CONCLUSION
Mr. Kidder, of Kidder & Kidder, had by request waited upon the lady of
Bellevieu. He was prepared to explain some uncertain matters to her and
had delayed his own removal to his country place for that purpose. The
heat which had made Baltimore so uncomfortable had, for the time being,
passed; and there was now blowing through the big east-parlor, a breeze,
redolent of the perfumes of sweet brier and lily-of-the-valley;
old-fashioned flowers which grew in rank luxuriance outside the wide
bay-window.
Presently there entered the mistress of the mansion, looking almost
youthful in a white gown and with a calm serenity upon her handsome
features. She walked with that graceful, undulating movement--a sort of
quiet gliding--which had been the most approved mode of her girlhood,
and the mere sight of that was restful to the old attorney, who detested
the modern, jerky carriage of most maidens.
Dorothy attended her hostess and she, too, was in white. Indeed Mrs.
Cecil considered that to be the only suitable home-wear for either maid
or matron, after the spring days came; and looking critically upon the
pair, the old lawyer fancied he saw a faint resemblance.
Each had large brown and most expressive eyes; each had a hand and foot,
fit subject for feminine pride, and each bore herself with the same air
of composed self-sufficiency. Well, it was a fine experiment his client
was trying; he could but hope it would not end in disappointment.
She seemed to know his thoughts without his expressing them; and as she
sat down, she bade Dorothy lay aside her cane and sit beside her. The
injured foot had received the best of medical treatment since the
child's arrival at Bellevieu and was now almost well, though some
support had still to be used as a safeguard against strain.
"This is the child, Mr. Kidder. I think she has intelligence. A fine
intelligence," began the lady, as if Dorothy had not ears to hear. Then
feeling the girl's eyes raised inquiringly, added rather hastily: "It's
on account of 'Johnnie,' you understand, Mr. Kidder. He was one of the
most faithful persons I ever knew. That was why he was selected. Why I
am going to take his little Dorothy C. back to him as fast as
to-morrow's train will carry us. Have you learned anything?"
"Yes, Madam. I came prepared--but----" He paused again and glanced at
the girl, whom her hostess promptly sent away. Then he proceeded:
"It is the same man I suspected in the beginning. He was a clerk in my
office some years ago, at the time, indeed, when I first saw your ward.
He listened at a keyhole and heard all arrangements made, but--did not
see who was closeted with me and never learned your identity until
recently. That is why you have escaped blackmail so long; and he is the
author of the letters you sent me--unopened. He had his eye upon Dorothy
C. for years, but could use her to no advantage till he traced--I don't
yet know how, and it doesn't matter--the connection between yourself and
the monthly letters. He has been in scrapes innumerable. I discharged
him almost immediately after I hired him, and he has owed me a grudge
ever since. But--he'll trouble Baltimore people no more. If he recovers
from the dangerous illness he is suffering now he will be offered the
choice of exile from the state or a residence in the prison. By the way,
isn't it a case of poetic justice, that he should be thus innocently
punished by the child he stole?"
"It is, indeed. As to the boy, James. 'Jim,' Dorothy calls him. He seems
to be without friends, a fine, uncouth, most manly fellow, with an
overpowering ambition 'to know things'! To see him look at a book, as if
he adored it but dared not touch it, is enough--to make me long to throw
it at him, almost! He is to be tested. I want to go slow with him. So
many of my protégés have disappointed me. But, if he's worth it, I want
to help him make a man of himself."
"The right word. Just the right, exact word, Madam. 'Help _him_ to make
a man of himself.' Because if he doesn't take a hand in the business
himself, all the extraneous help in the world will be useless. Well,
then I think we understand each other. I have all your latest advices in
my safe, with duplicate copies in that of my son.
"You leave to-morrow? From Union Station? I wish you, Madam, a safe
journey, a pleasant summer, and an early return. Good-morning."
On the very evening of Dorothy's arrival at Bellevieu, now some days
past, she had begged so to "go home," and so failed to comprehend how
her parents could have left it without her, that Mrs. Cecil sent for the
plumber and his wife to come to her and to bring Mabel with them.
"Why, husband! I fair believe the world must be comin' to an end!
Dorothy found, alive, and that rich woman the one to find her! Go!
Course we'll go--right off."
Mr. Bruce was just as eager to pay the visit as his wife, but he prided
himself on being a "free-born American" citizen and resented being
ordered to the mansion, "on a Sunday just as if it were a work-day. If
the lady has business with us, it's her place to come to Brown Street,
herself."
