Chapter XII: The Somnambulist

The day after the dance passed rather quietly, as the young people were tired and preferred lounging upon the piazzas or under the trees to any great exertion. The costumes taken from the cedar chest had been carefully folded and returned to it, ready for the next time, Amy said. The folding and putting away had fallen to Sherry, who took the dresses and jewelry to the attic, laying them carefully in the chest and pausing a moment to open what proved to be the family Bible of Eli Crosby, and which was near the bottom.

“Oh, I wish I could have this,” she thought, and was about to examine it further when Amy came up the stairs, and she closed the book hastily, noticing, as she did so, that it contained two or three loose papers. “Some business papers of grandfather Crosby’s, I dare say,” she thought, and all day her mind was upon the cedar chest and its contents.

As the afternoon drew to a close a thunder storm came up and the night shut in hot and sultry. The young people were tired, and after a few ineffectual efforts to enjoy themselves, as Alex. wished them to do, they retired to their rooms, and at a very early hour quiet had settled upon the house. Alex. was sleeping soundly when there came a knock upon his door and Amy’s voice called to him, “Alex., Alex., are you awake?”

“Yes,—no. What is it? Is the house on fire?” he answered drowsily; and Amy continued in a whisper, “Dress you and come quick. There’s some one in the attic.”

“Nonsense!” Alex. said, springing up and soon joining his sister, who explained that she and Ruth had heard footsteps going up the stairs and then had heard them overhead.

They could not be mistaken. There was some one in the garret, probably the same who had moved the chest,—a burglar, perhaps, and she advised Alex. to bring his revolver or call Charley Reeves.

“Nonsense!” he said again, going with his sister and Ruth to the hall, at the end of which were the attic stairs, where they stopped to listen.

There certainly was some one in the attic moving cautiously, when he moved at all, and Alex. at once started to go up. But Amy held him back.

“Don’t, don’t,” she whispered. “You might get hurt. Whoever is there must come down. We can sit here and wait. You have your revolver?”

“Revolver. No,” Alex. answered, sitting where Amy bade him sit on a bench against the wall, which here made a little curve or alcove, so that while they could see distinctly any one coming down the stairs they could not be seen.

“There, he is coming,” Amy and Ruth both exclaimed, clutching Alex. and holding their breath as footfalls were heard upon the stairs and a glimmer of a light began to show itself in the darkness of the hall.

Amy and Ruth were trembling violently, while Alex. felt a little nervous as the light grew brighter and the steps came nearer. Then, with a smothered exclamation, he rose to his feet as Sherry came into view, carrying the brocade dress and the box of jewelry in one hand and in the other a candle, which she held raised directly in front of her, while she seemed to be looking steadily at it. She had on her dressing-gown and slippers, and her hair was falling over her shoulders. Her face was very pale, with a fixed and strained expression upon it, as if she were in pain or feeling her way over some dangerous place.

“It is Fanny. Who would have thought her a thief?” Amy gasped, while Alex.’s “Sh-sh!” came warningly.

“Don’t you see she is asleep?” he said, and Amy continued, “Let’s wake her, then.”

“No, wait,” Alex. answered, curious to know if Sherry would return to the attic for more goods.

She entered her room and they heard her moving around.

“Hiding the things,” Amy said excitedly, but Alex. kept her quiet until Sherry reappeared, candle in hand, and went to the attic again.

She was not gone long, and when she came back she had the old Bible under her arm and walked very slowly, saying, as she was opposite them, “I’m so tired and this is heavy, but it is mine.”

“Hers,” Amy repeated, in so loud a tone that Sherry stopped as if to listen, but neither turned her head nor her eyes.

Then she went into her room and shut the door.

“Aren’t you going in to wake her now?” Amy asked, and Alex. replied, “Certainly not. It would frighten and mystify her.”

“Yes, but my dress and jewels! She is welcome to the old Bible,” Amy continued; and Alex. replied, “They are safe. When she finds them in the morning she will put them back or bring them to us, and feel crushed and humiliated, no doubt. Go to bed, and hold your tongues. No one but ourselves need know what we have seen. The poor girl has had her mind so full of the dresses and is so tired working on them as she did and then waiting upon us so late last night that she is walking in her sleep. Not the first time probably.”

