The House in the Hedge/Chapter 2
II
THE HOUSE IN THE HEDGE
Two Acres, as you will gather from the name, isn't very big. And it isn't a very smart place. It's just a nice, comfy home with a big, square white house, with green blinds, and a cupola on top, a big white stable, with another cupola—only smaller a garage, sheds, chicken houses, lawns, trees, and flower beds. There, that's soon over! There used to be acres and acres of land with it, but mamma sold that years ago. There's a tennis court at the side of the house and a green, where the Major bowls. Lawn bowls is the only sport he ever goes in for. He's crazy about that and thinks himself a good deal of an athlete. We raise our own poultry, keep a cow, have a nice vegetable garden, and plenty of apples and pears and currants. Sometimes the peach trees bear, but they're a sort of joke. One year Larry and I went in for raising squabs. We'd figured out that we could get very rich at it. But when the funny little things got big enough to eat I wouldn't let Larry kill them, so we gave that up. There are lots of shade trees, elms, horse-chestnuts, and maples, and one of the elms, which stands over near the Fairholts' hedge, has a dandy big platform built in it, about ten feet from the ground, with steps up to it and a railing all around it, and benches to sit on. Larry built that all himself, and he used so many boards and nails that the Major declares it's the most expensive improvement on the place. He calls it Larry's Folly.
I mention the platform particularly because, after the trunks came and I'd watched Elise unpack—she's awfully stupid and careless about putting my gowns on the hangers—and after we'd had luncheon, and I'd been all over the place with Peter, I went up there to read. More truthfully—for this is to be a strictly truthful story—I went up there to spy over the hedge, but I did take a book with me. From the platform you can see over the hedge very nicely. Not that there is much to see, though. Mr. Fairholt bought the land from mamma ten years ago and built the cottage. It's just a little square, two-story house with a slate roof—what they call a French roof, I think. There's a porch across the front and the house is painted a sort of drab with darker trimmings, a most depressing color. I don't suppose he ever meant the hedge to grow up as tall as it is now, for Peter says he kept it trimmed down the first few years. But after he stopped coming there, the hedge just did as it pleased, until nowadays it looks almost as high as the cottage, and folks call the place the House in the Hedge. Mr. Fairholt built the place when he was married and they say his wife was a perfect beauty. But I guess I never saw her; at least, I don't remember her. She only lived there two summers, I believe. Then Mr. Fairholt came alone one year, and after that the place was closed up. Then three years ago, such an awful thing happened. Someone noticed a light burning downstairs one night and they went over and peeked in through the shutters, and there was Mr. Fairholt hanging from a rope in the hall. Of course they broke in, but he was quite dead. They say he killed himself on account of something his wife had done, but I never heard much about it. Aunt Myra has such old-fashioned notions, you see. Of course, after that the House in the Hedge soon got the name of being haunted, and the next summer Larry and I used to prowl around it in the evenings, daring each other to look in the windows, and all the time keeping our ears and eyes wide open in case a “hant” should grab us. It was very exciting, but we never saw nor heard anything save once, when a stray cat jumped out of the bushes in front of us, and made us both scream, so we gave it up.
I think it's due to Larry to explain that, when he built the platform, he had no idea of using it to pry into his neighbor's affairs. In fact, there wasn't any neighbor there then, for Mr. Fairholt had stopped coming to the cottage. That particular tree was the best one to build in, because it was different from the others and the trunk divided into three branches quite low down, making a sort of tripod, if that's the word. The tree is quite a little ways from our house and about ten feet from the hedge and opposite the end of the cottage porch. Between the hedge and the cottage there is just room for a driveway to the tiny stable at the back, so that from the platform to the cottage the distance isn't much over twenty feet I suppose. There are six windows on that side of the cottage, and from where I sat I could have looked right into them all, if it hadn't been for the shades and curtains. The blinds were open at the upper windows, but the shades were pulled all the way down, and I concluded that those rooms were not being used. Downstairs the shades were raised half-way, but muslin curtains hung behind them across the windows. Once when the breeze stirred the curtains at the front window, I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be the brass knob of a bedstead.
What I had hoped when I climbed up there, was to discover evidence that would be reassuring to Aunt Myra, who was really in a terrible state of nerves. Perhaps, I had thought, I might see a harmless old gentle man twiddling his thumbs, for, of course, I didn't accept that story about the strait-jacket. I didn't believe that crazy folks in strait-jackets were taken around the country on trains. But nobody came to the windows and nothing stirred about the house. Once I thought I heard low voices, but even that was doubtful. So, after a while, I really did settle down to read, and had forgotten all about the House in the Hedge, when a station carriage stopped in front of the gate and a stout, brisk, clean-shaven man, with a black bag, hurried up the short path. I hoped he wouldn't look up and see me, for I had an uneasy conscience and feared he would guess that I was spying. And he didn't. He crossed the porch and I could see him pushing the bell button. Evidently, though, the bell was out of order for, after digging at it a second time, he beat a tattoo on the door with his fist. Then the door opened, I heard someone say questioningly, “Doctor Lambert?” and he disappeared. After that I could hear the murmur of voices in the lower front room, but no words reached me, and for fear they might, I went back to my book. The doctor stayed a long time, fully a half-hour I suppose, and then bustled out again, and the station carriage went hurrying off toward the depot. By that time it was growing chilly and so I climbed down from the platform and went back to the house.
