by Ellen Wood
“I have to write to papa, and must close this. I have requested Captain Cannonby to write to you himself, and give you particulars about the last moments of Frederick. Send me the money without delay, dear aunt. The place is hateful to me now he is gone, and I’d rather be dead than stop in it.
“Your affectionate and afflicted niece,
“SIBYLLA MASSINGBIRD.”
Lionel folded the letter musingly. “It would almost appear that they had not heard of your son’s accession to Verner’s Pride,” he remarked to Mrs. Verner. “It is not alluded to in any way.”
“I think it is sure they had not heard of it,” she answered “I remarked so to Mary Tynn. The letters must have been delayed in their passage. Lionel, you will see to the sending out of the money for me.”
“Immediately,” replied Lionel.
“And when do you come home?”
“Do you mean — do you mean when do I come here?” returned Lionel.
“To be sure I mean it. It is your home. Verner’s Pride is your home, Lionel, now; not mine. It has been yours this three or four months past, only we did not know it. You must come home to it at once, Lionel.”
“I suppose it will be right that I should do so,” he answered.
“And I shall be thankful,” said Mrs. Verner. “There will be a master once more, and no need to bother me. I have been bothered, Lionel. Mr. Jan,” — turning to the bureau— “it’s that which has made me feel ill. One comes to me with some worry or other, and another comes to me: they will come to me. The complaints and tales of that Roy fidget my life out.”
“I shall discharge Roy at once, Mrs. Verner.”
Mrs. Verner made a deprecatory movement of the hands, as much as to say that it was no business of hers. “Lionel, I have only one request to make of you: never speak of the estate to me again, or of anything connected with its management. You are its sole master, and can do as you please. Shall you turn me out?”
Lionel’s face flushed. “No, Mrs. Verner,” he almost passionately answered. “You could not think so.”
“You have the right. Had Fred come home, he would have had the right. But I’d hardly reconcile myself to any other house how.”
“It is a right which I should never exercise,” said Lionel.
“I shall mostly keep my room,” resumed Mrs. Verner; “perhaps wholly keep it: and Mary Tynn will wait upon me. The servants will be yours, Lionel. In fact, they are yours; not mine. What a blessing! to know that I may be at peace from henceforth: that the care will be upon another’s shoulders! My poor Fred! My dear sons! I little thought I was taking leave of them both for the last time!”
Jan jumped off his bureau. Now that the brunt of the surprise was over, and plans began to be discussed, Jan bethought himself of his impatient sick list, who were doubtlessly wondering at the non-appearance of their doctor. Lionel rose to depart with him.
“But, you should not go,” said Mrs. Verner. “In five minutes I vacate this study; resign it to you. This change will give you plenty to do, Lionel.”
“I know it will, dear Mrs. Verner. I shall be back soon, but I must hasten to acquaint my mother.”
“You will promise not to go away again, Lionel. It is your lawful home, remember.”
“I shall not go away again,” was Lionel’s answer; and Mrs. Verner breathed freely. To be emancipated from what she had regarded as the great worry of life, was felt to be a relief. Now she could eat and sleep all day, and never need be asked a single question, or hear whether the outside world had stopped, or was going on still.
“You will just pen a few words for me to Sibylla, Lionel,” she called out. “I am past much writing now.”
“If it be necessary that I should,” he coldly replied.
“And send them with the remittance,” concluded Mrs. Verner. “You will know how much to send. Tell Sibylla that Verner’s Pride is no longer mine, and I cannot invite her to it. It would hardly be the — the thing for a young girl, and she’s little better, to be living here with you all day long, and I always shut up in my room. Would it?”
Lionel somewhat haughtily shrugged his shoulders. “Scarcely,” he answered.
“She must go to her sisters, of course. Poor girl! what a thing it seems to have to return to her old house again!”
Jan put in his head. “I thought you said you were coming, Lionel?”
“So I am — this instant.” And they departed together: encountering Mr. Bitterworth in the road.
He grasped hold of Lionel in much excitement.
“Is it true — what people are saying? That you have come into Verner’s Pride?”
