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"Not quite. In a quarter of an hour, they say." The housekeeper, with a word of impatience at the laundry's delay, went out and crossed the yard towards it. Frederick Massingbird turned again to Rachel. "Roy seemed to be grumbling at you." "He accused me of being the cause of his son's going away. He thinks I ought to have noticed him." Frederick Massingbird made no reply.
Such were the facts. John Massingbird told them to Jan, suppressing any little bit that he chose, here and there. The doubt about the codicil, for instance, and its moving motive in the affair, he did not mention. "It has been the best fun I ever had in my life," he remarked. "I never shall forget the parson's amazed stare, the first time I passed him. Or old Tynn's, either, last night.
"Everything's gone that I valued in Deerham," cried Lionel, with the same impulse "Verner's Pride amongst the rest. I would never stop here to see the rule of Fred Massingbird. Better that John had lived to take it, than that it should have come to him." "Was John better than his brother?" "He would have made a better master. He was, I believe, a better man.
This ghost as it is taken for has nearly frightened one or two lives away. It is very strange." "Can it be anybody got up to personate Fred Massingbird?" "Unless it be himself, that is the most feasible interpretation," observed Lionel. "But it does not alter the mystery. It is not only in the face and the black mark that the likeness is discernible, but in the figure also.
"I should very much like it, if you will give it me." "What a fastidious chap you are, Lionel!" cried John Massingbird, pulling vigorously; for the pipe was turning refractory, and would not keep alight. "There are lots of things you have left behind you here, that I, in your place, should have marched off without asking." "The things are yours.
No; John and Frederick Massingbird were conveniently deaf; they had grown addicted to field-sports, to a life of leisure, and they did not feel inclined to quit it for one of obligation or of labour. So they had stayed on at Verner's Pride in the enjoyment of their comfortable quarters, of the well-spread table, of their horses, their dogs.
Coldly, very coldly were the words delivered, and there was a strangely keen expression of anguish on Mr. Verner's face; but that was nothing unusual now. Frederick Massingbird was content to accept the words as a sanction of approval. A few words I don't mean angry ones passed between him and Lionel on the night before the wedding.
And if I had the money, I should not do it," he continued. "The present state of the property was deemed good enough by Mr. Lionel Verner; and it is deemed good enough by John Massingbird. It is not he who's going to have the cost thrown upon him. So let it drop." There was no resource but to let it drop; for that he was in full earnest, Lionel saw. John continued
With a pressure of his hand on the shoulder ere he quitted it, Lionel turned to Frederick Massingbird, asking of him particulars in an undertone. "I don't know them myself," replied Frederick, his accent a haughty one. "There seems to be nothing but uncertainty and mystery. Mr. Verner ought not to have inquired into it in this semi-public way. Very disagreeable things have been said, I assure you.
"Which concerned me!" repeated Lionel. "Or rather Mrs. Massingbird Mrs. Verner, I should say." A sickly smile crossed Lionel's lips. Mrs. Massingbird! Was it already known? "Why," he asked, "did you call her Mrs. Massingbird?" "I beg your pardon for my inadvertence, Mr. Verner," was the reply of Dr. Cannonby. "Lawrence knew her as Mrs.
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