The others were silent, for they, too, felt that it was in vain now to cherish any further hopes of its discovery.
Chapter VII.
The Course Of True Love.
We reached home after the expedition a little before seven o'clock, and then sat down to a regular breakfast, under the influence of which our spirits rose somewhat, and we recovered a little from our disappointment. Polly and I agreed that it was settled that we were not to be heiresses, and that it was no use our repining. We talked a good deal of Sophy, and we agreed that the loss was a matter of far more serious importance to her than it was to us. We feared she had a terrible life before her, and we wondered what she and her husband would do.
For some time while we were talking, Mr. Petersfield ate his breakfast in silence, and was evidently not attending to what we were saying, but was lost in his own contemplations.
"What are you thinking of?" papa asked him, at last.
"I am thinking, doctor—that is, I am wondering how Herbert Harmer came to know of that secret hiding-place. Of course his sisters may have told him of it, but I should doubt if they did. I am wondering if he found it described in any old family documents, and if so, where they are now. There are no longer any papers in my possession, as at Miss Harmer's request I gave them all up a week after the funeral to their new solicitor."
"I should think," I said, "that Mr. Harmer was shown this secret hiding-place at the time when he first knew of the chamber itself; that is, when he went into it as a boy with his father."
"No doubt," papa said,—"no doubt he was. Don't say any more about it, Petersfield; let us make up our minds to the inevitable. We have done our best, and now let us give it up. There is not, I believe, the slightest chance in the world of our ever hearing any more about it, and it is far better to give it up, than to go on hoping against hope, and keeping ourselves in a fever about what will never take place. Let us give the matter up altogether, and turn over a fresh page of our lives. We are no worse off than other people. Let us look forward as if it had never been, and give up the past altogether."
And so it was settled, and the will henceforth ceased to be a subject of conversation among us.
After breakfast, Mr. Petersfield took his leave and returned to London; and when papa had gone out on his round of visits, and sister Polly had sat down for her usual hour's practice on the piano, I went up into my own room, shut and locked the door, and prepared for the task I had before me. For it was clear to me that I must now face my position. I could no longer play at ships with myself. I knew that my last hope had fled. The last anchor, to which I had so fondly trusted, was gone now, and my bark of happiness was destined to certain and irretrievable wreck. I knew that my engagement with Percy must come to an end, and that this letter which I must write would be the means of making it do so.
How long I sat there on that dreary March morning I do not know, with the paper lying open and untouched before me, its black edge a fitting symbol of the dead hopes, whose tale I had to write upon it. Not that I think I looked at that; my eyes were fixed blankly on the wall before me; but not one word did I write, although all the time my hand held the pen ready to set down what my heart and brain should dictate. But nothing came; my heart seemed cold and dead, as if it could feel no motion, while my brain was in a strange whirl of thought, and yet no thought framed itself into any tangible shape. I hardly know what current they took, the past or the future; I cannot recall one single thought; indeed, I question if one stood out prominently enough among the others to have been seized, even at the time.
How long I sat there I do not know. But at last I was recalled to myself by a loud, continued knocking at my door. I think I heard it some time before I answered; it did not seem to me to be connected at all with me, but to be some noise a long way off. Even when I was sure that it was at my door, and that it was a loud, urgent knocking it was some little time before I could rouse myself sufficiently to answer. At last I said, "What is it?" But the knocking was so loud that my voice was not heard, and I now distinguished Polly's voice calling to me. I tried to rise, but I found that my limbs were stiff and numbed. However, with a great effort, for I was really frightened at the noise, I got up, and with great difficulty moved to the door and opened it. I was about to repeat my question, "What is it?" when Polly burst in, pale and terror-stricken, the tears rolling fast down her cheeks. She fell upon my neck, and sobbed out, "Oh, Agnes, Agnes, how you have frightened me!"
"Frightened you!" I said. "How? What is the matter?"
"What have you been doing? and why did you not answer my knocking?"
"I answered directly I heard it."
"Then what have you been doing, Agnes? I have been knocking for ten minutes. How pale you are, and your hands are as cold as ice, and so is your face; you are nearly frozen. There don't say anything now, but come down to the dining-room."
I had some difficulty in getting downstairs; I had sat so long motionless in the cold, that I was, as Polly said, nearly frozen, and it required all the assistance she could give me, before I was able to get down at all. Once in the dining-room, Polly wheeled the sofa up in front of the fire, and then ran off and got some boiling water from the kitchen, and made me a glass of hot port wine and water, which she insisted on my drinking scalding hot,—all the time scolding and petting me; then when I began to get warm again, she told me that when she had done practising, not finding me anywhere, she asked the housemaid if she had seen me, and the girl told her that I had gone into my room more than an hour before, and that she had not seen me since. Polly went back to the dining-room, but finding that time went on, and I did not come down, she came up to my room to scold me for staying up in the cold so long, and to suggest that if I had not finished writing, I should go into papa's consulting-room, where I should be quite secure from interruption. She had knocked, but receiving no answer, had at first gone away again, thinking that perhaps I had lain down, and gone to sleep, having had such a short night; but after she had gone down stairs again, she came to the conclusion that I should not have done that without telling her of my intention; so she had come up to my door again, and finding that her first gentle knocking had produced no effect, she had continued, getting louder and louder, and becoming more and more terrified, until at last, just as I had opened the door, she had worked herself into such an agony of terror, that she was on the point of running down into the kitchen to send out for some one to come in to force the door.
I told Polly that I was very sorry that I had frightened her so much, but that I really did not know what had come over me; that I had sat there thinking, and that I supposed I had got regularly numbed, and had not noticed her knocking until I got up and opened the door. When I was thoroughly warmed again, I proposed going into the library to write my letters, but Polly would not let me, as she said that I had had more than enough excitement for one day. So I yielded to her entreaties, not sorry indeed to put off the painful task, if only for one day.
On the following morning, however, I went into papa's study to write my letters, and got through them more easily than I had expected. Polly came in from time to time to see that I was not agitating myself too much, only staying just for a minute or two to kiss me, and say some little word of consolation and love. My first letter was to Percy. I told him what had happened, and that all hope which I might previously have entertained of finding the will, was now entirely extinguished. I told him that I knew he loved me for my own sake; and no unworthy doubt that this would make any difference in him had ever entered my mind; but I frankly said that I feared Lady Desborough would no longer give her approval and consent, and that I foresaw painful times in store for us, for it was of course out of the question that we could marry in the face of her determined opposition. Putting aside pecuniary considerations, which even lovers could not entirely ignore, I could not consent to marry into a family where my presence would be the cause of dissension and division between mother and son. I said this was my fixed determination, and begged him to acquiesce in it, and not pain me by solicitations—to which I could not yield—to