Kitabı oku: «Divided Skates», sayfa 5
“That’s just like Molly. She’s an awful generous girl, Molly is.”
Miss Lucy was about to suggest that some other adjective than “awful” would better apply to “generous,” but refrained. It would not do, she considered, to begin too sternly or suddenly in the reconstruction of her charge. She simply replied:
“Yes. She is generous and lovable. She has excellent common sense.”
Towsley found his tongue and launched into praise of the whole family of Johns, with such graphic pictures of their daily life that Miss Armacost felt well acquainted with the entire household. Then the little fellow became absorbed in the excitement of the ride, and the novelty of dashing around and around the lake, in that endless line of prancing horses and skimming vehicles, set his tongue a-chatter ceaselessly.
Miss Lucy listened, in a sort of charm. The few children whom she knew were apt to be rather quiet in her presence, but not so this lad from the back alley. He enjoyed everything, saw everything, described everything, like a keen reporter of the papers he had used to sell.
“Look-a-there! and there! and there! Did you see that? That was a regular clothes-basket, set on a pair of runners! Sure; it all goes. Snow doesn’t come down here very often. Why, up north, in New York, or Boston, or such places, they have sleighing whenever they’ve a mind to! but not down here. Folks daren’t lose a chance, dare they? See! There’s a regular old vender’s wagon, that a lot of young folks have hired, and they’re old cow-bells they’ve put on the horses. Ki! look-a-there! look-a-there! Them’s woman’s college girls – sure! Whew! regular hay-riggers, ain’t they! They must have took all their money to pay for it! And – shucks! just see them bobs!”
In his excitement the little boy stood up and pointed frantically toward a group of boys who had brought out their long sleds and were hastening toward that hill of the park where coasting would be permitted. Unconsciously he attracted a deal of attention from the throngs of pleasure-seekers, and Miss Armacost felt herself unpleasantly conspicuous. Yet there was not an eye which beheld him that did not brighten because of his happiness; and in spite of her annoyance at the gaze of her fellow townsmen, the owner of the chestnuts felt also a sort of pride in its cause.
But at last she ordered the coachman homeward, and they rode slowly out of the park, down the beautiful Avenue toward the Armacost mansion and Towsley’s new home. He sank back into his place with a profound sigh of mingled pleasure and regret:
“To think they never had a sleigh-ride!”
“Humph! How many have you had, before this one, Lionel?”
“Why – why – why – none.”
“I thought so. Have you pitied yourself?”
“No, ma’am. I mean, no, Miss Lucy.”
“Then save your sympathy. One cannot miss what one has never enjoyed. For myself, I see little good of this snow. It’s made no end of trouble and expense to house owners, and filled the streets with stuff which the city will have to remove, and – ”
“It’s made a heap of fun, hasn’t it? Won’t it give idle men a lot of shovelling to do? I’ve always heard them saying how glad they were when a snow-storm came; those tramps around the city buildings. I’m sure I think it’s jolly. Only I wish – ”
“Well, what?”
“That I had as much money as I wanted. I’d hire the big picnic stage and have it put on runners, and I’d go ’round Newspaper Square, and the Swamp, and the asylums and – and places – and I’d give every little kid that never had a ride, I’d give him one to-morrow, as sure as I live. Oh! I wish I had it!”
Miss Armacost lost all manner of patience with this boy. If he’d only be contented with enjoying himself and let his neighbors rest. But here they were at home. How odd it looked, to see those great heaps of snow which had been shovelled from the sidewalk and piled up in banks before the houses, between the curbstone and the driveway. And over in the “Square” which filled the centre of the block the children of the bordering houses had all come out with sleds and happy laughter, and were making the old silence ring.
“Maybe, after all, anything which pleases the children is not an unmitigated annoyance,” observed Miss Armacost, reflectively.
Jefferson brought the horses to a standstill and stepped down to loosen the robes about his mistress and help her alight, if need be. But Towsley had been before him. He had pulled off his hat, thrust it under his arm, and extended his hand toward the lady, to assist her, as courteously and gracefully as any grown gentleman could have done; even if not with quite so much strength.
Repressing a smile at the difference in size between her assistant and herself, Miss Armacost quietly placed her hand within his and stepped to the sidewalk. This was slippery in spots, as Towsley observed, and he remarked:
“Better let me hold your hand till you get clear up the steps, hadn’t you, Miss Lucy?”
“Yes, dear, I think I would much better.” Then when the lad reached the top and she had rung for admittance, she turned to him with a lovely smile:
“Welcome home, Lionel Towsley Armacost.”
“Thank you, Miss Lucy. I hope we won’t neither of us ever be sorry I’ve come.”
She liked his answer; liked it far more than she would have done one full of enthusiasm. So they went in together, well pleased, and as the boy had been so lately a hospital patient, he was sent early to bed and to sleep.
As she had done before, Miss Lucy visited him afterward, and enjoyed without restraint the sight of her adopted son, lying so peacefully upon his pillow. For there were now no soiled stains of the street to mar his beauty, and the little hands upon the coverlet were as dainty as need be.
But even in slumber Towsley had an uncomfortable effect upon the lady’s thoughts: reminding her of the many other little lads who had shared his poverty yet not his present good fortune. She had never considered her house as an especially large one till his small person served to show the size of the empty rooms, and how tiny a space one child could occupy.
Miss Lucy sat so long that she grew chilled. Then she reflected that she might easily become ill, which would be most unfortunate now, since she had taken a child to care for. So she rose rather stiffly and started for her own room; though she had not taken a dozen steps in its direction before she came to a sudden, startled pause. Somebody was ringing her door-bell. Ringing it persistently, without waiting for any response.
“Oh, dear! That must be somebody in trouble! Or, possibly, a special delivery message from the post-office or express; though I’m sure I have nobody near and dear enough to call upon me in that manner. Yes, yes, I’m coming!” she cried to the invisible visitor, though she knew perfectly that her voice could not reach him.
At that hour, Jefferson and Mary, who slept in the house, were both in bed, and their mistress would not disturb them. She preferred to hurry to the door herself and learn what was wanted. But when she reached and opened it there was nobody waiting. Even though she drew her shoulder shawl closer about her and stepped out upon the marble stoop to look, there was nobody in sight. In that quiet neighborhood all lights had long since been extinguished, and there was no sign of life in any of the stately homes bordering the snowy Square.
“That’s very odd! The bell did certainly ring. Not once but several times. Well, whoever it was must have been in a hurry, and may have disappeared around Side Street corner.”
So she locked the door, extinguished the light she had turned on, and climbed the carpeted stairs toward her own apartment. Her slippered feet made no sound, and the stillness all over the house was profound; but, just as she turned the first landing, it was broken again. There came the same prolonged, insistent ringing, and fairly flying back to the door, Miss Lucy exclaimed:
“Well, I’ll be in time now, I think!”
Yet, just as before, she opened to silence and the moonlight only.
CHAPTER VI.
MYSTERIES
“Come, Master Lionel! It’s time to be stirring. Your bath’s ready and breakfast will be before you are dressed. Miss Lucy says you are not to delay, and to open your window when you leave your room, and to be in your place in the breakfast-room when she comes down to lead morning worship. Now, don’t go to sleep any more, that’s a good boy, and make me climb three flights of stairs again, just for nothing at all. Hear?”
“Yes, ma’am, I hear,” responded Towsley, sleepily. But he was much mixed in his ideas at that moment, and quite mistook Mary for her mistress; also that he had been instructed by his benefactress, during the past evening, as to his demeanor toward the servants of the house, whom he was to treat with all kindness, yet not to “ma’am” nor “mister,” as seemed natural to an Alley-trained boy.
“I can trust you, can I?” again demanded the voice outside the half-closed door.
“Yes. I’m awake. But, say, Mary!”
“Well, what is it?”
“Did you say bath? Have I got to wash myself again? They washed me at the hospital enough to kill. I won’t be dirty again this winter.”
Mary laughed. “The idea! Did you ever hear of a young gentleman as didn’t take his bath every day? Ridic’lous. Come, step lively. Here’s a bath-robe by the door used to belong to the other Lionel. Miss Lucy says, wear it.”
