CHAPTER VII. — TEMPTATION.
Thus stood the affair between my fair cousin and myself—a condition of things seriously and equally affecting her health and my temper—when an explosion took place, of a nature calculated to humble my uncle and myself, if not in equal degree, or to the same attitude, at least to a most mortifying extent in both cases. I have not stated before—indeed, it was not until the affair which I am now about to relate had actually exploded, that I was made acquainted with any of the facts which produced it—that, prior to my father's death, there had been some large business connections between himself and my uncle. In those days secret connections in business, however dangerous they might be in social, and more than equivocal in moral respects, were considered among the legitimate practices of tradesmen. What was the particular sort of relations existing between my father and uncle, I am not now prepared to state, nor is it absolutely necessary to my narrative. It is enough for me to say that an exposure of them took place, in part, in consequence of some discovering made by my father's unsatisfied creditors, by which the obscure transactions of thirty years were brought to light, or required to be brought to light; and in the development of which, the fair business fame of my uncle was likely to be involved in a very serious degree—not to speak of the inevitable effects upon his resources of a discovery and proof of fraudulent concealment. The reputation of my father must have suffered seriously, had it not been generally known that he left nothing—a fact beyond dispute from the history of my own career, in which neither goods nor chattels, lands nor money, were suffered to enure to my advantage.
The business was brought to me. The merchant who brought it, and who had been busy for some years in tracing out the testimony, so far as it could be procured, gave me to understand that he had determined to place it in my hands for two reasons: firstly, to enable me to release the memory of my father from the imputation—under any circumstances discreditable—of bankruptcy, by compelling my uncle to disgorge the sums which he had appropriated, and which, as was alleged, would satisfy all my father's creditors; and, secondly, to give me an opportunity of revenging my own wrongs upon one, of whose course of conduct toward me the populace had already seen enough, during the last election, to have a tolerably correct idea.
I examined the papers, thanked my client for his friendly intentions, but declined taking charge of the case for two other reasons. My relations to the dead and to the living were either of them sufficient reasons for this determination. I communicated the grounds of action, in a respectful letter, to my uncle, and soon discovered, by the alarm which he displayed in consequence, that the cause of the complaint was in all probability good. The case belonged to the equity jurisdiction, and the relator soon filed his bill.
My uncle's tribulation may be conjectured from the fact that he called upon me, and seemed anxious enough to bury the hatchet. He wished me to take part in the proceedings—insisted, somewhat earnestly, and strove very hard to impress me with the conviction that my father's memory demanded that I should devote myself to the task of meeting and confounding the creditor who thus, as it were, had set to work to rake up the ashes of the dead; but I answered all this very briefly and very dryly:—
“If my father has participated in this fraud, he has reaped none of its pleasant fruits. He lived poor, and died poor. The public know that; and it will be difficult to persuade them, with a due knowledge of these facts, that he deliberately perpetrated such unprofitable villany. Besides, sir, you do not seem to remember that, if the claim of Banks, Tressell, & Sons, is good, it relieves my father's memory of the only imputation that now lies against it—that of being a bankrupt.”
“Ay!” he cried hoarsely, “but it makes me one—me, your uncle.”
“And what reason, sir, have I to remember or to heed this relationship?” I demanded sternly, with a glance beneath which he quailed.
“True, true, Edward, your reproach is a just one. I have not been the friend I should have been; but—let us be friends, now, and hereafter—we must be friends. Mrs. Clifford is very anxious that it should be so—and—and—Edward,” solemnly, “you must help me out of this business. You must, by Heaven, you must—if you would not have me blow my brains out!”
The man was giving true utterance to his misery—the fruit of those pregnant fears which filled his mind.
“I would do for you, sir, whatever is proper for me to do, but can not meddle in this unless you are prepared to make restitution, which I should judge to be your best course.”
“How can you advise me to beggar my child? This claim, if recognised, will sweep everything. The interest alone is a fortune. I can not think of allowing it. I would rather die!”
“This is mere madness, Mr. Clifford; your death would not lessen the difficulty. Hear me, sir, and face the matter manfully. You must do justice. If what I understand be true, you have most unfortunately suffered yourself to be blinded to the dishonor of the act which you have committed; you have appropriated wealth which did not belong to you, and, in thus doing, you have subjected the memory of my father to the reproach of injustice which he did not deserve. I will not add the reproach which I might with justice add, that, in thus wronging the father's memory, and making it cover your own improper gains, you have suffered his son to want those necessaries of education and sustenance, which—”
“Say no more, Edward, and it shall all be amended. Listen to me now; but stay—close that door for a moment—there!—Now, look you.”
And, having taken these precautionary steps, the infatuated man proceeded to admit the dishonest practices of which he had been guilty. His object in making the confession, however, was not that he might make reparation. Far from it. It was rather to save from the clutch of his creditors, from the grasp of justice, his ill-gotten possessions. I have no patience in revealing the schemes by which this was to be effected; but, as a preliminary, I was to be made the proprietor of one half of the sum in question, and the possessor of his daughter's hand; in return for which I was simply to share with him in the performance of certain secret acts, which, without rendering his virtue any more conspicuous, would have most effectually eradicated all of mine.
