CHAPTER XXI.AN OCTOGENARIAN INTERVIEWED.
The following morning, bright and early, Everet Mapleson was en route to Richmond.
His object was to visit an old lady who resided there, and who knew all about the Maplesons for the last three generations, for he believed she would be able to throw some light on Annie Dale’s history.
She resided in a quiet, old-fashioned street, and her family consisted of one servant, her cat, dog, canary and parrot.
Everet found her in her dining-room, surrounded by her pets, and looking as contented and benignant as if she had been in the midst of as many children.
“Aha!” she exclaimed, looking at his card as Everet followed the servant into the room, “you must be the son of William Mapleson; he married Estelle Everet, and I see they have combined the two names: quite a good idea, young man, and not a badly sounding title, either. And how is my friend, the colonel, your handsome lady mother, too?—at least she was handsome the last time I saw her.”
The young man informed the loquacious old lady that both his parents were well, and were at present enjoying the gayeties of a season at Newport.
“And they’ve left you at home to look after the plantation, eh? That is rather reversing the order of things, isn’t it? Most young people think they must have the good times, while the old people stay at home.”
“No, I have not been left; it was my own preference to remain,” Everet told her. “You know, Miss Southern, I have not been at Vue de l’Eau very much during the last four years, and so it is quite a relief to be at home for a little while.”
“Vue de l’Eau is a grand place, Mr. Mapleson, and Ithink anybody ought to be happy there,” the old lady observed; “and I’m sure,” she added, with an appreciative glance, “it was very good of you to call upon your father’s old friend. I do not see many young people nowadays.”
Everet colored slightly at this reference to his visit, and it made it a trifle awkward for him, since he did not like to tell her outright, after that, that a selfish interest alone had brought him there.
He bowed, and murmured something about being partial to elderly people; and then, after chatting a while longer upon indifferent topics, he asked her, casually, if she had known the Dales, with whom the Maplesons were distantly connected.
“Bless your heart! yes; I knew them as well as I knew my own brothers and sisters,” replied Miss Southern, her eyes lighting with interest. “I suppose you are more particularly interested in Robert Dale, who was to have had the whole of the Mapleson fortune if your father and mother had not married according to the conditions of Jabez Mapleson’s will.”
“Well, yes. I am interested in him; but he had a brother named Henry, hadn’t he?” Everet asked.
“Yes; Robert and Henry Dale were brothers, and were left orphans when they were about twelve and fourteen years of age. After completing their education, they both started in life with a comfortable fortune, for their father died a rich man. Henry was all business, and went at once to speculating, determined to increase his patrimony; while Robert, who was a great student, settled quietly down to his studies, content with what he had. But, unfortunately, both fell in love with the same girl, Nannie Davenport, and she was about the sweetest girl that I ever knew. She, however, preferred the gay, dashing Henry, and Robert never forgave neither his brother for being his successful rival, nor her for marrying him. It just ruined his life, for he withdrew from all society, made a recluse of himself, in fact, and finally ended his days in a little stone hut not far from your own house, young gentleman.”
“Yes, so I have been told,” Everet replied, “and I intend to visit the place some day soon. But what became of the other brother?”
“Poor Henry was unfortunate in his speculations; he lost every dollar of his money, and though he struggled along for a few years, he finally died, broken-hearted, leaving his wife and child almost destitute.”
“This child was a daughter, I have heard, and there is some romantic story connected with her, I believe,” interposed Everet, who could hardly restrain his impatience to learn Annie Dale’s history.
“Yes, yes; I will tell you all about it, only you must let me do it in my own way, if you please,” returned Miss Southern, who, like many other garrulous old ladies, did not enjoy being interrupted.
“Nannie Davenport,” she resumed, “was, as I have told you, a very beautiful girl, and her little daughter inherited all her mother’s loveliness, which was of the golden-haired, rose-and-lily type, and much of her father’s energy and love of business. Jabez Mapleson, whose mother was a sister of Annie Dale’s father, supported them after Henry Dale’s death until the girl was fifteen years of age, when she insisted that she and her mother were able to take care of themselves, and they opened a small private school, to which some of the wealthiest families of the section where they lived sent their children. In this way the mother and daughter managed to get a comfortable and independent living. But this proud spirit on their part offended old Jabez Mapleson, who never left them anything at his death, but made that queer will, which you, of course, know all about.”
