THE WILL.
The next day, or rather the next evening, Sir Miles St. John was seated
before his unshared chicken,--seated alone, and vaguely surprised at
himself, in a large, comfortable room in his old hotel, Hanover Square.
Yes, he had escaped. Hast thou, O Reader, tasted the luxury of escape
from a home where the charm is broken,--where Distrust looks askant from
the Lares? In vain had Dalibard remonstrated, conjured up dangers, and
asked at least to accompany him. Excepting his dogs and his old valet,
who was too like a dog in his fond fidelity to rank amongst bipeds, Sir
Miles did not wish to have about him a single face familiar at Laughton,
Dalibard especially. Lucretia's letter had hinted at plans and designs
in Dalibard. It might be unjust, it might be ungrateful; but he grew
sick at the thought that he was the centre-stone of stratagems and plots.
The smooth face of the Provencal took a wily expression in his eyes; nay,
he thought his very footmen watched his steps as if to count how long
before they followed his bier. So, breaking from all roughly, with a
shake of his head and a laconic assertion of business in London, he got
into his carriage,--his own old bachelor's lumbering travelling-
carriage,--and bade the post-boys drive fast, fast! Then, when he felt
alone,--quite alone,--and the gates of the lodge swung behind him, he
rubbed his hands with a schoolboy's glee, and chuckled aloud, as if he
enjoyed, not only the sense, but the fun of his safety; as if he had done
something prodigiously cunning and clever.
So when he saw himself snug in his old, well-remembered hotel, in the
same room as of yore, when returned, brisk and gay, from the breezes of
Weymouth or the brouillards of Paris, he thought he shook hands again
with his youth. Age and lameness, apoplexy and treason, all were
forgotten for the moment. And when, as the excitement died, those grim
spectres came back again to his thoughts, they found their victim braced
and prepared, standing erect on that hearth for whose hospitality he paid
his guinea a day,--his front proud and defying. He felt yet that he had
fortune and power, that a movement of his hand could raise and strike
down, that at the verge of the tomb he was armed, to punish or reward,
with the balance and the sword. Tripped in the smug waiter, and
announced "Mr. Parchmount."
"Set a chair, and show him in." The lawyer entered.
"My dear Sir Miles, this is indeed a surprise! What has brought you to
town?"
"The common whim of the old, sir. I would alter my will."
Three days did lawyer and client devote to the task; for Sir Miles was
minute, and Mr. Parchmount was precise, and little difficulties arose,
and changes in the first outline were made, and Sir Miles, from the very
depth of his disgust, desired not to act only from passion. In that last
deed of his life, the old man was sublime. He sought to rise out of the
mortal, fix his eyes on the Great Judge, weigh circumstances and excuses,
and keep justice even and serene.
Meanwhile, unconscious of the train laid afar, Lucretia reposed on the
mine,--reposed, indeed, is not the word; for she was agitated and
restless that Mainwaring had not obeyed her summons. She wrote to him
again from Southampton the third day of her arrival; but before his
answer came she received this short epistle from London:--
"Mr. Parchmount presents his compliments to Miss Clavering, and, by
desire of Sir Miles St. John, requests her not to return to Laughton.
Miss Clavering will hear further in a few days, when Sir Miles has
concluded the business that has brought him to London."
This letter, if it excited much curiosity, did not produce alarm. It was
natural that Sir Miles should be busy in winding up his affairs; his
journey to London for that purpose was no ill omen to her prospects, and
her thoughts flew back to the one subject that tyrannized over them.
Mainwaring's reply, which came two days afterwards, disquieted her much
more. He had not found the letter she had left for him in the tree. He
was full of apprehensions; he condemned the imprudence of calling on her
at Mr. Fielden's; he begged her to renounce the idea of such a risk. He
would return again to Guy's Oak and search more narrowly: had she changed
the spot where the former letters were placed? Yet now, not even the
non-receipt of her letter, which she ascribed to the care with which she
had concealed it amidst the dry leaves and moss, disturbed her so much as
the evident constraint with which Mainwaring wrote,--the cautious and
lukewarm remonstrance which answered her passionate appeal. It may be
that her very doubts, at times, of Mainwaring's affection had increased
the ardour of her own attachment; for in some natures the excitement of
fear deepens love more than the calmness of trust. Now with the doubt for
the first time flashed the resentment, and her answer to Mainwaring was
vehement and imperious. But the next day came a messenger express from
London, with a letter from Mr. Parchmount that arrested for the moment
even the fierce current of love.
When the task had been completed,--the will signed, sealed, and
delivered,--the old man had felt a load lifted from his heart. Three or
four of his old friends, bons vivants like himself, had seen his arrival
duly proclaimed in the newspapers, and had hastened to welcome him.
