Katherine Stokes

“ But I have to creep about and go out back doors and around dark streets. I am always frightened and uneasy; and as for mother, she keeps the blinds down all day and never sticks her nose outside.”
“But what is it, Marie-Jeanne?” cried Billie. “Is it really something too dreadful to tell?”
“That’s just it,” exclaimed the poor girl miserably, “I don’t know what it is. I only know we are hiding and there is a secret. If ever I find out what it is,” she cried fiercely, “I shall tell it and have it over with.”
“Is Miss Felicia Rivers in the secret?” asked Nancy. ”

“ Kilkenty Hall, you know, is the home of my other uncle, the Duke. You see, the Hall always goes to the eldest son and the Abbey to the second son for his lifetime.”
“Suppose there isn’t any second son?” persisted Mary.
“But there always has been,” laughed Beatrice.
“Then little Arthur will be master of the Abbey some day,” thought Billie, but as Beatrice had kept well away from the subject of her lost cousin, the girls were careful not to mention his name. Billie’s mind was filled with vague suspicions and conjectures still too lost in the mists of uncertainty to put into words. ”

“ The Motor Maids always blamed what happened on the Duchess of Richmond. At any rate, Mary Price was standing just in front of that grotesque effigy, which was dressed in the very robes she had worn in life at the coronation of Queen Anne,—and by her side perched a stuffed parrot, said to have lived with her forty years,—when the young girl suddenly turned very pale and slipped down to the floor. So quietly did she fall that the others, who were viewing a jaunty effigy of Admiral Nelson, did not notice the little gray figure lying in a heap on the chapel floor. ”

“ It was something to be going to London Bridge, but it was something more to have a reason for going, a mysterious reason. When the girls became part of the surging mass of people which flows over the historic bridge morning and afternoon, they felt a thrill of excitement. Streams of human beings and vehicles poured onto the bridge from every direction.
“I don’t feel like a person, Nancy,” observed Billie. “I feel like a drop of water in a rushing river. It will be hard to stop going, now we have started; hard to leap out. ”

“ Marie-Jeanne shook her head.
“It’s not a glass house,” she answered. “But it’s a good deal better than Miss Rivers’, and sometimes I deceive myself into thinking it’s really a little home. It’s a kind of an imitation happiness, I suppose. Always, deep down in my heart, I know it can’t last very long, but it’s the nearest I have ever been to being really happy in my life.”
Just as Billie and Nancy passed under the arch leading from the courtyard and turned toward the New Town, a very old man and a little boy, walking hand in hand and talking happily together, crossed the narrow street. ”

“ How do I know that you are not a pair of young spies, sent here by the police to pry into my secrets and the secrets of my lodgers,—not that we have any, but poor people are always suspected, while the rich go free. It’s the poor that has the hard time in this wicked world, and the rich that flourishes, and it’s the well-dressed ones with the innocent faces that’s the most dangerous of all, and the most noticing,—not that there’s anything to notice about my lodging house nor any secrets to hide. ”

“ Mary’s friends could have hugged her for this astute observation, and even the cold and bloodless Duke of Kilkenty showed a flicker of admiration.
“You are a very clever young woman,” he said. “It’s the first time in my life I have ever been outwitted by a woman, old or young. You may go free.”
Miss Campbell tossed her head.
“Free, indeed! We are free. Free-born Americans,” she thought.
“As for you, young man,” continued the Duke, turning to Feargus, whose blue eyes were still blazing with rage. “Take yourself out of this neighborhood at once or it will be the worse for you.” ”

“ Miss Campbell was kneeling beside her dabbing her face with a wet handkerchief. Elinor and Nancy were chafing her wrists, while Mary sat at her feet and gazed at her with the sorrowful expression of one who is looking upon the face of a dead friend.
“Nonsense,” said another voice, and Billie, twisting her head, saw that it was Feargus O’Connor who spoke, “do you think I’m the man to stand by while a mad bull charges a party of ladies?” ”

“ At a grand farewell dinner at Kilkenty Hall, His Grace, the Duke, made an appropriate speech of thanks and presented Billie with a beautiful enamelled brooch in the design of a wreath of roses, shamrocks and thistles intertwined.
So ended the strange drama into which the Motor Maids had been unwittingly drawn. It had, however, enabled them to see many sides of life; to touch the edge of a vast secret movement for universal peace; to see the miracle of hatred turned to love and wrong made right. ”

“ Afraid to call your souls your own; afraid to do right; afraid to save a life because of what some lord can do to you. You’re a poor set of cringing peasants, that’s what you are. Do you think I’m afraid of having defended five ladies against a mad bull? Bring on ‘His Grace,’ whoever he is. I’ll tell him so to his face.”
Feargus had become very excited with the injustice of the men’s views. He gesticulated like a speech maker and his voice had an oratorical ring.
“And who, pray, is the owner of this dead creature?” demanded Miss Campbell, rising with dignity from her ministrations to Billie. ”

