The Lady of the Shroud

BOOK I: THE WILL OF ROGER MELTON

The Reading of the Will of Roger Melton and all that Followed

Record made by Ernest Roger Halbard Melton, law-student of the InnerTemple, eldest son of Ernest Halbard Melton, eldest son of Ernest Melton,elder brother of the said Roger Melton and his next of kin.

I consider it at least useful--perhaps necessary--to have a complete andaccurate record of all pertaining to the Will of my late grand-uncleRoger Melton.

To which end let me put down the various members of his family, andexplain some of their occupations and idiosyncrasies. My father, ErnestHalbard Melton, was the only son of Ernest Melton, eldest son of SirGeoffrey Halbard Melton of Humcroft, in the shire of Salop, a Justice ofthe Peace, and at one time Sheriff. My great-grandfather, Sir Geoffrey,had inherited a small estate from his father, Roger Melton. In his time,by the way, the name was spelled Milton; but my great-great-grandfatherchanged the spelling to the later form, as he was a practical man notgiven to sentiment, and feared lest he should in the public eye beconfused with others belonging to the family of a Radical person calledMilton, who wrote poetry and was some sort of official in the time ofCromwell, whilst we are Conservatives. The same practical spirit whichoriginated the change in the spelling of the family name inclined him togo into business. So he became, whilst still young, a tanner andleather-dresser. He utilized for the purpose the ponds and streams, andalso the oak-woods on his estate--Torraby in Suffolk. He made a finebusiness, and accumulated a considerable fortune, with a part of which hepurchased the Shropshire estate, which he entailed, and to which I amtherefore heir-apparent.

Sir Geoffrey had, in addition to my grandfather, three sons and adaughter, the latter being born twenty years after her youngest brother.These sons were: Geoffrey, who died without issue, having been killed inthe Indian Mutiny at Meerut in 1857, at which he took up a sword, thougha civilian, to fight for his life; Roger (to whom I shall referpresently); and John--the latter, like Geoffrey, dying unmarried. Out ofSir Geoffrey's family of five, therefore, only three have to beconsidered: My grandfather, who had three children, two of whom, a sonand a daughter, died young, leaving only my father, Roger and Patience.Patience, who was born in 1858, married an Irishman of the name ofSellenger--which was the usual way of pronouncing the name of St. Leger,or, as they spelled it, Sent Leger--restored by later generations to thestill older form. He was a reckless, dare-devil sort of fellow, then aCaptain in the Lancers, a man not without the quality of bravery--he wonthe Victoria Cross at the Battle of Amoaful in the Ashantee Campaign.But I fear he lacked the seriousness and steadfast strenuous purposewhich my father always says marks the character of our own family. Heran through nearly all of his patrimony--never a very large one; and hadit not been for my grand-aunt's little fortune, his days, had he lived,must have ended in comparative poverty. Comparative, not actual; for theMeltons, who are persons of considerable pride, would not have tolerateda poverty-stricken branch of the family. We don't think much of thatlot--any of us.

Fortunately, my great-aunt Patience had only one child, and the prematuredecease of Captain St. Leger (as I prefer to call the name) did not allowof the possibility of her having more. She did not marry again, thoughmy grandmother tried several times to arrange an alliance for her. Shewas, I am told, always a stiff, uppish person, who would not yieldherself to the wisdom of her superiors. Her own child was a son, whoseemed to take his character rather from his father's family than from myown. He was a wastrel and a rolling stone, always in scrapes at school,and always wanting to do ridiculous things. My father, as Head of theHouse and his own senior by eighteen years, tried often to admonish him;but his perversity of spirit and his truculence were such that he had todesist. Indeed, I have heard my father say that he sometimes threatenedhis life. A desperate character he was, and almost devoid of reverence.No one, not even my father, had any influence--good influence, of course,I mean--over him, except his mother, who was of my family; and also awoman who lived with her--a sort of governess--aunt, he called her. Theway of it was this: Captain St. Leger had a younger brother, who made animprovident marriage with a Scotch girl when they were both very young.They had nothing to live on except what the reckless Lancer gave them,for he had next to nothing himself, and she was "bare"--which is, Iunderstand, the indelicate Scottish way of expressing lack of fortune.She was, however, I understand, of an old and somewhat good family,though broken in fortune--to use an expression which, however, couldhardly be used precisely in regard to a family or a person who never hadfortune to be broken in! It was so far well that the MacKelpies--thatwas the maiden name of Mrs. St. Leger--were reputable--so far as fightingwas concerned. It would have been too humiliating to have allied to ourfamily, even on the distaff side, a family both poor and of no account.Fighting alone does not make a family, I think. Soldiers are noteverything, though they think they are. We have had in our family menwho fought; but I never heard of any of them who fought because they_wanted_ to. Mrs. St. Leger had a sister; fortunately there were onlythose two children in the family, or else they would all have had to besupported by the money of my family.

