about a week after the fair i went one afternoon to call on mrs. durant, and found cranch just leaving. his greeting, as he hurried by, was curt and almost hostile, and his handsome countenance so disturbed and pale that i hardly recognized him. i was sure there could be nothing personal in his manner; we had always been on good terms, and, next to mrs. durant, i suppose i was his nearest friend at harpledon — if ever one could be said to get near waldo cranch! after he had passed me i stood hesitating at mrs. durant’s open door — front doors at harpledon were always open in those friendly days, except, by the way, cranch’s own, which the stern catherine kept chained and bolted. since meeting me could not have been the cause of his anger, it might have been excited by something which had passed between mrs. durant and himself; and if that were so, my call was probably inopportune. i decided not to go in, and was turning away when i heard hurried steps, and mrs. durant’s voice. “waldo!” she said.
i suppose i had always assumed that she called him so; yet the familiar appellation startled me, and made me feel more than ever in the way. none of us had ever given cranch his christian name.
mrs. durant checked her steps, perceiving that the back in the doorway was not cranch’s but mine. “oh, do come in,” she murmured, with an attempt at ease.
in the little drawing-room i turned and looked at her. she, too, was visibly disturbed; not angry, as he had been, but showing, on her white face and reddened lids, the pained reflection of his anger. was it against her, then, that he had manifested it? probably she guessed my thought, or felt her appearance needed to be explained, for she added quickly: “mr. cranch has just gone. did he speak to you?”
“no. he seemed in a great hurry.”
“yes . . . i wanted to beg him to come back . . . to try to quiet him . . . ”
she saw my bewilderment, and picked up a copy of an illustrated magazine which had been tossed on the sofa. “it’s that — ” she said.
the pages fell apart at an article entitled: “colonial harpledon,” the greater part of which was taken up by a series of clever sketches signed by the boston architect whom she had brought to cranch’s a few months earlier.
of the six or seven drawings, four were devoted to the cranch house. one represented the facade and its pillared gates, a second the garden front with the windowless side of the wing, the third a corner of the box garden surrounding the chinese summer-house; while the fourth, a full-page drawing, was entitled: “the back of the slaves’ quarters and service-court: quaint window-grouping.”
on that picture the magazine had opened; it was evidently the one which had been the subject of discussion between my hostess and her visitor.
“you see . . . you see . . . ” she cried.
“this picture? well, what of it? i suppose it’s the far side of the wing — the side we’ve never any of us seen.”
“yes; that’s just it. he’s horribly upset . . . ”
“upset about what? i heard him tell the architect he could come back some other day and see the wing . . . some day when the maids were not sitting in the court; wasn’t that it?”
she shook her head tragically. “he didn’t mean it. couldn’t you tell by the sound of his voice that he didn’t?”
her tragedy airs were beginning to irritate me. “i don’t know that i pay as much attention as all that to the sound of his voice.”
she coloured, and choked back her tears. “i know him so well; i’m always sorry to see him lose his self-control. and then he considers me responsible.”
“you?”
“it was i who took the wretched man there. and of course it was an indiscretion to do that drawing; he was never really authorized to come back. in fact, mr. cranch gave orders to catherine and all the other servants not to let him in if he did.”
“well —?”
“one of the maids seems to have disobeyed the order; mr. cranch imagines she was bribed. he has been staying in boston, and this morning, on the way back, he saw this magazine at the book-stall at the station. he was so horrified that he brought it to me. he came straight from the train without going home, so he doesn’t yet know how the thing happened.”
“it doesn’t take much to horrify him,” i said, again unable to restrain a faint sneer.
“what’s the harm in the man’s having made that sketch?”
“harm?” she looked surprised at my lack of insight. “no actual harm, i suppose; but it was very impertinent; and mr. cranch resents such liberties intensely. he’s so punctilious.”
“well, we americans are not punctilious, and being one himself, he ought to know it by this time.”
she pondered again. “it’s his spanish blood, i suppose . . . he’s frightfully proud.” as if this were a misfortune, she added: “i’m very sorry for him.”
“so am i, if such trifles upset him.”
her brows lightened. “ah, that’s what i tell him — such things are trifles, aren’t they? as i said just now: ‘your life’s been too fortunate, too prosperous. that’s why you’re so easily put out.’”
“and what did he answer?”
