"What money 'as she left then, sir?"
When Mr. Criddle moved, his linen made a rustling sound which was suggestive of withered leaves and this suggestion was carried further by his dry appearance and wooden gesture. Laying down the will, he looked over the top of his glasses at the inquirer and embarked on a statement.
"The late Mr. Freathy Rosevear, Mrs. Byron's grandfather, invested money in mines. For a time this investment was shaky and unsaleable but it recovered and is now paying a good dividend. As you are already aware, her father did not leave her much beyond the house and land. Since the property has been in her hands it has increased in value and the savings have been considerable. Altogether the income of about twelve thousand pounds, well invested, will come to you."
"And the money in the bank?"
"I inquired this morning." He consulted a notebook in which various sets of figures were entered. "Ah, yes, here it is. The late Mrs. Byron had three hundred pounds on deposit and a balance of a hundred and ninety pounds, eighteen shillings and tenpence."
Again Byron nodded but this time his satisfaction was unalloyed. Though his wife had always given him what he required he had not had any considerable sums at his disposal; and to find himself in possession of nearly five hundred pounds, to spend as he chose, also a regular income of about the same amount, gave him a feeling of opulence. Sabina, generous with her pence, had been reserved as to the sum total of her property. He had not guessed her savings to be so large.
The lawyer read on. A few small legacies were left to relatives—to Mrs. Isolda Rosevear, the linen in the big chest: to Constantine, the horse Sabina had been wont to ride about her fields: to the men who had been in her employment ten years, the sum of fifty pounds each; to those more newly come, a pound for each year of their service. Byron listened without heeding. With hands thrust deeply into his trousers pockets, with head sunk between his shoulders, he was awaiting the moment when the land—Wastralls itself—should be declared his and he could face this concourse of alien faintly hostile people with the accomplished fact. What did it matter who had the big strawberry roan that was eating his head off in the stable, or what became of a few sheets and table-cloths? He cared for nothing but the land, the five hundred acres which had been his, yet not his, for so long. The will would set all doubt as to its ownership at rest. Sabina had, after all, been wise to set her wishes down in black and white.
"The land, house and hereditaments of Wastralls," began the lawyer in his dry voice, each word clipped of sound and the whole giving the effect of a well-kept but withered hedge.
In his big chair at the head of the table Leadville stirred slightly, clenching his hands. At last!
"I will devise and bequeath the land house and hereditaments of Wastralls to my cousin, Gray Rosevear."