Patience or Prudence,—what you will,
Some prefix faintly fragrant still
As those old musky scents that fill
Our grandmas' pillows;
And for her youthful portrait take
Some long-waist child of Hudson's make,
Stiffly at ease beside a lake
With swans and willows.
—Austin Dobson.
In my own room I drew the blinds for greater security, lighted the desk-lamp and sat down before the packet Gillespie had given Rosalind. It was a brown commercial envelope, thrice sealed, and addressed, "R. Gillespie: Personal." In a corner was written "Holbrook Papers." I turned the packet over and over in my hands, reflecting upon my responsibility and duty in regard to it. Henry Holbrook, in his anxiety to secure the notes, had taken advantage of Gillespie's infatuation for Helen to make her his agent for procuring them, and now it was for me to use the forged notes as a means of restoring Arthur Holbrook to his sister's confidence. The way seemed clear enough, and I went to bed resolving that in the morning I should go to Henry Holbrook, tell him that I had the evidence of his guilt in my possession and threaten him with exposure if he did not cease his mad efforts to blackmail his sister.
I rose early and perfected my plans for the day as I breakfasted. A storm had passed round us in the night and it was bright and cool, with a sharp wind beating the lake into tiny whitecaps. It was not yet eight o'clock when I left the house for my journey in search of Henry Holbrook. The envelope containing the forged notes was safely locked in the vault in which the Glenarm silver was stored. As I stepped down into the park I caught sight of Miss Pat walking in the garden beyond the wall, and as I lifted my cap she came toward the iron gate. She was rarely abroad so early and I imagined that she had been waiting for me.
The chill of the air was unseasonable, and in her long coat her slight figure seemed smaller than ever. She smiled her grave smile, but there was, I thought, an unusual twinkle in her gentle eyes. She wore for the first time a lace cap that gave a new delicacy to her face.
"You are abroad early, my lord," she said, with the delicious quaint mockery with which she sometimes flattered me. And she repeated the lines:
"Hast thou seen ghosts? Hast thou at midnight heard
In the wind's talking an articulate word?
Or art thou in the secret of the sea,
And have the twilight woods confessed to thee?"
"No such pleasant things have happened to me, Miss Holbrook."
"This is my birthday. I have crowned myself—observe the cap!"
"We must celebrate! I crave the privilege of dining you to-night."
"You were starting for somewhere with an air of determination. Don't let me interfere with your plans."
"I was going to the boat-house," I answered truthfully.
"Let me come along. I am turned sixty-five, and I think I am entitled to do as I please; don't you?"
"I do, indeed, but that is no reason. You are no more sixty-five than I am. The cap, if you will pardon me, only proclaims your immunity from the blasts of Time."
"I wish I had known you at twenty," she said brightly, as we went on together.
"My subjection could not have been more complete."
"Do you make speeches like that to Helen?"
"If I do it is with less inspiration!"
"You must stop chaffing me. I am not sixty-five for nothing and I don't think you are naturally disrespectful."
When we reached the boat-house she took a chair on the little veranda and smiled as though something greatly amused her.
"Mr. Donovan—I am sixty-five, as I have said before—may I call you—"
"Larry! and gladden me forever!"
"Then, Larry, what a lot of frauds we all are!"
"I suppose we are," I admitted doubtfully, not sure where the joke lay.
"You have been trying to be very kind to me, haven't you?"
"I have accomplished nothing."
"You have tried to make my way easy here; and you have had no end of trouble. I am not as dull as I look, Larry."
"If I have deceived you it has been with an honest purpose."
"I don't question that. But Helen has been giving you a great deal of trouble, hasn't she? You don't quite make her out; isn't that true?"
"I understand her perfectly," I averred recklessly.
"You are a daring young man, Larry, to make that statement of any woman. Helen has not always dealt honestly with you—or me!"
"She is the noblest girl in the world; she is splendid beyond any words of mine. I don't understand what you mean, Miss Holbrook."
"Larry, you dear boy, I am no more blind or deaf than I am dumb! Helen has been seeing her father and Reginald Gillespie. She has run off at night, thinking I wouldn't know it. She is an extremely clever young woman, but when she has made a feint of retiring early, only to creep out and drop down from the dining-room balcony and dodge your guards, I have known it. She was away last night and came creeping in like a thief. It has amused me, Larry; it has furnished me real diversion. The only thing that puzzles me is that I don't quite see where you stand."
