_ CHAPTER XLII. BERTHA KEYS DEFEATED
There is little doubt that Mrs. Aylmer was very ill. Step by step an attack, which was apparently at first of little moment, became serious and then dangerous. The cold became pneumonia, the pneumonia became double pneumonia, and now there was a hard fight for life. Nurses were summoned, doctors were requisitioned, everything that wealth could do was employed for the relief and the recovery of the sick woman. But there are times when Death laughs at wealth, with all its contrivances and all its hopes: when Death takes very little heed of what friends say or what doctors do. Death has his own duty to perform, and Mrs. Aylmer's time had come. Notwithstanding the most recent remedies for the fell disease, notwithstanding the care of the best nurses London could supply and the skill of the cleverest doctors, Death entered that sick-chamber and stood by that woman's pillow and whispered to her that her hour had come.
Mrs. Aylmer, propped up in her bed so that she might breathe better, her face ghastly with the terrible exertion, called Bertha to her side. She could scarcely speak, but she managed to convey her meaning to the girl.
"I am very bad; I know I shall not recover."
"You have to make your will over again," said Bertha, who was as cool as cool could be in this emergency. Not one of the nurses could be more collected or calm than Bertha. She herself would have made a splendid nurse, for she had tact and sympathy, and the sort of voice which never grated on the ear. The doctors were almost in love with her: they thought they had never seen so capable a girl, so grave, so quiet, so suitably dressed, so invaluable in all emergencies.
Mrs. Aylmer could scarcely bear Bertha out of her sight, and the doctors said to themselves: "Small wonder!"
On the afternoon of the day when Mrs. Aylmer the less went to see Florence in London, Mrs. Aylmer the great went down another step in the dark valley. The doctor said that she might live for two or three days more, but that he did not think it likely. The disease was spreading, and soon it would be impossible for her to breathe. She was frightened. She had not spent a specially good life. She had given, it is true, large sums in charity, but she had not really ever helped the poor, and had not brought a smile to the lip or a tear of thankfulness to the eye. She had lived a hard life; she had thought far more of herself than of her neighbour, and now that she was about to die it seemed to her that she was not ready. For the first time, all the importance of money faded from her mind. No matter how rich she was and how great, she would have to leave the world with a naked, unclothed soul. She could not take any of her great possessions with her, nor could she offer to her Maker a single thing which would satisfy Him, when He made up the balance of her account. She was frightened about herself.
"Bertha," she said to her young companion, "come here, Bertha."
Bertha bent over her.
"Is it true that I am not going to get better?"
"You are very ill," said Bertha; "you ought to make your will."
"But I have made it: what do you mean?"
"I thought," said Bertha, "that"--she paused, then she said gravely: "you have not altered it since Maurice Trevor went away. I thought that you had made up your mind that he and Florence Aylmer were not to inherit your property."
"Of course I have," said the sick woman, a frightened, anxious look coming into her eyes. "Not that it much matters," she added, after a pause. "Florence is as good as another, and if Maurice really cares for her----"
"Oh, impossible," said Bertha; "you know you do not wish all your estates, your lands, your money, to pass into the hands of that wicked, deceitful girl."
"I have heard," said Mrs. Aylmer, still speaking in that gasping voice, "that Florence is doing great things for herself in London."
"What do you mean?"
"She is considered clever. She is writing very brilliantly. After all, there is such a thing as literary fame, and if at the eleventh hour she achieves it, why, she as well as another may inherit my wealth, and I am too tired, Bertha, too tired to worry now."
"You know she must
not have your property!" said Bertha. "I will send for Mr. Wiltshire: you said you would alter the will: it is only to add a codicil to the last one, and the deed is done."
"As you please," said Mrs. Aylmer.
Bertha hurried away.
Mr. Wiltshire, Mrs. Aylmer's lawyer, lived in the nearest town, five miles distant. Bertha wrote him a letter and sent a man on horseback to his house. The lawyer arrived about nine o'clock that evening.
"You must see her at once: she may not live till the morning," said Bertha. There was a pink spot on each of Bertha's cheeks, and her eyes were very bright.
"I made my client's will six months ago. All her affairs are in perfect order. What does this mean?" said Mr. Wiltshire.
"Mrs. Aylmer and I have had a long conversation lately, and I know Mrs. Aylmer wants to alter her will," said Bertha. "Mr. Trevor has offended her seriously: he has repudiated all her kindness and left the house."
"Dear, dear!" said the lawyer; "how sad!"
"How ungrateful, you mean!" said Bertha.
"That is quite true. How different from your conduct, my dear young lady."
As the lawyer spoke, he looked full into Bertha's excited face.
"Ah!" said Miss Keys, with a sigh, "if I had that wealth I should know what to do with it; for instance, you, Mr. Wiltshire, should not suffer."
Now, Mr. Wiltshire was not immaculate. He had often admired Bertha: he had thought her an extremely taking girl. It had even occurred to him that, under certain conditions, she might be a very suitable wife for him. He was a widower of ten years' standing.
"I will see my client now that I have come," he said, rising. "Perhaps you had better prepare her for my visit."
"She knows you are coming. I will take you up at once."
"But it may be too great a shock."
