CHAPTER IV
THE GARDEN WALL
It was very early when Oliver rolled out of bed next day, sleepy butdetermined. He had decided, at first, to pay no attention to AnthonyCrawford's suggestion, made evidently with malicious purpose; he had,indeed, almost forgotten it by the time he and Janet reached home. ButJanet had remembered, and she had brought up the question that eveningas they went up to their own quarters rather later than usual, sinceCousin Jasper had been sitting with them in the library and had seemedunwilling that they should leave him.
"There is something very wrong in this house," declared Janet."Hotchkiss doesn't know what it is, Mrs. Brown doesn't."
"I think the Beeman knows," Oliver volunteered suddenly, although hecould give no reason for his guess.
"Anyway," pursued Janet, "some one ought to know, for some one oughtto help Cousin Jasper. I am certain that he has no mean secrets, asAnthony Crawford said. And so I think one of us should climb up andlook over the wall. It had better be you," she added wisely butregretfully, "because, if we both try it, some one is sure to see us."
It was, therefore, Oliver who was stirring at sunrise, for hisinvestigations must be made before any one else was up. He let himselfout of the house very quietly and crossed the empty, silent garden. Hehad forgotten how beautiful a garden could be in the early morningwith the dew shining on every grass tip and with the flowers allradiant in the vividness of color of newly created things. There weregay-colored beds below the terrace and long borders at each side ofthe house, then a wide stretch of grass behind the garage, and beyondthat, back of the shrubs and the fruit trees and the thickly growingvines, was the wall. It was higher than the boundaries at the sidesand front of Cousin Jasper's place, perhaps to afford a better surfacefor the grapevines and pear trees trained against it, perhaps foranother reason.
Oliver walked along it slowly, looking up at the smooth bricks andwondering how it was to be climbed. The more difficult it appeared themore determined he became to get to the top. In the middle of the wallbehind a summerhouse stood a stout trellis, the support of anexceedingly thorny rose vine. Here, he decided, was the place toscramble up, but he must make haste, for people in the house would bewaking and would see him. Carefully he set a foot upon the lowest bar,found that it would hold, and began mounting upward.
There were trees beyond the wall, not the trimmed, well-kept kind thatgrew in Cousin Jasper's garden, but a scrubby growth of box elder andsilver-leaved poplar such as spring up in myriads where the grass isnever cut. Hanging over the top of the coping, he could peer throughtheir branches and see a house beyond. He was astonished to see theshingled roof rising so close by, for he had not thought that they hadneighbors who dwelt so near.
The house was a square one of yellow stone, with overhanging eaves andsmall windows and an old-fashioned stoop in front, over which the roofcame down in a long sweep. It must have been built a hundred yearsago, he thought, and it might have seemed a charming, comfortable oldplace were it not so unutterably dejected and dingy. Its windows werecracked, the grass grew tall and ragged upon its lawns, a litter ofrubbish lay about the back door, and the woodwork, that should havebeen white, was gray from want of paint.
"It looks as though the people who lived in it just--didn't care,"Oliver commented. "It is a nice old house, but it seems worn out anddiscouraged, somehow, like John Massey's cottage. I wonder who ownsit."
An open space between the dwelling and the wall had apparently oncebeen a broad lawn, then had been plowed up for the planting of a patchof grain, and had at last been left as a neglected waste for weeds andbrambles to flourish undisturbed. An old scarecrow still stoodknee-deep in the tangled green, left there after the field had beenabandoned, to drop slowly to pieces in the wind and rain. Thegrotesque figure, with its outstretched arms and hat set at a rakishangle, looked familiar for some incomprehensible reason. As Oliverclung to the wall, squinted through the leaves, and wondered why thatshould be, the mystery was suddenly solved. The door of the houseopened with a squeak of rusty hinges and somebody came out on thestep. It was Anthony Crawford. No wonder the scarecrow looked like itsmaster, for it was wearing his old clothes, garments to which therealways cling a vague resemblance to the person who once wore them.
