He made his way to the kitchen and the pantry; lighted a fire in the kitchen stove, and made tea for himself and Granny Thornton; and toasted some bread for her. Then he foraged for himself and ate a hearty meal, for he was ravenously hungry. And, all the while, he was thinking what he should do and say to the old woman, nodding in the chair out in the office.
He returned there, and put more wood on the fire, so that it blazed up brightly, and the sparks shot up the flue with a roar. The roar was more than answered by the wind outside. It rattled the gla.s.s in the windows, and dashed the snow against them as though it would break them in. It found a hundred cracks and crevices about the old inn, to moan and shriek through, and blew a thin film of snow under the door.
Old Granny Thornton shook and quivered, as some of the sharper blasts cried about the corners of the house. She seemed frightened; and once she spoke up in a half whisper, and asked Henry Burns if he believed there were ever spirits out on such a night as this. He would have laughed away her fears, under ordinary circ.u.mstances; but it suited his purpose better now to shake his head, and answer, truthfully enough, that he didn"t know.
Presently, the old woman started up in her chair and stared anxiously at one of the snow-covered windows.
"They might be lost!" she cried, hoa.r.s.ely. "They could be lost to-night in this storm, like folks were in the great blizzard twenty years ago.
Oh, Bess"--she uttered the girl"s name with a sob--"I hope you"re safe.
You"d die in this snow. Say, boy, do you suppose they"ve got shelter?
It"s not Dan Witham I care for, whether he"s dead or not, but Little Bess."
Henry Burns stepped in front of the old woman, and looked into her eyes.
"What do you care whether Bess is lost or not?" he asked. "She don"t belong to you. She"s not yours. You"re not her grandmother."
At the words, so quick and unexpected, Granny Thornton shrank back as though she had received a blow. Her eyes rolled in her head, and she seemed to be trying to reply; but the words would not come. She gasped and choked, and clutched at her throat with her shrunken hands.
Henry Burns spoke again, grasping one of her hands, and compelling her to listen.
"Somebody else wants her home more than you do," he said. "Why don"t you give her back? She"s too smart and bright to go to the poorhouse, when you die. Why do you keep her here?"
He spoke at random, knowing not whether he was near the secret or not, but determined that he would make her speak out.
But she sank down in her chair, huddled into an almost shapeless, half-lifeless heap. Her head was buried in her hands. She rocked feebly to and fro. Once she roused herself a bit, and strove to ask a question, but seemed to be overcome with weakness. Henry Burns thought he divined what she would ask, and answered.
"I know it"s so," he said. "You can"t hide it any longer. I"ve found it out."
It seemed as though she would not speak again. The minutes went by, ticked off in clamorous sound, by a big clock on the wall. Granny Thornton still crouched all in a heap in her chair, moaning to herself.
Henry Burns remained silent and waited.
Then when, all at once, the old woman brought herself upright, with a jerk, and spoke to him, the sound of her voice amazed him. It was not unlike the tone in which she had answered Colonel Witham, the night Henry Burns overheard her. It was shrill and sharp, though with a whining intonation. What she said was most unexpected.
"Have you been to school?" she queried.
Henry Burns stared hard. He thought her mind wandering. But she continued.
"Don"t stare that way--haven"t you any wit? Can you write? Hurry--I"m afeared Dan will be here."
Henry Burns understood, in a flash. He sprang to the desk, got the pen and ink there and a block of coa.r.s.e paper, the top sheet of which had some figuring on it. He returned to the old woman"s side and sat down, with the paper on his knees. She stared at him blankly for a few moments--then said abruptly:
"Write it down just as I tell you. I"m going to die soon--Don"t stare like that--write it down. Dan Witham can"t harm me then, and I"m going to tell. Her name isn"t Bess Thornton--it"s Bess Ellison."
Henry Burns"s hand almost refused to write. But he controlled himself, and followed her.
"Dan shan"t have her," she continued. "I"ll give her up, first. Twelve years ago last June she was born. And she weren"t as pretty as my girl"s baby, that was born the same day--though they looked alike, too.
"My girl"s name was Elizabeth, but she"s dead. She was a sight prettier than Lizzie Anderson that married Jim Ellison. But my girl married Tom Howland, and he ran away and left her, and that just before the baby was born. And her baby, Elizabeth Howland, was born the same day, I tell you, as Lizzie Ellison"s baby. That one was named Elizabeth, too--Elizabeth Ellison. That"s Bess.
