Part 25 (1/2)

”He would always be there,” Cerissa whispered.

”Who?”

”Your father. If anybody wanted to see him after he shut himself in there for the night, they had to stand to be questioned through that wall-slit before he opened the door. Yes, ma'am! He was on the watch in there the whole time like a thing in a trap.”

”Are you afraid to go back alone?” Mrs. Bogardus spoke with chilling irony.

Cerissa backed away in silence, her heart thumping. ”She's putting it on,” she said to herself. ”I never see her turn so pale. Don't tell _me_ she ain't afraid!”

There was a hanging shelf against the chimney on which a bundle of dry herbs had been left to turn into dust. Old Becky might have put them there the autumn before she died; or some successor of hers in the years that were blank to the daughter of the house. As she pushed open the door a sighing draught swept past her and seemed to draw her inward.

It shook the sere bundle. Its skeleton leaves, dissolving into motes, flickered an instant athwart the light. They sifted down like ashes on the woman's dark head as she pa.s.sed in. Her color had faded, but not through fear of ghost clocks. It was the searing process she had to face. And any room where she sat alone with certain memories of her youth was to her a torture chamber.

”She's been up there an awful long time. I wouldn't wonder if she's fainted away.”

”What would she faint at? I guess it's pretty cold, though. Give me some more tea; put plenty of milk so I can drink it quick.”

Chauncey's matter of fact tone always comforted Cerissa when she was nervous. She did not mind that he jeered or that his words were often rude; no man of her acquaintance could say things nicely to women, or ever tried. A certain amount of roughness pa.s.sed for household wit.

Chauncey put the screw-driver in his pocket, his wife and son watching him with respectful anxiety. He thought rather well of his own courage privately. But the familiar details of the loom-room cheered him on his way, the homely tools of his every-day work were like friendly faces nodding at him. He knocked loudly on the door above, and was answered by Mrs. Bogardus in her natural voice.

”Bosh--every bit of it bos.h.!.+” he repeated courageously.

She was seated by the window in the chair with the green cus.h.i.+ons. Her face was turned towards the view outside. ”What a pity those cherries were not picked before the rain,” she observed. ”The fruit is bursting ripe; I'm afraid you'll lose the crop.”

Chauncey moved forward awkwardly without answering.

”Stop there one moment, will you?” Mrs. Bogardus rose and demonstrated.

”You notice those two boards are loose. Now, I put this chair here,”--she laid her hand on the back to still its motion. ”Step this way. You see? The chair rocks of itself. So would any chair with a spring board under it. That accounts for _that_, I think. Now come over here.” Chauncey placed himself as she directed in front of the high mantel with the clock above it. She stood at his side and they listened in silence to that sound which Mary Hornbeck, deceased, had deemed a spiritual warning.

”Would you call that a 'ticking'? Is that like any sound an insect could make?” the mistress asked.

”I should call it more like a 'ting,'” said Chauncey. ”It comes kind o'

m.u.f.fled like through the chimbly--a person might be mistaken if they was upset in their nerves considerable.”

”What old people call the 'death-watch' is supposed to be an insect that lives in the walls of old houses, isn't it? and gives warning with a ticking sound when somebody is going to be called away? Now to me that sounds like a soft blow struck regularly on a piece of hollow iron--say the end of a stove-pipe sticking in the chimney. When I first came up here, there was only a steady murmur of wind and rain. Then the clouds thinned and the sun came out and drops began to fall--distinctly. Your wife says the ticking was heard on a day like this, broken and showery.

Now, if you will unscrew that clock, I think you will find there's a stove-pipe hole behind it; and a piece of pipe shoved into the chimney just far enough to catch the drops as they gather and fall.”

Chauncey went to work. He sweated in the airless room. The powerful screws blunted the lips of his tool but would not start.

”I guess I'll have to give it up for to-day. The screws are rusted in solid. Want I should pry her out of the woodwork?”

”No, don't do that,” said Mrs. Bogardus. ”Why should we spoil the panel?

This seems a very comfortable room. My son is right. It would be foolish to tear it down. Such a place as this might be very useful if you people would get over your notions about it.”

”I never had no notions,” Chauncey a.s.serted. ”When the women git talkin'

they like to make out a good story, and whichever one sees the most and hears the most makes the biggest sensation.”