Towsley had seen such robes in the shop windows; and as he folded this one about him and thrust his feet into the warm little slippers, also provided, he had a curious feeling that he was thus investing himself with his new life.
But this made him very unhappy. Odd! that a boy who had never had a home should be homesick! Yet that was the real name of the miserable, sinking sensation at his heart; and as he crossed the hall to the bathroom, his face was the picture of woe.
However he had no idea of disobedience; and though it was with a shiver of repugnance that he stepped into the porcelain tub, his emotions underwent a sudden and radical change.
“Hi! this is nicer than swimming! And them towels – for me! Ain’t they prime! I wonder what Shiner would say if he could see ’em.”
This was an unfortunate suggestion. It almost, though not quite, overset the exhilaration of the bath, and as he stepped out upon the rug he seemed to see the reproachful face of his mate looking up at him and questioning:
“Why ain’t I in it, too?”
“Why wasn’t he? Why did I happen to be the one, just the only one, who should skate bang into Miss Lucy and be taken in and done for? And I couldn’t skate, either. I was just a-learning. Pshaw! I wish I hadn’t. I wish – I wish. ’Bout this time, I s’pose, the fellows have near sold out. There’ll be some running on the down-town cars, though, and the gents that go to business late; bankers and lawyers and such. I s’pose somebody’s got my route, already. If a chap gets out the line – there’s another hops into his place – spang! I wonder – ”
But just there Lionel Towsley’s reflections became so sombre that some very unusual tears crept into his eyes. This fact restored him to a sense of his own foolishness.
“Shucks! if I ain’t crying! I – Towsley! Well, that beats all. I ain’t never done it since I can remember, only now I’m adopted I ’pear to be losing all my snap. Is that the way with rich folks always? Am I a rich one, now, just because I stay in Miss Lucy’s house? Well, I can’t let myself get to be a girl, even if I do live like one.”
Then the lad remembered Doctor Frank and that, although the gentleman wore fine attire, he was the manliest person he knew. Yet he was evidently wealthy, since he could afford to give away, or advance – to penniless Towsley this seemed the same thing – a five-dollar suit of clothing. So he hurried himself and brushed his hair, as far as he could reach around; and he tried to use all the accessories of his toilet which Miss Lucy had provided and he could understand. In his efforts he forgot to be so lonely; and it was a really bright-faced little fellow who presented himself in the breakfast-room, where the house mistress sat waiting, and who addressed her very respectfully:
“Good-morning, Miss Armacost. Am I late? I guess I fooled ’round some. I – I ain’t got used to things yet.”
“Good-morning, my child. Did you rest well?”
“Prime. I hope you did, too,” he replied, sitting down upon a chair near her own.
Yet she did not look as if she had, and the child opened his lips to remark this; but she motioned him to be quiet, and immediately took up the Bible lying ready on a little stand beside her. He noticed that all the servants were present, sitting in an orderly row upon one side of the room, which was very still. Then Miss Lucy read a portion of the Word and offered a brief prayer, to which Towsley listened in a scared sort of way. For she mentioned him in her petition, asking for a blessing upon the new relation established between them.
This gave the matter a dignity and importance really startling to the waif. If he and what happened to him were worth mentioning to the Lord he had no right to grumble about them; and, during that few moments upon his knees, there was born in the boy’s heart a self-respect that was never after to forsake him.
But when they had taken their places at the table, and Mary was passing the food, he saw how Miss Lucy’s hand shook, and inquired, anxiously:
“Miss Lucy, are you sick? What makes you tremble so? Are you cold? Can I get you something?”
She was much pleased by his quick observation, yet shook her head in a way that made him understand he was to ask no more questions while Mary remained in the room. After she had served them and gone, he ventured again:
“Didn’t you sleep as nice as I did, Miss Lucy? You look awful tired.”
The little lady regarded him very attentively for a moment. Then she inquired:
“Lionel, if I tell you a secret, will you keep it?”
“Yes, indeed. I will. Hope to die if I don’t.”
