when captain verinder enunciated the startling statement with which the last chapter concludes, he had already conceived a certain scheme in his brain, which, in the course of next day, he took the first steps towards reducing to practice, but without saying a word to his niece of his intentions.
many years before, giovanna's only brother, luigi rispani, had come to london by way of advancing his fortunes. he was energetic and persevering, with a gift for languages, and after a time he obtained the post of foreign correspondent in a city house of business. a little later he married a country-woman of his own, and then, after a few years, both he and his wife died, leaving one son behind them who was named after his father. this son was now about twenty years old, a dark-eyed, good-looking, quick-witted young fellow, but having within him the germs of certain scampish propensities, which, up till now, had only been able to develop themselves after a weak and tentative fashion. luigi earned his living in part as drawing-master to a number of cheap suburban boarding-schools, and in part, when his other duties were over for the day, by acting as check-taker at one of the west end theatres.
the captain and the elder rispani had been on fairly intimate terms, and after the latter's death he had never altogether lost sight of the lad. sometimes, when he had been more than usually lucky at billiards, he would look up young luigi and treat him to a dinner of four or five courses at some foreign restaurant in the neighbourhood of leicester square, and at parting press a couple of half-crowns into his unreluctant palm. verinder, who by long habit had become a tolerably shrewd reader of character, had long ago summed up in his mind the most salient characteristics of luigi rispani, and he now said to himself, with a pleasant sense of elation: "here is the very tool i need ready to my hand. if i were to search london round i could not find one that would suit my purpose better."
this evening he sought out luigi at the theatre where the young man was engaged, and after shaking hands with him, said: "i wish to see you most particularly. come to my den after you have finished here and i will tell you what i want you for."
luigi went straight from the theatre to his uncle's rooms. (as long as he could remember he had been used to calling the captain "uncle"). the ghostly light of dawn was in the eastern sky before the two separated. the nature of the business discussed by them will be made clear by a conversation which took place next day between the captain and his niece.
"you have not forgotten our talk in the park the day before yesterday?" said the former.
"there was much in it which i am not likely readily to forget. all the same, you said certain things which, the more i think of them, the more extravagant and incapable of ever being realised they seem to me."
"that is just what i am here to-day to endeavour to disprove," remarked the captain in his dryest tones. "you don't object to my smoking, i know. thanks."
as soon as he had selected and lighted a cigar, he resumed:
"you already know my views as to the position which, in my opinion, you ought to occupy as daughter-in-law to sir gilbert clare of withington chase. that you have an undoubted claim on the old baronet i think very few people would be found to dispute, and the question we have now to consider is the most desirable mode of urging that claim upon his notice in order that the utmost possible advantage may accrue to you therefrom. as you justly remarked the other day, the probability is that sir gilbert was never made aware of his son's marriage, and, consequently, cannot have the remotest suspicion that the young man left a widow to mourn his loss. now, from all i heard of the baronet when i was in the country last week, i take him to be a hardfisted, penurious curmudgeon, who, to judge from his style of living, must be laying by several thousands a year--though, why he should care to do so, goodness only knows, seeing that he has nobody he cares about to leave his savings to--the next heir being a half-cousin with whom he has been at outs for the last thirty years. now, it seems to me, taking into account the kind of man he is, that if you were to introduce yourself to his notice merely on the ground of being the widow of his son--who died nearly twenty years ago--and a person of whom probably he has never heard before, he might perhaps, without wholly ignoring your claim upon him, not merely satisfy his conscience, but persuade himself into the belief that he was acting a most generous part by you, if he were to allow you a paltry hundred, or, at the most, a couple of hundred pounds a year as long as he lives. but, giovanna, my dear, it is more--much more--than that that i want to help you to secure for yourself. i want to see you in the position which would have been yours at your husband's death had you married john alexander clare with his father's full knowledge and consent. in that case you would undoubtedly have had a jointure of not less than seven or eight hundred a year, and i want us two to try whether we cannot see our way to secure something like an equivalent settlement for you, even after all this length of time."
vanna was staring straight before her with an introspective expression in her midnight orbs. when the silence had lasted some time, she said very quietly:
"you are working out some scheme in your brain, uncle, i feel sure of it; you have something more to tell me--something to propose. is it not so?"
he considered the ash of his cigar for a moment or two, then, lifting his eyes to her face, he said:
"what a pity--what a very great pity it is that your boy did not live to be here to-day!"
as before, when he spoke of the loss of her child, an indescribable expression flitted across giovanna's face.
