THE SCAR ON THE HAND
Stephen Latimer, as soon as might be, communicated with the few people
that Poppea considered had a right to know of the solving of the mystery
of the name, and these were the Felton ladies, Satira and 'Lisha Potts,
and Hugh Oldys. He wrote the details to Miss Felton and 'Lisha, but
called upon Miss Emmy and Hugh the same evening.
If there is aught in the saying that bad news spreads like fire in dry
grass, while good news requires three kindlings, then the news
concerning Poppea must have been considered very bad indeed. Owing
probably to the eavesdropping of the butler, accounts more or less
garbled appeared within two days, not only in the local and county
papers, but in the New York journals as well. It was only in the latter,
however, that anything was attempted like writing up the matter as a
streak of good luck, upon which the heroine, as Poppea was called, was
to be congratulated; one paper adding optimistically that she would, the
coming season, open her father's house to those who had the past winter
welcomed and entertained her solely on account of her incomparable charm
coupled with her vocal ability.
The way in which those nearest to her took the change was the greatest
possible proof of their single-hearted love for herself alone.
'Lisha received an unexpected rating from Satira, who told him he'd have
better let Beaver Brook wash out the whole railroad company than have
fished out that box of misery. Miss Emmy took a more conventional view
of the matter, but ended by saying with a sigh, "As long as Poppea could
not have grown up with the knowledge, it was better unknown."
Hugh Oldys alone remained absolutely silent; finally, Poppea, who was
waiting with feverish eagerness for him to make some sign, received
these few lines from him.
"I am glad for you if you are glad, little comrade. Yet oftentimes
lately it has seemed to me that the positive knowledge of a thing
is so much harder to bear than the vague lack of it, that I have
ceased to ask, Why?
"As ever your friend,
"HUGH."
Over these few words Poppea pondered long and sadly, seated in the
window of her little bedroom with the warm air of late May again
bringing the fragrance of apple blossoms with it. It was not yet a year
since they two had walked home together and she had hidden her heart
that with the first lift of its wings was poised, ready to fly to Hugh,
and at the same time she proffered him friendship. Her motives, surely,
had been of the most unselfish, and, as she then thought, far-seeing,
but now how insignificant they seemed compared to her loss that lay in
Hugh's acceptance of them. If she could have felt one pulse of the old
pressure in his hand-clasp when they met, or read the faintest
inclination toward a need of her between the lines of the brief note,
how quickly she would have revealed herself. Not only had she ceased to
be a necessity, but rather it seemed were their meetings becoming a
strain upon him, where even his cordial outward friendship was forced.
Ah, back, far back, her thoughts flew, no longer the strains of the
motive of the Mystery of the Name sang to her brain; like Elsa, in the
pursuit of the mystery, she had not gained but lost. Moreover, though
she was happy in the fact that she might now see Philip without
restraint or reproach, her joy must be pale compared to his, for to him
she was all.
For a week or more John Angus had made no move other than to see that a
proper statement of the facts of her birth was added to the village
record, writing tersely to Poppea that he had communicated with his
London solicitor to have all possible details traced out; then he
waited.
The second week brought another note addressed to Miss Angus, asking her
to fix the time of her coming home, as there were some necessary
preparations to be made.
This note remained unanswered for several days, not because of anything
contemptuous or insolent in Poppea's attitude, but for the reason that
she did not know how to word her refusal in order to make it final
without first consulting Stephen Latimer, and yet if she did so, she
feared that he might, from his high impersonal standpoint, try to
dissuade her; until, as she was about to write, the New York lawyer of
John Angus called at the post-office house.
He was a polished man of the world as well as a legal light, but all the
subtly drawn pictures of advantage presented with the intricacies of his
calling were shattered upon the bare rock of her simple statement, "This
is my home, and I shall not leave Daddy or drop this name that has
sheltered me so long."
