He felt it was absolutely impossible at that moment to enter into any elucidation whatever, or even to give an outline of the conditions of the will.
Lois extended the document toward Lady Quaintree.
“Is it very long?” her ladyship demanded, glancing at Frank Amberley.
“It may take you five minutes to read it,” he answered.
She unfolded the paper, and ran her eye rapidly over the contents. Not one of the others uttered a word—not one ventured to look up, but remained as if carved out of stone.
Lois found it well-nigh impossible to analyze her sensations; but certainly the predominant one was that she must be in a dream. She had every reason to be happy with her protectress, who was as kind as if the near ties of relationship bound them together; but it would probably be quite useless to search the world for the girl of eighteen who could hear unmoved that she had suddenly become the owner of a large fortune, especially if that girl happened to be in a dependent position, and to move constantly amid persons with whom money, rank, and fashion were paramount objects of devotion.
She was the daughter of a court embroideress, who had earned about four hundred a year by her labors and those of her assistants; but Mrs. Turquand had never been able—or thought she had not been—to lay by any portion of her income as a provision for her child. Lady Quaintree had always liked Lois as a child, and at the death of her mother, three years since, had taken her to be useful companion and agreeable company for herself.
That Lois had any expectations from any quarter whatever, nobody ever for a moment supposed. Everybody of Lady Quaintree’s acquaintance knew and liked the young girl, who was so pretty, so obliging, so sweet-tempered. That she should now be suddenly transformed into the inheritress of great wealth was something like an incident in a fairy-tale.
Mr. Amberley’s reflections were easily defined. He had for months past loved this young girl, though he had never yet had sufficient courage to declare as much, for she seemed totally unconscious of his preference, and, while certainly not distant nor icy with him, never gave him the slightest reason to suppose that she ever as much as remembered him when he was absent. He had, however, the satisfaction of feeling sure that she cared for no one else. Never even remotely had he hinted to Lady Quaintree his secret, being well aware she would discountenance his suit, for many reasons.
It was with the utmost bitterness of spirit that he had seen the girl apparently removed from the possibility of his being able to pay court to her; and at the same time not only delivered into the sole charge of a probable rival, but bound by the most stringent injunctions to marry a young, handsome, and in every way attractive, man—a man whom he judged, in his own distrustful humility, much more likely to seize the fancy of a young beauty than he himself was.