The Ralstons

by F. Marion Crawford

And so matters proceeded. The Brights’ lawyer did his best to force the will to probate. The Lauderdales’ and Ralstons’ legal advisers created delays, and as they were in possession of the will, they were able to prolong the situation, and prepare for action. Old Robert Lauderdale’s lawyer, Mr. Allen, was moreover their ally. He did not believe that the will was good, and resented the way in which his deceased client had surreptitiously employed a young fellow like Russell, before mentioned, to draw it up, after he, Allen, had drawn up one which had been irreproachable. The first point that arose was in connection with one of the witnesses, who was unluckily not forthcoming. The signature was that of one ‘John Simons.’ In the list of servants who were to receive annuities appeared the name of one ‘J. Simmons,’ a groom, who, strange to say, was not to be found either. The Lauderdale lawyers maintained that the witness and the servant were the same person, and that there had been a mistake in spelling the name in the list; a fact which would have debarred the will from probate, as no legatee can be a witness. This forced the Bright lawyers to ask time in order to find either the witness or the groom, or both, and meanwhile the other side looked into the will itself in search of irregularities connected with the suspension of the power of alienation, and the like. Mr. George W. Russell, who had drawn up the will, looked on with his hands in his pockets, and was ‘interested in the show’ from a purely artistic point of view.

The parties began to rage furiously together. Alexander Junior did not hesitate to say that he remembered the groom Simmons, and that his name was John. He assuredly believed that he did remember the fact, or he would not have said so. But Hamilton Bright remembered, with equal certainty, that the man had more than once gone with him when he had been consulted, as an authority, about the buying of horses for old Robert, and that his name was James. He had called him James, and the man had answered to his name. That was proof positive. The servants of the accused did not know anything about it. The man had always been called Persimmons, because he lisped a little. He had been badly kicked by a horse during Mr. Lauderdale’s last days, and had been sent to St. Luke’s Hospital. At the hospital it was ascertained that he had been discharged in a few days. He had not come back to Mr. Lauderdale’s. He probably had some good reason for not coming back. It had been one of his duties to buy certain things for the stables. Possibly he had been dishonest and feared discovery. Mr. Russell, privately questioned, said that the man who had signed the will as a witness might have been a servant, and added, a few seconds later, that as he had not been present when the will was signed, he did not know. He was young enough to laugh to himself at his own pretended hesitation. He had drawn up the will. When or where it had been signed and witnessed was beyond his knowledge.

The other witnesses said that from his appearance the man might have been a respectable servant. He was clean shaven, and might have been a groom. They had not heard him speak, so that they did not know whether he lisped or not. They had never seen him before, and he had been in the room when they had been called in. They had seen him write his name, and were prepared to swear to it. They should also recognize him if they saw him. Mr. Russell, privately questioned, said that he had copied the name ‘J. Simmons’ with a list of names given him by Mr. Lauderdale for the purpose. It had not struck him that it was informal to insert only the initial, since there was no other Simmons, a servant, in the house at the time. He was told severely, by the Brights’ lawyer, that it was. He said he regretted the fact, and put his hands into his pockets and looked on again.

Crowdie, who never swore, anathematized Alexander Junior in the dialect of the Paris studios, a language which Alexander could not have understood. Bright, who had driven cattle in the Nacimiento Valley, spoke differently. Aunt Maggie’s charity suddenly ceased to be universal, and excluded both Lauderdales and Ralstons from its benefits. From Washington, Charlotte Slayback wrote an unusually affectionate letter to her sister Katharine, in which she playfully compared the fair-haired aunt Maggie and Hamilton Bright to a lioness and her whelp, and all the tribe of Lauderdales to poor little innocent lambs with blue ribbons round their necks. Benjamin Slayback of Nevada, Member of Congress, said nothing. He was a singular man, having mines of silver of his own, and his solitary pleasure was in giving his wife much money, because she had none of her own. He reflected that if she were suddenly made rich in her own right, his pleasure would be greatly diminished. But on the whole, he believed in respecting dead men’s wishes, in spite of legal formalities. He had known wills made by word of mouth by men who had bullets in them before witnesses who had put the bullets there, but who were scrupulous in carrying out the instructions of the departed. He was a lawyer himself, however, and took an interest in the case. He talked of running up to New York, from Friday to Monday, to have a look at things, and a guess at which way the cat would jump.

Then Leek, the butler, who was anxious about his annuity, found Persimmons, the groom, in a down-town stable, and showed him how important it was for them both that he should at once go and swear that he was not the John Simons who had signed the will, which he immediately did. But on being confronted with the other witnesses, they said that the signer had been clean shaven, and about of the same height; that the room had been dimly lighted, and that they were not prepared to swear that Persimmons was not the signer. Then Persimmons, being indignant, and having had two goes of whiskey with Leek, lifted up his voice, and swore to his own identity, and gave an account of himself, and declared that his name was not and never had been John Simons, nor J. Simmons, nor Persimmons, because he was not a Simmons at all, but one James Thwaite, and had changed his name when he left England, because he had been unjustly disqualified as a jockey, for roping Mr. Cranstoun’s mare in the Thousand Guineas. All of which further complicated matters, while the other witnesses grew more and more conscientiously sure that he was the man who had signed with them, and wished to see him in a brown jacket. Persimmons owned that he possessed such a garment, but refused to put it on to play Punch and Judy for a couple of noodles, which almost produced a free fight in Mr. Brett’s private office, and did not improve things at all, for the two witnesses promptly swore that this was the same Persimmons who had signed with them, and they should have liked to know whether a disqualified jockey were a proper person to sign with respectable persons like themselves—they should like to know that, once for all. And they departed, much ruffled. Privately questioned, Mr. Russell said that he had given Mr. Lauderdale no advice as to the selection of his witnesses. He supposed that Mr. Lauderdale, who had made at least two other wills in the course of his life, might have been expected to understand what was required of witnesses. The Brights’ legal adviser told him that it was the duty of a lawyer to tell his client how to make the signatures on a will legal. Mr. Russell thrust his hands into his pockets and looked on. But the Brights’ lawyer began to think that things looked queer, and that he might not get the will through probate after all. He had not expected such a check at the outset. He had anticipated a fight over much more complicated questions.

The Brights tried to ascertain whether the court would admit the will to probate on the testimony of the two reliable witnesses. It seemed pretty clear that the court would not hear of it. There had been a recent case, argued the Brights, in which the testimony of one witness had been held to be sufficient to establish the signatures of the others, though at least one of the others was living at the time in a remote part of the world. They were told that this was all very well, but that in the case quoted there had been no question of any one of the witnesses being a legatee, still less of that one having given an assumed name and not being an American citizen, and that furthermore, in that case, there had been no prospect of any litigation arising between the heirs, because there had been only one heir, and excepting two small legacies, he would have got the fortune just as surely if the deceased had died intestate; and finally, that the Brights had better not come into court with any such trumped-up case, which was unkind to the Brights, because the will was in their favour, and they were not trumping up a case, but defending one.

Then Persimmons, finding that eighty millions of money depended upon his having signed or not signed the will, and that no one had, as yet, offered him so much as a drink, save Leek, the butler, went privately to Alexander Lauderdale Junior, and made certain propositions which immediately resulted in his being kicked into the middle of Broad Street by an unfeeling person in brass buttons, who answered to the name of Donald McCracken, having red hair, large bones, and a Scotch accent—very terrible.

On the advice of friends, Persimmons attempted to recover damages for indignities and bruises received on the premises of the Trust Company, and the popular feeling in the stables was with him. But he got nothing but the promise of more kicks, payable at sight, by Donald McCracken, and the hexecrations of Mister Leek who perceived that ‘is hannuity was vanishing before ‘is very heyes.

And now no lawyer would make bold to say in his heart whether Persimmons had signed or had not signed, and the war raged furiously, and the Lauderdales, being in possession of the will, swore that they would bring it to probate without delay, and that the Brights ought to be very much pleased at this, as they had been so anxious to get the will probated without delay. But the Brights were less anxious to do so than they had been a few days earlier, and looked about them for means of strengthening testimony. Also, the whole story was well ventilated in the newspapers.

Then came a man privately to Hamilton Bright and said that he was John Simons, who spelled his name in the right way, and had been the witness of the will. He was in difficulties, and was obliged to hide from his creditors; but if a small sum of money were forthcoming—and so forth. Bright looked at him, and he was clean-shaven, and of average height, and wore a brown jacket. Bright hesitated, and then called the other witnesses, who unhesitatingly swore that the man who had signed was Persimmons and not this Simons. And nothing more was heard of the man in the brown jacket to this day. But another clean-shaven man of average height with another sort of brown jacket appeared the next morning, and many more after him, very much alike. But the departure of them from the office was much more precipitate than that of the first. And this also was in the morning and evening papers, and still the will was unprobated, and lay in Mr. Allen’s safe. After that the lawyers on each side began to accuse one another of causing delay, and while they were quarrelling about it the delay continued, and the public jeered, and the actors at Harrigan and Hart’s introduced jokes about the Lauderdale will which brought the house down, until Teddy Van De Water, chancing to be in the audience, took friendly action, and requested that the name should not be introduced in future. At this the public of the theatre took offence, and called all the Lauderdales gilt-edged galoots, and by other similar epithets commonly applied to the Four Hundred by a godless population which has not the fear of millions before its eyes, but rather a desire for the same.