Mr. Sturgeon had carried off the old will with him from Mr. Tredgold’s
bureau, the document drawn up in his own office in its long blue
envelope, with all its details rigorously correct. He put it into his
own bag, the bag which Bob Tredgold had carried. Bob’s name was not in
it; there were no gracious particulars of legacy or remembrance. Perhaps
the one which he fully expected to be produced to-morrow would be more
humane. And yet in the morning he took this document out again and read
it all over carefully. There were one or two pencil-marks on it on the
margin, as of things that were meant to be altered, but no change
whatever, no scribbling even of other wishes or changed intentions. The
cross in pencil opposite Stella’s name was the only indication of any
altered sentiment, and that, of course, was of no consequence and meant
nothing. The solicitor read it over and put it back again carefully. If
by any chance there was no other will to propound! But that was a thing
not to be contemplated. The old beast, he said to himself, was not
surely such an old beast as that.
Old Mr. Tredgold was buried on a bright October day, when everything
about was full of colour and sunshine. His own trees, the rare and
beautiful shrubs and foliage which had made his grounds a sight for
tourists, were all clad in gala robes, in tints of brown and yellow and
crimson, with feathery seedpods and fruit, hips and haws and golden
globes to protect the seed. As he was carried away from his own door a
gust of playful wind scattered over the blackness of the vehicle which
carried him a shower of those gay and fluttering leaves. If it had been
any fair creature one would have said it was Nature’s own tribute to
the dead, but in his case it looked more like a handful of coloured rags
thrown in mockery upon the vulgar hearse.
And it was a curious group which gathered round the grave. The rector,
stately in his white robes, with his measured tones, who had indeed sat
at this man’s board and drank his wine, but had never been admitted to
speak a word of spiritual admonition or consolation (if he had any to
speak), and who still entertained in his heart a grudge against the
other all wrapped in black, who stood alone, the only mourner, opposite
to him, with the grave between them. Even at that moment, and while he
read those solemn words, Mr. Stanley had half an eye for Katherine, half
a thought for her loneliness, which even now he felt she had deserved.
And behind her was the doctor, who had stood by her through every stage
of her father’s lingering illness, certainly taking no personal
vengeance on her--far, oh far from that!--yet never forgetting that she
had dismissed him amid circumstances that made the dismissal specially
bitter--encouraged him, drawn him on, led him to commit himself, and
then tossed him away. He had been very kind to Katherine; he had omitted
no one thing that the tenderest friend could have done, but he had never
forgotten nor forgiven her for what she had done to him. Both of these
men thought of her as perhaps triumphant in her good fortune, holding
much power in her hands, able to act as a Providence to her sister and
to others, really a great lady now so far as money goes. The feeling of
both in their different way was hostile to Katherine. They both had
something against her; they were angry at the position which it was now
expected she would attain. They were not sorry for her loneliness,
standing by that grave. Both of them were keenly aware that it was
almost impossible for her to entertain any deep grief for her father. If
she had, it would have softened them perhaps. But they did not know what
profound depression was in her mind, or if they had known they would
have both responded with a careless exclamation. Depression that would
last for a day! Sadness, the effect of the circumstances, which would
soon be shaken off in her triumph. They both expected Katherine to be
triumphant, though I cannot tell why. Perhaps they both wished to think
ill of her if they could now that she was out of their reach, though she
had always been out of their reach, as much six years ago as to-day.
The church, the churchyard, every inch of space, was full of people.
There is not very much to look at in Sliplin, and the great hearse with
its moving mass of flowers was as fine a sight as another. Flowers upon
that old curmudgeon, that old vile man with his money who had been of no
use to anyone! But there were flowers in plenty, as many as if he had
been beautiful like them. They were sent, it is to be supposed, to
please Katherine, and also from an instinctive tribute to the wealth
which gave him importance among his fellow-men, though if they could
have placed the sovereigns which these wreaths cost upon his coffin it
would have been a more appropriate offering. Sir John and Lady Jane sent
their carriage (that most remarkable of all expressions of sympathy) to
follow in the procession. That, too, was intended to please Katherine,
and the wreath out of their conservatory as a reminder that Stella was
to be provided for. Mr. Tredgold thus got a good deal of vicarious
honour in his last scene, and he would have liked it all had he been
there (as perhaps he was) to see. One thing, however, he would not have
liked would have been the apparition of Robert Tredgold, dressed for the
occasion in his brother’s clothes, and saying, “He was my brother. I’m
his only brother!” to whoever would listen. Bob was disappointed not to
give his niece his arm, to stand by her as chief mourner at the foot of
the grave.
They all went into the drawing-room when they returned to the house.