“Needn’t say that. It wouldn’t be true. But there was something very queer going on here last night; and it kept me awake, and I’m all upset this morning.”
Even to herself it seemed strange that Miss Armacost should turn to this stranger child for sympathy, when she would not allow herself to do so toward any of the servants who had known her so long.
“What was it, Miss Lucy? P’raps I can find out what it was. I’d like to if I could. I’d like to, first rate. I heard what you said when you were praying, and I ain’t going to forget. I’d rather be back to my old place in the Square, with my papers under my arm, but if I can’t help myself – if the Lord’s took a hand in it – I’d like to be the next best thing I can. That’s to help you, ain’t it?”
The mistress of the mansion gasped. This was frankness, indeed, – a frankness most unflattering to herself, but it served to rouse and brace her jaded nerves. She replied, a little sharply:
“If you don’t like it you needn’t stay. That is, after you’ve given the matter a good trial, and I have. That’s fair for both sides. But – hark! There it goes again!”
At that instant, the electric door-bell rang in a peculiar, prolonged, and rather gentle fashion. Towsley couldn’t understand why Miss Lucy’s face paled still further; nor why, after Mary had answered the summons, she should slam the door viciously, and almost run back along the hall to her own quarters.
Miss Lucy touched the table bell and summoned her; then inquired, in as calm a voice as she could command:
“What was it, this time, Mary?”
“The same old story, ma’am; nothing.”
“Very well. You may go.”
“Yes, ma’am. I think I will. Cook and I are both talking of going. You see, we’ve been hearing it this two or three days, and we wouldn’t dare to stay in a house that had a ‘haunt.’”
“Nonsense. There is nothing of the sort. Some reasonable explanation will be found. You may return to your dusting.”
“Yes, ma’am. But if it happens again, just once, please, ma’am, I’d like to be let off, and I’ll try to find somebody to take my place if you want me to.”
Miss Armacost vouchsafed no response to this suggestion, and pretended to sip her coffee. Yet her hand shook so that she set the cup down, and, as soon as Mary had disappeared again, folded her arms and looked toward the eager-faced boy opposite, in a helpless sort of way.
“What did she mean by that, Miss Lucy?”
Then she told him. How for several days before she had herself heard it, there had been a most mysterious ringing at the front door-bell; that the servants had as often answered the summons, yet found nobody demanding admittance; that they believed there was some ghostly influence at work; that being superstitious, like all the colored race, they had decided it would be unsafe for them to remain in the house; that at frequent intervals, all last night and now this morning, as Lionel had himself observed, the ringing had again occurred.
“It’s very, very distracting and uncomfortable. I’m quite upset by it, and don’t know what to do.”
“It’s electric, ain’t it?”
“What? The bell? Yes, certainly.”
“Then I’d send for a ’lectrician. He’d find out the trouble in a jiffy. But, shucks! wouldn’t it be prime!”
“What would be prime?” Yet Miss Lucy sighed in relief, as she added: “What an extremely simple thing; and why didn’t I think of it before?”
“Don’t know, except ’cause you didn’t.”
“Hm’m. Immediately after breakfast I’ll send for a man. Now – my goodness! What’s all this?”
The glances of both flew to the windows which were on a level with the street. There were four of these lace-draped windows, two in front and two upon the side. At each was a small face peering in, and at some there were two faces.
Towsley forgot everything. All the changed conditions of his life, his determination to be very thoughtful of Miss Lucy, the gentlemanly behavior which belonged to a boy who lived in the finest house upon the Avenue. They were faces that he knew, – every one! They, were the faces of Shiner, and Battles, and Toothless, and Whistling Jerry. Behind these, Tom the Bugler, and Larry Lameleg.
His friends were they, his jolly little comrades; who had heard of what had befallen him and had come to condole with him. The mere sight of them brought back the atmosphere so familiar to him: of the alleys and their freedom, of Newspaper Square with its hurry and bustle and eager life! It was too much for Towsley, and with a shout of rapture he rushed to the basement entrance, out upon the street, into the very arms of his mates.
