LAST WILLS AND TESTAMENTS
From the beginning of his infirmities Farley’s experiments in
will-writing had taxed the patience of Thurston, his lawyer. Within
two years he had made a dozen wills, and he kept them for comparison
in a secret drawer of Mrs. Farley’s old sewing-table in his room.
He penciled cryptic marks on the various envelopes for ease of
identification, and he was influenced often by the most trivial
circumstances in his revisions. If Nan irritated him, he cut down her
legacy; when things went happily, he increased it. He was importuned
to make bequests to great numbers of institutions, by men and women he
knew well, and his attitude toward these changed frequently. There was
hardly a phase of the laws of descent that Thurston had not explained
to him.
A few days after her river excursion, the colored man-of-all-work
handed Nan an envelope that had dropped from Farley’s dressing-gown as
it hung on a clothes-line in the backyard for its periodical sunning.
The envelope was unsealed. In the upper left-hand corner was the name
and address of Thurston and in the center were four small crosses in
pencil. Nan thrust it into a bureau drawer, intending to restore it
to the dressing-gown pocket when she could do so without attracting
Farley’s attention.
Her eyes fell upon it that night as she was preparing for bed. She laid
it on her dressing-table and studied the queer little crosses as she
brushed her hair.
Copeland had complained of Farley’s hardness, and if Billy had told
the truth about the plight to which he had been reduced by Farley’s
refusal to renew the last notes for the purchase money, the complaint
was just. She crouched on a low stool before the table and gazed into
the reflection of her eyes.
She played idly with the envelope, resisting an impulse to open it
for a glance at the paper that crinkled in her fingers. She had been
very “good” lately, and to pry into affairs that Farley had sedulously
kept from her was repugnant to her better nature.... Farley’s abuse
of her on the day of the luncheon, and his rage over her payment of
the thousand dollars for the defense of her brother came back to her
vividly. He had threatened to make it impossible for Billy to profit by
marrying her.... She had a right to know what provision Farley meant
to make for her. If in the end he intended to throw her upon her own
resources or to provide for her in ways that curtailed her liberty,
there was every reason why she should prepare to meet the situation.
The paper slipped from the envelope and she pressed it open.
I, Timothy Farley, being of sound mind,--
She had never seen a will before, and the unfamiliar phraseology
fascinated her.
... in trust for my daughter, Nancy Corrigan Farley, for a period
of twenty years from my decease, or until the death of said Nancy
Corrigan Farley, should said death occur prior to the expiration
of said twenty years, the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. The
income from said sum shall be paid to the said Nancy Corrigan Farley
on the first day of each calendar month....
Two hundred thousand dollars he gave outright to the Boys’ Club
Association; fifty thousand to the Children’s Hospital; and ten
thousand each to five other charitable organizations....
One hundred thousand dollars in trust! An income of five or six
thousand--less than half the cost of maintaining the Farley
establishment, exclusive of her personal allowance for clothes! And
this was Farley’s idea of providing for her. She had always heard that
the act of adoption conferred all the rights inherent in a child of
the blood; it was inconceivable that Farley would deal in so miserly a
fashion with his own daughter.
The will was dated June 17, a week after the row over Copeland. She had
heard that Farley’s property approximated a million, and on that basis
she was to pay dearly for that day at the Country Club!
The trusteeship,--in itself an insult, an advertisement of Farley’s
lack of confidence in her,--was to continue for what might be all
the years of her life, restricting her freedom, fastening hateful
bonds upon her. In case she married and died leaving children, the
trusteeship was continued until they attained their majority. A paltry
hundred thousand, and Farley’s lean hand clutched even that!
Two hundred thousand for the Boys’ Club--just twice what he gave
her--and without restrictions! The Farleys’ love for her was now
reduced to exact figures. Her foster-father meant to humiliate her
in the eyes of the world by a niggardly bequest. And he had been
protesting his love for her and permitting her to sacrifice herself for
him!
The revelations of the will reinforced Copeland’s arraignment of Farley
as a harsh and vindictive man, who drove hard bargains and delighted in
vengeance.
She lay awake for hours, torturing herself into the belief that she was
the most abused of beings. Then her better nature asserted itself. She
reviewed the generosity and kindness of her foster-parents, who had
given her a place in the world to which she felt, humbly, that she was
not entitled. A hundred thousand dollars was more money than she had
any right to expect; and the trusteeship was only a part of Farley’s
kindness--a device for safeguarding and protecting her.
Then she flew to the other extreme. He had brought her up as his own
child, encouraging a belief that she would inherit his whole fortune,
and now he was cutting her off with something like a tenth and
contemptuously bidding her beg for alms at the door of a trust company!
She stared into the dark until the light crept through her blinds. Then
she slept until the nurse called her at eight.
“Mr. Farley’s waiting for you to have breakfast with him; how soon can
you be ready?”
“Isn’t he so well?” Nan asked quickly.
“Nothing unusual; but he seemed tired after his ride yesterday and had
a bad night.”
Nan, sitting up in bed, thrust her hand under her pillow and touched
the will guiltily.
