He went out upon the borders of the heath, and looked down through the rain upon the distant lights, the smoke of great London lying spread out before him. Though he had been bred among women, and luxuriously cared for all his life, he was not without some knowledge of what existence was outside. And now, when he set himself to think of it, the prospect gave him a shiver. It was almost as discouraging, as dismal as the wet world upon which he looked. He had been called to the bar a few years before, and he had got one or two briefs, which had been a matter of much pride and amusement to the household. But this was a very different thing from living by his work. He tried to realise what the consequences would be of giving up the fortune of which he was aware he had thought lightly enough. If it was all he could do to put up with that feminine atmosphere now, in the midst of abundant space and the many pleasant engagements which relieved him from its monotony, what would it be when he was shut up with it in a few small rooms—when his only relaxation would be home, and his home still, in itsscantiness and impoverishment, the domain of Aunt Anna? There flashed before him a vision of one small sitting-room, with her chair in the chief place, her work occupying the table, her nerves affected by every sound, her quick ears catching every word that was said. Geoffrey felt himself able for other kinds of privation, for hard work if need was, for the resignation of most things that were pleasant in life—but when he thought of this his heart failed him. And there was no help for it. Anna had been the tyrant of her sister’s life as long as she remembered, and to withdraw from her now when she was poor would be impossible. To suffer is always possible; there is nothing in life so likely, so universally put up with—but to abandon those who have shared our lives is not a thing that can be done. It is a bond which the worst recognise, which it does not even require heroic virtue to be faithful to. To do it may be heroic, but not to do it is miserable. In prosperity Aunt Anna might by possibility—though by so distant a possibility that Geoffrey hitherto had always felt it hopeless—have been shaken off; but in trouble or poverty she would be the absolute sovereign of his life, and his mother would be her slave. As the young man stood with the rain beating in his face, seeing by times, as the blast permitted, the glimmer of the distant lights through the wet mist, he perceived and consented to this with a sort of desperation. He must work forthem both, he must hold by them both. He could never emancipate himself till he or they should die.
If, after this terrible realisation of what was before him, he looked upon the loss of the money with less composure, could any one be surprised? When he got home he went into his study, the room which was sacred to him, where he was free from all intrusion, where, however oppressive the domestic atmosphere might be, he could always escape from it, and feed himself alone. No such refuge would be his were he poor. He would have to sit and do his work at the same table where Aunt Anna spread out her beads and her wools, and worked her impossible, useless fancy work. Was it a duty, after all, to throw all his comfort, all that made life tolerable, at the feet of these two strangers? Geoffrey’s heart was rent in two. His way was no longer clear before him, but covered with doubt and darkness and bewildering clouds.
With all this there was a something unsaid which had glanced across his mind many times in the course of the afternoon—a compromise, a way out of the worst of the trouble, a new life—but he did not dare to think of that. He pushed it away forcibly from the surface of his thoughts.
“IT is pouring rain,” said Mrs Underwood, “and he will get his death of cold. Oh, how can boys be so incautious; and just when he has heard what comes of it! Poor Leonard! I have not had time to think of him yet, with all you have been saying; but when one thinks how well one knew him once, and that he was our own flesh and blood! And Geoff doing the same thing, the very same thing, in spite of such a warning!”
“You are insufferable,” cried Miss Anna; “hold your tongue, for Heaven’s sake. Do you think the man died, whoever he was, only to give a warning to your son?”
“I think nothing of the kind, Anna. Poor Leonard, there never could be anybody more sorry: and his poor wife, I am sure my heart bleeds for her: but Geoff ought to take example by him, all the same.”
“His wife?” Miss Anna said; and she laughed; “the wife of the man who left England thirty years ago with a broken heart. It has been on my mind ever since that I might have been kinder to him. I thought at first I had killed him.” She laughed again. “I might have saved myself the trouble.He is dead now of a wet night—a great deal more deadly a thing than a love rejected; and here are you maundering about his poor wife. His poor wife! I have no doubt she’ll marry again before the year’s out. It’s the way of the world.”
“It is not the way of all the world, Anna,” said Mrs Underwood. She would not make a direct claim of superiority on account of her faithfulness, but she drew up her head a little and sighed, with a look of conscious merit; at which Miss Anna laughed the more.
“That is true,” she said, “you’ve never married, Mary, nor wished to, I believe. You are a superior creature. I ought to have made an exception for you.”
“Not so superior as you think, Anna,” said the simple woman; “there is many and many another like me, that would not, could not—oh, no, no, for nothing in the world! Yes; I thought too that he never would have got over it, he was so devoted to you; but he was young; if you will remember, he was two years younger than——”
“Have done with these absurd recollections, Mary,” said her sister angrily; “I want to hear no more of him. He’s safely out of the way now at last; and there’s his—there’s these girls to deal with. If I had only been by myself and had all my wits about me I should soon have settled these girls; but I never have it in my power to act for myself. There was Geoff standing by with thoseglaring eyes of his—not that I am afraid of his eyes. They don’t know a single thing, these girls. If I had taken my own way I should have asked them here, and made much of them.”
“Oh, Anna, dear! I always said you had such a good heart!”
Miss Anna paused to look at her sister with contemptuous toleration. “Was any one talking of my good heart?” she said. “But, never mind, I should have taken them in—in every sense of the word. I would have been Aunt Anna to them. I would have packed them off to their mother with my love and a little present. To have to do with fools blunts the sharpest intellect. That is what I ought to have done. And it was all they wanted. To find their English relations, to get up a little sentiment; that was all they wanted; they have money enough; and they did not know a thing, not a thing! To think I should have missed my opportunity like that! A bit of china that would have got smashed on the voyage out, and our love; they would have written us gushing letters and talked of our kindness all their lives.”
Mrs Underwood, good woman, was puzzled. She did not understand what this meant. “If they had known you, Anna, I am sure they would have—loved you,” she said, faltering a little. This was not always the result of more intimate knowledge in Miss Anna’s case, but her sister hada robust faith. Miss Anna cast a contemptuous glance upon her, but it was not worth her while to argue.
“If it had not been for your son I would have done it,” she said; “what could have been more easy? If Geoff had been out in the world, as I always said he ought to have been, in chambers of his own, not tied to our apron-strings, out of my way——”
“Anna! you never said such a thing before! You have always said you liked to have him at home.”
“I like a man in the house,” said Miss Anna; “I don’t deny it. There is an advantage in having a man in the house, if he would hold his tongue and do what he is told; but as you have never known how to hold your own tongue about anything, Geoff understands all our affairs. What is the use of talking? I could have done it, but the opportunity is over. Now there is that little spitfire with her imagination all aflame. I should not wonder if she thought there was a dukedom dormant in the family, and a romantic vast estate that we are keeping from her; and Geoff with his ridiculous ideas and all that false nonsense about honour——”
“Geoff has no ridiculous ideas,” said his mother, flushed and tearful; “there is nothing false about Geoff. He is honour itself, and sense and judgment; and he is as true as the day—and——”
“Everything that is perfect, we all know.”
