A SURPRISING REVELATION
The girls stood where Gib had left them staring at each other in puzzled
amazement. “Well, what do you make of it?” Dories was the first to
exclaim. Nann laughingly shook her head. “I don’t know unless this
confirms our theory that Gib writes the notes. I almost think it does.”
They started walking toward the cabin. “Well, time will tell and a short
time, too, if we are to know all today,” Dories remarked, then added,
“That long walk has made me ravenously hungry and we haven’t a thing
cooked up.” Then she paused and sniffed. “What is that delicious odor? It
smells like ham and something baking, doesn’t it?”
“We surely are both imaginative,” Nann agreed, “for I also scent a most
appetizing aroma on the air. But who could be cooking? We left Miss Moore
in bed and anyway, of course, it is not she.”
They had reached the kitchen door and saw that it was standing open and
that the tempting odor was actually wafting therefrom. Puzzled indeed,
they bounded up the steps.
A surprising sight met their gaze. Miss Jane Moore, dressed in a soft
lavender gown partly covered with a fresh white apron, turned from the
stove to beam upon them; her eyes were twinkling, her cheeks were rosy
from the excitement and the heat.
“Aunt Jane! Miss Moore!” the girls cried in astonishment. “Ought you to
be cooking? Are you strong enough?”
“Of course I am strong enough,” was the brisk reply. “Haven’t I been
resting for nearly two weeks? I thought probably you girls would be
hungry after your long walk.” Then, as she saw the legal envelopes, she
added with apparent satisfaction: “Well, they have come at last, have
they? Put them in on my dresser, Dories; then come right back. It is such
a fine day I thought we would take the table out on the sheltered side
porch and have a sort of picnic-party.”
It was hard for the girls to believe that this was the same old woman who
had been so grouchy most of the time since they had known her. Would
surprises never cease? The girls were delighted with the plan and carried
the small kitchen table to the sunny, sheltered side porch and soon had
it set for three.
When they returned they found the flushed old woman taking a pan of
biscuits from the oven. How good they looked! Then came baked ham and
sweet potatoes, and a brown Betty pudding. The elderly cook seemed to
greatly enjoy the girls’ surprise and delight. They made her comfortable
in an easy willowed chair at one end of the table facing the sea and,
when the viands had been served, they ate with great relish. To their
amazement their hostess partook of the entire menu with as evident a zest
as their own. Dories could no longer remain silent. “Aunt Jane,” she
blurted out, “ought you to eat so heartily after such a long fast? You
haven’t had anything but tea and toast since we came.”
Nann had glanced quickly and inquiringly at the old woman, and the
suspicions she had previously entertained were confirmed by the merry
reply: “I’ll have to confess that I’ve been an old fraud.” Miss Moore was
chuckling again. “Every time you girls went away and I was sure you were
going to be gone for some time, I got up and had a good meal.”
“But, Aunt Jane,” Dories’ brow gathered in a puzzled frown, “why did you
have to do that? It would have been a lot more fun all along to have had
our dinners all together like this.”
Miss Moore nodded. “Yes, it would have been, but I’m an odd one. There
was something I wanted to find out and I took my own queer way of going
about it.”
“D—did you find it out, Aunt Jane?” Dories asked, almost anxiously.
“Yes and no,” was the enigmatical answer. Then, tantalizingly, she
remarked as she leaned back in her comfortable willow chair, having
finished her share of the pudding, “This is wonderful weather, isn’t it,
girls? If it keeps up I won’t want to go back next Monday. Perhaps we’ll
stay a week longer as I had planned when we first came.” Then before the
girls could reply, the grey eyes that could be so sharply penetrating
turned to scrutinize Dories. “You look much better than you did when we
came. You had a sort of fretful look as though you had a grudge against
life. Now you actually look eager and interested.” Then, after a glance
at Nann, “You are both getting brown as Indians.”
Would Miss Moore never come to the subject that was uppermost in the
thoughts of the two girls? If she had written the message telling them
that today they were to know all, why didn’t she begin the story, if it
was to be a story?
How Dories hoped that she was to hear what had become of the fortune she
had always believed should have been her father’s. Her own mother had
never told her anything about it, but she had heard them talking before
her father died; she had not understood them, but as she grew older she
seemed vaguely to remember that there should have been money from
somewhere, enough to have kept poverty from their door and more,
probably, since her father’s Aunt Jane had so much.
But Miss Moore rose without having satisfied their burning curiosity.
“Now, girls,” she said, “I’ll go in and read my letters while you wash
the dishes. Later, when the fog drifts in, build a fire on the hearth and
I’ll tell you a story.” Then she left them, going to her own room and
closing the door.
