Bessie's Fortune Part 17

"I know you are good, a saint, a martyr, an angel, the best woman that ever lived. Mr. Sanford said so."

"Mr. Sanford!" Hannah, exclaimed. "What do you mean? You have not spoken to him?"

"Not of that," Grey said. "But I sent for him, you know, and Aunt Lucy thought I was going to be good and join the church, but I only wanted him to tell me sure that grandpa was safe, and that you were good, as I used to think you were. He never suspected I was inquiring about you, I brought it in so neat; but he said you were a martyr, a saint, an angel, and the best woman that ever lived, and I believed him, and love you so much, and pity you so much for all you must have suffered. And, now, tell me about it. Don't omit a single detail. I want to know it all."

So she told him everything, and when the story was ended, he took her white face between his two hands, and kissing it tenderly, said:

"Now, I am sure you are a saint, a martyr, an angel; but the martyrdom is over. I shall take care of you, I will help you find Elizabeth Rogers or her heirs, and father shall not know. I'll go to Europe when I am a man, and inquire at every house in Carnarvon for Joel Rogers or his sister; and when I find the heirs, I will send the money to them, and they shall never know where it came from; and if there are shares in quarries and mines, I'll manage that somehow. I am to be a lawyer, you know, and I can find some kink which will work."

How he comforted her with his cheery, hopeful words, and how fast the hours flew by until Tom came to take him back to Grey's Park. But Grey begged so hard to stay all night, that Hannah ventured to keep him, and Tom returned without him.

"I am not a bit afraid of the house now, and would as soon sleep in grandpa's room as anywhere," he said to Hannah, as they sat together in the evening, and then they talked of her future until Grey was old enough to take care of her, as he meant to do.

"Shall you stay here?" he asked, and Hannah replied:

"I don't know yet what I shall do, I shall let your father decide for me."

"You might live with us in Boston," Grey said. "That would be jolly for me; but I don't know how you and mother would hitch together, you are so unlike. I wish I was big, and married, and then I know just where you would go. But father will arrange it, I am sure."

And three weeks later, when Burton came up from Boston after his son, he did arrange it for her.

"It is of no use," he said to her. "I have tried meeting and mingling with my friends, and I feel as if they saw on my face what is always in my mind, and if I stay in Boston I shall some day scream out to the public that my father was a murderer. I could not help it, and I can understand now how Lucy was wrought upon to do what she did in church when they thought her crazy. I shall be crazy, too, if I stay here, and I am going away. Geraldine likes Europe, and so do I; and as I can leave my business as well as not, I shall shut up my house, and go abroad until I feel that I can look my fellowmen in the face."

"And Grey?" Hannah asked, sorrowfully, knowing how dreary her life would be with him so far away.

"I shall take him with me," her brother replied, "I shall put him in school somewhere in England or Germany, and send him eventually to Oxford. But you will stay here, won't you? I'd rather you would."

"Yes," she answered, still more sadly, for she fully understood the intense selfishness of the man, who went on:

"I shall be happier, knowing you are here, for I cannot have the house sold, or rented, or even left alone, lest by some chance the secret of our lives should be discovered. I am almost as morbid on the subject as father was: but with you here, I shall feel safe. You can have any one live with you whom you choose, and I will supply you with plenty of money. So I do not see why you should not in time be quite content."

"Yes, brother," Hannah said, very low; "but shall I not see Grey for years?"

"Perhaps not; I don't know," was her brother's reply, as he arose to go, without a single throb of pity for the woman who was to be left alone in the home so hateful to him.

But Grey, when he heard of the plan, which did not surprise him, comforted her with the a.s.surance that he should spend all his long vacations with her, as he did not mind crossing the ocean at all.

"I may be with you oftener than if I were in America, and then some time I'll go to Carnarvon and begin the search. So, don't feel so badly," he said to her as he saw the great tears roll down her cheeks, and guessed in part her sorrow.

And so the necessary arrangements were made as rapidly as possible, and one Sat.u.r.day about the middle of March, Hannah stood on the wharf in New York with a feeling like death in her heart, and saw Grey sail away and leave her there alone.

CHAPTER XVI.

EXPECTING BESSIE.

After Miss McPherson had sent her letter to her nephew, Archie, asking him to give his little daughter to her keeping, her whole nature seemed to change, and there was on her face a look of happy expectancy rarely seen there before. Even her cook, Sarah, and her maid, Flora, noticed and discussed it as they sat together by the kitchen fire; but as Miss McPherson never encouraged familiarities with her domestics, they asked her no questions, and only wondered and speculated when she bade them remove everything from the small bedroom at the end of the upper hall, which communicated with her own sleeping apartment. But when this room was papered and painted, and furnished with a pretty carpet of drab and blue, and a single iron bedstead with lace hangings, and a child's bureau and rocking-chair, and more than all when a large doll was bought, with a complete wardrobe for it, Flora could no longer restrain her curiosity, but asked if her mistress were expecting a child.

"Yes," was the reply, "my grandniece, Betsey, who was named for me. She lives at Stoneleigh, my old home in Wales, and I may get a letter any day saying she has sailed. I shall go to New York to meet her so have my things ready for me to start at a moment's notice."

