University of Virginia Library

32. XXXII.
Mr. Bivins Makes a Discovery.

WHAT could Mrs. Dyke mean, by saying
that “the Quids had no right to the property,
and she could prove it?” Good Mrs. Fleming
wondered; wondered very much; wondered so much
that, on a certain morning, when Kitty was busy
with her buzzing choir, she slipped on her black
widow's bonnet, set off with crimped tabs, and
sallied across to the office of Squire Bivins, for the
sake of informing him, confidentially, of her wonder
as to what Mrs. Dyke could mean.

Mr. Bivins, in confidence, wondered too.

Mrs. Fleming wondered what Mr. Bivins wondered
at?

Mr. Bivins wondered what Mrs. Dyke could
mean.

Thereupon Mrs. Fleming wondered if there was
anything in it?

Mr. Bivins wondered too.

Mrs. Fleming then wanted to know if he thought
there was anything in it?

Mr. Bivins thought there might be.

Squire Bivins has the reputation, among the people
of Newtown, of being “as smart as a steel-trap.”
He certainly is keen; and even though he
had a less keen pair of eyes, his sharp daughter
Mehitabel would not have failed to inform him of
what was going on between the little school-mistress
of the old Bodgers house, and the dashing Adolphus
Quid.

This matter has not a little surprised the Squire;
he has reflected upon it profoundly: his demand
upon the village stock of Virginia twist has been
unprecedented. He does not rightly know how to
reconcile the earnest addresses of the heir-apparent
to the poor girl (Mehitabel says far from pretty),
with the indifference he had manifested on their first
interview.

He associates with it all, Blimmer's earnest inquiries,
and Blimmer's negotiations with the Quids.
Mrs. Fleming's motherly anxiety about the Quid
right of succession is a new phase; and the reported
observation of Mrs. Dyke has its weight. Mr.

Bivins plats his wig very often. He gives his pantaloons
the usual toilet-hitch (notwithstanding the
presence of Mrs. Fleming), with nervous frequency.

He derives from that lady, in a cautious manner,
a knowledge of the circumstances under which Mrs.
Dyke had given expression to her opinion. He
suggests from his own experience, that the allegation
may have been only an amiable womanly fiction,
brought forward for the sake of mortifying the
pride of Mrs. Fleming. Mrs. Fleming, however,
indignantly repels that idea, and will not allow that
Mrs. Dyke is capable of making a fiction.

“Mortify my pride, indeed!” said Mrs. Fleming,
straightening herself in the office-chair.

“You think, then, she must be truthful?” pursued
Bivins.

“Not in the least, sir?” said Mrs. Fleming, with
a little temper.

“Pray, madame, what do you think then?” urged
the Squire, toying with a bit of twist upon the
table.

“I think,” said Mrs. Fleming, with a womanly
sort of logic, “that she is insulting, and that she
knows more, perhaps, than she pretends to; and
that she has no business in the house at all; and
that if Quid hasn't a right to the property, who
has? and that it is no business of hers, and that if

she knows anything, she should be made to tell it;
and that it's all false from beginning to end.”

Mr. Bivins platted his wig, mildly.

He pacified Mrs. Fleming by promising to seek
an interview with Mrs. Dyke, and to make a searching
inquiry: at the same time, he recommended to
the old lady strict secresy.

The logical powers of Mrs. Dyke were of much
the same standard with those of Mrs. Fleming. By
dint of art, however, and amiable allusion to Mrs.
Dyke's great respectability of character, Mr. Bivins
succeeded in arriving at an important fact or two,
which lay at the bottom of the housekeeper's explosive
declaration. It appeared that the old lady, in
her household duties, had fallen upon a certain leathern-bound
memorandum-book of the deceased gentleman,
only partly filled up with pencil-writing,
and which she had determined to convert to her own
private uses. In fumbling over the leaves of the
note-book, Mrs. Dyke had only recently come upon
one or two stray items, which her quarrel with Mrs.
Fleming had converted into thunder against the
Quids.

