'... from the King of Burmah himself. This ruby I estimate to be worth ... 000l. at the very least. The other ... Mines. The second largest stone weighs ... about 2,000l. The smaller ... rt Fletcher.'
It was a note on the contents of the parcel, written by the owner.
The stones, therefore, were rubies, uncut rubies. Armorel knew little about precious stones and jewels, but she had heard and read of them. The price of a virtuous woman, she knew, was far above rubies. And Solomon's fairest among women was made comely with rows of jewels. Queen Sheba, moreover, brought precious stones among her presents to the Wise King. The girl wondered why such common-looking objects as these should be precious. But she was humbly ignorant, and put that wonder by.
This, then, was nothing less than Robert Fletcher's fortune. He had this round his neck, and he was bringing it home to enjoy. And it was taken from him by her ancestor. A wicked thing indeed! A foul and wicked thing! And the poor man had been sent empty away to begin his life all over again. She shivered as she looked at them. All for the sake of these dull, red bits of stone! How can man so easily fall into temptation? In the empty room, so quiet, so ghostly, she heard again the whispers, 'Armorel, find him—find the man—and give him back his jewels.'
She replied aloud, not daring to look round her lest she should see the pale and eager faces of those who had suffered death by drowning in consequence of this sin, 'Yes—yes, I will find him! I will find him!'
She pushed the chagreen case back into its corner and covered it up. 'I will find him,' she repeated. Then she rose to her feet and looked about the room. Heavens! What a sight! The bags of gold, two of them open, their contents lying piled upon the table—the chains of gold on the floor—the handful of old gold coins lying on the table beside the Black Jack, the snuff-boxes, the miniatures, the punch-bowls, the rings, the silver cups—the low room, dark and quiet, filled with ghosts and voices, the recent occupant wagging her shoulders and shaking the back of her bonnet at her from the opposite wall, and, through the open window, the sight of the sunlight on the apple-blossoms mocking the gold and silver in this gloomy cave. She comprehended, as yet, little of the extent of her good fortune. Lace and silk, rings and miniatures, snuff-boxes: all these things had no value to her—of buying and selling she had no kind of experience. All she understood was that she was the possessor of a vast quantity of things for which she could find no possible use—one jewelled dagger, for instance, might be used for a dinner-knife, or for a paper-knife; but what could she do with a dozen? In addition to this museum of pretty and useless things she had forty bags with five hundred guineas, or pounds, in each—twenty-one thousand pounds, say, in cash. This museum was perfectly unique: no family in Great Britain had such a collection. It had been growing for more than three hundred years: it was begun in the time of the Tudor Kings, at least, perhaps even earlier. Wrecks there were, and Roseveans, on Samson, before the seventh Henry. I doubt if any other family, even the oldest and the noblest, has been collecting so long. Certainly no other family, even in this archipelago of wrecks, can have had such opportunities of collecting with such difficulties in dissipating. For more than three hundred years! And Armorel was sole heiress!
She understood that she had inherited something more than twenty thousand pounds—how much more, she knew not. Now, unless one knows something of the capacities of one single pound, one cannot arrive at the possibilities of twenty thousand pounds. Armorel knew as much as this. Tea at Hugh Town costs two shillings a pound—perhaps two-and-four—sugar threepence a pound: nun's cloth so much a yard—serge and flannel so much: coals, so much a ton: wood for fuel, so much. This was nearly the extent of her knowledge: and it must be confessed that it goes very little way towards a right comprehension of twenty thousand pounds.
Once, again, she had heard Justinian talking of the flower-farm. 'It has made,' he said, 'four hundred pounds this year, clear.' To which Dorcas replied, 'And the housekeeping doesn't come to half that, nor near it.' Whence, by the new light of this Great Surprise, she concluded, first, that the other two hundred, thus made, must have been added to those money-bags, and, next, that two hundred pounds a year would be a liberal allowance for her whole yearly expenditure. Then she made a little calculation. Two hundred pounds a year—two hundred into twenty thousand—twenty thousand—two and four noughts—she put five bags in a row for the number—subtract two—she did so—there remained three—divide by two—she did so—one hundred years was the result of that sum. Her twenty thousand pounds would therefore last her exactly one hundred years. At the expiration of the century all would be gone. For the first time in her life Armorel comprehended the fleeting nature of riches. And, naturally, the discovery, though she shivered at the thought of losing all, made her feel a little proud. A strange result of wealth, to advance the inheritor one more step in the knowledge of possible misery! She was like unto the curious youth who opens a book of medicine, only to learn of new diseases and terrible sufferings and alarming symptoms, and to imagine these in his own body of corruption. In a hundred years there would be no more. She would then be reduced to sell the lace and the other things for what they would then be worth. There would still, however, remain the flower-farm. She would, after all, be no worse off than before the Great Surprise. And then there sprang up in her heart the blossom of another thought, to be developed, later on, into a lovely flower.
She had risen from her knees now, and was standing beside the table, vaguely gazing upon her inheritance. It was all before her. So the Ancient Lady had stood many and many a time counting the money: looking to see if all was safe: content to count it and to know that it was there. The old lady was gone, but from the opposite wall her shoulders and the back of her bonnet were looking on.
Well: Armorel might go on doing exactly the same. She might live as her forefathers had lived: there was the flower-farm to provide all their necessities: if it brought in four hundred pounds a year, she could add two hundred to the heap—in every two years and a half another bag of five hundred sovereigns. All her people had done this—why not she? It seemed expected of her; a plain duty laid upon her shoulders. If she were to live on for eighty years longer—which would bring her to her great-great-grandmother's age—she would save eighty times two hundred—sixteen thousand pounds. The inheritance would then be worth thirty-six thousand pounds—a prodigious sum of money indeed. And, besides, the Black Jack, with its foreign gold, and the rings and lace and things!