“So you ought, and so you should, but for—ah—circumstances, Mr. Edgar,” said the lawyer, “circumstances of a painful character—over which we had no control. Miss Clare said that, did she? And quite right too. Your sister is a very sweet young lady, Mr. Edgar. You may be proud of her. I don’t know her equal in Lancashire, and that is saying a great deal, for we are proud of our Lancashire witches. I have two daughters of my own, pretty girls enough, and I am very proud of them, I can tell you; but I don’t pretend that they come within a hundred miles of Miss Arden. You must not think me an impudent old fellow to talk of her so, for, as she says, I have known her all her life.”
In this way Mr. Fazakerley chatted on, doing, as it were, the honours of his own house to Edgar, inviting him to sit down, and gradually beginning to arrange before him on the table a mass of papers. Then he changed the subject; gave up Clare, whose trumpet he had blown for about half-an-hour; and began a disquisition upon “your worthy father,” at which Edgar winced. And yet there was nothing in it to hurt him; it was not full of inferences which he could not understand, like the sayings of Mr. Fielding and Dr. Somers. It had not a hidden meaning, like so much that Clare said on the same subject. Mr. Fazakerley was in his way very straightforward. “I won’t attempt to disguise either from myself or from you that there was much in his conduct that was very extraordinary,” said the lawyer, “very extraordinary—so much so, that monomania is the only word that occurs to me. Monomania—that is the only explanation, and I don’t know that it is a satisfactory explanation; but it is the best we can make. We need not enter into that matter, Mr. Edgar, for it is very unintelligible; but the question is—Why did you give in to any arrangement about breaking the entail without my advice?”
“I did what my father wished me to do,” said Edgar, with a deep colour rising over his face. “It appeared to me that in so doing I could not but be right.”
“You were very wrong, Mr. Edgar,” said the lawyer. “What! rob your children because it pleased your father! Your father was a very worthy man—an excellent landlord—a good staunch Tory—everything a country gentleman need wish to be; but he was only one of the family, Mr. Edgar, only the head of it in his time, as your son will be. You had no more right to consult the one than the other. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you were wrong.”
“My son is not born yet, nor, so far as I can see, any chance of him,” said Edgar, laughing, “so he could scarcely be consulted.”
“That is all very well,” said Mr. Fazakerley, bending over his papers. “I do not object to a laugh; but at the same time it was very foolish, and worse than foolish—wrong. I don’t blame you so much, for of course you were taught to be generous, and magnanimous, and all that; but your worthy father, Mr. Edgar, your worthy father—it was more than wrong.”
Mr. Fazakerley shook his head for at least five minutes while he repeated these words; but Edgar made no reply. If he could have found the shadow of an excuse for the old Squire, or even perhaps if it had not been for that look which he remembered so distinctly, he would have said something in his defence. But his mouth was closed, and he could not reply.
“If it had been any other part of the estate, or if Miss Clare had not been well provided for already, I could have understood it,” the lawyer continued; “but she is very well provided for. Monomania, Sir, it could be nothing but monomania; and to give up Old Arden was quite inconceivable—permit me to say it, Mr. Edgar—on your part.”
“I did not know much about old Arden,” said Edgar, shyly putting forth this excuse for himself, almost with a blush. It was not his fault; but he looked much as if it had been a voluntary abandonment of his duty.
“The more shame to—ah,” said Mr. Fazakerley, with a frown, feeling that his zeal had led him too far; and then he paused, and coughed, and recovered himself. “The thing to be done now is to set it right as far as possible,” he went on. “We may be quite sure that Miss Clare, as soon as she knows of it, will be but too eager to aid us. She is only a girl, but she has a fine spirit, and hates injustice. What I would suggest to you would be to effect an exchange. Old Arden lies in the very centre of the property, besides being the oldest part of it, and all that. I don’t insist upon the sentimental reasons; but the inconvenience would be immense—especially when Miss Clare marries, as of course she will soon do. I advise you to offer her an equal portion, by valuation, of some other part of the estate—say the land between this and Liverpool—which she could make untold wealth of——”