THE CODICIL
As the gilt clock on the mantel-piece hurriedly struck six, corroborated
in the distance by the slow booming of Big Ben, a page boy knocked at
Diana's sitting-room door, announcing two gentlemen waiting below, to
see Miss Rivers.
"Show them up," commanded Diana; and, rising, stood on the hearthrug to
receive them.
Mr. Inglestry entered, suave and fatherly, as usual; followed by a dark
young man, who, hat in hand, looked with nervous admiration at the tall
girl in green velvet, standing straight and slim, with her back to the
fire.
She shook hands with Mr. Inglestry, who presented Mr. Ford, of the firm
of Ford & Davis, of Riversmead.
"Well?" said Diana.
She did not sit down herself, nor did she offer a chair to Mr. Ford, of
the firm of Ford & Davis, of Riversmead. A gleam of sudden anger had
come into her eyes at sight of the young man. She evidently intended to
arrive at once at the reason for this unexpected interview.
So Mr. Ford presented a sealed envelope to Diana.
"Under private instructions, Miss Rivers," he said, with a somewhat
pompous air of importance; "under private instructions, from your uncle,
the late Mr. Falcon Rivers, of Riverscourt, I am to deliver this
envelope unopened into your hands, in the presence of Mr. Inglestry, on
the eve of your marriage; or, should no marriage previously have taken
place, on the eve of the anniversary of the death of your late uncle."
Diana took the envelope, and read the endorsement in her uncle's
characteristic and unmistakable handwriting.
"So I see," she said. "And furthermore, if you carry out these
instructions, and deliver this envelope at the right time, and in every
respect in the manner arranged, payment of fifty guineas is to be made
to you, out of the estate, for so doing. Also, I see I am instructed to
open this envelope in the presence of Mr. Inglestry alone. Well, you
have exactly carried out your instructions, Mr. Ford, and no doubt Mr.
Inglestry will see that you receive your fee. Good-evening."
"Wait for me downstairs, Ford," said Mr. Inglestry, nervously. "You
will find papers in the reading-room. Miss Rivers is naturally anxious
to acquaint herself with the contents of this package."
Mr. Ford, of the firm of Ford & Davis, of Riversmead, bowed himself out
of the room. He afterwards described Miss Rivers, of Riverscourt, as "a
haughty young woman; but handsome as they make 'em!"
Alone with her old friend and adviser, Diana turned to him, impetuously.
"What is the meaning of this?" she inquired, wrath and indignation in
her voice. "Why did my uncle instruct that greasy young man to intrude
upon me with a sealed letter from himself, a year after his death?"
"Open it, my dear; open it and see," counselled Mr. Inglestry, removing
his glasses and polishing them with a silk pocket-handkerchief. "Sit
down quietly, and open it. And it is not prudent to allude to Mr. Ford
as 'greasy,' when the door has barely closed upon him. I cannot conceive
what Mr. Ford has done, to bring upon himself your evident displeasure."
"Done!" cried Diana. "Why I knew him the moment he entered the room! He
had the impudence, the other day, to join the hunt on a hired hack, and
to ride in among the hounds, while they were picking up the scent. Of
all the undesirable bounders----"
"My dear young lady," implored Mr. Inglestry, "do lower your voice. Mr.
Ford is probably still upon the--the, ah--mat. He is merely the bearer
of your uncle's missive. I do beg of you to turn your thoughts from
offences in the hunting-field, and to give your attention to the matter
in hand."
"Well, shoo him off the mat," said Diana, "and hustle him into the lift!
I decline to receive letters from a person who comes into the room
heralded by hair-oil.... All right! Don't look so distressed. Sit down
in this comfy chair, and we will see what surprise Uncle Falcon has
prepared for us. Really, when one comes to think of it, a letter from a
person who has been dead a year is a rather wonderful thing to receive."
Diana seated herself on the sofa, after pushing forward an armchair for
the old lawyer. Then, in the full blaze of the electric light, she
opened the sealed envelope, and drew out a letter addressed to herself,
in her uncle's own handwriting. A folded paper from within it, fell
unheeded on her lap.
She read the letter aloud to Mr. Inglestry. As she read her grey eyes
widened; her colour came and went; but her voice did not falter.
