Mary Erskine

CHAPTER V.

CON­SUL­TA­TIONS.

Mrs. Bell went home on the evening of the fu­ner­al, very much ex­haust­ed and fa­tigued un­der the com­bined ef­fects of watch­ing, anx­iety, and ex­er­tion. She went to bed, and slept very sound­ly un­til near­ly mid­night. The thun­der awaked her.

She felt soli­tary and afraid. Mary Bell, who was then about nine years old, was asleep in a crib, in a cor­ner of the room. There was a lit­tle night lamp, burn­ing dim­ly on the ta­ble, and it shed a faint and dis­mal gleam up­on the ob­jects around it. Ev­ery few min­utes, how­ev­er, the light­ning would flash in­to the win­dows and glare a mo­ment up­on the walls, and then leave the room in deep­er dark­ness than ev­er. The lit­tle night lamp, whose fee­ble beam had been for the mo­ment en­tire­ly over­pow­ered, would then grad­ual­ly come out to view again, to dif­fuse once more its faint il­lu­mi­na­tion, un­til an­oth­er flash of light­ning came to ex­tin­guish it as be­fore.

Mrs. Bell rose from her bed, and went to the crib to see if Mary Bell was safe. She found her sleep­ing qui­et­ly. Mrs. Bell drew the crib out a lit­tle way from the wall, sup­pos­ing that she should thus put it in­to a some­what safer po­si­tion. Then she light­ed a large lamp. Then she closed all the shut­ters of the room, in or­der to shut out the light­ning. Then she went to bed again, and tried to go to sleep. But she could not. She was think­ing of Mary Er­sk­ine, and en­deav­or­ing to form some plan for her fu­ture life. She could not, how­ev­er, de­ter­mine what it was best for her to do.

In the morn­ing, af­ter break­fast, she sat down at the win­dow, with her knit­ting work in her hand, look­ing very thought­ful and sad. Present­ly she laid her work down in her lap, and seemed lost in some melan­choly rever­ie.

Mary Bell, who had been play­ing about the floor for some time, came up to her moth­er, and see­ing her look so thought­ful and sor­row­ful, she said,

“Moth­er, what is the mat­ter with you?”

“Why, Mary,” said Mrs. Bell, in a melan­choly tone, “I was think­ing of poor Mary Er­sk­ine.”

“Well, moth­er,” said Mary Bell, “could not you give her a lit­tle mon­ey, if she is poor? I will give her my ten cents.”

[Il­lus­tra­tion: MRS. BELL.]

Mary Bell had a sil­ver piece of ten cents, which she kept in a lit­tle box, in her moth­er's room up stairs.

“Oh, she is not poor for want of mon­ey,” said Mrs. Bell. “Her hus­band made his will, be­fore he died, and left her all his prop­er­ty.”

“Though I told Mr. Keep about it last night,” con­tin­ued Mrs. Bell, talk­ing half to her­self and half to Mary, “and he said the will was not good.”

“Not good,” said Mary. “I think it is a very good will in­deed. I am sure Mary Er­sk­ine ought to have it all. Who should have it, if not she?”

“The chil­dren, I sup­pose,” said her moth­er.

“The chil­dren!” ex­claimed Mary Bell. “Hoh! They are not half big enough. They are on­ly two ba­bies; a great ba­by and a lit­tle one.”

Mrs. Bell did not an­swer this, nor did she seem to take much no­tice of it, but took up her knit­ting again, and went on mus­ing as be­fore. Mary Bell did not un­der­stand very well about the will. The case was this:

The law, in the state where Mary Er­sk­ine lived, pro­vid­ed that when a man died, as Al­bert had done, leav­ing a wife and chil­dren, and a farm, and al­so stock, and fur­ni­ture, and oth­er such mov­able prop­er­ty, if he made no will, the wife was to have a part of the prop­er­ty, and the rest must be saved for the chil­dren, in or­der to be de­liv­ered to them, when they should grow up, and be ready to re­ceive it and use it. The farm, when there was a farm, was to be kept un­til the chil­dren should grow up, on­ly their moth­er was to have one third of the ben­efit of it,--that is, one third of the rent of it, if they could let it--un­til the chil­dren be­came of age. The amount of the oth­er two thirds was to be kept for them. In re­spect to all mov­able prop­er­ty, such as stock and tools, and fur­ni­ture, and oth­er things of that kind, since they could not very con­ve­nient­ly be kept till the chil­dren were old enough to use them, they were to be sold, and the wife was to have half the val­ue, and the chil­dren the oth­er half.

