CHAPTER IX.

YOUR GOOD COMRADE.

Basil continued to improve, but only his mother and brother were allowed to see him for the next day or two. The Dixons took their departure the evening following the accident, and Mr. Danforth went at the same time.

The next morning Persis found her way out of a certain difficulty which had presented itself to her. The doctor advised as speedy a removal as possible of the patient to the sea-shore, and to the same place Persis persuaded Mrs. Brown it would be best to take Annis.

“She didn’t improve in the mountains,” said the artful Persis. “And I think, Mrs. Brown, that it will be so pleasant for you all to be together. Annis doesn’t make friends at once, you know, and it will be so nice for her to have the boys as company.” So Mrs. Brown had yielded, and that much was settled.

Mrs. Wickes would not allow her remaining guests to shorten their stay by one day. She had long wanted a visit from Mrs. Brown and Annis, and declared that now she had them, she meant to keep them. The Phillips family were old friends, and their stay was quite as hospitably insisted upon. Mrs. Wickes was one of the few house-keepers who did not impress her guests with a sense of their presence being an added care. There was no attempt at over-entertainment, yet everything in the most unobtrusive way was provided to add to the comfort of those in the house. At the same time there was no striving at effect visible, neither did there appear an oppressive anxiety. Captain Wickes, whole-souled, hearty, and kind, was the essence of hospitality, and gave his guests to feel that it was a privilege to receive them under his roof, consequently Basil could not have been more fortunately situated.

Persis had expected to remain till the others were ready to go. She rather dreaded seeing Basil. She felt that a sight of him, as one rescued from death, would appeal to deepest emotions; that she would find it difficult to keep back words which might mean too much, and she wished for an escape, which fortunately just then came.

“Too bad,” she said one morning, after having looked through her mail; “I shall have to go home at once. Papa must have some papers from his desk, and needs them right away; so, as I am the only one within a respectable distance, I am delegated to get them and send them or take them on. I shall have to get ready and go off to-day, Aunt Esther.”

“Oh, my dear girl, I hate to have you go off alone,” said her aunt. “Must you really go?”

“Yes; papa is very anxious to have the papers by a certain date, and has sent me the key of the desk. You know old Prue keeps the house open, and I’ll be very comfortable there over night. I’ll only stop long enough to see to the matter and to repack my trunk, and then go right on.” She was rather glad that, after all, fate had taken certain things out of her hands. She could not see Basil if she wanted to, and no one could question her excuse for taking a sudden departure.

Just before she was ready to leave her room she gave Annis a little note, saying, “I have written this for you to give to Basil. I’ve sent him a message by Mrs. Phillips besides.” Annis’s blue eyes were full of tears. She had an uneasy feeling that Persis was giving up more than she would admit. “Read the note,” her cousin said, gently. And Annis read,—

“DEAR BASIL,—The doctor has made a cast-iron rule that no one is to be permitted to see you, so I must say good-bye by other means than a hand-shake. Perhaps the hand-shake would be too vigorous, after all, for I am so thankful you still have a hand and are going to get well soon. Good-bye, dear old fellow; make haste and get strong, so that when I see you I shall behold your hearty self. You’ll be glad to know that Annis and her mother are going to the shore, too. I know when you can begin to potter about on the sands you will see that Annis has a good time. She is sort of doncie, I think, and needs chirking up; so I hope you’ll do each other lots of good for your own sakes and that of your old crony.

“PERSIS.”

Annis slipped the note back into the envelope. “Persis,” she said, “I’m not going to the shore. I’ve thought it over, and I will not.”

“You will.” Persis spoke determinedly. She took Annis by the shoulders. “Promise you will, if you want me to go away satisfied; promise me.”

“I promise. Oh, Persis, I couldn’t believe you really wanted me to.”

For answer she was kissed and held in a close embrace. Her cousin felt that the strength of her renunciation was in this parting. Strange, she was not more jealous of Basil than of Annis, and into her devotion to the latter had come an element which increased its fervor. “Annis, Annis,” she said brokenly, “if you don’t keep on loving me I can’t stand it.”

