by Ellen Wood
Never. Not even in the moment when a tempter’s voice arose within him, whispering how well this legacy would serve to replace that great sum, the savings of years, which he had been obliged to part with only that very week. Partly to satisfy a debt of which until then he had known nothing, had he parted with it; partly as hush-money, to keep down that terrible secret whispered to him on the Sunday night. The thought certainly did arise — that it almost seemed as if this money had been sent to him to replace it; but he did not allow it to obtain weight It would have been simply impossible for Dr. Davenal to act against his conscience.
“I shall refuse the legacy,” he remarked to Mr. Wedderburn. “I have no right to it.”
“What did you say?” asked the lawyer, believing he did not properly catch the words.
“I shall not accept this money. It is none of mine. It ought to be none of mine. It must go to Lady Oswald’s relatives.”
“But it is yours, Dr. Davenal. It is bequeathed to you in the will.”
“I don’t care for the will. I should not care for ten wills, if I had no right to the money they bequeathed me. I have no right to this, and I will not touch a farthing of it.”
Mr. Wedderburn’s surprise could only expend itself in one long stare. In all his lawyerly experience he had never come across an announcement so savouring of chivalry. The legatees he had had the pleasure of doing business with were only too eager to grasp their good fortune, and if any little inconvenient pricks of conscience were so ill-mannered as to arise, they were speedily despatched back again by the very legal thought — If I do take it I but obey the will.
“There never was such a thing heard of as the refusing of a fortune legally bequeathed,” cried the lawyer.
“I daresay there has been, many a time. If not, this will be a precedent.”
“You’ll be so laughed at,” persisted Mr. Wedderburn. “You’ll be set down — I’m afraid people will be for setting you down as a lunatic.”
“Let them,” said the doctor. “They shan’t confine me as one without my own certificate. Mr. Wedderburn,” he continued in a graver tone, “I am serious in this refusal. I feel that I have no right whatever to this money of Lady Oswald’s. She has paid me liberally for my services—”
“If you only knew how many thousands inherit money daily who have no right to it,” interrupted Mr. Wedderburn.
“Doubtless they do. I was going to observe that it is not so much my having no right to it, that would cause me to decline, as the fact that others exist who have a right!”
“But the will gives you a right,” interposed the lawyer, unable to get over his surprise.
“A legal right, I am aware it does. But not a just one. No, I will not accept this legacy.”
“What will you do about it, then?”
The doctor was silent for a minute. “I should wish the money to be appropriated just as though there had been no Dr. Davenal in existence. You say this will was made but about six months ago. It must have superseded another will, I presume?”
“It may be said that it superseded several,” was the reply. “Lady Oswald was constantly making wills. She had made some half-dozen before this last one.”
“And each one disposing of her property differently?” quickly asked the doctor.
“Yes, or nearly so. Twice she bequeathed it to her nephews, the Stephensons. Once it was left to Mr. Oswald Cray; once to charities; once to Sir Philip Oswald. She has been exceedingly capricious.”
“All the more reason why I should not take it now,” warmly cried Dr. Davenal. “She must have left it to me in a moment of caprice; and had she lived a few months longer this will would have been revoked as the rest have been. Mr. Wedderburn, were I capable of acting upon it, of taking the money, I should lose all self-respect for ever. I could not, as a responsible being, responsible to One who sees and judges all I do, be guilty of so crying an injustice.”
Mr. Wedderburn suppressed a shrug of the shoulders. He could only look at these affairs with a lawyer’s eye and a lawyers reasoning. Dr. Davenal resumed —
“What was the tenor of the will which this last one superseded? Do you recollect?”
“Perfectly. We hold the draft of it still. It was as nearly as possible a counterpart of the present one, excepting as relates to your share in this and that of the brothers Stephenson. In that last will they took your place. The furniture was bequeathed to them, as in this, and also the bulk of the property.”
“My name not being mentioned in it?”
