Part 9

"Say, King, you tie up the dogs in the stable, hear? I won't have them about, barking and growling at me." She made an impatient threatening gesture at Nokomis, who retreated, still watching sharply, till, with an angry yelp, she turned, and ran into the stable. The other collies followed her. It was uncanny.

"I'm going to sell those dogs pretty soon," she remarked carelessly, kicking at a thistle. "I don't see why in the world you wanted that puppy."

"Because you offered him to me," I answered, to see what she would say.

"Take them all, then, if you like," she said. "I confess I'm afraid of them sometimes."

We went along a lane behind the stable and beside a potato patch, and then, rising rapidly, through a gateway to a scrubby hillside, covered with huckleberry bushes and sweet fern. Miss Fielding, for so I must still call her, or you will perhaps forget that she was to all intents and purposes physically the same in this secondary personality, stuck her hands in the pockets of her red golf-jacket and swung up the path between the boulders, with a frank joyousness and comradeship that seemed as natural in its abandon as the windy air and the sunshine; and yet, mingled with it, was a sort of innocent trickery--the petty ruses of a primitive woman cropping out through a veneer of civilization.

I doubt if I can recall in precisely their order the little things which occurred after that to make me notice as evidences of her pursuit of me, but, as significant of her degree of craft, they amused me mightily. If I mention them, however, it is only fair to me to bear in mind that I regarded her quite as an abnormal phase of womanhood. She was not merely another person in Miss Fielding's guise, she was only the part of a person--a collection of functions sufficiently synthesized to have an independent consciousness and volition, but by no means a perfect whole. This is, I believe, the modern interpretation of multiple personality. Certain definite psychological tracts are split off and run themselves, so to speak. One might perhaps say that it is as if France, Germany, Austria and Italy should float off the map, and achieve a lesser Europe of their own. The line of cleavage in Miss Fielding's case was chiefly along intellectual and moral lines; Edna was a lesser and, mentally, a younger Joy--less cultured, less conscientious. It was quite in this way that I studied her.

She stopped in the lane before we got to the gate, and, unfastening the little gold chain with a sapphire pendant which she had about her neck, held it out to me.

"Here, would you mind taking this, Chet? Keep it safe for me, please! I'm afraid I may lose it."

I reached for it, but before I could take it she had herself tucked it into my vest pocket and patted the place humorously.

She stopped again, afterward, to ask me to tie her shoe-lace. It was patently one of the many attempts she was always making to establish a closer physical contact, an effort to keep the relation personal. I remember, also, that not long afterward, having climbed up a sandy bank with my help, and with compliments upon my strength, she stopped at the top to take off that same shoe and empty it of sand, disclosing quite unaffectedly a delicate little foot in a grass-green silk stocking. I helped her also over several stone walls, as she appeared to expect it, smiling to think how often she must have scaled them unassisted. We passed cows of which she professed to be much afraid and clung tightly to me for protection. It all sounds crude enough, but it was prettily done, and I was more amused than critical.

We reached the top of the hill and threw ourselves down on the grass to rest. To the east, the land fell away, mottled with boulders and bushes, with a bunch of trees here and there, and away in the distance was the sea. On the other sides the middle distance was blocked with woods. It was warm and sweet with a fresh earthy smell, and still as a church.

She lay prone and, plucking a blade of grass, fell to playing with an ant-hill under her nose. I watched her, lazy and peaceful, basking in the June sunshine.

"Have you seen Doctor Copin lately?" I asked.

"No. He may come down to-day, though. I hope he will."

"Oh, you like him, then?" I said, giving my voice the inflections of mock jealousy.

"Not as well as I do you," she said, rolling a little nearer me to tickle my ear with her straw.

"What makes you think he'll come?"

"I telephoned to him this morning, and he said he might. He's just got back to town and wants to see me. He runs down when he likes."

"On business, I suppose?"

"Yes, about my memory. He makes diagram things and tries experiments on me."

I was interested. "Experiments? What kind?"

"Oh, he asks me if I remember things. You see, he tries to tell with his diagram things just when I shall forget and when I'll remember, and he comes down to fix them up. I don't understand it much, but he says that he's going to cure me."

"Oh, he's going to make you remember everything, I suppose."

"I hope so."

"Do you remember what happened yesterday?" I asked.

"Why, I sent Leah away, didn't I?"

"No, that was three days ago."

"Was it?" she returned, heading off an infuriated ant with her straw. She seemed to take little interest in the subject.

"What did you want me to take back Leah for, anyway?" she asked.