In re­spect to the chil­dren's part of all the prop­er­ty, they were not, them­selves, to have the care of it, but some per­son was to be ap­point­ed to be their guardian. This guardian was to have the care of all their share of the prop­er­ty, un­til they were of age, when it was to be paid over in­to their hands.

If, how­ev­er, the hus­band, be­fore his death, was dis­posed to do so, he might make a will, and give all the prop­er­ty to whom­so­ev­er he pleased. If he de­cid­ed, as Al­bert had done, to give it all to his wife, then it would come whol­ly un­der her con­trol, at once. She would be un­der no obli­ga­tion to keep any sep­arate ac­count of the chil­dren's share, but might ex­pend it all her­self, or if she were so in­clined, she might keep it safe­ly, and per­haps add to it by the pro­ceeds of her own in­dus­try, and then, when the chil­dren should grow up, she might give them as much as her ma­ter­nal af­fec­tion should dic­tate.

In or­der that the prop­er­ty of men who die, should be dis­posed of prop­er­ly, ac­cord­ing to law, or ac­cord­ing to the will, if any will be made, it is re­quired that soon af­ter the death of any per­son takes place, the state of the case should be re­port­ed at a cer­tain pub­lic of­fice, in­sti­tut­ed to at­tend to this busi­ness. There is such an of­fice in ev­ery coun­ty in the New Eng­land states. It is called the Pro­bate of­fice. The of­fi­cer, who has this busi­ness in charge, is called the Judge of Pro­bate. There is a sim­ilar sys­tem in force, in all the oth­er states of the Union, though the of­fi­cers are some­times called by dif­fer­ent names from those which they re­ceive in New Eng­land.

Now, while Al­bert was ly­ing sick up­on his bed, he was oc­cu­pied a great deal of the time, while they thought that he was asleep, in think­ing what was to be­come of his wife and chil­dren in case he should die. He knew very well that in case he died with­out mak­ing any will, his prop­er­ty must be di­vid­ed, un­der the di­rec­tion of the Judge of Pro­bate, and one part of it be kept for the chil­dren, while Mary Er­sk­ine would have the con­trol on­ly of the oth­er part. This is a very ex­cel­lent ar­range­ment in all or­di­nary cas­es, so that the law, in it­self, is a very good law. There are, how­ev­er, some cas­es, which are ex­cep­tions, and Al­bert thought that Mary Er­sk­ine's case was one. It was ow­ing, in a great mea­sure, to her pru­dence and econ­omy, to her ef­fi­cient in­dus­try, and to her con­tent­ed and hap­py dis­po­si­tion, that he had been able to ac­quire any prop­er­ty, in­stead of spend­ing all that he earned, like Mr. Gor­don, as fast as he earned it. Then, be­sides, he knew that Mary Er­sk­ine would act as con­sci­en­tious­ly and faith­ful­ly for the ben­efit of the chil­dren, if the prop­er­ty was all her own, as she would if a part of it was theirs, and on­ly held by her­self, for safe keep­ing, as their guardian. Where­as, if this last ar­range­ment went in­to ef­fect, he feared that it would make her great trou­ble to keep the ac­counts, as she could not write, not even to sign her name. He de­ter­mined, there­fore, to make a will, and give all his prop­er­ty, of ev­ery kind, ab­so­lute­ly to her. This he did, in the man­ner de­scribed in the last chap­ter.

The law in­vests ev­ery man with a very ab­so­lute pow­er in re­spect to his prop­er­ty, au­tho­riz­ing him to make any dis­po­si­tion of it what­ev­er, and car­ry­ing faith­ful­ly in­to ef­fect, af­ter his death, any wish that he may have ex­pressed in re­gard to it, as his de­lib­er­ate and fi­nal in­ten­tion. It in­sists, how­ev­er, that there should be ev­idence that the wish, so ex­pressed, is re­al­ly a de­lib­er­ate and fi­nal act. It is not enough that the man should say in words what his wish­es are. The will must be in writ­ing, and it must be signed; or if the sick man can not write, he must make some mark with the pen, at the bot­tom of the pa­per, to stand in­stead of a sig­na­ture, and to show that he con­sid­ers the act, which he is per­form­ing, as a solemn and bind­ing trans­ac­tion. Nor will it do to have the will ex­ecut­ed in the pres­ence of on­ly one wit­ness; for if that were al­lowed, de­sign­ing per­sons would some­times per­suade a sick man, who was rich, to sign a will which they them­selves had writ­ten, telling him, per­haps, that it was on­ly a re­ceipt, or some oth­er unim­por­tant pa­per, and thus in­duc­ing him to con­vey his prop­er­ty in a way that he did not in­tend. The truth is, that there is ne­ces­si­ty for a much greater de­gree of pre­cau­tion­ary form, in the ex­ecu­tion of a will, than in al­most any oth­er trans­ac­tion; for as the man him­self will be dead and gone when the time comes for car­ry­ing the will in­to ef­fect,--and so can not give any ex­pla­na­tion of his de­signs, it is nec­es­sary to make them ab­so­lute­ly clear and cer­tain, in­de­pen­dent­ly of him. It was, ac­cord­ing­ly, the law, in the state where Mary Er­sk­ine lived, that there should be three wit­ness­es present, when any per­son signed a will; and al­so that when sign­ing the pa­per, the man should say that he knew that it was his will. If three cred­ible per­sons thus at­test­ed the re­al­ity and hon­esty of the trans­ac­tion, it was thought suf­fi­cient, in all or­di­nary cas­es, to make it sure.