"Not at all; she is past all that sort of thing. Come this way."
Bertha and the lawyer entered the heavily-curtained, softly carpeted room. Their footsteps made no sound as they crossed the floor. The nurses withdrew and they approached the bedside. Bertha had ink and paper ready to hand. The lawyer held out his hand to Mrs. Aylmer.
"My dear, dear friend," he said, in that solemn voice which he thought befitting a death-bed and which he only used on these special occasions, "this is a most trying moment; but if I can do anything to relieve your mind, and to help you to a just disposition of the great wealth with which Providence has endowed you, it may ease your last moments."
"Yes," said Mrs. Aylmer, in a choking voice, "they are my last moments; but I think all my affairs are settled."
Bertha looked at him and withdrew. Her eyes seemed to say: "Take my part, and you will not repent it."
Mr. Wiltshire immediately took his cue.
"I am given to understand that Mr. Trevor has offended you," he said; "is that so?"
"He has, mortally; but I am too ill to worry now."
"It will be easy to put a codicil to your will if you have any fresh desires with regard to your property," said Mr. Wiltshire.
"I am dying, Mr. Wiltshire. When you come to face death, you don't much care about money. It cannot go with you, you know."
"But it can stay behind you, my dear madam, and do good to others."
"True, true."
"I fear, I greatly fear that Mr. Trevor may squander it," said Mr. Wiltshire slowly.
"I have no one else to leave it to."
"There is that charming and excellent girl; but dare I suggest it?"
"Which charming and excellent girl?"
"Your secretary and companion, Miss Bertha Keys."
"Ay," said Mrs. Aylmer, "but I should be extremely sorry that she should inherit my money."
"Indeed, and why? No one has been more faithful to you. I know she does not expect a farthing; it would be a graceful surprise. She has one of the longest heads for business I have ever come across; she is an excellent girl."
"Write a codicil and put her name into it," said Mrs. Aylmer fretfully; "I will leave her something."
Pleased even with this assent, somewhat ungraciously given, the lawyer now sat down and wrote some sentences rapidly.
"The sum you will leave to her," he said: "ten, twenty, thirty, forty, shall we say
fifty thousand pounds, my dear Mrs. Aylmer?"
"Forty--fifty if you like--
anything! Oh, I am choking--I shall die!" cried Mrs. Aylmer.
Mr. Wiltshire hastily inserted the words "fifty thousand pounds" in the codicil. He then took a pen, and called two of the nurses into the room.
"You must witness this," he said. "Please support the patient with pillows. Now, my dear Mrs. Aylmer, just put your name there."
The pen was put into the trembling hand.
"I am giving my money back to--but what does this mean?" Mrs. Aylmer pushed the paper away.
"Sign, sign," said the lawyer; "it is according to your instructions; it is all right. Sign it."
"Poor lady! It is a shame to worry her on the very confines of the grave," said one of the nurses angrily.
"Just write here; you know you have the strength. Here is the pen."
The lawyer put the pen into Mrs. Aylmer's hand. She held it limply for a minute and began to sign. The first letter of her Christian name appeared in a jagged form, the next letter was about to begin when the hand fell and the pen was no longer grasped in the feeble fingers.
"I am about to meet my Maker," she said, with a great sob; "send for the clergyman. Take that away."
"I shall not allow the lady to be worried any longer," said one of the nurses, with flashing eyes.
Mr. Wiltshire was defeated; so was Bertha Keys. The clergyman came and sat for a long time with the sick woman. She listened to what he had to say and then put a question to him.
"I am stronger than I was earlier in the day. I can do what I could not do a few hours back. Oh, I know well that I shall never recover, but before I go hence I want to give back what was entrusted to me."
"What do you mean by that?" he asked.
"I mean my money, my wealth; I wish to return it to God."
"Have you not made your will? It is always right that we should leave our affairs in perfect order."
"I wish to make a fresh will, and at once. My lawyer, Mr. Wiltshire, has come and gone. He wanted me to sign a codicil which would have been wicked. God did not wish it, so He took my strength away. I could not sign the codicil, but now I can sign a fresh will which may be made. If I dictate a fresh will to you, and I put my proper signature, and two nurses sign it, will it be legal?"
"Quite legal," replied the clergyman.
"I will tell you my wishes. Get paper."
The minister crossed the room, took a sheet of paper from a table which stood in the window, and prepared to write.
Mrs. Aylmer's eyes were bright, her voice no longer trembling, and she spoke quickly.
"I, Susan Aylmer, of Aylmer's Court, Shropshire, being quite in my right mind, leave, with the exception of a small legacy of fifty pounds a year to my sister-in-law, Mrs. Aylmer, of Dawlish, all the money I possess to two London hospitals to be chosen by my executor.--Have you put
all the money I possess?" she enquired.
"Yes; but is your will fair?" he said. "Have you no other relations to whom you ought to leave some of your wealth?"
"I give all that I possess back to God. He gave me my wealth, and He shall have it again," repeated Mrs. Aylmer; and she doubtless thought she was doing a noble thing.
This brief will was signed without any difficulty by the dying woman and attested by the two nurses. Two hours later, the rich woman left her wealth behind her and went to meet her God. _