Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 12

"A very strange scene, the final one, Mr. Stephen."

"Awful, awful, Mr. Hudsley. My poor uncle seemed quite delirious at the last."

"Hem!" grunted the old lawyer, putting his hat to his lips and looking over it at the white, smooth face. "You think he was delirious----"

"Don't you, Mr. Hudsley? Do you think that he was conscious of what he was saying? You have been his legal adviser and confidant for years; you would know whether there was any meaning in his wild and incoherent statement about the will. As you are no doubt aware, my poor uncle never broached the subject of his intentions to me."

"I know of only one will--that of last year. That will I executed for him; it is the will locked up in the safe up-stairs. I have a copy at the office," he added, dryly.

"You--you don't think there is any other--any other later will?" he asked, softly.

"I didn't think so until an hour ago. I am not sure that I think so now.

Do you?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "My uncle was not the man to draw up a will with his own hand, and his confidence, and I may say affection for you, were so great that he would not have gone to any other legal adviser to do it for him. No, I do not think there is any other will; of course, I do not know the contents of the will in the safe."

"Of course not," said Mr. Hudsley, in a tone so dry that it seemed to rasp his throat.

"And yet I cannot understand, my poor uncle's outbreak, except by attributing it to delirium."

"Hem!" said Mr. Hudsley. "Well, in case there should have been any meaning and significance in it, my clerk and I will make a careful search to-morrow."

"Yes," murmured Stephen, "and I devoutly trust that should a later will be in existence, you may find it."

"I hope we may," said Mr. Hudsley. "Good-night!"

Stephen accompanied him to the door as he had accompanied the doctor and Jack, and saw him into the brougham, and then turned back into the house with a look of release, which, however, gradually changed to one of lurking fear and indefinite dread.

"Conscience makes cowards of us all."

It makes a worse coward of Stephen Davenant than he was naturally.

As he stood in the deserted hall, and looked round, at its vast dimness, at the carved gallery and staircase, somber and dull for want of varnish, and listened to the faint, ghostly noises made by the awe-stricken servants moving to and fro overhead, a chill crept over him, and he wished that he had kept one of them, even Jack, to bear him company.

With fearful gaze he peered into the darkness, scarcely daring to cross the hall and enter the library. For all the stillness, he fancied he could hear that last shriek of the dying man ringing through the house; for all the darkness, the slim, bent figure seemed to be moving to and fro, the dark piercing eyes turned upon him with furious accusation.

Even when he had summoned up courage to enter the library, locking the door after him, the eyes seemed to follow him, and with a shudder that shook him from head to foot he poured out a gla.s.s of brandy and drank it down.

The Spirit of Evil certainly invented brandy for cowards.

Stephen set down the empty gla.s.s and looked round the room--another man.

He even smiled in a ghostly kind of fas.h.i.+on as he took the will from his pocket and opened it.

"Poor Jack!" he murmured, with a sardonic display of the white teeth.

"This no doubt makes you master of Hurst Leigh; but Providence has decreed that the spendthrift shall be disappointed. Yes, I am the humble instrument chosen. I am----"

He stopped suddenly with a start, for he had been reading as he soliloquized, and he had come upon words that struck him to the very heart's core.

Was he dreaming, or had his senses taken leave of him?

With beating heart and white, parched lips he stared at the paper until the lines of crabbed handwriting danced before his astounded eyes.

If brevity is the soul of wit, old Ralph Davenant's will was wit itself.

It consisted of five paragraphs.

The first was merely the usual preamble declaring the testator to be of sound mind.

The second ran thus:

"To John Newcombe I will and bequeath the sum of fifty thousand pounds, the said sum to be realized by the sale or transfer of bonds and stocks, at the discretion of James Hudsley."

Enough in this to move Stephen, but it paled into insignificance before what followed:

"To my nephew, Stephen Davenant, I will and bequeath the set of Black's sermons in twenty-nine volumes, standing on the second shelf in the library, having remarked the affection which the said Stephen Davenant bore the said volumes, and accepting his repeated a.s.sertions that his attendance upon me was wholly disinterested."

An ugly flash and an evil glitter swept over Stephen's white face and eyes, and his teeth ground together maliciously.

"To each and every one of my servants I bequeath the sum of one hundred pounds, such sum to be forfeited by each and every one who a.s.sumes mourning for my death, which each and every one has anxiously looked forward to.

"And lastly, I will and bequeath the remainder of my property of whatsoever kind, be it money, houses, lands, or property of any description, to my only daughter and child, Eunice Davenant, the same to be held in trust for her sole use and benefit by James Hudsley.

"And I hereby inform him, and the world at large, that the said Eunice Davenant is the only issue of my marriage with Caroline Hatfield; that the said marriage was celebrated in secret at the Church of Armfield, in Suss.e.x, in June, 18--. And that the said Eunice Davenant, my daughter, is in the keeping of one Gideon Rolfe, woodman, of Warden Forest, who has reared her as his own child, and who is unacquainted with the facts of my secret marriage, and I decree and appoint James Hudsley sole guardian, trustee, and ward of the aforesaid Eunice Davenant, and at her hands I crave forgiveness for my neglect of her mother and herself.

"(Signed) RALPH DAVENANT, "Hurst Leigh.

"Witness--George Goodman, "Coachman, Hurst Leigh.

"Martha Goodman, "Cook, Hurst Leigh."

White, breathless, Stephen held the paper in his clinched hands and stared at the astounding contents.

Eunice Davenant the squire's daughter.

His overstrained brain refused to realize it.

Old Ralph Davenant married! Married! It was impossible.

_Oh, yes, that was it._ A smile, a ghastly smile shone on his face. _It was a joke_--a vile, malicious joke, worthy of the crabbed, misanthropical old man! A villainous joke, set down just to bring about litigation, and create trouble and confusion between the two young men, himself and Jack Newcombe. And yet--and the smile died away and left his face fearful and haggard--and yet that awful fury of the dying man when he knew that the will had been stolen.

No, it was no jest. The marriage had taken place; there _was_ a daughter, and she was the heiress of all that immense, untold wealth, except the fifty thousand pounds left to Jack Newcombe, while he--he, Stephen Davenant, the next of kin, the man who had been working, lying, toadying for the money, was left with a set of musty sermons.

Rage filled his heart; stifling, choking with fury, the disappointed schemer struck the senseless paper with his clinched fist, and ground his teeth at it; then, suddenly, as if by a swift inspiration, he remembered that this accursed will, which would reduce him to beggary, and leave an unknown girl and his hated cousin wealthy, was in his hands; that he and he only knew of its existence. With a sudden revulsion of feeling he sprang to his feet, and held the paper at arm's length and laughed softly at it, as if it were endued with sense, and could appreciate its helplessness.

Then he drew the candle near, folded the paper into a third of its size, held it to the candle--and drew it back again, overcome by that fascination which almost invariably exercises itself on such occasions--that peculiar reluctance to destroy the thing whose existence can destroy the possessor.

The flame flickered and licked the frail paper; the smoke curled round its edge; and yet--and yet he could not destroy it.

Instead, he sat down, and with clinched teeth unfolded the will and read it--read it again and again, until every word was burned and seared into his brain.