The Three Miss Kings

"Oh," she exclaimed, "what shall I do? It has fallen behind the mantelpiece! I quite forgot that old hole – and it is there still. Surely," she continued angrily, stamping her foot, "when Mr. Hawkins took the trouble to do all this" – and she indicated the surface of the woodwork, which had been painted in a wild and ghastly imitation of marble – "he might have taken a little more, and fixed the thing close up to the wall?"

Mr. Brion examined the mantelpiece, pushed it, shook it, peered behind it with one eye, and said that he had himself lost a valuable paper-knife in the same distressing manner, and had long intended to have the aperture closed up. "And I will get a carpenter to-morrow morning, my dear," he boldly declared, "and he shall take the whole thing to pieces and fix it again properly. Yes, I will – as well now as any other time – and we will find your opal."

Having pledged himself to which tremendous purpose, he and they finished their tea, and afterwards had their dinner, and afterwards sat on the verandah and gossiped, and afterwards went to bed – and in due time got up again – as if nothing out of the common way had happened!

In the morning Fate sent another of her humble emissaries from the township to Seaview Villa, with a bag of tools over his shoulder – tools that were keys to unlock one of her long-kept secrets. And half an hour after his arrival they found the opal, and several things besides. When, after Mrs. Harris had carefully removed the furniture and hearthrug, and spread cornsacks over the carpet, the carpenter wrenched the mantelpiece from its fastenings, such a treasure-trove was discovered in the rough hollows of the wall and floor as none of them had dreamed of. It did not look much at the first glance. There were the opal and the paper-knife, half a dozen letters (circulars and household bills of Mrs. King's), several pens and pencils, a pair of scissors, a silver fruit-knife, a teaspoon, a variety of miscellaneous trifles, such as bodkins and corks, and a vast quantity of dust. That seemed all. But, kneeling reverently to grope amongst these humble relics of the past, Elizabeth found, quite at the bottom of everything, a little card. It was an old, old card, dingy and fretted with age, and dried and curled up like a dead leaf, and it had a little picture on it that had almost faded away. She carefully wiped the dust from it with her handkerchief, and looked at it as she knelt; it was a crude and youthful water-colour drawing of an extensive Elizabethan house, with a great many gables and fluted chimney-stacks, and much exuberance of architectural fancy generally. It had been minutely outlined by a hand trained to good draughtsmanship, and then coloured much as a child would colour a newspaper print from a sixpenny paint-box, and less effectively, because there was no light and shade to go upon. It was flat and pale, like a builder's plan, only that it had some washy grass and trees about it, and a couple of dogs running a race in the foreground, which showed its more ambitious pretensions; and the whole thing had evidently been composed with the greatest care. Elizabeth, studying it attentively, and thinking that she recognised her father's hand in certain details, turned the little picture over in search of the artist's signature. And there, in a corner, written very fine and small, but with elaborate distinctness, she read these words: – "Elizabeth Leigh, from Kingscote Yelverton, Yelverton, June, 1847."

She stared at the legend – in which she recognised a peculiar capital K of his own invention that her father always used – with the utmost surprise, and with no idea of its tremendous significance. "Why – why!" she gasped, holding it up, "it belongs to him– it has Mr. Yelverton's name upon it! How in the world did it come here? What does it mean? Did he drop it here the other day? But, no, that is impossible – it was quite at the bottom – it must have been lying here for ages. Mr. Brion, what does it mean?"

The old man was already stooping over her, trying to take it from her hand. "Give it to me, my dear, give it to me," he cried eagerly. "Don't tear it – oh, for God's sake, be careful! – let me see what it is first." He took it from her, read the inscription over and over and over again, and then drew a chair to the table and sat down with the card before him, his face pale, and his hands shaking. The sisters gathered round him, bewildered; Elizabeth still possessed with her first impression that the little picture was her lover's property, Eleanor scarcely aware of what was going on, and Patty – always the quickest to reach the truth – already beginning dimly to discern the secret of their discovery. The carpenter and the housekeeper stood by, open-mouthed and open-eyed; and to them the lawyer tremulously addressed himself.

