So the days wore on—the weary days with death in the house—till at last the morning came when all that was mortal of Captain Stondon passed out of the gates of Marshlands and on to the churchyard at the other end of the hamlet. He had gone for ever. Phemie realised that fact when she stole to the room where he had lain—when she understood that she had looked on his face for the last time in this world—when she turned desperately towards the future, and confronted it without his help—without his supporting hand—without his encouraging voice—alone—wholly and entirely, so far as the close companionship, as the watchful care given to her by Captain Stondon was concerned.
She had not valued him living, and now he was dead.
She had sorrowed for that man lying under the sea, and there was treason in her sorrow towards the husband just taken from her. Even indeed in that bitter hour she could not put the memory of Basil aside—could not help thinking how hard it was he had been taken in his youth and hope away from earth, away from Marshlands!
She thought this, and then, with a despairing moan, knelt down in the room where she should never more see her husband, and cried till the fountain of her tears seemed exhausted, till, for very faintness and weariness, she could cry no more.
When Captain Stondon’s will came to be read, it was found that he had indeed remembered his wife with the most generous and ungrudging trustfulness.
He had saved and purchased—purchased this little estate and that small farm; invested in some paying companies, and accumulated money for her benefit. With the exception of an annuity to Mrs. Montague Stondon, and some few legacies, he left Phemie the entire of his personal property, all he had been able to put by during the years since he came into possession of Marshlands. There was no condition attached; he said nothing about a second marriage, he made no proviso, he attached no restrictions, he left almost everything he owned in the world, to Phemie absolutely after his death, just as in life he had given her his heart and his substance, wholly and unconditionally.
As for Marshlands, of course it had to go to the next heir—but who was the next heir?
There were not wanting claimants in abundance. Stondons from Devonshire, Stondons from Perth, Stondons from Ireland, Stondons from abroad, were eager in pressing their separate claims. Old men and young, men who looked as though they had been buried for a hundred years and then dug up again, and let out for a day to state where they were born, and who had been their father—men again who were worn and haggard, to whom even a few acres of the great estate would have been ease and competence—men who had all their lives long been fighting the battle of poverty, and probably pawned some of their goods to defray the expenses of the journey—men fresh from their oxen and their ploughshares, who had come “parly,” with a sharp country practitioner: all these laid siege to Marshlands, and strove to make their title appear good; and whilst they were wrangling and disputing over the matter, Phemie still clung to the old walls like a cat, reluctant to quit the place where fires had once blazed cheerfully for her.
She wrote to her late husband’s lawyers, begging them to give her timely notice when the new owner might be expected, and the answer which came back sounded to her like the voices of the dead.
They enclosed a letter which, “as she would perceive,” Captain Stondon had instructed them to forward to her a month after his decease, whenever that might occur, and they begged to assure her she should have full information whenever anything definitive was settled. They (Messrs. Gardner, Snelling, and Co.) thought it was useless considering the claims of any other person until the fact of Mr. Basil Stondon’s death was proved past doubt.