‘Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich – merely that – nothing more.’
‘I! – rich?’
‘Yes, you, rich – quite an heiress.’
Silence succeeded.
‘You must prove your identity, of course,’ resumed St John presently: ‘a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the will and the necessary documents.’
Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth – a very fine thing; but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: this is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same. One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.
Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead – my only relative; ever since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only to me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious – yes, I felt that – that thought swelled my heart.
‘You unbend your forehead at last,’ said Mr Rivers. ‘I thought Medusa3 had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone. Perhaps now you will ask how much you are worth?’
‘How much am I worth?’
‘Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of – twenty thousand pounds, I think they say; but what is that?’
‘Twenty thousand pounds?’
Here was a new stunner – I had been calculating on four or five thousand. This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr St John, whom I had never heard laugh before, laughed now.
‘Well,’ said he, ‘if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast.’
‘It is a large sum – don’t you think there is a mistake?’
‘No mistake at all.’
‘Perhaps you have read the figures wrong – it may be two thousand!’
‘It is written in letters, not figures – twenty thousand.’
I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for a hundred. Mr Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.
‘If it were not such a very wild night,’ he said, ‘I would send Hannah down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I: her legs are not quite so long: so I must e’en leave you to your sorrows. Good-night.’
He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me.
‘Stop one minute!’ I cried.
‘Well?’
‘It puzzles me to know why Mr Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way place, had the power to aid in my discovery.’
‘Oh! I am a clergyman,’ he said; ‘and the clergy are often appealed to about odd matters.’ Again the latch rattled.
‘No; that does not satisfy me!’ I exclaimed: and indeed there was something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever.
‘It is a very strange piece of business,’ I added; ‘I must know more about it.’
‘Another time.’
‘No; to-night! to-night!’ and as he turned from the door, I placed myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed.
‘You certainly shall not go till you have told me all,’ I said.
‘I would rather not just now.’
‘You shall! – you must!’
‘I would rather Diana or Mary informed you.’
Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.
‘But I apprised you that I was a hard man,’ said he, ‘difficult to persuade.’