All this happened before the will had been declared,—when Arabella did not dream that she was an heiress. A day or two afterwards she received a letter from the lawyer, telling her of her good fortune, and informing her that the trinkets would be given up to her and the money paid,—short of legacy duty,—whenever she would fix a time and place. The news almost stunned her. There was a moment in which she thought that she was bound to reject this money, as she had rejected that tendered to her by the other man. Poor as she was, greedy as she was, alive as she was to the necessity of doing something for herself,—still this legacy was to her at first bitter rather than sweet. She had never treated any man so ill as she had treated this man;—and it was thus that he punished her! She was alive to the feeling that he had always been true to her. In her intercourse with other men there had been generally a battle carried on with some fairness. Diamond had striven to cut diamond. But here the dishonesty had all been on one side, and she was aware that it had been so. In her later affair with Lord Rufford, she really did think that she had been ill used; but she was quite alive to the fact that her treatment of John Morton had been abominable. The one man, in order that he might escape without further trouble, had in the grossest manner, sent to her the offer of a bribe. The other,—in regard to whose end her hard heart was touched, even her conscience seared,—had named her in his will as though his affection was unimpaired. Of course she took the money, but she took it with inward groans. She took the money and the trinkets, and the matter was all arranged for her by Mounser Green.
"So after all the Paragon left her whatever he could leave," said Currie in the same room at the Foreign Office. A week had passed since the last conversation, and at this moment Mounser Green was not in the room.
"Oh, dear no," said young Glossy. "She doesn't have Bragton. That goes to his cousin."
"That was entailed, Glossy, my boy."
"Not a bit of it. Everybody thought he would leave the place to another Morton, a fellow he'd never seen, in one of those Somerset House Offices. He and this fellow who is to have it, were enemies,—but he wouldn't put it out of the right line. It's all very well for Mounser to be down on me, but I do happen to know what goes on in that country. She gets a pot of money, and no end of family jewels; but he didn't leave her the estate as he might have done."
At that moment Mounser Green came into the room. It was rather later than usual, being past one o'clock;—and he looked as though he were flurried. He didn't speak for a few minutes, but stood before the fire smoking a cigar. And there was a general silence,—there being now a feeling among them that Arabella Trefoil was not to be talked about in the old way before Mounser Green. At last he spoke himself. "I suppose you haven't heard who is to go to Patagonia after all?"
"Is it settled?" asked Currie.
"Anybody we know?" asked Hoffmann.
"I hope it's no d—— outsider," said the too energetic Glossop.
"It is settled;—and it is somebody you know;—and it is not a d—— outsider; unless, indeed, he may be considered to be an outsider in reference to that branch of the service."