CHAPTER XX.
THE WALLET.
"Did you sleep?"
"Like a top!"
"Bad dreams?" and Dr. Wright felt the pulse of the healthy lookingpatient, who, with the help of Gwen, had donned a very becoming boudoircap and negligee, two articles of clothing that she had brought to campin spite of the jeerings of her sisters, who did not see how they couldbe used. Helen had not had an illness since she was a child and had hertonsils out, and certainly a camp was no place to sport a filmy lace capand a negligee of pale blue silk and lace.
"It is almost worth while having a sn--having a sprained ankle just toprove to my sisters that I was wise in bringing this cap and sacque,"she had laughingly told Gwen, who was assisting her. "I bet snake biteis going to come popping out of my mouth, willy nilly," she said toherself. "I almost gave it away that time."
Gwen, who loved pretty things and scented from afar the admiration Dr.Wright was beginning to hold for Helen, considered it very wise to havebrought the dainty garments. She could not help thinking, with somethingakin to bitterness, of her own yellow cotton night gowns that Aunt Mandyconsidered superfluous articles of clothing; and of the coarse, grayflannel bed-sacque she had worn the summer before when she had caughtthe measles from Josh; and of how she must have looked when the oldcountry doctor came to see her.
The tent was tidy and sweet when George Wright entered to see how hispatient fared. Gwen had spread the steamer rugs over the cots and hadeven placed a bunch of honeysuckle on the little table at Helen'sbedside. She had had to purloin the table from Miss Somerville's cabin,but that lady was willing to give up more than a table for her favoriteyoung cousin.
Helen blushed a little when the young man asked her if she had had anybad dreams. The fact was she had had very pleasant dreams in which hehad largely figured. She had dreamed that Josephus had turned intoPegasus and that, as she flew along on his shapely back, she had met Dr.Wright floating by on a white cloud and he had wanted to feel her pulse.She had put out her hand and as he felt her pulse, he had jumped fromthe white cloud square onto the back of Pegasus, and together they rodethrough the air, the winged horse looking kindly on them with much thebenevolent expression of Josephus.
"No, my dreams were pleasant," she smiled.
Dr. Wright certainly took a long time to feel any one's pulse, but thetruth was that he had forgotten to count, so taken up he was with thefact that pale blue was quite as becoming to Helen as gray with a dashof scarlet. I think if he had felt his own pulse, he would have beenastonished at how far from normal his heart beats were at that moment.
"I have brought you the wallet from the Devil's Gorge. Here it is foryou to open!"
"Oh, Dr. Wright! Is that where you were going when Gwen saw you so earlythis morning?"
"Yes!"
"I think you are very good to take that tramp for Gwen," she said,taking the bulky wallet in her hand.
"I didn't take it for Gwen, but for you." Gwen had left the tent for amoment.
"But you would have done it for Gwen, I am sure."
"Yes, of course, but perhaps not on an empty stomach," laughed thedoctor. "But why don't you open the pocketbook?"
"Because it is Gwen's! She must be the one to open it."
"But you are not sure it is hers. I brought it for you to have thepleasure of opening it."
"Yes, I am sure it is hers, and I'd take more pleasure in seeing heropen it than doing it myself."
Just then Gwen returned with a pitcher of fresh water. Helen held up thewallet and said:
"Did you ever see this before?"
Gwen turned pale and her steady little hands, that could usually carry abrimming cup of coffee safely to its destination without once sloppingover, shook so that she spilled the water from the pitcher.
"Oh, Miss Helen! Where did you find it?"
"Never mind now where we found it! You open it and see if you canidentify it," said Helen kindly. She realized that Gwen was to haveexcitement enough in opening this wallet of her father's, lost as it hadbeen for five years, without having to picture, as she would surely do,his death, the fall from the cliff and this pocketbook slipping from hiscoat and lodging in the tree.
