"You will hear it read by me, Sir Digby, since I drew it." The speaker was a small, neat, grey man in spectacles who had followed the bride up the aisle at a distance and slipped into the vestry behind her: Mr. Quintin Lusk, attorney, of Huntingdon, who had managed the Duke's legal affairs for thirty years. He set his hat on the register chest and unfolded the paper against the table with two dry fingers. "This is a codicil to the last will of Aubrey Ferrand, sixth Duke of Ellerholt, executed at Ellerholt Park on the eleventh of September last, in the presence of three witnesses—myself not among them, I being the drafter; the witnesses were my clerk Mr. Pryke, Mrs. Allard the housekeeper, and Jethro Scarth, engine-keeper at Lode End. The will itself is in my strongbox at Huntingdon and will be read in the proper way, at the proper time. But this clause cannot wait for the proper time. Her Grace—" he caught himself, very slightly. "Miss Quarrie judged it should be read now, and I agreed with her."
"Read it," said Ivo.
He had not sat down. He stood with his back to the lancet window, which threw his shadow long across the table. Rosamund Quarrie stood at the table's other end, her veil put back, her hands folded before her. Cordelia had come in on her husband's arm and now sat on the only stool, very white. Mr. Furnival hovered by the surplice press with the air of a man in his own house who has been made to feel a guest in it.
Mr. Lusk read in a level, unhurried voice, as he might have read a conveyance.
"'And whereas I purpose, God willing, to take to wife Rosamund Quarrie, spinster, of this parish, upon the fourteenth day of October next ensuing, in the church of Saint Guthlac at Sallowby; and whereas I am an old man and my physician gives me to understand that I may not live to see that day: Now I declare it to be my will that if I shall die before the said marriage be solemnised, the said Rosamund Quarrie shall nevertheless be married upon that same day, and in that same church, to my great-nephew and heir, Ivo Ferrand, who will then be Duke of Ellerholt. And upon such marriage, and not otherwise, I give and devise all my lands in Sallow Fen not comprised in the settlement of my estates, together with the engine at Lode End and its buildings, and the sum of forty thousand pounds three per cent Consolidated Bank Annuities, unto the said Quintin Lusk and the Reverend Oswin Furnival, upon trust, for the sole and separate use of the said Rosamund, free from the debts, control or engagements of any husband, to be applied at her sole direction for the draining of the said fen and the relief and maintenance of the persons dwelling thereon. And if the said marriage shall not take place upon the said day, then I give and devise the said lands, engine and sum unto my niece Cordelia, the wife of Sir Digby Rendell, absolutely.'"
He lowered the paper.
Nobody spoke. The church clock, directly above them in the tower, ground its wheels and gave out a single dull stroke for the quarter.
Mr. Furnival cleared his throat. "I am obliged to remind everyone," he said apologetically, "that a marriage may not lawfully be solemnised after twelve o'clock noon. The Act is quite clear. If there is to be any—that is—" He looked at the bride, and at Ivo, and lost his way. "It is a quarter past eleven."
Sir Digby laughed.
It was a big, genial, easy sound. "Well, there it is," he said. "There it is, Lusk. In plain English for any jury in the kingdom. A dying man of six-and-seventy, a young woman who has had the run of his house and his papers for two years, a codicil that gives her the cream of his unsettled property, and when the old gentleman inconveniently dies before she can get him to the altar, she is to have it anyway by marrying the heir. I call that thorough. I call that remarkably thorough." He turned to Ivo. "My dear Ellerholt—I must learn to call you so—I am more sorry than I can say that you should come into your honours in such a way. But you see now what Cordelia meant. You see what we have been dealing with."
"Digby," said Cordelia faintly.