The Mayor's Wife Part 6

"Both went away disappointed; he to face his disgrace about which his aunts were very reticent, and she to seek work which was all the more necessary to her, since she had lost her pay, with the disappearance of these bonds, whose value I have no doubt she knew and calculated on."

"And the aunts, the two poor old creatures who stare all day out of their upper window at these walls, still believe that money to be here,"

I cried.

"Yes, that is their mania. Several tenants have occupied these premises--tenants who have not stayed long, but who certainly filled all the rooms, and must have penetrated every secret spot the house contains, but it has made no difference to them. They believe the bonds to be still lying in some out-of-the-way place in these old walls, and are jealous of any one who comes in here. This you can understand better when I tell you that one feature of their mania is this: they have lost all sense of time. It is two years since their brother died, yet to them it is an affair of yesterday. They showed this when they talked to me.

What they wanted was for me to give up these bonds to them as soon as I found them. They seemed to think that I might run across them in settling, and made me promise to wake them day or night if I came across them unexpectedly."

"How pathetic!" I exclaimed. "Do you suppose they have appealed in the same way to every one who has come in here?"

"No, or some whisper of this lost money would have become current in the neighborhood. And it never has. The traditions a.s.sociated with the house," here her manner changed a little, "are of quite another nature.

I suppose the old gentleman has walked--looking, possibly, for his lost bonds."

"That would be only natural," I smiled, for her mood was far from serious. "But," I quietly pursued, "how much of this old woman's story do you believe? Can not she have been deceived as to what she saw?

You say she is more or less demented. Perhaps there never was any old wallet, and possibly never any money."

"I have seen the wallet. They brought it in to show me. Not that that proves anything; but somehow I do believe in the money, and, what is more, that it is still in this house. You will think me as demented as they."

"No, no," I smiled, "for I am inclined to think the same; it lends such an interest to the place. I wouldn't disbelieve it now for anything."

"Nor I," she cried, taking up her work. "But we shall never find it. The house was all redecorated when we came in. Not one of the workmen has become suddenly wealthy."

"I shall no longer begrudge these poor old souls their silent watch over these walls that hold their treasure," I now remarked.

"Then you have lost your nervousness?"

"Quite."

"So have I," laughed Mrs. Packard, showing me for the first time a face of complete complacency and contentment.

CHAPTER VI. AT THE STAIR-HEAD

I spent the evening alone. Mrs. Packard went to the theater with friends and Mayor Packard attended a conference of politicians. I felt my loneliness, but busied myself trying to sift the impressions made upon me by the different members of the household.

It consisted, as far as my present observation went, of seven persons, the three princ.i.p.als and four servants. Of the servants I had seen three, the old butler, the nurse, and the housemaid, Ellen. I now liked Ellen; she appeared equally alive and trustworthy; of the butler I could not say as much. He struck me as secretive. Also, he had begun to manifest a certain antagonism to myself. Whence sprang this antagonism?

Did it have its source in my temperament, or in his? A question possibly not worth answering and yet it very well might be. Who could know?

Pondering this and other subjects, I remained in my cozy little room up-stairs, till the clock verging on to twelve told me that it was nearly time for Mrs. Packard's return.

Hardly knowing my duties as yet, or what she might expect of me, I kept my door open, meaning to speak to her when she came in. The thought had crossed my mind that she might not return at all, but remain away with her friends. Some fear of this kind had been in Mr. Packard's mind and naturally found lodgment in mine. I was therefore much relieved when, sharp on the stroke of midnight, I heard the front door-bell ring, followed by the sound of her voice speaking to the old butler. I thought its tone more cheerful than before she went out. At all events, her face had a natural look when, after a few minutes' delay, she came upstairs and stepped into the nursery--a room on the same floor as mine, but nearer the stair-head.

From what impulse did I put out my light? I think now, on looking back, that I hoped to catch a better glimpse of her face when she came out again, and so be in a position to judge whether her anxiety or secret distress was in any special way connected with her child. But I forgot the child and any motive of this kind which I may have had; for when Mrs. Packard did reappear in the hall, there rang up from some place below a laugh, so loud and derisive and of so raucous and threatening a tone that Mrs. Packard reeled with the shock and I myself was surprised in spite of my pride and usual impa.s.sibility. This, had it been all, would not be worth the comment. But it was not all. Mrs. Packard did not recover from the shock as I expected her to. Her fine figure straightened itself, it is true, but only to sink again lower and lower, till she clung crouching to the stair-rail at which she had caught for support, while her eyes, turning slowly in her head, moved till they met mine with that unseeing and gla.s.sy stare which speaks of a soul-piercing terror--not fear in any ordinary sense, but terror which lays bare the soul and allows one to see into depths which--

But here my compa.s.sion drove me to action. Advancing quietly, I caught at her wrap which was falling from her shoulders. She grasped my hand as I did so.

