The Solitary House (207 page)

Mr. Philip Fairlie had lived on excellent terms with his sister Eleanor, as long as she remained a single woman. But when her marriage took place, somewhat late in life, and when that marriage united her to an Italian gentleman, named Fosco—or, rather, to an Italian nobleman, seeing that he rejoiced in the title of Count—Mr. Fairlie disapproved of her conduct so strongly that he ceased to hold any communication with her, and even went the length of
striking her name out of his will. The other members of the family all thought this serious manifestation of resentment at his sister’s marriage more or less unreasonable. Count Fosco, though not a rich man, was not a penniless adventurer either. He had a small, but sufficient income of his own; he had lived many years in England; and he held an excellent position in society. These recommendations, however, availed nothing with Mr. Fairlie. In many of his opinions he was an Englishman of the old school; and he hated a foreigner, simply and solely because he was a foreigner. The utmost that he could be prevailed on to do, in after years, mainly at Miss Fairlie’s intercession, was to restore his sister’s name to its former place in his will, but to keep her waiting for her legacy by giving the income of the money to his daughter for life, and the money itself, if her aunt died before her, to her cousin Magdalen. Considering the relative ages of the two ladies, the aunt’s chance, in the ordinary course of nature, of receiving the ten thousand pounds, was thus rendered doubtful in the extreme; and Madame Fosco resented her brother’s treatment of her, as unjustly as usual in such cases, by refusing to see her niece, and declining to believe that Miss Fairlie’s intercession had ever been exerted to restore her name to Mr. Fairlie’s will.

Such was the history of the ten thousand pounds. Here again no difficulty could arise with Sir Percival’s legal adviser. The income would be at the wife’s disposal, and the principal would go to her aunt, or her cousin, on her death.

All preliminary explanations being now cleared out of the way, I came, at last, to the real knot of the case—to the twenty thousand pounds.

This sum was absolutely Miss Fairlie’s own, on her completing her twenty-first year; and the whole future disposition of it depended, in the first instance, on the conditions
I could obtain for her in her marriage-settlement. The other clauses contained in that document were of a formal kind, and need not be recited here. But the clause relating to the money is too important to be passed over. A few lines will be sufficient to give the necessary abstract of it.

My stipulation, in regard to the twenty thousand pounds, was simply this: The whole amount was to be settled so as to give the income to the lady for her life; afterwards to Sir Percival for his life; and the principal to the children of the marriage. In default of issue, the principal was to be disposed of as the lady might by her will direct, for which purpose I reserved to her the right of making a will. The effect of these conditions may be thus summed up. If Lady Glyde died without leaving children, her half-sister, Miss Halcombe, and any other relatives or friends whom she might be anxious to benefit, would, on her husband’s death, divide among them such shares of her money as she desired them to have. If, on the other hand, she died, leaving children, then their interest, naturally and necessarily, superseded all other interests whatsoever. This was the clause; and no one who reads it, can fail, I think, to agree with me that it meted out equal justice to all parties.

We shall see how my proposals were met on the husband’s side.

At the time when Miss Halcombe’s letter reached me, I was even more busily occupied than usual. But I contrived to make leisure for the settlement. I had drawn it, and had sent it for approval to Sir Percival’s solicitor, in less than a week from the time when Miss Halcombe had informed me of the proposed marriage.

After a lapse of two days, the document was returned to me, with the notes and remarks of the baronet’s lawyer. His objections, in general, proved to be of the most trifling and technical kind, until he came to the clause relating to
the twenty thousand pounds. Against this, there were double lines drawn in red ink, and the following note was appended to them:

“Not admissible. The
principal
to go to Sir Percival Glyde, in the event of his surviving Lady Glyde, and there being no issue.”

That is to say, not one farthing of the twenty thousand pounds was to go to Miss Halcombe, or to any other relative or friend of Lady Glyde’s. The whole sum, if she left no children, was to slip into the pockets of her husband.

