A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Inn at the Red Oak

L >> Latta Griswold >> The Inn at the Red Oak




"Nothing, nothing; don't make a noise. I happened to be awake, and
hearing footsteps under the window, I got up and looked out. I saw some
one moving along close to the wall until he got to the bowling alley. He
opened the door and disappeared."

"The door's locked," exclaimed Dan. "Who was it?"

"He had a key, whoever he was then. To tell the truth, Dan, it looked
like the Marquis; though I couldn't swear to him. I certainly saw
some one."

"You have not been asleep and dreaming, have you?" asked his friend,
rubbing his eyes.

"I should say not. I'm going down to investigate; thought you'd like to
come along."

"So I shall," said Dan, jumping out of bed and beginning to dress. "If
you really have seen any one, I'll wager you are right in thinking it's
the old marquis. That is just the sort of thing I have imagined him
being up to. What he wants though in the old part of the house is more
than I can think. He has pestered me to get back there ever since I
showed him over the place the day he arrived. Are you ready? Bring a
candle, and some matches. Ill just take my gun along on general
principles. I don't care how soon we get rid of the Marquis de
Boisdhyver, but I shouldn't exactly like to shoot him out with a load of
buckshot in his hide."

Tom stood waiting with his boots in hand. Dan went to his bureau and took
out his father's old pistol, that had done duty in the West India trade
years ago, when pirates were not romantic memories but genuine menaces.

"Sh!" whispered Dan as he opened the door. "Let's blow out the candle.
It's moonlight, and we will be safer without it. Be careful as you go
down stairs not to wake Mother and Nancy."

Tom blew out the candle and slipped the end into his pocket, as he
tiptoed after Dan down the stairs. At every step the old boards seemed to
creak as though in pain. As they paused breathless half-way down on the
landing, they heard no sound save the loud ticking of the clock in the
hall below and the gentle whispering of the breeze without. The moon
gave light enough had they needed it, but each of them could have found
his way through every nook and corner of the Inn in darkness as well as
in broad day-light. They crept down the short flight from the landing,
paused and listened at the doors of Mrs. Frost's and Nancy's chambers,
and then slipped noiselessly into the bar where the logs still glowed on
the hearth.

"Shall we," asked Tom in a low tone, "go down the corridor or
around outside?"

"Best outside," Dan whispered. "If we go down the corridor we are like to
frighten him if he is the Marquis, or get a bullet in our gizzards if he
is not. Should he be inside, he'll have a light and we can find just
where he is. I have a notion that it's the Marquis and that he'll be in
the Oak Parlour. We'd better creep along the porch."

Very softly he unlocked the door, and stepped outside. Tom was close
behind him. They crept stealthily along next the wall well within the
shadow of the roof, pausing at every window to peer through the
cracks of the shutters. But all were dark. As they turned the corner
of the porch at the end of the main portion of the inn from which
the north wing extended, Dan suddenly put his hand back and stopped
Tom. "Wait," he breathed, "there's a light in the Oak Parlour. Stay
here, while I peek in."

With gun in hand he crept up to the nearest window of the Oak Parlour.
The heavy shutters were closed, but between the crack made by the warping
of the wood, he could distinguish a streak of golden light. He waited a
moment; and, then at the risk of alarming the intruder within, carefully
tried the shutter. To his great satisfaction it yielded and swung slowly,
almost noiselessly, back upon its hinges; the inside curtains were drawn;
but a slight gap had been left. Peering in through this, Dan found he
could get a view of a small section of the interior,--the end of the
great Dorsetshire cabinet on the farther side of the room and a part of
the wall. Before the cabinet, bending over its shelf, stood the familiar
form of the Marquis de Boisdhyver, apparently absorbed in a minute
examination of the carving. But Dan's attention was quickly diverted from
the figure of the old Frenchman, for by his side, also engaged in a
similar examination of the cabinet, stood Nancy. For a moment he watched
them with intent interest, but as he could not discover what so absorbed
them he slipped back to Tom, who was waiting at the turn of the porch.

"It's the Marquis," he whispered in his friend's ear.

"What is he up to?"

"I don't know. Apparently he is examining the old cabinet. But, Tom,
Nancy is with him and as absorbed in the thing as he is. Look!" he
exclaimed suddenly. "They've blown out the light."

As he spoke, he pointed to the window, now dark. "Come," he said, making
an instant decision, "let's hide ourselves in the hall and see if they
come back."

