CHAPTER XIX. OFFICIAL MYSTERIES
“I think I had better see him myself,” said Fossbrooke, after patiently listening to Tom Lendrick’s account of his meeting with his grandfather. “It is possible I may be able to smooth down matters a little, and dispose the old gentleman, besides, to accord us some aid in our Sardinian project, for I have resolved upon that, Tom.”
“Indeed, sir; the gold-mine?”
“No, the lead, – the lead and silver. In the rough calculation I made last night on this slip of paper, I see my way to something like seven thousand a year to begin with; untold wealth will follow. There are no less than eleven products available, – the black lead of pencils and the white used by painters being the chief; while in my new salt, which I am disposed to call the ‘pyrochloride of plumbium,’ we have a sedative that will allay the pangs of hydrophobia.”
“I wish it would quiet the Chief Baron,” muttered Tom; and Sir Brook, not hearing him correctly, continued, – “I think so, – I think the Chief Baron eminently calculated to take a proper estimate of my discovery. A man of fine intellect is ever ready to accept truth, albeit it come in a shape and through a channel in which he has himself not pursued it. Will you write a line to your sister and ask if it would be his Lordship’s convenience to receive me, and at what time?”
“Of course, sir, whatever you wish,” said Tom, in some confusion; “but might I ask if it be your intention to ask my grandfather to aid me with his purse?”
“Naturally. I mean that he should, by advancing, let us say, eight hundred pounds, put you in a position to achieve a speedy fortune. He shall see, too, that our first care has been your sister’s interests. Six-sixteenths of the profits for fifty years are to be hers; three each we reserve for ourselves; the remaining four will form a reserve fund for casualties, a capital for future development, and a sum at interest to pay superannuations, with some other objects that you will find roughly jotted down here, for which, however, they will amply suffice. I take it his Lordship knows something of metallurgy, Tom?” “I believe he knows a little of everything.” “Chemistry I feel sure he must have studied.” “I won’t answer for the study; but you ‘ll find that when you come to talk with him, you ‘ll scarcely wander very far out of his geography. But I was going to say, sir, that I ‘m not quite easy at the thought of asking him for money.”
“It’s not money – at least, it’s no gift – we require of him. We are in possession of a scheme certain to secure a fortune. We know where a treasure lies hid, and we want no more than the cost of the journey to go and fetch it. He shall be more than repaid. The very dispositions we make in your sister’s favor will show him in what spirit we mean to deal. It is possible – I am willing to own it – it is possible I might approach a man of inferior intelligence with distrust and fear, but in coming before Baron Lendrick I have no misgivings. All my experience of life has shown me that the able men are the generous men. In the ample stretch of their minds they estimate mankind by larger averages, and thus they come to see that there is plenty of good in human nature.”
“I believe the old Judge is clever enough, and some speak very well of his character; but his temper – his temper is something that would swallow up all the fine qualities that ever were accorded to one man; and even if you were about to go on a mission I liked better, I ‘d say, Don’t ask to see him, don’t expose yourself to the risk of some outrageous affront, – something you could n’t bear and would n’t resent.”
“I have never yet found myself in the predicament you speak of,” said Sir Brook, drawing himself up haughtily, “nor do I know of any contingency in life from which I could retreat on account of its perils. It may be, indeed it is, more than likely, from what you tell me, that I shall make no appeal to your grandfather’s generosity; but I shall see him to tender your regrets for any pain you may have caused him, and to tell also so much of our future intentions as it is becoming the head of your house should hear. I also desire to see your sister, and say good-bye.”
“Ask her to let me do so too. I can’t go away without seeing her again.” Tom took a turn or two up and down the room as though he had not made up his mind whether to say something or not. He looked out of the window, possibly in search of something to distract his thoughts, and then turning suddenly about, he said: “I was thinking, sir, that if it was your opinion – mind, I don’t want to insinuate that it ought to be, or even that it is my own – but that if you came to the conclusion that my sister was not happy with my grandfather – that her life was one of depression and suffering – what would you say to her coming along with us?”
“To Sardinia! Coming to Sardinia, do you mean, Tom?” said the old man, in astonishment.
“Yes, sir, that is what I meant.”
