Confession; Or, The Blind Heart Part 7

"Alas" she exclaimed, "it is not his fault. He would be willing--I heard him say as much last night--but mother--she will not consent. She refused positively the moment father said it would be necessary to sell out, and move to a cheaper house. Oh, Edward, is there no way that you can save us? Save my father from shame, though he gives up all the money."

"Would I not do this, Julia? Nay, were I owner of the necessary amount myself, believe me, it should not be withheld."

"I do believe you, Edward; but"--and here her voice sunk to a whisper--"you must try again, try again and again--for I think that father knows the danger, though mother does not; and I think--I hope--he will be firm enough, when you press him, and warn him of the danger, to do as you wish him."

"I am afraid not, Julia. Your mother--"

"Do not fear; hope--hope all, dear Edward; for, to confess to you, I KNOW that they are anxious to have your support--they said as much. Nay, why should I hide anything from you? They sent me here to see--to speak with you, and--"

"To see what your charms could do to persuade me to be a villain. Julia!

Julia! did you think to do this--to have me be the thing which they would make me?"

"No! no!--Heaven forbid, dear Edward, that you should fancy that any such desire had a place, even for a moment, in my mind. No! I knew not that the case involved any but mere money considerations. I knew not that--"

"Enough! Say no more, Julia! I do not think that you would counsel me to my own shame."

"No! no! You do me only justice. But, Edward, you will save my father!

You will try--you will see him again--"

"What! to suffer again the open scorn, the declared doubts of my friendship and integrity, which is the constant language of your mother?

Can it be that you would desire that I should do this--nay, seek it?"

"For my poor father's sake!" she cried, gaspingly.

But I shook my head sternly.

"For mine, then--for mine! for mine!"

She threw herself into my arms, and clung to me until I promised all that she required. And as I promised her, so I strove with her father.

I used every argument, resorted to every mode of persuasion, but all was of no avail. Mr. Clifford was under the rigid, the iron government of his fate! His wife was one of those miserably silly women--born, according to Iago--

"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer"--

who, raised to the sudden control of unexpected wealth, becomes insane upon it, and is blind, deaf, and dumb, to all counsel or reason which suggests the possibility of its loss. From the very moment when Mr.

Clifford spoke of selling out house, horses, and carriage, as the inevitable result which must follow his adoption of my recommendation, she declared herself against it at all hazards, particularly when her husband a.s.sured her that "the glorious uncertainties of the law"

afforded a possibility of his escape with less loss. The loss of money was, with her, the item of most consideration; her mind was totally insensible to that of reputation. She was willing to make this compromise with me, as a sort of alternative, for, in that case, there would be no diminution of attendance and expense--no loss of rank and equipage. We should all live together--how harmoniously, one may imagine--but the grandeur and the state would still be intact and unimpaired. Even for this, however, she was not prepared, when she discovered that there was no certainty that my alliance would bring immunity to her husband. How this notion got even partially into his head, I know not; unless in consequence of a growing imbecility of intellect, which in a short time after betrayed itself more strikingly.

But of this in its own place.

My attempts to convince my unfortunate uncle were all rendered unavailing, and shown to be so to Julia herself in a very short time afterward. The insolence of Mrs. Clifford, when I did seek an interview with her husband, was so offensive and unqualified, that Julia herself, with a degree of indignation which she could not entirely suppress, begged me to quit the house, and relieve myself from such undeserved insult and abuse. I did so, but with no unfriendly wishes for the wretched woman who presided over its destinies, and the no less wretched husband whom she helped to make so; and my place as consulting friend and counsellor was soon supplied by Mr. Perkins--one of those young barristers, to be found in every community, who regard the "penny fee"

as the sine qua non, and obey implicitly the injunction of the scoundrel in the play "Make money--honestly if you can, but--make money!" He was one of those creatures who set people at loggerheads, goad foolish and petulant clients into lawsuits, stir up commotions in little sets, and invariably comfort the suit-bringer with the most satisfactory a.s.surances of success. It was the confident a.s.surances of this person which had determined Mr. Clifford--his wife rather--to resist to the last the suit in question. Through the sheer force of impudence, this man had obtained a tolerable share of practice. His clients, as may be supposed, lay chiefly among such persons as, having no power or standard for judging, necessarily look upon him who is most bold and pushing as the most able and trustworthy. The bullies of the law--and, unhappily, the profession has quite too many--are very commanding persons among the mult.i.tude. Mr. Clifford knew this fellow's mental reputation very well, and was not deceived by the confidence of his a.s.surances; nay, to the last, he showed a hankering desire to give me the entire control of the subject; but the hostility of Mrs. Clifford overruled his more prudent if not more honorable purposes; and, as he was compelled to seek a lawyer, the questionable moral standing of Perkins decided his choice.

