"If such be your wish, dearest lady," said the attorney, "I will, with your permission, take this parchment with me; and by so doing, I shall not only avoid the necessity of troubling you, but, by the blessing of Heaven upon my humble endeavours, I shall be enabled accurately to prepare precisely such a document as it appears to be your wish to sign. In these matters no instructions can make us such plain sailing, my dear madam, as the having a satisfactory precedent in our hands.—Ah! dearest lady! when I witness the conjugal happiness of yourself and my ever-to-be-respected cousin, my heart sinks within me, as I remember that equal felicity would be my own, were it not for the cruel interference of one to whom I have never done an injury, and for whom I would willingly show, if he would let me, all a brother's love."
"Keep up your spirits, my good cousin!" replied the lady. "If Helen favours your suit,—and on this point you must be a better judge than I,—Charles's opposition will not long avail to impede your union."
The lover sighed, raised his eyes to heaven, and probably, not very well knowing what to say, departed without replying a word.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he perceived his cousin standing within the door of his library, which he held ajar. He put out his hand and beckoned him in.
"You have made quick work of it, cousin Stephen," said the anxious vicar. "I trust you have not hurried away without fully understanding my dear wife's wishes. I ask no questions, cousin Corbold, and do not, I beseech you, imagine that I wish you to betray any trust;—merely tell me if my dear Mrs. Cartwright appears to be easier in her mind now that she has disclosed her intentions to you."
The best and soberest minded men are sometimes assailed by temptation; of which painful fact Mr. Stephen Corbold at that moment became proof. Some merry devil prompted him to affect the belief that his reverend cousin was in earnest, and, putting on a sanctified look of decorum, he replied, "Of course, cousin Cartwright, I know you too well to believe that you would wish to meddle or make with such an instrument as this. When your excellent and, I doubt not, well-intentioned lady shall be defunct, you will in the course of law be made acquainted with her will. I rejoice to tell you that her mind seems now to be perfectly unburdened and clear from all worldly anxieties whatever."
As the attorney ended these words, he raised his eyes, which were fixed as he spoke upon the roll of parchment which he held in his hand, and caught, fixed full upon him, such a broadside of rage from the large and really very expressive eyes of his cousin, that he actually trembled from top to toe, and heartily repenting him of the temerity which led him to hazard so dangerous a jest, he quietly sat down at a table, and spreading open the parchment upon it, added, "But although it would be altogether foreign to your noble nature, cousin Cartwright, to express, or indeed to feel any thing like curiosity on the subject, it would be equally foreign to mine not to open my heart to you with all the frankness that our near kindred demands. Do not then refuse, dear cousin, to share with me the pleasure I feel in knowing that Heaven has taken care of its own! The only instruction I have received from your pious and exemplary wife, cousin Cartwright, was to draw her will exactly on the model of this, which, as you may perceive, is a copy of the one under which she herself was put into the possession of the splendid fortunes of which, by especial providence, you have already the control, and of which, should it please the merciful Disposer of all things so to order it that this lady, really fitter for heaven than earth, should be taken to Abraham's bosom before you, you will become the sole owner and possessor, you and your heirs for ever!"
Mr. Cartwright had in general great command over himself, rarely betraying any feeling which he wished to conceal. Perhaps even the anger which gleamed in his eye a few moments before, and which had now given place to a placidity that would by every serious lady in England have been denominated "heavenly,"—perhaps even this, though it seemed to dart forth involuntarily, was in truth permitted to appear, as being a more safe and desirable mode of obtaining his object than the collaring his cousin and saying, "Refuse to let me see that paper, and I murder you!"
But no object was now to be obtained by permitting his looks to express his feelings; and therefore, though he felt his heart spring within him in a spasm of joy and triumph, he looked as quiet and unmoved as if nothing extraordinary had happened.
"It is very well, cousin Stephen," he said; "make not any unnecessary delay in the preparing of this deed. Life is very uncertain; and moreover, the time is known to no man. Wherefore, let this thing be done immediately."