The answer I wrote to this audacious proposal was as short and sharp as I could make it. “My dear sir. I maintain clause number so-and-so, exactly as it stands. Yours truly.” The rejoinder came back in a quarter of an hour. “My dear sir. I maintain the note in red ink exactly as it stands. Yours truly.” In the detestable slang of the day, we were now both “at a dead-lock,” and nothing was left for it but to refer to our clients on either side.

As matters stood, my client—Miss Fairlie not having yet completed her twenty-first year—was her guardian, Mr. Frederick Fairlie. I wrote by that day’s post, and put the case before him exactly as it stood; not only urging every argument I could think of to induce him to maintain the clause as I had drawn it, but stating to him plainly the mercenary motive which was at the bottom of the opposition to my settlement of the twenty thousand pounds. The knowledge of Sir Percival’s affairs which I necessarily gained when the provisions of the deed on
his
side were submitted in due course to my examination, had but too plainly informed me that the debts on his estate were enormous, and that his income, though nominally a large one, was, virtually, for a man in his position, next to nothing. The want of ready money was the practical necessity of Sir Percival’s existence; and his lawyer’s note on the clause
in the settlement was nothing but the frankly selfish expression of it.

Mr. Fairlie’s answer reached me by return of post, and proved to be wandering and irrelevant in the extreme. Turned into plain English, it practically expressed itself to this effect: “Would dear Gilmore be so very obliging as not to worry his friend and client about such a trifle as a remote contingency? Was it likely that a young woman of twenty-one would die before a man of forty-five, and die without children? On the other hand, in such a miserable world as this, was it possible to over-estimate the value of peace and quietness? If those two heavenly blessings were offered in exchange for such an earthly trifle as a remote chance of twenty thousand pounds, was it not a fair bargain? Surely, yes. Then why not make it?”

I threw the letter away from me in disgust. Just as it had fluttered to the ground, there was a knock at my door; and Sir Percival’s solicitor, Mr. Merriman, was shown in. There are many varieties of sharp practitioners in this world, but, I think, the hardest of all to deal with are the men who overreach you under the disguise of inveterate good humour. A fat, well-fed, smiling, friendly man of business is of all parties to a bargain the most hopeless to deal with. Mr. Merriman was one of this class.

“And how is good Mr. Gilmore?” he began, all in a glow with the warmth of his own amiability. “Glad to see you, sir, in such excellent health. I was passing your door; and I thought I would look in, in case you might have something to say to me. Do—now pray do let us settle this little difference of ours by word of mouth, if we can! Have you heard from your client yet?”

“Yes. Have you heard from yours?”

“My dear, good sir! I wish I had heard from him to any purpose—I wish, with all my heart, the responsibility was
off my shoulders; but he won’t take it off. ‘Merriman, I leave details to you. Do what you think right for my interests; and consider me as having personally withdrawn from the business until it is all over.’ Those were Sir Percival’s words a fortnight ago; and all I can get him to do now is to repeat them. I am not a hard man, Mr. Gilmore, as you know. Personally and privately, I do assure you, I should like to sponge out that note of mine at this very moment. But if Sir Percival won’t go into the matter, if Sir Percival will blindly leave all his interests in my sole care, what course can I possibly take except the course of asserting them? My hands are bound—don’t you see, my dear sir?—my hands are bound.”

“You maintain your note on the clause, then, to the letter?” I said.

“Yes—deuce take it! I have no other alternative.” He walked to the fireplace, and warmed himself, humming the fag end of a tune in a rich, convivial bass voice. “What does your side say?” he went on; “now pray tell me—what does your side say?”

I was ashamed to tell him. I attempted to gain time—nay, I did worse. My legal instincts got the better of me; and I even tried to bargain.

“Twenty thousand pounds is rather a large sum to be given up by the lady’s friends at two days’ notice,” I said.

“Very true,” replied Mr. Merriman, looking down thoughtfully at his boots. “Properly put, sir—most properly put!”

“A compromise, recognising the interests of the lady’s family as well as the interests of the husband might not, perhaps, have frightened my client quite so much,” I went on. “Come! come! this contingency resolves itself into a matter of bargaining after all. What is the least you will take?”

