A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill Part 37

Bertie was standing on the back of her chair by this time, apparently trying to strangle her.

"And can we slide down the ice-house like you used to do? And will Uncle Jimpson call up the doodle-bugs out of the ground like he did when you was a little girl?"

"Listen!" cried Miss Lady suddenly starting up. "What is that?"

From the far end of the street came the sound, "Wuxtry! Here's your Wuxtry! All about--"

"It's just the newsboy I was being like," said Bertie. "What's the matter? What makes you shake so, Miss Lady?"

Myrtella thrust her head in the door. "Here comes that there Mrs. Ivy running 'cross the yard. She's good fer a hour."

But Mrs. Ivy did not seem to be good for anything by the time Miss Lady reached her. She was half reclining on a haircloth sofa in the front hall with a bottle of smelling salts to her nose and a newspaper in her hand.

"Oh, my _dear_!" she managed to gasp. "Such a frightful shock! So utterly unexpected!"

"Do you mean Don?" Miss Lady's lips scarcely moved as she asked the question.

"No, the bank! I was all alone in the house when I heard the boys calling the extras--Ah! my poor weak heart!"

"Brandy?" suggested Miss Lady anxiously.

Mrs. Ivy raised feeble but protesting eyes: "Never! The Angel of Death shall never find me with the odor of liquor on my lips. Could you send for some nitroglycerin?"

By the time Mrs. Ivy was revived, Connie and Hattie had joined the group in the hall, and the latter was reading aloud in awe-struck tones the account of the People's Bank failure. The age and reputation of the inst.i.tution and the prominence of Basil Sequin as a local financier gave the subject grave significance.

"And to think that I should be involved!" wailed Mrs. Ivy. "I've only been treasurer of the W. A. Board for six weeks and this was my first investment! They told me to use my judgment, and I did the best I could!

Only last Thursday I went to see Mr. Gilson the broker, you know, about investing the money we're collecting for building the Parish House. He said I had come at the right moment as he had just gotten hold of some of the People's Bank stock, 'gilt edged,' he called it, and I remember just what I said to him, I said, 'Mr. Gilson, I simply let Providence lead me, and it led me to your door!' and I bought it!" sobbed Mrs. Ivy; "forty shares!"

"I suppose Father's lost awfully," said Hattie, sitting round eyed and anxious on the steps.

"And all the Sequins, and Don," added Connie.

"It says that all the stockholders and most of the depositors stand to lose heavily," said Miss Lady, scanning the paper; "I must tell the Doctor at once."

She sped up the steps and knocked breathlessly at his study door. It was only at the second knock that she was bidden to enter.

The Doctor sat at his desk in a long, gray dressing-gown, with a rug across his knees: around him were ranged several straight-backed chairs on which were spread hundreds of pages of closely written ma.n.u.script. At his elbow on a stand was an immense dictionary, from which he lifted a pair of absorbed and preoccupied eyes.

"Doctor!" Miss Lady burst out impetuously, "the Bank has failed--the paper says--"

"If you please!" the Doctor raised an imploring hand; "don't tell me now. The news will keep and I am in a most critical stage of my summary.

Today's work is important, very important. Kindly close the door."

Miss Lady stood in the hall without and stared at the drab-colored wallpaper. A fierce anger rose in her, not against the Doctor, but against that vampire work which was sucking all the vitality and sympathy and understanding out of him. She was eager to bear his burdens; she was willing to fight his battles; but it was hard to take his side single-handed against herself. She wanted love, and affection and sympathy, and she wanted a manly shoulder to weep on when the way became too hard. But the Doctor's slanting, scholarly shoulder afforded no resting-place for a world-weary head.

"Mis' Squeerington!" called Myrtella from the lower floor. "The grocery man didn't have no beets, and his new potatoes is hard as rocks, an' if I was you I'd go over to Smithers jes' to spite him out fer a spell.

And I fergot to tell you that that there Mr. Wicker called you up a hour ago, an' sez the case was lost. I don't know what he meant. I hope he ain't lost it 'round here. Next thing I hear they'll be sayin' I took it!"

CHAPTER XXII

It is a depressing law of life that worries invariably hunt in packs.

If it were just a matter of one yelping little annoyance that barked at your heels, you could frighten it away with a laugh; but when a ravenous horde gets on your trail with the grim determination of running you to earth, it is quite a different matter.

