A GRANDFATHER
"Oh!--Miss Worth!" ejaculated the girl with a noticeable catch in her
voice. "My grandfather--you-all can't mean that Colonel Tennytown is my
really grandfather?" she pressed hastily, overwhelmed by this
unlooked-for surprise.
"Yes, truly--Colonel Tennytown is your own grandfather, Belle-Ann, and I
am happy and proud that you have such a man for your grandfather--he is
going to come and claim you, my dear, and you are not to rebel when he
tells you about your legacy--you have an inheritance--it is rightfully
yours by every moral and legal tenure--it was your mother's--although
her proud, relentless temperament spurned it while she lived. It now
devolves upon you, Belle-Ann; you have been rich all along and did not
know it--money matters need never trouble your dear little head. You
recall that first visit to Lexington? Well, we took you out to the
Colonel's home purposely for his maiden sister to see you. You know they
wanted to be sure of you, Belle-Ann,--they wanted to feel certain, dear,
that they would like you. And dear old Miss Malinda was more than
charmed with your beauty and personality--she confided to me afterwards
that she begged the Colonel to go directly and bring you there to live
permanently. Belle-Ann, you look like you do not believe this good
fortune," she ended abruptly.
Out of a daze the girl awake, and impulsively threw her arms around Miss
Worth and kissed her until she laughingly protested. As Belle-Ann
dressed for breakfast, she pondered upon the ways of Providence and
wondered what unseen happening would come next to take its place in her
life. She moved about in a state of bewilderment. She struggled to
compose herself; this great good luck thrust upon her so suddenly seemed
visionary. She, whose life heretofore had been lonesome and isolated,
and overshadowed with unhappiness.
This abrupt intervention of a kind fate bore the atmosphere of a fairy
romance. It was difficult to comprehend off-hand, that all this was
meant for her. So that it was only gradually that she gathered the grace
of its realization, and then her fancy waxed busy. A glamorous vista of
possibilities were opened up to her. She saw before her salient,
new-born contemplation, scores of day-dreams that had invaded her
girlhood, resolve themselves now into a semblance of approaching
tangible realities.
With superb, delicate touches she added to these mental pictures with
the prolific imagery and exquisite mastery that only a vivacious,
high-spirited girl can conjure. And paramount above all these
fantastic castles were the benefits set aside to be bestowed upon Lem
and Buddy and her father and even poor old Slab--they who had been
fellow-sufferers in a war of strife and aching misery that had seemed
interminable.
With the tail of her eye, Belle-Ann caught a parting glimpse of her
profile in the mirror. She noted with a little laugh that her lips were
moving. All unconsciously she was repeating over and over the phrase
that drifted to and fro through her half-incredulous mind:
"A grandfather--an inheritance--Belle-Ann Benson--with a legacy?"
Colonel Tennytown, who had been called to New York on business, had now
returned to Lexington. To-day, when Miss Worth returned to the school
she imparted to Belle-Ann that she had received a message from the
Colonel stating that he would be up to see them in the evening. He had
been absent for two weeks and Belle-Ann had not seen him since she had
learned that he was her grandfather.
With a lingering, tender embrace, twilight untwined her nebulous arms
from the sable-lustre mantle of night and parted with a promise.
The tryst place had been the dim, infinite dome of the world.
Plenipotent, majestic night settled on the throne of the supernal
cosmos, diademed with a million twinkling jewels to dazzle his mundane
subjects. His ancient serfs, patrolling the heavens at his behest, all
a-glitter, trembled in his presence. And between the limits of these
fire-touched planets, the milky-highroad developed like a mystic wand
leading across a vast ethereal universe, and trailing adown into
immeasurable cyclopic spaces, fading away between the gigantic
vapor-tombs and ghost biers of a thousand dead centuries.
And all the soul-stirring agencies of rapturous nature pulsed and glowed
down upon the night-world of mankind. A neutral moon whose fixed face,
young yet, unsmiled and uncreased with the joys and woes upheld by the
supplicant ages, seemed now to soften with mellow sympathy upon a
girl-heart below. Could even a stoic moon look upon this girl unmoved?
Belle-Ann leaned listlessly against the bronze rail that girded the
fountain, gazing with expectant eyes, along the moonlit path leading to
the seminary.
The Chapel bells chimed out their angelus across the fantasmal gloaming,
tinkling through the girl's mood in utter harmony with the music of her
soul, and the supernal smiles that lingered about her cupid lips.
Beneath the enchanting rays of the moon, Belle-Ann's wraith-like,
relaxed form looked even taller. Arrayed in a vision of delicate blue
silk and lace, clinging to the pronounced curves of her subtle outlines,
she presented an unforgettable picture; a rare hellenism of feminine
beauty. A type to ravish the senses. The shimmering blackness of the
girlish curls that crowded around her small features, contrasted
adorably with her eburnean skin, natural as the purity of rose petals,
soft and fine-textured, from which the mountain tan had long since
vanished.
A bouquet of great roses was pinned at her bosom, and the musk of
calcanthus was in her curls. Her lips parted and she hummed a soft
ditty. The sweet dulcet timbre of her voice was a mellowed sound wafted
straight from the realms of Dixie. Her whole palpable self irradiated
and pulsed with the subtle witchery and glamour of the South.
As she stood in the half-shadow of the fountain gazing intently along
the hedge-hemmed path, a sudden gladness stirred her as she discerned
what her eyes had sought. Two vague forms descended from the porch,
coupled perilously near together. Then, as they halted beneath the
dappled shadows of the rose-tree, Belle-Ann fancied she saw a white
sleeve against a sable shoulder. It may have been the trick of her
imagination, but it seemed that the man stooped his head and lingered
over the white-clad figure.
She knew it was Colonel Tennytown and Miss Worth who tarried there.
Belle-Ann had known all evening that he would seek her out. She had not
laid eyes on him since the Sunday preceding that memorable dawn when
Miss Worth had revealed his relationship. But now with a heart full to
the brim with gratitude she awaited his coming, and to acknowledge her
grandfather.
Presently, the Colonel's tall figure emerged from the shadows and came
toward her. With his broad hat in his hand he halted before her and
smilingly bowed in courtly grace. As Belle-Ann looked straight into his
eyes, her face was now all aflush with pleasure and the baffling dimples
were at play.