"You had better go for a little while," he said; "we will put the mantelpiece up presently. Yet, stay – we have found a very important document, as I believe, and you are witnesses that we have done so. You had better examine it carefully before you go, that you may know it when you see it again." Whereupon he solemnly proceeded to print the said document upon their memories, and insisted that they should each take a copy of the words that made its chief importance, embodying it in a sort of affidavit, to which they signed their names. Then he sent them out of the room, and confronted the three sisters, in a state of great excitement. "I must see Paul," he said hurriedly. "I must have my son to help me. We must ransack that old bureau of yours – there must be more in it than we found that time when we looked for the will. Tell me, my dears, did your father let you have the run of the bureau, when he was alive?"

No, they told him; Mr. King had been extremely particular in allowing no one to go to it but himself.

"Ah," said the old man, "we must hunt it from top to bottom – we must break it into pieces, if necessary. I will telegraph to Paul. We must go to town at once, my dears, and investigate this matter – before Mr. Yelverton leaves the country."

"He will not leave the country yet," said Elizabeth. "What is it, Mr. Brion?"

"I think I see what it is," broke in Patty. "Mr. Brion thinks that father was Mr. Yelverton's uncle, who was lost so long ago. King – King – Mr. Yelverton told us the other day that they called him 'King,' for short – and he was named Kingscote Yelverton, like his uncle. Mother's name was Elizabeth. I believe Mr. Brion is right And, if so – "

"And, if so," Patty repeated, when that wonderful, bewildering day was over, and she and her elder sister were packing for their return to Melbourne in the small hours of the next morning – "if so, we are the heiresses of all those hundreds of thousands that are supposed to belong to our cousin Kingscote. Now, Elizabeth, do you feel like depriving him of everything, and stopping his work, and leaving his poor starved costermongers to revert to their original condition – or do you not?"

"I would not take it," said Elizabeth, passionately.

"Pooh! – as if we should be allowed to choose! People can't do as they like where fortunes and lawyers are concerned. For Nelly's sake – not to speak of mine – they will insist on our claim, if we have one; and then do you suppose he would keep your money? Of course not – it's a most insulting idea. Therefore the case lies in a nutshell. You will have to make up your mind quickly, Elizabeth."

"I have made up my mind," said Elizabeth, "if it is a question of which of us is most worthy to have wealth, and knows best how to use it."

CHAPTER XXXVI.

INVESTIGATION

They did not wait for the next steamer, but hurried back to Melbourne by train and coach, and reached Myrtle Street once more at a little before midnight, the girls dazed with sleep and weariness and the strain of so much excitement as they had passed through. They had sent no message to Mrs. Duff-Scott at present, preferring to make their investigations, in the first place, as privately as possible; and Mr. Brion had merely telegraphed to his son that they were returning with him on important business. Paul was at the house when they arrived, but Mrs. M'Intyre had made hospitable preparations at No. 6 as well as at No. 7; and the tired sisters found their rooms aired and their beds arranged, a little fire lit, gas burning, kettle boiling, and a tempting supper laid out for them when they dragged their weary limbs upstairs. Mrs. M'Intyre herself was there to give them welcome, and Dan, who had been reluctantly left behind when they went into the country, was wild with rapture, almost tearing them to pieces in the vehemence of his delight at seeing them again, long past the age of gambols as he was. Mr. Brion was consoled for the upsetting of his own arrangements, which had been to take his charges to an hotel for the night, and there luxuriously entertain them; and he bade them an affectionate good-night, and went off contentedly to No. 7 under the wing of Paul's landlady, to doze in Paul's arm-chair until that brilliant ornament of the press should be released from duty.

Cheered by their little fire – for, summer though it was, their fatigues had made them chilly – and by Mrs. M'Intyre's ham and chicken and hot coffee, the girls sat, talking and resting, for a full hour before they went to bed; still dwelling on the strange discovery of the little picture behind the mantelpiece, which Mr. Brion had taken possession of, and wondering if it would really prove them to be the three Miss Yelvertons instead of the three Miss Kings, and co-heiresses of one of the largest properties in England.

