The suggestion seemed good to all concerned. Criminal as she knew herself, Jane Tuke did not shrink from again facing sir Wilton, with the nephew by her side whom one and twenty years before she had carried in her arms to meet his unfatherly gaze! To her surprise she found that she almost enjoyed the idea.
Richard cashed the post-office-order the old man sent them, and they set out for his cottage.
The same day Simon went to Mortgrange and saw the baronet, who agreed at once to go to the cottage to meet his sister-in-law. The moment he entered the little parlour where they waited to receive him, he made Mrs. Tuke a polite bow, and held out his hand.
“You are the sister of my late wife, I am told,” he said.
Jane made him a dignified courtesy, her resentment, after the lapse of twenty years, rising fresh at sight of the man who had behaved so badly to her sister.
“It was you that carried off the child?” said the baronet.
“Yes, sir,” answered Jane.
“I am glad I did not know where to look for him. You did me the greatest possible favour. What these twenty years would have been like, with him in the house, I dare not think.”
“It was for the child's sake I did it!” said Jane.
“I am perfectly aware it was not for mine!” returned sir Wilton. “Ha! ha! you looked as if you had come to stab me that day you brought the little object to the library, and gave me such a scare! You presented his fingers and toes to me as if, by Jove, I was the devil, and had made them so on purpose!—I tell you, Richard, if that's your name, you rascal, you have as little idea what a preposterously ugly creature you were, as I had that you would ever grow to be—well, half-fit to look at! I was appalled at the sight of you! And a good thing it was! If I had taken to you, and brought you up at home, it would scarcely have been to your advantage. You would have been worth less than you are, however little that may be! But it doesn't follow you're the least fit to be owned to! You're a tradesman, every inch of you—no more like a gentleman than—well, not half so like a gentleman as your grandfather there! By heaven, the anvil must be some sort of education! Why wasn't I bound apprentice to my old friend Simon there! But, Richard, you don't look a gentleman, though your aunt looks as if she would eat me for saying it.—Now listen to me—all of you. It's no use your saying I've acknowledged him. If I choose to say I know nothing about him, then, as I told the rascal himself the other day, you'll have to prove your case, and that will take money! and when you've proved it, you get nothing but the title, and much good that will do you! So you had better make up all your minds to do as I tell you—that is, not to say one word about the affair, but just hold your tongues.—Now none of that looking at one another, as if I meant to do you! I'm not going to have people say my son shows the tradesman in him! I'm not going to have the Lestranges knock under to the Armours! I'm going to have the rascal the gentleman I can make him!—You're to go to college directly, sir; and I don't want to hear of or from you till you've taken your degree! You shall have two hundred a year and pay your own fees—not a penny more if you go on your marrow-bones for it!—You understand? You're not to attempt communicating with me. If there's anything I ought to know, let your grandfather come to me. I will see him when he pleases—or go to him, if he prefers it, and I'm not too gouty! Only, mind, I make no promises! If I should leave all I have to the other lot, you will have no right to complain. With the education I will give you, and the independence your uncle has given you, and the good sense you have on your own hook, you're provided for. You can be a doctor or a parson, you know. There's more than one living in my gift. The Reverend sir Richard Lestrange!—it don't sound amiss. I'm sorry I shan't hear it. I shall be gone where they crop one of everything—even of his good works, the parsons say, but I shan't be much the barer for that! It's hard, confounded hard, though, when they're all a fellow has got!—Now don't say a word! I don't like being contradicted!—not at all! It sends one round on the other tack, I tell you—and there's my gout coming! Only mind this: if once you say who you are as long as you're at college, or before I give you leave, I have done with you. I won't have any little plan of mine forestalled for your vanity! Don't any of you say who he is. It will be better for him—much. If it be but hinted who he is, he'll be courted and flattered, and then he'll be stuck up, and take to spending money! But as sure as hell, if he goes beyond his allowance—well, I'll pay it, but it shall be his last day at Oxford. He shall go at once into the navy—or the excise, by George!”