The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  All of a sudden I felt terrible about the way they had treated the basket, and I sat down on the steps and began to cry. I remember that, and Mr. Dick sitting down beside me and putting his arm around me and calling me "good old Minnie," and for heaven's sake not to cry so loud. But I was past caring. I had a sort of recollection of his getting me to stand up, and our walking through about twenty-one miles of snow to the spring-house. When we got there he stood off in the twilight and looked at me.

  "I'm sorry, Minnie," he said, "I never dreamed it would do that."

  "Do what?"

  "Nothing. You're sure you won't forget?"

  "I never forget," I said. I had got up the steps by this time and was trying to figure why the spring-house door had two knobs.

  I hadn't any idea what he meant.

  "Remember," he said, very slowly, "Thoburn is going to have his party to-night instead of to-morrow. Tell Pierce that. To-night, not to-morrow." I was pretty well ashamed when I got in the spring-house and sat down in the dark. I kept saying over and over to myself, so I'd not forget, "tonight, not to-morrow," but I couldn't remember WHAT was to be to-night. I was sleepy, too, and my legs were cold and numb. I remember going into the pantry for a steamer rug, and sitting down there for a minute, with the rug around my knees before I started to the house. And that is all I DO remember.

  I was wakened by a terrible hammering in the top of my head. I reached out for the glass of water that I always put beside my bed at night and I touched a door-knob instead. Then I realized that the knocking wasn't all in my head. There was a sort of steady movement of feet on the other side of the door, with people talking and laughing. And above it all rose the steady knock—knock of somebody beating on tin.

  "Can't do it." It was the bishop's voice. "I am convinced that nothing but dynamite will open this tin of lobster."

  "Just a moment, Bishop," Mr. Thoburn's voice and the clink of bottles, "I have a can opener somewhere. You'll find the sauce a la Newburg—"

  "Here, somebody, a glass, quick! A bottle's broken!"

  "Did anybody remember to bring salt and pepper?"

  "DEAR Mr. Thoburn!" It sounded like Miss Cobb. "Think of thinking of all this!"

  "The credit is not mine, dear lady," Mr. Thoburn said. "Where the deuce is that corkscrew? No, dear lady, man makes his own destiny, but his birth date remains beyond his control."

  "Ladies and gentlemen," somebody said, "to Mr. Thoburn's birthday being beyond his control!"

  There was the clink of glasses, but I had remembered what it had been that I was to remember. And now it was too late. I was trapped in the pantry of my spring-house and Mr. Pierce was probably asleep. I clutched my aching head and tried to think. I was roused by hearing somebody say that Miss Jennings had no glass, and by steps nearing the pantry. I had just time to slip the bolt.

  "Pantry's locked!" said a voice.

  "Drat that Minnie!" somebody else said. "The girl's a nuisance."

  "Hush!" Miss Summers said. "She's probably in there now—taking down what we say and what we eat. Convicting us out of our own mouths."

  I held my breath and the knob rattled. Then they found a glass for Miss Patty and forgot the pantry.

  Under cover of the next burst of noises I tried the pantry window, but it was frozen shut. Nothing but a hammer would have loosened it. I began to dig at it with a wire hairpin, but I hadn't much hope.

  The fun in the spring-house was getting fast and furious. Miss Summers was leaning against the pantry door and I judged that most of the men in the room were around her, as usual. I put my ear to the panel of the door, and I could pretty nearly see what was going on. They were toasting Mr. Thoburn, and getting hungrier every minute as the supper was put out on the card-tables.

  "To the bottle!" somebody said. "In infancy, the milk bottle; in our prime, the wine bottle; in our dotage, the pill bottle."

  Mr. von Inwald came over and stood beside Miss Summers, and I could hear every whisper.

  "I have good news for you," she said in an undertone.

  "Oh! And what?"

  "Sh! You may recall," she said, "the series of notes, letters, epistles, with which you have been honoring me lately?"

  "How could I forget? They were written in my heart's blood!"

  "Indeed!" Her voice lifted its eyebrows, so to speak. "Well, somebody got in my room last night and stole I dare say a pint of your heart's blood. They're gone."

