Kitabı oku: «At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern», sayfa 5
“Yours as usual,“C. J.”
The communication was probably intended as encouragement, but the effect was depressing, and at the end of an hour, Harlan had written only two lines more in his book, neither of which pleased him.
Meanwhile, Dick was renewing his old acquaintance with Mrs. Smithers, much to that lady’s pleasure, though she characteristically endeavoured to conceal it. She belonged to a pious sect which held all mirth to be ungodly.
“Sally,” Dick was saying, “I’ve dreamed of your biscuits night and day since I ate the last one. Are we going to have ’em for lunch?”
“No biscuits in this house to-day,” grumbled the deity of the kitchen, in an attempt to be properly stern, “and as I’ve told you more than once, my name ain’t ‘Sally.’ It’s Mis’ Smithers, that’s wot it is, and I’ll thank you to call me by it.”
“Between those who love,” continued Dick, with a sidelong glance at Dorothy, who stood near by, appalled at his daring, “the best is none too good for common use. If my heart breaks the bonds of conventional restraint, and I call you by the name under which you always appear to me in my longing dreams, why should you not be gracious, and forgive me? Be kind to me, Sally, be just a little kind, and throw together a pan of those biscuits in your own inimitable style!”
“Run along with you, you limb of Satan,” cried Mrs. Smithers, brandishing a floury spoon.
“Come along, Dorothy,” said Dick, laying a huge but friendly paw upon Mrs. Carr’s shoulder; “we’re chased out.” He put his head back into the kitchen, however, to file a parting petition for biscuits, which was unnecessary, for Mrs. Smithers had already found her rolling-pin and had begun to sift her flour.
Outside, he duly admired Maud, who was chewing the cud of reflection under a tree, created a panic in the chicken yard by lifting Abdul Hamid ignominiously by the legs, to see how heavy he was, and chased Claudius Tiberius under the barn.
“If that cat turns up missing some day,” he said, “don’t blame me. He looks so much like Uncle Ebeneezer that I can’t stand for him.”
“There’s something queer about Claudius, anyway,” ventured Dorothy. “Mrs. Smithers says that uncle killed him the week before he died, and – ”
“Before who died?”
“Claudius – no, before uncle died, and she buried him, and he’s come to life again.”
“Uncle, or Claudius?”
“Claudius, you goose,” laughed Dorothy.
“If I knew just how nearly related we were,” remarked Dick, irrelevantly enough, “I believe I’d kiss you. You look so pretty with all your dimples hung out and your hair blowing in the wind.”
Dorothy glanced up, startled, and inclined to be angry, but it was impossible to take offence at such a mischievous youth as Dick was at that moment. “We’re not related,” she said, coolly, “except by marriage.”
“Well, that’s near enough,” returned Dick, who was never disposed to be unduly critical. “Your husband is only related to you by marriage. Don’t be such a prude. Come to the waiting arms of your uncle, or cousin, or brother-in-law, or whatever it is that I happen to be.”
“Go and kiss your friend Sally in the kitchen,” laughed Dorothy. “You have my permission.” Dick made a wry face. “I don’t hanker to do it,” he said, “but if you want me to, I will. I suppose she isn’t pleased with her place and you want to make it more homelike for her.”
“What relation were you to Uncle Ebeneezer?” queried Dorothy, curiously.
“Uncle and I,” sighed Dick, “were connected by the closest ties of blood and marriage. Nobody could be more related than we were. I was the only child of Aunt Rebecca’s sister’s husband’s sister’s husband’s sister. Say, on the dead, if I ever bother you will you tell me so and invite me to skip?”
“Of course I will.”
“Shake hands on it, then; that’s a good fellow. And say, did you say there was another skirt stopping here?”
“A – a what?”
“Petticoat,” explained Dick, patiently; “mulier, as the ancient dagoes had it. They’ve been getting mulier ever since, too. How old is she?”
“Oh,” answered Dorothy. “She’s not more than twenty or twenty-one.” Then, endeavouring to be just to Elaine, she added: “And a very pretty girl, too.”
“Lead me to her,” exclaimed Dick ecstatically. “Already she is mine!”
“You’ll see her at luncheon. There’s the bell, now.”
Mr. Chester was duly presented to Miss St. Clair, and from then on, appeared to be on his good behaviour. Elaine’s delicate, fragile beauty appealed strongly to the susceptible Dick, and from the very beginning, he was afraid of her – a dangerous symptom, if he had only known it.
Harlan, making the best of a bad bargain, devoted himself to his guests impartially, and, upon the whole, the luncheon went off very well, though the atmosphere was not wholly festive.
