Jessop Reed took good care that his brother should have no opportunity
for meeting him to bring him to book, and during the interval before
Grantham Reed's funeral the only news Clive heard of Janet was that she
would be back to accompany her father to old Mr Reed's burial.
"There! my dear boy," said the Doctor; "I can do no more. You see she
does not even give me her address. I believe, though, that she is down
at Weymouth with the Hartleys."
This was on the day before the funeral, and Clive had to exercise a
little more patience till after all was over.
He was calmer now. There was that awful presence in the gloomy old
house, and he felt that it was no time to think of his own troubles or
to attack his brother. These matters, in spite of the suffering they
caused him, were put aside, and he sat in the study thinking of all that
had passed with the stern, kindly-hearted old man lying above there in
his last sleep. Of how he had fought the world to amass wealth, and of
this his last speculation, whose success he had been fated not to
witness, cut off as he was just after his son's announcement of the
wealth it must of a certainty produce.
It seemed to Clive to be a hard lesson in the vanity of human hopes; but
he did not flinch from his task.
"It was his wish," he said to himself, "that the mine should come out
triumphant, and it shall, for all our sakes."
As he mused, he thought of different business friends who had embarked
in the speculation upon the base of his father's credit, but mainly upon
the reports which he had sent home, his father having made these
announcements to him during his absence in the replies to letters, the
last being that the Doctor had bought heavily just before the shares
bounded up and were still rising.
"Poor old father!" he said to himself; "he shall find that I will do my
duty by it to the end, for I suppose he will leave me the management--
perhaps fully to take his place."
These business matters would intrude, and he did not cavil at them, for
he knew that he was carrying out the old man's wishes.
Then came the thoughts of Janet again, and they were mingled with a
bitter feeling of indignation against her for her readiness to think
evil of one whose every thought had been true. But he knew that the
reconciliation would be very sweet, and told himself that she was still
but a girl, and that her character would ripen by and by.
"And be full of trust," he muttered.
Then the scene of her leaving that room, angry, jealous, and proud,
leaning upon his brother's arm, came back, and a sensation of fierce
anger thrilled him.
"A coward!" he muttered, "a base, miserable coward! Well, we shall meet
to-morrow, and afterward the less we see one another in the future the
better for both."
Then he hurriedly devoted himself to his father's papers, so as to
change the current of his thoughts and try to check the throbbing of his
brain.
The next day broke gloomy and chill, well in accordance with the solemn
occasion. Grantham Reed had instructed that his funeral should be
perfectly quiet, and that few people should be asked, but many came
unbidden to show their respect for a business friend whose name had been
a power in the City, his word as good as any bond.
Jessop came late, and took his place in the darkened drawing-room
without a word; and, nearly the last, Doctor Praed arrived with Janet,
in deep mourning, and her face hidden behind a thick crape veil, without
a word passing between her and either of the brothers, from both of whom
she seemed to shrink.
A few of the oldest friends went up to see the dead; then Janet placed
her hand upon her father's arm, and went to the solemn chamber, staying
some time, and being led back hanging heavily upon her father's arm,
sobbing bitterly and covering her face beneath her veil as she sank down
in her seat.
Clive's heart throbbed and his eyes grew dim.
"God bless her!" he murmured to himself; "she did love him dearly."
He felt softened, and as if he could rush across the room, clasp her to
his heart, and whisper that he was true, as staunch as steel to her, the
darling of his heart, his first and only love.
But it was neither time nor place for such an action, and turning to his
brother, he signed to him to come, and, in the midst of a silence broken
only by Janet's sobs, they two went out and upstairs without a word, to
stand by the open coffin where their father lay calmly as if in sleep.
"How can I feel enmity now!" thought Clive, "as we stand here before
you, father, whom I shall see no more on earth? Am I to forgive him and
wipe away the past?"
As the young man bent down in that solemn moment, the words of the old
prayer came to him, and he breathed out, "As we forgive them that
trespass against us," and tenderly kissed the broad forehead.
Then half-blinded he went out, conscious that his brother followed him
closely down to the drawing-room, to listen, as Janet's sobs still rose
from time to time, to the heavy footsteps overhead, the hurried rustling
on the stairs, and then to rise when the door was opened, and pass out
with his brother to the mourning-coach.
