 Part 3, Chapter 11 of Bessie's Fortune by Mary Jane Holmes. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 11. Miss MacPherson's Housemate Bessie meant to be up with the sun but she was so tired and the room so quiet that she slept soundly until awakened by the long clock in the lower hall striking seven. This is a bad beginning, she thought, as she made her hasty toilet. She found her trunks outside her door, and, selecting from them her new calico dress which she had bought just before leaving home, she put it on, together with one of the pretty white aprons which Neal had so detested and Gray had so admired. I ought to have a housemate's cap, she thought, as she looked at herself in the glass and tried to smooth and straighten her hair which would curl around her forehead in spite of all she could do. A clean collar with cuffs at her wrist completed her costume, and it was a very neat, attractive little housemate which entered the room where Miss MacPherson was leisurely finishing her plain breakfast of toast and tea and eggs. Oh, auntie! Bessie began advancing to her side. I am so sorry I overslept. I was very tired and the bed was so nice. It shall not happen again. What can I do for you? Let me make you a fresh slice of toast. No thanks, I am through. You can clear the table if you like, Miss Bessie replied shoving back her chair and dyeing her knees curiously as she gathered up the dishes and carried them to the kitchen where she took her own breakfast with the cook who instructed her in her duties as well as she could. She is mighty queer and mighty particular, but if you get the soft side of her you are all right, she said to Bessie, who moved about the house almost as handily as if she had lived there all her life. Never had the china been washed more carefully or quickly, or the furniture better dusted, or the table better arranged for dinner, and had Bessie been a trained servant from the queen's household, she could not have waited upon her aunt more deftly or respectfully than she did. But the strain upon her nerfs began to tell upon her, and after her dishes were washed and she was assured by the cook that there was nothing more for her to do until tea time, she went to her room for a little rest just as a carriage dashed up to the door and the bell rang fiercely. Scarcely, however, had Bessie reached the hall on her way to answer the ring when her aunt, who it seemed to her, was everywhere present, darted out from some quarter and seizing her by the shoulder said quickly, Go back to your room, I'll let her in myself. Was she angry, and if so at what? Bessie wondered as she returned to her room and sitting down by the bed laid her tired head upon the pillow, while a few tears rolled down her cheeks as she recalled her aunt's sharp tones. Was this to be all the commendation she was to receive for the pain she had taken to please? It was hard, and there began to steal over her a feeling of utter hopelessness and homesickness when suddenly a sound came up to her from the parlor below which made her start and listen as to something familiar. Surely she had heard that loud uncultivated voice before and after a moment it came to her. The tea party in the dear old garden at home when Mrs. Rosseter Brown was the guest and had so disgusted her with her vulgarity. And this was Mrs. Brown, who had come in state to call, and who after declaring the weather hot enough to kill cattle, and saying that Gusty was in Saratogi and had had twelve new dresses made to take with her, spoke next of Allen and Lord Hardy who were in Idaho, or Omaha, or some other hoe Mrs. Brown could not remember which. At the mention of Lord Hardy's name all Bessie's old life seemed to come back to her, and she lived again through the dreary days at the crowded hotels, and ate her dinner of dry bread and shriveled grapes in the back room of the fourth floor, and saw her mother radiant with smiles, bandying jests with the young Irish Lord, while her father looked on with a sorry expression on his face, the very memory of which brought a rain of tears to Bessie's eyes. Allen had just written to his mother a description of his travels, and she was giving Miss MacPherson her version of it. Another Lord had joined them, she said, a regular English swell, and they attracted so much attention and the people were so curious to see them that they were actually obliged to travel in a cognito, though what under the sun that was she was sure she didn't know. She thought she had been in most everything there was going, but she'd never seen a cognito, which must be some western condrivens or other. Had this ludicrous mistake so characteristic of Mrs. Roseter Brown, Bessie forgot her tears and laughed hysterically until she heard her mother's name when she instinctively grew quiet and rigid as a piece of marble for what Mrs. Brown said was this. And so the poor little critter is dead. Well, I must say she was about the prettiest woman I ever saw, but I guess she wasn't what I suppose she was when I took such a shine to her. She was a born flirt, and maybe couldn't help it, but she might have let Allen alone, a mere boy. Why, was that bewitched after her that he fairly lost flesh, and told me to my face that he should never see another woman he liked as he did her, and he'd never got over it neither if Lord Hardy hadn't taken him in hand and told him something. I have no idea what, for Allen would never tell me, only it did the business, and there was no more whimpering for that woman. Oh, mother, poor mother, Bessie moaned as she covered her face with her hands, feeling that her shame was greater than she could bear. Going to the door she closed it, and so did not hear Mrs. Brown when she said next. She had a lovely daughter, though, with a face like an angel. I'd swear she was all right. Do you ever hear from her? For a moment Miss Bessie hesitated, for it was not part of her plan to let Mrs. Brown or anyone see Bessie just yet, but her love for the naked truth prevailed, and she replied, Yes, she is here. She came yesterday in the Germanic. I will call her. Crying, what's that for? She said to Bessie as she entered the room and feeling almost as guilty as if she had been caught in some wrong act, Bessie sobbed. The door was open at first, and I knew it was Mrs. Rossiter Brown whom I have seen at Stonley. I heard what she said of Mama and, oh, Auntie, I am her daughter, and she is dead, and she was good at the last. In her sympathy for Bessie Miss MacPherson was even ready to do battle for Daisy, and she replied, Mrs. Brown is a fool, and Allen is a bigger one, and Lord Hardy biggest of all. Don't cry. Bessie wants to see you. Wash your face and take off your apron and come down. Five minutes later Bessie was shaking hands with Mrs. Brown who told her she did not look very stubbed. That was a fact, that she guessed seasickness had not agreed with her, and she'd better keep herself swaddled up in flannel for a spell till she got used to the climate, which was not like England. You came in the Germanic, your aunt tells me. She continued as Bessie took a seat beside her. You must have seen Miss Lucy Gray and her nephew, for they were on that ship, and I here were met by somebody sent from Boston to tell them to come right on, for Miss Gerald was very sick. Bessie felt rather than saw the questioning eyes which her aunt flashed upon her, and her face was scarred as she answered. Yes, I saw Miss Gray. She was very kind to me when I was sick. She did go directly to Boston. What is the matter with Mrs. Gerald? Miss Betsy asked, and Mrs. Brown replied. Her land only knows. Heart complained the last report, I believe. I saw Hannah at the depot this morning. She'd been sent for, too. Geraldine always wants her when she's sick. But the minute she's better, the old maid's sister is on the way and not good enough for my lady's fine friends. I know Geraldine Gerald pretty well, and if I, Hannah, I wouldn't run to every beck and call when nothing under the sun ails her but hypo. She has had everything I do believe—malary, cancer, spinal cords, nervous prostration, and now it's her heart—humbug, more like hysterics. Burton Gerald has got his hands full, and I pity him. Why, he looks like an old broken-down man, and his hair is as white as snow. Here Mrs. Brown, who had the conversation all to herself, stopped to take breath. She was not an ill-natured woman or one who often talked of her neighbors and after a moment as if ashamed of her tirade, she said. I've went it pretty glib against poor Miss Gerald, ain't I? I dare say she is sick and nervous, and I have not charity enough for her. Then, rising from her chair preparatory to leaving, she said to Bessie, I'm glad you have come, and I hope we shall see you often after Gusty comes home. I suppose I shall lose her in October. Take no secret now, and so I may as well tell you that she is to be married to Lord Hardy from Dublin. You've seen him, I believe. Yes, when I was a little girl, Bessie answered with a pang of pain as she remembered the days when Lord Hardy was their constant companion. I never really believed he wanted Gusty, Mrs. Brown continued, till you said so in plain words. And there is folks now mean enough to say it's her money he's after, and I don't myself suppose he'd thought of her if she hadn't had money, but I think he likes her and I know she likes him, and it's something to be Lady Hardy. As she said this, Mrs. Brown drew herself up rather loftily as if some of her daughter's honour had fallen upon her, and with a stately bow and a good afternoon went out to wear her handsome carriage and high-booted driver were waiting for her. There goes as nice a woman as ever lived made over into a fool by money and a little nincompoop of a lord, was Miss Bessie's comment as she watched the carriage moving away across the common. Then turning suddenly to Bessie she added, Why didn't you tell me Miss Lucy was on the ship with Grey? Bessie hesitated a moment and then answered frankly, Perhaps I ought to have done so, but I thought I would rather if you liked me at all and were kind to me that it should be for myself and not because I had met Miss Grey who offered to give me a note to you. Did I do wrong? No, perfectly right, Miss Bessie said, and now tell me all about it. You said she was kind when you were sick. How did she find you in the steerage? In as few words as possible Bessie repeated the story of her acquaintance with Miss Lucy, dwelling at length upon her kindness, but saying little of Grey. Indeed a casual stranger listening to the recital would hardly have known that he was mentioned at all. But Miss Bessie was far seeing. She knew the signs or she had had her day and experience and from the very fact that Bessie did not say more of Grey she drew her own conclusions. But to be quite sure, she said, You had seen Grey before you met him on the ship had you not? Yes, Bessie answered. He once spent a day at Stoneley with Neil and he came again when father died and was so kind to me. I was alone for mother you know was on the ocean and he did everything a man could do. Then when I was sick in Rome he was there too and gave up his room to mother and took every care from her. Oh, Auntie, he is the noblest man I ever knew. He told Neil once that he tried to make somebody happy every day either by a pleasant word or look or act of kindness and only think if he lives to be old how many, many people will have been happier because he has lived. In the excitement Bessie forgot everything but her enthusiasm for and her interest in Grey Gerald and her aunt who was watching her closely guessed the truth pretty accurately. But she made no remark except to say that from the garret window one could see Grey's park where Miss Lucy lived and which Grey would probably one day inherit. Nor was she at all surprised when later in the afternoon she knew by certain sounds that Bessie was at the garret window looking at the park. The next day was a hard and busy one for there was sweeping to be done and the silver to be cleaned and the dining room windows to be wiped and Bessie went through it all patiently and uncomplainingly serving her aunt at breakfast and dinner taking her own meals with the cook