CHAPTER XI.
The Opened Letter.
KNOWING that the ordeal of facing them all would grow more formidable the longer I waited, I nerved myself to go down to dinner, even with Bijou's ill-natured words ringing in my ears and capping the climax of the day's unhappiness. Lorna greeted me pleasantly, quite as if nothing at all unusual had occurred, and the rest took their cues from her, so after the first few minutes everything was easier.
Mrs. Smith proposed bridge immediately afterward, but I excused myself and went to my room. I wrote a long letter to Miss Farmingdale, explaining the circumstances as well as I could, and another to Daddy, telling him everything that had occurred, save the fact of Gilbert's identity. I wanted to see his face when I told him that.
I let him know very plainly what I thought of the family, and my plans for putting myself under the protection of Miss Farmingdale, and I begged him to come home to me as soon as ever he could.
It was long past midnight when I had finished, and the house was dark and still. I took my night light, and going softly downstairs, placed the letters on the hall table. Then I undressed and went to bed, but sleep would not come to me. I lay staring into the darkness, unable to turn my thoughts from the hideously unpleasant position in which I was placed. This was Friday. It would be Monday before my letter would reach Miss Farmingdale, provided someone took it to the mainland the next morning—and Wednesday at least, before she could come for me. There were four or five days more ahead of me on that island, in any event, and I dreaded to think of them. There was a possibility, too, that Miss Farmingdale would decline to interfere, until she heard from Daddy, but I would not let my mind dwell on that.
How long I lay restlessly tossing about, I don't know, but all at once I heard soft footfalls in the hall, and the barest perceptible ray of light crept through the crack between my door and sill, and, traveling across the room, disappeared. Who could be prowling about the house at that hour? I sat up in bed and listened. The person, whoever it was, had descended the stairs. On a sudden impulse I sprang up, drew my dark dressing-gown about my shoulders, and opening my door noiselessly, inch by inch, I crossed the landing, and peeped down over the balustrade.
A muffled figure, holding a tiny electric candle, stood beside the hall table and as I watched, it moved toward the library door, and vanished.
I waited breathlessly, and saw a strong light spring up, and then the door silently closed.
Who could it have been? I was sure that the figure was that of a woman, not a man.
It seemed to me that an hour or more passed as I stood there clinging to the balustrade, waiting for that figure to reappear. I wanted to satisfy myself, to see who it really was. At length, so suddenly that I drew back in fear lest I should be discovered, the library door opened, and the figure appeared upon the threshold. The lamp in the room behind her had been extinguished, and the sharp white rays from the light she carried, shone full upon her. It was Mrs. Smith, and upon her face was stamped an expression of malignant fury which turned my blood cold.
Shuddering, I fled back to my room, closed the door silently, and crept into bed. For the first time in my life I was afraid! I had never seen such a look upon any human creature before. She had seemed like some ferocious, snarling beast about to spring! I felt that if she had discovered me spying on her, she would have struck me down without mercy. She had looked capable of murder, anything!
What could have happened, and at this hour, to put her in such a fiendish rage? And what had she been doing in that hall, at the table
Then a swift thought flashed across my mind, and a cold feeling settled about my heart, like the clutch of an icy hand. My letters! She had read my letters I It was a horrible, low suspicion to harbor, even against her, but it took instant possession of me. I felt that at all costs I must know if it were justified.
The light reappeared under my door, the footsteps passed, and darkness enveloped me again. I lay quaking in every limb, listening for the striking of the tall old clock on the stairs. At length it came: one, two! I waited until it boomed the half hour, and then, nerving myself desperately against the choking fear which gripped me by the throat, I stepped from my bed, and felt about my table until my fingers closed over the box of matches. I would not dare to strike a light until I reached the hall below, but once there I must be able to ascertain if my letters had been disturbed.
Never shall I be able to forget the horror of that interminable journey down the stairs! I held my breath, in the tense darkness, and clung to the bannisters, afraid to put my whole weight on each step lest the stairs creak and betray me.
At last my trembling hand found the newel post, and I crouched there for a time, listening fearfully for the slightest sound from above. The brooding silence was unbroken and I heaved a sigh of relief. I had reached the foot of the staircase in safety, but the hardest part of my venturesome task lay still before me.
Slowly I crept to the table and felt about noiselessly upon it. The piles of magazines, a humidor, the base of a lamp, and a book or two met my groping fingers, but no envelopes. I must have a light!
Thanking fortune that the box I carried contained parlor matches, and I need not use the raspy sandpaper scratcher, I took one out, and drew it quickly across the smooth felt table-top. It spluttered and flared into flame, and I glanced eagerly down. The letters were gone!
I blew the match out quickly, and stood there, thinking. Dare I venture into the library and search there for them? If I were discovered, I could say that I came down for a book to read, being seepless. I decided to chance it.
