"Well then, I"ll take you at your word. I advise you to draw your pen right through that clause."
"Why? Hilary is an irreclaimable scamp."
"No, he is not."
"Not, eh? "St. Clair, St. Clair and Blachland." Have you forgotten that, Canon?" snorted Sir Luke. "_And_ Blachland! My nephew!"
"How long ago was that?"
"How long ago? Why, you know as well as I do. Six years. Rather over than under."
"Yes. Six years is a long time. Time enough for a man to recognise that he has made worse than a fool of himself. How do you know that Hilary has not come to recognise that--is not doing all he can to wipe out that sin?"
"Exactly. How do I know? That"s just it. He has never had the grace or decency to let me know that he has--to let me know whether he"s dead or alive." The other smiled to himself. "That"s not the solitary one of his carryings on, either. Yes. He"s an out-and-out scamp."
"I don"t agree with you, Canterby. The very fact that he has refrained from communicating with you makes for the contrary. It is a sign of grace. Had he been the scamp you--_don"t_ believe him to be, you"d have heard from him fast enough, with some pitiful appeal for a.s.sistance."
"But he ought to have let me hear. I might be thinking him dead."
"Well, the last thing you told him was that he ought to be. If I recollect rightly, you strongly recommended him to go and blow his brains out."
"Well, he didn"t. He went off with the woman instead."
"That isn"t to say he"s with her now."
"I"m surprised at you, Canon," snorted Sir Luke. "Hanged if I ever thought to find you defending--er--vice."
"And you haven"t found me doing so yet. But everything has to be determined on its own merits."
"But there aren"t any merits in this case. It was a bad case, sir, a rotten bad case."
"Well, we"ll say demerits then, if you prefer it. Now there are, or were, two extenuating circ.u.mstances in this particular one--the personality of the woman, and--heredity. For the first I have seen her, for the second, Hilary"s father. You knew him pretty well, Canterby, but I knew him even better than you did."
"But what would you have me do? I daren"t put him into possession of large responsibilities. He has disgraced his family as it is. I can"t have him coming here one day, and disgracing it further."
"You would rather put Percival into the position then?"
"Of course. He would fill it worthily. The other wouldn"t."
"I don"t know about that. I am perfectly certain about one thing, and that is that Percival himself would never accept it at the expense of his cousin, if he knew he was to do so. That boy has a rarely chivalrous soul, and he used almost to worship Hilary."
"Pooh! That wouldn"t go so far as to make him deliberately choose to be left nearly a pauper in order to benefit the other," sneered Sir Luke.
But he was a man who did not sneer well. It was not natural to him to sneer at all--therefore his sneer was not convincing.
"I don"t agree with you, Canterby. I believe he would. There are some few natures like that, thank Heaven, although it must be conceded they are marvellously scarce. But he need not "be left a pauper"--though that of course rests with you--and that without doing the other any injustice--and yourself too. For you know as well as I do, Luke, that Hilary holds and always will hold the first place in your heart."
"And the same holds good of Percy in regard to yours, eh, Canon? Yet you are arguing against him for all you know how."
"I am arguing against you, not against him. You invited remark upon the contents of this doc.u.ment, Luke, and asked me to advise you, and I have done my best to comply with both desires. Don"t be in a hurry to commit an act of injustice which you yourself may bitterly repent when it is too late, and past remedying. You are at present sore and vindictive against Hilary, but you know perfectly well in your heart of hearts that he is to you as your own and only son. Stretch out a hand of blessing over him from beyond the grave, not one of wrath and retribution and judgment."
"It isn"t that, you know," urged Sir Luke, rather feebly. "My reasons are different. I don"t want him to come here and play ducks and drakes with what I have taken a lifetime to build up--and not easily either-- and to bring scandal on my name and memory. That"s what it amounts to."
"That"s what you are trying to persuade yourself into thinking it amounts to, but you can"t humbug me, old friend. My advice to you therefore is to lock that draft away, or better still, put it in the fire, and leave things as they are."
"You mean with Hilary as my heir?"
"Just that. I have, however, a suggestion to append. Find out Hilary; not necessarily directly, but find out about him--where he is and what doing. The fact that he has never applied to you for help, is, as I said before, a point in his favour. He may have carved out a position for himself--may be of use in the world by his life and example.
