She lay awake a long time that night.
Her room was a little square one on the top of the stairs, above the smoking-room where she had that odd scene with Laurie a month or so before, and looking out upon the yew walk that led to the orchard. It was a cheerful little place enough, papered in brown, hung all over with water colors, with her bed in one corner; and it looked a rea.s.suring familiar kind of place in the firelight, as she lay open-eyed and thinking.
It was not that she was at all frightened; it was no more than a little natural anxiety; and half a dozen times in the hour or two that she lay thinking, she turned resolutely over in bed, dismissed the little pictures that her mind formed in spite of herself, and began to think of pleasant, sane subjects.
But the images recurred. They were no more than little vignettes--Laurie talking to a severe-looking tall man with a sardonic smile; Laurie having tea with Mrs. Stapleton; Laurie in an empty room, looking at a closed door....
It was this last picture that recurred three or four times at the very instant that the girl was drowsing off into sleep; and it had therefore that particular vividness that characterizes the thoughts when the conscious attention is dormant. It had too a strangely perturbing effect upon her; and she could not imagine why.
After the third return of it her sense of humor came to the rescue: it was too ridiculous, she said, to be alarmed at an empty room and Laurie"s back. Once more she turned on her side, away from the firelight, and resolved, if it recurred again, to examine the details closely.
Again the moments pa.s.sed: thought followed thought, in those quiet waves that lull the mind towards sleep; finally once more the picture was there, clear and distinct.
Yes; she would look at it this time.
It was a bare room, wainscoted round the walls a few inches up, papered beyond in some common palish pattern. Laurie stood in the center of the uncarpeted boards, with his back turned to her, looking, it seemed, with an intense expectation at the very dull door in the wall opposite him. He was in his evening dress, she saw, knee-breeches and buckles all complete; and his hands were clenched, as they hung held out a little from his sides, as he himself, crouching a little, stared at the door.
She, too, looked at the door, at its conventional panels and its bra.s.s handle; and it appeared to her as if both he and she were expectant of some visitor. The door would open presently, she perceived; and the reason why Laurie was so intent upon the entrance, was that he, no more than she, had any idea as to the character of the person who was to come in. She became quite interested as she watched--it was a method she followed sometimes when wooing sleep--and she began, in her fancy, to go past Laurie as if to open the door. But as she pa.s.sed him she was aware that he put out a hand to check her, as if to hold her back from some danger; and she stopped, hesitating, still looking, not at Laurie, but at the door.
She began then, with the irresponsibility of deepening sleep, to imagine instead what lay beyond the door--to perceive by intuitive vision the character of the house. She got so far as understanding that it was all as unfurnished as this room, that the house stood solitary among trees, and that even these, and the tangled garden that she determined must surround the house, were as listening and as expectant as herself and the waiting figure of the boy. Once more, as if to verify her semi-pa.s.sive imaginative excursion, she moved to the door....
Ah! what nonsense it was. Here she was, wide awake again, in her own familiar room, with the firelight on the walls.
... Well, well; sleep was a curious thing; and so was imagination....
... At any rate she had written to Mr. Cathcart.
_Chapter XI_
I
The "c.o.c.k Inn" is situated in Fleet Street, not twenty yards from Mitre Court and scarcely fifty from the pa.s.sage that leads down to the court where Mr. James Morton still has his chambers.
It was a convenient place, therefore, for Laurie to lunch in, and he generally made his appearance there a few minutes before one o"clock to partake of a small rump steak and a pewter mug of beer. Sometimes he came alone, sometimes in company; and by a carefully thought out system of tips he usually managed to have reserved for him at least until one o"clock a particular seat in a particular part.i.tion in that row of stable-like shelters that run the length of the room opposite the door on the first floor.
On the twenty-third of February, however--it was a Friday, by the way, and boiled plaice would have to be eaten instead of rump steak--he was a little annoyed to find his seat already occupied by a small, brisk-looking man with a grey beard and spectacles, who, with a newspaper propped in front of him, was also engaged in the consumption of boiled plaice.
The little man looked up at him sharply, like a bird disturbed in a meal, and then down again upon the paper. Laurie noticed that his hat and stick were laid upon the adjoining chair as if to retain it. He hesitated an instant; then he slid in on the other side, opposite the stranger, tapped his gla.s.s with his knife, and sat down.
When the waiter came, a familiarly deferential man with whiskers, Laurie, with a slight look of peevishness, gave his order, and glanced reproachfully at the occupied seat. The waiter gave the ghost of a shrug with his shoulders, significant of apologetic helplessness, and went away.
A minute later Mr. Morton entered, glanced this way and that, nodding imperceptibly to Laurie, and was just moving off to a less occupied table when the stranger looked up.
"Mr. Morton," he cried, "Mr. Morton!" in an odd voice that seemed on the point of cracking into falsetto. Certainly he was very like a portly bird, thought Laurie.
The other turned round, nodded with short geniality, and slid into the chair from which the old man moved his hat and stick with zealous haste.
"And what are you doing here?" said Mr. Morton.
"Just taking a bite like yourself," said the other. "Friday--worse luck."
Laurie was conscious of a touch of interest. This man was a Catholic, then, he supposed.
"Oh, by the way," said Mr. Morton, "have you--er--" and he indicated Laurie. "No...? Baxter, let me introduce Mr. Cathcart."
For a moment the name meant nothing to Laurie; then he remembered; but his rising suspicions were quelled instantly by his friend"s next remark.
"By the way, Cathcart, we were talking of you a week or two ago."
"Indeed! I am flattered," said the old man perkily. Yes, "perky" was the word, thought Laurie.
"Mr. Baxter here is interested in Spiritualism--rump steak, waiter, and pint of bitter--and I told him you were the man for him."
Laurie interiorly drew in his horns.
"A--er--an experimenter?" asked the old man, with courteous interest, his eyes giving a quick gleam beneath his gla.s.ses.
"A little."
"Yes. Most dangerous--most dangerous.... And any success, Mr.
Baxter?"
Laurie felt his annoyance deepen.
"Very considerable success," he said shortly.
"Ah, yes--you must forgive me, sir; but I have had a good deal of experience, and I must say--You are a Catholic, I see," he said, interrupting himself. "Or a High Churchman."
"I am a Catholic," said Laurie.
"So"m I. But I gave up spiritualism as soon as I became one. Very interesting experiences, too; but--well, I value my soul too much, Mr.
Baxter."
Mr. Morton put a large piece of potato into his mouth with a detached air.
It was really rather trying, thought Laurie, to be catechized in this way; so he determined to show superiority.
"And you think it all superst.i.tion and nonsense?" he asked.
"Indeed, no," said the old man shortly.
Laurie pushed his plate on one side, and drew the cheese towards him.
This was a little more interesting, he thought, but he was still far from feeling communicative.
"What then?" he asked.