“Oh-h!” said Katherine with a shudder of distress.
“And so,” continued the girl, “to pass away the time while Aunt Aggie was working I began to pretend that I was a princess and lived in a palace with my indulgent father, the king, and had a grand court and a great train of attendants—all dukes and duchesses and counts and things, and a royal grand duchess for my lady-in-waiting. That one is Aunt Aggie, of course, and it’s great fun to pretend she’s the duchess.”
“‘My dear Duchess,’” she cried, giving an animated sample of her make believe, “‘what do you say to having our cousin, the Crown Prince, in to tea!’ Then Aunt Aggie always forgets and says, ‘Let’s see, which one is the Crown Prince, now?’ It’s very disconcerting, the way the Grand Duchess forgets her royal relations!” She giggled infectiously and Katherine smiled too.
“What is your real name, Princess Sylvia?” she asked.
“Sylvia Deane,” replied the girl. “Only the princess part is made up. My name is S-s-ylvia-a.”
Her teeth began to chatter on the last words and she drew the quilt up around her tightly. Katherine suddenly felt cold, too. Then she became conscious for the first time that there was no heat in the room. In the first contrast to the biting wind outside the place had seemed warm, and with her heavy fur-collared winter coat she had not felt chilly. She glanced at the stove. It was black and lifeless.
“The f-f-fire’s g-g-gone o-u-t,” chattered Sylvia, huddling under the quilt as a fierce blast rattled the panes in the bay windows. Katherine felt hot with indignation at the thought of the invalid left all alone in the cold room.
“Where is your—lady-in-waiting?” she asked, a trifle sharply.
“Aunt Aggie’s gone to the city,” replied Sylvia. “She went at six o’clock this morning and she was going to back at noon. She hasn’t come yet, and I’m so cold and—”
She checked herself suddenly and held her head up very stiffly.
Katherine turned abruptly and made for the stove. It was a small old-fashioned cook stove, the kind that Katherine had been familiar with in her childhood on the farm. Beside it in a box were several lumps of coal and some kindling. She stripped off her gloves and set to work building a fire. When the stove had begun to radiate heat she lifted Sylvia, quilt and all, into the rocking chair and drew it up in front of the fire.
“And now, if you’ll tell me where things are I’ll prepare your Majesty’s supper,” she said playfully.
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” replied Sylvia.
“I don’t see how you can help being,” said Katherine wonderingly. “Or have you had something to eat since your aunt went away?” she added.
“No,” replied Sylvia.
“Then you must be famished,” said Katherine decidedly, “and I’m going to get you something.”
She moved toward a cupboard on the wall over in a corner of the room where she conjectured the supplies must be kept. The cupboard had leaded glass doors, she noticed, and the framework was of mahogany to match the woodwork of the room. It had probably been designed as a curio cabinet by the builder of the house.
“Never mind, I don’t want anything to eat,” said Sylvia again, in a tone which was both commanding and pleading.
“You must,” said Katherine firmly, with her hand on the cut glass knob of the cupboard door. “You’re cold because you’re hungry.”
She opened the door and investigated the inside. There were some cheap china dishes and some pots and pans, but no sign of food. She glanced swiftly around the room, but nowhere else were there any supplies. Then Katherine understood. Her intuition was slow, but finally it came to her why Sylvia did not want to admit that she was hungry. There was nothing to eat in the house. There was a pinched, blue look about Sylvia’s face that Katherine had seen before, in the settlement where she had worked with Miss Fairlee. She recognized the hunger look.
Sylvia met her eye with an attempt at lofty unconcern. “Our royal larder,” she remarked, valiantly struggling to maintain her royal dignity, “is exhausted at present. I must speak to my steward about it.”
Then her air of lofty composure forsook her all at once, and with a little wailing cry of “Aunt Aggie!” she put her head down on the arm of the chair and wept, pulling the quilt over her face so that Katherine could not see her cry.
