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Carved Cupboard (Dramatic Reading)

<h3> Alick Lester </h3> He was a man of honour, of noble and generous nature.'—Longfellow. Mr. Alick Lester proved to be a pleasant, frank young fellow, with the sunniest eyes and smile that Agatha had ever seen. She took to him at once, and found herself telling him without any hesitation the history of the lost packet. He listened attentively, but was indignant when Agatha hinted that Watson might have acted under the major's instructions. 'No, Miss Dane, my uncle is a gentleman. He would never stoop so low as that. I know he tried to blacken my dear father's character, but he idolized his son, and hardly realized the mischief he was doing. Watson is a thorough scoundrel! I have always known it, and my uncle has already dismissed him for tampering with some of his letters. He was telling us about it last night, and Watson leaves him at the end of this week. Depend upon it, the chap was trying to get the papers in his own hands for ends of his own, and I think you were awfully plucky to catch him at it as you did. But now we must get hold of him at once, and get the packet from him.' 'I expect he will have left the neighbourhood,' said Agatha. 'If you wish to open the cupboard, my sister will tell you the secret. She has accidentally discovered it. Shall we go to the study now?' The young man agreed at once to this proposal, and when Clare came forward, he looked at her with secret laughter in his eyes. 'They say a woman never rests content under a mystery,' he said; 'and you have proved my good angel, so I can only avow my gratitude. But do you know that from a boy I have viewed that cupboard as impenetrable as the sphinx itself? And yet my energy or ambition to solve its secret was never sufficient to allow me to succeed. My father always told me that age had some advantages, and that when the time came for me to know all that he did, I should do so.' Clare flushed and felt very uncomfortable; then she met the young man's gaze calmly. 'I know I have shown the weakness of our sex, but it is not often one is brought into contact with such a mystery; and having had your father's Arabic motto translated to me, I could not resist the temptation of trying to prove its truth. I need not say I have not opened the cupboard. That temptation I was enabled to resist.' 'And the motto?' inquired the young man, passing his hand almost tenderly over his father's handiwork, and a shade coming over his brow as he spoke. Clare's face was sad too, as she remembered from whom the translation had come, but she repeated quietly,— '"A closed bud containeth Possibilities infinite and unknown."' Then, stooping down, she turned the carved bud, until a sharp click was heard, and the door moved forwards; and then linking her arm in that of Agatha the sisters left the room, and Alick Lester was alone with the secret solved at last. Two or three hours passed, and still he was shut in the study. When he at last appeared in the drawing-room, he seemed to have left his youth and brightness behind him there. He asked with knitted brow and anxious face if he might speak to Agatha alone, and then drawing a dusty leather portfolio from under his arm he held it out to her, saying, 'I received a letter written by my father shortly before his death, and which he had left in the charge of our lawyer. He told me to give this to you. I fancy it may not prove so valuable to you as my dear father hoped. It is merely a collection of notes of his, and a few valuable papers about some Assyrian and Egyptian antiquities. He always hoped to write a book upon the subject, but put off doing so until he could obtain more information on certain points, or links, that were missing.' Agatha took her legacy very calmly. 'I daresay my sister Gwen, who is now abroad, will be interested in it. She is very fond of antiquities of all sorts.' Then looking at the young fellow's dazed, troubled face, she said sympathetically, 'I am afraid you have spent a sad morning in looking over your father's belongings.' He laughed a little shortly. 'I have had a shock, and feel bewildered. I have not the faintest idea how to act, and it is at present all dark to me. Miss Dane, you are a good woman, my father says. Will you pray that I may have right guidance about a very difficult matter? And may I come and see you again? I shall be staying at the Crown Hotel in Brambleton for the present. The Millers wanted me to go to them, but I cannot. If I stayed in this village at all, it would have to be at the Hall, and they—I do not want that.' 'I hope you do not look upon us as usurpers,' said Agatha. 'I cannot tell you how guilty I feel sometimes about accepting this house from your father, especially since your return. It seems as if you ought to be here.' Then Alick Lester looked up with his sunny smile. 'Miss Dane, I assure you I would never live here! My future is to be spent either out in the colonies or—or in a different house to this. And I cannot tell you what a cheery, home-like aspect you have given to this old house. I am sure you are a boon to the neighbourhood, and I should like, if you don't think it forward of me upon so short an acquaintance, to look upon you all as friends.' He grasped her hand warmly and departed; and from that time forward he was on a friendly and familiar footing with the inmates of his old home. Watson was found to have already left the neighbourhood, as Agatha surmised, and no one was able to trace his movements. Not wishing to create disturbance in the village, Agatha did not mention his nocturnal visit to any one, and Alick was the only one who knew of it besides themselves. Elfie and Clare were both rather disappointed that the mystery of the cupboard seemed to be such a common-place affair, but they noticed that it had brought a great deal of anxious thought to Alick Lester. His face was almost careworn at times, and he seemed now to spend most of his time in London, occasionally coming to have a further rummage in the cupboard. 