CHAPTER IX
HUNTER'S INN
When Mr. Ransom re-entered the hotel, which he did under a swoop of windwhich turned his umbrella inside out and drenched him through in aninstant, it was to find the house in renewed turmoil, happily explainedby the landlady, whom he ran across on the stairs.
"Oh, Mr. Johnston!" she cried as she edged by him with a pile ofbed-linen on her arm. "Please excuse all this fuss. Another guest iscoming--I have just got a telegram. A famous lawyer from New York. Ourhouse will be full to-night."
"Where will you put him?" inquired Mr. Ransom with a good-natured air."There seem to be no unoccupied rooms on this hall."
"More's the pity," she sighed, with a half-inquiring, half deprecatorylook at this fortunate first comer. "I shall have to put him below, poorman. I'm afraid he won't like it, but--" Mr. Ransom remained silent."But," she went on with sudden cheerfulness, "I will make it up in thesupper. That shall be as good a one as our kitchen will provide. Fourcity guests all in one day! That's a good many for this quiet hotel."
"Four!" retorted Mr. Ransom as he turned towards his own door. "Thenumber has grown by two since I went out."
"Oh, I didn't tell you. The lady--her name's Mrs. Ransom--brings hersister with her. The little girl who--yes, I am coming." This latter tosome perplexed domestic down the hall, who had already called her twice."I mustn't stand talking here," she apologized as she hurried away. "Butdo take care of yourself. You are dreadful wet. How I wish the weatherwould clear up!"
Mr. Ransom wished the same. To say nothing of his own inconvenience,it was a source of anxiety to him that she should have to ride theseinevitable ten miles in such a chilling downpour. Besides, a storm ofthis kind complicated matters; gave him less sense of freedom, shut himin, as it were, with the mystery he was there to unravel, but which forsome reason, hardly explainable to himself, filled him with such a senseof foreboding that he had moments in which he thought only of escape. Buthis part must be played and he prepared himself to play it well. Havingchanged his clothes and warmed himself with a draft of whisky, he satdown at his table and was busy writing when the maid came in to ask if hewould wait for his supper till the coach came, or have it earlier andserved in his own room.
With an air of petulance, he looked up, rapped on the table, and replied:
"Here! here! I'm too busy to meet strangers. An early supper and an earlybed. That's the way I get through _my_ work."
The girl stared and went softly out. Work!--that? Sitting at a table andjust putting words on paper. If it was beds he had to drag around now, ora dozen hungry, clamoring men to feed all at once, and all with the bestcuts, or stairs to run up fifty times a day, or--but I need not fill outher thought. It made her voluble in the kitchen and secured him theprivacy which his incognito demanded.
His supper over, he waited feverishly for the coach, which ordinarily wasdue at seven in the evening. To-night it bade fair to be late, owing tothe bad condition of the roads and the early darkness. The wind had gonedown, but it still rained. Not quite so tempestuously as when he roamedthe cemetery, but steadily enough to keep eaves and branches dripping.The sound of this ceaseless drip was eerie enough to his strained senses,waiting as he was for an event which might determine the happiness or themisery of his life. He tried to forget it and wrote diligently, puttingdown words whose meaning he did not stop to consider, so that he hadsomething to show to prying eyes if such should ever glance through hispapers. But the sound had got on his brain, and presently became soinsistent that he rose again and flung his window up to see if he weredeceived in thinking he heard a deep roar mingling with the incessantpatter, a roar which the wind had hitherto prevented him from separatingfrom the general turmoil, but which now was apparent enough to call forsome explanation.
He had made no mistake; a steady sound of rushing water filled theoutside air. A fall was near, a fall by means of which, no doubt, thefactories were run.
Why had he not thought of this? Why had its sound held a note of menacefor him, awakening feelings he did not understand and from which hesought to escape? A factory fall swollen by the rain! What was therein this to make his hand shake and cause the deepening night to seempositively hateful to him? With a bang he closed the window; then hesoftly threw it up again. Surely he had heard the noise of wheelssplashing through the pools of the highway. The coach was coming! andwith it--what?
His room was in the gable end facing the road. From it he could lookdirectly down on the porch of entrance, a fact which he had thankfullynoted at his first look. As he heard the bustle which now broke outbelow, and caught the gleam of a lantern coming round the corner of thehouse, he softly stepped to his lamp and put it out, then took his standat the window. The coach was now very near; he could hear the strainingof the harness and the shouts of the driver. In another moment it drewlumberingly up. A man from the hotel advanced with an umbrella; a younglady was helped out who, standing one moment in the full glare of thelights thrown upon her from the open door, showed him the face and formhe knew so well and loved--yes, loved for all her mystery, as he knew bythe wild beating of his heart, and the irresistible impulse he felt torush down and receive her in his arms, to her great terror doubtless, butto his own boundless satisfaction and delight. But strong as thetemptation was, he did not yield to it. Something in her attitude, as shestood there, talking earnestly to the driver, held him spellbound andalert. All was not right; there was passion in her movements and in hervoice. What she said drew the heads of landlady and maid from the opendoor and caused the man with the lantern to peer past her into the coachand backward along the road. What had happened? Nothing that concernedthe lawyer. Mr. Ransom could see him disentangling himself from thecoverings in front where he had ridden with the driver, but the sisterwas not there. No other lady got out of the coach even after his youngwife had finished her conversation with the driver and disappeared intothe house.
