The Big Book of Christmas
Page 80
* * *
In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made honey for their several hives. Here, sometimes, they would linger, of a fine evening, at the window of their council–chamber overlooking the old battle–ground, and wonder (but that was generally at assize time, when much business had made them sentimental) at the folly of mankind, who couldn’t always be at peace with one another and go to law comfortably. Here, days, and weeks, and months, and years, passed over them: their calendar, the gradually diminishing number of brass nails in the leathern chairs, and the increasing bulk of papers on the tables. Here, nearly three years’ flight had thinned the one and swelled the other, since the breakfast in the orchard; when they sat together in consultation at night.
* * *
Not alone; but, with a man of about thirty, or that time of life, negligently dressed, and somewhat haggard in the face, but well–made, well–attired, and well–looking, who sat in the armchair of state, with one hand in his breast, and the other in his dishevelled hair, pondering moodily. Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs sat opposite each other at a neighbouring desk. One of the fireproof boxes, unpadlocked and opened, was upon it; a part of its contents lay strewn upon the table, and the rest was then in course of passing through the hands of Mr. Snitchey; who brought it to the candle, document by document; looked at every paper singly, as he produced it; shook his head, and handed it to Mr. Craggs; who looked it over also, shook his head, and laid it down. Sometimes, they would stop, and shaking their heads in concert, look towards the abstracted client. And the name on the box being Michael Warden, Esquire, we may conclude from these premises that the name and the box were both his, and that the affairs of Michael Warden, Esquire, were in a bad way.
* * *
‘That’s all,’ said Mr. Snitchey, turning up the last paper. ‘Really there’s no other resource. No other resource.’
* * *
‘All lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed, and sold, eh?’ said the client, looking up.
* * *
‘All,’ returned Mr. Snitchey.
* * *
‘Nothing else to be done, you say?’
* * *
‘Nothing at all.’
* * *
The client bit his nails, and pondered again.
* * *
‘And I am not even personally safe in England? You hold to that, do you?’
* * *
‘In no part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,’ replied Mr. Snitchey.
* * *
‘A mere prodigal son with no father to go back to, no swine to keep, and no husks to share with them? Eh?’ pursued the client, rocking one leg over the other, and searching the ground with his eyes.
* * *
Mr. Snitchey coughed, as if to deprecate the being supposed to participate in any figurative illustration of a legal position. Mr. Craggs, as if to express that it was a partnership view of the subject, also coughed.
* * *
‘Ruined at thirty!’ said the client. ‘Humph!’
* * *
‘Not ruined, Mr. Warden,’ returned Snitchey. ‘Not so bad as that. You have done a good deal towards it, I must say, but you are not ruined. A little nursing—’
* * *
‘A little Devil,’ said the client.
* * *
‘Mr. Craggs,’ said Snitchey, ‘will you oblige me with a pinch of snuff? Thank you, sir.’
* * *
As the imperturbable lawyer applied it to his nose with great apparent relish and a perfect absorption of his attention in the proceeding, the client gradually broke into a smile, and, looking up, said:
* * *
‘You talk of nursing. How long nursing?’
* * *
‘How long nursing?’ repeated Snitchey, dusting the snuff from his fingers, and making a slow calculation in his mind. ‘For your involved estate, sir? In good hands? S. and C.’s, say? Six or seven years.’
* * *
‘To starve for six or seven years!’ said the client with a fretful laugh, and an impatient change of his position.
* * *
‘To starve for six or seven years, Mr. Warden,’ said Snitchey, ‘would be very uncommon indeed. You might get another estate by showing yourself, the while. But, we don’t think you could do it—speaking for Self and Craggs—and consequently don’t advise it.’
* * *
‘What do you advise?’
* * *
‘Nursing, I say,’ repeated Snitchey. ‘Some few years of nursing by Self and Craggs would bring it round. But to enable us to make terms, and hold terms, and you to keep terms, you must go away; you must live abroad. As to starvation, we could ensure you some hundreds a–year to starve upon, even in the beginning—I dare say, Mr. Warden.’
* * *
‘Hundreds,’ said the client. ‘And I have spent thousands!’
* * *
‘That,’ retorted Mr. Snitchey, putting the papers slowly back into the cast–iron box, ‘there is no doubt about. No doubt about,’ he repeated to himself, as he thoughtfully pursued his occupation.
