MR. TREDGOLD had no relations to speak of, and not very many old friends. Mr. Turny the elder, who was one of Mr. Tredgold’s executors, came down for the funeral, and so did the solicitor, Mr. Sturgeon, who was the head of a great city firm, and would certainly not have spared the time had the fortune that was now to become a subject of so much interest been less great. He brought with him a shabby man, who was in his office and carried a black bag with papers, and also turned out to be Mr. Tredgold’s brother, the only other member of the family who was known. His appearance was a surprise to Katherine, who had not heard of his existence. She was aware there had been aunts, married and bearing different names, and that it was possible perhaps to find cousins with those designations, which, however, she was not acquainted with; but an uncle was a complete surprise to her. And indeed, to tell the truth, to say “uncle” to this shambling individual in the long old great-coat, which she recognised as a very ancient garment of her father’s, was not a pleasant sensation. She shrank from the lean, grey, hungry, yet humble being who evidently was very little at his ease sitting at the same table with his master, though he attempted, from time to time, to produce himself with a hesitating speech. “He was my brother, you know—I was his brother, his only brother,” which he said several times in the course of the long dreadful evening which preceded the funeral day. Katherine in compassion carried off this new and terrible relative into the drawing-room while the two men of business discoursed together. Mr. Robert Tredgold did not like to be carried off from the wine. He saw in this step precautionary measures to which he was accustomed, though Katharine did not even know of any occasion for precaution—and followed her sulkily, not to the drawing-room, but to that once gay little room which had been the young ladies’ room in former days. Katherine had gone back to it with a sentiment which she herself did not question or trace to its origin, but which no doubt sprang from the consciousness in her mind that Stella was on her way home, and that there was no obstacle now in the way of her return. She would have been horrified to say in words that her father was the obstacle who had been removed, and the shock and awe of death were still upon her. But secretly her heart had begun to rise at the thought of Stella, and that it would be her happy office to bring Stella home.
“It ain’t often I have the chance of a good glass of wine,” Robert Tredgold said; “your poor father was a rare judge of wine, and then you see he had always the money to spend on it. My poor brother would have given me a chance of a glass of good wine if he’d brought me here.”
“Would you like the wine brought here? I thought you would be happier,” said Katherine, “with me than with those gentlemen.”
“I don’t see,” he said, somewhat sullenly, “why I ain’t as good as they are. Turny’s made a devil o’ money, just like my poor brother, but he’s no better than us, all the same; and as for old Sturgeon, I know him well enough, I hope. My poor brother would never have let that man have all his business if it hadn’t been for me. I heard him say it myself. ‘You provide for Bob, and you shall have all as I can give you.’ Oh, he knows which side his bread’s buttered on, does Sturgeon. Many a time he’s said to me, ‘A little more o’ this, Bob Tredgold, and you shall go,’ but I knew my brother was be’ind me, bless you. I just laughed in his face. ‘Not while my brother’s to the fore,’ I’ve always said.”
“But,” said Katherine, “poor papa is not, as you say, to the fore now.”
“No; but he’s provided for me all right; he always said as he would provide for me. I haven’t, perhaps, been as steady as I ought. He never wanted me to show along of his fine friends. But for a couple of fellows like that, that know all about me, I don’t see as I need have been stopped of a good glass of my brother’s port wine.”
“You shall not, indeed,” said Katherine, ringing the bell.
“And I say,” said this uncomfortable uncle, “you can tell them to bring the spirit case as well. I saw as there was a spirit case, with five nice bottles, and lemons and sugar, and a kettle, you know, though there ain’t nothing to set it upon as I can see in that bit of a fireplace—uncomfortable thing, all shine and glitter and no use. I daresay my poor brother had some sort of a ’ob for the hot water in any room as he sat in—I say, old gentleman, bring us——”
Katherine interposed with her orders, in haste, and turned the butler hastily away. “You must remember,” she said, “that to-night is a very sad and terrible night in this house.”
“Ah! Were they all as fond of him as that?” the brother said.
“Oh,” said Katherine, “if you are my uncle, as they say, you should stand by me and help me; for there is sure to be a great deal of trouble, however things turn out.”
“I’ll stand by you! Don’t you be afraid, you can calculate on me. I don’t mind a bit what I say to old Sturgeon nor Turny neither, specially as I know he’s provided for me, my poor brother ’as, he always said as he would. I don’t consider myself in old Sturgeon’s office not from this day. My poor brother ’as provided for me, he always said he would; and I’ll stand by you, my dear, don’t you be afraid. Hullo! here’s nothing but the port wine—and not too much of that neither. I say, you fellow, tell the old man to bring the spirits; and he can sit down himself and ’ave a glass; it’s a poor ’eart as never rejoices, and once in a way it’ll do him no harm.”
“The other gentlemen—have got the spirits,” the footman said, retiring, very red in the face with laughter suppressed.
“And what a poor house,” said Bob Tredgold, contemptuously, “to have but one case of spirits! I’ve always noticed as your grand houses that are all gilt and grandeur are the poorest—as concern the necessaries of life.”