Afterward, when they sat down in the parlour, there was an awkward pause which no one seemed inclined to relieve. At length Dorothy, mindful of her duty as hostess, asked Miss St. Clair if she would not play something.
Willingly enough, Elaine went to the melodeon, which had not been opened since the Carrs came to live at the Jack-o’-Lantern, and lifted the lid. Immediately, however, she went off into hysterics, which were so violent that Harlan and Dorothy were obliged to assist her to her room.
Dick strongly desired to carry Elaine upstairs, but was forbidden by the hampering conventionalities. So he lounged over to the melodeon, somewhat surprised to find that “It” was still there.
“It” was a brown, wavy, false front of human hair, securely anchored to the keys underneath by a complicated system of loops of linen thread. Pinned to the top was a faded slip of paper on which Uncle Ebeneezer had written, long ago: “Mrs. Judson always kept her best false front in the melodeon. I do not desire to have it disturbed. – E. J.”
“His Nibs never could bear music,” thought Dick, as he closed the instrument, little guessing that a vein of sentiment in Uncle Ebeneezer’s hard nature had impelled him to keep the prosaic melodeon forever sacred to the slender, girlish fingers that had last brought music from its yellowed keys.
From upstairs still came the sound of crying, which was not altogether to be wondered at, considering Miss St. Clair’s weak, nervous condition. Harlan came down, scowling, and took back the brandy flask, moving none too hastily.
“They don’t like Elaine,” murmured Dick to himself, vaguely troubled. “I wonder why – oh, I wonder why!”
VIII
More
Blue as sapphires were the eyes of Elaine, and her fair cheek was like that of an apple blossom. Set like a rose upon pearl was the dewy, fragrant sweetness of her mouth, and her breath was that of the rose itself. Her hands – but how shall I write of the flower-like hands of Elaine? They seemed all too frail to hold the reins of her palfrey, much less to guide him along the rocky road that lay before her.
Safely sheltered in a sunny valley was the Castle of Content, wherein Elaine’s father reigned as Lord. Upon the hills close at hand were the orchards, which were now in bloom. A faint, unearthly sweetness came with every passing breeze, and was wafted through the open windows of the Castle, where, upon the upper floor, Elaine was wont to sit with her maids at the tapestry frames.
But, of late, a strange restlessness was upon her, and the wander-lust surged through her veins.
“My father,” she said, “I am fain to leave the Castle of Content, and set out upon the Heart’s Quest. Among the gallant knights of thy retinue, there is none whom I would wed, and it is seemly that I should set out to find my lord and master, for behold, father, as thou knowest, twenty years and more have passed over my head, and my beauty hath begun to fade.”
The Lord of the Castle of Content smiled in amusement, that Elaine, the beautiful, should fancy her charms were on the wane. But he was ever eager to gratify the slightest wish of this only child of his, and so he gave his ready consent.
“Indeed, Elaine,” he answered, “and if thou choosest, thou shalt go, but these despised knights shall attend thee, and also our new fool, who hath come from afar to make merry in our court. His motley is of an unfamiliar pattern, his quips and jests savour not so much of antiquity, and his songs are pleasing. He shall lighten the rigours of thy journey and cheer thee when thou art sad.”
“But, father, I do not choose to have the fool.”
“Say no more, Elaine, for if thou goest, thou shall have the fool. It is most fitting that in thy retinue there shouldst be more than one to wear the cap and bells, and it is in my mind to consider this quest of thine somewhat more than mildly foolish. Unnumbered brave and faithful knights are at thy feet and yet thou canst not choose, but must needs fare onward in search of a stranger to be thy lord and master.”
Elaine raised her hand. “As thou wilt, father,” she said, submissively. “Thou canst not understand the way of a maid. Bid thy fool to prepare himself quickly for a long journey, since we start at sunset.”
“But why at sunset, daughter? The way is long. Mayst not thy mission wait until sunrise?”
“Nay, father, for it is my desire to sleep to-night upon the ground. The tapestried walls of my chamber stifle me and I would fain lie in the fresh air with only the green leaves for my canopy and the stars for my taper lights.”
“As thou wilt, Elaine, but my heart is sad at the prospect of losing thee. Thou art my only child, the image of thy dead mother, and my old eyes shall be misty for the sight of thee long before my gallant knights bring thee back again.”
“So shall I gain some hours, father,” she answered. “Perhaps my sunset journeying shall bring my return a day nearer. Cross me not in this wish, father, for it is my fancy to go.”