and never by a sign showing that she was other than the hired maid she had chosen to be. But when the last thing was done which belonged to her to do the fatigue and the heat overcame her and sitting down in the shaded porch by the kitchen door she leaned her aching head against the back of her chair and fell asleep. And there Miss Betsy who had scarcely lost sight of her during the day found her and for a few moments stood looking at her intently noticing every curve and line and feature and feeling a lump in her throat as she saw about the sweet mouth that patient sorry expression which had come there years ago when Bessie was a child and had deepened with every succeeding year. Poor little girl you have had a hard time I know she said and at the sound of her voice Bessie awoke and with a bright smile and blush started up saying excuse me I was very tired and warm and must have fallen asleep my work is done and now if you have any sewing please let me have it aren't you tired you look pale Miss Betsy asked so kindly that Bessie's lip quivered as she replied yes a little but I do not mind that I should like to do something for you then go out into the garden in the fresh air and stay there till you are rested Miss Betsy answered abruptly and turning on her heel she walked away to her own room where she held communion with herself wondering how much longer she could or ought to hold out I have tried her pretty well and she has not flinched a hair but I guess I will wait a day or two till I have heard from Sarah she thought but this resolution did not carry out for two reasons one of which was found in the letter which she received that afternoon and the other in the fact that at tea time Bessie made a dead away as she stood by her auntie's chair she had borne so much and suffered so much during the last few months that nature refused to bear any longer and it was more than a headache which brought the faintness upon her taking her in her arms Miss Betsy carried her to her room and placing her upon the bed sat down beside her why are you crying she asked as she saw the great tears roll down Bessie's cheeks faster than she could wipe them away because Bessie answered with a choking sob I have tried so hard to do right and have wanted work so much and just as I have found it I am afraid I am going to be sick for I feel so strange and cold as if all the life had gone from me and I cannot work anymore and you will have to send me away and I have nowhere to go for Stonely is very far away and I have no money to get there oh auntie if I could die life has been so dreary to me here Bessie broke down entirely and sobbed for a few moments convulsively while Miss McPherson was scarcely less agitated kneeling down by the low bed and laying her old face by the side of the young one upon the pillow she too cried for a few moments like a child then lifting up her head and brushing away her tears with an impatient movement as if she were ashamed of them she said I cannot hold out any longer and I must tell you that what I have been doing was never intended to last I was only trying you to see if you were true and now that I know you are do you think I will not take you to my heart as my child my very own I believe I have always loved you Bessie since the day your eyes looked at me on the sands of Aberystwyth and I have wanted you so much and tried so many times to get you and right here where I am kneeling now I have often knelt by this little bed prepared for you years ago and prayed God to keep you innocent and pure and send you to me some day and he has done all this he has kept you pure and good and sent you to me just when I want you most I am a queer crab but old woman but I believe I can make you happy and by and by you may learn to love me a little you have ever done that none in fact since my mother died but one and he oh Bessie I would give my life to have him back and more than my life to know that it was well with him Charlie oh Charlie my love my love Bessie's tears were all dried now and her arms were around the neck of this strange woman weeping for her lost love as women never weep save when the memory of that love brings far more pain than joy dear auntie Bessie said I do not quite understand what you mean but if I can comfort you I will and work for you too I do not in the least mind that and I must do something to pay hush child Miss Betsy rejoined almost impatiently as she drew herself from Bessie's embrace and rose to her feet never again trouble your head about your debts I sent the two hundred and fifty pounds to my brother's wife yesterday and told her what I was doing to you and what I meant to do if you pass the ordeal unscathed and any time you choose you can write to Anthony and send him twenty pounds or more if you like what is mine is yours so long as my opinion of you remains unchanged I did not like your mother I am free to tell you that I was angry with your father for marrying her and angry you're still when I heard of the life she led heard of her at Monte Carlo of which I never think without a shudder Miss McPherson had seated herself in a chair by this time and over her white face there came a wrapped far off look and her hands were locked together as she continued Bessie I may as well tell you now why I hate that place and hate all who frequent it Charlie seems very near me tonight my boy lover with the soft brown eyes and hair and the sweet voice which always spoke so tenderly to me even when I was in my fitful moods that was more than forty years ago when he walked with me along the rose scented lanes and told me of his love and talked of the happy future when I would be his wife alas he little dreamed what the future had in store or of the dreary lonely life I should lead while he oh Charlie my love my love she paused a moment while she seemed to repress some powerful emotion and then resumed her story when he was twenty one and I was twenty we went abroad in company with some relatives of mine and found ourselves at last at Monte Carlo your grandfather was with us and together we went into the gambling hall where men and women sell their souls for money and there my brother played and I shame that I must tell it I too tried my luck while Charlie looked on reproachfully and tried to get me away but I only laughed at him and bad him stay to keep me company then I called him a coward and badgered him until one night he put down a five franc piece and one and then he put down another and another doubling and trebling sometimes and always winning as it is said Satan who rules that den lets the novices do the next day Charlie played with a recklessness which half alarmed me and made me remonstrate with him but to no purpose you called me a coward he said laughingly and besides I rather like it the gold comes so easily I have scarcely lost a pound soon however the tide turned and he began to lose not small but large sums but as if that made him more determined than ever he played on and on always the first to enter in the last to leave while I watched him with a dread foreboding at my heart which I could not define oh how rashly he played and what heavy sums he's taked his fortune was not large nor was mine then what it is now but we had planned together to buy a lovely place we knew of on the isle of white and had furnished it in fancy many times I am bound to get back what I have lost or we cannot have rose lawn he would say with a smile and once when I begged him to desist and told him I did not care for rose lawn he answered me but I do and you must not complain you made me play you know after that I was silent and watched him sadly as the infatuation increased at last he said to me one night Betty that was the name he gave me this evening we'll see the end something tells me I shall get back all I have lost and I am resolved to stake everything I have but whether I lose or win it is my last chance don't look so reproachfully at me remember you taught me to play but you did not know how strong was the desire in me to do it a love for the gaming table is the besetting sin of my family and I had sworn to conquer it in myself but you were too strong for me so whatever happens do not blame me too much and now give me a kiss as a guarantee of success how handsome he was in the moonlight for we were in the beautiful grounds around the casino we're standing in a sheltered spot close to a bed of great white lilies whose perfume even then made me faint I cannot smell them now without a throb of pain they are so associated with that awful night when I bad Charlie goodbye and went back to the hotel I did not go with him nor did he wish it I disconcerted him he said and so I sat by my window and watched the full moon rising higher and higher and listen to the moan and dash of the sea against the shore below and saw the people going and coming until at last it was twelve o'clock the hour for closing and I saw the crowds come out men and women young and old those who had lost and those who had won and leaning from the casement I tried to single out Charlie but could not I felt almost sure that if he had been successful he would stop at my door and tell me so but he did not come as I sat and waited I cannot tell you the horror and dread which took possession of me I knew that the moon was still shining that patches of silvery light were falling upon the sea and the shrubs and flowers outside but to me all was black as midnight and I actually groped my way to my bed on which I threw myself at last shivering with cold for the October air was blowing up chill from the water for a few moments I slept and then started suddenly as I fancied I heard Charlie call my name oh Betty was what he said and in his voice there was a note of agony and fear which made me shiver in every limb as I tottered to the window and looked out oh what a glorious night it was rich and sweet with tropical bloom and beauty and the full moon in the sky now moving down to the west for it was past two o'clock everything was still and after listening a moment I went back to bed and slept heavily until morning when my brother came to my door and spoke to me in a voice I did not at first recognize it was so strange and unnatural what is it I asked as I opened the door and looked at his white face sister he said stepping into the room can you bear some dreadful news yes I answered with a sensation as if I were turning into stone Charlie is dead he has killed himself how I knew it I cannot tell but know what I did Charlie was dead he had lost everything and gone from the scene of his ruin to the very spot where he had kissed and said goodbye to me and there had put a bullet through his brain close by the clump of lilies which were wet with his blood when they found him lying on his back with his fair young face upturned to the moonlit sky and a smile on his lips as if the death struggle had been a painless one I knew then that at the last when his soul was parting from his body he had called my name and I had heard him just as I often hear him now when I am all alone and the night like that one is full of moonlight and beauty we took him to England and laid him in his grave where I buried my heart my life and hope and since then I have grown into the strange unlovable woman you find me but do you wonder that I shrink with horror from the gaming table and those who frequent it or that I could not respect your mother when I heard of her so often at Monte Carlo where Charlie died and where your grandfather ruined himself for he too was possessed with a mania for play oh auntie how sorry I am for you Bessie said throwing her arms around Miss McPherson's neck and kissing her through her tears I mean to love you so much she continued and do so much for you if you will let me do I do not mind being your housemate at all only just now I feel so tired and sick as if I could never work anymore and holy exhausted she sank back upon her pillow where she lay for a few moments so white and still that her aunt felt a horrible pang of fear lest the price she so much coveted might be slipping from her almost before she possessed it but after a little Bessie rallied and smiling upon her aunt said to her you cannot guess how happy I am to be