by Jean Webster
She realized by now that she was in a trap.
A narrow passage led from the East Wing to the servants' quarters. She dived into this. If she could reach the back stairs it would mean safety. She pushed the door open a crack, and to her horror, was confronted by a worse uproar. The servants' quarters were in a state of panic. She saw Maggie dashing past, wrapped in a pink striped blanket, while above the general confusion rose Norah's rich brogue:
"Help! Murther! I seen a bur-r-gu-lar!"
She shut the door and shrank back into the passage. Behind her Evalina was still hysterically wailing:
"I saw a ghost! I saw a ghost!"
Before her the cry of "Burglars!" was growing louder.
Utterly bewildered at this double demonstration, Patty flattened herself against the wall in the friendly darkness of the passage, while she soulfully thanked Heaven that the proposed electric lights had not yet been installed. A dozen voices were calling for matches, but no one seemed to find any. She pantingly tugged at the pillowcase fastened about her neck; but Conny had tied it firmly with a white hair ribbon, and the knot was behind. In any case, even if she could remove her masquerade, she was lost if they found her; for she was still wearing the white dress of the evening, and not even Patty's imagination could compass an excuse for that at twelve o'clock at night.
The search was growing nearer; she caught the glimmer of a light ahead. At any moment they might open the door of the passage. The linen closet was the only refuge at hand--and that was very temporary. She felt for the door handle and slipped inside. If she could find a pile of sheets, she might dive to the bottom and hope to escape notice, being mostly sheet herself. But it was Saturday, and all the linen had gone down. A long, slippery, inclined chute connected the room with the laundry in the basement two floors below. Steps were already audible in the passage. She heard Miss Lord's voice say:
"Bring a light! We'll search the linen closet."
Patty did not hesitate. In imagination she could already feel the pressure of Miss Lord's grasp upon her shoulder. A broken neck was preferable.
Still hugging the lemon pie--in all her excitement she had clasped it firmly--she climbed into the chute, stretched her feet out straight in front, and pushed off. For two breathless seconds she dashed through space, then her feet hit the trap door at the bottom, and she shot into the laundry.
One instant earlier, the door from the kitchen stairs had cautiously opened, and a man had darted into the laundry. He had just had time to cast a glance of boundless relief about the empty, moonlit room, when Patty and the pie catapulted against him. They went down together in a whirl of waving wings. Patty being on top picked herself up first. She still clutched her pie--at least what was left of it; the white meringue was spread over the man's hair and face; but the lemon part was still intact. The man sat up dazedly, rubbed the meringue from his eyes, cast one look at his assailant, and staggered to his feet. He flattened himself against the wall with arms thrown wide for support.
"Holy gee!" he choked. "What in hell uv I got into?"
Patty excused his language, as he did not appear to know that he was addressing a lady. He seemed to be laboring under the impression that she was the devil.
Her pillow slip by now was very much askew; one ear pointed northward, the other southeast, and she could only see out of one eye. It was very hot inside and she was gasping for breath. For a palpitating moment they merely stared and panted. Then Patty's mind began to work.
"I suppose," she suggested, "you are the burglar they are screaming about?"
The man leaned back limply and stared, his wide, frightened eyes shining through a fringe of meringue.
"I," said Patty, completing the introduction, "am the ghost."
He muttered something under his breath. She could not make out whether he was praying or swearing.
"Don't be afraid," she added kindly. "I won't hurt you."
"Is it a bloomin' insane asylum?"
"Just a girl's school."
"Gosh!" he observed.
"Hush!" said Patty. "They're coming this way now!"
The sound of running feet became audible in the kitchen above, while bass voices were added to the shrill soprano that had sounded the former tocsin. The men had arrived from the stables. The burglar and the ghost regarded each other for a moment of suspended breathing; their mutual danger drew them together. Patty hesitated an instant, while she studied his face as it showed through the interstices of the meringue. He had honest blue eyes and yellow curls. She suddenly stretched out a hand and grasped him by an elbow.
"Quick! They'll be here in a minute. I know a place to hide. Come with me."
