Chapter Twenty-One
When the ladies had withdrawn, the gentlemen remained standing for a moment while the servants entered with the port.
Cigars followed; a taper was brought; and as glasses were filled the company gradually settled itself.
The Colonel stretched himself before the fire; Ashford accepted a cigar and took the chair nearest it; Darcy remained upon the hearthrug; and Gardiner, declining both cigar and smoke, seated himself near Matlock.
For a little while no one resumed the subject that had been interrupted at table. At length Ashford broke the silence.
“It is the same answer, then. Nothing found.”
“Nothing,” said Matlock, setting down his glass.
“And we are expected to be satisfied with it. It grows beyond patience. We have waited not days but weeks; and each week yields the same answer. The will was lodged. The will was seen. The will is spoken of in enough papers to make its existence undeniable. Yet the will itself is nowhere to be found.”
“Misfiled?” said Gardiner.
“So they suppose,” said Matlock. “Or buried among records neglected in those cursed years when every office was thinned by illness and half the kingdom thought of little but death and succession. A clerk dies; another takes his place; papers are shifted; a packet is entered under the wrong description; and twenty years later some family is left to make sense of what should never have been confused at all.”
Ashford drained the remainder of his glass and set it down. “It is intolerable.”
“It is common,” said Matlock. “That is what makes it worse.”
“But the trust itself is no longer in doubt,” said Darcy.
“No. That much is settled. Alfred did not inherit Trevelyan outright, whatever he allowed others to believe. The estate was held in trust.” He took up his glass again. “And not for a nephew.”
Ashford looked up. “Not for—?”
“Ashcombe is now certain of it,” said Matlock. “Among his father's papers are references, repeated more than once, to a female ward. The language is imperfect, but consistent.”
Gardiner reached for the decanter and refilled his glass.
“A ward?” said Ashford. “How can that be? I thought the line of Trevelyan was entirely at an end. It was upon that understanding we looked elsewhere.”
“As did we all,” said Matlock.
The Colonel set down his glass. “And a ward implies more than inheritance. It implies protection. Authority.”
“A minor,” said Darcy.
Ashford turned the stem of his glass between his fingers. “But who? Amelia is the only lady within the immediate connection, and she is no ward.”
“No,” said Matlock. “Nor was she ever.”
“Then we are to suppose,” said the Colonel, “that Trevelyan discovered a relation none of us were aware of, and chose to settle his estate upon her without so much as a word.”
Matlock took a slow sip of port.
“I do not say it was without word. Only that we did not attend to it as we ought.”
Ashford looked up.
“You were told something?”
“Very little,” said Matlock. “And not in such a manner as to fix it in the mind. There was a letter; I remember it now only imperfectly. Trevelyan wrote to me on a matter of family concern. Something requiring attention; some alteration, perhaps, in an existing arrangement.”
He turned his glass slowly in his hand. “It was some fifteen years ago.”
“You were at Matlock at the time,” said Darcy.
“I was,” said Matlock. “And could not leave. Alfred was in town; I understood that he saw to it.”
“And nothing further was said,” said the Colonel.
“Nothing that I recall,” said Matlock. “But it was shortly after that letter that we were all otherwise engaged.”
Ashford tapped the ash from his cigar into the tray beside him.
“If the matter concerned a young relation, and her circumstances were not what they ought to be,” said Gardiner, “it might well require both guardianship and provision.”
“Just so,” said Matlock.
“And if Alfred undertook it,” said Darcy, “he would have been in a position to direct both.”
The Colonel picked up his glass. “Then we must allow that what we took for omission may, in fact, have been design.”
Ashford drew a slow breath through the cigar before removing it. “And the lady remains unnamed.”
“For the present,” said Matlock. “We have more questions now than we had before, and fewer means of resolving them.” Setting down his glass, he drew a folded letter from his coat and opened it.
“He is still in Kent. A tenant house on one of the outer farms took fire last week, and the confusion of his father's affairs has left half the estate badly managed. We may not hear from him again so soon as we might wish.”
“That at least sounds like a living man,” said the Colonel.
