Part 3
And Butler writes in _Hudibras_ (part iii. canto ii., lines 565, 566):
Like men condemned to thunder-bolts, Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts.
Further consideration will probably bring to the reader’s mind other examples of these ‘Foundling Quotations’ which have won for themselves an imperishable existence; though their authors, whose names these few-syllabled sentences might have kept alive for ever, if they were only linked the one with the other, are now utterly unknown and forgotten. Any one who can succeed in discovering the real authorship of the quotations we have been considering will win for himself the credit of having solved problems which have long and persistently baffled the most curious and diligent research.
MISS MASTERMAN’S DISCOVERY.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.
Miss Phœbe Masterman was a spinster over whose head some fifty summers had flown—with, it may be presumed, incredible swiftness to herself. She was very comfortably situated with regard to this world’s goods, having inherited ample means from her father, a native of Durham, who had made a considerable fortune as a coal-merchant. At the time of her father’s death, she was thirty-five; and as she had no near relative in whom to interest herself, she established an Orphanage for twelve girls at Bradborough, a market-town in the north of England, within two miles of the coast. Brought up in the strictest conformity with Miss Masterman’s peculiar views, dressed with the most rigid simplicity, fed on the plainest fare, taught to look upon the mildest forms of recreation as vanity and vexation of spirit, these fortunate orphans, one would think, could hardly fail to become virtuous and happy; yet, inconceivable as it may appear, there were legends that orphans had been seen with red eyes and countenances expressive of anything but content; there was even a dark rumour to the effect that one of them had been heard to declare that if she only had the opportunity she would gladly commit a crime, that she might be sent to prison, and so escape from the thraldom of Miss Masterman!
But even this ingratitude and depravity paled before that of the Rev. Shanghan Lambe, incumbent of the little church of St Mary’s. Now, Miss Masterman had built that church for the good of the district, and the living was in her own gift. Yet Mr Lambe, entirely ignoring the latter fact, had had the hardihood to baptise an orphan in Miss Masterman’s absence without previously obtaining the permission of that lady; upon which the indignant lady declared that unless he promised not to interfere with her orphans, she would withdraw all her subscriptions and leave him to find his own income. Nor was this all. There were other reasons to make Mr Lambe pause before quarrelling with Miss Masterman. Before he was appointed to St Mary’s, he had been only a poor curate with a stipend of fifty pounds a year, which munificent income he had found totally inadequate to his wants and those of an aged mother who was dependent on him; consequently, he had entered upon his duties at Bradborough shackled with small debts to the amount of a hundred pounds.
Miss Masterman, who made a point of inquiring into every one’s affairs, soon became aware of this, and as want of generosity was by no means to be numbered among her failings, she rightly judged that it would not be reasonable to expect a man to give his mind to his work if he were weighed down by other cares; so, in an evil hour for himself, poor Mr Lambe accepted from the lady a sum of money sufficient to defray his debts—a sum for which, as he soon found, he would have to pay compound interest in the way of blind obedience to Miss Masterman’s behests. Not a funeral could be performed, not a marriage could be solemnised, not an infant could be baptised, without Miss Masterman’s permission; and it was even asserted by some that Miss Masterman selected the texts for the poor man’s sermons! The only oasis in his desert was the annual departure of Miss Masterman for change of air; then, and then only, did Mr Lambe breathe in peace. For a brief period, he felt that he was really master of himself. He could sit down and smoke his pipe without fear that his sitting-room door would be rudely flung open by an imperious female of fierce aspect, who would lecture him on his sinful extravagance in the use of tobacco, when he couldn’t pay his debts.
One bright August morning, Miss Masterman was seated at her breakfast table, and having concluded her meal, had taken up the morning paper and was studying the advertisements, holding the paper at arm’s-length with an air of grim combativeness, as if she were prepared to give battle to any or all the advertisers who did not offer exactly what she sought. Suddenly, she pounced upon the following: ‘A Home is offered in a Country Rectory by a Rector and his family for two or three months to a Single Lady needing change of air. House, with large grounds, conservatories, pony-carriage, beautiful scenery.—Address, Rector, _Clerical Times Office_.’
‘That will do,’ said Miss Masterman to herself; and, with her usual promptitude, she sat down then and there and wrote to the advertiser, asking particulars as to terms, &c. And in due course she received an answer so perfectly satisfactory in every respect, that the end of the month found her comfortably installed in the charming rectory of Sunnydale, in the county of Hampshire, in the family of the Rev. Stephen Draycott, rector of Sunnydale.