“Have I not told you the sort of life that lies before us in the island, – the hardships, the dangers, the bitter privations we shall have to endure? Is it to these we can invite a young girl, trained and accustomed to every elegance and every comfort?”
“She ‘d not shrink from her share, – that much I ‘ll warrant you; and the worst roughing of that rugged life would be easier to bear than this old man’s humor.”
“No, no; it must not be thought of,” said Fossbrooke, sternly. “What meaning has our enterprise if it be not to secure her future fortune? She cannot – she shall not – pay any part of the price. Let me think over this, Tom. It may be that we ought not to leave her; it may be that we should hit upon something nearer home. I will go up to the Castle and see the Viceroy.”
He made a light grimace as he said this. Such a visit was by no means to his taste. If there was anything totally repugnant to his nature, it was to approach men whom he had known as friends or intimates with anything like the request for a favor. It seemed to him to invert all the relations which ought to subsist between men in society. The moment you had stooped to such a step, in his estimation you had forfeited all right to that condition of equality which renders intercourse agreeable.
“I must have something for this young fellow, – something that may enable him to offer his sister a home if she should need it. I will accept nothing for myself, – on that I am determined. It is a sorry part, that of suppliant, but so long as it is for another it is endurable. Not that I like it, though, – not that it sits easy on me, – and I am too old to acquire a new manner.” Thus muttering to himself, he went along till he found himself at the chief entrance of the Castle.
“You will have to wait on Mr. Balfour, sir, his Excellency’s private secretary, the second door from the corner,” said the porter, scarcely deigning a glance at one so evidently unversed in viceregal observances. Sir Brook nodded and withdrew. From a groom who was holding a neat-looking cob pony Fossbrooke learned that Mr. Balfour was about to take his morning’s ride. “He’ll not see you now,” said the man. “You ‘ll have to come back about four or half-past.”
“I have only a question to ask,” said Sir Brook, half to himself as he ascended the stairs. As he gained the landing and rang, the door opened and Mr. Balfour appeared. “I regret to detain you, sir,” began Sir Brook, as he courteously raised his hat. “Mr. Balfour, I believe.”
“You are right as to my name, but quite as wrong if you fancy that you will detain me,” said that plump and very self-satisfied gentleman, as he moved forward.
“And yet, sir, such is my intention,” said Sir Brook, placing himself directly in front of him.
“That is a matter very soon settled,” said Balfour, returning to the door and calling out, “Pollard, step down to the lower yard, and send a policeman here.”
Sir Brook heard the order unmoved in manner, and even made way for the servant to pass down the stairs. No sooner, however, was the man out of hearing than he said, “It would be much better, sir, not to render either of us ridiculous. I am Sir Brook Fossbrooke, and I come here to learn at what time it would be his Excellency’s pleasure to receive me.”
The calm quiet dignity in which he spoke, even more than the words, had its effect on Balfour, who, with more awkwardness than he would like to have owned, asked Sir Brook to walk in and be seated. “I have had a message for you from his Excellency these three or four days back, and knew not where to find you.”
“Did it never occur to you to try what assistance the police might afford, sir?” said he, with deep gravity.
“One thinks of these generally as a last resource,” said Balfour, coolly, and possibly not sorry to show how imperturbable he could be under a sarcasm.
“And now for the message, sir,” said Fossbrooke.
“I’ll be shot if I remember it. Wasn’t it something about an election riot? You thrashed a priest, named Malcahy, eh?”
“I opine not, sir,” said Sir Brook, with a faint smile.
“No, no; you are the great man for acclimatization; you want to make the ornithorhynchus as common as the turkey. Am I right?”
Sir Brook shook his head.
“I never have my head clear out of office hours, that ‘s the fact,” said Balfour, impatiently. “If you had called on me between twelve and three, you ‘d have found me like a directory.”
“Put no strain upon your recollection, sir. When I see the Viceroy, it is probable he will repeat the message.”
“You know him, then?”
“I have known him eight-and-forty years.”
“Oh, I have it, – I remember it all now. You used to be with Colonel Hanger and Hugh Seymour and O’Kelly and all the Carlton House lot.”
Fossbrooke bowed a cold assent.