Katherine had no thought of business on that particular day, and her
father’s room was too cold and dreary, and full as of a presence
invisible, which was not a venerable presence. She shuddered at the idea
of entering it; and probably because she was alone, and had no one to
suggest it to her, the idea of a will to be read, or arrangements to be
settled, did not enter into her mind. She thought they were coming to
take leave of her when they all trooped into the gay, much-decorated
room, with its gilding and resplendent mirrors. The blinds had been
drawn up, and it was all as bright as the ruddy afternoon and the
blazing fire could make it. She sat down in her heavy veil and cloak and
turned to them, expecting the little farewell speeches, and vulgar
consolations, and shaking of hands. But Mr. Sturgeon, the solicitor,
drew his chair towards the round table of Florentine work set in gay
gilding, and pushed away from before him the books and nick-nacks with
which it was covered. His black bag had somehow found its way to him,
and he placed it as he spoke between his feet.
“I have had no opportunity all day of speaking to you, Miss Katherine,”
he said, “nor last night. You retired early, I think, and our search was
not very productive. You can tell me now, perhaps, what solicitor your
late father, our lamented friend, employed. He ought to have been here.”
“He engaged no solicitor that I know of,” she replied. “Indeed, I have
always thought you had his confidence--more than anyone----”
“I had,” said the solicitor. “I may say I had all his affairs in my
hands; but latterly I supposed---- There must surely be someone here.”
“No one that I know of,” said Katherine. “We can ask Harrison if you
like. He knew everything that went on.”
Here there uprose the voice of Bob Tredgold, who even at lunch had made
use of his opportunities.
“I want to have the will read,” he said; “must have the will read. It’s
a deal to me is that will. I’m not going to be hung up any more in
suspense.”
“Catch hold of this bag,” said the solicitor contemptuously, flinging it
to him. Mr. Sturgeon had extracted from it the long blue envelope which
he had found in Mr. Tredgold’s bureau--the envelope with his own stamp
on it. Mr. Turny fixed his eyes upon this at once. Those little round
eyes began to glisten, and his round bald head--the excitement of a
chance which meant money, something like the thrill of the gambler,
though the chance was not his, filled him with animation. Katherine sat
blank, looking on at a scene which she did not understand.
“Harrison, will you tell this gentleman whether my father”--she made a
little pause over the words--“saw any solicitor from Sliplin, or did any
business privately?”
“Within the last five or six years?” Mr. Sturgeon added.
“No solicitor, sir,” the man answered at once, but with a gleam in his
eyes which announced more to say.
“Go on, you have got something else in your mind. Let us hear what it
is, and with no delay.”
“Master, sir,” said Harrison thus adjured, “he said to me more than
once, ‘I’m a going to send for Sturgeon,’ he says. Beg your pardon, sir,
for naming you like that, short.”
“Go on--go on.”
“And then he never did it, sir,” the man said.
“That’s not the question. Had he any interview, to your knowledge, with
any solicitor here? Did he see anybody on business? Was there any
signing of documents? I suppose you must have known?”
“I know everything, sir, as master did. I got him up, sir, and I put him
to bed. There was never one in the house as did a thing for him but me.
Miss Katherine she can tell as I never neglected him; never was out of
the way when he wanted me; had no ’olidays, sir.” Harrison’s voice
quivered as he gave this catalogue of his own perfections, as if with
pure self-admiration and pity he might have broken down.
“It will be remembered in your favour,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “Now tell me
precisely what happened.”
“Nothing at all happened, sir,” Harrison said.
“What, nothing? You can swear to it? In all these five, six years,
nobody came from the village, town--whatever you call it--whom he
consulted with, who had any documents to be signed, nothing, nobody at
all?”
“Nothing!” said Harrison with solemnity, “nothing! I’ll take my Bible
oath; now and then there was a gentleman subscribing for some charity,
and there was the doctor every day or most every day, and as many times
as I could count on my fingers there would be some one calling, that
gentleman, sir,” he said suddenly, pointing to Mr. Turny, who looked up
alarmed as if accused of something, “as was staying in the house.”
“But no business, no papers signed?”
“Hadn’t you better speak to the doctor, Sturgeon? He knew more of him
than anyone.”
“Not more nor me, sir,” said Harrison firmly; “nobody went in or out of
master’s room that was unknown to me.”
“This is all very well,” said Bob Tredgold, “but it isn’t the will. I
don’t know what you’re driving at; but it’s the will as we want--my poor
brother’s daughter here, and me.”
“I think, Miss Katherine,” said the lawyer, “that I’d rather talk it
over with--with Mr. Turny, who is the other executor, and perhaps with
the doctor, who could tell us something of your father’s state of mind.”
“What does it all mean?” Katherine said.
“I’d rather talk it over first; there is a great deal of responsibility
on our shoulders, between myself and Mr. Turny, who is the other
executor. I am sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Katherine.”
“Oh, it is of no consequence,” Katherine said. “Shall I leave you here?
Nobody will interrupt you, and you can send for me if you want me again.
But perhaps you will not want me again?”
“Yes, I fear we shall want you.” The men stood aside while she went
away, her head bowed down under the weight of her veil. But Robert
Tredgold opposed her departure. He caught her by the cloak and held her
back. “Stop here,” he said, “stop here; if you don’t stop here none of
them will pay any attention to me.”
