“Preacher, this place is full of devils ... not a doubt of it. That Anna Marsh doesn’t stay in her proper grave. Dr. Blythe can laugh all he likes ... but she never would behave herself ... and she drags old Winthrop out with her. Alec’d better give the place away if anyone would take it. I know I wouldn’t. I wish I could get Alice ... and Lucia ... out of it. They’ll be found strangled like the kitten some night ...”
Curtis was thoroughly exasperated. It seemed just as impossible that any one person in the house could have done all the things as that any person out of the house could have done them. Sometimes, so befuddled and bamboozled did he feel, that he was almost tempted to believe that the place was haunted. If not, he was being made a fool of. Either conclusion was intolerable. It was tacitly understood that the occurrences were not to be talked of outside, except with Dr. Blythe or Mr. Sheldon. He could never get any satisfaction out of the former and little out of Mr. Sheldon, who spent a good deal of his time with his books in the parsonage, sometimes reading there till late at night. But all his talks and guesses and researches left him exactly where he was at first ... except that he decided that Mr. Sheldon, recalling Epworth Rectory, did believe in the ghosts and that Dr. Blythe, for some undiscoverable reason, seemed to look upon the whole thing as a sort of joke ... heaven knew why.
Curtis developed insomnia and couldn’t sleep even when the house was quiet. He lost his keen interest in his work ... he was under an obsession. Both Dr. Blythe and Mr. Sheldon noticed it and advised him to find another boarding house. By this time Curtis knew he could not do this. For by now he knew he loved Lucia.
He realized this one night when the banging of the big front door had aroused him from some late studies. He put his book aside and went downstairs. The door was shut but not locked as it had been when the household retired. As he tried the knob Lucia came out of the dining room, carrying a small lamp. She was crying ... he had never seen Lucia cry before, although once or twice he had suspected tears. Her hair hung over her shoulder in a thick braid. It made her look like a child ... a tired, broken-hearted child. And then all at once he knew what she meant to him.
“What is the matter, Lucia?” he asked gently, unconscious that for the first time he had used her Christian name.
“Look,” sobbed Lucia, holding the lamp up in the dining room doorway.
At first Curtis could not exactly understand what had happened. The room seemed to be a perfect maze of ... of ... what was it? Coloured yarns! They crossed and recrossed it. They were wound in and out of the furniture ... around the chair rungs ... about the table legs. The room looked like a huge spider’s web.
“My afghan,” said Lucia. “My new afghan! I finished it yesterday. It’s completely ravelled out ... I’ve been working at it since New Year’s. Oh, I’m a fool to mind this ... so many worse things have happened. But I have so little time to do anything like that. And the malice of it! Who is it that hates me so? Don’t tell me a ghost would do anything like this!”
She broke away from Curtis’ outstretched hand and ran upstairs still sobbing. Curtis stood rather dazedly in the hall. He knew now that he had loved her from their first meeting. He could have laughed at himself for his long blindness. Love her ... of course he loved her ... he had known it the moment he had seen the tears in her brave, sweet eyes. Lucia in tears ... tears that he had no right or power to wipe away. The thought was unbearable.
Alice called to him as he passed her door. He unlocked it and went in. The fresh, sweet wind of night was blowing through her window and a faint light was breaking behind the church.
“I’ve had a rather bad night,” said Alice. “But it has been quiet, hasn’t it? Except for the door, of course.”
“Quiet enough,” said Curtis grimly. “Our ghost has amused himself with a nice, quiet job. Ravelling out Lucia’s afghan. Miss Harper, I am at my wit’s end.”
“It must be Julia who has done this. She was very sulky all day yesterday. Lucia had scolded her about something. This is her revenge.”
“It couldn’t be Julia. She went home for the night. But I’m going to make one last effort. You said once, I remember, that an idea had occurred to you. What was the idea?”
Alice made a restless gesture with her hands.
“And I also said that it was too incredible to be put into words. I repeat that. If it has never occurred to you yourself I will not utter it.”
“It ... it is not Long Alec?”
“Long Alec? Absurd.”
