The Debtor. Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
in the brook, at the imminent risk not only of condign punishment, but of the measles striking in. She felt now just as then, as if something terrible and mysterious were striking in, and she fairly smacked her soul over it.
Mrs. Lee no longer shrank; she stood up straight; she also thrust her chin forward; her nose sharpened, her blue eyes contracted under her light brows. She even forgot her rôle of obligation, and did not give Mrs. Van Dorn the precedence; she actually pushed before her. Mrs. Van Dorn had closed the front door very softly, and they stood in a long, narrow hall, with an obsolete tapestry carpet, and large-figured gold and white paper revealing its gleaming scrolls in stray patches of light. Mrs. Lee went close to an old-fashioned black-walnut hat-tree, the one article of furniture besides a chair in the hall.
“Was this theirs?” she whispered to Mrs. Van Dorn.
Mrs. Van Dorn nodded.
Mrs. Lee deliberately removed the nice white kid glove from her right hand, and extending one small taper forefinger, rubbed it over the surface of the black-walnut tree; then she pointed meaningly at the piece of furniture, which plainly, even in the half-light, disclosed an unhousewifely streak. She also showed the dusty forefinger to the other lady, and they both nodded with intense enjoyment.
Then Mrs. Lee folded her silk skirts tightly around her and lifted them high above her starched white petticoat lest she contaminate them in such an untidy house; Mrs. Van Dorn followed her example, and they tiptoed into the double parlors. They were furnished, for the most part, with the pieces dating back to the building of the house, in one of the ugliest eras of the country, both in architecture and furniture. The ceilings in these rather small square rooms were so lofty that one was giddy with staring at the elaborate cornices and the plaster centrepieces. The mantels were all of massively carved marble, the windows were few and narrow, the doors multitudinous, and lofty enough for giants. The parlor floor was carpeted with tapestry in enormous designs of crimson roses, in deliriums of arabesques, though there were a few very good Eastern rugs. The furniture was black-walnut, upholstered in crimson plush; the tables had marble tops; the hangings were lace under heavily fringed crimson lambrequins dependent from massive gilt mouldings. There were a bronze clock and a whatnot and a few gilt-framed oil-paintings of the conventional landscape type, contemporary with the furniture in American best parlors. Still, there were a few things in the room which directly excited comment on the part of the visitors. Mrs. Lee pointed at some bronzes on the shelf.
“Those are theirs, aren't they?” said she.
“Yes, the Ranger girls had some very handsome Royal Worcester vases. I guess James Ranger saw to it that those weren't left here.”
Mrs. Van Dorn eyed the bronzes with outward respect, but she did not admire them. Banbridge ladies, as a rule, unless they posed, did not admire bronzes. She also viewed with some disapproval a number of exquisite little Chinese ivory carvings on the whatnot. “Those are theirs,” said she. “The Ranger girls had some handsome bound books and a silver card-receiver, and a bust of Clytie on top of the whatnot. I suppose these are very expensive; I have always heard so. I never priced any, but it always seemed to me that they hardly showed the money.”
“I suppose they have afternoon tea,” said Mrs. Lee, regarding a charming little inlaid tea-table, decked with Dresden.
“Perhaps so,” replied Mrs. Van Dorn, doubtfully. “But I have noticed that when tea-tables are so handsome, folks don't use them. They are more for show. That cloth is beautiful.”
“There is a tea-stain on it,” declared Mrs. Lee, pointing triumphantly.
“That is so,” assented Mrs. Van Dorn. “They must use it.” She looked hard at the stain on the tea-cloth. “It's a pity to get tea on such a cloth as that,” said she. “It will never come out.”
“Oh, I don't believe that will trouble them much,” said Mrs. Lee, with soft maliciousness. She indicated with the pointed toe of her best calling-shoe, a hole in the corner of the resplendent Eastern rug.
“Oh,” returned Mrs. Van Dorn.
“I know it is considered desirable to have these Oriental things worn,” said Mrs. Lee, “but there is no sense in letting an expensive rug like this wear out, and no good house-keeper would.”
“Well, I agree with you,” said Mrs. Van Dorn.
Presently they passed on to the other rooms. They made a long halt in the dining-room.
“That must be their solid silver,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, regarding rather an ostentatious display on the sideboard.
“The idea of going away and leaving all that silver, and the doors unlocked!” said Mrs. Lee.
“Evidently they are people so accustomed to rich things that they don't think of such risks,” said Mrs. Van Dorn, with a curious effect of smacking her lips over possessions of her own, instead of her neighbors. She in reality spoke from the heights of a small but solid silver service, and a noble supply of spoons, and Mrs. Lee knew it.
“I suppose they must have perfectly beautiful table-linen,” remarked Mrs. Lee, with a wistful glance at the sideboard-drawers.
“Yes, I suppose so,” assented Mrs. Van Dorn, with a half-sigh. Her eyes also on the closed drawers of the sideboard, were melancholy, but there was a line which neither woman could pass. They could pry about another woman's house in her absence, but they shrank from opening her drawers and investigating her closets. They respected all that was covered from plain sight. Up-stairs it was the same. Things were strewn about rather carelessly, therefore they saw more than they would otherwise have done, but the closet-doors and the bureau-drawers happened to be closed, and those were inviolate.
“If all their clothes are as nice as these, they must have wardrobes nicer than any ever seen in Banbridge,” said Mrs. Lee, fingering delicately a lace-trimmed petticoat flung over a chair in one of the bedrooms. “This is real lace, don't you think so, Mrs. Van Dorn?”
“I don't think. I know,” replied Mrs. Van Dorn. “They must have elegant wardrobes, and they must be very wealthy people. They—” Suddenly Mrs. Van Dorn cut her remarks short. She turned quite pale and clutched at her companion's silk-clad arm. “Hush!” she whispered. “What was that?”
Mrs. Lee, herself ashy white, looked at her. Both had distinctly heard a noise. Now they heard it again. The sound was that of footsteps, evidently those of a man, in the lower hall.
“What shall we do? Oh, what shall we do?” said Mrs. Lee, in a thin whisper. She trembled so that she could scarcely stand.
Mrs. Van Dorn, trying to speak, only chattered. She clutched Mrs. Lee harder.
“Is there a back staircase? Oh, is there?” whispered Mrs. Lee. “Is there?” The odor of a cigar stole softly through the house. “I can smell his cigar,” whispered Mrs. Lee, in an agony.
Mrs. Van Dorn pulled herself together. She nodded, and began pulling Mrs. Lee towards the door.
“Oh,” panted Mrs. Lee, “anything except being caught up-stairs in their bedrooms! They might think—anything.”
“Hurry!” hissed Mrs. Van Dorn. They could hear the footsteps very distinctly, and the cigar-smoke made them want to cough. Holding their silk skirts like twisted ropes around them so they should not rustle, still clinging closely one to the other, the two women began slowly moving, inch by inch, through the upper hall, towards the back stairs. These they descended in safety, and emerged on the lower hall.
They were looking for a rear door, with the view of a stealthy egress and a skirting of the bushes on the lawn unobserved until they should gain the shelter of the carriage, when there was a movement at their backs, and a voice observed, “Good-afternoon, ladies,” and they turned, and there was Captain Arthur Carroll. He was a man possibly well over forty, possibly older than that, but his face was as smooth as a boy's, and he was a man of great stature, with nevertheless a boyish cant to his shoulders. Captain Arthur Carroll was a very handsome man, with a viking sort of beauty.