'It is crammed full of old letters and papers,' he said once to Agatha; 'and if you will let me look through them on the spot, it will be such a help to me.' One day he brought in Roger Lester, and introduced him; and after that the two young fellows often dropped in to afternoon tea, assuring Agatha that they never felt so much at home anywhere else. They both had a fund of high spirits, and though Alick at times looked absorbed and pre-occupied in anxious thought, he knew how to throw it aside and be as light-hearted as his cousin. They were sitting one afternoon on the verandah outside the drawing-room, when Roger turned to Agatha and remarked,— 'You would not imagine it, Miss Dane, but we two have grown up with such perfect cameraderie that until quite lately, I believe, we have never concealed a single thing from each other. And now if you hear of us drifting apart, and our liking turning to hate, you will know the cause—it is the renowned old carved cupboard.' Alick had been talking and laughing with Elfie, but he stopped instantly as if he had been shot when he heard this speech, and there was an awkward silence for a minute. Roger added with a laugh, 'It is some skeleton he has unearthed; but why he should refuse to let me share in the secret I can't imagine!' 'I don't think we need make it a matter of public talk,' said Alick hotly. His cousin looked at him in astonishment, then changed the subject with a shrug of his shoulders and a laugh. When they were gone Clare said thoughtfully, 'There is a mystery after all, and not a very pleasant one, apparently. I feel sorry for Mr. Alick.' 'Which do you like the best of the cousins?' asked Elfie carelessly. Clare's face looked sad as she replied, 'Oh, I don't know. I don't think any young man is worth a thought. They amuse one by their fun, but I would just as soon not have them come here so often. Miss Miller will be attacking us soon on the subject. She was beginning this morning, when I met her out, but I always flee from her when she is in her aggressive moods.' 'What did she say?' Clare looked at her younger sister with a little smile. 'Perhaps I had better not tell you. She saw you cut a rose off the other afternoon and offer it to Mr. Alick, and she considers that the depth of iniquity. "Such a piece of audacious flirting I have rarely seen carried on within a few yards from an open road in full view of any passer-by!" And then she turned the tables on me, and I came off, because she was making me boil with indignation. I think she delights in making her fellow-creatures as uncomfortable as possible.' 'It is only her way,' put in Agatha; 'she does not realize what a sting her words have. She told me last Sunday, when I unfortunately gave an order to some of my Sunday class in front of her, that however much I might try to slight her and usurp her place in the vicarage and parish I would not be successful, for the vicar was proof against all young ladies' blandishments!' 'She ought to be horsewhipped!' cried Elfie hotly, and then she began to laugh. 'There is one that is a match for her in the parish, and that is Deb Howitt. She was covering a chair at the vicarage, and Miss Miller was abusing some of the congregation—I forget who it was now. It was about the behaviour of some girls—I think she is always specially hard on them—and Deb looked at her very quietly. "Ay, ma'am, we mustn't grudge them their sweethearts! 'Tis better for most to have the cares of a family to soften them, for 'tis the spinsters that have the name for getting hard and bitter. Sharp tongues are not so frequent amongst mothers, and the world would be better without bitterness, I reckon!" Miss Miller shut up at once.' 'Deb asked me yesterday when Gwen was coming back. What do you think, Agatha?' said Clare. 'I don't know at all. You know what her last letter said. That Walter had sold his farm and gone off with Mr. Montmorency, and she was staying with Mrs. Montmorency in Loreto. She did not seem in a hurry to leave, and as long as she is happy we must be content that she should be out there.' And the autumn came and went, and winter set in without any word or sign from Gwen of home-coming. Alick and Roger spent the autumn in Scotland, but Christmas found them both at the Hall. Major Lester seemed to have overcome his dislike to his nephew, and the Hall was quite a cheerful centre in the village. Visitors came and went, and Agatha and her sisters were asked up there more frequently than they cared to go. Agatha still possessed Alick's confidence. He would come to her for advice, as most people did, but yet would never touch upon his serious difficulty; and she sometimes wondered if the cupboard's secret was no longer a trouble to him. 'Do you think I am leading a lazy life?' he asked her one day, when he met her walking out and insisted upon accompanying her home. 'I think you are. It is always a pity when young men have enough income to live independently without any responsibility attaching to their wealth.' 'I am not wealthy,' he responded quickly. 'I have just enough to live upon. What do you think of Roger? He is as idle as I at present.' 'I think not. He helps his father with the property, which is a large one, and if anything happened to Major Lester he would have his hands full.' Alick laughed a little hardly. 'Lucky fellow! So if I were in his shoes you would not find fault with me!' 'I think,' said Agatha gently, 'that each one of us ought to realize that we are not placed in this world to live for ourselves. There is so much to do for others who need our help. You are young now, and have life stretching out in front of you. Do not waste it, do not have to acknowledge when your life is over that no one will have been the better for your existence.' 'Would you have one sink one's own individuality in the lives of others, like some of our great philanthropists?' 'No, our first duty is to ourselves. I think too many in the present day rush into work of all sorts, trying to please and satisfy others at the expense of their own peace and satisfaction, and that is wrong.' 'I don't understand you.' 'I mean this. We have two lives: the outer one which every one sees, and the inner one which only God and ourselves know about. Our inner life is the more important one of the two, is it not? For it is the spiritual part of us that is immortal. First let us satisfy and ensure the safety of our own souls, before we seek to satisfy the hungry and thirsty ones around us. And then if our inner life is adjusted rightly—is in touch (shall I say?) with its Maker—the helping others becomes a pleasure as well as a necessity.' Alick did not reply, and Agatha delicately turned the subject; but her words made him ponder much afterwards, and had far more effect upon him than ever she imagined. <h3> CHAPTER XVI </h3> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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