  He was pretty well upset, as he might be, and she stood by and listened to the things he said, which, if they were as bad in English as they sounded in German, I wouldn't like to write down.

  And when he cooled down and condensed, as you may say, into English, he said Miss Jennings must have seen the letters, for she would hardly speak to him. And Miss Summers said she hoped Miss Jennings had—she was too nice a girl to treat shamefully.

  And after he had left her there alone, I heard a sort of scratching on the door behind Miss Summers' back, and then something being shoved under the door. I stooped down and picked it up. It was a key!

  I struck a match, and I saw by the tag that it was the one to the old doctor's rooms. I knew right off what it meant. Mr. Pierce had gone to bed, or pretended to throw them off the track and Thoburn had locked him in! Thoburn hadn't taken any chances. He knew the influence Mr. Pierce had over them all, and he and his champagne and tin cans had to get in their work before Mr. Pierce had another chance at them.

  I had no time to wonder how Miss Summers knew I was in the pantry. I tried the window again, but it wouldn't work. Somebody in the spring-house was shouting, "'Hot butter blue beans, please come to supper!'" and I could hear them crowding around the tables. I worked frantically with the hairpin, and just then two shadowy figures outside slipped around the corner of the building. It was Mr. Pierce and Doctor Barnes!

  I darted back and put my ear to the door, but they did not come in at once. Mr. Thoburn made a speech, saying how happy he was that they were all well and able to go back to civilization again, where the broiled lobster flourished like a green bay tree and the prune and the cabbage were unknown.

  There was loud applause, and then Senator Biggs cleared his throat.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished fellow guests," he began, "I suggest a toast to the autocrat of Hope Springs. It is the only blot on the evening, that, owing to the exigencies of the occasion, he can not be with us. Securely fastened in his room, he is now sleeping the sleep that follows a stomach attuned to prunes, a mind attuned to rule."

  "Eat, drink and be merry!" somebody said, "for to-morrow you diet!"

  There was a swish and rustle, as if a woman got up in a hurry.

  "Do you mean," said Miss Patty's clear voice, "that you have dared to lock Mr. Pier—Mr. Carter in his room?"

  "My dear young lady," several of them began, but she didn't give them time.

  "It is outrageous, infamous!" she stormed. I didn't need to see her to know how she looked.

  "How DARE you! Suppose the building should catch fire!"

  "Fire!" somebody said in a bewildered voice. "My dear young lady—"

  "Don't 'my dear young lady' me," she said angrily. "Father, Bishop, will you stand for this? Why, he may jump out the window and hurt himself! Give me the key!"

  Miss Julia's fingers were beating a tatoo behind her, as if she was afraid I might miss it.

  "If he jumps out he probably will hurt himself. It is impossible to release him now, Miss Jennings, but if you insist we can have a mattress placed under the window."

  "Thanks, Thoburn. It won't be necessary." The voice came from the door, and a hush fell on the party. I slipped my bolt and peeped out. Framed in the doorway was Mr. Pierce, with Doctor Barnes looking over his shoulder.

  The people in the spring-house were abject. That's the only word for it. Craven, somebody suggested later, and they were that, too. They smiled sickly grins and tried to be defiant, and most of them tried to put down whatever they held in their hands and to look innocent
. If you ever saw a boy when his school-teacher asks him what he has in his mouth, and multiply the boy thirty times in number and four times in size, you'll know how they looked.

  Mr. Pierce never smiled. He wouldn't let them speak a word in defense or explanation. He simply lined them up as he did at gym, and sent them, one by one, to the corner with whatever they had in their hands. He made Mr. Jennings give up a bottle of anchovies that he'd stuffed in his pocket, and the bishop had to come over with a cheese.

  And when it was all over, he held the door open and they went back to the house. They fairly ducked past him in the doorway, although he hadn't said a dozen words. It was a rout. The backbone of the rebellion was broken. I knew that never again would the military discipline of Hope Springs be threatened. Thoburn might as well pack and go. It was Mr. Pierce's day.

  Mr. von Inwald was almost the last. He stood by, sneering, with an open bottle of olives in his hand, watching the others go out.

  Mr. Pierce held the door open and eyed him.

