“Mr. Babington!” Winifred said, putting her hand on his arm.
“You may trust to me, my dear. The condition is, that she is not, under any circumstances, to share the property with her brothers, or to interfere in any way with the testator’s arrangements for them. This she refuses to do.”
“Don’t be a fool, Winnie!” cried Tom. “Pass over that, please. We all know what you mean, and that she’s to pose as our benefactor, and to receive our eternal gratitude, and so forth.”
“I think it would be a great pity if Winnie took any rash step,” George said.
Mr. Babington looked round upon them with a smile. “She wishes,” he said, “to give the landed property, Bedloe, to her brother George, and to make up an equivalent to it in money for Mr. Tom there. These are the arrangements she proposes to me—the sole executor, you will observe, charged to carry your father’s will into effect.” He took up one of the papers as he spoke, and with a smile, caught in his own the hand which she once more tremulously put forth to interrupt him. “Here is the proposal written in her own hand,” he said. “Miss Winifred, you must trust to me; I am acting for the best. Naturally this puts an end to her, as her father’s heir.”
Here there arose a confused tumult round the little group in the middle of the room. Mrs. George was the first to make herself heard. She burst forth into sobs and tears.
“Oh! after all she’s promised to do for us! after all she’s said for the children! Oh, George! go and do something, stand up for your sister. Don’t let it be robbed away from her, after all she’s promised. Oh, George! Oh, Miss Winnie! remember what you’ve promised!—and what is to become of Georgie?” the young mother cried.
“Mr. Babington,” said George, “I don’t think it’s right to take advantage of my sister because she’s foolish and generous. Who is it to go to if you take it from her? Let one of us at least have the good of it. I don’t want her to give me Bedloe. She could be of use to us without that.”
Tom had burst into a violent laugh of despite and despair. “If that’s what it’s to come to,” he said, “we’ll go to law all of us. Winnie too, by Jove! No one can say we’re not a united family now.”
Winifred sat with her eyes fixed on the old lawyer’s face. She said nothing, and if there was a tremor in her heart too, did not express it, though already there began to arise dull whispers—Ought she to have done it? Was it her duty? Was this in reality the way to serve them best?