A child with very yellow hair came running out upon the doorstone,laughing aloud at some small joke of his very own. When he saw AnthonyCrawford, however, he sobered suddenly and slipped back into the housewithout a sound. The man stood upon the step and stared, withnarrowed, penetrating eyes, over toward the wall. The gables andchimneys of Cousin Jasper's big house must show through the trees fromwhere he stood and, judging by the look with which he regarded them,it seemed that he hated the very roof that sheltered Jasper Peyton.The luxurious mansion was, in truth, a sharp contrast to the unkempt,gone-to-seed yellow farmhouse, although Oliver wondered whether,originally, the old stone dwelling had not been the more attractive ofthe two.
He leaned forward to see plainer, made an unwise move, and attractedthe attention of the man on the step. The boy flushed scarlet as theireyes met, for Anthony Crawford, without making a sound, went through apantomime of an ecstasy of glee. He had evidently expected to arouseOliver's curiosity by his suggestion the day before, and was overcomewith ill-natured delight to catch him in the very act of satisfyingit.
With a mutter of angry words, Oliver dropped back into the garden.
"I wasn't looking just because he told me to--I _wasn't_!" he keptrepeating.
As he walked toward the house he looked back more than once at thehigh wall, wondering at the things it hid. Here was squalid povertyalmost under the windows of the great, handsome house where CousinJasper lived with everything that heart could desire. It was thepoverty, too, of a member of his own family. Here was jealous enmityalso, a hatred that seemed to point ominously to trouble before them,to all the harm that could be accomplished by an angry, unscrupulousman. No wonder Cousin Jasper looked changed, and haunted. What holddid Anthony Crawford have upon his cousin; why should one have solittle and the other so much; why did that high wall forbid allintercourse with that strange neighbor? It was plain to Oliver at lastthat their night ride through lanes and crossroads had been necessarybecause the wall cut off any direct path, and that the goal of theirexpedition in the dark had been Anthony Crawford's sagging, one-hingedgate.
The morning sun was rising higher, the cheerful sound of a grasscutter was going up and down the garden, and smoke was mounting fromthe kitchen chimney. With some care, lest he should be asked the causeof his scratched hands and torn sleeve, Oliver slipped into the houseand sought his own room.
He and Janet talked over all that he had seen, but they could makelittle of it and were, indeed, more mystified than ever. At intervalsduring the day, they kept coming back to the subject and were stilltalking of it that evening as they sat in the library with the longwindows open upon the terrace and upon the flowering garden. They hadcome to no conclusion, however, when the study door opened and CousinJasper came toward them across the hall. He looked less troubledto-night, and was smiling as though he had been looking forward tothis hour they were to spend together. Yet his face changed in amoment at the sound of rattling wheels on the drive, followed by theappearance of a troubled Hotchkiss at the door, with the reluctantquestion:
"Will you see Mr. Crawford, sir?"
The visitor had not waited, but came pushing in behind him.
"We do not need to stand on ceremony," he said, "when it is all inthe same family. These are your two guests, eh? You need not introducethem, we have met before. I saw the boy very recently, in fact; heseems to be an enterprising fellow and was conducting someinvestigations of his own. Well, well, we won't talk of it now."
Oliver writhed inwardly under his sharp glance, but could muster noappropriate reply. He was thinking again that Anthony Crawford mighthave been handsome except for those restless gray eyes that were settoo near together. Although his host was obviously anxious to lead himaway to the study, the
visitor planted himself in the middle of thelibrary floor and stood his ground firmly.
"Have you thought over my offer, Jasper?" he said. "Are you ready togive me my share, or shall I take all?"
"I have given up what seemed your share," Jasper Peyton returnedsteadily, "and rather than quarrel with you further I would gladlygive you all. But I believe to shut one's eyes to justice is wrong,even in such a matter as this."
The other's calm broke suddenly under the force of ungovernable anger.
"You will be sorry," he cried. "You will lose more than those fatacres by the river and this fine house where you hoped to live sohappily--until I came. You won't give in, will you? Your highprinciples--or your stubbornness--will still hold you back from givingme what is mine? Then I can tell you that I will drag your good namedown where my own stands, I will publish that disgrace of mine thatyou hushed up to save the family pride. You will have people lookinginto your own past; they will be saying, 'If one of the family wascrooked, why not another?' There is always a pack of gossips andscandalmongers who are only too glad to snap at the heels of anyprominent man. I will loose them all upon you, Jasper Peyton, everyone."
