Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (257 page)

‘They think it will be a hard run between Transome and Garstin,’ said Christian. ‘It depends on Transome’s getting plumpers.’

‘Well, I know I shall not split for Garstin,’ said Mr Wace. ‘It’s nonsense for Debarry’s voters to split for a Whig. A man’s either a Tory or not a Tory.’

‘It seems reasonable there should be one of each side,’ said Mr Timothy Rose. ‘I don’t like showing favour either way. If one side can’t lower the poor’s rates and take off the tithe, let the other try.’

‘But there’s this in it, Wace,’ said Mr Sircome. ‘I’m not altogether against the Whigs. For they don’t want to go so far as the Radicals do, and when they find they’ve slipped a bit too far, they’ll hold on all the tighter. And the Whigs have got the upper hand now, and it’s no use fighting with the current. I run with the -’

Mr Sircome checked himself, looked furtively at Christian, and, to divert criticism, ended with - ‘eh, Mr Nolan?’

‘There have been eminent Whigs, sir. Mr Fox was a Whig,’ said Mr Nolan. ‘Mr Fox was a great orator. He gambled a good deal. He was very intimate with the Prince of Wales. I’ve seen him, and the Duke of York’ too, go home by daylight with their hats crushed. Mr Fox was a great leader of the Opposition: Government requires an Opposition. The Whigs should always be in opposition, and the Tories on the ministerial side. That’s what the country used to like. “The Whigs for salt and mustard, the Tories for meat,” Mr Gottlib the banker used to say to me. Mr Gottlib was a worthy man. When there was a great run on Gottlib’s bank in ‘16, I saw a gentleman come in with bags of gold, and say, “Tell Mr Gottlib there’s plenty more where that came from.” It stopped the run, gentlemen - it did indeed.’

This anecdote was received with great admiration, but Mr Sircome returned to the previous question.

‘There now, you see, Wace - it’s right there should be Whigs as well as Tories - Pitt and Fox - I’ve always heard them go together.’

‘Well, I don’t like Garstin,’ said the brewer. ‘I didn’t like his conduct about the canal company. Of the two, I like Transome best. If a nag is to throw me, I say, let him have some blood.’

‘As for blood, Wace,’ said Mr Salt, the wool-factor, a relious man, who only spoke when there was a good opportunity of contradicting, ‘ask my brother-in-law Labron a little about that. These Transomes are not the old blood.’

‘Well, they’re the oldest that’s forthcoming, I suppose,’ said Mr Wace, laughing. ‘Unless you believe in mad old Tommy Trounsem. I wonder where that old poaching fellow is now.’

‘I saw him half-drunk the other day,’ said young Joyce. ‘He’d got a flag-basket with hand-bills in it over his shoulder.’

‘I thought the old fellow was dead,’ said Mr Wace. ‘Hey I why, Jermyn,’ he went on merrily, as he turned round and saw the attorney entering; ‘you Radical! how dare you show yourself in this Tory house? Come, this is going a bit too far. We don’t mind Old Harry managing our law for us - that’s his proper business from time immemorial; but -’

‘But - a -’ said Jermyn, smiling, always ready to carry on a joke, to which his slow manner gave the piquancy of surprise, ‘if he meddles with politics he must be a Tory.’

Jermyn was not afraid to show himself anywhere in Treby. He knew many people were not exactly fond of him, but a man can do without that, if he is prosperous. A provincial lawyer in those old-fashioned days was as independent of personal esteem as if he had been a Lord Chancellor.

There was a good-humoured laugh at this upper end of the room as Jermyn seated himself at about an equal angle between Mr Wace and Christian.

‘We were talking about old Tommy Trounsem; you remember him? They say he’s turned up again,’ said Mr Wace.

‘Ah?’ said Jermyn, indifferently. ‘But - a - Wace - I’m very busy to-day - but I wanted to see you about that bit of land of yours at the corner of Pod’s End. I’ve had a handsome offer for you - I’m not at liberty to say from whom - but an offer that ought to tempt you.’

‘It won’t tempt me,’ said Mr Wace, peremptorily; ‘if I’ve got a bit of land, I’ll keep it. It’s hard enough to get hereabouts.’

‘Then I’m to understand that you refuse all negotiation?’ said Jermyn, who had ordered a glass of sherry, and was looking round slowly as he sipped it, till his eyes seemed to rest for the first time on Christian, though he had seen him at once on entering the room.

‘Unless one of the confounded railways should come. But then I’ll stand out and make ‘em bleed for it.’