"I think she's honest and devoted. She's thoroughly fine. Do you realize what temptations a girl might have who knew that you forgot things?"

"I suppose she would. I never thought of that." As she spoke she crushed the ant with a twig.

"And Leah's mother was your nurse, too, wasn't she?"

"Yes, but Leah presumes on that and thinks that she can do anything she wants. Doctor Copin doesn't like her, either. He's got another girl he wants me to engage."

I couldn't help exclaiming, "Oh, I hope you won't!"

"Well, perhaps I won't, if you don't want me to, Chet. I was going to ask your advice about it. It'll make the doctor furious, but I don't mind. Poor Doctor Copin! I'm sorry for him, though. He's awfully hard up."

"Why! Is he so poor?" I smelled a mouse.

"He's all the time complaining to me, at any rate."

"I should think you'd be afraid to keep much money in the house. It's such a lonely place for burglars, you know."

"Oh, I don't keep much on hand. But I always have a little. I have a small income. It comes down every month. It's rents or stocks or something. It's safely invested and I don't bother about it."

It struck me that she took all this rather easily, but I soon found that it was the way she took everything. It had always been that way with her, and she saw nothing strange in it. Her amnesia accounted for everything. I saw how easily she might be led. Impressionable, and with a hasty, wilful temper, one who knew her temperament could soon learn to control her. I began to see how Leah's influence, which had heretofore been potent, might, perhaps, be undermined by the doctor. Here was the next thing to be investigated. But I would have to wait till I had had a talk with him.

She plucked a dandelion and put it into my buttonhole, looking up at me coquettishly as she did so.

"Chet, d'you know, I like you!" she remarked.

"Oh, I'm not a bit offended at that," said I.

"I wish I could make you like me a little."

"You _are_ looking for a sinecure, aren't you!"

She returned to her ants and poked at them meditatively.

"I don't know why I tell you such things," she went on. "I've never done so before. But you understand--don't you!"

Oh, yes. I understood. I had heard that sort of thing often enough before.

"I like you because you treat me just as you'd treat a man. You're not always remembering that I'm a woman. The doctor--" She broke off. I understood this, too, but it amazed me to find that she, so far away from the world, could have so easily found the woman's way.

"You've got a perfectly stunning profile," was her next play.

I showed her how, by pressing in the tip of my nose, it could be made decidedly Hebraic in contour. She pulled my hand away with a pretty protest at the outrage to my looks.

Next, she complained that her hair was "horrid," and that after it was shampooed she could never do anything with it; she calmly took it down and combed it, a fine silken cascade of brown. It was quite beautiful enough to warrant the exhibition, which she ended by plaiting it into two magnificent braids falling below her waist. Finally, she got up and gave me her coat to hold for her while she put it on, a process which she delayed unnecessarily, snuggling slowly into the sleeves and looking coyly up at me over her shoulder. Then she seized my hand, and, before I knew it, had started to run me down the hill. She stumbled and fell--on purpose, I'm confident--and I picked her up. How such contacts and familiarities affected me, considering my growing fondness for Miss Fielding, I leave you to imagine.

We walked down the path as gleefully as children playing truant, and, arrived at the stable, she proposed that we go in to examine my machine, which she was anxious to try. The dogs had been shut up in the harness-room, and as soon as we approached, they set up a discordant barking. Edna scowled and went to the door to look in.

"Stop that noise!" she commanded irritably. A new chorus assailed her.

She had opened the door only a crack, but, as she spoke, Nokomis wriggled through, forcing it open, and, crouching in front of her, ears laid back, growled angrily. Quick as a flash Edna took up a short whip that stood in the corner and lashed at the bitch. Nokomis was upon her in an instant, and, before I could prevent, had seized her ankle and nipped it severely. Edna screamed and struck again, this time with the butt of the whip, hitting Nokomis squarely on the forehead.

Yelping, Nokomis released her hold and with her tail between her legs dashed out of the stable door and disappeared.

Meanwhile, I had closed the door of the harness-room and had run to Edna. Her face was white, with sudden rage rather than pain. Nokomis had given her only a nip--the skin was not cut.

"I'll have them all shot to-morrow, if I have to do it myself!" she cried.

I did my best to calm her, and in a few moments she had recovered her temper enough to laugh at the episode, though her spite against Nokomis remained. She forgot it in my explanation of the motor, which she examined with great intelligence.

Luncheon was ready when we reached the house and we went into the dining-room. Here it was dim and cool and we fell naturally into a more placid humor. Edna seemed less the impetuous, irresponsible child she had been that forenoon, and I got my first hint of what was characteristic of her in this condition--that, as the day wore on, she seemed to grow steadily older and more developed mentally.

