 | CHAPTER XXIII.
ROGER AND THE WILL. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward |  |
23. CHAPTER XXIII.
ROGER AND THE WILL.
THE office was closed, the shutters down, and Roger
gone. Frank had come too late, and he swiftly retraced
his steps homeward, hoping still to be in time
to tell the news before his mother. But his hopes were vain.
Roger had entered the house while Frank was in the garret,
and Mrs. Walter Scott heard him in his room as she passed
through the hall after her interview with her son. But she was
too much agitated and too flurried to speak to him just then.
who was waiting for Frank, and growing impatient at his
delay, she went to her own room and read the Will again to
make sure that all was right and Frank the lawful heir. She
could not realize it, it had come so suddenly upon her; but she
knew that it was so, and she bore herself like a queen when
she at last arose, and started for Roger's room. It was the Mrs.
Walter Scott of former days resurrected and intensified who
swept so proudly through the hall, just inclining her head to the
servant whom she met, and thinking, as she had once thought
before, how she would dismiss the entire household and set up
a new government of her own. There had been some uncertainty
attending the future when she made this decision before,
but now there was none. She held the document which made
her safe in her possessions; she was the lady of Millbank, and
there was a good deal of assurance in the knock, to which Roger
responded “Come in.”
He was in his dressing-gown, and looking pale and worn just
as he had looked ever since his return from New York. Beside
him in a vase upon the table was a bouquet, which he had arranged
for Magdalen, intending to send it to her with her dinner.
And Mrs. Walter Scott saw it and guessed what it was for, and
there flashed into her mind a thought that she would make matters
right between Roger and Magdalen; she would help them
to each other, and save Frank from the possibility of a mésalliance.
But Mrs. Walter Scott was a very cautious woman;
she always kept something in reserve in case one plan should
fail, and now there came a thought that possibly Roger might
contest the Will and win, and if he did, it might be well to reconsider
Magdalen and her hundred thousand dollars, so she
concluded that for the present it would be better not to throw
Magdalen overboard. That could be done hereafter, if necessary.
She was very gracious to Roger, and took the seat he offered
her, and played with her watch-chain, wondering how she should
begin. It was harder than she had anticipated, — telling a
and she hesitated, and grew cold and hot and withal a
little afraid of Roger, who was beginning to wonder why she was
there, and what she wanted to say.
“Can I do anything for you, Helen?” he asked, just as he
had once before, when she came on an errand which had caused
him so much pain.
Then she had come to tear Magdalen from him; now she was
there to take his fortune, his birthright away; and it is not strange
that, cruel as she was, she hesitated how to begin.
“Roger,” she said, in reply to his question, “I am here on a
most unpleasant errand, but one which, as a mother whose
first duty is to her son, I must perform. You remember the
Will which at your father's death could not be found.”
She was taking it from her pocket, and Roger, who was quick
of comprehension, knew before she laid the worn paper upon
the table, that the lost Will was found! With trembling haste
he snatched it up, and she made no effort to restrain him. She
had faith in the man she was ruining. She knew the Will was
safe in his hands; he would neither destroy nor deface it. He
would give it its due consideration, and she sat watching him
while he read it through, and pitying him, it must be confessed,
with all the little womanly feeling she had left. She would have
been a stone not to have pitied one whose lips uttered no sound
as he read, but quivered and trembled, and grew so bloodless
and thin, while his face dripped with the perspiration which
started from every pore and rolled down his chin in drops. She
thought at first they were tears, but when he lifted his eyes to
hers as he finished reading, she saw that they were dry, but oh,
so full of pain and anguish and surprise, and wounded love and
grief, that his father should have disinherited him for such a
cause. He knew what the clause “the boy known as Roger
Lennox Irving” implied, and that hurt him more than all the
rest.
Why had his father believed such a thing of his mother, and
who had told him the shameful story? Leaning across the
finger slowly under each word, said to her in a voice she would
never have recognized as his, “Helen, who poisoned my
father's mind with that tale?”
