Читать книгу The Step On The Stair - Anna Katharine Green - Страница 15

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I had some intention at the time of speaking to Uncle about this matter, but I did not until the day he himself broached the subject. But that comes later. I must first relate an occurrence of much more importance which took place very soon after this interchange of words with Wealthy.

I was still in C—. Everything had been going on as usual and I thought nothing of being summoned to my Uncle’s room one morning at an earlier hour than usual. Nor did I especially notice any decided change in him though he certainly looked a little brighter than he had the day before.

Orpha was with him. She was sitting in the great bay window which opened upon the lawn; he by the fireside where a few logs were smouldering, the day being damp rather than cold.

He started and looked up with his kindly smile as I approached with the morning papers, then spoke quickly:

“No reading this morning, Quenton. I have an errand for you. One which only you can do to my satisfaction.” And thereupon he told me what it was, and how it might take me some hours, as it could only be accomplished in a town some fifty miles distant. “The car is ready,” said he, “and I would be glad to have you take it now as I want you to be home in time for dinner.”

I turned impulsively, casting one glance at Orpha.

“You may take Orpha.”

But she would not go. In a flurry of excitement and with every sign of subdued agitation, she hurriedly rose and came our way.

“I cannot leave you, Father. I should worry every minute. Quenton will pardon my discourtesy, but with him gone and Edgar not yet here my place is with you.”

I could not dispute it, nor could he. With a smile half apologetic, half grateful, he let me go, and the only consolation which the moment brought me was the fact that her eyes were still on mine when I turned to close the door.

But intoxicating as the pleasure would have been to have had her with me during this hundred mile ride, my thoughts during that long flight through a most uninteresting country, dwelt much less upon my disappointment than on the purpose actuating my uncle in thus disposing of my presence for so many hours on this especial day.

In itself, the errand was one of no importance. I knew enough of his business affairs to be quite sure of that. Why, then, this long trip on a day so unpropitious as to be positively forbidding?

The question agitated me all the way there and was not settled to my mind at the hour of my return. Something had been going on in my absence which he had thought it undesirable for me to witness. The proof of this I saw in every face I met. Even the maids cast uneasy glances at me whenever I chanced to run upon one of them in my passage through the hall. It was different with Uncle. He wore a look of relief, for which he gave no explanation then or later.

And Orpha? She was a riddle to me, too, that night. Abstracted by fits and by fits interested and alert as though she sought to make up to me for the many moments in which she hardly heard anything I said.

The tears were in her eyes more than once when she impulsively turned my way. And no explanation followed, nor did she allude in any manner to my ride or to what had taken place in my absence until we came to say goodnight, when she remarked:

“I don’t know why I feel so troubled and as if I must speak to some one who loves my father. You have seen how much brighter he is to-night. That makes me happy, but the cause worries me. Something strange happened here to-day. Mr. Dunn, who has attended to papa’s law business for years, came to see him shortly after you left. There was nothing strange about that and we thought little of it till Clarke and Wealthy were sent for to witness Father’s signature to what they insist must have been a new will. You see they had gone through an experience of this kind before. It must have been five years or so ago, and both feel sure that to-day’s business is but a repetition of the former one. And a new will at this time would be quite proper,” she went on, with her glance turned carefully aside. “It is not that which has upset me and upset them. It is that in an hour or so after Mr. Dunn left another lawyer came in whom I know only by name; a Mr. Jackson, who is well thought of, but whom I have never chanced to meet. He brought two clerks with him and stayed quite a time with Father and when he was gone, Wealthy came rushing into my room to tell me what Haines had heard one of the clerks say to the other when going out of the front door. It was this. ‘Well, I call that mighty quick work, considering the size of his fortune.’ To which the other answered, ‘The instructions were minute; and all written out in his own hand. He may be a sick man, but he knows what he wants. A will in a thousand—’ Here the door shut and Haines heard nothing more. But Quenton, what can it mean? Two lawyers and two wills! Do you think father can be all right when he can do a thing like that? It has frightened me and I don’t know whether or not I ought to tell Dr. Cameron. What do you advise?”

I was as ignorant as herself as to our duty in a matter about which we knew so little, but I certainly was not going to let her go to bed in this disturbed condition of mind; so I said:

“You may trust your father to be all right in all that concerns business. His mental powers are as great as ever. If we do not understand all he does it is because we do not know what lies back of his action.” Then as her face brightened, I added: “Edgar and I have often been surprised at the clearness of his perceptions and the excellence of his judgment in all matters which have come up since we have taken the place of his former stenographers. For nearly a month we in turn have done his typewriting and never has he faltered in his dictation or seemed to lack decision as to what he wanted done. You may rest easy about his employing two lawyers even in one day. With so many interests and such complicated affairs to manipulate and care for I only wonder that he does not feel the need of a dozen.”

A little quivering smile answered this; and it was the hardest thing I was ever called upon to do, not to take her sweet, appealing figure in my arms and comfort her as my heart prompted me to do.

“I hardly think Dr. Cameron would say any different. You can put the question to him when he comes in.”

But when she had flitted from my side and disappeared in the hall above, I asked myself with some misgiving whether in encouraging her in this fashion, I had quite convinced myself of the naturalness of her father’s conduct or of my own explanation of the same.

Had he not sent me out of the house and on a long enough trip to cover the time likely to be consumed by these two visits I might not have concerned myself beyond the obvious need of sustaining her in her surprise and anxiety. For as I told her, his interests were large and he must often feel the need of legal advice. But with this circumstance in mind it was but natural for me to wonder what connection I had with this matter. Lawyers! And two of them! One if not both of them there in connection with a will! Was he indeed in full possession of his faculties? Or was some strange event brooding in this house beyond my power to discern?

Alas! I was not to know that day, nor for many, many others. What I was to know was this. Why, I had frequently seen Martha and, yes, I will admit it, Clarke—the hard-headed, unimaginative Clarke—always step more quickly when they came to the flight of stairs leading to the third floor.

I was on this flight myself that night and about half way up, when I was stopped,—not by any unexpected sound as at the time before—but by a prickle of my scalp and a sense of being pulled back by some unseen hand. I shook the fancy off and rushed pell-mell to the top with a laugh on my lips which however never reached my ears. Then reason reasserted itself and I went straight on in the direction of my room, and was just turning aside from Wealthy’s cosy corner when I saw the screen which hemmed it in move aside and reveal her standing there.

She had seen me through a slit in the screen and for some purpose or other showed a disposition to speak.

Of course, I paused to hear what she had to say.

It was nothing important in itself; but to her devotion everything was important which had any connection with her sick master.

“It is late,” she said. “Clarke is out and I have been waiting for Mr. Bartholomew’s bell. It does not ring. Would you mind— Oh, there it is,” she cried, as a sharp tinkle sounded in our ears. “You will excuse me, sir,” releasing me with a gesture of relief.

An episode of small moment and hardly worth relating; but it is part—a final part, so far as I am concerned—of that day’s story.