CHAPTER XIV.
“MISS HAYES, I BELIEVE?”
Surely, there is no more melancholy task than collecting and putting away the belongings of the dead! Even such little everyday articles as gloves, pens, books, can inflict many agonizing stabs, however tenderly handled, ere they are thrust out of sight. Besides Emma’s own particular possessions, I had to open and investigate the great bullock trunk which contained the remnant of my father’s and mother’s property; so that I was at the present time actually surrounded and invested by the effects of three relatives who had passed away, and by many dumb and inanimate things, which nevertheless spoke with tongues.
The bullock trunk—being large and unwieldy—had been brought up to the drawing-room. I had given orders that no one was to be admitted. I had even locked the door, ere I turned the key in the trunk. It smelt strongly of camphor, and contained mostly my father’s effects—his uniform, his pistols, books, some rare coins, several valuable daggers, several files of paid bills, and boxes of cartridges. Quite at the bottom was a good-sized leathern despatch-box, and a few pale water-color sketches, carefully wrapped in tissue-paper, and also a slender gold-mounted riding-whip and a broken fan. The despatch-box was full of letters—my father’s and mother’s letters. I glanced at one or two. Somehow, I shrank from reading them, from prying into the secrets, the most sacred feelings of my dead parents. There was also an ivory Prayer-book, now very yellow, with the name, “Gwendoline Chalgrove,” inscribed in a bold hand. There were, moreover, a faded photograph of a girl, a little baby’s shirt, in which was stuck a rusty needle, and that was all.
These I put aside; they were relics to be specially treasured. And then I repacked the great box (filling up the space with some of poor Emma’s possessions), and sent it down-stairs. I had a great deal too many cases for a person of my indigent circumstances. My own paraphernalia was sufficiently modest, but I could not and would not abandon that great pile of luggage which had no living owners. I was going to London the next day. I had bidden good-by to the grave—paid our small accounts. I had packed up all Emma’s belongings. I was now busily putting together my own effects in my little room above the drawing-room: I do believe that one’s clothes swell! I was very hot and tired as I knelt on the floor stuffing mine into a choking trunk, when Mrs. Gabb came pounding up the stairs and gasped out as she opened the door, “There’s a gentleman below!” My mind of course, flew to Mr. Somers, and I made a gesture of dismissal. “I can’t see any one,” I began.
“He says he must see you; and he—I couldn’t well catch his name, but I believe he is lord. Here, just tidy yourself, and let me pick the white threads off you.”
I hurried down, with a very tumultuous heart, and discovered (as I had half suspected) Lord Chalgrove. The room was in the utmost confusion, and he was standing in the middle of it, with one of the little water-color drawings in his hand, which he laid aside as I entered.