CHAPTER XVIII.
HOME AGAIN.
Great were the rejoicings both in Boston and Allington over the return of the travelers, and great the surprise of all, when it was known that Bessie had come back an heiress to no mean fortune. But just who the great uncle was from whom her money had come to her, none, except Grey"s father and Mr. Sanford ever knew, and if they had, few would have remembered the peddler of more than forty years ago whose disappearance had caused no remark, and awakened no suspicion. Could Bessie have had her way she would have told the story fearlessly and moved the bones of her kinsman to another resting-place, but Grey and Mr. Sanford overruled her, both for Hannah"s sake and for the sake of Grey"s father, who could not have borne the talk it would have created.
Mr. Jerrold had never been the same since that night when he heard his father"s confession, and he was fast growing into a morbid, misanthropic man, whom his wife, not without reason, feared would one day be crazy.
Every year he shrank more and more from meeting his fellowmen, and at last he abandoned business altogether, and remained mostly at home in a room which he called his office, and where he saw only those he was obliged to see. The money lying in his bank in Hannah"s name, but which he knew was intended for some one else, and the shares in the mines and quarries of Wales, troubled him greatly, for somewhere in the world there were people to whom they belonged, and he sometimes felt that if he and his sister were guiltless of their father"s crime, they were, at least, thieves and robbers, because of the silence upon which he himself had insisted. More than once recently he had resolved to tell Grey, and let him decide the matter, and it was upon this very thing he was brooding, on the morning when his son was announced. Grey had reached Allington the previous day, and found his mother there waiting to receive him.
"I wanted your father to come with me, but he would not. He dislikes Allington worse than I do, and mopes all day in his room just as his father did. I wonder if there is any insanity in the family," she said to Grey, who answered, cheerily:
"Not a bit of it, mother; and if there is Bessie"s advent among us will exorcise the demon. I am going to Boston to-morrow to see father, and shall bring him back with me a different man entirely."
He found his father in his room, moping, as his mother had said, and was struck with the change in him, even during the few months he had been away. He stooped more than ever, and there was in his whole appearance an air of weakness and brokenness of spirit pitiable to see in a man who had once been so proud and strong.
"Grey, my boy, how are you? I am glad to see you, very glad," he said, as his son entered the room; and when Grey sat down by him, and taking his thin, white hand, pressed it gently and said, "Poor father, you are not well, are you?" he did a most astonishing thing. He laid his head on his son"s arm and sobbed aloud:
"No, Grey, I am sick--in mind, not in body--and I have been sick these--how old are you, Grey?"
"Twenty-six, my next birthday," Grey replied, and he continued:
"Yes, you were fourteen when your grandfather died. Twelve years ago, and for twelve years I have been sick--very sick. Oh, Grey, if I dared to tell you, and ask you what to do!"
"You need not tell me," Grey said to him. "I know what you mean, and have known it ever since grandpa died, for I was there that night, unknown to you or any one; was in the kitchen by the stove, and heard what grandpa told you. Don"t you remember how sick I was after it? Well, that was what ailed me. Aunt Hannah knows. I told her, and together we have tried to find his heirs, and, father, we _have_ found them, or _her_, for there is but one direct heir of his sister Elizabeth, and that--and that--is Bessie, my wife. Oh, father, look up, bear up; you must not faint," Grey continued in alarm, as he felt his father press heavily against him, and saw the ghastly pallor on his face.
"Bessie--your wife--the heir! And does she know what we do?" Mr.
Jerrold gasped, and Grey replied:
"Yes, everything--and knew it before I married her. Listen, and I will tell you all."
Ringing the bell, Grey bade the servant who appeared bring a gla.s.s of wine, which he made his father swallow, and then, supporting him with his arm, he told him everything, from the night when he had knelt upon the snow in the woods and asked to be forgiven for his grandfather"s sin, down to the present time.
"And you knew it all these years when I was trying to hide it from you,"
Mr. Jerrold said; "and you have worked while I have only sat still and brooded; and you have found the heir in Bessie. Are you sure it is Bessie? Oh, Grey! G.o.d bless you, my boy! You do not know what a load of care you have taken from me, for, though my father"s sin is none the less, it does not hurt me as much, and I feel as if I could forgive him all. I do not believe he was so much in fault. The peddler struck him first, you know. I must see Hannah, and hear the story again. What time do you return to Allington?"
