CHAPTER III.
A GREAT CHANGE OF PROSPECTS.
I SHUT myself up in the apartments prepared for me (they were not thoseI had formerly occupied), and refused all participation in my solitude,till, after an interval of some days, my mother came to summon me to theopening of the will. She was more moved than I had expected. "It is apity," said she, as we descended the stairs, "that Aubrey is not here,and that we should be so unacquainted with the exact place where he islikely to be that I fear the letter I sent him may be long delayed, or,indeed, altogether miscarry."
"Is not the Abbe here?" said I, listlessly.
"No!" answered my mother, "to be sure not."
"He has _been_ here," said I, greatly surprised. "I certainly saw him onthe day of my arrival."
"Impossible!" said my mother, in evident astonishment; and seeing that,at all events, she was unacquainted with the circumstance, I said nomore.
The will was to be read in the little room where my uncle had beenaccustomed to sit. I felt it as a sacrilege to his memory to choose thatspot for such an office, but I said nothing. Gerald and my mother, thelawyer (a neighbouring attorney, named Oswald), and myself were the onlypersons present. Mr. Oswald hemmed thrice, and broke the seal. Aftera preliminary, strongly characteristic of the testator, he came to thedisposition of the estates. I had never once, since my poor uncle'sdeath, thought upon the chances of his will; indeed, knowing myself soentirely his favourite, I could not, if I had thought upon them, haveentertained a doubt as to their result. What then was my astonishmentwhen, couched in terms of the strongest affection, the whole bulk of theproperty was bequeathed to Gerald; to Aubrey the sum of forty, to myselfthat of twenty thousand pounds (a capital considerably less than theyearly income of my uncle's princely estates), was allotted. Thenfollowed a list of minor bequests,--to my mother an annuity of threethousand a year, with the privilege of apartments in the house duringher life; to each of the servants legacies sufficient for independence;to a few friends, and distant connections of the family, tokens of thetestator's remembrance,--even the horses to his carriage, and the dogsthat fed from his menials' table, were not forgotten, but were to be setapart from work, and maintained in indolence during their remaining spanof life. The will was concluded: I could not believe my senses; not aword was said as a reason for giving Gerald the priority.
I rose calmly enough. "Suffer me, Sir," said I to the lawyer, "tosatisfy my own eyes." Mr. Oswald bowed, and placed the will in my hands.I glanced at Gerald as I took it: his countenance betrayed, or feigned,an astonishment equal to my own. With a jealous, searching, scrutinizingeye, I examined the words of the bequest; I examined especially (for Isuspected that the names must have been exchanged) the place in which myname and Gerald's occurred. In vain: all was smooth and fair to the eye,not a vestige of possible erasure or alteration was visible. I lookednext at the wording of the will: it was evidently my uncle's; no onecould have feigned or imitated the peculiar turn of his expressions;and, above all, many parts of the will (the affectionate and personalparts) were in his own handwriting.
"The date," said I, "is, I perceive, of very recent period; the will issigned by two witnesses besides yourself. Who and where are they?"
"Robert Lister, the first signature, my clerk; he is since dead, Sir."
"Dead!" said I; "and the other witness, George Davis?"
"Is one of Sir William's tenants, and is below, Sir, in waiting."
"Let him come up," and a middle-sized, stout man, with a blunt, bold,open countenance, was admitted.
"Did you witness this will?" said I.
"I did, your honour!"
"And this is your handwriting?" pointing to the scarcely legible scrawl.
"Yees, your honour," said the man, scratching his head, "I think it be;they are my _ees_, and G, and D, sure enough."
"And do you know the purport of the will you signed?"
"Anan!"
"I mean, do you know to whom Sir William--stop, Mr. Oswald, suffer theman to answer me--to whom Sir William left his property?"
"Noa, to be sure, Sir; the will was a woundy long one, and MaisterOswald there told me it was no use to read it over to me, but merely tosign, as a witness to Sir William's handwriting."
"Enough: you may retire;" and George Davis vanished.
"Mr. Oswald," said I, approaching the attorney, "I may wrong you, andif so, I am sorry for it, but I suspect there has been foul practice inthis deed. I have reason to be convinced that Sir William Devereux couldnever have made this devise. I give you warning, Sir, that I shall bringthe business immediately before a court of law, and that if guilty--ay,tremble, Sir--of what I suspect, you will answer for this deed at thefoot of the gallows."
I turned to Gerald, who rose while I was yet speaking. Before I couldaddress him, he exclaimed, with evident and extreme agitation,
"You cannot, Morton,--you cannot--you dare not--insinuate that I, yourbrother, have been base enough to forge, or to instigate the forgery of,this will?"
Gerald's agitation made me still less doubtful of his guilt.
"The case, Sir," I answered coldly, "stands thus: my uncle could nothave made this will; it is a devise that must seem incredible to all whoknew aught of our domestic circumstances. Fraud has been practised, howI know not; by whom I do know."
"Morton, Morton: this is insufferable; I cannot bear such charges, evenfrom a brother."
"Charges!--your conscience speaks, Sir,--not I; no one benefits by thisfraud but you: pardon me if I draw an inference from a fact."
So saying, I turned on my heel, and abruptly left the apartment. Iascended the stairs which led to my own: there I found my servantpreparing the paraphernalia in which that very evening I was to attendmy uncle's funeral. I gave him, with a calm and collected voice, thenecessary instructions for following me to town immediately after thatevent, and then I passed on to the room where the deceased lay in state.The room was hung with black: the gorgeous pall, wrought with the proudheraldry of our line, lay over the coffin; and by the lights which made,in that old chamber, a more brilliant, yet more ghastly, day, sat thehired watchers of the dead.
I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the coffin, I poured outthe last expressions of my grief. I rose, and was retiring once more tomy room, when I encountered Gerald.
"Morton," said he, "I own to you, I myself am astounded by my uncle'swill. I do not come to make you offers; you would not accept them: I donot come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never beenas brothers, and we know not their language: but I _do_ come to demandyou to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented againstme, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticityof the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself willjoin in the inquiries you institute and the expenses of the law."
I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thusspoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora, the fraudulent robber ofmy rights, and I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the inquirieswhich were to convict himself of the basest, if not the blackest, ofhuman crimes; there was something too in the reserved and yet insolenttone of his voice which, reminding me as it did of our long aversionto each other, made my very blood creep with abhorrence. I turned away,that I might not break my oath to Isora, for I felt strongly tempted todo so; and said in as calm an accent as I could command, "The casewill, I trust, require no king's evidence; and, at least, I will notbe beholden to the man whom my reason condemns for any assistance inbringing upon himself the ultimate condemnation of the law."
Gerald looked at me sternly. "Were you not my brother," said he, in alow tone, "I would, for a charge so dishonouring my fair name, strikeyou dead at my feet."
"It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love," I rejoined, with ascornful laugh, but an eye flashing with passions a thousand times morefierce than scorn, "that prevents your adding that last favour to thoseyou have already bestowed on me."
Gerald, with a muttered curse
, placed his hand upon his sword; my ownrapier was instantly half drawn, when, to save us from the great guiltof mortal contest against each other, steps were heard, and a number ofthe domestics charged with melancholy duties at the approaching rite,were seen slowly sweeping in black robes along the opposite gallery.Perhaps that interruption restored both of us to our senses, for wesaid, almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same phrase, "Thisway of terminating strife is not for us;" and, as Gerald spoke, heturned slowly away, descended the staircase, and disappeared.
The funeral took place at night: a numerous procession of the tenantsand peasantry attended. My poor uncle! there was not a dry eye for thee,but those of thine own kindred. Tall, stately, erect in the power andmajesty of his unrivalled form, stood Gerald, already assuming thedignity and lordship which, to speak frankly, so well became him;my mother's face was turned from me, but her attitude proclaimed herutterly absorbed in prayer. As for myself, my heart seemed hardened: Icould not betray to the gaze of a hundred strangers the emotions which Iwould have hidden from those whom I loved the most. Wrapped in my cloak,with arms folded on my breast, and eyes bent to the ground, I leanedagainst one of the pillars of the chapel, apart, and apparently unmoved.
But when they were about to lower the body into the vault, a momentaryweakness came over me. I made an involuntary step forward, a single butdeep groan of anguish broke from me, and then, covering my face with mymantle, I resumed my former attitude, and all was still. The rite wasover; in many and broken groups the spectators passed from the chapel:some to speculate on the future lord, some to mourn over the late, andall to return the next morning to their wonted business, and let theglad sun teach them to forget the past, until for themselves the sunshould be no more, and the forgetfulness eternal.
The hour was so late that I relinquished my intention of leaving thehouse that night; I ordered my horse to be in readiness at daybreak andbefore I retired to rest I went to my mother's apartments: she receivedme with more feeling than she had ever testified before.
"Believe me, Morton," said she, and she kissed my forehead; "believe me,I can fully enter into the feelings which you must naturally experienceon an event so contrary to your expectations. I cannot conceal fromyou how much I am surprised. Certainly Sir William never gave any of uscause to suppose that he liked either of your brothers--Gerald less thanAubrey--so much as yourself; nor, poor man, was he in other things atall addicted to conceal his opinions."
"It is true, my mother," said I; "it is true. Have you not thereforesome suspicions of the authenticity of the will?"
"Suspicions!" cried my mother. "No!--impossible!--suspicions of whom?You could not think Gerald so base, and who else had an interestin deception? Besides, the signature is undoubtedly Sir William'shandwriting, and the will was regularly witnessed; suspicions,Morton,--no, impossible! Reflect, too, how eccentric and humoursome youruncle always was: suspicions!--no, impossible!"
"Such things have been, my mother, nor are they uncommon: men willhazard their souls, ay, and what to some are more precious still, theirlives too, for the vile clay we call money. But enough of this now: theLaw,--that great arbiter,--that eater of the oyster, and divider of itsshells,--the Law will decide between us, and if against me, as I supposeand fear the decision will be,--why, I must be a suitor to fortuneinstead of her commander. Give me your blessing, my dearest mother: Icannot stay longer in this house; to-morrow I leave you."
And my mother did bless me, and I fell upon her neck and clung to it."Ah!" thought I, "this blessing is almost worth my uncle's fortune."
I returned to my room; there I saw on the table the case of the swordsent me by the French king. I had left it with my uncle, on my departureto town, and it had been found among his effects and reclaimed by me. Itook out the sword, and drew it from the scabbard. "Come," said I, andI kindled with a melancholy yet a deep enthusiasm, as I looked along theblade, "come, my bright friend, with thee through this labyrinth whichwe call the world will I carve my way! Fairest and speediest of earth'slevellers, thou makest the path from the low valley to the steep hill,and shapest the soldier's axe into the monarch's sceptre! The laureland the fasces, and the curule car, and the emperor's purple,--what arethese but thy playthings, alternately thy scorn and thy reward! Founderof all empires, propagator of all creeds, thou leddest the Gaul andthe Goth, and the gods of Rome and Greece crumbled upon their altars!Beneath thee the fires of the Gheber waved pale, and on thy point thebadge of the camel-driver blazed like a sun over the startled East!Eternal arbiter, and unconquerable despot, while the passions of mankindexist! Most solemn of hypocrites,--circling blood with glory as with ahalo; and consecrating homicide and massacre with a hollow name, whichthe parched throat of thy votary, in the battle and the agony, shoutethout with its last breath! Star of all human destinies! I kneel beforethee, and invoke from thy bright astrology an omen and a smile."