But then suddenly things began to happen in another part of the house. There was a sound of clatter in Hannah’s room; the falling of some heavy object; heavy, bare feet moving hastily. And downstairs, there was a sound of stealthy feet, too frightened to be wary, moving hurriedly in the direction of the kitchen and the back door, feet that came into several sudden contacts with objects not reckoned on in the pathway.
Amorelle ventured out to listen again, her flashlight grasped tight in her hand but not lit.
Now Hannah had been down in the cellar that afternoon, after hearing the account of Mrs. Brisbane’s visit the day before and her remarks about the paint being worn off the windowsills, and she had discovered several pails containing small portions of leftover paint, most of them dried to the bottom. But among them she had found a gallon can half full of white paint with an inch or so of water over its surface, put there to keep it for future use. This, with a stiff paint brush in another can of water, she had brought upstairs to her room, intending, in the small hours of the morning before Amorelle should be awake, to stir up that paint to useable consistency and work over that brush with warm water and soap and two inches of turpentine she had found in a bottle until it was fit to touch up the bare places in the interior paint.
And Hannah had waked up some seconds before Amorelle and had been standing in capacious flannel nightgown and floppy nightcap at her door, listening, when Amorelle flung her bombardments over the stair rail and stabbed the darkness of the hall with her flashlight.
Hannah heard the groping, hurried footsteps downstairs. She knew exactly which way the intruder was moving, and she prepared her ambush hurriedly. By the time the burglar had reached the back door and was about to dash wildly for freedom over the back fence, she was standing at her window just over the back steps with the half gallon of thick white paint mingled with water held at just the perfect angle for action when the precise moment should arrive.
The burglar was in his stocking feet and had not time to retrieve his shoes before his hasty exit. He stubbed his toe on the edge of a hole in the kitchen linoleum, which did not help matters for him. But as he arrived on the step of the kitchen and the cool evening air greeted his heated brow, something else descended upon him. A long, cold stream of water and white paint came dashing over him, trickling down his neck, filling his hair—for his hat had dropped off in the kitchen when he stubbed his toe—and streaming over his quivering, frightened face.
Moreover Hannah let out a yell such as is not often heard on a summer evening when right-minded folks are all abed and asleep.
“Help! Help! Murder! Robbers!” she shouted, and was about to add “Fire!” to the list when she heard a policeman’s whistle far up to the next block and changed the word to “Police! Help! He’s getting away.”
Over the fence went Mr. Pike, hatless and shoeless, dripping, gasping, choking with the paint deluge, leaving a well-defined set of fingerprints and footprints down the garden walk, over the back fence, and a long way down the back alley.
Windows were thrown up all along the street behind the alley; heads were thrust out; cries of “What is it? Police! Help!” and presently the police were on the spot with whistles, and a motorcycle was tearing down the street.
While down the shadowy side of the alley, blinded by paint, stealthily crept the former intruder, pausing only long enough behind a dark hedge to tear off the telltale socks and stuff them in his pocket before he fled by devious ways to refuge in his own lair.
Amorelle came hurriedly back to Hannah’s room and laid a quiet hand on the excited woman’s arm.
“Don’t yell anymore, Hannah! He’s gone! I’ll turn on the lights and go down to speak to the police.”
The doorbell was ringing now, and Amorelle, in her little, dark robe that had seen so much service during the nights of her father’s illness, hurried down, with Hannah in a flaming flower creation of the vintage of “Mother Hubbard” days sweeping protectingly down behind her.
Amorelle told briefly of her awakening and what she had seen, except that brief instant of recognition. The time might have to come for that, too, but if possible she must prevent that man’s name from being connected with hers.
Then it seemed that the house was full of policemen, though in reality there were only two, the rest having followed the white footsteps down the back alley. But Hannah triumphantly led the representatives of the law to the scene of her coup and gave a voluble description of all that occurred from her point of view. Then they went down again to the minister’s study, examined the turned-back rug, threw their mysterious powder here and there trying to get fingerprints.