Grey told him, and he continued:
"I shall go with you--first to see Hannah, and then to Grey"s Park in the evening. Poor Hannah! she has had such a lonely life!"
Three hours later and Mr. Jerrold was driven to the house in the pasture-land, in the phaeton which Lucy had sent to the station to meet Grey, who walked to Grey"s Park, where Bessie greeted him as rapturously as if weeks instead of hours had pa.s.sed since she saw him.
Mr. Jerrold had expected to find his sister alone, and was a little disappointed to see the Rev. Mr. Sanford there, cozily taking tea in the pleasant south room, where the morning-glories were trained across the windows, and the early June roses were looking in.
"Oh, Burton, how glad I am to see you! and how well you are looking!"
Hannah cried, as she went forward to meet her brother, in whom she saw a change, as if he had suddenly grown young.
And he did feel younger and happier than he had in years; and as soon as Mr. Sanford took his leave, which he did immediately after tea, Burton plunged at once into the princ.i.p.al object of his visit.
"I have come," he said, "to open the doors and windows of that ghostly room, and let in the light and air of Heaven. Grey has told me everything, and I feel like a new man. Even the--the--the thing father did, does not seem to me quite as it did. Would you mind telling me again the particulars of the quarrel?--how it commenced, I mean--nothing more."
He had risen as he was talking, and going into the bedroom, threw back the heavy curtains, and opening the windows and blinds, sat down in his father"s chair, while Hannah stood beside him and told him how both men had drank until their reason was clouded, and how the peddler had called her father a cheat and a liar, and struck him first, and how--But here her brother stopped her, and said:
"That will do. I am satisfied that what father did was done in self-defense, and so the world would have said, and acquitted him, too, I am sure. I almost wish you had told at the time. We should have lived it down, though I might never have married Geraldine and never have had Grey. No, sister, you did right, and having kept it so long, we must keep it still. No use to unearth it now, though I would give half my life and every dollar I own--yes, I"d give everything except my boy Grey, to know it had never been there," and he pointed to the corner of the room, where the bed was still standing, and under which was the hidden grave.
"Bessie is willing we should tell, and if I thought we ought, I should be willing, too," Hannah said, but her brother shook his head.
"It can do no good to any one, so let the poor man rest in peace. You have found his heirs and rest.i.tution can be made; the money is safe in the bank."
"And now I must go, for Geraldine is waiting for me," Burton said, adding, as be stood a moment by the door: "I feel twenty years younger than I did, and you, Hannah--why, you look thirty years younger, and are really a handsome woman for your age. By the way, shall you live here, or with Grey?"
"I don"t know yet where I shall live," Hannah replied, and her cheeks were scarlet as she said good-by and watched him as he drove away.
CHAPTER XIX.
JOEL ROGERS" MONUMENT.
It was a very merry party which met next day at the farm-house, and Mr.
Jerrold was the merriest of them all, though he could not understand exactly why he was so light-hearted and glad. The fact that Joel Rogers died by his father"s hand remained the same, but it did not now affect him as it once had done. Bessie seemed to have taken all the shame and pain away. He was very fond of her, always calling her daughter when he addressed her, and when, after dinner was over, she came and sat at his side, and laying her hand on his, said to him, "Father, there is something I very much wish to do, and I want your consent," he answered, unhesitatingly: "You shall have it, no matter what you ask."
"Thanks," Bessie said, with a triumphant look at Grey, who was standing near. "I thought you would not oppose me, even if Grey did. You see, I have so much money that it burns my fingers, and I think I must have lived in America long enough to have caught your fever for change, or else the smell of plaster and paint at Stoneleigh awakened in me a desire for more, for, what I wish to do is to tear down this old house and build another one, where we can spend our summers. This house, though very nice and comfortable, is falling to pieces, and will tumble down in some high wind. The plastering is off in two of the rooms up stairs, and a part of the roof has fallen in over the bedroom and wood-shed. Aunt Hannah says the snow was suffered to lie there last winter while she was with us in Wales. So you see we must do something, and I have the plan of such a pretty place, which I want to call Stoneleigh Cottage after my old home. Your room and Aunt Hannah"s are to be the pleasantest of all, with a bow-window and fire-place in both, and there is to be a fire-place in the hall, which is to be finished in oak, with a wide staircase and a tall clock on the landing, and the windows are to have little colored panes of gla.s.s at the top, and the floors are to be inlaid and waxed, with rugs of matting instead of carpets, as we want everything cool for summer, and we will have a big piazza where we can have tea or breakfast, or even a dance, if we like. Won"t that be nice?"
