The White Lady Read online

  Mrs. Bartlett laid down the paper she was reading and opened the door, looking over her glasses at him speculatively. She would have liked to ask him the particulars of his mother’s death and the funeral, but he was always so brief about such things. She would rather he were a little more of a gossip. The next morning she told her neighbor that the minister looked “kind of peaked” when he came home. She “guessed he felt his ma’s death,” though she “couldn’t see why he should; he had been away from her a good many years.”

  There was not much comfort for John Endicott in Mrs. Bartlett’s home. Her house was clean, however; and she gave him plenty to eat. He never complained, even when the meat was warmed over three times, nor said how tired he was of stewed prunes. She thought that what was good enough for Mr. Bartlett was good enough for the minister—“he didn’t hev to work near’s hard’s Hiram, anyway—just make a few calls and talk a little while on Sunday.” That was Mrs. Bartlett’s estimate of a minister’s labors.

  Mrs. Bartlett set forth for her boarder sour bread, weak tea, strong butter, tough meat, heavy gingerbread, and sloppy prunes, remarking significantly as she did so, that the train must have been late. He made no attempt to satisfy her curiosity, however; and betook himself to his room as soon as possible.

  His room was small and overcrowded with his books and papers. Mrs. Bartlett never meddled with his things, and missionary circulars lay in undisturbed confusion over table and floor and window seats, wherever he chose to lay them down. They lay so now, just as he had left them two weeks ago when he hurried off in response to the terrible telegram that lay on the top of all, there on his table. He caught sight of it and groaned as he flung himself into the cane-seat chair before the pine table that served as a study desk. The whole dreadful two weeks passed before his mind in a flash. The confusion in the room served to deepen the feeling of desolation.

  He seemed to see everything in it with his eyes shut and knew just how dismal it all looked: the red-and-green carpet carefully darned in places, and a great patch wrong side out just in front of the door; the rows of dusty books on the unpainted pine shelves along the wall; the hard little lounge that was a foot too short for him; the framed picture of his theological professors, and another of his seminary class; the cracked blue paper window shades. All were as plain to him as if his eyes were open, and the yellow telegram focused itself as the center of all this desolation, even though his face was buried in his folded arms upon the table.

  He went over it all again, the journey, the deathbed, the funeral, and his heart grew sick within him.

  He rose quickly and went over to the cheap oak bureau. There was a white towel on the bureau for a cover and his mother’s picture stood there, the only ornament in the room. A neat and ugly strip of rag carpet lay in front of the bed. On this rag rug beside the patchwork-covered bed, the minister knelt.

  He had been wont on cheery days to call his quarters pleasant ones, and himself fortunate to have got them at such a possible price; this when he wrote to his mother and made as bright a picture of his life as he could find it in his conscience to do. But on this sad night of his return, the whole place looked bare and desolate.

  He buried his face in the small, lumpy pillow and cried to God for help. He felt so alone and so suddenly weak and unable to cope with the world that seemed against him sorely.

  Long he knelt there and brought every burden, for he was accustomed to talking with his Lord “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” Then, comforted, he lay down to rest.

  Chapter 10

  When Constance reached the house, she was trembling from head to foot, whether from fright or from anger, she scarcely knew. At first, when she turned around and faced the strange man in the moonlight, she was frightened, and expected to be seized by the throat and choked, perhaps, or gagged and robbed, but when she saw his suitcase and noticed that he was respectable looking, her fears were quieted. When he spoke, she recognized the tones of a gentleman, and then she began to be angry.

  It was ridiculous of him to think a woman could do any harm, even if she were walking at night on land that did not belong to her near an old deserted house. So she had passed by him with a grand air, and entered the kitchen.

  Norah was flying around, putting away dishes on a shelf that she had washed to receive them, and Constance felt that she must either laugh or cry at once, so she lighted another candle and went swiftly upstairs. It had suddenly come over her what the man must have meant as she remembered the story Jimmy had told her of the white lady. She had entirely forgotten it and thought the stranger most meddlesome.

  But now she saw it all. The man had thought her the ghost who haunted the house, and the whole thing took on a funny aspect. She wanted to laugh aloud. But it might frighten Norah, so she must not tell her.

  She stole to the window and looked out into the moonlit world. The man was just striding away through the darkness of the cedars, his head bent down, his whole tall form drooping. Something familiar in the form hovered about her memory. What was it? Where had she seen someone like this man? She turned from the window and threw herself upon the couch, and before she knew it she was fast asleep. Norah, coming up a little later, shaded the candle, threw a light shawl over her mistress, and left her so.

  It was broad daylight when they both awoke to the thundering noise of men banging on the door below. The first load of furniture had arrived. The painter came also and said his paper hangers would soon be there, as they had gone after their paste and tools. Constance went about directing, too busy to stop for breakfast, though Norah made her a cup of coffee and sent Jimmy, who soon appeared, to the store for supplies. It was a busy day, and by night, confusion seemed to reign everywhere, save in the room that Constance had chosen for her own. That, Norah had attacked and made shiningly clean the first thing and had seen to it that her young mistress’s furniture was duly set up. She meant that Constance should have a quiet resting place as soon as possible. It was her loving instinct to care for one who had been good to her.