There was a murmur of approbation; the railways were a public wrong much denunciated in Treby.

‘A - Mr Philip Debarry at the Manor now?’ said Jermyn, suddenly questioning Christian, in a haughty tone of superiority which he often chose to use.

‘No,’ said Christian, ‘he is expected to-morrow morning.’

‘Ah! -’ Jermyn paused a moment or two, and then said, ‘You are sufficiently in his confidence, I think, to carry a message to him with a small document?’

‘Mr Debarry has often trusted me so far,’ said Christian, with much coolness; ‘but if the business is yours, you can probably find some one you know better.’

There was a little winking and grimacing among those of the company who heard this answer.

‘A - true - a,’ said Jermyn, not showing any offence; ‘if you decline. But I think, if you will do me the favour to step round to my residence on your way back, and learn the business, you will prefer carrying it yourself. At my residence, if you please - not my office.’

‘O very well,’ said Christian. ‘I shall be very happy.’ Christian never allowed himself to be treated as a servant by any one but his master, and his master treated a servant more deferentially than an equal.

‘Will it be five o’clock? what hour shall we say?’ said Jermyn.

Christian looked at his watch and said, ‘About five I can be there.’

‘Very good,’ said Jermyn, finishing his sherry.

‘Well - a - Wace - a - so you will hear nothing about Pod’s End?’

‘Not I.’

‘A mere pocket-handkerchief, not enough to swear by - a -’ here Jermyn’s face broke into a smile - ‘without a magnifying-glass.’

‘Never mind. It’s mine into the bowels of the earth and up to the sky. I can build the Tower of Babel on it if I like - eh, Mr Nolan?’

‘A bad investment, my good sir,’ said Mr Nolan, who enjoyed a certain flavour of infidelity in this smart reply, and laughed much at it in his inward way.

‘See now, how blind you Tories are,’ said Jermyn, rising; ‘if I had been your lawyer, I’d have had you make another forty-shilling freeholder with that land, and all in time for this election. But - a - the verbum sapientibus comes a little too late now.’

Jermyn was moving away as he finished speaking, but Mr Wace called out after him, ‘We’re not so badly off for voices as you are - good sound votes, that’ll stand the revising barrister. Debarry at the top of the poll!’

The lawyer was already out of the doorway.

CHAPTER 21

‘Tis grievous, that with all amplification of travel both by sea and land, a man can never separate himself from his past history.

MR JERMYN’S handsome house stood a little way out of the town, surrounded by garden and lawn and plantations of hopeful trees. As Christian approached it he was in a perfectly easy state of mind: the business he was going on was none of his, otherwise than as he was well satisfied with any opportunity of making himself valuable to Mr Philip Debarry. As he looked at Jermyn’s length of wall and iron railing, he said to himself, ‘These lawyers are the fellows for getting on in the world with the least expense of civility. With this cursed conjuring secret of theirs called Law, they think everybody’s frightened at them. My Lord Jermyn seems to have his insolence as ready as his soft sawder. He’s as sleek as a rat, and has as vicious a tooth. I know the sort of vermin well enough. I’ve helped to fatten one or two.’

In this mood of conscious, contemptuous penetration, Christian was shown by the footman into Jermyn’s private room, where the attorney sat surrounded with massive oaken bookcases, and other furniture to correspond, from the thickest-legged library-table to the calendar frame and card-rack. It was the sort of room a man prepares for himself when he feels sure of a long and respectable future. He was leaning back in his leather chair, against the broad window opening on the lawn, and had just taken off his spectacles and let the newspaper fall on his knees, in despair of reading by the fading light.

When the footman opened the door and said, ‘Mr Christian,’ Jermyn said, ‘Good evening, Mr Christian. Be seated,’ pointing to a chair opposite himself and the window. ‘Light the candles on the shelf, John, but leave the blinds alone.’

He did not speak again till the man was gone out, but appeared to be referring to a document which lay on the bureau before him. When the door was closed he drew himself up again, began to rub his hands, and turned towards his visitor, who seemed perfectly indifferent to the fact that the attorney was in shadow, and that the light fell on himself. ‘A - your name - a - is Henry Scaddon.’

There was a start through Christian’s frame which he was quick enough, almost simultaneously, to try and disguise as a change of position. He uncrossed his legs and unbuttoned his coat. But before he had time to say anything, Jermyn went on with slow emphasis.