Al­bert, it seems, was not aware how many wit­ness­es were re­quired. When he re­quest­ed Mrs. Bell to sign his will, as wit­ness, he thought that he was do­ing all that was nec­es­sary to make it valid. When, how­ev­er, Mrs. Bell, af­ter­wards, in go­ing home, met Mr. Keep and re­lat­ed to him the trans­ac­tion, he said that he was afraid that the will was not good, mean­ing that it would not stand in law.

The thought that the will was prob­ably not valid, caused Mrs. Bell a con­sid­er­able de­gree of anx­iety and con­cern, as she imag­ined that its fail­ure would prob­ably cause Mary Er­sk­ine a con­sid­er­able de­gree of trou­ble and em­bar­rass­ment, though she did not know pre­cise­ly how. She sup­posed that the chil­dren's share of the prop­er­ty must nec­es­sar­ily be kept sep­arate and un­touched un­til they grew up, and that in the mean time their moth­er would have to work very hard in or­der to main­tain her­self and them too. But this is not the law. The guardian of chil­dren, in such cas­es, is au­tho­rized to ex­pend, from the chil­dren's share of prop­er­ty, as much as is nec­es­sary for their main­te­nance while they are chil­dren; and it is on­ly the sur­plus, if there is any, which it is re­quired of her to pay over to them, when they come of age. It would be ob­vi­ous­ly un­just, in cas­es where chil­dren them­selves have prop­er­ty left them by lega­cy, or falling to them by in­her­itance, to com­pel their fa­ther or moth­er to toil ten or twen­ty years to feed and clothe them, in or­der that they might have their prop­er­ty, whole and un­touched, when they come of age. All that the law re­quires is that the prop­er­ty be­queathed to chil­dren, or falling to them by in­her­itance, shall al­ways be ex­act­ly as­cer­tained, and an ac­count of it put up­on record in the Pro­bate of­fice: and then, that a guardian shall be ap­point­ed, who shall ex­pend on­ly so much of it, while the chil­dren are young, as is nec­es­sary for their com­fort­able sup­port and prop­er ed­uca­tion; and then, when they come of age, if there is any sur­plus left, that it shall be paid over to them. In Mary Er­sk­ine's case, these ac­counts would, of course, cause her some trou­ble, but it would make but lit­tle dif­fer­ence in the end.

Mrs. Bell spent a great deal of time, dur­ing the day, in try­ing to think what it would be best for Mary Er­sk­ine to do, and al­so in try­ing to think what she could her­self do for her. She, how­ev­er, made very lit­tle progress in re­spect to ei­ther of those points. It seemed to her that Mary Er­sk­ine could not move in­to the new house, and at­tempt to car­ry on the farm, and, on the oth­er hand, it ap­peared equal­ly out of the ques­tion for her to re­main where she was, in her lone­some log cab­in. She might move in­to the vil­lage, or to some house near­er the vil­lage, but what should she do in that case for a liveli­hood. In a word, the more that Mrs. Bell re­flect­ed up­on the sub­ject, the more at a loss she was.

She de­ter­mined to go and see Mary Er­sk­ine af­ter din­ner, again, as the vis­it would at least be a to­ken of kind­ness and sym­pa­thy, even if it should do no oth­er good. She ar­rived at the house about the mid­dle of the af­ter­noon. She found Mary Er­sk­ine busi­ly at work, putting the house in or­der, and rec­ti­fy­ing the many de­range­ments which sick­ness and death al­ways oc­ca­sion. Mary Er­sk­ine re­ceived Mrs. Bell at first with a cheer­ful smile, and seemed, to all ap­pear­ance, as con­tent­ed and hap­py as usu­al. The sight of Mrs. Bell, how­ev­er, re­called forcibly to her mind her ir­re­me­di­able loss, and over­whelmed her heart, again, with bit­ter grief. She went to the win­dow, where her lit­tle work-​ta­ble had been placed, and throw­ing her­self down in a chair be­fore it, she crossed her arms up­on the ta­ble, laid her fore­head down up­on them in an at­ti­tude of de­spair, and burst in­to tears.

