CHAPTER II

Desmond, dismissed, felt cut through and through. It was no failure of courtesy, but the note of indifference, of complete self-absorption, impressed him; yet how could he expect Mrs. Faurie to be interested in her sons’ tutor except from her own viewpoint. To his apprehension it was as if in some psychic magic he had shifted his identity. He did not recognize himself in this null, unassertive personality. So lately he had been the centre of fond hopes, the pride of his father’s life. He was an object of mark at his university; his scholarship had been worthy the respect of the faculty. He recalled the words of their glowing commendations with a sort of pained wonder that they had ever been addressed to him. The president himself had not deemed it ill-advised to say, “With your equipment and your fine talents, we must expect great things of your future. Your name will reflect credit on our Alma Mater; I confidently believe it will stand high on the scroll.” His classmates rejoiced in his exceptional record, so far removed he was from envy or detraction. His popularity was unbounded, for he had an attractive personality and all the effervescence of cheery youth and good-fellowship, and his notability made him a lion in the social circles of the college town. His reputation followed him wherever he and his multitude of young friends had a connection; and he had enjoyed all the prestige of actual achievement, so amply did the flowering promise herald the rich fruition.

How small was that microcosm of college life, how far removed from the actualities of the great uninstructed, prosperous world, blundering on in suave content, with its crass ignorance of all but money values, he learned only when the blow fell and he must needs have work, and work at once, for his daily bread. He might look in vain for market quotations on Greek. There was no corner in Old Saxon,—modern slang could better turn the trick on ’Change. The opportunities that lay in the line of pedagogy were already overcrowded; and thus instead of that road to the stars, to worthy achievement, for which he had so long and so laboriously prepared, for which he was so preëminently fitted, he was to trudge the by-paths of hopeless poverty; to be the drudging, futureless stipendiary in a rich, frivolous household, teaching three mollycoddle boys, buried in the seclusion of the Mississippi bottom lands, as if translated to another sphere.

With these thoughts Desmond lay long awake that night. He mechanically watched the flicker of the fire on the light paper of the walls of the large, airy room, giving out here and there a sparkle of gilt from the scroll design, till it dulled gradually, and at length faded to a pervasive dusky red glow. He was not used to a bed with the old-fashioned tester and four posts, and when he was about to fall asleep, he was roused by the unaccustomed sense of something poised above his head, or standing solemnly sentinel, surrounding him as he lay. He was not sorry when the room grew too dark for aught to be seen but the gray night looking in between the long white curtains at the tall windows. Yet the hours brought incidents even in the monotony. He was apprised that he was on the side of the house nearest the river when he saw through the small panes the sudden distant glare of a steamboat’s electric search-light, making a rayonnant halo in the dim glooms of the riparian midnight, and heard the husky, remonstrant tones of her whistle, and the impact of “the buckets” on the water as the wheels revolved. He was not yet sufficiently familiar with the plan of the house to have otherwise known of his proximity to the bank; but after the boat had passed and the last vague echo of the stroke of the paddles on the water had died away, he was impressed by the silence of the night and the absolutely noiseless flow of the swift currents of the great river. It dismayed him in some sort, the sense of that mighty, irresistible, mute, moving force of nature out there in the still night, as changeful as life, as inexorable as fate, as ceaseless as eternity. He had felt small, reduced in worldly esteem, robbed of every prospect, and he had no heart to hope. With this expression of silent, majestic immensity brought to his contemplation, he seemed infinitely minute in the scheme of creation. So long had it rolled its waves from the far north to the Gulf; nations had risen on its banks and passed away, and strangers had come anew to die and be succeeded in turn by foreign faces still, and what mattered it what an atom such as he might suffer, or hope, or grieve to lose.

He could not sleep; he had desisted from the conscious effort; he had resigned himself to the wakefulness embittered by such thoughts as these. It had grown dark, quite dark,—the windows, vague parallelograms in the gloom, more distinguished by his memory of the features of the room than by actual sight,—when he heard a sound that somehow thrilled his every nerve. Hardly a sound,—it was rather a sibilance. But for the intense stillness of the house he could not have noticed it,—a mere rustle.

“What is it?” he asked himself, intent and curious. For when it vaguely came again, it conveyed the sense of motion; it suggested a varying distance. Once more his straining senses caught the sound,—very soft it was. Furtive, was it, he wondered, for he had identified it as the lisping note of a sliding foot on a velvet carpet. At first he thought it within his own room, but as it receded at regular intervals, he realized it as a step on the stair without. He began to appreciate that the head of his bed was against the wall, on the other side of which this stair ascended to the upper story, for his room was on the ground floor of the great, rambling house. He thus caught the vague vibration of motion, as well as the susurrus of the impact of the step on the pile of the carpet; otherwise he might not have distinguished so cautious, so very silent a transit. It had peculiar features of mystery. It receded into absolute quiet, then, approaching anew, seemed to pass.

