The Laurel Walk

When she reached the house the door at the top of the short flight of steps stood slightly ajar. She was scarcely surprised, as she knew Mrs Webb's uncomfortable love of "spring cleanings" at every season, orthodox or unorthodox, of the year.

"She is probably having a turn-out of the library because poor Mr Morion has used it lately," she thought; and, instead of making her way round to the back premises by the narrow path skirting the house, she ran up the steps, calling out as she pushed open the glass door, "Are you there, Mrs Webb?"

Some one was there, some one who came forward at her words from the other side of the dimly lighted room, some one whose voice made her start and stop short in her surprise. It was the very person she had been wishing to see, and now that he was there it was all she could do to reply with any composure to his own somewhat astonished exclamation of "Miss Morion! You cannot have got my letter already?"

"Your letter?" she repeated, shaking her head; "no, I have had no letter except the one saying you had to go. I had not the least idea you were here. I was--looking for Mrs Webb."

"Shall I find her for you?" he asked, turning towards the inner door.

"N-no," said Frances; "no, thank you." Then, summoning her courage: "The truth is, I only wanted to hear from her if she knew when you would be coming back again. I--I wanted to see you very, very much! Something quite extraordinary, something you can hardly believe, has happened. The old will--the missing will--has been found."

"The missing will?" he repeated. "Whose will?"

"Our great-grand-aunt's, of course," she said impatiently. "The will she always promised to make, and which could never be found. Our great-grand-aunt, Elizabeth Morion! Oh! you do know about it!"

His face changed, he was beginning to take it in.

"And who found it, and where?" he said rapidly. "And why was I not told of it at once?"

Frances drew herself up.

"I found it," she said, "this very afternoon, not an hour ago, in a panel in the old pew. And no one knows of it as yet--I meant, I thought it was right to tell you _first_."

She held out the packet, but, before taking it from her, Mr Morion drew forward a chair.

"I will look through it as quickly as possible," he said, "but do sit down."

She did so, watching him intently as he opened out the stiff, crackling sheets, and set himself to study their contents. At first his face remained absolutely impassive. He had turned over three or four sides-- after all, as such things go, it was not a very long document--when some sudden thought made him glance at the end. Then came a change, a strange change in his expression: he knit his brows and his whole face clouded in perplexity.

Now again, for the first time since entering the house, Frances remembered what, in her excitement, she had momentarily forgotten--that these must be the _revers de la medaille_, and her own face fell as she realised the blow that her discovery might cause to her kinsman.

"May I," he began at last--"don't hesitate to say if you would rather not consent--may I keep this document for a day or two--nay, even less, a few hours would do?"

Frances coloured.

"Of course," she said, "it is safer with you than with me. Keep it as long as you like, except that--I am naturally anxious to tell the others."

He did not reply, a little to her surprise, but sat for a moment in consideration.

"Yes," he said at last, "a few hours will be enough for me to take it all in. Can I see you again to-morrow? Do you mind telling no one else till then?"

"I will do as you think best," she replied; "but how can I see you without fear of interruption? Oh! I know! Will you meet me at the church? I can easily get the key. I should like to show you the cupboard in the pew. I can be there quite early, and then we can settle about telling papa."

"Thank you," he said. "Yes, you will find me in the churchyard waiting for you."

Frances rose to her feet. As they shook hands, she felt his eyes, the kindly grey eyes she had learnt to trust, fixed upon her with an expression she could not define, and, as she walked home slowly, the question as to what it meant came to add itself to the already existing whirl of thought in her brain.

"It was almost as if he were sorry for me," she reflected, "whereas, I think _I_ should be sorry for _him_. What strange minglings and revulsions of feeling I have had to go through in the last few weeks! I, whose life had hitherto been so monotonous. After all, how difficult it is to get at even one's own real self! That afternoon when I first found out about Horace and Betty--was what I felt all a mistake? Was it only mortification? I begin to think so, and that there is no need for me to examine the wound--that there is no wound, scarcely a scratch! Otherwise _could_ it have healed so quickly?"