"Fiddle-de-diddle-de-dee! Since when have we got so top-lofty?" demanded
his better half with a laugh. "On with your best duds, man alive, and
we'll be off! Why, I--I myself am all of a flutter, I can't wait! Do
hurry an' step 'round to 77 an' get Mabel. She's been to supper with her
aunt, an' Jane'll be wild to hear the news, too. Tell everybody you see
on the block--Dorothy C. is found! Dorothy C. is found! An' whilst
you're after Mabel, I'll just whisk Dorothy's clothes, 'at her mother
left with me for her, into a satchel an' take 'em along. Stands to
reason that folks wicked enough to steal a child wouldn't be decent
enough to give her a change of clothing; and if she's wore one set ever
sence she's been gone--My! I reckon Martha Chester'd fair squirm--just
to think of it!"
Now, as has been stated, in his heart the honest plumber was fully as
eager to see Dorothy C., as his wife was, and long before she had
finished speaking he was on his way to number 77. It was such a lovely
evening that all his neighbors were sitting out upon their doorsteps, in
true Baltimore fashion, so it was easy as delightful to spread the
tidings; and never, never, had the one-hundred-block of cleanly Brown
Street risen in such an uproar. An uproar of joy that was almost
hilarious; and all uninvited, everybody who had ever known Dorothy C.
set off for Bellevieu, so that even before the Bruce-Jones party had
arrived the lovely grounds were full to overflowing and the aristocratic
silence of the place was broken by cries of:
"Dorothy! Dorothy Chester! Show us little Dorothy, and we'll believe our
ears. Seeing is believing--Show us little Dorothy!"
These, and similar, outcries bombarded the hearing of Mrs. Cecil and,
for a moment, frightened her. Glancing out of the window she beheld the
throng and called to Ephraim:
"Boy! Telephone--the police! It's a riot of some sort! We're being
mobbed!"
But Dinah knew better. She didn't yet understand why her mistress should
bother with a couple of runaway young folks, but since she had done so
it was her own part to share in that bother. So she promptly lifted the
girl in her strong arms and carried her out to the broad piazza, so
crowded with people in Sunday attire, and quietly explained to
whomsoever would listen:
"Heah she is! Yas'm. Dis yere's de pos'man's li'l gal what's gone away
wid de misery in his laigs. Yas'm. It sho'ly am. An' my Miss Betty,
she's done foun' out how where he's gone at is right erjinin' ouah own
prop'ty o' Deerhurst-on-de-Heights, where we-all's gwine in a right
smart li'l while. Won't nottin' more bad happen dis li'l one, now my
Miss Betty done got de care ob her. Yas'm, ladies an' gemplemen; an' so,
bein's it Sunday, an' my folks mos' tuckered out, if you-all'd be so
perlite as to go back to yo' housen an' done leab us res', we-all done
be much obleeged. Yas'm. Good-bye."
Dinah's good-natured speech, added to the one glimpse of the rescued
child, acted more powerfully than the police whom her mistress would
have summoned; and soon the crowd drifted away, pausing only here and
there to admire the beautiful grounds which, hitherto, most of these
visitors had seen only from outside the gates.
But the Bruce family remained; and oh! the pride and importance which
attached to them, thus distinguished! Or of that glad reunion with these
old friends and neighbors, when Dorothy was once more in their arms, who
could fitly tell? Then while Mabel and her restored playmate chattered
of all that had happened to either since their parting, Mrs. Cecil drew
the plumber aside and consulted him upon the very prosaic matter of
clothes--clothes for now ill-clad Jim Barlow.
"I've decided to take him with us to New York State when we go, in a
very few days. I shall employ him as a gardener on my property there,
but he isn't fit to travel--as he's fixed now. Will you, at regular
wages for your time, take him down town to-morrow morning and fit him
out with suitable clothing, plain and serviceable but ample in quantity,
and bring the bill to me? I'd rather you'd not let him out of your
sight, for now that Dorothy is safe, the boy has ridiculous notions
about his 'duty' to that dreadful old truck-farming woman who has let
him work for her during several years at--nothing a year! And anybody
who's so saturated with 'duty,' is just the man I want at Deerhurst, be
he old or young."
To which the plumber answered:
"Indeed, Mrs. Cecil, I'm a proud man to be selected for the job and as
to pay for my time--just you settle with me when I ask you for that.
Pay? For such a neighborly turn? Well, I guess not. Not till I'm a good
deal poorer than I am now. And if there's anything needed for Dorothy
C., my wife'll tend to that, too, and be proud."
So with that matter settled, these good friends of the rescued children
departed to their home and to what sleep they might find after so much
delightful excitement.
Next day, too, because the doctor called in said that Dorothy must
attempt no more walking until the end of the week, Mrs. Cecil had a pony
cart sent for, and Ephraim with Dinah took the child upon a round of
calls to all whom she had ever known in that friendly neighborhood.
