He vehemently nodded his approval; his color rose, and his blinking eyes brightened in malicious triumph. "She shan"t have a farthing," he said to himself, in a whisper--"she shan"t have a farthing!"
"When your will is made, sir," proceeded Mrs. Lecount, "you must place it in the hands of a trustworthy person--not my hands, Mr. Noel; I am only your servant! Then, when the will is safe, and when you are safe, write to your wife at this house. Tell her her infamous imposture is discovered; tell her you have made a new will, which leaves her penniless at your death; tell her, in your righteous indignation, that she enters your doors no more. Place yourself in that strong position, and it is no longer you who are at your wife"s mercy, but your wife who is at yours. a.s.sert your own power, sir, with the law to help you, and crush this woman into submission to any terms for the future that you please to impose."
He eagerly took up the pen. "Yes," he said, with a vindictive self-importance, "any terms I please to impose." He suddenly checked himself and his face became dejected and perplexed. "How can I do it now?" he asked, throwing down the pen as quickly as he had taken it up.
"Do what, sir?" inquired Mrs. Lecount.
"How can I make my will, with Mr. Los...o...b.. away in London, and no lawyer here to help me?"
Mrs. Lecount gently tapped the papers before her on the table with her forefinger.
"All the help you need, sir, is waiting for you here," she said. "I considered this matter carefully before I came to you; and I provided myself with the confidential a.s.sistance of a friend to guide me through those difficulties which I could not penetrate for myself. The friend to whom I refer is a gentleman of Swiss extraction, but born and bred in England. He is not a lawyer by profession--but he has had his own sufficient experience of the law, nevertheless; and he has supplied me, not only with a model by which you may make your will, but with the written sketch of a letter which it is as important for us to have, as the model of the will itself. There is another necessity waiting for you, Mr. Noel, which I have not mentioned yet, but which is no less urgent in its way than the necessity of the will."
"What is it?" he asked, with roused curiosity.
"We will take it in its turn, sir," answered Mrs. Lecount. "Its turn has not come yet. The will, if you please, first. I will dictate from the model in my possession and you will write."
Noel Vanstone looked at the draft for the Will and the draft for the Letter with suspicious curiosity.
"I think I ought to see the papers myself, before you dictate," he said.
"It would be more satisfactory to my own mind, Lecount."
"By all means, sir," rejoined Mrs. Lecount, handing him the papers immediately.
He read the draft for the Will first, pausing and knitting his brows distrustfully, wherever he found blank s.p.a.ces left in the ma.n.u.script to be filled in with the names of persons and the enumeration of sums bequeathed to them. Two or three minutes of reading brought him to the end of the paper. He gave it back to Mrs. Lecount without making any objection to it.
The draft for the Letter was a much longer doc.u.ment. He obstinately read it through to the end, with an expression of perplexity and discontent which showed that it was utterly unintelligible to him. "I must have this explained," he said, with a touch of his old self-importance, "before I take any steps in the matter."
"It shall be explained, sir, as we go on," said Mrs. Lecount.
"Every word of it?"
"Every word of it, Mr. Noel, when its turn comes. You have no objection to the will? To the will, then, as I said before, let us devote ourselves first. You have seen for yourself that it is short enough and simple enough for a child to understand it. But if any doubts remain on your mind, by all means compose those doubts by showing your will to a lawyer by profession. In the meantime, let me not be considered intrusive if I remind you that we are all mortal, and that the lost opportunity can never be recalled. While your time is your own, sir, and while your enemies are unsuspicious of you, make your will!"
She opened a sheet of note-paper and smoothed it out before him; she dipped the pen in ink, and placed it in his hands. He took it from her without speaking--he was, to all appearance, suffering under some temporary uneasiness of mind. But the main point was gained. There he sat, with the paper before him, and the pen in his hand; ready at last, in right earnest, to make his will.
"The first question for you to decide, sir," said Mrs. Lecount, after a preliminary glance at her Draft, "is your choice of an executor. I have no desire to influence your decision; but I may, without impropriety, remind you that a wise choice means, in other words, the choice of an old and tried friend whom you know that you can trust."
"It means the admiral, I suppose?" said Noel Vanstone.
Mrs. Lecount bowed.
"Very well," he continued. "The admiral let it be."
There was plainly some oppression still weighing on his mind. Even under the trying circ.u.mstances in which he was placed it was not in his nature to take Mrs. Lecount"s perfectly sensible and disinterested advice without a word of cavil, as he had taken it now.
"Are you ready, sir?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Lecount dictated the first paragraph from the Draft, as follows:
"This is the last Will and Testament of me, Noel Vanstone, now living at Baliol Cottage, near Dumfries. I revoke, absolutely and in every particular, my former will executed on the thirtieth of September, eighteen hundred and forty-seven; and I hereby appoint Rear-Admiral Arthur Everard Bartram, of St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, Ess.e.x, sole executor of this my will."
"Have you written those words, sir?"
"Yes."
Mrs. Lecount laid down the Draft; Noel Vanstone laid down the pen. They neither of them looked at each other. There was a long silence.
"I am waiting, Mr. Noel," said Mrs. Lecount, at last, "to hear what your wishes are in respect to the disposal of your fortune. Your _large_ fortune," she added, with merciless emphasis.
He took up the pen again, and began picking the feathers from the quill in dead silence.
"Perhaps your existing will may help you to instruct me, sir," pursued Mrs. Lecount. "May I inquire to whom you left all your surplus money, after leaving the eighty thousand pounds to your wife?"
If he had answered that question plainly, he must have said: "I have left the whole surplus to my cousin, George Bartram"--and the implied acknowledgment that Mrs. Lecount"s name was not mentioned in the will must then have followed in Mrs. Lecount"s presence. A much bolder man, in his situation, might have felt the same oppression and the same embarra.s.sment which he was feeling now. He picked the last morsel of feather from the quill; and, desperately leaping the pitfall under his feet, advanced to meet Mrs. Lecount"s claims on him of his own accord.
"I would rather not talk of any will but the will I am making now," he said uneasily. "The first thing, Lecount--" He hesitated--put the bare end of the quill into his mouth--gnawed at it thoughtfully--and said no more.
"Yes, sir?" persisted Mrs. Lecount.
"The first thing is--"
"Yes, sir?"
"The first thing is, to--to make some provision for You?"
He spoke the last words in a tone of plaintive interrogation--as if all hope of being met by a magnanimous refusal had not deserted him even yet. Mrs. Lecount enlightened his mind on this point, without a moment"s loss of time.
"Thank you, Mr. Noel," she said, with the tone and manner of a woman who was not acknowledging a favor, but receiving a right.
He took another bite at the quill. The perspiration began to appear on his face.
"The difficulty is," he remarked, "to say how much."
"Your lamented father, sir," rejoined Mrs. Lecount, "met that difficulty (if you remember) at the time of his last illness?"
"I don"t remember," said Noel Vanstone, doggedly.
"You were on one side of his bed, sir, and I was on the other. We were vainly trying to persuade him to make his will. After telling us he would wait and make his will when he was well again, he looked round at me, and said some kind and feeling words which my memory will treasure to my dying day. Have you forgotten those words, Mr. Noel?"
"Yes," said Mr. Noel, without hesitation.
"In my present situation, sir," retorted Mrs. Lecount, "delicacy forbids me to improve your memory."
She looked at her watch, and relapsed into silence. He clinched his hands, and writhed from side to side of his chair in an agony of indecision. Mrs. Lecount pa.s.sively refused to take the slightest notice of him.