Chapter XX: In the Haunted House

The morning was long and lonely to Helen, who wondered what there was for a girl to do when all was over and settled. She felt that she ought to have been up and spoken with Craig before he left. He expected it, she knew, for he had asked Celine if she were awake, and when told she was still sleeping, had given the girl a note for her.

“Darling,” it said, “I hoped I might have seen you this morning for a moment, but as I cannot I send you a line to tell you how happy I am, and that I shall count the days before I can return. God bless you, and keep you in safety. Craig.”

Helen had received scores of love letters, but none which affected her like these few words, which wrung the hot tears from her eyes as she read them.

“I am not half good enough for him, and when he comes back I shall tell him so, and make him believe it. I don’t like to be engaged!” she said, as she dressed herself leisurely, dispensing with the services of Celine, as she would rather be alone.

Her mother, who had waited breakfast till she came down, noticed her languor and depression, and asked if she were ill.

“No,” Helen answered, “I am not ill. I am engaged; that’s all. Mr. Mason asked me to be his wife when we were driving yesterday, and I told him I would. You are glad, I know.”

Mrs. Tracy was delighted. What she so much desired had come to pass, and she began at once to plan a grand wedding and an elaborate trousseau.

“You know the diamonds are to be yours when you are married,” she said, “and they must have modern settings. I’ll ask Mr. Hilton for them, and we will look them over together.”

“But you’ll not tell him why you wish to see them. No one is to know that till Craig comes back,” Helen said, in some alarm.

“Of course not,” her mother replied, as she left the room for the office.

Mark, who knew her errand, unlocked the safe at once and bade her look in.

“I wish to take them to my room,” Mrs. Tracy said, and with the boxes she returned to her salon, where the stones were examined and admired, and the change in their setting discussed. “I shall rather hate to part with them,” Mrs. Tracy said, “especially the pin and cross. I do not care so much for the ear-rings, they are so heavy.”

“And they are all I do care for, so you can have the pin and cross,” Helen replied, as she fitted the rings in her ears and turned in the sunlight to see them sparkle. “I think I shall keep them just as they are. I like their hanging, instead of clinging close to my ears. I’ll take them back,” she continued, and gathering up the boxes she went to the office, where she found Mark alone. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she said, turning her head coquettishly from side to side.

“Are you going to wear them?” he asked.

“Oh, no; I am just showing you how much they add to me,” she replied.

Mark said they were very fine, and began to unlock the safe to put them away, while Helen took one of them from her ear. The clasp to the other was bent, and after trying in vain to unclasp it, she gave a cry of pain.

“Oh-h! it’s cutting my flesh. What shall I do?”

“Can I help you?” Mark said.

“Perhaps so,” and she turned her small pink ear to him and stood very still while he loosened the refractory ring, his hands touching her hair and cheek and making her blush as she thanked him and stepped back.

He did not speak of Craig, but he asked how she was going to pass the day without her usual drive.

“I shall not miss it,” she said; “there is such a thing as being driven too much,” and she looked at him in a way which made it hard for him to keep back the words he was intending to say before Craig Mason returned.

But not in the office. He had the time and place arranged, and he said, “As you cannot drive suppose you take a walk after tea. The evening will be fine. There is a full moon, you know.”

Helen assented readily. Here was something to think of; something to do,—and all the ennui of the morning was gone. That afternoon there came a telegram from Craig, who said, “We reached home safely. Shall return on Saturday, instead of Monday, as I first proposed.”

“How like him,—making love by telegraph. We shall probably exchange postals for good mornings when we are married,” Helen said with a laugh Craig would not have been pleased to hear.

“He was very thoughtful to let you know he would be back sooner than you expected him, and shows his kind heart,” her mother suggested.

“I suppose it was,” Helen replied, as she tore up the telegram, and tossing the pieces into the waste basket went to dress herself for the anticipated walk.

“Where are you going?” her mother asked, when after tea she saw her putting on her hat and jacket.

