The Lightning Conductor Discovers America

She didn't use as flowery language as that, but it's difficult to quote Patty in the vernacular.

Well, we crawled home after a while, Jack and I. And nothing more happened that day, except that Pat 'phoned me from her ruinous home about nine o'clock in the evening, to say "Mistaire" Caspian had come back. He had bought the Stanislaws house and paid for it, but she had refused to accept the gift. "It must be his, not mine," she said. "I understand that he would not have bought it except for my sake, so already I owe him a big debt of gratitude. I will not owe him more. It is now too much."

"Did he get the license?" I tremblingly ventured to inquire.

"Yes," Pat answered. But when I hurried on to the next question, "Have you fixed a date?" silence was my answer. She had dropped the receiver, and I was afraid I could guess why. She couldn't bear to discuss the sword hanging over her head. Few descendants of Damocles can!

All that was yesterday. I've waited to-day to write you in the hope of having something new to tell. But it's now ten o'clock P. M. and there is nothing good; rather the contrary. Pat has almost if not quite promised to marry Ed Caspian at the end of the week, Saturday, and Mrs. Shuster has hinted at her willingness to become Mrs. Moore on the same day. The knots are to be tied (devil permitting) very quietly, at home, in the water-logged drawing-room at Kidd's Pines. My pleadings to Pat of no avail. The combination of pawned rings, debts, five-hundred-thousand-dollar houses, etc., and Peter's absence at the crucial moment is too strong for her. As for Larry, he seems to be as hopeless as his daughter. I fancy from a chance word which Pat inadvertently let drop that, with the prospect of a millionaire son-in-law, Larry desperately attempted to free himself, but Mrs. Shuster "persuaded" him to stick to his bargain. How she managed I don't know, but there are lots of ways, and Larry with all his faults is a gentleman. He even has a chivalrous vein which, though lying deep under selfishness, crops up near the surface occasionally. I wish he'd been chivalrous with his daughter, while there was time for it to do good, instead of at the last moment with this silly middle-aged woman who wants to get "into society" through him.

Oh, just one other thing which I nearly forgot to mention! At my urgent suggestion Jack wrote a line to Peter Storm, in care of a man named James Strickland, said by Caspian to have looked after the interests of a family with whom Peter is connected. He's a well-known lawyer, so we easily found his address in the New York directory. He has his office there, of course, though I believe he has a house somewhere on Long Island, I don't know where. There's just the merest chance that Peter Storm may go to him in New York. He's going to some lawyer, so why not Strickland? Anyhow, we have no other means of getting at this extremely Stormy Petrel until his return. May it not be put off too long!

Jack, like all other men, hated to interfere, for P. S. has never spoken to either of us, in so many words, of his "intentions" toward Patty Moore. But I cooked up a specious-sounding note, saying that, if Peter didn't want Caspian to complicate matters for everybody, he had better hurry up and come back before C – was actually married.

That letter went off by special delivery this morning.

Au revoir, till I can give you the sequel!

Your battered but not yet broken

    Molly.

XXXII

MOLLY WINSTON TO MERCÉDES LANE

    Awepesha.

Mercédes Mine:

Hurrah! There's a thing I may tell you without giving away Peter's confidences till the cat's ready to jump from the bag.

Jack and I were restless last evening. When I finished my letter to you, it was only half-past ten; and I felt as if I could jump up and down and scream.

"If I don't do something, I shall have a conniption fit!" I threatened.

Jack doesn't know what a conniption fit is, not having been brought up in an American nursery, but lest it might be something appalling, he asked how I should like to go out in the car for a short spin. By this time Hiawatha had been brought home by our chauffeur; and the moon was soon due to rise, so it seemed an attractive prospect that Jack held out.

"I'll tell you what let's do!" said I. "Go over to Patty's. If there's a light in the drawing-room windows we'll ring. If not, we'll just spin round outside the wall to the side gate, and go into the grounds for a look at the moon from the Point of the Pines."