As they passed the old bureau on their way to their rooms, Elizabeth paused and laid her hand on it thoughtfully. "It hardly seems to me possible," she said, "that father should have kept such a secret all these years, and died without telling us of it. He must have seen the advertisements – he must have known what difficulties he was making for everybody. Perhaps he did not write those names on the picture – handwriting is not much to go by, especially when it is so old as that; you may see whole schools of boys or girls writing in one style. Perhaps father was at school with Mr. Yelverton's uncle. Perhaps mother knew Elizabeth Leigh. Perhaps she gave her the sketch – or she might have come by it accidentally. One day she must have found it – slipped in one of her old music-books, maybe – and taken it out to show father; and she put it up on the mantelpiece, and it slipped down behind, like Patty's opal. If it had been of so much consequence as it seems to us – if they had desired to leave no trace of their connection with the Yelverton family – surely they would have pulled the house down but what they would have recovered it. And then we have hunted the bureau over – we have turned it out again and again – and never found anything."

"Mr. Brion thinks there are secret drawers," said Eleanor, who, of all the three, was most anxious that their golden expectations should be realised. "It is just the kind of cabinet work, he says, that is always full of hidden nooks and corners, and he is blaming himself that he did not search it more thoroughly in the first instance."

"And he thinks," continued Patty, "that father seemed like a man with things on his mind, and believes he would have told us had he had more warning of his death. But you know he was seized so suddenly, and could not speak afterwards."

"Poor father – poor father!" sighed Elizabeth, pitifully. They thought of his sad life, in the light of this possible theory, with more tender compassion than they had ever felt for him before; but the idea that he might have murdered his brother, accidentally or otherwise – and for that reason had effaced himself and done bitter penance for the rest of his days – never for a moment occurred to them. "Well, we shall know by to-morrow night," said the elder sister, gently. "If the bureau does not yield fresh evidence, there is none that we can allow Mr. Brion, or anyone else, to act upon. The more I think it over, the more I see how easily the whole thing could be explained – to mean nothing so important as Mr. Brion thinks. And, for myself, I should not be disappointed if we found ourselves only Miss Kings, without fortune or pedigree, as we have always been. We are very happy as we are."

"That is how I felt at first," said Patty. "But I must say I am growing more and more in love with the idea of being rich. The delightful things that you can do with plenty of money keep flashing into my mind, one after the other, till I feel that I never understood what being poor meant till now, and that I could not content myself with a hundred a year and Mrs. Duff-Scott's benefactions any more. No; the wish may be father to the thought, Elizabeth, but I do think it, honestly, that we shall turn out to be Mr. Yelverton's cousins – destined to supersede him, to a certain extent."

"I think so, too," said Eleanor, anxiously. "I can't – I won't– believe that Mr. Brion is mistaken."

So they went, severally affected by their strange circumstances, to bed. And in the morning they were up early, and made great haste to get their breakfast over, and their sitting-room in order, in readiness for the lawyer's visit. They were very much agitated by their suspense and anxiety, especially Patty, to whom the impending interview with Paul had become of more pressing consequence, temporarily, than even the investigations that he was to assist. She had had no communication with him whatever since she cut him on the racecourse when he was innocently disporting himself with Mrs. Aarons; and her nerves were shaken by the prospect of seeing and speaking to him again, and by the vehemence of her conflicting hopes and fears. She grew cold and hot at the recollection of one or two accidental encounters that had taken place since Cup Day, and at the picture of his contemptuous, unrecognising face that rose up vividly before her. Elizabeth noticed her unusual pallor and restless movements, and how she hovered about the window, straining her ears to catch a chance sound of the men's voices next door, and made an effort to divert her thoughts. "Come and help me, Patty," she said, putting her hand on her sister's shoulder. "We have nothing more to do now, so we may as well turn out some of the drawers before they come. We can look over dear mother's clothes, and see if they have any marks on them that we have overlooked. Mr. Brion will want to have everything examined."