Two hours, and the party were back in the long, gloomy dining-room, well
filled now, for of the many who followed, those most intimate had
entered to hear the reading of the deceased's will.
The brothers were widely separated now, while the Doctor, who looked old
and careworn, was seated near the family lawyer, who sat there at a
table with a tin despatch-box by his elbow, the most important personage
present. Janet was by her father's side, clinging to his hand, still
closely veiled, but trembling and weak, while a faint, half-suppressed
sob escaped from her lips at intervals.
A few remarks were made by old friends, but the importance of the
occasion acted as a check, and there was a sigh of relief as the
deceased's old legal friend cleared his throat, put on his glasses, and
took them off again twice to rub away imaginary blurrings which obscured
his sight.
Then he began to read the various clauses of the will, which was
singularly free from repetition, being concise, business-like, and clear
in the extreme.
Clive, as he sat back in his chair, half closed his eyes, for to him it
was as if his father were speaking, and all sounded so matter-of-fact
that he felt that he had nothing to learn at first. Everything nearly
was as he expected to hear; while Jessop, who kept his eyes rigidly
fixed upon the lawyer's lips, smiled in a peculiar way as he found how
prophetic he had been.
There were the minor bequests to servants of small sums and six or
twelve months' wages; a snuff-box to this old friend, a signet ring to
another, the watch and chain "to my dear trusty old friend Peter Praed,
doctor of medicine; also one hundred pounds as a slight remuneration for
his services as co-executor." And so on, and so on, till the lawyer
turned over a sheet and paused for a few moments before beginning again,
amidst profound silence now, for the more interesting portion of the
will was to come.
In brief. "To my son Jessop Reed, the interest of twenty-one thousand
pounds, two and a half per cent, bank-stock, to be paid to him during
the term of his life quarterly by my executors, the aforesaid Peter
Praed and Clive Reed, the capital sum of twenty-one thousand pounds
reverting at the death of my said son Jessop Reed to my estate."
"Exactly what I expected," said Jessop, with a smile of indifference.
"Five hundred a year, eh?"
"About, sir," said the old lawyer gravely. Then, after sitting attent,
as if expecting another question, he coughed again, and went on.
"I give and bequeath to my son, Clive Reed, the whole of my interest in
the `White Virgin' mine, together with everything of which I die
possessed in shares, bank-stocks, freehold and leasehold property,
begging him that he will act in his possession thereof as a true and
just man, and the steward of a large estate committed to his charge. I
do this believing that he will carry out my wishes in connection with
the said property for his own benefit, as well as for that of many
friends who have embarked their money in my last enterprise, the
aforesaid `White Virgin' mine."
The lawyer read the few remaining words connected with the signature
amidst a murmur of congratulations, in the midst of which Jessop started
up, black with fury and disappointment.
"Shame!" he cried. "I protest!" and a dead silence fell.
"May I ask why, sir?" said the lawyer coldly. "My deceased friend has
done more than his duty by you."
"Your words are uncalled-for and insolent, sir," cried Jessop.
"Recollect that you are only a paid professional man."
"And Grantham Reed's trusted confidential friend, sir. Dr Praed and I
were the two men to whom he opened his heart--eh, Doctor?"
"Yes, in all things."
"I was not speaking about my own beggarly, tied-up legacy," cried
Jessop, who was now deadly pale, "but of the cruel, disgraceful way in
which my father has behaved to a young lady whom he professed to love as
a daughter, and led to expect that she would stand high in his will."
Janet's hands were extended deprecatingly toward the speaker, and Clive
half rose in his chair, but sank back as the lawyer said coldly--
"Perhaps Mr Jessop Reed will listen to the codicil before he adds to a
long list of injuries by casting aspersions upon the generosity of my
dear dead friend."
"What! is there a codicil?" cried Jessop.
The lawyer bowed his head.
"Then why have you kept it back, sir?"
"Because it comes last," said the lawyer, with a faint smile, "and also
because I have had no opportunity to read it on account of
interruptions."
A dead silence fell once more, and Clive darted a glance across to
Janet, whose eyes, as far as he could see, appeared to be directed at
his brother.
"The codicil," began the lawyer, "is dated six months before our
lamented friend's death."