The rector’s family, besides himself and his wife, consisted of two sons and two daughters, all grown up, with the exception of Master Hubert, a boy of ten years old, who was endowed with such a remarkable fund of animal spirits that he was the terror of the neighbourhood; and from the first moment of Miss Masterman’s arrival, he became the special _bête noire_ of that lady. With all the other members of the family, Miss Masterman was much pleased. The rector himself was a polished and dignified person, and by the extreme, if rather laboured, courtesy of his manners, he endeavoured to tone down the somewhat exuberant spirits of the rest of his family. Mrs Draycott was a gentle, refined matron, with a sweet, though rather weary face, and was simply adored by her husband and children. The two daughters, Adela and Magdalen, were charming girls, full of fun, and very popular with their two brothers, of whom the senior, Clive, was aged nineteen.
To the young people, Miss Masterman’s arrival was little short of a calamity; they were so much in the habit of freely stating their opinions on all subjects without restraint, that the presence of a stranger appeared to them an unmitigated bore. It was in vain that their mother reminded them that the handsome sum paid by Miss Masterman for her board would be a very desirable addition to the family exchequer. At a sort of cabinet council held after she had retired to her room the first night after her arrival, Master Hubert expressed, in schoolboy slang, his conviction that she was a ‘ghastly old crumpet;’ a nickname which she retained until a servant one day brought in a letter which, she said, was addressed to ‘Miss Pobe Masterman;’ from which moment, Miss Masterman went by the name of ‘Pobe’ till the end of her visit—a piece of irreverence of which that lady happily remained quite unconscious.
By the time Miss Masterman had settled down in her new abode, the principal ladies of the parish came to call upon her; and as some of them were not only rich but very highly connected, Miss Masterman greatly appreciated their kind attentions. Among them was a Lady O’Leary, an Irish widow, with whom Miss Masterman soon struck up a great intimacy. Lady O’Leary was generally believed to be a person of large fortune; but as this supposition was based entirely on her own representations with regard to property in Ireland, there were some sceptical spirits who declined to believe in it as an established fact. Lady O’Leary shared three furnished rooms with a Miss Moone, who lived with her as companion; and it soon became quite an institution for Miss Masterman to take tea with her two or three times a week at least. On these occasions, the two ladies—for Miss Moone discreetly withdrew when Lady O’Leary had visitors—discussed all the affairs of the parish, until, by degrees, they got upon such thoroughly confidential terms, that before long they had imparted to each other their joint conviction that the general moral tone of the parish was lamentably low, and that it was doubtless owing in a great measure to the deplorably frivolous conduct of the family at the rectory; for Miss Masterman had discovered, to her amazement and horror, that the rector not only permitted his daughters to read Shakspeare, but even gave them direct encouragement to do so. Nor was this all; he actually was in the habit, once a year, of taking all his children up to London to see the pantomime at Drury Lane!
Among the more frequent visitors at the rectory was a Mrs Penrose, an exceedingly pretty young widow, who had recently taken a small house in the village, where she lived very quietly with an old servant, who appeared greatly attached to her mistress. The widow, who was apparently not more than five-and-twenty, was a charming brunette, with sparkling black eyes, and hair like waves of shining brown satin; and her sweet face and animated manners made her generally very popular in the village, where she visited the poor and assisted the rector in various parochial works of charity. Especially was she a favourite at the rectory, not only with Mr and Mrs Draycott, but with the young people, her presence in the family circle invariably giving rise to so much hilarity, that even the rector was attracted by the general merriment, and would leave his study to come and sit with his family, and allow himself to join in their mirth at Mrs Penrose’s lively sallies. Indeed, he had even been heard to declare, in Miss Masterman’s hearing, to that lady’s unspeakable disgust, that when he was fagged and worried with the necessary work of a parish, a few minutes of Mrs Penrose’s cheerful society acted on his mind like a tonic.
Miss Masterman, from the first, had taken an extraordinary antipathy to Mrs Penrose, who appeared to her to be everything that a widow ought not to be! Her bright face and unflagging spirits were a constant offence to the elder lady, though she had often been told that the late Captain Penrose was such a worthless man that his early death, brought about entirely by his own excesses, could be nothing but an intense relief to his young widow, who was now enjoying the reaction, after five years of married misery. Miss Masterman’s dislike to Mrs Penrose was fully shared by her friend Lady O’Leary; and they both agreed that the widow was in all probability a designing adventuress, and deplored the infatuation which evidently blinded the rector as to her real character, for, as Lady O’Leary observed: ‘Though it was given out that Mrs Penrose was the particular friend of _Mrs_ Draycott, the rector’s partiality was obvious!’
