Divided Skates

“Well, I’ll be in time now, I think!”

Yet, just as before, she opened to silence and the moonlight only.

CHAPTER VI.

MYSTERIES

“Come, Master Lionel! It’s time to be stirring. Your bath’s ready and breakfast will be before you are dressed. Miss Lucy says you are not to delay, and to open your window when you leave your room, and to be in your place in the breakfast-room when she comes down to lead morning worship. Now, don’t go to sleep any more, that’s a good boy, and make me climb three flights of stairs again, just for nothing at all. Hear?”

“Yes, ma’am, I hear,” responded Towsley, sleepily. But he was much mixed in his ideas at that moment, and quite mistook Mary for her mistress; also that he had been instructed by his benefactress, during the past evening, as to his demeanor toward the servants of the house, whom he was to treat with all kindness, yet not to “ma’am” nor “mister,” as seemed natural to an Alley-trained boy.

“I can trust you, can I?” again demanded the voice outside the half-closed door.

“Yes. I’m awake. But, say, Mary!”

“Well, what is it?”

“Did you say bath? Have I got to wash myself again? They washed me at the hospital enough to kill. I won’t be dirty again this winter.”

Mary laughed. “The idea! Did you ever hear of a young gentleman as didn’t take his bath every day? Ridic’lous. Come, step lively. Here’s a bath-robe by the door used to belong to the other Lionel. Miss Lucy says, wear it.”

Towsley had seen such robes in the shop windows; and as he folded this one about him and thrust his feet into the warm little slippers, also provided, he had a curious feeling that he was thus investing himself with his new life.

But this made him very unhappy. Odd! that a boy who had never had a home should be homesick! Yet that was the real name of the miserable, sinking sensation at his heart; and as he crossed the hall to the bathroom, his face was the picture of woe.

However he had no idea of disobedience; and though it was with a shiver of repugnance that he stepped into the porcelain tub, his emotions underwent a sudden and radical change.

“Hi! this is nicer than swimming! And them towels – for me! Ain’t they prime! I wonder what Shiner would say if he could see ’em.”

This was an unfortunate suggestion. It almost, though not quite, overset the exhilaration of the bath, and as he stepped out upon the rug he seemed to see the reproachful face of his mate looking up at him and questioning:

“Why ain’t I in it, too?”

“Why wasn’t he? Why did I happen to be the one, just the only one, who should skate bang into Miss Lucy and be taken in and done for? And I couldn’t skate, either. I was just a-learning. Pshaw! I wish I hadn’t. I wish – I wish. ’Bout this time, I s’pose, the fellows have near sold out. There’ll be some running on the down-town cars, though, and the gents that go to business late; bankers and lawyers and such. I s’pose somebody’s got my route, already. If a chap gets out the line – there’s another hops into his place – spang! I wonder – ”

But just there Lionel Towsley’s reflections became so sombre that some very unusual tears crept into his eyes. This fact restored him to a sense of his own foolishness.

“Shucks! if I ain’t crying! I – Towsley! Well, that beats all. I ain’t never done it since I can remember, only now I’m adopted I ’pear to be losing all my snap. Is that the way with rich folks always? Am I a rich one, now, just because I stay in Miss Lucy’s house? Well, I can’t let myself get to be a girl, even if I do live like one.”

Then the lad remembered Doctor Frank and that, although the gentleman wore fine attire, he was the manliest person he knew. Yet he was evidently wealthy, since he could afford to give away, or advance – to penniless Towsley this seemed the same thing – a five-dollar suit of clothing. So he hurried himself and brushed his hair, as far as he could reach around; and he tried to use all the accessories of his toilet which Miss Lucy had provided and he could understand. In his efforts he forgot to be so lonely; and it was a really bright-faced little fellow who presented himself in the breakfast-room, where the house mistress sat waiting, and who addressed her very respectfully:

“Good-morning, Miss Armacost. Am I late? I guess I fooled ’round some. I – I ain’t got used to things yet.”

“Good-morning, my child. Did you rest well?”

