Mr. Sherwood, in overalls and an old cap, had been sifting cinders out
behind the shed. They had to be careful of fuel as well as of most other
things. Momsey would not open the long envelope until he had been called
and had come in. Nan still wore the bright colored bandana wound about
her head, turban-wise, for a dust cap. Papa Sherwood beat the ashes from
his hands as he stood before the glowing kitchen range.
“What is it?” he asked calmly. “A notice of a new tax assessment? Or a
cure-all advertisement of Somebody's Pills?”
“It's from Cousin Adair,” said Momsey, a little breathlessly. “And it's
been lying at our door all the time.”
“All what time?” asked Mr. Sherwood curiously.
“All the time we have been so disappointed in our inquiries elsewhere,”
said Momsey soberly.
“Oh!” responded her husband doubtfully, and said no more.
“It makes my knees shake,” confessed Nan. “Do open it, Momsey!”
“I, I feel that it is important, too,” the little lady said.
“Well, my dear,” her husband finally advised, having waited in patience,
“unless it is opened we shall never know whether your feeling is
prophetic or not. 'By the itching of my thumb,' and so forth!”
Without making any rejoinder to this, and perhaps without hearing his
gentle raillery, Mrs. Sherwood reached up to the coils of her thick hair
to secure woman's never-failing implement, a hairpin.
There were two enclosures. Both she shook into her lap. The sealed,
foreign-looking letter she picked up first. It was addressed in a
clerkly hand to,
“MISTRESS JESSIE ADAIR BLAKE,
“KINDNESS OF MESSRS. ADAIR MACKENZIE & CO.
“MEMPHIS, TENN., U.S.A.”
“From England. No! From Scotland,” murmured Nan, looking over her
mother's shoulder in her eagerness. She read the neatly printed card in
the corner of the foreign envelope:
KELLAM & BLAKE HADBORNE CHAMBERS EDINBURGH
Mrs. Sherwood was whispering her maiden name over to herself. She looked
up suddenly at her husband with roguish eyes.
“I'd almost forgotten there ever was such a girl as Jessie Adair Blake,”
she said.
“Oh, Momsey!” squealed Nan, with clasped hands and immense impatience.
“Don't, DON'T be so slow! Open it!”
“No-o,” her mother said, with pursed lips. “No, honey. The other comes
first, I reckon.”
It was a letter typewritten upon her cousin's letter-head; but it
was not dictated by Mr. Adair MacKenzie. Instead, it was from Mr.
MacKenzie's secretary, who stated that her employer had gone to Mexico
on business that might detain him for several weeks.
“A letter addressed by you to Mr. MacKenzie arrived after his departure
and is being held for him with other personal communications until
his return; but being assured that you are the Jessie Adair Blake, now
Sherwood--to whom the enclosed letter from Scotland is addressed, I take
the liberty of forwarding the same. The Scotch letter reached us after
Mr. MacKenzie's departure, likewise. Will you please acknowledge the
receipt of the enclosure and oblige?”
This much of the contents of the secretary's letter was of particular
interest to the Sherwoods. Momsey's voice shook a little as she finished
reading it. Plainly she was disappointed.
“Cousin Adair, I am sure, would have suggested something helpful had
he been at home,” she said sadly. “It, it is a great disappointment,
Robert.”
“Well, well!” replied Mr. Sherwood, perhaps not without some secret
relief. “It will all come out right. At least, your cousin hasn't
refused his assistance. We shall be established somewhere before he
returns from his Mexican trip.”
“I, I did depend so much upon Adair's good will and advice,” signed
Momsey.
“But, dear me suz!” gasped Nan impatiently. “What are you folks
bothering over that for? It isn't Cousin Adair that I want to know
about. It's this letter, Momsey,” and she seized the thin yet important
envelope from Scotland and shook it before her mother's eyes.
“Better look into it, Momsey,” advised Mr. Sherwood easily, preparing to
return to the cinder sifting. “Maybe it's from some of your relatives in
the Old Country. I see 'Blake' printed in the corner. Didn't your father
have an uncle or somebody, who was steward on the estate of a Scotch
Laird of some renown?”
“Heck, mon!” cried Momsey, with her usual gaiety, and throwing off the
cloud of gloom that had momentarily subdued her spirit. “Ye air a wise
cheil. Ma faither talked muckle o' Uncle Hughie Blake, remimberin' him
fra' a wee laddie when his ain faither took him tae Scotland, and tae
Castle Emberon, on a veesit.”
Nan and Papa Sherwood laughed at her when she assumed the Scotch burr of
her forebears. With precision she cut the flap of this smaller envelope.
She felt no excitement now. She had regained control of herself after
the keen disappointment arising from the first letter.
She calmly opened the crackly sheet of legal looking paper in her lap.
It was not a long letter, and it was written in a stiff, legal hand,
instead of being typewritten, each character as precise as the legal
mind that dictated it:
“Mistress Jessie Adair Blake, (Known to be a married woman, but wedded
name unknown to writer.)
“Dear Madam: It is my duty to inform you that your father (the late
Randolph Hugh Blake) was made sole beneficiary of his late uncle, Mr.
Hugh Blake, the Laird of Emberon's steward, by a certain testament, or
will, made many years ago. Mr. Hugh Blake has recently died a bachelor,
and before his demise he added a codicil to the above testament, or
will, naming you, his great niece, his sole heir and beneficiary.
“There are other relatives who may make some attempt to oppose your
claim; but none of near blood. Your title to the said estate is clear;
but it is quite necessary that you should appear before our Courts with
proofs of identity, and so forth. On receipt from you of acknowledgment
of this letter, with copies of identification papers (your grandfather's
naturalization papers, your father's discharge from army, your own birth
certificate and marriage lines, and so forth) I will give myself
the pleasure of forwarding any further particulars you may wish, and
likewise place at your command my own services in obtaining possession
for you of your great uncle's estate.
“The said estate of Mr. Hugh Blake, deceased, amounts, in real and
personal property, including moneys in the bank, to about the sum,
roughly estimated, of 10,000 pounds.
“Respectfully, your servant,
“Andrew Blake, Solicitor and Att'y.”
Nan had leaned over her mother's shoulder, big-eyed, scarce believing
the plainly written words she read. It was preposterous, ridiculous,
fanciful, a dream from which she must awake in a moment to the full
realization of their dreadful need of just such a godsend as this.
It was her father's voice that roused the girl. He had not seen the
letter and Momsey had read it silently to herself.
“Look out, Nancy! What is the matter with your mother?”
With a cry the girl caught the frail little lady in her arms as the
letter slipped unheeded from her lap to the floor. Mrs. Sherwood's eyes
were closed. She had fainted.