CHAPTER XI.
KNOCKER VERSUS BELL-PULL
There is, or was, a street in Oxford, near the ruins of the ancient castle, and behind the new county jail, where one of the many offsets of the Isis filters its artificial way beneath low arches and betwixt dead walls; and this street (partly destroyed since then) was known to the elder generation by the name of "Cross Duck Lane." Of course what remains of it now exults in an infinitely grander title, though smelling thereby no sweeter. With that we have nothing to do; the street was "Cross Duck Lane" in our time.
Here, in a highly respectable house, a truly respectable man was living, with his business and his family. "Luke Sharp, gentleman," was his name, description, style, and title; and he was not by any means a bad man, so as to be an Attorney.
This man possessed a great deal of influence, having much house-property; and he never in the least disguised his sentiments, or played fast and loose with them. Being of a commanding figure, and fine straightforward aspect, he left an impression, wherever he went, of honesty, vigour, and manliness. And he went into very good society, as often as he cared to do so; for although not a native of Oxford, but of unknown (though clearly large) origin, he now was the head, and indeed the entirety, of a long-established legal firm. He had married the daughter of the senior partner, and bought or ousted away the rest; and although the legend on his plate was still "Piper, Pepper, Sharp, and Co.," every one knew that the learning, wealth, and honour of the whole concern were now embodied in Mr. Luke Sharp. Such a man was under no necessity ever to blow his own trumpet.
His wife, a fat and goodly person, Miranda Piper of former days, happened to be the first cousin and nearest relative of a famous man – "Port-wine Fermitage" himself; and his death had affected her very sadly. For she found that he had provided for himself a most precarious future, by unjust disposal of his worldly goods, which he could not come back to rectify. To his godson, her only child and her idol, Christopher Fermitage Sharp, he had left a copy of Dr. Doddridge's "Expositor," and nothing else! A golden work, no doubt – but still golden precepts fill no purse, but rather tend to empty it. Mrs. Luke Sharp, though a very good Christian, repacked and sent back the "Expositor."
If Mr. Sharp had been at home, he would not have let her do so. He was full at all times of large generous impulse, but never yet guilty of impulsive acts. It had always been said that his son was to have the bottled half-pipe of gold, or the chief body of it, after the widow's life-interest. Whereas now, Mrs. Fermitage, if she liked, might roll all the bottles down the High Street. She, however, was a careful woman; and it was manifest where the whole of this Côte d'Or vintage would be binned away – to wit, in the cellars of Beckley Barton, with the key at Grace Oglander's very pretty waist. Mr. Sharp at the moment could descry no cure; but still to show temper was a vulgar thing.
Now, upon the New Year's Day of 1838, the bitter weather continuing still, and doing its best to grow more bitter, Mr. Sharp, being of a festive turn, had closed his office early. The demand for universal closing and perpetual holiday had not yet risen to its present height, and the clerks, though familiar with the kindness of their principal, scarcely expected such a premature relief. But this only added to the satisfaction with which they went home to their New Year dinners.
But Mr. Sharp, though of early habits, and hungry at proper seasons, was not preparing for his dinner now. He had ordered his turkey to be kept back, and begged his wife to see to it until he could make out and settle the import of a letter which reached him about one o'clock. It had been delivered by a groom on horseback, who had suffered some inward struggle before he had stooped to ring the Attorney's bell. For "Cross Duck House," though a comfortable place, was not of an aristocratic cast. The letter was short, and expounded little.
"Sir, – I shall do myself the honour of calling upon you at four o'clock this afternoon, upon some important business.
"Obediently yours,"Russel Overshute."
It is not altogether an agreeable thing, even for a man with the finest conscience, such as Mr. Sharp was blest with, to receive a challenge upon an unknown point, curtly worded in this wise. And the pleasure does not increase, when the strong correspondent is partly suspected of holding unfavourable views towards one, and the gaze of self-inspection needs a little more time to compose itself. Luke Sharp had led an unblemished life, since the follies of his youth subsided; he subscribed to inevitable charities; and he waited for his rents, when sure of them. Still he did not like that letter.
