The House in the Hedge

Front matter

THE HOUSE IN THE HEDGE

BY RALPH HENRY BARBOUR

Illustrated by GERTRUDE A. KAY

Chapter 1

I

WE GO TO EASTMEADOWS

Isn't it wonderful how a tiny, unimportant little thing will lead to great and important results? Not that Jessamine Walton's measles was unimportant, for she really had a very hard time of it for several weeks and had to spend July at Hot Springs when she wanted to be at Newport. The measles left her with some sort of throat trouble, you see. But, unimportant or otherwise, the cause was out of all proportion to the results, as you will see when you have finished this story. Jessamine took ill the last of May, and just as soon as they found it was measles Doctor Broughton had us all brought into the reception room and looked down our throats and examined our eyes and sent us home. It was very annoying to Madame Du Flond, I suppose, but I don't think many of the girls cared much. Ordinarily the school doesn't close until the last of June and so we escaped a whole month. Of course we missed Graduation Day, but in my case it would have meant a new gown and a great deal of bother, and as we all got our diplomas by mail, I was as pleased as could be. Besides, it seemed sort of a joke to go to a finishing school for three years and then not finish. It was delightfully exciting, too, for the Doctor said we must all get out that very day, and you can imagine that when thirty-two girls pack their trunks at once, things are just bound to happen. And they did happen. But all that seems very trivial and far away now, and I shall not dwell upon it. I left New York in the afternoon with nine other girls who either lived in Washington, as I do, or beyond. We had lots of fun; it was quite like going home for Christmas. The only thing that marred our pleasure was the thought that we might each and every one of us have to go to bed and have the measles as soon as we got home.

And several of us did. I was one. But I had a very light touch of it, and after ten days I was up again. Then Aunt Myra—she is mamma's sister and has lived with us since mamma died a little over a year prior to the beginning of this story—Aunt Myra thought I needed country air and it was decided one evening at dinner that she and I should go up to Eastmeadows at once, leaving the Major—that's papa to follow the last of June. It wasn't necessary to consider Larry, for he was in Harvard and wouldn't be home, anyway, until after the boat race, since he was rowing on the 'Varsity crew. I guess I'd better explain now about our family, so as not to confuse you.

First there is the Major. That's papa. His name is Mr. Warren Corbinger Pryde. The Prydes are an old Virginia family, and true to their name. For my part, though, I don't see what they have to be so set up about. Most of the Prydes I know aren't anything to be especially proud of. Papa was Major of a Virginia regiment during the Spanish War, and ever since then Larry and I have called him the Major. Mamma was a Massachusetts Groves—I was named Marjorie after her—and, although she never said so, I'm certain mamma always thought that when it came to family, she had something on the Major. (That expression is Larry's, and I suppose I ought to cross it out because it is slang, but I shan't.) Larry's real name is Laurence Laurence Groves Pryde. He is twenty years old and is a junior at Harvard. Larry is a real Pryde. He is big, like the Major, and very good looking, and has a haughty, aristocratic air—when he doesn't forget it—that the girls find tremendously fetching. Then there's me, Marjorie Pryde. I'm not really a Pryde at all; I'm a Groves. I'm small, like mamma, and I have light hair that is almost straw color, and I lack repose. Aunt Myra says so twenty times a day, so I guess it must be so. I have brown eyes and altogether too much color for a blonde. But I'm called pretty, and I really think I am; this, you see, is to be a perfectly truthful narrative, even if you think I'm conceited. I am almost nineteen years old. The fourth and last member of our family is Aunt Myra. Aunt Myra is almost fifty, although she has been “turning forty” for several years, if you listen to her. She was mamma's only sister and never married. I suppose that was because, until she came to live with us in Washington after mamma's death, she had spent all her life in Massachusetts, where men are few and hard to get. Aunt Myra is a dear, but terribly trying at times; even the Major acknowledged that once. In the first place, she has absolutely no sense humor, and as the rest of us have altogether too much—it is really a family failing—you will readily understand that Aunt Myra has her unhappy moments.

I suppose I ought to say something about the family fortunes They were pretty bad until about five years ago. Then the Major came home chuckling one evening and told us at the dinner table that we were very rich. It was all on account of some land which the Major had taken for a bad debt years and years before. It was somewhere in Tennessee and someone had discovered that it was just full of iron and wanted to buy it. But the Major is pretty smart, being a Washington lawyer, and he looked into it himself and found that the land was worth more than ten times what the man had offered him for it. And so, when he did sell it finally, taking stock in the company in part payment, we had so much money we didn't know what to do with it all. Mamma, being a Groves, bless her, took it very seriously and was terribly excited, but the Major would laugh about it until the tears came.

