Yet, to whom could he possibly owe any duty, except to his kindred? Had he any other relations except his three nieces and Launcelot Darrell? He might have other claims upon him. He might have some poor and modest kindred who had kept aloof from him, and refrained from paying court to him, and whose forbearance he might choose to reward in an unlooked-for, unthought-of manner.
And again, he might have bequeathed his money to some charitable institution, or in trust for some new scheme of philanthropy. Such a course would scarcely be strange in a lonely old man, who in his nearest relations might only recognize eager, expectant harpies keeping anxious watch for the welcome hour of his death.
Eleanor Monckton did not trouble herself much about this question. She believed, from Launcelot Darrell’s manner, that Richard Thornton had drawn the right inference from the meeting of the young man and the lawyer’s clerk.
She believed implicitly that Launcelot Darrell’s name was omitted from his great-uncle’s last will, and that he knew it.
This belief inspired her with a new feeling. She could afford to be patient now. If Maurice de Crespigny should die suddenly, he would not die leaving his wealth to enrich the traitor who had cheated a helpless old man. Her only thought now must be to prevent Laura’s marriage; and for this she must look to her husband, Gilbert Monckton.
“He will never let the girl whose destiny has been confided to him marry a bad man,” she thought; “I have only to tell him the story of my father’s death, and to prove to him Launcelot Darrell’s guilt.”
The dinner went off very quietly. Mr. Monckton was reserved and silent, as it had lately become his habit to be. Launcelot Darrell had still the gloomy, discontented air that had made him a very unpleasant companion throughout that day. The young man was not a hypocrite, and had no power of concealing his feelings. He could tell any number of lies that might be necessary for his own convenience or safety; but he was not a hypocrite. Hypocrisy involves a great deal of trouble on the part of those who practise it: and is, moreover, the vice of a man who sets no little value upon the opinion of his fellow-creatures. Mr. Darrell was of a listless and lazy temperament, and nourished in utter abhorrence of all work, either physical or mental. On the other hand, he had so good an opinion of himself as to be tolerably indifferent to the opinions of others.
If he had been accused of a crime he would have denied having committed it, for his own sake. But he never troubled himself to consider what other people might think of him, so long as their opinion had no power to affect his personal comfort or safety.
The cloth had been removed; for old fashions held their ground at Tolldale Priory, where a dinner à la Russe would have been looked upon as an absurd institution, more like a child’s feast of fruit and flowers, cakes and sugar-plums, than a substantial meal intended for sensible people. The cloth had been removed, and that dreary ceremonial, a good old English dessert, was in progress, when a servant brought Launcelot Darrell a card upon a salver, and presented it to him solemnly, amid the silence of the company.
The young man was sitting next Eleanor Monckton, and she saw that the card was of a highly glazed and slippery nature and of an abnormal size, between the ordinary sizes of a gentleman’s and a lady’s card.