"How can I stand this?" thought Mr. Ransom as the coach finally rattledand swished away towards the stable. "I must hear, I must see, I must_know_ what is going on down there."
This because he heard voices in the open hall. Crossing to his owndoorway, he listened. His wife and Mr. Harper had stepped into the officeclose by the front door. He could hear now and then a word of what theysaid, but not all. Venturing a step further, he leaned over thebalustrade which extended almost up to his own door. This was better; hecould now catch most of the words and sometimes a sentence. They allreferred to the sister. "Temper--her own way--deaf--_would_ walk in allthe rain and slush.--A strange character--you can't imagine," and othersimilar phrases, uttered in a passionate and half-angry voice. Thenejaculations from Mrs. Deo, and a word or two of caution or injunction inthe polished tones of the lawyer, followed by a sudden rush towards thestaircase, over which he was leaning.
"Show me my room," rang up in Georgian's bell-like tones; "then I'll tellyou what to do about _her_. She isn't easily managed."
"But she'll get her death!" expostulated Mrs. Deo; "to say nothing of herlosing her way in this dreadful darkness. Let me send--"
"Not yet," broke in his young wife's voice, with just the hint ofasperity in it. "She must trudge out her tantrum first. I think her ideawas to show that she remembered the old place and the lane where she usedto pick blackberries. You needn't worry about her getting cold. She'slived a gipsy life too many years to mind wind and wet. But it'sdifferent with _me_. I'm all in a shiver. Which is my room, please?"
She was now at the head of the stairs. Mr. Ransom had closed his door,but not latched it, and as she turned to go down the hall, followed bythe chattering landlady, he swung it open for an instant and so caughtone full glimpse of her beloved figure. She was dressed in a longrain-coat and had some sort of modish hat on her head, which, in spite ofits simplicity, gave her a highly fashionable air. A woman to draw alleyes, but such a mystery to her husband! Such a mystery to all who knewher story, or rather her actions, for no one seemed to know her story.
Events d
id not halt. He heard her give this and that order, open a doorand look in; say a word of commendation, ask if the key was on her sideof the partition, then shut the door again and open another.
"Ah, this looks comfortable," she exclaimed in great satisfaction. "Isthat my bag? Put it down, please. I'll open it. Now, if you'll leave me amoment alone, I'll soon be ready. But you mustn't expect me to eat tillAnitra comes. I couldn't do that. Oh, she's a dreadful trial, Mrs. Deo;you have a motherly face, and I can tell you that the girl is just eatingup my life. If she weren't my very self, deafened by hard usage, andrendered coarse and wilful by years of a miserable and half-starved life,I couldn't bear it, especially after what I've sacrificed for her. I'veparted with my husband--but I can't talk, I can't. I would not have saidso much if you hadn't looked so kind."
All this her husband heard, followed by a sob or two, quickly checked,however, by a high strained laugh and the gay remark:
"I'm wet enough, but she'll be dripping. I'm afraid she'll have to haveher supper in her room. She got out at the new schoolhouse and startedto come through the lane. It must be a weltering pool. If I'm dressed intime I'll come down and meet her at the door. Meanwhile don't wait forus; give Mr. Harper his supper."
Her door closed, then suddenly opened again. "If she don't come in tenminutes, let some one go to the head of the lane. But be sure it's acareful person who won't startle her. I've got to put on another dress,so don't bother me. I'll hear her when she enters her own room and willspeak to her then--if I dare; I'm not sure that I shall." And the doorshut to again, this time with a snap of the lock. Quiet reigned once morein the hall save for Mrs. Deo's muttered exclamations as she made herlaborious way down-stairs. Had this good woman been less disturbed andnot in so much of a hurry, she might have noted that the door of herliterary guest's room was ajar, and stopped to ask why the lamp remainedunlit.
For five minutes, for ten minutes, he watched and listened, passingcontinually to and fro from door to window. But his vigilance remainedunrewarded by any further movement in the hall, or by the sight of anapproaching figure up the road. He began to feel odd, and was askinghimself what sort of fool-work this was, when a clatter of voices rosebelow, followed by heavy steps on the veranda. One or two men were goingout, and as it seemed to him the landlady too, for he heard her say justas the door closed:
"Let me on ahead; she must see a woman's kind face first, poor child, orwe shall not succeed in getting her in. I know all about these wildones."
PART II
The Call of the Waterfall