So they began to work at the bureau with solemn diligence, and a fresh set of emotions were evolved by that occupation, which counteracted, without effacing, those others that were in Patty's mind. She became absorbed and attentive. They took out all Mrs. King's gowns, and her linen, and her little everyday personal belongings, searched them carefully for indications of ownership, and, finding none, laid them aside in the adjoining bedroom. Then they exhumed all those relics of an olden time which had a new significance at the present juncture – the fine laces, the faded brocades, the Indian shawl and Indian muslins, the quaint fans and little bits of jewellery – and arranged them carefully on the table for the lawyer's inspection.

"We know now," said Patty, "though we didn't know a few mouths ago, that these are things that could only belong to a lady who had been rich once."

"Yes," said Elizabeth. "But there is another point to be considered. Elizabeth Leigh ran away with her husband secretly and in haste, and under circumstances that make it seem most unlikely that she should have hampered herself and him with luggage, or bestowed a thought on such trifles as fans and finery."

The younger sisters were a little daunted for a moment by this view of the case. Then Eleanor spoke up. "How you do love to throw cold water on everything!" she complained, pettishly. "Why shouldn't she think of her pretty things? I'm sure if I were going to run away – no matter under what circumstances – I should take all mine, if I had half an hour to pack them up. So would you. At least, I don't know about you – but Patty would. Wouldn't you, Patty?"

"Well," said Patty, thoughtfully, sitting back on her heels and folding her hands in her lap, "I really think I should, Elizabeth. If you come to think of it, it is the heroines of novels who do those things. They throw away lovers, and husbands, and fortunes, and everything else, on the slightest provocation; it is a matter of course – it is the correct thing in novels. But in real life girls are fond of all nice things – at least, that is my experience – and they don't feel like throwing them away. Girls in novels would never let Mrs. Duff-Scott give them gowns and bonnets, for instance – they would be too proud; and they would burn a bureau any day rather than rummage in it for a title to money that a nice man, whom they cared for, was in possession of. Don't tell me. You are thinking of the heroines of fiction, Elizabeth, and not of Elizabeth Leigh. She, I agree with Nelly – however much she might have been troubled and bothered – did not leave her little treasures for the servants to pawn. Either she took them with her, or someone able to keep her destination a secret sent them after her."

"Well, well," said Elizabeth, who had got out her mother's jewellery and was gazing fondly at the miniature in the pearl-edged locket, "we shall soon know. Get out the books and music, dear."

They were turning over a vast pile of music, which required at least half a day to examine properly, when the servant of the house tapped at the door to ask, with Mr. Brion's compliments, when it would be convenient to Miss King to receive that gentleman. In a few minutes father and son were in the room, the former distributing hasty and paternal greetings all around, and the latter quietly shaking hands with an air of almost aggressive deliberation. Paul was quite polite, and to a certain extent friendly, but he was terribly, uncompromisingly business-like. Not a moment did he waste in mere social amenities, after shaking hands with Patty – which he did as if he were a wooden automaton, and without looking at her – but plunged at once into the matter of the discovered picture, as if time were money and nothing else of any consequence. Patty's heart sank, but her spirit rose; she determined not to "let herself down" or in any way to "make an exhibition of herself," if she could help it. She drew a little aside from the bureau, and went on turning over the music – which presently she was able to report valueless as evidence, except negative evidence, the name, wherever it had been written at the head of a sheet, having been cut out or erased; while Elizabeth took the remaining articles from their drawers and pigeon-holes, and piled them on the table and in Nelly's arms.

For some time they were all intent upon their search, and very silent; and it still seemed that they were to find nothing in the shape of that positive proof which Elizabeth, as the head of the family, demanded before she would give permission for any action to be taken. There were no names in the old volumes of music, and the fly-leaves had been torn from the older books. Some pieces of ancient silver plate – a pair of candlesticks, a pair of salt-cellars, a teapot and sugar basin (now in daily use), a child's mug, some Queen Anne spoons and ladles – were all unmarked by crest or monogram; and two ivory-painted miniatures and three daguerreotypes, representing respectively one old lady in high-crowned cap and modest kerchief, one young one with puffs all over her head, and a classic absence of bodice to her gown, one little fair-haired child, similarly scanty in attire, and one middle-aged gentleman with a large shirt frill and a prodigious quantity of neck-cloth – likewise failed to verify themselves by date or inscription when carefully prised out of their frames and leather cases with Paul Brion's pen-knife. These family portraits, understood by the girls to belong to the maternal side of the house, were laid aside, however, along with the pearl-rimmed locket and other jewels, and the picture that was found behind the mantelpiece; and then, nothing else being left, apparently, the two men began an inspection of the papers.

