"Very likely not, my dear sir. Indeed, I am sure you would respect our poor friend's wishes, even if they were to take a form unpleasing to yourself, which is far from likely. But still it may be as well for Mr. Whitelaw and myself to be alone. In cases of this kind the patient is apt to be nervous, and the business is done more expeditiously if there is no third party present. So, my dear Mr. Carley, if you have no objection——"
"Steph," said the bailiff abruptly, "do you want me out of the room? Say the word, if you do."
The patient writhed, hesitated, and then replied with some confusion,—
"If it's all the same to you, William Carley, I think I'd sooner be alone with Mr. Pivott."
And here the polite attorney, having opened the door with his own hands, bowed the bailiff out; and, to his extreme mortification, William Carley found himself on the outside of his son-in-law's room, before he had time to make any farther remonstrance.
He went downstairs, and paced the wainscoted parlour in a very savage frame of mind.
"There's some kind of devil's work hatching up there," he muttered to himself. "Why should he want me out of the room? He wouldn't, if he was going to leave all his money to Ellen, as he ought to leave it. Who else is there to get it? Not that old mother Tadman, surely. She's an artful old harridan; and if my girl had not been a fool, she'd have got rid of her out of hand when she married. Sure to goodness she can never stand between Stephen and his wife. And who else is there? No one that I know of; no one. Stephen wouldn't have kept any secret all these years from the folks he's lived amongst. It isn't likely. He must leave it all to his wife, except a hundred or so, perhaps, to mother Tadman; and it was nothing but his natural closeness that made him want me out of the way."
And at this stage of his reflections, Mr. Carley opened a cupboard near the fire-place and brought therefrom a case-bottle, from the contents of which he found farther solace. It was about half-an-hour after this that he was summoned by a call from the lawyer, who was standing on the broad landing-place at the top of the stairs with a candle in his hand, when the bailiff emerged from the parlour.
"If you'll step up here, and bring one of your men with you, I shall be obliged, Mr. Carley," the attorney said, looking over the banisters; "I want you to witness your son-in-law's will." Mr. Carley's spirits rose a little at this. He was not much versed in the ways of lawyers, and had a notion that Mr. Pivott would read the will to him, perhaps, before he signed it. It flashed upon him presently that a legatee could not benefit by a will which he had witnessed. It was obvious, therefore, that Stephen did not mean him to have anything. Well, he had scarcely expected anything. If his daughter inherited all, it would be pretty much the same thing; she would act generously of course.
He went into the kitchen, where the head man, who had been retained on the premises to act as special messenger in this time of need, was sitting in the chimney-corner smoking a comfortable pipe after his walk to and from Malsham.