“Yes, it was. The diamond ring bequeathed to you now was bequeathed then. Nothing more to you.”
“Then that’s all right. Now, Mr. Wedderburn, listen to me. That diamond ring I will accept with pleasure, as a reminiscence of my poor friend and patient; but I will accept nothing else. Will you be so kind as to destroy this last will, and let the other be acted upon? I am scaring you, I see. If that cannot legally be done, I must let the money come to me, but only in transit for the rightful owners, the Reverend Mr. Stephenson and his brother, and I’ll make them a present of it. You will manage this for me. Being at home in law details, you know of course what may and what may not be done. All I beg of you is to effect this, carrying it out in the simplest manner, and in the quickest possible time.”
Mr. Wedderburn drew a long face. He had no more cause to wish the money to go to Dr. Davenal than to the clergyman and his brother, but it was altogether so unusual a mode of proceeding, would be so very unprofessional a transaction, that he regarded it as an innovation hardly to be tolerated, a sort of scandal on all recognised notions in the legal world, of which Mr. Wedderburn himself was little better than a machine.
“I cannot undertake it without your giving me instructions in writing, Dr. Davenal,” he said grumpily. “I’d not stir a peg in it without.”
“You shall have them in full.”
“Well, sir, you know best, but the time may come when your children will not thank you for this. It is folly, Dr. Davenal, and nothing less.”
“I hope my children will never question any act of mine. I am doing this for the best.”
Nevertheless, as Dr. Davenal spoke, there was some pain in his tone. The lawyer detected it, and thought he was coming round. He would not speak immediately, but let the feeling work its way.
“It is a large sum to relinquish,” the lawyer presently said; “to throw out of one’s hand as if it were so much worthless sand.”
“What is the sum? — what has she left?” asked Dr. Davenal, the remark reminding him that he was as yet in ignorance.
“I expect, when all the legacies and other expenses are paid, there will be little over six thousand pounds. There ought to have been double. Lady Oswald lost a large sum a few years ago, quite as much as that. She put it into some prosperous-looking bubble, and it burst. Women should never dabble in business. They are safe to get their fingers burnt.”
“Men have burnt theirs sometimes,” was the answer of Dr. Davenal, spoken significantly. “Six thousand pounds! I should have thought her worth much more. Well, Mr. Wedderburn, you will carry out my instructions.”
“Of course, if you order me. Will you be so kind as to write those instructions to me at your convenience, posting them from this town to my house. I am going back home at once.”
“Won’t you see Mr. Stephenson and his brother first, and impart to them the fact that I shall not take the money?”
“No,” said the lawyer, “I want to go home by the next train. I wish, Dr. Davenal, you would allow me to give you just one word of advice.”
“You can give it me,” said Dr. Davenal. “ I don’t promise to take it.”
“It might be the better for you if you would,” was the reply. “My advice is, say nothing to the Stephensons, or to any one else, to-day. This is a very strange resolution that you have expressed, and I beg you to sleep upon it. A night’s rest may serve to change your mind.”
The lawyer deported. It was close upon the hour for D
r. Davenal to receive his indoor patients, and he could not go out then. He went to look for his daughter, and found her in the garden parlour with her aunt It was not often that Miss Bettina troubled that room — she had been wont to tell Sara and Caroline that its litter set her teeth on edge.
They began to talk to him of the funeral It was natural they should do so. In a country place these somewhat unusual occurrences of every-day life are made much of. Miss Bettina was curious.
“Were the people from Thorndyke there?” she asked.
“Sir Philip and his eldest son.”
“And Oswald Cray?”
“Of course. He came down on purpose.”
“My goodness! And so they met! How did they behave, Richard?”
“Just as the rest of us behaved. Did you suppose they’d start a quarrel?”
“I was sure of it I knew they would never meet without starting one. Nothing less could come of Oswald Cray’s proud spirit and the manner they have treated him.”
