Lauriearrived on the Friday, coming in, in his usual unexpected way, through the window, when they were all in the drawing-room after dinner. The brothers had met in town, where Ben had paused for a day on his way to Renton, so that their greeting was not mingled with any of those remarks on changed appearance and unexpected signs of age which are general after a long absence. But when they stood thus together for the first time for seven years, the difference between old things and new became more perceptible to the bystanders. The surroundings were so completely the same as of old that any variation from the past became more clear to them. The same lamps, shaded for their mother’s sake; the same brilliant spot of light upon the tea-table, where the china and silver glittered; Mrs. Renton lying on the same sofa, in the same attitude, covered with the same Indian shawl; the same soft odour of mignonette and heliotrope, and earth and dew, stealing in at the great open window; even thesame moths, or reproductions of the same, making wild circles about the lamp. ‘And Mary, I think, is the very same,’ Laurie said, looking at her with true brotherly kindness. But ‘the boys’ were not the same. Of the two it was Laurie who looked the elder. He was just thirty, but the hair was getting thin on the top of his head, and his face was more worn than it had any right to be. Ben had broadened, almost imperceptibly, but still enough to indicate to the bystander that the first slim outline of youth was over. But Laurie, though he had not expanded, had aged even in the lines of his face; and then he had grown a little careless, like the society into which he had cast himself. He was dusty with his walk, and his velvet morning-coat looked strange and wild beside Ben’s correct evening costume. Lazy Laurence still; but with all the difference between sanguine youth and meditative manhood. Mary, however, was the only one of the party who was troubled by the mystery of Laurie’s subdued tone. Mrs. Renton was not given to speculation, and Ben was occupied by his own affairs to the exclusion of all inquiry into those of others. Both mother and brother took it for granted that Laurie was just as it was natural he should be. Only Mary,—sisterly, womanly, anxious always to know how it was,—watched him with a sympathetic eye.
‘Well! here we are at home once more, old fellow,’ said Laurie, throwing himself into an easy chair near the window, when the mother had been safely conveyed up-stairs.
‘Yes, a home that always looks the same,’ said Ben. ‘I am not so sure as I used to be of the good of that. It makes one feel doubly the change in one’s self.’
‘These are his Yankee notions,’ said Laurie. ‘I suppose he has given up primogeniture, and Church and State, and everything. But Mary is an orthodox person who will set us all right.’
‘As if women might not think about primogeniture and all the rest as well as you others!’ said Mary. ‘We are the only people who take any time to think now-a-days. Ben has done nothing but make railways,—and money,—and he likes it;—he is a real Renton,’ she cried, pleased to let him know her mind on that subject.
‘And very right, too,’ said Laurie. ‘If there were not Rentons to be had somewhere how should the world get on?’
‘But I don’t care for the world,’ said Mary; ‘and I would much rather you were not fond of money, like everybody else, you boys.’
‘I am very fond of money, but I never can get any,’ said Laurie. ‘I say to myself, if I should happen to come into reputation next century, what a collection of Rentons there will be for somebody to make a fortune of,—Ben’s heirs, most probably;or that little Mary of Frank’s, who is a darling. Now that I think of it, as she is a painter’s descendant, it is she who shall be my heir.’
‘I think much the best thing would be for you to have Renton, Laurie, and heirs of your own.’
‘Thanks,’ said Laurie; ‘my brothers are very kind. Frank took the trouble to write me a long letter ever so many years ago, adjuring me by all I held dear to marry a certain Nelly Rich.’
‘It was very impertinent of him,’ cried Mary, ‘and very conceited. Nelly Rich would no more have looked at you——’
‘Showed her sense,’ said Laurie, quietly. ‘I am only telling you what actions have been set on foot for my benefit. But I never saw Nelly Rich except once, so I am not conceited; and as for Renton, no such iniquity could ever be, as that it should go past you, Ben.’
‘You speak strongly,’ said the elder brother.
‘That is one result of time, you know. One can see now, without irreverence, how wrong my poor father was. Of course we would have been wretches had we been capable of anything but obedience at the time,’ said Laurie; ‘but, looking back, one can see more clearly. He was wrong,—I don’t bear him any malice, poor dear old father! but he did us as much harm almost as was possible. And if Renton is left out of the natural succession, I shall say it is iniquity, and oppose it with all my power.’
‘It would be iniquity,’ Ben said, gravely. And then there was a pause. The three sat, going back into their individual memories, unaware what devious paths the others were treading. But for that Laurie might never have fallen into the temptation which had stolen what energy he had out of him, and strengthened all his dreamy, unpractical ways. But for that Ben might have given the Renton force and strength of work to his country, and served her,—as is the citizen’s first duty,—instead of making American railroads, which another man might have been found to do. As for Mary, the paths in which she went wandering were not her own. It did not occur to her to think of the seven years, which for her had been simple loss. Had she been living at home, no doubt, long before this she would have married some one, and been like Alice, the mother of children. But such were not Mary’s reflections. She was thinking if this had not happened Ben would have married Millicent seven years ago, and that, on the whole, everything was for the best.
