Chapter 10 Donald and Dorothy by Mary Mapes Dodge
Which presents a Faithful Report of the Interview between Mr. Reed and his Mysterious Visitor
"Hope the young folks are at home," remarked the "long, lank man," with an off-hand air of familiarity, comfortably settling himself in an arm-chair before the smouldering fire, and thrusting out his ungainly feet as far as possible. "Would be glad to make their acquaintance."
"My nephew and niece will not be down again this evening, sir," was the stiff reply.
"Ah? Hardly past nine, too. You hold to old-fashioned customs here, I perceive. 'Early to bed,' etcetera, etcetera. And yet they're no chickens. Let me see; I'm thirty-nine. According to my reckoning, they must carry about fourteen years apiece by this time. Dorothy looks it; but the boy seems younger, in spite of his big ways. Why not sit down, George?"
"Dorothy!—George!" echoed Mr. Reed's thought, indignantly. But with a stern resolve to be patient, he seated himself.
"Look here, George, as this is likely to be a long session, let's have a little more of a blaze here. I got chilled through, waiting for that door to open. Ah, that's something like!"
Meanwhile this cordial person, carefully selecting suitable pieces from the wood-basket on the hearth, and rearranging the fire, had seized the bellows and begun to blow vigorously, nearly shutting up his long figure, like a big clasp-knife, in the act.
"Excuse my making myself at home," he continued, jauntily poking a small log into place with the bellows, and then brushing his seedy trousers with his hand; "it was always my style. Most men that's been knocked about all their lives get shy and wary. But that's not Eben Slade. Well, when are you going to begin?"
"I am ready now, Mr. Slade."
"Pshaw! Don't Mr. Slade me. Call me Eben, plain Eben. Just as Kate did."
Mr. Reed's face flushed painfully.
"See here, George," the visitor went on, suddenly changing his sportive style to a manner that was designed to appear quite confidential and friendly,—"see here, I don't want to quarrel with you nor any other man. This here is just a chat between two almost relatives—sort of left-handed brothers, you know, and for my—"
"Slade!" exclaimed Mr. Reed, savagely, rising from his chair, but at once seating himself again, and speaking with forced calmness: "While I have allowed you this interview, I must request you to understand, now and for all time, as you have understood very plainly heretofore, that there can be no connection or implied relationship between us. For years we have been as strangers, and from this night must remain so!"
"Ex—actly!" assented Slade, cheerily—"the kind of strangers two chaps naturally would be, having the same sister—my sister by blood, yours by adoption."
Certainly this was a strong point with Mr. Slade, for he leaned forward and looked boldly into the other's face, as he finished the sentence.
"Yes," said Mr. Reed, with a solemn dignity, "precisely such strangers as the scape-grace brother of a noble girl must be to those who rescued this girl in her earliest childhood, sheltered her, taught her, honored and loved her as true brothers should, and to whom she clung with all a sister's fondness and loyalty."
"Pre—cisely!" observed Mr. Slade, with a mocking air of being deeply impressed. "Go on."
"You know the conditions under which you were adopted by Squire Hinsley, and Kate was adopted by my father, when you were left orphans, homeless, destitute—"
"Thank you. You are right. Quite destitute; I may say desperately destitute; though as I was six years of age at the time, and Kate but two, I have forgotten the painful particulars. Proceed."
"You know well," continued Mr. Reed, with quiet precision, "the agreement signed, sealed, and delivered, in the presence of witnesses, between my parents and John Hinsley on the one side, and your uncle and lawful guardian, Samuel Slade, on the other. The adoption was absolute. Kate was to have no legal claim on John Hinsley or his family; and you were to have none upon my father and his family. She was to be to my father, in all respects but birth, his own child,—his, Henry Reed's, to support and educate, sharing the fortune of his own children during his life, and receiving an equal share of his estate at his death; all of which was literally and faithfully fulfilled. And you were adopted by John Hinsley under similar conditions, excepting that they were, in fact, more favorable. He and his wife were childless, and rich in worldly goods; and they agreed to shelter and educate you—in fact, so long as you continued to obey and honor them, to treat you in all respects as their son and heir. You know the sequel. You had a pleasant home, tender care, and conscientious training; but, in spite of all, you were lazy, worthless, treacherous,—a source of constant grief and anxiety to the good pair who had hoped to find in you a son to comfort their old age—"
"Thank you, again!" exclaimed Eben Slade; "I always liked frankness."
"In time, and with good cause, they discarded you," continued Mr. Reed, without noticing the interruption, "and my father, for Kate's sake, did all in his power to win you to a decent life, but in vain. Later, in dire want and trouble, when even your worthless companions threw you off, you appealed to me, and I induced Mr. and Mrs. Hinsley to give you one more trial. But you fell into bad company again and ran away, deserting your adopted parents just when they were beginning to trust you. Your subsequent course I do not know, nor where you have been from that day to this. I only know that, although during your boyhood you were free to visit your sister, you never showed the slightest interest in her, nor seemed to care whether she were living or dead. Even when we brought you together, you were cold and selfish in your treatment of her, moved by a jealous bitterness which even her trustful love for you could not dispel. These are disagreeable truths, but I intend that we shall understand each other."
"So I see," muttered Eben.
"Meantime," continued Mr. Reed, in a different tone, and almost as if he were talking to himself and had forgotten the presence of his visitor, "Kate grew in sweetness, in truth and nobility of nature; grew into a strong, beautiful girlhood, honored by all, and idolized by her new parents and by her two brothers Wolcott and myself. Bearing our name from her infancy, and coming with us, soon after, into this new neighborhood as our only sister, her relationship never was questioned—"
Eben Slade had been listening in sullen patience, but now he asked, quickly:
"Do they, do the youngsters—"
"My brother's children?" asked Mr. Reed.
"Well, your brother's children, we'll say; do they know that she was adopted by their grandparents, that she was not their own flesh-and-blood aunt?"
"They think of her always as the beloved sister of their father and myself, as she virtually was," replied Mr. Reed. "From the first, the custom of our household was to consider her purely as one of the family; Kate herself would have resented any other view of the case. Therefore—"
"Therefore the children have been kept in the dark about it," exclaimed Eben Slade, exultingly, as though it were his turn now to utter plain truths.
"The question has never been raised by them. They were hardly more than six weeks old when they were brought to this house; and as they grew older, they learned to know of her and love her as their Aunt Kate. If ever they ask me the question direct, I shall answer it. Till then I shall consider Kate Reed—I should say Mrs. Kate Robertson—as my sister and their aunt."
"And I likewise shall continue to consider her as my sister, with your permission," remarked Eben, with a disagreeable laugh.
"Yes, and a true sister she would have been. The letters which she wrote you during your boyhood, and which you never answered, showed her interest in your welfare."
"If she had known enough to put money in them, now," sneered Eben Slade. "I was kept down in the closest way, and a little offering of that kind might— But that's neither here nor there, and I don't see the drift of all this talk. What I want to know—what in fact I came for, and what I intend to keep coming for, is to see her will."
"Her will?" asked Mr. Reed with surprise, and in an unconscious tone of relief, for he had feared a much more serious demand.
"Yes, now you've hit it! Her adopted parents were dead. She had inherited one-third of their estate. With such a fortune as that, she must have left a will. Where is it? I want to know what became of that money, and why you withheld—"
"Silence!" commanded Mr. Reed, sorely tempted to lay hands on the fellow, and thrust him from the house. "No insolence, sir!"
Just then Lydia opened the door, and as we already know, vanished as soon as she learned her presence had not been called for.
"What I want to know"—began Eben again, in a high key.
"Not so loud," said Mr. Reed, quietly.
His visitor's voice dropped, as, thrusting out his elbows and resting a hand on each arm of his chair, he started afresh:
"So Miss Kate Reed, as she called herself, and as you called her, never wrote me again after the old people died, eh?"
"Never" was uttered so significantly that his listener responded with a quick, "Well! what do you mean?"
