Juffrouw Engel reclaims her childhood home and inheritance when a notary informs her that her late father’s will has resurfaced. The document establishes that she had been the legal owner of the Red House since his death and was also entitled to his savings. What had seemed an entrenched dispossession gives way to a concrete return: within three weeks, she moves back into the house where she grew up.

The dispossession

Juffrouw Engel’s father died suddenly when she was five, leaving her alone with her aunt, Agatha Bulstronk, who became her legal guardian and gained control of the house. Juffrouw Engel later understood that her father had not intended the arrangement to deprive her permanently: in her account, a guardian might be allowed to live in a home for a time, while managing it for the child until adulthood.

Agatha Bulstronk claimed that Juffrouw Engel’s father had signed a document leaving the house to her in return for caring for the child. Juffrouw Engel believed the document was forged, but said that nobody could prove it. She had no money for a lawyer, and Agatha Bulstronk’s standing and influence in the community made a challenge more difficult. The property dispute thus formed part of a broader dependence: when Juffrouw Engel became a teacher, her aunt claimed repayment for years of food and clothing, demanded ten years of her salary, arranged for the school to deposit it directly into her bank account, and left her only one pound a week in spending money.

The will resurfaces

Two days after Agatha Bulstronk’s disappearance from the school, Juffrouw Engel received a registered letter from a local notary. The notary reported that her father’s will had suddenly and mysteriously come to light. It named Juffrouw Engel as the legal owner of the Red House from the time of her father’s death, despite the fact that Agatha Bulstronk had occupied it until recently. The will also left her father’s savings to her, and the notary asked her to come to his office so that the house and money could be put into her name.

The newly surfaced document resolves the contradiction at the center of Juffrouw Engel’s account: her belief that the house should have been hers had lacked proof she could afford to establish, while the will supplies documentary confirmation of her claim. The narrative does not explain how the document reappears or establish who brought it to light; its arrival is presented as sudden and mysterious.

Return to the Red House

Juffrouw Engel went to the notary, and within three weeks moved into the Red House, the home in which she had grown up. Its furniture and paintings from her earlier life had been left behind, so her return restored not only the property but also the familiar contents of the house. The inheritance includes her father’s savings, which, fortunately, had remained safe in the bank.

The recovery changes the practical conditions of Juffrouw Engel’s life: the house and money are placed in her name, and she is no longer living under her aunt’s control. The return is not narrated as a confrontation between the two women. Instead, the will and the notary’s letter turn a long-standing, difficult-to-prove claim into a formal change of ownership.

Matilda and the inheritance’s aftermath

After the move, Matilda came to the Red House every day after school. Her visits led to a close friendship between the teacher and the child, making the restored home a setting for a relationship that had already begun to form at school. The house’s return therefore changes more than Juffrouw Engel’s material circumstances: it gives that friendship a regular place to develop.

Later, Juffrouw Engel told Mr. Wormwood that she would be glad to have Matilda live with her, would care for her, and would pay for everything. She emphasized that the idea had come from Matilda and that she wanted to take the child in only with her father’s wholehearted agreement. The inheritance provides the home that makes this offer possible, while the decision about Matilda’s residence remains subject to her parents’ consent.