"I haven't always been sure myself, to be frank about it!"
"Why not tell me just how it is: whether Helen has been amusing herself with you, or you with Helen."
"Oh!" I laughed. "When you came here you told me she was the finest girl in the world, and I accepted your word for it. I have every confidence in your judgment, and you have known your niece for a long time."
"I have indeed."
"And I'm sure you wouldn't have deceived me!"
"But I did! I wanted to interest you in her. Something in your eye told me that you might do great things for her."
"Thank you!"
"But instead of that you have played into her hands. Why did you let her steal out at night to meet her father, when you knew that could only do her and me a grave injury? And you have aided her in seeing Gillespie, when I particularly warned you that he was most repugnant to me."
I laughed in spite of myself as I remembered the night's adventure; and Miss Pat stopped short in the path and faced me with the least glint of anger in her eyes.
"I really didn't think you capable of it! She will marry him for his money!"
"Take my word for it, she will do nothing of the kind."
"You are under her spell, and you don't know her! I think—sometimes—I think the girl has no soul!" she said at last.
The dear voice faltered, and the tears flashed into Miss Pat's eyes as she confronted, me in the woodland path.
"Oh, no! It's not so bad as that!" I pleaded.
"I tell you she has no soul! You will find it out to your cost. She is made for nothing but mischief in this world!"
"I am your humble servant, Miss Holbrook."
"Then," she began doubtfully, and meeting my eyes with careful scrutiny, "I am going to ask you to do one thing more for me, that we may settle all this disagreeable affair. I am going to pay Henry his money; but before I do so I must find my brother Arthur, if he is still alive. That may have some difficulties."
She looked at me as though for approval; then went on.
"I have been thinking of all these matters carefully since I came here. Henry has forfeited his right to further inheritance by his contemptible, cowardly treatment of me; but I am willing to forgive all that he has done. He was greatly provoked; it would not be fair for me to hold those things against him. As between him and Arthur; as between him and Arthur—"
Her gaze lay across the twinkling lake, and her voice was tremulous. She spoke softly as though to herself, and I caught phrases of the paragraph of her father's will that Gillespie had read to me: "Dishonor as it is known, accounted and reckoned among men;"—and she bowed her head on the veranda rail a moment; then she rose suddenly and smiled bravely through her tears.
"Why can't you find Arthur for me? Ah, it you could only find him there might be peace between us all; for I am very old, Larry. Age without peace is like life without hope. I can not believe that Arthur is dead. I must see him again. Larry, if he is alive find him and tell him to come to me."
"Yes," I said; "I know where he is!"
She started in amazement and coming close, her hands closed upon my arm eagerly.
"It can't be possible! You know where he is and you will bring him to me?"
She was pitifully eager and the tears were bright in her eyes.
"Be assured of it. Miss Holbrook. He is near by and well; but you must not trouble about him or about anything. And now I am going to take you home. Come! There is much to do, and I must be off. But you will keep a good heart; you are near the end of your difficulties."
She was quite herself again when we reached St. Agatha's, but at the door she detained me a moment.
"I like you, Larry!" she said, taking my hand; and my own mother had not given me sweeter benediction. "I never intended that Helen should play with you. She may serve me as she likes, but I don't want her to singe your wings, Larry."
"I have been shot at in three languages, and half drowned in others, and rewards have been offered for me. Do you think I'm going down before a mere matter of beaux yeux! Think better of me than that!"
"But she is treacherous; she will deliver you to the Philistines without losing a heart-beat."
"She could, Miss Patricia, but she won't!"
"She has every intention of marrying Gillespie; he's the richest man she knows!"
"I swear to you that she shall not marry Gillespie!"
"She would do it to annoy me if for nothing else."
I took both her hands—they were like rose-leaves, those dear slightly tremulous hands!
"Now, Miss Pat—I'm going to call you Miss Pat because we're such old friends, and we're just contemporaries, anyhow—now, Miss Pat, Helen is not half so wicked as she thinks she is. Gillespie and I are on the best of terms. He's a thoroughly good fellow and not half the fool he looks. And he will never marry Helen!"
"I should like to know what's going to prevent her from marrying him!" she demanded as I stepped back and turned to go.
"Oh, I am, if you must know! I have every intention of marrying her myself!"
I ran away from the protest that was faltering upon her lips, and strode through the garden. I had just reached Glenarm gate on my way back to the boat-house when a woman's voice called softly and Sister Margaret hurried round a turn of the garden path.