He could not move her and he went back to his own room with his head in a whirl.
“There are only two things I am sure of,” he said, as he watched the beginnings of sunrise. “Twice two are four ... and I’m going to marry Lucia.”
Lucia, it developed, had a different opinion. When Curtis asked her to be his wife she told him that it was utterly impossible.
“Why? Don’t you ... can’t you care for me? I am sure I could make you happy.”
Lucia looked at him with a deepening colour.
“I could ... yes, I could. I owe it to you to tell you that. And there is no use denying it ... one should never deny the truth. But as things are I cannot marry ... you must see that for yourself. I cannot leave Alec and Alice.”
“Alice could come with us. I would be very glad to have such a woman in my home. She would be a constant inspiration to me.”
Which was, perhaps, not the most tactful thing in the world for a wooer to say!
“No. Such an arrangement would not be fair to you. You do not know ...”
It was useless to plead or argue, although Curtis did both. Lucia was a Field, Mrs. Blythe told him, when he carried his woes to her.
“And to think ... if it were not for me,” said Alice bitterly.
“It isn’t only you ... I have told you how glad I would be to have you with us. No, it is just as much Alec ... and those infernal spooks.”
“S-sh ... don’t let Deacon Kirk ... or Mr. Sheldon hear you,” said Alice whimsically. “They would both think ‘infernal’ a most improper word for a minister to use outside of the pulpit. I’m sorry, Mr. Burns ... sorry for you and sorrier for Lucia. I’m afraid she won’t change her mind. We Fields do not, when we have once made it up. Your only hope is to run the ghost to earth.”
Nobody, it seemed, could do that. Curtis bitterly owned himself defeated. Two weeks of moonlit and peaceful nights followed. Mr. Sheldon was again away. When the dark nights returned the manifestations began anew.
This time Curtis seemed to have become the special object of the “ha’nt’s” hatred. Repeatedly he found his sheets wet or well sanded when he got into bed at night. Twice on going to don his ministerial suit on Sunday mornings he found all the buttons cut off. And the special anniversary sermon he had prepared with such care vanished from his desk Saturday night before he had time to memorize it. As a result he made rather a mess of things before a crowded church next day and was young and human enough to feel bitterly about it.
“You’d better go away, Mr. Burns,” advised Alice. “That is unselfish advice if ever any was given, for I shall miss you more than words can say. But you must. Mr. Sheldon told me so and I have heard that Dr. Blythe says it is your only chance. You haven’t Lucia’s phlegm or Alec’s stubbornness ... or even my faith in a locked door. They won’t leave you alone now they have begun on you. Look how they have persecuted Lucia for years.”
“I can’t go away and leave her in such a predicament,” said Curtis stubbornly.
“I believe you are as obstinate as the Fields themselves,” said Alice, with a faint smile. “What good can you do? I really think you’d have a better chance with Lucia if you did go away. She would find out what you really meant to her then ... if you mean anything.”
“Sometimes I think I don’t,” said Curtis despondently.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve heard Mrs. Blythe say ...”
“I wish Mrs. Blythe would mind her own business,” said Curtis angrily.
&
nbsp; “Well, she won’t ... it isn’t in her. But I mustn’t talk scandal. I seem to be the only person in Mowbray Narrows or Glen St. Mary who doesn’t like Mrs. Blythe ... or any of the Ingleside people. Perhaps I’ve always heard them praised too highly. That sometimes has the effect of turning you against people, don’t you think, Mr. Burns?”
“Yes, very often. But as for Lucia ...”
“Oh, I know you care a great deal for her. But Mr. Burns, don’t expect Lucia to love you as you love her. The Fields don’t. They are rather cool-blooded, you know. Mrs. Blythe is perfectly right there. And I’ve heard Dr. Blythe said Long Alec had really no more feeling than one of his turnips. Perhaps he never said it ... you know what gossip is, as I’ve said before. Look at Alec ... he’s fond of Edna Pollock ... he’d like to marry her ... but he doesn’t lose sleep or appetite over it.”
“Wise man!”