They had but one other day to themselves; but during that day the house felt, with a bewildered sense of confusion and uncertainty, that old times had come back. Mr. Ben and Mr. Laurie had gone back to their old rooms; and their steps and voices, the peremptory orders of the eldest, the ‘chaff’ of Mr. Laurie, ‘who was a gentleman asyou never could understand whether he was in earnest or in joke,’—turned the heads of the old servants. They, like their mistress, were upset by the newrégime; the dulness of the house had been a trouble to them when her reign of utter seclusion commenced; but if it was dull, there was little to do, and the house had habituated itself to the monotonous round. And now they felt it a hardship when the noise and the work recommenced, and dinner ran the risk of having to wait ten minutes, and breakfast was on the table from half-past eight to half-past ten. ‘All along o’ that lazy Laurie, as they calls him, and a very good name, too,’ said the affronted cook. Mary had much ado to keep them in working order. ‘There may be further changes after a while,’ she said to the old butler, who had carried them all in his arms, and knew about everything, and who would as soon have cut his throat as leave Renton;—‘you must have patience for a little, and see how things turn out.’ Thus it will be seen that if the return of her cousins brought any happiness to Mary it brought a great increase of anxiety as well. And there was always the sense of Millicent’s vicinity to weigh upon her mind. She had been looking forward for years to the family reunion as the end of tribulation and beginning of a better life; but up to this time her anticipations had not been fulfilled. Anxieties hadincreased upon her,—one growing out of another. Instead of comfort, and certainty, and the support which she had always been taught to believe were involved in the possession of ‘men in the house,’ Mary found that these tenants had rather an agitating than a calming effect upon herself and the community in general. That she should have more trouble about the dinners was natural; but that even their mother should require to be let softly down into the enjoyment of their society, and that circumstances in general required double consideration on account of their presence, was a new idea to Mary. And then it turned out that Mrs. Renton had spoken very truly when she said a man must have something to do. Both ‘the boys’ were in a state of restlessness and excitement, not disposed to settle to anything. There was capital shooting to be had, and the partridges were everything a sportsman could desire; but somehow even Ben felt that partridges were not congenial to the occasion. And as for Laurie, he was too indolent to make any such exertion. ‘Wait till Frank comes,’ he said. ‘Frank has energy for two. If we were on a Scotch moor, indeed, where you want to move about to keep yourself warm; but it’s too hot, my dear fellow, for stumping about through the stubble. I’ll take Mary out after a bit for a row.’ And Ben’s activities, too, culminated in the same idea. Laurie lay in thebottom of the boat, sometimes puffing gently at his cigar, doing simply nothing, while Ben pulled against stream, and Mary steered him dexterously through the weeds; and then the three floated slowly down again, saying little to each other, lingering along the mid current with scarcely any movement of the languid oars. They were not very sociable in this strange amusement; but still its starts of momentary violent exercise, its dreamy charm of movement, the warm autumnal sun overhead, the delicious gliding water that gurgled on the sides of the boat, and all the familiarity and all the novelty of the scene, chimed in with their feelings. Ben was pondering the future, which was still so dark,—his unfinished work at the other end of the world,—what he would do with Renton if it came to him,—what he would do if it did not come to him,—all the range of possibilities which overhung his way as the trees overhung the river. Laurie, for his part, wandered in a field of much wider fancy, and did not take Renton at all into account, nor the chances which a few days might bring to him. What did it matter? he could live, and he had no more to think of,—no future which interested him particularly,—no hope that would be affected by the tenor of his father’s will. Sometimes his eye would be caught by a combination of foliage, or a sudden light on the water, or the turn of Mary’s arm asshe plied her cords. ‘How did Mary keep her steering up while we were all away?’ he would say between the puffs of his cigar, and made up his mind that she should sit to him next day in that particular pose. Mary, for her own part, during these expeditions, was too much occupied in watching her cousins to have any thoughts of her own. What was Ben thinking of? Was it The Willows his mind was fixed on as he opened his full chest and sent the boat up against the stream with the force of an arrow out of a bow? Was it the image of Millicent that made his eyes glow as he folded his arms, and let the skiff idle on the current? And what were Laurie’s thoughts occupied about as he lay, lazy, in the bottom? Mary gazed at them, and wondered, not knowing what to think, and said to herself how much more difficult it was now to prognosticate what would become of them than it would have been seven years ago, at their first entering upon life. And thus the long day glided to its end.
On the Saturday Frank and his belongings arrived, and all was altered. Frank, so far as personal appearance went, was the least changed of all. His moustache had grown from the silky shadow it used to be into a very decided martial ornament, and he was brown with the Indian sun. Laurie had the presumption to insinuate that he had grown, which touched the soldier to thequick; but though he was the father of a family, the seven years had affected him less than either of his brothers. To be sure, he was but seven-and-twenty, and had lived a comparatively happy life. But it must be allowed that the Sunday was hard to get through. The three brothers, who were all very different men to begin with, had each got into his groove, and each undervalued,—let us not say had a contempt for,—the occupation of the other. What with India, and what with youth, and what with the training of his profession, Frank had all the unreasoning conservatism which was natural to a well-born, unintellectual soldier. And then he had a wife to back him, which strengthens a man’s self-opinion. ‘Depend upon it,’ he would say, ‘these Radicals will land us all in perdition if they get their way.’ ‘Why should I depend upon it, when my own opinion goes directly contrary?’ Ben, who had been in America, and all over the world, drawing in revolutionary ideas, would answer him. As for Laurie he would ask them both, ‘What does it matter? one man is as good as another, if not better,’ and smile in his pococurante way. The children were a godsend to them all, and so was Alice with her youthful wisdom. For Mary by this time, with three men to keep in order, as it were, and Mrs. Renton to hold safely in hand all the time, and all unsuitable visitors to keep at a distance, and the dinner toorder, was about as much overwhelmed with cares, and as little capable of the graces of society, as a woman could be. She had to spend with her aunt the hour of that inevitable Sunday afternoon walk, and saw her flock pair off and disappear among the trees with the sensations of an anxious mother, who feels her nursery for the moment in comparative safety. Ben with Alice and little Mary went one way, and Laurie and Frank took another. When she had seen them off Mary turned with a satisfied mind to read to her godmother the Sunday periodical which took the place of the newspaper on this day. It was very mild reading, though it satisfied Mrs. Renton. It was her principle not to drive on Sunday, and the morning was occupied by the Morning Service, which Davison and she read together before she got up, and that duty being over the Sunday periodical came in naturally to take the place of the drive. It was very rarely that she felt able to go to church; and of all days this day, which followed so closely the arrival of her sons, was the one on which she could least be supposed capable of such an exertion. So Mary read a story, and a sermon, and a missionary narrative, and was very tired of it, while the slow afternoon lingered on and the others had their walk.
Ben and Alice, though they were in the positionof brother and sister, and called each other by their Christian names, had met for the first time on the day before, and naturally were not very much acquainted with each other’s way of thinking. The woods were their great subject of discourse. ‘Frank has talked of them wherever we were,’ said Alice. ‘I am so glad to bring the children here. If we should have to go to India again it will be nice for them to remember. But I need not speak like that,’ she added, after a moment’s pause, with a sudden rush of tears to her blue eyes; ‘for if we have to go to India we must leave little Mary behind,—she is too old to go back. And I suppose if I were prudent, baby too—but I could not bear that.’
‘Why should you go back to India?’
‘Ah, we must, unless there is some money coming to us,’ said Alice: ‘you know I had no fortune. I did not think that mattered then; but when one has children one learns. Do you think there will be some money for Frank in the will?’
‘I am certain of it,’ said Ben.
‘Enough to make us able to stay at home,’ said Alice, clasping her hands. ‘It is not that I care for money, nor Frank either.’
‘But it is quite natural you should care. And I promise you,’ said Ben, ‘if there is anything I can set right, that you shall not go back to India.Whichever of us is preferred, you may be sure of that. I can answer for Laurie as for myself.’
‘Oh, I know Laurie,’ cried Alice; ‘but I did not know you,—and then perhaps Frank would not be willing;—but anyhow, since you say you are sure, I will keep up my heart.’
And in the meantime Frank and Laurie by the river-side were having their confidences too. ‘If it should come to me,’ Frank was saying, ‘I hope I shall do what is right by Ben in any case—but it will be a struggle for that little beggar’s sake.’
‘I would let the little beggar take his chance,’ said Laurie; ‘there is time enough. I don’t think you need begin to consider him yet.’
‘I should do my duty, of course,’ said Frank, ‘by Ben, who has been badly used; but I don’t deny it will cost me something, Laurie. A man does not get ties about him for nothing. If I had the chance of a home for Alice and the little ones,—even if it were not a home like this, by Jove! it would be an awful temptation,—a temptation one would scarcely know how to resist.’
‘Then it is to be hoped it will never come,’ said Laurie. ‘I don’t see how we could stand in doubt for an instant. I don’t speak of natural justice. But Ben was brought up to be the heir. There was never a doubt of his being the heir till my poorfather’s will had to be read. Therefore he must be the heir now. I don’t care whether it falls to you or me. It’s as clear as daylight, and I can’t believe you would find the least difficulty in doing what was right.’