A long interval ensued while he lay still, the interest of his surmise, the doubt, the surprise, solacing his wakeful mood. Suddenly he started with a thrill that sought out some nerve of superstition which had contrived to coexist with all the logic of his mental training. It was coming again, softly, very softly, its sibilant passage scarcely to be discriminated even in the silence of the night, ascending once more the padded velvet stair. Then Desmond fancied that he heard a long-drawn breath, a stifled sigh. He lifted himself on his elbow, listening intently. The furtive step receded and yet receded, till it had won the distance that the ear might not reach. A long interval of absolute silence once more ensued. Then abruptly, again, a muffled step descending, softly, secretly.

With a sudden thought Desmond sprang to his feet. His first idea of the passing of some member of the family to the upper regions of the house on some domestic errand, for extra coverings or for medicine or lamps, was annulled by the amazing silence and secrecy of the recurrent demonstration. Its repetition implied purpose. Its furtiveness suggested malignity. He reflected that, so far as he knew, the inmates of the house, with one feeble old man and three young boys, were all inadequate to cope with the intrusion of burglars or other marauders. He flung the door of the bedroom open and stood in the hall, his pistol in his hand.

“Who is there?” he called out, his voice ringing through the darkness like a clarion.

There was not a sound in response, not a stir.

“Speak up,” he threatened, “or I’ll fire.” The metallic click of the weapon as he cocked it was of coercive intimations.

Still not a sound, not a stir. No scurrying footstep to be out of harm’s way,—no premonition of the attack for which he was prepared, shifting his posture each time after he spoke, to escape a shot that might be aimed at the sound of his voice in the darkness. Nothing—the hall was absolutely vacant, silent.

He stood irresolute for a moment. He scarcely dared turn to secure a light lest the lurking intruder escape in the interval of his absence. Yet when he heard a stir in a room farther down the hall, the sound of bare feet bouncing out of bed, the opening of a door heralding a trickling of candle-light into the gloom, he was all at once ashamed of the commotion he had aroused and its apparent lack of justification.

As the light advanced along the hall, he was pleased to see that it was held in the hand of Reginald Faurie, the eldest of the three boys; the old man was too feebly irresponsible to be trusted, and he was glad that he had not aroused Mrs. Faurie. But as the young fellow held the candle high in his hand, the light showing his tousled auburn hair and his pink and white striped pajamas, the expression of his face, distinct in the glow, was not such as to ingratiate the future pupil with the tutor. It was of half-repressed mirth; yet Reginald paused once, and looked over his shoulder into the shadow with the half shudder of a qualm of cold fright. He showed no disposition to search for the cause of the disturbance, however, and he cut short Desmond’s excited attempt at explanation as of no importance.

“Let me in here with you for a moment,” Reginald said. “Don’t want to wake up the kids! Yes,—yes,”—with a mature air of patronage,—“I know exactly what you heard,—old Slip-Slinksy, as we boys call him, going up and down stairs.”

The coolness with which he shut the door, placed the candle on the high, white, painted mantelpiece, and sought to stir the fire was proof positive that there was no intruder to be reckoned with. Desmond yielded reluctantly. But it was the house of a stranger, and he was unused to his surroundings. He stood in his bath-robe, which he had flung on at the first alarm, and leaned on the high back of a chair, while Reginald set the blazes to flaring in the great fireplace, then dropped down on the rug and put the pointed toes of his bedroom slippers against the brass fender, evidently preparing to elucidate the mystery.

“I know you’ll think I’m loony,—I hate to give myself away! But you are one of the solid, scientific, investigating kind, I’m sure. You will make inquiries, I know, and I don’t want mamma to learn that old Slip-Slinksy is at his queer tricks again. She is not a bit superstitious,—no sort of a crank,—but it is a creepy, inexplicable kind of thing that one doesn’t like to have in one’s house, and it would make her hate the plantation worse than ever; and as she has got to stay at Great Oaks for a while, I think she had better not hear about this demonstration to-night.”

“But who is it?” asked Desmond, mystified.

“Nobody,—just nothing at all!”

Desmond walked around the chair, and, seating himself in the renewed radiance of the fire, drew the folds of his bath-robe close about him. He bent the brows of prospective authority upon Reginald, and the lad sought to explain.

