"The letter which asked you to come for G.o.d"s sake, and relieve him from the dreadful thought that his daughters were unprovided for? The letter which said he should not rest in his grave if he left us disinherited?"
"That letter and those words."
She paused, still keeping her eyes steadily fixed on the lawyer"s face.
"I want to fasten it all in my mind," she said "before I go on. Mr.
Michael Vanstone knew of the first will; he knew what prevented the making of the second will; he knew of the letter and he read the words.
What did he know of besides? Did you tell him of my mother"s last illness? Did you say that her share in the money would have been left to us, if she could have lifted her dying hand in your presence? Did you try to make him ashamed of the cruel law which calls girls in our situation n.o.body"s Children, and which allows him to use us as he is using us now?"
"I put all those considerations to him. I left none of them doubtful; I left none of them out."
She slowly reached her hand to the copy of the Instructions, and slowly folded it up again, in the shape in which it had been presented to her.
"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Pendril." With those words, she bowed, and gently pushed the ma.n.u.script back across the table; then turned to her sister.
"Norah," she said, "if we both of us live to grow old, and if you ever forget all that we owe to Michael Vanstone--come to me, and I will remind you."
She rose and walked across the room by herself to the window. As she pa.s.sed Mr. Clare, the old man stretched out his claw-like fingers and caught her fast by the arm before she was aware of him.
"What is this mask of yours hiding?" he asked, forcing her to bend to him, and looking close into her face. "Which of the extremes of human temperature does your courage start from--the dead cold or the white hot?"
She shrank back from him and turned away her head in silence. She would have resented that unscrupulous intrusion on her own thoughts from any man alive but Frank"s father. He dropped her arm as suddenly as he had taken it, and let her go on to the window. "No," he said to himself, "not the cold extreme, whatever else it may be. So much the worse for her, and for all belonging to her."
There was a momentary pause. Once more the dripping rustle of the rain and the steady ticking of the clock filled up the gap of silence. Mr.
Pendril put the Instructions back in his pocket, considered a little, and, turning toward Norah and Miss Garth, recalled their attention to the present and pressing necessities of the time.
"Our consultation has been needlessly prolonged," he sail, "by painful references to the past. We shall be better employed in settling our arrangements for the future. I am obliged to return to town this evening. Pray let me hear how I can best a.s.sist you; pray tell me what trouble and what responsibility I can take off your hands."
For the moment, neither Norah nor Miss Garth seemed to be capable of answering him. Magdalen"s reception of the news which annihilated the marriage prospect that her father"s own lips had placed before her not a month since, had bewildered and dismayed them alike. They had summoned their courage to meet the shock of her pa.s.sionate grief, or to face the harder trial of witnessing her speechless despair. But they were not prepared for her invincible resolution to read the Instructions; for the terrible questions which she had put to the lawyer; for her immovable determination to fix all the circ.u.mstances in her mind, under which Michael Vanstone"s decision had been p.r.o.nounced. There she stood at the window, an unfathomable mystery to the sister who had never been parted from her, to the governess who had trained her from a child. Miss Garth remembered the dark doubts which had crossed her mind on the day when she and Magdalen had met in the garden. Norah looked forward to the coming time, with the first serious dread of it on her sister"s account which she had felt yet. Both had hitherto remained pa.s.sive, in despair of knowing what to do. Both were now silent, in despair of knowing what to say.
Mr. Pendril patiently and kindly helped them, by returning to the subject of their future plans for the second time.
"I am sorry to press any business matters on your attention," he said, "when you are necessarily unfitted to deal with them. But I must take my instructions back to London with me to night. With reference, in the first place, to the disgraceful pecuniary offer, to which I have already alluded. The younger Miss Vanstone having read the Instructions, needs no further information from my lips. The elder will, I hope, excuse me if I tell her (what I should be ashamed to tell her, but that it is a matter of necessity), that Mr. Michael Vanstone"s provision for his brother"s children begins and ends with an offer to each of them of one hundred pounds."
Norah"s face crimsoned with indignation. She started to her feet, as if Michael Vanstone had been present in the room, and had personally insulted her.
"I see," said the lawyer, wishing to spare her; "I may tell Mr. Michael Vanstone you refuse the money."
"Tell him," she broke out pa.s.sionately, "if I was starving by the roadside, I wouldn"t touch a farthing of it!"
"Shall I notify your refusal also?" asked Mr. Pendril, speaking to Magdalen next.
She turned round from the window--but kept her face in shadow, by standing close against it with her back to the light.
"Tell him, on my part," she said, "to think again before he starts me in life with a hundred pounds. I will give him time to think." She spoke those strange words with a marked emphasis; and turning back quickly to the window, hid her face from the observation of every one in the room.
"You both refuse the offer," said Mr. Pendril, taking out his pencil, and making his professional note of the decision. As he shut up his pocketbook, he glanced toward Magdalen doubtfully. She had roused in him the latent distrust which is a lawyer"s second nature: he had his suspicions of her looks; he had his suspicions of her language. Her sister seemed to have mere influence over her than Miss Garth. He resolved to speak privately to her sister before he went away.
While the idea was pa.s.sing through his mind, his attention was claimed by another question from Magdalen.