Warmed by the genial sight of faces associated with the frank joys of his
youth, Sir Miles, if he did not forget the prudent counsels of Dalibard,
conceived a proud bitterness of joy in despising them. Why take such
care of the worn-out carcass? His will was made. What was left to life
so peculiarly attractive? He invited his friends to a feast worthy of
old. Seasoned revellers were they, with a free gout for a vent to all
indulgence. So they came; and they drank, and they laughed, and they
talked back their young days. They saw not the nervous irritation, the
strain on the spirits, the heated membrane of the brain, which made Sir
Miles the most jovial of all. It was a night of nights; the old fellows
were lifted back into their chariots or sedans. Sir Miles alone seemed
as steady and sober as if he had supped with Diogenes. His servant,
whose respectful admonitions had been awed into silence, lent him his arm
to bed, but Sir Miles scarcely touched it. The next morning, when the
servant (who slept in the same room) awoke, to his surprise the glare of
a candle streamed on his eyes. He rubbed them: could he see right? Sir
Miles was seated at the table; he must have got up and lighted a candle
to write,--noiselessly, indeed. The servant looked and looked, and the
stillness of Sir Miles awed him: he was seated on an armchair, leaning
back. As awe succeeded to suspicion, he sprang up, approached his
master, took his hand: it was cold, and fell heavily from his clasp. Sir
Miles must have been dead for hours.
The pen lay on the ground, where it had dropped from the hand; the letter
on the table was scarcely commenced: the words ran thus,--
"LUCRETIA,--You will return no more to my house. You are free as if I
were dead; but I shall be just. Would that I had been so to your mother,
to your sister! But I am old now, as you say, and--"
To one who could have seen into that poor proud heart at the moment the
hand paused forever, what remained unwritten would have been clear.
There was, first, the sharp struggle to conquer loathing repugnance, and
address at all the false and degraded one; then came the sharp sting of
ingratitude; then the idea of the life grudged and the grave desired;
then the stout victory over scorn, the resolution to be just; then the
reproach of the conscience that for so far less an offence the sister had
been thrown aside, the comfort, perhaps, found in her gentle and
neglected child obstinately repelled; then the conviction of all earthly
vanity and nothingness,--the look on into life, with the chilling
sentiment that affection was gone, that he could never trust again, that
he was too old to open his arms to new ties; and then, before felt
singly, all these thoughts united, and snapped the cord.
In announcing his mournful intelligence, with more feeling than might
have been expected from a lawyer (but even his lawyer loved Sir Miles),
Mr. Parchmount observed that "as the deceased lay at a hotel, and as Miss
Clavering's presence would not be needed in the performance of the last
rites, she would probably forbear the journey to town. Nevertheless, as
it was Sir Miles's wish that the will should be opened as soon as
possible after his death, and it would doubtless contain instructions as
to his funeral, it would be well that Miss Clavering and her sister
should immediately depute some one to attend the reading of the testament
on their behalf. Perhaps Mr. Fielden would kindly undertake that
melancholy office."
To do justice to Lucretia, it must be said that her first emotions, on
the receipt of this letter, were those of a poignant and remorseful
grief, for which she was unprepared. But how different it is to count on
what shall follow death, and to know that death has come! Susan's
sobbing sympathy availed not, nor Mr. Fielden's pious and tearful
exhortations; her own sinful thoughts and hopes came back to her,
haunting and stern as furies. She insisted at first upon going to
London, gazing once more on the clay,--nay, the carriage was at the door,
for all yielded to her vehemence; but then her heart misgave her: she did
not dare to face the dead. Conscience waved her back from the solemn
offices of nature; she hid her face with her hands, shrank again into her
room; and Mr. Fielden, assuming unbidden the responsibility, went alone.
Only Vernon (summoned from Brighton), the good clergyman, and the lawyer,
to whom, as sole executor, the will was addressed, and in whose custody
it had been left, were present when the seal of the testament was broken.
The will was long, as is common when the dust that it disposes of covers
some fourteen or fifteen thousand acres. But out of the mass of
technicalities and repetitions these points of interest rose salient: To
Charles Vernon, of Vernon Grange, Esq., and his heirs by him lawfully
begotten, were left all the lands and woods and manors that covered that
space in the Hampshire map known by the name of the "Laughton property,"
on condition that he and his heirs assumed the name and arms of St. John;
and on the failure of Mr. Vernon's issue, the estate passed, first (with
the same conditions) to the issue of Susan Mivers; next to that of
Lucretia Clavering. There the entail ceased; and the contingency fell to
the rival ingenuity of lawyers in hunting out, amongst the remote and
forgotten descendants of some ancient St. John, the heir-at-law. To
Lucretia Clavering, without a word of endearment, was bequeathed 10,000
pounds,--the usual portion which the house of St. John had allotted to
its daughters; to Susan Mivers the same sum, but with the addition of
these words, withheld from her sister: "and my blessing!" To Olivier
Dalibard an annuity of 200 pounds a year; to Honore Gabriel Varney, 3,000
pounds; to the Rev. Matthew Fielden, 4,000 pounds; and the same sum to
John Walter Ardworth. To his favourite servant, Henry Jones, an ample
provision, and the charge of his dogs Dash and Ponto, with an allowance
therefor, to be paid weekly, and cease at their deaths. Poor old man! he
made it the interest of their guardian not to grudge their lease of life.
