CHAPTER III
MAD MARION
Some one was certainly calling to the new arrivals. And that some one proved, to their delighted surprise, to be none other than Mrs. Powell herself!
The latter came halfway to meet them as they hurried across the lawn toward the band of yellow light.
“Oh, I’m so relieved!” cried Mrs. Powell, as she hugged Jane and threw her arms about her husband’s neck. “I have the key to the house right here, Dink, if you want to let the moving-men in. The people next door have been just lovely to me! You’d never guess how nice they’ve been! But why, why have you been so long on the road?”
“I’ll tell you everything, my dear,” Mr. Powell promised, “as soon as I get these men started to unloading the stuff. I suppose they are hungry and tired as well as we,” he added in a kinder voice than he had used during that whole wearisome, exasperating journey.
“Well, they must come in and get something to eat, too. No—no refusals. I won’t take any. I positively insist!”
No one had noticed the approach of a light bobbing and blinking in the hand of some one from the house next door.
Now every one turned, startled, to see an odd little person winking and smiling in the fitful light of the lantern.
“This is our very kind neighbor,” said Mrs. Powell, referring to the little old lady. “You’ve no idea how kind she is.”
“Not kind—only thoughtful once in a while,” said the queer person, with an odd simpering laugh. “Here’s a light!” thrusting it abruptly at Mr. Powell. “Hard to find one in a dark house at this time of night. Might help to have a light!”
Mr. Powell was frankly staring at this odd apparition. His wife brought him to his senses with a sharp dig of her elbow in his ribs.
“Take the light,” she ordered in a whisper for his ear alone. “Poor thing’s a little touched in the head. Can’t you do anything but stand there staring like a wooden soldier?”
Mr. Powell took the light with a stammered thanks and went into the empty house with the moving-men, who had told the queer woman that they would be expected in their own homes and, as much as they would like to, could not eat with her.
This new abode in Greenville had been rented by the Powells, “sight unseen.” Martin and Hull, wholesale grain dealers with whom Mr. Powell had secured his position as bookkeeper through the kindly intercession of a mutual friend, had suggested that they be allowed to procure quarters for their new employee; some house within walking distance of the company’s storehouses and one that could be procured at a modest rental.
Mr. Powell had been glad to accept this suggestion, and the result was this little house on a side street of the town of Greenville.
It would not look so dismal by daylight. They all knew that, and as the moving-men began to growl about the difficulty of unloading furniture at night, Mrs. Powell had a suggestion to make.
“Why not wait until morning to unload?” she said. “It will be so much easier then.”
It was not hard to come to terms on this, since all were tired and disgruntled and badly in need of food.
“If you will tell us of some hotel or boarding house in town where we can put up for the night we will be very much obliged,” said Mr. Powell to the odd little person from next door (the moving-men had already departed gladly toward the center of town and a hot dinner). “We can’t very well sleep without beds and we are badly in need of refreshment.”
“And you can have both by coming next door,” said the queer person, bobbing and smiling. “Dinner is hot on the stove. I believe you can smell it from here. As for beds,” with another bob and another smile, “we have plenty of beds, a great many beds. Yes, indeed, plenty.”
Still mumbling a little to herself and bobbing and smiling, she preceded them over the small patch of lawn toward the light that streamed from the still-open door.
Mr. Powell hesitated and glanced sharply at his wife. Even Jane hung back a little.
“It’s all right,” Mrs. Powell explained in a quick, hurried whisper. “She has a nice sister. The sister told me all about this poor thing. She is really as harmless as a kitten and never happy unless she is doing something for somebody. Come along, do! Don’t hold back or you’ll hurt her feelings!”
Mr. Powell no longer held back, though it was evident he was unconvinced. With a great deal of curiosity Jane accompanied her two kind friends to the open door of the house next door.
“Mad Marion,” for so the poor, afflicted little woman was known to the people of Greenville, waved them gleefully into a warm brightly lighted room.
It was a large room, and seemed to combine sitting room, dining room, and kitchen. It ran along the front of a house that was as queer as the sisters who lived in it.
Afterward Jane was to learn that, back of this kitchen-dining-room-living-room were a series of some five or six rooms strung out in a row and connected by doors and tiny, odd flights of stairs that seemed to have no use or purpose other than to provide stumbling blocks for the unwary visitor.
At the moment, sight of that one large room was enough for the bruised and weary travelers.
A large table in the center of the room was neatly set for two. A woman bent over a stove, stirring a savory mixture in a large pot.
At the sound of movement in the doorway the latter turned.
“Bring them in, Marion,” she said in a harsh, strident voice that made Jane jump. “What are you waiting for?”