After listening carefully again, I stole to the library, closed the door softly behind me, and lighted the lamp. Of course the letters might have been slipped between the pages of one of the books, and in that case an attempt to find them would be futile, for the walls were lined with bookcases and it would have taken days to go through them all. The desk was littered with papers, and I felt mean and prying as I examined them. It was needless, however. The letters were not there, nor anywhere else in the library that I could discover, although I searched long and thoroughly. There was a locked drawer in the desk, and two in the big center table and I could find no keys to fit them, so at length I gave it up in despair. The letters must be in one of those drawers, or Mrs. Smith had taken them to her room with her.
I extinguished the lamp, and groped my way to the stairs, startled to find that a faint gray light was creeping in at the windows. As I ascended, the tall clock struck four, and I paused aghast. I had been an hour and a half in my fruitless search!
It was not until I had regained the refuge of my own room, with the door safely locked behind me, that I breathed freely once more. There was just one alternative still to consider, from the suspicion that had now almost become a certainty. Mrs. Smith might have descended to the library for some other purpose, and seeing the letters lying there upon the hall table, had placed them in some receptacle for the mail. I determined that in the morning I would make a last, bold effort to discover the truth.
Feeling that sleep would never come to me again, I threw myself on the bed, but I must have been worn out with excitement and the various emotions of the day, for I drifted off into unconsciousness at once.
A low, insistent knocking upon the door awakened me, and I stumbled drowsily across the room and turned the key.
Lorna stood there, with a breakfast tray in her hands. She seemed pale and troubled, as if she had not slept well, either, and she looked anxiously at me.
"Good morning, Maida!" she said, with a tired smile. "I've brought your coffee to you, myself. I was afraid you were ill."
"Ill!" I echoed. "No, but I must have overslept. Is it very late?"
"After ten o'clock." She placed the tray on a stand beside the bed.
"Thank you for bringing my coffee, Lorna. It's so comfy to have it in bed! I'll dress as soon as I've finished it. Do sit down, won't you?"
I plumped the pillows up behind me, and turned to the tray, as she seated herself on the side of the bed. I felt that she was looking at me curiously, and the idea came into my mind that she, too, might have read my letters, and know that I was still resolved to go away, but I put the thought from me as unworthy.
Then a swift thought drove everything else from me. If anyone had already gone to the mainland, presumably with the mail, my last effort to regain the letters would be of no avail.
"Where is Alaric?" I asked guilessly, as I raised the steaming cup to my lips. "He said something about tennis"
"He's playing now, with Raoul," she replied, quickly, and I sighed in relief. It was not too late.
A half-hour later we descended the stairs together, and encountered Mrs. Smith coming in from the veranda. She kissed me as affectionately as if she had not called me horrible names only the day before, and as I glanced at her smiling face, I could scarcely believe that the episode of the previous night had not been a dream.
"Will anyone be going over to the mainland today?" I asked. I could not bring myself to add "Aunt Julie."
"Alaric is going, directly after lunch, with the mail," she said. "He would have gone this morning, but I discovered at the last moment that I had forgotten to write a most important letter, so it was necessary for him to wait."
"I'm glad he did!" I said laughingly. "I, too, forgot something very important—a, postscript which I want to add to each of my letters. Will you please ask the parlor-maid, or whoever takes the mail from the hall table, and puts it away to be posted, to give them to me? There were two; one was addressed to Daddy, and the other to Miss Farmingdale."
I spoke innocently enough, but I looked straight at her and I saw her affable smile fade.
"Why, yes, certainly, dear," she returned, with obvious hesitation. "I will get them for you at once."
"Two postscripts!" Lorna laughed, but it seemed to me that her voice didn't ring true. "That's an awful habit, Maida!"
"Oh, it isn't a habit with me, I assure you!" I smiled too. "This is really an exceptional case."
She glanced at me quickly, but made no reply, and we joined Bijou, who was sitting under the big umbrella on the lawn, watching the tennis.
"My, you were lazy!" she remarked to me. "Didn't you sleep well?"
"Oh, yes, very!" I returned. "But I didn't go to bed until late. I had some letters to write."
"It's warm, isn't it?" Lorna picked up Alaric's hat, and fanned herself with it. "There isn't a sign of a breeze."
"Yes I'm simply baking!" said Bijou, adding suddenly, with a sly smile. "I saw your friend this morning, Maida; the young man with the dog. He's quite good looking, isn't he?—I mean the young man, of course!" she giggled.
"I don't know, I'm sure. I haven't noticed," I replied stiffly.
"Well, I did! He was in bathing, and he looked so cool, and he was having such a good time fooling with the dog, that I really envied him."
"Suppose we go into the surf," suggested Lorna, hurriedly. "Would you like it, Maida? I have an extra suit you might wear."
"Oh, what's the use? It's such a bother!" Bijou yawned.
