Alick Lester
He was a man of honour, of noble and generous nature.'--_Longfellow._
Mr. Alick Lester proved to be a pleasant, frank young fellow, with the
sunniest eyes and smile that Agatha had ever seen. She took to him at
once, and found herself telling him without any hesitation the history
of the lost packet. He listened attentively, but was indignant when
Agatha hinted that Watson might have acted under the major's
instructions.
'No, Miss Dane, my uncle is a gentleman. He would never stoop so low
as that. I know he tried to blacken my dear father's character, but he
idolized his son, and hardly realized the mischief he was doing.
Watson is a thorough scoundrel! I have always known it, and my uncle
has already dismissed him for tampering with some of his letters. He
was telling us about it last night, and Watson leaves him at the end of
this week. Depend upon it, the chap was trying to get the papers in
his own hands for ends of his own, and I think you were awfully plucky
to catch him at it as you did. But now we must get hold of him at
once, and get the packet from him.'
'I expect he will have left the neighbourhood,' said Agatha. 'If you
wish to open the cupboard, my sister will tell you the secret. She has
accidentally discovered it. Shall we go to the study now?'
The young man agreed at once to this proposal, and when Clare came
forward, he looked at her with secret laughter in his eyes.
'They say a woman never rests content under a mystery,' he said; 'and
you have proved my good angel, so I can only avow my gratitude. But do
you know that from a boy I have viewed that cupboard as impenetrable as
the sphinx itself? And yet my energy or ambition to solve its secret
was never sufficient to allow me to succeed. My father always told me
that age had some advantages, and that when the time came for me to
know all that he did, I should do so.'
Clare flushed and felt very uncomfortable; then she met the young man's
gaze calmly.
'I know I have shown the weakness of our sex, but it is not often one
is brought into contact with such a mystery; and having had your
father's Arabic motto translated to me, I could not resist the
temptation of trying to prove its truth. I need not say I have not
opened the cupboard. That temptation I was enabled to resist.'
'And the motto?' inquired the young man, passing his hand almost
tenderly over his father's handiwork, and a shade coming over his brow
as he spoke.
Clare's face was sad too, as she remembered from whom the translation
had come, but she repeated quietly,--
'"A closed bud containeth
Possibilities infinite and unknown."'
Then, stooping down, she turned the carved bud, until a sharp click was
heard, and the door moved forwards; and then linking her arm in that of
Agatha the sisters left the room, and Alick Lester was alone with the
secret solved at last.
Two or three hours passed, and still he was shut in the study. When he
at last appeared in the drawing-room, he seemed to have left his youth
and brightness behind him there. He asked with knitted brow and
anxious face if he might speak to Agatha alone, and then drawing a
dusty leather portfolio from under his arm he held it out to her,
saying, 'I received a letter written by my father shortly before his
death, and which he had left in the charge of our lawyer. He told me
to give this to you. I fancy it may not prove so valuable to you as my
dear father hoped. It is merely a collection of notes of his, and a
few valuable papers about some Assyrian and Egyptian antiquities. He
always hoped to write a book upon the subject, but put off doing so
until he could obtain more information on certain points, or links,
that were missing.'
Agatha took her legacy very calmly.
'I daresay my sister Gwen, who is now abroad, will be interested in it.
She is very fond of antiquities of all sorts.'
Then looking at the young fellow's dazed, troubled face, she said
sympathetically, 'I am afraid you have spent a sad morning in looking
over your father's belongings.'
He laughed a little shortly.
'I have had a shock, and feel bewildered. I have not the faintest idea
how to act, and it is at present all dark to me. Miss Dane, you are a
good woman, my father says. Will you pray that I may have right
guidance about a very difficult matter? And may I come and see you
again? I shall be staying at the Crown Hotel in Brambleton for the
present. The Millers wanted me to go to them, but I cannot. If I
stayed in this village at all, it would have to be at the Hall, and
they--I do not want that.'
'I hope you do not look upon us as usurpers,' said Agatha. 'I cannot
tell you how guilty I feel sometimes about accepting this house from
your father, especially since your return. It seems as if you ought to
be here.'
Then Alick Lester looked up with his sunny smile.
'Miss Dane, I assure you I would never live here! My future is to be
spent either out in the colonies or--or in a different house to this.
And I cannot tell you what a cheery, home-like aspect you have given to
this old house. I am sure you are a boon to the neighbourhood, and I
should like, if you don't think it forward of me upon so short an
acquaintance, to look upon you all as friends.'
He grasped her hand warmly and departed; and from that time forward he
was on a friendly and familiar footing with the inmates of his old home.
Watson was found to have already left the neighbourhood, as Agatha
surmised, and no one was able to trace his movements. Not wishing to
create disturbance in the village, Agatha did not mention his nocturnal
visit to any one, and Alick was the only one who knew of it besides
themselves. Elfie and Clare were both rather disappointed that the
mystery of the cupboard seemed to be such a common-place affair, but
they noticed that it had brought a great deal of anxious thought to
Alick Lester. His face was almost careworn at times, and he seemed now
to spend most of his time in London, occasionally coming to have a
further rummage in the cupboard.
'It is crammed full of old letters and papers,' he said once to Agatha;
'and if you will let me look through them on the spot, it will be such
a help to me.'
One day he brought in Roger Lester, and introduced him; and after that
the two young fellows often dropped in to afternoon tea, assuring
Agatha that they never felt so much at home anywhere else. They both
had a fund of high spirits, and though Alick at times looked absorbed
and pre-occupied in anxious thought, he knew how to throw it aside and
be as light-hearted as his cousin.
