A Ring of Rubies

There was no letter for me. I did not cry, nor show disappointment in any way. On the contrary I was particularly cheerful, only that day I would not talk at all about Cousin Geoffrey.

In the evening my father returned by an earlier train than usual; my brothers had not come back with him. He came straight into our little drawing-room without removing his muddy boots, as his usual custom was. My mother and I had just lighted the lamp; the curtains were drawn. My mother was bending over her eternal mending and darning.

When my father entered the room my mother scarcely raised her head. I did – I was about to remark that he was home in specially good time, when I noticed something strange in his face. He raised his eyebrows, and glanced significantly towards the door.

I knew he wanted me to leave the room; he had something to say to my mother.

I went away. My father and mother remained alone together for about a quarter of an hour. Then he came out of the drawing-room, called to me to get supper ready at once, and went up to his own room.

I helped our one maid to put the dishes on the table, and then rushed into the drawing-room to my mother.

She was sitting gazing into the fire. A stocking she had been darning lay on her lap. Her face was very pale, and when she turned round at my step, I saw by her eyes that she had just wiped tears away from them.

“Rosamund,” she said, in her gentle, somewhat monotonous voice, “my child, you will be disappointed – disappointed of your hope. Cousin Geoffrey is dead.”

I uttered a loud exclamation.

“Hush,” said my mother. “We must not talk about it before your father. Hush, Rosamund. Why, Rosamund, my dear, why should you cry?”

“No, I won’t cry,” I said, “only I am stunned, and – shocked.”

“Come in to supper,” said my mother. “We will talk of this presently. Your father must not notice anything unusual. Keep all your feelings to yourself, my darling.”

Then she got up and kissed me. She was not a woman to kiss any one, even her own child, often. She was the sweetest woman in the world, but she found it difficult to give expression to her feelings. Her tender caress now did much to make up for the sore and absolutely certain fall of all my castles in the air.

The next day, I learned from one of my brothers that Cousin Geoffrey Rutherford had been found seated by his desk, quite dead. A policeman had found him. He had seen that hall-door, which was practically never off its chain, a little ajar, and had gone in and found Cousin Geoffrey.

The day but one after the news reached us, my mother got a letter from Cousin Geoffrey’s lawyer.

“As you are one of the nearest of kin of the deceased, it would be advisable that you should be present at the reading of the will.”

“I think, Andrew,” said my mother, handing this letter across the table to my father, “that I will go, and take Rosamund with me; I am quite sure Geoffrey cannot have left me anything,” she continued, a vivid pink coming into her cheek. “Indeed, I may add,” she continued, “that under the circumstances I should not wish him to leave me anything, but it would give me gratification to show him the slight respect of attending his funeral – and I own that it would also give me pleasure to see the old house and the furniture again.”

I had never heard my mother make such a long speech before, and I fully expected my father to interrupt it with a torrent of angry words. Even the boys turned pale as they listened to my mother.

To our great astonishment her words were followed by half a moment of absolute silence. Then my father said in a quiet voice: —

“You will please yourself, of course, Mary. I have not a word of advice to give on this matter.”

We buried Cousin Geoffrey in Kensal Green. After the funeral was over we all returned to the old house.

When I say “we all,” I include a very goodly company. I am almost sure that fifty people came home in mourning-coaches to Cousin Geoffrey’s desolate house.

It presented, however, anything but a desolate appearance on the day of his funeral. No one who saw that long train of mourning relatives could have said that Cousin Geoffrey had gone unsorrowed to his grave. Now, these sorrowing relatives wandered over his house, and after a cold collation, provided by the lawyers out of some of Cousin Geoffrey’s riches, they assembled to hear the will read in the magnificent drawing-room, where the Paul Veronese hung.

Mr Gray was the name of Cousin Geoffrey’s lawyer. He was a most judicious man, and extremely polite to all the relatives. Of course he knew the secret which they were most of them burning to find out, but not by voice, gesture, or expression did he betray even an inkling of the truth. He was scrupulously polite to every one, and if he said a nice thing to an excitable old lady on his right, he was careful to say quite as nice a thing to an anxious-faced gentleman on his left. Nevertheless I felt sure that he could be irascible if he liked, and I soon saw that his politeness was only skin-deep.

My mother and I did not join the group who sat round an enormous centre table. My mother looked terribly pale and sad, and she would keep me by her side, and stay herself quite in the background, rather to the disgust of some of the more distant relatives, who could not make out who my mother was, nor what brought her there.

At last Mr Gray cleared his throat, put on his glasses, and looked down at an imposing-looking parchment which lay on the table at his side.

Instead of opening the parchment, however, as every one expected, he suddenly took off his glasses again, and made a little speech to all the relatives.

“I may as well premise,” he said, “that my good friend who has passed away was extremely eccentric.”

“Ah, yes, that he was, poor dear! Undoubtedly eccentric, but none the worse for that,” murmured the red-faced old lady at Mr Gray’s right.

He turned and frowned at her.

“I should feel obliged to you not to interrupt me, madam,” he said.

“Quite right, too,” said the testy old man on the left.

He got a deeper frown from the lawyer, who, after a moment’s pause, resumed his speech.

“Our friend was eccentric. I make this remark with a reason. I am about to communicate some news which will astonish – and disappoint – every individual in this room.”

