The Boarded-Up House (14 page)

“You must not, however, think that in all these years and these absorbing interests, I had forgotten my mother. On the contrary, especially when I was in the wilderness, she was constantly in my thoughts. Before I left California for Canada (the war was then over some four or five years) I had contemplated writing to her, informing her of the mistake about my death, and begging her once more to forgive me. But, for several reasons, I did not do this. In the first place, I had heard of the exceeding bitterness of the South, increased tenfold by the period of reconstruction through which it was then passing. Old grudges, they told me, were cherished more deeply than ever, and members of the same family often regarded each other with hatred. Of what use for me then, I thought, to sue for a reconciliation at such a time.

“Beside that, my very pride was another barrier. I had not been successful. I was, in fact, practically penniless. Would it not appear as though I were anxious for a reconciliation because I did not wish to lose the property which would one day have been mine, had not my mother disinherited me? No, I could never allow even the hint of such a suspicion. I would wait.

“But, in the Canadian wilderness, I began to see matters in another light. So far from the haunts of humanity and the clash of human interests, one cannot help but look at all things more sanely. It occurred to me that perhaps my mother, far from cherishing any bitter feeling toward me, now that she thought me dead, might be suffering agonies of grief and remorse because we had not been reconciled before the end. If there were even a possibility of this, I must relieve it. So I sat down one day, and wrote her the most loving, penitent letter, begging anew for forgiveness, and giving her the history of my adventures and my whereabouts. This letter I sent off by my guide, to be mailed at the nearest trading-post.

“It took him a month to make the journey there and back. I waited three months more, in great impatience, then sent him back to the same post, to see if there might be a reply. He came back in due time, but bringing nothing for me, and I felt that my appeal had been in vain. Nevertheless, a few months later I wrote again, with no better result. My guide returned empty-handed. And during the last year I was there, I made the third and final trial, and, when again no answer came, I felt that it was beyond all hope to expect forgiveness, since she could ignore three such urgent appeals.

“I have just learned from my mother that these letters were never received by her, which is a great surprise to me, but I think I know the explanation. My guide was not honest,—indeed, few of them are,—but, strangely enough, I never discovered any dishonesty in him, while he was with me. At that time, the postage on letters from that region was very high, sometimes as much as fifty or sixty cents, or even a dollar. This, of course, I always gave to the guide to use in sending the letter when he got to the trading-post. Now, though the sum seems small to us, it was large to him. And though I never suspected it at the time, I have no doubt that he pocketed the money and simply destroyed the letters. So that explains why my mother never received any of them.

“Well, I returned to California a rich man, able to indulge myself in any form of amusement or adventure that pleased me. I found that I still felt the lure of foreign countries, and the less explored or inhabited, the better. I shipped for a voyage to Japan and China, and spent several more years trying to penetrate the forbidden fastnesses of Tibet. From there, I worked down through India, found my way to the South Sea Islands, and landed at length in Australia with the intention of penetrating farther into that continent than any white man had yet set foot.

“I think by this time, I had pretty well lost all desire ever to return to America, especially to New York. But at intervals I still felt an inexpressible longing to see or hear from my mother. Ten or twelve added years had slipped by, and it did not seem human that she should continue to feel bitterly toward me. I had almost decided to write to her once more, when in Sydney, New South Wales, where I happened to be looking over the files of an old New York paper in the public library, I stumbled on the death-notice of a Mrs. Fairfax Collingwood of Chesterton, South Carolina. The paper was dated seven years before.

“The knowledge was like a knife-wound in my heart. There could be no doubt of the truth. I knew of no other of that name, and the town was the very one in which she lived. My mother now tells me that she knew of this mistake, an error of the New York paper in copying the item from a Southern journal. As a matter of fact, it was a very distant cousin of hers who had died, a Mrs. Fanshawe Collingwood, who also lived in the town. She was my mother's only living relative, and the paper mentioned this circumstance. But when the New York paper copied it, they left out all about the surviving cousin, and merely mentioned the name of the deceased as ‘Mrs. Fairfax Collingwood' My mother had this rectified in a later publication of the paper, but that, of course, I never saw.

