CHAPTER IV
What They Found
Don drew his horses up with a jerk and sprang to the ground.
“The other lot from over the Ridge have not got here yet, so we are first,” he remarked cheerfully, and then he held out his arms to Pam, so that she might descend with safety. But she drew back with a sudden shyness.
“You go first, please, and show me the way,” she said to Sophy, who laughed, and then dropped into the strong arms of her brother, which was certainly the easiest mode of descent.
“Come, Miss Walsh, I promise not to drop you, and I don’t expect that you are heavier than Sophy.” Don had turned to the wagon again, and now Pam had no excuse for holding back; so, dropping as she had seen Sophy do, she was speedily standing on the ground by her side and looking at the blank windows of the house that was to be her home. She could not repress a shiver as she thought how angry her grandfather would probably be when he found the sort of company in which she had arrived.
“Let us go and knock at the door while the others are unloading,” suggested Sophy, who seemed to understand Pam’s secret fear, and was anxious to reassure her.
Pam moved forward on unsteady feet. There was a queer sensation all about her that she was walking in a dream; nothing seemed real, least of all the girl with the kindly face and the quiet voice who stood at her side, gently encouraging and wholly sympathetic. The outlines of the house were vaguely familiar. Mrs. Walsh had talked so often to her children of her childhood’s home that Pam would never feel strange at Ripple; she had known it at second-hand for so long.
“I wish you would knock,” she said in a low voice, shrinking back behind Sophy as they stood before the heavy door. They were quite alone now, for all the others were busy about the wagons, taking out the supper baskets, and talking excitedly about something that was missing.
“What are you afraid of?” asked Sophy, when she had beat upon the door with her fists and they stood waiting for it to be opened.
Pam shivered, for she was genuinely scared. In the background a dog was barking in angry protest, but the house itself was absolutely deserted, to all appearance. She did not answer Sophy, but remembering that she was in a manner at home, whilst these others were only outsiders, she laid her hand on the door and tried to open it. Of course it was fast, and after a little more time spent in knocking at the door she turned to Sophy, asking: “What will you do? There does not seem to be anyone at home.”
“The men will find a way to get in, they always do,” replied Sophy laughing softly. Then she called to her brother: “Don, come here. There seems to be no one at home. How will you get in?”
“I will go and see if I can find a way. Don’t let the others start beating the door in until I have tried what I can do,” he said with a backward wag of his head in the direction of the noisy group by the wagon, who were still wrangling over the problem of a missing basket. Then came quite a long wait, or so it seemed to Pam, who was trying to form little sentences of explanation so that she might appease her grandfather if he should suddenly arrive upon the scene to demand the reason of her arrival with such a turbulent company.
“Here comes Don!” cried Sophy, as a step sounded inside the house, and there was a noise of a bolt being dragged back. “How did you get in?” she asked, as the heavy door came open, and Don with a lantern in his hand appeared on the threshold.
“The old fellow went away in a hurry, and forgot to shut the pantry window,” said Don, laughing as he stood back to let the others enter the house. Then he held the lantern high above his head to show them the way.
Pam went in first. A sudden sense of proprietorship had come to her; it was as if this were her own house and all that turbulent company outside were her guests. They might not be quite all that she would wish them to be, but she would make the best of them. There was a lamp standing on a small table near the stove, and she turned at once to light it.
“Don’t you think we ought to go over the house to see if he is at home?” she asked. “He might be ill, you see. I am sure we ought to do that first, before the others come in.”
“So am I,” Sophy agreed quickly. “Don, do you light the fire in the stove while we are gone; there are kindlings lying in that corner. Come along, Miss Walsh; the others will be here directly, so we must make haste!”
Sophy had taken the lantern from Don, and she handed it to Pam, instinctively taking her place in the rear, for this girl who was a stranger in a strange country moved with the assured air of one who was at home.
Pam held the lantern high, looking about her with absorbed interest. This was the living-room, and the outer door opened right into it, and that door in the corner would lead into the kitchen. She knew it well, for her mother had shown Jack how to draw a plan of the house. The door on the other side led to a sitting-room, the best room, which was only used on state occasions; a dreary place, so her mother had said. Beyond it was the bedroom where her grandfather slept, the very room in which her mother had been born. That was where she expected to find her grandfather if he was in the house. The best room had an unwholesome smell, as of a place never used and never aired. There was no carpet on the floor, but there was a couch, a cabinet, some chairs, and a table. Even in walking across the room with the lantern in her hand, Pam noticed that the stove was red with rust, and she wondered if there had been a fire there in all the years since her mother had run away from home to get married.
