Mr. Poskitt's Nightcaps. Stories of a Yorkshire Farmer

Michael laughed – laughed loudly.

"Nay, come, love!" he said. "Know what's in it! Why, nobody knows what's in a will until the lawyer unseals and reads it after the funeral dinner."

"I didn't know," she said listlessly.

"But, of course, that's neither here nor there," said Michael; "and I must away to make a few last arrangements. If there'll be too much work for you to-morrow, Miriam, you must get another woman in from the village."

"There'll not be too much work, Michael," she answered.

In her heart she wished there was more work – work that would keep her from thinking of the secret which the dead man had left with her. It had eaten deep into her soul and had become a perpetual torment, for she was a woman of great religious feeling and strict ideas of duty, and she did not know where her duty lay in this case. She knew Michael for a proud man, upon whom the news of his illegitimacy would fall as lightning falls on an oak come to the pride of its maturity; she knew, too, how he would curse his father for the wrong done to his mother, of whom he had been passionately fond. Again, if she told the truth, Michael would be bereft of everything. For Stephen was not fond of his brother, and Stephen's wife hated Miriam. If Stephen and his wife heard the truth, and proved it, Michael would be – nobody. For, after all, Tobias had not had time to make amends.

And now there was the news of this will held by Lawyer Brooke! What could there be in it, and how was it that Tobias had not spoken of it? Could it be that he had forgotten it? She knew that for some years he had been more or less eccentric, subject to moods and to gusts of passion, though there had never been any time when his behaviour would have warranted any one in suspecting his mind to be affected or even clouded. Well – she could do nothing but leave the matter until to-morrow when the dead man's will was read.

As wife of the elder son, Miriam was hostess next day, and everybody who saw her marvelled at two things – one, the extraordinary pallor on her usually brightly tinted cheeks; the other, the quiet way in which she went about her duties. She was here, there, and everywhere, seeing to the comfort of the funeral guests; but she spoke little, and keenly observant eyes would have said that she moved as if in a dream. At the funeral dinner she ate little; it was an effort to get that little down. As the time drew near for the reading of the will, she could scarcely conceal her agitation, and when they were at last all assembled in the best parlour to hear Tobias's testament declared, she was glad that she sat at a table beneath which she could conceal her trembling fingers.

She wondered why Mr. Brooke was so long in cleaning his spectacles, so long in sipping his glass of port, so slow in breaking the seal of the big envelope which he took from his pocket, why he hum'd and ha'd so before he began reading. But at last he began…

It was a briefly worded will, and very plain in its meaning. Having cause, it set forth, to be highly displeased with the conduct of his younger son, Stephen, and to believe that he would only waste a fortune if it were left to him, Tobias left everything of which he died possessed to his elder son, Michael, on condition that Michael secured to Stephen from the time of his (Tobias's) demise, a sum of three pounds a week, to which a further sum of one pound a week might be added if Stephen's conduct was such as to satisfy Michael. If Stephen died before his father, Michael was to make a similar allowance to his widow.

The various emotions which had agitated Miriam were almost forgotten by her in the tumult which followed. Stephen's wife and her father and mother broke out into loud denunciation of the will; Stephen himself, after staring at the solicitor for a moment, as if he could not credit the evidence of his own eyes or ears smote the table heavily and jumped to his feet.

"It's a damned lie!" he shouted. And he made as if he would snatch the will and tear it to pieces. Mr. Brooke calmly replaced it in his pocket, and as calmly sipped his port.

"On the contrary, my friend," he said. "And – it is your father's will."

"Father!" sneered Stephen's wife's mother. "A nice father to – "

Michael rose with a gesture that brought silence.

"None of that!" he said. "Who's master here? I am! Say a word against my dead father, any of you, and by God! out you go, neck and crop, man or woman. Now, then, you'll listen to me. I'm bound to say, with every respect for him, that I don't agree with this will of my father's. My wife here'll bear me out when I say that my idea as regards Stephen and myself coming into his property was – share and share alike. It seems father had other notions. However, everything is now mine – I'm master. Now, a man can do what he chooses with his own. So listen, Stephen. Give up that drinking, and gambling, and such-like, and come to work again and be a man, and you shall have one-half of all that there is. But, mind you, I've the whip hand, and you'll have to prove yourself. Prove yourself, and we'll soon set matters straight. I want no more than my half, and now that all's mine – well, law or no law, I'll share with you … but you'll have to show that you can keep my conditions."

Everybody's eyes were fixed on Stephen Weere. He sat for a moment staring at the table – then, with a curse, he flung out of the room. The smell of the old flesh-pots was still in his nostrils; the odour of the wine-pots in his remembrance – a fact which probably sent him to the little room in which the refreshments of a liquid sort had been set out. He helped himself to a stiff glass of brandy and water, and had gulped half of it down when he felt certain fingers lay themselves appealingly on his left elbow. He turned with a curse, to encounter the witch-like countenance and burning eyes of the old housekeeper, Margaret Burton.

"What do you want, you old hag?" he said, with another curse. "Get out!"

But the old woman stood – her bony fingers still on his arm.

"Hester Stivven!" she said. "Mester Stivven! Has he – has he left me owt?"

Stephen burst into a harsh laugh and re-filled his glass.

"Left you owt?" he exclaimed jeeringly. "Left you owt? He's left nobody nowt but Michael – curse him! He's left him – all there is!"

