CHAPTER V
Mr. Lismore Sows a Seed
“LOTTIE,” said Lismore, to his daughter next morning, “what had Joan to say for herself yesterday? I could spare only a few moments at Elm House in the evening, and didn't get her news.”
“I don't think she said very much,” the girl answered, “except about—”
“About what?” he asked carelessly.
“About Douglas Grant. But perhaps she told you?”
“She certainly did not mention the unfortunate young man to me, and I must say I'm surprised she should have mentioned him to you.” Mr. Lismore leisurely turned over the folded pages of his paper. “What had she to say about him?”
“She said that Mr. Cran, just before his death, declared him innocent.”
“Really! You didn't happen to see Mr. Cran during the last three or four weeks of his life, did you, Lottie?”
“No, Father.”
“Then you cannot imagine the change in the man—mentally, I mean.”
“Mentally! Oh, yes, I remember you saying something to Mother.”
“Just so. The innocence of young Grant was one of his hallucinations.”
“I see! I told Joan I couldn't believe it. But she does.”
“It would be disrespectful to the memory of her benefactor for her to do otherwise. Mr. Cran was also convinced that Mr. Stormont and I were his enemies!”
“Oh!”?
“But”—suddenly Lismore dropped the paper and faced his daughter—“the most pitiful sign of madness was shown in his leaving the house and five thousand a year to his secretary.”
“Joan! But she was always so good to him. She was far more than a mere secretary.”
“Allow me, Lottie. I have nothing to say against the girl. I don't even suggest that she took advantage of his weakness at the last. But I am bound to tell you that had he died a week sooner, the house and a hundred thousand dollars would have come to you, while she would have received just five thousand.” So saying, Mr. Lismore threw down the paper, with what might have been a gesture of Christian resignation, rose and left the room and, immediately after, the house.
He was by no means an astute man as to the workings of human nature, but he knew his daughter, and he felt that he had said just enough for the present. Lottie would not doubt his statement, which he had invented during his ride home that morning, but she would begin to wonder about Joan March.
And sure enough, it was not long before Lottie was asking herself all sorts of ugly questions concerning the girl, her friend, to whom her hundred thousand had gone.
ON the same morning, but some ninety minutes later, the new owner of Elm House was seated at the writing-table in the library. Joan had letters to answer, but none of them held her attention now. She was examining, by no means for the first time, a half-sheet of note-paper, once folded small, which had been slipped into her hand, hurriedly, without a word, at the door of Elm House on an early autumn night two years ago. It was written in pencil, hastily yet clearly enough, and ran:
- I think you are the only one I can trust to be both kind and secret. With you I leave an address at which a message will always find me—sooner or later. I ask you to use it for one reason only, and to destroy this rather than let it be seen by another person. If ever you should become convinced that my uncle really needs me, write, and I will come. But be certain of his need, I beg of you. You will hear soon enough a reason for my hasty departure. I have nothing to say, except that I am glad to think you are my uncle's good friend as well as his secretary. I am sorry to go; but there seems to be no other way. Good-by. All happiness.
D. G.
The address which followed named an obscure little town in Canada. Joan, whose training had made her methodical, had taken the trouble to learn that it promised to become a mining center of importance, silver and gold having been discovered in payable quantities in the district.
AT last, with a sigh, she folded the note and laid it in a trinket-box, which she would presently put away in the safe. For the first time she wished the writer had left her free to consult at least one person in emergency. She could have trusted Miss Gosling without hesitation.
The difficulty was this: The letter she had written and mailed on the afternoon of Mr. Cran's fatal seizure ought to have reached its destination—she had made inquiry of the post office—fully a week ago. It had asked for a telegraphed answer.
Of course, as the note in the trinket-box reminded her, a letter to the address given would reach him only “sooner or later.” If he were engaged in mining work, which was the likeliest thing in the world, he might be far out of range of the post office. Also, a letter might get lost.
What ought she to do? Try the effect of a telegram which might possibly reach him where a letter would not, or simply let matters take their course?
