soon became aware of this, and as want of generosity was by no means to
be numbered among her failings, she rightly judged that it would not
be reasonable to expect a man to give his mind to his work if he were
weighed down by other cares; so, in an evil hour for himself, poor Mr
Lambe accepted from the lady a sum of money sufficient to defray his
debts—a sum for which, as he soon found, he would have to pay compound
interest in the way of blind obedience to Miss Masterman’s behests. Not
a funeral could be performed, not a marriage could be solemnised, not
an infant could be baptised, without Miss Masterman’s permission; and
it was even asserted by some that Miss Masterman selected the texts for
the poor man’s sermons! The only oasis in his desert was the annual
departure of Miss Masterman for change of air; then, and then only,
did Mr Lambe breathe in peace. For a brief period, he felt that he was
really master of himself. He could sit down and smoke his pipe without
fear that his sitting-room door would be rudely flung open by an
imperious female of fierce aspect, who would lecture him on his sinful
extravagance in the use of tobacco, when he couldn’t pay his debts.
One bright August morning, Miss Masterman was seated at her breakfast
table, and having concluded her meal, had taken up the morning paper
and was studying the advertisements, holding the paper at arm’s-length
with an air of grim combativeness, as if she were prepared to give
battle to any or all the advertisers who did not offer exactly what she
sought. Suddenly, she pounced upon the following: ‘A Home is offered in
a Country Rectory by a Rector and his family for two or three months
to a Single Lady needing change of air. House, with large grounds,
conservatories, pony-carriage, beautiful scenery.—Address, Rector,
_Clerical Times Office_.’
‘That will do,’ said Miss Masterman to herself; and, with her usual
promptitude, she sat down then and there and wrote to the advertiser,
asking particulars as to terms, &c. And in due course she received
an answer so perfectly satisfactory in every respect, that the end
of the month found her comfortably installed in the charming rectory
of Sunnydale, in the county of Hampshire, in the family of the Rev.
Stephen Draycott, rector of Sunnydale.
The rector’s family, besides himself and his wife, consisted of two
sons and two daughters, all grown up, with the exception of Master
Hubert, a boy of ten years old, who was endowed with such a remarkable
fund of animal spirits that he was the terror of the neighbourhood;
and from the first moment of Miss Masterman’s arrival, he became the
special _bête noire_ of that lady. With all the other members of the
family, Miss Masterman was much pleased. The rector himself was a
polished and dignified person, and by the extreme, if rather laboured,
courtesy of his manners, he endeavoured to tone down the somewhat
exuberant spirits of the rest of his family. Mrs Draycott was a gentle,
refined matron, with a sweet, though rather weary face, and was simply
adored by her husband and children. The two daughters, Adela and
Magdalen, were charming girls, full of fun, and very popular with their
two brothers, of whom the senior, Clive, was aged nineteen.
To the young people, Miss Masterman’s arrival was little short of
a calamity; they were so much in the habit of freely stating their
opinions on all subjects without restraint, that the presence of a
stranger appeared to them an unmitigated bore. It was in vain that
their mother reminded them that the handsome sum paid by Miss Masterman
for her board would be a very desirable addition to the family
exchequer. At a sort of cabinet council held after she had retired to
her room the first night after her arrival, Master Hubert expressed, in
schoolboy slang, his conviction that she was a ‘ghastly old crumpet;’ a
nickname which she retained until a servant one day brought in a letter
which, she said, was addressed to ‘Miss Pobe Masterman;’ from which
moment, Miss Masterman went by the name of ‘Pobe’ till the end of her
visit—a piece of irreverence of which that lady happily remained quite
unconscious.
By the time Miss Masterman had settled down in her new abode, the
principal ladies of the parish came to call upon her; and as some of
them were not only rich but very highly connected, Miss Masterman
greatly appreciated their kind attentions. Among them was a Lady
O’Leary, an Irish widow, with whom Miss Masterman soon struck up a
great intimacy. Lady O’Leary was generally believed to be a person
of large fortune; but as this supposition was based entirely on her
own representations with regard to property in Ireland, there were
some sceptical spirits who declined to believe in it as an established
fact. Lady O’Leary shared three furnished rooms with a Miss Moone, who
lived with her as companion; and it soon became quite an institution
for Miss Masterman to take tea with her two or three times a week at
least. On these occasions, the two ladies—for Miss Moone discreetly
withdrew when Lady O’Leary had visitors—discussed all the affairs
of the parish, until, by degrees, they got upon such thoroughly
confidential terms, that before long they had imparted to each other
their joint conviction that the general moral tone of the parish was
lamentably low, and that it was doubtless owing in a great measure to
the deplorably frivolous conduct of the family at the rectory; for Miss
Masterman had discovered, to her amazement and horror, that the rector
not only permitted his daughters to read Shakspeare, but even gave them
direct encouragement to do so. Nor was this all; he actually was in the
habit, once a year, of taking all his children up to London to see the
pantomime at Drury Lane!
Among the more frequent visitors at the rectory was a Mrs Penrose, an
exceedingly pretty young widow, who had recently taken a small house
in the village, where she lived very quietly with an old servant,
who appeared greatly attached to her mistress. The widow, who was
apparently not more than five-and-twenty, was a charming brunette, with
sparkling black eyes, and hair like waves of shining brown satin; and
her sweet face and animated manners made her generally very popular
in the village, where she visited the poor and assisted the rector in
various parochial works of charity. Especially was she a favourite at
the rectory, not only with Mr and Mrs Draycott, but with the young
people, her presence in the family circle invariably giving rise to
so much hilarity, that even the rector was attracted by the general
merriment, and would leave his study to come and sit with his family,
and allow himself to join in their mirth at Mrs Penrose’s lively
sallies. Indeed, he had even been heard to declare, in Miss Masterman’s
hearing, to that lady’s unspeakable disgust, that when he was fagged
and worried with the necessary work of a parish, a few minutes of Mrs
Penrose’s cheerful society acted on his mind like a tonic.
Miss Masterman, from the first, had taken an extraordinary antipathy to
Mrs Penrose, who appeared to her to be everything that a widow ought
not to be! Her bright face and unflagging spirits were a constant
offence to the elder lady, though she had often been told that the late
Captain Penrose was such a worthless man that his early death, brought
about entirely by his own excesses, could be nothing but an intense
relief to his young widow, who was now enjoying the reaction, after
five years of married misery. Miss Masterman’s dislike to Mrs Penrose
was fully shared by her friend Lady O’Leary; and they both agreed that
the widow was in all probability a designing adventuress, and deplored
the infatuation which evidently blinded the rector as to her real
character, for, as Lady O’Leary observed: ‘Though it was given out that
Mrs Penrose was the particular friend of _Mrs_ Draycott, the rector’s
partiality was obvious!’
Miss Masterman had been at Sunnydale for six weeks, when one morning
she received a letter from her housekeeper, informing her that Mr Lambe
had taken upon himself to remark that the orphans were looking pale and
jaded, and that he was going to take them all to spend a day at the
seaside. Miss Masterman, on reading this letter, felt most indignant,
and at once wrote to Mr Lambe to forbid the proposed excursion; and
after enumerating the many obligations under which she had laid him—not
forgetting the hundred pounds she had lent him—she concluded by
expressing her surprise that he should presume to interfere with her
special protégées in any way whatever.
To this Mr Lambe replied that he was ‘extremely sorry if he had
offended Miss Masterman; that he had imagined that she would be pleased
for the orphans to have the treat, particularly as some of them
looked far from well; but that, having promised the children, it was
impossible for him to break his word, particularly as he had ordered a
van for their conveyance and made all the necessary arrangements for
the trip; he therefore trusted that Miss Masterman would forgive him if
he still kept his promise to his little friends.’
Furious at this unexpected opposition to her will, Miss Masterman at
once went in search of Mrs Draycott to inform her that it was necessary
for her to go home for a week or ten days on business of importance.
Finding that Mrs Draycott was not at home, she repaired to the rector’s
study, and after knocking at the door, and being told to enter, she
informed Mr Draycott of her intentions. Saying that she must write home
at once, she was about to withdraw, when Mr Draycott courteously asked
her if she would not write in the study, to save time, as he was just
going out. Miss Masterman thanked him; and as soon as he had gone, sat
down and wrote to her housekeeper to say that she would be at home the
following day without fail. Having finished her letter, she was about
to leave the room, when she observed a note in a lady’s handwriting,
which had apparently slipped out of the blotting-pad on to the floor.
She picked it up, and was about to return it to its place, when the
signature, ‘Florence Penrose,’ caught her eye. ‘What can that frivolous
being have to say to the rector?’ thought Miss Masterman; and feeling
that her curiosity was too strong to be resisted, she unfolded the
note, and read the following words:
MY DEAR FRIEND—I have just received the diamonds, which are exactly
what I wanted. The baby’s cloak and hood will do very well. I have
now nearly all that I require. My only terror is, lest our secret
should be discovered.—In great haste. Yours, as ever,
FLORENCE PENROSE.
_P.S._—I hope you won’t forget to supply me with plenty of flowers.
Here was a discovery! For a few moments Miss Masterman sat motionless
with horror; her head was in a whirl, and she had to collect her
thoughts before she could make up her mind what to do. The first
definite idea that occurred to her was to secure the note; the next
was, to show it to Lady O’Leary and to discuss with her what was to be
done. As soon, therefore, as she had completed all her arrangements
for her journey on the morrow, she repaired to her friend’s lodgings;
and after Lady O’Leary had fairly exhausted all the expletives that
even her extensive Irish vocabulary could supply, to express her
horror and detestation of the conduct of the rector and Mrs Penrose,
the two ladies laid their heads together, and seriously discussed the
advisability of writing to the bishop of the diocese and sending him
the incriminating letter. However, they finally decided to do nothing
before Miss Masterman’s return to Sunnydale; and in the meantime,
Lady O’Leary undertook to be on the watch, and to keep her friend _au
courant_ as to what was going on in the parish.
It was late that evening when Miss Masterman returned to the rectory,
and by going up directly to her room, she avoided meeting the rector.
The next morning she pleaded headache as an excuse for having her
breakfast sent up to her; and did not come down until, from her window,
she had seen Mr Draycott leave the house, knowing he would be away for
some hours. He left a polite message with his wife, regretting that he
had not been able to say good-bye in person to Miss Masterman.
‘The wily hypocrite!’ thought that lady. ‘He little thinks that his
guilt is no secret to me. But such atrocity shall not go unpunished!’
When she took leave of Mrs Draycott, she astonished that lady by
holding her hand for some moments as she gazed mournfully into her
face; then, with a final commiserating glance, the worthy spinster
hurried into her fly. As she drove away, she leant forward and waved
her hand to the assembled family with such effusion, that Mrs Draycott
exclaimed: ‘Dear me, I fear I have done Miss Masterman injustice. I had
no idea that she possessed so much feeling as she showed just now. One
would really think she was going for good, instead of only ten days!’
‘No such luck,’ cried the irrepressible Hubert. ‘But, at all events, we
have got rid of her for a week at least; so now, we’ll enjoy ourselves,
and forget all about “Pobe” till she turns up again!’—a resolution
which the young gentleman did not fail to keep most faithfully.
In the meantime, Miss Masterman was busily employed at Bradborough in
quelling orphans and other myrmidons, and reducing things in general
to complete subjection to her will; but with regard to Mr Lambe, she
found her task more difficult than she expected. In fact, the worm had
turned; and on her summoning him to her presence and opening the vials
of her wrath on his devoted head, he calmly but firmly announced his
intention of sending his resignation to his bishop; which took Miss
Masterman so completely by surprise, that, in her bewilderment, she
actually asked him to reconsider his decision. But though she even
went so far as to give her consent to the orphans having their coveted
treat, Mr Lambe’s determination was not to be shaken.
The following week flew swiftly away; a good deal of correspondence
devolved upon Miss Masterman through having to think of a successor to
Mr Lambe, and the lady of the manor was very much worried. At last,
however, everything was settled, and Miss Masterman began to think of
returning to Sunnydale, where, as she felt, fresh anxieties and most
painful duties awaited her.
POPULAR LEGAL FALLACIES.[1]
BY AN EXPERIENCED PRACTITIONER.
_DEEDS OF GIFT AND WILLS.—I._
One of the most universally believed fallacies is that it is better to
make a deed of gift than a will for the disposal of property. Nothing
can be more dangerous than this delusion, as we have often had occasion
to observe in the course of our experience. A deed of gift—pure and
simple—is a document under seal evidencing the fact that certain
property specified therein has been absolutely given by the donor to
the donee, without any reservation for the benefit of the former,
or any power for him to revoke the gift or resume possession of the
property in any circumstances. If the deed contains a condition that
the donor shall have the enjoyment of the property during his life, and
that he shall have a right to recall the gift thereby made, and dispose
of the property in some other way, then the document is to all intents
and purposes a will; and if it is only executed and attested as an
ordinary deed, it is altogether void, in consequence of non-compliance
with the directions contained in the Wills Act, 1837, which very
properly requires more precautions against fraud and forgery in the
case of a will than in the case of a deed. We say ‘very properly,’
because the will does not take effect during the lifetime of the
testator; and therefore the greatest safeguard is removed by his death
before the document can be acted upon or its authenticity be likely to
be questioned. This is a common oversight. The deed is prepared and
duly stamped; and in consequence of the insertion of the powers alluded
to above, it proves to be utterly useless, when, after the decease of
the donor, his property is claimed by his heir-at-law and next of kin
because of his having died intestate. It may occasion some surprise
that any solicitor will prepare a deed which he knows cannot stand
the test of litigation; but this is not altogether the fault of the
profession. In many cases, the danger is pointed out; but if the donor
is determined to dispose of his own property in his own way, who can
gainsay him? If he cannot get what he requires in one office, he will
go to another; and we have several times lost clients in consequence
of our refusal to prepare such a deed; all our arguments being met by
the reply that there would be no duties to pay to the government if
the deed were executed; a complete fallacy in many cases, as we have
afterwards had occasion to know, when we have seen what followed the
decease of the misguided donor.
On the other hand, if there is a genuine gift, and possession is
given in accordance with the deed, what then? One case which came
under our notice may illustrate the danger against which we have
frequently protested in vain. A retired merchant invested the whole
of his savings in a freehold estate which would produce sufficient
annual income to supply all his wants and leave a good margin for
future accumulations. Being a widower, in somewhat infirm health,
he took up his residence in the house of his younger son, the elder
being an irreclaimable reprobate. Unfortunately, the wife of this
younger son was an artful and avaricious woman, whose sole reason for
consenting to the arrangement as to residence was the hope of future
gain. The old gentleman had an insurmountable objection to making a
will—not an uncommon weakness—as it reminded him too forcibly of the
time when he would have to leave his fine estate and go over to the
great majority. At length, after urgent and repeated representations
as to the risk of his estate being sold by his dissipated heir-at-law
in case of his dying intestate, he was persuaded to execute a deed
of gift to his younger son, to whom at the same time he handed the
title-deeds relating to the estate. Soon afterwards, a quarrel arose
between the donor and his daughter-in-law; and the latter persuaded her
husband—whose moral principles were as weak as those of his brother,
though in a different way—to sell the estate, and then turn his father
out of his house. After his ignominious dismissal, the poor old
gentleman went to the house of a nephew, who soon tired of supporting
him; and eventually he was obliged to go into the workhouse, altogether
neglected to the time of his death by all his relatives, except his
graceless elder son; and alas! he could not assist his aged parent, as
he was himself almost destitute. This may appear to be an extreme case;
but it is not a solitary one, although it is one of the worst of those
which have come under our own observation.
This brief narrative may serve as an introduction to the explanation
of one remarkable peculiarity in the practical working of a deed of
gift of real estate. Personal property may of course be sold, and
the sale completed by delivery of the goods or other chattels to the
purchaser; but actual possession of land is no clue to the ownership
thereof, the title being evidenced by deeds in the general way, the
exceptions being those cases in which land has descended to the heir in
consequence of the intestacy of the former owner; and also those cases
in which long-continued possession has given an impregnable title to a
person who was originally a mere trespasser, or at the most a tenant
whose landlord has been lost sight of. When the freehold estate above
mentioned was given away and the gift was evidenced by deed and actual
possession, the donor lost the power of again giving it away either by
deed or by his will. But he might have sold the property if he could
have found a purchaser willing to complete without actual possession
of the title-deeds; which, however, he might afterwards have recovered
from the holder thereof; the reason for this being, that where there
are two inconsistent titles, both derived from the same person, but
one depending upon an actual sale and payment by the purchaser of the
price agreed upon, while the other rests upon no better foundation
than a mere voluntary act on the part of the donor, the title of the
purchaser will prevail, because of the valuable consideration which he
has paid; while the other person has paid nothing. On the other hand,
if the donee, before he is dispossessed or his title superseded by a
conveyance for value, were to sell the property, and if the sale were
completed and the purchase-money paid, the donor would have lost his
right to sell. Having placed the donee in a position to make a good
title to the property, he must take the consequences of his own folly.
We once had the pleasure of saving for the benefit of the vendor the
value of an estate which he had previously given away; greatly to the
astonishment of the donee, who supposed himself to be safely possessed
of the whole estate.
It will be understood that our remarks have no application to marriage
settlements or similar documents in which extensive though limited
powers of appointment are generally reserved to the settler, the power
extending over the whole estate or a specified part thereof; while the
persons to be the beneficiaries are strictly defined; and powers are
also given to him to direct the payment of portions to his younger
children, and to charge them upon the estate which is comprised in the
settlement. This is the legitimate way in which a landed proprietor
can provide for his family; and the only serious objection which has
ever been made thereto is that it has a tendency to perpetuate the
descent of the estates, instead of their distribution and subdivision
into smaller properties. But these documents are beyond the scope of
this paper. What we strongly object to are voluntary deeds of gift,
which are generally made for the purpose of avoiding the payment of
legacy and succession duty, but lead too frequently to disastrous
consequences. They are beneficial to the legal profession, often
leading to costly and harassing litigation; but to the intended
recipients of the bounty of the donor, and sometimes to the donor
himself, they are in a corresponding degree injurious.
Attention may here be called to the provisions of the Customs and
Inland Revenue Act, 1881, on the subject of voluntary gifts of personal
property made for the purpose of avoiding the payment of the duties
accruing due on the death of the owner of personal estate. By this
Act, duty is payable at the like rates as the ordinary probate duty
on voluntary gifts which may have been made by any person dying after
1st June 1881, whether such gift may have been made in contemplation
of approaching death or otherwise, if the donor has not lived three
calendar months afterwards; or by voluntarily causing property to be
transferred to or vested in himself and some other person jointly, so
as to give such other person benefit of survivorship; or by deed or
other instrument not taking effect as a will, whereby an interest
is reserved to the donor for life, or whereby he may have reserved
to himself the right, by the exercise of any power, to reclaim the
absolute interest in such property. This enactment removes the last
argument in favour of deeds of gift, for they do not now have the
effect of avoiding the payment of probate duty; and in any event, since
19th May 1853, succession duty has always been payable in respect of
the benefit acquired by the successor by reason of the decease of his
predecessor in title. The case of a voluntary settlement in respect of
which the stamp duty has been paid is provided for by a direction that
on production of such deed duly stamped, the stamp duty thereon may be
returned. Personal estate includes leasehold property.