Tranquillity House/Chapter 1

 

CHAPTER I

CONNIE FALLS DOWNSTAIRS–AND PUTS HER FOOT IN IT

UP to the day when Connie fell downstairs at Tranquillity House, and broke her ankle, I had never connected anything strange or mysterious with the place or with Uncle Benham. Her accident changed all that. From the moment she put her foot through the wainscot on the lower landing—things began to happen!

But perhaps it would be just as well to explain at once how Connie came to tumble downstairs at Tranquillity House and how we came to be there at all. For old Mr. Benham isn’t our real uncle, though we have called him that ever since we were babies, when we moved next door to him in the new little house right close to the Benham grounds.

It was before Connie remembered anything much, as she was only two and a half and I was about four when we left Philadelphia a dozen years ago, with Father and Mother, and moved out to Penryd in New Jersey. As every one knows, that is a dear little old fashioned village sitting cozily on the banks of tiny, lovely Sawmill River. Father had been lucky enough to find a delightful little new house rather outside the town itself, built right alongside of the beautiful Benham place, with no other near neighbors. In fact, the ground had been a part of the Benham place, but old Mr. Benham had become tired of living all alone out on Sawmill Road and thought that if he built an attractive little house near by, he might acquire some nice neighbors. Father heard of the place through a mutual friend, and that was how we came to live here.

Well, naturally, Connie and I hadn’t been in the new house long before we began to tumble over the low stone fence that separated ours from the big, park-like grounds of the Benham place and toddle about in there. Mother, of course, didn’t realize it, as she was too busy getting settled, or she would have forbidden our trespassing. But we didn’t know any better, as we’d always lived in the city before that, and thought, I guess, that all country spaces belonged to everybody. Anyhow, the second day, as we were toddling along together down one of the beautiful garden paths (I remember it was the box garden, where the most wonderful box plants grow—some more than a hundred years old!) we suddenly came upon the dearest old gentleman, who acted quite bowled over for a minute to see two tiny girls, perfect strangers, calmly making themselves at home in his grounds.

“Hel-lo!” he said, sort of startled, and we both said, “Hello!” and Connie toddled off to pick some nasturtiums that she liked the looks of. Something about our calmness must have amused him, for he suddenly sat down on a bench and chuckled and lifted me to his knee and asked our names. I told him I was Elspeth Curtis and that was my sister Constance and we lived in the little house beyond the wall.

“I like this place,” I told him. “I’m glad we moved into a park with a nice red house in the middle!”

He laughed another chuckling laugh at that and said: “Thee must come often to the nice red house. And the park belongs to thee too, and the little sister also, as often as thee wishes to play in it!”

I wondered very much, I remember, that he should call me “thee,” and didn’t quite understand it. But at that time I had never before met a real Quaker, and, as I later discovered, Mr. Benham was a “Friend.” He often reminds me of the statues and pictures of William Penn, with his long, straight white hair and his beautiful bright blue eyes and the broad flat hat he wears.

He called on Father and Mother that evening and asked them to allow us children to run in and out of his place as freely as we pleased and regard it as a second home. He said he dearly loved children and was so lonely that it did him good to see us about. This is how it came about that we practically grew up at the Benham place. Old Beulah, the colored cook in the kitchen, simply adored us, especially Connie, who could always wheedle a piece of hot gingerbread from her, no matter how cranky she was; and Beulah was (and still is) desperately cross at times.

Tomkins too, who is Mr. Benham’s valet and butler, would do anything in the world for us. But we neither of us ever liked Mr. Cookson, the secretary, a long, lanky man, and always grouchy, who acted as if he was too busy to notice us—not that we wanted him to, for we detested him so that we rarely came to the house when he was about. But he was often ill with indigestion and in bed for days, or else off on long business trips, so we never saw much of him.

