Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman
Page 297
‘And everybody’s business being your business,’ Sir George muttered irritably.
‘To be sure, sir — it is a will, I said, he is for making. And with your honour’s leave,’ Peter concluded with spirit, I’ll make it.’
‘Confound your impudence,’ Sir George answered, and stared at him, marvelling at the little man’s shrewdness.
Peter smiled in a sickly fashion. ‘If your honour would but allow me?’ he said. He saw a great chance slipping from him, and his voice was plaintive.
It moved Sir George to compassion. ‘Where is your practice?’ he asked ungraciously.
The attorney felt a surprising inclination to candour. ‘At Wallingford,’ he said, ‘it should be. But—’ and there he stopped, shrugging his shoulders, and leaving the rest unsaid.
‘Can you make a will?’ Sir George retorted.
‘No man better,’ said Peter with confidence; and on the instant he drew a chair to the table, seized the pen, and bent the nib on his thumbnail; then he said briskly, ‘I wait your commands, sir.’
Sir George stared in some embarrassment — he had not expected to be taken so literally; but, after a moment’s hesitation, reflecting that to write down his wishes with his own hand would give him more trouble, and that he might as well trust this stranger as that, he accepted the situation. ‘Take down what I wish, then,’ he said. ‘Put it into form afterwards, and bring it to me when I rise. Can you be secret?’
‘Try me,’ Peter answered with enthusiasm. ‘For a good client I would bite off my tongue.’
‘Very well, then, listen!’ Sir George said. And presently, after some humming and thinking, ‘I wish to leave all my real property to the eldest son of my uncle, Anthony Soane,’ he continued.
‘Right, sir. Child already in existence, I presume? Not that it is absolutely necessary,’ the attorney continued glibly. ‘But—’
‘I do not know,’ said Sir George.
‘Ah!’ said the lawyer, raising his pen and knitting his brows while he looked very learnedly into vacancy. ‘The child is expected, but you have not yet heard, sir, that—’
‘I know nothing about the child, nor whether there is a child,’ Sir George answered testily. ‘My uncle may be dead, unmarried, or alive and married — what difference does it make?’
‘Certainty is very necessary in these things,’ Peter replied severely. The pen in his hand, he became a different man. ‘Your uncle, Mr. Anthony Soane, as I understand, is alive?’
‘He disappeared in the Scotch troubles in ‘45,’ Sir George reluctantly explained, ‘was disinherited in favour of my father, sir, and has not since been heard from.’
The attorney grew rigid with alertness; he was like nothing so much as a dog, expectant at a rat-hole. ‘Attainted?’ he said.
‘No!’ said Sir George.
‘Outlawed?’
‘No.’
The attorney collapsed: no rat in the hole. ‘Dear me, dear me, what a sad story!’ he said; and then remembering that his client had profited, ‘but out of evil — ahem! As I understand, sir, you wish all your real property, including the capital mansion house and demesne, to go to the eldest son of your uncle Mr. Anthony Soane in tail, remainder to the second son in tail, and, failing sons, to daughters — the usual settlement, in a word, sir.’
‘Yes.’
‘No exceptions, sir.’
‘None.’
‘Very good,’ the attorney answered with the air of a man satisfied so far. ‘And failing issue of your uncle? To whom then, Sir George?’
‘To the Earl of Chatham.’
Mr. Fishwick jumped in his seat; then bowed profoundly.
‘Indeed! Indeed! How very interesting!’ he murmured under his breath. ‘Very remarkable! Very remarkable, and flattering.’
Sir George stooped to explain. ‘I have no near relations,’ he said shortly. ‘Lord Chatham — he was then Mr. Pitt — was the executor of my grandfather’s will, is connected with me by marriage, and at one time acted as my guardian.’
Mr. Fishwick licked his lips as if he tasted something very good. This was business indeed! These were names with a vengeance! His face shone with satisfaction; he acquired a sudden stiffness of the spine. ‘Very good, sir,’ he said. ‘Ve — ry good,’ he said. ‘In fee simple, I understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Precisely. Precisely; no uses or trusts? No. Unnecessary of course. Then as to personalty, Sir George?’
