Page 26 of A Treacherous Treasure

She slammed the cover closed and slapped the pen down on the writing desk.

Rebecca wanted to turn on her heel and leave the room, but she also wanted to see what Mrs. Heywood would do with the Bible.

Mrs. Heywood stood. “I have made sure all the arrangements are being made for the funeral and burial. I have plenty of experience, having buried my husband three years ago. It must be convenient for you, not having to do anything. I have seen to all the arrangements for the funeral service, procession, and committal. And I suppose this estate will be bankrupt in a matter of a few years, sold off in pieces. You certainly have no experience with running an estate, any more than you have experience with arranging funerals.”

“That is true. I have no experience with such things.” Rebecca did her best to unclench her jaw and speak without any emotion, stating obvious facts. It was the way she had learned to deal with Mrs. Heywood when she was in a caustic mood such as this.

“Well, I suppose you will have your mother here in a day or two.”

“Yes, in a day or two they should be here.”

“And how many of your siblings will come with her?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps three.”

“Well, I’m sure they will enjoy taking over the estate now that its rightful owner is dead.”

She covered her face with her handkerchief. A few moments later, she lifted her head and shook her handkerchief at Rebecca. “Why are you still here? Gloating over me in my grief. Go away. Get away from me.”

Rebecca left the room but went down the hall to the sitting room, watching in the doorway. A few moments later she was rewarded with the sight of Mrs. Heywood leaving the breakfast room and walking the other way, and she did not have the Bible in her hands.

Rebecca tiptoed hurriedly down the hall to the breakfast room. There was the Bible where Mrs. Heywood had left it.

She ran over to it. Her heart beat furiously as she opened it up. She was not as careful as she’d been with the other Bible while she flipped the pages and found Romans, then turned the pages to find the eighth chapter. When she did, a loose piece of paper slipped from the page and fluttered onto the floor.

Rebecca snatched it up, not even looking to see what it was, and hid it in the folds of her dress.

She scurried up to her bedroom and locked the door.

The paper was folded into fourths. She unfolded it to find a drawing of some sort, with no words. Could it be just what they had been hoping for—a map of where the treasure was buried?

Rebecca spread it out on her bed. There were several crude drawings, probably symbols, and a black “X” at one corner of the paper. But she was having trouble recognizing anything.

There were triangles, wavy lines, parallel lines, and a large square, but Rebecca could make no sense of it.

Perhaps Thomas Westbrook would understand it. But was she bold enough to return to the Westbrooks’ a second time that day, on the day before her husband’s funeral?

Her husband’s funeral. The words sent a pall over her and she refolded the paper and put it in a small box where she was keeping the letter and the snuffbox, then placed them in a drawer by her bed. It could wait a day or two.

Rebecca had a simple, early supper sent up to her room, where she ate alone. When that was done, with the sun going down, she went back down to the drawing room and sat beside her husband’s coffin to hold vigil, relieving the hired sitter who was there, as she had promised Mrs. Heywood.

An uncomfortable weight settled on her. Was she so unfeeling that she could feel excited about a buried treasure when her husband had just been murdered? When he was not even in the grave yet? Perhaps Mrs. Heywood was correct in her accusations against her.

Tears stung her eyes as she remembered how much she had loved her husband. Arthur had been her whole world those first few months they were married, and though he had said and done things that hurt her, she’d been so in love that she had forgiven him immediately and barely remembered them. But it was not long before she heard the rumors of his unfaithfulness, of the other women. How much that had hurt, like a knife in the heart. And when the dalliances with other women had continued, even after she was pregnant with their child, even after she lost the baby, her broken heart had gone numb.

But she hadn’t ceased to love him. She loved him still. How long might she have continued to love him, if he had lived? Five more years? Ten? How long before her heart ceased to love and forgive and grew completely cold to him?

And if he had stopped being unfaithful to her, if he learned to repent and turn from his philandering ways, could she have forgiven him? How could she trust him again after years of unfaithfulness?

But now she would never know. He was gone, and with him, all hope of reconciliation was gone, all hope that he would repent and learn to love Rebecca his wife and only Rebecca.

She had avoided looking at him, but now she stood and moved to the coffin, which sat on a low table that brought the body up to chest level. And she looked at Arthur, truly looked at him, at his pale face and blond hair, his lips, his chin, his hands, lying folded over his stomach. But something was different about his face. There was no life there, and he was not there. This was only his body, a shell that had housed his soul, his laugh, his thoughts. He was gone and only his shell was left.

They had shared some happy moments, but now when she looked at his lifeless face, she only remembered the pain.

She went back and lay down on the sofa, which was too short to accommodate the length of her legs, so even with bent knees, her feet hung off the side.

She might have considered attending the funeral if her mother had been there and could accompany her. After all, this was the countryside and people were less prone to observe all the fashionable rituals that seemed so rigid for the aristocrats, the dukes and earls and viscounts, who lived in London.