‘I should do it,’ said Frank, but he made no further protestation. In his heart he could not but say to himself that it was easy for Laurie, a man with nobody dependent on him, with no question before him such as that of returning or not returning to India, and with,—so far as any one knew,—no prospects of future happiness which depended on this decision. And Ben, too, was unmarried, and likely to be unmarried. ‘Unless he marries Mary,’ Frank said to himself. Of course if Renton fell to him he would marry, and they had all pledged themselves that Renton must fall to him, and Ben accordingly would sit down in his father’s seat, and bring in some stranger to rule over the place, and Alice and the children would have to go away. Back to India! If that were the only alternative Frank felt as if it would be impossible to do his duty by Ben. The excitement of the moment, and the fundamental simplicity of his mind, thus brought him to the strange notion that all secondary justice must have been set aside, and that it would be a question of everything or nothing to the victor. Thus theRentons awaited, with thoughts often too deep for words, with a restrained excitement wonderful to behold, with hopes and sinkings of heart, the revelation of their father’s will; and that was to take place next day.
Whenthe Rentons were all seated together in the drawing-room after dinner, doing their best to get through the Sunday evening, a note was brought to Mrs. Renton, to the amazement of all the family assembly. Mrs. Westbury and her son Laurence, who was curate of Cookesley, had joined them at dinner; and they were all seated in a circle round the room drinking their tea and trying to talk, and suppressing an occasional yawn with the true decorum of a family party. Sometimes there would get up a little lively talk between Mary and her mother and brother touching the gossip of the district, or Alice and Laurie would brighten into a familiar discussion of something belonging to Fitzroy Square; but then they would suddenly remark that the others were uninterested and taking no part, and the talk would come to a stop, and Mrs. Westbury would make a commonplace remark to one of her nephews, and Alice would ask the curate if he went often to the Opera, and a uniformityof dulness would fall upon the party. The Rentons were all well-bred people, and it was certainly not well-bred to enjoy one’s self in an animated way in a corner with two or three, while the rest of the company sat blank and did not know what one was making merry about. To be sure, there was Alice’s music to fall back upon; but, except to two or three of the company, that would not much mend matters; so that when the note was brought to Mrs. Renton there was immediately a little movement of interest. Ben brought one of the shaded lamps to his mother that she might read it, and Mary drew near in case her services should be wanted to write the answer, for which the butler stood solemnly waiting erect in the midst of the fatigued group.
‘It must be something very urgent indeed to write about to-day,’ Mrs. Westbury said. ‘I am old-fashioned, and I don’t think the family quiet should be disturbed on Sunday unless it is something of importance.’
‘My dear, I can’t read these dreadful hands that people write now-a-days,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I can’t get the light on it, and I am too tired to sit up. If you would read it aloud, Ben——’
Ben took the little note in his hand, and put the lamp down on the nearest table. His face was in shade, and it was impossible to tell what his feelings were. He glanced over the note for asecond, and then read it aloud as his mother bade. It was a prayer to be allowed to visit the woods next morning with a friend who was going away, and it was signed ‘Millicent Rich.’ ‘I would not have dreamt of asking, knowing that you have all your people about you, and do not want to be troubled with strangers,’ she wrote; ‘but our friend is going off by the three o’clock train. We shall keep strictly to the woods, and not come near the house to worry you, when your attention must be so occupied with other things; but please let me come.’ This was what Ben read out with a perfectly expressionless voice, not even faltering over the name.
‘Of course she must come,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Mary, you must write a note for me. Say that the boys being here makes no difference, and that if she will come to luncheon and bring her friend——’
‘But, godmamma, Mr. Ponsonby is coming,’ said Mary, while Ben took up the lamp, and stood like a monument, holding it in his hand.
‘Mr. Ponsonby will not eat her, I suppose,’ said Mrs. Renton; and then there was a pause.
‘But, godmamma,’ Mary resumed after that interval, ‘don’t you think so important a day as to-morrow is,—and so much as there will be going on——’
‘Any stranger would be a bore,’ said Frank.‘How are we to go and talk and be civil, when an hour more may see us set up or ruined——’
Here Alice plucked at his sleeve, indicating with a look of warning the stolid countenance of old Willis, who stood listening to everything. ‘If it would be any pleasure to grandmamma, I would attend to them,’ she said.
‘And I think it would be a very good thing for you all,’ said Mrs. Westbury, ‘and take your minds off yourselves a little. It is a blessing to have a stranger for that,—you are obliged to exert yourselves, and kept from brooding over one subject. I think your mother is quite right.’
‘Let us have them,’ said Laurie. ‘What does it matter? Old Ponsonby is always late.’
‘He will surely never be late on an occasion of such importance,’ said Laurence Westbury.
Mrs. Renton looked from one to another with an anxious countenance, and they came round the sofa, glad of the little interruption to that family quiet which was almost too much blessedness. Ben, who said nothing, lighted up the circle in a curious Rembrandtish way, holding his lamp so as to screen his mother; and outside stood old Willis, erect as a soldier, with unmoved countenance, waiting for the answer.
‘Ben, what do you say?’ said Mrs. Renton, with all the earnestness of a last appeal.
‘That you must do just what you like, mother,’ said Ben.
Upon which she wrung her hands in despair. ‘How can I tell what I shall like if none of you will advise me?’ she said.
‘I will attend to them, if grandmamma would like it,’ said Alice, coming to the head of the sofa. ‘And I am sure you would like it, dear grandmamma; it would give you something else to think of.’
‘So it would, my dear,’ said Mrs. Renton, ready to cry; ‘and how I am to get through to-morrow without some assistance is more than I can tell.’
‘It will take all your minds off the one subject,’ added Mrs. Westbury; ‘and of course there must always be luncheon. Mary, go and do what your aunt tells you. It will be good, my dears, for you all.’
And Ben gave a little gesture with his hand, Mary caught his eye over the glowing darkness of the shaded lamp, and went and wrote her note without a word. Ben’s face had said, or seemed to say, ‘Let them come,—what does it matter?’ And if it did not matter to him, certainly it mattered nothing to any one else. When the note was despatched, Alice sat down at the piano and played to the entire satisfaction of her husband, his mother, and Laurence Westbury. Ben settleddown in a corner and took a book, till his aunt Lydia went and sat beside him, when an earnest conversation ensued; and Laurie stood idling by the window, beating back the moths that came in tribes to seek their destruction in the light, and sometimes saying a word to Mary, who, half occupied by the music and more than half by her own thoughts, sat near him within the shadow of the curtains.
‘What sort of people are those that are coming to-morrow, and why don’t you like them?’ said Laurie, under cover of a fortissimo.
‘I never said I did not like them,’ said Mary.
‘No; but I know you don’t. Who are they?’
And then the music fell low into tremulous, dying murmurs, and all was silent in the room except for a shrill ‘s’ now and then of Mrs. Westbury’s half-whispered energetic conversation with Ben. When the strain rose and swelled into passion, the talk at the window was resumed.
‘It is not they,—it is she I don’t like;—one of my old school-fellows, and the most beautiful woman you ever saw.’
‘Hallo!’ said Laurie, ‘is that the reason why?’
