put it?" I wondered. + +"Exactly: where did I put it?" repeated The Author, rumpling his +hair with both hands. "That's what I want to know, myself. I've +looked everywhere in my room, and in Johnson's, and I can't find +the thing. It's gone," and he stalked out, with his shoulders +hunched to his ears. + +I sat still, staring out at the window. There was a thing I hadn't +told The Author, or even Alicia. I had no idea what the "bit of +doggerel" meant, if, indeed, it meant anything. But when I had held +Freeman Hynds's old diary in my hands, between the two pages +following the last entry had been a creased and soiled piece of +paper. I had seen it out of the tail of my eye, as the saying is. It +was only a glimpse, but one trained to handle many papers, as I had +been, has a quick and an accurate eye. And I knew that the paper +found by The Author in the attic, and now lost again, was the paper +I had seen in Freeman Hynds's diary. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE JUDGMENT OF SPRING + + +Judge Gatchell's nephews and nieces, brought by that punctilious +gentleman to call upon Miss Alicia Gaines, found her enchanting and +cried it to the circumambient air. It was as if the voice of April +had summoned the cohorts of Spring. For fresh-faced boys of a sudden +appeared in increasing numbers; and flower-faced girls came +fluttering into Hynds House like butterflies. They cared for its +history and its hatreds not a fig: what has April to do with last +November? The faith of Youth has a clearer-eyed wisdom, a sweeter, +sounder justice than the sourer verdict of the mature. For theirs is +the judgment of Spring. By this sign they conquer. + +Susy Gatchell enlisted Mary Meade and Helen Fenwick, and these three +held all younger Hyndsville in the hollow of their pink palms. After +which, as Doctor Richard Geddes told me wrathfully, you "couldn't +put your foot down without running the risk of stepping on some +little cockerel trying to crow around Hynds House." + +The tide was turning in our direction. Also, we were in daily +contact with really worth-while people, people that otherwise we +should have met only in books, magazines, and newspapers. And they +liked us. The amazing miracle was that we, also we, were their sort +of folk! + +I knew I was being given unbuyable things. One could not live under +the same roof with thin dark Luis Morenas and view what magic his +pencil worked, without learning somewhat of the holiness of creative +work. One couldn't listen to The Author without being somewhat +brightened by his daring wit, his glowing genius; nor live face to +face with big Westmacote without revering the broadness of the +American master spirit, to which Big Business is only a part of the +Great Game. As for Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, it didn't take +Alicia and me long to discover what real depths underlay that +Boston-spinster mind of hers. + +And you simply couldn't breathe the same air with The +Suffragist--who appeared with two trunks, three valises, and a +type-writer, all covered with "Votes for Women!" stickers--without +an expansion of the chest. She gave you the impression of having +been dressed by machinery out of gear, and of then having been +whacked flat with a shovel. When she clapped on what she called a +hat, you wondered whether a heron hadn't built its nest on her +head. But when she began to speak, you listened with the ears of +your immortal soul stretched wide. Women worshiped her, though Mr. +Jelnik's eyes danced, and Westmacote's military mustache bristled a +bit, and she all but drove Doctor Richard Geddes, who had notions of +his own, out of his senses. + +"Stop trying to argue with me, my dear man," she'd say in her rich +voice, "but come and let us reason together. I haven't heard one +word of reason from you yet!" And she'd let loose one of her +rollicking laughs that set the doctor's teeth on edge and made The +Author shudder. The Author snarled to me that she laughed like a +rolling-mill and reasoned like a head-on collision. He put her in +his new book, clothes and all. Just as Luis Morenas, with an edged +smile on his thin lips, made rapid-fire sketches of her. _He_ called +her "The Future-Maker." + +Now, shouldn't Alicia and I have been happy? And yet we weren't. +Alicia's laugh wasn't so frequent. I would catch her watching me, +with an odd, troubled, anxious speculation in her eyes. She had a +habit of blushing suddenly, and as quickly paling. And quietly, but +none the less surely and definitely, she had begun to avoid Doctor +Richard Geddes. It wasn't that she ceased to be friendly; but she +placed between herself and him one of those women-built, +impalpable, impassable barriers which baffled, puzzled men are +unable to tear down. It was impossible, I thought, that she should +remain blind to his open passion for herself: he was anything but +subtle, was Richard of the Lionheart. A blind man could have told, +from the mere sound of his voice, a deaf man from the mere +expression of his eyes, that Alicia had the big doctor's whole +heart. + +On his side, he was in deep waters. His ruddy color faded; his face +took on a fixed, grim intensity. And when he watched the girl +flirting now with this boy, now with that, after the innocent +fashion of natural girls, but always reserving a friendlier smile, a +more eager greeting, for Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, I was so sorry for +Doctor Richard that I couldn't help trying, covertly, to console +him. + +It so happened that Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons, daughter of the +Puritans though she was, nevertheless had a distinct liking for what +she termed Episcopacy. She was pleased with old St. Polycarp's. She +liked Mrs. Haile, to whom she happened to mention that her +opportunities for studying the life of native women and children in +the East had been rather unusually good, since she had visited many +missionary stations in China and India. Things were languishing just +then, and Mrs. Haile looked at Miss Emmeline almost imploringly: +would she, could she, give the ladies a little lecture?--tell us +things first-hand, so to speak? + +Miss Emmeline reflected. She looked at Alicia and me. + +"Could we have it in your delightful library?" she wondered. "That +beautiful old room has a soul which speaks to mine. Dear Miss Smith, +would it be too much to ask you to let me have my little talk, a +very informal little lecture, in wonderful old Hynds House?" + +Mrs. Haile turned a sort of greenish pink. It wasn't for her to +suggest, after that, that it might be better to have the lecture in +the parsonage; any more than for me to hint, without ungraciousness, +that it might be just as well not to have it in Hynds House. Alicia +shot me one quizzical, Irish-blue glance when I said, "Yes." + +And that's how, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, all Hyndsville came +to Hynds House to hear Miss Emmeline Phelps-Parsons tell them "How +to Reach the Women of the East." Somehow, I rather think they were +as curious about two Yankee women as they were about those Eastern +women of whom Miss Emmeline was talking. I'm sure Hynds House was +just as interesting to them as Mohammedan harems and Indian zenanas. + +Miss Emmeline really spoke well, and her audience was interested in +her, in her theme, and in Hynds House. The Suffragist picked up the +thread where the less gifted woman dropped it, and in simple, living +phrases drove home the great truth of the sisterhood of all women. + +Which, of course, called for tea, and some of Mary Magdalen's +cookies. It was the cookies that caught The Author. Coming in from a +long and hungry prowl, he spied Fernolia crossing the hall with a +huge platter, got one tantalizing, mouth-watering odor, and dashed +after her, bent upon robbery. A second later he found himself in a +room full of women. Hyndsville was meeting The Author! + +Alicia introduced him, pleasantly. And, "Talk about angels--" said +she, gaily, "We have just this minute stopped talking about the +heathen! And may I give you a cup of tea?" + +"And a dozen or so cookies, please. Thank heaven for the heathen! +What is home without the heathen?--Without sugar, Miss Gaines, +without sugar! And for charity's sake, no lemon!" + +He sipped his tea and munched his cookies, with his head on one side +and the air of a thievish jackdaw; and proceeded, after his wont, to +extract such pith as the situation offered. + +"Doctor Johnson," Miss Martha Hopkins remembered, as she watched him +drinking his fourth cup of tea, "Doctor Johnson was also addicted +to tea-drinking. Most great literary men are, I believe." + +"It isn't possible you consider old Johnson a great literary man!" +The Author's eyebrows climbed into his hair. + +"Why! wasn't he?" Her eyes widened. She had as much respect for Dr. +Johnson as Miss Deborah Jenkyns had, though of course she never read +him. Life is too short. + +"Why! was he?" asked The Author. "Outside of Boswell--and _he_ was a +fool--I've never known anybody who thought he amounted to much." + +The Suffragist looked up. "Nelson had his Southey, Boswell had his +Johnson, and Mr. Modern Best-seller may well profit by their +example." And she smiled grimly. + +The Author's lip lifted. "Oh, but you couldn't do it!" he purred. +"And if I offered you the job you'd excuse your incapacity on the +ground that there wasn't anything to write about. I know you!" He +took another cooky. + +"Yes, I dare say I'd blurt out the truth. Women are like that," +admitted The Suffragist. + +"The female of the species is more deadly than the male," conceded +The Author. "Nevertheless," he raised his tea-cup gallantly, "To the +ladies!" He got up, leisurely. "And now I go," said he, "to paint +the lily and adorn the rose. In short, to set forth in adequate and +remunerative language the wit, wisdom, virtue, beauty, and +ornateness of woman as she thinks men think she is. Nature," +reflected The Author, smiling at The Suffragist, "made me a writer. +The devil, the editors, and the women have made me a best-seller." +And he departed, a cooky in each hand. + +That night one of the Gatchell boys took Alicia to a dance. She was +in blue and white, like an angel, and the Gatchell boy trod on air. +But to me came Doctor Richard Geddes, and threw himself into a +wing-chair. + +"Sophronisba Two," he asked, we being alone in the library, "what +have I done to offend Alicia?" + +"Is Alicia offended?" + +"Isn't she?" wondered the doctor. "She won't let me get near enough +to find out," he added gloomily. "And it isn't just. She ought to +know that--well, that I'd rather cut off my right hand than give her +real cause for offense. I'm going to ask you a straight, man +question; is that girl a--a flirt? She is not a--jilt?" + +"Heaven forbid!" + +"Does she care for anybody else?" + +"On my honor, I don't know." + +"It couldn't be any of these whipper-snappers of boys: she's not +that sort," worried the doctor. "Sophy, is it--Jelnik?" + +My heart stood still. I could make no reply. + +"I don't know. My dear friend, I don't know!" + +"It would be the most natural thing in the world," he reflected. +"Jelnik looks like Prince Charming himself. And, for all his surface +indolence, there's genius in the man. Why shouldn't she be taken +with him?" + +We looked at each other. + +"I see," said the doctor, quietly. "Now, little friend, what +concerns you and me is our dear girl's happiness. Does Jelnik care, +do you think?" + +"I don't know!" I said again. I felt like one on the rack. It seemed +to me I could hear my heart-strings stretching and snapping. "But +what is one girl's affection to a man born to be loved by women?" + +"He is indifferent to women, for the most part," the doctor said +thoughtfully. "He is so free from vanity, and at the same time so +reserved, that one has difficulty in getting at his real feelings." + +"She, also, is free from petty vanity," I told him. "She has an +innocent, happy pleasure in her own youth and prettiness, but hers +is the unspoiled heart of a child." + +"Who should know it better than I, that am a great hulking, +bad-tempered fellow twice her age!" groaned the doctor. "Yet, Sophy, +_I_ could make her happier than Jelnik could. Dear and lovely as she +is, she couldn't make him happy, either--Don't you think I'm a fool, +Sophy?" + +"No," said I, smiling wanly; "I don't." + +"This business of being in love is a damnable arrangement. Here was +I," he grumbled, "busy, reasonably happy, with a sound mind in a +sound body, and a digestion that was a credit to me. And along comes +a girl, and everything's changed! My work doesn't fill my days, my +food is bitter in my mouth, and I wake up in the night saying to +myself, 'You fool, you're chasing rainbows!' Sophy, don't you ever +fall in love with somebody you know you can't have! It's hell!" + +I didn't tell him I knew it. + +One of his men came to tell him he was needed urgently. As it meant +a thirty-mile trip and the night was cold, I made him wait for a cup +of coffee and an omelet." + +"Miss Smith--" + +"You said 'Sophy' a while ago. 'Sophy' sounds all right to me." + +"It sounds fine to me, too, Sophy." And he reached out and seized my +hand with a grip that made me wince. + +"I told you I was a bear!" he said, regretfully. + +When Alicia returned, she came, as usual, to my room. + +"I am tired!" she yawned, and curled herself up on the bed. + +"Didn't you have a nice time?" + +"Oh, I suppose so! Everybody was lovely to me, and I could have +divided my dances. These Southerners are easy to love, aren't they? +I find it very easy for me! And oh, Sophy, there's to be a picnic +day after to-morrow, at the Meade plantation, in my honor, if you +please! We go by automobile.--I never thought I could get tired +dancing, Sophy. But I am. Tired!" + +"Go to bed and sleep it off." + +"Did you have time to make out that grocery list? They've been +overcharging us on butter." + +"Yes: I finished it after Doctor Geddes left" + +"Oh! He was here, then?" She yawned again. + +"Yes. But somebody sent for him, and he had to cut his visit short." + +Alicia frowned. + +"I wonder he keeps so healthy, running out at all hours of the +night; and heaven knows how he manages about meals! His cook told me +that sometimes he has to rush away in the middle of a meal, and +sometimes he misses one altogether." + +"I remembered that, so I made him wait for a cup of coffee and an +omelet." + +She reached over and squeezed my hand. "You're always thinking about +other people's comfort, Sophy." She paused, and looked at me +half-questioningly: + +"I wish he had somebody to look after him," she said in a low voice, +"somebody like you." She added, as if to herself: "He takes two +lumps of sugar in his coffee, one in his tea, wants dry toast, and +likes his omelet _buttered_." + +And when I stared at her, she slipped nearer, and laid her cheek +against mine. + +"Sophy," in a soft whisper, "you've made up to me for my father and +my mother, and for the sisters and brothers I never had. We're all +sorts and conditions of folks, aren't we, Sophy?--but none like you, +Sophy; not any one of them all like you!" + +At that moment, through the open window, there stole in on the night +air the faintest whisper of music. It wasn't mournful, it wasn't +joyful, but both together; a singing voice, a crying voice, wild and +sweet, part of the night and the trees and the wind, and part, I +think, of the secretest something in the human heart. We had no idea +where it came from; out of the sky, perhaps! + +Somebody ran down-stairs, and a moment later the front door opened +softly. The Author had heard, and was afoot. But even as he stepped +outside, Ariel's ghostly music ceased. There was nothing; nobody; +only the night. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE FOREST OF ARDEN + + +I had seen Alicia whirl away in the Meades' big car. I had seen the +Westmacotes and Miss Emmeline off on what they termed a nature-hunt. +The Author and his secretary were up to the eyes in a new chapter; +The Suffragist was spreading the glad tidings; and Riedriech and +Schmetz had Luis Morenas in hand for the afternoon, visioning the +United States of the World, while he snatched sketches of the +visionaries. + +The Author, Mr. Johnson, and I, lunched together. + +"Miss Smith," began The Author abruptly, "did you know this house +was built by British and French master masons? No? Well, it was. +Judge Gatchell's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were +solicitors for this estate, and the judge at last very kindly +allowed me to look through a great batch of papers in his +possession. From these I discovered that one of the Hyndses visited +England in 1727, joined the new lodge lately established there, and +brought one of the brethren, an architect, back to America with +him. Another came from France. These three planned and built this +house, and did it pretty well, too. + +"This house-builder, Walsingham Hynds, made his house a sort of +lodge for the brethren, just as in later times his grandsons +sheltered the brethren of those societies that fathered the American +Revolution. Gatchell tells me there is a legend of the master of +Hynds House entertaining British officers and at the same time +hiding the forfeited rebels they were hunting. I'd like to know," +The Author added, reflectively, "where he hid them." + +"An old house like this has dozens of places where one could be +hidden without much danger of detection," remarked Mr. Johnson. + +"I'm pretty sure of that," agreed The Author, emphatically. + +"You should be, since you did a neat little bit of hiding on your +own account," Mr. Johnson reminded him. + +The Author was nettled. He had never found the paper lost out of the +closet in his own room, though he had never given up a tentative +search for it. + +"Well, it's confoundedly odd I never did such a thing before," he +grumbled. + +"What is odd is that I myself was waked out of my sleep that night +by the most oppressive sense of misery and hopelessness I have ever +experienced," Mr. Johnson said seriously. "It was so overpowering +that it made me think of Saint Theresa's description of her torment +in that oven in the wall of hell which had by kindly forethought on +the part of the devil been arranged for her permanent tenancy. Of +course, it was just a nightmare," he added, doubtfully; "or perhaps +a fit of indigestion." + +"Indigestion takes many forms," I remarked, as lightly as I could. +"And you must remember you've been warned that Hynds House is +haunted. Why, the servants insist they've seen ol' Mis' Scarlett's +h'ant!" + +"Ah!" nodded The Author. "And I smell a mysterious perfume, I walk +in my sleep for the first and only time in my life, and I hide where +it can't be found a paper with an uncouth jingle and some dots on +it, Johnson and I have the same nightmare. And I have heard +footsteps. All hallucinations, of course! I will say this much for +Hynds House: I never had a hallucination until I came here. By the +way, did I merely imagine I heard a violin last night?" + +"Oh, no: I heard it, too." Mr. Johnson looked at The Author with a +concerned face. "You're getting a bit off your nerves, Chief. +Anybody might play a violin." + +"Anybody might, but few do play it as I thought I heard it played +last night. Who's the player, Miss Smith?" + +"I haven't the slightest idea. Alicia thinks it's a spirit that +lives in the crape-myrtle trees." + +I was beginning to be aweary of The Author's shrewd eyes and +persistent questioning, and I was heartily glad when he had to go +back to his work. + +That was a gray and windless afternoon, and the house was full of +those bluish shadows that belong to gray days; it was charged, even +more than usual, with mystery: the whole atmosphere tingled with it +as with electricity. I couldn't read. I have never been able to play +upon any musical instrument, much as I love music. I do not sing, +either, except in a small-beer voice; and when I tried to sew I +pricked my fingers with the needle. I went into the kitchen, +consulted with Mary Magdalen as to the evening's dinner, weighed and +measured such ingredients as she needed, saw that the two maids were +following instructions, tried to make friends with Beautiful Dog, +until he howled with anguish and affliction and fled as from +pestilence; and, unable to endure the house any longer, put on my +hat and set out upon one of those aimless walks one takes in a land +where all walks are lovely. + +Automobiles came and went upon the public road, and to escape them +I crossed a wooden foot-bridge spanning a weedy ditch, struck into a +path bordering a wide field followed it aimlessly for a while, and +before I knew it was in the Enchanted Wood. + +The Enchanted Wood was carpeted with brown and sweet-smelling +pine-needles, with green clumps of honeysuckle breaking out here and +there in moist spots. There were cassena bushes, full of vivid +scarlet berries; and crooked, gray-green cedars; and brown boles of +pine-trees; and the shallowest, gayest, absurdest little thread of a +brook giggling as it went about its important business of keeping a +lip of woodland green. + +It was very, very still there, somewhat as Gethsemane might have +been, I fancy. I had wanted to be alone, that I might wrestle with +my trouble. Yet now that I was facing it, my spirit quailed. Never +had I felt so desolate, or dreamed that the human heart could bear +such anguish. + +If I had had the faintest warning, that I might have saved myself! +If I had never come to Hynds House at all, but had lived my busy, +matter-of-fact, quiet life! Yet the idea of never having seen him, +never having loved him, was more cruel than the cruellest suffering +that loving entailed. It was harder even than the thought that +Alicia and I cared for the same man, who perhaps cared for neither +of us. At that I fell into an agony of weeping. + +That passed. I was spent and empty. But the calm of acceptance had +come. I wasn't to lose my grip, nor wear the willow. The idea of me, +Sophy Smith, wearing the willow, aroused my English common-sense. I +refused to be ridiculous. + +And then I looked up and saw him coming toward me, his great dog +trotting at his side. I pulled myself together, and smiled; for +Boris was thrusting his friendly nose into my palm, and rubbing his +fine head against my shoulder, and his master had dropped lightly +down beside me. + +I had not seen Mr. Jelnik for several days, and it struck me +painfully that the man was pale, that his step dragged, and the +brightness of his beauty was dimmed. He looked older, more careworn. +If he was glad to see me, it was at first a troubled gladness, for +he started, and bit his lip. I wondered, not with jealousy, but with +pain, if there was somebody, some beautiful and high-born lady, at +sight of whom his heart might have leaped as mine did now. Was it, +perhaps, to forget such a one that he had exiled himself? + +"You are such a serene, restful little person!" he said presently, +and a change came over his tired face; "and I am such a restless +one! You soothe me like a cool hand on a hot forehead." + +"Restless?--you? Why, I thought you the serenest person I had ever +known." + +His mocking, gentle smile curved his lips. But his eyes were not +laughing. For a fleeting, flashing second the whirlpools and the +depths were bared in them. Then the veil fell, the surface lights +came out and danced. + +"My father was an excellent teacher," he said, indifferently. "The +whole object of his training was self-control. He was really a very +wonderful man, my father. But he overlooked one highly important +factor in my make-up, my Hynds blood." + +I made no reply. I was wondering, perplexedly, how I, I of all +people, should have been picked up and enmeshed in the web of these +Hyndses and their fate. + +"Thank you," said he, gratefully, "for your silence. Most women +would have talked, for the good of my soul. Why don't you talk?" + +"Because I have nothing to say." + +"You evidently inherited a God-sent reticence from your British +forebears. The British have 'illuminating flashes of silence.' It is +one of their saving graces." + +I proved it. + +Mr. Jelnik, with a whimsical, sidewise glance, drew nearer. + +"Why, instead of sitting at the foot of a pine-tree, which is also a +reticent creature, are you not sitting at the feet of our friend The +Author, who is perfectly willing to illumine the universe? Very +bright man, The Author. How do you like his secretary?" + +"Mr. Johnson? Oh, very much indeed! He is charming!" + +"I find him so myself. But he is melting wax before the fire of +feminine eyes. A man in love is a sorry spectacle!" + +"Is he?" + +"_Ach_, yes! Consider my cousin Richard Geddes, for instance." + +At that I winced, remembering the doctor's eyes when he had spoken +of Alicia and of this man. I looked at Mr. Jelnik now, wonderingly. +If he knew that much, hadn't he any heart? He stopped short. A +wrinkle came between his black brows. + +"I am not to speak lightly of my Cousin Richard, I perceive." + +"No. Please, please, no!" + +"I hadn't meant to. Richard," said Mr. Jelnik, gravely, "is a good +man." + +"Oh, yes! Indeed, yes! And--and he has a deep affection for _you_, +Mr. Jelnik." + +"We Hyndses are the deuce and all for affection. We take it in such +deadly earnest that we store up a fine lot of trouble for +ourselves." His face darkened. + +I had been right, then, in supposing that there was somebody, +perhaps half the world away, for whom he cared. _And he didn't care +for Alicia._ I was sure of that. + +"Don't go!" he begged, as I stirred. "Stay with me for a little +while: I need you. I am tired, I am bored, I am disgusted with +things as they are. There is nothing new under the sun, and all is +vanity and vexation of spirit. Also, I am fronting the forks of a +dilemma: Shall I shake the dust of Hyndsville from my foot, yield to +the _Wanderlust_ and go what our worthy friend Judge Gatchell calls +'tramping,' or shall I stay here yet awhile? I can't make up my +mind!" + +"Do you want to go?" + +"Yes and no. Hold: let's toss for it and let the fall of the coin +decide." He took from his pocket a thin silver foreign coin, and +showed it me. + +"Heads, I go. Tails, I stay," he said, and tossed it into the air. +It fell beside me, out of his reach. With a swift hand I picked it +up. + +"Well?" he asked, indifferently. + +My hand shut down upon it. There was the sound of wind in my ears, +and my heart pounded, and my sight blurred. Then somebody--oh, +surely not I!--in a low, clear, modulated voice spoke: + +"_You will have to stay, Mr. Jelnik_," said the voice, pleasantly. +"_It is tails._" + +And all the while the inside Me, the real Me, was crying accusingly: +"Oh, _liar! liar! It is heads!_" + +Did he smile? I do not know. He did not look at me for the minute, +but stared instead at the gray-blue, shadowed woods, the brown boles +of the pines, the bright trickle of water playing it was a real +brook. + +"Tails it is. I stay," he said presently. And with a swift movement +he reached out and lightly patted my hand with the coin in it. + +"Well, it's decided. You have got me for a next-door neighbor for a +while longer, Miss Smith. No, don't go yet." + +So I stayed, who would have stayed in the Pit to be near him, or +walked out of heaven to follow him, had he called me. + +"Do you know," he spoke in a plaintive voice--"that I haven't had +any lunch? I forgot to go home for lunch! Boris, go get me something +to eat, old chap!" + +Boris hung out a tongue like a flag, looked in his man's eyes, and +vanished, running as only the thoroughbred wolf-hound can run. + +"I am so tired! Should you mind if I kept my dog's place warm at +your feet, Miss Smith?" And he stretched his long length on the +pine-needles, his hands under his head, his face upturned. + +"I wish I had a pillow!" he complained. + +I scooped up an armful of the pine-needles, while he watched me +lazily, and packed it over and between the roots of the pine-tree. + +"You're a Sister of Charity," said he, gratefully. "But I can't +afford to scratch my neck." And coolly he took a fold of my brown +silk skirt, patted it over the straw, and with a sigh of +satisfaction rested his head upon it. + +"This is very pleasant!" he sighed. Presently: "Your hair looks just +as a woman's hair ought to look, under that brown hat," he said +drowsily, "soft and fair. And after this, I shall order some +brown-silk cushion-covers. I never knew anything could feel so +comfortable and restful!" He closed his eyes. + +I sat there, hands locked tightly together, and looked down at his +beautiful head, his slim and boyish body; and I felt an aching sense +of resentment. No man has any business to be like that, and then +come into the life of a woman named Smith. + +He did not move, nor did I. We might have been creatures motionless +under a spell, in that Enchanted Wood; until from the outside world +came Boris, carrying a wicker basket, in which sandwiches, fruit, a +small bottle of wine, and a silver drinking-cup had been carefully +packed. + +"Boris is used to playing courier." His master patted him +affectionately. "Come, Miss Smith. By the way, that isn't your real +name, though. Your name is Woman-in-the-Woods. Mine is--" + +"Fortunatus." + +He raised his brows. "I was about to say 'Man-who-is-Hungry,'" +he finished, pleasantly. "I once knew an Indian named +Tail-feathers-going-over-the-Hill. It taught me the value of +being explicit as to one's name. Here, you shall have the cup, +and I'll drink out of the bottle. Some of these fine days, +Woman-in-the-Woods, I shall take you on a jaunt with me and +Boris." + +"It sounds promising," I admitted, cautiously. + +"It is more. You shall learn all the fine points of out-of-door +housekeeping.--Drink your wine, Woman-in-the-Woods. You were pale, +very pale, when I came upon you. I was afraid something had been +troubling you." + +"Something troubles everybody." + +"Oh, bromidic Miss Smith!