Whatever his reasons for this may have been, and the town named several, the fact remains that Hynds House would never have been so beautiful, the restoration wouldn"t have been so nearly perfect, had it not been for the critical taste of Mr. Jelnik. He had the European knowledge of beautiful things, and, toward the finer graces of life, the att.i.tude of Paris, of Rome, of Vienna, rather than of New York, of Chicago, or of, say, Atlanta.
There was a glamour about the man. Whatever he did or said had an indefinable, delightful significance; what he left undone was full of meaning. His mere presence ornamented and colored common moments so that they glowed, and remained in the memory with a rainbow light upon them. He was never hurried or flurried, any more than sun and sky and trees and tides are; and he was just as vital, and quite as baffling.
We accepted him at first as part of the fairy-story into which Destiny had pitchforked us. He belonged to Hynds House, so to speak, and there one might meet him upon common ground. But sometimes when I happened to glance up I would find him watching us with those reflective eyes that were so full of light and at the same time so inscrutable. And then he would smile, his Dionysiac smile that made him all at once so far off and so foreign that I knew, with a sinking heart, that he didn"t belong at all; that this beautiful and brilliant bird of pa.s.sage was lightening for but a very brief s.p.a.ce my sober skies.
Alicia said he made her think of peac.o.c.ks and ivory. He delighted and dazzled her, though he did not disquiet her as he did me, perhaps because she, too, was young and beautiful, and I--wasn"t.
It will be seen, then, that our position, take it by and large, wasn"t one that called for flags and buntings. Life didn"t look a bit rose-colored to me as I sat there that night, drafting a letter to the Head. Of a sudden arose clamor in the hall, and howls, hideously loud at that hour and in that quiet house. There came the noise of running feet, and there burst into the lighted library, with gray faces and rolling eyes, our two lately acquired colored maids, Fernolia the thin one, and Queen of Sheba, fat and brown.
"Good heavens! What"s the matter?" I asked, fearfully. It had been a terrible task to break in those two handmaids, to train them _not_ to take part in the conversation at table, _not_ to take off cap, and hair, not to do the thousand and one undisciplined and disorderly things they did do.
"Ghostes! Sperets! Ha"nts!" chattered the colored women. "Ol" Mis"
Scarlett"s walkin" in de ca"iage house!"
"Nonsense!" At the same time I felt myself turning pale, and goose-flesh coming out on my spine.
"No, ma"am, Miss Sophy, "t ain"t nonsense. It"s ha"nts!" protested Fernolia. She was the brighter of the two, but given to embroidering her facts.
"Yessum, I done saw "er," corroborated Queenasheeba. (That"s how one p.r.o.nounced her name.)
The two occupied a very pleasant room above the carriage house, a room that had overcome their unwillingness to stay overnight at Hynds House. Queenasheeba was just dozing, when she was awakened by Fernolia, who had been sitting by the window. Both of them, peering through the scrim curtains, saw a tall white figure disappear into the spring-house. A few minutes later, to their horror, they heard Something moving downstairs in the carriage house--Something like the clank of a chain--footsteps--and then silence. Almost paralyzed with terror, the two women clung together. _Anything_ might be expected of ol" Mis" Scarlett! However, nothing further happened.
With shaking hands Queenasheeba relighted the lamp. Then, s.n.a.t.c.hing up such clothes as they could grab, the two fled to us.
Mary Magdalen and Beautiful Dog always departed after dinner. Except for the Black family and the two canaries, Alicia and I had big, lonesome Hynds House to ourselves. Mr. Jelnik"s gray cottage, set amid Lombardy poplars and thick shrubberies, was some distance away, and we didn"t know whether Doctor Geddes was at home or not.
It is true we had firearms, a pair of pistols having been literally forced upon us by the doctor, who fretted and fumed about our staying there alone. Both of us were more afraid of those pistols than of any possible ghostly intruder.
Nevertheless, I went up-stairs and fetched them. Alicia took one as she might have taken a rattlesnake, and I held the other. Armed thus, carrying torch-light and lantern, and with the two gray-faced, half-clad negro women following us, one carrying our bra.s.s poker and the other the tongs, we marched upon the carriage house.