  By night everybody in Rushville knew that someone was moving into the old haunted house, and many were the speculations concerning the people who would be willing to live there.

  The owner of the drugstore made an errand over to see whether he had left a shovel in the house, one that had been missing ever since he moved. His coarse red face and hard blue eyes appeared at the door during the morning while Constance was alone for a moment in the kitchen, and made her start unpleasantly. She answered his questions coldly, gave him permission to search for his shovel, and withdrew at once; but the man went back to give a report of her that would have made her writhe if she could have heard it. He was much struck by her beauty, and boasted of her friendliness. And so the knowledge of her coming spread in ways of which she little dreamed.

  Constance had selected for the long, high room on the right of the hall a creamy paper covered with wide-spreading palm branches that seemed to be alive in their feathery greenness. The native paper hangers shook their heads over this design, sighed, and said of course they would put it on if she said so, but they wouldn’t be responsible for the way it would look, and then stood back in amazement at the effect they had produced when their work was done. It required a wider opening of the artistic in their souls to appreciate it, yet they could but confess that the whole room was lovely. The palms spread like a grove all about. It did not seem like paper; it was like great trees growing all about the room.

  The men turned to Constance, who stood looking the room over critically, well pleased with the outcome of her experiment, and with one accord they gave her their homage. Thenceforth, during the rest of their work she was “the missis,” and they spoke of her proudly, as if they had found their fit leader. They asked her advice instead of taking their own way, and they praised her at the firehouse in the evening when they lounged to smoke and talk.

  “I bet you anything, now,” one man said, slapping his thigh with his hand, “that h
er folks has been paper hangers. She comes by it natural—anybody can see that with half an eye.”

  Constance came to this room after the men were gone and looked it over again with satisfaction. This was to be the tearoom, and in her mind’s eye she could see that it was a success so far as beauty was concerned. The paint was a bright clean white, and the floor was stained dark walnut. It was not a fine floor, to be sure, but the stain hid some of the defects. Constance, with Norah’s assistance, untied bundles of rugs and dragged them out until she had made a selection, and the lovely room took on a new air of elegance when a number of antique Kazak, Beloochistan, and Daghestan rugs were strewn about over the bad places in the flooring.

  They brought little tables of solid mahogany and rosewood, highly polished and of beautiful grain, and put them about the room at pleasant distances. Constance thought with a pang of the tremendous price she was going to have to pay for plate glass to cover their polished tops, but she shut her lips firmly and went on. The great painting of the cows grazing was hung at the lower end of the room, and above the mantel, opposite the wide hall door, hung a canvas of the ocean, its liquid green depths and foamy curling waves so lifelike that one felt about to step out upon the sands. It was a large, fine painting, and one that Constance prized. It had cost much money. It had not occurred to her that she might have sold these beautiful and costly belongings and had more money to live upon. They were a part of herself—the rare old rugs, the fine paintings, the rich mahogany furniture.

  In the evening when the men were all gone, Constance and Norah shoved the mahogany buffet in from the hall where it had been put when unloaded. This they placed where its mirror would reflect the palms well and give distance to the room when one entered. After they had brought in a few chairs, Constance went to the sideboard drawers and began to take out fine embroidered linen and lace cloths and spread them upon the little tables. Norah was as eager as her mistress.

  “Thur’s just wan thing more ye nade,” said she, standing in the doorway, her arms akimbo, surveying their work. “Yez better sind fer thim pams ye used to hev in th’ porler.”

  “Why, they’re here, Norah; they came in the last load. They’re out on the side veranda. You thought I sent them to the florists, I suppose, but I didn’t. Come! Let’s get them. Can you get the crate open?”

  They dragged the great palms into the room and set them about where their greenness mingled with that of the pictured ones and made the illusion more perfect. On the whole, they went to bed that night satisfied.

  “We’ll soon be ready for guests, Norah,” said Constance, laughing as she bade Norah good night.

  When Jimmy came in the morning as usual, he was taken to look at the new room. He stood in the hall door, his little bare, dusty toes keeping reverently back from the rich rug in the doorway, and looked in. Never before had a sight of anything like this appeared to his dazzled vision. He was used to a dingy little kitchen and a still dingier attic bedroom. He had seldom been in other people’s houses, and then not farther than the kitchen or a long, dark hall, when he was sent on errands.

  “Gee whiz!” he said at last, after a prolonged gaze. “Ain’t you a clipper? Say, that’s great! My! I wisht the fellers could see them green trees a-growin’ right up in the room. Make pictures ov ’umselves on the wall, too! Say, thet’s great!”

  But the tearoom was not the only room in which changes had been going on. Up on the second floor, three lovely rooms had been in preparation: a bedroom, a sitting room, and a dainty dining room. It was the nest that Constance was preparing for her grandmother. Into these rooms were put all Mrs. Wetherill’s fine old furniture, her rugs and pictures and books, arranged as nearly as possible in the way in which they had been arranged in her home in New York.