They were sitting one afternoon on the verandah outside the
drawing-room, when Roger turned to Agatha and remarked,--
'You would not imagine it, Miss Dane, but we two have grown up with
such perfect _cameraderie_ that until quite lately, I believe, we have
never concealed a single thing from each other. And now if you hear of
us drifting apart, and our liking turning to hate, you will know the
cause--it is the renowned old carved cupboard.'
Alick had been talking and laughing with Elfie, but he stopped
instantly as if he had been shot when he heard this speech, and there
was an awkward silence for a minute.
Roger added with a laugh, 'It is some skeleton he has unearthed; but
why he should refuse to let me share in the secret I can't imagine!'
'I don't think we need make it a matter of public talk,' said Alick
hotly.
His cousin looked at him in astonishment, then changed the subject with
a shrug of his shoulders and a laugh.
When they were gone Clare said thoughtfully, 'There is a mystery after
all, and not a very pleasant one, apparently. I feel sorry for Mr.
Alick.'
'Which do you like the best of the cousins?' asked Elfie carelessly.
Clare's face looked sad as she replied, 'Oh, I don't know. I don't
think any young man is worth a thought. They amuse one by their fun,
but I would just as soon not have them come here so often. Miss Miller
will be attacking us soon on the subject. She was beginning this
morning, when I met her out, but I always flee from her when she is in
her aggressive moods.'
'What did she say?'
Clare looked at her younger sister with a little smile.
'Perhaps I had better not tell you. She saw you cut a rose off the
other afternoon and offer it to Mr. Alick, and she considers that the
depth of iniquity. "Such a piece of audacious flirting I have rarely
seen carried on within a few yards from an open road in full view of
any passer-by!" And then she turned the tables on me, and I came off,
because she was making me boil with indignation. I think she delights
in making her fellow-creatures as uncomfortable as possible.'
'It is only her way,' put in Agatha; 'she does not realize what a sting
her words have. She told me last Sunday, when I unfortunately gave an
order to some of my Sunday class in front of her, that however much I
might try to slight her and usurp her place in the vicarage and parish
I would not be successful, for the vicar was proof against all young
ladies' blandishments!'
'She ought to be horsewhipped!' cried Elfie hotly, and then she began
to laugh.
'There is one that is a match for her in the parish, and that is Deb
Howitt. She was covering a chair at the vicarage, and Miss Miller was
abusing some of the congregation--I forget who it was now. It was
about the behaviour of some girls--I think she is always specially hard
on them--and Deb looked at her very quietly. "Ay, ma'am, we mustn't
grudge them their sweethearts! 'Tis better for most to have the cares
of a family to soften them, for 'tis the spinsters that have the name
for getting hard and bitter. Sharp tongues are not so frequent amongst
mothers, and the world would be better without bitterness, I reckon!"
Miss Miller shut up at once.'
'Deb asked me yesterday when Gwen was coming back. What do you think,
Agatha?' said Clare.
'I don't know at all. You know what her last letter said. That Walter
had sold his farm and gone off with Mr. Montmorency, and she was
staying with Mrs. Montmorency in Loreto. She did not seem in a hurry
to leave, and as long as she is happy we must be content that she
should be out there.'
And the autumn came and went, and winter set in without any word or
sign from Gwen of home-coming.
Alick and Roger spent the autumn in Scotland, but Christmas found them
both at the Hall. Major Lester seemed to have overcome his dislike to
his nephew, and the Hall was quite a cheerful centre in the village.
Visitors came and went, and Agatha and her sisters were asked up there
more frequently than they cared to go.
Agatha still possessed Alick's confidence. He would come to her for
advice, as most people did, but yet would never touch upon his serious
difficulty; and she sometimes wondered if the cupboard's secret was no
longer a trouble to him.
'Do you think I am leading a lazy life?' he asked her one day, when he
met her walking out and insisted upon accompanying her home.
'I think you are. It is always a pity when young men have enough
income to live independently without any responsibility attaching to
their wealth.'
'I am not wealthy,' he responded quickly. 'I have just enough to live
upon. What do you think of Roger? He is as idle as I at present.'
'I think not. He helps his father with the property, which is a large
one, and if anything happened to Major Lester he would have his hands
full.'
Alick laughed a little hardly.
'Lucky fellow! So if I were in his shoes you would not find fault with
me!'
'I think,' said Agatha gently, 'that each one of us ought to realize
that we are not placed in this world to live for ourselves. There is
so much to do for others who need our help. You are young now, and
have life stretching out in front of you. Do not waste it, do not have
to acknowledge when your life is over that no one will have been the
better for your existence.'
'Would you have one sink one's own individuality in the lives of
others, like some of our great philanthropists?'
'No, our first duty is to ourselves. I think too many in the present
day rush into work of all sorts, trying to please and satisfy others at
the expense of their own peace and satisfaction, and that is wrong.'
'I don't understand you.'
'I mean this. We have two lives: the outer one which every one sees,
and the inner one which only God and ourselves know about. Our inner
life is the more important one of the two, is it not? For it is the
spiritual part of us that is immortal. First let us satisfy and ensure
the safety of our own souls, before we seek to satisfy the hungry and
thirsty ones around us. And then if our inner life is adjusted
rightly--is in touch (shall I say?) with its Maker--the helping others
becomes a pleasure as well as a necessity.'
Alick did not reply, and Agatha delicately turned the subject; but her
words made him ponder much afterwards, and had far more effect upon him
than ever she imagined.