Ethel said no more, but at once broke the seal and drew forth the enclosure, which consisted of a double sheet of letter paper closely covered with writing in a bold, masculine hand. The sisters, sitting bolt upright, one mittened hand laid across the other, looked on in silence. Having laid aside the envelope and straightened out the enclosure, Ethel said to Miss Matilda: “Do you wish me to read it aloud?”
“My dear, that is entirely a matter for your own judgment. My sister and I are already cognisant of the contents, our brother having permitted us to peruse the paper previously to sealing it up.”
“Still, I think I should prefer to read it aloud.”
“As you please, my love.”
A faint wintry smile lighted up the faces of the sisters. It was perhaps because they were so sad at heart that they smiled. It is a way their sex sometimes have.
Without further preface Ethel began to read:—
“MY DEAR CHILD,—When these lines meet your eye the hand that penned them will be dust.
“Having reason to feel assured that my remaining span of life will be a brief one, I have deemed it best, in your interests, and with a view to any contingencies which may arise in the future, to draw up a clear and succinct statement of the circumstances which first served to bring you under the notice of my sisters and myself, and led to our taking charge of you, temporarily, as we thought at the time, and ultimately to your adoption by us.
“In the autumn of the year 18— my sisters and I, after a brief sojourn in the United States, took passage on our return voyage from New York to London by the clipper ship Pandora. There were not more than a score of passengers in addition to ourselves, but among them was a certain Mrs. Montmorenci-Vane, with her child, a baby about six months old. Her nursemaid, according to her account, having deserted her within an hour or two of her coming on board, she engaged a young woman from among the steerage passengers to look after her child during the voyage. Unfortunately, when the voyage was about half accomplished, Mrs. Montmorenci-Vane fell overboard one dark night and was lost. There was no one on the Pandora who knew anything about her; she was a complete stranger to every one. In this state of affairs, my sisters, who had their maid Tamsin with them, took upon themselves the care of the drowned woman’s babe for the rest of the voyage, in the expectation that some one would meet the ship on its arrival—some relative or friend—into whose hands they could transfer it.
“In point of fact, when the Pandora reached the London Dock it was met by a thin, shabbily-dressed, consumptive-looking man, who had come to inquire for his sister, one Martha Griggs. There was no such person on board, but, by means of a photograph, he recognised his sister in the Mrs. Montmorenci-Vane, who had fallen overboard. Never did I see a man more utterly dumfounded than he. His sister had been unmarried. Only a few months before she had gone out to the States as maid to a wealthy lady, who, a little later, had died there. She had written to her brother that she was coming home by the Pandora, and had asked him to meet the ship. But as to why she had chosen to call herself Mrs. Montmorenci-Vane, why she had gone to the extravagance of paying for a cabin passage, and whence she had obtained the child she passed off on board as her own, he professed himself as being utterly unable to comprehend. That the man’s wonder and amazement were genuine it was impossible to doubt.