Faversham, after some ten minutes of motionless reflection, heavily returned to his papers, ordering his horse to be ready in half an hour. He forced himself to write some ordinary business letters, and to eat some lunch, and immediately after he started on horseback to find his way through the October lanes to the village of Mainstairs.
A man more harassed, and yet more resolved, it would have been difficult to find. For six weeks now he had been wading deeper and deeper into a moral quagmire from which he saw no issue at all—except indeed by the death of Edmund Melrose! That event would solve all difficulties.
For some time now he had been convinced, not only that the mother and daughter were living, but that there had been some recent communication between them and Melrose. Various trifling incidents and cryptic sayings of the old man, not now so much on his guard as formerly, had led Faversham to this conclusion. He realized that he himself had been haunted of late by the constant expectation that they might turn up.
Well, now they had turned up. Was he at once to make way for them, as Tatham clearly took for granted?—to advise Melrose to tear up his newly made will, and gracefully surrender his expectations as Melrose's heir to this girl of twenty-one? By no means!
What is the claim of birth in such a case, if you come to that? Look at it straight in the face. A child is born to a certain father; is then torn from that father against his will, and brought up for twenty years out of his reach. What claim has that child, when mature, upon the father—beyond, of course, a claim for reasonable provision—unless he chooses to acknowledge a further obligation? None whatever. The father has lived his life, and accumulated his fortune, without the child's help, without the child's affection or tendance. His possessions are morally and legally his own, to deal with as he pleases.
In the course of life, other human beings become connected with him, attached to him, and he to them. Natural claims must be considered and decently satisfied—agreed! But for the disposal of a man's superfluities, of such a fortune as Melrose's, there is no law—there ought to be no law; and the English character, as distinct from the French, has decided that there shall be no law. "If his liking, or his caprice even," thought Faversham passionately, "chooses to make me his heir, he has every right to give, and I to accept. I am a stranger to him; so, in all but the physical sense, is his daughter. But I am not a stranger to English life. My upbringing and experience—even such as they are—are better qualifications than hers. What can a girl of twenty, partly Italian, brought up away from England, hardly speaking her father's tongue, do for this English estate, compared to what I could do—with a free hand, and a million to draw on? Whom do I wrong by accepting what a miraculous chance has brought me—by standing by it—by fighting for it? No one—justly considered. And I will fight for it—though a hundred Tathams call me adventurer!"
So much for the root determination of the man; the result of weeks of excited brooding over wealth, and what can be done with wealth, amid increasing difficulties and problems from all sides.
His determination indeed did not protect him from the attacks of conscience; of certain moral instincts and prepossessions, that is, natural to a man of his birth and environment.
The mind, however, replied to them glibly enough. "I shall do the just and reasonable thing! As I promised Tatham, I shall look into the story of these two women, and if it is what it professes to be, I shall press Melrose to provide for them."
Conscience objected: "If he refuses?"