CHAPTER XI

“SLEEPY HOLLOW, A LAND OF DREAMS”

For the first time in her life she now beheld a lady for whom there is no English expression so good as the French, “a grande dame.”

There was still daylight in Madame Van Mater’s drawing room, but she stood for a moment in the center of her doorway staring with brilliant, hard, black eyes from one guest to the other and slightly inclining her head. Then she walked over to the high, carved chair near the tea table and sat down under the picture of the little boy. Feeble from old age, she was yet of too determined a spirit to accept help from any one, for when Donald tried to slip a cushion under her feet, she calmly motioned it away. Her hair, which was snow white, was piled high on her head by a careful maid; her skin, showing the remorseless touch of age, was yet as delicately powdered and rouged as if she had been an actress about to make her debut, and she was carefully dressed in a gown of deep purple silk with lace at her throat and old amethysts. And yet no art or effort could hide the ravages of age and of sorrow in the face, though the coldness of her air and expression suggested that she would have repelled grief as well as love whenever she was humanly able.

The atmosphere of the old drawing room was not any more cheerful after its hostess had entered. Indeed, no one in the room seemed to be able to speak except Miss Winthrop, for Mrs. Harmon was plainly ill at ease and even Elizabeth had been taught to treat this wealthy old aunt, whose fortune she expected some day to share with her brother, with more respect than she showed to any one else in the world.

Unconsciously the young people, including Jessica Hunt, had huddled close together, solemnly drinking their tea but having little to say to one another.

Finally a cold voice made the five of them jump and Jean was barely able to suppress a giggle. “Donald,” Madame Van Mater said, “bring the girl, whom you tell me you met in the West and who bears so strange a resemblance to your mother, closer to me. I think all resemblances are ridiculous and yet you have made me curious.”

Why on earth should Olive be made the center of all eyes when of all things she most hated it, and yet what else was there for her to do in this instance but to arise and allow Donald to lead her across the room to his aunt? Donald’s eyes begged forgiveness for the old woman’s peremptory manner, and yet he showed no sign of disobedience.

“Turn on the electric light,” Madame Van Mater ordered, for the dusk was creeping into the big room. And under the light, facing her hostess, Olive waited with Mrs. Harmon only a few feet away.

It was unlike this shy, delicate girl on meeting with strangers even to raise her eyes to theirs, and yet she now stared straight at Madame Van Mater with a gaze as fixed and direct as hers and almost as searching and haughty. For Olive’s emotion was immediately one of the deepest antagonism toward this woman, however old she might be, who summoned her as a queen might summon a subject.

Beginning at the girl’s feet, Madame Van Mater surveyed her slowly through a pair of gold-rimmed lorgnettes, her eyes, of course, resting longest on Olive’s face. And was the sigh she drew one of relief as she turned again to Donald and to Mrs. Harmon? “I do not see the least likeness in this girl to any member of my family,” she announced. “Whatever her name may be, her appearance is quite foreign and I should prefer never to have the subject of this resemblance mentioned again.” And nodding her head, the old lady apparently dismissed Olive to her seat.

But Miss Winthrop caught at her pupil’s hand as she passed her drawing her down toward her. “Let me look at you, Olive,” she murmured. “I had not heard of this fancy of Donald’s, but it has seemed to me that I have seen some one a little like you somewhere, I fancied in some old picture.” Then smiling she shook her head. “No, Donald, I can’t say I see any likeness to your mother, and yet, after all, perhaps there is enough of a suggestion of her for you not to be altogether snubbed.”

And now at last Olive was permitted to return to her chair, where she sat down pretending to look out of the window, though all the time she was feeling hot and rebellious at the scene in which she had just been compelled to play an unwilling part. Why, because she was so uncertain of her ancestry, should she be forced to go through these moments that made the fact more bitterly painful to her?

Donald guessed at Olive’s feelings, for though the ranch girls had tried their best to keep her story from the ears of the Harmons during their stay at Rainbow Lodge, a part of it Donald, his sister and mother had learned through Aunt Ellen, through the cowboys on the ranch and through one or two of their closest neighbors. And for this reason the young fellow was perhaps even more interested in this half Indian girl. Now he wished very much to help her escape from the unpleasant situation into which his own idle talk had led her.

Donald turned to Jean and Jessica Hunt. “I wonder if you and Miss Ralston would care to come and look over the old house with me?” he asked “It is so old that it is quite worth seeing and I am sure that Elizabeth will excuse us.”

Elizabeth did not pretend that she enjoyed the idea of being left with only the older people, but as Jacqueline Ralston was the only one of the ranch girls for whom she deeply cared, she made no objection, particularly as no one waited for her to speak. For Jean fairly bounced from her chair with relief, Jessica Hunt rose immediately and Olive soon after, feeling that she would surely turn to stone if she were obliged to remain another moment in the room with the old mistress of “The Towers.”

Once out in the hall, the party of young people appeared suddenly to have been released from prison. Jean danced a two-step, Jessica clapped her hands softly together and Olive laughed, while Donald straightway plunged head first up the dark mahogany steps. “Do come on upstairs,” he begged, “for there isn’t much time and Miss Hunt knows the house well enough to tell you that it is the tower room where we have the great view that is most interesting. Please save your breath, for we have rather a long climb.”