‘Yes, of course. We should all like to strangle her because she is so pretty,’ said Mary, with a certain rancour in her voice.
Laurie sent a great night-moth out with a rush, and then he stooped towards his cousin’s hiding-place. ‘Granted in the general,’ he said, ‘but there is something particular about this.’
What could Mary say? Her heart was quivering with that poignant sense of weakness and inability to resist fate which sometimes overcomes a woman in those secret machinations for somebody else’s good, which are so seldom successful. ‘I have done,’ she said; ‘I will try no more.’ And that was all the answer that was given to Laurie’s curiosity.
Alice had not fallen off in her playing. The piano, under her fingers, gave forth such sounds as wiled the very hearts out of the bosoms of the three who were listening. Mrs. Renton lay back on her sofa, with the tears coming to her eyes and a world of inarticulate, inexpressible feeling in her heart. Had it been poetry, the poor lady would have yawned and wished herself in bed; but now she had floated into a serene Eden,—a Paradise full of all vague loveliness, and sweetness, and unspeakable, indistinct emotions. As for Laurence Westbury, he dared scarcely draw breath, so entirely did the witchery seize him. The music to him stormed and struggled like a soul in pain, and paused and sank to give forth the cry of despair, and swelled into a gathering hope, into a final conflict, into delicious murmurs of sweetness and gratefulness and repose; there was a whole drama in it, moving the real listener with such a rapidsuccession of feeling as the highest tragic efforts of poetry call forth in others. While in the meanwhile Ben and Aunt Lydia talked quite undisturbed in their corner of railways and investments, and of how much Renton might be improved, and how fast Dick Westbury was making his fortune out in India; and Laurie was driving out the moths, and moralising over their eagerness to enter, and thinking of anything in the world rather than the music. Such were the strange differences of sensibility and feeling among half-a-dozen people, all of one race.
A forlorn hope that it might rain next morning, and so prevent the threatened invasion, was in Mary’s mind up to the last moment. She felt as if, having thus failed in her own person, Providence must aid her to save her cousin, the head of the house, who was of so much importance to the family, from such a snare. But Providence refused, as Providence so often does in what seems the most heart-breaking emergency, to aid the plans of the schemer. As lovely a September morning as ever shone brightened all the park and the trees under her windows as she gazed out, unable to believe that she was thus abandoned of Heaven. But there could be no mistake about it. It was a lovely day, enough to tempt any one to the woods had there been no purpose of the kind beforehand; and as if to aggravate her sense of the danger of the situation,Ben himself was visible from her window, coming up the river-path in boating costume, though it was only half-past seven in the morning. Had he been on the river already at this ridiculous hour? Passing The Willows no doubt, gazing at the closed windows, pleased with the mere fact of being near her, though at such an hour no one, Mary assured herself with a little scorn, had ever seen Millicent out of bed; and on such a day as this, when all his prospects for life hung in the balance! But, strangely enough, it never occurred to Mary in her womanish pre-occupation to think that it might be the feverish excitement of the crisis, and not any thought of Millicent, which had roused Ben and driven him to try the tranquillising effects of bodily exertion. Notwithstanding the atmosphere of family anxiety by which she was surrounded, the fact was that Millicent’s visit was ten times more important in Mary’s eyes than that of Mr. Ponsonby. The one did not cost her a tenth part of the anxious cogitation called forth by the other. No doubt the will would be read and everything settled, ill or well. Ben would have Renton, as he ought; or Frank would have it, or it would be settled somehow; but the effect of Millicent’s appearance would be to unsettle everything. It would rouse up those embers of old love which she felt were smouldering in Ben’s mind. Smouldering! How could she tell that they were notblazing with all the warmth of present passion? Else, why had he sallied out in the dawn of the morning only to pass by the sleeping, shut-up house which contained the lady of his dreams? For that he had gone out for this purpose, and no other, Mary felt as certain as if she had watched him every step of the way. But there was nothing now to be done but to submit, and to put the best face that was possible upon it. Perhaps, indeed, if anything should occur so as that Ben should not have Renton, it would no longer be an unmixed misfortune, for it would take him out of Millicent’s way.
It was hard to tell whether it was a relief or an annoyance to find a stranger at the breakfast-table when they all met down-stairs. ‘What a nuisance!’ Frank said to his wife, feeling that Ben’s right-hand man was not the sort of person to be admitted to familiar intercourse with the family at such a moment. But Mary felt, on the whole, that Hillyard’s unexpected appearance was a good thing for Ben. The stranger, who ought to have arrived some days before, had been detained, and got down to Cookesley on Sunday night, from whence it appeared Ben had gone down early to fetch him, thus explaining, to the great consolation of his guardian and watcher, his early expedition. Hillyard was very carefully dressed, too carefully for the morning, and a little impressed by the houseand the circumstances. His beard had been trimmed and his wardrobe renewed before he would follow his onceprotégé, and now patron, to the Manor, and he was very anxious to make himself agreeable, and justify his presence.
‘I know I should not have come at such a time,’ he explained to Mary; ‘I told Renton so. Of course we have been so much together that I could not but know why he was coming home.’
‘I do not think it makes any difference,’ said Mary. ‘I am sure my aunt will always be glad to have any of Ben’s friends.’
‘It is very good of you to say so,’ Hillyard answered gratefully. And then he began to tell her what a fine fellow her cousin was, and what a head he had, and how he had mastered his profession while other men would have been gaping at it. ‘He is master and I am man now,’ he said, unconsciously using Ben’s words, ‘though I was brought up to it; and I should just like you to see the beautiful work he puts out of his hands.’
‘I daresay I should not understand it if I saw it,’ said Mary, smiling behind the urn; but she lent a very willing ear, and thought Hillyard a very nice person. Unquestionably he was a relief to the high strain of suppressed feeling which appeared in every face at the table, except, perhaps, Laurie’s, who, late as usual, came in, carrying the baby in his arms, and did not mind.
‘Here is a little waif and stray I found wandering about the passages,’ he said. ‘Little Laurie, your mamma does not care about you to-day; you had better stay with me.’
‘Doesn’t mamma care for him, the darling!’ cried Alice. And then the child was picked up, having made a rush to her arms, and set up beside her at table.
‘The heir-presumptive, I suppose?’ Hillyard said behind the urn; and Mary began to think he was not quite so nice as she had thought him before.
Then the members of the family dispersed, to kill this lingering, weary forenoon as they best could. Ben and Hillyard went out together in earnest conversation, and Laurie established himself in a shady corner of the lawn, and made a group of Alice and her children, and began to draw them; while Frank started off, as he said, for a long walk. Mr. Ponsonby had announced that he was to come by the one o’clock train; but there was another three-quarters of an hour later, and nobody who knew him expected him to arrive by the first. And at half-past one Millicent and her friend would come to luncheon. Such a conjunction of events was very terrible to think of; though, perhaps, not so alarming to any one as to Mary, who alone knew of the motives of the latter visit. She had to go about her usual occupations allthe same. She could not cheat the sick expectations of her heart by joining the group on the lawn and chatting with the children, nor could she rush forth to still her anxieties by bodily exertion, like the boys. A woman, she thought to herself, is always tied to the stake. She had to fulfil all her little peaceful household occupations as if her heart was quite at ease, and had not even any sympathy to support her, for what was it to her any one could have said? They were all three her cousins, and it could not matter very deeply to her which of them got Renton; and as for Millicent, that was mere feminine jealousy, and nothing else,—so Mary had to lock up her troubles carefully in her own breast.
It was only about a quarter past one when Millicent arrived at Renton, and with her came her mother and her ‘friend,’ who was the young soldier they had seen rowing her on the river. Mrs. Renton had just come down-stairs, with Davison carrying her shawls and her worsted work, and it was to her the visitors made their way. ‘Mr. Horsman is a connexion of my poor husband’s,’ Millicent said with a decent sigh. ‘He is a brother of Sir George Horsman, whom Nelly married. Nelly is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Renton; but I suppose you know?’
‘Indeed I know very well,’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘It was she who we once thought would have married Frank. Not that I am not perfectly satisfied with Frank’s wife. She is certainly nice, and suits him admirably, which of course is the great thing. But she had no money. And there was once a time when he saw a great deal of Miss Rich.’
‘She was quite a catch,’ said Mrs. Tracy,—a word which wounded Mrs. Renton’s ear.
‘I cannot say I looked upon it in that point of view; but the young people were thrown in each other’s way a great deal,’ Mrs. Renton said with some stateliness; and Millicent immediately rushed into the field.
‘I thought the Mr. Rentons had all arrived,’ she said, ‘and yet you are alone;’ and cast an angry glance at Mary, as if demanding of her where they were.
‘What has become of the boys?’ said Mrs. Renton, looking round her. ‘I have only just come down. The fact is, it is a very exciting day for them; we expect Mr. Ponsonby down immediately to read the will.’
Millicent and her mother exchanged glances. ‘Then the time is up?’ Mrs. Tracy said meditatively, and bent with increasing solicitude over the invalid on her sofa. ‘What a trial for you!’ she said, clasping her hand in sympathy. And Mrs. Renton raised to her eyes that said unspeakable things.
‘Ah! yes,’ she murmured; ‘but nobody thinksof me;’ and this balm of consolation was sweet to her heart.
They all came dropping in a few minutes later to luncheon, and Ben and Hillyard were among the first. ‘Ponsonby has not come by this train,’ said Ben, ‘but Frank is waiting at the station for the next.’ It was hard not to feel as if Frank was doing the rest an injury by waiting to have the first word with the lawyer; such, at least, was Mary’s instinctive feeling. But her heart was weighted now with a more painful anxiety still. She saw Ben give a brief, contemptuous glance at young Horsman, whose position was not a comfortable one, and her heart sunk. But then he turned away from Millicent,—avoided seeing her, indeed, in a curious, visible way, and that was a consolation. Mrs. Tracy, however, got up with effusion to shake hands with dear Mr. Renton, begging that she might have a good look at him, to see if he was changed. ‘Not at all changed,’ was her verdict. ‘Just the same generous face that once came to our help in our troubles. Mr. Renton, do you know I may say you saved my life?’
Then Millicent, too, rose, and, with a whole drama in her eyes, held out her hand to him. There was regret, remorse, and a tender appeal for pardon, and a sweet self-pity in those blue, shining eyes. They seemed to say, ‘Be kind to me! Be sorry for me! I am so sorry for myself!’ But it was hardto make out whether there was any answer in Ben’s looks. She stood so turned towards him, holding out her hand, that he had no choice but to draw near, and then she turned meaningly towards a vacant chair at her side. He could not have gone away without rudeness, and Ben was not disposed to be rude to anybody at such a moment of fate. He took the seat accordingly, though with grave looks, and then there came a gleam of triumph into Millicent’s eyes.
‘How curious we should have chanced to come here on this day of all others,’ she said, her voice sinking to its softest tones. ‘You told me of it the very last time we met; but, perhaps, Mr. Renton, you forget?’
‘Did I tell you of this?’ said Ben. ‘What a good memory you must have! but there are some things I do not forget.’
‘Ah! something unkind about poor me, Mr. Renton! but if you knew what I have had to go through since, you would not think anything unkind.’
‘I suppose we have all had a great deal to go through since,’ said Ben. ‘Seven years! it is a large slice out of one’s life; one’s ideas about most things change immensely in seven years.’
‘Do they?’ said Millicent, looking at him with soft, appealing eyes.
‘Very much,’ said Ben, with a smile; ‘so much that one looks back with amazement upon thefollies one has been guilty of. A man says to himself, “Is it possible I could have been such an ass?” Are ladies not subject to the same effect of time?’
‘No;—ladies are more constant,’ said Millicent. ‘When our thoughts have turned one way, it does not matter what happens, they always keep the same. We may be obliged to change in outward appearance. We are not so free as you gentlemen are. One’s friends or one’s circumstances sway one sometimes, but in the heart we never change,—not half, oh! not a quarter so much as you.’
‘That may be. I have no experience,’ said Ben.
‘But I have,’ said Millicent, ‘and I do so want to tell you. You know I never was very happy in my circumstances, Mr. Renton. Mamma is very kind, but she does not understand one’s feelings; and when she got me abroad, she had me all in her own hands. Yes, you are quite right about the change time makes. When I look back I cannot think how I could have done it. But I was so young, and so used to obey mamma.’
‘And a very laudable principle, I am sure,’ said Ben, with a polite little bow. ‘I beg your pardon—I thought I saw my brother and Mr. Ponsonby coming up the avenue. You were saying,—something about obedience,—I think?’
‘You do not think it worth while to listen to me,’ said Millicent.
‘Oh, yes, surely,—pray go on. I am full of interest,’ said Ben.
And then the poor creature looked at him with eyes which were pitiful in the eagerness of their appeal. She was a mercenary, wretched woman, ready to barter her beauty for comfort and wealth, and a fine house and a good position; and yet there was still in Mrs. Henry Rich the same redeeming possibility that there had been in Millicent Tracy. If he would have taken her out of that slough of despond, she would have been good, have made him a true wife, have grown a gentle lady, so far as it was in her. To the bottom of her soul Millicent felt this,—just as many a poor criminal feels that in other circumstances he would have been a model of all virtue. And for her the matter was not one without hope;—marriage to a woman may always be a new life,—and the seven years had not dimmed her eyes, nor taken the roses from her cheeks. And by those roses and bright eyes and lovely looks are not a woman’s fate determined continually? Again, it was her last hope. For though admiration was always sweet, yet to be troubled with a boy like this young Guardsman, was irksome to Millicent in her maturity. And to go through a round of such boys,—flattering, wooing them, being wooed,—good heavens! was this all that fortune had in store for a woman? Therefore she made one more effort before she yielded to fate.
‘You were more interested, Mr. Renton,’ she said, with soft reproach, ‘when we talked together last,—oh, so much more interested! If I did not know you so well, I could scarcely think it was the same.’
‘That is true,’ said Ben; ‘but you taught me some things, Mrs. Rich, and I profited by the lesson. I doubt whether but for your assistance I could ever have been the man I am.’