--Drink your wine, please. And do not look +doubtfully upon that sandwich. My man knows how to build them." + +His man did. The sandwich was manna. The wine evidently came from +heaven. + +"Now you have a color. I say, is Morenas going to do you, too?" + +"Good gracious, no! But he has sketched Alicia a dozen times at +least." + +"And me," said Mr. Jelnik, gloomily. "There's no evading the brute. +I turn like a weathercock; and there he is, with corrugated brow and +slitted eyes, studying me! And the baleful eye of The Author also +pursues me. Between them, I feel skinned." + +"Mr. Morenas says you are a rare but quite perfect type," I told +him, mischievously. + +The young man shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. "Am I a type, +Woman-in-the-Woods?" he asked. + +"Indeed, you are absolutely different from anybody else." And then, +terrified, I turned red. + +"Oh, I know! You didn't mean it either as a brick-bat or a bouquet, +merely the truth as you see it. You are transparently truthful, +fundamentally truthful, and at the same time the American business +woman! You can't understand how that intrigues me!" + +And then, quite simply and boyishly, he began to talk about +himself. I got glimpses of a boyhood spent partly in a stately home +in Vienna, and partly roaming about the great Hungarian estate which +his mother loved, and to which the two returned summer after summer, +until her death. Then student days, and after that, foot-loose +wanderings up and down the earth and across the seven seas. + +His grandmother had dropped courtesies to kings; and mine had +dropped "aitches." His father had been a European celebrity, mine a +ship-chandler in Boston, U.S.A. Yet here we two were; and he might +have been a high-spirited and most beautiful little boy picnicking +with a sedate and old-maidish little girl. + +"How old should you imagine me?" he flung the question like a +challenge, as if he had divined my thoughts. + +"Oh, say, thirteen, going on fourteen." + +"Dear Woman-in-the-Woods, I am thirty-three." + +"You are older than I thought." + +"You are younger than you think. And you betray the fact," he +smiled. + +"I have never been very young; probably I shall never be very old." + +"You will always be exactly the right age," said Nicholas Jelnik. +"For you will always be a little girl, and a young maiden, and a +grown woman, and a bit of an old maid, and something of a +grandmother. That is a wonderful, a very, very wonderful +combination!" + +I looked at him with more than doubt. But no, he was not poking fun, +though the rich color had come into his cheek, and the golden lights +flickered mischievously in his eyes. + +"And I forgot to add, also a business woman!" he finished gaily. +"_Herr Gott_, but it took a business woman to tackle old Hynds House +and gather together such folks as you have there now!" + +"Alicia was the head and front of _that_. I merely helped." + +"Alicia," said Mr. Jelnik, "is a darling girl. Alicia is everything +a girl ought to be." But there was not in eyes or voice that light +and tone that crept into Doctor Richard's when he named her. My dear +girl's tender face--so true and beautiful and loving--rose before +me, and all she had meant to me, been to me, crowded upon my heart. +I said what I had never intended to say to any one: + +"Why, Alicia's my--my _child_, to me! Don't you understand?" + +"Dear Woman, yes!" His voice was melted gold. + +The ridiculous little brook went whish-whis-sssh; and the bluish +shadows melted into gray; and a chill came creeping, creeping, into +the air. + +"Before you go," said Nicholas Jelnik, "I should like to give you a +talisman, to turn Miss Smith into Woman-in-the-Woods every now and +then." And with his pocket-knife he cut a sharp line down the thin +old coin he had tossed, worked at it for a few minutes with a pocket +file and a stone, and then with his fingers that looked so slim but +were strong as steel nippers. The coin broke in halves. + +"Half for you," said Mr. Jelnik, "and half for me, to commemorate a +comradely afternoon, and to mark a decision. We'll consider it a +token, a charm, a talisman--what you will. And if ever I really and +truly need a Woman-in-the-Woods to help me, why, I'll send my half +to her; and she'll obey the summons instantly and without question. +And if ever she needs a man--like me, say--why, she'll send her +half, and he'll come, instantly and without question." He was +smiling as he spoke. Now he paused to look at me earnestly. "Because +we are going to be real friends, you and I; are we not?" + +I hesitated. How could we two be real friends, when the balance +between us was so uneven, so unequal? He saw the hesitation, +momentary as it was, and looked at me with something of astonishment +and a hint of hurt. + +"I have never," he said, proudly, "had to ask for friendship. Yet I +do desire yours, who are such a grave, brave, true little thing, +such a valiant-for-truth, stand-fast little thing! You have the one +quality that I, born wanderer, foot-loose rolling-stone, need most +in this world, unchanging, loyal, unquestioning steadfastness." + +I considered this. It is true that I hold fast, for that is the +English way. + +"But outside of that one thing," I told him, "I have nothing else." + +"No?--She hasn't," said he, in a teasing tone, "anything to give, +except unbuyable truth. She has nothing to offer except Friendship's +very self!--this poor, poor Miss Smith!" + +Now, heaven alone knows why, but at that my eyes filled with foolish +tears. If he saw them--and they ran down my cheek in spite of me--he +mercifully gave no sign. Instead he held out his fine brown hand, +and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips with foreign +grace. + +"We two are friends, then--through thick and thin, above doubting, +and without fear or reproach. That is so, _hein_?" + +"Yes!" I promised. + +So, walking slowly, as if loath to go, we two went out of the +Enchanted Wood and left the Forest of Arden behind us. + +When I was again in my own room, and had taken off the brown frock, +I held against my cheek, for a long, long minute, that fold against +which his head had rested; I fingered the broken coin; I looked long +and long at the hand his lips had touched; and though I had told a +shameless lie, I was not at all ashamed. + +I have often read that women do not and cannot love men, but only +love to be loved by them. Only a man could have been stupid enough +to say that; and, then he didn't know. The woman hadn't told him. + +"I say! Haven't you got on a new frock to-night? My word, it's +scrumptious!" remarked The Author, after dinner. I was wearing a +black-and-blue frock, and he had seen it before, as I explained with +some surprise. + +He adjusted his glasses, frowned, and shook his head. + +"I am becoming unobservant," he said crossly. "This place is playing +the very deuce with my mental processes! But stay: surely your hair +is arranged differently? It wasn't brought over your ears like that, +the first time I saw you, I know it wasn't!" + +"It is curled a little and fluffed a little; that's what makes it +look different," I told him patiently. + +"Then that frock is curled a little and fluffed a little, and that's +what makes it look different, too," The Author decided, and stared +at me critically. "You are improving," he told me, with +condescension. + +"You are _not_!" I was goaded to reply. + +The Author merely grinned. + +"Do you know," he asked, "if that man Jelnik is coming to-night? I +hope so. Unusual man. Can't think why he buries himself here! Our +old friend Gatchell doesn't seem to admire him. I wonder why?" + +"I can't possibly imagine," I replied equably, "unless it is that +the judge grows old." + +"Hah!" The Author's eyebrows went up truculently. "And is it a sign +of advancing age and mental decrepitude not to admire this fellow?" + +But I laughed at him. + +"You're all alike, you women." A wicked light snapped into his eyes. +"Hear, dear lady, the Bard of the Congaree, the Poet Laureate of +South Carolina, Coogle for your benefit," hissed The Author, and +repeated, balefully: + + Alas, poor woman, with eyes of sparkling fire, + Thy heart is often won by mankind's gay attire! + So weak thou art, so very weak at best, + Thou canst not look beyond a satin-lined vest! + + I've seen thee ofttimes cast a-winning glance, + And be carried away, as it were within a trance, + By the gay apparel of some dishonest youth + Whose bosom heaved with not a single truth! + +He was so outrageously funny that I forgave his impertinence. His +face relaxed, and his eyes twinkled. He was in high feather the +remainder of the evening. He was, in fact, so good-humoredly witty +that the boys and girls Alicia had brought home clustered about him +like golden bees. + +"Miss Smith," whispered Miss Emmeline, under cover of their +laughter, "may I have a word with you?" + +We drifted into the library; and she seated herself, folded her +hands, and said tremulously: + +"My dear, my wish has been granted. I have really come in contact +with the Unknown! I have seen something, Miss Smith!" I looked at +her steadily. "Just before dawn," Miss Emmeline continued, "I woke +up, with a curious, indefinable, uneasy sense of trouble, as if +something had happened and I was remembering it, say. I saw how +foolish it was to allow a mere nightmare to worry me, though I am +not subject to nightmares, my conscience and my digestion being +quite all right, thank heaven! Gradually the impression faded. I was +just dropping to sleep again, when I heard the faintest imaginable +footfall, almost as if somebody were walking upon the air itself. +And then, Miss Smith, there stole across my room a figure. There was +nothing terrifying about it: it was merely a figure, that was all, +and so I was not frightened. It came from my clothes-closet, went +into the next room, and vanished. For when I arose and followed, +there was no trace of it. And the doors were locked. Now, was not +that remarkable?" + +"Very," said I, with dry lips. + +"I should have thought I was dreaming," went on Miss Emmeline, "save +that there lingered in the air, for some time, a faint and very +delicate--" + +"Perfume," I finished. + +Miss Emmeline started, and seized my hand. + +"Then you have experienced it, too?" + +"I have detected the perfume," I admitted, "but I have never seen +anything. Dear Miss Emmeline, would it be too much to ask you to +keep this to yourself, for a while at least? People are so easily +frightened; and wild stories spread and grow." + +Miss Emmeline nodded. "Of course I'll keep it quiet," she promised +kindly. "I shall, however, write down the occurrence for the Society +for Psychical Research, without giving actual names and place." To +this I raised no objection. But it was with a troubled mind that I +left Miss Emmeline. + +I was destined to hear one more confidence that night, unwittingly +this time. I had gone down-stairs to place, ready to Mary Magdalen's +hand in the morning, the materials for the breakfast. This entails +work, but it insures successful handling of household economics. +Having weighed and measured what was necessary, and seen that the +inquisitive Black family occupied their proper quarters on the lower +veranda, I went back up-stairs. The Author's door was slightly ajar, +and I could hear him walking up and down, as he does when he +dictates; for he is a restless man. + +"Johnson," The Author was saying as I passed, my slippered feet +making no sound, "Johnson, that Sophy woman intrigues me. Hanged if +she doesn't, Johnson!" + +"I like Miss Smith, myself. She reminds me very much of my mother," +said Johnson's cordial voice in reply. + +"But I don't like the way things look here, at all, Johnson!" fumed +The Author. "What's his game, anyhow? What's he after? What's he +here for? Does she know, or suspect? Or doesn't she, Johnson?" The +Author asked, earnestly. "Look here: somebody's got to protect that +Sophy woman against Nicholas Jelnik!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE JINNEE INTERVENES + + +Just before he went back North, Luis Morenas good-naturedly agreed +to exhibit his new sketches for the delectation of such folk as we +cared to ask to view them--this to please Alicia, whom he called +Flower o' the Peach. + +Now an exhibit of Morenas sketches would have been an art event in +the Biggest City itself. But think of it in Hyndsville, where few +worth-while things ever happened; and imagine the polite +wire-pulling for invitations that ensued! + +It wasn't my fault that I couldn't ask the whole town to come to my +house to see those brilliant sketches. I would have done so with all +my heart, but there was a section of Hyndsville I couldn't reach. It +was locked up behind bars of pride and prejudice of its own +building; and losing by it, of course, since one can't be exclusive +without at the same time being excluded. To shut other folks out you +have first got to shut yourself in. + +For instance, figure to yourself Miss Martha Hopkins. She had +visited as far north as Atlanta; and she had relatives in +Charleston, as she would have condescendingly informed arch-angels, +principalities, powers, thrones, and dominions. But she wasn't +blessed with much of this world's goods, and most of the time she +stayed home and improved her mind. She took herself with profound +seriousness. She seemed to think that the better part of wisdom +consists in knowing who said this and who didn't say that--"as Mr. +Arnold Bennett expresses it," "as Mr. H.G. Wells remarks," "as Mr. +James Huneker writes,"--she was the only person in all Hyndsville +who could write up music and art, and she wasn't even afraid to use +the word _sex_ in its most modern acceptance; though in South +Carolina you refer to the ladies as "the fair sex" if you're a +gentleman, and to the gentlemen as "the stronger sex" if you're a +lady. You understand that "male and female created He them," and you +let it go at that. Miss Martha Hopkins, then, was daring; she was +also exclusive. + +I suppose if I had been younger I could have smiled at Miss Martha, +as Susy Gatchell and her graceless friends did, but somehow she +appeared to me a creature trying to peck at the world and peek at +the stars through the bars of a bird-cage. That's why, when I met +her a morning or two before the Morenas exhibit, I asked her if she +wouldn't like to see it. I knew that, once asked, she could be kept +away by nothing short of an earthquake or a deluge. Yet-- + +"Thank you, Miss Smith, I shall be glad to look over the sketches." +And she added blandly: "Four o'clock, did you say? Very well, I will +come. It is one's moral duty to encourage men of talent." + +"Whoop!" cried The Author, joyously, when I told him that. "Revenge +yourself, Morenas: sketch her, man! sketch her!" + +Morenas laughed. "Put her in one of your books and make her talk," +he suggested slyly. "You have a genius for making a woman talk like +an idiot." + +"That's because he does the talking for her, himself," said Alicia, +impudently. + +"It pays, it pays!" smiled The Author. "I draw from life." + +"Nature-fakir!" Alicia mocked. + +"My dear fellow, _I_ draw. _You_ draw and quarter," said Morenas. + +The Author flung out his arms, grandiloquently. + + You may as well try to change the course + Of yonder sun + To north, and south, + As to try to subdue by criticism + This heart of verse, + Or close this mouth! + +he cried, thumping his chest. "Come on, Johnson: let's leave these +knockers to fate--and Miss Martha Hopkins!" + +Miss Martha Hopkins came, she saw, and she had a perfectly beautiful +time. As a matter of fact, everybody that could come, did come. And +the very smartest and prettiest of the younger set served tea. Oh, +yes, decidedly the tables were turning! + +Despite which, Alicia and I were not happy. It seemed to me that a +veil had fallen between us, for we were shy with each other. Both +suffered, and each dreaded that the other should know. + +I was grateful that The Author's mind was too taken up with Hynds +House history to focus itself upon us. The Author spent his spare +hours rummaging through such dusty and musty records as might throw +some light upon the Hyndses. In the old office were many faded +plantation and household books, and he was able to glean enough from +these to confirm the methodical carefulness of Freeman Hynds. There +were, too, dry receipts for "monies Paid by Mr. Rich. Hynds" for +some old slave; or a brief notice that "By Orders Mr. Richd. Hynds, +no Women shall be Whipt"; or "Bought by Mr. R. Hynds & Charg'd to +his Acct., one Crippl'd Black Childe namd Scipio from Vanham's Sale, +& Given to Sukey his Mother." Another time it would be a list of +Christmas gifts: "One Colour'd Head Kerchief for Nancy. One Flute +for Blind Sam. One Shoulder Cape for Kitty my Nurse. One +Horn-handl'd Knife for Agrippa. One Pckt. Tobacco & a Jorum of Rum +for Shooba." + +Over against these items were others: "By Orders Mr. Freeman Hynds, +Juba to Receive Twenty light Lashes for Malingering; Black Tom to be +Shipt to River Bottom Plantation for the Chastning of his Spiritt; +Bread & Water & Irons 3 Dayes & Nights for Shooba for Frighting of +his Fellowes & other Evil Behaviour." + +This was interesting enough, but not conclusive. All that The Author +could find only deepened his uncertainty, and this made him +abominably cross, an ill temper increased by the presence of Mr. +Nicholas Jelnik, who came and went, unruffled, aloof, with +inscrutable eyes and a gently mocking smile. + +The Harrison-Gores came shortly after Morenas left. The Englishman +was a pink-faced old gentleman in a shabby Norfolk suit and with the +very thinnest legs on record--"mocking-bird legs," Fernolia called +them. His daughter was a gray-eyed Minerva with the skin of a baby +and the walk of a Highland piper. They found Carolina people +charming, and they secured some valuable data for their book, "The +Beginnings of American History." Everything in Hynds House pleased +them, even The Author. + +Other people who do not enter into this story came and went during +that winter. But they were merely millionaires--people who motored +around the lovely country, ate Mary Magdalen's hot biscuit and fried +chicken, slept in our four-posters, paid their stiff bills +thankfully, and went about their business as good millionaires +should, and generally do. Only one out of them all was disagreeable; +he wanted to buy Hynds House out of hand for a proposed club of +which he was to be founder and president. + +"It'd be just what the bunch would like," he told me. "All we'd have +to do would be to paint these wooden walls a nice cheerful light +color, change one room into a smoker, another into a billiard-room, +and a third into a grill, add some gun-racks and leather +wing-chairs, and we'd be right up to the minute in club-houses!" + +When I explained that I couldn't sell he offered to compromise on +two of the carved marble mantels, the library tiles, and two inlaid +tables, "at double what you'd get from anybody else." And when I +wouldn't even let him have these trifles, he was disgusted and took +no pains to conceal it. He was rude to Alicia, who snubbed him with +terrible thoroughness, a proceeding which made him call loudly for +his "bill" and his car. The last we heard of him was his bullying +voice bawling at his sullen chauffeur. + +"That pig," said The Author to me, with fury, "is undoubtedly the +lineal descendant of the one Gadarene swine that hadn't decency +enough to rush down the slope with the rest of the herd and drown +himself." + +Busy as I was, it wasn't over easy for me to find time to revisit +that brown and sweet-smelling spot in the Forest of Arden where on a +gray afternoon, I had met Nicholas Jelnik and received from him a +kiss on the palm, and a broken coin. And I wanted to go back there, +as ghosts may desire to revisit the glimpses of the moon. + +That is why, on the first free afternoon I had, I changed into the +selfsame brown frock, put on the brown hat with the yellow quill in +it, and slipped out of Hynds House alone. It wasn't a gray afternoon +this time, but a clear, bright, sun-shiny one, all blue and gold and +green, and with the pleasantest of friendly winds a-frolicking, and +a pine-scented air with a pungent and a vital bite to it. + +I went along the highroad for a while, crossed the weedy, ferny +ditch that separated it from the fallow fields beyond, and struck +into the deserted foot-path that leads to the Enchanted Wood. + +It was very lonesome, very peaceful. I could see the pine-trees I +love swaying and rocking against the blue, blue sky; I could catch +the low-hummed tune they crooned to themselves and the winds; I +could sniff a thousand woodsy odors. Spears of sunlight made bright +blobs on the brown grass; and every littlest bush and shrub wore a +shimmering halo, as you see the blessed ones backgrounded in old +pictures. There was a bird twittering somewhere; occasionally a twig +snapped with a quick, secret sharpness; and once a thin brown rabbit +took to his heels, right under my feet. + +I stopped from time to time to sense the feel of the afternoon, to +drink the air and be healed. In a few minutes I should be within the +forest and hear the little brook giggling to itself as it scurried +over its brown pathway. And then I heard--something--and turned. + +The deep and weedy ditch, crowded with high stalks of last year's +goldenrod and fennel, edged all that pathway, draining the entire +field. Crawling snakelike through it he had followed me. And now +here he was, suddenly erect on the path behind me, looking at me +with narrowed eyes under his flat forehead. + +I wasn't afraid--at first. Nothing like him had ever crossed my +path, and I stared at him with more of disgust and aversion than +terror. + +He was tall and bony, immensely powerful, and his black skin showed +with a grayish shine upon it through the rents in his rags. His +gray-black, horny toes protruded through what once had been shoes, +and a shapeless, colorless felt hat covered his bullet head. His +corded black arms emerged from the torn sleeves of his checked +shirt, and his hairy chest was naked. There came from him an +indescribable reek of tobacco, whisky, filthy clothes, and the +beastlike odor of an unclean body. He was beardless, and his +gorilla-like nostrils twitched, his forehead wrinkled. His eyes were +mere pin-points, with a sort of red glare far back in them; his +mouth was like a dirty red muzzle. He was a prowling tramp, of the +worst sort. + +Involuntarily he stopped in his tracks as I faced him, his hands +hanging loosely at his sides. His eyes swept greedily over +me--silver mesh-purse, wrist-watch, the brooch at my throat, the +rings on my fingers. + +"Whut yuh doin' hyuh, w'ite lady?" he asked in a thick voice, and +grinned. And quite suddenly such a fear as I had not dreamed could +be felt by a mortal took me by the heart and squeezed it as with an +iron hand. + +"Whut foh yuh come by mah field, lil w'ite lady?" he purred. "Ah'm +takin' lil snooze in de ditch grass, an' dey yuh comes, wakin' me +up! Whut yuh wake me up for, w'ite gal?" Leering, he began with a +gliding, stealthy movement to advance. + +"Stop!" cried I, in a voice that wasn't mine, it was so sharp and +thin and reedy. "Go back--where you came from! Don't you dare to +take another step! Go back!" + +The hands hooked into outstretched claws. His head sunk between his +shoulders. Of the eyes, only red pin-points showed in the twitching +face. I stood stone-still, struck into utter immobility. My brain +was trying to urge me to fly, fly! This is the Black Death, Sophy! +the Black Death! + +He, too, stood of a sudden stone-still, as if rooted to the ground. +His eyes widened, and stared, as if he saw something over and beyond +me. I didn't dare turn my head. It might be a trick, to divert +attention for a fatal second. + +The claws clenched into balled fists, the lips drew back, showing +blackened and decayed teeth. Bristling like an aroused beast, his +forehead wrinkling, his nostrils twitching, he made an inarticulate, +growling, brute-like noise in his throat. His head twisted sideways. +Of a sudden the sweat burst out upon his face, and he began to back +away, warily. + +And then something swift and dark sped by, bounding on light and +flying feet; something that must have come from my forest. It was +The Jinnee! God be praised, it was The Jinnee, his dark robe giving +an odd effect of flying, his eyes living vengeance, his face like +Fate carved in ebony. + +I saw him leap, and close in upon the horror; I heard a sort of +wolfish yapping. The Black Death disappeared. And then I, too, was +falling, falling into infinite blackness and blankness, with one red +flash when I struck my head. + +Half-conscious, half-hearing, altogether unseeing, I thought there +were two Voices near me. I couldn't understand what they said. One +of the Voices was gently and persistently applying cold and soothing +applications to my forehead. Another Voice chafed my hands. I +thought one said, "Achmet," and the other replied, "Sahib." I knew I +must be dreaming. But it was a pleasant dream enough. + +Quite suddenly somebody said in good, anxious English: + +"Thank God! you are better!" + +I had opened my eyes. There was the whish-whish-whishing little +brook, the good brown pines, with their heavenly odor. And there was +the face of Nicholas Jelnik, bent over me. And beside him, gravely +concerned and troubled, Boris. + +I looked from one to the other, both so clear-eyed, so kind, so +_safe_; and then I remembered. + +"Sophy! Sophy!" He had his arms around me, in a close, protecting +clasp, while Boris pawed my skirts, and cried over me in loving, +honest dog fashion, and licked my wet cheek with his affectionate +tongue. I slipped my arm around the big dog's neck, and clung to the +two of them. And it seemed to me that while I clung thus, with my +head bent and my face hidden, one of them kissed my hair. + +"It never occurred to me--that there might be danger for you," he +was whispering. "To have that horror come near you--oh, my God! Oh, +my God!" + +I was terrified at sight of his face, dead-white, with eyes of +steel, and straight lips, and pinched nostrils; the terrible face of +the avenging white man, a face as inexorable as judgment. I hid my +own before it, and trembled; and yet was glad that I had seen it. + +I stammered: "There was--a devil--and then a Jinnee came. And I +heard--sounds. Then I fell. Did--did The Jinnee--" My voice died in +my throat. + +His eyes were ice, his mouth a grim, pale line. + +"That has been attended to," he said composedly. + +He blamed himself for having been thoughtless. "But I was so glad to +have you come here, that afternoon, that I could think of nothing +else!" And it seemed that this particular bit of woodland was his, +bought because its quiet beauty pleased him. He was in the habit of +coming here frequently; it had never occurred to him that danger +could lurk near it. + +"I thought I heard--somebody calling somebody else 'Achmet.'" I told +him, confusedly. "And there was a Jinnee, really there was. And two +Voices. Who brought me here? Did you find me, over there?" + +"You were not hard to carry," he said evasively. + +"But The Jinnee?" + +"The Jinnee did exactly what a good Jinnee always does, his duty. +Having done it, he disappeared. Didn't I tell you you're not to +think of what's happened? It is finished," said Mr. Jelnik, +peremptorily. + +I asked no more questions. + +"Do you think you are able to walk now?" he asked. + +I tried to, with shaking knees. At the edge of the field I grew +faint again, and staggered, and was unpleasantly sick. + +"You simply cannot appear in Hynds House in this shape, and invite +comment and question," said Mr. Jelnik, anxiously. His fine brows +wrinkled. "I have it: you will stop at my house for a few minutes, +and I'll give you a cordial, that will put you to rights." + +I went staggering along beside him, making desperate efforts to hold +myself erect. The pathway squirmed and wriggled like a snake, the +trees and bushes bowed, the sky bobbed up and down. + +He took me by by-paths so cunningly hidden that you might pass up +and down the highroad daily and never suspect their existence. We +went between cassenas and cedars and young laurels, branchy to the +roots. And then I was walking down a path bordered with Lombardy +poplars; and then I was sitting on a couch in Mr. Jelnik's +living-room, while he bathed my face with scented water, and +afterward held a small glass to my lips. The fluid I swallowed went +tingling through my whole body like friendly fire. + +I stole a woman-glance around the room that The Author had been so +anxious to investigate. It was altogether a man's room, the scoured +floor partly covered with a handsome rug, and the divan on which I +was sitting covered with another. On both sides of the big fireplace +were crowded book-shelves, above which hung weapons gathered from +the four corners of the earth. There were two or three deep, +comfortable arm-chairs, a square table, a couple of Winchesters in a +corner, and near the window a flat, old-fashioned desk, above which +hung two small portraits, evidently his parents, for the gentleman +with stars and crosses on his braided uniform, a sword at his side, +and a plumed hat in his hand, bore a striking resemblance to Mr. +Jelnik; and the stately blond lady had a family resemblance to +Doctor Richard Geddes. + +Mr. Jelnik touched a bell near the door, and a tall, copper-colored +man in spotless white appeared. At the merest gesture of an uplifted +finger the copper-colored one bowed, vanished, and returned ten +minutes later with a tiny cup of black coffee and a couple of thin +wafers. + +"I shall have to insist upon the coffee; and I advise the wafers," +said Mr. Jelnik, pleasantly. So I drank the coffee, nibbled the +wafers, and felt better. + +The copper-colored man, standing still as a statue, waited until I +had finished, took the cup, bowed, and disappeared. He was a stately +impressive person, rather like a shah in disguise. Mr. Jelnik +addressed him as "Daoud." + +I had risen. I was trying to straighten my sadly flattened brown +hat, and to smooth my frock, stained with damp earth, and water. A +quick step sounded on the porch, somebody knocked, and without +waiting for an answer, opened the door, impatiently, and strode into +the room. With a fold of my disheveled frock in my hand, I looked up +and met the angry and astonished eyes of The Author. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MAN PROPOSES + + +The Author closed the door and leaned against it. His piercing +glance jumped from Nicholas Jelnik's face to mine, with a prolonged +and savage scrutiny. No detail of my appearance escaped him--my +reddened eyelids, my pallor, my nervousness, my dishevelment. His +eyes narrowed, his jaw hardened. + +"What are you doing here?" he demanded, roughly. "Come! At least one +may hope for the truth from _you_!" + +Mr. Jelnik gave him a level look. There was that in it which brought +an angry red to The Author's thin face. + +"Let me answer for her: just at present Miss Smith is getting ready +to go home." + +The Author struggled to keep his rising temper in hand. + +"I asked you a plain question, Miss Smith!" His peremptory tone +jangled my strained nerves. + +"Mr. Jelnik has answered you: I am getting ready to go home." + +The Author stamped. + +"Don't talk nonsense! Again I ask you, what are you doing here? Have +you lost your senses? Why have you been weeping? It is plain that +you have been weeping. Miss Smith, why do I find you here--alone?" + +"I do not like your manner of questioning me," I said, indignantly. + +"My dear fellow," protested Mr. Jelnik, "you _are_ behaving +unmannerly, you know. The simple truth is, I was so fortunate +as to be of assistance to Miss Smith. She had an unpleasant +experience--fell and gave her head such a nasty bump, that it made +her faint. I'm afraid I splashed her a bit when I was trying to +revive her. I thought best to bring her here and give her a +stimulant. She didn't want to stagger home and alarm the whole +household unnecessarily." + +"Is this true?" The Author asked me, rudely. + +"You heard what Mr. Jelnik said!" I flamed. + +"One allows somewhat more license to genius than might be accorded +ordinary mortals; but really, you know, there are limits," Mr. +Jelnik reminded him. "You're beginning to be rather a nuisance. It's +unfortunate to have to remind a man, in one's own house, that he's a +nuisance." + +"I think you are, too!" I told The Author--"bursting into people's +houses like an East-Side policeman, asking outrageous questions in +an outrageous manner, and then questioning the answers one is +patient enough to give you! What right have you got to ask _any_ +questions?" + +"I'd rather like to know that, myself," put in Mr. Jelnik. + +The Author straightened his shoulders, drew himself up to his full +height, and folded his arms. He is an impressively tall man. + +"Should you?" said he, quietly. "Well, I'll tell you--the right of +an honest man to protect the woman he happens to want to marry." + +I sat down, suddenly. I'm afraid my eyes popped, and I know my mouth +fell open. I had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik's eyes and mouth open, too. After an astounded moment: + +"Isn't this rather sudden?" wondered Mr. Jelnik. "Who'd suspect this +fellow of volcanic possibilities?" + +"I do Miss Smith no dishonor when I ask her to be my wife," said The +Author, haughtily. "_I_ am no adventurer. She can never suspect _me_ +of ulterior motives!" + +"Heavens, no! Like Caesar's wife, you are above suspicion; which, of +course, gives you the right to suspect everybody else! But you were +about to propose to Miss Smith in due form, were you not? Miss +Smith, you will permit me to withdraw? I have never before been a +third party to a proposal of marriage, and I confess I do not +exactly understand what is expected of me," said Mr. Jelnik, +delicately. + +The Author smiled wryly. + +"You succeed in making me appear a fool," he admitted. "That is no +mean achievement, young man! I merely wished to set myself straight +with Miss Smith, to leave her no room for doubt as to my absolute +honesty of purpose toward her; and you," said The Author, gulping, +"you have made me _bray_! I wish you'd clear out. You _are_ in the +way, if you want the truth. And," he added, clenching his hands, +"you can think yourself lucky that you're getting out with a whole +skin, da--confound you!" + +Mr. Jelnik smiled so sweetly that I was terrified. + +"Oh, a whole skin!" he repeated, thoughtfully. "My good sir, I was +born with a whole skin, and I rather expect to die with one." He +looked at The Author reflectively: "Of course, I don't know what +Miss Smith's feelings may be in regard to you, _but_ if I thought +you were seriously annoying her, I give you my word I should pitch +you out of the window without further ado. Miss Smith," he turned to +me, his eyes gentling with compassion, "I am more sorry than I can +say that you should be called upon to endure this further strain. +You will, I trust, forgive my unwilling share in it. Now, shall I +leave you?" + +"No, stay," said I, flatly. + +Mr. Jelnik sat down, and with unruffled composure, waited for The +Author to unbosom himself further. + +"Miss Smith," The Author spoke after a pause,--and oh, I give him +credit for his courage at that trying moment!