A Search For A Secret Volume Ii Part 5

No one spoke for some time.

At last papa said, "This is a very serious question, my dears; and the offer ought to be thoroughly discussed before being either accepted or refused. 10,000 each is a handsome provision for you. It will start Harry in a good business, and it will enable you girls to marry well and yet to feel that you bring your share to the expenses of the household."

And here papa glanced at me, and I saw at once that although he had never spoken to me on the subject, he had yet thought a good deal about my engagement with Percy. He then went on: "All this is the bright side of the picture--now for the reverse;--you are unquestionably ent.i.tled to a much larger amount, and those who make this offer are the very people who are keeping you out of it. Then, too, the condition about Sophy is most repugnant; as you would naturally have wished in the event of your accepting this sum, to make her at any rate an equal partic.i.p.ator in it with each of yourselves. The matter is one which must be thought over very seriously, and no conclusion should be hastily arrived at. Talk it over quietly together: it is a question on which I would rather give no opinion whatever, but leave you to decide it entirely by yourselves."

"There is one thing, papa, you have not mentioned," Polly said, "and that is, that if we take this money we must give up all search for the will; we cannot accept the Misses Harmer's money, and then get their servants to work against them."

"Certainly, my dear; that must of course be quite understood. If you accept this money, you must give up all further search for the will, and dismiss all idea of ever hearing of it again. There, don't say any more about it now. Let us have a gla.s.s of wine and some nuts, and after that I shall go into my study, and you can talk it over among yourselves."

When papa left us, we drew round the fire, and Harry said the first thing to be done was to smoke the calumet of council; accordingly in a minute or two he was puffing clouds of smoke from an immense meerschaum, of which he was very proud.

"Now," he said, "the council is begun; let my sisters speak."

Neither of us took advantage of the invitation, but sat looking steadily into the fire.

Polly--who was now sixteen, and who had grown up a very dear, loveable girl--was seated between us, in a high-backed, old-fashioned chair, with her feet on a low stool. I have not hitherto described her, and I could not choose a moment to do so in which she would look prettier than she did as she sat there; with the light on the table behind her shining on the gold of her hair, and her face lit only by the dancing light of the fire. She was a blonde, her hair looked almost brown in shadow; but when the light fell on it, it had still the bright golden tinge that every one had admired when she was a child. Her eyes were a pure blue, her complexion was bright and clear, she had a particularly lithe lissom figure, and her small head was very gracefully set on her neck and shoulders. She was very lively and full of fun; indeed I sometimes had to call her to order. She was a little positive and wilful sometimes, but she was a very loving and loveable girl. She was at present hardly as tall as I was, but as she had another year to grow, it was very probable she would be the taller in time. She had very long eyelashes, nearly the longest I ever saw, and these added greatly to the effect of her great blue eyes. The mouth and nose might both have been better, but for all that she had grown into a very pretty girl.

"Well, girls, what do you think about this offer of ours?" Harry repeated, finding that neither of us answered him.

My own mind was pretty well made up on the subject, but I wished to hear what the others thought, so I said, "What do you think yourself about it, Harry?"

Harry did not seem more inclined to give an opinion than we had been, for he sat and puffed out such huge volumes of smoke, that Polly threatened to take his pipe away if he did not smoke more quietly. At last he took it from between his lips, and began: "The fact is, girls, I am loath to give my opinion, not because I have not one, but because I do not wish to influence you. Your cases are so very different from mine, that there is no comparison at all between us. I am now just twenty-one; I am in a position to keep myself, and consequently the advantage this sum of money would be to me, is not sufficient to counterbalance the repugnance I feel--as far as I am concerned--to taking the money from these women who have robbed us. Still understand, I am not so much against it as to decide to refuse it, should you both agree to accept it. This is rather a suggestion of mine, as it were, than a positive and final opinion. I mean to say that for my own sake I certainly would not accept of the offer, but you are so differently placed that if you give your vote for accepting it, I shall be quite ready to agree with you."

Harry made this unusually long speech, for him, with some difficulty. I could see that personally he was very strongly opposed to taking any favour from the Misses Harmer, after the way in which they had treated us. Being quite of the same opinion myself, I thought the matter was settled, as I made sure Polly would refuse. When Harry had done, he took another puff or two at his pipe, and then turning to Polly, who was next to him, said,--

"Now, Polly, you have heard what I have to say, let us have your opinion."

For some time sister Polly did not answer, but sat gazing into the fire, with the long lashes nearly shading her eyes, and looking more womanly and thoughtful than I had ever seen her before. At last, without moving, or lifting her eyes, she said,--

"I think we had better accept."

Harry, evidently surprised, gave one or two short puffs at his pipe. I was myself astonished. I had made sure that Polly would of all the three be the most indignant and determined to reject the offer; for she had been most bitter in her invectives at the Misses Harmer, and money had at present no particular value in her eyes. However, I made no remark expressive of my surprise, but only said,--

"Let us have your reasons, Polly."

"Yes," Harry repeated, "let us have your reasons."

Polly was again silent a little, and sat thoughtfully twining her long taper fingers one over the other; then without looking up she asked,--

"Is it understood and agreed between us that two votes carry the day?"

"Certainly," I said, knowing that my vote would be on Harry's side.

"Quite so," Harry agreed, "if you two girls make up your minds that it is best to accept this offer, I, as I said before, shall offer no objection."

"Well then, Harry, I say--accept, and I will tell you why;" and now, although Polly had not changed her att.i.tude, she spoke clearly and firmly, and her eyes were fixed on the fire with a steady resolute look.

