Colonel Thorndyke's Secret, G. A. Henty [big screen ebook reader txt] 📗

communication to me that this morning I had to go to Mr. Prendergast and make a communication to him.”

“What do you mean by your communications?” Millicent asked, laughing. “You are quite mysterious, Mark.”

“And then I had to go,” he went on, without heeding her interruption, “to Cotter's Bank, where I saw both our friend and his father, and there is the result of these communications and that interview;” and he threw the paper to her.

“What does it mean?” she asked in astonishment, after glancing through it.

“It means, dear, that your father took exactly the precautions I thought he would take, and after sending his money and jewels home, he sent a sealed letter to the firm with whom he deposited them, which happened to be Cotter's, with instructions that should no one present himself with the word and coin by the 18th of August, 1789—that is to say, on your eighteenth birthday—the envelope should be opened; it was so opened, and it contained a letter that was to be sent to my father, or, in the case of his death before that date, to his executors.”

“How wonderful!” the girl said. “I had quite given up all idea of it. But how is it that it came to be so much? Have they sold the jewels?”

“No, you see it is the compound interest going on for seventeen years, and perhaps some rise in the value of the securities, that has doubled the original sum invested. As for the jewels, I have left them at the bank; I should not care about having 50,000 pounds worth of such things in my rooms and I should not think that you would like to have them here, either.”

“Certainly not,” Mrs. Cunningham said emphatically; “you did quite right, Mark. I don't think I could sleep, even if you had half a dozen of your detective friends posted round the house.”

“Still I suppose we shall have a chance of seeing them?” Millicent said.

“Certainly. I can make an appointment with Philip Cotter for you to see them at the bank; or if I take them to a jeweler to value, you could see them there. But I should think that the bank would be the best. I am sure that Cotter would put his room at your disposal, and, of course, if you would like to have some of them for yourself you could select any you liked, but I expect that they won't look much in their present settings; the Indian jewelers have not the knack of setting off gems. However, there is no hurry about them one way or another. The money, I have told Cotter's father, shall, for the present, remain as it is invested; it is all in the Funds, Cotter said, for although the instructions were that it was to be put into good securities, he did not feel justified under the peculiar circumstances in going outside Government stock. Mr. Prendergast is quite of opinion that it would be better to make no change until you come of age. I did not know whether you would wait till then, for some purpose or other you might want to use some of it.”

Millicent shrugged her shoulders.

“I think I would much rather have had just the money I had before, Mark; all this will be a great nuisance, I am sure. I think there ought to be a law against women having more than 20,000 pounds, whether in money or in land.”

Mark laughed.

“It would be a bad thing for spendthrift young noblemen, Millicent. How are they to pay off their debts and mortgages if there were no heiresses ready to do so in exchange for a title?”

“It would be a good thing for them, I consider,” the girl said indignantly. “In the first place, they would not impoverish themselves if they knew that there was no way of building up their fortune again, and in the next place, if they did ruin themselves they would have to either set to work to earn an honest living or blow out their brains, if they have any to blow out. I can assure you that I don't feel at all exultant at getting all this money, and I think that my father was quite right in wishing that I should know nothing about it until I married; but, on the other hand, I am heartily glad, more glad than I can say, Mark, that you have come into your share.”

“I am glad for one reason, Millicent; that is, that this must put an end to the ridiculous idea you have of giving up Crowswood. Your father has made me rich beyond anything I could possibly have expected from him. I suddenly find myself a wealthy man, and I can buy another estate for myself worth more than Crowswood if inclined to settle down as a squire; therefore your theory that I have been disappointed in not inheriting what I thought was my father's estate falls to the ground altogether. In no case would I ever have accepted your sacrifice. If you had liked to hand it over to St. Bartholomew's or Guy's Hospital, or to give it away to any other charity, I would not have prevented you, but I would never have accepted it for myself. Now, thank goodness, the question cannot arise; for you must see that, even looking at the matter from a purely business point of view, I have benefited to an enormous and altogether unexpected extent by your father's will, and if any contest between us could arise it should be on the ground that he has acted unfairly to you by giving me so large a proportion of the money that, in the course of nature, you should have inherited. It was not even as if he had known and liked me, for I was but four years old at the time he wrote the letter saying that I was to share the money and jewels with you.”

“You are very obstinate and very disagreeable, Mark,” she said, with tears in her eyes.

“I think the obstinacy has been principally on your side, Millicent; though certainly I should not think of saying that you have been disagreeable. It has been an excess of kindheartedness on your part, and you have resolutely closed your eyes to the fact that, had I been willing to take advantage of your generosity, I should have lacked the courage to do so, for I should have been pointed at wherever I went, as a mean fellow who took advantage of his little cousin's romantic generosity. Pray, dear, let us say no more about it. We are two rich young people; we have both an estate; yours, I grant, is the larger, but if I choose I can increase mine, until it is quite as large as Crowswood. We can be better friends than we have been for the last year, because this point of dispute has always stood between us and made us uncomfortable. Now you will have to think over what you would like done, and whether you wish any change made in your manner of living.”

“Did you tell Mr. Cotter,” Millicent laughed, after a pause, “that I had a half share in the money?”

“No, that was a matter for you to decide, not for me. I told him that I was only a half shareholder, but there was no necessity to say who it was who had the other half. When I was talking to Philip Cotter, the words 'my cousin' slipped out, but he did not associate it in any way with you. It might have been the son of another brother or of a sister of my father's.”