A moment later the horses,--prancing, high-spirited animals,--their bridle-bits held by a strapping blacksmith, came into view. Barnes looked in the direction of the steps. The two men had disappeared.
Instead of stopping directly in front of the steps, the smith led his charges quite a distance beyond and into the darkness.
Putnam Jones abruptly changed his position. He insinuated his long body between Barnes and the doorway, at the same time rather loudly proclaiming that the rain appeared to be over.
"Yes, sir," he repeated, "she seems to have let up altogether. Ought to have a nice day to-morrow, Mr. Barnes,--nice, cool day for walkin"."
Voices came up from the darkness. Jones had not been able to cover them with his own. Barnes caught two or three sharp commands, rising above the pawing of horses" hoofs, and then a great clatter as the mounted hors.e.m.e.n rode off in the direction of the cross-roads. The beat of the hoofs became rhythmical as the animals steadied into a swinging lope.
Barnes waited until they were m.u.f.fled by distance, and then turned to Jones with the laconic remark:
"They seem to be foreigners, Mr. Jones." Jones"s manner became natural once more. He leaned against one of the posts and, striking a match on his leg, relighted his pipe.
"Kind o" curious about "em, eh?" he drawled.
"It never entered my mind until this instant to be curious," said Barnes.
"Well, it entered their minds about an hour ago to be curious about you," said the other.
CHAPTER IV
AN EXTRAORDINARY CHAMBERMAID, A MIDNIGHT TRAGEDY, AND A MAN WHO SAID "THANK YOU"
Miss Thackeray was "turning down" his bed when he entered his room after bidding his new actor friends good night. All three promised to be up bright and early in the morning to speed him on his way with good wishes. Mr. Rushcroft declared that he would break the habit of years and get up in time to partake of a seven o"clock breakfast with him.
Mr. Dillingford and Mr. Bacon, though under sentence to eat at six with the rest of the "help," were quite sanguine that old man Jones wouldn"t mind if they ate again at seven. So it was left that Barnes was to have company for breakfast.
He was staggered and somewhat abashed by the appearance of Miss Thackeray. She was by no means dressed as a chambermaid should be, nor was she as dumb. On the contrary, she confronted him in the choicest raiment that her wardrobe contained, and she was bright and cheery and exceedingly incompetent. It was her costume that shocked him. Not only was she attired in a low-necked, rose-coloured evening gown, liberally bespangled with tinsel, but she wore a vast top-heavy picture-hat whose crown of black was almost wholly obscured by a gorgeous white feather that once must have adorned the king of all ostriches. She was not at all his idea of a chambermaid. He started to back out of the door with an apology for having blundered into the wrong room by mistake.
"Come right in," she said cheerily. "I"ll soon be through. I suppose I should have done all this an hour ago, but I just had to write a few letters." She went on with her clumsy operations. "I don"t know who made up this bed but whoever did was determined that it should stay put. I never knew that bed clothes could be tucked in as far and as tight as these. Tight enough for old Mother Jones to have done it herself, and heaven knows she"s a tight one. I am Miss Thackeray. This is Mr. Barnes, I believe."
He bowed, still quite overcome.
"You needn"t be scared," she cried, observing his confusion. "This is my regular uniform. I"m starting a new style for chambermaids. Did it paralyse you to find me here?"
"I must confess to a moment of indecision," he said, smiling.
"Followed by a moment of uneasiness," she added, slapping the bolster.
"You didn"t know what to think, now did you?"
"I couldn"t believe my eyes."
She abandoned her easy, careless manner. A look of mortification came into her eyes as she straightened up and faced him. Her voice was a trifle husky when she spoke again, after a moment"s pause.
"You see, Mr. Barnes, these are the only duds I have with me. It wasn"t necessary to put on this hat, of course, but I did it simply to make the character complete. I might just as well make beds and clean washstands in a picture hat as in a low-necked gown, so here I am."
She was a tall, pleasant-faced girl of twenty-three or four, not unlike her father in many respects. Her features were rather heavy, her mouth large but comely, her eyes dark and l.u.s.trous behind heavy lashes. As she now appeared before Barnes, she was the typical stage society woman: in other words, utterly commonplace. In a drawing-room she would have been as conspicuously out of place as she was in her present occupation.
"I am very sorry," he said lamely. "I have heard something of your misfortunes from your father and--the others. It"s--it"s really hard luck."
"I call it rather good luck to have got away with the only dress in the lot that cost more than tuppence," she said, smiling again. "Lord knows what would have happened to me if they had dropped down on us at the end of the first act. I was the beggar"s daughter, you see,--absolutely in rags."
