Kitabı oku: «The Weird Sisters: A Romance. Volume 2 of 3», sayfa 5
CHAPTER II
THE READING OF THE WILL
"Now, Maud darling, do try to bear up. Drink this wine to give you strength. Come, they are all waiting for us in the library. Drink this for my sake. Well, half; drink half of it for my sake, my dear, dear child. It was your father's direct order the will should be read and you should be present. Mr. Shaw tells me this is not usual, but must be done."
"I cannot drink the wine. It will not take long, I suppose?"
"Mr. Grey says that it is not likely to take more than quarter of an hour. The will is very short."
"Is Mr. Grey in the library?"
"Yes, dear."
"Please, put away that wine; I am ready to go now. You will come with me?"
"Of course, Maud. My place is at your side, poor darling."
Mrs. Grant's words touched some chord in the girl's heart, and she burst into tears, crying:
"Oh, Mrs. Grant, I never felt lonely before. I don't know what I should do, only for you and Mr. Grey."
"Thank you, love. You know I'll stay with you all my life. I have no one of my own to live for; they are all gone. I have no father or mother, or brother or sister, or husband or child. I am as lonely as you, Maud; only you have lost a father and this home, and by and by you will marry and have a new home, a husband, and little ones at your knee; but for me the world is over. Every day I live keeps me further off from my husband; every day you live brings you nearer to yours. Ah, Maud, women have but poor lives of it, and the poor childless widow is worse than the dead." She burst into tears.
"Mrs. Grant," cried the girl, throwing her arms round the woman, "pray, pray forgive me! I have been cruelly selfish, thinking only of my own sorrow and never of yours. Dear Mrs. Grant, do forgive my selfishness!"
The widow wound her arms around the weeping girl, and crushing back her own grief, said passionately:
"Selfish, Maud! you selfish! Why, my darling never thinks there is such a person as herself until she finds she can be of use to some one. No, love, not selfish. There, love, love, don't cry; we shall be the best of friends all our lives. We are both friendless and alone; that is all the more reason why we should be good friends all our lives, Maud darling. I'll never leave you if you will let me stay. There now, there's a dear child; dry your eyes and drink the wine, and let us go and get this matter over."
"Put away the wine; I am ready. We shall never, never part, Mrs. Grant dear."
The two left the little drawing-room. Mrs. Grant put one arm affectionately round the girl's waist; Maud held one of Mrs. Grant's hands in hers.
As they drew near the library-door they found Mr. Grey awaiting them in the passage. Placing himself on her right side, he offered her his arm. Mrs. Grant dropped to the rear, and, preserving this order, they reached the library-door.
Here Mr. Grey paused for a moment, and said to his partner in a low voice:
"The strange gentleman who would not give his name is within. He says he has authority to be present. He may be a solicitor on behalf of some of the smaller legatees. I do not wish to be rude to him or to say he must give me his authority. He says he will speak to you some time to-day. Do you wish me to tell him to go, or do you prefer that I should merely request him to give up all hope of an interview to-day?"
"I cannot, I cannot see him," cried the girl, clinging to his arm, and looking up appealingly into his face.
"Protect her," he thought, "against this unknown man, who seems to threaten my safety and her peace, of course I shall. This is the first time she has sought my protection, and by a fortunate chance it is against one whom I have reason to dislike. How lucky! How lucky I have been in everything connected with this Castle – about the will, about the old man's illness, about the confidence! All has turned out exactly as I wished. Her arm is now in mine. She is calling out to me for help. I feel already as if I had won her; as if she leaned upon my arm as my – wife."
Then he whispered to her,
"Rest assured this man shall not intrude upon you. If he keeps quiet he may remain until the will has been read. Then I shall be officially installed as your guardian, Miss Midharst, and I shall know how to act towards him if he dares to interfere with you."
