NEW LIGHT ON OLD PAPERS
“Mother, you are worried about something,” said Barbara to her mother early the next morning as they sat alone in their little dining room, which was bright with the September sun.
Mrs. Thurston started nervously. She had been thinking so deeply that Bab’s voice had startled her.
Mollie and Ruth had rushed off early to find Grace and bring her back with them. Susan, the maid, was in the yard hanging up her dish towels. Mrs. Thurston had supposed Bab was deep in reading the history of David Copperfield, which lay open on her lap.
“You don’t answer me, mother,” complained Barbara, as she saw her mother’s face flush under her gaze. “You might as well ‘’fess up’ and be done with it. I know there is something wrong.”
Mrs. Thurston hesitated; then she answered quietly: “You are right, Bab, dear. I am very much worried and it is about money. But I did not want you children to know of it until I was obliged to tell you. Barbara, half of our income is gone!”
“Oh, mother!” cried Barbara, “what do you mean?”
“Well, dear,” said her mother quietly, “the money has not entirely gone yet. But I fear it soon will go. Your uncle wrote me that some stock he bought for me had been going down, down, until finally it will cease paying dividends altogether and be of no value. How shall we manage then? I have been lying awake at night trying to plan. You know it takes every cent we have to live in even the simplest way. Oh, Bab, what shall we do?”
Barbara looked grave. “Did Uncle Ralph write you about this?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Thurston, “two or three weeks ago. I have had it on my mind ever since. Your uncle used to own some of this same stock, but he wrote me he had sold out some time ago.”
“It is strange he didn’t tell us to sell at the same time,” Barbara reflected. “What does Uncle Ralph propose that we do? He is so rich I think he might show some interest in you, poor dear. You are his only sister, especially since he has made all his money out of the business father founded.”
“Your Uncle Ralph suggests,” Mrs. Thurston faltered, “that we find some work to do. But you and Mollie must be educated, and I am so ignorant of business.”
Barbara’s cheeks were crimson and her brown eyes flashed. “I think, mother,” she said quietly, “it will be just as well for us to learn a little more about Uncle Ralph’s management of our business. I am going to consult Mr. Stuart; I am sure he will give us good advice; he is such a clear-headed business man. Don’t you worry, mother, dear, for I am sure things will turn out all right.”
Mrs. Thurston rose to go out to market.
“Before you go, mother,” Barbara begged, “will you please let me see the roll of father’s business papers you have stored away in the trunk in the attic. Oh, I know they are of no value, but just the same I am curious to see them.”
“Well, if you are so determined, all right,” sighed Mrs. Thurston.
Before she left the house she handed Barbara a roll of old papers tied with a crimson cord.
Bab sat pondering with the papers in her lap. She was more frightened at her mother’s news than she would show. They were mere girls, she and Mollie, and their little mother had no knowledge of business. She shook herself impatiently. Barbara was an optimist—things would turn out all right.
Soon Bab wrinkled her forehead and tried to settle down to her work; the papers were altogether incomprehensible to her. Most of them were old business contracts. Yet, here was one that seemed a bit different. It was in Uncle Ralph Le Baron’s handwriting, but so faded that it was difficult to read. Slowly Bab deciphered it: “On demand, I promise to pay to John Thurston the sum of five thousand dollars for value received.” To this was appended her uncle’s well-known signature, Ralph Le Baron.
“Well,” sighed Barbara, as she started to tie the papers together again, “I suppose Uncle Ralph settled this debt a long time ago.”
Suddenly a big, cheerful presence darkened the doorway.
“Hello, Bab!” called Mr. Stuart. “Why are you alone?”
“The girls have gone up to the Squire’s for Grace,” Bab explained, “and mother is at market. But do please come in and wait for them. Ruth told me to keep you; she wants to ask you about something very important.”
“May I inquire what you are doing, Barbara?” Mr. Stuart queried, taking a seat. “Are you preparing to be a lawyer’s clerk that you spend your spare hours poring over musty business papers?”