Now he took off the coat which he wore at his desk, and his waistcoat of the morning, and washed his nice white hands, and clothed himself in expensive dignity. Then he opened his book of daily entries, and folded blotting-paper, and prepared to receive instructions, or give advice, or be wise abstractedly. But he thought it a sound precaution to have his son Christopher within earshot; for young Overshute was reputed to be of a rather excitable nature; therefore Kit Sharp was commanded to finish the cleaning of his gun – which was his chief delight – in his father's closet adjoining the office, and to keep the door shut, unless called for.
The lawyer was not kept waiting long. As the clock of St. Thomas struck four, the shoes of a horse rang sharply on the icy road, and the office-bell kicked up its tongue, with a jerk showing great extra-mural energy. "Let him ring again," said Mr. Sharp; "I defy him to ring much harder."
The defiance was soon proved to be unsound; for in less than ten seconds, the bell, which had stood many years of strong emotion, was visited with such a violent spasm that nothing short of the melting-pot restored its constitution. A piece clinked on the passage floor, and the lawyer was filled with unfeigned wrath. That bell had been ringing for three generations, and was the Palladium of the firm.
"What clumsy clod-hopper," cried Mr. Sharp, rushing out, as if he saw nobody – "what beggarly bumpkin has broken my bell? Mr. Overshute! – oh! I beg pardon, I am sure!"
"We must make allowance," said Russel calmly, "for fidgety animals, Mr. Sharp; and for thick gloves in this frosty weather. John, take my horse on the Seven-bridges road, and be back in exactly fifteen minutes. How kind of you to be at home, Mr. Sharp!"
With the words, the young man bestowed on the lawyer a short sharp glance, which entirely failed to penetrate the latter.
"Shut out this cold wind, for Heaven's sake!" he exclaimed, as he shut in his visitor. "You young folk never seem to feel the cold. But you carry it a little too far sometimes. Ah, I must have been about your age when we had such another hard winter as this, four and twenty years ago. Scarcely so bitter, but a deal more snow; snow, snow, six feet everywhere. I was six and twenty then – about your age, I take it, sir?"
"My age to a tittle," said Overshute; "but I am generally taken for thirty-two. How can you have guessed it so?"
"Early thought, sir, juvenile thought, and advanced intelligence make young people look far in front of their age. When you come to my time of life, young sir, your thoughts and your looks will be younger. Now take this chair. Never mind your boots; let them hiss as they will on the fender. I like to hear it – a genial sound – a touch of emery paper in the morning, and there we are, ready for other boots. I have had men here come fifty miles across country, as the crow flies, to see me, when the floods were out; and go away with minds comforted."
"I have heard of your skill in all legal points. But I am not come on that account. Quibbles and shuffles I detest."
"Well, Mr. Overshute, I have met with a good deal of rudeness in my early days; before I was known, as I am now. It was worth my while to disarm it then. It is not so now, in your case. You belong to a very good county family; and although you are committed to inferior hands, if you had come in a friendly spirit, I would have been glad to serve you. As it is, I can only request you to say what your purpose is, and to settle it."
Russel Overshute, with his large and powerful eyes, gazed straight at Sharp; and Mr. Sharp (who had steely eyes – the best of all for getting on with – not very large, but as keen as need be) therewith answered complacently, and as if he saw hope of amusement.
"You puzzle me, Sharp," said Overshute – about the worst thing he could have said; and he knew it before the words had passed.
"I am called, for the most part, 'Mister Sharp,' except by gentlemen of my own age, or friends who entirely trust me. Mr. Russel Overshute, explain how I have puzzled you."
"Never mind that. You would never understand. Have you any idea what has brought me here?"
"Yes, to be plain with you, I have. One of your least, but very oldest tenants, has been caught out in poaching. You hate the game-laws; you are a Radical, ranter, and reformer. You know that your lawyer is good and active, but too well known as a Liberal. It requires a man of settled principles to contest with the game-laws."