“Just to the post office and round the square,” Helen replied.

“Alone? Without Celine?” Mrs. Tracy said in some surprise.

“Yes, without Celine, but not alone. Mr. Hilton is going with me,” Helen answered, a little defiantly, in anticipation of her mother’s next remark.

“Do you think it proper to be walking in the evening with a comparative stranger? Do you think Mr. Mason would like it?”

“Oh, bother, mamma! Don’t be so prudish. I am to be trusted, and so is Mr. Hilton. As for Craig he will not object. I am not going to tie myself up in a bag because I am engaged. By-by, don’t worry about me.”

She kissed her hand and went out to the piazza, where Mark was waiting for her, with a light in his eyes and a ring in his voice she had never heard or seen before, and which put her on her guard. They went first to the post office where the evening mail was being distributed and where Helen found a letter from Craig, mailed in Boston at 4 o’clock and written after the telegram had been sent. Mark, who was standing apart from her, only saw that she had a letter and crushed it hastily into her pocket. Leaving the office they walked slowly around the square until they came to the turn in the road which led past the old ruin. The sun had been down for half an hour or more, and the full moon was pouring a flood of light upon it, making it look rather ghostly and weird, with the woodbine dropping from the chimney and a lilac tree brushing against one of the broken windows.

“Have you ever been in my ancestral hall?” Mark asked.

“No, and I don’t believe I care to visit it,” Helen replied.

“Oh, yes, you do. All the young people in town come here. It is quite a rendezvous for lovers,” Mark urged.

“But we are not lovers,” Helen said, and he replied, “Very true, but we can go in for all that. Perhaps we may see the ghost, if there is one. She comes in the moonlight, they say, as well as in the rain. You surely are not afraid?”

Helen was not afraid, and only held back from a feeling that it was not quite the thing to do. At last her love of adventure overcame her sense of propriety, and she followed Mark to the rear of the house where a door had fallen from its hinges, giving them free access to the building. Through the lane to this door a path had been worn by many feet, and Helen could well believe that it was a rendezvous for lovers, who either had no fear of ’Tina, or came hoping to see her. “It would have been a great deal more romantic for Craig to have told his love here than while holding Dido in to keep her from running and screaming at the top of his voice to make me hear, the wheels made such a clatter over the stones and ruts,” she thought, as she followed Mark in to what had been the family room where ’Tina sat when the tragedy outside went on and where the baby boy called so often for his mother. Through the paneless window the moonlight was shining, making the room almost as light as day, except in the corners where dark shadows lay. Something was stirring in one of them and with a cry of fear Helen pressed close to Mark, who took her hand and led her to an old settee which stood by the wide fire place.

“It is only a rat; the house is full of them,” he explained, as he sat down beside her.

“Oh-h! I have a mortal terror of rats and mice, too. Let’s go,” Helen cried as she drew her feet up from the door.

“No, not yet,” Mark said. “There’s a chair somewhere in which you can put your feet and be safe from the marauders.”

He found the chair and brought it to her; then resuming his seat he continued: “I am afraid you are not pleased with my ancestral halls.”

Now that she was in no danger from the rats, Helen was less nervous and began to look around her with some curiosity.

“It is a creepy kind of place and the last I should choose for a rendezvous,” she said. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Because there is something I must say to you which I can say better here than where we would be liable to interruptions,” Mark replied, putting his arm on the back of the settee where it would be very convenient for it to drop across her shoulders. “I told you the story of this house in the cemetery, by ’Tina’s grave, and only the fact that I had known you so short a time prevented me from telling you another story which I have brought you here to listen to. You have heard it many times, for I know your reputation, and I believe that when you came to Ridgefield Craig Mason was your object.”

