The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 35, 31 August 1905, Page 23

The Storyteller

HER LEGACY

i. The room was illuminated only by the glow from the open door of the stoive. She sat on a low stool full in thje cone o£ ruddy light, her fingers interlocked across her knees, her face grave and meditative, its paleness intensified fey contrast with her dress of black. At her side, but a little further back, he was leaning forward in his rockingrch-air, elbows planted on its arms, hands claslped at the level of his chin, his face just withiai the line of radiance, its expression, like hers, set in the fixity of silent reverie. Both were young— on the debatable borderland between youth and maturity, Soumds of t/he outside night crept into the stillness of the room— the intermittent swish of gust-dri-ven rain against the window panes, the continuous drowsy hum of trolley cars a block or two away, the vogue murmurs of a gireat city borne from the highways of traffic into the seclusion of a by-street. ' I can picture the whole scene,' he said at last, summing u?p the thoughts that had given pause to their conversation. 1 Yes/ she responded, her eyes still fixed on the embietrs. ■' You know those three uncles of mine well enough to understand my shame and indignation. And Aunt Mary,, too— she kept talking about her husband's store, about toad debts and the latest rise in coal oil while her lb/rotiher lay dead in the next room. Poor Uncle Henry .'—the only gentle and refined nature among them all— the only one whose life had not been given to sordid grulbbing for cents and dollars.' ' I usett to enjoy a chat with him when I went along lor a jblook, and invariably en'dod by buying some old print as well. What a quaint and interesting shop, too, with the stacks of volumes climbing up the stairs ! Book-lovers' Corner !— it was happily named.' 'He was devotedly attached to the place— the books among which he lived, the people who came to rummage through his treasure heaps, the daily intercourse with scholarly men and women wno sought his advice. It was a pathetic little life story, Uncle Henry's. Do you know it ? ' ' Only so much as his surroundings suggested. I often wondered at the contrast between him and his brothers.' ' My mother told me a good many things last year, before she died. She was younger than her brother Henry— the youngest of all, although the first to go.' The girl paused, and breathed a little sigh. ' Henry was slr,u^i in! r ) fcpr teaching and in other ways, to enter college life long after his three elder brothers had become comfortably established in business. Dry goods, hardware, butchering— that was the bent, of their minds. And Aunt Mary, too, had married the most prosperous groceryman of the district. Only Henry and my motJher inclined to other things. My mother taught school before she married, just as I am doing now.' Her voice had dropper], till the last words oame but as an echo, 'soft and low, of saddened musing. 1 ,Not for long now, sweetheart,' he interposed, with a gentle hand touch of sympathy upon her shoulder. Slvo started, roused in the instant} from her lapse into dreaminess. ' Oh, I was not thinking of myself,' she replied brightly and resolutely. ' I was thinking of my dear mother, and of my father, whom I can just remember and nothing more. But we were speaking of Uncle Henry, weren't we 9 ' ' Yes ; he wanted to get to college.' ' Well, not one of his brothers offered a helping hand, and at last his health "broke down. At first he was acutely ill— in a hospital for several months. Then he was disdh'anpted, in better state, able to crawl around, but with the verdict of " incurable " hanging o\er his head. His was a chronic case now— one° of those insidious internal troubles that kill a man slowly but sirely durins; a year or two of increa<s'n<z; misery and sufferinc;. One doctor, however, declared that there was still hope— still the reasonable chance of recovery. But the invalid would have to leave New York at once —to go to a hot, dry cilimate, like that of Arizona or Egypt, and live there for quite a spell. To have advice was ome thing ; to act on it was qniite another. Henry had no money. His father and mother were dead. He was alone in the struggles of Hue world.' ' But his brothers ? ' 4 They were a handicap to him. The duty was so obviously theirs that others who might have helped naturally stooS aside. My mother pleaded with Ebene?er, Hiram, James— not one had a single dollar that

