“You will feel it does. It is what I had a hope it might be. A hope I hardly dared to frame. I have found out the truth about myself. And I am not your father’s son. I have traced the events to my birth, pursued the evidence, followed every track, and reached a certain result. My father was a widowed friend of your father’s, whose death your father caused in a moment of youthful violence. He suffered a lifetime’s remorse, never uttered a word of the truth, preferred any account of his adoption of me to the true one. That is the whole story. You see its meaning for me. I am not related to Lavinia. Our future is free and clear. You will rejoice with us, if you are a natural father.”
There was a pause.
“The certainty is absolute?” said Ninian. “As a natural father I must ask that.”
“It may be, my son,” said Selina. “The account agrees with what I know. There may be no room for doubt. There must be proof, if you want it and will follow it. But Hugo is prepared.”
“As a natural father I am disturbed,” said Ninian, in a lighter tone. “There is the risk that the threat of this marriage may return. But I hope it is only a natural father’s uneasiness.”
“A threat? It is a certainty,” said Hugo. “Of course it will return. That was the object of my effort, and is its reward. I thought you understood.”
“I feared it,” said Ninian, as if to himself. “It flashed into my mind as I heard. We must hope the danger will pass.”
“What have you against the marriage?”
Ninian gave a sigh, as if at a threadbare question.
“I will say one thing once. Your holding Lavinia to a life that denies her youth. That is, the sacrifice of it. Surely it is enough.”
“She will make the life for us both. I am willing to share what is hers. I am free from the pride that would satisfy itself at her expense.”
“Well, would not everything be at her expense?” said Ninian, with a little laugh. “It is true that you are without pride. But the words are empty ones. It is too late for the change’”
“It is the time for it, as you know. And I shall not touch what is not mine. Lavinia will deal with it.”
“But there would only be what was yours,” said Ninian, contracting his brows. “What was hers is put to other purposes. Both you and she know it.”
“There has been no change. She has taken no legal step. It has simply to remain in her hands.”
“Yes, we must ask that, Father,” said Lavinia.
“But what do you ask?” said Ninian, with a bewildered air. “It cannot be withdrawn now. Its uses are mapped out and settled as your uncle wished.”
“Nothing has been done,” said Teresa. “It has not been put to any use. Lavinia sees it as hers.”
“This series of steps!” said Ninian, smiling. “And the same money! How many times can it be given away?”
“It is not to be given, Father. We have our freedom again. I must have what is mine and use it. I want to give Hugo another life, and to share it with him. You think there will be nothing new in it. But for us there will.”
“No, my dear,” said Ninian, gravely. “I must assert my authority. For your sake, for my sake, for the sake of us all. But for your sake the most.”
“You can only make it hard for me. You know the truth.”
“Did she mean to have everything then?” said Ninian, with gentle raillery. “She wanted to give a thing and take a thing, like the wicked man in the rhyme? Well, it does not trouble her father. He understands his natural girl.”
“Do you mean you would use the money for yourself?”
“No, of course I do not. I have said what I shall do. Use it as my brother wished, before illness clouded his mind. That wish is sacred to me, as his real one. And I shall save you from a fatal step. That wish is my real one, my dear.”
“I can hardly believe you, Father. Is this the man you have been?”
“It is the man I am. The man who will suffer misjudgement to save you. In other words your father.”
“There would be many other words,” said Hugo. “Happily there will be no cause for them.”
“Hugo, I have lost you as a brother. Am I to lose you in every sense?”
“No, I am to be nearer, Ninian. I will try to be a son to you.”
“So you have given your answer,” said Ninian, without a smile.
“You are sure, my son?” said Selina, in a voice that sounded far away. “The money is apart from the marriage. It is not all one thing.”
“Mother, our thoughts should be on you,” said Ninian, turning as if in compunction. “I spoke of a brother. You are feeling you have lost a son. A long tie is broken.”
“No, I am glad to know the truth. I am glad it is what it is. Glad that your father never turned from me. I wish I had always known.”
“Have you always known, Grandma?” said Lavinia.
“I have known nothing,” said Selina, dreamily. “I could not ever be sure. I was not sure about what I said. It might have been true. I often thought it was. You must have known I could not be sure.”
“Why did you put it as a certainty?”
“I wanted to save you,” said Selina, in a deeper tone, leaning forward and looking into her face. “Hugo does not care for you enough. You are a person who inspires deep feeling. That is a thing we don’t explain. He has not the depth in him that you have. I wanted to save you both. And I may do it, if I go on thinking. I have my thoughts.”
“Well, I must take up my cross,” said Ninian. “I must be a resolute father. It is not an easy course.”
“Nor a credible one,” said Egbert. “And it can avail you nothing.”
“It is a question of our lives, Father,” said Lavinia. “If we are living for ourselves, it is time we did. I am not a lofty character. That is too well recognised for it to be expected.”
“The past is forgotten. Anyhow by your father. Why do you remind people of it?”
“It is what you are doing,” said Teresa.
“We cannot prove you are not honest, Father,” said Egbert.
“And you want to prove it?” said Ninian, gently. “It is a sad thing to have to say. More and more I see where the power should lie. The suspected person may be the one above suspicion. I am not afraid to claim the place. My mind is open to you all. I have hidden nothing. I have nothing to hide.”
“If only he would hide some of it!” murmured Egbert.
“Now the one thing has been found out,” said Hugo. “You intended that to be hidden.”
“Tell me what that is,” said Selina, in a petulant tone. “I have heard whispers about it. I have asked before. I should not ask, if I did not want to know.”
“It was to do with Ransom’s will,” said Hugo. “As Ninian’s activities tend to be.”
“Anyone who speaks of my will may get nothing from it,” said Selina, nodding her head. “I shall know who it is. It is the kind of thing I know. But I have thought about it. I have done one thing. And I am thinking of another.”
“Mother, what are you saying?” said Ninian. “Yours is a life we never imagine ended.”
“It will not be left to imagination. No one knows what it is to be a memory. No one will ever know.”
“Mother, you are tired. Our talk has been too much. And it has been a waste of words. Most of them were better unsaid.”
“I am often tired,” said Selina, putting her hand to her head. “But not in this way before. I have heard without knowing anything. And that is not a thing I do. It is as if I were someone else. It all goes by as though it had no meaning.”
“It has not had much,” said Ninian. “You chose your absent moment well. It was wise not to try to follow it.”
“I could not follow. That is what I said. It may not have been worth it. But you all seemed to feel it was.”