NEWS FROM INDIA.
All men have their eventful days, it has been said; hence the day
after Lord Campsie's visit proved one most eventful to Gillian, who
had been--more especially since the dinner at Piershill--apparently
somewhat listless and distrait, while in reality full of corroding
thought, vague anxiety, and incertitude.
On that morning--Gideon Gainswood never forgot it--there was to be a
special meeting of the Presbytery, among whom he was a prominent
figure, a shining light and powerful hand at prayer; various kirk
extension schemes, and "overtures" of different kinds were to be
considered, yet he was absent.
Important cases before the Lords which were to be heard that day were
utterly forgotten, or committed entirely to the care of McCodicil,
his Parliament House clerk; for news had come concerning the
expedition against the Hill Tribes, and that seemed to absorb every
thought of Gideon Gainswood.
He was seated in his office betimes as usual, at the leather-covered
writing table, whereon lay many doquets of ominous-looking papers and
parchments, title-deeds, processes, leases, and so forth, tied up in
legal red tape, while around the room were tin boxes whereon were
painted the names of his _clientela_, while a book-case close by was
packed with law books and quarto tomes of the "Decisions of the Lords
of Council and Session," and on a side-table were somewhat
ostentatiously displayed piles of religious tracts and books of
prayer.
He was seated, full of thought, pulling his thin under-lip
unconsciously, while those cunning eyes of his, which seemed to have
the faculty of looking behind him, were idly wandering over the
columns of the morning paper, when suddenly he started as if he had
received a galvanic shock, and nearly crushed the journal up. Then
tremblingly he spread it out upon his desk and turned again to the
paragraph which had excited him.
"Unfortunate affair with the Bhoteas--defeat and death of Colonel
Lachlan Lamond," so ran the quotation from the "Times" of India. "We
have elsewhere stated that an expedition, consisting of 500 Assam
Light Infantry, a party of Sowars, and two steel mountain-guns, under
that old and distinguished officer, had started from Bengal to punish
the marauding Bhoteas. He destroyed their village of Mora and
released many of their prisoners, but was compelled to fall back
before the hordes that attacked him on every side, who mercilessly
slew every wounded man and straggler. Among the slain was Colonel
Lamond, who was last seen unhorsed, and fighting bravely, sword in
hand, against incredible odds, till he fell pierced by their lance
wounds. Thus has the Indian army lost one of its most distinguished
officers, for Colonel Lamond served in the Affghan campaigns,
including the storming of Ghuznee, the battle of Tizeen, and Sale's
defence of Jelalabad."
Thrice did Gideon Gainswood read this paragraph ere he seemed to
realise the whole situation; and then his cold, shifty eyes wandered,
travelled, unconsciously as it were, to the tin charter-box which
bore the unfortunate Colonel's name; anon he cast them upward, as he
lay back in his chair, and planted his clenched hands on the desk
before him.
"Killed! dead--dead--_dead!_" he muttered; exultation, savage joy,
relief and safety, too, all oddly mingled in his deep and husky tone,
and in the expression of his then most repellant visage.
Many emotions passed in a moment through the mind of the lawyer, in
the vibration of a pendulum; conclusions, doubts, certainties, and
contradictions followed each other thick and fast, while drops of
perspiration gathered on his forehead.
To say that he looked relieved, is to give the mildest expression to
what his features indicated. The man whose return home might have
revealed the secret of a system which he had been pursuing with
regard to himself and to his son Gillian, whom he had kept utterly in
the dark as to what his heritage really was, had fallen in that
distant strife, and the secret of the power he held over him--his
brother-in-law--had died within him. He summoned his nephew from the
next room.
"Have you seen the morning paper?" he asked, abruptly.
"No, uncle. I was busy with the release in that case of----"
"It contains bad news for you, Gillian. Your poor father is
gone--read for yourself. God's will be done! His ways are not as
our ways; nor are His thoughts as our thoughts. He slayeth and He
maketh to live."
Greatly excited, Gillian read the astounding tidings again and again,
and his affectionate heart went back to the days of his own infancy,
and to the face of that only surviving parent of whom he had but a
shadowy and indistinct recollection, but little more; and yet he had
loved him dearly, for all his letters had been full of tenderness and
affection; but, as the Colonel, unfortunately, until quite lately
seemed unable to realise the fact that Gillian was approaching
manhood, and quite capable of understanding his own affairs, all
matters that were monetary or of other business, he had confided to
Gideon Gainswood alone. And while Gillian was reading, with a very
scared and crushed expression of face the fatal news, the former was
muttering,
"Gone! gone! poor old Lachlan! alas! there is no peace on this side
of the grave. May he find it on the other, far distant though the
land be where that grave lies. But take comfort, Gillian; whom the
Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and thus are you chastened."