“Now you sound like Dr. Blythe. But Lucia is like that, too. She’d make a dear little wife for you ... Mrs. Blythe has been saying that ever since you came here, I’m told ... she’d be faithful and devoted ... who knows that better than I? ... but she won’t break her heart over it if she can’t marry you.”
Curtis scowled.
“You don’t like to hear that ... you want to be loved more romantically and passionately. But it’s true. Why, they tell me even Dr. Blythe was a second choice. But they are said to be very happy, though once in a while ... but I’m verging on gossip again. But what I’ve said about the Fields is true. I shouldn’t have said it ... they’ve been kindness itself to me. But I know I can trust you, Mr. Curtis.”
There were times when Curtis was compelled to think that Alice was right in her summing up of Lucia. To his ardent nature Lucia did seem too composed and resigned. But the thought of giving her up was torture.
“She’s like a little red rose just out of reach ... I must reach her,” he thought.
He could not bear the thought of seeking another boarding place, although both old Mr. Sheldon and Dr. Blythe strongly advised it. He would see her so seldom then for he knew she would elude his visits. Gossip was already far too busy with their names and Mr. Sheldon was always hinting disapprobation. Curtis ignored his hints and grew a trifle brusque with the old man. He knew Mr. Sheldon had never approved of his boarding at Long Alec’s.
His perplexity suddenly received a new twist. One night, returning home late from a meeting in a distant section of his circuit, he stood for a long time at his dormer window before going to bed. He had found a treasured volume on his desk ... a book his dead mother had given him on a boyish birthday ... with half its leaves cut to pieces and ink spilled all over the rest. He was angry with the impatient anger of a man who is buffeted by the blows of an unseen antagonist.
The situation was growing more intolerable every day. Perhaps he had better go ... “This is killing you, Mr. Burns,” Dr. Blythe had told him not so long ago. Everybody seemed in a plot to get him away from the old Field place. Yet he hated to admit defeat. Lucia didn’t care for him ... in spite of Mrs. Blythe’s assurance ... she avoided him ... he hadn’t been able to exchange a word with her for days except at the table. From something Long Alec had said Curtis suspected they wished him to find another domicile.
“It would be a bit easier for her, I guess,” Long Alec had said. “She worries over things so.”
Well, if she wanted to get rid of him! Curtis was petulant just then. Dr. Blythe had said to him a few days before, “Just pick her up and carry her off. Everything will come right then.”
As if the doctor knew anything of the real situation! He did not even sympathize with Alice.
He, Curtis, was a failure in everything ... his sermons were beginning to be flat ... Mr. Sheldon had hinted that and he knew it himself ... he was losing interest in his work. Dr. Blythe had told him so bluntly ... he wished he had never come to Mowbray Narrows.
He leaned out of his window to inhale the scented summer air. The night was rather ghostly. The trees about the farmyard could assume weird, uncertain shapes in such clouded moonlight. Cool, elusive night smells came up from the garden. A car went by ... the Ingleside car ... the doctor had evidently been summoned out on a night call. What a life a doctor’s was! Worse than a minister’s. Never sure of a decent night’s sleep. Yet Dr. Blythe seemed a happy man and his wife was worshipped in Glen St. Mary. They often came to the Mowbray Narrows church, probably out of their friendship for Curtis, as they were ardent Presbyterians.
Curtis felt soothed ... cheered. After all, there must be some way out. In spite of the Epworth Rectory, Curtis had no belief in such manifestations of the supernatural. He was young ... the world was good, just because Lucia and Alice were in it. He wouldn’t give up yet awhile. The “ha’nt” would make a mistake sometime and be caught.
The moon suddenly broke out between the parting clouds. Curtis found himself looking through the opposite dormer window into the guest room, the blind of which happened to be up. The room was quite clear to him in the sudden radiance and in the mirror on the wall near the window Curtis saw a face looking at him ... sharply outlined against the darkness which surrounded it. He saw it only for a moment before the clouds swallowed up the moon but he recognized it. The face was the face of Lucia!
He thought nothing of it then. Doubtless she had heard some noise and had gone to the guest room to investigate.
