CHAPTER XV
Alick Lester
He was a man of honour, of noble and generous nature.'--_Longfellow._
Mr. Alick Lester proved to be a pleasant, frank young fellow, with thesunniest eyes and smile that Agatha had ever seen. She took to him atonce, and found herself telling him without any hesitation the historyof the lost packet. He listened attentively, but was indignant whenAgatha hinted that Watson might have acted under the major'sinstructions.
'No, Miss Dane, my uncle is a gentleman. He would never stoop so lowas that. I know he tried to blacken my dear father's character, but heidolized his son, and hardly realized the mischief he was doing.Watson is a thorough scoundrel! I have always known it, and my unclehas already dismissed him for tampering with some of his letters. Hewas telling us about it last night, and Watson leaves him at the end ofthis week. Depend upon it, the chap was trying to get the papers inhis own hands for ends of his own, and I think you were awfully pluckyto catch him at it as you did. But now we must get hold of him atonce, and get the packet from him.'
'I expect he will have left the neighbourhood,' said Agatha. 'If youwish to open the cupboard, my sister will tell you the secret. She hasaccidentally discovered it. Shall we go to the study now?'
The young man agreed at once to this proposal, and when Clare cameforward, he looked at her with secret laughter in his eyes.
'They say a woman never rests content under a mystery,' he said; 'andyou have proved my good angel, so I can only avow my gratitude. But doyou know that from a boy I have viewed that cupboard as impenetrable asthe sphinx itself? And yet my energy or ambition to solve its secretwas never sufficient to allow me to succeed. My father always told methat age had some advantages, and that when the time came for me toknow all that he did, I should do so.'
Clare flushed and felt very uncomfortable; then she met the young man'sgaze calmly.
'I know I have shown the weakness of our sex, but it is not often oneis brought into contact with such a mystery; and having had yourfather's Arabic motto translated to me, I could not resist thetemptation of trying to prove its truth. I need not say I have notopened the cupboard. That temptation I was enabled to resist.'
'And the motto?' inquired the young man, passing his hand almosttenderly over his father's handiwork, and a shade coming over his browas he spoke.
Clare's face was sad too, as she remembered from whom the translationhad come, but she repeated quietly,--
'"A closed bud containeth Possibilities infinite and unknown."'
Then, stooping down, she turned the carved bud, until a sharp click washeard, and the door moved forwards; and then linking her arm in that ofAgatha the sisters left the room, and Alick Lester was alone with thesecret solved at last.
Two or three hours passed, and still he was shut in the study. When heat last appeared in the drawing-room, he seemed to have left his youthand brightness behind him there. He asked with knitted brow andanxious face if he might speak to Agatha alone, and then drawing adusty leather portfolio from under his arm he held it out to her,saying, 'I received a letter written by my father shortly before hisdeath, and which he had left in the charge of our lawyer. He told meto give this to you. I fancy it may not prove so valuable to you as mydear father hoped. It is merely a collection of notes of his, and afew valuable papers about some Assyrian and Egyptian antiquities. Healways hoped to write a book upon the subject, but put off doing sountil he could obtain more information on certain points, or links,that were missing.'
Agatha took her legacy very calmly.
'I daresay my sister Gwen, who is now abroad, will be interested in it.She is very fond of antiquities of all sorts.'
Then looking at the young fellow's dazed, troubled face, she saidsympathetically, 'I am afraid you have spent a sad morning in lookingover your father's belongings.'
He laughed a little shortly.
'I have had a shock, and feel bewildered. I have not the faintest ideahow to act, and it is at present all dark to me. Miss Dane, you are agood woman, my father says. Will you pray that I may have rightguidance about a very difficult matter? And may I come and see youagain? I shall be staying at the Crown Hotel in Brambleton for thepresent. The Millers wanted me to go to them, but I cannot. If Istayed in this village at all, it would have to be at the Hall, andthey--I do not want that.'
'I hope you do not look upon us as usurpers,' said Agatha. 'I cannottell you how guilty I feel sometimes about accepting this house fromyour father, especially since your return. It seems as if you ought tobe here.'
Then Alick Lester looked up with his sunny smile.
'Miss Dane, I assure you I would never live here! My future is to bespent either out in the colonies or--or in a different house to this.And I cannot tell you what a cheery, home-like aspect you have given tothis old house. I am sure you are a boon to the neighbourhood, and Ishould like, if you don't think it forward of me upon so short anacquaintance, to look upon you all as friends.'
He grasped her hand warmly and departed; and from that time forward hewas on a friendly and familiar footing with the inmates of his old home.
Watson was found to have already left the neighbourhood, as Agathasurmised, and no one was able to trace his movements. Not wishing tocreate disturbance in the village, Agatha did not mention his nocturnalvisit to any one, and Alick was the only one who knew of it besidesthemselves. Elfie and Clare were both rather disappointed that themystery of the cupboard seemed to be such a common-place affair, butthey noticed that it had brought a great deal of anxious thought toAlick Lester. His face was almost careworn at times, and he seemed nowto spend most of his time in London, occasionally coming to have afurther rummage in the cupboard.
'It is crammed full of old letters and papers,' he said once to Agatha;'and if you will let me look through them on the spot, it will be sucha help to me.'
One day he brought in Roger Lester, and introduced him; and after thatthe two young fellows often dropped in to afternoon tea, assuringAgatha that they never felt so much at home anywhere else. They bothhad a fund of high spirits, and though Alick at times looked absorbedand pre-occupied in anxious thought, he knew how to throw it aside andbe as light-hearted as his cousin.
They were sitting one afternoon on the verandah outside thedrawing-room, when Roger turned to Agatha and remarked,--
'You would not imagine it, Miss Dane, but we two have grown up withsuch perfect _cameraderie_ that until quite lately, I believe, we havenever concealed a single thing from each other. And now if you hear ofus drifting apart, and our liking turning to hate, you will know thecause--it is the renowned old carved cupboard.'
Alick had been talking and laughing with Elfie, but he stoppedinstantly as if he had been shot when he heard this speech, and therewas an awkward silence for a minute.
Roger added with a laugh, 'It is some skeleton he has unearthed; butwhy he should refuse to let me share in the secret I can't imagine!'
'I don't think we need make it a matter of public talk,' said Alickhotly.
His cousin looked at him in astonishment, then changed the subject witha shrug of his shoulders and a laugh.
When they were gone Clare said thoughtfully, 'There is a mystery afterall, and not a very pleasant one, apparently. I feel sorry for Mr.Alick.'
'Which do you like the best of the cousins?' asked Elfie carelessly.
Clare's face looked sad as she replied, 'Oh, I don't know. I don'tthink any young man is worth a thought. They amuse one by their fun,but I would just as soon not have them come here so often. Miss Millerwill be attacking us soon on the subject. She was beginning thismorning, when I met her out, but I always flee from her when she is inher aggressive moods.'
'What did she say?'
Clare looked at her younger sister with a little smile.
'Perhaps I had better not tell you. She saw you cut a rose off theother afternoon and offer it to Mr. Alick, and she considers that thedepth of iniquity. "Such a
piece of audacious flirting I have rarelyseen carried on within a few yards from an open road in full view ofany passer-by!" And then she turned the tables on me, and I came off,because she was making me boil with indignation. I think she delightsin making her fellow-creatures as uncomfortable as possible.'
'It is only her way,' put in Agatha; 'she does not realize what a stingher words have. She told me last Sunday, when I unfortunately gave anorder to some of my Sunday class in front of her, that however much Imight try to slight her and usurp her place in the vicarage and parishI would not be successful, for the vicar was proof against all youngladies' blandishments!'
'She ought to be horsewhipped!' cried Elfie hotly, and then she beganto laugh.
'There is one that is a match for her in the parish, and that is DebHowitt. She was covering a chair at the vicarage, and Miss Miller wasabusing some of the congregation--I forget who it was now. It wasabout the behaviour of some girls--I think she is always specially hardon them--and Deb looked at her very quietly. "Ay, ma'am, we mustn'tgrudge them their sweethearts! 'Tis better for most to have the caresof a family to soften them, for 'tis the spinsters that have the namefor getting hard and bitter. Sharp tongues are not so frequent amongstmothers, and the world would be better without bitterness, I reckon!"Miss Miller shut up at once.'
'Deb asked me yesterday when Gwen was coming back. What do you think,Agatha?' said Clare.
'I don't know at all. You know what her last letter said. That Walterhad sold his farm and gone off with Mr. Montmorency, and she wasstaying with Mrs. Montmorency in Loreto. She did not seem in a hurryto leave, and as long as she is happy we must be content that sheshould be out there.'
And the autumn came and went, and winter set in without any word orsign from Gwen of home-coming.
Alick and Roger spent the autumn in Scotland, but Christmas found themboth at the Hall. Major Lester seemed to have overcome his dislike tohis nephew, and the Hall was quite a cheerful centre in the village.Visitors came and went, and Agatha and her sisters were asked up theremore frequently than they cared to go.
Agatha still possessed Alick's confidence. He would come to her foradvice, as most people did, but yet would never touch upon his seriousdifficulty; and she sometimes wondered if the cupboard's secret was nolonger a trouble to him.
'Do you think I am leading a lazy life?' he asked her one day, when hemet her walking out and insisted upon accompanying her home.
'I think you are. It is always a pity when young men have enoughincome to live independently without any responsibility attaching totheir wealth.'
'I am not wealthy,' he responded quickly. 'I have just enough to liveupon. What do you think of Roger? He is as idle as I at present.'
'I think not. He helps his father with the property, which is a largeone, and if anything happened to Major Lester he would have his handsfull.'
Alick laughed a little hardly.
'Lucky fellow! So if I were in his shoes you would not find fault withme!'
'I think,' said Agatha gently, 'that each one of us ought to realizethat we are not placed in this world to live for ourselves. There isso much to do for others who need our help. You are young now, andhave life stretching out in front of you. Do not waste it, do not haveto acknowledge when your life is over that no one will have been thebetter for your existence.'
'Would you have one sink one's own individuality in the lives ofothers, like some of our great philanthropists?'
'No, our first duty is to ourselves. I think too many in the presentday rush into work of all sorts, trying to please and satisfy others atthe expense of their own peace and satisfaction, and that is wrong.'
'I don't understand you.'
'I mean this. We have two lives: the outer one which every one sees,and the inner one which only God and ourselves know about. Our innerlife is the more important one of the two, is it not? For it is thespiritual part of us that is immortal. First let us satisfy and ensurethe safety of our own souls, before we seek to satisfy the hungry andthirsty ones around us. And then if our inner life is adjustedrightly--is in touch (shall I say?) with its Maker--the helping othersbecomes a pleasure as well as a necessity.'
Alick did not reply, and Agatha delicately turned the subject; but herwords made him ponder much afterwards, and had far more effect upon himthan ever she imagined.