The evening world. Newspaper, November 26, 1921, Page 14

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a THE EVENING WORLD'S FICTION SECTION, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1921. an adventure which was as foreign to her as it would have been to the mouse in the kitchen. She had just opened the wrought-iron gate and was scurrying in the timid hope that she wouldn’t miss her train when an automobile came up the dusky street and stopped beside the Turnbull hitching post. Helen Leffley leaned acro@s her husband's figure, swaddled in scarves, and called out in a voice which was sweet and slightly rough—like the aweeping of winds over harp-strings of rusted gold. “Miss Turnbull!” “Oh!” The little old epinster, her body awry from the weight of the bag she carried, peered nervously around, “It's Mrs. Leffiey. I'm sorry we're so late. I hoped we might have a chat before you left"— “They’re right inconvenient — these trains,” apologized Miss Turnbull. “The railroad has never done a thing for Soarletburg since Hightecn-edghty—it leaves at six forty-seven—or is it forty- nine?” Her look was so helpless that Helen volunteered: »aVon't you let us take you over to the station in the car?” “Mercy, no! ‘Thank you ever 80 much, but I wouldn't ride in one of those things.” The man, whose face she had never seen, sat, wrapped to the eyes, against the cushioned seat. “I don't think I have your address, Miss Turnbull,” ventured Helen, where. at the little being straightened proudly to mention the important name. “In care of Mrs. Darius Pennybank of Middleboro.” “Shall we send the—rent there?” “The rent? Oh!" The old woman stood collecting her wits, “Judge Mal- lok will handle all that. He’s coming over to-night with the lease—he lives next door, you know. And if you want enything, call on him, He's your Coroner, you know.” Helen Leffley might have emiled at this, but the jangled discord of the day was in her ears; and fear of her hus- band was growing like a cancer aga‘nst her heart, “I hope you'll find the house in go74 order,” the old lady wandered on. “And, oh yes—there’s mice. I think you’ find some traps in the cellar—Caroline must have put them down there. I left the key on a nail beside the front door. Some groceries came from Pratt's and I left them out on the storm porch. Oh dear!” Something to do with the six forty- seven—or forty-nine, perhaps—inspired the little body to desperate action. With an agility quite unexpected in so decrepit a frame she scurried away inte the dusk. * !" called Helen to her husband, who sat silent all during their trip from Charleville. Reaching impatiently to the thick muffler which had concealed the lower part of his face, he tore it away, re- vealing haggard, handsome features in which his burning eyes were sot. “Well?” he suggested sullenly. “We're here, Fred," she announced with a sort of lip-cheerfulness, “It you'll run up and find the key I'll pay the chauffeur.” HE tall man lumbered out of the car, trousers flapping loosely around his thin legs. The sight of those uncouth garments brought back to Helen's mind some- thing of the terror which had smote - her on the day before when she had come upon him, attired as for a mas querade. Her eyes followed him anz- iously as he creaked open the iron gate and slouched up the worn brick walk. Her hired car dismissed, Helen followed quickly; a grey loneliness struck into her heart like the damp chill of night. Metallic deer and dogs stood frozen on a wind-swept lawn. From a brick house on the lot beyond light beamed heartily, glinting th the twigs of skeleton trees. panionship gave her comfort af that Judge Mallok, ull had mentioned as her bor, would prove to be as kind | hearty as the light of his windows. In the dingy vestibule around the front door she found Fred striking matches, each momentary flash giving an infernal glare to the bleak sur- 2 “ ait g& Helen the nail which Miss Octavia had indicated; in another instant she had the dor open, and the breath of the house came to her like winds out of a sepulchre. Unsteady light from the match she hekd caused witch-shadows to dance across the wall-paper whose faded Egyptian border and gilded tors nice combined to give the impression of a tomb in which some second-grade Pharaoh of middle-class tastes had lain moldering through the centuries. She carried the flame to an ornate gas fixture which tipped the newel-post. The interior, she thought, took on a world of cheerfulness in that steadier light. “It's really a dear old place, Fred,” she told him in the voice of one in- viting a sulky child. “Some of the furniture’s dreadfully ugly, but we oan move it around And the most wonderful