CHAPTER XLVIII. THE PERILS OF EVIL
The last few pages I mean to append to these notices of my life might be, perhaps, equally well derived from the public newspapers of the time. At a period when great events were occurring; when the conquering armies of France marched over the length and breadth of Europe,—the humble historian of these pages was able, for a brief space, to engage public attention, and become for a short season the notoriety of the hour. I will not presume so far as to say that the fame to which I attained was of that kind which flatters most, or that the reputation attaching to me was above reproach. Still, I had my partisans and adherents, nay, I believe I might even aver, my friends and well-wishers. He must, perchance, have had a fortunate existence who can say more.
Of what followed after the event detailed in my last chapter I can relate nothing, for I was seized with shivering and other signs of fever that same night, and for several weeks my life was despaired of. Even when the dangerous period passed over, my convalescence made but little progress. For me there were none of those aids which so powerfully assist the return to health. The sympathy of friends, the affections of family, the very hope of once more assuming one's place at hearth and board,—I had none of these. If the past was filled with trouble and suffering, the future was a bleak expanse that offered nothing to speculate on. My thoughts turned to the New World beyond the seas, to a region wherein nothing should recall a memory of the bygone, and where even I might at last forget the early years of my own life. There were not then, as now, the rapid means of intercourse between this country and America; as little, too, was there of that knowledge of the great continent of the west which now prevails. Men talked of it as a far-away land only emerging into civilization, and whose vast regions were still untrodden and unexplored. Dreamy visions of the existence men might carve out for themselves in such a scene formed the amusements of the long hours of my solitary sick bed. I fancied myself at times a lone settler on the bank of some nameless river, and at other moments as a member of some Indian tribe, following their fortunes to the chase and to the battle-field, and dreaming through life in the uneventful stillness of the forest.
In part from the effect of malady itself, in part from this dreamy state of mind, I sank into a state of impassive lethargy wherein nothing pleased or displeased me. Worse than actual despondency, a sense of indifference had settled down on all my feelings; and if I could have asked a boon, it would have been to have been left utterly alone. To reply when spoken to became irksome; even to listen was a painful exertion to me. Looking back now on this period, it seems to me that such intervals of apathetic repose are often inserted in the lives of men of more than ordinary activity, acting as sleep does in our habitual existence, and serving to rest and recruit faculties overcharged and overworked.
I was in a very humble lodging in a very humble street, still attended by doctors, and besieged by lawyers and solicitors, who came and went, held consultations, questioned and cross-questioned me with a greedy avidity on themes in which my own interest had long ceased, and which I was gradually learning to think of with absolute aversion.
Ysaffich, whose confidence in our success rose higher every day, appeared from time to time to see me; but his visits were generally hurried ones, as he was constantly on the road, travelling hither and thither, exploring registries here, and certificates there, and fortifying our case by every possible means he could think of. His energy was untiring; and in the shrewd devices of his quick intelligence, even the long-practised acuteness of the lawyers discovered great resources.
Paragraphs of a half mysterious kind in the public newspapers announced to the world that a most remarkable case might ere long transpire, and a claim be preferred which should threaten the possession of one of the largest estates in a county adjacent to the metropolis. To these succeeded others, more openly expressed, in which it was announced that some of the most distinguished members of the inner bar had received retainers for a cause that would soon astonish the world, wherein the plaintiff was represented to be the son and heir of one who once had figured most conspicuously in the fashionable and political circles of Dublin.
