“This will,” he said, “is utterly void.”
At the word, the blood surged back into Columbia Van Bartan's face. She took two steps toward Robert Dalton, then turned and buried her face in the folds of a heavy curtain. Dalton was cool and entirely incredulous.
“I think you are very much mistaken, Mr. Carpenter,” he said quietly.
“Mistaken?” answered the counsellor. “Why, this bequest is made simply to 'St. Luke's Episcopal Church.' That organization is neither an individual nor a corporation; it has no recognized legal existence. And this request must fail for want of a devisee.”
At this point Harrison, who was a slow but very careful man, interrupted and explained with great accuracy that the will was in every detail exactly as the testatrix had desired it; that even the language used was her language; that she had said “St. Luke's Episcopal Church,” and that Mr. Dalton had written it in the instrument precisely as Mrs. Van Bartan had said, and that there could be no possible error either by accident or design.
Carpenter was about to reply, when Lomax, noticing his excitement, stepped in between Harrison and the elder attorney, and pointed out at great length that this was all no doubt true, but that, under the law, an indefinite religious organization, could not take a bequest; that this was not generally known to those unfamiliar with legal business, but that Mr. Dalton should have known that, in order to devise property to a religious organization, it must be given to a board of trustees, or to a certain person or persons, named in the will, for a specific and accurately determined purpose; that this, Mr. Dalton should have explained, and that his writing down the exact words of Mrs. Van Bartan had defeated her intentions, and rendered this bequest void.
“But, sir,” put in the attorney Gouch, pompously, “the testatrix's intention must control. I see no——”
“Come, come, my good man,” cried Carpenter, angrily, “this is what is known in Virginia as a 'vague and indefinite charity.' Such bequests have been held void for almost a century. Why Silas Hart attempted to create such a devise as early as 1790, and John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States, held it void at law. Twenty years later. Joseph Gallego attempted to bequeath a similar charity to the Roman Catholic Church at Richmond, and Henry St. George Tucker, President of the Supreme Court of Virginia, in a famous opinion, held that it must fail, and from that time until the present the courts of this country have been passing upon this common error of testators and their incompetent advisers.”
Robert Dalton looked up anxiously. “In what cases?” he stammered.
“What cases!” almost shouted the elder counsellor, for he had now lost his temper completely. “What cases, you bungler! Ask the veriest pettyfogger; ask the commonest justice of the peace, but do not catechise me.” And after having delivered himself of this venom, he seized his hat and cane and stalked out of the house. He was greatly enraged to think that a man of Dalton's learning, a member of a firm of high standing, should make such a stupendous blunder.