Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/194

186 aloud that she wished it had been left to me; and I am sure they were her true sentiments.”

Lady Verner sat in silence, her white hands crossed on her black dress, her head bent down. Presently she lifted it:

“I do not fully understand you, Lionel. You appear to imply that—according to your belief—no one has touched the codicil. How, then, can it have got out of the desk?”

“There is only one solution. It was suggested by Mr. Bitterworth; and, though I refused credence to it when he spoke, it has since been gaining upon my mind. He thinks my uncle must have repented of the codicil after it was made, and, himself, destroyed it. I should give full belief to this, were it not that at the very last he spoke to me as the successor to Verner’s Pride.”

“Why did he will it from you at all?” asked Lady Verner.

“I know not. I have told you how estranged his manner has been to me for the last year or two; but wherefore, or what I had done to displease him, I cannot think or imagine.”

“He had no right to will away the estate from you,” vehemently uttered Lady Verner. “Was it not enough that he usurped your father’s birthright, as Jacob usurped Esau’s, keeping you out of it for years and years, but he must now deprive you of it for ever? Had you been dead—had there been any urgent reason why you should not succeed—Jan should have come in. Jan is the lawful heir, failing you. Mark me, Lionel, it will bring no good to Frederick Massingbird. Rights, violently diverted out of their course, can bring only wrong and confusion.”

“It would be scarcely fair were it to bring him wrong,” spoke Lionel in his strict justice. “Frederick has had nothing to do with the bequeathing it to himself.”

“Nonsense, Lionel! you cannot make me believe that no cajolery has been at work from some quarter or other,” peevishly answered Lady Verner. “Tell the facts to an impartial person—a stranger. They were always about him—his wife and those Massingbirds—and at the last moment it is discovered that he has left all to them and disinherited you.”

“Mother, you are mistaken. What my uncle has done, he has done of his own will alone, unbiassed by others; nay, unknown to others. He distinctly stated this to Matiss, when the change was made. No, although I am a sufferer, and they benefit, I cannot throw a shade of the wrong upon Mrs. Verner and the Massingbirds.”

“I will tell you what I cannot do—and that is, accept your view of the disappearance of the codicil,” said Lady Verner. “It does not stand to reason that your uncle would cause a codicil to be made, with all the haste and parade you speak of, only to destroy it afterwards. Depend upon it you are wrong. He never took it.”

“It does appear unlikely,” acquiesced Lionel. “It was not likely, either, that he would destroy it in secret; he would have done it openly. And, still less likely, that he would have addressed me as his successor in dying, and given me charges as to the management of the estate, had he left it away from me.”

“No, no; no, no;” significantly returned Lady Verner. “That codicil has been stolen, Lionel.”

“But, by whom?” he debated. “There’s not a servant in the house would do it; and there was no other inmate of it, save myself. This is my chief difficulty. Were it not for the total absence of all other suspicion, I should not for a moment entertain the thought that it could have been my uncle. Let us leave the subject, mother. It seems to be an unprofitable one, and my head is weary.”

“Are you going to give the codicil tamely up, for a bad job, without further search?” asked Lady Verner. “That I should live—that I should live to see Sibylla West’s children inherit Verner’s Pride!” she passionately added.

Sibylla West’s children! Lionel had enough pain at his heart, just then, without that shaft. A piercing shaft truly, and it dyed his brow fiery red.

“We have searched already in every likely or possible place that we can think of; to-morrow morning places unlikely and impossible will be searched,” he said, in answer to his mother’s question. “I shall be aided by the police: our searching is nothing, compared with what they can do. They go about it artistically, perfected by practice.”

“And—if the result should be a failure?”

“It will be a failure,” spoke Lionel, in his firm conviction. “In which case I bid adieu to Verner’s Pride.”

“And come home here; will you not, Lionel?”

“For the present. And now, mother, that I have told you the ill news, and spoiled your rest, I must go back again.”

Spoiled her rest! Ay, for many a day and night to come. Lionel disinherited! Verner’s Pride gone from them for ever! A cry went forth from Lady Verner’s heart. It had been the moment of hope which she had looked forward to for years; and, now that it was come, what had it brought?

“My own troubles make me selfish,” said Lionel, turning back when he was half out at the door. “I forgot to tell you that Jan and Decima inherit five hundred pounds each.”

“Five hundred pounds!” slightingly returned Lady Verner. “It is but of a piece with the rest.”

He did not add that he had five hundred also, failing the estate. It would have seemed worse mockery still.

Looking out at the door, opposite to the ante-room, on the other side of the hall, was Decima. She had heard his step, and came to beckon him in. It was the dining-parlour, but a pretty room still; for Lady Verner would have nothing about her inelegant or ugly, if she could help it. Lucy Tempest, in her favourite school attitude, was half-kneeling, half-sitting on the rug before the fire: but she rose when Lionel came in.

Decima entwined her arm within his, and led him up to the fire-place. “Did you bring mamma bad news?” she asked. “I thought I read it in your countenance.”