Turns of Fortune | Page 9

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 of one who was dear to her beyond all power of expression, but for the sake of him in whose place she stood, and whose honour she would preserve with her life. Mr. Cramp was a good, shrewd man of business. He considered all Miss Bond's energy, on the subject of her father's honour, as romance, though he could not help believing she was in earnest about it. He thought it was perfectly in accordance with the old miser's character, that he should procure or make such a document; though he considered it very extraordinary, for many reasons, that it should have imposed upon men more penetrating and learned than himself.
Sarah Bond, after his departure, endeavoured to conceal her anxiety from her niece; but in vain. Mabel was too clear-sighted; and it was a relief, as much as an astonishment to her aunt, to see how bravely