CHAPTER XX.
“ZOSE ANGEL BELLS.”
As soon as the boys had departed, Susan went round the lower part of the house, and shut and fastened all the lower doors and windows. Then leaving the house in charge of Jenny, with injunctions to that young person to lock the back door after her, and not to open it or any other until she returned, the vigilant housekeeper went down to the barn, locked and bolted all the doors there and in the stables, and then walked over to the little house where Joel’s mother lived, and, finding this old woman all right, she came back to the house.
About an hour later, she sat down by the dining-room window to rest a little after her morning’s work. Her reflections were not very pleasant, for her mind was much troubled by the present state of affairs. She knew the want of money, and the threatened legal proceedings, and she was afraid there were other troubles which neither she nor Phil knew anything about. She was always a loyal woman to her employers, and she took a deep interest in this family and its prosperity, but she was very jealous of her own position and prerogatives, and it had been a hard thing for her to change her allegiance from Mr. Godfrey to a mere boy like Phil; but in a moment of excitement she had done it, and now she was glad of it, especially since there was danger of another boy getting at the head of affairs.
She bitterly hated that French boy. True, she had not intended he should be killed when she gave Phil the gun at the time of the quarrel, and she had good reasons for knowing that nothing of the kind would occur, but she wanted to frighten Emile, and was rejoiced to think how thoroughly she had succeeded. It would be a dreadful thing, she thought, for this estate to pass into the hands of those French people. If she had the money, she would gladly pay the interest on the mortgage, or whatever was necessary to save the property, and would have been certain it would be paid back to her.
As for Mr. Godfrey’s going away at such a time, she did not know what to think of it. She had liked him very much ever since as a young man he used to come to visit his father. She believed him to be just and honorable, and she was very much afraid that he must have gone crazy before he could do a thing like this. He was always a very queer person, not at all like other people.
These rather doleful thoughts were interrupted by the sound of wheels, and looking through the half-open Venetian shutters, she saw the grocer’s buggy approaching. When she recognized Emile as the driver, her heart fell within her.
“Why on earth should he come here?” she exclaimed,—“especially to-day.”
She did not go to the front door to receive him, but stayed where she was.
In a few moments the voice of Emile was heard outside, loudly calling for some one to take his horse, but Susan did not move.
The calling continued, louder and more peremptory, and at last Jenny came up-stairs to know if she should go to the door.
“No,” said Susan.
But, as the shouting went on, the housekeeper presently said, with a sigh,—
“Well, I suppose the rascal won’t go away until he has seen some one, so you may go out, Jenny, and tell him that there is no one at home. Perhaps that will satisfy him.”
Jenny went out, and was met by a volley of abuse from Emile, but this made little impression upon her.
“There’s no one at home,” she said, “so you’ll have to come again.”
“When will zey be back?” quickly asked Emile.
“I don’t know when Mr. Godfrey will be back,—probably not for a long time,” said Jenny. “And Mr. Phil and Chap Webster don’t expect to come home until after night.”
“All right,” said Emile. “I want somebody to take my horse.”
“There isn’t anybody here to do it,” said Jenny. “Joel is away getting men for harvest.”
Emile smiled.
“If zat is so,” he said, “I will tie him to zis post, and after a while I will take him to ze barn myself.”
He fastened the horse to a hitching-post, and then quickly passing Jenny, who had been gravely watching him, he ran up the porch-steps and entered the half-open front door.
Here he was met by Susan, who would have shut the door in his face if she had reached it soon enough, and who confronted him with a countenance that plainly enough expressed the question,—
“What do you want here?”
The moment Emile saw her, his eyes sparkled with rage.
“Aha!” he cried, “you is ze vile woman who would have me killed! Now let me tell you zis: When, in two or tree days I am master of zis house, I will drive you out, and I will have you put in ze prison. And now get out of my way; I want to look at my house.”
