I think you are beasts to have let me in for this. You might have
thought of me. I shall not forgive you till the sun is just going
down, and I would not then, only it is so wrong not to. I wish
_you_ had been named Maria, and had to stay here instead of me.
'Your broken-hearted sister,
'MOLLY CARRUTHERS.'
When Molly stayed at the White House she was accustomed to read aloud in
the mornings from 'Ministering Children' or 'Little Pilgrims,' while
Aunt Maria sewed severely. But that morning Aunt Maria did not send for
her.
'Your aunt's not well,' Clements told her; 'she won't be down before
lunch. Run along, do, miss, and walk in the garden like a young lady.'
Molly chose rather to swagger out into the stableyard like a young
gentleman. The groom was saddling the sorrel horse.
'I've got to take a telegram to the station,' said he.
'Take me,' said Molly.
'Likely! And what ud your aunt say?'
'She won't know,' said Molly, 'and if she does I'll say I made you.'
He laughed, and Molly had a splendid ride behind the groom, with her
arms so tight round his waistcoat that he could hardly breathe.
When they got to the station a porter lifted her down, and the groom let
her send off the telegram. It was to Uncle Toodlethwaite, and it said:
'Please come down at once urgent business most important don't fail
bring Bates.--MARIA CARRUTHERS.'
So Molly knew something very out of the way had happened, and she was
glad that her aunt should have something to think of besides her,
because the White House would have been a very nice place to stay at if
Aunt Maria had not so often remembered to do her duty by you.
[Illustration: 'Molly had a splendid ride behind the groom.'--Page 134]
In the afternoon Uncle Toodlethwaite came, and he and Aunt Maria and a
person in black with a shining black bag--Molly supposed he was Mr.
Bates, who was to be brought by Uncle Toodlethwaite--sat in the
dining-room with the door shut.
Molly went to help the kitchenmaid shell peas, in the little grass
courtyard in the middle of the house. They sat on the kitchen steps, and
Molly could hear the voices of Clements and the housekeeper through the
open window of the servants' hall. She heard, but she did not think it
was eavesdropping, or anything dishonourable, like listening at doors.
They were talking quite out loud.
'And a dreadful blow it will be to us all, if true,' the housekeeper was
saying.
'_She_ thinks it's true,' said Clements; 'cried her eyes out, she did,
and wired for her brother-in-law once removed.'
'Meaning her brother's brother-in-law--I see. But I don't know as I
really understand the ins and outs of it even yet.'
'Well, it's like this,' said Clements: 'missis an' her brother they used
to live here along of their uncle, and he had a son, a regular bad egg
he was, and the old master said he shouldn't ever have a penny of his
money. He said he'd leave it to Mr. Carruthers--that's missis's brother,
see?'
'That means father,' thought Molly.
'And he'd leave missis the house and enough money to keep it up in
style. He was a warm man, it seems. Well, then the son's drowned at
sea--ship went down and all aboard perished. Just as well, because when
the old man died they couldn't find no will. So it all comes to missis
and her brother, there being no other relations near or far, and they
divides it the same as the old man had always said he wished. You see
what I mean?'
'Near enough,' said the housekeeper; 'and then?'
'Why, then,' said Clements, 'comes this letter--this very morning--from
a lawyer, to say as this bad egg of a son wasn't drowned at all: he was
in foreign parts, and only now heard of his father's decease, and tends
without delay to claim the property, which all comes to him, the
deceased have died insensate--that means without a will.'
'I say, Clements,' Molly sung out, 'you must have read the letter. Did
aunt show it to you?'
There was a dead silence; the kitchenmaid giggled. Someone whispered
inside the room. Then the housekeeper's voice called softly, 'Come in
here a minute, miss,' and the window was sharply shut.
Molly emptied the peascods out of her pinafore and went in.
Directly she was inside the door Clements caught her by the arm and
shook her.
'You nasty mean, prying little cat!' she said; 'and me getting you jelly
and custard, and I don't know what all.'
'I'm not,' said Molly. 'Don't, Clements; you hurt.'
'You deserve me to,' was the reply. 'Doesn't she, Mrs. Williams?'