light will come through those high windows, With a little money”—— She broke off, embarrased, despite her effort. She remembered the insane suspicion whieh was growing in Fred's poor mind at the: thought of Spurting. How could she tell him that it was Bob’s money that: had brought them thus far? Fred Leffley still stood there, his overcoat thrown open to show the im- possible clothes which q demented fancy had caused him to buy from a colored waiter. The cloth wae of a faded blue, shiny with wear, and it shroud- like over hia emaciated form’ But she could have cried out her joy at the look which had stolen into his pallid face. He was santilinmg and looking round him with a giance that was pleasantly natural. “It's not half bad,” he said, “and I’m giad we're in the country, old girl.” On the impulse of his humor he laid @ hand heavily om her arm. She hoped that he did not feel her wince away. “I was going fair balmy with that boarding-houge phonograph, howling all night long, under our bedroom. There seems to be a bit of lawn outside, too, and some trees This is the medicine, Nell.” Her heart leaped up. She never failed to ralty amd to hope whenever he revived like this, after days of hateful melancholy and insane distrust. Pos- sibly the country would do him good, as the eminently expensive New York physician had said it would. Possibly he would became norma] again so that she coulg talk to him reasonably and tet him about Bob Spurling and ask him for the telegram which he had intercepted and might be hiding now somewhere in those misfit clothes. She bounded into the parlor and lit the gas in every jtt. The glint of oval- backed rosewood chairs and of the grosser mid-Victorian walnut filled her eyes as she gazed across the drabbish Brussels carpet and set her mind ‘to scheming out a new arrangement which would make the place more livable. Nothing much could be done with the mantel; it was one of those dismal pagodas of black marble with gilded grooves and a succession of aimless shelves, mounting up and up, almost to the ormately molded cornice. “We can have a colored woman in— at least for half a day,” she said brightly. ‘The place is frightfully clut- tered. We'll move a lot of these things to the basement—it’ll be ever so much fun. And oh, Fred! Do see that dar- ling, adorable old grandfather’s clock!" The look of interest was still in his eyes, she saw, as he moved over to a corner by the dining-room doors where a tall, graceful tower of marquetried wood arose above the ugly contour of 9 jigsawed couch. Inlaid with floral wreaths of satinwood, slender and Pa- trician in every line, the Eighteenth Century clock loomed over a waste of Victorian furniture like an exiled prince parvenus. Its fretted. among grubby hands lay idly on the silver dial, point- an. the hour of ten in some forgotten When Helen returned, after making the rounds to turn on more lights and replenish the fire which Miss Octavia had left in the kitchen stove, she found him still staring at the silver dial. ‘*“Jolly old clock!" he was muttering. “Makes one feel at home, doesn't it, By Jove, Nell, we're going to be cory as two squirrels in a tree—lost in the “We—we can manage that, dear. now is to get you well thing “I'm feeling a bit seedy—I wonder if I might lie down.” “That's sensfble, my dear.” Already she was leading him toward the gaunt ack walunt etaircase, “Miss Turnbull ut the big front bedroom in order—a rt of order. You take a little snooze, Fred, and I'll have something ‘hot for you in a jiffy.” “Something hot.” He smacked his dry lips) “You didn’t chance to bring anything along in a flask?” “Don't be silly,” she was brave enough to command, and he followed her meekly enough into the shadows of the second floor, Zz gz ELEN found the storm porch which Miss Octavia had men- tioned and there, true to speci- fications, she discovered two boxes laden with paper parcels. These she dragged into the kitchen and was searching fot a bag of rice when some- thing small, gray and disgustingly alive began a frenzied scampering under the papers and leaped up, almost in her face. A mouse! She gave a little scream and tightened her skirty, in- stinctively. She would search in the morning, she resolved, for one of those traps, which Miss Octavia’s deceased sister Nad hidden in the basement. Cooking ia the most reflective of the arts. The simmering of a tea-kett'e, the dropping of quartered vegetables inte a hollow pan, the comfortable chuckie of beating eggs, induce a philo- sophical train of thought. No wonder Maecenas, lover of food and genius, went to his cook, when peets bored him, for Olympian views upon the destiny of man, Helen Leffiey loved to cook; and as