The White Lady (5 page)

“Oh Jimmy, you don’t believe all that stuff, now surely,” said Constance, when the voluble flow of words ceased for another pickle. “You’re too bright a boy not to know better than to believe in ghosts in this age of the world.”

Jimmy’s face darkened. It was the village pet tradition. It had made his hair rise on end many a dark night. He and one or two other heroes liked to tell daring tales of how they had trod the awful precincts of the haunted property alone upon occasion. It was not pleasant to have all this flouted, and by a girl with pretty clothes.

“Course I believe it,” he responded darkly. “Didn’t I tell you my uncle seen her once? And heaps of folks has seen her. She always comes in the dark o’ the moon. Why, everybody round here knows it’s true, and you can’t get a soul to rent or buy this house. It’s stood empty ever since she died, except when Si Barton started to keep a saloon over there—but he didn’t stay but a month. One night when the men was all drinkin’ hard, an’ some was playin’ cards in there round the tables, all of a sudden a white hand like a piece of mist off the swamp come up and turned every lamp in the room low, and then in she an’ the dog come, walkin’ slow’s you please, an’ they went all round the room, and thet there dog druv every man out’n that room, and Si Barton just stood there with his eyes bulged out and never spoke a word till she got tired and went off, and when mornin’ come he come to an’ picked up his things and moved out, and pretty soon he up ’n’ built them stores over there, and now he keeps the drugstore, since prohibition won’t let him have no saloon. Oh, there’s plenty o’ people seen her. This ain’t no yarn I’m tellin’ you, honest, ’taint. It’s
fierce
, I tell you, the way she scares folks. Lots of ’em see her every little while.”

“Jimmy, did
you
ever see her?” asked Constance, laughing merrily. She was enjoying her companion immensely.

“No ma’am, I never seen her myself, but I ’most did oncet.” He sailed into a lengthy description of a time of which he had often boasted to the boys. The real foundation for it had been a terrible fright he had received by the vision of Mrs. Harkins’s white cat from the station stealing across the sidewalk in front of him.

While this story was going on, Constance grew thoughtful. She did not give her attention quite so carefully to the details of the white lady who walked with her dog. An idea struck her. Perhaps she had reached a partial solution of her destiny, even here in this little village.

“Jimmy,” she said suddenly, rising and brushing the crumbs away, “show me the house, won’t you? I’d like to go all through it. There’s no danger that anyone will see us and shoot me for the haunting lady, is there?”

Jimmy eyed her suspiciously. There was a hint of merriment in her voice that almost seemed as if it were directed at him. But she was smiling pleasantly at him, and her eyes looked kind. He rose and led the way to the broken shutter, crept in through the window, and opened the front door on its rusty hinges, looking meanwhile fearfully behind him to be sure no haunting lady was following.

The large old-fashioned hall opened in the center of the house. Thanks to the haunting lady, it had been kept from the marauding attacks to which most empty houses are subject. The wide, low staircase ran invitingly up to the second story, and with a square landing midway, suggested a grandfather clock. The walls were scratched and the floorboards were warped, but the entrance was pleasant in spite of it all. On the right was the drawing room, afterward the barroom, from all appearances, running the whole depth of the house, with windows of ample proportions on three sides. A high marble mantel and gilt-framed mirror was halfway down the side. It was the one bit of furnishing left, if such it might be called, to tell the tale of former grandeur.

“They say if you come in here with a candle at nightfall an’ look in that there lookin’ glass,” said Jimmy in a sepulchral whisper, “you kin always see her face lookin’ over your shoulder, an’ if you don’t run quick away you can hear her dog barkin’ an’ patterin’ down the stairs.”

“How interesting!” said Constance. “Jimmy, did you ever try it?”

“Golly!” said Jimmy, aghast. “The’ wouldn’t anyone dast to. You’d be paralyzed on the spot.”

“Well, it’s as good a spot as any to be paralyzed on, if you’ve got to be paralyzed, Jimmy,” said Constance, laughing. “If I lived here, you and I would come in here and try it some evening, wouldn’t we?”

