For three years Annora reigned empress over her father’s heart, and then
he died--caught cold and died, after two days’ illness. He was a
strange, eccentric being, but he had been loved, and he was mourned. By
his servants bitterly, by his little daughter passionately, by his wife
as deeply as her nature could mourn for anything. She had looked forward
to living many years under his protection, and she wept when she found
herself unprotected. She was only three-and-twenty, and Annora was
little more than four years old. She wondered how they ever should
struggle through mortal life alone.
The news of the death of Mr. Smythe, while the child had chosen to live,
stirred Mr. Devereux into a storm of agitation. There was a pause of a
few days, and then the grand question, the will, was made known. It was
a very simple one. There were many small bequests to servants and
persons who now first appeared as dependent on his charity. There were
two or three large bequests to hospitals. There was a legacy of £25,000
to Henry Devereux at his mother’s death, the interest to be paid to her
during her life; and the whole of the rest of his property was left to
his daughter. It was left in the hands of guardians until she attained
the age of sixteen, and then was to be solely and absolutely at her own
disposal. His wife had been provided for in a settlement made after
their hurried marriage, and to her he only left a gold box, “as a mark
of gratitude for her constant obedience to his wishes.”
This was the will. It was dated six months before the day of his death.
Mr. Devereux was paralysed. His worst anticipations had never pictured
anything like this. He had made sure of a large legacy to Letitia. Those
rights which he had asserted so constantly seemed to secure this at the
least. It was a blow not only to his ingrained love of money, but a blow
to his daily life. He was not a hoarder. His love of money was not of
that nature. He wished to have it, and to increase it: he liked to give
his time and thought to it, making innumerable small speculations. He
wanted money for his life, for his increasing family; he wanted
money--money! He had made sure of it, and the prospect was suddenly
clouded. The promised riches had taken wings and flown away. His
original plan had been to dispute the will on the ground of his uncle’s
insanity at the time of his marriage. Annora’s birth had overset this
hope; for even though mad, there was the child with her rights as
nearest of kin. She was a fact which no one could gainsay. After the
first paralysing blow, however, this plan, somewhat modified, revived
again. There were new circumstances to deal with. It appeared that there
were several wills--wills made on different occasions for ten years
back, and they were not all as unfavourable to the rights of Letitia
Allen as the last.
Careful and methodical as Mr. Smythe had been in most things, he had not
been very careful of his wills. He would make a will, and have it
witnessed, and put it away, either in his own library or at his
lawyer’s office, and there it would remain undestroyed till a new will
came to bear it company. And these wills were seen by some of the young
men about the lawyer’s office, and so it was that the fact of the many
wills became known to Simon Devereux, and that he became possessed of
copies of some of them.
It would be tedious to detail all the provisions of these wills. Suffice
it to say that there were four wills before his marriage, in which,
although the sum greatly varied, and gradually decreased, Letitia was
liberally provided for. In the first of these wills the name of Mr.
Devereux was associated with that of his wife; in the others the eldest
son took the place of the father, who was mentioned no more. There was
another peculiarity in these wills, which was that the sum gradually
taken from Letitia was given to the payment of the National Debt.
A month after the marriage of Mr. Smythe there was a new will. Mrs.
Smythe was not mentioned. (He had already provided for her by purchasing
an annuity of a thousand a year. This he had done in the hopes of
securing her comfort, and protecting her from the burden of wealth, when
there were no brains to bear it.) To Letitia Devereux he left £30,000,
to her eldest son £50,000. The whole of the rest of his property, “in
the event of my death without a child,” was left to charities, or to the
payment of the National Debt.
During the four following years, however, it was evident that the
conduct of the Devereux family had affected the mind of Mr. Smythe
regarding them, and thence the reduction of the legacy in the last will
to the simple £25,000 left to Henry. It was not only the birth of his
child. The wills contained a kind of biographical notice of the feelings
of the great-uncle regarding his relations. In the scales of his just
mind they had been tried and found wanting.
It was after mastering all the wills, and noting all their
peculiarities, that Mr. Devereux at length determined on a course. He
rejected all the wills made before Mr. Smythe’s marriage, and took his
stand on the one made in the month of his marriage. The last will of all
he rejected on the ground of insanity. It was with a bitter pang that
the first wills were resigned, but while £25,000 was as nothing, £80,000
would be something to secure, and he saw his way to the securing of
this.
Shortly after the death of Mr. Smythe, therefore, notice was given that
the will would be disputed, and Mr. Devereux and his lawyers applied
their minds to make out the case. It is not necessary here to state the
case that was made out. It is enough to say that it was well done--that
the proofs of insanity were, to say the least, plausible. Many months
were consumed in working out the evidence, and then the trial came.
Mr. Devereux had an assistant, who helped him with a malignity almost
equal to his own. It was James Field, the young clerk, the haberdasher’s
apprentice, who conceived that he had been outwitted. He had evidence to
give regarding a variety of interviews that had taken place between him
and his late benefactor (for such Mr. Smythe had showed himself), and
there had been at all times sufficient eccentricity in the strange old
being for a malignant imagination to draw such a conclusion.
