The Girl of the Woods

  Revel

  Mandy barely finished reading the note before she heard Irving drive into the garage, and she folded it carefully and stuffed it safely in the ample bosom of her kitchen dress. She hadn’t decided yet whether she would tell Irving tonight or wait until a more favorable time. Anyhow, since the boy had written a note to his father, why not let it rest at that?

  So Irving came in and stormed around and blamed Mandy in all the ways he knew, which were many, for having let the boy escape so near mealtime. Then the two settled down to a gloomy evening, Irving to worry, look out the windows, call up the station, call up several of Revel’s friends; and Mandy to grin secretly, that for once she knew more than Irving did about the perplexities of the household. More and more it appeared to her that she must not tell about the letter Revel had written her. At least not until his father got home and had seen his own letter. Then if she wanted to show it she could. Nobody would know when it reached her. It had no date on it, and she need only tell that some strange boy left it at the door for her. So Mandy set out Irving’s dinner, listened to his worries, and hugged the note inside her dress, thinking how nice it was that the boy had remembered to thank her for the little no-count things she had done for him. It began to be like a little tune singing itself in her heart. Mandy hadn’t ever had very many things in her life to make her happy, but she cared a lot for the boy who had grown up in the house under her ministrations, though since his mother died she hadn’t been allowed to show much tenderness toward him. She came as near to loving him as anything else in her life.

  But as she watched Irving’s uneasy state, she began to feel sorry for him. For Irving knew he would be called to account most severely if Mr. Radcliffe came home and the boy was not there. He sat down in his usual place with the evening paper spread before him, but he did not read. He only sat frowning across the room at the face of the clock on the mantel, trying to think where the boy had gone. He went over in his mind all the places in their vicinity that would attract a boy of the age of Revel. There were the pool rooms. A lot of the young fellows hung around them, but Revel had always been kept close to his home. His father required evening study of him, homework, and then early to bed. Perhaps Revel, knowing that his father was to be away several days, was feeling his freedom and trying out some of the things the other boys did. Though there had never been any show of rebellion in such a way. He would never suspect the lad of playing pool. His discipline had been too long and severe. Still, perhaps he ought to go and see. Perhaps it would be expected of him.

  He glanced at the clock. It was getting on to ten o’clock. He wasn’t as young as he once was. He dreaded the thought of getting out the car and going back to the village, sneaking around to see if he could find Revel. He tried to think of somewhere else he might have gone. The drugstore for soda, or candy. To meet the girls? Though Revel had never been a lad to have much to do with girls. Perhaps there was a girl now, and she had asked him to her home. But Mandy said he had not been home for dinner. Maybe he had been invited to someone’s house to dinner! Well, perhaps— But there was no end of things he might have done. He hadn’t been in the habit of going out to parties, not even high school parties. His father hadn’t favored such things. But perhaps all the while he had wanted to go. It wasn’t right to keep any lad as close as this boy had been kept, thought Irving. Sometime there was bound to come a reaction. Just hedged about with laws, the boy had been. But there was nothing he could do about that. His father was his father and would never brook a word of remonstrance. Certainly not from a servant.

  With a great sigh Irving rose and wound the clock, just to make a little more time before he had to go out and get the car. He might, of course, talk it over with Mandy, but what would Mandy know about it? She would just get excited and worry about his going out so late. No, he’d better say nothing. So he wandered out to the back door, and Mandy followed him, calling sharply, “Where you going, Irving?”

  “Oh, I just thought I’d go outside and look around, see if I could see any sign of Mr. Hiram.” He said it as casually as he could.

  Mandy caught her breath and felt guilty. She opened her mouth to speak about Revel’s letter to her, and then closed it again. If she told Irving where Revel had gone he might think he had to telegraph his father, and Mandy had a strong feeling that Revel’s father had never been fair to him. It was time he found it out.

  But by the time she caught her breath again and decided she must tell Irving, she heard the car driving out and knew it was too late.

