Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (463 page)

“If you will give these considerations their due weight; if you will exert your excellent common sense, I have no fear of being obliged to appeal to my newly-found friend and protector — the law. You will feel, by this time, that you have meddled with me at last to some purpose. I am estranged from Norah — I am discovered by my husband — I am defeated by Mrs. Lecount. You have driven me to the last extremity; you have strengthened me to fight the battle of my life with the resolution which only a lost and friendless woman can feel. Badly as your schemes have prospered, they have not proved totally useless after all!

“I have no more to say. If you ever speak about me to Norah, tell her that a day may come when she will see me again — the day when we two sisters have recovered our natural rights; the day when I put Norah’s fortune into Norah’s hand.

“Those are my last words. Remember them the next time you feel tempted to meddle with me again.

“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.”

IV.

From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone.

“Lincoln’s Inn, November 6th.

“DEAR MADAM — This morning’s post has doubtless brought you the same shocking news which it has brought to me. You must know by this time that a terrible affliction has befallen you — the affliction of your husband’s sudden death.

“I am on the point of starting for the North, to make all needful inquiries, and to perform whatever duties I may with propriety undertake, as solicitor to the deceased gentleman. Let me earnestly recommend you not to follow me to Baliol Cottage, until I have had time to write to you first, and to give you such advice as I cannot, through ignorance of all the circumstances, pretend to offer now. You may rely on my writing, after my arrival in Scot-land, by the first post. I remain, dear madam, faithfully yours,

“JOHN LOSCOMBE.”

V.

From Mr. Pendril to Miss Garth.

“Serle Street, November 6th.

“DEAR MISS GARTH — I return you Mrs. Noel Vanstone’s letter. I can understand your mortification at the tone in which it is written, and your distress at the manner in which this unhappy woman has interpreted the conversation that she overheard at your house. I cannot honestly add that I lament what has happened. My opinion has never altered since the Combe-Raven time. I believe Mrs. Noel Vanstone to be one of the most reckless, desperate, and perverted women living; and any circumstances that estrange her from her sister are circumstances which I welcome, for her sister’s sake.

“There cannot be a moment’s doubt on the course you ought to follow in this matter. Even Mrs. Noel Vanstone herself acknowledges the propriety of sparing her sister additional and unnecessary distress. By all means, keep Miss Vanstone in ignorance of the visit to Kensington, and of the letter which has followed it. It would be not only unwise, but absolutely cruel, to enlighten her. If we had any remedy to apply, or even any hope to offer, we might feel some hesitation in keeping our secret. But there is no remedy, and no hope. Mrs. Noel Vanstone is perfectly justified in the view she takes of her own position. Neither you nor I can assert the smallest right to control her.

“I have already taken the necessary measures for putting an end to our useless inquiries. In a few days I will write to Miss Vanstone, and will do my best to tranquilize her mind on the subject of her sister. If I can find no sufficient excuse to satisfy her, it will be better she should think we have discovered nothing than that she should know the truth. Believe me most truly yours,

“WILLIAM PENDRIL.”

VI.

From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone.

“Lincoln’s Inn, November 15th.

“DEAR MADAM — In compliance with your request, I now proceed to communicate to you in writing what (but for the calamity which has so recently befallen you) I should have preferred communicating by word of mouth. Be pleased to consider this letter as strictly confidential between yourself and me.

“I inclose, as you desire, a copy of the Will executed by your late husband on the third of this month. There can be no question of the genuineness of the original document. I protested, as a matter of form, against Admiral Bartram’s solicitor assuming a position of authority at Baliol Cottage. But he took the position, nevertheless; acting as legal representative of the sole Executor under the second Will. I am bound to say I should have done the same myself in his place.

“The serious question follows, What can we do for the best in your interests? The Will executed under my professional superintendence, on the thirtieth of September last, is at present superseded and revoked by the second and later Will, executed on the third of November. Can we dispute this document?

“I doubt the possibility of disputing the new Will on the face of it. It is no doubt irregularly expressed; but it is dated, signed, and witnessed as the law directs; and the perfectly simple and straightforward provisions that it contains are in no respect, that I can see, technically open to attack.

“This being the case, can we dispute the Will on the ground that it has been executed when the Testator was not in a fit state to dispose of his own property? or when the Testator was subjected to undue and improper influence?

“In the first of these cases, the medical evidence would put an obstacle in our way. We cannot assert that previous illness had weakened the Testator’s mind. It is clear that he died suddenly, as the doctors had all along declared he would die, of disease of the heart. He was out walking in his garden, as usual, on the day of his death; he ate a hearty dinner; none of the persons in his service noticed any change in him; he was a little more irritable with them than usual, but that was all. It is impossible to attack the state of his faculties: there is no case to go into court with, so far.

“Can we declare that he acted under undue influence; or, in plainer terms, under the influence of Mrs. Lecount?

