The Eldest Son Part 34

"You've seen him?" he said. "What did you say to him? You didn't make him think that I was going to give way?"

"No. He does not expect that, or, I think, hope for it now."

"Is _he_ going to give way, then?"

"No. Not that, either. He is going to be married very soon."

"Then what does he want to come here for? I won't receive that woman, whether he marries her or not. And if he marries her I'll disinherit him as far as I'm able to. I don't go back from my word. If he thinks he's going to turn me--if he's coming here with that idea--he'd better stop away."

"He doesn't think that," said Mrs. Clinton. "I don't think he will want to speak of anything that has been between you. He knows, and he has made up his mind to it. Don't you want to see him, Edward? He is coming because he wants to see you."

The Squire's face showed a flush, and he looked down. "I shall be very glad to see him," he said, and went out of the room.

The next morning at breakfast time a note was handed to the Squire from Aunt Laura, asking him if he could make it quite convenient to come and see her during the day, as she wished to consult him upon matters of business.

"Matters of business!" he echoed, reading out the note. "Now it's a remarkable thing that none of the old aunts has ever wished to consult me on matters of business before, though I should always have been ready to do what I could for them. I wonder what the old lady wants."

"I think I know," said Joan.

Humphrey looked at her sharply from across the table. "You can't possibly know anything about it," he said.

"She wants to keep guinea-pigs," pursued Joan, unmoved. "She told me about some she had when she was little, and said she should like to have them again."

"Humphrey might give her a hutch for a Christmas present," suggested Nancy.

"Don't talk nonsense, children," ordered the Squire. "You might run down to her after breakfast and say I will come and see her at eleven o'clock."

At the hour mentioned he marched into Aunt Laura's parlour, bringing with him into the rather close atmosphere a breath of the cold bright winter day. "Well, Aunt Laura," he said in his hearty voice, "you want me to help you settle your affairs, eh? What about Mr. Pauncey?

Shan't I be making him jealous?"

Aunt Laura, with thoughts of "refreshment" filling her mind, did not reply to this question until he was sitting opposite to her with a gla.s.s of sherry and a dry biscuit by his side. Then she said, "It will be a matter for Mr. Pauncey by and by, Edward. It is about Humphrey.

I wished to consult you about doing something for dear Humphrey and the nice girl he is going to marry."

"Oh, you've heard about that already, have you?" exclaimed the Squire.

"Good news travels fast, eh? Well, it isn't a bad thing, is it?

Another young couple settling down--what? Who let you into the secret, Aunt Laura?"

"Dear Humphrey has told me all about it," said the old lady, with some pride. "I was the first to know. And he brought the nice girl to see me when she was here at Christmas time, and she came by herself afterwards. I liked her very much, Edward, and I hope you do too."

"Oh yes, I like her," said the Squire. "It's an engagement that promises well. So you want to give them a wedding present, eh? Well, now, if I might suggest, and you cared to spend the money, how about a smart little pony dogcart, with harness and everything, and a pony, which I'd look out for you and take some trouble about it?--very pleased to. That would be a very handsome present. I don't know whether you'd care to go up to it. It would cost you about--about----"

"Thank you, Edward," Aunt Laura interrupted him. "I think that might be a good idea for one of my presents, and I will think it over and very likely accept your very kind offer. But it was not exactly a wedding present that I had in my mind when I asked you to come and see me, which you have so kindly and promptly done. As you know, I have an income far above my needs, and there is a considerable sum of money belonging to me which will go to the children after my death. How much it is I could not tell you exactly without consulting Mr. Pauncey, which I propose to do when I am better and he is better. But what I should wish to do is to make Humphrey an allowance to supplement what you yourself propose to allow him, and in my will I should like--but this I will not settle upon against your wishes, not by any means--I should like to--well, if you understand what I mean--to make Humphrey, as it were, more my heir, perhaps, than the other children."

Probably Aunt Laura had never before addressed a speech so long to her nephew without being interrupted, but his surprise at the disclosure of her wishes had kept him silent until she had finished.

"Well, that is certainly a generous proposal of yours, Aunt Laura," he said; "the allowance, I mean. As for the other----"

But it was Aunt Laura who interrupted now. "You see, Edward," she said eagerly, "it is like this--I have thought it over carefully--Humphrey seems to me to want the money more than the others. d.i.c.k, I take it--but of course I do not want to pry in the very least into your concerns--will be so well provided for that any little extra sum I left to him would be more in the nature of a compliment." She went on through the others, explaining why she thought Humphrey might fairly be preferred to them, and emphasising the fact that they would all get _something_; but the Squire was not listening to her. He was thinking about d.i.c.k. d.i.c.k, if he carried out his intentions, would not be well provided for. He would be, as the Squire thought, a poor man. Here were complications. He did not want Aunt Laura to make d.i.c.k her heir to the exclusion of the rest; but the weight of his own apparently now fruitless threat to disinherit him was always growing heavier on him, and he certainly did not want her to deny him his share under a false conception of the true state of affairs. He regretted now that all news of what had been happening lately with regard to d.i.c.k had been kept from Aunt Laura. Must he give her a hint as to how the land lay?

