Chapter 17

“They say—
What say they?
Let thame say!”
—Old Scottish Inscription.
After luncheon, I drove over to the village with Phillida, who had some housewifely orders to give at the shops. On second thoughts, Vere and I had agreed to tell her nothing about the venture we planned for tonight. We had satisfied her by the assurance that I meant to start for New York before the dangerous hours after midnight. Reassured, she regained her usual spirits with the buoyancy of her few years and healthy nerves. I gathered her secret belief was that no “ghost” would dare face Ethan.

Which may have been quite true!

On our way home, we stopped at the shop of Mrs. Hill to add to our supply of eggs, Phillida’s hens having unaccountably failed to supply their quota. I went in, leaving my companion in the car.

No one else was in the shop. An impulse prompted me to put a question to the little woman whose life had been spent in this neighborhood.

“Mrs. Hill, did you ever hear of anyone named Desire Michell?” I asked.

She stopped counting eggs and blinked up at me. Her sallow, wrinkled face lightened with curiosity and an absurd primness.

“Now, Mr. Locke! I’d like to know where a young city feller like you got that old story from?”

“I have not got it. I want you to tell it to me. She was a witch?”

“She was a hussy,” said Mrs. Hill severely. “I was a little girl when she ran away from her father’s respectable house, fifty-odd years ago. The disgrace killed him, being a clergyman. An’ the gossip that came back, later, an’ pictures of her in such dresses! Dear! Dear! The wicked certainly have opportunities.”

“Fifty years ago!” I echoed, dazed by this intrusion of a third Desire Michell.

“Ah! Nearly seventy she’d be if she was alive today; which she ain’t. Why, she changed her name to one fancier that you might have heard talk of? She was——”

The name she gave me I shall not set down. It is enough to say it was that of a super-woman whose beauty, genius and absolute lack of conscience set Europe ablaze for a while. A torch of womanhood, quenched at the highest-burning hour of her career by a sudden and violent death.

“There was an older house once, on your place,” she added pensively. “Did you know that? It stood in the hollow where your lake is now. Two—three hundred years old, folks say it was. One night it burned down in a big thunderstorm. The Michells then living had your house built over by the orchard, then, an’ had a dam built across so as to cover up the old site with water. All the Michells lived there till the last one went missionary abroad an’ died in foreign parts. I mean the hussy’s brother. He took up his father’s work, feelin’ a strong call. He was only a young boy when his sister went off, but he felt it dreadful. He was a hard man on the sinner. Preached hell and damnation all his days, he did. Lean over the pulpit, he would, his eyes flamin’ fire an’ his tongue shrivellin’ folks in their pews, I can tell you!”

“He left children?” I asked.

“No, sir! Rev’rund never married. He felt women a snare. Land, not much snarin’ with what farm women get to wear around here! I’ve kind of thought of one of those blue foulard silks with white spots into it since before I married Hill, but never came any nearer than pricin’ it an’ bringin’ home a sample. He was death on sweet odors an’ soft raiment. Only sweet odors I ever get are the ten-cent bottles Hill makes the pedlar throw in when we trade. I do fancy Jockey Club for special times, an’ I’ve got a reasonable hope of salvation, too. I notice your cousin, Mrs. Vere, has scent on her handkerchief week days as well as when she’s goin’ somewhere, so I guess you don’t hold with the Rev’rund Michell in New York?”