Guy had never met with so much frankness and simplicity in any one, unless it were in Lucy Atherstone, of whom Maddy reminded him a little, except that she was more practical, more—he hardly knew what—only there was a difference, and a thought crossed his mind that if Maddy had had all Lucy’s advantage and was as old, she would be what the English call cleverer. There was no disparagement to Lucy in his thoughts, only a compliment to Maddy, who was waiting for him to answer her question; he had offered his services; she had accepted; and with the mental comment, “I dread Doc’s chaff the most so I’ll explain to him that I am educating her for the future Mrs. Holbrook,” he replied:
“As soon as I am rested from my journey, or sooner, if you like; and now tell me, please, who is this Uncle Joseph of whom you spoke?”
He remembered what the doctor had said of a crazy uncle, but wishing to hear Maddy’s version of it, put to her the question he did.
“Uncle Joseph is grandma’s youngest brother,” Maddy answered, “and he has been in the Lunatic Asylum for years. As long as his little property lasted, his bills were paid, but now they keep him from charity, only grandpa helps all he can, and buys some little nice things which he wants so badly, and sometimes cries for, they say. I picked berries all last summer, and sold them, to buy him a thin coat and pants. We should have more to spend than we do, if it were not for Uncle Joseph,” and Maddy’s face wore a thoughtful expression as she recalled all the shifts and turns she’d seen made at home that the poor maniac might be more comfortable.
“What made him crazy?” Guy asked, and after a moment’s hesitancy Maddy replied:
“I don’t believe grandma would mind my telling you, though she don’t talk about it much. I only knew it a little while ago. He was disappointed once. He loved a girl very much, and she made him think that she loved him. She was many years younger than Uncle Joseph—about my age at first, and when she grew up she said she was sick of him, because he was so much older. He wouldn’t have felt so badly, if she had not gone straight off and married a rich man who was a great deal older even than Uncle Joseph; that was the hardest part, and he went crazy at once. It has been so long that he never can be helped, and sometimes grandma talks of bringing him home, as he is perfectly harmless. I suppose it’s wicked, but I most hope she won’t, for it would be terrible to live with a crazy man,” and a chill crept over Maddy, as if there had fallen upon her a foreshadowing of what might be. “Mr. Remington,” she continued, suddenly, “if you teach me, I can’t of course expect three dollars a week. It would not be right.”
“Perfectly right,” he answered. “Your services to Jessie will be worth just as much as ever, so give yourself no trouble on that score.”
He was the best man that ever lived, Maddy thought, and so she told the doctor that afternoon when, as he rode up to Aikenside, she met him on the lawn before he reached the house.
It did strike the doctor a little comically that one of Guy’s habits should offer to turn school teacher, but Maddy was so glad that he was glad too, and doubly glad that across the sea there was a Lucy Atherstone. How he wished that she was there now as Mrs. Guy, and he must tell Guy so that very day. Seated in Guy’s library, the opportunity soon occurred, for Guy approached the subject himself by saying:
“Guess, Hal, what crazy project I have just embarked in.”