"But Nancy--?"

"No time for talk now. Come along."

They ran back along the porch, slipped into the bar, and thence into the
hall. Dan motioned to Tom to conceal himself in a closet beneath the
stairway, and he himself slipped behind the clock. Hardly were they
safely hidden thus, than they heard a fumble at the latch of the door
into the bar. Then the door was pushed open, and the Marquis stepped
cautiously in the hall. He paused for a moment, listening intently. Then
he held open the door a little wider; and another figure, quite enveloped
by a long black coat, entered after him. They silently crossed the hall
to the door of Nancy's chamber. This the Marquis opened; then bowed low,
as his companion passed within. They were so close to him that Dan could
have reached out his hand and touched them. As Nancy entered her room,
Dan distinctly heard Monsieur de Boisdhyver whisper, "More success next
time, mademoiselle!"

There was no reply.

The Marquis turned, stole softly up the stairs, and in a moment Dan heard
the click of the latch as he closed his door. He slipped out from his
hiding place, and whispered to Tom.

In a few moments they were back again in their bedroom.

"Heavens! man, what do you make of it?" asked Tom.

"Make of it!" exclaimed Dan, "I don't know what to make of it. It's
incomprehensible. What the devil is that old rascal after, and how has he
bewitched Nance?"

"Perhaps," suggested Tom, more for Nancy's sake than because he believed
what he was saying, "it is simply that he is curious, and knowing that
you don't want him in the old part of the Inn, he has persuaded Nancy to
take him there at night."

"Nonsense! that couldn't possibly account for such secrecy and caution.
No, Tom, he has some deviltry on foot, and we must find out what it is."

"That should be simple enough. Ask Nance."

"Ah!" exclaimed his friend, "you don't know Nance as well as I. You may
be sure he has sworn her to secrecy, and Nance would never betray a
promise whether she had been wise in making it or not."

"Then go to the old man himself and demand an explanation."

"He'd lie ..."

"Turn him out."

"I could do that, of course. But I think I would rather find out what he
is up to. It has something to do with the old cabinet in the Oak Parlour.
I'll find out the mystery of that if I have to hack the thing into a
thousand pieces. What I hate, is Nance's being mixed up in it."

"We can watch again."

"Yes; we'll do that. In the meanwhile, I am going to investigate that old
ark myself. There's something about, something concealed in it, that he
wants to get. When I took him in there the day after he came, he
couldn't keep his eyes off it. If you can get Nance out of the way
tomorrow afternoon, I'll send the Marquis off with Jesse for that
long-talked-of visit to Mondy Port; and I'll give Jesse instructions not
to get him back before dark. And while they are away, I'll investigate
the Oak Parlour myself. Can you get Nance off?"

"I might ask her to go and look over the Red Farm with me. She might like
the walk through the woods. I could easily manage to be away for three or
four hours."

"Good! You may think it odd, Tom, that I should seem to distrust Nance. I
don't distrust her, but there has always been a mystery about her. Mother
knows a good deal more than she has even been willing to tell to me, or
even to Nance, I guess. I know nothing except that she is of French
extraction, and I have sometimes wondered since she has been so often
with the old Marquis this winter, if he didn't know something about her.
It flashed over me to-night as I saw them in that deserted room. Whatever
is a-foot, I am going to get at the bottom of it. We will watch again
to-morrow night. I heard him whisper as he left Nance, 'More success next
time!' This sort of thing may have been going on for a month."

They undressed again, and Dan put his gun away in his bureau. "We may
have use for that yet, Tommy," he said. "It would do me good, after what
I have seen to-night, to put a bit of lead into the Marquis de Boisdhyver
as a memento of his so delightful sojourn at _L'Auberge au Chene Rouge_."



CHAPTER IV

THE OAK PARLOUR


The two young men felt self-conscious and ill-at-ease the next morning at
the breakfast table, but apparently their embarrassment was neither
shared nor observed. Mrs. Frost had kept her room, but Nancy and the
Marquis were in their accustomed places; the old gentleman, chattering
away in a fashion that demanded few answers and no attention; Nancy,
speaking only to ask necessary questions as to their wants at table and
meeting the occasional glances of Dan and Tom without suspicion. Tom
could scarcely realize in that bright morning light, that only seven or
eight hours earlier he and his friend had spied upon their companions
prowling about in the abandoned wing of the inn.