I shook my head.
"I'm waiting to add those postscripts to my letters," I said decisively. "I had better return to the house. Your mother may be looking for me."
"Oh, she'll bring them out here to you. It's too hot to move around much this morning," Lorna assured me.
But Mrs. Smith did not appear, and when the set was finished and Alaric and the Frenchman came toward us, I started for the house.
At the door I glanced back. They were all standing in a little group watching me.
Mrs. Smith came along down the stairs as I entered. She held the letters in her hand, and relinquished them to me with evident and visible reluctance.
"You haven't changed your mind?" she tried to laugh lightly. "It's bad luck to reopen, a letter, you know!"
I looked straight into her eyes as my fingers closed over the envelopes.
"Perhaps it is," I returned significantly. "It would be curious if it came true, wouldn't it?" And I turned without waiting for a reply, and went up to my room.
There was no need for me to look at the envelopes; the first touch had told me the truth. They were sticky and a little damp and warm. She had evidently re-sealed them hastily, not many minutes before, and tried to dry the paste over a lamp.
I locked my door carefully, and examined them. The flaps had been skilfully closed, and perhaps I should have noticed nothing amiss had I not been suspicious, but upon one of them was the merest shadow of a smudge of smoke from the lamp, and on the other a tiny smear of scarcely-dried mucilage. I tore them open hastily. The contents were seemingly untouched, just as when I had folded the pages and slipped them into the envelopes.
I sat down and tried desperately to collect my thoughts. Neither of those letters would ever have reached their destination, that was plain. They would have been destroyed, or possibly retained to use against me in some way. How that could be accomplished I hadn't the vaguest idea, but I believed Mrs. Smith to be capable of anything, and some of the opinions I had expressed in confidence to Daddy were libelous to a degree, since I was unable to substantiate them. However, I had at least one cause for satisfaction, petty though it was. They knew, without any palliation now, exactly what I thought of them all!
But what was I to do now? The letters were again in my possession, and I did not mean that they should fall for a second time into Mrs. Smith's hands, that was certain. I knew the real reason why she would not let me go away, of course. She relied greatly on Daddy's friendship and advice, possibly his financial backing as well, and she could not endure the idea of a break with him. She had put me down for a silly, weak, scatter-brained thing like Bijou, and thought she could win me over so that my resentment against her would die out, and the episode be forgotten. She would probably attempt to exact a promise from me, later on, to say nothing to Daddy about the affair. I smiled to myself. She wasn't a very good judge of character for all her shrewdness!
Anyway, I knew very well that I would not be permitted to go to the mainland myself, and thus gain an opportunity to post the letters. They fancied me secure from all outside aid, but although I was convinced they would watch me closely, I did not think that they took Gilbert into serious consideration. I must reach him, in spite of them, if I had to steal out and go to his bungalow in the middle of the night!
I would not ask him to post the letters for me; I could not risk the chance now of Miss Farmingdale refusing to interfere. Instead, I would tell him who I was, and beg him to take me to her!
I tore both letters into tiny pieces, and burned them in the saucer on my breakfast tray. They would suspect that something was wrong, of course, if I didn't go down stairs again almost at once, and I turned reluctantly to the door.
As I passed my dressing-table, I glanced inadvertently into the mirror, and stopped aghast. I was terribly pale, and there were dark circles about my eyes. It would never do to appear before them like that, I must manage to compose myself, to drive that white, strained look from my face
At that moment there came a low tapping at my door, and Lorna's voice called:
"Maida, are your letters ready? Alaric isn't going to wait until afternoon, he wants to start now for the mainland."
I pinched some color into my cheeks, and crossing the room quickly, unlocked the door.
"I have decided not to send those letters, Lorna," I said, slowly. "Please tell Alaric that I shall not trouble him."
She sniffed the odor of burnt paper in the air, and her eyes fell upon the charred bits in the saucer. Then they travelled to mine in a revealing flash, and for a moment we stared at each other in mutual comprehension, with all pretense gone between us.
For a moment, only. Then her eyelids drooped like a mask, and she said quietly,
"Very well, Maida. I will tell him."
She lingered, however, hesitating, and then finally came into the room, and shut the door behind her.
"Maida," she said very softly, almost as if she were afraid of being overheard, "Will you try to believe that I want to be your friend, in spite of appearances? I want to help you, to keep you from being made unhappy. Please don't misunderstand me. No one knows better than I do how hateful my people are, but I am not like them; you must have seen that. You are foolish and a little bit rash, dear. Don't goad mother too far. You don't understand, and I cannot explain the circumstances, but just now your father's friendship is vital to her, and she would prevent you at any cost from causing it to cease. I told you that she would not allow you to go away from us, you know; I warned you yesterday. Please, please be guided by me, Maida, ah! believe me it is for the best!"
