CHAPTER XII
I EXPLORE A PASSAGE
“Bates!”—I found him busy replenishing the candlesticksin the library,—it seemed to me that he was alwayspoking about with an armful of candles,—“thereare a good many queer things in this world, but I guessyou’re one of the queerest. I don’t mind telling youthat there are times when I think you a thoroughly badlot, and then again I question my judgment and don’tgive you credit for being much more than a dodderingfool.”
He was standing on a ladder beneath the great crystalchandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling,and looked down upon me with that patient injurythat is so appealing in a dog—in, say, the eyes of anIrish setter, when you accidentally step on his tail.That look is heartbreaking in a setter, but, seen in aman, it arouses the direst homicidal feelings of whichI am capable.
“Yes, Mr. Glenarm,” he replied humbly.
“Now, I want you to grasp this idea that I’m goingto dig into this old shell top and bottom; I’m goingto blow it up with dynamite, if I please; and if I catchyou spying on me or reporting my doings to my enemies,or engaging in any questionable performanceswhatever, I’ll hang you between the posts out there inthe school-wall—do you understand?—so that the sweetSisters of St. Agatha and the dear little school-girlsand the chaplain and all the rest will shudder throughall their lives at the very thought of you.”
“Certainly, Mr. Glenarm,”—and his tone was thesame he would have used if I had asked him to passme the matches, and under my breath I consigned himto the harshest tortures of the fiery pit.
“Now, as to Morgan—”
“Yes, sir.”
“What possible business do you suppose he has withMr. Pickering?” I demanded.
“Why, sir, that’s clear enough. Mr. Pickering ownsa house up the lake,—he got it through your grandfather.Morgan has the care of it, sir.”
“Very plausible, indeed!”—and I sent him off to hiswork.
After luncheon I went below and directly to the endof the corridor, and began to sound the walls. To theeye they were all alike, being of cement, and substantialenough. Through the area window I saw the solid earthand snow; surely there was little here to base hope upon,and my wonder grew at the ease with which Morganhad vanished through a barred window and into frozenground.
The walls at the end of the passage were as solid asrock, and they responded dully to the stroke of thehammer. I sounded them on both sides, retracing mysteps to the stairway, becoming more and more impatientat my ill-luck or stupidity. There was every reasonwhy I should know my own house, and yet a strangerand an outlaw ran through it with amazing daring.
After an hour’s idle search I returned to the end ofthe corridor, repeated all my previous soundings, and,I fear, indulged in language unbecoming a gentleman.Then, in my blind anger, I found what patient searchhad not disclosed.
I threw the hammer from me in a fit of temper; itstruck upon a large square in the cement floor whichgave forth a hollow sound. I was on my knees in aninstant, my fingers searching the cracks, and drawingdown close I could feel a current of air, slight but unmistakable,against my face.
The cement square, though exactly like the others inthe cellar floor, was evidently only a wooden imitation,covering an opening beneath.
The block was fitted into its place with a nicety thatcertified to the skill of the hand that had adjusted it.I broke a blade of my pocket-knife trying to pry itup, but in a moment I succeeded, and found it to bein reality a trap-door, hinged to the substantial partof the floor.
A current of cool fresh air, the same that had surprisedme in the night, struck my face as I lay flat andpeered into the opening. The lower passage was as blackas pitch, and I lighted a lantern I had brought with me,found that wooden steps gave safe conduct below andwent down.
I stood erect in the passage and had several inchesto spare. It extended both ways, running back underthe foundations of the house. This lower passage cutsquarely under the park before the house and towardthe school wall. No wonder my grandfather hadbrought foreign laborers who could speak no Englishto work on his house! There was something delightfulin the largeness of his scheme, and I hurried throughthe tunnel with a hundred questions tormenting mybrain.
The air grew steadily fresher, until, after I had goneabout two hundred yards, I reached a point where thewind seemed to beat down on me from above. I putup my hands and found two openings about two yardsapart, through which the air sucked steadily. I movedout of the current with a chuckle in my throat and agrin on my face. I had passed under the gate in theschool-wall, and I knew now why the piers that held ithad been built so high,—they were hollow and were themeans of sending fresh air into the tunnel.
I had traversed about twenty yards more when I felta slight vibration accompanied by a muffled roar, andalmost immediately came to a short wooden stair thatmarked the end of the passage. I had no means ofjudging directions, but I assumed I was somewhere nearthe chapel in the school-grounds.