‘A legacy of five hundred guineas to George Augustus Selwyn, Esquire, of Matson, Gloucestershire. One of the same amount to Sir Charles Bunbury, Baronet. Five hundred guineas to each of my executors; and to each of these four a mourning ring.’
‘Certainly, sir. All very noble gifts!’ And Mr. Fishwick smacked his lips.
For a moment Sir George looked his offence; then seeing that the attorney’s ecstasy was real and unaffected, he smiled. ‘To my land-steward two hundred guineas,’ he said; ‘to my house-steward one hundred guineas, to the housekeeper at Estcombe an annuity of twenty guineas. Ten guineas and a suit of mourning to each of my upper servants not already mentioned, and the rest of my personalty—’
‘After payment of debts and funeral and testamentary expenses,’ the lawyer murmured, writing busily.
Sir George started at the words, and stared thoughtfully before him: he was silent so long that the lawyer recalled his attention by gently repeating, ‘And the residue, honoured sir?’
‘To the Thatched House Society for the relief of small debtors,’ Sir George answered, between a sigh and a smile. And added, ‘They will not gain much by it, poor devils!’
Mr. Fishwick with a rather downcast air noted the bequest. ‘And that is all, sir, I think?’ he said with his head on one side. ‘Except the appointment of executors.’
‘No,’ Sir George answered curtly. ‘It is not all. Take this down and be careful. As to the trust fund of fifty thousand pounds’ — the attorney gasped, and his eyes shone as he seized the pen anew. ‘Take this down carefully, man, I say,’ Sir George continued. ‘As to the trust fund left by my grandfather’s will to my uncle Anthony Soane or his heirs conditionally on his or their returning to their allegiance and claiming it within the space of twenty-one years from the date of his will, the interest in the meantime to be paid to me for my benefit, and the principal sum, failing such return, to become mine as fully as if it had vested in me from the beginning—’
‘Ah!’ said the attorney, scribbling fast, and with distended cheeks.
‘I leave the said fund to go with the land.’
‘To go with the land,’ the lawyer repeated as he wrote the words. ‘Fifty thousand pounds! Prodigious! Prodigious! Might I ask, sir, the date of your respected grandfather’s will?’
‘December, 1746,’ Sir George answered.
‘The term has then nine months to run?’
‘Yes.’
‘With submission, then it comes to this,’ the lawyer answered thoughtfully, marking off the points with his pen in the air. ‘In the event of — of this will operating — all, or nearly all of your property, Sir George, goes to your uncle’s heirs in tail — if to be found — and failing issue of his body to my Lord Chatham?’
‘Those are my intentions.’
‘Precisely, sir,’ the lawyer answered, glancing at the clock. ‘And they shall be carried out. But — ahem! Do I understand, sir, that in the event of a claimant making good his claim before the expiration of the nine months, you stand to lose this stupendous, this magnificent sum — even in your lifetime?’
‘I do,’ Sir George answered grimly. ‘But there will be enough left to pay your bill.’
Peter stretched out his hands in protest, then, feeling that this was unprofessional, he seized the pen. ‘Will you please to honour me with the names of the executors, sir?’ he said.
‘Dr. Addington, of Harley Street.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And Mr. Dagge, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, attorney-at-law.’
‘At a quarter before eight,’ said Soane. ‘You will be private?’
‘Of course, sir. It is my business to be private. I wish you a very good night.’
The attorney longed to refer to the coming meeting, and to his sincere hope that his new patron would leave the ground unscathed. But a duel was so alien from the lawyer’s walk in life, that he knew nothing of the punctilios, and he felt a delicacy. Tamely to wish a man a safe issue seemed to be a common compliment incommensurate with the occasion; and a bathos. So, after a moment of hesitation, he gathered up his papers, and tip-toed out of the room with an absurd exaggeration of respect, and a heart bounding jubilant under his flapped waistcoat.
Left to himself, Sir George heaved a sigh, and, resting his head on his hand, stared long and gloomily at the candles. ‘Well, better be run through by this clown,’ he muttered after a while, ‘than live to put a pistol to my own head like Mountford and Bland. Or Scarborough, or poor Bolton. It is not likely, and I wish that little pettifogger had not put it into my head; but if a cousin were to appear now, or before the time is up, I should be in Queer Street. Estcombe is dipped: and of the money I raised, there is no more at the agent’s than I have lost in a night at Quinze! D —— n White’s and that is all about it. And d —— n it, I shall, and finely, if old Anthony’s lad turn up and sweep off the three thousand a year that is left. Umph, if I am to have a steady hand to-morrow I must get to bed. What unholy chance brought me into this scrape?’