here with you but I do not think I quite understand what you meant by trying me I meant Miss McPherson replied to see if you were in earnest when you said you were willing to do anything to earn money I knew the McPherson pride and thought you might have some of it but I know better now I have tried you and proved you and do not want you as a housemate any longer nor shall I need your services for a new girl comes tomorrow Sarah's cousin she is in New York and will be here on the morning train a regular green horn I imagine but if she is honest and willing I can soon train her in my ways and now I will leave you for you must sleep tonight so as to be well tomorrow and with a fond good night Miss McPherson left the room end of chapter 11 part 3 chapters 12 and 13 of Bessie's fortune by Mary Jane Holmes this LibriVox recording is in the public domain 12 Bessie's successor with the moral the new housemate came but Miss McPherson was too anxious about her knees to observe more than that the girl was fresh and bright and clean with a wonderful brogue and a clear ringing voice Miss Betsy had called the village doctor who after carefully examining his patient said she was suffering either from nervous prostration or malaria he could not tell which until he had seen her again then prescribing quinine for the latter and perfect rest for the former he left just as the new girl appeared and with her volubility and energy seemed to fail the house as quickly as possible Miss Betsy got her into the kitchen and then went to her niece's room I must have been asleep Bessie said for I dreamed that I heard Jenny's voice and I was so glad that it woke me and I thought I heard it again she was the Irish girl who was so kind to me on the ship you remember I told you up her yes Miss Betsy replied I think you liked her very much oh yes very very much and I would give a great deal to see her again I believe I should get well at once there is something so strong and hearty about her to this Miss MacPherson made no reply but all the rest of the morning she seemed very restless and excited and was constantly hushing the new girl whom she once bad the cook took gag if she could not quiet her in any other way I have a sick niece upstairs and you will disturb her she said to the girl who replied and sure then mum I'll whisper but her whisper seemed to penetrate everywhere and Miss MacPherson was glad when at last the toast and tea and jelly intended for Bessie's dinner were ready upon the tray which she bad the girl take upstairs to the young lady whose room was at the end of the hall and indeed I take off my shoes and go in mistock and feet to be quiet in its never word I speak the girl said as she started on her errand while her mistress listened at the foot of the stairs Miss MacPherson was prepared for a demonstration of some sort but did not quite expect what followed for the moment the girl stepped into the room Bessie sprang up with a loud glad cry oh Jenny Jenny where did you come from I am so glad there was an answering cry of surprise and joy and then the tray with everything upon it went crashing to the floor while Jenny exclaimed and be jobbers the platter and the taze all once matched together in me frighted seem you hear before me when it's myself was going to ask her to take you may the saints be praised if it's not the happiest day since I left Ireland and bending over Bessie the impulsive Irish girl kissed her again and again talking and laughing and crying until Bessie said to her there Jenny please I am very tired and your sudden coming has taken my strength away she did look very white and faint and Jenny saw it and tried to be calm though she kept whispering to herself as she gathered up the debris on the floor and with a most rueful expression took it downstairs saying to her mistress and faith it's a bad beginning I've made mum but you're not pay you every farthing with me first wages and now if you please I'll do up my foot for its blistered that it is with the Bill and Tay the foot was cared for and another tray of toast and tea prepared this miss Betsy took herself to Bessie explaining that Jenny was the cousin who had come to take her former housemates place but I had no idea she said that she was such a behemoth I am afraid she will not answer my purpose at all but Bessie pleaded for the girl whose kindness of heart she knew and who she felt sure could be molded and softened by careful and judicious training and that afternoon when Jenny came up to her she told her that her ad did not like a noise and that she must be very quiet and gentle if she wished to please Jenny listened to her open-eyed and when she was through responded is it quiet she wants I told her I would whisper and faith I will for I'm bound to stay with you and get me ten shillings a week the case seemed hopeless and Jenny might have lost her place but for the serious illness which came upon Bessie taking away all her vitality and making her weak and helpless as a child it was then that Jenny showed her real value and by her watchful tenderness and untiring devotion more than made amends for all her awkwardness day after day and night after night she stayed in the sick room ministering to Bessie as no one else could have done lifting her tenderly in her strong arms and sometimes walking with her up and down the large chamber into which she had been carried when the physician said her sickness might be of weeks duration for she was suffering from all the fatigue and worry of the last two years when the strain upon her nerves had been so great all through the remaining weeks of summer and the September days which followed Bessie lay in her bed scarcely noticing anything which was passing around her and saying to her aunt when she bent over her asking how she felt tired so tired and it is nice to rest and so the days went by and everybody in Allington became interested in the young girl whom few had seen but of whom a great deal was told by Mrs. Rosseter Brown whose carriage often stood at Miss McPherson's door bringing sometimes the lady herself and sometimes Augusta who had returned from Saratoga and was busy with preparations for her wedding which was to take place in October Lord Hardy who had come from the west and established himself at the rich house called several times and left his guard which Miss McPherson promptly burned she did not like Lord Hardy he was just a fortune hunter she said and cared no more for Augusta Brown than he did for her except that Augusta was the younger of the two and she could not forget how he had looked smirking and mincing by the side of Archie's wife at Aberystwyth poor weak Daisy who but for him might not have gone so far astray as she did for Bessie's sake Miss McPherson was almost ready to forgive poor Daisy as she always called her now when thinking of her for Bessie's sake she felt that she could do a great deal that was contrary to her nature but she could not feel kindly disposed toward Neil for immediately after the receipt of her letter to his mother containing 250 pounds and the announcement that she intended to take Bessie as her own child Neil had written her a long penitent letter blaming himself as a coward and telling of his remorse and regret for the past and saying that unless he was forbidden to do so he should come to America in September and renew his offer to Bessie this letter Miss McPherson read with sundry expressions of disgust and then taking from its peg her sun hat almost as large as a small umbrella she started for the telegraph office and several hours later Neil McPherson in London was reading the following laconic dispatch from Ellington stay at home and mind your own business Betsy McPherson perhaps I did wrong to send it for maybe the girl likes him after all the spinster thought as she walked back to her house but it was too late now and for the next two or three days she was too anxious to think of anything except Bessie who was much worse and seemed so weak and unconscious of everything that the physician looked very grave and the clergyman came at Miss McPherson's request and said the prayers for the sick but Bessie did not hear them for she lay like one in a deep sleep scarcely moving or seeming to breathe before leaving the room the clergyman went softly to the bedside to look at the sick girl wondering much at the likeness in her face to someone he had seen before and wondering too why it should remind him of Anna Gerald and the night when he went in the wintery storm to hear her father's confession poor Hannah he said to himself as he left the house and walking slowly across the common to the churchyard sat down upon a bench near a headstone which bore this inscription sacred to the memory of Martha beloved wife of the Reverend Charles Sanford who died January 1st 1800 blank blessed are the dead who die in the Lord since we last saw him years ago the Reverend Charles Sanford had grown an old man though he was scarcely sixty three an age when many men are in their prime there was a stoop in his shoulders as if the burden of life were heavy and his hair was white as snow while upon his face was a look which only daily discipline patiently born can ever write upon the human visage and patiently had he born it until he almost forgot that he was bearing it and then one day it was removed and by the likeness and freedom he felt he knew how heavy it had been poor Martha he said to himself as he glanced at his shining coat sleeves and the spot on the knee of his pants which was almost threadbare and at his boots which certainly had not been blacked that day poor Martha what would she say if she could see these clothes which though they may not look well are very comfortable then as his eye rested upon the word beloved he continued is that a lie I wonder which that marble is telling to the world if so it is Martha's fault for she wrote her own epitaph just as she ordered all the details of her funeral and what preceded it it was a strange fancy of hers to ask that Hannah should lay her out poor Martha devoted would have been better than beloved though God knows I tried to do my best by her and with a sigh both for what had been and what might have been the Rector arose and started for his home meeting at the gate of Gray's Park with Gray himself who was in Allington for the first time since his return from Europe Lucy had come up a few days before and had been at once to see Bessie of whose illness she had written to Gray and that had brought him as soon as he could leave his mother gray my boy how are you the Rector said offering his hand which Gray took saying as he did so how is she this morning Mr. Sanford did not know that Gray had ever seen or heard of Bessie MacPherson but something told him that he meant her and he replied very weak and sick poor girl she is too young to die Mr. Sanford and Gray spoke with great vehemence you do not think Bessie will die she must not die and in his voice and manner there was something which betrayed his secret to the older man who said to him I hope not Gray God knows pray for her my boy pray earnestly prayer can move a mountain or at least make a way through it pray for the girl you call Bessie to one accustomed as Gray was to take everything however small to God prayer was an easy thing and every thought was a prayer as he walked rapidly toward Miss MacPherson's house she is sleeping now Miss Bessie said to him we trust she will be better when she awakens it is rest she needs more than anything else she has had a hard life so far you have seen a great deal of her I believe I cannot say I have seen a great deal of her though I feel as though I had known her always yes she has had a hard life you do not think she will die was Gray's reply and in his face and voice Miss Bessie detected what the rector had discovered no she said I do not believe she will die sit down and wait till she is awake so Gray sat down and waited three hours during which time the train which would have taken him back to Boston went rushing by and Bessie still slept as quietly as an infant it was Jenny who came at last and told him that she was awake and better though too weak to see anyone thank God Gray exclaimed and slipping a bill into the girl's