Cloudy Jewel

CHAPTER XXIX Meantime Allison was dashing over fallen trees, climbing rocks, and pushing his way between tangled vines and close-grown laurel, up and up through the college woods, and across country in the direction of the quarry, a still, wonderful place like a cathedral, with a deep, dark pool at the bottom of the massive stone walls. There were over-arching pines, hemlocks, and oaks for vaulted roof with the fresco of sky and flying cloud between. It was a wonderful place. Once when they had climbed there together and stood for a long time in silence watching the shadows on the deep pool below, looking up to the arching green, and listening to the praisings of a song sparrow up above in some hidden choir, Jane had said that this was a place to come and worship––or to come when one was in trouble! A place where one might meet God! He had looked down at her sweet face upturned searching for the little thrilling singer, and had thought how sweet and wonderful she was, and how he wanted to tell her so, and would some day, but must not just yet. He hadn’t thought much about what she was saying––but now it came back––and he knew that she must have gone here with her trouble.

He need not have worried about the quarry and the deep, dark pool. He kept telling himself all the way up that he need not, but when he reached the top and came in sight of her he knew it. Knew also that he had been sure of it all along.

She was sitting on a great fallen log, quietly, calmly, with her back against an old gnarled branch that rose 328in a convenient way, and her head was thrown back and up as if she were seeing wonderful visions somewhere among the green, and the blue and white above. It was as if she had reached a higher plane where earthly annoyances do not come, and felt it good to be there. There was almost a smile on her beautiful lips, a strong, sweet, wistful smile. She had not been looking down at the deep, treacherous pool at all. She had been looking up and her strength had come upon her so. For one long instant the young man paused and lifted his hat, watching her in a kind of awe. Her face almost seemed to shine as if she had been talking with God. He remembered dimly the story of Moses on the Mount talking with God. He hesitated almost to intrude upon a solitude so fine and wonderful. Then in relief and eagerness he spoke her name:

“Jane!”

She turned and looked at him and her face lit up with joy:

“Oh! It is you! Why––how did you happen–––?”

“I came to find you, Jane. Leslie told me everything and I have hunted everywhere. But when you were not at college I somehow knew you would be here. I wanted to find you––and––enfold you, Jane––wrap you around somehow with my love and care if you will let me, so that nothing like that can ever hurt you again. I love you, Jane. I suppose I’m a little previous and all that, being only a kid, as it were, and neither of us out of college yet, but I shan’t change, and I’ll be hanged if I see why it isn’t all right for me to have the right to protect you against such annoyances as this–––”

He was beside her on the log now, his face burning 329eagerly with deep feeling, one arm protectingly behind her, the other hand laid strongly, possessively over the small folded hands in her lap.

“Perhaps I’m taking a whole lot for granted,” he said humbly. “Perhaps you don’t love me––can’t even like me the way I hoped you do. Oh, Jane, speak quick, and tell me! Darling, can you ever love me enough? You haven’t drawn your hands away! Look up and let me read your eyes, please–––”

No, she had not drawn her hands away, and she did not shrink from his supporting arm––and she was the kind of girl who would not have allowed such familiarities unless––Ah! She had lifted her eyes and there was something blindingly beautiful in them, and tears––great wonderful tears, so sweet and misty that they made him glad with a thrill of beautiful pain! Her lips were trembling. He longed to kiss her, yet knew he must wait until he had her permission–––

“Allison! Listen! You are dear––wonderful––but you don’t know a thing about me!”

“I know all I want to know, and that is a great deal, you darling, you!” And now he did kiss her, and drew her close into his arms and would not let her go even when she struggled gently.

“Allison, listen. Listen––please! I must tell you! Wait–––!”

She put her hands against his breast and pushed herself back away from him where she could look in his face.

“Please, you must let me go and listen to what I have to say!”

“I’ll let you go when you tell me yes or no, Jane. Do you, can you love me? I must know that first. Then you shall have your way.”

330 Jane’s eyes did not falter. She looked at him, “You promised, you know–––!”

“Yes, Allison––I love you––but––NO! You must not kiss me again. You must let me go, and listen––You promised, you know–––!”

Allison’s arms dropped away from her, but his eyes held her in a long look of joy.

