Free Hetty by Charles Slack Page A

see in each other? Edward undoubtedly admired Hetty’s knowledge of business—rare in a woman. She was pretty, and possessed a sharp wit—another quality Edward admired. And, of course, there was the fortune she stood to inherit—although he had to know that getting his hands on any of her money might be more trouble than it was worth. Edward did not need her money, as he had amassed a fortune of close to a million dollars on his own. More likely, Hetty’s money simply lent her a certain glitter that in Edward’s eyes compensated for her rougher qualities.
    For her part, Hetty knew that Edward liked to spend. But his self-made fortune attested to his business abilities, and her father, whose business judgment she valued above all others, liked Green. If he spent his money, what of it, so long as he didn’t try to spend hers. If Hetty had any doubts about Edward, he proved himself to her by accompanying her to New Bedford and serving as her loyal friend at a time when she needed one.
    The will Hetty heard following Sylvia’s funeral was airtight. It had been witnessed by respected men and was thorough and exact. If she had any hope of reversing the inevitable, she would have to somehow establish the preeminence of the mutual wills that she and Sylvia had signed in 1860 and 1862. She would have to present some document specifically invalidating any subsequent wills. And she would have to move quickly.
    Her campaign began at Sylvia’s house on Eighth Street theevening of the funeral. Hetty summoned Fally Brownell, the aged housekeeper who guarded the keys to Sylvia’s trunk. In the dim light of an oil lamp, Fally, Electa Montague, and Hetty climbed the stairs to Sylvia’s room. Edward waited downstairs. According to Hetty, she asked Fally to open the trunk and retrieve some papers, which Fally did. One, a lemon-colored envelope, contained Hetty’s will. The other, a white envelope, contained a copy of Aunt Sylvias 1862 will. Attached to it, Hetty insisted, was a second page that had been added at Sylvia’s request shortly after she signed the will. This second page contained Sylvia’s explicit request that any subsequent will be automatically invalidated by the probate judge.
    Edward corroborated Hetty’s version, although he erred in his testimony by saying the search for the papers happened in the morning, a couple of days after the funeral. Fally and Electa insisted Green wasn’t even in the house, and that it was Hetty, not Fally, who rummaged through the trunk. “Miss Montague and I stood at the door of the closet. She [Hetty] went in and went to the trunk. I did not see what she did. I went downstairs in a very few minutes,” Fally recalled. Electa said she saw Hetty retrieve some papers but had no idea what they were. The distinction was crucial. Hetty needed to establish that someone besides herself had seen this second page actually attached to the will, to counter suspicions that Hetty had fabricated the second page after Sylvia’s death and forged her aunt’s signature.
    As she launched her “second page” scheme, Hetty attacked on another front: She set about trying to win support among Sylvia’s beneficiaries. She tried to convince Electa that Sylvia had slighted both of them. “We are not capable of taking care of our money,” she said. “Yours is in trust, and so is mine.” In fact, Electa had received $5,000 in cash outright.
    The next day, Hetty tried another approach. “We were at Sylvia Ann’s homestead, and Miss Robinson asked me into the parlor,” Electa recalled. “She talked about the will, said her aunt had not given me as much as she ought to, and said if I wouldcome over on her side she would give me as much as or more.” Electa turned down the offer.
    Hetty traveled frequently between New York and New Bedford that summer, with Edward by her side much of the time. One day in July, Pardon Gray, Sylvia’s former driver, saw a horse and buggy roll up to his door, bearing