Part 24 (1/2)
Listen!” painted on her high white forehead.
We slowed down: the Grayles-Grice, the Wilmot, the Hippo, and our Hiawatha, as we have lately named our car.
Aunt Mary descended the steps and came to the gate. Jack jumped out, forgetting he was lame, and nearly fell. I screamed. Every one scrambled or leaped or slid to the rescue; and that was the way in which Providence arranged for Peter Storm and Pat Moore and Larry, to say nothing of those who mattered less, to become Aunt Mary's guests.
Providence is not too important a word, as you will see when I tell you as much as I'm allowed to tell, about--what came of the visit.
Aunt Mary has many virtues. They stick out all over her like pins, but there are some which aren't uncomfortably sharp. Her hospitality, for instance. This house of hers at Wenham isn't one of the prettiest in the place, but it is white and dignified, and the over-arching trees give it charm. Aunt Mary is proud of it, and I think she was really pleased to welcome the crowd. Besides, when she was in New York on business, cutting coupons or something, Jack and I talked to her about Larry and Pat. She was very interested, and said she had been taken to Kidd's Pines to a garden party, some fifteen years ago, by Cousin John Randolph Payton, who left me Awepesha, you know. She thought that she still had some snapshots of the garden which she had taken herself that afternoon.
In those days, it seemed, she had threatened to develop a craze for photography, but had found that it ”interfered too seriously with her more intellectual pursuits.” However, she used to paste her trophies in sc.r.a.pbooks, and she said that when she got home from New York she would look up the volume of that date. It ought to be in the attic, though she had not seen it for a number of years.
Jack and I thought she would forget about this, and we had indeed forgotten it ourselves when we arrived at Wenham. Aunt Mary, however, had not. She greeted Larry warmly (for her) and a.s.sured him that, if her niece had kept her informed of the route, she would have written or telegraphed asking the whole party to tea. Not knowing our whereabouts, she could not do this, but was delighted to find the cars stopping at her door, and hoped that their occupants would all take tea with her.
Every one was simply stuffed with scones and chocolate cake, but such was the look in Aunt Mary's eye that none dared confess the tea-house debauch. Her invitation was accepted, and, eighteen strong, we filed into her parlour. Luckily it's as big as a good-sized country schoolroom, and there's a mid-Victorian ”suite” consisting of two sofas, a settee, a couple of easy chairs and eight uneasy ones. Aunt Mary is of those worthy women who upholster themselves and dress their furniture, so everything in her home is rather fussy, lots of antimaca.s.sars and tidies and scarfs and that sort of thing. Besides, she thinks flowers are for gardens, not for houses, with the exception of some wax ones made by herself when a girl and preserved under gla.s.s.
Still, there's such a pet of an old Chinese wall paper, and everything is so exquisitely neat that the effect isn't so bad as you might suppose.
Aunt Mary has a _flair_ for liking the wrong people, and wronging the right ones, so of course she took quite a fancy to Ed Caspian, and was somewhat stiff with Peter, whom Mrs. Shuster introduced as ”my secretary, Mr. Storm.” However, she was as nice as she could be to Larry, and asked if I had mentioned her visit to Kidd's Pines. When she heard that I had not, she was surprised and grieved at my carelessness.
”My niece was always inclined to be forgetful,” said she. ”I can't think where she inherited it from. The first thing I did on my return from New York was to look in the attic for my old photograph sc.r.a.pbooks. I have a place for everything, and everything in its place, in this house; but I travel a great deal, and occasionally my servants, with the best intentions, upset my arrangements. I found several of the little volumes exactly where I expected to lay my hand on them, but I am very sorry to say the one I wanted was missing. If I had been sure that I should have the pleasure of seeing you and your daughter, Mr Moore, I would have looked even more thoroughly, for I'm _sure_ the photographs exist. It was fifteen years ago this summer that I attended the garden party at Kidd's Pines, with my cousin, Mr. Payton. I met you and Mrs. Moore for a moment, I remember quite well. You both looked almost too young to be married, I thought, but your little girl was about four years old. She was not at the party officially” (Aunt Mary smiled at her own coy wit), ”but I met her with a boy much older, who was playing with her. I took a snapshot of them both together, standing by a swing which was in a retired part of the grounds.”
By this time Larry was bored to extinction, but still charming, as he always is with women, young or old, pretty or plain. He pretended so pleasantly to be disappointed at the loss of the book (he loathes looking at photographs) that Aunt Mary was fired to a renewed effort.
”Why, now I come to think of it,” said she, ”there's another place in the attic where the book quite well might be. If you will excuse me, I'll go up and try to find it.”
Larry hastened to protest that he wouldn't trouble her for the world, but Aunt Mary was firm in her desire to please, though sorry to desert her guests. As the argument went on, Peter Storm abruptly got up and handed me a plate of cake. ”Heavens, no more!” I murmured in an anguished whisper. ”I feel as if I should never be able to look cake in the face again.”
”Don't then, but look me in the face,” he mumbled. I did so, surprised.
”Please ask to go and search for that book, and take me with you,” I saw, rather than heard, the words formed by his lips.
Mine not to question why! Mine but to do or die! Instantly I offered, in a honeyed tone, to save Aunt Mary for her guests, by myself searching the attic. (Dear Dad and I stayed with her over one melancholy Christmas when I was a kid. We arrived by train, of course, and saw nothing of the country. As for Wenham itself, it was feet deep in snow, so I saw nothing of that either, but I did see the attic. It was my refuge and my joy. I wors.h.i.+p garrets.) Of this episode I reminded my aunt, and a.s.sured her that, though my last visit had been so long ago, I remembered the topography of the attic. If she would tell me the place to look, I would guarantee to find the volume if it existed.
Aunt Mary proceeded at once to mention the date of that Christmas visit, and my age at the time, so now everybody who can be bothered reckoning up knows just how long I have been twenty-six. Having made this revelation to those whom it concerned and did not concern, she decided to accept my offer. I jumped up to go, and at the door, as if on a sudden thought, exclaimed, ”Oh, Mr. Storm, do come along and protect me from garret ghosts.”
He came, and we talked of indifferent things on the way up: of the house, and the steepness of the attic stairs. At the top of the steps, however, he changed his tone. Aunt Mary had mentioned a certain oak secretary-bookcase with gla.s.s doors, standing close to the head of the stairs, and as I steered for it, along a narrow lane between ancient trunks and packing cases, Peter said: ”Mrs. Winston, I've made up my mind to tell you something, and this is a good place to do it. When I've told you, you'll understand why I didn't want Miss Keddison to find that book of photographs, and why I don't even want it to exist in this house.”
Then he went on, and told me the most extraordinary and astonis.h.i.+ng story. I'd give anything to pa.s.s it on to you; and having got _so_ far, you'll curse me for not going farther! But I had to promise I wouldn't write or breathe the secret to any one except Jack. So, alas, you must wait till the embargo is taken off.
Peter wouldn't let me look for the little red volume described by Aunt Mary, because I was to say to her that I couldn't find it. He it was who opened the drawer of the secretary where she had thought the book might be, and I heard a rustling of papers for a minute or two. Then the drawer was shut. I asked no questions, but when we went down to report the failure of my quest I _fancied_ that the left side of Peter's chest was slightly--very slightly--more prominent than the right, as if he had something thicker than a handkerchief in his breast pocket.
I am writing this in my bedroom, by lamplight (no gas, no electricity for Aunt Mary), and instead of hating our visit and nearly peris.h.i.+ng, as we expected to do, Jack and I are enchanted that we came. It evidently _was_ to be, as servants say when they break one of your best cups. Now we may be able to help (?) along.
Much love.
Yours,
MOLLY OF THE GUILTY SECRET.
XXVI