CHAPTER V
THE MEETING
Sir George awoke next morning, and, after a few lazy moments of semi-consciousness, remembered what was before him, it is not to be denied that he felt a chill. He lay awhile, thinking of the past and the future — or the no future — in a way he seldom thought, and with a seriousness for which the life he had hitherto led had left him little time and less inclination.
But he was young; he had a digestion as yet unimpaired, and nerves still strong; and when he emerged an hour later and, more soberly dressed than was his wont, proceeded down the High Street towards the Cherwell Bridge, his spirits were at their normal level. The spring sunshine which gilded the pinnacles of Magdalen tower, and shone cool and pleasant on a score of hoary fronts, wrought gaily on him also. The milksellers and such early folk were abroad, and filled the street with their cries; he sniffed the fresh air, and smiled at the good humour and morning faces that everywhere greeted him; and d —— d White’s anew, and vowed to live cleanly henceforth, and forswear Pam. In a word, the man was of such a courage that in his good resolutions he forgot his errand, and whence they arose; and it was with a start that, as he approached the gate leading to the college meadows, he marked a chair in waiting, and beside it Mr. Peter Fishwick, from whom he had parted at the Mitre ten minutes before.
Soane did not know whether the attorney had preceded him or followed him: the intrusion was the same, and flushed with annoyance, he strode to him to mark his sense of it. But Peter, being addressed, wore his sharpest business air, and was entirely unconscious of offence. ‘I have merely purveyed a surgeon,’ he said, indicating a young man who stood beside him. ‘I could not learn that you had provided one, sir.’
‘Oh!’ Sir George answered, somewhat taken aback, ‘this is the gentleman.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Soane was in the act of saluting the stranger, when a party of two or three persons came up behind, and had much ado not to jostle them in the gateway. It consisted of Mr. Dunborough, Lord Almeric, and two other gentlemen; one of these, an elderly man, who wore black and hair-powder, and carried a gold-topped cane, had a smug and well-pleased expression, that indicated his stake in the meeting to be purely altruistic. The two companies exchanged salutes.
On this followed a little struggle to give precedence at the gate, but eventually all went through. ‘If we turn to the right,’ some one observed, ‘there is a convenient place. No, this way, my lord.’
‘Oh Lord, I have such a head this morning!’ his lordship answered; and he looked by no means happy. ‘I am all of a twitter! It is so confounded early, too. See here: cannot this be — ?’
The gentleman who had spoken before drowned his voice. ‘Will this do, sir?’ he said, raising his hat, and addressing Sir George. The party had reached a smooth glade or lawn encompassed by thick shrubs, and to all appearance a hundred miles from a street. A fairy-ring of verdure, glittering with sunlight and dewdrops, and tuneful with the songs of birds, it seemed a morsel of paradise dropped from the cool blue of heaven. Sir George felt a momentary tightening of the throat as he surveyed its pure brilliance, and then a sudden growing anger against the fool who had brought him thither.
‘You have no second?’ said the stranger.
‘No,’ he answered curtly; ‘I think we have witnesses enough.’
‘Still — if the matter can be accommodated?’
‘It can,’ Soane answered, standing stiffly before them. ‘But only by an unreserved apology on Mr. Dunborough’s part. He struck me. I have no more to say.’
‘I do not offer the apology,’ Mr. Dunborough rejoined, with a horse-laugh. ‘So we may as well go on, Jerry. I did not come here to talk.’
‘I have brought pistols,’ his second said, disregarding the sneer. ‘But my principal, though the challenged party, is willing to waive the choice of weapons.’
‘Pistols will do for me,’ Sir George answered.
‘One shot, at a word. If ineffective, you will take to your swords,’ the second continued; and he pushed back his wig and wiped his forehead, as if his employment were not altogether to his taste. A duel was a fine thing — at a distance. He wished, however, that he had some one with whom to share the responsibility, now it was come to the point; and he cast a peevish look at Lord Almeric. But his lordship was, as he had candidly said, ‘all of a twitter,’ and offered no help.
