I had never been present before at the reading of a will, and I am glad not to have had the experience since. It is too dramatic. Why more plays do not contain a will scene, I cannot understand. But the dramatic quality is not all. My objection to such a ceremony is the disappointment that one has to witness, and perhaps even more the triumph. Poor human nature’s expressions of joy on coming into a few hundred pounds can be an almost tragic spectacle.
Theodore Allinson had remembered most of his relations and all of his dependents. Such benefactions came first. “‘The remainder of the estate,’ the lawyer read on, ‘I leave in trust to my daughter Rose, to be administered as they think best by her trustees George Stratton and Julius Greville, until her twentieth birthday, when it will be hers to do as she wishes with.’”
The lawyer paused again and Mrs. Stratton indicated her approval of at any rate one of the trustees by a guarded smile.
“‘Finally,’” the lawyer went on, “‘I ask my friend and neighbour Julius Greville to become my daughter’s guardian and foster-father.’”
At these words a rustle of astonishment ran round the room, and no one could have been more astonished than myself. Mrs. Stratton did more than rustle: she bridled and shot me a furious glance. “Did you hear that, George?” she asked her husband in a loud whisper.
“If you please,” said the lawyer, and continued: “‘guardian and foster-father, reimbursing himself from her estate for every expense which that duty imposes upon him, from the present time until she shall become, on her twentieth birthday, her own mistress.’”
He paused again, and again the company sought each other’s faces. Mrs. Stratton was scarlet with indignation.
“Why, that’s thirteen years!” she exclaimed.
“But supposing that Dr. Greville, not unnaturally, is unwilling to take so great a responsibility?” Mr. Stratton asked, after a little whispered coaching from his wife.
“We are coming to that,” said the lawyer. “The will continues: ‘I ask Dr. Greville to do this great thing for me, because I have for him both affection and respect, and because such neglect towards our Rose as my own indolence and selfishness have betrayed me into has as far as lay in his power been corrected by him; also because Rose loves him and has profound confidence in him. I am conscious, however, that it is more than I have the right to ask, and if he declines, which he can do with perfect propriety and not the faintest suggestion of unfriendliness to me, I wish that Rose may become the ward of my sister Millicent Stratton, who I am sure will be delighted to have her, with the same conditions as to finance.”