Monsieur de Boisdhyver assented readily enough when Dan proposed that
Jesse should take him that day to Monday Port. He was curious to see the
old town, he said, having heard much of it from his friend; much also
from his celebrated compatriot, the Marquis de Lafayette.

Tom took occasion during the discussion to ask Nancy if she would walk
across the woods with him after dinner, that he might pay a visit to the
Red Farm and see that all was going well in the absence of his parents.
He felt that the tones of his voice were charged with unwonted
significance; but Nancy accepted the invitation with a simple expression
of pleasure. When Mrs. Frost was informed of the plans for the day, she
came near thwarting Dan's carefully laid schemes. She had counted upon
Jesse to do her bidding and had, she declared, arranged that Nancy should
help her put together the silken patches of the quilt upon which she was
perennially engaged. Her foster-daughter's glance of displeasure at this
was tinder to the old lady's temper, and Dan entered most opportunely.

"So!" she was exclaiming, "I am always the one to be sacrificed when it
is a question of some one's else pleasure."

"Mother, Mother," Dan protested good-naturedly, as he bent over to kiss
her good-morning, "aren't you ever willing to spend a day alone with me?"

"Danny dear," cried the old lady, as she began to smile again, "you know
I'm always willing. Of course, if Tom wants Nancy to go, the quilt can
wait; it has waited long enough, in all conscience. There, my dear," she
added, turning to the girl, "order an early dinner, and since you are
going to the Red Farm, you might as well come back by the dunes and
enquire for old Mrs. Meath. We have neglected that poor woman shamefully
this winter."

"Yes, Mother,--if we have time."

"Take the time, my dear," added Mrs. Frost sharply.

"Yes, Mother."

The Marquis started off with Jesse at eleven o'clock, as eager for the
excursion as a boy; and by half-past twelve Nancy and Tom had set out
across the woods for the Red Farm. Dan was impatient for them to be gone.
As soon as he saw them disappear in the woods back of the Inn, he made
excuses to his mother, and hurried to the north wing. He found the door
of the bowling alley securely locked, which convinced him that either the
Marquis or Nancy had taken the key from the closet of his chamber. Having
satisfied himself, he went directly to the Oak Parlour.

It was cold and dark there. He opened the shutters and drew back the
curtains, letting in the cheerful midday sun, which revealed all the
antique, sombre beauty of the room, of the soft landscapes and the
exquisite carving of the Dorsetshire cabinet. But Dan was in no mood to
appreciate the old-world beauty of the Oak Parlour. In that cabinet he
felt sure there was something concealed which would reveal the mystery of
the Marquis's stay at the inn and possibly the nature of his influence
over Nancy. Whatever had been the object of the Marquis's search, it had
not been found: his parting words to Nancy the night before showed that.

Dan took a long look at the cabinet first, estimating the possibility of
its containing secret drawers. Hidden compartments in old cabinets,
secret chambers in old houses, subterranean passageways leading to
dungeons in romantic castles, had been the material of many a tale that
Dan and Tom had told each other as boys. For years their dearest
possession had been a forbidden copy of "_The Mysteries of Udolpho_"
which they read in the mow of the barn lying in the dusty hay. However
unusual, the situation was real; and he felt himself confronted by as
hard a problem as he had ever tried to solve in fiction. He knew
something about carpentry, so that his first step, after examining the
drawers and cupboards and finding them empty, was to take careful
measurements of the entire cabinet, particularly of the thicknesses of
its sides, back, and partitions. It proved a piece of furniture of
absolutely simple and straightforward construction. After long
examination and careful soundings he came to the conclusion that a secret
drawer was an impossibility.

Suddenly an idea occurred to him and he returned to the sitting-room.
"Mother," he said, "I have been looking over the old cabinet in the Oak
Parlour, thinking perhaps that I would have it brought into the
dining-room. I wonder, if by chance, there are any secret drawers in it.

"Secret drawers? What an idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Frost.

"You never knew of any did you?"

"No.... Stop, let me think. Upon my word, I think there was something of
the sort, but it has been so long ago I have almost forgotten."

"Try to remember, do!" urged Dan, striving to repress his excitement.

"It was not a secret drawer, but there were little hidden
cubby-holes--three or four of them. I remember, now, your father once
showed me how they opened. They were little places where the Roman
Catholics used to hide the pages of their mass-books and such like in the
days of persecution in England."

"Yes, yes," said Dan, "that makes it awfully interesting. Did father
ever find anything in them?"