"Mr. Donovan!"
There was anxiety in the voice, and more anxious still was Sister Margaret's face as she came toward me in her brown habit, her hands clasped tensely before her. She had evidently been watching for me, and drew back from the gate into a quiet recess of the garden. Her usual repose was gone and her face, under its white coif, showed plainly her distress.
"I have bad news—Miss Helen has gone! I'm afraid something has happened to her."
"She can't have gone far, Sister Margaret. When did you miss her?" I asked quietly; but I confess that I was badly shaken. My confident talk about the girl with Miss Pat but a moment before echoed ironically in my memory.
"She did not come down for breakfast with her aunt or me, but I thought nothing of it, as I have urged both of them to breakfast up-stairs. Miss Patricia went out for a walk. An hour ago I tried Helen's door and found it unlocked and her room empty. When or how she left I don't know. She seems to have taken nothing with her."
"Can you tell a lie, Sister Margaret?"
She stared at me with so shocked an air that I laughed. "A lie in a good cause, I mean? Miss Pat must not know that her niece has gone—if she has gone! She has probably taken one of the canoes for a morning paddle; or, we will assume that she has borrowed one of the Glenarm horses, as she has every right to do, for a morning gallop, and that she has lost her way or gone farther than she intended. There are a thousand explanations!"
"But they hardly touch the fact that she was gone all night; or that a strange man brought a note addressed in Helen's handwriting to her aunt only an hour ago."
"Kidnapped!"—and I laughed aloud as the meaning of her disappearance flashed upon me!
"I don't like your way of treating this matter!" said Sister Margaret icily. "The girl may die before she can be brought back."
"No, she won't—my word for it, Sister Margaret. Please give me the letter!"
"But it is not for you!"
"Oh, yes, it is! You wouldn't have Miss Pat subjected to the shock of a demand for ransom. Worse than that, Miss Pat has little enough faith in Helen as it is; and such a move as this would be final. This kidnapping is partly designed as a punishment for me, and I propose to take care of it without letting Miss Pat know. She shall never know!"
Sister Margaret, only half convinced, drew an envelope from her girdle and gave it to me doubtfully. I glanced at the superscription and then tore it across, repeating the process until it was a mass of tiny particles, which I poured into Sister Margaret's hands.
"Burn them! Now Miss Pat will undoubtedly ask for her niece at once. I suggest that you take care that she is not distressed by Helen's absence. If it is necessary to reward your house-maid for her discretion—" I said with hesitation.
"Oh, I disarranged Helen's bed so that the maid wouldn't know!"—and Sister Margaret blushed.
"Splendid! I can teach you nothing, Sister Margaret! Please help me this much further: get one of Miss Helen's dresses—that blue one she plays tennis in, perhaps—and put it in a bag of some kind and give it to my Jap when he calls for it in ten minutes. Now listen to me carefully, Sister Margaret: I shall meet you here at twelve o'clock with a girl who shall be, to all intents and purposes, Helen Holbrook. In fact, she will be some one else. Now I expect you to carry off the situation through luncheon and until nightfall, when I expect to bring Helen—the real Helen—back here. Meanwhile, tell Miss Pat anything you like, quoting me! Good-by!"
I left her abruptly and was running toward Glenarm House to rouse Ijima, when I bumped into Gillespie, who had been told at the house that I was somewhere in the grounds.
"What's doing, Irishman?" he demanded.
"Nothing, Buttons; I'm just exercising."
His white flannels were as fresh as the morning, and he wore a little blue cap perched saucily on the side of his head.
"I was pondering," he began, "the futility of man's effort to be helpful toward his fellows."
He leaned upon his stick and eyed me with solemn vacuity.
"I suppose I'll have to hear it; go on."
"I was always told in my youth that when an opportunity to do good offered one should seize upon it at once. No hesitation, no trifling! Only a few years ago I wandered into a little church in a hill town of Massachusetts where I waited for the Boston Express. It was a beautiful Sunday evening—I shall never forget it!" he sighed. "I am uncertain whether I was led thither by good impulse, or only because the pews were more comfortable than the benches at the railway station. I arrived early and an usher seated me up front near a window and gave me an armful of books and a pamphlet on foreign missions. Other people began to come in pretty soon; and then I heard a lot of giggling and a couple of church pillars began chasing a stray dog up and down the aisles. I was placing my money on the taller pillar; he had the best reach of leg, and, besides, the other chap had side whiskers, which are not good for sprinting,—they offer just so much more resistance to the wind. The unseemliness of the thing offended my sense of propriety. The sound of the chase broke in harshly upon my study of Congo missions. After much pursuing the dog sought refuge between my legs. I picked him up tenderly in my arms and dropped him gently, Donovan, gently, from the window. Now wasn't that seizing an opportunity when you found it, so to speak, underfoot?"
