“It is part of a letter from my mother to Uncle Pieter,” thought Jannet. “What does it mean?”
Jannet did not feel like reading now. Taking the scrap of paper with her, she walked from the library to the hall, down the hall to the outer door, across a tiny path between tulip beds to the old door with its queer knocker. Soon she was in her room and at the desk. It was scarcely worth while to compare the writing with that of her mother, so sure was she that this was a message from her mother, but she went through the form.
It was raining again. Her search of the desk had been so casual and hurried before that this would be a good time to devote to it, with greater interest, too, because less distracted by the newness of everything as at first. Jannet admired the rich beauty of the desk, although she did not know that it was of the Chippendale design, with considerable carving, and that it had been made for an earlier ancestor than her mother.
For several hours Jannet opened and closed “secret” drawers which she had found previously, and read carefully whatever of writing she found in them. Quickly she learned to recognize her mother’s hand. She was scarcely old enough to appreciate the sentiment attaching to old programs and faded flowers, but she collected them thoughtfully and put all such mementos together.
The bundle of letters she untied, to look at the addresses. These were the love letters, of course; but between the letters she found a few pages of a diary, quickly recognized by the date at the head and the accounts that followed. In a moment she was bending over it with deep interest. One day’s account recorded what had been said of her mother’s singing at a private recital, and expressed the hope of a future as a singer. Another, kept by way of contrast, perhaps, told, with some reserve even to a personal diary, of her engagement and her lover.
Under a date not long before her marriage, Jannet Van Meter had written very fully and regretfully of a loss. “I have searched everywhere. I can not think that any one could have taken my pearls, yet where are they? I put them in my desk, in the most secret of its drawers. I have not worn them since, and they are gone! It is a great loss in money as well. Father made some sacrifices to raise the sum necessary for my pearls,—but he would do it. I was to have them, and Pieter did not like it, of course. He just smiled when I told him that I had lost them and would not show the least interest in discussing what might have become of them, nor would he help me hunt. ‘If they’re gone, they’re gone,’ said he, shrugging his shoulders. Sometimes I’ve almost thought,—but no, I’ll not even write such an unworthy suspicion.
“I had thought that it would be safe for us to have the pearls, because if we ever need money very much after we are married,—you and I really are going to be married, Douglas boy,—we could sell a pearl or two, or the whole necklace. Perhaps I shall find them yet. I’ll never give it up, not, at least, till I am too far away to hunt. I shall give a thorough going over to every place to-morrow.
“It is too bad that ‘Mother’ Eldon can’t come on for the wedding. And we have to go right through to the far West without stopping off because Douglas must get to his work. But someway, I imagine from her letter that she is not real happy about her boy’s getting married at all. Perhaps it is just as well for her to get used to the idea before we meet, though Douglas is just silly enough to say that she will love me when she sees me and that she couldn’t help it. Well, if he loves me, that is enough for me.”
The last page contained a brief account of wedding preparations. No mention was made of the pearls. “There is no use in trying to write it all down,” Jannetje Van Meter had written at the close. “And to write of my thoughts and feelings about this change in my life, or about us, I simply couldn’t. I believe that I will tear up my diary, anyhow! This is Finis.”
Jannet Eldon was smiling as she finished. Her mother was just a real girl, after all. She hadn’t lived to be very old. How Jannet wished that she had not burned the diary. Where had she gotten the impression that her mother would be buried among the Van Meters? Why, of course, it would be natural, if she had died before her husband. But if she had been carried off in an epidemic, that would be the reason why her grave would be out West. Then “Gramma” would want her son buried in the Eldon lot. That was it. Jannet had once visited that spot, in company with Miss Hilliard. There was no mystery there; besides, her father and mother were together now, wherever, apart, the worn-out bodies were. One of the lovely things about Miss Hilliard was that she had made the other world so real to Jannet.