LEMUEL ASHFORD'S WILL.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1699, 26 June 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

LEMUEL ASHFORD'S WILL.

“ Miss Ashford, sir,” said the servant, who had just opened Mr. Ashford’s chamber door, —Miss Ashford is here sir.” “ Show her in at once,” said the sick man. Almost before he had uttered the words, a lady passed the servant and entered the room. She was a handsome woman of forty, with dark eyes and straight features, and a small, closely-shut mouth. Her face was naturally very cold, but it softened as she bent over her brother, saying ; “I heard of your accident, Lemuel, and oame at once. How are you—better 7 ” “ I shall never be better, Marcia,” replied the man, “ but I suffer less. So you oared enough for me to come, after all.” “ Yes, I always cared,” said Miss Ashford. “ And you will stay until the last, Maroia ? ’ “ I will stay with you as long as you need me.”

She took off her hat and cloak, and bestirred herself to make the invalid more comfortable. She softened the light, and set the medicine bottles out of his sight, and did all noiselessly and deftly. Then she seated herself at her brother’s side, and he spoke again, saying;

Wfmt horrible tempers we have always had.” “ Yes," responded the sister; “ you and I have lived estranged from each other for five years, and it is I who come at last. The men were the worst always. There, I do not intend to reproach you, poor fellow. I’ll never allude to the subject again.” The lady took her seat by the bedside and kept her word. Soon the sick man slumbered. Then she arose, and stealing softly out into the hall, addressed the servant-man who lingered there: “Andrew, can you tell me just how my brother was hurt?” “ Thrown from his horse,” replied Andrew. “ Yen, I understand,” sighed the sister. “And my brother has had the best advice.” “ Yes, ma’am,” said Andrew. “ The very best. “ Everything was done for him that could be, but he knew there was no chance, and he sent for the lawyers the next day, and made his will. I was a witness.”

“ And you know what he has done with the money ? ” asked Mies Ashford eagerly, “Yes, ma’m,” replied Andrew. “I beard every word. “ Oh, Miss Ashford, he hasn’t left you a cent—not one cent. It’s all gone to an asylum. The will is in the library, Miss, locked in his desk, and the key about his neck as he lies in bed. Lawyer looked it up for him.” Miss Ashford listened without remark, but her heart was burning. She returned to her brother, and sat quietly looking at hia sleeping face, but over and over again she said to herself: “If he had died without a will all would have been mine. How cruel and wicked he has been 1 ”

Softly she stooped over her brother, and saw, tied about his throat, a narrow black ribbon, from which hung suspended a curious key. The temptation was strong, She yielded to it. Detaching the key, she crept into the library, opened the desk, and took out the crisp parchment that lay hidden in its recesses. Opening it, she read the will, brief, but conclusive. Andrew was right. All went to the charity; she was not even mentioned. With something that on a man’s lips would have been a curse, she replaced it, locked the desk, and restored the key to its position on her brother’s bosom, not a moment too aeon, for the next he was awake and clutching at it. Miss Ashford had come to her brother with no thought of his fortune, but anxious to be reconciled, after years of ill-feeling, to one who might be dying. She kept her promise, and sat day after day by bis bedside, but there was no love in her heart. Once it became so difficult for her to hide her feelings that she left him and went out into the fresh, cold air and walked until she was ready to drop. When she came back, Lemuel, brighter than he had seemed before, took both her hahds and said, fondly: “ Maroia, I have wearied you, but it will not be long now—not long.” That night Lemuel Ashford died. His death was very quiet. Only Marcia sat beside him, Andrew slumbered in his own room. The brother’s last words had been:

“ Marcia, I want to tell you about my will;” but there his voice had failed him. Maroia wished that he had not spoken at all; for even while she watched death steal across his features, the thought came into her mind:

“I am his heiress, his next of kin. Were tho will but destroyed all would be mine.”

And then she said to herself

“It shall be. No one can suspect me. What more natural than that he should forgive at the last and destroy it himself 7 I will tell the lie if need be.”

Then, with trembling hands, she once more detached the key of the desk from its black ribbon, and crept into the library. It was quite dark, but she felt her way to the desk, turned the key in the lock and opened it. Her hands fumbled with the packet for a moment, then touched a crisp and crackling parchment.

She had no need to read it. She knew it word for word, and hastening to the fire, placed it upon the red coals, crushing it down amongst them and piling others upon it. “ Safe,” she cried, as she hurried back to the chamber of death. “ Safe from poverty at least.”

The man came hurriedly and stood with wet eyes beside his dead master’s pillow. “Gone,” he sobbed. “Gone, poor gentleman I Ah, this is not the first of the family whose temper has been his death; but he was a kind-hearted gentleman, and liked to do right. He told you about his will, didn’t he, ma’am 7 ”

“Do not speak about the will at such a time,” replied Miss Ashford. “ How should I know my brother’s plans 7 We have been strangers for years.” “ Ah, poor gentleman,” replied Andrew. You’ll find he was better than you thinkfar better—far better.”

But Miss Ashford only bid her face in her kerchief.

“I don’t think you do know,” said Andrew; “ you haven’t been told. That’s plain to me; and I like to be the first to tell you. The day you were away he sent for Lawyer nursing him so kindly, he said. A copy of tho one he made a while ago is in the lawyers’ hands—thela wyers connected with the asylum, you know—but that is no matter. He burnt the one in the desk there, and made another, leaving everything to you. The latest date is all in a will, you know, ma’am. Nothing can stand before that. And the asylum people will be angry enough.”

Miss Ashford sank into a chair. Tho servant believed her grief for her brother had overpowered her. Miss Ashford kept her own counsel. When the funeral was over search was made for the will, but it was not found. No one suspected the heiress of having destroyed a document which endowed her with wealth, and many pitied her, bat the trustees of the asylum insitted on their rights, and Marcia had no power to contest the will, despite the lawyer’s assurance that he could testify to having made a later one in her favour, for she was poor, and, moreover, burdened with a guilty conscience.

She returned to her labors, and died poor, dependent on the charity of Andrew for shelter in her last days, and though the old man guessed her secret well, he kept it to himself for the honor of the family.