‘You were born on the 16th of December 1782, at Blackheath Your father was a cloth-merchant in London: he died when you were barely of age, leaving an extensive business; before you were five-and-twenty you had run through the greater part of the property, and had compromised your safety by an attempt to defraud your creditors. Subsequently you forged a cheque on your father’s elder brother, who had intended to make you his heir.’

Here Jermyn paused a moment and referred to the document. Christian was silent.

‘In 1808 you found it expedient to leave this country in a military disguise, and were taken prisoner by the French. On the occasion of an exchange of prisoners you had the opportunity of returning to your own country, and to the bosom of your own family. You were generous enough to sacrifice that prospect in favour of a fellow-prisoner, of about your own age and figure, who had more pressing reasons than yourself for wishing to be on this side of the water. You exchanged dress, luggage, and names with him, and he passed to England instead of you as Henry Scaddon. Almost immediately afterwards you escaped from your imprisonment, after feigning an illness which prevented your exchange of names from being discovered; and it was reported that you - that is, you under the name of your fellow-prisoner - were drowned in an open boat, trying to reach a Neapolitan vessel bound for Malta. Nevertheless I have to congratulate you on the falsehood of that report, and on the certainty that you are now, after the lapse of more than twenty years, seated here in perfect safety.’

Jermyn paused so long that he was evidently awaiting some answer. At last Christian replied, in a dogged tone -

‘Well, sir, I’ve heard much longer stories than that told quite as solemnly, when there was not a word of truth in them. Suppose I deny the very peg you hang your statement on. Suppose I say I am not Henry Scaddon.’

‘A - in that case - a,’ said Jermyn, with a wooden indifference, ‘you would lose the advantage which - a - may attach to your possession of Henry Scaddon’s knowledge. And at the same time, if it were in the least - a - inconvenient to you that you should be recognised as Henry Scaddon, your denial would not prevent me from holding the knowledge and evidence which I possess on that point; it would only prevent us from pursuing the present conversation.’

‘Well, sir, suppose we admit, for the sake of the conversation, that your account of the matter is the true one: what advantage have you to offer the man named Henry Scaddon ?’

‘The advantage - a - is problematical; but it may be considerable. It might, in fact, release you from the necessity of acting as courier, or - a - valet, or whatever other office you may occupy which prevents you from being your own master. On the other hand, my acquaintance with your secret is not necessarily a disadvantage to you. To put the matter in a nutshell, I am not inclined - a - gratuitously - to do you any harm, and I may be able to do you a considerable service.’

‘Which you want me to earn somehow?’ said Christian. ‘You offer me a turn in a lottery?’

‘Precisely. The matter in question is of no earthly interest to you, except - a - as it may yield you a prize. We lawyers have to do with complicated questions, and - a - legal subtleties, which are never - a - fully known even to the parties immediately interested, still less to the witnesses. Shall we agree, then, that you continue to retain two-thirds of the name which you gained by exchange, and that you oblige me by answering certain questions as to the experience of Henry Scaddon?’ ‘Very good. Go on.’

‘What articles of property, once belonging to your fellow-prisoner, Maurice Christian Bycliffe, do you still retain?’

‘This ring,’ said Christian, twirling round the fine seal-ring on his finger, ‘his watch, and the little matters that hung with it, and a case of papers. I got rid of a gold snuff-box once when I was hard-up. The clothes are all gone, of course. We exchanged everything; it was all done in a hurry. Bycliffe thought we should meet again in England before long, and he was mad to get there. But that was impossible - I mean that we should meet soon after. I don’t know what’s become of him, else I would give him up his papers and the watch, and so on - though, you know, it was I who did him the service, and he felt that.’

‘You were at Vesoul together before being moved to Verdun?’

‘Yes.’

‘What else do you know about Bycliffe?’

‘O, nothing very particular,’ said Christian, pausing, and rapping his boot with his cane. ‘He’d been in the Hanoverian army - a high-spirited fellow, took nothing easily; not overstrong in health. He made a fool of himself with marrying at Vesoul; and there was the devil to pay with the girl’s relations; and then, when the prisoners were ordered off, they had to part. Whether they ever got together again I don’t know.’

‘Was the marriage all right, then?’

‘O, all on the square - civil marriage, church - everything. Bycliffe was a fool - a good-natured, proud, head-strong fellow.’

‘How long did the marriage take place before you left Vesoul?’ ‘About three months. I was a witness to the marriage.’ ‘And you know no more about the wife?’