“I did not say that; he has his little faults, like all of us. He is a little hasty; he is perhaps too generous; but as for interfering with any kind thing you meant to do, Anna, you are mistaken, quite mistaken, my dear. Let me go and see them to-morrow; poor things, poor things! of course one wants to be kind to them. And to think that Geoff would have had any objection! For that matter,” the mother said, faltering a little, “he has always so many invitations; people are always asking him; he might go away upon a visit while they are here.”
“That is an idea,” said Miss Anna; “but no, things have gone too far now; besides,” she said with conscious malice, “that would balk me in one of my plans. If the worst comes to the worst we might marry him—to the youngest of them.”
Mrs Underwood sat bolt upright in her chair; the colour went out of her comely cheeks; her very voice failed her. “Ma—arry him!” she said with a gasp.
“They are both pretty,” said Miss Anna; “and especially the little one—the younger one. I saw him cast many a glance at her. Oh, I notice that sort of thing always. Though I never married like you, I was not without my experiences. And I think I know. It would not have wanted much on his side; and that would have saved your share of the money, which would always be something if the worst came to the worst.”
Geoff’s mother had become incapable of speech as this dreadful prospect was placed before her. She made a little movement with her hand, as if to clear it away.
“Geoff is thinking of nothing of the kind, Anna. Geoff—has his heart entirely in his home. He is just as simple-minded and as—pure-hearted as when he was a boy.”
“Dear me!” said Miss Anna, “I thought it was the height of purity and simplicity to marry early; I have always been told so. Some French young men, who you know are the types of everything that is improper, can’t be got to marry. But Geoff, being the best of good boys, of course will want to marry as soon as possible; and here is a capital chance for him. That was my plan, Mary—if the worst comes to the worst. If you have a better, of course I have nothing to say.”
Mrs Underwood sat all limp and downfallen, every line of her showing the droop of dismay and depression which her sister’s words, spoken in mere mischief—for the idea of Milly, though it had glanced across her mind, had gone no farther—had produced. “I——” she faltered, “Anna—I have got no plan. How should I have any plan? If they have a right to—the money, we shall have to give it up to them. And we will have to give up our pretty house, and live in—the poorest way. He says, Never mind, dear boy. He will work for us, he will never forsake us, Anna! Now you willsee what my Geoff is made of. He has the best heart; but it will be a dreadful change, a dreadful change for him—he that has been used to have everything he wanted all his life.”
“And you will rather let him fall into poverty, and be compelled to work, and have us two old women hanging upon him and cramping him—than save his share of the money for him and get him a nice young wife? That’s what mothers are! I have always said, when they made such a fuss about their children, it was themselves they were thinking of. Now, what concerns me,” said Miss Anna with only the malicious gleam in her eyes to contradict her dignified assumption of superior virtue, “what concerns me is Geoff’s real advantage, not the selfish wish of keeping him for ever at my side.”
Mrs Underwood’s countenance fell more and more. She looked haggard in the sudden severity of the conflict set up within her. “I—thinking of myself?” she said, almost weeping. But the accusation was too terrible to be met with mere tears, which are fit only for lesser matters. She gazed at her sister with large round eyes full of wretchedness. No crime in the world was so dreadful to her as this of thinking of one’s self; it is the thing of all others which cuts a virtuous Englishwoman to the heart. “For Geoff’s good, you know, you know, Anna,” she cried, “I would submit to anything. I wouldgo to the stake; I would give myself to be cut in pieces.”
“Nobody is the least likely to cut you in pieces, my dear,” said Miss Anna coolly. “The stake is not an English institution. It is easy to promise things that never will be asked from you. The question is, will you let Geoff be happy, poor boy, in his own way?”
“Happy!” the poor lady cried in a lamentable voice; but then her voice failed her, though a dozen questions rose and fluttered through her mind. Could Geoff be happy in abandoning his mother? Would he give her up for a bit of a girl who never could love him half so well? Was it possible that there was anything wanting to his happiness now, watched over and cared for as he was? She sat gazing aghast into the vacant air before her, suddenly brought face to face with a question which was far more serious even than the loss of the money. If the money was to be lost, Mrs Underwood felt in herself the power of enduring everything. To be housemaid and valet to Geoff would be, in its way, a kind of blessedness; it would knit the domestic ties closer. She would have more of her boy if they lived in a smaller space, in a poorer way; and with that happiness before her, what did she care for poverty? But her sister’s suggestion brought in an entirely different circle of ideas. She saw herself dropping apart from Geoff’s life altogether. He, happywith his young wife: she, set aside from his existence: and she looked at that visionary picture aghast. To be cut in pieces was one thing, to stand aside and let him go away from her was another. Was it all selfishness, as Anna said?
“I see I have startled you,” said Miss Anna; “but it is too late for anything now; that eldest girl is not to be taken in. She will fight it out; she will drag us through the mire. Never mind, it was Geoff’s fault, and Geoff will have to bear the brunt. But you will be able to keep him to yourself, and that will be a consolation,” she added with a sneer. “Never mind what he has to put up with as long as you can keep him to yourself: that is everything to you, I know. And there’s the dressing bell, Mary. We must have our dinner, whatever happens,” Miss Anna said.
But Mrs Underwood, poor lady, did not have much dinner that day. She came down to the meal in her pretty cap, but it was a haggard countenance that showed beneath the lace. She could not talk nor eat, but sat mute at the head of the table choked with natural tears. To Geoffrey, who had come in hungry and full of thought from his wet walk, there seemed nothing wonderful in his mother’s woebegone condition; it chimed in with the tone of his own thoughts. To some certain extent she would feel for him, she would sympathise with him, though even she could never know the whole extent of the sacrifice he would be calledupon to make. The dinner was a very silent one. Miss Anna tried a few sallies of her malicious observation, but in vain. The others were too much depressed to take any notice, even to resent them. The old butler made his solemn rounds about the table with a gradual increase of curiosity at every step. Whatever was the matter? the worthy servant asked himself. He was a north-countryman, and knew a little about the family history; but an unfortunate chance had taken him out at the moment when the strange visitor arrived who had caused so much commotion in the house a fortnight since. The twilight hour, when it was too late for visitors (as he chose to think) was Simmons’ hour for taking a little walk, sometimes to the post, sometimes to the fishmonger’s, who had a way of forgetting. He had missed the young ladies too, of whom the housemaid had told such stories downstairs. But he saw there was “summat up,” and he bent the whole powers of his mind, as was to be expected, to make out what it was. When Miss Anna’s speeches met with no response she turned to Simmons, as she had a habit of doing when she was in want of amusement. “Did you hear any news when you were out for your walk?” she said. “If it were not for Simmons I should know nothing about my fellow-creatures. You never bring in a word of gossip from year’s end to year’s end, Geoff; and what is the use of a man with a club to go to every day if he never bringsone any news? Simmons, you are a person with a better sense of your responsibilities. Tell me something that is going on outside. What’s the last news in Grove Road?”