He could not make up his mind, on the spur of the moment, to do so. He shirked the laborious explanations that would be necessary, the surprise, and all that would follow. And even when she had adjusted her mind to the news, he did not know what he should advise her to do.

"As far as that goes," he said, "--making Humphrey your heir, as you say,--I should like to think that over a bit. Of course, you can do what you like with your own money, but----"

"Oh, but I should not think of acting against your wishes, Edward,"

said Aunt Laura.

"No, you're very good about that," he said kindly. "I've always known you would do what was right, and I haven't interfered with you in any way, and don't want to. But let's leave that for a bit. Don't make any decision till we've had another talk. As far as the allowance goes, I'm going to treat the boy generously. I haven't made up my mind yet about the exact sum, but of course I needn't say it wouldn't be altered by anything you liked to add. That would be an extra bit of spending for them, and I've no doubt they would make good use of it.

What was it you thought of, Aunt Laura?"

"Well," said the old lady slowly, "I think, Edward--if you don't mind--you won't be offended with me, I do hope--I have no wish in the _least_ to make it conditional--but I should take it as a great compliment if you would tell me first--when you have made up your mind--what allowance you yourself had thought of."

The Squire stared at her, and then burst out laughing. In an unwonted flash of insight he saw what she would be at, the diffident, submissive, gentle old woman, to whom he and everything he did or said were above all admitted criticism. "Well, if you must push me into a corner, Aunt Laura," he said, "I may as well settle the figure with you now. I'll start them with fifteen hundred a year and a house. There now. What are you going to put to that?"

"I will put to that," replied Aunt Laura, equally prompt, "another five hundred a year, and the dear young people will be very well off."

The Squire stared again. "By Jove!" he said in astonishment, "I'd no idea you meant to do anything of that sort."

"But you said it would make no difference to what you would do," she said a little anxiously.

The Squire leant forward in his chair and touched her knee. "Aunt Laura," he said, "you are a very clever old lady."

"Oh, Edward," she expostulated, "I hope you don't think----"

"Oh, you knew," he said, leaning back again in great good-humour, "you knew well enough. If you had told me you were going to that figure at first, you knew that I should be thinking that twelve hundred a year from me instead of fifteen would do very well. And that's just what I should have thought, by Jove! Any man would. However, I have no wish to save my pocket at the expense of yours, and we'll let it stand at what I said. But I say, are you sure you can manage it all right?

It's a good deal of money, you know. You won't be narrowing yourself, eh? I shouldn't like to feel that you weren't every bit as comfortable as you ought to be--what?"

Aunt Laura a.s.sured him that she would remain every bit as comfortable as she ought to be, and finally he left her and walked home, whistling to himself every now and then as he went over the points of their conversation, and once or twice laughing outright at his memories. "By Jove! she had me," he said to himself, after he had gained the comparative seclusion of his park and could stop in the road to give vent to his merriment. "Who'd have thought it of old Aunt Laura?"

CHAPTER XXII

d.i.c.k COMES HOME

As the time came near for d.i.c.k's visit the Squire's mood changed from one of genial satisfaction to a nervous irascibility, which, as Joan said to Nancy, made him very difficult to live with.

"I know," Nancy agreed. "It is really rather degrading to have to try and keep him in a good temper."

"Good temper!" repeated Joan. "It is as much as one can do to keep him from snapping off one's head for nothing at all; in fact, one can't do it."

"I think," said Nancy reflectively, "that a time will come when we shall have to take father in hand and teach him how to behave. That's darling mother's mistake--that she's never done it. My view is that a woman has got to keep a man in order, or he will tyrannise over her.

Don't you think that is so, Joan?"

"From what I have observed," replied Joan--they were sitting on the big sofa before the schoolroom fire--"I should say it was. And it's a bad thing for men themselves. Of course, we know quite well that father is frightened to death of what d.i.c.k will say to him when he comes, but if we were old enough--and mother cared to do it--to make him hide it up when he's with us, it wouldn't have nearly such a bad effect on him.

He would have to forget it sometimes; now he never does."

Whether or no the Squire was frightened to death of what d.i.c.k would say to him when he came, he was certainly upset at the idea of what lay before him. Although he had as yet taken no definite steps, he had come to the decision that d.i.c.k, as far as was possible, should be disinherited, if he made the marriage that now seemed inevitable. The news of Humphrey's desirable engagement had made the other look still more undesirable, and it had taken off the edge of his strong aversion to act in a way so opposed to all his life-long intentions. It seemed almost to have justified his decision, and it had certainly softened to himself the sting of it.

But it was one thing to allow his mind to dwell on the unhoped-for compensations of his decision, when d.i.c.k by his own choice had cut himself off from Kencote and remained away from it, and it was quite another to contemplate his coming back, before the decision was made irrevocable, on a footing so different from the one he had hitherto occupied. The Squire was made intensely uncomfortable at the thought of how he should bear himself. He did now want to see his eldest son again, and to be friends with him. That desire had been greatly weakened while his mind had occupied itself with Humphrey's affair, but he saw, dimly, that it had only been sleeping, that he would always want d.i.c.k, however much he might have reason to be pleased with Humphrey, and that he was laying up for himself unhappiness in the future in working to put Humphrey into d.i.c.k's place, as he had rashly promised himself that he would do.