It was some time later when, by Madam Dalrymple’s request, Jessica added that postscript:
“Dearest Mother:
“Something worse than the house burning has happened. The ‘man of business,’ has run away and taken all our Cousin Margaret’s money with him. At least there’s nothing left of it, nothing at all. She hasn’t any of that needed ‘cash in hand’ except the ground the burned house stood on. That seems funny, but the ground can be sold and bring money for itself. Till then Cousin Margaret has had to borrow a little of Mr. Hale. The worst of it is, she says—I heard her talking to Mr. Hale and another lawyer she’d sent for to come here right away quick—the worst is that she is in some way responsible for some other people losing their money. She had allowed her ‘man of business’ to ‘speculate’ somehow—Oh! I don’t understand, nor does even she. Except that not only has all she thought she had gone, nobody knows where, but some she didn’t know she owed, and that she must pay back if she’s ever to know another happy moment.
“She and the lawyers talked till she got dizzy, and I had been all the time. Then when I heard her dear old voice go sort of trembly I dared to put my arm around her and to remind her: ‘Don’t you worry, Cousin Margaret, my mother and I are Waldrons, too, and we’ve a copper mine in California that they say is full of money. When we get enough dug out we will pay all those folks and give you back all that “man” ran away with. I think that losing that money isn’t half as bad as losing that old home; and don’t you care a mite!’
“That was right, wasn’t it? And the two lawyers looked at one another quick and Cousin Margaret gave me a little squeeze, and said:
“‘That’s the Waldron speaking in you, dear. But this is my affair, not yours nor Gabriella’s. I shall make everything good. Nobody can suffer through me.’
“Then Mr. Hale cried out real sharp, like he used to when the ‘boys’ plagued him and said: ‘That dastardly coward! I hope they’ll catch him and shut him up for life!’ But the Madam just looked at him, quiet and stern, and answered: ‘Don’t say that. It doesn’t belong to us to take vengeance. The poor wretch is suffering more than I am, if he hasn’t already taken his own life. Let him go. What is left to me is to get the highest possible price for the Washington Square land and to use it as impartially, judiciously, as I can. Will you two take care of that business for me, reserving for yourselves a just payment for your services?’
“And they said they would but would take no pay. But Cousin Margaret smiled and said the future would arrange all that. So they went away, and she told me to tell you we could not go to Newport now. She has a little bit of a place on the Hudson river, somewhere, that she bought once when she was traveling through the town just because it was so pretty and would make a nice home for Tipkins and Barnes, if they should outlive her and get married. Now, of course, Barnes never will live there, but Tipkins will. He says he will never leave our Cousin Margaret while he has strength to serve her, and that he has money in the bank enough to keep us all a good long time. He wants his Madam to take it and use it as if it were her own, which it was once. But she thanks him just as sweet and says: ‘Not till need be, Tipkins.’ I think that was lovely of him, don’t you? Ephy is full of schemes for making money for us all. But of course, nobody need to worry ’cause of that copper mine we have; and I’m rather glad we aren’t going to that Newport, though I would have liked to see the sea.
“Cousin Margaret has counter—counter-demanded, I guess it is—all the orders about the new, fine clothes. She is to have just a few of the very plainest for herself, and thinks I won’t need many either. Till the fall when I go to Madam Mearson’s school. Even there I shan’t want them, and I am so glad. I think it takes so much trouble to keep changing as I would have had to do if we had gone to that Newport, where rich people live. ‘Schoolgirls should dress simply’ she says.
“Cousin Margaret says there is a tiny garden beside the little house where we will live, in the country, and Ephy says he will be able to take care of that. If she will, that Granny Briggs may go with us, too. Cousin Margaret says she must befriend her, some way.