Jimmy looked at his acquaintance with awe and admiration.

“Well, I reckon I’d try it if you would,” he assented. “I ain’t no coward, I ain’t—you kin ask the fellers.”

“Of course you’re not, Jimmy. You wouldn’t be afraid of a poor sad lady who was made of nothing in the world but mist and imagination. But tell me, did you ever hear anyone say how much this house rented for?”

“No, I never,” said Jimmy. “They ain’t had no chance. I reckon they’d take what they could get. But you wouldn’t want to rent it.”

“Maybe,” said Constance thoughtfully, with a little pucker of calculation on her brow. “What’s on the other side of the hall? Two nice big rooms opening with double doors. That’s convenient.”

“Gee, but you’re brave!” exclaimed Jimmy, following her through the two rooms and out into the kitchen and pantry beyond.

“Come upstairs,” commanded Constance eagerly, not heeding him, for she had a purpose in view. She had beheld her vision of an angel in her block of stone.

“Yes, I’ll go up ef you want to,” said Jimmy, looking doubtfully up the wide stair. “My! Don’t your feet make a loud sound on these here steps?” But he let his lady precede him, and went up with eyes ever on the alert above him. He had never gone up these stairs before, even in daytime, in spite of his much-boasted courage. It was reported to be in the attic that the lady had taken her poison. Timidly, and behind, walked Jimmy in ascending those stairs; but a few minutes after, having surveyed the four dusty, many-windowed rooms above, it was with high step and proud bearing that he descended. Had he not gone into the very heart of the haunted house, and even looked up the attic stairs, beholding nothing more formidable than a dusty sunbeam barring the way from an old bay window above? Now he would indeed have something to boast of. And the pretty girl who had gone without shrinking through all these traditional horrors was enshrined forever with Jimmy’s list of heroes.

They skirted the house and walked down to the pond, surveying the premises thoroughly. Jimmy glanced proudly, defiantly, up at the attic windows from below, half fearful even yet lest he should see a misty form flit by and stoop to look at him.

They presently emerged from the blackness of the cedars into the sunny street, for Constance began, in spite of the conductor’s assurances, to worry a little lest the train should go off and leave her. Not that it would matter so very much, for her handbag was with her, and her suitcase was in the care of the porter. Still, she did not wish to be left overnight in this innless village, with nothing but the haunted house wherein to take refuge.

On the way back to the train, Jimmy pointed out the church and the schoolhouse, and told her all about the church and the new minister that “preached to the kids” every other week and was starting some kind of a society for them. He avowed his intention of going to look on, but not to join. “No sirree! You don’t ketch this kid in no sech goody-goody pink-ice-cream traps as that!” he said. “But he’s a corker, that minister, he is!” he added. “Him an’ you would jest about hit it. He ain’t afraid o’ nothing any more’n you.”

Then Jimmy’s face brightened with more village gossip.

“Si Barton’s talkin’ about opening a restaurant next ta the drugstore when they get the Junction here. He ain’t got nothin’ now but hot dogs an’ sandridges and drinks—sometimes ice-cream soda. You know, when the Junction comes here, then the trains would stop here—some of ’em ’most a half hour or so, an’ folks would get out like you today an’ want a bite to eat. They say the Junction is coming real soon now.”

Constance listened, smiled, and felt interested in spite of herself—why, she could not have told. Perhaps because it was so utterly new a world to her that everything seemed fresh. She remembered herself, the night before, amid the perfume and lights and dreamy music of the symphony concert, and wondered that it could be the same. How was it that she was an interested listener to the hopes and plans and failures and successes of Rushville? She could not tell. She glanced curiously up at the dingy front of the brick building, noted its convenience to the station, and thought what a pity that an ex-saloon keeper should have the advantage of any trade that might come, when some decent person might make a good living out of a restaurant.

All at once Jimmy noticed the train still standing where it had been an hour ago.

“Gosh!” he exclaimed. “You never told me what’s the matter with the train.”

