On the other occasions when he had stayed in his brother's house he had been greatly occupied with his own plans--requests for money (invariably refused) schemes for making money, plots to frighten his brother out of one or other of his possessions.He had been frankly predatory, and that plain, quiet girl his niece had been pleasant company but no more.Now she was suddenly of the first importance.
She would in all probability inherit a considerable sum.How much there might be in that black box under the bed one could not say, but surely you could not be so relentless a miser for so long a period without accumulating a very agreeable amount.Did the girl realise that she would, perhaps, be rich? Uncle Mathew licked his lips with his tongue.So quiet and self-possessed was she that you could not tell what she was thinking.Were she only pretty she might marry anybody.As it was, with that figure...But she was a good girl.Uncle Mathew felt kind and tender-hearted towards her.He would advise her about life of which he had had a very considerable experience, and of which, of course, she knew nothing.His heart was warm, although it would have been warmer still had he been able to drink a glass of something before starting out.
"And what will you do now, my dear, do you think?" he asked.
They had left the deep lanes and struck across the hard-rutted fields.A thin powder of snow lay upon the land, and under the yellow light of the winter sky the surface was blue, shadowed with white patches where the snow had fallen more thickly.The trees and hedges were black and hard against the white horizon that was tightly stretched like the paper of a Japanese screen.The smell of burning wood was in the air, and once and again a rook slowly swung its wheel, cutting the air as it flew.The cold was so pleasantly sharp that it was the best possible thing for Uncle Mathew, who was accustomed to an atmosphere of hissing gas, unwashen glasses, and rinds of cheese.
Maggie did not answer his question but herself asked one.
"Uncle Mathew, do you believe in religion?""Religion, my dear?" answered her uncle, greatly startled at so unusual a question."What sort of religion?""The kind of religion that father preached about every Sunday--the Christian religion.""To tell you the truth, my dear," he answered confidentially, "I've never had much time to think about it.With some men, you see, it's part of their lives, and with others--well, it isn't.My lines never ran that way.""Was father very religious when he was young?""No, I can't say that he was.But then we never got on, your father and I.Our lines didn't run together at all.But I shouldn't have called him a religious man.""Then all this time father has been lying?"Her uncle gazed at her apprehensively.He did not wish to undermine her faith in her father on the very day after his death, but he was so ignorant about her, her thoughts and beliefs and desires, that he did not know what her idea of her father had been.His idea of him had always been that he was a dirty, miserly scoundrel, but that was not quite the thing for a daughter to feel, and there was an innocence and simplicity about Maggie that perplexed him.
"I can't truly say that I ever knew what your father's private feelings were.He never cared for me enough to tell me.He may have been very religious in his real thoughts.We never discussed such things."Maggie turned round upon him.
"I know.You're pretending.You've said to yourself, 'I mustn't tell her what I think about her father the very day after his death, that isn't a pleasant thing to do.' We've all got to pretend that he was splendid.But he wasn't--never.Who can know it better than I?
Didn't he worry mother until she died? Didn't he lead me an awful life always, and aren't I delighted now that he's dead? It's everything to me.I've longed for this day for years, and now we've got to pretend that we're sorry and that it would be a good thing if he were alive.It wouldn't be a good thing--it would be a bad thing for every one.He was a bad man and I hated him."Then, quite suddenly, she cried.Turning away from her uncle she folded her face in her arms like a small child and sobbed.Standing, looking at her bent shoulders, her square, ugly figure, her shabby old hat with its dingy black ribbon, pushed a little to the side of her head, Uncle Mathew thought that she was a most uncomprehensible girl.If she felt like that about her father why should she cry; and if she cried she must surely have some affection for his memory.All he could say was:
"There, there, my dear--Well, well.It's all right." He felt foolish and helpless.
She turned round at last, drying her eyes."It's such a shame," she said, still sobbing, "that that's what I shall feel about him.He's all I had and that's what I feel.But if you knew--if you knew--all the things he did."They walked on again, entering Rothin Wood."He never tried to make me religious," she went on."He didn't care what I felt.I sat in the choir, and I took a Sunday-school class, and I visited the villagers, but I, myself--what happened to me--he didn't care.He never took any trouble about the church, he just gabbled the prayers and preached the same old sermons.People in the village said it was a scandal and that he ought to be turned out but no one ever did anything.They'll clean everything up now.There'll be a new clergyman.They'll mend the holes in the kitchen floor and the ceiling of my bedroom.It will be all new and fresh.""And what will you do, Maggie?" said her uncle, trying to make his voice indifferent as though he had no personal interest in her plans.
"I haven't thought yet," she said.
"I've an idea," he went on."What do you say to your living with me?
A nice little place somewhere in London.I've felt for a long time that I should settle down.Your father will have left you a little money--not much, perhaps, but just enough for us to manage comfortably.And there we'd be, as easy as anything.I can see us very happy together."But he did not as yet know his niece.She shook her head.