hand he continued take good care of her Jenny and when she is able tell her I came to see her ensure I'll tell her every blessed word and that you left your love I did not say that Gray answered laughingly as he bad her goodbye and walked away for a week or more Bessie scarcely spoke or moved it was such happiness to rest with every wish anticipated either by her aunt or Jenny whose voice was a whisper most of the time and it was learning to be more quiet and subdued at last however Bessie began to talk and said to Jenny one day I believe I am getting better and I am afraid I'm not as glad as I ought to be the world holds so little for me and so few who care for me beside Auntie and you and Faith Jenny began is not for you to be saying the likes of that nobody took care for you and date with the gentry come in every day to inquire for you the praise to read in his prayers in this very room and the fine gentleman who was on the ship is sitting downstairs three mortal hours waiting to know if you picked up dead or alive and thank in God when it was alive I told him you was who Jenny what gentleman Bessie asked Mr. Gray to be sure Jenny replied and you left his compliments for you and thank God when I told him you was better oh but he's very fine and Gray's park is like them places in the old country where the grandees live whether it was that Bessie was thoroughly rested or that the fact that Gray had not forgotten her was in itself a restorative her recovery was very rapid though she still looked like some fragile flower which a breath might blow away and Miss MacPherson watched her with a tender solicitude astonishing in one as cold and impassive as she had always seemed to be 13 Bessie goes to Gray's park it was a lovely day in early October when Bessie made her first visit to Gray's park of which she had heard such glowing descriptions from Jenny who took her there in an invalid chair sent for the purpose by Miss Lucy the grass in the park was fresh and green from recent rains and the late autumn flowers gave her brightness to the place scarcely equaled in summer oh how lovely it is pretty almost as a Kensington Gardens Bessie exclaimed as she entered the gate and looked around her I think I should like to live here she continued and then there came to her a thought of Gray who would probably one day be master of the place and she blushed guiltily as if she had said some immodest thing Miss Lucy met her at the door and taking her to her room made her lie down till they were joined by Miss MacPherson who came to lunch which was served in the breakfast room and was just the kind to tempt an invalid Bessie enjoyed it immensely and felt herself growing stronger and better in the brightness and freshness of this beautiful home which was one day to be grays on the wall beside blind Robbins there was a picture of Gray taken in Europe when he was 14 and just before the great sorrow came upon him and robbed his face of a little of the assurance and boyish eagerness which the artist had depicted upon the canvas but it was like him still like him as he was now in his young manhood when to do good to others to make somebody happy every day was the rule of his life and Bessie's eyes were often fixed upon it as after lunch was over they still sat in the breakfast room because of the sunshine which came in so brightly at the windows and while they sat there the elder woman talked of gray in what he would probably do now that his travels in Europe were ended he ought to marry and settle down is there any hope of his doing so Miss Betsy said and Lucy replied I think so yes I am quite sure of it if everything goes well as I think it will Bessie was sitting with her back partly turned to the ladies who did not see the crimson spots which covered her face for a moment and then left it deathly pale as she heard that gray Gerald was to be married for an instant everything around her turned black and when she came to herself she felt that she could not breathe in that room with Gray's picture on the wall and his eyes looking at her as they had looked that day in Rome when he had said to her words she would almost give half her life to hear again Bessie was no dissembler she could not sit there in her pain and make no sign and turning to her aunt she said please auntie let Jenny take me into the air I am sick and faint I she could not say anything more lest she should break down entirely and glancing significantly at each other the two ladies called Jenny and batter take her young mistress into the garden go to the Rose Arbor it is warmer there Miss Lucy said but only Jenny heard for Bessie was too conscious of the blow which had fallen so suddenly upon her to heed what was passing around her gray was going to be married her gray whom she now knew that she loved that she had never loved Neil McPherson even in the first days of her engagement when he was all the world to her her gray who certainly had loved her once or he would never have said to her what he did her gray who had been so kind to her on the ship and looked the love he did not speak why had he changed so soon was it some love of his boyhood before he saw her and had it again sprung into being now that he had returned to its object and oh how dreary the world looked to the young girl with a certainty that gray was lost to her forever she did not notice the fancy full summer house into which Jenny wheeled her did not notice anything or think of anything except her desolation and a desire to be alone that she might cry just as she had never cried before please Jenny go away she said I would rather be alone so Jenny left her and covering her face with her hands Bessie sobbed piteously oh father in heaven is there never to be any joy for me must I always be so desolate and lonely and is it wicked to wish that I were dead for several minutes poor Bessie wept and then with a great effort she dried her tears and leaning her head back in her chair began to live over again every incident of her life as connected with gray Gerald and while she sat there thus the Boston train stopped at the Allington station and she heard the roar and the ring as it started on its way twenty minutes later she heard behind her the sound of a footstep apparently hurrying toward her and thought if she thought at all that it was Jenny coming for her but surely Jenny's tread was never so rapid and eager as this nor were Jenny's hands as soft and warm as the hands which encircled her face nor Jenny's voice like this which said to her Bessie darling Bessie gray had come to Allington from Springfield where he had been on business for his father and both Lucy and Miss MacPherson knew that he was coming and had chosen that day for Bessie's visit to the park and had purposely talked before her of his probable marriage in order to test the nature of Bessie's feelings for him we cannot be mistaken Miss MacPherson said to Lucy after Bessie had left them but let me manage the young man and when at last Gray came and after greeting the ladies asked after Bessie Miss MacPherson replied that she was better and had just left them for the garden and then as Gray made no move to go in search of her she suddenly turned upon him with the exclamation gray Gerald you are a fool yes he answered interrogatively as he regarded her with astonishment I repeat it you are either a fool or a blind or both she continued but I am neither and I know you love my niece and she loves you and I know too that you think she is engaged to Neil MacPherson but she is not what Gray exclaimed starting to his feet what are you saying I am saying that Bessie's engagement was broken before she left England and that she she what Gray cried almost fleetingly and Miss MacPherson rejoined she is in the garden you will find her in the Rose Arbor Gray waited for no more but went rapidly in the direction of the summer house where Bessie sat with her back to him and did not see him until his hands were upon her face and his voice said to her Bessie darling Bessie then she started suddenly and when Gray came round in front of her and shaking her hands and his kissed her lips she kissed him unhesitatingly and then burst into a paroxysm of tears what is it Bessie why are you crying so Gray said as he still held her hands and kept kissing her forehead and lips they said you are going to be married Bessie sobbed as Gray knelt beside her and laying her head upon his shoulder tried to brush her tears away who said I was to be married he asked in some surprise and Bessie answered him your aunt Lucy said she thought so and I oh Gray what must you think of me and lifting her head from his shoulder Bessie covered her face with her hands crying for very shame that she had betrayed what she ought to have kept to herself what must I think of you Gray replied why this that you are the dearest sweetest little girl in all the world in that I am the happiest man I do not know what aunt Lucy meant by saying I was going to be married but I am and very soon too just as soon as you are able to be present at the ceremony will that be at Christmas time do you think he was taking everything for granted and Bessie knew that he was and knew what he meant but she would scarcely have been a woman if she had not wished him to put his meaning in words which could not be mistaken so she said to him emit her tears glad happy tears they were now whom are you to marry whom he repeated whom but you Bessie McPherson whom I believe I have loved ever since that Christmas I spent it's only two years ago do you remember the knot of plaid ribbon you wore that night in which I won at play I have it still as one of my choices treasures and the curl of hair which Flossie cut from your head in Rome when we thought you would die I divided that dress with Jack Travellian the night we talked together of you with breaking hearts because we believed you were dead he told me then of his love for you and I confessed mine to him though we both suppose that had you lived Neil would have claimed you as his oh Bessie those were dreary months to me when I thought you dead and may you never know the anguish I endured when I stood by that grave in stonely and believed you lying there but God has been very good to me far better than I deserve he has given you to me at last and nothing shall separate us again while Gray talked he was caressing Bessie's face and hair and stooping occasionally to kiss her while she sat dumb and motionless so full was she of the great joy which had come so suddenly upon her and which as yet she could not realize we will be married at Christmas Gray said the anniversary of the time when I first saw you little dreaming then that you would one day be my wife shall it not be so what Bessie might have said or how long the interview might have lasted we have no means of knowing for a shrill cry in the distance of none of that mister for I'm coming myself to take the height of ye startled them from their state of bliss and looking up they saw Jenny bearing swiftly down upon them with both arms extended ready for fight Jenny who knew nothing of Gray's arrival had visited with the servants until she concluded it was time to return to her young mistress as she came within sight of the summer house what was her horror to see a tall young man with his arms around Bessie and as it seemed to her trying to take her from the chair Thieves and murder she cried if there isn't a spalpeen trying to run away with Miss Bessie body and bones and at her utmost speed she dashed on to the fray but at sight of gray she stopped short and with wide open eyes and mouth surveyed him a moment in astonishment then a broad smile illumined her face as she exclaimed and faith that's right kiss her again as many times as he likes it's not me self will interfere though if you'd been a placard as I thought you was I'd have had your heart's blood and turning on her heel Jenny walked rapidly away leaving the lovers a very little upset and disconcerted it was gray who wheeled Bessie back to the house and taking her in his arms carried her to his aunt Lucy to whom he said as he put her down on the couch this is my little wife or rather she is to be my wife on Christmas Eve and Christmas day we are to spend here