"You could not be more wide astray!" cried young Overshute triumphantly, taking in every word the other had said, as a piece of his victory. "No, no, thank goodness, we are not come so low that we cannot get off our tenants, in spite of any evidence; you must indeed think that our family is quite reduced to the dirt, if we can no longer do even that much."
"Not at all, sir. You are much too hot. I only supposed for the moment that your principles might have stopped you."
"Oh dear, no! My mother could not take it at all, in that way. Now, where have you put Grace Oglander?"
Impetuous Russel, with his nostrils quivering, and his eyes fixed on the lawyer's, and his right hand clenching his heavy whip, purposely fired his question thus, like a thunderbolt out of pure heaven. He felt sure of producing a grand effect; and so he did, but not the right one.
"You threaten me, do you?" said Mr. Sharp. "I think that you make a mistake, young man. Violence is objectionable in every way, though natural with fools, who believe they are the stronger. I am sorry to have spoiled your whip; but you will acknowledge that the fault was yours. Now, I am ready for reason – if you are."
With a grave bow, Luke Sharp offered Russel the fragments of his pet hunting-crop, which he had caught from his hand, and snapped like a stick of peppermint, as he spoke. Overshute thought himself a fine, strong fellow, and with very good reason; but the quickness of his antagonist left him gasping.
"I want no apologies," Mr. Sharp continued, going to his desk; while the young man looked sadly at his brazen-knockered butt, for he had been at that admirable college, and cherished his chief reminiscence of it thus. "Apologies are always waste of time. You have threatened me, and you have found your mistake. Such a formidable antagonist makes one's hand shake. Still, I think that I can hit my key-hole."
"You can always make your keys fit, I dare say. But you never could do that to me again."
"Very likely not. I shall never care to try it. Physical force is always low. But, as a gentleman, you must own that you first offered violence."
"Mr. Sharp, I confess that I did. Not in word, or deed; but still my manner fairly imported it. And the first respect I ever felt for you, I feel now, for your quickness and pluck."
"I am pleased with any respect from you; because you have little for anything. Now, repeat your question, moderately."
"Where have you put Grace Oglander?"
"Let me offer you a chair again. Striding about with frozen feet is almost the worst thing a man can do. However, you seem to be a little excited. Have you brought me a letter from my client, to authorize this inquiry?"
"From Mr. Oglander? Oh no! He has no idea of my being here."
"We will get over that. You are a friend of his, and a neighbour. He has asked you, in a general way, to help him in this sad great trouble."
"Not at all. He would rather not have my interference. He does not like its motive."
"And the motive is, that like many other people, you were attached to this young lady?"
"Certainly, I am. I would give my life at any moment for her."
"Well, well; I will not speak quite so strongly as you do. Life grows dearer as it gets more short. But still, I would give my best year remaining to get to the bottom of this problem."
"You would?" cried young Overshute, looking at him, with admiration of his strength and truth. "Give me your hand, sir? I have wronged you! I see that I am but a hasty fool!"
"You should never own that," said the lawyer.
CHAPTER XII.
MR. JOHN SMITH
Meanwhile all Beckley and villages around were seething with a ferment of excitement and contradiction. Esther Cripps had been strictly ordered by the authorities to hold her tongue; and so far as in her lay she did so. But there were others – the Squire's three men, and even the Carrier himself, who had so many things to think, that they were pretty sure to say some of them. One or two of them had wives; and though these women could not be called by their very worst friends "inquisitive," it was not right and lawful that they should be debarred of everything. They did all they could not to know any more than they were really bound to know; and whatever was forced upon them had no chance of going any further.
This made several women look at one another slyly, each knowing more than the other, and nodding while sounding the other's ignorance. Until, with one accord they grew provoked at being treated so; and truth being multiplied to its cube became, of course, infinite error.
