Chapter Six.

A Disappearance

Fennel went down on his knees, turned the old man over, unbuttoned his overcoat, jacket and waistcoat and felt his heart.

“Is he dead?” asked Diana, in a whisper.

“No…” said Fennel. “But--” He hesitated. “We’d better get him up to the house as soon as possible.”

“We can carry him. I’ll help you.”

“No,” said Fennel. “If you’ll go on ahead, and see that things are ready for him--and send someone back--”

She set off at once scrambling up the steep hillside, ran across the grass to the house and flung open the front door.

“Wren!” she panted.

There was no answer, and she ran through the dining-room to the kitchen, where she found Wren peeling potatoes.

“There’s been--an accident!” she said, breathlessly. “Old Mr. Leonard--down there in the wood. Please go and help to carry him up to the house.”

Wren gave her a sidelong glance, like a frightened horse and bolted out of the room. She waited for a moment to get her breath and then hastened up the stairs to tell her aunt. She met Wren coming down.

“I’m going, Miss!” he assured her, anxiously.

At the end of the corridor she saw her aunt come out of her room, and lock the door behind her.

“Uncle Rufus--” the girl began.

“What man was that with you?” Aunt Emma interrupted.

Diana was a little startled.

“Fennel, his name is,” she said briefly. “Now what can I do?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said her aunt, and went past her, down the stairs. As Diana followed her, Uncle Peter came tearing down, in his hat and overcoat, and darted out of the door, slamming it behind him.

Aunt Emma went over to the window, and, lighting a cigarette, stood there looking out.

“Can I--get his room ready--or something?” asked Di.

“And how do you propose to get his room ‘ready?’” asked her aunt. “It’s been swept and dusted and the bed made. Did you contemplate decorating it with flowers?”

“I only wanted to do something--” Di began, reddening a little under that contemptuous tone.

“You’ve done quite enough, I should say,” observed Aunt Emma. “Ah! There they are! Now go and open the door, and look zealous.”

Over the top of the hill came Fennel and Wren, carrying the limp figure of the old man between them; they crossed the lawn and entered the lounge.

“Upstairs,” said Aunt Emma, exactly as if she were speaking to furniture-movers.

Just then a car shot past the house, and Di saw that Uncle Peter was driving it. Aunt Emma turned away, leisurely extinguished her cigarette, and went upstairs. And Di, feeling entirely superfluous, followed her again.

Fennel and Wren were just laying the old man on his bed.

“Thank you!” said Aunt Emma. “Wren, go down and put on a kettle of water to boil.”

Wren sidled out of the room at once, but Fennel stood at the bedside looking down at the old man.

“Mr. Fennel,” said Aunt Emma, very amiably, “I don’t like to impose on you--but our telephone is out of order, my brother has gone to fetch a doctor, and I’ll need Wren here. If you’d be kind enough to go to the drug-store and get a prescription made up--tell them to send it up at once… It’s on your way to the station, so perhaps it’s not asking too much--”

“Not at all,” said Fennel, briefly.

Aunt Emma sat down and taking a fountain pen and a note-book from her overall pocket, wrote briskly for a moment.

“Now!” she said. “And if you’ll be kind enough to take this as quickly as you can… Diana! You know where the linen-room is? Run and get me four clean towels… Hurry!”

Di hastened out of the room and along the corridor. But before she reached the linen-room, she heard Fennel coming after her. She stopped.

“Please come again!” she said. “I haven’t had time to thank you properly--”

He came close to her.

“See here!” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you in that same place in that wood--at nine this evening. I’ll wait an hour, and if you don’t come, then I’ll come here to the house for you.”

“Well… no, thanks,” she said, surprised. “You see, with Uncle Rufus ill, I can’t--”

“Stand out of the way!” said Aunt Emma’s voice, so close that she started. “I’ll get the towels myself, if you’re not going to help me.”

“Good afternoon!” said Fennel, curtly, and without another word or glance, went off down the stairs.