--"Miss Smith, I have +placed myself, and you also, in what appears to be rather an absurd +position. I am sorry. But I meant exactly what I said. I base my +right to question you upon the fact that I intended asking you to +marry me. You need a protector, if ever woman did. I offer you the +protection of my name." + +I sat on the divan and stared at him owlishly. He went striding up +and down the room, pausing every now and then to look down at me. + +"When I came to Hyndsville," he went on, "nothing was farther from +my thoughts than the desire to marry _anybody_. I have never +considered myself a marrying man. But I find myself liking you, Miss +Smith, better than I have ever liked any other woman, and for better +reasons. You would make me an excellent wife, the only sort of wife +a man like me could endure. And I think I should make you a good +husband. I am not really so great a bear," he added, hastily, "as +at times I appear to be. I should really try to make you happy. Now +then, what have you to say?" + +What could any woman say in such circuit stances? _I_ said nothing, +but slid down on Nicholas Jelnik's divan and howled. + +"Didn't I tell you she'd had a bad time and wasn't herself? Now I +hope you're satisfied!" raged Mr. Jelnik. + +"It's as much your fault as mine!" snarled The Author. "Miss Smith, +for heaven's sake don't cry like that! My dear girl, stop it. You +run me distracted, Miss Smith!--Give her some vinegar or something, +Jelnik! Confound you, Jelnik!--why don't you do something? Burn a +feather under her nose! Make her stop it, Jelnik! She'll kill +herself, if she keeps on crying like that! Here!" cried The Author, +desperately; and tried to push back my hair and all but scalped me. + +"Get away!" said Mr. Jelnik. "I'll try to quiet her. Miss Smith, if +you don't stop crying, I shall slap you! Do you understand me, Miss +Smith? Stop it this minute, or I shall slap you!" He thrust an arm +around my shoulders and pulled me erect, none too gently. + +"I--I--I ca-ca-ca--n't!" + +"You can!" he snapped. "Stop it! Sophy, _shut up!_" + +I was so astonished that in the middle of a howl I blinked, and +gasped, and gulped, and stopped! + +"Ring the bell, by the door," Mr. Jelnik told The Author, curtly. +And when Daoud appeared, he ordered: "Cordial--top shelf; and some +ice-water." + +Five minutes later a forlorn and red-eyed wreck was sitting up +looking at two wretched, embarrassed men. Thank Heaven, they looked +just as miserable as they should have felt! Daoud brought me scented +water, and I bathed my face. Then I patted into shape the hair that +The Author had pulled awry, and said in the cold, accusing, +I-die-a-martyr-to-your-stupidity voice that women punish men with: + +"I think I shall go home." + +With a chastened, hang-dog air The Author rose to accompany me, +casting a withering look upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, who despised The +Author for a bungling and intrusive idiot, and let his glance convey +the fact. He was sorry for me, with a compassionate understanding of +what I had been through. But I wanted neither his sorrow nor his +compassion. He had punished The Author, but he hadn't saved _me_ +from a ridiculous and painful situation. I gave him a limp hand, and +had the satisfaction of leaving him thoroughly uncomfortable. + +When we reached our gate The Author, who had trudged beside me in +gloomy silence, laid his hand upon my arm. + +"I shall not ask you to answer me at once. But I do ask you to +consider carefully what I have said, and to realize that I mean +every word of it. And--and--I'm sorry it came about in this wise, +Sophy," he finished, with a touch of compunction. + +"So am I." And then I went up-stairs, and crept into bed. My head +ached frightfully, my heart throbbed and fluttered. I was so +unnerved that it seemed a burden to be alive. And then, mercifully, +I fell asleep, and didn't wake until Alicia brought me a +breakfast-tray the next morning. + +"My goodness, Sophy, you must have had a terrific headache!" she +exclaimed. "Why, your lips are bloodless, and you've black circles +under your eyes!" + +"I'm all right this morning," I said, hastily. "But you look pale, +yourself. Aren't you rather overdoing things, Leetchy?" + +"No: I'm as sound as a trivet!" said she. And then: "Sophy, guess +who was here last evening." Her eyes began to shine. "Mrs. Cheshire +Scarboro; no less!" And she paused, to let that highly important +statement sink in. + +Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was the Leader of the Opposition. She'd had +a lifelong feud with old Sophronisba, who said that when the Lord +wanted to try himself out in the way of a fool, He made Cissy +Scarboro. They hated each other as only relations can hate. +Naturally, Mrs. Scarboro resented our presence in Hynds House. She +said Hyndsville ought to show us what it thought of the outrage. +Under her leadership, Hyndsville showed us. + +Mrs. Scarboro was a very important person in Hyndsville. She ruled +the older and more conservative portion of it, and although the +younger set at times rebelled and went its own way, her power was +very real. That she had changed her mind, or at least her tactics, +in regard to us was important news. + +"She came with Mr. and Mrs. Haile," Alicia continued. "It was the +first time she had ever been inside Hynds House. Think of that, +Sophy! There were some girls here, and a few boys, naturally, Jimmy +Scarboro among them. Should you think that accounted for his mama's +presence, Sophy? And we sat around like adoring mice, listening to +The Author's sky-rockets going off. Doctor Geddes wouldn't let us +sing, wouldn't even let us have music, because you mustn't be +disturbed. He thinks a whole lot of you, Sophy." + +"I think a whole lot of him. I never thought I could like that man +as much as I do." + +I was determined to show Miss Alicia Gaines that no matter how much, +or for whatever reasons she had changed for the worse toward him, I, +at least, had changed for the better. But she listened listlessly. +For which cause, being resentful, I said not one word to her about +The Author. + +The thought of The Author confused me. I wasn't so much flattered as +astounded. He was not offering me a light honor: The Author's name +meant a great deal. Who, then, was I, a woman named Smith, to say +nay to this miraculous possibility? Was it not rather for me to +accept, meekly, the high gift that the gods in a sportive moment +chose to toss to me? Yea, verily. And yet-- My hand stole to the half +of a thin old foreign coin hidden in my breast. + +The Author behaved with exemplary patience and dignity. He went +about his own work and left me to mine, and though I knew I was +under his hawklike watchfulness, his matter-of-fact manner set me at +my ease. You can't dread to meet a man, of a morning, who pays more +attention to his batter-cakes than to you. + +I was just beginning to breathe freely, when Doctor Richard Geddes +came over one afternoon, and, finding me in our living-room with +only the Black family to keep me company, flung himself into an +arm-chair, seized Sir Thomas More Black by the scruff, and pulled +his whiskers and rubbed his fur the wrong way until Sir Thomas More +scratched him with thoroughness. + +"Get out, then, you black hellion!" growled the doctor. Sir Thomas +More got out. He hadn't wanted to stay in the first place. + +"Shall I bind your hand for you?" I asked. But the doctor refused. +He tapped his foot on the floor, and hemmed, and looked at me +strangely. Then: + +"Sophronisba Two, you consider me a reasonably decent sort, don't +you?" + +"That goes without saying." + +"Think I'd make a woman a reasonably good husband?" + +"I do," said I, truthfully. Whatever ailed the man? + +"Good! And I," the doctor said, deliberately, "know that you'd make +any man more than a reasonably good wife. Should you like to be +mine, Sophronisba Two?" + +The jump I gave threw Potty Black off my knees. + +"You're ill, wandering in your wits, you poor man!" I was genuinely +alarmed. "Isn't there something I can do for you, doctor?" + +"There is: you can marry me, if you want to," replied the doctor, +soberly. "Honestly, my dear girl, I'd be kind to you. I like and +admire and respect you more than I can tell you, Sophy." + +"My dear friend," I said, when I caught my breath, "I like, admire, +and respect you, too. But people who marry each other need something +more than that. They--well, they need--love." + +His shoulders twitched. + +"This business of love is the devil's own invention!" he cried. +"It's safer and saner to like and respect people than to love them, +and lots harder. Now, what do you say to marrying me?" + +"I say you had no such notion in your head the last time you and I +talked together. When did it seize you?" I demanded, suspiciously. + +"I began to think about it seriously--er--ah--some days ago," he +said, reddening. + +"What day, to be exact?" + +"Well," said he, resentfully, "it occurred to me last Wednesday, if +you want to be so all-fired sure!" + +"What happened last Wednesday to make you think of asking me to +marry you?" + +The doctor looked at me very much as a little boy looks at a +grown-up who is holding a soapy wash-cloth in one hand and an ear in +the other. + +"What do you want to know for?" + +"Because. I just want to know because. Well?" He squirmed, and was +silent. "Was it because you have ceased to care for Alicia, +already?" His glare answered that question. "No? Why, then, didn't +you ask Alicia, instead of coming to me for second choice? Look +here, Doctor Richard Geddes: if I was not firmly and truly your +friend, I should be furious, do you understand? Or," I added, +darkly, "I might even revenge myself by taking you at your word!" + +"Sophronisba Two!" The doctor looked at, me piteously. + +"Why didn't you ask Alicia?" I persisted, inexorably. + +"I did!" gulped the doctor. "But she said she couldn't. She said, +why didn't I care for you instead of her? You were so much +better--and--and I'd be happier with you, for I'd have the most +unselfish angel--" he stopped miserably. + +"Well?" + +"Well, I kept turning it over in my mind; and the more I thought of +it, the clearer I perceived that with a wife like you I'd be a +better and a more worth-while man. I--I think so much of you, Sophy, +that I'm telling you the whole truth," he finished. + +"That's why I'm going to keep on being friends with you--better +friends than ever," I told him. + +"You're going to marry me, then, Sophy?" + +"Didn't you just hear me tell you I meant to keep on being friends +with you?" + +"You won't, then?" + +"I won't, then." + +"Yet there are good reasons why you might reconsider your decision," +he said, after a pause. "We are so diametrically opposed it would +seem inevitable we should marry each other. Why, Sophy, we've got +enough to quarrel happily about for the rest of our lives. For +instance, do you sleep with all your windows open?" + +"I close two, and leave two open." + +"Every window open, day and night, hot or cold, rain or shine," said +the doctor, firmly. "Do you use pillows?" + +"Two." + +"None at all. Sleep with your head flat. How many blankets?" + +"Two, and a comfort." + +"One army blanket, except in extremely cold weather," said the +doctor. "Do you like a pipe?" + +"It always makes me sick. I peculiarly and particularly loathe and +detest a pipe." + +"A pipe, my dear, deluded woman, is a comfort, a stay, a prop to a +man's soul, an aid to meditation and repose. I insist upon a +pipe--within moderation, of course. Do you like parrots? Sophy, are +you capable of supporting a parrot? I have already perceived your +reprehensible fondness for cats." He looked at his scratched hand. + +"I have always wanted a parrot. I think they're the most--" + +"Damnable brutes!" finished the doctor. "Gad, I'd as lief live in +the house with Sophronisba One! It is not moral to like a parrot. +What do you think of stewed rhubarb?" + +I made a wry face. I abhor stewed rhubarb. Somehow, it always makes +me think of orphans in long-waisted gingham dresses with white china +buttons down the back. One way of punishing children for losing +their parents is to make them wear dark gingham dresses with china +buttons down the back and to eat stewed rhubarb for dessert. + +"Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are," pronounced +the doctor. "It's a sign of moral rectitude to eat stewed rhubarb. +Now, as to science: what is your attitude toward evolution?" + +"Well, I think plenty of men turn themselves into monkeys, but I +refuse to believe that God ever turned a monkey into a man." + +"Ha!" mused the doctor, pulling his nose; "I see! Do you insist +upon a sacrosanct meal hour? Are your meal hours fixed, even as the +laws of the Medes and the Persians?" + +"How else, pray, shall one run one's house with any degree of +system?" I wanted to know. + +"Bunk!" snorted the doctor. "_I_ eat when I'm hungry! Now, lastly, +sister, tell me truthfully: are you a Democrat or a Republican?" + +"I don't see much difference: they're both of them nothing but +_men_." + +"I knew it!" The doctor shook his head with sad triumph. "She'd +scratch Brown, because she didn't like the expression of his ears, +and vote for Jones, because he had such beautiful whiskers! My dear, +dear woman, can't you see that it's almost a law of nature for you +and me, who don't agree about anything, to marry each other?" + +"I don't even agree with you as to that!" said I, and fell into +helpless laughter. + +"It rather looks like flying in the face of Providence not to," he +warned me. "In the meantime--" + +"In the meantime, let us be grateful Alicia didn't put the notion +into your head to ask somebody who might have taken you seriously." + +"That means you don't, and won't." He drew a long breath. "But +we're good friends; aren't we, Sophy?" + +"If a man never does anything worse than ask a woman to marry him, +he will probably retain her friendship until she dies," I replied. + +"Provided she refuses him," the doctor said, gratefully. And bending +down, he kissed me brotherly on the cheek, an honest and resounding +smack; at which opportune moment Alicia walked in. + +Wholly unabashed, the doctor spoke pleasantly to Alicia, shook hands +with me effusively, and went off whistling. All was right with the +world. I'd refused him, you understand! Instead of being enraged and +offended, I found myself giggling. + +That night, as Alicia didn't come in my room, I went into hers. + +"I know what you've come to tell me, Sophy dear," she said, +directly. "I've seen it for some time. And I'm glad as glad--glad +with all my heart, Sophy." Her voice was tenderness itself, her eyes +melted. But the hand on my hand was cold. "I love you a great deal, +Sophy," she whispered. "More than anybody else in the world, I +think." + +"And was it because you loved me, dear girl, that you put the absurd +notion of asking me to marry him into Doctor Geddes's head?" + +"Absurd notion?" repeated Alicia. "Absurd notion? But he asked you! +Didn't he ask you?" + +"As to that, he told me I could marry him if I wanted to," I +admitted. "Oh, Leetchy, it was funny, though! If you could have seen +the poor dear, trying to martyr himself, just to oblige you--" + +"You _refused_ him?" breathlessly. + +"Of course. There wasn't anything to say but 'No.'" + +"But--I saw--" + +"You saw him kiss me on the cheek? Honey, that wasn't love: that was +gratitude!" + +"I don't understand!" stammered Alicia, twisting her hands. "Why, +you cared for him--I thought you cared." + +"Of course I care for him! But not like that! Good heavens, Alicia, +however did you get such a notion? My dear, if I loved you less, or +him more, I should never, never be able to forgive either of you. As +it is, we'll forget it." + +At that Alicia began to cry. + +"Oh, what have I done?" she whimpered. "Sophy, you don't know--what +I've done!" + +"You haven't done anything that can't be undone," said I, +comfortably. "You and I, my dear, fell into a Hynds House maze. Now +we're out of it!" And thinking she would be better by herself, I +kissed her good night. + +Out of Hynds House maze, indeed! I had only to step back into my own +room to have it again enmesh me. For on the prie-dieu that had once +held Freeman Hynds's Bible and now held mine, was the lost diary. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FIRES OF YESTERDAY + + +I wasn't frightened, of course. There isn't anything terrifying in +finding a little old leather-covered book on a prie-dieu by one's +bedside. But it was some minutes before I could induce myself to +take up that yellowed old diary and examine it. + +It begins the year of Freeman's return from college, "a Finish'd +Young Gentleman." He has refused to go abroad, considering that "our +Young Gentlemen have enough Fripperies & Fopperies at Home without +bringing worse Ones from Abroad." Brother Richard has been abroad +more than once, and Freeman does not "find him Improv'd save in +Outer Elegancies." + +The only person that "much Travelling hath not Spoil'd," he finds, +is Mistress Emily Hope of Hope Plantation. "Shee was a Sweet Child," +he remembers; and now that the dew of their youth is upon them both, +he finds her "of a Graceful and Delicate Shape, with the Most +Beautiful Countenance in the World, a Sweet & Modest Demeanour, a +Sprightly Wit, an Accomplish'd Mind, & a Heart Fix'd upon Virtue." + +The estates are near each other, the families intimate friends. +Emily seems to like the boy. At any rate, she doesn't repel him. And +then returns Richard--the gay, the handsome, the irresistible +Richard--who adds to the stalwart comeliness of a colonial gentleman +the style, the grace, the cultivated manners of the Old World. + +Almost fiercely Freeman notes the effect he produces, and how "Women +do catch an Admiration for him as't were a Pox." + +Then he begins to set down, grimly, "The Sums my Father hath paid +for My Brother's Debts." A little later, he adds: "You Might Pour +the Atlantic Ocean full of Gold through his Pocketts & Overnight +would He empty Them." Richard, also, "Makes Choice of rake-hell +Companions," to his father's growing unease and indignation, his +mother's distress. But "Good God! how is all Forgiven the Beautiful, +the Gift'd!" + +"Jezebel herself, that carries her Head so High, wears her Heart +upon her Sleeve, een like a simple Milkmaid! 'Tis a Rare Spectacle. +Sure there's a Fatality about this Man!" + + * * * * * + +"This Day dress'd I in my new Blue Cloathes, the which become me not +Ill & riding over to Hope Plant'n did ask for Emily's Hand. Alas, +'Tis even as my Fears foretold! Shee loves me Not. 'Tis Richard +alone hath her Heart. + +"I do Fear Shee will sup Sorrow & drink Tears that setts her +Affection upon the Unstable. Shee's too Mild, too Tender, hath not a +Firm enough Hand to restrain him. He should een have ta'en Madame +Jezebel. Hath a Grand Passion for him. Will not lightly wear the +Willow." + + * * * * * + +"This Day did Richard my Brother Wed Emily Hope," he records, after +a six-months' silence. "All say 'tis a most Noble Mating. My Mother +in a Gown from London Town, & our Finest Gems, enow to make a +Dutchess envious of a Carolina Lady. My Father in high Spiritts. + +"I danc'd with the Bridesmaids, but Salut'd not the Bride, the Which +noted Madame Jezebel. Was Handsomer than ever I did See her, many +thinking her Handsomer than the Bride. Had a great Following, the +which the Hussy treat'd with Disdain. + +"'Have you Kiss'd the Bride, Sir?' says shee, a-mocking of me after +her Wont. 'What a Fine Thing is a Love-Match, Master Freeman!' + +"'Have you Wish'd the Bridegroom Joy?' says I. The woman anger'd me. + +"'May Heaven send him all the Happiness he Deserves!' cries shee. +'Sure, you'll echo that yourself, Master Freeman!' 'Tis a jibing +Wench. Would to God Richard had Wedded her!" + +Then came dry notes of a visit to Kinsfolk in Virginia. Freeman +seems to have been away from home for some time. When he returns, it +is to chronicle in brief his brother's downward course. "They have +sold Hope Plantation and Most of the Slaves. 'Tis an evil Chance." + +"I shall be Twenty-one next month, though I feel a Thousand. We +shall have a Ball, after the Custom of our House. 'Tis to be a Grand +Affair. I do think my Parents are somewhat Tender of Conscience to +meward. Though my Father Loves me not as he Loves my Brother, yet he +begins to Lean upon me more & More Heavily. My poor Mother is a +Little Envious of these Dry Virtues of mine, seeing her Darling is +like to come to Shipwreck for Lack of them. Yet had he Fortune & +Beauty & Emily!" + +The next entry records the loss of the Hynds jewels. "'Tis a great +Mystery!" One is sorely puzzled here. There is no getting at what +Freeman really thinks. Coldly, tritely, he sets down the bald, bare +facts of the tragedies that wrecked the Hyndses. + +With a strange lack of emotion he chronicles Richard's death, and +adds: "At the Pleasure of God his Birth fell upon a Wednesday, at +Sun-rising, the which was by some Accounted Favourable. His Death +came upon a Friday, at Noone, it Raining heavily." + +Then comes his father's sudden death; and this curious item: + +"Despite his Anguish & Affliction of Spiritt upon that Date, he did +tell me Part, after the Custom of our House, the morning of my +Twenty-first Birthday. Alas, when he was Stricken, upon the News of +Richard's Demise, he had no Chance to tell me All, nor was there +among his Papers the Keye nor any Clue to It. When J. call'd us, he +was Beyond Speech & shee Hystericall with Affright. Thus the Whole +Secret perishes, since Without the Keye & his Instructions 'twould +be Impossible to Proceed." + + * * * * * + +"This evening came Capt. B., the worst of the Plundering Crew that +pluck'd Richard. 'Sirrah,' says he, impudently, 'thy Brother owe'd +me three thousand pounds.' And he pulls me out a great fistfull of +Billets. + +"'Sirrah,' says I, 'my Brother owes his Wife and Orphan'd Infant +three thousand times more than that. There be Debts of Nature which +precede so-called Debts of Honour. Each billet in thy hand, thou +swindling runnigate, calls for a bullet. Begone, lest _I_ owe thee +a horse-whipping.' + +"'Anan!' says he, 'and one of you a Thief! _That_ for Honour, in the +mouth of a Hynds!' And snapp'd me his fingers under my Nose. + +"We arrang'd a Meeting, though 'T was Foolish to Risk myself, with +the Roof tottering over my Mother's Head. My fellow Pompey, Mr. G. +Dalzell, Mr. F. Mayne, & Dr. Baltassar Bobo with me. Two of his +scoundrelly Associates with him. His ball graz'd my arm above the +Elbow & Burnt the Linen of my Shirt. Mine Finish'd him. 'T was too +great an Honour & more than he Deserv'd, to die by the Hand of a +Gentleman." + +A little later: "This morn disappear'd my Cozen Jessamine. + +"Nothing discover'd of her Whereabouts," he records from time to +time. + +"This morn saw I Emily & Richard's little Son. 'T is a Fine child, +much Resembling my Brother. Emily turn'd her Face away, drawing down +of her Widow's Weeds, & turn'd also the Babe's face aside. I felt +Embitter'd." + +By this time he has taken over the whole Hynds estate as heir. He +mentions his sisters' marriages, notes that they have received their +dowers, and so dismisses them. + +His mother has been dead some time when he marries. One wonders what +the bride was like, whom he commends for "Housekeeping Virtues, so +that the Servants instantly Obey, there is no Pilfering & Loitering, +& the House moves like Clockwork." + +He must have been like clockwork, himself. There seems less and less +human emotion in him. The birth of his only child gets this: + +"This day was born Sophronisba Harriott Hynds, nam'd for her +Estimable Mother. I am told 'Tis a fine healthy Child." + +Casually thereafter he mentions "my Daughter." Twice her mother +"Requested me to Chastise her for Unchristian Temper," which +chastisement he seems to have administered with thoroughness and a +rattan, in his office. On the second occasion, "I whip'd her +Severely & did at the same Time admonish her to Ask Pardon of God. +Whereupon she Yell'd Aloud & did Seize the Calf of my Leg & Bite me, +Causing me Great Physical Pain and Mental Anguish. How sharper than +a Serpent's Tooth is an Ungrateful Child!" + +(Oh, Ungrateful Child, I do not find it in my heart to blame you +overmuch. Somehow I can't feel sorry that you bit him, Sophronisba!) + +"This day died my Wife, an Estimable Helpmeet. I shall sadly Lack +her Management of the House." In spite of which, he buys more land. +Life seems to run smoothly enough. "The Lord hath bless'd me with +Abundance. They that Spoke evil of me are Astonied & made Asham'd. +The Lord hath done it." + +Then comes this last entry: + +"Two nights since died Scipio, son of old Shooba's last Wife, the +which did send for me, Urgently entreating of my Presence. 'T was +ever a Simple-minded Creature & found a faithful Servant, wherefore +I did go to him. + +"He was greatly in Dread of Dying, for that he was in mortal Terrour +of old Shooba, fearing to Meet that Evil Being outside of the Flesh. +Had been with Shooba when the wretched Creature passed away, a +harden'd Heathen among Convert'd & Profess'd Christians. Said he was +a Snake Soul. + +"The man was craz'd with Fear, dreading Shooba to be even then in +the Room. And indeed the Tale he whisper'd me was enough to Craze a +Christian Man, & hath all but crack'd mine own Witts. If 't were not +for the Paper he slip't into my Palm, I should sett it down for a +Phantazy, one of old Shooba's evil Spells. Most merciful God, how +came he by that Paper if the Tale be untrue? + +"Greatly am I upsett by this Improbable & Frightful Thing. Sure this +requires Prayer & Fasting, lest I be Delud'd." + +Between the pages following this last entry was a piece of yellowed +paper, the paper that had been lost from the Author's coat pocket, +in the locked closet of his room. + +After a while I managed to work the slit of a drawer open, and to +this hiding-place I returned Freeman's diary, and with it the +faintly scented bit of paper that The Author mourned. + + * * * * * + +The failure of her matrimonial plans for me did not occasion Miss +Alicia Gaines overmuch grief. She seemed to have dismissed the whole +matter from her mind. Restored to her old time gaiety, she sang like +a thrush as she worked. She bubbled over with the sheer joy of +living, until the very sight of her gladdened one. And she simply +couldn't make her feet behave! She danced with the broom one +morning, to the great amusement of our scholarly old Englishman. + +"I'm supposed to be somewhat of an old stick myself: why not try me, +instead of the broom?" he suggested slyly. Instantly she took him at +his word, and danced him up and down the hall until he was +breathless. + +"This," panted the scholar, "is a fair sample of what the Irish do +to the English." + +"We do lead you a pretty dance, don't we, dear John Bull?" dimpled +Alicia. + +"You do, you engaging baggage!" he admitted. "But," he added, in a +tone of satisfaction, "we manage to keep step, my dear! Oh, yes, we +manage to keep step!" And he trotted off, chuckling. + +"There are times," said The Author to me, darkly, "when the +terrifying tirelessness of youth gives me a vertigo. Come away, Miss +Smith. Leave that kitten to chase her own shadow up the wall." + + "Cross-patch, draw the latch, + Sit by the fire and spin--yarns!" + +chanted Alicia. + +"Go away, you pink-and-white delusion!" said The Author, severely. +"You have made Scholarship and Wisdom put on cap and bells and +prance like a morris-dancer. Isn't that mischief enough for one +day?" + +Alicia has a round, snow-white chin, and when she tilts it the curve +of her throat is distracting. + +"On second thoughts," said The Author, critically, "I discover that +I do not wholly disapprove of you. Come outside. I wish to talk +about the venerable, and yet common design that tops every outside +window and door of this house.