"What's up, mother?"
"Did you know all about this dreadful business, Jock?"
"Afterwards, of course, but I was shut up in school, writing three hundred disgusting lines of Virgil, or I'd have got the brutes off some way."
"And so little Armie is the brave one of all!"
"Well, so he is," said Jock; "but I say, mother, don't go making him cockier. You know he's only fit to be stitched up in one of Jessie's little red Sunday books, and he must learn to keep a civil tongue in his head, and not be an insufferable little donkey."
"You would not have had him give in and do it! Never, Jock!"
"Why no, but he could have got off with a little chaff instead of coming out with his testimony like that, and so I've been telling him. So don't you set him up again to think himself forty martyrs all in one, or there will be no living with him."
"If all boys were like him."
Jock made a sound of horror and disgust that made her laugh.
"He's all very well," added he in excuse; "but to think of all being like that. The world would be only one big muff."
"But, Jock, what's this about Bobus being paid for doing people's exercises?"
"Bobus is a cute one," said Jock.
"I thought he had more uprightness," she sighed. "And you, Jock?"
"I should think not!" he laughed. "Nobody would trust me."
"Is that the only reason?" she said, sadly, and he looked up in her face, squeezed her hand, and muttered-
"One mayn't like dirt without making such a row."
"That's like father's boy," she said, and he wrung her hand again.
They found Armine coiled up before the fire with a book, and Jock greeted him with-
"Well, you little donkey, there's such a shindy at the Croft as you never heard."
"Mother, you know!" cried Armine, running into her outstretched arms and being covered with her kisses. "But who told?" he asked.
"John and Jessie," said Jock. "They always said they would if anyone said anything against you to mother or Uncle Robert."
"Against me?" said Armine.
"Yes," said Jock. "Didn't you know it got about through some of the juniors or their sisters that it was Brownlow maximus gently chastising you for bad language, and of course Mrs. Coffinkey told Aunt Ellen."
"Oh, but Jock," cried Armine, turning round in consternation, "I hope Rob does not know."
And on further pressing it was extracted that Rob, when sent home with him, had threatened him with the great black vaulted cellars of Kencroft if he divulged the truth. When Jock left them the relief of pouring out the whole history to the mother was evidently great.
"You know, mother, I couldn't," he cried, as if there had been a physical impossibility.
"Why, dear child. How did you bear their horrid cruelty?"
"I thought it could not be so bad as it was for the forty soldiers on the Lake. Dear grandmamma read us the story out of a little red book one Sunday evening when you were gone to Church. They froze, you know, and it was only cold and nasty for me."
"So the thought of them carried you through?"
"God carried me through," said the child reverently. "I asked Him not to let me break His Commandment."
Just then the Colonel's heavy tread was heard, and with him came Mr. Ogilvie, whom he had met on the road and informed. The good man was indeed terribly grieved, and his first words were, "Caroline, I cannot tell you how much shocked and concerned I am;" and then he laid his hand on Armine's shoulder saying-"My little boy, I am exceedingly sorry for what you have suffered. One day Robert will be so too. You have been a noble little fellow, and if anything could console me for the part Robert has played it would be the seeing one of my dear brother's sons so like his father."
He gave the downcast brow a fatherly kiss, so really like those of days gone by that the boy's overstrained spirits gushed forth in sobs and tears, of which he was so much ashamed that he rushed out of the room, leaving his mother greatly overcome, his uncle distressed and annoyed, and his master not much less so, at the revelation of so much evil, so hard either to reach or to understand.
"I would have brought Robert to apologise," said the Colonel, "if he had been as yet in a mood to do so properly."
"Oh! that would have been dreadful for us all," ejaculated Caroline, under her breath.
"But I can make nothing of him," continued he, "He is perfectly stolid and seems incapable of feeling anything, though I have talked to him as I never thought to have to speak to any son of mine; but he is deaf to all."