The wallet was evidently an expensive one: alligator skin lined withRussian leather. The silver clasp was rusty and Gwen's trembling handscould hardly force the sliding catch, but Helen motioned for Dr. Wrightnot to assist her. She felt, somehow, that the girl would rather do itall herself. They were silent while the little English girl fumbled thelock and finally sprung it. The wallet was stuffed full of papers andletters. In one compartment was some silver, several gold pieces andsome English coins. The papers were yellow with age, but so stout wasthe alligator skin that the many rains that must have fallen during thefive years the wallet had been wedged in that scrub oak's branches, hadnot wet them nor defaced them.
"Be very careful, Gwen, there may be all kinds of precious documents inthere," exclaimed Helen, as some of the papers floated to the floor ofthe tent and some fluttered to her own cot.
Gwen had sunk to the floor in a little heap and was sobbing.
"I can remember so well how my father used to open up this pocketbookand pore over these letters. I was never allowed to touch it. He kepthis money in it and receipts and things."
"Look, here is a receipt for one thousand dollars in cash payment forland!" exclaimed Helen, as a yellow slip of paper fell on her coverlet.The paper was written in a bold black hand so that any one might readit:
Received payment from St. John Brownell for 100 acres of land at Greendale, Albemarle County, Va. $1,000 in cash.
(Signed) ABNER DEAN.
The signature was in violet ink and very shaky. Helen recognized it asold Dean's writing, as when he sent up any produce to the camp from hisstore at Greendale, it had been her duty to go over the bill whichinvariably accompanied the goods.
"Why, Gwen, Gwen! That old wretch has cheated you out of your land! Doyou know, he handed over to Father, for money he owed him, land that didnot belong to him, and this minute our camp is built on your property?"Helen was very much excited, and as for Gwen,--she was pale andtrembling. "I'd like to get up out of this bed and go horse-whiphim----"
"Please, can I do it for you?" from the doctor. "But wouldn't it bebetter to get a lawyer to take the matter up and have the thing legallyadjusted?"
"We-e-ll, ye-s! Maybe---- But I'd certainly like to make that old mansuffer some. Wouldn't you, Gwen?" But the little English girl was sobusy sorting the papers that had fallen from her father's old walletthat she did not hear.
"What is that in the back of the pocketbook where the other fasteningis?" asked the doctor.
"Money and more money! Why, Gwen, look at the bills!"
Helen was right. In a neat and orderly manner in yet another closedcompartment of the wallet were placed greenbacks and yellowbacks of highdenominations. The girls feverishly counted out $1,500.
"No wonder it was so fat! We had better not say anything about havingall this money in camp. It ought to be in the bank, Gwen, as it might bestolen from you. Dr. Wright will deposit it for you in Richmond and youcan draw on it as you need."
Gwen handed over the bills to the young man without a moment's delay.
"Wait now, let's count it again to make sure, and I will give you areceipt for the amount."
"Oh, that's not necessary, is it, Miss Helen?"
"Certainly not!" And then Helen blushed to think how short a time hadelapsed since she had expressed all kinds of doubts about the honesty ofthis man, because, forsooth, he had been given power of attorney over apaltry $83.59! Here she was advising this little mountain waif to handover to Dr. Wright what seemed to them a large fortune without even areceipt.
George Wright smiled and quietly wrote a receipt for the amount.
"It would be safer to let me carry this money for you because it mightget out that you have it, and it would be easier to get it from you thanme. I will depos
it it at the Virginia Trust Co. in Richmond, and willsend you the bank book immediately. You can invest it or not as you seefit. It would bring in forty-five dollars a year if you put it in thesavings bank."
"Oh, that would be enough for me to go to school on and even be aboarder at school! But I want some of it to buy a new mule for AuntMandy. Josephus is so old and feeble."
"You had better not tell Josh you think so," laughed the doctor. "Butwill you be contented, child, just to stay on in the mountains for therest of your life?"
"This is the only home I have. Where else can I go?"
"You can go wherever we are," cried Helen impulsively, and Dr. Wright'sadmiration for her was increased if possible.
"Oh, Miss Helen, you are so good! But Aunt Mandy needs me and maybe if Istay here I can make Josh wash, even in the winter time."
"Well, maybe you can," said the doctor kindly, "and it is a great thingto be needed and to see some chance of improving your fellow man. Youcould, with economy, get yourself through college on this money."