“Why,” he'd say, “here I've been toiling and moiling all my life at the law and just making enough to pay the butcher, and now an old piece of worthless Tennessee land, that came to me by accident, pretty nigh makes a millionaire of me! It's the best joke I ever heard!”

That's how we came to be rich. Of course we moved into a fine big house and had our carriages and things right away, and mamma enjoyed it as much as any of us. But she always felt that it was too good to last and used to worry for fear we'd wake up some morning and find our money all gone. So she used to make the Major put money in banks and buy bonds and things like that; then, in case the company failed or the ore gave out, we'd have something left; it didn't seem to her, she said, that money come by as suddenly and easily as that had been could be quite dependable. The Major used to give her five or ten cents every day to keep for him in case the luck turned, and mamma would take it in her dear half-serious way and shake her head and tell him that some day he might be glad....

I don't want to write about mamma any more. If it seems that I should say more about her than I do, you must understand, please, that it is only because it still hurts terribly. Mamma's death was the first real sorrow that ever came to me, and although I try to bear it bravely, there are times when it seems that I just can't do without her.

I wanted to go up to Eastmeadows in the touring car; we had just got a beautiful new six-cylinder C. V. D.; and I got the doctor to agree that it was just what I needed. But Aunt Myra waylaid him in the hall afterwards and made him go right back on everything he'd said, the coward! So we went by train, just Aunt Myra and Elise and I and Lord Fairfax. Elise is my maid and Lord Fairfax is my cat. He's a beauty, a blue Angora with just the longest, silkiest hair I ever saw on a cat. He's a good deal of a villain, though, for he will eat his hair, which is very bad for his digestion, and he will run away. Elise has a great deal of trouble with him.

We took the Federal Express and got into Boston very early in the morning, and while the porter went to find us a cab, Elise took Fairfax for a walk around the station. I went to attend to the trunks and just when I'd got my checks I heard a lot of laughing and there were Fairfax and Elise having a race. He had pulled the leash out of her hand and was having a beautiful time. Everybody had stopped to look and Elise was as red as a beet. Fairfax galloped along the train-shed for a ways and then doubled back and dodged into the big waiting room. By that time we had fully two dozen persons helping us in the chase. But Fairfax didn't mean to be caught. He kept dodging in and out under the seats, and just when we thought we had him cornered he'd slip away with a lot of men hopping after him trying to step on the leash. It was too funny for words, but Elise didn't think so. She had given up the chase and gone back to comfort Aunt Myra, and two colored porters and I were directing the pursuit. I was master of the hounds, our own special porter was huntsman, and another porter, a very fat and cheerful one, was whipper-in. Just when we thought we had run Fairfax to earth, under a bench in the corner of the waiting room, someone came in and, before we could tell him to close the door, Fairfax had shot out of it. “Tally-ho!” I cried. I didn't mean to, but it just popped out. Everyone laughed and we all went tearing through the doors. Somewhere at a distance I could hear Aunt Myra calling, “Marjorie! Marjorie! Marjorie!” But I was too excited to stop then.

When I got outside Fairfax was making for one of the gates. But a gateman waved his arms and headed him back and he raced, galloping ridiculously, across the station, almost upsetting a very dignified old gentleman who was reading a paper and not looking, and disappeared into the lunch room. I thought we'd have it all to go through with again, but Fairfax's race was run. A gentleman sitting on a stool in front of one of the counters slipped off as Fairfax galloped by, reached out quickly, and got him by the collar. It was done beautifully and we all applauded. The gentleman wasn't at all bothered; you'd have thought that capturing Angora cats in railroad lunch-rooms was quite an everyday occurrence with him. He saw me coming and walked over to meet me with Fairfax, squirming and mewing, held out at arm's length like a a a sack of meal.

“Is this yours?” he asked.

He was very tall and large and very sober and unconcerned. And he'd have been very good-looking, too, if he hadn't been so serious. I thanked him; I'm afraid I gushed a little; the occasion seemed to require something more than a formal “Much obliged, sorry to trouble you”; and I said something about his having averted a catastrophe. It was awfully silly and I was sorry the next moment, for the man never even smiled; he just raised his hat impassively and went back to his breakfast. I hoped it would give him indigestion. I set Fairfax down and he gave himself a shake and trotted back to Aunt Myra and Elise, waving his tail in triumph. Fairfax never acknowledges defeat; he is very exasperating.

