They took the shape of an inquiry: who was to succeed him in that fair inheritance, handed down from a long line of distinguished ancestors?
His daughter Blanche was to be his inheritor—since he had no son, no other child; and the entail of the estate ended with himself.
But Blanche might not long bear his name; and what other was she to bear? What escutcheon was to become quartered upon that of the Vernons?
He thought of Scudamore; he had been long thinking of it, hoping, wishing it; but now, in the hours darkened by approaching death, he had doubts whether this union of armorial bearings would ever be.
In earlier days he had resolved on its being so, and up to a late period. He had spoken of compulsion, such as he held by testamentary powers. He had even hinted it to Blanche herself. He had made discovery how idle such a course would be; and on this he was now reflecting. He might as well have thought of commanding yonder sun to cease from its setting, yonder stag to lay aside its grandeur, or the birds their soft beauty. You may soften an antipathy, but you cannot kill it; and, obedient child though she was, not even her father’s will, not all the powers upon earth, could have removed from Blanche Vernon’s mind the antipathy she had conceived for her cousin Scudamore.
In the same way you may thwart an affection, but not destroy it; and a similar influence would not have sufficed to chase from Blanche Vernon’s mind the memory of Captain Maynard. His image was still upon her heart, fresh as the first impression—fresh as in that hour when she stood holding his hand under the shade of the deodara! Her father appeared to know all this. If not, her pale cheek, day by day growing paler, should have admonished him. But he did know, or suspected it; and the time had come for him to be certain.
“Blanche!” he said, turning round, and tenderly gazing in her face.
“Father?” She pronounced the word interrogatively, thinking it was some request for service to the invalid. But she started as she met his glance. It meant something more!
“My daughter,” he said, “I shall not be much longer with you.”
“Dear father! do not say so!”