Tales of the Five Towns - Arnold Bennett (the mitten read aloud .TXT) 📗

by the coat-sleeve and silently directed him into the gloomy little parlour crowded with mahogany and horsehair furniture, white antimacassars, wax flowers under glass, and ponderous gilt-clasped Bibles.

'It's a cruel shame!' she whispered, as though afraid of being overheard by the dying man upstairs.

'Do you think I ought to have given way?' he questioned, reddening.

'You mistake me,' she said quickly; and with a sudden movement she went up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. The caress, so innocent, unpremeditated, and instinctive, ran through him like a voltaic shock. These two were almost strangers; they had scarcely met till within the past week, Mark being seldom in Bursley. 'You mistake me--it is a shame of _him_! I'm fearfully angry.'

'Angry?' he repeated, astonished.

'Yes, angry.' She walked to the window, and, twitching at the blind-cord, gazed into the dim street. It was beginning to grow dark. 'Shall you fetch the lawyer? I shouldn't if I were you. I won't.'

'I must fetch him,' Mark said.

She turned round and admired him. 'What _will_ he do with his precious money?' she murmured.

'Leave it to you, probably.'

'Not he. I wouldn't touch it--not now; it's yours by rights. Perhaps you don't know that when I came here it was distinctly understood I wasn't to expect anything under his will. Besides, I have my own money ... Oh dear! If he wasn't in such pain, wouldn't I talk to him--for the first and last time in my life!'

'You must please not say a word to him. I don't really want the money.'

'But you ought to have it. If he takes it away from you he's _unjust_.'

'What did the doctor say this afternoon?' asked Mark, wishing to change the subject.

'He said the crisis would come on Monday, and when it did Edward would be dead all in a minute. He said it would be just like taking prussic acid.'

'Not earlier than Monday?'

'He said he thought Monday.'

'Of course I shall take no notice of what Edward said to me--I shall call to-morrow morning--and stay. Perhaps he won't mind seeing me. And then you can tell me what happens to-night.'

'I'm sure I shall send that lawyer man about his business,' she threatened.

'Look here,' said Mark timorously as he was leaving the house, 'I've told you I don't want the money--I would give it away to some charity; but do you think I ought to pretend to yield, just to humour him, and let him die quiet and peaceful? I shouldn't like him to die hating----'

'Never--never!' she exclaimed.

* * * * *


'What have you and Mark been talking about?' asked Edward Beechinor apprehensively as Mary re-entered the bedroom.

'Nothing,' she replied with a grave and soothing kindliness of tone.

'Because, miss, if you think----'

'You must have your medicine now, Edward.'

But before giving the patient his medicine she peeped through the curtain and watched Mark's figure till it disappeared up the hill towards Bleakridge. He, on his part, walked with her image always in front of him. He thought hers was the strongest, most righteous soul he had ever encountered; it seemed as if she had a perfect passion for truth and justice. And a week ago he had deemed her a capable girl, certainly--but lackadaisical!

* * * * *


The clock had struck ten before Mr. Baines, the solicitor, knocked at the door. Mary hesitated, and then took him upstairs in silence while he suavely explained to her why he had been unable to come earlier. This lawyer was a young Scotsman who had descended upon the town from nowhere, bought a small decayed practice, and within two years had transformed it into a large and flourishing business by one of those feats of energy, audacity, and tact, combined, of which some Scotsmen seem to possess the secret.

'Here is Mr. Baines, Edward,' Mary said quietly; and then, having rearranged the sick man's pillow, she vanished out of the room and went into the kitchen.

The gas-jet there showed only a point of blue, but she did not turn it up. Dragging an old oak rush-seated rocking-chair near to the range, where a scrap of fire still glowed, she rocked herself gently in the darkness.

After about half an hour Mr. Baines's voice sounded at the head of the stairs:

'Miss Beechinor, will ye kindly step up? We shall want some asseestance.'

She obeyed, but not instantly.

In the bedroom Mr. Baines, a fountain-pen between his fine white teeth, was putting some coal on the fire. He stood up as she entered.

'Mr. Beechinor is about to make a new will,' he said, without removing the pen from his mouth, 'and ye will kindly witness it.'

The small room appeared to be full of Baines--he was so large and fleshy and assertive. The furniture, even the chest of drawers, was dwarfed into toy-furniture, and Beechinor, slight and shrunken-up, seemed like a cadaverous manikin in the bed.

'Now, Mr. Beechinor.' Dusting his hands, the lawyer took a newly-written document from the dressing-table, and, spreading it on the lid of a cardboard box, held it before the dying man. 'Here's the pen. There! I'll help ye to hold it.'

Beechinor clutched the pen. His wrinkled and yellow face, flushed in irregular patches as though the cheeks had been badly rouged, was covered with perspiration, and each difficult movement, even to the slightest lifting of the head, showed extreme exhaustion. He cast at Mary a long sinister glance of mistrust and apprehension.

'What is there in this will?'

