England -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"What an old fool I am!" he exclaimed. "There's something I ought to
have told you the moment you came in, and I've clean forgotten it
until now; it's good news, too! There is a lawyer wants to see you."
"What about?" Julia asked; she did not seem to naturally associate a
lawyer with good news.
"A legacy," Johnny answered triumphantly.
Julia was much astonished; she could not imagine from whence it came,
but before she asked she made the business-like inquiry, "How much?"
"Not a great deal, I'm afraid," Mr. Gillat was obliged to say; "still,
a little's a help, you know; it may be a great help; you remember your
father's Aunt Jane?"
Julia did, or rather she remembered the name. Great-aunt Jane was one
of the relations the Polkingtons did not use; she was not rich enough
or obliging enough to give any help, nor grand enough for
conversational purposes. She never figured in Mrs. Polkington's talk
except vaguely as "one of my husband's people in Norfolk;" this when
she was explaining that the Captain came of East Anglian stock on his
mother's side. Jane was only a step-aunt to the Captain; his mother
had married above her family, her half-sister Jane had married a
little beneath--a small farmer, in fact, whose farming had got smaller
still before he died, which was long ago. Great-aunt Jane could not
have much to leave any one, but, as Mr. Gillat said, anything was
better than nothing; the real surprise was why it should have been
left to Julia.
She asked Johnny about it, but he could not tell her much; he really
knew very little except that there was something, and that the lawyer
wanted her address and was annoyed when her relations could not give
it. Indeed, even went so far as to think they would not, and that it
would be his duty to take steps unless she was forthcoming soon.
"I had better go to his office to-morrow," Julia said; "I suppose you
know where it is?"
Mr. Gillat did, and they arranged how they would go to-morrow, Johnny,
who was to wait outside, solely for the pleasure and excitement of the
expedition. After that they talked about the legacy and its probable
amount for some time.
"I suppose no other benefactor came inquiring for me while I was
away?" Julia said, after she had, to please Johnny and not her
practical self, built several air castles with the legacy.
"No," Mr. Gillat said regretfully, "I'm afraid not; no one else asked
for you. At least, some one did; a Mr. Rawson-Clew came here for your
address."
"Did he though?" Julia asked; "Did he, indeed? What did he want it
for?"
"Well, I don't know," Johnny was obliged to say; "I don't know that he
gave any reason exactly; he said he had met you in Holland. I thought
he was a friend of yours, he seemed to know a good deal about you."
"He was a friend," Julia said; "that was quite right. And so he came
for my address. When was this?"
Johnny gave the approximate date, and Julia asked: "Why did he come to
you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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