Uncle Silas Part 25

Cousin Monica, I am sure, cheered me wonderfully. I grow to love her more and more, as I think of all her trouble, care, and kindness.

I had not forgotten my promise to dear papa about the key, concerning which he had evinced so great an anxiety. It was found in the pocket where he had desired me to remember he always kept it, except when it was placed, while he slept, under his pillow.

'And so, my dear, that wicked woman was actually found picking the lock of your poor papa's desk. I _wonder_ he did not punish her--you know that is _burglary_.'

'Well, Lady Knollys, you know she is gone, and so I care no more about her--that is, I mean, I need not fear her.'

'No, my dear, but you must call me Monica--do you mind--I'm your cousin, and you call me Monica, unless you wish to vex me. No, of course, you need not be afraid of her. And she's gone. But I'm an old thing, you know, and not so tender-hearted as you; and I confess I should have been very glad to hear that the wicked old witch had been sent to prison and hard labour--I should. And what do you suppose she was looking for--what did she want to steal? I think I can guess--what do _you_ think?'

'To read the papers; maybe to take bank-notes--I'm not sure,' I answered.

'Well, I think most likely she wanted to get at your poor papa's _will_--that's _my_ idea.

'There is nothing surprising in the supposition, dear,' she resumed. 'Did not you read the curious trial at York, the other day? There is nothing so valuable to steal as a will, when a great deal of property is to be disposed of by it. Why, you would have given her ever so much money to get it back again. Suppose you go down, dear--I'll go with you, and open the cabinet in the study.'

'I don't think I can, for I promised to give the key to Dr. Bryerly, and the meaning was that _he_ only should open it.'

Cousin Monica uttered an inarticulate 'H'm!' of surprise or disapprobation.

'Has he been written to?'

'No, I do not know his address.'

'Not know his address! come, that is curious,' said Knollys, a little testily.

I could not--no one now living in the house could furnish even a conjecture. There was even a dispute as to which train he had gone by--north or south--they crossed the station at an interval of five minutes. If Dr. Bryerly had been an evil spirit, evoked by a secret incantation, there could not have been more complete darkness as to the immediate process of his approach.

'And how long do you mean to wait, my dear? No matter; at all events you may open the _desk_; you may find papers to direct you--you may find Dr.

Bryerly's address--you may find, heaven knows what.'

So down we went--I a.s.senting--and we opened the desk. How dreadful the desecration seems--all privacy abrogated--the shocking compensation for the silence of death!

Henceforward all is circ.u.mstantial evidence--all conjectural--except the _litera scripta_, and to this evidence every note-book, and every sc.r.a.p of paper and private letter, must contribute--ransacked, bare in the light of day--what it can.

At the top of the desk lay two notes sealed, one to Cousin Monica, the other to me. Mine was a gentle and loving little farewell--nothing more--which opened afresh the fountains of my sorrow, and I cried and sobbed over it bitterly and long. The other was for 'Lady Knollys.' I did not see how she received it, for I was already absorbed in mine. But in awhile she came and kissed me in her girlish, goodnatured way. Her eyes used to fill with tears at sight of my paroxysms of grief. Then she would begin, 'I remember it was a saying of his,' and so she would repeat it--something maybe wise, maybe playful, at all events consolatory--and the circ.u.mstances in which she had heard him say it, and then would follow the recollections suggested by these; and so I was stolen away half by him, and half by Cousin Monica, from my despair and lamentation.

Along with these lay a large envelope, inscribed with the words 'Directions to be complied with immediately on my death.' One of which was, 'Let the event be _forthwith_ published in the _county_ and princ.i.p.al _London_ papers.' This step had been already taken. We found no record of Dr.

Bryerly's address.

We made search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I would on no account permit to be opened except, according to his direction, by Dr.

Bryerly's hand. But nowhere was a will, or any doc.u.ment resembling one, to be found. I had now, therefore, no doubt that his will was placed in the cabinet.

In the search among my dear father's papers we found two sheafs of letters, neatly tied up and labelled--these were from my uncle Silas.

My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a strange smile; was it satire--was it that indescribable smile with which a mystery which covers a long reach of years is sometimes approached?

These were odd letters. If here and there occurred pa.s.sages that were querulous and even abject, there were also long pa.s.sages of manly and altogether n.o.ble sentiment, and the strangest rodomontade and maunderings about religion. Here and there a letter would gradually transform itself into a prayer, and end with a doxology and no signature; and some of them expressed such wild and disordered views respecting religion, as I imagine he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield, and which approached more nearly to the Swedenborg visions than to anything in the Church of England.

I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica was not similarly moved. She read them with the same smile--faint, serenely contemptuous, I thought--with which she had first looked down upon them. It was the countenance of a person who amusedly traces the working of a character that is well understood.

'Uncle Silas is very religious?' I said, not quite liking Lady Knollys'

looks.

'Very,' she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old bitter smile, as she glanced over a pa.s.sage in one of his letters.

'You don't think he _is_, Cousin Monica?' said I. She raised her head and looked straight at me.

'Why do you say that, Maud?'

'Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.'

'Do I?' said she; 'I was not thinking--it was quite an accident. The fact is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respecting him--no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not think Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I never could understand him--that's all.'

'I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation, and to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or anywhere. Except what you told me, I never heard more than a few sentences; poor papa did not like me to ask questions about him, and I think he ordered the servants to be silent.'

'And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me--not quite, but something like it; and I don't know the meaning of it.'

And she looked enquiringly at me.

'You are not to be _alarmed_ about your uncle Silas, because your being afraid would unfit you for an _important service_ which you have undertaken for your family, the nature of which I shall soon understand, and which, although it is quite _pa.s.sive_, would be made very sad if _illusory fears_ were allowed to _steal into your mind_.'

She was looking into the letter in poor papa's handwriting, which she had found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised the words, I suppose, which she quoted from it.

'Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this _service_ may be?' she enquired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her countenance.

'None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking to do it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will keep the promise I voluntarily made, although I know what a coward I am, and often distrust my courage.'

'Well, I am not to frighten you.'

'How could you? Why should I be afraid? _Is_ there anything frightful to be disclosed? Do tell me--you _must_ tell me.'

'No, darling, I did not mean _that_--I don't mean that;--I could, if I would; I--I don't know exactly what I meant. But your poor papa knew him better than I--in fact, I did not know him at all--that is, ever quite understood him--which your poor papa, I see, had ample opportunities of doing.' And after a little pause, she added--'So you do not know what you are expected to do or to undergo.'

'Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that murder,' I cried, starting up, I don't know why, and I felt that I grew deadly pale.

'I don't believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not say such horrible things, Maud,' she said, rising also, and looking both pale and angry. 'Shall we go out for a little walk? Come, lock up these papers, dear, and get your things on; and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up to-morrow, you must send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him make search for the will--there may be directions about many things, you know; and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is _my_ cousin as well as your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.'

So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.

CHAPTER XXII

_SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM WITH THE COFFIN_

When we returned, a 'young' gentleman had arrived. We saw him in the parlour as we pa.s.sed the window. It was simply a glance, but such a one as suffices to make a photograph, which we can study afterwards, at our leisure. I remember him at this moment--a man of six-and-thirty--dressed in a grey travelling suit, not over-well made; light-haired, fat-faced, and clumsy; and he looked both dull and cunning, and not at all like a gentleman.