Great Possessions

by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward

As her eyes rested on the sails and the water, and were filled with the joy of colour, she had a sort of delicious idea of her new house. It should be very beautiful, most exquisite, quite unlike anybody else's house; it should be Molly's own special triumph. It must have the glamour of an old London house, its dignity, its sense of a past. It should have for decoration gloriously subdued gilding and colour, and old pictures, which Molly could afford to buy.

"And"—she smiled to herself—"as long as it is a house in the air it shall have a great outlook on the sea and the sunset." The fancy that had been so cruel in her sickness was a sycophant now that life was victorious; it flattered and caressed and soothed her now.

Within a few days two theories were growing in the background of her consciousness, not acknowledged or questioned while they took possession. They took turns to make themselves gradually, very gradually, and imperceptibly familiar to her. The first was founded on the idea that she had been very ill a little sooner than was supposed, and that she had imagined a great deal that was torturing and absurd as to her mother's papers. She had been delirious that evening, and, what was still more important, she was actually very hazy now as to what she had seen and read of the contents of that box.

"I can't remember if that's true," she could honestly say to herself when some fact of the horrible story came forward and claimed attention. Once she caught herself thinking how very common it was for people to forget entirely what had happened just before or during an illness. For instance, Sir David Bright had never been able to remember what happened on the day on which Madame Danterre declared he had married her. But how did Molly know that? And suddenly she said to herself that she could not remember; perhaps she had fancied that, too.

At another time she began almost to think that she had imagined the black box altogether. Was it square or oblong? and how shallow was it? Sometimes while she was ill she had seen a black box as big as a house; sometimes it was a little tiny cash box.

Meanwhile, under cover of so many uncertainties, the other theory was getting a firm footing. It was simply that the fact of the will being sent to her mother was undoubted proof of Sir David's having repented of having made it. If Sir David had not sent her this will, who had? It was absurd and romantic to suppose that her mother had carried on an intrigue in South Africa in order to get possession of this will. That might have done in a chapter of Dumas, or have been imagined in delirium, but it was not possible in real life. The only puzzle was—and the theory must be able to meet all the facts of the case—why had he not destroyed the will himself? The probability was that he had not been able to do so at the last moment. When dying he must have repented of the last will just too late to destroy it. She could quite imagine his asking a friend, almost with his last words, to send Madame Danterre the papers. It would look more natural than his asking the friend to destroy them. And then the officer would have addressed the papers, of course not reading them. And thus the theory comfortably wrapped up another fact, namely, that the registered envelope had not been addressed by the hand that had written its contents. Finally, all that the theory did for the will, it did also for the letter to Rose, for the two things evidently stood or fell together. So the theories grew and prospered without interfering with each other as Molly's health and strength returned, except that the delirium theory insisted at times on the other theory being purely hypothetical; as, for instance, it had to be "Even supposing I was not delirious, and the will had been there, it is still evident that——"

Molly's recovery did not get on without a drawback, and the day on which the lawyer came down to see her she was genuinely very unwell. She seemed hardly able to understand business. She was ready to leave all responsibility to him in a way that certainly saved much trouble, but he hardly liked to see her quite so passive.

After he left, Miss Carew found her looking faint and ill.

"He must think me a fool," she said, in a weak voice. "I have left everything on his shoulders, poor man. I'm afraid if he is asked about me, as he's a Scotchman he will say I am 'just an innocent'! I really ought not to have seen him to-day."

But in a few days she was better, and the house agent found her quite business-like. The said house agent had come down with one secret object in his heart. It was now nine months since the bankruptcy of a too well-known nobleman had thrown a splendid old house on the market. It had been in the hands of all the chief agents in London, and they had hardly had a bite for it. Even millionaires were shy of it so far, the fact being that the house was more beautiful than comfortable, the bedrooms having been thought of less importance than the effectiveness of the first floor. Then, perhaps, it was a little gloomy, though artists maintained that its share of gloom only enhanced its charm.