Di opened the door of the linen-room and got down the towels from a shelf.

“Now!” said Aunt Emma, “if you’re willing to be of any assistance--when there’s no male spectator to appreciate it--”

“This isn’t the time to answer,” thought Di. “I’ve got to put myself aside when Uncle Rufus is so ill.” And aloud: “What can I do?” she asked, cheerfully.

“You can go into my room,” said Aunt Emma, “and type the short article that you’ll find on the desk there. It must be posted to the _Medical Journal_ to-night.”

Then there came to Di a very definite suspicion that her aunt wanted only to get her out of the way. She had sent her brother off in the car, Wren downstairs to the kitchen, Fennel on an errand… Fear crept up in her heart like an icy tide.

“Good God!” cried Aunt Emma. “Can’t you do _anything_?”

“I’d--like to--stay with Uncle Rufus,” said Di, in an unsteady voice.

For she had abandoned him once, and then great disaster had happened. And she would not abandon him again. She had promised to stand by him.

For a moment Aunt Emma looked at her, with her blue eyes like ice. Then she laughed.

“Very well!” she said. “And perhaps you’d like to taste any medicine I give him? Come along!”

They re-entered the room where the old man lay on the bed, motionless, still in his grotesque cap pulled down to his ears, and his overcoat.

“Sit down over there, out of the way,” said Aunt Emma. “I’m going to get some medicine.”

When she had left the room, it seemed to Di that the window might be opened a little. And as she did so, she saw on the drive beneath, Fennel, talking to Wren.

She could hear their words plainly.

“It’s for their own good, sir,” Wren was saying, earnestly. “There’s so much harm they could come to, if they was to get out. I know, sir, it _does_ give one a shock to see them looking out of the window like that--but it’s for their own good.”

“There was a friend of mine, a doctor in Switzerland,” said Fennel. “He had some cases like that in his sanitarium. Cretins, aren’t they?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He kept them out in the air, as much as possible--”

“Did that help them, sir?” Wren interrupted.

“I should think it would help anyone,” said Fennel. “But of course he gave them some sort of treatment. Thyroid extract--”

“Thyroid extract, sir? Did that do them good?”

“I believe so. Some of them improved--grew taller, you know, and could talk better. But isn’t your Miss Leonard a physician? No doubt she--”

“Would you mind spelling that, if you please, sir? That extract you mentioned?”

Fennel did so, and Wren repeated it after him.

“Do you think it can be bought, sir--?” he began, when Aunt Emma came out of the kitchen door.

“Wren!” she said.

The little man fairly cringed.

“I was just waiting for the kettle to boil, Miss--I--”

“Get in the house,” she said, carelessly, and he disappeared at once.

Then she and Fennel looked at each other. Diana waited, with unaccountable dread, for what they would say. But they said nothing. Fennel took off his hat, and with that vivid smile of his, turned away, went off down the hill.

Di closed the window noiselessly, and sat down on a chair at the other side of the room.

“What does it _mean_?” she asked herself. “What does it _mean_?”

For she was absolutely certain that beneath all the things she could see and hear there was something else, some meaning she could not grasp. It was as if she were watching a play in a foreign language; she could see the actors, watch their gestures, their entrances and exits, hear their words, but never seize the significance. She did not even know who was the villain of the piece, or who the hero.

Fennel… Was he cast for a minor part; had he just “walked on” in this one scene and now was gone, not to appear again? A curious feeling of regret seized her, almost of desolation, because he was gone. She was left alone here with Uncle Rufus; she was his ally, pledged to stand by him, but was he _her_ ally? She could believe that there in the wood, in his last conscious moment, he had positively hated her.

She rose, and went over to the bed to look at him. But she turned away hastily; he was so grotesque, so horrible, lying there in his overcoat and cap, his eyes closed, an expression of bitter malice on his sallow old face. She pitied him, that man who had grown old without a friend, she was willing and determined to help him, but she could not feel any affection.