"You might have got away in your ordinary street clothes, however," he said; "which would have been pleasanter, I dare say."
"I dare say," she agreed brightly. "Glad to have met you. I think you"ll find everything NEARLY all right. Good night, sir."
She smiled brightly, unaffectedly, as she turned toward the open door.
There was something forelorn about her, after all, and his heart was touched.
"Better luck, Miss Thackeray. Every cloud has its silver lining."
She stopped and faced him once more. "That"s the worst bromide in the language," she said. "If I were to tell you how many clouds I"ve seen and how little silver, you"d think I was lying. This experience? Why, it"s a joy compared to some of the jolts we"ve had,--dad and me. And the others, too, for that matter. We"ve had to get used to it. Five years ago I would have jumped out of a ten story window before I"d have let you see me in this get-up. I know you"ll laugh yourself sick over the way I look, and so will your friends when you tell them about me, but, thank the Lord, I shan"t be in a position to hear you. So why should I mind? What a fellow doesn"t know, isn"t going to hurt him. You haven"t laughed in my face, and I"m grateful for that. What you do afterward can"t make the least bit of difference to me."
"I a.s.sure you, Miss Thackeray, that I shall not laugh, nor shall I ever relate the story of your--"
"There is one more bromide that I"ve never found much virtue in," she interrupted, not disagreeably, "and that is: "it"s too good to be true." Good night. Sleep tight."
She closed the door behind her, leaving him standing in the middle of the room, perplexed but amused.
"By George," he said to himself, still staring at the closed door, "they"re wonders, all of them. We could all take lessons in philosophy from such as they. I wish I could do something to help them out of--"
He sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed and pulled his wallet from his pocket. He set about counting the bills, a calculating frown in his eyes. Then he stared at the ceiling, summing up. "I"ll do it," he said, after a moment of mental figuring. He told off a half dozen bills and slipped them into his pocket. The wallet sought its usual resting place for the night: under a pillow.
He was healthy and he was tired. Two minutes after his head touched the pillow he was sound asleep, losing consciousness even as he fought to stay awake in order that he might continue to vex himself with the extraordinary behavior and statement of Putnam Jones.
He was aroused shortly after midnight by shouts, apparently just outside his window. A man was calling in a loud voice from the road below; an instant later he heard a tremendous pounding on the tavern door.
Springing out of bed, he rushed to the window. There were horses in front of the house,--several of them,--and men on foot moving like shadows among them. A shuffling of feet came up to his open window; the intervening roof shut off his view of the porch and all that was transpiring. His eyes, accustomed to darkness, made out at least five horses in the now unlighted area before the tavern.
Turning from the window, he unlocked and opened the door into the hall.
Some one was clattering down the narrow staircase. The bolts on the front door shot back with resounding force, and there came the hoa.r.s.e jumble of excited voices as men crowded through the entrance. Putnam Jones"s voice rose above the clamour.
"Keep quiet! Do you want to wake everybody on the place?" he was saying angrily. "What"s up? This is a fine time o" night to be--Good Lord!
What"s the matter with him?"
"Telephone for a doctor, Put,--d.a.m.n" quick! This one"s still alive. The other one is dead as a door nail up at Jim Conley"s house. Git ole Doc James down from Saint Liz. Bring him in here, boys. Where"s your lights? Easy now! Eas-EE!"
Barnes waited to hear no more. His blood seemed to be running ice-cold as he retreated into the room and began scrambling for his clothes. The thing he feared had come to pa.s.s. Disaster had overtaken her in that wild, senseless dash up the mountain road. He was cursing half aloud as he dressed, cursing the fool who drove that machine and who now was perhaps dying down there in the tap-room. "The other one is dead as a door nail," kept running through his head,--"the other one."
The rumble of voices and the shuffling of feet continued, indistinct but laden with tragedy. The curious hush of catastrophe seemed to top the confusion that infected the place, inside and out. Barnes found his electric pocket torch and dressed hurriedly, though not fully, by its constricted light. As he was pulling on his heavy walking shoes, a head was inserted through the half open door, and an excited voice called out:
"You awake? Good work! Hustle along, will you? No more sleep to-night, old chap. Man dying downstairs. Shot smack through the lungs. Get a move--"
"Shot?" exclaimed Barnes.
"So they say," replied the agitated Mr. Dillingford, entering the room.
He had slipped on his trousers and was then in the act of pulling his suspenders over his shoulders. His unlaced shoes gaped broadly; the upper part of his body was closely encased in a once blue undershirt; his abundant black hair was tousled,--some of it, indeed, having the appearance of standing on end. And in his wide eyes there was a look of horror. "I didn"t hear much of the story. Old man Jones is telephoning for a doctor and--"