XII
SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT
Dearest Mother:
Where could we go that disgrace would not follow us? Let usthen accept the judge's offer. I am the more inclined to dothis because of the possible hope that some day he may cometo care for me and allow me to make life a little brighterfor him. The fact that for some mysterious reason he feelshimself cut off from all intercourse with his son, may provea bond of sympathy between us. I, too, am cut off from allcompanionship with Oliver. Between us also a wall is raised.Do not mind that tear-drop, mamma. It is the last.
Kisses for my comforter. Come soon.
REUTHER.
Over this letter Deborah Scoville sat for two hours, then she rang forMrs. Yardley.
The maid who answered her summons surveyed her in amazement. It was thefirst time that she had seen her uncovered face.
Mrs. Yardley was not long in coming up.
"Mrs. Averill--" she began in a sort of fluster, as she met her strangeguest's quiet eye.
But she got no further. That guest had a correction to make.
"My name is not Averill," she protested. "You must excuse the temporarydeception. It is Scoville. I once occupied your present position in thishouse."
Mrs. Yardley had heard all about the Scovilles; and, while a flush roseto her cheeks, her eyes snapped with sudden interest.
"Ah!" came in quick exclamation, followed, however, by an apologeticcough and the somewhat forced and conventional remark: "You find theplace changed, no doubt?"
"Very much so, and for the better, Mrs. Yardley." Then, with astraightforward meeting of the other's eye calculated to disarm whatevercriticism the situation might evoke, she quietly added, "You need nolonger trouble yourself with serving me my meals in my room. I will eatdinner in the public dining-room to-day with the rest of the boarders. Ihave no further reason for concealing who I am or what my futureintentions are. I am going to live with Judge Ostrander, Mrs.Yardley;--keep house for him, myself and daughter. His man is dead andhe feels very helpless. I hope that I shall be able to make himcomfortable."
Mrs. Yardley's face was a study. In all her life she had never heardnews that surprised her more. In fact, she was mentally aghast. JudgeOstrander admitting any one into his home, and this woman above all!Yet, why not? He, certainly, would have to have some one. And this womanhad always been known as a notable housekeeper. In another moment, shehad accepted the situation, like the very sensible woman she was, andMrs. Scoville had the satisfaction of seeing the promise of realfriendly support in the smile with which Mrs. Yardley remarked:
"It's a good thing for you and a very good thing for the judge. It mayshake him out of his habit of seclusion. If it does, you will be thecity's benefactor. Good luck to you, madam. And you have a daughter, yousay?"
* * * * *
After Mrs. Yardley's departure, Mrs. Scoville, as she now expectedherself to be called, sat for a long time brooding. Would her quest befacilitated or irretrievably hindered by her presence in the judge'shouse? She had that yet to learn. Meanwhile, there was one thing more tobe accomplished. She set about it that evening.
Veiled, but in black now, she went into town. Getting down at the cornerof Colburn Avenue and Perry Street, she walked a short distance onPerry, then rang the bell of an attractive-looking house of moderatedimensions. Being admitted, she asked to see Mr. Black, and for an hoursat in close conversation with him. Then she took a trolley-car whichcarried her into the suburbs. When she alighted, it was unusually latefor a woman to be out alone; but she had very little physical fear, andwalked on steadily enough for a block or two till she came to a corner,where a high fence loomed forbiddingly between her and a house so darkthat it was impossible to distinguish between its chimneys and theencompassing trees whose swaying tops could be heard swishing aboutuneasily in the keen night air. An eerie accompaniment, this latter, tothe beating of Deborah's heart already throbbing with anticipation andkeyed to an unusual pitch by her own daring.
Was she quite alone in the seemingly quiet street? She could hear noone, see no one. A lamp burned in front of Miss Weeks' small house, butthe road it illumined (I speak of the one running down to the ravine)showed only darkened houses.
She had left the corner and was passing the gate of the Ostranderhomestead, when she heard, coming from some distant point within, a lowand peculiar sound which held her immovable for a moment, then sent heron shuddering.
It was the sound of hammering.
What is there in a rat-tat-tat in the dead of night which rouses theimagination and fills the mind with suggestions which we had rather notharbour when in the dark and alone? Deborah Scoville was notsuperstitious, but she had keen senses and mercurial spirits and waseasily moved by suggestion.
Hearing this sound and locating it where she did, she remembered, with aquick inner disturbance, that the judge's house held a secret; a secretof such import to its owner that the dying Bela had sought to preserveit at the cost of his life.
Oh, she had heard all about that! The gossip at Claymore Inn had beengreat, and nothing had been spared her curiosity. There was something inthis house which it behooved the judge to secrete from sight yet morecompletely before her own and Reuther's entrance, and he was at workupon it now, hammering with his own hand while other persons slept! Nowonder she edged her way along the fence with a shrinking, yetpersistent, step. She was circling her future home and that house held amystery.
And yet, like any other imaginative person under a stress of arousedfeeling, she might very easily be magnifying some commonplace act intoone of terrifying possibilities. One can hammer very innocently in hisown house, even at night, when making preparations to receive freshinmates after many years of household neglect.
She recognised her folly before reaching the adjoining field. But shewent on. Where the fence turned, she turned, there being no obstructionto her doing so. This brought her into a wilderness of tangled grasseswhere free stepping was difficult. As she groped her way along, she hadample opportunity to hear again the intermittent sounds of the hammer,and to note that they reached their maximum at a point where the ell ofthe judge's study approached the fences.
Rat-tat-tat; rat-tat-tat. She hated the sound even while she whisperedto herself:
"It is just some household matter he is at work upon;--rehangingpictures or putting up shelves. It can be nothing else."
Yet on laying her ear to the fence, she felt her sinister fears return;and, with shrinking glances into a darkness which told her nothing, sheadded in fearful murmur to herself:
"What am I taking Reuther into? I wish I knew. I wish I knew."
BOOK II
THE HOUSE AND THE ROOM