He was ready to find excuses for her, and told his sister a second time to hold her tongue. It was not in Amy’s nature to hold her tongue when there was an occasion to loosen it, and the occasion came at once. Mrs. Groves, whose room was at the end of the hall, and who boasted that she slept with one eye open, had heard the sound of voices, and coming from her room to investigate, met Amy and Ruth.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Why are you here in your dressing-gowns, and what’s that light doing at this time of night?”

She pointed to the light shining over the open transom of Sherry’s door, and started in that direction.

“Don’t go there,” Amy said in a mysterious whisper, and then the whole story came out, Mrs. Groves listening with an incredulous sneer and look of exultation.

“I always mistrusted her and believed there was some mystery back of her, but didn’t think she’d be up to quite so barefaced an act.”

“But Alex. thinks she’s asleep,” Amy said, and Mrs. Groves replied: “That’s a ruse to cover up the theft if discovered. She told one of the maids yesterday that she was homesick and believed she should go home. If she is asleep she will see the things in the morning and either take them back or tell you about it. If she does neither, depend upon it they are in her trunk and she is going to leave.”

This seemed feasible, and with their minds a good deal unsettled with regard to Sherry, Amy and Ruth returned to their rooms. Early the next morning they stole up to the attic, finding Mrs. Groves there before them, looking into the chest, diving to the bottom and pulling the articles out. With an ominous shake of the head she said to them: “I told you so; they are not here, and she has been down more than an hour. She must have seen them. They are in her trunk. Sleep-walking! Fiddlesticks! I walked just as much.”

“Seems as if she wanted to prove the girl guilty,” Amy said, as she went down to the piazza, where she found Alex. and told him of Mrs. Groves’ suspicions.

“Don’t you believe her,” he said. “She has never liked the girl. She is always finding fault with her because she seems superior to the others, and is glad of a chance to hurt her.”

And still he felt anxious, knowing Sherry must see the articles if they were in her room, and wondering what she would say. He found her standing by his mother’s chair as usual when he went in to breakfast, and noticed how pale she was, with dark rings around her eyes, and how languidly she moved, as if very tired. Mrs. Marsh knew the story by this time, and half the guests besides, and Sherry felt instinctively that she was an object of more interest than usual as she waited upon the table. For aught she knew she had slept soundly. She had not dreamed, and could not account for her headache and weakness and the dreadful nausea which sometimes nearly overmastered her. A great aversion to the place had taken possession of her, with a desire to leave it.

“I don’t think it agrees with me,” she thought. “I’ll make that an excuse and give notice this very day. I’ve had enough of it.”

“I expected it,” Mrs. Groves said, when some time during the morning Sherry announced her wish to leave, saying she was not feeling well and had not for some days.

“Mountain air is usually thought very healthy,” Mrs. Groves said with a snap in her voice, “and your duties certainly are not so very great that you need to complain.”

“I am not complaining of the work,” Sherry replied. “That is easy enough. But something ails me and I want to go home.”

“I expected it,” and Mrs. Groves’ lips shut firmly together. “Will you go to-day?”

“Oh, no,” Sherry answered, a good deal disturbed by Mrs. Groves’ manner, which had never been quite as aggravating as it was now. “I will stay till you fill my place.”

Mrs. Groves had not expected this. She thought Sherry would be glad to go at once before her theft was discovered, and she was anxious to be rid of her.

“No necessity for your waiting a day. We can manage very well. Polly is good for two tables, and some from the Reeves’ table leave to-morrow, but keep your place till after lunch,” was Mrs. Groves’ vinegary response, and Sherry left her with a feeling that she had been dismissed, rather than dismissed herself, and also with a feeling of uncertainty as to whether she really wished to go.

There had not been as much fun in her lark as she had anticipated, but,—and she colored to the roots of her hair as she thought of Alex., whom she might never see again. But what did it matter? She could never be more to him than a girl whom he had employed, and to whom he had been kind, as he was to every one. She would go home, and start that afternoon if her head stopped aching. It was throbbing painfully, and black specks were floating before her eyes, sometimes obscuring her vision and again making her see double. “There is something the matter, and the sooner I get home the better,” she thought, and finding a cool place on the piazza, she sat down to rest until it was time for lunch, the last meal at which she would serve.

Meanwhile Mrs. Groves had been busy. Sherry’s offer to stay until her place was filled did not look like guilt, but Mrs. Groves’ mind was unchanged, and she hastened to report to Amy that No. 1 had given notice and was going that afternoon.