“Well, I went into the heart of Australia under the impression that I was now really motherless, and under that impression I have lived ever since. I cannot now detail to you all my wanderings and adventures. I will only say that I became deeply interested in the Australian gold mines, bought up one finally, and have superintended its running ever since. Lately, it became necessary for me to make a business trip to New York in connection with this mine, and I decided to come by way of Europe, since I had never seen that portion of the globe. My business would not keep me in New York more than a week, and I intended to travel at once back to Australia across the continent, in order to see the changes that had taken place since I left.

“I had absolutely no idea of visiting this old home. Why, indeed, should I? My mother, as I supposed, was dead. Nothing else mattered. I had no interest in the property. For aught I knew it might have changed hands twenty times since we lived there. It might not even be in existence.. At any rate, I had no wish to revive the bitterness of that memory. Then came the strange note this morning, which I believe you, Miss Joyce, are responsible for!

“To say that I was completely bewildered by it, would be putting it mildly. It made a statement that was new to me, indeed, and might account for many things. But what was I to do about it? Which way should I turn? No use to hurry down to South Carolina,—my mother being dead. Of whom should I make inquiries? The firm of New York lawyers that I remembered her as formerly retaining, I dreaded to consult, lest they think I had come to make a claim on the property. There seemed to be absolutely no clue.

“And then I happened to look at the envelope and saw that it was postmarked ‘Rockridge,' a region which I speedily ascertained was right in the vicinity of my old home. That decided me to come out here at once, this afternoon, hunt up the spot, and try to discover in this way whether there was any use of pursuing investigations further in this direction.

“As I have said, I naturally supposed that the property had changed hands many times before this; and that all its old belongings had long since been sent to my mother or sold by her orders.

“When I arrived in this street and saw the old house still standing, forlorn, unkempt, apparently deserted, and quite unchanged since I knew it, I was still more astonished. But when I noticed the little door in the boarding standing open, I resolved to begin my investigations right there, and I boldly went up and knocked. Then Miss Joyce came out and announced that a member of the Collingwood family was here on business. That, too, seemed incredible, as I remembered no surviving member of the family. Discretion, however, seemed to me the better part of valor, and I decided to give the name that I had borne during my first years in California, till I could ascertain more definitely just what the situation was.

“So I came in—as Mr. Arthur Calthorpe—and the mystery deepened tenfold when I saw this old room all lit up precisely as I had remembered it so many years ago. It so carried me back into my youth that, for a few moments, I quite lost track of the present. And when I came to the old piano, the impulse seized me to play a few bars and hum the lines of a little song I had once composed for my mother, I had at that time rather a gift for music, and this song was a sort of secret of ours—I never sang or played it for any one else. And she remembered it!

“Well, you know the rest!—” And he stopped abruptly. They all drew long breaths of relaxed tension.

“There's something that has puzzled me all along” began Joyce, at last. “I wonder if Mrs. Collingwood would object to my asking about it?”

“No, indeed, dear child,” replied that lady. “Have no hesitation in asking what you wish.”

“It's this, then. I have often and often wondered why you never came back to this beautiful old home, or at least sent for the books and pictures and lovely things that were going to ruin here. Did you never think of it?”

“I do not wonder that you ask,” answered Mrs. Collingwood, “for it must have seemed very strange to an outsider. Of course, for the first few years, my anger had been so great, and my grief was still so terrible, that I felt I could never, never look upon the place or anything in it again. Then, as you have heard, I willed the house itself and the land to the Southern Society, as I had no one to whom I wished to leave it, and my means were sufficient, so that I did not need to sell it. As the years passed on, however, and my feelings altered, I did begin to think it a pity that the place should run to neglect and ruin.

