Verner's Pride eBook

Ellen Wood (author)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,003 pages of information about Verner's Pride.

Verner's Pride eBook

Ellen Wood (author)
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,003 pages of information about Verner's Pride.

“What can this be, lying here?”

She was bending her head near the old bureau, which had been rent in the explosion, her eyes fixed upon some large letter or paper on the floor.  They crowded round at the words.  Jan picked it up, and found it to be a folded parchment bearing a great seal.

“Hollo!” exclaimed Jan.

On the outside was written “Codicil to the will of Stephen Verner.”

“What is it?” exclaimed Miss Deborah, and even Master Cheese contrived to get his eyes open to look.

“It is the lost codicil,” replied Jan.  “It must have been in that bureau.  How did it get there?”

How indeed?  There ensued a pause.

“It must have been placed there”—­Jan was beginning, and then he stopped himself.  He would not, before those ladies, say—­“by Dr. West.”

But to Jan it was now perfectly clear.  That old hunting for the “prescription,” which had puzzled him at the time, was explained now. There was the “prescription”—­the codicil!  Dr. West had had it in his hand when disturbed in that room by a stranger:  he had flung it back in the bureau in his hurry; pushed it back:  and by some unexplainable means, he must have pushed it too far out of sight.  And there it had lain until now, intact and undiscovered.

The hearts of the Misses West were turning to sickness, their countenances to pallor.  That it could be no other than their father who had stolen the codicil from Stephen Verner’s dying chamber, was present to their conviction.  His motive could only have been to prevent Verner’s Pride passing to Lionel, over his daughter and her husband.  What did he think of his work when the news came of Frederick’s death?  What did he think of it when John Massingbird returned in person?  What did he think of it when he read Sibylla’s dying message, written to him by Amilly—­“Tell papa it is the leaving Verner’s Pride that has killed me?”

“I shall take possession of this,” said Jan Verner.  Master Cheese was conveyed to the house and consigned to bed, where his burnings were dressed by Jan, and restoratives administered to him, including the glass of wine.

The first thing on the following morning the codicil was handed over to Mr. Matiss.  He immediately recognised it by its appearance.  But it would be opened officially later, in the presence of John Massingbird.  Jan betook himself to Verner’s Pride to carry the news, and found Mr. Massingbird astride on a pillar of the terrace steps, smoking away with gusto.  The day was warm and sunshiny as the previous one had been.

“What, is it you?” cried he, when Jan came in sight.  “You are up here betimes.  Anybody dying, this way?”

“Not this morning,” replied Jan.  “I say, Massingbird, there’s ill news in the wind for you.”

“What’s that?” composedly asked John, tilting some ashes out of his pipe.

“That codicil has come to light.”

John puffed on vigorously, staring at Jan, but never speaking.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Verner's Pride from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.