‘Yes, go—go, Hannah!’ cried the sick man; and I fancied that I could detect an eagerness in his voice, as if he desired her absence rather than her presence. As Mrs Churton left the room I caught sight of the reflection of her face in the glass over the chimney-piece, but I do not think she would have scowled quite so much had she known that I was looking. I began by asking Mr Bramleigh what were his wishes with regard to his will. In low tones he told me that he desired to leave everything to Hannah Churton, his housekeeper, as a reward for her long and faithful services. I will not tire the reader by repeating the whole of our conversation. After great difficulty I extracted from him that he had no relatives save an only daughter, whom he had discarded, her fault being that she had married a young fellow in the army to whom her father had taken an unaccountable aversion. My own opinion was—and as the result turned out, it proved to be correct—that his mind had been poisoned against him by Hannah Churton, whose influence over her master was evidently very great. I thought of the sweet face of the portrait I had seen in the dining-room—doubtless that of the discarded daughter—and deserving or not deserving, I determined to fight a battle on her behalf.
I spoke gravely to the old man, although without much hope of success, but at last I got him to confess that he had had no intention of making his housekeeper his sole heiress until she had herself broached the subject to him. Her plan had been to artfully insinuate that the love of the newly married couple would not last very long on a lieutenant’s pay; and that as he had only married Miss Bramleigh for her money, he would soon tire of her when he found that she had nothing. She had then pledged herself to procure a separation, when she would make over everything left her by Mr Bramleigh, to his daughter. She certainly must have had great power over the old man to induce him to agree to such a scheme. I proposed to Mr Bramleigh that he should leave his property to some one on whom he could rely, in trust for his daughter. I also volunteered, although I have an aversion to the trouble and responsibility of a trusteeship, my services as trustee for this purpose. My arguments prevailed. He assented; and I prepared a will accordingly, the old man requesting that his medical man, Dr Ramsey, should be nominated as my co-trustee, and that an annuity of fifty pounds should be paid to Hannah Churton for life. I inwardly rebelled at this. My dislike to this woman was now so great that I could cheerfully have seen her cut out of the will without a farthing. The doctor arrived just as I had finished, and expressed his willingness to share the responsibility with me, which seemed to please Mr Bramleigh very much. Our names were therefore included as trustees.
I read the will to him very carefully, explaining, as I did so, its full effect. When I had finished, he muttered: ‘Quite right—quite right; but I am afraid Hannah will not be pleased.’ I counselled him not to mention it to her; and my advice seemed to satisfy him.
Ringing the bell, I requested Mrs Churton to summon James Burn and Margaret Sims, the two servants who had witnessed the first will. As soon as they were in the room, I gave Mr Bramleigh a pen, and placing the document before him, I said distinctly, so that all might hear: ‘This which I have just read to you is your final will, and you request James Burn and Margaret Sims to witness your execution of it?’ ‘It is—I do,’ he solemnly said, as with feeble fingers he wrote his name. The two awe-stricken domestics then added theirs, and I think their hands shook more than the testator’s. Hannah Churton was a silent spectator of the whole of this; but I could not see her face, as she stood in the background, out of the light of the lamp.
Before allowing any one to leave the room, I placed the will in a large envelope. Fastening it with wax, I impressed it with Mr Bramleigh’s monogram and crest by means of a seal that was in the tray of the inkstand. The old man watched me closely, and when I had finished, he said: ‘Keep it—till it is wanted;’ thus relieving me of a great embarrassment, for I did not like leaving it in the power of Hannah Churton, lest she should tamper with it.
On our way down-stairs, Dr Ramsey told me that his patient was rapidly sinking, and that he doubted whether he would live another twenty-four hours.
Taking him into the dining-room and shutting the door, I told him my suspicions of the housekeeper, and that I felt afraid of leaving Mr Bramleigh alone with her all night. He agreed with me, and promised to send his assistant to watch till the morning, when, if Mr Bramleigh should still be living, he would on his own responsibility place a trustworthy nurse in charge. The housekeeper opened the door to let us out.
‘It is all right, Mrs Churton,’ I maliciously said as the doctor wished her good-night. ‘I am quite satisfied now. The will will be safe in my keeping. By-the-bye,’ I added, looking her sharply in the face, ‘had you not better let your master’s friends know of the danger he is in? Dr Ramsey says he does not think he will last much longer.’
She mumbled something in reply, but I could not catch what it was. I stayed talking upon indifferent subjects, to while away the time until the arrival of Dr Ramsey’s assistant. Mrs Churton, however, was, unlike her sex, remarkably reticent; I could only get the shortest replies from her. She seemed very much astonished and rather displeased when Dr Ramsey returned with his assistant. He explained to her that although there was no chance of saving his patient’s life, yet his last moments might be alleviated by skilled attendance; and therefore, as he himself could not stay all night, he had brought his assistant for that purpose.
In one’s experience of mankind we find that it is possible to be sometimes too clever. Mrs Hannah Churton was very clever, but she committed two great mistakes. The first was in consulting a lawyer. The will drawn by her—for so it really had been—might have been upset on the ground of undue influence. I say ‘might have been,’ for there is nothing so hard to prove as undue influence. The great point against her was the ousting of a child in favour of a stranger. Yet it would have been far from easy to prove that she was responsible for this, as Mr Bramleigh’s strange aversion to the army was well known; he often had been heard to threaten to discard his daughter if she ever should engage herself to a military man—doubtless thereby defeating his purpose, for the female mind is such that from Eve to the present generation the thing forbidden is the most desired. I think the probabilities are that the matter would have been compromised, and Hannah Churton enriched by a few thousands of her master’s wealth.