Turns of Fortune | Page 9

Miss Bond, "ever had my father's confidence, properly
so called; he was very close in all money transactions. The will,
however, must be, I think, in Doctors' Commons! Go there immediately,
Mr. Cramp; and--stay--I will go with you; there it is, and there are the
names of the witnesses."

"My dear lady!" expostulated the attorney, in the softest tones of his
soft voice, "I have been there already. I wished to spare a lady of your
sensibility as much pain as possible; and so I went there myself, with
Mr. Alfred Bond's man of business, whom I happened to know; and I
was grieved--cut up, I may say, to the very heart's core, to hear what he
said; and he examined the document very closely too--very closely; and,
I assure you, spoke in the handsomest, I may say, the very handsomest
manner of you, of your character, and usefulness, and generosity, and
Christian qualities; he did indeed; but we have all our duties to perform
in this world; paramount things are duties, Miss Bond, and his is a very
painful one."
"What need of all these words to state a simple matter. Have you seen
the will?" said Sarah Bond.
"I have."
"Well, and what more is there to see, unless Mr. Alfred Bond denies his
relative's power to make a will?"
"Which, I believe he does not do. He says he never made a will; that is
all."
"But there is the will," maintained Sarah Bond.
"I am very sorry to wound you; but cannot you understand?"
"Speak plainly if you can, sir," said Sarah Bond sternly; "speak plainly
if you can; I listen."
"He maintains, on the part of his client, that the will is a forgery."
"He maintains a falsehood, then," exclaimed Miss Bond, with a firm
determination and dignity of manner that astonished Mr. Cramp. "If the
will be forged, who is the forger? Certainly not my father; for he
inherited the property from his elder brother, who died insane. The will
is in his favour, and not in my father's. Besides, neither of them held
any correspondence with the testator for twenty years; he died abroad,

and the will was sent to England after his death. Would any one there
do a gratuitous service to persons they had never seen? Where could be
the reason--the motive? How is it, that, till now, Alfred Bond urged no
claim. There are reasons," she continued, "reasons to give the world.
But I have within me, what passes all reason--a feeling, a conviction, a
true positive knowledge, that my father was incapable of being a party
to such a crime. He was a stern man, loving money--I grant that--but
honest in heart and soul. The only creature he ever wronged was
himself. He did that, I know. He despoiled himself of peace and
comfort, of rest and repose. In that he sinned against God's
dispensation, who gives that we may give, not merely to others, but
lawfully to ourselves. After all, it would have been but a small thing for
him to have been without this property, for it gave him no one
additional luxury. I wonder, Mr. Cramp, that you, as a man, have
courage to stand before me, a poor unprotected woman, and dare to say,
that will is forged."
While she spoke, Sarah Bond stood forth a new creature in the
astonished eyes of the sleek attorney. He absolutely quailed before the
vehemence and fervour of the usually mild woman. He assured her she
was mistaken; that he had not yielded to the point that the will was a
forgery; that he never would confess that such was the case; that it
should be his business to disprove the charge; that he hoped she did not
suppose he yielded to the plaintiff, who was resolved to bring the
matter into a court of justice. He would only ask her one little question;
had she ever seen her father counterfeit different hands? Yes, she said,
she had; he could counterfeit, copy, any hand he ever saw, so that the
real writer could not tell the counterfeit from the original. Mr. Cramp
made no direct observation on this, except to beg that she would not
mention that "melancholy circumstance" to any one else.
Sarah Bond told him she should not feel bound to make this talent of
her father's a crime, by twisting into a secret what he used to do as an
amusement. Mr. Cramp urged mildly the folly of this, when she had a
defence to make; but she stood all the more firmly upon what she
fearlessly considered the dignity of right and truth; at the same time
assuring him, she would to the last contest that right, not so much for

her own sake, or the sake