The Girl from Sunset Ranch: or, Alone in a Great City

Flossie grumbled about her hard lot all through luncheon. Helen kept her company; then, when it was over, she slipped up to her own room with her bundles. Both Hortense and Belle had taken a good look at her, however, and they plainly approved of her appearance.

“She’s not such a dowdy as she seemed,” whispered Hortense to the oldest sister.

“No,” admitted Belle. “But that’s an awful cheap dress she bought.”

“I guess she didn’t have much to spend,” laughed Hortense. “Pa wasn’t likely to be very liberal. It puzzles me why he should have kept her here at all.”

“He says it is his duty,” scoffed Belle. “Now, you know Pa! He never was so worried about duty before; was he?”

These girls, brought up as they were, steeped in selfishness and seeing their father likewise so selfish, had no respect for their parent. Nor could this be wondered at.

Going up to her room that afternoon Helen met Mrs. Olstrom coming down. The housekeeper started when she saw the young girl, and drew back. But Helen had already seen the great tray of dishes the housekeeper carried. And she wondered.

Who took their meals up on this top floor? The maids who slept here were all accounted for. She had seen them about the house. And Gregson, too. Of course Mr. Lawdor and Mrs. Olstrom had their own rooms below.

Then who could it be who was being served on this upper floor? Helen was more than a little curious. The sounds she had heard the night before dove-tailed in her mind with these soiled dishes on the tray.

She was almost tempted to walk through the long corridor in which she thought she had heard the scurrying footsteps pass the night before. Yet, suppose she was caught by Mrs. Olstrom – or by anybody else – peering about the house?

“That wouldn’t be very nice,” mused the girl.

“Because these people think I am rude and untaught, is no reason why I should display any real rudeness.”

She was very curious, however; the thought of the tray-load of dishes remained in her mind all day.

At dinner that night even Mr. Starkweather gave Helen a glance of approval when she appeared in her new frock.

“Ahem!” he said. “I see you have taken my advice, Helen. We none of us can afford to forget what is due to custom. You are much more presentable.”

“Thank you, Uncle Starkweather,” replied Helen, demurely. “But out our way we say: ‘Fine feathers don’t make fine birds.’”

“You needn’t fret,” giggled Flossie. “Your feather’s aren’t a bit too fine.”

But Flossie’s eyes were red, and she plainly had been crying.

“I hate the old books!” she said, suddenly. “Pa, why do I have to go to school any more?”

“Because I am determined you shall, young lady,” said Mr. Starkweather, firmly. “We all have to learn.”

“Hortense doesn’t go.”

“But you are not Hortense’s age,” returned her father, coolly. “Remember that. And I must have better reports of your conduct in school than have reached me lately,” he added.

Flossie sulked over the rest of her dinner. Helen, going up slowly to her room later, saw the door of her youngest cousin’s room open, and glancing in, beheld Flossie with her head on her book, crying hard.

Each of these girls had a beautiful room of her own. Flossie’s was decorated in pink, with chintz hangings, a lovely bed, bookshelves, a desk of inlaid wood, and everything to delight the eye and taste of any girl. Beside the common room Helen occupied, this of Flossie’s was a fairy palace.

But Helen was naturally tender-hearted. She could not bear to see the younger girl crying. She ventured to step inside the door and whisper:

“Flossie?”

Up came the other’s head, her face flushed and wet and her brow a-scowl.

“What do you want?” she demanded, quickly.

“Nothing. Unless I can help you. And if so, that is what I want,” said the ranch girl, softly.

“Goodness me! You can’t help me with algebra. What do I want to know higher mathematics for? I’ll never have use for such knowledge.”

“I don’t suppose we can ever learn too much,” said Helen, quietly.

“Huh! Lots you know about it. You never were driven to school against your will.”

“No. Whenever I got a chance to go I was glad.”

“Maybe I’d be glad, too, if I lived on a ranch,” returned Flossie, scornfully.