Miss Masterman had been at Sunnydale for six weeks, when one morning she received a letter from her housekeeper, informing her that Mr Lambe had taken upon himself to remark that the orphans were looking pale and jaded, and that he was going to take them all to spend a day at the seaside. Miss Masterman, on reading this letter, felt most indignant, and at once wrote to Mr Lambe to forbid the proposed excursion; and after enumerating the many obligations under which she had laid him—not forgetting the hundred pounds she had lent him—she concluded by expressing her surprise that he should presume to interfere with her special protégées in any way whatever.
To this Mr Lambe replied that he was ‘extremely sorry if he had offended Miss Masterman; that he had imagined that she would be pleased for the orphans to have the treat, particularly as some of them looked far from well; but that, having promised the children, it was impossible for him to break his word, particularly as he had ordered a van for their conveyance and made all the necessary arrangements for the trip; he therefore trusted that Miss Masterman would forgive him if he still kept his promise to his little friends.’
Furious at this unexpected opposition to her will, Miss Masterman at once went in search of Mrs Draycott to inform her that it was necessary for her to go home for a week or ten days on business of importance. Finding that Mrs Draycott was not at home, she repaired to the rector’s study, and after knocking at the door, and being told to enter, she informed Mr Draycott of her intentions. Saying that she must write home at once, she was about to withdraw, when Mr Draycott courteously asked her if she would not write in the study, to save time, as he was just going out. Miss Masterman thanked him; and as soon as he had gone, sat down and wrote to her housekeeper to say that she would be at home the following day without fail. Having finished her letter, she was about to leave the room, when she observed a note in a lady’s handwriting, which had apparently slipped out of the blotting-pad on to the floor. She picked it up, and was about to return it to its place, when the signature, ‘Florence Penrose,’ caught her eye. ‘What can that frivolous being have to say to the rector?’ thought Miss Masterman; and feeling that her curiosity was too strong to be resisted, she unfolded the note, and read the following words:
MY DEAR FRIEND—I have just received the diamonds, which are exactly what I wanted. The baby’s cloak and hood will do very well. I have now nearly all that I require. My only terror is, lest our secret should be discovered.—In great haste. Yours, as ever,
FLORENCE PENROSE.
_P.S._—I hope you won’t forget to supply me with plenty of flowers.
Here was a discovery! For a few moments Miss Masterman sat motionless with horror; her head was in a whirl, and she had to collect her thoughts before she could make up her mind what to do. The first definite idea that occurred to her was to secure the note; the next was, to show it to Lady O’Leary and to discuss with her what was to be done. As soon, therefore, as she had completed all her arrangements for her journey on the morrow, she repaired to her friend’s lodgings; and after Lady O’Leary had fairly exhausted all the expletives that even her extensive Irish vocabulary could supply, to express her horror and detestation of the conduct of the rector and Mrs Penrose, the two ladies laid their heads together, and seriously discussed the advisability of writing to the bishop of the diocese and sending him the incriminating letter. However, they finally decided to do nothing before Miss Masterman’s return to Sunnydale; and in the meantime, Lady O’Leary undertook to be on the watch, and to keep her friend _au courant_ as to what was going on in the parish.
It was late that evening when Miss Masterman returned to the rectory, and by going up directly to her room, she avoided meeting the rector. The next morning she pleaded headache as an excuse for having her breakfast sent up to her; and did not come down until, from her window, she had seen Mr Draycott leave the house, knowing he would be away for some hours. He left a polite message with his wife, regretting that he had not been able to say good-bye in person to Miss Masterman.
‘The wily hypocrite!’ thought that lady. ‘He little thinks that his guilt is no secret to me. But such atrocity shall not go unpunished!’
When she took leave of Mrs Draycott, she astonished that lady by holding her hand for some moments as she gazed mournfully into her face; then, with a final commiserating glance, the worthy spinster hurried into her fly. As she drove away, she leant forward and waved her hand to the assembled family with such effusion, that Mrs Draycott exclaimed: ‘Dear me, I fear I have done Miss Masterman injustice. I had no idea that she possessed so much feeling as she showed just now. One would really think she was going for good, instead of only ten days!’
‘No such luck,’ cried the irrepressible Hubert. ‘But, at all events, we have got rid of her for a week at least; so now, we’ll enjoy ourselves, and forget all about “Pobe” till she turns up again!’—a resolution which the young gentleman did not fail to keep most faithfully.