for philosophy, her way of life had made that a . She worked busily between stove and table, plan- ning a little menu which would be « relie¢ from Mra. Bascomb's greasy and soggy school of Southern cooking. The mouse stirred again behind its listen- ing-post—ehe frightened ft with a spoon. And her thoughts raced om and on. She had introduced herself to Miss Turnbull as an Australian. In that she had spoken a partial truth. She had been born of American parents who had died in Sydney, and as a young girl she had met and married Leffley, a pic- ‘turesque wanderer of the planet. He had been a merourial charming neuras- thenlc with a little money of his own. Their child had died in a Chinese port, and after that her devotion had beea all for the man whose eccentricities, as the years went by, gathered into storms that devastated his mind. The story of her nine years’ martyr- dom had been nobody’s business but her own. How could she tell it? No true martyr goes to the stake crying out his sacrifice. Only she had talked a little to Bob Spurling, and he had guessed so much without telling. That was the wonder of the man, heavy, Diunt and unimaginative to all out- ward seeming; yet how much he could observe with those eyes of his, small and wise as an elephant’s. . . . The winds of chance had blown the Leffleys to. New York at the close of a great war in which poor Fred, useless for any practical work, had had no share. The hope of a small position in a British mercantile concern had gone a-glimmering with internment in a hos- pital—the doctors had been so kind as to call it “a nervous breakdown.” Whatever it was, a mild indulgence in whiskey and soda had brought it on again. The veriest sip of liquor seemed to ani the fragile balance of fred's min Bob Spurling did not come into her life, by any stretching of that hack- neyed phrase. She had gone into bis. One morning, about a week after Fred’s illness had come on, Helen had gone to the hospital a little early to be told by the nurse that he was still asleep. She had got him a good room on the second floor, having sold the last of her war bonds to obtain this com- fort; and it was while she was reading in the little sitting-room outside that a plumply cheerful woman in a white cap came in and asked: “I wonder if you would mind adding another good deed to your list?” And in answer to Helen’s questioning look she had explained, “Mr. Spurting fee!s dreadfully low sometimes, It's really convalescence—he'll be sitting up in a week, His leg was dreadfully mangled in the same accident that killed his wife. He seems to have almost no friends in New York; he’s been living in Cuba so long’—— Helen followed the nurse into a sunny room to see a bulky man of forty Propped up among the pillows. One of his legs, swaddled beyond recognition, was hoisted up on an apparatus which, feigning an instrument of torture, was doimg the work of mercy. At first she thought him dull and un- responsive, but before she had finished the quaint little interview she learned how shy he was and how alone. “Isn't there something I can bring you?” she had asked before departure— oe ae ee Ong ee all the talk- “Yes,” he said, and his big face glowed into a amile. “Just bring me another look at you.” That was the Until his recovery Helen's attitude had been one of kindness and protection. Then the situation had reversed. Why they had come together had been a matter as simple and as intricate as the opening of flowers and the decay of weeds. Crushed under the weight of her own misfortune she had flown instinctively to his goodness and his strength. She had accepted him as an elder brother and he had never taken advantage of that acceptance. During Fred's long illness it had been a daily comfort to see the big-framed man, limping on his cane, as he came to pay his bashful, friendly call. How little she had told him, yet how much he _ understond! Only once had he offered to help her financially. Slaving to-night over the hot stove in Miss Octavia Turnbull's kitchen, Helen had in her heart nothing but a wistful gratitude for the man who had tapped so gently upon the door of her life. But from the day of Fred's re- lease into the world of men and women Bob Spurling had been no boon to her. The invalid had displayed a distempered cunning in his treatment of her bene- factor; always gayly cordial in Spur- ling’s presence he had reserved his art- ful sneers for Helen as soon as they were alone together, She had enjoyed a sense ef relief when their physician— undoubtedly anxious te be rid of & hopeless case—had ordered his patient to the mythical quiet of a Southern town. But Helen Leffley, her hands flying from bowl! to knife in