The Will.
The coming of Mrs. Greenow at this very moment was a great comfort
to Kate. Without her she would hardly have known how to bear herself
with her uncle and her brother. As it was, they were all restrained
by something of the courtesy which strangers are bound to show to
each other. George had never seen his aunt since he was a child, and
some sort of introduction was necessary between them.
"So you are George," said Mrs. Greenow, putting out her hand and
smiling.
"Yes; I'm George," said he.
"And a Member of Parliament!" said Mrs. Greenow. "It's quite an
honour to the family. I felt so proud when I heard it!" She said this
pleasantly, meaning it to be taken for truth, and then turned away to
her brother. "Papa's time was fully come," she said, "though, to tell
the truth, I had no idea that he was so weak as Kate describes him to
have been."
"Nor I, either," said John Vavasor. "He went to church with us here
on Christmas-day."
"Did he, indeed? Dear, dear! He seems at last to have gone off just
like poor Greenow." Here she put her handkerchief up to her face. "I
think you didn't know Greenow, John?"
"I met him once," said her brother.
"Ah! he wasn't to be known and understood in that way. I'm aware
there was a little prejudice, because of his being in trade, but
we won't talk of that now. Where should I have been without him,
tradesman or no tradesman?"
"I've no doubt he was an excellent man."
"You may say that, John. Ah, well! we can't keep everything in this
life for ever." It may, perhaps, be as well to explain now that Mrs.
Greenow had told Captain Bellfield at their last meeting before
she left Norwich, that, under certain circumstances, if he behaved
himself well, there might possibly be ground of hope. Whereupon
Captain Bellfield had immediately gone to the best tailor in that
city, had told the man of his coming marriage, and had given an
extensive order. But the tailor had not as yet supplied the goods,
waiting for more credible evidence of the Captain's good fortune.
"We're all grass of the field," said Mrs. Greenow, lightly brushing
a tear from her eye, "and must be cut down and put into the oven in
our turns." Her brother uttered a slight sympathetic groan, shaking
his head in testimony of the uncertainty of human affairs, and then
said that he would go out and look about the place. George, in the
meantime, had asked his sister to show him his room, and the two were
already together up-stairs.
Kate had made up her mind that she would say nothing about Alice at
the present moment,--nothing, if it could be avoided, till after the
funeral. She led the way up-stairs, almost trembling with fear, for
she knew that that other subject of the will would also give rise to
trouble and sorrow,--perhaps, also, to determined quarrelling.
"What has brought that woman here?" was the first question that
George asked.
"I asked her to come," said Kate.
"And why did you ask her to come here?" said George, angrily. Kate
immediately felt that he was speaking as though he were master of
the house, and also as though he intended to be master of her. As
regarded the former idea, she had no objection to it. She thoroughly
and honestly wished that he might be the master; and though she
feared that he might find himself mistaken in his assumption, she
herself was not disposed to deny any appearance of right that he
might take upon himself in that respect. But she had already begun to
tell herself that she must not submit herself to his masterdom. She
had gradually so taught herself since he had compelled her to write
the first letter in which Alice had been asked to give her money.
"I asked her, George, before my poor grandfather's death, when I
thought that he would linger perhaps for weeks. My life here alone
with him, without any other woman in the house beside the servants,
was very melancholy."
"Why did you not ask Alice to come to you?"
"Alice could not have come," said Kate, after a short pause.
"I don't know why she shouldn't have come. I won't have that woman
about the place. She disgraced herself by marrying a blacksmith--."
"Why, George, it was you yourself who advised me to go and stay with
her."
"That's a very different thing. Now that he's dead, and she's got his
money, it's all very well that you should go to her occasionally; but
I won't have her here."
"It's natural that she should come to her father's house at her
father's death-bed."
"I hate to be told that things are natural. It always means humbug.
I don't suppose she cared for the old man any more than I did,--or
than she cared for the other old man who married her. People are
such intense hypocrites. There's my uncle John, pulling a long face
because he has come into this house, and he will pull it as long as
the body lies up there; and yet for the last twenty years there's
nothing on earth he has so much hated as going to see his father.
When are they going to bury him?"
"On Saturday, the day after to-morrow."
"Why couldn't they do it to-morrow, so that we could get away before
Sunday?"