It was a weird, mysterious business, and to the girl standing shivering in the hall, it all seemed so futile.
She wondered idly what Lemuel Pike could possibly have wanted there in the little, bare study. What could there be that would make it worth his while to risk breaking into a house? She recalled his last words to her father about some objectionable phrase that he wanted rewritten. Could he possibly have come to find a paper? No, that did not make good sense. If he had been borrowing money, as she had decided must have been the case, what possible value could any other paper have? Her weary brain refused to think it out.
She recalled the matter of the desk key, which her father had been searching for just as Lemuel went out the door. Perhaps he thought it might still be around there somewhere. Perhaps he did not notice in the darkness that the desk was gone, and he hoped to find the key and unlock the drawer and discover the receipt that her father would undoubtedly have taken if he loaned the man money. That was it! That sounded plausible. Well, what did it matter! Her father wouldn’t likely have loaned such a man a very large sum, and, anyway, she would rather lose the money than get her name mixed up with Lemuel Pike, especially since Mrs. Brisbane’s foolish interference with her affairs. It only meant that she must hasten her departure from the town.
Eventually the house settled to rest again, Hannah insisting upon bringing her mattress and casting it down before Amorelle’s door.
The night went on; the police searched. They traced the footsteps to the street where Lemuel Pike lived, but there they ended at the foot of a tree. They searched the tree with their flashlights. They even climbed up and explored every branch, but there seemed no possible clue. The street was a perfectly respectable one. There was no apparent reason why any dweller in that street should be suspected of being a house-breaker. Little did they dream that up that very tree Lemuel Pike had disappeared not a half hour before they halted under it, and that he had often disappeared in that very same way after some questionable night excursion. The well-placed trees with their thick foliage told no tale of a man if he cultivated the habits of a squirrel and swung himself silently from branch to branch, straight into his own second-story window. And so that particular night raid, like many others, remained a mystery for the morning papers, much to the relief of the minister’s sad young daughter.
Thereafter, to get done and get away from the town, in spite of all its kindly folk who would gladly have detained her and done for her, became an obsession with Amorelle Dean.
Johnny Brewster came over early that next morning to see if there was anything he could do and heard the whole tale with embellishment from Hannah. Before he left he had arranged to bring his gun and sleep on a cot in the kitchen as long as Amorelle remained, and before night she had several offers of protectors.
Well, at least, thought the girl, as she went about the harrowing work of breaking up the only home she had known since she was born, there’s one of Mrs. Brisbane’s suitors that will be out of the running now. Lemuel Pike will never dare to come and propose marriage.
But she did not know Lemuel Pike.
Late that afternoon there came a letter written in a neat bank clerk’s hand, on most correct stationery, and full of high-sounding phrases. It read:
My dear Miss Dean:
It has occurred to me that you and I are both in the sam
e sad condition, alone in the world without kith or kin.
Who would have dreamed when I called upon your sainted father such a few short days ago, to give him a little contribution for the missionary cause, that he would be so soon called to his reward? Ah, life is ever thus. The unexpected comes and we, how ill prepared! This is what I said when my own sainted mother passed on, and I say it now to you.
But we must not mourn. Our loss is their gain. Life is stern, and we must live out our days.
And so, my dear Miss Dean, I come to you with a proposition that may benefit both our sad hearts. I have long entertained a fondness for you in my heart. You of all the girls I know have been for years my ideal. Yet I dared not harbor any dreams. I had my mother to care for while she lived, for she was strangely dependent upon me. And when she was gone I perceived that you had your now sainted father as a sacred trust and could not leave him.
But now that he is gone I feel that the way is clear for me to confess my love to you—
Amorelle read so far and then, jumping to her feet, tore the letter in half and in half again. Taking a match from the brass safe on the mantel, she set fire to it and watched it burn in the empty grate till it shriveled to a crisp. One sentence that she had not read till then stood clearly out above the hated signature of Lemuel Pike before the flame died out. She could not help but read it.