“I suppose,” she said, as the nurse crossed to the windows and threw
up the shades, “that he may have a relapse at any time. The doctor
prepared me for that. Please order breakfast sent up and tell papa I’ll
be ready in five minutes.”
In her broodings of the night she had dramatized herself as confronting
him in all manner of situations, but she was reluctant to face him
now. She jumped out of bed, fortified herself for the day with a cold
shower, and presented herself to him in a flowered kimono as the maid
was laying the cloth on the stand by his bed.
“Well, Nan,” he said wearily, “I hope you had a better night than I
did.”
“Oh, I don’t need much sleep,” she answered. “Edison says we all sleep
too much, anyhow.”
“That’s a fool idea. The doctor’s got to give me the dope again if I
have another such night. I guess there wasn’t anything I didn’t think
of. Lyin’ awake is about as near hell as I care to go.”
The querulousness manifest in the worst period of his illness had
returned. He grumbled at the nurse’s arrangement of his pillows and
asked for a tray in bed, saying he didn’t feel equal to sitting at the
table.
“You sit there where I can look at you, Nan.”
She was aglow from her bath and showed no trace of her sleepless night.
It was pathetically evident that her presence brought him pleasure and
relief. He had been very happy of late, accepting fully her assurance
that everything was over between her and Copeland. Her recent social
activities and the fact that some of the “nice people” were showing a
renewed interest in her added to his satisfaction. He bade her talk as
he nibbled his toast and sipped his milk.
“I read the newspaper an hour ago clear through the births and deaths
and didn’t see anything very cheerful. You been followin’ that Reid
will case up at Cleveland? I guess you don’t read the papers much.
You never did; but you ought to keep posted. Well, that’s a mighty
interestin’ case. I guess the lawyers are goin’ to get all the money.
I knew old Reid, and he was as sane a man as ever lived. There ain’t
much use in a man tryin’ to make a will when they’re sure to tear it to
pieces.”
Nan looked at him quickly. It was possible that he had missed the will
and was speaking of wills in general as a prelude to pouncing upon her
with a question as to whether she had seen it. But he was not in a
belligerent humor. He went on to explain the legal points involved in
the Reid case.
“If a lot o’ rascally lawyers get hold o’ my property, I won’t just
turn over in my grave; I’ll keep revolvin’! Reid tried to fix things so
his children wouldn’t squander his money. His daughters married fools
and he wanted to try and protect ’em. And just for that they’ve had the
will set aside on the ground that Reid was crazy.”
Nan acquiesced in his view of this as an outrage. And she really
believed that it was, as Farley spoke of it.
“I sometimes wonder whether it ain’t better just to let things go,” he
continued. “I been over this will business with Thurston a thousand
times, and I’m never sure he knows what he’s talkin’ about. Wills made
by the best lawyers in the country seem to break down; there ain’t
nothin’ sure about it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry about that, papa. Mr. Thurston ought to know
about those things if anybody does.”
Ordinarily he would have combated this, as he combated most emphatic
statements; but his willingness to let it pass unchallenged convinced
her that there had been a sharp change for the worse in his condition.
It was the way of her contradictory nature to be moved to pity for him
in his weakness, and a wave of tenderness swept her. After all, if he
wished to cut her off with a hundred thousand dollars and give the rest
to charity he had a right to do it.
She took the tray from the bed, smoothed the covers and passed her cool
hand over his hot forehead.
“Please, papa,” she said, “don’t bother about business to-day. Miss
Rankin says it’s only a cold, but she’ll have to report it to the
doctor. I’m going to telephone him to drop in this morning.”
He demurred, but not with his usual venomous tirade against the whole
breed of doctors.
“All right, Nan,” he said, clinging to her hand. “And I wish you’d tell
Thurston to come in this afternoon. I want to talk to him about some
matters.”
“Well, we’ll see the doctor first, papa. We can have Mr. Thurston in
any time.”
She knelt impulsively beside the bed.
“I want you to know, papa, about wills and things like that, that
I don’t want you to bother about me. I hope we’re going to live on
together for long, long years. And anything you mean to do for me is
all right.”
She hardly knew herself as she said this. It was an involuntary
utterance; something she could not have imagined herself saying a few
hours earlier as she lay in bed hating him for his meanness.
“Well, dear, I want to do the right thing by you. It’s worried me a
lot, tryin’ to decide the best way. I don’t want to leave any trouble
behind me for you to settle. And I don’t want to do anything that’ll
make you think hard o’ me. I want to be sure you never come to want:
that’s what’s worried me. I want you to be happy and comfortable,
little girl.”
“I know you do, papa,” she replied. “But don’t bother about those
things now.”
The nurse came in to take his temperature. Nan went to her room for
the will and, feigning to be straightening some of the things in his
closet, she thrust the paper into the dressing-gown pocket.
An hour later the Kinney’s chauffeur left a note from Grace:--
Come out this afternoon at any hour you can. Telephone me where
to meet you downtown and I’ll bring you out in the car. I needn’t
explain why, but after Saturday you’ll understand.
The doctor found nothing alarming in Farley’s condition, but ordered
him to remain in bed for a few days. He said he must have sleep and
prescribed an opiate.
At three o’clock Nan left the house.