The Orange Girl Part 11

'If you would like better terms I might raise it another fifty pounds.'

'Not even another fifty will persuade me.' At that moment I heard Alice singing,

'The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And lead me with a shepherd's care.'

The Lord--not Mr. Probus. I took the words for a warning.

'We shall not want any ink,' I said, 'nor any witness. Because I shall not sign.'

'Not sign? Not sign? But Mr. William--Sir--surely--have a care--such an offer is not made every day. You will never again receive such an offer.'

'Hark ye, Mr. Probus. By that clause in his will my father signified his desire, although he would punish me for giving up the City--to show that he was not implacable and that if it be Heaven's will that I should survive my cousin I should then receive his forgiveness and once more be considered as one of the family. Sir, I will not, for any offer that you may make, act against my father's wish. I am to wait, G.o.d knows I desire not the death of my cousin--I wait: it is my father's sentence upon me.

I shall obey my father. He forgives me after a term of years--long or short--I know not. He forgives me by that clause. I am not cursed with my father's resentment.'

'Oh! He talks like a madman. With 3,000 waiting for him to pick up!'

'I repeat, Sir. In this matter I shall leave the event to Providence, in obedience to my father's wishes. Inform my cousin, if you please, of my resolution.'

More he said, because he was one of those tenacious and obstinate persons who will not take 'No,' for an answer. Besides, as I learned afterwards, he was most deeply concerned in the success of his mission.

He pa.s.sed from the stage of entreaty to that of remonstrance and finally to that of wrath.

'Sir,' he said, 'I perceive that you are one of those crack-brained and conceited persons who will not allow anyone to do them good: you throw away every chance that offers, you stand in your own light, you bring ruin upon your family.'

'Very well,' I said, 'very well indeed.'

'I waste my words upon you.'

'Why then waste more?'

'You are unworthy of the name you bear. You are only fit for the beggarly trade you follow. Well, Sir, when misery and starvation fall upon you and yours, remember what you have thrown away.'

I laughed. His cunning face became twisted with pa.s.sion.

'Sir,' he said, 'all this talk is beside the mark. There are ways. Do not think that we are without ways and means.' Then he swore a great round oath. 'We shall find a way, somehow, to bring you to reason.'

'Well Mr. _Integer Vitae scelerisque Probus_,' I said. 'If you contemplate rascality you will have to change your motto.'

He smoothed out his face instantly, and repressed the outward signs of wrath. 'Mr. Will,' he said, 'forgive this burst of honest indignation.

You will do, of course, what you think fit. Sir, I wish you a return to better sense. I think I may promise you'--he paused and clapped his forefinger to his nose, 'I am sure that I can so far trespa.s.s on the forbearance of your cousin as to promise that this offer shall be kept open for three weeks. Any day within the next three weeks you shall find at my office the paper ready for your signature. After that time the chance will be gone--gone--gone for ever,' he threw the chance across the river with a theatrical gesture and walked away.

What did it mean? Why did Matthew want to buy my share? We might both live for forty years or even more. Neither could touch that money till the other's death. He might desire my early death in which case all would be his. But to buy my share--it meant that if I died first he would have paid a needless sum of money for it: and that if he died first it would not be in his power to enjoy that wealth. I asked Ramage on the Sunday why Matthew wanted it. He said that merchants sometimes desire credit and that perhaps it would strengthen Matthew if it were known that this great sum of money would be added to his estate whenever either his cousin or he himself should die. And with this explanation I must be content. There was another possibility but that I learned afterwards.

'We will make him sell his reversion.' What was the meaning of those words? Perhaps they did not apply to me. But I was sure that they did.

Like a woman I was certain that they did: and for a woman's reason--which is none.

CHAPTER IX

THE CLAIM AND THE ARREST

You have heard how my old friend David Camlet, musical instrument maker, of Dowgate Street, presented me--or my wife--on our marriage, with a handsome harpsichord. Shortly after my father's death, this good old gentleman also went the way of all flesh: a melancholy event which I only learned by receiving a letter from Mr. Probus. Imagine, if you can, my amazement when I read the following:

'Sir,

'I have to call your immediate attention to your debt of fifty-five pounds for a harpsichord supplied to you by David Camlet of Dowgate Street, deceased. I shall be obliged if you will without delay discharge this liability to me as attorney for the executors--

'And Remain Sir,

'Your obedient humble Servant,

'EZEKIEL PROBUS'

'Why,' said Alice. 'Mr. Camlet gave us the instrument. It was a free gift.'

