THREE COUSINS
"Good gracious, Oliver, do you mean to say you really did not know? We
used to talk it over, Polly and I, and wonder whether you were not
beginning to see through us. Janet had some suspicions, and when she
met us at the fair this afternoon, she understood who we were at last.
Now I will present you to Miss Eleanor Marshall Brighton, known to her
own family as Polly. I would not have broken this thing to you so
suddenly, if I had taken time to think."
Oliver listened to Cousin Tom's half-apologetic explanations, yet he
scarcely heard them, but still stood leaning against the doorpost,
gaping with astonishment. Of course he had always known that there was
something unusual about the Beeman, but as to who he really was he had
never had an inkling. And this was Cousin Eleanor, the girl he had
pictured so definitely that it seemed she could not be other than the
prim, detested person he had so dreaded meeting. It was the very
vividness of his idea of her that had stood in the way of his guessing
the truth. But if the Beeman were really Cousin Tom, then he could,
of course, put everything right and--more immediate cause for
rejoicing--Polly could cook!
"Oh, come down to the kitchen and get Cousin Jasper something to eat,"
he begged. "He is almost starved. It is half past eight and he had
lunch at twelve."
He gave Tom Brighton a rapid account of what had happened that day--of
the letter, of Cousin Jasper's increasing agitation, of his final
desperate call for help on his own responsibility.
"Poor Oliver, what a day you have had, while the rest of us were
enjoying ourselves at the fair!" said Cousin Tom. "Polly and I
happened to come home early before the storm, so that your message
found us and we came at once."
"And he is starved himself," put in Polly. "He has not had anything to
eat any more than Cousin Jasper."
It was wonderful to watch Polly making short shrift of the remains of
his own awkward preparations, to see her skillful manipulation of the
gas burners and her marvelous dexterity with the egg beater. And this
slim, eager, shy Polly, with her crinkled brown hair and her freckled
nose, this was really Eleanor Brighton. Oliver sat down limply upon
one of the kitchen chairs to contemplate the wonder of it anew.
"I did not know who you were, myself, that first day," she said,
"though Daddy guessed at once and even suspected that you were
planning to go away. Janet told us all about it this afternoon, how
Cousin Jasper made such a mistake and thought that he could force you
to meet a girl that you were sure you wouldn't like. I would have done
just the same myself if my father had tried to make me meet you, only
he is too wise for such a thing."
But Oliver could only shake his head and marvel that he had not
guessed.
Later, after Cousin Jasper and Oliver had feasted on the supper of
Polly's providing, they all gathered about the table in the library
and Cousin Tom unlocked the battered old strong box that he had
brought in from the car.
"As I am the family lawyer," he explained to Oliver--"yes, bees are
only a hobby, and my real business is the law--I have in my possession
most of the records belonging to this affair. I have gone into the
whole matter of Anthony's claims from the very beginning and I am
prepared to fight him for every inch that he demands."
He began taking papers from the box, fat rolls of legal documents,
letters with their edges worn into tatters and addressed in the
crabbed writing of a century ago, title deeds discolored and yellow
with age, most of them fastened with great red seals, a mass of musty
records that looked dry and dull indeed.
While he was spreading them out upon the table, the door opened
quietly and Janet slipped in. She assured them that she had dined and
had not got wet, that, except for Mrs. Brown's terrible fever of
anxiety lest Cousin Jasper should not be properly cared for, all had
gone well. Might she listen, please, and was there going to be another
story?
"Not of just the same kind that I have been telling you up yonder on
the Windy Hill," replied Tom Brighton, "although here you see the
source of all those tales and of a hundred others like them. They are
all buried here in these dusty papers, the history of your forbears
and of the lands in Medford Valley. It goes all the way back, does the
record, to the time when our several times great-grandfather bought
the first tract from the Indian, Nashola. I am always glad to think
that the red man had enough intelligence and the white man enough
honor to make something like a real bargain, that this valley was
purchased for what the wild lands were worth instead of being paid for
with a gun, a drink of bad spirits, and a handful of beads. See, here
is Nashola's name; he learned to write after a fashion, although the
Indian witnesses signed only with a mark. And here is the signature of
that first one of our kin to settle in the New World, Matthew
Hallowell."
