University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE EVENING AFTER THE FUNERAL.

YOUNG SCHOFIELD had been asked by Mrs. Walter
Scott to return to Millbank after the services at the
grave were over. She had her own ideas with regard
to the proper way of managing the will matter, and the sooner
the truth was known the sooner would all parties understand
the ground they stood on. She knew her ground. She had no
fears for herself. The will, — Squire Irving's last will and testament,
— was lying in his private drawer in the writing desk,
where she had seen it every day since she had been at Millbank;
but she had not read it, for the envelope was sealed, and having
a most unbounded respect for law and justice, and fancying that
to break the seal would neither be just nor lawful, she had contented
herself with merely taking the package in her hand, and
assuring herself that it was safe against the moment when it
was wanted. It had struck her that it was a little yellow and
time-worn, but she had no suspicion that anything was wrong.
To-day, however, while the people were at the grave, she had
been slightly startled, for when for a second time she tried the
drawer of the writing-desk, she found it locked and the key
gone! Had there been foul play? and who had locked the
door? she asked herself, while, for a moment, the cold perspiration
stood under her hair. Then thinking it probable that
Roger, who was noted for thoughtfulness, might have turned
and taken the key to his father's private drawer as a precaution
against any curious ones who might be at the funeral, she dismissed

her fears and waited calmly for the dénoûement, as
another individual was doing, — Hester Floyd, — who knew
about the sealed package just as Mrs. Walter Scott did, and who
had been deterred from opening it for the same reason which
had actuated that lady, and who had also seen and handled it
each day since the squire's death.

Hester, too, knew that the drawer was locked, and that gave
her a feeling of security, while on her way to and from the
grave, where her mind was running far more upon the after-clap,
as she termed it, than upon the solemn service for the dead.
Hester was very nervous, and an extra amount of green tea was
put in the steeper for her benefit, and she could have shaken
the unimpressible Aleck for seeming so composed and unconcerned
when he stood, as she said, “right over a dreadful,
gapin' vertex.”

And Aleck was unconcerned. Whatever he had lent his aid
to had been planned by his better half, in whom he had unbounded
confidence. If she stood over “a gapin' vertex,” she
had the ability to skirt round it or across it, and take him safely
with her. So Aleck had no fears, and ate a hearty supper and
drank his mug of beer and smoked his pipe in quiet, and heard,
without the least perturbation, the summons for the servants to
assemble in the library and hear their master's last will and
testament. This was Mrs. Walter Scott's idea, and when tea
was over she had said to young Schofield:

“You told me father left a will. Perhaps it would be well
enough for you to read it to us before you go. I will have the
servants in, as they are probably remembered in it.”

Her manner was very deferential toward young Schofield and
implied confidence in his abilities, and flattered by attention from
so great a lady he expressed himself as at her service for anything.
So when the daylight was gone and the wax candles
were lighted in the library, Mrs. Walter Scott repaired thither
with Frank, whom she had brought from his post by the candle-box.
It was natural that he should be present as well as Roger,
and she arranged the two boys, one on each side of her, and

motioned the servants to seats across the room, and Lawyer
Schofield to the arm-chair near the centre of the room. She
was making it very formal and ceremonious, and Englishy, and
Roger wondered what it was all for, while Frank fidgeted and
longed for the candle-box, where the baby lay asleep.

“I am told Squire Irving left a will,” Mrs. Walter Scott said,
when her auditors were assembled, “and I thought best for Mr.
Schofield to read it. Do you know where it is?” and she addressed
herself to the lawyer, who replied, “I am sure I do not,
unless in his private drawer where he kept his important
papers.”

Roger flushed a little then, for it was into that private drawer
that he had put his mother's letter, and the key was in his pocket.
Mrs. Walter Scott noticed the flush, but was not quite prepared
to see Roger arise at once, unlock the drawer, and take from
it a package, which was not the will, but which, nevertheless,
excited her curiosity.

“Lawyer Schofield can examine the papers,” Roger said,
resuming his seat, while the young man went to the drawer and
took out the sealed envelope which both Mrs. Walter Scott
and Hester had had in their hands so many times within the
last few days.

There was no doubt about its being the genuine article, and
the lawyer waited a moment before opening it. There was
perfect silence in the room, except for the clock on the mantle,
which ticked so loudly and made Hester so nervous that she
almost screamed aloud. The candles sputtered a little, and ran
up long, black wicks, and the fire on the hearth cast weird
shadows on the wall, and the silence was growing oppressive,
when Frank, who could endure no longer, pulled his mother's
skirts, and exclaimed, “Mother, mother, what is he going to do,
and why don't he do it? I want the darned thing over so I
can go out.”

