Looking for the Will
The search was carried on up to nine o'clock that evening, and then
Mr Apjohn returned to Carmarthen, explaining that he would send out
two men to continue the work on the Tuesday, and that he would come
out again on the Wednesday to read whatever might then be regarded
as the old Squire's will,--the last prepared document if it could be
found, and the former one should the search have been unsuccessful.
"Of course," said he, in the presence of the two cousins, "my reading
the document will give it no force. Of those found, the last in date
will be good--until one later be found. It will be well, however,
that some steps should be taken, and nothing can be done till
the will has been read." Then he took his leave and went back to
Carmarthen.
Isabel had not shown herself during the whole of the afternoon. When
Mr Apjohn's explanation had been given, and the search commenced, she
retired and went to her own room. It was impossible for her to take a
part in the work that was being done, and almost equally impossible
for her to remain without seeming to take too lively an interest
in the proceeding. Every point of the affair was clear to her
imagination. It could not now be doubted by her that her uncle,
doubly actuated by the presence of the man he disliked and the
absence of her whom he so dearly loved, had found himself driven to
revoke the decision to which he had been brought. As she put it to
herself, his love had got the better of his conscience during the
weakness of his latter days. It was a pity,--a pity that it should
have been so! It was to be regretted that there should have been no
one near him to comfort him in the misery which had produced such
a lamentable result. A will, she thought, should be the outcome
of a man's strength, and not of his weakness. Having obeyed his
conscience, he should have clung to his conscience. But all that
could not affect what had been done. It seemed to be certain to her
that this other will had been made and executed. Even though it
should have been irregularly executed so as to be null and void,
still it must for a time at least have had an existence. Where was it
now? Having these thoughts in her mind, it was impossible for her to
go about the house among those who were searching. It was impossible
for her to encounter the tremulous misery of her cousin. That he
should shiver and shake and be covered with beads of perspiration
during a period of such intense perturbation did not seem to her to
be unnatural. It was not his fault that he had not been endowed with
especial manliness. She disliked him in his cowardice almost more
than before; but she would not on that account allow herself to
suspect him of a crime.
Mr Apjohn, just before he went, had an interview with her in her own
room.
"I cannot go without a word," he said, "but its only purport will be
to tell you that I cannot as yet express any decided opinion in this
matter."
"Do not suppose, Mr Apjohn, that I am anxious for another will," she
said.
"I am;--but that has nothing to do with it. That he did make a will,
and have it witnessed by these two Cantors, is, I think, certain.
That he should afterwards have destroyed the will without telling the
witnesses, who would be sure hereafter to think and talk of what they
had done, seems to be most unlike the thoughtful consideration of
your uncle. But his weakness increased upon him very quickly just at
that time. Dr Powell thinks that he was certainly competent on that
day to make a will, but he thinks also he may have destroyed it a day
or two afterwards when his mind was hardly strong enough to enable
him to judge of what he was doing. If, at last, this new will shall
not be forthcoming, I think we must be bound to interpret the matter
in that way. I tell you this before I go in order that it may assist
you perhaps a little in forming your own opinion." Then he went.
It was impossible but that she should bethink herself at that moment
that she knew more than either Dr Powell or Mr Apjohn. The last
expression of the old man's thoughts upon that or upon any matter had
been made to herself. The last words that he had uttered had been
whispered into her ears; "It is all right. It is done." Let the light
of his failing intellect have been ever so dim, let his strength
have faded from him ever so completely, he would not have whispered
these words had he himself destroyed that last document. Mr Apjohn
had spoken of the opinion which she was to form, and she felt how
impossible to her it would be not to have an opinion in the matter.
She could not keep her mind vacant even if she would. Mr Apjohn had
said that, if the will were not found, he should think that the
Squire had in his weakness again changed his mind and destroyed it.
She was sure that this was not so. She, and she alone, had heard
those last words. Was it or was it not her duty to tell Mr Apjohn
that such words had been uttered? Had they referred to the interest
of any one but herself, of course it would have been her duty. But
now,--now she doubted. She did not choose to seem even to put forth a
claim on her own account. And of what use would be any revelation as
to the uttering of these words? They would be accepted in no court
of law as evidence in one direction or another. Upon the whole, she
thought she would keep her peace regarding them, even to Mr Apjohn.