Helen came nearer to the desk and sat down beside her.

“You don’t look a bit pretty with your eyes all red and hot. Crying isn’t going to help,” she said, smiling.

“I suppose not,” grumbled Flossie, ungrateful of tone.

“Come, let me get some water and cologne and bathe your face.” Helen jumped up and went to the tiny bathroom. “Now, I’ll play maid for you, Flossie.”

“Oh, all right,” said the younger girl. “I suppose, as you say, crying isn’t going to help.”

“Not at all. No amount of tears will solve a problem in algebra. And you let me see the questions. You see,” added Helen, slowly, beginning to bathe her cousin’s forehead and swollen eyes, “we once had a very fine school-teacher at the ranch. He was a college professor. But he had weak lungs and he came out there to Montana to rest.”

“That’s good!” murmured Flossie, meaning bathing process, for she was not listening much to Helen’s remarks.

“I knew it would make you feel better. But now, let me see these algebra problems. I took it up a little when – when Professor Payton was at the ranch.”

“You didn’t!” cried Flossie, in wonder.

“Let me see them,” pursued her cousin, nodding.

She had told the truth – as far as she went. After Professor Payton had left the ranch and Helen had gone to Denver to school, she had showed a marked taste for mathematics and had been allowed to go far ahead of her fellow-pupils in that study.

Now, at a glance, she saw what was the matter with Flossie’s attempts to solve the problems. She slipped into a seat beside the younger girl again and, in a few minutes, showed Flossie just how to solve them.

“Why, Helen! I didn’t suppose you knew so much,” said Flossie, in surprise.

“You see, that is something I had a chance to learn between times – when I wasn’t roping cows or breaking ponies,” said Helen, drily.

“Humph! I don’t believe you did either of those vulgar things,” declared Flossie, suddenly.

“You are mistaken. I do them both, and do them well,” returned Helen, gravely. “But they are not vulgar. No more vulgar than your sister Belle’s golf. It is outdoor exercise, and living outdoors as much as one can is a sort of religion in the West.”

“Well,” said Flossie, who had recovered her breath now. “I don’t care what you do outdoors. You can do algebra in the house! And I’m real thankful to you, Cousin Helen.”

“You are welcome, Flossie,” returned the other, gravely; but then she went her way to her own room at the top of the house. Flossie did not ask her to remain after she had done all she could for her.

But Helen had found plenty of reading matter in the house. Her cousins and uncle might ignore her as they pleased. With a good book in her hand she could forget all her troubles.

Now she slipped into her kimono, propped herself up in bed, turned the gas-jet high, and lost herself in the adventures of her favorite heroine. The little clock on the mantel ticked on unheeded. The house grew still. The maids came up to bed chattering. But still Helen read on.

She had forgotten the sounds she had heard in the old house at night. Mrs. Olstrom had mentioned that there were “queer stories” about the Starkweather mansion. But Helen would not have thought of them at this time, had something not rattled her doorknob and startled her.

“Somebody wants to come in,” was the girl’s first thought, and she hopped out of bed and ran to unlock it.

Then she halted, with her hand upon the knob. A sound outside had arrested her. But it was not the sound of somebody trying the latch.

Instead she plainly heard the mysterious “step – put; step – put” again. Was it descending the stairs? It seemed to grow fainter as she listened.

At length the girl – somewhat shaken – reached for the key of her door again, and turned it. Then she opened it and peered out.

The corridor was faintly illuminated. The stairway itself was quite dark, for there was no light in the short passage below called “the ghost-walk.”

The girl, in her slippers, crept to the head of the flight. There she could hear the steady, ghostly footstep from below. No other sound within the great mansion reached her ears. It was queer.

To and fro the odd step went. It apparently drew nearer, then receded – again and again.

Helen could not see any of the corridor from the top of the flight. So she began to creep down, determined to know for sure if there really was something or 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, had watched by the bed of the lady of the mansion, who had borne these unfortunate children only to see them die.

