The Windy Hill by Cornelia Meigs

Author:Cornelia Meigs [Meigs, Cornelia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aeterna Classics
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER VII

THE PORTRAIT OF CICELY

If Janet had needed any further clue to Anthony Crawford's character, she would have had it in the sudden trembling terror of his little son. She was shaking herself, yet she mustered an outward appearance of courage for a moment, as she turned to face him squarely and to hear his biting words:

"First the brother, peering over the wall, then the sister, rummaging through my house. Did Jasper Peyton send you here to find where I kept the picture of Cicely Hallowell that he was so reluctant to give up to me?"

"I didn't know it was Cicely Hallowell," returned Janet, trying to speak steadily. "I didn't even know that she was a real person; I thought she was just some one in a story."

Then as Crawford stepped nearer, as little Martin gave a sudden squeak of alarm, blind panic took possession of her. She ran toward the stairs and, though the man put out his arm to intercept her, she dodged under it with undignified agility and plunged down the steps. They were of the broad, shallow kind that made her feel, for all her speed, that she would never reach the bottom, yet she came at last into the hall below and out upon the stoop. She fled past Mrs. Crawford, sitting with the sleeping baby across her lap and looking up anxiously, with good cause for misgiving since she had heard her husband go up the stair.

It was only when she was safely outside the gate that Janet stopped to draw breath, to realize how her knees were trembling and how her heart was pounding. Yet it stopped suddenly and seemed to miss a beat when she realized something further, that she still held in her hand the miniature of Cicely Hallowell.

"Can I go back?" she wondered desperately, but knew instantly that she could never find courage to do so. She went on, hurrying and stumbling as she made her way down the lane. Only once she ventured to look over her shoulder and saw Anthony Crawford standing on the doorstep staring after her while the scarecrow that was so vaguely like him seemed to be lifting its straw-filled arm in a mocking gesture of farewell.

Janet and Oliver held an anxious conference that evening as they sat on the terrace, for until that moment they had not been alone together. She brought out the miniature and told of the astonishing and disturbing manner in which it had come into her possession, while Oliver wondered, in frank dismay, how it was to be restored to its owner.

"I can't think how I came to carry it away with me," wailed Janet. "Of course it was clutched tight in my hand and I was so frightened that I didn't think of anything but getting away. I thought of putting it down on the grass by the gate, but it is too valuable to risk being lost like that.

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