“To be sure! I don’t doubt there’s plate and jewellery and such things about—they ought to be sealed and secured, and that sort of thing,” said the still more energetic lay functionary. “For anything we know, she might have money in old stockings all about the house. I shouldn’t be surprised at anything, after what we’ve heard to-day. Twenty thousand pounds! and a daughter! If any one had told me that old Mrs Thomson had either the one or the other yesterday at this time, I should have said they were crazy. Certainly, Brown, the cupboards and desks and so forth should be examined and sealed up. It is your duty to Phœbe Thomson. You must do your duty to Phœbe Thomson, or she’ll get damages of you. I suppose so—you ought to know.”
“Confound Phœbe Thomson!” said the attorney, with great unction; “but notwithstanding, come along, let us get out of this. As for her jewellery and her old stockings, they must take their chance. I can’t stand it any longer—pah! there’s no air to breathe. How did the old witch ever manage to live to eighty here?”
“You must not call her by such improper epithets. I have no doubt she was a good woman,” said the rector; “and recollect, really, you owe a little respect to a person who was only buried to-day.”
“If she were to be buried to-morrow,” cried the irreverent attorney, making his way first out of the narrow doorway, “I know one man who would have nothing to do with the obsequies. Why, look here! what right had that old humbug to saddle me with her duties, after neglecting them all her life; and, with that bribe implied, to lure me to undertake the job, too. Ah, the old wretch! don’t let us speak of her. As for respect, I don’t owe her a particle—that is a consolation. I knew something of the kind of creature she was before to-day.”
So saying, John Brown thrust his hands into his pockets, shrugged up his shoulders, and went off at a startling pace up the quiet street. It was a very quiet street in the outskirts of a very quiet little town. The back of the house which they had just left was on a line with the road—a blank wall, broken only by one long staircase-window. The front was to the garden, entering by a little side-gate, through which the indignant executor had just hurried, crunching the gravel under his rapid steps. A line of such houses, doleful and monotonous, with all the living part of them concealed in their gardens, formed one side of the street along which he passed so rapidly. The other side consisted of humbler habitations, meekly contented to look at their neighbours’ back-windows. When John Brown had shot far ahead of his late companions, who followed together, greatly interested in this new subject of talk, his rapid course was interrupted for a moment. Bessie Christian came running across the street from one of the little houses. She had no bonnet on, and her black dress made her blonde complexion and light hair look clearer and fairer than ever; and when the lawyer drew up all at once to hear what she had to say, partly from compassion, partly from curiosity, it did not fail to strike him how like a child she was, approaching him thus simply with her message. “Oh, Mr Brown,” cried Bessie, out of breath, “I want to speak to you. If you will ask Nancy, I am sure she can give you whatever information is to be had about—about aunt’s friends. She has been with aunt all her life. I thought I would tell you in case you might think, after what mamma said———”
“I did not think anything about it,” said Mr Brown.
“That we knew something, and would not tell you; but we don’t know anything,” said Bessie. “I never heard of Phœbe Thomson before.”
Mr Brown shrugged up his shoulders higher than ever, and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. “Thank you,” he said, a little ungraciously. “I should have spoken to Nancy, of course, in any case; but I’m sure its very kind of you to take the trouble—good-by.”
Bessie went back blushing and disconcerted; and the rector and the churchwarden, coming gradually up on the other side of the road, seeing her eager approach and downcast withdrawal, naturally wondered to each other what she could want with Brown, and exchanged condolences on the fact that Brown’s manners were wonderfully bearish—really too bad. Brown, in the mean time, without thinking anything about his manners, hurried along to his office. He was extremely impatient of the whole concern; it vexed him unconsciously to see Bessie Christian; it even occurred to him that the sight of her and of her mother about would make his unwelcome office all the more galling to him. In addition to all the annoyance and trouble, here would be a constant suggestion that he had wronged these people. He rushed into his private sanctuary the most uncomfortable man in Carlingford. An honest, selfish, inoffensive citizen, injuring no one, if perhaps he did not help so many as he might have done—what grievous fault had he committed to bring upon him such a misfortune as this?
The will which had caused so much conversation was to this purport. It bequeathed all the property of which Mrs Thomson of Grove Street died possessed, to John Brown, attorney in Carlingford, in trust for Phœbe Thomson, the only child of the testatrix, who had not seen or heard of her for thirty years; and in case of all lawful means to find the said Phœbe Thomson proving unsuccessful, at the end of three years the property in question was bequeathed to John Brown, his heirs and administrators, absolutely and in full possession. No wonder it raised a ferment in the uncommunicative bosom of the Carlingford attorney, and kept the town in talk for more than nine days. Mrs Thomson had died possessed of twenty thousand pounds: such an event had not happened at Carlingford in the memory of man.