DR. DAVENAL'S "FOLLY."
It was startling news to go forth to Hallingham--one of the nine days'
wonders read of in social history. Lady Oswald had bequeathed her
fortune to her physician, Dr. Davenal! Such things had been known
before in the world's experiences, but Hallingham made as much of the
fact as if that were the first time it had ever been enacted.
Upon none did the news fall with more complete astonishment than upon
the doctor himself. Lady Oswald had more than once in the past few
months mysteriously hinted to him that he would be rewarded some time
for his care and attention to her; and it must be supposed that she
had these hints in her mind when she said to Mr. Oswald Cray that "he"
(the named inheritor of her money) knew that he would be rewarded.
Upon Dr. Davenal the hints had never made any impression. Of a nature
the very reverse of covetous, simple-minded, single-hearted, it never
so much as crossed his imagination that she would be leaving her money
to _him_. He would have been the first to repudiate it; to point out
to her the injustice of the act.
It is surely not necessary to premise that you, my intelligent and
enlightened readers, cannot have fallen into the mistake made by Neal,
or drawn that respected domestic's very absurd, though perhaps to a
fanciful and prejudiced mind not unnatural deduction, that the
night-visit to Dr. Davenal had reference to Lady Oswald's death. Being
in the secret of who really did administer that fatal dose of
chloroform to Lady Oswald, you will not connect it with Dr. Davenal's
trouble. A heavy secret, involving disgrace, much misery, perhaps
ruin, had indeed fallen that night on Dr. Davenal, but it was entirely
unconnected with the death of Lady Oswald. The words which Neal had
heard--and he heard them correctly--would have borne to his mind
a very different interpretation had he been enabled to hear the
_whole_--what had preceded them and what followed them. But he did
not.
Yes, this unhappy secret, this great misfortune, had nothing to do
with Lady Oswald. Far from Dr. Davenal's having caused her to inhale
an extra dose of chloroform as an experiment, on the strength that it
might prove fatal, and so enable him to drop at once into that very
desirable legacy named in her will, and which supposition, I am sure
you will agree with me in thinking, belongs rather to the world of
idealic wonders than of real life, the doctor had not the faintest
suspicion that he should inherit a shilling. When the news was
conveyed to him he could not believe it to be true,--did not believe
it for some little time.
It was Mr. Wedderburn who carried it to him. When the lawyer's
business was over at Lady Oswald's, he proceeded to Dr. Davenal's, and
found him just come home from the consultation, to attend which he had
hurried away before the reading of the will. Mr. Wedderburn told him
the news.
"Left to me?" exclaimed the doctor. "Her money left to me! Nonsense!"
"It is indeed," affirmed Mr. Wedderburn. "After the legacies are paid
you take everything--you are residuary legatee."
"You are joking," said the doctor. "What have I to do with the money?
I have no right to it."
With some difficulty Dr. Davenal was convinced that he, and he alone,
was named the inheritor. It did not give him pleasure. Quite the
contrary; he saw in it only a good deal of trouble and law business,
which he much disliked at all times to engage in.
Richard Davenal was one of those thoroughly conscientious men--and
there are a few such in the world--who could not be content to enjoy
money to which another has more right. It was a creed of his--it is
not altogether an obsolete one--that money so enjoyed could not bring
pleasure in the spending, or good in the end. Lady Oswald had
legitimate relations, who had looked for the money, who needed the
money, needed it with a far deeper need than Dr. Davenal, and who
possessed a claim to it, so far as relationship could give it them.
Even as the conviction slowly arose to him that the news was true that
he had been made the inheritor, so there arose another conviction, or
rather a resolution, with it,--that he would never accept the money,
that it should go over to its legitimate owners, no matter what
trouble it involved. A resolution from which he never swerved.
Never. Not even in the moment when a tempter's voice arose within him,
whispering how well this legacy would serve to replace that great sum,
the savings of years, which he had been obliged to part with only that
very week. Partly to satisfy a debt of which until then he had known
nothing, had he parted with it; partly as hush-money, to keep down
that terrible secret whispered to him on the Sunday night. The thought
certainly did arise--that it almost seemed as if this money had been
sent to him to replace it; but he did not allow it to obtain weight.
It would have been simply impossible for Dr. Davenal to act against
his conscience.
"I shall refuse the legacy," he remarked to Mr. Wedderburn. "I have no
right to it."
"What did you say?" asked the lawyer, believing he did not properly
catch the words.
