The Eldest Son Part 48

She also visited me frequently while she was at Kencote, and Humphrey comes to see me every day. Since you are unable to live here, d.i.c.k, I am very glad that we shall have him and his wife in our old home. I shall be very glad to see the dear place lived in again, for I spent many happy years of my life there."

"Has he settled how he's going to arrange the rooms?" asked d.i.c.k, in a tone that made Virginia look at him, although Aunt Laura noticed nothing unusual in the question.

"Yes, he has talked a good deal about it," she said, "and I have given him advice upon the matter, some of which he thinks it quite likely that he will take."

"I hear you've been very generous to him, Aunt Laura," d.i.c.k said.

"Oh, but there was no need for him to have said anything to you about that," said Aunt Laura. "I wanted to help him to marry the girl he loved, and it was quite true that a girl of her rank--not that her branch of the family is better than ours, but they have rank and we have not, although I have no doubt that we _could_ have had it if we had wished--would expect rather more in her marriage than other girls, and I told Humphrey that I quite understood that, as he seemed rather low about his prospects. I didn't want your dear father to have all the burden, and he has responded wonderfully to my offer. I am only glad that it was possible for me to help Humphrey in his desire, and that it should be possible for me to do so without doing _you_ or any of the others an injustice, d.i.c.k; for I know you are well provided for, and will not grudge your brother his share of good things."

"I don't grudge him anything that he's ent.i.tled to have," replied d.i.c.k.

"Now I want you to tell Virginia about Kencote in the old days, when my great-grandfather was alive. She wants to hear all about Kencote that she can."

Aunt Laura was nothing loath, and poured forth a gentle stream of reminiscence until it was time for d.i.c.k and Virginia to go.

As they let themselves out of the house and walked down the dark village street, d.i.c.k said, "Humphrey ought to be kicked. Fancy sponging on that simple old woman! and getting her to leave the bulk of her money to him, and away from the rest of us; because that's what it means. I'll have it out with him as soon as I get home."

"Oh, my dear!" said Virginia. "Money, money, money! What does it matter to us? We shall have plenty."

"We shouldn't have had plenty, or anything like it, if he'd had his way. It isn't only old Aunt Laura he's been working on. He's taken advantage of my being out of favour to get the governor to consider leaving the best part of the property to him. He was actually at it this afternoon. He tried to get a definite promise out of him to leave him Partisham, which will be worth all the rest put together some day."

"But, d.i.c.k dear! you knew all that. It was your father's own decision.

You told me so."

"Humphrey had no right to take advantage of his threats to work against me. That's what he's been doing. It wasn't like the governor. I can see a good deal more daylight now. I thought I'd only got his obstinacy to fight against. Now I see I've had an enemy at court, who's been playing the sneak all along."

"I don't think so," Virginia said boldly. "Humphrey isn't bad. He has been very nice to me. He told me he was glad that all this quarrelling was at an end."

"I dare say he did," said d.i.c.k, unsoftened. "Now he sees that we can't be kept out of it any longer he'd like to curry favour."

"Oh, what an uncharitable d.i.c.k! That's not like you, d.i.c.k. We're going to be happy together, aren't we, my own beloved?" She was walking with her hands clasped over his arm.

"I hope so," said d.i.c.k.

"Well, then, think of him a little too. _He_ loves a woman, and wants to be happy with her."

"Oh, love! I don't believe he loves her the least in the world. I know her well enough. She's an insipid clothes-peg. I don't believe he'd look at her if she hadn't got a t.i.tle. He's like that. I don't know where he gets it from. The governor likes a t.i.tle too, but not in that rotten way."

"You didn't choose me for _my_ t.i.tle, did you?" asked Virginia.

He laughed at her. "Your t.i.tle will disappear when you marry me," he said. "Mrs. Richard Clinton will have to do for you, my girl, for the present."