“I’m so excited that I can hardly carry the dishes without dropping
them,” Dories confided to Nann when at last they had returned the table
to its place in the kitchen and were busily washing and drying the
dishes. “What do you suppose the story is to be about?”
“You and your mother and father chiefly, I believe,” Nann said with
conviction.
“Aunt Jane’s saying that she had a story to tell us proves, doesn’t it,
that she wrote the messages?”
“I think so, Dori.”
“I hope the fog will come in early,” the younger girl remarked as she
hung up the dish-wiper on the line back of the stove.
“It will. It always does. Now let’s go out to the shed and bring in a big
armful of driftwood. There’s one log that I’ve been saving for some
special occasion. Surely this is it.”
As Nann had said, the fog came in soon after midafternoon; the girls had
drawn the comfortable willow chair close to the hearth. The wood was in
place and eagerly the girls awaited the coming of their hostess. At last
the bedroom door opened and Miss Moore, without the apron over her
lavender dress, emerged. Although she smiled at them, the discerning Nann
decided that the letters had contained some disappointing news. Dories at
once set fire to the driftwood and a cheerful blaze leaped up. When Miss
Moore was seated the girls sat on lower chairs close together. Their
faces told their eager curiosity.
Glancing from one to the other, their hostess said: “Dori, you and Nann
have been the best of friends for years, I think you wrote me.”
“Oh, yes, Aunt Jane,” was the eager reply, “we started in kindergarten
together and we’ve been in the same classes through first year High, but
now Nann’s father has taken her away from me. They are going to live in
Boston. And so a favorite dream of ours will never be fulfilled, and that
was to graduate together.”
“If only your mother would consent to come and live with me, then your
wish would be fulfilled,” the old woman began when Dories exclaimed,
“Why, Aunt Jane, I didn’t even know that you _wanted_ us to live with you
in Boston.”
Miss Moore nodded gravely. “But I do and have. I have written your mother
repeatedly, since my dear nephew died, telling her that I would like you
three to make your home with me, but it seems that she cannot forget.”
“Forget what?” Dories leaned forward to inquire. Nann had been right, she
was thinking. The something they were to know did relate to her father’s
affairs, she was now sure.
The old woman seemed not to have heard, for she continued looking
thoughtfully at the fire. “I know that she has forgiven,” she said at
last. “Your mother is too noble a woman not to do that, but her pride
will not let her forget.” Then, turning toward the girls who sat each
with a hand tightly clasped in the others, the speaker continued: “I must
begin at the beginning to make the sad story clear. I loved your father,
as I would have loved a son. I brought him up when his parents were gone.
The money belonged to my father and he used to say that he would leave
your father’s share in my keeping, as he believed in my judgment. I was
to turn it over to my nephew when I thought best.” She was silent a
moment, then said: “When your father was old enough to marry, I wanted
him to choose a girl I had selected, but instead, when he went away to
study art, he married a school teacher of whom I had never heard. I
believed that she was designing and marrying him for his money, and I
wrote him that unless he freed himself from the union I would never give
him one cent. Of course he would not do that, and rightly. Later, in my
anger, I turned over to him some oil stock which had proved valueless and
told him that was all he was to have. Then began long, lonely years for
me because I never again heard from the nephew whose boyish love had been
the greatest joy life had ever brought me. I was too stubborn to give him
the money which legally I had the right to withhold from him, and he was
so hurt that he would not ask my forgiveness. But, when I heard that my
boy had died, my heart broke, and I knew myself for what I was—a selfish,
stubborn old woman who had not deserved love and consideration. Then, but
far too late, I tried to redeem myself in the eyes of your mother. I
wrote, begging her to come and bring her two children to my home. I told
her how desolate I had been since my boy, your father, had left. Very
courteously your mother wrote that, as long as she could sew for a living
for herself and her two children, she would not accept charity. Then I
conceived the plan of becoming acquainted with you, for two reasons: one
that I might discover if in any way you resembled your father, and the
other was that I wanted you to use your influence to induce your mother
to forget, as well as forgive, and to live with me in Boston and make my
cheerless mansion of a house into a real home.”
She paused and Dories, seeing that there were tears in the grey eyes,
impulsively reached out a hand and took the wrinkled one nearest her.
“Dear Aunt Jane, how you have suffered.” Nann noted with real pleasure
that her friend’s first reaction had been pity for the old woman and not
rebellion because of the act that had caused her to be brought up in
poverty. “Mother has always said that you meant to be kind, she was
convinced of that, but she never told me the story. This is the first
time that I understood what had happened. Truly, Aunt Jane, if you really
wish it, I shall urge Mother to let us all three come and live with you.