"I shall not accept this money. It is none of mine. It ought to be
none of mine. It must go to Lady Oswald's relatives."
"But it is yours, Dr. Davenal. It is bequeathed to you in the will."
"I don't care for the will. I should not care for ten wills, if I had
no right to the money they bequeathed me. I have no right to this, and
I will not touch a farthing of it."
Mr. Wedderburn's surprise could only expend itself in one long stare.
In all his lawyerly experience he had never come across an
announcement so savouring of chivalry. The legatees he had had the
pleasure of doing business with were only too eager to grasp their
good fortune, and if any little inconvenient pricks of conscience were
so ill-mannered as to arise, they were speedily despatched back again
by the very legal thought--If I do take it I but obey the will.
"There never was such a thing heard of as the refusing of a fortune
legally bequeathed," cried the lawyer.
"I daresay there has been, many a time. If not, this will be a
precedent."
"You'll be so laughed at," persisted Mr. Wedderburn. "You'll be set
down--I'm afraid people will be for setting you down as a lunatic."
"Let them," said the doctor. "They shan't confine me as one without my
own certificate. Mr. Wedderburn," he continued in a graver tone, "I am
serious in this refusal. I feel that I have no right whatever to this
money of Lady Oswald's. She has paid me liberally for my services----"
"If you only knew how many thousands inherit money daily who have no
right to it," interrupted Mr. Wedderburn.
"Doubtless they do. I was going to observe that it is not so much my
having no right to it, that would cause me to decline, as the fact
that others exist who have a right. I----"
"But the will gives you a right," interposed the lawyer, unable to get
over his surprise.
"A legal right, I am aware it does. But not a just one. No, I will not
accept this legacy."
"What will you do about it, then?"
The doctor was silent for a minute. "I should wish the money to be
appropriated just as though there had been no Dr. Davenal in
existence. You say this will was made but about six months ago. It
must have superseded another will, I presume?"
"It may be said that it superseded several," was the reply. "Lady
Oswald was constantly making wills. She had made some half-dozen
before this last one."
"And each one disposing of her property differently?" quickly asked
the doctor.
"Yea, or nearly so. Twice she bequeathed it to her nephews, the
Stephensons. Once it was left to Mr. Oswald Cray; once to charities;
once to Sir Philip Oswald. She has been exceedingly capricious."
"All the more reason why I should not take it now," warmly cried Dr.
Davenal. "She must have left it to me in a moment of caprice; and had
she lived a few months longer this will would have been revoked as the
rest have been. Mr. Wedderburn, were I capable of acting upon it, of
taking the money, I should lose all self-respect for ever. I could
not, as a responsible being, responsible to One who sees and judges
all I do, be guilty of so crying an injustice."
Mr. Wedderburn suppressed a shrug of the shoulders. He could only look
at these affairs with a lawyer's eye and a lawyer's reasoning. Dr.
Davenal resumed--
"What was the tenor of the will which this last one supersede? Do you
recollect?"
"Perfectly. We hold the draft of it still. It was as nearly as
possible a counterpart of the present one, excepting as relates to
your share in this and that of the brothers Stephenson. In that last
will they took your place. The furniture was bequeathed to them, as in
this, and also the bulk of the property."
"My name not being mentioned in it?"
"Yes, it was. The diamond ring bequeathed to you now was bequeathed
then. Nothing more to you."
"Then that's all right. Now, Mr. Wedderburn, listen to me. That
diamond ring I will accept with pleasure, as a reminiscence of my poor
friend and patient; but I will accept nothing else. Will you be so
kind as to destroy this last will, and let the other be acted upon? I
am scaring you, I see. If that cannot legally be done, I must let the
money come to me, but only in transit for the rightful owners, the
Reverend Mr. Stephenson and his brother, and I'll make them a present
of it. You will manage this for me. Being at home in law details, you
know of course what may and what may not be done. All I beg of you is
to effect this, carrying it out in the simplest manner, and in the
quickest possible time."
Mr. Wedderburn drew a long face. He had no more cause to wish the
money to go to Dr. Davenal than to the clergyman and his brother, but
it was altogether so unusual a mode of proceeding, would be so very
unprofessional a transaction, that he regarded it as an innovation
hardly to be tolerated, a sort of scandal on all recognised notions in
the legal world, of which Mr. Wedderburn himself was little better
than a machine.
"I cannot undertake it without your giving me instructions in writing,
Dr. Davenal," he said glumpily. "I'd not stir a peg in it without."
