Ralph the Heir Part 37

"I don't know that, my dear."

"We feel it so,--Clary and I,--and so does Mary. I can't tell you the sort of anxiety we were in all day yesterday. First we got the telegram about your arm,--and then Stemm came down at eight and told us that you were returned. Stemm was quite humane on the occasion."

"Poor Stemm!--I don't know what he'll have to do."

"It won't matter to him, papa;--will it? And then he told me another piece of news."

"What is it?"

"You won't like it, papa. We didn't like it at all."

"What is it, my dear?"

"Stemm says that Ralph has sold all the Newton Priory estate to his uncle."

"It is the best thing he could do."

"Really, papa?"

"I think so. He must have done that or made some disreputable marriage."

"I don't think he would have done that," said Patience.

"But he was going to do it. He had half-engaged himself to some tailor's daughter. Indeed, up to the moment of your telling me this I thought he would marry her." Poor Clary! So Patience said to herself as she heard this. "He had got himself into such a mess that the best thing he could do was to sell his interest to his uncle. The estate will go to a better fellow, though out of the proper line."

Then Patience told her father that she had brought a letter for him which had been given to her that morning by Stemm, who had met her at the station.

"I think," she said, "that it comes from some of the Newton family because of the crest and the Basingstoke postmark." Then the letter was brought;--and as it concerns much the thread of our story, it shall be given to the reader;--

Newton Priory, October 17, 186--.

MY DEAR SIR THOMAS UNDERWOOD,--

I write to you with the sanction, or rather at the instigation, of my father to ask your permission to become a suitor to your niece, Miss Bonner. You will probably have heard, or at least will hear, that my father has made arrangements with his nephew Ralph, by which the reversion of the Newton property will belong to my father. It is his intention to leave the estate to me, and he permits me to tell you that he will consent to any such settlement in the case of my marriage, as would have been usual, had I been his legitimate heir. I think it best to be frank about this, as I should not have ventured to propose such a marriage either to you or to Miss Bonner, had not my father's solicitude succeeded in placing me in circ.u.mstances which may, perhaps, be regarded as in part compensating the great misfortune of my birth.

It may probably be right that I should add that I have said no word on this subject to Miss Bonner. I have hitherto felt myself constrained by the circ.u.mstances to which I have alluded from acting as other men may act.

Should you be unwilling to concede that the advantages of fortune which have now fallen in my way justify me in proposing to myself such a marriage, I hope that you will at least excuse my application to yourself.

Very faithfully yours,

RALPH NEWTON.

Sir Thomas read the letter twice before he spoke a word to his daughter. Then, after pausing with it for a moment in his hand, he threw it to her across the bed. "Miss Mary is in luck," he said;--"in very great luck. It is a magnificent property, and as far as I can see, one of the finest young fellows I ever met. You understand about his birth?"

"Yes," said Patience, almost in a whisper.

"It might be a hindrance to him in some circ.u.mstances; but not here.

It is nothing here. Did you know of this?"

"No, indeed."

"Nor Mary?"

"It will be quite a surprise to her. I am sure it will."

"You think, then, that there has been nothing said,--not a word about it?"

"I am sure there has not, papa. Clarissa had some joke with Mary,--quite as a joke."

"Then there has been a joke?"

"It meant nothing. And as for Mr. Newton, he could not have dreamed of anything of the kind. We all liked him."

"So did I. The property will be much better with him than with the other. Mary is a very lucky girl. That's all I can say. As for the letter, it's the best letter I ever read in my life."

There was some delay before Sir Thomas could write an answer to young Newton. It was, indeed, his left arm that had suffered; but even with so much of power abstracted, writing is not an easy task. And this was a letter the answering of which could not be deputed to any secretary. On the third day after its receipt Sir Thomas did manage with much difficulty to get a reply written.

DEAR MR. NEWTON,--

I have had my left arm broken in the election here. Hence the delay. I can have no objection. Your letter does you infinite honour. I presume you know that my niece has no fortune.

Yours, most sincerely,

THOMAS UNDERWOOD.

"What a pity it is," said Sir Thomas, "that a man can't have a broken arm in answering all letters. I should have had to write ever so much had I been well. And yet I could not have said a word more that would have been of any use."

Sir Thomas was kept an entire week at the Percycross Standard after his election was over before the three doctors and the innkeeper between them would allow him to be moved. During this time there was very much discussion between the father and daughter as to Mary's prospects; and a word or two was said inadvertently which almost opened the father's eyes as to the state of his younger daughter's affections. It is sometimes impossible to prevent the betrayal of a confidence, when the line between betrayal and non-betrayal is finely drawn. It was a matter of course that there should be much said about that other Ralph, the one now disinherited and dispossessed, who had so long and so intimately been known to them; and it was almost impossible for Patience not to show the cause of her great grief.

It might be, as her father said, that the property would be better in the hands of this other young man; but Patience knew that her sympathies were with the spendthrift, and with the dearly-loved sister who loved the spendthrift. Since Clarissa had come to speak so openly of her love, to a.s.sert it so loudly, and to protest that nothing could or should shake it, Patience had been unable not to hope that the heir might at last prove himself worthy to be her sister's husband. Then they heard that his inheritance was sold.

"It won't make the slightest difference to me," said Clary almost triumphantly, as she discussed the matter with Patience the evening before the journey to Percycross. "If he were a beggar it would be the same." To Patience, however, the news of the sale had been a great blow. And now her father told her that this young man had been thinking of marrying another girl, a tailor's daughter;--that such a marriage had been almost fixed. Surely it would be better that steps should be taken to wean her sister from such a pa.s.sion! But yet she did not tell the secret. She only allowed a word to escape her, from which it might be half surmised that Clarissa would be a sufferer.

"What difference will it make to Clary?" asked Sir Thomas.

"I have sometimes thought that he cared for her," said Patience cunningly. "He would hardly have been so often at the villa, unless there had been something."

"There must be nothing of that kind," said Sir Thomas. "He is a spendthrift, and quite unworthy of her. I will not have him at the villa. He must be told so. If you see anything of that kind, you must inform me. Do you understand, Patience?" Patience understood well enough, but knew not what reply to make. She could not tell her sister's secret. And if there were faults in the matter, was it not her father's fault? Why had he not lived with them, so that he might see these things with his own eyes? "There must be nothing of that kind," said Sir Thomas, with a look of anger in his eyes.

When the week was over, the innkeeper and the doctors submitting with but a bad grace, the member for Percycross returned to London with his arm bound up in a sling. The town was by this time quite tranquil. The hustings had been taken down, and the artizans of the borough were back at their labours, almost forgetting Moggs and his great doctrines. That there was to be a pet.i.tion was a matter of course. It was at least a matter of course that there should be threats of a pet.i.tion. The threat of course reached Sir Thomas's ears, but nothing further was said to him. When he and his daughter went down to the station in the Standard fly, it almost seemed that he was no more to the borough than any other man might be with a broken arm. "I shall not speak of this to Mary," he said on his journey home. "Nor should you, I think, my dear."

"Of course not, papa."

"He should have the opportunity of changing his mind after receiving my letter, if he so pleases. For her sake I hope he will not."

Patience said nothing further. She loved her cousin Mary, and certainly had felt no dislike for this fortunate young man. But she could not so quickly bring herself to sympathise with interests which seemed to be opposed to those of her sister.