“All right, darling, go to it”––he said with a joyous sound in his voice––“I can stand anything now, I know. It seems too good to be true and it’s enough for me. But hurry! A fellow can’t wait forever.”

“No, Allison, you must sit back and be serious. It isn’t really happy, you know––what I have to tell you–––!”

Allison became grave at once.

“All right, Jane, only I can’t imagine anything terrible enough to stop this happiness of mine unless you’re already married––and have been concealing it from us all this time–––!”

In spite of herself Jane laughed at that, and Allison breathed more freely now the tenseness was gone out of her voice. His hands went out and grasped hers.

“At least I can do this,” he pleaded, and Jane lifted her eyes, now serious again, and smiled tenderly, letting her hands stay in his passively.

“Listen, Allison––my father!”

“I know, Jane, dear––I heard it long ago. Your father was a forger! What do you suppose I care? He probably had some overpowering temptation and yielded, never dreaming but he would be able to make it right. You can’t make me believe that any parent of yours was actually bad! And besides, if he was, it wouldn’t be you–––”

“Allison! Listen!” broke in Jane gravely, stopping 331the torrent of words with which he was attempting to silence her. “It isn’t what you think at all. My father wasn’t a forger! He was a good man!”

“He wasn’t!” exclaimed Allison joyously. “Then what in thunder? Why didn’t you tell ’em so, Jane?” He tried to draw her to him, but she still resisted.

“That’s just it, Allison, I can’t. I never can–––”

“Well, then I will! You shan’t have a thing like that hanging over you–––!”

“But that is just what you must not do. And you can’t do it, either, if I don’t tell you about it, for you wouldn’t have a thing to say, nor any way to prove it. And I won’t tell you, Allison, ever, unless you will promise–––!”

Allison was sobered in an instant.

“Jane, don’t you know me well enough to be sure I would not betray any confidence you put in me?”

“I thought so–––” said Jane, smiling through her tears.

“Dear!” said Allison in a tone that was a caress, full of longing and sympathy.

Jane sat up bravely and began her story.

“When I was twelve years old my mother died. That left father and me alone, and we became very close comrades indeed. He was a wonderful father!”

Allison’s fingers answered with a warm pressure of sympathy and interest.

“He was father and mother both to me. And more and more we grew to confide in one another. I was interested in all his business, and used to amuse myself asking him about things at the office when he came home, the way mother used to do when she was with us. He used to talk over all my school friends and interests and we had beautiful times together. My 332father had a friend––a man who had grown up with him, lived next door and went to school with him when he was a boy. He was younger than father, and––well, not so serious. Father didn’t always approve of what he did and used to urge him to do differently. He lived in the same suburb with us, and his wife had been a friend of mother’s. She was a sweet little child-like woman, very pretty, and an invalid. They had one daughter, a girl about my age, and when we were children we used to play together, but as we grew older mother didn’t care for us to be together much. She thought––it was better for us not to––and as the years went by we didn’t have much to do with one another. Her father was the only one who kept up the acquaintance, and sometimes I used to think he worried my father every time he came to the house. One day when I was about fourteen he came in the afternoon just after I got home from school and said he wanted to see father as soon as he came home. Couldn’t I telephone father and ask him to come home at once, that there was someone there wanting to see him on important business? He finally called him up himself and when father got there they went into a room by themselves and talked until late into the night. When at last Mr.––that is––the man, went away, father did not go to bed but walked up and down the floor in his study all night long. Toward morning I could not stand it any longer. I knew my father was in trouble. So I went down to him, and when I saw him I was terribly frightened. His face was white and drawn and his eyes burned like coals of fire. He looked at me with a look that I never shall forget. He took me in his arms and lifted up my face, a way he often had when he was in earnest, and he seemed 333to be looking down into my very soul. ‘Little girl,’ he said, ‘we’re in deep trouble. I don’t know whether I’ve done right or not.’ There was something in his voice that made me tremble all over, and he saw I was frightened and tried to be calm himself. ‘Janie,’ he said––he always called me Janie when he was deeply moved––‘Janie, it may hit hardest on you, and oh, I meant your life to be so safe and happy!’

