The Grey Monk

by T. W. Speight

Miss Matilda paused again, and glanced at her sister, who responded by an encouraging nod, as much as to say, “Very nicely put, indeed.” Miss Matilda resumed:

“My dear Ethel, you have been brought up to call my sister and me by the title of Aunt—and very sweet, as coming from your lips, it has sounded in our ears—and to the world at large you have passed as our niece. But the time has now come when the truth must no longer be withheld from you. My child, you are not our niece, nor any relative whatsoever. It grieves me to the heart to have to tell you this.”

Here the spinster’s voice quavered and broke; she turned away her face. Miss Jane was biting her underlip in an effort to keep down her emotion; one of her hands stole out and clasped a hand of her sister.

A low, inarticulate cry broke from Ethel. It was the cry of one not merely wounded, but stunned. She half rose from her chair and then sat down again and stared from one to the other, her eyes saying for her that which her lips were powerless to utter. Then all in a moment her tongue was loosened as if a cord had been cut. An instant later she was on her knees in front of the sisters, pressing a hand of each “Then, if you are not my aunts, whose child am I?” she cried aloud.

It was a quarter of an hour later. The sisters had mingled their tears with Ethel’s. They had petted and made much of her till some measure of composure had come back to her. She knew that she had not yet been told all there was to tell; there was more to follow; but no second shock could equal the first. The worst was known to her; it could matter little—-or so just then it seemed to her—what still remained to be told.

Presently Miss Matilda resumed her interrupted narrative.

“Many years ago—between nineteen and twenty, in point of fact—my brother Matthew, by the death of a half-cousin who had made his home in the United States, came in for a considerable legacy in the shape of landed property in that country. As a consequence, Matthew deemed it necessary that he should go out there in order to look after his interests, and he kindly offered to take my sister and me with him for a holiday. To this day Jane and I look back to that journey as the one great event of our lives. We remained in the States about three months, during which time we saw much, both of the country and the people. In the hope that the longer sea voyage would prove beneficial to my brother’s health, we came back by a sailing vessel named The Pandora, instead of by steamer, as on our outward journey. It was in the course of our return voyage that certain events happened in connection with you, my dear child, having an important bearing on your future; an account of which, later on, and when he felt that his time in this world was growing short, my brother embodied in the form of a written statement, which was placed by him in his ebony casket and the same given into the custody of myself and sister a few hours before he breathed his last. It is that statement which I shall now proceed to place in your hands and which it has become your duty to open and read.”

As she finished speaking, Miss Matilda rose and having selected one of the keys which hung from her chatelaine, proceeded to unlock and open the casket, which proved to be full of legal-looking documents—deeds, securities and what not. From underneath these she presently drew forth an oblong envelope which she handed to Ethel. It was fastened on one side with a large red seal and on the other was endorsed, “To my adopted Niece. To be opened by her on her nineteenth birthday, or sooner should my sisters deem it advisable.—M. T.”

Ethel’s hands trembled in spite of her. She looked at Miss Matilda with a pitiful smile. “Will not you open it and read it for me, dear aunt—if”—with a little sigh—“I may still be allowed to call you by that name?”

“My child, it is your place, nay, your duty, to open it and read what you will find written therein;” adding, with a touch of that old-fashioned phraseology which became her so well: “And I have never yet found my Ethel unresponsive to the call of duty.”