“I have listened to you, Mr. Clifford, and with great difficulty. I now distinctly decline your proposals. Not even the bribe, so precious in my sight, as that which you have tendered in the person of your daughter, has power to tempt me into hesitation. I will have nothing to do with you in this matter. Restore the property to your creditors.”
“But, Edward, you have not heard;—your share alone will be twenty odd thousand dollars, without naming the interest!”
“Mr. Clifford, I am sorry for you. Doubly sorry that you persist in seeing this thing in an improper light. Even were I disposed to second your designs, it is scarcely possible, sir, that you could be extricated. The discovery of those papers, and the extreme probability that Hansford, the partner of the English firm of Davis, Pierce, & Hansford, is surviving, and can be found, makes the probabilities strongly against you. My advice to you, is, that you make a merit of necessity;—that you endeavor to effect a compromise before the affair has gone too far. The creditors will make some concessions sooner than trust the uncertainties of a legal investigation, and whether you lose or gain, a legal investigation is what you should particularly desire to avoid. If you will adopt this counsel, I will act for you with Banks & Tressel: and if you will give me carte blanche, I think I can persuade them to a private arrangement by which they will receive the principal in liquidation of all demands. This may be considered a very fair basis for an arrangement, since the results of the speculation could only accrue from the business capacities of the speculator, and did not belong to a fund which the proprietor had resolved not to appropriate, and which must therefore, have been entirely unproductive. I do not promise you that they will accept, but it is not improbable. They are men of business—they need, at this moment, particularly, an active capital; and have had too much knowledge of the doubts and delays attending a prolonged suit in equity, not to listen to a proposition which yields them the entire principal of their claim.”
I need not repeat the arguments and entreaties by which I succeeded in persuading my uncle to accede to the only arrangement which could possibly have rescued him from the public exposure which was impending; but he did consent, and, armed with his credentials, I proceeded to the office of Banks & Tressell, without loss of time.
Though resolved, if I could effect the matter, that my uncle should liquidate their claim to the uttermost farthing which they required, it was my duty to make the best bargain which I could, in reference to his unfortunate family. Accordingly, without suffering them to know that I had carte blanche, I simply communicated to them my wish to have the matter arranged without public investigation—that I was persuaded from a hasty review which I had given to the case, that there were good grounds for action;—but, at the same time, I dwelt upon the casualties of such a course—the possibility that the chief living witness—if he were living—might not be found, or might not survive long enough—as he was reputed to be very old—for the purposes of examination before the commission;—the long delays which belonged to a litigated suit, in which the details of a mixed foreign and domestic business of so many years was to be raked up, reviewed and explained; and the further chances, in the event of final success, of the property of the debtor being so covered, concealed, or made away with, as to baffle at last all the industry and labors of the creditor.
The merchants were men of good sense, and estimated the proverb—“a bird in hand is worth two in the bush”—at its true value. It did not require much argument to persuade them to receive a sum of over forty thousand dollars, and give a full discharge to the defendant; and I flattered myself that the matter was all satisfactorily arranged, and had just taken a seat at my table to write to Mr. Clifford to this effect, when, to my horror, I receive a note from that gentleman, informing me of his resolve to join issue with the claimants, and “maintain his RIGHTS(?) to the last moment.” He thanked me, in very cold consequential style, for my “FRIENDLY efforts”—the words italicised, as I have now written it;—but conduced with informing me that he had taken the opinion of older counsel, which, though it might be less correct than mine, was, perhaps, more full of promise for his interests.
This note justified me in calling upon the unfortunate gentleman. It is true I had not committed him to Banks & Tressell—the suggestions which I had made for the arrangement were all proposed as a something which I might be able to bring about in a future conference with him—but I was too anxious to save him from his lamentable folly—from that miserable love of money, which, overreaching itself in its blindness, as does every passion—was not only about to deliver him to shame but to destitution also.
I found him in Mrs. Clifford's presence. That simple and silly woman had evidently been made privy to the whole transaction, so far as my arguments had been connected with it;—for ALL the truth is not often to be got out of the man who means or has perpetrated a dishonesty. She had been alarmed at the immense loss of money, and consequently of importance, with which the family was threatened; and without looking into, or being able to comprehend the facts as they stood, she had taken around against any measure which should involve such a sacrifice. Her influence over the weak man beside her, was never so clear to me as now; and in learning to despise his character more than ever, I discovered, at the same time, the true source of many of his errors and much of his misconduct. She did not often suffer him to reply for himself—yielded me the ultimatum from her own lips; and condescended to assure me that she could only ascribe the advice which I had given to her husband, to the hostile disposition which I had always entertained for herself and family. That I was “a wolf in sheep's clothing, SHE had long since been able to see, though all others unhappily seemed blind.”
Here she scowled at her husband, who contented himself with walking to and fro, playing with his coatskirts, and feeling, no doubt, a portion of the shame which his miserable bondage to this silly woman necessarily incurred.
