Chris, somewhat less ill at ease, now he had got his message out, shifted his feet and gave a short laugh.
"Oh no, thank you, sir. You see, I don"t really need it, and Jakey does. It wouldn"t be fair for me to take it if Jakey has a chance."
He looked away, and saw that the light from the distant hidden room was jumping and flickering on the shadowed walls. He guessed there must be a lively fire in that room beyond.
"Of course," Chris added anxiously, "I don"t know what the job is. You don"t say, on the sign, and Jakey isn"t awfully well. He has a twisted foot and it makes him slow in walking. Would that interfere with Jakey"s getting the job, sir?" Chris enquired.
The reply was slow in coming, and Chris heard as if the words had been spoken, not before him, where the black outlined figure still stood, but as if at his very ear. Soft but clear, the words sounded.
"It would not interfere, Christopher my boy. But now that you are here, you must make the test. Jakey will be cared for, never fear."
Almost as in a dream, Chris felt an atmosphere drenching him as though a powerful scent filled the air. His head swam a little, and he realized that it was a long time since he had had lunch. He thought he detected a pleasant smell of herbs, like the potpourri his mother had in bowls in their house. The sharp black outline of Mr. Wicker impressed itself on his eyeb.a.l.l.s, and in the room, now totally dark except for the light that streamed from the faraway open door, Mr.
Wicker"s body seemed to radiate a bright edge, like a carbon paper held up to the sun. The voice at his ear once more filled his head and his hearing.
"_You_ will make the test, my boy. Now. Just turn around, and tell me what you see out my window."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Chris, in spite of the strangeness rising about him like a mist, remembered very well what lay outside the window. But even as he slowly turned, the thought pierced his mind, Why had he not seen the reflection of the headlights of the cars moving up around the corner of Water Street and up the hill toward the traffic signals? And why had the sound of wheels, of gears and of horns, been so completely m.u.f.fled out? The room seemed overly still.
Then, in that second, he turned and faced about. The wide bow window was there before him, the three objects he liked best showing frosty in the moonlight that poured in from across the water.
Across the water! Where was the freeway? It was no longer there, nor were the high walls and smokestacks of factories to be seen. The warehouses were still there. They were the very same, for Chris could make out the winch and tackle he had noticed as he opened the door.
But instead of factories, instead of the freeway, the river flickered silver under the moon, and the hulls and masts of countless ships broke the starry sky.
Flabbergasted and breathless, Chris was unaware that he had moved closer to peer out the window in every direction. No electric signs, no lamplit streets. Going as far as the wall to his left and leaning forward, Chris looked up toward M Street.
Where the People"s Drugstore had stood but a half-hour before, rose the roofs of what was evidently an inn. A courtyard was spa.r.s.ely lit by a flaring torch or two, showing a swinging sign hung on a post. The post was planted at the edge of what was now a broad and muddy road.
Even as Chris stared, not knowing whether to believe what his eyes saw or not, there was a great sound of hoofs and of a cracking whip. A coach with its top piled high with luggage stamped to a halt beside the flagged courtyard. Ostlers ran out to hold the team of horses steaming in the cool night air, and linkboys carrying torches and orange lanterns ran out to help the travelers in. The coachman wore knee breeches and a c.o.c.kaded hat; two gentlemen got down from the interior of the coach, stretching their cramped legs. Chris could catch the shine as lantern glow touched the silver buckles on their shoes. Their full-backed coats were slightly lifted, on the left, by the tips of their rapiers, and a froth of white, lace or muslin, fell from their necks onto satin waistcoats. They moved into the inn; the coach rattled off to the stable. Before the window, farm carts rumbled by, and instead of the crowded outline of Georgetown roofs, Chris could see only a few chimneys against the stars, and many lofty trees.
"What do you see, boy?" asked the voice, so gentle, at his ear. Chris, frightened and dumbfounded, shook his head.
"I will tell you," Mr. Wicker said. "My window has a power for those few who are to see. You are looking back into the past, my boy. The way it used to be."
