A DREADFUL DISCOVERY
The look that dawned in her father’s face, Betty Browning was to
remember for many a long day. The face that had been so stern and set
softened magically.
“So you want to help, do you, Betty? You want to help your old dad?”
Betty nodded, and Mr. Browning got up suddenly and walked to the
window.
He stood for a moment, looking, but seeing nothing, then turned and
held out his arms.
“Come here, Betty,” he said in a voice that, for all his failure, had
a ring of triumph in it. “Come here and get hugged!”
Mrs. Browning could not understand. She was honestly bewildered by
Betty’s attitude, by what she called her “desertion.”
“No one sympathizes with me,” she moaned. “No one! The fact that I
must give up my home, my servants, my cars, means nothing to any
one. Betty, to whom it should mean as much as it means to me, seems
to think it will all be a pleasant adventure, losing everything and
being as poor as church mice!”
“I don’t expect it to be pleasant,” Betty began patiently, only to
have her mother wave her aside with an angry, impatient gesture.
“Oh, don’t speak to me! Don’t talk to me! I know just how it is!
Don’t think I can’t understand! You care more for your father than
you do for me! You will stand up for him, no matter what he has done!”
“But he hasn’t done anything, purposely,” Betty cried, exasperated,
only to have her mother throw up her hands and moan:
“You see? She stands up for her father against everything and
everybody--even her poor mother!”
Against this, of course, Betty could do nothing. Nor could Mr.
Browning. They gave up trying after a while and left Mrs. Browning to
her lamentations, while together, father and daughter, they tried to
pick up the pieces of their ruined fortunes in the hope of salvaging
something from the wreck.
Meanwhile, Jane was very busy in Mr. Garwick’s office. While she
wondered a great deal about unfortunate Mr. Browning and his pretty
daughter, she heard nothing further concerning them and so allowed
herself to become absorbed in her work.
She saw a great deal of Billy, even though she knew that Greenville
talked about her friendship with him and was prone to extend the dark
cloud of suspicion that hovered over him to include her also if she
flaunted her championship of him too openly.
The Powell front porch became a veritable “parking place” for Billy,
as he himself expressed it. While both Mr. and Mrs. Powell liked the
young fellow very much and were in their hearts convinced that Billy
knew no more of the origin of the Martin and Hull fire than they did
themselves, they disliked to see Jane too intimate with him.
Mr. Powell ventured a gentle protest one night, but Jane flamed
out right royally in defense of her friend and Mr. Powell retired,
defeated, in chuckling admiration of her loyalty.
“She’s true blue, that girl,” he told his wife. “I took a chance for
her sake. But I’m glad she didn’t listen to me. I’d have thought the
worse of her for it if she had.”
Then came the wonderful day when Mr. Garwick gave Jane her second
increase in salary. This gave her twenty dollars a week, and it
wafted Jane to the seventh heaven of delight and hopefulness.
Without saying anything to anybody, Jane started a little fund.
“We managed to get along fairly well on my salary before I got the
increase,” she told herself, experiencing all the delight of a
cheerful conspirator. “It won’t be so very long before I have quite a
little sum, and then--oh just wait till I tell Billy!”
After that she worked harder than ever for her employer. Mr. Garwick
came more and more to depend upon the quick-witted sensible girl. He
even began to discuss little business problems with her that bothered
him and was amazed and delighted by her quick grasp of the subject
and her clear reasoning.
As a matter of fact, Jane was head over ears in love with the
business and welcomed the occasional confidences of Mr. Garwick more
eagerly than she would the reading of an adventure story--and Jane
loved stories of adventure, especially when there was a spice of
mystery in them.
Delighted at the eager interest of his young assistant, Mr. Garwick
initiated her more and more into his confidences until there came a
day when he admitted to his wife that he scarcely knew who ran the
business, himself or Jane!
While she lost herself in her absorbing work, things were happening
in the Powell cottage that were to effect Jane’s entire future.
