Cynthia Wakeham's Money Part 5

"'You----!' he began, but stopped. Either his fears were touched or his cunning awakened, for after surveying me for a moment with mingled doubt and hatred, he suddenly altered his manner, till it became almost cringing, and muttering consolingly to himself, 'After all it is only a delay; everything will soon be mine,' he laid the bundle on the one board of the broken table beside us, adding with hypocritical meekness: 'It was only some little keepsakes of my sister, not enough to make such a fuss about.'

"'I will see to these _keepsakes_,' said I, and was about to raise the bundle, when he sprang upon me.

"'You----you----!' he cried. 'What right have you to touch them or to look at them? Because you drew up the will, does that make you an authority here? I don't believe it, and I won't see you put on the airs of it. I will go for the constable myself. I am not afraid of the law. I will see who is master in this house where I have lived in wretched slavery for years, and of which I shall be soon the owner.'

"'Very well,' said I, 'let us go find the constable.'

"The calmness with which I uttered this seemed at once to abash and infuriate him.

"He alternately cringed and ruffled himself, shuffling from one foot to the other till I could scarcely conceal the disgust with which he inspired me. At last he blurted forth with forced bravado:

"'Have I any rights, or haven't I any rights! You think because I don't know the law, that you can make a fool of me, but you can't. I may have lived like a dog, and I may not have a good coat to my back, but I am the man to whom this property has been given, as no one knows better than yourself; and if I chose to lift my foot and kick you out of that door for calling me a thief, who would blame me?--answer me that.'

"'No one,' said I, with a serenity equal to his fury, 'if this property is indeed to be yours, and if I know it as you say.'

"Struck by the suggestion implied in these words, as by a blow in the face for which he was wholly unprepared, he recoiled for a moment, looking at me with mingled doubt and amazement.

"'And do you mean to deny to my face, within an hour of the fact, and with the very witnesses to it still in the house, what you yourself wrote in this paper I now flaunt in your face? If so, _you_ are the fool, and I the cunning one, as you will yet see, Mr. Lawyer.'

"I met his look with great calmness.

"'The hour you speak of contained many minutes, Mr. Huckins; and it takes only a few for a woman to change her mind, and to record that change.'

"'Her mind?' The stare of terror and dismay in his eyes was contradicted by the laugh on his lips. 'What mind had she after I left her? She couldn't even speak. You cannot frighten me.'

"'Mr. Huckins,' I now said, beckoning to the two witnesses whom our loud talking had guided to the spot where we were, 'I have thought best to tell you what some men might have thought it more expedient perhaps to conceal. Mrs. Wakeham, who evidently felt herself unduly influenced by you in the making of that will you hold in your hand, immediately upon your withdrawal testified her desire to make another, and as I had no interest in the case save the desire to fulfil her real wishes, I at once complied with her request, and formally drew up a second will more in consonance with her evident desires.'

"'It is a lie, a lie; you are deceiving me!' shrieked the unhappy man, taken wholly by surprise. 'She couldn't utter a word; her tongue was paralyzed; how could you know her wishes?'

"'Mrs. Wakeham had some of the cunning of her brother,' I observed. 'She knew when to play dumb and when to speak. She talked very well when released from the influence of your presence.'

"Overwhelmed, he cast one glance at the two witnesses, who by this time had stepped to my side, and reading confirmation in the severity of their looks, he fell slowly back against the table where he stood leaning heavily, with his head fallen on his breast.

"'Who has she given the house to?' he asked at last faintly, almost humbly.

"'That I have no right to tell you,' I answered. 'When the will is offered for probate you will know; that is all the comfort I can give you.'

"'She has left nothing to me, that much I see,' he bitterly exclaimed; and his head, lifted with momentary pa.s.sion, fell again. 'Ten years gone to the dogs,' he murmured; 'ten years, and not a cent in reward! It is enough to make a man mad.' Suddenly he started forward in irrepressible pa.s.sion. 'You talk about influence,' he cried, 'my influence; what influence did _you_ have upon her? Some, or she would never have dared to contradict her dying words in that way. But I'll have it out with you in the courts. I'll never submit to being robbed in this way.'

"'You do not know that you are robbed,' said I, 'wait till you hear the will.'

"'The will? This is her will!' he shrieked, waving before him the paper that he held; 'I will not believe in any other; I will not acknowledge any other.'