As the time approached for bringing the case to trial it was judged expedient that I should be provided with lodgings in a more fashionable quarter of the town, be seen abroad in places of public resort, and, in fact, a certain éclat be imparted to my presence, which should enlist, so far as might be, popular feeling in my favor. The chief adviser and leader of my case was a lawyer of great repute in the Irish bar of those days,—a certain Samuel Hanchett,—one of those men who owe their success in life less to actual learning than to the possession of immense natural acuteness, great resources in difficulty, and a vast acquaintance with all the arts of their fellow-men. There had been, I believe, considerable difficulty in securing his services originally in our behalf. It was reported that he disliked such cases; that they were not what “suited him.” He made various objections when first addressed, and threw every discouragement when the cause was submitted for his opinion. He asked for evidence that was not to be obtained, and proofs that were not forthcoming. The merest accident—if I am justified in calling such what was to be followed by consequences so important to myself—overruled these objections on his part. It chanced that in one of my solitary walks on a Sunday afternoon I happened to find myself at the bank of a little stream near Milltown, with an elderly man who seemed to have some apprehensions about crossing on the slippery and uncertain stepping-stones by which the passage was forded. Perceiving his difficulty, I tendered my assistance to him at once, which he accepted. On arriving at then opposite bank, and finding that our roads led in the same direction, we began to converse together, during which my accidental pronunciation of a word with a slightly foreign accent attracted his notice. To a question on his part, I mentioned that a great part of my life had been passed abroad; and amongst the places to which I alluded was Reichenau. He asked me in what year I had been there, and inquired if by any chance I had ever heard of a certain school there in which it was said the son of the late Duke of Orleans had been a teacher.
“You are speaking of Monsieur Jost, my old master?” said I, warmed up by even this passing remembrance of happier days.
“Will you pardon the liberty I am about to take,” said he, with some earnestness, “and allow me to ask, with whom I have the honor to speak?”
“My name is Jasper Carew, sir,” said I, with a degree of stern pride a man feels in asserting a claim that he knows may be contested.
“Jasper Carew!” repeated he, slowly, while he stood still and stared steadfastly at me—“Jasper Carew! You are then the claimant to the estates of Castle Carew and Crone Lofty in Wicklow?”
“The property of my late father,” said I, assentingly.
“What a singular coincidence should have brought us together,” said he, after a pause. “Do you know, sir, that when you overtook me half an hour ago, and saw me standing on the side of the stream there, I was less occupied in thinking how I should cross it than how I could reconcile certain strange statements which had been made to me respecting your claim. I am Mr. Hanchett, sir, the counsel to whom your case has been submitted.”
“It is indeed a curious accident that has brought us thus in contact,” exclaimed I, in surprise.
“I should like to give it another name, young gentleman,” said he, thoughtfully, while he walked along at my side for some moments in silence. “Has it ever been explained to you, Mr. Carew,” said he, gravely, “what dangers attend such a course of proceeding as you are now engaged in? How necessarily you must be prepared to give in your adhesion to many things your advisers deem essential, and of which you can have no cognizance personally,—in a word, how frequently you will be forced into a responsibility which you never contemplated or anticipated? Have all these circumstances been placed fairly and clearly before you?”
“Never!” replied I.
“Then suffer me to endeavor, in a very few words, to show you some at least of the perils I allude to.” In a few short and graphic sentences he stated my case, with all its favorable points forcibly and well delineated. He then exhibited its various weaknesses and deficiencies, the assumptions for which no proofs were forthcoming, the positions which were taken without power to maintain them. “To give the required coherence and consistency to these, your advisers will of course take all due precaution; but they will require aid also from you. You will be asked for information you have no means of obtaining, for details you cannot supply. A lawsuit is like a chase: the ardor of pursuit deadens every sense of peril, and in the desire to win you become reckless for the cost. I perceive,” said he, “that you demur to some of this; but remember that as yet you have not entered the field, that you have only viewed the sport from afar, and its passions of hope and fear are all untasted by you!”
“It may be as you say,” said I, “and that hereafter I may seem to feel differently; but for the present I can promise you that to secure a verdict in my favor, not only would I not strain any point myself, but I would not condescend to accept the benefit of such a sacrifice from another. I believe—I have strong reasons to believe—that I am asserting a rightful claim; the arguments that shall be sufficient to convince others that I am wrong will, doubtless, be strong enough to satisfy me.”
He had fixed his eyes steadily on me while I was speaking these words, and I could, easily perceive that the impression they produced on him was favorable. He then led me on to speak of my life and its vicissitudes, and I could detect in many of his questions that he had formed erroneous notions as to various parts of my story. I cannot attempt to explain why it was so; but the fact unquestionably was, that I opened my heart more freely and unreservedly to this stranger than I had ever done to any of those with whom I had before conversed; and when we parted at length, it was like old friends.
