Mr. Meeson's Will Part 18

Lady Holmhurst began to laugh; and as for the learned Doctor, anything more absurd than he looked, intrenched as he was behind his office chair, with perplexity written on his face, it would be impossible to imagine.

"Well," he said at length, "I suppose that I must come to a decision. It is a painful matter, very, to a person of modest temperament. However, I cannot shrink from my duty, and must face it. Therefore," he went on with an air of judicial sternness, "therefore, Miss Smithers, I must trouble you to show me this alleged will. There is a cupboard there," and he pointed to the corner of the room, "where you can make--'um--make the necessary preparations."

"Oh, it isn't quite so bad as that," said Augusta, with a sigh, and she began to remove her jacket.

"Dear me!" he said, observing her movement with alarm, "I suppose she is hardened," he continued to himself: "but I dare say one gets used to this sort of thing upon desert islands."

Meanwhile poor Augusta had got her jacket off. She was dressed in an evening dress, and had a white silk scarf over her shoulder: this she removed.

"Oh," he said, "I see--in evening dress. Well, of course, that is quite a different matter. And so that is the will--well, I have had some experience, but I never saw or heard of anything like it before.

Signed and attested, but not dated. Ah! unless," he added, "the date is lower down."

"No," said Augusta, "there is no date; I could not stand any more tattooing. It was all done at one sitting, and I got faint."

"I don't wonder at it, I am sure. I think it is the bravest thing I ever heard of," and he bowed with much grace.

"Ah," muttered Eustace, "he's beginning to pay compliments now, insidious old hypocrite!"

"Well," went on the innocent and eminently respectable object of his suspicions, "of course the absence of a date does not invalidate a will--it is matter for proof, that is all. But there, I am not in a position to give any opinion about the case; it is quite beyond me, and besides, that is not my business. But now, Miss Smithers, as you have once put yourself in the custody of the Registry in the capacity of a will, might I ask if you have any suggestion to make as to how you are to be dealt with. Obviously you cannot be locked up with the other wills, and equally obviously it is against the rules to allow a will to go out of the custody of the Court, unless by special permission of the Court.

Also it is clear that I cannot put any restraint upon the liberty of the subject and order you to remain with me. Indeed, I doubt if it would be possible to do so by any means short of an Act of Parliament. Under these circ.u.mstances I am, I confess, a little confused as to what course should be taken with reference to this important alleged will."

"What I have to suggest, Sir," said Mr. Short, "is that a certified copy of the will should be filed, and that there should be a special paragraph inserted in the affidavit of scripts detailing the circ.u.mstances."

"Ah," said the learned Doctor, polis.h.i.+ng his eye-gla.s.ses, "you have given me an idea. With Miss Smithers' consent we will file something better than a certified copy of the will--we will file a photographic copy. The inconvenience to Miss Smithers will be trifling, and it may prevent questions being raised hereafter."

"Have you any objections to that, my dear?" asked Lady Holmhurst.

"Oh, no, I suppose not," said Augusta mournfully; "I seem to be public property now."

"Very well, then; excuse me for a moment," said the learned Doctor.

"There is a photographer close by whom I have had occasion to employ officially. I will write and see if he can come round."

In a few minutes an answer came back from the photographer that he would be happy to wait upon Doctor Probate at three o'clock, up to which hour he was engaged.

"Well," said the Doctor, "it is clear that I cannot let Miss Smithers out of the custody of the Court till the photograph is taken. Let me see, I think that yours was my last appointment this morning. Now, what do you say to the idea of something to eat? We are not five minutes drive from Simpson's, and I shall feel delighted if you will make a pleasure of a necessity."

Lady Holmhurst, who was getting very hungry, said that she should be most pleased, and, accordingly, they all--with the exception of Mr. John Short, who departed about some business, saying that he would return at three o'clock--drove off in Lady Holmhurst's carriage to the restaurant, where this delightful specimen of the genus Registrar stood them a most sumptuous champagne lunch, and made himself so agreeable, that both the ladies nearly fell in love with him, and even Eustace was constrained to admit to himself that good things can come out of the Divorce Court.

Finally, the doctor wound up the proceedings, which were of a most lively order, and included an account of Augusta's adventures, with a toast.

"I hear from Lady Holmhurst," he said, "that you two young people are going to take the preliminary step--um--towards a possible future appearance in that Court with which I had for many years the honor of being connected--that is, that you are going to get married. Now, matrimony is, according to my somewhat extended experience, an undertaking of a venturesome order, though cases occasionally come under one's observation where the results have proved to be in every way satisfactory; and I must say that, if I may form an opinion from the facts as they are before me, I never knew an engagement entered into under more promising or more romantic auspices. Here the young gentleman quarrels with his uncle in taking the part of the young lady, and thereby is disinherited of vast wealth. Then the young lady, under the most terrible circ.u.mstances, takes steps of a nature that not one woman in five hundred would have done to restore to him that wealth. Whether or no those steps will ultimately prove successful I do not know, and, if I did, like Herodotus, I should prefer not to say; but whether the wealth comes or goes, it is impossible but that a sense of mutual confidence and a mutual respect and admiration--that is, if a more quiet thing, certainly, also, a more enduring thing, than mere 'love'--must and will result from them. Mr. Meeson, you are indeed a fortunate man. In Miss Smithers you are going to marry beauty, courage, and genius, and if you will allow an older man of some experience to drop the official and give you a word of advice, it is this: always try to deserve your good fortune, and remember that a man who, in his youth, finds such a woman, and is enabled by circ.u.mstances to marry her, is indeed--

