A GREAT CHANGE OF PROSPECTS.
I SHUT myself up in the apartments prepared for me (they were not those
I had formerly occupied), and refused all participation in my solitude,
till, after an interval of some days, my mother came to summon me to the
opening of the will. She was more moved than I had expected. "It is a
pity," said she, as we descended the stairs, "that Aubrey is not here,
and that we should be so unacquainted with the exact place where he is
likely to be that I fear the letter I sent him may be long delayed, or,
indeed, altogether miscarry."
"Is not the Abbe here?" said I, listlessly.
"No!" answered my mother, "to be sure not."
"He has /been/ here," said I, greatly surprised. "I certainly saw him
on the day of my arrival."
"Impossible!" said my mother, in evident astonishment; and seeing that,
at all events, she was unacquainted with the circumstance, I said no
more.
The will was to be read in the little room where my uncle had been
accustomed to sit. I felt it as a sacrilege to his memory to choose
that spot for such an office, but I said nothing. Gerald and my mother,
the lawyer (a neighbouring attorney, named Oswald), and myself were the
only persons present. Mr. Oswald hemmed thrice, and broke the seal.
After a preliminary, strongly characteristic of the testator, he came to
the disposition of the estates. I had never once, since my poor uncle's
death, thought upon the chances of his will; indeed, knowing myself so
entirely his favourite, I could not, if I had thought upon them, have
entertained a doubt as to their result. What then was my astonishment
when, couched in terms of the strongest affection, the whole bulk of the
property was bequeathed to Gerald; to Aubrey the sum of forty, to myself
that of twenty thousand pounds (a capital considerably less than the
yearly income of my uncle's princely estates), was allotted. Then
followed a list of minor bequests,--to my mother an annuity of three
thousand a year, with the privilege of apartments in the house during
her life; to each of the servants legacies sufficient for independence;
to a few friends, and distant connections of the family, tokens of the
testator's remembrance,--even the horses to his carriage, and the dogs
that fed from his menials' table, were not forgotten, but were to be set
apart from work, and maintained in indolence during their remaining span
of life. The will was concluded: I could not believe my senses; not a
word was said as a reason for giving Gerald the priority.
I rose calmly enough. "Suffer me, Sir," said I to the lawyer, "to
satisfy my own eyes." Mr. Oswald bowed, and placed the will in my
hands. I glanced at Gerald as I took it: his countenance betrayed, or
feigned, an astonishment equal to my own. With a jealous, searching,
scrutinizing eye, I examined the words of the bequest; I examined
especially (for I suspected that the names must have been exchanged) the
place in which my name and Gerald's occurred. In vain: all was smooth
and fair to the eye, not a vestige of possible erasure or alteration was
visible. I looked next at the wording of the will: it was evidently my
uncle's; no one could have feigned or imitated the peculiar turn of his
expressions; and, above all, many parts of the will (the affectionate
and personal parts) were in his own handwriting.
"The date," said I, "is, I perceive, of very recent period; the will is
signed by two witnesses besides yourself. Who and where are they?"
"Robert Lister, the first signature, my clerk; he is since dead, Sir."
"Dead!" said I; "and the other witness, George Davis?"
"Is one of Sir William's tenants, and is below, Sir, in waiting."
"Let him come up," and a middle-sized, stout man, with a blunt, bold,
open countenance, was admitted.
"Did you witness this will?" said I.
"I did, your honour!"
"And this is your handwriting?" pointing to the scarcely legible scrawl.
"Yees, your honour," said the man, scratching his head, "I think it be;
they are my /ees/, and G, and D, sure enough."
"And do you know the purport of the will you signed?"
"Anan!"
"I mean, do you know to whom Sir William--stop, Mr. Oswald, suffer the
man to answer me--to whom Sir William left his property?"
"Noa, to be sure, Sir; the will was a woundy long one, and Maister
Oswald there told me it was no use to read it over to me, but merely to
sign, as a witness to Sir William's handwriting."
