relief and medical attendance from the union! Oh, that is wicked
indeed!"
At this moment there passed through the doctor's mind a thought more
wicked than any of the thoughts or acts of the pauper patient. He was
then walking the streets of London, attending his patients, earning his
own bread and his family's bread by the sufferance of a Christian
usurer, who had obtained judgments against him on bills of exchange, and
who extracted, as the price of what he called forbearance, enormous
interest and costs for a disreputable attorney, who (let me say in
confidence) I have reason to know divided them with his client. The
bitter poverty of the man was his strong temptation.
"Could I manage to get this woman's property into my hands?" he asked
himself.
"No!" was the answer of his conscience.
"It would be an enormous blessing to me if I could get a little money
just now, and pay off that infernal Tompkins, who threatens and harasses
my life during the twenty-four hours in every day; whose sheriff's
officer ghost haunts my steps from the moment I leave my door in the
morning till the moment I return at night; who disturbs my repose at
home, and the fear of whom disturbs my sleep. If I could get the use of
the money, I would repay it. To wrong this wretched pauper would be a
crime I am incapable of; but to use the money of the old sinner for a
while, and make it up again, would do nobody any harm. I will try if I
can get it."
Such was the train of thought, interrogation, and reply, and of
resolution, which passed through the mind of the doctor, with more
rapidity than it has passed under the eye of the reader.
"My good woman, as you say, you have acted very wrongfully, not alone
towards me; but you have, in that respect, done a great injustice
towards me. By what means can I live and maintain my family than by the
exercise of my profession? If you could have paid my fees, you should
have done so. I would willingly have attended upon you as long as you
lived, without charge, if your necessities had required it; but as you
could pay, I think you ought to have paid."
"Doctor, it is but little I possess, and I have always been afraid of
spending it or reducing it. It is only 500_l._ that I have; and if I
lost it I should lose my all. How do I know that I shall not want it,
every farthing? And I have a son, for whom I have kept it these ten
years. Where he is now I don't know. He left England in a ship for the
Indies. He ran away from his home during his father's lifetime, and I
believe he helped to break my husband's heart. But he used to write me
long, long, and such nice letters; and used to tell me that he would
come home some day. It is a very long while since I heard from him, and
maybe he is drowned. But I don't think he is. Sometimes I dream of him,
and in my sleep I think I hear a voice telling me that I shall see him
again. When he comes home I will give him all I have, and I am sure he
will be kind to his old mother, and keep me happy and comfortable as
long as I live."
While the old crone thus garrulously related the secret of her miserly
thrift, the doctor was pondering over a scheme which he had already
matured.
"Well, my good woman," he said, "it is not my business to tell upon you.
I will not bring you into disgrace. I will not reproach you. From me, at
least, you shall suffer nothing."
"Thank you, dear, kind, good doctor!"
"Will you not pay me something on my account?" he inquired.
"Oh, yes, doctor."
As she spoke she rose from her seat and went to a cupboard, from which
she took a little box and unlocked it. In this box were contained two
savings-bank books. How extremely cunning this old lady had been! How
well, for one in her position, and at her age, did she understand that
difficult rule of prudently investing money! She laid these books before
the doctor, again imploring him not to let any body know of her hoard.
"I will give you 10_l._, doctor," she said, "as soon as I can draw it
out from the savings-bank."
"I am much obliged to you," observed the surgeon meekly.
The old woman was struck, perhaps flattered, by the comparative
humbleness with which the doctor acknowledged the proffered money. That
acknowledgment reduced him to something like the level of his patient.
The confidence at this moment became that of friends; and, when the sea
of conventionality had been bridge over, the two talked _tête-a-tête_.
The doctor pointed out to the old woman the perils she ran, by fire,
robbery, or other accident, of having her books destroyed, and the
evidence of her investment, or that investment itself, obliterated. She
listened to this demonstration with greediness and anxiety. She saw the
force, not to say truthfulness or disinterestedness, of the suggestion.