Utterly baffled, the lawyer's admiration for the girl's firmness did not
prevent his returning to Angus and imparting something of the bitter and
sarcastic mood that opposition develops in legal temperaments. So that
while Angus ceased his attempts to bring Poppea to him, he brooded over
the matter to such an extent that he really came to believe that he
alone was wronged. If he had been physically able, he would have again
closed the house and gone away, but he could no longer hide his
increasing feebleness even from himself; consequently he had lost the
first field in his effort to conceal his condition from others. Besides,
Philip, once more established at his work, was now to be reckoned
with,--Philip with a man's spiritual courage and his newly acquired
strength of having kin, no longer bearing that brand of utter
desolation,--the being the last of one's race.
All the other outlets being closed, John Angus fell back upon the law
for solace, and with its advice constructed a will under which, outside
of the cautionary sum of one hundred dollars, Poppea was to benefit in
no way by his estate. This was so tied up that Philip also would lose
his rights if he attempted in any way to share with his sister, and the
document being duly signed, sealed, was stowed away in the little safe
inserted in the wall by his bed head. He would not be within hearing of
criticism when the paper went into effect, so Angus, wearing his usual
air of inscrutability, took up his life much as before, save that he
suddenly announced that, owing to Philip's love of the sea, he would
build a midsummer home for him with a studio attached, on a strip of
land that he owned on the west side of Quality Hill, where the Moosatuck
joins the bay; and almost before the community had grasped the news the
quaintly gabled house was under way.
With Poppea the matter was not to be allowed to rest so soon. Letters
came to her from all quarters, congratulating her, giving invitations
for visits, the sudden desire for her company all too evidently the
result of her supposedly changed condition. Gloria Hooper wrote more
than cordially, while Mrs. Hewlett, the well-meaning but very dense
mother of the two susceptible sons, ended her letter with this dubious
sentence, "I take great credit to myself, dear child, for always having
believed that you were not what you seemed to be."
Others yet asked her plans and prospects in the most direct language,
with all their social training missing the fine reticence in this matter
that had marked the neighborhood people of Harley's Mills.
In early June Poppea went up to visit Miss Emmy for a few days. Brave as
this little lady had been, the complete breaking up of the family
arrangements of years, and the lack of Miss Felton's strong personality
against which to lean, was telling upon her sadly. Her idea of a summer
abroad, once abandoned, was now again under discussion. A summer of long
periods of rest rather than hasty travel, with Nora for maid and Poppea
for companion, was the doctor's advice, and at the same time he said
that when the July heat came, it would be necessary for Miss Felton and
her charge to leave the city, and where else could they be so
comfortable as the great house on Quality Hill.
Miss Emmy had been talking over the journey with Poppea, who at last had
consented to go with her, the final inducement being that she could
visit Hampshire, and in learning any possible facts concerning her
mother's life and death there, bring her nearer as a reality.
The third week in July was the time now set, and the _Normanic_, with
its popular captain, the ship chosen, after much debate. That other
time, in the sixties, when Miss Emmy had been on the verge of breaking
away, the _Scotia_, with its ponderous side-wheels, had been the only
vessel to which women of sensibility felt that they could trust
themselves.
Jeanne Latimer had come up for afternoon tea, and the two sat upon the
broad piazza overlooking the rose garden, already showing the golden
yellow of the scentless, old-fashioned, half-double brier roses
contrasting with the vivid crimson and rich perfume of the Jacqueminots.
Each one of the three women was in a reflective mood, in which, strange
to say, the thought focussed about each other rather than about
themselves.
"Where is Mr. Latimer?" asked Poppea. "This morning, when I met him on
the village road, he promised that he would surely come up this
afternoon to help us plan the English end of our journey; besides that,
he was to explain to me the best way for Daddy to write to Washington
concerning the new post-office. He cannot, of course, resign from an
office that will cease to exist the first of next January and he hopes
to hold it to the end. But he wishes to write in such a way that it will
be clearly seen that he does not desire the new _West Harbor_ position.