"Enough: you may retire;" and George Davis vanished.
"Mr. Oswald," said I, approaching the attorney, "I may wrong you, and if
so, I am sorry for it, but I suspect there has been foul practice in
this deed. I have reason to be convinced that Sir William Devereux
could never have made this devise. I give you warning, Sir, that I
shall bring the business immediately before a court of law, and that if
guilty--ay, tremble, Sir--of what I suspect, you will answer for this
deed at the foot of the gallows."
I turned to Gerald, who rose while I was yet speaking. Before I could
address him, he exclaimed, with evident and extreme agitation,
"You cannot, Morton,--you cannot--you dare not--insinuate that I, your
brother, have been base enough to forge, or to instigate the forgery of,
this will?"
Gerald's agitation made me still less doubtful of his guilt.
"The case, Sir," I answered coldly, "stands thus: my uncle could not
have made this will; it is a devise that must seem incredible to all who
knew aught of our domestic circumstances. Fraud has been practised, how
I know not; by whom I do know."
"Morton, Morton: this is insufferable; I cannot bear such charges, even
from a brother."
"Charges!--your conscience speaks, Sir,--not I; no one benefits by this
fraud but you: pardon me if I draw an inference from a fact."
So saying, I turned on my heel, and abruptly left the apartment. I
ascended the stairs which led to my own: there I found my servant
preparing the paraphernalia in which that very evening I was to attend
my uncle's funeral. I gave him, with a calm and collected voice, the
necessary instructions for following me to town immediately after that
event, and then I passed on to the room where the deceased lay in state.
The room was hung with black: the gorgeous pall, wrought with the proud
heraldry of our line, lay over the coffin; and by the lights which made,
in that old chamber, a more brilliant, yet more ghastly, day, sat the
hired watchers of the dead.
I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the coffin, I poured out
the last expressions of my grief. I rose, and was retiring once more to
my room, when I encountered Gerald.
"Morton," said he, "I own to you, I myself am astounded by my uncle's
will. I do not come to make you offers; you would not accept them: I do
not come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never been
as brothers, and we know not their language: but I /do/ come to demand
you to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented against
me, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticity
of the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will
join in the inquiries you institute and the expenses of the law."
I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thus
spoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora, the fraudulent robber
of my rights, and I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the
inquiries which were to convict himself of the basest, if not the
blackest, of human crimes; there was something too in the reserved and
yet insolent tone of his voice which, reminding me as it did of our long
aversion to each other, made my very blood creep with abhorrence. I
turned away, that I might not break my oath to Isora, for I felt
strongly tempted to do so; and said in as calm an accent as I could
command, "The case will, I trust, require no king's evidence; and, at
least, I will not be beholden to the man whom my reason condemns for any
assistance in bringing upon himself the ultimate condemnation of the
law."
Gerald looked at me sternly. "Were you not my brother," said he, in a
low tone, "I would, for a charge so dishonouring my fair name, strike
you dead at my feet."
"It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love," I rejoined, with a
scornful laugh, but an eye flashing with passions a thousand times more
fierce than scorn, "that prevents your adding that last favour to those
you have already bestowed on me."
Gerald, with a muttered curse, placed his hand upon his sword; my own
rapier was instantly half drawn, when, to save us from the great guilt
of mortal contest against each other, steps were heard, and a number of
the domestics charged with melancholy duties at the approaching rite,
were seen slowly sweeping in black robes along the opposite gallery.
Perhaps that interruption restored both of us to our senses, for we
said, almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same phrase, "This
way of terminating strife is not for us;" and, as Gerald spoke, he
turned slowly away, descended the staircase, and disappeared.