He pointed out to her the comparative profitlessness of the mode of
investment she had selected. He told her that money was worth twice,
thrice, fourfold, or even tenfold, under careful, judicious management,
the amount she was receiving for it.
The greediness of the old woman was aroused. There is nothing so
tempting to the over-thrifty and penurious or miserly person as the
offer of large interest. This is a weakness they share with the common
usurer, who is met with in the ordinary walks of society. I believe it
would be possible to cheat an ordinary Jew bill-discounter, or the most
subtle and acute of Christian usurers, by the temptation of large
interest, and a little manipulation of their great ruling instinct of
greediness.
The pauper patient, before this interview had been concluded, entreated
her good kind doctor to lend her the benefit of his extreme practical
sagacity, great worldly experience, and unmistakable judgment, in the
investment of the moneys which had been saved up by her. After a little
hesitation, he agreed to comply with her request.
Within a fortnight the money was withdrawn from the savings-banks in
which it had been distributed, in order to evade those regulations which
prevent more than a certain sum being at any one time invested in any
one bank. And after being withdrawn from this channel, it was placed in
the hands of the surgeon, for him to lend or employ as he might deem
expedient, and upon those securities that would yield a larger return.
The doctor used the money thus intrusted to him in payment of claims
which pressed upon himself, and in reduction of his own embarrassments.
He paid the old woman, or rather carried to her account, an interest of
twenty per cent. per annum with the greatest regularity; and his
conscience was satisfied by a belief that he was conferring upon her an
essential benefit, by enabling her to obtain this liberal usufruct in
preference to the scanty dole of interest she had been receiving. He
satisfied scruples, or rather prevented her distrusting him, by from
time to time showing her bills of exchange, documents, or papers, which
he called bills of sale, and slips of paper which he denominated scrip,
railway shares, &c. &c., all of which, he explained to her, were
bringing interest at a rate more than four times that she had been
previously obtaining.
Goody thus learned to regard the doctor, who alone possessed her secret
and stood in the relation of her confessor, as her best and sincerest
friend. She occasionally rewarded him, as she thought, by purchasing
little presents for his children, and by an occasional visit to the
hosier's or glover's to make some slight purchase for his own benefit or
comfort.
After two years or thereabouts had rolled away, Goody, whose physical
infirmities increased, whose mental knowledge became more and more
warped, whose miserly vices had become more intense, also became
dissatisfied with the irregular mode in which she obtained the charity
upon which she continued to live, while in her imagination she saw her
investment increase.
One day the doctor called upon her, to explain that the interest upon a
railway debenture fell due to-morrow, and 4_l._ 15_s._ had been thus
obtained, which he was prepared to either hand over to her or hold for
her investment. She told him she would much rather that he kept all of
it except a shilling, which she needed for some purpose, and which sum
he gave her. He promised to lay out this further amount, as he had laid
out all the rest, in a way to increase its store.
"There," she then continued to say, "I have been thinking that I feel
very lonesome and very uncomfortable here by myself, and I should like
to get into the house."
"What! the union workhouse?"
"Yes, doctor."
"I am afraid it cannot be done."
"Oh, I am so sorry. I wish it could. Can't you manage that for me,
doctor?"
"Well, you see, Goody, somebody might find out that you have money, and
I might be ruined if it were to transpire that I had assisted you, or
even suffered you to become an inmate of the workhouse, and to live out
of the ratepayers' money."
The old woman was crest-fallen. The idea which she had nursed for many
months seemed dashed to pieces. Her hopes were destroyed.
The doctor continued: "I am afraid it would be hardly right, Goody."
"Nobody could know that I had money, doctor, unless you told them."
"I should not, of course, think of disclosing it, and perhaps, after
all, it might not be so very great a crime for me to let you take your
own course. Only, mind, I won't help you. My conscience will not let me
do that. It would ruin me, if found out. No, Goody; if you can get into
the house, I will not be the man to tell upon you; but you must get in
by yourself."