"What do you mean?" echoed Slade with a darkening face. "Why didn't she ever write to me afterward?"
This was a bit of acting designed to mislead; for Kate had written again, and at that moment a yellow, worn letter, fourteen years old, was tucked snugly away in the visitor's pocket. And it was on the strength of this same letter that he hoped yet to obtain heavy favors from George Reed. Eben knew well enough what had become of the money, but, for some cunning reason of his own, chose for the present to plead ignorance.
"I will ask you a question in return," said Mr. Reed. "Why, if you took so keen an interest in your sister's fortune, did you not apply to me long ago for information?"
"Because," replied Eben Slade, boldly, "I had my reasons. I knew the money was safe; and I could bide my time."
"What!" exclaimed Mr. Reed, "do you pretend to be ignorant of the fact that, two years after my sister Kate's marriage, she started with her husband and baby to return to America, absolutely penniless?"
"Then, how could they pay for their passage?" asked Eben;—but meeting Mr. Reed's eyes, he went on in an injured tone, "I know nothing but what you choose to tell me. True, you forgot to advertise for me to put in an appearance and hear of something to my advantage, but I supposed, very naturally, that coming here I should learn that Kate had left me a share of her fortune as a matter of course, and then I'd be able to go back and settle myself respectably in the far West. I may as well tell you I have a wife somewhere out there, and if I had means to buy up a splendid mining property which can be had now for a mere song, I'd just buy it clean and settle down to a steady life."
During this speech, Eben Slade's expression of face had become so very frank and innocent that Mr. Reed's conviction began to waver. He had felt sure that Slade remembered well enough having long ago written him two letters—one asking for information concerning Kate's property, the other bemoaning the fact that it was all lost, and appealing to him for money. But now it seemed evident that these documents, still in Mr. Reed's good keeping, had quite escaped his visitor's memory.
"I don't want to go to law about this thing," continued Slade, slowly, as if to demand closer attention, "especially as it would stir up your home affairs for the public benefit; and so, as I say, I hope to settle things quietly. If I only had what ought to be coming to me, I wouldn't be here at all. It would be lonesome for my many friends in this favored spot, but I should be far away, making a man of myself, as they say in the books."
"What is all this to me?" said Mr. Reed, coldly. "You have had your answer concerning Mrs. Robertson's property. Have you any more questions to ask? It is getting late."
"Well, yes, a few. What about the wreck? No, let's hear from the date of the marriage." And Mr. Slade, inwardly surprised at Mr. Reed's patience, yet unable to forego the luxury of being as familiar and pert as possible, settled himself to listen to the story which Mr. Reed had permitted him to come and hear.
"They sailed," began that gentleman, "early in—"
Slade, leaning back in his easy-chair, waved his hand with a sprightly, "Beg pardon! Go back a little. This Robertson—"
"This Robertson," said Mr. Reed, as though it quite suited him to go back, "was a stranger to me, a friend of the lady whom my brother Wolcott afterward married. Indeed, Kate formed his acquaintance while visiting at this lady's home in New York. He was a fascinating, handsome man, of a visionary turn, and with extravagant tastes,—but without a grain of business capacity."
"Like myself," interrupted the listener, with an ugly attempt at a smile.
"From the first I opposed the marriage," continued Mr. Reed; "but the poor girl, reasonable in everything else, would listen neither to argument nor to appeal. She was sure that in time we would know him and believe in him as she did. I would not even attend the wedding, which took place at her friend's house; though, by the terms of my father's will, and very much against our judgment, my brother Wolcott and myself, who were her guardians up to the date of her marriage, gave up to her unconditionally one-third of the family estate on her wedding-day. The result was as we had feared. They sailed immediately for England, and there, he entered into various wild speculations, and in less than two years the little fortune was utterly gone."
"Can you prove it?" interrupted Mr. Slade, suspiciously.