The accident of our meeting was not known to others, and there was considerable astonishment excited when it was heard that Hanchett, who had hitherto shown no disposition to engage in the cause, now accepted the brief and exhibited the warmest anxiety for success. His acute intelligence quickly detected many things which had been passed over as immaterial, and by his activity various channels of information were opened which others had not thought of. In these details Ysaffich came more than once before him; and it was remarkable with what shrewdness he read the man's nature, bold, resolute, and unscrupulous as it was. Between the two, the feeling of distrust rapidly ripened into open hatred, each not hesitating to accuse the other of treachery; and thus was a new element of difficulty added to a case whose complications were already more than enough.
My own position at this period was embarrassing in the extreme. Hanchett frequently invited me to his house, and presented me freely to his friends; while Ysaffich continued to suggest doubts of his good faith on every occasion, and by a hundred petty slights showed his implacable enmity towards him. Day after day this breach grew wider and wider, every effort of the one being sure to excite the animosity and opposition of the other. Ysaffich, too, far from endeavoring to repress this spirit on his part, seemed to foster and encourage it, sneering at the old lawyer's caution and reserve, and even insinuating against him darker and more treacherous intentions.
“To what end,” said he, at length, one morning when our discussion had become unusually warm and animated, “to what end the inquiries to which this learned adviser of yours would push us: he wants to discover the Countess of Ga-briac and Raper. Why, bethink you, my worthy friend, that these are the very people we hope never to hear more of; that if by any mischance they could possibly be forthcoming, our whole scheme is blown up at once. We have now enough, or we shall have enough by the end of the month, to go to a jury. There is not a document nor a paper that will not, in some form or other, be supplied. Let us stand or fall by that issue; but, of all things, let us not protract the campaign till the arrival of the forces that shall overwhelm us. If this be your policy, Master Gervois, speak it out freely, and let us be frank with each other.”
There was a tone of bold defiance in this speech that startled me; but the way in which he addressed me, as Gervois, a name he had never called me by for several months, in even our closest intimacy, was like a declaration of open hostility.
“I claim to be called Jasper Carew,” said I, calmly and slowly; “I will accept no other designation from you nor any one.”
“You have learned your part admirably,” said he, with a sneer; “but remember that I am myself the prompter; so pray reserve the triumphs of your art for the public!”
“Anatole,” said I, addressing him with an emotion I could not repress, “I desire to be frank and candid with you. This name of Jasper Carew I believe firmly to be mine.”
A burst of laughter, insulting to the last degree, stopped me in my speech.
“Why, Gervois, this is madness, my worthy fellow. Just bethink you of how this plot originated; who suggested, who carried it on,—ay, and where it stands at this very moment. That you yourself are as nothing in it; the breath that made can still unmake you; and that I have but to declare you an impostor and a cheat,—hard words, but you will have them,—and the law will deal with you as it knows how to deal with those who trade on false pretences. Yours be the blame if I be pushed to such reprisals!”
“And what if I defied you, Count Ysaffich?” said I, boldly.
“If you but dared to do it!” said he, with a menace of his clenched hand.
“Now listen to me calmly,” said I; “and there is the more need of calm, since, possibly, these are the very last words that shall ever pass between us. My claim can neither be aided nor opposed by you.”
“Is the fellow mad?” exclaimed he, staring wildly at me.
“I am in my calm and sober senses,” replied I, quietly.
“Then what say you to this bond?” said he, taking a paper from his pocket-book. “Is this a written promise that if you succeed to the fortune and estates of the late Walter Carew, you will pay me, Count Anatole Ysaffich, one hundred thousand pounds?”
“I own every word of it,” said I.
“And for what service is this the recompense? Answer me that.”
“That I am indebted to you for having opened to me the path by which my right was to be established.”
“Say rather that by me was the fraud of a false name, and birth, and rank first suggested; that from Gervois the courier I created you Carew the gentleman. The whole scheme was and is my own. You are as nothing in it.”
Stupefied, almost stunned, by the outrageous insult of his words, I did not speak, and he went on,—
“But you have not taken me unawares. I was not without my suspicion that such an incident as this might arise. I foresaw at least its possibility, and was prepared for it. Be advised, then, in time, since if your foot was on the very threshold of that door you hope to call your own, the power lies with me to drag you back again and proclaim you to all the world a swindler.”
My passion boiled over at the word, and I sprung towards him, I know not with what thoughts of vengeance. He darted back suddenly, and gained the door.
