Bessie's Fortune Part 10

Meanwhile, in antic.i.p.ation of the coming of the guests, Hannah put her father's room a little more to rights, lighted another candle, put more wood in the stove, and then sat down to wait the result, with a heart which it seemed to her had ceased to beat, so pulseless and dead it lay in her bosom. She had no fear of anything personally adverse to herself or her father arising from the telling of the secret kept so many years.

It would be safe with Mr. Sanford, while her proud brother would die a thousand deaths sooner than reveal it; but, oh, how cruelly he would be hurt, and how he would shrink from the story, and blame her that she allowed it to be told, especially to the clergyman--and she might perhaps prevent that yet. So she made another effort, but her father was determined.

"I must, I must; I shall die easier, and he will never tell. We have known him so long. Twenty-five years he has been here, and he took to us from the first. Do you remember how often he used to come and read to you on the bench under the apple tree?"

"Yes, father," Hannah answered, with a gasp, and he went on:

"Seeing you two together so much, I used to think he had a liking for you, and you for him. Did you, Hannah? Were you and the minister ever engaged?"

"No, father, never," Hannah replied, as she pressed her hands tightly together, while two great burning tears rolled down her cheeks.

"And yet you were a comely enough la.s.s then," her father rejoined, as if bent on tormenting her. "You had lost your bright color to be sure, but there was something very winsome in your face and eyes, and manner; and he might better have married you than the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued, fussy Martha Craig, who, like the Martha of old, is troubled about many things, and leads the minister a stirred up kind of life."

"Mrs. Sanford is a model housekeeper, and takes good care of her husband," Hannah said, softly; and then, as she heard the sound of voices outside, she arose quickly, and went to meet her brother, and the man who, her father had said, would better have married her than the "sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Martha."

CHAPTER X.

THE INTERVIEW.

The rector was full of interest and concern as he stepped into the room, and when Hannah apologized for sending for him on such a night, he answered promptly:

"Not at all, not at all. If I can be of any comfort to you or your father, I should be very sorry not to come. How is he?"

Hannah did not answer him, so intent was she upon studying her brother's face, which was anything but sympathetic, as he shook the snow from his overcoat and warmed his hands by the stove. The Hon. Burton Jerrold liked his comfort and ease, and as he was far from easy or comfortable, he made his sister feel it by his manner, if not by his words.

"Is father so much worse that you must send for us in this storm?" he asked, and Hannah replied:

"Yes, he is very bad. He says he is going to die, and I believe it. He will not last the night out, and of course I must send for you, and he insisted that Mr. Sanford should come too."

"Yes, certainly; I am glad he did," the clergyman rejoined, thrusting his hands into his coat-pocket. "He wishes the communion, I dare say,"

and he placed reverently upon the table the little silver service.

Hannah's face flushed as she replied;

"He did not mention that, I do not suppose he thinks he can receive it.

What he wishes is to see you, to talk to you, to--to--"

She hesitated, her brother's countenance was so forbidding, then added, quickly:

"'He wishes to tell you something which he has kept for years," and her voice sank to a whisper as she glanced again at her brother.

It was coming, then, the thing he had suspected so long, and which he never had wished to learn, and Burton Jerrold breathed hard as he said:

"But surely, Hannah, if there are family secrets to be told, I am the one to hear them, and not a stranger. Mr. Sanford can have no interest in our affairs."

"I could not help it, brother," Hannah said, mildly. "I tried to dissuade him, but he would not listen, and Mr. Sanford is not like a stranger to us."

She turned her dark eyes full of tears upon the clergyman, who gave her back an answering glance which her brother did not observe, and would not have comprehended if he had.

"Yes, Hannah," Mr. Sanford said, "you can trust me; be the secret one of life or death, it is safe with me as with you." And he gave her his hand by way of affirmation.

And Hannah took the offered hand and held fast to it as a drowning man holds to a straw, while the tears ran like rain down her pale face.

"Hannah! Burton! Are you there, and the minister? There is no time to lose," came feebly from the sick-room, and Hannah said:

"He is calling us; go to him, please. I will join you in a minute."

Then she hurried to the summer kitchen, where she found Sam, who thought his work done, and was removing his boots preparatory to going to bed.

"Wait, Sam," she said. "I am sorry, for I know you are tired and sleepy, but you must sit up a while longer, and take Mr. Sanford home. I will bring you an easy-chair in which you can sleep till I want you."

Thus speaking, she brought a large Boston rocker and a pillow for the tired boy, who, she knew, would soon be fast asleep, with no suspicion of what was about to transpire in the sick-room to which she next repaired, closing the door behind her. Her father had both Burton's hands in his, and was crying like a little child.

