Since the moment in which he had discovered the will he had felt the necessity of dealing with the officials of the office in London at which he had been employed. This was an establishment called the Sick and Healthy Life Assurance Company, in which he held some shares, and at which he was employed as a clerk. It would of course be necessary that he should either resign his place or go back to his duties. That the Squire of Llanfeare should be a clerk at the Sick and Healthy would be an anomaly. Could he really be in possession of his rents, the Sick and Healthy would of course see no more of him; but were he to throw up his position and then to lose Llanfeare, how sad, how terrible, how cruel would be his fate! But yet something must be done. In these circumstances he wrote a letter to the manager, detailing all the circumstances with a near approach to the truth, keeping back only the one little circumstance that he himself was acquainted with the whereabouts of the missing will.
“It may turn up at any moment,” he explained to the manager, “so that my position as owner of the property is altogether insecure. I feel this so thoroughly that were I forced at the present to choose between the two I should keep my clerkship in the office; but as the condition of things is so extraordinary, perhaps the directors will allow me six months in which to come to a decision, during which I may hold my place, without, of course, drawing any salary.”
Surely, he thought, he could decide on something before the six months should be over. Either he would have destroyed the will, or have sunk the book beneath the waves, or have resolved to do that magnanimous deed which it was still within his power to achieve. The only one thing not possible would be for him to leave Llanfeare and take himself up to the delights of London while the document was yet hidden within the volume.
“I suppose sir, you don’t know yet as to what your plans are going to be?” This was said by Mrs. Griffith as soon as she made her way into the book-room after a somewhat imperious knocking at the door. Hitherto there had been but little communication between Cousin Henry and his servants since the death of the old Squire. Mrs. Griffith had given him warning that she would leave his service, and he had somewhat angrily told her that she might go as soon as it pleased her. Since that she had come to him once daily for his orders, and those orders had certainly been very simple. He had revelled in no luxuries of the table or the cellar since the keys of the house had been committed to his charge. She had been told to provide him with simple food, and with food she had provided him. The condition of his mind had been such that no appetite for the glories of a rich man’s table had yet come to him. That accursed book on the opposite shelf had destroyed all his taste for both wine and meat.
“What do you want to know for?” he asked.
“Well, sir; it is customary for the housekeeper to know something, and if there is no mistress she can only go to the master. We always were very quiet here, but Miss Isabel used to tell me something of what was expected.”
“I don’t expect anything,” said Cousin Henry.
“Is there anybody to come in my place?” she asked.
“What can that be to you? You can go when you please.”
“The other servants want to go, too. Sally won’t stay, nor yet Mrs. Bridgeman.” Mrs. Bridgeman was the cook. “They say they don’t like to live with a gentleman who never goes out of one room.”
“What is it to them what room I live in? I suppose I may live in what room I please in my own house.” This he said with an affectation of anger, feeling that he was bound to be indignant at such inquiries from his own servant, but with more of fear than wrath in his mind. So they had in truth already begun to inquire why it was that he sat there watching the books!
“Just so, Mr. Jones. Of course you can live anywhere you like—in your own house.”
There was an emphasis on the last words which was no doubt intended to be impertinent. Everyone around was impertinent to him.
“But so can they, sir—not in their own house. They can look for situations, and I thought it my duty just to tell you, because you wouldn’t like to find yourself all alone here, by yourself like.”
“Why is it that everybody turns against me?” he asked suddenly, almost bursting into tears.
At this her woman’s heart was a little softened, though she did despise him thoroughly. “I don’t know about turning, Mr. Jones, but they have been used to such different ways.”
“Don’t they get enough to eat?”
“Yes, sir; there’s enough to eat, no doubt. I don’t know as you have interfered about that; not but what as master you might. It isn’t the victuals.”
“What is it, Mrs. Griffith? Why do they want to go away?”
“Well, it
