Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 19

As he spoke the door opened and Stephen entered. Jack, frank and candid, stared at him with astonishment.

"Are we ready?"

And they pa.s.sed out.

In silence they stood beside the grave while all that was mortal of Ralph Davenant was consigned to the earth, and in silence they returned to the library.

With the same stony, impa.s.sive countenance, Mr. Hudsley seated himself at the head of the table; Stephen sank into a chair beside him, and sat with his eyes hidden under the white lids; Jack stood with folded arms beside the window, glancing at the far-stretching lawns and watching the servants as they filed in, a long line of black.

When they had all entered Mr. Hudsley drew from his pocket a folded parchment, slowly put on his spectacles, and without looking round, said:

"I am now about to read the last will and testament of Ralph Davenant."

There was a pause, a solemn pause, then he looked up and said:

"This will was drawn up by me on January--last year. It is the last will of which I have any cognizance. A careful search has been made, but no other doc.u.ment of the kind has been found. That is so, Mr. Stephen, is it not?" and he turned to Stephen so suddenly that all eyes followed his.

Stephen paused a moment, then raised his lids, and with a shake of his head and a sigh murmured an a.s.sent.

Mr. Hudsley allowed his keen eyes to rest on him for an instant, then slowly looked in the direction of Jack.

"A most careful search," he repeated.

Jack, feeling that the remark was addressed to him, nodded and looked at the lawn again.

Mr. Hudsley cleared his throat, and opened the crackling parchment.

There was an intense silence, so intense that Stephen's labored breathing could be heard as plainly as the rain on the windows.

In the same dry, hard voice Mr. Hudsley began to read. Clause by clause, wrapped in the beautiful legal jargon in which such doc.u.ments are, for some inscrutable reasons, worded, no one understanding the import, but suddenly familiar words struck upon the ear. They were the servants'

legacies, and a mourning ring to Mr. Hudsley; then, in a stillness that was oppressive, there fell the words:

"To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will the whole and sole remainder of all I possess, be it in lands or money, houses or securities, all and of every kind of property, deducting only the afore-mentioned legacies."

A thrill ran through the a.s.semblage, every eye turned, as if magnetized, to the white, death-like face of the heir.

There he sat, the new squire, the owner of Hurst Leigh and the uncounted thousands of old Ralph Davenant, motionless, white, too benumbed to tremble.

Slowly Mr. Hudsley read over the signatures, and then slowly commenced to fold the parchment.

Then, from the shadow of the curtains, Jack emerged, pale, too, but with cool, calm dignity.

Quite quietly, and with perfect self-possession, he came to the table and looked at the dry, wrinkled face.

"So I understand, Mr. Hudsley, that the squire has left me--nothing."

Mr. Hudsley looked up, no trace of expression on his face.

"Quite right, Mr. Newcombe," he replied.

"He has not named me," said Jack.

"He has not named you in this will."

Jack bowed, and was turning from the table when Stephen started to his feet.

For one moment his eyes rested on Jack's face with an awful, piercing look of scrutiny, then his eyes lit up with a malicious gleam of triumph, but it disappeared instantly, and with a gesture of honest generosity and regret, he exclaimed:

"Not named! My dear Jack! But stay! I see how it is. My uncle felt that he could trust to my feeling in the matter. He knew that you would not have to look to me in vain."

Jack turned and looked at him with infinite contempt and unbelief, and then slowly pa.s.sed out.

CHAPTER XII.

Two days pa.s.sed since Una had given her promise that should Jack Newcombe come to seek her she would hold no converse with him. How much that promise had cost her no one could say; she herself did not know.

She only knew that whereas her life had always seemed dull and purposeless, it had, since Jack Newcombe's visit, grown utterly dreary and joyless.

Was it love? She did not ask herself the question. Had she done so, she could not have answered it.

Any school-girl of fifteen feeling as Una felt would have known that she was in love, but Una's only schooling had consisted of the few stern lessons of Gideon Rolfe.

"I can never see him, hear him, speak to him again," was her one sad reflection; "but if I could be somewhere near him, unseen!"

Then, through her brain, her father's words rang with melancholy persistence. This youth, whose eyes had seemed so frank and brave, whose voice rang with music so new and sweet, was, so her father said, unutterably wicked. One to be avoided as a dangerous animal! It could not but be true; she thought her father was truth itself.

But if it were so, then how false the world must be, for one to look and speak so gently, and yet be so wicked!

All day she wandered in the woods, returning to the cottage pale and listless, to leave her plate untouched or at best trifled with. Gideon Rolfe saw the change which had befallen her, but held his peace, though a bitter rage filled his heart; Martha Rolfe chided her for her listlessness, and tried to tempt her to eat; but Una put chiding and coaxing aside with a gentle smile, and escaped to the lake where she could dream alone and undisturbed.

The two days pa.s.sed--on the third, as she was sitting beside the spot which had grown sacred in her eyes, with its crushed and broken ferns, she heard steps behind. Thinking that they were those of her father or one of the charcoal burners, she did not turn her head. The footsteps drew nearer, and a man came out from the thick wood and stood on the margin of the lake, and remained for a moment looking about him.

Una was so hidden by the tall brake that she remained unseen, and sat holding her breath watching him.

He was tall, thin, and dressed in black, and when he turned his face toward her, Una saw that he was not ill-looking. She might have thought him handsome but for that other face which was always in her mental vision. He was very pale, and looked anxious and ill at ease; and as he stood looking before him his right hand took his left into custody. It was Stephen Davenant.

For a few moments he stood with a half-searching, half-absent expression on his pale face, then turned and entered the wood again.

Pale with wonder and curiosity, Una rose and looked after him, and to her infinite surprise saw a carriage slowly approaching.

A lady was seated in it, a lady with a face as pale as the man's but with a still more anxious and deprecating expression.

Una, with the quickness of sight acquired by a life spent in communion with nature, could see, even at that distance, that the lady's eyes were like those of the man's, and, furthermore, that she was awaiting his approach with a nervous timidity that almost amounted to fear.

With fast beating heart Una watched them wondering what could have brought them to Warden, wondering who and what they were, when suddenly her heart gave a great bound, for the gentleman, turning to the driver, said, in a soft, low voice: