Fashion and Famine Part 24

"Yes."

"And you can read it?"

"Yes!"

"But how--where did you get so much learning?"

Jacob did not hear her. He was lost in profound thought, striving to search out some clue which would reveal the motives of that evil man for the interest he had taken in Robert Otis.

"And these were all my nephew studied?" he said, at length, still pondering upon what had been told him.

"No, not all. Those were the books; but then Mr. Leicester thought a good deal of music and drawing, but most of all, writing. Hours and hours he would spend over that. Every kind of writing, not coa.r.s.e hand and fine hand as you and I learned to write--but everything was given him to copy. Old letters, names. I remember he practised one whole month writing over different names from a great pile of letters that Mr.

Leicester brought for copies."

"Ha!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jacob Strong, now keenly interested, "so he was taught to copy these names?"

"Yes, and he did it so beautifully, sometimes, you could not have known one from the other. The more exactly alike he made them, the more Mr.

Leicester was pleased. I used to tell Robert to beat the copy if he could, and some of the names were crabbed enough, but Mr. Leicester said that wasn't the object."

"No, it wasn't the object," muttered Jacob, and now his eyes flashed, for he had obtained the clue.

"One week, I remember," persisted Mrs. Gray, "he wrote and wrote, and all the time on one name. I fairly got tired of the sight of it, and Robert too; but Mr. Leicester said that he would never be a clerk without perfect penmanship."

"And this one name, what was it?" inquired Jacob, with keen interest.

Mrs. Gray opened a stand drawer, and took out a copy-book filled with loose sc.r.a.ps of paper.

Jacob examined the book and the sc.r.a.ps of paper separately and together.

Mrs. Gray was wrong when she said it was a single name only. In the book, and on loose fragments were notes of hand, evidently imitated from some genuine original, with checks on various city banks, apparently drawn at random, and merely as a practice in penmanship; but one bank was more frequently mentioned than the others, and this fact Jacob treasured in his mind.

"This name," he said, touching a signature to one of these papers--"whose is it?"

"Why it is the merchant that Robert is with," answered Mrs. Gray. "That is the one he wrote over so often!"

"I thought so," said Jacob, dryly; and laying the copy-book down, he seemed to cast it from his mind.

Mrs. Gray had become unfamiliar with the features of her relative, or she would have seen that deep and stern feelings were busy within him; but now she only thought him anxious and tired out with the excitement of returning home after so many years of absence.

They sat together on the hearth, more silent than seemed natural to persons thus united, when a footstep upon the crisp leaves brought a smile to Mrs. Gray's face.

"I thought there was a sound of wheels," she said, eagerly. "It is Robert come back from the ferry--how he will be surprised!"

"Not now!" said Jacob Strong. "I would rather not see him to-night--do not tell him that I am here!"

"But he will stay all night!" pleaded Mrs. Gray, whose kind heart was overflowing with the hope of presenting the youth to his uncle without delay.

"So much the better; I can see something of him without being known.

Where does that door lead?"

"To a spare bed-room!"

"His bed-room?"

"No. Robert will sleep up stairs in his own chamber--he always does."

"Very well, I will take that room; say nothing of my return. When he is in bed I will come out again."

"Dear me, how strange all this is--how can I keep still?--how can I help telling him?" murmured the good woman, half following Jacob into the dark bedroom; "I never kept a secret in my life. He will certainly find me out."

"Hush!" said Jacob in an emphatic whisper, from the bed-room; "I will lay down upon the bed--leave the door partly open--now take your seat again where the light will fall on you both. Go--go!"

Mrs. Gray took her seat again, looking very awkward and conscience-stricken. Robert came in flushed with his ride. It was a sharp autumnal evening, and his drive home had been rapid; a brilliant color lay in his cheeks, and the rich hair was blown about his forehead.

He flung off his sacque, and cast it down with the heavy whip he carried in one hand.

"Well, aunt, I am back again--that old horse, like wine I have tasted, grows stronger and brighter as he gets old."

"But where is he? the hired-man went away at dark," said Mrs. Gray, anxious for the comfort of her horse.

"Never mind him. I put the blessed pony up myself. You should have heard the old fellow whinney as I gave out his oats. He knew me again."

"Of course he did. I should like to see anything on the place forget you, Robert; it wouldn't stay here long, I give my word for it."

"Oh, aunt, I would not have even a horse or dog sent from the old place for a much greater sin--I know what it is!"

"But you never were sent off, Robert."

"No, aunt, but I went. Instead of superintending the place, and taking the labor from your shoulders, who have no one else to depend on--I must set up for a gentleman--see city life, aunt. I wish from the bottom of my heart that I had never left you!"

"Why, Robert--what makes you wish this? or if you really are homesick, why not come back again?"

"Come back again, aunt!" said the youth, with sudden and bitter earnestness. "Is there any coming back in this life? When we are changed, and places are changed--always ourselves most--how can a return to one spot be called coming back?"

"But I am not changed--the place is just as it was," pleaded the kind aunt.

"But I am changed, aunt--I can throw myself by your side, and lay my head upon your lap as if I were a petted child still, but it would not be natural--we could not force ourselves into believing it natural."

"How strangely you talk, Robert; to me you are a child yet."

"But to myself I am _not_ a child, I have thought, felt--yes, I have suffered only as men think, feel and suffer. Oh, aunt, if I had never lived with any one but you, how much better it would have been!"

The youth had cast himself on the hearth by his aunt, and rested his beautiful head upon her knee. Tears--those warm bright tears that youth alone can shed--filled his eyes without impairing their brightness.

The old lady pressed her hand upon his hair, and looked lovingly into those br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes. "And this comes of being a gentleman!" she whispered, shaking her head with a gentle motion.

The youth gave a faint shudder, and turning his head so that his eyes were buried in the folds of her dress, sobbed aloud.

"Why, Robert, Robert, what is this?--what trouble is upon you?"