Part 68 (1/2)

After dinner when her sister had gone out and Jenny, except for the servant, was alone in the old house, she began to sort her mother's relics. One after another they were put away in a big trunk still plentifully plastered with railway labels of Clacton G.E.R. and Liverpool Street, varied occasionally by records of Great Yarmouth.

Steadily the contents of the box neared the top with ordered layers of silk dresses and mantles. Hidden carefully in their folds were old prayer books and thimbles, ostrich plumes and lace. Jenny debated for a moment whether to bury an old wax doll with colorless face and fragile baby-robes of lawn--a valuable old doll, the plaything in childhood of the wife of Frederick Horner, the chemist.

”I suppose by rights Alfie or Edie ought to have that,” Jenny thought.

”But it's too old for kids to knock about. If they remember about it, they can have it.”

So the old doll was relegated to a lavendered tomb. ”After all,” thought Jenny, ”we wasn't even allowed to play with it. Only just hold it gently for a Sunday treat.”

Next a pile of old housekeeping books figured all over in her mother's neat thin handwriting were tied round with a bit of blue ribbon and put away. Then came the problem of certain pieces of china which Mrs.

Raeburn when alive had cherished. Now that she was dead Jenny felt they should be put away with other treasures. These ornaments were vital with the pride of possession in which her mother had enshrined them and should not be liable to the humiliation of careless treatment.

At last only the contents of the desk remained, and Jenny thought it would be right to look carefully through these that nothing which her mother would have wished to be destroyed should be preserved for impertinent curiosity. The desk smelt strongly of the cedar-wood with which it was lined, and the perfume was powerfully evocative of the emotions of childish inquisitiveness and awe which it had once always provoked. Here were the crackling letters of the old Miss Horners, and for the first time Jenny read the full history of her proposed adoption.

”Good job that idea got crushed,” she thought, appalled by the profusion of religious sentiment and half annoyed by their austere prophecies and savage commentaries upon the baby Jenny. In addition to these letters there was a faded photograph of her parents in earliest matrimony and another photograph of someone she did not recognize--a man with a heavy mustache and by the look of his clothes prosperous.

”Wonder who he was,” Jenny speculated. ”Perhaps that man who was struck on her and who she wouldn't go away with.” This photograph she burned.

Suddenly, at the bottom of the packet of letters, Jenny caught sight of a familiar handwriting which made her heart beat with the shock of unexpected discovery.

”However on earth did that come there?” she murmured as she read the following old letter from Maurice.

422 G. R.

Friday.

My little darling thing,

I've got to go away this week-end, but never mind, I shall see you on Tuesday, or anyway Wednesday for certain. I'll let you know at the theater. Good night, my sweet one. You know I'm horribly disappointed after all our jolly plans. But never mind, my dearest, next week it will be just as delightful. 422 kisses from Maurice.

The pa.s.sion which had once made such sentences seem written with fire had long been dead. So far as the author was concerned, this old letter had no power to move with elation or dejection. No vestige even of fondness or sentiment clung to this memorial of antic.i.p.ated joy. But why was it hidden so carefully in her mother's desk, and why was it crumpled by frequent reading? And how could it have arrived there in the beginning? It was written in February after Jenny had left home. She must have dropped it on one of her visits, and her mother finding it must have thought there was something behind those few gay words. Jenny tried to remember if she had roused the suspicion of an intrigue by staying for a week-end with some girl friend. But, of course, she was away all the time, and often her mother must have thought she was staying with Maurice. All her scruples, all her care had gone for nothing. She had wrecked her love to no purpose, for her mother must have been weighed down by the imagination of her daughter's frailty. She must have brooded over it, fed her heart with the bitterness of disappointment and, ever since that final protest which made Jenny leave home, in gnawing silence. Jenny flung the letter into the fire and sat down to contemplate the dreadful fact that she had driven her mother slowly mad. These doctors with their abscess were all wrong. It was despair of her daughter's behavior which had caused it all. She went into the kitchen and watched the servant wrestle inadequately with her work, then wandered back to the parlor and slammed the lid of the trunk down to shut out the reproach of her mother's possessions. It was growing late. Soon she must get ready to start for the theater. What a failure she was! The front door bell rang and Jenny, glad of relief from her thoughts, went to open it. Trewh.e.l.la, wringing wet, stepped into the pa.s.sage.

”Why, Miss Raeburn,” he said, ”here's a grand surprise.”

”Have you had your tea?” the hostess inquired.

”Ess, had tea an hour ago or more. Dirty weather, 'tis, sure enough.”

He had followed her into the parlor as he spoke, and in the gray gloom he seemed to her gigantic and like rock immovable.

”Finished your business?” she asked, oppressed by the silence which succeeded his entrance.

”Ess, this right of way is settled for good or bad, according to which one's happy. And now I've got nothing to do but wait for your answer.”

The lamplighter's click and dying footfall left the room in a ghostly radiance, and the pallid illumination streaming through the lace curtains threw their reflection on the walls and table in a filigree of shadows.

”I'll light the gas,” said Jenny.

”No, don't; but hark to what I do say. I'm regular burnt up for love of 'ee. My heart is like lead so heavy for the long waiting. Why won't 'ee marry me, my lovely? 'Tis a proper madness of love and no mistake. Maid Jenny, what's your answer?”

”All right. I will marry you,” she said coldly. ”And now let me turn on the gas.”