The Photo-Play Journal (May 1916-Apr 1917)

PAGE 28. THE PHOTOPLAY JOURNAL FOR DECEMBER, 1916 Hawkins' eyes assumed that frightened _ look which always brought a smile to his master's. "I believe it is the ghost, sir !" "Then," and the novelist wrung the water from the dripping suit, "we are the entertainers of a very unusual ghost, for he likes to swim !" While Roberts battled the rolling breakers his servant persistently, impatiently and vainly endeavored to milk a cow. But although a man of no few accomplishments the task was too large for the doughty little Englishman. After his bucket had been kicked from his hand three times by the indignant Bossy, he surrendered. Returning to the house he discovered spilled milk on the kitchen steps. "Blast me eyes," he soliloquized, "this ghost has been along here with milk." And he sat down in the kitchen, fearing to stray into the other rooms of this uncanny house. Roberts passed an uneventful and thoroughly delightful day. Yet still the story would not come from his pen. Toward evening he prepared for a grand assault upon the stronghold of the Muse. "You can retire early, Hawkins. I'm going to get that novel under way this night or die in the attempt. There's nothing to disturb me here." But even as he spoke a tapping was heard on the door. Hawkins timidly opened it to behold a sailor from the yacht, bearing a message. "A wireless, sir," said the man. "Shall I wait for the answer !" Roberts tore open the envelope without replying. It was an aerogram from his fiancee. Beatrice was coming up to Sunray Port with a motoring party of friends, to make his solitude "pleasant." Roberts crushed the note in his tense fingers and glared indignantly at a silver-framed portrait of the girl which he had placed on the library table before him. "Confound you, Beatrice, you always come at the wrong time. Can I never escape from the New York idea to do some real work?" He turned toward the waiting sailor, and snapped a reply : "No answer." Then did the novelist sit down to his task, cudgelling his wits with a vengeful selfhatred, determined to start a story of the simple folk in the simple land about him. A piercing scream cut the silence ! Then came a crash of tin and china ! "By George! There must be something to it, after all!" and Roberts sprang to his feet. As he remembered it afterward, he did experience a tingling thrill ate the roots of his hair. Here was a new sensation at last ! He rushed toward the hallway, and into the big dining room in the direction of the racket. Again all seemed quiet and the entire floor deserted. On the broad stairway, however, lay a clutter of dishes, cold meat, bread and salad, where a tray had fallen ! He paused and rubbed his chin. "Ah, a hungry ghost !" he muttered. Then he drew his automatic revolver from his hip-pocket and sprang up the stairs. Into each bedroom he peered, expecting to see the burly visage of some desperate tramp. He turned from his room into the hall once more. Down the corridor he saw a figure, which darted up the rickety steps to the garret on the floor above. He had never thought of this possible hiding place, but now he sped after the nocturnal forager with his weapon ready. When he reached the garret room, lighted by the moon through a dormer window he looked about in astonishment. Even now the mysterious visitor had disappeared as though completely swallowed up in thin air. Then he looked down at the floor. Protruding from beneath an old crazy-^iilt were two small, white, bare feet. Roberts stooped and observed that they were of unmistakable feminine architecture. "Come out, Miss Ghost, or I will shoot !" he commanded sternly. The coverlet was lowered, and he beheld a mass of tangled curls, two frightened, fawn-like eyes, and a dimpled face which was enhanced in its pale beauty by the apparent terror of its owner. She rose unsteadily, and then raised her glance to the kind face above. "Oh, please don't shoot! I was — so — I — had — to take it !" were the tremulous words. "You are a bad, bold, wicked burglar !" replied her captor, with a twitching about the stern mouth. "Come down stairs, while I put you on trial for your life. He caught her — not ungently — by the lobe of a pink little ear, and led her to the lower floor. Down the corridor he passed, with a peremptory order to the still wobbling Hawkins. In the library he stood her before him, and with the air of a Supreme Court judge studied the pathetic little figure; the girl, apparently eighteen, was dressed in a strange garment — an ancient pair of farm overalls, above which peeped a ragged shirtwaist. Her slender arms were as bare as her ankles. "Well, Miss Ghost — explain yourself." Then he laughed merrily, dispelling the timidity of the girl. Hawkins, attired in a bathrobe and slippers, now advanced incredulously down the stairs. "Here's this hungry ghost, who goes swimming !" cried Roberts. The girl drew back, affrighted once more, but the novelist gently commanded her to proceed with her story, while Hawkins was dispatched to prepare a hot supper. "Well," she hesitated at first, "I — ran — away from my foster father. He beats me. See my arms and the bruises !" "He won't do it again," observed Roberts. "But who are you?" "I don't know. Nobody knows, for I was washed up here when I was a tiny little girl during a big storm at sea. Hy Jessup was a fisherman— it was he who sold the fish to this other man. I saw him from the garret window. He was kinder to me long ago, when Mrs. Jessup took me in. But she died, and Hy drinks all the time now. He beats me. So, three days ago he was so cruel and mean that I just ran away. I came up here because they said the house was haunted and I knew no one would come here. But I saw you come last night and this morning. I was so frightened and so hungry that I didn't know what to do." Roland Roberts smiled, and then was serious again. The pathetic little face, with its haunting eyes was upturned to the novelist. For the second time within the period of this strange evening Ronald Roberts was enlivened by a new sensation. Now he was stirred to the depths of his soul, as he had never been before. This time he felt, not a fear of the uncanny, but a maddening desire to draw this little flower to his. breast — to put his strong arms about her and to protect her, to