‘Ah! then I have at least something to do with you?’ said Millicent. ‘Come and tell me, will you? It is not like London, where one was always being interrupted. In the country there is so much time for talk.’
‘But I have no time,’ said Ben. ‘After to-morrow I shall probably go away again; and when I tell you I have profited by your instructions, I think that is all I have to say.’
‘You are angry with me because of,—because of,—poor Henry,’ said Millicent, with tears coming to her eyes. ‘But ah, Mr. Renton!—ah, Ben, if you only knew!’
Ben sprang impatiently to his feet. To him, as to any other generous man, it felt like a personal pang and shame to see a woman thus humiliate herself. He made a long step towards the window, with a flush on his face. ‘Here they come!’ he said, though at the moment he was not thinking much of their coming. And then there ensued asudden inevitable flutter in the family which affected the guests. Alice, who had been charitably talking to the Guardsman, jumped up with a little cry of excitement, and sat down again, ashamed of herself, but with all possibilities of conversation quenched out of her; and Mrs. Renton, whom Mrs. Tracy had been occupying to the best of her ability to leave Millicent free for her important interview with Ben, was suddenly overcome, and cried a little, lying back on her pillows. ‘Oh Ben, my dear! I don’t know how I am to bear it,’ she said, holding fast by her son’s hand. Laurie was the only one who was perfectly steady. He came forward immediately from the background, and raised his mother up, supporting her on his arm. ‘You will bear it beautifully, mamma, as you always do,’ said Laurie. ‘Come and give us our luncheon. You forget we are not alone.’
And he supported her into the dining-room, holding her hand caressingly in his. As for Ben, he turned and gave his arm to Millicent, ‘As if I had been a cabbage,’ she said afterwards, indignantly. None of her pathetic glances, not the soft little pressure of her hand upon his arm, gained the slightest response. His face was set and stern, full of thoughts with which she had nothing to do. Mrs. Tracy ventured to whisper as she followed, ‘Ah, how sweet it is to me to see you two together again!’ But Ben did not even hear what she said.He waved his hand to Mr. Ponsonby in the distance as he went across the hall. The beautiful face at his side had no more effect upon him than if it had been a hideous mask. He was absorbed in his own business, and careless of her very existence. Millicent, in her fury, could have struck him as he took her into the dining-room. Was this to be the end?
Itwas Hillyard’s behaviour at this meal which gained him the regard of the various members of the Renton family. He took such pains to attend to the strangers, and give to the agitated group the air of an ordinary party, that all of them who were sufficiently disengaged to observe his exertions felt grateful to him. Millicent sat next to Ben on one side, but Hillyard had placed himself between her and Mary Westbury on the other, and in all the intervals of his general services to the company Mrs. Rich had his attention, for which Mary blessed him. She herself, overcome by many emotions, was but a pale spectator, able to take little part in what was going on, saying now and then a languid word to the unfortunate Guardsman, but capable of nothing more except watching, which she did with a sick excitement beyond all description. Mary was so pale, indeed, and watchful and excited, that her mother was alarmed, and made signs to her across the table which she did not feel capable of understanding. ‘She will cry if she does not mind, and make a scene,’ Mrs. Westbury said to herself; and set it all down to the score of Ben, which was true enough, but not as she thought. As for Ben, he inclined his ear specially to Mrs. Tracy, who was at his other hand, and hoped she liked The Willows, and that her rheumatism was better, and a hundred other nothings. There was, it is true, nothing very remarkable about this party, looking at it from the outside. They were well-dressed people, gathered round a well-appointed table, getting through an average amount of talk, smiling upon each other like ordinary mortals; but yet underneath how different it was; Mrs. Renton was consoled, and ate her luncheon, sustained by her son Laurie’s attentions; but Mrs. Frank Renton trembled so that she could scarcely keep up the fiction of eating, and grew pale and flushed again six times in a minute, and nervously consulted the countenance of her husband, who, very silent and self-absorbed, drank his sherry, and more of it than he wanted at that hour, taking little notice of any one; then, at the other end of the table, there was Mrs. Tracy, hanging with ostentatious, artificial interest on every word uttered by Ben; and Millicent, very pale, with an excited gleam in her eyes, casting tender, wistful looks at him, which he never saw; and Hillyard talking enough for six, helping everybody, introducing a hundred indifferent subjects of conversation, whichran a feeble course half-way round the table and then died a natural death. Mrs. Westbury, one of the few people who was calm enough to remark upon the appearance of the others, concluded within herself that, after all, the strangers were a mistake. If the family party had been alone, their excitement would have been nothing beyond what was natural; but her own child, Mary, who ought at least to have been one of the calmest of the party, sat by that unhappy Guardsman pale as a ghost, once in ten minutes saying something to him, and looking as if she were about to faint; and all the others were equally under the sway of agitation and self-restraint. When this uncomfortable meal came to an end, everybody rose with an alacrity which showed how glad they were that it was over. And then there ensued another moment of supreme embarrassment. If the strangers had any sense of the position they would go away instantly, the family felt; but instead of that, Millicent moved at once to the upper end of the room, where there stood upon a crimson pedestal a bust of the last Benedict Renton, and humbly begged of Ben to explain to her who it was; and while the others stood about waiting, he had to follow and describe his grandfather, and fulfil the duties of showman, Mrs. Tracy rushing to join the group.
‘Benedict Renton—your name!’ Millicent said, with again another attempt upon his feelings, whileBen stood angrily conscious of the effort and contemptuous of the fooling, scarcely concealing his eagerness to be at liberty. ‘And this portrait, Mr. Renton? I can trace the family resemblance,’ said Mrs. Tracy. And all this while Mr. Ponsonby’s blue bag waited outside, and the family murmured, standing round in agonies of suspense to know their fate. Then once more Hillyard stood forth, vindicating his claim to be called Ben’s right-hand man.
‘Let me be cicerone,’ he said, ‘Renton, I know you are anxious to see to your business. Mrs. Rich will take me for her guide to the pictures for the moment. You know Mr. Ponsonby cannot wait, and you are losing time.’
‘If Mrs. Rich will excuse me,’ said Ben.
‘Oh, please don’t think of excuses; we can wait,’ said Millicent. ‘Mayn’t we wait to learn the news?’ and she clasped her hands softly, unseen of the bystanders, and gazed into his face. ‘Nobody,’ she murmured, lowering her voice, ‘can be more interested than I.’
‘So long as you can find anything to amuse you,’ said Ben, half frantic. ‘Hillyard, I confide it to you;’ and he had turned away, before any further dart could be thrown at him. Then there was a hurried consultation between Mrs. Renton and her sister-in-law. ‘I shall stay with them; never mind. Of course I am anxious too; but half-an-hour more or less don’t matter,’ Mrs. Westbury said, with thevoice of a martyr; and when Millicent looked round she found herself standing alone with her own special party, Hillyard at her right hand, and Mrs. Westbury, with a smile of fixed politeness, behind. Ben was gone. He had made no answer to her appeal,—he had shown no inclination to linger by her side. She had put forth all her strength for this grand finalcoup, and it had failed.
‘I don’t think Mr. Renton has improved in politeness in his travels,’ she said to Hillyard, unable altogether to restrain the expression of her despite.
