Chapter 51

LIFE SINISTER

When business and the little cares of earthly life awoke again, every one told me (to my great surprise and no small terror at first, but soon to increasing acquiescence) that I was now the mistress of the fair estates of Castlewood, and, the male line being extinct, might claim the barony, if so pleased me; for that, upon default of male heirs, descended by the spindle. And as to the property, with or without any will of the late Lord Castlewood, the greater part would descend to me under unbarred settlement, which he was not known to have meddled with. On the contrary, he confirmed by his last will the settlement--which they told me was quite needless--and left me all that he had to leave, except about a thousand pounds distributed in legacies. A private letter to me was sealed up with his will, which, of course, it would not behoove me to make public. But thus much--since our family history is, alas! so notorious--in duty to him I should declare. He begged me, if his poor lost wife--of whom he had never spoken to me--should re-appear and need it, to pay her a certain yearly sum, which I thought a great deal too much for her, but resolved to obey him exactly.

Neither the will nor the letter contained any reference to my grandfather, or the possibility of an adverse claim. I could not, however, be quit of deep uneasiness and anxiety, but stanchly determined that every acre should vanish in folds of "the long robe" rather than pass to a crafty villain who had robbed me of all my kindred. My hatred of that man deepened vastly, as he became less abstract, while my terror decreased in proportion. I began to think that, instead of being the reckless fiend I had taken him for, he was only a low, plotting, cold-blooded rogue, without even courage to save him. By this time he must have heard all about me, my pursuit of him, and my presence here--then why not come and shoot me, just as he shot my grandfather?

The idea of this was unwelcome; still, I felt no sort of gratitude, but rather a lofty contempt toward him for not having spirit to try it. In Shoxford church-yard he had expressed (if Sexton Rigg was not then deceived) an unholy wish to have me there, at the feet of my brothers and sisters. Also he had tried to get hold of me--doubtless with a view to my quietude--when I was too young to defend myself, and left at haphazard in a lawless land. What was the reason, if his mind was still the same, for ceasing to follow me now? Was I to be treated with contempt as one who had tried her best and could do nothing, as a feeble creature whose movements were not even worth inquiry? Anger at such an idea began to supersede fear, as my spirits returned.

Meanwhile Major Hockin was making no sign as to what had befallen him in Paris, or what Cosmopolitan Jack was about. But, strangely enough, he had sent me a letter from Bruntsea instead of Paris, and addressed in grand style to no less a