“That proves her guilt conclusively, and I told you so. Better see to it at once before she gets away. She ought to be made an example as a warning to the other girls,” and her head and chin and the flabby flesh under it shook as she said it.

“What would you propose if we found the missing articles in her trunk? You would not have her arrested here?” Amy asked.

Her sympathy was a good deal with Sherry, whose look of suffering appealed to her.

“Of course I would not have her arrested, although she deserves it,” Mrs. Groves replied. “Take the things away, and let her know that we all know her for what she is,—a thief!”

The word had an ugly sound to Amy, and still uglier to Alex. when applied to the girl in whom he found he had so great an interest. He fully believed in the sleep-walking, and had hoped that the articles would be returned to the chest, or that Sherry would speak of them. Neither had happened, and urged by Amy he made up his mind to ask her if she ever walked in her sleep.

“It is just to the girl to give her a chance to defend herself against Mrs. Groves, who, I must say, is very bitter against her. I’ll do it,” Alex. said; “but will wait till after lunch, when Craig Saltus will be here. He must know of the girl’s family in Buford, where he has a country house. I’ll ask him about them. Craig always braces me up.”

Craig had written that he would arrive on the eleven o’clock train, but Sherry knew nothing of it till lunch time, when she was rather late at her post. Her head was still aching frightfully with that nausea so hard to bear. Two or three times she had sat down overcome by dizziness before she could rally sufficient strength to go to the dining-room, where the sight and odor of the food nearly overmastered her as she moved slowly up to her table after all were seated, seeing the back of a strange man, but never dreaming who it was until she stood beside him.

“Why, Miss Sherman, you here! This is an unexpected pleasure. Alex. never told me,” Craig exclaimed, offering her his hand, and as quickly as he could, on account of his lameness, getting upon his feet and beginning to pull out the vacant chair next to him.

Then sense and sight for a moment forsook Sherry, who would have fallen if Alex., too, had not risen and taken her arm.

“There is a mistake, and there has been one all the time,” he said to Craig, who was looking at one and then another, but mostly at Sherry, whose white apron and cap struck him at last.

He knew what they meant, but why was she wearing them, and why did Mrs. Marsh and Amy and Ruth seem so bewildered and Alex. so nervous, and why was Sherry so white?

An awful dizziness was coming over her again, and the black specks were thick before her eyes. Turning to No. 4, she said:

“Polly, will you take my place? I must have air.”

She was white as a corpse, and the rings around her eyes grew darker as she left the room, with Alex. beside her.

“What is it, Miss Sherman?” he said, adopting the name Craig had given her. “Why have you never told us you were Craig Saltus’ friend?”

“I don’t know,” Sherry answered faintly, as she sat down on the side piazza, where she had waltzed with Alex., and where the dog came bounding to her and began to lick her cold hands. “Go back,” she said to Alex. “I shall be better alone. By and by I’ll tell you why I was so foolish.”

Alex. went back, finding his mother and Amy and Ruth in a state of great excitement, and Craig quite as much surprised, as each listened to the other and told what they knew of the young lady,—Miss Sherry Sherman, Craig called her, repeating to Alex. what he had already said to the ladies.

“One of the very best families in Buford,” he said. “We know them well; and Rose is very fond of Sherry and her sister Katy.”

“Sherry,” Alex. exclaimed. “I thought her name was Fanny.”

“So it is in part,” Craig answered; “Fanny Sheridan Sherman, but she is called Sherry in Buford.”

“Craig,” Alex. gasped, a light beginning to break upon him, “is she related to old Pledger?”

“To Joel Pledger? Yes. You saw her in the box with him, you know, and asked me who she was.”

“But you didn’t tell me her name. You said his grand-niece,” Alex. replied. “She interested me then. She has puzzled me ever since she came here. Why did she come?”

This question no one could answer, although Craig tried to do so.

“I think she is a little erratic by nature,” Craig said. “I know she is fond of adventure, and probably the fancy struck her, as it does many young girls, to have some diversion in this line. You must have seen she was a lady?”

“Always,” Alex. exclaimed. His interest in Sherry increased tenfold now that he knew she was the girl seen in old Pledger’s box and never forgotten.