That night Aunt Myra saw personally that all the doors and windows were locked, and that all the chain-bolts were put up. She declared that she didn't expect to sleep a wink, while Elise was so nervous that we let her sleep in the front of the house in the Major's room. My room is on the side toward the House in the Hedge, and after I had put my light out, I went to the window and looked across. All the windows in the cottage were dark, except those of the lower front room, and the next morning Aunt Myra told me that the light had burned there all night. Aunt Myra had managed to sleep some, after all; by fits and starts, as she put it; while, as for Elise, I had the evidence of my own ears to assure me that she had not been very wakeful. I never slept better in my life, although I was conscious of having had a dream, in which the impassive man, who had captured Fairfax in the station, figured in some way. Peter had more news for us when he retured from the depot with the mail.
“They made a change yesterday next door,” he announced. “One of the women folks went away and a man came. They say she looked like she might be a nurse.”
“And the man was a doctor,” said I. “I saw him.”
“This was another man,” replied Peter. “He came before the doctor. I was goin' to tell you about the doctor. Sam, the agent, he up and asked the doctor, 'How did you find your patient, Doctor?' and Sam says the man turned on him like he wanted to bite his head off. 'It doesn't concern you, sir!' he says.”
“Served him right,” said I. “It was none of Sam's business.” Then I remembered the platform and had the grace to blush.
“Well,” chuckled Peter, “he didn't learn much, anyway.”
“What was the other man like, the one who came before the doctor?” I asked.
“Well, miss, they said he was a big solemn sort of a man as looked like he might be an undertaker.”
Aunt Myra shivered.
“I shall write to your father at once,” she said. “He ought to know what's going on here.”
“Then he will know more than we do,” I said. “What is going on, auntie?”
She refused to answer me, though, and went on into the library and sat down resolutely at the desk. But before she had found paper, the grocer's boy drove in to get the order, and Aunt Myra went out to talk to him. I didn't have anything better to do, so I went too. After she'd given the order she asked:
“Do you know who has taken the House in the Hedge, Tommy?”
Aunt Myra always calls a boy Tommy, when she doesn't know his right name. This boy looked as though he wanted to resent it, but didn't dare to.
“Name's Tully,” he said. “I was jest there.”
“Weren't you afraid?” I asked.
“Afraid of what?”
“Why, they say there's a crazy man there.”
“Huh! I ain't scared. Besides, he ain't really crazy. He got hurt in a accident, and 's just sort of dippy.”
“Did you see him?”
“No'm, but Bill Taylor told me. He clerks in the drugstore and they was down there this morning for medicine.”
“What sort of an accident was it?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he answered cheerfully. “But I guess he got a crack on the cocoa.”
“Got what?” demanded Aunt Myra bewilderedly. I translated.
“Then—then you don't think he is violent?” she asked.
“Who? Him? No'm, he's all right; wouldn't hurt a fly; couldn't if he wanted to, 'cause they keep him tied to his downy. Anyway, that's what I heard. Mr. Burnham told me to tell you he had some fine asparagus to-day. Want some?”
“Are they large stalks?”
“I dunno. Yes'm, I guess so.”
“Then you may bring two bunches,” said Aunt Myra, “And tell Mr. Burnham that, if it isn't good, I shall send it back.”
After Tommy had gone, Aunt Myra and I talked it over and decided that it wasn't advisable to worry the Major. After all, it was probably as the boy had said, and the patient next door was quite harmless. Auntie cheered up and even Elise stopped going around with her face a yard long and didn't jump every time a door slammed. As for me, I rather lost interest in the mysterious occupants of the cottage for the time. In the afternoon Frank and David and Johnny arrived with the carriages and the horses and the big touring car and I had Peter drive me down to the depot to watch them unload. All the horses had come through nicely, except Grover, the Major's riding horse. He had bruised his leg somehow and David took him around to the vet's. My own mare, Whirligig, was as fit as a fiddle, and I was out on her the next morning before breakfast. After that, we settled down into the regular summer routine. I rode in the morning, and in the afternoon Aunt Myra and I went out, either in the cabriolet or the car. I preferred the car myself, although, as Aunt Myra will never let Frank go faster than twelve miles an hour, it isn't very exciting. One morning I went over to the Country Club for golf, but folks hadn't begun to come yet and I found no one there I knew and so had to play around by my lonesome, which isn't much fun and is bad for your game. Our first week at Eastmeadows ended up with two days of rain, and I had a veritable writing debauch and caught up with all my correspondents. I wrote to Larry at Red Top and told him all about the House in the Hedge, and, of course, I made it as interesting as I could, even to stretching the exact truth a point or two. And then, on Tuesday, it cleared up and I had my first real adventure of the summer.