The Cromptons Part 30

Stay!" and those were the only really intelligible words he ever spoke.

They telegraphed to Worcester for Howard, and learning that he was in Boston, telegraphed there, and found him at the Vendome. "Come at once.

Your uncle is dying," the telegram said, and Howard read it with a sensation for which he hated himself, and which he could not entirely shake off. He tried to believe he did not want his uncle to die, but if he did die, what might it not do for him, the only direct heir, if Amy were not a lawful daughter? And he did not believe she was. She had not been adopted, and he had never heard of a will, and before he was aware of it a feeling that he was master of Crompton Place crept over him. Amy would live there, of course, just as she did now, even if he should marry, as he might, and there came up before him the memory of a rainy night and a helpless little girl sitting on a mound of stones and dirt and crying with fear and pain. He had seen Jack's interest in Eloise with outward indifference, but with a growing jealousy he was too proud to show. He admired her greatly, and thought that under some circ.u.mstances he might love her. As a Crompton he ought to look higher, and if he proved to be the heir it would never do to think of her even if Jack were not in his way. All this pa.s.sed like lightning through his mind as he read the telegram and handed it to Jack, who, he insisted, should return with him to Crompton.

"I feel awfully shaky, and I want you there if anything happens," he said, while Jack, whose first thought had been that he would be in the way, was not loath to go.

Eloise was in Crompton, and ever since he left it, a thought of her had been in his mind.

"If I find her as sweet and lovely as I left her, I'll ask her to be my wife, and take her away from Mrs. Biggs," he was thinking as the train sped on over the New England hills toward Crompton, which it reached about two P.M.

Peter was at the station with Sam, and to Howard's eager questions answered, "Pretty bad. No change since morning. Don't seem to know anybody except Mrs. Amy and Miss Eloise. She's with him all the time, and he tries to smile when she speaks to him."

"Who?" both the young men asked in the same breath, and Peter told them all he knew of the matter during the rapid drive to the house.

Howard was incredulous, and made Peter repeat the story twice, while his brain worked rapidly with a presentiment that this new complication might prove adverse to him.

"What do you think of it?" he asked Jack, who replied, "I see no reason to doubt it," and he was conscious of a pang of regret that he had not asked Eloise to be his wife before her changed circ.u.mstances.

"She would then know that I loved her for herself, and not for any family relations," he thought.

He had no doubt that Amy was Col. Crompton's daughter, and if so, Eloise's position would be very different from what it had been.

"I'll wait the course of events, as this is no time for love-making," he decided, as they drove up to the door, from which the doctor was just emerging.

"Matter of a few hours," he said to Howard. "I am glad you have come.

Evidently he wants to see you, or wants something, n.o.body can make out what. You have heard the news?"

Howard bowed, and entering the house, ran up to his uncle's room. The Colonel was propped on pillows, laboring for breath, and trying to articulate words impossible to speak, while, if ever eyes talked, his were talking, first to Amy and then to Eloise, both of whom were beside him, Amy smoothing his hair and Eloise rubbing his cold hands.

They had been with him for hours, trying to understand him as he struggled to speak.

"There is something he wants to tell us," Eloise said, and in his eyes there was a look of affirmation, while the lips tried in vain to frame the words, which were only gurgling sounds.

What did the dying man want to say? Was he trying to reveal a secret kept so many years, and which was planting his pillow with thorns? Was he back in the palmetto clearing, standing in the moonlight with Dora, and exacting a promise from her which broke her heart? No one could guess, and least of all the two women ministering to him so tenderly,--Amy, because she loved him, and Eloise, because she felt that he was more to her than a mere stranger. She was very quiet and self-contained. The events of the last two days had transformed her from a timid girl into a fearless woman, ready to fight for her own rights and those of her mother. Once when Amy was from the room a moment she bent close to the Colonel and said, "You are my mother's father?"

There was a choking sound and an attempt to move the head which Eloise took for a.s.sent.

"Then you are my grandfather?" she added.

This time she was sure he nodded, and she said, "It will all be right.

You can rest now," but he didn't rest.

There was more on his mind which he could not tell.

"I believe it is Mr. Howard," Eloise thought, and said to him, "He is coming on the next train. I hear it now. He will soon be here. Is that what you want?"

The dying man turned his head wearily. There was more besides Howard he wanted, but when at last the young man came into the room, his eyes shone with a look of pleased recognition, and he tried to speak a welcome. In the hall outside Jack was waiting, and as Eloise pa.s.sed out he gave her his hand, and leading her to a settee, sat down beside her, and told her how glad he was for the news he had heard of her, but feeling the while that he did not know whether he were glad or not. She had never looked fairer or sweeter to him than she did now, and yet there was a difference which he detected, and which troubled him. It would have been easy to say "I love you," to the helpless little school-teacher at Mrs. Biggs's, and he wished now he had done so, and not waited till she became a daughter of the Crompton House, as he believed she was. Now he could only look his love into the eyes which fell beneath his gaze, as he held her hand and questioned her of the Colonel's sudden attack, and the means by which she had discovered her relations.h.i.+p to Amy.

Again he repeated, "I am so glad for you," and might have said more if Howard had not stepped into the hall, his face clouded and anxious.

"He wants you, I think," he said to Eloise. "At least he wants something,--I don't know what."

Eloise went to him at once, and again there was a painful effort to speak. But whatever he would say was never said, and after a little the palsied tongue ceased trying to articulate, and only his eyes showed how clear his reason was to the last. If there was sorrow for the past, he could not express it. If thoughts of the palmetto clearing were in his mind, no one knew it. All that could be guessed at was that he wanted Amy and Eloise with him.

