Cloudy Jewel Part 35

Allison's face darkened and his eyes looked stern and hard. He said something under his breath angrily. Jane couldn't catch the words, but he drew her close in his arms and held her tenderly:

"And were those papers never found, dear?" he asked after a moment:

"Yes," said Jane wearily, resting her head back against his shoulder, "I found them, after father died."

"You found them?"

"Yes, I found them slipped down behind the chest in the hall. It was a heavy oak chest, a great carved affair that had belonged in the family a long time, and it was seldom moved. It stood below the hat-rack in the alcove in the hall, and I figured it out that the man must have meant to keep those papers himself, so there would be no incriminating evidence in father's hands, and that he must have picked them up without father's noticing and started to carry them home; but that when he was going away, putting on his overcoat, he had somehow dropped some of them behind that chest without knowing it. Because they were not all there--two of them were missing. Father had described them to me, and three--the most important ones with the empty envelope--were found. The other two were probably larger, and looked like the whole bundle, which explains how he came to think he had them all. But the two he had and must have had about him when he was killed would not in themselves have been any evidence against him.

So, my father was arrested----!"

The tears choked Jane's voice and suddenly rained into her sweet eyes as she struggled to recall the whole sorrowful experience.

"Oh, my darling!" cried Allison, tenderly holding her close.

"Father was very brave. He said it was sure to come out all right, but he wouldn't accept bail, though it was offered him by several loyal friends. He saw that they suspected him, and the papers all came out with big headlines, 'CHURCH ELDER ARRESTED.'"

Allison's voice was deep with loving sympathy as his lips swept her forehead softly and he murmured, "My poor little girl!" but Jane went bravely on.

"That was a hard time," she said with trembling lips, "but G.o.d was good; he didn't let it last long. There came an old friend back from abroad who had known father ever since he was a boy, and who happened to have been a.s.sociated with him in business long enough to give certain proofs that cleared the whole thing up. In a week the case was dismissed so far as father was concerned, and he was back at home again, and restored to the full confidence of his business a.s.sociates--that is, those who knew intimately about the matter. If father had lived I have no doubt everything would have been all right, and he would have been able to live down the whole thing, but the trouble had struck him hard, he was so terribly worried for my sake, you know. Then he took a little cold which we didn't think anything about, and suddenly, before we realized it, he was down with double pneumonia from which he never rallied. His vitality seemed to be gone. After he died, the papers said beautiful things about his bravery and courage and Christianity, and people tried to be nice, but when it was all over there were still people who looked at me curiously when I pa.s.sed, and whispered noticeably together; and that man's wife and daughter openly called me a forger's daughter and said that my father had stolen their income, when all the time they were living on what he had given up to save them from disgrace.

The daughter made it so unpleasant for me that I decided to go away where I was not known, although I had several dear beautiful homes opened to me if I had chosen to stay, where I might have been a daughter and treated as one of the other children. But I thought it was better to go away and make my own life----"

"But you had evidence. Did you never go and tell those two how wrong they were and how it was their father, not yours, who was the forger?"

"No, not exactly," said Jane, lifting clear untroubled eyes to his face. "You see that was part of father's obligation; it was a point of honor not to give that man's shame away to his wife--he had promised--and then, the man, was dead--he could not be brought to justice; what good would it do?"

"It would have done the good that those two women wouldn't have gone around snubbing you and telling lies about you----"

"Oh, well, after all, that didn't really hurt me----"

"And that brazen girl wouldn't have dared come here to the same college and make it hot for you----!"

"Allison! How did you _know_?" Jane sat up and looked into his eyes, startled.

"I knew from the first mention that it must have been Eugenia Frazer.

No girl in her senses would have taken the trouble to do what she did to-day without some grievance----! Oh, that girl! She is beyond words!

Think of anybody ever falling in love with her! I'd like the pleasure of informing her what her father was. Of course, though, it wasn't her fault. She couldn't help her father being what he was, but she could help what she is herself. I should certainly like to see her get what's coming to her----!"

"Don't Allison--please! It isn't the right spirit for us to have.

Perhaps I'd be just like her if I were in her place----"

"I see you being like her--you angel!" And Allison leaned over again to look into the eyes of his beloved.

"Well, dear, we'll get the right spirit about it somehow, and forget her, but I mean she shall understand right where she gets off before this thing goes any farther. No, you needn't protest. I'm not going to give away your confidence. But I'm going to settle that girl where she won't dare to make any more trouble for you ever again. And the first thing we're going to do is to announce our engagement. I feel like going up to the college bulletin board right this minute and writing it out in great big letters!"

"Allison!" Jane sat up with s.h.i.+ning eyes and her cheeks very red. Then they both broke down and laughed, Jane's merriment ending in a serious look.

"Allison, you really _want me_, now you know what people may think about my father?"

