World's End Part 7

There was no doubt about it this time. It was a pitiable sight.

Aurelian insisted upon seeing him: even he shuddered. The old man was muttering gibberish to himself. Half his grey hair was gone, for before he could be stayed he had dragged it out. His arms and limbs were pinioned, but his body shook with a trembling convulsive movement. The deed was done.

Aurelian braced himself up, and hastened at once to Lucia. He knew he should have a struggle with her, and hoped that in the conflict he should forget the sight he had left. He had determined to at once withdraw her from the stage. The victory was won; there must be no more risk.

The conflict between the brother and sister was terrible. She raged, her frame swelled; she had tasted triumph, and the draught is more intoxicating even than the taste of blood. She would go on.

But he was resolute, and he won. That very day he took her to England-- took is the right word, for it was necessary to use physical force at times. He got her to her house at Stirmingham, and never left her till she had grown more composed.

Sternhold was in an asylum. Aurelian thought that he would surely die; but he did not.

Aurelian then began to scheme to get him in his own "retreat."

Possession was nine points of the law. He went to Vienna at once before any one guessed his object, obtained the proper permit, and in six days deposited the wretched being in his asylum in the suburbs of Stirmingham. Once there, thought Aurelian, let them get him out if they can.

The fact was soon known; and there was an excitement. The parasites, disappointed and raging, did their best to inflame the populace. There was a growl, and the police began to prepare for an attack upon the asylum; but, after all, the moment any of them reflected, they said, "Why, it's all right; the poor fellow is mad. He could not be in better hands." The plan of a popular tumult fell through.

The parasites next tried the law, but found that Aurelian had been before them: he had all the proper doc.u.ments; he could not be touched.

Next the companies began to stir. They were uncertain what to do, and whether it was better for their interests that Sternhold should be in his brother-in-law's custody or not.

That astute gentleman very soon learnt what was pa.s.sing in their minds, and he had a very good conception of what could be effected by powerful combination.

He opened negotiations with them. He pointed out to them privately that the real point at issue was not Sternhold, but the boy--the heir--for no one doubted the legitimacy. Who was to have the custody of the heir?

Clever Aurelian hoped that by making friends with the companies who held the building leases that there would be no opposition to his holding the boy--to his guardians.h.i.+p of the estate. He had strong grounds to go upon. To all intents and purposes he was the nearest relation. If the boy died, and no son of the phantom brother of Romy turned up, _perhaps_ he might have a claim to the estate.

He gave the companies to understand that if he had the guardians.h.i.+p of the boy their interests should be most carefully studied.

They appeared favourable. The step was taken. The boy remained with his mother; his mother remained in her house, seeing Aurelian daily, and indeed watched by his _employes_.

No change took place. Aurelian congratulated himself that all was going on favourably. The boy, who had little or no idea of the meaning of the word "father," was constantly at Aurelian's residence--the asylum where his parent was confined--playing with Aurelian's son, who was carefully instructed to please him, and indeed was sharp enough already to require little instruction.

Sternhold lingered in his melancholy state. He was no longer violent-- simply dejected. He did not seem able to answer the simplest question.

If asked if he was hungry, he would stare, and say something relating to his school-days.

And this was the man who had built Stirmingham. For five years he remained in this state, and then suddenly brightened up; and it was thought and _feared_ that he would recover the use of his faculties. It lasted but three days. In that short time he wrote three important doc.u.ments.

The first was a statement to the effect that he had wronged Lucia. He now saw his folly--he had been led into his persecution of her by designing people, and blamed himself for his subsequent conduct. He earnestly entreated her forgiveness. The second was a species of family history, short but complete, refuting the claims of the American Baskettes. They were indeed of the same name, he wrote, but not of the same blood. The truth was that the cotters who had lived in the Swamp, now covered with mansions, had no name. They were half gipsies; they had no registered or baptismal name.

Will Baskette, who had been shot, was the chief man among them, and gradually they came by the country people to be called by his name.

They were not blood relations in any sense of the term. This paper also gave the writer's views of his transactions with the Sibbolds and the cotters or "Baskettes," and concluded with the firmly expressed conviction--the honest statement of a man near his end--that his t.i.tle was irrefutable, and he knew of no genuine claim.

The third doc.u.ment was his Will. For now it appeared that hitherto he had never made a will at all. It was extremely short, but terse and unmistakable. It left the whole of his property, real and personal (with the single exception of the gift to Lucia), to his son, John Marese Baskette.

The will Aurelian took care was properly attested, and by independent witnesses whom he sent for.

On the fourth day old Sternhold died, quietly and without a word. He was buried, and hardly was he in the tomb before the battle began. The companies at once cut off all connection with Aurelian. They had reckoned upon his managing to get their terms at all events extended, as he had promised. The Corporation refused any honours to the dead king, and all eagerly sought about for the means of dividing the spoil.

After all their consultations, not all the subtlety of twenty solicitors could suggest any feasible plan--the old man had baffled them at last.

It was useless to plead that he was insane, and actually in an asylum at the moment of executing the will. What was the good even if such a plea was successful--if the will was upset, the property would descend to the boy just the same. There seemed no way of getting at it.