* * *
The lawyer very likely knew his man; at any rate his dry, shrewd, whimsical manner, had a favourable influence on the client’s moody state, and disposed him to be more free and unreserved. Or, perhaps the client knew his man, and had elicited such encouragement as he had received, to render some purpose he was about to disclose the more defensible in appearance. Gradually raising his head, he sat looking at his immovable adviser with a smile, which presently broke into a laugh.
* * *
‘After all,’ he said, ‘my iron–headed friend—’
* * *
Mr. Snitchey pointed out his partner. ‘Self and—excuse me—Craggs.’
* * *
‘I beg Mr. Craggs’s pardon,’ said the client. ‘After all, my iron–headed friends,’ he leaned forward in his chair, and dropped his voice a little, ‘you don’t know half my ruin yet.’
* * *
Mr. Snitchey stopped and stared at him. Mr. Craggs also stared.
* * *
‘I am not only deep in debt,’ said the client, ‘but I am deep in—’
* * *
‘Not in love!’ cried Snitchey.
* * *
‘Yes!’ said the client, falling back in his chair, and surveying the Firm with his hands in his pockets. ‘Deep in love.’
* * *
‘And not with an heiress, sir?’ said Snitchey.
* * *
‘Not with an heiress.’
* * *
‘Nor a rich lady?’
* * *
‘Nor a rich lady that I know of—except in beauty and merit.’
* * *
‘A single lady, I trust?’ said Mr. Snitchey, with great expression.
* * *
‘Certainly.’
* * *
‘It’s not one of Dr. Jeddler’s daughters?’ said Snitchey, suddenly squaring his elbows on his knees, and advancing his face at least a yard.
* * *
‘Yes!’ returned the client.
* * *
‘Not his younger daughter?’ said Snitchey.
* * *
‘Yes!’ returned the client.
* * *
‘Mr. Craggs,’ said Snitchey, much relieved, ‘will you oblige me with another pinch of snuff? Thank you! I am happy to say it don’t signify, Mr. Warden; she’s engaged, sir, she’s bespoke. My partner can corroborate me. We know the fact.’
* * *
‘We know the fact,’ repeated Craggs.
* * *
‘Why, so do I perhaps,’ returned the client quietly. ‘What of that! Are you men of the world, and did you never hear of a woman changing her mind?’
* * *
‘There certainly have been actions for breach,’ said Mr. Snitchey, ‘brought against both spinsters and widows, but, in the majority of cases—’
* * *
‘Cases!’ interposed the client, impatiently. ‘Don’t talk to me of cases. The general precedent is in a much larger volume than any of your law books. Besides, do you think I have lived six weeks in the Doctor’s house for nothing?’
* * *
‘I think, sir,’ observed Mr. Snitchey, gravely addressing himself to his partner, ‘that of all the scrapes Mr. Warden’s horses have brought him into at one time and another—and they have been pretty numerous, and pretty expensive, as none know better than himself, and you, and I—the worst scrape may turn out to be, if he talks in this way, this having ever been left by one of them at the Doctor’s garden wall, with three broken ribs, a snapped collar–bone, and the Lord knows how many bruises. We didn’t think so much of it, at the time when we knew he was going on well under the Doctor’s hands and roof; but it looks bad now, sir. Bad? It looks very bad. Doctor Jeddler too—our client, Mr. Craggs.’
* * *
‘Mr. Alfred Heathfield too—a sort of client, Mr. Snitchey,’ said Craggs.
* * *
‘Mr. Michael Warden too, a kind of client,’ said the careless visitor, ‘and no bad one either: having played the fool for ten or twelve years. However, Mr. Michael Warden has sown his wild oats now—there’s their crop, in that box; and he means to repent and be wise. And in proof of it, Mr. Michael Warden means, if he can, to marry Marion, the Doctor’s lovely daughter, and to carry her away with him.’
* * *
‘Really, Mr. Craggs,’ Snitchey began.
* * *
‘Really, Mr. Snitchey, and Mr. Craggs, partners both,’ said the client, interrupting him; ‘you know your duty to your clients, and you know well enough, I am sure, that it is no part of it to interfere in a mere love affair, which I am obliged to confide to you. I am not going to carry the young lady off, without her own consent. There’s nothing illegal in it. I never was Mr. Heathfield’s bosom friend. I violate no confidence of his. I love where he loves, and I mean to win where he would win, if I can.’
* * *
‘He can’t, Mr. Craggs,’ said Snitchey, evidently anxious and discomfited. ‘He can’t do it, sir. She dotes on Mr. Alfred.’
* * *
‘Does she?’ returned the client.
* * *
‘Mr. Craggs, she dotes on him, sir,’ persisted Snitchey.