"that is precisely what you said the other day," she remarked, coldly. "where is the use of referring a second time to a misfortune which happened so long ago?"
"because i cannot help contrasting your position to-day with what it would have been could you but have taken your boy by the hand, and have said to sir gilbert: 'you lost your son and heir long years ago: but to-day i bring you a grandson to take his place. here is the new heir of withington chase.' in that case, how the old man would have welcomed you!--nothing would have seemed too good for you, so overjoyed would he have been. the position which ought to have been yours from the first would then be accorded you, and you would take your place in society as the daughter-in-law of sir gilbert clare, and the mother of the next heir. and then, a little later, my vanna, you would marry again. oh, yes, you would! marry money--and perhaps a title to boot. why not? you are one of the handsomest women in london, or else i don't know a handsome woman when i see one!"
vanna rose abruptly from her chair, and then sat down again. for once she was profoundly moved.
"oh, uncle, this is the merest folly!" she cried. "why talk of impossibilities? let us keep to realities. i thought you had something to propose--something, perhaps, that would----"
"so i have, my dear; so i have something to propose," responded the captain, with a chuckle. "what i said to you the other day was, 'there is only one course open to us, and that is to find sir gilbert an heir.'"
"well?" demanded vanna with wide-open eyes. "i failed to understand your meaning then and i am not a bit the wiser now."
"listen then. although, owing to circumstances to which i need not further refer, we are not in a position to go before sir gilbert and produce the real heir, is that any reason why we should not find a substitute who would answer both his purpose and ours just as well as the genuine article?" his cunning eyes were watching her eagerly.
vanna's face expressed a growing wonder, but it was a wonder largely compounded of bewilderment.
"ecoutez," resumed her uncle. "let us assume for the moment that you agree with me what a very desirable thing it would be to provide sir gilbert with an heir, even though it would, of necessity, have to be a fictitious one. being, then, so far in accord, naturally the first question would be, 'but where are we to find the heir in question--or rather, someone by whom he could be personated?' to which i should reply that i am prepared at any moment to lay my finger on the one person out of all the hundreds and thousands of people in this big city best suited to our purpose. that person is none other than your own nephew (whom i believe you have never yet set eyes on), the son of your only brother, luigi rispani."
sheer amazement kept giovanna silent.
"i have already seen luigi and sounded him in the matter," resumed the captain. "he fully agrees with me that the idea is a most admirable one, and one which, if carried out in all its details with that care and foresight which i should not fail to bestow on it, could not prove otherwise than brilliantly successful. in short, luigi places himself unreservedly in my hands. so now, my dear vanna, it only remains for you to follow your nephew's excellent example."
it is not needful that we should recount in detail what further passed between uncle and niece either at this or subsequent interviews. enough to say that when once she had been talked over into giving her consent, and had thoroughly mastered the details of the scheme as proposed to be carried out by her uncle, she entered fully into the affair, and seemed to have thrown whatever moral scruples might at one time have feebly held her back completely to the winds. but before all this came about luigi rispani and his aunt had been brought together. although english blood on the female side ran in the veins of both, they might have been pure italians for anything in their looks which proclaimed the contrary. in point of fact, there was a very marked family likeness between the two, so much so, indeed, that the captain could not help saying to himself with a chuckle, "nobody seeing them together, would take them for other than mother and son."
at length all the details of the scheme were so far elaborated and agreed upon by our three conspirators that verinder felt the time had come for him to make his first important move, which was, to seek an interview with sir gilbert clare, or, as he preferred to express it, to "beard the lion in his den."
