Book: Helen of the Old House

H >> Harold Bell Wright >> Helen of the Old House




"She did and she didn't," replied Mary.

"Never mind, dear," returned the soldier workman, "it'll be all right."

Peter Martin--a gray-haired veteran with rather a stolid English
face--looked up at his children questioningly. Presently he said, "It's
a wonder Adam wouldn't fix up the old place a bit--for pride's sake if
for nothing else. It's a disgrace to the neighborhood."

"I guess that's the reason he lets it go," said Captain Charlie,
pushing his chair back from the table.

"What's the reason?" asked Peter.

"For his pride's sake. As it stands now, the old house advertises
Adam's success. When people see it in ruins like that they always speak
of the big new house on the hill. If the old house was fixed up and
occupied it wouldn't cause any comment on Adam's prosperity, you see.
John told me once that he had begged his father to let him do something
with it, but Adam ordered him never to set foot on the place."

"Well," said Mary, "I suppose he can afford to keep the old house as a
sort of monument if he wants to."

Peter Martin commented, in his slow way, "If Charlie is right about his
reason for leaving it as it is, I am not so sure, daughter, that even
Adam Ward can afford to do such a thing."

Captain Charlie's eyes twinkled as he addressed his sister. "Father
evidently believes with the Interpreter that houses have souls or
spirits or something--like human beings."

"Of course," she returned, "if the Interpreter believes it father is
bound to."

The old workman smiled. "You children will believe it, too, some day;
at least I hope so."

"I wonder if Helen ever goes to see the Interpreter," said Mary.

Captain Charlie returned, quickly, "I know she does."

"How do you know? Did you ever meet her there?"

The Captain answered grimly, "I hid out in the garden once with Billy
Rand to keep from meeting her."

Flushed with the unparalleled adventures of the day, Bobby Whaley asked
his father, "Dad, ain't the old Interpreter one of us?--ain't he?"

"Sure he is."

"Well, then, what for did old Adam Ward's daughter go to see him just
like Mag an' me did?"

"I don't know nothin' about that," growled Sam Whaley, "but I can tell
you kids one thing. You're a-goin' to stay out of that there automobile
of hers. You let me catch you takin' up with such as Adam Ward's
daughter and I'll teach you somethin' you won't fergit."

* * * * *

The cigar-store philosopher remarked casually to the chief of police,
"This here savior of the people, Jake Vodell, that's recently descended
upon us, is gatherin' to himself a choice bunch of disciples--I'll tell
the world."

"What do you know about it?" demanded the officer of the law.

The philosopher grinned. "Oh, they most of them smoke or chew, the same
as your cops. Vodell himself smokes your brand. Have one on me chief."




CHAPTER V

ADAM WARD'S ESTATE


In spite of that smile of mingled admiration, contempt and envy, with
which the people always accompanied any mention of Adam Ward,
Millsburgh took no little pride in the dominant Mill owner's
achievements. In particular, was the Ward home, most pretentious of all
the imposing estates on the hillside, an object of never-failing
interest and conversational speculation. "Adam Ward's castle," the
people called it, smiling. And no visiting stranger of any importance
whatever could escape being driven past that glaring architectural
monstrosity which stood so boldly on its most conspicuous hillside
elevation and proclaimed so defiantly to all the world its owner's
material prosperity.

But the sight-seers always viewed the "castle" and the "palatial
grounds" (the Millsburgh _Clarion_, in a special Sunday article for
which Adam paid, so described the place) through a strong, ornamental
iron fence, with a more than ornamental gate guarded by massive stone
columns. Only when the visiting strangers were of sufficient importance
in the owner's eyes were they permitted to pass the conspicuous PRIVATE
PROPERTY, NO ADMITTANCE sign at the entrance. As the cigar-stand
philosopher explained, Adam Ward did not propose to give anything away.

The chief value of his possessions, in Adam's thoughts, lay in the fact
that they were _his_. He always said, "_My_ house--_my_ grounds--_my_
flowers--_my_ trees--_my_ fountain--_my_ fence." He even extended his
ownership and spoke of the very birds who dared to ignore the PRIVATE
PROPERTY, No ADMITTANCE sign as _my_ birds. So marked, indeed, was this
characteristic habit of his speech, that no one in Millsburgh would
have been surprised to hear him say, "_My_ sun--_my_ moonlight." And
never did he so forget himself as to include his wife and children in
such an expression as "our home." Why, indeed, should he? His wife and
his children were as much _his_ as any of the other items on the long
list of the personal possessions which he had so industriously
acquired.