"No, I think not; but, dear me, it was over thirty years ago we brought
that old cabinet from England,--long before you were born, Dan."

"Can you remember how to open the secret places? I have been looking it
over, but I can't see where they can be, much less how to get into them."

"There were four of them, I think; all in the carving on the front, in
the eyes of the lions it seems to me, and in the lion's mouth, or in the
leaves somewhere. One spring that opened them I recollect, was under the
ledge of the shelf, another at the back of the cabinet and,--but no, I
really can't remember where the others were."

Dan was impatient to try his luck at finding them, and hurried back to
the Oak Parlour. He ran his fingers many times under the ledge of the
shelf before he heard the click of a tiny spring, and, looking up, saw
the lion's eyelid wink and slowly open. With an exclamation of
satisfaction, he thrust his fingers into the tiny aperture, felt
carefully about, and was chagrined to find it empty. "More success next
time, _monsieur le marquis_!" he muttered.

At length he found the spring that released the eyelid on the carved lion
on the other side of the panel. He glanced into the little opening and,
to his delight, saw the end of a bit of paper tucked away there. He dug
it out with the blade of his pocket knife and unfolded it. It was yellow
and brittle with age, covered with writing in a fine clear hand. But he
was annoyed to discover, as he bent closely over to read it, that it was
written in French, still worse, part of the paper was missing, for one
side of it was ragged as if it had been torn in two.

Remembering with relief, that Pembroke had acquired a smattering of
French at Dr. Watson's school for the sons of gentlemen, he put the paper
carefully away in his pocket to wait for Tom's assistance in deciphering
it. Then he set to work to find the missing half.

He fumbled about at the back of the cabinet for a spring that would
release another secret cubby-hole, and was rewarded at last by an
unexpected click, and the seemingly solid jaws of the lion fell apart
about half-an-inch. But the little aperture which they revealed was
empty. Further experiment at last discovered the fourth hiding place, but
this also contained nothing.

It occurred to him then that the Marquis had already discovered the other
half of the paper, and like himself was searching for a missing portion.
As he stood thinking over the problem, he suddenly noticed that the room
was in deep shadow, and realized that the sun had set over the ridge of
Lovel's Woods. The Marquis would soon be returning. Carefully closing the
four openings in the carving he pushed the old cabinet back against the
wall, closed the shutters and drew the curtains. Then with a last glance
to see that all was as he found it, he went out and closed the door the
precious bit of paper in his inside pocket.

He went directly to Mrs. Frost's parlour. "Mother," he said, "please
don't tell anyone that I have been in the north wing today. I have good
reasons which I will explain to you before long. Now, I shall be deeply
offended if you give the slightest hint."

"Gracious! Dan, what is all this mystery about?"

"You will never know, mother, unless you trust me absolutely. Mind! not
a word to Tom, Nancy or the Marquis."

"Very well, Danny. You know I am as safe with a secret as though it had
been breathed into the grave."

Dan did not quite share his mother's confidence in her own discretion,
but he knew he could count on her devotion to him to keep her silent even
where curiosity and the love of talk would render her indiscreet. He also
knew, and had often deplored it, that fond as she was of Nancy she was
not inclined to take the girl into her confidence.

Having said all he dared to his mother, Dan went to his room and
carefully locked up the mysterious paper. He returned to the first
floor just as the Marquis and Jesse drove up in the sleigh to the door
of the inn.

Monsieur de Boisdhyver was enthusiastic about all that he had seen--the
headquarters of General Washington, the house in which the Marquis de
Lafayette had slept, the old mill in the parade, the fort at the Narrows,
the shipping, the quaint old streets.... "But, O Monsieur Frost," he
exclaimed, "the weariness that is now so delightful! How soundly shall I
sleep to-night!"

Dan smiled grimly as he assured his guest of his sympathy for a good
night and a sound sleep; thinking to himself, however, that if the
Marquis walked, he would not walk unattended. He had no intention of
trusting too implicitly to that loudly proclaimed fatigue.



CHAPTER V

THE WALK THROUGH THE WOODS


While Dan Frost was hunting for the secret places of the old cabinet, Tom
and Nancy were picking their way across the snowcovered paths of Lovel's
Woods to the Red Farm. These woods were a striking feature in the
landscape of the open coast country around Deal. Rising somewhat
precipitously almost out of the sea, three ridges extended far back into
the country, with deep ravines between. They were thickly wooded, for the
most part with juniper and pine. In some places the descent to the
ravines was sheer and massed with rocks heaped there by a primeval
glacier; in other parts they dipped more gently to the little valleys,
which were threaded with many a path worn smooth by the dwellers on the
eastern shore. Nearly two miles might be saved in a walk from the Inn to
Squire Pembroke's Farm by going across the Woods rather than by the
encircling road.

