said after a little pause, 'And now I have something to say. One does think of such things even in these sad times, and you can help me. I am so glad it is you, because I know you will, and be rejoiced to do so. You know when Mark found us out first, dear mother and I always felt that it was a great pity he should not have the estate he had been brought up to expect. I believe dear mother thought it would have been the right thing for me to marry him, but I always did mean to give it back to him, even when I didn't like him. Well, then, you know it all seemed settled otherwise, but now, it is so lucky you spoke to me while that dear little fellow was with us, because now you will help me to persuade my father that it is the only satisfactory thing to do to let it go in the male line to Mark and his Willy.'
'I see! I see!' said Mr. Dutton eagerly. 'It would be an infinite relief if it could be carried out.'
'I believe my father would like it,' said Nuttie. 'He cares for the name; and now no one prevents it; he is fond of Mark, and still more of Annaple! And you! Oh, Mr. Dutton, if he will only take it in the right way, I think you will make me able to do what it grieved dear mother never to have brought about for my poor father.'
'My whole self is yours to aid you,' he said. 'You know of course that I could not ask you to detach yourself from one to whom you are so necessary. If he will permit us, we will watch over him together as doing her work.'
'Thank you,' was all Nuttie's lips could utter, though her hand said much more.
And before they reached London they had arranged something of a plan of action for propitiating Mr. Egremont, and bringing the future prospects to be available so as to save Annaple from being worked to death in the meantime.
CHAPTER XXXIX. ANNAPLE'S AMBITION FALLEN.
'Well, how did you get on, Annaple?'
'Oh! very well, poor old man, on the whole, though it made one pity him doubly that he chose to make as if he forgot everything, and you were all gone on a picnic, taking me out for a long drive in the afternoon--where we were least likely to meet any one--that I will say for him.'
'Forgetting is not the best for him.'
'As if he could forget! But he was very nice and friendly, and put on his best, most courteous self. I think he looks on me rather as a protector from the solemn Mr. Edsall.'
'Surely Edsall treats him well. He was excellently recommended. You know I saw his master's daughter.'
'Oh! only _too_ well. He takes the management of him as if he were three years old, or a lunatic. He simply _will_ not be offended any more than if he had to do with a baby.'
'What should offend him?'
'That Mr. Egremont greatly resents being allowed nothing but by what Edsall calls medical sanction. He is too blind, you know, to venture to pour out anything for himself, and besides, Edsall has all the drugs under lock and key, and is coolness itself about any amount of objurgations, such as I fancy go on sometimes.'
'Do you think he will stand it?'
'Who? Your uncle? Yes, I think he will. This man really makes him more comfortable than poor Gregorio did.'
'Yes; Nuttie said she was sure that there was neglect, if not bullying latterly. But he must miss Gregorio terribly. They had been together for at least five-and-twenty or thirty years, and had plenty of gossip together.'
'Whereas the present paternal despotism and appalling dignity and gravity will keep him more dependent on his right congeners.'
'If they are of the right sort, that's all.'
'He has been making me read him a whole heap of letters; indeed, as you know, I have been doing that all along, when he could not get Nuttie. There were some from Mr. Bulfinch. Do you know that bailiff of his must be next door to a swindler?'
'Bulfinch is coming up to see him to-morrow.'
'And, Mark, do you know, he has been putting out feelers as if to discover whether we would do--what he asked us to do five years ago.'
'Would you?'
'If it were not for the children, and--and sometimes the extreme pinch, I should say it was more like _life_ to work yourself up as a City man,' said Annaple. 'If you were the Squire, with all his opportunities, it would be a different thing, but there's no outlet there, and I have often admired the wisdom of the Apocryphal saying, 'Make not thyself an underling to a foolish man.''
'Well, it is lucky you think so, Nannie, for though Dutton is certainly not a foolish man, he will not want an underling. And what do you say to my mother's proposal of having poor Poole to stay at Redcastle, and borrowing baby to comfort her till she goes out again.
'I hate it,' said Annaple energetically. 'It is very horrid, but it is awfully good of the Canoness; and I suppose we shall have to let it come to pass, and miss all that most charming time of babyhood which is coming. But most likely it will quite set the little woman up, and be a real kindness to poor Poole.'
'If we could only keep her for good.'
'Yes, and then our children would not be half so much our own. I do want to be away with them in our own quarters. I wonder when Nuttie can spare us, but I should like to see her through the great crisis with her father.'
That crisis was to involve more than Annaple in the least expected. Nuttie found that the momentous confession could not possibly take place before the interview with Mr. Bulfinch, at which her presence was needed to help her father with his papers. The principal concern was to show the full enormity of the bailiff, and decide upon the steps to be taken, the solicitor being anxious for a prosecution, while a certain tenderness for poor Gregorio's memory, or perhaps for the exposure of his own carelessness, made Mr. Egremont reluctant. There was also a proposal, brought forward with much diffidence from Mr. Condamine's mother, to rent Bridgefield House, but on this, as well as respecting a successor to the bailiff, Mr. Egremont was to give his answer the next day, when Mr. Bulfinch would call again.
Nuttie was thankful for the business that had filled up the hour after luncheon, when Alwyn used to play in the drawing-room and delight his father; but she was feeling desperate to have the crisis over, and resolved to speak when she went out driving with him. It was he, however, who began. 'I sounded Mark's wife yesterday, Ursula. She is a nice little thing enough, and a good wife in her way.'
'A very good wife.'
'Except when she persuaded him to turn up his nose at the agency. D'ye think he would take it now, since he has tasted the sweets of his umbrella business?' then, as Nuttie paused, taken by surprise; 'Five hundred a year and the Home Farm would be better than, what is it, a hundred and fifty and a floor over a warehouse! I don't like to see old Will's son wearing himself out there, and the lad is a good honest lad, with business habits, who would do justice to you after I am gone.'
'Father,' said Nuttie, trembling with the effort, 'I want you to do something better than that. I want you to let Mark take the agency with a view to himself--not me. Let him be as he would have been if he had never hunted us up at Micklethwayte, and put me in his place.'
'Eh!' said Mr. Egremont. 'It is not entailed--worse luck; if it had been, I should not have been bound to dance attendance at the heels of such an old sinner as the General.'
'No, but it ought to go to the heir male, and keep in the old name. Think--there have been Egremonts at Bridgefield for four hundred years!'
'Very pretty talk, but how will it be with you, Miss. We shall have Fane, and I don't know how many more, coming after the scent of Bridgefield now,' he said with a heavy sigh, ending with a bitter 'Hang them all!'
'And welcome,' said Nuttie, answering the thought rather than the words. 'Father, I wanted to tell you--'
'You don't mean that any one has been after you at such a time as this!' he cried.
'It was before--I mean it was the evening when we were all so glad, before we began to be afraid.'
'The umbrella man! By Jove!'
'And now,' went on Nuttie, in spite of the explosion, 'he would hardly have ventured to go on with it but for this--I mean,' as her father gave a little laugh of his unpleasant sort, 'he said it would be the greatest possible relief, and make it all right for the property to go to the heir male.'
'Hein! You think so, do you? See how it will be when I come to talk to him! A shrewd fellow like that who got