In perfect harmony with the principles that ordered his life, the owner
of the castle made great show of hospitality at times. But the
recipients of his effusive welcome were invariably those from whom, or
through whom, he had reason to think he might derive a definite
material gain in return for his graciousness. The chief entertainment
offered these occasional utilitarian guests was a verbal catalogue of
the estate, with an itemized statement of the cost of everything
mentioned. If the architecture of the house was noticed, Adam proudly
disclaimed any knowledge of architecture, but named the architect's
fee, and gave the building cost in detail, from the heating system to
the window screens. If one chanced to betray an interest in a flower or
shrub or tree, he boasted that he could not name a plant on the place,
and told how many thousands he had paid the landscape architect, and
what it cost him each year to maintain the lawns and gardens. If the
visitor admired the fountain or the statuary he declared--quite
unnecessarily--that he knew nothing of art, but had paid the various
artists represented various definite dollars and cents. And never was
there a guest of that house that poor Adam did not seek to discredit to
his family and to other guests, lest by any chance any one should fail
to recognize the host's superiority.

In his youth the Mill owner had received from his parents certain
exaggerated religious convictions as to the desirability of gaining
heaven and escaping, hell when one's years of material gains and losses
should be forever past. Therefore, his spiritual life, also, was wholly
a matter of personal bargain and profit. The church was an insurance
corporation, of a sort, to which he paid his dues, as he paid the
premiums on his policies in other less pretentious companies. As a
matter of additional security--which cost nothing in the way of
additional premiums--he never failed to say grace at the table.

This matter of grace, Adam found, was also a character asset of no
little value when there were guests whom he, for good material reasons,
wished to impress with the fine combination of business ability and
sterling Christian virtue that so distinguished his simple and sincere
nature. Profess yourself the disinterested friend of a man--make him
believe that you value his friendship for its own sake and, on that
ground, invite him to your home as your honored guest. And then, when
he sits at your table, ask God to bless the food, the home, and the
guest, and you have unquestionably maneuvered your friend into a
position where he will contribute liberally to your business
triumphs--if your contracts are cleverly drawn and you strike for the
necessary signature while the glow of your generous hospitality is
still warm.

And thus, with his patented process and his cleverly drawn contracts,
this man had reaped from hospitality, religion and friendship the
abundant gains that made him the object of his neighbors' admiration,
contempt and envy.

But the end of Adam Ward's material harvest day was come. As Helen had
told the Interpreter, the doctors were agreed that her father must give
up everything in the nature of business and have absolute mental rest.
The Mill owner must retire.

Retire! Retire to what?

The world of literature--of history and romance, of poetry and the
lives of men--the world of art, with its magic of color and form--the
world of music, with its power to rest the weary souls of men--the
world of nature, that with its myriad interests lay about him on every
side--the world of true friendships, with their inspiring sympathies
and unselfish love--in these worlds there is no place for Adam Wards.

Retire! Retire to what?

* * * * *

One afternoon, a few days after her visit to the Interpreter, Helen sat
with a book in a little vine-covered arbor, in a secluded part of the
grounds, some distance from the house. She had been in the quiet
retreat an hour, perhaps, when her attention was attracted by the sound
of some one approaching. Through a tiny opening in the lattice and vine
wall she saw her father.

Adam Ward apparently was on his way to the very spot his daughter had
chosen, and the young woman smiled to herself as she pictured his
finding her there. But a moment before the seemingly inevitable
discovery, the man turned aside to a rustic seat in the shade of a
great tree not far away.

Helen was about to reveal her presence by calling to him when something
in her father's manner caused her to hesitate. Through the leafy screen
of the arbor wall she saw him stop beside the bench and look carefully
about on every side, as if to assure himself that he was alone. The
young woman flushed guiltily, but, as if against her will, she remained
silent. As she watched her father's face, a feeling of pity, fear and
wonder held her breathless.

