Orley Farm

Orley Farm is a novel by Anthony Trollope. When Joseph Mason of Groby Park, Yorkshire, died, he left his estate to his family. A postscript to his will, however, left Orley Farm to his much younger second wife and infant son. The will and the postscript were in her handwriting, and there were three witnesses. A bitterly fought court case confirms the postscript. Twenty years later Lady Mason lives at Orley Farm with her son. Samuel Dockwrath, a tenant, is asked to leave. Knowing of the original case (one of the postscript witnesses had been an unsuccessful suitor of his wife), Dockwrath investigates and finds a second will signed by the same witnesses on the same date, though they remember signing only one. He travels to Groby Park and persuades Joseph Mason junior to have Lady Mason prosecuted for forgery.