The Joss: A Reversion/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
SOLE RESIDUARY LEGATEE.
Mr. Paine unfolded a large sheet of blue paper.
“This is, it appears, the last will and testament of your late uncle, Benjamin Batters. It is, as, when you have heard it, I think you will yourself agree, a somewhat singular document. It came with the letter from Mr. Lennard which I have just now read you. It is, so far as I know, authentic; but it is my duty to inform you that the whole affair is more than a little irregular. This document seems to be a holograph—that is, I take it that it is in your uncle’s own writing. Do you recognise his handwriting?”
He gave me the paper. I glanced at it. Emily peeped over my shoulder.
“Well, I shouldn’t exactly like to go so far as that, but I have some letters of his, and, so far as I remember, the writing seems about the same. But you can see them if you like; then you will be able to compare it.”
“I should be very much obliged, Miss Blyth, If you would allow me to do so. A very important point would be gained if we could prove the writing. As matters stand at present I am in a position in which I am able to prove absolutely nothing. Mr. Batters was a stranger to me; he seems, also, to have been a stranger to you; I can find nobody who knew him. All we have to go upon is this letter from the other end of the world, from a person of whom no one knows anything, and which may or may not be genuine. Should another claimant arise we should be placed in a very awkward situation.”
“Is there going to be another claimant? And what is there to claim?”
“So far as I know there is going to be none; but in legal matters it is necessary to be prepared for every emergency. As to what there is to claim, I will tell you.”
I gave him back the blue paper. He began to read. Emily came closer. I could feel that she was all of a flutter.
“‘This is the last will and testament of me, Benjamin Batters.
“‘On condition that she does as I hereby direct I give and bequeath to my niece, Mary Blyth, the daughter of my sister, Mary Ann Batters, who married Augustus Blyth, and who when I last heard tell of her was assistant at Cardew & Slaughter’s, a life income of Four Hundred and Eighty Eight Pounds Nineteen Shillings and Sixpence a year, interest of my money invested in Consols.’”
Mr. Paine stopped.
“I may say that bonds producing that amount were enclosed in the package. Here they are.”
“Four Hundred and Eighty Eight Pounds Nineteen Shillings and Sixpence a year!” said Emily, “I congratulate you, Pollie!”
She kissed me, right in front of Mr. Paine. For my part, I felt a queer something steal all over me. My heart began to beat. To think of Uncle Benjamin, of all people in the world, leaving me such a fortune as that! And at the very moment when all my expectations in this world amounted to exactly fifteen shillings! There need be no more waiting for Tom and me. We would be married before the year was out, or I would know the reason why.
Mr. Paine went on.
“The will is by no means finished, ladies. The greater, and more remarkable part of it is to follow. When you have heard what it is I am not sure that Miss Blyth will consider herself entitled to congratulations only.”
What could he mean? Had the old rascal changed his mind in the middle of his own will?
“‘This money,’ Mr. Batters goes on to say, ‘was earned by hard labour, the sweat of my brow, and sufferings untold, so don’t let her go and frivol it away as if it was a case of lightly come and lightly go.’”
“If that’s true, Uncle Benjamin must have altered, because I’ve heard my mother say, over and over again, that he never could be induced to do an honest day’s work in all his life.”
“People sometimes do alter—as I have observed. ‘On condition, also, that she does as I tell her,’ continues Mr. Batters, ‘I bequeath to her the life tennacy of my house, 84, Camford Street, Westminster, together with the use of the furniture it contains.’”
“What!” interrupted Emily, “a house and furniture too. Why, Pollie, what else can you want?”
I wondered myself. But I was soon to know. Mr. Paine read on:
“Signed, Benjamin Batters.’”
“That, Miss Blyth, is what purports to be your uncle’s will.”
“But,” I gasped, “what is that at the end about stopping in the house, and letting no one come in, and all the rest of it?”
“Those are the conditions on which you are to inherit. Before, however, touching on them I should like to point out in what respect the will seems to me to be most irregular. First of all, it is undated. There could hardly be a more serious flaw. There is nothing to show if it was made last week or fifty years ago. In the interim all sorts of things may have happened to render it null and void. Then a signature to a will requires two witnesses; this has none. Then the wording is extremely loose. For instance, should you fail to fulfil certain conditions, the property is to pass to the Society for Befriending Sailors. So far as I can learn there is no such society. Societies for befriending sailors there are in abundance, but there is not one of that exact name, and it would become a moot point which one of them the testator had in his mind’s eye.”
“All of which amounts to—what?”
“Well, it amounts to this. You can receive the money referred to, and live in the house in question, at your own risk, until someone comes forward with a better title. It will not need a very good title, I am sorry to say, Miss Blyth, to be better than that which is conferred on you by this document. I am not saying this by way of advice, but simply as a statement of the case as it appears to me.”
“What I want to know is, what’s the meaning of those conditions? I suppose, by the way, there is such a house.”
“There certainly is. Camford Street is an old, and not particularly reputable street, one end of which leads into the Westminster Bridge Road. No. 84 is in a terrace. From the exterior—which is as much as I have seen of it—it looks as if it had not been occupied for a considerable period of time. Indeed, according to the neighbours, no one has lived in it for, some say ten, others fifteen, and others twenty years.”
“That sounds nice,” cut in Emily. “If no one has lived in it for all that time I shouldn’t be surprised if it wanted a little cleaning.”
“Not at all improbable, from what it looks like outside. The shutters are up at the window—on that point, I may mention, a man who has a small chandler’s shop on the opposite side of the road, tells rather a singular story. He informed me that, to the best of his knowledge and belief, the last occupant of the house was a man named Robertson. He was an old man. Mr. Kennard, my informant, says that what became of him he does not know. He did not move; there was no attempt to let the place; he simply ceased to be seen about. Nor has a living soul been seen in the house for years. But, he says, some months ago, he is not sure how many, when he got up one morning to open his shop, on looking across the road he saw that all the windows inside were screened by shutters. He declares that not only were there no shutters there the night before, but dirty old blinds which were dropping to pieces, but that he never had seen shutters there before, and, indeed, he doubted if there were such things at any other house in the terrace. If his tale is true, it seems an odd one.”
“It sounds,” said Emily, “as if the house were haunted.”
“Without going so far as that, it does seem as if the shutters could hardly have got there of their own accord, and that someone must have been inside on that particular night, at any rate. No one, however, was seen, either then or since. There the shutters are, as one can perceive in spite of the accumulated grime which almost hides the windows. No one seems to know who the house belongs to, or ever did belong to; and I would observe that, since no title deeds were in the package, or any hint that such things were in existence, we have only Mr. Batters’ bare word that the property was his. I should hasten to add that there is a small parcel addressed to Miss Blyth, whose contents may throw light, not only on that matter, but on others also.”
He handed me a parcel done up in brown paper. It was addressed, in very bad writing, “To be given to my niece, Mary Blyth, and to be opened by her only.” I cut the string, and removed the wrapper. In it was a common white wood box. Emily leaned over my shoulder.
“Whatever is inside?” she asked.
The first thing I saw when I lifted the lid, gave me a start, and I own it—there, staring me in the face, was the own brother of the little painted thing which was in the packet which the foreigner had slipped between my fingers.
“Why,” I cried, “if there isn’t another!”
“Another!” Mr. Paine gave a jump. “That’s very odd.” He was fishing about in his waistcoat pocket. “I thought you gave me the one you had.”
“So I did. You put it in the pocket in which you’re feeling.”
“I thought I did. But—have you noticed me taking it out?”
“You’ve not taken it out, of that I’m sure.”
“But—I must have done. It’s gone.”
His face was a study. I hardly knew whether to laugh or not.
“It strikes me,” he remarked, “that someone is playing a trick on us; and, as I’m not over fond of tricks which I don’t understand, I’ll put an end to this little joke once and for all.”
There was a fire burning in the grate. Laying the box down on a chair, taking the little painted thing between his finger and thumb, off he marched towards the fireplace. As he was going, all of a sudden he gave a little jump, as I suppose, loosened his hold, and down the thing dropped on to the floor. He stood staring at his hand, and at the place where it had fallen, as if startled.
“Where’s it gone?” he asked.
“It must have rolled under the table.” This was Emily.
But it had not. We searched in every nook and cranny. It had vanished, as completely as if it had never been.
“This is a pretty state of affairs. If it goes on much longer we shall begin to take to seeing things. If the rest of the contents of the box are of the same pattern, you might have kept it, Mr. Paine, for all I care.”
But they were not. The next thing I took out was a key. It was a little one, and the queerest shape I ever saw. It was fastened to a steel chain; at one end of the chain was a padlock. Attached to the handle of the key was a kind of flying label; on it this was written:
“That’s cheerful reading,” I observed, when I had read the label to an end. I passed it to Mr. Paine.
“It is curious,” he admitted. “In which respect it’s of a piece with all the rest.”
When Emily read it her eyes and mouth opened as wide as they very well could do.
“I never!” she cried. “Isn’t it mysterious?”
“What shall I do?” I asked, when the chain and key had been returned to me.
Mr. Paine considered.
“You had better do as instructed—burn the label; that is, after we have taken a copy. There is nothing said against your doing that; and, if you have a copy, it will prevent your memory playing you false. As for the key itself—will it do you any harm to fasten it to your waist in the manner directed?”
“Except that it’s a bit too mysterious for my taste. Some folks like mysteries; I don’t.”
“My dear,” cut in Emily, “they’re the salt of life!”
“Then I don’t like salt. Perhaps it’s because I’m a plain person that I like plain things. Here’s more mystery.”
The only thing left in the box was an envelope. When I took it out I found that on it this was written:
“This envelope is for Mary Blyth, and is not to be opened by her till she is inside 84, Camford Street.”
I showed it to Mr. Paine, who was copying the label.
“What shall I do with that?”
“As you are told. Open it when you are in the house, and afterwards, if it is not expressly forbidden, you can, if you choose, communicate the contents to me.”
While he copied the label I went with Emily into an inner room, which turned out to be his bedroom; put the chain about my waist inside my bodice, and closed the padlock; and it was only when I had done so that I discovered that it had no key, so that how I was to open it, and get the chain off again, goodness only knew. Emily kept talking all the while.
“Pollie, isn’t it all just lovely? In spite of what you say, your Uncle Benjamin must have been a really remarkable man. It’s like a romance.”
“I wish my Uncle Benjamin hadn’t been such a remarkable man, then he might have left me the money and the house without the romance. Bother your romance, is what I say.”
“You’re a dear,” she affirmed, and she held up her hands—and very pretty hands they were. “But you have no soul.”
“If that’s what you call soul,” I answered, “I’m glad I haven’t.”
When we got back to Mr. Paine, I began at him again.
“Now let me clearly understand about those conditions. Do you mean to say that I’m to stop in the house all alone?”
“You may have a companion—who must be a woman.”
“I’ll be your companion! Do let me be your companion, Pollie!”
I looked at Emily, who stood in front of me with flushed cheeks and eager eyes; as pretty a picture as you could wish to see.
“Done!” We shook hands upon it. “I only hope you won’t have too much romance before you’ve been my companion long.”
“No fear of that! The more there is the more I’ll like it.”
I was not so certain. She spoke as if she were sure of herself. But, for my part, I felt that it remained to be seen. I went on:
“What was that about being in before nine?”
“You are never to sleep out of the house. You are always to be in it before nine at night, and never to leave it before nine in the morning.”
“That’s a nice condition, upon my word!” I turned to Emily. “What do you think of that? It’s worse than Cardew & Slaughter’s.”
“It does seem rather provoking. But”—there was a twinkle in her eye—“there may be ways of getting out of that!”
“What was that about no man being allowed in the house?”
“No man, under any circumstances, is to be allowed to cross the doorstep; nor, indeed, is anyone, except the lady you have chosen to be your companion.”
“But what about my Tom?”
“Your—Tom? Who is he?”
“Mr. Tom Cooper is the gentleman to whom I am engaged to be married.”
“I am afraid that, by the terms of the will, no exception is made even in his favour.”
I did not answer. But I told myself that we would see about that if, as Emily hinted, there were ways of getting the better of one condition, it should not be my fault if means were not found to get the better of the other too.
Almost immediately afterwards we started for the house; all three of us again in the four-wheeler which had been waiting for us the whole of the time. I wondered who was going to pay the fare. It would make a hole in my fifteen shillings.