“I’m glad you’re come in time, Pownceby—very glad you’re come in time. I’m—I’m going to make a move; for change of air, don’t you know, as Dunning says. Poor Dunning! he won’t get such an easy berth again. My will—that’s it. I want to change—my will. Clear it all away, Pownceby—all away, except the little legacies—the servants and that——”
“But not Mrs. Piercey, Sir Giles? If—if she’s been the cause of any—disappointment; it isn’t her fault.”
“Disappointment!” said the old man. “Quite the contrary. She’s been just the reverse. It was a good day for me when she came to the house. No, I don’t mean that it was a good day, for it was my poor wife’s funeral; but if anybody could have made a man of Gervase she would have done it. She would have done it, Pownceby. Yes, yes; sweep her away! sweep everybody away! I give and bequeath Greyshott and all I have—all I have, don’t you know? Gerald Piercey can have the pictures if he likes; she won’t care for them to——”
The old man was seized with a fit of coughing, which interrupted him at this interesting moment. Mr. Pownceby sat with his pen in his hand and many speculations in his mind. To cut off his daughter-in-law’s little income even while he praised her so! And who was the person to whom it was all to be left without regard for the rest? Meg Piercey, perhaps, who was one of the nearest, though she had never been supposed to have any chance. The lawyer sat with his eyes under his spectacles intently fixed upon Sir Giles, and with many remonstrances in his mind. Mrs. Gervase might be wrong to have filled the poor man with false hopes; but to leave her to the tender mercies of Meg Piercey, whom she had virtually turned out of the house, would be cruel. Sir Giles began to speak before his coughing fit was over.
“She says, poor thing,” and here he coughed, “she s—says that there’s nothing—nothing certain in this world. She’s right, Pownceby—she’s right. She—generally is.”
“There’s not much risk in saying that, Sir Giles.”
“No, it’s true enough—it’s true enough. It might grow up like its father. God grant it otherwise. You remember our first boy, Pownceby? Wasn’t that a fellow! as bold as a lion and yet so sweet. His poor mother never got over it—never; nor I neither, nor I neither—though I never made any fuss.”
Was the old man wandering in his mind?
“I hoped it would have been like him,” said Sir Giles, with a sob. “I had set my heart on that. But none of us can tell. There’s nothing certain, as she says. It might grow up like its father. I’ll make all safe, anyhow, Pownceby. Put it down, put it down—everything to——”
“Sir Giles! to whom? Everything to——?”