The Opened Shutters Part 43

"That's just what she's doing," returned Miss Lacey, laughing.

"What do you mean?" cried Edna. "Has that girl gone daffy?"

"Now don't get up, Edna," commanded Miss Martha. "Sylvia is cooking."

"Cooking!" Edna rose from the hammock. "At this time of night? Why didn't you ask Jenny"--

"She wouldn't let me. I don't know what it is, any more than you do; but it was something she was bound to do herself, and I had to let her.

What takes me is the injustice I've done that child. I never dreamed she had such domestic tendencies. I supposed she was all unpractical and artistic like her poor father, and to think here she has some recipe she's so crazy about she can't wait till morning." Miss Lacey's voice trailed away in a gratified laugh. "Perhaps it's something Mrs.

Lem has taught her."

"Let's go and spy upon her," suggested John.

The two stole softly around the house on the gra.s.s to the open kitchen window, where they shamelessly remained to gaze and listen. They saw Sylvia leaning over the stove, carefully stirring something with a large spoon. Jenny turned from the sink.

"Will ye be havin' another stick, Miss Sylvia?"

"There's going to be a stick in it. Whoop!" whispered John.

"Only in the stove," replied Edna, as the fuel was added. "Cheer up, it's something good, anyway."

"What are ye after makin', Miss Sylvia?" asked the cook.

The girl pursed her smiling lips: "A philtre, Jenny. Did you ever hear of one?"

"Sure I have. We use them all the time in Boston. Mr. Derwent won't lave me even cook with water that ain't filtered. Sure, we don't need one here, and annyway, how could ye make one from berries?"

"This is a different kind of philtre. I'm brewing something that I hope will make somebody happy. A girl, Jenny. Me. This is to make me happy.

That is, if it works like a charm,--and I think it will. I think it will." Sylvia repeated the words joyously as she watched and stirred.

"A love charm, is it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jenny. Her mouth fell open, and she paused, staring, dish-towel in hand.

Sylvia laughed quietly. Her pretty, excited face, red from the sun and wind and with added color from the hot stove, nodded in the earnestness of her reply.

"Yes,--that's just what it is," she answered.

"You're in love, then, Miss Sylvia?"

Sylvia nodded again.

"Yes,--I am. It wasn't at first sight either, Jenny. I don't know why I was so dull,--but it's apt to last the longer. Don't you think so?"

"I do that, Miss Sylvia," returned the girl emphatically; "and sure a beauty like yerself should get whatever ye want without more charms than yer own bright eyes."

Sylvia laughed and dropped a little curtsy toward the kind Irish face.

"No,--no, it will take this," she sighed; "but with this, how I shall try, how I shall try!" The fervent tone suddenly became prosaic. "Have you any clean empty bottles, Jenny?"

The listeners at the window were dumb. Edna's expression had changed from glee to bewilderment. John took her arm and drew her away quietly.

Together they moved noiselessly across the gra.s.s, but by tacit agreement not back to the piazza. For a minute of silence they strayed down the wood road, beneath the moon.

Dunham was first to break the embarra.s.sed silence. "By Jove, for a minute there I felt _de trop_. The fair Sylvia was having fun with the cook, wasn't she? I wonder what she's really up to?"

"We say all sorts of things to Jenny, you know," returned Edna. "She's the best soul that ever lived."

At the same time both speakers knew that what they had seen in Sylvia's face and heard in her voice exceeded pleasantry.

An idea overwhelmed Edna. An idea which so fitted into the circ.u.mstances that betwixt its appeal and the incredibility of Sylvia's words being serious, she felt like flying from John and being alone to think over the recent scene. If only Dunham were not penetrated by the same thought that had come to her! For another minute neither spoke, and then it was John who again broke the silence.

"Say, Edna," he suddenly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "what's the use? That girl was in earnest."

"Nonsense. She isn't a pagan," flashed the other.

"Well, I don't know. She had a father who was one. According to Judge Trent he was all for that sort of thing, and pinned his faith to everything supernatural, from a rabbit's foot to a clairvoyant."

Edna's face clouded with fastidious distaste even while she breathed a shade more freely. Evidently from John's tone her own diagnosis had not occurred to the hero of it. "She had a matrimonial scheme on foot when I first met her," he went on. "She was considering some actor because she wished to go on the stage."

"Rather strange that such a fact should have transpired in a first interview," remarked Edna dryly.

"No, because that was a session devoted merely to ways and means. But she's not saying hocus-pocus and stirring caldrons on _his_ account, you may be certain. She admitted that he was an old image."

"It's too absurd for us to discuss it," returned the girl impatiently.

"Fancy a ward of Thinkright's, under his influence for weeks, having any superst.i.tion; to say nothing of the crudest and silliest one of them all."

"And who could she have up her sleeve, anyway?" asked Dunham meditatively. "Is there some swain over at the Mill Farm?"

"Of course not," returned Edna irritably. "For pity's sake stop talking as if you didn't think it was a joke."

"She wasn't joking," replied John mildly, but with a conviction that smote his companion. "She was going to bottle the stuff, too."

"Of course. It is probably some sort of berry wine that she has heard of, and she wants to surprise us. It was unkind of us to watch her.

Never let her know it, will you, John?"

"No; and if she gives me a drink in a few days all shall be forgiven."

Edna took a deep breath, feeling that a foolish fancied burden, such as one bears in dreams, had been lifted from her.

At the same time Sylvia's face, bending above the brew, haunted her, and the excited girlish voice echoed in her ears, bringing back her unwelcome doubts. Was it not precisely John who was destined to drink that precious wine?

CHAPTER XXIV

SYLVIA'S MYSTERY

Dunham and Miss Derwent prolonged their walk, and an hour had elapsed before they returned to the piazza. By that time Sylvia was sitting there in the moonlight with her aunt.