“Oh, my dear, my darling, no one but mamma ever was to me what you are,” whispered Annis. “You are worth the whole world to me.” And Persis went away satisfied.

Nevertheless, when the excitement of these last days was over, and when she was by herself on the train which was bearing her swiftly away from those who had been her daily companions for all these weeks, she felt a sinking at heart, a sense of desolation began to creep over her. She winked away tears that would rise to her eyes and set herself to force other thoughts than those which would fill her mind, do what she would. “All these years I’ve been away from my dear home people, and almost as soon as I was back I traipsed off. I ought to be ashamed not to be gladder that I’m going to them now. I must think about them. They must come first.” But, for all, the unquiet spirit would not down. As fate would have it, there had come to her a second source of trouble and regret in a letter which that morning’s mail had brought her from Mr. Danforth.

She had rather snubbed Mr. Dan of late until his effort in Basil’s behalf had brought from her an effusiveness born of gratitude, and this was the result. He had waited till she had finished her college course, till she had completed this coveted trip, and now had asked her to marry him.

“Oh, what a contrary world!” sighed poor Persis. “How easily it might be settled if I had only a reasonable, manageable heart! Dear, good Mr. Dan, I like him so well, and he saved Basil’s life; that alone ought to compel my deepest feeling towards him; but I cannot, I cannot pretend to more than I do feel. I should be so pleased to admit him to any other relation but that of lover and husband. If I only could fall in love with him, or if he and Annis had fancied each other; dear, oh, dear! either would be so satisfactory to everybody; but it isn’t that way a bit. It is the horrid contradictory thing that’s sure to happen. Annis is just that quiet, still kind of a person who feels deeply. She never could get over this, never, and she is not the one to turn to something else and fill her life with it, as I believe I can do—as I must do. It will be a tug for me, but I never was downed, and I won’t let myself be now. Bless my dear old Basil! If he were a little less dear, how glad I should be; but Annis will suit him far better than I could. No one could doubt it for a moment.” With such thoughts did Persis fill her mind during her trip home.

She never remembered being in her native city at this season, and it seemed very desolate and lonely,—houses closed, heavy shutters barring windows, streets dusty and deserted. In her own neighborhood, to be sure, it was not so, for the pleasant grounds around each house and the wide porches were an invitation to remain at home, which many families accepted rather than to be crowded into close quarters at some watering-place.

Finding the front door closed, but the library windows leading on a porch open, Persis entered by the latter means, and passed through the house to the kitchen, where old Prue was, with a protector in the person of her grandson, a lad nearly grown.

The old colored woman was stirring up biscuits, and lifted her floury hands in surprise as Persis entered, exclaiming, “Law, Miss Persy, hit ain’t yuh! I ‘clar I thought yuh was a ha’nt comin’ in so suddint. What in the worl’ fetched yuh home, honey?”

“Why, nothing very dreadful,” laughed Persis. “I have come from Aunt Esther’s, and am going to join the family up in the mountains. Can you give me some supper? And—yes, I’ll sleep in mamma’s room, it will be cooler there. I have to hunt up some papers in the library to-night. What time is it, anyhow?”

“Hit’s arter six. Me an’ Mose was gwine ter hev a bite when I bakes dese biscuits, but I reckon yuh want sumpin’ better’n biscuits an’ bacon.”

“No, I don’t, unless it is a glass of milk.”

“Dey plenty ‘serbs, honey, I done put up whilst yo’ mah been away,—blackbe’ies an’ cu’ants an’ raspbe’ies.”

“Well, I’ll have some blackberry-jam, or no—I have some fine peaches with me, and Aunt Esther has stowed a lot of cakes in my bag. I think she had an idea the city would be a desert waste, and that I should find it hard to get food. I’ll go put on a cooler frock, Aunt Prue, and I’ll be ready by the time the biscuits are.” Having finished her solitary supper, for which, after all, the traveller did not feel much appetite, she gave orders for breakfast, and then went to look up the papers she was to find. “I shall take a train for New York about noon,” she told Aunt Prue, “for I want to get the Sound boat. My trunk will be here presently. Let it be taken up-stairs; I want to repack it in the morning.”

