"Aunt Betty thought we three"d like to be close together, and anyway, if we had all come that I wanted to invite we"d have to snug up some.
So she told Dinah to fix her dressing-room for one of you--that"s this side mine; and the little sewing-room for the other. She"s put single beds in them and Dinah is to sleep on her cot in this wide hall outside our doors. It seemed sort of foolish to me, first off, when darling Auntie planned it, as if anything could happen to make us need Dinah so near; but now--My! I can"t stop trembling, somehow. I was so frightened and sorry."
"I"m sorry, too, and I"m scared, too; but I"m sleepier"n I"m ary one,"
yawned Alfaretta.
"I"m sleepy, too;" a.s.sented Molly; and even the excited Dorothy felt a strange drowsiness creeping over her. It would be the correct thing, she had imagined, to lie awake and grieve over the loss of Mrs.
Calvert"s beloved tree, which would now be cut into ignominious firewood and burned upon a hearth; but--in five minutes after her head had touched her pillow she was sound asleep as her mates already were.
Outside, the storm abated and the moon arose, lighting the scenery with its brilliance and setting the still dripping trees aglitter with its glory. Moonlight often made Dorothy wakeful and did so on this eventful night. Its rays streaming across her unshaded window roused her to sit up, and with the action came remembrance.
"My heart! That money! All those beautiful new bills that are to buy pleasant things for my Party guests! I had it all spread out on the library table when that crash came and I never thought of it again!
n.o.body else, either, I fancy. I"ll go right down and get it and I mustn"t wake the girls or Dinah. It was careless of me, it surely was; but I know enough about money to understand it shouldn"t be left lying about in that way."
Creeping softly from her bed she drew on her slippers and kimono as Miss Rhinelander had taught her pupils always to do when leaving their rooms at night, and the familiar school-habit proved her in good stead this time. Once she would have stopped for neither; but now folding the warm little garment about her she tiptoed past old Dinah, snoring, and down the thickly carpeted stairs, whereon her slippered feet made no sound. Quite noiselessly she came to the library door and pushed the portiere aside.
Into this room, also, the moonlight streamed, making every object visible. She had glanced, as she came along the hall, toward the big door, bolstered into place by the heavy settle and hat-rack; and the latter object looked so like a gigantic man standing guard that she cast no second look but darted within the lighter s.p.a.ce.
Hark! What was that sound? Somebody breathing? Snoring? A man"s snore, so like that of dear Father John who used, sometimes, to keep her awake, though she hadn"t minded that because she loved him so. The sound, frightful at first, became less so as she remembered those long past nights, and mustering her courage she tiptoed toward the figure on the lounge.
Old Ephraim! Well, she didn"t believe Aunt Betty would have permitted even that faithful servant to spend a night upon her cherished leather couch; but the morning would be time enough to reprimand him for his audacity, which, of course, she must do, since she stood now in Mrs.
Calvert"s place, as temporary head of the family. She felt gravely responsible and offended as she crossed the room to the table where three chairs still grouped sociably together, exactly as the three girls had left them.
Ah! yes. The chairs were in their places, Alfaretta"s list of guests as well, and even the little leather bag out of which she had drawn the wealth that so surprised her mates. But the ten crisp notes she had so spread out in the sight of all--where were they?
Certainly nowhere to be seen, although that revealing moonlight made even Alfy"s written words quite legible. What could have become of them? Who had taken them? And why? Supposing somebody had stolen in and stolen them? Supposing that was why he was sleeping in the library? Yet, if there had been thievery there, wouldn"t he have kept awake, to watch? Supposing--here a horrible thought crept into her mind--supposing _he_, himself, had been the thief! She was southern born and had the southerner"s racial distrust of a "n.i.g.g.e.r"s" honesty; yet--as soon as thought she was ashamed of the suspicion. Aunt Betty trusted him with far more than she missed now. She would go over to that window and think it out. Maybe the sleeper would awake in a minute and she could ask him about it.
The question was one destined to remain unasked. As she stood gazing vacantly outward, her hands clasped in perplexity, something moving arrested her attention. A small figure in white, or what seemed white in that light. It was circling the pond where the water-lilies grew and was swaying to and fro as if dancing to some strange measure. Its skirts were caught up on either side by the hands resting upon its hips and the apparition was enough to startle nerves that had not already been tried by the events of that night.
Dorothy stood rooted to the spot. Then a sudden movement of the dancer which brought her perilously near the water"s edge recalled her common sense.
"Why, it"s one of the girls! It must be! Which? She doesn"t look like either--is she sleep-walking? Who, what can it mean?"
Another instant and she had opened the long sash and sped out upon the rain-soaked lawn; and she was none too soon. As if unseeing, or unfearing, the strange figure swept nearer and nearer to the moonlit water, its feet already splashing in it, when Dorothy"s arms were flung around it to draw it into safety.
"Why--" began the rescuer and could say no more. The face that slowly turned toward her was one that she had never seen before. It was the face of a child under a ma.s.s of gray hair, and its expression strangely vacant and inconsequent. Danger, fear, responsibility meant nothing to this little creature whom Dorothy had saved from drowning, and with a sudden pitiful memory of poor, half-witted Peter Piper who had loved her so, she realized that here was another such as he. In body and mind the child had never grown up, though her years were many.
"Come this way, little lady. Come with me. Let us go into the house;"
said the girl gently, and led the stranger to the window she had left open. "You must be the odd guest I needed for my House Party, to make the couples even, and so I bid you welcome. Strange, the window should be shut!"
