Hildebrand of the "Hundred"
It must have been close to an hour before Mr. Eldon joined us; evidently his papers had been in more than usual confusion. A few minutes later the ladies appeared, together with a dozen or more negro servants connected in various capacities with the estate. John Thaneford jerked himself to his feet in apparently unwilling acknowledgment of the social amenities; his father, sitting impassively upright in an immense leather chair, looked more than ever like some gigantic, impossible infant. Miss Graeme went over and spoke a few words to him, but he barely nodded in reply; Buddha himself could not have improved upon that colossal, immemorial serenity. I had hoped that Betty would say something to me, but she contented herself with the briefest of smiles in my direction. A pretty girl? Why, yes, I suppose she would be so considered, with her slim, graceful figure and that pronounced type of Irish beauty—dark hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes; but the eyes themselves of the clearest cerulean blue, rubbed in with a smutty finger, as the saying goes. Yet somehow one never thought over-much of how fair Betty Graeme might be to look upon; perhaps it was just her perfect and altogether adorable femininity which made her different from other women; she entered the room, and forthwith all eyes were inevitably focused upon her; when the gods arrive the half-gods go, as Mr. Emerson acutely remarked. A phenomenon then, but I can't account for it and don't intend to try. Personality, magnetism—but these are just words, and she was Betty Graeme. A line from an old, half forgotten mediæval romance came back to me as I gazed upon her: "By God's Rood! that is the one maid in the world for me."
A revelation then, but love at first sight is by no means so common a thing as youth is apt to suppose. Only when it does come there can never be any doubt about it. I drew in my breath sharply, and the tense thrill seemed to permeate every molecule and atom of my being. Then came the reactionary thought: "But what can she be thinking of me?" and my exalted spirits evaporated with startling suddenness. The very warmth and kindliness with which she had at first greeted me only emphasized the immensity of the distance that divided us. The goddess may condescend to smile upon a mortal, but that does not imply that the poor man is safely on the Mount Olympus list. Just then I happened to glance up and caught the look bent upon her from under John Thaneford's beetling eyebrows. That boor, that uncouth, rustic bully! And yet he was of her class; they must have been playmates from childhood, the Thaneford acres marched with the Hildebrand holdings—why not? and my heart sank to my boots. Then I realized that I was on the point of making a pretty considerable fool of myself, and I resumed my seat; Mr. Eldon went through the usual preliminary hemmings and harrings, and the company prepared itself to listen.
The crisp sheet of parchment crackled in the lawyer's hands, and now he was reading, in an even monotone, the last will and testament of Francis Graeme.
A few minor legacies to the servants and dependents, the bequest of a thousand dollars for the endowment of S. Saviour's parish, and then: "To Lysbeth Effingham Graeme, my dearly beloved daughter by adoption, I give and bequeath the sum of one hundred thousand dollars, invested in first mortgage bonds of the Southern Railway, the silver dinner service bearing the Effingham coat-of-arms, and the four portraits of the Graeme family now hanging in the long gallery at 'Hildebrand Hundred'; the inheritance tax to be paid from the residue of my personal estate. I furthermore bequeath to the said Lysbeth Graeme my gold hunting-case watch, with the accompanying fob and seals, together with such articles of vertu, not specifically enumerated in the annexed inventory of Hildebrand goods and chattels, as she may select."
The speaker paused and cleared his throat; from some far corner of the silent room came a half suppressed exhalation, the physical reaction from tensely held emotion; I looked over at the elder Thaneford, and noted wonderingly that he had risen from his chair and that the extraordinary pink-and-white of his complexion had changed to a dull, minatory brick-red; he seemed about to speak, and I held my breath. Then, as Mr. Eldon indicated that he was on the point of resuming, the old man yielded to the insistent pressure of his son's hand, and sank back in his seat.
I suppose that I must have listened physically to that next paragraph, but my mind was slow, deadly slow, in comprehending the full measure of its import; then, suddenly, I understood.
To dispense with legal phraseology, the testator now directed that the undivided estate of "Hildebrand Hundred," together with the remainder of all personal property, should go to his friend and near kinsman, Hugh Hildebrand, of Philadelphia, to be held by him and his heirs forever.
Well, you remember that I had been expecting the bequest of a small sum of money for the purchase of some such trifle as a ring or a stick-pin; and it took me a full minute to realize that this incredible thing had actually happened: a man whom I had seen but once in my life had made me his heir, and I was now the master of a great estate and a personage to boot; I sat motionless, trying to sort out my ideas into some degree of order and sequence.
Fielding Thaneford had found his feet again; he must, in his prime, have been a big and powerful man, for he still overtopped his stalwart son by full two inches of height. He looked particularly at Mr. Eldon, but with a commanding sweep of his arm he seemed to draw the entire company into the circle of his attention; he dominated us all by the sheer weight of his will; he opened his mouth to speak, and we inclined our ears to listen.