Helen had often seen her father suffering under an attack of nervous
excitement. She had witnessed his spells of ungoverned rage that left
him white and trembling with exhaustion. She had known his fears that
he tried so hard to hide. She knew of his sleepless nights, of his
dreams of horror, of his hours of lonely brooding. But never had she
seen her father like this. It was as if Adam Ward, believing himself
unobserved, let fall the mask that hid his secret self from even those
who loved him most. Sinking down upon the bench, he groaned aloud,
while his daughter, looking upon that huddled figure of abject misery
and despair, knew that she was witnessing a mental anguish that could
come only from some source deep hidden beneath the surface of her
father's life. She could not move. As one under some strange spell, she
was helpless.

The doctors had said--diplomatically--that Adam Ward's ill health was a
nervous trouble, resulting from his lifelong devotion to his work, with
no play spell or rest, and no relief through interest in other things.
But Adam Ward knew the real reason for the medical men's insistent
advice that he retire from the stress of the Mill to the quiet of his
estate. He knew it from his wife's anxious care and untiring
watchfulness. He knew it from the manner of his business associates
when they asked how he felt. He knew when, at some trivial incident or
word, he would be caught, helpless, in the grip of an ungovernable rage
that would leave him exhausted for many weary, brooding hours. He felt
it in the haunting, unconquerable fears that beset him--by the feeling
of some dread presence watching him--by the convictions that unknown
enemies were seeking his life--by his terrifying dreams of the hell of
his inherited religion.

And the real reason for his condition Adam Ward knew. It was not the
business to which he had driven himself so relentlessly. It was not
that he had no other interests to take his mind from the Mill. It was a
thing that he had fought, in secret, almost every hour of every year of
his accumulating successes. It was a thing which his neighbors and
associates and family felt in his presence but could not name--a thing
which made him turn his eyes away from a frank, straightforward look
and forbade him to look his fellows in the face save by an exertion of
his will.

Through the vines, Helen saw her father stoop to pick from the ground a
few twigs that had escaped the eyes of the caretakers. Deliberately he
broke the twigs into tiny bits, and threw the pieces one by one aside.
His gray face, drawn and haggard, twitched and worked with the nervous
stress of his thoughts. From under his heavy brows he glanced with the
quick, furtive look of a hunted thing, as though fearing some enemy
that might be hidden in the near-by shrubbery. The young woman,
shrinking from the look in his eyes, and not daring to make her
presence known, remembered, suddenly, how the Interpreter had been
reluctant to discuss her father's illness.

Casting aside the last tiny bit of the twig which he had broken so
aimlessly, he found another and continued his senseless occupation.

With pity and love in her heart, Helen wanted to go to him--to help
him, but she could not--some invisible presence seemed to forbid.

Suddenly Adam raised his head. A moment he listened, then cautiously he
rose to his feet--listening, listening. It was no trick of his fancy
this tune. He could hear voices on the other side of a dense growth of
shrubbery near the fence. Two people were talking. He could not
distinguish the words but he could hear distinctly the low murmur of
their voices.

Helen, too, heard the voices and looked in that direction. From her
position in the arbor she could see the speakers. With the shadow of a
quick smile, she turned her eyes again toward her father. He was
looking about cautiously, as if to assure himself that he was alone.
The shadow of a smile vanished from Helen's face as she watched in
wondering fear.

Stooping low, Adam Ward crept swiftly to a clump of bushes near the
spot from which the sound of the voices came. Crouching behind the
shrubbery, he silently parted the branches and peered through. Bobby
and Maggie Whaley stood on the outer side of the fence with their
little faces thrust between the iron pickets, looking in.


Still in the glow of their wonderful experience at the Interpreter's
hut and the magnificent climax of that day's adventure, the children
had determined to go yet farther afield. It was true that their father
had threatened dire results if they should continue the acquaintance
begun at the foot of the Interpreter's zigzag stairway, but, sufficient
unto the day.--They would visit the great castle on the hill where
their beautiful princess lady lived. And, who could tell, perhaps they
might see her once more. Perhaps--"But that," said tiny Maggie, "was
too wonderful ever to happen again."

The way had been rather long for bare little feet. But excited hope had
strengthened them. And so they had climbed the hill, and had come at
last to the iron fence through which they could see the world of bright
flowers and clean grass and shady trees, and, in the midst of it all,
the big house. With their hungry little faces thrust between the strong
iron pickets, Sam Whaley's children feasted their eyes on the beauties
of Adam Ward's possessions. Even Bobby, in his rapture over the
loveliness of the scene, forgot for the moment his desire to blow up
the castle, with its owner and all.

