Rolf Boldrewood
The Ghost Camp
“The Manager, Mackenzie, and I were riding along rather late one evening, and a good twelve or fifteen miles from home. The weather (of course) was fine, but the hour was late, and the sun, which had been glaring at us all day, only just about to set.
“‘By George! that’s a big mob of horses,’ said Mac., ‘going fast too. Coming from the back of Goornong and heading for Burnt Creek. Six men and a black boy. Depend upon it, there’s something “cronk.” They might see us yet. Yes, they do! They’ve halted. Left two men and the boy with the mob, and the rest, four men, are coming across the plains to us.’
“‘Do you know who they are?’
“‘I can pretty well guess,’ he said. ‘They’re a part of that crowd that we broke up last year, a very dangerous lot! The big man with the beard is Joe Bradfield, the best bushman in all Queensland, and perhaps Australia, to boot. The chap alongside him is “Jerry the Nut.” He’s a double-dyed scoundrel, if you like, twice tried for murder, and ought to have been hanged years ago, if he’d got his rights. Supposed to have shot “Jack the Cook,” who quarrelled with him, and started in for Springsure to give the lot away, but never got there. Found dead in the Oakey Creek with two bullets in him. Jerry was proved to have overtaken him on the road; was the last man seen with him alive. Put on his trial – a strong case against him, but not sufficient evidence. Here they come. We’ve seen them in possession of stolen horses. I expect they’ve duffed them from that Bank station, that was taken over last week. They may think it safer to “rub us out.” They’re villains enough for anything. You’re armed, and my “navy, No. 1” is pretty sure at close quarters. Cut off by – ! we may have to ride for it too – ’ As he spoke, three men emerged from a clump of brigalow at an angle from the line at which the ‘horse thieves’ were riding. They also made towards us, and riding at speed, seemed as if they desired to reach us at about the same time as the others. Such, it appeared, would be the case.
“The four men that had left the mob of horses, rode at the station overseer and me as if they would ride over us. Then pulled up with the stock-horses’ sudden halt, not brought up on their haunches, like those of the gaucho of Chile or the cowboy of the Western States, by the merciless wrenching curb, but with the half pull of the plain snaffle, the only bit the bushman knows, when with loose rein, and lowered head, the Australian camp horse drives his fore-feet into the ground, and stops dead as if nailed to the earth.
“‘What the h – l are you two doing here?’ shouted the tall man, a Hercules in height and breadth of shoulder, yet sitting his horse with the ease and closeness of early boyhood, though his beard and coal-black hair were already streaked with grey. Tracking us down? My God! it’s the worst lay you was ever on. Isn’t a man to ride across a plain in the blasted squatters’ country without he has a pass from a magistrate? That’s what it’s coming to. Well, you’re on the wrong lay this trip. Come along back with us, or we’ll make yer.
“‘And look dashed quick about it, or ye’ll not come back at all. Bring up the darbies, Joe! We’ll see how the bloomin’ swells like ’em.’
“As the last speaker uttered this threat, he and the other men raised their revolvers.
“‘I’ll see you d – d first,’ I replied (excuse bad language). ‘We’re from Trelawney this morning, and on our lawful business.’ Here I drew my revolver.
“The encounter looked doubtful, when the three new arrivals rode up, and, like the other bushmen, stopped dead, with their horses side by side.
“‘No, yer don’t!’ said one of the new arrivals, a man as tall and massive as the first ‘robber’ (for such he seemed). ‘I’m not goen’ to stand by and see Mr. Bruce, of Marondah, double-banked by you Queensland duffers while I’m round. There’s been trouble between him and our crowd; but he’s a man and a gentleman, and I’m here to stand by him to the bitter end. It’s five go four now, so fire away, and be d – d to you!’
“‘Who the devil are you?’
“‘I’m Phelim O’Hara, and this is Little-River-Jack, and my brother Pat. We’ve come up, like the Proosians at Waterloo, rather late in the day; but “better late than never.” You’re Joe Bradfield, that we’ve heard of, and Jerry the Nut that murdered his mate, I suppose. So you’d better go back to the French, and let the allies go their own way. No one’s goen’ to give you away, if your own foolishness doesn’t. We’re on our own ground, so hear reason and clear out. I heard a big lot of police, and Superintendent Gray, of Albany, was on yer track.’
“‘When did you hear that?’