Then the coldness, the strangeness, the fluttering of the light was too much for Chris. Blackness descended on him as if a hood had been dropped over his head, but before he was quite gone, he heard what he thought was Mr. Wicker"s voice saying kindly:
"You will do."
CHAPTER 4
When Chris came to himself he woke from sleep and lay for a moment without opening his eyes. He waited with his usual sense of irritation for Aunt Rachel"s step at the door, and her voice saying, "Get up, Chris! You"re late again!" But the step did not come, and feeling rested and hungry, Chris opened his eyes.
What was this? The high regular walls of his bedroom were not around him, nor the familiar furniture. Chris sat up, rubbing at his eyes as if this would help to clear his vision, and looked about him.
He was in a narrow bed in a small sunny room. An attic room, it would seem to be, for the walls slanted down in different sharp angles from the low ceiling to the broad wood planks of the floor. Two dormer windows projected from the room beyond the roof, making two niches in the wall across from where Chris lay, and a third window in the wall above his head showed that the room, as well as being at the top of the house, was also at a corner of it. A door was just beyond the foot of the bed; a chest of drawers and a table with a blue and white porcelain wash bowl and pitcher, stood along the farther side. Wooden pegs were placed at hand level here and there, and a rag rug in bright colors lay on the floor by the bed. The walls were white and the sunlight poured in to dash itself upon the floor and splash up the walls in irresistible gaiety. There was no doubt about it, bare though it was, it was a pleasing room, snug, clean and cheerful, and somehow well suited to a thirteen-year-old boy. Chris half smiled as he looked, leaning on one elbow, and then his smile faded as he caught sight of the chair and what it held.
The only chair in the room was laid with carefully folded clothes. But they were not Chris"s clothes. Chris jumped out of bed and then looked down with a quick startled intake of his breath. He was wearing a white nightshirt, something he had never even seen before and barely heard of. The sleeves were long and cuffed, and the nightshirt fell in linen lines to his feet.
"Golly Moses!" Chris exclaimed, completely baffled.
He returned to the examination of the clothes that were obviously laid out for him. There was a fine white shirt with full sleeves and turned-back cuffs. White cotton stockings; knee breeches of a blue-gray worsted material, and matching frock coat with silver carved b.u.t.tons. Below the chair, Chris saw, was a pair of black leather shoes with polished silver buckles.
"Fancy dress, huh?" Chris murmured, and then, as if he had been slapped into full awareness, came the remembrance of the evening before, of Mr. Wicker, and of the dark flickering shop.
Chris sat down suddenly on the edge of the bed, his mouth, in spite of all his efforts, drawn down at the corners, and his eyes blank with confusion and misery.
"Oh my golly!" Chris said, and stared at the clothes he still held in his hands.
Then another idea struck him, and he jumped up to run to the nearest dormer window, the floorboards, where the sun had lain on them, warm under his bare feet.
But no. No freeway, no factories. The window looked out over Water Street, skirting the edge of the Potomac banks, and there below Chris"s amazed eyes rose a forest of masts and spars of ships at anchor along the sh.o.r.e. Water Street, below him, was swarming with activity, but not the activity that Chris had previously known. Men dressed in the same sort of clothes as those laid out for him pushed at cotton bales, rolled hogsheads along to the docks, or rowed out to ships anch.o.r.ed in midstream. Most of the stevedores were hatless, and Chris snickered at the sight of the short braid of hair at the napes of their necks. Many wore brilliant scarves tied around their heads, red, or mustard-yellow or green, and the sound of deep voices swearing, laughing, or rising in unfamiliar sea chanteys excited Chris and sent the blood tingling along his veins.
He rushed to the high-placed window overlooking Wisconsin Avenue. No Key Bridge was to be seen in the distance, only stretches of fields and orchards, scattered with occasional houses of russet brick, and when he craned his neck there was the inn where the People"s Drugstore ought to be, the sign swinging high above the road.
Wisconsin Avenue! Chris had to laugh. If it could see itself! Only a wide muddy road full of ruts and puddles, along which someone"s line of geese was waddling, impervious to the cursing of pa.s.sing carters and riders on horseback. A little below him Chris could see the two old warehouses he remembered from the night before. But now they looked quite new, their bricks bright and their walls solid. Barrels were being lifted by the winch and tackle into the upper loft, and Chris watched the busy scene for quite some time.
