Part 67 (2/2)

However, there was no time now. Lydia arrived, and she and Tatham withdrew into the inner room for a few minutes, deep in consultation.

Felicia watched them with furious eyes. And when they came out again, a soft flush on Lydia's cheeks, it was all that Felicia could do to prevent herself from rus.h.i.+ng upstairs again, leaving them to have their horrid meeting to themselves.

But flight was barred. Faversham entered, accompanied by the senior solicitor to the Threlfall estate and by old Dixon, shaking with nervousness, in a black Sunday suit. Chairs had been provided. They took their seats. Tatham cleared his own table.

”No need!” said the solicitor, a gentleman with a broad, benevolent face slightly girdled by whiskers. ”It's very short!”

And smiling, he took out of his pocket a doc.u.ment consisting apparently of two sheets of square letter paper, and amid the sudden silence, he began to read.

The first and longer sheet was done. Felicia, sitting on the edge of a stiff chair, her small feet dangling, was staring at the lawyer. Victoria was looking at her son bewildered. Boden wore an odd sort of smile.

Undershaw, impa.s.sive, was playing with his watch-chain. Lydia radiant and erect, in a dress of gray-blue tweed, a veil of the same tint falling back from the harmonious fairness of her face, had her eyes on Felicia.

There was a melting kindness in the eyes--as though the maternity deep in the girl's nature spoke.

A deed of gift, _inter vivos_, conveying the whole personality and real estate, recently bequeathed to Claude Faversham by Edmund Melrose, consisting of so-and-so, and so-and-so,--a long catalogue of shares and land which had taken some time to read--to Felicia Melrose, daughter of the late Edmund Melrose, subject only to an annuity to her mother, Antonetta Melrose, of 2,000 a year, to a pension for Thomas Dixon and his wife, and various other pensions and small annuities; Henry, Earl Tatham, and Victoria, Countess Tatham, appointed trustees, and to act as guardians, till the said Felicia Melrose should attain the age of twenty-four; no mention of any other person at all; the whole vast property, precisely as it had pa.s.sed from Melrose to Faversham, just taken up and dropped in the lap of this little creature with the dangling feet without reservation, or deduction--now that it was done, and not merely guessed at, it showed plain for what in truth it was--one of those acts wherein the energies of the human spirit, working behind the material veil, swing for a moment into view, arresting and stunning the spectator.

”But the collections!” said Tatham, remembering them almost with relief, speaking in his mother's ear; ”what about the collections?”

”We come now to the second part of the deed of gift,” said the silvery voice of the lawyer. And again the astounded circle set itself to listen.

”The collections of works of art now contained in Threlfall Tower, I also convey in full property and immediate possession to the said Felicia Melrose, but on the following conditions:

”Threlfall Tower, or such portions of it as may be necessary, to be maintained permanently as a museum in which to house the said collection: a proper museum staff to be appointed; a sum of money, to be agreed upon between Claude Faversham and Felicia Melrose, to be set aside for the maintenance of the building, the expenses of installation, and the endowment of the staff; and a set of rooms in the west wing to be appropriated to the private residence of a curator, who is to be appointed, after the first curators.h.i.+p, by--”

Certain public officials were named, and a few other stipulations made.

Then with a couple of legal phrases and a witnessed signature, the second sheet came to an end.

There was a silence that could be heard. In the midst of it Faversham rose. He was agitated and a little incoherent.

”The rest of what has to be said is not a formal matter. If Miss Melrose, or her guardians, choose to make me the first Curator of the Threlfall Tower Museum, I am willing to accept that office at their hands, and--after, perhaps, a year--I should like to occupy the rooms I have mentioned in the west wing--with the lady who has now promised to be my wife. I know perhaps better than any one else what the house contains; and I could spend, if not my life, at any rate a term of years, in making the Tower a palace of art, a centre of design, of training, of suggestion--a House Beautiful, indeed, for the whole north of England.

And my promised wife says she will help me.”

He looked at Lydia. She put her hand in his. The sight of most people in the room had grown dim.

But Felicia had jumped up.

”I don't want it all! I won't have it all!” she said in a pa.s.sionate excitement. ”My father hated me. I told him I would never take his money.

Why didn't you tell me--why didn't you warn me?” She turned to Tatham, her little body shaking, and her face threatening tears.

”Why should Mr. Faversham do such a thing? Don't let him!--don't let him!

And I ought--I ought--to have been told!”

Faversham and Lydia approached her. But suddenly; putting her hands to her face, she ran to the French window of the library, opened it, and rushed into the garden.

Tatham and his mother looked at each other aghast.

”Run after her!” said Victoria in his ear. ”Take this shawl!” She handed him a wrap she had brought in upon her arm.

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