Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps: Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer

by J. S. Fletcher

"I didn't know," she said listlessly.

"But, of course, that's neither here nor there," said Michael; "and I must away to make a few last arrangements. If there'll be too much work for you to-morrow, Miriam, you must get another woman in from the village."

"There'll not be too much work, Michael," she answered.

In her heart she wished there was more work—work that would keep her from thinking of the secret which the dead man had left with her. It had eaten deep into her soul and had become a perpetual torment, for she was a woman of great religious feeling and strict ideas of duty, and she did not know where her duty lay in this case. She knew Michael for a proud man, upon whom the news of his illegitimacy would fall as lightning falls on an oak come to the pride of its maturity; she knew, too, how he would curse his father for the wrong done to his mother, of whom he had been passionately fond. Again, if she told the truth, Michael would be bereft of everything. For Stephen was not fond of his brother, and Stephen's wife hated Miriam. If Stephen and his wife heard the truth, and proved it, Michael would be—nobody. For, after all, Tobias had not had time to make amends.

And now there was the news of this will held by Lawyer Brooke! What could there be in it, and how was it that Tobias had not spoken of it? Could it be that he had forgotten it? She knew that for some years he had been more or less eccentric, subject to moods and to gusts of passion, though there had never been any time when his behaviour would have warranted any one in suspecting his mind to be affected or even clouded. Well—she could do nothing but leave the matter until to-morrow when the dead man's will was read.

As wife of the elder son, Miriam was hostess next day, and everybody who saw her marvelled at two things—one, the extraordinary pallor on her usually brightly tinted cheeks; the other, the quiet way in which she went about her duties. She was here, there, and everywhere, seeing to the comfort of the funeral guests; but she spoke little, and keenly observant eyes would have said that she moved as if in a dream. At the funeral dinner she ate little; it was an effort to get that little down. As the time drew near for the reading of the will, she could scarcely conceal her agitation, and when they were at last all assembled in the best parlour to hear Tobias's testament declared, she was glad that she sat at a table beneath which she could conceal her trembling fingers.

She wondered why Mr. Brooke was so long in cleaning his spectacles, so long in sipping his glass of port, so slow in breaking the seal of the big envelope which he took from his pocket, why he hum'd and ha'd so before he began reading. But at last he began....

It was a briefly worded will, and very plain in its meaning. Having cause, it set forth, to be highly displeased with the conduct of his younger son, Stephen, and to believe that he would only waste a fortune if it were left to him, Tobias left everything of which he died possessed to his elder son, Michael, on condition that Michael secured to Stephen from the time of his (Tobias's) demise, a sum of three pounds a week, to which a further sum of one pound a week might be added if Stephen's conduct was such as to satisfy Michael. If Stephen died before his father, Michael was to make a similar allowance to his widow.

The various emotions which had agitated Miriam were almost forgotten by her in the tumult which followed. Stephen's wife and her father and mother broke out into loud denunciation of the will; Stephen himself, after staring at the solicitor for a moment, as if he could not credit the evidence of his own eyes or ears smote the table heavily and jumped to his feet.

"It's a damned lie!" he shouted. And he made as if he would snatch the will and tear it to pieces. Mr. Brooke calmly replaced it in his pocket, and as calmly sipped his port.