"Did you hear that laugh?" she panted. "Whose was it? Who is down-stairs?"

I thought, "Is this one of the unaccountable occurrences which have given the house its blighted reputation?" but I said: "Nixon let you in.

I don't know whether any one else is below. Mayor Packard has not yet come home."

"I know; Nixon told me. Would you--would you mind,"--how hard she strove to show only the indignant curiosity natural to the situation--"do you object, I mean, to going down and seeing?"

"Not at all," I cheerfully answered, glad enough of this chance to settle my own doubts. And with a last glance at her face, which was far too white and drawn to please me, I hastened below.

The lights had not yet been put out in the halls, though I saw none in the drawing-room or library. Indeed, I ran upon Nixon coming from the library, where he had evidently been attending to his final duties of fastening windows and extinguishing lights. Alive to the advantage of this opportune meeting, I addressed him with as little aggressiveness as possible.

"Mrs. Packard has sent me down to see who laughed just now so loudly.

Was it you?"

Strong and unmistakable dislike showed in his eyes, but his voice was restrained and apparently respectful as he replied: "No, Miss. I didn't laugh. There was nothing to laugh at."

"You heard the laugh? It seemed to come from somewhere here. I was on the third floor and I heard it plainly."

His face twitched--a habit of his when under excitement, as I have since learned--as with a shrug of his old shoulders he curtly answered:

"You were listening; I was not. If any one laughed down here I didn't hear 'em."

Confident that he was lying, I turned quietly away and proceeded down the hall toward Mayor Packard's study.

"I wish to speak to the mayor," I explained.

"He's not there." The man had eagerly followed me. "He's not come home yet, Miss."

"But the gas is burning brightly inside and the door ajar. Some one is there."

"It is Mr. Steele. He came in an hour ago. He often works here till after midnight."

I had heard what I wanted to know, but, being by this time at the very threshold, I could not forbear giving the door a slight push, so as to catch at least a momentary glimpse of the man he spoke of.

He was sitting at his post, and as he neither looked up nor stirred at my intrusion, I had an excellent opportunity for observing again the clear-cut profile which had roused my admiration the day before.

Certainly, seen as I saw it now, in the concentrated glow of a lamp shaded from every other corner of the room, it was a face well worth looking at. Seldom, perhaps never, had I beheld one cast in a more faultless mold. Smooth-shaven, with every harmonious line open to view, it struck the eye with the force and beauty of a cameo; masculine strength and feminine grace equally expressed in the expansive forehead and the perfectly modeled features. Its effect upon the observer was instantaneous, but the heart was not warmed nor the imagination awakened by it. In spite of the perfection of the features, or possibly because of this perfection, the whole countenance had a cold look, as cold as the sculpture it suggested; and, though incomparable in pure physical attraction, it lacked the indefinable something which gives life and meaning to such faces as Mayor Packard's, for instance. Yet it was not devoid of expression, nor did it fail to possess a meaning of its own.

Indeed, it was the meaning in it which held my attention. Abstracted as the man appeared to be, even to the point of not perceiving my intruding figure in the open doorway, the thoughts which held him were not common thoughts, nor were they such as could be easily read, even by an accustomed eye. Having noted this, I softly withdrew, not finding any excuse for breaking in upon a man so occupied.

The butler stood awaiting me not three feet from the door. But taking a lesson from the gentleman I had just left, I ignored his presence completely, and, tripping lightly up-stairs, found Mrs. Packard awaiting me at the head of the first flight instead of the second.

Her fears, or whatever it was which moved her, had not diminished in my absence. She stood erect, but it was by the help of her grasp on the bal.u.s.trade; and though her diamonds shone and her whole appearance in her sweeping dinner-dress was almost regal, there was mortal apprehension in her eye and a pa.s.sion of inquiry in her whole att.i.tude which I was glad her husband was not there to see.

I made haste to answer that inquiry by immediately observing:

"I saw Nixon. He was just coming out of the library. He says that he heard no laugh. The only other person I came upon down-stairs was Mr.

Steele. He was busy over some papers and I did not like to interrupt him; but he did not look as if a laugh of any sort had come from him."

"Thank you."

The words were hoa.r.s.ely uttered and the tone unnatural, though she tried to carry it off with an indifferent gesture and a quick movement toward her room. I admired her self-control, for it was self-control, and was contrasting the stateliness of her present bearing with the cringing att.i.tude of a few minutes before--when, without warning or any premonitory sound, all that beauty and pride and splendor collapsed before my eyes, and she fell at my feet, senseless.