CHAPTER VIII. — LOVE FINDS NO SMOOTH WATER IN THE SEA OF LAW
“Julia!” I exclaimed, with a start which betrayed, I am sure, quite as much surprise as pleasure. My mood was singularly inflexible. My character was not easily shaken, and, once wrought upon by any leading influence, my mind preserved the tone which it acquired beneath it, long after the cause of provocation had been withdrawn. This earnestness of character—amounting to intensity—gave me an habitual sternness of look and expression, and I found it hard to acquire, of a sudden, that command of muscle which would permit me to mould the stubborn lineaments, at pleasure, to suit the moment. Not even where my heart was most deeply interested—thus aroused—could I look the feelings of the lover, which, nevertheless, were most truly the predominant ones within my bosom.
“Julia,” I exclaimed, “I did not think to see you.”
“Ah, Edward, did you wish it?” she replied in very mournful accents, gently reproachful, as she suffered me to take her hand in mine, and lead her back to the parlor in the basement story. I seated her upon the sofa, and took a place at her side.
“Why should I not wish to see you, Julia? What should lead you to fancy now that I could wish otherwise?”
“Alas!” she replied, “I know not what to think—I scarcely know what I say. I am very miserable. What is this they tell me? Can it be true, Edward, that you are acting against my father—that you are trying to bring him to shame and poverty?”
I released her hand. I fixed my eyes keenly upon hers.
“Julia, you have your instructions what to say. You are sent here for this. They have set you in waiting to meet me here, and speak things which you do not understand, and assert things which I know you can not believe.”
“Edward, I believe YOU!” she exclaimed with emphasis, but with downcast eyes; “but it does not matter whether I was sent here, or sought you of my own free will. They tell me other things—there is more—but I have not the heart to say it, and it needs not much.”
“If you believe me, Julia, it certainly does not need that you should repeat to me what is said of me by enemies, equally unjust to me, and hostile to themselves. Yet I can readily conjecture some things which they have told you. Did they not tell you that your hand had been proffered me, and that I had refused it?”
She hung her head in silence.
“You do not answer.”
“Spare me; ask me not.”
“Nay, tell me, Julia, that I may see how far you hold me worthy of your love, your confidence. Speak to me—have they not told you some such story?”
“Something of this; but I did not heed it, Edward.”
“Julia—nay!—did you not?”
“And if I did, Edward—”
“It surely was not to believe it?”
“No! no! no! I had no fears of you—have none, dear Edward! I knew that it was not, could not be true.”
“Julia, it was true!”
“Ah!”
“True, indeed! There was more truth in THAT than in any other part of the story. Nay, more—had they told you all the truth, dearest Julia, that part, strange as it may appear, would have given you less pain than pleasure.”
“How! Can it be so?”
“Your hand was proffered me by your father, and I refused it. Nay, look not from me, dearest—fear not for my affection—fear nothing. I should have no fear that you could suppose me false to you, though the whole world should come and tell you so. True love is always secured by a just confidence in the beloved object; and, without this confidence, the whole life is a series of long doubts, struggles, griefs, and apprehensions, which break down the strength, and lay the spirit in the dust. I will now tell you, in few words, what is the relation in which I stand to your father and his family. He, many years ago, committed an error in business, which the laws distinguish by a harsher name. By this error he became rich. Until recently, the proofs of this error were unknown. They have lately been discovered by certain claimants, who are demanding reparation. In the difficulty of your father, he came to me. I examined the business, and have given it as my opinion that he should stifle the legal process by endeavoring to make a private arrangement with the creditors.”
“Could he do this?”
“He could. The creditors were willing, and at first he consented that I should arrange it with them. He now rejects the arrangement.”
“But why?”
“Because it involves the surrender of the entire amount of property which they claim—a sum of forty thousand dollars.”
“But, dear Edward, is it due?—does my father owe this money? If he does, surely he can not refuse. Perhaps he thinks that he owes nothing.”
“Nay, Julia, unhappily he knows it, and the offer of your hand, and half of the sum mentioned, was made to me, on the express condition that I should exert my influence as a man, and my ingenuity as a lawyer, in baffling the creditors and stifling the claim.”
The poor girl was silent and hung her head, her eyes fixed upon the carpet, and the big tears slowly gathering, dropping from them, one, by one. Meanwhile, I explained, as tenderly as I could, the evil consequences which threatened Mr. Clifford in consequence of his contumacy.
“Alas” she exclaimed, “it is not his fault. He would be willing—I heard him say as much last night—but mother—she will not consent. She refused positively the moment father said it would be necessary to sell out, and move to a cheaper house. Oh, Edward, is there no way that you can save us? Save my father from shame, though he gives up all the money.”
“Would I not do this, Julia? Nay, were I owner of the necessary amount myself, believe me, it should not be withheld.”
“I do believe you, Edward; but”—and here her voice sunk to a whisper—“you must try again, try again and again—for I think that father knows the danger, though mother does not; and I think—I hope—he will be firm enough, when you press him, and warn him of the danger, to do as you wish him.”