"Call him father. I think he will like it," Eloise said to her mother, while Howard looked up quickly, and to Peter, who was present, it seemed as if a frown settled on his face as a smile flickered around the Colonel's mouth at the sound of the name Amy had not given him since she came from California.

All the afternoon and evening they watched him, as his breathing grew shorter and the heavy lids fell over the eyes, which, until they closed, rested upon Amy, who held his hand and spoke to him occasionally, calling him father, and asking if he knew her. To the very last he responded to the question with a quivering of the lids when he could no longer lift them, and when the clock on the stairs struck twelve, the physician who was present said to Eloise, "Take your mother away; he is dead."

CHAPTER V

LOOKING FOR A WILL

For three days the Colonel lay in the great drawing-room of the Crompton House, the blinds of which were closed, while knots of c.r.a.pe streamed from every door, and the servants talked together in low tones, sometimes of the dead man and sometimes of the future, wondering who would be master now of Crompton Place. Speculation on this point was rife everywhere, and on no one had it a stronger hold than on Howard himself. He would not like to have had it known that within twenty-four hours after his uncle's death he had gone through every pigeon-hole and nook in the Colonel's safe and private drawers, and turned over every paper searching for a will, and when he found none, had congratulated himself that in all human probability he was the sole heir. He was very properly sad, with an unmistakable air of owners.h.i.+p as he went about the place, giving orders to the servants. To Amy he paid great deference, telling the undertaker to ask what she liked and abide by her decisions.

And here he was perfectly safe. With the shock of the Colonel's death Amy had relapsed into a dazed, silent mood, saying always, "I don't know; ask Eloise," and when Eloise was asked, she replied, "I have been here too short a time to give any orders. Mr. Howard will tell you."

Thus everything was left to him, as he meant it should be, stipulating that Eloise meet the people who came, some to offer their sympathy, and more from a morbid curiosity to see whatever there was to be seen. This Eloise did with a dignity which surprised herself, and if Howard were the master, she was the mistress, and apparently as much at home as if she had lived there all her life. Ruby was the first to call. She had not seen Eloise since the astounding news that she was Amy's daughter.

"I am so glad for you," she said, and the first tears Eloise had shed sprang to her eyes as she laid her head on Ruby's arm, just as she had done in the days of her trouble and pain.

Mrs. Biggs came, too,--very loud in her protestations of delight and a.s.sertions that she had always known Eloise was above the common.

Never since the memorable lawn party many years ago had there been so great a crowd in the house and grounds as on the day of the funeral. In honor of his memory, and because he had given the school-house to the town, the school was closed, and the pupils, with Ruby Ann at their head, marched up the avenue with wreaths of autumn leaves and bouquets of flowers intended for the grave. The Rev. Arthur Mason read the burial service, and as he glanced at the costly casket, nearly smothered in flowers, and at the crowd inside and out, he could not keep his thoughts from his father's description of another funeral, where the dead woman lay in her cheap coffin, with Crackers and negroes as spectators; and only a demented woman, a little child, and black Jake and Mandy Ann as mourners. The mourners here were Amy and Howard, Eloise and Jack, and next to him a plain-looking, elderly woman, who, Mrs. Biggs told every one near her, was old Mrs. Smith, Eloise's supposed grandmother from Mayville.

Eloise had sent for her, and while telling the story of deception and wrong which had been practised so long, and to which the mother listened with streaming eyes, she had said, "But it makes no difference with us.

You are mine just the same, and wherever I live in the future, you are to live, too, if you will."

Mrs. Smith had smiled upon the young girl, and felt bewildered and strange in this grand house and at this grand funeral, unlike anything she had ever seen. It seemed like an endless line of carriages and foot pa.s.sengers which followed the Colonel to the grave, and when the services were over, a few friends of the Colonel, who had come from a distance, returned to the house, and among them Mr. Ferris, the lawyer, who had been the Colonel's counsel and adviser for years, and managed his affairs. This was Howard's idea. He could not rest until he knew whether there was in the lawyer's possession any will or papers bearing upon Amy. When lunch was over he took the old man into his uncle's library, and said, hesitatingly, "I do not want to be too hasty, but it is better to have such matters settled, and if I have no interest in the Crompton estate I must leave, of course. Did my uncle leave a will?"

Lawyer Ferris looked at him keenly through his gla.s.ses, took a huge pinch of snuff, and blew a good deal of it from him and some in Howard's face, making him sneeze before he replied, "Not that I know of; more's the pity. I tried my best to have him make one. The last time I urged it he said, 'There's no need. I've fixed it. Amy will be all right.' I was thinking of her. If there is no will, and she wasn't adopted and wasn't his daughter, it's hard lines for her."

"But she was his daughter," came in a clear, decided voice, and both the lawyer and Howard turned to see Eloise standing in the door.

Rain was beginning to fall, and she had come to close a window, with no thought that any one was in the library, until she heard the lawyer's last words, which stopped her suddenly. Where her mother was concerned she could be very brave, and, stepping into the room, she startled the two men with her a.s.sertion, "She was his daughter."

"He told me so," she continued.

"He did? When?" Howard asked, and Eloise replied, "I asked him, and his eyes looked yes, and when I said, 'You are my grandfather?' I was very sure he nodded. I know he meant it."

The lawyer smiled and answered her, "That is something, but not enough.

We must have a will or some doc.u.ment. He might have been your mother's father. I think he was; and still, she may not be--be--"

He hesitated, for Eloise's eyes were fixed upon him, and the hot blood of shame was crimsoning her face. After a moment he continued, "A will can set things right; or, if we can prove a marriage, all will be fair sailing for your mother and you."

"I was not thinking of myself," Eloise returned. "I am thinking of mother. I know all the dreadful gossip and everything. Mrs. Biggs has told me, and I am going to find out. Somebody knows, and I shall find them."