Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER XXX COLONEL PRESTON'S WILL

Mrs. Pre­ston was a cold wom­an, and was far from be­ing a de­vot­ed wife. She was too self­ish for that supreme love which some wom­en be­stow up­on their hus­bands. Still, when Colonel Pre­ston's life­less form was brought in­to the house, she did ex­pe­ri­ence a vi­olent shock. To have the com­pan­ion of near­ly twen­ty years so un­ex­pect­ed­ly tak­en away might well touch the most cal­lous, and so, for a few min­utes, Mrs. Pre­ston for­got her­self and thought of her hus­band.

But this was not for long. The thought of her own self­ish in­ter­ests came back, and in the midst of her ap­par­ent grief the ques­tion forced it­self up­on her con­sid­er­ation, “Did my hus­band make a will?”

Of course, she did not give ut­ter­ance to this query. She knew what was ex­pect­ed of her, and she was pru­dent enough to keep up ap­pear­ances be­fore the neigh­bors, who poured in­to the house to of­fer their sym­pa­thy. She re­ceived them with her cam­bric hand­ker­chief pressed to her eyes, from which, by dint of ef­fort, she suc­ceed­ed in squeez­ing a few for­mal tears, and, while her bo­som ap­peared to heave with emo­tion, she was men­tal­ly cal­cu­lat­ing how much Colonel Pre­ston had prob­ably left.

“Shan't I stay with you, my dear Mrs. Pre­ston?” said wor­thy Mrs. Cameron, in a tone full of warm in­ter­est and sym­pa­thy.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, in a low voice; “you are very kind, but I would rather be left alone.”

“But it must be so sad for you to be alone in your sor­row,” said her neigh­bor.

“No. I can bear sor­row bet­ter alone,” said the new­ly made wid­ow. “Per­haps I am pe­cu­liar, but I would pre­fer it.”

“If you re­al­ly wish it,” said the oth­er, re­luc­tant­ly.

“Yes, I wish it. Thank you for your kind of­fer, but I know my own feel­ings, and the pres­ence of oth­ers would on­ly in­crease my pain.”

This was what she said to oth­ers who made the same of­fer. It did not ex­cite great sur­prise, for Mrs. Pre­ston had nev­er leaned up­on any­one for sym­pa­thy, nor was she ready with her sym­pa­thy when oth­ers were in trou­ble. She was self-​poised and self-​con­tained, and, in fact, for this rea­son was not pop­ular with her neigh­bors. Still, in this her dis­tress they were ready to for­get all this and ex­tend the same cor­dial sym­pa­thy which they would have done in oth­er cas­es. There was but one per­son whose com­pa­ny she did crave at this time and this was her son, God­frey. So, when Al­fred Turn­er of­fered to go for him the next morn­ing, she ac­cept­ed his of­fer with thanks.

At last she was left alone. The ser­vant had gone to bed, and there was no one but her­self and her dead hus­band in the low­er part of the house. She no longer sat with her hand­ker­chief pressed be­fore her eyes. Her face wore its usu­al look of calm com­po­sure. She was busi­ly think­ing, not of her hus­band's fate, but of her own fu­ture.

“Did he leave a will? And, if so, how much did he leave me?” she thought.

If there was a will, it was prob­ably in the house, and Mrs. Pre­ston de­ter­mined to find it, if pos­si­ble.

“Of course, all ought to come to me and God­frey,” she so­lil­oquized. “I don't think it is right to leave mon­ey to char­ita­ble in­sti­tu­tions as long as a wife and child are liv­ing. For­tu­nate­ly, my hus­band had no broth­ers or sis­ters, or per­haps he would have di­vid­ed the prop­er­ty. If there is no will, I shall have my thirds, and shall have the con­trol of God­frey's prop­er­ty till he comes of age. I think I will go to Boston to live. My friend, Mrs. Boyn­ton, has a very pleas­ant house on Worces­ter Street. I should like to set­tle down some­where near her. I don't know how much Mr. Pre­ston was worth, but I am sure we shall have enough for that. I al­ways want­ed to live in the city. This vil­lage is in­tol­er­ably stupid, and so are the peo­ple. I shall be glad to get away.”

Could the good wom­en, whose kind hearts had prompt­ed them to prof­fer their sym­pa­thy, have heard these words they would not have been like­ly to ob­trude any more on the hard, cold wom­an who held them in such low es­ti­ma­tion.