“There is no news, Miss Anna, as I am aware of,” said Simmons, coughing a little behind his hand by way of prelude. “There is nothink that is of any consequence;” and then he began to tell of the gentleman at No. 5, whose conduct troubled the entire neighbourhood. Miss Anna had an eager interest in everything that was going on. She asked about the gentleman at No. 5 as if she had no greater interest in life. Her beautiful eyes sparkled and shone with eagerness. All the details about him were acceptable to her. A spectator would have vowed that she never had known a personal anxiety in her life.
Geoff sat late that night thinking over all that had happened and was going to happen. He had begun to ask himself what he could do to make a little money, and the answer had not been a satisfactory one. It is very common in novels, and even in society, to represent every young man who is without occupation as doing literary work and finding it always ready to his hand. And, naturally, Geoff thought of that among other things. But he did not know what to write about, nor to whom to take his productions if they were written. He knew what he had learned at school and at Oxford, but he did not know very much else.Classics and philosophy are very excellent things, but it is hard to make money of them immediately, save by being a professor or a schoolmaster, which were occupations Geoff did not incline to and was not fitted for. He did not understand much about politics; he was not deeply read in general literature; he had no imagination of the creative sort. In short, like a great many others, though he had all the will in the world to embrace the profession of literature, which seems such an easy one, he did not know how to do it; and to hope to support his mother and her sister upon the few briefs which he was likely to get was ridiculous. As well attempt to support them by sweeping chimneys. He reflected with a doleful smile that even that required, if not special aptitude, at least special training, of which he had none. He was thinking of this drearily enough long after the rest of the household had, as he supposed, gone to bed, and all was still.
Suddenly his door creaked a little, softly opened, and his mother stole in. She was dressed in an old-fashioned dressing-gown, of what was then called a shawl pattern, with a muslin cap on her head tied round with a broad black ribbon. She had been going to bed, but had not been able to go to bed without a little reconciliation and kind good-night to her boy. “Did we quarrel, mother? I did not know it,” he said.
“Oh, quarrel, Geoff! we never quarrelled in ourlives. You have always been the best of sons, and I hope I have always appreciated you. I couldn’t go to bed, my darling boy, if there was the least little thing between me and you.”
“But there is nothing, mother,” he said, caressing the hand she had laid upon his.
“Yes, there is something; I could not rest for thinking of it. Oh, is it true, my darling, is it true that you want to be—married? If you had that in your mind I would never stand in your way, you may be sure never, whatever it might cost me. What is my happiness but in seeing yours, my boy? I would never say a word. I would give up and go away; oh, not far, to vex you, only far enough not to be spying upon you and her; to leave you free, if you are sure it is really, really for your happiness, my own boy.”
“Mother!” cried Geoff, staring at her, “I think you must have taken leave of your senses. I—marry? at such a moment as this?”
“Anna thinks it would be the only thing to do. She thinks, Geoff, she says, it is—the youngest of the two.”
Here Geoff, unable to quench entirely the traitor in him, blushed like a girl, growing red up to his hair under his mother’s jealous eyes. “This is mere folly,” he said, trying to laugh. “Why, I have only seen her twice.”
“Sometimes that is enough,” Mrs Underwood said mournfully. “Things look so different at mytime of life and yours. I dare say you think it is very fine to fall in love at first sight; but oh, when you think of it—on one side those that have loved you and cherished you all your life, on the other somebody you know nothing about—that you have only seen twice!”
“My dear mother,” the young man said. He made this beginning as if he intended to follow it up with a warm disclaimer and protestation of his own superiority to any such youthful delusion. But when he had said these words he stopped short suddenly and said no more.
His mother had her eyes fixed upon him, anxiously expecting to hear something in his defence; but when he thus broke down, and it appeared that he had no plea at all, no justification to offer, her heart sank within her. She stood by him for a minute waiting, and then she put her hand tremblingly upon his shoulder. “Have you nothing to say to me, Geoff?”
“I don’t know what you would like me to say, mother,” he replied somewhat impatiently. “What you are speaking of is preposterous. What might have happened in happier circumstances I can’t tell—but that I should think of marrying anybody just now, and above all one of the people whose fortune we have taken from them——”
“Geoff! we never meant to take anybody’s money. We never dreamt that it was not our own; we don’t know even yet,” said his mother, faltering.
“No; we don’t know even yet; and perhaps I am wrong in urging you to a decision. Perhaps we ought to wait and see what evidence there is. It is a hard thing to contemplate, anyhow, mother.”
“Oh, my dear! very hard, very hard! and if it separates you from me!”
“I do not see how it can do that in any case,” he said coldly. It chilled him to think that her chief terror in the matter was lest there should be any opening of happiness to him in it. It was preposterous, as he had said; but still, was that the chief thing she feared—that he should have a life of his own, that he should be happy? It made him recoil a little from her. “Go to bed, mother; there is nothing that need disturb your rest, at least for to-night.”
She would have stayed and questioned and groped into every corner of his heart, if she could, and protested that it was for him, not herself, that she feared anything; but Geoff was not so tractable as usual to-night. He opened the door for her, and kissed her and bade her good-night with something like a dismissal. Then Mrs Underwood perceived by a logic peculiar to herself that Anna was right, and that her worst fears were true.
DR BREWER came in upon the girls that same evening somewhat abruptly. He was a busy man, with little time to spare, and he thought his sudden arrival like a gale of wind was a good thing for them in the languor of their grief; but there was no languor about them as he found them. The table was covered with papers, dispatch boxes, and writing materials. Grace had turned out all the contents of her father’s boxes, and was gathering together and examining every scrap of written paper, while Milly, with a pen in her hand, obediently wrote down the description of each. One little pile of business papers had been put by itself; letters were lying open, innocent little account books, memoranda of all kinds. It was like a man’s mind turned inside out, with all its careless thoughts, and those futile recollections of no importance which stick fast in corners when all that is worth remembering fades away. The doctor was astonished by the sight, and alarmed as well. He knew that the scrutiny of a couple of innocent girls innocently spying thus into every recess of the thoughts, even of the most virtuous of men, might not be desirable.
“Hallo!” he cried, “you are so very busy, I fear I am an intruder. Is this necessary, do you think? Would it not be better to take all these things home?”
“Oh, doctor, you are our only friend—you can never be an intruder,” cried Grace. “Yes, we intended to take everything home; but something has happened since—something that makes every scrap important. We are obliged to do it. It is for the sake of the children!”
“You are giving yourselves a great deal of pain, and you have had enough already,” he said, seating himself at the table between them. “My dear young ladies, you are sure I don’t want to interfere in your family affairs; but I feel responsible to your poor mother for you.”