“‘No later than yesterday. And you’re ridin’ straight into their bloomin’ arms, if yer don’t get back the way yer kem’ in. Take a fool’s advice, and get into the ranges again. This country’s too open for your crowd, and you’ll have to do the gully-raker’s racket for a month or two, till the “derry’s” toned down a bit.’
“This apparently reasonable advice seemed to have weight with the troop of highly irregular horse, as, after a short colloquy, they rode back to their companions in charge of the horses, and heading them towards the distant ranges, disappeared shortly from sight.
“‘O’Hara!’ said I, ‘whatever you and your mates may have done in the past – at any rate, as far as I am concerned – is now past and gone. I freely forgive anything that there may have been to forgive, in consequence of your manly conduct to-day. If you will come back with me to the head station, I dare say Mr. Mackenzie can find you something to do in this bad season. Unfortunately, we have only too many vacancies for bushmen like yourselves and Jack Carter.’
“‘We’ll take your word for it, Mr. Bruce,’ said Little-River-Jack; ‘and, if we come to terms, there’ll be no station on the Upper Sturt that’ll lose fewer stock – barrin’ from the season – while we’re to the fore.’
“‘All right,’ said Mackenzie, ‘you’re just the chaps we want this awful season; and, now you’re going straight, each of you will be worth half a dozen ordinary men.’”
The day was still warm, not much change from the 110° in the shade which the sunset-hour had registered, but a gradual coolness commenced to o’erspread the heated landscape. “The stars rush out, at one strike comes the dark,” making an appearance of coolness, to which the abnormal dryness of the air in mid-Australia lends a perceptible relief. Confident of a welcome, and the hospitable reception of a head-station – always superior in comfort to the more casual arrangements of the out-stations – the five horsemen rode steadily forward in peace and amity; Mr. Mackenzie, as knowing every foot of the run, taking the lead with the two O’Haras, while Mr. Bruce and Little-River-Jack followed quietly in the rear.
CHAPTER IX
“‘I’d like to tell you, sir,’ said Carter, ‘how we first got acquainted, me and Mr. Blount, to put him right with you, because I heard a whisper that you thought he must be in with us, in the “cross” butchering line.’
“‘I don’t deny,’ I answered, ‘that I thought it very suspicious that a man like him should be living with you fellows, and yet have no idea that dishonest work was going on?’
“‘All right, Mr. Bruce, don’t spare us. It was dishonest, there’s no two ways about it, and we chaps ought to be ashamed of ourselves, as are well able to get a living straight and square, and under fear of no man. Now we’ve had a fright and been let off you’ll never hear another word against us. But I wanted to have a word about Mr. Blount. If he had been copped along with us, it would have been a cruel shame, a regular murder, and him as innocent as the child unborn. His horse was knocked up, or next door to it, when I came across him a few miles from the “Lady Julia”; I’d a few cattle with me, and asked him to help me drive them. He stayed at our place that night. The man I was selling them to sent for them before daylight, and all he could hear was them being let out of the yard.’
“‘He was a dividing mate after that, though?’ said I, knowing that such mining agreements comprehend all knowledge in heaven and earth, and under the sea.
“Carter answered my unspoken thought when he said, ‘He bought Tumberumba Dick’s share, him as went to Coolgardie, and if he knew mullock from wash dirt, then, it’s as much as he did. As for cattle, he hardly knew a cow from a steer. Then he lost his moke and went down the river to get word of him.’
“‘Yes!’ I said. ‘I met him then; he came on me just as I was shooting a small mob of wild horses. I had been watching for them for months. They seldom came so far in; but I dropped the stallion first shot, a noted grey, said to be thoroughbred; the mares and foals wouldn’t leave him, so I got them all, one by one.’
“‘Mr. Blount was astonished, I suppose? Seems a pity, too, they were a well-bred lot. I’ve had many a gallop after the same lot, thinkin’ to yard ’em, but they always got away. Anyhow, they’re no blessed good, if you do yard ’em; mostly sulk and always clear the first chance. His cob, it seems, joined your horses, and was run in to the paddock. So you put him up for the night and sent him home on his own horse. Came part of the way with him, you and the ladies, and Black Paddy. Nigh hand to the “Lady Julia” you spotted your “E. H. B.” bullock with a fresh brand on. And he never said nothen’. Next day Black Paddy ran our tracks to the claim and the stockyard, found where the last bullocks had been driven to the Back Creek slaughter yards. That was as plain as A B C, and we had to clear. Phelim waited on to get his horse back that he’d lent him, and start after Pat and Lanky, who were well on their way to Omeo.’