In fifteen minutes we were off. And as I've told you, it's only a short spin to Kidd's Pines. There was a light in the drawing-room, so we did ring, and Pat was thankful for the excuse to get out of doors. Larry had gone to town – on "business," he had said, and Mrs. Shuster was sulking as if she doubted the statement. The Boys had been over from some weird inn, not far off, where they are lurking now, in order to rally round their goddess, but luckily Pat had sent them away just before we arrived. They would have been too noisy to please the moon! Patsey had been playing the piano at Mrs. Shuster's request, while the latter forlornly knitted impossible socks for Brobdinag-footed soldiers.

Of course we politely asked Mrs. S. to join our expedition, at the same time intensely willing her to refuse. Will prevailed. Mrs. Shuster said she "must write to the poor dear Senator, and send him good wishes for a lecture he is to deliver in New York." So she was disposed of; and we three went out into the fragrant night. I suppose she calls her Senator "poor dear" as a delicate way of letting us guess that she has refused him.

Have I told you about the Point of the Pines, I wonder? I feel sure I must have done so. The Pines are those under which Captain Kidd is supposed to have buried some of his treasure – the pines which have given the place its name. There is a narrow slip of land on which the principal members of this pine family grow. Instead of stretching straight out into the water, it curves toward the lawn, as if the back of your hand and your four fingers composed the lawn, and your thumb, slightly but not far extended, were the Point of the Pines. There are only a few trees, for the Point is small; they're seven in number and they reach beautifully toward the Sound, like running dryads holding out eager arms to the sea. They aren't ordinary pines, such as you may see almost anywhere on Long Island, but are of the "umbrella" sort, like those of Italy, just as beautiful if not nearly so large as those at Rome in the Pincian gardens, or at Naples, where their branches seem sketched in straight, horizontal black lines against the blue background of sea and sky. Shelter Island has one such pine, under which also Captain Kidd is supposed to have deposited a sample of treasure. I think there are no more in our part of the world.

Well, you can imagine that it's wonderful to sit by the water, lapping and whispering as it mumbles to the shore with toothless baby mouths; to sit there and wait for the moon to come up behind those dark umbrella pines.

None of us three felt like talking. There wasn't much to say which interested us just then, and at the same time went well with the exquisite romance of the place. Besides, it was lovely to listen to the water.

We grouped together, sitting on the grass, Jack with his back against a big chestnut tree, I leaning against his shoulder, and Patsey reclining, with her elbow in my lap. Far away a clock musically struck the half-hour after eleven, and as the sound died away a creamy light began to run along the sky. We sat very still, knowing what was coming to pass. In a minute more we saw a ruddy rim rise out of purple dusk; and with that almost incredible quickness in which the miracle is accomplished, the whole moon was up, red and slightly concave, for it was past the full.

Then the thing we had come out to see, happened. We saw the molten lamp directly behind the biggest of the seven pines out on the Point. The tree, black as ink, looked suddenly like a gigantic suit of armour, with an immense heart-shaped jewel – perhaps that magic carbuncle from the hidden pool of the White Mountains – suspended in its breast.

While we looked something else happened: a small rowboat with a man in it skimmed into sight, and slowed down at the Point of the Pines. Silent as a water bird it glided into the tiny cove between the point and the wide stretch of lawn, stopping dead under the moon-illumined tree.

By common consent we were as still as statues. Where we sat at a distance from the shore, and under the big chestnut, we were invisible to the man in the boat. We thought we should see him climb onto the bank, where his figure would be silhouetted against the moonlight; but he didn't appear.

"Perhaps it's a rendezvous of sweethearts," I whispered. "Presently another boat will come with the girl."

"Perhaps," Patsey whispered back. "Yes, it must be that. There is nothing he can do with the cave."

"Cave!" echoed Jack, interested as a boy. "Is there a cave?"

