Katherine sat down and began to think over the work she would have to do in the ensuing week or so, till the Aurungzebe arrived with Lady Somers on board. The ship was due within a few days, and Katherine intended to go to meet her sister, to carry her, before she landed even, the news which, alas! she feared would only be good news to Stella. Alas! was it not good news to Katherine too? She stopped and wept a few bitter tears, but more for the pity of it, the horror of it, than for grief. Stella had been his favourite, his darling, and yet it would be good news to Stella. Her sister hoped that she would cry a little, that her heart would ache a little with the thought of never more seeing her father, never getting his forgiveness, nor any kind message or word from him. But at the utmost that would be all, a few tears, a regret, an exclamation of “poor papa!” and then joy at the good news, joy to be delivered from poverty and anxiety, to be able to surround herself again with all the beautiful things she loved, to provide for her children (she had two by this time), and to replace her husband in his position. Was it possible that she could weep long, that she could mourn much for the father who had cast her off and whom she had not seen for six years, with all this happiness behind? Katherine herself had but few tears to shed. She was sad because she was not sufficiently sad, because it was terrible that a human soul should go away out of the world and leave so few regrets, so little sorrow behind. Even the old servants, the housekeeper who had been with him for so many years, his personal attendant, who had been very kind, who had taken great care of him, were scarcely sorry. “I suppose, Miss, as you’ll be having Miss Stella home now,” Mrs. Simmons said, though she had a white handkerchief in her hand for appearance sake. And the man was chiefly anxious about his character and the testimonials to be given him. “I hope as I never neglected my duty. And master was an ’eavy ’andful, Miss,” he said, with relief, too, in his countenance. Katherine thought she would be willing to give half of all she had in the world to secure one genuine mourner, one who was truly sorry for her father’s death. Was she herself sorry? Her heart ached with the pity and the horror of it, but sorrow is a different sentiment from that.
In the meantime the solicitor and executor were in Mr. Tredgold’s sitting-room which he had occupied so long. A fire had been lighted in haste, to make the cold uninhabited place a little more cheerful. It was lighted by a lamp which hung over the table, shaded so as to concentrate its light on that spot, leaving all the rest of the room in the dark. And the two forms on either side of it were not of a character to be ennobled by the searching light. The solicitor was a snuffy man, with a long lean throat and a narrow head, with tufts of thin, grey hair. He had a ragged grey beard of the same description, long and ill grown, and he wore spectacles pushed out from his eyes and projecting as if they might fall off altogether. Mr. Turny had a shining bald head, which reflected the light, bent, as it was, over the papers on the table. They had been examining these papers, searching for the will which they expected to find there, but had come as yet upon no trace of it.
“I should have thought,” said Mr. Turny, “that he’d have had another will drawn out as soon as that girl ran away—indeed I was in a great mind to take steps——” He stopped here, reflecting that it was as well perhaps to say nothing of Fred and what those steps were. But Mr. Sturgeon had heard of the repeated visits of the family, and knew that young Fred was “on the outlook,” as they said, and knew.
“Ah, here it is at last,” Mr. Sturgeon said. He added, after a few minutes, in a tone of disappointment: “No, it’s the old will of ten years ago, the one I sent him down at his own request after the young lady ran away. I kept expecting for a long time to have his instructions about another, and even wrote to him on the subject. I suppose he must have employed some man here. This, of course, must be mere waste paper now.”
“What was the purport of it?” Mr. Turny asked.
“You must have heard at the time. It was not a will I approved—nothing unnatural ever gets any support from me. They say lawyers are full of dodges; it would have been better for me if I had put my principles in my pocket many a time. Men have come to me with the most ridiculous instructions, what I call wicked—they take a spite at some one, or some boy behaves foolishly (to be sure, it’s a girl in this case, which is more uncommon), and out he goes out of the will. I don’t approve of such pranks for my part.”
“You would like the good to share with the bad, and the guilty with the innocent,” said Turny, not without a reflection of his own.
“Not so much as that; but it doesn’t follow—always—that a boy is bad because he has kicked over the traces in his youth—and if he is bad, then he is the one above all that wants some provision made for him to keep him from getting badder. There’s that poor wretch, Bob Tredgold; I’ve kept him in my office, he thinks, because his brother always stood up for him. Nothing of the kind; Tredgold would have been delighted to hear he had tripped into the mire or gone down under an underground railway train on his way home. And the poor beggar believes now that his brother has provided for him—not a penny will he have, or I am mistaken. I must try to get something for him out of the girls.”
“The oldest girl, of course, will have it all?” Mr. Turny said.
“I suppose so,” said the solicitor, “if he don’t prove intestate after all; that’s always on the cards with that sort of man, indeed with every sort of man. They don’t like to part with it even on paper, and give the power into someone else’s hands. Women are rather different. It seems to amuse them to give all their things away—on paper. I don’t know that there’s much good searching further. He must have sent for some local man, that would save him trouble. And then he knew I would remonstrate if there was any ridiculous vengeance in his thoughts, which most likely there would have been.”