Selfishly I would love to, because I would be near Nann, if for no other
reason, but I have another reason. I believe my father would wish it.
Mother has often told me that, as a boy, he loved you.”
The old woman held the girl’s hand in a close clasp and tears unheeded
fell over her wrinkled cheeks. “But it’s too late now,” she said
dismally.
Dories and Nann exchanged surprised glances. “Too late, Aunt Jane?”
Dories inquired. “Do you mean that you do not care to have us now?”
“No, indeed, not that!” The old woman wiped away the tears, then smiled
tremulously. “I haven’t finished the story as yet. This is the last
chapter, I fear. I ought to be glad for your mother’s sake, but O, I have
been so lonely.”
Then, seeing the intense eagerness in her niece’s face, she concluded
with, “I must not keep you in such suspense, my dear. That long legal
envelope brought me news from your father’s lawyer. It is news that your
mother has already received, I presume. The stock, which I turned over to
your father years ago, believing it to be worthless, has turned out to be
of great value. Your mother will have a larger income than my own, and
now, of course, she will not care to make her home with me.”
“O, Aunt Jane!” To the surprise of both of the others, the girl threw her
arms about the old woman’s neck and clung to her, sobbing as though in
great sorrow, but Nann knew that the tears were caused by the sudden
shock of the joyful revelation. The old woman actually kissed the girl,
and then said: “I expected to be very sad because I cannot do something
for you all to prove the deep regret I feel for my unkind action, but,
instead, I am glad, for I know that only in this way would your mother
acquire the real independence which means happiness for her.” With a
sigh, she continued: “I’ve lived alone for many years, I suppose I can go
on living alone until the end of time.” Then she added, a twinkle again
appearing in her grey eyes, “and now you know all.”
“O, Aunt Jane, then you _did_ write those messages and leave them for us
to find?”
“I plead guilty,” the old woman confessed. “I overheard you and Nann
saying that you wished something mysterious would happen. I had been
wondering when to tell you the story, and I decided to wait until I heard
from the lawyer. I know you are wondering how Gibralter Strait happened
to give you that last message the very day a letter came telling about
the stock. That is very simple. One day when Mr. Strait came for a
grocery order, you were all away somewhere. I gave him that last message
and told him to keep it in our box at the office until a letter should
arrive from my lawyer, then they were to be brought over and that letter
was to be given to you girls.” The old woman leaned back in her chair and
it was quite evident that her recent emotion had nearly exhausted her.
Nann, excusing herself thoughtfully, left the other two alone.
“Dori,” the old woman said tenderly, “as you grow older, don’t let
circumstances of any nature make you cold and critical. If I had been
loving and kind when your girl mother married my boy, my life, instead of
being bleak and barren, would have been a happy one. No one knows how I
have grieved; how my unkindness has haunted me.”
Just then Dories thought of her sweet-faced mother who had borne the
trials of poverty so bravely, and again she heard her saying, “The only
ghosts that haunt us are the memories of loving words that might have
been spoken and loving deeds that might have been done.”
Impulsively the girl leaned over and kissed the wrinkled face. “I love
you, Aunt Jane,” she whispered. “And I shall beg Mother to let us all
live together in your home, if it is still your wish.” Then, as Miss
Moore had risen, seeming suddenly feeble, Dories sprang up and helped her
to her room and remained there until the old woman was in her bed.
When the girl went out to the kitchen where her friend was preparing
supper, she exclaimed, half laughing and half crying: “Nann Sibbett, I’m
so brimming full of conflicting emotions, I don’t feel at all real. Pinch
me, please, and see if I am.”
“Instead I’ll give you a hard hug; a congratulatory one. There! Did that
seem real?” Then Nann added in her most sensible, matter-of-fact voice:
“Now, wake up, Dori. You mustn’t go around in a trance. Of course the
only mystery that _you_ are interested in is solved, and wonderfully
solved, but I’m just as keen as ever to know the secret the old ruin is
holding.”
“I’ll try to be!” Dories promised, then confessed: “But, honestly, I am
not a bit curious about any mystery, now that my own is solved.” A moment
later she asked: “Nann, do you suppose Mother will want me to come home
right away?”
“Why, I shouldn’t think so, Dori,” her friend replied. “You always hear
from your mother on Friday, so wait and see what tomorrow brings.”
The morrow was to hold much of interest for both of the girls.