Constancy had shown him that his action in disobeying the telegram had either been ridiculously childish, or despicably mean; in either case contemptible. The shock that met him on his arrival had startled away, for the moment, all feelings but those of real and natural grief, till the alarm at Guy’s condition had forced him to recollect whose fault the over-exertion had been, whose doing was whatever anxious waiting had befallen his old aunt on her death-bed, and whatever grief his brother would feel at being absent from it. And now the report of Jeanie’s words filled him with a vague fear, born perhaps of his own bad conscience, which caused him to dread turning the key in the lock. There was, too, the first chilling experience of the change made by death. The day before, he would never have dreamed of touching those keys.
He opened the drawer, however, at last. There were various packets of bills and letters, and on the top a long white parchment envelope, a long blue one, and a smaller square one of the cream-laid paper, which Mrs Waynflete had always used.
Godfrey took this last timidly in his hand. It was labelled, “Directions as to my Funeral.” He looked at the parchment envelope on which was engrossed, “Last Will and Testament of Mrs Margaret Waynflete, April 5th, 1880.”
Then he looked at the blue one, and on this was written in his aunt’s laboured writing—writing which, if not acquired, had been practised since childhood, “My Will, September 25th, 189-.”
The blue envelope which his aunt had perhaps meant to destroy! Godfrey caught up all three documents in his hand, all were unsealed, but he could not resolve to open them by himself, and hurried up to Guy’s room. On the way he met Jeanie, in a black frock, her face swelled with crying, and some autumn flowers in her hand.
Poor Jeanie! All that had passed bore for her the message, “We shall not live with Godfrey any more.”
Godfrey caught her arm. “Jeanie, what did she say about the blue envelope?”
“She said, ‘burn it,’ if she told me, and she would perhaps tell me when Guy came. She was wondering why he did not come all day. She had never told us she wrote to him.”
Godfrey dropped his hold and went on upstairs. He found Guy lying still, with Cuthbert beside him. There was but little light through the old-fashioned deep-set windows, and the room was full of the glow of the fire.
“Must Guy see these papers?” said Cuthbert, moving. “Can’t we manage without troubling him?”