At the inner door she paused and knocked; then, as there was no reply, and the door stood ajar, she pushed it open and went in. It was a wide chamber, like the others, and being a corner room it had windows on two sides. It was even more airless and stuffy than the sitting-room. A heap of rugs and a mattress on the bed were a sign that someone slept there, while there was a heap of ashes before the stove which showed that, early in the autumn as it was, the old man had begun having a fire at nights. He was not there. Pam made quite sure of that, even pausing to lift the heap of tumbled rugs on the bed as if she expected to find him tucked away underneath. Sophy came to help her, and they peered under the bed, and in the old press which stood in the corner.
“He is not here, we must go upstairs,” said Pam, who was breathing hard, as if she had been running.
“Is there any upstairs to the house?” asked the other. She had not observed the outlines of the house particularly when they arrived, and it was the first time she had ever been to Ripple.
“Yes, there are three rooms,” Pam replied, and turning, she led the way back across the dreary sitting-room, and out to the living-room, where by this time Don had a fire roaring in the stove. Galena Gittins, the woman named Sissy, and one or two others were busy bringing in the supper baskets, but she took no notice of them. Crossing the floor, she went out by the door on the other side of the stove to the wide kitchen, or out-place, whence a narrow wooden stair led to the three bedrooms in the roof. These also were wide chambers, but only one of them had any furniture. This had been her mother’s old bedroom, as Pam recognized at the very first glance. There was a big press of red pine, which smelled like cedar, and was just as good at keeping away moths. There was the little bed with the carved head-board, the work of her great-grandfather, and the table that her great-uncle Zach had carved. There were even some old garments hanging on pegs behind the door, and she wondered if they had hung there ever since her mother went away. What a Rip-van-Winkle kind of business it was! Perhaps the room had hardly been entered for twenty years; it smelled stuffy enough.
“There is no one here,” said Sophy softly. She stood just behind Pam and looked about her in wonder. She did not understand how it was that this stranger from across the sea was so at home in this deserted house.
“No, he is not here,” said Pam. “He is not in the house, unless he is in the cellar. We ought to look there at once, before that lot downstairs start making a noise. Oh, pardon me, I forgot they are your friends, and of course they mean well.”
Sophy made a wry face, for the unconscious reproach in the voice of Pam made her wince.
“Yes, they—we mean all right,” she answered. She hesitated a moment, and then burst out: “It would have been rather horrid for you if you had come straight here, and found no one at all.”
“Indeed it would, and I am properly grateful down underneath,” replied Pam, and then she led the way towards the cellar, while Sophy followed behind. The cellar stretched right under the whole length of the house, as is common in New Brunswick, the severity of the winters making it essential to have a good storage that frost cannot touch.
But downstairs the merry crowd had been augmented by the other wagonload of people from over the Ridge; these were all presented to Pam in due course, and she found herself thrust, whether she would or no, into the position of hostess. It was in her to rise to the occasion, and she did it right royally, only there was all the time that feeling in her heart that she must search in the cellar before she allowed herself to be drawn into any merry-making. She slipped away with Sophy while the others were all busy trying to make the supper-table bigger by the addition of boards laid across the backs of chairs, and holding her lantern high above her head, she went carefully down the ladder-like stairs, while Sophy came close behind.
“Take care, there should be a very bad place about half-way down,” said Pam, who was breathing in little gasps again, for she was tremendously excited. “Ah, here it is! Mother has told me that she sprained her ankle over that step at three different times. Don’t you wonder what some people are made of, to leave necessary things neglected for so long?”
Sophy stumbled, nearly fell, and recovered herself with an effort; and steadying herself with a hand on Pam’s shoulder she answered with a laugh:
“Wait until you have lived at Ripple for a year before you pass judgment. Our summers are a fierce rush to do the things that must be done, and in the winter we are more or less torpid.”
“I shall not be torpid,” cried Pam in merry defiance. Then she paused and cried out in rapturous delight, as, reaching the bottom step, she came in sight of shelves piled with apples—bushels and bushels of them, some quite enormous in size, some so rosy and tempting to look at that she wanted to stretch out her hand and start eating then and there. Others were green and hard, as if they would not be mellow enough to eat for months to come. “What can my grandfather do with so much fruit?” she asked in surprise, as the flashing light of her lantern showed shelf after shelf piled with apples, while of pumpkins, squashes, and the harder sort of melons there was a goodly array.
