The Heiress Effect

“If a rock never moves,” her sister finally said, “the water wears it away all the same. I am being hurt, Jane, and if I stay still, Titus will wear me away. Sometimes I wonder that there’s anything left of me at all.”

“Emily.” Jane touched her sister’s hand. “I won’t let that happen.”

“It’s not up to you to let it. That’s what Titus would say.” Her sister raised her eyes. “Don’t counsel me to stay home because I might get hurt.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

Emily squeezed her hand. “Then you keep your nothing, and I’ll keep mine.”

It was the third time that Emily had slipped out of her room to meet Mr. Bhattacharya.

If her uncle knew what was happening, he would have had a fit of his own. He would have delivered her lecture after lecture about her innocence and how she was too kind and good and young. How men were not to be trusted.

But Mr. Bhattacharya had proven far too trustworthy for Emily’s tastes. He smiled at her. He took her arm when they found a path that was narrow, but he relinquished it when the footing was secure. He looked—oh, he definitely looked. But he hadn’t done anything untrustworthy. Nothing at all.

Today, he was quieter than usual. He’d been perfectly polite in greeting her. And then they’d walked and walked along the brook, following the path until it met up with the road. He’d not said a word. After about a half an hour, he finally spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not the best of company. I’m preparing for the Tripos, and I’m trying to figure out some of the trickier points of common law. It makes my head hurt.”

“Would you like to talk it over?”

She’d started reading Titus’s law books again just to see what Mr. Bhattacharya was talking about. Her uncle had been a little confused, but had finally said that she might enjoy the stories in the cases so long as she skipped over the conclusions of law.

Mr. Bhattacharya didn’t act as if she couldn’t follow the reasoning, as if the things he learned were above her. He just talked to her.

Last time, he’d pulled one of his books from his satchel and they’d read through a passage together, their heads bent over it in tandem, so close that he could have reached out and set his hand over hers.

He hadn’t.

Today, though, he didn’t take out his book. He looked up at the sky instead. “There is a case,” he finally said, “where the courts conclude that a bequest is invalid because an eighty-year-old woman could have had a child after the will was drafted.” He made an annoyed noise.

Emily folded her hands, waiting, but he didn’t say anything else. He simply glared at her as if the centuries-long foibles of Chancery could be foisted on her shoulders.

“Perhaps,” Emily finally said, “if you could explain to me precisely where you are having difficulties, I might be able to be of more help.”

“I—” He blinked at her. “How is it not obvious where I am having difficulties? Start with the fact that an eighty year old woman does not bear children.”

“Sarah had children in the Bible,” Emily said, “and she was at least eighty years old, so—”

“The Bible.” He shook his head. “If we are allowed to argue from that authority, I still don’t understand it. The rule in question says that it must become clear who a bequest is going to within twenty-one years of the death of a person who was living at the time the bequest was made. If we take the Bible as authority, we need only use Jesus Christ as a person living at the time of the bequest. Since he rose from the dead and lives forever, then—”

“No, no,” Emily said, trying to stifle a laugh. “I know very little of law, but I’m certain that you can’t use Jesus.”

“Why not? Did Jesus live after he rose a second time or didn’t he?”

“They’ll call it sacrilege, that’s why.”

He shrugged, as if sacrilege were of no particular worry to him. “Very well. Let me see if I understand how this works. We can use Sarah from your holy scripture, but not Jesus. I assume that if I mentioned the Bhagavad Gita, the response would be hostile.”

“What is that?” Emily asked curiously.

“You might call it some of our Hindu scripture.”

She contemplated this. “I do not consider myself an expert on English law, but I believe you are safe in assuming that citing Hindu scripture in an English court may not be the best choice.”

“English law is incomprehensible. Your scripture is the only valid argument that can be made, and even then, it is to be used only when it is convenient to support an argument, but not otherwise. How does that make any sense? There is no guiding principle.”

“I think, Mr. Bhattacharya, that you understand well enough,” Emily said. “Your problem is not one of understanding. It is one of acceptance.”

“You have it backward,” he said, calm and unruffled. “I accept. But how am I to apply illogic? And you claim that English law is the pinnacle of civilization.”

“Me?” Emily took a step forward. “I haven’t claimed anything about English law. English law says that I can’t make my own decisions, that even though I’m old enough to marry and have children of my own, that I cannot choose who I live with and who touches my body. English law says that I must abide by my uncle’s wishes, when he would have me confined to my room.”

He was looking at her oddly. “Your uncle,” he said slowly. “But I thought your uncle…” He glanced around the path. “What do you mean, he would confine you to your room?”

She swallowed. “He is, perhaps, not as permissive as I represented.”

He took a step back. “I’m not sure you should be defying your uncle. He’s family. That isn’t just law; it’s good sense. I thought…”

“I smoothed over the truth a little,” she said testily. “My uncle is not…”

“I wouldn’t defy my family like that.”

“Of course you would,” Emily responded. “If your family asked you to do something distasteful. Suppose, for instance, your father was a tyrant like Napoleon, and that he commanded you to—”

But he was shaking his head again. “Now I really don’t understand you. What was so terrible about Napoleon?”

He was so even-tempered, so often smiling, that at first Emily thought he was joking. Then she found the furrow in his brow, the dark look he gave her.