“I don’t think that he or any one could feel more curiosity about it than I do,” I said. “Isabel has got accustomed to it in all these years, but even she says she has fits of wondering and wondering about these queer people.”
“And possibly,” said Jocelyn thoughtfully, “possibly the root of it all is nothing very terrible. The poor things may have got morbid about it, whereas if they could make up their minds to consult some outsider it might all be put right. It is extraordinary how brooding over troubles magnifies and increases them.”
Jocelyn was wise beyond his years, and what he said impressed me.
“It seems a pity that no one—Mr Wynyard, for instance, or the clergyman of the place, if he is a sensible man—tries to help them,” I said. “I know I couldn’t live beside four miserable-looking people for twenty years without trying to gain their confidence.”
“It may have been tried,” remarked my brother. “But of course that sort of thing cannot be forced. It would require great tact and experience. Don’t go on thinking about it too much, Reggie, or it will get on your brain; and whatever you do, don’t attempt any investigation of the secret.”
I did not reply. To tell the truth, words had added a new incentive to my great wish to unravel the mystery. What a good work it would be to get these poor lives out into the sunshine again! I was very young and very self-confident in some ways, and I did not then know that the onlookers whom I had tacitly reproached with indifference had already done their best in the direction of offering help.
The next day my brothers left us, and but for the anticipation of the pleasure in store for me which Jocelyn had told me of, I should have felt very low-spirited indeed. The morning following turned my hope into certainty. Mother opened a letter at the breakfast-table whose contents she read with evident satisfaction. In it was enclosed a note in Isabel’s handwriting which mother passed on to me. It was quite short, just expressing her pleasure at the prospect of seeing me “so soon,” and a few words added as a postscript increased my own excitement and satisfaction in the prospect of my visit to Millflowers. These were the words:—“I am doubly glad you are coming now,” she wrote, “because something very strange, or rather unusual, has happened in connection with our local mystery, and I do so want to tell you about it. I am afraid I am a gossip at heart!”
I felt my face grow red with eagerness. Mother watching me, naturally attributed my excitement solely to pleasure at the invitation.
I thought you would be delighted, she said, full of sympathy as usual. “I have purposely not spoken of it to you before till it was quite settled. There was a little uncertainty about Isabel’s plans, as her sisters had talked of taking her away to pay some visits, but in the end this has been given up. So it is all right. You will start about this day week with Maple. It is rather a long journey, but Mr Wynyard has let me know all the trains. You will get there by daylight.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t mind how late I travelled with Maple,” I said, for my maid had been with us since my childhood; though indeed, to tell the truth, my love of adventure would have found a good deal of attraction in the idea of travelling quite alone.