Part 16 (1/2)
”All right, Simon; you wait for me here.”
Aleck walked slowly along the country road, enjoying the fragrant fields, the quiet beauty of the place. It was still early in the day, for he had lost no time in following the clues gathered from the village as to the survivors of the _Jeanne D'Arc_. The air was fresh and clean, with a tang of the distant salt marshes.
A long row of hemlocks and Norway spruce bordered the road, and, with the aid of a stone wall, shut off from the highway a prosperous-looking vegetable garden. Farther along, a flower garden glowed in the fantastic coloring which gardens acquire when planted for the love of flowers rather than for definite artistic effects. Farther still, two lilac bushes stood sentinel on either side of a gateway; and behind, a deep green lawn lay under the light, dappled shade of tall trees. It was a lawn that spoke of many years of care; and in the middle of its velvet green, under the branches of two sheltering elms, stood the old red house. It looked comfortable and secure, in its homely simplicity; something to depend on in the otherwise mutable scenes of life. Aleck felt an instantaneous liking for it, and was glad that his errand, sad as it might possibly be, had yet led him thither.
Long French windows in the lower part of the house opened upon the piazza, and from the second story ruffled white curtains fluttered to the breeze. As the s.h.i.+eld-shaped knocker clanged dully to Aleck's stroke, a large, melancholy hound came slowly round the corner of the house, approached the visitor with tentative wags of the tail, and after sniffing mildly, lay down on the cool gra.s.s. It wasn't a house to be hurried, that was plain. After a wait of five or ten minutes Aleck was about to knock again, when a face appeared at one of the side-lights of the door. Presently the door itself opened a few inches, and elderly spinsterhood, wrapped in severe inquiry, looked out at him.
”Can I see the lady, or either of the gentlemen, who recently arrived here from the yacht, the _Jeanne D'Arc_?”
Aleck's voice and manner were friendly enough to disarm suspicion itself; Sallie Kingsbury looked at him for a full second.
”Come in.”
Aleck followed her into the wide, dim hall, and waited while she pulled down the shade of the sidelight which she had lifted for observation.
Then she opened a door on the right and said:
”Set down in the parlor while I go and take my salt risin's away from the stove. I ain't had time to call my soul my own since the folks came, what with callers at all times of the day.”
Sallie's voice was not as inhospitable as her words. She was mildly hurt and grieved, rather than offended. She disappeared and presently came back with a white ap.r.o.n on in place of the colored gingham she had worn before; but it is doubtful if Aleck noticed this tribute to his s.e.x. Sallie looked withered and pinched, but more by nature and disposition than by age. She stood with arms akimbo near the center-table, regarding Aleck with inquisitiveness not unmixed with liking.
”You can set down, sir,” she said politely, ”but I don't know as you can see any of the folks. The man, he's up-stairs sick, clean out of his head; and the young man, he's nursing him. Can't leave him alone a minute, or he'd be up and getting out the window, f'rall I know.”
Aleck listened sympathetically. ”A sad case! And what is the name, if I may ask, of the young man who is so ill?”
”Lor', I don't know,” said Sallie. ”The new mistress, her name's Redmond; some kin of Parson Thayer's, and she's got this house and a lot of money. The lawyer was here yesterday and got the will all fixed up. She's a singer, too--one of those opery singers down below, she is.”
Sallie made this announcement as if she was relating a bewildering blow of Providence for which she herself was not responsible. Aleck, who began to fear that he might be the recipient of more confidences than decorum dictated, hastily proffered his next question.
”Can I see the lady, Miss Redmond? Or is it Mrs. Redmond?”
Sallie gave a scornful, injured sniff.
”_Miss_ Redmond, sir, though she's old enough to be a Mrs. I wouldn't so much mind her coming in here and using the parson's china that I always washed with my own hands if she was a Mrs. But what can she, an unmarried woman and an opery singer, know about Parson Thayer's ways and keeping this house in order, when I've been with him going on seventeen years and he took me outer the Home when I was no more than a child?”
Aleck's heart would have been stone had he resisted this all but pa.s.sionate plea.
”You have been faithfulness itself, I am sure. But do you think Miss Redmond would see me, at least for a few minutes?”
Sallie recovered her dignity, which had been near a collapse in tears, and a.s.sumed her official tone. ”I don't know as you can, and I don't know _as_ you can. She's sick, too; fell overboard somehow or other, offer one of those pesky boats, and got neuralagy and I don't know what all. But I'll go and see how she's feeling.”
”Stay, wait a minute,” said Aleck, seized with a new thought. ”I'll write a message to Miss Redmond and then she'll know just what I want.
If you'll be so good as to take it to her?”
”Why, certainly, of course I will,” Said Sallie Kingsbury. ”Only you needn't take all _that_ trouble. I can tell her what you want myself.”
Sallie was one of those persons who regard the pen as the weapon of last resort, not to be used until necessity compels. But Aleck continued writing on a blank leaf of his note-book. The message was this:
”Can you give me any information concerning my cousin, James Hambleton, who was thought to be aboard the _Jeanne D'Arc_?”
He tore the leaf out, extracted a card from his pocketbook, and handed leaf and card to Sallie. ”Will you please give those to Miss Redmond?”