with you who will make the old house brighter than ever it was before then going up to miss McPherson he continued kiss me Aunt Betsy because I am to be your nephew and because I am no longer a fool the kiss he asked for was given and thus the engagement was sealed and when next day Gray returned to Boston he said to his aunt Hannah who was still with his mother Bessie is to be my wife and I must tell her our secret and at your house too for after she has seen you I feel sure that she will forgive everything and of chapters 12 and 13 part three chapters 14 and 15 of Bessie's fortune by Mary Jane Holmes this LibriVox recording is in the public domain 14 telling Bessie at last Mrs. Geraldine was better and signified her willingness to let her sister-in-law return to her own home from which she had been absent so long she had received with a good deal of equanimity the news of her son's engagement with Bessie whom she remembered as a lovely child wholly unlike her mother if that woman were living I would never consent to the marriage she said but as it is I am willing though I had hoped that in your travels abroad you might have found some high-born English girl with the title but it is something to marry a niece of Lady Jane and I dare say Miss MacPherson will make the girl her heir so I will welcome her as my daughter and perhaps she will brighten up the house which is at times insufferably dull with your father growing more and more silent and gloomy every day I should not wonder if you were to become crazy like your grandfather Gray did not reply to this or tell her that he could guess in part what it was which had made his father grow old so fast and blanched his hair to a snowy white unusual to one of his ears it was the secret hidden under the bedroom floor which had affected his whole life and affected it all the more because he had brooded over it in silence and never spoken to anyone upon the subject once Hannah had attempted to say something to him but he had repulsed her so fiercely that she never tried again and he did not guess what efforts Gray had made to find the rightful heirs of Joel Rogers like his wife he did not object to Gray's engagement Bessie was a desirable party as she would in all probability inherit her aunt's large fortune and he signified his approval and in all Boston there was not a happier man than Gray on the morning when with his aunt Hannah he at last started for Allington telling her when he bought her goodbye at the station that he should bring Bessie to her early the following day it was a most lovely October morning when Gray drove Bessie through the rocky lane in the pasture land up to the old house of which he had taught her on Christmas Eve at Stoneley almost two years ago and which seemed neither new nor strange to Bessie so strong an impression had his description made upon her there she is that is at Hannah Gray said as a tall slender woman in a plain black dress came to the open door and stood waiting for them and I should have known her too what a sad face it is just as if there was a history hidden under it Bessie said and Gray replied as he lifted her from the Phaeton there is a history hidden there and sometime I will tell it to you then leading her to his aunt he said auntie I have brought you Bessie yes Hannah answered with a gasp as her cold hands were clasped by the soft warm ones of the young girl who looked up at her curiously wondering at her manner at sight of Bessie Hannah had been startled by the likeness to the picture hidden away so many years every feature of which was indelibly stamped upon her memory had that picture taken life and form and was it confronting her now it seemed so and for an instant she grew cold and faint instead staring at the girl auntie won't you kiss Bessie Gray said and then the spell was broken and taking the girl in her arms Hannah kissed and cried over her as a fond mother cries over the child which has been lost and is restored to her again Hannah could not define to herself the feeling which took possession of her from the moment she saw Bessie standing there in the low old fashioned room with the October sunshine falling on her golden hair and lighting up her beautiful face still pale and worn from recent sickness it was as if an angel had come suddenly to her bringing the peace and rest she had never known since that awful night more than 40 years ago and she felt all her olden horror rolling away as she watched Bessie going over the house with Gray now up the Kirkwood stairs to the room under the roof where Gray used to sleep when a boy and where there were still the remains of a horse and a boat which he had sailed in the big iron kettle by the well now down the cellar stairs to see the foundation of the big chimney which occupied the center of the house and in which the swallows built their nests now out to the well with a bucket hung and then to the little bench where Gray used to sit and kick the side of the house while the terror-stricken old man looked on trembling lest the board should give way and show what was hidden there and it was there yet dust and ashes now but still there and Bessie sat down alone beside it while Gray shivered as his grandfather had done and drew her away as quickly as possible where does this lead to she asked laying her hand upon the door which was always closed that was grandfather's room no one goes in there Gray said hurriedly as he put his arms around her and told her she had seen enough and must rest until after dinner he took her to the pleasant south room where the early dinner was served with the tiny silver teaspoons marked with the initials of Hannah's mother and the bits of old China which modern fashion has made so choice and rare now and Bessie enjoyed it with the keen relish of a returning appetite she had improved rapidly within the last week and declared herself as well and strong as ever when after dinner was over and the dishes cleared away she nestled down among the cushions of the chints covered lounge this is such a dear old place she said that I should like to stay here always people say there is a skeleton in every house but I am sure there can be none here everything seems so peaceful and quiet why did she make that remark of all others Gray thought as with a face whiter even than that of his aunt Hannah he sat down beside her and drawing her closely to him later golden head upon his shoulder Bessie he said and his voice shook a little I am going to tell you something which perhaps I ought to have told you before I asked you to be my wife and which I should have told you had I thought the telling would make any difference in your love for me nothing can make any difference in that Bessie said lifting up her sweet face to be kissed and then dropping her head again upon Gray's arm just as Hannah came in and took a seat on the other side of her Hannah had been upstairs to her room where she now kept the box in which lay the picture which was so like Bessie MacPherson more like her than I supposed she whispered as she gazed upon the face which seemed each moment to grow more and more like the young girl to whom Gray was to tell the story he was only waiting for her to come in before he commenced she knew and putting the picture back in its place she went down to the south room and taking her seat beside Bessie as Gray motioned her to do waited for him to begin Bessie he said and his arm tightened his clasp around her waist there is a skeleton here and it has darkened all my aunt Hannah's life and thrown its shadow over me as well can you bear to have a little of it fall upon you too yes she answered fearlessly I have always lived with skeletons until I knew you loved me they cannot frighten me but darling would you love me as well think you if you knew that in a way there was a disgrace clinging my name he asked and Bessie replied a disgrace what do you mean I cannot imagine you to be in disgrace but if you are I am quite ready to share it with you even if it be a murder Gray spoke the last word in a whisper as if afraid the walls had ears but Bessie heard him distinctly and with a great start she drew herself away from him and sat rigid as stone while she repeated murder oh gray you surely do not mean that no not exactly it was manslaughter done in self-defense gray answered her and with a sigh of relief Bessie asked who was the killed and who the killer my grandfather did the deed in the heat of passion and the victim has lain under the floor of that room into which I would not let you enter for more than 40 years now you know the skeleton there is in this old house yes Bessie said while a look of terror and pain crept into her eyes but she did not move near either to gray or his aunt indeed it seemed to both that she drew herself into a small compass as possible so that she might not touch them and her face was very white and still as gray commenced the story which he made as short as possible though he dwelt at length upon the lifelong remorse of his grandfather and the heavy burden which his aunt Hannah had carried for years at this part of the story Bessie's face relaxed and one of the hands which had been clasped so tightly together at first went over to Hannah's hand which it took and held until gray told of the lonely days and dreary nights passed by the young girl in the old horror haunted house with no one but Rover for her companion then the hand went up with a soft caressing motion to the face which gray had once said looked as if Christ had laid his hands hard upon it and left their impress there it was pallid now as the face of a corpse and there were hard lines about the mouth which quivered with pain but at the touch of Bessie's soft fingers the hardness relaxed and covering her eyes Hannah burst into a peroxism of weeping dear auntie Bessie said my auntie because you are grays how you must have suffered and how I wish I could have come to you there would have been no terror here for me because you see it was not premeditated it was an accident not a crime and God I am sure forgave it long ago no gray and now she turned to him and winding her arms around his neck went on it is not a disgrace you asked me to share it is a misfortune a trouble and you think I would shrink from it in a moment I who have borne so much that was disgrace he knew she was thinking of her mother but he said nothing except a folder in his arms and kiss her flushed digra face while she went on but who was this man where did he live and had he no friends to make inquiries for him gray remembered now that he had simply said the peddler without giving the name that he hastened to say he was Joel Rogers a Welshman from Carnarvon and it was for his sister Elizabeth or her heirs that I was searching when I first came to Stonely oh gray and Bessie sprang up almost as quickly as she had done when he spoke to her of the murder oh gray what if it should be my great uncle whose grave is under the floor you once told me you are hunting for Elizabeth Rogers and I said I would ask Anthony who knew everybody for 50 miles around and for a hundred years back but I forgot it until after father died when it came to me one day and I went to Anthony and asked if he knew anyone in Carnarvon or vicinity by the name of Elizabeth Rogers no he said I never knew Elizabeth Rogers but I knew your grandmother Elizabeth Baldwin before she was married and she had a half brother Joel Rogers 20 years older than herself a queer roaming kind of chap who went off to America or Australia or some such place and never came back again he was a good bit older than I am Anthony said and would be over 80 of living now then I remembered that when I was a child I once heard my grandmother Alan speak of a brother who she said went to the States when she was a girl and from whom she had not heard in many years he must have been very fond of her for she had several choice things he had given her and among them a picture of herself which she said was painted in London the only time she was ever there and which was very beautiful a picture did you say would you know one like it if you were to see it Hannah asked in a constrained voice and Bessie replied oh yes that portrait is still at stonely for when grandma