"Oh, my son, my son," he said, "if I could undo the past, I should not have to turn my eyes from my own child in shame, and that I have done ever since you were a boy, and came from Boston to see us. How old was he, Hannah? How old was Burton when the terrible thing happened?"

"'Twelve," Hannah answered, and her father went wandering on like one out of his mind, talking of Burton when he was a boy--of his dead wife--of Hannah, who had suffered so long, and of the storm, which he said was like the one which swept the New England hills thirty-one years ago that very night, when the snow fell so deep that no one came near the place till Monday.

"Three whole days," he said. "Friday, Sat.u.r.day, Sunday, and I had time to hide the dark deed so securely that it has never been suspected."

Burton started quickly, and glanced at his sister with a look of amazed inquiry. He had thought of forgery, and theft, and embezzlement, but never of what his father's words might imply, and the cold sweat began to froze from the palms of his hands while a kind of nightmare crept over him, and kept him rooted to the spot as his father went on:

"But, oh! what agony of remorse I have endured! The tortures of the lost are not more intense than my sufferings have been! Think of my meeting people day after day with the mark of Cain upon my brow, burning there so hotly that it seemed as if you must all see it, and know my guilt.

How could I join myself to G.o.d's people with this sin unconfessed? I could not, and yet, I feel in my heart that I am forgiven, washed in His blood as white as snow, so that there is rest for me in Paradise. Still, I must confess; I must tell you, my son, and you, my minister; but no one else--not Grey--no, no, not the boy Grey, who loves me so much. His life must not be shadowed with disgrace. He must not hate me in my coffin. Oh, Grey! Grey! May G.o.d bless the boy and give him every needful happiness, and make him so good and n.o.ble that his life will blot out the stain upon our name.

"Father!" Burton cried, in a choking voice; "for pity's sake, have done, and tell me what you mean! The suspense is terrible."

"I mean," and the old man spoke clearly and distinctly--"I mean that, thirty-one years ago to-night, in the heat of pa.s.sion, I killed a man in the kitchen yonder, and buried him under this floor, under my bed, and I have slept over his grave ever since!"

"A murderer!" dropped from Burton Jerrold's pale lips; and "A murderer!"

was echoed in the next room by lips far whiter than Burton Jerrold's, and which quivered with mortal pain as the boy Grey started from his stooping position over the stove and felt that he was dying.

For Grey was there, and had been for the last few minutes, and had heard the secret which he was not to know.

After his father left Grey's Park, he had sat a few minutes with his mother and aunt, and then, complaining of a headache, had asked to be excused, and gone to his room, which was at the head of some stairs leading down into a narrow hall and out into the side yard. When the boy entered his chamber, he had no intention of going to the farm-house, but as he thought of his grandfather dying, and that to-morrow might perhaps be too late to see him alive, the wish to go there grew stronger and stronger, until it became an impulse which he could not resist.

"Something tells me I must go," he said; "that it is needful for me to be there, and go I shall. I am not afraid of the snow. It cannot be more than a foot on the level. I have waded through more banks than that, and it is only a mile from here across the fields and through the woods. I shall not tell any one, but I am going."

And in a few moments Grey had descended the stairs, and unlocking the outer door, locked it again, and putting the key in his pocket, started for the farm-house, striking into a cross-road which led across the fields, and which in summer he used often to take in preference to the highway. It was a little nearer, and led through gra.s.sy lanes, and cool pinewoods, and pleasant pasture lands, across a stream where he had once built a dam, and had a little water-wheel which his grandfather made for him.

The way, however, was anything but pleasant now, with the cold, dark sky, the tall, leafless trees, and the drifting snow, which he found was more than a foot deep on the level, except in the woods, where it had not fallen so thickly. But Grey was young and fearless, and he went on rapidly, until he reached the knoll from which the house was visible not far away. It had ceased snowing by this time, and the moon, which was nearly at its full, was struggling to show itself through a rift in the gray clouds. The wind, however, was still blowing in wild gusts, and as it swept past him he, too, fancied it had in it a human sound.

"It is like Aunt Hannah's voice calling to me. I am glad I came, though I suppose father will scold," he said, as he paused a moment to rest, and then rapidly descended the knoll to the house.

Entering by the wood-shed door, which was first reached, he went into the summer kitchen, and pa.s.sed on into the second kitchen, where a candle was burning dimly, and where he stopped a moment by the warm stove. No one heard him, no one knew he was there; but as he stood in the silence and darkness he heard distinctly his grandfather's voice, and this was what he heard:

"I must tell you, my son, and you, my minister; but no one else, not Grey--no, no, not, the boy Grey, who loves me so much. His life must not be shadowed with disgrace. He must not hate me in my coffin. Oh, Grey!