_Smiled on by Joy, and cherished of the G.o.ds._

"And now I will end my sermon, and wish you both health and happiness and fulness of days," and he drank off his gla.s.s of champagne, and looked so pleasant and kindly that Augusta longed to kiss him on the spot, and as for Eustace, he shook hands with him warmly, and then and there a friends.h.i.+p began between the two which endures till now.

And then they all went back to the office, and there was the photographer waiting with all his apparatus, and astonished enough he was when he found out what the job was that he had to do. However, the task proved an easy one enough, as the light of the room was suitable, and the dark lines of cuttle ink upon Augusta's neck would, the man said, come out perfectly in the photograph. So he took two or three shots at her back and then departed, saying that he would bring a life-sized reproduction to be filed in the Registry in a couple of days.

And after that the learned Registrar also shook hands with them, and said that he need detain them no longer, as he now felt justified in allowing Augusta out of his Custody.

And so they departed, glad to have got over the first step so pleasantly.

CHAPTER XVIII.

AUGUSTA FLIES.

Of course, Augusta's story, so far as it was publicly known, had created no small stir, which was considerably emphasised when pictures of her appeared in the ill.u.s.trated papers, and it was discovered that she was young and charming. But the excitement, great as it was, was as nothing compared to that which arose when the first whispers of the tale of the will, which was tattooed upon her shoulders, began to get about.

Paragraphs and stories about this will appeared in the papers, but of course she took no notice of these.

On the fourth day, however, after she had been photographed for the purposes of the Registry, things came to a climax. It so happened that on that morning Lady Holmhurst asked Augusta to go to a certain shop in Regent-street to get some lace which she required to trim her widow's dresses, and accordingly at about half-past twelve o'clock she started, accompanied by the lady's maid. As soon as they shut the front door of the house in Hanover-square she noticed two or three doubtful-looking men who were loitering about, and who instantly followed them, staring at her with all their eyes. She made her way along, however, without taking any notice until she got to Regent-street, by which time there were quite a score of people walking after her whispering excitedly at each other. In Regent-street itself, the first thing that she saw was a man selling photographs. Evidently he was doing a roaring trade, for there was a considerable crowd round him, and he was shouting something which she could not catch. Presently a gentleman, who had bought one of the photographs, stopped just in front of her to look at it, and as he was short and Augusta was tall, she could see over his shoulder, and the next second started back with an indignant exclamation. "No wonder!" for the photograph was one of herself as she had been taken in the low dress in the Registry. There was no mistake about it--there was the picture of the will tattooed right across her shoulders.

Nor did her troubles end there, for at that moment a man came bawling down the street carrying a number of the first edition of an evening paper--

"Description and picture of the lovely 'eroine of the c.o.c.katoo," he yelled, "with the will tattooed upon 'er! Taken from the original photograph! Facsimile picture!"

"Oh, dear me," said Augusta to the maid, "that is really too bad. Let us go home."

But meanwhile the crowd at her back had gathered and increased to an extraordinary extent and was slowly inclosing her in a circle. The fact was, that the man who had followed her from Hanover-square had told the others who joined their ranks, who the lady was, and she was now identified.

"That's her," said one man.

"Who?" said another.

"Why, the Miss Smithers as escaped from the Kangaroo and has the will on her back, in course."

There was a howl of exultation from the mob, and in another second the wretched Augusta was pressed, together with the lady's maid, who began to scream with fright, right up against a lamp-post, while a crowd of eager faces, mostly unwashed, were pushed almost into her own. Indeed, so fierce was the crowd in its attempt to get a glimpse of the latest curiosity, that she began to think that she would be thrown down and trampled under foot, when timely relief arrived in the shape of two policemen and a gentleman volunteer, who managed to rescue her and get them into a hansom cab, which started for Hanover-square, pursued by a shouting crowd of nondescript individuals.

Now, Augusta was a woman of good-nerve and resolution; but this sort of thing was too trying, and, accordingly, accompanied by Lady Holmhurst, she went off, that very day, to some rooms in a little riverside hotel on the Thames.

When Eustace, walking down the Strand that afternoon, found every photograph-shop full of accurate pictures of the shoulders of his beloved, he was simply furious; and, rus.h.i.+ng to the photographer who had taken the picture in the Registry, threatened him with proceedings of every sort and kind. The man admitted outright that he had put the photographs upon the market, saying that he had never stipulated not to do so, and that he could not afford to throw away five or six hundred pounds when a chance of making it came in his way.