“Quite true,” replied Lionel. And he gave Mr. Bitterworth a summary of the facts.
“Now look there!” cried Mr. Bitterworth, who was evidently deeply impressed; “it’s of no use to try to go against honest right: sooner or later it will triumph. In your case, it has come wonderfully soon. I told my old friend that the Massingbirds had no claim to Verner’s Pride; that if they were exalted to it, over your head, it would not prosper them — not, poor fellows, that I thought of their death. May you remain in undisturbed possession of it, Lionel! May your children succeed to it after you!”
Lionel and Jan continued their road. But they soon parted company, for Jan turned off to his patients. Lionel made the best of his way to Deerham Court. In the room he entered, steadily practising, was Lucy Tempest, alone. She turned her head to see who it was, and at the sight of Lionel started up in alarm.
“What is it? Why are you back?” she exclaimed. “Has the train broken down?”
Lionel smiled at her vehemence; at her crimsoned countenance; at her unbounded astonishment altogether.
“The train has not broken down, I trust, Lucy. I did not go with it. Do you know where my mother is?”
“She is gone out with Decima.”
He felt a temporary disappointment; the news, he was aware, would be so deeply welcome to Lady Verner. Lucy stood regarding him, waiting the solution of the mystery.
“What should you say, Lucy, if I tell you Deerham is not going to get rid of me at all?”
“I do not understand you,” replied Lucy, colouring with surprise and emotion. “Do you mean that you are going to remain here?”
“Not here — in this house. That would be a calamity for you.”
Lucy looked as if it would be anything but a calamity.
“You are as bad as our French mistress at the rectory,” she said. “She would never tell us anything; she used to make us guess.”
Her words were interrupted by the breaking out of the church bells: a loud peal, telling of joy. A misgiving crossed Lionel that the news had got wind, and that some officious person had been setting on the bells to ring for him, in honour of his succession. The exceeding bad taste of the proceeding — should it prove so — called a flush of anger to his brow. His inheritance had cost Mrs. Verner her son.
The suspicion was confirmed. One of the servants, who had been to the village, came running in at this juncture with open mouth, calling out that Mr. Lionel had come into his own, and that the bells were ringing for it. Lucy Tempest heard the words, and turned to Lionel.
“It is so, Lucy,” he said, answering the look. “Verner’s Pride is at last mine. But—”
She grew strangely excited. Lionel could see her heart beat — could see the tears of emotion gather in her eyes.
“I am so glad!” she said in a low, heartfelt tone. “I thought it would be so, sometime. Have you found the codicil?”
“Hush, Lucy! Before you express your gladness, you must learn that sad circumstances are mixed with it. The codicil has not been found; but Frederick Massingbird has died.”
Lucy shook her head. “He had no right to Verner’s Pride, and I did not like him. I am sorry, though, for himself, that he is dead. And — Lionel — you will never go away now?”
“I suppose not: to live.”
“I am so glad! I may tell you that I am glad, may
I not?”
She half timidly held out her hand as she spoke. Lionel took it between both of his, toying with it as tenderly as he had ever toyed with Sibylla’s. And his low voice took a tone which was certainly not that of hatred, as he bent towards her.
“I am glad also, Lucy. The least pleasant part of my recent projected departure was the constantly remembered fact that I was about to put a distance of many miles between myself and you. It grew all too palpable towards the last.”
Lucy laughed and drew away her hand, her radiant countenance falling before the gaze of Lionel.
“So you will be troubled with me yet, you see, Miss Lucy,” he added, in a lighter tone, as he left her and strode off with a step that might have matched Jan’s, on his way to ask the bells whether they were not ashamed of themselves.
CHAPTER XXXI.
ROY EATING HUMBLE PIE.
And so the laws of right and justice had eventually triumphed, and Lionel Verner took possession of his own. Mrs. Verner took possession of her own — her chamber; all she was ever again likely to take possession of at Verner’s Pride. She had no particular ailment, unless heaviness could be called an ailment, and steadily refused any suggestion of Jan’s.
