THE PACKET IN THE SHIRT-DRAWER.
Mrs. Tynn, the housekeeper at Verner's Pride, was holding one of those
periodical visitations that she was pleased to call, when in familiar
colloquy with her female assistants, a "rout out." It appeared to
consist of turning a room and its contents topsy-turvy, and then putting
them straight again. The chamber this time subjected to the ordeal was
that of her late master, Mr. Verner. His drawers, closets, and other
places consecrated to clothes, had not been meddled with since his
death. Mrs. Verner, in some moment unusually (for her) given to
sentiment, had told Tynn she should like to "go over his dear clothes"
herself. Therefore Tynn left them alone for that purpose. Mrs. Verner,
however, who loved her personal ease better than any earthly thing, and
was more given to dropping off to sleep in her chair than ever, not only
after dinner but all day long, never yet had ventured upon the task.
Tynn suggested that she had better do it herself, after all; and Mrs.
Verner replied, perhaps she had. So Tynn set about it.
Look at Mrs. Tynn over that deep, open drawer full of shirts. She calls
it "Master's shirt-drawer." Have the shirts scared away her senses? She
has sat herself down on the floor--almost fallen back as it seems--in
some shock of alarm, and her mottled face has turned as white as her
master's was, when she last saw him lying on that bed at her elbow.
"Go downstairs, Nancy, and stop there till I call you up again," she
suddenly cried out to her helpmate.
And the girl left the room, grumbling to herself; for Nancy at Verner's
Pride did not improve in temper.
Between two of the shirts, in the very middle of the stack, Mrs. Tynn
had come upon a parcel, or letter. Not a small letter--if it was a
letter--but one of very large size, thick, looking not unlike a
government despatch. It was sealed with Mr. Verner's own seal, and
addressed in his own handwriting--"For my nephew, Lionel Verner. To be
opened after my death."
Mrs. Tynn entertained not the slightest doubt that she had come upon the
lost codicil. That the parcel must have been lying quietly in the
drawer since her master's death, was certain. The key of the drawer had
remained in her own possession. When the search after the codicil took
place, this drawer was opened--as a matter of form more than anything
else--and Mrs. Tynn herself had lifted out the stack of shirts. She had
assured those who were searching that there was no need to do so, for
the drawer had been locked up at the time the codicil was made, and the
deed could not have been put into it. They accepted her assurance, and
did not look between the shirts. It puzzled Mrs. Tynn, now, to think how
it could have got in.
"I'll not tell Tynn," she soliloquised--she and Tynn being somewhat
inclined to take opposite sides of a question, in social
intercourse--"and I'll not say a word to my mistress. I'll go straight
off now and give it into the hands of Mr. Lionel. What a blessed
thing!--If he should be come into his own!"
The inclosed paved court before Lady Verner's residence had a broad
flower-bed round it. It was private from the outer world, save for the
iron gates, and here Decima and Lucy Tempest were fond of lingering on a
fine day. On this afternoon of Mary Tynn's discovery, they were there
with Lionel. Decima went indoors for some string to tie up a fuchsia
plant, just as Tynn appeared at the iron gates. She stopped on seeing
Lionel.
"I was going round to the other entrance, sir, to ask to speak to you,"
she said. "Something very strange has happened."
"Come in," answered Lionel. "Will you speak here, or go indoors? What is
it?"
Too excitedly eager to wait to go indoors, or to care for the presence
of Lucy Tempest, Mrs. Tynn told her tale, and handed the paper to
Lionel. "It's the missing codicil, as sure as that we are here, sir."
He saw the official-looking nature of the document, its great seal, and
the superscription in his uncle's handwriting. Lionel did not doubt that
it was the codicil, and a streak of scarlet emotion arose to his pale
cheek.
"You don't open it, sir!" said the woman, as feverishly impatient as if
the good fortune were her own.
No. Lionel did not open it. In his high honour, he deemed that, before
opening, it should be laid before Mrs. Verner. It had been found in her
house; it concerned her son. "I think it will be better that Mrs.
Verner should open this, Tynn," he quietly said.
"You won't get me into a mess, sir, for bringing it out to you first?"
Lionel turned his honest eyes upon her, smiling then. "Can't you trust
me better than that? You have known me long enough."
"So I have, Mr. Lionel. The mystery is, how it could ever have got into
that shirt-drawer!" she continued. "I can declare that for a good week
before my master died, up to the very day that the codicil was looked
for, the shirt-drawer was never unlocked, nor the key of it out of my
pocket."