"No doubt of it at all. Hurry with the rest of it, Buttons!"
"Well, that pup fell with a sickening yelp through a skylight into the basement where the choir was vesting itself, and hit a bishop—actually struck a young and promising bishop who had never done anything to me. They got the constable and made a horrible row, and besides paying for the skylight I had to give the church a new organ to square myself with the bishop, who was a friend of a friend of mine in Kentucky who once gave me a tip on the Derby. Since then the very thought of foreign missions makes me ill, I always hear that dog—it was the usual village mongrel of evil ancestry—crashing through the skylight. What's doing this morning, Irishman?"
I linked my arm in his and led the way toward Glenarm House. There was much to be done before I could bring together the warring members of the house of Holbrook, and Gillespie could, I felt, be relied on in emergencies. He broke forth at once.
"I want to see her—I've got to see her!"
"Who—Helen? Then you'll have to wait a while, for she's gone for a paddle or a gallop, I'm not sure which, and won't be back for a couple of hours. But you have grown too daring. Miss Pat is still here, and you can't expect me to arrange meetings for you every day in the year."
"I've got to see her," he repeated, and his tone was utterly joyless. "I don't understand her, Donovan."
"Man is not expected to understand woman, my dear Buttons. At the casino last night everything was as gay as an octogenarian's birthday cake."
He stopped in the shadow of the house and seized my arm.
"You told her something about me last night. She was all right until you took her away and talked with her at the casino. On the way home she was moody and queer—a different girl altogether. You are not on the square; you are playing on too many sides of this game."
"You're in love, that's all. These suspicions and apprehensions are leading symptoms. Up there at the casino, with the water washing beneath and the stars overhead and the band playing waltzes, a spell was upon you both. Even a hardened old sinner like me could feel it. I've had palpitations all day! Cheer up! In your own happy phrase, everything points to plus."
"I tell you she turned on me, and that you are responsible for it!"—and he glared at me angrily.
"Now, Buttons! You're not going to take that attitude toward me, after all I have done for you! I really took some trouble to arrange that little meeting last night; and here you come with sad eye and mournful voice and rebuke me!"
"I tell you she was different. She had never been so kind to me as she was there at the casino; but as we came back she changed, and was ready to fling me aside. I asked her to leave this place and marry me to-day, and she only laughed at me!"
"Now, Buttons, you are letting your imagination get the better of your common sense. If you're going to take your lady's moods so hard you'd better give up trying to understand the ways of woman. It's wholly possible that Helen was tired and didn't want to be made love to. It seems to me that you are singularly lacking in consideration. But I can't talk to you all morning; I have other things to do; but if you will find a cool corner of the house and look at picture-books until I'm free I'll promise to be best man for you when you're married; and I predict your marriage before Christmas—a happy union of the ancient houses of Holbrook and Gillespie. Run along like a good boy and don't let Miss Pat catch sight of you."
"Do you keep a goat, a donkey or a mule—any of the more ruminative animals?" he asked with his saddest intonation.
"The cook keeps a parrot, and there's a donkey in one of the pastures."
"Good. Are his powers of vocalization unimpaired?"
"First rate. I occasionally hear his vesper hymn. He's in good voice."
"Then I may speak to him, soul to soul, if I find that I bore myself."
We climbed the steps to the cool shadows of the terrace. As we stood a moment looking out on the lake we saw, far away toward the northern shore, the Stiletto, that seemed just to have slipped out from the lower lake. The humor of the situation pleased me; Helen was off there in the sloop playing at being kidnapped to harass her aunt into coming to terms with Henry Holbrook, and she was doubtless rejoicing in the fact that she had effected a combination of events that would make her father's case irresistible.
But there was no time to lose. I made Gillespie comfortable indoors and sent Ijima to get the bag I had asked for; and a few minutes later the launch was skimming over the water toward the canoe-maker's house at Red Gate.