Rutledge Part 57

"Absurd! what did he talk about, then?"

"Not about his journey, nor his stateroom, nor you, Josephine; but you know there are more things, and as interesting, in heaven and earth, to us both, strange as it may seem to you."

"_Pardon!_ I had forgotten!"

"You won't hear again before the Persia is in, will you?"

"That will be in three weeks, will it not?"

"Yes; that will be after we are at Newport. To whose care do your letters come addressed?"

"Really, Mr. Wynkar, you are too kind. Your interest is so unexpected!"

"Let us all drink to his _bon voyage_," said the captain, filling my gla.s.s.

"_Avec plaisir_," cried Josephine, and Phil said heartily, as he poured her out a gla.s.s:

"Victor's a good fellow; he has my best wishes on land or sea."

"And mine," said Mr. Rutledge, very low.

Why was there a hush around the table as that toast was drunk? Why did a sort of shade creep over the careless mirth of the company? Not surely because they guessed that he whose health they drank was within hearing, almost, of their words, nor because they knew how fallen and how wretched he was; but because, perhaps unconsciously, the gloom on their host's face, and the misery on mine, damped for a moment their gaiety and confidence.

"The last day at Rutledge!" murmured Josephine, with a pretty sigh, as we left the dining-room. "I cannot bear to think of it. I never had so happy a fortnight in my life. Shall any of us ever forget this visit?"

"It doesn't seem as if we'd been here a week," said Ella, "does it?"

"A week! It seems to me a year!" I exclaimed, involuntarily.

"That doesn't speak well for your enjoyment, at all events; Mr. Rutledge will never ask you to come again. Will you, Mr. Rutledge?"

"I am afraid, Miss Wynkar, that it will be out of my power to enjoy the honor of any one's society here for a long while to come. I am going abroad in the course of a month, and"----

"You, Mr. Rutledge!" exclaimed more than one voice, and Josephine's color suffered a shade of diminution.

"It is a sudden determination, is it not, sir?" asked Phil.

"No, I have been thinking of it for some weeks, but I have not till recently had much idea of the time I should start."

"Mr. Rutledge does not look upon crossing the Atlantic for a few months, as any way more formidable than going to town for a night, he has been such a traveller," said Mrs. Churchill, with admirable composure; but _I_ knew the effort that it cost her. "You do not think of being absent long, I suppose?"

"It is uncertain; I shall make my arrangements to be gone for about two years, but something may occur to detain me longer, in which case I can easily settle all things here by letter. I have trusty persons in my employ, and I think there is no chance of my presence being necessary at home for a long while to come."

"I envy you," said Ellerton; "I wish I could run off for a year or two."

I saw Josephine's lips move, but she could not command her voice, and, bending down, she caressed Tigre with a nervous hand. I could not but pity her; I had not realized before how much her heart had been set upon this match; and wounded pride is next in sting to wounded love.

The gentlemen lit their cigars, and talked of Mr. Rutledge's plans; we all lounged idly about the north end of the hall; the doors were all open, and a fine fresh breeze came in. I had been listening anxiously to a faint sound overhead, _where_ I knew too well; a hasty stride from one end to the other of the room above us.

"Hark!" cried Grace, "what's that? I heard the same sound this morning."

Every one stopped talking, and listened.

"The house is haunted, you may depend," said Josephine. "There have been strange noises next my room for the last three nights."

"That's a peculiar sound. What do you make of it, Mr. Rutledge?" said Ellerton, walking toward the stairs.

"It is nothing," he returned, advancing that way too. "Some of the servants are up there now, perhaps; I will go and see. Don't trouble yourself, Mr. Wynkar."

"I'll go," I cried, starting forward. "Perhaps it's Kitty, she may be waiting for me."

Ellerton paused and listened; Mr. Rutledge pa.s.sed up before him, followed closely by Tigre. I brushed past Ellerton and kept close to Mr.

Rutledge. Mrs. Roberts was standing at the head of the stairs.

"Mrs. Roberts," said Ellerton, "we're investigating an unusual noise up here. Can you account for it?"

