Perhaps she would not have known of it then if death had not invaded their family circle and laid his grasp upon her father, who died in Germany, in a little village on the Rhine. His death was sudden to all but himself. He had long known that he suffered from heart disease, which might kill him at any moment, and as far as his worldly affairs were concerned, he was ready. Every debt in America had been paid, every business matter arranged, and his immense fortune divided equally between his two daughters, with the exception that to Magdalen he gave thirty thousand dollars more than he gave to Alice, this being just the amount of poor Laura’s property. He was sick only a day or two and able to talk but little, but he spoke to Magdalen of Roger Irving, and told her of the letter withheld and where to find it, and said to her faintly and at long intervals, “Forgive me, if I did wrong. I thought it would be better for the families not to come together. I hoped you might forget him if you believed yourself forgotten, but I see I was mistaken. I am sorry now for the course I pursued. I would like to see the boy, or man he is now. I saw him once when a little child. Jessie wanted to take him with her, but I refused. I hated him, because he was hers and not mine. I hated all the Irvings. I took Alice from New Haven because I feared she might fancy Frank. I do not hate them now, and when I’m dead, go back to Roger and tell him so, and tell—tell Jessie—if you see her;—yes,—tell her and Laura, too,—that I tried—I tried—to pray, and I did pray—and I hope—”
He did not say what he hoped, for his tongue grew stiff and paralyzed, and only his eyes spoke the farewell which was forever. Alice and Guy were both away at a little town farther up the river, where Guy had some friends; but they hurried back to the vine-wreathed cottage they had taken for the summer, and where their father now lay dead. He was an old man, of nearly seventy, and had lived out his appointed time; but his children wept bitterly over him, and kissed his white lips and snowy hair, and then made him ready for the coffin, and buried him on the banks of the blue Rhine, where the river, in its ceaseless flow, and the rustling vines of Germany sing a requiem for the dead.
“Let us go back to America,” Magdalen said, when Guy and Alice asked what her wishes were.
Even before her father was buried from her sight, she had found Roger’s letter, of more than two and a half years ago, and had read it through, and her heart had leaped across the sea with the answer she would give. She knew Roger had not forgotten. He might have lost faith in her, from her silence; but he loved her still, and amid all her sorrow for her father, there was a spring of joy in her heart as she thought of the future opening so blissfully before her. She told Guy and Alice everything, and while they both felt how deeply she had been wronged, they uttered no word of censure against the father, who had wronged her so. He was dead and gone forever, and they made his grave beautiful with flowers and shrubs, and placed by it a costly stone, and dropped their tears upon it; and then turned their backs on Germany and travelled night and day until the sea was reached,—the glorious sea, at sight of which Magdalen wept tears of joy, blessing the dashing waves which were to bear her home to Beechwood and to Roger Irving.
CHAPTER LII.
MILLBANK IS SOLD AT AUCTION.
Millbank was to be sold, with all its furniture and the hundred acres of land belonging to it. Five years had sufficed for Frank to run through his princely fortune, and he was a ruined man. Extravagant living, losses by fire and neglect to take advantage of the markets, fast horses, heavy bets, the dishonesty of Holt, his head man and chief adviser, and lastly, his signing of a note of twenty thousand dollars,—every penny of which he had to pay,—had done the business for him; and when the Greys landed in New York the papers were full of the “great failure” at Belvidere, and the day was fixed when Millbank was to be sold.
Guy pointed out the paragraph to Magdalen, and then watched her as she read it. She was very white, and there was a strange gleam in her dark eyes; but she did not seem sorry. On the contrary, her face fairly shone as she looked up and said, “I shall buy Millbank and give it back to Roger.”
Guy knew she would do that, and he encouraged her in the plan, and went himself to Belvidere, where he was a stranger, and made all needful inquiries, and reported to Magdalen. Mrs. Frank had already left Millbank with her hundred thousand, not a dollar of which could Frank’s creditors touch, or Frank either, for that matter.
Bell held her own with an iron grasp, and so well had she managed that none of the principal had been spent, and when the final crash came and her husband told her he was ruined, it found her prepared and ready to abdicate at any moment The old home in Boston was sold, but she was able to buy a better one, and she did so, and with her father and sister took possession at once. To do Bell justice, she carried nothing from Millbank but her clothing and jewelry. The rest belonged to Frank’s creditors, and she considered that it would be stealing to take it. This she said several times for the benefit of Mrs. Walter Scott, who, less scrupulous than her daughter-in-law, was quietly filling her trunks and boxes with articles of value, silver and china, and linen and bedding, and curtains, and whatever she could safely stow away. Mrs. Walter Scott was about to buy a house, too, a cosy little cottage with handsome grounds, just out of New York, on the New Haven road. She, too, had managed well, as she supposed. She had speculated in stocks and oil until she thought herself worth forty thousand dollars. There was some of it lying in the bank, where she could draw it at any time, and some of it still in oil, which she was assured she could sell at an advance upon the original price. So, what with the forty thousand and what with the household goods she would take from Millbank, she felt quite comfortable in her mind, and bore the shock of her son’s failure with great equanimity and patience. She was glad, she said, of something to break up the terrible life they were leading at Millbank. For more than a year, and indeed ever since Bell’s return from abroad, scarcely a word had been exchanged between herself and Mrs. Franklin Irving, and each lady had an establishment of her own, with a separate table, a separate retinue of servants, and a separate carriage. There was no other way of keeping the peace, and in desperation Frank himself had suggested this arrangement, though he knew that the entire support of both families would necessarily fall on him. But Frank was reckless, and did not greatly care. He was going to destruction any way, he said to Roger, who expostulated with him and warned him of the sure result of such extravagance. “He was going to ruin, and he might as well go on a grand scale, and better, too, if that would keep peace between the women.”