I haven’t yet said anything about the house itself, but I must describe it now, as it is the most fascinating place that two children ever had to grow up in. It is big and rambling and built of red brick trimmed with white wood-work—white shutters, with crescent moons in the top of each, and a four-pillared portico, also of white, that reaches above the second story. Off at the back are a number of ells and additions, which make it rather hard work to find your way about in it at first. Inside, it is all white woodwork, with beautiful carvings, great open fireplaces, and the most wonderful mahogany heirlooms for furniture that I have ever seen. It is almost like a museum. Mr. Benham said that his father's great grandfather left Pennsylvania and settled here way back in the days of William Penn, because the climate suited his health better. He built the house and laid out the grounds, and his descendants have lived here ever since. Mr. Benham feels it a great pity that when he dies there will be no descendants to leave it to, as he is the last of them all and has never married.

One of the rooms is a great library, with shelves of books reaching clear to the ceiling, and here Connie and I have browsed all our lives. We hardly needed to belong to the circulating library in the village, as we could find almost everything we wanted here. All over the house are portraits of his Quaker ancestors, most of them in the Friends’ costume. One of them even married a nephew of William Penn and had a wedding in this very house, so he said.

It wasn’t long before he asked us to stop calling him “Mr. Benham” and say “Uncle Azariah” instead. Connie couldn’t quite man age “Azariah,” with her baby tongue, but made it “Uncle Benham.” From this we both settled into calling him “Uncle Benham,” and, as time went on, we quite forgot that we weren’t his very own nieces, and I believe he did, too.

Years before, when I was eight and Connie six, we began to go to school in the village. As it was at least three quarters of a mile away, Mother and Daddy were a good deal worried about our getting back and forth. Mother began by walking there with us and going for us every day (we didn’t have a car then), but Uncle Benham found it out and insisted that his carriage should be used to take us. He said the horses needed exercise and ought to have an excuse for being taken out. He often drove with us, and we felt pretty fine rolling up to school every day behind that handsome team. On Sunday he would frequently take us to Friends’ Meeting in the fine old Quaker meeting-house on the other side of the village, overlooking the valley. Connie and I soon got used to sitting still through that quiet hour, when sometimes no one said a single word. But we always liked it best when “the spirit moved” Uncle Benham to speak.

So in a hundred ways he came to be woven in with most of the things of our lives. And when we weren’t to be found at home, we could always be located somewhere over at “Tranquillity House,” as Uncle Benham’s place is called, from the word “Tranquillity” in old English letters over the fan-light of the front door. As we grew older, we almost preferred it to our own home, dear as that always is and will be. But we found we could study better in Uncle Benham's library, where everything was so quiet (especially after Baby Ralph grew old enough to make our house so rackety!), and Uncle Benham was always at leisure to help us over the hard places in our arithmetic, and, later, in our Latin and algebra.

For a week before Connie had her accident, Uncle Benham had been confined to his room with a severe cold and rheumatism. It was partly this that accounted for one reason that led to the accident. He was still confined to his room that afternoon, and Mr. Cookson was away for several days. Connie and I came over to study our natural science and look up some notes in the library. We stopped in the kitchen on the way, and Beulah gave us some hot cookies. Then we ran up to see Uncle Benham, who was sitting in his room reading by the open fire.

Before we went down to study, he said to Connie: “Will thee do me the great favor, Connie dear, to bring me the big ledger that is in my office? I wish to look up something that is rather urgent. Cookson is away in Philadelphia, and I have just sent Tomkins to the village on an errand, or I would not ask it. I hope thee won’t find it too heavy!”

Connie laughed at the idea of finding a ledger too heavy, when she’s been doing all sorts of stunts in the gymnasium, and ran downstairs to Uncle Benham's office, which is a small room off the library. She came back carrying a big book; but when Uncle Benham saw it, he exclaimed: “Oh, this is too bad! Thee has brought me up the day-book instead of the ledger. They look alike and are in the same rack. Never thee mind, child. Another time will do just as well!”

But Connie jumped up and said she was so sorry to have made such a stupid mistake and took it away, to get the right one. The next thing we knew, there was the most awful sound, as if a couple of chairs were tobogganing down the staircase. Uncle Benham started to get up, but sank back quickly with the pain of his rheumatism. But I rushed out to the head of the beautiful curving staircase, and there at the bottom landing lay Connie, all mixed up somehow with the unwieldy book that was sprawled open on top of her. She was moaning softly, and when I got down to her she whispered: “Oh my ankle! I’ve hurt it awfully. Don’t let Uncle know!”

