And offered the will. Maggie and Clara were upstairs.
"What is it?"
"It's Auntie's will. Breeze had it. He gave it to me in the cemetery. It seems he only knew this morning Auntie was dead. I think that was why he came up."
"Well, I'm----!" Albert muttered.
His hand trembled as he opened the paper.
Auntie Hamps had made Edwin sole executor, and had left all her property in trust for Clara's children. Evidently she had reasoned that Edwin and Maggie had all they needed, and that the children of such a father as Albert could only be effectually helped in one way, which way she had chosen. The will was seven years old, and the astounding thing was that she had drawn it herself, having probably copied some of the wording from some source unknown. It was a wise if a rather ruthless will; and its provisions, like the manner of making it, were absolutely characteristic of the testatrix. Too mean to employ a lawyer, she had yet had a magnificent gesture of generosity towards that Benbow brood which she adored in her grandiose way. And further she had been clever enough not to invalidate the will by some negligent informality. It was as tight as if Julian Pidduck himself had drawn it.
And she had managed to put Albert in a position highly exasperating. For he was both very pleased and very vexed. In slighting him, she had aggrandized his children.
"What of it?" he asked nervously.
"It's all right so far as I'm concerned," said Edwin, with a short laugh. And he was sincere, for he had no desire whatever to take a share of his aunt's modest wealth. He shrank from the trusteeship, but he knew that he could not avoid it, and he was getting accustomed to power and dominion. Albert would have to knuckle down to him, and Clara too.
Maggie and Clara came back together into the room, noticeably sisterly. They perceived at once from the men's faces that they were in the presence of a historic event.