Behind his clump of shrubbery, Adam Ward, crouching like some stealthy
creature of the jungle, watched and listened.

From the shelter of the arbor, Adam Ward's daughter looked upon the
scene with white-faced interest.

"Gee," said Bobby, "some place, I'd say!"

"Ain't it pretty?" murmured little Maggie. "Just like them places where
the fairies live."

"Huh," returned the boy, "old Adam Ward, he ain't no fairy I'm
a-tellin' yer."

To which Maggie, hurt by this suggested break in the spell of her
enchantment, returned indignantly, "Well, I guess the fairies can live
in all them there pretty flowers an' things just the same, if old Adam
does own 'em. You can't shut fairies out with no big iron fences."

"That's so," admitted Bobby. "Gee, I wisht we was fairies, so's we
could sneak in! Gee, wouldn't yer like ter take a roll on that there
grass?"

"Huh," returned the little girl, "I know what I'd do if I was a fairy.
I'd hide in that there bunch of flowers over there, an' I'd watch till
the beautiful princess lady with the kind heart come along, an' I'd
tell her where she could find them there jewels of happiness what the
Interpreter told us about."

"Do yer reckon she's in the castle there, right now?" asked Bobby.

"I wonder!" murmured Maggie.

"Betcher can't guess which winder is hern."

"Bet I kin; it's that there one with all them vines around it. Princess
ladies allus has vines a-growin' 'roun' their castle winders--so's when
the prince comes ter rescue 'em he kin climb up."

"Wisht she'd come out."

"I wish--"

Little Maggie's wish was never expressed, for at that moment, from
behind that near-by clump of shrubbery a man sprang toward them, his
face distorted with passion and his arms tossing in threatening
gestures.

The children, too frightened to realize the safety of their position on
the other side of those iron bars, stood speechless. For the moment
they could neither cry out nor run.

"Get out!" Adam Ward yelled, hoarse with rage, as he would have driven
off a trespassing dog. "Get out! Go home where you belong! Don't you
know this is private property? Do you think I am keeping a circus here
for all the dirty brats in the country to look at? Get out, I tell you,
or I'll--"

With frantic speed the two children fled down the hill.

Adam Ward laughed--laughed until he was forced to hold his sides and
the tears of his ungodly mirth rolled down his cheeks.

But such laughter is a fearful thing to see. White and trembling with
the shame and the horror of it, Helen crouched in her hiding place, not
daring even to move. She felt, as never before, the presence of that
spirit which possessed her father and haunted her home. It was as if
the hidden thing of which she had forced herself to speak to the
Interpreter were suddenly about to materialize before her eyes. She
wanted to scream--to cry aloud her fear--to shriek her protest--but
sheer terror held her motionless and dumb.

The spell was broken by Mrs. Ward who, from somewhere in the grounds,
was calling, "Adam! Oh-h, Adam!"

The man heard, and Helen saw him controlling his laughter, and looking
cautiously about.

Again the call came, and there was an anxious note in the voice.
"Adam--father--Oh-h, father, where are you?"

With a cruel grin still twisting his gray face, Adam slunk behind a
clump of bushes.

Helen Ward crept from her hiding place and, keeping the little arbor
between herself and her father, stole away through the grounds. When
she was beyond his hearing, she almost ran, as if to escape from a spot
accursed.




CHAPTER VI

ON THE OLD ROAD


When Bobby and Maggie Whaley fled from the immediate vicinity of Adam
Ward's estate, they were beside themselves with fear--blind,
unreasoning, instinctive fear.

There is a fear that is reasonable--that is born of an intelligent
comprehension of the danger that menaces, and there is a fear that is
born of ignorance--of inability to understand the nature of the danger.
These children of the Flats had nothing in their little lives by which
they might know the owner of the Mill, or visualize the world in which
the man for whom their father worked lived. To Bobby and Maggie the
home of Adam Ward was a place of mystery, as far removed from the world
of their actualities as any fabled castle in fairyland could possibly
be.

Sam Whaley's distorted views of all employers in the industrial world,
and his fanatical ideas of class loyalty, were impressed with weird
exaggeration upon the fertile minds of his children. From their
father's conversation with his workmen neighbors, and from the
suggestive expressions and epithets which Sam had gleaned from the
literature upon which he fed his mind and which he used with such
gusto, Bobby and Maggie had gathered the material out of which they had
created an imaginary monster, capable of destroying them with fiendish
delight. They had seen angry men too often to be much disturbed by mere
human wrath. But, to them, this Adam Ward who had appeared so suddenly
from the shrubbery was more than a man; he was all that they had been
taught to believe--a hideous thing of more dreadful power and sinister
purpose than could be imagined.