The porter took us out to our cab and the station returned to its normal condition. Aunt Myra had several things to say about Fairfax on the way across town and several things to say about me. The undignified, unladylike manner in which I had raced around a public railroad station was mortifying in the extreme.

“Well, someone had to do it,” I said. “Elise hasn't the first instinct of a sportsman. You saw that yourself, auntie.”

“Elise did what was right and proper,” said Aunt Myra. “You should have left the porters to catch him.”

“They'd have been chasing yet, then,” I replied. “I heard the big fat one say, “'Fore Gawd, miss, I ain't goin ' to touch that animal; he just claw me to pieces!'”

But Aunt Myra refused to cheer up until we'd reached the North Station and had breakfast. She's likely to be peevish in the mornings until she's had her coffee. We had almost three-quarters of an hour before our train left and so we ate good breakfasts. You've no idea how hungry it makes one to chase a cat when you've had nothing to eat. On our way to the train I thought I saw Fairfax's rescuer ahead of us in the crowd, but couldn't be sure. They hadn't begun running the parlor car yet and that annoyed Aunt Myra somewhat. She's very fond of parlor cars, even though she always protests against the expense. But even Aunt Myra's dumps and the dirty, rickety, antiquated day-coach couldn't spoil my pleasure at getting back to Eastmeadows. I suppose the Groves blood predominates in me, for New England always seems much more like home to me than either Washington or Virginia. It was a perfect early June morning, with the bluest of blue skies and the freshest of green trees and grass. Through the open window—luckily Aunt Myra and I are both fresh-air fiends—I caught whiffs of the ocean. It seemed awfully good to get back again.

You may know Eastmeadows, although it's more probable that you don't. At the most, you've very likely only gone through it in your car. It is eight miles inland and just far enough from the fashionable hurly-burly of the North Shore summer resorts to be quiet and pleasant. To be sure, a mile away, over about Hamilton, the smart estates are edging toward us, but so far we are just a few houses set down on either side of a country road, with the broad meadows east of us and the hills to the west. Two Acres was mamma's home when she was a little girl and after she was married she and the Major at first, and then all four of us, went there every summer.

Peter Quinn, our gardener and care-taker, who has worked for us for years and years, met us at the station with the surrey and on the way home told us all the news. None of it was very exciting; Ellen—that's Peter's wife had done remarkable with the chickens; the late freeze had topped the peach trees a bit; there was a new house goin' up over by the railroad crossing; Ellen had had the influenzy right smart in February an' his rheumatism had been troublin' him some before the warm weather set in; there was a new colt in the barn and the high wind last month had blown down the old elm across the road. I had taken Fairfax out of his basket and was showing him the sights. Finally Peter, who had kept the more important news for the last, asked:

“I guess you heard about the Fairholt place?”

“No,” said Aunt Myra, “what about it, Peter?”

“It's took.”

I almost dropped Fairfax into the road.

“Do you mean that the House in the Hedge is rented?” I exclaimed. “That somebody is really going to live there?”

“Looks like it,” answered Peter. “They moved in last night. And from what I can learn they ain't much of an addition to the community.”

“Why, what do you mean?” asked Aunt Myra, preparing to be terribly shocked.

“Well, ma'am, all I know is what I heard at the depot. They tell me there was three in the party, two of 'em women and the other a crazy man in a strait-jacket. That's all I know. They had a special car on the eight o'clock train and there was an ambulance over from Salem to take the crazy feller in.”

“But that is awful!” cried Aunt Myra. “Think of having an insane person right next door! I shan't sleep a wink to-night, Peter! Something will have to be done about it. Nobody has any right to rent a house in a respectable locality to an insane person.”

“Well,” said Peter dryly, “I guess a crazy man's the only sort would ever rent that house.”

“Maybe,” I said soothingly, “he isn't real violent, auntie. And that would help some, wouldn't it?”

Aunt Myra was too flustered to discover the slang. Peter flicked the whip reflectively.

“I guess they'll keep a right smart watch on him, ma'am. And they 'lowed down to the depot that he seemed quite peaceable last night.”

“I shan't stay,” said auntie. “I never heard of such an outrage in my life. Somebody must do something.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Peter.

“I felt all along, ma'am,” said Elise with a sniffle, “that we'd oughtn't to come here without Mr. Pryde. We'll all be murdered in our beds, I dare say.”