  Irving came home very late, later than he had been out in many a year. He had dragged his respectable self from pool room to pool room in the neighboring villages, from tavern to tavern, even from roadhouse to roadhouse, and made a thorough survey of all the disreputable places he knew. Not that Revel had ever manifested any desire to go to such places, but Irving knew that Revel’s father would be sure to think of them first and ask if Irving was sure about them. He always expected the worst of his son, and Irving wanted to be able to say that he had not been in any of those places. He came home more worn and weary than he had been for years, and Mandy would have felt deep compunction and probably would have hurried to divulge her secret of the letter, if she had been awake. But Mandy, not having the burden of responsibility upon her that Irving bore, was sleeping soundly and did not hear him come in, and Irving was too disheartened to waken her and hear her outcry of distress. For he was sure that was what it would be if Mandy should thoroughly comprehend the situation. For Mandy was very fond of Revel, and womanlike was the frequent haunt of fears of various kinds.

  So Irving went to his bed and tried to think what he should do in the morning in case the boy had not yet returned. At last he fell into an uneasy doze, from which he awakened at a most unearthly hour. He stole from his bed and out to the car to try and look up one or two other places he had thought of to search for Revel.

  Mandy awoke at the sound of the car going out the drive and hurried to the window, too late to call. Now what was Irving going to do next, and what trouble had she brought upon herself by not telling Irving about that letter?

  Still, if she had told Irving, he might have thought it his duty to drive to New England and bring back Revel before his father got there. Mandy had no idea how far away New England was, and her reasoning seemed quite sensible to herself.

  So she read her letter over again and gloated a little all by herself, that whatever should happen she had a little word all her own from the young master himself. And she needn’t tell anyone about it if she didn’t want to. Most of the time she thought she wouldn’t ever tell it even to Irving. Not so long as they were working under Mr. Radcliffe.

  So she went to work and got herself a nice breakfast under the impression that she was getting it for Irving. But Irving didn’t come back to eat it, and after a while she got to worrying about him. The boy was safe with his grandfather by now, and perhaps having a nice comforting talk with him before he died, but what was she going to do about Irving? Suppose something had happened to him? Maybe he had a smashup and was lying in a hospital somewhere, nobody knowing who he was nor where to telephone. She was too utterly ignorant of licenses and such to know there would be something about the car to show where he belonged if he had an accident. But she began to think what a faithful, even though sometimes cranky, husband he had always been. What a perfect record he had as a servant! How exceedingly respectable he was! How he came from a fine race of butlers and servants of high degree. And although he was often hard to live with, it was mainly because he always put first the interests of the man for whom he was working, no matter how wrong and hard that man might be.

  Thinking of all these things, Mandy got out a bitter salt tear or two and let them roll down her ripe-apple countenance. And then she brushed them meticulously out of sight, washed her hands, and set out to supply the house with some of the provisions of which the master and his servant both were fond. She baked cakes and pies, almost as if she knew
that a new mistress was coming soon to inspect the house and everything concerned therewith. Somehow Mandy always seemed to have a sixth sense to be prepared for unexpected happenings before they came. And so when Irving finally returned late in the afternoon with a drawn gray look on his face and his eyes wild with weariness, Mandy had a tasty dinner well under way.

  “Boy come yet?” asked Irving through white, set lips.

  Mandy shook her head with an almost cheerful grin.

  “You didn’t find no sign of him?” she asked.

  “Not a trace nor a word,” said Irving dejectedly. “Seems like he’s disappeared off the earth.”

  “Well, ef you hada stayed home and tended to your business, you mighta been saved a lotta trouble. I cud of helped ya out a lot ef you’da been here.”

  “What do you mean, Mandy, you help? What do you know about this business?”

  “Well, I know ’cause I had a letter from the young master,” said Mandy with a toss of her head.