But when at breakfast the next morning he asked her what had disturbed her she met his gaze with a cool blankness.
“I was not disturbed last night,” she said.
“When you went to the guest room window,” he explained.
“I wasn’t near the guest room last night,” she said coolly. “I went to bed very early ... I was very tired ... it was one of Alice’s bad days, you know ... and slept soundly all night.”
She rose as she spoke and went out. She did not return nor did she make any further reference to the matter. Why had she ... lied? An ugly word but Curtis did not soften it. He had seen her. True, it was but for a moment, in a moonlit mirror, but he knew he was not mistaken. It was Lucia’s face ... and she had lied to him! True, it was none of his business why she was there ... but a lie was a lie. Did she walk in her sleep? No, he would have been sure to have been told if she did. There was nothing he had not been told about the Fields, true and untrue, he thought.
Curtis decided to leave Long Alec’s. He would board at the station which would be very inconvenient but go he must. He was sick at heart. He no longer wanted to find out who the Field ghost was. He was afraid to find out ... he was afraid he knew, although motive and means were still foggy.
Lucia turned a little pale when he told her but said nothing. Long Alec, in his usual easygoing fashion, agreed that it would be best. He stared a little when Curtis bluntly asked him if his sister had ever been a sleepwalker.
“No,” he said, a trifle stiffly. “We’ve had a lot of things said about us, but never that, as far as I know.”
Alice approved with tear-filled eyes.
“Of course you must go,” she agreed. “The situation here is impossible for you. I hear that Dr. Blythe says it will drive you out of your mind. For once I agree with him. But oh, what will I do? There’s a selfish question for you.”
“I’ll come to see you often, my dear.”
“It won’t be the same. You don’t know what you have meant to me, Curtis. You don’t mind my calling you Curtis, do you? You seem like a young cousin or nephew, or something like that.”
“I’m glad to have you call me Curtis.”
“You are a dear boy. I ought to be glad you are going. This accursed house is no place for you. When do you go?”
“In a week ... after I come back from District Meeting.”
Curtis missed his regular train after the meeting ... missed it hunting for a book in the bookstore Alice wanted to see. He fell in with Dr. Blythe who, it happened, had the book, and promised to lend it to Miss Harper.
“I hear you are changing your
boarding place,” he said. “A wise move, in my opinion.”
“I leave it with its mystery still unsolved,” said Curtis bitterly.
Dr. Blythe smiled ... that smile that Curtis had never liked.
“Saints are often too wise for us common folk,” he said. “But I think it will be solved some day.”
Curtis came back on the owl train that dumped him off at Glen St. Mary at one o’clock. It did not stop as a rule but Curtis knew the conductor, who was an obliging man.
Henry Kildare got off, too. He had expected to go on to Lowbridge, not having the advantage of a pull with the conductor.
“What a thing it is to be a minister!” he said, laughing. “Well, it is only three miles to Cousin Ellen’s. I can hoof it easily,” he said as they left the platform.
“Might as well come along to Long Alec’s for the rest of the night,” suggested Curtis.
“Not me,” said Henry emphatically. “I wouldn’t stay another night in that house for half my pile. I hear you’re getting out, preacher. Wise boy!”
Curtis did not answer. He was not desirous of any company on his walk, much less Henry Kildare’s. He strode along in moody silence, unheeding Henry’s unending stream of conversation ... if conversation it could be called. Henry liked to hear himself talk.
It was a night of high winds and heavy clouds, with outbursts of brilliant moonlight between them. Curtis felt wretched, hopeless, discouraged. He had failed to solve the mystery he had tackled so cocksurely ... he had failed to win his love or rescue her ... he had ...
“Yes, I’m going to get out of this and hike back to the Coast,” Henry was saying. “There ain’t any sense in hanging around Mowbray Narrows any longer. I can’t get the girl I want.”
So Henry had love troubles of his own.
“Sorry,” said Curtis automatically.
“Sorry! It’s a case to be sorry! Preacher, I don’t mind talking to you about it. You seem like a human being ... and you’ve been a mighty good friend to Alice.”