“Mr Robson!”
The pale face of the unarticled clerk appeared within the doorway—prompt as a stage spirit summoned through a trap.
“Tell the coachman to clap the horses into my carriage—quick as tinder.”
The spirit disappeared without making any reply, and just as his invoker had finished the folding of the lately attested will, and made a minute of what had transpired between him and the testator, carriage wheels were heard outside the door of the office.
In six seconds after Mr Woolet was in his “trap”—as he used condescendingly to call it—and rattling along a country road, the same taken ten minutes before by the more ostentatious equipage of the retired Indian officer.
Although driving the same way, the destination of the two vehicles was different. The chariot was bound for Beechwood Park, the “trap” for a less pretentious residence outside its enclosure—the villa-cottage occupied by the widow Mainwaring.
Chapter Ten.
The Bait Taken.
The relict of the late colonel, who had left his hones in the Punjaub and herself with only a slight maintenance, had nevertheless sufficient to maintain a “turn-out.” True it was but a pony and phaeton; but the pony was spirited, the phaeton a neat one, and with the charming Belle in it, hat on head, whip and ribbons in hand, it might have been termed stylish. The appearance was improved by a boy in buttons, who sat upon the back seat, well trained to sustain the dignity of the situation.
This choice little tableau of country life might have been seen at the gate of Mrs Mainwaring’s villa at eleven o’clock of that same day, on which the conversation already reported had passed between herself and her daughter in the breakfast-room.
It was an early hour for a drive; but it was to be a journey upon business to her lawyer. It was never made; for just as the sprightly Belle had taken her seat in the phaeton, adjusted her drapery, and commenced “catching flies” with her whip, what should appear coming up the road, and at a spanking pace, but the two-horse trap of that lawyer himself, Mr Woolet.
The trap was evidently en route for the widow’s residence, where more than once it had brought its owner upon matters of business. Its approach was a fortunate circumstance; so thought Mrs Mainwaring, so thought her daughter, neither of whom on that particular day desired to go to the town. It was not one that had been set apart for shopping; more important matters were on the tapis, and these could be arranged with Mr Woolet on the spot. The phaeton was at once abandoned, “Buttons” receiving orders to keep the pony by the gate, and the ladies, followed by the lawyer, returned into the cottage. The attorney was received in the drawing-room; but, as the business could have nothing to do with the beautiful Belle, her presence was excused, and she sauntered out again, leaving her mother alone with Mr Woolet.
Though there was still a certain obsequiousness about the lawyer’s manner, it was very different from that he had exhibited when dealing with General Harding. There was a vast distinction between a live General, possessed of a clear hundred thousand pounds, and a defunct colonel’s widow, with scarce so many pence. Still, Mrs Mainwaring was a lady of acknowledged social position, with a daughter who might at no distant day have the control of a gentleman who had a hundred thousand pounds, and who might become a profitable client of whoever chanced at the time to be her mother’s solicitor. Mr Woolet was a sharp, far-seeing individual, and this forecast had not escaped him. If he showed himself more at ease in the presence of the colonel’s widow than he had done in that of the General, it was simply because he recognised in the lady a nature like his own—less scrupulous upon points of honour or etiquette.
“Have you any business with me, Mr Woolet?” asked the lady, without making known the fact that she was about going on business to him.
“Well, Mrs Mainwaring, scarce enough to make it worth while my calling on you—at all events, interrupting your drive. What I have to say may be of no importance—but five minutes will suffice for saying it.”
“Take what time you please, Mr Woolet; our drive had no object—a little shopping affair of my daughter’s, that can be disposed of at any hour. Please be seated.”
The lawyer took a chair; the lady sank into a couch.
“Something, I suppose, connected with the cottage?” she continued in a tone of studied indifference. “I think the rent is paid up to—”
“Oh, nothing of that,” interrupted the lawyer. “You are too punctual in your payments, Mrs Mainwaring, to need reminding from me. I have come upon an affair that, indeed, now that I think of it, may look like interference on my part. But it is one that may be of importance, and, studying your interest as my client, I deem it my duty to interfere. I hope, if in error, you will not be offended by my apparent over-zeal.”
The widow opened her eyes, once beautiful enough, but now only expressive of surprise. The manner of the attorney, his tone of confidence—of an almost friendly assurance—led her to look for some pleasant revelation. What could it be?
“Over-zeal on your part can never be offensive, Mr Woolet—at least, not to me. Please let me know what you have to communicate. Whether it concern me or not, I promise you it shall have my full consideration, and such response as I can give.”
“First, Mrs Mainwaring, I must ask a question that from any other might be deemed impertinent. But you have done me the honour to trust me as your legal adviser, and that must be my excuse. There is a rumour abroad—indeed, I might say, something more than a rumour—that your daughter is about to be—to contract an alliance with one of the sons of General Harding. May I ask if this rumour has any truth in it?”
“Well, Mr Woolet, to you I shall answer frankly: there is some truth in it.”
“May I further ask which of the General’s sons is to be the fortunate, and, I may say, happy individual?”
“Really, Mr Woolet! But why do you want to know this?”
“I have a reason, madam—a reason that also concerns yourself, if I am not mistaken.”
“In what way?”
“By reading this, you will learn.”
A sheet of bluish foolscap, with the ink scarce dried upon it, was spread out before the eyes of the widow. It was the will of General Harding.
She coloured while reading it. With all the coolness of her Scotch blood; with all the steadiness of nerve produced by an eventful life—in long accompaniment of her husband in his campaigns—she could not conceal the emotion called forth by what she read upon the sheet of foolscap. It was like the echo of her own thoughts—a response to the reflections that, scarce an hour before, had been not only passing through her mind, but forming the subject of her conversation.
Adroitly as woman could—and Mrs Mainwaring was not the most simple of her sex—she endeavoured to make light of the knowledge thus communicated. She was only sorry that General Harding should so far forget his duties as a parent, to make such a distinction between his two sons. Both were equally of his own blood; and,