'It was. If Mr. Probus will acknowledge the fact.'

'Mr. Probus? Is it that man with the harsh voice who talked lies to you?'

'The same. And much I fear, wife, that he means no good by this letter.'

'But Mr. Camlet gave us the harpsichord.'

Had the letter been received from any other person I should have considered it as of no importance; but the thought that it came from Mr.

Probus filled me with uneasiness. What had that worthy attorney said?

'There are ways--we shall find a way to bring you to reason.'

'My dear,' said Alice, 'since we have had the instrument for two years without any demand for payment, we ought to be safe. Better go and see the man.'

It was with very little hope that I sallied forth. Not only was this man a personal enemy but he was an attorney. What must be the true nature of that profession which so fills the world with shuddering and loathing?

Is it, one asks, impossible to be an honest attorney? This one, at all events, was as great a villain as ever walked. They are a race without pity, without scruple, without turning either to the right or to the left when they are in pursuit of their prey. They are like the weasel who singles out his rabbit and runs it down, being turned neither to one side nor the other. Their prey is always money: they run down the man who has money: when they have stripped him naked they leave him, whether it is in a debtor's prison or in the street: when he is once stripped they regard him no longer. Other men take revenge for human motives, for wrongs done and endured: these men know neither revenge nor wrath: they do not complain of wrongs: you may kick them: you may cuff them: it is nothing: they want your money: and that they will have by one way or another.

I took boat from St. Mary Overies stairs. As I crossed the river a dreadful foreboding of evil seized me. For I perceived suddenly that, somehow or other, Mr. Probus was personally interested in getting me to sell my reversion. How could he be interested? I could not understand.

But he was. I remembered the persuasion of his manner: his anxiety to get my signature: his sudden manifestation of disappointment when I refused. Why? Matthew was now a partner with a large income and the fortune which my father left him. Matthew had no expensive tastes. Why should Mr. Probus be interested in his affairs?

Next, asked the silent reasoner in my brain, what will happen when you declare that you cannot pay this debt? This man will show no mercy. You will be arrested--you will be taken to Prison. At this thought I s.h.i.+vered, and a cold trembling seized all my limbs. 'And you will stay in the Prison till you consent to sell your reversion.' At which I resumed my firmness. Never--never--would I yield whatever an accursed attorney might say or do to me.

Mr. Probus wrote from a house in White Hart Street. It is a small street, mostly inhabited by poulterers, which leads from Warwick Lane to Newgate market: a confined place at best: with the rows of birds dangling on the hooks, not always of the sweetest, and the smell of the meat market close by and the proximity of the shambles, it is a dark and noisome place. The house, which had a silver Pen for its sign, was narrow, and of three stories: none of the windows had been cleaned for a long time, and the door and doorposts wanted paint.

As I stood on the doorstep the words again came back to me, 'We will make him sell his reversionary interest.'

The door was opened by an old man much bent and bowed with years: his thin legs, his thin arms, his body--all were bent: on his head he wore a small scratch wig: he covered his eyes with his hand on account of the blinding light, yet the court was darkened by the height of the houses above and the dangling birds below.

He received my name and opened the door of the front room. I observed that he opened it a very little way and entered sliding, as if afraid that I should see something. He returned immediately and beckoned me to follow him. He led the way into a small room at the back, not much bigger than a cupboard, which had for furniture a high desk and a high stool placed at a window so begrimed with dirt that nothing could be seen through it.

There was no other furniture. The old man climbed upon his stool with some difficulty and took up his pen. He looked very old and shrivelled: his brown coat was frayed: his worsted stockings were in holes: his shoes were tied with leather instead of buckles: there was no show of s.h.i.+rt either at the wrist or the throat. He looked, in fact, what he was, a decayed clerk of the kind with which, as a boy, I had been quite familiar. It is a miserable calling, only redeemed from despair--because the wages are never much above starvation-point--by the chance and the hope of winning a prize in the lottery. No clerk is ever so poor that he cannot afford at least a sixteenth share in this annual bid for fortune.

I never heard that any clerk within my knowledge had ever won a prize: but the chance was theirs: once a year the chance returns--a chance of fortune without work or desert.