“Oh,” thought Susan to herself, as she clinched her hands, “if Mr. Godfrey only kept a watch-dog! but he never would do it.”
Emile stepped to the parlor doors and threw them wide open.
“Open zose windows!” he cried. “Why you keep it so dark here?”
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Susan.
“Zen I’ll do it myself,” said Emile.
He opened all the parlor shutters, and then walked around the room, scrutinizing the furniture, pictures, and ornaments in a way he had never done before.
Susan could do nothing to prevent him. She could only look on and grind her teeth.
When Emile came out of the parlor, he went into the dining-room.
“When Mr. Berkeley comes home,” said Susan, “I will tell him of this, and he will have you punished. You will not be allowed in this country to walk into people’s houses and act in this way.”
“Humph!” said Emile, shrugging his shoulders; “when your Mr. Berkeley comes home, he will have no home.”
Presently a happy idea seemed to strike the French boy. Coming to the hall, where Susan still stood, he said to her,—
“Where are zose bells zat used to dingle-dangle on zis house?”
“It’s none of your business where they are,” said Susan, shortly.
“Look you here,” said Emile, stepping closer to her, with his face turning very dark, “you tell me where are zose bells, or I will make you do it.”
It was not easy to frighten Susan, but she may have thought this French fellow capable of any crime. After a moment’s reflection, she went into the dining-room and got a key. Then, saying to Emile, “If you must see everything, I suppose you must,” she led the way up-stairs. Opening the door of a large room at the very top of the house, she pointed to a row of greenish metal bells, which stood on the floor by one of the walls.
“Now you’ve seen them,” she said, “I hope you are satisfied.”
“No, I am not,” said Emile. “How do you get out on zis roof?”
“There’s a trap-door over there,” said Susan, “at the top of that flight of steps.”
Emile went up the steps, and opened the door. Then he came back.
“I am going to hang some of zose bells on ze roof,” he said. “I see ze little posts are zer yet.”
“Mr. Berkeley will not allow that; he took them down himself,” said Susan.
“Zat makes no difference to me,” remarked Emile. “I s’all hear zose angel bells again.”
And, picking up one of the bells, which, though large, was not very heavy, he carried it up the steps.
“All right,” thought Susan, “you can hang yourself up there, if you like.”
Then, going out of the room door, she locked it, put the key in her pocket, and went down-stairs.
“Now,” said she to Jenny, who had been left on guard below, “I have locked that young rascal in the cockloft, and I intend to keep him there till Joel, or some one of the others, comes home. You heard him threaten me, and I’m sure there’s no law against my keeping him shut up till there’s a boy or a man about the house. I know he is none too good to take something, and carry it away with him.”
To these remarks Jenny assented heartily, being thankful that something had occurred to make Susan forget to scold her for having allowed the French boy to come in at the front door.
As the housekeeper went about her work she felt pretty well satisfied with the events of the morning. She hoped that the boys would bring Mr. Godfrey back with them, and was glad to think that in that case the young Frenchman would be on hand to be dealt with as he deserved.
She was also glad that Phil had taken Old Bruden to Mr. Godfrey. Susan was not a superstitious woman as a general thing, but the few notions of the kind she had were strongly rooted in her mind, and she believed that Mr. Berkeley would be more completely master of the situation if he had that gun.
Like most persons who hold superstitious ideas, she had but slight reasons for her belief, but she knew that the former owners of the gun had been masters in their establishments when they kept possession of it, and had ceased to be such when they let it go from them. And this, she believed, would be the case now. Above all things, she feared to have the gun fall into the hands of Emile Touron.
As for that young gentleman, he was quite busily employed for some time after Susan left him. He hung the bell on one of the upright projections which were ranged along the four sides of the roof, and which had been originally placed there to support the bells, which had been the delight of the heart of the old tea-merchant, Mr. Godfrey’s father. These bells were made of very light metal, so that they would easily swing in the wind, and the strong breeze which was blowing made this one ring quite to Emile’s satisfaction.
