He opened negotiations with them. He pointed out to them privately that the real point at issue was not Sternhold, but the boy—the heir—for no one doubted the legitimacy. Who was to have the custody of the heir?
Clever Aurelian hoped that by making friends with the companies who held the building leases that there would be no opposition to his holding the boy—to his guardianship of the estate. He had strong grounds to go upon. To all intents and purposes he was the nearest relation. If the boy died, and no son of the phantom brother of Romy turned up, perhaps he might have a claim to the estate.
He gave the companies to understand that if he had the guardianship of the boy their interests should be most carefully studied.
They appeared favourable. The step was taken. The boy remained with his mother; his mother remained in her house, seeing Aurelian daily, and indeed watched by his employés.
No change took place. Aurelian congratulated himself that all was going on favourably. The boy, who had little or no idea of the meaning of the word “father,” was constantly at Aurelian’s residence—the asylum where his parent was confined—playing with Aurelian’s son, who was carefully instructed to please him, and indeed was sharp enough already to require little instruction.
Sternhold lingered in his melancholy state. He was no longer violent—simply dejected. He did not seem able to answer the simplest question. If asked if he was hungry, he would stare, and say something relating to his school-days.
And this was the man who had built Stirmingham. For five years he remained in this state, and then suddenly brightened up; and it was thought and feared that he would recover the use of his faculties. It lasted but three days. In that short time he wrote three important documents.
The first was a statement to the effect that he had wronged Lucia. He now saw his folly—he had been led into his persecution of her by designing people, and blamed himself for his subsequent conduct. He earnestly entreated her forgiveness. The second was a species of family history, short but complete, refuting the claims of the American Baskettes. They were indeed of the same name, he wrote, but not of the same blood. The truth was that the cotters who had lived in the Swamp, now covered with mansions, had no name. They were half gipsies; they had no registered or baptismal name.
Will Baskette, who had been shot, was the chief man among them, and gradually they came by the country people to be called by his name. They were not blood relations in any sense of the term. This paper also gave the writer’s views of his transactions with the Sibbolds and the cotters or “Baskettes,” and concluded with the firmly expressed conviction—the honest statement of a man near his end—that his title was irrefutable, and he knew of no genuine claim.
The third document was his Will. For now it appeared that hitherto he had never made a will at all. It was extremely short, but terse and unmistakable. It left the whole of his property, real and personal (with the single exception of the gift to Lucia), to his son, John Marese Baskette.