Chapter XVIII: A Dreadful Discovery

The look that dawned in her father’s face, Betty Browning was to remember for many a long day. The face that had been so stern and set softened magically.

“So you want to help, do you, Betty? You want to help your old dad?”

Betty nodded, and Mr. Browning got up suddenly and walked to the window.

He stood for a moment, looking, but seeing nothing, then turned and held out his arms.

“Come here, Betty,” he said in a voice that, for all his failure, had a ring of triumph in it. “Come here and get hugged!”

Mrs. Browning could not understand. She was honestly bewildered by Betty’s attitude, by what she called her “desertion.”

“No one sympathizes with me,” she moaned. “No one! The fact that I must give up my home, my servants, my cars, means nothing to any one. Betty, to whom it should mean as much as it means to me, seems to think it will all be a pleasant adventure, losing everything and being as poor as church mice!”

“I don’t expect it to be pleasant,” Betty began patiently, only to have her mother wave her aside with an angry, impatient gesture.

“Oh, don’t speak to me! Don’t talk to me! I know just how it is! Don’t think I can’t understand! You care more for your father than you do for me! You will stand up for him, no matter what he has done!”

“But he hasn’t done anything, purposely,” Betty cried, exasperated, only to have her mother throw up her hands and moan:

“You see? She stands up for her father against everything and everybody--even her poor mother!”

Against this, of course, Betty could do nothing. Nor could Mr. Browning. They gave up trying after a while and left Mrs. Browning to her lamentations, while together, father and daughter, they tried to pick up the pieces of their ruined fortunes in the hope of salvaging something from the wreck.

Meanwhile, Jane was very busy in Mr. Garwick’s office. While she wondered a great deal about unfortunate Mr. Browning and his pretty daughter, she heard nothing further concerning them and so allowed herself to become absorbed in her work.

She saw a great deal of Billy, even though she knew that Greenville talked about her friendship with him and was prone to extend the dark cloud of suspicion that hovered over him to include her also if she flaunted her championship of him too openly.

The Powell front porch became a veritable “parking place” for Billy, as he himself expressed it. While both Mr. and Mrs. Powell liked the young fellow very much and were in their hearts convinced that Billy knew no more of the origin of the Martin and Hull fire than they did themselves, they disliked to see Jane too intimate with him.

Mr. Powell ventured a gentle protest one night, but Jane flamed out right royally in defense of her friend and Mr. Powell retired, defeated, in chuckling admiration of her loyalty.

“She’s true blue, that girl,” he told his wife. “I took a chance for her sake. But I’m glad she didn’t listen to me. I’d have thought the worse of her for it if she had.”

Then came the wonderful day when Mr. Garwick gave Jane her second increase in salary. This gave her twenty dollars a week, and it wafted Jane to the seventh heaven of delight and hopefulness.

Without saying anything to anybody, Jane started a little fund.

“We managed to get along fairly well on my salary before I got the increase,” she told herself, experiencing all the delight of a cheerful conspirator. “It won’t be so very long before I have quite a little sum, and then--oh just wait till I tell Billy!”

After that she worked harder than ever for her employer. Mr. Garwick came more and more to depend upon the quick-witted sensible girl. He even began to discuss little business problems with her that bothered him and was amazed and delighted by her quick grasp of the subject and her clear reasoning.

As a matter of fact, Jane was head over ears in love with the business and welcomed the occasional confidences of Mr. Garwick more eagerly than she would the reading of an adventure story--and Jane loved stories of adventure, especially when there was a spice of mystery in them.

Delighted at the eager interest of his young assistant, Mr. Garwick initiated her more and more into his confidences until there came a day when he admitted to his wife that he scarcely knew who ran the business, himself or Jane!

While she lost herself in her absorbing work, things were happening in the Powell cottage that were to effect Jane’s entire future.

When Mrs. Cross had died in Coal Run, leaving Jane to the kindly Mrs. Powell’s care, there had been a trunk of the girl’s things that were to be used for Jane by Mrs. Powell as the latter saw fit.

The trunk had remained in the Powell’s storeroom from that day, untouched and practically forgotten. Jane, who knew of her mother’s habit of saving practically worthless things, had felt no interest in it. When they moved from Coal Run the trunk had come too, and had been put in the open attic of the new house.

It would in all probability have remained there indefinitely, to be covered with dust and cobwebs and finally forgotten if Mrs. Powell had not been reminded of it by necessity.

Jane must have clothes. That much was certain, but where to get them was the problem.

Mrs. Powell thought that she could do with her old clothes at home, but Jane, as temporary wage-earner of the family, should be well dressed--if such a thing were possible.

Dubiously, Mrs. Powell examined her own wardrobe and Jane’s, only to decide finally that they were hopeless. Everything Jane had, had been changed and made over and dyed so often that they were only fit now for the rag-bag.

“Poor child, she must have some new clothes! But how?”

It was here that Mrs. Powell thought of the old trunk in the attic.

“Just the very thing! Why didn’t I think of it before?”

Mrs. Powell had the key of the trunk somewhere. It took her a considerable time to find it, but finally, armed and triumphant, she ascended to the attic to examine the things left by Mrs. Cross.

There was something almost eerie about the proceeding. The attic seemed very close and dusty, the silence of the empty house oppressive as Mrs. Powell fitted the key in the lock of the trunk and flung back the lid.

The contents lay revealed to her, clothing neatly folded, laid there by the hands of the dead woman.

Mrs. Powell felt a curious reluctance to disturb those things. She wanted suddenly to close the lid of the trunk, lock it, and leave the trunk, contents and all, to the accumulative cobwebs and dust of the attic.

“Nonsense!” she scolded, ashamed of her mood. “The things belong to Jane, they were to be used for her. Don’t be such a fool, Lou Powell!”

She took out layer after layer of faded, worn dresses, things that had been carefully laid away by a careful woman as having some possible use in time to come.

“Nothing for Jane here,” Mrs. Powell muttered, disappointed. “The clothes she has now are better than these old things. Hello--what’s this?”

“This” was a carefully folded piece of dark blue serge.

Here was a discovery! Enough for a new dress for Jane, probably.

Mrs. Powell shook it out eagerly, and to her amazement a large white envelope fell from the folds of it.

She picked up the envelope curiously and examined the words that were scrawled across it in pencil.

“To be read by Jane’s guardian and the contents to be disclosed
to Jane, should the guardian see fit.

“Sarah Cross.”

Mrs. Powell stared at the envelope for a long time, her brow wrinkled with bewilderment. Then, suddenly making up her mind, she tore open the flap of the envelope and drew forth a folded slip of paper.

Whatever the message of the dead woman, it disturbed Mrs. Powell profoundly.

She read and re-read the words on the paper, the frown on her face growing, the look of pain in her eyes deepening.

“My poor Jane! My poor, dear, loyal little Jane. Oh, this is dreadful, dreadful!” she moaned.

She sat there on the floor of the attic, the bit of paper in her hand, until the lengthening shadows warned her that the afternoon was almost gone.

She roused herself then and, with a deep sigh, she thrust the paper back into the envelope.

“Awful, awful! What shall I do?”

Automatically she replaced the faded dresses in the trunk, keeping out only the piece of dark serge that was to make Jane the much-needed new dress.

Then she rose wearily and stumbled down the steep steps of the attic.

She went into Jane’s room, that little barrack of a room with the one window where the sun seldom penetrated. Slowly Mrs. Powell looked about the room. In spite of its bareness, it was neat, clean, cheerful--like Jane herself.

“Dear child! I can’t tell her! I won’t tell her! Why, it would break her heart!”