Donald Morley, pacing the terrace at Angora Heights on a certain dark night in March, felt the breath of the pursuing pack close upon him. The failure to win his case had been a serious blow not only to his pride, but to his faith in his fellow man. He had gone into the trial with the a.s.sured confidence of an innocent man who is still young enough to rely absolutely upon the justice of the law. In spite of the array of damaging evidence presented by the prosecuting attorney, and the opinionated egotism of Mr. Gooch which rendered him unpopular with judge and jury, Donald's victory was almost a.s.sured, when the rumor of the People's Bank failure swept the court room. In the instant wave of suspicion that rose against Basil Sequin, Donald's cause was lost. Half the men on the jury were directly, or indirectly, involved. The case was summarily disposed of and the smaller matter swallowed up in the larger.

Humiliated and chagrined as Donald was over his own position, he was equally concerned about the bank. The papers were full of disturbing innuendoes; people avoided speaking of it in his presence; distrust and suspicion lurked around the corners.

Donald paused at the end of the terrace and looked up at the dark ma.s.sive pile of masonry above him. In every leering gargoyle and carved coping, he read the ruin of some humble home.

At the first hint of impending trouble, Mrs. Sequin had taken Margery and fled to Europe, leaving Mr. Sequin fighting with his back to the wall to meet the difficulties into which her extravagance had plunged him. "I have no fear for Basil," she a.s.sured her friends on leaving.

"He'll straighten things out. Of course he'll be talked about, clever people always are, and the directors have been rather nasty. But he'll control the situation yet, you'll see."

And Mrs. Sequin's confidence was being justified. Basil Sequin was controlling the situation. He had emerged from the ruin with his finances less affected than his reputation.

Each time that Donald turned at the end of the long terrace, his eyes involuntarily sought a light that gleamed far below through the bare trunks of the trees. It was the light from Thornwood that once more threw its familiar beams across the Cane Run Road and up the gentle slope of Billy-goat Hill. He rested his arms on the bal.u.s.trade and stood looking out into the night. There was a softness in the air, a smell of upturned earth, a faint whispering among the newly budded treetops that hinted of things about to be revealed.

Suddenly there was a strange fluttering in the air above him, a tremulous, expectant thrill. Looking up he saw a flock of birds, wheeling and circling above him, making ready to light. Night after night they had traveled, over forests and across dark rivers, valiantly beating their frail wings against the gale, one purpose urging them on, straight as an arrow through the silent air,--the longing to find their old haunts under the friendly shelter of the Hill, and there to keep their love trysts in the place called home.

Donald's throat contracted sharply. Never in those tumultuous days in j.a.pan, nor in those desperate ones in Singapore had he wanted Miss Lady as he wanted her now. It was not her youth or her beauty that he was thinking of; it was the firm confident clasp of her hand, the unfaltering courage of her eyes, her words, "I do believe in you, Don, with all my heart and soul." He was like a starving man who must have bread even if it belongs to another. Before he knew it he was plunging down the footpath to the road.

Connie would be his excuse, although he had been rather conscience-stricken about Connie of late. She had developed a taste for exploring that beguiling land of Flirtation where the boundary lines have never been defined, and dangers are known to lurk beyond the borders. As an old and experienced adventurer he felt that he had already accompanied her too far.

As he reached Thornwood's big colonial gateway, he found some one alighting from a buggy.

"h.e.l.lo, Wick!" he said. "Wait, I'll open it for you. I thought you were staying in town!" Noah removed a pair of unmistakably new tan gloves and opened the gate for himself.

"I am staying in town," he said distantly "Are you coming in here?"

"Yes, I think I will drop in for a little while, unless you have an engagement?"

Noah's pause was even longer than usual. "No," he drawled presently. "I can't say I have. Will you get in?"

Donald could not suppress a smile as he got in beside him, and noticed the grandeur of his toilet.

"You are getting awfully dressy these days, old chap. Who's the girl?"

"You know who it is."

"You surely don't mean Connie Queerington! Now, Wick, you want to go slow and not trifle with that girl. The first thing you know she will be falling in love with you.",

Noah's lip stiffened. "If you would leave her alone perhaps she might."

"What am I doing?"

"The same thing you've always done. Going with a girl just long enough to spoil her for every other fellow, then going off and forgetting all about her."