“His Excellency told us the other evening that there was not a man in England who had so many stories of the Prince. Didn’t Moore go to you about his Life of Sheridan? – yes, of course, – and you promised him some very valuable documents; and sent him five-and-twenty protested bills of poor Brinsley’s, labelled ‘Indubitable Records.’”
“This does not lead us to the message, sir,” said Foss-brooke, stiffly.
“Yes, but it does though, – I’m coming to it. I have a system of artificial memory, and I have just arrived at you now through Carlton House, milk-punch, and that story about Lord Grey and yourself riding postilions to Ascot, and you on the wheelers tipping up Grey with your whip till he grew frantic. Was n’t that a fact?”
“I wait for the message, sir; or rather I grow impatient at not hearing it.”
“I remember it perfectly. It’s a place he wants to offer you; it’s a something under the Courts of Law. You are to do next to nothing, – nothing at all, I believe, if you prefer it, as the last fellow did. He lived in Dresden for the education of his children, and he died there, and we did n’t know when he died, – at least they suspect he signed some dozen life certificates that his doctor used to forward at quarter-day. Mind, I don’t give you the story as mine; but the impression is that he held the office for eight years after his death.”
“Perhaps, sir, you would now favor me with the name and nature of the appointment.”
“He was called the Deputy-Assistant Sub-something of somewhere in the Exchequer; and he had to fill, or to register, or to put a seal, or, if not a seal, a stamp on some papers; but the marrow of the matter is, he had eight hundred a year for it; and when the Act passed requiring two seals, he asked for an increase of salary and an assistant clerk, and they gave him two hundred more, but they refused the clerk. They do such shabby things in those short sittings over the Estimates!”
“And am I to understand that his Excellency makes me an offer of this appointment?”
“Well, not exactly; there’s a hitch in it, – I may say there are two hitches: first of all, we ‘re not sure it’s in our gift; and, secondly – ”
“Perhaps I may spare you the secondly, – the firstly is more than enough for me.”
“Yes, but I’d like to explain. Here’s how it is: the Chief Baron claimed the patronage about twenty years ago, and we made, or the people who were in power made, some sort of a compromise about an ultimate nomination, and he was to have the first. Now this man only died t’ other day, having held the office, as I said, upwards of twenty years, – a most unconscionable thing, – just one of those selfish acts small official fellows are always doing; and so I thought, as I saw your name down for something on his Excellency’s list, that I ‘d mention you for the post as a sort of sop to Baron Lendrick, saying, ‘Look at our man; we are not going to saddle the country with one of your long-annuity fellows, —he ‘s eighty if he’s a day.’ I say, I ‘d press this point, because the old Judge says he is no longer bound by the terms of the compromise, for that the office was abolished and reconstructed by the 58th of Victoria, and that he now insists on the undivided patronage.”
“I presume that the astute reasons which induced you to think of me have not been communicated to the Viceroy.”
“I should think not. I mention them to you frankly, because his Excellency said you were one of those men who must be dealt with openly. ‘Play on the square with Foss-brooke,’ said he; ‘and whether he win or lose, you ‘ll see no change in him. Try to overreach him, and you ‘ll catch a tiger.’”
“I am very grateful for his kind estimate of me. It is, however, no more than I looked for at his hands.” This he said with a marked feeling, and then added, in a lighter tone, “I have also a debt of gratitude to yourself, of which I know not how to acquit myself better than by accepting this appointment, and taking the earliest opportunity to die afterwards.”
“No, don’t do that; I don’t mean that. You can do like that fellow they made Pope because he looked on the verge of the grave, and who pitched his crutch into the air when he had put on the tiara.”
“I understand; so that it is only in Baron Lendrick’s eyes I am to look short-lived.”
“Just so; call on him, – have a meeting with him; say that his Excellency desires to act with every delicacy towards him, – that should it be discovered hereafter the right of nomination lies with the Court and not with us, we ‘ll give him an equivalent somewhere else, till – till – ”
“Till I shall have vacated the post,” chimed in Sir Brook, blandly; “a matter, of course, of very brief space.”
“You see the whole thing, – you see it in all its bearings; and now if you only could know something about the man you have to deal with, there would be nothing more to tell you.”
“I have heard about him passingly.”