The doctor by this time had begun to tremble, lest every moment the old
woman should demand the delivery up of her securities, and should
discover that he had used the greater portion of her money. He knew that
he could not recover or replace it. He was at his wits' end oftentimes
to determine what he should do in such an emergency. He therefore liked
the idea of this old woman's going into the house, where he knew she
could get, because the additional falsehood and imposture of her
position would be an added security for her silence. While there, she
would hardly dare to claim from him the money or the documents. He would
have far less difficulty in maintaining the secret of his fraud upon her
than he had hitherto done.
It will be enough to further state that the old creature made
application for admission into the union workhouse, and that the
relieving-officer investigated her case; that a report was laid before
the board of guardians; and that, without much difficulty, she obtained
an order of admission. So the fraud upon the ratepayers was effected and
prolonged; so the doctor's crime was further concealed.
The old pauper was accustomed in the house, and out of the house when
permitted to go beyond its walls, to laud the praises of her kind
doctor, who, on his visits to the place, would inquire after her, who
would find her very often ailing, and who very frequently ordered her
luxuries that did not fall to the lot of other paupers not so cared for.
Three years rolled away, and during this time the pauper grew richer and
richer (as she thought) out of the usufruct of her savings. The doctor
all the while continued with growing certainty to look upon the fund he
had employed for his own advantage as money he would never be called
upon to replace. He had only to keep up the deception a little longer,
and the real owner of that fund would pass into her grave unnoticed and
unknown.
One day the old woman obtained her customary leave of absence, and
wandered beyond the usual track of her accustomed visitations when so
liberated. She called first upon the doctor, and obtained from him a
small sum of money--a few shillings--and afterwards among the places she
visited was the miserable home of an old acquaintance. Here she took
dinner and tea, and after tea drew out the money, which she said had
been given her by her dear kind friend the parish doctor, and insisted
upon standing treat for her companion.
About nine in the evening a conversation took place between the two
women.
"Goody," said her friend, "you know I don't want to hurry you. You know
I am very glad to have you here. I am very fond of you; but it is
getting late; and if you don't make haste, you will get shut out,"
The speaker was what is called a little the worse for liquor, and Goody
was more than a little intoxicated.
She spluttered out in reply something about not caring for the porter,
or the relieving-officer, or the board of guardians, or the overseers,
or the church-wardens, or any body. That if she was late, it did not
matter, and that she would not stand any of their nonsense. That if she
was late, why--she was late. If she could not get in the house, she must
stay out; and if they did not care to keep her, why, she could keep
herself.
"What nonsense you talk! What would you do, at your time of life, to
keep yourself? Why, if they were to turn you out, you must starve. You
could not work, and you have not got any thing to live upon."
"Oh, haven't I, though!" the old woman incoherently exclaimed. "That is
all you know about it. I don't care for them all. Dr. Jalaype has got my
money. He takes care of it for me. Why, I tell you, I have got a
fortune; that is, I mean he has got it keeping for me. I have got more
than a thousand pounds. Is not that a fortune? Would not you like to
have it, old girl? I dare say the chairman of the board would like to
have it, but he won't. No, that he sha'n't. I won't go back to the
house. I will stop here. There, go and get a quartern more gin."
With the shilling now produced another quartern of gin was fetched, and
the old lady imbibed a further quantity, and got considerably worse, and
was soon reduced to a state of beastly, hopeless, and helpless
intoxication.
After having drunk themselves into this condition, the two wretched
creatures left the scene of their dissipation and endeavoured to toddle
in the direction of the workhouse. They had not gone far, when two
riotous boys, returning from their work to their homes, saw them
reeling, and began to poke fun at them. The female pauper, smarting
under a rude juvenile insult, endeavoured to rush forward and seize one
of the delinquents, but instead of effecting the capture of the
offender, fell flat on her face. Her companion endeavoured to pick her
up, but rolled over; and while the sympathetic woman maundered, in her
intoxication, words of consolation to the disfigured pauper, a policeman
came up, and, observing their condition, took them both to the
station-house.