I climbed the steps, noting still the vibration, andfound a door that yielded readily to pressure. In amoment I stood blinking, lantern in hand, in a well-lighted,floored room. Overhead the tumult and thunderof an organ explained the tremor and roar I had heardbelow. I was in the crypt of St. Agatha’s chapel. Theinside of the door by which I had entered was a part ofthe wainscoting of the room, and the opening was whollycovered with a map of the Holy Land.
In my absorption I had lost the sense of time, and Iwas amazed to find that it was five o’clock, but I resolvedto go into the chapel before going home.
The way up was clear enough, and I was soon in thevestibule. I opened the door, expecting to find a servicein progress; but the little church was empty save where,at the right of the chancel, an organist was filling thechurch with the notes of a triumphant march. Cap inhand I stole forward and sank down in one of thepews.
A lamp over the organ keyboard gave the only lightin the chapel, and made an aureole about her head,—about the uncovered head of Olivia Gladys Armstrong!I smiled as I recognized her and smiled, too, as I rememberedher name. But the joy she brought to themusic, the happiness in her face as she raised it in theminor harmonies, her isolation, marked by the little isleof light against the dark background of the choir,—these things touched and moved me, and I bent forward,my arms upon the pew in front of me, watching andlistening with a kind of awed wonder. Here was arefuge of peace and lulling harmony after the disturbedlife at Glenarm, and I yielded myself to its solace withan inclination my life had rarely known.
There was no pause in the outpouring of the melody.She changed stops and manuals with swift fingers andpassed from one composition to another; now it was anaugust hymn, now a theme from Wagner, and finallyMendelssohn’s Spring Song leaped forth exultant in thedark chapel.
She ceased suddenly with a little sigh and struckher hands together, for the place was cold. As shereached up to put out the lights I stepped forward tothe chancel steps.
“Please allow me to do that for you?”
She turned toward me, gathering a cape about her.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” she asked, looking about quickly.“I don’t remember—I don’t seem to remember—thatyou were invited.”
“I didn’t know I was coming myself,” I remarkedtruthfully, lifting my hand to the lamp.
“That is my opinion of you,—that you’re a rather unexpectedperson. But thank you, very much.”
She showed no disposition to prolong the interview,but hurried toward the door, and reached the vestibulebefore I came up with her.
“You can’t go any further, Mr. Glenarm,” she said,and waited as though to make sure I understood.Straight before us through the wood and beyond theschool-buildings the sunset faded sullenly. The nightwas following fast upon the gray twilight and alreadythe bolder planets were aflame in the sky. The pathled straight ahead beneath the black boughs.
“I might perhaps walk to the dormitory, or whateveryou call it,” I said.
“Thank you,
no! I’m late and haven’t time tobother with you. It’s against the rules, you know, forus to receive visitors.”
She stepped out into the path.
“But I’m not a caller. I’m just a neighbor. And Iowe you several calls, anyhow.”
She laughed, but did not pause, and I followed apace behind her.
“I hope you don’t think for a minute that I chaseda rabbit on your side of the fence just to meet you; doyou, Mr. Glenarm?”
“Be it far from me! I’m glad I came, though, for Iliked your music immensely. I’m in earnest; I thinkit quite wonderful, Miss Armstrong.”
She paid no heed to me.
“And I hope I may promise myself the pleasure ofhearing you often.”
“You are positively flattering, Mr. Glenarm; but asI’m going away—”
I felt my heart sink at the thought of her goingaway. She was the only amusing person I had met atGlenarm, and the idea of losing her gave a darker noteto the bleak landscape.
“That’s really too bad! And just when we were gettingacquainted! And I was coming to church everySunday to hear you play and to pray for snow, so you’dcome over often to chase rabbits!”
This, I thought, softened her heart. At any rate hertone changed.
“I don’t play for services; they’re afraid to let mefor fear I’d run comic-opera tunes into the Te Deum!”
“How shocking!”
“Do you know, Mr. Glenarm,”—her tone became confidentialand her pace slackened,—“we call you thesquire, at St. Agatha’s, and the lord of the manor, andnames like that! All the girls are perfectly crazy aboutyou. They’d be wild if they thought I talked with you,clandestinely,—is that the way you pronounce it?”
“Anything you say and any way you say it satisfiesme,” I replied.
“That’s ever so nice of you,” she said, mockinglyagain.