"Hallowell?" echoed Oliver. "Did he belong to those same Hallowells in
the story, who quarreled over the _Huntress_?"
"Yes," was the answer, "he was the beginning of a vigorous line,
living in and near Medford Valley until there came at last the
Hallowell who moved to the seaport town, who built his first ship
there and launched into foreign trade. They became great merchants,
the Hallowells, in that time between the Revolution and the War of
1812 when Yankee ships and Yankee owners were lords of the high seas.
But fortune failed after the death of Reuben Hallowell; his son Alan
loved sailing rather than trading and his daughter Cicely married a
junior partner in a lesser firm, Howard Brighton, who thought it
better for his sons and daughter to go to live on the lands in Medford
Valley that had belonged to their mother and had been given by her to
him. Cicely's children were Ralph and Felix and Barbara Brighton, of
all of whom you have heard."
"How have they heard, Tom?" asked Cousin Jasper, and the Beeman
smiled.
"I have been filling up their minds with family history, for I knew
that they must understand about this whole affair some day and it
would take too long to tell them all the facts at once. So we have
come now to the latest portion of the story," he went on, turning
again to the younger members of his audience, "to a period when three
cousins, Jasper Peyton, Anthony Crawford, and Tom Brighton used to
spend much time together when they were growing up.
"Jasper and I are first cousins, since my father was Ralph Brighton
and his mother was that younger sister, Barbara. I have had no
reluctance in telling you of that bitter mistake my father made and
the quarrel with his brother, for he spoke of it often himself and
said that, in all his life, he never learned a more valuable lesson.
Felix did not marry, since his zeal for the orchard and the bees and
later for farming on a larger and larger scale seemed to occupy his
every thought. It was he who reclaimed the marshy, waste ground in the
valley, 'for,' he said, 'it is wrong that we on the seaboard leave our
home acres and move farther and farther westward, looking for new land
that is easy to till. It is a wasteful policy, even for a new
country.' That was one of the things he had learned on his long
journey across the West and back again."
"But I do not understand about Anthony Crawford," put in Oliver. "I
haven't seen yet where he comes in at all."
"He calls us cousin, but it is a distant kinship, since he is grandson
of that Martin Hallowell who broke with his partner Reuben over the
matter of the _Huntress_. He used to come often to stay in Medford
Valley, for he had been left without parents and Felix Brighton was
his guardian. My Aunt Barbara, Jasper's mother, had lost her husband
early, and she went to live with her brother Felix in the yellow stone
farmhouse that had come to him from some earlier Hallowell who had
built it a hundred years ago. How we loved the place and how happy we
all were there, for I spent almost as much time under that wide,
friendly roof as did Anthony. How patient and good Jasper's mother
was to three mischievous, active boys, and how unceasingly, wisely
kind was Felix Brighton! He has done much for us, Jasper and me, and
he would, if he could, have made a man of Anthony.
"He was not like the other two of us, we could see that even when we
were children. He was quicker and more clever than we, and he was
better, or at least wiser, at holding his tongue and keeping his
temper when the occasion served. But the key to his whole character
was that he could never see any possession in the hands of another
without instinctively wishing to have it for himself. I have seen him
move heaven and earth to get something that he did not really want,
merely because it seemed of value when it belonged to some one else.
There was no one more clever than he at acquiring what he desired.
"Felix Brighton prospered greatly, but he never moved out of the
comfortable farmhouse of which we were all so fond. It became very
beautiful under his hands, extended and improved and filled with the
rarest treasures of his gathering. He was especially fond of pictures,
so that there was a wealth of portraits and landscapes that he had
collected or inherited, that glowed like jewels on the mellow old
walls. He did us unnumbered kindnesses when we were boys, and when, on
growing up, we decided that we would all three be lawyers, he set us
up as partners, Peyton, Crawford & Brighton. We felt very important
with our law books, our profound knowledge, our newly painted sign and
very little else. Even while we were studying, it was plain that
Anthony, in his erratic, changeable way, was the cleverest of us all.