“At sea as usual, Bettina. Do you think they’d quarrel there? — on that solemn occasion? Oswald Cray and Sir Philip are proud enough, both of them; but they are gentlemen — you forget that, Bettina. I think Oswald Cray is about the least likely man to quarrel that I know, whether with Sir Philip or with anybody else. Your proud man washes his hands of people whom he despises; but he does not quarrel with them.”
How singularly true were the words in regard to Oswald Cray! It was as though Dr. Davenal had worn in that moment the gift of prevision; “Your proud man washes his hands of people whom he despises.”
“And how is her money left?” continued Miss Bettina. “ To the Stephensons?”
“No, she has not made a just will. It is left to — to a stranger.
A stranger in blood.”
“Indeed! To whom? I hope you have been remembered with some little token, Richard?”
“To be sure I have been. You know those two splendid diamond rings of hers: I have one, Oswald Cray the other. And that’s all he has got, by the way, except a silver coffee-pot, or so. Sara, come with me into the garden, I wish to have a little chat with you.”
“You have not told me who the stranger is,” shrieked out Miss Bettina.
“I’ll tell you by-and-by,” called back the doctor.
“I did not think it likely she would leave anything to Oswald Cray, papa,” Sara remarked, as they paced the garden path.
“I think I should, had I been in her place. A matter of five hundred pounds, or so, would have helped him on wonderfully. However, there was no obligation, and it is a question whether Oswald would have accepted it.”
“You said it was not a just will, papa?”
“I could have gone further than that, Sara, and stigmatised it as a very unjust one. Those poor Stephensons, who have been expecting this money — who had a right to expect it — are cut off with a paltry fifty pounds each and the furniture.”
“O papa! And are they not very poor?”
“So poor, that I believe honestly they have not always bread to eat; that is, what people, born as they were, designate as bread; proper food. They carry the signs of it in their countenances.”
“And for Lady Oswald to have left her money away from them! To whom has she left it?”
“To one who has no right to it, who never expected it.”
“I suppose you mean Sir Philip?”
“No, it is not left to him. But now, give me your opinion, Sara. Let us for argument’s sake put ourselves in the position of this fortunate legatee. Suppose — suppose, my dear it were left to you: this money to which you have no claim, no right — to which others have a claim, how should you feel?”
“I should feel uncomfortable,” replied Sara. “I should feel that I was enriched at the expense of the Stephensons; I am sure that I should feel almost as though I had committed a fraud. Papa,” she added more eagerly, the idea occurring to her, “I should like to give the money back to them.”
“That is the very argument I have been using myself. Wedderburn, Lady Oswald’s lawyer, has been here, talking of the matter, and I told him that were I the man to whom it was left, I should give it back, every shilling of it, to the channel where it ought at once to have gone — the brothers Stephenson. Wedderburn did not agree with me: he brought forward the argument that the man’s children might reproach him afterwards. What do you think?”
“I think, papa, that were I the man you speak of, I should act upon my own judgment, and give it back without reference to the opinion of my children.”
“That is precisely what he has resolved to do. Sara, the money is left to me.”
Sara Davenal, taken completely by surprise, halted in her walk and looked at the Doctor, not knowing how to believe him.
“It is true, Sara. I find I am the favoured legatee of Lady Oswald: knowing at the same time that I have no more right to be so than have those espalier rose-trees at your side. I have resolved to refuse the money; to repudiate the will altogether, so far as my share in it goes; and to suffer a previous will to be acted upon, which gives the money to the Stephensons. I trust my children will not hereafter turn round and reproach me.”
“O papa!”
She spoke the words now almost reproachfully, in reproach that he could ever think it.
“Yes, I shall do it, Sara. And yet,” he added, his voice insensibly sinking to a whisper, “ I have heavy need for money just now; and the help these thousands would be to me no one but myself knows.”
Sara was silent A shiver passed over her face at the allusion. She did not dare reply to it The subject was too painful; and, besides, she was kept partially in the dark.
“But I cannot tamper with my conscience,” resumed Dr. Davenal. “Were I to take this money, it would only lie like a weight upon it for my whole future life. I believe — and, Sara, I wish you to believe it and treasure it as an assured truth — that money appropriated by ourselves, which in point of right, of justice, belongs to others, never comes home to us with a blessing. However safely the law may give it us and the world deem our claim to it legitimate, if we deprive others of it, whose it is by every moral and — may I say it? — divine right, that money will not bless us or our children. Sara, I speak this from the experience of an observant life.”
“I am sure you are right, papa,” she murmured. “Do not keep this money.”
“I shall not. But, Sara,” — and Dr. Davenal stopped in his walk, and his voice grew solemn in its tone as he laid his hand upon her—” things have changed with me. I cannot now foresee the future. I thought I was laying up a competency for my children; not a great one, it is true, but one that would have kept them above the extreme frowns of the world. This I have had to fling away — my hard-earned savings. It may be that I shall now have to leave you, my cherished daughter, to the world’s mercy; perhaps — I know not — compelled to work for your living in it Should this come to pass, you will not cast back a reflection on your dead father, and reproach him for a rejection of these thousands.”
The tears were streaming down her cheeks. Her pleading hand, her loving look, was his first answer. “You could not keep the money, papa. It would not be right in God’s sight Do not hesitate.”
“I have not hesitated, Sara. My mind has been made up from the first But I preferred to speak to you.”
Neal came forward to summon Dr. Davenal. His patients were waiting for him. Sara turned to rejoin her aunt “You can tell her about this legacy to me, Sara; it will be the talk of the town before the day’s out And explain to her why I decline it.”
The afternoon drew to its close. Dr. Davenal, engaged with a succession of patients, scarcely noticed its elapse. A wish was running through his mind to see Mr. Oswald Cray, and he hoped he would be calling. When dinner-time came and he had not come, that note, previously mentioned, was pencilled, and Neal despatched with it The man brought the message back in due course: “Mr. Oswald Cray was unable to call upon the doctor, as he was departing for Lon
don.” Dr. Davenal was disappointed; he had wished to explain to Oswald Cray his intentions respecting the money; he considered it due to him, Oswald, to do so.
How is it that there are times when an idea, without any apparent cause to lead to it, any reason to justify it, takes sudden possession of the mind? Even as Neal spoke, such an idea seated itself in Dr. Davenal’s. He fancied that Oswald Cray was in some way not pleased at the disposition of Lady Oswald’s property, as regarded Dr. Davenal; was in a degree, more or less, resenting it. It only made the doctor doubly desirous of seeing him.
But there was no chance of it at present, Oswald Cray having left Hallingham. Dr. Davenal put on his hat and went out to take a walk as for as Lady Oswald’s.
He found the Rev. Mr. Stephenson alone. His brother had departed. The clergyman received him somewhat awkwardly. He had been brooding over his disappointment all by himself; had been thinking what a crying wrong it was that the money should be left to the flourishing and wealthy physician, Dr. Davenal, who put as many guineas into his pocket daily as would keep him and his family in their humble way for months. He was casting his anxious thoughts to the future, wondering how his children were to be educated, foreseeing nothing but embarrassment and struggle to the very end of his life; and I am not sure that his heart at that moment towards that one man was not full of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. Ministers of the gospel are but human, swayed at times by evil passions, just as we are.
But, being in this frame of mind, it a little confused the reverend gentleman to see the object of his envy standing before him. Dr. Davenal drew forward a seat.
“I daresay, Mr. Stephenson, if the truth were known, you were at this very moment bestowing upon me plenty of hard names.”
It was so exceedingly like what Mr. Stephenson had been doing, that all the reply he could make was a confused stammer. Dr. Davenal, who, for the interview, appeared to have put away from the surface his hidden care, resumed in a frank, free tone —