CHAPTER XIX
Ernestine found a letter on her plate a few mornings afterwards whichrather puzzled her. It was from a firm of solicitors in Lincoln'sInn--the Eastchester family solicitors--requesting her to call thatmorning to see them on important business. There was not a hint asto the nature of it, merely a formal line or two and a signature.Ernestine, who had written insulting letters to all her relatives duringthe last few days, smiled as she laid it down. Perhaps the family hadcalled upon Mr. Cuthbert to undertake their defence and bring her roundto a reasonable view of things. The idea was amusing enough, but herfirst impulse was not to go. Nothing but the combination of an idlemorning and a certain measure of curiosity induced her to keep theappointment.
She was evidently expected, for she was shown at once into the privateoffice of the senior partner. The clerk who ushered her in pronouncedher name indistinctly, and the elderly man who rose from his chair ather entrance looked at her inquiringly.
"I am Miss Wendermott," she said, coming forward. "I had a letter fromyou this morning; you wished to see me, I believe."
Mr. Cuthbert dropped at once his eyeglass and his inquiring gaze, andheld out his hand.
"My dear Miss Wendermott," he said, "you must pardon the failingeyesight of an old man. To be sure you are, to be sure. Sit down, MissWendermott, if you please. Dear me, what a likeness!"
"You mean to my father?" she asked quietly.
"To your father, certainly, poor, dear old boy! You must excuse me, MissWendermott. Your father and I were at Eton together, and I think I maysay that we were always something more than lawyer and client--a gooddeal more, a good deal more! He was a fine fellow at heart--a fine, dearfellow. Bless me, to think that you are his daughter!"
"It's very nice to hear you speak of him so, Mr. Cuthbert," she said."My father may have been very foolish--I suppose he was really worsethan foolish--but I think that he was most abominably and shamefullytreated, and so long as I live I shall never forgive those who wereresponsible for it. I don't mean you, Mr. Cuthbert, of course. I mean mygrand-father and my uncle." Mr. Cuthbert shook his head slowly.
"The Earl," he said, "was a very proud man--a very proud man."
"You may call it pride," she exclaimed. "I call it rank and brutalselfishness! They had no right to force such a sacrifice upon him. Hewould have been content, I am sure, to have lived quietly in England--tohave kept out of their way, to have conformed to their wishes in anyreasonable manner. But to rob him of home and friends and family andname--well, may God call them to account for it, and judge them as theyjudged him!"
"I was against it," he said sadly, "always."
"So Mr. Davenant told me," she said. "I can't quite forgive you, Mr.Cuthbert, for letting me grow up and be so shamefully imposed upon, butof course I don't blame you as I do the others. I am only thankfulthat I have made myself independent of my relations. I think, after theletters which I wrote to them last night, they will be quite content tolet me remain where they put my father--outside their lives."
"I had heard," Mr. Cuthbert said hesitatingly, "that you were followingsome occupation. Something literary, is it not?"
"I am a journalist," Ernestine answered promptly, "and I'm proud to saythat I am earning my own living."
He looked at her with a fine and wonderful curiosity. In his way he wasquite as much one of the old school as the Earl of Eastchester, andthe idea of a lady--a Wendermott, too--calling herself a journalistand proud of making a few hundreds a year was amazing enough to him. Hescarcely knew how to answer her.
"Yes, yes," he said, "you have some of your father's spirit, some of hispluck too. And that reminds me--we wrote to you to call."
"Yes."
"Mr. Davenant has told you that your father was engaged in someenterprise with this wonderful Mr. Scarlett Trent, when he died."
"Yes! He told me that!"
"Well, I have had a visit just recently from that gentleman. It seemsthat your father when he was dying spoke of his daughter in England, andMr. Trent is very anxious now to find you out, and speaks of a large sumof money which he wishes to invest in your name."
"He has been a long time thinking about it," Ernestine remarked.
"He explained that," Mr. Cuthbert continued, "in this way. Your fathergave him our address when he was dying, but the envelope on which itwas written got mislaid, and he only came across it a day or two ago. Hecame to see me at once, and he seems prepared to act very handsomely. Hepressed very hard indeed for your name and address, but I did not feelat liberty to disclose them before seeing you."
"You were quite right, Mr. Cuthbert," she answered. "I suppose this isthe reason why Mr. Davenant has just told me the whole miserable story."
"It is one reason," he admitted, "but in any case I think that Mr.Davenant had made up his mind that you should know."
"Mr. Trent, I suppose, talks of this money as a present to me?"