"You never told me that," she said. "And I do love being called 'my lady.' Americans do. However, I would rather be Mrs. Richard Clinton than what I am now. But, d.i.c.k dear, please don't have a row with Humphrey. Please don't. Let's try and make everybody happy. He must be feeling disappointed, and perhaps angry. We can afford to be generous."

"I'll tell him what I think of him," said d.i.c.k.

"Then tell him what you really think of him. He's your brother. You have been friends all your lives. Tell him, if you must, that you don't think he has behaved well. But don't tell him that you think it isn't in his nature to behave well. There's a good deal to be said for him. Let him say it. And, even if there wasn't----"

"Well, I don't think there is. He's behaved in a selfish, underhand way."

"Supposing he has, d.i.c.k! Make allowances for him. He's done himself more harm than he's done you. We ought to be sorry for people who have done wrong. That's what I believe Christianity means."

"Oh, well, yes; if they're sorry for it themselves."

"You can make them so; but not by being angry with them. It isn't hard to forgive people when they admit they're in the wrong. It is hard, otherwise, but that doesn't make it any less right to do it. I'm preaching, but we're going to be always together, d.i.c.k, and you must put up with a little sermon sometimes."

"You're a sweet saint, Virginia, but what on earth are you asking me to do? Am I to go to Humphrey and say, 'You've acted like a cur, but I forgive you; take all that you can get that has always been looked upon as mine, and let's say no more about it'?"

"Oh, don't talk about the money or the property at all. Let that look after itself. Only remember that you were little boys together, and were very fond of each other, as I'm sure you were; and remember that you have been made happy, and he has been disappointed. That ought to make you kind. And you can be so kind, d.i.c.k."

"I believe you think I can be everything that's good."

"I know you can. And it will make me love you even more than I do now, if that's possible, if you make friends with Humphrey, instead of quarrelling with him for good. After all, we're rather tired of quarrels, aren't we?"

"I think we are," said d.i.c.k.

He did not see Humphrey alone until the women had gone to bed. He had gone up to his father when they had left the dining-room, and Humphrey had avoided speaking to him, if he could help it, all the evening.

Otherwise he had taken his part in the mild gaiety of the conversation and hidden his wounds gallantly. He was going upstairs with his candle when d.i.c.k said to him, "Are you coming into the smoking-room?"

He looked at him with a momentary hostility. "Yes, when I've changed my coat," he said.

"Mine's down here," said d.i.c.k, turning away.

When his servant had helped him on with his smoking-jacket and gone away, he stood in front of the fire and filled a pipe. He was ready to do Virginia's bidding and make friends with Humphrey, but he disliked the job, and didn't know exactly how he was going to begin. And he was going to speak plainly too. Humphrey had behaved badly, and he was going to tell him so--kindly.

Humphrey came in and lit a cigarette before either of them spoke. As he threw the match into the fire he said, "I suppose you want to have it out."

His tone was not conciliatory. He was both angry and nervous. d.i.c.k's brain cleared as if by magic. He had a situation to control.

"Well, I think we ought to have a talk," he said. "Things have been going wrong with me, and now they've come right, and you don't appear to be quite as much rejoiced at it as you might be."

"If you put it like that, I'm not rejoiced at all," said Humphrey, "and I'm not going to pretend to be."

"But you told Virginia you were," d.i.c.k put in.

Humphrey was for a moment disconcerted. "I'm glad as far as she's concerned," he said. "She oughtn't to have been treated as she has been, and I've always said so."

"Oh, have you?" commented d.i.c.k.

Humphrey flushed angrily. "If you think I've been working against you," he said, "it's quite untrue."

"Well, you've been working for your own hand, and it comes to much the same thing."

"I haven't even been doing that. The governor made me a lot of promises, and I didn't ask him to make one of them."

"What about Partisham?"

"You know as well as I do that he'd definitely made up his mind to leave as much away from you as he could, and that was the chief thing he had to leave away. I didn't ask him to do it, but----"

"It didn't occur to you to ask him not to do it, I suppose? Because it's a pretty stiff thing to do--to leave away most of what keeps up the place."