Good-bye to the Manor
Monica's agitation, when she heard that her uncle's legacy had been
found, was extreme. At first she refused to believe it; but when she was
told the story of Lindsay's and Cicely's strange adventure, she began
slowly to realize that it was no fairy tale, and that the fortune, so
sorely needed and so much longed for, was lying awaiting her disposal.
"The money is there, and I can have some of it now?" she asked, still
almost incredulously. "Will there be as much as a hundred guineas?"
"Far more than that, my dear, from the girls' account."
"Then we can send for Sir William Garrett!" she said, with a sigh of
intense relief.
Miss Russell, who did not like the responsibility of being even a
temporary custodian of such riches, had informed the Rector of what had
occurred, and requested him to come to the Manor and help her to
investigate the matter. As he was Monica's guardian, he seemed the
proper person to take charge of her affairs. He arrived next morning,
and, accompanied by Miss Russell and Monica, made a careful examination
of the hiding-place and its contents. At the mistress's urgent request,
he promised to arrange that all the valuables should be removed as
speedily as possible to the bank.
"I could not sleep with them in the house, I should be so afraid of
burglars, now the news of the discovery has been spread abroad,"
declared Miss Russell.
"They were only too safe here," said Monica.
"Yes, when their whereabouts was a mystery. It is different when
everyone knows."
The wealth which old Sir Giles had stored in the secret room was
considerable. He had evidently distrusted investments, and, following
his own singular whim, had hoarded his money in gold and bank notes.
There were precious stones also, in themselves worth a small fortune,
which he must have collected, in addition to the family jewels and the
old silver plate that had been handed down through generations of
Courtenays.
After looking through some of the boxes, the Rector picked up the
casket, and made a short scrutiny of its contents.
"This envelope is addressed to you, Monica," he observed.
The girl took it hesitatingly, then passed it back to her guardian.
"It seems like a message from the dead," she said. "I think, please, I
would rather that you should read it aloud."
The letter was well in keeping with its writer's eccentric and morbid
character. It ran thus:--
"MY DEAR MONICA,
"Gold, silver, and precious stones are but vanity of vanities, a
snare to many, and the root of all evil. By the time you claim
these, I trust you will have found how easy it is to dispense with
them, and that you will despise them as much as I do.
"They have never brought me any happiness, and I am uncertain
whether it is a kindness to bequeath to you what to me has been but
an irksome encumbrance. After giving long and earnest thought to
the matter, I have decided to leave it in the hands of destiny.
"I shall lay by these possessions in the hidden chamber, the
existence of which was told me by my grandfather, and now is
unknown to any except myself. I have concealed the secret, however,
in an enigma, which, if you have followed my advice concerning the
study of Botany, you will have found written inside the cover of
the _Floral Calendar_.
"Should Heaven ordain that you are to take up this burden, then you
will read my riddle aright. Should it be otherwise decreed, this
message will never meet your eyes. Believe me that I have striven
to act for your best good.
"From your uncle and well-wisher,
"GILES PEMBERTON COURTENAY."
"He seemed quite afraid for me to have this money," faltered poor
Monica, on whom the letter had left a deep impression. "Shall I regret
it? Is it really such a dangerous thing?"
"Not if you make a wise use of it. In your hands I hope it may prove a
blessing instead of a curse," answered the Rector.
"It does not seem to have brought any happiness to Uncle Giles. He calls
it a burden."
"Riches can never bring happiness unless they are being employed for the
benefit of others."
"It is sad to think how long these have lain idle," remarked Miss
Russell. "Monica will be able to do much good with them."
"Then you are sure I may take them?" asked Monica, turning to her
guardian. "I didn't find out the enigma myself, you see."
"I am certain you may receive the legacy without scruple, my dear child!
Your uncle himself said he had left matters to the disposal of destiny.
It appears to me as if Lindsay and Cicely had been led just at the right
time to this happy discovery. You must accept your fortune as a special
gift of Providence. So far it has been a talent laid up in a napkin; it
can now be your care to let it yield ten talents in return."
* * * * *
Though Lindsay and Cicely had satisfactorily accomplished their quest,
they felt there were many points in connection with their adventure at
the Manor that still puzzled them. The mystery surrounding the lantern
room had not yet been cleared up, neither had the strange behaviour of
Mrs. Wilson and Scott been accounted for.
So anxious were they to decide these perplexing points that they
determined to confide the whole affair to Monica, and see if she could
offer any explanation. A month ago it would have been impossible to get
her for half an hour to themselves, but since their finding of the
treasure the other girls were ready to allow them a special claim to her
society, and took it as a matter of course when they carried her off to
the summer house for a private chat.
Monica listened attentively to the story of their various experiences
and suspicions. At the end she laughed heartily, then suddenly looked
grave.