That broke the spell, and Lawyer Schofield began to read

Squire Irving's last will and testament. It was dated five years
before, at a time when the Squire lay on his sick bed, from
which he never expected to rise, and not long after his purchase
of the house on Lexington Avenue for Mrs. Walter Scott.
There was mention made of his deceased son having received
his entire portion, but the sum of four hundred dollars was annually
to be paid for Frank's education until he was of age,
when he was to receive from the estate five thousand dollars to
“set himself up in business, provided that business had nothing
to do with horses.”

The old man's aversion to the rock on which his son had
split was manifest even in his will, but no one paid any heed
to it then. They were listening too eagerly to the reading of
the document, which, after remembering Frank, and leaving a
legacy to the church in Belvidere, and another to an orphan
asylum in New York, and another to his servants, with the exception
of Aleck and Hester, gave the whole of the Irving
possessions, both real and personal, to the boy Roger, who was
as far as possible from realizing that he was the richest heir for
miles and miles around. He was feeling sorry that Frank had
not fared better, and wondering why Aleck and Hester had
not been remembered. They were witnesses of the will, and
there was no mistaking Hester's straight up and down letters,
or Aleck's back-hand.

Mrs. Walter Scott was confounded, — utterly, totally confounded,
and for a moment deprived of her powers of speech.
That she had not listened to the Squire's last will and testament,
— that there was foul play somewhere, she fully believed,
and she scanned the faces of those present to find the guilty
one. But for the fact that Aleck and Hester were not remembered
in this will, she might have suspected them; but the omission
of their names was in their favor, while the stolid, almost
stupid look of Aleck's face, was another proof of his innocence.
Hester, too, though slightly restless, appeared as usual. Nobody
showed guilt but Roger, whose face had turned very red,
and was very red still as he sat fidgeting in his chair and looking

hard at Frank. The locked drawer and the package taken
from it, recurred now to the lady's mind, and made her sure
that Roger had the real will in his pocket; and, in a choking
voice, she said to the lawyer, as he was about to congratulate
the boy on his brilliant fortune: “Stop, please, Mr. Schofield;
I think — yes, I know — there was another will — a later one
— in which matters were reversed — and — and Frank — was
the heir.”

Her words rang through the room, and, for an instant, those
who heard them sat as if stunned. Roger's face was white now,
instead of red, but he didn't look as startled as might have been
expected. He did not realize that if what his sister said was
true, he was almost a beggar; — he only thought how much
better it was for Frank, toward whom he meant to be so generous;
and he looked kindly at the little white-haired boy who
had, in a certain sense, come up as his rival. Mrs. Walter
Scott had risen from her chair and locked the door; then, going
to the table where the lawyer was sitting, she stood leaning
upon it, and gazing fixedly at Roger. The lawyer, greatly
surprised at the turn matters were taking, said to her a little
sarcastically: “I fancied, from something you said, that you
did not know there was a will at all. Why do you think there
was a later one? Did you ever see it, and why should Squire
Irving do injustice to his only son?”

Mrs. Walter Scott detected in the lawyer's tone that he had
forsaken her, and it added to her excitement, making her so
far forget her character as a lady, that her voice was raised to
an unnatural pitch, and shook with anger as she replied, “I
never saw it, but I know there was one, and that your father
drew it. It was made some months ago, when I was visiting at
Millbank. I went to Boston for a few days, and when I came
back, Squire Irving told me what he had done.”

“Who witnessed the will?” the lawyer asked.

“That I do not know. I only know there was one, and that
Frank was the heir.”

“A most unnatural thing to cut off his own son for a grandchild

whose father had already received his portion,” young
Schofield said; and, still more exasperated, Mrs. Walter Scott
replied, “I do not know that Roger was cut off. I only know
that Frank was to have Millbank, with its appurtenances, and
I'll search this room until I find the stolen paper. What was
that you took from the drawer, boy?”

Roger was awake now to the situation. He understood that
Mrs. Walter Scott believed his father had deprived him of
Millbank, the beautiful home he loved so much, and he understood
another fact, which, if possible, cut deeper than disinheritance.
She suspected him of stealing the will. The Irving
blood in the boy was roused. His eyes were not like Jessie's
now, but flashed indignantly as he, too, rose to his feet, and,
confronting the angry woman, demanded what she meant.