“Mr. Clifford has got a lawyer who can do for him what it seems you can not,” was her additional observation. “He promises to get him to dry land, and save him without so much as wetting his shoes, though his own blood relations, who are thought so smart, can not, it appears, do anything.”
Of course I could have nothing to say to the worthy lady, but my expostulations were freely urged to Mr. Clifford.
“You, at least,” said I, “should know the risks which you incur by this obstinacy. Mrs. Clifford can not be expected to know; and I now warn you, sir, that the case of Banks & Tressell is a very strong one, very well arranged, and so admirably hung together, in its several links of testimony, that even the absence of old Hansford (the chief witness), should his answers never be obtained, would scarcely impair the integrity of the evidence. In a purely moral point of view, nothing can be more complete than it is now.”
“Well, and who would it convict, Mr. Edward Clifford?” exclaimed the inveterate lady, anticipating her husband's answer with accustomed interference; “who would it convict, if not your own father? It was as much his business as my husband's; and if there's any shame, I'm sure his memory and his son will have to bear their share of it; and this makes it so much more wonderful to me that you should take sides against Mr. Clifford, instead of standing up in his defence.”
“I would save him, madam, if you and he would let me,” I exclaimed with some indignation. “Your reference to my father's share in this transaction does not affect me, as it is very evident that you are not altogether acquainted with the true part which he had in it. He had all the risk, all the loss, all the blame—and your husband all the profit, all the importance. He lived poor, and died so; without a knowledge of those profitable results to his brother of which the latter has made his own avails by leaving my father's memory to aspersion which he did not deserve, and his son to destitution and reproach which he merited as little. My father's memory is liable to no reproach when every creditor knows that he died in a state of poverty, in which his only son has ever lived. Neither he nor I ever shared any of the pleasant fruits, for which we are yet to be made accountable.”
“And whose fault was it that you didn't get your share I'm sure Mr. Clifford made you as handsome an offer yesterday as any man could desire. Didn't he offer you half? But I suppose nothing short of the whole would satisfy so ambitious a person.”
“Neither the half nor the whole will serve me, madam, in such a business. My respect for your husband and his family would, of itself, have been sufficient to prevent my acceptance of his offer.”
“But there was Julia, too, Edward!” said Mr. Clifford, approaching me with a most insinuating smile.
“It is not yet too late,” said Mrs. Clifford, unbending a little. “Take the offer of Mr. Clifford, Edward, and be one of us; and then this ugly business—”
“Yes, my dear Edward, even now, though I have spoken with young Perkins about the affair, and he tells me there's nothing so much to be afraid of, yet, for the look of the thing, I'd rather that you should be seen acting in the business. As it's so well known that your father had nothing, and you nothing, it'll then be easy for the people to believe that nothing was the gain of any of us; and—and—”
“Young Perkins may think and say what he pleases, and you are yourself capable of judging how much respect you may pay to his opinion. Mine, however, remains unchanged. You will have to pay this money—nay, this necessity will not come alone. The development of all the particulars connected with the transaction will disgrace you for ever, and drive you from the community. Even were I to take part with you, I do not see that it would change the aspect of affairs. So far from your sharing with me the reputation of being profitless in the affair, the public would more naturally suspect that I had shared with you—now, if not before—and the whole amount involved would not seduce me to incur this imputation.”
“But my daughter—Julia—”
“Do not speak of her in this connection, I implore you, Mr. Clifford. Let her name remain pure, uncontaminated by any considerations, whether of mere gain or of the fraud which the gain is supposed to involve. Freely would I give the sum in question, were it mine, and all the wealth besides that I ever expect to acquire, to make Julia Clifford my wife;—but I can not suffer myself, in such a case as this, to accept her as a bribe, and to sanction crime. Nay, I am sure that she too would be the first to object.”
“And so you really refuse? Well, the world's coming to a pretty pass. But I told Mr. Clifford, months ago, that you had quite forgot yourself, ever since you had grown so great with the Edgertons, and the Blakes, and Fortescues, and all them high-headed people. But I'm sure, Mr. Edward Clifford, my daughter needn't go a-begging to any man; and as for this business, whatever you may say against young Perkins, I'll take his opinion of the law against that of any other young lawyer in the country. He's as good as the best, I'm thinking.”
“Your opinion is your own, Mrs. Clifford, but I beg to set you right on the subject of mine. I did not say anything against Mr. Perkins.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon; I'm sure you did. You said he was nothing of a lawyer, and something more.”
Was there ever a more perverse and evil and silly woman! I contented myself with assuring her that she was mistaken and had very much misunderstood me—took pains to repeat what I had really said, and then cut short an interview that had been painful and humbling to me on many grounds. I left the happy pair tête-à-tête, in their princely parlor together, little fancying that there was another argument which had been prepared to overthrow my feeble virtue. But all this had been arranged by the small cunning of this really witless couple. I was left to find my way down stairs as I might; and just when I was about to leave the dwelling—vexed to the heart at the desperate stolidity of the miserable man, whom avarice and weakness were about to expose to a loss which might be averted in part, and an exposure to infamy which might wholly be avoided—I was encountered by the attenuated form and wan countenance of his suffering but still lovely daughter.