Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience

by Charles James Lever

But to what end should I endeavor to defend my motives, since my actions are already before the world, and each will read them by the light his own conscience lends? Let me rather hasten to complete a task which, since it has involved an apology, has become almost painful to pursue.

So successfully had Ysaffich employed his time at Brussels that a well-known notary there had already consented to aid our plans and furnish means for our journey to England. I cannot go over with minuteness details in which the deceptions I had to concur in still revive my shame. I could, it is true, recite the story of my birth and parentage, my early years abroad, and so on, with the conscious force of truth; but there were supplementary evidences required of me with which I could not bring myself to comply. Ysaffich, naturally enough, could not understand the delicacy of scruples which only took alarm by mere caprice, nor could he comprehend why he who was willing to feign a name and falsify a position should hesitate about assuming any circumstances that might be useful to sustain it.

Of course I could not explain this mystery, and was obliged to endure all the sarcastic allusions he vented on the acuteness of my sense of honor and the extreme susceptibility of my notions of right. It chanced, however, that this very repugnance on my part should prove more favorable for us than all his most artful devices, and indeed it shows with clearness how often the superadded efforts fraud contributes to insure success are as frequently the very sources of its failure,—just as we see in darker crimes how the over care and caution of the murderer have been the clew that has elicited the murder.

Ysaffich wished me to detail, amongst the memories of my childhood, the having heard often of the great estate and vast fortune to which I was entitled. He wanted me to supply, as it were from memory, many links of the chain of evidence that seemed deficient,—vague recollections of having heard this, that, and the other; but, with an obstinacy that to him appeared incomprehensible, I held to my own unadorned tale, and would not add a word beyond my own conviction.

Mr. Ragge, the solicitor by whom the case was undertaken, seemed most favorably impressed by this reserve on my part; and, far from being discouraged by my ignorance of certain points, appeared, on the contrary, only the more satisfied as to the genuineness of my story. Over and over have I felt in my conversations with him how impossible it would have been for me to practise any deception successfully with him. Without any semblance of cross-examination, he still contrived to bring me again and again over the same ground, viewing the same statement from different sides, and trying to discover a discrepancy in my narrative. When at length assured, to all appearance, at least, of my being the person I claimed to be, he drew up a statement of my case for counsel, and a day was named when I should be personally examined by a distinguished member of the bar. I cannot even now recall that interview without a thrill of emotion. My sense of hope, dashed as it was by a conscious feeling that I was, in some sort, practising a deception,—for in all my compact with Ysaffich our attempt was purely a fraud,—I entered the chamber with a faltering step and a failing heart Far, however, from questioning and cross-questioning, like the solicitor, the lawyer suffered me to tell my story without even so much as a word of interruption. I had, I ought to remark, divested my tale of many of the incidents which really befell me. I made my life one of commonplace events and unexciting adventures, in which poverty occupied the prominent place. I as cautiously abstained from all mention of the distinguished persons with whom accident had brought me into contact, since any allusion to them would have compromised the part I Was obliged to play with Ysaffich. When asked what documents or written evidence I had to adduce in support of my pretensions, and I had confessed to possessing none, the old lawyer leaned back in his chair, and, closing his eyes, seemed lost in thought.

“At the best,” said he, at length, “it is a case for a compromise. There is really so little to go upon, I can advise nothing better.”

I need not go into the discussion that ensued further than to say the weight of argument was on the side of those who counselled the compromise, and, however little disposed to yield, I felt myself overborne by numbers, and compelled to give in.

Weeks, even months, were now passed without any apparent progress in our suit. The party in possession of the estate treated our first advances with the most undisguised contempt, and even met our proposals with menaces of legal vengeance. Undeterred by these signs of strength, Mr. Ragge persevered in his search for evidence, sent his emissaries hither and thither, and entered upon the case with all the warm zeal of a devoted friend. It was at length thought that a visit to Ireland might possibly elicit some information on certain points, and thither we went together.

It was little more than a quarter of a century since the date of my father's death, and yet such had been the changes in the condition of Ireland, and so great the social revolution accomplished there, that men talked of the bygone period like some long-past history. The days of the parliaments, and the men who figured in them, were alike for* gotten; and although there were many who had known my father well, all memory, not to speak of affection for him, had lapsed from their natures.

Crowther and Fagan were dead, but Joe Curtis was alive, and continued to live in Castle Carew in a style of riotous debauchery that scandalized the whole country. In fact, the mere mention of his name was sufficient to elicit the most disgraceful anecdotes of his habits. Unknown to and unrecognized by his equals, this old man had condescended to form intimacy with all that Dublin contained of the profligate and abandoned; and, surrounded by men and women of this class, his days and nights were one continued orgie. Although the estate was a large one, it was rumored that he was deeply in debt, and only obtained means for this wasteful existence by loans on ruinous conditions. In vain Mr. Ragge made inquiries for some one who might possess his confidence and have the legal direction of his affairs. He had changed from this man to that so often that it was scarcely possible to discover in what quarter the property was managed. Without any settled plan of procedure, but half to watch the eventualities that might arise, it was determined that I should proceed to Castle Carew and present myself as the son and the heir of the last owner.