“What does it matter about us? Dr Brewer, we have made a great discovery to-day!”
“I heard you were out,” he said. “I was very glad to hear that you had been out—a little change is what you want. A great discovery! Well, so long as it is a pleasant one——”
“I don’t know whether it is a pleasant one or not.”
“You shall have my opinion if you will trust me with this important secret,” said the doctor, smiling. He was a man with daughters of his own. He knew the exaggerations, the excitements of youth; and he was very tender of these fatherless children. His friendly countenance, the very breadth andsize of the man was a support to them, as they sat slim and slight on either side of him. But when he said this, they looked at each other with that look of consultation which had amused him so often. The doctor thought it was an unnecessary formula on the part of Grace, who always had her own way; but he liked her the better for thus consulting the silent member of their co-partnership before she spoke. To his surprise, however, that silent member returned a glance of meaning—a sort of unspoken veto upon the intended disclosure.
“We have been to the place where papa was when he caught his cold—the same place; and in the same way.”
Here again little Milly, shy and acquiescent as she was, signalled her disapproval. “Don’t,” she seemed to say, with those soft lips which never before had expressed anything but concurrence. The spectator was much more interested, perversely, than if the sisters had been as usual in perfect accord.
“Then you have found your relations?” he said.
“We don’t know if they are relations. Yes, I think so; we had the strangest reception. Doctor, I don’t know how to tell you. We are sure there is something underneath—an inheritance, of which papa has been cheated, which we, or rather our Lenny, is the right heir of. I suppose suchthings are quite common in England?” cried Grace, full of excitement. “You will be able to tell us what people do?”
“An inheritance!” the doctor said, amazed. And then he laughed a little, and shook his head. “No, my dear child, I don’t think such things are at all common in England. They happen in novels, but not anywhere else, so far as I know.”
This disconcerted the girls for a moment. For to be told that your own story is like a novel is always disagreeable, and throws an air of contempt upon the sternest facts. “It does not matter,” said Grace shortly, “however much it may be like a novel, it is nevertheless true. We found the address in papa’s letter case—nothing but the address—and we felt sure that was where he had gone, to see old friends, he said. We went there this afternoon thinking we too, perhaps, might find friends, or at least hear something about that last visit. We were received by the strangest, beautiful old lady—oh, she was like a novel if you please!—who would have nothing to say to us. But the others,” said Grace, getting somewhat confused, “acknowledged that there was some one who had gone to see them that day, Tuesday, and had left in the rain—who was a relation—who was—or, at least, they said, pretended to be. Only it was quite a different name.”
Dr Brewer held up his hands to stop this broken flood of disclosure. “Stop a little, and take me with you,” he said. “A beautiful old lady—andthe others who said—but it was quite a different name. Now, tell me what all this means.”
Then they both began to talk together explaining to him. “There was one lady, and her son, who were very kind,” Milly said.
“She told us it was an impostor or a madman who had come, and said he was—somebody,” cried Grace; “but thatthatperson had died long ago; and that our father was far more respectable; and that we could raise a great law-suit if we liked; but the others said if we werehisdaughters, it would make a great difference—oh, a very great difference to them.”
“But they were very kind, and kissed us, and promised to come and see us,” cried Milly, breathless, coming in again at the end.
“This is a very curious story,” said Dr Brewer. “I don’t pretend to understand it very well, but so far as I can make out—— What was the name? Of course there are family quarrels now and then, and sons who bring a great deal of trouble upon everybody——”
“That could never be the case with papa,” cried Grace proudly; “I am sure he must have been wronged.”
“Many an excellent man has been foolish in his youth,” said the doctor; “we must not take things too solemnly. If you will tell me the name, perhaps I may recollect if it has figured in the papers.”
Here both the girls were up in arms. They confronted him with flaming eyes, and a blaze of anger.
“Doctor, I think you don’t understand at all! If you think our dear father, whom we have just lost,”—and here Grace’s voice wavered, and Milly dried her eyes—“was likely to do anything that would be in the papers——”
“Why, my dear children,” cried the doctor, “how unreasonable you are! Of course, he was in the papers a hundred times over. A man of note in his community—a public man with letters to the Colonial Secretary, and who entertained the Prince, as you told me yourselves——”
Here they looked at each other again, and blushed at their mistake.
“Yes, to be sure,” said Grace. “Dr Brewer is right, and we are silly. I was thinking of something else.”
“Probably, for instance,” said the doctor, “there were advertisements in what people call the agony column, entreating him to go home. You don’t know the agony column? Oh, it is very easy to laugh; but there are sometimes appeals there that remind one of sad stories one has known. A doctor, you know, hears a hundred stories. What was the name?”
Once more that consulting look, and once more a blush of excitement tinged with real diffidence, and a little embarrassment of shame. They couldnot bear to think of a name which was fictitious, of anything that was untrue about their history. “You know,” said Grace, hesitating, feeling for the moment as if no inheritance, not even an old castle or even a title, which had vaguely glanced across her mind as a possibility, could make up for this falsehood—“you know, we are not at all sure that it was papa. He never mentioned anything of the kind, nor did we ever hear it before. The name was Crosthwaite. It is not pretty; it is an odd name.”
“Crosthwaite—Crosthwaite: where have I heard it? It is not pretty, as you say; it is a north-country name, Yorkshire perhaps, or—where did I hear it? Ah, I remember, some one had been making inquiries down-stairs.”
“It was Geoffrey,” cried Milly unawares: and then blushed more deeply than she had hitherto blushed either for shame or anger, and caught herself up, and drew back a little, in embarrassment which did not seem to have any adequate cause.
“Then you know the people?” the doctor said in surprise.
“We know only their Christian names,” Grace, somewhat startled too, explained eagerly to cover her sister. “The son is Geoffrey, and the old lady is Miss Anna.”
“Bless me!” cried the doctor, “this is very peculiar. Oh! but you said there was anotherlady—a lady and her son? Yes, yes, I see—a Mrs Somebody—and this Miss Anna.”
“Mrs Underwood,” Grace said.
Dr Brewer’s surprise grew more and more. “I know a Geoffrey Underwood,” he said, “a young barrister—a very nice young fellow. To be sure! he belongs to two ladies who live up Hampstead way. This is very curious. He is an excellent young fellow. He will tell me at once what the mystery is—if there is any mystery; but, my dear young ladies, I am afraid your romance will come to nothing if Geoffrey Underwood is in it; for you may be sure he is not a young fellow to lend himself to any bad business. Your beautiful old lady may be cracked, you know; she must be off her head—a harmless lunatic perhaps. I very much disapprove of it,” said the doctor, with professional warmth; “entirely, in every way—but still there are people who, out of mistaken kindness, insist upon keeping such cases at home—a thing that never ought to be done.”
