CHAPTER XVI.

THE LAWYER’S SUSPICION.

Mr. Monckton came to Hazlewood upon the day after Launcelot Darrell’s arrival. The grave solicitor had known the young man before his departure for India, but there seemed no very great intimacy between them, and Mr. Darrell appeared rather to avoid any familiarity with his mother’s rich friend.

He answered Gilbert Monckton’s questions about India and indigo-planting with an air of unwillingness that was almost insolent.

“The last few years of my life have not been so very pleasant as to make me care to look back at them,” he said, bitterly. “Some men keep a diary of the experiences of each day—I found the experiences tiresome enough in themselves, and had no wish to incur the extra fatigue of writing about them. I told my uncle, when he forced a commercial career upon me, that he was making a mistake; and the result has proved that I was right.”

Mr. Darrell spoke with as much gentlemanly indifference as if he had been discussing the affairs of a stranger. He evidently thought that the mistakes of his life rested upon other people’s shoulders; and that it was no shame to him, but rather to his credit as a fine gentleman, that he had come home penniless and shabby to sponge upon his mother’s slender income.

“And now you have come back, what do you mean to do?” Mr. Monckton asked, rather abruptly.

“I shall go in for painting. I’ll work hard, down in this quiet place, and get a picture ready for the Royal Academy next year. Will you sit for me, Miss Mason? and you, Miss Vincent? you would make a splendid Rosalind and Celia. Yes, Mr. Monckton, I shall try the sublime art whose professors have been the friends of princes.”

“And if you fail——”

“If I fail, I’ll change my name, and turn itinerant portrait-painter. But I don’t suppose my uncle Maurice means to live for ever. He must leave his money to somebody. If Providence favours me my respected aunts may happen to offend him a few hours before his death, and he may make a will in my favour, in order to revenge himself upon them. I think that’s generally the way of it, eh, Mr. Monckton? The testator doesn’t consider the delight of the person who _is_ to get his money, but gloats over the aggravation of the poor wretch who _isn’t_.”

The young man spoke as carelessly as if the Woodlands fortune were scarcely worth a discussion. It was his habit to speak indifferently of all things, and it was rather difficult to penetrate his real sentiments, so skilfully were they hidden by this surface manner.

“You had a formidable rival once in your uncle’s affections,” Mr. Monckton said, presently.

“Which rival?”

“The Damon of Maurice de Crespigny’s youth, George Vandeleur Vane.”

Launcelot Darrell’s face darkened at the mention of the dead man’s name. It had always been the habit of the De Crespigny family to look upon Eleanor’s father as a subtle and designing foe, against whom no warfare could be too desperate.

“My uncle could never have been such a fool as to leave his money to that spendthrift,” Mr. Darrell said.

Eleanor had been sitting at an open window busy with her work during this conversation; but she rose hastily as Launcelot spoke of her father. She was ready to do battle for him then and there, if need were. She was ready to fling off the disguise of her false name, and to avow herself as George Vane’s daughter, if they dared to slander him. Whatever shame or humiliation was cast upon him should be shared by her.

But before she could give way to this sudden impulse, Gilbert Monckton spoke, and the angry girl waited to near what he might say.

“I have every reason to believe that Maurice de Crespigny would have left his money to his old friend had Mr. Vane lived,” the lawyer said. “I never shall forget your uncle’s grief when he read the account of the old man’s death in a ‘Galignani’ which was put purposely in his way by one of your aunts.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Darrell, bitterly, “George Vane’s death cleared the way for those harpies.”

“Or for you, perhaps.”

“Perhaps. I have not come home to wait for a dead man’s shoes, Mr. Monckton.”

Mrs. Darrell had been listening to this conversation, with her watchful eyes fixed upon Gilbert Monckton’s face. She spoke now for the first time.

“My son is the proper person to inherit my uncle’s fortune,” she said; “he is young, and has a bright future before him. Money would be of some use to _him_; but it would be almost useless to my sisters.”

She glanced at the young man as she spoke; and in that one kindling glance of maternal pride the widow revealed how much she loved her son.

The young man was leaning in a lounging attitude over the piano, turning the leaves of Laura’s open music-book, and now and then striking his fingers on the notes.

