CHAPTER XXVI
EUGENE STANDBRIDGE LEAVITT
For a moment Nancy thought she had gone quite crazy! She put her handto her head to steady its whirling. This was her grandfather--her ownfather's father! She was the real Anne Leavitt!
Aunt Sabrina was fussing over a note-book in which clippings had beenpasted. She thought Nancy's agitation quite excusable; she wastrembling herself.
"That is a family name. The Standbridge comes from ourgreat-grandmother's side. I knew your father had been calledEugene--yes, here's what B'lindy cut out of the newspaper." She placedthe open page of the book in Nancy's hands.
She told Nancy how, after the quarrel, her father had ordered her todestroy everything about the house that might remind anyone of thedisowned son.
"I carried out his wishes. After our mother's death my father and Ihad been constant companions. I was terribly angry at my brother forhaving brought this grief and shame to my father in his old age.Now----" she caught her breath sharply.
"But B'lindy was fond of the boy. She packed these letters and thepicture away, and after that, for years, whenever she'd read anythingabout him in the papers, or hear a word, she'd enter it in this littlebook. I never knew that until years later. See--here's an account ofhis wedding. It says he went abroad--he'd always wanted to, even whenhe was a young lad. Here it tells that he bought a newspaper. Here'swhere it speaks about his son Eugene."
It seemed to Nancy as though the little pages of the book, with theirage-yellow clippings and curious entries, were opening to her a newside of her father's life. She remembered some stuffed birds in herfather's cabinet that she had known in a vague sort of way had comefrom Africa; it was intensely interesting to read from the little bookthat "the well-known newspaper man, Eugene Leavitt, and his young son,Eugene, had gone on a six-months' trip to Africa."
"Milly wrote once to our brother, though I never knew it until I foundthis book. After a long while he answered with this note. B'lindy'sput it here," turning a page.
The few lines were strangely characteristic of Nancy's own father.They told the younger sister that he'd found the world a very kind anda very good place to live in.
Another letter had been written by Nancy's father. It told, in aboyish, awkward way, of his father's death and that his father, beforehis death, had asked him to write to the relatives in Freedom and tellthem that "there was no hard feeling."
Nancy pondered over this letter for a moment. A great many questionscame into her mind. Her father must have inherited from his father asense of hurt and injustice, or why, through all the years, and yearsof poverty, too, had he refrained from any mention of the aunts inFreedom?
Like links in a chain the little entries in B'lindy's book connectedthe three generations, for the last clipping told how the young wife ofEugene Leavitt, Jr., had been killed in a runaway in Central Park,leaving motherless the little three-year-old daughter, Anne Leavitt.
"Once Milly told me of finding this. Sometimes she used to wonder whatyou were like. But I was always angry when she mentioned you--I wantedto feel that I had rooted out all affection for my brother and his kin!As the years went by, though, I grew afraid--what was I going to dowith this earthly wealth I possessed? Then I wrote that letter to youin college."
As though it had been but the day before Nancy saw again the beloveddormitory room, old Noah and his letter.
Then the whole truth flashed across her mind! Anne's Aunt Sa-somethingwas the dear little Saphonia Leavitt, who lived with her sister Janieon the lonely road out of Freedom!
With a glee she made no effort to suppress, Nancy caught Aunt Sabrinaby the elbows, danced her madly around, and then enveloped her in animpetuous hug.
"Oh, you don't know--you can't ever, ever know how nice it all--is,"she cried, laughing and wiping away a tear at the same time. "To knowthat I _really, truly_ belong to you and to Happy House!" Nancy'swords rang true. They brought a flood of color to the old woman'scheeks.
"You see I never knew how long I could stay--I was sort of on probationand I love you all so much--now! But, tell me, are those two funnylittle Leavitt sisters any relation of--_ours_?" Nancy emphasized thelast word with a squeeze of Miss Sabrina's hand.
"No--or if they are, it is so far back it's been lost. When I waslittle I used to see them occasionally, but they've never gone aroundmuch. They have always been very poor. They had a brother, but hewent away from the Island when he was young--I think he must have died."
"I am going to _pretend_ we're related," declared Nancy, "because Ijust love them. They took us in during the storm. And--and I have adear chum, my very best chum, whose name is Anne Leavitt, too, and I amsure they are her aunts." She told Aunt Sabrina, then, in a sketchyway, of her four years' friendship with the other Anne Leavitt.
The windows of the sitting-room had been opened after the storm to letout the dust from the fallen mortar and brick. The blinds had not beenclosed again. Through the windows streamed a flood of sunshine.
With an impulsive movement Nancy closed the book and laid it down onthe table. Her manner said plainly that thus they would dispose of allthe past-and-gone Leavitts. She nodded toward the gaping fireplace.
"Let's have a _new_ mantel made with Happy House carved in it, AuntSabrina. And, I think, it _will_ be a Happy House, now."
There was a great deal Nancy wanted to tell Aunt Sabrina--of herfather, and of their happy life together. But she had suddenly, withconsternation, remembered the eloquent confession she had sent off toPeter Hyde.
"And I didn't need to--for I _am_ Anne Leavitt!"
As quickly as she could break away from her aunt, she ran off in searchof Jonathan. She found him tying up some of his vines that had beenbeaten down in the storm.
"Jonathan--that letter I gave you--did--did you give it to--to Mr.Hyde?" she asked with a faint hope that he had' not.
"Yes'm! Caught him jes' agoin' to take the stage."
"Going _away_?" Nancy cried.
"Yes'm. He hed a big bag and he give me a handshake like he was goin'to be away for a spell, tho' it's most harvestin' and he's not the kindto leave Judson short-handed--not him."
After a moment Nancy grew conscious that old Jonathan was staringcuriously at her. So she turned and walked slowly back to the house.
Peter Hyde had gone away--without a word! He would read her letter--hewould always think of her as she had pictured herself in it! And hemight never know how the curious tangle had come out!