CHAPTER LXII.
THE LAST OF MR. GREY.
"I have put in my last appearance at the old chamber in Lincoln"s Inn Fields," said Mr. Grey, on arriving home one day early in June.
"Papa, you don"t mean it!" said Dolly.
"I do. Why not one day as well as another? I have made up my mind that it is to be so. I have been thinking of it for the last six weeks. It is done now."
"But you have not told me."
"Well, yes; I have told you all that was necessary. It has come now a little sudden, that is all."
"You will never go back again?"
"Well, I may look in. Mr. Barry will be lord and master."
"At any rate he won"t be my lord and master!" said Dolly, showing by the tone of her voice that the matter had been again discussed by them since the last conversation which was recorded, and had been settled to her father"s satisfaction.
"No;--you at least will be left to me. But the fact is, I cannot have any farther dealings with the affairs of Mr. Scarborough. The old man who is dead was too many for me. Though I call him old, he was ever so much younger than I am. Barry says he was the best lawyer he ever knew. As things go now a man has to be accounted a fool if he attempts to run straight. Barry does not tell me that I have been a fool, but he clearly thinks so."
"Do you care what Mr. Barry thinks or says?"
"Yes, I do,--in regard to the professional position which I hold. He is confident that Mountjoy Scarborough is his father"s eldest legitimate son, and he believes that the old squire simply was anxious to supersede him to get some cheap arrangement made as to his debts."
"I supposed that was the case before."
"But what am I to think of such a man? Mr. Barry speaks of him almost with affection. How am I to get on with such a man as Mr. Barry?"
"He himself is honest."
"Well;--yes, I believe so. But he does not hate the absolute utter roguery of our own client. And that is not quite all. When the story of the Rummelsburg marriage was told I did not believe one word of it, and I said so most strongly. I did not at first believe the story that there had been no such marriage, and I swore to Mr. Scarborough that I would protect Mountjoy and Mountjoy"s creditors against any such scheme as that which was intended. Then I was convinced. All the details of the Nice marriage were laid before me. It was manifest that the lady had submitted to be married in a public manner and with all regular forms, while she had a baby, as it were, in her arms. And I got all the dates.
Taking that marriage for granted, Mountjoy was clearly illegitimate, and I was driven so to confess. Then I took up arms on behalf of Augustus.
Augustus was a thoroughly bad fellow,--a bully and a tyrant; but he was the eldest son. Then came the question of paying the debts. I thought it a very good thing that the debts should be payed in the proposed fashion. The men were all to get the money they had actually lent, and no better arrangement seemed to be probable. I helped in that, feeling that it was all right. But it was a swindle that I was made to a.s.sist in. Of course it was a swindle, if the Rummelsburg marriage be true, and all these creditors think that I have been a party to it. Then I swore that I wouldn"t believe the Rummelsburg marriage. But Barry and the rest of them only shake their heads and laugh, and I am told that Mr.
Scarborough was the best lawyer among us!"
"What does it matter? How can that hurt you?" asked Dolly.
"It does hurt me;--that is the truth. I have been at my business long enough. Another system has grown up which does not suit me. I feel that they all can put their fingers in my eyes. It may be that I am a fool, and that my idea of honesty is a mistake."
"No!" shouted Dolly.
"I heard of a rich American the other day who had been poor, and was asked how he had suddenly become so well off. "I found a partner," said the American, "and we went into business together. He had the capital and I had the experience. We just made a change. He has the experience now and I have the capital." When I knew that story I went to strip his coat off the wretch"s back; but Mr. Barry would give him a fine fur cloak as a mark of respect. When I find that clever rascals are respectable, I think it is time that I should give up work altogether."
Thus it was that Mr. Grey left the house of Grey & Barry, driven to premature retirement by the vices, or rather frauds, of old Mr.
Scarborough. When Augustus went to work, which he did immediately on his father"s death, to wrest the property from the hands of his brother,--or what part of the property might be possible,--Mr. Grey absolutely declined to have anything to do with the case. Mr. Barry explained how impossible it was that the house, even for its own sake, should absolutely secede from all consideration of the question. Mountjoy had been left in possession, and, according to all the evidence now before them, was the true owner. Of course he would want a lawyer, and, as Mr.
Barry said, would be very well able to pay for what he wanted. It was necessary that the firm should protect themselves against the vindictiveness of Mr. Tyrrwhit and Samuel Hart. Should the firm fail to do so, it would leave itself open to all manner of evil calumnies. The firm had been so long employed on behalf of the Scarboroughs that now, when the old squire was dead, it could not afford to relinquish the business till this final great question had been settled. It was necessary, as Mr. Barry said, that they should see it out, Mr. Barry taking a much more leading part in these discussions than had been his wont. Consequently Mr. Grey had told him that he might do it himself, and Mr. Barry had been quite contented. Mr. Barry, in talking the matter over with one of the clerks, whom he afterward took into partnership, expressed his opinion that "poor old Grey was altogether off the hooks."