Mr. Monckton took up his hat, shook hands with his ward and with Mrs. Darrell, and then went over to the window at which Eleanor sat.

“How silent you have been this morning, Miss Vincent,” he said.

The girl blushed as she looked up at the lawyer’s grave face. She always felt ashamed of her false name when Mr. Monckton addressed her by it.

“When are you and Laura coming to see my new picture?” he asked.

“Whenever Mrs. Darrell likes to bring us,” Eleanor answered, frankly.

“You hear, Mrs. Darrell?” said the lawyer; “these two young ladies are coming over to Tolldale to see a genuine Raphael that I bought at Christie’s a month ago. You will be taking your son to see his uncle, I have no doubt—suppose you come and lunch at the Priory on the day you go to Woodlands.”

“That will be to-morrow,” answered Mrs. Darrell. “My uncle cannot deny himself to Launcelot after an absence of nearly five years, and even my sisters can scarcely have the impertinence to shut the door in my son’s face.”

“Very well; Woodlands and the Priory lie close together. You can cross the park and get into Mr. de Crespigny’s grounds by the wicket-gate, and so surprise the enemy. That will be the best plan.”

“If you please, my dear Mr. Monckton,” said the widow.

She was gratified at the idea of stealing a march upon her maiden sisters, for she knew how difficult it was to effect an entrance to the citadel so jealously guarded by them.

“Come, young ladies,” exclaimed Mr. Monckton, as he crossed the threshold of the bay window, “will you honour me with your company to the gates?”

The two girls rose and went out on to the lawn with the lawyer. Laura Mason was accustomed to obey her guardian, and Eleanor was very well pleased to pay all possible respect to Gilbert Monckton. She looked up to him as something removed from the commonplace sphere in which she felt so fettered and helpless. She fancied sometimes that if she could have told him the story of her father’s death, he might have helped her to find the old man’s destroyer. She had that implicit confidence in his power which a young and inexperienced woman almost always feels for a man of superior intellect who is twenty years her senior.

Mr. Monckton and the two girls walked slowly across the grass; but Laura Mason was distracted by her dogs before she reached the gate, and ran away into one of the shrubberied pathways after the refractory Italian greyhound.

The lawyer stopped at the gate. He was silent for some moments, looking thoughtfully at Eleanor, as if he had something particular to say to her.

“Well, Miss Vincent, how do you like Mr. Launcelot Darrell?” he asked at last.

The question seemed rather insignificant after the pause that had preceded it.

Eleanor hesitated.

“I scarcely know whether I like or dislike him,” she said; “he only came the night before last, and——”

“And my question is what we call a leading one. Never mind, you shall tell me what you think by-and-by, when you have had more time to form an opinion. You think the young man handsome, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes! very handsome.”

“But you are not the girl to be fascinated by a handsome face. I can see that you mean that by the contemptuous curl of your lip. Quite true, no doubt, Miss Vincent; but there are some young ladies less strong-minded than yourself, who may be easily bewitched by the outline of a classical profile, or the light of a pair of handsome dark eyes. Eleanor Vincent, do you remember what I said to you when I brought you down to Hazlewood?”

Mr. Monckton was in the habit of addressing both the girls by their Christian names when he spoke seriously.

“Yes, I remember perfectly.”

“What I said to you then implied an amount of trust which I don’t often put in an acquaintance of a couple of hours. That little girl yonder,” added the lawyer, glancing towards the pathway in which Laura Mason flitted about, alternately coaxing and remonstrating with her dogs, “is tender-hearted and weak-headed. I think you would willingly do anything to serve her and me. You can do her no better service than by shielding her from the influence of Launcelot Darrell. Don’t let my ward fall in love with the young man’s handsome face, Miss Vincent!”

Eleanor was silent, scarcely knowing how to reply to this strange appeal.

“You think I am taking alarm too soon, I dare say,” the lawyer said, “but in our profession we learn to look a long way ahead. I don’t like the young man, Miss Vincent. He is selfish, and shallow, and frivolous,—false, I think, as well. And, more than this, there is a secret in his life.”

“A secret?”

“Yes; and that secret is connected with his Indian experiences.”