The Blythes Are Quoted (7 page)

“She’s like a little red rose just out of reach ... I
must
reach her,” he thought.

He could not bear the thought of seeking another boarding place, although both old Mr. Sheldon and Dr. Blythe strongly advised it. He would see her so seldom then for he knew she would elude his visits. Gossip was already far too busy with their names and Mr. Sheldon was always hinting disapprobation. Curtis ignored his hints and grew a trifle brusque with the old man. He knew Mr. Sheldon had never approved of his boarding at Long Alec’s.

His perplexity suddenly received a new twist. One night, returning home late from a meeting in a distant section of his circuit, he stood for a long time at his dormer window before going to bed. He had found a treasured volume on his desk ... a book his dead mother had given him on a boyish birthday ... with half its leaves cut to pieces and ink spilled all over the rest. He was angry with the impatient anger of a man who is buffeted by the blows of an unseen antagonist.

The situation was growing more intolerable every day. Perhaps he had better go ... “This is killing you, Mr. Burns,” Dr. Blythe had told him not so long ago. Everybody seemed in a plot to get him away from the old Field place. Yet he hated to admit defeat. Lucia didn’t care for him ... in spite of Mrs. Blythe’s assurance ... she avoided him ... he hadn’t been able to exchange a word with her for days except at the table. From something Long Alec had said Curtis suspected they wished him to find another domicile.

“It would be a bit easier for her, I guess,” Long Alec had said. “She worries over things so.”

Well, if she wanted to get rid of him! Curtis was petulant just then. Dr. Blythe had said to him a few days before, “Just pick her up and carry her off. Everything will come right then.”

As if the doctor knew anything of the real situation! He did not even sympathize with Alice.

He, Curtis, was a failure in everything ... his sermons were beginning to be flat ... Mr. Sheldon had hinted that and he knew it himself ... he was losing interest in his work. Dr. Blythe had told him so bluntly ... he wished he had never come to Mowbray Narrows.

He leaned out of his window to inhale the scented summer air. The night was rather ghostly. The trees about the farmyard could assume weird, uncertain shapes in such clouded moonlight. Cool, elusive night smells came up from the garden. A car went by ... the Ingleside car ... the doctor had evidently been summoned out on a night call. What a life a doctor’s was! Worse than a minister’s. Never sure of a decent night’s sleep. Yet Dr. Blythe seemed a happy man and his wife was worshipped in Glen St. Mary. They often came to the Mowbray Narrows church, probably out of their friendship for Curtis, as they were ardent Presbyterians.

Curtis felt soothed ... cheered. After all, there must be some way out. In spite of the Epworth Rectory, Curtis had no belief in such manifestations of the supernatural. He was young ... the world was good, just because Lucia and Alice were in it. He wouldn’t give up yet awhile. The “ha’nt” would make a mistake sometime and be caught.

The moon suddenly broke out between the parting clouds. Curtis found himself looking through the opposite dormer window into the guest room, the blind of which happened to be up. The room was quite clear to him in the sudden
radiance and in the mirror on the wall near the window Curtis saw a face looking at him ... sharply outlined against the darkness which surrounded it. He saw it only for a moment before the clouds swallowed up the moon but he recognized it. The face was the face of Lucia!

He thought nothing of it then. Doubtless she had heard some noise and had gone to the guest room to investigate.

But when at breakfast the next morning he asked her what had disturbed her she met his gaze with a cool blankness.

“I was not disturbed last night,” she said.

“When you went to the guest room window,” he explained.

“I wasn’t near the guest room last night,” she said coolly. “I went to bed very early ... I was very tired ... it was one of Alice’s bad days, you know ... and slept soundly all night.”

She rose as she spoke and went out. She did not return nor did she make any further reference to the matter. Why had she ... lied? An ugly word but Curtis did not soften it. He had seen her. True, it was but for a moment, in a moonlit mirror, but he knew he was not mistaken. It was Lucia’s face ... and she had lied to him! True, it was none of his business why she was there ... but a lie was a lie. Did she walk in her sleep? No, he would have been sure to have been told if she did. There was nothing he had not been told about the Fields, true and untrue, he thought.

Curtis decided to leave Long Alec’s. He would board at the station which would be very inconvenient but go he must. He was sick at heart. He no longer wanted to find out who the Field ghost was. He was afraid to find out ... he was afraid he knew, although motive and means were still foggy.