‘Not afterwards. I knew her very well before - pretty Annette - Annette Ledru was her name. She was of a good family, and they had made up a fine match for her. But she was one of your meek little diablesses, who have a will of their own once in their lives - the will to choose their own master.’

‘Bycliffe was not open to you about his other affairs7’

‘O no - a fellow you wouldn’t dare to ask a question of. People told him everything, but he told nothing in return. If Madame Annette ever found him again, she found her lord and master with a vengeance; but she was a regular lapdog. However, her family shut her up - made a prisoner of her - to prevent her running away.’

‘Ah - good. Much of what you have been so obliging as to say is irrelevant to any possible purpose of mine, which, in fact, has to do only with a mouldy law-case that might be aired some day. You will doubtless, on your own account, maintain perfect silence on what has passed between us, and with that condition duly preserved - a - it is possible that - a - the lottery you have put into - as you observe - may turn up a prize.’

‘This, then, is all the business you have with me?’ said Christian, rising.

‘All. You will, of course, preserve carefully all the papers and other articles which have so many - a - recollections - a - attached to them?’

‘O yes. If there’s any chance of Bycliffe turning up again, I shall be sorry to have parted with the snuff-box; but I was hard-up at Naples. In fact, as you see, I was obliged at last to turn courier.’

‘An exceedingly agreeable life for a man of some - a - accomplishments and - a - no income,’ said Jermyn, rising, and reaching a candle, which he placed against his desk.

Christian knew this was a sign that he was expected to go, but he lingered standing, with one hand on the back of his chair. At last he said, rather sulkily -

‘I think you’re too clever, Mr Jermyn, not to perceive that I’m not a man to be made a fool of.’

‘Well - a - it may perhaps be a still better guarantee for you,’ said Jermyn, smiling, ‘that I see no use in attempting that - a - metamorphosis.’

The old gentleman, who ought never to have felt himself injured, is dead now, and I’m not afraid of creditors after more than twenty years.’

‘Certainly not; - a - there may indeed be claims which can’t assert themselves - a - legally, which yet are molesting to a man of some reputation. But you may perhaps be happily free from such fears.’

Jermyn drew round his chair towards the bureau, and Christian, too acute to persevere uselessly, said, ‘Good-day,’ and left the room.

After leaning back in his chair to reflect a few minutes, Jermyn wrote the following letter:

Dear Johnson, - I learn from your letter, received this morning, that you intend returning to town on Saturday.

While you are there, be so good as to see Medwin, who used to be with Batt & Cowley, and ascertain from him indirectly, and in the course of conversation on other topics, whether in that old business in 1810-11, Scaddon alias Bycliffe, or Bycliffe alias Scaddon, before his imprisonment, gave Batt & Cowley any reason to believe that he was married and expected to have a child. The question, as you know, is of no practical importance; but I wish to draw up an abstract of the Bycliffe case, and the exact position in which it stood before the suit was closed by the death of the plaintiiff, in order that, if Mr Harold Transome desires it, he may see how the failure of the last claim has secured the Durfey-Transome title, and whether there is a hair’s-breadth of a chance that another claim should be set up.

Of course there is not a shadow of such a chance. For even if Batt & Cowley were to suppose that they had alighted on a surviving representative of the Bycliffes, it would not enter into their heads to set up a new claim, since they brought evidence that the last life which suspended the Bycliffe remainder was extinct before the case was closed, a good twenty years ago.

Still, I want to show the present heir of the Durfey-Transomes the exact condition of the family title to the estates. So get me an answer from Medwin on the above-mentioned point.

I shall meet you at Duffield next week. We must get Transome returned. Never mind his having been a little rough the other day, but go on doing what you know is necessary for his interest. His interest is mine, which I need not say is John Johnson’s. - Yours faithfully, MATTIEW JERMYN.

When the attorney had sealed this letter and leaned back in his chair again, he was inwardly saying -

‘Now, Mr Harold, I shall shut up this affair in a private drawer till you choose to take any extreme measures which will force me to bring it out. I have the matter entirely in my own power. No one but old Lyon knows about the girl’s birth. No one but Scaddon can clinch the evidence about Bycliffe, and I’ve got Scaddon under my thumb. No soul except myself and Johnson, who is a limb of myself, knows that there is one half-dead life which may presently leave the girl a new claim to the Bycliffe heirship. I shall learn through Methurst whether Batt & Cowley knew, through Bycliffe, of this woman having come to England. I shall hold all the threads between my thumb and finger. I can use the evidence or I can nullify it.