Part 41 (2/2)

”Yes, dear boy?”

”I really did come to say something important.” And instantly as he spoke he felt what a tragical circ.u.mstance this was for some one else, and that such would be Emily's first thought and view of it.

”What is it?” she exclaimed, now a little startled.

Valentine had turned rather pale. He tasted the bitter ingredients in this cup of prosperity more plainly now; and he wished that letter was at the bottom of the sea. ”Why--why it is something you will be very sorry for, too,” he said, his voice faltering. ”It's poor little Peter Melcombe.”

”Oh!” exclaimed Emily, with an awestruck shudder. ”There! I said so.”

”WHAT did you say?” cried Valentine, so much struck by her words that he recovered his self-possession instantly.

”Poor, poor woman,” she went on, the ready tears falling on her cheeks; ”and he was her only child!”

”But what do you mean, Emily?” continued Valentine, startled and suspicious. ”_What_ did you say?”

”Oh!” she answered, ”nothing that I had any particular reason for saying. I felt that it might be a great risk to take that delicate boy to Italy again, where he had been ill before, and I told John I wished we could prevent it. I could not forget that his death would be a fine thing for my brother, and I felt a sort of fear that this would be the end of it.”

Valentine was relieved. She evidently knew nothing, and he could listen calmly while she went on.

”My mere sense of the danger made it a necessity for me to act. I suppose you will be surprised when I tell you”--here two more tears fell--”that I wrote to Mrs. Melcombe. I knew she was determined to go on the Continent, and I said if she liked to leave her boy behind, I would take charge of him. It was the day before dear Fred was taken ill.”

”And she declined!” said Valentine. ”Well, it was very kind of you, very good of you, and just like you. Let us hope poor Mrs. Melcombe does not remember it now.”

”Yes, she declined; said her boy had an excellent const.i.tution. Where did the poor little fellow die?”

”At Corfu.”

Emily wept for sympathy with the mother, and Valentine sat still opposite to her, and was glad of the silence; it pleased him to think of this that Emily had done, till all on a sudden some familiar words out of the Bible flashed into his mind, strange, quaint words, and it seemed much more as if somebody kept repeating them in his presence than as if he had turned them over himself to the surface, from among the ma.s.s of sc.r.a.ps that were lying littered about in the chambers of his memory.

”The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons.”

”May I see the letter?” asked Emily.

”There was no letter; we saw it in the _Times_,” said Valentine; and again the mental repet.i.tion began. ”The son of Rechab, that he commanded HIS sons, are performed; for unto this day----”

Emily had dried her eyes now. ”Well, Val dear,” she said, and hesitated.

”Oh, I wish she would give me time to get once straight through to the end, and have done with it,” thought Valentine. ”'The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded _his_ sons, are----' (yes, only the point of it is that they're not--not yet, at any rate) the words of Jonadab.”

Here Emily spoke again. ”Well, Val, n.o.body ever came into an estate more naturally and rightly than you do, for, however well you may have behaved about it, and n.o.body could have behaved better, you must have felt that as the old lady chose to leave all to one son, that should not have been the youngest. I hope you will be happy; and I know you will make a kind, good landlord. It seems quite providential that you should have spent so much time in learning all about land and farming. I have always felt that all which was best and nicest in you would come out, if you could have prosperity, and we now see that it was intended for you.”

Cordial, delightful words to Valentine; they almost made him forget this letter that she had never heard of.

”Oh, if you please, ma'am,” exclaimed a female servant, bursting into the room, ”Mr. Brandon's love to you. He has sent the pony-carriage, and he wants you to come back in it directly.”

Something in the instant attention paid to this message, and the alacrity with which Emily ran up-stairs, as if perfectly ready, and expectant of it, showed Valentine that it did not concern his inheritance, but also what and whom it probably did concern, and he sauntered into the little hall to wait for Emily, put her into the carriage and fold the rug round her, while he observed without much surprise that she had for the moment quite forgotten his special affairs, and was anxious and rather urgent to be off.

Then he drove into Wigfield, considering in his own mind that if John did not know anything concerning the command in this strange letter, he and he only was the person who ought to be told and consulted about it.

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