Colonel Thorndyke's Secret Part 35

But how is it that it came to be so much? Have they sold the jewels?"

"No, you see it is the compound interest going on for seventeen years, and perhaps some rise in the value of the securities, that has doubled the original sum invested. As for the jewels, I have left them at the bank; I should not care about having 50,000 pounds worth of such things in my rooms and I should not think that you would like to have them here, either."

"Certainly not," Mrs. Cunningham said emphatically; "you did quite right, Mark. I don't think I could sleep, even if you had half a dozen of your detective friends posted round the house."

"Still I suppose we shall have a chance of seeing them?" Millicent said.

"Certainly. I can make an appointment with Philip Cotter for you to see them at the bank; or if I take them to a jeweler to value, you could see them there. But I should think that the bank would be the best. I am sure that Cotter would put his room at your disposal, and, of course, if you would like to have some of them for yourself you could select any you liked, but I expect that they won't look much in their present settings; the Indian jewelers have not the knack of setting off gems.

However, there is no hurry about them one way or another. The money, I have told Cotter's father, shall, for the present, remain as it is invested; it is all in the Funds, Cotter said, for although the instructions were that it was to be put into good securities, he did not feel justified under the peculiar circ.u.mstances in going outside Government stock. Mr. Prendergast is quite of opinion that it would be better to make no change until you come of age. I did not know whether you would wait till then, for some purpose or other you might want to use some of it."

Millicent shrugged her shoulders.

"I think I would much rather have had just the money I had before, Mark; all this will be a great nuisance, I am sure. I think there ought to be a law against women having more than 20,000 pounds, whether in money or in land."

Mark laughed.

"It would be a bad thing for spendthrift young n.o.blemen, Millicent. How are they to pay off their debts and mortgages if there were no heiresses ready to do so in exchange for a t.i.tle?"

"It would be a good thing for them, I consider," the girl said indignantly. "In the first place, they would not impoverish themselves if they knew that there was no way of building up their fortune again, and in the next place, if they did ruin themselves they would have to either set to work to earn an honest living or blow out their brains, if they have any to blow out. I can a.s.sure you that I don't feel at all exultant at getting all this money, and I think that my father was quite right in wishing that I should know nothing about it until I married; but, on the other hand, I am heartily glad, more glad than I can say, Mark, that you have come into your share."

"I am glad for one reason, Millicent; that is, that this must put an end to the ridiculous idea you have of giving up Crowswood. Your father has made me rich beyond anything I could possibly have expected from him.

I suddenly find myself a wealthy man, and I can buy another estate for myself worth more than Crowswood if inclined to settle down as a squire; therefore your theory that I have been disappointed in not inheriting what I thought was my father's estate falls to the ground altogether. In no case would I ever have accepted your sacrifice. If you had liked to hand it over to St. Bartholomew's or Guy's Hospital, or to give it away to any other charity, I would not have prevented you, but I would never have accepted it for myself. Now, thank goodness, the question cannot arise; for you must see that, even looking at the matter from a purely business point of view, I have benefited to an enormous and altogether unexpected extent by your father's will, and if any contest between us could arise it should be on the ground that he has acted unfairly to you by giving me so large a proportion of the money that, in the course of nature, you should have inherited. It was not even as if he had known and liked me, for I was but four years old at the time he wrote the letter saying that I was to share the money and jewels with you."

"You are very obstinate and very disagreeable, Mark," she said, with tears in her eyes.

"I think the obstinacy has been princ.i.p.ally on your side, Millicent; though certainly I should not think of saying that you have been disagreeable. It has been an excess of kindheartedness on your part, and you have resolutely closed your eyes to the fact that, had I been willing to take advantage of your generosity, I should have lacked the courage to do so, for I should have been pointed at wherever I went, as a mean fellow who took advantage of his little cousin's romantic generosity. Pray, dear, let us say no more about it. We are two rich young people; we have both an estate; yours, I grant, is the larger, but if I choose I can increase mine, until it is quite as large as Crowswood. We can be better friends than we have been for the last year, because this point of dispute has always stood between us and made us uncomfortable. Now you will have to think over what you would like done, and whether you wish any change made in your manner of living."

"Did you tell Mr. Cotter," Millicent laughed, after a pause, "that I had a half share in the money?"

"No, that was a matter for you to decide, not for me. I told him that I was only a half shareholder, but there was no necessity to say who it was who had the other half. When I was talking to Philip Cotter, the words 'my cousin' slipped out, but he did not a.s.sociate it in any way with you. It might have been the son of another brother or of a sister of my father's."

"In that case, then, we will certainly make no change, will we, Mrs.

Cunningham?"