Grace had listened with some dismay, feeling her house of cards tumbling about her ears. “She was not insane, if that is what you mean. They were afraid of her. She was the one who talked the most. I am sure she was not insane; and then Mrs Underwood, too—you remember, Milly?—she said, ‘If it is so we are relations;’ and then her son, he said, ‘It will make the greatest difference to us all.’”
“He said so? then perhaps after all there is something in it,” said Dr Brewer. The doctor began to look serious. “One can never understand the outs and ins of a family. So many people that have a good deal of money to leave make foolish wills. It may be something of that kind. Bless me! poor young Underwood, a fine young fellow. It will be hard upon him. You must excuse me if I see both sides of the case,” he added gravely; “young Underwood is——” and here he came to a dead pause.
It would be impossible to imagine anything more uncomfortable than the sensations of these two girls. They were silent for a little, and nothing was said round the table except a faint sound from the doctor of concern and sympathy, accompanied by the shaking of his head. Grace burst forth at last, unable to restrain herself.
“But, doctor, if it belongs to us rightfully, if it ought to come to my brother Lenny—a family estate.—I don’t know what it is—perhaps something that has belonged to us for hundreds and hundreds of years, perhaps something that would change his position altogether, and make him somebody of importance: is it not my duty to stand up for my brother, to get him whatever he has a right to—although other people may have to suffer?” the girl cried, with passion.
Milly by this time began to cry quietly, with herhands over her face; and Grace stood alone, the champion of the family rights.
“Yes, yes,” the doctor said—“yes, yes; of course everybody should have their rights; other people must always be a secondary consideration.” He added, after a moment’s pause, “But don’t take up any false ideas about family estates. Young Underwood is sufficiently well off, I have always heard. He has had a good education. I don’t suppose he makes very much money by his profession, so he must be able to live without that. But his people are very quiet people. They live quite out of the way; they are scarcely in society at all. Dismiss from your mind all idea of hereditary estates or important position. All the same, money in the funds is very nice—when there is enough of it.”
“Money in the funds!” said Grace, her countenance falling; while Milly took one of her hands from her face, and looked over the other like a sort of woebegone and misty Aurora from behind the clouds.
“Nothing more romantic than that, I fear,” said Dr Brewer; “but that’s a very good thing, a very nice thing. No, life in England is not romantic to speak of; it’s a very businesslike affair. If people have enough to live on, it doesn’t trouble them very much how it comes. Land is dear. It’s very nice if you have enough of it, but it’s an expensive luxury. You get better percentage for your money even in the funds—and no risks.”
“But, perhaps,” said Grace, “as—Geoffrey—is not the right heir—it might be something different. Perhaps if it came back to the old family there might be something more. Sometimes—things pass away, don’t they, when it is not the direct line?”
“Peerages?” said Dr Brewer with a laugh. “Oh, yes; but I never heard of property going astray. Money must find its level, you know; it must go somewhere; it cannot just be spilt upon the earth like water and made an end of. It must turn up somewhere. When a man dies intestate, I believe his money goes to the Queen; which is hard, I have always thought. If it were divided among the poorest of his neighbours it would be more sensible. Sometimes a title drops by reason of a failure in the direct line. But I don’t suppose you thought——” Here he stopped short, and gave vent to a sudden laugh. “I do believe, my poor dear girl, that this is what was in your mind——”
“I never said there was any such thing in my mind,” said Grace, growing crimson. She felt as if she could have sunk into the earth. She had nothing to say to defend herself, except this simple denial, and to hear the doctor laugh was terrible. He laughed so frankly, as at the most apparent nonsense. The girl did not know what to do. Was she such a fool as he thought?
“It is very romantic,” he said; “but I fear,Miss Grace, in modern days such things happen very rarely. Life was a great deal more picturesque in the past. Now people are very thankful for such small mercies as money in the funds.”
Grace made no reply. She too felt very much disposed to cry; it seemed cruel that anybody should laugh at them in their circumstances, in their deep crape. The sound of laughter even was out of place in the room from which so lately the chief inhabitant had gone. She felt herself hurt, as well as ashamed, by being made the cause of merriment; and even little Milly, though she had not agreed with her, uncovered her little tearful face, and was indignant in Grace’s cause.
“I don’t think there is so much to laugh at, Dr Brewer,” Milly ventured to say. “You were not there to see what happened. You would have thought it very, very important if you had seen how they looked, and heard what they said.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the doctor, “was I unmannerly? I didn’t mean to be. Why we should laugh at simplicity I cannot tell, but everybody does. I have not the least doubt it was a most natural mistake.”
Simplicity! when everybody had always thought her so sensible, so superior to all delusions. Grace shrank back into herself. She would scarcely reply to any further questions.
“But, you know,” Dr Brewer said, with great gravity, “it is no laughing matter. Where thereis a question of taking their living from another family, you must be very sure of your facts. It is such a hard case that a jury would give every advantage of a doubt to the people assailed. It would prefer to see what they did in the very best light. There would be a prejudice against the claimants, however muchdans leur droitthey might be. The evidence would have to be very exact, as clear as daylight. Any lawyer would tell you this. He would tell you, if your evidence was not beyond question, to accept, or even offer, a compromise. Such things are of every-day occurrence. You may have a strong case, but if you can’t support it, and make it all as distinct as clockwork, they will suggest a compromise. Have you found anything among these papers to support the claim you are intending to make?”
“No.”
“You say your father never spoke about it, never referred to his former name; gave you not the slightest hint of any rights of his in England?”
“No.”
“In short, you have no proof at all?” the doctor said.
“Not any, that we know of,” said Grace.
She sat, dogged and obstinate, answering only in monosyllables, or with as few words as possible, sitting bolt upright against the high back of her chair. Her heart had sunk, and her confidencewas failing her; but she would not yield, or at least seem to yield.
“That is not very hopeful,” said Dr Brewer, “any lawyer would tell you. But you are determined, notwithstanding, to make out your case?”
“Yes,” said Grace.
She no longer felt amiably disposed towards the doctor. He had cast down her dream-castle; he had represented her to herself as a vulgar money-seeker; he had overthrown all her romantic hopes of gaining advancement for her family, and making of Lenny a pattern English gentleman, perhaps nobleman. She saw now what a slender foundation she had built it all upon; but as nothing in the world would ever make Grace give in, she hardened herself over her inward confusion, and stood like a rock though her heart was quaking. The doctor made two or three sharp little speeches; but he was half-angry, too, that the girls upon whom he had been spending so much feeling should be so impervious to his influence. He got up hurriedly at last, and said something about still having some patients to see, though it was getting late.
“Good-night,” he said. “I should say I would be glad to do anything I could to help you, if I did not think you were embarking upon a most perilous undertaking. I think, permit me to say so, you should take your mother’s advice first.”
“I shall do nothing mamma will disapprove of,” said Grace; and she parted with stateliness fromthis friend who had been the only one to succour them in their trouble.