Next morning, on being brought before the magistrate, they told an
artful tale, which that worthy functionary accepted as true, about
having met an old friend, who treated them to a half-quartern of gin
(they were sure it was no more), and it overcame them. They were
discharged with an admonition, and toddled off to the house, at the gate
of which they parted,--the one to find her home, like an independent
woman; the other to sneak into her ward, and bear the gibes of her
associates as best she might.
It was some time before these women could meet again. When they did so,
among other things, they talked about the fortune. Goody the pauper
would have liked to have said nothing about the matter, but her
companion was not to be put off in that way. She had a principle which
led her to argue that what people said in their cups might be regarded
as their most sincere belief, and that the words uttered in drunkenness
had a truth not always attaching to the words of soberness. She
persisted in her inquiries, and the result was that the pauper Goody
took her friend into confidence.
"Why, you see here," she said, "nobody knows what may turn up. I have
been a lone woman these many years. I have got a son, leastways I
believe I have, and some day _he_ may turn up, you see. I love that boy,
and I have screwed and contrived for him; and in case any thing should
happen to me, why I should like to have a little money by me; so I saved
and put my money in a savings-bank. But, then, one day I told the doctor
about my money, and he told me not to let it be there. I asked if so be
he would be so kind as to look after it for me, which he said yes, he
would do so. So I gave the money to him, and he lays it out, and gets me
the best interest for my money, and I place that interest along with the
money, which makes the money bigger, do you see, every year. I have done
this for many years, and now I have no doubt I have got hard upon a
thousand pounds."
"Lor! You don't say so?"
"Yes, 'pon my honour, I have."
"Well, I wish I had got a hundred pounds, that's all I know."
"A hundred is not much," said Goody, whose ideas were prone to expand on
financial theories.
In this way the couple chatted, until Goody's friend became almost as
wise as Goody herself upon the matter of the investment, and the
doctor's fiduciary relationship became equally well known to two females
as it had previously been known to one.
Now, it is said that women cannot keep a secret. I believe this doctrine
is not to be accepted or taken as a rule without exceptions. But it is
certain that Goody's friend prattled and tattled long and
pertinaciously, although in solemn confidence, to a variety of people.
At last the fact or fiction of the pauper's fortune became known to Mr.
Doe, a popular baker, and chairman of the board of guardians of the
union which had the honour of maintaining out of its public funds the
wealthy pauper.
Mr. Doe was a man of independent mind. How he won his way, as he
frequently had occasion to say, to the distinction of a member of the
vestry and chairman of the board of guardians, was by his own talents
(sometimes he said genius), and his untiring energy, and his
uncompromising honesty. He was not the man to overlook any abuse; he was
the last man in the world to permit a fraud to go unnoticed or
unpunished. When he heard of the case of this female pauper with a
fortune, he determined to sift it to the last. He told the story as he
received it to his colleagues or subordinate members of the board of
guardians; and a sub-committee was appointed to investigate the matter.
The clerk to the board was directed to write to the doctor demanding
from him an explanation. Upon that the board dropped the subject for a
fortnight, in order that, as Mr. Doe said, every body might have ample
opportunity for their proper defence against the grave charges he had
to make against them.
The doctor still held his situation of medical adviser and attendant to
the workhouse.
The female pauper was unfortunately ill, and at the time when this
outcry arose she was an inmate of the infirmary or sick-ward. The doctor
was then in attendance upon her.
When the surgeon received the letter, he was of course naturally amazed.
Long-continued success and concealment had led him to confidently
believe it was unknown to any body but himself that he held the money.
How the secret had leaked out he could not tell or guess. A
conversation, which he found no difficulty in obtaining, with the
patient did not help the solution of the mystery; for she, like an old
sinner that she was, denied having mentioned the thing to a living soul.