So it was that the cavalcade was made ready and Elaine and her company left the Castle of Content at sunset. Two couriers rode at the head, to see that the way was clear, and with a silver bugle to warn travellers to stand aside until the Lady Elaine and her attendants had passed.
Upon a donkey, caparisoned in a most amusing manner, rode Le Jongleur, the new fool of whom the Lord of the Castle of Content had spoken. His motley, as has been said, was of an unfamiliar pattern, but was none the less striking, being made wholly of scarlet and gold. The Lady Elaine could not have guessed that it was assumed as a tribute to the trappings of her palfrey, for Le Jongleur’s heart was most humble and loyal, though leaping now with the joy of serving the fair Lady Elaine.
The Lord of Content stood at the portal of the Castle to bid the retinue Godspeed, and as the cymbals crashed out a sounding farewell, he impatiently wiped away the mist, which already had clouded his vision. Long he waited, straining his eyes toward the distant cliffs, where, one by one, the company rode upward. The valley was in shadow, but the long light lay upon the hills, changing the crags to a wonder of purple and gold. To him, too, came the breath of apple bloom, but it brough no joy to his troubled heart.
What dangers lay in wait for Elaine as she fared forth upon her wild quest? What monsters haunted the primeval forests through which her path must lie? And where was the knight who should claim her innocent and maidenly heart? At this thought, the Lord of Content shuddered, then was quickly ashamed.
“I am as foolish,” he muttered, “as he in motley, who rides at the side of Elaine. Surely my daughter, the child of a soldier, can make no unworthy choice.”
The cavalcade had reached the summit of the cliff, now, and at the brink, turned back. The cymbals and the bugles pealed forth another sounding farewell to the Lord of the Castle of Content, whom Elaine well knew was waiting in the shadow of the portal till her company should be entirely lost to sight.
The last light shone upon the wonderful mass of gold which rippled to her waist, unbound, from beneath her close-fitting scarlet cap, and gave her an unearthly beauty. Le Jongleur held aloft his bauble, making it to nod in merry fashion, but the Lord of Content did not see, his eyes being fixed upon Elaine. She waved her hand to him, but he could not answer, for his shoulders were shaking with grief, nor, indeed, across the merciless distance that lay between, could he guess at Elaine’s whispered prayer: “Dear Heavenly Father, keep thou my earthly father safe and happy, till his child comes back again.”
Over the edge of the cliff and out upon a wide plain they fared. Ribbons of glorious colour streamed from the horizon to the zenith, and touched to flame the cymbals and the bugles and the trappings of the horses and the shields of the knights. Piercingly sweet, across the fields of blowing clover, came the even song of a feathered chorister, and– what on earth was that noise?
Harlan went to the window impatiently, like one wakened from a dream by a blind impulse of action.
The village stage, piled high with trunks, was at his door, and from the cavernous depths of the vehicle, shrieks of juvenile terror echoed and re-echoed unceasingly. Mr. Blake, driving, merely waited in supreme unconcern.
“What in the hereafter,” muttered Harlan, savagely. “More old lovers of Dorothy’s, I suppose, or else the – Good Lord, it’s twins!”
A child of four or five fell out of the stage, followed by another, who lit unerringly on top of the prostrate one. In the meteoric moment of the fall, Harlan had seen that the two must have discovered America at about the same time, for they were exactly alike, making due allowance for the slight difference made by masculine and feminine attire.
An enormous doll, which to Harlan’s troubled sight first appeared to be an infant in arms, was violently ejected from the stage and added to the human pile which was wriggling and weeping upon the gravelled walk. A cub of seven next leaped out, whistling shrilly, then came a querulous, wailing, feminine voice from the interior.
“Willie,” it whined, “how can you act so? Help your little brother and sister up and get Rebbie’s doll.”
To this the lad paid no attention whatever, and the mother herself assorted the weeping pyramid on the walk. Harlan ran downstairs, feeling that the hour had come to defend his hearthstone from outsiders. Dick and Dorothy were already at the door.
“Foundlings’ Home,” explained Dick, briefly, with a wink at Harlan. “They’re late this year.”
Dorothy was speechless with amazement and despair. Before Harlan had begun to think connectedly, one of the twins had darted into the house and bumped its head on the library door, thereupon making the Jack-o’-Lantern hideous with much lamentation.
The mother, apparently tired out, came in as though she had left something of great value there and had come to get it, pausing only to direct Harlan to pay the stage driver, and have her trunks taken into the rooms opening off the dining-room on the south side.
