"No;—I'm not. I'm not in possession. I'm only a lodger in the place. I can do nothing. I cannot even build a farm-house for a tenant."
"Surely you can, Mr. Gregory."
"What;—for him! You think that would be one of the delights of possession? Put my money into the ground like seed, in order that the fruit may be gathered by him! I'm not a good enough Christian, Mr. Carey, to take much delight in that. I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Carey. The place is a hell upon earth to me, till I can call it my own." At last he left his lawyer, and went back to Newton Priory, having given instructions that the transaction should be re-opened between the two lawyers, and that additional money, to the extent of £5,000, should by degrees be offered.
CHAPTER XXIII.
"I'LL BE A HYPOCRITE IF YOU CHOOSE."
There could hardly be a more unhappy man than was the Squire on his journey home. He had buoyed himself up with hope till he had felt certain that he would return to Newton Priory its real and permanent owner, no longer a lodger in the place, as he had called himself to the lawyer, but able to look upon every tree as his own, with power to cut down every oak upon the property; though, as he knew very well, he would rather spill blood from his veins than cut down one of them. But in that case he would preserve the oaks,—preserve them by his own decision,—because they were his own, and because he could give them to his own son. His son should cut them down if he pleased. And then the power of putting up would be quite as sweet to him as the power of pulling down. What pleasure would he have in making every deficient house upon the estate efficient, when he knew that the stones as he laid them would not become the property of his enemy. He was a man who had never spent his full income. The property had been in his hands now for some fifteen years, and he had already amassed a considerable sum of money,—a sum which would have enabled him to buy out his nephew altogether, without selling an acre,—presuming the price already fixed to have been sufficient. He had determined to sell something, knowing that he could not do as he would do with the remainder if his hands were empty. He had settled it all in his mind;—how Ralph, his Ralph, must marry, and have a separate income. There would be no doubt about his Ralph's marriage when once it should be known that his Ralph was the heir to Newton. The bar sinister would matter but little then;—would be clean forgotten. His mind had been full of all this as he had come up to London. It had all been settled. He had decided upon ignoring altogether those cautions which his son and nephew and lawyer had croaked into his ears. This legitimate heir was a ruined spendthrift, who had no alternative but to raise money, no ambition but to spend money, no pursuit but to waste money. His temperament was so sanguine that when he entered Mr. Carey's office he had hardly doubted. Now everything had been upset, and he was cast down from triumph into an abyss of despondency by two lines from this wretched, meaningless, poor-spirited spendthrift! "I believe he'd take a pleasure in seeing the property going to the dogs, merely to spite me," said the Squire to his son, as soon as he reached home,—having probably forgotten his former idea, that his nephew was determined, with the pertinacity of a patient, far-sighted Jew money-lender, to wring from him the last possible shilling.
Ralph, who was not the heir, was of his nature so just, that he could not hear an accusation which he did not believe to be true, without protesting against it. The Squire had called the heir a spiritless spendthrift, and a malicious evil-doer, intent upon ruining the estate, and a grasping Jew, all in the same breath.
"I think you are hard upon him, sir," said the son to the father.
"Of course you think so. At any rate you'll say so," said the Squire. "One would suppose I was thinking only of myself to hear you talk."