Gordon gave a little start of surprise, but remained silent.
“I told your father, shortly after Kenelm was born, that I meant to give up my London house, and lay by L1000 a year for you, in compensation for your chance of succeeding to Exmundham should I have died childless. Well, your father did not seem to think much of that promise, and went to law with me about certain unquestionable rights of mine. How so clever a man could have made such a mistake would puzzle me, if I did not remember that he had a quarrelsome temper. Temper is a thing that often dominates cleverness,—an uncontrollable thing; and allowances must be made for it. Not being of a quarrelsome temper myself (the Chillinglys are a placid race), I did not make the allowance for your father’s differing, and (for a Chillingly) abnormal, constitution. The language and the tone of his letter respecting it nettled me. I did not see why, thus treated, I should pinch myself to lay by a thousand a year. Facilities for buying a property most desirable for the possessor of Exmundham presented themselves. I bought it with borrowed money, and though I gave up the house in London, I did not lay by the thousand a year.”
“My dear Sir Peter, I have always regretted that my poor father was misled—perhaps out of too paternal a care for my supposed interests—into that unhappy and fruitless litigation, after which no one could doubt that any generous intentions on your part would be finally abandoned. It has been a grateful surprise to me that I have been so kindly and cordially received into the family by Kenelm and yourself. Pray oblige me by dropping all reference to pecuniary matters: the idea of compensation to a very distant relative for the loss of expectations he had no right to form, is too absurd, for me at least, ever to entertain.”
“But I am absurd enough to entertain it, though you express yourself in a very high-minded way. To come to the point, Kenelm is of age, and we have cut off the entail. The estate of course remains absolutely with Kenelm to dispose of, as it did before, and we must take it for granted that he will marry; at all events he cannot fall into your poor father’s error: but whatever Kenelm hereafter does with his property, it is nothing to you, and is not to be counted upon. Even the title dies with Kenelm if he has no son. On resettling the estate, however, sums of money have been realized which, as I stated before, enable me to discharge the debt which Kenelm heartily agrees with me is due to you. L20,000 are now lying at my bankers’ to be transferred to yours; meanwhile, if you will call on my solicitor, Mr. Vining, Lincoln’s-inn, you can see the new deed and give to him your receipt for the L20,000, for which he holds my cheque. Stop! stop! stop! I will not hear a. word: no thanks; they are not due.”
Here Gordon, who had during this speech uttered various brief exclamations, which Sir Peter did not heed, caught hold of his kinsman’s hand, and, despite of all struggles, pressed his lips on it. “I must thank you; I must give some vent to my emotions,” cried Gordon. “This sum, great in itself, is far more to me than you can imagine: it opens my career; it assures my future.”
“So Kenelm tells me; he said that sum would be more use to you now than ten times the amount twenty years hence.”
“So it will,—it will. And Kenelm consents to this sacrifice?”
“Consents! urges it.”
Gordon turned away his face, and Sir Peter resumed: “You want to get into Parliament; very natural ambition for a clever young fellow. I don’t presume to dictate politics to you. I hear you are what is called a Liberal; a man may be a Liberal, I suppose, without being a Jacobin.”
“I hope so, indeed. For my part I am anything but a violent man.”