Katherine left her uncle in despair with his half-filled bottle of port. He was not a very creditable relation. She went to her own room and shut herself in to think over her position. In the fulness of her thoughts she forgot the dead master of the house, who lay there all silent, having nothing now to do with all that was going on in it, he who a little while ago had been supreme master of all. She did not know or ask what he had done with his wealth, no question about it entered her mind. She took it for granted that, Stella being cut off, it would come to herself as the only other child—which was just the same as if it had been left to Stella in their due and natural shares. All that was so simple, there was no need to think of it. Even this dreadful uncle—if her father had not provided for him Katherine would, there was no difficulty about all that. If the money was hers, it would be hers only for the purpose of doing everything with it which her father ought—which if he had been in his right condition, unbiassed by anger or offence, he would have done. He had always loved Stella best, and Stella should have the best—the house, every advantage, more than her share.
Katherine sat down and began to think over the work she would have to do in the ensuing week or so, till the Aurungzebe arrived with Lady Somers on board. The ship was due within a few days, and Katherine intended to go to meet her sister, to carry her, before she landed even, the news which, alas! she feared would only be good news to Stella. Alas! was it not good news to Katherine too? She stopped and wept a few bitter tears, but more for the pity of it, the horror of it, than for grief. Stella had been his favourite, his darling, and yet it would be good news to Stella. Her sister hoped that she would cry a little, that her heart would ache a little with the thought of never more seeing her father, never getting his forgiveness, nor any kind message or word from him. But at the utmost that would be all, a few tears, a regret, an exclamation of “poor papa!” and then joy at the good news, joy to be delivered from poverty and anxiety, to be able to surround herself again with all the beautiful things she loved, to provide for her children (she had two by this time), and to replace her husband in his position. Was it possible that she could weep long, that she could mourn much for the father who had cast her off and whom she had not seen for six years, with all this happiness behind? Katherine herself had but few tears to shed. She was sad because she was not sufficiently sad, because it was terrible that a human soul should go away out of the world and leave so few regrets, so little sorrow behind. Even the old servants, the housekeeper who had been with him for so many years, his personal attendant, who had been very kind, who had taken great care of him, were scarcely sorry. “I suppose, Miss, as you’ll be having Miss Stella home now,” Mrs. Simmons said, though she had a white handkerchief in her hand for appearance sake. And the man was chiefly anxious about his character and the testimonials to be given him. “I hope as I never neglected my duty. And master was an ’eavy ’andful, Miss,” he said, with relief, too, in his countenance. Katherine thought she would be willing to give half of all she had in the world to secure one genuine mourner, one who was truly sorry for her father’s death. Was she herself sorry? Her heart ached with the pity and the horror of it, but sorrow is a different sentiment from that.
In the meantime the solicitor and executor were in Mr. Tredgold’s sitting-room which he had occupied so long. A fire had been lighted in haste, to make the cold uninhabited place a little more cheerful. It was lighted by a lamp which hung over the table, shaded so as to concentrate its light on that spot, leaving all the rest of the room in the dark. And the two forms on either side of it were not of a character to be ennobled by the searching light. The solicitor was a snuffy man, with a long lean throat and a narrow head, with tufts of thin, grey hair. He had a ragged grey beard of the same description, long and ill grown, and he wore spectacles pushed out from his eyes and projecting as if they might fall off altogether. Mr. Turny had a shining bald head, which reflected the light, bent, as it was, over the papers on the table. They had been examining these papers, searching for the will which they expected to find there, but had come as yet upon no trace of it.
“I should have thought,” said Mr. Turny, “that he’d have had another will drawn out as soon as that girl ran away—indeed I was in a great mind to take steps——” He stopped here, reflecting that it was as well perhaps to say nothing of Fred and what those steps were. But Mr. Sturgeon had heard of the repeated visits of the family, and knew that young Fred was “on the outlook,” as they said, and knew.
“Ah, here it is at last,” Mr. Sturgeon said. He added, after a few minutes, in a tone of disappointment: “No, it’s the old will of ten years ago, the one I sent him down at his own request after the young lady ran away. I kept expecting for a long time to have his instructions about another, and even wrote to him on the subject. I suppose he must have employed some man here. This, of course, must be mere waste paper now.”
“What was the purport of it?” Mr. Turny asked.
“You must have heard at the time. It was not a will I approved—nothing unnatural ever gets any support from me. They say lawyers are full of dodges; it would have been better for me if I had put my principles in my pocket many a time. Men have come to me with the most ridiculous instructions, what I call wicked—they take a spite at some one, or some boy behaves foolishly (to be sure, it’s a girl in this case, which is more uncommon), and out he goes out of the will. I don’t approve of such pranks for my part.”
“You would like the good to share with the bad, and the guilty with the innocent,” said Turny, not without a reflection of his own.