Matlock took up his glass. “He writes under pressure, and not without reason. There is mention, though imperfect, of a contract. A betrothal, it seems, but not clearly expressed.”
“A union of estates?” Ashford said.
“So it appears.”
“And the lady,” Darcy said, “must be the ward.”
“He has written further?” Ashford asked.
“Only enough to make it plain that the arrangement was not his own,” Matlock answered.
“And the gentleman,” said the Colonel, “is very conveniently Ashcombe himself.”
“No convenience to him, it seems,” said Matlock. “He speaks of it with marked displeasure; as something arranged without his knowledge, and not easily set aside now that it has come to light.”
“He objects to it?” Ashford asked.
“He resents it,” said Matlock. “More, I think, than the loss of ready money. He has inherited confusion enough; he has no wish to be governed by it as well.”
The Colonel reached for the letter and glanced over it. “Then we must revise our conclusions. I cannot regret what was never properly mine, and I may be thankful not to be bound where I was never consulted.”
Darcy refilled his glass. “A settlement made without consent, and maintained only by concealment, can hardly be expected to recommend itself.”
“No,” said Matlock. “Nor does it.” He took a slow sip from his glass before continuing.
“The irritation is deserved. It appears his father's need of ready money was greater than any of us suspected. There had been an investment; speculative, ill judged, and undertaken at exactly the moment when half the country was burying its dead and no man could say what would recover and what would collapse.”
Ashford removed the cigar from his mouth and set it aside. “And he used trust money to answer for it?”
“So Ashcombe believes,” his father replied.
"Then the wrong is larger than concealment," said Darcy.
“It usually is,” said Matlock.
Gardiner spoke next. “The will is missing, the ward unnamed. Who, then, can she be?”
“A relation,” said Ashford, “but one so distant as to escape all notice.”
“Or one discovered late,” said Darcy. “Brought forward only when there was no nearer claim.”
The Colonel turned another page of the letter.
“A lady found just in time to be provided for, and just obscure enough to be directed.”
“And placed,” said Ashford, “entirely in Alfred's hands.”
“That,” said Matlock, “is what I begin to suspect.”
“Let us see what further wisdom he has left us. Ah. Here is something. ‘—a union desirable to the greatest estates connected with the family—’”
“Trevelyan and Ashcombe,” said Ashford at once.
“Yes. And a lady who must be persuaded of the honour.”
“And a gentleman who must submit to it,” said Darcy.
“It appears neither has been consulted.”
The Colonel folded the letter and handed it back to his father.
Darcy set down his glass. “Uncle Henry, might it be time for us to rejoin the ladies?”
“So soon?” said Ashford. “I had thought you more inclined to endure us a while longer.”
“I would not wish to be absent longer than is necessary.”
“We have not yet done with you,” said Matlock. “There remains the matter of your proposed journey, and the business you were to consider with Gardiner.”
“The matter is not so extensive as to detain us long,” said Gardiner.
“I have already written to you the principal points; the expected course of the ship, the probable returns, and the general state of the venture. Your investment, gentlemen, is secure. There is nothing in it, I think, that need prevent further discussion at another time.”
“So we are to be satisfied with reports,” said Ashford, “when Darcy himself was to return after a fortnight, and instead vanished for two months. I had thought such diligence must produce something more instructive.”
“Indeed,” said the Colonel. “The venture appears to have yielded remarkable returns. I confess myself curious as to the method.”
“I would not recommend it. The improvement to one's understanding is not always proportionate to the time required,” Darcy replied.
“A pity,” said Ashford. “I had begun to think you had discovered some singular advantage abroad.”
“Or at least some attraction powerful enough to keep a sensible man from London for six weeks beyond his intention,” said the Colonel.
“A rare occurrence,” said Ashford.
“Extremely rare.”
Darcy shook his head. “You are both determined to be unreasonable.”
“Entirely,” said the Colonel.
He set aside his glass and rose. “Come. We have exhausted wills, wards, and investments for one evening. If we remain here much longer, my mother will conclude we prefer them to her company.”