"There won't be room for me or mine down there, Armstrong," he said to the agent, as the two stood in the sunny churchyard, flicking the clinging cobwebs of the vault from off their clothes. "Not that I'm particularly sorry for that. Look here, you see the vacant space there by the chancel wall? Just try if you can arrange to have it staked out and reserved, without encroaching on the rights or hurting the feelings of any of the parishioners. I rather fancy lying there—unless I'm lucky enough to die at sea, and be dropped over the ship's side into the clear, blue water, with a shot at my feet."
"Every man to his humour, no doubt, Mr. Rivers," the other answered, in his slow sing-song. "Though I could find it in my heart to wish you a less uneasy resting-place than the swaying deeps of the ocean. Yet I suppose it was just there, and in the manner you have indicated, that your namesake and great-uncle, Laurence Rivers, found burial after the glorious battle of Trafalgar."
Laurence had stopped beating the clinging cobwebs from his sleeve, and turned to the speaker with a look of quick intelligence.
"Why, of course it was," he said, presently adding—"Upon my word, I wonder—will history repeat itself in that particular also!"
Subsequently, there had been letters to write, telegrams to despatch, the disorganised household gently, but firmly, to lay hold on. And now he paced the broad walk in an interval of leisure, listening till the grinding of carriage-wheels upon the gravel of the chestnut avenue should advise him that Mr. Wormald, his uncle's lawyer—whom he had summoned from town—had arrived at Stoke Rivers Road, and completed the transit from that station. And as he thus paced, while the silvery sunshine and shadow gently followed one another across the face of the fair, woodland landscape, a little of the pride of possession awoke in the young man. He had hardly had time to think of that before; nor did it seem quite fitting or seemly to do so when the breath had but so lately left the body lying in that stately room upstairs. Yet it was indisputable, this was precisely the event which, consciously or unconsciously, he had waited for ever since his boyhood. The prospect of one day succeeding to this property had handicapped him; he felt that. It had placed him in a position, socially, slightly beyond his means. It had taken from him the incentive and inclination to carve out an independent career. So far it had been the reverse of an advantage, from the more serious standpoint. But now all that was changed. He had a very definite "name and local habitation." He was absolutely his own master—no longer heir-apparent, but recognised owner and ruler of a by no means contemptible territory. This was as the step from boyhood to manhood—from the last of a public school to the freedom and personal responsibility of youth no longer subject to tutelage. Laurence smiled to himself. It occurred to him he had really got to grow up at last. Well—he had been a precious long time about it! And then, somehow, it occurred to him that this change in his fortunes altered and modified his relation to Virginia. He had lived in Virginia's country, and among her friends, almost exclusively, since his marriage. He had, he was aware, ranked somewhat as Virginia's husband. Now the state of affairs was reversed. He was in a position to claim full masculine prerogatives—those of an old country, of a ripe and finished civilisation, well understood. In future Virginia—she was very charming, very, he'd no quarrel with her of course—only, in future, Virginia would have to rank as his wife.
And, thereupon, involuntarily his eyes sought the bay-window of the yellow drawing-room. At the foot of the semicircular stone steps, on to which that window opened, the gardeners still moved to and fro—slow, brown-clad figures—collecting and wheeling away the débris of the fallen cypress. Laurence refused to formulate further the thoughts that arose in his mind. Only one thing was clear to him—clear as the songs and whistlings of the birds, clear as the tinkle and plash of the fountains, the spray of which glittered so brightly silver in the silvery light—Virginia could not come to Stoke Rivers just yet. It was better—better in every way—that her coming should be postponed for a while—till the period of mourning for his uncle was over—till he, Laurence, had mastered all the business, and organised the existent masculine household upon a new basis—till he had thoroughly acquainted himself not only with the working of this, but of the Scotch estate—till he and Virginia were free to keep open house—till—till—
At that moment, perhaps fortunately, the dogcart emerged from the shelter of the great chestnut-trees, and swung round the carriage sweep to the front door. Laurence crossed the lawns and the angle of the Italian garden quickly.—What a pity that cypress had fallen! It broke the line, destroying the symmetry of the garden; and it was almost the tallest and finest grown of the lot.
In the hall Mr. Wormald discoursed affably with the men-servants, while the latter divested him of more than one overcoat. He was a small, withered man, his back bowed and his hands sadly crippled by rheumatic gout, by much handling of pens, and leaning over lengthy legal documents; yet his movements were noticeably alert. His clean-shaven, busy, little face was enlightened by nimble, red-brown, squirrel-like eyes.
"Thank ye, Renshaw," he said. "Gently—ah, yes, you remember! These damp, spring days get into my joints, I promise you. Ah! there you are, Watkins. Yes, sad affair this, and sudden. Great shock to you all, no doubt. Quite so—but I observe that so frequently is the case. A lingering illness, the termination of which grows to seem more and more remote, and then the end with unlooked-for rapidity. Yes, very sad."
Disengaging himself from the sleeves of his second coat, he perceived Laurence's arrival, and his squirrel-like eyes scampered, so to speak, over the young man from head to foot. Like the agent, he appeared to receive an agreeable impression, for he gave a subdued squeak evidently indicative of satisfaction.