The funeral took place at night: a numerous procession of the tenants
and peasantry attended. My poor uncle! there was not a dry eye for
thee, but those of thine own kindred. Tall, stately, erect in the power
and majesty of his unrivalled form, stood Gerald, already assuming the
dignity and lordship which, to speak frankly, so well became him; my
mother's face was turned from me, but her attitude proclaimed her
utterly absorbed in prayer. As for myself, my heart seemed hardened: I
could not betray to the gaze of a hundred strangers the emotions which I
would have hidden from those whom I loved the most. Wrapped in my
cloak, with arms folded on my breast, and eyes bent to the ground, I
leaned against one of the pillars of the chapel, apart, and apparently
unmoved.
But when they were about to lower the body into the vault, a momentary
weakness came over me. I made an involuntary step forward, a single but
deep groan of anguish broke from me, and then, covering my face with my
mantle, I resumed my former attitude, and all was still. The rite was
over; in many and broken groups the spectators passed from the chapel:
some to speculate on the future lord, some to mourn over the late, and
all to return the next morning to their wonted business, and let the
glad sun teach them to forget the past, until for themselves the sun
should be no more, and the forgetfulness eternal.
The hour was so late that I relinquished my intention of leaving the
house that night; I ordered my horse to be in readiness at daybreak and
before I retired to rest I went to my mother's apartments: she received
me with more feeling than she had ever testified before.
"Believe me, Morton," said she, and she kissed my forehead; "believe me,
I can fully enter into the feelings which you must naturally experience
on an event so contrary to your expectations. I cannot conceal from you
how much I am surprised. Certainly Sir William never gave any of us
cause to suppose that he liked either of your brothers--Gerald less than
Aubrey--so much as yourself; nor, poor man, was he in other things at
all addicted to conceal his opinions."
"It is true, my mother," said I; "it is true. Have you not therefore
some suspicions of the authenticity of the will?"
"Suspicions!" cried my mother. "No!--impossible!--suspicions of whom?
You could not think Gerald so base, and who else had an interest in
deception? Besides, the signature is undoubtedly Sir William's
handwriting, and the will was regularly witnessed; suspicions,
Morton,--no, impossible! Reflect, too, how eccentric and humoursome
your uncle always was: suspicions!--no, impossible!"
"Such things have been, my mother, nor are they uncommon: men will
hazard their souls, ay, and what to some are more precious still, their
lives too, for the vile clay we call money. But enough of this now: the
Law,--that great arbiter,--that eater of the oyster, and divider of its
shells,--the Law will decide between us, and if against me, as I suppose
and fear the decision will be,--why, I must be a suitor to fortune
instead of her commander. Give me your blessing, my dearest mother: I
cannot stay longer in this house; to-morrow I leave you."
And my mother did bless me, and I fell upon her neck and clung to it.
"Ah!" thought I, "this blessing is almost worth my uncle's fortune."
I returned to my room; there I saw on the table the case of the sword
sent me by the French king. I had left it with my uncle, on my
departure to town, and it had been found among his effects and reclaimed
by me. I took out the sword, and drew it from the scabbard. "Come,"
said I, and I kindled with a melancholy yet a deep enthusiasm, as I
looked along the blade, "come, my bright friend, with thee through this
labyrinth which we call the world will I carve my way! Fairest and
speediest of earth's levellers, thou makest the path from the low valley
to the steep hill, and shapest the soldier's axe into the monarch's
sceptre! The laurel and the fasces, and the curule car, and the
emperor's purple,--what are these but thy playthings, alternately thy
scorn and thy reward! Founder of all empires, propagator of all creeds,
thou leddest the Gaul and the Goth, and the gods of Rome and Greece
crumbled upon their altars! Beneath thee the fires of the Gheber waved
pale, and on thy point the badge of the camel-driver blazed like a sun
over the startled East! Eternal arbiter, and unconquerable despot,
while the passions of mankind exist! Most solemn of hypocrites,
--circling blood with glory as with a halo; and consecrating
homicide and massacre with a hollow name, which the parched throat of
thy votary, in the battle and the agony, shouteth out with its last
breath! Star of all human destinies! I kneel before thee, and invoke
from thy bright astrology an omen and a smile."