Mrs. M'Cosh remained extremely sceptical about the reality of the fortune until the lawyer came from London, "yin's errand to see Miss Jean," as she explained importantly to Miss Bathgate, and he was such an solid, safe-looking man that her doubts vanished.
"I wud say he wis an elder in the kirk, if they've onything as respectable as an elder in England," was her summing up of the lawyer.
Mr. Dickson (of Dickson, Staines, & Dickson), though a lawyer, was a human being, and was able to meet Jean with sympathy and understanding when she tried to explain to him her wishes.
First of all, she was very anxious to know if Mr. Dickson thought it quite fair that she should have the money. Was he quite sure that there were no relations, no one who had a real claim?
Mr. Dickson explained to her what a singularly lonely, self-sufficing man Peter Reid had been, a man without friends, almost without interests—except the piling up of money.
"I don't say he was unhappy; I believe he was very content, absolutely absorbed in his game of money-making. But when he couldn't ignore any longer the fact that there was something wrong with his health, and went to the specialist and was told to give up work at once, he was completely bowled over. Life held nothing more for him. I was very sorry for the poor man … he had only one thought—to go back to Priorsford, his boyhood's home."
"And I didn't know," said Jean, "or we would all have turned out there and then and sat on our boxes in the middle of the road, or roosted in the trees like crows, rather than keep him for an hour out of his own house. He came and asked to see The Rigs and I was afraid he meant to buy it: it was always our nightmare that the landlord in London would turn us out…. He looked and shabby, and I jumped to the conclusion that he was poor. Oh, I do wish I had known…."
"He told me," Mr. Dickson went on, "when he came to see me on his return, that he had come with the intention of asking the to leave The Rigs, but that he hadn't the heart to do it when he saw how attached you were to the place. He added that you had been kind to him. He was rather gruff and ashamed about his weakness, but I could see that he had been touched to receive kindness from utter strangers. He was amused in a way that you had thought him a poor man and had yet been kind to him; he had an unhappy notion that in this world kindness is always bought…. He had no heir, and I think I explained to you in my letter that he had made up his mind to leave his whole fortune to the first person who did anything for him without expecting payment. You turned out to be that person, and I congratulate you, Miss Jardine, most . I would like to tell you that Mr. Reid planned everything so that it would be as easy as possible for you, and asked me to come and see you and explain in person. He seemed very satisfied when all was in order. I saw him a few days before he died and I thought he looked better, and told him so. But he only said, 'It's a great load off my mind to get everything settled, and it's a not to have an heir to step into my shoes, and me a few years longer on the earth.' Two days later he passed away in his sleep. He was a curious, hard man, whom few cared about, but at the end there was something simple and rather pathetic about him. I think he died content."
"Thank you for telling me about him," Jean said, and there was silence for a minute.
"And now may I hear your wishes?" said Mr. Dickson.
"Can I do just as I like with the money? Well, will you please divide it into four parts? That will be a quarter for each of us—David, Jock, Mhor, me."
Jean as if the fortune was a lump of and Mr. Dickson the , but the lawyer did not smile.
"I understood you had only two brothers?"
"Yes, David and Jock, but Mhor is an adopted brother. His name's Gervase
Taunton."
"But—has he any claim on you?"
Jean's face got pink. "I should think he has. He's exactly like our own brother."
"Then you want him to have a full share?"
"Of course. It's odd how people will assume one is a cad! When Mhor's mother died (his father had died before) he came to us—his mother trusted him to us—and people kept saying, 'Why should you take him? He has no claim on you.' As if Mhor wasn't the best gift we ever got…. And when you have divided it, I wonder if you would take a tenth off each share? We were brought up to give a tenth of any money we had to God. I'm almost sure the boys would give it themselves. I think they would, but perhaps it would be safer to take it off first and put it aside."
Jean looked very straight at the lawyer. "I wouldn't like any of us to be unjust stewards," she said.
"No," said the lawyer—"no."