Mrs. Bell drew up to­ward her and stood by her side in si­lence. She pitied her with all her heart, but she did not know what to say to com­fort her.

Just then lit­tle Bel­la came climb­ing up the steps, from the stoop, with some flow­ers in her hand, which she had gath­ered in the yard. As soon as she had got up in­to the room she stood up­on her feet and went danc­ing along to­ward the ba­by, who was play­ing up­on the floor, singing as she danced. She gave the ba­by the flow­ers, and then, see­ing that her moth­er was in trou­ble, she came up to­ward the place and stood still a mo­ment, with a coun­te­nance ex­pres­sive of great con­cern. She put her arm around her moth­er's neck, say­ing in a very gen­tle and sooth­ing tone,

“Moth­er! what is the mat­ter, moth­er?”

Mary Er­sk­ine lib­er­at­ed one of her arms, and clasped Bel­la with it fond­ly, but did not raise her head, or an­swer.

“Go and get some flow­ers for your moth­er,” said Mrs. Bell, “like those which you got for the ba­by.”

“Well,” said Bel­la, “I will.” So she turned away, and went singing and danc­ing out of the room.

“Mary,” said Mrs. Bell. “I wish that you would shut up this house and take the chil­dren and come to my house, at least for a while, un­til you can de­ter­mine what to do.”

Mary Er­sk­ine shook her head, but did not re­ply. She seemed, how­ev­er, to be re­gain­ing her com­po­sure. Present­ly she raised her head, smoothed down her hair, which was very soft and beau­ti­ful, read­just­ed her dress, and sat up, look­ing out at the win­dow.

“If you stay here,” con­tin­ued Mrs. Bell, “you will on­ly spend your time in use­less and hope­less grief.”

“No,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “I am not go­ing to do any such a thing.”

“Have you be­gun to think at all what you shall do?” asked Mrs. Bell.

“No,” said Mary Er­sk­ine. “When any great thing hap­pens, I al­ways have to wait a lit­tle while till I get ac­cus­tomed to know­ing that it has hap­pened, be­fore I can de­ter­mine what to do about it. It seems as if I did not more than half know yet, that Al­bert is dead. Ev­ery time the door opens I al­most ex­pect to see him come in.”

“Do you think that you shall move to the new house?” asked Mrs. Bell.

“No,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “I see that I can't do that. I don't wish to move there, ei­ther, now.”

“There's one thing,” con­tin­ued Mrs. Bell af­ter a mo­ment's pause, “that per­haps I ought to tell you, though it is rather bad news for you. Mr. Keep says that he is afraid that the will, which Al­bert made, is not good in law.”

“Not good! Why not?” asked Mary Er­sk­ine.

“Why be­cause there is on­ly one wit­ness The law re­quires that there should be three wit­ness­es, so as to be sure that Al­bert re­al­ly signed the will.”

“Oh no,” said Mary Er­sk­ine. “One wit­ness is enough, I am sure. The Judge of Pro­bate knows you, and he will be­lieve you as cer­tain­ly as he would a dozen wit­ness­es.”

“But I sup­pose,” said Mrs. Bell, “that it does not de­pend up­on the Judge of Pro­bate. It de­pends up­on the law.”

Mary Er­sk­ine was silent. Present­ly she opened her draw­er and took out the will and looked at it mys­te­ri­ous­ly. She could not read a word of it.

“Read it to me, Mrs. Bell,” said she, hand­ing the pa­per to Mrs. Bell.

Mrs. Bell read as fol­lows:

“I be­queath all my prop­er­ty to my wife, Mary Er­sk­ine. Al­bert Forester. Wit­ness, Mary Bell.”

“I am sure that is all right,” said Mary Er­sk­ine. “It is very plain, and one wit­ness is enough. Be­sides, Al­bert would know how it ought to be done.”

“But then,” she con­tin­ued af­ter a mo­ment's pause, “he was very sick and fee­ble. Per­haps he did not think. I am sure I shall be very sor­ry if it is not a good will, for if I do not have the farm and the stock, I don't know what I shall do with my poor chil­dren.”