Drawing himself up to his full height, he walked slowly into the library with Miss Midharst on his arm, and Mrs. Grant following a few paces behind. His face was calm and firm; in his tread and gait there was conscious power. He felt he could have faced any danger then. She, upon whose good regard towards him and final acceptance of him as a suitor all depended, hung on his arm and clung to him for protection. The chance that the Tower of Silence would in his lifetime give up its secret was one to a million. He had a single reasonable cause of dread, and that was lest she, Maud Midharst, might turn away from him – might finally reject him. With her arm on his, and the memory of her confiding glance, he felt like a great captain, who, having in secret prepared a crushing attack, throws up his head and pants at hearing the great bay of the signal-gun which is to shake out the standards and let loose the thunders of prodigious war.
No more than a dozen people were present. The servants stood at the end of the room remotest from the one large window.
With its back to the window, at the head of the table, was the baronet's great straight-backed oak chair, empty. Mr. Grey led Miss Midharst to a chair on the right of this. As she moved up through the room, half a dozen gentlemen, seated round the room and at the table, rose and bowed. The stranger, whose chair was at the foot of the table, rose with the rest, and bowed more profoundly than any of the others.
As soon as Miss Midharst was seated, Mr. Grey crossed at the back of the vacant chair and sat down upon the left of it. Upon Grey's left sat Mr. Shaw, the deceased baronet's lawyer. On Miss Midharst's right sat Mrs. Grant. Dr. Hardy, who had attended the funeral, was present by particular request. The old lawyer, whose hands were tremulous, closed his eyes up firmly first, pulled his white whiskers, shook his white hair, and, looking at Grey, demanded in a feeble shaky voice:
"Is everything now ready for reading the last will and testament of Sir Alexander Midharst, deceased, as by him desired?"
For a moment there was no reply. Then Grey cleared his throat and said, in soft gentle accents:
"As the heir to the baronetcy and property did not reply to my notification of the late Sir Alexander's death, and therefore was not to be here at the reading of the will, or represented by a solicitor, he being, I understand, in Egypt, I have taken it upon myself to nominate a solicitor to be present on his part. I have therefore asked Mr. Barrington to be good enough to favour us with his presence, and watch the interests of the heir."
An excessively fat and prosperous-looking young man stood up and bowed deeply all round, saying, in a rich oily voice:
"I am proud to represent the heir to this noble house, this lordly property, and the glorious family of Midharst."
Having bowed all round again, he sat down.
Then Mr. Shaw opened the will, and began reading it in a weak and quavering voice.
The will was brief, and the language straightforward and plain.
The baronet left small legacies to his servants, and expressed a desire that Michael might remain in his daughter's service, until he chose to retire, upon which he was to receive an annuity of forty pounds a year, in addition to the five hundred pounds, payable within one year from the opening of the will.
The few other servants kept by the baronet were left legacies on this scale in proportion to their positions.
To Mrs. Grant he left a thousand pounds, coupled with a request that she would continue to stay with Miss Midharst as her companion as long as Miss Midharst might wish.
Upon hearing this Mrs. Grant wept, and put her hand on the girl's hand and caught the hand, and looked at the girl with eyes that swore, "Never, never, will I leave you while I live."
To Dr. Hardy he left two hundred and fifty, and to each of the other two physicians who had attended, one hundred pounds over and above their proper fees.
To Mr. Shaw he bequeathed five hundred pounds, over and above his proper fees, and expressed a hope that any legal business which had to be done in connection with his will, his daughter, or the money, would be intrusted to Mr. Shaw.
To Henry Walter Grey he bequeathed the gross sum of five thousand pounds, over and above all his just claims against the estate. Two thousand five hundred of this was to be paid within twelve months of the opening of the will, and the other two thousand five hundred upon the expiration of Grey's guardianship. This was bequeathed in grateful remembrance of many years of careful guardianship of the testator's fortune in the past, and in consideration of the duties and obligations imposed upon the legatee by the will.
