THE MOTIVE.
Perfectly free from all suspicions, and as happy as he deserved to be,
Mr. Sharp leaned back in his easy chair, after making an excellent
supper, and gazed with complacency at his good wife. He was really
glad to be at home again, and to find his admiring household safe, and
to rest for a while with a quiet brain, as the lord and master of
everything. Christopher had been sent to bed, as if he were only ten
years old; for instead of exhibiting the proper joy, he had behaved in
a very strange and absent manner; and his father, who delighted much
in snubbing him sometimes, had requested him to seek his pillow. Kit
had accepted this proposal very gladly, longing as he did to think
over by himself that strange adventure of the evening.
"Now, darling Luke," began Mrs. Sharp, as soon as she had made her
husband quite snug, and provided him with a glass of negus, "you
really must be amazed at my unparalleled patience and self-control.
You ran away suddenly at the very crisis of a most interesting and
momentous tale. And from that day to this I have not had one word; and
how to behave to Kit has been a riddle beyond riddles. How I have seen
to the dinner--I am sure--and of sleep I have scarcely had fifty
winks, between my anxiety about you, and misery at not knowing how the
story ended."
"Very well, Miranda, I will tell you all the rest; together with the
postscript added since I went to London. Only you must stay up very
late, I fear, to get to the proper end of it."
"I will stay till the cocks crow. At least, I mean, dear, if, after
your long journey, you are really fit for it. If not, I will wait till
to-morrow, dear."
Mr. Sharp was touched by his wife's consideration for him. He loved
her more than he loved any one else in the world, except himself; and
though (like many other clear-headed men) he had small faith in brains
feminine, he was not quite certain that he might not get some useful
idea out of them when the matter at issue was feminine.
"I am ready, if you are, my dear," he said, for he hated to beat about
the bush. "Only I must know where I left off. With all I have done
since, I quite forget."
"You left off just when you had discovered the real man who was called
'Jolly Fellows;' the man Cousin Fermitage left his will with."
"To be sure! Or at least, it was a codicil. Very well, I found him in
the wine-vaults of the company, where they have been for generations.
He was going round with some large and good customer, such as old
Fermitage himself had been. Senhor Gelofilos had a link in one hand,
and in the other a deep dock-glass, while a man in his shadow bore a
flashing gimlet and a long-armed siphon-tap. From cell to cell, and
pipe to pipe, they were going in regular order, showing brands,
_ex_ this, and _ex_ that, and making little taps and trying them.
"I was admitted, without a word, as one of this solemn procession,
being taken for a member of the sacred trade; and the number of sips
of wine I got, and the importance attached to my opinion, would have
made you laugh, Miranda. At length I got a chance of speaking alone to
Senhor Gelofilos, a tall, dark, gentlemanly man, of grave and
dignified manner. He at once remembered that he had received a paper
from Mr. Fermitage; of its nature however he knew nothing, not being
acquainted with our legal forms. He had kept it ever since in a box at
his house, and if I could call upon him after office hours, he would
show it to me with pleasure. Accordingly, I took a hackney-coach to
his house near Hampstead in the evening, and found that old
'Port-wine' had not deceived me during our last interview.
"I held in my hand a most important codicil to the old man's will,
duly executed and attested, so far at least as could be decided
without inquiry. By this codicil he revoked his will thus far, that,
instead of leaving the residue, after payment of legacies, to his
widow absolutely, he left her a life-interest in that residue, after
bequeathing the sum of £20,000, duty free, to his niece, Grace
Oglander."
"Out of my money, Luke!" cried Mrs. Sharp indignantly. "Twenty
thousand pounds out of my money! And what niece of his was she, I
should like to know? Was there nothing whatever for his own flesh and
blood?"
"Nothing whatever," answered Mr. Sharp calmly. "But wait a bit,
Miranda, wait. Well, all the residue of his estate, after the decease
of his said wife, Joan, was by this codicil absolutely given to his
said niece Grace. He said that they both would know why he had made
the change. And then the rest of his will was confirmed, as usual."
"I never heard such a thing! I never heard such robbery!" exclaimed
Mrs. Sharp, with a panting breast. "I hope you will contest it all, my
dear. If there is law in the land, you cannot fail to upset such a
vile, vile will! You can show that the fungus got into his brain."
"My dear, it is my object to establish that will, or the codicil
rather, which I thus discovered. I am obliged to proceed very
carefully, of course; a rash step would ruin everything. Unluckily the
executors remain as before, though he would not trust them with the
codicil. Well, one of them, as you know, bought such a lot of port,
half-price, at his testator's sale, that in three months he required
an executor for himself. The other took warning by his fate, and is
going in for claret and the sour Rhenish wines. This has made him as
surly as a bear, and he is a most difficult man to manage. But if any
one can handle him, I can; and he has a deadly quarrel with that
haughty Joan. I had first ascertained, without any stir, that the
attestation is quite correct--two stupid bottle-men, who gave no
thought to what they were doing, but can swear to the signing; and the
codicil itself, though 'Port-wine' drew it without any lawyer, is
quite clear and good. At the proper moment I produce the codicil,
account for my possession of it, go to Mr. Wigginton, and make him
prove it; and then, I think, we turn the tables on the proud old
widow."