In the meantime, Miss Masterman was busily employed at Bradborough in quelling orphans and other myrmidons, and reducing things in general to complete subjection to her will; but with regard to Mr Lambe, she found her task more difficult than she expected. In fact, the worm had turned; and on her summoning him to her presence and opening the vials of her wrath on his devoted head, he calmly but firmly announced his intention of sending his resignation to his bishop; which took Miss Masterman so completely by surprise, that, in her bewilderment, she actually asked him to reconsider his decision. But though she even went so far as to give her consent to the orphans having their coveted treat, Mr Lambe’s determination was not to be shaken.
The following week flew swiftly away; a good deal of correspondence devolved upon Miss Masterman through having to think of a successor to Mr Lambe, and the lady of the manor was very much worried. At last, however, everything was settled, and Miss Masterman began to think of returning to Sunnydale, where, as she felt, fresh anxieties and most painful duties awaited her.
POPULAR LEGAL FALLACIES.[1]
BY AN EXPERIENCED PRACTITIONER.
_DEEDS OF GIFT AND WILLS.—I._
One of the most universally believed fallacies is that it is better to make a deed of gift than a will for the disposal of property. Nothing can be more dangerous than this delusion, as we have often had occasion to observe in the course of our experience. A deed of gift—pure and simple—is a document under seal evidencing the fact that certain property specified therein has been absolutely given by the donor to the donee, without any reservation for the benefit of the former, or any power for him to revoke the gift or resume possession of the property in any circumstances. If the deed contains a condition that the donor shall have the enjoyment of the property during his life, and that he shall have a right to recall the gift thereby made, and dispose of the property in some other way, then the document is to all intents and purposes a will; and if it is only executed and attested as an ordinary deed, it is altogether void, in consequence of non-compliance with the directions contained in the Wills Act, 1837, which very properly requires more precautions against fraud and forgery in the case of a will than in the case of a deed. We say ‘very properly,’ because the will does not take effect during the lifetime of the testator; and therefore the greatest safeguard is removed by his death before the document can be acted upon or its authenticity be likely to be questioned. This is a common oversight. The deed is prepared and duly stamped; and in consequence of the insertion of the powers alluded to above, it proves to be utterly useless, when, after the decease of the donor, his property is claimed by his heir-at-law and next of kin because of his having died intestate. It may occasion some surprise that any solicitor will prepare a deed which he knows cannot stand the test of litigation; but this is not altogether the fault of the profession. In many cases, the danger is pointed out; but if the donor is determined to dispose of his own property in his own way, who can gainsay him? If he cannot get what he requires in one office, he will go to another; and we have several times lost clients in consequence of our refusal to prepare such a deed; all our arguments being met by the reply that there would be no duties to pay to the government if the deed were executed; a complete fallacy in many cases, as we have afterwards had occasion to know, when we have seen what followed the decease of the misguided donor.
On the other hand, if there is a genuine gift, and possession is given in accordance with the deed, what then? One case which came under our notice may illustrate the danger against which we have frequently protested in vain. A retired merchant invested the whole of his savings in a freehold estate which would produce sufficient annual income to supply all his wants and leave a good margin for future accumulations. Being a widower, in somewhat infirm health, he took up his residence in the house of his younger son, the elder being an irreclaimable reprobate. Unfortunately, the wife of this younger son was an artful and avaricious woman, whose sole reason for consenting to the arrangement as to residence was the hope of future gain. The old gentleman had an insurmountable objection to making a will—not an uncommon weakness—as it reminded him too forcibly of the time when he would have to leave his fine estate and go over to the great majority. At length, after urgent and repeated representations as to the risk of his estate being sold by his dissipated heir-at-law in case of his dying intestate, he was persuaded to execute a deed of gift to his younger son, to whom at the same time he handed the title-deeds relating to the estate. Soon afterwards, a quarrel arose between the donor and his daughter-in-law; and the latter persuaded her husband—whose moral principles were as weak as those of his brother, though in a different way—to sell the estate, and then turn his father out of his house. After his ignominious dismissal, the poor old gentleman went to the house of a nephew, who soon tired of supporting him; and eventually he was obliged to go into the workhouse, altogether neglected to the time of his death by all his relatives, except his graceless elder son; and alas! he could not assist his aged parent, as he was himself almost destitute. This may appear to be an extreme case; but it is not a solitary one, although it is one of the worst of those which have come under our own observation.