“No, Rose, not a rascal,” Aunt Cal returned, “you mustn’t think of him like that. It was just a—a kind of prank. He never meant to keep the house from me for long, he says so in this note. You see I—I was away out West at the time he left. I think it was just as Gopher said, he wanted to come back a rich man——”
“And make you sorry you’d married Tom Poole instead of him,” put in Miss Rose calmly. “That was just like him, always believing that money was all that counted even in a love affair.”
“He says,” said Aunt Cal softly, “that he hopes I will forgive him everything. I believe he realized—at the end—the mistakes he’d made.”
Miss Rose nodded. “Yes, Carter wasn’t a bad fellow at heart,” she said.
“And Mr. Bangs?” Eve asked hesitantly, “you knew him before, Aunt Cal?”
“Oh, yes. His real name is Gopher—Harry Gopher. He shipped as cook with Uncle Judd for years and used often to be around town between voyages. Uncle always said he was a rascal but he had a fondness for him too. I shall have to see what can be done for him.”
XXVI
The Unveiling
A month had gone by. August was already drifting into September. School loomed ahead but we hardly gave it a thought. Each day as it came along was too absorbing, for Eve and I agreed that the business of making an old house come to life again was about the most thrilling experience in the world.
Yes, Aunt Cal had really moved into Craven House. After much deliberation and lengthy conferences with her lawyer, she had at last yielded to the combined persuasion of Miss Blossom, Mrs. Viner, Eve and myself and decided to give up the little cottage in Fishers Haven and make the old place she had loved as a child her permanent home. So the first of August had seen us established. Painters, plumbers and paper hangers had overrun the place. Miss Blossom had closed her own house in the village for the time being in order to help get things going. And from the day when she and Aunt Cal had gone to work with broom and scrub brush, all the latter’s doubts and misgivings seemed magically to disappear. It was as if, with the vanquishing of dust and cobwebs, something equally oppressive had vanished from Aunt Cal’s mind. Her figure seemed actually to grow more erect and her eyes to grow brighter.