II
Sir Vernon’s Will
“All of us here,” began Sir Vernon, with a well-satisfied look round the table, “are such good friends that we can be absolutely frank one with another. I am an old man; and I expect that almost all of you have at one time or another wondered—I put it bluntly—what you will get when I die. It is very natural that you should do so; and I have come to the conclusion that you had better know exactly how you stand. Carter here has, of course, as my legal adviser, known from the first what is in my will; and now I want all of you to know, in order that you may expect neither too much nor too little. I fear I am still a moderately healthy old man, or so my doctor tells me, and you may, therefore, still have some time to wait; but at my age it is well to be prepared, and I felt that you ought not to be left any longer in the dark.”
At this point several of Sir Vernon’s auditors attempted to speak, but he waved them into silence.
“No, let me have my say without telling me what I know already,” he continued. “I know that you would tell me truly that nothing is further from your thoughts than to wish me out of the way. It is not because I am in any doubt on that head that I am speaking to you; but because this is a business matter, and it is well to know in advance what one’s prospects are. Listen to me, then, and I will tell you, as far as I can, exactly how the thing stands.
“To several of you I have already made substantial gifts. You, John, and you, George, have each received £50,000 in shares of the Company. You, Joan, have £10,000 worth of shares standing in your name. These sums are apart from my will, and the bequests which I propose to make are in addition to these.
“As nearly as Carter here can tell me, I am now worth, on a conservative estimate, some eight or nine hundred thousand pounds. Carter works it out that, when all death duties have been paid, there will be at least £600,000 to be divided among you. In apportioning my property I have worked on the basis of this sum. I have divided it, first, into two portions—£100,000 for smaller legacies, and £500,000 to be shared by my residuary legatees.
“First, let me tell you my smaller bequests, which concern most of you. To you, Lucas, my oldest and closest friend, I have left nothing but a few personal mementoes. You have enough already; and it is at your express wish that I do as I have done. To my young friend and your ward, Ellery, I leave £5,000. I understand that he will have enough when you die; but this sum may be welcome to him if, as I expect, I am the first to go. To you, Carter, I leave £20,000. You, too, have ample means; but our close connection and the work you have done so well for me and for the Company call for recognition. To Mrs. Carter—to you, Helen—I have left no money—you will share in what your husband receives—but I will show you later the jewels which will be yours when I die. To you, Mary, who, with Joan, have lived with me and cared for me, I leave £20,000, enough to make you independent. There are but two more of my smaller legacies I need mention. The rest are either to servants or to charitable institutions. But you all know that, for many years past, I have not been on good terms with my brother Walter. I have no mind, since I have other relatives who are far dearer to me, to leave him another fortune to squander like the last; but I am leaving in trust for him the sum of £10,000, of which he will receive the income during his life. On his death, the sum will pass to my dear niece, Joan, to whom I shall also leave absolutely the sum of £40,000. This, with the £10,000 which she had already, will make her independent, but not rich.
“You may be surprised, Joan, that I leave you no more; but, when I tell you of my principal bequests, you will understand the reason. The residue, then, of my property, amounting to at least £500,000, I leave equally between my two nephews, John Prinsep and George Brooklyn. You too, therefore, will both be rich men. As so large a sum is involved, I have thought it right to make provision for the decease of either of you. Should George die before me, which God forbid, you, Marian, as his wife, will receive half the sum which he would have received under my will. The other half will pass to John, as the surviving residuary legatee. Should John die, the half of his share will pass to Joan—a provision the reason for which you will all, I think, readily appreciate. I have not made provision for the death of both my nephews—for an event so unlikely hardly calls for precaution. But should God bring so heavy a misfortune upon us, the residue of my property would then pass, as the will now stands, to my nearest surviving relative.”
While Sir Vernon was still speaking Joan had been trying to break in upon him. Prinsep was able to check her for a moment, but at this point she insisted on speaking. “Uncle,” she said, “there is something I must say to you in view of what you have just told us. I am very sorry if my saying it spoils your birthday; but I must say it all the same. What you have left to me is more than enough, and certainly all that I expect, or have any right to expect. But I cannot bear that you should misunderstand me, or that I should seem, by saying nothing now, to accept the position. I want you to understand quite definitely that I have no intention of marrying John. I am not engaged to him; and I never shall be. It’s not that I have anything against him—it’s simply that I don’t want—and don’t mean—to marry him. I’m sorry if it hurts you to hear me say this; but you have publicly implied that we are to be married, and I couldn’t keep silent after that.”
Sir Vernon’s face had flushed when Joan began to speak, and he had seemed on the point of breaking in upon her. But he had evidently thought better of it; for he let her have her say. But now he answered coldly, and with a suppressed but obvious irritation.
“My dear Joan, you know quite well that this marriage has been an understood thing among us all. I don’t pretend to know what fancy has got into your head just lately. But, at all events, let us hear no more of it tonight. Already what you have said has quite spoilt the evening for me.”
Then, as Joan tried to speak, he added, “No, please, no more about it now. If you wish you can speak to me about it in the morning.”
Joan still tried to say something; but at this point Lucas cut quickly into the conversation. Actor-managers, he said, had all the luck. You would not find a poor devil of a playwright with the best part of a million to leave to his descendants. And then, with obvious relief, the rest helped to steer the talk back to less dangerous topics. Sir Vernon seemed to forget his annoyance and launched into a stream of old theatrical reminiscence, Lucas capping each of his stories with another. The cheerfulness of the latter part of the evening was, perhaps, a trifle forced, and there were two, Joan herself and young Ellery, who took in it only the smallest possible part. But Prinsep, Lucas, and Carter Woodman made up for these others; and an outsider would have pronounced Sir Vernon’s party a complete success.
There was no withdrawal of the ladies that evening, for, after her discomfiture, Joan made no move towards the drawing-room. In the end it was Prinsep who broke up the party with a word to Sir Vernon. “Come, uncle,” he said, “ten o’clock and time for our roystering to end. I have work I must do about the theatre and it’s time some of us were getting home.”
Then Joan seemed to wake up to a sense of her duties, and Sir Vernon was promptly bustled off upstairs, the guests gradually taking their leave.
Most of them had not far to go. Lucas had his car waiting to run him back to his house at Hampstead. Ellery had rooms in Chelsea, and announced his intention, as the night was fine, of walking back by the parks. The George Brooklyns and the Woodmans, who lived in the outer suburbs at Banstead and Esher, were staying the night in town, at the famous Cunningham, on the opposite side of Piccadilly, the best hotel in London in the estimation of foreign potentates and envoys as well as of Londoners themselves. George Brooklyn, saying that he had an appointment, asked Woodman to see his wife home, and left Marian and the Woodmans outside the front door of the Piccadilly theatre, while they crossed the road towards their hotel.
The guests having departed, Liskeard House began to settle down for the night. On the ground floor, indeed, there began a scurry of servants clearing up after the dinner. On the first floor Joan, having seen Sir Vernon to his room, sat in the long-deserted drawing-room, talking over the evening’s events with her friend, Mary Woodman, and reiterating, to a sympathetic listener, her determination never to marry John Prinsep. Meanwhile, upstairs on the second floor, John Prinsep sat at his desk in his remote study with a heavy frown on his face, very unlike the seemingly lighthearted and amiable expression he had worn all the evening. Sir Vernon’s birthday party was over, but there were strange things preparing for the night.