"Is he an old man?" she asked, suddenly, without turning round from the window.
"If you mean Mr. Michael Vanstone, he is seventy-five or seventy-six years of age."
"You spoke of his son a little while since. Has he any other sons--or daughters?"
"None."
"Do you know anything of his wife?"
"She has been dead for many years."
There was a pause. "Why do you ask these questions?" said Norah.
"I beg your pardon," replied Magdalen, quietly; "I won"t ask any more."
For the third time, Mr. Pendril returned to the business of the interview.
"The servants must not be forgotten," he said. "They must be settled with and discharged: I will give them the necessary explanation before I leave. As for the house, no questions connected with it need trouble you. The carriages and horses, the furniture and plate, and so on, must simply be left on the premises to await Mr. Michael Vanstone"s further orders. But any possessions, Miss Vanstone, personally belonging to you or to your sister--jewelry and dresses, and any little presents which may have been made to you--are entirely at your disposal. With regard to the time of your departure, I understand that a month or more will elapse before Mr. Michael Vanstone can leave Zurich; and I am sure I only do his solicitor justice in saying--"
"Excuse me, Mr. Pendril," interposed Norah; "I think I understand, from what you have just said, that our house and everything in it belongs to--?" She stopped, as if the mere utterance of the man"s name was abhorrent to her.
"To Michael Vanstone," said Mr. Pendril. "The house goes to him with the rest of the property."
"Then I, for one, am ready to leave it tomorrow!"
Magdalen started at the window, as her sister spoke, and looked at Mr.
Clare, with the first open signs of anxiety and alarm which she had shown yet.
"Don"t be angry with me," she whispered, stooping over the old man with a sudden humility of look, and a sudden nervousness of manner. "I can"t go without seeing Frank first!"
"You shall see him," replied Mr. Clare. "I am here to speak to you about it, when the business is done."
"It is quite unnecessary to hurry your departure, as you propose,"
continued Mr. Pendril, addressing Norah. "I can safely a.s.sure you that a week hence will be time enough."
"If this is Mr. Michael Vanstone"s house," repeated Norah; "I am ready to leave it tomorrow."
She impatiently quitted her chair and seated herself further away on the sofa. As she laid her hand on the back of it, her face changed. There, at the head of the sofa, were the cushions which had supported her mother when she lay down for the last time to repose. There, at the foot of the sofa, was the clumsy, old-fashioned arm-chair, which had been her father"s favorite seat on rainy days, when she and her sister used to amuse him at the piano opposite, by playing his favorite tunes. A heavy sigh, which she tried vainly to repress, burst from her lips. "Oh," she thought, "I had forgotten these old friends! How shall we part from them when the time comes!"
"May I inquire, Miss Vanstone, whether you and your sister have formed any definite plans for the future?" asked Mr. Pendril. "Have you thought of any place of residence?"
"I may take it on myself, sir," said Miss Garth, "to answer your question for them. When they leave this house, they leave it with me. My home is their home, and my bread is their bread. Their parents honored me, trusted me, and loved me. For twelve happy years they never let me remember that I was their governess; they only let me know myself as their companion and their friend. My memory of them is the memory of unvarying gentleness and generosity; and my life shall pay the debt of my grat.i.tude to their orphan children."
Norah rose hastily from the sofa; Magdalen impetuously left the window.
For once, there was no contrast in the conduct of the sisters. For once, the same impulse moved their hearts, the same earnest feeling inspired their words. Miss Garth waited until the first outburst of emotion had pa.s.sed away; then rose, and, taking Norah and Magdalen each by the hand, addressed herself to Mr. Pendril and Mr. Clare. She spoke with perfect self-possession; strong in her artless unconsciousness of her own good action.
"Even such a trifle as my own story," she said, "is of some importance at such a moment as this. I wish you both, gentlemen, to understand that I am not promising more to the daughters of your old friend than I can perform. When I first came to this house, I entered it under such independent circ.u.mstances as are not common in the lives of governesses.
In my younger days, I was a.s.sociated in teaching with my elder sister: we established a school in London, which grew to be a large and prosperous one. I only left it, and became a private governess, because the heavy responsibility of the school was more than my strength could bear. I left my share in the profits untouched, and I possess a pecuniary interest in our establishment to this day. That is my story, in few words. When we leave this house, I propose that we shall go back to the school in London, which is still prosperously directed by my elder sister. We can live there as quietly as we please, until time has helped us to bear our affliction better than we can bear it now. If Norah"s and Magdalen"s altered prospects oblige them to earn their own independence, I can help them to earn it, as a gentleman"s daughters should. The best families in this land are glad to ask my sister"s advice where the interests of their children"s home-training are concerned; and I answer, beforehand, for her hearty desire to serve Mr.
Vanstone"s daughters, as I answer for my own. That is the future which my grat.i.tude to their father and mother, and my love for themselves, now offers to them. If you think my proposal, gentlemen, a fit and fair proposal--and I see in your faces that you do--let us not make the hard necessities of our position harder still, by any useless delay in meeting them at once. Let us do what we must do; let us act on Norah"s decision, and leave this house to-morrow. You mentioned the servants just now, Mr. Pendril: I am ready to call them together in the next room, and to a.s.sist you in the settlement of their claims, whenever you please."