“Oh, yes, his eccentricities are well known. The world is full of stories of him, but he is one of those men who play wolf on the species, – he must be worrying somebody to keep him from worrying himself; he smashed the last two Governments here, and he ‘d have upset us too if I had n’t been here. He hates me cordially; and if you don’t want to rouse his anger, don’t let your lips murmur the name, Cholmondely Balfour.”
“You may rely upon me, sir,” said Sir Brook, bowing. “I have scarcely ever met a gentleman whose name I am not more likely to recall than your own.”
“Sharp, that; did you mean it?” said Balfour, with his glass to his eye.
“I am never ambiguous, sir, though it occasionally happens to me to say somewhat less than I feel. I wish you a good day.”
CHAPTER XX. IN COURT
When the day arrived that the Chief Baron was to resume his place on the Bench, no small share of excitement was seen to prevail within the precincts of the Four Courts. Many opined that his recovery was far from perfect, and that it was not his intention ever to return to the justice-seat. Some maintained that the illness had been far less severe than was pretended, and that he had employed the attack as a means of pressure on the Government, to accord to his age and long services the coveted reward. Less argumentative partisans there were who were satisfied to wager that he would or would not reappear on the Bench, and bets were even laid that he would come for one last time, as though to show the world in what full vigor of mind and intellect was the man the Government desired to consign to inactivity and neglect.
It is needless to say that he was no favorite with the Bar. There was scarcely a man, from the highest to the lowest, whom he had not on some occasion or another snubbed, ridiculed, or reprimanded. Whose law had he not controverted? Whose acuteness had he not exposed, whose rhetoric not made jest of? The mere presence of ability before him seemed to stimulate his combative spirit, and incite him to a passage at arms with one able to defend himself. No first-rate man could escape the shafts of his barbed and pointed wit; it was only dulness, hopeless dulness, that left his court with praise of his urbanity and an eulogy over his courteous demeanor.
Now, hopeless dulness is not the characteristic of the Irish Bar, and with the majority the Chief Baron was the reverse of popular.
No small tribute was it therefore to his intellectual superiority, to that mental power that all acknowledged while they dreaded, that his appearance was greeted with a murmur of approbation, which swelled louder and louder as he moved across the hall, till it burst out at last into a hoarse, full cheer of welcome. Mounting the steps with difficulty, the pale old man, seared with age and wrinkled with care, turned round towards the vast crowd, and with an eye of flashing brightness, and a heightened color, pressed his hand upon his heart, and bowed. A very slight motion it was, – less, far less, perhaps, than a sovereign might have accorded; but in its dignity and grace it was a perfect recognition of all the honor he felt had been done him.
How broken! how aged! how fearfully changed! were the whispered remarks that were uttered around as he took his seat on the Bench, and more significant even than words were the looks interchanged when he attempted to speak, and instead of that clear metallic ring which once had been audible even outside the court, a faint murmuring sound was only heard.
A few commonplace motions were made and discharged. A somewhat wearisome argument followed on a motion for a new trial, and the benches of the Bar gradually grew thinner and thinner, as the interest of the scene wore off, and as each in turn had scanned, and, after his own fashion, interpreted, the old Judge’s powers of mind and body; when suddenly, and as it were without ostensible cause, the court began to fill, – bench after bench was occupied, till at last even all the standing-space was crowded; and when the massive curtain moved aside, vast numbers were seen without, eagerly trying to enter. At first the Chief Baron appeared not to notice the change, but his sharp eye no sooner detected it than he followed with his glance the directed gaze of the crowd, and saw it fixed on the gallery, opposite the jury-box, now occupied by a well-dressed company, in the midst of whom, conspicuous above all, sat Lady Lendrick. So well known were the relations that subsisted between himself and his wife, such publicity had been given to their hates and quarrels, that her presence here was regarded as a measure of shameless indelicacy. In the very defiant look, too, that she bestowed on the body of the court she seemed to accept the imputation, and to dare it.
Leisurely and calmly did she scan the old man’s features through her double eyeglass, while from time to time, with a simpering smile, she would whisper some words to the lady at her side, – words it was not needful to overhear, they were so palpably words of critical comment upon him she gazed at.