"You dear silly children!" she exclaimed. "It was a case of much ado
about nothing, and yet you nearly ran into such great danger that it
makes me shudder even to think about it. There certainly was a reason
for visiting the attic, though not at all of the kind you imagined. It
contains a large cistern, which supplies the water for the bath and the
kitchen boiler. This is fed by a tank on the roof that catches the rain,
and in dry weather it is apt to get out of order. If it is not working
properly, it makes a curious blowing noise."
"Like groaning?" asked Cicely.
"Yes, very like groaning, though it would need a gigantic prisoner to
utter such fearful moans of distress. No wonder you thought somebody was
being tortured!" and Monica laughed again.
"You can understand," she continued, "that with so many girls in the
house requiring baths, we were afraid lest the tank should run dry, and
were continually examining the cistern, to make sure that the water was
flowing properly. If it had stopped even for an hour, it might have
caused the kitchen boiler to burst."
"Did Mrs. Wilson go to look, then?" enquired Lindsay.
"Either Mrs. Wilson or Scott went every day. My mother was so anxious
about it that I several times ran up myself, so that I could tell her
all was perfectly safe. Mrs. Wilson was equally nervous. We had so
little rain in June that she was sure the tank must be nearly empty."
"Then that was what she and Scott meant about the noise and danger,
when they were talking in the picture gallery!" interposed Cicely.
"Yes," replied Monica. "When people try to overhear conversations, and
put two and two together for themselves, they rarely succeed in coming
to a right conclusion."
Lindsay and Cicely blushed. They had known from the first that Monica
would not approve of either eavesdropping or peeping through keyholes.
This was the part of the business of which they both felt rather
ashamed; they were conscious that there had been a great deal of
curiosity mixed up with their efforts on her behalf. Monica, however,
took no notice of their heightened colour, and went on:
"Both Scott and Mrs. Wilson were quite right in wishing to keep you away
from the attics; you will understand when I explain why. The
hiding-place in the lantern room is a relic of the times of King James
I. Have you learnt yet in your history books what severe penal laws were
made against Roman Catholics in those days? Any priest found celebrating
Mass might be executed, and often he was tortured first to make him tell
the whereabouts of his companions. Our ancestors, who lived then at the
Manor, still belonged to the old faith, and they needed some spot where
they could worship without fear of being disturbed; so they made the
secret entrance through the cupboard, and private services were held in
the great garret. Even with such precautions it was a very dangerous
thing for a priest to remain long in a country house. If his presence
were suspected, and information given, a party of soldiers would at once
come with a search warrant to hunt for him.
"Then he would have to be ready to hurry away into some safer retreat
still, in case his first place of concealment were discovered. At the
end of the farther attic there is a small cupboard most cunningly hidden
in the wall. In front of it there is a shaft, a great, horrible, yawning
chasm, several feet wide and very deep, going quite to the basement of
the house. It was intended as a trap to baffle pursuers, who would fall
down it in the dark when chasing their fugitive."
"Is the shaft still there?" asked Cicely.
"Yes, it is quite untouched and open. It is in such a far-away part of
the attic that nobody has considered it worth while to go to the trouble
of having it covered in. Now you can understand how alarmed Mrs. Wilson
was when she found that some of you had been in the lantern room. She
didn't believe you would really be able to find your way through the
cupboard; still, she was never easy when she thought of the danger you
might perhaps run into. She couldn't rest until Scott had padlocked the
door."
"We were very near it," said Cicely, with a shiver.
"It was the greatest mercy you didn't venture any farther. I can't be
too thankful that the cistern made a noise just at that moment, and
frightened you down again."
"Then you knew of this secret door, though not of the one in the picture
gallery?" said Lindsay.
"Yes; it was discovered two centuries ago, in the reign of Queen Anne, I
believe. In many old manor houses there are equally clever contrivances
for hiding-places. They are often called 'priests' holes'. I've heard of
one under the steps of the stairs, and another in a window-seat, or up a
chimney, or even behind a picture."
"Like ours," said Cicely.
"No doubt the one under the settle may have been a 'priests' hole' too,
and perhaps had the second entrance for extra security. Very sad stories
are told about some of the hiding-places. Sometimes the poor fugitive
couldn't find an opportunity to get away, and the person who knew the
secret, and should have brought him food, was killed or taken prisoner.
Then he either had to come out, and deliver himself up to the soldiers,
or to remain and die a slow, lingering death of starvation."
"I thought we were going to do that when we were locked in with the
treasure," remarked Cicely.
"How much did Merle find out in the lantern room?" interposed Lindsay.
"She happened to pull at the lantern, and had just the same surprise as
you," replied Monica. "She had gone a few steps into the passage when I
came down from looking at the cistern, and met her, much to her
astonishment. Of course I explained everything, and begged her not to
tell, because we didn't want any more schoolgirls to start exploring."
"Then it was to you she gave that mysterious promise?"