She pushed him unresisting down a passage and into a storeroom, boarded off from the main cellar, where the scenery of the dramatic society was kept.
"Get down on your hands and knees and follow me," she ordered, as she stooped low and dived behind a pile of canvas.
The man crawled after. They emerged at the farther end into a small recess behind some canvas trees. Patty sat on a stump and offered a wooden rock to her companion.
"They'll never think of looking here," she whispered. "Martin's too fat to crawl through."
A small barred window let in some faint moonlight and they had an opportunity to study each other more at leisure. The man did not yet seem comfortable in Patty's presence; he was occupying the farthest possible corner of his rock. Presently he rubbed his coat sleeve over his head and looked long and earnestly at the meringue. He was evidently at a loss to identify the substance; in the rush of events he had taken no note of the pie.
Patty brought her one eye to bear down upon him.
"I'm simply melting!" she whispered. "Do you think you could untie that knot?"
She bent her head and presented the back of her neck.
The man by now was partially reassured as to the humanness of his companion, and he obediently worked at the knot but with hands that trembled. At last it came loose, and Patty with a sigh of relief emerged into the open. Her hair was somewhat tousled and her face was streaked with burnt cork, but her blue eyes were as honest as his own. The sight reassured him.
"Gee!" he muttered in a wave of relief.
"Keep still!" Patty warned.
The hunt was growing nearer. There was the sound of tramping feet in the laundry and they could hear the men talking.
"A ghost and a burglar!" said Martin, in fine scorn. "That's a likely combination, ain't it now?"
They made an obligatory and superficial search through the coal cellar. Martin jocularly inquiring:
"Did ye look in the furnace, Mike? Here Osaki, me lad, ye're small. Take a crawl oop the poipes and see if the ghost ain't hidin' there."
They opened the door of the property-room and glanced inside. The burglar ducked his head and held his breath, while Patty struggled with an ill-timed desire to giggle. Martin was in a facetious mood. He whistled in the manner of calling a dog.
"Here, Ghostie! Here, Burgie! Come here, old fellow!"
They banged the door shut and their footsteps receded. Patty was rocking back and forth in a species of hysterics, stuffing the corner of the sheet into her mouth to keep from laughing audibly. The burglar's teeth were chattering.
"Lord!" he breathed. "It may be funny for you, Miss. But it means the penitentiary for me."
Patty interrupted her hysterics and regarded him with disgust.
"It would mean expulsion for me, or at least something awfully unpleasant. But that's no reason for going all to pieces. You're a nice sort of a burglar! Brace up and be a sport!"
He mopped his brow and removed another portion of icing.
"You must be an awful amateur to break into a house like this," she said contemptuously. "Don't you know the silver's plated?"
"I didn't know nuthin' about it," he said sullenly. "I see the window open over the shed roof and I clum up. I was hungry and was lookin' for somethin' to eat. I ain't had nothin' since yesterday mornin'."
Patt
y reached to the floor beside her.
"Have some pie."
The man ducked aside as it was poked at him.
"W-what's that?" he gasped.
He was as nervous as a mouse in a cage.
"Lemon pie. It looks a little messy but it's all right. The only thing the matter with it is that it has lost its meringue top. That's mostly on your head. The rest of it is spread over me and the laundry floor and Evalina Smith's bed and the clothes chute."
"Oh!" he murmured in evident relief, as he rubbed his hand over his hair for the fourth time. "I was wonderin' what the blame stuff was."
"But the lemon's all here," she urged. "You'd better eat it. It's quite nourishing, I believe."
He accepted the pie and fell to eating it with an eagerness that carried out the truth of his assertion as to yesterday's breakfast.
Patty watched him, her natural curiosity struggling with her acquired politeness. The curiosity triumphed.
"Do you mind telling me how you came to be a burglar? You make such a remarkably bad one, that I should think you would have chosen almost any other profession."
He told his story between bites. To one more experienced in police records, it might have sounded a trifle fishy, but he had an honest face and blue eyes, and it never entered her head to doubt him. The burglar commenced it sullenly; no one had ever believed him yet and he wasn't expecting her to. He would like to have invented something a little more plausible, but he lacked the imagination to tell a convincing lie. So, as usual, he lamely told the truth.