“You fool!” cried the lawyer, pushing him out of the way, “what have you
got to say to it? Take up your bag, and mind your business; the will is
nothing to you.”
“Don’t speak to him so,” cried Katherine. “You are all so well off and
he is poor. And never mind,” she said, touching for a moment with her
hand the arm of that unlovely swaying figure, “I will see that you are
provided for, whether it is in the will or not. Don’t have any fear.”
The lawyer followed her with his eyes, with a slight shrug of his
shoulders and shake of his head. Dr. Burnet met her at the door as she
went away.
“They have sent for me,” he said; “I don’t know why. Is there anything
wrong? Can I be of any use?”
“I know of nothing wrong. They want to consult you, but I don’t
understand on what subject. It is a pity they should think it’s
necessary to go on with their business to-day.”
“They have to go back to town,” he said.
“Yes, to be sure, I suppose that is the reason,” she answered, and with
a slight inclination of her head she walked away.
But no one spoke for a full minute after the doctor joined them; they
stood about in the much gilded, brightly decorated room, in the outer
portion outside that part which Katherine had separated for herself. Her
table, with its vase of flowers, her piano, the low chair in which she
usually sat, were just visible within the screen. The dark figures of
the men encumbered the foreground between the second fireplace and the
row of long windows opening to the ground. Mr. Sturgeon stood against
one of these in profile, looking more than ever like some strange bird,
with his projecting spectacles and long neck and straggling beard and
hair.
“You sent for me, I was told,” Dr. Burnet said.
“Ah, yes, yes.” Mr. Sturgeon turned round. He threw himself into one of
the gilded chairs. There could not have been a more inappropriate scene
for such an assembly. “We would like you to give us a little account of
your patient’s state, doctor,” he said, “if you will be so good. I don’t
mean technically, of course. I should like to know about the state of
his mind. Was he himself? Did he know what he was doing? Would you have
said he was able to take a clear view of his position, and to
understand his own intentions and how to carry them out?”
“Do you mean to ask me if Mr. Tredgold was in full possession of his
faculties? Perfectly, I should say, and almost to the last hour.”
“Did he ever confide in you as to his intentions for the future, Doctor?
I mean about his property, what he meant to do with it? A man often
tells his doctor things he will tell to no one else. He was very angry
with his daughter, the young lady who ran away, we know. He mentioned to
you, perhaps, that he meant to disinherit her--to leave everything to
her sister?”
“My poor brother,” cried Bob Tredgold, introducing himself to Dr. Burnet
with a wave of his hand, “I’m his only brother, sir--swore always as
he’d well provide for me.”
Dr. Burnet felt himself offended by the question; he had the instinctive
feeling so common in a man who moves in a limited local circle that all
his own affairs were perfectly known, and that the expectations he had
once formed, and the abrupt conclusion to which they had come, were
alluded to in this quite uncalled for examination.
“Mr. Tredgold never spoke to me of his private affairs,” he said
sharply. “I had nothing to do with his money or how he meant to leave
it. The question was one of no interest to me.”
“But, surely,” said the lawyer, “you must in the course of so long an
illness have heard him refer to it, make some remark on the subject--a
doctor often asks, if nothing more, whether the business affairs are all
in order, whether there might be something a man would wish to have
looked to.”
“Mr. Tredgold was a man of business, which I am not. He knew what was
necessary much better than I did. I never spoke to him on business
matters, nor he to me.”
There was another pause, and the two city men looked at each other while
Dr. Burnet buttoned up his coat significantly as a sign of departure. At
last Mr. Turny with his bald head shining said persuasively, “But, you
knew, he was very angry--with the girl who ran away.”
“I knew only what all the world knew,” said Dr. Burnet. “I am a very
busy man, I have very little time to spare. If that is all you have to
ask me, I must beg you to----”
“One minute,” said the solicitor, “the position is very serious. It is
very awkward for us to have no other member of the family, no one in
Miss Tredgold’s interest to talk it over with. I thought, perhaps, that
you, Dr. Burnet, being I presume, by this time, an old family friend as
well as----”
“I can’t pretend to any such distinction,” he said quickly with an angry
smile, for indeed although he never showed it, he had never forgiven
Katherine. Then it occurred to him, though a little late, that these
personal matters might as well be kept to himself. He added quickly, “I
have, of course, seen Miss Tredgold daily, for many years.”
“Well,” said Mr. Sturgeon, “that’s always something, as she has nobody
to stand by her, no relation, no husband--nothing but--what’s worse than
nothing,” he added with a contemptuous glance at Robert Tredgold, who
sat grasping his bag, and looking from one to another with curious and
bewildered eyes.
Dr. Burnet grew red, and buttoned up more tightly than ever the buttons
he had undone. “If I can be of any use to Miss Tredgold,” he said. “Is
there anything disagreeable before her--any prohibition--against helping
her sister?”
“Dr. Burnet,” said the solicitor imperiously, “we can find nothing among
Mr. Tredgold’s papers, and I have nothing, not an indication of his
wishes, except the will of eighteen hundred and seventy-one.”