The Inn at the Red Oak Part 5

At length he found the spring that released the eyelid on the carved lion on the other side of the panel. He glanced into the little opening and, to his delight, saw the end of a bit of paper tucked away there. He dug it out with the blade of his pocket knife and unfolded it. It was yellow and brittle with age, covered with writing in a fine clear hand. But he was annoyed to discover, as he bent closely over to read it, that it was written in French, still worse, part of the paper was missing, for one side of it was ragged as if it had been torn in two.

Remembering with relief, that Pembroke had acquired a smattering of French at Dr. Watson's school for the sons of gentlemen, he put the paper carefully away in his pocket to wait for Tom's a.s.sistance in deciphering it. Then he set to work to find the missing half.

He fumbled about at the back of the cabinet for a spring that would release another secret cubby-hole, and was rewarded at last by an unexpected click, and the seemingly solid jaws of the lion fell apart about half-an-inch. But the little aperture which they revealed was empty. Further experiment at last discovered the fourth hiding place, but this also contained nothing.

It occurred to him then that the Marquis had already discovered the other half of the paper, and like himself was searching for a missing portion.

As he stood thinking over the problem, he suddenly noticed that the room was in deep shadow, and realized that the sun had set over the ridge of Lovel's Woods. The Marquis would soon be returning. Carefully closing the four openings in the carving he pushed the old cabinet back against the wall, closed the shutters and drew the curtains. Then with a last glance to see that all was as he found it, he went out and closed the door the precious bit of paper in his inside pocket.

He went directly to Mrs. Frost's parlour. "Mother," he said, "please don't tell anyone that I have been in the north wing today. I have good reasons which I will explain to you before long. Now, I shall be deeply offended if you give the slightest hint."

"Gracious! Dan, what is all this mystery about?"

"You will never know, mother, unless you trust me absolutely. Mind! not a word to Tom, Nancy or the Marquis."

"Very well, Danny. You know I am as safe with a secret as though it had been breathed into the grave."

Dan did not quite share his mother's confidence in her own discretion, but he knew he could count on her devotion to him to keep her silent even where curiosity and the love of talk would render her indiscreet. He also knew, and had often deplored it, that fond as she was of Nancy she was not inclined to take the girl into her confidence.

Having said all he dared to his mother, Dan went to his room and carefully locked up the mysterious paper. He returned to the first floor just as the Marquis and Jesse drove up in the sleigh to the door of the inn.

Monsieur de Boisdhyver was enthusiastic about all that he had seen--the headquarters of General Washington, the house in which the Marquis de Lafayette had slept, the old mill in the parade, the fort at the Narrows, the shipping, the quaint old streets.... "But, O Monsieur Frost," he exclaimed, "the weariness that is now so delightful! How soundly shall I sleep to-night!"

Dan smiled grimly as he a.s.sured his guest of his sympathy for a good night and a sound sleep; thinking to himself, however, that if the Marquis walked, he would not walk unattended. He had no intention of trusting too implicitly to that loudly proclaimed fatigue.

CHAPTER V

THE WALK THROUGH THE WOODS

While Dan Frost was hunting for the secret places of the old cabinet, Tom and Nancy were picking their way across the snowcovered paths of Lovel's Woods to the Red Farm. These woods were a striking feature in the landscape of the open coast country around Deal. Rising somewhat precipitously almost out of the sea, three ridges extended far back into the country, with deep ravines between. They were thickly wooded, for the most part with juniper and pine. In some places the descent to the ravines was sheer and ma.s.sed with rocks heaped there by a primeval glacier; in other parts they dipped more gently to the little valleys, which were threaded with many a path worn smooth by the dwellers on the eastern sh.o.r.e. Nearly two miles might be saved in a walk from the Inn to Squire Pembroke's Farm by going across the Woods rather than by the encircling road.

As they were used to the frozen country Tom and Nancy preferred the shorter if more difficult route. They had often found their way together through the tangled thickets of the Woods or along the sh.o.r.es of the Strathsey River, in season accompanied by dog and gun hunting fox and rabbit or partridge and wild duck. In Tom's company Nancy seemed to forget her shyness and would talk freely enough of her interests and her doings. He had always been fond of her, though until lately she had seemed to him hardly more than a child. This winter, as so frequently he had watched her sitting in the firelight listening to the old Marquis's playing and dreaming perhaps as he also dreamed, he realized that she was growing up. A new beauty had come into her face and slender form, her great dark eyes seemed to hold deeper interests, she was no longer in the world of childhood. The mystery enveloping her origin, which for some reason Mrs. Frost had never chosen to dispel, gave a certain piquancy to the interest and affection Tom felt for her. In the imaginative tales he had been fond of weaving for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, Nancy would frequently figure, revealed at last as the child of n.o.ble parents, as a princess doomed by some strange fate to exile. He thought of these things as from time to time he glanced back at her, holding aside some branch that crossed the path or giving her his hand to help her over a boulder in the way. The red scarf about her neck, red cap on her dark hair, flashing in and out of the tangled pathway against the background of the snow-clad woods, gave a bright note of colour to the scene.