"And then history repeated itself, as it so often does. The grandson
of Martin Hallowell and the two great-grandsons of Reuben fell out
with each other over just such a questionable enterprise as had
wrecked a partnership a hundred years ago. I can see him now as he
came hurrying into our office that day full of the plan for his great
scheme--just a quibble of the law and the thing was done. We were all
to be made rich and successful by it, he explained. There is no use in
describing to you the intricacies of his idea; it was one of those
shoal waters in which the honesty of young lawyers can sometimes come
to grief. The pursuit of law will winnow out the true from the false;
it makes an upright man a hundred times more certain and more proud of
his honor: it searches out the small, weak places of a meaner man's
soul.
"Anthony tried to make this project sound quite simple and
straightforward, but I can remember how narrowly he watched us and
how, when he attempted to laugh at our objections, his voice cracked
into shrill falsetto, under pressure of his excitement. I would have
argued with him, explained, tried to dissuade him, but Jasper scorned
my temporizing and would have had none of it. His sense of justice
blazed high within him and his words leaped forth, a very avalanche of
scorn and wrath. Anthony heard him through without replying, then
turned on his heel and went out. Our partnership was at an end. Later
we heard that he had become involved with his scheme even before he
spoke to us, that he had made himself liable for a sum of money, and
that, to pay it--don't wince, Jasper, these children must know the
truth--to pay it he forged Felix Brighton's name.
"There is something very terrible in the sudden destruction of your
confidence in some one you have loved and trusted. Anthony is greatly
changed now, although there is still a little of his old charm left.
Yet you would not think of him as some one who had been an intimate
part of our lives, a comrade whose cleverness we admired and whose
honesty we had never doubted. And then he was suddenly blotted out of
our existence. The wrong he had done was hushed up, he disappeared
somewhere in the West, and it seemed that we were never to hear of him
again. The years went by, Jasper's mother and then our Uncle Felix
went from us. He had given me the lands on the west side of the river,
since I was already owner of the cottage, the Windy Hill, and the bees
that he had taught me to tend and love. To Jasper he had given the
yellow stone house that had been like home for us all and his intimate
possessions, the treasures it contained. He had given him also the
drained farm lands by the river, a legacy that was an occupation in
itself. He had seen that Jasper's bent was not really for the law, but
that his best calling was the care of such an estate as this. More
years passed, I became more and more absorbed in my own work down in
the seaport town that has become a city, spending my holidays and my
vacations in caring for the bees, not seeing Jasper so often, for he
was over-busy also. And then Anthony came home.
"Whatever he had been doing in all this time we have no way of
knowing. He had altered greatly, so that there seemed nothing left of
his old self except his cleverness, some lingering affection for the
place where he had been happy as a boy, and that old habit of coveting
what other people had. He came back with a claim to make, one that
went back as far as the day when Reuben and Martin Hallowell quarreled
and made a hasty division of what had belonged to them in common.
There had always been a slight doubt as to the title of the land upon
which the yellow stone farmhouse stood, and to the upper end of the
farms by the river. Anthony knew of it from the days when we studied
law together and he came back determined to make that property his. I
will not deny that he had some slight basis for his claim. He would
accept no compromise or offer of purchase, so in the end Jasper gave
in to him."
Cousin Jasper had not spoken throughout Tom Brighton's recounting of
the whole affair. But now he took up the tale himself, going over the
ground that, very evidently, he had pondered and argued and weighed
within himself a hundred times.
"I had much and he had nothing, he was in real want and had a wife and
two children besides. There was, as Tom says, some real basis for his
claim since the title had never been made quite clear. And there is,
further, no more bitter thing than a family quarrel, a division over
the settlement of property, this one asking for what is more than his,
that one fighting to hold what is not his own--no, it was unthinkable.
So we settled the matter peaceably enough. I built a new house above
him on the hill and he settled down in the place that had been home to
all of us. He seemed to have repented of the wrong he had done and we
were ready to forget it. I do not think that I ever doubted the
honesty of his purpose, at first. Then it came to my wishing for some
of the old possessions for my new house and he vowed that every one of
them was his."
"I know," said Janet, nodding quickly. "He wouldn't give up the
pictures, though he did not care for them himself. They were stored in
the dust and dirt under the eaves and he asked me if you had sent me
to see where he kept them. He only wanted them because they were
yours."
