CHAPTER XII
A HARD PROMISE
A DOZEN times in Georgina's day-dreaming she had imagined this scene.She had run to Uncle Darcy with the proof of Dan's innocence, heard hisglad cry, seen his face fairly transfigured as he read the confessionaloud. Now it was actually happening before her very eyes, but where wasthe scene of heavenly gladness that should have followed?
Belle, startled even more than he by Georgina's outcry, and quicker toact, read the message over his shoulder, recognized the handwriting andgrasped the full significance of the situation before he reached thename at the end. For ten years three little notes in that same peculiarhand had lain in her box of keepsakes. There was no mistaking thatsignature. She had read it and cried over it so many times that now asit suddenly confronted her with its familiar twists and angles it was asstartling as if Emmett's voice had called to her.
As Uncle Darcy looked up from the second reading, with a falteringexclamation of thanksgiving, she snatched the paper from his shakinghands and tore it in two. Then crumpling the pieces and flinging themfrom her, she seized him by the wrists.
"No, you're _not_ going to tell the whole world," she cried wildly,answering the announcement he made with the tears raining down hischeeks. "You're not going to tell anybody! Think of me! Think of FatherPotter!"
She almost screamed her demand. He could hardly believe it was Belle,this frenzied girl, who, heretofore, had seemed the gentlest of souls.He looked at her in a dazed way, so overwhelmed by the discovery thathad just been made, that he failed to comprehend the reason for herwhite face and agonized eyes, till she threw up her arms crying:
"_Emmett_ a thief! God in heaven! It'll kill me!"
It was the sight of Georgina's shocked face with Richard's at the door,that made things clear to the old man. He waved them away, with handswhich shook as if he had the palsy.
"Go on out, children, for a little while," he said gently, and closedthe door in their faces.
Slowly they retreated to the swing, Georgina clasping the skinned elbowwhich had begun to smart. She climbed into one seat of the swing andRichard and Captain Kidd took the other. As they swung back and forthshe demanded in a whisper:
"Why is it that grown people always shut children out of their secrets?Seems as if we have a right to know what's the matter when _we_ foundthe paper."
Richard made no answer, for just then the sound of Belle's crying cameout to them. The windows of the cottage were all open and the grass plotbetween the windows and the swing being a narrow one the closed doorwas of little avail. It was very still there in the shady dooryard, sostill that they could hear old Yellownose purr, asleep on the cushion inthe wooden arm-chair beside the swing. The broken sentences between thesobs were plainly audible. It seemed so terrible to hear a grown personcry, that Georgina felt as she did that morning long ago, when oldJeremy's teeth flew into the fire. Her confidence was shaken in theworld. She felt there could be no abiding happiness in anything.
"She's begging him not to tell," whispered Richard.
"But I owe it to Danny," they heard Uncle Darcy say. And then, "Whyshould I spare Emmett's father? Emmett never spared me, he never sparedDanny."
An indistinct murmur as if Belle's answer was muffled in herhandkerchief, then Uncle Darcy's voice again:
"It isn't fair that the town should go on counting him a hero and brandmy boy as a coward, when it's Emmett who was the coward as well as thethief."
Again Belle's voice in a quick cry of pain, as sharp as if she had beenstruck. Then the sound of another door shutting, and when the voicesbegan again it was evident they had withdrawn into the kitchen.
"They don't want Aunt Elspeth to hear," said Georgina.
"What's it all about?" asked Richard, much mystified.
Georgina told him all that she knew herself, gathered from the scrapsshe had heard the day of Cousin Mehitable's visit, and from varioussources since; told him in a half whisper stopping now and then whensome fragment of a sentence floated out to them from the kitchen; foroccasional words still continued to reach them through the windows inthe rear, when the voices rose at intervals to a higher pitch.
What passed behind those closed doors the children never knew. They feltrather than understood what was happening. Belle's pleading wasbeginning to be effectual, and the old man was rising to the sameheights of self-sacrifice which Dan had reached, when he slipped awayfrom home with the taint of his friend's disgrace upon him in order tosave that friend.
That some soul tragedy had been enacted in that little room the childrenfelt vaguely when Belle came out after a while. Her eyes were red andswollen and her face drawn and pinched looking. She did not glance intheir direction, but stood with her face averted and hand on thegate-latch while Uncle Darcy stopped beside the swing.
"Children," he said solemnly, "I want you to promise me never to speakto anyone about finding that note in the old rifle till I give youpermission. Will you do this for me, just because I ask it, even if Ican't tell you why?"
"Mustn't I even tell Barby?" asked Georgina, anxiously.
He hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Belle, then answered:
"No, not even your mother, till I tell you that you can. Now you seewhat a very important secret it is. Can _you_ keep it, son? Will youpromise me too?"
He turned to Richard with the question. With a finger under the boy'schin he tipped up his face and looked into it searchingly. The serious,brown eyes looked back into his, honest and unflinching.
"Yes, I promise," he answered. "Honor bright I'll not tell."
The old man turned to the waiting figure at the gate.
"It's all right, Belle. You needn't worry about it any more. You cantrust us."
She made no answer, but looking as if she had aged years in the lasthalf hour, she passed through the gate and into the sandy court, movingslowly across it towards the street beyond.
With a long-drawn sigh the old man sank down on the door-step and buriedhis face in his hands. They were still shaking as if he had the palsy.For some time the children sat in embarrassed silence, thinking everymoment that he would look up and say something. They wanted to go, butwaited for him to make some movement. He seemed to have forgotten theywere there. Finally a clock inside the cottage began striking five. Itbroke the spell which bound them.
"Let's go," whispered Richard.
"All right," was the answer, also whispered. "Wait till I take theshovel and can lid back to the kitchen."
"I'll take 'em," he offered. "I want to get a drink, anyhow."
Stealthily, as if playing Indian, they stepped out of the swing andtiptoed through the grass around the corner of the house. Even the dogwent noiselessly, instead of frisking and barking as he usually did whenstarting anywhere. Their return was equally stealthy. As they slippedthrough the gate Georgina looked back at the old man. He was stillsitting on the step, his face in his hands, as if he were bowed down bysome weight too heavy for his shoulders to bear.
The weary hopelessness of his attitude made her want to run back andthrow her arms around his neck, but she did not dare. Trouble as greatas that seemed to raise a wall around itself. It could not be comfortedby a caress. The only thing to do was to slip past and not look.
Richard shared the same awe, for he went away leaving the rifle lying inthe grass. Instinctively he felt that it ought not to be played withnow. It was the rifle which had changed everything.
Georgina of the Rainbows Page 12