May Iverson"s Career.
by Elizabeth Jordan.
I
MY FIRST a.s.sIGNMENT
The Commencement exercises at St. Catharine"s were over, and everybody in the big a.s.sembly-hall was looking relieved and grateful. Mabel Muriel Murphy had welcomed our parents and friends to the convent shades in an extemporaneous speech we had overheard her practising for weeks; and the proud face of Mabel Muriel"s father, beaming on her as she talked, illumined the front row like an electric globe. Maudie Joyce had read a beautiful essay, full of uplifting thoughts and rare flowers of rhetoric; Mabel Blossom had tried to deliver her address without the ma.n.u.script, and had forgotten it at a vital point; Adeline Thurston had recited an original poem; Kittie James had sung a solo; and Janet Trelawney had played the Sixth Hungarian Rhapsody on the piano.
Need I say who read the valedictory? It was I--May Iverson--winner of the Cross of Honor, winner of the Crown, leader of the convent orchestra, and president of the senior cla.s.s. If there are those who think I should not mention these honors I will merely ask who would do it if I did not--and pause for a reply. Besides, young as I am, I know full well that worldly ambitions and triumphs are as ashes on the lips; and already I was planning to cast mine aside. But at this particular minute the girls were crying on one another over our impending parting, and our parents were coming up to us and saying the same things again and again, while Sister Edna was telling Mabel Muriel Murphy, without being asked, that she was not ashamed of one of us.
I could see my father coming toward me through the crowd, stopping to shake hands with my cla.s.smates and tell them how wonderful they were; and I knew that when he reached me I must take him out into the convent garden and break his big, devoted heart. At the thought of it a great lump came into my throat, and while I was trying to swallow it I felt his arm flung over my shoulder.
He bent down and kissed me. "Well, my girl," he said, "I"m proud of you."
That was all. I knew it was all he would ever say; but it meant more than any one else could put into hours of talk. I did not try to answer, but I kissed him hard, and, taking his arm, led him down-stairs, through the long halls and out into the convent garden, lovely with the scent of roses and honeysuckle and mignonette. He had never seen the garden before. He wanted to stroll through it and glance into the conservatories, to look at the fountain and visit the Grotto of Lourdes and stand gazing up at the huge cross that rises from a bed of pa.s.sion-flowers. But at last I took him into a little arbor and made him sit down. I was almost glad my delicate mother had not been able to come to see me graduate. He would tell her what I had to say better than I could.
When I have anything before me that is very hard I always want to do it immediately and get it over. So now I stood with my back braced against the side of the arbor, and, looking my dear father straight in the eyes, I told him I had made up my mind to be a nun.
At first he looked as if he thought I must be joking. Then, all in a minute, he seemed to change from a gallant middle-aged officer into a crushed, disappointed old man. He bowed his head, his shoulders sagged down, and, turning his eyes as if to keep me from seeing what was in them, he stared out over the convent garden.
"Why, May!" he said; and then again, very quietly, "Why, May!"
I told him all that was in my mind, and he listened without a word. At the end he said he had thought I wanted to be a newspaper woman. I admitted that I had felt that desire a year ago--when I was only seventeen and my mind was immature. He sat up in his seat then and looked more comfortable--and younger.
"I"ll put my answer in a nutsh.e.l.l," he said. "You"re too young still to know your mind about anything. Give your family and the world a chance. I don"t want you to be a nun. I don"t want you to be a newspaper woman, either. But I"ll compromise. Be a newspaper woman for three years."
I began to speak, but he stopped me. "It"s an interesting life," he went on. "You"ll like it. But if you come to us the day you are twenty-one and tell us you still want to be a nun I promise that your mother and I will consent. Give us a chance, May." And he added, gently, "_Play fair_."
Those two words hurt; but they conquered me. I agreed to do as he asked, and then we sat together, hand in hand, talking over plans, till the corners of the garden began to look mysterious in the twilight. Before we went back to the a.s.sembly-room it was understood that I was to go to New York in a week and begin my new career. Papa had friends there who would look after me. I was sure they would never have a chance; but I did not mention that to my dear father then, while he was still feeling the shock of decision.