cherish her as though she were his own. Yet it was a stimulus of spirit in nowise like that of sympathy. As he looked down into the cerulean depths of those trusting eyes he dropped his own glance — to note the picture of Beatrice Montford on the library table, close beside him. What a difference between this wholesome child of the sea, with her dimples, her ingenuous grace, the naively voluptuous appeal of the naked arms, the bare feet, the maidenly contours enhanced by the ill-fitting garb, and the unkempt, wilful, fragrant wealth of curls — and the selfsatisfied, self-confident, self-assertive features which looked at him from the silver frame ! He turned nervously toward the chair, and dropped into it, leaning on the table. Hawkins, bearing a steaming tray of savory viands, entered from the kitchen. The girl turned apprehensively, and her face brightened at the welcome sight. Roberts reached excitedly for his fountain pen, as the valet placed the dishes upon the table. "Won't you 'ave a wee bite yourself, sir?" was Hawkins' solicitous inquiry. "No. I'm busy ! Both of you eat and get out of the room — go to bed." He was writing rapidly, with no trace of the previous uncertainty. "I have my story now, Hawkins ! Good night," was all he said. CHAPTER IV Eve in the Garden The song-birds were blithesome and gossippy when Ronald Roberts laid down his fountain pen, to rub his tired eyes and exercise the cramped fingers of his right hand. He looked toward the golden bar of sunlight streaming from the window which faced the garde; . He arose from the chair stiffly, straightening >ack his shoulders with an obvious effort. They ached from a steady task of seven hours' concentration. "Well, chis yarn is running as smoothly as a machine," he told himself, as he relit his calabash. "But Lordy ! How hungry I am." He voiced a lusty-lunged howl for his valet. "Hawkins ! Hawkins ! Wake up and get my breakfast," lie called. "I'm going in for a plunge — have it ready when I come back!" There came a sleepy reply. " 'Ere, sir. Hi'm coming, sir." Upon which Roberts raced out through the unkempt shrubs, wriggled into his bathing suit, to be curving in a high dive from the coast rocks, within another four minutes. Upstairs, in the bedroom which had been "tidied" up by the faithful servant for his master's use, the becurled head of the late "ghost" moved ever so slightly upon the white expanse of pillow. Then the great eyes opened to scan the room in bewilderment. She sat up in bed peering about half-timidly until a realization of recent events brought the dimples into evidence. Tossing the coverlet aside the girl tiptoed to the window to behold in the distance the sprightly figure of her benefactor leaping with muscular abandon into the sea from one of the highest of the cliffs. "Isn't he splendid !" she murmured as her eyes darkened with a new motion. Below, on the driveway, she beheld a sight which drove away all happy thoughts. It was the shambling figure of a middle-aged man in the oilskins of a fisherman. She drew back in fright. She ran to the steps and called down to Hawkins who was bustling about with his breakfast preparations. "Oh, please, Mister — Mister — don't tell that man I'm here. He would kill me !" she exclaimed tearfully. "Very good, miss. Hi never tells what Hi knows. That's how I keep me job so long in each place." Hawkins walked to the door to answer the knock of the visitor. "Ho, has Hi live ! The fish gentleman," was his greeting. "Come in, sir, around the servants' entrance." "Naw," snarled the other gruffly. "I don't monkey 'round no h'anted house. I come over to sell ye some more fish. They're nice and fresh." Hawkins, pretending to be a very learned and captious judge, finally bought some of the scaly product of the nets, paying for them with great condescension. His tradesman accepted the money in surly manner, walked away a few steps and drew forth a black bottle from under his jacket. He drank long, and then with a gruff cough walked down toward the village. The girl was still nervous when Ronald Roberts returned from his dip. The novelist, glowing and fresh from the battle with the surf and the run from the beach, was in exuberant joy of life. "What a wonderful day, Hawkins !" he cried. "What a wonderful place ! And what a wonderful little lady!" "Hi much prefer the yacht, sir," answered Hawkins, as he brought forth the fruit. Roberts sat down, after placing a chair for his fair guest. She was awed by even such primitive politeness. "Did you sleep well?" "Yes," was the naive reply. "And dreamed such pleasant dreams in that big room." "Of what did you dream?" She dropped her eyes, and the innocent rose tint mantled her cheeks as she answered, "I dreamed — of — you." "That was quite nice of you," Roberts replied. "That is a lucky sign — and you have already brought me good fortune. For I came here to find a story — you helped me, and the story is well under way now." "I don't understand," and there was a pretty frown between the arched eyebrows. "Neither do I. But what I do understand is that you look very sweet in that ragged dress, which you told me you had discarded for the overalls when you slipped into the house. I'll see if I can't find a prettier one still up in the village store." The girl's eyes sparkled with this unexpected hope. "But, first we must be very careful not to let your foster-father know that you are here. You can help Hawkins set the place in order, for I am expecting some guests here in a few days." A strange jealousy stirred the girl, although . she hardly understood the mood herself. The thought of helping, in any small way, this handsome stranger whose gentle hospitality was so winning, whose queer abstraction during his work raised him to a height which no other man had ever attained in her respect and the strange, care-free relaxation from the sordid misery of that other life in the fisherman's cottage: all these were threatened now by this ominous promise of other guests. Roberts chattered scores of shrewd questions at her. The girl was bewildered by the scintillating swiftness of the hungry quizzing, and at last replied, with a silvery laugh, to his query about her age. "Even we girls in the fishing towns are afraid of that question. I don't remember, and I have a reason ; but Mother Jessup's count would make