Castle Richmond Part 79

"What is it, Mr. Prendergast?" again demanded Herbert, who was now too greatly excited to care much for the Chancery wisdom of the great barrister. "Has anything new turned up about--about those Molletts?"

"Yes, Herbert, something has turned up--"

"Remember, Prendergast, that your evidence is again incomplete."

"Upon my word, sir, I do not think it is: it would be sufficient for any intellectual jury in a Common Law court," said Mr. Prendergast, who sometimes, behind his back, gave to Mr. Die the surname of Cunctator.

"But juries in Common Law courts are not always intelligent. And you may be sure, Prendergast, that any gentleman taking up the case on the other side would have as much to say for his client as your counsel would have for yours. Remember, you have not even been to Putney yet."

"Been to Putney!" said Herbert, who was becoming uneasy.

"The onus probandi would lie with them," said Mr. Prendergast. "We take possession of that which is our own till it is proved to belong to others."

"You have already abandoned the possession."

"No; we have done nothing already: we have taken no legal step; when we believed--"

"Having by your own act put yourself in your present position, I think you ought to be very careful before you take up another."

"Certainly we ought to be careful. But I do maintain that we may be too punctilious. As a matter of course I shall go to Putney."

"To Putney!" said Herbert Fitzgerald.

"Yes, Herbert, and now, if Mr. Die will permit, I will tell you what has happened. On yesterday afternoon, before you came to dine with me, I received that letter. No, that is from your cousin, Owen Fitzgerald. You must see that also by-and-by. It was this one,--from the younger Mollett, the man whom you saw that day in your poor father's room."

Herbert anxiously put out his hand for the letter, but he was again interrupted by Mr. Die. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Fitzgerald, for a moment. Prendergast, let me see that letter again, will you?" And taking hold of it, he proceeded to read it very carefully, still nursing his leg with his left hand, while he held the letter with his right.

"What's it all about?" said Herbert, appealing to Prendergast almost in a whisper.

"Lente, lente, lente, my dear Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Die, while his eyes were still intent upon the paper. "If you will take advantage of the experience of gray hairs, and bald heads,"--his own was as bald all round as a big white stone--"you must put up with some of the disadvantages of a momentary delay. Suppose now, Prendergast, that he is acting in concert with those people in--what do you call the street?"

"In Spinny Lane."

"Yes; with his father and the two women there."

"What could they gain by that?"

"Share with him whatever he might be able to get out of you."

"The man would never accuse himself of bigamy for that. Besides, you should have seen the women, Die."

"Seen the women! Tsh--tsh--tsh; I have seen enough of them, young and old, to know that a clean ap.r.o.n and a humble tone and a down-turned eye don't always go with a true tongue and an honest heart. Women are now the most successful swindlers of the age! That profession at any rate is not closed against them."

"You will not find these women to be swindlers; at least I think not."

"Ah! but we want to be sure, Prendergast;" and then Mr. Die finished the letter, very leisurely, as Herbert thought.

When he had finished it, he folded it up and gave it back to Mr.

Prendergast. "I don't think but what you've a strong prima facie case; so strong that perhaps you are right to explain the whole matter to our young friend here, who is so deeply concerned in it.

But at the same time I should caution him that the matter is still enveloped in doubt."

Herbert eagerly put out his hand for the letter. "You may trust me with it," said he: "I am not of a sanguine temperament, nor easily excited; and you may be sure that I will not take it for more than it is worth." So saying, he at last got hold of the letter, and managed to read it through much more quickly than Mr. Die had done. As he did so he became very red in the face, and too plainly showed that he had made a false boast in speaking of the coolness of his temperament.

Indeed, the stakes were so high that it was difficult for a young man to be cool while he was playing the game: he had made up his mind to lose, and to that he had been reconciled; but now again every pulse of his heart and every nerve of his body was disturbed. "Was never his wife," he said out loud when he got to that part of the letter.

"His real wife living now in Spinny Lane! Do you believe that Mr.

Prendergast?"

"Yes, I do," said the attorney.

"Lente, lente, lente," said the barrister, quite oppressed by his friend's unprofessional abruptness.

"But I do believe it," said Mr. Prendergast: "you must always understand, Herbert, that this new story may possibly not be true--"

"Quite possible," said Mr. Die, with something almost approaching to a slight laugh.

