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 guardianship 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 guardianship 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 employés.
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 documents.
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 title was irrefutable, and he knew of no genuine claim.
The third document 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 encumbered. It promised to be a drawn battle; but at last, having passed 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 illustrated 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 surpassing calculation. She rejoiced in it, gloried in it. To her it was more welcome than the confirmed guardianship 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 passage 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 distinguishing 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 friendship—such as it is in these days—with Theodore. Their one topic of conversation was the estate.
John