“One needs a good lot of provisions to face a winter that is seven months long,” replied Sophy, who was also peering about with great interest, for she was of a housewifely turn. “But really, for an old man living alone, your grandfather has stored a considerable lot of apples. I suppose he has not lifted his potatoes yet, or we should smell them.”
“The potatoes always went into the inner cellar, so Mother said. Here they are, and what a lot! I shall live on roasted apples and potatoes this winter, I think. They will be easy to cook, and that will give me time for other things. Do you think I ought to take some of these apples up for the surprise party, or would Grandfather object to my making free with his property?”
“We have brought apples in plenty,” said Sophy. “If you are asked out to a surprise party yourself this fall (autumn), you might bring along some of those yellow ones over there; I don’t think there is another tree of that variety in the district. Mother has sent over here to buy some every winter since I can remember, and ever so many folks have asked to have scions from the tree, but Mr. Peveril would neither give nor sell them.”
“Poor Grandfather; I am afraid he is rather disobliging sometimes!” Pam murmured with wistful regret in her tone.
When they had thoroughly inspected the cellar, as they had done the rest of the house, they went back to the living-room, where the fun was now uproarious. The young men were making coffee, while the girls set the table, and the older women unpacked the food. There were even one or two middle-aged men, but Pam noticed that these withdrew into a corner, where they sat talking, quite heedless of the confusion all around them. They were much too tired to care for anything in the way of festivity which entailed any labour, but a chance to exchange opinions with a neighbour, and to hear a little gossip, was inducement sufficient to bring them long distances, and make them willing to be all night out of bed.
Old Wrack Peveril’s supply of lamps was limited, but the resourceful surprise party had succeeded in getting a fine illumination notwithstanding. A generous supply of pine knots had been brought along in a basket, and these, tossed on the fire a few at a time, lighted the big room with a vivid, flashing glare. There were also several lanterns, and these were hung in the outer kitchen, in the dreary best sitting-room, and even in the old man’s bedroom. This surprise party was not going to do things by halves, and they wanted room in which to spread themselves. A supply of candles eked out the lanterns, but these, being home-made, were not very brilliant, and they guttered fearfully in the liberal draughts.
Pam was not allowed to lift a finger to do anything. She was of the family, they told her, even though she had arrived with the company. Failing her grandfather, she was hostess. Entering into the spirit of the thing, some of the girls rushed out of doors and gathered great boughs of foliage by moonlight; these they wreathed in the back of a ponderous arm-chair, and dragging it to the head of the supper-table, installed Pam there in regal state.
“Oh, I cannot take the head of the table; it is not my house!” she cried. “My grandfather might be angry with me if he came back and found that I was taking his place in such a fashion, and it would be dreadful to start with him in that way.”
“I don’t fancy he will be back before to-morrow,” said Mrs. Morse, the stout woman who had known Pam’s mother. “It is awkward travelling the forest trails at night, and the moon will soon be down. We mostly stay where sundown finds us, and let travelling wait until daylight comes again. That is what your grandfather is going to do, I expect, so you might as well get all the fun you can. We are only young once, and there is no sense in being dismal when you can have the time of your life.”
“If the old man happens along we will square him somehow, Miss Walsh, don’t you be afraid,” put in Don Grierson, who, having undertaken the work of head coffee-maker, was busy at the stove.
Pam yielded then, and really it would have been silly to protest. She was excited, too, and the whole affair had taken on the character of an adventure. She permitted herself to be placed in the great chair, she let the girls take her hat off and twine a wreath of yellow maple leaves for her hair, and she sat at the head of the long table, a veritable queen of the ceremonies. Her face was flushed, her eyes were shining, and she entered into the fun with an abandon that surprised even herself.
The supper was very good, and she was so hungry that she could have devoured almost anything. Never, never had she tasted such chicken pie, or such delicious cake. They had given her an earthenware plate—cracked it is true, and browned with having been put in the oven, but it was a plate—and as there were only about three others this was a distinction indeed. Mrs. Morse, sitting at her side, was placidly eating from an old baking-tin, while Galena Gittins, farther down the table, had a saucepan lid by way of plate. These small drawbacks did but add to the fun, however, and gales of laughter resounded through the wide room, which must have been silent for so many years.