Barbara blushed. “I am almost ashamed to tell you, Mr. Stuart, but you and Ruth have been so awfully good to us, I think I shall just ask you one more favor. These are some business papers my father left when he died. No one has ever looked them over. I have always wondered if they could be of any value. Of course I know it is foolish of me to even dream of such a thing. But would you mind glancing at them, please?”
Barbara handed the roll of documents to her friend with such a pretty look of pleading in her brown eyes that a much harder hearted man than Mr. Stuart could not have refused her.
“Certainly; I shall be glad to have a look at them,” Mr. Stuart answered.
Tick, tock, tick, tock. The only sound in the room was the soft refrain of the old clock on the mantel. Barbara held her breath, but she knew she was foolish to feel so excited.
Mr. Stuart examined the papers closely. One after another he read them through. This big western man who had made a fortune by his own brains and ability, was devoting the same care to Barbara’s apparently worthless papers that he would give to his own important business affairs. Suddenly he looked up. He held in his hand the promissory note signed by Ralph Le Baron acknowledging his debt for five thousand dollars to his brother-in-law, John Thurston.
“I presume,” Mr. Stuart said quietly to Bab, “that your uncle settled this debt years ago; but if he did, why was the note never canceled?”
At this moment Mr. Stuart and Barbara heard a rustle of skirts, and looking up they saw Mrs. Thurston, her arms full of bundles, and her face white. “What do you mean?” she said in a strange, hard voice. “What money should have been paid by my brother years ago? Please explain.”
“Why,” said Mr. Stuart, so quietly you could have heard a pin drop in the stillness of the little room, “I mean, of course, this five thousand dollars, which, as I see by the date, your brother borrowed from your husband eleven years ago. Let me see, that was one year before your husband’s death!”
Mrs. Thurston sank into a chair. Mr. Stuart reached her just in time to save her from falling. He took the bundles from her hand and waited. For a minute Mrs. Thurston could not speak.
Barbara felt her heart pounding away and her pulses throbbing; but she made no sound.
“Was this money paid you by your brother when he settled your estate?” Mr. Stuart repeated his question.
“No!” faltered Mrs. Thurston.
“Have you any memorandum among your husband’s papers which would prove that the money was returned to him before his death?”
Mrs. Thurston shook her head. Barbara was staring at her mother with wide open brown eyes, her cheeks paling, then flushing. Here was a mystery!
“My brother,” said Mrs. Thurston finally, “settled my affairs for me at the time of my husband’s sudden death. I was too crushed to realize what was taking place, and I had no idea that we would be brought to poverty. But I know I saw no such paper as you mention. Until this minute, I never heard that my brother borrowed any money from my husband. Oh, it simply can’t be true——”
“What can’t be true, mother?” inquired Bab at last. Her mother did not answer.
Mr. Stuart quietly folded up the mysterious paper and put it in his pocket. “It may be that Mr. Le Baron can explain this situation at once,” he said. “He is staying at the same hotel with me. If you will permit me I will inquire into the matter for you. Now don’t worry yourselves about it any more,” Mr. Stuart ended, resuming his natural manner.
To himself he told a different story. “This looks bad, very bad!” he thought. “If Ralph Le Baron had paid this money back he would have seen that the note was returned to him. I know him well enough for that. If he never has paid it, can he be forced to do so now?” reflected Mr. Stuart, looking at the matter from all sides. “He has never been asked for the money before, and I do not believe the law requires a debt to be paid after six years, if no claim has been previously made for it, and it is now eleven years since the note was made. I must look into the matter. A man who could rob his widowed sister and nieces of five thousand dollars would be guilty of any crime. I shall make it hot for him unless he can tell a straight story.”
“Why is everybody looking so serious?” called out a gay voice, and Ruth, followed by Mollie and Grace, entered the room.
The little group within the room started guiltily.
“There is mystery in the very air,” declaimed Ruth, “you are trying to conceal something!”
“You are a goose,” replied her father fondly, then nodding reassuringly to Bab and her mother. “Who knows what a day may bring forth?” he said.