To his other attendants, suitable and munificent bequests, proportioned
to the length of their services. For his body, he desired it to be
buried in the vault of his ancestors without pomp, but without a pretence
to a humility which he had not manifested in life; and he requested that
a small miniature in his writing-desk should be placed in his coffin.
That last injunction was more than a sentiment,--it bespoke the moral
conviction of the happiness the original might have conferred on his
life. Of that happiness his pride had deprived him; nor did he repent,
for he had deemed pride a duty. But the mute likeness, buried in his
grave,--that told the might of the sacrifice he had made! Death removes
all distinctions, and in the coffin the Lord of Laughton might choose his
partner.
When the will had been read, Mr. Parchmount produced two letters, one
addressed, in the hand of the deceased, to Mr. Vernon, the other in the
lawyer's own hand to Miss Clavering. The last enclosed the fragment
found on Sir Miles's table, and her own letter to Mainwaring, redirected
to her in Sir Miles's boldest and stateliest autograph. He had, no
doubt, meant to return it in the letter left uncompleted.
The letter to Vernon contained a copy of Lucretia's fatal epistle, and
the following lines to Vernon himself:--
MY DEAR CHARLES,--With much deliberation, and with natural reluctance to
reveal to you my niece's shame, I feel it my duty to transmit to you the
accompanying enclosure, copied from the original with my own hand, which
the task sullied.
I do so first, because otherwise you might, as I should have done in your
place, feel bound in honour to persist in the offer of your hand,--feel
bound the more, because Miss Clavering is not my heiress; secondly,
because had her attachment been stronger than her interest, and she had
refused your offer, you might still have deemed her hardly and
capriciously dealt with by me, and not only sought to augment her
portion, but have profaned the house of my ancestors by receiving her
there as an honoured and welcome relative and guest. Now, Charles Vernon,
I believe, to the utmost of my poor judgment, I have done what is right
and just. I have taken into consideration that this young person has been
brought up as a daughter of my house, and what the daughters of my house
have received, I bequeath her. I put aside, as far as I can, all
resentment of mere family pride; I show that I do so, when I repair my
harshness to my poor sister, and leave both her children the same
provision. And if you exceed what I have done for Lucretia, unless, on
more dispassionate consideration than I can give, you conscientiously
think me wrong, you insult my memory--and impugn my justice. Be it in
this as your conscience dictates; but I entreat, I adjure, I command, at
least that you never knowingly admit by a hearth, hitherto sacred to
unblemished truth and honour, a person who has desecrated it with
treason. As gentleman to gentleman, I impose on you this solemn
injunction. I could have wished to leave that young woman's children
barred from the entail; but our old tree has so few branches! You are
unwedded; Susan too. I must take my chance that Miss Clavering's
children, if ever they inherit, do not imitate the mother. I conclude
she will wed that Mainwaring; her children will have a low-born father.
Well, her race at least is pure,--Clavering and St. John are names to
guarantee faith and honour; yet you see what she is! Charles Vernon, if
her issue inherit the soul of gentlemen, it must come, after all, not
from the well-born mother! I have lived to say this,--I who-- But
perhaps if we had looked more closely into the pedigree of those
Claverings--.
Marry yourself,--marry soon, Charles Vernon, my dear kinsman; keep the
old house in the old line, and true to its old fame. Be kind and good to
my poor; don't strain on the tenants. By the way, Farmer Strongbow owes
three years' rent,--I forgive him. Pension him off; he can do no good to
the land, but he was born on it, and must not fall on the parish. But to
be kind and good to the poor, not to strain the tenants, you must learn
not to waste, my dear Charles. A needy man can never be generous without
being unjust. How give, if you are in debt? You will think of this now,-
-now,--while your good heart is soft, while your feelings are moved.
Charley Vernon, I think you will shed a tear when you see my armchair
still and empty. And I would have left you the care of my dogs, but you
are thoughtless, and will go much to London, and they are used to the
country now. Old Jones will have a cottage in the village,--he has
promised to live there; drop in now and then, and see poor Ponto and
Dash. It is late, and old friends come to dine here. So, if anything
happens to me, and we don't meet again, good-by, and God bless you.
Your affectionate kinsman, MILES ST. JOHN.