“So strong did this conviction become, that I decided to come North myself, and personally superintend putting the house in order. I could not bear to leave this task to outsiders. I even thought that, if I found I could endure the memories, I would live in it a while, for the sake of the old happy years with my little boy. I even had my trunks packed and my ticket bought, when suddenly I came down with typhoid fever, so severe an attack that it was thought I could not live. That ended all thoughts of my coming North for a long while, as I was miserably weak and helpless for months after, and in fact, have never quite recovered my strength. The years drifted on and with them came old age, and the reluctance to make the long journey and endure the strain of it all. Had it not been for Miss Cynthia's letter, I should never have come.

“But, to change the subject a trifle, my son is very anxious to know how you two young things have come to be concerned in all this, and I have not yet had time to tell him—fully. Will you not give him an account of it now? It is very wonderful.”

And so they began, first Joyce and then Cynthia,—interrupting and supplementing each other. They were still rather anxious on the subject of meddling and trespassing, but they did not try to excuse themselves, recounting the adventures simply and hiding nothing. The older people listened intently, sometimes amused, sometimes touched, often more deeply moved than they cared to show.

“We began it at first just for fun,—we pretended to be detectives. But as it went on, we got more and more deeply interested, till at last this—this all seemed more important than our own lives,” ended Joyce. “Only, I know we did wrong in the beginning ever to come in here at all. We are trespassers and meddlers, and I hope you can forgive us!”

“The dearest little meddlers in the world!” cried Mrs. Collingwood. “Can any forgiveness be necessary?” And she cuddled them both in her arms.

“There's just one thing
I'd
like to ask, if you don't mind,” said Cynthia, coming suddenly out of a brown study. “It's the one thing we never could account for. Why was that room upstairs locked, and what has become of the key?” Mrs. Collingwood flushed.

“I locked the door and threw the key down the well—that night!” she answered slowly. “I don't suppose you can quite understand, if you are not afflicted with a passionate temper, as I was. When my son—when Fairfax here—had gone, and I was shutting up the house and came to his room,—I wanted to go in,—oh, you cannot know how I wanted to go in! But I knew that if I once entered and stood among his dear belongings, I should relent— I should rush away to find him and beg him to come back to me. And I—I did not
want
to relent! I stood there five minutes debating it. Then I suddenly locked the door on the outside, and before giving myself time for a second thought, I rushed downstairs, out of doors, and threw the key into the old well,— where I could never get it again!

“Children, I am an old woman. I shall be seventy-five next birthday. Will you heed a lesson I have learned and paid for with the bitterest years of my life? If you are blessed with a calm, even, forgiving nature, thank God for it always. But if you are as I was, pray daily for help to curb that nature, before you have allowed it to work some desperate evil!” She hid her face in her hands.

“There, there, little Mother of mine!” murmured her son. “Let us forget all that now! What does anything matter so long as we are together again—for always?” He leaned over, pulled her hands from her face, and kissed her tenderly. The moment was an awkward one, and Cynthia wished madly that she had not been prompted to ask that unfortunate question. Suddenly, however, the tension was broken by Mrs. Collingwood exclaiming:

“Mercy me! See that enormous
cat
walking in! Wherever did it come from?” They all turned toward the door.

“Oh, that's Goliath!” said Joyce, calmly. “He feels very much at home here, for he has come in with us often. He led the way that first day, if you remember. And he's been
such
a help!—He's a better detective than any of us!”

“Blessings on Goliath then, say I!” laughed Mr. Fairfax Collingwood, and, approaching the huge feline with coaxing words, he gathered its unresisting form in his arms and deposited the warm, furry purring beast in his mother's lap.

And while they were all laughing over and petting Goliath, a queer thing happened. The candles, which had been burning now for several hours, had, unnoticed by all, been gradually guttering and spluttering out. At length only four or five flames remained, feebly wavering in their pools of melted wax. The occupants of the room had been too absorbed with their own affairs to notice the gradual dimming of the illumination. But now Joyce suddenly looked up and perceived what had happened.