  “A letter from Mr. Hiram?” exclaimed Irving. “Came in the morning’s mail? Mandy Hollister, you mean you went and looked over the mail when you know Mr. Radcliffe said I wasn’t to let anyone see the mail but myself?”

  “No, I didn’t look over your old mail,” said Mandy sharply, “and the letter didn’t come in the mail. It come by messenger boy.”

  “A messenger boy? You mean a special delivery from the post office?”

  “No, it wasn’t no post office letter. It was just a boy brung it to the door, and he wasn’t any boy I knowed. He jes’ handed it ta me an’ made off as fast as he could run. He said Mr. Hiram sent it to me, and I was too took up studyin’ the letter without any glasses on, to notice the boy till he was gone.”

  “Well, get on, won’t you?” said Irving impatiently. “What did the young master say? Where is he?”

  “The letter sayed there had come a message that his grandfather Revel was a-dyin’ and wanted his gran’son ta come quick. An’ I reckon that boy just made off soon as there was a train.”

  “To his grandfather’s!” exclaimed Irving, turning a white face toward her. “And a pretty state of things that’ll be. I stopped at the post office and found a telegram from the Boss. He’s coming home on the six thirty tonight, and he may be bringing a lady with him!”

  “A lady!” said Mandy, and now it was her turn to turn white. “What’s he bringin’ a lady fur? He gonta git married again?”

  “I don’t know what he’s going to do, but I know what he’ll be if he finds his son’s gone. Especially when he finds where he’s gone. He hates those Revels like poison, and I don’t mean maybe! And it’ll be as much as my job—our job—is worth that I didn’t stick around and keep him from going. Where is that letter you got?”

  Mandy produced it from the bosom of her dress, and Irving read it.

  “That young scamp! He knew what his father would say!” said Irving, with greatly troubled eyes. “Now I’ve got to tell him, I suppose.”

  “I don’t see why you gotta tell him nothing,” said Mandy, “only just thet the boy’s gone. He wrote a letter to his father. Let him read that. You got no call to get inta this with both feet. You ken blame it all on the boy. He ain’t here ta suffer, so it can’t do him any harm.”

  “You say he wrote the Boss a letter? Are you sure of that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I went and looked where he put it on his father’s bureau. I saw it there. All sealed up nice, without no stamp on it. You’re not supposed ta look out fer that room, why do you say anything at all about it, just that Revel ain’t home?”

  “Yes? You know what he’ll say. He’ll be raging.”

  “Well, you can’t do nothin’ about it. Jes’ tell him he left a letter for him, that Mandy found it when she was dustin’ up.”

  “Yes? You want to lose your job, do you?”

  “Well, ef there’s another woman comin’ here, mebbe I’d jes’ as soon,” said Mandy, with an independent swag of her gingham skirt.

  “Woman! What’s that to you? She might be all right.”

  “Yeah? Well I ain’t sa anxious ta say. I’m tired of this here bein’ feared ta call yer name yer own. What did yer telegram say, anyway?”

  “Oh, just said he might be home tonight, or he might stay someplace on the way. Then he said he might bring a lady with him, and to get the guest room ready. If she didn’t come with him she might come a day later, but in any event get the house ready for company.”

  “Ummm!” said Mandy, with her arms akimbo and her head irate. “I thought that would be comin’ ta this house someday, an’ now it’s come! Say, Irving, do you reckon that boy knowed about this lady? Do you reckon that’s the reason of all these carryin’s-on?”

  “What carryings-on, Mandy?” snapped Irving crossly.

  “Why, his not comin’ to meals, and kitein’ off ta his grampa’s?”

  “Certainly not!” said Irving. “You think that kid would make up all that story about his grampa being near to death? He’s no liar, that kid. He never was. You know that, Mandy. He’d never get all that story up!”

  “Well, I don’t like this lady comin’, an’ I don’t reckon the boy would, either.”

  “Well, hold your horses, Mandy, she isn’t here yet, so don’t start judging her before her time. She might be some aunt or other.”