Willie took a mouth-organ out of his pocket and rendered a hitherto unknown air upon it with inimitable vigour. In the midst of the confusion, Claudius Tiberius had the misfortune to appear, and, immediately perceiving his mistake, whisked under the sofa, from whence the other twin determinedly haled him, using the handle which Nature had evidently intended for that purpose.
“Will you kindly tell me,” demanded Mrs. Carr, when she could make herself heard, “what is the meaning of all this?”
“I do not understand you,” said the mother of the twins, coldly. “Were you addressing me?”
“I was,” returned Mrs. Carr, to Dick’s manifest delight. “I desire to know why you have come to my house, uninvited, and made all this disturbance.”
“The idea!” exclaimed the woman, trembling with anger. “Will you please send for Mr. Judson?”
“Mr. Judson,” said Dorothy, icily, “has been dead for some time. This house is the property of my husband.”
“Indeed! And who may your husband be?” The tone of the question did not indicate even faint interest in the subject under discussion.
Dorothy turned, but Harlan had long since beat an ignominious retreat, closely followed by Dick, whose idea, as audibly expressed, was that the women be allowed to “fight it out by themselves.”
“I can readily understand,” went on Dorothy, with a supreme effort at self-control, “that you have made a mistake for which you are not in any sense to blame. You are tired from your journey, and you are quite welcome to stay until to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” shrilled the woman. “I guess you don’t know who I am! I am Mrs. Holmes, Rebecca Judson’s own cousin, and I have spent the Summer here ever since Rebecca was married! I guess if Ebeneezer knew you were practically ordering his wife’s own cousin out of his house, he’d rise from his grave to haunt you!”
Dorothy fancied that Uncle Ebeneezer’s portrait moved slightly. Aunt Rebecca still surveyed the room from the easel, gentle, sweet-faced, and saintly. There was no resemblance whatever between Aunt Rebecca and the sallow, hollow-cheeked, wide-eyed termagant, with a markedly receding chin, who stood before Mrs. Carr and defied her.
“This is my husband’s house,” suggested Dorothy, pertinently.
“Then let your husband do the talking,” rejoined Mrs. Holmes, sarcastically. “If he was sure it was his, I guess he wouldn’t have run away. I’ve always had my own rooms here, and I intend to go and come as I please, as I always have done. You can’t make me believe that Ebeneezer gave my apartments to your husband, nor him either, and I wouldn’t advise any of you to try it.”
Sounds of fearful panic came from the chicken yard, and Dorothy rushed out, swiftly laying avenging hands on the disturber of the peace. One of the twins was chasing Abdul Hamid around the coop with a lath, as he explained between sobs, “to make him lay.” Mrs. Holmes bore down upon Dorothy before any permanent good had been done.
“How dare you!” she cried. “How dare you lay hands on my child! Come, Ebbie, come to mamma. Bless his little heart, he shall chase the chickens if he wants to, so there, there. Don’t cry, Ebbie. Mamma will get you another lath and you shall play with the chickens all the afternoon. There, there!”
Harlan appeared at this juncture, and in a few quiet, well-chosen words told Mrs. Holmes that the chicken coop was his property, and that neither now nor at any other time should any one enter it without his express permission.
“Upon my word,” remarked Mrs. Holmes, still soothing the unhappy twin. “How high and mighty we are when we’re living off our poor dead uncle’s bounty! Telling his wife’s own cousin what she’s to do, and what she isn’t! Upon my word!”
So saying, Mrs. Holmes retired to the house, her pace hastened by howls from the other twin, who was in trouble with her older brother somewhere in her “apartment.”
Dorothy looked at Harlan, undecided whether to laugh or to cry. “Poor little woman,” he said, softly; “don’t you fret. We’ll have them out of the house no later than to-morrow.”
“All of them?” asked Dorothy, eagerly, as Miss St. Clair strolled into the front yard.
Harlan’s brow clouded and he shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “I don’t know,” he said, slowly, “whether I’ve got nerve enough to order a woman out of my house or not. Let’s wait and see what happens.”
A sob choked Dorothy, and she ran swiftly into the house, fortunately meeting no one on her way to her room. Dick ventured out of the barn and came up to Harlan, who was plainly perplexed.
“Very, very mild arrival,” commented Mr. Chester, desiring to put his host at his ease. “I’ve never known ’em to come so peacefully as they have to-day. Usually there’s more or less disturbance.”
“Disturbance,” repeated Harlan. “Haven’t we had a disturbance to-day?”