“‘All quite correct,’ I said; ‘but why didn’t he act straightforwardly and tell me like a man that he had been working in your claim?’
“‘Because he didn’t want to give us away, and if he said what he knew, but didn’t understand, the police would have been up next day and collared the lot of us before we had a chance to cut it.’
“‘But why was he so tender about your party?’ I said. ‘You had deceived him, and he might naturally have felt angry at being let in for aiding and abetting cattle stealers, and all the more anxious to see you punished.’
“‘That’s all right, Mr. Bruce; but you see there was another reason why he stood by us, though he didn’t wait an hour after he knew we were on the cross; wouldn’t take his share of the gold neither, which he’d worked as hard for as any of us.’
“‘What was the other reason?’
“‘Well, sir,’ rather shamefacedly, ‘he thought I’d saved his life, as it were.’
“‘Saved his life? How could that be?’
“‘It was this way, sir.’ As he spoke, he looked quite sad and confused. ‘You know that Razor Back ridge on the short track to Bunjil?’
“‘Yes! I was over it once, and a brute of a track it was. That was where Paddy Farrell was killed.’
“‘The same; well, when we was coming along it from Bunjil to the claim, that cob of his – a flat-country horse – got frightened, and had half a mind to back over the edge. I was thinkin’ of somethin’ else; when I looked back I saw Mr. Blount was confused-like, he didn’t know how to stop him. I slipped off, and held the cob, while he did the same, and started old Keewah along the track, with the reins tied to the stirrup-iron. My old moke trotted on, and the cob after him, till they came to the trap-yard, where we found them when we came up, half an hour after. There wasn’t much in it. Any man who’d lived in rangey country couldn’t have helped doin’ it; but he chose to believe I’d saved his life. So it was chiefly that that made him not let on to you about where he’d lived. Nothing might have come of it; but it was a close shave, and no mistake.’
“‘I’m very glad to hear the explanation, Carter. I don’t see how he could have acted differently, as a man or gentleman. I shall write and tell him so. And now, a word with you; which you can pass on to your mates. Make no mistake, you’ve got a fresh start in life! You three fellows are young. Anything there is against you, as far as I know, is over and done with. These warrants are just waste paper. But be careful for the future. If you stick to the Nundooroo station till the drought’s over, you’re made men. I’ll let the Inspector-General of Police know how you behaved.’
“‘All right, sir; we’re on. We won’t go back on you,’ was his reply.
“‘You may expect to see me at Marondah, within the month, though travelling through a desert, as this country is virtually now, is very slow and unsatisfactory. I must pick up a riding camel, a “heirie,” such as I’ve seen in the East, warranted to keep going for twenty-four hours on end, without water or food. However, I suppose rain will come some time or other.’”
Thus fully exonerated, it may be believed that Blount made the best use of his time at Marondah, where he had the field all to himself with the advantage of the most considerate of chaperons, in the person of Mrs. Bruce, who had always been, as she told him, his staunch supporter, even in the dark days, when her husband forbade his name to be mentioned, and when from adverse circumstances no letters had arrived to clear his character.
“I never doubted you for a moment,” murmured Imogen, “but it must be confessed, it was hard work holding to my trust in you, when so many rumours were flying through the country. I never could make out why you joined such people at all, or what you were to gain by it. If you wished to know what a miner’s life was like, there are plenty of gentlemen glad enough to go into any venture of the sort, with the aid of a little capital – men such as you have described at the ‘Comstock’ or at Zeehan.”
“But how was I to find them?”
“Just the same way in which you would have done in England, through introductions to men of mark out here. They would have advised you for your good. And there would have been no risk of your being compromised by any action of theirs.”
“No doubt it was indiscreet of me, but I wanted to see for myself, and form my own opinion by personal experience of a society so different from any I had known before.”
“That is where you conceited Englishmen” – here she held up a warning finger – “make a mistake, indeed tons of mistakes. In vain we tell you that there is no special difference here between the classes of society, or the laws which rule them, and those of your own beloved country, which we are proud to resemble.”
“But are they not different?”
“Not radically, by any means. Any departure from English manners and customs is chiefly superficial. Your squire, or lord of the manor, says ‘Mornin’, Jones! crops doin’ so-so, too dry for the roots,’ and so on. ‘Nice four year old of yours. Looks as if he’d grow into a hunter.’ But there’s no real equality, nor can there be. Jones doesn’t expect it.”
