Arabella of Mars(98)

A thin stream of refugees was emerging from the gate, looking about themselves and back at the ruined house in appalled silence. Arabella glanced from them to her brother, equally battered by the events of the past few weeks, then back at the refugees.

“Go and tell those people,” she said to one of the servants, “that if they cannot return to their homes they are welcome at Woodthrush Woods.”

The servant looked from her to her brother, who nodded. “As you wish, Miss Ashby,” the servant said with a bow, and moved off.





26

A STRANGE PROPOSAL

Some days later, Arabella was in the kitchen, supervising an inventory and considering how to feed her guests. Most of Woodthrush Woods’s servants, both human and Martian, had already returned—thanks to Khema, the fighting there had been much less than at Fort Augusta, and most of them had remained nearby—and they had been joined by many others from Corey House and elsewhere. This was fortunate, as most of the other Corey House refugees were of the gentry and unable to provide for their own needs.

She turned from a count of the bags of noreth-flour to find one of the servants waiting expectantly. “Your brother requests your presence, Miss Ashby. He says that the matter is rather urgent.”

After instructing Collins, the former Corey House majordomo, to continue the inventory, she hurried to her brother’s bedchamber, where she found him lying across a heap of pillows, with Mr. Trombley in attendance. A sheaf of papers lay atop the bed-clothes. “What is the matter?” she said.

Mr. Trombley swallowed and looked down. “I … I am afraid it concerns your brother’s last will and testament.”

“I see.” She, too, felt a sudden need to inspect the dusty floor.

Michael gestured to the papers. “Explain the situation to my sister,” he said to Mr. Trombley with weary impatience.

“Sir, I really must protest this—”

Michael stopped him with a raised hand. “Explain it.”

Mr. Trombley frowned, but nodded to him, then turned to Arabella. “As you know,” he said, “the Ashby family estate is entailed to heirs of the body male.”

“Yes, yes,” Arabella said, waving an impatient hand.

“This is important. An entail, at least an entail of this type, is, in effect, a contract between generations, ensuring that the family property is neither lost nor subdivided into insignificance. It binds the estate—the entire estate—to the current holder and to his next two heirs.” He took a breath, let it out again. “As is typical with estates of this type, your brother’s will was drawn up for him shortly after he was born.” He swallowed. “As such, it was prepared by my predecessor, Mr. Beale. Mr. Beale was … well, let us say that he gave little consideration to the fair sex at the best of times, and in his dotage he appears to have omitted any consideration whatsoever.” He picked up the papers and handed them to Arabella with an expression both disgusted and contrite. “As your family solicitor, I must apologize for not having reviewed this document before now. Your father was in, in such … robust good health, until his sudden passing of course, and, well, the months since then, they have been so hectic…”

As Mr. Trombley continued to stammer his apologies, Arabella took the papers and ran her eyes over the dense pages of text. They might as well have been Venusian for all the sense she could extract from them. “What does this all mean?”

Mr. Trombley frowned and blew out a breath through his nose. “The entail binds the estate to heirs of the body male for three generations. When this will was drawn up, that was your brother, your uncle, and your cousin. Your uncle and cousin are specified by name, but in the event of their … their death or incapacity, the estate is to be inherited by the next heir of the body male. Whoever that may be.”

Arabella thought for a moment. Apart from Simon, she had no other male relatives on her father’s side, not even distant cousins. “And who would that be?”

“That … is the problem.” He sighed. “To the best of my knowledge there is no surviving male heir … and the will contains no provision whatsoever for this circumstance. As I said, my … predecessor, Mr. Beale, gave little consideration to the fair sex.” He shook his head. “If your brother should … pass, with the will in this state … the estate will be thrown into probate.”

“In which case…?”

He shrugged and spread his hands. “In a case such as this, any one with any possible claim, however spurious, may petition the court. It could take years to settle, the estate could be … could be divided any which way. And the expense would be tremendous. In the worst case, the entire estate could fall to the Crown.”

Through all this Michael had been looking at Arabella with stoic resignation. “We cannot allow this to occur.”

“But Michael, surely this is no concern of ours? I am sure you will be up and about in no time.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “You need not prevaricate with me, sister. I am fully aware of how precarious my health is. And if this … contretemps has taught me any thing, it is that life is fragile and easily snuffed out.” His expression was now as serious as any she could ever recall having seen on him. “The estate must be preserved at all costs. And so the entail must be broken.”