Joan was not a young woman of indecision, but for once she was seriously thinking of seeking a sign in the fall of a coin when she saw Miss Gosling coming up the garden walk; and going quickly to the open window, she requested her aunt to join her.
NO sooner had Aunt Griselda closed the door than she began: “I'm so glad you asked me in here at once, Joan. I hate having to bottle up news—so seldom I have any. Where do you think I've been this fine morning? You'd never guess, so I'll tell you. The city!” She flopped her small person upon the couch.
“The city!”
“Yes. And who—whom, if you like—do you think I saw in the city, arriving at his office?”
“Mr. Vanderbilt, perhaps.”
“Mr. Harold Lismore.”
Joan, her amusement gone, looked at her aunt.
“I had a notion of seeing him again, if I could manage it,” said Miss Gosling, suddenly serious. “After our talk yesterday, I began to wonder whether I had been too hard on the man; but Harold Lismore is no better than I reckoned he was. Still, he and I had a nice chat, and parted on the best of terms. All the same, don't ask him to dinner on my account. I'm afraid I'm trying your patience, Joan.”
“You are indeed! Is that all your news?”
“Not quite. Mrs, Lismore and her daughter are not going to Atlantic City this year, after all.”
“Poor Lottie! That will be a big disappointment for her.”
“Her father seemed disappointed too. Must have been a sudden change of plans. It was only last night that you were invited to join them..... Well, here's another item. Mr. Lismore did not actually say it, but he hinted that your late employer and benefactor was scarcely of sound mind the week before he died.”
“Oh, the beast!” exclaimed the girl, her blue eyes dark with anger. “How dared he! Why should he hint at such a horrible thing?”
“I wonder! His personal feelings, of course—”
“Yes, and because of Douglas Grant—the nephew I told you about.” Joan was rather flushed.
Miss Gosling did not appear to notice it. “The poor boy under a cloud for so long! But Mr. Lismore did not seem to have heard of his innocence.”
“Lottie has not told her father. Why?” thought Joan. Aloud she said: “Had Mr. Lismore anything to say about my getting the house and so much money?”
“He admitted that that was a thing in favor of Mr. Cran's sanity; only he could not help wondering how you would feel if the nephew turned up. What's the matter?”
“Good heavens!” cried the girl in sudden distress. “How awful! I never saw it in that light until this moment! I don't care! I can easily give it up?
“Give what up?”
“House and money. Of all things, the house ought to have been left to his nephew.”
“Come, come,” said Miss Gosling placidly. “Don't be absurd. I repeated Mr. Lismore's remark, not to annoy you but simply to confirm you in your opinion of him expressed a minute ago. He is a beast, Joan, and you will do well to remember it.”
“I will remember it,” said Joan,
A few minutes later, when the telephone rang, Miss Gosling left the room. Joan took up the receiver.
“Well?.... Yes, I am Miss March. Who are you?”
“A friend of Douglas Grant,—Henley is my name,—the friend who recently sent fifteen hundred to the late Mr. Cran. As his secretary, you may know about the incident.”
“Yes,” she managed to say faintly, “I know. What can I do for you, Mr. Henley?”
“Douglas has sent me a question to be answered by return. It is this: can Miss March say whether Mr. Cran left any written message for his nephew?”
“Is that not a question you ought to ask Mr. Cran's lawyers?” asked Joan in reply after a pause.
“Douglas instructs me to ask you. Personally, I think he ought to have written to you direct.”
Joan felt cornered. What could she say, other than a downright untruth, that would not be a betrayal of her trust?
“Douglas,” went on the courteous voice, “seems to hope that his uncle might have left a message in your keeping, Miss March.”
“Oh, wait a moment,” she said. It occurred to her that she too had a right to ask questions. “Mr. Henley,” she went on then, steadily enough, “where is Mr. Grant at present?”
No answer.
“I am asking where Mr. Grant is at present. Are you there?”
Silence.
“They've cut me off,” she thought crossly, and waited.
But it would appear that Mr. Henley, friend of Douglas Grant, had suddenly lost interest in his quest. At all events, his courteous tones came over the wire no more.