“Is he--very ill?” she wondered. “Dangerously ill? It seems to me that Aunt Emma’s doing precious little for him… But of course I don’t know. Perhaps there’s nothing that _can_ be done. She ought to know. And Mr. Fennel seemed satisfied. If he’d thought there was anything--queer, I don’t believe he’d have gone away without a word… But he wanted to see me this evening… He certainly wasn’t thinking of a lover’s tryst. Perhaps he had something to tell me--something I ought to know. It was a mistake to say I wouldn’t go. I’m sorry I said I wouldn’t.”

That reminded her of the letter he had brought from Mrs. Frick, and taking it out of her pocket she tore it open. Folded inside the letter she caught a glimpse of green, and drew out a ten-dollar bill.

Ten dollars! Freedom and independence! She could get away from here, buy a railway ticket, pay a week’s rent for a room, and look for a job. And it seemed to her that any job on earth would be joyous and delightful after this. Any job, where she was free to come and go, where there were people to talk to, an ordinary existence. She was about to read the letter when the sound of a car outside sent her to the window again, and she saw Uncle Peter, driving the roadster, and wedged in beside him, two portly, middle-aged men. Such respectable, such blessedly _ordinary_ looking men! The thought of them coming into this house filled her with immense relief. They were coming, and she had ten dollars. At the end of this promised week she would go…

Aunt Emma entered the room.

“They’re here!” she said. “Run down and tell Wren to come up at once. We’ll have to make the patient a little more presentable for Doctor Coat.”

“Oh! Is one of them a doctor?” asked Di, better pleased than ever. Then there couldn’t be anything really--queer.

“Don’t stop in the lounge to speak to them,” said Aunt Emma. “And you’d better not come back, just yet. Wait in the kitchen until I come.”

But Di felt that no human power should keep her from speaking to those blessedly ordinary men.

“Why don’t you want me to speak to them?” she asked briefly.

Aunt Emma looked at her.

“I suppose,” she said, “that you meant to trip in, like a little ingénue in a play, all curls and dimples and they would be enchanted. But in the first place, they’re here on business, and they’ve never heard of you. And in the second place, you’re not looking quite your best. You might take a glance in the mirror.”

“No, thanks,” said Di, turning scarlet.

“Then please send Wren at once.”

She went downstairs, and hurried through the lounge without turning her head, traversed the dining-room and entered the kitchen. There sat Wren, with his head down on the table, a forlorn little figure.

At the sound of her step, he jumped up.

“Miss Leonard wants you right away,” said Di.

“Yes, Miss!” he answered.

Then, glancing nervously over his shoulder, he came nearer to her.

“Miss!” he whispered. “If you’ll kindly not mention this…” And he thrust a piece of paper into her hand and hurried out of the room.

With considerable curiosity, she opened the scrap of paper, to see what Wren wanted to say to her.

“Nine o’clock. J.F.”

That was not a message from Wren. Putting the paper into her pocket, she crossed the kitchen and opened the door, stood there to enjoy the clear air and to think. The sun was going down. The sky was tranquil; in the trees the birds were chirping their evensong.

“I _will_ go!” she thought. “He wouldn’t ask me if it wasn’t important. He’s--trustworthy.”

It was so great a comfort to feel that, after all, he hadn’t walked off, was not gone; she looked forward with eagerness, with impatience, to seeing him, hearing his cool, unemotional voice. Nothing would confuse him, ever, nothing could deceive him, his quiet dark eyes would see, would judge, would understand--

“How idiotic!” she said to herself. “I don’t know the man. I never spoke to him before to-day. I don’t even know why he brought Mrs. Frick’s letter.”

It occurred to her that the letter might contain some explanation of Fennel. She felt in her pocket for it. The ten-dollar bill was there, and the note Wren had just given her, but Mrs. Frick’s letter was gone.

“I must have dropped it up in Uncle Rufus’s room,” she thought, very much distressed. “Well, I certainly can’t go to look for it now. I’ll have to wait.”

