When death brings other departures besides the one that is greatest, a
hundred pangs may be added to its sadness. There is the leaving the old
home, the uprooting of old ties,--a shock meets you at every turn. Mrs
Miles felt so sharply the fear of these added troubles, that she
implored Anthony with a wistful entreaty he could not resist to let her
remain at Thorpe, and to move, at least for the present, into a house
they called "the cottage," about half a mile from the Vicarage. He
agreed reluctantly, and because it seemed cruelty to his mother to
oppose her at such a time. He himself disliked staying in the place,
with their home no longer theirs; and his sorrow for his father was so
great that he had almost an impatient longing to escape from a
neighbourhood which was absolutely made up of associations. The Squire
forgot all his little animosities with Anthony Miles, while the awe of
standing by his old friends grave was fresh in his mind; but Anthony
shrank from his homely attempts at consolation, as a man shrinks from
the reopening of a wound. Even Winifred, whose sympathy was at once
strong and delicate, found it difficult to show it. The little barrier
which had reared itself between them did not fall away at her kind,
womanly touch. Anthony was inclined to reject an attempt to share his
sorrow,--almost to resent it. He wanted to escape, to try his wings, to
make a career, and Mrs Miles promised to go with him to London; but her
heart failed her, poor thing, whenever the time came, and he gave way to
her wishes, meaning his own to have their way by and by.
So one by one the new things which had seemed so strange subsided into
ordinary life. Marmaduke and Marion were living in one of the midland
counties. A new vicar came to Thorpe,--a short, bustling man, in all
respects a contrast to Mr Miles. But it was a peculiarity of the place
that even change seemed to lose its characteristics in the quiet little
village; a certain dogged custom was too strong for it, or the climate
was too sleepy. Little by little Mr Brent laid down his arms, accepted
this anomaly, that habit, and things went on in much the same groove as
in Mr Miles's time, although Mr Brent was red-haired and energetic.
In the winter a visitor came to Hardlands, an old friend of the
Squire's, and no less a person than Mr Pitt, Mr Tregennas's lawyer.
It took Anthony by surprise to meet him one day walking with the Squire,
and the young man, who had been chafed by a certain dry, unsympathetic
manner in the old lawyer, was not very cordial in his greeting.
"So you knew Anthony Miles before?" said Mr Chester when they had
parted. "Oh! ay! to be sure! I forgot you had to do with that queer
affair of his uncle, or grandfather, or whoever he was, that died the
other day."
"Who told you it was a queer affair?" said Mr Pitt, stopping short.
"Who? Why, my own common-sense could do so much, I suppose. I always
thought the boy a romantic young idiot, and it's just the sort of thing
I should have expected him to do," replied the Squire with great pride.
"Humph!"
"I'll say this for him, he hasn't got any of those low mercantile
notions half the young men of the present day bring out of their pockets
cut and dried for use. They'll be the ruin of the country, sir. Don't
talk to me about reductions and rotten administrations, and all the rest
of it; the other's the real evil, take my word."
"And you consider young Miles free from the prevailing passion?"
"I consider he hasn't that miserable, pettifogging spirit at his back,
if that's what you mean. You must have seen it for yourself. You
haven't many clients, I should say, that would knock off half a fortune
to put things right, have you?"
"No," said Mr Pitt, thrusting his stick into a lump of red mud.
"Certainly not many."
"There, that's what I said. Generally there is some spur in the
background before they do that sort of thing."
"Squire, you deserve to have been a lawyer."
"Ay, ay," said Mr Chester, rubbing his hands in high glee, "that's the
way with you fellows; you think no one can see an inch before his nose,
except he's one of yourselves. The worst of your trade is the
confounded low opinion you get of human nature. I dare say the best you
would say for young Miles was that he was a fool for his pains."
"Certainly not," said Mr Pitt dryly. "A fool is the last thing I
should have called him."
"Eh, what?" said Mr Chester, stopping suddenly, and looking at his
companion with an expression of bewilderment. "What do you mean? Can't
you speak out? What on earth would you call him?"
"A very prudent--scoundrel would be nearer the mark."
The effect upon the Squire was electrical. His face became crimson with
anger.
"Do you know what you are talking about, sir? Anthony Miles a
scoundrel! Why, you'll be saying I'm a scoundrel next! Anthony
Miles!--a young fellow I've known since he was that high! It's an
insult, an insult to us all.--Are you mad, Pitt?" said the Squire,
pulling himself up with a sudden attempt at self-control which nearly
choked him.
"No, I'm not mad, and I know all you have to say against it; but there
are such unfortunate things as facts which outweigh everything else in
the way of evidence. I've known you longer than you've known him,
remember, and I've spoken out because I've heard a rumour that Mr
Anthony Miles is desirous of marrying your daughter."
Mr Chester stared at him incredulously, and then burst into a laugh.
"O, that's one of your facts too, I suppose! Anthony many Winifred!
Mercy on us, man, what cock-and-bull stories have you been picking up?
Winifred and Anthony? They've played like brother and sister pretty
nearly all their lives, and that's enough for the gossips, no doubt.
You'd better ask Winifred, and see what she'll say."
"It is new to you, then?"
"New to me? Ay, as new as it is to them, I'll be bound. I'll tell you
what, Pitt, you'd better not let it out, but some sly rascal has been
hocusing you, and done it neatly, too, uncommon neatly. Come, come,
isn't there a little more as good to tell me?" And the Squire, with all
his good-humour restored, walked on, nodding to the children who came
running up to make their courtesies.
