Old Lady Mary | Page 4

And this she accepted with great composure of spirit. She had thought and felt and done much in her day; but now everything of the kind was over. There was no need for her to fatigue herself; and day followed day, all warm and sheltered and pleasant. People died, it is true, now and then, out of doors; but they were mostly young people, whose death might have been prevented had proper care been taken,--who were seized with violent maladies, or caught sudden infections, or were cut down by accident; all which things seemed natural. Her own contemporaries were very few, and they were like herself--living on in something of the same way. At eighty-five all people under seventy are young; and one's contemporaries are very, very few.
Nevertheless these men did disturb her a little about her will. She had made more than one will in the former days during her active life; but all those to whom she had bequeathed her possessions were dead. She had survived them all, and inherited from many of them; which had been a hard thing in its time. One day the lawyer had been more than ordinarily pressing. He had told her stories of men who had died intestate, and left trouble and penury behind them to those whom they would have most wished to preserve from all trouble. It would not have become Mr. Furnival to say brutally to Lady Mary, "This is how you will leave your godchild when you die." But he told her story after story, many of them piteous enough.
"People think it is so troublesome a business," he said, "when it is nothing at all--the most easy matter in the world. We are getting so much less particular nowadays about formalities. So long as the testator's intentions are made quite apparent--that is the chief matter, and a very bad thing for us lawyers."
"I dare say," said Lady Mary, "it is unpleasant for a man to think of himself as 'the testator.' It is a very abstract title, when you come to think of it."
"Pooh'" said Mr. Furnival, who had no sense of humor.
"But if this great business is so very simple," she went on, "one could do it, no doubt, for one's self?"
"Many people do, but it is never advisable," said the lawyer. "You will say it is natural for me to tell you that. When they do, it should be as simple as possible. I give all my real property, or my personal property, or my share in so-and-so, or my jewels, or so forth, to--whoever it may be. The fewer words the better,--so that nobody may be able to read between the lines, you know,--and the signature attested by two witnesses; but they must not be witnesses that have any interest; that is, that have anything left to them by the document they witness."
Lady Mary put up her hand defensively, with a laugh. It was still a most delicate hand, like ivory, a little yellowed with age, but fine, the veins standing out a little upon it, the finger-tips still pink. "You speak," she said, "as if you expected me to take the law in my own hands. No, no, my old friend; never fear, you shall have the doing of it."
"Whenever you please, my dear lady--whenever you please. Such a thing cannot be done an hour too soon. Shall I take your instructions now?"
Lady Mary laughed, and said, "You were always a very keen man for business. I remember your father used to say, Robert would never neglect an opening."
"No," he said, with a peculiar look. "I have always looked after my six-and-eightpences; and in that case it is true, the pounds take care of themselves."
"Very good care," said Lady Mary; and then she bade her young companion bring that book she had been reading, where there was something she wanted to show Mr. Furnival. "It is only a case in a novel, but I am sure it is bad law; give me your opinion," she said.
He was obliged to be civil, very civil. Nobody is rude to the Lady Marys of life; and besides, she was old enough to have an additional right to every courtesy. But while he sat over the novel, and tried with unnecessary vehemence to make her see what very bad law it was, and glanced from her smiling attention to the innocent sweetness of the girl beside her, who was her loving attendant, the good man's heart was sore. He said many hard things of her in his own mind as he went away.
"She will die," he said bitterly. "She will go off in a moment when nobody is looking for it, and that poor child will be left destitute."
It was all he could do not to go back