"And perhaps," Jean went on, "the boys had better not get their shares until they are twenty-five David could have it now, so far as sense goes, but it's the responsibility I'm thinking about."
"I would certainly let them wait until they are twenty-five. Their shares will accumulate, of course, and be very much larger when they get them."
"But I don't want that," said Jean. "I want the interest on the money to be added to the tenths that are laid away. It's better to give more than the strict tenth. It's so to be shabby about giving."
"And what are the 'tenths,' to be used for?"
"I'll tell you about that later, if I may. I'm not quite sure myself. I shall have to ask Mr. Macdonald, our minister. He'll know. I'm never quite certain whether the Bible means the tenth to be given in charity, or kept for churches and missions…. And I want to buy some , if you will tell me how to do it. Mrs. M'Cosh, our servant—perhaps you noticed her when you came in? I want to make her absolutely secure and comfortable in her old age. I hope she will stay with us for a long time yet, but it will be nice for her to feel that she can have a home of her own whenever she likes. And there are others … but I won't worry you with them just now. It was most kind of you to come all the way from London to explain things to me, when you must be very busy."
"Coming to see you is part of my business," Mr. Dickson explained, "but it has been a great pleasure too…. By the way, will you use the house in Prince's Gate or shall we let it?"
"Oh, do anything you like with it. I shouldn't think we would ever want to live in London, it's such a noisy, overcrowded place, and there are always hotels…. I'm quite content with The Rigs. It's such a comfort to feel that it is our own."
"It's a charming cottage," Mr. Dickson said, "but won't you want something roomier? Something more for an heiress?"
"I hate imposing things," Jean said, very earnestly "I want to go on just as we were doing, only with no scrimping, and more treats for the boys. We've only got £350 a year now, and the thought of all this money dazes me. It doesn't really mean anything to me yet."
"It will soon. I hope your fortune is going to bring you much happiness, though I doubt if you will keep much of it to yourself."
"Oh yes," Jean assured him. "I'm going to buy myself a musquash coat with a collar. I've always wanted one frightfully. You'll stay and have with us, won't you?"
Mr. Dickson stayed to luncheon, and was treated with great respect by Jock and Mhor. The latter had a notion that somewhere the lawyer had a cave in which he kept Jean's fortune, great casks of gold pieces and trunks of precious stones, and that any lack of manners on his part might lose Jean her inheritance. He was disappointed to find him dressed like any ordinary man. He had had a dim hope that he would look like Ali Baba and wear a turban.
After Mr. Dickson had finished saying all he had come to say, and had gone to catch his train, Jean started out to call on her minister. Pamela met her at the gate.
"Well, Jean, and whither away? You look very grave. Are you going to tell the King the sky's falling?"
"Something of that kind. I'm going to see Mr. Macdonald. I've got something I want to ask him."
"I suppose you don't want me to go with you? I love an excuse to go and see the Macdonalds. Oh, but I have one. Just wait a moment, Jean, while I run back and fetch something."
She joined Jean after a short delay, and they walked on together. Jean explained that she was going to ask Mr. Macdonald's advice how best to use her money.
"Has the lawyer been?" Pamela asked, "Do you understand about things?"
Jean told of Mr. Dickson's visit.
"It's a fearful lot of money, Pamela. But when it's divided into four, that's four people to share the responsibility."
"And what are you going to do with your share?"
"I'll tell you what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to take a house and fill it with guests who will be consistently unpleasant, as the Benefactress did. And I'm not going to build a sort of fairy palace and commit suicide from the roof like the millionaire in that book Midas something or other. And I hope I'm not going to lose my imagination and forget what it feels like to be poor, and send a girl with a small dress allowance half a dozen muslin handkerchiefs at Christmas."
"I suppose you know, Jean—I don't want to be discouraging—that you will get very little , that the people you try to help will smarm to your face and blackguard you behind your back? You will be hurt and disappointed times without number…. You see, my dear, I've had money for quite a lot of years, and I know."
