If she would only grant it to him and continue her allowance to Janet while he was pursuing it, then, there would be no limit to the share he would give her when the returns came in. It was exceedingly hard to answer without absolutely insulting him, but she entrenched herself in the declaration that her husband"s conditions required a full diploma and degree, and that till all her sons were grown up she had been forbidden to dispose of it otherwise. Very thankful she was that Armine was not seventeen, when a whole portfolio of testimonials in all sorts of languages were unfolded before her! Whatever she had ever said of Ellen"s insular prejudices, she felt that she herself might deserve, for she viewed them all as utterly worthless compared with an honest English or Scottish degree. At any rate, she could not judge of their value, and they did not fulfil her conditions. She made him understand at last that she was absolutely impracticable, and that the only distant hope she would allow to be wrung from her by his coaxing, wheedling tones, soft as the honey of Hybla, was, that if none of her sons or nephews were in the way of fulfilling the conditions, and he could bring her satisfactory English certificates, she might consider the matter, but she made no promises.
Then he most politely represented the need of a maintenance while he was thus qualifying himself. Janet had evidently not told him about the will, and Caroline only said that from a recent discovery she thought her own tenure of the property very insecure, and she could undertake nothing for the future. She would let him know. However, she gave him a cheque for 100 pounds for the present, knowing that she could make it up from the money of her own which she had been acc.u.mulating for Elvira"s portion.
Then Janet came in to take leave. Mr. Hermann described what the excellent and gracious lady had granted to him, and he made it sound so well, and his wife seemed so confident and triumphant, that her mother feared she had allowed more to be inferred than she intended, and tried to explain that all depended on the fulfilment of the conditions of which Janet at least was perfectly aware. She was overwhelmed, however, with his grat.i.tude and Janet"s a.s.surances, and they went away, leaving her with a hand much kissed by him, and the fondest, most lingering embrace she had ever had from Janet. Then she was free to lie still, abandoned to fears for her daughter"s future and repentance for her own careless past, and, above all crushed by the ache that would let her really feel little but pain and oppression.
CHAPTER XXVIII. -- THE TURN OF THE WHEEL.
Is there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head and a" that, The coward slave, we pa.s.s him by, A man"s a man for a" that.
Burns.
Thinking and acting were alike impossible to Caroline for the remainder of the day when her daughter left her, but night brought power of reflection, as she began to look forward to the new day, and its burthen.
Her headache was better, but she let Barbara again go down to breakfast without her, feeling that she could not face her sons at once, and that she needed another study of the doc.u.ment before she could trust herself with the communication. She felt herself too in need of time to pray for right judgment and steadfast purpose, and that the change might so work with her sons that it might be a blessing, not a curse. Could it be for nothing that the finding of Magnum Bonum had wrought the undoing of this wrong? That thought, and the impulse of self-bracing, made her breakfast well on the dainty little meal sent up to her by the Infanta, and look so much refreshed, that the damsel exclaimed--
"You are much better, mother! You will be able to see Jock before he goes--"
"Fetch them all, Babie; I have something to tell you--"
"Writs issued for a domestic parliament," said Allen, presently entering. "To vote for the grant to the Princess Royal on her marriage?
Do it handsomely, I say, the Athenian is better than might be expected, and will become prosperity better than adversity."
"Being capable of taking others in besides Janet," said the opposition in the person of Bobus. "He seemed so well satisfied with the Gracious Lady house-mother that I am afraid she has been making him too many promises."
"That was impossible. It was not about Janet that I sent for you, boys.
It was to think what we are to do ourselves. You know I always thought there must be another will. Look there!"
She laid it on the table, and the young men stood gazing as if it were a venomous reptile which each hesitated to touch.
"Is it legal, Bobus?" she presently asked.
"It looks--rather so--" he said in an odd, stunned voice.
"Elvira, by all that"s lucky!" exclaimed Jock. "Well done, Allen, you are still the Lady Clare!"
"Not till she is of age," said Allen, rather gloomily.
"Pity you didn"t marry her at Algiers," said Jock.
"Where did this come from?" said Bobus, who had been examining it intently.
"Out of the old bureau."
"Mother!" cried out Barbara, in a tone of horror, which perhaps was a revelation to Bobus, for he exclaimed--
"You don"t mean that Janet had had it, and brought it out to threaten you?"
"Oh, no, no! it was not so dreadful. She found it long ago, but did not think it valid, and only kept it out of sight because she thought it would make me unhappy."
"It is a pity she did not go a step further," observed Bobus. "Why did she produce it now?"
"I found it. Boys, you must know the whole truth, and consider how best to screen your sister. Remember she was very young, and fancied a thing on a common sheet of paper, and shut up in an unfastened table drawer could not be of force, and that she was doing no harm." Then she told of her loss and recovery of what she called some medical memoranda of their father, which she knew Janet wanted, concluding--"It will surely be enough to say I found it in his old bureau."
"That will hardly go down with Wakefield," said Bobus; "but as I see he stands here as trustee for that wretched child, as well as being yours, there is no fear but that he will be conformable. Shall I take it up and show it to him at once, so that if by any happy chance this should turn out waste paper, no one may get on the scent?"
"Your uncle! I was so amazed and stupefied yesterday that I don"t know whether I told him, and if I did, I don"t think he believed me."
"Here he comes," said Barbara, as the wheels of his dog-cart were heard below the window.
"Ask him to come up. It will be a terrible blow to him. This place has been as much to him as to any of us, if not more."
"Mother, how brave you are!" cried Jock.
"I have known it longer than you have, my dear. Besides, the mere loss is nothing compared with that which led to it. The worst of it is the overthrow of all your prospects, my dear fellow."
"Oh," said Jock, brightly, "it only means that we have something and somebody to work for now;" and he threw his arms round her waist and kissed her.
"Oh! my dear, dear boy, don"t! Don"t upset me, or your uncle will think it is about this."
"And don"t, for Heaven"s sake, talk as if it were all up with us," cried Bobus.
By this time the Colonel"s ponderous tread was near, and Caroline met him with an apology for giving him the trouble of the ascent, but said that she had wanted to see him in private.
"Is this in private?" asked the Colonel, looking at the five young people.
"Yes. They have a right to know all. Here it is, Robert."
He sat down, deliberately put on his spectacles, took the will, read it once, and groaned, read it twice, and groaned more deeply, and then said--
"My poor dear sister! This is a bad business! a severe reverse! a very severe reverse!"
"He has. .h.i.t on his catch-word," thought Caroline, and Jock"s arm still round her gave a little pressure, as if the thought had occurred to him.
The moment of amus.e.m.e.nt gave a cheerfulness to her voice as she said--
"We have been doing sad injustice all this time; that is the worst of it. For the rest, we shall be no worse off than we were before."
"It will be in Allen"s power to make up to you a good deal. That is a fortunate arrangement, but I am afraid it cannot take place till the girl is of age."
"You are all in such haste," said Bobus. "It would take a good deal to make me accept such an informal sc.r.a.p as this. No doubt one could drive a coach and horses through it."
"That would not lessen the injustice," said his mother.
"Could there not be a compromise?" said Allen.