"I take it there is a difficulty about money, Mr. Solicitor."
"There ought to be none,—and I will take it upon myself to say that there need be none. It is a case in which the court will willingly allow money out of the income of the property. The thing is so large that there should be no grudging of money for needful purposes. Seeing what primâ facie claims these ladies have, they are bound to allow them to live decently, in accordance with their alleged rank, till the case is settled. No doubt she is the heiress."
"You feel quite sure, Sir William?"
"I do;—though, as I have said before, it is a case of feeling sure, and not being sure. Had that Italian woman been really the widow, somebody would have brought her case forward more loudly."
"But if the other Italian woman who died was the wife?"
"You would have found it out when you were there. Somebody from the country would have come to us with evidence, knowing how much we could afford to pay for it. Mind you, the matter has been tried before, in another shape. The old Earl was indicted for bigamy and acquitted. We are bound to regard that young woman as Lady Anna Lovel, and we are bound to regard her and her mother conjointly as co-heiresses, in different degrees, to all the personal property which the old Earl left behind him. We can't with safety take any other view. There will still be difficulties in their way;—and very serious difficulties, were she to marry this tailor; but, between you and me, he would eventually get the money. Perhaps, Mr. Flick, you had better see him. You would know how to get at his views without compromising anybody. But, in the first place, let the Countess know everything. After what has been done, you won't have any difficulty in meeting Mr. Goffe."
Mr. Flick had no difficulty in seeing Mr. Goffe,—though he felt that there would be very much difficulty in seeing Mr. Daniel Thwaite. He did tell Mr. Goffe the story of the wicked tailor,—by no means making those excuses which the Solicitor-General had made for the man's presumptuous covetousness. "I knew the trouble we should have with that man," said Mr. Goffe, who had always disliked the Thwaites. Then Mr. Flick went on to say that Mr. Goffe had better tell the Countess,—and Mr. Goffe on this point agreed with his adversary. Two or three days after that, but subsequently to the date of the last letter which the mother had written to her daughter, Lady Lovel was told that Lady Anna was engaged to marry Mr. Daniel Thwaite.
She had suspected how it might be; her heart had for the last month been heavy with the dread of this great calamity; she had made her plans with the view of keeping the two apart; she had asked her daughter questions founded on this very fear;—and yet she could not for a while be brought to believe it. How did Mr. Goffe know? Mr. Goffe had heard it from Mr. Flick, who had heard it from Sir William Patterson; to whom the tale had been told by Lord Lovel. "And who told Lord Lovel?" said the Countess flashing up in anger.
"No doubt Lady Anna did so," said the attorney. But in spite of her indignation she could retain her doubts. The attorney, however, was certain. "There could be no hope but that it was so." She still pretended not to believe it, though fully intending to take all due precautions in the matter. Since Mr. Goffe thought that it would be prudent, she would remove to other lodgings. She would think of that plan of going abroad. She would be on her guard, she said. But she would not admit it to be possible that Lady Anna Lovel, the daughter of Earl Lovel, her daughter, should have so far disgraced herself.
But she did believe it. Her heart had in truth told her that it was true at the first word the lawyer had spoken to her. How blind she must have been not to have known it! How grossly stupid not to have understood those asseverations from the girl, that the marriage with her cousin was impossible! Her child had not only deceived her, but had possessed cunning enough to maintain her deception. It must have been going on for at least the last twelvemonth, and she, the while, had been kept in the dark by the manœuvres of a simple girl! And then she thought of the depth of the degradation which was prepared for her. Had she passed twenty years of unintermittent combat for this,—that when all had been done, when at last success was won, when the rank and wealth of her child had been made positively secure before the world, when she was about to see the unquestioned coronet of a Countess placed upon her child's brow,—all should be destroyed through a passion so mean as this! Would it not have been better to have died in poverty and obscurity,—while there were yet doubts,—before any assured disgrace had rested on her? But, oh! to have proved that she was a Countess, and her child the heiress of an Earl, in order that the Lady Anna Lovel might become the wife of Daniel Thwaite, the tailor!