“Alas, how sad!” thought Georgie, as she lay back in the Nowelhurst carriage on her way to Cole, Chope, and Co.; “how very sad if it should be so. Then there will be no cure for it, but to get up the evidence, meet the dreadful publicity, and get the poor fellow convicted. And they say he is so good–looking! Perhaps I hate ugly people so much, because I am so pretty. Oh, how I wish Mr. Corklemore walked a little more like a gentleman. But as a sacred duty to my innocent darling, I must leave no stone unturned.”
Fully convinced of her pure integrity, Georgie drove up in state and style to the office of Cole, Chope, and Co., somewhere in Southampton. She would make no secret of it, but go in Sir Cradock Nowellʼs carriage, and then evil–minded persons could not misinterpret her. Mr. Chope alone could tell her, as she had said to “Uncle Cradock” (with a faint hope that he might let slip something), what really was the nature and effect of her own marriage–settlement. Things of that sort were so far beyond her, so distasteful to her; sufficient for the day was the evil thereof; she could sympathize with almost any one, but really not with a person who looked forward to any disposal of property, unless it became, for the sake of the little ones, a matter of strict duty; and even then it must cause a heart–pang—oh, such a bitter heart–pang!
“Coleʼs brains” was not the man to make himself too common. He always required digging out, like a fossil, from three or four mural septa. Being disinterred at last from the innermost room, after winks, and nods, and quiet knocks innumerable, he came out with both hands over his eyes, because the light was too much for him, he had been so hard at work.
And the first thing he always expressed was surprise, even though he had made the appointment. Mr. Simon Chope, attorney and solicitor, was now about five–and–thirty years old, a square–built man, just growing stout, with an enormous head, and a frizzle of hair which made it look still larger. There was a depth of gravity in his paper–white countenance—slightly marked with small–pox—a power of not laughing, such as we seldom see, except in a man of great humour, who says odd things, but rarely smiles till every one else is laughing. But if Chope were gifted, as he may have been, with a racy vein of comedy, nobody ever knew it. He was not accustomed to make a joke gratis, neither to laugh upon similar terms at the jokes of other people. Tremendous gravity, quiet movements, very clear perception, most judicious reticence—these had been his characteristics since he started in life as an office–boy, and these would abide with him until he got everything he wanted; if any man ever does that.
With many a bow and smile, expressing surprise, delight, and deference, Mr. Chope conducted to a special room that lady in whom he felt an interest transcending contingent remainder. Mrs. Corklemore swam to her place with that ease of movement which was one of her chief fascinations, and fixed her large grey eyes on the lawyer with the sweetest expression of innocence.
“I fear, Mr. Chope—oh, where is my husband? he promised to meet me here—I fear that I must give you, oh, so much trouble again. But you exerted yourself so very kindly on my behalf about eighteen months ago, that I cannot bear to consult any other gentleman, even in the smallest matter.”
“My services, such as they are, shall ever be at the entire disposal of Madame la Comtesse.”
Mr. Chope would always address her so; “a countess once, a countess for ever,” was his view of the subject. Moreover, it ignored Mr. Corklemore, whom he hated as his supplanter; and, best reason of all, the lady evidently liked it.
“You are so very kind, I felt sure that you would say so. But in this case, the business is rather Mr. Corklemoreʼs than my own. But he has left it entirely to me, having greater confidence, perhaps, in my apprehension.”
She knew, of course, that so to disparage her husband, by implication, was not in the very best taste; but she felt that Mr. Chope would be pleased, as she quite understood his sentiments.