"But the evidence is so strong," continued the other, "that I do believe it heartily. I have been to that house, and seen the man, old Mollett, and the woman whom I believe to be his wife, and a daughter who lives with them. As far as my poor judgment goes," and he made a bow of deference towards the barrister, whose face, however, seemed to say, that in his opinion the judgment of his friend Mr.

Prendergast did not always go very far--"As far as my poor judgment goes, the women are honest and respectable. The man is as great a villain as there is unhung--unless his son be a greater one; but he is now so driven into a corner, that the truth may be more serviceable to him than a lie."

"People of that sort are never driven into a corner," said Mr. Die; "they may sometimes be crushed to death."

"Well, I believe the matter is as I tell you. There at any rate is Mollett's a.s.surance that it is so. The woman has been residing in the same place for years, and will come forward at any time to prove that she was married to this man before he ever saw--before he went to Dorsets.h.i.+re: she has her marriage certificate; and as far as I can learn there is no one able or willing to raise the question against you. Your cousin Owen certainly will not do so."

"It will hardly do to depend upon that," said Mr. Die, with another sneer. "Twelve thousand a year is a great provocative to litigation."

"If he does we must fight him; that's all. Of course steps will be taken at once to get together in the proper legal form all evidence of every description which may bear on the subject, so that should the question ever be raised again, the whole matter may be in a nutsh.e.l.l."

"You'll find it a nutsh.e.l.l very difficult to crack in five-and-twenty years' time," said Mr. Die.

"And what would you advise me to do?" asked Herbert.

That after all was now the main question, and it was discussed between them for a long time, till the shades of evening came upon them, and the dull dingy chambers became almost dark as they sat there. Mr. Die at first conceived that it would be well that Herbert should still stick to the law. What indeed could be more conducive to salutary equanimity in the mind of a young man so singularly circ.u.mstanced, than the study of Blackstone, of c.o.ke, and of Chitty?

as long as he remained there, at work in those chambers, amusing himself occasionally with the eloquence of the neighbouring courts, there might be reasonable hope that he would be able to keep his mind equally poised, so that neither success nor failure as regarded his Irish inheritance should affect him injuriously. Thus at least argued Mr. Die. But at this point Herbert seemed to have views of his own: he said that in the first place he must be with his mother; and then, in the next place, as it was now clear that he was not to throw up Castle Richmond--as it would not now behove him to allow any one else to call himself master there,--it would be his duty to rea.s.sume the place of master. "The onus probandi will now rest with them," he said, repeating Mr. Prendergast's words; and then he was ultimately successful in persuading even Mr. Die to agree that it would be better for him to go to Ireland than to remain in London, sipping the delicious honey of Chancery b.u.t.tercups.

"And you will a.s.sume the t.i.tle, I suppose?" said Mr. Die.

"Not at any rate till I get to Castle Richmond," he said, blus.h.i.+ng.

He had so completely abandoned all thought of being Sir Herbert Fitzgerald, that he had now almost felt ashamed of saying that he should so far presume as to call himself by that name.

And then he and Mr. Prendergast went away and dined together, leaving Mr. Die to complete his legal work for the day. At this he would often sit till nine or ten, or even eleven in the evening, without any apparent ill results from such effects, and then go home to his dinner and port wine. He was already nearly seventy, and work seemed to have no effect on him. In what Medea's caldron is it that the great lawyers so cook themselves, that they are able to achieve half an immortality, even while the body still clings to the soul? Mr.

Die, though he would talk of his bald head, had no idea of giving way to time. Superannuated! The men who think of superannuation at sixty are those whose lives have been idle, not they who have really buckled themselves to work. It is my opinion that nothing seasons the mind for endurance like hard work. Port wine should perhaps be added.

It was not till Herbert once more found himself alone that he fully realized this new change in his position. He had dined with Mr.

Prendergast at that gentleman's club, and had been specially called upon to enjoy himself, drinking as it were to his own restoration in large gla.s.ses of some special claret, which Mr. Prendergast a.s.sured him was very extraordinary.

"You may be as satisfied as that you are sitting there that that's 34," said he; "and I hardly know anywhere else that you'll get it."

This a.s.sertion Herbert was not in the least inclined to dispute. In the first place, he was not quite clear what 34 meant, and then any other number, 32 or 36, would have suited his palate as well. But he drank the 34, and tried to look as though he appreciated it.

"Our wines here are wonderfully cheap," said Mr. Prendergast, becoming confidential; "but nevertheless we have raised the price of that to twelve s.h.i.+llings. We'll have another bottle."