And Mary Boyle was one of that race who often lose their own identity in the families they serve. She had loved the lost babies as though they had been of her own flesh. She had walked the little passage at the back of the house (out of which had opened the nursery in those days) so many, many nights with one or the other of her fretful charges, that by and by she thought, at night, that she had them yet to soothe.

Mary Boyle, the weak-minded yet harmless ex-nurse, had been cherished by her old master. And in his will he had left her to the care of Mr. Cornelius, the heir. In turn she had been left a life interest in the mansion – to the extent of shelter and food and proper clothes – when Willets Starkweather became proprietor.

He could not get rid of the old lady. But, when he refurnished the house and made it over, he had banished Mary Boyle to the attic rooms. The girls were ashamed of her. She sometimes talked loudly if company was about. And always of the children she had once attended. She spoke of them as though they were still in her care, and told how she had walked the hall with one, or the other, of her dead and gone treasures the very night before!

For it was found necessary to allow Mary Boyle to have the freedom of that short corridor on the chamber floor late at night. Otherwise she would not remain secluded in her own rooms at the top of the house during the daytime.

As the lower servants came and went, finally only Mrs. Olstrom and Mr. Lawdor knew about the old lady, save the family. And Mr. Starkweather impressed it upon the minds of both these employés that he did not wish the old lady discussed below stairs.

So the story had risen that the house was haunted. The legend of the “ghost walk” was established. And Mary Boyle lived out her lonely life, with nobody to speak to save the housekeeper, who saw her daily; Mr. Lawdor, who climbed to her rooms perhaps once each week, and Mr. Starkweather himself, who saw and reported upon her case to his fellow trustees each month.

It was, to Helen, an unpleasant story. It threw a light on the characters of her uncle and cousins which did not enhance her admiration of them, to say the least. She had found them unkind, purse-proud heretofore; but to her generous soul their treatment of the little old woman, who must be but a small charge upon the estate, seemed far more blameworthy than their treatment of herself.

The story of the old butler made Helen quiver with indignation. It was like keeping the old lady in jail – this shutting her away into the attic of the great house. The Western girl went back to Madison Avenue (she walked, but the old butler rode) with a thought in her mind that she was not quite sure was a wise one. Yet she had nobody to discuss her idea with – nobody whom she wished to take into her confidence.

There were two lonely and neglected people in that fine mansion. She, herself, was one. The old nurse, Mary Boyle, was the other. And Helen felt a strong desire to see and talk with her fellow-sufferer.

CHAPTER XVII

A DISTINCT SHOCK

That evening when Mr. Starkweather came home, he handed Helen a sealed letter.

“I have ascertained,” the gentleman said, in his most pompous way, “that Mr. Fenwick Grimes is in town. He has recently returned from a tour of the West, where he has several mining interests. You will find his address on that envelope. Give the letter to him. It will serve to introduce you.”

He watched her closely while he said this, but did not appear to do so. Helen thanked him with some warmth.

“This is very good of you, Uncle Starkweather – especially when I know you do not approve.”

“Ahem! Sleeping dogs are much better left alone. To stir a puddle is only to agitate the mud. This old business would much better be forgotten. You know all that there is to be known about the unfortunate affair, I am quite sure.”

“I cannot believe that, Uncle,” Helen replied. “Had you seen how my dear father worried about it when he was dying – ”

Mr. Starkweather could look at her no longer – not even askance. He shook his head and murmured some commonplace, sympathetic phrase. But it did not seem genuine to his niece.

She knew very well that Mr. Starkweather had no real sympathy for her; nor did he care a particle about her father’s death. But she tucked the letter into her pocket and went her way.

As she passed through the upstairs corridor Flossie was entering one of the drawing-rooms, and she caught her cousin by the hand. Flossie had been distinctly nicer to Helen – in private – since the latter had helped her with the algebra problems.