"I think, Millicent, that Mr. Prendergast and Mark will probably be of opinion that you ought now to be introduced regularly into society. The fact that you are a rich heiress might, as your father so much wished, remain a secret. But it is one thing having this blazoned about and quite another for you to be living quietly here, where, with the exception of Mr. Cotter and a few other friends, you have no society whatever. Certainly it was not the wish of your father that you should remain unmarried. You are quite pretty and nice enough to be sought for yourself alone, and I must say that I think, now that you have finished with your various masters, it would be well that you should go out a good deal more, and that as a first step we should go down to Bath this year instead of paying another visit to Weymouth, as we had arranged."

"I don't want any change at all, Mrs. Cunningham. If I am to get married I shall be married; if I am not I shall not fret about it."

"But for all that, Millicent," Mark said, "Mrs. Cunningham is right.

We quite agree that there is no occasion whatever for you to go about labeled 'A good estate and over 70,000 pounds in cash,' but I do think that it is right that you should go into society. With the exception of Philip Cotter, d.i.c.k Chetwynd, and two or three other of my friends, you really know very few people. You have now gone out of mourning, and I think that Mrs. Cunningham's proposal that you should go down to Bath is a very good one. I shall not be sorry for a change myself, for I have been engrossed in my work for a long time now. I can go down a day or two before you, and get you comfortable lodgings, and will myself stay at a hotel. Although I have no intimate friends beyond those from Reigate, I know a large number of men of fashion from meeting them at the boxing schools and other places, and could introduce you both, and get you into society."

"I am altogether opposed to the idea," Millicent said decidedly. "You want to trot me out like a horse for sale."

"No, Millicent," Mark said calmly. "I only want you to have the same advantages that other girls have, neither more nor less, and for you to enjoy yourself as others do. There is nothing undignified or objectionable about that, especially as we are agreed that nothing shall be said about your fortune. Well, we will think it over. Mr. Prendergast and I certainly do not wish to act as tyrants, and there is no occasion to come to a decision in a hurry. We have only discovered our good fortune today, and can scarcely appreciate the difference that it will make to us. We can think over what will be for the best at our leisure, and see if we cannot hit upon some plan that will be agreeable to you."

"Thank you, Mark," she said gratefully. "I am afraid that you must think me very disagreeable and cross; but though you, as a man, have not the same sort of feelings, I can a.s.sure you that I feel all this money and so on to be a heavy burden; and were it not for your sake I could wish heartily that this treasure had never been discovered at all."

"I can quite understand that," he said quietly. "At the present moment, even, I do not see that it will be of much advantage to me; but it may be that some day I shall see it in a different light. It has come upon me almost as suddenly as it has upon you. I thought that after I had finished with the Bastow affair I should set to work to find out this treasure, and that it would probably take me out to India, occupy me there for some time, and that afterwards I might travel through other places, and be away from England three or four years. Now the matter is altogether altered, and I shall be some time before I form any fresh plans. In fact, these must depend upon circ.u.mstances."

Mrs. Cunningham had left the room two or three minutes before, thinking that Mark might be able to talk her charge into a more reasonable state of mind were he alone with her, and he added:

"Of one circ.u.mstance in particular."

She looked up inquiringly.

"Well, Millicent, it depends a great deal upon you. I know you think that all that has happened during the past year has been a little hard upon you, and I thoroughly agree with you; you were fond of Crowswood, and were very happy there, and the change to this somewhat dull house, just at a time when you are of an age to enjoy pleasure, has been a trial. Then, too, there has been this question of the estate upon your mind. But you must remember it has been somewhat of a trial to me also.

I grant that I have had plenty of occupation which has been in every way beneficial to me, and have not at all lamented leaving the country, but in one respect it has been a trial. I don't know whether it ever entered your mind, before that sad time at home, that I was getting to care for you in a very different way to that in which I had done before.

"My father, I think, observed it, for he threw out a very plain hint once that he would very gladly see us coming together. However, I never spoke of it to you. I was young and you were young. It seemed to me that there was plenty of time, and that, moreover, it would not be fair for me to speak to you until you had had the opportunity of going out and of seeing other men. Then came the evening before his death, when my father told me how matters really stood, and he again said that there was a way by which all trouble could be obviated. But I saw that it was not so, and that the hope I had entertained must be put aside. I had never told you I loved you when I seemed to be the heir of the property and you only the daughter of an old comrade of his, and I saw that were I to speak now, when you were the heiress, it could not but appear to you that it was the estate and not you that I wanted, and I felt my lips were sealed forever. Mr. Prendergast said that day when he came down to the funeral, and you told him that you would not take the property, that it might be managed in another way, and you said that you did not want to be married for your money; so you see you saw it in exactly the same light as I did.

