_ VOLUME III CHAPTER XVI. EATON SQUARE
Sir Henry Harcourt had walked forth first from that room in which the will had been read, and he had walked forth with a threat in his mouth. But he knew when making it that that threat was an empty bravado. The will was as valid as care and law could make it, and the ex-solicitor-general knew very well that it was valid.
He knew, moreover, that the assistance of no ordinary policeman would suffice to enable him to obtain possession of his wife's person; and he knew also that if he had such possession, it would avail him nothing. He could not pay his debts with her, nor could he make his home happy with her, nor could he compel her to be in any way of service to him. It had all been bravado. But when men are driven into corners--when they are hemmed in on all sides, so that they have no escape, to what else than bravado can they have recourse? With Sir Henry the game was up; and no one knew this better than himself.
He was walking up and down the platform, with his hat over his brows, and his hands in his trousers-pockets, when Mr. Stickatit came up. "We shall have a little rain this afternoon," said Mr. Stickatit, anxious to show that he had dropped the shop, and that having done so, he was ready for any of the world's ordinary converse.
Sir Henry scowled at him from under the penthouse lid of his hat, and passed on in his walk, without answering a word. The thing had gone too far with him for affectation. He did not care to make sacrifice now to any of the world's graces. His inner mind was hostile to that attorney of Bucklersbury, and he could dare to show that it was so. After that, Mr. Stickatit made no further remark to him.
Yes; he could afford now to be forgetful of the world's graces, for the world's heaviest cares were pressing very heavily on him. When a man finds himself compelled to wade through miles of mud, in which he sinks at every step up to his knees, he becomes forgetful of the blacking on his boots. Whether or no his very skin will hold out, is then his thought. And so it was now with Sir Henry. Or we may perhaps say that he had advanced a step beyond that. He was pretty well convinced now that his skin would not hold out.
He still owned his fine house in Eaton Square, and still kept his seat for the Battersea Hamlets. But Baron Brawl, and such like men, no longer came willingly to his call; and his voice was no longer musical to the occupants of the Treasury bench. His reign had been sweet, but it had been very short. Prosperity he had known how to enjoy, but adversity had been too much for him.
Since the day when he had hesitated to resign his high office, his popularity had gone down like a leaden plummet in the salt water. He had become cross-grained, ill-tempered, and morose. The world had spoken evil of him regarding his wife; and he had given the world the lie in a manner that had been petulant and injudicious. The world had rejoined, and Sir Henry had in every sense got the worst of it. Attorneys did not worship him as they had done, nor did vice-chancellors and lords-justices listen to him with such bland attention. No legal luminary in the memory of man had risen so quickly and fallen so suddenly. It had not been given to him to preserve an even mind when adversity came upon him.
But the worst of his immediate troubles were his debts. He had boldly resolved to take a high position in London; and he had taken it. It now remained that the piper should be paid, and the piper required payment not in the softest language. While that old man was still living, or rather still dying, he had had an answer to give to all pipers. But that answer would suffice him no longer. Every clause in that will would be in the "Daily Jupiter" of the day after to-morrow--the "Daily Jupiter" which had already given a wonderfully correct biography of the deceased great man.
As soon as he reached the London station, he jumped into a cab, and was quickly whirled to Eaton Square. The house felt dull, and cold, and wretched to him. It was still the London season, and Parliament was sitting. After walking up and down his own dining-room for half an hour, he got into another cab, and was whirled down to the House of Commons. But there it seemed as though all the men round him already knew of his disappointment--as though Mr. Bertram's will had been read in a Committee of the whole House. Men spoke coldly to him, and looked coldly at him; or at any rate, he thought that they did so. Some debate was going on about the Ballot, at which members were repeating their last year's speeches with new emphasis. Sir Henry twice attempted to get upon his legs, but the Speaker would not have his eye caught. Men right and left of him, who were minnows to him in success, found opportunities for delivering themselves; but the world of Parliament did not wish at present to hear anything further from Sir Henry. So he returned to his house in Eaton Square.
As soon as he found himself again in his own dining-room, he called for brandy, and drank off a brimming glass; he drank off one, and then another. The world and solitude together were too much for him, and he could not bear them without aid. Then, having done this, he threw himself into his arm-chair, and stared at the fireplace. How tenfold sorrowful are our sorrows when borne in solitude! Some one has said that grief is half removed when it is shared. How little that some one knew about it! Half removed! When it is duly shared between two loving hearts, does not love fly off with eight-tenths of it? There is but a small remainder left for the two to bear between them.