Mabel was invited to accompany her, and did so--the proudest little
maiden in Baltimore. They even went to their school, and Miss Georgia
left her class for full five minutes to go out and congratulate her late
pupil upon this happy turn of affairs. But at number 77 Dorothy would
not stop; would not even look. She felt she could not bear its changed
condition, for underneath all this present joy her heart ached with
longing for those beloved ones who had made that little house a home.
Also, now that it was drawing certainly near, it seemed as if the day of
their reunion would never come; and when some time before, old Ephraim
was sent on ahead with the horses and carriages, and the great heap of
luggage which his lady found necessary to this annual removal, the child
pleaded piteously to go with him.
"No, my dear, not yet. Two days more and you shall. You may count the
hours. I sometimes think that helps time to pass, when one is impatient.
They've been telegraphed to, have known all about you ever since Sunday
night. They'll have time to make ready for you--and that's all. But,
Brown Eyes, a 'penny for your thoughts!' What are they, pray, to make
you look so serious?"
"I was thinking you're like a fairy godmother. You seem so able to do
everything you want for everybody. I was wondering, too, what makes you
so kind to--to me, after that day when I was saucy to you."
It came to the lady's mind to answer: "Darling, who could be aught but
kind to you!" but flattery was not one of her failings and she had begun
to fear that all the attention of these past days was turning her
charge's head. So she merely suggested:
"I suppose I might be doing it for 'Johnnie.' I am very fond of him."
Thus Dorothy's vanity received a possibly needful snub; for a girl who
was well treated because of her father couldn't be so much of a heroine
after all!
The railway journey from Baltimore to New York was like a passage
through fairyland to Dorothy C. and the farm-boy Jim. The wonders of
their luxurious parlor-car surroundings kept them almost speechless with
delight; but when at the latter great city they embarked upon a Hudson
river steamer and they were free to roam about the palatial vessel,
their tongues were loosened. Thereafter they talked so fast and so much
that they hardly realized what was happening as Dinah called them to
listen and obey the boat-officer's command:
"All ashore what's goin'! Aft' gangway fo' Cornwall!
A-L-L--A-S-H-O-O-R-E!"
Over the gangplank, into the midst of a waiting crowd, and there was
Ephraim with the carriage and the bays; and into the roomy vehicle
bundled everybody, glad to be so near the end of that famous journey,
and Dorothy quite unable to keep still for two consecutive moments.
"Up, up, up! How high we are going! Straight into the skies it seems!"
cried the girl to Jim Barlow, whom nobody who had known him on the
truck-farm would have recognized as the same lad, so neat and trim he
now appeared.
But he had no words to answer. The wonderful upland country through
which their course lay impressed him to silence, and the strength of
those everlasting hills entered his ambitious soul--making him believe
that to him who dared all high achievements were possible.
"Will--we never--_never_ get there?" almost gasped Dorothy, in the
breathless eagerness of these last few moments of separation from her
loved ones. But Mrs. Cecil answered:
"Yes, my child. Round this turn of the road and behold! we are arrived!
See, that big place yonder whose gates stand wide open is Deerhurst, my
home, to which I hope you will often come. And, look this way--there is
Skyrie! The little stone cottage on a rock, half-hidden in vines, empty
for years, and now--Who is that upon its threshold? That man in the
wheeled chair, risking his neck to hasten your meeting? Who that dainty
little woman flying down the path to clasp you in her arms? Ah! Dorothy
C.! Father and mother, indeed, they have proved to you and glad am I to
restore you to them, safe and sound!"
Happy, happy Dorothy! At last, at last she was in the arms whose care
had sheltered her through all her life; and there, for the time being,
we must leave her. Of her life at Skyrie, of its haps and mishaps, of
the mystery which still surrounded her birth and parentage, another book
must tell.
Or how beautiful Mrs. Cecil, gay and satisfied as that veritable fairy
godmother to which Dorothy had likened her, drove briskly home to
Deerhurst and its accustomed stateliness, with humble Jim Barlow too
grateful for speech, already beginning his new and richer life.
All these things and more belong with Dorothy Chester at Skyrie, and of
them you shall hear by and by. Till then we leave her, well content.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer and typographical errors have been corrected without
comment. In addition to obvious errors, the following changes have been
made:
Page 218: "t'was" was changed to "'twas" in the phrase, "... t'was
to find out dat."
Page 251: "need less" was changed to "needless" in the phrase, "...
scuffin' 'em out, needless."
Page 297: "the" was added to the phrase, "Glancing out of the
window...."
With the exception of the above corrections, the author's original
spelling, punctuation, use of grammar, etc., is retained as it appears
in the original publication.