“The father is the arbiter of his family and property, Francis. You have all the responsibility, you needn’t ask leave from any one. I was younger than your father. We were orphans at an early age, and he brought us children up and helped us in every way, for he was the heir and head of the family. In those days—it was under the Sardinian rule, before the annexation—daughters received only their legal share, and they were not married for their money. The patrimony went all to one member of the family, and its obligations could not be neglected by the one who inherited it. He had to look out for the younger ones, endowing and establishing them in life, besides seeing to the infirm and needy and the old folk. These young people to-day don’t know what the patrimony meant then, when it was the material force of the family, the whole family grouped about one head, assured of living and enduring because it held together. To-day what use is there in keeping an estate together? If you don’t sell it, the law will take a hand and scatter it when you die. With a forced division of estates there is no more patrimony. What with each one being for himself on the one hand, and the continuous prying and meddling of the state, on the other hand, in all the doings of one’s life, there is no more family. We shall see what this society of individuals subject to the state will make of things.”
He gave a circumspect and scornful little laugh, and ended up with less general considerations.
“However, you’re right to set our honour above money. You’re right, too, to give us warning. We were with you in your prosperity. Fate strikes you down, and we must be with you there, too. I haven’t very much for my part. Outside my legal pension I’ve scarcely more than twenty-five or thirty thousand francs in securities, the income of which helps me to get along. I’m already very old. After I’m gone it’s yours—it’s yours now if you want it.”
Mr. Roquevillard, much moved, replied simply:
“I’m proud of your approval, uncle, and touched by your support. My work will now be easier to carry through. This sacrifice of money will mean Maurice’s acquittal: my experience makes me believe that firmly. I don’t see how I can save La Vigie. Counting up everything, I am worth——”
“This doesn’t concern us further,” said Uncle Stephen, rising.
“I ought to tell you, on the contrary. I want you all to know in case La Vigie goes out of the Roquevillards’ hands one day that it hasn’t been without sorrow, or because there was no necessity. You are my witnesses. La Vigie is worth at least one hundred and sixty thousand francs. My Saint Cassinwoods are appraised at twenty thousand. Germaine had a dot of sixty thousand francs.”
“Ought I to return it all to you or only part of it?” inquired Charles Marcellaz timidly, his generosity the more to be commended because regrets, remorse and hesitation went with it. “It is invested at a certain figure in a share of the law practice I bought at Lyons.”
“By no means, my dear Charles. It belongs to you and Germaine outright, and you have three children to look out for. When Felicie went into the convent we bought annuities for her with twenty thousand francs, and we had reserved a like sum for Margaret’s dot. Of this she has already had eight thousand francs, which she sent to her brother.”
“One hundred and eight thousand,” counted up Leo, who had been sulking, beneath his breath. “He comes high.”