They were obliged for the most part to walk in single file until the last ridge descended over a ma.s.s of rocks to the marshes along Beaver Pond.

Then having given her his hand to help her down, he kept hold of it as they went along the free path to the open meadows. The feeling of Nancy's cool little hand in his gave Tom an odd and conscious sense of pleasure.

"You have been uncommonly silent, Nance, even for you," he said at last.

"Oh, I'm always silent, Tom," she replied. "It is because I am stupid and have nothing to say."

"Nonsense, my dear, you always have a lot to say to me. But you are forever reading, thinking ... what's it all about?"

"Oh, I think, Tom, because I have little else to do; but my thoughts aren't often worth the telling. In truth there is no one, not even you, who particularly cares to hear them. Tom," she said, "I am restless and discontented. Sometimes I wish I were far away from the Inn at the Red Oak and Deal, from all that I know,--even from you and Dan."

Pembroke suddenly realized that he could not laugh at these fancies, as he had so often done, and dismiss as if they were the vagaries of a child.

"Why are you restless and discontented, Nancy?" he asked seriously.

"Aren't you ever?" she questioned for reply. "Don't you ever get weary with the emptiness of it all, the everlasting round, the dullness? Don't you ever want to get away from Deal, and know people and see things and be somebody?"

"I do that, Nance. I mean to go as soon as I am a lawyer. I won't poke about Deal long after that, nor Monday Port either. I mean to set up in Coventry."

"Coventry!" exclaimed the girl with an accent of disdain. "That is just a provincial town like the Port, only a little more important because it is the capital of the state."

"Being the capital means a lot," protested Tom in defense of his ambitions of which for the first time he felt ashamed. "Men are sent to Congress from there. Nance, girl, ours is a wonderful country; we are making a great nation."

"Some people may be. None of us are, Tom. I wonder at you more than I do at Dan, for you have had more advantages. As for me, I am only a girl; there's nothing for girls but to sit and sew, and prepare meals for men to eat, and wait until some one comes and chooses to marry them. Then they go off and do the same thing some place else."

"But what have you to complain of, Nancy? you have the kindest brother, a good mother, a comfortable home...."

"The kindest brother, yes. But you know Mrs. Frost is not my mother. She doesn't care for me and I can't care for her as if she were. I have never loved any one but Dan."

"You can't help loving Dan," said Tom, thinking of his good friend.

"But then, little girl, you love me too." And he pressed the hand in his warmly.

Nancy quickly withdrew her hand. "I am not a little girl. I have been grown up in lots of ways ever so long."

"But you love me?"

"I like you. Oh, Tom, the life we all lead is so futile. If I weren't a girl, I should go away."

They had reached the stile by now that led into the meadow which sloped down from the clump of poplars a hundred rods or so above, in the midst of which the Red Farmhouse stood. Instead of helping his companion over the steps in the wall, Tom stopped and stood with his back to them.

"Let's stay here a minute, Nance, and have it out."

"Have what out?" she asked a trifle sharply.

"You haven't any queer wild plan in your head to go away, have you?"

"I don't know--sometimes I think I have. I dare say there are things somewhere a girl could find to do."

"But Mrs. Frost--?"

"Oh, Mother would not miss me long--she'd have Dan."

"But Dan would miss you."

"Yes, Dan might. I couldn't go, if Dan really needed me here. I think sometimes he doesn't. But, Tom, if you were in my position, if you didn't know who your parents were, if all your life you had been living on the charity of others--good and kind as they are, wonderful even as Dan has always been--you couldn't be happy. I'm not happy."

"But, Nance, what has come over you?"

"No--nothing in particular; I have often felt this way."

"But, dear, I couldn't let you go. I'd mind a lot, Nance."

She looked at him with a sudden smile of incredulity. "You, Tommy?"

"You can't go--you musn't go," Tom repeated, as he drew nearer to her.