Now, Mrs. Fermitage having been obliged to return to Cowley, Mary Hookham's mother had established her power by this time; and being, as her daughter had pronounced, a conspicuous member of the females, she exerted herself about all that was said, and saw the other side of everything. She never went to no public-house – nobody could say that of her; but perhaps she could put two and two together every bit as well as them that did. It had been her fortune to acquire exceptional experience – or, as she put it more plainly, "she had a seed a many things;" and the impressions left thereby upon her idiosyncrasy (or, in her own words, "what she come to think") was and were that nothing could be true that she had not known the like of. This was the secret of her success in life – which, however, as yet bore no proportion to her merits. She frankly scouted as "a pack of stuff" everything to which her history afforded no vivid parallel. In a word, she believed only what she had seen.
Now, incredulity is a grand power. To be able to say, "Oh, don't tell me," or "None of your stuff!" when the rest of the audience, stricken with awe, is gaping, confers at once the esteem of superior intellect and vigour. And when there are good high people, who derive comfort from the denial, the chances are that the active sceptic does not get the worst of it.
Mrs. Hookham plainly declared that Esther's tale was neither more nor less than a trumpery cock-and-bull story. She would not call it a parcel of lies, because the poor girl might have dreamed it. Walking in the snow was no more than walking in one's sleep; she knew that, from her own experience; and if there had been no snow as yet, that made her all the more sure to be right; the air was full of it, and of course it would have more power overhead. Depend upon it, she had seen a bush, if indeed she did see anything, and being so dazed by the weather, she had gone and dreamed the rest of it.
Beckley, on the other hand, having known Esther ever since she toddled out of her cradle, and knowing her brothers, the carrier, the baker, and the butcher, and having no experience yet of Mother Hookham's wisdom, as good as told the latter lady not to be "so bounceable." She must not come into this parish, and pretend to know more about things that belonged to it than those who were bred and born there.
But Mrs. Hookham's opinion was, in one way, very important, however little weight it carried at the Dusty Anvil. Mr. Oglander himself had to depend for his food entirely on Mrs. Hookham's efforts; for Betty, the cook, went purely off her head, after all she had gone through; and they put her in bed with a little barley-water, and much malt liquor in a nobler form. And though Mrs. Hookham at her time of life was reluctant so to demean herself, she found all the rest such a "Noah's compass," that she roused up the fires of departed youth, and flourished with the basting-ladle. A clever well-conditioned dame, with a will of her own, is somebody.
"Now, sir," she cried, rushing in to the Squire, with a basin of first-rate ox-tail soup, upon that melancholy New Year's Day, "you have been out in the snow again! No use denying of it, sir; I can see it by the chattering of your teeth. I call it a bad, wicked thing to go on so. Flying in the face of the Lord like that!"
"You are a most kind and good soul, Mrs. Hookham. But surely you would not have me sit with my hands crossed, doing nothing."
"No, no; surely not. Take the spoon in one hand, and the basin in the other. You owe it to yourself to keep up your strength, and to some one else as well, good sir."
"I have no one else now to owe it to," the old man answered, sadly tucking his napkin into his waistcoat pockets.
"Yes, you have. You have your Miss Gracie, alive and kicking, as sure as I be; and with a deal more of life in front of her; though scarce a week passes but what I takes my regular dose of calumny. Ah, if it had not been for that, I never could have been twenty year a widow."
"Don't cry, Mrs. Hookham. I beg you not to cry. You have many good children to look after; and there still is abundance of calomel. But why do you talk so about my darling?"
"Because, sir, please God, I means to see you spend many a happy year together. Lord have mercy, if I had took for granted every trouble as come upon me, who could a' tried for to cheat me this day? My goodness, don't go for to swallow the bones, sir!"
"To be sure not. No, I was not thinking. Of course there are bones in every tail."
"And a heap of bones in them Crippses' tale, sir, as won't go down with me nohow. Have faith in the mercy of the Lord, sir; and in your own experience."