Miss Octavia’s kitchen, felt the grip of fear again, as if a spectre had slunk upon her from behind and seized her by the hair. Less than a week ago Bob Spurling had sent her money—a eheck for fifteen hundred dellars between the pages of a crisply worded note, mentioning repay- ment in three years at a regular rate of interest. She had carried that letter for several days before pride had yield- ed to want and she had made a deposit in a Charleville bank. It was as though furies had pursued her for that wicked deed. She seldom left Fred alone, but she had stolen away to the bank at mid-morning, while he ‘was still asleep; she had met Syria, the capable maid, on the boarding-house stairs and besought her with bribes to stand alert in the event that Mr. Lef- fley should awake and ask for her. The errand had taken longer than she had hoped, and upon her return she found Syria, her eyes rolling with excitement. Her terror gathered force at the wom- an's wandering tale. A telegram had come fer Mrs. Leffley, and Syria, with racial genius for misdelivery, had given tt to the madman upstairs! Appailed by his rage and fury Syria had acted according to her lights—sbe had stolen his clothes. Helen had found her husband sittirg perfectly calm, but marvelously arrayed in a misfit suit of spotted blue. He had bought ft of a waiter, he explained with one of his frozen smiles, his features twisted to the look of cloying sweetness whioh he used when his soul was gone and the Black Beast was astride his back. ... Helen Leffley went on with her cook- ing, now moving a saucepan to the back of the range, now carrying the skillet to the sink to drain hot water from her mess of potatoes. She felt sure that in yesterday's telegram Bob Spurling had called her. Was he in trouble? What had he said that had thrown poor Fred again into the abyss? Ting-a-ling-a-ling! A loose-tongued clam»yr rang through hollow depths in the Turnbull house. A mouse scuttled away from behind the cake-box. Helen stood palsied for an instant, then she remembered the door-bell, one of those pre-electric arrangements which ‘work by a knolh from the outside. Who would be call- ing at this time of night? Fearful lest the noise should be repeated and arouse Fred to another rage she res- cued her half-cooked supper from the hot stove-lid, wiped her hands and hastened through the Egyptian splen- dors of the Turmbull hal. é6 OW DO you do?” asked a H pleasant voice out of the darkness. “This is Mrs. Leffley, isn't it?” “Yes, I'm Mrs. Leffley,” she agreed, and from the vestibule’s dimness stepped the jolliest little man in the world, his hair snow-white and a withered turkey neck sticking loosely out of a atiff collar whioh showed above a low-cut waistcoat and one gold stud, somewhat smaller than a lima bean. “Well, I'm Judge Mallok,” he ex- plained, shaking hands with a spirited cordiality. “I hope you aren't nervous, ma‘am. I've left my shotgun outside.” “Shotgun?” she echoed, although there was nothing about Judge Mallok to inspire nervousness. “There is a reign of terror in Scar- letburg, ma’am,” he announced, stiff- ening himsetf to his full height, which was not colossal. “An epidemic of thievery and lawlessness has made it eo that no citizen can go abroad at night unleas he is armed for self- protection. Last week the post-office was robbed and government property -—to wit, stamps—was removed. Colonel Grant’s wine cellar was plun- dered Wednesday night and Mr. Hugo Sperritt, our tax collector, held up by @ masked bandit on the open highway. Not that I wish to alarm you, Mrs. Leffley.” . “Oh, no. You couldn't do that,” she anewered quite sincerely. « “I occupy the position of Coroner here,” said the little man, “So Miss Turnbull told me,” replied Helen, amused in spite of herself. “And my public position commits me to the side of law and order. But I am free to say, Mrs. Leffley, that I should condone any violence—to wit, shooting or lynching—in the name of public decency. My son and his wife have gone out to dine and taken with them my watch-dog, Caesar. Like Caius Julius of old, my Caesar is not of royal blood, but he is ruthless in the cruel maxim, semper vigilans.” 4 Despite her feeling that the dinner Was burning and that Fred might awake in a fury Helen made a show of hospitality by inviting the Judge into Miss Turnbull's drawing-room. “You're right kind,” admitted Scar- letburg’s official Coroner with a stately little bow. “But Ili be going back. Miss Octavia—a fine lads, Mrs. Lef- fley, but getting on in years—has asked me to draw up a form of lease. If you'll be so kind, ma‘am, as to show A Complete Story Every Saturday

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