I feel you need my trained mind and expert skill to help you manage your estate—
“Oh!” gasped Amorelle and laughed aloud. “Oh! How very, very funny. Estate! Oh, Father dear, if you could only be here for just a minute to laugh with me.”
Then the last flicker died out and she poked the crisp black flakes down through the ash damper out of sight. At least that would be one thing the town should not know. Not unless Lemuel told it himself. Oh, how had he dared write that letter after what he had done? Could it be possible that she had been mistaken in his identity last night?
But if it was Lemuel, what had he been after? Was there some hidden reason why he wanted to marry her, something he had failed to find that he thought he could get only by marrying her? Estate? Estate! Ridiculous! There was no estate. And if there had been, he would never have known about her father’s private affairs. It must be he imagined it. She would put the whole thing out of her mind. It was too preposterous even to remember. Oh, would these terrible days never end and let her get away from such abnormal happenings?
Perhaps it was the receipt of this letter more than any other phase of the question that made her decide to accept her uncle’s invitation at once, just as soon as she could possibly get away. She had a strange uneasiness about Lemuel Pike. What might he not do next?
So that night she wrote her uncle and aunt, addressing the letter to both of them and setting a definite time for her arrival.
Chapter 7
When the manse was thoroughly cleaned, everything sold or stored or packed, and she herself ready to leave, it appeared that the church had arranged a farewell reception for her. They didn’t call it that. They said it was just a quiet little gathering of her friends to say good-bye, but they were so insistent about it that she could not in decency refuse to stay a couple of days longer.
She went around in a fever of dread lest she should encounter Lemuel Pike, but some of the dear church friends kept her so busy coming to dinner and breakfast and tea and staying all night that there was no chance, and she was well guarded.
He did appear on the fringes at the farewell party and did his best to get near her. But she was so surrounded that he had no word with her in private, and no one noticed that she did not respond to his salutation as he passed her in the throng. She was cold and hot and frightened when she caught his eye across the room and turned away as if she had not seen him, but she kept continually envisioning him with his flashlight poking under the study carpet and wondered how he had the nerve to be present. Was it just another bit of evidence to prove him innocent in case anyone had suspected him?
But she saw it in his cold blue eyes that he meant to manage that night somehow to ask her about the letter he had written her, and she was in a panic to prevent it.
At the last she managed to slip away with Miss Landon, out to where Johnny was waiting in the street to take them home, for she was staying with Miss Landon this last night. She drew a deep breath as she sunk into the backseat with her friend and saw Johnny spring to the wheel. Then, just when she thought all was safe, she heard that snaky voice from the sidewalk.
“Miss Dean! Just a minute, please! I want to ask you if you got my letter, and if I can see you sometime tomorrow morning about the matter of which I wrote?”
The words were unmistakable and clear, but Johnny had already heard the low-spoken, imploring words Let’s go from the shadow of the backseat, and speeding his motor unmercifully in low and second gear, he roared away, leaving Lemuel Pike’s last words to float harmlessly on the idle breeze. Johnny’s car rattled at a good pace down past the manse and out toward Glenellen by a roundabout way, just as if he were taking Amorelle to one of the houses on the hill to stay all night. Lemuel Pike might be clever, but Johnny Brewster was clever, too.
The ladies of the church had given Amorelle a charming little platinum wristwatch, and the church fathers had given her two hundred dollars, or a month’s salary they called it. The church had also voted to put up a handsome stone, suitably inscribed, over her father’s grave and a bronze tablet at one side of the pulpit. There were sketches of the memorials lying on a table in one of the classrooms at the farewell gathering, and the members slipped in critically and came out proudly. Most of them considered that they had done very well by their departed pastor and his daughter.
Amorelle was grateful and knew her father would have been pleased at what they had done for her. But he would not have cared for the elaborate monument, nor the honor to himself. Still it was gratifying that they had cared to do it, even though there was much of church pride in the act.