This short speech made a profound sensation. All the relatives began muttering, and I cannot say that I once heard poor Cousin Geoffrey spoken of as “dear.”

“I repeat for the third time,” continued the lawyer, “the remarks I have already made. Our friend Geoffrey Rutherford was extremely eccentric. He was not the least out of his mind, his brain was as sound, his reason as clear as any man could desire. Nevertheless he was a very uncommon character. He lived a queer, lonely, inhospitable life. As regards money he was miserly. And yet, and yet,” continued the lawyer, “I have known him generous – generous to a fault.”

“Perhaps you will oblige us by coming to the point, sir,” here interrupted the testy old man.

Mr Gray favoured him with a short, impatient glance.

“I will,” he said. “Yes, I will come to the point without further delay. The point is the will. I am about now to speak of my friend’s will.”

Here all the company settled down into a hushed, expectant state. Their interest was so keen that the proverbial pin might have been heard to drop.

“If Geoffrey Rutherford was more eccentric in one particular than another,” continued Mr Gray, clearing his voice, “it was on the subject of wills. In the course of his long life he made several – to each of these wills he added codicils. The wills and the codicils were all peculiar, but none, none so peculiar as the last. It is with regard to the last will and testament of my esteemed friend that I am now going to speak.”

“You will read us the will, perhaps, Mr Gray,” interposed an anxious-looking relative.

Mr Gray gave her a long glance.

“Under the circumstances, no,” he said. “My friend’s last will is long, and full of technicalities. It is without a flaw anywhere; but to hear it read would be tedious, and you must excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, if I refuse to gratify what can only, at the present moment at least, be regarded as idle curiosity. For the will as it now stands affects no one present.”

“It is scarcely fair not to read it, however,” said the red-faced lady. “After a funeral the will is always read. This is, I think, ordained by law, and ought to be enforced.”

“I am sorry,” repeated Mr Gray, taking no notice of the old lady’s remark, which made her frightfully irate. “It would be tedious to read the will, so I decline to do so. I have, however, a letter from my late client, which embodies the principal provisions in it, and that I shall be happy to read aloud for the benefit of every one present.”

Here Mr Gray cleared his throat, and putting on his glasses, began to read.

Cousin Geoffrey’s letter ran as follows: —

“My dear Gray:

“The more I think over our interview to-day the better pleased I am at the arrangement we have arrived at. You know how particular I am about my wills. I regard them from a serious and even an artistic point of view. I look upon a will as the crowning stone of a man’s life, a crown to be placed on the shrine of his memory, a monument to hand down his name to the ages. My last will pleases me much. It is finished in all its details. It is, I may venture to say, truly original. I do not think it has a flaw in its construction, and, when carried into force, it will be a means of diffusing happiness and adding to the benefit of the human race.

“As you are well aware, Gray, I am a rich man; the rich have many trials: they are the envied of the poor, and that in itself is disagreeable; they are also much worried by relations. I have never married; there is, literally, not a soul in the world belonging to me who bears my name, and yet I have relatives – many relatives. All my relations are kind, and solicitous for my welfare. When I am dead they will one and all express sorrow at my departure. There will be a goodly gathering of them at my funeral, and they will congregate afterwards at my house to hear my will read. I don’t wish my will to be read. You, as my only trustee, are to take the necessary legal steps with regard to it, but I don’t wish it to be read aloud to my relatives. As, however, they will be naturally curious to know in what way I dispose of my property, you may mention to them, in any manner you think fit, the following particulars:

“I have appointed in my will heirs to all my worldly estates, my property in lands and houses, in stocks and shares. The names of my heirs I have not thought fit to disclose; they may turn up at any time between the date of my death and five years after, and whenever they do appear on the scene, prepared to fulfil a condition which I have named, my property goes to them as appointed in my will.

“If, five years having gone by, the true heirs do not come to claim the property, one-half of it is to go to different charities named at full length in my will, and the other half is to be divided in equal shares among all my blood relations.

“Until the end of the five years, or until the true heirs appear, my property is to accumulate; my furniture, plate, valuable china, and jewels are to remain unsold.

“I have, however, given directions in my will that a certain small legacy is to be given without any delay to a young girl, the daughter of a relative.

“This girl came to me a week ago with a request that I should give her sufficient money to enable her to attend a school of art. I hate art schools; the word art, as applied to them, is a misnomer. I have my own views with regard to art – she is a mistress who must be wooed in a very different manner. This girl, Rosamund Lindley is her name, trod severely on my most cherished prejudices when she made her daring request.

“To show, however, that I bear her good-will, I leave her, and request that it may be given to her at once, the valuable ruby ring which belonged to my mother, and which for many years I wore myself. You will find the ring in my mother’s jewel-case, in drawer fifty, room eight, in the second story of this house.

“Rosamund Lindley and her mother may possibly attend my funeral. I hope they will. In that case, please give Rosamund the ruby ring in the presence of my other relatives, and, although I lay no command upon her in the matter, tell her, if she values the memory of old Geoffrey Rutherford, not to sell the ring.

“I am, my dear Gray, —

“Yours faithfully, —

“Geoffrey Rutherford.”

Immediately after reading the letter Mr Gray put his hand into his waistcoat pocket, and drew out a small, old-fashioned morocco case.

“You will like, ladies and gentlemen, to see the ruby ring,” he said, in his blandest tones.