He stopped, perhaps to draw breath, while Cousin Jasper stood beforehim, very silent and very white. The man's narrow eyes turned first toOliver who was bursting with unexpressed rage and then to Janet whowas regarding him with astonished and horrified disapproval.
"You do not like my way of talking?" he said to her. "I assure youthat all I have said is the truth."
"Then I should not think," she replied bluntly, "that you would havemany friends if you often tell them the truth in just that way."
"I have no friends," he declared. "Friends exist only to hurt you; itis my belief that men prosper better alone. Have no illusions, trustnobody, feel that every man's hand is against you, and then you willknow where you stand. That is my policy. Your soft-hearted cousin,here--his one mistake is that he trusts every one, he likes everybody.He even trusts me a little, on very small evidence, I can assure you.He would hate me if he could, but, because we are of the same blood,he cannot even bring himself to do that. Eh, Jasper, am I not right?"
"If you think you have said enough to these children," said CousinJasper, wincing, but still quiet, "perhaps we had better discuss thisbusiness further in some other room."
"Very well," returned the other, quite good-tempered again. "I shouldbe glad enough to have them hear the whole. But of course if there aresome things that you do not wish known----"
He walked away toward the study, quite at his ease, humming a tune andcasting sharp, appraising glances about him as though the thought ofownership were already in his mind. The door beyond the hall closedbehind them.
"What a hateful man!" cried Janet, almost in tears. "Poor CousinJasper! And we can't do anything to help him."
Oliver, equally miserable, stood at the window. The moon was coming upbehind the trees, a great red moon just past the full, misshapen andlopsided, that seemed to be laughing at them. He stamped his foot inangry impotence.
"And he doesn't seem to me even to believe in himself; it is as thoughhe were playing a part, just showing off." He pointed through thewindow at the disgraceful cart and dejected old horse standing beforethe wide white steps.
"I don't think he has to drive that wretched wagon at all. He justdoes it to make Cousin Jasper ridiculous."
The session in the study was prolonged so late that in the end Janetand Oliver abandoned their sleepy effort to wait until AnthonyCrawford should depart, and went dispiritedly upstairs to bed.
"I have made up my mind to one thing," said Oliver firmly, as theyreached the top of the stairs, "I am going to ask the Beeman what weought to do. I feel as though I had known him always and I am sure hecan help us."
"But ought we to tell him Cousin Jasper's secrets?" objected Janetdoubtfully, "and, by the way, what is his name? You never told me."
"Why--I don't know it," exclaimed Oliver in a tone of completeastonishment. "I never even noticed that I didn't. It doesn't matter,I will ask him to-morrow. And you understand, from the first minute hespeaks, that you can trust the Beeman."
He went away to his room where, so it seemed to him, he had beenasleep a long time before the rattle of wheels aroused him. He peereddrowsily through the window and saw the old white horse with its lean,erect driver move slowly down toward the gate, long-shadowed andunreal in the moonlight, fantastic omens of some unknown mischief thatwas brewing.
Next morning, as he and Janet left the car beside the orchard wall andclimbed the grassy slope of the hill, Oliver's one misgiving was lestthe Beeman should not be there. But yes, as they came up the steeppath they heard voices and smelled the sharp, pleasant odor of woodsmoke drifting down toward them. The wind was high to-day, singing andswooping about the hilltop, slamming the swinging door of the house,and scattering in all directions such bold bees as had ventured out toride down the boisterous breeze to the honey-filled meadows below.
Janet was as warmly welcomed as Oliver, and they were both bidden tocome in and sit down beside the table where Polly was sorting thelittle wooden boxes in which the bees build the honeycomb.
"We were just going to begin a story," said the Beeman. "Polly hasbeen clamoring for it for half an hour."
"But I wanted to ask you something," broke in Oliver, too much excitedfor good manners. "Couldn't you wait?"
"I believe," said the Beeman slowly, giving him an odd glance thatseemed to carry a message of complete understanding, "I believe thatsometimes it is better, when you are troubled about something, to cooloff and settle down, and come at an affair slowly. And I think this isone of the times."
Oliver nodded. He felt quite sure that the Beeman was right.