search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I would on no account permit to be opened except, according to his direction, by Dr. Bryerly’s hand. But nowhere was a will, or any document resembling one, to be found. I had now, therefore, no doubt that his will was placed in the cabinet.
In the search among my dear father’s papers we found two sheafs of letters, neatly tied up and labelled — these were from my uncle Silas.
My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a strange smile; was it satire — was it that indescribable smile with which a mystery which covers a long reach of years is sometimes approached?
These were odd letters. If here and there occurred passages that were querulous and even abject, there were also long passages of manly and altogether noble sentiment, and the strangest rodomontade and maunderings about religion. Here and there a letter would gradually transform itself into a prayer, and end with a doxology and no signature; and some of them expressed such wild and disordered views respecting religion, as I imagine he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield, and which approached more nearly to the Swedenborg visions than to anything in the Church of England.
I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica was not similarly moved. She read them with the same smile — faint, serenely contemptuous, I though — with which she had first looked down upon them. It was the countenance of a person who amusedly traces the working of a character that is well understood.
“Uncle Silas is very religious?” I said, not quite liking Lady Knollys’ looks.
“Very,” she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old bitter smile, as she glanced over a passage in one of his letters.
“You don’t think he is, Cousin Monica?” said I. She raised her head and looked straight at me.
“Why do you say that, Maud?”
“Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.”
“Do I?” said she; “I was not thinking — it was quite an accident. The fact is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respecting him — no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not think Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I never could understand him — that’s all.”
“I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation, and to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or anywhere. Except what you told me, I never heard more than a few sentences; poor papa did not like me to ask questions about him, and I think he ordered the servants to be silent.”
“And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me — not quite, but something like it; and I don’t know the meaning of it.”
And she looked enquiringly at me.
“You are not to be alarmed about your uncle Silas, because your being afraid would unfit you for an important service which you have undertaken for you family, the nature of which I shall soon understand, and which, although it is quite passive, would be made very said if illusory fears were allowed to steal into your mind.”
She was looking into the letter in poor papa’s handwriting, which she had found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised the words, I suppose, which she quoted from it.
“Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this service may be?” she enquired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her countenance.
“None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking to do it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will keep the promise I voluntarily made, although I know what a coward I am, and often distrust my courage.”
“Well, I am not to frighten you.”
“How could you? Why should I be afraid? Is there anything frightful to be disclosed? Do tell me — you must tell me.”
“No, darling, I did not mean that — I don’t mean that; — I could, if I would; I— I don’t know exactly what I meant. But your poor papa knew him better than I— in fact, I did not know him at all — that is, ever quite understood him — which your poor papa, I see, had ample opportunities of doing.” And after a little pause, she added —“So you do not know what you are expected to do or to undergo.”
“Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that murder,” I cried, starting up, I don’t know why, and I felt that I grew deadly pale.
“I don’t believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not say such horrible things, Maud,” she said, rising also, and looking both pale and angry. “Shall we go out for a little walk? Come, lock up these papers, dear, and get your things on; and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up to-morrow, you must send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him make search for the will — there may be directions about many things, you know; and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is my cousin as well as your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.”
So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.
Chapter 22.
Somebody in the Room with the Coffin
WHEN WE RETURNED, a “young” gentleman had arrived. We saw him in the parlour as we passed the window. It was simply a glance, but such a one as suffices to make a photograph, which we can study afterwards, at our leisure. I remember him at this moiment — a man of six-and-thirty — dressed in a grey travelling suit, not over-well made; light-haired, fat-faced, and clumsy; and he looked both dull and cunning, and not at all like a gentleman.
Branston met us, announced the arrival, and handed me the stranger’s credentials. My cousin and I stopped in the passage to read them.
“That’s your uncle Silas’s,” said Lady Knollys, touching one of the two letters with the tip of her finger.
“Shall we have lunch, Miss?”
“Certainly.” So Branston bowed.
“Read it with me, Cousin Monica,” I said. And a very curious letter it was. It spoke as follows:—
“How can I thank my beloved niece for remembering her aged and forlorn kinsman at such a moment of anguish?”
I had written a note of a few, I dare say, incoherent words by the next post after my dear father’s death.
“It is, however, in the hour of bereavement that we most value the ties that are broken, and yearn for the sympathy of kindred.”
Here came a little distich of French verse, of which I could only read ciel and l’amour.
“Our quiet household here is clouded with a new sorrow. How inscrutable are the ways of Providence! I— though a few years younger — how much the more infirm — how shattered in energy and in mind — how a mere burden — how entirely de trop — am spared to my said place in a world where I can be no longer useful, where I have but one business — prayer, but one hope — the tomb; and he — apparently so robust — the centre of so much good — so necessary to you — so necessary alas! to me — is taken! He is gone to his rest — for us, what remains but to bow our heads, and murmur, ‘His will be done’? I trace these lines with a trembling hand, while tears dim my old eyes. I did not think that any earthly event could have moved me so profoundly. From the world I have long stood aloof. I once led a life of pleasure — alas! of wickedness — as I now do one of austerity; but as I never was rich, so my worst enemy will allow I never was avaricious. My sins, I thank my Maker, have been of a more reducible kind, and have succumbed to the discipline which Heaven has provided. To earth and its interests, as well as to its pleasures, I have long been dead. For the few remaining years of my life I ask but quiet — an exemption from the agitations and distractions of struggle and care, and I trust to the Giver of all Good for my deliverance — well knowing, at the same time, that whatever befalls will, under His direction,