--What do you call that design, may I +ask?" + +"Why, everybody knows the Greek fret!" said Alicia, staring at it. +"It's as old as the hills." + +"Exactly," agreed The Author. "The Greek fret is as old as the hill. +And, with the single exception of the swastika, it is the design +most universally known to man. You may find it on a bit of ancient +Greek pottery, or on a crumbling wall in Yucatan. Many people refer +to it as the Greek key." + +Something began to glimmer in my mind--the vaguest, most tenuous +shadow of an idea; a tantalizing, hide-and-seek phantom of a +thought. + + "_Turne Hellens Keye + Three Tennes and Three_," + +he quoted the doggerel verse. + +We looked at him mutely. + +"It is a tiresome truism," he went on, reflectively, "that what lies +close to the eye often escapes observation. For instance, these +windows have been staring at me daily, each with its nice little +eyebrow of design, and I overlooked the design until my subconscious +mind suggested to me that here, in all probability, lies Hellen's +Keye." + +I remembered the entry in Freeman's diary, concerning the loss of a +"Keye," which hadn't been found among his father's papers, and of a +secret which had died with the older man. + +"I think I told you," said The Author, "that this house was built by +master masons, shortly after the Grand Lodge was established in +London. Thirty-three is rather a significant number. Yet, how to +apply it," he paused, frowning. + +"Without disturbing a Watcher in the Dark?" Alicia made light of +The Authors itch for mystery. "Aren't you rather forgetting the +Watcher in the Dark? Teller of tales, isn't it moon-stuff you're +trying to spin?" + +"Who talks of a Watcher in the Dark?" asked a pleasant voice. +Accompanied by Mr. Johnson, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik had strolled up +unperceived. + +"The Author," Alicia explained, mischievously, "is trying to make +sense out of nonsense." + +"That," said Mr. Jelnik, smiling, "is not an uncommon occupation." + +"It's all about a bit of doggerel we found on a scrap of paper in +the attic," I told him. And I quoted it, adding: "There was a column +of dots under it. The Author laments that he lost it, before he had +chance to unravel it." + +"I lost it, walking in my sleep," said The Author, disagreeably. + +"And now he's trying to make us believe that the design in the +brick-work above our windows, just because it's the Greek fret, is +Hellen's Keye," Alicia said, jestingly. + +"Well, you know, if a thing means _anything_, it's got to mean +_something_," put in Mr. Johnson. + +"Ain't it the truth, though?" hissed The Author, with fury. + +Mr. Johnson was saved from stammering explanations by the irruption +of Beautiful Dog, who at sound of his voice had wriggled, and +cringed, and fawned his way out of the shrubbery, cocking a wary eye +to see that none of the Black family was around. Beautiful Dog +rolled his eyes at his god, swung his tail, waggled his ears, made +uncouth movements with his splay feet, and grinned from ear to ear. +He was so utterly absurd that he claimed everybody's amused +attention. + +"Why, old chap! You're rather glad to see your friends, aren't you?" +the secretary said in his pleasant voice. + +Beautiful Dog yelped with rapture, darted back into the shrubbery, +and a moment later emerged and laid at his adored one's feet all his +treasure, a chewed slipper. He tried to say that precious as this +gift undoubtedly was, he gave it willingly, joyfully. But scenting +other white people too near, he backed off, and fled. + +The Author's eyes followed him. + +"I wonder if I'd have been equal to that, myself, if I'd been born a +nigger dog with an ingrained distrust of the white man?" he +questioned. "Gad! it comes near being the real thing, Johnson!" + +The secretary looked at the slipper lying at his feet: "I wonder +where he found that, now?" + +I was wondering the same thing, and so was Alicia. + +"Let's show Beautiful Dog the Chinese politeness of being decent +enough not to accept his gift when he's decent enough to offer it," +she suggested. + +"Yes, throw it into the shrubbery and let him find it. That may +raise white people somewhat in his estimation," I added, hastily. + +Instantly Mr. Jelnik picked it up and tossed it among the bushes. +His action seemed the merest polite compliance with my request, and +he barely glanced at the object he cast away. Yet it was really +worth a second glance. Chewed, frayed, and torn, it had once been of +finest red Morocco leather; and it was such a flat and heelless +slipper as no native Hyndsville foot had ever worn. It was The +Jinnee's slipper. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE TALISMAN + + +Mrs. Cheshire Scarboro was far from the fool her cousin Sophronisba +had credited her with being. She had sufficient cleverness to +understand that Hyndsville wasn't big enough to hold two factions. +For a faction was forming with Hynds House as its storm-center, and +it was one which threatened Mrs. Scarboro's hitherto unquestioned +sovereignty. Jimmy Scarboro himself, a most personable youth, was +one of the ringleaders of revolt. + +A weaker woman would have kept up the fight. Mrs. Scarboro +understood that to spend one's powers trying to hold an untenable +position is a proof not of valor but of stupidity. She quietly +declared a truce, sending out, in the form of an invitation to one +of her sacred card-parties, tentative notice that she would consider +joining forces. We recognized the olive-branch, seriously extended. +The next move was ours. + +"There's a time to fight, and a time to leave off fighting," Alicia +decided. "Here's where we disarm. When these people come from under +the shade of the dear old family tree, they're quite human. We have +got to let them give themselves the opportunity to discover that +we're human, too." + +It wasn't necessary to explain things to The Author, because a +portion of his brain is purely and cattily feminine. That's why he +is a genius. No man is a genius whose brain isn't bisexual. + +"I shall have to lay aside a cherished prejudice and lend this lady +the light of my countenance, although I loathe card-parties. I abhor +cards, outside of draw-poker on shipboard, with a crook of sorts +sitting in to lend the game a fillip. Despite the fact that poor +Mrs. Scarboro couldn't lay hands on a decent crook to save her life, +I think I shall go, and thereby acquire merit," he concluded, with +the air of a martyr. + +I looked at him gratefully. + +"I'll wager that little Sophy thinks she wants to go because she +desires to be friends and neighbors. 'Behold how good and how +pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!'--You're a +transparent person, you Sophy!" + +"But I do desire to be friends with them. I have to live here all +the rest of my life, haven't I?" + +"Not necessarily," replied The Author, arching his eyebrows. "For +instance, you can live in New York any time you want to, Sophy." + +"I've never told you that you might call me Sophy," I parried, +hastily. + +"Oh, but I like to call you Sophy," he responded airily. "And +really, you shouldn't mind. I've called people lots worse things +than Sophy, in my time! But then," he added, "I didn't happen to +like them. As for you, I find you a very likeable being, Sophy; upon +my word, extremely likeable!" + +"Thank you," said I. I wasn't anxious to hear The Author tell me how +likable he found me; at least, not yet. + + * * * * * + +For pride's sake as well as for the sake of custom--and in South +Carolina custom has all the power of a fetish--Mrs. Scarboro would +have died rather than vary by one jot or tittle her usual +refreshments, or wear a new frock, on that particular night. Yet the +occasion, despite its mild diversions, was distinctly epochal, in +that it marked the reunion of Hyndsville. Even Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, +for the first time, put in his decorative appearance, to The +Author's fidgety surprise. He played a highly creditable game of +bridge. And after a while he sang "Believe Me if All Those Endearing +Young Charms," so exquisitely that a hushed and rapturous silence +fell upon everybody, and the old ladies and gentlemen present held +their hands before misty eyes. They used to sing that song when the +old men were boy soldiers marching off to the tune of "The Bonnie +Blue Flag," and the old ladies were ringleted girls in hoop-skirts +bidding them good-by. + +"My dear boy," Mrs. Scarboro told him, with great feeling, "you have +been forgetting that you're a cousin of mine. Your mother and I were +girls together. I want you to meet some other old friends of hers +and your grandfather's," and she carried him off to a group of those +wonderful old ladies who grow to purest perfection in South +Carolina--low-voiced lovely old ladies, dressed in black silk, with +cameo brooches at their throats, and lace caps on their white hair. + +A little group of old gentlemen immediately foregathered with them. +They knew who was and wasn't kin to Sally Hynds's son, unto the +seventh generation. + +"They've begun on the begats," chuckled The Author, "First Book of +Chronicles, Chapters One to Four." + +"Jelnik's really kin to them, and he ought to pay for the +privilege," said Mr. Johnson. + +The Author looked at the old ladies, on whose delicate withered +hands the wedding-rings hung loosely, and at the erect old gentlemen +with white goatees, and something whimsically tender came into his +clever face. + +"It is worth the price," he said, very gently--for him. + +"Now, that was your soul speaking!" said Miss Emmeline, warmly. +Instantly The Author wrinkled his nose, bristled his mustache, and +looked like a hyena. Miss Martha Hopkins, worshipfully observant of +the great man, caught his eye at that moment and thought he was +scowling at _her_. She looked so stricken that The Author presently +strolled over and sat down beside her, to her fluttering delight. +But discovering that she was wholly unacquainted with the original +verse of J. Gordon Coogler of Columbia, he first bitterly reproached +her for neglecting home-made talent, and then proceeded to make sure +that she would remember the Bard of the Congaree so long as she +lived. + +"Not know Coogler!" cried The Author, shrilly; "ignorant of the bard +raised, so to speak, around your own door-step? Horrible! Listen to +this!" said he, accusingly: + + "Fair lady, on that snowy neck and half-clad bosom + Which you so publicly reveal to man, + There's not a single outward stain or speck. + Would that you had given but half the care + To the training of your intellect and heart, + As you have given to that spotless neck!" + +"Gracious Heavens!" gasped Miss Martha, who showed a modest +salt-cellar in the mildest of Vs. + +"Is it possible you don't like him?" demanded The Author, amazedly. +"But, my dear woman! Coogler's--why, Coogler's ginger-pop to a +thirsty world!" + +"I--I don't drink ginger-pop!" confessed the be-deviled Center of +Culture, foggily. + + "Alas! for the South, her books have grown fewer, + She never was much given to literature," + +quoted The Author, pensively. + +She was speechless. The shameless Author, fixing upon her a last +long, lingering look of sorrowful reproach, said with emotion: + + "From early youth to the frost of age + Man's days have been a mixture + Of all that constitutes in life + A dark and gloomy picture." + +And he stalked off, leaving Miss Martha Hopkins in a state of mind. + +"Friend Author," Alicia murmured, as he paused beside her, "I wish +you were my own dear little boy for just five merry minutes. I'd +show you," she declared, divided between Irish mirth and human pity +for Miss Martha, "I'd show you what a hair-brush could accomplish!" + +"Too late!" regretted The Author, shaking his head. "But," he +suggested, brightening, "couldn't you wish to be my own dear little +girl, instead?" + +"This is so sudden!" murmured Alicia, coyly. + +"Deluding devilette!" breathed The Author, "get thee behind me!" + +That evening was the first time I had ever heard myself called +"pretty." I was used to "businesslike" and "efficient" and +"trustworthy"--all excellent terms, in their way, but not such happy +things, any one of them, as "pretty." + +"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked The Author. "Something over +the hills and far away? Because you look as Maude Adams used to look +when she first played 'Peter Pan.'" + +I hoped it might be true, because-- + +I looked up then and met Mr. Nicholas Jelnik's dark eyes. They were +falcon eyes, but now there was something in them that made me, to my +rage and confusion and chagrin, blush like a silly school-girl. When +I again ventured to glance in his direction he was patiently and +politely listening to a white-goateed, game-legged U.C.V. refight +the Civil War with so fiery a zest that he presently caught another +veteran a resounding crack on the funny-bone with the gold-headed +stick he was flourishing. Both gentlemen half rose, the one making +wry faces and rubbing his elbow, the other bowing and apologetic. + +"Pahdon me, Majah! My deah suh, pahdon me! But I was just tellin' +this boy about the day in the Wilderness his grandfathah Hynds took +a Yankee bullet out of my leg with a paih of silvah scissahs and +bandaged it with the tail of his shirt. + +"'I've lost my niggah and my instruments, Sam,' says the doctah, +'but that's no reason why the damyankees should have the +satisfaction of killin' a puffeckly good rebel, when there's not +enough to go around now. Hold your leg still,' says he, rollin' up +his sleeves, 'an' with the help of God and my scissahs and my +shirt-tail, I'll save it for you.' An' he did. I walked home from +Appomattox on that same leg, suh," said the veteran, and brought his +stick down on the toes of it with a force that made him utter a +muffled bellow. + +The other, still nursing an outraged elbow, smiled sweetly. + +"Thanks, Sam," he drawled. + +The Author chuckled appreciatively. "And to think we Americans rush +abroad, when the republic of South Carolina is right next-door to +us!" he murmured. + +A gentle change was creeping over Hynds House, perhaps because of +the delightful old ladies who had begun to come there. Old +gentlemen, too, formed the pleasant habit of dropping in, beguiled +by the artful Author, waited upon son-like by his secretary, +foregathered with as kith and kin by the Englishman, mint-juleped by +the three of them, enchanted by Alicia, and teaed and caked and +beloved by me. Even our cats adored them. The Black family could +spot a Confederate veteran as far off as the front gate, and would +rush wildly to meet him, rubbing and roaching and purring in and out +of his old legs. The Author insisted that their passion for U.C.V.'s +was an inherited trait with our cats, and that we ourselves were +merely acquired characteristics. + +In April, just before Miss Emmeline was to return to Boston, and the +Englishman and his daughter were to go back home, Alicia and I +decided to give a farewell dance. It was to be in costume. + +Hyndsville was pleasantly excited. Never had there been such +rummaging of attics, such searchings of old trunks! We rummaged our +attic, too. I selected a yellow brocade trimmed with seed-pearls and +cascades of lace, and Alicia chose a skimpy blue satin frock with a +round neck, an upstanding lace collar, and absurd little puffed +sleeves. The Englishman was a Puritan, his daughter a Quakeress, +Mr. Johnson a Huguenot Lover, Miss Emmeline a Colonial Lady, Doctor +Geddes a bearded and belted Boyar, and The Author a painfully +realistic Mephistopheles, his eyebrows corked upward and his +mustache waxed into points. Mr. Jelnik sent regrets. + +We had waxed the floors, and moved most of the furniture out of the +big front drawing-room; and this and the wide halls were used for a +ball-room, just as they had been used in the old days. The older +people played cards in the living-room and library. Every now and +then, between pauses, some masked and brilliant figure, like a +bright ghost from the past, would steal in to look over their +shoulders and whisper in their ears. + +But those grandparents weren't content to sit down and play cards +while others footed it. Not they! They danced the Lancers, and a +polka or two, and waltzed and dipped and bowed to "Comin' through +the Rye" while all the masqueraders lined up against the walls to +admire and applaud. And after the gayest sort of a buffet supper, +the prizes that had been won by a belle and a trooper of '61--she in +her grandmother's crinoline and he in his grandfather's gray +jacket--were turned over by acclaim to a sprightly lady of seventy +and her sprightlier partner of seventy-five, for coming disguised as +old folks. The Author made the presentation speech. He began it by +saying that in South Carolina any man might well be excused for +falling in love with his grandmother. + +Then the oldsters began to depart, with laughter and gay good +nights. It had been a delightful affair, one of those affairs that +go with a swing and a rhythm all their own, and that one remembers +with a pleasant taste in the mouth. + +Only the more indefatigable youngsters remained. They hadn't the +slightest intention of foregoing half a night's dancing. They danced +in the hall to the music of the victrola, while the regular +musicians were being feted in the kitchen by Mary Magdalen, +Queenasheeba, and Fernolia. + +I missed my fan, and went into the drawing-room to look for it. The +room was quite empty for the moment, and looked lonesome for all its +blazing lights. A cool, sweet night wind came in through the open +windows, refreshingly. And quite suddenly there was framed in one of +them a figure more exotic, more bizarre, than any of our maskers had +been. + +His dark robe was folded over his breast, and the silver shaft of a +knife showed in his red girdle. His white wool stuck out from under +his red fez, and his ear-rings gleamed against his black cheeks, and +the bracelets on his wiry arms made a faint tinkling as he leaned +forward. Emboldened by his twinkling eyes, his crooked, friendly +smile, eager to question him, I drew nearer. He stretched out his +hand, and slipped into mine the half of a broken coin. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE HEART OF HYNDS HOUSE + + +I stood staring at the broken coin in my hand with a sort of +stupefaction, while The Jinnee moved slowly away from the window. I +had received a summons I could not ignore. Had I not promised, +smilingly indeed, but sincerely, to answer that call whenever and +however it should come? + +The music had ceased for the moment, and the big hall was quite +empty, for the dancers had trooped into the dining-room, from which +came laughter and chattering voices, and the chink of silver and +china. The great front doors were wide open. I slipped unseen into +the darkly bright, whispering night. + +The moon was high in the heavens, for it was past midnight; the wind +was chill upon my shoulders, the dew silvery under my feet. There +was an odor abroad--the ineffable odor of sleepily stirring spring, +of young new leaves budding, of tender grass, growing like a baby's +hair. + +At some distance ahead I could just distinguish the dark figure of +the messenger, flitting soundless as a shadow. And then, to my +infinite relief, out of the shrubbery stepped Boris, and thrust his +doggy nose into my hand. I laid hold of his collar, and he trotted +sedately beside me. + +I had half expected to be led to the gray-gabled cottage, but The +Jinnee stole along in the shadow of the hedge, stopped beside the +spring-house, and held up his hand. + +"In the name of God!" said I, involuntarily. + +"The compassionate, the merciful!" finished The Jinnee, and turning +to the east made a profound reverence. There was something so simple +and so sincere in his manner that my momentary fear subsided. + +"But why have I been sent for? Why are _you_ here?" I wondered. + +He folded his arms upon his breast, and in a sing-song voice, +curiously unlike any other I had ever heard, answered parrotlike: + +"This is the word of the master: Take to the fair-haired lady the +broken coin, my sign, and she will remember her word to me. Verily, +for the sign's sake, she will follow without fear." + +"The master is not ill, then?" + +"In his body he is well. But of the spirit of man, and what help he +needs, there is but one judge, namely, God." + +"He has need of me?" + +"He sends the token by me, Achmet." And he stood there with a +motionless patience, waiting. + +Achmet! I remembered an afternoon in the Enchanted Wood, and that +name ringing in my ears--Achmet! + +"I will follow you," I said. And instantly The Jinnee pushed open +the unlocked door of the spring-house and stepped inside. + +I hesitated for a moment, turning my head toward Hynds House, +blazing with lights. I could hear voices, laughter, snatches of +song. From the kitchen Mary Magdalen's great, rich, unctuous laugh +rolled out like an organ peal. Silhouetted against the lighted +library window was one of our big black cats, with an arched back +and an uplifted and expressive tail. + +"I wait," said a quiet voice. And, clutching Boris by the collar, I +stepped inside the door. + +It was dark in there; only a faint and broken light came through the +one window, set high in the wall. Boris's eyes were balls of fire, +and his feet made a stealthy, scuffling sound on the flagged floor. +The little spring bubbling in its stone basin was like a whispering, +secretive voice. + +Achmet stooped down, over in one corner. Then, shading a very modern +flash-light with a fold of his robe, he showed me one of the square +flags lifted, and a black hole yawning in the floor. + +I backed away. With a crooked, sly smile, The Jinnee snapped his +fingers at Boris. The big dog jerked himself free of my hand and +disappeared. + +"Now!" said The Jinnee. And like one in a dream I gathered my +lace-trimmed skirts in my hand and backed down a spider-web stairway +that barely gave one foothold. Achmet waited until I reached the +bottom, then he, too, backed in, and I heard the flagstone fall to +over my head. + +There was a moment of utter and awful blackness and stillness. I was +upon the point of shrieking, when something cold and friendly +touched my hand: Boris was nosing me. The Jinnee, at the bottom of +the steps, showed the light. + +We were in a circular shaft, narrowing upward like an inverted +funnel. It was quite clean and dry, lined with hard cement. +Branching from it were two wedge-shaped openings, just wide enough +to allow one person at a time to walk through. + +The Jinnee plunged into one of these, and Boris and I followed. +There was nothing else for us to do. + +"This is safest way. If I come through house, I am seen. Not want +that," said Achmet, over his shoulder. + +I made no reply. I was wondering what The Author would have said had +he seen us at that moment--The Jinnee shuffling ahead in heelless +slippers and Oriental dress, upon his woolly head a red fez with a +silver crescent on it, and on his breast a string of _saphies_, +verses from the Koran, in exquisite Arabic script, framed in flat +round pieces of silver and strung on a chain. Boris, larger and +nobler even than most of his breed, paced behind him. Then came I, a +slim blonde woman, with fair hair powdered, in a dress a century +old. + +The passage wasn't quite six feet high, and so still that you +could hear the beating of your heart. Achmet's slippers went +_scuf-scuf-scuf_. Boris swayed from side to side, his tongue +lolling, his eyes phosphorescent. He resembled those ghost-hounds +of old stories, terrific beasts that follow the Wild Huntsman. + +We went down some steps. I shouldn't have been surprised had I found +myself climbing the beanstalk after Jack. Dazedly I thought: "I'll +wake up in the morning and tell them at the breakfast-table what a +wonderful dream I had." I could fancy the Lady with the Soul +clasping her hands, and The Author crinkling his eyes, and Alicia +laughing. + +This last passage, which, I learned afterward, ran under the +carriage house, presently crooked like an elbow and led us into a +windowless and stone-floored little room, under the cellar. On the +opposite side of the room was the opening of another such passage, +with stone steps leading to it. On these steps sat Nicholas Jelnik. + +He got to his feet and stood looking at me. A momentary red rushed +to his cheek, and his eyes flashed. Boris, tongue out, tail wagging, +rubbed against him, and the master's hand dropped between the +speaking eyes with a swift caress. + +"Good dog! You came with her!" + +"And I. Am I not also a good dog?" asked The Jinnee, jealously. + +Mr. Jelnik's reply I did not understand, but Achmet made a +respectful salutation, and his grin was the grin of a little boy. + +"Sophy!" said Nicholas Jelnik, and his voice shook, "Sophy! Oh, I +knew you would come!" He gave a low, pleased laugh. "And now she is +here, she doesn't even ask why I have sent for her!" + +"The mistress," said Achmet, "should have been of the Faith. May +Allah enlighten her!" + +"Sit down here beside me for a few minutes, Sophy, and rest," said +Mr. Jelnik, seating himself. "And do not look so pale, my little +comrade." + +"I thought--that you might be ill," I faltered. "I thought--that you +needed me." + +"I am not ill, but I do need you," he said quickly, and took my hand +in a firm clasp. The touch of that hand brought me out of my +trance-like state. It was all right, and the most natural thing in +the world, that I should be sitting in this windowless vault, with +two candles and a shadowy lantern burning dimly in the still air, an +old black Jinnee squatting on his heels watching me, a great +wolf-hound stretched beside him. Wasn't Nicholas Jelnik holding my +hand? + +"Sophy," he said directly, "I have found the lost Key of Hynds +House." I looked at him dumbly. "I have reached that point where I +can tell you everything, little friend. Thank Heaven you have come!" +But of a sudden his-forehead was damp. + +"You will remember," he said, after a moment's silence, and still +holding my hand--and I think that now he held it as he had once held +his mother's--"when I talked to you about my childhood and my +mother, I told you she had made me more of an American than an +Austrian. This old home-town of her people, this old house, the +mystery that blackened the Hynds name, were as real to me as the +scenes and people that actually surrounded me. + +"When I was older, she turned over to me all her family papers, and +I sifted and assorted and reduced them to system and order. I found +among them Richard Hynds's own brief account of the affair, and +copies of letters to his father, but the bulk of the papers +consisted of such data as his son and namesake could gather. This +formed a copious mass, for he had set down every least circumstance +that he thought might have any bearing upon his father's case. These +papers, guarded so jealously, bequeathed to his successors the +sacred task of righting Richard Hynds. + +"In Richard's short statement, left for his little son, he, as +rightful heir of Hynds House, mentions the secret passages and tells +how they may be entered. He had been taught that much, himself, on +reaching his majority. But there was one vital secret that hadn't +been revealed to Richard, for not until the head of Hynds House knew +he was about to die did he give to his successor the Key to the +hidden room; the room concealed so cunningly that without the Key +one could never hope to find it. They planned and built wonderfully +well, those old master work-men. They meant that secret room to be +the strong-box, the inviolate hiding-place which should keep what +might be entrusted to it. It was, as it were, the heart of Hynds +House. + +"Remember that Richard's father died of a stroke of apoplexy, and +without speaking. Thus Freeman would know no more than Richard did. +There was but one person alive who knew, and that was--" + +"A slave?" I whispered, remembering Freeman's diary. + +"A slave, an unlettered slave. How he discovered it I do not know. +But he did discover it. He knew, and the Hyndses did not. In regard +to this same slave, a curious item was set down by Richard's son: + +"'This day Black Shooba's son told me of a heathen song Shooba made +before he died and swore him to forget not. 'Tis a strange chaunt: + + "I, Shooba, the Snake Soul, make me a Song. + In the night I sing it for my Snake. + My Snake showed me a Secret Thing. + Two Eyes and Two Eyes looked upon One Eye. + One Eye is open and sees, and sees not. + This my Snake showed me, in the Dark. + But the Strong Ones, the White Ones, + They have no Snake. Ho! Never shall they see it!"' + +"Sounds like a stark raving, doesn't it? One can fancy the doctor +feeling a bit ashamed of himself when he wrote it down. + +"I rather fancied it raving, myself, until one day I came across--" +here he paused, and looked at me intently--"a yellowed slip of paper +between the pages of an old diary that had been accidentally +discovered. I knew then that there was really something to be +discovered, and that I had not been a visionary sentimentalist when +I yielded to my mother's last expressed wish that I should come +here and search. + +"I suppose," he went on dreamily, "that it was in my blood, the +desire to come here to Hyndsville, like a homing bird. But when my +mother died, the ties that bound me to her country seemed to be in a +measure loosened. Then, too, the _Wanderlust_ had me in its grip. I +put aside the profession my father had bred me to, left my affairs +in what I thought capable hands, and indulged my desire to wander up +and down the earth and sail the seven seas. It was upon one of these +prowls that I came upon my old Achmet here, and induced a master who +didn't love him to part with him." And he looked at the old man with +whimsical tenderness. + +"I am your slave," spoke up The Jinnee, sturdily. "I am the fostered +offspring of my master's bounty. May he live a thousand years!" + +That shocked my Yankee ears. Achmet smiled his crooked smile. + +"Why did the sahiba follow when I showed her a broken coin?" he +asked. + +"Because I knew that Mr. Jelnik needed me." + +"Even in the bowels of the earth?" I was silent. + +"Because he is the master!" said The Jinnee. "Therefore you obeyed. +He is the master. Wherefore am I, Achmet, his slave." Oh, shame +upon you, Sophy Smith, for there was that in you, and that not the +least divine part, which was in full accord with black Achmet! + +"Achmet's ideas are of the immutable East," said Mr. Jelnik, with a +faint smile. "He is archaic." And dismissing this persiflage with a +wave of the hand, he continued: + +"Behold me, then, footing it up and down the highways and byways of +the world. But it was as if I had disobeyed the dead, and they would +give me no rest. So presently I stopped short and came to +Hyndsville. + +"With Richard's directions in my possession, it was comparatively +easy for me to find the passageways, and after the old woman's death +I had chance to examine the house room by room. And sometimes, +Sophy, when I have been alone in this tragic old place--" he paused, +and looked at me with a puzzled frown--"it has seemed to me that +there were--well, secret influences, say; things outside of our +sphere. I have felt a sense of horror and despair descend upon my +spirit, a weight almost too heavy to bear. Sometimes it would be so +powerful, so insistent, so vivid, that I had to fly from it. + +"Then I happened to remember something that a gipsy, an old, old man +reputed to be very wise, told me when I was a boy. He said that +troubled spirits can be soothed and sent hence by music. It is the +old and sure charm, as David found when he played upon the harp and +drove the evil spirit out of Saul the king. I brought my violin and +tried it. And," said the cosmopolitan Mr. Jelnik, "the gipsy was +right." + +"Ah, yes, I see you know, now. It was I whom you heard playing, that +first day. It was I, touched by your plight in that forlorn and +dusty barracks, who gave you some slight relief. It was easy enough +for me to cut across to Geddes's house, reach in through his kitchen +window, lift his tray, and escape through the ragged hedges while +his cook's broad back was turned. Achmet was willing enough to play +the obliging Jinnee. You had your dinner, and I had a bit of +harmless amusement. It pleased me to hear Alicia call me Ariel. It +pleased me to stand by, to protect you, if that should be necessary. +Achmet and I took turns in safeguarding you at night. + +"You will understand"--he gave me a straight, clear, proud +look--"that it was never my desire to mystify or to frighten you. +But I couldn't take you offhand into my confidence, could I? I had +to find out something more about you. Remember, too, that my search +in no wise jeopardizes your interests. + +"Day after day, night after night, Sophy, I have pored over +old papers, or burrowed mole-like into the black recesses of +Hynds House. Bit by bit I have pieced scraps of evidence +together--Shooba's savage chant with Scipio's dying whisper in +Freeman's ear, and these two with a rude verse and a line of +dots. But there the thread snapped. + +"Do you remember the morning you told me, The Author's guess that +'Hellen's Keye' was the Greek fret, the design over all the windows +and doors of Hynds House? The trail was plain then. I was to follow +the line of the Greek key for three and thirty turnings, when I +should come upon a sign. I tried and tried. And to-night--I reached +the end of it, Sophy. I found it." Again his forehead was damp, and +his pallor, if possible, deepened. + +I rose as if on springs. The hair of my head rose, too, I thought, +and my scalp tingled. + +"Found what?" + +"The hidden room that the masters built for the master of Hynds +House." He stopped, and a shudder passed over him. His hand closed +upon mine, and it was deathly cold. + +"You have been in a secret room?