"Meantime," said Mr. Reed, looking at him as though he were a vicious spaniel, "my brother had married, and had gone with his bride to Europe, intending to remain two years. In a twelvemonth his wife became the mother of twins, a boy and a girl, and before two weeks had passed their father was stricken with fever, and died. News then came to me, not only of my brother's death, but also that my sister Kate had become destitute, and had been too proud to let us know of her misfortunes, and finally, that at the time the letter was written, she and her husband, with their baby daughter, then only three weeks old, were living solely on the bounty of Wolcott's widow.
"There was but one thing to be done. The widow was broken-hearted, totally unable to attend to her business affairs, and Kate's husband, Mr. Robertson, was the last man whom I could trust to do it for her. But he at least could accompany the party to America, and I sent word for both families to come as soon as they could safely bring the three babies; and charged Mr. Robertson to leave nothing undone which could tend to their comfort and safety on the voyage.
"They sailed—" Here Mr. Reed paused, bracing himself for the remainder of the recital, which he had resolved should be complete and full. He had at hand legal papers proving that his adopted sister Kate, at the time of her marriage, had received her rightful third of his father's estate; but he did not feel in any way compelled to show these to his unpleasant visitor.
Eben Slade for an instant respected the silence. But he had a point to gain.
"Yes," said he, "but this is sudden news as to the loss of her property. I don't understand it. She must at some time have made a will. Show me documents!"
"There was no will," said Mr. Reed. "As for documents,"—here he arose, walked to a high, old-fashioned secretary, unlocked a drawer, and produced two letters,—"you may recognize these!" and he unfolded the yellow, time-worn sheets before Mr. Slade's astonished eyes—astonished, not that they were his own letters, betraying his full knowledge of his sister's loss of property, but that Mr. Reed should be able to produce them after all these fourteen years.
"See here!" said that gentleman, showing him one of the letters, and pointing to these heartless words in Slade's own handwriting: "It's terrible news; for now that Kate's money is gone, as well as herself, I know there's nothing more to look for in that quarter."
Slade scrutinized the passage with well-feigned curiosity. But he had his revenge ready.
"Seeing as you've a fancy for old letters, George, may be this 'ere will interest you."
Was it magic? Another yellow letter, very much soiled and worn, appeared to jump from Slade's pocket and open itself upon the table before Mr. Reed's eyes. He recognized Kate's clear, bright penmanship at a glance.
"Read it," said Eben, standing close, and still keeping hold of the letter.
And Mr. George read:
"In my extremity, Eben, I appeal to you. By this time you may be yourself again, turned from all evil ways. I married against my brother George's consent—and he has as good as cast me off. We are penniless; my husband seems completely broken down. He may not live long. My brother Wolcott has just died. I am too proud to go to his widow, or to my brother George. Oh, Eben, if I starve, if I die, will you take my baby-girl? Will you care for her for our dead mother's sake?"
"I'd have done my duty by that baby," said Eben Slade, slowly folding the letter, and looking with hateful triumph into Mr. Reed's pale face. "I'd have had my rights, too, and you never should have seen hide nor hair of the child if it had lived. I wish it had; she'd 'a' been handy about the house by this time, and my wife, whose temper is none of the best, would have had some one to scold besides me, as well as some one to do the chores. What have you got belonging to the child? What's hers is mine. Where's the baby-clothes,—the things that Robertson's people must have sent on afterward from England?"
"There was nothing sent on afterward," replied Mr. Reed, with a stunned look; but in an instant, he turned his eyes full upon Slade, causing the miserable creature to cringe before him:
"If you had the soul of a man, I could wish for your sake that something belonging to the lost baby had been saved; but there was nothing. My sister was not herself when she wrote that letter. She was frantic with grief and trouble, else she would have known that I would forgive and cherish her. And now, sir, if you are satisfied, I bid you good evening!"
"I am not satisfied," said Eben doggedly. "There's more to be settled yet. Where is the man who saw the shipwreck?"
Mr. Reed opened the window. Seizing something that hung there, he blew a shrill whistle, then lowered the sash and sat down.
Neither spoke a word. Quick steps sounded upon the stairs. The door opened.
"Ay, ay, Capt'n!" said Jack. Nero stood beside him, growling.