'Don't you know it's wrong to listen, miss?' asked Mrs. Williams.
'I didn't listen,' said Molly indignantly. 'You were simply shouting. No
one could help hearing. Me and Jane would have had to put our fingers in
our ears _not_ to hear.'
'I didn't think it of you,' said Clements, beginning to sniff.
'I don't know what you're making all this fuss about,' said Molly; 'I'm
not a sneak.'
'Have a piece of cake, miss,' said Mrs. Williams, 'and give me your word
it shan't go any further.'
'I don't want your cake; you'd better give it to Clements. It's she that
tells things--not me.'
Molly began to cry.
'There, I declare, miss, I'm sorry I shook you, but I was that put out.
There! I ask your pardon; I can't do more. You wouldn't get poor
Clements into trouble, I'm sure.'
'Of course I wouldn't; you might have known that.'
Well, peace was restored; but Molly wouldn't have any cake.
That evening Jane wore a new silver brooch, shaped like a horseshoe,
with an arrow through it.
It was after tea, when Uncle Toodlethwaite was gone, that Molly,
creeping quietly out to see the pigs fed, came upon her aunt at the end
of the hollyhock walk. Her aunt was sitting on the rustic seat that the
crimson rambler rose makes an arbour over. Her handkerchief was held to
her face with both hands, and her thin shoulders were shaking with
sobs.
And at once Molly forgot how disagreeable Aunt Maria had always been,
and how she hated her. She ran to her aunt and threw her arms round her
neck. Aunt Maria jumped in her seat, but she let the arms stay where
they were, though they made it quite difficult for her to use her
handkerchief.
'Don't cry, dear ducky _darling_ Aunt Maria,' said Molly--'oh, don't!
What _is_ the matter?'
'Nothing you would understand,' said Aunt Maria gruffly; 'run away and
play, there's a good child.'
'But I don't want to play while you're crying. I'm sure I could
understand, dear little auntie.'
Molly embraced the tall, gaunt figure of the aunt.
'Dear little auntie, tell Molly.'
She used just the tone she was used to use to her baby brother.
'It's--it's business,' said Aunt Maria, sniffing.
'I know business is dreadfully bad--father says so,' said Molly. 'Don't
send me away, auntie; I'll be as quiet as a mouse. I'll just sit and
cuddle you till you feel better.'
She got her arms round the aunt's waist, and snuggled her head against a
thin arm. Aunt Maria had always been one for keeping children in their
proper places. Yet somehow now Molly's proper place seemed to be just
where she was--where she had never been before.
'You're a kind little girl, Maria,' she said presently.
'I wish I could do something,' said Molly. 'Wouldn't you feel better if
you told me? They say it does you good not to grieve in solitary
concealment. I'm sure I could understand if you didn't use long words.'
And, curiously enough, Aunt Maria did tell her, almost exactly what she
had heard from Clements.
'And I know there was a will leaving it all to your father and me,' she
said; 'I saw it signed. It was witnessed by the butler we had then--he
died the year after--and by Mr. Sheldon: he died, too, out hunting.'
Her voice softened, and Molly snuggled closer and said:
'Poor Mr. Sheldon!'
'He and I were to have been married,' said Aunt Maria suddenly. 'That's
his picture in the hall between the carp and your Great-uncle
Carruthers.'
'Poor auntie!' said Molly, thinking of the handsome man in scarlet next
the stuffed carp--'oh, poor auntie, I do love you so!'
Aunt Maria put an arm round her.
'Oh, my dear,' she said, 'you don't understand. All the happy things
that ever happened to me happened here, and all the sad things too; if
they turn me out I shall die--I know I shall. It's been bad enough,' she
went on, more to herself than to Molly; 'but there's always been the
place just as it was when I was a girl, when he used to come here: so
bold and laughing he always was. I can see him here quite plainly; I've
only to shut my eyes. But I couldn't see him anywhere else.'
'Don't wills get hidden away sometimes?' Molly asked; for she had read
stories about such things.