"You shall have them in full."
"Well, sir, you know best, but the time may come when your children
will not thank you for this. It is folly, Dr. Davenal, and nothing
less."
"I hope my children will never question any act of mine. I am doing
this for the best."
Nevertheless, as Dr. Davenal spoke, there was some pain in his tone.
The lawyer detected it, and thought he was coming round. He would not
speak immediately, but let the feeling work its way.
"It is a large sum to relinquish," the lawyer presently said; "to
throw out of one's hand as if it were so much worthless sand."
"What is the sum?--what has she left?" asked Dr. Davenal, the remark
reminding him that he was as yet in ignorance.
"I expect, when all the legacies and other expenses are paid, there
will be little over six thousand pounds. There ought to have been
double. Lady Oswald lost a large sum a few years ago, quite as much as
that. She put it into some prosperous-looking bubble, and it burst.
Women should never dabble in business. They are safe to get their
fingers burnt."
"Men have burnt theirs sometimes," was the answer of Dr. Davenal,
spoken significantly. "Six thousand pounds! I should have thought her
worth much more. Well, Mr. Wedderburn, you will carry out my
instructions."
"Of course, if you order me. Will you be so kind as to write those
instructions to me at your convenience, posting them from this town to
my house. I am going back home at once."
"Won't you see Mr. Stephenson and his brother first, and impart to
them the fact that I shall not take the money?"
"No," said the lawyer, "I want to go home by the next train. I wish,
Dr. Davenal, you would allow me to give you just one word of advice."
"You can give it me," said Dr. Davenal. "I don't promise to take it."
"It might be the better for you if you would," was the reply. "My
advice is, say nothing to the Stephensons, or to any one else, today.
This is a very strange resolution that you have expressed, and I beg
you to sleep upon it. A night's rest may serve to change your mind."
The lawyer departed. It was close upon the hour for Dr. Davenal to
receive his indoor patients, and he could not go out then. He went to
look for his daughter, and found her in the garden parlour with her
aunt. It was not often that Miss Bettina troubled that room--she had
been wont to tell Sara and Caroline that its litter set her teeth on
edge.
They began to talk to him of the funeral. It was natural they should
do so. In a country place these somewhat unusual occurrences of
everyday life are made much of. Miss Bettina was curious.
"Were the people from Thorndyke there?" she asked.
"Sir Philip and his eldest son."
"And Oswald Cray?"
"Of course. He came down on purpose."
"My goodness! And so they met! How did they behave, Richard?"
"Just as the rest of us behaved. Did you suppose they'd start a
quarrel?"
"I was sure of it. I knew they would never meet without starting one.
Nothing less could come of Oswald Cray's proud spirit and the manner
they have treated him."
"At sea as usual, Bettina. Do you think they'd quarrel _there?_--on
that solemn occasion? Oswald Cray and Sir Philip are proud enough,
both of them; but they are _gentlemen_--you forget that, Bettina. I
think Oswald Cray is about the least likely man to quarrel that I
know, whether with Sir Philip or with anybody else. Your proud man
washes his hands of people whom he despises; but he does not quarrel
with them."
How singularly true were the words in regard to Oswald Cray! It was as
though Dr. Davenal had worn in that moment the gift of prevision;
"Your proud man washes his hands of people whom he despises."
"And how is her money left?" continued Miss Bettina. "To the
Stephensons?"
"No, she has not made a just will. It is left to----to a stranger. A
stranger in blood."
"Indeed! To whom? I hope _you_ have been remembered with some little
token Richard?"
"To be sure I have been. You know those two splendid diamond rings of
hers: I have one, Oswald Cray the other. And that's all he has got, by
the way, except a silver coffee-pot, or so. Sara, come with me into
the garden, I wish to have a little chat with you."
"You have not told me who the stranger is," shrieked out Miss Bettina.
"I'll tell you by-and-by," called back the doctor.
"I did not think it likely she would leave anything to Oswald Cray,
papa," Sara remarked, as they paced the garden path.
"I think I should, had I been in her place. A matter of five hundred
pounds, or so, would have helped him on wonderfully. However, there
was no obligation, and it is a question whether Oswald would have
accepted it."
"You said it was not a just will, papa?"
"I could have gone further than that, Sara, and stigmatised it as a
very unjust one. Those poor Stephensons, who have been expecting this
money--who had a right to expect it--are cut off with a paltry fifty
pounds each and the furniture."