Patty listened with strained attention. His tale was somewhat muffled by lemon pie, and his vocabulary did not always coincide with her own, but she managed to get the gist of it.
By rights he was a gardener. In the last place where he worked he used to sleep in the attic, because the gentleman he was away a lot, and the lady she was afraid not to have a man in the house. And a gas-fitter, that he had always thought was his friend, give him some beer one night and got him drunk, and took away the key of the back door. And while he (the gardener) was sound asleep on the children's sand pile under the apple tree in the back yard, the gas-fitter entered the house and stole an overcoat and a silver coffee-pot and a box of cigars and a bottle of whisky and two umbrellas. And they proved it on him (the gardener) and he was sent up for two years. And when he come out, no one wouldn't give him no work.
"An' ye can't make me believe," he added bitterly, "that that beer wasn't doped!"
"Oh, but it was terrible of you to get drunk!" said Patty, shocked.
"'Twas an accident," he insisted.
"If you are sure that you'll never do it again," she said, "I'll get you a job. But you must promise, on your word of honor as a gentleman. You know I couldn't recommend a drunkard."
The man grinned feebly.
"I guess ye'll not be findin' anybody that will be wantin' a jailbird."
"Oh, yes, I will! I know exactly the man. He's a friend of mine, and he likes jailbirds. He realizes that it's only luck that made him a millionaire instead of a convict. He always gives a man a chance to start again. He used to have a murderer in charge of his greenhouses, and a cattle thief to milk the cows. I'm sure he'll like you. Come with me, and I'll write you a letter of introduction."
Patty gathered her sheets about her and prepared to crawl out.
"What are ye doin'?" he demanded quickly. "Y' aren't goin' to hand me over?"
"Is it likely?" She regarded him with scorn. "How could I hand you over, without handing myself over at the same time?"
The logic of this appealed to him, and he followed meekly on hands and knees. She approached the laundry door and listened warily; the search had withdrawn to other quarters. She led the way along a passage and up a flight of stairs and slipped into the deserted kindergarten room.
"We're safe here," she whispered. "They've already searched it."
She cast about for writing materials. No ink was to be found, but she discovered a red crayon pencil, and tore a sheet of paper from a copy book. "Honesty is the best policy," was inscribed in flowing characters at the top.
She hesitated with her crayon poised.
"If I get you a nice job in charge of onions and orchids and things, will you promise never again to drink any beer?"
"Sure," he agreed, but without much enthusiasm.
There was a light of uneasiness in his eye. Nothing in his past experience tallied with to-night's adventure; and he suspected an ambush.
"Because," said Patty, "it would be awfully embarrassing for me if you did get drunk. I should never dare recommend another burglar."
She wrote her note on the window ledge, by moonlight, and read it aloud:
"Dear Mr. Weatherby,--
"Do you remember the conversation we had the day I ran away and dropped into your onion garden? You said you thought criminals were often quite as good as the rest of us, and that you would find a job for any convict friend I might present. This is to introduce a burglar of my acquaintance who would like to secure a position as gardener. He was trained to be a gardener and much prefers it to burglaring, but finds it difficult to find a place because he has been in prison. He is faithful, honest and industrious, and promises to be sober. I shall appreciate any favor you may show him.
"Sincerely yours, "PATTY WYATT."
"P. S.--Please excuse this red crayon. I am writing at midnight, by moonlight in the kindergarten room, and the ink's all locked up. The burglar will explain the circumstances, which are too complicated to write.
"Yours ever, "P. W."
She enclosed her note in a large manila envelope that had contained weaving mats, and addressed it to Silas Weatherby, Esq. The man received it gingerly. He seemed to think that it might go off.
"What's the matter?" said Patty. "Are you afraid of it?"
"Ye're sure," he asked suspiciously, "that Silas Weatherby ain't a cop?"
"He's a railroad president."
"Oh!" The burglar looked relieved.