So engrossed was attention by the indecency of this intrusion, which had not even the shallow pretext of an interesting cause to qualify it, that it was only after a considerable time it was perceived that the lady who sat next Lady Lendrick was exceedingly beautiful. If no longer in her first youth, there were traits of loveliness in her perfectly formed features which even years respect; and in the depth of her orbits and the sculptural elegance of her nostrils and her mouth, there was all that beauty we love to call Greek, but in which no classic model ever could compete with the daughters of England.
Her complexion was of exceeding delicacy, as was the half-warm tint of her light-brown hair. But it was when she smiled that the captivation of her beauty became perfect; and it seemed as though each and all there appropriated that radiant favor to himself, and felt his heart bound with a sort of ecstasy. It had been rumored in the morning through the hall that the Chief Baron, at the rising of the Court, would deliver a short reply to the address of the Bar; and now, as the last motion was being disposed of, the appearance of eager expectation and curiosity became conspicuous on every side.
That the unlooked-for presence of his wife had irritated and embarrassed the old man, was plain to the least observant. The stern expression of his features; the steadfast way in which he gazed into the body of the court, to avoid even a chance glance at the gallery; the fretful impatience with which he moved his hands restlessly amongst his papers, – all showed discomposure and uneasiness. Still, it was well known that the moment he was called on for a mental effort intellect ever assumed the mastery over temper, and all felt that when he should arise not a trace of embarrassment would remain to mar the calm dignity of his manner.
It was amidst a hushed silence that he stood up, and said: “Mr. Chief Sergeant, and Gentlemen of the Bar: I had intended to-day, – I had even brought down with me some notes of a reply which I purposed to make to the more than flattering address which you so graciously offered to me. I find, however, that I have overrated the strength that remains to me. I find I have measured my power to thank you by the depth of my gratitude, and not by the vigor of my frame. I am too weak to say all that I feel, and too deeply your debtor to ask you to accept less than I owe you. Had the testimony of esteem you presented to me only alluded to those gifts of mind and intellect with which a gracious Providence was pleased to endow me, – had you limited yourself to the recognition of the lawyer and the judge, – I might possibly have found strength to assure you that I accepted your praise with the consciousness that it was not all unmerited. The language of your address, however, went beyond this; your words were those of regard, even of affection. I am unused to such as these, gentlemen, – they unsettle – they unman me. Physicians tell us that the nerves of the student acquire a morbid and diseased acuteness for want of those habits of action and physical exertion which more vulgar organizations practise. So do I feel that the mental faculties gain an abnormal intensity in proportion as the affections are neglected, and the soil of the heart left untilled.
“Mine have been worse than ignored,” said he, with an elevated tone, and in a voice that rang through the court, – “they have been outraged; and when the time comes that biography will have to deal with my character and my fortunes, if there be but justice in the award, the summing-up will speak of me as one ever linked with a destiny that was beneath him. He was a lawyer, – he ought to have been a legislator. He sat on the Bench, while his place was the Cabinet; and when at the end of a laborious life his brethren rallied round him with homage and with tender regard, they found him like a long beleaguered city starved into submission, carrying a bold port towards the enemy, but torn by dissension within, and betrayed by the very garrison that should have died in its defence.”
The savage fierceness of these words turned every eye in the court to the gallery, where Lady Lendrick sat, and where, with a pleasant smile on her face, she not only listened with seeming pleasure, but beat time with her fan to the rhythm of the well-rounded periods.
A quivering of the lip, and a strange flattening of the cheek of one side, succeeded to the effort with which he delivered these words, and when he attempted to speak again his voice failed him; and after a few attempts he placed his hand on his brow, and with a look of intense and most painful significancy, bowed around him to both sides of the court and retired.
“That woman, that atrocious woman, has killed him,” muttered poor Haire, as he hastened to the Judge’s robing-room.
“I am sorry, my dear, you should not have heard him in a better vein, for he is really eloquent at times,” said Lady Lendrick to her beautiful companion, as they moved through the crowd to their carriage.
“I trust his present excitement will not have bad consequences,” said the other, softly. “Don’t you think we ought to wait and ask how he is?”
“If you like. I have only one objection, and that is, that we may be misconstrued. There are people here malicious enough to impute the worst of motives to our anxiety. Oh, here is Mr. Pemberton! Mr. Pemberton, will you do me the great favor to inquire how the Chief Baron is? Would you do more, and say that I am most eager to know if I could be of any use to him?”
