First of all, she was very anxious to know if Mr. Dickson thought it quite fair that she should have the money. Was he quite sure that there were no relations, no one who had a real claim?
Mr. Dickson explained to her what a singularly lonely, self-sufficing man Peter Reid had been, a man without friends, almost without interests—except the piling up of money.
"I don't say he was unhappy; I believe he was very content, absolutely absorbed in his game of money-making. But when he couldn't ignore any longer the fact that there was something wrong with his health, and went to the specialist and was told to give up work at once, he was completely bowled over. Life held nothing more for him. I was very sorry for the poor man … he had only one thought—to go back to Priorsford, his boyhood's home."
"And I didn't know," said Jean, "or we would all have turned out there and then and sat on our boxes in the middle of the road, or roosted in the trees like crows, rather than keep him for an hour out of his own house. He came and asked to see The Rigs and I was afraid he meant to buy it: it was always our nightmare that the landlord in London would turn us out…. He looked frail and shabby, and I jumped to the conclusion that he was poor. Oh, I do wish I had known…."
"He told me," Mr. Dickson went on, "when he came to see me on his return, that he had come with the intention of asking the tenants to leave The Rigs, but that he hadn't the heart to do it when he saw how attached you were to the place. He added that you had been kind to him. He was rather gruff and ashamed about his weakness, but I could see that he had been touched to receive kindness from utter strangers. He was amused in a sardonic way that you had thought him a poor man and had yet been kind to him; he had an unhappy notion that in this world kindness is always bought…. He had no heir, and I think I explained to you in my letter that he had made up his mind to leave his whole fortune to the first person who did anything for him without expecting payment. You turned out to be that person, and I congratulate you, Miss Jardine, most heartily. I would like to tell you that Mr. Reid planned everything so that it would be as easy as possible for you, and asked me to come and see you and explain in person. He seemed very satisfied when all was in order. I saw him a few days before he died and I thought he looked better, and told him so. But he only said, 'It's a great load off my mind to get everything settled, and it's a blessing not to have an heir longing to step into my shoes, and grudging me a few years longer on the earth.' Two days later he passed away in his sleep. He was a curious, hard man, whom few cared about, but at the end there was something simple and rather pathetic about him. I think he died content."
"Thank you for telling me about him," Jean said, and there was silence for a minute.
"And now may I hear your wishes?" said Mr. Dickson.
"Can I do just as I like with the money? Well, will you please divide it into four parts? That will be a quarter for each of us—David, Jock, Mhor, me."
Jean spoke as if the fortune was a lump of dough and Mr. Dickson the baker, but the lawyer did not smile.
"I understood you had only two brothers?"