DISCOVERY.
It was between two and three o'clock; Mr. Brion reposed in his
arm-chair, smoking a little, talking a little to Elizabeth who sat
beside him, listening dreamily to the piano, and feeling himself
more and more inclined to doze and nod his head in the sleepy warmth
of the afternoon, after his glass of sherry and his recent severe
fatigues. Elizabeth, by way of entertaining him, sat at his elbow,
thinking, thinking, with her fingers interlaced in her lap and her
gaze fixed upon the floor. Patty, intensely alert and wakeful, but
almost motionless in her straight back and delicately poised head,
drooped over the keyboard, playing all the "soft things" that she could
remember without notes; and Paul, who had resisted her enchantments
as long as he could, leaned back in his chair, with his hand over his
eyes, having evidently ceased to pay any attention to his papers. And,
suddenly, Eleanor, who was supposed to be washing plates and dishes in
the kitchen, flashed into the room, startling them all out of their
dreams.
"Elizabeth, dear," she exclaimed tremulously, "forgive me for meddling
with your things. But I was thinking and thinking what else there was
that we had not examined, and mother's old Bible came into my head--the
little old Bible that she always used, and that you kept in your top
drawer. I could not help looking at it, and here"--holding out a small
leather-bound volume, frayed at the corners and fastened with silver
clasps--"here is what I have found. The two first leaves are stuck
together--I remembered that--but they are only stuck round the edges;
there is a little piece in the middle that is loose and rattles, and,
see, there is writing on it." The girl was excited and eager, and
almost pushed the Bible into Paul Brion's hands. "Look at it, look
at it," she cried. "Undo the leaves with your knife and see what the
writing is."
Paul examined the joined leaves attentively, saw that Eleanor was
correct in her surmise, and looked at Elizabeth. "May I, Miss King?" he
asked, his tone showing that he understood how sacred this relic must
be, and how much it would go against its present possessor to see it
tampered with.
"I suppose you had better," said Elizabeth.
He therefore sat down, laid the book before him, and opened his sharp
knife. A sense that something was really going to happen now--that
the secret of all this careful effacement of the little chronicles
common and natural to every civilised family would reveal itself in the
long-hidden page which, alone of all the records of the past, their
mother had lacked the heart to destroy--fell upon the three girls; and
they gathered round to watch the operation with pale faces and beating
hearts. Paul was a long time about it, for he tried to part the leaves
without cutting them, and they were too tightly stuck together. He had
at last to make a little hole in which to insert his knife, and then
it was a most difficult matter to cut away the plain sheet without
injuring the written one. Presently, however, he opened a little door
in the middle of the page, held the flap up, glanced at what was behind
it for a moment, looked significantly at his father, and silently
handed the open book to Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, trembling with
excitement and apprehension, lifting up the little flap in her turn,
read this clear inscription--
"To my darling child, ELIZABETH,
From her loving mother,
ELEANOR D'ARCY LEIGH.
Bradenham Abbey. Christmas, 1839.
Psalm xv., 1, 2."
There was a dead silence while they all looked at the fine brown
writing--that delicate caligraphy which, like fine needlework, went
out of fashion when our grandmothers passed away--of which every
letter, though pale, was perfectly legible. A flood of recollection
poured into the minds of the three girls, especially the elder ones,
at the sight of those two words, "Bradenham Abbey," in the corner of
the uncovered portion of the page. "Leigh" and "D'Arcy" were both
unfamiliar names--or had been until lately--but Bradenham had a place
in the archives of memory, and came forth at this summons from its
dusty and forgotten nook. When they were children their mother used
to tell them stories by the firelight in winter evenings, and amongst
those stories were several whose scenes were laid in the tapestried
chambers and ghostly corridors, and about the parks and deer-drives
and lake-shores of a great "place" in an English county--a place that
had once been a famous monastery, every feature and aspect of which
Mrs. King had at various times described so minutely that they were
almost as familiar with it as if they had seen it for themselves.
These stories generally came to an untimely end by the narrator
falling into an impenetrable brown study or being overtaken by an
unaccountable disposition to cry--which gave them, of course, a special
and mysterious fascination for the children. While still little things
in pinafores, they were quick enough to perceive that mother had a
personal interest in that wonderful place of which they never tired
of hearing, and which evidently did not belong to the realms of
Make-believe, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty and Blue-beard's
castle; and therefore they were always, if unconsciously, trying to
understand what that interest was. And when, one day when she was
painting a wreath of forget-me-nots on some little trifle intended for
a bazaar, and, her husband coming to look over her, she said to him
impulsively, "Oh, do you remember how they grew in the sedges round the
Swan's Pool at Bradenham?"--and when he sternly bade her hush, and not
speak of Bradenham unless she wished to drive him mad--then Patty and
Elizabeth, who heard them both, knew that Bradenham was the name of the
great house where monks had lived, in the grounds of which, as they
had had innumerable proofs, pools and swans abounded. It was the first
time they had heard it, but it was too important a piece of information
to be forgotten. On this memorable day, so many years after, when they
read "Bradenham Abbey" in the well-worn Bible, they looked at each
other, immediately recalling that long-ago incident; but their hearts
were too full to speak. It was Mr. Brion who broke the silence that had
fallen upon them all.
"This, added to our other discoveries, is conclusive, I think,"
said the old lawyer, standing up in order to deliver his opinion
impressively, and resting his hands on the table. "At any rate, I
must insist on placing the results of our investigation before Mr.