Not that they would give it to so old a man, but it satisfies his pride
not to allow himself to be merely dropped.
"Think of it, Aunt Emmy, very soon Poppea of the Post-Office must give
up the name you gave her, not that she leaves it, but it will drop away
from her."
"Why not take your mother's name, then?" said Jeanne Latimer. "Helen is
more fitting to the woman than Poppea, though of course to us you will
be Poppy for all time."
"That also is one of the things about which I wanted to speak to Mr.
Latimer. Do you think that he is coming?"
"He started with me, but as we were waiting at the church to see the men
who are doing something to the water-power that works the organ, Will
Burt, one of the young doctors from the Bridgeton Hospital, came past on
horseback, riding like mad. Stephen waved to him, for as a boy he had
been one of his music pupils, and he stopped short. It seems that he was
on his way to the Rectory on an errand that he had undertaken for its
very strangeness.
"Late last night a short, thick-set man was brought into the hospital, a
brakeman from one of the through freights, and apparently a new hand on
the road, for he did not know of the low bridge at Moosatuck Junction,
or understand the signal lights. He was swept off and crushed against
the pier. Though hurt to death, he had remained conscious, and early
this afternoon, when rallied to the utmost by drugs, asked to speak to
one of the physicians alone. Burt, chancing through the ward, was
appealed to. There was something about the man that struck him at once;
past fifty, and bearing the signs of dissipation and recent neglect of
his person, he did not come of the grade who keep to the road at his
age. When he spoke, his words confirmed the impression.
"'What place am I in, Doctor?' he began.
"'Bridgeton, Connecticut,' Burt answered.
"The man repeated the name to himself several times, and then asked:--
"'Would that be near a little place called Harley's Mills?'
"'The next town to it.'
"'Is there a clergyman hereabout who would, think you, do an errand for
a man that, being already dead in his legs, cannot do it for himself, a
matter of--well, we'll say _business_ rather than religion?'
"Burt told him that there was a Roman Catholic priest always within
call, besides ministers of other denominations that could be had; but
the man sighed, hesitated, and finally said: 'I'm English born, though
I've long ago sold out my birthright, yet there's that much left of it
that makes me want to say what I must to the one that's the nearest like
him that used to teach us our duty in the little church betwixt the
wheat fields over there. I want the one that has the white robe, the
book, and the law behind him; but maybe, sir, you do not understand?'
"Burt did understand, however, and remembering that the rector of St.
John's in Bridgeton was ill, came galloping over for Stephen. Why he did
it, or put Stephen to the trouble, he himself could not say, for maimed
railway men and similar requests are not uncommon in a hospital. Stephen
borrowed a horse from Hugh Oldys and fully expected to be back again by
six; it is after five now. Shall I make the tea, Miss Emmy? He would be
vexed to have you wait."
How many odd moments as well as times of painful suspense the tea-tray
has bridged over. Many a time the period of waiting for the kettle to
boil has given the necessary pause to think that has changed a whole
life, and the need of balancing a cup and saucer in the hand has made an
excuse for looking down when looking up would have betrayed the whole.
As Jeanne pottered and poured, Poppea's wandering eyes caught upon a
mere speck in the distance on the lower Bridgeton road. As it reached
the great span over Moosatuck it took the shape of horse and wheels.
Before it reached the turn below the hill, she knew rather than saw that
it was Hugh Oldys's outfit with Stephen Latimer driving, and that he was
in great haste.
Though she neither spoke of it nor betrayed the slightest interest, yet
her heart pounded so that the hand that held the cup pulsed in response,
and she shifted it to the table, where she deliberately stirred the
sugar. Then, feeling that she could no longer sit still, she said,
looking toward the roses:--
"What a superb flower that is on the third bush. May I have it, Miss
Emmy?" and she swung herself lightly over the rail at the end of the
porch opposite the steps and arrived at the head of the walk with her
rose at the same time that Latimer drove in the gate.