'We looked everywhere,' said Aunt Maria--'everywhere. We had detectives
from London, because there were things he'd left to other people, and we
wanted to carry out his wishes; but we couldn't find it. Uncle must have
destroyed it, and meant to make another, only he never did--he never
did. Oh, I hope the dead can't see what we suffer! If my Uncle
Carruthers and dear James could see me turned out of the old place, it
would break their hearts even up in heaven.'
Molly was silent. Suddenly her aunt seemed to awake from a dream.
'Good gracious, child,' she said, 'what nonsense I've been talking! Go
away and play, and forget all about it. Your own troubles will begin
soon enough.'
'I do love you, auntie,' said Molly, and went.
Aunt Maria never unbent again as she had done that evening; but Molly
felt a difference that made all the difference. She was not afraid of
her aunt now, and she loved her. Besides, things were happening. The
White House was now the most interesting place in the world.
Be sure that Molly set to work at once to look for the missing will.
London detectives were very careless; she was certain they were. She
opened drawers and felt in the backs of cupboards; she prodded the
padding of chairs, listening for the crackling of paper inside among the
stuffing; she tapped the woodwork of the house all over for secret
panels; but she did not find the will.
She could not believe that her Great-uncle Carruthers would have been so
silly as to burn a will that he knew might be wanted at any moment. She
used to stand in front of his portrait, and look at it; he did not look
at all silly. And she used to look at the portrait of handsome, laughing
Mr. Sheldon, who had been killed out hunting instead of marrying Aunt
Maria, and more than once she said:
'You might tell me where it is; you look as if you knew.'
But he never altered his jolly smile.
Molly thought of missing wills from the moment her eyes opened in the
morning to the time when they closed at night.
Then came the dreadful day when Uncle Toodlethwaite and Mr. Bates came
down, and Uncle Toodlethwaite said:
'I'm afraid there's no help for it, Maria; you can delay the thing a
bit, but you'll have to turn out in the end.'
It was on that night that the wonderful thing happened--the thing that
Molly has never told to anyone except me, because she thought no one
could believe it. She went to bed as usual and to sleep, and she woke
suddenly, hearing someone call 'Molly, Molly!'
She sat up in bed; the room was full of moonlight. As usual her first
waking thought was of the missing will. Had it been found? Was her aunt
calling her to tell the good news? No, the room was quite still. She was
alone.
The moonlight fell full on the old black and red and gold cabinet; that,
she had often thought, was just the place where a will would be hidden.
It might have a secret drawer, that the London detectives had missed.
She had often looked over it carefully, but now she got out of bed and
lighted her candle, and went over to the cabinet to have one more look.
She opened all the drawers, pressed all the knobs in the carved
brasswork. There was a little door in the middle; she knew that the
little cupboard behind it was empty. It had red lacquered walls, and the
back wall was looking-glass. She opened the little cupboard, held up her
candle, and looked in. She expected to see her own face in the glass as
usual, but she did not see it; instead there was a black space, the
opening to something not quite black. She could see
lights--candle-lights--and the space grew bigger, or she grew smaller,
she never knew which. And next moment she was walking through the
opening.
'Now I am going to see something really worth seeing,' said Molly.
She was not frightened--from first to last she was not at all
frightened.
She walked straight through the back of the cabinet in the best bedroom
upstairs into the library on the ground-floor. That sounds like
nonsense, but Molly declares it was so.
There were candles on the table and papers, and there were people in the
library; they did not see her.
There was great-uncle Carruthers and Aunt Maria, very pretty, with long
curls and a striped gray silk dress, like in the picture in the
drawing-room. There was handsome, jolly Mr. Sheldon in a brown coat. An
old servant was just going out of the door.
'That's settled, then,' said Great-uncle Carruthers; 'now, my girl,
bed.'
Aunt Maria--such a young, pretty Aunt Maria, Molly would never have
known her but for the portrait--kissed her uncle, and then she took a
Christmas rose out of her dress and put it in Mr. Sheldon's buttonhole,
and put up her face to him and said, 'Good-night, James.' He kissed her;
Molly heard the loud, jolly sound of the kiss, and Aunt Maria went away.
Then the old man said: 'You'll leave this at Bates' for me, Sheldon;
you're safer than the post.'