He wished one, in short, to do a certain piece of dirty work: and, as if in antic.i.p.ation of the future, he dreaded to unfold the case to any of the veterans, the old-time gentlemen and worthies of the bar. I proposed this to him. I offered to make a supposit.i.tious relation of the facts for the opinion of Mr. Edgerton and others--nay, pledged myself to procure a confidential consultation--anything, sooner than that he should resort to a mode of extrication which, I a.s.sured him, would only the more deeply involve him in the meshes of disgrace and loss. But there was a fatality about this gentleman--a doom that would not be baffled, and could not be stayed. The wilful mind always precipitates itself down the abyss; and, whether acting by his own, or under the influence of another's judgment, such was, most certainly, the case with him. He was not to be saved. Mr. Perkins was regularly installed as his defender--his counsellor, private and public--and I was compelled, though with humiliating reluctance, to admit to the plaintiffs, Banks & Tressell, that there was no longer any hope of compromise. The issue on which hung equally his fortune and his reputation was insanely challenged by my uncle.

CHAPTER IX.

DUELLO.

But my share in the troubles of this affair was not to end, though I was no longer my uncle's counsellor. An event now took place which gave the proceedings a new and not less unpleasing aspect than they had worn before. Mrs. Clifford, it appears, in her communications to her husband's lawyer, did not confine herself to the mere business of the lawsuit. Her voluminous discourse involved her opinions of her neighbors, friends, and relatives; and, one day, a few weeks after, I was suddenly surprised by a visit from a gentleman--one of the members of the bar--who placed a letter in my hands from Mr. Perkins. I read this billet with no small astonishment. It briefly stated that certain reports had reached his ears, that I had expressed myself contemptuously of his abilities and character, and concluded with an explicit demand, not for an explanation, but an apology. My answer was immediate.

"You will do me the favor to say, Mr. Carter, that Mr. Perkins has been misinformed. I never uttered anything in my life which could disparage either his moral or legal reputation."

"I am sorry to say, Mr. Clifford," was the reply, "that denial is unnecessary, and can not be received. Mr. Perkins has his information from the lips of a lady; and, as a lady is not responsible, she can not be allowed to err. I am required, sir to insist on an apology. I have already framed it, and it only needs your signature."

He drew a short, folded letter, from his pocket, and placed it before me. There was so much cool impertinence in this proceeding, and in the fellow's manner, that I could with difficulty refrain from flinging the paper in his face. He was one of the little and vulgar clique of which Perkins was a sort of centre. The whole set were conscious enough of the low estimate which was put upon them by the gentlemen of the bar. Denied caste, they were disposed to force their way to recognition by the bully's process, and stung by some recent discouragements, Mr. Perkins was, perhaps, rather glad than otherwise, of the silly, and no less malicious than silly, tattle of Mrs. Clifford for I did not doubt that the gross perversion of the truth which formed the basis of his note, had originated with her, which enabled him to single out a victim, who, as the times went, had suddenly risen to a comparative elevation which is not often accorded to a young beginner. I readily conjectured his object from his character and that of the man he sent. My own nature was pa.s.sionate; and the rude school through which my boyhood had gone, had made me as tenacious of my position as the grave. That I should be chafed by reptiles such as these, stung me to vexation; and though I kept from any violence of action, my words did not lack of it.

"Mr. Perkins is, permit me to say, a very impertinent fellow; and, if you please, our conference will cease from this moment."

He was a little astounded--rose, and then recovering himself, proceeded to reply with the air of a veteran martinet.

"I am glad, sir, that you give me an opportunity of proceeding with this business without delay. My friend, Mr. Perkins, prepared me for some such answer. Oblige me, sir, by reading this paper." He handed me the challenge for which his preliminaries had prepared me.