"'You may have to,' now spoke up Mr. d.i.c.key in strong and hearty tones; 'and if I might advise you as a neighbor, I would say that the stiller you keep now the better it probably will be for you in the future. You have not earned a good enough reputation among us for disinterestedness to bl.u.s.ter in this way about your rights.'

"'I don't want any talk from you,' was Huckins' quick reply, but these words from one who had the ears of the community in which he lived had nevertheless produced their effect; for his manner changed and it was with quite a softened air that he finally put up the paper in his pocket and said: 'I beg pardon if I have talked too loud and pa.s.sionately. But the property was given to me and it shall not be taken away if any fight on my part can keep it. So let me see you all go, for I presume you do not intend to take up your abode in this house just yet.'

"'No,' I retorted with some significance, 'though it might be worth our while. It may contain more keepsakes; I presume there are one or two boards yet that have not been ripped up from the floors.' Then ashamed of what was perhaps an unnecessary taunt, I hastened to add: 'My reason for telling you of the existence of a second will is that you might no longer make the one you hold an excuse for rifling these premises and abstracting their contents. Nothing here is yours--yet; and till you inherit, if ever you do inherit, any attempt to hide or carry away one article which is not manifestly your own, will be regarded by the law as a theft and will be punished as such. But,' I went on, seeking to still further mitigate language calculated to arouse any man's rage, whether he was a villain or not, 'you have too much sense, and doubtless too much honesty to carry out such intentions now you know that you have lost whatever rights you considered yourself to possess, so I will say no more about it but at once make my proposition, which is that we give this box into the charge of Mr. d.i.c.key, who will stand surety for it till your sister can be found. If you agree to this----'

"'But I won't agree,' broke in Huckins, furiously. 'Do you think I am a fool? The box is mine, I say, and----'

"'Or perhaps,' I calmly interrupted, 'you would prefer the constable to come and take both it and the house in charge. This would better please me. Shall I send for the constable?'

"'No, no,----you! Do you want to make a prison-bird of me at once?'

"'I do not want to,' said I, 'but the circ.u.mstances force me to it. A house which has given up one treasure may give up another, and for this other I am accountable. Now as I cannot stay here myself to watch over the place, it necessarily follows that I must provide some one who can.

And as an honest man you ought to desire this also. If you felt as I would under the circ.u.mstances, you would ask for the company of some disinterested person till our rival claims as executors had been duly settled and the right heir determined upon.'

"'But the constable? I don't want any constable.'

"'And you don't want Mr. d.i.c.key?'

"'He's better than the constable.'

"'Very well; Mr. d.i.c.key, will you stay?'

"'Yes, I'll stay; that's right, isn't it, Susan?'

"Miss Thompson who had been looking somewhat uneasy, brightened up as he spoke and answered cheerfully:

"'Yes, that's right. But who will see me home?'

"'Can you ask?' I inquired.

"She smiled and the matter was settled.

"In the hall I had the chance to whisper to Mr. d.i.c.key:

"'Keep a sharp lookout on the fellow. I do not trust him, and he may be up to tricks. I will notify the constable of the situation and if you want help throw up a window and whistle. The man may make another attempt to rob the premises.'

"'That is so,' was the whispered reply. 'But he will have to play sharp to get ahead of me.'"

V.

DIFFICULTIES.

"During the short walk that ensued we talked much of the dead widow and her sinister brother.

"'They belong to an old family,' observed Miss Thompson, 'and I have heard my mother tell how she has danced in their house at many a ball in the olden times. But ever since my day the place has borne evidences of decay, though it is only in the last five years it has looked as if it would fall to pieces. Which of them do you think was the real miser, he or she? Neither of them have had anything to do with their neighbors for ten years at least.'

"'Do not you know?' I asked.

"'No,' said she, 'and yet I have always lived in full view of their house. You see there were years in which no one lived there. Mr.

Wakeham, who married this woman about the time father married mother, was a great invalid, and it was not till his death that the widow came back here to live. The father, who was a stern old man, I have heard mother tell, gave his property to her because she was the only one of his children who had not displeased him, but when she was a widow this brother came back to live with her, or on her, we have never been able to determine which. I think from what I have seen to-night it must have been on her, but she was very close too, or why did she live like a hermit when she could have had the friends.h.i.+p of the best?'