When I was saying good-by to Sister Irmingarde six days later I asked her to give me some advice about my newspaper work. "Write of things as they are," she said, without hesitation, "and write of them as simply as you can."
I was a little disappointed. I had expected something inspiring--something in the nature of a trumpet-call. I suppose she saw my face fall, for she smiled her beautiful smile.
"And when you write the sad stories you"re so fond of, dear May," she said, "remember to let your readers shed their own tears."
I thought a great deal about those enigmatic words on my journey to New York, but after I reached it I forgot them. It was just as well, for no one a.s.sociated with my work there had time to shed tears.
My editor was Mr. Nestor Hurd, of the _Searchlight_. He had promised to give me a trial because Kittie James"s brother-in-law, George Morgan, who was his most intimate friend, said he must; but I don"t think he really wanted to. When I reported to him he looked as if he had not eaten or slept for weeks, and as if seeing me was the one extra trouble he simply could not endure. There was a bottle of tablets on his desk, and every time he noticed it he stopped to swallow a tablet. He must have taken six while he was talking to me.
He was a big man, with a round, smooth face, and dimples in his cheeks and chin. He talked out of one side of his mouth in a kind of low snarl, without looking at any one while he spoke.
"Oh," was his greeting to me, "you"re the convent girl? Ready for work? All right. I"ll try you on this."
He turned to the other person in the office--a thin young man at a desk near him. Neither of them had risen when I entered.
"Here, Morris," he said. "Put Miss Iverson down for the Ferncliff story."
The young man called Morris dropped a big pencil and looked very much surprised.
"But--" he said. "Why, say, she"ll have to stay out in that house alone--all night."
Mr. Hurd said shortly that I couldn"t be in a safer place. "Are you afraid of ghosts?" he asked, without looking at me. I said I was not, and waited for him to explain the joke; but he didn"t.
"Here"s the story," he said. "Listen, and get it straight. Ferncliff is a big country house out on Long Island, about three miles from Sound View. It"s said to be haunted. Its nearest neighbor is a quarter of a mile away. It was empty for three years until this spring. Last month Mrs. Wallace Vanderveer, a New York society woman, took a year"s lease of it and moved in with a lot of servants. Last week she moved out. Servants wouldn"t stay. Said they heard noises and saw ghosts.
She heard noises, too. Now the owner of Ferncliff, a Miss Watts, is suing Mrs. Vanderveer for a year"s rent. Nice little story in it. See it?"
I didn"t, exactly. That is, I didn"t see what he wanted me to do about it, and I said so.
"I want you to take the next train for Sound View," he snarled, impatiently, and pulled the left side of his mouth down to his chin.
"When you get there, drive out and look at Ferncliff to see what it"s like in the daytime. Then go to the Sound View Hotel and have your dinner. About ten o"clock go back to Ferncliff, and stay there all night. Sit up. If you see any ghosts, write about "em. If you don"t, write about how it felt to stay there and wait for "em. Come back to town to-morrow morning and turn in your story. If it"s good we"ll run it. If it isn"t," he added, grimly, "we"ll throw it out. See now?" I saw now.
"Here"s the key of the house," he said. "We got it from the agent." He turned and began to talk to Mr. Morris about something else--and I knew that our interview was over.
I went to Sound View on the first train, and drove straight from the station to Ferncliff. It was almost five o"clock, and a big storm was coming up. The rain was like a wet, gray veil, and the wind snarled in the tops of the pine-trees in a way that made me think of Mr. Hurd. I didn"t like the look of the house. It was a huge, gloomy, vine-covered place, perched on a bluff overlooking the Sound, and set far back from the road. An avenue of pines led up to it, and a high box-hedge along the front cut off the grounds from the road and the near-by fields.
When we drove away my cabman kept glancing back over his shoulder as if he expected to see the ghosts.