Katherine was beside her in an instant, seeking to comfort her, and struggling with an unwonted desire to cry herself. The thought of the brave little spirit, shut up alone here in the dark and cold, hungry and anxious, singing like a lark to keep down her loneliness and anxiety, and welcoming her chance guest with the gracious air of a princess, moved Katherine as nothing had ever done before.
“Tell me all about it,” she said, cuddling the golden head close.
Sylvia struggled manfully to regain her composure, and sat up and dashed the tears away with an impatient hand. “How dare you cry, and you a princess?” she said aloud to herself scornfully, with a flash of her brown eyes, and Katherine caught a glimpse of an indomitable spirit that no hardship could bow down.
“’Twas but a momentary weakness,” she said to Katherine, with a return of her royal manner. Katherine felt like saluting.
“We’ve been having a hard time since Uncle Joe died,” began Sylvia. “He was sick a long time and it took all the money he had saved. Then Aunt Aggie got sick after he died and isn’t strong enough yet to do hard work. She makes shirts. There’s a shop here that lets her take work home. You see, she can’t leave me.” Here Sylvia gave an impatient poke at her useless limbs. “We came here from Millvale, where we used to live, a month ago. We couldn’t find any place to live, so Aunt Aggie got permission from the town to come and live in here until we could find a place. Nobody seems to own this house, that is, nobody knows who owns it, it’s been empty so long. Aunt Aggie sold all her furniture to pay her debts except her sewing machine and the few things we have here. Aunt Aggie makes shirts, but her eyes gave out this week and she couldn’t do anything, so there wasn’t any pay. Aunt Aggie got credit for a while at the store, but yesterday they refused her, so we played that we would keep a fast to-day in honor of our pious grandfather, the king, who always used to fast for three days before Christmas. Aunt Aggie only had enough money to go to the city and get glasses from somebody there that would make them for nothing for her, so she could go on sewing. She went on the earliest train this morning and expected to get back by noon. I can’t think what’s keeping her so late.”
Katherine looked at her watch. It was half past seven. She wondered if the shops were still open so that she could go out and buy groceries. She began to draw on her gloves.
“Don’t go away,” pleaded Sylvia, catching hold of her hand in alarm. “Stay here till she comes. Oh, why doesn’t she come? I know something’s happened to her. She’s never left me alone so long before. Oh, what will I do if she doesn’t come back?”
Fear seized her with icy hands and her face worked pitifully. “Aunt Aggie! Aunt Aggie!” she cried aloud in terror.
Katherine soothed her as best she could, mentioning all the possible things that could have occurred to delay her in the rush of holiday travel. Sylvia looked reassured after a bit and Katherine was just on the point of running out to get some supper for her when there was a sound of feet on the creaking steps outside.
“Here she comes now,” said Sylvia with a great sigh of relief.
The footsteps crossed the porch and then stopped. Instead of the sound of the front door opening as they expected there came a heavy knock.
“How queer,” said Sylvia, “she never knocks. There’s no one to let her in.”
Katherine hastened out to the hall door. A man stood outside. “Does Mrs. Deane live in this house?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Katherine.
“I’m Mr. Grossman, the man she works for,” he said. Katherine admitted him. “The girl, is she here?” he asked. Katherine brought him into the room. Sylvia looked up inquiringly.
Without greeting or preamble he blurted out, “Your aunty, she’s been hurt. Somebody just telephoned me from such a hospital in the city. She was run over by a taxicab and her collarbone broke and her head hurt. She’s now by the hospital. She tells them to tell me and I should let you know.”
He stopped talking and whirled his hat around in his hand as though ill at ease.
Sylvia sank back in her chair, dead white, her eyes staring at him with a curiously intent gaze, as though trying to comprehend the size of the calamity which had befallen her.
Tingling with pity, Katherine looked into Sylvia’s anguished eyes, and in the stress of emotion she suddenly remembered Nyoda’s name. Sheridan. Sheridan. Mrs. Andrew Sheridan. Carver House. 241 Oak Street. How could she ever have forgotten it?
“What’s going to become of me?” cried Sylvia in a terrified voice.