"That is exactly what I try to do. There cannot be any one in the world so bad as to hurt my Gracie. Mrs. Hookham, you never can have seen anybody like her. She was so full of life and kindness that everybody who knew her seemed to have her in their own family. She never made pretence to be above herself, or any one; and she entered into everybody's trouble quite as if she had brought it on. She never asked them any questions, whether it might have been their own fault; and she gave away all her own money first before she came to me for more. She was so simple, and so pleasant, and so full of playful ways – but there, when I think of that, it makes me almost as bad as you women are. Take out the dish. I am very much obliged to you."
"Not a bit, sir, not a bit as yet," the brisk dame answered, with tears on her cheeks. "But before very long, you will own that you was; when you find every word I say come true. Oh my! How that startled me! Somebody coming the short way from the fields! That wonderful man, as is always prowling about, unbeknown to any one. They don't like me in the village much, civil as I am to all of them. But as sure as six is half a dozen, that Smith is the one they ought to hate."
"If he is there, show him in at once," said the Squire, without further argument; "and let no one come interrupting us."
This was very hard upon Mrs. Hookham; and she could not help showing it in her answer.
"Oh, to be sure, sir! Oh, to be sure not! What is my poor opinion compared to his? Ah well, it is a fine thing to be a man!"
The man, for whose sake she was thus cast out, seemed to be of the same opinion. He walked, and looked, and spoke as if it was indeed a fine thing to be a man; but the finest of all things to be the man inside his own cloth and leather. Short and thick of form he was, and likely to be at close quarters a dangerous antagonist. And the set of his jaws, and the glance of his eyes, showed that no want of manhood would at the critical moment disable him. His face was of a strong red colour, equally spread all over it, as if he lived much in the open air, and fed well, and enjoyed his food.
"John Smith, your Worship – John Smith," he said, without troubling Mrs. Hookham. "I hope I see your Worship better. Don't rise, I beg of you. May I shut the door? Oh, Mary, your tea is waiting."
"Mary, indeed!" cried widow Hookham, ungraciously departing; "young man, address my darter thus!"
"Now, what have you done, Smith, what have you done?" the old gentleman asked, stooping over him. "Or have you done nothing at all as usual? You tell me to have patience every day, and every day I have less and less."
"The elements are against us, sir. If the weather had been anything but what it is, I must have known everything long ago. Stop, sir, stop; it is no idle excuse, as you seem to fancy. It is not the snow that I speak of; it is the intense and deadly cold, that keeps all but the very strong people indoors. How can any man talk when his beard is frozen? Look, sir!"
From his short brown beard he took lumps of ice, beginning to thaw in the warmth of the room, and cast them into the fire to hiss. Mr. Oglander gazed as if he thought that his visitor took a liberty, but one that could not matter much. "Go on, sir, with your report," he said.
"Well, sir, in this chain of crime," Mr. Smith replied in a sprightly manner, "we have found one very important link."
"What is it, Smith? Don't keep me waiting. Don't fear me. I am now prepared to stand anything whatever."
"Well, sir, we have discovered, at last, the body of your Worship's daughter."
The Squire bowed, and hid his face. By the aid of faith, he had been hoping against hope, till it came to this. Then he looked up, with his bright old eyes for the moment very steady, and said with a firm though hollow voice —
"The will of the Lord be done! The will of the Lord be done, Smith."
"The will of the Lord shall not be done," cried Mr. Smith emphatically, and striking his thick knees with his fist, "until the man who has done it shall be swung, Squire, swung! Make up your mind to that, your Worship. You may safely make up your mind to that."
"What good will it do me?" the father asked, talking with himself alone. "Will it ever bring back my girl – my child? Bereaved I am, but it cannot be long! I shall meet her in a better world, Smith."
"To be sure your Worship will, with the angels and archangels. But to my mind that will be no satisfaction, till the man has swung for it."
"Excuse me for a moment, will you, Mr. Smith, excuse me? I have no right to be overcome, and I thought I had got beyond all that. Ring the bell, and they will bring you cold sirloin and a jug of ale. Help yourself, and don't mind me. I will come back directly. No, thank you; I can walk alone. How many have had much worse to bear! You will find the under-cut the best."