CHAPTER VI
THE MYSTERY OF A VISION
Barnes awoke in the morning to the reveille of robins and thrushes. With chirp and whistle and flute note, they sang him from his hearty sleep to a still heartier realization of a new-born day. For a moment, from the motherly lap of his broad bed, he blinked at the dimity curtains and the age-ripened hautboy. What strange caravanserai was this? It was always a pleasure to wake to the memory of the long tramp of the preceding day—to trace his path from the brisk setting out of the previous morning to the final lagging steps at dusk. To-day he traced his course as far as the letter-box and then came to himself as though fresh from a plunge in a mountain brook. But he had no time to think about it before there was a timid knock at the door.
“Yes?” called Barnes.
“Your warm water, sir?”
“Come in.”
John stepped over the threshold. His stride was confident. He was bold enough in the daytime whatever he might be at night.
“Miss Schuyler’s compliments, sir, and we breakfast at eight.”
“What time is it now?”
“Seven, sir.”
“Very well. My compliments in return to Eleanor and I will be ready at eight.”
John betrayed wonder. Barnes reviewed his speech. Then he himself betrayed even more wonder.
“Did you hear, John?” he demanded sternly, in a clumsy attempt to retrieve himself. “My compliments to my aunt,” he paused, “and I will be ready at eight.”
“Yes, sir.”
Barnes unconsciously looked about for his dress-suit case. Then he remembered that he had checked it to the next village, thinking at first to ride through. He did not have so much as a razor. He glanced at John’s smooth-shaven face, hesitated, and then asked,
“John—didn’t I leave a razor behind me? Seems to me I remember a black-handled one. If you could find it—”
Now John was in many respects an admirable man in his calling. If he was positive no razor had been left, he had at least a razor of his own.
“I will see if I can find it, sir,” he said.
He was back in five minutes with the entire outfit which he placed upon the dresser without a word. Barnes was immensely pleased with his cleverness, while John, who had been the really clever one, remained impassive. Furthermore, being in high good humor at the success of the ruse which had saved him from the humiliation of borrowing from the man, Barnes leaped from his bed so suddenly that John jumped half way to the door.
“What’s the trouble?” inquired Barnes.
“You came so suddenly, sir.”
“Perhaps I was a bit abrupt. The morning gets into your blood.”
“It’s the Arctic weather I presume, sir.”
“Yes. Ah, yes, that is probably it.”
He began to lather his face but John still delayed, shuffling a bit nervously.
“You left ‘The Lucky Find’ well, sir?” he ventured with an apologetic cough. It was as though he spoke of a lady. It was as though he spoke of an intimate friend in whom he took great interest.
“Pretty well, thank you,” answered Barnes in some surprise.
“I reads as how you brought twenty million in gold out of the country last year, sir.”
“I?”
“Oh, not you alone, sir, but all the mines together. I didn’t know but what ‘The Lucky Find’ had a share in it, as the sayin’ goes.”
Barnes caught his breath. Then he carefully lathered one ear. It didn’t need lathering any more than his shoes. It was something of an automatic movement.
“Let me see,” he asked quietly, “how much stock did you have?”
“Not much, sir. I haven’t saved as much as I might. But when I saw the papers you sent on to the mistress, I mailed what I had. It was only a thousand, sir.”
“Yes, I remember now. A thousand dollars.”
Barnes turned back to the mirror. He wiped the lather from his ear.
“Bring my trousers, John.”
The man obeyed.
“Reach in the right hand side pocket.”
John brought out two five-dollar bills.
“Put one of them back.”
John obeyed and held the other one in his hand uncertainly.
“That,” said Barnes, “is our first annual dividend. It should have been sent to you before.”
“Thank you, sir. I didn’t hope for so much, but—”
“You may go,” said Barnes, picking up his razor.
Barnes completed his dressing with dispatch. It occurred to him that if he hurried he might possibly beat out Aunt Philomela, and so have a few words with the girl before she came down.
As he stepped into the living-room, Aunt Philomela greeted him with a curt nod.