‘He has not been in polite regions,’ said Hillyard; ‘and everything, you know, must give place to business, now-a-days, even the service of ladies. You must forgive him, when you consider what it is——’
‘I have nothing to do with him,’ said Millicent, angrily. ‘I hope I never shall have anything to do with so rude a man;’ and then she paused, thinking she had gone too far. ‘You know it is not a way to treat an old friend——’
‘Poor Renton!’ said Hillyard. ‘He is so unlikely to be any the better for this anxiety, you know,—that is the worst of it; and I don’t think he has any hopes to speak of. He has made all his arrangements for going back to his work——’
‘You don’t say so!’ cried Mrs. Tracy, with a look at her daughter. ‘And I can’t believe it!’ cried Millicent.
‘But I assure you it is true. No one can know better than I, for I go with him,’ said Hillyard; ‘all our arrangements are made. But let me show you the pictures. This was Sir Anthony Renton, who was a—Master in Chancery in Queen Elizabeth’s time,’ pointing to a respectable merchant in snuff-coloured garments of the days of Queen Anne. But the visitors cared nothing for the family portraits, and Hillyard’s last shaft had told. If Ben was unlikely to have Renton, it was of no use spending more trouble upon him. They consulted together hastily for a moment, and then they turned their backs upon the pictures. ‘I have the pleasure to wish you good morning, Mrs. Westbury,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘Since our friends are so much occupied we will take our leave. Pray give Mrs. Renton my best sympathies.’
‘It is to be hoped some one will get the money at the end,’ said Millicent, with less civility, sweeping towards the door. And thus the strangers were got rid of at last.
‘I flatter myself I did that,’ said Hillyard, with a chuckle of satisfaction. And then he, too, took his departure, and left Aunt Lydia free to join the party in the library, where the great revelation of the future fate of the family was about to take place.
The air of restrained excitement in this room was such that it would have communicated itself tothe merest stranger who had entered. It was a dark room by nature; and a cloud had just passed, as if in sympathy, over the brightness of the day. The window was open, and the blind beat and flapped against it in the wind, which was a sound that startled everybody, and yet that nobody had nerve enough to stop. Mrs. Renton had been placed in an easy chair near the vacant fireplace. Alice and Mary sat formally on two chairs against the wall; and the three brothers stood up together in a lump, though they neither spoke nor looked at each other. Mr. Ponsonby was seated at the writing-table, arranging his papers and holding in his hand a large blue envelope, sealed. There was complete silence, except now and then the rustle of papers, as the lawyer turned them over. The members of the family scarcely ventured to breathe. When Aunt Lydia entered they all turned round with a look of reproach; their nerves were so highly strung that the least motion startled them. In the midst of this silence, all at once Mrs. Renton began to sob and cry, ‘I feel as if you had just come home from the funeral!’ she said, with a wail of feeble grief. There was a little momentary stir at the suggestion, so true was it; and Alice, being at the end of her strength, cried too, silently, out of excitement. As for the brothers, they were beyond taking much notice of the interruption. They were now so much wiser, so much more experienced, since the day ofthe funeral, the last time they had all met together in this solemn way. Now they did not know what they were to expect: their confidence in their father and the world and things in general was destroyed. By this time it had become apparent to them that things the most longed for were about the last things to be attained. Had they been all sent away again for another seven years, or had the property been alienated for ever and ever, the brothers would not have been surprised. Whether they would have submitted, was a different question. Their opinions about many things had changed. Their unhesitating resolution to obey their father’s will seven years ago, without a word of blame, appeared to them now simple Quixotism. They were scarcely moved by their mother’s tears. He had done them harm, though they had been dutiful to him. He might now be about to do them more harm for anything they could tell. The uncriticising anxiety and expectation which filled the women of the party was a very different sentiment from the uneasy, angry anticipations of ‘the boys.’ Few dead men have ever managed to secure for themselves such a vigorous posthumous opposition. In short, he was not to them a dead man at all, but a living power, against which they might yet have to struggle for their lives.
Mr. Ponsonby looked round upon this strange company, with the big envelope in his hand andan excitement equal to their own. He looked at them all, after Mrs. Renton’s crying had been quieted, and cleared his throat. ‘Boys,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘I don’t know what’s in this any more than you do. He did it without consulting me. If it is the will of ‘54 that is here, it is all just and right; but if it is any new-fangled nonsense, like what I read to you here seven years ago, by the Lord I will fight it for you, die or win!’
This extraordinary speech, it may be supposed, did not lessen the excitement of the listeners. Alice crossed over suddenly to her husband, and clung to him, taking it for granted that disappointment and downfall were involved in these words. ‘Dear, if there is nothing for us, I shall not mind!’ she cried, gazing at Mr. Ponsonby with a kind of terror. ‘Quickly, please; let us wait no longer than is necessary,’ said Ben, with a certain peremptoriness of tone. Mr. Ponsonby had settled down in a moment, after this outburst, to his usual look and tone.
‘I need not trouble you with many preliminaries,’ he said; ‘you all remember how everything happened. He sent for me a week before his death, and gave me this,’ holding up the envelope, ‘and this letter, which I have also here. When I remonstrated his answer was, “If the one harms, the other will set right.” My own impression now is, I tell you frankly, that his mind was affected. Have patience one moment. Nothing in the shape of a will, evenin draft, was found among his papers, so that there is nothing whatever to set against this, or explain his intention. If it is that of ‘54 it is all right——’
‘No more!’ cried Ben; ‘let us know what it is at once.’
Then the lawyer tore open the envelope. Not a sound but the tearing of the paper and crackling sound of the document within was to be heard in the room, except one sob from Mrs. Renton, which seemed to express in one sound the universal thirst of all their hearts. Mr. Ponsonby rose up as he unfolded the paper; he stopped and gazed round upon them blankly, with consternation in his eyes. Then he opened the sheet in his hand, turned it over and over, shook out the very folds to make sure that nothing lurked within,—then caught up the torn envelope and did the same. And then he uttered an oath. The man was moved out of himself,—he stamped his foot unconsciously, and clenched his fist, and swore at his dead antagonist. ‘D—— him!’ he cried fiercely. This pantomime drove the spectators wild. When he held up the paper to them they all crowded on each other to see, but understood nothing. It was a great sheet of blue paper, spotless—without a word upon it. Mr. Ponsonby in his rage tossed it down on the floor at their feet across the table. ‘Take it for what it is worth!’ he shouted, almost foaming with rage. Frank, at whose feet itfell, picked it up, and held it in his hands, turning it over, stupid with wonder. ‘What does it mean?’ cried Ben, hoarsely. Surprise and excitement had taken away their wits.
‘Give it to me!’ said Mrs. Renton, from behind; and her son, upon whom the truth was beginning to dawn, threw it into her lap. It flashed upon them all at once, and a kind of delirium, fell on the party,—flouted, laughed at, turned into derision, as it seemed, by the implacable dead.
‘It means that there is no will. I have been keeping a blank sheet of paper for you,’ said Mr. Ponsonby bitterly, ‘for seven years.’
And then there was another pause, and they all looked at each other, too much bewildered to understand the position, as if the earth had been rent asunder at their very feet.