"My first thought this morning, when Mr. Cotter told me that the money had mounted up to over 100,000 pounds, was that it would unseal my lips. You were still better off than I was, but the difference was now immaterial. I was a rich man, and had not the smallest occasion to marry for money. Whether I married a girl without a penny, or an heiress, could make but little difference to me, as I have certainly no ambition to become a great landowner. I still think that it would have been more fair to you to give you the opportunity of seeing more of the society of the world before speaking to you, but you see you are opposed to that, and therefore it would be the same did I wait patiently another year, which I don't think I should be able to do. I love you, Millicent. It is only during the past eighteen months, when I have thought that I had lost you, that I have known how much I love you, and how much my happiness depends upon you. I can truly say that were you penniless, it would make no shadow of difference to me. It is no longer a question of arranging matters comfortably: it is a question of love. The estate is nothing to me. It never has been anything, and it does not count at all in the scale. I hope that you will put it altogether out of your mind in giving me an answer; and that if you cannot say as truly and wholly as I do, 'I love you,' that you will say as frankly as you have always spoken to me, 'I love you very much as a cousin, Mark, but not in that way.'"

The girl had sat perfectly quiet while he was speaking.

He was standing before her now, and he took one of her hands.

"I love you, dear; I love you with all my heart. Do you love me?"

Then she looked up and rose to her feet, and placed both hands upon his shoulders.

"As you love me, so I love you, Mark."

After that, conversation languished till Mrs. Cunningham came into the room, five minutes later.

"We have come to the conclusion, Mrs. Cunningham," he said, "that there will be no necessity for the visit to Bath. Millicent is otherwise provided for; she has promised to be my wife."

"I am glad, Mark, glad indeed!" and she took Millicent in her arms and kissed her tenderly. "I have all along hoped for it, but I began to be afraid that you were both such obstinate young people that it would never come about. I know that your father wished it, Mark, and he told me that his brother had said that it would be a good arrangement if some day you should come to like each other. I have guessed for the last year, and, indeed, before then, that Millicent would not say 'No' if you ever asked her; but this stupid estate seemed to stand in the way. Of late, I have even come to hope that the obstinate girl would keep to her intention, and that if, as I knew would be the case, you refused to take the estate, she would give it away to some charity. In that case, there could be nothing to prevent your speaking; and even then you would have been between you very fairly equipped with this world's goods. However, the present is a far better solution, and the discovery of the treasure has saved you from three years' waiting before things were straightened out. I feel as if I were her mother, Mark, having had her in my charge since she was a baby; and as she grew up it became my fondest hope to see you united some day, and I think that I am almost as pleased that my hope has been fulfilled as you are yourselves."

CHAPTER XVIII.

After thinking over the best way in which to set about the work of carrying the diamonds to Amsterdam, Mark decided upon asking the advice of his late chief. The latter said, as Mark entered his room:

"I did not expect to see you here again, Mr. Thornd.y.k.e."

"Well, sir, I have come to ask your' advice about another matter altogether."

"What is it now?"

"I have to convey a diamond bracelet of very great value across to Amsterdam. I have reasons to believe that there is a plot to seize it on the way, and that the men engaged will hesitate at nothing to achieve their object. Under these circ.u.mstances I should be very much obliged if you will tell me what would be the best course to pursue. I must say that the bracelet is, with many other jewels, in a strong teak box of about a foot square, at present in the possession of our bankers; they were brought from India by my uncle. I imagine that the rest of the jewels are of comparatively little importance in the eyes of these men, though doubtless they would take them also if they lay their hands on them. The bracelet, however, is of special interest to them, not so much for its intrinsic value, as because it was stolen from one of their sacred idols.

"This was about twenty years ago; but I have reason to believe that the search for it on the part of some Hindoos connected with the temple has never ceased. The soldier who took it was murdered; his comrade, into whose hands they next pa.s.sed, was also murdered. They next came to my uncle, who forwarded it at once to England. His bungalows were searched again and again, until probably the fellows came to the conclusion that he must have either buried it or sent it away. Nevertheless, to the day of his death he was firmly convinced that he was closely followed, and every movement watched. He warned my father solemnly that he too would be watched, but as far as we know it was not so; at any rate, we had no reason to suppose that the house was ever entered. On the other hand, I am convinced I have been watched more or less closely ever since I came up to town, and as I came out from the bank yesterday I saw a man--a colored fellow, I believe--on the watch.

"My uncle said that my life would not be worth an hour's purchase so long as I had the bracelet in my possession, and advised that it should be taken straight over to Amsterdam, broken up, and the diamonds sold singly to the merchants there."

"It is a curious story, Mr. Thornd.y.k.e. I own to ignorance of these Indian thieves and their ways, but it certainly seems extraordinary that so hopeless a quest should be kept up for so long a time. You are sure that it is not fancy on your part that you have been watched? I know you are not the sort of man to take fancies in your head, but as you have had the matter so strongly impressed upon you, you might naturally have been inclined to think this would be the case when it was not so."