Burgo's Romance

by T. W. Speight

"What then? Don't we hear of such unions every day? I presume your uncle knew what he was about when he married the handsome widow, and we have no right to suppose that he is otherwise than perfectly satisfied with his share of the bargain. All of which, Mr. Brabazon," added the old man, with a kindly inflection of the voice, "makes your case no whit the less hard."

There was a little space of silence. Burgo, with a pencil he had picked up, was idly sketching the profiles of his uncle and Lady Clinton on the blotting-pad in front of him.

"I wonder," said Mr. Garden musingly, as he proceeded to polish his spectacles with the silk handkerchief he kept by him for that purpose, "I wonder whether Lady Clinton is aware of the large sum of money which will accrue to her husband--should he live till then--some time in October next?"

Burgo paused in his sketching. "To what particular sum of money do you refer, Mr. Garden?"

"To the fifteen thousand pounds conditionally bequeathed Sir Everard by his cousin, the late Mrs. Macdona."

"What were the conditions, Mr. Garden? I have more than once heard some vague talk about such a legacy, although it was a subject my uncle always seemed to fight shy of; but nobody ever told me the real ins and outs of the affair."

"As there's nothing about the affair to make a secret of, there can be no harm in my telling you what I know of it," replied the lawyer. "Mrs. Macdona was Sir Everard's cousin on his mother's side. When no longer in the bloom of youth she married a man a great deal older than herself, who was a sleeping partner in one of our big London breweries. At his death she succeeded to the greater portion of his wealth, amounting to nearly a quarter of a million. She outlived her husband a score years, but never married again. She had no family, and by her will, among numerous other legacies with which we are not concerned, she bequeathed to each of her five cousins, your uncle Everard being one of them, the sum of fifteen thousand pounds, which, however, was in no case to be paid till he or she should have reached the age at which the testatrix quitted this world for a better one, which happened to be within a day or two of her sixty-fourth birthday. Should any of the legatees die before attaining that age, the fifteen thousand pounds which would otherwise have come to him or her was to be divided among certain specified charities.

"So eccentric was the will deemed that it was seriously debated by some of the legatees whether an attempt should not be made to have it set aside by a court of law. But Mrs. Macdona was known to have been such a clear-headed, shrewd, businesslike woman, that wiser counsels prevailed, and the will was left undisputed. To make a long story short, of the five cousins who were legatees, two died before reaching the age of sixty-four; one, your aunt, Mrs. Fleming, of whom you can have no recollection, seeing that she married and went with her husband to America nearly a quarter of a century ago, had the pleasure, two years since, of succeeding to her legacy; while the remaining two cousins, of whom your uncle Everard is the elder, and your uncle Denis the younger, have not yet arrived at the required age. But, as I have already remarked, next October will bring Sir Everard's sixty-fourth birthday, and with it his long-deferred legacy of fifteen thousand pounds."

"It will be fifteen thousand pities if he should live to succeed to it merely that it may ultimately help to enrich that she-cormorant his wife! Not but what her nest will be pretty well feathered without that, should she outlive my uncle."

"Yes; although not especially wealthy for a man of his rank and social position, Sir Everard is a long way from being a pauper. As I happen to know, he has always made a point of living well within his income, although what he will do, or be persuaded into doing, now that he is married, it might be dangerous to prophesy. His only extravagance, if such a term may be applied to it, has been that he could rarely or never resist a 'bargain' in the way of curios, coins, or bric-à-brac; which, however, he looks upon as a judicious investment of capital, his contention being that after his death his collection will sell for far more than it originally cost him--which may, or may not, prove to be the case. At any rate, whatever money he has put away (whether it be hundreds or thousands, is no concern of ours) is invested in sound English stock which pays a fair rate of dividend. Yes, if Lady Clinton should outlive her husband and succeed to all he has to leave, the world will deem her a very fortunate woman."