While he was hunting in his bag for this paper, explaining, as he did so, that I must be prepared to face an action brought by Mr. Atterby Smith, who had been raging round his office "like a wild animal," suddenly I made up my mind.
"Don't bother about that paper, Mr. Mellis," I said, "because Lady Ragnall was right in her supposition. I have no intention of accepting this inheritance. The estate must go for division to the charities, etcetera, set down in her list."
The lawyer heard, and stared at me.
"In my life," he gasped at last, "I have known mad testators and mad heirs, but never before have I come across a case where both the testator and the heir were mad. Perhaps, sir, you will be pleased to explain."
"With pleasure," I said when I had finished lighting my pipe. "In the first place, I am already what is called a rich man and I do not want to be bothered with more money and property."
"But, Mr. Quatermain," he interrupted, "you have a son who, with such wealth behind him, might rise to anythingyes, anything." (This was true, for, at that time, my boy Harry was living.)
"Yes, but, as it chances, Mr. Mellis, I have ideas upon this matter which you may think peculiar. I do not wish my son to begin life with enormous resources, or even the prospect of them. I wish him to fight his own way in the world. He is going to be a doctor. When he has succeeded in his profession and learned what it means to earn one's own bread, it will be time for him to come into other people's money. Already I have explained this to him with reference to my own, and being a sensible youth, he agrees with me."
"I daresay," groaned the lawyer. "Suchwell, failingsas yours, are often hereditary."
"Another thing is," I went on, "that I do not wish to be bothered by a lawsuit with Mr. AtterbySmith. Further, I cannot bind myself to live half the year in Ragnall Castle in a kind of ducal state. Very likely, before all is done, I might want to return to Africa, which then I could not do. In short, it comes to this: I accept the executorship and my outofpocket expenses, and shall ask your firm to act for me in the matter. The fortune I positively and finally refuse, as you observe Lady Ragnall thought it probable I should do."
"I daresay," groaned the lawyer. "Suchwell, failingsas yours, are often hereditary."
"Another thing is," I went on, "that I do not wish to be bothered by a lawsuit with Mr. AtterbySmith. Further, I cannot bind myself to live half the year in Ragnall Castle in a kind of ducal state. Very likely, before all is done, I might want to return to Africa, which then I could not do. In short, it comes to this: I accept the executorship and my outofpocket expenses, and shall ask your firm to act for me in the matter. The fortune I positively and finally refuse, as you observe Lady Ragnall thought it probable I should do."
Mr. Mellis rose and looked at the clock. "If you will allow me to order the dogcart," he said, "I think there is just time for me to catch the afternoon train up to town. Meanwhile, I propose to leave you a copy of the will and of the other documents to study at your leisure, including the sealed letter which you have not yet read. Perhaps after taking independent advice, from your own solicitors and friends, you will write me your views in a few days' time. Until then, this conversation of ours goes for nothing. I consider it entirely preliminary and without prejudice."
The dogcart came roundindeed, it was already waitingand thus this remarkable interview ended. From the doorstep I watched the departure of Mr. Mellis and saw him turn, look at me, and shake his head solemnly. Evidently he thought that the right place for me was a lunatic asylum.
"Thank goodness, that's done with!" I said to myself. "Now I'll order a trap and go and tell Curtis and Good about all the business. No, I won't; they'll only think me mad as that lawyer does, and argue with me. I'll take a walk and mark those oaks that have to come down next spring. But first I had better put away these papers."
Thus I reflected and began to collect the documents. Lifting the copy of the will, I saw lying beneath it the sealed letter of which Mr. Mellis had spoken, addressed to me and marked
To be delivered after my death, or in the event of Mr. Quatermain predeceasing me, to be burned unread.
The sight of that wellknown writing and the thought that she who penned it was now departed from the world and that nevermore would my eyes behold her, moved me. I laid the letter down, then took it up again, broke the seal, seated myself, and read as follows:
My dear friend, my dearest friend, for so I may call you, knowing as I do that if ever you see these words we shall no longer be fellow citizens of the world. They are true words, because between you and me there is a closer tie than you imagine, at any rate, at present. You thought our Egyptian vision to be a dreamno more; I believe it, on the other hand, at least in essentials, to be a record of facts that have happened in bygone ages. Moreover, I will tell you now that my revelation went further than your own. Shabaka and Amada were married and I saw them as man and wife leading a host southward to found a new empire somewhere in Central Africa, of which perchance the Kendah tribe were the last remnant. Then the darkness fell.
