At the first glance there was nothing to be seen. The panel in falling flat had covered the contents of the little receptacle. But as she put in her hand to draw it upwards again, she caught sight of something white lying beneath. Another moment and she drew out a lone narrowly folded parchment document, on which, to her unmitigated amazement, were inscribed in crabbed old-fashioned letters, the words: “Last Will and Testament of Elizabeth Morion, spinster,” with the date.
Breathless with excitement, feeling as if in a dream, Frances unfolded it. It was almost impossible for her to decipher much, couched as it was not only in technical but very old-fashioned phraseology, with a great mixture of legal Latin, and the usual absence of punctuation. But she read enough to satisfy herself that it was the missing will, the will devising to her grandfather the smaller of his aunt’s (the testator) properties, i.e., Craig-Morion, while Witham-Meldon, with its long list of appertaining estates, was bequeathed to the elder nephew, the direct ancestor of Ryder Morion.
For a few moments after this extraordinary discovery Frances was literally physically incapable of moving. Half mechanically she at last managed to pull back the panel into its place, and then she sat clasping the document in her hands, while a whirl of ideas rushed through her mind as to the consequences of her trouvaille. She felt no sensation of fear, though she actually listened in a kind of expectation of hearing again the softly drawn-out breath, sigh, or the rustle of the stiff silken garments, by means of which the perturbed spirit of her long-dead great-grand-aunt had seemed to endeavour to draw the attention of the still living to her secret. But there was nothing to be heard. Perfect stillness reigned. And at last Frances drew herself together and made her way out of the ancient building.
In the still sun-flecked churchyard, where the long evening shadows were now falling on the familiar tombstones, Frances felt herself in the ordinary world again. But for the contact of the thick sheets in her hand she would have fancied herself waking from a dream. Gradually the question took shape in her mind, what was best for her to do? Her first impulse was to hasten home with the wonderful story to her sisters, to consult them before any one else. But Frances had drilled herself rarely, if ever, to yield to first impulses. As she stood there, her perturbation of spirit, insensibly coloured, and composed with the sweet yet solemn peace around, a new impression stole into her mind. To whom was it due to confide first of all this extraordinary discovery, if not to the head of her house, the representative of the elder branch of the Morions, whose resting-places for centuries past were all around her as she stood there? And who, from what she had come to know of him, could better be trusted to act with fairness and right judgment—nay, even more, with sympathy for those whose interests conflicted with his own—than Ryder Morion himself?
“Yes,” was her mental decision, “that is the right thing to do. It is straightforward and best in every way.”
For though not a moment’s doubt crossed her mind as to the result of what she had found—what she now believed she had been guided to find by the strange influences she had more than once been conscious of—yet, knowing her father’s peculiarities, and the critical state of things in her family at the present juncture, she felt it would be kinder and better, even though at some cost to herself, to keep the events of that afternoon secret till she should have related them to the present owner of Craig-Morion.
“If only he were still here,” she thought, “or if I knew when he was returning! I don’t want to write it to him—I really feel as if I could not!” For now her scattered faculties, fast recovering their balance, reminded her that there were two sides to the strange restitution.
True, Ryder Morion was by all accounts far too wealthy a man to take into consideration the two or three thousand a year—which at most Frances imagined it must be—of loss of income, involved by the alienation of his smaller property. But independently of this she felt a strong persuasion that his interest in the place had come to be a close and personal one.
“It will seem an instance of the irony of fate to him,” she thought, “that just as he has got to identify himself more with Craig-Morion, he should have to give it up.” Yet, on the other hand, her cheeks flushed with delight as she thought of the advantages to those nearest and dearest to her of this almost incredible windfall. “It is not only the money,” she went on thinking, “though to us that will seem great riches, but the position it will give papa. Mrs Littlewood will think differently of a marriage with one of us now.”
All these reflections, as everybody knows is the case—above all, in moments of excitement—took far less time to pass through her mind than is required to relate them.