“I tried to tell him it didn’t matter about me, and for him not to be troubled, but he went on telling about it. It seems the father of this man had once done a great deal for my father when he was in a very trying situation, and father always felt an obligation to look after the son. Indeed, he had promised when the old man was dying that he would be a brother to him no matter what happened. And now the son had been speculating and got deep into debt. He had formed some kind of stock company, something to do with Western land and mines. I never fully understood it all, but there had been a lot of fraudulent dealing, although father only suspected that at the time, but anyway, everything was going to fall through and the man was going to be brought up in disgrace before the world if somebody didn’t help him out. And father felt obliged to stand by him. Of course, he did not know how bad it was, because the man had not told him all the truth, but father had taken over the obligations of the whole thing. He thought he might be able to pull the thing out of trouble by putting a good deal of his own money into it, and make it a fair and square proposition for all the stockholders without their ever finding out that everything had been on the verge of going to pieces. You see the man had put it up to father very eloquently that his wife was very 334ill in the hospital and, if anything should happen to him and he were arrested it could not be kept from her and she would die. It’s true she was very critically ill, had just been through a severe operation, and was very frail indeed. Father felt it was up to him to shoulder the whole responsibility, although, of course, he felt that the man richly deserved the law to the full. Nevertheless, because of his promise he stood by him.

“That night the man was killed in an automobile accident soon after leaving our house, and when it developed that the business was built on a rotten foundation, and that father was in partnership––you see the man had been very wily and had his papers all fixed up so that it looked as if father had been a silent partner from the beginning––everything came back on father, and he found there were overwhelming debts that he had not been told about, although he supposed he had sifted the business to the foundation and understood it all before he made the agreement to help him. Perhaps if the man had lived he would have been able to carry his crooked dealings through and save the whole thing, with what help father had given him, and neither father nor the world would ever have found out––I don’t know.––But anyway, his dying just then made the whole thing fall in ruins, and right on top of father. But even that we could have stood. We didn’t care so much about money. Father was well off, and he found that if he put in everything he could satisfy the creditors, and pay off everything, and he had courage enough to be planning to start all over again. But suddenly it turned out that there had been a check forged for a large amount and it all looked as if father had done it. 335I can’t go into the details now, but we were suddenly face to face with the fact that there was no evidence to prove that he had not been a hypocrite all these years except his own life. We thought for a few days that of course that would put him beyond suspicion––but do you know, the world is very hard. One of father’s best friends––one he thought was a friend––came to him and offered to go bail for him for my sake if he would just tell him the whole truth and own up. There was only one way and that was to go to the man’s wife and try to get certain papers which father knew were in existence because he had seen them, and which he had supposed were left in his own safe the night the man talked with him, but which could not be found. As the wife had just been brought back from the hospital and was still in a very critical condition, father would not do more than ask if he might go through the house and search. And that woman sent back a very indignant refusal, charging father with having been at the bottom of her husband’s failure, and even the cause of his death, and telling him he had pauperized her and her little helpless daughter. And the daughter began treating me as a stranger whenever we chanced to meet–––”

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?”

336 “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, 337“My poor little girl!” but Jane went bravely on.

“That was a hard time,” she said with trembling lips, “but God 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 associated 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 associates––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 passed, 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. 338But 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 339Allison 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 shining 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 340birds 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 fiancée, 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.

341 “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 noble 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 protégée 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.

342 “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 noble 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 shining face to Allison after the reading.

“Then I’m glad we never said anything to 343Eugenia! 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!”

“Be careful, Allison, some one is coming. I think it’s that Mr. Terrence.”

“Dog-gone his fool hide!” muttered Allison. “I wish he’d take himself home! I certainly would like to tell him where to get off. Leslie’s as sick of him as I am, and as for Cloudy, she’s about reached the limit.”

“Why, Allison, isn’t Leslie interested in him? He told Howard that they were as good as engaged.”

“Leslie interested in that little cad? I should say not. If she was I’d disown her. You say he told Howard they were engaged! What a lie! So that’s what’s the matter with the old boy, is it? I thought something must be the matter that he got so busy all of a sudden. Well, I’ll soon fix that! Come on up to Cloudy’s porch, quick, while he’s in his room. Cloudy won’t mind. We’ll be by ourselves there till dinner is ready!”

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