The Greatest Heiress in England

by Mrs. Oliphant

Here Ford cleared his throat expressively, with a sound which drew all eyes toward him. But the good man, having thus protested inarticulately, was shy, and shrunk from speech. He retreated a step or two with involuntary precipitation. And the only defender old Trevor found was in Mr. Williamson, who, nevertheless, had no desire to pit himself against the rector: he would have liked, on the contrary, to be liberal and friendly, and to show himself superior to all petty feeling; but he could not help taking a special interest in everything his clerical brother, who did not admit his brotherhood, did or said. Opposition or friendship, it might be either one or the other, but indifference could not be between them. Accordingly, as soon as the rector had said anything, Mr. Williamson was instantly moved to say the reverse.

“We must not forget,” he said, putting down his hat on the floor, “that our late lamented friend was carried out of this place only to-day. To call his arrangements absurd so soon is surely, if I may say so, not in good taste.”

“Oh, as for good taste—” cried the rector imperatively, with a sneer upon his lips; but he stopped himself in time. He would not get into any altercation, he said to himself; it was bad enough to be confronted with Dissenters, to have one of these fanatics actually sitting down with him at the same table, but to suffer himself to be led into a controversy! “As for that,” he said, “my mind is easy enough. But here is a very simple question—”

“Shall you serve, Dr. Beresford, or do you decline it?” Mr. Rushton said.

This was a question more simple still. The rector turned round and stared at the other with a confused and bewildered countenance. This was not at all what he meant. He paused for a moment, and reflected before he made any answer: would he serve, or did he decline it? Very simple, but not so easy to answer: would he have a finger in the pie, or give it up altogether? would he accept the mysterious position, and keep the dear privilege of control, and the power of saying who was not to marry Lucy Trevor, though he cared little for Lucy Trevor, or would he show his sense of the folly of the arrangement by rejecting any share in it? It was, though so simple, a difficult question, much more difficult than to set down the old man, who was not a Churchman, as a fool. It did not please him, however, to accept the latter alternative; he was a man who dearly liked to have a finger in every pie.

“Oh, ah! indeed! yes, to be sure. That is how you put it,” he said.

“Yes, that is the only way to put it,” said Mr. Rushton; “we can’t compel any one to accept the charge, but we have a few names behind with which to fill up, should any one object. My client was full of foresight,” he added, with a smile; “he was very long-headed, wrong-headed too, if you like, sometimes, but sharp as a needle. He thought his little girl a great prize.”

“And so she will be,” said the rector, almost with solemnity; and he was silent for a moment, as if in natural awe of Lucy’s greatness; but within himself he was mentally vowing that, if Rushton tried to run his boy for such large stakes, he, the rector, would take care that he did not have it all his own way. Dr. Beresford, though he was an excellent clergyman, was not above the use of slang now and then, nor was he too good for a resolution which had a little of the vindictive in it. “Must we be called together to be consulted?” he said, with a laugh; “there’s something of the kind in an old play. Will the candidate appear before us, and state his qualifications?” The rector again permitted himself to laugh, but nobody responded. Mr. Rushton, though he condemned the will in private, had sufficient professional feeling to decline to join in any open ridicule of it, and Ford, who felt himself in the dignified attitude of a mourner, allowed nothing to disturb his seriousness. Mr. Williamson was smoothing his hat with disapproving gravity, polishing it heavily round and round, as though he found some carnal tendency in it which had to be repressed.

“In my opinion, there is nothing to laugh at,” he said; “it is a grave responsibility. The choice of a God-fearing Christian man to be the guide of the young lady, under Providence, and the trustee, as it were, of a great fortune—”

“Oh, not so bad as that; we have not got to choose him, only to blackball him,” said Mr. Rushton; “and if you think old Trevor intended that any husband should be the trustee of his daughter’s fortune, that is a mistake, I assure you. She has more power in her hands than ever a girl had; even now before she is of age she is allowed liberties—ah!” Mr. Rushton stopped short, for Philip Rainy had stepped forward with the evident intention of saying something. They all looked at Philip. He was well known to every one present—regarded favorably by the rector, as one who had seen the evil of his ways, and with a grudge by Mr. Williamson, as a deserter from the Nonconformist cause, and with careless friendliness by Mr. Rushton, as a man who was only a rising man, and to whom he was conscious of having himself given a helping hand. To Ford, Philip was a member of the family, who rather set himself above the family, and therefore was the object of certain restrained grudges, but yet was a Rainy after all; thus the feeling of the company about him was mingled. Nevertheless, when they suddenly turned upon him, and recalled themselves to a recollection of his presence and his position, and all that was in his favor, and the indications of nature, which pointed him out as so likely a candidate, they all instinctively forestalled the future, and on the spot blackballed Philip, who stood before them unconscious of his fate.