"He did not speak of it in that way," Mr. Cuthbert answered, "but in asense that is, of course, what it amounts to. At the same time I shouldlike to say that under the peculiar circumstances of the case I shouldconsider you altogether justified in accepting it."
Ernestine drew herself up. Once more in her finely flashing eyes andresolute air the lawyer was reminded of his old friend.
"I will tell you what I should call it, Mr. Cuthbert," she said, "I willtell you what I believe it is! It is blood-money."
Mr. Cuthbert dropped his eyeglass, and rose from his chair, startled.
"Blood-money! My dear young lady! Blood-money!"
"Yes! You have heard the whole story, I suppose! What did it sound liketo you? A valuable concession granted to two men, one old, the otheryoung! one strong, the other feeble! yet the concession read, if oneshould die the survivor should take the whole. Who put that in, do yousuppose? Not my father! you may be sure of that. And one of them doesdie, and Scarlett Trent is left to take everything. Do you think thatreasonable? I don't. Now, you say, after all this time he is firedwith a sudden desire to behave handsomely to the daughter of his deadpartner. Fiddlesticks! I know Scarlett Trent, although he little knowswho I am, and he isn't that sort of man at all. He'd better have keptaway from you altogether, for I fancy he's put his neck in the noosenow! I do not want his money, but there is something I do want from Mr.Scarlett Trent, and that is the whole knowledge of my father's death."
Mr. Cuthbert sat down heavily in his chair.
"But, my dear young lady," he said, "you do not suspect Mr. Trentof--er--making away with your father!'
"And why not? According to his own showing they were alone together whenhe died. What was to prevent it? I want to know more about it, and I amgoing to, if I have to travel to the Gold Coast myself. I will tell youfrankly, Mr. Cuthbert--I suspect Mr. Scarlett Trent. No, don't interruptme. It may seem absurd to you now that he is Mr. Scarlett Trent,millionaire, with the odour of civilisation clinging to him, and therespectability of wealth. But I, too, have seen him, and I have heardhim talk. He has helped me to see the other man--half-savage, splendidlymasterful, forging his way through to success by sheer pluck andunswerving obstinacy. Listen, I admire your Mr. Trent! He is a man,and when he speaks to you you know that he was born with a destiny. Butthere is the other side. Do you think that he would let a man's lifestand in his way? Not he! He'd commit a murder, or would have done inthose days, as readily as you or I would sweep away a fly. And itis because he is that sort of man that I want to know more about myfather's death."
"You are talking of serious things, Miss Wendermott," Mr. Cuthbert saidgravely.
"Why not? Why shirk them? My father's death was a serious thing, wasn'tit? I want an account of it from the only man who can render it."
"When you disclose yourself to Mr. Trent I should say that he wouldwillingly give you--"
She interrupted him, coming over and standing before him, leaningagainst his table, and looking him in the face.
"You don't understand. I am not going to disclose myself! You will rep
lyto Mr. Trent that the daughter of his old partner is not in need ofcharity, however magnificently tendered. You understand?"
"I understand, Miss Wendermott."
"As to her name or whereabouts you are not at liberty to disclose them.You can let him think, if you will, that she is tarred with the samebrush as those infamous and hypocritical relatives of hers who sent herfather out to die."
Mr. Cuthbert shook his head.
"I think, young lady, if you will allow me to say so that you are makinga needless mystery of the matter, and further, that you are embarkingupon what will certainly prove to be a wild-goose chase. We had newsof your father not long before his sad death, and he was certainly inill-health."
She set her lips firmly together, and there was a look in her face whichalone was quite sufficient to deter Mr. Cuthbert from further argument.
"It may be a wild-goose chase," she said. "It may not. At any ratenothing will alter my purpose. Justice sleeps sometimes for very manyyears, but I have an idea that Mr. Scarlett Trent may yet have to face aday of settlement."
* * * * *
She walked through the crowded streets homewards, her nerves tinglingand her pulses throbbing with excitement. She was conscious of havingsomehow ridded herself of a load of uncertainty and anxiety. She wascommitted now at any rate to a definite course. There had been momentsof indecision--moments in which she had been inclined to revert to herfirst impressions of the man, which, before she had heard Davenant'sstory, had been favourable enough. That was all over now. That pitifullytragic figure--the man who died with a tardy fortune in his hands, anoutcast in a far off country--had stirred in her heart a passionatesympathy--reason even gave way before it. She declared war against Mr.Scarlett Trent.