"I suppose he meant to sell them some day," Cousin Jasper answered,
"for there were several that were of almost as much value as the house
itself. But less than ever was I willing to bicker and haggle over
what I had really loved, and since he would not sell them to me I gave
the matter up. Even then, there was a little justice on his side, for
the pictures had been purchased with money from the lands that he
called his. But it was my great mistake, since he did not understand
at all why I yielded to him, and from that time he made certain that
he had but to force me and I would relinquish everything."
Oliver muttered something angrily and went to stand by the window. He
wanted a minute to think it out, to understand clearly before the tale
went on. He could see just how Anthony had read Cousin Jasper's
character, sensitive, high-strung, with strong affections that not
even great wrongs could quite break down. But how mistaken the man had
been who thought Jasper Peyton was a weak-willed person to be led
anywhere!
"His success in getting made him greedy for more," went on Cousin
Jasper, "and he began to push his claims further and further until I
verily believe he began to think that everything I had should be his
own. When I refused to yield one more inch, then the difficulties
began indeed. He let the old house fall into unbelievable disrepair
and he took the stand that since I was defrauding him, he was too poor
to do otherwise. I built the high wall across the garden so that I
need not see the home I had loved dropping to pieces before my eyes.
At that his anger seemed to pass beyond control. He claims this, and
he claims that, but I know that his final aim is the whole of what I
have. He sent me a letter to-day, I do not understand why he did not
come himself. He says that he is about to take public action, that he
will bring into court the story of how Felix Brighton became his
guardian and used that position as a blind to live in possession of
Anthony's inheritance. Oh, I cannot repeat it all, his threats against
our good name and against the memory of those who are gone."
Cousin Jasper's voice dropped wearily into silence. Oliver dug his
hands deep into his pockets and stood staring and scowling out through
the window although all that he saw was the blackness outside and the
dim reflection of his own face upon the pane.
"Our Uncle Felix never had the least notion that Anthony had a claim
upon the place," Tom Brighton was saying behind him. "It was a legal
technicality that Anthony was clever enough to find and make the most
of. I do not at all believe in his right to it, even yet."
"He doesn't believe in it himself," Oliver made his declaration,
whirling suddenly about upon them. "I told him that he was only
bluffing and he could not even deny it. How I hate him," he cried
huskily. "It is lucky that there are none of your bees near by, just
now!"
Jasper Peyton looked at him in blank inquiry, but the Beeman smiled,
yet shook his head at the same time.
"It is not only bees that are destroyed by hating," he said, "it is
every good thing in life that dries up and blows away under the force
of dislike and bitterness. Look at Anthony, who vows he has no
affection for any one, who does not believe in friends or kindliness.
He has hurt others, he has brought no happiness to himself, and,
unless I am mistaken, he is going to wreck his whole scheme in one
tremendous crash that we cannot now foresee. A lawyer, like myself,
sees many hard, miserable, sordid things, but a Beeman has leisure to
speculate as to whither they tend. And they all tend to the same
thing."
They sat for some time about the table, explaining, discussing, and
questioning, until finally the muffled booming of the clock in the
hall proclaimed the hour of ten. Polly's eyes were beginning to look
heavy, a fact that did not escape her father's watchful observation.
"These girls have had a long day and it is time for them to be in
bed," he announced. "We have been over this whole matter and made
things clear, and we have only to decide, since we are to fight
Anthony in court, just what stand we will make. We will talk that
over, Jasper, while Oliver takes your car and drives Polly home."
"I'll go with them," said Janet, jumping up also. She had been
listening, bright-eyed and alert, through all of the story and showed
no signs of sleepiness. Oliver tore himself away with some regret, for
he did not wish to miss a word of the plans the two men were making.
But Polly was evidently weary and ready to go home.
"Come along, Cousin Eleanor," he said briskly, and the three went,
laughing, out through the door and down the steps.
It was very dark when Oliver brought out the big car and, skirting the
fallen tree, made his way carefully down the drive. A bank of clouds
to the eastward was all that was left of the storm, however, and
through this the moon was breaking, with promise to rise clear, and
come out into an empty sky. Oliver slowed down the car as they came to
the gate and stopped for a moment to consider. The wind had dropped so
completely that they could hear every sound of the summer night, even
the dull, far-off roar of the flooded river.