The Colonel, in his wrath, even while addressing only Caroline and Mr. Ogilvie, had raised his voice as if he were shouting words of command, so that both shrank a little, and Carey said-
"I don't think he knew it was so bad."
"What? Cheating his masters and torturing a helpless child for not yielding to his tyranny?"
"People don't always give things their right names even to themselves," said Mr. Ogilvie. "I should try to see it from the boy's point of view."
"I have no notion of extenuating ill-conduct or making excuses! That's the modern way! So principles get lowered! I tell you, sir, there are excuses for everything. What makes the difference is only the listening to them or not."
"Yes," ventured Caroline, "but is there not a difference between finding excuses for oneself and for other people?"
"All alike, lowering the principle," said the Colonel, with something of the same slowness of comprehension as his son. "If excuses are to be made for everything, I don't wonder that there is no teaching one's boys truth or common honesty and humanity."
"But, Robert," said Caroline, roused to defence; "do you really mean that in your time nobody bullied or cribbed?"
"There was some shame about it if they did," said the Colonel. "Now, I suppose, I am to be told that it is an ordinary custom to be connived at."
"Certainly not by me," said Mr. Ogilvie. "I had hoped that the standard of honour had been raised, but it is very hard to mete the exact level of the schoolboy code from the outside."
"And your John and mine have never given in to it," added Caroline.
"What do you propose to do, Mr. Ogilvie?" said the Colonel. "I shall do my part with my boy as a father. What will you do with him and the other bully, who I find was Cripps."
"I shall see Cripps's father first. I think it might be well if we both saw him before deciding on the form of discipline. We have to think not only of justice but of the effect on their characters."
"That's the modern system," said the Colonel indignantly. "Fine work it would make in the army. I know when punishment is deserved. I don't set up to be Providence, to know exactly what work it is to do. I leave that to my Maker and do my duty."
He was cut short by his son Joe rushing in headlong, exclaiming-
"Papa, papa, please come! Rob has knocked Johnny down and he doesn't come round."
Colonel Brownlow hurried off, Caroline trying to make him hear her offer to follow if she could be useful, and sending Jock to see whether there was any opening for her. Unless the emergency were very great indeed she knew her absence would be preferred, and so she and Mr. Ogilvie remained, talking the matter over, with more pity for the delinquent than his own family would have thought natural.
"It really is a terrible thing to be stupid," she said. "I don't imagine that unlucky boy ever entered into his father's idea of truth and honour, which really is fine in its way."
"Very fine, and proved to have made many fine fellows in its time. I dare say the lad will grow up to it, but just now he simply feels cruelly injured by interference with a senior's claim to absolute submission."
"Which he sees as singly as his father sees the simple duty of justice."
"It would be comfortable if we poor moderns could deal out our measures with that straightforward military simplicity. I cannot help seeing in that unfortunate boy the victim of examinations for commissions. Boys must be subjected to high pressure before t
hey can thoroughly enter into the importance of the issues that depend upon it; and when a sluggish, dull intellect is forced beyond endurance, there is an absolute instinct of escape, impelling to shifts and underhand ways of eluding work. Of course the wrong is great, but the responsibility rests with the taskmaster in the same manner as the thefts of a starved slave might on his owner."
"The taskmaster being the country?"
"Exactly so. Happy those boys who have available brains, like yours."
"Ah! I am very sorry about Bobus; what ought I to do?"
"Hardly more than write a few words of warning, since the change may probably have put an end to the practice."
Jock presently brought back tidings that his namesake was all right, except for a black eye, and was growling like ten bears at having been sent to bed.
"Uncle Robert was more angry than ever, in a white heat, quiet and terrible," said Jock, in an awe-struck voice. "He has locked Rob up in his study, and here's Joe, for Aunt Ellen is quite knocked up, and they want the house to be very quiet."