And this was Uncle Falcon's letter:
"MY DEAR NIECE:
"If Ford does his duty--and most men do their duty for
fifty guineas--you will be reading these words either on
the eve of your wedding-day, or on the eve of the day on
which you will be preparing to leave Riverscourt, and to
give up all that which, since my death, has been your own.
"Feeling sure that I was right, my dear Diana, in our many
arguments, and that I have won in the contest of our wills,
I would bet a good deal--if betting is allowed in the other
world--that you are reading this on the eve of your
wedding-day--am I right, Inglestry, old chap?--having found
a man who will soon teach you that wifehood and motherhood
and dependence on the stronger sex are a woman's true
vocation, and her best chance of real happiness in life.
"If so, look up, honestly, and say: 'Uncle Falcon, you have
won'; and I hereby forgive Inglestry all his fuss and
bluster, and you, the obstinacy of years--and may Heaven
bless the wedding-day.
"But--ah, there's a 'but' in all things human! Perhaps the
world where I shall be, when you are reading these lines,
is the only place where buts cease to be, and where all
things go straight on to fulfilment.
"But--your happiness, my own dear girl, is of too much real
importance for me to risk it, on the possible chance of the
right man not having turned up; or of you--true Rivers that
you are--proving obstinate to the end.
"Therefore--enclosed herewith you will find a later codicil
than that known to you and Inglestry, duly witnessed by
Ford and his clerk, nullifying the other, and leaving you
my entire property as stated in my will, subject to no
conditions whatsoever.
"Thus, my dear Diana, if you are on the eve of preparing to
leave Riverscourt, you may unpack your trunks, and stay
there, with your uncle's love and blessing. It is all your
own.
"Or--but knowing you as I do, I hardly think this
likely--if you are on the eve of making a marriage which is
not one of love, and which is causing you in prospect
distress and unhappiness--why, break it off, child, and
send the man packing. If he is marrying you for your money,
he deserves the lesson; and if he loves you for your
splendid self, why he is not much of a man if he has been
engaged to such a girl as my niece Diana, without having
been able to win her, before the eve of the wedding-day!
"Anyway, you now have a free hand, child; and if my whim of
testing fate for you with the first codicil, has put you in
a tight place, old Inglestry will see you through, and you
must forgive your departed uncle, who loves you more than
you ever knew,
"FALCON RIVERS."
Diana dropped the letter, flung herself down on the sofa cushions, and
burst into a passion of weeping.
Mr. Inglestry, helpless and dismayed, took off his glasses and polished
them with his silk pocket-handkerchief; put them on again; leaned
forward and patted Diana's shoulder; even ventured to stroke her shining
hair, repeating, hurriedly: "It can all be arranged, my dear. I beg of
you not to upset yourself. It can all be arranged."
Then he picked up the codicil, and examined it carefully. It was correct
in every detail. It simply nullified the private codicil, and confirmed
the original will.
"It can all be arranged, my dear," he repeated, laying a fatherly hand
on Diana's heaving shoulder. "Do not upset yourself over this
unfortunate marriage complication. I will undertake----"
"It is not that!" cried Diana, sitting up, and pushing back her rumpled
hair. "Oh, you unimaginative old thing! Can't you understand? All these
months it has been so hard to have to think that Uncle Falcon's love for
me had really been worth so little, that, in order to prove himself
right on one silly point, he could treat me as he did in that cruel
codicil. He could not have foreseen the simply miraculous way in which
Providence and my Cousin David were coming to my rescue, at the eleventh
hour. Otherwise it must have meant, either a hateful marriage, or the
loss of home, and money, and everything I hold most dear. But by far the
worst loss of all was to lose faith in the truest love I had ever known.
In my whole life, no love had ever seemed to me so true, so faithful, so
completely to be trusted, as Uncle Falcon's. To have lost my belief in
it, was beginning to make of me a hard and a bitter woman. That codicil
was costing me more than home and income. And now it turns out to have
been merely a test--a risky test, indeed! Think if either of us had told
Rupert of it, before the time specified; or if I had been going to marry
Rupert or any other worldly-minded man, who would have made endless
trouble over being jilted! But--dear old thing! He didn't think of that.
He was so sure his plan would lead to my making a happy marriage,
notwithstanding my prejudices and my principles. He was wrong, of
course. But the main point brought out by this second codicil is: that
he really cared. I can forgive him all the rest, now I know that Uncle
Falcon loved me too well really to risk spoiling my life."
Diana dried her eyes; then raised her head, snuffing the air with the
keenness of one of her own splendid hounds.
"Oh, Mr. Inglestry," she said; "do go and see if that person is still on
the mat! I have been talking at the top of my voice, and I believe I
scent hair-oil!"
The old lawyer tiptoed to the door, opened it cautiously, and looked up
and down the brightly lighted corridor. From the distance came the
constant clang of the closing of the elevator gates, and the sharp ting
of electric bells.
He shut the door, and returned to his seat.
Diana was reading the codicil.
"I wonder why he called in that Ford creature," she said. "Why did he
not intrust this envelope to you?"
"My dear," suggested Mr. Inglestry, "knowing my affection for you,
knowing how deeply I have your interests at heart, your uncle may have
feared that, if I saw you in much perplexity, in great distress of mind
over the matter, I might have let fall some hint--have given you some
indication----"
"Why, of course!" said Diana. "Think how you would have caught it
to-day, if you hadn't. You would have been much more afraid of me, on
earth, than of Uncle Falcon, in heaven!"
Mr. Inglestry lifted his hand in mute protest; then took off his
glasses, and polished them. The remarks of Miss Rivers were so apt to be
perplexing and unanswerable.
"Let us leave that question, my dear young lady," he said. "Your uncle
adopted a remarkably shrewd course for attaining the end he desired.
Meanwhile, it remains for us to deal with the present situation. I
advise that we send immediately for your cousin, David Rivers. Of course
this marriage of--of convenience, need not now take place."
Diana looked straight at the old lawyer for a few moments, in blank
silence. She turned the ring upon her finger, so that the diamond was
hidden. Then she said, slowly:
"You suggest that we send for David Rivers, and tell him that--this
second codicil having turned up--we shall not, after all, require his
services: that he may sail for Central Africa to-morrow, without going
through the marriage ceremony with me?"
"Just so," said Mr. Inglestry, "just so." Something in Diana's eyes
arresting further inspiration, he repeated rather nervously: "Just so."
"Well, I absolutely decline to do anything of the kind," flashed Diana.
"Think of the intolerable humiliation to David! After overcoming his own
doubts in the matter; after disposing of his first conscientious
scruples; after making up his mind to go through with this for my sake,
and being so faithful about it. After all the papers we have signed, and
the arrangements we have made! To be sent for, and calmly told his
services are no longer required! Besides--though I don't propose to be
much to him, I know--I am all he has in the world. He will sail
to-morrow feeling that at least there is one person on this earth who
belongs to him, and to whom he belongs; one person to whom he can write
freely, and who cares to know of his joys or sorrows; his successes or
failures. Poor boy! Could I possibly, to avoid a little bother to
myself, rob him of this? I--who owe him more than I can ever express?
Besides, he could never--after such a slight on my part--accept the
money I am giving to his work. In fact, I doubt if he would accept so
much, even now, were it not that he believes I owe my whole fortune to
the fact of his marriage with me."
Diana turned the ring again; and the diamond shone like a star on her
hand.
"No, Mr. Inglestry," she said, with decision. "The marriage will take
place to-morrow, as arranged; and my Cousin David must never know of
this new codicil."
The lawyer looked doubtful and dissatisfied.
"The fact of the codicil remains," he said. "Your whole property is now
safely your own, subject to no conditions whatever. You have nothing to
gain by this marriage with your cousin; you might--eventually--have
serious cause to regret the loss of liberty it will entail. I do not
consider that we are justified in allowing the ceremony to take place
without informing him of the complete change of circumstances, and
acquainting him with the existence of this second codicil."
"Very well," said Diana.
With a sudden movement, she rose to her feet, whirled round on the
hearthrug, tore the codicil to fragments, and flung them into the
flames.
"There!" she cried, towering over the astonished little lawyer in the
large armchair. "Now, no second codicil exists! I can still keep my
restored faith in the love of Uncle Falcon; but I shall owe my home, my
fortune, and all I possess, to my husband, David Rivers."