"He only died on Monday, George," said Kate, solemnly.
"Psha! Who has got the will?"
"Mr. Gogram. He was here yesterday, and told me to tell you and uncle
John that he would have it with him when he came back from the
funeral."
"What has my uncle John to do with it?" said George, sharply. "I
shall go over to Penrith this afternoon and make Gogram give it up to
me."
"I don't think he'll do that, George."
"What right has he to keep it? What right has he to it at all? How do
I know that he has really got the old man's last will? Where did my
grandfather keep his papers?"
"In that old secretary, as he used to call it; the one that stands in
the dining-room. It is sealed up."
"Who sealed it?"
"Mr. Gogram did,--Mr. Gogram and I together."
"What the deuce made you meddle with it?"
"I merely assisted him. But I believe he was quite right. I think it
is usual in such cases."
"Balderdash! You are thinking of some old trumpery of former days.
Till I know to the contrary, everything here belongs to me as
heir-at-law, and I do not mean to allow of any interference till I
know for certain that my rights have been taken from me. And I won't
accept a death-bed will. What a man chooses to write when his fingers
will hardly hold the pen, goes for nothing."
"You can't suppose that I wish to interfere with your rights?"
"I hope not."
"Oh, George!"
"Well; I say, I hope not. But I know there are those who would. Do
you think my uncle John would not interfere with me if he could?
By ----! if he does, he shall find that he does it to his cost. I'll
lead him such a life through the courts, for the next two or three
years, that he'll wish that he had remained in Chancery Lane, and
had never left it."
A message was now brought up by the nurse, saying that Mrs. Greenow
and Mr. Vavasor were going into the room where the old Squire was
lying, "Would Miss Kate and Mr. George go with them?"
"Mr. Vavasor!" shouted out George, making the old woman jump. She did
not understand his meaning in the least. "Yes, sir; the old Squire,"
she said.
"Will you come, George?" Kate asked.
"No; what should I go there for? Why should I pretend an interest in
the dead body of a man whom I hated and who hated me;--whose very
last act, as far as I know as yet, was an attempt to rob me? I won't
go and see him."
Kate went, and was glad of an opportunity of getting away from her
brother. Every hour the idea was becoming stronger in her mind that
she must in some way separate herself from him. There had come upon
him of late a hard ferocity which made him unendurable. And then he
carried to such a pitch that hatred, as he called it, of conventional
rules, that he allowed himself to be controlled by none of the
ordinary bonds of society. She had felt this heretofore, with a
nervous consciousness that she was doing wrong in endeavouring to
bring about a marriage between him and Alice; but this demeanour and
mode of talking had now so grown upon him that Kate began to feel
herself thankful that Alice had been saved.
Kate went up with her uncle and aunt, and saw the face of her
grandfather for the last time. "Poor, dear old man!" said Mrs.
Greenow, as the easy tears ran down her face. "Do you remember, John,
how he used to scold me, and say that I should never come to good. He
has said the same thing to you, Kate, I dare say?"
"He has been very kind to me," said Kate, standing at the foot of the
bed. She was not one of those whose tears stand near their eyes.
"He was a fine old gentleman," said John Vavasor;--"belonging to days
that are now gone by, but by no means the less of a gentleman on that
account. I don't know that he ever did an unjust or ungenerous act to
any one. Come, Kate, we may as well go down." Mrs. Greenow lingered to
say a word or two to the nurse, of the manner in which Greenow's body
was treated when Greenow was lying dead, and then she followed her
brother and niece.
George did not go into Penrith, nor did he see Mr. Gogram till that
worthy attorney came out to Vavasor Hall on the morning of the
funeral. He said nothing more on the subject, nor did he break the
seals on the old upright desk that stood in the parlour. The two
days before the funeral were very wretched for all the party, except,
perhaps, for Mrs. Greenow, who affected not to understand that her
nephew was in a bad humour. She called him "poor George," and treated
all his incivility to herself as though it were the effect of his
grief. She asked him questions about Parliament, which, of course, he
didn't answer, and told him little stories about poor dear Greenow,
not heeding his expressions of unmistakable disgust.