No tragical consequences, however, ensued. Mother and sons both appeared the next morning, and were reported as "all right" by the first inquirer from the Folly; but Jessie came to her lessons with swollen eyelids as if she had cried half the night; and when her aunt thanked her for defending Armine, she began to cry again, and Essie imparted to Barbara that Rob was "just like a downright savage with her."
"No; hush, Essie, it is not that," said Jessie; "but papa is so dreadfully angry with him, and he is to be sent away, and it is all my fault."
"But Jessie, dear, surely it is better for Rob to be stopped from those deceitful ways."
"O yes, I know. But that I should have turned against him!" And Jessie was so thoroughly unhappy that none of her lessons prospered and her German exercise had three great tear blots on it.
Rob's second misdemeanour had simplified matters by deciding his father on sending him from home at once into the hands of a professed coach, who would not let him elude study, and whose pupils were too big to be bullied. To the last he maintained his sullen dogged air of indifference, though there might be more truth than the Folly was disposed to allow in his sister's allegations that it was because he did feel it so very much, especially mamma's looking so ill and worried.
Ellen did in truth look thoroughly unhinged, though no one saw her give way. She felt her boy's conduct sorely, and grieved at the first parting in her family. Besides, there was anxiety for the future. Rob's manner of conducting his studies was no hopeful augury of his success, and the expenses of sending him to a tutor fell the more heavily because unexpectedly. A horse and man were given up, and Jessie had to resign the hope of her music lessons. These were the first retrenchments, and the diminution of dignity was felt.
The Colonel showed his trouble and anxiety by speaking and tramping louder than ever, ruling his gardener with severe precision, and thundering at his boys whenever he saw them idle. Both he and his wife were so elaborately kind and polite that Caroline believed that it was an act of magnanimous forgiveness for the ill luck that she and her boys had brought them. At last the Colonel had the threatened fit of the gout, which restored his equilibrium, and brought him back to his usual condition of kindly, if somewhat ponderous, good sense.
He had not long recovered before Number Nine made his appearance at Kencroft, and thus his mother had unusual facilities for inquiries of Dr. Leslie respecting the master of Belforest.
The old man really seemed to be in a dying state. A hospital nurse had taken charge of him, but there was not a dependent about the place, from Mr. Richards downwards, who was not under notice to quit, and most were staying on without his knowledge on the advice of the London solicitor, to whom the agent had written. There was even more excitement on the intelligence that Mr. Barnes had sent for Farmer Gould.
On this there was no doubt, for Mr. Gould, always delicately honourable towards Mrs. Brownlow, came himself to tell her about the interview. It seemed to have been the outcome of a yearning of the dying man towards the sole survivor of the companions of his early days. He had talked in a feeble wandering way of old times, but had said nothing about the child, and was plainly incapable of sustained attention.
He had asked Mr. Gould to come again, but on this second visit he was too far gone for recognition, and had returned to his moody instinctive aversion to visitors, and in three days more he was dead.
CHAPTER XV. THE BELFOREST MAGNUM BONUM.
Where is his golden heap? Divine Breathings.
Mrs. Robert Brownlow was churched with all the expedition possible, in order that she might not lose the sight of the funeral procession, which would be fully visible from the studio in the top of the tower.
The excitement was increased by invitations to attend the funeral being sent to the Colonel and to his two eldest nephews, who were just come home for the holidays, also to their mother to be present at the subsequent reading of the will.
A carriage was sent for her, and she entered it, not knowing or caring to find out what she wished, and haunted by the line, "Die and endow a college or a cat."
Allen met her at the front door, whispering-"Did you see, mother, he has still got his ears?" And the thought crossed her-"Will those ears cost us dear?"
She was the only woman present in the library-a large room, but with an atmosphere as if the open air had not been admitted for thirty years, and with an enormous fire, close to which was the arm-chair whither she was marshalled, being introduced to the two solicitors, Mr. Rowse and Mr. Wakefield, who, with Farmer Gould, the agent, Richards, the Colonel, and the two boys, made up the audience.
