the socket reached their ears from the fence beyond the shrubbery. Mr. Pendril and Mr. Clare advanced into view along the garden-path, walking arm-in-arm through the rain, sheltered by the same umbrella. The lawyer bowed as they passed the windows; Mr. Clare walked straight on, deep in his own thoughts — noticing nothing.
After a delay which seemed interminable; after a weary scraping of wet feet on the hall mat; after a mysterious, muttered interchange of question and answer outside the door, the two came in — Mr. Clare leading the way. The old man walked straight up to the table, without any preliminary greeting, and looked across it at the three women, with a stern pity for them in his ragged, wrinkled face.
“Bad news,” he said. “I am an enemy to all unnecessary suspense. Plainness is kindness in such a case as this. I mean to be kind — and I tell you plainly — bad news.”
Mr. Pendril followed him. He shook hands, in silence, with Miss Garth and the two sisters, and took a seat near them. Mr. Clare placed himself apart on a chair by the window. The gray rainy light fell soft and sad on the faces of Norah and Magdalen, who sat together opposite to him. Miss Garth had placed herself a little behind them, in partial shadow; and the lawyer’s quiet face was seen in profile, close beside her. So the four occupants of the room appeared to Mr. Clare, as he sat apart in his corner; his long claw-like fingers interlaced on his knee; his dark vigilant eyes fixed searchingly now on one face, now on another. The dripping rustle of the rain among the leaves, and the clear, ceaseless tick of the clock on the mantelpiece, made the minute of silence which followed the settling of the persons present in their places indescribably oppressive. It was a relief to every one when Mr. Pendril spoke.
“Mr. Clare has told you already,” he began, “that I am the bearer of bad news. I am grieved to say, Miss Garth, that your doubts, when I last saw you, were better founded than my hopes. What that heartless elder brother was in his youth, he is still in his old age. In all my unhappy experience of the worst side of human nature, I have never met with a man so utterly dead to every consideration of mercy as Michael Vanstone.”
“Do you mean that he takes the whole of his brother’s fortune, and makes no provision whatever for his brother’s children?” asked Miss Garth.
“He offers a sum of money for present emergencies,” replied Mr. Pendril, “so meanly and disgracefully insufficient that I am ashamed to mention it.”
“And nothing for the future?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
As that answer was given, the same thought passed, at the same moment, through Miss Garth’s mind and through Norah’s. The decision, which deprived both the sisters alike of the resources of fortune, did not end there for the younger of the two. Michael Vanstone’s merciless resolution had virtually pronounced the sentence which dismissed Frank to China, and which destroyed all present hope of Magdalen’s marriage. As the words passed the lawyer’s lips, Miss Garth and Norah looked at Magdalen anxiously. Her face turned a shade paler — but not a feature of it moved; not a word escaped her. Norah, who held her sister’s hand in her own, felt it tremble for a moment, and then turn cold — and that was all.
“Let me mention plainly what I have done,” resumed Mr. Pendril; “I am very desirous you should not think that I have left any effort untried. When I wrote to Michael Vanstone, in the first instance, I did not confine myself to the usual formal statement. I put before him, plainly and earnestly, every one of the circumstances under which he has become possessed of his brother’s fortune. When I received the answer, referring me to his written instructions to his lawyer in London — and when a copy of those instructions was placed in my hands — I positively declined, on becoming acquainted with them, to receive the writer’s decision as final. I induced the solicitor, on the other side, to accord us a further term of delay; I attempted to see Mr. Noel Vanstone in London for the purpose of obtaining his intercession; and, failing in that, I myself wrote to his father for the second time. The answer referred me, in insolently curt terms, to the instructions already communicated; declared those instructions to be final; and declined any further correspondence with me. There is the beginning and the end of the negotiation. If I have overlooked any means of touching this heartless man — tell me, and those means shall be tried.”
He looked at Norah. She pressed her sister’s hand encouragingly, and answered for both of them.
“I speak for my sister, as well as for myself,” she said, with her colour a little heightened, with her natural gentleness of manner just touched by a quiet, uncomplaining sadness. “You have done all that could be done, Mr. Pendril. We have tried to restrain ourselves from hoping too confidently; and we are deeply grateful for your kindness, at a time when kindness is sorely needed by both of us.”
Magdalen’s hand returned the pressure of her sister’s — withdrew itself — trifled for a moment impatiently with the arrangement of her dress — then suddenly moved the chair closer to the table. Leaning one arm on it (with the hand fast clinched), she looked across at Mr. Pendril. Her face, always remarkable for its want of colour, was now startling to contemplate, in its blank, bloodless pallor. But the light in her large gray eyes was bright and steady as ever; and her voice, though low in tone, was clear and resolute in accent as she addressed the lawyer in these terms:
“I understood you to say, Mr. Pendril, that my father’s brother had sent his written orders to London, and that you had a copy. Have you preserved it?”
“Certainly.”
“Have you got it about you?”
“I have.”
“May I see it?”
Mr. Pendril hesitated, and looked uneasily from Magdalen to Miss Garth, and from Miss Garth back again to Magdalen.
“Pray oblige me by not pressing your request,” he said. “It is surely enough that you know the result of the instructions. Why should you agitate yourself to no purpose by reading them? They are expressed so cruelly; they show such abominable want of feeling, that I really cannot prevail upon myself to let you see them.”
“I am sensible of your kindness, Mr. Pendril, in wishing to spare me pain. But I can bear pain; I promise to distress nobody. Will you excuse me if I repeat my request?”
She held out her hand — the soft, white, virgin hand that had touched nothing to soil it or harden it yet.
“Oh, Magdalen, think again!” said Norah.
“You distress Mr. Pendril,” added Miss Garth; “you distress us all.”
“There can be no end gained,” pleaded the lawyer — ”forgive me for saying so — there can really be no useful end gained by my showing you the instructions.”
(“Fools!” said Mr. Clare to himself. “Have they no eyes to see that she means to have her own way?”)
“Something tells me there is an end to be gained,” persisted Magdalen. “This decision is a very serious one. It is more serious to me — ” She looked round at Mr. Clare, who sat closely watching her, and instantly looked back again, with the first outward betrayal of emotion which had escaped her yet. “It is even more serious to me,” she resumed, “for private reasons — than it is to my sister. I know nothing yet but that our father’s brother has taken our fortunes from us. He must have some motives of his own for such conduct as that. It is not fair to him, or fair to us, to keep those motives concealed. He has deliberately robbed Norah, and robbed me; and I think we have a right, if we wish it, to know why?”
