XIX
FRENZY
Five minutes--ten minutes--elapsed and I became greatly impatient. Iwalked the floor; I stared from the window; I did everything I couldthink of to pass away these unendurable moments of suspense withcreditable self-possession. But I failed utterly.
As the clock ticked off the quarter hour, and then the half, I grew notonly impatient but seriously alarmed, and flinging down the book I hadtaken up as a last resort, stepped from the room, in the hope of comingacross some one in the hall whom I could interrogate.
But the house seemed strangely quiet, and when I had walked the fulllength of the hall without encountering either maid or mistress, Isummoned up courage to return to the room I had left and ring the bell.
No answer, though I waited long for it.
Thinking that I had not pressed the button hard enough, I made a secondattempt, but again there was no answer.
Was anything amiss? Had she--
My thought did not complete itself. In sudden apprehension of I knew notwhat, I dashed from the room and made my way down stairs without furtherceremony.
The unnatural stillness which had attracted my attention above wasrepeated on the floor below. No one in the rooms, no one in thepassages.
Disturbed as I had not been yet by anything which had occurred inconnection with this harrowing affair, I leaped to the nearest door andstepped out on the lawn.
My first glance was toward the river. All was as usual there. With myworst fears dispelled, but still a prey to doubts for which as yet I hadno name, I moved toward the kitchen windows, expecting of course to findsome one there who would explain the situation to me. But not a headappeared at my call. The kitchen, too, was deserted.
"This is not chance," I involuntarily exclaimed, and was turning towardthe stables when I perceived a child, the son of one of the gardeners,crossing the lawn at a run, and hailing him, asked where everybody hadgone that the house seemed deserted.
He looked back but kept on running, shouting as he did so:
"I guess they're all down at the bungalow! I'm going there. Men aredigging up the cellar. Mrs. Ocumpaugh says she's afraid Miss Gwendolen'sbody is buried there."
Aghast and perhaps a trifle conscience-stricken, I stood stock-still inthe sunshine. So this was what I had done! Driven her to frenzy; rousedher imagination to such a point that she saw her darling--always herdarling even if another woman's child--lying under the clay across whichI had attempted simply to prove that she had been carried. Or--no! Iwould not think that! A detective of my experience outwitted by thisstricken, half-dead woman whom I had trembled to see try to stand uponher feet? Impossible! Yet the thought brought the blood to my cheek.
Digging up the bungalow cellar! That meant destroying those footprintsbefore I had secured a single impression of the same. I should haveroused her curiosity only, not her terror.
Now all might be lost unless I could arrive in time to--do what? Orderthe work stopped? With what face could I do that with her standing by inall the authority of motherhood--frenzied motherhood--seeking thepossible body of her child! My affair certainly looked dubious. Yet Istarted for the bungalow like the rest, and on a run, too. PerhapsProvidence would favor me and some expedient suggest itself by which Imight still save the clue upon which so many hopes hung.
The excitement which had now drawn every person on the place in the onedirection, was at its height as I burst through the thicket into thepath running immediately about the bungalow. Those who could get in atthe door had done so, filling the room whence Gwendolen had disappeared,with awe-struck men and chattering women. Some had been allowed todescend through the yawning trap-door, down which all were endeavoringto peer, and, fortified by this fact, I armed myself with an appearanceof authority despite my sense of presumption, and pushed and worked myown way to these steps, saying that I had come to aid Mrs. Ocumpaugh,whose attention I declared I had been the first to direct to this place.
Struck with my manner if not with my argument, they yielded to myimportunity and allowed me to pass down. The stroke of the spade and theharsh voice of the man directing the work greeted my disquieted ears.With a bound I cleared the last half-dozen steps and, alighting on thecellar bottom, was soon able, in spite of the semi-darkness, to lookabout me and get some notion of the scene.
A dozen men were working--the full corps of gardeners without doubt--anda single glance sufficed to show me that such of the surface as had notbeen upturned by their spades had been harried by their footsteps.Useless now to promulgate my carefully formed theory, with any hope ofproof to substantiate it. The crushed bonbon, the piled-up boxes and thefreshly sawed hole were enough without doubt to establish the fact thatthe child had been carried into the walled-up room above, but the linkwhich would have fixed the identity of the person so carrying her wasgone from my chain of evidence for ever. She who should have had thegreatest interest in establishing this evidence was leaning on the armof Miss Porter and directing, with wavering finger and a wild air, themovements of the men, who, in a frenzy caught from her own, dug here anddug there as that inexorable finger pointed.
Sobs choked Miss Porter; but Mrs. Ocumpaugh was beyond all such signs ofgrief. Her eyes moved; her breast heaved; now and then a confusedcommand left her lips, but that was all. Yet to me she was absolutelyterrifying, and it took all the courage left from my disappointment forme to move so as to attract her attention. When I saw that I hadsucceeded in doing this, I regretted the impulse which had led me tobreak into her mood. The change which my sudden appearance caused in herwas too abrupt; too startling. I feared the effects, and put up my handin silent deprecation as her lips essayed to move in what might be somevery disturbing command. If she heeded it I can not say. What she saidwas this:
"IT'S THE CHILD--I'M LOOKING FOR THE CHILD!"]
"It's the child--I'm looking for the child! She was brought here. Youproved that she was brought here. Then why don't we find her, or--or herlittle innocent body?"
I did not attempt an answer; I dared not--I merely turned away into acorner, where I should be out of the way of the men. A thought wasrising in my mind; a thought which might have led to some definiteaction if her voice had not risen shrilly and with a despairingutterance in these words:
"Useless! It is not here she will be found. I was mad to think it. Pullup your spades and go."
A murmur of relief from one end of the cellar to the other, and everyspade was drawn out of the ground.
"I could have told you," ventured one more hardy than the rest, "thatthere was no use disturbing this old clay for any such purpose. Any onecould see that no spade has been at work here before in years."
"I said that I was mad," she repeated, and waved the men away.
Slowly they retreated with clattering spades and a heavy tread. Themurmur which greeted them above slowly died out, and the bungalow wasdeserted by all but our three selves. When quite sure of this, I turned,and Miss Porter's eyes met mine with a reproachful glance easy enoughfor me to understand.
"I will go, too," whispered Mrs. Ocumpaugh. "Oh! this has been likelosing my darling for the second time!"
Real grief is unmistakable. Recognizing the heartfelt tone in whichthese words were uttered, I recurred to the idea of frenzy with all thesympathy her situation called for. Yet I felt that I could not let herleave before we had come to some understanding. But how express myself?How say here and now in the presence of a sympathetic but unenlightenedthird party what it would certainly be difficult enough for me to utterto herself in the privacy of that secluded apartment in which we had metand talked before our confidence was broken into by this impetuous actof hers.
Not seeing at the moment any natural way out of my difficulties, I stoodin painful confusion, conscious of Miss Porter's eyes and also consciousthat unless some miracle came to my assistance I must henceforth playbut a sorry figure in this affair, when my eyes, which had fallen to theground, chanced upon a morsel of paper so insignificant in size and ofsuch doubtful appea
rance that the two ladies must have wondered to seeme stoop and with ill-concealed avidity pick it up and place it in mypocket.
Mrs. Ocumpaugh, whose false strength was fast leaving her, now mutteredsome words which were quite unintelligible to me, though they causedMiss Porter to make me a motion very expressive of a dismissal. I didnot accept it as such, however, without making one effort to regain myadvantage. At the foot of the steps I paused and glanced back at Mrs.Ocumpaugh. She was still looking my way, but her chin had fallen on herbreast, and she seemed to sustain herself erect only by a powerfuleffort. Again her pitiable and humiliating position appealed to me, andit was with some indication of feeling that I finally said:
"Am I not to have an opportunity of finishing the conversation sounhappily interrupted, Mrs. Ocumpaugh? I am not satisfied, and I do notbelieve you can be, with the partial disclosures I then made. Afford me,I pray, a continuation of that interview, if only to make plain to meyour wishes. Otherwise I may fall into some mistake--say or do somethingwhich I might regret--for matters can not stand where they are. You knowthat, do you not, madam?"
"Adele! go! go!" This to Miss Porter. "I must have a few words more withMr. Trevitt. I had forgotten what I owe him in the frenzy whichpossessed me."
"Do you wish to talk to him _here_?" asked that lady, with very markedanxiety.
"No, no; it is too cold, too dark. I think I can walk to Mrs. Carew's.Will you join me there, Mr. Trevitt?"
I bowed; but as she passed near me in going out, I whispered in her ear:
"I should suggest that we hold our talk anywhere but at Mrs. Carew'shouse, since she is liable to be the chief subject of our conversation."
"Now?"
"Now, more than ever. Her share in the child's disappearance was noteliminated or affected in any way by the destruction of herfootprints."
"I will go back to the house; I will see him in my own room," Mrs.Ocumpaugh suddenly announced to her greatly disturbed companion. "Mr.Trevitt will follow in a few minutes. I must have time to think--tocompose myself--to decide--"
She was evidently thinking aloud. Anxious to save her from anyself-betrayal, I hastily interrupted her, saying quietly:
"I will be at your boudoir door in a half-hour from now. I myself havesomething to think of in the interim."
"Be careful!" It was Miss Porter who stopped to utter this word in myear. "Be very careful, I entreat. Her heart-strings are strained almostto breaking."
I answered with a look. She could not be more conscious of this than Iwas.