said May. ‘A man commits forgery only to benefit himself; and it is
quite impossible that the contents of this packet, whatever they are,
can have anything to do with Mr Langham.’
‘Improbable, child; not more than that; nothing is impossible.’
‘Then I went on with the book I was reading to her,’ said May, in
repeating the conversation to me; ‘but I don’t think she listened.
At least her eyes were twinkling all the time, though it was quite a
serious book, and in the middle of one very grave passage she laughed
aloud. I stopped in surprise, and then she asked me if I was sure that
I had described the seal correctly. I assured her that I had given your
description of it word for word, at which she laughed again, and said,
“Poor George.” I wonder if she meant Mr George Bowden; but I don’t see
what he had to do with the matter. Then she repeated her warning about
breaking seals, and bade me be sure to convey it to you.’
‘It is very considerate of Mrs Bowden,’ I said in some bewilderment;
‘but I cannot imagine why she should be so much interested in the
matter. Is she at all—queer?’
‘She is eccentric, certainly; but not in the least mad, if that is what
you mean. She has heart-disease, I believe; but her mind is all right,
indeed particularly acute.’
‘Why, it’s simple enough,’ interposed Gerald. ‘Mrs Bowden hasn’t an
amusement in the world except teasing her relatives, and she gets tired
of that sometimes. But now chance informs her of a curious accident;
and the little possibility of mystery and romance about it excites her,
just because her own life happens to be free from either. It’s as good
as a novel to her at present; but if the _dénouement_ doesn’t come on
quickly enough, she’ll lose interest in the matter, and soon forget all
about it. She cares merely for the sensation.’
But Mrs Bowden’s interest in the unclaimed packet and in its unwilling
possessor was curiously deep and persistent.
‘She asks far more questions about you than about Gerald,’ said May
to me one fortunate half-hour when her brother had left me to be her
escort to church. (Her employer managed very frequently to dispense
with her attendance on Sundays, and thus made the day one of tenfold
happiness to us.)
‘Then I hope you strain your conscience, and speak well of me in your
replies?’
‘I say just what I think of you,’ she answered very demurely.
‘And that is——?’ I asked.
‘That you are Gerald’s friend.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Is it not enough?’
‘No—not nearly enough. Do you not like me for my own sake as well as
for Gerald’s? It isn’t for his sake that I love you, May, and I shall
not be content till you care for me for myself, independently of
Gerald’s friendship.’
‘You want a great deal, Mr Langham,’ she said, keeping her eyes turned
away from me.
‘Do I want too much—more than you can give me?’—Silence for a few
moments.—‘Answer me, May. I must know the truth, whether it is good or
bad. Do I ask for more than you can give me?’
Another pause, a short one; then came the sweetest whisper I had ever
heard: ‘No;’ and I am afraid the vicar of St Barnabas had two very
inattentive listeners that evening.
What days of planning and projecting followed! We meant to be very
prudent and do nothing rashly. Marriage was impossible at present;
but some day, in two or three years, when my salary should reach the
princely sum of a hundred and fifty pounds a year, we would form
a little home, and Gerald would live with us. Meanwhile, the most
rigorous economy was to be observed; every penny saved brought that
little home a shade nearer.
Mrs Bowden soon found out what was meant by the tiny pearl ring on
May’s finger, and proved a most sympathetic confidant. ‘But I don’t
mean to alter my will in your favour, remember,’ she said to my darling
in her sharp abrupt way. ‘That would be too much bother; and besides,
my property will fall into the hands of a good man who will not fail to
provide for you.’
May thought of Mr George Bowden, and mentally doubted the accuracy of
this last statement. She made no remark, but Mrs Bowden guessed the
tenor of her thoughts.
‘You don’t agree with me, I see,’ she said; ‘but you’ll find out that
I have said too little of his care for you.—But you must not leave me,
child. I have grown to love you, and I shall not need your service
long.’
‘You don’t feel worse, I hope, dear Mrs Bowden?’
‘Worse or better, little May, as you choose to read the meaning of
the words, but assuredly not far from the end. And since it is so,
you will, I think, gratify a caprice of mine. I want to see your
lover. Ask him to come up some evening, and let me have a few minutes’
conversation with him.’
