Chapter IX: The Next of Kin

The hunt for the lady, so faithfully recorded in the song called “The Mistletoe Bough,” was a mere apology for a search in comparison to that Ernest Ivraine forthwith instituted from garret to cellar of number 12, Belerma Square; and the reason is obvious: in the first case, “only a wife” was the article missing; in the last, an all-important document was required to be found. Had the poor bride been a piece of parchment, blackened over with legal hieroglyphics, rely upon it she would have been discovered in a very brief period; for, in that event, no place, likely or unlikely, no nook, cranny, box, hole, or spring chest, no matter how long it might have “lain hid,” would have been neglected or overlooked: the value of the thing absent, makes all the difference possible in the zeal and activity and sharp-sightedness of the searchers: and who on earth, possessed of half an ounce of common sense or worldly prudence, would look with the same indefatigable industry after a lost woman as for a lost will?

Malcolm was in far too unsettled a state of mind to be of any very great assistance, but he did his best; whilst Mr. Ivraine laboured through desks and papers and _secretoires_ with as much interest as though the whole of his future welfare depended on the existence of a proper testament—sealed, signed, and delivered. The sheet of foolscap that had been discovered lying before John Merapie’s corpse, upon which the merchant had probably been engaged, when death, so abruptly entering the chamber, interrupted him in his labours, proved, on examination, to be the commencement of an unfinished will; but it was merely the commencement, for after a short preamble, in which a life annuity was devised to his sister, payable quarterly, came the words, “and to my beloved niece, Mina Frazer, I bequeath the sum of——”

Here the chill visitor had seized his hand, apparently with so firm and sudden a grasp that the pen dropped from his lifeless fingers before another syllable could be added; and he carried the knowledge of what he had intended leaving his niece to the grave with him. He remembered her, and tried to repair a fatal error whilst standing on death’s very threshold; but that was all Mina or any one else ever knew about it—he had died almost in the very act of writing her name. The girl wept bitterly when she heard that; but she had still more cause to weep in after years that he expired, before being able to carry the good thought fully out—before the kind intention assumed the firm unchangeable character of a deed.

Alfred Westwood, “prowling,” as Malcolm had stated, about the house, perused the few brief lines the paper contained, and gathered from them, before descending to the drawing-room, the certainty that John Merapie had died intestate. Ernest Ivraine read it also, after hearing Mr. Westwood’s words of “friendly” warning, and—he did not know himself exactly why—but the fact of an incomplete will existing, made him feel doubly anxious to find a perfect one; and, accordingly, he pored over deeds and fitted keys to locks and searched and hunted through every place, possible and impossible, where a deed of the kind could by any accident have been mislaid or secreted.

But in vain; everything but the required document was forthcoming; and, at length, fairly dispirited and disappointed, Ernest Ivraine came to the conclusion that if no will could be discovered in the dining-room, the key of which Dr. Richards had in his pocket, no such deed existed; for Mr. Westwood had most considerately despatched a messenger from Wapping to inform them that the late Mr. Merapie’s solicitors were not in possession of the desired paper, and that not a vestige of any testamentary disposition of property could be detected at the office, though such exertions were used in prosecuting the search as must inevitably have led to its discovery had it been forthcoming.

“We want the key of this apartment, if you please, doctor,” said Ernest, addressing the little M.D., who, after listening to a detail of the hints Mr. Westwood had thrown out some hours previously, reluctantly unlocked the door of the dining-room, and gave the pair admission as they desired.

Mina was lying back in the easy chair, just as they had left her, buried in that profound stupor which more resembles death than sleep. There she sate, her countenance pale as that of a corpse, her long dark hair hanging in disordered masses over her face, neck, and shoulders; one hand was flung carelessly over the arm of the chair, the other she pressed tightly, even in slumber, upon her heart, as if some dreadful pain abode there; her breathing was scarcely audible; and altogether she looked so unlike a living being—she so resembled that which appals our humanity—as to cause Ernest Ivraine to exclaim, turning a quick glance on the doctor,

“Can you waken her?”

“All in good time,” he replied, calmly.

“Was it not rather a dangerous experiment?” persisted Ernest.

