CHAPTER XXXIII: I BECOME AN HEIRESS
Soon after our return to Normandy I found on my breakfast-plate an envelope in my Grandmother's handwriting. As a rule her letters came in small square envelopes of the ordinary English shape and size. This one was long, plastered with extra stamps, notable-looking, parchmenty. Perhaps a consignment of tracts.
I found inside a heavy parchment document, covered with impressive copper-plate, together with a letter from my Grandmother, written not on her usual cream-coloured note-paper, but on whiter sheets with a thick black edging.
Could it be Aunt Jael? The first line reassured (?) me. It was Great-Uncle John, so rarely heard of, though known to me for ever as my Mother's "dear Uncle" and good man. It did not need my special greed and cunning to surmise rightly why his Will was sent to me. Inordinate hope—changing, as I rushed through my Grandmother's letter, into radiant certainty—stifled regret. (Regret would have been affectation, whispered Satan.) Without reading through the letter I stuffed the papers into the envelope and devoured my breakfast; preventing myself thinking till it should be over.
Suzanne had been watching me. "You have had good news I think?"
"Yes," I replied, unawares.
"I'm glad, because I noticed a black-rimmed envelope, and thought perhaps it might be bad."
In my boudoir I settled down at my leisure, luxuriously to learn the best. Grandmother's letter was one of the longest I ever had from her. As I read she came near me, became suddenly a part of the present. For an instant I saw her face, in the flesh. But the self that saw her was another Mary—Mary of Bear Lawn, full of fear and floggings, surrounded by God and Aunt Jael; not that Villebecq puppet. I could feel the selves changing place within me—and changing back....