Moreover, I am certain that this was not the first time that we had been associated upon the earth, as I am almost certain that it will not be the last. This mystery I cannot understand or explain, yet it is so. In some of our manifold existences we have been bound together by the bonds of destiny, as in some we may have been bound to others, and so, I suppose, it will continue to happen, perhaps for ever and ever.
Now, as I know that you hate long letters, I will tell you why I write. I am going to make a will, leaving you practically everything I possesswhich is a great deal. As there is no relationship or other tie between us, this may seem a strange thing to do, but after all, why not? I am alone in the world, without a relative of any kind. Nor had my late husband any except some distant cousins, those AtterbySmiths whom you may remember, and these he detested even more than I do, which is saying much. On one point I am determinedthat they shall never inherit, and that is why I make this will in such a hurry, having just received a warning that my own life may not be much prolonged.
Now, I do not deceive myself. I know you to be no moneyhunter and I think it highly probable that you will shrink from the responsibilities of this fortune which, if it came to you, you would feel it your duty to administer it for the good of many to the weariness of your own flesh and spirit. Nor would you like the gossip in which it would involve you, or the worry of the actions atlaw which the AtterbySmiths, and perhaps others unknown, would certainly bring against you. Therefore, it seems possible that you will refuse my gift, a contingency for which I have provided by alternative depositions. If a widowed lady without connections chooses to dispose of her goods in charity or for the advancement of science, etc., no one can complain. But even in this event I warn you that you will not altogether escape, since I am making you my soul executor, and although I have jotted down a list of the institutions which I propose to benefit, you will be given an absolute discretion concerning them with power to vary the amounts, and add to, or lessen, their number. In return for this trouble, should you yourself renounce the inheritance, I am leaving you an executor's fee of 5,000 pounds, which I beg that you will not renounce, as the mere thought of your doing so offends me. Also, as a personal gift, I ask you to accept all that famous set of Caroline silver which was used on grand occasions at Ragnall, that I remember you admired so much, and any other objects of art that you may choose.
Lastlyand this is the really important thingtogether with the Egyptian collection, I pass on to you the chest of Taduki herb with the Kendah brazier, etc., enjoining you most strictly, if ever you held me in any friendship, to take it, and above all to keep it sacred.
In this, Friend, you will not fail me. Observe, I do not direct you to make further experiments with the Taduki. To begin with, it is unnecessary, since, although you have recently refused to do so in my companyperhaps because you were afraid of complications sooner or later you will certainly breathe it by yourself, knowing that it would please me much, and, perhaps, when I am dead, hoping that through it you may see more of me than you did when I was alive. You know the dead often increase in value at compound interest, and I am vain enough to hope that this may be so in my case.
I have no more to say. Farewellfor a little while.
Luna Ragnall.
P.S. You can burn this letter if you like; it does not in the least matter, as you will never forget its contents. How interesting it will be to talk it over with you one day.
Chapter II
Back to the Past
It is unnecessary that I should set out the history of the disposal of the great Ragnall fortune in any detail. I adhered to my decision which at last was recorded with much formality; though, as I was a totally unknown individual, few took any interest in the matter. Those who came to hear of it for the most part set me down as mad; indeed, I could see that even my friends and neighbours, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, with whom I declined to discuss the business, more or less shared this view, while a society journal of the lower sort printed a paragraph headed:
THE HUNTER HERMIT. IVORY TRADER WHO MOCKED AT MILLIONS!
Then followed a distorted version of the facts. Also I received anonymous letters written, I do not doubt, by members of the Atterby Smith family, which set down my selfdenial to "the workings of a guilty conscience" and "to fears of exposure."
THE HUNTER HERMIT. IVORY TRADER WHO MOCKED AT MILLIONS!
Then followed a distorted version of the facts. Also I received anonymous letters written, I do not doubt, by members of the Atterby Smith family, which set down my selfdenial to "the workings of a guilty conscience" and "to fears of exposure."
Of all these things I took no heed, and notwithstanding wild threats of action by Mr. AtterbySmith, in due course the alternative clauses of the will came into operation, under which, with only a rough list to guide me, I found myself the practical dispenser of vast sums. Then indeed I "endured hardness." Not only had collieries and other properties to be sold to the best advantage, not only was I afflicted by constant interviews with Messrs. Mellis & Mellis and troubles too numerous to mention. In addition to these, I think that every society and charity in the United Kingdom and quite eighty per cent. of its beggars must have written or sought interviews with me to urge their public or private claims, so that, in the end, I was obliged to fly away and hide myself, leaving the lawyers to deal with the correspondence and the mendicants.