  "I'll trouble you to put that bottle with the others, in the corner," Mr. Pierce said sternly.

  They stood glaring at each other angrily.

  "And if I refuse?"

  "You know the rules here. If you refuse, there is a hotel at Finleyville."

  Mr. von Inwald glanced past Mr. Pierce to where Doctor Barnes stood behind him, with his cauliflower ear and his pugilist's shoulders. Then he looked at the bottle in his hand, and from it to Miss Patty, standing haughtily by.

  "I have borne much for you, Patricia," he said, "but I refuse to be bullied any longer. I shall go to the hotel at Finleyville, and I shall take the little olives with me." He smiled unpleasantly at Mr. Pierce, whose face did not relax.

  He walked jauntily to the door and turned, flourishing the bottle. "The land of the free and the home of the brave!" he sneered, raising the bottle in the air. Standing jeering in the doorway, he bowed to Miss Patty and Mr. Pierce, and put an olive into his mouth.

  But instantly he made a terrible face, and clapped a hand just in front of his left ear. He stood there a moment, his face distorted—then he darted into the night, and I never saw him again.

  "Mumps!" Doctor Barnes ejaculated, and stood staring after him from the steps.

  CHAPTER XXX

  LET GOOD DIGESTION

  There was no one left but Miss Patty. As she started out past him with a crimson spot in each cheek Mr. Pierce put his hand on her arm. She hesitated, and he closed the door on Doctor Barnes and put his back against it. I had just time to slip back into the pantry and shut myself in.

  For a minute there wasn't a sound. Then—

  "I told you I should come," Miss Patty said, in her haughtiest manner. "You need not trouble to be disagreeable."

  "Disagreeable!" he repeated. "I am abject!"

  "I don't understand," she said. "But you needn't explain. It really does not matter."

  "It matters to me. I had to do this to-night. I promised you I would make good, and if I had let this pass—Don't you see, I couldn't let it go."

  "You can let me go, now."

  "Not until I have justified myself to you."

  "I am not interested."

  I heard him take a step or two toward her.

  "I don't quite believe that," he said in a low tone. "You were interested in what I said here this afternoon."

  "I didn't hear it."

  "None of it?"

  "Not—not all."

  "I spoke, you remember, about your sister, and about Dick—" he paused. I could imagine her staring at him in her wide-eyed way.

  "You never mentioned them!" she said scornfully and stopped. He laughed, a low laugh, boyish and full of triumph.

  "Ah!" he said. "So you DID hear! I'm going to say it again, anyhow. I love you, Patty. I'm—I'm mad for you. I've loved you hopelessly for so long that to-night, when there's a ray of hope, I'm—I'm hardly sane. I—"

  "Please!" she said.

  "I love you so much that I waken at night just to say your name, over and over, and when dawn comes through the windows—"

  "You don't know what you are saying!" she said wildly. "I am—still—"

  "I welcome the daylight," he went on, talking very fast, "because it means another day when I can see you. If it sounds foolish, it's—it's really lots worse than it sounds, Patty."

  The door opened just then, and Doctor Barnes' voice spoke from the step.

  "I say," he complained, "you needn't—"

  "Get out!" Mr. Pierce said angrily, and the door slammed. The second's interruption gave him time, I think, to see how far he'd gone, and his voice, when he spoke again, was not so hopeful.

  "I'm not pleading my cause," he said humbly, "I know I haven't any cause. I have nothing to offer you."

  "You said this afternoon," Miss Patty said softly, "that you could offer me the—the kind of love that a woman could be proud of."

  She finished off with a sort of gasp, as if she was shocked at herself. I was so excited that my heart beat a tatoo against my ribs, and without my being conscious of it, as you may say, the pantry door opened about an inch and I found myself with an eye to the crack.

  They were standing facing each other, he all flushed and eager and my dear Miss Patty pale and trembly. But she wasn't shy. She was looking straight into his eyes and her blessed lips were quivering.

  "How can you care?" she asked, when he only stood and looked at her. "I've been such a—such a selfish beast!"