“I am afraid not, Julia. Your mother—”
“Do not fear; hope—hope all, dear Edward; for, to confess to you, I KNOW that they are anxious to have your support—they said as much. Nay, why should I hide anything from you? They sent me here to see—to speak with you, and—”
“To see what your charms could do to persuade me to be a villain. Julia! Julia! did you think to do this—to have me be the thing which they would make me?”
“No! no!—Heaven forbid, dear Edward, that you should fancy that any such desire had a place, even for a moment, in my mind. No! I knew not that the case involved any but mere money considerations. I knew not that—”
“Enough! Say no more, Julia! I do not think that you would counsel me to my own shame.”
“No! no! You do me only justice. But, Edward, you will save my father! You will try—you will see him again—”
“What! to suffer again the open scorn, the declared doubts of my friendship and integrity, which is the constant language of your mother? Can it be that you would desire that I should do this—nay, seek it?”
“For my poor father's sake!” she cried, gaspingly.
But I shook my head sternly.
“For mine, then—for mine! for mine!”
She threw herself into my arms, and clung to me until I promised all that she required. And as I promised her, so I strove with her father. I used every argument, resorted to every mode of persuasion, but all was of no avail. Mr. Clifford was under the rigid, the iron government of his fate! His wife was one of those miserably silly women—born, according to Iago—
“To suckle fools and chronicle small beer”—
who, raised to the sudden control of unexpected wealth, becomes insane upon it, and is blind, deaf, and dumb, to all counsel or reason which suggests the possibility of its loss. From the very moment when Mr. Clifford spoke of selling out house, horses, and carriage, as the inevitable result which must follow his adoption of my recommendation, she declared herself against it at all hazards, particularly when her husband assured her that “the glorious uncertainties of the law” afforded a possibility of his escape with less loss. The loss of money was, with her, the item of most consideration; her mind was totally insensible to that of reputation. She was willing to make this compromise with me, as a sort of alternative, for, in that case, there would be no diminution of attendance and expense—no loss of rank and equipage. We should all live together—how harmoniously, one may imagine—but the grandeur and the state would still be intact and unimpaired. Even for this, however, she was not prepared, when she discovered that there was no certainty that my alliance would bring immunity to her husband. How this notion got even partially into his head, I know not; unless in consequence of a growing imbecility of intellect, which in a short time after betrayed itself more strikingly. But of this in its own place.
My attempts to convince my unfortunate uncle were all rendered unavailing, and shown to be so to Julia herself in a very short time afterward. The insolence of Mrs. Clifford, when I did seek an interview with her husband, was so offensive and unqualified, that Julia herself, with a degree of indignation which she could not entirely suppress, begged me to quit the house, and relieve myself from such undeserved insult and abuse. I did so, but with no unfriendly wishes for the wretched woman who presided over its destinies, and the no less wretched husband whom she helped to make so; and my place as consulting friend and counsellor was soon supplied by Mr. Perkins—one of those young barristers, to be found in every community, who regard the “penny fee” as the sine qua non, and obey implicitly the injunction of the scoundrel in the play “Make money—honestly if you can, but—make money!” He was one of those creatures who set people at loggerheads, goad foolish and petulant clients into lawsuits, stir up commotions in little sets, and invariably comfort the suit-bringer with the most satisfactory assurances of success. It was the confident assurances of this person which had determined Mr. Clifford—his wife rather—to resist to the last the suit in question. Through the sheer force of impudence, this man had obtained a tolerable share of practice. His clients, as may be supposed, lay chiefly among such persons as, having no power or standard for judging, necessarily look upon him who is most bold and pushing as the most able and trustworthy. The bullies of the law—and, unhappily, the profession has quite too many—are very commanding persons among the multitude. Mr. Clifford knew this fellow's mental reputation very well, and was not deceived by the confidence of his assurances; nay, to the last, he showed a hankering desire to give me the entire control of the subject; but the hostility of Mrs. Clifford overruled his more prudent if not more honorable purposes; and, as he was compelled to seek a lawyer, the questionable moral standing of Perkins decided his choice. He wished one, in short, to do a certain piece of dirty work: and, as if in anticipation of the future, he dreaded to unfold the case to any of the veterans, the old-time gentlemen and worthies of the bar. I proposed this to him. I offered to make a supposititious relation of the facts for the opinion of Mr. Edgerton and others—nay, pledged myself to procure a confidential consultation—anything, sooner than that he should resort to a mode of extrication which, I assured him, would only the more deeply involve him in the meshes of disgrace and loss. But there was a fatality about this gentleman—a doom that would not be baffled, and could not be stayed. The wilful mind always precipitates itself down the abyss; and, whether acting by his own, or under the influence of another's judgment, such was, most certainly, the case with him. He was not to be saved. Mr. Perkins was regularly installed as his defender—his counsellor, private and public—and I was compelled, though with humiliating reluctance, to admit to the plaintiffs, Banks & Tressell, that there was no longer any hope of compromise. The issue on which hung equally his fortune and his reputation was insanely challenged by my uncle.