“The least we will take,” said Mr. Merriman, “is nineteen-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-pounds-nineteen-shillings-and-eleven-pence-three-farthings. Ha! ha! ha! Excuse me, Mr. Gilmore. I must have my little joke.”

“Little enough!” I remarked. “The joke is just worth the odd farthing it was made for.”

Mr. Merriman was delighted. He laughed over my retort till the room rang again. I was not half so good-humoured, on my side: I came back to business, and closed the interview.

“This is Friday,” I said. “Give us till Tuesday next for our final answer.”

“By all means,” replied Mr. Merriman. “Longer, my dear sir, if you like.” He took up his hat to go; and then addressed me again. “By the way,” he said, “your clients in Cumberland have not heard anything more of the woman who wrote the anonymous letter, have they?”

“Nothing more,” I answered. “Have you found no trace of her?”

“Not yet,” said my legal friend. “But we don’t despair. Sir Percival has his suspicions that Somebody is keeping her in hiding; and we are having that Somebody watched.”

“You mean the old woman who was with her in Cumberland?” I said.

“Quite another party, sir,” answered Mr. Merriman. “We don’t happen to have laid hands on the old woman yet. Our Somebody is a man. We have got him close under our eye here in London; and we strongly suspect he had something to do with helping her in the first instance to escape from the Asylum. Sir Percival wanted to question him, at once; but I said, ‘No. Questioning him will only put him on his guard: watch him, and wait.’ We shall see what happens. A dangerous woman to be at large, Mr. Gilmore; nobody knows what she may do next. I wish you
good morning, sir. On Tuesday next I shall hope for the pleasure of hearing from you.” He smiled amiably, and went out.

My mind had been rather absent during the latter part of the conversation with my legal friend. I was so anxious about the matter of the settlement, that I had little attention to give to any other subject; and, the moment I was left alone again, I began to think over what my next proceeding ought to be.

In the case of any other client, I should have acted on my instructions, however personally distasteful to me, and have given up the point about the twenty thousand pounds on the spot. But I could not act with this business-like indifference towards Miss Fairlie. I had an honest feeling of affection and admiration for her; I remembered gratefully that her father had been the kindest patron and friend to me that ever man had; I had felt towards her, while I was drawing the settlement, as I might have felt, if I had not been an old bachelor, towards a daughter of my own; and I was determined to spare no personal sacrifice in her service and where her interests were concerned. Writing a second time to Mr. Fairlie was not to be thought of; it would only be giving him a second opportunity of slipping through my fingers. Seeing him and personally remonstrating with him, might possibly be of more use. The next day was Saturday. I determined to take a return ticket, and jolt my old bones down to Cumberland, on the chance of persuading him to adopt the just, the independent, and the honourable course. It was a poor chance enough, no doubt; but, when I had tried it, my conscience would be at ease. I should then have done all that a man in my position could do to serve the interests of my old friend’s only child.

The weather on Saturday was beautiful, a west wind and a bright sun. Having felt latterly a return of that fulness and
oppression of the head, against which my doctor warned me so seriously more than two years since, I resolved to take the opportunity of getting a little extra exercise, by sending my bag on before me, and walking to the terminus in Euston-square. As I came out into Holborn, a gentleman, walking by rapidly, stopped and spoke to me. It was Mr. Walter Hartright.

If he had not been the first to greet me, I should certainly have passed him. He was so changed that I hardly knew him again. His face looked pale and haggard—his manner was hurried and uncertain—and his dress, which I remembered as neat and gentlemanlike when I saw him at Limmeridge, was so slovenly, now, that I should really have been ashamed of the appearance of it on one of my own clerks.

“Have you been long back from Cumberland?” he asked. “I heard from Miss Halcombe lately. I am aware that Sir Percival Glyde’s explanation has been considered satisfactory. Will the marriage take place soon? Do you happen to know, Mr. Gilmore?”

He spoke so fast, and crowded his questions together so strangely and confusedly, that I could hardly follow him. However accidentally intimate he might have been with the family at Limmeridge, I could not see that he had any right to expect information on their private affairs; and I determined to drop him, as easily as might be, on the subject of Miss Fairlie’s marriage.