“Take all possible care of this ring, Miss Lindley,” said the lawyer. “If it has no other value, it is worth something as a curiosity. The setting of the gem is most uncommon.” Then he put the case containing the ring into my hand.
One by one the relatives now left the room, and my mother, the lawyer, and I found ourselves alone.
“If you will permit me,” said my mother in her gentle, charming sort of manner to Mr Gray, “I should like to go over Cousin Geoffrey’s house, and to look once again at the old furniture. You are not perhaps aware of the fact that I lived here for many years when I was a young girl.”
Mr Gray smiled slightly.
“I happen to know some of Mr Rutherford’s history,” he said.
My mother blushed quite prettily, as if she were a young girl. She turned aside and took my hand in hers.
“We may go, then,” she said.
“Undoubtedly you may go, Mrs Lindley, and pray do not hurry; take your own time. I am going to put a caretaker into this house, and until he arrives shall stay in charge myself, so you and Miss Rosamund need not hasten away.”
My mother thanked Mr Gray, and then she and I began our pilgrimage. I don’t think I ever before spent such an interesting afternoon. Cousin Geoffrey’s death had cast me down and destroyed all the hopes on which I had been building, still—perhaps it was the effect of the ring—I felt a curious sense of elation. The task of looking over the old house was the reverse of depressing to me. I never had been in such an antique, curious, rambling old mansion before. It was not like an ordinary London house; it had unexpected nooks, and queer alcoves, and marvellously carved and painted ceilings, and quaint balustrades and galleries. It must have been built a long time ago, and when the precious London ground was comparatively cheap, for the building went back a long way, and was added to here and there, so that it presented quite an irregular pile, and I don’t believe another house in London in the least resembled it. It towered above all its fellows in the square, and looked something like a great king who owned but a shabby kingdom. For the neighbouring houses were fifth-rate, and most of them let out in tenements.
But Cousin Geoffrey’s house was not only curious in itself—its contents were even more wonderful. I never saw a house so packed with furniture, and I don’t believe there was an article in it which had not seen at least a hundred years. The quaintest bureaus and chests of drawers inlaid with brass and ivory and mother-of-pearl were to be found in all directions. There were great heavy glass cupboards full of rare and wonderful china; there were spindle-legged tables and chairs of the most approved last-century pattern; there were Chippendale book-cases, and Queen Anne furniture of all shapes and sizes. At the time I was not a connoisseur of old furniture, but my mother was. She told me the date of the furniture of each room, and said that the house was so full of valuables, that it would make in itself quite an interesting museum. I never saw my mother look younger or prettier.