THREE days afterwards a hansom cab drove to the offices of the very respectable firm of solicitors who managed the affairs of the Norland family. They had one or two other families as well, and in spite of agricultural depression, they made a very good thing indeed out of a very comfortable business. The cab contained a lady in deep widow’s weeds.
Lady Harry Norland expected to be received with coldness and suspicion. Her husband, she knew, had not led the life expected in these days of a younger son. Nor had his record been such as to endear him to his elder brother. Then, as may be imagined, there were other tremors, caused by a guilty knowledge of certain facts which might by some accident “come out.” Everybody has tremors for whom something may come out. Also, Iris had had no experience of solicitors, and was afraid of them.
Instead of being received, however, by a gentleman as solemn as the Court of Chancery and as terrible as the Court of Assize, she found an elderly gentleman, of quiet, paternal manners, who held both her hands, and looked as if he was weeping over her bereavement. By long practice this worthy person could always, at a moment’s notice, assume the appearance of one who was weeping with his client.
“My dear lady!” he murmured. “My dear lady! This is a terrible time for you.”
She started. She feared that something had come out.
“In the moment of bereavement, too, to think of business.”
“I have brought you,” she replied curtly, “my husband’s — my late husband’s — will.”
“Thank you. With your permission — though it may detain your ladyship — I will read it. Humph! it is short and to the point. This will certainly give us little trouble. I fear, however, that, besides the insurances, your ladyship will not receive much.”
“Nothing. My husband was always a poor man, as you know. At the time of his death he left a small sum of money only. I am, as a matter of fact, greatly inconvenienced.”
“Your ladyship shall be inconvenienced no longer. You must draw upon us. As regards Lord Harry’s death, we are informed by Dr. Vimpany, who seems to have been his friend as well as his medical adviser —”
“Dr. Vimpany had been living with him for some time.”
—“that he had a somewhat protracted illness?”
“I was away from my husband. I was staying here in London — on business — for some time before his death. I was not even aware that he was in any danger. When I hurried back to Passy I was too late. My husband was — was already buried.”
“It was most unfortunate. And the fact that his lordship was not on speaking terms with the members of his own family — pray understand that I am not expressing any opinion on the case — but this fact seems to render his end more unhappy.”
“He had Dr. Vimpany,” said Iris, in a tone which suggested to the lawyer jealousy or dislike of the doctor.
“Well,” he said, “it remains to prove the will and to make our claims against the Insurance Office. I have the policy here. His lordship was insured in the Royal Unicorn Life Insurance Company for the sum of 15,000 pounds. We must not expect to have this large claim satisfied quite immediately. Perhaps the office will take three months to settle. But, as I said before, your ladyship can draw upon us.”
“You are certain that the Company will pay?”
“Assuredly. Why not? They must pay.”
“Oh! I thought that perhaps so large a sum —”
“My dear Madam”— the man who administered so much real and personal property smiled —“fifteen thousand pounds is not what we call a very large sum. Why, if an Insurance Company refused to pay a lawful claim it would cut its own throat — absolutely. Its very existence depends upon its meeting all just and lawful claims. The death being proved it remains for the Company to pay the insurance into the hands of the person entitled to receive it. That is, in this case, to me, ac............