The next clause announced that he left and devised and bequeathed to his daughter Maud, absolutely and for ever, the residue of his property of all kinds, sorts, and descriptions whatever, subject to the bequests above mentioned; and the payment of all just debts and demands for which the testator was liable at the time of his death; and the cost of his funeral, which latter he desired to be simple and unostentatious, and yet not unbecoming the house of which he was head. The residue was not to be paid over to the legatee, but held in trust for her until she had attained the full age of twenty-two. It was the testator's wish that his daughter should not marry until she had attained the full age of twenty-two: but married or single, to her the residue was to go when she attained her twenty-second year. With regard to her marriage, the testator would make no restrictions. He felt sure his daughter would make no unworthy selection, and she would remember that although the title and estates were passing away to a younger branch of the family, she was the only representative of the elder branch now surviving. The testator desired that, should she not marry before her twenty-second year, she should lean upon her guardian for advice at any time later than her twenty-second year. The testator desired it to be clearly understood that the guardian's power extended absolutely only to the property of the residuary legatee; and that she, being at the time of executing this will and testament, full twenty years of age, in all her personal movements, and in the marrying or not marrying, or in the choice of a husband, was free from the greetings of these presents. That is to say, the guardianship of the residuary legatee, as constituted herein, was that of administering her fortune, and of looking after her welfare, without, except in the matter of the property, power of constraint or interference in matters personal to the residuary legatee. The testator, however, reposed the most unlimited confidence in the guardian, and advised the residuary legatee to be largely guided in matters personal by the advice of the aforesaid guardian.
Following this paragraph came one reciting the property of the deceased man, the most important passage of it being this:
"And such Consols as may be found registered in my name in the books of the Bank of England, an account of which, and the Consols themselves, are in the custody of Henry Walter Grey aforenamed, to the value at this date of five hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling."
Then came the final paragraph:
"And I hereby elect and appoint Henry Walter Grey, of the Manor House, Daneford, banker (hereinbefore described as Henry Walter Grey), executor and trustee to this my last will and testament, to hold authority, and to act in all matters connected with my property at his own sufficient discretion, with the limitations herein aforesaid. And I hereby elect and appoint the same Henry Walter Grey, of the Manor House, Daneford, banker, to be and to act as the sole guardian, with the limitations hereinbefore set forth, of my only daughter Maud, hereinbefore described as of the Castle of Warfinger, the residuary legatee in this my last will and testament. And to the aforesaid Henry Walter Grey I leave the burden of the safe guarding of my daughter's fortune, and the care of her orphanhood. I leave to his charge the savings of half a lifetime, and the last of a noble house. I pray that, as Henry Walter Grey may do by them and me, the God Almighty may do by him. Amen."
The old solicitor then read out the formal ending of the will, looked up, shut his eyes, and said:
"That is the only will which has been found of the late Sir Alexander Midharst, Baronet, of Warfinger Castle."
He opened his eyes for a moment, and then shut them again, adding while they were closed:
"The will is in my handwriting. I drew it at the late baronet's dictation, using almost his identical words."
He turned over the document, and scrutinised it closely.
"There is no codicil or addition of any kind," bowing to Miss Midharst.
There was a moment's silence, during which every one present looked down.
It was only by the most powerful effort Grey could prevent himself from shouting aloud under the intolerable relief. Although he had expected the will to be in some such terms, he could scarcely believe that, after his days and nights of agonised dread, all had come right. He felt like one who, after long durance in a dim and choking cave, is lifted into a sunlit flowery valley, over which larks are singing, and through which flows a bright silver stream, along which he may wander with unquestioned feet.
Now all was secure. This girl and her whole fortune had, within the past half-hour, been signed and sealed into his possession. True, he had no control over her personal actions. But he soon should have control, the most potent of all – the control of husband over wife. According to the will, she might marry as soon as she pleased. There was nothing now in the world to prevent her being his wife in twelve months.
Nothing to interfere with his marrying this girl and blotting out the trace of his crime. Already she liked him. As they came into that room to hear that will read, by which he became sole executor, trustee, and guardian, did she not lean on him? Already she liked him. Soon she should love him. Soon she should marry him.
Considering her position, the world would approve of her marrying; for she had no one to protect her but a guardian, no kin near enough to take any interest in her. In her solitary situation, every one would approve of her marrying soon.
There was a rustle, and all the men rose to their feet upon perceiving Miss Midharst in the act of rising.
Grey looked across for a moment at her, as she stood upon the right hand of the vacant chair.