Over her shoulder the tapestry paper showed a picture of the combat between James Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu; behind her the door opened and shut from time to time admitting King with his dainty dishes. He came and went like a ghost, all in white, while Leah, in a dark gown to-day, hovered like a shadow in the kitchen.

Edna had an amusing and not unpleasant sort of _gaminerie_ at table. She was fond of selecting the daintiest, littlest piece of celery from the dish and tossing it over to my plate. She did not hesitate to use her fingers in cunning, unconventional ways, not as if she knew no better, but as if she knew herself to be pretty enough, and charming enough, to invest the solecism with a personal indulgent humor. So she dipped her bread in the gravy audaciously, so she crushed her strawberries with her fork to a red welter of pulp, and added cream with a flourish. She carried it off perfectly; it was quite a distracting sight.

At two o'clock we got out my machine and set out for the station to meet Doctor Copin, she guiding the car according to my instructions. She was an apt pupil, and though the first stretch of rough lane required considerable skill in handling the motor, we got out to the highroad without accident, and put on top speed. The excitement of it kindled her spirits and a dangerous light shone in her eyes. She was bareheaded and the wind brought a fine glow to her cheeks.

"Isn't it great!" she exclaimed. "I'm going to get a car the first thing I do."

Her touch was clever and firm on the wheel, and she passed from one speed to another and handled the spark like an expert, already. There was no time for much coquetry, now, but I got a glance now and then on the straight level runs. She swung up to the station with style, and my hand, though ready to help her, was not needed. I congratulated her upon her skill and she was pleased as a child.

"Oh, I'm going to show the doctor!" she cried. "You wait till he gets in and I'll give him a run for his money!"

The train appeared in a few minutes, and Doctor Copin, with his professional bag, got out from the parlor-car. He seemed to be much surprised at seeing me. I thought that I detected something like annoyance, too, in his expression. I wondered if she had not informed him of my being at Midmeadows when she had telephoned in the morning. He greeted me cordially enough, however, inquired as to my condition, made a dull joke about my ribs, and got into the back seat of the car. I kept my place in front beside Edna, coaching her as we went along.

I talked commonplaces to the doctor, who replied laconically, and Edna, being absorbed with her work, kept quiet, her lips closed tightly, her eyes on the road ahead, waiting for her chance to make speed. After we had got a little outside the village there was a sharp up-grade, and I saw her hand fly to the speed lever.

"Be careful how you throw in that clutch," I warned her. "Give it to her easy, now!"

Her thought was all for impressing the doctor with her ability as a _chauffeuse_, however, and she was too impatient. She released the clutch and threw her lever back to second speed. By the time she dropped her clutch back in again, however, the car had lost momentum, stopped and begun to roll down-hill, the engine still going furiously. The gears meshed, but something had to give under the strain, and with a snap the chain parted. The freed motor shook the car with its velocity. I grabbed the throttle from her, stopped the engine, set the brake, and the car came to a standstill.

"Oh!" she wailed, "I've broken something, haven't I?"

"I'm afraid you have," I answered, laughing. "But I'll see what can be done."

I crawled underneath the car, taking the attitude that has now become classic, and saw that it would be a case of fastening in a new link. I backed out, looked in my tool-box and found that there were no extra links there.

"I can't mend the thing here," I explained. "You and the doctor will have to get out and walk and leave me here. You'd better send some one back with a horse to tow me home."

She almost cried with shame and regret, but there was nothing for it but to do as I had suggested. I noticed a faint smile on the doctor's thin face. He was undoubtedly glad of the dilemma, as it would temporarily rid him of my company.

"It's too bad I can't sew it up for you," he said dryly. "I'm afraid it will require a capital operation, Castle. You'd better have a consultation with Uncle Jerdon. But if you need any anesthetic to keep it out of pain while you're waiting, I'll lend you my bag."

"Oh, my machine is used to it, you know," I replied. "If you'll only send back the coroner it'll be all right."

"Well, we'll hope for a _change_ soon," he said. I verily believe the man meant it for a pun, for he closed one eye as he got it off. Edna giggled.

So they set out and left me. I took a seat, lighted a cigar, and waited as patiently as I could, not at all pleased at the thought of his having a free hour or two with her. At last Uncle Jerdon appeared on the scene, driving a span of horses.

"Hello," he greeted me. "The same old, sweet song, eh? Well, we all have to come to it, sooner or later. You ought to lead a hoss behind when you go. I'd as soon trust to an airship."