If it was to be that her cousin should live there as squire and owner
of Llanfeare, why should she seek to damage his character by calling
in question the will under which he would inherit the property? Thus
she determined that she would speak of her uncle's last words to no
one.
But what must be her opinion as to the whole transaction? At the
present moment she felt herself bound to think that this missing
document would be found. That to her seemed to be the only solution
which would not be terrible to contemplate. That other solution,--of
the destruction of the will by her uncle's own hands,--she altogether
repudiated. If it were not found, then--! What then? Would it not
then be evident that some fraud was being perpetrated? And if so, by
whom? As these thoughts forced themselves upon her mind, she could
not but think of that pallid face, those shaking hands, and the great
drops of sweat which from time to time had forced themselves on
to the man's brow. It was natural that he should suffer. It was
natural that he should be perturbed under the consciousness of the
hostile feeling of all those around him. But yet there had hardly
been occasion for all those signs of fear which she had found it
impossible not to notice as she had sat there in the parlour while Mr
Apjohn was explaining the circumstances of the two wills. Would an
innocent man have trembled like that because the circumstances around
him were difficult? Could anything but guilt have betrayed itself by
such emotions? And then, had the will in truth been made away with
by human hands, what other hands could have done it? Who else was
interested? Who else was there at Llanfeare not interested in the
preservation of a will which would have left the property to her? She
did not begrudge him the estate. She had acknowledged the strength of
the reasons which had induced the Squire to name him as heir; but she
declared to herself that, if that latter document were not found, a
deed of hideous darkness would have been perpetrated by him. With
these thoughts disturbing her breast she lay awake during the long
hours of the night.
When Mr Apjohn had taken his departure, and the servants had gone to
their beds, the butler having barred and double-barred the door after
his usual manner, Cousin Henry still sat alone in the book-room.
After answering those questions from Mr Apjohn, he had spoken to no
one, but still sat alone with a single candle burning on the table
by his elbow. The butler had gone to him twice, asking him whether
he wanted anything, and suggesting to him that he had better go to
his bed. But the heir, if he was the heir, had only resented the
intrusion, desiring that he might be left alone. Then he was left
alone, and there he sat.
His mind at this moment was tormented grievously within him. There
was a something which he might do, and a something which he might not
do, if he could only make up his mind. "Honesty is the best policy!"
"Honesty is the best policy!" He repeated the well-known words to
himself a thousand times, without, however, moving his lips or
forming a sound. There he sat, thinking it all out, trying to think
it out. There he sat, still trembling, still in an agony, for hour
after hour. At one time he had fully resolved to do that by which he
would have proved to himself his conviction that honesty is the best
policy, and then he sat doubting again--declaring to himself that
honesty itself did not require him to do this meditated deed. "Let
them find it," he said to himself at last, aloud. "Let them find it.
It is their business: not mine." But still he sat looking up at the
row of books opposite to him.
When it was considerably after midnight, he got up from his chair and
began to walk the room. As he did so, he wiped his brow continually
as though he were hot with the exertion, but keeping his eye still
fixed upon the books. He was urging himself, pressing upon himself
the expression of that honesty. Then at last he rushed at one of the
shelves, and, picking out a volume of Jeremy Taylor's works, threw it
upon the table. It was the volume on which the old Squire had been
engaged when he read the last sermon which was to prepare him for a
flight to a better world. He opened the book, and there between the
leaves was the last will and testament which his uncle had executed.
At that moment he heard a step in the hall and a hand on the door,
and as he did so with quick eager motion he hid the document under
the book.
"It is near two o'clock, Mr Henry," said the butler. "What are you
doing up so late?"
"I am only reading," said the heir.
"It is very late to be reading. You had better go to bed. He never
liked people to be a-reading at these contrairy hours. He liked folk
to be all a-bed."
The use of a dead man's authority, employed against him by one who
was, so to say, his own servant, struck even him as absurd and
improper. He felt that he must assert himself unless he meant to sink
lower and lower in the estimation of all those around him. "I shall
stay just as late as I please," he said. "Go away, and do not disturb
me any more."