“ She only wanted to enjoy herself under the drooping pink brim of her pretty hat. And after all, it isn’t every girl who has eight handsome cavaliers to row her on one of the loveliest rivers in all England. Once in the long boat with her small feet on somebody’s coat to keep them dry, one young man holding the white silk parasol and another the hand bag, and all of them entertaining her at once, Nancy quite forgot that she was engaged in an unconventional adventure. ”

“ Immediately the two girls rose to go. Perhaps Mrs. Le Roy-Jones would not be pleased to have her daughter entertaining guests in this humble lodging.
Before they left, Billie parted the muslin curtains and looked across a sea of wet roofs to the real sea beyond.
“How beautiful, Marie-Jeanne!”
“Isn’t it?—and we love it. The air is splendid. Sometimes it brings a smell of heather from the moors and sometimes a salty sea smell. We are so far removed, it’s like being in a tower.” ”

“ Ragged children peeped at them from the windows and doors of the rickety houses forming the quadrangle, and from the window of the nearest house a sallow-faced woman, washing clothes, gave them a sour glance and silently went about her work. An ugly visaged man scowled at them from over her shoulder. Feeling a little frightened, the two girls hastened toward an arched entrance to a hallway where hung several signs conspicuously placed.
“Billie, I have an inspiration,” whispered Nancy. “Suppose we get Mr. A. Ritchie, Cobbler, to straighten the heel on my left shoe.” ”

“ I am an American girl——”
A telegraphic smile flashed from one member of the company to the other.
“And—my name is Nancy Brown.”
If anything could have been more captivating than herself, it was her name, and her eight cavaliers pressed about her in order to catch a glimpse of her pretty face under the pink-lined drooping brim of her hat.
As they strolled along, the young man named “Bixby” proceeded to enumerate the names of his seven friends to Nancy, who paused at the archway to get them straight. And of all the escort, she liked the handsomest best. His name was Edward Bacon. ”

“ Hot tea and certain rather queer, unaccustomed kinds of food warmed and cheered the five weary tourists, and presently they were all talking amiably together. It was evident that Miss Annie Campbell enjoyed the conversation of her young visitors. She asked them a hundred questions about America, and she amused them by relating some of the ghostly old legends that are clustered about Edinburgh as thickly as barnacles on the hull of a ship. ”

“ He is one of the greatest scoundrels in all England and one of the richest. None of his family will have anything to do with him; neither his stepmother, the present dowager Duchess of Kilkenty, nor his half-brother, Lord Glenarm. He is so powerful that he is feared almost as much as he is disliked. But,” here Telemac lowered his voice, “it is said that he has lent large sums in high places and for that reason he is safe. But he is not safe. No one is safe. There is a hand that smites in the dark, and some day it will strike the Duke of Kilkenty!” ”

“ It was purely accidental like the last time,” answered Billie, and they explained how they happened to wander into the tenement house, and take refuge in that room.
“Old Ritchie wouldn’t really have harmed you,” said Marie-Jeanne. “He carries on, but he never does anything. He’s quite nice when you get to know him.”
“I almost didn’t know you, Marie-Jeanne,” put in Nancy. “You have grown so plump and strong since we saw you.”
“It’s all because I am happy. One can’t be well if one isn’t happy, and I was never so happy in all my life. ”

“ Miss Campbell was not as uneasy as Billie. She was sure that Mary could take care of herself. She was a reliable little thing and knew the address. If she had lost them, the child knew just what to do,—take a hansom and drive straight to their lodgings.
“I dislig to alarb de ladies,” here put in Fräulein Bloch, “bud de young lady might be by dat room loged.”
“What!” cried Miss Helen; “locked in the room with all those horrible wax figures that look like corpses! Oh, heavens, where is a guide? Suppose the child has been left in that dreadful place? It’s enough to make her go mad.” ”

“ We are not cringing peasantry and we are not cowards. We are Americans, thank God, and you’d better be careful how you deal with us. If this man killed a mad bull who was about to kill one of us, he did right, and there is not a court in England that would not uphold him in his action. Are you going to place the life of a human being in the balance with the life of a dangerous beast? Take it to court and see how such a thing would sound. A creditable action for the Duke of Kilkenty to arrest a man for saving five lives!”
Miss Campbell was growing more angry every moment. ”

“ Billie was surprised. She had assuredly been prepared for something quite different, and she wondered why Miss Helen Campbell had spoken of her cousin with so much irritation. Miss Annie Campbell was certainly the very opposite of her Cousin Helen in looks and figure, but, it must be confessed, equally as handsome. What beautiful young girls they must have been forty years ago!
“My dear Annie, don’t speak of the years,” exclaimed Miss Helen with much agitation. “Age is the only thing that has come to us. We are still spinsters.” ”

“ Elinor almost collapsed as they passed the belt of cooking smells on the way to the dining-room. They had not taken one of the larger and more expensive ships on which science has eliminated all offensive smells of the kitchen. But it’s a wonderful thing what will power will do, and strengthened by orange juice and hot tea, Elinor’s fortitude returned, the color came into her cheeks and the light to her eyes.
“If seasick people would only eat,” Billie was saying, “they wouldn’t mind the rocking a bit. It’s that empty feeling that makes things so bad.” ”