Of course I went. Gerald had occasionally gone to see his sister; but
hitherto I had had no right to cross the portal of Mrs Bowden’s house,
and I was not without some curiosity to see the amiable ogress who was
May’s mistress. My first impression was a confused one of having seen
her before—long ago, when she was younger and more gentle than now;
but I could in nowise affix either date or place to the memory. It was
vague, yet ineffaceable. Our conversation was eccentric to the point of
discourtesy.
‘You seem interested in my appearance,’ Mrs Bowden said after a very
curt greeting.
‘Your face is familiar to me,’ I replied; ‘I think I must have seen you
before.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ she returned in a tone that forbade further
assertion of the point.
After a pause, she said: ‘So you are going to make an imprudent
marriage, like your father.’
I fired up at this. ‘If I win as good a wife as my father did, I shall
consider myself guilty of no imprudence,’ I said.
‘You are young and foolish. Money is a good thing.’
‘Yes, but only one of many good things. If I can have the others, I’ll
dispense with it.’
‘You’ll find it difficult. If your father had not been so great a fool
as you, you would have been a rich man to-day.’
‘In that case, I might never have met May, so I’m better as I am.—But
tell me, madam, did you know my father?’
‘Yes, before you were born.—Don’t question me on the subject. I am
tired now; go away. I’ll see you again another time—perhaps—I don’t
know.’
I was at the door, when Mrs Bowden spoke to me again. ‘You have not
broken the seal of that packet, I hope?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t do so. It will be asked for some day, and it may be for your
profit that the seal is intact.—You may go now. You’re a good lad, and
I am pleased to think that you will be May’s husband.’
I felt strangely curious about the eccentric old lady, and hoped that
she would again command in her imperious fashion that I should visit
her. But it was not to be. Little more than a week had passed, when May
came to Gerald’s rooms, weeping, and with all her little possessions.
Mrs Bowden had been found dead in her bed that morning; and before
noon, Mr George Bowden, in his self-assumed capacity of executor, had
turned my poor little sweetheart out of the house.
I said some harsh things about this greedy and self-seeking man, and
gave expression to some unkindly wishes about his inheritance of his
sister-in-law’s property; but I did not guess what a strangely complete
punishment his rapacity was to receive.
Ten days had passed since Mrs Bowden’s death. May was domiciled in my
apartments, which I had vacated for her, and was trying to obtain daily
teaching. I was accompanying my hurried dinner at a City restaurant
by a yet more hurried study of the _Daily Telegraph_, when my eye was
caught by the following advertisement: ‘Lost, on the 24th of February,
by a gentleman since deceased, a sealed envelope containing the Will of
Mrs Anne Bowden, of Well Walk, Hampstead. Any one bringing the same, or
giving information by which it may be recovered, to Messrs Godding and
Son, Solicitors, Bedford Row, E.C., will be rewarded.’
For a moment I perceived nothing more than that the will of May’s Mrs
Bowden was missing; but immediately the conviction rushed upon me that
this which was advertised for was _my_ packet, the mysterious envelope,
the possession of which had for four months—it was now June—been so
irritating to me. Could it be possible that the two documents were
the same? and that Mrs Bowden had been aware all the time that it was
in my hands, yet had made no effort to regain possession of it, or to
restore it to her solicitor, who had originally been destined to keep
it till it was wanted? It seemed wholly unlikely; but the eccentricity
of the dead lady’s character made it not impossible; and if so strange
a coincidence really had happened, her oft repeated advice that I
should not break the seal received a new importance. I could not delay
investigating the matter. Instead of returning to the office of Messrs
Hamley and Green, I rushed off to my lodging in Camden Town, took the
packet from the desk in which it had been reposing so long, and hurried
off to Bedford Row.
Mr Godding was engaged when I reached his office, and I was put into an
anteroom to wait; but this was separated from the solicitor’s private
room only by a not wholly closed door, and the voices of him and his
client were raised to such loud altercation that I could not avoid
hearing their words.
‘I tell you that you are making an unnecessary fuss about this matter,’
said one. ‘I have every reason to believe that my sister-in-law meant
to leave her property to me; and in advertising for this missing will
and postponing my entrance into my inheritance, you are simply wasting
time, and, I have no doubt, lining your pockets with my money.’
‘Your last suggestion is too absurd to be annoying, sir,’ replied the
other, evidently the lawyer. ‘Mrs Bowden did not, you admit, definitely
state that you were to be her heir; she merely told you on the 24th
of last February that she had signed a will and intrusted it to my
father, who, as you know, was on that day seized with the illness which
terminated in his death. You say that she “gave you to understand” that
this will was in your favour. That is a phrase which may mean much or
little. May I ask what, in this case, it does mean?’
