“Shall I read it over to you?”
“Heaven forbid! If you did, I 'd alter every word of it. I never reconsidered a note that I did not change my mind about it, and I don't believe I ever counted a sum of money over more than once without making the tot vary each time. Send it off as it is—' Yours truly, Lionel Darcy.'”
It was about ten days after the events we have just related that Bagenal Daly sat in consultation with Darcy's lawyer in the back parlor of the Knight's Dublin residence. Lionel, who had been in conclave with them for several hours, had just left the room, and they now remained in thoughtful silence, pondering over their late discussion.
“That young man,” said Bicknell, at length, “is very far from being deficient in ability, but he is wayward and reckless as the rest of the family; he seems to have signed his name everywhere they told him, and to anything. Here are leases forever at nominal rents—no fines in renewal—rights of fishery disposed of—oak timber—marble quarries—property of every kind—made away with. Never was there such wasteful, ruinous expenditure coupled with peculation and actual robbery at the same time.”
“What's to be done?” said Daly, interrupting a catalogue of disasters he could scarcely listen to with patience; “have you anything to propose?”
“We must move in Equity for an inquiry into the validity of these documents; many of the signatures are probably false; we can lay a case for a jury—”
“Well, I don't want to hear the details,—you mean to go to law; now, has Darcy wherewithal to sustain a suit? These Hickmans are rich.”
“Very wealthy people indeed,” said Bicknell, dryly. “The Knight cannot engage in a legal contest with them without adequate means. I am not sufficiently in possession of Mr. Darcy's resources to pronounce on the safety of such a step.”
“I can tell you, then: they have nothing left to live upon save his wife's jointure. Lady Eleanor has something like a thousand a year in settlement,—certainly not more.”
“If they can contrive to live on half this sum,” said the lawyer, cautiously, “we may, perhaps, find the remainder enough for our purposes. The first expenses will be, of course, very heavy: drafts to prepare, searches to make, witnesses to examine, with opinion of high counsel, will all demand considerable outlay.”