Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/52

44 come into Verner’s Pride, he’d have lived in style on a thousand of his income yearly, and put by the rest.”

He never would, Sibylla being his wife, thought Lionel. But he did not say it to John Massingbird.

“An estate like this, brings its duties with it, John,” said he. “Remember those poor people down with sickness.”

“Bother duty,” returned John. “Look here, Lionel; you waste your breath and your words. I have not got the money to spend upon it; how do you know, old fellow, what my private expenses may be? And if I had the money, I should not do it,” he continued. “The present state of the property was deemed good enough by Mr. Verner; it was so deemed (if we may judge by facts) by Mr. Lionel Verner: and it is deemed good enough by John Massingbird. It is not he who’s going to have the cost thrown upon him. So let it drop.”

There was no resource but to let it drop; for, that he was in full earnest, Lionel saw. John continued.

“You can save up the alterations for yourself, to be commenced when you come into the property. A nice bonne bouche of outlay for you to contemplate.”

“I don’t look to come into it,” replied Lionel.

“The probabilities are that you will come into it,” returned John Massingbird, more seriously than he often spoke. “Barring getting shot, or run over by a railway train, you’ll make old bones, you will. You have never played with your constitution; I have, in more ways than one: and in bare years I have considerably the advantage of you. Psha! when I am a skeleton in my coffin, you’ll still be a young man. You can make your cherished alterations then.”

“You may well say in more ways than one,” returned Lionel, half joking, half serious. “There’s smoking amidst the catalogue. How many pipes do you smoke in a day? Fifty?”

“Why didn’t you say day and night? Tynn lives in perpetual torment lest my bed should ignite some night, and burn up him, as well as Verner’s Pride. I go to sleep sometimes with my pipe in my mouth as we do at the Diggings. Now and then I feel half inclined to make a rush back there. It suited me better than this.”

Lionel bent over some papers that were before him,—a hint that he had business to do. Mr. Massingbird did not take it. He began filling his pipe again, scattering the tobacco on the ground wholesale in the process, talking at the same time.

“I say, Lionel, why did old Verner leave the place away from you? Have you ever wondered?”

Lionel glanced up at him in surprise.

“Have I ever ceased wondering, you might have said. I don’t know why he did.”

“Did he never give you a reason—or an explanation?”

“Nothing of the sort. Except—yes, except a trifle. Some time after his death, Mrs. Tynn discovered a formidable-looking packet in one of his drawers; sealed, and directed to me. She thought it was the missing codicil; so did I, until I opened it. It proved to contain nothing but a glove; one of my old gloves, and a few lines from my uncle. They were to the effect that when I received the glove I should know why he disinherited me.”

“And did you know?” asked John Massingbird, applying a light to his pipe.

“Not in the least. It left the affair more obscure, if possible, than it had been before. I suppose I never shall know now.”

“Never’s a long day,” cried John Massingbird. “But you told me about this glove affair before.”

“Did I? Oh, I remember. When you first returned. That is all the explanation I have ever had.”

“It was not much,” said John. “Dickens take this pipe! It won’t draw. Where’s my knife?”

Not finding his knife about him, he went off to look for it, dragging his slippers along the hall in his usual lazy fashion. Lionel, glad of the respite, applied himself to his work.

One was dying in Deerham, but not of ague: and that was old Matthew Frost. Matthew was dying of old age, to which we must all succumb, if we live long enough.

April was in, and the fever and ague were getting better, when news was brought to Lionel one morning that old Matthew was not expected to last through the day. Jan called in at Deerham Court and told him so. Lionel had been starting to Verner’s Pride; but he changed his course towards Clay Lane.

“Jan,” said he, as he was turning away, “I wish you’d go up and see Sibylla. I am sure she is very ill.”

“I’ll go if you like,” said Jan. “But there’s no use in it. She won’t listen to a word I say, or attend to a single direction that I give. Hayes told me, when he came over last week, that it was the same with him. She persists to him, as she does to me, that she has no need of medicine or care; that she is quite well.”

“I am aware of it,” replied Lionel. “But I feel sure she is very ill.”

“I know she is,” said Jan. “She’s worse than folks think for. Perhaps you amongst them, Lionel. I’ll go up to her.”

He turned into the house as he spoke, and Lionel went on to Clay Lane.

Old Matthew was lying on his bed, very peaceful. Peaceful as to his inward and his outward state. Though exceedingly weak, gradually sinking, he retained both speech and intellect: he was passing away without pain, and with his faculties about him. What a happy death-bed, when all is peace within! His dim eyes lighted up with pleasure when he saw Mr. Verner.

“Have you come to see the last of me, sir?” he asked, as Lionel took his hand.

“Not quite the last yet, I hope, Matthew.”

“Don’t hope it, sir; nor wish it, neither,” returned the old man, lifting his hand with a deprecatory movement. “I’m on the threshold of a better world, sir, and I’d not turn back to this, if God was to give me the choice of it. I’m agoing to my rest, sir. Like as my bed has