‘It means that she gave me the seal—my brother’s seal—with which she
had stamped the envelope containing the will, and said to me: “I wish
you to keep this as a means of verifying any document brought forward
after my death as my will. It will be genuine only if the impression
of this seal is stamped upon the envelope in red wax.” You see she
was very accurate in her phrases. This is the seal, attached to my
watchchain; I have never let it go out of my possession for a moment,
night or day, since it was given to me; and I consider Mrs Bowden’s
words to be conclusive evidence that I am her heir.’
‘No evidence at all, Mr Bowden, not even strong presumption. As,
however, this will is lost, my duty is plain—to make all possible
search for it; and if, after all needful expenditure of time and
trouble’ (‘And my money,’ came a growl from Mr Bowden), ‘it cannot
be found, to try to obtain a decree dividing the estate between the
nearest relatives of the deceased lady.’
‘Well, that’s me,’ cried Mr Bowden with ungrammatical emphasis.
‘Wait a moment. You are not a relative at all, only a connection by
marriage. The first step would be to look for heirs of Mrs Bowden’s own
family; and only failing the discovery of these could the property be
divided between the next of kin of the late Mr Bowden, who are—not you
alone—but you and your two sisters.’
Thereupon, the unhappy would-be inheritor gave vent to a despairing
ejaculation.
Mr Godding was beginning to expound the law of the question, and the
faint and expensive possibilities of obtaining a result favourable
to his client’s wishes by appeals to various courts; while Mr Bowden
soothed his ruffled nerves by a muttered indulgence in promiscuous
profanity, when it struck me that it was in my power to end the scene
by announcing my presence and my errand. I had listened first with
surprise, then with interest, lastly with amusement, and these emotions
had prevented my realising the influence I probably had over the
discussion that was going on within. Now, however, without waiting till
Mr Godding should think himself at leisure to receive me, I entered the
room. I easily guessed that the hot and irascible-looking little man
with the bald head was Mr George Bowden; while the quiet, young-looking
gentleman, sitting in true legal attitude with his elbows leaning on
the arms of his chair, and the tips of his fingers lightly pressed
together, was the solicitor, Mr Godding. Each looked up in annoyance
at my unexpected intrusion, but annoyance gave way to surprise and
satisfaction as I said: ‘I bring what I believe to be the will of Mrs
Anne Bowden.’
The sight of an elderly man excited, hopeful, and impatient, is
interesting and unusual. I had ample opportunity for observing the
spectacle as exemplified in Mr Bowden during the next few minutes.
Passing by his outstretched hand, I gave the packet to Mr Godding,
who examined the outside of it in leisurely fashion, while his client
gazed at him with staring eyes, standing first on one leg, then on the
other, and exhibiting a feverish anxiety that would not have disgraced
a schoolboy.
‘Yes, this seal seems to correspond with that said to be on Mrs
Bowden’s will,’ said the solicitor at last. ‘But as you have the seal
with you, Mr Bowden, perhaps you will be so kind as to let us have an
impression of it.’ And he lighted a taper, and pushed wax and paper
towards the little gentleman, whose trembling fingers could scarcely
detach the seal from his chain. The impression made proved to be
identical with that on the envelope—the old English letters H. L. B.,
the mailed hand grasping the dagger, the motto, ‘What I hold, I hold
fast,’ were unmistakably the same. Then, in reply to Mr Godding’s
questions, I briefly stated now it had come into my possession.
‘You are sure that it was on the 24th of February that you picked it
up?’
‘Quite sure,’ I replied, for I recalled that it was the birthday of
Gerald and May, and the day on which I had first seen my darling.
‘Your account of the manner of finding it exactly tallies with what we
know of the way in which it was lost. My father, having Mrs Bowden’s
newly signed will in his possession, went to his stockbroker’s, where
he heard some news about an investment in which he was interested,
that affected him greatly. That evening, I received a message stating
that he was at the London Hospital, and on going there, found him just
recovering consciousness after an apoplectic fit. I was told that he
had been brought there by a young man, who had seen him taken ill in
the street.—This tends, I think, Mr Bowden, to prove the identity of
this document brought by—you have not mentioned your name, sir—Langham,
you say—by Mr Langham with the will we are in search of.’
