The Little Red Chimney Part 15

Rob was known to have lost money on the races. He was the only one beside the general himself who had access to the safe, and who knew that this money, several thousand dollars, was there at this time. That is, so it was supposed.

"Knowing them both, one can easily understand the outcome. Robert disappeared, and a few years later, when the general died, he left his fortune to William Knight, his wife's nephew. Then after some little time the real thief turned up. I won't go into that, further than to say that it was through a deathbed confession to a priest. Since then Knight has been searching far and wide for some trace of Robert, only to receive last week the evidence of his death twenty-five years ago.

And now comes the strange part of the story. The very day on which he received this news, Knight came by chance upon a book which he recognised as once the property of Robert Waite. The owner's name was cut from the fly leaf, but below it was written the name of a young man whose acquaintance he had made last winter, Robert Deane Reynolds.

Deane was Rob's middle name, so naturally it led to an investigation."

Mr. Pennington looked over at Margaret Elizabeth. "Have I told a straight story?" he asked.

"There were letters, you know," she prompted.

"Oh, yes. This young man had letters which I could have identified anywhere."

Mrs. Pennington was interested. She asked questions. That absurd story about a Candy Wagon was untrue then? But how had Margaret Elizabeth met this person? She still referred to him as a person. And somehow the united efforts of Margaret Elizabeth and Mr. Pennington failed to clear up the mystery, though they did their best.

Even if the Candy Wagon episode was to be regarded as humorous, though it did not present itself in that light to Mrs. Pennington, how could Margaret Elizabeth have asked a Candy Man to her Christmas tree?

"But you see, by that time I knew he wasn't real, Aunt Eleanor, and anyway--"

"Now go slow, Margaret Elizabeth," cautioned her uncle. "At heart you are a confounded little socialist, but take my advice and keep it to yourself." He was thinking of what she had said to him only the day before: "You see, Uncle Gerry, you can't have everything. You have to choose. And while I like bigness and richness, I like Little Red Chimneys and what they stand for, best. I want to be on speaking terms with both ends, you see."

"It is odd," Mr. Pennington went on, "the tricks heredity plays, and that this young man and Augustus McAllister should both hark back to a common ancestor for their general characteristics of build and feature.

I was struck with the resemblance, myself."

"It was what first attracted me," owned Margaret Elizabeth demurely.

The name of Augustus still had painful a.s.sociations for Mrs. Pennington.

She rose. "Really we must be going," she said. At some future time she felt she might be able to meet Mr. Reynolds or Waite, or whatever his name was, with equanimity, but now she was thankful to hear he had gone back to Chicago for some papers.

She received Margaret Elizabeth's farewell embrace languidly. "Since there is such weight of authority in your favour, and matters have developed so strangely, there is nothing for me to say. I dislike mystery, and prefer to have things go on regularly and according to precedent. It is your welfare I have at heart."

Mr. Pennington's good-by was different.

"I don't wonder you like it down here, Margaret Elizabeth--this room, you know," he said.

As they drove homeward Mrs. Pennington was engaged in mentally reconstructing affairs. "Of course," she heard herself saying, "it was a disappointment to me, but romantic girls are not to be controlled by common-sense aunts, and really it might be worse." And she remarked aloud: "The fact that he is a nephew of General Waite means something."

"That's so," a.s.sented her husband. "Something like half a million.

Old Knight is determined to hand it all over." He smiled to himself, then added: "He came to see me--the young man, I mean. I liked him.

He suggested Rob a little without resembling him. Very gentlemanly; nice eyes."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

_In which the Fairy G.o.dmother Society is again mentioned, among other things_.

"But it is really embarra.s.sing when I had made up my mind to marry a poor Candy Man to have it turn out so. I rather liked defying common sense," said Margaret Elizabeth.

The Candy Man had made a hurried journey to Chicago, and was back before the rain was over, and while it was still cold enough for a fire, so that his old dream of sometime sitting by the Little Red Chimney's hearth was coming true. Margaret Elizabeth in the blue dress, by request, though she declared it wasn't fit to be seen, occupied the ottoman, her elbows on her knees, the firelight playing in her bright hair.

"It is the way it happens in fairy-tales," urged the Candy Man. "And I really couldn't help it."

"Of course you are right," she agreed. "As Virginia's story runs, 'He turned into a prince, and because Violetta had been true to him through thick and thin, he made her a princess.' Anyhow, Candy Man, I'm glad I chose you before your good fortune came."

"It was an extremely venturesome thing to do, Girl of All Others, as I have told you before, though immensely flattering to me. I have to take the money, there is no way out of it. I believe it would break our Miser's heart if I refused. Do you know what he was proposing to do before he found the book?"

"What?" asked Margaret Elizabeth.

"To adopt me. You see we had come to be pretty good friends last winter, and I think he suspected from the start that I had rather lofty aspirations for a Candy Man. In a Little Red Chimney direction--you understand?"

"Perfectly--go on."

"Well, he saw us in the park----"

"And his suspicions were confirmed, I suppose," put in Margaret Elizabeth, coolly.

"Exactly. And knowing from what I had told him previously that I had my fortune to seek, it occurred to him that as the channel he had been hoping for had been closed, the next best thing would be to make it possible for two young persons to----"

"The dear old Miser!" interrupted Margaret Elizabeth. "But why is he so unwilling to use the money himself? It is honestly his."

"I may not fully understand, but I think from things he has said, that as a boy he was jealous of my father. This feeling would naturally make him, when it came to the test, not unwilling to believe in his guilt.

Then, being reticent and introspective, he magnified all this a thousandfold when the truth came out, and he realised he had profited by the unjust suspicion. By dwelling upon it he came to feel as if he had actually obtained the money himself by unfair means. But I am convinced that if he did encourage his uncle to believe in my father's guilt, it was because he firmly believed it himself. Never since the facts were known has he regarded the money as his, and not until he had almost exhausted his own means in the effort to trace the rightful owner, as he regarded him, did he use a penny of it."

"It is so touching to see his surprise and grat.i.tude that I do not feel resentful toward him," added the Candy Man. "His joy at handing over this fortune is wonderful. He already looks a different man."

"We must make it up to him in some way," said Margaret Elizabeth. "I mean for all these lonely years. Speaking of money, I'll tell you what I have been thinking. When we build our house, as I suppose we shall some day, when we come back from our search for the Archaeologist----"

"By all means. That is one mitigating circ.u.mstance. We can build a house," responded the Candy Man.

"Well, as I was going to say, we must have a Little Red Chimney. The house will be broad and low," she extended her arms, "and with wings; I love wings. One of them shall have a Little Red Chimney all its own.

It shall stand for our ideals. If we should be tempted to a sort of life that separates us from our fellows, it will remind us, you, that you once sat in a Candy Wagon, me, that I fell in love with a Candy Man. And I'll tell you what, speaking of the Miser. Don't you remember? It was he you meant that day when we were talking about the Fairy G.o.dmother Society, and----"

Of course the Candy Man remembered.

"Then, let's organise and make him chief agent while we are gone. I know of a number of things to be done."

"So do I," said the Candy Man. "There is my fellow lodger, the one I told you about, a teacher in the High School. He needs a real change this summer, he and his wife."

"Oh, I am sure we can work it out," cried Margaret Elizabeth.

"I am sure we can," he a.s.sented.

"You see it will begin where organised charity leaves off, of necessity.

Also where that can't possibly penetrate, and it will be singularly free, because secret."

"Again you sound like the minutes of the first meeting," said the Candy Man.

"Margaret Elizabeth!"