"Oh, I do - I do." If only Mrs. Delagarde would let her out! But Mrs. Delagarde knelt down by her entreatingly.
"Oh, we will be so happy now that you have come back, Delight. Kiss me - kiss me. You have turned your face away from me so long, my golden-haired Delight."
Her voice was so appealing that Marigold, in spite of her terror, could not refuse. She bent forward and kissed Mrs. Delagarde - then found herself seized in a wild embrace and smothered with hungry kisses.
Marigold tore herself from the encircling arms and darted towards the door. But Mrs. Delagarde caught her as she reached it - pushed her aside with a strange little laugh and slipped out. Marigold heard the key turn in the lock. She was a prisoner in the house of a crazy woman. She knew now. THAT was what people meant when they called Mrs. Delagarde "a little off."
What could she do? Nothing. Nobody knew where she was. Alone in this horrible, big, darkening room with the shrouded windows. With those dreadful dresses of dead Delight hanging in the closet. With that terrible doll lying on the bed like a dead thing. With a huge, black bearskin muff on a little stand by the bed. What wild tale had Lazarre once told her about those big, old-fashioned bearskin muffs? That they were really witches and went out on moonlit nights and danced in the snow. There was a moon to-night - already its faint radiance was stealing into the room - suppose the muff began to dance around the room before her!
Marigold stifled the scream that rose to her lips. It might bring Mrs. Delagarde back. Nothing would be so dreadful as that - not even a bewitched bearskin muff. She was afraid even to move - but she managed to tiptoe to window after window. They were all nailed down - every one of them. Anyway, all of them opened on a steep bare wall. No chance of escape there. And through one she saw the home-light at Cloud of Spruce. Had they missed her? Were they searching for her? But they would never think of coming here.
She sat down in an old cretonne-covered wing-chair by the window - as far as possible from the bed and the muff! She sat there through the whole of the chilly, incredible, everlasting night. Nobody came. At first there was only a dreadful stillness. There did not seem to be a sound in the whole earth. The wind rose and the moonlight went out and the windows rattled unceasingly. And she was sure the muff moved. And the dresses in the closet surely stirred. Twice she heard footsteps in the hall.
Morning came - a cloudy morning with a blood-red sunrise sky. The windows all looked out on green widespread fields. There was no way in which she could attract attention. No way of escape. She would die here of starvation, and Mother would never know what had become of her. Again and again she heard footsteps passing along the hall - again and again she held her breath with fear lest they pause at the door. She suffered with thirst as the day wore on but she felt no hunger. A queer, numb resignation was stealing over her. Perhaps she would die very soon - but that no longer seemed terrible. The only terrible thing was that Mrs. Delagarde might come back.
Evening again - moonlight again - wind again - a snarling, quarrelsome wind that worried a vine at the window and sent a queer shadow flying across the room to the bearksin muff. It seemed to move - it WAS moving - Marigold suddenly went to pieces. She shrieked madly - she flew across the room - she tugged frantically at the locked door. It opened so suddenly that she nearly fell over backward. She did not pause to reflect that it could never have been locked at all, in spite of the turned key - she was past thinking or reflecting. She fled across the hall - down the stairs - out - out into freedom. She never stopped running till she stumbled into the hall at Cloud of Spruce - a hall full of wild, excited people, amid which she caught one glimpse of Mother's white anguished face before - for the first time in her life - she fainted.
"Good God," said Uncle Klon. "Here she is."
4
It was next day and Marigold was in bed with Mother sitting by her bedside and Grandmother coming in and out trying to look disapproving but too relieved and thankful to make a success of it. The whole story had been told - and much more. Marigold knew all about Mrs. Delagarde now - poor Mrs. Delagarde, who had lost her only little child a year ago, and had not been right in her mind ever since. Who had sat for hours by her little girl's side entreating her to speak to her once more - just one word. Who could not forget for a moment that she had whipped Delight the day before her sudden illness. Who had never forgiven her husband because he had been away when Delight took ill and there was no one to go for the doctor through the storm.
"The poor unhappy lady is greatly to be pitied," Mother said. "But, oh, darling, what a terrible time you have had."
"Some of the rest of us have had a terrible time, too," said Grandmother grimly. "Mrs. Donkin was sure she saw you at dusk in an automobile with two strange-looking men. And Toff LeClerc's boat is missing and we thought you had floated out into the channel in it. The whole country has been combed for you, miss."
"I'm afraid I'm not fit to be a missionary, Mother," sobbed Marigold when Grandmother had gone out. "I wasn't brave - or resourceful - or serene - or anything."
Mother cuddled her - compassionate, tender, understanding.
"It's a very fine, splendid thing to be a missionary, dear, and if, when you grow up, you feel called to that particular form of service nobody will try to hinder you. But the best way to prepare for it is just to learn all you can and get a good education and live as happily and pleasantly as a small girl can, meanwhile. Dr. Violet Meriwether was the jolliest little tomboy in the world when we were girls together - a perfect mischief and madcap."
Aunt Marigold made her namesake stay in bed for a week. On the day Marigold was allowed to get up Mother came in smiling.
"After all, your missionary effort seems to have done some good, Marigold. Mrs. Delagarde's doctor says she is very much better. She has ceased to talk about Delight and she has forgiven her husband. Dr. Ryan says she is quite rational in many ways and he thinks if she is taken away for a complete change of scene and association she will recover completely. He says she told him she was 'forgiven' and this conviction seems to have cured some sick spot in her soul."
"Humph," said Grandmother - rather gently, however.
"Isn't it funny she never came back to the room?" said Marigold.
"She probably forgot all about you the minute you were out of her sight."
"I was so afraid she would. I thought I heard her outside all the time. That was why I never dared go near the door. And it wasn't locked at all - though I KNOW I heard the key turn."
"I suppose it didn't turn all the way. Keys sometimes stick like that."
"Wasn't it silly to think I was locked in when I might have got out right away? I guess I've been silly right through. But - "
Marigold sighed. After having been consecrated and set apart for three weeks it was somewhat flat and savourless to come back to ordinary, memoirless life.
But visions of a new apricot dress were again flickering alluringly before her eyes. And Sylvia was on the hill - a forgiving Sylvia, who made no difference at all because of her brief defection.
CHAPTER XVI
One of Us
1
"I'm going travelling to-morrow. It makes me feel very important," Marigold told Sylvia one evening.
Hitherto Marigold had not done a great deal of visiting. Grandmother disapproved of it and Mother seldom dared to disagree with Grandmother. Besides Marigold herself had no great hankering to visit - by which she meant going away from home by herself to stay overnight. Only twice had she done it before - to Uncle Paul's and to Aunt Stasia's, and neither "visit" had been much of a success. Marigold still tingled with shame and resentment whenever she thought of "IT." She vowed she would never go to Aunt Stasia's again.