"It is only a little one," said Pat. "Not a nice cave. I have been in it when I was small. One gets there if one slides down a bank from the Point, just as well as from the water. I would run away from my nurse, and she would scold and call out, but she would not come after me, because it is a very low roof. To get to the very end, one must go on the hands and knees, but I liked that the best of all. I tried to find the treasure of Captain Kidd, which Larry told me about. But that was only a child's thought. He would nevaire have hidden it where one had only to push through some bushes, then to crawl in and pull it out."

"No," said Jack, who had never put much faith in the treasure's tale, much as he would have enjoyed doing so. "All the same, a cave's a big attraction. Lots of people must have tried their luck exploring, in the hope of some secret hidie-hole."

"Not so many know of the cave, that it is there," said Pat. "Some bushes grow in front and hide the mouth. If not, you would have seen it yourself. But Larry told all the people who came to stay this spring. He thought it would amuse them to look for the treasure. And it was promised – if there had not been the fire! – that when we came home from our trip we would give a party to dig under the pines. Each one was to have a spade; and it would be allowed to dig down some feet, but not enough to hurt the pines. The gardeners were to decide on that. Larry thought it would be fun. But I am not sure if Mistaire Caspian would not have persuaded him to forget the plan. He told me, if there were a treasure, it would be best to keep it for ourselves."

"All in the family," said I. And to myself I added, "Catch him giving something for nothing!"

"Shall I take a peep at that fellow down there?" suggested Jack. "He has no right trespassing anyhow, whether he's prospecting for treasure or waiting for his girl."

"Let's all three go and stare at him with calm reproach," I said. "The moonlight will shine on our faces and turn us into accusing spirits."

We got up and walked across the lawn, threading our way among trees till we came to the bank where we could look down to the water and straight across to the Point. There was the boat, tethered to a bush, but the man had vanished.

"By Jove! He must be in the cave!" said Jack. "I'll go – "

"No, you won't!" I cut him short fiercely. "If you do I'll scream at the top of my voice and yell for help. He may be a murderer!"

"Xantippe!" Jack retorted; but he couldn't help laughing when Pat and I both seized his dinner-jacket.

"Look!" whispered the girl at that instant. "Just there! A light – a little faint light – behind the bushes."

"The fellow's coming out," said Jack.

"Oh, then we can all stand behind this tree and watch," I proposed. "When he's getting into his boat Jack can challenge him. He'll probably be so scared he'll fall into the water."

The tree I meant was a large-waisted willow, of the weepiest variety, with girth enough and tears enough to hide us all, especially as Pat and I were darkly dressed – she in green and I in gray.

We hadn't many minutes to wait; indeed, it was but half an hour since we came out, for the clock we had heard struck again: midnight. We felt deliciously creepy! Of course I hadn't wanted Jack not mended yet from the trenches to go crawling on all fours into perfectly irrelevant caves with no Orders of Merit or Victoria Crosses attached to them. At the same time, we were keyed for comedy, and just excited enough to forget the skeletons in our closets at home: Caspians, and Shusters, and money-lenders, and unpleasant things like that.

It was just as the clock finished striking that the light in the cave (if you can call a gleam like an exaggerated glowworm a light) went out, or in Jack's words "dowsed its glim." This meant, we surmised, that the man had finished his mysterious (probably ridiculous) errand, and could now get along with no lamp but the moon. There was a faint rustle, rustle among the bushes which discreetly veiled the opening, and from behind them came a man. For a second or two he stood up straight as if he were stretching himself and taking a full breath. The moon shone behind him, outlining his figure; and, Mercédes, if you were here I would bet anything you couldn't guess who it was. As it is I can't hope to win money from you. I must just tell you, and have done with it!

The man was Peter Storm.

We recognized him in time for Jack not to give that challenge we had planned. Whether J. decided not to give it because the man was Peter, or because he was dumbfounded, I didn't know then, but he told me afterward that he instantly decided to keep still for Peter's sake. He knew, of course, whatever Peter was up to there was nothing mean or underhand about it, and as it was evidently meant for a secret expedition it would annoy Peter to be caught. I had exactly the same impression myself; and Pat said later that she would have "cr-r-umpled all up" if Jack had called out.