Devereux — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (best free novels txt) 📖

“The date,” said I, “is, I perceive, of very recent period; the will is signed by two witnesses besides yourself. Who and where are they?”

“Robert Lister, the first signature, my clerk; he is since dead, Sir.”

“Dead!” said I; “and the other witness, George Davis?”

“Is one of Sir William’s tenants, and is below, Sir, in waiting.”

“Let him come up,” and a middle-sized, stout man, with a blunt, bold, open countenance, was admitted.

“Did you witness this will?” said I.

“I did, your honour!”

“And this is your handwriting?” pointing to the scarcely legible scrawl.

“Yees, your honour,” said the man, scratching his head, “I think it be; they are my ees, and G, and D, sure enough.”

“And do you know the purport of the will you signed?”

“Anan!”

“I mean, do you know to whom Sir William—stop, Mr. Oswald, suffer the man to answer me—to whom Sir William left his property?”

“Noa, to be sure, Sir; the will was a woundy long one, and Maister Oswald there told me it was no use to read it over to me, but merely to sign, as a witness to Sir William’s handwriting.”

“Enough: you may retire;” and George Davis vanished.

“Mr. Oswald,” said I, approaching the attorney, “I may wrong you, and if so, I am sorry for it, but I suspect there has been foul practice in this deed. I have reason to be convinced that Sir William Devereux could never have made this devise. I give you warning, Sir, that I shall bring the business immediately before a court of law, and that if guilty—ay, tremble, Sir—of what I suspect, you will answer for this deed at the foot of the gallows.”

I turned to Gerald, who rose while I was yet speaking. Before I could address him, he exclaimed, with evident and extreme agitation,

“You cannot, Morton,—you cannot—you dare not—insinuate that I, your brother, have been base enough to forge, or to instigate the forgery of, this will?”

Gerald’s agitation made me still less doubtful of his guilt.

“The case, Sir,” I answered coldly, “stands thus: my uncle could not have made this will; it is a devise that must seem incredible to all who knew aught of our domestic circumstances. Fraud has been practised, how I know not; by whom I do know.”

“Morton, Morton: this is insufferable; I cannot bear such charges, even from a brother.”

“Charges!—your conscience speaks, Sir,—not I; no one benefits by this fraud but you: pardon me if I draw an inference from a fact.”

So saying, I turned on my heel, and abruptly left the apartment. I ascended the stairs which led to my own: there I found my servant preparing the paraphernalia in which that very evening I was to attend my uncle’s funeral. I gave him, with a calm and collected voice, the necessary instructions for following me to town immediately after that event, and then I passed on to the room where the deceased lay in state. The room was hung with black: the gorgeous pall, wrought with the proud heraldry of our line, lay over the coffin; and by the lights which made, in that old chamber, a more brilliant, yet more ghastly, day, sat the hired watchers of the dead.

I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the coffin, I poured out the last expressions of my grief. I rose, and was retiring once more to my room, when I encountered Gerald.

“Morton,” said he, “I own to you, I myself am astounded by my uncle’s will. I do not come to make you offers; you would not accept them: I do not come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never been as brothers, and we know not their language: but I do come to demand you to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented against me, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticity of the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will join in the inquiries you institute and the expenses of the law.”

I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thus spoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora, the fraudulent robber of my rights, and I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the inquiries which were to convict himself of the basest, if not the blackest, of human crimes; there was something too in the reserved and yet insolent tone of his voice which, reminding me as it did of our long aversion to each other, made my very blood creep with abhorrence. I turned away, that I might not break my oath to Isora, for I felt strongly tempted to do so; and said in as calm an accent as I could command, “The case will, I trust, require no king’s evidence; and, at least, I will not be beholden to the man whom my reason condemns for any assistance in bringing upon himself the ultimate condemnation of the law.”

Gerald looked at me sternly. “Were you not my brother,” said he, in a low tone, “I would, for a charge so dishonouring my fair name, strike you dead at my feet.”

“It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love,” I rejoined, with a scornful laugh, but an eye flashing with passions a thousand times more fierce than scorn, “that prevents your adding that last favour to those you have already bestowed on me.”

Gerald, with a muttered curse, placed his hand upon his sword; my own rapier was instantly half drawn, when, to save us from the great guilt of mortal contest against each other, steps were heard, and a number of the domestics charged with melancholy duties at the approaching rite, were seen slowly sweeping in black robes along the opposite gallery. Perhaps that interruption restored both of us to our senses, for we said, almost in the same breath, and nearly in the same phrase, “This way of terminating strife is not for us;” and, as Gerald spoke, he turned slowly away, descended the staircase, and disappeared.

The funeral took place at night: a numerous procession of the tenants and peasantry attended. My poor uncle! there was not a dry eye for thee, but those of thine own kindred. Tall, stately, erect in the power and majesty of his unrivalled form, stood Gerald, already assuming the dignity and lordship which, to speak frankly, so well became him; my mother’s face was turned from me, but her attitude proclaimed her utterly absorbed in prayer. As for myself, my heart seemed hardened: I could not betray to the gaze of a hundred strangers the emotions which I would have hidden from those whom I loved the most. Wrapped in my cloak, with arms folded on my breast, and eyes bent to the ground, I leaned against one of the pillars of the chapel, apart, and apparently unmoved.

But when they were about to lower the body into the vault, a momentary weakness came over me. I made an involuntary step forward, a single but deep groan of anguish broke from me, and then, covering my face with my mantle, I resumed my former attitude, and all was still. The rite was over; in many and broken