Vera, the Medium Part 13

"I was," she said, "but you never saw me."

"Oh, yes, we did," protested Winthrop. "We used to call you our mascot."

"No, that was some other little girl," said Vera firmly. "You never looked at me, and I"--she laughed, and then frowned at him reproachfully--"I thought you were magnificent! I used to have your pictures in baseball clothes pinned all around my looking gla.s.s, and whenever you made a base hit, I'd shout and shout--and you'd never look at me! And one day--" she stopped, and as though appalled by the memory, clasped her hands. "Oh, it was awful!" she exclaimed; "one day a foul ball hit the fence, and I jumped down and threw it to you, and you said, Thank you, sis! And I," she cried, "thought I was a young lady!"

"Oh! I couldn't have said that," protested Winthrop, "maybe I said sister."

"No," declared Vera energetically shaking her head, "not sister, sis.

And you never did look at me; and I used to drive past your house every day. We lived only a mile below you."

"Where?" asked Winthrop.

"On the lake road from Syracuse," said Vera. "Don't you remember the farm a mile below yours--the one with the red barn right on the road?

Yes, you do," she insisted, "the cows were always looking over the fence right into the road."

"Of course!" exclaimed Winthrop delightedly. "Was that your house?"

"Oh, no," protested Vera, "ours was the little cottage on the other side--"

"With poplars round it?" demanded Winthrop.

"That's it!" cried Vera triumphantly, "with poplars round it."

"Why, I know that house well. We boys used to call it the haunted house."

"That's the one," a.s.sented Vera. She smiled with satisfaction. "Well, that's where I lived until Aunt died," she said.

"And then, what?" asked Winthrop.

For a moment the girl did not answer. Her face had grown grave and she sat motionless, staring beyond her. Suddenly, as though casting her thoughts from her, she gave a sharp toss of her head.

"Then," she said, speaking quickly, "I went into the mills, and was ill there, and I wrote Paul and Mabel to ask if I could join them, and they said I could. But I was too ill, and I had no money--nothing. And then,"

she raised her eyes to his and regarded him steadily, "then I stole that cloak to get the money to join them, and you--you helped me to get away, and--and" Winthrop broke in hastily. He disregarded both her manner and the nature of what she had said.

"And how did you come to know the Vances?" he asked.

After a pause of an instant, the girl accepted the cue his manner gave her, and answered as before.

"Through my aunt," she said, "she was a medium too."

"Of course!" cried Winthrop. "I remember now, that's why we called it the haunted house."

"My aunt," said the girl, regarding him steadily and with, in her manner, a certain defiance, "was a great medium. All the spiritualists in that part of the State used to meet at our house. I've witnessed some wonderful manifestations in that front parlor." She turned to Winthrop and smiled. "So, you see," she exclaimed, "I was born and brought up in this business. I am the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. My grandmother was a medium, my mother was a medium--she worked with the Fox sisters before they were exposed. But, my aunt," she added thoughtfully, judicially, "was the greatest medium I have ever seen. She did certain things I couldn't understand, and I know every trick in the trade--unless," she explained, "you believe the spirits helped her."

Winthrop was observing the girl intently, with a new interest.

"And you don't believe that?" he asked, quietly.

"How can I?" Vera said. "I was brought up with them." She shook her head and smiled. "I used to play around the kitchen stove with Pocahontas and Alexander the Great, and Martin Luther lived in our china closet. You see, the neighbors wouldn't let their children come to our house; so, the only playmates I had were--ghosts." She laughed wistfully. "My!" she exclaimed, "I was a queer, lonely little rat. I used to hear voices and see visions. I do still," she added. With her elbows on the arms of her chair, she clasped her hands under her chin and leaned forward. She turned her eyes to Winthrop and nodded confidentially.

"Do you know," she said, "sometimes I think people from the other world do speak to me."

"But you said," Winthrop objected, "you didn't believe."

"I know," returned Vera. "I can't!" Her voice was perplexed, impatient.

"Why, I can sit in this chair," she declared earnestly, "and fill this room with spirit voices and rappings, and you sitting right there can't see how I do it. And yet, in spite of all the tricks, sometimes I believe there's something in it."

She looked at Winthrop, her eyes open with inquiry. He shook his head.

"Yes," insisted the girl. "When these women come to me for advice, I don't invent what I say to them. It's as though something told me what to say. I have never met them before, but as soon as I pa.s.s into the trance state I seem to know all their troubles. And I seem to be half in this world and half in another world--carrying messages between them.

Maybe," her voice had sunk to almost a whisper; she continued as though speaking to herself, "I only think that. I don't know. I wonder."

There was a long pause.

"I wish," began Winthrop earnestly, "I wish you were younger, or I were older."

"Why?" asked Vera.

"Because," said the young man, "I'd like to talk to you--like a father."

Vera turned and smiled on him securely, with frank friendliness. "Go ahead," she a.s.sented, "talk to me like a father."

Winthrop smiled back at her, and then frowned.

"You shouldn't be in this business," he said.

The girl regarded him steadily.

"What's the matter with the business?" she asked.

Winthrop felt she had put him upon the defensive, but he did not hesitate.

"Well," he said, "there may be some truth in it. But we don't know that. We do know that there's a lot of fraud and deceit in it. Now," he declared warmly, "there's nothing deceitful about you. You're fine," he cried enthusiastically, "you're big! That boy who was in here told me one story about you that showed--"

Vera stopped him sharply.

"What do you know of me?" she asked bitterly. "The first time you ever saw me I was in a police court; and this morning--you heard that man threaten to put me in jail--"

In turn, by abruptly rising from his chair, Winthrop interrupted her.

He pushed the chair out of his way, and, shoving his hands into his trousers' pockets, began pacing with long, quick strides up and down the room. "What do I care for that?" he cried contemptuously. He tossed the words at her over his shoulder. "I put lots of people in jail myself that are better than I am. Only, they won't play the game." He halted, and turned on her. "Now, you're not playing the game. This is a mean business, taking money from silly girls and old men. You're too good for that." He halted at the table and stood facing her. "I've got two sisters uptown," he said. He spoke commandingly, peremptorily. "And tomorrow I am going to take you to see them. And we fellow townsmen," he smiled at her appealingly, "will talk this over, and we'll make you come back to your own people."

For a moment the two regarded each other. Then the girl answered firmly, but with a slight hoa.r.s.eness in her voice, and in a tone hardly louder than a whisper:

"You know I can't do that!"

"I don't!" bl.u.s.tered Winthrop. "Why not?"

"Because," said the girl steadily, "of what I did in Geneva." As though the answer was the one he had feared, the man exclaimed sharply, rebelliously.