Mrs. Pre­ston took the lamp in her hand, and be­gan to ex­plore her hus­band's desk. She had of­ten thought of do­ing so, but, as his death was not sup­posed to be so near, she had not thought that there was any im­me­di­ate cause of do­ing so. Be­sides, it had al­most been her be­lief that he had made no will. Now she be­gan to open draw­ers and un­tie parcels of pa­pers, but it was some time be­fore she came to what she sought. At length, how­ev­er, her dili­gence was re­ward­ed. In the mid­dle of a pile of pa­pers, she found one la­beled on the out­side:

MY WILL.

Her heart beat as she opened it, and, though there was no need, for it was now past ten o'clock, and there was not like­ly to be a caller at that late hour, she looked cau­tious­ly about her, and even peered out of the win­dow in­to the dark­ness, but could find no one whose ob­ser­va­tion she might fear.

I am not about to re­cite at length the items in the will, which cov­ered a page of foolscap. It is enough to quote two items, which Mrs. Pre­ston read with anger and dis­sat­is­fac­tion. They are as fol­lows:

"Item.--To my young friend, Andy Burke, son of the wid­ow Burke, of this vil­lage, in con­sid­er­ation of a valu­able ser­vice ren­dered to me on one oc­ca­sion, and as a mark of my re­gard and in­ter­est, I give and be­queath the sum of five thou­sand dol­lars; and to his moth­er, as a to­ken of grat­itude for her faith­ful nurs­ing when I was dan­ger­ous­ly sick with the small­pox, I give and be­queath, free of all in­cum­brance, the cot­tage in which she at present re­sides.

“Item.--To the town I give five thou­sand dol­lars, the in­ter­est to be an­nu­al­ly ap­pro­pri­at­ed to the pur­chase of books for a pub­lic li­brary, for the ben­efit of all the cit­izens, pro­vid­ed the town will pro­vide some suit­able place in which to keep them.”

All the bal­ance of the prop­er­ty was left to his wife and son, in equal pro­por­tions, his wife to be the guardian of God­frey till he should have at­tained his ma­jor­ity. As Colonel Pre­ston was well known to be rich, this seemed to be an ad­equate pro­vi­sion, but Mrs. Pre­ston did not look up­on it in that light. On the con­trary, she was deeply in­censed at the two lega­cies of which men­tion has been made above.

“Was ev­er any­thing more ab­surd than to waste five thou­sand dol­lars and a house up­on that Irish boy and his moth­er?” she said to her­self. “I don't sup­pose it was so much my hus­band's fault. That art­ful wom­an got around him, and whee­dled him in­to it. I know now why she was so will­ing to come here and take care of him when he was sick. She want­ed to whee­dle him in­to leav­ing mon­ey to her low-​lived boy. She is an art­ful and de­sign­ing hussy, and I should like to tell her so to her face.”

The cold and usu­al­ly im­pas­si­ble wom­an was deeply ex­cit­ed. Her self­ish na­ture made her grudge any of her hus­band's es­tate to oth­ers, ex­cept, in­deed, to God­frey, who was the on­ly per­son she cared for. As she thought over the un­just dis­po­si­tion, as she re­gard­ed it, which her hus­band had made of his prop­er­ty, a red spot glowed in her usu­al­ly pale cheek.

Then it was an­oth­er grievance that mon­ey should have been left to the town.

“What claim had the town on my hus­band,” she thought, “that he should give it five thou­sand dol­lars? In do­ing it, he was rob­bing God­frey and me. It was wrong. He had no right to do it. What do I care for these peo­ple? They are a set of com­mon farm­ers and me­chan­ics, with whom I con­de­scend to as­so­ciate be­cause I have no one else here, ex­cept the min­is­ter's and the doc­tor's fam­ily, to speak to. Soon I shall be in the city, and then I don't care if I nev­er set eyes on any of them again. In Boston I can find suit­able so­ci­ety.”

The more Mrs. Pre­ston thought of it, the more she felt ag­gra­vat­ed by the thought that so large a share of her hus­band's prop­er­ty was to go to oth­ers. She fixed her eyes thought­ful­ly on the doc­ument which she held in her hand, and a strong temp­ta­tion came to her.

“If this should dis­ap­pear,” she said to her­self, “the mon­ey would be all mine and God­frey's, and no one would be the wis­er. That Irish boy and his moth­er would stay where they be­longed, and my God­frey would have his own. Why should I not burn it? It would on­ly be just.”

De­lud­ing her­self by this false view, she per­suad­ed her­self that it was right to sup­press the will. With steady hand she held it to the flame of the lamp, and watched it as it was slow­ly con­sumed. Then, gath­er­ing up the frag­ments, she threw them away.

“It is all ours now,” she whis­pered, tri­umphant­ly, as she pre­pared to go to bed. “It was lucky I found the will.”