Now, Mrs. Roberts never could abide the insinuation that anything might possibly be going on of which she was ignorant; if she had nosed anything herself, she did not, as we have seen, lack zeal in ferreting it out, but it was impossible to put her on a new scent; she refused to acknowledge any other sagacity than her own. So, on the present occasion, as she had heard no noise, she utterly scouted the idea, and a.s.signed some trifling cause for it; the girls, she said, had been in the attic, clearing out an old store-room; probably that was what Mr.

Rutledge had heard. Ellerton hurried down to inform the ladies of the explanation, and Mr. Rutledge, crossing the hall, was going toward his dressing-room, when Tigre, who had been exploring the neighborhood, now rushed whining along the hall, with his nose to the floor. The attention of all was attracted to him; he darted under the wardrobe, and began scratching and growling earnestly at the door of Victor's hiding-place.

I followed Mr. Rutledge's quick glance from my face to the wardrobe, and, starting forward, I tried to call off Tigre.

"Come here, sir! Come here, I say!" But he was too intent upon his discovery to heed me.

"He is a little nuisance," said Mrs. Roberts. "I never approved having him allowed to come upstairs."

"Tigre, what are you after, sir?" said Mr. Rutledge, as he walked down the hall toward him.

"Oh, nothing, I'm sure, sir, nothing!" I cried, following him. "Don't scold him. Tigre, come out, you rascal! come out, I say!" and I stamped vehemently on the floor.

"He will not mind you," said Mr. Rutledge, in a low voice. "He will obey his instincts, and persevere till he has reached the object of his search."

"He isn't searching for anything," I exclaimed, dropping down on my knees and stooping till I could see under the wardrobe. "If I could only reach him. Tigre--you torment--if you don't come, I'll whip you, _so!_ Here, here, _poor_ fellow! Come here, my pet!"

Tigre desisted a moment from his whining, and wavered in his determination. I thrust my arm under the wardrobe, seized him, and drew him, yelping, out; then, springing up, ran across the hall, and almost threw him into my room. Mr. Rutledge watched me silently with a contracted brow, and crossing over to his own room, shut himself into it.

Not a very faithful index, certainly of the real feelings of men and women, is to be obtained from their outward and visible emotions. A very gay party, no doubt, the visitors who came that night to Rutledge, thought they found there. They little guessed how unhappy and disappointed a man their courteous host was, nor that Mrs. Churchill, serene and charming, was looking in the face the failure of the hopes of years, nor that the pretty Josephine's smiles were in ghastly contrast with the bitterness of her spirit; nor that Phil, who knew her face too well to be deceived by them, was smarting under the realizing sense it gave him of her ambition and worldliness. And if they had guessed the interpretation of _my_ gaiety!

There were just enough of us to make the dancing spirited, and to keep every one on the floor. We had before always danced in the parlors, but some evil spirit prompted Grace to propose that we should try a double set of Lancers in the hall. Everybody, encouraged, doubtless, by their attendant evil spirits, seemed to think nothing could be more delightful than the hall, and urged the moving of the piano out there; and there we adjourned. I tried not to remember how plainly we could be heard in a certain room at the end of the hall above; how the laughing and the music would grate on the jealous ears there. If he caught the tones of my voice, he would not know that I laughed because I must keep pace with the captain's jokes, and encourage him in punning and joke-making, to keep him from the hideous topic that he always turned to when left to himself; and to drive away the suspicion that sharpened Mr. Rutledge's eyes, and to keep Mr. Mason my admirer, and no more.

"Like the lady of 'Old Oak Chest' memory, 'I'm weary of dancing,'" I cried at length, "let's amuse ourselves some other way."

"Play hide-and-seek, like that ancient party?" asked Phil, throwing himself on the lowest step of the stairs.

"That's not a bad suggestion!" exclaimed Grace. "This is just the place for such an adventure. I don't mean that I want anybody to be smothered in a chest exactly, but lost for a little while, and hunted for, you know. It would be so jolly."

"So it would!" echoed Ellerton.

"And there's no end of capital hiding-places about the house, so many odd rooms where you'd never expect them; and acres of attic, beyond a doubt!"

"Come!" cried Josephine, "we're all ripe for adventure. Let's have a game of hide-and-seek."