  The bedroom and dining room were the two back rooms, and the sitting room, though on the front, had its windows so sheltered by large trees, that it was impossible to see the front door or the path leading to the gate. The outlook was lovely at this time of year, into greenness everywhere, with a nestling church spire and a few dormer windows of houses in the distance. In winter the cedars would still stand guard over the front door. There would be no need for the old lady to learn the secret of their maintenance from her windows, at least.

  And now letters from her grandmother, though not saying so in so many words, showed Constance that she was feeling homesick and that it was fully time to go after her. Constance had been in Rushville two weeks and two days, and there was much yet to be done, but she felt that Norah might be able to do it with some help; so, securing Jimmy’s mother to stay nights in the house and to help Norah, Constance went after her grandmother. She felt that the hardest part of her task was now before her—to get rid of the maid and to induce her grandmother to be happy for the summer in Rushville.

  One fear she had, and that was that Norah would in some way hear about the ghost who was supposed to haunt the house and her Irish superstition would take alarm. Constance decided that she must say something to her before she left lest Norah should be frightened and desert her post. But when she broached the subject, the girl only laughed.

  “Bless me sowl, Miss Connie! Did yez think I was feerd o’ ghosts? The painter man, the rid-haired wan, he towld me all about the lady wot wahks; but Oi sez, sez Oi, ‘Oi’ll not be a-carin’ fer any speerits. Oi’ve two good han’s an’ two feets, an’ Oi’ll resk meself wid any trailin’ gentle leddy thet only wahks. Whot horm cud she do?’ Na, Miss Connie, yez no need to be feerd fer me.”

  Jimmy was established as regular right-hand man for Norah until Constance should return.

  “I’m going to pay you a dollar a week, Jimmy, while I’m away, and you will do all you can to make things easy for Norah, won’t you? Then, when I come back, we’ll have a talk together and make some permanent arrangements. You are my partner, you know, and I must pay you something for the use of your name in renting the house.”

  Jimmy smiled at her confidently. He thought there never was anybody in the world like his new friend. He swelled with pride daily as he walked through the streets, for was not he an established friend of the house that was haunted, and did he not walk in and out familiarly where even yet the village boys would not have dared tread except in broad daylight? It was not that Jimmy did not believe the stories about the ghost, but that he felt that this new and lovely spirit that had come to inherit the place would drive out the other. At least he had lost the dread of the house he had once felt, and so he enjoyed the prestige of courage among his comrades, who often watched from afar to see whether he really did go into the house as he said.

  John Endicott had found much for his hands and brain to do the morning after his return. He had no idle moments to mope over mistakes he had made or sorrows that had come into his life. There were letters to be answered; there was a promised article, already overdue, which he must write; there were sermons to be written; and there were many calls to be made. It seemed as if everybody in the parish had been ill since he went away, and he must visit and comfort them all, and each one watched the street with jealous eye lest he should go to the other one first. It required untiring energy and a heart full of love to do all that fell to his lot.

  Whenever he sat down for a moment, however, the annoyance he felt over the little incident that occurred near the old house troubled him.

  It had not taken him long, of course, to discover that someone had really taken the old house. Mrs. Bartlett was informed of it early, and duly reported it to him with Bartlett notes thereon. She expressed her hearty disapproval, in advance, of anyone who was fool enough to rent that house. If they were ignorant of its history, then they showed shiftlessness in not inquiring. They couldn’t be a respectable family, or they never would take up with a place that had once been a tavern and had so bad a reputation. Besides, there was something wrong about that house. Not ghosts, of course—she didn’t believe in them—but something went on at that house in the dead of night, she felt sure; and the evi
l ones who carried on covered their tracks by these stories of ghosts. These people would leave, as all others had done, just as soon as they found out—that is, if they were worth anything. She finished with an air that said it was extremely doubtful whether they were.

  It was the morning when Constance left that he met his friend Jimmy returning from escorting her to the station. Jimmy was feeling a trifle sad over her departure, for she had said it might be two or three weeks before she would be able to return, though she hoped to come back sooner. He brightened up when he saw the minister. Mr. Endicott always had a pleasant word for boys, and never forgot names.

  “Well Jimmy,” said the minister, “I missed you last Sunday.”

  Jimmy grinned.

  “What was the matter that you were not at church?”

  “Been busy,” said Jimmy mysteriously, in a tone that invited further inquiry.

  “Busy? Gone into business, have you?”

  Jimmy grinned wider and looked important.

  “Had to stick around, case Miss Constance would want something. She’s a friend o’ mine; been movin’ into the big house here.” He jerked his thumb over toward the cedars.

  “Oh!” said the minister, showing unusual interest. “A friend of yours? Well, can’t you bring her to church?”

  “Mebbe!” said Jimmy, with a confident wink. “She’s an awful nice singer. She plays on the pianner, too.”

  “Indeed!” said John Endicott. “Well Jimmy, if she’s a friend of yours, perhaps you can persuade her to come.”

  John Endicott was puzzled. He could not make the beautiful sight of the girl he had seen, full of refinement, grace, and loveliness, accord with Jimmy’s statement that she was his friend. She did not look to him like one who would be a boon companion of the Wattses.

  “She’s just gone away fer a while,” volunteered the boy. “I took her down to the station. She’s gone after her grandmother.”