‘For no reason that I know,’ I answered, a trifle hurt, ‘if it be agreeable to the lady.’
‘And the gentleman,’ she amended.
‘And the gentleman,’ I added.
‘Very well. Then we are all good boys and girls. Now, Peasey, I’m very glad you’re come. Only mind you get back to your place before the ogress returns, or you’ll have your head snapped off.’
Was I right, or was it the result of the slight offence I had taken? Was the gracious, graceful, naïve, playful, daring woman—or could she be—or had she been just the least little bit vulgar? I am afraid I was then more sensitive to vulgarity in a woman, real or fancied, than even to wickedness—at least I thought I was. At all events, the first conviction of anything common or unrefined in a woman would at once have placed me beyond the sphere of her attraction. But I had no time to think the suggestion over now; and in a few minutes—whether she saw the cloud on my face I cannot tell—Clara had given me a look and a smile which banished the possibility of my thinking about it for the present.
Miss Pease worked more diligently than any of the party. She seldom spoke, and when she did, it was in a gentle, subdued, almost mournful tone; but the company of the young people, without the restraint of her mistress, was evidently grateful to what of youth yet remained in her oppressed being.
Before it was dark we had got the books all upon the shelves, and leaving Charley with the ladies, I walked home.
I found Styles had got everything out of the lumber-room except a heavy oak chest in the corner, which, our united strength being insufficient to displace it, I concluded was fixed to the floor. I collected all the keys my aunt had left behind her, but sought the key of this chest in vain. For my uncle, I never saw a key in his possession. Even what little money he might have in the house, was only put away at the back of an open drawer. For the present, therefore, we had to leave it undisturbed.
When Charley came home we went to look at it together. It was of oak, and somewhat elaborately carved.
I was very restless in bed that night. The air was close and hot, and as often as I dropped half asleep I woke again with a start. My thoughts kept stupidly running on the old chest. It had mechanically possessed me. I felt no disturbing curiosity concerning its contents; I was not annoyed at the want of the key; it was only that, like a nursery rhyme that keeps repeating itself over and over in the half-sleeping brain, this chest kept rising before me till I was out of patience with its intrusiveness. It brought me wide awake at last; and I thought, as I could not sleep, I would have a search for the key. I got out of bed, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, lighted my chamber-candle, and made an inroad upon the contents of the closet in my room, which had apparently remained undisturbed since the morning when I missed my watch. I believe I had never entered it since. Almost the first thing I came upon was the pendulum, which woke a strange sensation for which I could not account, until by slow degrees the twilight memory of the incidents connected with it half dawned upon me. I searched the whole place, but not a key could I find.