“No, no,” she cried, at once alert and active; “no sleep. Look at that pile of correspondence, half of it on charitable matters. Now that I feel better, now that I have relieved my mind, I must look over my letters and try to take up the old threads again.”
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Possibly. If you will go to my room up-stairs, I will join you after I have sorted and read my mail.”
I was glad to obey this order. I had a curiosity about her room. It had been the scene of much I did not understand the night before. Should I find any traces there of that search which had finally ended over my head in the attic?
I was met at the door by Ellen. She wore a look of dismay which I felt fully accounted for when I looked inside. Disorder reigned from one end of the room to the other, transcending any picture I may have formed in my own mind concerning its probable condition. Mrs. Packard must have forgotten all this disarray, or at least had supposed it to have yielded to the efforts of the maid, when she proposed my awaiting her there. There were bureau-drawers with their contents half on the floor, boxes with their covers off, cupboard-doors ajar and even the closet shelves showing every mark of a frenzied search among them. Her rich gown, soiled to the width of half a foot around the bottom, lay with cut laces and its trimmings in rags under a chair which had been knocked over and left where it fell. Even her jewels had not been put away, but lay scattered on the dresser. Ellen looked ashamed and, when I retired to the one bare place I saw in the bay of the window, muttered as she plunged to lift one of the great boxes:
“It’s as bad as the attic room up-stairs. All the trunks have been emptied on to the floor and one held her best summer dresses. What shall I do? I have a whole morning’s work before me.”
“Let me help you,” I proposed, rising with sudden alacrity. My eyes had just fallen on a small desk at my right, also on the floor beneath and around it. Here, there and everywhere above and below lay scraps of torn-up paper; and on many, if not on all of them, could be seen the broken squares and inverted angles which had marked so curiously the surface of the envelope she had handed to Mr. Steele, and which I had afterward seen her burn.
“A baby can make a deal of mess,” I remarked, hurriedly collecting these scraps and making a motion of throwing them into the waste-paper basket, but hiding them in my blouse instead.
“The baby! Oh, the baby never did that. She’s too young.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. I haven’t seen much of the child though I heard her cry once in the nursery. How old is she?”
“Twenty months and such a darling! You never saw such curls or such eyes. Why, look at this!”
“What?” I demanded, hurrying to the closet, where Ellen stood bending over something invisible to me. “Oh, nothing,” she answered, coming quickly out. But in another moment, her tongue getting the better of her discretion, she blurted out: “Do you suppose Mrs. Packard had any idea of going with the mayor? Her bag is in there almost packed. I was wondering where all her toilet articles were. That accounts—” Stopping, she cast a glance around the room, ending with a shake of the head and a shrug. “She needn’t have pulled out all her things,” she sharply complained. “Certain, she is a mysterious lady;—as queer as she is kind.”
CHAPTER X. A GLIMMER OF THE TRUTH
This was a sentiment I could thoroughly indorse. Mrs. Packard was certainly an enigma to me. Leaving Ellen to finish her work, I went upstairs to my own room, and, taking out the scraps of paper I had so carefully collected, spread them out before me on the lid of the desk.
They were absolutely unintelligible to me—marks and nothing more. Useless to waste time over such unmeaning scrawls when I had other and more tangible subjects to consider. But I should not destroy them. There might come a time when I should be glad to give them the attention which my present excitement forbade. Putting them back in my desk, I settled myself into a serious contemplation of the one fact which seemed to give a partial if not wholly satisfactory explanation of Mrs. Packard’s peculiar conduct during the last two weeks—her belief that she had been visited by a specter of an unholy, threatening aspect.
That it was a belief and nothing more seemed sufficiently clear to me in the cold-blooded analysis to which I now subjected the whole matter.
Phantoms have no place in the economy of nature. That Mrs. Packard thought herself the victim of one was simply a proof of how deeply, though perhaps unconsciously, she had been affected by the traditions of the house. Such sensitiveness in a mind naturally firm and uncommonly well poised, called for attention. Yet a physician had asserted that he could do nothing for her. Granting that he was mistaken, would an interference of so direct and unmistakable a character be wise in the present highly strung condition of her nerves? I doubted it. It would show too plainly the light in which we regarded her. I dared not undertake the responsibility of such a course in Mayor Packard’s absence. Some other way must be found to quiet her apprehensions and bring her into harmony again with her surroundings. I knew of only one course. If the influence of the house had brought on this hallucination, then the influence of the house must be destroyed. She must be made to see that, despite its unfortunate reputation, no specter had ever visited it; that some purely natural cause was at the bottom of the various manifestations which had successively driven away all previous tenants.
Could I hope to effect this? It was an undertaking of no small moment. Had I the necessary judgment? I doubted it, but my ambition was roused. While Mr. Steele was devoting himself to the discovery of Mayor and Mrs. Packard’s political enemy, I would essay the more difficult task of penetrating the mystery threatening their domestic peace. I could but fail; a few inquiries would assure me of the folly or the wisdom of my course.
Having reached this point and satisfied myself as to my real duty, I rose to leave my room for another word or two with Ellen. As I did so my eyes fell on the shade still drawn between me and the next house. The impulse to raise it was irresistible. I must see if either of the two old faces still occupied that gable window. It was not likely. It was not in ordinary human nature to keep up so unremitting a watch. Yet as the shade flew up at my touch I realized that my astonishment would have been great and my expectations altogether disappointed if I had not encountered the fixed countenance and the set stare with which I had come to connect this solitary window. Miss Charity was there, and, though I now knew what underlay her senile, if not utterly mad watch, the impression made upon me by her hopeless countenance was as keen as it had ever been, and lent point and impetus to the task I had just set for myself.
It was apparent that Mrs. Packard had forgotten or changed her mind about joining me in her own room, but nevertheless I went out, to discover what possible duties she might have laid out for me. Ascertaining from Ellen that Mrs. Packard had engagements which would take her out at noon, I waited for that hour to pass, then excused myself and went out also.
The owner of the house whose shaded history I was now determined to learn was John Searles, a real estate agent. To his office in Main Street I at once proceeded, not without doubts and much inward trepidation, but buoyed up by the assurance of Mayor Packard’s approval of any attempt, however far-fetched or unpromising, which held out the least possibility of relieving Mrs. Packard from her superstitious fears and restoring the peace and happiness of the household. If only Mr. Searles should prove to be an approachable man!
I had never seen him or heard him spoken of, or I should not have encouraged myself with this hope. At my first glimpse of his tall, gaunt figure, hard features, and brisk impatient movements, I knew that my wit and equanimity would be put to their full test in the interview.