Patty unlocked the window, then paused for a final moral lecture.
"I am giving you a chance to begin again. If you are game, and present this letter, you'll get a job. If you're a coward, and don't dare present it, you can keep on being a burglar for the rest of your life for all I care--and a mighty poor one you'll make!"
She opened the window and waved her hand invitingly toward the outside world.
"Good-by, Miss," he said.
"Good-by," said Patty cordially. "And good luck!"
He paused, half in, half out, for a last reassurance.
"Ye're sure it's on the straight, Miss? Y' ain't pitchin' me no curve?"
"It's on the straight." She pledged her word. "I ain't pitchin' you no curve."
Patty crept upstairs the back way, and by a wide detour avoided the excited crowd still gathered in the East Wing. A fresh hub-bub had arisen, for Evalina Smith had found a monkey-wrench on the floor of her room. It was shown to the scoffing Martin as visible proof that the burglar had been there.
"An it's me own wrench!" he cried in wide-eyed amazement. "Now, what do ye think of his nerve?"
Patty hurriedly undressed and tumbled into a kimono. Sleepily rubbing her eyes, she joined the assemblage in the hall.
"What's happened?" she asked, blinking at the lights. "Has there been a fire?"
A chorus of laughter greeted the question.
"It's a burglar!" said Conny, exhibiting the wrench.
"Oh, why didn't you wake me?" Patty wailed. "I've wanted all my life to see a burglar."
* * * * *
Two weeks later, a groom arrived on horseback with a polite note for the Dowager.
Mr. Weatherby presented his compliments to Mrs. Trent, and desired the pleasure of showing the young ladies of the Senior class through his art gallery on Friday next at four o'clock.
The Dowager was at a loss to account for this gratuitous courtesy on the part of her hitherto unneighborly neighbor. After a moment of deliberation, she decided to me
et him half way; and the groom rode back with an equally polite acceptance.
On Friday next, as the school hearse turned in at the gates of Weatherby Hall, the owner stood on the portico waiting to welcome his guests. If there were a shade more empressement in his greeting to Patty than to her companions, the Dowager did not notice it.
He made an exceptionally attentive host. In person he conducted them through the gallery and pointed out the famous Botticelli. Tea was served at little tables set on the western terrace. Each girl found a gardenia at her plate and a silver bonbonnière with the St. Ursula monogram on the cover. After tea their host suggested a visit to the Italian garden. As they strolled through the paths, Patty found herself walking beside him and the Dowager. His conversation was addressed to Mrs. Trent, but an occasional amused glance was directed toward Patty. They turned a corner behind a marble pavilion, and came upon a fountain and a gardener man, intent upon a border of maiden-hair ferns.
"I have a very remarkable new Swedish gardener," Mr. Weatherby casually remarked to the Dowager. "The man is a genius at making plants grow. He came highly recommended. Oscar!" he called. "Bring the ladies some of those tulips."
The man dropped his watering-can, and approached, hat in hand. He was a golden-haired, blue-eyed young chap with an honest smile. He presented his flowers, first to the elder lady and then to Patty. As he caught her interested gaze, a light of comprehension suddenly leaped to his eyes. Her costume and make-up to-day were so very dissimilar to those which she had assumed on the occasion of their first meeting, that recognition on his part had not been instantaneous.
Patty fell back a step to receive her flowers and the others strolled on.
"I have to thank ye, Miss," he said gratefully, "for the finest job I ever had. It's all right!"
"You know now," Patty laughed, "that I didn't pitch you no curves?"
* * *
XII
The Gypsy Trail
"Heels together. Hips firm, one, two, three, four--Irene McCullough! Will you keep your shoulders back and your stomach in? How many times must I tell you to stand straight? That's better! We'll start again. One, two, three, four."
The exercise droned on. Some twenty of the week's delinquents were working off demerits. It was uncongenial work for a sunny Saturday. The twenty pairs of eyes gazed beyond Miss Jellings' head--across ropes and rings and parallel bars--toward the green tree tops and the blue sky; and twenty girls, for that brief hour, regretted their past badnesses.