Immediately after Donald, Jean climbed and then Olive and then Jessica. Of course, the first two flights of stairs were like those in any ordinary house, but the third was a queer spiral resembling the steps in a lighthouse. About midway up these steps Jessica noticed that Olive paused, pressing her hands to her eyes as though to shut out some idea or some vision that assailed her, and that she wavered as though she felt faint.

“What is the matter, Olive, are you ill?” Jessica inquired, knowing that climbing to unexpected heights often has this effect on sensitive persons. And though Olive now shook her head, moving on again, Jessica determined to watch her.

To Jean’s openly expressed surprise the tower room was not a small, closet-like place as she had supposed, but a big, spacious apartment out of which the little gabled windows winked like so many friendly eyes. The room was fitted up as a boy’s room with a bed apparently just ready to be slept in, there was a trapeze at one end and a punching bag, but the bookcases were filled with books of all kinds and for all ages, French, Spanish and German books and plays from the days of the miracle plays down to the English comedies. Olive looked at these books for a long time and then went over to a far corner of the room which seemed to be a small museum, for rusty swords and old pistols were hung on the walls, a shield and a helmet and the complete figure of a knight in armor stood in one corner. Curious why these masculine trophies should interest a girl, and yet for some reason they did interest Olive, for she waited there alone; Jessica, Jean and Donald having gone over to one of the windows were gazing out over the countryside made famous the world over through its history and legend, “Sleepy Hollow, the Land of Dreams.”

Jean beckoned to Olive. “Come over here, dear, if you wish to see the view,” she begged, “for the sun will be going down in the next few minutes.”

And in a moment, taking tight hold of Jean’s hand, Olive also looked out the window. She saw the little brook and a bit of the bridge over which they had lately passed, with the stretch of woodlands to one side and the autumn-colored hills rising in the background. Very quietly she began to speak:

“Not far from the village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.”

These words Olive repeated with her eyes still on the landscape and her lips moving as though she were reciting a verse of poetry long ago forgotten and now brought back to mind by the objects that inspired it.

It was so utterly unlike Olive to be drawing attention to herself by reciting that Jean stared at her in blank amazement, but neither Donald Harmon nor Miss Hunt appeared in the least surprised and after a moment, as though again striking the strings of her memory, the young girl went on: “If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.” And then her recitation abruptly ended.

“What on earth are you spouting, Olive Ralston?” Jean demanded; “or tell us, please, if you are composing an essay on the spur of the moment to impress your English teacher?”

Jessica laughed. “Ignorant child, not to know what Olive is repeating! I should have taught it you before now, but Olive seems to have gotten ahead of me and learned it first.”

“But what is it?” Jean insisted. “The idea of Olive’s memorizing a thing like that and then waiting for a critical minute to recite it so as to impress her audience. I never should have suspected her!”

But as Olive made no answer to her friend’s teasing, Jessica said in explanation: “Why, Olive has just recited Washington Irving’s description of this countryside, which he gives in his ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’ and when you get back to school, Jean, I advise you to ask Olive to lend you her book.”

Downstairs the little party broke up and on the way back to Primrose Hall, Olive walked close beside Miss Winthrop. At first both the woman and the girl were silent, but as they neared the school Olive spoke suddenly:

“Miss Winthrop, I suppose most everybody in the world knows the feeling of coming to a strange place and all at once thinking that you have been there before, seen the same things or people and even heard the same words said?”

Miss Winthrop nodded, trying to study Olive’s face closely and yet not appearing too deeply interested, although the girl’s expression was both puzzled and intent.

“Why, yes, Olive, it is a very usual experience,” she answered. “No one can understand or explain it very well, but the impression is more apt to come to you when you are young. I can recall once having gone into a ballroom and there having had some one make a perfectly ordinary speech to me and yet I had a sudden sensation almost of faintness, so sure was I that at some past time I had been in the same place, under the same circumstances and heard the same speech, and yet I knew at the time it was impossible.”

“But can one remember actual words that may have been spoken in a certain place? I don’t see how a thing can suddenly pop into one’s mind without our remembering where we have learned it before,” Olive persisted.

Miss Winthrop took the girl’s hand in hers. “My dear,” she said quietly, “I think there are many wonderful things in the world around us that we do not believe in because we do not yet understand them, just as long years ago men and women did not believe that our world was round because it had not then been revealed to them. And so I do not understand about these strange psychical experiences about which we have just been talking. But I recall a remarkable book by Du Maurier, one of the most remarkable novels I have ever read, called ‘Peter Ibbetson.’ In this story there is a song whose refrain is ever repeated in the hero’s mind from the time he is a little boy all through his life. He does not understand why he remembers this song, but by and by it is explained to the reader that this song had played an important part in the life of one of Peter Ibbetson’s ancestors. And just as we can inherit the color of our eyes, the shape of our nose, a queer trait of character from some far-off ancestor, so Du Maurier wrote that we might inherit some mental impression, like the lines of this song. It is a difficult thing to understand, but the idea is interesting.”

“It is very,” Olive replied. “I think I should like to read the book.”

Miss Winthrop again turned to study Olive’s face, but the darkness of the late fall afternoon had now fallen completely.

“May I ask if you have had any queer experience, Olive? Have you ever felt that you have been in a certain place before, where you know you could never really have been, or have you thought suddenly of something that you did not remember having in your mind before? But please do not answer me if you would rather not, for I know that these queer experiences most of us would rather keep to ourselves.”

“Thank you,” was Olive’s unsatisfactory answer as the four women started up the outside steps of Primrose Hall.