“Mary was n't Robbie's nurse in those days. Oh, no, my task would n't have been so easy in that case. He was being cared for by a happy-go-lucky negro woman from whom he ran away about twice a week. She had a passion for driving over to Pine Cone every time George went for supplies, and she was only too willing to leave her charge with Mrs. Gaskell, who did so adore little children. From that girl I learned all about the habits of 'The Pines' household, and from Robbie himself I got the clue of clues.
“I understood that child. I could play upon him as though he had been a little instrument of strings. He was the kind of secretive, sensitive little animal that can be opened up or shut tight at will. A harsh look would scare him into a deaf-mute, a little kindness would set him chattering. I asked him questions about the house: where his father had worked and spent most of his time; where he himself played; what, especially, were his favorite play-places. He told me there were lots of closets in the house, but that he was 'scared of dark closets,' and he was 'most scared of the closet under the kitchen stairs.' I asked him why, and he told me a long story about going in there and finding his father bent over at one end of it—one of those mixed-up, garbled accounts that children give; but I gathered that his father had been vexed at the child's intrusion, and had told him to keep out of the kitchen and out of the kitchen closet. It was the faintest sort of clue, a mere will-o'-the-wisp, but I decided to follow it up.
“One day, when I knew that all the servants at 'The Pines' were off to a county fair, I met with Robbie and his nurse, and easily persuaded the girl to let me take her charge back to 'The Pines' while she joined the other holiday-seekers. Robbie and I got a lift, and we were dropped at 'The Pines' gate. I asked him to take me up to the house by a short cut, and in through the kitchen garden. I told him to pick me a nice nosegay of flowers, and I went in to get a 'drink of water.' The kitchen was empty, and I lost no time in slipping into the small kitchen closet. I saw at once that it had been purposely crowded with heavy stuff, and I began to search it. Of course I found the hole; I even went into the hollow wall here, and explored the whole passage. Dieu! I was excited, pleased! I knew that I was on the track of my treasure. And I saw how easy it would be for some one to hide in that wall, and live there comfortably enough for an indefinite time. I had what I'd come for, and I decided that Mrs. Gaskell's stay in Pine Cone would come to an end that night.
“It was disconcerting to hear Robbie's voice calling, 'Mithith Gathkell, where are you? I was still in the passageway, but I crawled through that hole in a hurry—too late! I met Robbie face to face. He'd come to find me, and was standing timidly in the closet doorway with his hands full of flowers. I knew that I should have to tie up his tongue for good and all. I fixed him with my eyes, and let my face change till it must have looked like the face of the worst witch in the worst old fairy-tale he'd ever heard, and then, still staring at him, I slowly lifted off my brown wig and I drew up my own red hair till it almost touched the top of the kitchen closet. And I said, 'Grrrrrrrrr! I'm the witch that lives under the stairs! I'm the witch that lives under the stairs!' in the worst voice I could get out of my throat, a sort of suckling gobble it was, pretty bad!”
She laughed, and again my rage and hatred overwhelmed my fear. “I had to run at him, and put my hand over his mouth or he'd have raised the roof with his screams. I got my wig on again, and I carried him out into the garden, and I told him that if ever he went near that closet or even whispered to any one that he'd seen that red-haired woman, I'd tell her to come and stand by his bed at night and stick her face down at him till he was all smothered by her long red hair. He was all confused and trembling. I don't know what he thought. He seemed to imagine that Mrs. Gaskell and the witch were two distinct people, but, at any rate, he was scared out of his little wits, and I knew when I got through with him that wild horses would n't tear the story of that experience out of him. Children are like that, you know.”
I did know, and I lay there and cursed her in my heart. I thought of what agonies the poor little child had suffered in the mysterious silence of his baby mind—that pitiful, terrible silence of childhood that has covered so many cruelties, so much unspeakable fear, since the childhood of the human race began. My heart, crushed as it was, ached for little Robbie, sickened for him. I would have given so much to hold him in my arms, and comfort him, and reassure his little shaken soul. God willing, he was happy now, and reassured past all the powers of earth or hell to disturb his beautiful serenity.
THE next morning”—again I was listening to the story—“Mrs. Gaskell left Pine Cone to the regret of all its inhabitants. I doubt if ever there has been a more popular summer visitor. And not many days afterwards, a gypsy woman came to 'The Pines' to peddle cheap jewelry. Old Delia was in the kitchen, and old Delia refused to take any interest in the wares. She told the woman to clear out, but she refused to go until she had been properly dismissed by the lady of the house. At last, to get rid of her, Delia went off to speak to her mistress, and no sooner had she closed the door, than the gypsy slipped across the kitchen, and got herself into that closet. And the odd part of it is, that she never came out. When Delia returned with more emphatic orders of dismissal, the peddling gypsy had gone. Nobody had seen her leave the place, but that did not cause much distress to any one but Mrs. Brane. I think that she was disturbed; at least I know that she ordered a thorough search of the house and grounds, for footsteps were running all about everywhere that day, and lights were kept burning in the house all night. I think, perhaps, some of the negroes sat up to keep watch. But the peddler made not so much as a squeak that night. She lay on a pile of blankets she had carried in on her back, and she ate a crust of bread and an apple. She was sufficiently comfortable, and very much pleased with herself. Towards morning she went to sleep and slept far into the next day.
“So you see, Janice, there I was in the house, and I was sure that not far from me was Brane's treasure trove. This double wall of which he had evidently made use—he had built up that queer flight of steps and made a floor and an inclined plane—convinced me that I was hot on the track of the jewels. You can guess how I worked to find them. All to no purpose. I had to be very careful. Rats, to be sure, make a noise in the walls of old houses, but the noise is barely noticeable, and it does not sound like carpentry. However, I had convinced myself, by the end of the third dreary day, that if the robe and crown were hidden in the double wall, they were very secretly and securely hidden, and that I should need some further directions to find them. It was annoying, especially as my provisions had given out, and I knew that I should have to venture down into the kitchen at night and pick up some fragments of food. I was glad then and all the time, that Mrs. Brane's servants were such decrepit old bodies, half-blind and half-deaf, and altogether stupid. Many's the time I've crouched behind the junk in that closet and listened to their silly droning! But it gave me a sad jump when I heard the voice of Mrs. Brane's first housekeeper.
“She was young and nervous, and had a high, breathless manner of talking, and she was bent upon efficiency. Well, so was I. I had decided that, outside of the wall, there were two rooms in the Brane house that must be thoroughly investigated—the bookroom where Theodore kept his collection of Russian books, and the room upstairs in the north wing which he had used as a sort of den, and which, after his death, Mrs. Brane had converted into a nursery. I think she must have had a case of nerves after her husband's death, for she was set on having a housekeeper and a new nurse for Robbie, and she was always flitting about that house like a ghost. Maybe, after all, he had dropped her a hint about some money or jewels being hidden somewhere in the house! That was Maida's notion, for she says Mrs. Brane was as keen as 'Sara' about cleaning out the old part of the house, and never left her alone an instant.
“To get back to the first days I spent in this accursed wall... that housekeeper gave me a lot of misery. In the first place, she slept in the north wing, the room you had, Janice,”—I was almost accustomed to this horrible past tense she used towards me; I was beginning to think of my own life as a thing that was over—“and she was a terribly light sleeper. Twice, as I was sneaking along that passageway trying to locate the rooms, she came out with a candle in her hand, and all but saw me. I decided that my only chance to really search the place lay in getting rid of the inhabitants of that northern wing. I thought, perhaps, I could give that part of the house a bad name. Once it was empty, I could practically live there. I had n't reckoned with that bull-dog of a Mary.