“There are serious difficulties, again, in the way of taking this course. We cannot assert, for example, that Mrs. Lecount has assumed a place in the will which she has no fair claim to occupy. She has cunningly limited her own legacy, not only to what is fairly due her, but to what the late Mr. Michael Vanstone himself had the intention of leaving her. If I were examined on the subject, I should be compelled to acknowledge that I had heard him express this intention myself. It is only the truth to say that I have heard him express it more than once. There is no point of attack in Mrs. Lecount’s legacy, and there is no point of attack in your late husband’s choice of an executor. He has made the wise choice, and the natural choice, of the oldest and trustiest friend he had in the world.

“One more consideration remains — the most important which I have yet approached, and therefore the consideration which I have reserved to the last. On the thirtieth of September, the Testator executes a will, leaving his widow sole executrix, with a legacy of eighty thousand pounds. On the third of November following, he expressly revokes this will, and leaves another in its stead, in which his widow is never once mentioned, and in which the whole residue of his estate, after payment of one comparatively trifling legacy, is left to a friend.

“It rests entirely with you to say whether any valid reason can or can not be produced to explain such an extraordinary proceeding as this. If no reason can be assigned — and I know of none myself — I think we have a point here which deserves our careful consideration; for it may be a point which is open to attack. Pray understand that I am now appealing to you solely as a lawyer, who is obliged to look all possible eventualities in the face. I have no wish to intrude on your private affairs; I have no wish to write a word which could be construed into any indirect reflection on yourself.

“If you tell me that, so far as you know, your husband capriciously struck you out of his will, without assignable reason or motive for doing so, and without other obvious explanation of his conduct than that he acted in this matter entirely under the influence of Mrs. Lecount, I will immediately take Counsel’s opinion touching the propriety of disputing the will on this ground. If, on the other hand, you tell me that there are reasons (known to yourself, though unknown to me) for not taking the course I propose, I will accept that intimation without troubling you, unless you wish it, to explain yourself further. In this latter event, I will write to you again; for I shall then have something more to say, which may greatly surprise you, on the subject of the Will.

“Faithfully yours,

“JOHN LOSCOMBE.”

VII.

From Mrs. Noel Vanstone to Mr. Loscombe.

“November 16th.

“DEAR SIR — Accept my best thanks for the kindness and consideration with which you have treated me; and let the anxieties under which I am now suffering plead my excuse, if I reply to your letter without ceremony, in the fewest possible words.

“I have my own reasons for not hesitating to answer your question in the negative. It is impossible for us to go to law, as you propose, on the subject of the Will.

“Believe me, dear sir, yours gratefully,

“MAGDALEN VANSTONE.”

VIII.

From Mr. Loscombe to Mrs. Noel Vanstone.

“Lincoln’s Inn. November 17th.

“DEAR MADAM — I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, answering my proposal in the negative, for reasons of your own. Under these circumstances — on which I offer no comment — I beg to perform my promise of again communicating with you on the subject of your late husband’s Will.

“Be so kind as to look at your copy of the document. You will find that the clause which devises the whole residue of your husband’s estate to Admiral Bartram ends in these terms:
to be by him applied to such uses as he may think fit.

“Simple as they may seem to you, these are very remarkable words. In the first place, no practical lawyer would have used them in drawing your husband’s will. In the second place, they are utterly useless to serve any plain straightforward purpose. The legacy is left unconditionally to the admiral; and in the same breath he is told that he may do what he likes with it! The phrase points clearly to one of two conclusions. It has either dropped from the writer’s pen in pure ignorance, or it has been carefully set where it appears to serve the purpose of a snare. I am firmly persuaded that the latter explanation is the right one. The words are expressly intended to mislead some person — yourself in all probability — and the cunning which has put them to that use is a cunning which (as constantly happens when uninstructed persons meddle with law) has overreached itself. My thirty years’ experience reads those words in a sense exactly opposite to the sense which they are intended to convey. I say that Admiral Bartram is
not
free to apply his legacy to such purposes as he may think fit; I believe he is privately controlled by a supplementary document in the shape of a Secret Trust.

“I can easily explain to you what I mean by a Secret Trust. It is usually contained in the form of a letter from a Testator to his Executors, privately informing them of testamentary intentions on his part which he has not thought proper openly to acknowledge in his will. I leave you a hundred pounds; and I write a private letter enjoining you, on taking the legacy, not to devote it to your own purposes, but to give it to some third person, whose name I have my own reasons for not mentioning in my will. That is a Secret Trust.

“If I am right in my own persuasion that such a document as I here describe is at this moment in Admiral Bartram’s possession — a persuasion based, in the first instance, on the extraordinary words that I have quoted to you; and, in the second instance, on purely legal considerations with which it is needless to incumber my letter — if I am right in this opinion, the discovery of the Secret Trust would be, in all probability, a most important discovery to your interests. I will not trouble you with technical reasons, or with references to my experience in these matters, which only a professional man could understand. I will merely say that I don’t give up your cause as utterly lost, until the conviction now impressed on my own mind is proved to be wrong.