The Windy Hill Part 4

"But do oak trees grow to be so old?" Oliver inquired at last, looking out at the moving shadow of the great tree that had now covered the doorstone.

"Yes, three hundred years is no impossible age for an oak. All the old grants of land speak of an oak tree on this hill as one of the landmarks."

"How did you know?" began Oliver, and then broke off, with a sudden jerk of recollection: "Oh, I forgot all about it--my train!"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed out his watch and stood regarding it with a rueful face.

He had missed the train by more than half an hour.

"Were you going away?" asked Polly sympathetically. "We are always missing trains like that, daddy and I. Won't they be surprised to see you come back!"

"They--they didn't know I was going," returned Oliver. "They are wondering now where I am." He was too much agitated to keep from doing his thinking out loud. "I must be getting back. Thank you for the story. Good-by."

He was gone before they could say more, leaving Polly, in fact, with her mouth open to speak and with the Beeman looking after him with an amused and quizzical grin, as though he recognized the symptoms of an uneasy conscience.

"We never asked him to come again," Polly lamented.

To which her father answered, "I believe he will come, just the same."

The smooth machinery of Cousin Jasper's house must have been thrown out of gear for a moment when the car came round to the door and Oliver failed to appear. It was running quietly and noiselessly again, however, by the time he returned. Janet was curled up in a big armchair in the library, enjoying a book, when he came in. She looked up at him rather curiously, but only said:

"Eleanor Brighton's mother telephoned at half past three that Eleanor had been detained somewhere, she didn't quite know where. She was very apologetic and hoped we would come some other time. I walked down the road to look for you, but you weren't in sight. I met such a strange man, coming in at the gate; he turned all the way around on the seat of his cart to stare at me. I didn't like him."

She did not press Oliver with questions and, as a result, he sat down beside her and told her the whole tale of his afternoon's adventures, with a glowing description of the Beeman and Polly.

"I must take you there to see them," he said, "I can't wait to show you how things look from that hill. And you should see the bees, and the little house, and hear the wind in the big tree. We will go to-morrow."

When Cousin Jasper appeared for dinner, Oliver felt somewhat apprehensive, but to his relief no questions were asked him. Their cousin listened rather absently while Janet explained why the proposed visit had not been made, and he offered no comment. He looked paler even than usual, with deeper lines in his face, and he sat at the end of the long table, saying little and eating less. Afterward he sat with them in the library, still restless and uneasy and speaking only now and then, in jerking sentences that they could scarcely follow. It was an evident relief to all three of them when the time came to say good night.

Oliver looked back anxiously over his shoulder, as their cousin returned to his study and as they, at the other end of the long room, went out into the hall.

"Something has happened to upset him more than usual," he said. "Do you think he could have guessed what I intended to do?"

Janet shook her head emphatically.

"He couldn't have guessed," she declared. "Even now I can hardly believe it of you, myself, Oliver."

Oliver, rather ashamed, was beginning to wonder at himself also.

They had fallen into the habit of going upstairs early to the comfortable sitting room into which their bedrooms opened. It was their own domain, a pleasant, breezy place, with deep wicker chairs, gay chintz curtains, flower boxes, and wide cas.e.m.e.nts opening on a balcony. They had both found some rare treasures among the books downstairs and liked to carry them away for an hour of enjoyment before it was bedtime.

Oliver settled himself comfortably beside a window, opened his book, but did not immediately begin to read. His eyes wandered about the perfectly appointed room, stared out at the moonlit garden, and then came back to his sister.

"Why aren't we happy here, Janet?" he questioned. "It seems as though we had everything to make us so."

"Because he isn't happy," returned his sister, with a gesture toward the study where Cousin Jasper, distraught, worried, and forlorn, must even then be sitting alone.

"But why isn't he happy? There is everything here that he could wish for." Oliver added somewhat bitterly, after a pause: "Why don't grown-up people tell us things? It is miserable to be old enough to notice when affairs go wrong but not to be old enough to have them explained."

"Perhaps," said Janet hopefully, "we will be able to prove that we deserve to know. I think that you will, anyway, and then you can tell me."

It was not only the younger members of the household who were struggling with mystery that night, however. Before they had been reading many minutes, there came a discreet tap at the door and Hotchkiss appeared upon the threshold. Oliver was wondering what a boy unused to butlers was supposed to say or do on the occasion of such a visit, and even Janet, better at guessing the etiquette of such matters, seemed at a loss. And so also was Hotchkiss, as it presently began to be evident.

If the butler had been of the regulation variety, he might perhaps have known how to ask a few respectful questions without a change of his professional countenance and have gained his information without betraying its significance. But as it was, he had for the moment put off the wooden, expressionless face that he was supposed to wear at his work, and was openly anxious and disturbed.

"We're troubled about Mr. Peyton, Mrs. Brown and I," he began, coming frankly to the point at once. "He had a queer visitor to-day, one who has just been coming lately and who always leaves him upset. I wonder if you saw him, a thin man with a brown face and a kind of a way with him, somehow, in spite of his bad clothes."