Anyway, give him a chance."
"But if I find just the reverse? What if I find him a thoroughly hardened and disreputable scamp?"
"Then I have nothing further to urge. But somehow I have an instinct that you will find him nothing of the sort."
A perceptible brightening came over the old man"s face. The priest had struck the right chord in saying that Hilary Blachland had been to his friend rather as an only son than as a nephew, and now the thought of having him at his side again was apparent in the lighting up of his face. Then his countenance fell again.
"It"s all very well to say "Find out Hilary,"" he said. "But how is it to be done? We last heard of him from South Africa. He was trading in the interior with the natives. Seemed to like the life and could make a little at it."
"Well, there you are. You can soon find out about him. Although covering a vast area in the vague region geographically defined as South Africa, the European population is one of those wherein everybody knows everybody else, or something about them. Send Percival out. The trip would do him a world of good. You need not tell him its precise object in every particular, I mean of course that he is sent out there to report. But let him know that he is to find Hilary, and he will throw himself into it heart and soul. Then his indirect report will tell us all we want to know."
"By Jove, Canon, that is sound judgment, and I"ll act upon it!" cried Sir Luke eagerly. "What on earth are your people about that they don"t make you a Cardinal Archbishop? Send Percival! Why, that"ll be the very thing. I shall miss the boy though, while he"s away, but oh, confound it, yes--I would like to see that other scamp again before I die. Here--this can go in the fire," throwing the draft doc.u.ment into the grate and stirring it up with the poker to make it burn. "We"ll send Percival. Ha! That sounds like his step. Shall we say anything to him now about it? Yes. Here he is."
CHAPTER TWO.
A WAFT OF STRANGE NEWS.
"I say, Uncle Luke. Do you happen to be aware that it"s jolly well tiffin time--Hallo, Canon! Didn"t know you were here. How are you?"
He who thus unceremoniously burst in upon them, in blissful ignorance of the momentous matter under discussion and of course of how his own fortunes had been balancing in the scale, was a goodly specimen of English youth, tall, and well-hung, and athletic, but the bright frank sunniness of his face, his straight open glance, and entirely unaffected and therefore unspoiled manner rendered him goodly beyond the average.
Percival West and Hilary Blachland were both orphaned sons of two of Sir Luke"s sisters, and had been to him even as his own children. There was a difference of many years between their ages, however, and their characters were totally dissimilar, as we have heard set forth.
"Time for tiffin is it, Percy?" said Sir Luke, glancing at his watch. "You see we old fogies haven"t got your fine healthy jacka.s.s-and-a-bundle-of-greens appet.i.te. We must have overlooked it."
"I don"t agree with you at all, Canterby," laughed the Canon. "I"ll answer for it. I feel uncommonly like beefsteaks, or anything that"s going. And what have you been doing with yourself, Percy?"
"Biking. Got ten miles out beyond Pa.s.smore since eleven o"clock. Oh, bye-the-bye, Canon, I saw the Bishop in Pa.s.smore. He wanted you badly."
"Percy, speak the truth, sir," returned the Canon, with a solemn twinkle in his eyes. "You said the Bishop wanted me badly? And--his Lordship happens to be away!"
"Every word I said is solemn fact," replied Percival. "I saw the Bishop in Pa.s.smore, but I didn"t say to-day though. And there"s no denying he did want you badly. Eh, Canon?"
"You"re a disrespectful rascal, chaffing your seniors, sir, and if I were twenty years younger, I"d put on the gloves and take it out of you."
"Come along in to tiffin, Canon, and take it out of that," rejoined Percival with his light-hearted laugh, dropping his hand affectionately on to the old man"s shoulder. And the trio adjourned to the dining-room.
Jerningham Lodge, Sir Luke Canterby"s comfortable, not to say luxurious establishment, was a roomy old house, standing within a walled park of about a hundred and fifty acres. Old, without being ancient, it was susceptible of being brought up to _fin-de-siecle_ ideas of comfort, and the gardens and shrubberies were extensive and well kept. It had come into his possession a good many years before, and soon after that he was left a childless widower. Thus it came about that these two nephews of his had found their home here.