The ground, however, on which Mr. Devereux built his case was in proving
how, up to a certain moment, the old man’s thoughts had constantly
recurred to his niece, Letitia Allen; that as long, in fact, as he had
his senses, he had acknowledged her claims.
The mind of Mrs. Smythe was not strong, but it laid tenaciously hold of
impressions. The facts of the different wills were beyond her grasp; but
this one thing she understood, that Mr. Smythe had left everything to
his daughter, and that wicked people were trying to deprive her of her
fortune. That in any case Annora would be a great heiress, she did not
realize. She pictured wealth or penniless poverty, and she wept daily
over the horrible prospect.
Mrs. Ratcliffe shared her feelings on this point. She had the brains,
indeed, to distinguish, but not the will to do it. It was all or nothing
with her, and she was determined to stand to Annora’s rights to the
death. Her respect for her master prompted the same feeling. She was too
angry to weep over the attack on the will, but she shed many tears over
the insult to his memory occasioned by the trial.
And, to do her justice, her evidence to his sanity was very convincing.
She had all her wits about her, and spoke with such an air of calm
conviction that the impression made on the judge and jury was lasting
and strong.
The verdict was given in favour of Annora, and Mr. Devereux was
defeated.
The blow was again paralyzing, for he had made sure of a contrary
result. There remained to him nothing now but to wish for the death of
that child who stood between him and his rights; between him and his
hopes; between him and money. And having no remaining hope but this,
into this he cast the whole energy of his nature. To speculate on the
difference the snapping of one frail link would make to him and his,
became the sole subject of his unoccupied hours, and he pictured that
difference, pictured his condition under those desired circumstances so
vividly, that the conviction that the picture would be a reality became
the rooted and settled conviction of his brain. Meanwhile he allowed
himself a slight revenge.
Mrs. Smythe was much relieved by the favourable verdict. Unlike Mr.
Devereux, she had feared a contrary result. She had almost persuaded
herself that her poor husband was insane; would have been quite
persuaded of the fact had not Mrs. Ratcliffe so boldly stood to the
contrary. It was a relief in every way. It was a relief that Annora was
not to be a pauper, and it was a relief to be assured that she had not
married a madman. She had a short time of peace, and then a new trouble
began.
Mr. Devereux caused an idea to be planted in her mind, which became,
indeed, like a thorn in the flesh. It was this: that there was a
possibility of his stealing Annora, and making away with her. Not that
such a purpose ever crossed his mind. He was not boldly bad enough for
that. But it was a pleasure to him to murder her peace by this dread.
From the moment the suggestion was made, it took complete possession of
her mind; and though Mrs. Ratcliffe argued with her fears, she, too, had
a latent dread that Mr. Devereux might be capable even of this.
Her cousin the clerk cast his sting also into her weak mind. Among the
words of advice given by her dying husband had been, “Don’t marry James
Field, my dear;” and she had answered with eager protestations. But the
warning was not needed. Weak minds often have an instinct to warn them
who they may trust. It is but an instinct, and a clever man may overcome
it; but it is a help; and that instinct Mrs. Smythe had opposed to the
claims of her cousin. She disliked him as much as was in her nature, but
dreaded his marrying her still more.
Now, like Mr. Devereux, his suggestion was only a revenge. He wished to
torment, not to marry her. Her circumstances were different from what
they had been, and he was unwilling to connect himself with the mother
of a great heiress--one left to the guardianship of two honest,
quick-sighted men. He was as keen-sighted as ever to his own interests,
but these circumstances did not entice him. He made her, however, as
much afraid of being stolen herself, as she already feared the robbery
of her child; and the poor thing’s life was poisoned.
Mrs. Ratcliffe decided on removing into the country. To this her
mistress made some objection. She liked the society of doctors. It was a
pleasure to her to be visited by her physician, and to pour into his
great mind her small griefs. It was a still greater pleasure to show
Annora to her apothecary, and to be assured that the child was finer
than the rest of her species. On this score her objections to move from
the house where she had taken root were strong. In the end, however,
they were overruled, and a pretty house was taken in a distant county.
To this place they removed, and there the persecutors left them in
peace. Both were London men, and soon wearied of the objectless revenge.
After they had been a year or two in the country, the guardians wrote to
say that if Mrs. Smythe was looking out for a governess, which they
supposed was necessary for Annora, they had one to recommend.
Though injured by the suggestion, Mrs. Smythe acquiesced, and when a
young person arrived, submitted herself quietly to her guidance. The
young person did not approve of the solitude of the country, and soon
began to speak of masters. As London was out of the question, Mrs.
Smythe consented to the suggestion that they should go abroad; and they
went first to Brussels, then to different towns in Switzerland,
settling finally at Geneva when Annora was about thirteen.