“We have not,” answered Dick, placidly. “Wait till young Ebeneezer and Rebecca get more accustomed to their surroundings, and then you’ll have a Fourth of July every day, with Christmas, Thanksgiving, and St. Patrick’s Day thrown in. Willie is the worst little terror that ever went unlicked, and the twins come next.”
“Perhaps you don’t understand children,” remarked Harlan, with a patronising air, and more from a desire to disagree with Dick than from anything else. “I’ve always liked them.”
“If you have,” commented Dick, with a knowing chuckle, “you’re in a fair way to get cured of it.”
“Tell me about these people,” said Harlan, ignoring the speech, and dominated once more by healthy human curiosity. “Who are they and where do they come from?”
“They’re dwellers from the infernal regions,” explained Dick, with an air of truthfulness, “and they came from there because the old Nick turned ’em out. They were upsetting things and giving the place a bad name. Mrs. Holmes says she’s Aunt Rebecca’s cousin, but nobody knows whether she is or not. She’s come here every Summer since Aunt Rebecca died, and poor old uncle couldn’t help himself. He hinted more than once that he’d enjoy her absence if she could be moved to make herself scarce, but it had no more effect than a snowflake would in the place she came from. The most he could do was to build a wing on the house with a separate kitchen and dining-room in it, and take his own meals in the library, with the door bolted.
“Willie is a Winter product and Judson Centre isn’t a pleasant place in the cold months, but the twins were born here, five years ago this Summer. They came in the night, but didn’t make any more trouble then than they have every day since.”
“What would you do?” asked Harlan, after a thoughtful silence, “if you were in my place?”
“I’d be tickled to death because a kind Providence had married me to Dorothy instead of to Mrs. Holmes. Poor old Holmes is in his well-earned grave.”
With great dignity, Harlan walked into the house, but Dick, occupied with his own thoughts, did not guess that his host was offended.
After the first excitement was over, comparative peace settled down upon the Jack-o’-Lantern. Mrs. Holmes decided the question of where she should eat, by setting four more places at the table when Mrs. Smithers’s back was turned. Dorothy did not appear at luncheon, and Mrs. Smithers performed her duties with such pronounced ungraciousness that Elaine felt as though something was about to explode.
A long sleep, born of nervous exhaustion, came at last to Dorothy’s relief. When she awoke, it was night and the darkness dazed her at first. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, wondering whether she had been dead, or merely ill.
There was not a sound in the Jack-o’-Lantern, and the events of the day seemed like some hideous nightmare which waking had put to rout. She bathed her face in cool water, then went to look out of the window.
A lantern moved back and forth under the trees in the orchard, and a tall, dark figure, armed with a spade, accompanied it. “It’s Harlan,” thought Dorothy. “I’ll go down and see what he’s burying.”
But it was only Mrs. Smithers, who appeared much startled when she saw her mistress at her side.
“What are you doing?” demanded Dorothy, seeing that Mrs. Smithers had dug a hole at least a foot and a half each way.
“Just a-satisfyin’ myself,” explained the handmaiden, with a note of triumph in her voice, “about that there cat. ’Ere’s where I buried ’im, and ’ere’s where there ain’t no signs of ’is dead body. ’E’s come back to ’aunt us, that’s wot ’e ’as, and your uncle’ll be the next.”
“Don’t be so foolish,” snapped Dorothy. “You’ve forgotten the place, that’s all, and I don’t wish to hear any more of this nonsense.”
“’Oo was it?” asked Mrs. Smithers, “as come out of a warm bed at midnight to see as if folks wot was diggin’ for cats found anythink? ’T warn’t me, Miss, that’s wot it warn’t, and I take it that them as follers is as nonsensical as them wot digs. Anyhow, Miss, ’ere’s where ’e was buried, and ’ere’s where ’e ain’t now. You can think wot you likes, that’s wot you can.”
Claudius Tiberius suddenly materialised out of the surrounding darkness, and after sniffing at the edge of the hole, jumped in to investigate.
“You see that, Miss?” quavered Mrs. Smithers. “’E knows where ’e’s been, and ’e knows where ’e ain’t now.”
“Mrs. Smithers,” said Dorothy, sternly, “will you kindly fill up that hole and come into the house and go to bed? I don’t want to be kept awake all night.”
“You don’t need to be kept awake, Miss,” said Mrs. Smithers, slowly filling up the hole. “The worst is ’ere already and wot’s comin’ is comin’ anyway, and besides,” she added, as an afterthought, “there ain’t a blessed one of ’em come ’ere at night since your uncle fixed over the house.”