“Then you'd better sleep under your bed,” I told her sharply, “and maybe he won't find you. For my part I think it's all very interesting, and I dare say the poor man has nothing worse than paresis. Perhaps he's a Wall Street man who got caught in the market.”

“Marjorie,” said Aunt Myra, “I do wish you'd break yourself of using slang.”

“That isn't slang,” I answered superiorly, “that's a a financial term.”

Just then we came within sight of Two Acres and we all leaned forward expectantly until we could catch a glimpse of the House in the Hedge, which is just beyond. It looked quite as usual, save that the shutters, which had been up for three years, ever since Mr. Fairholt had hung himself in the hall, were taken off. You can't see anything but the second story of the cottage from any point on account of the great, high hedge which surrounds it on all sides, but what we could see looked very peaceful and respectable and I think Aunt Myra was relieved. She sank back with a sigh as we turned in at the gate.

“I shall write to your father,” she murmured. Aunt Myra has supreme faith in the Major. I patted her hand approvingly.

“Just the thing,” I said. “I'm sure the Major will fix it all beautifully. And do let's have luncheon early, auntie, for I'm as hungry as a bear.”

Chapter 2

II

THE HOUSE IN THE HEDGE

Two Acres, as you will gather from the name, isn't very big. And it isn't a very smart place. It's just a nice, comfy home with a big, square white house, with green blinds, and a cupola on top, a big white stable, with another cupola—only smaller a garage, sheds, chicken houses, lawns, trees, and flower beds. There, that's soon over! There used to be acres and acres of land with it, but mamma sold that years ago. There's a tennis court at the side of the house and a green, where the Major bowls. Lawn bowls is the only sport he ever goes in for. He's crazy about that and thinks himself a good deal of an athlete. We raise our own poultry, keep a cow, have a nice vegetable garden, and plenty of apples and pears and currants. Sometimes the peach trees bear, but they're a sort of joke. One year Larry and I went in for raising squabs. We'd figured out that we could get very rich at it. But when the funny little things got big enough to eat I wouldn't let Larry kill them, so we gave that up. There are lots of shade trees, elms, horse-chestnuts, and maples, and one of the elms, which stands over near the Fairholts' hedge, has a dandy big platform built in it, about ten feet from the ground, with steps up to it and a railing all around it, and benches to sit on. Larry built that all himself, and he used so many boards and nails that the Major declares it's the most expensive improvement on the place. He calls it Larry's Folly.

I mention the platform particularly because, after the trunks came and I'd watched Elise unpack—she's awfully stupid and careless about putting my gowns on the hangers—and after we'd had luncheon, and I'd been all over the place with Peter, I went up there to read. More truthfully—for this is to be a strictly truthful story—I went up there to spy over the hedge, but I did take a book with me. From the platform you can see over the hedge very nicely. Not that there is much to see, though. Mr. Fairholt bought the land from mamma ten years ago and built the cottage. It's just a little square, two-story house with a slate roof—what they call a French roof, I think. There's a porch across the front and the house is painted a sort of drab with darker trimmings, a most depressing color. I don't suppose he ever meant the hedge to grow up as tall as it is now, for Peter says he kept it trimmed down the first few years. But after he stopped coming there, the hedge just did as it pleased, until nowadays it looks almost as high as the cottage, and folks call the place the House in the Hedge. Mr. Fairholt built the place when he was married and they say his wife was a perfect beauty. But I guess I never saw her; at least, I don't remember her. She only lived there two summers, I believe. Then Mr. Fairholt came alone one year, and after that the place was closed up. Then three years ago, such an awful thing happened. Someone noticed a light burning downstairs one night and they went over and peeked in through the shutters, and there was Mr. Fairholt hanging from a rope in the hall. Of course they broke in, but he was quite dead. They say he killed himself on account of something his wife had done, but I never heard much about it. Aunt Myra has such old-fashioned notions, you see. Of course, after that the House in the Hedge soon got the name of being haunted, and the next summer Larry and I used to prowl around it in the evenings, daring each other to look in the windows, and all the time keeping our ears and eyes wide open in case a “hant” should grab us. It was very exciting, but we never saw nor heard anything save once, when a stray cat jumped out of the bushes in front of us, and made us both scream, so we gave it up.

