On the next morning, the fourth after his return from Tretton, Mr. Grey received a letter from Mountjoy Scarborough. "He was sure," he said, "that Mr. Grey would be sorry to hear that his father had been very weak since Mr. Grey had gone, and unable even to see him, Mountjoy, for more than two or three minutes at a time. He was afraid that all would soon be over; but he and everybody around the squire had been surprised to find how cheerful and high-spirited he was. It seems," wrote Mountjoy, "as though he had nothing to regret, either as regards this world or the next. He has no remorse, and certainly no fear. Nothing, I think, could make him angry, unless the word repentance were mentioned to him. To me and to his sister he is unwontedly affectionate; but Augustus's name has not crossed his lips since you left the house." Then he went on to the matter as to which his letter had been written. "What am I to do when all is over with him? It is natural that I should come to you for advice. I will promise nothing about myself, but I trust that I may not return to the gambling-table. If I have this property to manage, I may be able to remain down here without going up to London. But shall I have the property to manage? and what steps am I to take with the view of getting it? Of course I shall have to encounter opposition, but I do not think that you will be one of those to oppose me. I presume that I shall be left here in possession, and that, they say, is nine points of the law. In the usual way I ought, I presume, simply to do nothing, but merely to take possession. The double story about the two marriages ought to count for nothing,—and I should be as though no such plots had ever been hatched. But they have been hatched, and other people know of them. The creditors, I presume, can do nothing. You have all the bonds in your possession. They may curse and swear, but will, I imagine, have no power. I doubt whether they have a morsel of ground on which to raise a lawsuit; for whether I or Augustus be the eldest son, their claims have been satisfied in full. But I presume that Augustus will not sit quiet. What ought I to do in regard to him? As matters stand at present he will not get a shilling. I fear my father is too ill to make another will. But at any rate he will make none in favor of Augustus. Pray tell me what I ought to do; and tell me whether you can send any one down to assist me when my father shall have gone."
"I will meddle no farther with anything in which the name of Scarborough is concerned." Such had been Mr. Grey's first assertion when he received Mountjoy's letter. He would write to him and tell him that, after what had passed, there could be nothing of business transacted between him and his father's estate. Nor was he in the position to give any advice on the subjects mooted. He would wash his hands of it altogether. But, as he went home, he thought over the matter and told himself that it would be impossible for him thus to repudiate the name. He would undertake no lawsuit either on behalf of Augustus or of Mountjoy. But he must answer Mountjoy's letter, and tender him some advice.
During the long hours of the subsequent night he discussed the whole matter with his daughter, and the upshot of his discussion was this:—that he would withdraw his name from the business, and leave Mr. Barry to manage it. Mr. Barry might then act for either party as he pleased.
CHAPTER LVI.
SCARBOROUGH'S REVENGE.
All these things were not done at Tretton altogether unknown to Augustus Scarborough. Tidings as to the will reached him, and then he first perceived the injury he had done himself in lending his assistance to the payment of the creditors. Had his brother been utterly bankrupt, so that the Jews might have seized any money that might have come to him, his father would have left no will in his favor. All that was now intelligible to Augustus. The idea that his father should strip the house of every stick of furniture, and the estate of every chattel upon it, had not occurred to him before the thing was done.
He had thought that his father was indifferent to all personal offence, and therefore he had been offensive. He found out his mistake, and therefore was angry with himself. But he still thought that he had been right in regard to the creditors. Had the creditors been left in the possession of their unpaid bonds, they would have offered terrible impediments to the taking possession of the property. He had been right then, he thought. The fact was that his father had lived too long. However, the property would be left to him, Augustus, and he must make up his mind to buy the other things from Mountjoy. He at any rate would have to provide the funds out of which Mountjoy must live, and he would take care that he did not buy the chattels twice over. It was thus he consoled himself till rumors of something worse reached his ears.
How the rumors reached him it would be difficult to say. There were probably some among the servants who got an inkling of what the squire was doing when Mr. Grey again came down; or Miss Scarborough had some confidential friend; or Mr. Grey's clerk may have been indiscreet. The tidings in some unformed state did reach Augustus and astounded him. His belief in his father's story as to his brother's illegitimacy had been unfixed and doubtful. Latterly it had verged toward more thorough belief as the creditors had taken their money,—less than a third of what would have been theirs had the power remained with them of recovering their full debt. The creditors had thus proved their belief, and they were a people not likely to believe such a statement without some foundation. But at any rate he had conceived it to be impossible that his own father should go back from his first story, and again make himself out to be doubly a liar and doubly a knave.
But if it were so, what should he do? Was it not the case that in such event he would be altogether ruined,—a penniless adventurer with his profession absolutely gone from him? What little money he had got together had been expended on behalf of Mountjoy,—a sprat thrown out to catch a whale. Everything according to the present tidings had been left to Mountjoy. He had only half known his father, who had turned against him with virulence because of his unkindness. Who could have expected that a man in such a condition should have lived so long, and have been capable of a will so powerful? He had not dreamed of a hatred so inveterate as his father's for him.