She seemed terribly in earnest as she paused, eyeing me anxiously. Since I had resolved, in any case, to persuade Gilbert to take me away at the first opportunity, it wouldn't make any difference in my plans if I made a pretense of accepting her advise, and I was curious as to what she would suggest.
"I don't understand," I returned, quite frankly. "I know what you refer to, of course, I am not quite such a stupid person as your mother takes me to be, but what is it that you wish me to do?"
She came to me, and laid her hand persuasively upon my arm.
"Sit down at your desk, quickly, and write two little notes, to your father and Miss Farmingdale; just short pleasant letters, telling them that you are well and happy, and having a nice time. Don't—don't add anything about the trouble yesterday, or a word that—that mother could object to. You know what I mean. You have only a few minutes."
I walked slowly over to the desk, and seating myself, picked up a pen. After all, there didn't seem to be any reason why I should not comply with her request. If the letters were actually mailed, I could explain everything to Miss Farmingdale when I reached her, and cable the whole story to Daddy.
I drew a sheet of paper toward me, and had hastily scribbled a few words, when a quick revulsion of feeling came. Some blind instinct, some mysterious sixth sense, warned me not to go on. I had gotten into one difficulty already over my letters, and I would not burden myself with further deception.
"Hurry, dear! Alaric is waiting, you know," Lorna reminded me, and her voice sounded curiously tense in my ears.
I rose and tore the sheet of paper across.
"No!" I cried. "I will not write a lie! I am not happy, I am having a perfectly horrible time, as you well know, and if I may not tell Daddy the truth, I shall not tell him a thing!"
"I'm afraid you will be very sorry that you have taken this stand," Lorna said slowly. "Oh, Maida, can't you understand that I'm trying to help you? Won't you believe that I know what is best, and do as I ask?"
"I'm sorry," I replied. "I am sure you mean it kindly, but I will not do what I know to be wrong. I have never deceived Daddy in my life, and I'm not going to begin now, to please your mother or anybody else."
"But what will you say to her, to my mother, if she asks you about the letters?"
"The truth. That I have destroyed them. And if she inquires further into what is strictly my own affair, I shall tell her that I will write no more, as I think their chance of reaching the post unmolested is very slight!"
"Ah, my dear, you will not be so very foolish as to precipitate another quarrel! It was for your own sake that I suggested it, to avoid any open rupture with her, that the remainder of your stay with us might be outwardly serene and pleasant, but I see that you will not be convinced."
"No, Lorna," I said with finality. "I really cannot. Please give Alaric my message. Or, wait, I will go myself."
"Please don't! I'll tell him." She gave me a last, long appealing look, and then, with a shrug of her shoulders, as though she washed her hands of the whole matter, she left the room.
I did not descend until I heard the chug-chug of the departing launch, and then joined the others quite prepared for another scene, if necessary, although I shrank indescribably from it.
But there was no scene. No reference was made to my letters and Mrs. Smith was as affable and unruffled as if she did not very well know that her deception had been discovered.
For the rest of the day they watched me sedulously, although they tried to prevent their espionage from being too obvious. I could not leave the veranda without one or another of them trailing me on some pretext, and I gave it up at last. It was only too evident that if I meant to find Gilbert, I must make the attempt at some hour when they would think me safe in bed.
As I sat by my window late that afternoon, I heard the faint, sweet, rhythmic tolling of a bell. Church bells again, and on Saturday afternoon! Surely there could not be another funeral, in that little village over on the mainland. It must be a Seventh Day Adventist Church, as Lorna had suggested half-jokingly, or some other sect which kept the old Sabbath holy.
Had only a week passed since we had heard them before, as Lorna and I had sat talking in her favorite nook? It seemed ages ago.
When I descended, a little later, I met Mrs. Macpherson, the housekeeper, on the stairs. I stopped on an idle impulse, and spoke of the bells. I fancied she looked at me oddly, as she replied.
"Yes, I heard them, Miss Waring."
"Isn't it queer, on Saturday, too? I heard them last week, at the same hour. Do you suppose it's another funeral?"
"Happen, it is. There's one dies every minute, somewhere in the world, 'tis said. I wouldna trouble my head about it, if I were you," she smiled a little, but her manner seemed hesitant. "Dinner's been announced."
I went down the stairs, feeling that she was rather a queer character. She was perfect in her place, the domestic arrangements of the house moved like clockwork, but there was something about her which I did not understand.
It was late that evening, after we had finished a final rubber of bridge and were still seated idly about the table, that the greatest shock of all came to me, and, as before, it was Alaric who precipitated it.
"What do you think?" he remarked, looking suddenly across at me. "That fellow has gone; the man in afternoon, bag and baggage and the dog. He had a pile of trunks and suitcases, too, enough to stay all summer. Must have changed his mind very suddenly, eh?"
Gone! Gilbert was gone, and with him, my last hope of escape.