I think it's due to Larry to explain that, when he built the platform, he had no idea of using it to pry into his neighbor's affairs. In fact, there wasn't any neighbor there then, for Mr. Fairholt had stopped coming to the cottage. That particular tree was the best one to build in, because it was different from the others and the trunk divided into three branches quite low down, making a sort of tripod, if that's the word. The tree is quite a little ways from our house and about ten feet from the hedge and opposite the end of the cottage porch. Between the hedge and the cottage there is just room for a driveway to the tiny stable at the back, so that from the platform to the cottage the distance isn't much over twenty feet I suppose. There are six windows on that side of the cottage, and from where I sat I could have looked right into them all, if it hadn't been for the shades and curtains. The blinds were open at the upper windows, but the shades were pulled all the way down, and I concluded that those rooms were not being used. Downstairs the shades were raised half-way, but muslin curtains hung behind them across the windows. Once when the breeze stirred the curtains at the front window, I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be the brass knob of a bedstead.

What I had hoped when I climbed up there, was to discover evidence that would be reassuring to Aunt Myra, who was really in a terrible state of nerves. Perhaps, I had thought, I might see a harmless old gentle man twiddling his thumbs, for, of course, I didn't accept that story about the strait-jacket. I didn't believe that crazy folks in strait-jackets were taken around the country on trains. But nobody came to the windows and nothing stirred about the house. Once I thought I heard low voices, but even that was doubtful. So, after a while, I really did settle down to read, and had forgotten all about the House in the Hedge, when a station carriage stopped in front of the gate and a stout, brisk, clean-shaven man, with a black bag, hurried up the short path. I hoped he wouldn't look up and see me, for I had an uneasy conscience and feared he would guess that I was spying. And he didn't. He crossed the porch and I could see him pushing the bell button. Evidently, though, the bell was out of order for, after digging at it a second time, he beat a tattoo on the door with his fist. Then the door opened, I heard someone say questioningly, “Doctor Lambert?” and he disappeared. After that I could hear the murmur of voices in the lower front room, but no words reached me, and for fear they might, I went back to my book. The doctor stayed a long time, fully a half-hour I suppose, and then bustled out again, and the station carriage went hurrying off toward the depot. By that time it was growing chilly and so I climbed down from the platform and went back to the house.

That night Aunt Myra saw personally that all the doors and windows were locked, and that all the chain-bolts were put up. She declared that she didn't expect to sleep a wink, while Elise was so nervous that we let her sleep in the front of the house in the Major's room. My room is on the side toward the House in the Hedge, and after I had put my light out, I went to the window and looked across. All the windows in the cottage were dark, except those of the lower front room, and the next morning Aunt Myra told me that the light had burned there all night. Aunt Myra had managed to sleep some, after all; by fits and starts, as she put it; while, as for Elise, I had the evidence of my own ears to assure me that she had not been very wakeful. I never slept better in my life, although I was conscious of having had a dream, in which the impassive man, who had captured Fairfax in the station, figured in some way. Peter had more news for us when he retured from the depot with the mail.

“They made a change yesterday next door,” he announced. “One of the women folks went away and a man came. They say she looked like she might be a nurse.”

“And the man was a doctor,” said I. “I saw him.”

“This was another man,” replied Peter. “He came before the doctor. I was goin' to tell you about the doctor. Sam, the agent, he up and asked the doctor, 'How did you find your patient, Doctor?' and Sam says the man turned on him like he wanted to bite his head off. 'It doesn't concern you, sir!' he says.”

“Served him right,” said I. “It was none of Sam's business.” Then I remembered the platform and had the grace to blush.

“Well,” chuckled Peter, “he didn't learn much, anyway.”

“What was the other man like, the one who came before the doctor?” I asked.

“Well, miss, they said he was a big solemn sort of a man as looked like he might be an undertaker.”

Aunt Myra shivered.

“I shall write to your father at once,” she said. “He ought to know what's going on here.”

“Then he will know more than we do,” I said. “What is going on, auntie?”

She refused to answer me, though, and went on into the library and sat down resolutely at the desk. But before she had found paper, the grocer's boy drove in to get the order, and Aunt Myra went out to talk to him. I didn't have anything better to do, so I went too. After she'd given the order she asked:

“Do you know who has taken the House in the Hedge, Tommy?”

Aunt Myra always calls a boy Tommy, when she doesn't know his right name. This boy looked as though he wanted to resent it, but didn't dare to.

“Name's Tully,” he said. “I was jest there.”

“Weren't you afraid?” I asked.

“Afraid of what?”

“Why, they say there's a crazy man there.”