His rolling stomach and a simultaneous smell of food reminded him of his hunger. Dressing quickly in the strange new clothes, he opened the door and peered outside.
His bedroom door was at the top of a narrow curling stair that twisted away to the left out of sight. It was steep, and Chris stood silent and intent on the top step, listening. A deep woman"s voice loudly singing, "Farewell and Adieu, to you, Spanish ladies--" came rolling up the stairwell to the accompaniment of a brisk clatter of pots and pans. What rose also to Chris"s nostrils was a smell of newly baked bread, frying bacon, and woodsmoke, and the combination put an end to his indecision. For a while he decided to call a truce to any attempt at solving the mystery in which he found himself, and following his nose, went softly down the stairs.
Rounding the last turn of the staircase, Chris remained in its shadow while he stared with unbelieving eyes at the room and figure before him. If this is a dream, he said in himself, it"s the best one I"ve ever had--the very best!
What confronted Chris was Mr. Wicker"s kitchen. This room took up almost all of the side wing of the house. Across from Chris two cas.e.m.e.nt windows showed the shrubs and flowers and white picket fence of Mr. Wicker"s garden, and at his left was the back door opening onto Water Street, flanked by two smaller windows. These seemed most inviting, each possessing a window seat from which one could watch the busy comings and goings of the docks, with a view of the ships beyond.
But what drew Chris"s eyes and made them grow round with wonder was the extraordinary figure in front of the fireplace. The vast, deeply set fireplace was in the wall that faced the back door. So deep it was, that there was even a bench on one side of it, and over the smoking logs were hung all manner of trivets, spits, and cooking irons. It was, in short, a fireplace such as Chris had never dreamed of. Yet the tall buxom woman stirring the hissing pots and singing to herself was what held Chris rooted to the last step of the attic stair.
The woman stood easily six feet, broad and brawny enough to be a match for almost any man. Countless yards of sprigged cotton must have gone into the making of her dress, to say nothing of her ap.r.o.n. A ma.s.sive fichu of freshly laundered muslin went around her neck and was tucked into her bodice; a white turban was on her head, but on top of the turban--! Chris simply could not believe his eyes as he counted rapidly. On top of this amazing woman"s head was a gigantic hat supporting twenty-four roses and twelve waving black plumes! Chris"s jaw dropped at the sight of the turbaned, hatted head, the flowers bobbing and swaying, the ostrich plumes blowing and curtseying with every slightest movement.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
As if blissfully unaware that her costume was not the usual one for cooking, the woman hummed and stirred, tasted, and hung up her ladle.
But the sight was too much for Chris. Before he could stop it a shout of laughter exploded from his lips. He laughed and laughed, and the indignant expression on the woman"s face when she turned, to stand glaring at him with her hands on her jutting hips, only added to Chris"s laughter. At last, sobering up somewhat as he realized that his behavior was rude, to put it mildly, Chris stopped and caught his breath, shaken only now and again by a diminishing paroxysm. Seeing the spark of bad temper in the red face of the enormous woman, Chris decided to pour oil on the troubled waters.
"Good morning, ma"am. I--I"m Chris Mason, from upstairs, and I"m sorry I laughed so loud. I--" he floundered and grabbed desperately at any pa.s.sing idea "--I saw something comical out the window there"--he pointed wildly--"and it just set me off. I hope I didn"t disturb you?"
Mollified, though not entirely, the woman accepted this effort at peacemaking and her face eased a little.
"Well now. So you are awake at the last, eh? And hungry, bein" a boy, I don"t doubt?"
She moved to the dresser and took down a mug and plate, the roses and ostrich plumes nodding in evident agreement.
"So you are Chris, did you say? Christopher, that would be? And I am Mistress Rebecca Boozer, should you be wanting to know. Becky Boozer, they call me."
She bustled over to a covered bowl, dipped out creamy milk with a long-handled dipper, and set bread, b.u.t.ter, and bacon in front of Chris at a table pulled up to one of the window seats.