“Say, it was true, then, ain’t it?” demanded Tom the Bugler. “What was in our paper last night, and that our man saw up in the park? You dressed up in another boy’s clothes and lost yourself in the snow, didn’t you? Must been a dumb one to do that. Right here in Baltimore city where you’ve lived all your life. Say, was it bad in hospital? Be you goin’ to stay here? What’s the lady doin’? She looks – she looks kind of funny, don’t she?”
Lionel Towsley glanced back through the window into the room he had deserted, and his heart sank. Miss Lucy had pushed aside from the table and was watching him with a white, disappointed face. It had been such a little while that she had had him, and yet he had become so dear. She had been so ready, so eager to bestow every comfort and benefit upon him, and he had seemed so deserving; yet now, at a glance, he was back in the old ways among his rude companions, and she and her offered love were quite forgotten.
“Say, Tows, you’re a regular swell now, ain’t you? My! see them fine clothes! Look at the pockets of ’em. Money? Money in the pockets, Tows? Give us a nickel all round, you nabob, you. Rides in a sleigh every day, he does, and never thinks no more of Newspaper Square and nights on the old steam holes, he don’t!” gibed Battles fiercely.
But Lionel scarcely heard this taunt. A bitter struggle was tearing his manly, loving, loyal little heart – the claims of his old life and his own loneliness on the one side; the claims of Miss Lucy’s generosity and her loneliness upon the other. He didn’t need her, he thought; but she needed him. She needed him very much. It was his duty to be good to her; and, like many another child under similar circumstances, at that moment Towsley felt that the word “duty” was the most disagreeable one in the language. He took a second real good look at Miss Lucy still sitting, waiting, and this time he saw something in her face that made everything quite easy.
“She understands!” he thought, and then he nodded to her with a happy smile. A second later, with a hurried, “Wait a minute, fellows!” he had darted back into the breakfast-room and, now indifferent to the stares of his comrades, flung his arms about the lady’s neck, crying:
“It’s all right, dear Miss Armacost! I’m not a-going to run away with them. But I’ve just thought of something and I want it, I want it – oh! so much! It’s a little thing! But I want, I do want, before I give up the newspaper business to get just one ‘beat’ on th’ others. May I? May I just go down to the office, and before anybody else gets hold of it, get our ghost story in? It would make a whopper, it would! I’ll carry the boys away with me, and I won’t let on a bit, and I’ll come back surely. Just this once, may I? I never had a chance before?”
It struck even Towsley himself as an odd circumstance that he should ask this permission; he who had never before consulted anybody as to his goings or comings; or that he should wait so eagerly for her reply.
But Miss Lucy scarcely heard him. She was thinking of something else. The clasp of those young arms about her neck thrilled her with a joy unspeakable. With such an expression as it now wore, Towsley’s face seemed, indeed, that of the lost, innocent Lionel restored to life. She was ready and anxious to give him all he desired, even to the half of her kingdom; and she comprehended less of what he was just then saying, than what he had so greatly desired on the previous evening.
“Yes, my dear. You may. We will certainly hire the great stage, and give a ride to as many as it will hold. You shall tell me just what you want, and I will gratify you if it is possible.”
“Thank you – oh! thank you!” he cried, and dashed a kiss at her. At that moment, however, he was more loyal to his paper than generous to his friends, and he ran out hastily.
His mates beheld and construed this action after their own way.
“Pshaw! She’s give him the go-by. He ain’t no swell. Anybody could work the ’doption racket for just one night, he could. Let’s chase him. If she’s give him money, he must treat!” cried Battles contemptuously.
So, in a twinkling, the place was deserted, and Miss Lucy sat alone trying to understand just what had happened.
The silence about her was complete, and continued for a long time.
“What did he mean? Evidently not what I did, or had in mind,” pondered the perplexed mistress of the house on the Avenue; and, as if in answer to her unspoken question, again there fell upon the stillness that startling, inexplicable ringing of a bell.
“Oh oh! There is that uncanny sound again! What can cause it? I don’t wonder the servants are frightened. I am, myself; though I know, of course, there are no such things as ghosts. And yet – ”
As if in derision of her doubt, once more the bell pealed; this time both for long and violently.