Mary Er­sk­ine had a vague idea that if the will should prove in­valid, she and her chil­dren would lose the prop­er­ty, in some way or oth­er, en­tire­ly,--though she did not know pre­cise­ly how. Af­ter mus­ing up­on this melan­choly prospect a mo­ment she asked,

“Should not I have _any_ of the prop­er­ty, if the will proves not to be good?”

“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Bell, “you will have a con­sid­er­able part of it, at any rate.”

“How much?” asked Mary Er­sk­ine.

“Why about half, I be­lieve,” replied Mrs. Bell.

“Oh,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, ap­par­ent­ly very much re­lieved. “That will do very well. Half will be enough. There is a great deal of prop­er­ty. Al­bert told me that the farm and the new house are worth five hun­dred dol­lars, and the stock is worth full three hun­dred more. And Al­bert does not owe any thing at all.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Bell. “You will have half. Ei­ther half or a third, I for­get ex­act­ly which.”

“And what be­comes of the rest?” asked Mary Er­sk­ine.

“Why the rest goes to the chil­dren,” said Mrs. Bell.

“To the chil­dren!” re­peat­ed Mary Er­sk­ine.

“Yes,” said she, “you will have to be ap­point­ed guardian, and take care of it for them, and car­ry in your ac­count, now and then, to the Judge of Pro­bate.”

“Oh,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, her coun­te­nance bright­en­ing up with an ex­pres­sion of great re­lief and sat­is­fac­tion. “That is just the same thing. If it is to go to the chil­dren, and I am to take care of it for them, it is just the same thing. I don't care any thing about the will at all.”

So say­ing, she threw the pa­per down up­on the ta­ble, as if it was of no val­ue what­ev­er.

“But there's one thing,” she said again, af­ter paus­ing a few min­utes. “I can't keep any ac­counts. I can not even write my name.”

“That is no mat­ter,” said Mrs. Bell. “There will be but lit­tle to do about the ac­counts, and it is easy to get some­body to do that for you.”

“I wish I had learned to write,” said Mary Er­sk­ine.

Mrs. Bell said noth­ing, but in her heart she wished so too.

“Do you think that I could pos­si­bly learn now?” asked Mary Er­sk­ine.

“Why,--I don't know,--per­haps, if you had any one to teach you.”

“Thomas might teach me, per­haps,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, doubt­ful­ly. Then, in a mo­ment she added again, in a de­spond­ing tone,--“but I don't know how long he will stay here.”

“Then you don't know at all yet,” said Mrs. Bell, af­ter a short pause, “what you shall con­clude to do.”

“No,” replied Mary Er­sk­ine, “not at all. I am go­ing on, just as I am now, for some days, with­out per­plex­ing my­self at all about it. And I am not go­ing to mourn and make my­self mis­er­able. I am go­ing to make my­self as con­tent­ed and hap­py as I can, with my work and my chil­dren.”

Here Mary Er­sk­ine sud­den­ly laid her head down up­on her arms again, on the lit­tle work-​ta­ble be­fore her, and burst in­to tears. Af­ter sob­bing con­vul­sive­ly a few min­utes she rose, hasti­ly brushed the tears away with her hand­ker­chief, and went to­ward the door. She then took the wa­ter pail, which stood up­on a bench near the door, and said that she was go­ing to get some wa­ter, at the spring, for tea, and that she would be back in a mo­ment. She re­turned very soon, with a coun­te­nance en­tire­ly serene.

“I have been try­ing all day,” said Mrs. Bell, “to think of some­thing that I could do for you, to help you or to re­lieve you in some way or oth­er; but I can not think of any thing at all that I can do.”

“Yes,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “there is one thing that you could do for me, that would be a very great kind­ness, a very great kind­ness in­deed.”

“What is it?” asked Mrs. Bell.

“I am afraid that you will think it is too much for me to ask.”

“No,” said Mrs. Bell, “what is it?”

Mary Er­sk­ine hes­itat­ed a mo­ment, and then said,

“To let Mary Bell come and stay here with me, a few days.”

“Do you mean all night, too?” asked Mrs. Bell.

“Yes,” said Mary Er­sk­ine, “all the time.”

“Why, you have got two chil­dren to take care of now,” replied Mrs. Bell, “and no­body to help you. I should have thought that you would have soon­er asked me to take Bel­la home with me.”

“No,” said Mary Er­sk­ine. “I should like to have Mary Bell here, very much, for a few days.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Bell, “she shall cer­tain­ly come. I will send her, to-​mor­row morn­ing.”