Helen did not speak, and Mark continued: “I have watched events closely. Craig is interested in you. How could it be otherwise, but I do not believe he will ever have the courage to declare himself. He is not a ladies’ man,—is not your style. He is a student, self-absorbed and quiet, caring nothing for the things which make your world. He is the soul of honor, and a splendid fellow, with no fault or bad habit, such as most men have. He neither smokes, nor drinks, nor swears, and is as pure in thought and speech as a woman,—purer than many.”

“Then why are you running him down?” Helen asked, and Mark replied, “I am not running him down, and I hardly know why I am speaking of him at all, except that it seems as if he were near us, or that I was taking an unfair advantage of his absence.”

Helen’s hand was in her pocket clutching Craig’s letter, with a view to bring it out and declare what he was to her. But she didn’t. Years after, when so much was said of hypnotism, she recalled that night and said she was hypnotized, but she did not think so then. She only knew that the man beside her talking of the man to whom she was engaged had a power over her which she did not try to analyze, nor resist. His arm had dropped from the settee and was lying across her shoulders and she did not shake it off, as he went on:

“I respect Mr. Mason highly, but he is not the one to make you happy. Domesticity is his idea of married life. Yours is different. He has hobbies. The present one is Browning, for whom you do not care a rap.”

“How do you know that?” Helen asked sharply, and Mark replied, “I know it as I know you, and Craig does not. You cannot help making believe, and with him it passes for the real coin. If you were his wife there would come an awakening which he would find it hard to forget.”

“You are complimentary, I must say, and if you brought me here to lecture me and tell me how unfit I am to be anybody’s wife, I think it time we were going,” Helen said, making an effort to rise.

Mark held her back, his arm encircling her now so tightly that she was close against his side.

“I know I have not been very complimentary thus far, and I dare say no man has ever talked to you as I am talking in order to show you that I know you thoroughly, and that with all your faults I love you, and have since the night you came and I carried you in my arms through the rain. Something then in the touch of your hands as I put you down gave me an inkling of your responsive nature and I have watched you closely since; have seen every little coquettish air and grace, and known, when you dazzled me with your smile and eyes, that it meant nothing except as a pastime for you; and yet, I have gone on loving you and sworn to win you. Nor am I without hope. You have given me every reason to think I was not indifferent to you and that is why I am telling you of my love and I warn you not to trifle with me. Uncle Zacheus does not believe in heredity, but I know there is enough of my great-grandmother’s nature in me to send me to the devil, or make me one, if circumstances were favorable. If the woman I loved and who I had reason to believe loved me thwarted and scorned me, I should not murder her, but there is in me a fire which would burn out all the good and deliver me over to the evil one.”

His voice was almost a whisper as he poured out the full measure of his love, while Helen sat still, knowing that his arm was drawing her to him and that his face was close to hers. He made no allusion to the difference in their positions. He put himself on an equality with herself and she respected him for it and knew that she loved him if it were possible for her to love any one. She had no intention to be false to Craig, on whose letter she still kept her hand, meaning to bring it out and show it at the last. She told herself that she had expected something like this and knew that she was very happy and wished it might go on forever.

Mark was waiting for her to speak, and she must bring out the letter. She did not dare let go her hold on it, for it seemed to her as if she were holding on to Craig as long as she felt the touch of the paper he had handled. Tears, which came to her so easily, were pouring down her cheeks. She must wipe them away; as Mark had taken one of her hands she had no alternative but to withdraw the other from her pocket and in so doing lost her grip in more ways than one.

“You do love me a little?” Mark pleaded and lifting her tear drenched face to his she answered, “Yes, a little. I can’t help it, but—”

She did not finish the sentence for the kisses pressed upon her lips brought her to her senses.

“Mark! Mr. Hilton! How dare you take such a liberty. No man has ever kissed me since my father died,—not even Mr. Mason, and I am engaged to him! It happened yesterday, when we were driving. This letter is from him.”

She took it from her pocket as she sprang to her feet and held it as a barrier between herself and Mark, who had also risen and whose face was white as the moonlight falling over it.

