The thought of dead leaves reminded me of the heap of correspondence. I glanced through it. Only one of all those letters interested me in the least. It was from my mother:—
“Elliot’s Bay, Norfolk,
17th August.
“Dear Lawrence,—I have wonderful news for you. Your great-uncle Sefton has died, and left you half his immense property. The other half is left to your second cousin Selwyn. You must come home at once. There are heaps of letters here for you, but I dare not send them on, as goodness only knows where you may be. I do wish you would remember to leave an address. I send this to your rooms, in case you have had the forethought to instruct your charwoman to send your letters on to you. It is a most handsome fortune, and I am too happy about your accession to it to scold you as you deserve, but I hope this will be a lesson to you to leave an address when next you go away. Come home at once.—Your loving Mother,
“Margaret Sefton.
“P.S.—It is the maddest will; everything divided evenly between you two except the house and estate. The will says you and your cousin Selwyn are to meet there on the 1st September following his death, in presence of the family, and decide which of you is to have the house. If you can’t agree, it’s to be presented to the county for a lunatic asylum. I should think so! He was always so eccentric. The one who doesn’t have the house, etc., gets £20,000 extra. Of course you will choose that.
“P.P.S.—Be sure to bring your under-shirts with you—the air here is very keen of an evening.”
I opened both the windows and lit a pipe. Sefton Manor, that gorgeous old place,—I knew its picture in Hasted, cradle of our race, and so on—and a big fortune. I hoped my cousin Selwyn would want the £20,000 more than he wanted the house. If he didn’t—well, perhaps my fortune might be large enough to increase that £20,000 to a sum that he would want.
And then, suddenly, I became aware that this was the 31st of August, and that to-morrow was the day on which I was to meet my cousin Selwyn and “the family,” and come to a decision about the house. I had never, to my knowledge, heard of my cousin Selwyn. We were a family rich in collateral branches. I hoped he would be a reasonable young man. Also, I had never seen Sefton Manor House, except in a print. It occurred to me that I would rather see the house before I saw the cousin.
I caught the next train to Sefton.
“It’s but a mile by the field way,” said the railway porter. “You take the stile—the first on the left—and follow the path till you come to the wood. Then skirt along the left of it, cater across the meadow at the end, and you’ll see the place right below you in the vale.”