Lonesome Road

Chapter Five

Having taken down these notes, Miss Silver sat back in her chair and picked up the pale pink coatee.

“There-that is over,” she said, and began to knit. “And now, I am afraid, I must ask you what financial interest these relatives have in your death.”

Rachel Treherne met this question calmly, as one meets a long expected shock. She said,

“I knew you would ask me that, but it is not at all an easy question to answer. The circumstances are very unusual. I think I told you that my father had left me this money as a trust. He made no legal conditions as to how I was to dispose of it, but he told me what he wanted me to do, and I promised that I would carry out his wishes. Miss Silver, I do feel sure that I can trust you-you have really made me feel sure about that-but what I am going to tell you now concerns my father, and you won’t ever speak of it to anyone, will you, or-or write it down?”

Miss Silver looked at her. Miss Silver said,

“I will not speak of it, and I will not write it down.”

Rachel Treherne went on.

“My father ran away with my mother. She had a little money, and he had none. This is important, because it is what brings in my mother’s relations. Without her money he couldn’t have made a start, and so, in disposing of his fortune, he wished her relations to be considered on the same footing as his own. He took her to the United States, and they had a very hard struggle. They lost their first two children. It was ten years before Mabel was born, and I came five years later. Then my mother died. My father was only just getting along up till then, but the following year he began to make money. Everything he touched turned to gold. Oil was found on some land he had bought for a song. It made him an immensely wealthy man. He came back to this country and died here. The things he asked me to promise were these. It weighed on him that the man who had been his partner in buying the oil-field had not profited from it. There was some quarrel. The land was believed valueless. The partnership broke up, and Mr. Brent walked out. My father made a fortune, and it weighed on him that he ought to have shared it with Sterling Brent. He told me that he had always kept on the right side of the law, but that what mattered when you came to die was whether you had kept on the right side of your conscience. He had tried to find his old partner, but he hadn’t been able to. He told me the sum that was due to him, and he said I was never to touch it, and I was to go on trying to find Mr. Brent or his heirs. That was the first thing.”

“You have not been able to trace Mr. Brent?”

“No. It is so long ago that I think he must be dead. If he is not traced during my lifetime, the money is to endow a certain number of scholarships for Americans at Oxford and Cambridge, to be called the Brent Scholarships.”

Miss Silver gave an approving nod.

“Mr. Treherne expressed more than one wish, I think you said.”

“Yes. The other thing that I promised is much more difficult to carry out. He wished his money to come into the hands of those who would use it best. He considered that in the interval between his death and mine there would be changes in the characters and circumstances of the possible heirs. Children would be born, young people would grow up and marry. There might be deteriorations or improvements. There might be deaths. He did not feel able to decide on what was to happen to his money after another generation had passed, so he left the decision to me. That is not so unusual, though I was very young-too young. But what he asked me to promise was, I think, a very unusual thing. I was to make a new will every year. He said most people made their wills and forgot all about them. He wanted to insure that I would keep mine up-to-date. I was to go through it once a year and adjust the legacies in the light of what had happened during that year.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked and checked. She said,

“Dear me-a very onerous task to lay upon a young girl.”

“I promised, and I have kept my promise. I don’t know that I would make such a promise today. But I was very young. I loved my father, and I would have done anything he asked of me.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“It did not occur to your father that you might marry?”

The color came into Rachel Treherne’s face. Not the brilliant flame of a little while back, but a faint, becoming flush.

“I don’t believe he did. Men are like that.”

Miss Silver was watching her.

“And you?”

Rachel Treherne laughed a little sadly.

“Oh, I thought about it-girls always do. But-well, since we are being so very frank, he thought I had too much money, and I thought he had too little courage. And after that I was much, much too busy.”

“It would have made it all a great deal easier for you if you had had a husband and children. But since you have no natural and undisputed heirs, this arrangement of Mr. Treherne’s must result in maintaining a continual state of excitement and uncertainty in the family-if it is known. Now, Miss Treherne, this is a very important question. Is it known?”

Rachel Treherne frowned. The frown made her look older. She said in a slow, vexed voice,

“I am afraid it is known.”

“How? Who spoke of it? Your father? You? Surely not your legal adviser?”

“My father spoke of it to my sister. He was very ill. I’m sure he wouldn’t have done so if he had been himself. It has always made things very difficult for me.”

“Most unfortunate,” said Miss Silver. “And does everyone in the family know of the arrangement?”

There was a momentary flash of humor in Rachel Treherne’s dark eyes.

“I should think so. You see, it was a grievance, and when my sister and her husband have a grievance, well, they like to share it. I think it is quite safe to say that everyone in the family knows I revise my will once a year in January. Some of them are tactful about it, some of them resent it, the young ones treat it as rather a joke. If only they didn’t know-”

Miss Silver took up her pencil and added a word to her notes on Mabel Wadlow. The word was, “Indiscreet.” She leaned back and said,

“Is it possible that the terms of your present will are known?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must know whether there is such a possibility.”

Rachel was silent.

“Have you at any time had a draft of your will in the house?”

“Yes.”

“You are not helping me, Miss Treherne. Would it have been possible for anyone to see that draft?”

“I suppose it would. Oh, one doesn’t think about things like that!”

“I am sorry to distress you, but I am afraid we must think about them. You had the draft in an unlocked drawer?”

“No, locked. But I am careless about my keys.”

“I see. And if I were to ask you who would chiefly benefit if you were to die before you could make this annual revision of your will, would you answer me?”

Rachel Treherne pushed back her chair and got up. She said,

“No, Miss Silver, I couldn’t tell you that.”

Miss Silver remained seated. She was knitting again.

“Do you wish me to take your case?”

Rachel Treherne looked at her. Her eyes said, “Help me.” Her lips said,

“Please-if you will.”

The needles clicked.

“I wonder if you will take my advice,” said Miss Silver.

Rachel’s lips parted in a sudden charming smile.

“If I can,” she said.

“Go home and tell your sister that you took the opportunity of being in town to go through your will, and that your have made considerable changes in it this time. She will certainly inform your other relatives, and for the present there will be no more attempts upon your life.”

All the color went out of Rachel Treherne’s face.

“No-I couldn’t do that.”

“It would be a safeguard.”

“No, I won’t do it! I won’t tell lies-it’s too degrading!”

“Make it true then. See your lawyer, alter your will, and let your relations know that you have done so.”

Rachel stood there silently with her hands on the table edge. She seemed to lean on them. At last she said,

“I will think about it. Is there anything else?”

“Yes. I think of taking a short holiday. Can you recommend me to cottage lodgings in your neighborhood? I should be an acquaintance who is friendly with the Cunninghams. It would then be quite natural for us to meet, and for you to invite me to the house.”

“I can invite you to stay.”

“Without exciting remark? It is very necessary that no one should imagine I am anything but a private visitor.”

Rachel Treherne smiled again.

“Oh, but I am always asking people down-all sorts of people. It will be quite easy. I like having people who can’t afford to go away, and-” She stopped short and colored vividly.

But Miss Maud Silver was not at all offended.

“I shall do very well as a gentlewoman of restricted means,” she observed. “Let me see-I can come down on Saturday. You can just mention Hilary Cunningham, but I should not stress the connection. And I think you had better call me a retired governess.” Most unexpectedly her eyes twinkled. “And that need not trouble your conscience, because it is perfectly true. I was in the scholastic profession for twenty years.” She got up and extended her hand. “I disliked it extremely. Good-bye, Miss Treherne.”