“Not so much as that; but it doesn’t follow—always—that a boy is bad because he has kicked over the traces in his youth—and if he is bad, then he is the one above all that wants some provision made for him to keep him from getting badder. There’s that poor wretch, Bob Tredgold; I’ve kept him in my office, he thinks, because his brother always stood up for him. Nothing of the kind; Tredgold would have been delighted to hear he had tripped into the mire or gone down under an underground railway train on his way home. And the poor beggar believes now that his brother has provided for him—not a penny will he have, or I am mistaken. I must try to get something for him out of the girls.”
“The oldest girl, of course, will have it all?” Mr. Turny said.
“I suppose so,” said the solicitor, “if he don’t prove intestate after all; that’s always on the cards with that sort of man, indeed with every sort of man. They don’t like to part with it even on paper, and give the power into someone else’s hands. Women are rather different. It seems to amuse them to give all their things away—on paper. I don’t know that there’s much good searching further. He must have sent for some local man, that would save him trouble. And then he knew I would remonstrate if there was any ridiculous vengeance in his thoughts, which most likely there would have been.”
“What’s the scope of that old one, the one you’ve got in your hand?”
“Oh, that!” said Mr. Sturgeon, looking at it as if it were a reptile. “You remember, I am sure you must have heard it at the time, most of the money was left to the other, what was her ridiculous name? Something fantastic, I know.”
“Stella,” the executor said, peering eagerly through his double gold glasses at the paper, into which his fellow executor showed no inclination to give him further insight.
“That’s it, Stella! because she was his favourite—the eldest sister, to my mind, being much the nicest of the two.”
“She is a nice, quiet girl,” said Mr. Turny. And he thought with a grudge of Fred, who might have been coming into this fine fortune if he had been worth his salt. “There is this advantage in it,” he said, “it makes a fine solid lump of money. Divide it, and it’s not half the good.”
“A man shouldn’t have a lot of children who entertains that idea,” said Mr. Sturgeon.
“That’s quite true. If Mr. Tredgold had kept up his business as I have done; but you see I can provide for my boys without touching my capital. They are both in the business, and smart fellows, too, I can tell you. It does not suffer in their hands.”
“We haven’t got girls going into business—yet,” said the solicitor; “there is no saying, though, what we may see in that way in a year or two; they are going it now, the women are.”
“No girls of mine certainly shall ever do so. A woman’s sphere is ’ome. Let ’em marry and look after their families, that is what I always say to mine.”
“They are best off who have none,” said the solicitor briefly. He was an old bachelor, and much looked down upon by his city clients, who thought little of a man who had never achieved a wife and belongings of his own.
“Well, that depends,” Mr. Turny said.
“I think we may as well go to bed,” said the other. “It’s not much of a journey, but the coming is always a bother, and we’ll have a heavy day to-morrow. I like to keep regular hours.”
“Nothing like ’em,” said Mr. Turny, rising too; “no man ever succeeds in business that doesn’t keep regular hours. I suppose you’ll have to find out to-morrow if there’s been any other solicitor employed.”
“Yes, I’ll see after that—funeral’s at two, I think?”
“At two,” said the other. They lit their candles with some solemnity, coming out one after the other into the lighted hall. The hall was lighted, but the large staircase and corridors above were dark. They separated at the head of the stairs and went one to the right and the other to the left, Mr. Turny’s bald head shining like a polished globe in the semi-darkness, and the solicitor, with his thin head and projecting spectacles, looking like some strange bird making its way through the night. Mr. Sturgeon passed the door within which his dead client was lying, and hesitated a moment as he did so. “If we only knew what was in that damned head of yours before the face was covered over,” he said to himself. He was not in an easy condition of mind. It was nothing to him; not a penny the poorer would he be for anything that might happen to the Tredgold girls. Bob Tredgold would be turned off into the workhouse, which was his proper place, and there would be an end of him. But it was an ugly trick for that old beast to play, to get some trumpery, country fellow, who no doubt would appear to-morrow, like the cock-o’-the-walk, with his new will and all the importance of the family solicitor. Family, indeed. They hadn’t a drop of blood in their veins that was better than mud, though that eldest one was a nice girl. It was something in her favour, too, that she would not have Fred Turny, that City Swell. But the great point of offence with Mr. Sturgeon was that the old beast should have called in some local man.
Bob Tredgold, the only brother, was escorted upstairs by one of the footmen a little later in the night. He was very affectionate with John Thomas, and assured him of his continued friendship when he should have come into his annuity. “Always promised to provide for me, don’t ye know, did my poor brother; not capital ’cause of this, don’t ye know,” and the unfortunate made the sign of lifting a glass to his mouth; “’nuity, very com-m-for-able, all the rest of my life. Stand a good glass to any man. Come and see me, any time you’re there, down Finsbury way.” John Thomas, who appreciated a joke, had a good laugh to himself after he had deposited this triste personage in the room which was so much too fine for him. And then the footman remembered what it was that was lying two or three doors off, locked in there with the lights burning, and went softly with a pale face to his own den, feeling as if Master’s bony hand might make a grab at his shoulder any moment as he hurried down the stairs.