“How could you turn the tables? What do you mean? What do you know about it?” cried Will, who by this time was getting excited. Hugh came within his line of vision now and then, with Nelly—always with Nelly. It was only the younger brother, the inferior member of the household, who was left with the unwelcome guest. If any one could turn the tables! And again he said, almost fiercely, “What do you mean?”
“It is very easy to tell you what I mean; and I wonder what your opinion will be of systems then?” said Percival. “By Jove! it’s an odd position, and I don’t envy you. You think you’re the youngest, and you were born as you say in ’38.”
“Good heavens! what is that to do with it?” cried Wilfrid. “Of course I was born in ’38. Tell me what you mean.”
“Well, then, I’ll tell you what I mean,” said Percival, tossing away the end of his cigar, “and plainly too. That fellow there, who gives himself such airs, is no more the eldest son than I am. The property belongs to you.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
ILFRID was so stunned by the information thus suddenly given him, that he had but a confused consciousness of the explanations which followed. He was aware that it was all made clear to him, and that he uttered the usual words of assent and conviction; but in his mind he was too profoundly moved, too completely shaken and unsettled, to be aware of anything but the fact thus strangely communicated. It did not occur to him for a moment that it was not a fact. He saw no improbability, nothing unnatural in it. He was too young to think that anything was unlikely because it was extraordinary, or to doubt what was affirmed with so much confidence. But, in the meantime, the news was so startling, that it upset his mental balance, and made him incapable of understanding the details. Hugh was not the eldest son. It was he who was the eldest son. This at the moment was all that his mind was capable of taking in. He stayed by Percival as long as he remained, and had the air of devouring everything the other said; and he went with him to the railway station when he went away. Percival, for his part, having once made the plunge, showed no disinclination to explain everything, but for his own credit told his story most fully, and many particulars undreamt of when the incident took place. But he might have spared his pains so far as Will was concerned. He was aware of the one great fact stated to him to begin with, but of nothing more.
The last words which Percival said as he took leave of his young companion at the railway were, however, caught by Wilfrid’s half-stupefied ears. They were these: “I will stay in Carlisle for some days. You can hear where I am from Askell, and perhaps we may be of use to each other.” This, beyond the startling and extraordinary piece of news which had shaken him like a sudden earthquake, was all Percival had said, so far as Will was aware. “That fellow is no more the eldest son than I am—the property is yours;” and “I will stay in Carlisle for some days—perhaps we may be of use to each other.” The one expression caught on the other in his mind, which was utterly confused and stunned for the first time in his life. He turned them over and over as he walked home alone, or rather, they turned over and over in his memory, as if possessed of a distinct life; and so it happened that he had got home again and opened the gate and stumbled into the garden before he knew what the terrific change was which had come over everything, or had time to realize his own sensations. It was such a moment as is very sweet in a cottage-garden. They had all been watering the flowers in the moment of relief after Percival’s departure, and the fragrance of the grateful soil was mounting up among the other perfumes of the hour. Hugh and Nelly were still sprinkling a last shower upon the roses, and in the distance in the field upon which the garden opened were to be seen two figures wandering slowly over the grass—Winnie, whom Aunt Agatha had coaxed out to breathe the fresh air after her self-imprisonment, and Miss Seton herself, with a shawl over her head. And the twilight was growing insensibly dimmer and dimmer, and the dew falling, and the young moon sailing aloft. When Mary came across the lawn, her long dress sweeping with a soft rustle over the grass, a sudden horror seized Wilfrid. It took him all his force of mind and will to keep his face to her and await her coming. His face was not the treacherous kind of face which betrays everything; but still there was in it a look of preoccupation which Mary could not fail to see.
“Is he gone?” she said, as she came up. “You are sure he has gone, Will? It was kind of you to be civil to him; but I am almost afraid you are interested in him too.”
“Would it be wrong to be interested in him?” said Will.