"O papa! And are they not very poor?"
"So poor, that I believe honestly they have not always bread to eat;
that is, what people, born as they were, designate as bread; proper
food. They carry the signs of it in their countenances."
"And for Lady Oswald to have left her money away from them! To whom
has she left it?"
"To one who has no right to it, who never expected it."
"I suppose you mean Sir Philip?"
"No, it is not left to him. But now, give me your opinion, Sara. Let
us for argument's sake put ourselves in the position of this fortunate
legatee. Suppose--suppose, my dear it were left to _you_: this money
to which you have no claim, no right--to which others have a claim,
how should you feel?"
"I should feel uncomfortable," replied Sara. "I should feel that I was
enriched at the expense of the Stephensons; I am sure that I should
feel almost as though I had committed a fraud. Papa," she added more
eagerly, the idea occurring to her, "I should like to give the money
back to them."
"That is the very argument I have been using myself. Wedderburn, Lady
Oswald's lawyer, has been here, talking of the matter, and I told
him that were I the man to whom it was left, I should give it back,
every shilling of it, to the channel where it ought at once to have
gone--the brothers Stephenson. Wedderburn did not agree with me: he
brought forward the argument that the man's children might reproach
him afterwards. What do you think?"
"I think, papa, that were I the man you speak of, I should act upon my
own judgment, and give it back without reference to the opinion of my
children."
"That is precisely what he has resolved to do. Sara, the money is left
to me."
Sara Davenal, taken completely by surprise, halted in her walk and
looked at the Doctor, not knowing how to believe him.
"It is true, Sara. I find I am the favoured legatee of Lady Oswald:
knowing at the same time that I have no more right to be so than have
those espalier rose-trees at your side. I have resolved to refuse the
money; to repudiate the will altogether, so far as my share in it
goes; and to suffer a previous will to be acted upon, which gives the
money to the Stephensons. I trust my children will not hereafter turn
round and reproach me."
"O papa!"
She spoke the words now almost reproachfully, in reproach that he
could ever think it.
"Yes, I shall do it, Sara. And yet," he added, his voice insensibly
sinking to a whisper, "I have heavy need for money just now, and the
help these thousands would be to me no one but myself knows."
Sara was silent. A shiver passed over her face at the allusion. She
did not dare reply to it. The subject was too painful; and, besides,
she was kept partially in the dark.
"But I cannot tamper with my conscience," resumed Dr. Davenal. "Were I
to take this money, it would only lie like a weight upon it for my
whole future life. I believe--and, Sara, I wish you to believe it and
treasure it as an assured truth--that money appropriated by ourselves,
which in point of right, of justice, belongs to others, _never_ comes
home to us with a blessing. However safely the law may give it us and
the world deem our claim to it legitimate, if we deprive others of it,
whose it is by every moral and--may I say it?--divine right, that
money will not bless us or our children. Sara, I speak this from the
experience of an observant life."
"I am sure you are right, papa," she murmured. "Do not keep this
money."
"I shall not. But, Sara,"--and Dr. Davenal stopped in his walk,
and his voice grew solemn in its tone as he laid his hand upon
her--"things have changed with me. I cannot now foresee the future. I
thought I was laying up a competency for my children; not a great one,
it is true, but one that would have kept them above the extreme frowns
of the world. This I have had to fling away--my hard-earned savings.
It may be that I shall now have to leave you, my cherished daughter,
to the world's mercy; perhaps--I know not--compelled to work for your
living in it. Should this come to pass, you will not cast back a
reflection on your dead father, and reproach him for a rejection of
these thousands."
The tears were streaming down her cheeks. Her pleading hand, her
loving look, was his first answer. "You could not keep the money,
papa. It would not be right in God's sight. Do not hesitate."
"I have not hesitated, Sara. My mind has been made up from the first.
But I preferred to speak to you."
Neal came forward to summon Dr. Davenal. His patients were waiting for
him. Sara turned to rejoin her aunt.
"You can tell her about this legacy to me, Sara; it will be the talk
of the town before the day's out. And explain to her why I decline
it."
The afternoon drew to its close. Dr. Davenal, engaged with a
succession of patients, scarcely noticed its elapse. A wish was
running through his mind to see Mr. Oswald Cray, and he hoped he would
be calling. When dinner-time came and he had not come, that note,
previously mentioned, was pencilled, and Neal despatched with it.
The man brought the message back in due course "Mr. Oswald Cray was
unable to call upon the doctor, as he was departing for London." Dr.
Davenal was disappointed; he had wished to explain to Oswald Cray his
intentions respecting the money; he considered it due to him, Oswald,
to do so.
How is it that there are times when an idea, without any apparent
cause to lead to it, any reason to justify it, takes sudden possession
of the mind? Even as Neal spoke, such an idea seated itself in Dr.
Davenal's. He fancied that Oswald Cray was in some way not pleased at
the disposition of Lady Oswald's property, as regarded Dr. Davenal;
was in a degree, more or less, resenting it. It only made the doctor
doubly desirous of seeing him.
But there was no chance of it at present, Oswald Cray having left
Hallingham. Dr. Davenal put on his hat and went out to take a walk as
far as Lady Oswald's.
He found the Rev. Mr. Stephenson alone. His brother had departed. The
clergyman received him somewhat awkwardly. He had been brooding over
his disappointment all by himself; had been thinking what a crying
wrong it was that the money should be left to the flourishing and
wealthy physician, Dr. Davenal, who put as many guineas into his
pocket daily as would keep him and his family in their humble way for
months. He was casting his anxious thoughts to the future, wondering
how his children were to be educated, foreseeing nothing but
embarrassment and struggle to the very end of his life; and I am not
sure that his heart at that moment towards that one man was not full
of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. Ministers of the
gospel are but human, swayed at times by evil passions, just as we
are.
But, being in this frame of mind, it a little confused the reverend
gentleman to see the object of his envy standing before him. Dr.
Davenal drew forward a seat.
"I daresay, Mr. Stephenson, if the truth were known, you were at this
very moment bestowing upon me plenty of hard names."
It was so exceedingly like what Mr. Stephenson had been doing, that
all the reply he could make was a confused stammer. Dr. Davenal, who,
for the interview, appeared to have put away from the surface his
hidden care, resumed in a frank, free tone--
"I have no right to the money, have I? It ought to have gone to you
and your brother?"
"Well, sir--perhaps you had been led to expect it by Lady Oswald," was
the clergyman's answer. Of a timid and refined nature, he could not,
to Dr. Davenal's face, express his sense of the wrong. With Dr.
Davenal before him, cordial and open, he began to think the wrong
less. That is, that it was not so much the doctor's fault as he had
been angrily deeming.
"No, she never led me to expect anything of the sort; and you cannot
be more surprised than I am at its being left to me," said the doctor.
"When Mr. Wedderburn came to me with the news, I could not believe
him. However, it appears to be the fact."
"Yes," meekly rejoined the clergyman; "it is."
"And I have now come to inform you, that I shall not take the money,
Mr. Stephenson. Not a stiver of it. The will, so far as it concerns
me, may be regarded as a dead letter, for all practical use. I have
desired Mr. Wedderburn to transfer the money to you and your brother;
and if this may not legally be, if I must, despite myself, accept the
money, I only take it to restore it to you. You will not be too proud
to accept it from me?"
Was he listening to fact?--or was he in a dream? The words, to the
minister's ear, did not savour of reality. His pale face grew moist
with emotion, his trembling hands entwined their thin fingers
together. He did not dare to ask, Was it real? lest the answer should
dissolve the spell, and prove it but illusion.
"I could not accept of this great sum to the prejudice of others who
have a right to it," resumed Dr. Davenal. "I should fear its proving
something like ill-gotten gains, that bring evil with them, instead of
good. The money shall be yours and your brother's, Mr. Stephenson,
just as surely as though it had been left to you by Lady Oswald. The
diamond ring I shall keep and value, but not a shilling of the money.
I thought I would come up and tell you this."
The tears were welling into that poor gentleman's eyes, as he rose and
clasped the hand of Dr. Davenal. "If you could see what I have
suffered; if you could only imagine the struggle life has been to me,
you would know what I feel at this moment. Heaven send its blessings
on your generosity!"
The doctor quitted him. He had found a heavy heart, he left a glad
one. He quitted him and went forth into the stillness of the autumn
night.
He glanced towards the bright stars as he walked along, thinking of
the future. And a prayer went up from his heart to the throne of
heaven--that, if it was God's will, his children might not feel
hereafter the sacrifice he had made--that God would bless them and be
merciful to them when he should be gone. The last few days had been
sufficient to teach Dr. Davenal, had he never known it before, in how
great need the apparently safest amongst us stand of this ever-loving
mercy.