So confident was Miss McPherson that her nephew would be glad to have his daughter removed from the influences around her to a home where she was sure of enough to eat, and that his frivolous wife would be glad to be rid of a child who must be in the way of her flirtations, that she was constantly expecting to hear that she was coming. She did not believe Archie would bring her himself, but she thought he would probably consign her to the care of some reliable person, or put her in charge of the captain or stewardess, and in her anxiety to have the little girl she had written a second letter three days after she sent the first. In this she had suggested the stewardess of the Celtic, whom she knew, and with whom she a.s.sured Archie he could trust his child. But days and weeks went by, until it was past the middle of June, and still there were no tidings of Bessie; at last, however, there came a foreign letter, addressed in a woman's hand to:

"Miss Elizabeth McPherson, Allington, Worcester Co., Ma.s.s., U.S.A."

The Elizabeth was an affront to the good woman, who bristled all over with resentment, as she held the dainty envelope in her hand and studied the strange monogram, "D.A.M." (Daisy Allen McPherson).

"Swears even in her monogram! I knew she would," was Miss Betsey's comment, as she broke the seal and began to read, first muttering to herself, "She writes well enough."

The letter was as follows:

"STONELEIGH, BANGOR, June 3d.

"OUR DEAR AUNT."

"Umph! I'm not _her_ aunt," was the mental comment, and then she read on:

"We have just come home from Paris, where we spent several delightful weeks with a party of friends, who would gladly have kept us longer, but Archie was homesick for the old place, though what he can see in it to admire I am sure I do not know. So here we are for an indefinite length of time, and here we found both your letters, which old Anthony, who grows more and more stupid every year, failed to forward to us in Paris. As Archie leaves everything to me, he said I must answer the letters, and thank you for your offer to remove our little girl from the poisonous atmosphere you think surrounds her, and bring her up morally and spiritually. I do not know what the atmosphere of Stoneleigh used to be when you lived here, but I a.s.sure you it is very healthy now; not at all poisonous, or malarious. We have had some of the oldest yews cut down and that lets in the sunshine and fresh air, too.

"But I am wandering from the object of my letter, which is to say that we cannot let you have our little Bessie, even with the prospect of her learning to scour knives and pare potatoes, and possibly having a few thousands, if she does well. Archie would as soon part with his eyes as with Bessie; while nothing short of an a.s.sured fortune, and that a large one, would induce me to give her up. She is in one sense my stock in trade--"

"Heartless wretch!" dropped from the indignant lady's lips. "Her stock in trade! What does she mean? Does she play out this child for her own base purposes?"

Then she read on:

"Strangers are always attracted by her, and through her we make so many pleasant acquaintances. Indeed, she quite throws me into the shade, but I am not at all jealous. I am satisfied to be known only as Bessie's mother. I am very proud of her, and hope some day to see her at least a countess."

"Countess! Fool!" muttered Miss Betsey, and read on:

"The inclosed photograph is like her in features, but fails, I think, in expression, but I send it, as it will give you some idea of her as she is now."

Here Miss Betsey stopped, and taking a card from the bit of tissue paper in which it was wrapped, gazed earnestly and with a feeling of intense yearning and bitter disappointment upon the beautiful face, whose great wide-open, blue eyes looked at her, just as they had looked at her on the sands at Aberystwyth. The photographer's art had succeeded admirably with Bessie, and made a most wonderful picture of childish innocence and beauty, besides bringing out about the mouth and into the eyes that patient, half sorry expression which spoke to Miss Betsey of loneliness and hunger far up in the fourth and fifth stories of fashionable hotels, where the little girl often ate her smuggled dinner of rolls and nuts and raisins, and whatever else her mother could convey into her pocket un.o.bserved by those around her.

"Yes, she looks as if a big slice of plum pudding or mince pie would do her good! Poor little thing, and I am not to have her," Miss Betsey said, with a lump in her throat, as she continued reading:

"You saw her once, I know, three years ago, at Aberystwyth, though she had no idea then who the funny woman was who asked her so many questions. Why didn't you make yourself known to us? Archie would have been delighted to meet you. He never saw you, I believe. And why didn't you speak to me when I went by as Bessie says I did? Was Archie with me, I wonder? or, was it young Lord Hardy from Dublin, Archie's best friend? He was with us there, and sometimes walked with me when Archie was not inclined to go out. He is very nice, and Archie is very fond of him, while to Bessie and me he is like a brother."

Here Miss Betsey stopped again, and taking off her spectacles harangued the tortoise-sh.e.l.l cat, who was sitting on the rug and looking at her.

"Archie's friend! her brother! Humbug! It does make me so mad to see a married woman with a young snipper-snapper of a fellow chasing after her, and using her husband as a cover. Mark my words, the woman who does that is not a pure, good woman at heart, or in thought, though outwardly she may be sweet as sugar; and her husband--

"Well, he is both weak and unmanly to allow it, and is looked upon with contempt."

To all this Mrs. Tortoise-sh.e.l.l purred an a.s.sent, and the lady went on with the letter.

"Bessie is wailing for me to go for a walk, and so I must bring this letter to a close. Archie sends his love, and will, with me, be very glad to welcome you to your old home, should you care to visit it.