Lucia turned a little pale when he told her but said nothing. Long Alec, in his usual easygoing fashion, agreed that it would
be best. He stared a little when Curtis bluntly asked him if his sister had ever been a sleepwalker.

“No,” he said, a trifle stiffly. “We’ve had a lot of things said about us, but never that, as far as I know.”

Alice approved with tear-filled eyes.

“Of course you must go,” she agreed. “The situation here is impossible for you. I hear that Dr. Blythe says it will drive you out of your mind. For once I agree with him. But oh, what will I do? There’s a selfish question for you.”

“I’ll come to see you often, my dear.”

“It won’t be the same. You don’t know what you have meant to me, Curtis. You don’t mind my calling you Curtis, do you? You seem like a young cousin or nephew, or something like that.”

“I’m glad to have you call me Curtis.”

“You are a dear boy. I ought to be glad you are going. This accursed house is no place for you. When do you go?”

“In a week ... after I come back from District Meeting.”

Curtis missed his regular train after the meeting ... missed it hunting for a book in the bookstore Alice wanted to see. He fell in with Dr. Blythe who, it happened, had the book, and promised to lend it to Miss Harper.

“I hear you are changing your boarding place,” he said. “A wise move, in my opinion.”

“I leave it with its mystery still unsolved,” said Curtis bitterly.

Dr. Blythe smiled ... that smile that Curtis had never liked.

“Saints are often too wise for us common folk,” he said. “But I think it will be solved some day.”

Curtis came back on the owl train that dumped him off at Glen St. Mary at one o’clock. It did not stop as a rule but Curtis knew the conductor, who was an obliging man.

Henry Kildare got off, too. He had expected to go on to Lowbridge, not having the advantage of a pull with the conductor.

“What a thing it is to be a minister!” he said, laughing. “Well, it is only three miles to Cousin Ellen’s. I can hoof it easily,” he said as they left the platform.

“Might as well come along to Long Alec’s for the rest of the night,” suggested Curtis.

“Not me,” said Henry emphatically. “I wouldn’t stay another night in that house for half my pile. I hear you’re getting out, preacher. Wise boy!”

Curtis did not answer. He was not desirous of any company on his walk, much less Henry Kildare’s. He strode along in moody silence, unheeding Henry’s unending stream of conversation ... if conversation it could be called. Henry liked to hear himself talk.

It was a night of high winds and heavy clouds, with outbursts of brilliant moonlight between them. Curtis felt wretched, hopeless, discouraged. He had failed to solve the mystery he had tackled so cocksurely ... he had failed to win his love or rescue her ... he had ...

“Yes, I’m going to get out of this and hike back to the Coast,” Henry was saying. “There ain’t any sense in hanging around Mowbray Narrows any longer. I can’t get the girl I want.”

So Henry had love troubles of his own.

“Sorry,” said Curtis automatically.

“Sorry! It’s a case to be sorry! Preacher, I don’t mind talking to you about it. You seem like a human being ... and you’ve been a mighty good friend to Alice.”

“Alice!” Curtis was amazed. “Do you mean ... is it Miss Harper?”

“Sure thing. Never was anyone else in my life ... well, not really. Preacher, I’ve always worshipped the ground she walked on. Years ago, when I was working for old Winthrop Field, I was crazy mad about her. She never knew it. I didn’t think I could ever get her, of course. She was one of the aristocratic Fields and I was a hired boy. But I never forgot her ... never could get really interested in anybody else. When I made my pile I says to myself, ‘Now I’m going straight back to P.E. Island and if Alice Harper isn’t married yet I’ll see if she’ll have me.’ You see, I’d never heard from Mowbray Narrows for years ... never heard of Alice’s accident. I thought it likely she’d be married but there was a chance. Preacher, it was an awful jolt when I came home and found her like she is. And the worst of it is I’m just as fond of her as ever ... too fond of her to take up with anybody else ... though there’s a girl at the Glen ... but never mind about that. Since I can’t get Alice I don’t want to marry anyone else ... though Mrs. Blythe says ... but never mind that. And me wanting to marry, with lots of cash to give my woman the dandiest house at the Coast. Deuced hard luck, ain’t it? Excuse me. I always forget I’m talking to a minister when I’m with you. Never forgot it with old Mr. Sheldon. But then he is a saint.”