As for Milly, she was very deprecating and tearful as she held out her two hands to him. “Do not be angry!” she said with her beseeching eyes. It was all the doctor could do not to stoop down and kiss this peace-maker as he went away. He had thought her a little nobody at first, but he did not do so now. “I declare she is as like Laura as one flower is to another,” he said to himself as he went down-stairs. Now Laura was the doctor’s favourite child—and what more could be said?
When he was gone, Grace returned to her previous occupation with her father’s papers; but her heart was gone out of her search. “We might have asked him at least to recommend some lawyer to us,” she said, which was the only observation she made to Milly on the subject. Milly, indeed, was dismissed altogether from the employment she had been trusted with before Dr Brewer came in. Grace continued to look over the papers, to put one on this heap, and the other on that; but she no longer required Milly’s pen to write down and describe what each was. For at least an hour they sat silent, the younger sister looking wistfully on, the elder rustling the papers, bending over them with puckers of careful consideration over her eyes, affecting to pause now and then to deliberate over one or another. At length Grace gathered them all together, with a sudden impatient movement,and, putting them back into the despatch-box, concluded suddenly without any warning by an outburst of tears.
“To think,” she cried, when Milly, greatly alarmed, yet almost glad thus to recover her sister, hurried to her—“to think that we should be going over all these things that were his private things just the other day—not for love, or because it was necessary, but for business, and about money! Oh, how hard we are, how heartless, what poor wretched creatures! I could not have believed it of myself.”
“Dear,” said Milly, soothing her, “it is because everything is so strange; and to do anything is a little comfort; and for the children’s sake.”
“I wish now,” said Grace, with her head upon her sister’s shoulder, “that we had telegraphed at once to mamma.”
“Perhaps it would have been better,” said Milly; “but you thought it would be so dreadful for her, without any warning.”
Grace wept less bitterly when this instance of her own self-denial was suggested to her. “It is so long to wait—so long to wait,” she cried. And then a sense of their desolation came over them, and the two forlorn young creatures clung to each other. Their nerves were overwrought, and they were able for no more.
THERE was not very much more happiness under the roof of the house in Grove Road. Geoffrey, as has been said, sat half the night through in his study, with his head in his hands, pondering vainly what he ought to do. Though he said to himself that it was only just that they should produce their proofs, that they should establish their claim before anything was done, he jumped at the conclusion all the same, and took it for granted that the claim would be established, and that his own fate was certain. And after that what was he to do? He was as confused, as down-cast as ever, when, in the middle of the night, he made his way through the darkness of the sleeping house and went to bed, but scarcely to rest. His mother, whose thoughts also had kept her awake, and who had cried, and pondered, and dozed, and started up to cry and doze again, heard him come up-stairs, and with difficulty restrained herself from going to him, to see that he was warm in bed, and had taken no harm from his vigil. She did not do it, fortunately remembering that Geoff was not always grateful for her solicitude; but her fears lest he should have cold feetmingled with and aggravated her fears lest he should fall in love, and marry and go from her—and altogether overshadowed her concern about their fortune and the chances that their money might be taken from them. Miss Anna, on her side, was wakeful too. That is, she lay among her pillows in profoundest comfort, with the firelight making the room bright, and candles burning in dainty Dresden candlesticks at her bedside, and one or two favourite books within reach, and turned everything over in her active mind, until she had decided what course to pursue. Not one detail of all the luxury round her would Miss Anna part with without a struggle. She was determined to fight for her fortune to the very last; but if there was any better way than mere brutal fighting, her mind was ready to grasp it and weigh all its possibilities. She, too, heard Geoff, so late, a great deal too late, come up-stairs to bed, but only smiled at it somewhat maliciously, not without an enjoyment of the uneasy thoughts which no doubt had kept him from his rest, and no concern whatever about his cold feet. She lay thus, with her eyes as wakeful as the stars, till she had concluded upon her plan of action. As soon as she had done this she carefully extinguished the candles in an elaborate way of her own, so that there might be no smell, turned round to the fire, which had ceased to flame, and now shot only a ruddy suppressed glow into the curtained darkness—and shutting her eyes fell asleep like a baby.But even she, the most comfortable in the house, was far outdone, it need not be said, by the two poor young agitators in the hotel who had filled Grove Road with so many anxieties and cares. Hours before, Grace and Milly, crying and saying their prayers in one breath, had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, and knew no more about their troubles nor about the possibilities before them, nor anything else in the world, till the morning sunshine awoke them after eight long hours of perfect repose.
Miss Anna never appeared down-stairs till mid-day. She had enjoyed a great deal of bad health since she had ceased to be a young woman and queen of hearts. Latterly it had settled into rheumatism, which had made her a little lame, and justified a great deal of indulgence. Her attendants said that even this she could throw off when occasion required. But there could be little pleasure, one would imagine, in making-believe to be lame. Her general delicacy, however, gave rise to a hundred necessities which people in health manage to dispense with. Mrs Underwood and her son had eaten a troubled breakfast long before her dainty meal was carried into her daintier chamber, and she returned to wakeful life under the influence of fragrant coffee and delicate roll, and some elegant trifle of cooked eggs or other light and graceful food. We say cooked eggs with intention,for boiled eggs, or even poached eggs, were vulgarities which Miss Anna would not have tolerated. She ate her pretty breakfast while her sister went through her household duties with a heavy heart, and Geoffrey took his way to town, striding along through the muddy streets, for it had rained all night. A little before noon she sent for Mrs Underwood, who came up with a somewhat haggard countenance, ready to cry at a moment’s notice, and with a cap which, in sympathy with her condition of mind, had got awry, and had greatly tried the nerves of the cook, who had a strong sense of humour, and felt her inclination to laugh almost too much for her. This was the first thing Miss Anna remarked when her sister came into the room. She uttered a suppressed shriek of horror.
“Did you give poor Geoff his breakfast with a cap like that upon your head? Good gracious! and then you think it wonderful the poor boy should want to marry and have a trim, neat little wife of his own.”
“What is the matter with my cap?” cried Mrs Underwood in alarm, putting up her hands and naturally making bad worse. She almost wept with vexation when she saw herself in one of the many mirrors. “Why didn’t somebody tell me?” she said piteously, with dreadful thoughts of Geoff’s disgust, and of the comparison he mustbe making between that trim, neat little wife and a mother with her cap awry.
“Set it right now, and come and sit down here,” said Miss Anna.
There could not have been a greater contrast than between these two sisters. One of them seating herself, timid and anxious, by the bed, with no confidence either in her own judgment or in her powers of understanding, or capability of satisfying her imperious critic and companion—her anxious little mind on tip-toe of troubled solicitude to catch what Anna should mean, which was always somewhat difficult to her; while the other, with all her wits about her, seeing everything, noticing everything, lay amid her luxurious pillows and laughed at her sister’s agitation.
“I wish I could take things as easily as you do, Anna—oh, I wish I could take them as easy!” Mrs Underwood said.