"Did he drive a shambling old horse?" inquired Oliver, remembering suddenly the person he had noticed on the road, "and a wagon that rattled as though it were twenty years old? Yes, we both saw him."

"Had you ever seen him before?" Hotchkiss asked eagerly, and seemed disappointed when Oliver replied:

"No, we had never laid eyes on him before to-day."

"It is just in the last few weeks that he has been coming here so often," the man went on. "Before that he came rarely and we didn't think so much about him. I can remember the first time I saw him, soon after I had come to Mr. Peyton, a year ago. The fellow rang the bell as bold as anything, but when I saw that rickety outfit drawn up to the steps, I was about to tell him that the other entrance was the place for him. He must have read my eye--he's a sharp one--for he said, 'Your master won't thank you for turning me away, when I'm a member of the family,' and sure enough, there was Mr. Peyton behind me in the hall telling me to bring him in. He was nervous and put out with everybody after the man was gone, and he is more and more upset each time he comes. And the fellow begins to come often. I thought that if he was a member of the family you might know who he was--and how we could get rid of him."

The heat of the last words put an end to any possible thought that the man's questions were prompted by a servant's unwarranted curiosity concerning his master. It was plain that Cousin Jasper was a well-beloved employer and that the two chief persons of his household had been laying their heads together over the mystery of his evident trouble.

Hotchkiss was about to tell them more, when a bell, sounding below, summoned him away. There was an interval during which they tried to return to their books, but found their minds occupied with thoughts of what the butler had said. Who could this man be, whom they had both noticed and both set down as odious, and whose coming seemed to have such an unhappy effect upon Cousin Jasper? A relative? It did not seem possible. Presently Hotchkiss was at the door again, more troubled than ever.

"Mr. Peyton wants the motor, but it's Jennings' evening off and he has gone to town," he said. "Didn't I hear you tell him, Mr. Oliver, that you knew how to drive that make of car?"

Oliver had, indeed, dropped such a hint two days before, hoping that the dullness of his visit might be lightened by his being invited to take the car out for a spin. The statement had fallen on quite unheeding ears in Cousin Jasper's case, but had been treasured up by the butler.

"Yes, I can drive it," agreed Oliver, rather doubting whether Cousin Jasper would really desire him as a chauffeur. He got up and went downstairs, to find his cousin waiting in the hall, so nervous and impatient that he made no other comment than:

"We must make haste."

Oliver hurried out to the garage, backed out the heavy car, paused under the portico for Cousin Jasper to climb in beside him, and sped away down the drive.

"Which way?" he asked, as they came out through the gate, and was directed along the road he had followed that afternoon.

"You may go as fast as you like, I am in a hurry," was Cousin Jasper's unexpected permission, so that Oliver, nothing loath, let out the car to its full speed. It was very dark, for the moon had gone under a cloud. The road, showing vaguely white through the blackness, was nearly empty and the tree trunks flashed by, looking unreal in the glare of the lamps, like the cardboard trees of a scene on the stage.

The big car hummed and the wind sang in Oliver's ears, but for only the briefest moment, for they seemed to come immediately to a crossroad, where Cousin Jasper bade him turn. A slower pace was necessary here, for the going was rough and uneven, yet not so difficult as that of the narrower lane in which they presently found themselves. Here the machine lurched among the deep ruts, rustled through high gra.s.s and low-hanging trees, and finally came to a stop before a gate.

"No, wait here," directed Cousin Jasper as Oliver made a move to get out. "I shall not be gone very long."

He climbed out and jerked at the gate, which, one hinge being gone, opened reluctantly to let him pa.s.s. He stalked away, a tall, awkward figure in the brilliant shaft of light from the lamps, walking with a fierce, determined dignity up the path that disappeared into the dark.

Oliver felt a sudden rush of pity for him and of shame that he had so nearly deserted him.

"It must be hard," he thought, "to be so miserable and anxious, and to have no one to talk it over with. And I do wonder what is the matter?"

He waited an hour--and another. He had dimmed his lamps and could see vaguely the outline of a house, with one dull light in a window. A dog barked somewhere beyond the gate, and presently a child began crying.

It cried a very long time, then at last was quiet, but still no one came. Oliver fell asleep finally against the comfortable leather cus.h.i.+ons, and slumbered he knew not how long before he was aroused by the protesting creak of the broken gate. He thought, as he was waking, that a man's voice, high-pitched with anger, was talking in the dark, but when he had rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he saw no one but Cousin Jasper.

"I had not thought it would be so long," was all his cousin said as he got in, and after that there was no word spoken until they entered their own gate and rolled up to the door.

"You drive well for a boy. Good night," said Cousin Jasper as he climbed out and entered the house. In his hurried, awkward way, he was attempting to express his grat.i.tude, but he had managed to say the wrong thing.

"For a boy, indeed," snorted Oliver, as he guided the car into the door of the garage, and repeated it as he went up the stairs to his room: "For a boy!"