"Accepted, sir; I will send my friend to you in the course of the morning."

As I uttered this reply, I bowed and waved him to the door. He did not answer, other than by a bow, and took his departure. The promptness which I had shown impressed him with respect. Baffled, in his first spring, the bully, like the tiger, is very apt to slink back to his jungle. His departure gave me a brief opportunity for reflection, in which I slightly turned over in my mind the arguments for and against duelling. But these were now too late--even were they to decide me against the practice--to affect the present transaction; and I sallied out to seek a friend--a friend!

Here was the first difficulty. I had precious little choice among friends. My temper was not one calculated to make or keep friends. My earnestness of character, and intensity of mood, made me dictatorial; and where self-esteem is a large and active development, as it must be in an old aristocratic community, such qualities are continually provoking popular hostility. My friends, too, were not of the kind to whom such sc.r.a.pes as the present were congenial. I was unwilling to go to young Edgerton, as I did not wish to annoy his parents by my novel anxieties. But where else could I turn? To him I went. When he heard my story, he began by endeavoring to dissuade me from the meeting.

"I am pledged to it, William," was my only answer.

"But, Edward, I am opposed to duelling myself, and should not promote or encourage, in another, a practice which I would not be willing myself to adopt."

"A good and sufficient reason, William. You certainly should not. I will go to Frank Kingsley."

"He will serve you, I know; but, Edward, this duelling is a bad business. It does no sort of good. Kill Perkins, and it does not prove to him, even if he were then able to hear, that Mrs. Clifford spoke a falsehood; and if he kills you, you are even still farther from convincing him.

"I have no such desire, William; and your argument, by the way, is one of those beggings of the question which the opponents of duelling continually fall into when discussing the subject. The object of the man, who, in a case like mine, fights a duel, is not to prove his truth, but to protect himself from persecution. Perkins seeks to bully and drive me out of the community. Public opinion here approves of this mode of protecting one's self;--may, if I do not avail myself of its agency, the same public opinion would a.s.sist my a.s.sailant in my expulsion. I fight on the same ground that a nation fights when it goes to war. It is the most obvious and easy mode to protect myself from injury and insult.

So long as I submit, Perkins will insult and bully, and the city will encourage him, If I resist, I silence this fellow, and perhaps protect other young beginners. I have not the most distant idea of convincing him of my truth by fighting him--may, the idea of giving him satisfaction is an idea that never entered my brain. I simply take a popular mode of securing myself from outrage and persecution."

"But, do you secure yourself? Has duelling this result?"

"Not invariably, perhaps; simply because the condition of humanity does not recognise invariable results. If it is shown to be the probable, the frequent result, it is all that can be expected of any human agency or law."

"But, is it probable--frequent?"

"Yes, almost certain, almost invariable. Look at the general manners, the deportment, the forbearance, of all communities where duelling is recognised as an agent of society. See the superior deference paid to females, the unfrequency of bullying, the absence of blackguarding, the higher tone of this public press, and of society in general, from which the public press takes its tone, and which it represents in our country, but does not often inform. Even seduction is a rare offence, and a matter of general exclamation, where this extra-judicial agent is recognised."

And so forth. It is not necessary to repeat our discussion on this vexed question, of its uses and abuses. I did not succeed in convincing him, and, under existing circ.u.mstances, it is not reasonable to imagine that his arguments had any influent over me. To Frank Kingsley I went, and found him in better mood to take up the cudgels, and even make my cause his own. He was one of those ardent bloods, who liked nothing better than the excitement of such an affair; whether as princ.i.p.al or a.s.sistant, it mattered little. To him I expressed my wish that his arrangements should bring the matter to an issue, if possible, within the next twenty-four hours.

"Prime!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands. "That's what I like. If you shoot as quickly now, and as much to the point, you may count any b.u.t.ton on Perkins's coat."

He proceeded to confer with the friend of my opponent, while, with a meditative mind, I went to my office, necessarily oppressed with the strange feelings belonging to my situation. In less than two hours after Kingsley brought me the carte, by which I found that the meeting was to take place two miles out of town, by sunrise the day after the one ensuing--the weapons, pistols--distance, as customary, ten paces!

"You are a shot, of course?" said Kingsley.

My answer, in the negative, astonished him.