This was a singularly unpleasing idea, for she was morally certain that Aunt Emma would read the letter if she saw it.

“She’d do anything she wanted to do,” thought Di.

Just then she caught sight of a figure breasting the hill, outlined clearly against the pale, clear sky. It was Miles, handsome and debonair and cheerful, carrying under his arm a package wrapped in blue paper. He caught sight of her and waved, and she waved back again.

“Hello, dear!” he said, as he came nearer.

That was an unpromising beginning, but she answered amiably.

“Hello, Miles!”

He came into the kitchen and handed her the package he carried.

“Present for you!” he said.

“Thank you, Miles!” she said. “But first I’d better tell you… There’s bad news. Poor Uncle Rufus--”

“There couldn’t be any news bad enough about _him_,” said Miles.

“No, seriously, Miles, he’s very ill.”

“Stuff! He’s always getting ‘very ill!’”

“No, but this time… He came down to that little clearing in the wood after us, and he had some sort of attack. We thought he was dead--”

“Who’s ‘we’?” asked Miles.

She saw that she had made a mistake, but she was not going to be intimidated by Miles.

“A Mr. Fennel and I--”

“Who’s Mr. Fennel?”

“A friend of mine.”

“Look here!” said Miles.

And then it began, that scene she dreaded.

“You might have told me there was another fellow, and not let me make a fool of myself, thinking of you all day in the city… bringing you a present.”

“Don’t be silly!” she said firmly. “You can’t imagine that I’ve lived for twenty-three years and never made any friends. Let’s see the present! I love presents!”

But he snatched the box away.

“You needn’t be so dam’ patronizing!” he said. “I’m not a child.”

“You’re acting like one,” she said. “Oh, Miles! Don’t let’s quarrel! I’m so--so tired…”

“What about _me_?” he interrupted. “Why, the night I came here, I was so sick I had to be carried into the house.”

“Oh, was that you?” she cried, relieved; but added hastily, “I’m awfully sorry you were sick, what was it?”

“You know dam’ well!” he said. “They’ve told you. It was bootleg whisky. It’s killing me.”

As if in a nightmare, she knew what would come next. He would now go on to say, with considerable profanity, that no one else cared what happened to him, so why should _he_ care? Just as her father had used to do, with that same perverse insistence upon his unique unhappiness. That, just as she had never known how to manage her father, she could not now manage Miles. She was not a managing sort of girl: she had no desire to rule, or to influence; she was only ready to help as best she could.

“Miles…?” she said, with that dubious little smile. “Sit down and light a cigarette. It’s good for the nerves.”

For answer he slammed the box on the floor and set his heel on it, trampled on it until the wrapping and the box inside were burst, and she could see a beautiful assortment of chocolates being mashed. And she, who had in her time endured so much, and with such fortitude, began to cry.

Miles looked at her, astounded.

“I didn’t mean--”

“No!” she cried. “When you hurt people--you never expect them to _be_ hurt…”

“Diana!” he said, really alarmed by her tears. “Diana… I’m sorry… I’ll get you another box…”

“It’s not _that_!” she said. “It’s just everything…”

He came to her side, and took her hand, almost timidly.

“I didn’t mean to act like this!” he said, miserably. “I’d been thinking of you all day--and looking forward so to seeing you when I got back. You poor little kid! I meant to be--different. Diana, please give me another chance! _One_ more chance! I’ll take hold of myself, dear! I have tried to be different since I met you. I haven’t touched a drop since that night. Say you’ll--”

“Diana!” said Aunt Emma’s voice. “Will you be kind enough to cook the dinner?”

Di glanced up, so startled that she forgot the tears still wet on her cheeks.

“Wren will have to sit with your Uncle Rufus,” said Aunt Emma. “He won’t have anyone else with him; he won’t even see Doctor Coat. So I’ll have to ask you to help me out. There’ll be the Doctor and Mr. Purvis and your Uncle Peter and Miles and you and I--six of us. Just a simple dinner, naturally.”