Bessie had talked very rapidly, with a feeling that she did not have the sympathy of her hearers. She had conceived the idea of pulling down the old house and building a new one while she was in Wales, alleging to herself as one reason that both Hannah and Grey would enjoy themselves better under a roof which did not cover a grave, while the other reason was not then quite clear enough in her own mind to be put into words, but she had said nothing to any one until the morning of the day when she broached the subject to his father. Together with Grey, she had gone over the old house, which, from having been shut up so long, seemed more dilapidated than ever. But Grey opposed her plan, and Hannah opposed it, while Mr. Jerrold grew hot and cold by turns, as he thought what might possibly be brought to light if the house were removed and any excavations made, as there might be. As if divining what was in his mind, Bessie continued:
"I do not mean to have the new house just where this one stands, but farther to the right. We can fill up the cellar with the debris, and have loads of earth brought in and make a kind of plateau, with it terrace all around it. We can make that plateau so lovely with shrubs, and flowers, and gra.s.s. I once saw one like what I have in mind, at a country place in England, and in one corner, under a willow tree, was a little grave; the only son of the house had been buried there, and I thought it so lovely to have a monument of flowers, and trees and singing birds."
Locking into the blue eyes fixed so earnestly upon him, Mr. Jerrold read what she meant, and said to her:
"You shall do as you like; if Hannah does not object."
Hannah, too, began to get a glimpse of the truth, and so did Grey, and when she said, "You are all willing--it is settled?" they answered yes, and Grey went with her to choose the site for the new house, which in her impetuosity, she declared should be commenced at once saying she would remain in Allington during the summer and superintend it herself.
It was Bessie who choose the site, to the right of the old building and near a great flat rock which she said she meant to have in a corner of the yard, as it would be such a nice play-house for children.
"Yes, a very nice play-house for children," Grey said, winding his arms around her and kissing her blushing cheek, and then they sat down upon the rock and talked of and planned the house, and Bessie told him all that was in her mind in regard to the plateau, which she meant to make as beautiful as a garden, so that no one would ever dream it held a grave.
"I ought to do something for him," she said; "and as my grandmother was fond of flowers, and gra.s.s, and singing birds, so I am sure was he, and he shall have them in abundance, and maybe he will know that his sister"s granddaughter is doing it for him, and be glad."
In the light of this new idea, Mr. Jerrold, Hannah and Grey entered heart and soul into Bessie"s project, and within a week a plan for the cottage had been drawn, and a contract made with the builders who were to commence work at once. Neither Hannah nor Bessie were present when the walls of the main building went crashing down into the cellar they were to fill, but when it came to the bed-room and wood-shed, Hannah, Bessie, Grey and his father sat under a tree at a little distance, watching nervously while the men took down timber after timber, until the spot was clear, and the ground as smooth as it usually is under a floor where there is no cellar.
"Oh," Bessie said, with a sigh of relief, as she turned to Grey, who was sitting next to her, but her eye went past him to Hannah, who, with her hands clasped tightly together, sat as rigid as a block of marble, gazing so intently at the spot which held so much horror for her that she did not at first know when Bessie stole softly to her side; but when the young girl wound her arm around her neck, and kissing her softly, said: "They have let him into the light, and I am so glad; it does not seem now like a hidden grave," the tension on her nerves gave way, and she burst into a paroxysm of tears, the very last she ever shed over that hidden grave. For, like Bessie, she felt better, now that the sunlight was falling upon it, and by and by, when everything was accomplished, and Bessie had carried out her idea, she felt that the dead man"s monument would be worthy of a far n.o.bler personage than he who slept beneath it.
Yielding to Bessie"s earnest solicitations Grey decided to remain with her in Allington during the summer and superintend in person the work, which, owing to good management and the great number of men employed, went on so rapidly that by the last of October everything was done except the furnishing, which was to be put off until Spring, for before the autumn came it was known that Hannah would never occupy the house save as she went there a visitor. The words spoken to her many years before by the Rev. Charles Sanford had been repeated, and this time her answer had been: