A Speckled Bird Part 29

"That sounds like your dear mother, and I am glad you have her low, clear voice, like the melody of a silver harp string; but your father is quite right in urging careful inspection of matters that have been so long intrusted solely to me. Now, I believe we have gone over the important points, except that railroad muddle, which is still undecided.

I brought suit over a year ago, and as the new branch and spurs run through the middle of one of your best cotton fields on Willow Creek plantation, I hope the next term of court will give us a satisfactory settlement. Boynton is a good overseer--not a graduate of a college of technology nor an agricultural chemist, who knows from looking at the soil the exact day when the Noachian flood left your lands dry, nor is he a new-fangled 'manager,' but he is just an overseer of auld lang syne; a trifle lax, but our old-fashioned plantation rules are dead as Pharaoh, and he winks at lapses he cannot prevent. However, he keeps the repair machinery busy on fences and stables, the negroes like him, and you will find your leases and contracts all signed properly. Of course you are aware your grandmother left instructions that when you married, or as soon as you were twenty-one, $5,000 should be paid to Mrs.

Mitch.e.l.l. I consulted the bishop, and we thought it best to defer this matter until her return to America, but it should not be delayed longer, and here is the check, which you can hand to her. With the payment of this legacy her annual allowance ends."

Eglah opened the table drawer, drew out an envelope, and laid it before him.

"Enclose, address, and seal it. Before you leave the house, please deliver it to her."

"Have you any questions to ask? Do not hesitate, if there is anything else you do not understand, anything you wish to know."

"Absolutely nothing, except an adequate way of thanking you for all your patient goodness. If you can explain how I shall accomplish this, you will increase my huge debt."

Judge Kent rose and smiled benignly.

"Eglah, I wonder it has not occurred to you that a proper recognition of the value of Mr. Whitfield's services ought to involve a willingness and effort on your part to relieve him entirely of the burden of responsibility he has borne so long, and which, under my guidance, you are quite capable of a.s.suming. You are of age, and the trusteeship should end at once."

For fully a moment she pondered the suggestion, then laid her hand on the lawyer's arm.

"Tell me frankly whether you prefer to surrender the management of our business affairs? Irrespective of my individual feeling, your wishes alone must decide the matter, and you can best determine if the tax upon your time is too onerous."

Mr. Whitfield drew the tin box before her, and pointed to a large envelope marked "Last Will and Testament of Patricia Maurice."

"I imagine you scarcely comprehend some of the conditions that place me in a peculiarly embarra.s.sing position. Here is the will of your grandmother; I preserved for you the original draft in her handwriting.

The last page bears upon the question under discussion. Read it now, and then, whatever your wishes, I individually shall obey them."

Judge Kent seated himself, lifted the decanter in front of him, and filled a gla.s.s.

"Meantime, will you join me in a gla.s.s of sherry?"

"No, thank you; my doctor restricts me to claret."

Very slowly Eglah read the broad sheet, and her countenance changed, clouded, as she betrayed her annoyance by taking her under lip between her teeth.

"We beg your pardon, Mr. Whitfield; we had entirely forgotten that clause. Unless I marry, your trusteeship continues until I am thirty years old, should I live so long."

"Not necessarily mine. I can resign, or death may release me, but some other person would be required."

"A most unjust and absurd provision," said the judge, draining his second gla.s.s, and striving to conceal his remembrance of the fact that Mrs. Maurice had expressly forbidden his connection with the trusteeship.

Mr. Whitfield smiled.

"We lawyers all know testators use only their individual standards of justice, wisdom, and fitness."

Eglah had folded the paper, replaced it in the envelope, and turned to the lawyer.

"It appears that if for any reason you should relinquish this responsibility, your successor is already appointed, and in that event I should become practically the ward of the Chancery Court, which never resigns, never dies."

She looked straight into her father's watching eyes, and continued slowly, distinctly:

"I shall not marry. Your stewardship, dear Mr. Whitfield, involves some additional years of trouble for you, but I am so deeply grateful to you, I shall certainly try to cause as little annoyance as possible."

A shutter swung open, the sun flashed in, and she crossed the room to exclude the glare.

Returning, she paused behind her father's chair, put her arms around his neck, and interlaced her fingers. Without an instant's hesitation he elevated and shook his shoulders so decidedly her hands fell to her side.

