Under False Pretences: A Novel

by Adeline Sergeant

Mr. Colquhoun's wrath and astonishment were not to be described. That Brian should have been so near him, and that they should have never met! "I should have known him anywhere!" cried the old man. "Grey hair! do you tell me? What difference does that make to a man that knew him all his life, and his father before him? And a beard, you say? Toots! beard or no beard, I should have known Brian Luttrell anywhere."

Angela Vivian, being taken into their confidence, supplied them with several photographs of Brian in his earlier days. And Percival was admitted to Netherglen to look at a portrait of the brothers (or reputed brothers), painted not long before Richard's death. He looked at it long and carefully, but acknowledged afterwards that he could not see any likeness between his memories of Mr. Stretton and the pictured face, with its fine contour, brown moustache, and smiling eyes, a face in which an expression of slight melancholy seemed to be the index to intense susceptibility of temperament and great refinement of mind. "The eyes are like Stretton's," he said, "and that is all." He took two of the photographs with him, however, as part of his equipment.

Mrs. Luttrell continued in the state in which she had been found after her interview with Dino. She could not speak: she could not move: her eyes had an awful consciousness in them which told that she was living and knew what was going on around her: otherwise she might easily have been mistaken for one already dead. It was difficult to imagine that she understood the words spoken in her presence, and for some time her attendants did not realise this fact, and spoke with less caution than they might have done respecting the affairs of the neighbourhood. But when the doctor had declared that her mind was unimpaired, Mr. Colquhoun thought it better to come and give her some account of the things that had been done during her illness, on the mere chance that she might hear and understand. He told her that Dino had gone to Italy, that Brian had sailed for South America, and that Percival Heron had gone to fetch him back, in order to make some arrangement about the property which Elizabeth Murray wished to give up to him. He thought that there was a look of relief in her eyes when he had finished; but he could not be sure.

Hugo, after staying for some days at the hotel in Dunmuir, ventured rather timidly back to Netherglen. Now that Dino was out of the way, he did not see why he should not make use of his opportunities. He entered the door of his old home, it was true, with a sort of superstitious terror upon him: Dino had obtained a remarkable power over his mind, and if he had been either in England or Scotland, Hugo would never have dared to present himself at Netherglen. But his acquaintances and friends—even Angela—thought his absence so strange, that he was encouraged to pay a call at his aunt's house, and when there, he was led, almost against his will, straight into her presence. He had heard that she could not speak or move; but he was hardly prepared for the spectacle of complete helplessness that met his gaze. There might be dread and loathing in the eyes that looked at him out of that impassive face; but there was no possibility of the utterance by word of mouth. An eternal silence seemed to have fallen upon Margaret Luttrell: her bitterest enemy might come and go before her, and against none of his devices could she protect herself.

While looking at her, a thought flashed across Hugo's mind, and matured itself later in the day into a complete plan of action. He remembered the will that Mrs. Luttrell had made in his favour. Had that will ever been signed? By the curious brusqueness with which Mr. Colquhoun had lately treated him, he fancied that it had. If it was signed, he was the heir; he would be the master ultimately of Netherglen. Why should he go away? Dino Vasari had ordered him never to come again into Mrs. Luttrell's presence; but Dino Vasari was now shut up in some Italian monastery, and was not likely to hear very much about the affairs of a remote country-house in Scotland. At any rate, when Mrs. Luttrell was dead, even Dino could not object to Hugo's taking possession of his own house. When Mrs. Luttrell was dead! And when would she die?

The doctor, whom Hugo consulted with great professions of affection for his aunt, gave little hope of long life for her. He wondered, he said, that she had survived the stroke that deprived her of speech and the use of her limbs: a few weeks or months, in his opinion, would see the end.

Hugo considered the situation very seriously. It would be better for him to stay at Netherglen, where he could ascertain his aunt's condition from time to time, and be sure that there were no signs of returning speech and muscular power. Dared he risk disobedience to Dino's command? On deliberation, he thought he dare. Dino could prove nothing against him: it would be assertion against assertion, that was all. And most people would look on the accusations that Dino would bring as positive slander. Hugo felt that his greatest danger lay in his own cowardice—his absence of self-control and superstitious fear of Dino's eye. But if the young monk were out of England there was no present reason to be afraid. And when such a piece of luck had occurred as Mrs. Luttrell's paralytic stroke seemed likely to prove to Hugo, it would be folly to take no advantage of it. Hugo had had one or two wonderful strokes of luck in his life; but he told himself that this was the greatest of all. He was rather inclined to attribute it to his possession of a medal which had been blessed by the Pope (for, as far as he had any religion at all, Hugo was still a Romanist), which his mother had hung round his neck whilst he was a chubby-faced boy in Sicily. He wore it still, and was not at all above considering it as a charm for ensuring him a larger slice of good fortune than would otherwise have fallen to his share. And, therefore, in a few days after Mrs. Luttrell's seizure, Hugo was once again at Netherglen, ruling even more openly and imperiously than he had done in the days of his aunt's health and strength. His presence there, and Mrs. Luttrell's helplessness, caused some of Angela Vivian's friends to object seriously to her continued residence at Netherglen. She was still a young woman of considerable beauty; and Hugo was two-and-twenty. Of what use could she be to Mrs. Luttrell? She ought, at any rate, to have an older friend to chaperone her, to be with her in her walks and drives, and be present at the meals which she and Hugo now shared alone. Angela took little notice of the remonstrance of aunts and cousins, but when she heard that her brother Rupert was coming to stay at the Herons, and proposed to spend a day or two at Netherglen on his way thither, she felt a qualm of fear. Rupert was very careful of his sister: she felt sure that she would never be permitted to do what he thought in the least degree unbecoming.

Meanwhile, the man who had resolved to be known as Dino Vasari for his lifetime—or at least until he laid down his name, together with his will, his affections, and all his other possessions at the door of the religious house which he desired to enter, was hastening towards his old home, his birthplace, (whether he was Dino Vasari or Brian Luttrell) under sunny Italian skies. He did not quite dare to think how he should be received. He had thwarted the plans of the far-seeing monks: he had made their anxious efforts for his welfare of no avail. He had thrown away the chance of an inheritance which might have been used for the benefit of his Church: would the rulers of that Church easily forgive him?

He reached San Stefano at night, and took up his quarters at the inn, whence he wrote a letter to the Prior, asking to be allowed to see him, and hinting at his wish to enter the monastery for life. Perhaps the humility of the tone of his epistle made Father Cristoforo suspect that something was wrong. To begin with, Dino was not supposed to act without the advice of those who had hitherto been his guardians, and he had committed an act of grave insubordination in leaving England without their permission. The priest to whom he had reported himself on his arrival in London, had already complained to Father Cristoforo of the young man's self-reliant spirit, and a further letter had given some account of "very unsatisfactory proceedings" on Dino's part—of a refusal to tell where he had been or what he had been doing, and, finally, of his sudden and unauthorised departure from British shores. This letter had not tended to put Father Cristoforo into charity with his late pupil—child of the house, as, in a certain sense, he had been for many years, and special pet and favourite with the Prior—he was rather inclined to order Dino back to England without loss of time. Padre Cristoforo set a high value upon that inheritance in Scotland. He wished to secure it for Dino—still more for the Church.

He sent back a curt verbal answer. Dino might come to the cloisters on the following morning after early mass. The Prior would meet him there as he came from the monastery chapel.