Mr. Baines looked sharply up at the girl, who now stood at the side of the bed opposite him. Mechanically she smoothed the tumbled bed-clothes.

'That's nowt to do wi' thee, lass,' said Beechinor resentfully.

'It isn't necessary that a witness to a will should be aware of its contents,' said Baines. 'In fact, it's quite unusual.'

'I sign nothing in the dark,' she said, smiling. Through their half-closed lids her eyes glimmered at Baines.

'Ha! Legal caution acquired from your cousin, I presume.' Baines smiled at her. 'But let me assure ye, Miss Beechinor, this is a mere matter of form. A will must be signed in the presence of two witnesses, both present at the same time; and there's only yeself and me for it.'

Mary looked at the dying man, whose features were writhed in pain, and shook her head.

'Tell her,' he murmured with bitter despair, and sank down into the pillows, dropping the fountain-pen, which had left a stain of ink on the sheet before Baines could pick it up.

'Well, then, Miss Beechinor, if ye must know,' Baines began with sarcasm, 'the will is as follows: The testator--that's Mr. Beechinor--leaves twenty guineas to his brother Mark to show that he bears him no ill-will and forgives him. The rest of his estate is to be realized, and the proceeds given to the North Staffordshire Infirmary, to found a bed, which is to be called the Beechinor bed. If there is any surplus, it is to go to the Law Clerks' Provident Society. That is all.'

'I shall have nothing to do with it,' Mary said coldly.

'Young lady, we don't want ye to have anything to do with it. We only desire ye to witness the signature.'

'I won't witness the signature, and I won't see it signed.'

'Damn thee, Mary! thou'rt a wicked wench,' Beechinor whispered in hoarse, feeble tones. He saw himself robbed of the legitimate fruit of all those interminable years of toilsome thrift. This girl by a trick would prevent him from disposing of his own. He, Edward Beechinor, shrewd and wealthy, was being treated like a child. He was too weak to rave, but from his aggrieved and furious heart he piled silent curses on her. 'Go, fetch another witness,' he added to the lawyer.

'Wait a moment,' said Baines. 'Miss Beechinor, do ye mean to say that ye will cross the solemn wish of a dying man?'

'I mean to say I won't help a dying man to commit a crime.'

'A crime?'

'Yes,' she answered, 'a crime. Seven years ago Mr. Beechinor willed everything to his brother Mark, and Mark ought to have everything. Mark is his only brother--his only relation except me. And Edward knows it isn't me wants any of his money. North Staffordshire Infirmary indeed! It's a crime!... What business have _you_,' she went on to Edward Beechinor, 'to punish Mark just because his politics aren't----'

'That's beside the point,' the lawyer interrupted. 'A testator has a perfect right to leave his property as he chooses, without giving reasons. Now, Miss Beechinor, I must ask ye to be judeecious.'

Mary shut her lips.

'Her'll never do it. I tell thee, fetch another witness.'

The old man sprang up in a sort of frenzy as he uttered the words, and then fell back in a brief swoon.

Mary wiped his brow, and pushed away the wet and matted hair. Presently he opened his eyes, moaning. Mr. Baines folded up the will, put it in his pocket, and left the room with quick steps. Mary heard him open the front-door and then return to the foot of the stairs.

'Miss Beechinor,' he called, 'I'll speak with ye a moment.'

She went down.

'Do you mind coming into the kitchen?' she said, preceding him and turning up the gas; 'there's no light in the front-room.'

He leaned up against the high mantelpiece; his frock-coat hung to the level of the oven-knob. She had one hand on the white deal table. Between them a tortoiseshell cat purred on the red-tiled floor.

'Ye're doing a verra serious thing, Miss Beechinor. As Mr. Beechinor's solicitor, I should just like to be acquaint with the real reasons for this conduct.'

'I've told you.' She had a slightly quizzical look.

'Now, as to Mark,' the lawyer continued blandly, 'Mr. Beechinor explained the whole circumstances to me. Mark as good as defied his brother.'

'That's nothing to do with it.'

'By the way, it appears that Mark is practically engaged to be married. May I ask if the lady is yeself?'

She hesitated.

'If so,' he proceeded, 'I may tell ye informally that I admire the pluck of ye. But, nevertheless, that will has got to be executed.'

'The young lady is a Miss Mellor of Hanbridge.'

'I'm going to fetch my clerk,' he said shortly. 'I can see ye're an obstinate and unfathomable woman. I'll be back in half an hour.'

When he had departed she bolted the front-door top and bottom, and went upstairs to the dying man.

Nearly an hour elapsed before she heard a knock. Mr. Baines had had to arouse his clerk from sleep. Instead of going down to the front-door, Mary threw up the bedroom window and looked out. It was a mild but starless night. Trafalgar Road was silent save for the steam-car, which, with its load of revellers returning from Hanbridge--that centre of gaiety--slipped rumbling down the hill towards Bursley.

'What do you want--disturbing a respectable house