Handsome Mr. Sheldon said he would. Then the lights went out, and Molly
was in bed again.
Quite suddenly it was daylight. Jolly Mr. Sheldon, in his red coat, was
standing by the cabinet. The little cupboard door was open.
'By George!' he said, 'it's ten days since I promised to take that will
up to Bates, and I never gave it another thought. All your fault, Maria,
my dear. You shouldn't take up all my thoughts; 'I'll take it
to-morrow.'
Molly heard something click, and he went out of the room whistling.
Molly lay still. She felt there was more to come. And the next thing was
that she was looking out of the window, and saw something carried across
the lawn on a hurdle with two scarlet coats laid over it, and she knew
it was handsome Mr. Sheldon, and that he would not carry the will to
Bates to-morrow, or do anything else in this world ever any more.
When Molly woke in the morning she sprang out of bed and ran to the
cabinet. There was nothing in the looking-glass cupboard.
All the same, she ran straight to her aunt's room. It was long before
the hour when Clements soberly tapped, bringing hot water.
'Wake up, auntie!' she cried.
And auntie woke up, very cross indeed.
'Look here, auntie,' she said, 'I'm certain there's a secret place in
that cabinet in my room, and the will's in it; I know it is.'
'You've been dreaming,' said Aunt Maria severely; 'go back to bed.
You'll catch your death of cold paddling about barefoot like that.'
Molly had to go, but after breakfast she began again.
'But why do you think so?' asked Aunt Maria.
And Molly, who thought she knew that nobody would believe her story,
could only say:
'I don't know, but I am quite sure.'
'Nonsense!' said Aunt Maria.
'Aunty,' Molly said, 'don't you think uncle might have given the will to
Mr. Sheldon to take to Mr. Bates, and he may have put it in the secret
place and forgotten?'
'What a head the child's got--full of fancies!' said Aunt Maria.
'If he slept in that room--did he ever sleep in that room?'
'Always, whenever he stayed here.'
'Was it long after the will-signing that poor Mr. Sheldon died?'
'Ten days,' said Aunt Maria shortly; 'run away and play. I've letters to
write.'
But because it seemed good to leave no stone unturned, one of those
letters was to a cabinet-maker in Rochester, and the groom took it in
the dog-cart, and the cabinet-maker came back with him.
And there _was_ a secret hiding-place behind the looking-glass in the
little red lacquered cupboard in the old black and red and gold cabinet,
and in that secret hiding-place was the missing will, and on it lay a
brown flower that dropped to dust when it was moved.
'It's a Christmas rose,' said Molly.
* * * * *
'So, you see, really it was a very good thing the others pretended to
have measles, because if they hadn't I shouldn't have come to you, and
if I hadn't come I shouldn't have known there was a will missing, and if
I hadn't known that I shouldn't have found it, should I, aunty, should
I, uncle?' said Molly, wild with delight.
'No, dear,' said Aunt Maria, patting her hand.
'Little girls,' said Uncle Toodlethwaite, 'should be seen and not heard.
But I admit that simulated measles may sometimes be a blessing in
disguise.'
All the young Carruthers thought so when they got the five pounds that
Aunt Maria sent them. Miss Simpshall got five pounds too because it was
owing to her that Molly was taken to the White House that day. Molly got
a little pearl necklace as well as five pounds.
'Mr. Sheldon gave it to me,' said Aunt Maria. 'I wouldn't give it to
anyone but you.'
Molly hugged her in silent rapture.
That just shows how different our Aunt Marias would prove to be if they
would only let us know them as they really are. It really is not wise to
conceal _everything_ from children.
You see, if Aunt Maria had not told Molly about Mr. Sheldon, she would
never have thought about him enough to see his ghost. Now Molly is grown
up she tells me it was only a dream. But even if it was it is just as
wonderful, and served the purpose just as well.
Perhaps you would like to know what Aunt Maria said when the
cabinet-maker opened the secret hiding-place and she saw the paper with
the brown Christmas rose on it? Clements was there, as well as the
cabinet-maker and Molly. She said right out before them all, 'Oh, James,
my dear!' and she picked up the flower before she opened the will. And
it fell into brown dust in her hand.