The tidings, as so given, were far from conveying to the sense of the hearer the full information which they bore. He heard the words, and at the moment conceived that Orley Farm was intended to come into his hands by some process to which it was thought desirable that he should be brought to agree. He was to be induced to buy it, or to be bought over from further opposition by some concession of an indefinitely future title. But that the estate was to become his at once, without purchase, and by the mere free will of his hated relatives, was an idea that he did not realise.
“Mr. Furnival,” he said, “what future steps I shall take I do not yet know. That I have been robbed of my property I am as firmly convinced now as ever. But I tell you fairly, and I tell Mr. Round so too, that I will have no dealings with that woman.”
“Your father’s widow, sir,” said Mr. Furnival, “is an unhappy lady, who is now doing her best to atone for the only fault of which I believe her to have been guilty. If you were not unreasonable as well as angry, you would understand that the proposition which I am now making to you is one which should force you to forgive any injury which she may hitherto have done to you. Your half-brother Lucius Mason has instructed me to make over to you the possession of Orley Farm.” These last words Mr. Furnival uttered very slowly, fixing his keen grey eyes full upon the face of Joseph Mason as he did so, and then turning round to the attorney he said, “I presume your client will understand me now.”
“The estate is yours, Mr. Mason,” said Round. “You have nothing to do but to take possession of it.”
“What do you mean?” said Mason, turning round upon Furnival.
“Exactly what I say. Your half-brother Lucius surrenders to you the estate.”
“Without payment?”
“Yes; without payment. On his doing so you will of course absolve him from all liability on account of the proceeds of the property while in his hands.”
“That will be a matter of course,” said Mr. Round.
“Then she has robbed me,” said Mason, jumping up to his feet. “By ⸻, the will was forged after all.”
“Mr. Mason,” said Mr. Round, “if you have a spark of generosity in you, you will accept the offer made to you without asking any question. By no such questioning can you do yourself any good—nor can you do that poor lady any harm.”
“I knew it was so,” he said loudly, and as he spoke he twice walked the length of the room. “I knew it was so;—twenty years ago I said the same. She forged the will. I ask you, as my lawyer, Mr. Round—did she not forge the will herself?”
“I shall answer no such question, Mr. Mason.”
“Then by heavens I’ll expose you. If I spend the whole value of the estate in doing it I’ll expose you, and have her punished yet. The slippery villain! For twenty years she has robbed me.”
“Mr. Mason, you are forgetting yourself in your passion,” said Mr. Furnival. “What you have to look for now is the recovery of the property.” But here Mr. Furnival showed that he had not made himself master of Joseph Mason’s character.
“No,” shouted the angry man;—“no, by heaven. What I have first to look to is her punishment, and that of those who have assisted her. I knew she had done it—and Dockwrath knew it. Had I trusted him, she would now have been in gaol.”
Mr. Furnival and Mr. Round were both desirous of having the matter quietly arranged, and with this view were willing to put up with much. The man had been ill used. When he declared for the fortieth time that he had been robbed for twenty years, they could not deny it. When with horrid oaths he swore that that will had been a forgery, they could not contradict him. When he reviled the laws of his country, which had done so much to facilitate the escape of a criminal, they had no arguments to prove that he was wrong. They bore with him in his rage, hoping that a sense of his own self-interest might induce him to listen to reason. But it was all in vain. The property was sweet, but that sweetness was tasteless when compared to the sweetness of revenge.
“Nothing shall make me tamper with justice;—nothing,” said he.
“But even if it were as you say, you cannot do anything to her,” said Round.
“I’ll try,” said Mason. “You have been my attorney, and what you know in the matter you are bound to tell. And I’ll make you tell, sir.”
“Upon my word,” said Round, “this is beyond bearing. Mr. Mason, I must trouble you to walk out of my office.” And then he rang the bell. “Tell Mr. Mat I want to see him.” But before that younger partner had joined his father Joseph Mason had gone. “Mat,” said the old man, “I don’t interfere with you in many things, but on this I must insist. As long as my name is in the firm Mr. Joseph Mason of Groby shall not be among our customers.”
“The man’s a fool,” said Mr. Furnival. “The end of all that will be that two years will go by before he gets his property; and, in the meantime, the house and all about it will go to ruin.”
In these days there was a delightful family concord between Mr. Furnival and his wife, and perhaps we may be allowed to hope that the peace was permanent. Martha
