England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Villages -- England -- Fiction
There were no relations to come to the house; all the orders were given
by Mr Pitt, Mr Tregennas's lawyer, a little withered red-faced man
with shrewd eyes, who was there when they arrived, and who kept himself
in the library, away from them all, until the day of the funeral.
Perhaps a more silent four could hardly have been found than the men who
were gathered in the old damp house, although with Marmaduke the silence
was rather compulsion than choice. Anthony was very grave and subdued.
When the funeral came they were all together almost for the first time,
rumbling along the desolate overgrown road, with two or three empty
carriages crawling behind them, which had been sent by the neighbours
with a vague belief that it was an easy method of doing honour to the
dead. The rain was falling still as they all rumbled back again, and
gathered in the library to hear Mr Pitt read the will. It was soon
done. A few annuities were bequeathed to the old servants, five
thousand pounds free of legacy duty to his great-nephew, Marmaduke Lee,
and the remainder, half in entail and half unreservedly, to the
great-nephew of his second wife, Anthony Miles. William Miles, clerk,
was appointed executor.
Mr Pitt's monotonous reading was interrupted by Marmaduke Lee, with a
white, quivering face,--
"I protest against such a will as a fraud. I can prove it to be a
fraud," he cried, lifting his hand and letting it fall tremulously on
the table.
Anthony neither turned towards him nor moved. Mr Miles said, a little
hurriedly,--
"When Mr Pitt has finished, my son has something to say."
The lawyer, looking quietly from one to the other, took up his sing-song
again, and went on as if there had been no break. Marmaduke had shrunk
into his chair like a man who had received a heavy blow, his very
passion was too weak to support him at this crisis, he scarcely heard
the formal words running on in set rounded phrases: what he did hear at
last was Mr Miles asking,--
"Is there no mention whatever of Miss Harford in the will?"
"There is nothing more than you have heard me read," said Mr Pitt, in
his dry voice.
The name seemed to recall Marmaduke's senses, and a rush of rage
stimulated him to burst out again,--
"It is false, and a lie! Anthony has taken advantage of his dotage. I
will dispute every word of it."
Anthony looked at him with a contemptuous darkness in his face, which it
was not pleasant to see, but he held his voice under repression as he
bent forward, folding his arms on the table, and saying slowly,--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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