The Talleyrand Maxim | Page 7

Court would say to that will if it
were ever brought up before it, as he did, a quite satisfactory will. And
it was validly executed. Hundreds of people, competent to do so, could
swear to John Mallathorpe's signature; hundreds to Gaukrodger's;
thousands to Marshall's--who as cashier was always sending his
signature broadcast. No, there was nothing to do but to put that into the
hands of the trustees named in it, and then....
Pratt thought next of the two trustees. They were well-known men in
the town. They were comparatively young men--about forty. They were
men of great energy. Their chief interests were in educational
matters--that, no doubt, was why John Mallathorpe had appointed them
trustees. Wyatt had been plaguing the town for two years to start
commercial schools: Charlesworth was a devoted champion of
technical schools. Pratt knew how the hearts of both would leap, if he
suddenly told them that enormous funds were at their disposal for the
furtherance of their schemes. And he also knew something else--that
neither Charlesworth nor Wyatt had the faintest, remotest notion or
suspicion that John Mallathorpe had ever made such a will, or they
would have moved heaven and earth, pulled down Normandale Grange
and Mallathorpe's Mill, in their efforts to find it.
But the effect--the effect of producing the will--now? Pratt, like
everybody else, had been deeply interested in the Mallathorpe affair.
There was so little doubt that John Mallathorpe had died intestate, such
absolute certainty that his only living relations were his deceased

brother's two children and their mother, that the necessary proceedings
for putting Harper Mallathorpe and his sister Nesta in possession of the
property, real and personal, had been comparatively simple and speedy.
But--what was it worth? What would the two trustees have been able to
hand over to the Mayor and Corporation of Barford, if the will had
been found as soon as John Mallathorpe died? Pratt, from what he
remembered of the bulk and calculations at the time, made a rapid
estimate. As near as he could reckon, the Mayor and Corporation would
have got about £300,000.
That, then--and this was what he wanted to get at--was what these
young people would lose if he produced the will. Nay!--on second
thoughts, it would be much more, very much more in some time; for
the manufacturing business was being carried on by them, and was
apparently doing as well as ever. It was really an enormous amount
which they would lose--and they would get--what? Ten thousand
apiece and their mother a like sum. Thirty thousand pounds in all--in
comparison with hundreds of thousands. But they would have no
choice in the matter. Nothing could upset that will.
He began to think of the three people whom the production of this will
would dispossess. He knew little of them beyond what common gossip
had related at the time of John Mallathorpe's sudden death. They had
lived in very quiet fashion, somewhere on the outskirts of the town,
until this change in their fortunes. Once or twice Pratt had seen Mrs.
Mallathorpe in her carriage in the Barford streets--somebody had
pointed her out to him, and had observed sneeringly that folk can soon
adapt themselves to circumstances, and that Mrs. Mallathorpe now
gave herself all the airs of a duchess, though she had been no more than
a hospital nurse before she married Richard Mallathorpe. And Pratt had
also seen young Harper Mallathorpe now and then in the town--since
the good fortune arrived--and had envied him: he had also thought what
a strange thing it was that money went to young fellows who seemed to
have no particular endowments of brain or energy. Harper was a very
ordinary young man, not over intelligent in appearance, who, Pratt had
heard, was often seen lounging about the one or two fashionable hotels
of the place. As for the daughter, Pratt did not remember having ever

set eyes on her--but he had heard that up to the time of John
Mallathorpe's death she had earned her own living as a governess, or a
nurse, or something of that sort.
He turned from thinking of these three people to thoughts about himself.
Pratt often thought about himself, and always in one direction--the
direction of self-advancement. He was always wanting to get on. He
had nobody to help him. He had kept himself since he was seventeen.
His father and mother were dead; he had no brothers or sisters--the only
relations he had, uncles and aunts, lived--some in London, some in
Canada. He was now twenty-eight, and earning four pounds a week. He
had immense confidence in himself, but he had never seen much
chance of escaping from drudgery. He had often thought of asking
Eldrick & Pascoe to give him his articles--but he had