“I am sure it was,” here broke in Malcolm; “if I had been here she should never have been so dosed: I wish Dr. Richards,” he added, speaking passionately, like a wilful yet frightened child, “I wish you had let her alone; I really do not know what right you had so to stupify her, at a time when she could have been of such use too: she would have been able to tell about this paper at once, as she used to arrange my uncle’s books and desks for him; do try and rouse her.”

“I tell you what it is, young man,” retorted Dr. Richards, savagely, “if you have no regard for your sister, I have, and, therefore, instead of submitting to be ordered by you, I insist that you carry the girl to her own room, and leave her there in peace; she will wake soon enough, poor child, without your hurrying the process: remember, in any house where a patient of mine resides, I am master for the time being, so do what I desire; you are strong enough, surely, to bear so light a burden; and I tell you it is necessary almost to her very existence that she should sleep on for some time longer.”

Very sulkily Malcolm Frazer complied with the doctor’s command, and then, spite of the little man’s pooh poohing, and speaking of their pursuit as unfeeling, mercenary, and so forth, he and Ernest recommenced their search, but all in vain: there was no will, and John Merapie had died intestate.

For hours Ernest Ivraine sat by the dim firelight, striving one moment to comfort Malcolm for the loss of a good, kind relative, and the next endeavouring to persuade him the absence of a will was a matter of little or no consequence, as—even supposing other relatives did present themselves—there was surely sufficient property to give several individuals handsome fortunes; but still—why, he did not know—Ernest’s heart misgave him: Mr. Westwood’s face, more than his words, had impressed him with the dread of impending evil; he distrusted the man with his cold, polite, perfectly imperturbable manner, with his fixed smile and sarcastic expression; and the malicious triumphant look he had noticed in his countenance as he shoved Malcolm aside, had filled the baronet’s son with more alarm than a volume of threatening sentences from any other individual could have done. Still, however, he did his best to console the youth just entering upon life, whom he who knew most about John Merapie’s affairs had said _might_ be reduced to beggary; he spoke soothingly, hopefully, strove to pacify his fears, calm his excitement, and induce him to forget his sorrows even for an instant.

Ernest Ivraine had never talked so before, not even to Henry; but he felt as if he were comforting a child, not a man,—a wayward, dependent, half-formed creature, not one his equal in any way, in mind, character, or experience.

At last he partially succeeded in his endeavour of diverting the conversation from the events of the last twenty-four hours; the dead and the missing deed had not been spoken of for some five minutes previously, and Malcolm was looking with a calmer quieter expression of face into the fire, when a loud ring of the house bell—a peal such as might have sufficed to break even the repose of the “seven sleepers”—caused him to start from his seat, nervously exclaiming,

“Good heavens! what is that?”

“Sit down,” said Ernest, thrusting him back into his chair and holding him there; but the quick anxious ear caught a sound of hurried words and rapid footsteps. The next instant the dining-room door was flung violently open, and the servant announced, in a voice shrill with surprise and excitement,

“_Mrs._ Merapie, sir.”

“Widow of the late Mr. John Merapie,” added a determined looking woman, still handsome and, comparatively speaking, young, who advanced into the dining-room and uttered the above sentence by way of a pleasant explanatory introduction. Ernest Ivraine gazed for an instant curiously on her, and, as he did so, unconsciously relaxed his hold of Malcolm, who, making one resolute effort, released himself altogether, crossed the room at a single bound, and darted up the staircase with the rapidity of the wind.

“Mina,” he yelled rather than spoke, flinging himself down by the side of the couch, “Mina, for God’s sake waken and speak to me; I shall go mad if you don’t: uncle John has left no will and he has a wife, and we—we are beggars!”

The way he screamed out the words thrilled every nerve of the girl’s body. Like one roused from the dead by the powerful aid of galvanism she started up, her large eyes distended, her body quivering with excessive fear and horror.

“Speak to me,” he again cried out; “oh! Mina, Mina, we are beggars!”

A sort of convulsive throe shook her frame for a moment; then Mina Frazer, burying her face in her hands, strove to realize the meaning of the words she just had heard.

When she raised her head again she was calm and cold as stone, and she rose and took her brother’s hand in hers and bade him tell her all; then she put an arm round his neck and kissed him two or three times over—why, she did not know—and she sat down and talked to him for a few minutes.

She was composed now; the potion had done its work; she had awakened, as Dr. Richards said she would, too soon,—ah! yes, too soon by far.