But closed it was; nor could all the girl"s puny pounding bring help to open it. Against the front door the great tree still pressed and she could not reach its bell; and confused by all she had pa.s.sed through Dorothy forgot that there were other entrances where help could be summoned and sank down on the piazza floor beside her first, her uninvited guest, to wait for morning.
CHAPTER IV
TROUBLES LIGHTEN IN THE TELLING
But a few moments sufficed to show that this would not do. Despite her own heavy kimono she was already chilled by the air of that late September night, while the little creature beside her was shivering as if in ague, although she seemed to be half-asleep.
She reasoned that Ephraim must have waked and closed the library window and departed to his own quarters. But there must be some way in which a girl could get into her own house; and then she exclaimed:
"Why, yes! The sun-parlor, right at the end of this very piazza. All that south side is covered with gla.s.s and if I can get a sash up we can climb through. The place is as nice as a bedroom. Anyway, I"ll try!"
She left the stranger where she lay and ran to make the effort, and though for a time the heavy sash resisted her strength, it did yield slightly and her fresh fear that it had been locked vanished. Yet with her utmost endeavor she could lift it but a few inches and she wondered if she would be able to get her visitor through that scant opening.
"I shall have to make her go through flat-wise, like crawling through fence bars, and I wonder if she will! Anyhow, I must try. I--I don"t like it out here in the night and we"ll both be sick of cold, and that would end our party."
Dorothy never quite realized how that affair was managed.
Though the wanderer appeared to hear well enough she did not speak and had not from the first. Probably she could not, but she could be as stubborn and difficult as possible and she was certainly exhausted from exposure. It was a harder task than lifting the great window, but, at last, by dint of pushing and coaxing, even shoving, the inert small woman was forced through the opening and dropped upon the matted floor, where she remained motionless.
Dolly squeezed herself after and stooped above her guest, anxiously asking:
"Did that hurt you? I"m sorry, but there was no other way. Please try to get up and lie down. See? There are two nice lounges here and lots of "comfy" chairs. Shawls and couch-covers in plenty--Why! it"ll be like a picnic!"
The guest made no effort to rise but waved the other aside with a sleepy, impatient gesture, then fell to shaking again as if she were desperately cold. Dorothy was too frightened to heed these objections and since it was easier to roll a lounge to the sufferer than to argue, she did so and promptly had her charge upon it; but she first stripped off the damp cotton gown from the shaking body and wrapped it in all the rugs and covers she could find. She did not attempt to penetrate further into the house then, because she knew that Ephraim had bolted and barred the door leading thither. She had watched him do so with some amus.e.m.e.nt, early in the evening, and had playfully asked him if he expected any burglars. He had disdained to reply further than by shaking his wise old head, but had omitted no precaution because of her raillery.
"Well, this may not be as nice as in my own room but it"s a deal better than out of doors. That poor little thing isn"t shivering so much and--she"s asleep! She"s tired out, whoever she is and wherever she came from, and I"m tired, also. I can"t do any better till daylight comes and I"ll curl up in this big chair and go to sleep, too," said Dorothy to herself.
She wakened to find the sunlight streaming through the gla.s.s and to hear a chorus of voices demanding, each in a various key:
"Why, Dorothy C!" "How could you?" "Yo" done gib we-all de wussenes"
sca", you" ca"less chile! What yo" s"posin" my Miss Betty gwine ter say when she heahs ob dis yeah cuttin"s up? Hey, honey? Tell me dat!"
But Dinah"s reproofs were cut short as her eye fell upon the rug-heaped lounge and saw the pile of them begin to move. As yet no person was visible and she stared at the suddenly agitated covers as if they were bewitched. Presently, they were flung aside; and revealed upon a crimson pillow lay a face almost as crimson.
"Fo" de lan" ob lub! How come dat yeah--dis--What"s. .h.i.t mean, li"l gal Do"thy?"
Dolly had not long been missed nor, when she was, had anybody felt serious alarm, though the girl guests had both been aggrieved that she should not have wakened them in time to be prompt for breakfast. They dressed hurriedly when Norah came a second time to summon them, explaining:
"Miss Dorothy"s room is empty and her clothes on the chairs. I must go seek her for she shouldn"t do this way if she wants to keep cook good natured for the Party. Delaying breakfast is a bad beginning."
Then Norah departed and went about her business of dusting; and it was she who had found the missing girl in the sun-parlor, and it had been her cry of relief that brought the household to that place.
Demanded old Ephraim sternly:
"Why fo" yo"-all done leab yo" baid in de middle ob de night an" go sky-la"kin" eround dis yere scan"lous way, Missy Dolly Calve"t? Tole me dat!"
"Why do you leave yours, to sleep on the library couch, Ephraim?" she returned, keenly observing him from the enclosure of her girl friends"
arms, who held her fast that she might not again elude them.
Ephraim fairly jumped; though he looked not at her but in a timid way toward Dinah, still bending in anxious curiosity over the stranger on the couch; and she was not so engrossed but that her turbaned head rose with a snap and she fixed her fellow servant with a fiercely glaring eye. Between these two equally devoted members of "Miss Betty"s" family had always existed a bitter jealousy as to which was the most loyal to their mistress"s interests. Let either presume upon that loyalty, to indulge in a forbidden privilege, and the wrath of the other waxed furious. Both knew that for Ephraim to have lain where Dorothy had discovered him, during that past night, was "intol"able"
presumption, and at Dinah"s care would be duly reported upon and reprimanded.
Alas! The old man"s start and down-dropped gaze was proof in Dorothy"s opinion of a graver guilt than Dinah imputed to him, and when he made no answer save a hasty exit from the room her heart sank.
"Oh! how could he do it, how could he!" and then honesty suggested.