But her ladyship, who had money in
her own right, said that Master Charles's income should go on as usual.
Then she and Sir John quarrelled; and she left him and came to live at
Deepley Walls, leaving him at Dene Folly; and here she stayed till Sir
John was taken with his last illness and sent for her. He sent for her,
not to make up the quarrel, but to jibe and sneer at her, and to make
her wait on him day and night, as if she were a paid nurse from a
hospital. While this was going on, and after Sir John had been quite
given up by the doctors, news came from India of Master Charles's death.
Well, her ladyship went nigh distracted; but as for the baronet, it was
said, though I won't vouch for the truth of it, that he only laughed
when the news was told him, and said that if he was plagued as much with
corns in the next world as he had been in this, he should find Master
Charles's arm very useful to lean upon. Two days later he died, and the
title, and Dene Folly with it, went to a far-away cousin, whom neither
Sir John nor his wife had ever seen. Then it was found how the baronet
had contrived that his spite should outlive him--for only out of spite
and mean cruelty could he have made such a will as he did make: that
Deepley Walls should not become her ladyship's absolute property till
the end of twenty years, during the whole of which time his body was to
remain unburied, and to be kept under the same roof with his widow,
wherever she might live.
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