There was no question but that it was a will drawn up in due form, and very short, bequeathing his property at Carrigaboola, Queensland, to his daughter, Magdalen Susanna, and appointing Fulbert Underwood and Angela Margaret Underwood and “my brother Samuel” her guardian. It was dated the year after his daughter’s birth, and was signed Henry Field, with a word interposed, which, as Lance said, might be anything, but was certainly the right length for the first syllables of Merrifield. Bernard looked at it, and declared it was, to the best of his belief, the same signature as his former clerk used to write.
“And this,” he said, looking at the seal, “is the crest of the Merrifield’s—the demi lion. I know it well on Sir Jasper’s seal ring.”
“Have you nothing else, Angel?” asked Lance.
“Here is the certificate of her baptism, but that will tell you nothing.”
No more it did, it only called the child the daughter of Henry and Caroline Field, and the surname was omitted in the bequest.
“Who was the mother?” asked Lance.
“I never exactly knew. Fulbert thought she had been a person whom Field had met in America or somewhere, and married in a hurry. Fulbert said she was rather pretty, but she was a poor helpless, bewildered thing, and very poorly. He wanted to bring her to Albertstown for fit help and nursing; but she cried so much at the idea of either horse or wagon over the-no-roads, that it was put off and off and she had only his shepherd’s housekeeper, so it was no wonder she did not live! Field was dreadfully cut up, and blamed himself extremely for having given way to her; but it is as likely as not the journey would have been just as fatal.”
“Poor thing!”
“You never heard her surname?”
“No, it did not signify.”