"But you must both agree not to interrupt me till I have done."

"I promise," Harry said, looking rather puzzled at Polly's very unusual demeanour.

"I promise," I repeated, amused and rather surprised, too.

"Very well," Polly said, "please remember that. Now, Harry, you are a great big strong fellow, but you know you are hardly fit to entrust any delicate business to, and that in any affair of that sort you would know no more than a child."

"Well, Miss Polly," Harry said in astonishment, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "you are a pretty cool hand to talk to your elders; what next, I wonder!"

"You promised not to interrupt, Harry. As I said, you are very good and kind, and all that, but you know you are not--not so to say sharp."

I could hardly help laughing, Harry's eyes opened so very wide in amazement at the girl's remarks, and Polly herself was looking so very serious and earnest.

"Now we women----"

"We women, indeed!" Harry repeated.

"Yes, we women," Polly continued unmoved,--"I have left school now, and I am more of a woman as far as these things go than you are of a man--we women look very deeply into these matters. Now there is only one of us three, who, as we stand at present, will be greatly affected by this gift. I do not say that 10,000 is not a nice sum to have, or that it might not some day a.s.sist me to get a husband, but at present I can manage very well without one----"

"I should think so," put in Harry.

"And you can get on without it, and keep yourself comfortably. Therefore to us the money has no peculiar charms at present, and we might both be rather disposed to refuse it, than to accept it as a gift from people who have robbed us of a large sum. There is a good deal in that, Harry, is there not?"

Harry nodded; he had not yet sufficiently recovered from the astonishment into which the position of superiority taken up by Polly had thrown him, while I on my part could not fancy what was coming next.

"Well you see, Harry, we have agreed that we neither of us are in a position rightly to estimate the value of this 10,000 at present. Now Agnes, on the contrary, is in a position to appreciate it keenly."

Here Harry again opened his eyes, and looked at me with such astonishment, that I really thought he must fancy that I wanted the money to pay off a gambling debt or something of that sort.

"Agnes appreciate it!" he exclaimed.

"Of course," Polly said; "and please do not interrupt me so, Harry. Now this 10,000 will, in all probability, be the turning-point in Agnes's life, and her future happiness or unhappiness may depend upon it. Let us see how she is situated. She is engaged to Percy Desborough----"

"Thank goodness," Harry muttered to himself, "she has said something I can understand at last."

"She is engaged to him, and he is a capital fellow; but for all that unless we find the will, or she has this 10,000, she knows, and I know it by her face, that it may be years before she marries Percy Desborough, if she ever does so."

"By George," Harry exclaimed, taking his pipe suddenly from his mouth, and jumping up from his chair,--"By George, if I thought for a moment that Percy Desborough----"

"There, you will interrupt me, Harry," Polly said, looking for the first time up from the fire with a little glance of amus.e.m.e.nt into his angry face. "Do sit down and hear me out, and you will see that there is no vengeance to be taken upon any one."

Harry looked more than half inclined to be very angry; however he resumed his seat, and took short sulky puffs at his pipe.

"The fact is, Harry, you have heard of Lady Desborough, and from what you have heard you must know----"

"My dear Polly," I interrupted in my turn, a.s.sured at last that she had intuitively arrived at a correct conclusion about the state of my engagement with Percy,--"My dear Polly----"

"My dear Agnes," she said, "you promised to hear me out. But, my darling,"--and she spoke in a very soft tender voice, turning round to me, and laying her hand on mine,--"you know what I am going to say to Harry; if it is painful, will you go away till I have done? Harry must hear it before he can come to any correct conclusion about this money."

I shook my head silently, but pressed her hand, which, while she went on, still remained resting in mine.

"Lady Desborough," and now she was looking steadily into the fire again, as if she read there all she was saying, "is a proud woman of the world, very ambitious, and very self-willed. Had Percy followed her wishes, and remained in the Guards, she would have expected him to have made a first-rate match; as it is, she could not hope that any earl's daughter would unite her fortunes to those of a cornet in a cavalry regiment, and troop with him out to India. When Percy therefore succeeded in persuading our Agnes here, that it was the best thing she could do, Lady Desborough was delighted at the match, which, with Agnes's 25,000, was vastly better than she could have expected. But when Mr. Harmer dies, what happens? Agnes has no fortune. All this time that I have been at school since Mr. Harmer died, and the will was missing, I have wondered and thought over what Lady Desborough would do. I came to the conclusion that she would wait for a bit, and would take no decided steps until it was clear that the will would never be found, but that unquestionably when it was proved to be gone she would interfere to break off the engagement between Percy and Agnes. I come back here, and what do I find? I find very little said about the engagement, and Agnes looking pale and depressed. Percy's letters come regularly; Agnes takes them up into her room, and comes down again after a very long time, with flushed cheeks, and a soft look, and yet not perfectly happy--that is not brightly happy. What does this mean? Just what I had antic.i.p.ated. Percy is unchanged; the money, in his eyes, makes no difference whatever, but there is an obstacle somewhere; that obstacle being of course Lady Desborough. Probably by the continuance of the correspondence, she has not yet given up hopes of the will being found, and has not therefore taken any decided step, but has, I should imagine, plainly shown what her intentions will be if the fortune is not recovered. In support of this view, I see Agnes absorbed in the result of this search for the secret room; I saw her delight when one of the hidden springs was found--and this not because Agnes loves money, but because she loves Percy Desborough, and knows that without the fortune she cannot be married to him."