But the wound was deeper than they thought. It was like that produced by the bite of a snake—insignificant in itself, but carrying poison into every vein.
Could his child deceive him? Sir Philip Hastings asked himself. Could Emily have long known this vulgar youth—gone secretly down to see him at a distant cottage—conferred with him unknown to either father or mother? It seemed monstrous to suppose such a thing; and yet what could he believe? She had never named John Ayliffe since her return from Mrs. Hazleton's; and yet it was certain from Marlow's own account, that she had seen him there. Did not that show that she was desirous of concealing the acquaintance from her parents?
Sir Philip had asked no questions, leaving her to speak if she thought fit. He was now sorry for it, and resolved to inquire; as the fact of her having seen the young man, for whom he felt an inexpressible dislike, had been openly mentioned in a court of justice. But as he rode home he began to argue on the other side of the question. The man who had made the assertion was a notorious liar—a convicted felon. Besides, he knew him to be malicious; he had twice before thrown out insinuations which Sir Philip believed to be baseless, and could only be intended to produce uneasiness. Might not these last words of his be traced to the same motive? He would inquire in the first place, he thought, what was the connection between the convict and John Ayliffe, and stopping on the way for that purpose, he soon satisfied himself that the two were boon companions.
When he reached his own dwelling, he found Emily seated by Marlow in one of her brightest, happiest moods. There was frank candor, graceful innocence, bright open-hearted truth in every look and every word. It was impossible to doubt her; and Sir Philip cast the suspicion from him, but, alas! not for ever. They would return from time to time to grieve and perplex him; and he would often brood for hours over his daughter's character, puzzling himself more and more. Yet he would not say a word—he blamed himself for even thinking of the matter; and he would not show a suspicion. Yet he continued to think and to doubt, while poor unconscious Emily would have been ready, if asked, to solve the whole mystery in a moment. She had been silent from an unwillingness to begin a painful subject herself; and though she had yielded no assent to Mrs. Hazleton's arguments, they had made her doubt whether she ought to mention, unquestioned, John Ayliffe's proposal and conduct. She had made up her mind to tell all, if her father showed the slightest desire to know any thing regarding her late visit; but there was something in the effects which that visit had produced on her mind, which she could not explain to herself.
Why did she love Mrs. Hazleton less? Why had she lost so greatly her esteem for her? What had that lady done or said which justified so great a change of feeling towards her? Emily could not tell. She could fix upon no word, no act, she could entirely blame—but yet there had been a general tone in her whole demeanor which had opened the poor girl's eyes too much. She puzzled herself sadly with her own thoughts; and probably would have fallen into more than one of her deep self-absorbed reveries, had not sweet new feelings, Marlow's frequent presence, kept her awake to a brighter, happier world of thought.
She was indeed very happy; and, could she have seen her mother look brighter and smile upon her, she would have been perfectly so. Her father's occasional moodiness she did not heed; for he often seemed gloomy merely from intense thought. Emily had got a key to such dark reveries in her own heart, and she knew well that they were no true indications either of discontent or grief, for very often when to the eyes of others she seemed the most dull and melancholy, she was enjoying intense delight in the activity of her own mind. She judged her father from herself, and held not the slightest idea that any word, deed or thought of hers had given him the slightest uneasiness.
Notwithstanding the various contending feelings and passions which were going on in the little circle on which our eyes are fixed, the course of life had gone on with tolerable smoothness as far as Emily and Marlow were concerned, for about two months, when, one morning, Sir Philip Hastings received a letter in a hand which he did not know. It reached him at the breakfast table, and evidently affected him considerably with some sort of emotion. His daughters instantly caught the change of his countenance, but Sir Philip did not choose that any one should know he could be moved by any thing on earth, and he instantly repressed all agitation, quietly folded up the letter again, concluded his breakfast, and then retired to his own study.
Emily was not deceived, however. There were moments in Sir Philip's life when he was unable to conceal altogether the strong feelings of his heart under the veil of stoicism—or as he would have termed it—to curb and restrain them by the power of philosophy. Emily had seen such moments, and knew, that whatever were the emotions produced by that letter, whether of anger or grief or apprehension—her father was greatly moved.
In his own study, Sir Philip Hastings seated himself, spread the letter before him, and read it over attentively. But now it did not seem to affect him in the least. He was, in fact, ashamed of the feelings he had experienced and partly shown. "How completely," said he to himself, "does a false and fictitious system of society render us the mere slaves of passion, infecting even those who tutor themselves from early years to resist its influence. Here an insolent young man lays claim to my name, and my inheritance, and coolly assumes not only that he has a title to do so, but that I know it; and this instead of producing calm contempt, makes my heart beat and my blood boil, as if I were the veriest schoolboy."
The letter was all that Sir Philip stated; but it was something more. It was a very artful epistle, drawn up by the joint shrewdness of Mr. Shanks, Mr. John Ayliffe, and Mrs. Hazleton. It concisely stated the claims of the young man who signed it, to all the property of the late Sir John Hastings and to the baronetcy. It made no parade of proofs, but assumed that those in the writer's possession were indisputable, and also that Sir Philip Hastings was well aware that John Ayliffe was his elder brother's legitimate son. The annuity which had been bought for himself and his mother was broadly stated to have been the purchase-money of her silence, negotiated by her father, who had no means to carry on a suit at law. As long as his mother lived, the writer said, he had been silent out of deference to her wishes, but now that she was dead in France, he did not feel himself bound to abide by an arrangement which deprived him at once of fortune and station, and which had been entered into without his knowledge or consent. He then went on to call upon Sir Philip Hastings in the coolest terms to give up possession and acknowledge his right without what the writer called "the painful ceremony of a lawsuit;" and in two parts of the letter allusion was made to secret information which the writer had obtained by the kind confidence of a friend whom he would not name.