PERPLEXITY.
It was a terrible blow; there was no doubt of that; very terrible to
Lionel Verner, so proud and sensitive. Do not take the word proud in its
wrong meaning. He did not set himself up for being better than others,
or think everybody else dirt beneath his feet; but he was proud of his
independence, of his unstained name--he was proud to own that fine
place, Verner's Pride. And now Verner's Pride was dashed from him, and
his independence seemed to have gone out with the blow, and a slight
seemed to have fallen upon him, if not upon his name.
He had surely counted upon Verner's Pride. He had believed himself as
indisputably its heir, as though he had been Stephen Verner's eldest
son, and the estate entailed. Never for a moment had a doubt that he
would succeed entered his own mind, or been imparted to it from any
quarter. In the week that intervened between Mr. Verner's death and
burial, he had acted as entire master. It was he who issued orders--from
himself now, not from any other--it was he who was appealed to. People,
of their own accord, began to call him Mr. Verner. Very peremptory
indeed had been a certain interview of his with Roy the bailiff. Not, as
formerly, had he said, "Roy, my uncle desires me to say so and so;" or,
"Roy, you must not act in that way, it would displease Mr. Verner;" but
he issued his own clear and unmistakable orders, as the sole master of
Verner's Pride. He and Roy all but came to loggerheads that day; and
they would have come quite to it, but that Roy remembered in time that
he, before whom he stood, was his head and master--his master to keep
him on, or to discharge him at pleasure, and who would brook no more
insubordination to his will. So Roy bowed, and ate humble pie, and hated
Lionel all the while. Lionel had seen this; he had seen how the man
longed to rebel, had he dared: and now a flush of pain rose to his brow
as he remembered that in that interview he had _not_ been the master;
that he was less master now than he had ever been. Roy would likewise
remember it.
Mr. Bitterworth took Lionel aside. Sir Rufus Hautley had gone out after
the blow had fallen, when the codicil had been searched for in vain, had
gone out in anger, shaking the dust from his feet, declining to act as
executor, to accept the mourning-ring, to have to do with anything so
palpably unjust. The rest lingered yet. It seemed that they could not
talk enough of it, could not tire of bringing forth new conjectures,
could not give vent to all the phases of their astonishment.
"What could have been your offence, that your uncle should alter his
will, two years ago, and leave the estate from you?" Mr. Bitterworth
inquired of Lionel, drawing him aside.
"I am unable to conjecture," replied Lionel. "I find by the date of this
will that it was made the week subsequent to my departure for Paris,
when Jan met with the accident. He was not displeased with me then, so
far as I knew----"
"Did you go to Paris in opposition to his wish?" interrupted Mr.
Bitterworth.
"On the contrary, he hurried me off. When the news of Jan's accident
arrived, and I went to my uncle with the message, he said to me--I
remember his very words--'Go off at once; don't lose an instant,' and he
handed me money for the journey and for my stay; for Jan, also, should
any great expense be needed for him; and in an hour I was away on my
route. I stayed six months in Paris, as you may remember--the latter
portion of the time for my own pleasure. When I did return home, I was
perfectly thunderstruck at the change in my uncle's appearance, and at
the change in his manners to me. He was a bowed, broken man, with--as it
seemed to me--some care upon his mind; and that I had offended him in
some very unfortunate way, and to a great extent, was palpable. I never
could get any solution to it, though I asked him repeatedly. I do not
know, to this hour, what I had done. Sometimes I thought he was angry
at my remaining so long away; but, if so, he might have given me a hint
to return, or have suffered some one else to give it, for he never wrote
to me."
"Never wrote to you?" repeated Mr. Bitterworth.
"Not once, the whole of the time I was away. I wrote to him often; but
if he had occasion to send me a message, Mrs. Verner or Fred Massingbird
would write it. Of course, this will, disinheriting me, proves that my
staying away could not have been the cause of displeasure--it is dated
only the week after I went."
"Whatever may have been the cause, it is a grievous wrong inflicted on
you. He was my dear friend, and we have but now returned from laying him
in his grave, but still I must speak out my sentiments--that he had _no
right_ to deprive you of Verner's Pride."
Lionel knit his brow. That he thought the same; that he was feeling the
injustice as a crying and unmerited wrong, was but too evident. Mr.
Bitterworth had bent his head in a reverie, stealing a glance at Lionel
now and then.
"Is there nothing that you can charge your conscience with; no sin,
which may have come to the knowledge of your uncle, and been deemed by
him a just cause for disinheritance?" questioned Mr. Bitterworth, in a
meaning tone.
"There is nothing, so help me Heaven!" replied Lionel, with emotion. "No
sin, no shame; nothing that could be a cause, or the shade of a cause--I
will not say for depriving me of Verner's Pride, but even for my uncle's
displeasure."
"It struck me--you will not be offended with me, Lionel, if I mention
something that struck me a week back," resumed Mr. Bitterworth. "I am a
foolish old man, given to ponder much over cause and effect--to put two
and two together, as we call it; and the day I first heard from your
uncle that he had had good cause--it was what he said--for depriving you
of Verner's Pride, I went home, and set myself to think. The will had
been made just after John Massingbird's departure for Australia. I
brought before me all the events which had occurred about that same
time, and there rose up naturally, towering above every other
reminiscence, the unhappy business touching Rachel Frost.
Lionel"--laying his hand on the young man's shoulder and dropping his
voice to a whisper--"did _you_ lead the girl astray?"
Lionel drew himself up to his full height, his lip curling with
displeasure.
"Mr. Bitterworth!"
"To suspect you never would have occurred to me. I do not suspect you
now. Were you to tell me that you were guilty of it, I should have
difficulty in believing you. But it did occur to me that possibly your
uncle may have cast that blame on you. I saw no other solution of the
riddle. It could have been no light cause to induce Mr. Verner to
deprive you of Verner's Pride. He was not a capricious man.'
"It is impossible that my uncle could have cast a shade of suspicion on
me, in regard to that affair," said Lionel. "He knew me better. At the
moment of its occurrence, when nobody could tell whom to suspect, I
remember a word or two were dropped which caused me to assure him _I_
was not the guilty party, and he stopped me. He would not allow me even
to speak of defence; he said he cast no suspicion on me."
"Well, it is a great mystery," said Mr. Bitterworth. "You must excuse
me, Lionel. I thought Mr. Verner might in some way have taken up the
notion. Evil tales, which have no human foundation, are sometimes palmed
upon credulous ears for fact, and do their work."
"Were it as you suggest, my uncle would have spoken to me, had it been
only to reproach," said Lionel. "It is a mystery, certainly, as you
observe; but that is nothing to this mystery of the disappearance of the
codicil----"
"I am going, Lionel," interrupted Jan, putting his head round the room
door.
"I must go, too," said Lionel, starting from the sideboard against which
he had been leaning. "My mother must hear of this business from no one
but me."
Verner's Pride emptied itself of its mourners, who betook themselves
their respective ways. Lionel, taking the long crape from his hat, and
leaving on its deep mourning band alone, walked with a quick step
through the village. He would not have _chosen_ to be abroad that day,
walking the very route where he had just figured chief in the
procession, but to go without delay to Lady Verner was a duty. And a
duty was never willingly omitted by Lionel Verner.