She turned to the library. It was still quite light. “I shall have plenty of time to get the papers before dark,” she said to herself, “and I’d better be sure of them to-night. Let me see, in a tin box in one of the drawers of the desk.” She fitted the key which her father had sent her, and found no trouble in gaining access to the desk. She opened one or two compartments, and finally came upon one which held two long, narrow boxes and a number of packets of papers. A little padlock was attached to each box.

“Oh, yes. Papa told me I should find a bunch of keys in the small drawer to the left.” After fumbling around a little, she came across the bunch, and, trying one or two of the keys, found one which opened the larger of the two boxes which she had taken out.

“How much shorter the evenings are! It is nearly dark. I’ll take these to the window,” she soliloquized. This she did and began to examine the papers. “A deed from H. B. Holmes. That isn’t it. Old bills, no.” Suddenly she started and hastily picked up the next paper she saw. She bent over it eagerly, fear, dread, a dozen different emotions, causing her to tremble. On the back of the envelope which she held to the light she read, “The adoption papers of Anne Maitland, now known as Persis E. Holmes;” then followed the date, nearly a year after Persis herself was born.

[Illustration: She bent over it eagerly.]

“What does it mean? What does it mean?” she whispered, with cold lips. She flung the paper from her as if it had been some pestilential thing, and sank down on the floor, covering her face with her hands. She felt numb, terror-stricken, and dared not move. The light faded, the room grew dimmer and dimmer, the evening breeze sprang up and drifted the scent of petunias and the strange sweet odor of opening moon-flowers into the room.

“I must have become suddenly crazy,” said the girl at last as she rose to her feet. “What a trick for the twilight to play me.” She felt weak, and her knees trembled as she crossed the room to make a light. Twice, three times she essayed to pick up the paper which she had flung from her. The tin box still rested upon the window-sill. As she took it up to replace the other papers which she had taken from it, Persis saw at the very bottom a little package tied with a white ribbon. She took the box over to the light, and lifted out the small bundle. On it she read, “One of little Persis’s curls cut from her head when she died.” The year only was given; it was the same as that on the larger packet which Persis had flung from her. “I was a year old then,” she murmured. She opened the paper; a shining bit of golden hair fell in a little spiral heap on the table. Persis laughed hysterically. “My hair is black. It was always black. I have always been told that it was never any other color. And this—whose is this?” She went over and picked up the paper which had fallen from the envelope. “I have a right to read this, I surely have,” she whispered. And she unfolded it. All she could learn was that a certain Anne Maitland was legally adopted by H. B. Holmes, and that she was henceforth to be called Persis Estabrook Holmes. How long she sat puzzling over it Persis did not know. She would not read anything more. This concerned herself, and her father had given her free access to it. Herself! She gave a little shudder. Was she—this Anne Maitland? Why, she must be! The child with the golden hair was dead—was dead. This was why she was so unlike her sisters. She dropped into a chair, and great sobs shook her. Few tears came to her eyes, only those dreadful racking gasps convulsed the form that cowered there in the silent room.

“Oh, it is too cruel, too cruel!” she moaned. “They never meant me to know. I can see it all now. The little baby Persis with the golden hair like Mellicent’s died, and I was chosen to take her place. If I had only been told at the first, I could have borne it, but to know it now! Oh, it is terrible, terrible! How could they deceive me! I remember, now, that mamma has often told me that I was not named till I was over a year old. It is only too true that I am Anne Maitland. Why,”—Persis sat up straight again,—“they have even let me join a patriotic society, and have let me claim the same ancestors as Mellicent and Lisa. Perhaps they knew I had a right to them; perhaps I am a relative; but who? who?” She struck her hands helplessly together and turned her head from side to side as one in delirium. “I cannot stand it. I cannot bear to live a lie, and all of them, even grandma—no, no,”—she drew her breath with a little hissing sound,—“no, she isn’t mine. Not even grandma is mine. I have nobody in the world!”