“Mr. Bruce, I suppose, has much the same feeling for the farmers here, and they meet on much the same terms. Except when the suspicion of ‘duffing’ comes in, eh? then – then – relations are strained, indeed, as between the same classes, if poaching was discovered, and brought home to the guilty ones.”
They had these, with many other, talks and disquisitions, such as are interesting to lovers, and lovers only, in the long delicious evenings and unquestioned idlesse which are the prerogatives of the halcyon days which follow a declared engagement, and before the completed drama of marriage.
The soft, mild months of the southern spring were now heralding the less romantic season of the Australian summer. The sun god was daily strengthening his power, without as yet the fierce noonday glare or burning heat. Chiefly precious to them were the moonlight walks by the river side when the shadows of the great willows which fringed the river bank fell over the hurrying tide, when star sheen or moonrays glinted through the close foliage or sparkled diamond bright on the rippling bars. There was a winding path a few feet from the bank, accurately marked by the cattle and horses, which roved unchecked through the great meadows.
Here the lovers were at liberty to indulge in fullest confidences. He told her that he had loved her from the very first moment that his eyes fell upon her, when, not knowing that any other than Mrs. Bruce was in the house he had been almost unconventional in the surprise of the meeting and his instant admiration. “That moment sealed our destiny,” he said, “or rather, would have left me a lifelong regret had I never set eyes on you again. And what was your feeling, Imogen?” looking suddenly into her eyes, which, lit up by a fairy moonray, seemed to his eager gaze to glow with unearthly radiance. So, in old days did the fabled Oread enthrall the heart of the doomed shepherd or woodsman, luring him to follow into her enchanted bower, which he was fated never again to discover, wasting life wandering through the forest aisles, wearing out health, youth and passion, in the ever-fleeting, illusory pursuit.
“I think,” she answered softly, as her eyes fell before his ardent gaze, “that I must have been similarly affected, why, I cannot tell, but the fact remains that if you had never returned – and we had not much time for love-making, had we, between that day and your return to the ‘Lady Julia’ claim, and the fascinating society of Mr. Little-River-Jack? – I should have ‘fallen into a sadness, then into a fast, thence into a weakness,’ and so on. As it was, I was very melancholy and low for a while, and between that and influenza, very nearly ‘went out,’ as my maid, Josephine Macintyre, phrased it. Then, when I was coming round, and reaching the stage of ‘the common air, the sea, the skies, to “her” are opening Paradise,’ and would have written to you, we heard that you had become a millionaire or a ‘silver king’ in Tasmania. It was foolish, I know, but I thought it might look as if I wanted to recall you because of your wealth – a vulgar idea, but still one that works for good or evil in this silly life of ours. But now, all will be forgiven, ‘if this should meet the eye,’ &c., as the advertisements say. You will forgive me, and I will forgive you, and there will never be any more doubts or despair, will there?”
That Mr. Blount made a short but impressive reply to this query may be taken for granted. The river marge, the sighing, trailing willows, the rippling murmuring stream, the friendly moon, all these were conditions eminently favourable to “love’s young dream.” Nor did they fail in this instance to ratify the solemn, irrevocable vow, often lightly, rashly, falsely sworn, but in this instance repeated with all the passion of ardent manhood, responded to with the heart’s best and truest affection, the sacred, intensely glowing flame of the maiden’s love, imperishable, immortal.
“You told me, the last time we met,” she whispered, “that some day I should know why you came here to lead an aimless, wandering life. I always thought there was some mystery about it. Will you tell me now? It is lovely and mild, there could not be a better time. How clearly you can hear the ripple in the shallows. Was there a woman in it?”
“Of course there was, but mind, it all happened seven years ago. So if what I say may be used against me on my trial, I shall be dumb.”
“I’ve copied out depositions now and then, for Edward,” replied the girl, archly. “Having heard the evidence, do you wish to say anything? comes next. So I’ll promise not to take advantage of your voluntary confession, if you make a clean breast of it, once for all. I have no fear of the dear, dead women, whoever they were.”
“You need not,” said Blount, as he drew her more closely to him, “not if Helen of Troy were of the company.”
On their return to the verandah, where they found Mrs. Bruce still occupied with the needlework, which took up (so she said), fortunately, so much of her time, Imogen pleaded fatigue and retired, leaving the field free to her sister and the guest, who thereupon commenced a long, and apparently serious conversation.