‘We never did anything to him to deserve this!’ said Laurie suddenly, with a voice of pain. ‘Is there no mistake?’
As for Ben, he said nothing. His eyes followed the gleam of the paper, which his mother was turning over and over in her helpless hands, as if the secret of it might still be found out. But by degrees his eyes lighted up. Almost unconsciously he made a step apart, separating himself, as it were, from the audience, placing himself by Mr. Ponsonby’s side as a speaker. There was a certain triumph in his eye. After all, he was but a man, like other men,and the heir; and his rights had been debated and questioned by everybody, himself included. There was a flush and movement of satisfaction about him,—a sudden warm blaze out of the absorbing disappointment, baffled hopes, and bitter resentment which were rising round him.
‘If there is no will,’ he said, with a deep flush on his face, and nervous gesture of his hand, ‘Renton is mine, as it ought to be. I am in my father’s place; and what has been done amiss, it is my place to undo. I cannot believe that there is any one here who doubts me.’
While he was speaking, Alice uttered a little cry. She had turned to him her white face, but without seeing him or any one. ‘Must we go back to India?’ she said, with a voice of anguish. That was the shape it took to the young pair. She was pale as marble, but Frank’s face was blazing red.
‘Hush, Alice!’ he said, fiercely; ‘that is our own affair.’
Ben made a movement towards them in his impatience. ‘I have told you you should not go back!’ he cried. ‘I am here in my father’s place to set all right.’
‘Stop a little,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, suddenly coming forward with a chair in his hand, which he placed in the midst of them, sitting down upon it, amid the agitated group. ‘You have not done with me yet. We have not come to such simple meansyet. Mrs. Frank, my dear, don’t be angry, and don’t give way to your feelings. Things are not so bad as you suppose. I lost my head, which is inexcusable in a man of my profession. It was a dirty trick of him, after a friendship of thirty years. My dear young people, sit down, all of you, and listen to me.’
No one made any change of position, but they all turned their eyes upon him with looks differing in intensity, but full of a hundred questions. Frank was defiant; Alice wild with despairing anxiety; Mrs. Renton crying; Laurie soothing her; Ben very watchful, eager, and attentive. Mr. Ponsonby, however, had entirely recovered his composure, which unconsciously had a calming effect upon them all.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I lost my head, which I had no right to do; but I am coming to myself. Now, listen to me. There is no will; and Ben from this moment is master of Renton, as he says. But stop a little. The personal property remains, which is worth as much as Renton. I don’t know what I could have been thinking of to forget that. After all, there is really nothing to find fault with but the look of the thing. The money has been accumulating these seven years;—it has been as good as a long minority;—and some of the investments have done very well. The land, of course, goes to the eldest son; but the personality, as some of you ought tohave known, is divided. It comes to just about the same thing. God forgive me if I said anything I ought not to have said in the excitement of the moment. It is shabby to me, but it won’t harm you, thank God! I lost my head, that was all, and more shame to me. The will of ‘54 would have come to much about the same thing.’
‘Oh, Mr. Ponsonby,’ cried Alice, with streaming eyes, thrusting herself, unconscious of what she was about, in front of them all; ‘tell me, will there be enough to keep us from going to India again?’
‘There will be twenty thousand pounds, or more,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘if you can live on that; and I could, for my part.’
Alice, like the lawyer, had lost her head. She was too young to bear this wonderful strain of emotion. She threw her arms about his neck in her joy, and wept aloud, while they all stood by looking on, with such feelings as may be supposed.
She was the only one who spoke. Her husband drew her back at this point, half angry, half sullen, with his disappointment still dark in his face. ‘You had better go,’ he said to her, almost harshly; ‘you have heard all that there is to be heard. It is best we should discuss the real business by ourselves.’
‘Yes, come along,’ said Laurie, ‘all you ladies. You have heard it is all right. You don’t want to hear the accounts, and all that legal stuff. We willmanage the business. I will take you back to your sofa, mother, now you know all’s right.’
‘But is it all right?’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘I don’t seem to understand anything. Ben, will you come and tell me? Have they all got their money,—all the boys? And what is Frank to have for his children? Till you have children of your own, it is his boy who is the heir. Laurie is always telling me it will come right. I would rather hear it from the rest. Oh, boys! your poor father meant it for the best.’
‘It is all right, mother,’ said Ben; ‘better than we thought.’
‘Ah, but Frank says nothing,’ said the mother. ‘I will not go away till I am satisfied about Frank.’
‘You heard Alice, I suppose,’ said Frank, somewhat sulky still. ‘I do think it is a shame there is no will; but if we are to have our shares, as Mr. Ponsonby says, I suppose, mother, it is all right.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Laurie. ‘Come, and I’ll see if the carriage is round for your drive. You know how important it is you should have your drive.’
‘Your dear papa always made such a point of it, Laurie,’ Mrs. Renton said, holding her handkerchief to her eyes, ‘or else I am sure I never could have the heart to go out on such a day.’
And thus the ladies were dismissed, and the brothers held their meeting, and settled their business by themselves. It would be vain to say that theywere satisfied. Frank, whose mind had been vaguely excited,—he could not tell why,—and to whom it had begun to seem inevitable that some special provision should have been made for the only one of the three who had ‘ties’ and a family to provide for, had experienced a most sharp and painful downfall. And it took him a long time to accustom himself to the idea that after all he was not wronged. It was a personal offence to him, as it had been to his wife, that Ben should look satisfied. ‘When he has Renton, I do not see the justice of Ben having his share of the money too,’ he said, with a little bitterness in his unreasonable disappointment. And Ben was half displeased to feel that it was not to be his magnanimous part to provide for his brothers, but that their own right and share remained to them as indisputably as Renton was his. His proposal was that they should return to the will of ‘54, of which Mr. Ponsonby still possessed the draft, and a great deal of discussion took place between them. It was half-past six o’clock before any of the party emerged out of the dark library, where they had spent between three and four hours. Mr. Ponsonby came out, declaring that he was tired and thirsty and half dead, and demanding sherry from the butler, who was preparing the table for dinner. They all went in and stood by the sideboard, and swallowed something to refresh themselves. ‘And, my dear boys, give me the satisfaction of hearing you say you arecontented,’ said Mr. Ponsonby, ‘before dinner comes on; for I should like to be jolly, if I may.’
‘I am perfectly satisfied,’ said Laurie; ‘and Ben is happy for the first time for some years. As for Frank, he must speak for himself; he has been dreaming, and it is sometimes unpleasant to wake up.’
‘If I have been dreaming, it was not for myself,’ said Frank; ‘a man with a family is so different from you fellows; but if it will be any satisfaction to you, I think I may say I am content, since better can’t be.’
And then he went up-stairs abruptly to dress. Alice had been waiting for him long, trembling a little, and not daring to believe anything till her authorised expositor of external events came to deliver the judgment to her. It did not seem right to Alice that Frank should not be the first in any distribution of prizes or honours. And yet she was not insensible to the claims of natural justice. ‘We should never have been able to give it up if it had come to us,’ she said to herself; ‘and it would have been contrary to all traditions of the family to disinherit Ben.’