Boarded-Up House by Augusta Huiell Seaman
CHAPTER XVI
JOYCE EXPLAINS
"Joyce, will you just oblige me by pinching me--real hard! I'm perfectlycertain I'm not awake!"
Joyce pinched, obligingly, and with vigor, thereby eliciting from hercompanion a muffled squeak. The two girls were sitting on the lower stepof the staircase in the dark hallway. They had been sitting there for along, long while.
It was Joyce who had pulled Cynthia away from staring, wide-eyed, at thespectacle of that marvelous reunion. And they had slipped out into thehall unobserved, in order that the two in the drawing-room might havethis wonderful moment to themselves. Neither of them had yetsufficiently recovered from her amazement to be quite coherent.
"I can't make anything out of it!" began Cynthia, slowly, at last."_He's dead!_"
"Evidently he isn't," replied Joyce, "or he wouldn't be here! Butoh!--it's true, then! I hardly dared to hope it would be so! I'm _so_glad I did it!" Cynthia turned on her.
"Joyce Kenway! _What_ are you talking about? It sounds as though youwere going crazy!"
"Oh, of course you don't understand!" retorted Joyce. "And it's your ownfault too. I'd have been glad enough to explain, and talk it over withyou, only you were so hateful that I just went home instead, and thoughtit out myself."
"Well, I may be stupid," remarked Cynthia, "but for the life of me Ican't make any sense out of what you're saying!"
"Listen, then," said Joyce, "and I'll explain it all. You remember lastnight how I sat reading the newspaper,--first, just to tease you, andafterward I really got interested in it? Well, I happened to be glancingover the news about people who had just landed here from abroad, when alittle paragraph caught my eye. I can't remember the exact words but itwas something like this,--that among the passengers just arrived in NewYork on the _Campania_ was Mr. _Fairfax Collingwood_, who was interestedin Western and Australian gold mines. He had not been here in the Eastfor nearly forty years, and it said how astounded he was at theremarkable changes that had taken place during his long absence. Then itwent on to say that he was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria for only a fewdays, as he was just here on some important business, and was then goingto cross the continent, on his way back to Australia.
"Well, you'd better believe that I nearly jumped out of my skin at thename--Fairfax Collingwood. It's an unusual one, and it didn't seempossible that more than one person could have it, though of course itmight be a distant connection of the same family. And then, too, _our_Fairfax Collingwood was dead. I didn't know what to think! I tried toget your attention, but you were still as mad as you could be, so Imade up my mind I'd go home and puzzle over it by myself, and I took thepaper with me.
"After I got home, I sat and thought and _thought_! And all of a suddenit occurred to me that perhaps he wasn't killed in the war afterall,--that there'd been some mistake. I've read that such things didhappen; but if it were so, I couldn't imagine why he didn't go and makeit up with his mother afterward. It seemed very strange. And then thisexplanation dawned on me,--he had left that note for his mother, andperhaps thought that if she really intended to forgive him, she'd havemade some effort to get word to him in the year that elapsed before hewas reported killed. Then, as she never did, he may have concluded thatit was all useless and hopeless, and he'd better let the report stand,and he disappear and never come back. You see that article said hehadn't been East here for forty years.
"And when I'd thought this out, an idea popped into my head. If what I'dimagined was true, it didn't seem _right_ to let him go on thinkingthat, when I knew that his mother never saw that letter, and I decidedI'd let him know it. So I sat right down and wrote a note that wentsomething like this:
"MR. FAIRFAX COLLINGWOOD:
"If you are the same Mr. Fairfax Collingwood who, in 1861, parted from your mother after a disagreement, leaving a note for her which you hoped she would read, I want to tell you that she never saw that note.
"Joyce Kenway.
"I signed my name right out, because Father has always said that towrite an anonymous letter was the most despicable thing any one coulddo. And if he ever discovered who I was, I wouldn't be ashamed to tellhim what we had done, anyway. Of course, I ran the chance of his notbeing the right person, but I thought if that were so, he simplywouldn't pay any attention to the note, and the whole thing would endthere. I addressed the letter to his hotel, and decided that it must bemailed that very night, for he might suddenly leave there and I'd neverknow where else to find him. It was then nearly ten o'clock, and Ididn't want Father or Mother to know about it, so I teased Anne intorunning out to the post-office with me. He must have received it thismorning."
Cynthia had listened to this long explanation in astonished silence."Isn't it the most remarkable thing," she exclaimed when Joyce hadfinished, "that each of us should write, I to the mother and you to theson, and neither of us even guess what the other was doing! And thatthey should meet here, just this afternoon! But there are a whole lot ofthings I can't understand at all. Why, for instance, did he give thename of Arthur Calthorpe when he came in, and pretend he was some oneelse?"
"That's been puzzling me too," replied Joyce, "and I can't think of anyreason."
"But the thing that confuses me most of all," added Cynthia, "is this.Why, if you had written that note, and had an idea that he was alive,were _you_ so tremendously astonished when he and his mother recognizedeach other? I should have thought you'd guess right away, when you sawhim at the door, who he was!"
"That's just the queer part of it!" said Joyce. "In the first place, Inever expected him to come out here at all,--at least, not right away. Inever put the name of this town in the letter, nor mentioned this house.I supposed, of course, that he'd go piling right down to South Carolinato find his mother, or see whether she was alive. Then, later, whenthey'd made it all up (provided she was alive, which even _I_ didn'tknow then), I thought they might come back here and open the house. Thatwas one reason I wanted to have our illumination next week, on thechance of their arriving.
"So you see I was quite unprepared to see him rushing out here at once;and when he gave another name, that completely deceived me. And then,there's one thing more. Somehow, I had in my mind a picture of FairfaxCollingwood that was as different as could be from--well, from what heis! You see, I'd always thought of him as the _boy_ whom Great-auntLucia described having seen. I pictured him as slim and young looking,smooth-faced, with golden curly hair, and big brown eyes. His eyes arethe same but,--well, I somehow never counted on the change that allthose forty years would make! You can't think how different my idea ofhim was, and naturally that helped all the more to throw me off thetrack."
"But why--" began Cynthia afresh.
"Oh, don't let's try to puzzle over it any more just now!" interruptedJoyce. "My head is simply in a whirl. I can't even _think_ straight! Inever had so many surprises all at once in my life. I think he willexplain everything we don't understand. Let's just wait!"
There were faint sounds from the drawing-room, but they wereindistinguishable,--low murmurings and half-hushed sobs. The tworeunited ones within were bridging the gulf of forty years. And so thegirls continued to wait outside, in the silence and in the dark.