Cynthia Wakeham's Money Part 14

"And what is it you want of me?"

"Oh, sir, I thought I told you; to talk to the young ladies and show them how wicked it is to slight the good gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon them. They may listen to you, sir; seeing that you are from out of town and have the ways of the big city about you."

She was very humble now and had dropped her eyes in some confusion at his altered manner, so that she did not see how keenly his glance rested upon her nervous nostril, weak mouth, and obstinate chin. But she evidently felt his sudden distrust, for her hands clutched each other in embarra.s.sment and she no longer spoke with the a.s.surance with which she had commenced the conversation.

"I like the young ladies," she now explained, "and it is for their own good I want them to do differently."

"Have they never been talked to on the subject? Have not their friends or relatives tried to make them break their seclusion?"

"Oh, sir, the times the minister has been to that house! And the doctor telling them they would lose their health if they kept on in the way they were going! But it was all waste breath; they only said they had their reasons, and left people to draw what conclusions they would."

Frank Etheridge, who had a gentleman's instincts, and yet who was too much of a lawyer not to avail himself of the garrulity of another on a question he had so much at heart, stopped, and weighed the matter a moment with himself before he put the one or two questions which her revelations suggested. Should he dismiss the woman with a rebuke for her forwardness, or should he humor her love for talk and learn the few things further which he was in reality burning to hear. His love and interest naturally gained the victory over his pride, and he allowed himself to ask:

"How long have they kept themselves shut up? Is it a year, do you think?"

"Oh, a full year, sir; six months at least before their father died. We did not notice it at first, because they never said anything about it, but at last it became very evident, and then we calculated and found they had not stepped out of the house since the day of the great ball at Hartford."

"The great ball!"

"Yes, sir, a grand party that every one went to. But they did not go, though they had talked about it, and Miss Hermione had her dress ready.

And they never went out again, not even to their father's funeral. Think of that, sir, not even to their father's funeral."

"It is very strange," said he, determined at whatever cost to ask Edgar about that ball, and if he went to it.

"And that is not all," continued his now thoroughly rea.s.sured companion. "They were never the same girls again after that time. Before then Miss Hermione was the admiration and pride of the whole town, notwithstanding that dreadful scar, while Miss Emma was the life of the house and of every gathering she went into. But afterwards--well, you can see for yourself what they are now; and it was just so before their father died."

Frank longed to ask some questions about this father, but reason bade him desist. He was already humiliating himself enough in thus discussing the daughters with the servant who waited upon them; others must tell him about the old gentleman.

"The house is just like a haunted house," Doris now remarked. Then as she saw him cast her a quick look of renewed interest, she glanced nervously down the street and asked eagerly: "Would you mind turning off into this lane, sir, where there are not so many persons to pry and peer at us? It is still early enough for people to see, and as everybody knows me and everybody by this time must know you, they may wonder to see us talking together, and I do so long to ease my whole conscience now I am about it."

For reply, he took the road she had pointed out. When they were comfortably out of sight from the main street, he stopped again and said:

"What do you mean by haunted?"

"Oh, sir," she began, "not by ghosts; I don't believe in any such nonsense as ghosts; but by memories sir, memories of something which has happened within those four walls and which are now locked up in the hearts of those two girls, making them live like spectres. I am not a fanciful person myself, nor given to imaginings, but that house, especially on nights when the wind blows, seems to be full of something not in nature; and though I do not hear anything or see anything, I feel strange terrors and almost expect the walls to speak or the floors to give up their secrets, but they never do; and that is why I quake in my bed and lie awake so many nights."

"Yet you are not fanciful, nor given to imaginings," smiled Frank.

"No, for there is ground for my secret fears. I see it in the girls'

pale looks, I hear it in the girls' restless tread as they pace hour after hour through those lonesome rooms."

"They walk for exercise; they do not use the streets, so they make a promenade of their own floors."

"Do people walk for exercise at night?"

"At _night_?"

"Late at night; at one, two, sometimes three, in the morning? Oh, sir, it is uncanny, I tell you."

"They are not well; lack of change affects their nerves and they cannot sleep, so they walk."

"Very likely, _but they do not walk together_. Sometimes it's one, and sometimes it's the other. I know their different steps, and I never hear them both at the same time."

Frank felt a cold s.h.i.+ver thrill his blood.

"I have been in the house," she resumed, after a minute's pause, "for five years; ever since Mrs. Cavanagh died, and I cannot tell you what its secret is. But it has one, I am certain, and I often go about the halls and into the different rooms and ask low to myself, 'Was it here that it happened, or was it there?' There is a little staircase on the second floor which takes a quick turn towards a big empty room where n.o.body ever sleeps, and though I have no reason for shuddering at that place, I always do, perhaps because it is in that big room the young ladies walk so much. Can you understand my feeling this way, and I no more than a servant to them?"

A month ago he would have uttered a loud disclaimer, but he had changed much in some regards, so he answered: "Yes, if you really care for them."

The look she gave him proved that she did, beyond all doubt.

"If I did not care for them do you think I would stay in such a gloomy house? I love them both better than anything else in the whole world, and I would not leave them, not for all the money any one could offer me."

She was evidently sincere, and Frank felt a vague relief.

"I am glad," said he, "that they have so good a friend in their own house; as for your fears you will have to bear them, for I doubt if the young ladies will ever take any one into their confidence."

"Not--not their lawyer?"

"No," said he, "not even their lawyer."

She looked disappointed and suddenly very ill at ease.

"I thought you might be masterful," she murmured, "and find out.

Perhaps you will some day, and then everything will be different. Miss Emma is the most amiable," said she, "and would not long remain a prisoner if Miss Hermione would consent to leave the house."

"Miss Emma is the younger?"

"Yes, yes, in everything."

"And the sadder!"

"I am not so sure about that, but she shows her feelings plainer, perhaps because her spirits used to be so high."

Frank now felt they had talked long enough, interesting as was the topic on which they were engaged. So turning his face towards the town, he remarked:

"I am going back to New York to-night, but I shall probably be in Marston again soon. Watch well over the young ladies, but do not think of repeating this interview unless something of great importance should occur. It would not please them if they knew you were in the habit of talking them over to me, and it is your duty to act just as they would wish you to."

"I know it, sir, but when it is for their good----"

"I understand; but let us not repeat it, Doris." And he bade her a kind but significant good-by.

It was now quite dusk, and as he walked towards Dr. Sellick's office, he remembered with some satisfaction that Edgar was usually at home during the early evening. He wanted to talk to him about Hermione's father, and his mood was too impatient for a long delay. He found him as he expected, seated before his desk, and with his wonted precipitancy dashed at once into his subject.

"Edgar, you told me once that you were acquainted with Miss Cavanagh's father; that you were accustomed to visit him. What kind of a man was he? A hard one?"

Edgar, taken somewhat by surprise, faltered for a moment, but only for a moment.