died six or seven years ago mother gave it to me and I hung it in my room it was like mother only prettier I think while Bessie was speaking Hannah had risen and going from the room soon returned bearing in her hand the box which were so many years she had secreted in which gray had not seen since he was a boy and Hannah told him the sad story which had blighted her life he saw it now in his aunt's hands and shuddered as if it were a long closed grave she was opening here is the watch she said with a strange calmness as she laid in Bessie's lap the silver timepiece whose white face seemed to gray to assume a human shape and look knowingly up at him you see it stopped at half past eight it has never been wound up since Hannah continued pointing to the hour and a minute hands without the slightest hesitancy Bessie took the watch and examining it carefully said as she fitted the key attached to the old-fashioned fob to the keyhole do you think it would go if I were to wind it up then giving the key a turn or two she continued it does it ticks look gray and she held it to his ear but he started away from it as if it had been the heartbeat of the dead man himself and rising quickly began to pace up and down the room while Bessie next took the picture to which she bore so striking a likeness it is it is she exclaimed he must have had two taken one for himself and one for her is she not lovely she is like you Hannah replied and it was this resemblance which started me so when I first saw you this morning oh Bessie my child you're coming to me as cleared away all the clouds and I can make restitution at last for you or the rightful heir of the money I have saved so carefully heir of that and everything I do not think I understand you Bessie said and then Hannah handed her the will executed in Wales about a year before Joel Rogers death and in which he gave all he had to his sister Elizabeth and her heirs forever still I do not quite see it explain it to me gray Bessie said with a perplexed look on her face thus importuned gray sat down beside her and as well as he could explained everything and told her of the gold to which his ad had added interest every year so that the heirs when found should have their own hand of the shares in the slate quarries in Wales dividends on which must have amounted to quite a fortune by this time and all of which was hers when she was proven to be the lawful heir of Elizabeth Baldwin sister of Joel Rogers yes I understand now she said with a quivering lip and the great tears rolling down her cheeks there is money for me somewhere but oh I wish it had come in father's lifetime we were so poor then but she added as a bright smile broke over her face I am glad for you gray that I shall not be a penniless bride did she not then appreciate the position or see the gulf which her relationship to the dead man had built between them if not he must tell her and rising again to his feet and standing over her gray began with a choking voice Bessie you do not seem even to suspect that in the eyes of the world the fact that you are Joel Rogers grandniece ought to separate you from me don't you know that the blood of your kinsmen is on my grandfather's hands and does that make no difference with you difference she repeated no why should it oh gray you are not going to give me up because of that I was not to blame and in Bessie's voice there was such a pleading pathos that when she stretched her hands toward him gray took her in his arms feeling that all his doubts and fears were removed and that Bessie might be his in spite of everything for a long time they talked together of the course to be pursued deciding finally that the matter should be kept to themselves until gray and Bessie were married and with Hannah had been to Wales and proved the validity of Bessie's claim to the effects of Joel Rogers there was no longer any talk of waiting until Christmas Eve for the marriage was to take place as soon as possible and when gray took Bessie home to Miss McPherson he startled that good woman with the announcement that he was to be married the last week in November and sale at once for Europe taking his ad Hannah with him 15 wedding bells they rang first for Lord Hardy and Augusta Brown who had intended to be married in October but whose wedding was deferred until a second week in November because as Mrs. Rosseter Brown expressed it Gusty's bridal houses could not arrive in time from Paris everything pertaining to the young lady's wardrobe was ordered either from London or Paris and could Mrs. Brown have done it she would have bought the Arch of Triumph and transporting it to Allington would have set it up in front of her house and illuminated it for the occasion she should never have another daughter Mary and Irish Lord she said and she meant to take a splurge and astonish the natives and she did she had a temporary ballroom built at one side of the house and lighted it with a thousand wax candles she had a brass band from Springfield and a string band from Wooster she had a caterer from Boston whom with a usual happy form of expression she called a canterer she had guttered waiters and white gloves in such profusion that they stumbled over and against each other she had an awning stretch from the front door to the gate with yards and yards of carpeting under it she had not been abroad for nothing and she guessed she knew what was what she said to Lord Hardy when he hinted that a planer wedding would suit him quite as well and that the money she was expending could be put to better purpose I guess we can stand it and still have a nice little sum for Gusty she added and patting her future son-in-law upon the bag she bad him keep cool and let her run the machine after that Lord Hardy kept quiet though he was never so near a fever as during the week which preceded his nuptials for Augusta herself he did not care at all as men are supposed to care for the girl they are about to marry he did not dislike her and he thought a rather pretty and ladylike with a far better education than his own but strangely enough in these last days of his bachelorhood he often found himself living over again those far off times in Monte Carlo when as cousin Sue from Bangor he had laughed and talked and flirted with poor little Daisy as he called her to himself now that she was dead and the grave had closed over all her faults and misdemeanors she had been the cause of his ruin and he had at times hated her for it but she had been jolly company for all that and he wondered what she would say if she could know that Mrs. Rosseter Brown was to be his mother-in-law and Augusta Lady Hardy she would turn over in her coffin I do believe he thought and then he wondered how much Augusta's wedding portion would be and how far it would go toward restoring his Irish home to something like its former condition but on this point Pear Brown maintained a rigid silence and he was obliged to be content with the hints which Mad Brown dropped from time to time she had made minute inquiries with regard to Hardy Manor her daughter's future home and at her request he had made a drawing of it so that she knew just how many rooms there were and how they were furnished I shall his them feather beds out double quick she said and them high four posters with tops like a buggy I had a soon sleep in a hearse and I shall put in some brass bedsteads and hair mattresses and maybe I shall furnish Gusty's room with willer work I'll show him what Uncle Sam can do was she then going with him to Hardy Manor and must he present her to his aristocratic friends as the mother of his bride the very possibility of such a calamity made the perspiration ooze from the tips of Lord Hardy's fingers to the roots of his hair and once he contemplated running away and taking the first ship which sailed for Liverpool but when he remembered his debts he concluded to swallow everything even the mother-in-law if necessary he was to sail the last week in November and as when he engaged his state room nothing had been said about a second one for Mrs. Brown he comforted himself with the hope that she did not meditate going with him she would perhaps come in the spring by which time he might be glad for the brass bedsteads and hair mattresses which are bounded at the rich house and which were really more in accordance with his luxurious taste than the feather beds and high four posters which had done duty at Hardy Manor for more years than he could remember over four hundred invitations were given to the wedding as Mrs. Brown said she didn't mean to make nobody mad but she did offend more people than if her party had been more select for when Mrs. Peter Stokes the truckman's wife heard that her next door neighbor Mrs. Asa notes the Hackman's wife had received an invitation and she had not her indignation you know bounds and she wondered who Miss Ike Brown thought she was and if she had forgotten that she once went out to work like any other hired girl and when Susan Slokom whose mother took in washing heard that her friend Lucy Smith who worked in the mill was invited and she was not she persuaded her mother to roll up the four dozen pieces which had been sent from the ridge to be washed and returned them with the message that if she wasn't good enough to go to the wedding she wasn't good enough to wash the wedding finally this so disturbed poor Mrs. Brown who really wished to please everybody that but for the interference of Alan and Augusta she would have gone immediately to the offended washerwoman with an apology and an earliest request to be present at the wedding don't for pity's sake ask any more of this gum Alan said adding that if she had not invited any of them no one would have been slighted well I don't know Mrs. Brown rejoined with a sigh I can't quite forget when I was scum myself and knew how it felt on the whole however everything went smoothly and the grand affair came off one November night when the air was as soft and balmy as in early summer and the full moon was sailing through a cloudless sky as carriage after carriage made its way to the brilliantly lighted house through the dense crowd of curious people which filled the road in front and even stretched to the left along the garden fence all the factory hands were there and all the boys in town with most of the young girls and many of the women whose rank in life was in what Alan called the scum forgetting that but for his father's money he might have been there too there were four bridesmaids and all and their dresses and trains were something wonderful to behold as they swept down the stairs and through the long drawing room to the bay window where amid a wilderness of roses and azaleas and lilies they were to stand this was the part the most distasteful to Lord Hardy who would greatly have preferred being married in church according to the English form and in fact Augusta would have liked that too but Mrs. Brown was a staunch Baptist and opposed any deviation from the good old rule and so Lord Hardy was compelled to submit though his face wore the look of anything but a happy man as he went through the ordeal which made him Augusta's husband and then received the congratulations of the guests most of whom addressed the bride as Lady Hardy when Augusta heard of Bessie's engagement with Grey she wanted once to congratulate her and insisted upon her being one of her bridesmaids but Bessie declined she was too much a stranger to take so conspicuous a place she said and would rather be a quiet looker on but she was there with Grey to whose arms she clung as she looked wonderingly on at the gorgeous display unlike anything which was ever seen in Allington before or ever would be again altogether it was a most brilliant and successful affair and the reporters who had been hired to be present did a dample justice in the next day's papers festivities in high life headed the column in which the beauty and accomplishments of the bride were dwelt upon at large while free scope was given to the imagination and the pen when it came to the elegant manners of the hostess the air of refinement and cultivation perceptible among the guests and the signs of wealth and perfect taste everywhere visible the great popularity