Thereon Eustace departed, still vowing vengeance, to consult the legal twins. As a result of this, within a week, Mr. James Short made a motion for and injunction against the photographer, restraining the sale of the photographs in question, on the ground that such sale, being of copies of a doc.u.ment vital to a cause now pending in the Court, those copies having been obtained through the instrumentality of an officer of the court, Dr.

Probate, the sale thereof amounted to a contempt, inasmuch as, if for no other reason, the photographer who obtained them became technically, and for that purpose only, an officer of the Court, and had, therefore, no right to part with them, or any of them, without the leave of the Court.

It will be remembered that this motion gave rise to some very delicate questions connected with the powers of the Court in such a matter, and also incidentally with the law of photographic copyright. It is also memorable for the unanimous and luminous judgment finally delivered by the Lords Justices of Appeal, whereby the sale of the photographs was stopped, and the photographer was held to have been guilty of a technical contempt. This judgment contained perhaps the most searching and learned definition of constructive contempt that has yet been formulated: but for the text of this, I must refer the student to the law reports, because, as it took two hours to deliver, I fear that it would, notwithstanding its many beauties, be thought too long for the purpose of this history.

Unfortunately, however, it did not greatly benefit Augusta, the victim of the unlawful dissemination of photographs of her shoulders, inasmuch as the judgment was not delivered till a week after the great case of Meeson v. Addison and Another had been settled.

About a week after Augusta's adventure in Regent-street, a motion was made in the Court of Probate on behalf of the defendants, Messrs. Addison and Roscoe, who were the executors and princ.i.p.al beneficiaries under the former will of November, 1885, demanding that the Court should order the plaintiff to file a further and better affidavit of scripts, with the original will got up by him attached, the object, of course, being to compel an inspection of the doc.u.ment. This motion, which first brought the whole case under the notice of the public, was strenuously resisted by Mr. James Short, and resulted in the matter being referred to the learned Registrar for his report. On the next motion day this report was presented, and, on its appearing from it that the photography had taken place in his presence and accurately represented the tattoo marks on the lady's shoulders, the Court declined to hara.s.s the "will" by ordering her to submit to any further inspection before the trial. It was on this occasion that it transpired that the will was engaged to be married to the plaintiff, a fact at which the Court metaphorically opened its eyes.

After this the defendants obtained leave to amend their answer to the plaintiffs statement of claim. At first they had only pleaded that the testator had not duly executed the alleged will in accordance with the provisions of 1 Vic., cap. 26, sec. 2, and that he did not know and approve the contents thereof. But now they added a plea to the effect that the said alleged will was obtained by the undue influence of Augusta Smithers, or, as one of the learned counsel for the defendants put it much more clearly at the trial, "that the will had herself procured the will, by an undue projection of her own will upon the unwilling mind of the testator."

And so the time went on. As often as he could, Eustace got away from London, and went down to the little riverside hotel, and was as happy as a man can be who has a tremendous law suit hanging over him. The law, no doubt, is an admirable inst.i.tution, out of which a large number of people make a living, and a proportion of benefit accrues to the community at large. But woe unto those who form the subject-matter of its operations.

For instance, the Court of Chancery is an excellent inst.i.tution in theory, and looks after the affairs of minors upon the purest principles.

But how many of its wards after, and as a result of one of its well-intentioned interferences, have to struggle for the rest of their lives under a load of debt raised to pay the crus.h.i.+ng costs! To employ the Court of Chancery to look after wards is something as though one set a tame elephant to pick up pins. No doubt he could pick them up, but it would cost something to feed him. It is a perfectly arguable proposition that the Court of Chancery produces as much wretchedness and poverty as it prevents, and it certainly is a bold step, except under the most exceptionable circ.u.mstances, to place anybody in its custody who has money that can be dissipated in law expenses. But of course these are revolutionary remarks, which one cannot expect everybody to agree with, least of all the conveyancing counsel of the Court.

However this may be, certainly his impending lawsuit proved a fly in Eustace's honey. Never a day pa.s.sed but some fresh worry arose. James and John, the legal twins, fought like heroes, and held their own although their experience was so small--as men of talent almost invariably do when they are put to it. But it was difficult for Eustace to keep them supplied even with sufficient money for out-of-pocket expenses; and, of course, as was natural in a case in which such enormous sums were at stake, and in which the defendants were already men of vast wealth, they found the flower of the entire talent and weight of the Bar arrayed against them. Naturally Eustace felt, and so did Mr. James Short--who, notwithstanding his pomposity and the technicality of his talk, was both a clever and sensible man--that more counsel, men of weight and experience, ought to be briefed; but there were absolutely no funds for this purpose, nor was anybody likely to advance any upon the security of a will tattooed upon a young lady's back. This was awkward, because success in law proceedings so very often leans towards the weightiest purse, and Judges however impartial, being but men after all, are more apt to listen to an argument which is urged upon their attention by an Attorney-General than on one advanced by an unknown junior.

However, there the fact was, and they had to make the best of it; and a point in their favour was that the case, although of a most remarkable nature, was comparatively simple, and did not involve any great ma.s.s of doc.u.mentary evidence.