Читать книгу The Summit House Mystery; Or, The Earthly Purgatory - L. Dougall - Страница 5

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The sun set glorious over the peaks of the Cherokee ridges, and their crimson outline lay dark, like a haven for the silver boat of the descending moon, when Durgan, satchel in hand, climbed the ascending foot-trail.

The cart-road evidently reached the summit by further turnings; but this footpath, wending through close azalea scrub and under trees, emerged between one gable of the summit house and the higher rocks above it. On the other three sides of the house its open lands were broad enough.

This had been the dwelling of the former miner. Durgan, already heralded by the barking of watch-dogs, could hardly pause to look at a place which would have been his perquisite had it not been bought at a fancy price by woman's caprice.

The low shingled dwelling, weathered and overgrown by vines, was faced by a long, open porch. Its lawn was already bordered by a fringe of crocus flowers. The house was old, but, beyond a group of trees, a new barn and carriage-house were standing. The fences of garden, field, and meadow were also new. The whole property bore marks of recent improvements which betokened wealth and taste.

A prim little lady met Durgan in the porch. Her hair was gray; she wore a dress of modified fashion. Even the warm glamour of the evening light and the matchless grace of hanging vines could give but small suggestion of romance to Miss Smith's neat, angular figure and thin face; but of her entire goodness Durgan, after the first glance, had never a doubt. She put on spectacles to read the letter of introduction which he brought from the owner of Deer Mountain and of the mine. She was startled by something she read there, but only betrayed her excitement by a slight trembling, hardly seen.

The letter read, she greeted Durgan in the neat manner of an established etiquette which, like her accent, savored of a New England education.

"Take a chair, for I guess you're tired. Yes, we bought this land from General Durgan Blount, and, of course, we've had dealing with him. That's about the extent of our acquaintance."

She swayed in a light rocking-chair, and for some minutes obviously thought over the request which the letter contained that she should give Durgan a temporary home as a paying guest. He employed the time in looking at books and pictures, which were of no mean quality, but seemed to have been recently collected.

At last she said, "Come to think of it, I don't see why you shouldn't stop with us a while. My sister isn't at home just now, but I guess I'll say 'Yes.' It isn't good for folks to be too much alone. We've a real comfortable room over the harness-room in the carriage-house. You'll have to sleep there, as we've no room in the house, and I guess what we eat will be good enough." A moment's pause and she added, "My sister won't be quite agreeable, perhaps, not being accustomed——"

"Of course, I quite understand, you're not in the habit of doing such a——"

"I did not mean that we felt too grand."

Miss Smith made this answer to his interruption with crisp decision, but as she did not return to the interrupted subject, he was left uncertain.

While she busied herself for his entertainment, Durgan, surprised into great contentment, sat watching the darkness gather beyond the low arches of the porch. The room was warmed, and at that hour lit, by logs blazing in an open chimney. It was furnished with simple comfort and the material for pleasant occupations. Glass doors stood open to the mild, still night. The sweet, cool scent of the living forest wandered in to meet the fragrance of the burning logs.

There was one uneasy element in Durgan's sense of rest—he dreaded the advent of the sister who might not be "quite agreeable."

Out of the gloaming, stooping under the tendrils of the vine, a young woman came quickly and stopped upon the threshold. She seemed a perfect type of womanhood, lovely and vigorous. One arm was filled with branches of dogwood bloom, the other hand held in short leash a mastiff. Her figure, at once lithe and buxom, her rosy and sun-browned face, soft lips, aquiline nose, and curly hair gave Durgan sincere astonishment, altho he had formed no expectation. But his attention was quickly focussed upon an indescribable depth of hope and fear in her eyes. Before she spoke he had time to notice more consciously the clear brown skin, crimson-tinted on the round of the cheek, the nose delicately formed and curved, and the startled terror and pleading look in her sad brown eyes.

The dog, probably at the suggestion of a nervous movement on the leash, began to growl, and was silenced by a caress as Durgan introduced himself and explained his errand.

"It is very late," she said gravely. "It will surely be difficult for you to find your way down the mountain again."

"Miss Smith has very kindly acceded to my cousin's request." Durgan spoke in the soft, haughty tone of reserve which was habitual to him.

The girl's tone, quick and subdued, had in it the faint echo of a cry. "Oh, I don't think you would like to stay here. Oh, I don't think you——"

Miss Smith came to the door to announce his supper.

"Mr. Durgan is going to stop a while with us, Bertha. It's no use his having a mile's climb from the Cove to his work every day—at least not that I know of. I've been fixing up the room over the carriage-house; I tell him the barns are a sight better built than the house."

It appeared to Durgan that she was reasoning with the younger sister as a too indulgent mother reasons with a spoilt tyrant of the nursery. The effort seemed successful.

Without further comment Bertha said, "We bought this old house along with the ground, but we built the rest. We took great care that they should be good models for the people here, who are rather in need of high standards in barns and—other things."

"In many other things," said Durgan. "I have not been familiar with my own State since the war, and the poverty and sloth I have seen in the last few days sadly shocked me."

Durgan had not of late been accustomed to kindness from women. It was years since he had eaten and talked with such content as he did that evening. If his material comforts were due to the essential motherliness in Miss Smith's nature, it was Bertha's generous beauty and lively mind that gave the added touch of delight. Miss Smith swayed in her rocking-chair, her neat feet tapping the ground, and put in shrewd, kindly remarks; Bertha discussed the prospects of the mine with well-bred ease. Durgan assumed that, as is often the case in the Northern States, the growing wealth of the family had bestowed on the younger a more liberal education than had fallen to the lot of the elder. At the hour for retiring he felt for them both equal respect and equal gratitude.

The stairs to his chamber ran up outside the carriage-house. The room was pleasant—a rainy-day workroom, containing a divan that had been converted into a bed. Books, a shaded lamp, even flowers, were there. As a sick man luxuriates in mere alleviation, as the fugitive basks in temporary safety, so Durgan, who had resigned himself to the buffets of fortune, felt unspeakably content with the present prospect of peace.

He read till late, and, putting out what was by then the only light upon Deer Mountain, he lay long, watching the far blaze of other worlds through the high casement. To his surprise he heard an almost noiseless step come up the stairs; then a breathless listening. He had been given no key, but one was now gently inserted in the lock and turned from without.

Durgan smiled to himself, but the smile grew cynical.