Mr. Grossman shifted his weight from one foot to the other and scratched his head reflectively. Then he shrugged his shoulders helplessly. He was a Russian Jew, living with his numerous family in a few small rooms over his shop, and what to do with this lame girl who knew not a soul in town was too much of a problem for him. To his evident relief Katherine came to the rescue. “I will take care of her,” she said briefly. She opened her handbag and fished for pencil and paper. “Go out and telephone this person,” she directed, after scribbling for a minute, “and give her the message written down there.”
Mr. Grossman departed, much relieved at being freed from all responsibility regarding Sylvia, and Katherine sat down beside her little princess and endeavored to soothe her distress of mind regarding her aunt. Finally the warmth of the stove made her drowsy and she fell into a doze with her head on Katherine’s shoulder.
Half an hour later the long blast of an automobile horn woke the echoes in front of the house. Sylvia half-awakened and murmured sleepily, “Here come the king’s huntsmen.”
Katherine slipped out through the front door and flung herself upon a fur-coated figure that was coming up the walk, followed by a man.
“Nyoda!”
“Katherine! What in the world are you doing here?”
Katherine explained briefly how she came there.
“But I never received your letter!” cried Nyoda in astonishment. “I thought you were coming to-morrow with the other girls. Poor Katherine, to come all alone and then not find anybody to meet you! I’m so sorry! But it wouldn’t be you, Katherine,” she finished with a laugh, “if everything went smoothly. Now tell me the important thing your message said you wanted to tell me.”
Katherine spoke earnestly for a few minutes, at the end of which Nyoda nodded emphatically. “Certainly!” she said heartily.
A minute later Katherine gently roused the sleeping princess. “What is it, my dear Duchess?” asked Sylvia drowsily.
“Come, Your Majesty,” said Katherine, beginning to wrap the quilt around her, “make ready for your journey. We leave at once for the Winter Palace!”
CHAPTER III
THE SHUTTERED WINDOW
“Nyoda, isn’t there a secret passage in this house somewhere?” asked Sahwah eagerly, pausing with the nutcracker held open in her hand. “There generally was one in these old houses, you know.”
Christmas dinner was just drawing to a close in the big, holly hung dining room at Carver House, and the merry group of young folks who composed Nyoda’s Christmas house party, too languid after their strenuous attack upon the turkey and plum pudding to rise from their chairs, lingered around the table to hear Nyoda tell stories of Carver House, while the ruddy glow from the big log in the fireplace, dispelled the gloom of the failing winter afternoon.
It was a jolly party that gathered around the historical old mahogany dining table, which had witnessed so many other festivities in the one hundred and fifty years of its existence. At the head sat Sherry, Nyoda’s soldier husband, still pale and thin from his long illness; and with a long jagged scar showing through the closely cropped hair on one side of his head. He had never returned to duty after the wreck in which he had so nearly lost his life. While he was still in the military hospital to which he had been removed from the little emergency hospital at St. Margaret’s where the sharp battle for life had been fought and won, there came that day when the last shot was fired, and when he was ready to leave the hospital he came home to Carver House to stay.
Opposite him, at the foot of the table, sat Nyoda, girlish and enthusiastic as ever, with only an occasional sober light in her twinkling eyes to tell of the trying year she had passed through. Along both sides of the table between them were ranged five of the Winnebagos—Katherine, Sahwah, Migwan, Hinpoha and Gladys, and in among them, “like weeds among the posies,” as the captain laughingly put it, were Slim and the captain, Slim filled to the bursting point as usual, and looking more than ever like an overgrown cherub. Across from these two sat a third youth, so slender and fine featured as to seem almost frail in comparison with Slim’s overflowing stoutness. This was Justice Dalrymple, Katherine’s “Perfesser,” now engaged in his experimental work at Washington, whence Nyoda had invited him up for her Christmas house party as a surprise for Katherine.
Agony and Oh-Pshaw, whom Nyoda had also invited to come over to the house party, were spending the holidays with an aunt in New York and could not come, much to Sahwah’s disappointment, who had not seen them since the summer before. Veronica was ill at her uncle’s home and also could not be with them.