"And then, of course, you own the land our camp is built on,"remembered Helen. "That is a thousand dollars more."
"But I don't want that," exclaimed Gwen. "It has been so wonderful tohave all of you here and so good to me."
"But, my dear child, the land belongs to you and this Abner Dean willhave to be the one to suffer, not you or the Carters. If you will letme, I will consult a lawyer in Richmond and have him take hold of thematter. Don't you find a deed of some sort among those papers?"
There was no deed among the papers and, in fact, one never was found.The mystery was never solved how such an intelligent man as St. JohnBrownell evidently was had contented himself with a mere receipt for the$1,000 paid Abner Dean. He was perhaps suffering so with the nervouscomplaint which finally caused his death, that he had accepted thesimplest method which presented itself to establish himself in a placewhere he hoped to find some peace.
While Helen was confined to her couch with the spurious sprained ankle,she helped Gwen unravel the story of her life from the letters found inthe wonderful wallet. It was not such an extraordinary story, after all.St. John Brownell was of good family and education but evidently ofsmall means, being the younger son of one of the many daughters of animpoverished earl. He had married young, come to America, and taken upteaching as a profession. His wife had died and then had come on him thestrange malady that had caused him so much agony. Cities were hateful tohim and he had decided that his small patrimony would serve best in somelocality where the living was very inexpensive. Helen gathered from someof the letters that this patrimony amounted to about $3,000. He seemedto have arrived in the mountains with that much money in cash. He hadbought the one hundred acres of land on the side of the mountain, hopingto improve it, possibly by going into Albemarle pippins. Gwen thought hehad perhaps put his money into cash expecting to place it in a bank inVirginia; but as his malady gained on him all money dealings became veryhateful and irksome to him, and he had evidently procrastinated untilhe had become in the habit of just carrying that roll of money aroundwith him.
Gwen could recall nothing of her mother, but she remembered being in akindergarten in New York and of course remembered coming to Virginia,and her father's every characteristic was as fresh in her mind as thoughhe had died only yesterday. The poor man had never been too miserable tobe anything but gentle and loving to his little daughter, and he hadspared no pains in teaching her, so that at nine years, her age when hehad died, Gwen had been quite as well educated as many a child oftwelve.
"Aren't you going to write to some of your father's family, Gwen?" askedHelen, who had become so absorbed in the research that she felt like afull-fledged detective.
"I think not," and Gwen shook her head sadly. "He must have gonecompletely out of their lives. I can't remember his getting any lettersafter we came to Virginia. Some day, maybe, I can make enough money togo to England, and then I will hunt them up and peep at them throughthe shutters, and if they look kind and nice, I'll make myself known tothem."
"Perhaps you are right. They may be all kinds of pills and they mightcome over here and take you back with them whether you wanted to go ornot. And you might have to live in stuffy chambers in London and neversee the mountains any more."
"Dreadful! That would kill me!"
And so Gwen went on living with kind Aunt Mandy, little by littlecleaning up that good woman until she became reconciled to water andalmost fond of it.
George Wright consulted a lawyer friend who took Gwen's affairs in handand by skillful management brought old Abner Dean to the realizationthat it would be best for him to execute a deed to the land bought bySt. John Brownell, arranging it so Gwen would own the property withoutany string tied to it. He was forced to pay the money to Mr. Carter, andthen the girls, having unwittingly built on Gwen's land, rented it fromher. Land had increased twofold in value since the Englishman had madehis purchase, and the timber had grown so there was every indicationthat by careful management Gwen would have a good deal more money to addto her bank account.
Before Dr. Wright went back to Richmond, he told Helen he had killed thesnake, if not the one who had taken a nip out of her tendon Achilles, atleast one just as good or just as bad, whichever way she chose to lookat it.
"Poor old snake!" exclaimed Helen. "He shouldn't have been punished foracting according to his nature. I am the one that should have beenpunished, because I hope I acted not according to my nature."
"Well, haven't you been punished?"
Helen said nothing. She felt in her heart that she had not been punishedat all but had been favored, in that through that rattlesnake she hadgained a real friend in the young doctor.