Bessie's Fortune. Mary Jane Holmes
href="#ulink_5651ecc1-f3ab-581b-b10d-913cad7d7c30">CHAPTER XIX.
I DEDICATE THIS STORY OF BESSIE,
WHICH WILL REMIND HIM OF A HAPPY YEAR IN EUROPE.
BESSIE'S FORTUNE.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE JERROLDS OF BOSTON.
Mrs. Geraldine Jerrold, of Boston, had in her girlhood been Miss Geraldine Grey, of Allington, one of those quiet, pretty little towns which so thickly dot the hills and valleys Of New England. Her father, who died before her marriage, had been a sea-captain, and a man of great wealth, and was looked upon as a kind of autocrat, whose opinion was a law and whose friendship was an honor. When a young lady, Miss Geraldine had chafed at the stupid town and the stupider people, as she designated the citizens of Allington, and had only been happy when the house at Grey's Park was full of guests after the manner of English houses, where hospitality is dispensed on a larger scale than is common in America. She had been abroad, and had spent some weeks in Derbyshire at the Peacock Inn, close to the park of Chatsworth, which she admired so much that on her return to Allington she never rested until the five acres of land, in the midst of which her father's house stood, were improved and fitted up as nearly as possible like the beautiful grounds across the sea. With good taste and plenty of money, she succeeded beyond her most sanguine hopes, and Grey's Park was the pride of the town, and the wonder of the entire county. A kind of show place it became, and Miss Geraldine was never happier or prouder than when strangers were going over the grounds or through the house, which was filled with rare pictures and choice statuary gathered from all parts of the world, for Captain Grey had brought something curious and costly from every port at which his vessel touched, so that the house was like a museum, or, as Miss Geraldine fancied, like the palaces and castles in Europe, which are shown to strangers in the absence of the family.
At the age of twenty-two, Miss Geraldine had married Burton Jerrold, a young man from one of the leading banks in Boston, and whose father, Peter Jerrold, had, for years, lived on a small farm a mile or more from the town of Allington. So far as Geraldine knew, the Jerrold blood was as good as the Grey's, even if old Peter did live a hermit life and wear a drab overcoat which must have dated back more years than she could remember. No one had ever breathed a word of censure against the peculiar man, who was never known to smile, and who seldom spoke except he was spoken to, and who, with his long white hair falling around his thin face, looked like some old picture of a saint, when on Sunday he sat in his accustomed pew by the door, and like the publican, seemed almost to smite upon his breast as he confessed himself to be a miserable sinner.
Had Burton Jerrold remained at home and been content to till the barren soil of his father's rocky farm, not his handsome face, or polished manners, or adoration of herself as the queen of queens, could have won a second thought from Geraldine, for she hated farmers, who smelled of the barn and wore cowhide boots, and would sooner have died than been a farmer's wife. But Burton had never tilled the soil, nor worn cowhide boots nor smelled of the barn, for when he was a mere boy, his mother died, and an old aunt, who lived in Boston, took him for her own, and gave him all the advantages of a city education until he was old enough to enter one of the principal banks as a clerk; then she died and left him all her fortune, except a thousand dollars which she gave to his sister Hannah, who still lived at home upon the farm, and was almost as silent and peculiar as the father himself.
"Marry one of the Grey girls if you can," the aunt had said to her nephew upon her death bed. "It is a good family, and blood is worth more than money; it goes further toward securing you a good position in Boston society. The Jerrold blood is good, for aught I know, though not equal to that of the Greys. Your father is greatly respected in Allington, where he is known, but he is a codger of the strictest type, and clings to everything old-fashioned and outre. He has resisted all my efforts to have him change the house into something more modern, even when, for the sake of your mother, I offered to do it at my own expense. Especially was I anxious to tear down that projection which he calls a lean-to, but when I suggested it to him, and said I would bring a carpenter at once, he flew into such a passion as fairly frightened me. 'The lean-to should not be touched for a million of dollars; he preferred it as it was,' he said; so I let him alone. He is a strange man, and—and—Burton, I may be mistaken, but I have thought there was something he was hiding. Else, why does he never smile, or talk, or look you straight in the face? And why is he always brooding, with his head bent down and his hands clenched together? Yes, there is something hidden, and Hannah knows it, and this it is which turned her hair grey so early, and has made her as queer and reticent as your father. There is a secret between them, but do not try to discover it. There may be disgrace of some kind which would affect your whole life, so let it alone. Make good use of what I leave you, and marry one of the Greys. Lucy is the sweeter and the more amiable, but Geraldine is more ambitious and will help you to reach the top."
This was the last conversation Mrs. Wetherby ever held with her nephew, for in two days more she was dead, and Burton buried her in Mt. Auburn, and went back to the house which was now his, conscious of three distinct ideas which even during the funeral had recurred to him constantly. First, that he was the owner of a large house and twenty thousand dollars; second, that he must marry one of the Greys, if possible; and third, that there was some secret between his father and his sister Hannah; something which had made them what they were; something which had given his father the name of the half-crazy hermit, and to his sister that of the recluse; something which he must never try to unearth, lest it bring disquiet and disgrace.
That last word had an ugly sound to Burton Jerrold, who was more ambitious even than his aunt, more anxious that people in high positions should think well of him, and he shivered as he repeated it to himself, while all sorts of fancies flitted though his brain.
"Nonsense!" he exclaimed at last, as he arose, and, walking to the window, looked out upon the common, where groups of children were playing. "There is nothing hidden. Why should there be? My father has never stolen, or forged, or embezzled, or set any one's house on fire. They esteem him a saint in Allington, and I know he reads his Bible all the time when he is not praying, and once he was on his knees in his bedroom a whole hour, for I timed him, and thought he must be crazy. Of course so good a man can have nothing concealed, and yet—"
Here Burton shivered again, and continued: "And yet, I always seem to be in a nightmare when I am at the old hut, and once I told Hannah I believed the house was haunted, for I heard strange sounds at night, soft footsteps, and moans, and whisperings, and the old dog Rover howled so dismally, that he kept me awake, and made me nervous and wretched,