"Jane, I've known all that since I first saw you. Our beloved pastor kindly informed me of it the night he introduced us, so you see how little weight it had with any of us. I had no knowledge but that it was all true, although I couldn't for the life of me see how a man who was unworthy of you could have possibly been your father; but it was you, and not your father, I fell in love with the first night I saw you. I'm mighty glad for your sake that he wasn't that kind of man, because I know how you would feel about it, but as for what other people think about it, _I should worry_! And Jane, make up your mind right here and now that we're going to be married the day we both graduate, see? I won't wait a day longer to have the right to protect you----"

The tall trees whispered above their heads, and the birds looked down and dropped wonderful melodies about them, and Leslie stormily drove her car back and forth on the pike and sounded her klaxon loud and long, but it was almost an hour later that it suddenly occurred to Allison that Leslie was waiting for them, and still later before the two with blissful lingering finally wended their way out to the road and were taken up by the subdued and weary Leslie, who greeted them with relief and fell upon her new sister with eager enthusiasm and genuine delight.

An hour later Allison, after committing his future bride to the tender ministries of Julia Cloud, who had received her as a daughter, took his way collegeward. He sent up his card to Miss Frazer and Miss Brice and requested that he might see them both as soon as possible, and in a flutter of expectancy the two presently entered the reception-room.

They were hoping he had come to take them out in his car, although each was disappointed to find that she was not the only one summoned.

Allison in that few minutes of waiting for them, seemed to have lost his care-free boyish air and have grown to man's estate. He greeted the two young women with utmost courtesy and gravity and proceeded at once to business:

"I have come to inform you," he said with a bow that might almost be called stately, so much had the tall, slender figure lost its boyishness, "that Miss Bristol is my fiancee, and as such it is my business to protect her. I must ask you both to publicly apologize before your sorority for what happened this morning."

Eunice Brice grew white and frightened, but Eugenia Frazer's face flamed angrily.

"Indeed, Allison Cloud, I'll do nothing of the kind. What in the world did you suppose I had to do with what happened this morning?"

"You had all to do with it. Miss Frazer, I happen to know all about the matter."

"Well, you certainly don't," flamed Eugenia, "or you wouldn't be engaged to that little Bristol hypocrite. Her father was a common----"

Allison took a step toward her, his face stern but controlled.

"Her father was _not_ a _forger_, Miss Frazer, and I have reason to believe that you know that the report you are spreading about college is not true. But however that may be, Miss Frazer, if I should say that your father was a forger would that change _you_ any? I have asked Miss Bristol to marry me because of what _she is herself_, and not because of what her father was. But there is ample evidence that her father was a n.o.ble and an upright man and so recognized by the law and by his fellow-townsmen, and I demand that you take back your words publicly, both of you, and that you, Miss Frazer, take upon yourself publicly the responsibility for starting this whole trouble. I fancy it may be rather unpleasant for you to remain in this college longer unless this matter is adjusted satisfactorily."

"Well, I certainly do not intend to be bullied into any such thing!"

said Eugenia angrily. "I'll leave college first!"

Eunice Brice began to cry. She was the protegee of a rich woman and could not afford to be disgraced.

"I shall tell them all that you asked me to make that motion for you and promised to give me your pink evening dress if I did," reproached Eunice tearfully.

"Tell what you like," returned Eugenia grandly, "it will only prove you what you are, a little fool! I'm going up to pack. You needn't think you can hush me up, Allison Cloud, if you _are_ rich. Money won't cover up the truth----"

"No," said Allison looking at her steadily, controlledly, with a memory of his promise to Jane. "No, but _Christianity_ will--sometimes."

"Oh, yes, everybody knows you're a fanatic!" sneered Eugenia, and swept herself out of the room with high head, knowing that the wisest thing she could do was to depart while the going was good.

When Allison reached home a few minutes later Julia Cloud put into his hand a letter which his guardian had written her soon after his first visit, in which he stated that he had made it a point to look up both the young people with whom his wards were intimate, and he found their records and their family irreproachable. He especially went into details concerning Jane's father and the n.o.ble way in which he had acted, and the completeness with which his name had been cleared. He uncovered one or two facts which Jane apparently did not know, and which proved that time had revealed the true criminal to those most concerned and that only pity for his family, and the expressed wish of the man who had borne for a time his shame, had caused the matter to be hushed up.

Allison, after he had read it, went to find Jane and drew her into the little sun-parlor to read it with him, and together they rejoiced quietly.

Jane lifted a s.h.i.+ning face to Allison after the reading.

"Then I'm glad we never said anything to Eugenia! Poor Eugenia! She is greatly to be pitied!"

Allison, a little shamefacedly, agreed, and then owned up that he had "fired" Eugenia, as he expressed it, from the college.

"O, Allison!" said Jane, half troubled, though laughing in spite of herself at the vision of Eugenia trying to be lofty in the face of the facts. "You ought not to have done it, dear. I have stood it so long, it didn't matter! Only for your sake--and Leslie's----!"

"For our sakes, nothing!" said Allison. "That girl needed somebody to tell her where to get off, and only a man could do it. She'll be more polite to people hereafter, I'm thinking. It won't do her any harm.

Now, Jane darling, forget it, and let's be happy!"