"Well, if that part of my information isn't true, I'm glad of it," said
Mr Pitt, coolly. "I told you, if you recollect, that it was no more
than a rumour. But as to my opinion of young Miles, I am sorry to say
it does not rest upon anything so doubtful."
"You had better speak out," said Mr Chester, fuming again, and striding
on savagely. It was a very different matter to fall foul of the young
man himself, and to hear this said of him in sober earnest, especially
when he thought of a grave by which they had stood side by side not very
long ago.
"I intend to speak out, now I have said so much. All my relations with
Mr Anthony Miles date only from one time--"
"When he behaved as few young fellows would have behaved," interrupted
the Squire warmly.
"I hope so, I am sure," said Mr Pitt, pointedly misapplying the words.
"You are acquainted with the external features of the case, the bequest
to the young man and his own subsequent division of the property?"
"I am proud to say I am."
"You are also probably aware that there is a granddaughter of Mr
Tregennas living, or presumed to be living, for whom he had refused to
make any provision whatever?"
"To Anthony's excessive regret," said Mr Chester, marching on bravely.
"Those are your words, not mine."
"Well, are you going to say they are a lie?" broke out the Squire in a
white heat again. "His father told me with his own lips that they had
done their utmost with the old curmudgeon, and he was the truest-hearted
gentleman that ever breathed, sir!"
"Did his father tell you that, a week before his death, Mr Tregennas
wrote to Anthony Miles, asking whether the Vicar would agree to half the
fortune being made over to the grandchild, and--mark this--desiring him
if he would not consent to take no notice of the letter?"
"Well?" said the Squire, stopping.
"Well."
"Can't you do anything but repeat one's words?" growled Mr Chester with
something else between his teeth.
"That is all."
"What is all?"
"What I say. Mr Tregennas wrote that letter, and there the matter
ended."
"Ended! Do you pretend to tell me there was no answer from Anthony?"
"Never a word more. And that was enough for Mr Tregennas. It had been
all I could do to work him up so far, and I confess,--though I was a
fool not to know the world better at my time of life,--I confess I hoped
there was a chance for poor Margaret's girl when we had got him to that
point."
"A chance!" stammered Mr Chester, as red and discomfited as if he had
been the person accused. "Anthony would have jumped to give it to her,
as I've told you already."
"So it seemed," said the lawyer, dryly.
"Confound you, man, but I tell you he would!"
"I can only answer you by the facts of the case."
"But--I'll ask him--you don't know what you're saying--my word for it,
he never had that letter."
"I posted it myself. Besides, where is it? If there had been a
non-delivery we should have heard by this time from the Dead-Letter
Office. Pooh, pooh, Chester, the temptation was a little too strong,
that's the long and short of it, and, after all, no one pretends that
there was any fraud. Mr Tregennas put the choice into his hands, and
he had no doubt an absolute right to choose."
The Squire, who had thrust his hands into his pockets, was striding on
at a pace with which his friend found it difficult to keep up. He gave
a sort of groan when Mr Pitt finished his deliberate speech, and then
stopped and turned suddenly upon him.
"I tell you what, Pitt," he said, setting his teeth. "If you weren't
who you are, I should like to--to--"
"To kick me," said the lawyer, coolly finishing the sentence. "I should
not wonder. But considering who I am, and considering that I have
certainly no personal animus against the young man,--what can you make
of the story?"
"Do you want me to say I think my old friend's lad a villain? Good
heavens, sir, and he was so proud of him!"
Mr Pitt's manner changed a little, losing some of the hard ease with
which he had talked, as he began to understand the pain it cost the
loyal-hearted Squire to receive his impressions. He said earnestly,--
"You think too harshly of it, Chester, and perhaps I spoke too strongly.
There is no villainy in the matter. Few young men would have had
strength of moral purpose sufficient to resist such a temptation, and
give up half a valuable property."
"But that is exactly what he has done," broke in Mr Chester, quickly.
"We're forgetting all that. He has voluntarily disposed of half. It is
sheer nonsense, Pitt. How can you account for such an act?"
"Well, it has gone to his sister, which is a different business from
losing it altogether. But I own to you that my own convictions point to
a certain pressure having been brought to bear. I suspect that the
secret was scented, and that this was the price of silence,--in fact, I
may say that I put a question or two to young Lee, which proved pretty
decidedly that he was acquainted with the contents of the letter. No
other theory would explain his manner of receiving the gift, for he
absolutely expressed no gratitude whatever."
It was evident that Mr Pitt's quiet persistence was producing the
effect it usually does produce upon violent people. The Squire looked
like a man who has received a blow. He walked on silently for some
time, then stopping at a gate, said,--
"I think I'll go across to Sanders's farm; there's a little business I
want to speak to him about. You can't miss Mannering's house if you go
straight forward." He turned away as he spoke, but had not gone many
paces before he strode back. "The boy's father did not know a word of
the matter, sir; of that I'll stake my existence," he said positively,
and went off again without giving Mr Pitt time to answer.
As the lawyer walked thoughtfully on towards the Red House, he
acknowledged to himself that this conviction of the Squire's was
probably well grounded. Even to the eyes of a suspicious man, and Mr
Pitt was partly from nature and partly from profession suspicious, the
Vicar had carried that about him which made it very difficult to doubt
his honour. It was quite possible that the contents of the letter had
been withheld from him. But the other affair had resolved itself almost
into certainty. When Mr Tregennas read to him the words he had just
written, Mr Pitt had felt that it was putting human virtue to too
severe a test; he half smiled at himself now for having been such a fool
as to cherish a hope that the young man would be generous to Margaret
Hare's child at his own expense.