But at last a weak point was found. It was a time when a great deal of commotion was made about the Roman Catholic question and the religious education of minors. Now Lucia was certainly half a foreigner, and it was believed she was a Catholic. Aurelian was certainly a Catholic.

With all his cunning he had not foreseen this, and he had allowed himself to become a somewhat prominent member of the Catholic community in Stirmingham. He had no religion, but it paid him. Catholics are rich people, and when rich people go insane they are profitable. So he was caught in his own trap.

There was an agitation got up among the ultra-Protestant community.

Funds were started to release the heir from the clasp of Rome. The companies, the Corporation, all joined in the outcry. The question was made a national one by the newspapers. But there was one difficulty: the law required that there should be a person to sue. After much trouble this person was selected in one of the Baskettes of American origin, who had settled in Stirmingham, and claimed to be a nearer relation than Aurelian.

The battle was long and furious, and cost heavy sums. No expense was spared on either side, and the estate got still further enc.u.mbered. It promised to be a drawn battle; but at last, having pa.s.sed all the tribunals, it began to approach the place of power, and to be discussed in the Ministerial Cabinet. There was a man there who desired to obtain the Catholic vote of Ireland, and the Aurelian party began to boast already of success. But this very boasting spoilt their game. The Ministry lost the confidence of the people, the House followed suit, a new Ministry came into place, and the final decision was against the Catholic, or, as they termed themselves, legitimate party--for they said the uncle and the mother were the legitimate guardians.

The result was in truth disappointing to all the parties. The boy was made a ward of Chancery, proper receivers of the estate were appointed, and the companies who had begun to exult were entrapped. The lad was taken from his mother and uncle, and sent to Eton to prepare for college.

Thus a new element of complexity was added to the already chaotic state of this vast estate.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER TEN.

If ever there was a life that ill.u.s.trated the oft-quoted phrase "poor humanity," it was that of Sternhold Baskette. But this is not the place to moralise--we must hasten on. The orchestra has nearly finished the overture; the play will soon begin.

Lucia had now no longer any reason for restraint. Her boy was safe-- safe as the laws of a great country could make him--certain to inherit a property which by the time he was forty would be of value surpa.s.sing calculation. She rejoiced in it, gloried in it. To her it was more welcome than the confirmed guardians.h.i.+p of Aurelian would have been, because it left her free.

The lad was at Eton, and happy--far happier than he could have been elsewhere. His mother immediately commenced a course which led her by a rapid descent to the lowest degradation.

She returned to Paris. Aurelian felt it was useless now to interfere, neither could he afford more expense.

She easily got upon the stage again, and became more popular than ever.

At the age of forty she was even more handsome than in her youth. Her features had been refined by the pa.s.sage of time and by the restraint to which she had been subjected. Her form was more fully developed.

It is unpleasant to linger on this woman's disgrace. She formed a _liaison_ with a rich foreign gentleman, retired with him from Paris after a time, and the _Stirmingham Daily Post_, which pursued the Baskettes with unmitigated hatred year after year, did not fail to chronicle the birth of a son.

Aurelian, baffled, was not beaten. He was a resolute and patient man.

Like the famous Carthaginian father, he brought up his son and educated him to consider the Baskette estates as the one object of his attention--only in this case it was not for destruction, but for preservation.

When young John Marese Baskette, the heir, after distinguis.h.i.+ng himself at Eton, was sent higher up the Thames to Oxford, Aurelian immediately placed his son, Theodore Marese, at the same college.

The result was exactly as he had foreseen. The heir formed a bond of friends.h.i.+p--such as it is in these days--with Theodore. Their one topic of conversation was the estate.

John was full of the most romantic notions. He was in youth a really exemplary lad--clever, hard-working, winning to himself the good will of all men. Theodore had a genuine liking for his cousin--then, at all events, though probably in after life the attachment he professed was chiefly caused by self interest.

John was full of ambitious dreams. His vivid imagination had been worked upon by the talk among his companions about the famous owner of twenty millions sterling--his father. Upon an old bookstall he obtained a copy of "The Life of Sternhold Baskette," now out of print. It inflamed him to the uttermost. There was good metal in the boy if he had only had friends and parents to put it to proper use. He formed the most extraordinary schemes as to what he would do with this wealth when he became of age, and stepped at one bound into the full enjoyment of it, as he supposed he should.

It was all to be used for the alleviation of the misery of the world, for the relief of the poor, for the succouring of the afflicted, the advancement of all means that could mitigate the penalties attaching to human existence.

As time wore on, however, these benevolent intentions received their first check.

He reached his twenty-first birthday. He claimed his birthright, and was refused. Briefly, the reason was because the companies and the American claimants had entered pleas, and because also the property was terribly enc.u.mbered, and would require long years of nursing yet before it could be cleared, and this nursing the higher Courts insisted upon.

Instead of the magnificent income he expected, the young man received two thousand pounds per annum only. It struck his nature a heavy blow, and did much to pervert it, for he looked upon it in the sense of a shameful injustice. With Theodore he left college; at all events he was now his own master, and entered "life."

Every one knows what "life" is to a young man of twenty-one with two thousand a year certain--the power of borrowing to a wide margin, and no monitor to check and r.e.t.a.r.d the inevitable course.