Seeing her, he threw the reins over the dashboard and jumped out; he had
the same pallor, coupled with the tension of suppressed excitement, that
he had worn the day after the fire. Coming directly toward Poppea, he
said:--
"Can you go through one more ordeal, the last?"
"Yes," she answered quietly. "I knew that it was coming half an hour
ago. Is he dead? the man with the scar on his hand?"
Latimer, startled in spite of himself at her words, merely nodded his
head for yes.
"I felt that it was he when Jeanne told me you had been sent for. Won't
you please come and tell us all together, Jeanne and Miss Emmy? I have
not the courage I once had; I cannot seem to bear things alone."
While Latimer walked slowly up the steps, his wife had time to gauge, in
a degree, the scene he had been through, before Poppea, who was in
advance of him, said, in answer to the questioning look upon the face of
both women:--
"The man whom he went to see was the one who brought me to Daddy; now
we shall know how," and dropping to a stool by Miss Emmy's side, she
rested her head upon the elder woman's knees, as she was used in the old
days of confidence before things began to happen.
Latimer took the cup of tea that Jeanne brought to him, and then
another, before he drew his chair closer to the group of women and
began, trying to compress his narrative as much as possible for the sake
of all concerned, while he spoke as to Poppea alone.
"The man brought to the Bridgeton Hospital was Peter Randal, the son of
Betty Randal, your grandfather Dudleigh's housekeeper and your mother's
nurse. When your mother returned to Hampshire and you were born, Peter
was away at sea, but came back soon after her death and married an old
sweetheart, a pretty barmaid of the town. Betty Randal, though to all
appearances in the prime of life and best of health, died suddenly a few
months after your mother, without having had time to carry out any of
her directions or safeguard you in any way, so that Peter and his wife
found themselves left with you on their hands and the temptation of a
snug fortune before them, because your little sum of money had been at
the time entirely in Betty Randal's control.
"Peter's wife had a sister in Canada, who made great representations of
the fortunes to be made there in farming if one only had money in hand;
so after much persuading, Peter yielded doggedly to the scheme of
keeping your money, which it would have been really difficult to prove
did not belong to Betty herself.
"Peter, however, refused even to think of the plan of leaving you at
some foundling asylum instead of taking you to your father, and insisted
upon going to Canada by way of Boston, bringing you with them, and
leaving you with John Angus _en route_. He also had sufficient family
feeling to take with you the papers your mother had left, upon which he
knew Betty had set such store.
"Knowing nothing of the country, they found upon their arrival that
Boston was far east of their destination, and so, going to New York,
worked their way backward, getting off in the confusion of the war
excitement and the late train at Westboro, while the box, hastily
addressed to John Angus, Harley's Mills, and not checked, was dropped
off at this station, the tag evidently having been in some way mutilated
in transit so that the place of destination only remained.
"On asking some chance loungers at the Westboro depot the direction of
John Angus's house at Harley's Mills, Randal was told 'the first above
the post-office,' and to that they drove, not realizing that their
guides in this case considered the joined house and office as one
building. In the fury of the storm the Randals only waited to be sure
that the door was opened, and going to Bridgeton, were lost among many
other travellers. For some time everything went well with the pair, and
then luck turned. Peter's wife left him after securing the farm to
herself, and first the man took to the road, trying in some way to
return to the old country, but in spite of all, a bit of deep-down
remorse made him wish to know what had become of the baby Helen on his
way.--The rest you know."
"What will they do with him?" asked Poppea, softly.
"That which he asked of me," said Latimer.
"I must have known you would have thought of it, and yet there must be
an odd touch of the same race feeling in me too. Thief as he was, his
people were once loyal to mine, also I wish I might have thanked him for
his mistake."
"I did it for you, child, and for us all," and in the look that Poppea
turned on him he read a gratefulness beyond words.