could be spared from his business. Aunt Maty wouldn't even put the question to her husband ; she wrote to Henry before he left the hospital, telling him that change of climate was useless, that she fcnew a young lady who went abroad afflicted just the same as he, but, after spending no end of money, returned home, only able to walk from her b-odroom to her parlor for months, until she died.' 1 Well, I'm blowed ! That was cheerful for a sick man. 1 So, with plentiful words of affection, she counselled resignation,, and seat him a little book ab»out religion that perhaps cost her a dime.' * 1 Pshaw ! ' •My mother read that letter, and she never forgave Mary her callous cruelty— never spoke an intimate word to her again so long as she Jived. W^ll, the doctor, it seems., guessing; at th© truth, mentioned the case to Boone, of Booklovers' Corner. And it was he who sent the invalid to Arizona^ kept him there for two whole years, and when he returned, cured and well, gave ham a place in the book store. That is how Lncle Henry came in time to be a partner, and at last the only active member of the firm.' ' Mr. Boone is still alive ? ' 'Yes, the dear old gentleman has come north from his home in Florida to bury bis deaa friend. tNow you will understand a great deal better what I am eoine to tell you next. Mr. Boone is Uncle Henry's executor and it was in accordance with the latter 's instructions that all relatives were called together the day before Ihe funeral. That was how I came to meet my Uncles kbenezer, Hiram, and James and Aunt Mary and her husband this morning in the dinijng-room above the book o tiorG 1 . The young man sat up with quickened interest ' But your Uncle Henry didn't die rich, did he ? ' T > / , No ] !10t as tiie wo ' rl(l counts men rich nowadays. ?, U^ ™ad a little to divide - When we were all assembled, Mr. Boone read the will. There are legacies of a thousand dollars to each of my uncles, to Aunt Mary and to me as his other sister's child.' '.) °.. u v say . he for §^ ye th «n their contemptible meanness .'—that he left a single dollar to the woman who had written hum such a letter in the old days ? ' 'It was just like Uncle Henry's sweet forgiveness to treat everybody the same- to forget all that had happened. The rest of his estate he has left to the charities in which he was long interested— the Young Folks' Summer Holiday Association ana the Hospital for Incurables.' ' And what do these bequests amount to ? ' ' That is "s\hiat Uncle Ebene/er askod. But Mr Boone replied that nothing would V* known until the estate was realised. Uncle Hiram laughed at his share —a thousand dollars, he said, wasn't worth the trouble of 'his coming out of the house on such a rainy day. inon they all fell to discussing the reason of the condition attached to the legacies.' Again the listener pricked up his ears. ' What was that ? ' ' That no one should attend the funeral— the legacy in, each case was to be forfeited if the beneficiary followed the fip&y to the grave.' 'By Jove. I don't wonder. It was a subtle little stroke. Your uncle wished no mockery of mourning before the world.' ' But my legacy is in exactly the same terms,' said the girl, glancing up at her lover. ' And Uncle Henry and I were always the best of friends.' ' Well, he treated you pretty shabbily in the end, ran' ing yo.i merely with people who had used him so ' You must not speak like that,' was the firm reioinder. •' Such a thought would be only worthy of those others, who went down their dead brother's stairs grumbling and disputing about the meaning of the will It was a shameful, pitiful display. I shall never forget it— never, rever ! ' She shivered in the intensity of her anger and disgust. ' Like the greedy, thankless crew,' m uttered the youne: man below his breath. 'Will they go to the funeral to-m,orrow ? ' he asl-ad aloud. ' I think ib hardly probable,' she answered. ' Well, there is no use quarrelling with the torms of a letracy,' he commented, with a shruip, of his shoulders ' A thousand dollars isn't much—but it is a thousand dollars all the same.' The glirl watched his face, in her own eyes an expression of mingled wonder and disappointment. But the young man was not looking at her. He pot up from his chair, flum<g> a shovelful^ of small coial into the stove, then stood erect, his form outlined against the leaping, gleaimin-g flames that instantly filled the iron cavity.