"She mine!" he thought. "She will be my salvation! There is nothing now to keep her from me! Nothing between her and me!"
"Miss Midharst," said a deep grave voice at the other side of the table, "I fear there is no one here who can introduce me to you, so that I shall be obliged to introduce myself."
Grey started, and looking across the table, saw the stranger advancing towards Miss Midharst.
The banker threw one glance around, by which he plainly told the other men that he intended resenting so unwarrantable an intrusion on the grief and privacy of the occasion. All his fears had vanished into air. The only feeling he now experienced was that a pushing stranger was seeking to occupy the unwilling attention of his legally constituted ward, and the woman who was to be his wife.
Grey crossed the room rapidly at the back of the vacant chair, and placing himself beside Miss Midharst, bowed and offered her his arm.
She took it, and for a second no one moved.
Maud looked up and saw in front of her a tall, broad, dark-visaged, black-haired, sad-featured man, with dark and dreamy eyes.
She shrank back slightly, and clung to the stalwart arm on which her small white hand lay.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the banker blandly, "I shall be happy to place myself at your disposal when I have led Miss Midharst to her private apartment. May I request you to take a seat until then?"
"Thank you, sir. Your name is Grey."
"It is. And as you have heard the will, you know I am in a position to tell you that anything you have to say to Miss Midharst may, under present circumstances, be more reasonably said to me." The banker advanced his foot, and Maud, still clinging to him, moved to go.
Again the stranger bowed low to Miss Midharst. It was impossible, without downright rudeness, for Grey to move until the stranger should have recovered an erect attitude, as evidently there was something else he wished to say.
"Miss Midharst," at last the stranger said, "I am William Midharst, your cousin;" he held out his hand to her.
"The new baronet!" murmured the servants, in whispers. All the men looked keenly at the tall dark young man, who with a grave smile stood holding out a brown right hand to the fair, shrinking, timid, pale, beautiful girl.
She took her white trembling hand off the banker's arm and held it out to him. She was cold and trembling, and she felt as though she should faint.
He took the fingers of her white hand respectfully between the fingers and thumb of his own brown hand, and bending low with the homage of a chivalric age, and the simple sincerity of our own, kissed the white hand he held. Then, inclining his head towards the banker, he said gravely:
"Will you, sir, upon this occasion of my first meeting my cousin, forego your privilege, and allow me to take her to her apartment?"
The mind of the banker was dazed and paralysed, and in silence he signified his assent.
Placing the hand on the black sleeve of his left arm, Sir William Midharst, of Warfinger Castle, led his orphan cousin Maud down the room, and through the doorway.
As they disappeared Grey's face shrivelled up. Fortunately for him all present were too much occupied with the new baronet's arrival to notice him.
The whole fabric of Grey's rearing seemed to topple over and tumble into dust as these two figures went through the doorway. He was guardian it was true, but his power did not extend to his forbidding her to take that arm, to go through that doorway with that young man, to walk up to the altar-rails with any man whatever.
"Idiot that you have been, Alexander Midharst; you deserve nothing better than that your daughter's fortune should be lost!"
Then he stood a long time immovable.
At last the thought of the stake he had put down in this game rushed in upon his mind, and he was once more on the top of that Tower of Silence, under the dull sky with the Dead.
He now stood in the awful solitude of blood. He strode on through a realm of endless silence and limitless sand. For him there could never be any change here; always that maddening silence – always those unconquerable leagues of sand. Never any variety except —
He suddenly started and shouted. There had been a change in the monotony; for over his shoulder – not the one at which Maud had stood – over the right shoulder suddenly peered the face of his murdered victim.
With a pang of apprehension he became alive to his situation, and looked suddenly round. He was alone. All the others had left, and it was growing dark.
CHAPTER III
"COUSIN MAUD – " "NO; MAUD."
When the young baronet reached the corridor he said in a grave sedate voice:
"I knew your name was Maud; and I knew your poor father did not like me. I am sure you will believe me when I tell you I never saw him in all my life, never saw you until to-day, and never gave him any reason I know of to dislike me. It so happened I was heir to the property; it so happened I was poor. I could not help the former; I tried to do all I could to help the latter, and took an appointment in Egypt. It was such an appointment as a gentleman might take. You, Cousin Maud, had no feeling against me because I happened to be next to the title and estates?"
