Читать книгу The Finger of Fate - Майн Рид - Страница 21

Mr Woolet sat in his office, which was separated from that of his solitary clerk by a thick wall and a narrow doorway between. But there was another wall of slighter dimensions, alongside Mr Woolet’s room, partitioning off a kind of cupboard enclosure, into which, when Mr Woolet required it, the said clerk could introduce himself, and there, standing cat-like and silent, hear what passed between his employer and any client whose conversation it was deemed necessary to make note of.

After this it is scarce necessary to add that Mr Woolet was an attorney; and though the scene of his practice was a quiet country town, in the shire of Bucks, this practice was carried on with as much sharpness and trickery, as if it lay among the low courts surrounding Newgate, or the slums of Clerkenwell.

The great city does not monopolise the plant called pettifogging. It thrives equally as strong in the county town. Even the village knows it to its cost; and the poor cottager, in his leaky shed at three shillings a week, is too often encompassed by its toils.

Of such small fry Mr Woolet had hooked his hundreds, and had prospered by their capture to the keeping of a carriage and pair; but, as yet, none of the big fish had entered his net—the largest being the widow Mainwaring, who had been caught while taking from him a lease of her cottage. The carriage had, therefore, been kept to no purpose, or less than none: since not being in accord with his position it only brought him ridicule. This, however, could not last for ever. The gentry could not always hold out against such a glittering attraction. Some swell must in time stand in need of Mr Woolet’s peculiar services, and enable him to achieve the much wished-for position. And so it seemed to turn out, as one day a carriage much grander than Mr Woolet’s own, with a coachman nearly a quarter of a ton in weight, and a powdered footman beside him, drove through the street of the little town in which Mr Woolet lived, and pulled up opposite his office.

Perhaps the lawyer was never more delighted in his life, than when his clerk protruded his phiz inside the office-door, and announced sotto voce the arrival of General Harding. In a moment after the same individual ushered the General into his presence. A masonic sign communicated to the clerk caused his disappearance; and the instant after that pale-faced familiar was skulking like a ghost within the cupboard enclosure.

“General Harding, I believe?” said the obsequious attorney, bowing to the lowest button of his visitor’s surtout.

“Yes,” bluffly responded the old soldier. “That is my name. Yours is—”

“Woolet, General; E. Woolet, at your service.”

“Well, I want some service from you—if you’re not otherwise engaged.”

“Any engagement, General, must stand aside for you. What can I do to oblige you?”

“To oblige me, nothing. I want your services as an attorney. You are one, I believe?”

“My name is in the Law List, General. You can see it here.”

Mr Woolet took up a small volume, and was handing it to the General.

“Never mind about the Law List,” bluntly interrupted the soldier, “I see it on your sign; that’s enough for me. What I’m in search of is an attorney who can make a will. I suppose you can do that?”

“Well, General, although I cannot boast of my professional abilities, I think I can manage the making of a will.”

“Enough said; sit down and set about it.”

Considering that he kept a carriage himself, Mr Woolet might have felt a little offended by this brusque behaviour on the part of his new client. It was the first time he had ever been so treated in his own office; but then it was the first time he had ever had a client of such a class, and he knew better than to show feeling under the infliction.

Without saying another word, he sat down before his table, the General taking a seat on the opposite side, and waited for the latter to proceed.

“Write now as I dictate,” said the General, without even prefixing the word “please.”

The lawyer, still obsequious, signified assent, at the same time seizing a pen, and placing a sheet of blue foolscap before him.

“I hereby will and bequeath to my eldest son, Nigel Harding, all my real and personal estate, comprising my houses and lands, as also my stock in personal securities, excepting one thousand pounds, to be sold out of the last, and paid over to my other and youngest son, Henry Harding, as his sole legacy left from my estate.”

To this extent the lawyer finished the writing, and waited for his client to proceed.

“You have done, have you?” asked the General.

“So far as you dictated, General, I have.”

“Have you written down the date?”

“Not yet, General.”

“Then put it in.”

Woolet took up his pen, and complied.

“Have you a witness at hand? If not, I can bring in my footman.”

“You need not do that, General. My clerk will do for one witness.”

“Oh! it wants two, does it?”

“That is the law, General; but I myself can be the second.”

“All right, then; let me sign.”

And the General rose from his seat, and leaned towards the table.

“But, General,” interposed the lawyer, thinking the will a somewhat short one, “is this all? You have two sons?”

“Of course I have. Haven’t I said so in my will?”

“But, surely—”

“Surely what?”

“You are not going to—”

“I am going to sign my will, if you will allow me; if not, I must get it made elsewhere.”

Mr Woolet was too much a man of business to offer any further opposition. It was no affair of his beyond giving satisfaction to his new client; and to accomplish this he at once pushed the paper before the General, at the same time presenting him with the pen.

The General signed; the lawyer and his clerk—summoned from the cupboard—attested; and the will was complete.

“Now make me a copy of it,” demanded the General. “The original you may keep till called for.”

The copy was made; the General buttoned it up in the breast of his surtout; and then, without even cautioning the lawyer to secrecy, stepped back into his carriage, and was soon rolling along the four miles of road lying between the village and his own residence.

“There’s something queer about all this,” soliloquised the pettifogger, when left alone in his office. “Queer he should come to me, instead of going to his own solicitor; and queerer still he should disinherit the younger son—or next thing to it. His property cannot be worth less than a cool hundred thousand pounds, and all to go to that half-negro, while the other, as most people thought, would have a half share of it. After all, it’s not so strange. He’s angry with the younger son; and in making this will he comes to me instead of going to Lawson, who he knows might say something to dissuade him from his purpose. I have no doubt he will stick to it, unless the young scamp leaves off his idle ways. General Harding is not a man to be trifled with, even by his own son. But whether this will is to remain good or not, it’s my duty to make it known to a third party, who for certain reasons will be deeply interested in its contents; and who, whether she may ever be able to thank me for communicating them, will, at all events, keep the secret of my doing so. She shall hear of it within the hour.”

“Mr Robson!”

The pale face of the unarticled clerk appeared within the doorway—prompt as a stage spirit summoned through a trap.

“Tell the coachman to clap the horses into my carriage—quick as tinder.”

The spirit disappeared without making any reply, and just as his invoker had finished the folding of the lately attested will, and made a minute of what had transpired between him and the testator, carriage wheels were heard outside the door of the office.

In six seconds after Mr Woolet was in his “trap”—as he used condescendingly to call it—and rattling along a country road, the same taken ten minutes before by the more ostentatious equipage of the retired Indian officer.

Although driving the same way, the destination of the two vehicles was different. The chariot was bound for Beechwood Park, the “trap” for a less pretentious residence outside its enclosure—the villa-cottage occupied by the widow Mainwaring.