The big barnlike place, lately cleaned and whitewashed, looked painfully empty. In one of the stalls the hay purchased for our recently acquired Jersey cow gave off a pleasant odor. Over in one corner, in a neat, clean, orderly array, were Schmetz"s tools. A little farther on was our chicken feed, in covered barrels.
We went from empty stall to empty stall, to rea.s.sure the women; there wasn"t so much as a cobweb in any of them. All the down-stairs windows were heavily barred with iron and further protected, like the doors, with heavy oaken shutters studded with iron nail-heads.
The two small rooms in the rear had once been used as a jail for recalcitrant slaves; they held now nothing deadlier than Schmetz"s flower pots and seedlings. Every shutter was closed, and the iron bars looked rea.s.suringly strong; also, the walls are three feet thick.
"You were dreaming, you silly women! I told you you were dreaming!"
said I, and had turned to go, rea.s.sured and relieved, when Alicia"s nose wrinkled. I could hardly keep from sniffing, myself.
In the carriage-house was a faint, indeterminable scent, the ghost of the ghost of fragrance, so elusive that one sensed rather than smelled it, so pervasive and haunting that one could not miss it.
And it certainly had nothing to do with the wholesome odor of hay and cow feed, or the smell of whitewash and oiled tools.
"Yes, you were dreaming." Alicia began to edge the colored women toward the doors. "But as you"ve had a scare," she added pleasantly, "I"ll give you a new lace collar, Queenasheeba, and you a red ribbon, Fernolia, to wear to church next Sunday, just to prove to you that being awake is heaps better than having nightmares."
We padlocked the big doors after us, and went through the rooms up-stairs. They, too, had been freshly cleaned and calcimined. And they, too, were quite empty.
Despite which, Fernolia and Queenasheeba were firmly, tearfully, shiveringly certain they had seen nothing less than ol" Mis"
Scarlett"s ha"nt. They had the worst possible opinion of ol" Miss Scarlett: she had been bad enough living--but as a spook! We had to let them lug their bedding over and sleep in the room next to ours; we had to give them sweet lavender to quiet their nerves. I am sure they would have bolted incontinently if they hadn"t been too scared to venture outside.
"If I could catch that ghost I"d shake it!" declared Alicia. And we went back to our figuring, with a sort of desperate courage. "_Now_ will you get those clothes, Sophy Smith?" she resumed, through her teeth, and the pink came back to her cheek, and her eyes deepened.
"And do you agree to stick it out, you and I shoulder to shoulder, town or no town, ha"nts or no ha"nts; and win out?"
"Yes!" said I.
CHAPTER VII
A BRIGHT PARTICULAR STAR
Wire from The Author, New York City, to Miss S. Smith, Hyndsville, South Carolina:
Photos received. Furniture noted. It"s pretty, but is it art?
Wire from Miss Smith to The Author:
What is Art?
Wire from The Author:
Sometimes an invention of the devil. Is your stuff Madison Avenue or Grand Rapids? Reply.
Wire from Miss Smith:
Madison Avenue and Grand Rapids hadn"t been invented when Hynds House was furnished.
Wire from The Author:
Maybe not, but mightn"t be same furniture. Have been stung before. Can"t be genuine. Too much of it.
Wire from Miss Smith:
Please yourself.
Wire from The Author:
Coming to investigate. Won"t sleep in anything but pineapple bed; won"t sit in anything but carved chair; can"t pray without prie-dieu. If spurious will publicly gibbet you and probably burn your house down. Hold southwest room my arrival.
Alicia laughed, and cuddled those yellow slips.
"I knew this was an enchanted place!" she cried. "Oh, Sophy, it"s working! He"s coming, he"s coming, and he"s the biggest ever, and he"s going to _stay_! Sophy, think of the advertising!"
"He will probably be detestable. Geniuses are generally horrid to live with. And there will be something the matter with his digestion; there is always something the matter with their digestion."
"From swallowing all the flattery shoveled upon them, poor dears,"
Alicia explained charitably. "Don"t worry about his digestion: leave it to Mary Magdalen"s waffles. Hooray! Hynds House stock is booming!"
It was.