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Authors: Robert Graves
Tags: Novel
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Thornton and his daughter Ann Brookes, in the proportion of three parts to two. Dr Knight and I wer e also appointed guardians of th e child, and charged to pay her only the interests of her fortune until she came of age or married, when she might receive the whole of it. The Colonel, however, insisted that the child must be taken from her mother , a confirmed drunkard, and brought up genteelly.
We both professed ourselve s happy enough to comply with th e testator's wishes, but Mr Weaver sighed as he said: 'This will is flawed. I fear it will be disputed.'
Disputed it was, by Mrs T hornton, who went to another soli citor for advice. While not objecting to the legacies, she was outraged by the Colonel's animadversions on her character and his attempt to rob her of Annie, whom he claimed as his own daughter; and vowed that she would fight the case in every court, low or high.
Meanwhile, she was in danger of the rope; for all Stafford knew her character and openly accused her of murder. A Coroner's inquest could not be avoided. Dr Knight managed the business very well; he somehow contrived to bring Mrs Thornton to t he inquest cold sober and decentl y garbed in widow's weeds. He also coached her into telling the same story she had told before, though omitting the scandalous part and altering the account of her quarrel with the Colonel. When she had done, Dr Knight himself gave evidence of the Colonel's confidences made him some years previously, as to why he would never marry, and mentioned the Colonel's promise to call upon him at the surgery if ever he felt the suicidal mania threatening him again.
The Coroner then asked: 'Dr Knight—pray remember that you are on your oath—did the Colonel in effect call upon you at the surgery, and did he warn you of the recurrence of his mania?'
Dr Knight replied: 'The answer, Mr Coroner, is both yes and no. He came, as I now believe, ready to make such a statement, and if he had done so, I should have taken immediate steps to place him under restraint. But he contented himself with hints, which I was too obtuse to grasp. He came calling at about five o'clock, and talked somewhat disjointedly; a condition characteristic of the malarial fever from which he suffered at regular intervals. I at once urged him to take the usual stiff dose of quinine. He promised that he would do so upon his return home; but before rising to go, he asked me: "Dr Knight, are you a Freemason?" I smiled as I answered: "If you were yourself a Mason, and if I were also a Mason, you would have already known me as your fellow by my manner of shaking hands on our first acquaintance; but if you are not a Mason, as I suppose must be the case, how can you expect me to reveal myself as one, if indeed I am? You must surely be aware that membership of the Order is a close secret."
* Colonel Brookes let that comment pass, and launched into a story. "I have just had very sad news from Liverpool," he said. "It concerns a friend of mine, the Captain of a fine East Indiaman, which makes a regular run between Liverpool and Bombay. I dined at his table every day, b oth when I returned to India in 1817, as a major, after a six months' convalescence; and again on my last voyage, when I sold out and came home to the among my own people. This Captain was a Freemason, and as conscientious in his loyalty, Dr Knight, as you seem to be. Well, one day he was aggrieved to find that his first mate had confided to a lady passenger some disquieting news about the soundness of the ship's rigging, and added: 'God knows, madam, what our fate will be if we chance to run into foul weather off the Cape!' The lady's husband, a Madras merchant, ran in alarm to the Captain's cabin and demanded to know the facts of the matter. My friend reassured him that the rigging was sound—though, in truth, he had been forced by the owners to sail, on penalty of losing his command, despite his protests that 'the yards were rotten as damp straw'. The merchant
We both professed ourselve s happy enough to comply with th e testator's wishes, but Mr Weaver sighed as he said: 'This will is flawed. I fear it will be disputed.'
Disputed it was, by Mrs T hornton, who went to another soli citor for advice. While not objecting to the legacies, she was outraged by the Colonel's animadversions on her character and his attempt to rob her of Annie, whom he claimed as his own daughter; and vowed that she would fight the case in every court, low or high.
Meanwhile, she was in danger of the rope; for all Stafford knew her character and openly accused her of murder. A Coroner's inquest could not be avoided. Dr Knight managed the business very well; he somehow contrived to bring Mrs Thornton to t he inquest cold sober and decentl y garbed in widow's weeds. He also coached her into telling the same story she had told before, though omitting the scandalous part and altering the account of her quarrel with the Colonel. When she had done, Dr Knight himself gave evidence of the Colonel's confidences made him some years previously, as to why he would never marry, and mentioned the Colonel's promise to call upon him at the surgery if ever he felt the suicidal mania threatening him again.
The Coroner then asked: 'Dr Knight—pray remember that you are on your oath—did the Colonel in effect call upon you at the surgery, and did he warn you of the recurrence of his mania?'
Dr Knight replied: 'The answer, Mr Coroner, is both yes and no. He came, as I now believe, ready to make such a statement, and if he had done so, I should have taken immediate steps to place him under restraint. But he contented himself with hints, which I was too obtuse to grasp. He came calling at about five o'clock, and talked somewhat disjointedly; a condition characteristic of the malarial fever from which he suffered at regular intervals. I at once urged him to take the usual stiff dose of quinine. He promised that he would do so upon his return home; but before rising to go, he asked me: "Dr Knight, are you a Freemason?" I smiled as I answered: "If you were yourself a Mason, and if I were also a Mason, you would have already known me as your fellow by my manner of shaking hands on our first acquaintance; but if you are not a Mason, as I suppose must be the case, how can you expect me to reveal myself as one, if indeed I am? You must surely be aware that membership of the Order is a close secret."
* Colonel Brookes let that comment pass, and launched into a story. "I have just had very sad news from Liverpool," he said. "It concerns a friend of mine, the Captain of a fine East Indiaman, which makes a regular run between Liverpool and Bombay. I dined at his table every day, b oth when I returned to India in 1817, as a major, after a six months' convalescence; and again on my last voyage, when I sold out and came home to the among my own people. This Captain was a Freemason, and as conscientious in his loyalty, Dr Knight, as you seem to be. Well, one day he was aggrieved to find that his first mate had confided to a lady passenger some disquieting news about the soundness of the ship's rigging, and added: 'God knows, madam, what our fate will be if we chance to run into foul weather off the Cape!' The lady's husband, a Madras merchant, ran in alarm to the Captain's cabin and demanded to know the facts of the matter. My friend reassured him that the rigging was sound—though, in truth, he had been forced by the owners to sail, on penalty of losing his command, despite his protests that 'the yards were rotten as damp straw'. The merchant
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