"Do you know," he began slowly, "we never remembered to tell them that
John Massey has left his place. I don't think any one but ourselves
knows that he went away immediately; they will be thinking that he is
still there, watching the dike. And to-night--listen how loud the
river sounds!"
"Suppose we go down and look," said Polly. "It will not take us long
and the road runs close to the bank."
He turned the car accordingly and they sped down the steep road, the
sky growing brighter above them and the darkness fading as the moon
came out. When they reached the last incline the whole of the valley
lands, spread below them, were so flooded with light that the broad
picture looked like an etching--white fields, black trees with blacker
splashes of shade, sharp-cut, pointed shadows of houses and farm
buildings, the silver expanse of the river, and the straight, white
ribbon of the road. It was all very still and peaceful, with scarcely
a light in any house and no single moving figure upon the highway.
Medford Valley, worn out with its day of merrymaking, was wrapped in
heavy sleep. Very strangely, the sight of this unsuspecting,
slumbering community seemed to fill them all with sudden misgiving.
"I hope there's nothing wrong," muttered Oliver, swinging the car into
its highest speed as they dashed down the road.
John Massey's house lay still and dark in the moonlight, its windows
staring with the blank eyes that an uninhabited dwelling always shows
the moment home life has gone out of it. They stopped the car near his
gate and climbed out, all three of them, to walk at the foot of the
high, grass-covered bank and search for signs of danger. It looked
firm and solid enough, with its thick, green sod, its fringe of
willows along the top, but with the whispering haste of the river
sounding plainly against its outer wall. Standing on tiptoe, they
could catch sight of the swift, sliding water, risen so high that it
touched the very top of the bank. The roar of the swollen current
could be heard all across the valley, but it was not so ominous,
somehow, as the smaller voices of the ripples sucking and gurgling so
close to their ears.
They walked along, three ghostly figures in the moonlight, until
Janet, who happened to be ahead, stopped suddenly.
"I hear something strange; I don't understand what it is," she said.
Oliver stepped forward, bending his head to listen. Yes, he could hear
it, too.
The sound was a soft hissing, as though a tiny snake might be hidden
in the grass at their feet. But there was no grass thick enough for
such shelter, only a few sparse stalks, rising in a drift of sand at
the foot of the dike. The noise was made by the moving of the sand
particles, as they stirred and seethed, with drops of water bubbling
between them like the trickle of a spring. As they watched, the round
wet space widened; it had been as big as a cup, now it was like a
dinner plate.
"It's a leak in the bank." Oliver regarded it intently, thinking it
quite too small to be dangerous. "I ought to be able to put my thumb
in it," he added cheerfully, "but either there is something wrong with
that Dutch story or there is something wrong with this hole."
"It isn't a joke," said Polly quickly. "They always begin that way.
It--oh, run, run!"
For the boiling circle of sand had changed suddenly to a spout of
muddy water that shot upward, spreading into a wide, brown pool that
came washing over the grass to hide the spot where they had stood a
moment before. From the higher ground of the road they watched it
follow them, rising, pausing a little, then rising again.
"Back up the car or you will have to drive through the water,"
directed Polly. "Henry Brook's is the nearest house where we can find
help. If that leak is to be blocked, the men will have to be quick."
They were in the car, Oliver had backed it round almost within its own
length, and they were flying up the road before Polly had finished
speaking. "Once, years ago, this long stretch of dike caved in and the
whole current of the river came roaring down through the bottom lands.
But there were no houses here then."
They came to a crossroad, turned into it, and stopped short before a
gate. Oliver did not take time to open it, but tumbled over the top,
raced across the grass, and thundered at the door of a dark, silent
house. Oh, why did country people sleep so soundly? He knocked and
knocked again and, after what seemed an interminable time, saw a light
above and heard a window open.