“oh, it only made him angrier. he said: ‘i never expected that from you’ — that was when he rushed out of the house.” her tears flowed over, and seeing her so genuinely perturbed i restrained my impatience, and took leave after a few words of sympathy.
never had harpledon seemed to me more like a tea-cup than with that silly tempest convulsing it. that there should be grownup men who could lose their self-command over such rubbish, and women to tremble and weep with them! for a moment i felt the instinctive irritation of normal man at such foolishness; yet before i reached my own door i was as mysteriously perturbed as mrs. durant.
the truth was, i had never thought of cranch as likely to lose his balance over trifles. he had never struck me as unmanly; his quiet manner, his even temper, showed a sound sense of the relative importance of things. how then could so petty an annoyance have thrown him into such disorder?
i stopped short on my threshold, remembering his face as he brushed past me. “something is wrong; really wrong,” i thought. but what? could it be jealousy of mrs. durant and the boston architect? the idea would not bear a moment’s consideration, for i remembered her face too.
“oh, well, if it’s his silly punctilio,” i grumbled, trying to reassure myself, and remaining, after all, as much perplexed as before.
all the next day it poured, and i sat at home among my books. it must have been after ten in the evening when i was startled by a ring. the maids had gone to bed, and i went to the door, and opened it to mrs. durant. surprised at the lateness of her visit, i drew her in out of the storm. she had flung a cloak over her light dress, and the lace scarf on her head dripped with rain. our houses were only a few hundred yards apart, and she had brought no umbrella, nor even exchanged her evening slippers for heavier shoes.
i took her wet cloak and scarf and led her into the library. she stood trembling and staring at me, her face like a marble mask in which the lips were too rigid for speech; then she laid a sheet of note-paper on the table between us. on it was written, in waldo cranch’s beautiful hand: “my dear friend, i am going away on a journey. you will hear from me,” with his initials beneath. nothing more. the letter bore no date.
i looked at her, waiting for an explanation. none came. the first word she said was: “will you come with me — now, at once?”
“come with you — where?”
“to his house — before he leaves. i’ve only just got the letter, and i daren’t go alone . . . ”
“go to cranch’s house? but i . . . at this hour . . . what is it you are afraid of?” i broke out, suddenly looking into her eyes.
she gave me back my look, and her rigid face melted. “i don’t know — any more than you do — that’s why i’m afraid.”
“but i know nothing. what on earth has happened since i saw you yesterday?”
“nothing till i got this letter.”
“you haven’t seen him?”
“not since you saw him leave my house yesterday.”
“or had any message — any news of him?”
“absolutely nothing. i’ve just sat and remembered his face.”
my perplexity grew. “but surely you can’t imagine . . . if you’re as frightened as that you must have some other reason for it,” i insisted.
she shook her head wearily. “it’s the having none that frightens me. oh, do come!”
“you think his leaving in this way means that he’s in some kind of trouble?”
“in dreadful trouble.”
“and you don’t know why?”
“no more than you do!” she repeated.
i pondered, trying to avoid her entreating eyes. “but at this hour — come, do consider! i don’t know cranch so awfully well. how will he take it? you say he made a scene yesterday about that silly business of the architect’s going to his house without leave . . . ”
“that’s just it. i feel as if his going away might be connected with that.”
“but then he’s mad!” i exclaimed. “no; not mad. only — desperate.”
i stood irresolute. it was evident that i had to do with a woman whose nerves were in fiddle-strings. what had reduced them to that state i could not conjecture, unless, indeed, she were keeping back the vital part of her confession. but that, queerly enough, was not what i suspected. for some reason i felt her to be as much in the dark over the whole business as i was; and that added to the strangeness of my dilemma.
“do you know in the least what you’re going for?” i asked at length.
“no, no, no — but come!”
“if he’s there, he’ll kick us out, most likely; kick me out, at any rate.”
she did not answer; i saw that in her anguish she was past speaking. “wait till i get my coat,” i said.
she took my arm, and side by side we hurried in the rain through the shuttered village. as we passed the selwick house i saw a light burning in old miss selwick’s bedroom window. it was on the tip of my tongue to say: “hadn’t we better stop and ask aunt lucilla what’s wrong? she knows more about cranch than any of us!”
then i remembered cranch’s expression the last time aunt lucilla’s legend of the hobby-horse had been mentioned before him — the day we were planning the jumble sale — and a sudden shiver checked my pleasantry. “he looked then as he did when he passed me in the doorway yesterday,” i thought; and i had a vision of my ancient relative, sitting there propped up in her bed and looking quietly into the unknown while all the village slept. was she aware, i wondered, that we were passing under her window at that moment, and did she know what would await us when we reached our destination?