The two days at last went by, and the hour of the funeral came. There
was the doctor and Gogram, and the uncle and the nephew, to follow
the corpse,--the nephew taking upon himself ostentatiously the
foremost place, as though he could thereby help to maintain his
pretensions as heir. The clergyman met them at the little wicket-gate
of the churchyard, having, by some reasoning, which we hope was
satisfactory to himself, overcome a resolution which he at first
formed, that he would not read the burial service over an unrepentant
sinner. But he did read it, having mentioned his scruples to none but
one confidential clerical friend in the same diocese.
"I'm told that you have got my grandfather's will," George said to
the attorney as soon as he saw him.
"I have it in my pocket," said Mr. Gogram, "and purpose to read it as
soon as we return from church."
"Is it usual to take a will away from a man's house in that way?"
George asked.
"Quite usual," said the attorney; "and in this case it was done at
the express desire of the testator."
"I think it is the common practice," said John Vavasor.
George upon this turned round at his uncle as though about to attack
him, but he restrained himself and said nothing, though he showed his
teeth.
The funeral was very plain, and not a word was spoken by George
Vavasor during the journey there and back. John Vavasor asked a few
questions of the doctor as to the last weeks of his father's life;
and it was incidentally mentioned, both by the doctor and by the
attorney, that the old Squire's intellect had remained unimpaired
up to the last moment that he had been seen by either of them. When
they returned to the hall Mrs. Greenow met them with an invitation to
lunch. They all went to the dining-room, and drank each a glass of
sherry. George took two or three glasses. The doctor then withdrew,
and drove himself back to Penrith, where he lived.
"Shall we go into the other room now?" said the attorney.
The three gentlemen then rose up, and went across to the
drawing-room, George leading the way. The attorney followed him, and
John Vavasor closed the door behind them. Had any observer been there
to watch them he might have seen by the faces of the two latter that
they expected an unpleasant meeting. Mr. Gogram, as he had walked
across the hall, had pulled a document out of his pocket, and held
it in his hand as he took a chair. John Vavasor stood behind one of
the chairs which had been placed at the table, and leaned upon it,
looking across the room, up at the ceiling. George stood on the rug
before the fire, with his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and
his coat tails over his arms.
"Gentlemen, will you sit down?" said Mr. Gogram.
John Vavasor immediately sat down.
"I prefer to stand here," said George.
Mr. Gogram then opened the document before him.
"Before that paper is read," said George, "I think it right to say
a few words. I don't know what it contains, but I believe it to
have been executed by my grandfather only an hour or two before his
death."
"On the day before he died,--early in the day," said the attorney.
"Well,--the day before he died; it is the same thing,--while he was
dying, in fact. He never got out of bed afterwards."
"He was not in bed at the time, Mr. Vavasor. Not that it would have
mattered if he had been. And he came down to dinner on that day. I
don't understand, however, why you make these observations."
"If you'll listen to me you will understand. I make them because I
deny my grandfather's fitness to make a will in the last moments of
his existence, and at such an age. I saw him a few weeks ago, and he
was not fit to be trusted with the management of property then."
"I do not think this is the time, George, to put forward such
objections," said the uncle.
"I think it is," said George. "I believe that that paper purports to
be an instrument by which I should be villanously defrauded if it
were allowed to be held as good. Therefore I protest against it now,
and shall question it at law if action be taken on it. You can read
it now, if you please."
"Oh, yes, I shall read," said Mr. Gogram; "and I say that it is as
valid a will as ever a man signed."
"And I say it's not. That's the difference between us."
The will was read amidst sundry interjections and expressions of
anger from George, which it is not necessary to repeat. Nor need I
trouble my readers with the will at length. It began by expressing
the testator's great desire that his property might descend in his
own family, and that the house might be held and inhabited by some
one bearing the name of Vavasor. He then declared that he felt
himself obliged to pass over his natural heir, believing that the
property would not be safe in his hands; he therefore left it in
trust to his son John Vavasor, whom he appointed to be sole executor
of his will. He devised it to George's eldest son,--should George
ever marry and have a son,--as soon as he might reach the age of
twenty-five. In the meantime the property should remain in the hands
of John Vavasor for his use and benefit, with a lien on it of five
hundred a year to be paid annually to his granddaughter Kate. In
the event of George having no son, the property was to go to the
eldest son of Kate, or failing that to the eldest son of his other
granddaughter who might take the name of Vavasor. All his personal
property he left to his son, John Vavasor. "And, Mr. Vavasor," said
the attorney, as he finished his reading, "you will, I fear, get very
little by that latter clause. The estate now owes nothing; but I
doubt whether the Squire had fifty pounds in his banker's hands when
he died, and the value of the property about the place is very small.