"What do you want?" The farmer's big voice sounded none too pleased,
but it changed quickly when Oliver told his news. "A break in the
dike? Where? On Anthony Crawford's land, is it? Well, that's just
where it would be. We don't any of us, around here, have much
friendship for Crawford. Of course if the leak is very bad it will
threaten us all. I'll spread the alarm while you go to get Mr.
Peyton."
They were away up the road again; but, fast as they flew, the news
seemed to travel faster. The rural telephone and the comfortable
country habit of "listening in" on every message can spread tidings
broadcast at a moment's notice. The largest farm, at the foot of the
valley, had a great bell swung above its central barn, a bell whose
excited voice could carry but one of two messages--flood or fire.
Before they were halfway up the hill its wild clanging was calling all
across the valley.
Up Cousin Jasper's avenue they came with a rush, flung themselves out
of the car, and ran to the house. The two men were still bending over
the papers, Cousin Jasper, with his thin, intent face, listening, Tom
Brighton talking steadily, his eyes alight with that cheerful, eager
kindliness that had so drawn Oliver to him from the first moment. They
both turned in astonishment as the three came bursting in.
"A break in the dike at John Massey's place? And where was John
Massey?" Cousin Tom questioned sharply. "Gone? If we had known that he
had left, neither Jasper nor I would have been sitting here so quietly
all evening, with the river in flood. And you have given the alarm?
That is good."
There was a bustle of hasty preparations, but they were still standing
in the hall when there came the sound of flying wheels on the drive
and the uneven hoofbeats of an uncertain old horse urged to utmost
speed.
"It's Anthony Crawford," said Oliver suddenly.
The man came in, the outcast cousin who had turned his hand against
them all. His face was white, his gray eyes were burning with
excitement, his voice was harsh and choked when he tried to speak.
"The dike--I see you know already. I went down over the hill to look
and saw the moonlight on that pool of water. It was at John Massey's
place. I came to get help."
Cousin Tom alone answered.
"Why was John Massey gone?" he said.
Oliver stepped forward to Tom Brighton's side and looked curiously at
the man who been their enemy. He could see his hands shake as they
crushed his battered old hat between them.
"We had quarreled," Anthony Crawford explained, his voice suddenly
gone little and husky. "I turned him away three days ago and--and we
had some words, so that he wouldn't stay even overnight after that. He
watched the dike--and now the water is coming in."
One more question Cousin Tom asked.
"Why did you come to us?" he inquired steadily. "It would have been
quicker to go down through the fields to the farms in the valley, to
call out Henry Brook and send him with men and shovels and sandbags
to stop the flood. To get here is a mile by the road and there was no
time to lose." He pressed his question mercilessly. "Why did you come
to us?"
Anthony Crawford moistened his dry lips, but he did not speak. There
was a pause, though all of them knew that every second the waters of
Medford River were sweeping higher and higher. It was finally Tom
Brighton who answered his own question.
"You were afraid to go elsewhere. It was your doing, this flood; you
took the land, you neglected the dikes, you sent John Massey away who
would have watched against such a disaster as this. You were afraid to
face those men, below, and tell them what you had done."
The other nodded.
"I haven't a friend in Medford Valley to help me--except you. Yes, I
was afraid to face them; the break is in just the place where it may
flood the whole bottom land. I thought they wouldn't move to help me
until it was too late. And, on my life, Tom Brighton, if we can stop
the flood I do not care what becomes of me."
It was quite true, as they could all see, that the man's desperate
terror was not all for himself, that the situation was far too bad for
that. He was picturing how the whole torrent of Medford River might
soon be sweeping across those fields of ripening grain, those
comfortable barns with their cows and sheep and horses, those
pleasant white farmhouses where a hundred people lay asleep. He was
seeing how, little by little, he had built up the wrong that was to be
his ruin, he had driven away his friends, he had seized the land, he
had turned off its guardian, and now, in a wild whirlwind, the results
of his misdoing were upon him. He did not look at Tom Brighton's set
face but at Jasper Peyton, the one he had wronged most.
"A man can't live without friends," he said. "Will you stand by me,
Jasper, not for what I deserve, but for what I need?"
"Yes," answered Jasper Peyton. He smiled suddenly, with all the old,
tense misery quite gone from his face. "We're going to stand by you,
Anthony, all of us. We are with you still."