And not only the jewels, but everything.
This house, the money, the estate.
You know that perfectly.”
She looked distressed.
She turned from the fire, and leaned back in her chair.
Her hand began playing with her rings.
“There is no need to discuss that,” she said.
“If there was error, I am used to it.”
“You may be,” I said, “but I am not.”
I stood up, my back to the fire, looking down upon her. I knew now what I could do, and no one could prevent me.
“What do you mean?” she said, with that same shadow of distress still in her eyes.
“It does not matter,” I answered; “you shall know, in three weeks’ time.”
“In three weeks’ time,” she said, “after your birthday, I must leave you, Philip.”
She had said them at last, the words I had expected.
But now that I had a plan formed in my mind they might not matter.
“Why?” I asked.
“I have stayed too long,” she answered.
“Tell me,” I said, “supposing that Ambrose had made a will leaving the property to you for your lifetime, with the proviso that during that lifetime I looked after the estate and ran it for you, what would you have done?”
Her eyes flickered away from me, back to the fire again.
“How do you mean,” she asked, “what would I have done?”
“Would you have lived here?” I said.
“Would you have turned me out?”
“Turned you out?” she exclaimed.
“From your own home?
Why, Philip, how could you ask me such a thing?”
“You would have stayed then?” I replied.
“You would have lived here in the house, and, in a sense, employed me in your business?
We should be living here together, just as we are doing now?”
“Yes,” she said, “yes, I suppose so.
I have never thought.
It would be so different, though, you cannot make comparison.”
“How different?”
She gestured with her hands.
“How can I explain to you?” she said.
“Don’t you understand that my position, as it is, is untenable, simply because I am a woman?
Your godfather would be the first to agree with me.
He has said nothing, but I am sure he feels that the time has come for me to go.
It would have been quite otherwise, had the house been mine and you, in the sense you put it, in my employ.
I should be Mrs. Ashley, you my heir.
But now, as it has turned out, you are Philip Ashley, and I, a woman relative, living on your bounty.
There is a world of difference, dear, between the two.”
“Exactly,” I replied.
“Well then,” she said, “let’s talk of it no further.”
“We will talk of it further,” I said, “because the matter is of supreme importance.
What happened to the will?”
“What will?”
“The will that Ambrose made, and never signed, in which he left the property to you?”
I saw the anxiety deepen in her eyes.
“How do you know of such a will?
I never told you of it,” she said.