The book was produced before the scrutinizing
eye of Mr. Bivins. The first entry which had
attracted the notice of Mrs. Dyke was this: “Sign
my will, have it witnessed.” At the end of this

was a little cross in pencil, signifying in the Squire's
fashion, as the previous pages showed, that the
thing was done.

Some leaves further on, and indeed very near the
end of the notes, was the following entry:

“Mem.: To ask the Squire if one witness to a
will is enough: if not—get another.”

There was no pencil-cross after this.

Mr. Bivins thought Mrs. Dyke had been hasty in
her conclusions. Mrs. Dyke thought perhaps she
might have been; but “she didn't like folks to be
uppish, as if they were better than everybody else;
and for her own part, she had no doubt that the
Squire did made a will, and a good one; and that
Mr. Quid wasn't once thought of, from beginning to
end.”

Mr. Bivins guessed it might be so, but couldn't
say. He recommended prudence to Mrs. Dyke, and
slipped the memorandum-book of the Squire in his
pocket.

He had the memorandum-book in his pocket
when Mr. Quid did him the honor of calling at his
office.

Mr. Bivins received his visitor with even more
than his usual courtesy. He took occasion to
express his regret that the affair of the Bodgers
estate had been somewhat disturbed, and that a

new claimant should have appeared in the person
of a foreign lady. He hoped things were getting
on passably well.

Mr. Quid said they were; and sneered at the
Countess as an impostor who might deceive such
people as the Fudges and Brazitt; “but,” pursued
he, “men like you and I, Mr. Bivins, who have seen
the world, are not so easily taken in.”

“No, to be sure not,” said Bivins, giving a side
cast of his eye to the corner, as if he were looking
for somebody with whom he might exchange a quiet
wink.

“By the way,” said Mr. Quid, “if I remember
rightly, Mr. Bivins, you spoke on one occasion to
my son about having, on a certain occasion, drawn
up a will for the late Bodgers?”

“I did,” said the attorney.

“Which was not executed?”

“Which was not executed—at the time.”

“Oh!”

“Just so!” said Mr. Bivins in a confirmatory
manner, and with an air of attention.

“And, Mr. Bivins,” pursued his visitor, “might
I—ask if you hear anything more of that will?”

“Occasionally,” said Mr. Bivins, eyeing keenly
his visitor.

“You think, perhaps, it is in existence?” said Quid.

“I shouldn't greatly wonder if it was,” returned
the attorney, speaking in a very slow and measured
tone.

“In favor of Miss Fleming, I believe?”

“In favor of Kitty Fleming,” said Bivins.

“Mr. Bivins,” said the visitor, with an air of self-denying
resignation, “I feel an interest in that will.”

“Just so,” said the attorney, with an altogether
incautious wink.

“You, perhaps, mistake me, sir,” said Quid; “I
am anxious, if the will exists, that it should be
made known and proved. I might, it is true, be a
large loser; but I have no desire to controvert what
may have been the wishes of the late Mr. Bodgers.
`Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum,' is a motto with which
perhaps you, Mr. Bivins, as a legal man, are familiar.”

Mr. Bivins said he was; and gave the old sympathetic
glance to the office-corner.

“I should be happy,” continued the visitor, “to
do all in my power for the recovery of this will, if
it exists; and must beg of you, Mr. Bivins, to act
with the same purpose.”

Mr. Bivins said he would; and ventured to ask,
in a somewhat sly way, if by chance he, Mr. Quid,
had ever possibly heard any mention of such an
instrument in other quarters?

Mr. Quid replied (with a little confusion, it is
true) that he had. A third party had on one occasion
spoken of it; indeed, had given him reason to
believe that he had fallen upon some traces of it.
He should lose no time in pursuing the inquiries;
and if he should succeed in discovering it, he would
take great pleasure in placing it in the hands of
Mr. Bivins, as a magistrate, and administrator upon
the estate. He would then satisfy, he said, his
sense of justice, besides doing a favor to a very
charming young lady.