"Oh, no," answered the girl quickly, in a tremulous half-frightened voice, without looking up.
"And now that I have come to see you, cousin, you have no feeling against me?"
"Not the least. Why should I?"
"When you did not know who I was, you refused to see me to-day. Now that you know I am your cousin, the nearest relative you have on earth, will you do me a favour?"
"If I can, I will."
"Walk with me a while in the grounds; I have much to say to you. The air will do you good, and what I have to say will keep your mind off the sad business of to-day. Grant me this favour, if you do not feel too weak."
"I do not feel weak; only – only confused and frightened. I will go with you."
They had both halted at the foot of the grand staircase. She looked up into his face as she spoke. She had never seen one of her house but her father before. It was strange to think this man should be so unlike her father and yet related to her. He spoke as if he meant to be kind, and in any case she ought not to refuse so slight a favour to the only member of her father's family now living. As a child she had stood in mortal terror of this cousin – this cousin whom her father never lost an opportunity of abusing. But when she had grown older, she knew the young man did not, because he happened to be heir-presumptive to the property and title, deserve on that account solely to be vilified. Her father had always led her to think that towards her this cousin William would behave brutally, simply because her father had racked the property to the very uttermost penny. It had seemed natural that the next tenant for life would regard the acts of her father with strong resentment; and, taking into account the object for which the property had been swept clean, she felt William Midharst, when he came to be Sir William, could not look on her in a friendly spirit. But now that the worst had arrived, and he as a factor in the worst, it did not seem that he should have received such elaborate consideration, or have been the cause of any great dread. He was dark and gloomy-looking, but then he had been very polite.
While these thoughts were jostling one another in Maud Midharst's head, she was in her own room, preparing for that stroll with her cousin. The young baronet was walking softly up and down the great hall, and Wat Grey was standing transfixed by a new terror in the library the two young people had just left.
Presently Maud came down the great staircase. The young baronet looked up and saw a sweet, white, childish face, full of sadness in the midst of crape, and beneath that face a lithe graceful figure, moving as though the ground had nothing to do with her movements, her step was so free and light.
"My cousin Maud," thought the young man, "is too fair for health. Little cousin Maud – lonely little orphan cousin Maud – looks as if she and her father will not be long separated. I hope she is sufficiently clad. But then I must not forget I am used to swarthy faces and warmer skies. My little cousin Maud may live to wear a brighter look and gayer colours."
She was at his side now. All the other women in the world were nothing to him. She was his cousin. Back to the first litigious Sir John they both traced their lines – the great family of Midharst, which had come down through the noble house of Stancroft. His cousin Maud. They two were the last of the great house, they two. She, the pale, fragile, griefful lady, with the wonderful soft eyes, and shy half-frightened air and the pure young beauty. Good Heavens, how she sanctified the place! How she illumined the past! All the ladies of the Midharst house but her were dead: their portraits hung here and there upon the walls of this old historic castle. There was on the walls no lady of the Midharst line as beautiful as Maud. They were all dead and passed away. Around the walls hung the extinguished lamps of beauty in the Midharst house; here by his side stood the lamp clear and burning bright, the most beautiful and the only burning lamp in the house of Midharst – his beautiful cousin Maud.
"Cousin Maud," he said.
She looked up into his swarthy face, into his deep dark eyes, to show that she was attending, but did not speak.
"When I touched your hand first in all my life, a little while ago, there were many present, and you gave me your hand; it may have been merely to show those around us that you recognised me as the head of the family – the family of two. Will you now give me your hand as a private sign that you know of no reason why we should not be friends?"
She held out her hand to him. Not only was he not to be unfriendly, but he was going to be very kind, she thought.
He took her hand, and bending over it kissed the glove, and once more placing that hand on his arm, led her into the open air of the courtyard, under the great brown archway, and out into the shrubless bare grounds.