The next morning, quite early, the sweet old seamstress arose and prepared a sumptuous breakfast for her departing guest, put up a tempting lunch because Amorelle was going in a second-class car and could not afford diners, and then kissed her good-bye, assuring her again that if her uncle’s home was not all that was to be desired she was to come right back to her and they would manage together. Then Johnny Brewster, wearing his Sunday coat and a collar and necktie, drew up in the grocery truck, put her baggage in behind, and took her down to the 5:57 train. Johnny was cheery and a little solemn as he drove along. But before he reached the station, he had managed to inform his passenger that he had “asked” his girl the night before and that everything was “okay,” and in some mysterious way, he seemed to think that his good fortune was due to Amorelle’s friendship.
“I guess you kind of give me courage,” he said shyly.
Dear Johnny! She tried to tell him how much he had helped her, and she saw him actually brushing a hasty tear away as he drew up at the station in the pearly mist of the September morning.
“Well, say, ya know you ben an awful help ta me!” said Johnny eagerly. “And your dad, well, he kind of gave me the right start in life. No tellin’ what I mighta ben ef I hadn’t turned Christian when he got hold of me, ya know! And say, I talked to Dorothy last night and we agreed that ef you ever needed a home or friends that you was ta come right ta us. Of course we can’t have it grand, not for a while yet, but you’ll always be welcome. I’ve told Dorothy how grand you was, and she says she just loves you.”
Hannah loomed out of the mists of the morning and kissed and cried over her dear young lady and told Amorelle if she ever got a home of her own, she was to send for her, and she would work just for her board. Hannah had brought a whole sheet of hot cinnamon buns that she had stayed up half the night to bake. They were tied in a bulky paper package.
So it was not unmourned that Amorelle started on her way into a new life.
And presently, just before the train, came several others—the s
enior elder of the church and his sweet old wife; the superintendent of the Sunday school; three girls from her own Sunday school class, giggling and weeping alternately; and lastly a group from the Christian Endeavor Society who bunched themselves together as the train swept in sight and began to sing “God be with you till we meet again,” to the edification of the sleepy travelers on the early train.
Amorelle had packed so that she had only a small suitcase to carry, but almost everybody that came down to see her off had brought flowers or fruit or candy. She was embarrassed with her riches. Johnny gathered his arms full, helped her on board, and stowed all the offerings in an empty seat. Amorelle presently found herself ensconced like a princess among her possessions, moving quickly away from the familiar home station with its blur of loving faces and waving handkerchiefs.
“When life’s perils thick confound you, put His arms unfailing around you—” rang out the song from the Christian Endeavor, and suddenly Amorelle, who had gone bravely through all the farewells, anxious only to have them over, felt a lump in her throat and the smarting tears in her eyes, felt a great wave of loneliness and homesickness, and wondered why she had not managed somehow to stay in that dear hometown.
She stared blinking out into the flying fields, trying to recognize each landmark, grudgingly letting them pass like precious things she might never see again. There was the little brown house where the blacksmith lived and plied his trade in the open shed nearby. She remembered the first time her father took her there when she was a little girl and she had watched the sparks fly from the anvil as the hammer beat the molten iron, while her father talked of another world to the grim old blacksmith who couldn’t see that there was a God because so many of His followers were untrue. There was the road where they used to walk in spring when the dogwood trees were in bloom, the road that wound up the hill and into the woods. There was the little weatherbeaten house where old Grandma Duff used to live. They always carried jelly and oranges to her when she was sick. And there was the country schoolhouse where Father used to hold services evenings sometimes, and she always went along to play the funny cabinet organ and help with the singing. That meant five miles off, out into the strange world alone. She hid her face against the windowpane and struggled with those tears. She must not let one get through, or there would come a torrent, right here on the train, before a lot of round-eyed children in the seat in front of her who were staring at her with all their eyes.