Sisters Part 17

"Something? I leave all."

"Except a library of books, and a collection of forty odd pictures, that you will have to hang over the books--"

"You would not have us part with family portraits?"

"And a grand piano, extra sized, calculated to fill a suburban villa drawing-room all by itself--"

"Pianos make nothing second-hand, and the girls must practise. Better keep a good instrument than sell it for fifty pounds and spend the money on a bad one."

"Certainly, if you can stow it. But with seven easy-chairs, and the biggest Chesterfield sofa extant, and a large writing-table--"

"I can have that in my room."

"Along with a six-foot dressing-table, and a nine-foot wardrobe, and I don't know how many chests of drawers--"

"The wardrobe will stand in a pa.s.sage somewhere. We must have places to put our clothes."

"A house with pa.s.sages of that capacity--"

"Well, never you mind. If I can't find room for my things, I can sell them in Melbourne as well as here."

"Having squandered a small fortune on the carriage down. Better leave them with me, Debbie, and let me send you what you want afterwards."

"Thank you. You would not have them to send afterwards."

"Oh, I think I would."

"No. I shall settle everything before I leave, and the sale will be held immediately. The furniture first, and then the place." Her mouth closed upon the words like a steel snap.

"Just as you please about that," he said quietly. "Any time will suit me."

"By public auction," she added, with a sharp glance at him--"to the highest bidder."

"Yes," was his laconic comment. "Me."

"Not necessarily," said she, roused by the small word that held such large meanings. "There are a few other rich persons in the western district, to whom Redford may appear desirable."

"There are," he agreed easily. "I know several. But I shall outbid them."

She was strongly agitated. "Oh, I hope they won't let you!"

"Why?" he asked.

At first she fenced with the question.

"Because you don't want it. You have more land already than one man ought to have." "I don't know about what I ought to have, but I know that if you persist in throwing Redford away, I shall take it." He smiled at her angry perturbation. "If I find I haven't enough money to outbid everybody--but I think I have--I can sell Bundaboo. If you won't have Redford, I will--yes, and every stick and stone that belongs to it."

"And have people talking and saying that you did it for something else, and not business reasons."

"People would be right, for once."

"But I won't have it!" cried Deb. "I won't stand being an object of your benevolence. You want to pay a lot more than the place is worth, so as to augment our income. You as good as own it--"

"I want to keep your home for you against you change your mind." "The last thing I shall do, I a.s.sure you--particularly after your saying that." Her nose, in spite of the s.m.u.t on it, testified to her indignant dignity, up in the air, with its fine nostrils quivering. "Now, look here, G.o.dpapa--I will not have Redford put up to auction. I'll sell privately--and to somebody else."

"You cannot."

"Oh, indeed! Not when I am executor?"

"Certainly not--except with the permission of your fellow-executor."

She fell to pleading.

"Oh, let me--do let me! You know what I want--to square up all the debts and have done with them. I can't sleep for thinking of what we owe you already. Do you know how much it is? Nearly forty thou--"

He checked her with an impatient wave of the hand.

"All the debts will be provided for, of course. The lawyers will adjust those matters."

"I don't trust you," she urged, looking at him less angrily, but still as puzzled and distressed. "I know you have designs to benefit me somehow--unfairly, and because it's me--and if you only knew how I HATED to be benefited--"

"I do--n.o.body better. That is why I am letting you do a lot of things that won't benefit you, but just the opposite--things you will repent of horribly by-and-by. Knowing your independent spirit, I do not offer my advice--"

"Oh!"

"Not effectively. I do not force it upon you. I do not bring my undoubted powers to bear upon you for your good--"

"Ah!"

"Because I know, of course, that you would rather suffer anything than be guided by me."

She softened instantly. "I am not such a fool, I hope. But--but you WILL bring friends.h.i.+p into business. You did things for my father that you know you would never have dreamt of doing for strangers--that you never ought to have done at all; and now you want to be twice as idiotically generous to us, because we are girls, and out of pity for us--to do us a kindness, as it is called--when, if you only knew--"

She had risen and drifted to him where he stood, and now laid a hand on his arm. He put a hand over it, and looked into her pleading eyes. He seemed not to have heard her last remark, to be far away in mind from the point of discussion, and his fixed and strange gaze perplexed and then embarra.s.sed her. "How he feels our going!" she thought to herself, and turned her face from his, and tried to turn his apparently sad thoughts.

"If you would only let me sell Redford to somebody else, and have the lump money to pay all the debts in a plain way that I could understand, and take the remainder for ourselves, and know that we were straight and free, I would do anything you liked to ask me in return!"

He still kept silence, and that tight grasp upon her hand. So she looked at him again; and his far-away stare was bewildering.

"I wonder," said he slowly--"I wonder, if I were to take you at your word, whether you would stick to it?"

"Try me," said she.

"I will. Deborah Pennycuick, if I let you sell Redford, and pay all debts with your own hands, will you--I am your G.o.dfather, and something over fifty, and it is quite preposterous, of course, but still you said anything--will you be my wife?"

"Oh!" This was the unexpected happening, with a vengeance. Never had she imagined such a notion on the part of this staid and venerable person. She flushed hotly, and wrenched her imprisoned hand free. "I don't like stupid jokes," she muttered, overcome with confusion. "Do I give you the impression that I am joking?" he asked.

"If you are serious, that is worse," said she. "Then I know you are only trying another way of providing for me."