The Princess of the School, Angela Brazil [reading strategies book .TXT] 📗

pulled heavily upon the small wooden division between its socket and the pen-box. To her utter surprise, her action released a spring, a long narrow panel below the pen-box fell away, and revealed a quite[291] unsuspected secret drawer. She opened it in much excitement. Inside lay a folded sheet of foolscap paper. Her exclamation had called Lilias and Dulcie from the other side of the room, and all three girls admired and wondered at the contrivance of the secret drawer. Together they took out the sheet of paper, unfolded it, and bent their heads over it.

"Why, it's Grandfather's writing!" exclaimed Lilias as she read the first words:—

"This is the last will and testament of me Leslie Ingleton of Cheverley Chase near Balderton."

"It's surely not another will?" fluttered Dulcie.

Carmel said nothing; her eyes were devouring the contents of the paper. She read it through carefully to the end, then she asked:

"What was the date of the will in which Grandfather left the Chase to me? Was it not some time in January? Well, this is certainly a later date. It must have been signed the very day before he died!"

"Does it make any difference?" inquired Dulcie breathlessly.

Carmel had taken the paper away from her cousins, and stood in the window mastering the meaning of the legal language. She read a certain passage over and over again carefully before she answered. Then she looked out through the[292] study window—that window with its wonderful view over the whole range of the Ingleton property—she gazed at the gardens and woods and fields that for more than a year had been hers, and hers alone, the estate which to claim as heiress she had been brought from her Sicilian home.

"All the difference in the world," she said quietly. "Grandfather changed his mind at the last, and left the Chase to Everard after all!"

"To Everard?"

"Oh, Carmel!"

"Are you certain?"

"Can there be any mistake?"

"Is the will properly signed? Let me look! Yes, it seems signed and witnessed, as far as I can tell!"

"What are you going to do?"

"Shall I ring up Mr. Bowden?"

"Not yet, please," begged Carmel. "Leave me a moment!"

She was still standing gazing out through the window over the English woods and meadows that she had grown to love so dearly, those wide acres of which any one might have been proud. At last she turned round and answered:

"I am going now to tell the news to the rightful owner of the Chase."

Everard was sitting in the stone summer-house in the garden, struggling with a difficult problem[293] in mathematics, when suddenly through the ivy-framed doorway danced Princess Carmel, an excited vision, with carnation cheeks, and dark eyes twinkling like stars. She stopped on the threshold and dropped him a pretty curtsey, then a great generous light seemed to shine in her face as she announced:

"Signor Everard, allow me to hand you back your inheritance!"

It was the triumph of her life.

Mr. Bowden, on being sent for to examine the will, found all in perfect order. The legacies to friends and to the other grandchildren were exactly the same as in the former will, the only difference being that the positions of the two cousins were reversed, Carmel receiving a handsome sum of money, and Everard inheriting the property. There was no doubt that the impetuous old squire had repented his hasty decision, but not liking to confess such weakness to the family lawyer, had drawn up his own will and hidden it in the secret drawer of his desk. Possibly he himself was not sure which of the two documents he wished to stand, and had kept this in reserve while he vacillated. Fate, for a year and a half, had decided in favor of Carmel, then the eternal balance had swung slowly back.

"It seems such a pity that the desk wasn't[294] searched properly at first," said Lilias to Cousin Clare. "Think of all the trouble it would have prevented if we had only known about that secret drawer. Poor Everard! How much he would have been saved!"

"And how immensely much he would have lost!" said Cousin Clare. "This testing-time of character has been Everard's salvation. He is very different now from the thoughtless, self-important boy who looked at everything from his own point of view. He has learnt some of life's stern lessons, and will make a far better owner of the Chase than would have been possible without passing through these experiences. I think he realizes that for himself, and would not wish to change anything that has happened."

Now that the new will was proved, and Cheverley Chase was no longer her property, arose the immediate question of Carmel's future. She settled it at once for herself, and in spite of all entreaties to remain in England, decided to return to her Sicilian home.

"I told you long ago, Everard, that I would not keep your inheritance, and I am only too glad to hand it back," she said to her cousin. "You're going to do all the splendid things that I prophesied—take your degree, be a model landowner, get into Parliament, and help your country!"

"But I can't do it alone! A kingdom needs a[295] queen as well as a king, Carmel! The Chase would simply be an empty casket without you! You're the very heart and soul of it all. I will let you go now, dear, for I see you're quite determined, but Carmel! Carmel! some day in the far future, if you think I have grown into anything like what you wish me to be, then I shall tell you that your throne is waiting for you here in Old England—the land of primroses and sweetbriar and true hearts, Carmel! And I shall ask you to leave your Sicilian flowers and scented orange groves, and come back to claim your kingdom!"

the end