--here in Hynds House?" I asked +incredulously. + +"Yes," said he in a whisper. "I opened the door--and went in. The +room hadn't been opened for a hundred years, Sophy. There was a +table in one corner, and I went over to it. There was something +else there, too, Sophy." He moistened his lips, and looked at me +with dilated eyes. + +"What?" I asked; "in God's name, what?" + +"The thief," said Nicholas Jelnik. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE DEVILL HIS RAINBOW + + +I was taken with a cold grue. + +"Is it--murder?" It seemed to me that the still room shook and +echoed to the barely whispered word, that the candles stirred and +flickered as in a wind of passing wings. + +"Not in the sense you mean," he replied. "But whatever it may be, +Sophy, this thing has got to be met and faced by us two together. It +concerns you now, as well as me." He stood up as he spoke. "And +now," he asked, "are you strong enough to come with me?" + +I gathered the living spirit within me and looked him in his eyes. + +"Yes," I said steadily. + +"Allah! but here is a woman a man may serve without shame to his +beard!" quoth The Jinnee, wagging his old white head. And with Boris +stretched beside him he resigned himself to wait with the tireless +patience of the East. + +If the other passages had been narrow, that which we now entered was +worse. It was so narrow that the wall on each side seemed about to +close in and crush us, like those frightful sliding walls that +became a living coffin for the victims of medieval cruelty. Always +one was confronted by solid brick walls; and to turn back was to +meet others seemingly risen to cut off all escape. For this passage +follows the simple and yet intricate pattern of the Greek key. Thus: + + [Illustration: Plan of Passage and Secret Chamber] + +I fancied myself doomed to spend a frightful eternity of burrowing +through brick wormholes which led nowhere. I lost all sense of +location, time, and direction. I wasn't even sure of my own identity +any more: things like this couldn't happen to a woman named Smith! +Just when I reached the stage where I was ready to drop down and lie +there unmoving until I died, he turned his head and gave me a +comradely smile of assurance and trust. I plucked up heart of grace +and staggered on. Of a sudden he stopped. The pale circle of the +flash-light moved up, inch by inch, steadied, and stayed on one +spot. + +I found myself staring fixedly at the old and familiar enough symbol +of the rayed eye within the triangle. It was not commonplace or +familiar set up there in that secret and awesome place and seen by a +pale light. There was about it a stark and stern solemnity, such as +suggested the winged circle of immortality carved above the +rock-hewn doors of the tombs of Egyptian kings. Higher than a tall +man's head, it was painted on bricks of a lighter hue than the +surrounding ones, and when the light touched it it seemed to leap +out of the dark like a thing alive, a thing that watched with an +unwinking and terrifying intensity. + +I remembered Shooba's savage chant of the One Eye that his Snake had +shown him; and the doggerel verse on the frayed paper in Freeman's +diary. + +"The Watcher in the Dark!" I stammered; "the Watcher in the Dark! +Why--why, that paper was the Key itself!" + +"Exactly. And a very simple key, though it took me a heartbreaking +length of time to turn it. The cipher was easy enough. It falls +apart into the figures three, five, seven, and nine; it was also +the simplest train of reasoning to apply these figures to the column +of dots. Only, I hadn't the remotest idea what the dots themselves +represented. Nor did it occur to me that the tortuous turnings of +any of the passageways of Hynds House might follow the pattern of +the Greek key, until The Author called your attention to the design +over the outside windows. Clever man, The Author! + +"I lost the paper in the attic the night you heard me stumble on the +stairs. Fortunately, The Author put it in his coat in the closet and +locked the door on the outside. You can enter any room in the Hynds +House through those closet-walls, Sophy. They're paneled, remember. +I hated to have to go through The Author's pockets like a burglar, +but I had to have the key." + +He handed me the flash-light. + +"Now for the column of dots, each of which represents a brick," he +said, and began to count, from the first dark brick immediately +under the center of the triangle. At the third brick he paused; I +could see his fingers moving around the white line that, apparently, +held it in place. And that third brick, which looked so solidly +placed, turned as upon a pivot and swung out sideways. Still +counting from top to bottom, he paused at the fifth, the seventh, +and the ninth, and they, too, behaved in the same manner. As the +ninth one turned, that which had seemed a section of solid wall rose +soundlessly from the floor and left in its place an opening, a door, +as it were, some six feet high and about eighteen inches wide. + +"It is not brick at all, but painted wood. A really wonderful bit of +work," explained Mr. Jelnik. + +I could only stare, owlishly. + +"You are wondering where we are?" He answered the unspoken question: +"Above the library, between the outside wall and the chimney-stacks. +You'd have to tear the house down to find it, without the Key." As +he spoke, he was lighting two of the candles Achmet had provided us +with, and although his hand was quite steady, he had become +frightfully pale. I, too, felt myself growing paler, felt again the +cold grue, as if the wind of death had stirred my hair. + +"Reach into my breast pocket and you'll find a small vial. Put a +drop of the contents on your handkerchief and hold it against your +mouth for a moment," said Mr. Jelnik, with a sharp glance at me. + +I obeyed mechanically. The scent had an indescribably tingling, +spicy odor, and left a cool and grateful sensation in one's parched +and dry throat. My blurred vision cleared, my dull and throbbing +head was relieved. + +"An Alexandrine Copt gave me that," he said, watching its effect +with satisfaction. "He told me he had gotten it from a temple +papyrus, and that it was undoubtedly one of the lost perfumes of +Punt, used by the higher priesthood in their mysteries. Once a year +he sends me such a tiny vial as you see. I could hardly have +survived my searchings in this house, without that saving perfume. +Do you feel able to go on?" + +"Yes." + +"Come, then," and with that he stepped through the opening, and I +after him. + +The room was not large--perhaps some nine feet high, some eight feet +wide. The walls were of such exquisitely grooved and polished red +mahogany that the candle-light was reflected in them as in mirrors; +one seemed to be surrounded by twinkling red stars. On each side of +the opening stood a tall and narrow cabinet, somewhat like a +high-boy, and in one corner was a chest with iron clasps and +handles. Over in another corner was a heavy, medium-sized square +table, on which stood a blackened candelabrum and a tarnished +silver-gilt cup. There were two chairs drawn up to this table. On +one of them, fallen forward, was something. + +Mr. Jelnik placed the candles in the empty sconces. We two stood +looking down, he with pity, I with a mounting, sick horror, at the +thing before us--the poor, huddled thing that had lain there so +long. For it was not, as one might suppose at first glance, a frayed +and threadbare mantle flung across one corner of the table. By the +long black hair it was a woman, and a young woman. + +She had on what must once have been a most beautiful brown silk +dress, trimmed with quantities of fine lace, and looped up over a +stiff brocaded petticoat. Her skeleton feet were in the smallest of +low-cut shoes, the tarnished silver buckles of which were set with +rhinestones. Her head rested on her arm, outflung across the table. +The other arm hung limp, and the fingers pointed downward, as if +accusingly. She had quantities of glorious black hair, and this +alone had death respected; nothing else of her loveliness remained. +Under her fleshless hand lay the soiled and yellowed papers she had +written, and over which, in biting mockery, she had kept watch and +ward. + +"Who is it? Oh, God, God!--who is it?" I gasped, and heard my voice +rattling in my throat like a dying woman's. As, perhaps her voice +had rattled, here in the dark. The thought of her, sitting here in +awful loneliness these long, long years, while life, all unknowing, +ebbed and flowed within reach of her, made me shudder. + +"It is Jessamine Hynds, lost Jessamine Hynds," said her kinsman of +a later day, looking down upon the wreck of her with compassion. + +"But how--how--why did she come here? To die thus--Oh, my God! my +God!" + +"I saw the papers under her hand, and her name written upon the +first page," he said. "What further things she has written, I do not +know. I waited, Sophy, until we should read it together." He smiled +at me wanly. "I could bear it better, with you beside me. You see +how much I need you!" And he took the papers from her and spread +them upon the table. What she had written I shall insert here, as +its properest place. + + I, Jessamine Hynds, Gentlewoman, being of sound Mind (though + they do say I am mad) but of infirm Body, the which I am + shortly to be rid of, do state and declare before God that + it was I who did take the Hynds Jewells, being help'd + thereto by black Shooba the witch doctor, who was my + father's man before my Uncle James Bought him at the Publick + Outcry of our Effects. + + As to the Why & Wherefore I have act'd thus, thou knowest, + thou cruel God, who made me a beggar'd Orphan, a poor + dependant in this House of Pride! + + Yet, God, thou knoweth I lov'd them well enow until Richard + came home the last Time from Abroad, a Young Man in the + Beauty of his Youth, who saw not Jessamine the poor Cozzen, + but Jessamine the fair woman. He would have me sing him + Ballads, he would hang Entranc'd upon the Spinet when I + play'd. Now would he fetch me a flower for my hair, placing + of it himself. And now 't was a knot of ribband for my + dress, and himself fetch'd home broach and ear-rings for my + Birthday Gift, saying in my ear no fairer woman's face had + gladded his eyes since he left home. And by the clipt Hedge + on a May night he kiss'd me. Alas, oh blind high God, alas, + alas! + + 'T was Wondrous to see how even the Servants did catch the + Humour, they waiting upon me Marvelous ready. Until came my + dear Aunt, smiling sickly, and laying of her Hand upon my + Sholder said she must speak for mine own Good. Richard was + but a young Man, wild & headlong, and I a fair Woman thrown + in his Way in an empty betweenwhiles ere his own true love + came. See to it, Jessamine, says she, that a Boy's + short-liv'd Fancy makes not a mock of thee, at thy years, + that should know better! + + Mine Uncle ever twitt'd me for liking of Books, & laugh'd + when I beg'd I might have my Chance of Becoming an Artist. + "What," says he, "a Hynds woman painting of strange folks + their faces? Out upon thy notion, Jessamine!" And my Cozzens + laugh'd and said, Ever did Gentlemen dislike a Learn'd + Female. Should have gotten me a good Husband this Ten Years + since but for my Shrew's Temper & Vanity of Books. + + To cure me they did Cruelly bait me to Marry the Pursy Ninny + that hath the Plantation beyond the Hopes, he that hath been + Ogling of me for years. Could scratch the Wretch his eyes + Out! Puffeth with his mouth in a way hateful to me & hath + pig's jowls. Yet were all they fair mad I should marry me + this Paragon. Should have a home of mine Own, worthy a Lady. + Aye,--and be out of the way, lest I lead Richard Astray. + + Mine Uncle chid me for Ingratitude to God in that I stamp'd + my foot and said No! But Richard laugh'd at the idea of + Jessamine wedding yon tun. Quoth Richard, "Let Jessamine be, + all of ye! she is meat for his masters." Freeman smil'd + sourly, & shrug'd. I love not Freeman, nor do I hate him + overmuch though he call'd me "Madame Jezebel." + + And then came Emily home from Visiting of her Aunts in + London Town. And they made a Marriage between her and + Richard, Richard that was mine. He had lov'd me an they had + let us be. Once pledg'd, he had held fast to his word. Nor + would I, for his own Soul's sake, have let him go. There is + none, none under the sun but me alone, was strong enough to + have sav'd Richard. + + 'T is true, as men judge such things, his Conduct to me was + but Gallant Pleasantry, such as Fine Gentlemen do show to + Favour'd Ladies. And he did Spare my Pride. Never did he + show by word or Deed, or admit to any, that I had car'd more + Deeply than he. But Emily knew. I knew she knew. Saw it in + her Eyes, that look'd on me with Pity. I will not brok that + any mortal Woman shall Pity me! + + Secretly I suffer'd, suffer'd so that a Burning fire crept & + crept into my Brain and Stay'd, nor has left me, Day or + Night. And in all the World was no one I might Weep before, + or that would Comfort me and leave me Unasham'd, save + Shooba, the witch doctor, whom the slaves Fear for that he + hath a Snake-soul and makes Charms and casts Spells. + + 'T is true, that Shooba hath a Spiritt. When it worketh upon + him he is Dull and Overcast and may not Labour untill it be + gone. And then will he rise and Speak strange and sometimes + Terrible things, and Prophesy. In the old times my Father + smil'd, and let him be. But here 't is otherwise. When + Shooba's Spiritt made him Heavy and Sleepy, and when he woke + again and Spoke, mine Uncle's new Overseer had the old man + Whip't. Twice did this Happen before I knew of It. + + Then went I to the Overseer, with Indignation, and said: + "Do not whip Shooba, any more. 'T is Monstrous, to Whip an + old man that hath a Spiritt! 'T is not true he makes + dissentions and plots Revolt among the slaves. 'T is not + true he is lazy & will not Work. There is no better Workman + than Shooba. 'T is only true you are a cruel man and misuse + your Power." + + Flick'd with his Whip his worsted Stockings. Said in a + hateful voice: "'Taint your place, Miss, to be a-giving of + orders to the Overseer. I take orders only from them that + has the right to Give 'em. When I think that old Nigger + ought to be whipt, whipt he 'll be." + + Then march'd he to mine Uncle and ask'd was Mistress + Jessamine to oversee the Overseer, and call him hard Names + for the whipping of a Troublesome Nigger? And my Uncle fell + into a Fury With me. Allowed the wretch to Triumph. Shooba + was whipt again. I saw his Back. + + Once old Shooba cur'd me of a pestilent Fever, with Simples, + when I was a little Child, and our Leech had given me Over, + nor did he Bleed me once. Now Shooba's Back was Bleeding, + and I might not help him! + + Now in the night I had gone secretly to his Hut to fetch him + such poor little Comforts as I might secretly get & give. He + took them, & look'd at me long & long, with his brooding, + deep, strange eyes. + + "For the man that whipt me, I have sent forth my Snake. My + Snake will have a Thing to say to him. The man will die. + Then laughed he, and hugg'd his knees.--And 't is true + Meekins the Overseer one week later was bitten by a Serpent + in the Field and died an Unlovely Death. + + "Missy," whispered Shooba, "in my country when I young, + chief get mad with chief more stronger, not fight with + spears. Call Witch doctor and make Medicine. Stronger + chief, him come dead one day soon. Maybe bumbye you and me + make some Medicine?" My lips curl'd somewhat. Poor old + Shooba making medicine against the Hyndses. "You go now and + think some. I stay here, and think some, too. Maybe one time + you find medicine. Maybe one time my Snake find." + + I went away, smiling sadly. 'T would need strong medicine to + heal me and Shooba! + + Now Time pass'd, and they fell to planning for Freeman's + Ball. 'T was to be a Grand affair, and there was Talk of my + Aunt's Frock, and wearing of the Hynds Jewells. And + Richard's Wife was to be Allow'd to wear the Queen's + Emerald. + + Came Emily to me in secret, and says she, "Come, Jessamine, + be Friends with me. My Mind is Fix'd you shall Outshine all + the other Ladies. I have the very Frock for you, just new + come from London, a lustrous thing will make you glow & + Sparkle like a Ruby. We shall make it a State Secret, + Jessamine. Not a word shall be breath'd, but you shall burst + upon them all like a Meteor!" + + I do admit that ever was something Noble & Generous in + Emily, that something in myself did Honour. I had thank'd + her Thought, but that Richard came in & kiss'd her for it, + saying he een Lov'd her the Better for that she lov'd his + haughty Cozzen. But, O God, they Two went away Hand in Hand! + He forgot me for her sake, so completely that he said not + even, "Good-by." + + That night went I to Shooba secretly, and said, "Is thy + Snake awake? For A Thought is in my mind." Then took we + Counsel together. Shooba is a man most cunning in all manner + of Herbs and Simples. They in Hynds House began for to sleep + sweetly and soundly, but felt no ill Effects. Nay, they rose + betimes most pleasantly rest'd & refresh'd. + + Then did Shooba and I, who thus had undisturb'd Access to + my Aunt's room, work swiftly until Dawn. Three nights and a + half night did we two work, before our Task was compleat'd, + the Kernell's filch'd from the Nuts, and the Empty Shells + left for my lady's adorning of herself at my lord's + birth-night Ball. + + Oh, 't was a rare, rare Jest! I laugh'd and old Shooba + laugh'd. And I did chap them atween my hands, those flaming + Bawbles, as children chap chaff. And they did sparkle & glow + like the Devill his Rainbow! All day was I Happy, Hugging of + my Secret to my Heart. + + Emily had the brown dress brought Secretly into the House, & + Made for me in mine Own Room. Once was she wishful I might + wear one of the Hynds Rubies, just for one Night, but I chid + her, saying that already the Frock was more than Enough. + Indeed 't is a beautiful Dress. Will serve me well for a + Shroud. + + Ever came the Ball nearer & nearer, and all we a-flutter, I + with my hands overfull, my hours overcrowd'd, with Helping + of them. I could not have slept in peace did I not know what + was a-coming. + + And then open'd they the Safe in my Aunt's morning-room. + Shall be such a Howling from the Damn'd on the Day of + Judgment as went up from Hynds House that day! Makes me to + think of the text, And there shall be weeping and wailing + and gnashing of teeth. + + Lord, how did they run Hither & Thither, what Wailing & + Reproaching & Accusing & Screeching! How did my dear Aunt's + eyes grow Redder than ever Mine had been! How did my Proud + Uncle find his Lofty Crest Lower'd, and was in that Honour + of his Scourg'd more Cruelly than ever old Shooba's Back had + been! How, too, was _her_ Happiness burst like a Bubble, + that had been so rainbow Bright! In that house all wept save + me alone. Nor did one of them so much as dream in 's sleep + of suspecting Jessamine Hynds! + + And then--oh, God! oh, God--Richard, my Richard, that I + Lov'd more than mine own Soul, died! As a Candle is snuff'd + out, so went Richard that was so comely and so strong. I had + only thought to Punish him, Make them all Suffer to Pay me + for mine own Suffering. Never, never, had I meant that + Richard should Die. 'Twas a Thunder-bolt upon my Head, 'twas + Lightning splitting my Heart. + + 'Twas I brought the News of Richard's death to my Uncle + James. Was sitting in the Library pretending for to read. + Then came I in, and clos'd the Door, and said: + + "_Richard is dead._" How the man star'd! Had a ruddy face, + very Handsome. Before my eyes it pal'd and pinch'd. I said + again: "Don't you understand? _Richard is dead._" + + As a tree falls, he fell. I knew his Time was come, and + gently I rais'd him. He claw'd at his Breast and mouth'd + "Richard--Freeman--Pocket-book--The Key, the Key!" Look'd at + me piteously. 'Twould melt one's Heart to see his Eyes. + + I did thrust my hand into the breast of his blue + Broad-cloath Coat, and draw forth his Pocket-Book. 'Twas in + Dark Green leather, & upon it the Arms of our House. There + were bank-notes in't, some silver, two or three folded + papers, and one in a small silk Cover, put by itself. I saw + his Fading Eyes brighten as I held it up. He maw'd, + "Key--Freeman--" and puff'd with his Lips, and fell + Unconscious. I slipt the Book back into his breast, put the + silk-covered paper in mine own, and ran out of the Room, + Calling Loudly for help. + + He dy'd that Night. And when I look'd at the "Key" 'twas + naught but a silly Verse. Yet I was doubtful of Giving it to + Freeman. Instead, I did show it to old Shooba. + + "I will ask my Snake if he knows anything of Keyes," said + Shooba. And remembering the Overseer, I did not smile, but + gave him the Paper. I like not to think of Shooba's Snake. + + Then buried we mine Uncle in the Hynds tomb and my Aunt was + left to wander ghostlike, seeking for what she should never + find.--Oh, why did not they leave Richard and me alone! + + I repent not. But I am Troubled because of Richard who comes + in the Night and looks at me, and asks, without anger, only + with Sorrow, "_Was it well done, Jessamine?_" I answer, + weeping; "Richard, it was to be. You made me Love you, + Richard, and you put me by. For which Cause, and for that + their Pride was beyond Bearing, did I pull down the Roof of + Hynds House over their heads, and these my Hands did push + you into your Grave. But go you back to Sleep, my dearest + Dear. I shall Find mine Own Grave shortly, and then I shall + be able to come closer to you. When I am Dead, Richard, you + will understand." + + Sometimes he will go, looking at me over his Sholder with + Eyes so sad that for Pity I must weep mine own eyes Blind. + But sometimes he will say, in a Voice none may hear but me: + "Cruel, cruel Jessamine! You shall not come near me even + when you are Dead: You shall be Farther from me than when we + two walk'd Quick under the Sun. Never, never did you truly + Love me: I know, the Dead being Wiser than the Living! 'T is + Emily Lov'd me truest." + + And oh, thou awful, far-off God, I cannot make him + Understand! And unless I can make him understand, I am lost! + My misery, my misery! He will not listen. I am dying of this + thing! + + Now did Shooba's Death-in-Life come upon him once more, and + for a day and a night he lay Stark. And in the Sleep his + Snake came and show'd him the untying of the Knot, and the + Turning of the Keye. In proof whereof Shooba took me by the + hand & Show'd me the Watcher in the Darke. + + "Do but one thing more for me, old Shooba: Put out the Fire + in my Brain, Shooba, for I would Sleep. And I would Sleep + here, in Secret, where none but the Watcher may see." + + For a while he ponder'd, Watching of me with still eyes. + + "Not good to stay awake too long. You shall Sleep," he said. + + Last night he Brought me the Pinch of Powder that is an Open + Door. To what? I know not. But I go without Fear, because + without Hope. So shall I sleep in the secret Chamber, and it + maybe I shall Dream that Richard lightly Lov'd and as + lightly Left me. Whereof Richard Died. And, that Freeman + thinks his Brother Guilty and a Thief: A Hynds a Thief! so + that Hynds House hangs Heavy above his head. And that Emily + begins to Hate Freeman, who Loves her. She thinks he hath + play'd Judas. I shall have Pleasant dreams! + + Never shall they Find where Shooba hid the Gems, between a + night and a morning. Never shall any look upon my face more, + nor read what I have written, nor know what I have done. I + repent not, O God! What I am I am, Not I but Thou hast + created me! Having liv'd mine own Life, I do die mine Own + Death. + + JESSAMINE HYNDS. + +"This is the Horror that we have--felt!" I babbled. "She's been +sitting here--by herself--all the time--" and my voice failed me, +remembering that dark and anguished sense of guilt and ruin, of +unease and terror, that at times fell upon one in the night like a +smothering garment. Cold drops came upon my forehead, when I +reflected that we had been living under the same roof with This, and +we all unknowing. And I began to whimper: "I cannot stay even one +night more under the same roof with her. I cannot! I cannot!" + +"Sophy," said Nicholas Jelnik's quiet voice, "I brought you here +because I relied upon your courage, your common sense, and your +charity." + +I gulped. In the most matter-of-fact manner, he gave me another +whiff of that incomparable perfume, and I felt my taut nerves +steady. Not untruthfully had the Coptic physician claimed magic +qualities for that perfume. + +Mr. Jelnik said gently: "Had you been other than you are, I would +not have dared call you to my aid to-night. But when I discovered +the real thief--and she Jessamine Hynds--I could not bear that any +other eyes than yours should see her as she is. And--I want you to +be with me when I find the jewels." + +The jewels? I blinked at him. Immersed in the tragedy of the woman +Jessamine, her piteous fate had put all thought of everything save +herself out of my mind. + +"Shooba hid them, between a night and a morning. Shooba brought her +here, between a night and a morning. Where should the jewels be but +here?" + +At his words the grim and mocking ghost of that terrible old +African, who had been whipped for falling into trances, and who had +so tragically revenged himself and his slighted mistress, seemed to +rise behind all that remained of her. + +"Yes, he would put them where she could keep watch over them. Why +should she come here, make her way through those dreadful passages, +save for that? Think of her stealing out of her room in the dead of +night, coming alive to what she knew was her tomb, shutting that +door upon herself--" I looked at the tarnished cup, and hoped that +the witch doctor's potion had given her a speedy sleep. I looked at +the blackened candelabrum, and wondered whether that candle had gone +out before she had, or whether her head had fallen upon her arm, and +she had died wide-eyed in the black, black dark. The cold grue shook +me again, and I beat my hands together for terror and pity. + +"Do not think of that!" said Mr. Jelnik. "Death rectifies human +wrongs, and all of them have long, long since been healed of their +hurts. Come, let us find the jewels. We are losing time." + +We opened the cabinets first. They held papers that had been +precious in their day--old deeds, old charters and grants, with the +king's seals and the signatures of the Lords Proprietors upon them; +correspondence, a casual glance at which showed Revolutionary +activities--a hanging matter once, but harmless enough now; a box of +foreign coins, all gold; a charge, in medieval Latin, on fine +parchment, which exquisitely illuminated initial letters; a plain +silver chalice and a patten; some threadbare robes and regalia, and +a gavel; a most carefully done chart of the Hynds family, ending, +however, with Colonel James Hampden Hynds himself; two letters, and +a miniature of Charles the First; letters signed, "Yours, B. +Franklin," "Yours, John Hancock"; several from "Geo. Washington." + +The chest held two uniforms, one British, the other buff and blue; a +pair of pistols, spurs, and a sword. The buff-and-blue uniform was +worn and stained, with a burnt and ragged hole in the breast. It had +belonged, said the slip pinned to it, to "Captain Lewis De Lacy +Hynds, my youngest Brother, the youngest of our House, who Fell +Gloriously at the Battle of Cowpens." + +And that was all. Although we examined every inch of that floor, +every board of the walls, and made the most scrupulously careful +search of the cabinets and the chest. I even dared pass my hands +over Jessamine herself. + +Shooba the witch doctor had done the unexpected. Wherever he might +have hidden them between a night and a morning, he had not hidden +the Hynds jewels in the secret room of Hynds House. And she who +alone could have solved the mystery and told us the truth, lay there +with a lipless mouth. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +ON THE KNEES OF THE GODS + + +We gave over the futile search at last. Mr. Jelnik sat down and took +his head in his hands, for the moment a prey to overwhelming +disappointment. I could have wept for him. Presently: + +"Is it so hard to lose that which you never possessed?" I ventured +to ask. + +"It is always bitter to fail." + +"But you haven't really failed. You have succeeded in proving that +both Richard and Freeman were the victims of an insane jealousy and +a terrible revenge." + +"Jessamine's confession might well be set aside: insane people often +accuse themselves of crimes committed only in their own disordered +brains. The one indisputable proof would be the jewels in my hands." +He added, with a faint smile: "I should have liked to see those +accursed things made clean by your wearing them, Sophy." + +"I don't want them!" I said, and my head went up. "I don't care +_that_ for all the Hynds jewels ever lost! I wouldn't have come here +to-night for their sake or mine, not if they were worth an empire's +ransom! I wanted them for Richard's sake, and--and yours." + +"I know, I know. At first I wanted them for him and me, too. +Afterward I wanted them for him and for you, Sophy." + +"For me? _I_ have no right to them. What have _I_ to do with Hynds +jewels?" And then I stopped. If Jessamine's confession were +true--and I believed in my heart that every word Jessamine had +written was the truth--what right had I to Hynds House itself? "As +to that, I have no right to Hynds House, either. It is yours," I +said. + +He stared at me thoughtfully. + +"It is yours," I repeated, gaining courage. "I am an outsider, to +whom this house was left from motives of malice and revenge. Mr. +Jelnik, this thing must be set straight. We will show Jessamine's +confession and clear Richard's name. We will bring Freeman's diary +forward to prove the truth of our assertions. Then you can come into +your own." + +"Ah!" said Mr. Jelnik, gently, "I see. Quite simple, and perfectly +feasible. And after I have taken Hynds House, what of you? What do +you get?" + +"I get out," I said briefly. And a horrid qualm came over me. Leave +Hynds House, forever? Go away from Hyndsville, leaving this +friendlier, pleasanter, happier life behind? + +"You are forgetting my training," I reminded him, trying to keep my +voice steady. "I can always do what I did before I came here. I--I'm +really an excellent private secretary, Mr. Jelnik." + +"That," said Mr. Jelnik, smiling curiously, "may very well be. But I +think the stars in their courses fought to bring you here. And I +really do not at all relish the notion of your turning backward into +a private secretary, although there is, of course, the alternative +of The Author. And what of Alicia?" + +"Alicia's sense of justice is quite as well developed as mine," I +told him proudly. + +"Alicia is a dear girl," he agreed. "But, my dear lady, your plan +wouldn't hold water in any court. This place isn't mine, legally or +morally, though the jewels would be if I could find them. If ever I +do find them, which is highly improbable, I may be tempted to make +you an offer of exchange." + +"You don't want Hynds House? Richard's house? You won't take Hynds +House?" + +"I don't want Hynds House. I won't take Hynds House. Further, if +anybody on earth but you made me such an offer, in such +circumstances, I should find it hard to forgive. Even from you I +hardly think I could bear it twice." A bright red showed in his +cheeks for an instant, his nostrils quivered, his whole face was a +blaze of pride. "What! Nicholas Jelnik accept gifts from women?" + +"As good and proud men as Nicholas Jelnik have accepted gifts from +women, and been none the worse for it," said I, tartly. "You offered +me your jewels. Why shouldn't I offer you my house?