of the family was also dwelt upon as proven by the immense crowd thronging the streets and Lord Hardy was congratulated upon his rare good luck and hints were thrown out that England and Ireland ought to feel complimented that so many of America's fair daughters were willing to wear a foreign title and grace a foreign home what fools those reporters are to be sure and the Browns are bigger fools to allow such stuff to be printed was Miss McPherson's comment upon the articles which appeared in the spy and the Gazette and the Springfield Republican and her opinion was pretty generally shared by the citizens of Allington who immediately raked up the ashes of the Browns past history and recalled with great zest the times when Mrs. Brown had worked in the kitchen at Grace Park while poor Mr. Brown was charged with every possible second-class occupation from mending brass kettles down to peddling clothespins fortunately however Mrs. Brown was in happy ignorance of all this she only knew that she had killed a bear as she expressed it and that she had been described as an elegant and accomplished lady who led the tomb in Allington I guess I've whipped them all though I'll wait and see what Miss McPherson does she said but Miss McPherson did nothing it was the wish of both Bessie and Gray that the wedding should be as quiet as possible anyone was free to go to the church where the ceremony took place one morning the last week in November and which was filled with plain respectable people but only Hannah and Lucy Gray Mr. and Mrs. Burton Gerald and the clergyman Mr. Sanford went to the house where the wedding breakfast was served and where Miss Bessie broke down more than once as she thought how soon she had lost the girl whom she had learned to love so much Gray and Bessie were going to New York that afternoon for they were to sail the next day and Hannah was going with them no good reason had been assigned for this sudden trip across the ocean at this season of the year and only Mr. Sanford knew why it was taken Hannah had told him everything and while he expressed his pleasure that the long search and waiting had at last been rewarded in so satisfactory a manner he added sadly I hope you will not stay there long I shall be very lonely without you Hanny it was the first time he had given her the pet name of old since Martha had been laid to rest in the churchyard and as a penance for doing so he went the same day to Martha's grave and stood there at least 15 minutes with the November rain falling upon him until his clothes were nearly wet through poor Martha he sighed as he turned away she would be fidgeted to death if she knew how wet I am I guess I had better drink some bone set when I get home I believe that is what she used to give me he went with the party to New York and so did Miss Gray and Miss McPherson and the loungers at the Allington station made some joking remarks about one widower going off with three old maids but each of the old maids knew her business and cared little what the rabble said the Browns too were in New York with Lord and Lady Hardy who sailed in the same ship with Gray and Bessie just how much Augusta's wedding portion was was never known but that it was satisfactory was proven by the felicitous expression of Lord Hardy's face which beamed with delight as he said goodbye to his mother-in-law whom he kissed in the exuberance of his joy but his countenance fell a little when he heard her tell Augusta not to be so down in the mouth for she would be over there herself early in the spring in time to see to house cleaning the day was bright and warm as the days in Indian summer often are and the McPherson party stood upon the wharf waving their goodbyes as long as Gray and Bessie were discernible among the passengers then they returned to their hotel and Miss Bessie sent the following cablegram to Neil in London Bessie was married yesterday to Gray Gerald and sales today for Liverpool and of chapters fourteen and fifteen part three chapter sixteen of Bessie's fortune by Mary Jane Holmes this labor box recording is in the public domain sixteen Bessie's fortune at last there came a day when Hannah Gerald sat in the you shaded garden at Stoneley on the same bench where Archie once lay sleeping with Daisy at his side keeping the supplies from him Archie and Daisy were dead and Hannah Gerald whose life had reached out and laid all upon theirs was there in the old home to make restitution and coming to her down the walk were Gray and Bessie whose face was a wonderfully beautiful as she lifted it to her husband and said something which made him stoop down and kiss the sweet mouth from which the old tired look had nearly vanished she was so happy now this little Welsh girl who had born so much and suffered so much and it seemed to Hannah as she drew near as if a halo of joy shown in her deep blue eyes and irradiated every feature of her lovely countenance oh it is so nice to be home again and the old place is so dear to me she said as she sat down by Hannah up on the bench I half wish we were going to stay here though I like America very much and shall in time become as genuine a Yankee as Gray himself you know he is in a way a cosmopolitan they had taken Anthony and Dorothy completely by surprise for although Bessie had written to them of her engagement she had said nothing of coming home as she did not then expect to do so but circumstances had changed and the old couple were just sitting down to their frugal breakfast of bread and tea when a carriage from the station drove into the park and in a moment Bessie was in Dorothy's arms laughing and crying and talking in the same breath presenting Hannah as her husband and her husband as her aunt Anna and her joy and excitement at being home once more it did not take long to explain why they had come to the old people who entered heart and soul into the matter Anthony offering to go at once to Carnarvon and hunt up someone who could swear to the handwriting of Joel Rogers and help to prove the will while Dorothy said she had no doubt that among the papers bills and receipts which had belonged to Bessie's grandmother and which were still lying in an old writing desk where Daisy had put them when her mother died there were letters from Joel to his sister which proved to be a fact I remember him well though he was a good bit older than I am Anthony said a little sandy haired man very kind hearted and honest though rather touchy and quarrelsome if he had too much beer in him I shouldn't wonder but he died in some spree brought on by drink yes he died in a spree brought on by drink Hannah answered sadly and that was the only time she was ever upon to speak of the manner of Joel Rogers death indeed the whole matter was managed far more easily than she had feared no troublesome questions whatever were asked for there was no one enough interested in Joel Rogers to ask them and when the will was proven and Bessie's claim as his rightful heir established gray found no difficulty whatever in obtaining from the company where the deceased had owned shares so many years ago a full and correct account of all monies invested and the dividends which had been accruing since the whole of which was at once made over to Bessie who found herself an heiress to so large an amount but it fairly took her breath away at first why I am rich she exclaimed and then as the tears gathered in her eyes she continued oh this had come to me while poor father was alive it would have made him so comfortable and we were so poor then she began to wonder what she should do with it all and how to dispose of it to the best advantage if you were only poor and wanted it I should be so glad she said to gray but you do not and so I must do the best I can it never occurred to her to use any part of it for herself she meant to give it away and make a great many people happy and within a day or two she had decided what to do with a part of it at least she was sitting alone with gray around the bright fire in the drawing room one evening after their late dinner and gray was saying to her as she sat on a low stool at his side leaning her head on his knee and holding his hand in hers it will soon be two years since I first saw you with your face against the window looking out into the darkness at the big American I dare say you wished me in Guinea that I did Bessie answered laughingly as she deepened her clasp of his hand or I did not at all know what to do with you but I remember well that you gave up your own cozy bedroom like the dear unselfish little girl you are gray said and Bessie rejoined yes but I hope you remember too that you would not take it and pretending to have the asthma said you preferred the north chamber with the storm and the cold and the rats oh gray honestly I did not want you here one bit I thought you would be in the way but I am so glad now for if you had not come I might never have been your wife and Bessie nestled closer to the arm which was her rightful resting place and which encircled her fondly as gray replied a little teasingly no not my wife perhaps but you might have been nails a no gray if I had not met you I could not have married Neil I once thought I loved him it is true but I know now I did not we were so unlike we could never have been happy but I like him very much and I'm sorry for him if he really cared for me I wonder what he will say when he hears I am married and I'm here in Wales he did not even know I was engaged I think you ought to write and tell him and perhaps invite him here for the holidays do you think he would care to come no Bessie neither would I care to have him gray replied I would rather spend the first Christmas alone with you in the place where I first saw you but I am willing to write to Neil and when we go to London I will find him of course and you shall see him thank you gray Bessie said just as Dorothy came in with a letter for her mistress who took it in her hand and bending to the firelight recognize Neil's handwriting while her cheeks flushed as she saw her new name Mrs. Gray Gerald and thought that Neil was the first to address her thus breaking the seal she read as follows London December blank 1800 blank my dear cousin you may think it's strange that I have not written before this and congratulated you upon your marriage but I did not know of it until a week ago when I came home from the continent summoned by the news that my mother was very ill then I found a telegram for my aunt Bessie which said Bessie was married yesterday to gray Gerald and sales today for Liverpool I was not greatly surprised and I am glad that it is gray I know he is worthy of you and I hope you will both be happy even if I am wretched and forlorn for I am more so than I ever was in my life before mother is dead and we have just returned from burying her at the old home in Middlesex she died of typhoid pneumonia the day after my return I did not send for you to attend her funeral for fear it would seem like an insult she had taken such a stand against you during her life but she changed very much in that respect and a few hours before she died she talked of you and said she withdrew all her opposition and that if I loved you still and you loved me she hoped we would marry and be happy I did not tell her of the telegram and so she did not know that you were already married but strangest of all she advised me to go to America and if I could find anything to do which would not compromise me as a gentleman to do it think of that Bessie my mother advising me to work after all her training to the contrary but she knew there was no other way it is work or starve with me now a few weeks before mother's death she lost nearly everything which she had in her own right and which would have naturally come to me so that most of her income died with her neither Trevelyan house nor the one in the country is ours any longer and father must go into lodgings when the new air takes possession this at his age is very hard and I am sorry for him if we only had the house in middle sex it would not be so bad for he likes the country and would be happy there what he will do here alone in London I'm sure I don't know for I'm going out to India on a salary of three