‘My dear Mr Godding, nobody but yourself ever doubted that,’ cried the
impatient Bowden. ‘Pray, make haste and open the will.’
‘Patience, Mr Bowden. For the sake of expectant legatees, who may
have less reason to be satisfied with the provisions of the will
than you expect to be, it may be well to set down every proof of its
authenticity.—So, Mr Langham, I must ask you a few questions about
yourself, in order to satisfy inquirers that the will has been found by
a truthful and honest man.’
Thus thwarted, Mr Bowden tried to expedite the settlement of affairs by
repeating my answers to Mr Godding’s questions, with critical comments.
‘Richard Langham, age twenty-four, clerk with Messrs Hamley and
Green—good firm, Hamley and Green—must get them to raise your
salary—took the late Mr Godding to the hospital—very Christian
action—brought the packet to the hospital next day; found the patient
removed, and could get no definite information about him; was told his
name was Collins or Cotton—Cotton very like Godding; kept the packet
unopened, that its authenticity might not be questioned if the owner
was found—quite right—always best to restrain curiosity—besetting sin
of youth; brought the packet here on seeing your advertisement—very
sensible and honest. And now, Mr Godding, for any sake, open the will!’
The little man’s voice rose to a scream of entreaty as he uttered the
last adjuration; but when the will was opened, there never were three
men more surprised at its provisions than were the solicitor, Mr George
Bowden, and myself.
Mr Godding looked over the will with that professional glance which
takes in immediately all that is of moment in a document, avoiding the
arabesques of legal phraseology, and then turning to me, asked: ‘What
was your father’s name?’
I began to share Mr Bowden’s impatience. It was quite incredible that
there was any necessity for stating my long-dead father’s name in order
to identify me as the finder of Mrs Bowden’s will. Nevertheless, I hid
my irritation, and answered quietly: ‘Richard Langham, like my own.’
‘And your mother’s maiden name?’
‘Marion Trench.’
‘Had your father any near relatives?’
‘A step-sister, Anne, about ten years older than himself.’
‘What became of her?’
‘I don’t know. About eight years ago, she married, and I have heard
nothing of her since.’
‘You don’t know the name of her husband?’
‘No.’
‘Well, it was Henry Leigh Bowden.’
‘What!’ The exclamation came not from me, but from Mr Bowden, who began
to suspect something sinister to his interests in the catechism I was
undergoing.
‘Yes, Henry Leigh Bowden,’ repeated the lawyer. ‘The deceased Mrs
Bowden, whose will you have been the means of restoring, was your aunt;
and it is to you that she has left the bulk of her property.’
It was the howl of a wild beast, rather than any human cry, that came
from George Bowden’s lips as he heard these words. ‘It’s a lie!’ he
cried, rushing forward, and snatching the will from Mr Godding’s
hands—‘a lie, a cheat, a plot, a swindle! The two of you are in league
to keep me out of my rights. The will is in my favour; it must be.’
But he was wrong. There, in as plain English as the law can use, was
the bequest by Mrs Bowden of all she might die possessed of to ‘her
nephew, Richard Langham, son of her brother Richard Langham, who in the
year 1850 married Marion Trench, and died at Lowborough in the year
1855.’ Mrs Bowden had made sure of the important dates in my father’s
history, that there might be no difficulty in identifying her legatee.
Once assured that his eyes were not playing him false, Mr Bowden began
to swear that the will was a forgery, of which I had been guilty in
order to secure Mrs Bowden’s money for myself. In vain I protested my
entire ignorance of the relationship between the dead lady and myself.
‘I don’t believe you are related; it’s all a fabrication. If you
put these names in the will, of course you knew what to reply to Mr
Godding’s questions.’
‘But,’ I exclaimed, ‘I couldn’t forge the impression of a seal which
you had in your possession all the time.’
‘Hang the seal!’ cried the little man. ‘What’s a seal? A seal isn’t
evidence. I swear that the thing’s a forgery, and I’ll contest it in
every court in the kingdom.’
‘But if you do,’ interposed Mr Godding, ‘and though you should
prove your case, you would not profit in the least. If this will is
a forgery, we must assume that Mrs Bowden died intestate, for any
disposition of her property she may have had drawn up would now, in all
probability, be destroyed. In that case, all she possessed will descend
to Mr Langham, as her next of kin.’