I felt foolish and guilty. She would probably getroundly scolded if the grave Sisters learned of her talkswith me, and very likely I should win their hearty contempt.But I did not turn back.
“I hope the reason you’re leaving isn’t—” I hesitated.
“Ill conduct? Oh, yes; I’m terribly wicked, SquireGlenarm! They’re sending me off.”
“But I suppose they’re awfully strict, the Sisters.”
“They’re hideous,—perfectly hideous.”
“Where is your home?” I demanded. “Chicago, Indianapolis,Cincinnati, perhaps?”
“Humph, you are dull! You ought to know from myaccent that I’m not from Chicago. And I hope I haven’ta Kentucky girl’s air of waiting to be flattered to death.And no Indianapolis girl would talk to a strange man atthe edge of a deep wood in the gray twilight of a winterday,—that’s from a book; and the Cincinnati girl iswithout my élan, esprit,—whatever you please to call it.She has more Teutonic repose,—more of Gretchen-of-the-Rhine-Valleyabout her. Don’t you adore French,Squire Glenarm?” she concluded breathlessly, and withno pause in her quick step.
“I adore yours, Miss Armstrong,” I asserted, yieldingmyself further to the joy of idiocy, and delighting inthe mockery and changing moods of her talk. I didnot make her out; indeed, I preferred not to! I wasnot then,—and I am not now, thank God,—of an analyticalturn of mind. And as I grow older I prefer,even after many a blow, to take my fellow human beingsa good deal as I find them. And as for women, oldor young, I envy no man his gift of resolving them intoelements. As well carry a spray of arbutus to the laboratoryor subject the enchantment of moonlight uponrunning water to the flame and blow-pipe as try toanalyze the heart of a girl,—particularly a girl whopaddles a canoe with a sure stroke and puts up a goodrace with a rabbit.
A lamp shone ahead of us at the entrance of one ofthe houses, and lights appeared in all the buildings.
“If I knew your window I should certainly sing underit,—except that you’re going home! You didn’t tellme why they were deporting you.”
“I’m really ashamed to! You would never—”
“Oh, yes, I would; I’m really an old friend!” I insisted,feeling more like an idiot every minute.
“Well, don’t tell! But they caught me flirting—withthe grocery boy! Now aren’t you disgusted?”
“Thoroughly! I can’t believe it! Why, you’d a lotbetter flirt with me,” I suggested boldly.
“Well, I’m to be sent away for good at Christmas. Imay come back then if I can square myself. My!That’s slang,—isn’t it horrid?”
“The Sisters don’t like slang, I suppose?”
“They loathe it! Miss Devereux—you know who sheis!—she spies on us and tells.”
“You don’t say so; but I’m not surprised at her. I’veheard about her!” I declared bitterly.
We had reached the door, and I expected her to fly;but she lingered a moment.
“Oh, if you know her! Perhaps you’re a spy, too!It’s just as well we should never meet again, Mr. Glenarm,”she declared haughtily.
“The memory of these few meetings will always lingerwith me, Miss Armstrong,” I returned in an imitationof her own tone.
“I shall scorn to remember you!”—and she foldedher arms under the cloak tragically.
“Our meetings have been all too few, Miss Armstrong.Three, exactly, I believe!”
“I see you prefer to ignore the first time I ever sawyou,” she said, her hand on the door.
“Out there in your canoe? Never! And you’ve forgivenme for overhearing you and the chaplain on thewall—please!”
She grasped the knob of the door and paused an instantas though pondering.
“I make it four times, not counting once in the roadand other times when you didn’t know, Squire Glenarm!I’m a foolish little girl to have remembered the first. Isee now how b-l-i-n-d I have been.”
She opened and closed the door softly, and I heardher running up the steps within.
I ran back to the chapel, roundly abusing myself forhaving neglected my more serious affairs for a bit ofsilly talk with a school-girl, fearful lest the openingsI had left at both ends of the passage should have beendiscovered. The tunnel added a new and puzzling factorto the problem already before me, and I was eagerfor an opportunity to sit down in peace and comfort tostudy the situation.
“I shall scorn to remember you!”—and she folded her arms underthe cloak tragically.]
At the chapel I narrowly escaped running into Stoddard,but I slipped past him, pulled the hidden doorinto place, traversed the tunnel without incident, andsoon climbed through the hatchway and slammed thefalse block securely into the opening.