When, however, the reading reached the point at which we have stopped, Mrs. Westbury, forgetting herself, rose up, and rushed to the boys, with a sudden burst of sobs. ‘Forgive me!’ she cried wildly. ‘Oh, boys, forgive me! I will never, never forgive myself!’
At this interruption Mr. Pounceby stopped, and all the spectators turned round surprised. Then nature appeared in the three young men. Ben made a little imperative gesture with his hand, ‘Aunt Lydia, you can have nothing to do with it,’ he said; ‘don’t interrupt us. We must not detain our friends.’ Laurie, for his part, took her hand, and drew it through his arm. ‘We can have nothing to forgive you,’ he said, compassionately supporting her, having more insight than the rest. Frank, glad for his boyish part to be relieved from this tension of interest by any incident, went and fetched her a chair. ‘Hush!’ he said, as the sound of her sobbing died into a half-terrified stillness. And thus they heard it out to the end.
The interruption did them all good. It dispersed the haze of bewilderment that had gathered round the young men. The dust of the ruins falling round them might have blinded them but for this sudden call back to themselves. When all was over, Ben had so far recovered himself as to speak, though his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.
‘We are much obliged to you all for joining us to-day,’ he said; ‘I am sure you will excuse my mother, and indeed all of us. She is never very strong. Mr. Pounceby, I know you are anxious to get back to town.’
‘But, Ben, my dear fellow,’ said one of the party, stepping forward and grasping his hand, ‘stop a little. It is not any want of respect to your excellent father,—but it must have been disease, you know. Such things happen every day. You will not accept this extraordinary rigmarole. He must have been out of his mind!’
‘We are quite satisfied with my father’s will; thanks,’ said Ben proudly, though with a quiver of his lip, and he looked round for the first time at his brothers. ‘Quite satisfied,’ said Laurie once more, with that look of compassion which seemed uncalled for at the moment, when he himself was one of the chief persons to be compassionated. ‘Quite satisfied,’ echoed Frank steadily, with wonder in his eyes. Then Mr. Pounceby interposed.
‘Mr. Renton was of perfectly sound mind when he executed this document,’ he said. ‘I was with him nearly all day, and went through a great deal of business. I never saw him more clear and business-like. On that point nothing can be said.’
‘Nothing must be said on any point,’ said Ben quickly. ‘My brothers and myself are satisfied. My father had a perfect right—— I would rather not enter into the subject. We are much obliged to our friends all the same.’
And thus all remark was peremptorily cut short. The neighbours dispersed, carrying all over the country the news of poor Renton’s extraordinary will; of how much he must have lost his head; and that Ben and the other boys were Quixotic enough not to dispute it. It was monomania, people said; and everybody knew that monomaniacs were sound on all points but one. Before nightfall there had arisen a body of evidence to prove that Mr. Renton had long been mad on this subject. One man remembered something he had said on one occasion, and another man on a second. He had been mad about his family; and the boys must be mad, too, to bear it. These reports, however, did not break the stillness which had fallen on the Manor,—a stillness almost more blank than that of death. The sobs of two women, one weeping faintly over her boys’ disappointment, the other wildly in self-reproach, were the only sounds that disturbed the calm of the house. The boys themselves were stunned, and for that day, at least, had not the heart to say a word.