I was glad to get into the hotel and have a few hours for thought. I was already perfectly sure that I was not going to like being a newspaper woman, and I made up my mind to write to papa the next morning and tell him so. I thought of the convent and of Sister Irmingarde, who was probably at vespers now in the chapel, and the idea of that a.s.signment became more unpleasant every minute. Not that I was afraid--I, an Iverson, and the daughter of a general in the army! But the thing seemed silly and unworthy of a convent girl, and lonesome work besides. As I thought of the convent it suddenly seemed so near that I could almost hear its vesper bell, and that comforted me.
I went back to Ferncliff at ten o"clock. By that time the storm was really wild. It might have been a night in November instead of in July. The house looked very bleak and lonely, and the way my driver lashed his horse and hurried away from the neighborhood did not make it easier for me to unlock the front door and go in. But I forced myself to do it.
I had filled a basket with candles and matches and some books and a good luncheon, which the landlady at the hotel had put up for me. I hurriedly lighted two candles and locked the front door. Then I took the candles into the living-room at the left of the hall, and set them on a table. They made two little blurs of light in which the linen-covered furniture a.s.sumed queer, ghostly shapes that seemed to move as the flames flickered. I did not like the effect, so I lighted some more candles.
I was sure the first duty of a reporter was to search the house. So I took a candle in each hand and went into every room, up stairs and down, spending a great deal of time in each, for it was strangely comforting to be busy. I heard all sorts of sounds--mice in the walls, old boards cracking under my feet, and a death-tick that began to get on my nerves, though I knew what it was. But there was nothing more than might be heard in any other old house.
When I returned to the living-room I looked at my luncheon-basket--not that I was hungry, but I wanted something more to do, and eating would have filled the time so pleasantly. But if I ate, there would be nothing to look forward to but the ghost, so I decided to wait.
Outside, the screeching wind seemed to be sweeping the rain before it in a rising fury. It was half past eleven. Twelve is the hour when ghosts are said to come, I remembered.
I took up a book and began to read. I had almost forgotten my surroundings when a noise sounded on the veranda, a noise that made me stop reading to listen. Something was out there--something that tried the k.n.o.b of the door and pushed against the panels; something that scampered over to the window-blinds and pulled at them; something that opened the shutters and tried to peer in.
I laid down my book. The feet scampered back to the door. I stopped breathing. There followed a knocking at the door, the knocking of weak hands, which soon began to beat against the panels with closed fists; and next I heard a high, shrill voice. It seemed to be calling, uttering words, but above the shriek of the storm I could not make out what they were.
Creeping along the floor to the window, I pulled back one of the heavy curtains and raised the green shade under it half an inch. For a moment I could see nothing but the twisting pines. But at last I was able to distinguish something moving near the door--something no larger than a child, but with white hair floating round its head. It was not a ghost. It was not an animal. It could not be a human being.
I had no idea what it was. While I looked it turned and came toward the window where I was crouching, as if it felt my eyes upon it. And this time I heard its words.
"Let me in!" it shrieked. "Let me in! Let me in!" And in a kind of fury it scampered back and dashed itself against the door.
Then I was afraid--not merely nervous--afraid--with a degrading fear that made my teeth chatter. If only I had known what it was; if only I could think of something normal that was a cross between a little child and an old woman! I went to the door and noiselessly turned the key. I meant to open it an inch and ask what was there. But almost before the door had moved on its hinges the thing outside saw it. It gave a quick spring and a little screech and threw itself against the panels. The next instant I went back and down, and the thing that had been outside was inside.
I got up slowly and looked at it. It seemed to be a witch--a little old, humpbacked witch--not more than four feet high, with white hair that hung in wet locks around a shriveled brown face, and black eyes gleaming at me in the dark hall like an angry cat"s.
"You little fool!" she hissed. "Why didn"t you let me in? I"m soaked through. And why didn"t that bell ring? What"s been done to the wire?"
I could not speak, and after looking at me a moment more the little old creature locked the hall door and walked into the living-room, motioning to me to follow. She was panting with anger or exhaustion, or both. When we had entered the room she turned and grinned at me like a malicious monkey.
"Scared you, didn"t I?" she chuckled, in her high, cracked voice.
"Serves you right. Keeping me out on that veranda fifteen minutes!"