“You were always a goose,” was Miss Anna’s remark; but she took the trouble to push aside her curtain and to draw close to the chair at her bedside on which the other sat, before she unfolded to her the plan she had formed—which Mrs Underwood received with great surprise and many holdings up of her hands and wondering exclamations.
“Why, it was just what I thought I ought to do,” she said. “It was all in my head, every word. I made it up in my mind to say to them, ‘Annamay be against you, but you will never find me against you; and as the house is mine, and I have a right to ask whom I like——’ ”
“Stick to that,” said Miss Anna with a laugh. “It was very impertinent and treacherous of you to think of saying it out of your own head; but now that we have settled it together, stick to that—it is the very thing to say.”
“I don’t see how you can call it impertinent, Anna: and treacherous!—me—to you! I have always been true to you. I can’t think how you can say so. But it is true: the house is mine, however you please to put it. It was left to me expressly by dear papa. Of course, he made sure you would marry; and me a widow with one dear child, it was so natural that he should leave it to me. It will be all we shall have,” she added with a sigh, “if this dreadful thing comes true.”
“It will never come true if you play your cards well, Mary. You have got it all in your hands,” Miss Anna said, “and it will be a fine thought for you that you have saved your family: though you never thought a great deal of your own powers—I will do you that justice.”
Mrs Underwood shook her head. “My own family—that is, my boy,” she said.
“So it is,” said Miss Anna. “Of course I don’t count; but you will have the satisfaction, my dear, if you should live to be a hundred, of feeling that you have saved your boy.”
At this Mrs Underwood shook her head once more, and two tears came into her eyes. “He will be lost to me,” she said. “Oh, I remember well enough how I felt myself when I married Henry. ‘What does he want with his mother? he has got me,’ I used to say. I never liked him to go too often to the old lady. And now I am the old lady, and his wife will think the same of me.”
“Let us hope she will be a better Christian than you were,” said Miss Anna, with a laugh.
“A better Christian! I hope I have always been a Christian at heart, whatever else I may have failed in. I hope I have always remembered my duty to my Maker,” said Mrs Underwood, offended. This assault dried the tears in her eyes. “And, Anna, though I’m sure I am not one to find fault, I don’t think that you—never going to church, and reading French novels and things, and making schemes to keep your neighbours out of their rights——”
Miss Anna laughed with genuine enjoyment. “I acknowledge all my sins, my dear,” she said. “I am not the person to talk, am I? But, never mind, perhaps there will be no need to hope that Mrs Geoff should be a better Christian than her mother-in-law. Perhaps there will be no Mrs Geoff. It may come to nothing after all.”
“Oh, Anna, how cruel you are!” cried Mrs Underwood. “If it comes to nothing, what is to become of my boy?”
“Anyhow, let us be thankful that you will get a good deal of misery out of it, which will be a satisfaction. Go and put on your bonnet—your best bonnet—and make yourself look nice; we all like you to look nice; and go off, my dear, upon your charitable mission,” Miss Anna cried.
Was it a charitable mission? The good woman quite thought so as she drove down the Hampstead slopes and made her way into the heart of London. She was fluttered and anxious about what she was going to do. The possible consequences to Geoff were like a tragedy in front of her; but as for anything else, she was too much confused to realise that this was not the kindest thing that could be done. Two lonely, fatherless children—orphans they might be called, for they had nobody to care for them. It was not right even that two girls of their age should live in a hotel, without so much as a maid to be with them. To offer them a home, to stretch her own protecting wing over them, was the natural thing for a woman to do. Certainly it was the right thing to do. The other question about the property was very vague in her mind. She could see that her sister was scheming to keep it in her own hands, but her mind was so confused about it that she could not feel any guiltiness on the subject. And then the question about Geoff would come uppermost. She wept a good many quiet tears over this as she drove along the streets. She hadalways felt herself a good Christian, but she had not been pleased when her husband had paid too many visits to the old lady. The old lady! Looking back, Mrs Underwood, with an effort of memory, recollected that the old lady had not been so very aged a person. She was but sixty when she died, and she had lived ten years at least after her son’s marriage. “About my age!” This conviction surprised Geoff’s mother more than can be described. She was the old lady now; and this girl would grudge her her son’s visits, would not let Geoff come to her, would persuade him that his mother was silly, that she was old-fashioned, that she wanted a great deal too much attention. She had done all that in her day, and had not thought it any harm.
These were her thoughts as she went to Piccadilly, crossing through all those endless streets. When she came near the hotel some one passed her quickly, holding up an umbrella, so that she could not see his face. But her heart gave a thump at the sight of him. If it was not Geoff she had never seen any one so like him. Down to the very coat he wore, the spats which she had herself buttoned for him, his walk—all was Geoff. Had he been here forestalling her? Had he come and made his own advances already, without losing a moment? Her heart sank, but a wild curiosity took possession of her. She would see for herself how he had been received, what had happened. What could happen but that this girl,any girl, would throw herself at the first word into the arms of Geoff? It was not often a girl had such a chance. “Look at Anna,” she said to herself, “so pretty, so clever, and never married at all.” Besides, since Anna’s time there were, everybody said, twice as many women as there used to be, and a man like Geoff, if such a thing was to be found, was more and more precious than ever before. Ah, there could be no doubt how he would be received. Perhaps by this time it was all settled, and the girls were talking of her as the old lady, and planning how she was to be kept at arm’s length. She wept once more, then dried her eyes, and armed herself for what might be awaiting her. What if that little thing should rush into her arms and tell her—giving her kisses that would not be genuine, that would mean no affection to her? But even that she would have to put up with. She remembered—with how many compunctions, though thirty years too late—how the old lady—poor old lady!—had made little attempts to propitiate her, and tell her pretty things that Henry had said of her, and give her to believe that nothing but praise and sweetness was ever spoken of her between the mother and the son. It would be her turn now to show herself in the best light to her daughter-in-law, to conciliate her, and appeal to her tolerance. Alas! how time goes on, turning triumph into humiliation, and the first into the last.
GEOFF had not thought it necessary to say anything about his intention, but he had made up his mind during the vigil of the night to act for himself. He did not go to the chambers, which he shared with a friend, or to his club for his letters, or to any of his usual haunts; but went direct to Piccadilly, which is a long way from Grove Road. A long walk is sometimes an advantage when you are going to have a decisive interview; but Geoffrey, it is to be feared, did not do himself much good by thinking of the hostile party whom he was about to meet. They were not only not disagreeable to him, but the very sight of them stilled every warlike inclination in his breast. Not only he did not want to fight with them, but his desire was to take up their cause and fight it for them, against himself and all belonging to him—which it will readily be perceived was not a way to do any good. He saw them only too clearly in his mind’s eye: the one sister standing a little in advance of the other; the eyes of Grace shining with courage and high spirit, while those softer lights under Milly’s soft brows rose upon him from time to time, always with anew eloquence of appeal. “If she were to ask me for my head, I think I would give it her,” Geoff said to himself; but there was no chance that she would ask for his head. He thought of them as he had seen them first, seated close by each other, turning two wistful, pale faces and eyes wet with tears upon him as he stood at the door, alarmed by his own intrusion. Their black dresses and their piteous looks had made an impression upon him which would never be effaced; and he had heard their story with a knot in his throat, ready to weep for very sympathy. When the same wonderful pair had arrived at Grove Road, he had been too much startled to know what to do or say. But now he was going to them with all his wits about him, no surprise possible, to open up all the question, and discuss it amicably, and help them, if it was possible to help those whose cause was so entirely in opposition to his own.
