Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 88

"And mind you do keep it safely," enjoined old Coney. "It won't be opened, I suppose, till after the funeral's over."

"But wait a minute," interposed the clergyman. "Does not marriage--a subsequent marriage--render a will invalid?"

"Bless my heart, no: much justice there'd be in that!" retorted old Coney, who knew about as much of law as he did of the moon. And Mr.

Tanerton said no more; he was not certain; and supposed the older and more experienced man might be right.

Anne sighed as she locked up the will again. She was both just and generous; and she knew she should be sure to hand over to Mrs. Lewis the half of whatever income it might give her.

"Well, my girl," said the farmer, as they prepared to leave, "if you want me, or anything I can do, you just send Sally over, and I'll be here in a jiffy."

"It is to be at Timberdale, I conclude?" whispered Herbert Tanerton, as he shook hands. Anne knew that he alluded to the funeral; and the colour came up in her face as she answered--

"I don't know. My father wished it; he said he wished to lie beside his brother. But Mrs. Lewis--here they come, I think."

They came in with snowy bonnets and red noses, stamping the slush off their shoes. It was a good walk from the station. Mrs. Lewis had expected to get a fly there; one was generally in waiting: but some one jumped out of the train before she did, and secured it. It made her feel cross and look cross.

"Such a wretched trapes!" she was beginning in a vinegar tone; but at sight of the gentlemen her face and voice smoothed down to oil. She begged them to resume their seats; but they said they were already going.

"We were just asking about the funeral," the farmer stayed to say. "It is to be at Timberdale?"

Up went Mrs. Lewis's handkerchief to her eyes. "Dear Mr. Coney, I think not. Crabb will be better."

"But he wished to lie at Timberdale."

"Crabb will be so much cheaper--and less trouble," returned the widow, with a sob. "It is as well to avoid useless expense."

"Cheaper!" cried old Coney, his face purple again with pa.s.sion, so much did he dislike her and her ways. "Not cheaper at all. _Dearer._ Dearer, ma'am. Must have a hea.r.s.e and coach any way: and Herbert Tanerton here won't charge fees if it's done at Timberdale."

"Oh, just as you please, my dear sir. And if _he_ wished it, poor dear!

Yes, yes; Timberdale of course. Anywhere."

They got out before she had dried her eyes--or pretended at it. Julia and f.a.n.n.y then fetched in some bandboxes which had been waiting in the pa.s.sage. Mrs. Lewis forgot her tears, and put back her cloak.

"Which is Anne's?" she asked. "Oh, this one"--beginning to undo one of the boxes. "My own will be sent to-morrow night. I bought yours quite plain, Anne."

Very plain indeed was the bonnet she handed out. Plain and common, and made of the cheapest materials; one that a lady would not like to put upon her head. Julia and f.a.n.n.y were trying theirs on at the chimney-gla.s.s. Gay bonnets, theirs glistening with jet beads and black flowers. The bill lay open on the table, and Anne read the cost: her own, twelve s.h.i.+llings; the other two, thirty-three s.h.i.+llings each.

Mrs. Lewis made a grab at the bill, and crushed it into her pocket.

"I knew you would prefer it plain," said she. "For real mourning it is always a mistake to have things too costly."

"True," acquiesced Anne; "but yet--I think they should be _good_."

It seemed to her that to wear this bonnet would be very like disrespect to the dead. She silently determined to buy a better as soon as she had the opportunity of doing so.

Of all days, for weather, the one of the funeral was about the worst.

Sleet, snow, rain, and wind. The Squire had a touch of lumbago; he could not face it; and old Coney came bustling in to say that I was to attend in his place. Anne wanted Johnny Ludlow to go all along, he added; her father had liked him; only there was no room before in the coach.

"Yes, yes," cried the Squire, "Johnny, of course. He is not afraid of lumbago. Make haste and get into your black things, lad."

Well, it was s.h.i.+very, as we rolled along in the creaky old mourning-coach, behind the hea.r.s.e: Mr. Coney and the Podds'

lawyer-cousin from Birmingham on one side; I and Cole, the doctor, opposite. The sleet pattered against the windows, the wind whistled in our ears. The lawyer kept saying "eugh," and shaking his shoulders, telling us he had a cold in his head; and looked just as stern as he had at the wedding.

All was soon over: Herbert Tanerton did not read slowly to-day: and we got back to Maythorn Bank. Cole had left us: he stopped the coach en route, and cut across a field to see a patient: but Mr. Coney drew me into the house with him after the lawyer.

"We will go in, Johnny," he whispered. "The poor girl has no relation or friend to back her up, and I shall stay with her while the will's read."

Mrs. Lewis, in a new widow's cap as big as a house, and the two girls in s.h.i.+ning jet chains, were sitting in state. Anne came in the next minute, her face pale, her eyes red. We all sat down; and for a short time looked at one another in silence, like so many mutes.

"Any will to be read? I am told there is one," spoke the lawyer--who had, as f.a.n.n.y Podd whispered to me, a wife at home as sour as himself.

"If so, it had better be produced: I have to catch a train."

"Yes, there is a will," answered old Coney, glad to find that Anne, as he a.s.sumed, had mentioned the fact. "Miss Lewis holds the will. Will you get it, my dear?"

Anne unlocked the desk on the side-table, and put the will into Mr.

Coney's hand. Without saying with your leave or by your leave, he broke the seals, and clapped on his spectacles.

"What's _that_?" Mrs. Lewis asked old Coney, from her seat on the sofa.

"Dr. Lewis's will, ma'am. Made in France, I believe: was it not, Miss Anne?"

"My dear, sweet creature, it is so much waste paper," spoke Mrs. Lewis, smiling sweetly upon Anne. "My deeply lamented husband's last will and testament was made long since he left France."

Pulling up the sofa-cus.h.i.+on at her elbow, she produced another will, and asked the lawyer if he would be good enough to unseal and read it. It had been made, as the date proved, at Cheltenham, the day after she and Dr. Lewis were married; and it left every earthly thing he possessed to "his dear wife, Louisa Jane Lewis."

Old Coney's face was a picture. He stared alternately at the will in his hands, at the one just read by the lawyer. Anne stood meekly by his side; looking as if she did not understand matters.

"_That_ can't stand good!" spoke the farmer, in his honest indignation.

"The money can't go to you, ma'am"--turning his burly form about to face Mrs. Lewis, and treading on my toes as he did it. "The money is this young lady's; part of it comes from her own mother: it can't be yours. Thomas Lewis must have signed the will in his sleep."

"Does a daughter inherit before a wife, dear sir?" cried Mrs. Lewis, in a voice soft as b.u.t.ter. "It is the most just will my revered husband could have made. I _need_ the money: I cannot keep on the house without it. Anne does not need it: she has no house to keep."

"Look here," says old Coney, b.u.t.toning his coat and looking fiercely at the company. "It's not my wish to be rude to-day, remembering what place we came straight here from; but if you don't want to be put down as--as schemers, you will not lose an hour in making over the half of that income to Anne Lewis. It is what she proposed to do by _you_, madam, when she thought all was left to her," he added, brus.h.i.+ng past Mrs.

Lewis. "Come along, Johnny."

The time went on. Mrs. Lewis kept all the money. She gave notice to leave the house at Midsummer: but she had it on her hands until then, and told people she should die of its dulness. So far as could be known, she had little, if any, income, except that which she inherited from Dr.

Lewis.

Anne's days did not pa.s.s in clover. Treated as of no moment, she was made fully to understand that she was only tolerated in what was once her own home; and she had to make herself useful in it from morning till night, just like a servant. Remembering what had been, and what was, Anne felt heart-broken, submitting patiently and unresistingly to every trial; but a reaction set in, and her spirit grew rebellious.

"Is there any remedy, I wonder?" she asked herself one night in her little chamber, when preparing for bed, and the day had been a particularly trying day. She had ventured to ask for a few s.h.i.+llings for some purpose or other, and was told she could not have them: being Easter-Monday, Sally had had a holiday, and she had been kept at work like a slave in the girl's place: Herbert Tanerton and his wife had come to invite her for a day or two to Timberdale, and a denial was returned to them without herself being consulted, or even allowed to see them.

Yes, it had been a trying day. And in France Easter had always been kept as a _fete_.

"Is there not a remedy?" she debated, as she slowly undressed. "I have no home but this; but--could I not find one?"