The lawyers explained that the will had been sent home ten years ago from Yucatan, and had ever since been in their hands. Search had been made for a later one, but none had been found, nor did they believe that one could exist.
It was very short. The executors were Charles Rowse and Peter Ball, and the whole property was devised to them, and to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Brownlow, as trustees for the testator's great-niece, Mrs. Caroline Otway Brownlow, daughter of John and Caroline Allen, and wife of Joseph Brownlow, Esq., M.D., F.R.C.S., the income and use thereof to be enjoyed by her during her lifetime; and the property, after her death, to be divided among her children in such proportions as she should direct.
That was all; there was no legacy, no further directions.
"Allow me to congratulate-" began the elder lawyer.
"No-no-oh, stay a bit," cried she, in breathless dismay and bewilderment. "It can't be! It can't mean only me. There must be something about Elvira de Menella."
"I fear there is not," said Mr. Rowse; "I could wish my late client had attended more to the claims of justice, and had divided the property, which could well have borne it; but unfortunately it is not so."
"It is exactly as he led us to expect," said Mr. Gould. "We have no right to complain, and very likely the child will be much happier without it. You have a fine family growing up to enjoy it, Mrs. Brownlow, and I am sure no one congratulates you more heartily than I."
"Don't; it can't be," cried the heiress, nearly crying, and wringing the old farmer's hand. "He must have meant Elvira. You know he sent for you. Has everything been hunted over? There must be a later will."
"Indeed, Mrs. Brownlow," said the solicitor, "you may rest assured that full search has been made. Mr. Richards had the same impression, and we have been searching every imaginable receptacle."
"Besides," added Colonel Brownlow, "if he had made another will there would have been witnesses."
"Yes," said Mr. Richards; "but to make matters certain, I wrote to several of the servants to ask whether they remembered any attestation, but no one did; and indeed I doubt whether, after his arrival here, poor Mr. Barnes ever had sustained power enough to have drawn up and executed a will without my assistance, or that of any legal gentleman."
"It is too hard and unjust," cried Caroline; "it cannot be. I must halve it with the child,
as if there had been no will at all. Robert! you know that is what your brother would have done."
"That would be just as well as generous, indeed, if it were practicable," said Mr. Rowse; "but unfortunately Colonel Brownlow and myself (for Mr. Ball is dead) are in trust to prevent any such proceeding. All that is in your power is to divide the property among your own family by will, in such proportion as you may think fit."
"Quite true, my dear sister," said the Colonel, meeting her despairing appealing look, "as regards the principal, but the ready money at the bank and the income are entirely at your own disposal, and you can, without difficulty, secure a very sufficient compensation to the little girl out of them."
"No doubt," said Mr. Rowse.
"You'll let me-you'll let me, Mr. Gould," implored Caroline; "you'll let me keep her, and do all I can to make up to her. You see the Colonel thinks it is only justice; don't you, Robert?"
"Mrs. Brownlow is quite right," said the Colonel, seeing that her vehemence was a little distrusted; "it will be only an act of justice to make provision for your granddaughter."
"I am sure, Colonel Brownlow, nothing can be handsomer than your conduct and Mrs. Brownlow's," said the old man; "but I should not like to take advantage of what she is good enough to say on the spur of the moment, till she has had more time to think it over."
Therewith he took leave, while Caroline exclaimed-
"I always say there is no truer gentleman in the county than old Mr. Gould. I shall not be satisfied about that will till I have turned everything over and the partners have been written to."
Again she was assured that she might set her mind at rest, and then the lawyers began to read a statement of the property which made Allen utter, under his breath, an emphatic "I say!" but his mother hardly took it in. The heated room had affected her from the first, and the bewilderment of the tidings seemed almost to crush her; her heart and temples throbbed, her head ached violently, and while the final words respecting arrangements were passing between the Colonel and the lawyers, she was conscious only of a sickening sense of oppression, and a fear of committing the absurdity of fainting.
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