She affected to be as much in the dark as he was as to the mode in which
the intelligence had reached the board. She did not affect to be, but
really was, terribly alarmed by the discovery. The doctor heightened
that alarm by telling her she would be prosecuted and punished; no doubt
sent to the treadmill; or, it might be, transported for fraud upon the
board of guardians. He told her that the only course for her to adopt
was one of entire secrecy. She must deny every thing; she must declare
she had never said that she had money; utterly deny that he had received
any from her for any purpose; and if she did so, he would back her
statement up by declaring that he had none of her money in his control.
The poor deluded wretch saw that she was placing herself entirely in
the hands of her doctor, and that he might turn round upon her; or at
least she thought so. But still, as between the treadmill and
transportation, she hesitated to run the risk of the doctor's possible
fraud upon her.
The meeting of the board took place. The doctor, in reply to the letter
sent him, wrote a short pithy answer, declaring the statement touching
him and the female pauper and patient to be a flimsy fabrication, which
he thought it beneath him to answer in detail. He gave his unqualified
denial, and should do no more. As for entering on a defence against such
accusations, why, his character was before the world, and he left the
guardians to judge the mere probability of such a statement as that
which had been made by somebody to his discredit. If the guardians felt
inclined for any further information, perhaps he might be disposed to
give it; but his present opinion was, that he should not.
The female pauper on being brought up before the guardians for
examination,--or, to speak more correctly, a deputation of the board, or
its committee, waited at her bedside,--she stoutly denied every thing.
She declared most solemnly that she had no money, and asked the
inquirer, if she had such money, would she be there, in that wretched
infirmary, on their bed, in unsavoury pauperism, and taking the noxious
workhouse physic? One member of the deputation was convinced that the
chairman had led them on a wild-goose chase: that the woman had no such
fortune as had been represented; that the whole affair was a bag of
moonshine. Another had no opinion at all; he said, in frankness, that he
did not know what to make of the matter; and a third had a notion
directly contrary to the first, and thought the ratepayers had been
swindled for a long while; that the chairman of the board was quite
right, and that the matter ought to be further looked into.
It unfortunately happened between the date of this inquiry of the baker
and the deputation that the pauper died. Poor creature! she expired
under the treatment of her friend and conspirator against the
ratepayers,--the Workhouse Doctor. That death was a godsend to him, for
it practically stopped all further investigation.
The chairman of the board of guardians, Mr. Doe, at the meeting when the
report of the committee was brought up, expressed himself dissatisfied;
he said he thought he smelt a rat; he had his suspicions that the doctor
had got the woman's money; he was sure, almost certain, that the
ratepayers had been robbed. He would like to have the whole thing out,
and at once. He did not like that evasive letter of their surgeon's; he
should like that gentleman brought before them at once, and be asked to
explain. If he came, and did explain, well and good; Mr. Doe would not
object to apologise when he had been convinced that he had been in the
wrong. Until he was so convinced, he should hold his own opinion, and
vindicate it. The upshot of the whole investigation of this worthy, and
energetic, and prosperous, and dignified tradesman was, that the
surgeon was sent for by a special messenger, and that he attended their
deliberations at the board meeting I have last referred to. He
manifested a lofty spirit of mock dignity. He protested against the
outrage to which he had been subjected by their suspicions and by their
demand, and by having him arraigned before them like a criminal at a
public tribunal. He did not know that he was doing at all right in
noticing these charges; but concluded by laying his hand
melodramatically upon his heart, offering many objurgations, and
ultimately, in the most familiar way, offering to prove--as he did
prove, to the satisfaction of the majority, and the dissatisfaction of
the minority, of the board--that the tattle of the chairman's informant
was a tissue of falsehood, or the wild imaginings of a lunatic.
The sequel to the whole of these incidents and this investigation was a
resolution, passed by a majority of the board, expressing confidence in
their medical officer, embodying an opinion that he had been unjustly
aspersed, and requesting him to continue to bestow upon the paupers of
the union under the control of that board of guardians his eminent
services and truly Christian-like mercies.
THE MISSING WILL.