--particularly +when it should have been your house. I also have my pride, Mr. +Jelnik!" + +The hauteur went out of his face, and something sweet and quizzical +and boyish flooded it. + +"Keep Hynds House, dear, dear Donna Quixotta," said he, gently. "You +have given me something I needed a thousand times more." + +Now, although we had not found the jewels, we had found Jessamine +Hynds, and there remained to be done a thing that called for what +strength of will and courage we possessed. And we had need to make +haste. Already more time had been consumed than we bargained for. + +Mr. Jelnik fetched a deep breath, and went over to the Thing in the +chair. There was in his manner neither repugnance nor horror, +nothing but an almost divine compassion. Never, never, had I +respected the courage, the honor, the mercy of man so greatly as I +did then. + +It was a ghastly task; I do not like to remember it. In the hot, dry +air of the room without windows she had become, not a bleached +skeleton, but a shriveled, fleshless, blackened mummy. The hair +still clung tightly to the skull, the discolored skin was stretched +over the bony contour of the face; the lips had shriveled away from +the teeth, which showed in a sort of jeering grin. And--well, we had +to tie her hair, like a rope, around her chest and arms; and I tore +the ruffles off my petticoat, to tie her skirts at the knees and +ankles. + +The brown frock was low-necked and short-sleeved, too. And the +picture of her, down-stairs, showed her with so red a lip, so round +an arm, so soft, so white a bosom! + + Thou might'st think thou hadst drunk the water of Paradise + who had tasted the nectar of her lip.... The ends of her + ringlets fell into the hand like as the sleeve of the + generous in the hand of the needy. + +Oh, Jessamine! + +She had been so splendidly tall a woman, that as he held her grisly +head upon his shoulder the little shoes that rattled upon her +shriveled feet were well below his knees. One great rope of her +blue-black hair escaped and fell down the back of his white +coat, and as he moved it moved, too, with a lazy and languid +coquettishness horribly travesting youth and beauty. It was such +wonderful hair! Small wonder young Richard had praised its dark +splendor, and kissed its shining folds to his undoing! + +"Jessamine," Nicholas Jelnik said as he bent over her, "you shall +have your chance to rest. You shall sleep under the open sky. Nature +shall have you, Jessamine, and make you over into something of +loveliness and of peace." + +"Because she loved much, much shall be forgiven her," I whispered. +Ah! At the last, who but Him of Galilee shall speak for us? + +Never, until I shall be what she was then, shall I be able to forget +that return journey. Mr. Jelnik walked ahead, holding her on one +arm, and carrying the flash-light with his free hand. I followed +with a candle that burned with a low and reddish glare and gave off +a heavy, waxy odor in the still air. Whenever the faintest draft +lifted the dull flame, we two living creatures seemed to recede into +darkness, while the light sought her out and stayed upon her. The +motion of his body shook her lightly, and she gave forth a dry and +stealthy rattling, an uneasy rustling. One hand hung down, with a +loose, loose bracelet jingling on the brittle brown wrist. And her +poor little feet with the rotting shoes upon them moved delicately, +as if they trod the impalpable air. Once her head struck, with a +hollow thud, as we turned a corner. It was almost more than flesh +and blood could bear,--like things you were afraid of when you were +a child in the dark--the candles melting audibly, and walls, walls, +pressing us in. + +I think it took us years to reach the room where Achmet waited. At +sight of what the master bore, The Jinnee started up and called upon +God the Lord Paramount, Help of the Faithful. Then, like the fine +old fighter he was, he squared his shoulders, folded his arms, and +waited orders. Boris, with a deep-throated, smothered growl of fear +and protest, bared his teeth and sidled against him, bristling and +trembling. + +We consulted briefly. Mr. Jelnik was for leaving her there in the +cellar room, until a fitter opportunity offered to give her +sepulture. But to this I vehemently objected. I could not have +stayed another hour in that house while I knew she was in it. I +wanted Jessamine Hynds consigned to the grave from which she had +been too long kept. I wanted her to sleep in the brown bosom of the +earth, with the impartial grass to cover her, and roses to blow over +her by and by, when summer should have come back to South Carolina. + +Achmet led the way, and presently we were in the spring-house. When +I am feverish I dream of that last climb up the spidery stair, with +Jessamine's jaws widened into a soundless laugh, and The Jinnee's +light playing at hide-and-seek upon her. + +I knelt down and plunged my face into the cold spring-water, and +drank and drank. How good it was! And how grateful to my lungs was +the outside air, so sweet, so fresh, so clean! I loved the friendly +trees waving in the good wind, I blessed the friendly stars. + +We stopped at Mr. Jelnik's house, and the man Daoud appeared in +answer to a low-voiced summons and fetched me a most beautiful +shawl, which I found extremely comfortable. A stately and stoical +personage was Daoud, unlike shy black Achmet, who hid himself from +observation so thoroughly that people in Hyndsville were not aware +of his existence. I sat on the steps while for Jessamine Hynds was +fetched a length of canvas, a linen sheet, and a gray army blanket. +Achmet appeared with spades. And so we set out. + +The old cemetery in Hyndsville, unlike the newer one in which folks +take a sort of ghastly pride, one lot differing from another lot in +glory, is an unpretentious place, enclosed by crumbling walls, the +iron gates of which have rusted ajar. It is a grassy, bird-haunted, +tree-shaded spot, with some dozen or so old family vaults, some +modest monuments that bear stately names, some raised marble slabs +supported on carved and slender legs, like Death's own little +card-tables, some stones let flat into the earth, with names and +dates long since erased by rain and wind and fallen leaf. Nobody +comes here any more. Sophronisba Scarlett was the first and last to +be interred in the old cemetery within the memory of the present +generation. + +We went down dismal paths where the night wind sighed a miserere in +the cedars, and things of the dark scurried away with furtive +noises, or flapped ill-omened black wings overhead. In a corner +shaded by cypresses was the Hynds vault, a venerable affair with a +slate roof. Outside, in an inclosed space were some marble-covered +graves and in a corner the simplest of all, one marked "R.H." Emily +slept beside him, and their son beside her. But on the farther side, +next the wall, was room for one more sleeper. And here, while Mr. +Jelnik laid down his burden, Daoud and Achmet began to dig. + +She lay there in the ghostly light and shade, so utterly cast aside +and forgotten, so unloved, so unwept, so far removed from every +human tie, that terror and pity filled my heart. While Daoud and +Achmet were making ready her bed, Nicholas Jelnik and I spread out +the length of canvas, and wrapped her securely in the sheet and +blanket. We folded her claws upon the empty breast in which had once +pulsed the passionate heart of Jessamine Hynds, and spread her hair +over what had been her face. + +Over in a sheltered spot behind the vault clambered a huge, +overgrown, briery rose, and by some sweet impatience of nature one +shoot had budded before its time. I broke off the small, pale roses +and placed them in her grasp. But Mr. Jelnik took from his breast a +pearl and silver crucifix, and this, reverently, he laid upon hers. + +"It was my father's grandmother's. She held it when she was dying. +She was an old saint. It would please her to know that her crucifix +should stay, one holy thing, with Jessamine Hynds." + +"'_Verily, the gate of repentance is not nor shall be shut upon +God's creatures until the sun shall rise in the west_,'" The Jinnee +quoted his Prophet And he broke off two of his _saphies_, each with +a holy verse written upon it, and dropped them upon her out of pure +charity. + +Daoud, who was intelligent and orthodox where Achmet was emotional +and tender, was evidently not altogether sure of the wisdom of this +proceeding; but he was not too orthodox to stand up arrow-straight, +face the East, and pray for her. + +So we wrapped her, brown silk dress and yellowed laces, and long +black hair, in the strip of canvas, and gave her to the earth. The +last thing we saw, thank God! before the blanket fell over her for +the last time, was the silver crucifix shining out of the roses in +her hands. + +Daoud and Achmet, their spades over their shoulders, left the +cemetery, the latter the strangest, quaintest, most outlandish +figure ever seen on a Carolina road. Mr. Jelnik and I, with Boris +close beside us, walked more slowly. + +"Shall you go on with the search?" I ventured presently. + +"But where shall I begin now?" he wondered. "I have searched +everything and every place searchable." + +"If Shooba hid them anywhere outside of that room, it must have been +in some place that Jessamine herself knew and could get at if she +wished; some particular place where nobody would dream of looking +for them. Women always choose hiding-places like that, and the +notion would suit Shooba's grim humor," I said. + +"They who knew every nook and cranny of the house searched it pretty +thoroughly at the time," he reminded me. "I have fine-combed it +myself." + +"I am so sorry! I wanted you to find them. But the fact that you +didn't surely couldn't make very much difference to you. One's +happiness doesn't depend upon anything so problematical." + +He hesitated. "Aside from their value, which is by no means +inconsiderable, I--well, they would have made certain things easier +for me. I should then have been in a better position to do what I +want to do." + +"Oh! You had some definite plan which hinged upon your finding +them?" + +He was silent for a space, as if considering within himself just how +far he could admit me into his confidence. + +"At first, it was a matter of family pride with me to clear up this +mystery. Later--I wanted to have the Hynds jewels in my possession, +that I might ask the woman I love to marry me." His voice vibrated +like a violin string. + +I took the blow standing. I did not wince, though it had come +unexpectedly. Of course I had known all along that there must be +some lady whom he loved, a woman of that world to which he himself +belonged. But I couldn't for the life of me imagine how the finding +or the not finding of the Hynds jewels could have any bearing upon +the case. I couldn't understand how any woman, any real woman, could +let such a thing come between her and Nicholas Jelnik. + +When we had walked a little farther: "Doesn't she know you care for +her?" + +"Who knows what any woman knows or thinks? She may really care for +another man." + +"There is another man?" + +"There is always another man. Her feeling for me may be nothing but +pure kindness, for she is kindness itself." + +"Still, I think you should tell her," I said, with such a heavy +heart! + +He shook his head. "There are reasons why my faith might be +questioned, my motives doubted; and I couldn't bear that." + +"But if you are perfectly sure of your own feelings, if there is +absolutely no doubt in your mind that you love her--" + +"Love her? I never thought," he said, "that any woman could mean so +much to a man! I never dreamed that just one woman could be in +herself all that a man needs to hold fast to! Love her? I have been +all over the world and I have seen many women in many lands, but +never any woman of them all, save that one, for me! It was a +revelation to me, that I could care so much. Ah! I wish I could make +it plain just how much I do care!" + +I had not known until that moment how much the heart can bear of +anguish and not break. + +"I hope she loves you just as much in return, Mr. Jelnik. I hope +with all my heart you will be happy, both of you." + +"I hope she does! I hope we shall!" he cried, with ardor. "Why, if +I could be sure she cares for me, like that, if I could know that +all other men counted as little with her as all other women count +with me! But I am not sure. And I do not take it lightly, for my +woman must be more to me than most women mean to most men. Well, it +is on the knees of the gods." + +I stole a covert glance at him as he walked beside me. It seemed to +me he had never been so beautiful. But his beauty hurt me. I felt +old, very, very old, and sad, and tired. The salt taste of tears was +in my mouth. My feet dragged. + +We entered that strip of land which on a time old Sophronisba +barb-wired and barricaded against her neighbors, and which touched +the Jelnik grounds in the rear. We were to cut through his garden +and enter mine by the gap in the hedge behind the spring-house +and I hoped to get into the house and up-stairs to my own room +unperceived. + +The gray cottage lay dark and silent, but there were lights in Hynds +House although the night was upon the verge of morning. A gray +light, upon which was stealing a primrose tinge, was already in the +sky. It was, in fact, four o'clock. I was so mortally tired that for +a moment I sat down on his steps. + +"It's been pretty rough on you, Sophy. One woman in a thousand +could have gone through this night's experience without going to +pieces," said Mr. Jelnik, with feeling. And then: + +"Sophy!" cried a frightened and hysterical voice. "Oh, is that you, +at last, Sophy?" And turning a corner of the gray cottage, Alicia, +Doctor Geddes, and The Author confronted us. They were still in +costume, and the Mephistophelian effect of The Author was such as +would turn any actor green with envy. Ensued a pregnant pause. It +was a lovely situation! It reduced me, for one, to idiocy. + +"Sophy! Jelnik!" exploded Doctor Geddes, with a gesture of rage and +astonishment. + +"Yes. It is I. What is the matter? Why aren't you home and in bed? +What are you doing here, at this hour?" I asked, stupidly. + +Here The Author, all in red tights, cape, and doublet, snatched his +red cap with the cock's feather in it off his head, and bowed +diabolically: + +"Let us ask you that same question: Why aren't _you_ home and in +bed? What are _you_ doing here at this hour?" + +"After everybody had gone home, I ran up to your room, +Sophy--and--and you were gone. You weren't in the house. I looked +everywhere; and you'd disappeared, as if the earth had opened and +swallowed you." Alicia's voice was trembling. + +"Oh, Sophy, I was so frightened, so horribly frightened! I kept +thinking every minute you must come. I kept looking and waiting, and +still you didn't come. I telephoned Doctor Geddes, when I couldn't +stand it any longer. And then The Author came down-stairs. And oh, +Sophy, there was such an unearthly, clammy, waiting sort of feeling +in the house--all those lights, all those empty rooms--I felt as if +something terrible must be happening!" She clung to me as she spoke, +kissing me, and shook, and wept. "And when you still didn't come, +and we couldn't find you anywhere, The Author suggested that we +should come over here and enlist Mr. Jelnik. + +"When we got here, there wasn't a soul in this house. Not even the +dog. We went back to Hynds House, and walked through our garden, and +then came back here, because we didn't know what else to do. Oh, +Sophy!" I patted her shoulders, mumbling that she mustn't cry, it +was ail right. + +"Miss Gaines, I am dreadfully sorry you should have been frightened. +But there really wasn't the least occasion for alarm. Because Miss +Smith was with _me_," said Mr. Jelnik calmly. + +Alicia looked at him, trying to read his face in the wan light. Her +world, as it were, was rocking under her feet. She looked at me; and +I said nothing. To save my life I couldn't speak of Jessamine Hynds +then, nor talk coherently of that night's experience. I couldn't +betray Nicholas Jelnik's secrets, nor mention the Watcher in the +Dark, nor that dreadful red-walled room. So I merely patted Alicia's +shoulder, while she held fast to me as if I might again disappear. + +"That is exactly what we should like you to explain, Mr. Jelnik, if +you please," said The Author, with deadly politeness. "You must +pardon us if we disagree with your assertion that Miss Gaines had no +real occasion for alarm." + +"Miss Smith and I," said Mr. Jelnik, stiffening, at the tone, "found +it absolute necessary to leave Hynds House for a short while +to-night, to attend to--an affair of some importance to us both, but +which concerns no one else on earth." Under the grave politeness his +voice had an edge of irritation. "I repeat that I am sincerely sorry +Miss Alicia was frightened. For my share in that, I crave her +pardon. I ask all of you to accept this apology as an explanation +which is final." + +"I for one shall do no such thing!" cried The Author, hotly. "Are +we impertinent children to be thus lightly dismissed? Of course, if +Miss Smith herself--" + +"You have neither right nor authority to cross-question Miss Smith," +interposed Mr. Jelnik, sharply. But Doctor Geddes broke in, with +mounting anger and astonishment: + +"Of course we've got the right and the reason to question both of +you! You might just as well come off your high horse; you've behaved +very badly, Jelnik! To induce Sophy to scuttle off in the middle of +the night, without a word to anybody, and go wild-goose-chasing with +you, was an unworthy action. I wouldn't have believed it of you, +Jelnik; I thought you had more common sense--not to speak of Sophy +herself. Gad, I'd like to shake the pair of you!" And he stamped his +feet. + +"Doctor Richard Geddes," said Mr. Jelnik, in dangerously low and +honeyed tones, "I find you insufferable. You have the instincts and +the manners of a navvy." + +"Mr. Jelnik!" cried The Author. "Mr. Jelnik, honor me, please, by +considering my instincts and manners infinitely worse than Doctor +Geddes's. I, Mr. Jelnik, at this instant feel within me the +instincts of a cave man and I hone for the thigh-bone of an aurochs +to prove it to you. Do you know what I think of you, Mr. Jelnik? I +consider you a man without conscience and without scruples, sir!" + +"My faith! The man even talks like a serial!" said Mr. Jelnik, +weariedly. "My dear, good sir, while we're by way of indulging in +personalities permit me to inform you that you annoy me by existing. +As to your behavior to Miss Smith--" + +"_My_ behavior to Miss Smith?" shrieked The Author, stamping with +fury, "_my_ behavior to Miss Smith? You had better set about +explaining _your_ behavior to Miss Smith! You're a rascal, Mr. +Jelnik!" + +"You, my dear sir, are worse: you're an ass," said Mr. Jelnik, and +fetched a sigh of tiredness. "Would to heaven somebody would fetch +you a halter!" + +"Jelnik," choked Doctor Geddes, "a man who behaves as you're +behaving to-night runs the risk of getting himself shot. You're my +own cousin, but--" + +Mr. Jelnik turned at bay. + +"Doctor Geddes," said he, in a razor-edged voice, "it is no light +affliction to be kin to the Hyndses!--What do you want me to +explain? I have already told you it was necessary for Miss Smith and +me to attend to a matter that is none of your business. In return, +you hold us up like brigands. Would it make a dent in your armor of +righteous meddling, if I were to remind you that you are seriously +annoying Miss Smith?" + +"Not a dent!" roared the doctor. "And if it annoys Sophy to be asked +a straight question by those who have her interest at heart, let her +be annoyed and take shame to herself!" + +Alicia began to cry. + +"Oh, Sophy!" wailed Alicia, "whatever is the matter with us, anyhow? +What is wrong, Sophy? Why are we quarreling? What are we quarreling +about, Sophy?" + +I put my hands to my head. "I don't know. That is. I can't tell. I +mean. I can't think, at all! + +"Doctor Geddes has spoken like an honest man," said The Author, +standing flat-footed in his pointed red shoes. "Mr. Jelnik, I ask +you plainly: Why do I find Miss Smith here at this hour? Why and +wherefore the mystery? Let me remind you that I have asked Miss +Smith to marry me, and that she hasn't as yet given me her answer," +he finished, significantly. + +"Why, Sophy!" gasped Alicia. "Why, Sophy Smith!" + +"Holy Moses!" gasped Doctor Geddes. "What, man, you too? Well, then, +if it comes to that, I can call you to account, Jelnik, because _I_ +asked Sophy to marry me, too. In my case she had sense enough to +say 'No' at once." + +"You know he did, Sophy!" Alicia corroborated him tearfully. "You +told me so yourself, though you never so much as opened your mouth +about The Author; and I don't think that was a bit like you, Sophy. +And why you refused the doctor, I can't for the life of me imagine!" + +"Can't you? Well, _I_ can," snorted the doctor, and drew Alicia +closer to him. She put both her hands around his arm. + +"What!" gulped The Author, rocking on his red toes, and wrinkling +his nose until his waxed mustache stood out with infernal effect, +and his corked eyebrows climbed into his hair. "What! You, Geddes? +My sainted aunt! Why, man alive, I thought that you--that is I'd +have sworn that you--" Here The Author's breath mercifully failed +him. + +I was dumb as a sheep in the hands of the slayers. I could only +blink at these dear people who were tormenting me. I thought of +Jessamine Hynds in her brown silk frock, with the crucifix in her +skeleton fingers and the earth fresh over her. And I couldn't say a +word. And while I stood thus silent, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik walked up +and took my hand in his warm and comforting clasp, and looked at me +with kindling, starry eyes, and laughed a deep-chested laugh. + +"Gentlemen and Miss Gaines," said Mr. Jelnik, in a ringing and +vibrant voice, "permit me to inform you that I also have asked Miss +Smith to marry me. And she has done me the honor to accept me." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE GREATEST GIFT + + +The Author threw his short cape backward, laid one hand upon the +hilt of his sword, doffed his cap, and made a sweeping courtesy. + +"Prettily played, Mr. Jelnik!" said he, admiringly. "May one be +permitted to congratulate you, upon your indubitably dramatic +instinct?" + +"All things are permitted; but not all things are expedient," Mr. +Jelnik replied evenly. + +"Oh, we know who can quote scripture!" cried The Author; and looked +longingly at the other's naked throat. + +At which point Doctor Geddes, coming as it were out of a trance, +took the situation in hand. + +"Have done with this nonsense!" he ordered sharply. "Alicia, get +Sophy home; she looks more dead than alive. Jelnik, your declaration +puts a new complexion on this affair; but let me tell you flatly I +don't like your method of announcing engagements." + +"Suppose you waive criticism and look after Sophy," suggested Mr. +Jelnik. He walked up to his cousin and looked straight in his eyes: +"Richard, you're not such a fool as to dare doubt _us_?" + +"Eh?" blinked the doctor, "what? Doubt _Sophy_? I should say not! +And you--oh, well, you're a bit of a fool yourself at times, Jelnik, +and this seems to be one of the times; but I don't doubt you. +However," said the doctor, grimly, "I should like to whale some +sense into you with a club!" + +"An ax would be more to the point," murmured The Author, +regretfully. + +"In the meantime, Richard," said Mr. Jelnik, with a faint smile, +"take Sophy home, please." + +I have a vague recollection of swallowing something that the doctor +told me to swallow. Then came blessed oblivion, a sleep so profound +that I didn't even dream, and didn't awake until that afternoon; to +find the tender face of Alicia again bent over me. + +I waited for her to ask at least one of the many questions she must +have been longing to ask. But Alicia shook her head. + +"Sophy," said she, loyally, "you haven't got to tell me one single, +solitary thing unless you really want to. But--isn't this just a bit +sudden? I was--surprised." + +"So was I." + +"You see, Sophy, I never once dreamed--" + +"That he cared for me? Neither did I." + +"No. That you cared for him," Alicia puckered her brows. + +"My dear girl," I was trying to feel my way toward letting her have +the truth, "listen: whether or not he is engaged to me, Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik really loves some lady that neither you nor I know. He told +me so himself." + +It took Alicia some moments to recover from that! + +"And yet you're going to marry him, Sophy?" + +"You heard him announce our engagement." + +"I can't understand!" sighed Alicia. "Oh, Sophy, sometimes I could +wish we had never come to Hynds House!" + +"It had to be," I said dully. + +"And--The Author?" ventured Alicia, after a pause. "He thinks you +belong to him by right of discovery. He doesn't accept Mr. Jelnik's +announcement as final. He told me this morning that his offer stood +until you actually married somebody else. The Author isn't used to +being crossed, and he doesn't quite know how to take it." + +"It is on the knees of the gods," I repeated, weariedly. + +Came a gentle tap at the door, and following it the fresh, kind face +of Miss Emmeline. + +"Are you trying to rival the Seven Sleepers?" she asked, gaily, and +laid a bunch of carnations on my knees by way of offering. "Judge +Gatchell sent them to me this morning," she explained, with an +October blush. For the sallow old jurist had taken so great a liking +to the Boston reincarnation of a Theban vestal, and was in +consequence so rejuvenated, himself, that all Hyndsville was holding +up the hands of astonishment and biting the finger of conjecture. + +"My dears," said Miss Emmeline, presently, "I want to tell you the +singular dream I had last night, or rather this morning. I was quite +tired, for I do not often dance," admitted Miss Emmeline, who had +nevertheless danced with a zest that rivaled that of the youngest, +"so I must have fallen asleep immediately upon retiring. Well, then, +I dreamed that all those old Hyndses whose portraits are down-stairs +were gathered together in the library, to bid farewell to a member +of the family who was going away--that beautiful creature who +disappeared and was never afterward found. Now, aren't dreams +absurd? She was setting out upon a long journey dressed in a +low-necked, short-sleeved brown silk dress trimmed with quantities +of fine lace. And for goodness' sake what do you think that woman +wore over it for a traveling-cloak? Nothing more or less than a gray +army blanket, a corner of which was thrown over her head like a +hood and quite concealed her face. + +"She moved away slowly, holding her blanket as an Indian does. +And as she passed me by--for I was standing in the door--a fold +slipped, and what do you think she was holding to her breast? A +pearl-and-silver crucifix. You can't imagine how I felt when I saw +it!" + +I knew how I felt when I had seen it, but that I couldn't tell Miss +Emmeline. Instead, I held the carnations to my face, to hide my +whitening lips. For once the Boston lady had come into actual +contact with the occult and the unknown. + +"She went out by the back door," continued Miss Emmeline, "and I ran +to the window and saw her gray-blanketed figure disappear down the +lane, behind the hedge that separates Mr. Jelnik's grounds from +yours. And all the Hyndses called: '_Jessamine, good-by!