* * *
‘I didn’t live six weeks, some few months ago, in the Doctor’s house for nothing; and I doubted that soon,’ observed the client. ‘She would have doted on him, if her sister could have brought it about; but I watched them. Marion avoided his name, avoided the subject: shrunk from the least allusion to it, with evident distress.’
* * *
‘Why should she, Mr. Craggs, you know? Why should she, sir?’ inquired Snitchey.
* * *
‘I don’t know why she should, though there are many likely reasons,’ said the client, smiling at the attention and perplexity expressed in Mr. Snitchey’s shining eye, and at his cautious way of carrying on the conversation, and making himself informed upon the subject; ‘but I know she does. She was very young when she made the engagement—if it may be called one, I am not even sure of that—and has repented of it, perhaps. Perhaps—it seems a foppish thing to say, but upon my soul I don’t mean it in that light—she may have fallen in love with me, as I have fallen in love with her.’
* * *
‘He, he! Mr. Alfred, her old playfellow too, you remember, Mr. Craggs,’ said Snitchey, with a disconcerted laugh; ‘knew her almost from a baby!’
* * *
‘Which makes it the more probable that she may be tired of his idea,’ calmly pursued the client, ‘and not indisposed to exchange it for the newer one of another lover, who presents himself (or is presented by his horse) under romantic circumstances; has the not unfavourable reputation—with a country girl—of having lived thoughtlessly and gaily, without doing much harm to anybody; and who, for his youth and figure, and so forth—this may seem foppish again, but upon my soul I don’t mean it in that light—might perhaps pass muster in a crowd with Mr. Alfred himself.’
* * *
There was no gainsaying the last clause, certainly; and Mr. Snitchey, glancing at him, thought so. There was something naturally graceful and pleasant in the very carelessness of his air. It seemed to suggest, of his comely face and well–knit figure, that they might be greatly better if he chose: and that, once roused and made earnest (but he never had been earnest yet), he could be full of fire and purpose. ‘A dangerous sort of libertine,’ thought the shrewd lawyer, ‘to seem to catch the spark he wants, from a young lady’s eyes.’
* * *
‘Now, observe, Snitchey,’ he continued, rising and taking him by the button, ‘and Craggs,’ taking him by the button also, and placing one partner on either side of him, so that neither might evade him. ‘I don’t ask you for any advice. You are right to keep quite aloof from all parties in such a matter, which is not one in which grave men like you could interfere, on any side. I am briefly going to review in half–a–dozen words, my position and intention, and then I shall leave it to you to do the best for me, in money matters, that you can: seeing, that, if I run away with the Doctor’s beautiful daughter (as I hope to do, and to become another man under her bright influence), it will be, for the moment, more chargeable than running away alone. But I shall soon make all that up in an altered life.’
* * *
‘I think it will be better not to hear this, Mr. Craggs?’ said Snitchey, looking at him across the client.
* * *
‘I think not,’ said Craggs. —Both listened attentively.
* * *
‘Well! You needn’t hear it,’ replied their client. ‘I’ll mention it, however. I don’t mean to ask the Doctor’s consent, because he wouldn’t give it me. But I mean to do the Doctor no wrong or harm, because (besides there being nothing serious in such trifles, as he says) I hope to rescue his child, my Marion, from what I see—I know—she dreads, and contemplates with misery: that is, the return of this old lover. If anything in the world is true, it is true that she dreads his return. Nobody is injured so far. I am so harried and worried here just now, that I lead the life of a flying–fish. I skulk about in the dark, I am shut out of my own house, and warned off my own grounds; but, that house, and those grounds, and many an acre besides, will come back to me one day, as you know and say; and Marion will probably be richer—on your showing, who are never sanguine—ten years hence as my wife, than as the wife of Alfred Heathfield, whose return she dreads (remember that), and in whom or in any man, my passion is not surpassed. Who is injured yet? It is a fair case throughout. My right is as good as his, if she decide in my favour; and I will try my right by her alone. You will like to know no more after this, and I will tell you no more. Now you know my purpose, and wants. When must I leave here?’
* * *
‘In a week,’ said Snitchey. ‘Mr. Craggs?’
* * *
‘In something less, I should say,’ responded Craggs.
* * *
‘In a month,’ said the client, after attentively watching the two faces. ‘This day month. To–day is Thursday. Succeed or fail, on this day month I go.’
* * *
‘It’s too long a delay,’ said Snitchey; ‘much too long. But let it be so. I thought he’d have stipulated for three,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Are you going? Good night, sir!’