Part 15 (1/2)
”When is it to be?” asked old Grand with great interest.
”I don't exactly know, uncle; _even Giles_ doesn't know that! If he had known, I'm sure he would have told you, and asked your advice, for I always brought him up to be very respectful to his elders.”
”Come, sir, come,” said the old man laughing, ”if you don't _exactly_ know, I suppose you have a tolerably distinct notion.”
”I know when I should like it to be, and when I think D. would like it.
Not too late for a wedding tour, say October, now, or,” seeing his brother look grave, ”or November; suppose we say November.”
”I'm afraid there is no wedding tour in the programme,” observed Brandon. ”The voyage must be the tour.”
”Then I'll go without my cart. We must have a tour; it will be the only fun I shall ever be able to give her.”
Valentine had inherited only about two hundred pounds from his father, he having been left residuary legatee, and he was much more inclined to spend this on luxuries than on necessaries.
”You've bought me land, and actually paid for it yourself, and you've bought me a flock, and made me a barn, and yet you deny me the very necessaries of life, though I can pay for them myself! I must have a tour, and D. must have a basket-carriage.”
”Well, my dear fellow,” said Grand, ”though that matter is not yet settled, it is evident things are so far advanced that we may begin to think of the wedding presents. Now, what would you like to have from me, I wonder? I mean how would you prefer to have it? John and I have already considered the amount, and he quite agrees with me as to what I ought to give to my only brother's only son.”
”_Only brother's!_” The word struck Brandon both as showing that the old man had almost forgotten other dead brothers, and also as evidently being the preface to a larger gift than he had antic.i.p.ated.
”Thank you, uncle,” said Valentine, almost accomplis.h.i.+ng a blush of pride and pleasure. ”As you are so kind as to let me choose, I should like your present in money, in my pocket, you know, because there is the tour, and it would go towards that.”
”In your pocket!” exclaimed John Mortimer, with a laugh of such amus.e.m.e.nt and raillery as almost put Valentine out of countenance. ”Why, do you think my father wants to give you a school-boy's tip?”
”I think a good deal depends on the lady,” said Grand, who also seemed amused; ”if she has no fortune, it might be wise to settle it on her; if she has, you might wish to lay it out in more land, or to invest it here; you and Giles must consider this. I mean to give you two thousand pounds.” Then, when he saw that Valentine was silent from astonishment, he went on, ”And if your dear father had been here he would not have been at all surprised. Many circ.u.mstances, with which you are not acquainted, a.s.sure me of this, and I consider that I owe everything to him.” There was a certain sternness about these words; he would have, it was evident, no discussion.
John Mortimer heard his father say this with surprise. ”He must mean that he owes his religious views to my uncle,” was his thought; but to Brandon, who did not trouble himself about those last words, the others were full of meaning; the amount of the gift, together with the hint at circ.u.mstances with which Valentine was not acquainted, made him feel almost certain that the strange words, ”I forbade my mother to leave her property to me,” alluded to something which was known to the next brother.
Valentine, at first, was too much surprised to be joyous, but he thanked his uncle with something of the cordial ingenuousness and grace which had distinguished his father.
”I can have a tour _now_, can't I, old fellow,” he said after a time to his brother; ”take my wife”--here a joyous laugh--”my WIFE on the Continent; we shall go das.h.i.+ng about from place to place, you know, staying at hotels, _and all that!_”
”To be sure,” said Brandon, ”staying at hotels, of course, and ordering wonderful things for breakfast. I think I see you now--
”'Happy married lovers, Phillis trifling with a plover's Egg, while Corydon uncovers With a grace the Sally Lun.'”
”That's the way this fellow is always making game of me,” exclaimed Valentine; ”why I'm older than you were, John, when you married.”
”And wild horses shall never drag the words out of me that I was too young,” said John Mortimer, ”whatever I may think,” he continued.
”John was a great deal graver than you are,” said Brandon; ”besides, he knew the multiplication table.”
”So do I, of course,” exclaimed Valentine.
”Well,” answered Brandon, ”I never said you did not.”
CHAPTER X.
CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES.