The Girl from Sunset Ranch by AMY BELL MARLOWE (best ereader for manga .TXT) 📖

somebody there.

Nor was she entirely unafraid now. The mysterious sounds had got upon her nerves. Whether they were supernatural, or natural, she was determined to solve the mystery here and now.

Half-way down the stair she halted. The sound of the ghostly step was at the far end of the hall. But it would now return, and the girl could see (her eyes having become used to the dim light) more than half of the passage.

There was the usual rustling sound at the end of the passage. Then the steady "step--put" approached.

CHAPTER XVI (FORGOTTEN)

 

From the stair-well some little light streamed up into the darkness of the ghost-walk. And into this dim radiance came a little old lady--her old-fashioned crimped hair an aureole of beautiful gray--leaning lightly on an ebony crutch, which in turn tapped the floor in accompaniment to her clicking step--

"Step--put; step--put; step--put."

Then she was out of the range of Helen's vision again. But she turned and came back--her silken skirts rustling, her crutch tapping in perfect time.

This was no ghost. Although slender--ethereal--almost bird-like in her motions--the little old lady was very human indeed. She had a pink flush in her cheeks, and her skin was as soft as velvet. Of course there were wrinkles; but they were beautiful wrinkles, Helen thought.

She wore black half-mitts of lace, and her old-fashioned gown was of delightfully soft, yet rich silk. The silk was brown--not many old ladies could have worn that shade of brown and found it becoming. Her eyes were bright--the unseen girl saw them sparkle as she turned her head, in that bird-like manner, from side to side.

She was a dear, doll-like old lady! Helen longed to hurry down the remaining steps and take her in her arms.

But, instead, she crept softly back to the head of the stairs, and slipped into her own room again. This was the mystery of the Starkweather mansion. The nightly exercise of this mysterious old lady was the foundation for the "ghost-walk." The maids of the household feared the supernatural; therefore they easily found a legend to explain the rustling step of the old lady with the crutch.

And all day long the old lady kept to her room. That room must be in the front of the house on this upper floor--shut away, it was likely, from the knowledge of most of the servants.

Mrs. Olstrom, of course, knew about the old lady--who she was--what she was. It was the housekeeper who looked after the simple wants of the mysterious occupant of the Starkweather mansion.

Helen wondered if Mr. Lawdor, the old butler, knew about the mystery? And did the Starkweathers themselves know?

The girl from the ranch was too excited and curious to go to sleep now. She had to remain right by her door, opened on a crack, and learn what would happen next.

For an hour at least she heard the steady stepping of the old lady. Then the crutch rapped out an accompaniment to her coming upstairs. She was humming softly to herself, too. Helen, crouched behind the door, distinguished the sweet, cracked voice humming a fragment of the old lullaby:

"Rock-a-by, baby, on the tree-top, When the wind blows, the cradle will rock, When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, Down will come baby----"

Thus humming, and the crutch tapping--a mere whisper of sound--the old lady rustled by Helen's door, on into the long corridor, and disappeared through some door, which closed behind her and smothered all further sound.

Helen went to bed; but she could not sleep--not at first. The mystery of the little old lady and her ghostly walk kept her eyes wide open and her brain afire for hours.

She asked question after question into the dark of the night, and only imagination answered. Some of the answers were fairly reasonable; others were as impossible as the story of Jack the Giant Killer.

Finally, however, Helen dropped asleep. She awoke at her usual hour--daybreak--and her eager mind began again asking questions about the mystery. She went down in her outdoor clothes for a morning walk, with the little old lady uppermost in her thoughts.

As usual, Mr. Lawdor was on the lookout for her. The shaky old man loved to have her that few minutes in his room in the early morning. Although he always presided over the dinner, with Gregson under him, the old butler seldom seemed to speak, or be spoken to. Helen understood that, like Mrs. Olstrom, Lawdor was a relic of the late owner--Mr. Starkweather's great-uncle's--household.

Cornelius Starkweather had been a bachelor. The mansion had descended to him from a member of the family who had been a family man. But that family had died young--wife and all--and the master had handed the old homestead over to Mr. Cornelius and had gone traveling himself--to die in a foreign land.

Once Helen had heard Lawdor murmur something about "Mr. Cornelius" and she had picked up the remainder of her information from things she had heard Mr. Starkweather and the girls say.

Now the old butler met her with an ingratiating smile and begged her to have something beside her customary coffee and roll.

"I have a lovely steak, Miss. The butcher remembers me once in a while, and he knows I am fond of a bit of tender beef. My teeth are not what they were once, you know, Miss."

"But why should I eat your nice steak?" demanded Helen, laughing at him. "My teeth are good for what the boys on the range call 'bootleg.' That's steak cut right next to the hoof!"

"Ah, but, Miss! There is so much more than I could possibly eat," he urged.