hundred pounds a year small enough for a chap of my habits but better than nothing I'd like awfully to see you once more before I go and if you don't come to London I hope you will let me call upon you don't think I am breaking my heart because you belong to gray I am not that kind and it would do no good but I loved you as I can never love anyone again and there is always a thought of you in my mind and I see your face as it looked at me that day in Liverpool when I acted the part of a cowardly name I would kick myself for that if I could you were too good for me Bessie and I should have been a drag upon your life always but heaven knows how much I miss you and how at times when the thought comes over me that you are lost to me forever and that another man is enjoying the sweetness I once thought would be mine I half wish I were dead and out of the way of everything then I put that feeling aside as unworthy of me and say to myself that I'm glad you are happy and that gray is the noblest and best fellow in the world and the one of all others who ought to have you for his wife I shall never marry that is settled first there is no woman in the world I can ever look at after loving you and second I am too poor and always will be and now I suppose you are thinking of Blanche and wondering where she is she and mother had a jolly row of which I fancy I was the cause Blanche told mother that all either she or I cared for was to get her ten thousand a year and by jove I believe she was right but I did not suppose she had sense enough to know it trust a fool sometimes to see through a stone wall well mother told Blanche that I did not even care for the ten thousand pounds that I loved you and had been engaged to you and that you had discarded me that was the straw too many and forthwith miss Blanche departed from Trevelyan house bag and baggage and I hear she is about to marry the eldest son of Lord Hxton a brainless idiot not half as good looking as I am there is conceit for you but you know I was always rather vain of my looks and I do believe that the greatest terror poverty holds for me is the knowing that I must wear seedy hats and threadbare coats and trousers a year behind maybe gray will sometimes send me a box of his cast off clothes but what nonsense I am writing and it is time I closed I hear father in his room and guess it must be time for his tea so I will go in and join him I hope either you or gray or both will write to me and tell me your plans forever and ever yours Neil P.S. I saw Jack Trevelyan the other day and told him you were married for a minute he was as white as a piece of paper then he rallied and asked a great many questions about you it seems he thought that you died in Rome when you were so sick there and he says Gray thought so too Jack did not know to the contrary until one day last summer when Flossy Meredith met him in the streets in Paris and told him he were in America Jack is growing stout and looks quite the landed proprietor he keeps a lot of hounds and has invited me to visit him but I am done with things of that sort again goodbye P.S. Number two I have had my tea with father and when I told him I had been writing to you he bad me give you his love and say that he should very much like to see you and your husband and that if you are not coming to London he will go to Stonely where he has never been since your grandfather died this I take it is right shabby in him but father is greatly changed between you and me he was awfully afraid of mother poor mother she meant well and she was fond of me by the way Flossy is in London with her grandmother stopping at Langhams and Jack is there too and has asked the old lady to spend some weeks at Trevelyan castle it is frightfully lonesome there he says and he wants Flossy to brighten it up can you read between the lines I think I can Flossy is bright as a button again yours forever Neil Bessie read the letter and then passing it to her husband said it is from Neil would you like to see it taking it from her gray read it through and then leading back in his chair watched Bessie as with her elbows on her knees and her face resting on her hands she sat gazing intently into the fire with a wistful earnest look which puzzled him a little was she thinking of the two men who had loved her so much and one of whom loved her still and was she sending a regret after the title she had lost he did not believe so and after a moment he reached out his hand and laying it caressingly upon her soft wavy hair said to her what is it petite are you thinking how you might have been Lady Bessie Trevelyan then she turned her clear truthful blue eyes upon him and answered no gray I would rather be your wife than the grandest Duchess in the world but I am thinking of Neil and his father and how hard it is for them to be so poor gray and rising from her stool Bessie seated herself on her husband's lap and winding her arms around his neck and laying her soft warm cheek against his bearded one said again gray I want to ask you something want to do something can I yes do what you like ask me what you like what is it darling gray answered her and Bessie replied I want to give a thousand pounds of my money to Neil and a thousand to his father that is not much I know but the interest upon it will put Uncle John in better lodgings than he can now afford and it will help Neil to only think of three hundred pounds a year after all he has been accustomed to spend what do you think gray gray's arm tightened its clasp around the girlish figure and his lips touched Bessie's white forehead as he said I think you the most generous and selfish little woman in all the world and so I am sure would Neil if he knew what you proposed but Bessie I do not believe he would like it or like you to offer it to him he has more manhood than that poverty is hard to bear but it will not hurt him on the contrary having to work for his living will bring out the very best there is in him and make him a man he will not starve or even suffer want on three hundred pounds a year it is more than many a working man has with a large family to support so do not waste your sympathy on Neil who can take care of himself but his father is old and the change will be hard upon him was he not born at Stoneley I think so yes Bessie answered and gray continued Neil says he likes the country and laments the loss of Elm Park now this is my suggestion Anthony and Dorothy ought to have someone with them in their old age how would you like taking a part of that two thousand pounds you are so anxious to dispose of and with it repair and fit up this place into a comfortable and pleasant home for Mr. McPherson whenever he chooses to stay here the rest of the two thousand you can invest for his use as long as he lives and the interest of it will add to his present moderate income what do you think of my plan I think it is the very best that could be adopted and I shall write to Neil tonight so it will go in the first mail tomorrow Bessie said and before she slept she wrote a long letter to Neil telling him first of the fortune which had come to her so unexpectedly but not explaining how it had come she was simply the sole heiress of a certain Joel Rogers who left shares in the quarries and mines and these she was now possessed of and felt herself a rich woman quite an heiress it seems to me she wrote although the sum is really not so very large but it is more than I ever dreamed of having and as money burns in my fingers I am dying to be rid of some of it and this is a plan which Gray and I have talked over together and which I hope will meet your approval and that of your father then as briefly as possible she made her offer which she begged him to persuade his father to accept it will make me very happy she wrote to know that his old age is made more comfortable by me I should be glad to give you a part of my little fortune but Gray says you would not like it and perhaps he is right I am glad that you are going to do something I think you will be happy you're occupied with business and I wish you to be happy as I am sure you will be someday and always remember that you have two sincere friends Gray and your cousin Bessie she was going to add Gerald to the Bessie but refrained from doing so thinking to herself that she would not be the first to flaunt her new name in Neil's face Gray however had no such scruples looking over Bessie's shoulder as she finished her letter he saw her start to make the J and when she changed her mind and put down her pen he took it up and himself wrote the Gerald with a flourish saying as he did so don't be afraid to show your colors petite I think Bessie Gerald the sweetest name in all the world so do I but I doubt if Neil holds the same opinion Bessie answered with a laugh as she leaned her head upon her husband's bosom while he kissed her lips and forehead and said the fond foolish things which no loving wife however old she may be is ever tired of hearing fond foolish words which if often or spoken would keep alive the love and hearts which should never grow cold to each other it was three days before an answer came to Bessie's letter and in that time she developed a most astonishing talent for architecture or rather for devising and planning how to repair and improve a house at least 20 sheets of paper were wasted with the plans she drew of what she meant to do they were to be bow windows here and balconies there and particles in another place chimneys were to be moved as readily and easily as if they have been pieces of furniture partitions thrown down doors taken away and portiers substituted all the solid old fashioned furniture was to be discarded and light airy articles to take its place like the willow work and brass bedsteads then on their way to Hardy Manor as a gift from Mrs. Brown indeed it was not until Gray told Bessie that she was outdoing the Yankees in her desire for change and asked if she were copying Mrs. Rossiter Brown that she stopped to rest and concluded to wait for a letter from Neil before she commenced the work of knocking down and hauling out as Dorothy expressed it at last the letter came not from Neil but from his father who after thanking Bessie most cordially for her generous offer which he was glad to accept wrote as follows I hope you will not be disappointed because I answer your letter in place of Neil who said he could not possibly do it he is greatly changed it does not seem like himself at all after reading your letter and passing it to me he sat for a long time staring blankly at nothing with a look on his face which I could not understand and when I asked him what was the matter he put his head upon the table and cried as young men never cry except they are greatly moved and I cried too the why I cannot tell unless it was for all the trouble which has come upon us at once the loss of my wife the loss of our home and the fact that Neil must now from necessity do something to earn his bread but I do not think he minds that as much as one might suppose and when I began to cry he stopped at once and tried to comfort me and said our lot was not a hard one by any means when compared with what many had to endure that it was a good thing to have to bestow himself that he had been a lazy conceited selfish puppy long enough and that if it were possible he meant to be a man and then he spoke of you as his good angel and said you were the truest purest and sweetest woman in all the world and that neither of us could ever repay you and your husband for your generosity to us I am sure I cannot nor can I tell you how happy I shall be at stonely I am afraid you will have a steady incumbent for once there I do not believe I shall care to leave it I have seen all the world I wish to and the quiet and peace of stonely will be very grateful to me I think however that for the winter I shall remain in London where I hope to see you and Mr. Gerald whose father and mother I met years ago at Penron Park I do not yet know when Neil will start for India probably within a few weeks and then I shall be very lonely that God may bless you my dear Bessie and give you all the happiness you deserve is the prayer of your affectionate uncle John MacPherson end of chapter 16