Uncle Silas - J. Sheridan Le Fanu (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📗

dear, that wicked woman was actually found picking the lock of your poor papa’s desk. I wonder he did not punish her⁠—you know that is burglary.”

“Well, Lady Knollys, you know she is gone, and so I care no more about her⁠—that is, I mean, I need not fear her.”

“No, my dear, but you must call me Monica⁠—do you mind⁠—I’m your cousin, and you call me Monica, unless you wish to vex me. No, of course, you need not be afraid of her. And she’s gone. But I’m an old thing, you know, and not so tenderhearted as you; and I confess I should have been very glad to hear that the wicked old witch had been sent to prison and hard labour⁠—I should. And what do you suppose she was looking for⁠—what did she want to steal? I think I can guess⁠—what do you think?”

“To read the papers; maybe to take banknotes⁠—I’m not sure,” I answered.

“Well, I think most likely she wanted to get at your poor papa’s will⁠—that’s my idea.”

“There is nothing surprising in the supposition, dear,” she resumed. “Did not you read the curious trial at York, the other day? There is nothing so valuable to steal as a will, when a great deal of property is to be disposed of by it. Why, you would have given her ever so much money to get it back again. Suppose you go down, dear⁠—I’ll go with you, and open the cabinet in the study.”

“I don’t think I can, for I promised to give the key to Dr. Bryerly, and the meaning was that he only should open it.”

Cousin Monica uttered an inarticulate “H’m!” of surprise or disapprobation.

“Has he been written to?”

“No, I do not know his address.”

“Not know his address! come, that is curious,” said Knollys, a little testily.

I could not⁠—no one now living in the house could furnish even a conjecture. There was even a dispute as to which train he had gone by⁠—north or south⁠—they crossed the station at an interval of five minutes. If Dr. Bryerly had been an evil spirit, evoked by a secret incantation, there could not have been more complete darkness as to the immediate process of his approach.

“And how long do you mean to wait, my dear? No matter; at all events you may open the desk; you may find papers to direct you⁠—you may find Dr. Bryerly’s address⁠—you may find, heaven knows what.”

So down we went⁠—I assenting⁠—and we opened the desk. How dreadful the desecration seems⁠—all privacy abrogated⁠—the shocking compensation for the silence of death!

Henceforward all is circumstantial evidence⁠—all conjectural⁠—except the litera scripta, and to this evidence every notebook, and every scrap of paper and private letter, must contribute⁠—ransacked, bare in the light of day⁠—what it can.

At the top of the desk lay two notes sealed, one to Cousin Monica, the other to me. Mine was a gentle and loving little farewell⁠—nothing more⁠—which opened afresh the fountains of my sorrow, and I cried and sobbed over it bitterly and long.

The other was for “Lady Knollys.” I did not see how she received it, for I was already absorbed in mine. But in awhile she came and kissed me in her girlish, goodnatured way. Her eyes used to fill with tears at sight of my paroxysms of grief. Then she would begin, “I remember it was a saying of his,” and so she would repeat it⁠—something maybe wise, maybe playful, at all events consolatory⁠—and the circumstances in which she had heard him say it, and then would follow the recollections suggested by these; and so I was stolen away half by him, and half by Cousin Monica, from my despair and lamentation.

Along with these lay a large envelope, inscribed with the words “Directions to be complied with immediately on my death.” One of which was, “Let the event be forthwith published in the county and principal London papers.” This step had been already taken. We found no record of Dr. Bryerly’s address.

We made search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I would on no account permit to be opened except, according to his direction, by Dr. Bryerly’s hand. But nowhere was a will, or any document resembling one, to be found. I had now, therefore, no doubt that his will was placed in the cabinet.

In the search among my dear father’s papers we found two sheafs of letters, neatly tied up and labelled⁠—these were from my uncle Silas.

My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a strange smile; was it satire⁠—was it that indescribable smile with which a mystery which covers a long reach of years is sometimes approached?

These were odd letters. If here and there occurred passages that were querulous and even abject, there were also long passages of manly and altogether noble sentiment, and the strangest rodomontade and maunderings about religion. Here and there a letter would gradually transform itself into a prayer, and end with a doxology and no signature; and some of them expressed such wild and disordered views respecting religion, as I imagine he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield, and which approached more nearly to the Swedenborg visions than to anything in the Church of England.

I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica was not similarly moved. She read them with the same smile⁠—faint, serenely contemptuous, I thought⁠—with which she had first looked down upon them. It was the countenance of a person who amusedly traces the working of a character that is well understood.

“Uncle Silas is very religious?” I said, not quite liking Lady Knollys’ looks.

“Very,” she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old bitter smile, as she glanced over a passage in one of his letters.

“You don’t think he is, Cousin Monica?” said I. She raised her head and looked straight at me.

“Why do you say that, Maud?”

“Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.”

“Do I?” said she; “I was not thinking⁠—it was quite an accident. The fact is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I