‘They’ve found the second will,’ he said, after a moment, with a rather husky voice, ‘and they’re taking steps to get it confirmed, whatever that may be.’
‘Broad Scotch for getting probate, I believe,’ said Lady Le Breton, in a slight tone of irony; for to her mind any departure from the laws or language she was herself accustomed to use, assumed at once the guise of a rank and offensive provincialism. ‘Your poor Aunt WOULD go and marry a Scotchman, and he a Scotch business man too; so of course we must expect to put up with all kinds of ridiculous technicalities and Edinburgh jargon accordingly. All law’s bad enough in the way of odd words, but commend me to Scotch law for utter and meaningless incomprehensibility. Well, and what does the second will say, Ronald?’
‘There, mother,’ cried Ronald, flinging the letter down hurriedly with a burst of tears. ‘Read it yourself, if you will, for I can’t. Poor dear Aunt Sarah, and dear, good unselfish Ernest! It makes me cry even to think of them.’
Lady Le Breton took the paper up from the table without a word and read it carefully through. ‘I am very glad to hear it,’ she said, ‘very glad indeed to hear it. “And in order to guard against any misinterpretation of my reasons for making this disposition of my property,” your Aunt says, “I wish to put it on record that I had previously drawn up another will, bequeathing my effects to be divided between my two nephews Ernest and Ronald Le Breton equally; that I communicated the contents of that will”—a horrid Scotticism—“to my nephew Ernest; and that at his express desire I have now revoked it, and drawn up this present testament, leaving the share intended for him to his brother Ronald.” Why, she never even mentions dear Herbert!’
‘She knew that Herbert had provided for himself,’ Ronald answered, raising his head from his hands, ‘while Ernest and I were unprovided for. But Ernest said he could fight the world for himself, while I couldn’t; and that unearned wealth ought only to be accepted in trust for those who were incapacitated by nature or misfortune from earning their own bread. I don’t always quite agree with all Ernest’s theories any more than you do, but we must both admit that at least he always conscientiously acts up to them himself, mother, mustn’t we?’
‘It’s a very extraordinary thing,’ Lady Le Breton went on, ‘that Aunt Sarah invariably encouraged both you boys in all your absurdities and Quixotisms. She was Quixotic herself at heart, that’s the truth of it, just like your poor dear father. I remember once, when we were quartered at Meean Meer in the Punjaub, poor dear Sir Owen nearly got into disgrace with the colonel—he was only a sub. in those days—because he wanted to go trying to convert his syces, which was a most imprudent thing to do, and directly opposed to the Company’s orders. Aunt Sarah was just the same. Herbert’s the only one of you three who has never given me one moment’s anxiety, and of course poor Herbert must be passed over in absolute silence. However, I’m very glad she’s left the money to you, Ronald, as you need it the most, and Mackenzie and Anderson say it’ll come to about a hundred and sixty a year.’
‘One can do a great deal of good with that much money,’ said Ronald meditatively. ‘I mean, after arranging with you, mother, for the expenses of my maintenance at home, which of course I shall do, as soon as the pension ceases, and after meeting one’s own necessary expenditure in the way of clothing and so forth. It’s more than any one Christian man ought to spend upon himself, I’m sure.’
‘It’s not at all too much for a young man in your position in society, Ronald; but there—I know you’ll want to spend half of it on indiscriminate charity. However, there’ll be time enough to talk about that when you’ve actually got it, thank goodness.’
Ronald murmured a few words softly to himself, of which Lady Le Breton only caught the last echo—‘laid them down at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.’
‘Just like Ernest’s communistic notions,’ she murmured in return, half audibly. ‘I do declare, between them both, a plain woman hardly knows whether she’s standing on her head or on her heels. I live in daily fear that one or other of them will be taken up by the police, for being implicated in some dynamite plot or other, to blow up the Queen or destroy the Houses of Parliament.’ Ronald smiled again, gently, but answered nothing. ‘There’s another letter for you there, though, with the Exmoor coronet upon it. Why don’t you open it? I hope it’s an invitation for you to go down and stop at Dunbude for a week or two. Nothing on earth would do you so much good as to get away for a while from your ranters and canters, and mix occasionally in a little decent and rational society.’
Ronald took up the second letter with a sigh. He feared as much himself, and had doleful visions of a painful fortnight to be spent in a big country house, where the conversation would be all concerning the slaughter of pheasants and the torture of foxes, which his soul loathed to listen to. ‘It’s from Lady Hilda,’ he said, glancing through it, ‘and it ISN’T an invitation after all.’ He could hardly keep down a faint tone of gratification as he discovered this reprieve. ‘Here’s what she says:—
‘"DEAR MR. LE BRETON—Mamma wishes me to write and tell you that Lynmouth’s tutor, Mr. Walsh, is going to leave us at Christmas, and she thinks it just possible that one of your two brothers at Oxford might like to come down to Dunbude and give us their kind aid in taking charge of Lynmouth. He’s a dreadful pickle, as you know; but we are very anxious to get somebody to look after him in whom mamma can have perfect confidence. We don’t know your brothers’ addresses or we would have written to them direct about it. Perhaps you will kindly let them hear this suggestion; and if they think the matter worth while, we might afterwards arrange details as to business and so forth. With kind regards to Lady Le Breton, believe me,
‘"Yours very sincerely,
‘"HILDA TREGELLIS.” ’
‘My dear Ronald,’ said Lady Le Breton, much more warmly than before, ‘this is really quite providential. Are they at Dunbude now?’
‘No, mother. She writes from Wilton Place. They’re up in town for Lord Exmoor’s gout, I know. I heard they were on Sunday.’
‘Then I shall go and see Lady Exmoor this very morning about it. It’s exactly the right place for Ernest. A little good society will get rid of all his nonsensical notions in a month or two. He’s lived too exclusively among his radical set at Oxford. And then it’ll be such a capital thing for him to be in the house continually with Hilda; she’s a girl of such excellent tone. I fancy—I’m not quite sure, but I fancy—that Ernest has a decided taste for the company of people, and even of young girls, who are not in Society. He’s so fond of that young man Oswald, who Herbert tells me is positively the son of a grocer—yes, I’m sure he said a grocer!—and it seems, from what Herbert writes me, that this Oswald has brought a sister of his up this term from behind the counter, on purpose to set her cap at Ernest. Now you boys have, unfortunately, no sisters, and therefore you haven’t seen as much of girls of a good stamp—not daily and domestically I mean—as is desirable for you, from the point of view of Society. But if Ernest can only be induced to take this tutorship at the Exmoors’, he’ll have an opportunity of meeting daily with a really nice girl, like Hilda; and though of course it isn’t likely that Hilda would take a fancy to her brother’s tutor—the Exmoors are such VERY conservative people in matters of rank and wealth and family and so forth—quite un-Christianly so, I consider—yet it can’t fail to improve Ernest’s tone a great deal, and raise his standard of female society generally. It’s really a very distressing thought to me, Ronald, that all my boys, except dear Herbert, should show