Amy said nothing. She was thinking of the dress and the jewelry, and wondering how they were to approach the subject. Questioning Fanny Sheridan Sherman, daughter of a clergyman and friend of Craig Saltus, was different from questioning No. 1. Alex. too, was worried, but it must be done, and the sooner it was off his mind the better. Going to the piazza, where he had left Sherry, he found her still there, with her eyes closed and the traces of tears on her face.

“Miss Sherman,” he began, drawing a chair beside her, “I can’t tell you how surprised I am, and glad that—” he began to stammer, not knowing how to finish the sentence, for Sherry’s eyes were open now and fixed upon him. “Yes, I’m glad,” he went on, “and when you are feeling better you will tell me about it. Now I must speak of something else,—something imperative. Did you ever walk in your sleep?”

Instantly a look of terror leaped into Sherry’s eyes, and her hands grasped the arms of the chair in which she was sitting.

“Yes,” she answered, “when I was a child. I hoped I had outgrown the habit, but it came back to me some days ago and I took the key.”

“What key?” Alex. asked, and Sherry told him the story of the key, leaving out her dream of her grandmother and only saying, “I dreamed some one told me where it was.”

Alex. was more puzzled than ever. Why was she so interested in the chest and its contents? He would ask her later. He must get over the most important part at once, and he said: “The brocade and jewelry and Bible disappeared last night. Do you know where they are?”

For a moment he thought Sherry had fainted, she sat so still and looked so white, and he put his hand on the one of hers nearest to him, and as she opened her eyes and looked at him he said, “Don’t feel so badly; try and remember.”

Then she rallied and said in a choking voice: “No, I don’t know where they are. Did I walk in my sleep, and is that why I feel so dizzy and tired this morning, just as I used to feel? _Did_ I walk in my sleep?”

Alex.’s hand was still on hers, and he felt her cold fingers closing tightly round it; and there was the pallor of death on her face as he told her what he saw.

“Oh,” she gasped, “this is dreadful! You saw me, and it must be true; but I do not remember dreaming at all as I usually do. I must have put the things in my closet. I did not see them as I opened the door this morning to hang up my dress. Your sister and Miss Doane saw me last night, too? Will you ask them to go with me to my room?”

“Let me see you there first,” Alex. suggested, and Sherry did not refuse his help.

Her strength seemed to have left her, and her feet dragged heavily as she climbed the back stairs.

“Sit here till I return,” Alex. said, placing her in a chair near the door and hurrying off for his sister and cousin, whom he found talking to Craig Saltus and telling him of last night’s adventure.

“I remember hearing that she walked in her sleep when a child,” he said. “She was little more than that when we first went to Buford. The whole town knew of it and were interested. She and Rose were great friends, and Rose had her once to spend the night with her, and she scared us all by getting up at midnight and starting for home.”

This swept away any doubt Amy and Ruth might have had with regard to Sherry, and they went with Alex. to her room, where she was sitting with her head dropped as if asleep, but she roused up when they came in, her lips quivering with a pitiful smile as she said: “I didn’t know what I was doing. I have no remembrance of it. I never used to have when I woke. There was only a sick, dizzy, tired feeling, as if I had walked miles, or been terribly frightened. It is dreadful, and you saw me with them. They must be in the closet. Please look. I can’t.”

Amy and Ruth did the searching, while Alex. stood by Sherry, whose face was spotted when they brought out the brocade, which was hanging inside the closet where it could not be seen, if one merely opened the door as Sherry had done in the morning. The jewelry and Bible came next, and the three were placed upon the bed just as Mrs. Groves appeared in the doorway. She had been that morning to see a friend who was to leave that day and had just returned. Consequently she had not heard of Mr. Saltus’ arrival, or of the scene at the table, nor of all that followed, filling the entire staff in the kitchen with wonder. She had started directly for her room, and hearing voices as she passed Sherry’s door, looked in with a sinister expression on her face as she saw the articles on the bed and Sherry sitting white and limp in a chair, with Alex. standing over her as if to prevent her escape.

“So you’ve found ’em,” she said. “I thought you would. Were they in her trunk?”

Instantly the terrible truth flashed upon Sherry that this woman believed her a thief, and it roused all her strength and courage. Springing to her feet and confronting her foe, she began: “And do you dare insinuate that I took the things knowingly and meant to carry them off? It is a fitting end to all the little mean tyrannies you have heaped upon me ever since I came. I have tried my best to serve you well, and you reward me by intimating that I am a thief. Oh, I can’t bear it. Will no one stand between me and this dreadful woman?”

