More children than usual played on the green, for only adults were invited to the meeting in the village hall, in the interest of chair space and decorum. Older children or maids minded the few younger ones toddling about.
Claire and Samuel sprinted toward Julia, Andrew, and Aleda, with John following patiently.
“Grandmother!” Claire chirped, throwing arms around Julia’s waist. “Father says Aunt Aleda is going to sell her book and be rich!”
Samuel, caught up into Andrew’s arms, naturally opened his mouth. “And Mother hopes she’ll buy some decent clothes!”
“Samuel!” John scolded with an apologetic look to his aunt.
But Aleda was howling with laughter. Julia and Andrew laughed, as well.
Inside the hall, Mr. Sykes shifted over in the second to last row so the three could sit together. Elizabeth sent a wave from across the aisle. The hum of conversations faded to silence as Mr. Baker stepped up to the platform. Only the sounds of children at play came through the open windows, but they were not intrusive.
With no preamble besides introducing himself, the solicitor got down to business: “Squire Bartley leaves the manor house with its outbuildings and orchards and parks, and the sum of one thousand pounds sterling, to Mr. and Mrs. Horace Stokes.”
Stunned silence, then gasps and chatter filled the hall, followed by applause. Julia lifted a bit in her chair and followed other gazes toward Horace and Margery, weeping profusely in each other’s arms. She felt the sting of tears herself. So the orphans would have room to romp and grow. And knowing the Stokes, there would surely be more of them now.
Andrew, smiling, but with a worried dent between his brows, turned to Julia and said, “But what of the squire’s servants?”
“Perhaps he left them some money?”
He did better than that, for the next item was the enormously profitable cheese factory. As Mr. Baker read the names of the servants, there were whoops of joy, and happy sobs.
It was a matter of fact that the squire was wealthy. But the vastness of this wealth surprised Julia as Mr. Baker continued reading.
Cheese factory workers were left the cottages that housed them in the three rows, a stone’s throw from the factory, as well as forty pounds each for improvements. Dairy farmers were left their farms; villagers who had leased from the squire, their cottages. Two thousand pounds went to the parish mission fund, and one thousand to Saint Jude’s charity fund.
Gipsy Woods was left to the whole village, with the exception of an acre surrounding the gamekeeper’s cottage, which went to Aleda along with the cottage. Julia patted her back as her daughter wiped her eyes.
There were various smaller amounts. One hundred pounds for each school. Twenty pounds for the archery team. Thirty pounds for the subscription library. Ten pounds for a signboard to be erected at the entrance to the village reading Welcome to Gresham. Home of Anwyl Mountain Cheeses.
The latter brought laughter. Leave it to Squire Bartley to carry entrepreneurism to the grave.
The celebration spilled out onto the green, while individuals or heads of families stayed to sign legal documents. Andrew, representing Saint Jude’s, took up the last spot in the queue that had formed, with Julia at his side.
They were in no hurry. They had questions.
“When was this will drafted?” was Andrew’s first.
“Squire Bartley expressed the desire to change his will during one of my regular visits in early May,” Mr. Baker replied. “Due to his wish for secrecy, I brought up two legal clerks from Shrewsbury four days later to witness the signing.”
“But it was in early June that he asked me if it would be moral to break his promise to his sister. Just hours before he was struck ill.”
“I’m not surprised. He was tormented over what he had done, as much as it pleased him to help so many deserving people. He clearly wanted absolution from you. But for having done it . . . not for planning to do it.”
Mr. Baker paused. “How did you respond?”
“I suggested he give it all away beforehand,” Andrew replied, “except for however much he would wish to leave to Mr. Gibbs.”
“Clever. You would make a good attorney.”
“He makes a better vicar,” Julia said, taking Andrew’s arm. And she voiced her question. “Was Mr. Gibbs left anything?”
“I’m allowed to tell you, now that he’s been informed. Five hundred pounds. Squire Bartley could not bring himself to disown him. He did love his sister. But if anything remains of it a year from now, I will be the most surprised man in England.” Conversation over supper at the vicarage centered around the squire’s legacy to Gresham.
“I doubt anything like this has ever been done,” Jonathan said, and turned to Aleda. “You should write a story about it.”
Aleda shook her head. “I can’t. Fiction has to be believable.”
Mother gave her a perplexed look. “Shipwrecked seamen battling pirates and giant lizards is more believable than something that actually happened before witnesses?”
“I’m afraid so, Mother. Readers are willing to accept all sorts of fantasy, as long as the story line follows the basic laws of God and nature. For example, I can’t have my characters defy gravity and float out of harm’s way . . . unless they were written about as some sort of cosmic aliens or elves with those powers already mentioned.”
“How many squires in history have left fortunes to their villages?” Elizabeth asked.
“None before midcentury,” Father said. “The laws of sucession were quite restricted: male heirs or the Crown.”
“What a pity that it’s so rare as to be unbelievable,” Jonathan said.
“But we’re happy for Gresham, aren’t we, Mother?” John asked. He alone represented Elizabeth and Jonathan’s children. Perhaps it was her pregnancy that caused Elizabeth to realize she could not coddle the twins forever; thus the servants would be feeding them and tucking them into bed.
As much as Aleda loved Samuel and Claire, she relished this opportunity to converse without background reminders not to slurp or complain about the food.
Elizabeth smiled at her son. “You’re excited about the new archery equipment, aren’t you?”
He smiled and nodded, but Jonathan’s face at the mention of archery equipment betrayed the greater excitement.
Even Dora and Wanetta glowed as they served the meal; Wanetta because the cottage she and Luke had rented was now theirs, and Dora, because her parents now owned their modest dairy farm.
“It’s a shame Jewel wasn’t included with the manor house servants,” Mother said.
“She wasn’t employed there when the squire drafted the will,” Aleda explained. “And the servants were listed by name.”
“They all say she took tender care of him the brief time she knew him,” Father said.
Aleda smiled to herself. Jewel may not own part of a cheese factory, but her future—and Becky’s—seems very promising.