‘I can’t have you say this,’ said Ben. ‘I can’t let anybody say it. Aunt Lydia, we had better not discuss the question. We have all made up our minds to my father’s will, such as it is.’
‘Then you are very foolish boys,’ said Mrs. Westbury; ‘when I, who would stand up for him in reason or out of reason, tell you so! Your father’s good name is of as much consequence to me as it is to you. There never was a Renton like that before; but still if it was to stand in the way of justice----! And about Dick. You ought to write to him at once, to tell him he is to look out for something else for himself, and that you mean to take your own place.’
‘I shall never go to Calcutta,’ said Ben shortly.
‘Then what will you do?’ said his aunt. ‘You can’t live on two hundred a-year,--at least you were never meant to live on it,--you know that. And you can’t live on your mother. Unless you are going out to India what are you to do?’
‘I shall find something to do,’ said Ben briefly; and then he softened a little. ‘I know you mean to be kind,’ he said. ‘I am sure you always meant to be kind; but I can’t do any of the things you propose. I can neither question my father’s will, nor live on my mother, nor turn out Dick. Let him make the best of it. I should think he had got the worst over now. And don’t blame yourself. I don’t think you were to blame. There must have been some foundation to work on in my father’s thoughts; and it is done; and I will never try to undo it. We must all make the best of it now. Will you do one thing to please me, Aunt Lydia? Let Mary be with my mother as much as you can spare her. She will feel it when we are all gone.’
‘I will do anything you please,’ said Mrs. Westbury, melted to tears. ‘Oh, to think I should have done you so much harm, and be so powerless to do you any good! But, Ben, you have not told me what you are going to do?’
‘Because I don’t know,’ said Ben abruptly. He could not come to any decision. His aunt left him reluctantly when they had reached this point, thinking, notwithstanding her compunction, or perhaps in consequence of it, that if his petition about Mary meant any special regard for her, she would not hesitate to give him her child. ‘He will make his way,’ she said to herself; ‘he will make his way.’ It was because he was a little hard and stern in his downfall that she thought so well of him; and her feelings were very different as she went prowling through the passages in her dressing-gown to knock at Laurie’s door. Poor Laurie! nobody entertained any such confidence about him.
