John Tincroft, bachelor and benedict

by George E. Sargent

After an expression of regret that there had been so long an alienation or distance of feeling between the testator and his family, certain legacies were to be paid to them out of the estate, amounting altogether to a thousand pounds—namely two hundred pounds each to the brothers, to Old Matthew, and to the sister. In addition to this, there were some bank notes which would be found in his pocket-book—(old Matthew broke out into a visible perspiration here)—amounting to eighty pounds. This sum the testator willed to be placed without deduction into the hands of his dear sister Elizabeth, in remembrance of their old love, which had been afresh stirred up (the document went on to say) by what passed in the last walk they took together.

This was nearly all. The funeral expenses were, of course, to be paid out of the estate, and the necessary legal powers were to be placed in John Tincroft's hands to administer to the will.

There was a short silence when Mr. Fawley had finished reading; and he and his friends from the Manor House were about to depart, when Old Matthew arose. Hoarsely, he spoke.

He had never known such trickery—never. Here was his son Walter, who had come home from Australia a rich man, making believe to be a poor man. Or if he didn't make-believe that, he never said he wasn't, and didn't seem as if he had got a pound to bless himself with. And then, instead of coming to his proper home in England, as he ought to have done, and to his old father and mother, he had been putting up with his old lover and her husband, which was most improper; but, of course, Mr. Tincroft had made it answer his purpose. And though he had pretended to him that he did not know whether Walter was rich or poor, anybody could see now what a pretence that was. And he was to be executor too, and Helen's guardian, when, by rights, he, the grandfather, ought to have been. A good deal more fit, he was, though he said it, to take care of money (having been used to business all his life) than a college gentleman who had never added up a sum since he went to school, he dared to say. And he said now that it was an unnatural thing, and wicked, to be taking his poor grand-daughter from her proper sheltering-place; and he wanted to know if Mr. Tincroft meant to come between relations like that. Wasn't Helen Wilson his own flesh and blood?

And then there was the money that was left to Elizabeth over and above her share of that paltry thousand pounds—

"You shall have it all, father, if you will," said Elizabeth, "only if you won't go on talking like this," she added, her cheeks mantling with shame.

"And if your grand-daughter prefers making her home at Low Beech, she has only to say so, and her will shall be law to me," said John Tincroft.

We need not give Helen's reply. And as little need is there to tell how the sombre party soon broke up. Our next chapter will open on other scenes and circumstances.