Myrtle Reed - At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern

It was certainly a queer house. Even through the blinding storm they could distinguish its eccentric outlines as they alighted from the stage. Dorothy laughed happily, heedless of the fact that her husband’s umbrella was dripping down her neck. “It’s a dear old place,” she cried; “I love it already!”

For an instant a flash of lightning turned the peculiar windows into sheets of flame, then all was dark again. Harlan’s answer was drowned by a crash of thunder and the turning of the heavy wheels on the gravelled road.

“Don’t stop,” shouted the driver; “I’ll come up to-morrer for the money. Good luck to you – an’ the Jack-o’-Lantern!”

“What did he mean?” asked Dorothy, shaking out her wet skirts, when they were safely inside the door. “Who’s got a Jack-o’-Lantern?”

“You can search me,” answered Harlan, concisely, fumbling for a match. “I suppose we’ve got it. Anyhow, we’ll have a look at this sepulchral mansion presently.”

His deep voice echoed and re-echoed through the empty rooms, and Dorothy laughed; a little hysterically this time. Match after match sputtered and failed. “Couldn’t have got much wetter if I’d been in swimming,” he grumbled. “Here goes the last one.”

By the uncertain light they found a candle and Harlan drew a long breath of relief. “It would have been pleasant, wouldn’t it?” he went on. “We could have sat on the stairs until morning, or broken our admirable necks in falling over strange furniture. The next thing is a fire. Wonder where my distinguished relative kept his wood?”

Lighting another candle, he went off on a tour of investigation, leaving Dorothy alone.

She could not repress a shiver as she glanced around the gloomy room. The bare loneliness of the place was accentuated by the depressing furniture, which belonged to the black walnut and haircloth period. On the marble-topped table, in the exact centre of the room, was a red plush album, flanked on one side by a hideous china vase, and on the other by a basket of wax flowers under a glass shade.

Her home-coming! How often she had dreamed of it, never for a moment guessing that it might be like this! She had fancied a little house in a suburb, or a cosy apartment in the city, and a lump came into her throat as her air castle dissolved into utter ruin. She was one of those rare, unhappy women whose natures are so finely attuned to beauty that ugliness hurts like physical pain.

She sat down on one of the slippery haircloth chairs, facing the mantel where the single candle threw its tiny light afar. Little by little the room crept into shadowy relief – the melodeon in the corner, the what-not, with its burden of incongruous ornaments, and even the easel bearing the crayon portrait of the former mistress of the house, becoming faintly visible.

Presently, from above the mantel, appeared eyes. Dorothy felt them first, then looked up affrighted. From the darkness they gleamed upon her in a way that made her heart stand still. Human undoubtedly, but not in the least friendly, they were the eyes of one who bitterly resented the presence of an intruder. The light flickered, then flamed up once more and brought into view the features that belonged with the eyes.

Dorothy would have screamed, had it not been for the lump in her throat. A step came nearer and nearer, from some distant part of the house, accompanied by a cheery, familiar whistle. Still the stern, malicious face held her spellbound, and even when Harlan came in with his load of wood, she could not turn away.

“Now,” he said, “we’ll start a fire and hang ourselves up to dry.”

“What is it?” asked Dorothy, her lips scarcely moving.

His eyes followed hers. “Uncle Ebeneezer’s portrait,” he answered. “Why, Dorothy Carr! I believe you’re scared!”

“I was scared,” she admitted, reluctantly, after a brief silence, smiling a little at her own foolishness. “It’s so dark and gloomy in here, and you were gone so long – ”

Her voice trailed off into an indistinct murmur, but she still shuddered in spite of herself.

“Funny old place,” commented Harlan, kneeling on the hearth and laying kindlings, log-cabin fashion, in the fireplace. “If an architect planned it, he must have gone crazy the week before he did it.”

“Or at the time. Don’t, dear – wait a minute. Let’s light our first fire together.”

He smiled as she slipped to her knees beside him, and his hand held hers while the blazing splinter set the pine kindling aflame. Quickly the whole room was aglow with light and warmth, in cheerful contrast to the stormy tumult outside.

“Somebody said once,” observed Harlan, as they drew their chairs close to the hearth, “that four feet on a fender are sufficient for happiness.”

“Depends altogether on the feet,” rejoined Dorothy, quickly. “I wouldn’t want Uncle Ebeneezer sitting here beside me – no disrespect intended to your relation, as such.”

“Poor old duck,” said Harlan, kindly. “Life was never very good to him, and Death took away the only thing he ever loved.

“Aunt Rebecca,” he continued, feeling her unspoken question. “She died suddenly, when they had been married only three or four weeks.”

“Like us,” whispered Dorothy, for the first time conscious of a tenderness toward the departed Mr. Judson, of Judson Centre.

“It was four weeks ago to-day, wasn’t it?” he mused, instinctively seeking her hand.

“I thought you’d forgotten,” she smiled back at him. “I feel like an old married woman, already.”

“You don’t look it,” he returned, gently. Few would have called her beautiful, but love brings beauty with it, and Harlan saw an exquisite loveliness in the deep, dark eyes, the brown hair that rippled and shone in the firelight, the smooth, creamy skin, and the sensitive mouth that betrayed every passing mood.

“None the less, I am,” she went on. “I’ve grown so used to seeing ‘Mrs. James Harlan Carr’ on my visiting cards that I’ve forgotten there ever was such a person as ‘Miss Dorothy Locke,’ who used to get letters, and go calling when she wasn’t too busy, and have things sent to her when she had the money to buy them.”

“I hope – ” Harlan stumbled awkwardly over the words – “I hope you’ll never be sorry.”

“I haven’t been yet,” she laughed, “and it’s four whole weeks. Come, let’s go on an exploring expedition. I’m dry both inside and out, and most terribly hungry.”

Each took a candle and Harlan led the way, in and out of unexpected doors, queer, winding passages, and lonely, untenanted rooms. Originally, the house had been simple enough in structure, but wing after wing had been added until the first design, if it could be dignified by that name, had been wholly obscured. From each room branched a series of apartments – a sitting-room, surrounded by bedrooms, each of which contained two or sometimes three beds. A combined kitchen and dining-room was in every separate wing, with an outside door.

“I wonder,” cried Dorothy, “if we’ve come to an orphan asylum!”

“Heaven knows what we’ve come to,” muttered Harlan. “You know I never was here before.”

“Did Uncle Ebeneezer have a large family?”

“Only Aunt Rebecca, who died very soon, as I told you. Mother was his only sister, and I her only child, so it wasn’t on our side.”

“Perhaps,” observed Dorothy, “Aunt Rebecca had relations.”

“One, two, three, four, five,” counted Harlan. “There are five sets of apartments on this side, and three on the other. Let’s go upstairs.”