Bessie's Fortune: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

In his recital of his crime the old man had omitted to speak of the money and the will, or, at most, he had touched so lightly upon them that it had escaped the notice of his son, whose mind was wholly absorbed in one idea, and that of the body buried under the floor within a few feet of him. Hannah explained to him what her father meant, and told him of the box and the gold, to which she had every year added the interest—compound interest, too—so that the amount had more than quadrupled, and she had found it necessary to have another and larger box in which to keep the treasure.

"That is why I have so often asked you to change bills into gold for me," she said. "Paper might depreciate in value, or the banks go down, but gold is gold everywhere, and I have tried so hard to earn or save the interest, denying myself many things which I should have enjoyed as well as most women, and getting for myself the reputation of closeness and even stinginess, which I did not deserve. I had to be economical with myself to meet my payments, which increased as the years went on, until they are so large that sometimes I have not been able to put the whole in the box at the end of the year, and I am behindhand now, but I keep an exact account, and shall make it up in time."

"But, Hannah, I used to give you money willingly, and would have given you more if you had asked for it. I had no idea of this," Burton said, and she replied:

"Yes, I know you would, but I did not like to do it, for fear you would think me extravagant and wonder what I did with so much. Not a penny you gave us ever went into the box. That was my matter, not yours; and I have worked so hard to do it, for father was not able to look after the farm, which of itself is poor and barren, and as he was only willing to hire a boy, I have done a man's work myself at times."

"You, Hannah—you?" Burton said, gazing at the pale-faced, frail-looking woman, who had done the work of a man rather than ask money of him who sometimes spent more on one large party than she did in a whole year, and who said to him, with a sad smile:

"Yes; I have spaded the garden, and planted the corn in the field back of the hill, where no one could see me, and have helped Sam get in the hay, though I never attempted to mow; but I did lay up a bit of stone wall which had tumbled down, I have done what I could."

Poor Hannah! No wonder that her hands, once so small and shapely, were broad, and hard, and rough, and not much like Mrs. Geraldine's, on which there were diamonds enough to more than liquidate the debt due to Elizabeth Rogers and her heirs; and no wonder that her dress, which so often offended her brother's artistic and critical eye, was coarse, and plain, and selected with a view to durability rather than comeliness. She had done what she could, and what few women would have done, and Burton knew it, and was conscious of a great feeling of respect and pity, if not affection, for her, as she stood before him in a stooping posture, with her toil-worn hands clasped together as if asking his pardon for having intruded her own joyless life upon his notice. But above every other feeling in his heart was the horrible fear of exposure if she attempted restitution, and he said to her at last:

"I am sorry for you, Hannah, and I can understand how, with your extreme conscientiousness, you believed it your duty to do as you have done. But this must go no further. To discover Elizabeth Rogers is to confess ourselves the children of a murderer, and this I cannot allow. You have no right to visit father's sin upon Grey, who would be sure to find it out if you stirred in the matter. He is sensitive, very, and proud of his name. It would kill him to know what we do."

"No, brother, it would hurt him, but not kill him." Hannah said, with energy; "and ever since he was a little child I have depended upon him to comfort me, to help me, as I knew he would when he was older; and something tells me he will find the heirs. I do not mean to tell him until he is a man, able to understand."

"Hannah!" and there was fierce anger in the voice. "You are not my sister if you ever dare tell Grey this thing, or hint it to him in any way. He must never know it, both for his own sake and mine. I could not even look at him without shame if he knew what my father was. You have kept it thirty-one years; keep it thirty-one longer, and, as you vowed secrecy to my father, so swear to me solemnly, as you hope for Heaven, never to tell Grey or any one."