Part 40 (1/2)

”Yes,” Brandon said. ”He was no fool; he could not have thought so, and therefore it could not have been that, or anything like it. Nor could he have felt that he was in any sense answerable for the poor man's death, for I have ascertained that there had been no communication between the two branches of the family for several years before he laid violent hands on himself.”

Valentine sighed restlessly. ”The whole thing is perfectly unreasonable,” he said; ”in fact, it would be impossible to do as he desires, even if I were ever so willing.”

”Impossible?” exclaimed Brandon.

”Yes, the estate is already mine; how is it possible for me not to take it? I must prove the will, the old will, the law would see to that, for there will be legacy duty to pay. Even if I chose to fling the income into the pond, I must save out enough to satisfy the tax-gatherers. You seem to take for granted that I will and can calmly and secretly let the estate be. But have you thought out the details at all? Have you formed any theory as to how this is to be done?”

He spoke with some impatience and irritation, it vexed him to perceive that his brother had fully counted on the dead father's letter being obeyed. Brandon had nothing to say.

”Besides,” continued Valentine, ”where is this sort of thing to stop?

If I die to-morrow, John is my heir. Is he to let it alone? Could he?”

”I don't know,” answered Brandon. ”He has not the same temptation to take it that you have.”

”Temptation!” repeated Valentine.

Brandon did not retract or explain the word.

”And does he know any reason, I wonder, why he should renounce it?”

continued Valentine, but as he spoke his hand, which he had put out to take the _Times_, paused on its way, and his eyes involuntarily opened a little wider. Something, it seemed, had struck him, and he was recalling it and puzzling it out. Two or three lilies thrown under a lilac tree by John's father had come back to report themselves, nothing more recent or more startling than that, for he was still thinking of the elder brother. ”And he must have hated him to the full as much as my poor father did,” was his thought. ”That garden had been shut up for his sake many, many years. Wait a minute, if that man got the estate wrongfully, I'll have nothing to do with it after all. Nonsense! Why do I slander the dead in my thoughts? as if I had not read that will many times--he inherited after the old woman's sickly brother, who died at sea.” After this his thoughts wandered into all sorts of vague and intricate paths that led to no certain goal; he was not even certain at last that there was anything real to puzzle about. His father might have been under some delusion after all.

At last his wandering eyes met Brandon's.

”Well!” he exclaimed, as if suddenly waking up.

”How composedly he takes it, and yet how amazed he is!” thought Brandon.

”Well,” he replied, by way of answer.

”I shall ask you, Giles, as you have kept this matter absolutely secret so long, to keep it secret still; at any rate for awhile, from every person whatever.”

”I think you have a right to expect that of me, I will.”

”Poor little fellow! died at Corfu then. The news is all over Wigfield by this time, no doubt. John knows it of course, now.” Again he paused, and this time it was his uncle's last conversation that recurred to his memory. It was most unwelcome. Brandon could see that he looked more than disturbed; he was also angry; and yet after awhile, both these feelings melted away, he was like a man who had walked up to a cobweb, that stretched itself before his face, but when he had put up his hand and cleared it off, where was it?

He remembered how the vague talk of a dying old man had startled him.

The manner of the gift and the odd feeling he had suffered at the time, as if it might be somehow connected with the words said, appeared to rise up to be looked at. But one can hardly look straight at a thing of that sort without making it change its aspect. Sensations and impressions are subject to us; they may be reasoned down. His reason was stronger than his fear had been, and made it look foolish. He brought back the words, they were disjointed, they accused no one, they could not be put together. So he covered that recollection over, and threw it aside. He did not consciously hide it from himself, but he did know in his own mind that he should not relate it to his brother.

”Well, you have done your part,” he said at length; ”and now I must see about doing mine.”

”No one could feel more keenly than I do, how hard this is upon you,”

said Brandon; but Valentine detected a tone of relief in his voice, as if he took the words to mean a submission to the father's wish, and as if he was glad. ”My poor father might have placed some confidence in me, instead of treating me like a child,” he said bitterly; ”why on earth could he not tell me all.”

”Why, my dear fellow,” exclaimed Brandon; ”surely if you were to renounce the property, it would have been hard upon you and John to be shamed or tortured by any knowledge of the crime and disgrace that it came with.”

”That it came with!” repeated Valentine; ”you take that for granted, then? You have got further than I have.”

”I think, of course, that the crime was committed, or the disgrace incurred, for the sake of the property.”