Mr Bowden glared from one to the other of us with the fiendish
impotence of a caged hyena. ‘You’re both in the plot,’ he snarled;
‘but I’ll fight it out. I’ll have justice, though it should cost me
my last penny; and I won’t grudge it, if only I see you both doing
penal servitude before I die. I hope I shall!’ With this benevolent
aspiration on his lips, Mr Bowden departed, leaving me alone with the
lawyer, and too bewildered by the occurrences of the last half-hour to
be elated by my sudden good fortune.
‘Do you think he will carry out his threat?’ I asked.
‘It is most unlikely. Twenty-four hours’ reflection will convince Mr
Bowden how unwise it would be for him to spend his own money without
the hope of getting anybody else’s. You may rely on being undisturbed
in your good fortune.—And now, let me say how glad I am to make the
acquaintance of the man for whose kindness to my poor father I have
always felt grateful, and express my hope that I may enjoy the
privilege of your friendship.’ Before my dull brain could furnish any
reply to Mr Godding’s words, he spoke again: ‘By-the-bye, there is in
the will, not a charge, but merely a recommendation that you should
make some adequate provision for a Miss May Atherton, whom Mrs Bowden
describes as her “beloved companion and adopted child.” I hope you have
no objection to doing so?’
I blushed like a school-girl as I explained how I had already proposed
to provide for Miss Atherton; and I think I may truthfully say that she
has hitherto—and several years have passed since my aunt’s death—been
satisfied with her share in Mrs Bowden’s property.
We live in the house at Hampstead, and often speak of the strange woman
who dwelt there before us, and to whom we owe the comforts of our life.
‘Her heart was kinder and her conscience more acute than she would
avow,’ May declares. ‘When she learned your history from me, Dick,
she determined to atone to you for what your parents had suffered,
and at the same time punish the Bowden family for their unscrupulous
fortune-hunting. I have no doubt she found a grim pleasure in knowing,
as she must have done, that her will was in your hands, ready to
descend like a thunderbolt on the heirs-expectant; and I think it was
this knowledge that made her so earnest in her insistence that you
should not open the envelope which contained it.’
‘I think,’ adds Gerald, who, though he has lately taken a wife and a
house of his own, is still emphatically one of us—‘I think the old lady
must have got a great deal of satisfaction out of the anticipation of
her brother-in-law’s disappointment. How she would have enjoyed being
present at that interview in Godding’s office! Well, let who will
grumble, we three have no cause to grieve over the contents of that
wandering document—the Will of Mrs Anne Bowden.’
THE MONTH: SCIENCE AND ARTS.
Near the village of Burgbrohl, on the Rhine, there is a cavity in the
ground which has for a long time yielded a copious supply of carbonic
acid gas. Apparatus has recently been erected close to this borehole by
which the gas can be compressed to the liquid state, and one hundred
and ten gallons of gas are so compressed into a pint and three-quarters
of liquid every minute. Iron bottles holding about eight times that
quantity are used for purposes of storage and transport.
It is reported that the Cowles Electric Smelting and Aluminium Company,
whose works are at Cleveland, Ohio, have declared their ability to
produce the valuable white metal known as aluminium at the price
of half-a-crown a pound. If this report be true, we may look for a
revolution in many branches of trade, for the metal is not alone useful
as it is, but is almost more important by reason of the valuable
alloys it forms with copper, &c. The Company reduce it from the ore by
means of a modification of the electric furnace invented some years
ago by the late Sir W. Siemens. It is probable that aluminium bronze
will replace steel for many purposes where great tensile strength is
required. The expense saved by substituting for steel, which has to be
welded and built up coil by coil, a metal for heavy ordnance which can
be simply cast and run into moulds, would be enormous.
The discovery of petroleum wells on the west coast of the Red Sea is
both interesting and full of promise for a country such as Egypt, whose
finances have for so long been in a deplorable condition. The yield of
oil is at present but insignificant when compared with the enormous
quantities which gush forth at Baku, and with the amount tapped from
the American wells. But there is every indication that the yield will
increase to a great deal more than two tons a day, the present output.
There is little doubt that petroleum will form the fuel of the future
for our steamships; and a station so near the great international
highway of Suez where that fuel can be readily obtained, cannot fail to
become a place of great importance. Already the oil is being used by
certain ships instead of coal.