"And when the two babies were born, why we were poor and Jim Ellison was well-to-do. The Thorntons got in debt, and he bought up the mortgages.
And when Bess Ellison was born, her mother was so ill she didn"t see the baby for many weeks; and my girl went up to the house in about three weeks to nurse both babies, we being poor. And I went up, too, to look after things.
"I guess my girl was wild, too, though I won"t blame her now. One day she went to town and didn"t come back; and she left me a note, saying she wouldn"t ever come back, anyway. And I could bring up the baby--which I didn"t like to do, because I"d brought up one, and now she"d run away.
"So I was getting ready to go back to the house and take the baby with me; and I took care of both babies for a day or two. And just as I was planning to go back, there lay the two, side by side in the bed; and I could hardly tell which was which--they looked so much alike.
"Then what put it into my head, I don"t know. But I thought that, if I changed the two, n.o.body"d know, because Bess Ellison"s mother hadn"t seen her. And I thought of how the property would come back to the Thorntons that way, if I put my girl"s Bess in the other"s place. And I up and did it, quick.
"Then, when I got home with Lizzie Ellison"s baby, why I found I"d been so hasty I"d brought away a chain and bit of money, that they"d put about her neck. It was an old coin that had been in the family for years, and was thought to carry good luck--so I learned afterwards. I meant to take it back, but I couldn"t, right away, and then I lost the coin. Oh, how I hunted for it! But I never could find it.
"Now are you putting it all down? Be quick, or Dan might come in. It was all for nothing--what I did--for my girl"s baby died two years later.
Let me look what you"ve got there. I know school-writing. I went to school once. Give me the pen. I"ll put my name down to that. Hold my hand, so it won"t shake. That"s my name. It don"t look like much, I guess. But that"s it."
Tremblingly, the old woman took the pen and, guided by Henry Burns, subscribed her name to what he had written. Then she spoke again:
"Go into that bed-room and look in the top drawer. There"s a key there.
That"s the key to the old house."
Henry Burns followed her instructions, and brought forth the key. She bade him keep it, and go the next day and get the stuff in the attic: the chain, minus its locket; the little dress, and a pair of shoes. She mourned the loss of the coin, lest her strange story might not be believed by Mrs. Ellison, without that evidence--not knowing that the coin had even now come into Mrs. Ellison"s own hands.
She sank into a doze not long after; and Henry Burns also slept, on a couch in the office, with a buffalo robe over him. He woke early next day, waded through the drifts to the old house, and got the things from the drawer. Then he went down the road.
Below the old mill, near the road that ran up to the Ellison farm, a horse and sledge came in sight, travelling slowly. Henry Burns"s pulse beat quicker as he recognized Colonel Witham and Bess coming up from Benton, where they had pa.s.sed the night. Colonel Witham scowled upon him, but the girl smiled.
"h.e.l.lo," she said. "Isn"t everything pretty, all covered with snow?
Where"d you come from so early?"
Henry Burns could hardly answer her. He faced Colonel Witham.
"Granny Thornton"s got an errand up at the Ellisons" for Bess," he said.
"I just came from the inn, I left the money for my lodging, too. Mrs.
Ellison wants to see Bess."
Colonel Witham grumbled. "I won"t wait for her," he said. "She"ll have to foot it up through the snow."
"I don"t care," exclaimed the girl, and sprang lightly out.
Henry Burns never did remember what was said on that walk up to the farm. His mind was taken up with one subject. He had a vague remembrance, after it was all over, of knocking at the door, and of their being both admitted; of his almost ignoring the greeting of the brothers; of his finding himself and Bess somehow in the parlour with Mrs. Ellison.
He remembered, afterward, of handing the writing he had done, at old Granny Thornton"s bidding, to Mrs. Ellison, and of her starting to read it and breaking down suddenly; of her asking him many questions about it, and of his answering them almost in a daze. He remembered that Mrs.
Ellison resumed the reading, the tears streaming down her cheeks; of how he laid down the little bundle of stuff he had brought from the attic, and pointed it out to Mrs. Ellison.
He remembered that Mrs. Ellison sprang up and seized the child in her arms--and just about that time Henry Burns stole out and left the two together; so that he never did know just what happened next.
CHAPTER XIX