“Now make me a copy of it,” demanded the General. “The original you may keep till called for.”
The copy was made; the General buttoned it up in the breast of his surtout; and then, without even cautioning the lawyer to secrecy, stepped back into his carriage, and was soon rolling along the four miles of road lying between the village and his own residence.
“There’s something queer about all this,” soliloquised the pettifogger, when left alone in his office. “Queer he should come to me, instead of going to his own solicitor; and queerer still he should disinherit the younger son—or next thing to it. His property cannot be worth less than a cool hundred thousand pounds, and all to go to that half-negro, while the other, as most people thought, would have a half share of it. After all, it’s not so strange. He’s angry with the younger son; and in making this will he comes to me instead of going to Lawson, who he knows might say something to dissuade him from his purpose. I have no doubt he will stick to it, unless the young scamp leaves off his idle ways. General Harding is not a man to be trifled with, even by his own son. But whether this will is to remain good or not, it’s my duty to make it known to a third party, who for certain reasons will be deeply interested in its contents; and who, whether she may ever be able to thank me for communicating them, will, at all events, keep the secret of my doing so. She shall hear of it within the hour.”
“Mr Robson!”
The pale face of the unarticled clerk appeared within the doorway—prompt as a stage spirit summoned through a trap.
“Tell the coachman to clap the horses into my carriage—quick as tinder.”
The spirit disappeared without making any reply, and just as his invoker had finished the folding of the lately attested will, and made a minute of what had transpired between him and the testator, carriage wheels were heard outside the door of the office.
In six seconds after Mr Woolet was in his “trap”—as he used condescendingly to call it—and rattling along a country road, the same taken ten minutes before by the more ostentatious equipage of the retired Indian officer.
Although driving the same way, the destination of the two vehicles was different. The chariot was bound for Beechwood Park, the “trap” for a less pretentious residence outside its enclosure—the villa-cottage occupied by the widow Mainwaring.