'It will mean a lot to us, Nettie dear^' he went on. •' You needn't go back to the scho"olho,use. Why can't we marry now, right away ? ' She, too, rose to her feet, her lips compressed, her face paler than ever, her look of concern growing to one of real pain. But still hc-r emotion passed unseen by him ; she had turned aside and was resting an elbow on the piano. ' This is no time to talk of such a thing,' she said coldly. '*Only a few hours ago i gazed on my dea,d uncle's face, when the others had gone. For many a long day there will be sadness in my heart. Now leave me, Norman. This evening I wish to fee alone.' Her eyes sought las now, and at last their reproachfulness smote him. 1 Oh, of coarse there will be the usual p-eriod of mourning,' he murmured, abashed and confuted. ' I didn't mean anything else, Nettie. You know that, don't you ? '> 1 Go, please, gio.' She held out her hand; there was a sob in her voice, the shine of tears in her eyes. Then he went his way into the rainstorm and the darkness,, and she was alone with the fire glow, her chastened girfefi for the dead, the dull awakening consciousness that something in her golden dream of love had been changed to dross. 11. On the following evening he found himeelf again in her rooms. She had been out all day, but it could not be long now before she would be home. Ho the landlady, who knew the relation in which the young people stood, had meantime made him comfortable, turning on the electinc Myht and replenishing tho stovo. Ilefyvy rain, unremitting during several days, was still splashing dismally outside. He v/as a handsome young fellow, square built and strong, comely of feature, with ability, self-reliance, and correct living written on e\ cry lme of his face— such a man, by outward seeming, as any maiden might ha\c deemed herself happy to have won. 'He paced the room disturbfeid and nervous, pausing every now and then to examine some trifle, aimlessly, half unconsciously— & photograph on the mantel, a book on the table, the broadleaved piot-plant in the window recess. At last he heard the outer door open, and he came to a halt. A minute later she entered the room. As he closed tho door behind her he caught a glimpse of the dripping cloak, umbrella, and rubbers that had been surrendered to the landlady in the hall. But, disencumbered from her panoply of waterproofing, the girl was dry and warm, rosy with the cold and exercise. She gjave him her hand. ' Where have you been ? ' he asked. ' Where would you think ? ' she answered. Ho gazed at her black gown, her black hat— watched her drawing the black kid glows from her Infers. 1 Yoii don't mean to tell me that you went to the funeral? ' His voice vibrated with the restraint he was imposing upon himself. 1 Yes, I ha\e been to poor Uncle Henry's funeral.' With pjrave self-ip'ossession she unpinnc-d her hat, and laid it by her side on the table. He took a step forward, and looked down at her. ' What foolishness ! What utter foolishness ! ' he exclafmed bitterly. ' When 1 didn't finid you at home I began to fear it. So you have sacrificed common sense to sentiment. You have deliberately thrown away that legacy.' Her faco paled. She becl-oncd him to a chair at a little distance. ' Yes, I threw away that legacy. Sit down, Norman. When you left me last night I Aveighed every question involved. Was Ito allow the uncle who had always been kind to me and my mother to go to his grave unwept and unhonored— no one of Hn lo him giving sign of regret for his loss or of respect for his memory ? Would you have asked me to do that, Norman, for the sake of a thousand dollars or ton times a thousand 9 ' ' His own deliberate act imposed the condition,' was the sullen rejoinder ' I bet that not one of the others turned u(p at the graveside— they stuck close to their legacies.' ' Yes , his hi others Ebenezer, Hiram, James, his sister Mary, all were absent. It was the more fitting, therefore, -that I should ha there.' ' And you never thought of me— of our future ' You know my struggle to get a start— my helplessness in the law business without some capital. You know quite well that lhat money would have got me the partnership with Kingston. I went to see him this morning ; we talked it over ; everything was settled. And now I come here to find that all my efforts are undone.'