"His will ought to be obeyed, and he not twenty-four hours under the
ground," said the butler.
"I should have stayed up just as long as I had pleased even had he
been here," said Cousin Henry. Then the man with a murmur took his
departure and closed the door after him.
For some minutes Cousin Henry sat perfectly motionless, and then he
got up very softly, very silently, and tried the door. It was closed,
and it was the only door leading into the room. And the windows
were barred with shutters. He looked round and satisfied himself
that certainly no other eye was there but his own. Then he took the
document up from its hiding-place, placed it again exactly between
the leaves which had before enclosed it, and carefully restored the
book to its place on the shelf.
He had not hidden the will. He had not thus kept it away from
the eyes of all those concerned. He had opened no drawer. He had
extracted nothing, had concealed nothing. He had merely carried the
book from his uncle's table where he had found it, and, in restoring
it to its place on the shelves, had found the paper which it
contained. So he told himself now, and so he had told himself a
thousand times. Was it his duty to produce the evidence of a gross
injustice against himself? Who could doubt the injustice who knew
that he had been summoned thither from London to take his place at
Llanfeare as heir to the property? Would not the ill done against him
be much greater than any he would do were he to leave the paper there
where he had chanced to find it?
In no moment had it seemed to him that he himself had sinned in the
matter, till Mr Apjohn had asked him whether his uncle had told him
of this new will. Then he had lied. His uncle had told him of his
intention before the will was executed, and had told him again,
when the Cantors had gone, that the thing was done. The old man
had expressed a thousand regrets, but the young one had remained
impassive, sullen, crushed with a feeling of the injury done to him,
but still silent. He had not dared to remonstrate, and had found
himself unable to complain of the injustice.
There it was in his power. He was quite awake to the strength of his
own position,--but also to its weakness. Should he resolve to leave
the document enclosed within the cover of the book, no one could
accuse him of dishonesty. He had not placed it there. He had not
hidden it. He had done nothing. The confusion occasioned by the
absence of the will would have been due to the carelessness of a
worn-out old man who had reached the time of life in which he was
unfit to execute such a deed. It seemed to him that all justice, all
honesty, all sense of right and wrong, would be best served by the
everlasting concealment of such a document. Why should he tell of its
hiding-place? Let them who wanted it search for it, and find it if
they could. Was he not doing much in the cause of honesty in that he
did not destroy it, as would be so easy for him?
But, if left there, would it not certainly be found? Though it should
remain week after week, month after month,--even should it remain
year after year, would it not certainly be found at last, and brought
out to prove that Llanfeare was not his own? Of what use to him would
be the property,--of what service;--how would it contribute to his
happiness or his welfare, knowing, as he would know, that a casual
accident, almost sure to happen sooner or later, might rob him of it
for ever? His imagination was strong enough to depict the misery to
him which such a state of things would produce. How he would quiver
when any stray visitor might enter the room! How terrified he would
be at the chance assiduity of a housemaid! How should he act if the
religious instincts of some future wife should teach her to follow
out that reading which his uncle had cultivated?
He had more than once resolved that he would be mad were he to leave
the document where he found it. He must make it known to those who
were searching for it,--or he must destroy it. His common sense
told him that one alternative or the other must be chosen. He could
certainly destroy it, and no one would be the wiser. He could reduce
it, in the solitude of his chamber, into almost impalpable ashes, and
then swallow them. He felt that, let suspicion come as it might into
the minds of men, let Apjohn, and Powell, and the farmers--let Isabel
herself--think what they might, no one would dare to accuse him of
such a deed. Let them accuse him as they might, there would be no
tittle of evidence against him.
But he could not do it. The more he thought of it, the more he had to
acknowledge that he was incapable of executing such a deed. To burn
the morsel of paper;--oh, how easy! But yet he knew that his hands
would refuse to employ themselves on such a work. He had already
given it up in despair; and, having told himself that it was
impossible, had resolved to extricate the document and, calling
Isabel up from her bed in the middle of the night, to hand it over to
her at once. It would have been easy to say he had opened one book
after another, and it would, he thought, be a deed grand to do. Then
he had been interrupted, and insulted by the butler, and in his anger
he had determined that the paper should rest there yet another day.