OLD Tom Gladwin was not a man to whom you volunteered advice. He had made an immense deal of money for himself, and people who have done that generally like also to manufacture their own advice on their own premises; perhaps it is better done that way, perhaps there’s just a prejudice in favour of the home trade-mark. Anyhow, old Tom needed no suggestions from outside. You said, “Yes, Sir Thomas,” or “Of course not, Sir Thomas,” or “Certainly, Sir Thomas.” At all events, you limited your remarks to something like that if you were—as I was—a young solicitor trying to keep his father’s connection together, of which Sir Thomas’s affairs and the business of the Worldstone Park estate formed a considerable and lucrative portion. But everybody was in the same story about him—secretary, bailiff, stud-groom, gardener, butler—yes, butler, although Sir Thomas had confessedly never tasted champagne till he was forty, whereas Gilson had certainly been weaned on it. Even Miss Nettie Tyler, when she came on the scene, had the good sense to accept Sir Thomas’s version of her heart’s desire; neither had she much cause to quarrel with his reading, since it embraced Sir Thomas himself and virtually the whole of his worldly possessions. He was worth perhaps half-a-million pounds in money, and the net rent-roll of Worldstone was ten thousand, even after you had dressed it up and curled its hair, for all the world as if it were a suburban villa instead of an honest, self-respecting country gentleman’s estate, which ought to have been run to pay three per cent. But the new-comers will not take land seriously; they leave that as a prospect for their descendants when the ready money, the city-made money, has melted away.
So I took his instructions for his marriage settlement and his new will without a word, although they seemed to me to be, under the circumstances, pretty stiff documents. The old gentleman—he was not really old, fifty-eight or-nine, I should say, but he looked like a granite block that has defied centuries—had, of course, two excuses. In the first place, he was fairly crazy about Nettie Tyler, orphan daughter of the old vicar of Worldstone, an acquaintance of two months’ standing and (I will say for her) one of the prettiest little figures on a horse that I ever saw. In the second, he wanted—yes, inevitably he wanted—to found a family and to hand on the baronetcy which had properly rewarded his strenuous and successful efforts on his own behalf; it was the sort of baronetcy which is obviously pregnant with a peerage—a step, not a crown; one learns to distinguish these varieties. Accordingly, to cut details short, the effect of the new will and of the marriage settlement was that, given issue of the said intended marriage (and intended it was for the following Tuesday), Miss Beatrice Gladwin was to have five hundred a year on her father’s death, and the rest went to what, for convenience’s sake, I may call the new undertaking—to the Gladwin-Tyler establishment and what might spring therefrom. Even the five hundred was by the will only, therefore revocable. Five hundred a year is not despicable, and is good, like other boons, until revoked. But think what Beatrice Gladwin had been two months before—the greatest heiress in the county, mistress of all! So the old will had made her—the old will in my office safe, which, come next Tuesday, would be so much waste paper. I have always found something pathetic about a superseded will. It is like a royal family in exile.
Sir Thomas read over the documents and looked up at me as he took off his spectacles.
“One great advantage of having made your own way, Foulkes,” he observed, “is that you’re not trammelled by settlements made in early life. I can do what I like with my own.”
And I, as I have foreshadowed, observed merely, “Certainly, Sir Thomas.”
He eyed me for a moment with an air of some suspicion. He was very acute and recognised criticism, however inarticulate; an obstinacy in the bend of one’s back was enough for him. But I gave him no more opening, and, after all, he could not found an explicit reproach on the curve of my spine. After a moment he went on, rasping the short grey hair that sprouted on his chin:
“I think you’d better have a few minutes with my daughter. Put the effect of these documents into plain language for her.” I believe he half suspected me again, for he added quickly: “Free of technicalities, I mean. She knows the general nature of my wishes. I’ve made that quite clear to her myself.” No doubt he had. I bowed, and he rose, glancing at the clock. “The horses must be round,” he said; “I’m going for a ride with Miss Tyler. Ask if my daughter can see you now; and I hope you’ll stay to lunch, Foulkes.” He went to the door, but turned again. “I’ll send Beatrice to you myself,” he called, “and you can get the business over before we come back.” He went off, opening his cigar-case and humming a tune, in excellent spirits with himself and the world, I fancied. He had reason to be, so far as one could see at the minute.
I went to the window and watched them mounting—the strong solid frame of the man, the springy figure of the pretty girl. She was chattering gleefully: he laughed in a most contented approval of her, and, probably, with an attention none too deep to the precise purport of her merry words. Besides the two grooms there was another member of the party—one who stood rather aloof on the steps that led up to the hall door. Here was the lady for whom I waited, Beatrice Gladwin, his daughter, who was to have the five hundred a year when he died—who was to have had everything, to have been mistress of all. She stood there in her calm composed handsomeness. Neither pretty nor beautiful would you call her, but, without question, remarkably handsome. She was also perfectly tranquil. As I looked she spoke once; I heard the words through the open window.
“You must have your own way, then,” she said, with a smile and a slight shrug of her shoulders. “But the horse isn’t safe for you, you know.”
“Ay, ay,” he answered, laughing again, not at his daughter but round to the pretty girl beside him. “I’ll have my way for four days more.” He and his fiancée enjoyed the joke between them; it went no further, I think.