Mrs. Walter Scott did not know of the letter in Magdalen's
possession, or how much Hester Floyd had overheard years
before, when, with lying tongue, she had hinted things she
knew could not be true, and made the old man mad with
jealousy. She did not think how soon she would be confronted
with her lie, and she answered, “I do not know. It is the first
intimation I have heard of Squire Irving's reason for changing
his Will.”
She had forgotten her language to Lawyer Schofield the night
after the funeral when the other Will was the subject of debate;
but Roger remembered it, and his eyes rested steadily on her
face as he said, “You do not know? You never heard it
hinted that my mother was false, then?”
“Never,” she felt constrained to say, for there was something
in those burning eyes which threatened her with harm if by
word or look she breathed aught against the purity of poor
Jessie Morton.
“Who found this Will, and where?” Roger asked her next,
and with a mean desire to pay him for that look, Mrs. Walter
Scott replied, “Magdalen found it. She has hunted for it at
intervals, ever since she was a child and heard that there was
one.”
But she repented what she had said when she saw how deep
her blow had struck.
“Magda found it; oh, Magda, I would a thousand times
rather it had been some one else.”
That was what Roger said, as with a bitter groan he laid his
head upon the table, while sob after sob shook his frame and
frightened his sister, who had never dreamed of pain like this.
Tearless sobs they were, for Roger was not crying; he was
writhing in anguish, and the sobs were like gasping moans, so
terrible was his grief. He remembered what Magdalen had
remembered how sorry she had seemed. Had she deliberately
deceived him, and, after he had told her that it was supposed
to give Frank nearly everything, had she resumed her search,
hoping to find and restore to her lover his fortune? Then he
thought of that night with Hester, and the cobweb in Magdalen's
hair. She had been to the garret, according to her own confession,
and she had looked for the missing will then and “at
intervals” since, until she had found it and sent it to him by
Mrs. Walter Scott, instead of bringing it herself?
And he had loved her so much, and thought her so innocent
and artless and true, — his little girl through whom he had been
so terribly wounded. If she had come herself with it and given
it into his hands and told him all about it, he would not have
felt one half so badly as to receive it from another, and that
other the cruel, pitiless woman whose real character he recognized
as he had never done before. He had nothing to hope
from her, nothing to hope from Frank, nothing from Magdalen.
They were all leagued against him. They would enjoy
Millbank, and he would go from their midst a ruined, heart-broken
man, shorn of his love, shorn of his fortune, and shorn
of his name, if that dreadful clause, “the boy known as Roger
Lennox Irving,” really meant anything. He knew it was false;
he never for a moment thought otherwise; but it was recorded
against him by his own father, and after Magdalen, it was the
keenest, bitterest pang of all.
Could that have been stricken out and could he have kept
Magdalen, he would have given all the rest without a murmur.
As the will read, it was right that Frank should come into
his inheritance, and Roger had no thought or wish to keep him
from it. He did not meditate a warfare against his nephew, as
his sister feared he might. He had only given way for a few
moments to the grief, and pain, and humiliation which had come
so suddenly upon him, and he lay, with his face upon the table,
until the first burst of the storm was over, and his sobs changed
to long-drawn breaths, and finally ceased entirely, as he lifted
him.
Shocked at the sight of his distress, his sister had at first tried
to comfort him. With a woman's quick perception she had
seen that Magdalen was the sorest part of all, and had said to
him soothingly:
“It was by accident that Magdalen found it. She was greatly
disturbed about it.”
This did not tally with her first statement, that “Magdalen
had sought for it at intervals,” and Roger made a gesture for
her to stop. So she sat watching him, and trembling a little,
as she began dimly to see what the taking of Millbank from
Roger would involve.
