names of the characters the names by which they were habitually known, in order to avoid confusion. Thus John Richard Gorman is Jack and Richard Petherick is Dick.”
“I guessed as much, Mr. Manktelow.”
“Your lordship is very good. If I may now turn to the settlement…”
Pettigrew had no settlement to turn to, but he was able to follow the story adequately enough from Manktelow’s narrative. All the older characters in the pedigree, with their picturesque scriptural names, were long since dead. The proceedings concerned the trust created years before by Samuel, the oldest and, no doubt, by far the wealthiest of the Gormans. It was his hand that stretched out from the grave to manipulate the destinies of his descendants and collaterals.
Clearly, Samuel had been a believer, as the country phrase goes, in “tying his property up”. Indeed, he had tied it up about as tightly as the law allowed. In the process of doing so, he had shown a complete disregard for the interests of the female members of the family. So far as this document was concerned, they might not have existed. His object appeared to have been to preserve the property intact and to preserve it in the male line. Like every lawyer, Pettigrew had met with this unamiable eccentricity before, but there was a peculiarity about these particular dispositions which he did not understand until Manktelow made it clear.
“I may summarize the limitations in the settlement as follows,” he said: “to his son Gilbert for his life, and on Gilbert’s death to his brother Eli for his life. On Eli’s death-”
“Can you explain, Mr. Manktelow, why there is no provision for Gilbert’s children? I am aware that in the event he died unmarried, but he was only a young man at the time of the settlement, and the settlor must surely have contemplated that he would have issue.”
“My lord, that is exactly what the settlor did not contemplate. As the result of a disease of the kidneys contracted in his youth Gilbert was rendered to all intents incapable of marriage, and his father in making the settlement disregarded the possibility.”
“I see. Pray continue.”
“If your lordship pleases. On Eli’s death, then, the property is to go to Eli’s eldest and other sons successively in tail male. I shall have occasion to say something on what I submit is the effect of that provision in the events that have happened, but at this point I should draw your lordship’s attention to the fact that Eli, who was of course alive at the date of the settlement, died before his brother Samuel, and that he in fact left one son only, Jack.”
“So far, then, the effect of the settlement is-to Gilbert for life and on his decease to Jack.”
“To Jack in tail male, my lord.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Please go on, Mr. Manktelow, and don’t waste time.”
“Your lordship is very good. Proceeding, then, we find that the settlement provides that on the failure of Eli’s- that is to say Jack’s-male issue the property is to be settled upon the junior line. The limitation is similar -to Job for his life and upon Job’s death to his eldest and other sons successively in tail. And once more the position is simplified by the fact that Job predeceased his brother Samuel, and left one son only-Dick.”
The Judge yawned.
“It all seems remarkably simple, Mr. Manktelow, so far. I don’t at the moment appreciate why it should be a matter of concern whether or not Gilbert predeceased Jack. The limitation being to males, and Jack having left daughters only…”
“I think that your lordship will see the significance of the question when I tell your lordship that two years ago, that is to say during the lifetime of Gilbert and without his consent, Jack by deed barred his entail.”
Once, many years before, Pettigrew had had the good fortune to find himself in the company of an aged ornithologist at the very moment when a hoopoe descended from the sky on to the lawn outside his drawing-room window. He had never forgotten the varied expressions on his face at that moment-the look of blank incredulity merging into excitement as certainty succeeded doubt, the excitement itself subsiding into blissful contentment at the achievement of a lifelong ambition. With astonishment he realized that Manktelow’s prosaic words had produced exactly the same effect on Mr. Justice Pomeroy as the hoopoe had on the birdman all those years ago.
“Barred the entail, Mr. Manktelow?” he was saying. “Is it your case that Jack created a base fee?”
Manktelow was smiling proudly. It was his hoopoe, all right, there was not a doubt of it. “Precisely, my lord,” he said.
“Bless my soul! A base fee! How remarkable! I don’t know when I last- A base fee! This is really very interesting indeed! Pray go on.”
I wish, thought Pettigrew, that I had paid more attention to those lectures on real property when I was a student. I wish I had gone into Chancery chambers- no, I don’t really, of course, but I wish I had at least learnt a little about what goes on inside them. Above all, if I am to give evidence in this damnable piece of litigation, I wish somebody would condescend to tell me what it is all about.
Even as he suppressed an insane desire to jump up and demand an explanation, there was an interruption from a bench behind him. Mrs. Gorman, untrammelled by the inhibitions that kept Pettigrew speechless, was doing that precise thing.
“Excuse me,” she said in her quiet but forceful voice, “but what are you talking about? You’ve been saying a lot, but it doesn’t mean anything-not to me, it doesn’t. Of course I’ve known about Uncle Sam’s money ever since I was married and what he did with it, but all this stuff-”
By this time, the usher, the associate, three solicitor’s clerks and both counsel were uniting in an attempt to suppress her. Support for her came from an unexpected quarter. With all the geniality to be expected of a man who has a hoopoe actually under his eyes on his lawn, Mr. Justice Pomeroy not only condoned the interruption but seemed to welcome it.
“Let Mrs. Gorman come forward,” he said.
With Mrs. Gorman standing before him in the well of the court, he proceeded: “I quite understand your difficulty, madam. The position is a little complicated and unusual, but it is perfectly clear. Since you have no advocate, let me explain. This property was settled in such a way that on Gilbert Gorman’s death it would pass to your husband for his life and on his death to his son, if any. If your husband were to die before his cousin, it would go to that son direct, of course.”
“I know all about that, sir.”
“I am usually addressed as ‘my lord’, but no matter. Now there is a process known to the law as ‘barring an entail’, by which the man in possession-your husband, let us say, after Gilbert’s death-can alter that arrangement, so that the succession to the property is no longer limited to sons. Once he has barred the entail, he can leave it to whom he likes-his wife or daughters. Do you follow me?”
“Indeed I do, sir-my lord. That was what my husband did when he left me two year ago. Made a will, he did. My father made him do it, so that my little girls would be looked after. He said if he didn’t do that he’d prosecute him for taking all that money out of his shop.”
“Very well. Now comes the really fascinating part of the story,” his lordship continued, licking his lips. “That is to say-I recognize that its fascination may not be readily apparent to you, but it is a really interesting position none the less. The effect of that disposition of your husband, made in Gilbert’s lifetime and without his consent, was that if he survived Gilbert the property would pass as he directed by his will, but if he died before Gilbert, it would all go away from his family to the next in succession, who is his cousin Dick.”
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, Why?-my lord.”
“Well, really, I don’t know that I can answer that question. That is the law, and has been for many hundreds of years. You must take it from me that that is so.”
“It seems an odd sort of law to me,” observed Mrs. Gorman dispassionately. “After all, Gilbert had been a sick man for years, no one thought he’d live as long as he did, and Jack was young and strong as a horse-”
“No doubt, madam. That would perhaps explain why your father took the course he did. But those are hardly circumstances that affect the position in law.”
“I suppose not.”
Mrs. Gorman looked very lonely, standing there looking up at the bench. As though for the first time Pettigrew realized that she was the only woman in that assemblage of men. At the same time, he realized something else that gave him the answer to a lot of problems.