“But--I’m awfully sorry--” said Di, “but--I’m afraid I don’t know--”

“Very well!” said Aunt Emma. “Then, Miles, you and your father will have to cook the best sort of dinner you can. Perhaps Diana will be able to turn on the light in the dining-room and put the chairs at the table.”

“She and I will get your dinner,” said Miles. “There’s nothing Diana can’t do, when she puts her mind on it.”

Aunt Emma turned, and walked off, erect and composed, and Miles went to Diana and put his arm about her shoulders. She sighed to herself, wondering what new mood this signified, but glancing up, she saw in his face a look that profoundly touched her, a sort of despairing appeal.

“Di,” he said, “if I could always be with you… I--I don’t _mean_ to be--like I am… If you loved me--we could go away from this dam’ place… I haven’t any money, or any brains, or any character, but if I had you, I’d get them all. If you cared--”

“Miles,” she said. “I _do_ care. I’ve liked you ever since I first saw you.”

“But not my way,” he said.

She did not answer. He bent and kissed the top of her head, and moved away.

“Let’s cook?” he suggested.

“You see,” Diana explained, “Father and I never exactly did any housekeeping. He liked to eat in restaurants.”

“I’ve never had a home in my life,” said Miles. “So between us we might be able to manage something pretty original.”

He glanced about him, then, taking the lid of a saucepan, he shoveled up the mess of chocolates and threw it into a pail. He made no more apologies, no more complaints; he only tried to help.

The larder was disconcertingly bare. They found one tin of soup which they diluted lavishly with water; they found a slab of bacon and six eggs, and a large vegetable which baffled them.

“I think it’s a turnip,” said Di. “Anyhow I’m sure it’s a tuber; I’m going to treat it like a potato and peel it and boil it.”

“Those bananas--” said Miles. “They seem pretty crude… Can’t we make some tasty little what-not out of them! Mash them?”

His good-humor, his willingness, made the preparation of that dinner the pleasantest hour Di had spent in a long time. She was so immensely glad to laugh again. She forgot, for that hour, all her anxieties, she even forgot poor Uncle Rufus.

“Now!” she said, at last. “I think we’ve done all the harm we can. If you’ll please start setting the table while I dart upstairs and brush my hair. I’ll help you when I come down. I shan’t be a minute!”

As she hurried out of the brightly-lit kitchen, she looked back over her shoulder, and saw Miles watching her. She smiled at him and went on, her heart warm with a feeling of comradeship and good-will. She went through the dark dining-room, and looked into the lounge. They were all in there, Doctor Coat and Mr. Purvis and Aunt Emma and Uncle Peter, but fortunately they were gathered in a group under a lamp, and the rest of the lounge was fairly dark. She traversed it hastily, keeping close to the desk, and ran up the stairs.

And then, as soon as she reached that upper corridor, her happiness deserted her; she was in another world now, where there was no youth, no laughter, only sordid suspicion and chilly loneliness.

Her conscience reproached her for having forgotten Uncle Rufus. After all, she was staying here only on his account; she had money enough to leave now; nothing kept her but her promise to him.

“I’ll just look in and see him,” she thought. “And speak to Wren.”

She went down the dim corridor to Uncle Rufus’s room, and knocked softly at the door. There was no answer and she hesitated to knock louder, for fear of disturbing the old man. She tried the knob and the door opened.

To her surprise, the room was black, and from the open window a current of air blew cold on her face.

“Wren!” she whispered.

There was no answer; no sound at all.

Fear seized her; she stepped back into the hall and closed the door again.

But she knew she must go back. She could not leave the old man there alone in that dark wind-swept room. Once more she opened the door and felt for the switch; she turned it, but no light came.

“Wren!” she whispered again. “Please answer!”

The window-shade flapped in the draft made by the open door. But there was no other sound. She groped her way toward the bed, filled with a thought that turned her blood to ice.

But the bed was empty. She felt over it, from head to foot, and it was empty.