“Show me that paper in your pocket, and tell me why that
drawer was locked this morning, and why you had the key,”
she said; and Roger replied, “You tried the drawer then, it
seems, and found it locked. Tell me, please, what business
you had with my father's private drawer and papers?”

“I had the right of a daughter,— an older sister, whose business
it was to see that matters were kept straight until some
head was appointed,” Mrs. Walter Scott said, and then she
asked again for the package which Roger had taken from the
drawer.

There was a moment's hesitancy on Roger's part; then,
remembering that she could not compel him to let her read his
mother's farewell message, he took the sea-stained letter from
his pocket and said:

“It was from my mother. She wrote it on the “Sea-Gull,”
just before it took fire. It was found on the table where father
sat writing to me when he died. I believe he was going to
send it to me. At all events it is mine now, and I shall keep
it. Hester gave it to me this morning, and I put it in the private
drawer and took the key with me. I knew nothing of this
will, or any other will, except that father always talked as if I
would have Millbank, and told me of some improvements it

would be well to make in the factory and shoe-shop in the
course of a few years, should he not live so long. Are you
satisfied with my explanation!”

He was looking at the lawyer, who replied:

“I believe you, boy, just as I believe that Squire Irving destroyed
his second will, if he ever made one, which, without
any disrespect intended to the lady, I doubt, though she may
have excellent reasons for believing otherwise. It would have
been a most unnatural thing for a father to cast off with a legacy
his only son, and knowing Squire Irving as I did, I cannot
think he would do it.”

The lawyer had forsaken the lady's cause entirely, and
wholly forgetting herself in her wrath she burst out with —

“As to the sonship there may be a question of doubt, and if
such doubt ever crept into Squire Irving's mind he was not a
man to rest quietly, or to leave his money to a stranger.”

Roger had not the most remote idea what the woman meant,
and the lawyer only a vague one; but Hester knew, and she
sprang up like a tiger from the chair where she had hitherto
sat a quiet spectator of what was transpiring.

“You woman,” she cried, facing Mrs. Walter Scott, with a
fiery gleam in her gray eyes, “if I could have my way, I'd turn
you out of doors, bag and baggage. If there was a doubt, who
hatched it up but you, you sly, insinuatin' critter. I overheard
you myself working upon the weak old man, and hintin' things
you orto blush to speak of. There was no mention made of a
will then, but I know now that was what you was up to, and if
he was persuaded to the 'bominable piece of work which this
gentleman, who knows law more than I do, don't believe, and
then destroyed it, — as he was likely to do when he came to
himself, — and you, with your snaky ways, was in New York, it
has served you right, and makes me think more and more that
the universal religion is true. Not that I've anything special
agin' Frank, whose wust blood he got from you, but that Roger
should be slighted by his own father is too great a dose to
swaller, and I for one shan't stay any longer in the same room

with you; so hand me the key to the door which you locked
when you thought Roger had the will in his pocket. Maybe
you'd like to search the hull co-boodle of us. You are welcome
to, I'm sure.”

Mrs. Walter Scott was a good deal taken aback with this
tirade. She had heard some truths from which she shrank, and,
glad to be rid of Hester on any terms, she mechanically held
out the key to the door.

But here the lawyer interposed, and said:

“Excuse me, one moment, please. Mrs. Floyd, do you remember
signing this will which I have read in your hearing?”

“Perfectly;” and Hester snapped her words off with an emphasis.
“The master was sick and afraid he might die, and he
sent for your father, who was alone with him a spell, and then
he called me and my old man in, and said we was to be witnesses
to his will, and we was, Aleck and me.”

“It was strange father did not remember you, who had lived
with him so long,” Roger suggested, his generosity and sense
of justice overmastering all other emotions.

“If he had they could not have been witnesses,” the lawyer
said, while Hester rejoined:

“It ain't strange at all; for only six weeks before, he had
given us two thousand dollars to buy the tavern stand down by
the toll-gate, where we've set my niece Martha up in business,
who keeps as good a house as there is in Belvidere; so you see
that's explained, and he gave us good wages always, and kept
raisin', too, till now we have jintly more than some ministers,
with our vittles into the bargain.”

