Mr. Hogarth's Will

by Catherine Helen Spence

"I don't see as there's any call to put in all about how I got Harry Hogarth to marry me; that has nothing to do with the case in hand," said Mrs. Peck.

"I think," said Brandon, "that if the young man is to lose the property through this confession, he has a right to know what sort of mother he loses with it. I think you had better sign this as it stands. I have signed something for you, and you must do the same for me."

Mrs. Peck signed her name rather reluctantly as Elizabeth Hogarth, known as Elizabeth Peck, and was proceeding to give some account of her relations with Peck, of rather a romantic character. Perhaps, after so long a stretch of trying to tell the truth, she needed some relief to her imagination; but Brandon soon stopped these revelations, and sent her thoughts in quite another channel.

"Now," said he, "I believe this to be a true statement—a perfectly true statement—but it is of no use whatever to be used against Mr. Hogarth. The property was left to him by will, as distinctly as possible."

"By will!" said Mrs. Peck, looking aghast; "my newspaper said he was the heir-at-law; but it would never have been left to him if Harry had not thought Frank was his son."

"It was left to Francis Ormistown, otherwise Hogarth, for fifteen years clerk in the Bank of Scotland," said Brandon, reading from Elsie's memorandum.

"But he is neither Ormistown nor Hogarth, nor Francis, neither," said Mrs. Peck, triumphantly. "He can claim nothing. Francis Ormistown, or Hogarth, is dead—dead thirty-four years ago: this man has no name that any one knows. I will swear that the child Harry Hogarth took out of my arms was neither his child nor mine, and that he had no right to inherit Cross Hall. The nieces must have it; they were his nearest relations. None of his brothers left no children, and the Melvilles should get the estate, and I should get my thousand pounds."

"I wish your oath was worth more," said Brandon, regretfully. "I wish you could prove what you state as a fact; but all you have told me is absolutely worthless in a court of law. You say you told a parcel of lies to one whom you should have kept faith with, for pecuniary advantage, and now you want to contradict them in hopes of getting a thousand pounds from the Misses Melville, and in order to revenge yourself on the boy whom you so cruelly injured. I am sorry to say nobody would believe a word of this story except myself; and I do."

"But could you not look up in old newspapers to see if there was any stir made at the time about a changed child?" said Mrs. Peck, trembling with excitement and disappointment. She had been so long accustomed to look on this secret as capital to herself: her mother, and Peck, and herself had always thought that in case of Mr. Hogarth's death a good deal might be got out of the heir; and she had not parted with the certificate of her marriage, or of her child's baptismal register, in case he had left no will, and the heirat-law had to be found. She had sent copies of these documents, very admirably executed by a Sydney friend, who had been sent across the ocean for similar instances of skill, to Mr. Hogarth, so that he did not think she had any proof to bring forward to support her claims to be Francis' mother; but it was only recently that she had thought of making more favourable terms with regard to her other secret with the disinherited nieces than with the ungrateful heir, and their coming so near just when she was exasperated at Francis' neglect, had made her overlook the want of proof. She had now fatally injured herself with Francis, with a very faint chance of success with the Melvilles. She therefore repeated nervously, "Look over the old newspapers—the mother must have known the difference—there must have been some inquiry about it that would prove my statement, which is all true, every word of it, as I hope for salvation."

"Yes, that might be of some use; that might be seen to," said Brandon, doubtfully. "Our data are meagre enough. Your mother is dead, I suppose, and she is the only person besides yourself who knew of the crime you both committed."