After a while she became calmer. She picked up the papers one by one, and restored them to their place in the box. Her fingers shook as she gathered up the little coil of fair hair in the palm of her hand, and tied the paper in which she replaced it with the bit of white ribbon. She locked the box and put it back where she had found it. Then she proceeded to hunt for the paper which Mr. Holmes wanted, finding it without difficulty in the second box. She laid it aside, and then sat down again. She heard Mose come through the hall to close the shutters. He stood irresolutely on the threshold.

“Shall I shut up the house now, Miss Persis?” he asked.

The girl started, and gathered up her keys and papers hastily. “Yes; I will go up-stairs,” she replied. She dreaded to have any one see her; and, passing by the room which had been prepared for her, she took refuge in her own bedchamber.

There stood her familiar belongings, among them the old writing-desk which her cousin,—“not her cousin,” came the thought,—Mr. Ambrose Peyton, had given her; and this brought another subject to be considered. He had believed her to be the actual granddaughter of his beloved Persis, and in consequence had left her this desk and contents,—those contents which turned out to be the little fortune of ten thousand dollars. She had no right to that now, even though she had been made Mrs. Estabrook’s namesake. No, no; it had all been fraud. Yet, how could they, how could they, those dear, honorable guardians of her youth, how could they permit it?

“Of course,” Persis reflected, “they argued that I was really legally their daughter; that I was in reality the representative of the little Persis who was born to them. And they love me, they do, they do,” she murmured. “They have been as if I were really their very own, and I have never known the difference. And grandma has loved me best of all. She must have known, of course she must; and if she countenanced it, why, it must be right. And yet—oh, I cannot stand it! I cannot!”

She opened her desk and sat down to write, first to Mr. Danforth,—that was an easy task now,—then to—no, not to Basil, but to Annis, and, last, to those still so dear, so very dear.

“My beloved ones,” she wrote to those whom she had called her parents, “I have learned what you never intended I should know. I opened the box by mistake. I cannot understand all the mystery, but this much is plain to me, that I am not your child. For all your kind care, your loving care, of me I am very grateful; but I cannot yet come to you, knowing that I am not your very own. I could not bear to see your other”—this was scratched out and “own” substituted—“daughters possessing a claim on you which is not mine by inheritance. Some day, perhaps, when I have come to be calmer and can get used to the thought, I may be willing to take my place again in the family—if you will allow me—with all those whom I so dearly, oh, so dearly, love. Never doubt this for a minute, that I love you; I love you all. Please see that the ten thousand dollars from Mr. Ambrose Peyton go to the real claimant. I cannot feel that I have a right to it. Some time I may see you again. I am going to make my own living. I can do it; do not be afraid for me, and do not blame me. I shall suffer less by doing this way.

“Although I have no real right to the name, I must for the last time sign myself,

“Your loving daughter, “PERSIS.”

This letter, blistered by hot tears and written in an irregular manner, unlike the writer’s usual neat style, was enclosed with the paper desired by Mr. Holmes. Persis next set to work to gather together certain of her possessions. “They will not grudge me anything, I know. They would have me take all, but I shall only carry away what I am likely to need.” She therefore packed two trunks,—one with winter clothing, the other with the plainer attire belonging to her summer wardrobe. She selected a few of her favorite books, some little trifles which held an association very dear to her, the photographs of the family and her dearest friends. She gathered together all Basil’s letters, meaning to burn them. For a moment she held them lovingly in her hand. Such pleasant letters they were, telling of boyish experiences, of life at college and in Paris, and of days of travel. Persis took out one or two from their envelopes and glanced over them wistfully; then she made a package of them, sealed them up closely, and left them in her desk with sundry other packets, leaving a note of request that they should be left so until she should come to claim them, or, if that never happened, to burn them when it was certain that she would “no longer care for earthly matters.”

There was a little touch of tragical display in some of the things which she did that an older woman would not have included in such a leavetaking; but Persis was young, she was emotional, and her bravery approached heroics at times.

She was conscious of the “chir-chir” of the insects in the trees outside, of that faint odor of the moon-flowers, accompaniments to that August night which always brought it back to her in after years.

It was nearly daylight when she had at last finished her work, and she threw herself across the bed without undressing, worn out, but tingling with nervous thrills which did not permit her to sleep except fitfully.

[Illustration: '[Fleuron]’]