He had already turned the electricity into his grill. The ruddy steak--salted, peppered, with tiny flakes of garlic upon it--he brought from his own little icebox. The appetizing odor of the meat sharpened Helen's appetite even as she sipped the first of her coffee.

"I'll just have to eat some, I expect, Mr. Lawdor," she said. Then she had a sudden thought, and added: "Or perhaps you'd like to save this tidbit for the little old lady in the attic?"

Mr. Lawdor turned--not suddenly; he never did anything with suddenness; but it was plain she had startled him.

"Bless me, Miss--bless me--bless me----"

He trailed off in his usual shaky way; but his lips were white and he stared at Helen like an owl for a full minute. Then he added:

"Is there a lady in the attic, Miss?" And he said it in his most polite way.

"Of course there is, Mr. Lawdor; and you know it. Who is she? I am only curious."

"I--I hear the maids talking about a ghost, Miss--foolish things----"

"And I'm not foolish, Mr. Lawdor," said the Western girl, laughing shortly. "Not that way, at least. I heard her; last night I saw her. Next time I'm going to speak to her--Unless it isn't allowed."

"It--it isn't allowed, Miss," said Lawdor, speaking softly, and with a glance at the closed door of the room.

"Nobody has forbidden me to speak to her," declared Helen, boldly. "And I'm curious--mighty curious, Mr. Lawdor. Surely she is a nice old lady--there is nothing the matter with her?"

The butler touched his forehead with a shaking finger. "A little wrong there, Miss," he whispered. "But Mary Boyle is as innocent and harmless as a baby herself."

"Can't you tell me about her--who she is--why she lives up there--and all?"

"Not here, Miss."

"Why not?" demanded Helen, boldly.

"It might offend Mr. Starkweather, Miss. Not that he has anything to do with Mary Boyle. He had to take the old house with her in it."

"What do you mean, Lawdor?" gasped Helen, growing more and more amazed and--naturally--more and more curious.

The butler flopped the steak suddenly upon the sizzling hot plate and in another moment the delicious bit was before her. The old man served her as expertly as ever, but his face was working strangely.

"I couldn't tell you here, Miss. Walls have ears, they say," he whispered. "But if you'll be on the first bench beyond the Sixth Avenue entrance to Central Park at ten o'clock this morning, I will meet you there.

"Yes, Miss--the rolls. Some more butter, Miss? I hope the coffee is to your taste, Miss?"

"It is all very delicious, Lawdor," said Helen, rather weakly, and feeling somewhat confused. "I will surely be there. I shall not need to come back for the regular breakfast after having this nice bit."

Helen attracted much less attention upon her usual early morning walk this time. She was dressed in the mode, if cheaply, and she was not so self-conscious. But, in addition, she thought but little of herself or her own appearance or troubles while she walked briskly uptown.

It was of the little old woman, and her mystery, and the butler's words that she thought. She strode along to the park, and walked west until she reached the bridle-path. She had found this before, and came to see the riders as they cantered by.

How Helen longed to put on her riding clothes and get astride a lively mount and gallop up the park-way! But she feared that, in doing so, she might betray to her uncle or the girls the fact that she was not the "pauper cowgirl" they thought her to be.

She found a seat overlooking the path, at last, and rested for a while; but her mind was not upon the riders. Before ten o'clock she had walked back south, found the entrance to the park opposite Sixth Avenue, and sat down upon the bench specified by the old butler. At the stroke of the hour the old man appeared.

"You could not have walked all this way, Lawdor?" said the girl, smiling upon him. "You are not at all winded."

"No, Miss. I took the car. I am not up to such walks as you can take," and he shook his head, mumbling: "Oh, no, no, no, no----"

"And now, what can you tell me, sir?" she said, breaking in upon his dribbling speech. "I am just as curious as I can be. That dear little old lady! Why is she in uncle's house?"

"Ah, Miss! I fancy she will not be there for long, but she was an encumbrance upon it when Mr. Willets Starkweather came with his family to occupy it."

"What do you mean?" cried the girl.

"Mary Boyle served in the Starkweather family long, long ago. Before I came to valet for Mr. Cornelius, Mary Boyle had her own room and was a fixture in the house. Mr. Cornelius took her more--more philosophically, as you might say, Miss. My present master and his daughters look upon poor Mary Boyle as a nuisance. They have to allow her to remain. She is a life charge upon the estate--that, indeed, was fixed before Mr. Cornelius's time. But the present family are ashamed of her. Perhaps I ought not to say it, but it is true. They have relegated her to a suite upon the top floor, and other people have quite forgotten Mary Boyle--yes, oh, yes, indeed! Quite forgotten her--quite forgotten her----"

Then, with the aid of some questioning, Helen heard the whole sad story of Mary Boyle, who was a nurse girl in the family of the older generation of Starkweathers. It was in her arms the last baby of the family had panted his weakly little life out. She, too,