"I don't suppose Miss Slarge would marry any one, my dear. She has always been the consistent advocate of celibacy."
"I only wish my father had been the same."
"Would that really please you?" said Dimbal; he knew a good deal more about Miss Olive's likes, if not about her dislikes, than she had any idea of. "I met Mr. Mallow at Reading Station," the artful lawyer continued, significantly.
"Oh!" said Olive, the colour mounting to her face.
"Yes; he has come down to stop for a week or two with Lord Aldean."
"I--I--well, I really don't care. Why do you look at me like that, Mr. Dimbal? Don't, please! Mr. Mallow is really nothing to me."
"Or you to Hecuba. Well, if you don't know, Olive, I'm sure I don't. Let us get to business. By this, my dear," he said, smoothing out the parchment, "you inherit all the real estate of your father, consisting of the house, lands, farms, tenements, etc., etc.--all of which combine to bring you in an income of some three thousand pounds per annum. Into possession of this you will enter upon your twenty-first birthday."
"That is next month," said Olive, nodding.
"Quite so. On August 24th you attain your majority. You will then receive your rents, and become absolute mistress of the estate."
"Without conditions?"
"Certainly--without conditions. Those of which I am about to speak apply only to the personal estate. This consists of some fifty thousand pounds, excellently well invested in railway stock and shares for the most part, though some small portion of it is in the Government funds. If within a month of your majority you become the wife of Angus Carson this money passes to your husband, and he is to use it for the benefit of you both."
"Oh, indeed and I have no say in the matter, I suppose?"
"Well, not legally speaking. Although Mr. Carson can only obtain this money by marrying you; that done, he has full legal possession of it; and, although there is no absolute charge upon the capital providing for it, there is a strong wish expressed by your father--so strong as to amount to an absolute obligation in the mind of any right-thinking man--that the sum of a thousand pounds per annum shall be set apart from out of the interest of this money by your husband for your own separate use. But of the principal, you understand, he has absolute control."
"But suppose Mr. Carson is a scamp and a spendthrift?"
"We will not suppose any such thing, my dear. I admit," added Dimbal, looking at the document--"I admit that the powers given to Mr. Carson are very great, and should perhaps have been controlled, if not restricted, in some measure--indeed, I suggested something of the sort to your father; but he contended you were amply provided for by the real estate, and he had every hope that young Mr. Carson would prove to be as good and as honourable a man as his father had been before him."
"What is your opinion of him?" asked Olive, abruptly.
"My dear, I saw Mr. Carson but for half an hour, so I can scarcely be expected to answer that question. He appeared to me to be an amiable and pleasant young gentleman, and I have no doubt he will make you an excellent husband."
"Oh, I dare say; that is, of course, provided I consent to marry him," said Miss Bellairs, tartly. "Well, Mr. Dimbal, thank you. I quite understand all you have told me. When I marry Mr. Carson, he gets fifty thousand pounds to do exactly as he likes with."
"Well, certainly that is one way of looking at it; but you must not forget that he is to pay you quarterly the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds," said Mr. Dimbal, hastily.
"Quite so. I get one thousand to his forty-nine!"
"No, no, my dear--not at all."
"Oh, well, in any case he has the best of it," said Olive, wilfully. "If he chooses to make ducks and drakes of the capital there will be but a small chance of my getting any income."
"That would be to argue Mr. Carson a thorough scamp, my dear. I do not think he is that."
"How do you know--you say yourself you only saw him for thirty minutes--you can't read a man's character in that time."
"Perhaps not; but Mr. Carson appears to me to be an exceptionally well-conducted young gentleman; and, after all, Olive, supposing he does waste this money, you have always three thousand a year of your own which he cannot touch."
"And a husband I don't want," she replied bitterly. "Well, Mr. Dimbal, suppose I refuse this arrangement?"
"Well, in that case, my dear, the whole of the money goes to the Reverend Manners Brock, Rector of Casterwell."
"Yes, so I remember you told me before. Why, may I ask, does it go to him?"
"Really, my dear, I can hardly say. Mr. Brock was the most intimate friend of your father and Dr. Carson. Failing the fulfilment of his primary wish, it is evident your father decided to pass on the money to his best friend. That is how the will stands, though, as I have said, it is not easy to approve of it in all respects."
"It is a hard and cruel will," said Olive, despondently. "I am sure I don't wish to rob Mr. Carson or any one else of the money, but, on the other hand, I have no wish to become the wife of a man who is a complete stranger to me. My affections are not a regiment of soldiers, to be ordered about in this way."
"Well," said Mr. Dimbal, fishing up a blue envelope with a red seal from the depths of his black bag--"well, Olive, here is your father's letter. It may perhaps explain his reason for making what, I allow, is a most extraordinary disposition of his personalty."
Olive took the letter in silence, and, rising from her chair, opened it at the window with her back to the lawyer. It contained a single sheet of paper, on which were written eight lines in her father's well-known hand. They were shaky and faint, as though they had been penned--as indeed they were--by a dying man.
"My Darling Olive,
"When you read these lines you will know that it is my last wish and command that you should marry Angus Carson, to whom you have been engaged since your birth. Marry him, I implore you--not so much for the money, as, because if you do not become his wife, evil, terrible evil, will come of your refusal. If you ever loved me, if my memory is dear to you, fulfil my dying wish, and marry Angus Carson within a month of your twenty-first birthday. If you refuse, God help you!
"Your loving father,
"Mark Bellairs."
As white as ashes Olive let the paper flutter to the floor.
"What does it mean?" she murmured faintly. "My God, what can it mean?"
CHAPTER III.
AT THE MANOR HOUSE.
"What about to-day, Mallow?" asked Aldean, as with his friend and mentor he enjoyed a morning pipe, pacing the terrace of Kingsholme.
"The day is right enough," replied Laurence, morosely; and he looked with a jaundiced eye on the green country stretching beyond a fringe of trees towards the blue and distant hills.
"I don't think you are," retorted his lordship; "you have not spoken two words the whole of breakfast."
"I'm never fit for rational conversation till noon, Aldean. I should be tied up this morning."
"Liver!" grunted Aldean, with a fond look at his pipe. "Let's get out the 'gees,' and shake ourselves into good humour."
Mallow placed his hands on the young man's shoulders and swayed him to and fro. "That is all the shaking you need, Jim," said he, in a more amiable tone. "If I were as good-humoured as you I should be content--all the same, I wish you would confine yourself to the Queen's English."
"Your speech is like a hornet, the sting's in the tail. Have you read the papers this morning?"