But one bell was not enough. He wanted to hang several of them, and then go below to listen to the effect. Years before, he had been greatly entertained by these bells, which had fixed themselves in his memory as the principal characteristic of the place, and he was anxious to enjoy again the pleasant sensation.
He was so full of his work that, when he went down-stairs again, he did not notice that the door of the loft was shut. He brought up two bells this time, and hung them. Two or three more, he thought, would be enough, and then he would go down on the lawn and hear them ringing in the wind. But, descending again, he noticed the closed door. He ran to it and tried to open it, but it was of no use. He rattled the door-handle, he shouted, he kicked, but no one came.
He grew very angry and a good deal frightened. He had never imagined that the woman would serve him such a trick. He tried to break the lock or force the door, but this was all in vain. The doors at Hyson Hall were very heavy, and the locks massive.
Then he ran out on the roof and shouted, hoping to attract the attention of some one below. But no answer came to him except the jangling of the bells. For a long, long time Emile stayed up there, sometimes running down into the loft, to see if the door had been opened, and then returning to the freer air of the roof.
Susan paid no attention to his shouts or noise, most of which she plainly heard. She supposed he might be hungry, but she also knew he was very angry, and she would not have dared to open the door while she and Jenny were by themselves in the house.
After a while, Emile became tired of shouting and kicking, and sat down on the parapet, gazing around in the hope of seeing some one approaching.
Looking towards the river, a strange object caught his eye. It was the remains of the Thomas Wistar, on Spatterdock Point.
Instantly the idea struck him that this was the wreck he had discovered under water, and which, in some way, had been raised. He did not notice that this was the hull of a steamboat, for it lay at quite a distance from the house, and there were trees intervening, and he did not imagine that there could be two wrecks on the same property.
It is true that Spatterdock Point was some distance from the place to which he had gone with the other boys to look for the sunken treasure-ship; but Emile was not familiar with the river-front, and did not notice this.
He had heard of the steamboat on fire at Boontown, but, being very busy with his lawyer at the time, had not gone to see it, and had not known of its floating down the river.
“Those vile boys,” he thought, as he sprang to his feet, and stood with clinched hands gazing at the unfortunate Wistar. “They’ve got that ship out of the water, and have carried away the treasure. That is the reason they went to town, armed to the teeth. They have stolen my money! That gold was mine! Everything on this place belongs to me.”
It may be remarked that Emile always seemed to consider that when the mortgage was foreclosed the estate would belong to him, and not to his father. This was owing to his egotistical way of thinking about things in which he was in any way concerned.
This sight of the wreck of the Wistar made him more angry than ever. He was certain that the boys had carried off all or part of the treasure he had been told about, and he fairly stormed around the flat roof as he thought of it.
Once he saw Jenny below, looking up at him. He leaned over the parapet and yelled at her to come up and unlock the door, but she only smiled. Enraged, he seized a piece of plaster and threw it at her, but he did not hit her.
Early in the afternoon, a man came walking along the public road towards the little bridge, which has been spoken of before. He had in his hand a book, which he was reading as he walked. Suddenly he stopped, raised his head and listened. He seemed to hear something which surprised him, and the longer he listened the more surprised he appeared.
The wind was blowing from the direction of Hyson Hall, and on the breeze there came the sound of tinkling bells. Presently the man shut up his book, put it in his pocket, and, getting over the fence at one side of the road, he ran up to the top of a little hill, from which he could get a view of Hyson Hall.
He had strong eyesight, and he could plainly see several bells dangling and swinging on the top of the house. At first he seemed scarcely able to believe his eyes, then he turned a little pale, and then his face grew dark.
He was evidently very much troubled. As a fresh gust of wind brought the sound still plainer to his ear, he turned away with a very cold and stern countenance, went down the hill, and, getting over the fence, walked rapidly along the road in the direction from which he had just come.