Grace and Milly were together as usual in the sitting-room, which had become by this time so intolerable to them. They were both very much surprised when he came in. They rose to their feet in wonder and partial dismay. They had been talking over all their affairs, and had come to a kind of conclusion between themselves; but this was a circumstance upon which they had not calculated. They had thought it very unlikely that they should hear anything more of Grove Road unless they themselves took the initiative. Theygazed at each other with their usual mutual consultation, bewildered; but as soon as they came to themselves they too were very anxious to be polite to the enemy.
“I hope you will not think me intrusive,” he said.
“Oh, no; we do not know any one—” This was intended to mean that a visitor was welcome; but the speech was broken off in consequence of the embarrassment of the speaker.
“If what we think is true, we—my mother and I—should be more to you than anybody else in England,” Geoff said.
“But if what we think is true,” cried Grace, “or rather what you think—for we know nothing—we are enemies, are we not?”
“I don’t see why we should be. I have come to tell you all I know. You ought to have at least what information we can give you in order to find out who you really are, Miss——”
“Yorke,” cried Grace, “Yorke! that is our name; and as for finding out who we are, that is quite unnecessary. We may be strangers here,” the girl cried, holding her head high. “We have been very unhappy and very unfortunate, oh, miserable here! But when we are at home everybody knows who we are. We are as well known as you or any one. The Yorkes of Quebec—you have only to ask any Canadian. If you think it is necessary to find out a family for us, you are very, very muchmistaken! England is not all the world. We are unknown only here.”
Her eyes flashed, her cheeks coloured as she spoke; all her pride was roused; and Milly held up her head proudly too. They had not been used to be nobodies, and they did not understand nor feel disposed to submit to it. This was a totally different thing from claiming their rights.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “You know I don’t mean anything disrespectful; but you know also that there is another question. It is not as Miss Yorke that there can be any question between you and me. It is as the daughter of my mother’s cousin, Leonard Crosthwaite. Will you let me explain to you how the matter stands between us, if you are his children? This is how it is. Abraham Crosthwaite, an old unmarried uncle, died twenty years ago, leaving his money to Leonard, who had disappeared some time before. It was an old will, and it was supposed by everybody that Uncle Abraham had altered it in behalf of his nieces, Anna, and Mary, who is my mother. But he did not alter it; and when he died this was the state of affairs. Leonard Crosthwaite had not been heard of for ten years: everybody thought him dead; he had been advertised for, and had not replied. My mother and Aunt Anna were the next of kin. They succeeded without a question. Everybody had expected them to succeed. Uncle Abraham hadannounced over and over again his intention to give them everything he had. My mother had taken care of him for some years; of Aunt Anna he had always been proud. I never in my life heard any question of their rights, until all at once, a fortnight since, some one appeared at our house calling himself Leonard Crosthwaite——”
“Mr Geoffrey, papa would never have said he was any one, unless it had been true.”
“I cast no doubt upon that. I tell you only of our wonder, our alarm. My mother thought she recognised something in him like her cousin. Aunt Anna from the first said no; but you will take these statements for what they are worth. Aunt Anna would naturally resist anything that threatened to interfere with her comfort. My mother, on the other hand, is easily persuaded. I, of course, could say nothing on one side or the other. The gentleman I saw had every appearance of being a gentleman, and a man of truth and honour——”
Milly gave him a grateful glance behind her sister—a glance of tender thanks which made his heart beat. As for Grace, she bowed her head with a sort of stately assent.
“He was to come back; but we heard no more of him, until I came here to this hotel, and was entirely puzzled, as you know. I saw you, and thought you were very kind to interest yourselvesabout a person whom you had never heard of. When I saw you yesterday at Hampstead, I thought again it was kindness merely—that you had heard of the man of whom I was in search——”
“You must have thought us very extraordinary to interfere.”
“I thought you,” he said somewhat incoherently;—“but it does not matter what I thought you. Circumstances make us, as you say, almost enemies, who might have been—who ought to have been, dear friends.”
They both looked at him with melting eyes. “Yes,” said Grace, with a beautiful flush of sympathy, “cousins, almost like brothers and sisters. And perhaps, that may be still!” she cried. “Listen, this is what we had made up our minds to——”
“Let me say out my say first,” he said with a not very cheerful smile. “You are strangers, and you are too young to know how to manage such a complicated case. If you are Crosthwaites, and my cousin Leonard’s daughters, it will be best for us in the long run, as well as for you, that it should be proved—that the question should be settled. And you cannot know of yourselves what is necessary. I have brought you the names of two good lawyers—respectable, honourable men, either of whom will advise you wisely.” He took out a piece of paper as he spoke and handed it toGrace. “With either of these you will be safe,” he said.
The girls looked at each other for a moment; then Grace rose up and held out her hand to her adversary, seeing him through wet eyes. “Cousin Geoffrey,” she said, “I am sure you must be of the same blood with our father, for this is exactly what he would have done. Let us call you cousin: it is all we want, Milly and I. We had made up our minds this morning to forget it altogether, never to say another word or think of it any more.”
Milly’s hand was held out too, though more timidly. She did not say anything, but she looked a great deal more than Grace had said, he thought. He had risen too in a tremulous state of excitement and generous enthusiasm. It was only his left hand that he had to give to the younger sister, but even in that fact there seemed to both of them something special—a closer approach.
“I do not know what to say,” he said, “dear, brave, generous girls! To have you will be worth a great deal more than the money. We are friends for ever, whatever may come of it.” Then he kissed first one hand and then the other with quivering lips, the girls, blushing both, drawing close to each other, abashed, yet touched beyond description with a kind of sacred joy and awe. The emotion was exquisite, novel beyond anything in their experience; and the young man, thussuddenly bound to them, was as much affected as they.
“But we cannot accept this, all the same,” he said at last. “I should say all the less:—it must be investigated, and everything found out that can be found out.”
“We do not wish it; we will not have it,” the girls cried both together. But Geoffrey shook his head.
“You have nobody else to look after your interests. I am your next friend,” he said. “Don’t you know that is how we do in English law? Those who are too young or too helpless to plead for themselves plead by their next friend. And that is the most fit office for me.”