Hester was exonerating her late master from any neglect of
herself and Aleck, and in so doing she made the lawyer forget
to ask if she had ever heard of a second will made by Squire
Irving. The old lawyer Schofield would have done so, but
the son was young and inexperienced, and not given to suspecting
everybody. Besides that, he liked Roger. He knew
it was right that he should be the heir, and believed he
was, and that Mrs. Walter Scott was altogether mistaken in

her ideas. Still he suggested that there could be no harm in
searching among the squire's papers. And Mrs. Walter Scott
did search, assisted by Roger, who told her of a secret drawer
in the writing desk and opened it himself for her inspection,
finding nothing there but a time-worn letter and a few faded
flowers, — lilies of the valley, — which must have been worn in
Jessie's hair, for there was a golden thread twisted in among
the faded blossoms. That secret drawer was the sepulchre of
all the love and romance of the old squire's later marriage,
and it seemed to both Mrs. Walter Scott and Roger like a
grave which they had sacrilegiously invaded. So they closed
it reverently, with its withered blossoms and mementos of a
past which never ought to have been. But afterward, Roger
went back to the secret drawer, and took therefrom the flowers,
and the letter written by Jessie to her aged suitor a few
weeks before her marriage. These, with the letter written on
the sea, were sacred to him, and he put them away where no
curious eyes could find them. There had been a few words of
consultation between Roger and Lawyer Schofield, and then,
with a hint that he was always at Roger's service, the lawyer
had taken his leave, remarking to Mrs. Walter Scott, as he did
so:

“I thought you would find yourself mistaken; still you
might investigate a little further.”

He meant to be polite, but there was a tinge of sarcasm in
his tone, which the lady recognized, and inwardly resented.
She had fallen in his opinion, and she knew it, and carried herself
loftily until he said to Roger, —

“I had an appointment to meet your father in his library the
very evening he died. He wished to make a change in his
will, and I think, perhaps, he intended doing better by the
young boy, Frank. At least, that is possible, and you may
deem it advisable to act as if you knew that was his intention.
You have an immense amount of money at your command, for
your father was the richest man in the country.”

Frank had long ago gone back to the kitchen and the baby.

He had no special interest in what they were talking about,
nor was it needful that he should have. He was safe with
Roger, who, to the lawyer's suggestion, replied:

“I shall do Frank justice, as I am sure he would have done
me, had the tables been reversed.”

The lawyer bowed himself out, and Roger was alone with his
sister-in-law, who looked so white, and injured, and disappointed,
that he felt, to say the least, very uncomfortable in
her presence. He had not liked her manner at all, and had
caught glimpses of a far worse disposition than he had thought
she possessed, while he was morally certain that she was ready
and willing to trample on all his rights, and even cast him
aloof from his home if she could. Still, he would rather be on
friendly terms with her, for Frank's sake, if for no other, and
so he went up to her, and said:

“I know you are disappointed if you really believed father
had left the most of his money to Frank.”

“I don't believe. I know; and there has been foul play
somewhere. He told me he had made another will, here in
this very room.”

“Helen,” Roger said, calling her, as he seldom did, by her
Christian name, and having in his voice more of sorrow than
anger — “Helen, why did father wish to serve me so, when he
was always so kind? What reason did he give?”

Roger's eyes were full of tears, and there was a grieved look
in his face as he waited his sister's answer. Squire Irving had
given her no reason for the unjust act. She had given the
reason to him, making him for a time almost a madman, but
she could not give that reason to the boy, although she had in
a moment of passion hinted at it, and drawn down Hester's ven
geance on her head. If he had not understood her then, she
would not wound him now by the cruel suspicion. Thus reasoned
the better nature of the woman, while her mean, grasping
spirit suggested that in case the will was not found, it would
be better to stand well in Roger's good opinion. So she
replied, very blandly and smoothly:

“After your father had given my husband his portion, he
grew much richer than he had ever been before, and I suppose
he thought it was only fair that Frank should have what would
have come to his father if the estate had been equally divided.
I never supposed you were cut off entirely; that would have
been unnatural.”

Roger was not satisfied with this explanation, for sharing
equally with Frank, and being cut off with only a legacy, were
widely different things, and her words at one time had implied
that the latter was the case. He did not, however, wish to
provoke her to another outburst; and so, with a few words to
the effect that Frank should not suffer at his hands, he bade his
sister good-night, and repaired to his own room. He had
passed through a great deal, and was too tired and excited to
care even for the baby that night; and, when Hester knocked
at his door, he answered that he could not see her, — she must
wait until to-morrow. So Hester went away, saying to herself:

“He's a right to be let alone, if he wants to be, for he is
now the master of Millbank.”