“So you want the inheritance,” said Ninian, gently, looking into her face. “You feel you must earn it?”
“She has done so,” said Ransom. “We have seen that it is hers.”
“And Father?” said Ninian, even more gently. “Who is that to you now?”
“Perhaps not anyone. I cannot alter the name. My uncle is something different, something I needed and was without. Something I will hold to while I can.”
“Well, may it be long before you lose it. From my heart I wish it. What hope could go deeper in me? So it is goodbye, my daughter. You are still that to me. Your future calls for your thought. Rely on my help, if you need it.”
“I don’t know why Father should be actually exalted,” said Egbert. “Even granting that he cannot be judged.”
“He knows that he is not exalted,” said Lavinia. “That is what he is dealing with. And with his normal success. If he could fail, he would have done so. To think what our memories will be! And how we shall wish they could fade!”
“I believe I am arranging them for future use,” said Hugo.
“You will be talking of it, if you don’t take care. Father was right to be afraid of it.”
“Well, it does seem that he might suffer some sort of qualm. What would have happened to anyone else in such a place?”
“You can think you would have stood the trial,” said Ransom.
“Well, I have pictured myself quietly turning away.”
“That is the instinct to dramatise ourselves, that is in all of us.”
“Is it? Do you all think of yourselves as coming out well under a trial? I do think it is conceited of you.”
“Do you feel you are different from us?”
“Well, yes, when I come out so well.”
“In that case he would be different,” said Lavinia.
“Here is Father coming back!” said Egbert. “This is a trial.”
“Well, it is not as late as I thought,” said Ninian. “So there is a word I should say. The subject of wills is never mentioned by people in our sphere of life. No word is said of them until they are revealed. It is a principle that should be observed.”
“Like other principles to do with them,” said Ransom.
Ninian seemed not to hear.
“And we had better go home together, and not as if we were not on good terms. There is little point in posturing. The wrong I did — and I now see it as a wrong — was done for you all. It does not render me an outcast.”
“And if you appear as one, our mother will question you,” said Ransom.
“Any more than my daughter was rendered one,” continued Ninian, without looking at him. “I remain her father. You remain my son and my brothers.”
“I feel I have stood a trial,” murmured Hugo. “I don’t know how.”
The three men left the house, and Ransom turned to his niece.
“I have my own word to say. Remember it, when I am dead. What I leave you will be yours in your own hands. In anyone else’s it will be his and used as his own. Do not be wise too late.”
CHAPTER X
“So it is over,” said Ninian. “The too brief, but we may feel brave life. We do not know its efforts and trials. My brother did not exhibit himself. We owe him our future, the firmness of our roots in the soil. We take it as a gift from him. In a sense he will not die.”
“In a poor sense,” said Teresa, “as he will not be alive.”
“In the sense he chose. He will share our life, as we live it. What he leaves us remains his own. We shall see it as his.”
“We see it as Lavinia’s. As she sees it, and he saw it.”
“Yes, she represents him. We feel it is her place. I take what he gives me, at her hands. He chose her as the intermediary, to add something to the gift. She has the generous part.”
“She would have, if it was what you suggest. She will have the one her uncle gave her.”
“I take it from both him and her. I see it as a twofold charge. I shall answer to them both.”
“And to all of us, Father, if you mean what you say,” said Egbert. “But she will have what is hers.”
“The power to pass my brother’s gift from his hand to mine. It is a cause for pride, a thing to carry with her, an addition to her life.”
“And light enough to carry. She would hardly feel the weight.”
“I shall not carry it,” said Lavinia, in a light tone, not looking at her father. “It is not what Uncle Ransom wished. He did not mean what Father says.”
“We know what he meant,” said Ninian. “What did he say when he returned to us? What were his first words?”
“Is it second thoughts that are recommended?” said Hugo.
“I am thinking of his last ones, Father. He left all he had to me. You said it was your wish, and held to it when he questioned it. Did your words mean nothing?”
“My brother understood me. We understood each other.”
“What did you understand?” said Egbert. “He could have left the money to you.”
“The money?” said Ninian, in a dreamy tone. “Yes, that was the form it took. I was to take his gift in the form he chose, in the way he chose. And I do so willingly.”
“There is no reason to be unwilling, if your words are true.”
Ninian gave a faint smile, and stood as if aloof, with his hand on his chin.
“The money is mine, Father,” said Lavinia. “I am not afraid of the word. None of us is afraid of what it means. I shall do as my uncle said.”
“Has my daughter changed?” said Ninian.
“She has learned that she is not only your daughter. Perhaps it is a change.”
“It is still my marriage?” said Ninian, stooping to look into her face.
“That is in the past. This is the future. And it was never your marriage. It was the difference in yourself. You ask me if I have changed. There was no need to ask it of you. Uncle Ransom said we had something of each other.”
“Uncle Ransom said? So that is his place now. So inheritance can do as much as this.”
“We do see its forces working,” murmured his son.
“To what did the desire for it lead you, Father? I am forced to remind you of it.”
“Forced?” said Ninian, gently. “Nothing would force me to recall any similar thing in your life. We have nothing of each other there.”
“Well, we will leave the matter. There is nothing more to be said.”
“The one thing. The word of the future. It is true that it hardly needs saying. That we will work together for the common good, using what is ours to further it. If it is transferred to my name, it will ease your burden. We must not forget your youth. It should be a happy partnership.”
“I should once have thought so. But the change has come. And there may be other changes. I may not always be with you. Our lives may go apart.”
“If you marry, a portion will be assigned to you. You should be distinguished from the others. Your uncle would wish it, and we should follow his wish.”
“We know his last decision. That I should have the whole. And I have a legal right to it.”
“Legal? I was thinking of the moral one,” said Ninian, so incidentally as hardly to utter the words.
“I am going to marry, Father. The money may not be too much. I have no knowledge of such things. I am marrying a poor man.”
“She is,” said Hugo, moving forward. “And a man who is nothing else, except old and over-familiar. I hope it is true that frankness is disarming.”
There was a pause before Ninian spoke.
“You do not mean you want to marry my daughter?”
“What did you think I meant?”
“I could not believe my ears. I do not now.”
“We have found it hard to believe ours. But ears seldom really deceive.”