"Oh, Luke, what a blessed day that would be for me! The things I have
endured from that odious woman! Of course, it will mortify her not to
have disposal, and to have to give up £20,000--the miser, the screw,
the Expositor hypocrite! The filthy silk stockings I should be ashamed
to own! But, darling Luke, I do not see how we ourselves are a bit the
better off for it. Poor Grace being dead, of course her father takes
the money."
"Suppose, for a moment that, instead of being dead, Grace Oglander is
the wedded wife, by that time, of a certain Christopher Fermitage
Sharp, and without any settlement!"
"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, jumping with astonishment. "Is it
possible? Is it possible?"
"It is more than possible, it is probable; and without some very bad
luck, it is certain!"
"Oh, you darling love!" she very nearly shouted, giving him a hug with
her plump white arms. "Oh, Luke, Luke, it is the noblest thing I ever
heard! And she is such a nice girl, too, so sweet, and clever, and
superior! The very daughter I would have chosen out of fifty thousand!
And with all that money at her back! Why, we can retire, and set up a
green barouche! I shall have it lined with the new agate colour,
trimmed with deep puce, like the Marchioness of Marston's--that is, if
you approve, of course, my dear. And a pair of iron-greys always go
the best with that. But, Luke, you will laugh at me for being in a
hurry. There is plenty of time, dear, is there not?--though they do
say that carriage-builders are so slow. But they think so much of
their old family, my dear. I know how very wonderfully managing you
are, and as clever as can be consistent with the highest principle.
But do tell me, how you have contrived all this so well, and never
even let me guess a single whisper of it."
"It has required some tact and skill," Mr. Sharp replied, with a
twinkle in his eyes, and taking a good pull at his port-wine negus;
"and even more than that, Miranda, without a bold stroke it could
never have been done. I staked almost everything upon the die; not
quite everything, for I made all arrangements if we should have to
fly."
"Fly, my dear!" cried Mrs. Sharp, looking up with a very different
face. "What do you mean, Luke? To have to run away!"
"Quite so. There is no great stroke without great miss. And if I had
missed, we must all have bolted suddenly."
"The Lord forbid! Run away in disgrace from my father's own house, and
the whole world that knows us! I never could have tried to go through
such a trial."
"Yes, my dear Miranda, it might have come to that. And you would have
gone through the whole of it, without a single murmur."
"Luke, I positively tremble at you!" the good woman answered, as her
eyes fell under his. "How stern you can look when you want to scare
me!"
"Miranda, I tell you the simple truth. We must all have been in France
within twelve hours if, if--well, never mind. Nothing venture nothing
win. But happily we have won, I believe; though we must not be too
sure as yet. We have justice on our side; but justice does not always
prevail against petty facts. And public opinion would set against us
with great ferocity, if we failed. If we succeed, all men will praise
us as soon as we begin to spend our money, and exert it near home at
the outset. Everything depends upon success; of course, it always does
in everything."
"My dear, it is not fair of you to talk like that," Mrs. Sharp
answered, with tears in her eyes; for, in all her kind and ungirt
nature, there was no entry for cynicism; "you must feel that I would
hold by you always, whatever all the world might have the impudence to
say, dear."
"Beyond a doubt you would. You could do no otherwise. But that might
be of very little use. I mean, that it would be the very greatest
prop, and comfort, and blessing, and support in every way, and would
keep up one's faith, to some extent, in human nature, and divine
assistance--but still, if we had to live on three pound ten a week!
However, we will not anticipate the worst. You would like to know how
the whole thing stands now?"
Mrs. Luke Sharp, although not very clever, and wholly incapable of any
plot herself (beyond such little stratagems as ladies do concoct, for
fetching down the price of rep, or getting gloves at a quarter of
their cost), nevertheless had her share of common sense, and that
which generally goes therewith--respect for the opinion of good
people. She knew that her husband was a very bold man, as well as a
very strong-willed one; he had often done things which she had thought
too daring; and yet they had always turned out well. But what he had
now in hand was, even according to his own account, the most risky and
perilous venture yet; and though (like the partner of a gambler) she
warmed up to back his hand, and cheer him, and let her heart go with
him, in her wiser mind she had shivers, and shudders, and a chill
shadow of the end of it.
Mr. Sharp saw that his wife was timid; which of all things would be
fatal now; for her aid was indispensable. Otherwise, perhaps, he would
not have been quite so ready to tell her everything. He had put things
so that her dislikes and envies, as well as her likings, and loves,
and ambitions would compel her to work with him. If she were lukewarm
his whole scheme must fail. At the mere idea his temper stirred. "Will
you hear the rest? Or is your mind upset?" he asked a little roughly.
His wife looked up brightly from some little blink of thought. "Every
word of it now, I must hear every word, if you will be so kind, my
dear. I will go and see that all the doors are shut."