  “Well, I ain’t goin’ ta stand fer no aunt, neither!” said Mandy irately.

  “Mandy, whatever you do, you’ve got to get this house in order before the Boss comes, and you know that, so get to work.”

  “The house is always in order,” said Mandy with a toss of her head, “an’ I gotta big chocolate cake, like what the Boss likes, an’ a rhuberb pie, an’ a napple, an’ fresh bread an’ rolls set. What more do ya want?”

  Irving subsided, and Mandy stalked away upstairs and subjected the guest room to a thorough going-over, putting on clean sheets and even washing the curtains. She put out the best bureau scarf and fresh towels, as she used to do for her dead mistress.

  Irving spent a lot of time making the lawn fine, and scrubbed the garage floor and washed the best car, but his thoughts were greatly troubled. He knew that for at least the first few minutes after Mr. Radcliffe’s arrival the storm would break over his own head, no matter what happened, and he almost prayed, much as he dreaded it to happen, that the lady would arrive with the master. He certainly wouldn’t carry on quite so much in her presence as he would if he came alone.

  But, after all, when the six-thirty train came in, Mr. Radcliffe came alone. He told Irving that the lady would appear the next afternoon. And then, after Irving uttered his usual deferential “Yes, sir!” the Boss began.

  “Is my son at home?”

  “No, sir, that is, he wasn’t when I left. I came down right early to get a few things that Mandy wanted.”

  “Not home yet? I thought I told you to tell him not to stay out so late again. Has he been at home every night on time?”

  “No, sir, not since you’ve been away.”

  “Well, where has he been? What explanation does he offer?”

  “Well, sir, I believe he left you a note. Mandy found it on your bureau.”

  “A note!” frowned the father. “What did it say?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. It was a sealed note. Mandy didn’t open it, of course.”

  “Oh, I see, of course not,” said the father, growing angrier every minute. “But Irving, something has got to be done about this. It seems to me if you had been watching, this could have been avoided. You know I gave you strict orders.”

  “I know, sir, quite right, sir. But everything seemed to be all right, sir, going on as usual, and you know I had your orders to be away at the farm getting produce, and there were several errands you gave me. Besides, the car needed attention, and you told me to take it to the garage, and wait for it, and watch the man and see what was really the matter.”

  “There, there, Irving. That will do,” said the man. “I told you those things,
of course, but I expected you would use common sense and do those errands when it did not interfere with watching over the house and my son. However, we’ll get together and sift this thing down. Hiram has got to understand that I will be obeyed.”

  “Of course, sir! You’re quite right, sir! And I felt quite badly when I got home to find the lad was gone. But now, Mr. Radcliffe, about this lady you’re bringing tomorrow. Was it the green guest room you meant we were to prepare? And is she to remain long, or only for the night?”

  They were driving into the Radcliffe place now, and Irving cannily stretched his questions to fit the time as they drew up before the steps.

  “I’ll tell you later about the lady,” said Mr. Radcliffe, stepping out of the car and slamming the door. “Where did you say my son’s letter was?”

  “In your own room, sir. On your bureau, I think, was where Mandy found it when she went in there to put clean towels.”

  The master of the house stamped up the steps and disappeared inside the door, and the rest of the evening was fully as stormy as Irving had expected. The telephone grew noisy with the messages for Western Union, as the Boss shouted into the receiver. Mandy was greatly distressed because she knew she would be blamed that the dinner was spoiled on account of taking so much time over the telephone. And she was. But then she was quite used to it, and she had the letter from Revel still in the bosom of her dress.

  But though the master lingered long after he had finished eating, asking questions, giving directions, and thundering orders to both Irving and Mandy, still they didn’t learn much about the lady who was coming.

  And then, it was the lady herself, the next morning, who called up and said she couldn’t come for a couple of days longer, which gave Hiram Radcliffe more time to devote himself to harrowing the feelings of his son by more messages.