“Yes,” Everet returned, with a slight smile.
“It was the most absurd and arbitrary affair that I ever heard of,” Miss Southern asserted, indignantly, “to divide his great fortune between those two young people—one the son of a sister, the other a daughter of a brother—giving them a taste of the luxuries and pleasures of life for several years, and then dooming them to poverty again if they refused to marry each other at the end of a given time. It all turned out well enough, though, as it happened, only I always thought it a little queer that your father and mother fought shy of each other until almost the last moment, when they concluded to comply with the terms of the will. They were wonderfully suited to each other; there was no question about that; and they made a handsome, noble couple; but I’ve always wondered if there was really any true love between them, or whether they had become so accustomed to the life of luxury they were living that they could not give it up, and so married to secure the fortune.”
This last seemed to have been uttered in an absent way, as if the old lady were simply musing upon what had always been a mysterious question with her.
Everet colored resentfully at the implied reflection upon the love of his parents for each other; but he saw that she had spoken thoughtlessly, as if hardly aware of his presence, and, respecting the infirmities of age, he concealed his feelings, although he hastened to set her right upon the matter.
“My mother once told me,” he said, a trifle coldly, “that her married life has been a very happy one, and that there was no one else whom she would have preferred to marry at the time she was united to my father. There was something rather mysterious about the disposal of Robert Dale’s fortune, was there not?” Everet asked, anxious to change the rather delicate subject, and determined to find out all that he could about the Dale family.
“You are right,” replied the old lady; “and it is a matter that has never been cleared up to this day, and is never likely to be, according to my way of thinking. He died very suddenly, and that may perhaps account for it, for I believe the old miser hid his money, and it has been rusting itself away all these years and doing nobody any good. He gave quite a sum to some charitable association, I’ve been told; but that could not have been a tithe of his possessions, for, the way he lived, his income must have accumulated very rapidly.”
Everet Mapleson looked interested at this view of the mystery. He had never thought of such an explanation.
“I say it is a shame!” the old lady continued, excitedly, “that his brother’s widow and child could not have had the benefit of some of his money. Charity begins at home, and he had no business to give even a blind asylum his thousands and hide away the rest, while they were toiling early and late for the bare necessities of life.”
Everet thought of the richly and daintily furnished rooms that he had visited only the previous day, and came to the conclusion that perhaps Miss Southern did not know just how they had lived.
“Did they own the cottage where they resided?” he asked.
“Bless you, no! Old Jabez Mapleson owned that; didn’t you know it? And it fell to your father, with the rest of the estate, after he died.”
The young man started at this information.
He had never known just the extent of his father’s estate.
He had been at the North in different schools duringthe last eight years, and previous to that he never had felt interested enough in the property to ask any information about the boundaries of Vue de l’Eau.
Colonel Mapleson, in speaking of the Dales, had said they lived not far from that place; but now it appeared that his estate included the little vine-clad cottage, the old mill, and other buildings in that vicinity.
Did the furniture of that little house also belong to him, or had he simply let it remain there after the mysterious disappearance of Annie Dale, thinking, perhaps that some time she might return to the home she had so strangely left? Or had the writer of that letter, a portion of which he had found, had something to do with the rich garnishings of that cozy home?
The mystery seemed to be thickening, rather than being explained.
“I have been at home so little that I have had no opportunity to learn much about the estate,” Everet remarked, in reply to Miss Southern’s look of astonishment. “But do you know how old this girl was when her mother died?”
“Annie was in her eighteenth year. Poor child! She seemed to be entirely alone in the world then, and came here, to Richmond, to try to earn her living. She made me a call, while looking about for a situation, and I pitied her from the bottom of my heart,” said the old lady, with a sigh.
“Where did she make her home while searching for a place?” Everet inquired.
“With her old nurse—a free colored woman, who was very fond of her. Mauma Gregory was her name. I begged her to come to me, and would have been glad of her company, for her mother and I were great friends during our youth; but she feared to hurt her nurse’s feelings, while she hoped to obtain a situation in a few days, and thought it best not to change her address.”
“Is that old nurse living now?” Everet eagerly asked.
“I am sure I cannot tell. If she is, she must be very aged, and I think it doubtful.”