Enthroned beside Katherine in a great carved armchair that had come over from England with the first Carvers, sat Sylvia Deane, looking very much like a story book princess. With their customary open-heartedness, the Winnebagos had already made her feel as though she were an old friend of theirs. The romantic way in which Katherine had found her appealed to their imaginations and added to their interest in her. Beside that, there was a fascinating something about her dark eyes and light hair that kept drawing their eyes to her face as though it were a magnet. There was so much animation in her voice when she talked that the most commonplace thing she said seemed extremely diverting. Her eyes had a way of suddenly lighting up as though a lamp had been kindled inside of her, and when she talked about other people her voice would take on a perfect mimicry of their intonations and expressions.
She showed not the slightest embarrassment at being thus transplanted into a strange household, so much more splendid than anything she was accustomed to. She was entirely at her ease in the great house, and acted as though she had been used to luxurious surroundings all her life. Katherine was secretly surprised to find her so completely unabashed. She herself was still prone to make ridiculous blunders in the presence of strangers, and was still ill at ease when anyone looked critically at her.
They were all surprised to learn that Sylvia was eighteen years old, instead of fourteen as they had all thought when they first saw her. Her slender, childlike form, and her short, curly hair made her look much younger than she really was.
The animated talk that had accompanied the first part of the dinner gradually died away, as a sense of repleteness and languor succeeded to eager appetites, and conversation had begun to lag, when Sahwah stirred it into life again by asking if there was not a secret passage in Carver House. A ripple of interest went around the table, and all the girls and boys began to sit up and take notice.
“Haven’t you had enough adventures yet to satisfy you?” asked Sherry quizzically. “Aren’t you content with fishing a lieutenant out of the Devil’s Punch Bowl the last time you were here, that you must begin again looking for excitement? By the way, where is this young Allison?”
“Still across,” replied Sahwah. “His last letter said he would be there for six months yet. He’s going on into Germany. He isn’t a lieutenant any more. He’s a captain.”
“Captain Allison?” asked Justice. “Captain Robert Allison? You don’t mean to say that you know Bob Allison?”
“Does she know Captain Allison!” echoed Hinpoha. “Who sent her that spi
ked helmet, and that piece of marble from Rheims Cathedral and that French flag with the bullet holes in it, to say nothing of that package of French chocolates? But, of course, you didn’t know,” she added, remembering that Justice had only met Sahwah the day before.
“Do you know Captain Allison?” asked Sahwah.
“Best friend I had in college,” replied Justice. “He was dreaming of flying machines then. Bob Allison, the fellow you pulled out of the water! It seems that all my friends, as well as my family, are going to get mixed up with you girls. It seems like fate.”
“Wherever the Winnebagos come there’s sure to be something doing,” said the captain. “I wonder what the next thing will be. What’s this about secret passages now?”
“With so much paneling,” continued Sahwah, “it seems as if there must be a hollow panel somewhere that would slide back and reveal a passage behind it. Isn’t there one, Nyoda?”
“There may be one, for all I know,” replied Nyoda, “but I have never found it if there is. I have never looked for any such thing. It takes all my time,” she proclaimed with a comic-tragic air, “to keep all the open passages in this place clean, without looking for any more behind panels.”
“Do you care if we try to find one?” asked Sahwah eagerly. “I just feel it in my bones that there is one somewhere.”
“Search all you like,” replied Nyoda, with an amused laugh.
“O goody!” exclaimed Sahwah. “Let’s begin right away.”
She rose from the table and the rest followed, much taken up with this new quest, and the search began immediately. Upstairs and downstairs they tapped, peered, pried and investigated, but without success. One by one they abandoned the quest and drifted into the library where Nyoda and Sherry and Sylvia sat in a close group before the fire; Sherry smoking, Nyoda reading aloud, and Sylvia watching the images in the fire. Sahwah and the captain were the last to give up, but finally they, too, drifted in and joined the ranks of the unsuccessful hunters.
Nyoda paused in her reading and looked up with a smile as Sahwah and the captain came in.
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