‘I suppose that I am to load,’ the unlucky second continued. ‘That being so, you, Sir George, must have the choice of pistols.’
Sir George bowed assent, and, going a little aside, removed his hat, wig, and cravat; and was about to button his coat to his throat, when he observed that Mr. Dunborough was stripping to his shirt. Too proud not to follow the example, though prudence suggested that the white linen made him a fair mark, he stripped also, and in a trice the two, kicking off their shoes, moved to the positions assigned to them; and in their breeches and laced lawn shirts, their throats bare, confronted one another.
‘Sir George, have you no one to represent you?’ cried the second again, grown querulous under the burden. His name, it seemed, was Morris. He was a major in the Oxfordshire Militia.
Soane answered with impatience. ‘I have no second,’ he said, ‘but my surgeon will be a competent witness.’
‘Ah! to be sure!’ Major Morris answered, with a sigh of relief. ‘That is so. Then, gentlemen, I shall give the signal by saying One, two, three! Be good enough to fire together at the word Three! Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Dunborough. And ‘Yes,’ Sir George said more slowly.
‘Then, now, be ready! Prepare to fire! One! two! th—’
‘Stay!’ flashed Mr. Dunborough, while the word still hung in the air. ‘You have not given us our pistols,’ he continued, with an oath.
‘What?’ cried the second, staring.
‘Man, you have not given us our pistols.’
The major was covered with confusion. ‘God bless my soul! I have not!’ he cried; while Lord Almeric giggled hysterically. ‘Dear me! dear me! it is very trying to be alone!’ He threw his hat and wig on the grass, and again wiped his brow, and took up the pistols. ‘Sir George? Thank you. Mr. Dunborough
, here is yours.’ Then: ‘Now, are you ready? Thank you.’
He retreated to his place again. ‘Are you ready, gentlemen? Are you quite ready?’ he repeated anxiously, amid a breathless silence. ‘One! two! three!’
Sir George’s pistol exploded at the word; the hammer of the other clicked futile in the pan. The spectators, staring, and expecting to see one fall, saw Mr. Dunborough start and make a half turn. Before they had time to draw any conclusion he flung his pistol a dozen paces away, and cursed his second. ‘D —— n you, Morris!’ he cried shrilly; ‘you put no powder in the pan, you hound! But come on, sir,’ he continued, addressing Sir George, ‘I have this left.’ And rapidly changing his sword from his left hand, in which he had hitherto held it, to his right, he rushed upon his opponent with the utmost fury, as if he would bear him down by main force.
‘Stay!’ Sir George cried; and, instead of meeting him, avoided his first rush by stepping aside two paces. ‘Stay, sir,’ he repeated; ‘I owe you a shot! Prime afresh. Reload, sir, and—’
But Dunborough, blind and deaf with passion, broke in on him unheeding, and as if he carried no weapon; and crying furiously, ‘Guard yourself!’ plunged his half-shortened sword at the lower part of Sir George’s body. The spectators held their breath and winced; the assault was so sudden, so determined, that it seemed that nothing could save Sir George from a thrust thus delivered. He did escape, however, by a bound, quick as a cat’s; but the point of Dunborough’s weapon ripped up his breeches on the hip, the hilt rapped against the bone, and the two men came together bodily. For a moment they wrestled, and seemed to be going to fight like beasts.
Then Sir George, his left forearm under the other’s chin, flung him three paces away; and shifting his sword into his right hand — hitherto he had been unable to change it — he stopped Dunborough’s savage rush with the point, and beat him off and kept him off — parrying his lunges, and doing his utmost the while to avoid dealing him a fatal wound. Soane was so much the better swordsman — as was immediately apparent to all the onlookers — that he no longer feared for himself; all his fears were for his opponent, the fire and fury of whose attacks he could not explain to himself, until he found them flagging; and flagging so fast that he sought a reason. Then Dunborough’s point beginning to waver, and his feet to slip, Sir George’s eyes were opened; he discerned a crimson patch spread and spread on the other’s side — where unnoticed Dunborough had kept his hand — and with a cry for help he sprang forward in time to catch the falling man in his arms.