“This will be very useful to us,” she said, and rising from her chair took it to the window to see it better in the light.
I opened another book at random.
A piece of paper fell from between the leaves. It had Ambrose’s handwriting upon it.
It seemed like the middle scrap of a letter, torn from its context and forgotten.
“It’s a disease, of course, I have often heard of it, like kleptomania or some other malady, and has no doubt been handed down to her from her spendthrift father, Alexander Coryn.
How long she has been a victim of it I cannot say, perhaps always; certainly it explains much of what has disturbed me hitherto in all this business.
This much I do know, dear boy, that I cannot any longer, nay I dare not, let her have command over my purse, or I shall be ruined, and the estate will suffer.
It is imperative that you warn Kendall, if by any chance…” The sentence broke off.
There was no end to it.
The scrap of paper was not dated.
The handwriting was normal.
Just then she came back from the window, and I crumpled the piece of paper in my hand.
“What have you there?” she said.
“Nothing,” I said.
I threw the piece of paper on the fire.
She saw it burn.
She saw the handwriting on the paper curl and flicker in the flame.
“That was Ambrose’s writing,” she said.
“What was it?
Was it a letter?”
“It was just some note he had made,” I said, “on an old scrap of paper.” I felt my face burn in the light of the fire.
Then I reached for another volume from the trunk.
She did the same.
We continued sorting the books, side by side, together; but the silence had come between us.
15
We had finished sorting the books by midday.
Seecombe sent John up to us, and young Arthur, to know if anything needed carrying downstairs before they went off to their dinner.
“Leave the clothes on the bed, John,” I said, “and put a covering on top of them.
I shall want Seecombe to help me make packages of them by and by.
Take this pile of books down to the library.”
“And these to the boudoir, Arthur, please,” said my cousin Rachel.
It was her first utterance since I had burned the scrap of paper.
“It will be all right, will it, Philip,” she asked, “if I keep the books on gardens in my room?”
“Why, yes, of course,” I answered.
“All the books are yours, you know that.”
“No,” she said, “no, Ambrose would have wanted the others in the library.”
She stood up, and smoothed her dress, and gave John the duster.
“Some cold luncheon is laid below, madam,” he said.
“Thank you, John. I am not hungry.”
I hesitated, standing by the open door, after the boys had disappeared carrying the books.
“Will you not come down to the library,” I asked, “and help me put away the books?”
“I think not,” she said, then paused a moment, as if to add something, but did not do so. Then she walked along the corridor to her room.
I ate my lunch alone, staring out of the dining room windows. It was still raining fast.
No use attempting to go out of doors, there was nothing to be done.
I had better finish the task of sorting the clothes, with Seecombe to help me.
It would please him to be asked advice.
What should go to the Barton, what to Trenant, what to the East Lodge; everything to be carefully chosen so that no one should take offense at what he had.
It would employ the pair of us all afternoon.
I tried to keep my mind upon the business; yet, nagging like a pain in the tooth that flares up suddenly and dies again, my thoughts would be wrenched back to the scrap of paper.
What had it been doing between the pages of that book, and how long had it lain there, torn, forgotten?