He has been unwilling to spend anything during the last ten years,
but has paid off every shilling that the property owed."
"It is as I supposed," said George. His voice was very unpleasant,
and so was the fire of his eyes and the ghastly rage of his scarred
face. "The old man has endeavoured in his anger to rob me of
everything because I would not obey him in his wickedness when I was
here with him a short while before he died. Such a will as that can
stand nowhere."
"As to that I have nothing to say at present," said the attorney.
"Where is his other will,--the one he made before that?"
"If I remember rightly we executed two before this."
"And where are they?"
"It is not my business to know, Mr. Vavasor. I believe that I saw him
destroy one, but I have no absolute knowledge. As to the other, I can
say nothing."
"And what do you mean to do?" said George, turning to his uncle.
"Do! I shall carry out the will. I have no alternative. Your sister
is the person chiefly interested under it. She gets five hundred a
year for her life; and if she marries and you don't, or if she has a
son and you don't, her son will have the whole property."
George stood for a few moments thinking. Might it not be possible
that by means of Alice and Kate together,--by marrying the
former,--perhaps, he might still obtain possession of the property?
But that which he wanted was the command of the property at
once,--the power of raising money upon it instantly. The will had
been so framed as to make that impossible in any way. Kate's share in
it had not been left to her unconditionally, but was to be received
even by her through the hands of her uncle John. Such a will shut him
out from all his hopes. "It is a piece of d---- roguery," he said.
"What do you mean by that, sir?" said Gogram, turning round towards
him.
"I mean exactly what I say. It is a piece of d---- roguery. Who was
in the room when that thing was written?"
"The signature was witnessed by--"
"I don't ask as to the signature. Who was in the room when the thing
was written?"
"I was here with your grandfather."
"And no one else?"
"No one else. The presence of any one else at such a time would be
very unusual."
"Then I regard the document simply as waste paper." After saying
this, George Vavasor left the room, and slammed the door after him.
"I never was insulted in such a way before," said the attorney,
almost with tears in his eyes.
"He is a disappointed and I fear a ruined man," said John Vavasor.
"I do not think you need regard what he says."
"But he should not on that account insult me. I have only done my
duty. I did not even advise his grandfather. It is mean on his part
and unmanly. If he comes in my way again I shall tell him so."
"He probably will not put himself in your way again, Mr. Gogram."
Then the attorney went, having suggested to Mr. Vavasor that he should
instruct his attorney in London to take steps in reference to the
proving of the will. "It's as good a will as ever was made," said
Mr. Gogram. "If he can set that aside, I'll give up making wills
altogether."
Who was to tell Kate? That was John Vavasor's first thought when
he was left alone at the hall-door, after seeing the lawyer start
away. And how was he to get himself back to London without further
quarrelling with his nephew? And what was he to do at once with
reference to the immediate duties of proprietorship which were
entailed upon him as executor? It was by no means improbable, as he
thought, that George might assume to himself the position of master
of the house; that he might demand the keys, for instance, which
no doubt were in Kate's hands at present, and that he would take
possession with violence. What should he do under such circumstances?
It was clear that he could not run away and get back to his club by
the night mail train. He had duties there at the Hall, and these
duties were of a nature to make him almost regret the position in
which his father's will had placed him. Eventually he would gain some
considerable increase to his means, but the immediate effect would
be terribly troublesome. As he looked up at the melancholy pines
which were slowly waving their heads in the wind before the door
he declared to himself that he would sell his inheritance and his
executorship very cheaply, if such a sale were possible.
In the dining-room he found his sister alone. "Well, John," said she;
"well? How is it left?"
"Where is Kate?" he asked.
"She has gone out with her brother."
"Did he take his hat?"
"Oh, yes. He asked her to walk, and she went with him at once."
"Then, I suppose, he will tell her," said John Vavasor. After that
he explained the circumstances of the will to Mrs. Greenow. "Bravo,"
exclaimed the widow. "I'm delighted. I love Kate dearly: and now she
can marry almost whom she pleases."