_' But she +never turned her head once, nor spoke, nor gave a sign that she +heard. She just _went_, leaving me staring after her. I stared so +hard that I woke myself up. Now, my dears, wasn't that an odd sort +of dream? And so vivid, too! Why, I can hear those voices yet!" + +"Well, I'm glad she went," said Alicia. "Ladies that do up their +heads in blankets and won't answer when they're spoken to, ought to +go." + +Mrs. Scarboro, Judge Gatchell, and one of my old ladies were dining +with us that night, for which I thanked Heaven. Judge Gatchell +discovered in himself a fund of sly humor that astonished everybody, +and Miss Emmeline was like a November rose, sweet with a shy and +belated girlishness, rarer for a touch of frost. And The Author was +in a fairly good humor because they let him alone. + +Mr. Nicholas Jelnik dutifully put in his appearance after dinner. +The Author was balefully polite to him, Alicia shyly friendly. I had +on a new frock, and the knowledge that it was becoming gave me a +courage I should otherwise have lacked. A new frock, pink powder, +and a smile, have saved many a fainting feminine soul where prayer +and fasting had failed. + +The gentleman who had blandly announced my engagement to himself +only last night assumed no airs of proprietorship, but was placidly +content to let me sit and talk to Mr. Johnson, who was holding forth +on the merits of our Rhode Island Reds as against either barred +Plymouth Rocks or White Leghorns, and the variety of vegetables and +small fruits in our kitchen-garden, so admirably planned by Schmetz, +so carefully and neighborly looked after both by him and Riedriech. +From gardens, Mr. Johnson went to cattle; he had a delight in cows, +and our cow was a Jersey with a cream-colored complexion, large +black eyes, and the sentimental temperament. We called her the +Kissing Cow, because she couldn't see the secretary without trying +to bestow upon him slobbering salutes. + +He paused in his homely talk to smile at something The Author had +just said. Then his eyes strayed to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, being +talked to by Mrs. Scarboro and an apple-faced Confederate with +pellucid blue eyes and a renowned trigger-finger. + +"That is the most gifted--and detached--human being I have ever +known," said the secretary. "But it is his misfortune to have no +saving responsibilities. What he needs is to fall in love with the +right woman and marry her." + +"You mean he should marry some great lady, some dazzling beauty? +Naturally." + +"Heaven forbid!" said the secretary, with unexpected vigor. "No, no, +Miss Smith, that is not what such a man as Nicholas Jelnik needs!" + +"But it may be what he wants," said I. + +"I should never think so, myself," Mr. Johnson replied thoughtfully; +"and I have seen a good deal of him. No, Jelnik doesn't want great +beauty; he has enough of it himself. For the same reason, he doesn't +want brilliant qualities. He needs quiet, dependable goodness, the +changeless and unswerving affection of a steadfast heart." + +But I could not agree with this simple-minded young man, who had in +himself the qualities he named. Why, if Nicholas Jelnik asked only +for a changeless love, _I_ could have given him full measure, even +to the running over thereof! + +"What was Johnson talking to you about, that you both looked so +earnest?" Mr. Jelnik wanted to know presently. + +"Oh, just things; flowers and fruits and animals." + +"And people?" + +"People always end by talking about people." + +"Johnson's opinions are generally sound, because he himself is sound +to the core," said Mr. Jelnik, quietly. + +"Miss Emmeline says he has got a limpid soul. The Author says it's +really a sound liver. However that may be, one couldn't live in the +same house with him without conceiving a real affection for him. He +is a very easy person to love." + +Mr. Jelnik's eyebrows went up. "Don't love him too much, please, +Sophy. If you feel that you really ought to love somebody, love +_me_." The golden lights were in his eyes. + +At that moment I both loved and hated him. + +"Mr. Jelnik," said I, in as low a tone as his own, "it isn't fair to +talk to me like this. You did what you did to save me from +annoyance--and--and--misunderstanding. But you are perfectly free: +I have no idea of holding you to such an engagement, no, nor of +feeling myself bound by it, either." + +"I understand, perfectly, Sophy," he said, after a pause. "And now, +may I ask you one or two plain questions, please?" + +"I think you may." + +"You never cared for Geddes?" + +"Good heavens, no! Besides, he--" + +"Wants Alicia? That's obvious. But what about The Author? I'm not +enamored of him, myself, but he's an immensely able and clever man. +How many brilliant social lights would be willing to shine at the +head of his table! What are you going to do about The Author, +Sophy?" + +"What are _you_ going to do about the lady you are really in love +with?" I countered. + +"I'm waiting to find out," said he, coolly. "Answer my question, +please: Do you imagine you love him, Sophy?" + +"It is not unpleasant to me that he should wish me to do so," I +admitted. + +"I see. You are trying to persuade yourself that you should accept +him." + +"I am not growing younger," I said, with an effort. "Remember, too, +that Alicia will be leaving me presently, and I shall then be +utterly alone. That is not a pleasing prospect--not to a woman." + +"Nor to a man, either, but better that than a loveless marriage." He +reflected for a moment. "If you are sure you care for the man, tell +him truthfully every incident of last night. Otherwise, I do not +feel like sharing my affairs with him; I do not want to drag +Jessamine Hynds out of her grave to gratify his curiosity. For he +has the curiosity of a cat, along with the obstinacy of a mule." + +I smiled, wanly. "I gather that I'm not to tell him anything. What +further?" I wanted to know, not without irony. + +"This, then: that you keep on being engaged to me." + +I looked at him incredulously. + +"For the time being, Sophy, submit to my tentative claim. If you +decide to let your--ah--common sense induce you to make what must be +called a brilliant marriage, tell me, and I will go at once. In the +meantime, Sophy, I am your friend, to whom your happiness is as dear +as his own. Will you believe that?" + +It was not in me to doubt him. "Yes," I said. "And if--the lady you +told me about--you understand--you will tell me, too, will you not? +I should like to know, for your happiness is as much to me as mine +could possibly be to you." + +"That's the most promising thing you've said yet," he said. "All +right, Sophy: the minute I find out she cares more for me than she +does for anybody else, I shall certainly let you know. In the +meanwhile, don't let being engaged bear too heavily on your spirits. +_I_ find it very pleasant and exhilarating!" + +"I don't think you ought to talk like that," I demurred. + +"I can't help it: I never was engaged before, and it goes to my +tongue." + +"I never was, either. But it doesn't go to _mine_," I reminded him, +with dignity. + +"Sophy, you are the only woman in the world who can reproach a man +with her nose and get away with it," he said irrelevantly. "You have +the most eloquent little nose, Sophy!" + +I looked at him reprovingly. + +"I adore being engaged to you, Sophy," said he, unabashed. "Being +engaged to you has a naive freshness that enchants me. It's +romantic, it has the sharp tang of uncertainty, the zest of high +adventure. Think how exciting it's going to be to wake o' mornings +thinking: 'Here is a whole magic day to be engaged to Sophy in!' By +the way, would you mind addressing me as 'Nicholas'? It is customary +under the circumstances, I believe." + +"I do not like the name of Nicholas." + +"I feared so, seeing the extreme care with which you avoid it. That +is why I suggest that you should immediately begin to use it. +Practice makes perfect. Observe with what ease I manage to say +'Sophy' already," he said airily. "I'm glad your hair's just that +blonde, and soft, Sophy. I couldn't possibly be engaged to a woman +who didn't have hair like yours." + +I looked at his, and said with conviction: + +"How absurd! Black hair is incomparably more beautiful!" + +His eyes danced. + +"Sophy!" said he, in a thrilling whisper, "Sophy, _The Author's hair +is brindle_!" + +I got up and incontinently left him. And I saw with stern joy how +Mrs. Scarboro again seized upon and made him listen to tales of his +grandfather, until in desperation he fled to the piano, and played +Hungarian music with such effect that even The Author was moved to +rapture. + +"Jelnik!" said The Author, enthusiastically, "I shall put you in my +next book. Gad, man, what a magnificent scoundrel I shall make of +you!" A remark which scandalized Mrs. Scarboro and startled my dear +old lady, but didn't phase Mr. Jelnik. + +I found myself growing more and more confounded and confused. Was I, +or wasn't I, engaged to a man who had never asked me to marry him? +In the vernacular, I didn't know where I was at any more. + +Alicia added to this confusion. + +"Sophy," said she, some time later, "isn't it just possible you +misunderstood Mr. Jelnik? About his being in love with somebody +else, I mean." + +"I don't know what makes you think so." + +"Don't you? I'll show you," she said, and swung me around to face a +mirror. "_That's_ what makes me think so. Sophy Smith, unless he's a +liar--and Peacocks and Ivory couldn't be a liar to save his +life--the woman Nicholas Jelnik loves looks back at you every time +you look in the glass." + +I shook my head. I have never been able to tell pleasant lies to +myself. + +"Well, we'll see what we'll see! I told you once before that you +hadn't caught up with the change in yourself." And she kissed me and +laughed. It came to me that she couldn't have cared much for him, +herself, to be able to laugh that light-heartedly. + + * * * * * + +When Miss Emmeline and the English folk were leaving Hynds House, +everybody in Hyndsville turned out to say "Good-by." Even our lanky +old Judge was on hand, with a great bunch of carnations and a huge +box of bonbons for Miss Emmeline. + +"Sophy," Miss Emmeline said, smiling, "I don't see anything left for +me to do but come back to Hyndsville, do you?" + +"No, I don't. And come soon. Hynds House won't feel the same without +you. I thought of all she had taught me by just being her fine, +frank self, and looked at her gratefully. She looked back at me +quizzically, and of a sudden she slipped her arm around my +shoulders. + +"Sophy Smith," said she, softly, "I have met many women in my time, +many far more brilliant and beautiful, and what the world calls +gifted, than you. But I have met none with a greater capacity for +unselfish loving. It's easy enough to win love, a harder thing to +keep it, but divinest of all to give it and keep on giving it. And +there's where your great gift lies, Sophy." And she kissed me, with +misty eyes, and such a tender face! + +That put such a friendly, warm glow in my heart that I was sorry to +part even with the Englishman's daughter, Athena though she was, and +I mortally afraid of her. As for her father, he was bewailing the +parting with Alicia, whose Irishness was a manna in the wilderness +to him. + +"It's like saying good-by to the Fountain of Youth," he lamented. +"You're more than a pretty girl: you're the eternal feminine in +Irish!" + +"She's the Eternal Irish in proper English, that's what she is!" +said The Author darkly, and looked so wise that everybody looked +respectful, though nobody knew what he meant. Perhaps he didn't +know, himself. + +After the train had gone, Doctor Geddes hustled us into his waiting +car. + +"I'm going to take you for a quiet spin in the country, to make the +better acquaintance of Madame Spring-in-Carolina," he said. A few +minutes later he swung the car into a lonesome and lovely road edged +with pines, and sassafras, and sumach, and cassena bushes, and +festooned with vines. Madame Spring-in-Carolina had coaxed the green +things to come out and grow, and the people of the sky to try their +jeweled wings in her fine new sunlight. The Judas-tree was red, the +dogwood white, the honey-locust a breath from Eden. A blossomy wind +came out of the heart of the world, and there were birds everywhere, +impudently eloquent. + +We didn't want to talk, or even to think; we just wanted to be alive +and glad with everything else. The very car seemed to feel something +of this intoxication, for as it went flying down the road it hummed +and purred and sang snatches of the Song of Speed to itself. We +turned a corner, I remember. And then there was a frightful lurch +and jar, and the big car bounded into the air, and turned over in +the ditch. I remember the rear wheels turning with a grinding, +spitting noise. + +When I woke up, Alicia was sitting by the side of the road, with the +doctor's head in her lap, and I was lying on the grass near by. Her +eyes were big and blank in a bloodless face, and the curling ends of +her long bright hair hung in the dust. There was a cruel red mark on +her forehead. Otherwise she was quite uninjured. I wasn't conscious +of any pain myself--not then, at least. + +"Sophy," Alicia said, impersonally, "Doctor Geddes is dead." And she +fell to stroking his cheek lightly, with one finger; "quite dead. +Without one word to me, Sophy!" + +The figure on the ground looked dreadfully still and helpless. There +was something ghastly wrong in seeing so strong a man lie so still +and helpless. And the road, an unfrequented one, was unutterably +lonesome. There was nothing, nobody in sight--nothing but the +buzzard, black against the blue sky, tipping his wings to the wind. + +"You must go for help," I mumbled. + +"I dare not leave him. I know he's dead, Sophy. But--he might open +his eyes, just once more. You see, he didn't know, before he--died, +that I was very much in love with him--oh, terribly in love with +him, Sophy!--from the first time I saw him standing in our door. I +thought you cared for him, too, Sophy dear--and I sent him away from +me-- And now he has gotten himself killed." With a gentle touch she +pushed back the thick reddish hair from his forehead. She looked at +me imploringly: "Don't let him be dead, Sophy! For God's sake, +Sophy, don't let him be dead! Make him open his eyes, Sophy!" + +A negro teamster came upon us, recognized the doctor, shrieked, and +set off for help, lashing his mules into a mad run. But Alicia never +moved, and I huddled beside her, numb and silent, looking at the +white face upon her knees. With all the impatience wiped out, it was +a fine face, at once strong and sweet. + +"Richard," said Alicia, "Richard, if I had been killed, and you +begged and prayed me from your breaking heart to listen to you, to +understand that you'd cared for me, only me, all along, _somehow_ +I'd manage to let you know I understood. Richard, listen to me! Open +your eyes, Richard. Please, please, Richard, open your eyes!" + +Her voice was so piteous that I fell to weeping. And, by the mercy +of God, Richard opened his eyes and stared with blue blankness +straight into Alicia's quivering, anguished face. + +"Richard," said she, bending down to him, "my dear, dear love, keep +your eyes open just a little longer, until I can make you +understand. Oh, Richard, I cared! Indeed, indeed, I cared!" + +The blue stare never wavered. It gathered intensity. + +"Don't, don't look at me like that, Richard!" cried Alicia, +beginning to sob wildly. "Don't--don't look so--so _angelic_, dear. +Look like your own self at me, Richard! Oh, darling, for our dear +God's mercy's sake, please, please try to look bad-tempered just +once more!" + +His pale lips twitched curiously. He sighed. Then he murmured +something that sounded like "not sure." + +"Not sure?" wept Alicia. "Oh, my heart, my heart!" + +"I think--could die in peace--say 'I love you, Richard,'" murmured +the doctor. + +"Oh, I do, I do love you, Richard--_frightfully_!" sobbed Alicia. "I +love you with all my heart!" + +The corpse sat up, and for a dead man he showed considerable life. +Painfully he rose, and stood staggering on his feet, big, pale, +shaken, with a bump the size of an egg on the side of his head, but +with such shining blue eyes! He put out a big hand and lifted +Alicia from the ground. + +"Leetchy," said Doctor Geddes, "if you ever take back what you've +said I shall be sorry I wasn't killed. But I don't mind staying +alive if you'll keep on loving me. If I stay alive, will you marry +me, Leetchy?" + +"If you don't, I can't m-m-marry any-anybody at all!" wailed Alicia. + +"Amen!" said the doctor. "Now stop crying, and put your hand into my +pocket, and you'll find something that's been owing you this long +time, Leetchy." + +Alicia blinked, and rubbed her eyes, then slipped her hand into his +breast pocket and drew forth a small, square, satin-lined box; an +inviting box. + +"Richard!" she exclaimed, "why, Richard!" Then: "Of all the +impudence!" cried Alicia, scandalized. "Why, you haven't even +_asked_ me! Whoever in this world heard of buying a girl's ring +before she's said 'Yes'?" + +"Alicia," said Doctor Richard Geddes, "I'm your Man, and you know +it. And you're my Girl, and I know it. Here, let's see if this thing +fits." + +Meekly Alicia, the impudent, the flirt, held out her slim hand. + +"That's settled, thank God!" said the doctor. And he swept her +clear off her feet, and kissed her with thoroughness and enthusiasm. + +"Richard! People are coming! They'll see you!" + +"Let 'em!" + +I sat there quietly, and stared at the two of them with a sort of +vacant watchfulness. My hat was gone, my hairpins had taken unto +themselves wings, and my hair, covered with dust, hung about me like +a veil. I was just beginning to be conscious of pain. It was a +shuddering pain, new and cruel, and I winced. The next minute Alicia +was kneeling beside me, and her face had again become quite +colorless. + +"Sophy!" her voice sounded shrill and far off. "Sophy, you said you +were all right!--Richard, look at Sophy!" + +I felt the doctor's swift, deft hands upon me. And more pain. People +were arriving now. Cars stopped, and excited men and women +surrounded us. One tall figure leaped from the first car and reached +us ahead of all others. + +"Geddes!" cried a voice. "Thank God, Geddes! We were told you'd been +killed outright! Alicia all right, too?" Then: "Sophy!" This time it +was a cry of terror. "Never tell me it's Sophy!" + +I saw his face bent over me. Then a red mist came, and then +everything went dark. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +DEEP WATERS + + +Somewhere, far, far off, a faint and feeble little light glimmered, +one small point of light in vast blackness. In the whole universe +there wasn't anything or anybody but just that tiny light, and swift +black water, and drowning me. Something deep within me--I think +occultists call it the body-spirit--was clamoring frantically to +hold fast to the light, because if that went under I should go +under, too. I tried to keep my eyes upon the trembling spark. + +Whereupon the light changed to a sound, the monotonous insistence of +which forced me to be worriedly aware of it. It was--why, it was a +voice, calling, over and over and over again, "_Sophy! Sophy!_" + +Somebody was calling _me_. With an immense effort I managed to raise +my eyelids. I was lying in a bed, and caught a drowsy, fleeting +glimpse of four posts. + + Four posts upon my bed, + Four angels for my head, + Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John + Bless the bed that I lie on! + +Granny used to say that for me at night; only she had said "four +hangels for my 'ead," at which I used to giggle into my pillows. I +hadn't felt so close to Granny since I was little Sophy, in the +rooms over our shop in Boston. She was somewhere around me; if I +went to sleep now, she'd be there when I woke up in the morning. But +the sound that was a calling voice wouldn't let me go to sleep. +Slowly, heavily, I managed to get my eyes open again. + +"Look at me!" said the voice imperiously. Two large dark eyes caught +my wavering glance and held it, as in a vise. "Sophy! Sophy! _I need +you._" + +Said another voice, then, brokenly: "For mercy's sake, Jelnik, let +her go in peace!" + +"No, she sha'n't die. I won't have it!--Sophy, come back! It is I +who call you, Sophy. Come back!" + +My stiff lips moved. "Must go--sleep," I tried to say. + +"No, I forbid you to go to sleep, Sophy!" His dark eyes, full of +life and compelling power, held my tired and dimmed ones, his firm, +warm hands held my cold and inert fingers. "My love, my dear love, +stay. You have got to stay, Sophy. Don't you understand? You can't +go, Sophy!" + +My dulled brain stumblingly laid hold upon a thought: _Nicholas +Jelnik was calling me. He was calling me because he loved me._ One +simply can't go down into sleep and darkness, when a miracle like +that is climbing like the morning-star into one's skies. + +"Stay!" he said, his lips against my ear. "Sophy! My love, my dear +love, stay!" + +But although he held me close, I could feel myself being drawn away. +There must have been that in my straining glance that made him +aware, for of a sudden he cried out, lifted me bodily in his arms, +and kissed me on the mouth. + +My heart quite stopped beating, as a spent runner pauses, that he +may gather new strength to go on. With a sigh I fell back; but not +into the water and the dark. + +"By God, you've pulled her through, Jelnik!" cried the voice of +Richard Geddes. + +Came vague sounds, stirs, movements, hands upon me. Then oblivion +again. + +I woke up one pleasant forenoon to find a brisk and capable young +woman in white sitting in my room, her head bent over the piece of +linen she was hemming. She was a healthy, handsome young woman, with +hard, firm cheeks, hard, firm lips, and professional eyes and +glasses. She glanced up and met my wan stare. + +"What are you doing here, if you please?" I asked politely. + +"I have been nursing you, Miss Smith. You have been quite ill, you +know." + +I lay there looking at that self-contained, trained young woman, +with feelings of almost ludicrous astonishment. I remembered the +skidding car; and Richard Geddes lying with his head on Alicia's +knees, and how we had both thought him dead; and myself sitting in +the dust; and then the pain. But it was astounding news that I had +been very badly hurt full three weeks ago! + +Alicia stole in and, seeing me awake, tried to smile, but cried +instead, with a wet cheek against my hand. A few minutes later +Doctor Geddes himself appeared. It was enough to scandalize any +self-contained nurse to see a six-foot-three doctor behave in the +most abandoned and unbedside manner! + +"Sophy!" gulped the doctor, "oh, deuce take you, Sophronisba Two, +what do you mean by scaring honest folks half out of their wits?" + +The nurse was destined to receive another shock. Richard of the Lion +Heart dropped down on his knees beside Alicia, and laid his bearded +cheek against my wan one, and for a while couldn't speak. Alicia +tried to get her slender arms around him, and couldn't. + +"I think," ventured the nurse, in level tones, "that the patient +had better not be excited. Shall I give her a stimulant, doctor?" + +"The patient's on the highroad to getting well," said the doctor. +"And we're the best of all stimulants, aren't we, Sophy?" + +When I began to get stronger, the dream which had haunted my illness +came back with astonishing vividness and haunted my waking hours. I +knew it was a dream, for of course I hadn't been in black water, I +hadn't strained toward a light upon the flood, and of course, I +hadn't really heard Nicholas Jelnik calling my name; and the kiss +was part of the fantasy. I watched him stealthily, this cool, +collected, impersonal young man, to whom even the efficient nurse +was astonishingly respectful, and pure laughter seized me at the +idea of _his_ crying aloud, being as agitated, as passionate, as +fiercely insistent, as he had been in the vision. + +I ventured to put a part of the vagary to the acid test: + +"Alicia, I wasn't thrown out again, into water, was I?" + +"No. That was delirium, dear. You were frightfully ill for a while, +Sophy." Her face paled. "So ill that The Author fled, because he +wouldn't stay in the house and see--what we expected to see. He said +it would permanently shatter his nerves. But he has wired every day +since." + +"It was sensible of him to go. And it's kind of him to wire." I said +no more about the water. + +"Everybody has been kind. And it wasn't duty kindness, either. It +was kind kindness!" said Alicia, lucidly. "Do you know what they're +saying in Hyndsville now? They're saying old Sophronisba played a +joke on herself." She left me to digest that as best I might. + +It isn't pleasant to be ill anywhere. But it isn't altogether +unpleasant to be on the sick list in South Carolina. Everybody is +anxious about you. Old ladies with palm-leaf fans in their tireless +hands come and sit with you. They aren't brilliant old ladies, you +understand. I know some whose secular library consists of the +Complete Works of John Esten Cooke, Gilmore Simms's War Poems of the +South, and a thumbed copy of Father Ryan. But add to these the +Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Imitation of Christ, and +it doesn't make such a bad showing. It's astonishing how soothing +the companionship of women fed upon this pabulum can be, when the +things of the world are of necessity set aside for a space, and the +simpler things of the spirit draw near. + +Old gentlemen in well-brushed clothes and immaculate, exquisitely +darned linen, call daily with small gifts of fruit and flowers, and +send you messages from which you infer that the sun won't be able to +shine properly until you come outside again. And there isn't a +housekeeper of your acquaintance who hasn't got you on her mind: +there are sent to you steaming bowls of perfect soup, flaky rolls +and golden cake, jeweled jellies, and cool, enticing, trembly things +in glass dishes. And when you can sit up for more than an hour or +two at a time, why, then you know what it really means to have South +Carolina neighbors. + +Doctor Geddes made me spend my days in the garden that Schmetz had +labored upon with such loving-kindness, and that in consequence was +become a marvel of bloom and scent. Every butterfly in South +Carolina must have visited that garden. I hadn't known there were +that many butterflies in the world. All the florist-shop windows in +New York, that I had once paused before with envy and longing, were +stinted and poor and pale before the living, out-o'-doors wonder of +it. Florist shops haven't any bees, nor birds, nor butterflies, nor +trees that wave their green branches at you like friendly hands. + +A flowering vine festooned the marble Love, and one great scarlet +spray of bloom flamed upon his marble torch, "so lyrically," Miss +Martha Hopkins said, that she was moved to write a poem about it. I +thought it a very nice poem, and I said so, when she read it to us. +But Doctor Geddes, who doesn't care for poetry, except Robert +Burns's, rubbed his nose. + +"Oh, well, your grandmother and your aunts used to make +antimacassars and wall-pockets and paper flowers," he ruminated. +"Why shouldn't you make poetry if you feel like it?" + +"You are to be pitied, Richard," said Miss Martha, with crushing +charity. "Such a disposition! And the older you grow the worse it +gets." + +"Confound it, Martha!--" + +"I do," said she. + +Alicia looked at Richard with impersonal eyes. She looked at the +ruffled center of culture. + +"Don't pay any attention to him, Miss Martha," she said, with a +charming smile. "Your poem is very pretty, and he knows it." + +"He means well," said Miss Martha, resignedly. + +"Now, you look here, Martha!" the doctor said angrily, "I won't have +anybody telling me to my face I mean well. You might as well call me +a fool outright." + +"You are far from being a fool, Richard. And you do mean well. +Everybody knows that." + +He turned appealingly to his dear Leetchy, and received his first +lesson in Domestic Science. + +"Miss Martha is right, Richard," she decided. + +"Leetchy," the doctor asked, when the mollified Miss Hopkins had +departed, "why did Martha go off grinning?" + +"How should I know?" wondered Alicia, innocently. Then she looked at +him with Irish eyes: "Have you had your lunch, dear?" she asked. + +"Lunch?" He looked bewildered. + +"Because I'm going to fix Sophy's lunch now, and you may have yours +with her, if you like. I love to wait on you, Richard," she added, +and a beautiful color flooded her face. + +He caught his breath. When she went back to the house, his eyes +followed her adoringly. + +"Sophy," he said, huskily, "what does she see in me? Do you think +I'm good enough for _her_, Sophy?" + +"I think you are quite good enough even for Alicia." + +When he had gone, Alicia sat with her head against my knees. Of late +a touching gravity, a sweet seriousness, had settled upon her. Her +love for the big doctor was singularly clear-eyed and far-seeing. +There were going to be times when every ounce of skill, tact, +patience, love itself, would be called upon, for the reins must be +gossamer-light, invisible, but always firm and sure, that should +guide and tone down so impatient and fiery a nature as his. It was +very easy to love him; it wasn't always going to be easy to live +with him, and Alicia knew it. But she also knew, with a faith beyond +all failing, that this was her high, destined, heaven-ordained job. + +"Sophy darlin', I'm deplorably young, am I not?" she sighed. + +"You'll get over it." + +"Do you think I'll make him a good wife, Sophy?" + +"I am absolutely certain," I said, "that you'll make him a good +husband. Which is far more important." + +Alicia hugged my knees, and laughed. Then, seeing Mr. Nicholas +Jelnik approaching, she scrambled to her feet, picked up the tray of +empty dishes, and went back to the house. + +Neither she nor the doctor had asked me so much as one question +about Mr. Jelnik. As if by tacit understanding that subject was +avoided. And because I hadn't anything to tell them, I, too, held my +peace. + +He raised my hand to his lips, dropped into a chair, and bared his +forehead to the soft wind. + +"How good that feels!" he sighed. "Fraeulein, may one smoke?" And +receiving permission he smoked for a while, comfortably, leaning +back with half-closed eyes. + +"Achmet salaams to you, _hanoum_," he said presently. "You have won +his heart of a true believer. Even Daoud demands daily news of you." + +"I particularly like The Jinnee. I should like to have him around +me. And Daoud is highly ornamental." + +"When is The Author coming back? Or is he coming back?" he asked +abruptly. + +"Oh, yes. He will be here for the wedding. So will Miss Emmeline." + +After a long pause, and with an evident effort: + +"I have been thinking," he said, "that perhaps it was unfortunate I +came between you and The Author. Perhaps," he added deliberately, +"it would have been better had you let your common sense gain the +day." + +I don't know why, but just at that moment the dear and haunting +dream of having been lifted out of deep waters and kissed back to +life, cradled in this man's arms, came to me with peculiar +poignancy. Of a sudden I laughed aloud. + +"Oh, I'm just remembering a dream I had, when I was ill," I told +him, in answer to his look of surprise. + +"It must have been a very amusing dream," said he, staring at me +thoughtfully. + +"Oh, very! Quite absurd. But go on. You were by way of advising me +to marry The Author, were you not?" + +His hands on the arms of the wicker chair clenched. He half rose, +thought better of it, and sank back. + +"I was saying that it might have been better for you," he said, +breathing quickly. "In all probability you would have accepted him, +had I not been here to--blunder into the affair." + +"He mightn't have asked me, if you hadn't been here to blunder into +the affair," said I, composedly. "Let us drop the subject, please. I +shall never marry The Author." It gave me a sense of relief and +freedom to hear myself say that. "I can't marry The Author." + +He went pale. "Sophy--you can't marry me, either," he said. + +"Of course not." I wondered at myself for being so calm and +collected. "I knew that all along. You care for another woman. You +told me so, you know." + +"I told you no such thing," he said. "I told you I cared for a +woman, but that there was another man. Now I've just been told she +has no idea of accepting the other man. In spite of all he has to +offer, she isn't going to marry him." His face was at once ecstatic +and tortured. "_Why_ won't you marry the other man, Sophy?" + +"Because of a dream I dreamed, when I was sick," I said +noncommittally. + +"Ah! And did you dream that somebody called you--and held you--and +wouldn't let you go?" + +"I never told you!" I cried. + +"No need, Sophy. It was to me you came back." Of a sudden his head +drooped. "And now I can't marry you!" + +"Why can't you?" + +"Because I'm a beggar." + +Nicholas Jelnik a beggar couldn't find lodgment in my brain. I could +only stare at him incredulously. + +"I learned some time ago that things were not altogether right over +yonder, but I hadn't the ghost of an idea that my entire estate was +involved; that while I'd been 'tramping'--I'll use Judge Gatchell's +word--the men in whose hands I placed too much power had taken +advantage of it. A very common, every-day story, you see. + +"Remains the fact that I'm stripped to the bone. The estate's wiped +out. And," he added, with a grave smile, "I haven't even discovered +the mythical Hynds jewels. Now you see, Sophy, why I can't marry +you." + +"I see why you think you can't." + +He flushed to the roots of his black hair. Hynds-Jelnik pride rose +in arms. + +"I should cut rather a sorry figure marrying the owner of Hynds +House, in the present circumstances," he said curtly. "You will +remember that The Author called me an adventurer! I have told you I +have nothing." + +"Aren't you forgetting your profession?" + +"No. But I neglected that, too, Sophy. The _Wanderlust_ had me in +its grip." + +"What do you propose to do?" + +"I shall leave here, put in some months of hard study, and then +fight my way upward. My father was the greatest alienist of his +generation, and I was trained under his eye. But in the meantime--" + +"Yes. In the meantime, what of _me_?" I asked. + +He winced as if he had been struck. "You are free," he said, in a +whisper. + +"I am free to be free, and you're free to set me free. You never +asked me to marry you, in the first place," I agreed quietly. + +Stupefaction seized him. He put his hands to his head. + +"Why, Sophy! Why, Sophy!" he stammered. Of a sudden he straightened +his shoulders, and stood erect: "Miss Smith," he said, with grave +politeness, "will you do me the honor to marry me?" and he waited. + +"It is rather a belated request, Mr. Jelnik. Besides, you haven't +told me why you want to marry me," said I, sedately. + +"You are well aware that I love you, Sophy. And I think you care for +me in return. Why did you turn that coin when it meant 'Go,' and bid +me, instead, 'Stay'? Was it because you cared, Sophy?" + +"Yes, Mr. Jelnik: it was because I cared. I cared enough to tell +a--a lie. And--I shall say yes to your other question, Mr. Jelnik." + +But he shook his head. "Ah, no, my dear! You'd be called upon to +make too many sacrifices. I couldn't bear that!" + +"A man needn't be worried about the sacrifices a woman makes for him +when she knows he loves her." + +"Not in normal circumstances; not when he can give as much as he +takes." + +"Hynds House," I said, "is costing me a steep and bitter price, Mr. +Jelnik!" + +"Do I not also pay?" he asked fiercely. + +"Oh, you have your pride!" said I, wearily; "Hynds pride!" + +"A poor enough possession, Sophy, but all that remains to me," he +said gently. "Is it a light thing for Nicholas Jelnik to say to the +woman he loves, 'I cannot marry you: I am a beggar'? Is it such a +small sacrifice to give you up, Sophy?" + +"It would appear so." + +"You crucify me!" he said, in a choking voice. "Good God, don't you +understand that I love you?" + +"I don't understand anything, except that you are going away from +me. And I have waited for you all my life," I said. + +"And I for you! and I for you!" he said passionately. "Don't make it +too hard for me, Sophy!" + +"If you go away from me," I gasped, "I think I shall die. +Nicholas--I can't bear it! It was easier for me when I thought you +loved somebody else. But now that I know you love _me_" and I +paused. + +He took a step forward, but stopped. His arms fell to his sides. + +"Not as a beggar!" he said. "Not as a beggar! Never that, for +Nicholas Jelnik! I love you too much for that, Sophy. I love you not +only for yourself, but for my own best self, too, my dearest." + +For a moment he stood there, regarding me fixedly. It was a long +look, of suffering, of love, of pride, of unyielding resolve. Then +he lifted my hand to his lips, bowed, and left me. + +I sat staring over the garden. I wondered if, somewhere on the other +side of things, Great-Aunt Sophronisba wasn't snickering. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +HARBOR + + +"My faith, but I'm glad you're entirely well again, Sophy!" wrote +The Author, in his small, fine, hypercritical script. "You make the +world a pleasanter place by being alive in it. People like you +should inculcate in themselves the fixed and unalterable habit of +being alive. They should firmly refuse to be anything else. I call +this to your attention, in the hope that you will see your bounden +duty and do it. + +"When I thought you were going to quit, I ran away. That was a +calamity I could not stand by and witness, without disaster. +However, Jelnik stayed! + +"Your nurse (I do not like Miss Ransome, though I respect, admire, +and fear her. Her emotions are carbolized, her heart is sterilized, +her personality has the mathematical perfection of something turned +out by a super-machine: like, say, the last word in machine-guns. +None of the divine imperfection of your hand-wrought, artist-stuff +there! I forgive her for existing, because she is intelligent and +useful, two things that, without lying like a Christian and a +gentleman, one may not say of many women, and seldom of one woman at +the same time), your nurse gave me a highly interesting, impersonal, +scientific account of what happened after my flight. Her testimony +was all the more valuable in that she was, as she said, only +'psychologically interested.' She reminded me that Empedocles is +said to have recalled a young woman from death by the same means, +i.e., the insistent repetition of her name; which proved to Miss +Ransome that the poor old ancients had 'anticipated, though of +course unscientifically, some of the principles of modern +psychology.' _Eheu!_ + +"It proved something else to me, Sophy--that I had too willingly +underestimated Mr. Nicholas Jelnik. There is very much more to that +young man than I like to admit. + +"He would have made such a perfect villain: I could have made a work +of art of him, as a villain! And now I can't, because he isn't. This +chagrins me. It upsets my notions of the fitness of things. More +yet: he loves you, Sophy, more than I do, or ever could. + +"Does this astound you? Come and let us reason together: the spirit +moves me to speak out in meeting. + +"You are the only woman I have ever been willing to marry. That I +should wish to marry you astonished me far, far more than it did +you. At the same time it delighted me by its very unexpectedness. It +gave me a brand-new emotion, and brand-new emotions aren't every-day +affairs, let me tell you! You brought something naive, unusual, +fresh, perplexing, into a bored existence. And then you refused to +spoil it! That added to the quality of the unusualness. The ninety +and nine would have subjected me to the acid test of matrimony, with +the later and inevitable alimony. The saving hundredth sees to it +that I shall keep my illusions! O rare dear wise Sophy! How shall I +repay you? + +"For I shall be able to indulge in day-dreams now. I shall not grow +old cynically. There _are_ unselfish, true-hearted, valiant women. +There _are_ women who will not marry men for position, name, fame, +power, money; no, nor for anything but love. How do I know? Because +you don't love me, my dear. But you do love Nicholas Jelnik. You had +not come back from the gates of death else, Sophy. + +"Marry him. You will bring him the quiet strength and sureness he +needs. A temperamental man, a finely organized, highly gifted, +sensitive, and intellectual man needs just such affection as yours, +as unshakable as the sun, as faithful as the fixed stars. That you +should love him almost makes me believe in the direct intervention +of divine Providence in his behalf. My own innate and troublesome +decency forces me to add that he is worth it. He has altogether +_too_ much, confound him! + +"Do you know that while you lay ill, he came and told me about the +finding of Jessamine Hynds, showed me her statement, told me, in +short, the whole story? I was consumed with envy, malice, and all +uncharitableness; to think that such a thing should or could happen +right under my nose, and I all unwitting! And you, too, Sophy, went +through such an experience! I'd give a year of my life to have been +with you. + +"When Jelnik had finished, and I'd caught my breath, I apologized +for having been a dam' nuisance. He explained, delicately, +soothingly, with exquisite politeness, that literary folks of +consequence _have_ to be dam' nuisances at times. It's the price +they pay. + +"And now let me speak to you, my little Sophy, as your loving and +loyal friend: _Hold fast to Jelnik._ I knew his father. The position +he occupied wasn't exactly royal, but the elect addressed him as +'thou.' And you have learned somewhat of the Hyndses. In consequence, +your Jelnik is a mixture of South-Carolina-Viennese-Hynds-Jelnik +pride, beside which Satan's is as mild, meek, and innocuous as a +properly raised Anglican curate. Don't meet his pride with pride. +Meet it with _you_, Sophy. Most of us have been loved in our time, +but how few of us have been permitted really to love! That you have +in full measure this heavenliest of all powers, is your hope and his. + +"There are times I'm almost sorry you didn't love _me_, Sophy. I +should then have passed my days in a state of pleasant bewilderment, +trying to figure out how the deuce it happened. Or should I, though? +H'm! I might have gotten used to being married to you, and that +would have spelled boredom. The thought makes me shudder. + +"Johnson and I are coming down for Leetchy's wedding, of course. +That pink-and-white piece of Irishry will rule Geddes to perfection. +There's the steel under the velvet, the cat's claws under that satin +paw of hers--more power to it! I have two prints and a piece of +Cloisonne for her that I am sorely tempted to keep for myself. I +have more than once bought things to give to friends, and then found +myself unable to do so. I shouldn't be able to give these to anybody +but one of the ladies of Hynds House. + +"Johnson mopes. The youngest Meade girl, she with the dimples, the +pink cheeks, the fluffy hair, and the fluffier brains, is the cause. +He sighs for everything and everybody. For Mary Magdalen's batter +cakes. For the Black family. For the Kissing Cow, and for Beautiful +Dog. Hynds House is a fatal place! + +"So we are coming back to it, as soon as we may. I kiss your hand, +Madame, and beg you to understand that so long as we two live you +are never going to be able, for any considerable length of time, to +get rid of, + Your affectionate friend, + THE AUTHOR." + +I was able to read between the lines, and my heart warmed to The +Author. At the same time the letter saddened me, in so far as it +referred to Mr. Jelnik. + +Refuse to let him go? But I couldn't keep him. I knew now that he +had to go, that it was the best thing, the only thing. Doctor Geddes +helped me to see that. The doctor tried, at first, to keep his +cousin in Hyndsville. Why shouldn't Nicholas go into partnership +with him? Why shouldn't Nicholas share everything the open-hearted, +open-handed doctor had? + +Mr. Jelnik smiled, thanked him, and put the offer by. And I knew he +was right. + + * * * * * + +It had been a rainy day and was now one of those afternoons that +have the rawness of autumn, though summer is still present. It was +so chilly that a fire burned in the library fireplace, before which +I was sitting. The wind was from the northeast, and the trees and +bushes slanted before it. Potty Black and I had the library all to +our alone-selves, for Alicia was spending the day with Mary Meade, +one of her bridesmaids. + +The wedding was less than six weeks off, and preparations were under +way. It was to be a home wedding, the first to take place in Hynds +House since Richard's day, and somehow that lent the occasion the +rose color of romance. It was thus a part of Hynds House history, +something Hyndsville couldn't take lightly. Alicia's wedding was a +town affair, in which everybody was delightfully interested. + +Besides, the bridegroom himself was a Hynds on his mother's side, as +Hyndsville ladies remembered, when they sat on our front porch +working on wonderful bits of embroidered things for the bride. It +was then I learned in fullest detail the whole history of +Hyndsville, of the Hyndses, and of Great-Aunt Sophronisba in +particular. I fancy that the Witch of Endor's neighbors must have +had just such an opinion of her as these Hyndsville folk had of +Great-Aunt Sophronisba. + +South Carolina people always talk in terms of three generations. +When they say something about you, they remember something about +your mother or your grandfather at the same time, and they tell +that, too. There is a fearsome frankness about the conversation of +the born South Carolinian that The Author says is only to be matched +in an English country house when the county families are gathered +together. Like this, for instance: + +"No, my dear, I can't say I'm surprised at Sally's running away and +getting married. Let's see: her grandfather was a Dampier, wasn't +he? Didn't one of the Dampiers murder somebody, or something like +that? It seems to me I have heard dear Mama relate some such +circumstance." + +"Oh, _no_, Mary! It wasn't _murder_! He shot one of the Abercrombies +in a duel, that's all. He was really a very fine man! They had a +dispute about a horse, and Mr. Abercrombie struck Mr. Dampier's +little negro groom over the head with his crop. After that, of +course, there was nothing to do but challenge him. You must be +thinking of Barton Bailey, Eliza DuFour's grandfather on her +mother's side. _He_ was a complete scoundrel. His poor wife (she was +a Garrett; very dull, poor thing, like all the Garretts, but at +least the Garretts were honest, which is more than even charity can +say for the Baileys) his wife led a martyr's life with him. Or +maybe you're thinking of Tiger Bill Pendarvis. A most _awful_ +person!--almost an out-law!" + +Mrs. Scarboro looked up, bit off a thread, and said placidly: + +"Oh, awful! He was a cousin of mine on dear Papa's side of the +family. Papa and Mama used to say that they never could understand +why Cousin Sophronisba Hynds didn't pick out Tiger Bill instead of +pouncing upon a perfectly innocent little Englishman." + +I sat and listened. One thing was joyously clear and plain to me. +They liked and trusted me enough now to talk about their own people +before me, which is the high sign of fellowship in South Carolina. +But learn, O outsider, that silence is golden, so far as _you_ are +concerned. Wisely did I hold my peace, and devoutly thank the Lord +that times had changed for the better. + +For a great deal of that change I had to thank my dear girl, so much +more clever and tactful than I. And so I would not cloud her last +days with me by letting her see that I was unhappy. Only, I was glad +this afternoon to be by myself for a breathing-space. It rests one's +face occasionally to take off one's smile. I took off mine, then, +and let down the corners of my mouth. + +The door leading to the hall was half open. The house was full of +blue-gray shadows, and had a drowsy hush upon it, a pleasanter hush +than it used to know. One heard the rushing wind outside, and above +it Mary Magdalen singing one of her interminable "speretuals." + +A slinking shadow stole through the hall, a wary yellow head +appeared in the door, and Beautiful Dog sneaked into the room. +Beautiful Dog had not known a happy day since the departure of Mr. +Johnson. Not all the coddlings of the cook, nor the blandishments of +sympathetic housemaids consoled him for the absence of his god. He +grew thinner, if that could be possible. His tail hung at half-mast, +his ears were a signal of mourning. Queenasheeba said he looked like +"sumpin' 'at happened to a dawg." + +One hope sustained Beautiful Dog's drooping spirit--the hope that he +might suddenly turn a corner, or enter a room, and find the adored +Johnson smiling kindly at him. Wherefore he dared the to-be-shunned +presence of other white people. He nerved himself to enter tabooed +domains. Love sustained him. He knew he had no business there, just +as our cats knew it and, whenever they caught him at it, visited +swift and dire punishment upon him. Beautiful Dog dared even the +cats, those black nightmares of his existence. + +He met my glance, paused, and cringed. But as I made no hostile +movement, and seemed disposed to be friendly, Beautiful Dog grinned +half-heartedly, wagged his rope of a tail dejectedly, and advanced +farther. Then he paused again, head on one side, ears forlornly +flopping, and made an awkward motion with his fore paws, expressive +of doubtful trust and painful inquiry. His god had been wont to +choose this particular room by preference. Did I know where he was? +When he was coming back? + +Beautiful Dog glanced wistfully at the empty chair over by the +window. Once or twice his god had allowed him to lie beside that +chair while he read, and if Beautiful Dog happened to raise his +head, a kind hand happened to fall upon it. He hadn't forgotten. His +desire now was to sneak over to the chair and sniff at it. Perhaps +by some exquisite miracle his man might suddenly appear in his old +place. Can't miracles happen for Beautiful Dogs as well as for other +folks, when times and seasons are propitious? + +Beautiful Dog took another step toward the chair. And then there +paced into the library, and caught him in the rear, his arch +enemy--Sir Thomas More Black. The great cat took one look at the +nigger dog trespassing upon forbidden ground. You could see Sir +Thomas More swell with rage and astonishment, and then lengthen out +like an accordion. Without a sound he launched himself upon the +intruder. And at the same instant and actuated by the same motive, +Potty Black, who had been sweetly and peacefully dozing on my lap, +rose up with slitted eyes, bottle-brushed her tail, and hurled +herself into the fray. + +Attacked front and rear, Beautiful Dog was at hideous disadvantage. +He launched himself sidewise; he didn't even have time to howl. He +fell over his own splay feet as he ran, butted into chairs and +tables, twisted, turned, whirled, dodged, but always presented just +the right spot to be clawed. He couldn't dash to the door and +escape: the cats were too swift for him. They kept their bewildered +victim circling around the middle of the room. + +I was sorry for Beautiful Dog, for my sleek, petted, purring pussies +had turned into raging black tornadoes edged with a lightning of +claws. If the aristocratic Black Family had been raised in +Hooligan's Alley itself, on the soft side of the ash-bins, they +couldn't have behaved more villainously. Alas! they were _cats_, +just as people are people. + +I snatched up the brass-headed poker, the readiest thing to my hand. +I merely wished to shoo off the Blacks with it. But as I rose from +my chair with a _scat_! upon my lips, Beautiful Dog, seeing out of +the tail of his eye a chance to escape, dashed headlong into me. He +came with such force that I fell backward, and the poker flew out of +my hand and came _crack_! upon the sacred tiles of Hynds House +library. There was an ominous clatter, for no less than the Father +of his Country himself had fallen out of his place. At the same +instant Beautiful Dog gained the door, with both cats upon his hind +quarters; with one prolonged yell of terror he made for safety and +Mary Magdalen. + +I picked myself and the tile up. Thank Heaven, it wasn't broken. The +blow had loosened the cement that held it in place, and where it had +been was a small square hole. + +I looked at that hole doubtfully. There oughtn't to be any hole +there at all. That was a curious way to fix tiles, such precious +tiles as ours. I slipped my hand in and tentatively tested the black +wall, and discovered that the other tiles, as might be expected, had +been properly put in; that is, against a solid background. + +I put my hand farther into the aperture. It was larger than might be +expected, and most cunningly contrived--a hollow space some ten +inches in width, and possibly a foot deep. There was something in +it. + +Now I am mortally afraid of rats and mice, and what I had touched +had the sleazy feel of frayed silk. It might be a rat's nest! I took +a sliver of lightwood from the fire, and with this examined the +black interior, before I ventured my fingers again. It wasn't a +rat's nest in the corner. It was a package. A package, or rather a +sizable buckskin bag carefully tied together with thongs of the same +material, and this wrapped in a piece of silk that tore and went to +pieces even as I fingered it. + +Even then I didn't guess! I thought it was, perhaps, a Revolutionary +hoard, maybe such another collection of old coins as we had found in +the room without windows. + +The silk dropped away like rotting leaves, but the buckskin bag was +stout and in perfect condition. So many and so hard were the knots +in the thongs that I had to use my penknife to cut them. And having +done so, I poured the contents of the bag on the library table. + +It was, as I have said, a gray day. But the fires of a century's +sunsets flamed and flashed in that library! Ruby, sapphire, diamond, +emerald, pearl--how they glowed and glimmered! How they shone and +sparkled! For the moment there fell upon me that madness that jewels +bring upon women, a sort of wild delight in their hard, bright +beauty, an ecstasy, an intoxication. I poured them from one hand to +the other, I held the greatest to my cheek. The loveliness of them +went to my head. "I did chap them atween my hands, as children chap +chaff. They did glow like the Devill his rainbow," Jessamine had +said. And remembering her, the delight vanished. + +With stunning force the meaning of this discovery came home to me. I +had found the unfindable! This, this was where Shooba had hidden +them between a night and a morning, Shooba the "skilfullest workman +on Hynds place." One fancied him here, in the dead of night, while +all Hynds House slept a drugged sleep. It would suit his sardonic +humor, his impish malice, to hide them where the Hyndses must pass +them daily; and, himself a slave, to hide them behind the pictured +semblance of Washington. The grim irony of the thing! And not the +cunning of man, but the antics of a cur, a yellow nigger dog, had +outwitted the cunning of the old witch doctor! Beautiful Dog had +brought to light that which Jessamine had died alone in the dark +rather than reveal. + +There was one thing more in the buckskin bag, wrapped separately. +When I got this separate package open, I found three frayed, black +feathers bound together with a strand of black hair, a piece of +yellow wax with two slivers of what I think was bone thrust through +it crosswise, and a small semblance of a snake, rudely carved out of +wood. There was, too, some dust, or powder, that must once have +been leaves, or perhaps roots. These unchancy things and the bag +that held them I dropped into the fire, breathing a sigh of relief +to see its red tooth seize upon them. The wax made a hissing noise, +and the dust of leaves, or whatever it was, burned with a bright, +fierce flame. + +Then with feverish haste I got the Hynds jewels back into the +buckskin bag. I hadn't the faintest notion as to their actual value, +though I knew it must be considerable--enough to make up to Nicholas +Jelnik the losses he had sustained; enough to decide his fate--and +mine. Even now he was packing to go; even now there were "For Sale" +signs on the gray cottage. + +I ran into our living-room, snatched my sewing-bag from the +sewing-stand, and dropped the heavy bag into it. That looked more +commonplace. + +The clamor from the kitchen, incident upon Beautiful Dog's having +taken refuge under Mary Magdalen's skirts, had died down. I knew +that Beautiful Dog was licking his wounds after defeat, and the +Black cats, sedate and mild-mannered, were licking their paws after +victory. I determined that from that afternoon Beautiful Dog should +become an honored and important institution in Hynds House. If I had +to choose a new family escutcheon, I think I should insist upon +having Beautiful Dog rampant upon it! + +When I went outside, the garden was a gray-green gloom of flying +leaves and twisting tree-branches bending before the stiff northeast +gale. It was wild weather--weather that sent the blood tingling +through the veins and whipped red into one's cheeks. + +I got into Mr. Jelnik's grounds through the hedge behind the +spring-house, and ran like a hare through his garden. I had to +hammer upon his door before I could make Achmet hear me, so loud and +surf-like was the noise of the wind in the trees. + +The Jinnee stepped back and salaamed, his hands upon his breast. +Then he laid a finger upon his lips, for from up-stairs came the +wailing outcry of a violin. + +The Jinnee looked thin and old. His garments hung loose upon his +shrunken frame. There was trouble in that house, he told me. The +master had wished to send Daoud away. Daoud had refused to go. To +leave one's lord when calamity came upon him was to shame one's +beard. It was the act of the infidel, not the behavior of the +faithful, and Daoud had threatened to shave his beard, put on the +dress of a pilgrim, and beg his way from Hyndsville to Mecca. He was +even now kneeling upon a prayer-mat reciting a four-bow prayer. As +for the master, for two days he had not eaten; he merely swallowed +a cup of coffee in the morning because Achmet wept. This afternoon +he had fled to his violin for relief. Verily, God was afflicting +them! "The bad fortune of the good turns his face to heaven, even as +the good fortune of the bad bends his head to the earth. It is the +will of God: _Islam_!" said The Jinnee, simply. + +"I must see Mr. Jelnik, now, this minute! I have news for him," I +said hastily. + +The Jinnee looked doubtful. Plainly, he didn't want his master +disturbed, even by me. "I have never seen him like this before," he +told me. "Listen!" + +Came the cries of the violin, heart-rending cries of regret and +despair, followed by furious protests; then a nobler grief, and +love, and longing. + +"After a while it will pray for him. Then Satan the stoned, whom may +God confound, will depart from him," said Achmet. + +"But in the meantime I must see him, immediately." + +"He goes to-morrow. That is why he is afflicted to-day," said The +Jinnee. "I think, _hanoum_, he would go without seeing you again. It +is a grievous thing to say to one's beloved, 'I leave you.' I have +said it. I was young then. I am old now, but I have not forgotten." + +I unfastened the chain from my neck. A half-coin swung from it as a +pendant. + +"Place this in his hand. It is a sign. It has power to lay the evil +spirit which troubles this house," I told him gravely. + +He seized upon it with an eager hand. "In the name of God!" said The +Jinnee, and fairly flew out of the room. + +A minute later, his violin grasped in one hand, my chain in the +other, Nicholas Jelnik appeared. His appearance shocked me. The mask +was off; here was stark and naked misery. + +"Nicholas!" I said, "Nicholas!" + +"You should not have come!" he said roughly. "Why have you come? I +did not want you to see me--thus. Is it not enough for me to +suffer?" And he made an impatient, imploring gesture. His lips +quivered. + +"Put aside the violin, Ariel," I said. "But keep the coin." + +He stiffened, as if he braced himself for further blows. But he laid +aside the violin, and with a supreme effort of will got himself in +hand. That early training in self-control worked a miracle now. Here +was no longer the wild, white-lipped musician, but a pale, proud +young man who faced me with stately politeness. + +"I have another gift for you, Nicholas Jelnik." To save my life I +couldn't keep my voice from shaking, my eyes from glittering, my +cheeks from flaming. "Do not go, old Jinnee. Stay and see what gift +I bring the master." + +Then it occurred to me that it would be dangerous should strange or +greedy eyes look upon what my sewing-bag hid. The thought frightened +me." + +"You are sure there is none to see? Achmet, there is no stranger +around?" + +"We are alone," said the black man, quietly. Both of them seemed +astonished and concerned. + +Reassured, I drew forth the heavy buckskin bag and placed it in +Nicholas Jelnik's hands. + +"From Hynds House--and me--and oh, Nicholas, from Beautiful Dog, +too!" I said, and laughed and cried. + +For the moment he didn't understand. He thought it some loving +woman-foolishness of Sophy's, some woman-gift she had made for him. +I knew, for he gave me a glance of tenderness. And then he opened +the bag, and staggered like a drunken man, and sank into the nearest +chair, trembling like a leaf in the wind. The Hynds fortune had come +back to the last of Richard's blood. + +When the mist cleared from my eyes, I saw old Achmet on the floor, +with his hands upraised and tears running down his black cheeks +like rain, unashamedly and unaffectedly pouring out praises and +thanksgivings to his Creator. + +"Hold out your skirts, Sophy!" cried Nicholas Jelnik, and poured the +glittering things into my lap, boyishly. He was beautiful again, +radiant and young-eyed as the choiring cherubim. There were two +exquisite, pear-shaped ear-ring drops among the Hynds jewels, and +these he took, threaded upon my chain on either side the broken +coin, and hung around my neck. He held a ruby against my lip and +turquoises near my eyes, and laughed. + +"These for Hynds House, Sophy!" he cried, and laughed again to see +my lips tremble. "What? It is not these you want? Choose for +yourself, then. I promised you the best of them, you know." + +"I want none of them," I said. + +"No? Take them, then, Achmet, and put them away," said Mr. Jelnik, +in a matter-of-fact voice. "You will guard them for me, for the time +being. And tell Daoud I have changed my mind about sending him away. +He can change his about shaving his beard, and save himself the +trouble of begging his way to Mecca." + +I stood up in silence, and held out my skirt apron-wise, while The +Jinnee as silently removed the Hynds jewels. Then he tied the +buckskin bag, concealed it in a fold of his robe, and left the room. + +"Now, Sophy," said Mr. Jelnik, facing me, "you offered Hynds House +to me once, and I refused it because I didn't have the price. I told +you at the time that if ever I had the Hynds jewels in my +possession, I might be tempted to make you an offer of exchange. I +am going to make you an offer now. I should like to live in Hynds +House, Sophy. I don't think I could be happy anywhere else. You see, +Sophy, I'm going to spend the rest of my life here in America, +become an American citizen. Now, what about Hynds House?" + +"You may have it," I said. + +"At my own price?" he demanded. + +"At your own price. Did you think I would haggle with you?" + +"No. It's I who intend to haggle with you. I'm going to make a +tremendous bargain. There's something that must go with the house. +Something that's worth more than all the Hyndses ever had in all +their lives. _You_, Sophy. My sweetheart, come!" And he stood there +shining-eyed, and held out his arms. + +"Once I sent for you. Once I called you. And both times you came to +me, Sophy. You came because you are mine. _Come!_" said Nicholas +Jelnik. And the golden lights danced in and out of his eyes that +were like brown mountain water when the sun is upon it, and his hair +was like Absalom's. + + _In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as + Absalom for his beauty; from the sole of his foot to the + crown of his head there was no blemish in him._ + +And caught by the surge and power, as it were of the very wave of +life itself, I was swept into those outstretched arms. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN NAMED SMITH*** + + +******* This file should be named 15591.txt or 15591.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/5/9/15591 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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