But there was no loving heart here. All alone he had to endure the crushing weight of his misfortunes. How often has a man said, when evil times have come upon him, that he could have borne it all without complaint, but for his wife and children? The truth, however, has been that, but for them, he could not have borne it at all. Why does any man suffer with patience "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," or put up with "the whips and scorns of time," but that he does so for others, not for himself? It is not that we should all be ready, each to make his own quietus with a bare bodkin; but that we should run from wretchedness when it comes in our path. Who fights for himself alone? Who would not be a coward, if none but himself saw the battle--if none others were concerned in it?
With Sir Henry, there was none other to see the battle, none to take concern in it. If solitude be bad in times of misery, what shall we say of unoccupied solitude? of solitude, too, without employment for the man who has been used to labour?
Such was the case with him. His whole mind was out of tune. There was nothing now that he could do; no work to which he could turn himself. He sat there gazing at the empty fireplace till the moments became unendurably long to him. At last his chief suffering arose, not from his shattered hopes and lost fortunes, but from the leaden weight of the existing hour.
What could he do to shake this off? How could he conquer the depression that was upon him? He reached his hand to the paper that was lying near him, and tried to read; but his mind would not answer to the call. He could not think of the right honourable gentleman's speech, or of the very able leading article in which it was discussed. Though the words were before his eyes, he still was harping back on the injustice of that will, or the iniquity of his wife; on the imperturbable serenity of George Bertram, or the false, fleeting friends who had fawned on him in his prosperity, and now threw him over, as a Jonah, with so little remorse.
He dropped the paper on the ground, and then again the feeling of solitude and of motionless time oppressed him with a weight as of tons of lead. He jumped from his chair, and paced up and down the room; but the room was too confined. He took his hat, and pressing it on his brow, walked out into the open air. It was a beautiful spring evening in May, and the twilight still lingered, though the hour was late. He paced three times round the square, regardless of the noise of carriages and the lights which flashed forth from the revelries of his neighbours. He went on and on, not thinking how he would stem the current that was running against him so strongly; hardly trying to think; but thinking that it would be well for him if he could make the endeavour. Alas! he could not make it!
And then again he returned to the house, and once more sat himself down in the same arm-chair. Was it come to this, that the world was hopeless for him? One would have said not. He was in debt, it is true; had fallen somewhat from a high position; had lost the dearest treasure which a man can have; not only the treasure, but the power of obtaining such treasure; for the possession of a loving wife was no longer a possibility to him. But still he had much; his acknowledged capacity for law pleadings, his right to take high place among law pleaders, the trick of earning money in that fashion of life; all these were still his. He had his gown and wig, and forensic brow-beating, brazen scowl; nay, he still had his seat in Parliament. Why should he have despaired?
But he did despair--as men do when they have none to whom they can turn trustingly in their miseries. This man had had friends by hundreds; good, serviceable, parliamentary, dinner-eating, dinner-giving friends; fine, pleasant friends, as such friends go. He had such friends by hundreds; but he had failed to prepare for stormy times a leash or so of true hearts on which, in stress of weather, he could throw himself with undoubting confidence. One such friend he may have had once; but he now was among his bitterest enemies. The horizon round him was all black, and he did despair.
How many a man lives and dies without giving any sign whether he be an arrant coward, or a true-hearted, brave hero! One would have said of this man, a year since, that he was brave enough. He would stand up before a bench of judges, with the bar of England round him, and shout forth, with brazen trumpet, things that were true, or things that were not true; striking down a foe here to the right, and slaughtering another there to the left, in a manner which, for so young a man, filled beholders with admiration. He could talk by the hour among the Commons of England, and no touch of modesty would ever encumber his speech. He could make himself great, by making others little, with a glance. But, for all that, he was a coward. Misfortune had come upon him, and he was conquered at once.
Misfortune had come upon him, and he found it unendurable--yes, utterly unendurable. The grit and substance of the man within were not sufficient to bear the load which fate had put upon them. As does a deal-table in similar case, they were crushed down, collapsed, and fell in. The stuff there was not good mahogany, or sufficient hard wood, but an unseasoned, soft, porous, deal-board, utterly unfit to sustain such pressure. An unblushing, wordy barrister may be very full of brass and words, and yet be no better than an unseasoned porous deal-board, even though he have a seat in Parliament.
