Lavender and Old Lace Part 5

"Yes, I do, Miss Ainslie," she answered, quickly.

The older woman caught her breath, as if in relief, and then the deep crimson flooded her face.

"Hepsey told me and Aunt Jane left a letter about it," Ruth continued, hastily, "and I am very glad to do it. It would be dreadful to have a ship wrecked, almost at our door."

"Yes," sighed Miss Ainslie, her colour receding, "I have often thought of 'those who go down to the sea in ships.' It is so terrible, and sometimes, when I hear the surf beating against the cliff, I--I am afraid."

Ruth climbed the hill, interested, happy, yet deeply disturbed. Miss Ainslie's beautiful, changing face seemed to follow her, and the exquisite scent of the lavender, which had filled the rooms, clung to her senses like a benediction.

Hepsey was right, and unquestionably Miss Ainslie had something to do with the light; but no deep meaning lay behind it--so much was certain.

She had lived alone so long that she had grown to have a great fear of shipwreck, possibly on account of her friend, the "seafaring gentleman,"

and had asked Miss Hathaway to put the light in the window--that was all.

Ruth's reason was fully satisfied, but something else was not. "I'm not going to think about it any more," she said to herself, resolutely, and thought she meant it.

She ate her dinner with the zest of hunger, while Hepsey noiselessly served her. "I have been to Miss Ainslie's, Hepsey," she said at length, not wishing to appear unsociable.

The maid's clouded visage cleared for an instant. "Did you find out about the lamp?" she inquired, eagerly.

"No, I didn't, Hepsey; but I'll tell you what I think. Miss Ainslie has read a great deal and has lived alone so much that she has become very much afraid of shipwreck. You know all of us have some one fear. For instance, I am terribly afraid of green worms, though a green worm has never harmed me. I think she asked Miss Hathaway to put the lamp in the window, and possibly told her of something she had read which made her feel that she should have done it before."

Hepsey's face took on its old, impenetrable calm.

"Don't you think so?" asked Miss Thorne, after a long pause.

"Yes'm."

"It's all very reasonable, isn't it?"

"Yes'm."

In spite of the seeming a.s.sent, she knew that Hepsey was not convinced; and afterward, when she came into the room with the attic lamp and a box of matches, the mystery returned to trouble Ruth again.

"If I don't take up tatting," she thought, as she went upstairs, "or find something else to do, I'll be a meddling old maid inside of six months."

IV. A Guest

As the days went by, Ruth had the inevitable reaction. At first the country brought balm to her tired nerves, and she rested luxuriously, but she had not been at Miss Hathaway's a fortnight before she bitterly regretted the step she had taken.

Still there was no going back, for she had given her word, and must stay there until October. The months before her stretched out into a dreary waste. She thought of Miss Ainslie gratefully, as a redeeming feature, but she knew that it was impossible to spend all of her time in the house--it the foot of the hill.

Half past six had seemed an unearthly hour for breakfast, and yet more than once Ruth had been downstairs at five o'clock, before Hepsey was stiring. There was no rest to be had anywhere, even after a long walk through the woods and fields. Inaction became irritation, and each day was filled with a thousand unbearable annoyances. She was fretful, moody, and restless, always wishing herself back in the office, yet knowing that she could not do good work, even if she were there.

She sat in her room one afternoon, frankly miserable, when Hepsey stalked in, unannounced, and gave her a card.

"Mr. Carl Winfield!" Ruth repeated aloud. "Some one to see me, Hepsey?"

she asked, in astonishment.

"Yes'm. He's a-waitin' on the piazzer."

"Didn't you ask him to come in?"

"No'm. Miss Hathaway, she don't want no strangers in her house."

"Go down immediately," commanded Ruth, sternly, "ask him into the parlour, and say that Miss Thorne will be down in a few moments."

"Yes'm."

Hepsey shuffled downstairs with comfortable leisure, opened the door with aggravating slowness, then said, in a harsh tone that reached the upper rooms distinctly: "Miss Thorne, she says that you can come in and set in the parlour till she comes down."

"Thank you," responded a masculine voice, in quiet amus.e.m.e.nt; "Miss Thorne is kind--and generous."

Ruth's cheeks flushed hotly. "I don't know whether Miss Thorne will go down or not," she said to herself. "It's probably a book-agent."

She rocked pensively for a minute or two, wondering what would happen if she did not go down. There was no sound from the parlour save a subdued clearing of the throat. "He's getting ready to speak his piece," she thought, "and he might as well do it now as to wait for me."

Though she loathed Mr. Carl Winfield and his errand, whatever it might prove to be, she stopped before her mirror long enough to give a pat or two to her rebellious hair. On the way down she determined to be dignified, icy, and crushing.

A tall young fellow with a pleasant face rose to greet her as she entered the room. "Miss Thorne?" he inquired.

"Yes--please sit down. I am very sorry that my maid should have been so inhospitable." It was not what she had meant to say.

"Oh, that's all right," he replied, easily; "I quite enjoyed it. I must ask your pardon for coming to you in this abrupt way, but Carlton gave me a letter to you, and I've lost it." Carlton was the managing editor, and vague expectations of a summons to the office came into Ruth's mind.

"I'm on The Herald," he went on; "that is, I was, until my eyes gave out, and then they didn't want me any more. Newspapers can't use anybody out of repair," he added, grimly.

"I know," Ruth answered, nodding.

"Of course the office isn't a sanitarium, though they need that kind of an annex; nor yet a literary kindergarten, which I've known it to be taken for, but--well, I won't tell you my troubles. The oculist said I must go to the country for six months, stay outdoors, and neither read nor write. I went to see Carlton, and he promised me a berth in the Fall--they're going to have a morning edition, too, you know."

Miss Thorne did not know, but she was much interested.

"Carlton advised me to come up here," resumed Winfield. "He said you were here, and that you were going back in the Fall. I'm sorry I've lost his letter."

"What was in it?" inquired Ruth, with a touch of sarcasm. "You read it, didn't you?"

"Of course I read it--that is, I tried to. The thing looked like a prescription, but, as nearly as I could make it out, it was princ.i.p.ally a description of the desolation in the office since you left it. At the end there was a line or two commending me to your tender mercies, and here I am."

"Commending yourself."

"Now what in the d.i.c.kens have I done?" thought Winfield. "That's it exactly, Miss Thorne. I've lost my reference, and I'm doing my best to create a good impression without it. I thought that as long as we were going to be on the same paper, and were both exiles--"

He paused, and she finished the sentence for him: "that you'd come to see me. How long have you been in town?"

"'In town' is good," he said. "I arrived in this desolate, G.o.d-forsaken spot just ten days ago. Until now I've hunted and fished every day, but I didn't get anything but a cold. It was very good, of its kind--I couldn't speak above a whisper for three days."