He harnessed his team to the car, and we proceeded slowly home. It was a humiliating experience, as it always is, but Uncle Jerdon was plainly hugely amused at my predicament.

"I guess the doctor wan't sorry ye had to stop here alone," he remarked. "He's a-makin' the most of his time, naow, I expect. Nothin' like a little friendly rivalry for a bashful man."

"How long have you been back?" I asked, not caring for his personalities.

"Oh, I jest happened to meet 'em in the north lane as I come. I guess they wan't expectin' to see nobody there, by the way it looked. Miss Fielding ain't so crazy but what she knows what she's abaout sometimes, I tell ye!" At which he went off into an ebullition of silent laughter. This was disquieting enough information, for I could guess what he had seen, though I couldn't afford to encourage him. So I changed the subject.

"How long have you been down here with Miss Fielding!"

"Goin' on two year," he answered.

"I suppose the neighbors talk about her a good deal?"

"I reckon they do! But they don't get nothin' outen me. I sit an' look wise an' chew a straw an' let 'em talk. Lord, how they do try to pump me!"

"Doesn't she ever see any of them?"

"Oh, yes, sometimes, when she's O.K., but she don't encourage 'em callin' much. They think she's so high and mighty, though, that they don't bother her to any great extent."

He proceeded now of his own accord.

"She's happy enough alone, I take it. Lord! I don't mind her at all. I attend to my business and she to hern. It ain't as if I was a woman an' curious, ye know. But when she abuses dumb critters, then I do get mad. I jes' see ol' Nokomis in the hazels, as I come past. She had her tail atween her laigs, an' I'm afraid that means trouble. I usually see to it that the dogs is got outen the way when she's looney, but I expect Leah must have forgot to attend to 'em. Funny King didn't, either. But it will happen on occasion. Some day they's goin' to be trouble. Ol' Nokomis knows more'n most folks herself. I believe King's crazy, too. He's got a heathen idol in his cabin he's all the time worshipin'. Burns punk-sticks an' a little peanut-oil lamp in front of it, night an' day. But I get my own quiet fun outen it all. I'm satisfied."

We got the car safely home, and I spent the rest of the afternoon, with Uncle Jerdon's assistance, in mending the chain and doing other necessary cleaning and repairs. Miss Fielding and Doctor Copin stayed shut in the library. When I had gone up to my room to clean myself, Leah, came in, bearing fresh towels.

"Oh, Mr. Castle, can't you go in and join them?" she said. "I hate to have them alone for so long--you don't know how I dread it!"

"What are you afraid of?" I asked.

"I don't know! I don't know! Only I don't trust him."

"Have you seen anything more?"

"Enough to make me worried." Then she brought out painfully, "Mr. Castle, do you think we would have any right to--to listen!"

"You mean really to eavesdrop?"

"Yes." There was a look of pain in her eyes. I saw by this confession how far she had gone with her fears.

"I hardly think so, yet," I answered. "It would be pretty hard for us to do, wouldn't it?"

"But you remember that Miss Joy said, last night, that she would leave it all to your judgment. Oughtn't we, to protect her, perhaps, find out just what it is he's doing?"

I thought it over at length. But it was a resource that I couldn't help wanting to leave till the last. After all, it wasn't as bad as that, yet. Except in Edna's familiarities with me, and Leah's vague fears, I had no reason for fearing anything wrong. All depended upon the doctor's motives in being alone with her. He might, indeed, be making love to her, but then, perhaps he was truly in love; he might even want to marry her. It was a maddening thought for me, but, after all, it was, strictly, none of my business. He had a right to try to woo her, and it couldn't, at any rate, go far without Joy herself becoming aware of it. She would be the first to acknowledge that Edna had a right to permit it. If, however, he were dishonest in his motive, if he were, for instance, after her money, that was quite another matter, and it was obviously my place to interfere. We should have, at least, to see that Edna could not get hold of any property.

Lastly, and this seemed, at that time, most probable, he might only be carrying on a series of experiments with an interesting patient for some technical end. True, Joy had herself refused to permit him to treat her, and this probably accounted for his devoting himself to Edna; but it was not, so far as I could see, dangerous. My position, therefore, was a delicate one, and I made up my mind to have another talk with Joy before showing my hand in interference.

I went over all this with Leah and she listened attentively. She iterated that she didn't trust Doctor Copin, and that she feared there was danger at hand. I could see that the hint that he might want to marry Edna frightened her most of all.