“You’ll go off in a fit,” said plain Jan to her.
“Then I must go,” replied Mrs. Verner. “I can’t submit to be made wretched with your medical and surgical remedies, Mr. Jan. Old people should be let alone, to doze away their days in peace.”
“As good give some old people poison outright, as let them always doze,” remonstrated Jan.
“You’d like me to live sparingly — to starve myself, in short — and you’d like me to take exercise!” returned Mrs. Verner. “Wouldn’t you, now?”
“It would add ten years to your life,” said Jan.
“I dare say! It’s of no use your coming preaching to me, Mr. Jan. Go and try your eloquence upon others. I always have had enough to eat, and I hope I always shall. And as to my getting about, or walking, I can’t. When folks come to be my size, it’s cruel to want them to do it.”
Mrs. Verner was nodding before she had well spoken the last words, and Jan said no more. You may have met with some such case in your own experience.
When the news of Lionel Verner’s succession fell upon Roy, the bailiff, he could have gnashed his teeth in very vexation. Had he foreseen what was to happen he would have played his cards so differently. It had not entered into the head-piece of Roy to reflect that Frederick Massingbird might die. Scarcely had it that he could die. A man, young and strong, what was likely to take him off? John had died, it was true; but John’s death had been a violent one. Had Roy argued the point at all — which he did not, for it had never occurred to his mind — he might have assumed that because John had died, Fred was the more likely to live. It is a somewhat rare case for two brothers to be cut down in their youth and prime, one closely following upon the other.
Roy lived in a cottage standing by itself, a little beyond Clay Lane, but not so far off as the gamekeeper’s. On the morning when the bells had rung out — to the surprise and vexation of Lionel — Roy happened to be at home. Roy never grudged himself holiday when it could be devoted to the benefit of his wife. A negative benefit she may have thought it, since it invariably consisted in what Roy called a “blowing of her up.”
Mrs. Roy had heard that the Australian mail was in. But the postman had not been to their door, therefore no letter could have arrived for them from Luke. A great many mails, as it appeared to Mrs. Roy, had come in with the like result. That Luke had been murdered, as his master, John Massingbird, had been before him, was the least she feared. Her fears and troubles touching Luke were great; they were never at rest; and her tears fell frequently. All of which excited the ire of Roy.
She sat in a rocking-chair in the kitchen — a chair which had been new when the absent Luke was a baby, and which was sure to be the seat chosen by Mrs. Roy when she was in a mood to indulge any passing tribulation. The kitchen opened to the road, as the kitchens of many of the dwellings did open to it; a parlour was on the right, which was used only on the grand occasion of receiving visitors; and the stairs, leading to two rooms above, ascended from the kitchen. Here she sat, silently wiping away her dropping tears with a red cotton pocket-handkerchief. Roy was not in the sweetest possible temper himself that morning, so, of course, he turned it upon her.
“There you be, a-snivelling as usual! I’d have a bucket always at my feet, if I was you. It might save the trouble of catching rain-water.”
“If the letter-man had got anything for us, he’d have been round here an hour ago,” responded Mrs. Roy, bursting into unrestrained sobs.
Now, this happened to be the very grievance that was affecting the gentleman’s temper — the postman’s not having gone there. They had heard that the Australian mail was in. Not that he was actuated by any strong paternal feelings — such sentiments did not prey upon Mr. Roy. The hearing or the not hearing from his son would not thus have disturbed his equanimity. He took it for granted that Luke was alive somewhere — probably getting on — and was content to wait until himself or a letter should turn up. The one whom he had been expecting to hear from was his new master, Mr. Massingbird. He had fondly indulged the hope that credential letters would arrive for him, confirming him in his place of manager; he believed that this mail would inevitably bring them, as the last mails had not. Hence he had stayed at home to receive the postman. But the postman had not come, and it gave Roy a pain in his temper.
“They be a-coming back, that’s what it is,” was the conclusion he arrived at, when his disappointment had a little subsided. “Perhaps they might have come by this very ship! I wonder if it brings folks as well as letters?”