"Sit down, my dear."

He built a pyramid with his plump, white, carefully manicured fingers, and the brilliant eyes he fixed on the man beside him held a challenge.

"If the sanct.i.ty of wills were not debatable, our profession would be barred from browsing in rich pastures of litigation; and 'undue influence,' fostering injustice, has bred strife since its innings as far back as the wrongs of Esau. As sole heir to the Maurice fortune, my daughter can follow her individual wishes and judgment concerning the management of what is indisputably her own, since there could be no family contestants."

He bowed to Mr. Whitfield.

"Judge Kent, if Eglah so decided, there would be, on my part, no contest."

"You are both mistaken. There would inevitably result a destroying contest, with my conscience and my self-respect."

Mr. Whitfield caught his breath as he noted the transformation of the girl's face into a blanched, stony mask. Carefully replacing every package of papers in the box, she looked under the table to be sure none had fluttered to the floor, turned the key in the bra.s.s padlock, and pushed the box toward the lawyer.

"Mr. Whitfield, I have several times regretted that this inheritance was left to me; to-day I deplore it. While I gratefully appreciate your wise and faithful guardianship, I confess I very naturally feel sorry my own dear father cannot manage my affairs; but I believe that all wills of sane persons should be held sacred--absolutely inviolable. If the Maurice estate is mine, it is on specified conditions that I would no more break than the ten commandments. I shall not marry; therefore the trusteeship must continue until I am thirty, and of all men in the world, except my father, I certainly prefer you should retain it. Only in strict conformity to the provisions by which I inherit will I remain at Nutwood or spend its income; but my father's opinions and wishes are very dear to me, and since he objects strenuously to some of the conditions which naturally wound him, I intend to leave to him the decision of the rejection or acceptance of the inheritance. Grandmother declared that if the terms of trusteeship were violated, it was her wish that I should receive merely the annuity allowed me since her death, and that her entire estate--including Nutwood and the plantations--should be given in perpetuity to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in this State; women whose husbands and sons had been lost in defence of the South. That you as trustee might not contest a flagrant violation of the will is merely an expression of your personal reluctance to chide me publicly; but it is a dubious compliment to any sense of right and justice. Now, father, shall we relinquish the estate to the widows and find a home elsewhere? Sometimes I think it would be best for us in many ways, but you shall decide. Shall we go or stay?"

Steadily she faced him, cool and firm as a granite gargoyle, but his nostrils flared, his teeth gleamed under his grey mustache, and, tilting back his chair, he laughed unpleasantly.

"My dear, histrionism is not becoming to you--especially without chiton, diplodion, and fillets. Either your Alma Mater is weak along lines of elocutionary training or you do it so little credit you never earned your diploma. Your pretty little prologue is as preposterous as the senseless limitations you are embracing so dramatically; but you are now fully of age--except in Mrs. Maurice's opinion--and since the inheritance is yours, not mine, you must accept the consequences of your own tragic avowal and tie up your hands for some years to come. At least I can congratulate you that all responsibility devolves upon so astute and experienced a trustee as Mr. Whitfield, who will watch over your interests till silver threads adorn your locks and you wear spectacles.

Since this matter is settled, be so good as to spare me any--Come in, Aaron. What is it?"

The butler had knocked twice, and now beckoned to some one behind him.

"A boy with a despatch."

The messenger held up the yellow telegram.

"Senator Allison Kent."

Very deliberately he wrote his name in the receipt book, pausing to trim the pencil tied to it; then, bowing to Mr. Whitfield, "With your permission," he opened the envelope. Eglah saw his face flush, and he coughed twice in a peculiar way she knew indicated deep annoyance.

"Any answer, sir?" asked the boy.

"Yes, but you must wait for it."

He took up a pen, drummed with fingers of his left hand on the table, and rose.

"As I find it necessary to consult a record before replying to this telegram, I must beg you, sir, to excuse me. I hope you will have time to enjoy some of our fine fruit to-day."

At the door he called to the butler, standing in a side hall.

"Aaron, order dinner at three o'clock, and the trap at four. I must take the 'cannon-ball train.'"

He and the messenger disappeared, and after a moment Eglah withdrew her eyes from the vacant chair opposite, and turned to her guest.