Jean nodded.
They were crossing the wide bridge over Tweed and she stopped and, leaning her arms on the parapet, gazed up at Peel Tower.
"Let's look at Peel for a little," she said. "It's been there such a long time and must have seen so many people trying to do their best and only succeeding in making . It seems to say, 'Nothing really matters: you'll all be in the tod's hole in less than a hundred years. I remain, and the river and the hills.'"
"Yes," said Pamela, "they are a great comfort, the unchanging things—these round-backed hills, and the river and the grey town—to us restless mortals…. Look, Jean, I want you to tell me if you think this miniature is at all like Duncan Macdonald. You remember I asked you to let me have that snapshot of him that you said was so characteristic and I sent it to London to a woman I know who does miniatures well. I thought his mother would like to have it. But you must tell me if you think it good enough."
Jean took the miniature and looked at the pictured face, a laughing boy's face, fresh-coloured, frank, with flaxen hair falling over a broad brow.
When, after a minute, she handed it back she assured Pamela that the was wonderful.
"She has caught it exactly, that look in his eyes as if he were telling you it was 'fair time of day' with him. Oh, dear Duncan! It's fair time of day with him now, I am sure, wherever he is…. He was twenty-two when he fell three years ago…. You've often heard Mrs. Macdonald speak of her sons. Duncan was the youngest by a lot of years—the baby. The others are frighteningly clever, but Duncan was a lamb. They all adored him, but he wasn't spoiled…. Life was such a joke to Duncan. I can't even now think of him as dead. He was so full of life one can't imagine him lying still—quenched. You know that odd little poem:
"'And Mary's the one that never liked angel stories,
And Mary's the one that's dead….'
Death and Duncan seem such a long way apart. Many people are so dull and that they never seem more than half alive, so they don't leave much of a gap when they go. But Duncan—The Macdonalds are brave, but I think living to them is just a matter of getting through now. The end of the day will mean Duncan. I am glad you thought about getting the miniature done. You do have such nice thoughts, Pamela."
The Macdonalds' manse stood on the banks of Tweed, a hundred yards or so below Peel Tower, a square house of grey stone in a charming garden.
Mr. Macdonald loved his garden and worked in it . It was his doctor, he said. When his mind got stale and sermon-writing difficult, when his head ached and people became a burden, he put on an old coat and went out to dig, or plant or the grass. He grew wonderful flowers, and in July, when his lupins were at their best, he took a particular pleasure in people out to see the effect of their royal blue against the silver of Tweed.
He had been a minister in Priorsford for close on forty years and had never had more than £250 of a salary, and on this he and his wife had brought up four sons who looked, as an old woman in the church said, "as if they'd aye got their meat." There had always been a spare place at every meal for any casual guest, and a spare bedroom looking over Tweed that was seldom empty. And there had been no lowering of the dignity of a manse. A fresh, wise-like, woman opened the door to visitors, and if you had asked her she would have told you she had been in service with the Macdonalds since she was fifteen, and Mrs. Macdonald would have added that she never could have managed without Agnes.
The sons had worked their way with bursaries and scholarships through school and college, and now three of them were in positions of trust in the government of their country. One was in London, two in India—and Duncan lay in France, that Holy Land of our people.
It was a nice question his wife used to say before the War (when hearts were and laughter easier) whether Mr. Macdonald was prouder of his sons or his flowers, and when, as sometimes happened he had them all with him in the garden, his cup of content had been full.
And now it seemed to him that when he was in the garden Duncan was nearer him. He could see the little figure in a blue marching along the paths with a wheelbarrow, very important because he was his father. He had called the big of azaleas "the burning bush." … He had always been a funny little chap.
And it was in the garden that he had said good-bye to him that last time. He had been twice wounded, and it was hard to go back again. There was no novelty about it now, no eagerness or burning , nothing but a dogged determination to see the thing through. They had stood together looking over Tweed to the blue
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