When Mrs. Cross had died in Coal Run, leaving Jane to the kindly Mrs.
Powell’s care, there had been a trunk of the girl’s things that were
to be used for Jane by Mrs. Powell as the latter saw fit.
The trunk had remained in the Powell’s storeroom from that day,
untouched and practically forgotten. Jane, who knew of her mother’s
habit of saving practically worthless things, had felt no interest
in it. When they moved from Coal Run the trunk had come too, and had
been put in the open attic of the new house.
It would in all probability have remained there indefinitely, to be
covered with dust and cobwebs and finally forgotten if Mrs. Powell
had not been reminded of it by necessity.
Jane must have clothes. That much was certain, but where to get them
was the problem.
Mrs. Powell thought that she could do with her old clothes at home,
but Jane, as temporary wage-earner of the family, should be well
dressed--if such a thing were possible.
Dubiously, Mrs. Powell examined her own wardrobe and Jane’s, only to
decide finally that they were hopeless. Everything Jane had, had been
changed and made over and dyed so often that they were only fit now
for the rag-bag.
“Poor child, she must have some new clothes! But how?”
It was here that Mrs. Powell thought of the old trunk in the attic.
“Just the very thing! Why didn’t I think of it before?”
Mrs. Powell had the key of the trunk somewhere. It took her a
considerable time to find it, but finally, armed and triumphant, she
ascended to the attic to examine the things left by Mrs. Cross.
There was something almost eerie about the proceeding. The attic
seemed very close and dusty, the silence of the empty house
oppressive as Mrs. Powell fitted the key in the lock of the trunk and
flung back the lid.
The contents lay revealed to her, clothing neatly folded, laid there
by the hands of the dead woman.
Mrs. Powell felt a curious reluctance to disturb those things. She
wanted suddenly to close the lid of the trunk, lock it, and leave the
trunk, contents and all, to the accumulative cobwebs and dust of the
attic.
“Nonsense!” she scolded, ashamed of her mood. “The things belong to
Jane, they were to be used for her. Don’t be such a fool, Lou Powell!”
She took out layer after layer of faded, worn dresses, things that
had been carefully laid away by a careful woman as having some
possible use in time to come.
“Nothing for Jane here,” Mrs. Powell muttered, disappointed. “The
clothes she has now are better than these old things. Hello--what’s
this?”
“This” was a carefully folded piece of dark blue serge.
Here was a discovery! Enough for a new dress for Jane, probably.
Mrs. Powell shook it out eagerly, and to her amazement a large white
envelope fell from the folds of it.
She picked up the envelope curiously and examined the words that were
scrawled across it in pencil.
“To be read by Jane’s guardian and the contents to be disclosed
to Jane, should the guardian see fit.
“Sarah Cross.”
Mrs. Powell stared at the envelope for a long time, her brow wrinkled
with bewilderment. Then, suddenly making up her mind, she tore open
the flap of the envelope and drew forth a folded slip of paper.
Whatever the message of the dead woman, it disturbed Mrs. Powell
profoundly.
She read and re-read the words on the paper, the frown on her face
growing, the look of pain in her eyes deepening.
“My poor Jane! My poor, dear, loyal little Jane. Oh, this is
dreadful, dreadful!” she moaned.
She sat there on the floor of the attic, the bit of paper in her
hand, until the lengthening shadows warned her that the afternoon was
almost gone.
She roused herself then and, with a deep sigh, she thrust the paper
back into the envelope.
“Awful, awful! What shall I do?”
Automatically she replaced the faded dresses in the trunk, keeping
out only the piece of dark serge that was to make Jane the
much-needed new dress.
Then she rose wearily and stumbled down the steep steps of the attic.
She went into Jane’s room, that little barrack of a room with the
one window where the sun seldom penetrated. Slowly Mrs. Powell
looked about the room. In spite of its bareness, it was neat, clean,
cheerful--like Jane herself.
“Dear child! I can’t tell her! I won’t tell her! Why, it would break
her heart!”