She turned to go back to Verner's Pride, Lionel intending to follow her
at once. He was going out at the gate when he caught the pleased eyes of
Lucy Tempest fixed on him.
"I am so glad," she simply said. "Do you remember my telling you that
you did not look like one who would have to starve on bread-and-cheese."
Lionel laughed in the joy of his heart. "I am glad also, Lucy. The place
is mine by right, and it is just that I should have it."
"I have thought it very unfair, all along, that Verner's Pride should
belong to _her_ husband, and not to you, after--after what she did to
you," continued Lucy, dropping her voice to a whisper.
"Things don't go by fairness, Lucy, in this world," said he, as he went
through the gate. "Stay," he said, turning back from it, a thought
crossing his mind. "Lucy, oblige me by not mentioning this to my mother
or Decima. It may be as well to be sure that we are right, before
exciting their hopes."
Lucy's countenance fell. "I will not speak of it. But, is it not sure to
be the codicil?"
"I hope it is," cordially answered Lionel.
Mrs. Tynn had got back before him. She came forward and encountered him
in the hall, her bonnet still on.
"I have told my mistress, sir, that I had found what I believed to be
the codicil, and had took it off straight to you. She was not a bit
angry; she says she hopes it is it."
Lionel entered. Mrs. Verner, who was in a semi-sleepy state, having been
roused up by Mary Tynn from a long nap after a plentiful luncheon,
received Lionel graciously--first of all asking him what he would
take--it was generally her chief question--and then inquiring what the
codicil said.
"I have not opened it," replied Lionel.
"No!" said she, in surprise. "Why did you wait?"
He laid it on the table beside her. "Have I your cordial approval to
open it, Mrs. Verner?"
"You are ceremonious, Lionel. Open it at once; Verner's Pride belongs to
you, more than to Fred; and you know I have always said so."
Lionel took up the deed. His finger was upon the seal when a thought
crossed him; ought he to open it without further witnesses? He spoke his
doubt aloud to Mrs. Verner.
"Ring the bell and have in Tynn," said she; "his wife also; she found
it."
Lionel rang. Tynn and his wife both came in, in obedience to the
request. Tynn looked at it curiously; and began rehearsing mentally a
private lecture for his wife, for acting upon her own responsibility.
The seal was broken. The stiff writing-paper of the outer cover revealed
a second cover of stiff writing-paper precisely similar to the first;
but on this last there was no superscription. It was tied round with
fine white twine. Lionel cut it, Tynn and Mrs. Tynn waited with the
utmost eagerness; even Mrs. Verner's eyes were open wider than usual.
Alas! for the hopes of Lionel. The parcel contained nothing but a glove,
and a small piece of writing-paper, folded once. Lionel unfolded it, and
read the following lines:--
"This glove has come into my possession. When I tell you that I know
where it was found and how you lost it, you will not wonder at the shock
the discovery has been to me. I hush it up, Lionel, for your late
father's sake, as much as for that of the name of Verner. I am about to
seal it up that it may be given to you after my death; and you will then
know why I disinherit you. S.V."
Lionel gazed on the lines like one in a dream. They were in the
handwriting of his uncle. Understand them, he could not. He took up the
glove--a thick, fawn-coloured riding-glove--and remembered it for one of
his own. When he had lost it, or where he had lost it, he knew no more
than did the table he was standing by. He had worn dozens of these
gloves in the years gone by, up to the period when he had gone in
mourning for John Massingbird, and, subsequently, for his uncle.
"What is it, Lionel?"
Lionel put the lines in his pocket, and pushed the glove toward Mrs.
Verner. "I do not understand it in the least," he said. "My uncle
appears to have found the glove somewhere, and he writes to say that he
returns it to me. The chief matter that concerns us is"--turning his
eyes on the servants--"that it is not the codicil!"
Mrs. Tynn lifted her hands. "How one may be deceived!" she uttered. "Mr.
Lionel, I'd freely have laid my life upon it."
"It was not exactly my place to speak, sir: to give my opinion
beforehand," interposed Tynn; "but I was sure that was not the lost
codicil, by the very look of it. The codicil might have been about that
size, and it had a big seal like that; but it was different in
appearance."
"All that puzzled me was, how it could have got into the shirt-drawer,"
cried Mrs. Tynn. "As it has turned out not to be the codicil, of course
there's no mystery about that. It may have been lying there weeks and
weeks before the master died."