When they had got a little distance from the castle he broke silence:
"That tall good-looking gentleman, your guardian, Mr. Grey, was very nearly right in saying I was in Egypt; I have just returned. I have been only a few days in England. Upon my arrival I heard what had taken place, and came on as soon as possible. I got to Daneford last night, and put up at the Warfinger Hotel. It was then too late to call upon you, Cousin Maud. I did not send up my name to-day, because I feared, if you knew my name, you might, out of respect to the old feeling, refuse to see me."
He paused a moment as if to arrange his thoughts.
She, without raising her eyes from the ground, murmured,
"You were very kind."
She did not in saying this mean he had displayed kindness in his past action, but that he was displaying kindness to her now.
He understood her, and went on:
"I shall have to go back to Egypt immediately, and I cannot possibly return to England for some months. I shall be here again as soon as I can. Before I go away I want to establish a great friendship with you. I want you to make up your mind to disregard anything you have ever heard to my disadvantage, and look upon me as the head of the family of two, and your best and truest friend. I want you to promise me that at once, to-day – before I leave you – now."
His manner was very fervid and intense as he came towards the end. At the word "now" he ceased to walk.
She looked up. What a change had taken place in that placid, grave, sad face of a few moments before! The dark eyes were full of fire, the delicate nostrils moved, and the swarthy cheek was flushed. He rose up over her, tall and broad and fierce and strong. She trembled, but could not take her eyes from his. She had never met any man like this before. He fixed her attention upon him and upon his words beyond the power of her control. She was frightened and surprised.
"What am I to do?" she asked fearfully.
"You are always to look on your cousin William Midharst as your best friend. Will you promise me that here and now?"
"Yes."
"You promise."
"I promise."
"Very well, that is settled," he said in a quick way. "Let us move on. Now I have other things to say to you of as great importance. You must listen to me very patiently. When you do not understand what I say, you are to stop me and ask me to explain. Won't you?"
"Yes," very timidly.
"Now, from the little I have seen of your guardian, I like him very well, and I have no doubt no wiser selection could have been made. Those people I met in Daneford had something to say about events here, and every one who spoke said good things of him; when every one says good things of a man he must be a good man. Do you like your guardian? I believe you know him some time?"
"I know him since I was a child and I like him very much. No one could have been more kind or considerate than he; and I know my poor father had the greatest confidence in him."
She said this with more animation and earnestness than she had yet shown. Her gratitude to Grey was profound, and she did not wish her cousin should be for a moment in doubt of her feelings in the matter.
"That is all right: I am delighted to hear you say so. Now Mr. Grey has full and complete control of your fortune; that is a mere trifle."
She looked up at him in some surprise and said,
"I understood that Mr. Grey had a large sum."
"I did not mean that your fortune is a mere trifle, but that the fact of its being in his hands rather than any other honest man's is a mere trifle. What I wished to do was to draw a contrast between the comparatively triviality of the guardianship of your money compared with that of another thing."
His eyes were now fixed, staring ahead; and although she looked up into his face, he did not glance down, and she could gather no information through her eyes.
She said, in a tone of faint wonder:
"I do not know what you mean. My father always told me I should have nothing but the money."
Still keeping his eyes fixed ahead, he said, in a dull, slow, dreamy way:
"Well, there was one thing in your father's gift, for a time at all events, and the will gives it to no one. Supposing the guardianship of that thing were in your gift now, would you, considering that I am the only relative you have alive, and that you have agreed to look on me as your best friend, – would you, I ask, give me the guardianship of that thing?"
"But is there any such thing? I certainly never heard of it," she said, in greater wonder.
"There is such a thing."
"And it is in my power to give you the guardianship?" she asked.
"Absolutely, Cousin Maud."
"And you really wish to take the troublesome care of this, whatever it may be?"
"I do."
"Then I give it to you freely."
"And you will give me as absolute control over it as if it had been formally made over to my care by the will of your dead father?"
He had now paused in his walk once more, and was standing looking down on her, not with the fiery eyes of a few moments ago, but with deep, careful, anxious eyes, as though matter of great moment depended on her answer.