With all their strength they ran down the old hill road toward the
world of the Flats where they belonged. They dared not even look over
their shoulders. The very ground seemed to drag at their feet to hold
them back. Then little Maggie stumbled and fell. Her frantic screams
reached Bobby, who was a few feet in advance, and the boy stopped
instantly and faced about, with terror in his eyes but with evident
determination to defend his sister at any cost.

When he had pulled Maggie to her feet, and it was certain that there
was nothing pursuing them, Bobby, boylike, laughed. "Gee, but we made
some git-away, that trip! Gee, I'll tell the world!"

The little girl clung to her protector, shaking with weariness and
fear. "I--can't run 'nother step," she gasped. "Will he come after us
here?"

"Naw," returned the boy, with reassuring boldness, "he won't come this
far. Yer just lay down in the grass, under this here tree, 'til yer
catch yer wind; then we'll make it on down to the Interpreter's
--'tain't far to the stairs. You just take it easy. I'll watch."

The soft grass and the cool shade were very pleasant after their wild
run, and they were loath to go, even when little Maggie had recovered
from her exhaustion. Very soon, when no danger appeared, the boy forgot
to watch and began an animated discussion of their thrilling
experience.

But Maggie did not share her brother's boastful triumph. "Do you
suppose," she said, wistfully, "that he is like that to the princess
lady?"

Bobby shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know. Yer can't tell what
he'd do to her if he took a notion. Old Adam Ward would do anything
that's mean, to anybody, no matter who. I'll bet--"

The sound of some one approaching from the direction of the castle
interrupted Bobby's conjectures.

Maggie would have made another frantic effort to escape, but the boy
caught her roughly and drew her down beside him. "No use to run--yer
can't make it," he whispered. "Best lay low. An' don't yer dast even
whimper."

Lying prone, they wormed themselves into the tall grass, with the trunk
of the tree between them and the road, until it would have been a keen
observer, indeed, who would have noticed them in passing.

They heard the approaching danger coming nearer and nearer. Little
Maggie buried her face in the grass roots to stifle a scream. Now it
was on the other side of the tree. It was passing on. Suddenly they
almost buried themselves in the ground in their effort to lie closer to
the earth. The sound of the footsteps had ceased.

For what seemed to them hours, the frightened children lay motionless,
scarcely daring to breathe. Then another sound came to their straining
ears--a sound not unfamiliar to the children of the Flats. A woman was
weeping.

Cautiously, the more courageous Bobby raised his head until he could
peer through the tangled stems and blades of the sheltering grass. A
moment he looked, then gently shook his sister's arm. Imitating her
brother's caution, little Maggie raised her frightened face. Only a few
steps away, their princess lady was crouching in the grass, with her
face buried in her hands, crying bitterly.

"Well, what do yer know about that?" whispered Bobby.

A moment longer they kept their places, whispering in consultation.
Then they rose quietly to their feet and, hand in hand, stood waiting.

Helen had not consciously followed the children. Indeed, her mind was
so occupied with her own troubled thoughts that she had forgotten the
little victims of her father's insane cruelty. To avoid meeting her
mother, as she fled from the scene of her father's madness, she had
taken a course that led her toward the entrance to the estate. With the
one thought of escaping from the invisible presence of that hidden
thing, she had left the grounds and followed the quiet old road.

When the storm of her grief had calmed a little, the young woman raised
her head and saw Sam Whaley's dirty, ill-kept children gazing at her
with wondering sympathy. It is not too much to say that Helen Ward was
more embarrassed than she would have been had she found herself thus
suddenly in the presence of royalty. "I am sorry you were frightened,"
she said, hesitatingly. "I can't believe that he really would have hurt
you."

"Huh," grunted Bobby. "I'm darned glad we was outside of that there
fence."

Maggie's big eyes were eloquent with compassion. "Did--did he scare
yer, too?"

Helen held back her tears with an effort. "Yes, dear, he frightened me,
too--dreadfully."

With shy friendliness, little Maggie drew closer. "Is he--is he sure
'nuff, yer father?"

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