Hetty_ The Genius and Madness of America's First Female Tycoon - Charles Slack [18]
Once the will was complete, Sylvia’s resolve stiffened again. To Hetty’s irritation and dismay, Sylvia refused to sign the document.
“I can’t, I’m not able,” Sylvia protested one day, according to Electa Montague.
“Then you never will be able,” Hetty shot back. “You can do it now as well as ever.”
Hetty pleaded. She was alternately harsh and obsequious. But Sylvia, withered and ill and nervous, had found her gumption. She refused to sign. Later, when Sylvia was sleeping, Hetty coolly informed Electa that she, Hetty, would prevail. She said, “I never set out for anything that I don’t conquer.”
Hetty finally won out, by threatening not to leave New Bedford until Sylvia signed the will. On a cold, gloomy January afternoon in New Bedford, Hetty sent servant Frederick Brownell to the home of Kezia R. Price, a widow who had known Aunt Sylvia all of her life. Brownell asked Mrs. Price to come to Sylvia’s home around 4 P.M. to sign a paper. Electa would serve as a second witness. The third was Peleg Howland.
Hetty instructed Peleg to arrive at four, before tea. But Howland, a man of set habits, didn’t relish facing whatever Hetty had in mind on an empty stomach. He went home to tea first. Back at the house, tension built as the little assembly waited for the final witness. Sylvia, waiting in her upstairs bedroom, was wracked with nerves over the prospect of signing her fortune away. Hetty, agitated because she had waited so long for this moment, looked impatiently out the window for signs of the old man.
At 6 P.M., with no sign of Peleg, Electa helped Sylvia down the stairs to tea. She ate little, and very slowly, as Electa stood patiently by. After a time, she signaled to Electa, who helped her away from the all-but-untouched plate, and slowly back upstairs.
At his own house, Peleg Howland calmly finished his tea, either unaware of or unconcerned with the consternation that his delay was causing. It was dark when he arrived at the house on Eighth Street. The little entourage made its way up to Aunt Sylvias bedroom, where she sat in the gloomy glow of an oil lamp.
Aunt Sylvia was visibly agitated, Mrs. Brown recalled. “Her health was very poor. I don’t know if she was more agitated than common, but we said nothing to her because she was so feeble and weak.”
There was a table in the room. Electa fetched a pen and ink from a drawer.
Peleg Howland cut the silence. “What is this I’m going to sign to?”
Hetty said, “A will.”
Sylvia said nothing. Electa pushed Aunt Sylvia’s chair, with Aunt Sylvia in it, toward the table. Hetty placed the will before her. Sylvia paused, took a breath, then, with her feeble, trembling hand, signed her name. Peleg Howland went next, then Mrs. Brown, and, finally, Electa.
The scene following the signing was as uncomfortable as that which preceded it. This odd assortment of people stayed only as long as politeness dictated, then dispersed.
With this goal accomplished, Hetty started to worry in earnest. When she was away in New York, what would prevent Sylvia from drawing up an entirely new will? She returned to New York, regretting every mile she put between herself and New Bedford, for with each mile she made it easier, she imagined, for others to exert their influence over her aunt.
Her fears, as it turned out, were well placed. About the time Hetty returned to New York, a new rival for influence over Sylvia entered the scene in the