Curtis agreed that it was hard luck. Privately he thought it did not matter much, as far as Henry Kildare was concerned, whether Alice could or could not marry. Surely she could never care for this brusque, boastful man.

But there was real feeling in Kildare’s voice and Curtis felt very sympathetic just then with anyone who loved in vain.

“What’s that in the Field orchard?” demanded Henry in a startled tone.

Curtis saw it at the same moment. The moon had burst out and the orchard was day-clear in its radiance. A slender, light-clad figure stood among the trees.

“Good Lord, maybe it’s the spook!” said Henry.

As he spoke the figure began to run. Curtis voicelessly bounded over the fence in pursuit.

After a second’s hesitation Henry followed him.

“No preacher is going where I dassn’t follow him,” he muttered.

He caught up with Curtis just as the other rounded the corner of the house and the object of their pursuit darted through the front door.

Curtis had a sickening flash of conviction that the solution of the mystery which had seemed within his grasp had again evaded him.

Then a wild gust of wind swept through the hall of the house ... the heavy door clanged shut with a bang ... and caught in it hard and fast was the skirt of the fleeing figure’s garment.

Curtis and Henry bounded up the steps ... clutched the dress ... flung open the door ... confronted the woman inside.

“Good God!” cried Henry.

“You! You!” said Curtis in a terrible voice. “You!”

Alice Harper looked at him, her face distorted with rage and hatred.

“You dog!” she hissed venomously.

“It’s been you ...” gasped Curtis. “
You
all the time ... you ... you devil ... you ...”

“Easy on, preacher.” Henry Kildare closed the door softly. “Remember you’re speaking to a lady ...”

“A ...”

“A lady,” repeated Henry firmly. “Don’t let us have too much of a fuss. We don’t want to disturb the rest of the
folks. Let’s go in the parlour here and talk this matter over quiet-like.”

Curtis did as he was told. In the daze of the moment he would probably have done anything he was told. Henry followed with his hand on Alice’s arm and closed the door.

Alice confronted them defiantly. Amid all Curtis’ bewil-derment one idea came out clearly in his confusion of thought.

How much Alice looked like Lucia! In daylight the difference of colouring kept the resemblance hidden. In the moonlit room it was clearly seen.

Curtis was shaken with the soul sickness of a horrible disillusionment. He tried to say something but Henry Kildare interrupted.

“Preacher, you’d better let me handle this. You’ve had a bit of a shock.”

A bit of a shock!

“Sit down there,” said Henry kindly. “Alice, you take the rocking chair.”

Both obeyed. Kildare seemed suddenly changed into a quiet, powerful fellow whom it would be well to obey.

“Here, Alice, my dear.” He wheeled a rocking chair out from the corner and put her gently into it.

She sat gazing at the both of them, a beautiful woman in the kind moonlight, the pale blue silk of her wrapper falling about her slender form in graceful folds.

Curtis wished he might wake up. This was the worst nightmare he had ever had ... it
must
be a nightmare. Nothing like this could be true.

Henry seated himself calmly on the sofa and leaned forward.

“Now, Alice, my dear, tell us all about it. You have to, you know. Then we’ll see what can be done. The game’s up, you know. You can’t expect us to keep this a secret.”

“Oh, I know. But I’ve had five glorious years. Nothing can rob me of that. Oh, I’ve ruled them ... from my ‘sickbed’ I’ve ruled them. I pulled the strings and they danced ... my puppets! Black Lucia and condescending Alec ... and that lovesick boy there! All but the Blythes. I knew they had suspicions but they couldn’t prove them ... they didn’t even dare voice them.”

“Yes, it must have been fun,” agreed Henry. “But why, Alice, my dear?”

“I was sick of being patronized and snubbed and condescended to,” said Alice bitterly. “That is what my youth was. You know that well enough, Henry Kildare.”

“Yes, I had a good idea of it,” agreed Henry.

“I was just the poor relation,” said Alice. “Why, when they had company I often had to wait and eat afterwards.”

“Only when the table wasn’t big enough,” said Henry.

“No! It was because I wasn’t thought good enough to talk to their company! I was only good enough to lay the table and cook the food. I hated every one of them ... but Lucia most of all.”