Mr. St. Leger, who was only a subaltern, was killed at Maiwand; and hiswife was left a beggar. Fortunately, however, she died--her sisterspread a story that it was from the shock and grief--before the childwhich she expected was born. This all happened when my cousin--or,rather, my father's cousin, my first-cousin-once-removed, to beaccurate--was still a very small child. His mother then sent for MissMacKelpie, her brother-in-law's sister-in-law, to come and live with her,which she did--beggars can't be choosers; and she helped to bring upyoung St. Leger.

I remember once my father giving me a sovereign for making a witty remarkabout her. I was quite a boy then, not more than thirteen; but ourfamily were always clever from the very beginning of life, and father wastelling me about the St. Leger family. My family hadn't, of course, seenanything of them since Captain St. Leger died--the circle to which webelong don't care for poor relations--and was explaining where MissMacKelpie came in. She must have been a sort of nursery governess, forMrs. St. Leger once told him that she helped her to educate the child.

"Then, father," I said, "if she helped to educate the child she ought tohave been called Miss MacSkelpie!"

When my first-cousin-once-removed, Rupert, was twelve years old, hismother died, and he was in the dolefuls about it for more than a year.Miss MacKelpie kept on living with him all the same. Catch her quitting!That sort don't go into the poor-house when they can keep out! Myfather, being Head of the Family, was, of course, one of the trustees,and his uncle Roger, brother of the testator, another. The third wasGeneral MacKelpie, a poverty-stricken Scotch laird who had a lot ofvalueless land at Croom, in Ross-shire. I remember father gave me a newten-pound note when I interrupted him whilst he was telling me of theincident of young St. Leger's improvidence by remarking that he was inerror as to the land. From what I had heard of MacKelpie's estate, itwas productive of one thing; when he asked me "What?" I answered"Mortgages!" Father, I knew, had bought, not long before, a lot of themat what a college friend of mine from Chicago used to call "cut-throat"price. When I remonstrated with my father for buying them at all, and soinjuring the family estate which I was to inherit, he gave me an answer,the astuteness of which I have never forgotten.

"I did it so that I might keep my hand on the bold General, in case heshould ever prove troublesome. And if the worst should ever come to theworst, Croom is a good country for grouse and stags!" My father can seeas far as most men!

When my cousin--I shall call him cousin henceforth in this record, lestit might seem to any unkind person who might hereafter read it that Iwished to taunt Rupert St. Leger with his somewhat obscure position, inreiterating his real distance in kinship with my family--when my cousin,Rupert St. Leger, wished to commit a certain idiotic act of financialfolly, he approached my father on the subject, arriving at our estate,Humcroft, at an inconvenient time, without

permission, not having hadeven the decent courtesy to say he was coming. I was then a little chapof six years old, but I could not help noticing his mean appearance. Hewas all dusty and dishevelled. When my father saw him--I came into thestudy with him--he said in a horrified voice:

"Good God!" He was further shocked when the boy brusquely acknowledged,in reply to my father's greeting, that he had travelled third class. Ofcourse, none of my family ever go anything but first class; even theservants go second. My father was really angry when he said he hadwalked up from the station.

"A nice spectacle for my tenants and my tradesmen! To see my--my--akinsman of my house, howsoever remote, trudging like a tramp on the roadto my estate! Why, my avenue is two miles and a perch! No wonder youare filthy and insolent!" Rupert--really, I cannot call him cousinhere--was exceedingly impertinent to my father.

"I walked, sir, because I had no money; but I assure you I did not meanto be insolent. I simply came here because I wished to ask your adviceand assistance, not because you are an important person, and have a longavenue--as I know to my cost--but simply because you are one of mytrustees."

"_Your_ trustees, sirrah!" said my father, interrupting him. "Yourtrustees?"

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, quite quietly. "I meant the trusteesof my dear mother's will."