  "Hush!" He leaned toward her, and I held my breath. "You are everything that is best in the world, and I—what can I offer you? I have nothing, not even this sanatorium! No money, no title—"

  "Oh, THAT!" she interrupted, and stood waiting. "Well, you—you could at least offer yourself!"

  "Patty!"

  She went right over to him and put her hands on his shoulders.

  "And if you won't," she said, "I'll offer myself instead!"

  His arms went around her like a flash at that, and he kissed her. I've seen a good many kisses in my day, the spring-house walk being a sort of lover's lane, but they were generally of the quick-get-away variety. This was different. He just gathered her up to him and held her close, and if she was one-tenth as much thrilled as I was in the pantry she'd be ready to die kissing.

  Then, without releasing her, he raised his head, with such a look of victory in his face that I still see it sometimes in my sleep, and his eye caught mine through the crack.

  But if I'd looked to see him drop her I was mistaken. He drew her up and kissed her again, but this time on the forehead. And when he'd let her go and she had dropped into a chair and hid her shining face against the back, as if she was ashamed, which she might well be, he stood laughing over her bent head at me.

  "Come out, Minnie!" he called. "Come out and hear the good news!"

  "Hear!" I said, "I've seen all the news I want."

  "Gracious!" Miss Patty said, and buried her head again. But he had reached the shameless stage; a man who is really in love always seems to get to that point sooner or later. He stooped and kissed the back of her neck, and if his hand shook when he pushed in one of her shell hairpins it was excitement and not fright.

  "I hardly realize it, Minnie," he said. "I don't deserve her for a minute."

  "Certainly not," I said.

  "He does." Miss Patty's voice smothered. Then she got up and came over to me.

  "There is going to be an awful fuss, Minnie," she said. "Think of Aunt Honoria—and Oskar!"

  "Let them fuss!" I said grandly. "If the worst comes, you can spend your honeymoon in the shelter-house. I'm so used to carrying meals there now that it's second nature."

  And at that they both made for me, and as Mr. Pierce kissed me Doctor Barnes opened the door. He stood for a moment, looking queer and wild, and then he slammed the door and we heard him stamping down the steps.

  Mr. Pierce had to bring him back.

  Well, that's all there is to it. The place filled up and stayed
filled, but not under Mr. Pierce. Mr. Jennings said ability of his kind was wasted there, once the place was running, and set him to building a railroad somewhere or other, with him and Miss Patty living in a private car, and he carrying a portable telephone with him so he can talk to her every hour or so. Mr. Dick and his wife are running the sanatorium, or think they are. Doctor Barnes is the whole place, really. Mr. Jennings was so glad to have Miss Patty give up the prince and send him back home, after he'd been a week in the hotel at Finleyville looking as if his face would collapse if you stuck a pin in it—Mr. Jennings was so happy, not to mention having worked off his gout at the wood-pile, that he forgave the Dickys without any trouble, and even went out and had a meal with them in the shelter-house before they moved in, with Mr. Dick making the coffee.

  I miss the spring, as I said at the beginning. It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but with Miss Patty happy, and with Doctor Barnes around—

  Thoburn came out the afternoon before he left, just after the rest hour, and showed me how much too loose his waistcoat had become.

  "I've lost, Minnie," he confessed. "Lost fifteen pounds and the dream of my life. But I've found something, too."

  "What?"

  "My waist line!" he said, and threw his chest out.

  "You look fifteen years younger," I said, and at that he came over to me and took my hand.

  "Minnie," he said, "maybe you and I haven't always agreed, but I've always liked you, Minnie—always."

  "Thanks," I said, taking my hand away.

  "You've got all kinds of spirit," he said. "You've saved the place, all right. And if you—if you tire of this, and want another home, I've got one, twelve rooms, center hall, tiled baths, cabinet mantels—I'd be good to you, Minnie. The right woman could do anything with me."

  When I grasped what he meant, I was staggered.

  "I'm sorry," I explained, as gently as I could. "I'm—I'm going to marry Doctor Barnes one of these days."

  He stared at me. Then he laughed a little and went toward the door.

  "Barnes!" he said, turning. "Another redhead, by gad! Well, I'll tell you this, young woman, you're red, but he's redder. Your days for running things to suit yourself are over."