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.