“Prime. I hope you did, too,” he replied, sitting down upon a chair near her own.

Yet she did not look as if she had, and the child opened his lips to remark this; but she motioned him to be quiet, and immediately took up the Bible lying ready on a little stand beside her. He noticed that all the servants were present, sitting in an orderly row upon one side of the room, which was very still. Then Miss Lucy read a portion of the Word and offered a brief prayer, to which Towsley listened in a scared sort of way. For she mentioned him in her petition, asking for a blessing upon the new relation established between them.

This gave the matter a dignity and importance really startling to the waif. If he and what happened to him were worth mentioning to the Lord he had no right to grumble about them; and, during that few moments upon his knees, there was born in the boy’s heart a self-respect that was never after to forsake him.

But when they had taken their places at the table, and Mary was passing the food, he saw how Miss Lucy’s hand shook, and inquired, anxiously:

“Miss Lucy, are you sick? What makes you tremble so? Are you cold? Can I get you something?”

She was much pleased by his quick observation, yet shook her head in a way that made him understand he was to ask no more questions while Mary remained in the room. After she had served them and gone, he ventured again:

“Didn’t you sleep as nice as I did, Miss Lucy? You look awful tired.”

The little lady regarded him very attentively for a moment. Then she inquired:

“Lionel, if I tell you a secret, will you keep it?”

“Yes, indeed. I will. Hope to die if I don’t.”

“Needn’t say that. It wouldn’t be true. But there was something very queer going on here last night; and it kept me awake, and I’m all upset this morning.”

Even to herself it seemed strange that Miss Armacost should turn to this stranger child for sympathy, when she would not allow herself to do so toward any of the servants who had known her so long.

“What was it, Miss Lucy? P’raps I can find out what it was. I’d like to if I could. I’d like to, first rate. I heard what you said when you were praying, and I ain’t going to forget. I’d rather be back to my old place in the Square, with my papers under my arm, but if I can’t help myself – if the Lord’s took a hand in it – I’d like to be the next best thing I can. That’s to help you, ain’t it?”

The mistress of the mansion gasped. This was frankness, indeed, – a frankness most unflattering to herself, but it served to rouse and brace her jaded nerves. She replied, a little sharply:

“If you don’t like it you needn’t stay. That is, after you’ve given the matter a good trial, and I have. That’s fair for both sides. But – hark! There it goes again!”

At that instant, the electric door-bell rang in a peculiar, prolonged, and rather gentle fashion. Towsley couldn’t understand why Miss Lucy’s face paled still further; nor why, after Mary had answered the summons, she should slam the door viciously, and almost run back along the hall to her own quarters.

Miss Lucy touched the table bell and summoned her; then inquired, in as calm a voice as she could command:

“What was it, this time, Mary?”

“The same old story, ma’am; nothing.”

“Very well. You may go.”

“Yes, ma’am. I think I will. Cook and I are both talking of going. You see, we’ve been hearing it this two or three days, and we wouldn’t dare to stay in a house that had a ‘haunt.’”

“Nonsense. There is nothing of the sort. Some reasonable explanation will be found. You may return to your dusting.”

“Yes, ma’am. But if it happens again, just once, please, ma’am, I’d like to be let off, and I’ll try to find somebody to take my place if you want me to.”

Miss Armacost vouchsafed no response to this suggestion, and pretended to sip her coffee. Yet her hand shook so that she set the cup down, and, as soon as Mary had disappeared again, folded her arms and looked toward the eager-faced boy opposite, in a helpless sort of way.

“What did she mean by that, Miss Lucy?”

Then she told him. How for several days before she had herself heard it, there had been a most mysterious ringing at the front door-bell; that the servants had as often answered the summons, yet found nobody demanding admittance; that they believed there was some ghostly influence at work; that being superstitious, like all the colored race, they had decided it would be unsafe for them to remain in the house; that at frequent intervals, all last night and now this morning, as Lionel had himself observed, the ringing had again occurred.

“It’s very, very distracting and uncomfortable. I’m quite upset by it, and don’t know what to do.”