'"This is my will. You are both of you extremely foolish, John and
Robert, and I've often told you so. Nobody has ever understood, and
nobody ever will understand, why you quarrelled like that over Annie
Emery. You are punishing yourselves, but you are punishing her as well,
and it isn't fair her waiting all these years. So I give all my estate,
no matter what it is, to whichever of you marries Annie. And I hope
this will teach you a lesson. You need it more than you need my money.
But you must be married within a year of my death. And if the one that
marries cares to give five thousand pounds or so to the other, of
course there's nothing to prevent him. This is just a hint. And if you
don't either of you marry Annie within a year, then I just leave
everything I have to Miss Annie Emery (spinster), stationer and
fancy-goods dealer, Duck Bank, Bursley. She deserves something for her
disappointment, and she shall have it. Mr Liversage, solicitor, must
kindly be my executor. And I commit my soul to God, hoping for a
blessed resurrection. 20th January, 1896. Signed Mary Ann Bott, widow."
As I told you, the witnessing is in order,' Liversage finished.
'Give it here,' said John shortly, and scanned the sheet of paper.
And Robert actually walked round the table and looked over his
brother's shoulder--ample proof that he was terrifically moved.
'And do you mean to tell me that a will like that is good in law?'
exclaimed John.
'Of course it's good in law!' Liversage replied. 'Legal phraseology is
a useful thing, and it often saves trouble in the end; but it ain't
indispensable, you know.'
'Humph!' was Robert's comment as he resumed his seat and relighted his
pipe.
All three men were nervous. Each was afraid to speak, afraid even to
meet the eyes of the other two. An unmajestic silence followed.
'Well, I'll be off, I think,' Liversage remarked at length with
difficulty.
He rose.
'I say,' Robert stopped him. 'Better not say anything about this to
Miss--to Annie, eh?'
'I will say nothing,' agreed Liversage (infamously and unprofessionally
concealing the fact that he had already said something).
And he departed.
The brothers sat in flustered meditation over the past and the future.
Ten years before, Annie Emery had been an orphan of twenty-three,
bravely starting in business for herself amid the plaudits of the
admiring town; and John had fallen in love with her courage and her
sense and her feminine charm. But alas, as Ovid points out, how
difficult it is for a woman to please only one man! Robert also had
fallen in love with Annie. Each brother had accused the other of
underhand and unbrotherly practices in the pursuit of Annie. Each was
profoundly hurt by the accusations, and each, in the immense fatuity of
his pride, had privately sworn to prove his innocence by having nothing
more to do with Annie. Such is life! Such is man! Such is the terrible
egoism of man! And thus it was that, for the sake of wounded pride,
John and Robert not only did not speak to one another for ten years,
but they spoilt at least one of their lives; and they behaved ignobly
to Annie, who would certainly have married either one or the other of
them.
At two o'clock in the morning John pulled a coin out of his pocket and
made the gesture of tossing.
'Who shall go first!' he explained.
Robert had a queer sensation in his spine as his elder brother spoke to
him for the first time in ten years. He wanted to reply vocally. He had
a most imperious desire to reply vocally. But he could not. Something
stronger even than the desire prevented his tongue from moving.
John tossed the coin--it was a sovereign--and covered it with his hands.
'Tail!' Robert murmured, somewhat hoarsely.
But it was head.
Then they went to bed.