If Mr. Pemberton had no fancy for his mission, he could not very well decline it. While he was absent, the ladies took a turn through the hall, inspecting the two or three statues of distinguished lawyers, and scanning the living faces, whose bewigged expression seemed to blend the over-wise and the ridiculous in the strangest imaginable manner.
A sudden movement in the crowd betokened some event; and now, through a lane formed in the dense mass, the Chief Baron was seen approaching. He had divested himself of his robes, and looked the younger for the change. Indeed, there was an almost lightness in his step, as he came forward, and with a bland smile said: “I am most sensible of the courtesy that led you here. I only wish my strength had been more equal to the occasion.” And he took Lady Lendrick’s hand with a mingled deference and regard.
“Sir William, this is my daughter-in-law. She only arrived yesterday, but was determined not to lose the opportunity of hearing you.”
“To have heard me to-day was disappointment,” said the old man, as he raised the young lady’s hand to his lips; “to see her is none. I am charmed to meet one so closely tied to me, – of such exquisite beauty. Ah, Madam! it’s a dear-bought privilege, this candid appreciation of loveliness we old men indulge in. May I offer you my arm?”
And now through the dense crowd they passed along, – all surprised and amazed at the courteous attentions of the old Judge, whom but a few moments before they had seen almost convulsed with passion.
“She almost had won the game, Haire,” said the Chief Baron, as, having handed the ladies to their carriage, he went in search of his own. “But I have mated her. My sarcasm has never given me one victory with that woman,” said he, sternly. “I have never conquered her except by courtesy.”
“Why did she come down to court at all?” blurted out Haire; “it was positively indecent.”
“The Spanish women go to bull-fights, but I never heard that they stepped down into, the arena. She has great courage, – very great courage.”
“Who was the handsome woman with her?”
“Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sewell. Now, that is what I call beauty, Haire. There is the element which is denied to us men, – to subdue without effort, to conquer without conflict.”
“Your granddaughter is handsomer, to my thinking.”
“They are like each other, – strangely like. They have the same dimpling of the cheek before they smile, and her laugh has the same ring as Lucy’s.”
Haire muttered something, not very intelligibly, indeed, but certainly not sounding like assent.
“Lady Lendrick had asked me to take these Sewells in at the Priory, and I refused her. Perhaps I ‘d have been less peremptory had I seen this beauty. Yes, sir! There is a form of loveliness – this woman has it – as distinctly an influence as intellectual superiority, or great rank, or great riches. To deny its power you must live out of the world, and reject all the ordinances of society.”
“Coquettes, I suppose, have their followers; but I don’t think you or I need be of the number.”
“You speak with your accustomed acuteness, Haire; but coquetry is the exercise of many gifts, beauty is the display of one. I can parry off the one; I cannot help feeling the burning rays of the other. Come, come, don’t sulk; I am not going to undervalue your favorite Lucy. They have promised to dine with me on Sunday; you must meet them.”
“Dine with you! – dine with you, after what you said today in open court!”
“That I could invite them, and they accept my invitation, is the best reply to those who would, in their malevolence, misinterpret whatever may have fallen from me. The wound of a sharp arrow is never very painful till some inexpert bungler endeavors to withdraw the weapon. It is then that agony becomes excruciating, and peril imminent.”
“I suppose I am the bungler, then?”
“Heaven forbid I should say so! but as I have often warned you, Haire, your turn for sarcasm is too strong for even your good sense. When you have shotted your gun with a good joke, you will make a bull’s eye of your best friend.”
“By George, then, I don’t know myself, that’s all; and I could as easily imagine myself a rich man as a witty one.”
“You are rich in gifts more precious than money; and you have the quintessence of all wit in that property that renders you suggestive; it is like what chemists call latent heat. But to return to Mrs. Sewell: she met my son at the Cape, and reports favorably of his health and prospects.”
“Poor fellow! what a banishment he must feel it!”
“I wonder, sir, how many of us go through life without sacrifices! She says that he goes much into the world, and is already very popular in the society of the place, – a great and happy change to a man who had suffered his indolence and self-indulgence to master him. Had he remained at home, I might have been able to provide for him. George Ogle’s place is vacant, and I am determined to exercise my right of appointment.”