"Old Grey" had always been Mr. Grey when spoken of by Mr. Barry till that day, and the clerk remarking this, left Mr. Grey"s bell unanswered for three or four minutes. Mr. Grey, though he was quite willing to shelf himself, understood it all, and knocked them about in the chambers that afternoon with unwonted severity. He said nothing about it when he came home that evening: but the next day was the last on which he took his accustomed chair.
"What will you do with yourself, papa?" Dolly said to him the next morning.
"Do with myself?"
"What employment will you take in hand? One has to think of that, and to live accordingly. If you would like to turn farmer, we must live in the country."
"Certainly I shall not do that. I need not absolutely throw away what money I have saved."
"Or if you were fond of shooting or hunting?"
"You know very well I never shot a bird, and hardly ever crossed a horse in my life."
"But you are fond of gardening."
"Haven"t I got garden enough here?"
"Quite enough, if you think so; but will there be occupation sufficient in that to find you employment for all your life?"
"I shall read."
"It seems to me," she said, "that reading becomes wearisome as an only pursuit, unless you"ve made yourself accustomed to it."
"Sha"n"t I have as much employment as you?"
"A woman is so different! Darning will get through an unlimited number of hours. A new set of underclothing will occupy me for a fortnight.
Turning the big girl"s dresses over there into frocks for the little girls is sufficient to keep my mind in employment for a month. Then I have the maid-servants to look after, and to guard against their lovers.
I have the dinners to provide, and to see that the cook does not give the fragments to the policeman. I have been brought up to do these things, and habit has made them usual occupations to me. I never envied you when you had to encounter all Mr. Scarborough"s vagaries; but I knew that they sufficed to give you something to do."
"They have sufficed," said he, "to leave me without anything that I can do."
"You must not allow yourself to be so left. You must find out some employment." Then they sat silent for a time, while Mr. Grey occupied himself with some of the numerous papers which it would be necessary that he should hand over to Mr. Barry. "And now," said Dolly, "Mr.
Carroll will have gone out, and I will go over to the Terrace. I have to see them every day, and Mr. Carroll has the decency to take himself off to some billiard-table so as to make room for me."
"What are they doing about that man?" said Mr. Grey.
"About the lover? Mr. Juniper has, I fancy, made himself extremely disagreeable, not satisfying himself with abusing you and me, but poor aunt as well, and all the girls. He has, I fancy, got some money of his own."
"He has had money paid to him by Captain Scarborough; but that I should fancy would rather make him in a good humor than the reverse."
"He is only in a good humor, I take it, when he has something to get.
However, I must be off now, or the legitimate period of Uncle Carroll"s absence will be over."
Mr. Grey, when he was left alone, at once gave up the manipulation of his papers, and, throwing himself back into his chair, began to think of that future life of which he had talked so easily to his daughter. What should he do with himself? He believed that he could manage with his books for two hours a day; but even of that he was not sure. He much doubted whether for many years past the time devoted to reading in his own house had amounted to one hour a day. He thought that he could employ himself in the garden for two hours; but that would fail him when there should be hail, or fierce sunshine, or frost, or snow, or rain.
Eating and drinking would be much to him; but he could not but look forward to self-reproach if eating and drinking were to be the joy of his life. Then he thought of Dolly"s life,--how much purer and better and n.o.bler it had been than his own. She talked in a slighting, careless tone of her usual day"s work, but how much of her time had been occupied in doing the tasks of others? He knew well that she disliked the Carrolls. She would speak of her own dislike of them as of her great sin, of which it was necessary that she should repent in sackcloth and ashes.
But yet how she worked for the family! turning old dresses into new frocks, as though the girls who had worn them, and the children who were to wear them, had been to her her dearest friends. Every day she went across to the house intent upon doing good offices; and this was the repentance in sackcloth and ashes which she exacted from herself. Could not he do as she did? He could not darn Minnie"s and Brenda"s stockings, but he might do something to make those children more worthy of their cousin"s care. He could not a.s.sociate with his brother-in-law, because he was sure that Mr. Carroll would not endure his society; but he might labor to do something for the reform even of this abominable man. Before Dolly had come back to him he had resolved that he could only redeem his life from the stagnation with which it was threatened by working for others, now that the work of his own life had come to a close. "Well, Dolly," he said, as soon as she had entered the room, "have you heard any thing more about Mr. Juniper?"
"Have you been here ever since, papa?"