Frank was not a scoundrel, as some reader may be ready to suppose. He had no idea that the finding of the will would ruin Roger. He had received no such impression from his mother. She had not thought best to tell him all she believed, and had only insinuated that the missing will was more in his favor than the one then in force. Frank wanted money,—a great deal of money, and his want was growing constantly, and so he casually recommended Magdalen to hunt for the will, and then for a time gave the subject no more thought. But not so with Magdalen. She dreamed of the will by night, and hunted for it by day, when Frank did not claim her attention, until at last Hester stumbled upon her turning over the identical barrel of papers which Mrs. Walter Scott had once looked through.
“In the name of the people, what are you doing?” she asked; and Magdalen, who never thought of keeping her intentions a secret, replied, “I’m looking for that will which Mrs. Walter Scott says Squire Irving made before he died.”
For an instant Hester was white as a ghost, and her voice was thick with passion or fright, as she exclaimed, “A nice business, after all Roger has done for you, and a pretty pickle you’d be in, too, if such a will could be found. Don’t you know you’d be hustled out of this house in less than no time? You’d be a beggar in the streets. Put up them papers quick, and don’t let me catch you rummagin’ again. If Frank is goin’ to put such notions into your head, he’d better stay away from Millbank. Come with me, I say!”
Hester was terribly excited, and Magdalen looked at her curiously, while there flashed across her mind a thought, which yet was hardly a thought, that, if there was a will, Hester knew something of it. Let a woman once imagine there is a secret or a mystery in the house, and she seldom rests until she has ferreted it out. So Magdalen, though not a woman, had the instincts of one, and her interest in the lost document was doubled by Hester’s excitement, but she did not look any more that day, nor for many succeeding ones.
On Frank’s birthday there came letters from Roger, and the same train which brought them brought also Mrs. Walter Scott. She had found the city unendurable with all her acquaintance away, and had ventured to come unasked to Millbank. Hester was not glad to see her. Since finding Magdalen in the garret, she had suspected Frank of all manner of evil designs, and now his mother had come to help him carry them out. She had no fears of their succeeding. She knew they would not; but she did not want them there, and she spoke very short and crisp to Mrs. Walter Scott, and was barely civil to her. Mrs. Walter Scott, on the contrary, was extremely urbane and sweet. She did not feel as assured as she had done when last at Millbank. There was nothing of the mistress about her now. She was all smiles and softness, and gentleness, and called Hester “My dear Mrs. Floyd,” and squeezed her hand, and told her how well and young she was looking, and petted Magdalen, and ran her white fingers through her rings of hair, and said it was partly on her account she had come to Millbank.
“I heard from Frank that she was to go to school in the autumn, and knowing what a bore it would be for you, Mrs. Floyd, to see to her wardrobe, with all the rest you have to do, I ventured to come, especially as I have been longing to see the old place once more. How beautiful it is looking, and how nicely you and your good husband have kept everything! How is Mr. Floyd?”
Hester knew there was a good deal of what she called “soft-soap” in all the lady said; but kind words go a great ways with everybody, and Hester insensibly relaxed her stiffness and went herself with Mrs. Walter Scott to her room and opened the shutters, and brought clean towels for the rack, and asked if her guest would have a lunch or wait till dinner was ready.
“Oh, I’ll wait, of course. I do not mean to give you one bit of trouble,” was the suave reply, and Hester departed, wondering to herself at the change, and if “Mrs. Walter Scott hadn’t j’ined the church or something.”
CHAPTER XI.
ROGER’S LETTERS AND THE RESULT.