“What nonsense!” I cried, not realizing for a moment that she was hurt so badly. “As if he didn’t hear you coming down like a ton of coal!” But just then she fainted away from pain, so of course she couldn’t answer.

By that time, Beulah had come hurrying out from the kitchen, for she’d heard the racket. But the only thing she did when she saw Connie was to throw her apron over her head and rock back and forth and groan. So she wasn’t much help. I was pretty nearly distracted—the only able-bodied person who had any sense left, apparently, and Connie lying there unconscious, with that big book spread all over her like a cover.

“Help me lift her up!” I cried to Beulah; but she only rocked back and forth harder than ever.

“Oh, she’s daid—she’s daid! O Lawd, hab mussy on us!” she howled.

But suddenly the quiet voice of Uncle Benham floated down the stairs, just as calm as if there were nothing the matter.

“Stop that performance, Beulah!” it hardly more than murmured. “Put down your apron and help Elspeth to lift her sister.”

I never saw such an amazing change as came over Beulah at the sound of his voice. Down came the apron, and, with a “Yas, suh, Mr. Benham!'” she bent and lifted Connie in her strong arms.

“Bring her up here and lay her on my couch,” the calm voice went on. And Beulah strode upstairs with Connie in her arms like a baby, and me trailing behind.

Connie came to by that time, and Uncle Benham directed me to telephone for the doctor at once. Fortunately I was able to catch him just before he left his office, and he was up there fifteen minutes later.

During that time, Uncle Benham directed that Beulah and I open the room across the hall, light a fire there, and prepare the bed for Connie. When I asked if she hadn’t better be taken home, he said: “No, thee must run over later and tell your mother that we will keep Connie here while she is laid up. Thee has enough trouble at home without this extra burden.”

This was true, as Father was just getting a wee bit better after a severe attack of influenza, and Mother was worn out with nursing him and trying to get Baby Ralph through his teething besides.

Well, we got Connie into bed in the room across the hall, and the doctor set her ankle,—and a pretty painful performance it was, and Uncle Benham got a trained nurse from Philadelphia in the course of the next two hours. He declared that Connie was to remain where she was till she was well, because it was his fault, anyway, that she had the fall, since she was carrying the big book at his request, and he was going to see that she got over it as comfortably as possible.

After the excitement was all over, I went downstairs to put away the book, which no one had yet had time to pick up from where it lay near the foot of the stairs. The stairway in Tranquillity House is different from ordinary ones. It sweeps down from the upper floor in a beautiful wide curve—one of those exquisite white stairways with mahogany railing and mahogany treads. Just before it reaches the bottom, it spreads out into a landing, and, opening on this landing, a door at the left goes into the kitchen region. Right in front is a beautiful semicircular window with a low seat. Then, at the turn, the stair goes on three more steps to the bottom.

It was on this landing that Connie was lying after she fell. But as I went to get the book, which some one had stood against the wainscot below the window-seat when we picked her up, I received the shock of my life! There was a great hole in the wainscot and a piece of splintered wood driven right in—at first I couldn’t think by what, till I realized that it must have been by poor Connie’s foot, and doubtless it was striking this so hard that had broken her ankle.

Of course, I couldn’t resist the impulse to examine the thing. The white-painted wood was a rather thin piece, and evidently grown brittle with age. There was a big space left inside under the window-seat, so I put in my hand to pull out the piece of wood that had been broken in. Groping about for it, my hand struck something that felt queer—like some sort of wooden box, with something rough around the edge. This seemed very strange! Before I had time to think whether I was doing anything out of the way, I ran to the library, where I knew Uncle Benham kept a little electric torch, brought it back, turned it into the hole, and also got as much of one eye as I could into the opening.

And what I saw there is the cause of all the curious things that happened afterward at Tranquillity House!