“What is a ghost but nothing at all!—its emptiness is what gets on your nerves. You can take your gun, as you did to-night, to the wicked man when he gets gay or out of place,—as long as he is alive. But once a deader, and he _has got you_. I’d like to hear your learned chemical analysis of a ghost. It is compounded of a winter night’s imaginings! It’s an untimely shiver! It’s the tremors of hearing a storm coming down the Mississippi River and making all the boats tie up for the night! It’s old Slip-Slinksy doing nothing but going upstairs and coming down again. I don’t know what on earth started it, but that is our ghost, and we have got it for keeps.”

“Fudge!” exclaimed Desmond, contemptuously.

“_You_ heard it,” said the boy, significantly. “I did not.”

Desmond _had_ heard the strange manifestation, knowing naught of it hitherto. He remembered the unearthly thrill its first intimations had sent through every startled fibre. “But it must have some natural explanation, of course.”

“I am sure I hope so,” rejoined Reginald. “But the natural explanation has defied us so far. We have done our little possible to solve the mystery. We have examined the walls and roof; we have taken up the carpets; we have lurked in wait for it, and rushed out upon it as you did to-night,—and found nothing,—as you did. I, for one, would take mighty kindly to any sort of a natural explanation. A ghost—no matter how much you give him the cold shoulder—doesn’t make for happiness in the home, and”—he shuddered—“he is apt to give you the cold shoulder.”

“Is it an old affair?” asked Desmond.

“We can’t exactly fix just when the manifestation began. It _always_ butts in immediately after we come home. Then there will be a long interval. Presently it starts up again,—every few nights. Then we may have another long exemption. You would think this old house like any other happy old home. But in the midst of the preparation for departure it is sure to begin again,—if anybody is fool enough to lie awake to listen for it. Of course I don’t know what the ghost may do while we are away,—in our long absences he may run riot all over the place. At all events, we can get no caretaker to sleep in the house. I shouldn’t be surprised if its reputation of being haunted protects it from depredators, river pirates,—and such cattle. Anyhow, we leave only the ghost in charge, and there is not a thing stirred when we come back. Only the dust over all, and a sense of mystery.”

“Of course there must be some natural explanation,” Desmond protested anew.

“So glad you think so,” said Reginald, politely. “But you will not mention it to mamma.”

“Certainly not; but is the demonstration always the same?”

“Always the same,—a step going up and coming down the stair;—going up and presently coming down the stair, just as you heard it. It is up to you to explain it. It is no tradition as far as you are concerned; you were all unconscious and without expectation.”

A sudden wind had sprung up without. It came down the great channel of the Mississippi in chilly gusts, with a thrill of dawn in its reviving stir. It shook the silence. Myriads of undiscriminated voices were rife in the air. The boughs of the great oaks of the grove without clashed and fell still again. The evergreen leaves of the Cherokee rose hedges, fencing the place for miles, kept up a rippling stir in the section close at hand. A draft became perceptible at the nearest window, and Desmond, looking toward it, saw through the parted curtains that the clouds were riven asunder and a clear, chill star was scintillating in a deep abyss of darkness. The night was wearing on,—not far from day—not far from a frosty dawn.

“And nothing has ever been seen,” said Desmond, drawing the cord of his robe closer.

Reginald stirred the fire; then resumed his easy posture before it, his eyes upon the blaze. “I beg pardon,” he rejoined, somewhat unwillingly; “but I did not say that.”

“I misunderstood you, then,” said the tutor. He sought to laugh, but he had himself heard too much that he could not explain to make his ridicule effective. “But there must be some natural explanation.”

“Well,—we can’t get at it,—that’s all,” said Reginald, somewhat nettled by the ridicule. “You see I am not stuffing you. I have not the least disposition to trot out our ghost to—to lord it over you. I do not expect you to bow down and admire him. I am not trying to make prestige on his account. You and he struck up an acquaintance without any introduction from me. And the apparition on the stairs is so logical and in keeping that it bears out the sound of the step,—and that is what troubles us,—especially mamma. She is not superstitious, but she is a very sensitive organization,—and she always hated this dull old plantation, and this gruesomeness that it has developed does not recommend it the least little bit.”

“But about the apparition?” Desmond asked eagerly, even while he was ready to rally himself that he should entertain so primitive a curiosity.

“Why, it came about the most natural way in the world,” declared Reginald. “There was a wedding over at Dryad-Dene, Colonel Kentopp’s plantation,—Mrs. Kentopp’s sister, I think,—a great wedding, all in the old style. The Kentopps are up-to-date people,—make a point of keeping up with the procession, unless some fashionable antique craze takes hold on them. Just at that time the imitation of the big old country wedding was all the go. So instead of having the ceremony at our little neighborhood church, and taking the next train or packet for the wedding tour, the marriage was at the mansion, in the style of fifty years ago. They invited the country; and the relatives and the friends came in their dozens, if you please. Of course the Kentopps couldn’t put them all up, so some of the guests were entertained by their neighbors, and there were many dinners and dances and such functions in the vicinity—houses five miles apart, mostly—to compliment the happy couple. We took our part, of course. We were just returned from Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceanica” (with a pert little fling), “and the house was jammed. I don’t know if you have noticed that there isn’t a regular second story to this old bungalow. The rooms above are in a half story,—mighty near _all_ dormer window. We don’t use those rooms unless we are hard put to it. But on this occasion they were full,—even cots and pallets on the floor. Well, in the bedroom on the left hand side as you ascend the stairs were a lady and three children. They were nearly related to the bridegroom, but strangers to us,—they had never been here before—and one of the kids took advantage of the opportunity to make himself conspicuous by getting exceedingly ill. My mother suggested that, to have help near at hand in the night, the nurse should sleep on a pallet in the hall. The nurse was cheerful and agreed; there was a big, bright moon, and all the dormer windows were very festive. About midnight this lady was awakened by the nurse, who came and asked leave to draw her pallet into the bedroom, because she could not sleep for the continual passing up and down the stairs,—tip, tip, tip,—slyly slipping up and slyly slipping down.” He paused to listen apprehensively, then recommenced. “The good lady’s nerves were racked with anxiety, I dare say, for she declared that it was very ill-bred in the other guests not to let the house get quiet, when there was illness and a chance that her child would die. Then she told the nurse to return to her pallet,—that the room was too crowded already with herself and the three children, and the sick boy needed air. After a time the nurse, an intelligent, patient, reasonable woman, came back, declaring that she was afraid. There was something strange in this passing. It was not the other guests. The people were all still, asleep; the house was as silent as death; but yet—slip, slip, slip—something shuffling along so silently, so slyly,—she was fit to scream. She was once more rebuked and sent to her place. Presently she did scream! The moon had traveled over the house and the beams began to fall through the window over the staircase, and there she saw what had been going up and down the stops,—a man in fancy dress, she declared,—my uncle thinks it was some antique costume—”

“Did he see the apparition, too?”

“Sure! the whole house came running, scared to death,—in just what they had on,—a beautiful lot they were, too! but the thing had vanished. Only the nurse and her mistress, who, being awake, had run out instantly upon the alarm, saw it distinctly. They both said that it was a man in fancy dress, with powdered hair. My uncle had just opened his door on the lower floor, and, looking upward at the landing, his view was indistinct, but his impression was the same.”

Desmond pondered for a moment. “Did it never occur to any of them that it was some wag of the house-party frightening the nurse for a freak.”

“I have heard of making a long arm, but I can’t imagine making a long enough leg to keep a footstep going up and down a staircase, when none of our guests have been in the county, or even in the State, for four or five years.”

“It is strange,” said Desmond, at last. “But all the same I am sure that there must be some reasonable natural explanation,—if it could be found.”

“I wish I shared your belief, or disbelief,” said Reginald. He looked up doubtfully at the candle burning low now on the mantelpiece. It was not the regulation bedroom light, but in a tall, silver candlestick, that offered no protection against the drops which its guttering state sent dripping down its sides. The fire was sinking; the room had taken on a shadow and a sense of gloom; the wind suddenly rose in a shrill skirl; then one could hear some slight débris of leaves or twigs skittering across the grass as if in a weird dance without. Any suggestion of uncanny footsteps was in jeopardy to the maintenance of equilibrium. Desmond, fatigued from his journey and his vigils, was growing heavy-eyed and disposed to slumber. For some time he had been sensible of the increasing chill of the air, and was beginning to canvass the propriety of himself terminating the interview, and in his character of tutor authoritatively bidding the boy to betake himself to his own bedroom instead of awaiting his exit as a guest. But Reginald suddenly resumed. “I wish I could agree with you that there is a natural explanation,—if we could light upon it. I believe in its supernatural quality enough to wonder how I mustered the courage to come through the hall when I heard you call. I was afraid that if you spoke again, mamma would be roused. I don’t see how I am to get back. I am something of a man in the daytime, but a regular baby about it at night,—and—if you don’t mind—I’ll just climb over there in the back of the bed and stay with you till the rising bell. Oh, thanks, muchly. You have saved my reason, if not my life. Suppose—oh, just suppose—I was to meet old Slip-Slinksy in the hall,—and he was to—to—to blow out the candle.”