“I know he must be dead!” sobbed Mrs. Roy.
“He’s dead as much as you be,” retorted Roy. “He’s a-making his fortune, and he’ll come home after it — that’s what Luke’s a-doing. For all you know he may be come too.”
The words appeared to startle Mrs. Roy; she looked up, and he saw that her face had gone white with terror.
“Why! what does ail you?” cried he, in wonder. “Be you took crazy?”
“I don’t want him to come home,” she replied in an awe-struck whisper. “Roy, I don’t want him to.”
“You don’t want to be anything but a idiot,” returned Roy, with supreme contempt.
“But I’d like to hear from him,” she wailed, swaying herself to and fro. “I’m always a-dreaming of it.”
“You’ll just dream a bit about getting the dinner ready,” commanded Roy morosely; “that’s what you’ll dream about now. I said I’d have biled pork and turnips, and nicely you be a-getting on with it. Hark ye! I’m a-going now, but I shall be in at twelve, and if it ain’t ready, mind your skin!”
He swung open the kitchen door just in time to hear the church bells burst out with a loud and joyous peal. It surprised Roy. In quiet Deerham, such sounds were not very frequent.
“What’s up now?” cried Roy savagely. Not that the abstract fact of the bells ringing was of any moment to him, but he was in a mood to be angry with everything. “Here, you!” continued he, seizing hold of a boy who was running by, “what be them bells a-clattering for?”
Brought to thus summarily, the boy had no resource but to stop. It was a young gentleman whom you have had the pleasure of meeting before — Master Dan Duff. So fast had he been flying, that a moment or two elapsed ere he could get breath to speak.
The delay did not tend to soothe his capturer; and he administered a slight shake. “Can’t you speak, Dan Duff? Don’t you see who it is that’s a-asking of you? What be them bells a-working for?”
“Please, sir, it’s for Mr. Lionel Verner.”
The answer took Roy somewhat aback. He knew — as everybody else knew — that Mr. Lionel Verner’s departure from Deerham was fixed for that day; but to believe that the bells would ring out a peal of joy on that account was a staggerer even to Roy’s e
ars. Dan Duff found himself treated to another shake, together with a sharp reprimand.
“So they be a-ringing for him!” panted he. “There ain’t no call to shake my inside out of me for saying so. Mr. Lionel have got Verner’s Pride at last, and he ain’t a-going away at all, and the bells be a-ringing for it. Mother have sent me to tell the gamekeeper. She said he’d sure to give me a penny, if I was the first to tell him.”
Roy let go the boy. His arms and his mouth alike dropped. “Is that — that there codicil found?” gasped he.
Dan Duff shook his head. “I dun know nothink about codinals,” said he. “Mr. Fred Massingbird’s dead. He can’t keep Mr. Lionel out of his own any longer, and the bells is a-ringing for it.”
Unrestrained now, he sped away. Roy was not altogether in a state to stop him. He had turned of a glowing heat, and was asking himself whether the news could be true. Mrs. Roy stepped forward, her tears arrested.
“Law, Roy, whatever shall you do?” spoke she deprecatingly. “I said as you should have kept in with Mr. Lionel. You’ll have to eat humble pie, for certain.”
The humble pie would taste none the more palatable for his being reminded of it by his wife, and Roy drove her back with a shower of harsh words. He shut the door with a bang, and went out, a forlorn hope lighting him that the news might be false.
But the news, he found, was too true. Frederick Massingbird was really dead, and the true heir had come into his own.
Roy stood in much inward perturbation. The eating of humble pie — as Mrs. Roy had been kind enough to suggest — would not cost much to a man of his cringing nature; but he entertained a shrewd suspicion that no amount of humble pie would avail him with Mr. Verner; that, in short, he should be discarded entirely. While thus standing, the centre of a knot of gossipers, for the news had caused Deerham to collect in groups, the bells ceased as suddenly as they had begun, and Lionel Verner himself was observed coming from the direction of the church. Roy stood out from the rest, and, as a preliminary slice of the humble pie, took off his hat, and stood bare-headed while Lionel passed by.