“Engaged to Craig Mason!” he said, seizing her arm with a grasp which made her wince with pain. “You are engaged to Craig Mason, and have sat here and listened to me without a word! Are you woman, or a demon?”

“Don’t speak to me like that, and let go my arm! You hurt! I tried to tell you, but couldn’t, you influence me so, and——” Helen said, putting her hands over her face and crying out loud.

In a moment Mark’s anger left him, and his great love came surging back.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I was a brute, but you took me by surprise. Sit down until you are more composed.”

He felt for a moment as if the earth were slipping from him, leaving him utterly stranded; then his indomitable will came to the rescue and he was himself again, quiet, tender, earnest, with his magnetic powers in full swing. She had said, “You influence me so,” and this gave him courage. Taking her hands from her face he held them in his and said to her jestingly, “You say no man has ever kissed you since your father died, and you are engaged to Mr. Mason. I am afraid he did not claim his privileges.”

“He couldn’t; he had all he could do to keep Dido from running away, and the wheels made such a racket I couldn’t hear half he was saying,” Helen replied between a sob and a laugh as she recalled Craig’s love making, so different from the one she had just experienced.

Her spirits were returning and with them her blunted sense of right and wrong, and when the moon looked into the room at a different angle from what it was looking then, there were no tears on her face and her head was on Mark Hilton’s shoulder, as if that were its rightful resting place. Love was triumphant. Conscience had been smothered, or if it pricked at all it was quieted with the thought, “I could not help it, and Craig will soon get over it.”

Everything was settled as to what to do and how to do it, Mark suggesting and Helen yielding to whatever he proposed. She knew her mother would be hard to meet and Craig would be harder.

“We must be quick,” she said, “or I shall change my mind. I don’t believe I could endure the look on Craig’s face when he knows how false I am.”

Mark was fully aware of this. He knew the girl better than she knew herself. Opposition from her mother and reproach from Craig would upset her and he did not mean her to come in contact with either. Fortunately for him it had been arranged that morning that he should go to New York the next night on business for Mr. Taylor. If Helen could be there at the same time all would go well. Could she manage it?

“I think so. Yes, I am sure I can,” she said, as they went back to the hotel, where they found Mrs. Tracy very anxious to know what had kept her daughter so long.

“The night is so fine that I wanted to enjoy it and see if it would help my head which aches awfully. I must go to bed at once,” Helen said.

She was longing to be alone and think what she was doing. It seemed to her that she was in a vise from which she could not escape, and Mark held her even in her room.

“I cannot go back now,” she said, “and I would not if I could. I do not love Craig Mason and I do love Mark Hilton. The world will call it a mesalliance and I suppose it is, but love laughs at such things. It would be more honorable to stay and meet Craig face to face and ask for a release. But I can’t do it. With mother going into hysterics, as she certainly would, I might yield.”

She was removing her jacket and felt Craig’s letter in the pocket. It was crumpled and tear stained, for she had kept it in her hands before her face when she was crying. She studied the address,—“Miss Helen Tracy, Prospect House, Ridgefield, Mass.,” carefully, and with a little choking in her throat.

“It is like him,” she thought. “Every letter precise and square and plain as print.”

Then she wondered what was inside. How had he addressed her? Was it a genuine love letter or not? She could easily ascertain by opening it, but something in the better part of her nature made her shrink from doing this. She had separated herself from Craig and the letter did not belong to her.

“I’ll return it unopened in the one I must write him,” she finally decided, and putting it away she tried to sleep, but could not.

Her conscience was not at rest, although she told herself she was very happy, or should be when it was over and people had ceased to talk.

“It will cause a great commotion in this quiet town and give them something to gossip about for a month,” she said, “and I can almost hear Mr. Taylor’s ‘I’ll be dumbed,’ when it comes to his ears.”

She laughed when she thought of that, and burying her face in her pillow tried, by counting a hundred backwards and every other device she had ever heard of, to sleep, but in vain, and morning found her just as wakeful as she had been when she first sought her bed.