"Oh give me faith in this!" said Gillian, to Heaven rather than the
speaker.
"Show your faith by your works, nephew; and now go break this most
woful calamity, this sore dispensation of an all-wise Providence, to
poor Dove. It will make some sad alterations in our late
arrangements for you and her, I fear me--I fear me!"
Gillian withdrew, leaving Mr. Gainswood with his face buried in his
hands, as if to control or conceal his emotions; but scarcely had the
footsteps of the young man died away, than the former started up,
gave by force of habit a stealthy look around him, and lifted the
charter-box from the iron frame to the writing-table. Carefully
selecting the key from a small bunch, which he always carried with
him, and entrusted to none, he unlocked and took forth several
documents.
One of these was the last will and testament of Lachlan Lamond, then
a captain, leaving everything of which he might die possessed in
money or otherwise to his only son Gillian, whom failing to his niece
Dove Gainswood, whom failing to her father, whom failing to an orphan
institution for the children of soldiers who died in the service.
The poor colonel's property was all money, amounting to nearly
£30,000, remitted for the purpose--or towards it--of recovering
Avon-na-gillian.
Of the money thus remitted by the colonel he had kept no separate
account; but, in the vague hope that it might all come one day to
himself, he had banked it all in his own name; so, but for the
existence of this will, the fortune that was in reality Gillian's,
but, of the existence of which he had been kept in total ignorance,
would go to enhance the dowry of Dove; so, with such a sum as he
could then offer as a bribe, Campsie, and even the consent of
Viscount Kilsythe, would be doubly secure.
Overcome by the temptation to error and avarice, with the prospect of
perfect immunity in case of the colonel's death, he had continued
this system, and held these views for years--years that had neither
been of regret nor repentance; but only of the hope that he might
not, like some others of his kind, be found out.
The colonel was gone; but what evidence was there of the existence of
the moneys disposed in the will? The Calcutta attorney who wrote it
he knew to be dead; and the names of the witnesses, two brother
officers, had long since disappeared from the army list. The
document had evidently not been recorded anywhere. Had any one seen
it?
The lawyer pondered and paused.
He knew that a will, unlike many other legal instruments, may be
revoked by destroying or cancelling it; but he also knew that there
had been cases where a will when last seen in the possession of the
testator, if it could not be found after his death, the presumption
was that he had destroyed it, _animo revocandi_. He had also known,
in such cases, draft copies produced, and given in secondary evidence
of the contents of the original.
Since this paper came into his possession, no human eye had seen it.
"Bah! though only so much waste paper, it will be as well out of
existence. What thine heart findeth to do, do it with all thy
might!" muttered Gainswood, as he turned up the gas jet, at which he
was wont to seal letters, and deliberately committed to the flame
sheet after sheet of the document, the very ashes of which he
scattered and trod over the turkey carpet.
"Now--now," thought he, "to get rid of this hulking fellow, who
stands between my daughter's prosperity and honour. I have no longer
the colonel to dread; and now my Dove shall be Lady Campsie,
Viscountess of Kilsythe, mistress of Campsie Hall, in the Midlands,
and a dozen other places. If she doesn't love this young lord now,
she shall learn to do so in time; she shall marry him first, and let
the love come after when it may!"
And he almost hissed out the words as he relocked the charter-box,
shot it back into its place, and had just time to adjust his visage
to its usual calm and suave expression, and to affect to be writing
intently, with a pen that had no ink in it, when Mr. McCodicil
approached him on business, and he listened to what he had to say
with half-averted face; for, save when in a rage, or bullying those
who were at his mercy, Gideon Gainswood never looked any human being
directly in the face, if he could avoid it.
He received with admirable resignation the condolences of his friends
and brother elders on the severe dispensation of Heaven that had
fallen upon him and especially Gillian,--for whom, he said to all, it
would prove a sad and ruinous calamity indeed, poor fellow. For a
time, he secretly liked all this; it was a creditable thing to have
his brother-in-law, a colonel--he wished he had been a
general,--killed in India; but he was nervously anxious that all
note-books, papers, and letters of the deceased should be sent to him
from Bengal, and wrote, and even telegraphed, for that purpose, but
without avail; either no one knew anything about them, or his
missives were unanswered.
"Good!" thought the lawyer; "the colonel's papers have perished with
him; and I hope the Bhoteas (whoever they may be) have lit their
pipes with the last of them!"