“Why,” said Constance, “there was a big wreck of two freight trains at the crossing ahead. We had to wait for it to be cleared away.”

“Golly! A wreck!” cried Jimmy in a stricken tone. It was the first village event of consequence he had missed in his whole life. How could he ever make up for the loss? “I gotta beat it!” he said anxiously, as if the wreck demanded his immediate attention.

“I’m sorry,” said Constance sympathetically, “but I’m afraid it’s too late for you to see it now. See, the passengers are boarding the train again. It must be all cleared away.”

As she saw the look of real sorrow and bitter disappointment on the freckled face, she felt almost guilty.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy,” she said again. “I shouldn’t have kept you.”

With a brave effort, he broke into a gallant smile. “Oh, ’s all right. I wouldn’t a’ missed seeing you an’ everything fer any old wreck.”

Sudden softness came to Constance’s eyes. She realized with real regret that she must bid good-bye to her youthful attendant.

“Jimmy,” she said, as she stood on the step of the parlor car while he peered wonderingly into the mysterious luxury of its interior, “you’re my friend now, and you must not forget me. Maybe I shall come back someday, and then I shall depend upon you to help me. May I?”

“You bet!” he responded fervently.

She gave him her address and wrote his down carefully on a card, putting it in her pocketbook and telling him that perhaps she would want to write to him sometime. “By the way, Jimmy,” she added, as the conductor shouted, “All aboard,” and the train gave a warning lurch, “find out for me, just for curiosity’s sake, what that old haunted house rents for, or would rent for if anybody would rent it. Write and tell me all about it. Do you know where you can find out? I thought you could. Good-bye.”

Jimmy was left on the old station platform with a silver dollar in his hand and a dainty card bearing the name of one of the most exclusive girls in New York society. He gasped and swallowed a lump in his throat as he watched the train speed away, and caught the last flutter of the lace-bordered handkerchief. Then he turned with the card in one hand, the dollar in the other, and plunged each in a shabby pocket as he walked off whistling down the street, trying to get his bearings. He felt that he was not the same boy who had been playing marbles that morning, and he was grateful beyond expression to his brother for giving him this chance. He had had the time of his life. Even though it had been at the awful expense of missing a peach of a wreck. He sighed with pleasure as he felt the smooth white card. It was almost as good as the solid silver disk in the other hand.

Then he went off to devour what was left of excitement at the scene of the wreck and to boast to “the fellers.” His elder brother sadly lounged in the grocery door and wondered what had become of the kid and why he didn’t come back for his money and candy. He wished with all his heart that something would send him into the world where such girls lived as the one who had visited the store that morning.

Constance leaned back in her luxurious chair and closed her eyes after Rushville was whirled out of her sight. There was an undertone of eager excitement upon her, and she wanted to cool down and settle her thoughts. Had she, or had she not, found a clue to the solution of the terrible problem that had troubled her ever since her visit to the old lawyer? She hardly dared set her thoughts in array lest they should seem too audacious.

Mile after mile whirled by as the train rushed its mad race to make up time, and Constance turned her new idea upside down and inside out, and examined all the whys and wherefores. Not all of them, of course, for there were many she did not know. There were questions that were vital to her hopes that she did not consider at all, because she did not know enough to do so, but there were enough things she did know to make her deeply serious. She told herself she must go cautiously and consider each step, but surely, surely, there in the old haunted house was a good place to hide for a season at least, with the possibility of making her grandmother comfortable without her ever discovering the change in their fortunes.

Meantime, whether it was within their means, or whether she could find any way of making any means for it to be within, were questions yet to be decided. The lack of any place in Rushville where a good meal could be secured had at least given Constance an idea that she would sift to the utmost before she dropped it. People had to eat. That would be one thing they would have to keep on doing as long as they lived, no matter whether their capital was five thousand or five hundred. They would have to have something to eat, and as long as that was possible, they would try to have it palatable and nourishing. If they did that, why should not others share it and bring in a profit? Ah! Daring thought for a girl of Constance Wetherill’s traditions!