The Master of Greylands. Mrs. Henry Wood
put on his coat in the hall, and went forth into the street. There he halted; looking this way and that way, as though uncertain of his route.
"A few doors on the right hand, on the other side the market-house, John Bent said," he repeated to himself. "Then I must cross the street, and so onwards."
He crossed over, went on past the market-house, and looked attentively at the doors on the other side it. On one of those doors was a brass plate: "Mr. Knivett, Attorney-at-law." Anthony Castlemaine rang the bell, asked if the lawyer was at home, and sent in one of his cards.
He was shown into a small back room. At a table strewn with papers and pens, sat an elderly man with a bald head, who was evidently regarding the card with the utmost astonishment. He turned his spectacles on Anthony.
"Do I see Mr. Knivett, the avoué?" he asked, substituting for once a French term for an English one, perhaps unconsciously.
"I am Mr. Knivett, sir, attorney-at-law."
In the frank, free way that seemed so especially to characterise him, Anthony Castlemaine put out his hand as to a friend.
"You knew my father well, sir. Will you receive his son for old memories' sake?"
"Your father?" asked Mr. Knivett, questioningly: but nevertheless meeting the hand with his own, and glancing again at the card.
"Basil Castlemaine. He who went away so long ago from Greylands' Rest."
"Bless my heart!" cried Mr. Knivett, snatching off his glasses in his surprise. "Basil Castlemaine! I never thought to hear of him again. Why, it must be--ay--since he left, it mast be hard upon five-and-thirty years."
"About that, I suppose, sir."
"And--is he come back?"
Anthony had again to go over the old story. His father's doings abroad and his father's death, and his father's charge to him to come home and claim his paternal inheritance: he rehearsed it all. Mr. Knivett, who was very considerably past sixty, and had put his spectacles on again, never ceased gazing at the relator, as they sat nearly knee to knee. Not for a moment did any doubt occur to him that the young man was other than he represented himself to be: the face was the face of a Castlemaine, and of a truthful gentleman.
"But I have come to you, not only to show myself to a friend of my poor father's in his youth, but also as a client," proceeded Anthony, after a short while. "I have need of a lawyer's advice, sir; which I am prepared to pay for according to the charges of the English country. Will you advise me?"
"To be sure," replied Mr. Knivett. "What advice is it that you want?"
"First of all, sir--In the days when my father was at home, you were the solicitor to my grandfather, old Anthony Castlemaine. Did you continue to be so until his death?"
"I did."
"Then you can, I hope, give me some particulars that I desire to know. To whom was Greylands' Rest bequeathed--and in what manner was it devised?"
Mr. Knivett shook his head. "I cannot give you any information upon the point," he said. "I must refer you to Mr. Castlemaine."
"I have applied to Mr. Castlemaine, and to Mr. Peter Castlemaine also: neither of them will tell me anything. They met me with a point blank refusal to do so."
"Ah--I daresay. The Castlemaines never choose to be questioned."
"Why will not you afford me the information, Mr. Knivett?"
"For two reasons. Firstly, because the probability is that--pray understand me, young sir; note what I say--the probability is that I do not possess the information to give you. Secondly, if I did possess it, my relations with the family would preclude my imparting it. I am the attorney to the Castlemaines."
"Their confidential attorney?"
"Some of the business I transact for them is confidential."
"But see here, Mr. Knivett--what am I to do? I come over at the solemn command of my father, delivered to me on his death-bed, to put in my claim to the estate. I find my uncle James in possession of it. He says it is his. Well and good: I do not say it is quite unlikely to be so. But when I say to him, 'Show me the vouchers for it, the deed or the will that you hold it by,' he shuts himself metaphorically up, and says he will not show me anything--that I must be satisfied with his word. Now, is that satisfactory?"
"I daresay it does not appear so to you."
"If there was a will made, let them allow me to see the will; if it was bequeathed by a deed of gift, let me read the deed of gift. Can there be anything more fair than what I ask? If Greylands' Rest is legally my uncle James's, I should not be so foolish or so unjust as to wish to deprive him of it."
Mr. Knivett sat back in his chair, pressing the tips of his fingers together, and politely listening. But comment made he none.
"To go back home, without prosecuting my claim, is what I shall never do, unless I am convinced that I have no claim to prosecute," continued Anthony. "Well, sir, I shall want a legal gentleman to advise me how to set about the investigation of the affair; and hence I come to you."
"I have shown you why I cannot advise you," said Mr. Knivett--and his manner was ever so many shades colder than it had been at first. "I am the attorney to Mr. Castlemaine."
"You cannot help me at all, then?"
"Not at all; in this."
It sounded rather hard to the young man as he rose from his seat to depart. All he wanted was fair play, open dealing; and it seemed that he could not get it.
"My uncle Peter, with whom I have just been, said a thing that I did not like," he stayed to remark; "it rather startled me. I presume--I should think--that he is a man of strict veracity?"
"Mr. Peter Castlemaine? Undoubtedly."
"Well, sir, what he said was this. That were I to spend my best years and energies in the search after information, I should be no wiser at the end than I am now."
"That I believe to be extremely probable," cordially assented the lawyer.
"But do you see the position in which it would leave me? Years and years!--and I am not to be satisfied one way or the other?"
The attorney froze again. "Ah, yes; true."
"Well, sir, I will say good-day to you, for it seems that I can do no good by staying, and I must not take up your time for nothing. I only wish you had been at liberty to advise me."
Mr. Knivett made some civil rejoinder about wishing that he had been. So they parted, and the young man found himself in the street again. Until now it had been one of the brightest of days; but during this short interview at the lawyer's, the weather seemed to have changed. The skies, as Anthony Castlemaine looked up, were now dull and threatening. The clouds had lowered. He buttoned his warm coat about him, and began his walk back to Greylands.
"Je crois que nous aurons de la neige," he said, in the familiar language to which he was most accustomed, "et je n'ai pas de parapluie. N'importe; je marcherai vite."
Walk fast! And to Greylands! Could poor Anthony Castlemaine have foreseen the black pall of Fate, already closing upon him like a dreadful shadow, he had turned his steps away from Greylands for ever.
CHAPTER VII.
IN THE MOONLIGHT.
White clouds were passing over the face of the blue sky, casting their light and their shade on the glorious sea. Not for a minute together did the sea present the same surface; its hue, its motions, and its ripples were for ever changing. Now it would be blue and clear almost as crystal; anon, green and still; next, sparkling like diamonds under the sunlight: and each aspect seemed more beautiful than that which it had displaced.
To Anthony Castlemaine, gazing at it from his