In his agitation he had risen from his seat, taken but a moment before at her bidding. She surveyed him calmly ; sne sp.oJce with gentle sadness, but with none oi the trembling irresolution of the night before. ' Two days ago, Norman, I should have deemed it impossible that yoiu would have spoken like this to me —that you would have counselled me to wrong my conscience, to go contrary to my sense of right, for the sake of money. You say I. have thrown away my legacy. Bui. I lose much more than that— l lose the faith I had in you. My dream of happiness is over. 1 He moved uncomfortably and ins face flushed. ' Oh, it needn't amount to that, 1 he murmured. ' I suppose we'll get over the loss of the money.' ' But the loss of faith ? ' ' Sentiment again,' he protested. 1 Then sentiment shall rule my life,' she • replied, drawing a ring from her finger and placing it upon the table. ' I t|egin to think that sentiment may b«e) a, better guide to one's conduct than reasoned judgment. Everything is ended. But I want you to learn the lesson that the instinct of right is always the wisest one to follow. Let me tell you what happened to-day, Norman. Please sit down again. 1 Mechanically and without a word he obeyed her "Uncle Henry was laid in the grave by his old friend, Mr. Boone and myself. When all was otver we returned to Booklovers' Corner. There, to my surprise, I found my three uncles and my aunt once more assembled. They had bpen sent for by Mr. Boone's instructions. For there was a codicil to the will to be read after the funeral.' The glimmer of dawning intelligence was in the listener's eyes now. The girl continued : 1 The first legacies wcie revoked, and 10,000 dollars ueieleft to each brother or sister who had forfeited his or her benefit under the will by taking part in the funeral. An eiqjual sum was left to me, but with no condition attached, doubtless for my dear mother's sake However, the will further prouded that if I had attended at t'hc grancside I Ayas to be sole residuary legatee after certain large charitable bequests had been paid out of the estate.' ' So ho was rich after all ? ' lin the old days of youthful aijiiig,, it appears that ho had "gained the friendship of a minor in Arizona. Through this connection there came the chance, later on, to take a financial interest in a prospecting venture. For ten long years Uncle Henry paid contributions to a doubtful mine. Only two years ago it tu mod out to be a bonanza. But he would never leave the old shop— the 800 Movers' Corner he loved so well —the business he was managing for his aged benefactor.' ' His brothers will fight that will.' ' That is what they "at once threatened. But Uncle Henry had provided for this very continpjency. A year before he tiled he had deeded ail his property to Mr. Eo>>nc. So theie was no real will— just an honorable understanding between Iwo friends, scaled now by deatih. Why I am so late tCFinght is that Mr. Boone and I ha\o been to a trust company's office, where everything has been transferred into my name. 1 The young lawyer drew a deep breath. He stood erect and began buttoning his coat. ' ' You aro right, Nettie. This ends our dream. If you had remained poor, some day I would have owned my fault, and begged your forgiveness for my ill-humor to-night.\ For even while I was blaming, in my heart I was admiring you. But, of course, my self-respect forbids apology now. Good-night.' She made no move, uttered no word to detain him. When ho was gone, wiien the click of the closing front door had reached her ear, she rose, turned off the electric li'gjht, threw open the stove, and nestled down on the rug amid the warmth and the softened radiance. Thus for a long time she remained, searching her heart and weighi/ng the life issues., .j The fire had burned low, Ihe room was almost in darkness. But ad last she stirred, and, rising to her knees, reached forth a hand for the engagement ring still lyin.fl on the table. As she stooped towards the dull red of the ashes to gaze upon the discarded trinket, there was the shimmer of brilliants— and the gleam of love^light in her eyes as well. Had the manliness with which he had taken his lesson redeemed Mm ? Had her woman's heart been touched with new tenderness by his very need for her forgiveness 9 Had reflection brought realisation that loac may not claim perfection, but can only hope to help toward it ? She did not. restore the hoop of gold to its accustomed finger. But «he looped it on a bit of ribbon at her breast, and, after a long, lingering kiss, slipped it within the folds of her dress.— Exchange.