Mr. Blount spoke more unreservedly of his private affairs than he had hitherto thought it expedient to do. Independently of his share in the Great Comstock Company, for which he had already been offered a hundred thousand pounds – he had a handsome allowance from his father – as also, thinking it might be needed, a letter of credit upon the Imperial Bank for five thousand pounds.
“It will always be a puzzle to me and Imogen,” said Mrs. Bruce, “how, with all that money at your disposal, you should ever have run the risks you did in this gipsy business, with the people we found you with, or would have done, if you had remained a few days longer with them. You didn’t want to learn their language, like Borrow – what other reason could there be?”
“My dear Mrs. Bruce,” he replied, “you have been so good, considerate, and friendly to me, that I must make a clean breast of it. I have already told Imogen all there is to tell of a by no means uncommon event in a man’s life, when one of your adorable, yet fatal sex is mixed up with it.”
“I see, I understand, the ‘eternal feminine’; we have not many romances of the kind in these quiet hills, but of course they are not wholly unknown, even in our sequestered lives. You are going to tell me of your tragedy.”
“It was not far removed from the ordinary run of such adventures, though there might easily have been a catastrophe. I was young, I said it was seven years ago, since which I have industriously wasted life’s best gifts, in trying to forget her. Beautiful, yes, as a dream maiden! a recognised queen of society, flattered, worshipped, wherever her fairy footsteps trod; but vain, ambitious and false as the Lorelei, or the mermaiden, that lures the fated victim. More than one man had thrown life, character, or fortune at her feet, unavailingly. I had heard this, but with the reckless confidence of youth, I heeded not. I met her at the quiet country house of a relative; men being scarce, she condescended to play for so poor a stake as the heart of a younger son, an undistinguished lover’s existence, and she won!
“How could it be otherwise? She turned the full battery of her charms upon the undefended fort. We rode together, we fished the trout stream, more dangerous still. We read in the old library, morning after morning, and here my not unmarked university career served me well, as I thought. I had been reading aloud from a novel of the hour, when, looking up suddenly I saw a light in her eyes, which gave me hope, more than hope. I took her hand, I poured out protestations, entreaties, vows of eternal love; whatever man has distilled from the inward fires of soul and sense, under the alembic of love at white heat, I found words for and poured into her not unwilling ear.
“She was visibly agitated. Her cold nature, serenely lovely as she always was, seemed to kindle into flame under the fire of my impetuous avowal. I gained her other hand, I threw myself on my knees before her, and drew her down to the level of my face. I clasped her yielding form, and kissed her lips with soul-consuming ardour. To my surprise, she made no resistance, her colour came and went, she might have been the veriest country milkmaid, surprised into consent by her rustic lover’s eagerness. ‘You are mine, say you are mine for ever!’ I whispered into her shell-like ear as her loosened hair fell over her cheek.
“‘Yours,’ she said in a low intense murmur, ‘now and for ever.’ Then gently, disengaging herself from my arms, ‘This is a foolish business. I confess to being rather unprepared, but I suppose we must consider it binding?’
“‘Binding,’ said I, shocked at the alteration of her tone and manner. ‘To the end of the world, and afterwards, in life, in death, my heart is yours unalterably – to wear in true love’s circlet or to break and cast beneath your feet.’
“‘Poor Val!’ said she, smoothing my hair with her dainty jewelled fingers, ‘yet women have played false before now to their promises, as fondly made, and men’s hearts have not been broken. They have lived to smile, to wed, to enjoy life much as usual – or old tales are untrue.’
“‘Do not jest,’ said I, ‘a man’s life – a woman’s heart, are treasures too precious to win – too perilous to lose; say you are not in earnest?’
“‘Perhaps not,’ she said, lightly. ‘Yes! you may have your good-night kiss,’ and we parted. You would not think it was for ever.
“The house-party was not large at Kingswood, but it was as much disturbed and excited when our engagement was given out, as if it had been a much more exalted gathering.
“My devotion had not been unmarked, but the betting had been against me. I was too young, too undistinguished – what had I done? not even in the army – in literature, beyond a few tentative minor successes, I was unknown. How had I presumed to propose to – indeed to win this belle of the last two seasons – the admitted star of the most aristocratic, exclusive, socially distinguished set? I was fairly good-looking – so much was admitted – my family was unimpeachable, old and honoured, but where is the money to come from to uphold the dignity and pay the bills of a queen of beauty and fashion such as Adeline Montresor?