As they were used to the frozen country Tom and Nancy preferred the
shorter if more difficult route. They had often found their way together
through the tangled thickets of the Woods or along the shores of the
Strathsey River, in season accompanied by dog and gun hunting fox and
rabbit or partridge and wild duck. In Tom's company Nancy seemed to
forget her shyness and would talk freely enough of her interests and her
doings. He had always been fond of her, though until lately she had
seemed to him hardly more than a child. This winter, as so frequently he
had watched her sitting in the firelight listening to the old Marquis's
playing and dreaming perhaps as he also dreamed, he realized that she was
growing up. A new beauty had come into her face and slender form, her
great dark eyes seemed to hold deeper interests, she was no longer in the
world of childhood. The mystery enveloping her origin, which for some
reason Mrs. Frost had never chosen to dispel, gave a certain piquancy to
the interest and affection Tom felt for her. In the imaginative tales he
had been fond of weaving for his own amusement, Nancy would frequently
figure, revealed at last as the child of noble parents, as a princess
doomed by some strange fate to exile. He thought of these things as from
time to time he glanced back at her, holding aside some branch that
crossed the path or giving her his hand to help her over a boulder in the
way. The red scarf about her neck, red cap on her dark hair, flashing in
and out of the tangled pathway against the background of the snow-clad
woods, gave a bright note of colour to the scene.

They were obliged for the most part to walk in single file until the last
ridge descended over a mass of rocks to the marshes along Beaver Pond.
Then having given her his hand to help her down, he kept hold of it as
they went along the free path to the open meadows. The feeling of Nancy's
cool little hand in his gave Tom an odd and conscious sense of pleasure.

"You have been uncommonly silent, Nance, even for you," he said at last.

"Oh, I'm always silent, Tom," she replied. "It is because I am stupid and
have nothing to say."

"Nonsense, my dear, you always have a lot to say to me. But you are
forever reading, thinking ... what's it all about?"

"Oh, I think, Tom, because I have little else to do; but my thoughts
aren't often worth the telling. In truth there is no one, not even you,
who particularly cares to hear them. Tom," she said, "I am restless and
discontented. Sometimes I wish I were far away from the Inn at the Red
Oak and Deal, from all that I know,--even from you and Dan."

Pembroke suddenly realized that he could not laugh at these
fancies, as he had so often done, and dismiss as if they were the
vagaries of a child.

"Why are you restless and discontented, Nancy?" he asked seriously.

"Aren't you ever?" she questioned for reply. "Don't you ever get weary
with the emptiness of it all, the everlasting round, the dullness? Don't
you ever want to get away from Deal, and know people and see things and
be somebody?"

"I do that, Nance. I mean to go as soon as I am a lawyer. I won't poke
about Deal long after that, nor Monday Port either. I mean to set up in
Coventry."

"Coventry!" exclaimed the girl with an accent of disdain. "That is just a
provincial town like the Port, only a little more important because it is
the capital of the state."

"Being the capital means a lot," protested Tom in defense of his
ambitions of which for the first time he felt ashamed. "Men are sent to
Congress from there. Nance, girl, ours is a wonderful country; we are
making a great nation."

"Some people may be. None of us are, Tom. I wonder at you more than I do
at Dan, for you have had more advantages. As for me, I am only a girl;
there's nothing for girls but to sit and sew, and prepare meals for men
to eat, and wait until some one comes and chooses to marry them. Then
they go off and do the same thing some place else."

"But what have you to complain of, Nancy? you have the kindest brother, a
good mother, a comfortable home...."

"The kindest brother, yes. But you know Mrs. Frost is not my mother. She
doesn't care for me and I can't care for her as if she were. I have never
loved any one but Dan."

"You can't help loving Dan," said Tom, thinking of his good friend.
"But then, little girl, you love me too." And he pressed the hand in
his warmly.

Nancy quickly withdrew her hand. "I am not a little girl. I have been
grown up in lots of ways ever so long."

"But you love me?"

"I like you. Oh, Tom, the life we all lead is so futile. If I weren't a
girl, I should go away."

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.