Margaret Burton drew back for a second and stared at him. He drew himself away from her eyes. Suddenly she laid her hand on him again.

"Mester Stivven," she said, coaxingly, "come wi' me – I ha' summat to tell you. Come!"

Ten minutes later Stephen walked into the best parlour, followed by Margaret Burton. Michael was engaged in an earnest conversation with the rest, and especially with Stephen's wife, as to Stephen's future. Stephen lifted a commanding hand.

"Stop that!" he said. "We've had enough of you – we'll see who's master here. My turn," he went on, as Michael would have spoken. "Come forward, Margaret. This woman, Mr. Brooke, has been my father's housekeeper since my mother died, and was servant for years before that – weren't you, Margaret?"

"Twelve years before that, sir."

"Twelve years before that – and in my mother's confidence," Stephen continued.

"Now, then, Margaret, take Mr. Brooke into that corner. Tell him what you've told me about what my mother told you the week she died, and give him those papers she left with you to prove what she said. And then – then we'll see, we'll see!"

The rest of the people watched the whispered colloquy between the solicitor and the old woman with mingled feelings. It was a large, rambling room, with great embrasures to the windows, and nobody could hear a word that was said. But Miriam knew that she was not the only possessor of the secret, and she unconsciously slid her hand into Michael's.

Lawyer Brooke, some folded papers in his hand, came back with knitted brow and troubled eyes. He was going to speak, but Stephen stopped him.

"I'm master here," he said. "Margaret, come this way." He pointed to Michael. "What's that man's real name?" he asked, with an evil sneer. "Is it – well, now, what is it? 'Cause, of course, his isn't what mine is. Mine is my father's – mine's Weere."

"No, sir – it's Oldfield. His mother's name – 'cause, of course, he were born out of wedlock. Your father and mother wedded later on."

In the silence that followed Miriam heard the beating of Michael's heart. He rose slowly, staring about him from one to the other.

"It's not – true?" he said questioningly. "It's – "

Miriam rose at his side and laid both hands on his arm.

"It's true, Michael," she said. "It's true. Your father told me ten minutes before he died."

Michael looked down at her, and suddenly put his arm round her and kissed her.

"Come away, Miriam," he said, as if the others were shadows. "Come away. Let's go home – the child'll be wanting us."

CHAPTER IV

LITTLE MISS PARTRIDGE

Next to the church and the King George – with possibly the exception of the blacksmith's shop, where most of the idlers gathered to gossip of an afternoon, especially in winter – Miss Partridge's general store was the chief institution in Orchardcroft. To begin with, it was the only house of a mercantile character in the place, and it would have fared ill with any one rash enough to have set up an opposition business to it; to end with, its proprietor was so good-natured that she made no objection to the good wives of the village if they lingered over their purchases to chat with each other or with her. Life in Orchardcroft was leisurely, and an hour could easily be spent in fetching a stone of flour or a quarter of a pound of tea from Miss Partridge's emporium. And, as Miss Partridge often remarked, the women were better employed in exchanging views at her counter than the men were in arguing at the tap of the King George.

It was a queer little place, this general store – a compendium of grocery, drapery, confectionery, and half-a-dozen other trades. There were all sorts of things in the window, from rolls of cheap dress goods to home-made toffee; inside the shop itself, which was neither more nor less than the front room of a thatched cottage, there was a display of articles which was somewhat confusing to eyes not accustomed to such sights. It was said of a celebrated London tradesman that he could supply anything from a white elephant to a pin – Miss Partridge could hardly boast so much, but it was certain that she kept everything which the four hundred-odd souls of Orchardcroft required for their bodies – butcher's meat excepted. What was more, she knew where everything was, and could lay her hands on it at a moment's notice; what was still more, she was as polite in selling a little boy a new ready-made suit as in serving a ploughman with his Saturday ounce of shag or nail-rod tobacco. For that reason everybody liked her and brought their joys and sorrows to her.

On a bright spring afternoon, when the blackbirds and thrushes were piping gaily in her holly-hedged garden, Miss Partridge sat behind her counter knitting. She was then a woman of close upon sixty – a rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed woman, small in stature, grey of hair, out of whose face something of a benediction seemed always to shine upon everybody. She wore a plain black dress – nobody in Orchardcroft could remember Miss Partridge in anything but black for more than thirty years – over which was draped a real silk white shawl, fastened at the neck with a massive brooch of Whitby jet, and on her head was a smart cap in which were displayed several varieties of artificial flowers. Shawl and cap denoted that Miss Partridge was dressed for the day; in the morning less showy insignia were displayed.

"We're very quiet this afternoon, Martha Mary," observed Miss Partridge to her general factotum, who, having finished the housework, was now dusting the upper shelves. "There's been nobody in since old Isaac came for his tobacco."

"No, m'm," said Martha Mary, "but there's Jane Pockett coming up the garden just now."

"Then we shall hear something or other," said Miss Partridge, who knew Mrs. Pockett's characteristics; "Jane has always some news."

Mrs. Pockett, a tall, flabby lady, who acted a great part in the village drama of life, seeing that she saw all its new-comers into the world and all its out-goers leave its stage for ever, came heavily into the shop and dropped still more heavily into a chair by the counter. And without ceremony she turned a boiled-gooseberry eye on the little shopkeeper.

"Hev' yer heerd the noos?" she said.

"What news, Jane?" asked Miss Partridge.