He rose from his chair, and again took a glass of brandy. How impossible it is to describe the workings of a mind in such a state of misery as that he then endured! What--what! was there no release for him? no way, spite of this black fit, to some sort of rest--to composure of the most ordinary kind? Was there nothing that he could do which would produce for him, if not gratification, then at least quiescence? To the generality of men of his age, there are resources in misfortune. Men go to billiard-tables, or to cards, or they seek relief in woman's society, from the smiles of beauty, or a laughter-moving tongue. But Sir Henry, very early in life, had thrown those things from him. He had discarded pleasure, and wedded himself to hard work at a very early age. If, at the same time, he had wedded himself to honesty also, and had not discarded his heart, it might have been well with him.
He again sat down, and then he remained all but motionless for some twenty minutes. It had now become dark, but he would have no lights lit. The room was very gloomy with its red embossed paper and dark ruby curtains. As his eye glanced round during the last few moments of the dusk, he remembered how he had inquired of his Caroline how many festive guests might sit at their ease in that room, and eat the dainties which he, with liberal hand, would put before them. Where was his Caroline now? where were his guests? what anxiety now had he that they should have room enough? what cared he now for their dainties?
It was not to be borne. He clasped his hand to his brow, and rising from his chair, he went upstairs to his dressing-room. For what purpose, he had not even asked himself. Of bed, and rest, and sleep he had had no thought. When there, he again sat down, and mechanically dressed himself--dressed himself as though he were going out to some gay evening-party--was even more than ordinarily particular about his toilet. One white handkerchief he threw aside as spoiled in the tying. He looked specially to his boots, and with scrupulous care brushed the specks of dust from the sleeve of his coat. It was a blessing, at any rate, to have something to do. He did this, and then--
When he commenced his work, he had, perhaps, some remote intention of going somewhere. If so, he had quickly changed his mind, for, having finished his dressing, he again sat himself down in an arm-chair. The gas in his dressing-room had been lighted, and here he was able to look around him and see what resources he had to his hand. One resource he did see.
Ah, me! Yes, he saw it, and his mind approved--such amount of mind as he had then left to him. But he waited patiently awhile--with greater patience than he had hitherto exhibited that day. He waited patiently, sitting in his chair for some hour or so; nay, it may have been for two hours, for the house was still, and the servants were in bed. Then, rising from his chair, he turned the lock of his dressing-room door. It was a futile precaution, if it meant anything, for the room had another door, which opened to his wife's chamber, and the access on that side was free and open.
Early on the following morning, George Bertram went up to town, and was driven directly from the station to his dull, dingy, dirty chambers in the Temple. His chambers were not as those of practising lawyers. He kept no desk there, and no servant peculiar to himself. It had suited him to have some resting-place for his foot, that he could call his home; and when he was there, he was waited upon by the old woman who called herself the laundress--probably from the fact of her never washing herself or anything else.
When he reached this sweet home on the morning in question, he was told by the old woman that a very express messenger had been there that morning, and that, failing to find him, the express messenger had gone down to Hadley. They had, therefore, passed each other upon the road. The express messenger had left no message, but the woman had learned that he had come from Eaton Square.
"And he left no letter?"
"No, sir; no letter. He had no letter; but he was very eager about it. It was something of importance sure--ly."
It might have been natural that, under such circumstances, George should go off to Eaton Square; but it struck him as very probable that Sir Henry might desire to have some communication with him, but that he, when he should know what that communication was, would in no degree reciprocate that desire. The less that he had to say to Sir Henry Harcourt at present, perhaps, the better. So he made up his mind that he would not go to Eaton Square.
After he had been in his rooms for about half an hour, he was preparing to leave them, and had risen with that object, when he heard a knock at his door, and quickly following the knock, the young attorney who had read the will was in his room.
"You have heard the news, Mr. Bertram?" said he.
"No, indeed! What news? I have just come up."
"Sir Henry Harcourt has destroyed himself. He shot himself in his own house yesterday, late at night, after the servants had gone to bed!"
George Bertram fell back, speechless, on to the sofa behind him, and stared almost unconsciously at the lawyer.
"It is too true, sir. That will of Mr. Bertram's was too much for him. His reason must have failed him, and now he is no more." And so was made clear what were the tidings with which that express messenger had been laden.
There was little or nothing more to be said on the matter between George Bertram and Mr. Stickatit. The latter declared that the fact had been communicated to him on authority which admitted of no doubt; and the other, when he did believe, was but little inclined to share his speculations on it with the lawyer.
Nor was there much for Bertram to do--not at once. The story had already gone down to Hadley--had already been told there to her to whom it most belonged; and Bertram felt that it was not at present his province to say kind things to her, or seek to soften the violence of the shock. No, not at present. _