While this was going on, Patty, at a sign from Elizabeth, set up the leaves of a little tea-table by the window, spread it with a white cloth, and fetched in such a luncheon as the slender larder afforded – the remains of Mrs. M'Intyre's chicken and ham, some bread and butter, a plate of biscuits, and a decanter of sherry – for it was past one o'clock, and Mr. Brion and Paul had evidently no intention of going away until their investigations were complete. The room was quite silent. Her soft steps and the brush of her gown as she passed to and fro were distinctly audible to her lover, who would not so much as glance at her, but remained sternly intent upon the manuscripts before him. These were found to be very interesting, but to have no more bearing upon the matter in hand than the rest of the relics that had been overhauled; for the most part, they were studies in various arts and sciences prepared by Mr. and Mrs. King for their daughters during the process of their education, and such odds and ends of literature as would be found in a clever woman's common-place books. They had all been gone over at the time of Mr. King's death, in a vain hunt for testamentary documents; and Elizabeth, looking into the now bare shelves and apertures of the bureau, began to think how she could console her sisters for the disappointment of their hopes.

"Come and have some lunch," she said to Paul (Mr. Brion was already at the table, deprecating the trouble that his dear Patty was taking). "I don't think you will find anything more."

The young man stood up with his brows knitted over his keen eyes, and glanced askance at the group by the window. "We have not done yet," he said decisively; "and we have learned quite enough, in what we haven't found, to justify us in consulting Mr. Yelverton's solicitors."

"No," she said, "I'll have nothing said to Mr. Yelverton, unless the whole thing is proved first."

Never thinking that the thing would be proved, first or last, she advanced to the extemporised lunch table, and dispensed the modest hospitalities of the establishment with her wonted simple grace. Mr. Brion was accommodated with an arm-chair and a music-book to lay across his knees, whereon Patty placed the tit-bits of the chicken and the knobby top-crust of the loaf, waiting upon him with that tender solicitude to which he had grown accustomed, but which was so astonishing, and so interesting also, to his son.

"She has spoiled me altogether," said the old man fondly, laying his hand on her bright head as she knelt before him to help him to mustard and salt. "I don't know how I shall ever manage to get along without her now."

"Has this sad fate overtaken you in one short week?" inquired Paul, rather grimly. "Your sister should be labelled like an explosive compound, Miss King – 'dangerous,' in capital letters." Paul was sitting in a low chair by Elizabeth, with his plate on his knee, and he thawed a good deal, in spite of fierce intentions to the contrary, under the influence of food and wine and the general conversation. He looked at Patty now and then, and by-and-bye went so far as to address a remark to her. "What did she think of the caves?" he asked, indifferently, offering her at the same moment a glass of sherry, which, though unaccustomed to fermented liquors, she had not the presence of mind to refuse – and which she took with such a shaking hand that she spilled some of it over her apron. And she plunged at once into rapid and enthusiastic descriptions of the caves and the delights of their expedition thereto, absurdly uplifted by this slight token of interest in her proceedings.

When luncheon was over, Elizabeth culled Eleanor – who, too restless to eat much herself, was hovering about the bureau, tapping it here and there with a chisel – to take her turn to be useful by clearing the table; and then, as if business were of no consequence, bade her guests rest themselves for a little and smoke a cigarette if they felt inclined.

"Smoke!" exclaimed Paul, with a little sarcastic laugh. "Oh, no, Miss King, that would never do. What would Mrs. Duff-Scott say if she were to smell tobacco in your sitting-room?"

"Well, what would she say?" returned Elizabeth, gently – she was very gentle with Paul to-day. "Mrs. Duff-Scott, I believe, is rather fond of the smell of tobacco, when it is good."