"Certainly it was to me. I'm glad to hear she kept it so well."
"But I still don't half understand," said Lindsay. "We thought Mrs.
Wilson and Scott were hiding the treasure up there. We saw them take a
sack into the garden one night and bury something."
"You managed to give poor Scott a great fright," laughed Monica. "He
told me about it the next day. He was doing nothing more dreadful than
digging out a wasps' nest. Mrs. Wilson had discovered it in the bank,
and she went with him to show him the place and help him. Of course it
could not be done by daylight, when the wasps were flying about; but at
dark, when they were all safely inside their hole, Scott burnt tobacco
to stupefy them, and then took the nest. He said two of the young
ladies had suddenly tumbled down the bank while he was at work, and
startled him terribly."
"So he and Mrs. Wilson weren't burying the treasure after all? They
didn't even try to steal it?"
"No, indeed! I feel sorry to think they should have been suspected for a
moment of such bad intentions. Mrs. Wilson may be rather gruff and blunt
in her manners, but she is a faithful old soul, and devoted to Mother
and me. I believe she would have starved rather than touch a penny that
belonged to us. And Scott too is absolutely honest. I assure you he
keeps nothing stowed away inside the cucumber frames! Naturally Mrs.
Wilson had often looked for the hiding-place, but it was all on my
behalf, and nobody rejoiced more heartily than she did when it was
found."
"We were on a completely wrong track," said Lindsay. "The only right
clue was the enigma. I'm glad we puzzled that out, though we didn't win
any prizes in the competition."
"And yet the enigma was no real use," put in Cicely. "We shouldn't have
gone through the bottom of the settle if we hadn't been playing
hide-and-seek. Isn't it queer that when we tried so hard to find the
secret room we couldn't, and then that we should come across it just by
accident?"
To Monica the affair seemed no accident, but, as the Rector had said, a
merciful arrangement of Providence. It enabled her to send for Sir
William Garrett, and the great specialist arrived in the course of the
next few days. After examining Mrs. Courtenay, he gave a more favourable
report on her case than her own physician had dared to hope.
"You have consulted me in the nick of time," was his verdict. "I trust
to be able to effect a complete cure. A winter in the south would work
wonders, and, if my treatment is thoroughly carried out, she should
return to Haversleigh in the spring with restored health."
It was an intense relief to be thus reassured. Monica felt as if a heavy
weight had been lifted from her mind. When the doctors had finally taken
their departure, she ran to share her good news with her friends at the
Manor.
"Of course," she explained, "Mother will require the greatest care, but
we can give her anything now that she needs. Sir William Garrett has
promised to send a nurse from London who understands his special
treatment, and who could go with us to Italy in the autumn. Oh, how
splendid it will be when I can bring her back absolutely strong and
well! I can hardly feel thankful enough. And it is all owing to you,"
she added, kissing Lindsay and Cicely with tears in her eyes.
It had come at length to the very end of the term; the girls were making
up their minds to bid a reluctant good-bye to the beautiful old house
where they had spent such a pleasant and eventful twelve weeks.
"If we weren't going home, I couldn't bear to leave it," said Cicely.
"I've grown so fond of everything. Our dear bedroom, with its big
four-poster (I love those yellow brocaded curtains), and the roses round
the window that smell so delicious first thing when one wakes in the
morning, and the dining-hall, and the picture gallery, and the library,
and the oak parlour where we have lessons, and, above all, the garden.
Oh dear, it makes me quite sad to think perhaps I may never see them
again! What a change to settle down at Winterburn Lodge in September!"
"I suppose life can't be all honey; we shall have to go back to plain
bread and butter now," replied Lindsay philosophically. "But I'll tell
you a secret to cheer you up. Monica says her mother has promised that
when they return from Italy she'll ask you and me to spend part of the
summer holidays at the Manor. But she doesn't wish us to let any of the
other girls know of the invitation just at present."
"How perfectly delightful!" exclaimed Cicely, with shining eyes.
"It's a whole year off yet."
"I don't mind, so long as I can think of coming here again some time,
and being Monica's visitor. It's something to look forward to."
The last day arrived, as last days invariably do, whether one is longing
for their advent or the reverse. Boxes had been brought down and packed,
and Miss Russell's linen and silver had been collected and stowed away
in great wicker baskets, which were already dispatched on their road to
London. The girls, marshalled in order on the drive, were only waiting
for the word "March!" to start for the railway station.
Monica stood on the steps to see them off, her pretty, fair face and
rich chestnut hair framed in the oak doorway.
"I shall miss you all dreadfully," she said. "It has been a great
pleasure for me to have you here. Please don't forget me."
"We're not likely to do that," replied Mildred Roper, speaking for
herself and the rest. "We've spent a glorious three months. It's been
more like holidays than school. I think every one of us, to the end of
her life, will remember this summer term at the old Manor. Good-bye!"