Yelverton--yes, Elizabeth, you must forgive me, my dear, if I take
the matter into my own hands. Paul will agree with me that we have
passed the time for sentiment. We will have another look into the
bureau--because it seems incredible that any man should deliberately
rob his children of their rights, even if he repudiated his own, and
therefore I think there _must_ be legal instruments _somewhere_; but,
supposing none are with us, it will not be difficult, I imagine, to
supply what is wanting to complete our case from other sources--from
other records of the family, in fact. Mr. Yelverton himself, in
five minutes, would be able to throw a great deal of light upon our
discoveries. It is absolutely necessary to consult him."
"I would not mind so much," said Elizabeth, who was deadly pale, "if it
were to be fought out with strangers. But _he_ would give it all up at
once, without waiting to see--without asking us to prove--that we had a
strictly legal title."
"Don't you believe it," interposed Paul sententiously.
She rose from her chair in majestic silence, and moved towards the
bureau. She would not bandy her lover's name nor discuss his character
with those who did not know him as she did. Paul followed her, with his
chisel in his hand.
"Let us look for that secret drawer, at any rate," he said. "I feel
pretty certain there must be one, now. Mr. King took great pains to
prevent identification during his lifetime, but, as my father says,
that is a very different thing from disinheriting _you_. If you will
allow me, I'll take every moveable part out first."
He did so, while she watched and assisted him. All the brass-handled
drawers, and sliding shelves, and partitions were withdrawn from their
closely-fitting sockets, leaving a number of holes and spaces each
differing in size and shape from the rest. Then he drew up a chair in
front of the exposed skeleton, and gazed at it thoughtfully; after
which he began to make careful measurements inside and out, to tap the
woodwork in every direction, and to prise some of its strong joints
asunder. This work continued until four o'clock, when, notwithstanding
the highly stimulating excitement of the day's proceedings, the girls
began to feel that craving for a cup of tea which is as strong upon the
average woman at this time as the craving for a nobbler of whisky is
upon the--shall I say average man?--when the sight of a public-house
appeals to his nobler appetite. Not that they wanted to eat and
drink--far from it; the cup of tea was the symbol of rest and relief
for a little while from the stress and strain of labour and worry, and
that was what they were in need of. Elizabeth looked at her watch and
then at Patty, and the two girls slipped out of the room together,
leaving Eleanor to watch operations at the bureau. Reaching their
little kitchen, they mechanically lit the gas in the stove, and set
the kettle on to boil; and then they went to the open window, which
commanded an unattractive view of the back yard, and stood there side
by side, leaning on each other.
"In 1839," said Patty, "she must have been a girl, a child, and living
at Bradenham _at home_. Think of it, Elizabeth--with a mother loving
her and petting her as she did us. She was twenty-five when she
married; she must have been about sixteen when that Bible was given
to her--ever so much younger than any of us are now. _She_ lived in
those beautiful rooms with the gold Spanish leather on the walls--_she_
danced in that long gallery with the painted windows and the slippery
oak floor and the thirty-seven family portraits all in a row--no doubt
she rode about herself with those hunting parties in the winter, and
rowed and skated on the lake--I can imagine it, what a life it must
have been. Can't you see her, before she grew stout and careworn,
and her bright hair got dull, and her pretty hands rough with hard
work--young, and lovely, and happy, and petted by everybody--wearing
beautiful clothes, and never knowing what it was to have to do anything
for herself? I can. And it seems dreadful to think that she had to
remember all that, living as she did afterwards. If only he had made it
up to her!--but I don't think he did, Elizabeth--I don't think he did.
He used to be so cross to her sometimes. Oh, bless her, bless her! Why
didn't she tell _us_, so that _we_ could have done more to comfort her?"
"I don't think she ever repented," said Elizabeth, who remembered more
about her mother than Patty could do. "She did it because she loved him
better than Bradenham and wealth and her own personal comfort; and she
loved him like that always, even when he was cross. Poor father! No
wonder he was cross!"
"Why didn't he go back--for her sake, if not for ours--when he saw the
advertisements? Elizabeth, my idea is that the death of his brother
gave a permanent shock to his brain. I think he could never have been
quite himself afterwards. It was a sort of mania with him to disconnect
himself from everything that could suggest the tragedy--to get as far
away as possible from any association with it."
"I think so, too," said Elizabeth.
Thus they talked by the kitchen window until the kettle bubbled on the
stove; and then, recalled to the passing hour and their own personal
affairs, they collected cups and saucers, sugar-basin and milk-jug,
and cut bread and butter for the afternoon repast. Just as their
preparations were completed, Eleanor came flying along the passage from
the sitting-room. "They have found a secret drawer," she cried in an
excited whisper. "At least not a drawer, but a double partition that
seems to have been glued up; and Mr. Brion is sure, by the dull sound
of the wood, that there are things in it. Come and see!"
She flew back again, not even waiting to help her sisters with the tea.
Silently Elizabeth took up the tray of cups and saucers, and Patty the
teapot and the plate of bread and butter; and they followed her with
beating hearts. This was the crisis of their long day's trial. Paul
was tearing at the intestines of the bureau like a cat at the wainscot
that has just given sanctuary to a mouse, and his father was too much
absorbed in helping him to notice their return.
"Now, pull, pull!" cried the old man, at the moment when the sisters
closed the door behind them. "Break it, if it won't come. A--a--ah!" as
a sudden crash of splintered wood resounded through the room, "there
they are at last! I _thought_ they must be here somewhere!"
"What is it?" inquired Elizabeth, setting down her tea-tray, and
hastily running to his side. He was stripping a pink tape from a thin
bundle of blue papers in a most unprofessional state of excitement and
agitation.
"What is it?" he echoed triumphantly. "This is what it is, my
dear"--and he began in a loud voice to read from the outside of the
blue packet, to which he pointed with a shaking finger--"The will
of Kingscote Yelverton, formerly of Yelverton, in the county of
Kent--Elizabeth Yelverton, sole executrix."