“Excuse me, Helen,” he said, with all his old courtesy of
manner, as he wiped the sweat drops from his beard. “Excuse
me if, for a moment, I gave way to my feelings in your
presence. It was so sudden, and there were so many sources
of pain which met me at once, that I could not at first control
myself. It was not so much the loss of my fortune. I could
bear that —”
“Then you do not intend to contest the will?” Mrs. Walter
Scott said.
It was a strange question for her to ask then, and she blushed
as she did it; but she must know what the prospect was, while
underlying her own selfish motives was a thought that if Roger
did not mean to dispute the right with Frank, she would brave
the displeasure of her son, and then and there pour balm into
the wound, by telling Roger of her belief that he was, and
always had been, preferred to Frank by Magdalen. But she
was prevented from this by the abrupt entrance of Frank himself.
He had heard that his mother was with Roger, and had
hastened to the room, seeing at a glance that the blow had
been given; that Roger had seen the will; and for a moment
he stood speechless before the white face and the soft blue eyes
which met him so wistfully as he came in. There was no reproach
in them, only a dumb kind of pleading as if for pity,
to Roger's side.
Roger was the first to speak. Putting out his hand to Frank,
he tried to smile, and said:
“Forgive me, boy, for having kept you from your own so
long. If I had believed for a moment that there was such a
will, I would never have rested day or night till I had found it
for you. I wish I had. I would far rather I had found it than
— than —”
He could not say “Magdalen,” but Frank knew whom he
meant, and, in his great pity for the wounded man, he was ready
to give up everything to him but Magdalen. He must have
her, but Roger should keep Millbank.
“I believe that I am more sorry than you can be that the
will is found,” he said, still grasping Roger's hand. “And I
want to say to you now that I prefer you should keep the place
just as you have done. There need be no change. Only give
me enough to support myself and — and —”
He could not say Magdalen either, for he was not so sure of
her, but Roger said it for him.
“Support yourself and Magdalen. I know what you mean,
my boy. You are very generous and kind, but right is right.
When I thought Millbank mine, I kept it. Now that I know
it is not mine, I shall accept no part of it, however small.”
He spoke sternly, and his face began to harden. He was
thinking of the clause, “the boy known as Roger Lennox
Irving.” He could take no part of the estate of the man who
had dictated those cruel words. He was too proud for that;
he would rather earn his bread by the sweat of his brow than
be beholden to one who could believe such things of his mother.
Frank saw the change in his manner, and anxious to propitiate
him, began again to urge his wish that Roger would, at least,
allow him to divide the inheritance in case the will was proved,
but Roger stopped him impatiently.
“It is not you, my boy, whose gift I refuse. If you cannot
understand me, I shall not now explain. I've lived on you for
were crippled, so I will let that obligation remain, but must
incur no other. As to proving the will,” and Roger smiled
bitterly when he saw how eagerly his sister listened, and remembered
the question she had asked him just as Frank came
in, and which he had not yet answered, “As to proving the
will, you will have no trouble there. I certainly shall make
none. You will find it very easy stepping into your estate.”
Mrs. Walter Scott drew a long breath of relief and sank into
her chair, in the easy, contented, languid attitude she always
assumed when satisfied with herself and her condition. She
roused up, however, when Roger went on to say:
“One thing I must investigate, and that is, who hid this will,
and why. Have you any theory?” and he turned to his sister,
who replied, “I have always suspected Hester Floyd. She
was a witness, with her husband.”
“Why did you always suspect her, and what reason had you
for believing there was a later will than the one made in my
favor?” Roger asked, and his sister quailed beneath the searching
glance of his eyes.
She could not tell him all she knew, and she colored scarlet
and stammered out something about Mrs. Floyd's strange manner
at the time of the Squire's funeral, nearly twenty years ago.
“Frank, please go for Hester,” Roger said. “We will hear
what she has to say.”
Frank bowed in acquiescence, and, leaving the room, was
soon knocking at Hester Floyd's door.
| CHAPTER XXIII.
ROGER AND THE WILL. Millbank, or, Roger Irving's ward | |