Why? Did they, her father, and her uncles and grandmother, think that, missing her mother, she might run away to New York? Or was it that they guessed how terribly she longed for her mother, and made sure that she should never be left alone? But—if they were sparing her loneliness, why was she not sent to school every day, like other children whom she saw clattering along the sidewalk that ran just outside the high hedge? Or why were children not asked into the big Blair garden to play with her? And why did Daddy, who for years had been so busy with his work that he could seldom give her more than a very occasional afternoon, why was he putting aside all work now in order to stay there with her—particularly since Mother, ill and alone, assuredly needed him if she could not have Phœbe?
There were other curious things. She was never permitted to go downtown unless her father accompanied her. She was never allowed to drive alone with Grandma. She might not go to Sunday school or church with Uncle John. And at last she was able to see that a certain iron rule obtained concerning her movements: she could not play in the garden unless Uncle Bob or Daddy was home; and she could not leave Grandma’s to walk or drive unless her father or an uncle was in the surrey.
It was all very puzzling.
When people called, Phœbe did not meet them. Sophie, suddenly grown enthusiastic over some ordinary household matter, hurried her upstairs, or down cellar, as the case might be; or took her egg-hunting to the tall frame chicken-house standing in the back lot.
If the attic received them, Sophie kept a watch upon the garden from the tiny attic window; and as soon as the visitors took their leave, Sophie’s interest in the top of the house promptly melted, and Phœbe was coaxed away from the fascinating boxes and barrels that filled the room, and led down to the sitting-room and Grandma. If on the approach of callers Sophie found pressing reasons for going down into the cellar, and taking Phœbe along, the watch that was set on the attic window was transferred to the ceiling of the cellar. For Sophie kept turning her face up at it inquiringly, kept an ear cocked toward that corner of it which was under the wide entrance hall. And when a dull thump announced the shutting of the front door, Sophie invariably found herself ready and eager to leave the cellar for other duties higher up.
“Why don’t I ever meet anybody?” Phœbe pondered.
Her mind dwelt on certain dark, dramatic possibilities. In New York, how freely had she tasted of that—to her—most perfect of all joys—the moving-pictures. She went to some temple of the silent play three or four times every week—sometimes with her mother, but more often with her mother’s black maid. Oh, the never lessening lure of the film dramas! The grip of them! The beauty of their heroines! The masterful, handsome heroes in them! The villains always foiled! The maidens consistently saved! Oh, Dustin Farnum! Oh, lovely, dainty Marguerite Clark! Oh, gun-handling, stern and adorable William S. Hart!
And now, her imagination trained, Phœbe, as she considered conditions as she saw them, asked herself if, perhaps, Daddy and the others were not in fear of enemies! of kidnappers! of Mexican bandits! And this new hazard soon came to seem the logical, then the probable, then the true thing.
From a cautious attitude, she changed to actual fear. She began each day with a careful look from her windows, scanning the grounds, the hedges. Once in the open, she looked for foot-prints on the walks leading up to the house. She was always on the alert. And a new look came into the gray-blue eyes—a look of anxious questioning.
It was bad enough in the daytime. But at night she suffered, and dreaded the going-down of the sun. Toward evening she set herself one task: the lowering of her curtains, but more particularly the curtains of the sitting-room—against the peering in of faces! As twilight came, it seemed to her that the big house gathered into itself more dwellers than just the half-dozen of which she was one. They were up in the attic, these strange visitors, or down in the cellar, or in the closet under the stairs. In her own room at bedtime, having glanced under her four-poster, she locked her clothes-closet against Something which she felt was lurking therein. While before she fell asleep, or if she waked in the still hours, she held her breath and listened—listened. Sometimes there were snappings; sometimes softer sounds came to her, like the creeping of stealthy feet. In the blackness, white shapes sprang up before even her tight-closed eyes—sprang up, wavered, swelled, melted. She covered her head. Never was one small hand left free, lest it be taken by one unknown and clammy!