Suddenly Pam felt something pressing against her, and looking down she saw the shaggy head of a big dog pressed against her knee, while two wistful eyes looked into hers, and an eager tail thumped the floor.
“A dog, and such a dear! Where did it come from?” she asked, stooping to pat the shaggy head, and then sharing a liberal bit of pie with the hungry animal.
“It is old Wrack’s dog, and was going to eat us all when we took our horses into the barn; but a mouthful of food soon brought it to a better frame of mind,” said a young man, edging a little nearer for a chance of talking to Pam. She was having a triumph in a small way, and the surprise party were feeling that they themselves had had a very charming surprise at Ripple that night, for it is always the unexpected that appeals to people.
“If it is Grandfather’s dog, then it belongs to me in a way, and we must be friends, of course.” Pam stooped over the animal again, feeding it with morsels from her plate, and doing her very best to win the creature’s liking. Perhaps if the dog loved her, the old man would also find it easy to care for her. That was how she argued the matter to herself, as she sat at the head of the table playing hostess in a house she had never before entered, to a company of people she had never before seen.
“Funny the old man did not take his dog along with him where he has gone. Folks say that he is never seen without the beast,” remarked the young man who had just been talking to Pam, and for want of some one better he addressed his remark to Mrs. Morse.
“The old man knew his own business best, I guess,” rejoined the stout woman tartly. “It is likely he left the critter here to guard the place a bit. But it does seem a bit strange to me that the old fellow should have gone out for the night, and he expecting his granddaughter at any time, as you might say. Now you suppose what the situation would have been for that poor girl, if we had not taken it into our heads to surprise old Wrack to-night! I declare it fairly makes my flesh creep to think about it.”
“Then don’t think about it, Mrs. Morse,” said Pam, who had overheard the remark. “Grandfather would not have meant to treat me badly, I am sure; perhaps he has even gone some part of the way to meet me, and by ill fortune we missed each other.”
The company looked at each other, as much as to say that was about the most unlikely thing to have happened, but no one ventured to say so. There was not one present in the room who would have said or done anything to sadden Pam or put any foreboding as to her future into her heart. When supper was over, the food remaining—a goodly pile—was carefully stacked out of the way, the table was dragged to one side of the room, and then the fun began. One of the party had brought a fiddle, and one had a melodeon, and with these for orchestra, dancing went on with great spirit. Sir Roger de Coverley was first favourite, and they danced it over and over again until they were fairly tired out, and subsided on to chairs and forms to play General Post. This entailed so many forfeits, and so much hilarity in the paying of them, that midnight was long past before anyone even thought of wanting any fresh amusement. Singing was called for then, and chorus after chorus rang round the heavy timbers of the ceiling. Pam noticed that it was all sacred music, chorales, anthems, and sonorous fugues which had been learned at church, and which matched with the sombre grandeur of the leagues on leagues of forest surrounding Ripple on every side.
“Won’t you sing something?” Sophy asked, coming over to Pam, whose face was wearing a rather awed expression.
“I can’t sing—not by myself, I mean. I am not accomplished really, though I can play the piano enough to teach young children,” Pam answered, thinking of the governess life which she had left so far behind.
“Ah, the piano is rather out of it here. The useful instrument is one that can be carried about, like the violin or the melodeon,” Sophy said. She went on to tell Pam that so far as she knew there was only one piano in the township, and that was broken.
“I shall learn to play the jews’ harp; I am sure that I could manage it, for I could perform quite creditably with a comb and a piece of paper.” Pam laughed at her own small wit, then suddenly grew serious, for the night was wearing, and with the first streaks of dawn to light the forest trails these lively people would be gone, and she would be left alone to face whatever might come.
“Could you stay with me, just until my grandfather comes back? Would it be asking too much?” There was such a wistful look in the eyes she turned to Sophy as betrayed the heart-shrinking that was behind.
“I think so, but I will ask Don what he thinks. Mother is not very strong, but I know she will do her best to let me help you,” Sophy said. She made her way across to Don, who was just going to start making coffee again: a minute of consultation and she was back by the side of Pam. “Don says he is sure that I ought to stay, and that he will drive over for me this afternoon, unless Father happens to have a round in this direction. Father is the township doctor, you know, so he is all over the place, and we never know where he will have to go next. If I stay here with you we will do the clearing up after the company are gone. That will please them all, because, you see, it is proper for them to do it.”