THE HEIRESS.
Miss Willoughby’s funeral was over.
The kindly, gentle old lady had been laid to rest among her kindred in
the family graveyard, close to The Crags.
All the best people in the county had attended the obsequies and loving
hands had strewn the mound with fragrant flowers.
Among the chief mourners Lelia had appeared draped in costly black,
leaning on her husband’s arm, the heavy veil drawn decorously over her
face that drooped against Laurie’s shoulder in seeming sorrow.
But it was only seeming, for her heart beat high with pride and joy in
her fortuitous circumstances.
Laurie and Miss Willoughby’s fortune were both within her grasp, she
thought exultantly.
This afternoon the lawyer was coming to read the will and she had no
misgivings over the contents.
There would be a few legacies, of course.
General Willoughby and her mother were sure to be remembered
handsomely, and the old lady, in her justice and honesty, would
certainly reward those of her servants who had deserved her kindness
and been faithful in their service.
She might even leave a small fund for the maintenance of her pet
cats--she had been so tender-hearted.
But the bulk of her fortune, probably half a million, would go to her
and Laurie.
With such brilliant prospects, how could any one expect her to really
grieve over the death of an old lady whom she scarcely saw more than a
month out of a year, and who had been frank enough to point out to the
spoiled beauty her glaring faults of heart and mind and adjure her to
correct them; a keen resentment over this fact, and her exultation over
inheriting the fortune, made Lelia’s pangs of grief so light they were
easily consoled.
So she felt quite an air of proprietorship as she re-entered The Crags,
returning from the funeral.
True, Laurie had preserved toward her a maddening coldness of demeanor
and a studied avoidance of her society, but she trusted to time and her
woman’s wiles to overcome this passing cloud. He had loved her once, he
should love her again.
After all, since that confidential talk with her mother this morning,
Lelia felt it was better that Laurie had held so coldly aloof.
Mrs. Ritchie had watched over Lelia’s slumbers again, and gone through
the same startling experience of the previous night.
Her maternal heart quaked with terror; she fought her doubts and fears
with passion.
But on Lelia’s angry complaints of her husband’s coldness she had
reluctantly disclosed a portion of the truth.
“Your nerves are all distraught by the tragic death of Gipsy Darke, and
in your sleep you accuse yourself in disjointed ravings of her murder.”
“No, no!” cried Lelia, horror-stricken.
“It is too true, my dear, horrible as it seems, and innocent as I know
you to be--but Laurie Willoughby must never hear these strange ravings
of your disordered mind. Let him keep aloof until your nerves become
quiet and you cease to talk in your sleep. Tonight I shall pretend
illness and ask you to watch by me. You understand?”
“Oh, yes, yes, mama, I will do what you say. Of course, I am very
nervous and have terrible dreams,” acquiesced Lelia in a terrible
fright at her mother’s revelations.
No, no; Laurie must not hear those self-accusing dreams for the world.
She would be guided by her mother’s advice until her nerves grew strong
again, and then Laurie should take her on a bridal-tour and she would
win back his heart.
She was thoroughly frightened, indeed, and gave over her reproaches of
Laurie, deeming it best, as her mother said, to let him hold aloof a
while.
That afternoon the lawyer, who had come over from Lewisburg to the
funeral and remained to read the will, requested the family’s presence
in the library while he went over the important document.
The near kin of the family were all present, the general, his son, Mrs.
Ritchie and her daughter.
Lawyer Gilmer cleared his throat and remarked:
“I suppose Miss Willoughby never confided to any of you that she had
made a new will within the past month?”
Ejaculations of surprise came from every one.
“It is a fact,” he said, continuing:
“Within a few days after the assembling of the house-party that was
so disastrously broken up by the disappearance of Miss Darke, Miss
Willoughby sent for me and had me make a new will quite different in
its provisions from the old one.”
No one knew whether to be startled or not, but the old gentleman
muttered:
“This is very strange.”
Mrs. Ritchie added anxiously:
“I hope she has not left her money to found a hospital or anything like
that?”
“Nothing of the kind, madam,” returned the lawyer courteously, while
Lelia snapped impatiently:
“If she had we could have broken the will, of course--she was old and
very likely of infirm mind.”
The lawyer answered calmly:
“Doctor White, who witnessed the will, knows that her mind was strong
and vigorous up to the time of the seizure that cost her her life.”
“Go on, let us hear the new will!” cried Lelia, almost ready to snatch
it from him in her eagerness.
And, breaking the seal of the document, the lawyer obeyed.
As Lelia had guessed, the kindly old lady had left liberal legacies to
all her old servants who were worthy, and to all who should be in her
employ at the time of her death.
Several poor cousins in a distant city were remembered with bequests
of a thousand dollars each, whereat Lelia frowned as at something
unexpected and undesirable.
Miss Willoughby remembered her lawyer and her minister generously, and
did not forget her physician, either; so that Lelia thought spitefully:
“He will certainly come to the cats next!”
But the next was her brother, General Willoughby, to whom, in token of
her sisterly love, she left thirty thousand dollars.
Lelia thought:
“A big slice out of my share, but I will get it all in the end!”
To the widow of her deceased cousin, Colonel Ritchie, she gave the sum
of twenty thousand dollars.
This was liberal, and caused no protest in Lelia’s mind. She was glad
for dear mama to get it.
Then she straightened herself with an eager air, for she and Laurie
were certain to come next.
The lawyer read on, monotonously:
“I appoint my beloved nephew, Laurie Willoughby, my administrator, and
devise to him a legacy of seventy-five thousand dollars.”
Lelia’s blue eyes flashed with rapacious joy as she murmured to herself:
“Only seventy-five thousand to Laurie! Then I shall be the heiress,
after all! There must be a half-million left after all these legacies!
I am almost sorry now I married Laurie. I might have gotten a title
with so much money!”
And she crested her golden head as proudly as if it already wore a
coronet, while Lawyer Gilmer read on:
“To my cousin, Lelia Ritchie, the amount of twenty-five thousand
dollars!”
“Ah-h!”
Lelia gasped faintly like one dying, and listened with a sinking heart
for the bequest to found a hospital or an asylum, while the monotonous
voice continued:
“By reason of the love I bear her, for the dutiful, daughterly conduct
to me, her sweet womanliness, her bravery by which she saved the lives
of two of my dearest relatives, and by reason of my sympathy in her
lonely state, I hereby bequeath my remaining estate, consisting of The
Crags, with a hundred acres surrounding, together with money in bank,
coal-mines and various stocks and bonds, to the person dearest to me in
the world--my protégée, Gipsy Darke!”