Mr. Quid took further occasion to suggest an
inquiry as to whether he might hope for the reimbursement
of such sums as had been necessarily
expended by him in the defence against foreign
claim, in case the will should be brought to light
through his efforts?

Mr. Bivins was not qualified to speak with
authority in such a matter, but he thought the
gentleman might safely rely upon the generosity of
Miss Fleming.

The two gentlemen took leave of each other in a
highly amiable manner.

Squire Bivins being alone, replaced himself in his
corner office-chair, elevated his left foot upon the
right knee (a favorite position of the Squire's),
threw his head back upon the top of the chair (in a

way not to derange his wig), and indulged in a low,
humorsome, cackling kind of laugh, expressive of a
very high estimate of his own intelligence. He felt
that he had probed the matter to the bottom. His
reflections were somewhat of this cast:

“Quid is growing shy of the Guerlin, but thinks
her an impostor, which is all very well. He has a
strong liking for the Bodgers property: if the Guerlin
should succeed, the testament will upset her claim,
and Kitty Fleming will become the lucky holder
of the estate. Quid, therefore, sets on his dashing
son to make a capture of Miss Kitty, and meantime
keeps the will of Mr. Bodgers in his own pocket!”

How far Squire Bivins was right I leave the
reader to judge for himself. It is certain that he is
fully possessed of this view of the case; and he
forms his plans accordingly. Mrs. Fleming, he
thinks, should be advised of the mercenary nature
of Mr. Quid's attentions; and he very safely trusts
to the zeal of Mehitabel to make the same thing
known to Miss Kitty.

This accomplished, he trusts to the agency of the
law to compel Mr. Quid to produce before Probate
the will of the late Mr. Bodgers. Great caution,
however, he foresees, will be necessary in effecting
this latter movement. Too great eagerness might
lead to a destruction of the papers.

And if Mr. Bivins had been as penetrating in
matters affecting female pride, as in the wiles of a
bankrupt claimant of a large estate, he would have
foreseen great difficulty in his negotiations with the
Flemings themselves.

Indeed, Mrs. Fleming resented indignantly the
kind intimation of the Squire, in regard to the
views of the younger Quid. She knew what a
young man's attentions were; she could see whether
they were earnest or not; she wanted no instructions
about her daughter. Did Mr. Bivins pretend
to suppose that there was nothing to attract a
young man about Kitty, except her chance of getting
a fortune? It might be so with other people's
daughters, but she thanked her stars that it was not
so with hers!

I regret to be compelled to write down what
Squire Bivins said; but he did say it: he said,
“D—n it!”

As for Miss Kitty, the next Sunday, after
service she winced fearfully under the sharp tongue
of Mehitabel, and retaining her composure only long
enough to thank that maiden lady for her amiable
expression of interest, and to make her escape, she
fell afterwards into a fit of tears, which, like the
good daughter that she was, she hid in the solitude
of her own chamber.

As for the influence of Miss Bivins' communication,
I do not think it was any better than that of
the Squire's to Mrs. Fleming. Kitty grew, indeed,
into a sudden charity for the gay-hearted Adolphe;
as if some such amiable interest were needed to protect
him from the fearful gossip of the village.
And when he made his next visit to Newtown, I do
believe that the sympathies of both mother and
daughter made his chances look far sunnier than
they had ever looked before. Nor would it greatly
surprise me if my cousin Kitty should have an
answer ready whenever the gallant Adolphus is disposed
to press his inquiries.

When a young girl assumes the defence of a
suitor against the tongue of scandal, it is my
opinion that she is unconsciously weakening her own
defences.

Mr. Bivins' strategy has failed in one direction;
we shall presently see if it succeeds in the other.