“I trust three-fingered Bill didn’t disturb your dreams,” he observed with polite interest.
The girl was nowhere to be seen.
“Bah. Something worse,” snapped Aunt Philomela as though she held him directly responsible for it. “It was half a walrus.”
“Perhaps that is the Thing John was looking for,” he suggested.
He turned towards the window in the hope that he might discover Miss Van Patten in the flower-gardens. They blossomed just beyond—a medley of sweet alyssum, mignonette, heliotrope, cosmos, and marigolds. She was not there.
“To what do you refer by the Thing?” demanded Aunt Philomela.
“The Thing he looked for under the bed.”
The color stole into her cheeks making them look more than ever like cameos.
“In these days, with so many strangers on the road, one cannot be too careful,” she avowed.
“No,” he admitted, “I understand that many estimable persons even in New York make it a habit to look under their beds.”
At length Miss Van Patten came in. She was in white again with a loose crimson tie at her throat. She looked as though she might have been in the garden after all—growing there like the other flowers for she had a freshness that only the dew can give. She greeted him with a smile that brightened the room like the sun.
“Daddy is in better spirits than I’ve seen him for a year,” she exclaimed. “He asked for you as soon as he woke up.”
“Perhaps then I had better step up there for a minute before breakfast.”
“Would you? He’s waiting so impatiently.”
“I’ll go at once.”
“He repeated to me what you told him. You didn’t tell us all.”
She blushed prettily, timid at sharing with him a secret in which her aunt for the moment was not included.
“Most everything,” he replied uneasily.
“You don’t mind because he told me?”
She feared that he might consider it in the light of a confidence betrayed.
“No,” he answered sincerely.
But lest she go further into the subject he turned abruptly and made his way again to the room of shadows.
Aunt Philomela at once faced her niece.
“What is this great secret?” she demanded somewhat piqued.
“I’m not sure that I ought to tell you,” replied the girl with a tinkling laugh which was like the ripple of water over pebbles.
“Pardon my presumption,” snapped the aunt cuttingly, as she assumed her state dignity.
This consisted of standing so erect that she crinkled, drawing her chin the slightest bit in, and folding her hands at the level of her waist. The girl promptly stepped forward and kissed her.
“It was partly of you he spoke.”
Aunt Philomela drew back with a more genuine emotion.
“What an impertinence!” she exclaimed.
“Daddy evidently asked him if he saw any change in you.”
“Of all—”
“And Mr. Barnes told him he thought you had grown younger.”
“I shall thank William not to discuss me in the future.”
“Oh, but your ears would have burned if you’d heard the rest.”
“What wonder! To allow a stranger to discuss such intimate matters is—is almost indecent.”
“Remember it was as Joe that Mr. Barnes spoke. But,” she added thoughtfully, “I’m not sure Joe himself would have spoken so beautifully.”
“The bold, young fellow.”
“The most wonderful thing of all,” continued the girl, her eyes growing wistful, “was the way he talked to Daddy about mother. How was he able to do that when he never knew her—never saw her?”
“Your mother,” replied Aunt Philomela, soberly, “would never forgive me if she knew I countenanced such goings on.”
“How was he able to do it?” repeated Eleanor, her thoughts spanning a decade.
Aunt Philomela scanned the girl’s face anxiously, lovingly.
“La, dear,” she murmured.
“He spoke of her eyes—describing them as woodland pools at twilight. You remember mother’s eyes were just like that.”
“Yes, dear. They were like that—like your eyes.”
“He spoke of the tender sweetness of her face—of her black hair with the gold in it. You remember the gold in mother’s hair?”
“Yes, dear. Your hair is much the same.”
“He even described her skin. He said it was like ivory with rose in it.”
“Yes,” answered Aunt Philomela, noting the rose now in the ivory of her niece’s cheeks.
“That sounded almost as though he were standing in front of mother, didn’t it? It is as though he saw a vision!”
Aunt Philomela pressed her lips firmly together. When, a moment later Barnes himself came in, she kept her eyes fixed upon her niece.
“Eleanor,” she announced, “I shall ask Carl to come over this morning.”