The remaining hours of that day seemed interminable, and the next morning found her at the church gate, armed with the great key, some minutes before the time agreed upon. But, early as it was, Mr Morion was there before her, and together they made their way to the pew, where she pointed out the secret of the panel.

"It is very curious," he said, "very curious indeed," but his manner was somewhat absent and "carried."

"Before we talk about this," he went on, touching the large envelope in his hand, "I should like to tell you that I am much happier about Horace Littlewood's affairs. I have--we have, he and I--arranged something. One of my agencies will shortly be vacant, he is just the man I should like for it, and a short training will make him quite competent. I should have offered it to him in any case. It gives him the independence he longs for, and--I do not see that your father _can_ now oppose the engagement."

Frances hesitated.

"It is very, very good of you," she said; "you _must_ let me thank you, even though you may have acted primarily as Horace's friend. Certainly, my father will have no reason for any objection--no valid reason. But except for,"--and she glanced at the packet--"the change in his position, I doubt if he would have got over his hurt feelings towards Mrs Littlewood."

A look of real distress came over Ryder Morion's face.

"I think it will be all right," he began. "I think Horace and I can make him see things differently, independently of,"--here he broke off--"and," he resumed, "once Mrs Littlewood takes in that Horace has a right to act upon his own judgment and that he is no longer a _boy_ at her beck and call, she too will act reasonably, I feel sure. But--I scarcely know how to tell you what must be told. This discovery of yours, so strangely made, practically leads to nothing. You had not observed," and again he hesitated with a painful consciousness that Frances was growing terribly white, "that--that the will is not signed."

They were in the porch by now. Frances sank down on the stone bench beside her, without speaking.

"Not signed!" she gasped out at last; and for all reply Ryder Morion held out the last page for her to see, and a glance satisfied her.

"Oh dear!" she murmured, "how could I have been so blind? _Not signed_!"

He gave her a moment or two in which to recover herself a little.

"There is still more to tell you, and it is best to get it over," he said. "Even if it had been signed, I believe it could not have been acted upon, after this long lapse of years, though I should have done my best, you may be sure. But as things are, I have nothing in my power. This property, like the rest, is strictly limited to the descendants of the elder branch."

"And papa, of course," said Frances sadly, "is very proud. A doubt of any kind as to perfect legality would have--I mean to say he would never have taken advantage of your good will."

"Which, as you see, I have no chance of exerting. Still," he went on, "I am not without some hope that I may persuade him, seeing that there is now no doubt of our great-grand-aunt's intention, to look upon Craig-Morion as his home for life. As regards this, things are made easier by his having no son."

But Frances shook her head. The tears were slowly welling up into her eyes, and she made no attempt to hide them.

"I wish I could thank you as you deserve," she said. "I feel horribly selfish at being so disappointed, when--I should remember that it could not but have been a wrench to you to part with the old place. And, too, when you have been so very, very good to Horace. I am afraid my father would never agree to any arrangement such as you propose."

"If only--" he began impulsively, then checked himself again. "Frances, I cannot bear to see you in such trouble, and I may succeed with your father by showing him that even by the terms of this will, failing a son, he would have been in much the same position of only life-renting the place. At any rate I will do my best."

"Then you have no doubt as to its being well to tell him?" she asked.

"None whatever," he replied warmly. "You yourself, or I, if you prefer it, or--both together, perhaps, can do so."

Then followed a long silence. Frances quietly wiped her tears away, while the colour slowly returned to her cheeks.

"I think I had better go home now," she said.

"I would rather not tell papa to-day. I would like him first to have heard about Horace. You are free to tell him, I suppose?"

"Yes, Horace has empowered me to do so," he replied, "and there is no reason for delay. I will ask him to see me to-morrow morning, and then,"--he looked at her interrogatively.

"Then I suppose I had better tell him my story?" said Frances. "Though I should like, if possible, to hear in the first place the result of your talk with him."

"That can easily be managed," he answered. "I will write to you as soon as possible after seeing your father."

"Thank you," said Frances.

They strolled slowly down the churchyard path: the subject of her discovery was still prominent in the girl's mind.

"Mr Morion," she began again abruptly. "I cannot help saying what _can_ have been the poor old lady's motive in acting so inconsistently? Just think of all it has caused! No wonder her spirit has not been able to rest,"--with a half-smile--"if it is really the case that any supernatural influence has been exerted upon us!"

Ryder did not show any sign of making light of the supposition.

"It will be curious to notice," he said, "if these strange experiences, which I own I can't explain, come to an end now that she has at least vindicated her _intention_ of acting up to her promise. It almost seems as if she had been under some fear of the elder of the two cousins--_my_ forbear! Perhaps she meant to leave the will in its hiding-place till the very last, and then have it brought to her for signature, when no anger could fall upon herself. And she may have died too suddenly to carry this out."

"It looks like it," said Frances. "But no one will ever know fully."

"I should say no one," repeated Mr Morion.

"And all the poor old great-grand-aunt's efforts to put things right will after all have been _in_ vain," Frances resumed.

"Not quite, I hope," said her companion eagerly. "You are forgetting that I am depending much on your discovery as a lever wherewith to persuade your father to agree to what has become almost my greatest wish, especially as--I wish I dared hope that other possibilities might tend in the same direction." Frances looked up, perplexed.

"I don't understand," she said; but no explanation followed.

"I have tired and worried you enough for to-day," said Ryder, regretfully.

"You forget the good side of it all," said Frances, gratefully. "Betty's happy prospects!"

He smiled with gratification.

"I hope our next talk will have no bad side to it," he said, as they parted.

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A week later saw the fulfilment of Ryder Morion's good hopes of a successful termination to his interference on Horace's behalf. How far this was due to the skilful diplomacy exercised, how far aided and abetted by Mr Charles Morion's immense satisfaction at the tenor of the will, which almost nullified the disappointment at its practical inadequacy, it is not necessary to define. From henceforth the master of Fir Cottage was able to speak with confident magnanimity of the position and possessions which should in "all equity" have been his. And though as yet he had not absolutely consented to the position of life-tenant of Craig-Morion, which his kinsman urged upon him, the latter was sanguine as to his eventual success in this particular also. For, as he had prophesied, Horace's mother had given in, and that graciously, being far too clever a woman to do a thing of the kind by half, if she did it at all.

After the manner of the old fairy-tale we may here say good-bye to little Betty and the prince, who, though in nineteenth-century garb, had after orthodox fashion broken the long captivity not only of his lady-love but of those about her.

But there is more to tell.

There came a day on which Mr Ryder Morion's allusion to other vague possibilities was explained to Frances, and that not in vain.

"Though there is one confession I feel it due to you to make," she said to him. "It is all so different now--so much, much happier and surer and more restful--that I can scarcely believe I was ever so foolish! But--Ryder--there was a time that I thought I cared for some one else, and, worse still, that he cared for me!"

The smile with which this avowal was received was more than reassuring.

"Worse still?" he repeated; "no, as to that I can't agree with you--not as far as I am concerned. Perhaps I knew or suspected more than you had any idea of. Perhaps you were not alone in your suspicion, deepened in my case into fear, that the `some one' did care for you! And the relief was great when I found my mistake. But it would have been worse had your feelings been involved as you may have imagined they were."

"And as I now know so certainly they were not," said Frances happily. "You see, I was so inexperienced in such things, though not young."

"Not young! When my greatest misgiving has been that I was far, far too old for you," he answered. "For there was a time when I thought I should never again care for any woman--I was scarcely more than a boy and she still younger when I lost her. Some day I will tell you more; there is nothing painful in it to me now, and her short life was very happy." And as Frances looked at him she thought indeed that it could scarcely have been otherwise.

The role of "great lady" was not what she had ever dreamt of for herself, not, assuredly, what she would have chosen; but she fulfilled it well, bringing to bear upon its difficulties and responsibilities-- its temptations even--the same single-minded sincerity of purpose which is, in all conditions in life, the best armour for man or woman.

Even Mrs Conrad Littlewood came by degrees to own that no better _chatelaine_ could have been selected to do honour to the glories of Witham-Meldon, and to dispense its generous bounties in all right directions.

And "great-grand-aunt" Elizabeth slept henceforth in peace.

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The End.