“If you had dared,” said he, with a savage grin, “you had been a corpse on that floor the minute after.”
The shining blade of a stiletto glanced within his waistcoat as he spoke. The next moment he had descended the stairs, and was gone.
I will not speak of the suffering this scene cost me,—a misery, I am free to declare, less proceeding from my dread of his resentment than from the thought that one of the very few with whom I had ever lived on terms approaching friendship had now become a declared and bitter enemy. Oh for the hollowness of such attachments! The bonds which bind men to evil are the deadliest snares that beset us; and thus the very qualities which seem our best and purest, are among the weakest and the worst of our depraved natures.
To add to my discomfiture, Hanchett was obliged to go over to London in some case before the House of Lords, and my cause was intrusted to the second counsel, one with whom I had little intercourse, and few opportunities of knowing. Ysaffich's defection, too, threw a great gloom over all my supporters. His readiness in every difficulty was not less remarkable than his unwearied and untiring energy. He was, in fact, the bond of union between all the parties, stimulating, encouraging, and cheering them on. Even they who were least disposed towards him personally, avowed that his loss was irreparable; and some, taking a still graver view of the matter, owned their fears that he might seek service with the enemy.
I cannot tell the relief I experienced on hearing that he had sailed from Ireland the very night of our quarrel; and, from the observations he had dropped, it was believed with the intention of going abroad.
As the day fixed for the trial drew nigh, public curiosity rose to the very highest degree. The real nature of the claim to be set up was no longer a secret, and the case became the town talk of every club and society of the capital. Curtis had long ceased to be popular with any party. His dissolute life had thrown a disrepute upon those who sided with him; and the newspapers, almost without an exception, inclined towards my side. There is, perhaps, something too that savors of generosity in such cases, and disposes many to favor what they feel to be the weaker party. I am sure I had reason to experience much of this kind of sympathy, nor do I think of it even now without gratitude.
Early as it was when I prepared to leave my hotel, I found a considerable crowd had assembled in the street without, curious to see one whose story had attracted so much popular notice. They were mostly of the lower classes, but I observed that a knot of gentlemen had gathered on the steps of an adjoining door, and were eagerly watching for my appearance. As the window of my room was almost directly over their heads, and lay open, I could hear the conversation which passed between them. Shall I own that the words I overheard set my heart a beating violently?
“You knew Carew intimately, Parsons?” asked one.
“Watty! to be sure I did. We were class-fellows at school and at college.”
“And liked him, I have heard you say?”
“Extremely. There was no better fellow to be found. He had his weaknesses like the rest of us; but he was a true-hearted, generous friend, and a resolute enemy also.”
“Were you acquainted with his wife, Ned?” asked another.
“I was presented to her the day he brought her over,” replied he; “we all lunched with him at the hotel, but I never saw her after. The fact was, Watty made a foolish match, and never was the same man to his old friends after. Perhaps we were as much in fault as he was; at all events, except MacNaghten and a few who were very intimate with him, all fell off, and Carew, who was a haughty fellow, drew back from us, and left the breach still wider.”
“And what's your opinion of this claim?” asked another, who had not spoken before.
“That I 'd not give sixpence for the chance of its success,” said he, laughingly. “Why, everybody knows that no trace of any document establishing Carew's marriage could be found after his death. Some went so far as to say that there never had been a marriage at all; and as to the child, Dan MacNaghten told me years ago that the boy was killed in some street skirmish in Paris,—so that, taking all the doubts and difficulties together, and bearing in mind that old Joe Curtis has a strong purse and is in possession, is there any man with common sense to guide him would think the contest worth a trial?”
“Have you seen this young fellow yet?”
“No; and I am rather curious to have a look at him, for there were strong family traits about the Carews.”
As I heard these last words, I walked boldly out upon the balcony as if to examine the state of the weather. There was a slight murmur of voices heard beneath as I came forward, and one speaker exclaimed, “Indeed!” to which Parsons quickly replied,—
“Positively astounding! It is not only that he has Carew's features, but the carriage of the head and a certain half supercilious look are exactly his!”
The words sent a thrill of hope through me, more than enough to recompense me for the pain his former speech had inflicted; and as I left the window, I felt a degree of confidence in the future that never entirely deserted me after.