“She had not come down from her room next morning when we men adjourned to the grounds for a smoke, and the usual after breakfast stroll.
“I was in the stable examining a strain which had lamed my hunter a few days since, and which had accounted for my presence in the library on the eventful afternoon, when my attention was attracted by an observation made by one man to another who held out a morning paper for his friend to see.
“‘I thought there was something “by ordinar,” as our Scotch gardener says.
“‘Death of Sir Reginald Lutterworth, all his money and the lovely place left to his nephew, Valentine Blount, the younger son of Lord Fontenaye.’
“‘By Jove!’ said his friend. ‘What a throw in! This accounts for the unaccountable, to put it mildly. The fair Adeline sees something beyond the personal merits of our enthusiastic young friend.
“‘A house in town – a place in the country, etc., presented at Court, Marlborough House in the future – what girl of the period could say no to such a present – with a still more gorgeous perspective?’
“‘Certainly not Miss Montresor, nor any of her set. But what about Colonel Delamere?’
“‘He’ll receive a neat, carefully worded note, which being interpreted, needs only one word of translation, “farewell.”
“‘Perhaps to soften the blow, as the phrase runs, something like “my people so badly off, pressure brought to bear – feelings unchanged – bow to Fate, etc.”’
“‘Wonder if she saw it?’
“‘My man says it’s in all the evening papers, but we were so hard at work at bridge, that no one thought of looking at them. She couldn’t have seen it, unless the maid took it up to her room when she went to dress for dinner. Ha! didn’t think of that.’
“On inquiry, I found that my enslaver and her maid had left for London by the early train. A note had been left for me, containing only a few words. ‘Dearest, I feel I must go home. See you at Oldacres. Au revoir.’
“I felt disappointed. Still I had no rational ground for distrust. It was most natural that a girl under such circumstances should wish to go home to her mother, and relieve her heart, when such an important step had been decided upon. I sent a telegram in answer, and arranged to leave for London, having to make certain arrangements in accordance with what would doubtless be my altered position.
“We wrote to one another daily. The letters, though not particularly ardent on her side, were affectionate and apparently sincere. A few days passed in making necessary financial arrangements, in receiving congratulations, freely tendered by friends and acquaintances.
“By my own family, I was regarded as a Spanish galleon, laden with treasure, which had come to redeem the faded glories of the estate, and to aid the wearer of a title, unsupported by an adequate income. Life was roseate, radiant with dazzling splendour.
“What cared I for the wealth? Was I not the proud possessor of the heart of the loveliest girl in England? I was invited to her father’s place in the Midlands, for the forthcoming hunting season.
“The kindest, semi-maternal letter informed me that ‘darling Adeline’ had overtaxed her nervous system, and not been quite herself for the last few days. I could understand why. However, she was looking her best once more, and all impatience to greet me at Oldacres, next week, when some of their more intimate neighbours would be able to pay their respects. I made rather a wry face at the extra week’s delay, thus imposed upon me, but suppressed any impatience as much as was possible, while thinking of the rapturous delight awaiting me, at the end of the probation. On the morning of the day on which I was to leave London, I received another of the extra-legal, important-looking documents, with which I had been so familiar lately. I was on the point of throwing it into the drawer of my writing table to await my return when I should be able to settle all formal matters in one morning’s work. Something, however, urged me to open the bothering thing, and have done with it, so as not to have it hanging over me when I was impatient of business of any sort or kind.
“I read over the first page twice before I fully grasped its purport.
“‘My Dear Sir, – We regret deeply the unpleasant nature of the communication which we are reluctantly compelled to make. We cannot sufficiently express our surprise at the apparent carelessness of Messrs. Steadman and Delve, who have been your uncle’s trusted lawyers and agents for fifty years, and in point of fact acted in that capacity for your grandfather, the late Lord Fontenaye, and we apologise, with sincere regrets, for not having verified with greater care the precise nature of Sir Reginald’s last will and testament.
“‘It now appears that the testator made another will a year after the one by which you were to benefit so largely. That other will has been found in a secret drawer, and is now in the possession of Messrs. Steadman and Delve. By it all former wills are revoked, and there is a total omission of your name as a beneficiary. With the exception of comparatively trifling annuities and legacies, the whole of the testator’s very large estates, together with the sum of £300,000 invested in the three per cents, is willed to your elder brother, the present Lord Fontenaye.’