“Where did she live at that time?”
Miss Southern told him the street and number, directing him, as well as she could, how to find it.
“I never saw the girl again,” she went on, sadly. “After her call I did not hear anything of her, and, feeling interested to know how she had succeeded, I went one day to see Mauma Gregory, and make inquiries about her.The woman was herself in deep trouble on account of her. She told me that Annie had remained with her about two weeks, and during that time she received two applications to go into families as a governess, and about the same time she also received a letter that appeared to agitate her considerably. A day or two later, she told Mauma Gregory that she was going to a situation out of town—she would not tell where, but said she would write about it as soon as she was settled in it. But she never did—at least, her nurse had not heard anything from her at the end of another year, and in great grief told me she was sure that Miss Annie must be dead, or she would never have treated her so.”
“It seems very strange that a young and beautiful girl should drop suddenly out of the world like that, and no one ever learn her fate,” Everet remarked, thoughtfully.
“It does indeed,” said Miss Southern, “and yet she had no near friends to interest themselves for her; there appeared to be no one, save her nurse and myself, who had any special interest in her, and what could two weak women do, with no tangible facts to work upon? I have a theory of my own about the matter, however, though it may be far from the truth.”
“What is it? Tell me, please,” the young man urged, eagerly.
The old lady regarded him curiously.
“You seem strangely interested in a generation of the past,” she dryly observed.
“I am,” he acknowledged, frankly. “I have only very recently learned this story about the Dales, and their connection with my own family. Yesterday, while I was out riding, I came to a small cottage which attracted my attention. I dismounted and went to peer in at one of the windows, but every curtain was down. I finally forced an entrance by a back door, and found the house furnished just as its occupants had left it many years ago. I was convinced from what I had already heard that it was the Dale cottage.”
“Was it a small white cottage, standing near an old mill, and not far from the pond? Was there a low ornamental fence around the yard, and a veranda entirely surrounding the house?” Miss Southern asked.
“Yes; you have described it exactly.”
“And is it still furnished?”
“I should judge it remains just as they left it.”
“That is strange, for it is more than twenty years sinceAnnie Dale left it to come to Richmond,” mused Miss Southern. “It was very good of Colonel Mapleson to leave it so,” she added; “perhaps he disliked to disturb anything, hoping that the wanderer might some time return.”
Everet did not say what he thought, but his face wore a troubled look.
“You were going to tell me what your theory is regarding Miss Dale’s disappearance,” he remarked.
“I think there was a lover in the case,” she replied. “I believe she must have made the acquaintance of some young man, who was enamored of her beauty, and who, having won her heart, enticed her to go away with him to some place, promising to marry her, and who then—betrayed her confidence.”
“Then you think she was never married?” said the young man, flushing with excitement to find how like her theory his own was.
“If she had been a lawful wife I think she would have written of the fact to her nurse; for she promised to let Mauma Gregory hear from her when she was settled, and there has never come a word from her.”
“She may have written and the letter miscarried,” Everet suggested.
“In that case she would have written again, for Mauma could write, and if Annie did not get an answer to her letter she would have sought a reason. Besides, what you have told me confirms my suspicion; if she had been a happy wife, with a home of her own, she surely would have wanted the articles of furniture belonging to her, and which must have been sacred to her because of their associations. No; I firmly believe that the poor girl met with some crushing sorrow and has either died of a broken heart, or is still hiding herself and her misery from all who ever knew her.”
Miss Southern wiped a tear of regret from her eyes as she concluded.
Everet Mapleson felt that he could have settled the fate of the unfortunate girl for her by telling what Margery, the flower vender, had told him; but he did not care to say anything about it then, and believing he had learned all that Miss Southern could tell him, he changed the subject, and after a few minutes took his leave, promising to come again to see his father’s old friend upon another visit to Richmond.
He went immediately to seek Mauma Gregory, butlearned that the faithful old nurse had died nearly two years previous.
He was deeply disappointed in having his way thus hedged about, for he was puzzled to know what step to take next.
He regretted more than ever that he had neglected to question Margery at the time of his encounter with her in New York. Had he done so, he felt as if he might have now held the key to this perplexing riddle.
He turned his face homeward, more miserable and troubled over the matter than he would have cared to own.