She was terribly excited, and her hands went up, beating the air frantically for a moment; then she stretched them toward Alex., as if asking for help, which he promptly gave. Taking her hands in his, he turned to Mrs. Groves and exclaimed: “Woman, leave this room at once, and never again be guilty of such an insinuation against Miss Sherman.” And Mrs. Groves left, so astonished and shocked that she fairly ran through the hall to her own room, where she sat down more shaken up than she had ever been in her life. Was the world turning topsy-turvy and she turning with it? And was Alex. Marsh crazy, and why should that girl dare to talk so to her, Mrs. Groves, matron of Maplehurst, whom all the servants held in awe, if not in fear? What did it mean? She heard what it meant when Amy came to her after the interview with Sherry was over.

“Well, I never!” Mrs. Groves exclaimed, when the story came to an end. “Been masquerading as somebody else, has she? Do you call that honest and aboveboard?”

Amy had undertaken Sherry’s championship, and she meant to carry it through.

“Certainly,” she replied. “She told you her name was Fanny Sherman, from Buford, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Groves admitted rather reluctantly, and Amy continued: “That was true, and if she wished to hire out as a waitress she had a right to do so. She has made a good one, and I am sorry for her. We are all sorry.”

Mrs. Groves dared not say to Amy all that was in her mind. She did not like Sherry, and she did not mean to like her if she belonged to a hundred good families and Craig Saltus had known her all her life. But she was quelled, and with her head high in the air excused herself, as she must see to some of her household affairs.

“I hope the girl is not going to be sick here. The land knows we have enough to do, and we are awful short with her being off.”

Amy did not reply, and Mrs. Groves departed for the kitchen, talking to herself as she sometimes did when excited. Returning to Sherry’s room, Amy began to fold up the dress, which still lay upon the bed, and as she did so she said to Sherry: “May I ask why you are so interested in the chest?”

Sherry hesitated, and then replied, “Because I think it belongs to Katy and me.”

“Belongs to you!” Amy repeated. “What do you mean?”

Sherry felt that she could not talk much longer before her strength gave out. There were lumps in her throat and a buzzing in her ears, and she saw things through a cloud of spots. Everything was slipping from her. She must explain quickly if she explained at all, and she began very rapidly:

“It was my great-grandmother’s, Mrs. Crosby. She is buried across the way, and because she once lived here I had a fancy to come when I saw Mr. Marsh’s advertisement; mother and Katy opposed me, but I was self-willed; the romance of the affair appealed to me. I wanted to see Maplehurst. I could not come as a guest and so I came as a waitress. I knew many young ladies did such things, and I thought I’d try it. Aunt Pledger of New York, who used to be here, told me of the chest and its contents, and said they were mine and Katy’s, if still in existence. I did not stop to reason that when Mr. Marsh gave the house to your brother he probably gave him all there was in it. I was a foolish girl from the beginning. I thought it would be fun to come to my grandfather’s old home _incog_. It has been anything but fun, and now it has come to this! Seeing the dresses and cutting into them worked on my brain and brought back the trouble of my childhood, making me seem like a thief. _She_ thinks so, Mrs. Groves. She has never liked me. All the rest have been most kind.”

Sherry’s voice was now a whisper, for the lumps in her throat were choking her and rising higher and higher, until with her last words she broke into hysterical sobs, while her tears ran like rain through the fingers she pressed upon her face.

“Oh, Sherry, Sherry!” Alex. said, calling her by the name he thought the sweetest in the world. “Don’t cry like that! You frighten me. It is all right; everything is right. The chest is yours and everything in it. Don’t cry! Speak to her!”

He turned to Amy and Ruth, who stood appalled, not knowing what to say. Amy’s wits came first, and going up to Sherry she said: “We are surprised, but we believe you and are sorry you are taking it so hard. You are tired and overwrought. Lie down. Rest will do you good.”

Telling Ruth to put the dress and jewels and Bible back in the chest, Amy made Sherry lie down, spread a wet towel on her hot face and head, closed the blind to shut out the light, and then, with Alex., left the room, saying to him, when he suggested sending for a physician: “Wait awhile, she may be better to-morrow, and she does not want it talked about.”