Lionel signed to them to leave the room: there was nothing to call for
their remaining in it. Mrs. Verner asked him what the glove meant.
"I assure you I do not know," was his reply. And he took it up, and
examined it well again. One of his riding gloves, scarcely worn, with a
tear near the thumb; but there was nothing upon it, not so much as a
trace, a spot, to afford any information. He rolled it up mechanically
in the two papers, and placed them in his pocket, lost in thought.
"Do you know that I have heard from Australia?" asked Mrs. Verner.
The words aroused him thoroughly. "Have you? I did not know it."
"I wonder Mary Tynn did not tell you. The letters came this morning. If
you look about"--turning her eyes on the tables and places--"you will
find them somewhere."
Lionel knew that Mary Tynn had been too much absorbed in his business to
find room in her thoughts for letters from Australia. "Are these the
letters?" he asked, taking up two from a side-table.
"You'll know them by the post-marks. Do sit down and read them to me,
Lionel. My sight is not good for letters now, and I couldn't read half
that was in them. The ink's as pale as water. If it was the ink Fred
took out, the sea must have washed into it. Yes, yes, you must I read
both to me, and I shall not let you go away before dinner."
He did not like, in his good nature, to refuse her. And he sat there and
read the long letters. Read Sibylla's. Before the last one was fully
accomplished, Lionel's cheeks wore their hectic flush.
They had made a very quick and excellent passage. But Sibylla found
Melbourne _hateful_. And Fred was ill; ill with fever. A fever was
raging in a part of the crowded town, and he had caught it. She did not
think it was a catching fever, either, she added; people said it arose
from the over-population. They could not as yet hear of John, or his
money, or anything about him; but Fred would see into it when he got
better. They were at a part of Melbourne called Canvas Town, and she,
Sibylla, was sick of it, and Fred drank heaps of brandy. If it were all
land between her and home, she should set off at once on foot, and toil
her way back again. She _wished_ she had never come! Everything she
cared for, except Fred, seemed to be left behind in England.
Such was her letter. Fred's was gloomy also, in a different way. He said
nothing about any fever; he mentioned, casually, as it appeared, that he
was not well, but that was all. He had not learned tidings of John, but
had not had time yet to make inquiries. The worst piece of news he
mentioned was the loss of his desk, which had contained the chief
portion of his money. It had disappeared in a mysterious manner
immediately after being taken off the ship--he concluded by the light
fingers of some crimp, or thief, shoals of whom crowded on the quay. He
was in hopes yet to find it, and had not told Sibylla. That was all he
had to say at present, but would write again by the next packet.
"It is not very cheering news on the whole, is it?" said Mrs. Verner, as
Lionel folded the letters.
"No. They had evidently not received the tidings of my uncle's death, or
we should have heard that they were already coming back again."
"I don't know that," replied Mrs. Verner. "Fred worships money, and he
would not suffer what was left by poor John to slip through his fingers.
He will stay till he has realised it. I hope they will think to bring me
back some memento of my lost boy! If it were only the handkerchief he
used last, I should value it."
The tears filled her eyes. Lionel respected her grief, and remained
silent. Presently she resumed, in a musing tone--
"I knew Sibylla would only prove an encumbrance to Fred, out there; and
I told him so. If Fred thought he was taking out a wife who would make
shift, and put up pleasantly with annoyances, he was mistaken. Sibylla
in Canvas Town! Poor girl! I wonder she married him. Don't you?"
"Rather so," answered Lionel, his scarlet blush deepening.
"I do; especially to go to that place. Sibylla's a pretty flower, made
to sport in the sunshine; but she never was constituted for a rough
life, or to get pricked by thorns."
Lionel's heart beat. It echoed to every word. Would that she could have
been sheltered from the thorns, the rough usages of life, as he would
have sheltered her.
Lionel dined with Mrs. Verner, but quitted her soon afterwards. When he
got back to Deerham Court, the stars were peeping out in the clear
summer sky. Lucy Tempest was lingering in the courtyard, no doubt
waiting for him, and she ran to meet him as soon as he appeared at the
gate.
"How long you have been!" was her greeting, her glad eyes shining forth
hopefully. "And is it all yours?"
Lionel drew her arm within his own in silence, and walked with her in
silence until they reached the pillared entrance of the house. Then he
spoke--
"You have not mentioned it, Lucy?"
"Of course I have not."
"Thank you. Let us both forget it. It was not the codicil. And Verner's
Pride is not mine."