The little incident which forms the subject of the last chapter occurred
some weeks before my father's return to Ireland, and while as yet the
fact of his marriage was still a secret to all, save his most intimate
friends. The morning after Fagan's visit, however, MacNaghten received a
few lines from my father, desiring him to look after and “pass” through
the Custom House certain packages of value which would arrive there
about that time. It chanced that poor Dan's circumstances just at
this moment made seclusion the safer policy, and so he forwarded the
commission to Fagan.
The packages contained the wardrobe of Madame de Carew, and revealed
the mystery of my father's marriage. Fagan's plans and speculations must
have attained to a great maturity in his own mind, to account for the
sudden shock which this intelligence gave him. He was habitually a
cautious calculator, rarely or never carried away by hope beyond the
bounds of stern reality, and only accepting the “probable” as the
“possible.” In this instance, however, he must have suffered himself a
wider latitude of expectation, for the news almost stunned him. Vague as
were the chances of obtaining my father for a son-in-law, they were yet
fair subjects of speculation; and he felt like one who secures a great
number of tickets in a lottery, to augment his likelihood to win.
Despite of all this, he had now to bear the disappointment of a “blank.”
The great alliance on which he had built all his hopes of position and
station was lost to him forever; and, unable to bear up against the
unexpected stroke of fortune, he feigned illness and withdrew.
It is very difficult for some men to sever the pain of a disappointment
from a sense of injury towards the innocent cause of it. Unwilling to
confess that they have calculated ill, they turn their anger into some
channel apart from themselves. In the present case Fagan felt as if my
father had done him a foul wrong, as though he had been a party to the
deceit he practised on himself, and had actually traded on the hopes
which stirred his own heart. He hastened home, and, passing through the
little shop, entered the dingy parlor behind it.
At a large, high desk, at each side of which stood innumerable
pigeon-holes, crammed with papers, a very diminutive man was seated
writing. His suit of snuff-brown was worn and threadbare, but
scrupulously clean, as was also the large cravat of spotless white
which enclosed his neck like a pillory. His age might have been about
fifty-one or two; some might have guessed him more, for his features
were cramped and contracted with wrinkles, which, with the loss of one
of his eyes from small-pox, made him appear much older than he was. His
father had been one of the first merchants of Dublin, in whose ruin and
bankruptcy, it was said, Fagan's father had a considerable share. The
story also ran that Joe Raper--such was his name--had been the accepted
suitor of her who subsequently married Fagan. The marriage having been
broken off when these disasters became public, young Raper was forced
by poverty to relinquish his career as a student of Trinity College,
and become a clerk in Fagan's office and an inmate of his house. In this
station he had passed youth and manhood, and was now growing old;
his whole ambition in life being to see the daughter of his former
sweetheart grow up in beauty and accomplishments, and to speculate with
himself on some great destiny in store for her. Polly's mother had
died within two years after her marriage, and to her child had Joe
transmitted all the love and affection he had borne to herself. He had
taken charge of her education from infancy, and had labored hard himself
to acquire such knowledge as might keep him in advance of his gifted
pupil. But for this self-imposed task it is more than likely that all
his little classic lore had been long forgotten, and that the graceful
studies of his earlier days had been obliterated by the wear and tear of
a life so little in unison with them. To be her teacher, he had toiled
through the long hours of the night, hoarding up his miserable earnings
to buy some coveted book of reference, some deeply prized authority in
criticism. By dint of downright labor,--for his was not one of those
bright intelligences that acquire as if by instinct,--he had mastered
several of the modern languages of Europe, and refreshed his knowledge
of the ancient ones. With such companionship and such training, Polly
Fagan's youth had been fashioned into that strange compound, where high
ambitions and gentle tastes warred with each other, and the imaginative
faculties were cultivated amidst views of life alone suggestive of gain
and money-getting.
If Fagan took little interest in the care bestowed by Raper on his
daughter's education, he was far from indifferent to the devotion of
his faithful follower; while Joe, on the other hand, well knowing that
without him the complicated business of the house could not be carried
on for a single day, far from presuming on his indispensable services,
only felt the more bound in honor to endure any indignity rather than
break with one so dependent on him. It had been a kind of traditionary
practice with the Fagans not to keep regular books, but to commit all
their transactions to little fragments of paper, which were stuffed,
as it seemed, recklessly into some one or other of that vast nest of
pigeon-holes, which, like a gigantic honeycomb, formed the background
of Joe Raper's desk, and of which he alone, of men, knew the secret
geography. No guide existed to these mysterious receptacles, save when
occasionally the name of some suitor of uncommon importance appeared
over a compartment; and as an evidence of what a share our family
enjoyed in such distinction, I have heard that the word “Carew” figured
over as many as five of these little cells.
Joe turned round hastily on his stool as his chief entered, and saluted
him with a respectful bow; and then, as if continuing some unbroken
thread' of discourse, said, “Whyte is protested,--Figgis and Read
stopped.”
“What of Grogan?” said Fagan, harshly.
“Asks for time. If he sells his stock at present prices, he 'll be a
heavy loser.”
“So let him,--say that we'll proceed.”
“The writ can't run there; he lives in Mayo.”
“We 'll try it.”
“We did so before, and the sub-sheriff was shot.”
“Attorneys are plenty,--we 'll send down another.”
“Hump!” muttered Joe, as he turned over a folio of papers before him.
“Ay, here it is,” said he. “Oliver Moore wishes to go to America, and
will give up his lease; he only begs that you will vouchsafe to him some
small compensation--”
“Compensation! That word is one of yours, Mr. Raper, and I've no doubt
has a classical origin,--you got it in Homer, perhaps; but, let me
tell you, sir, that it is a piece of vulgar cant, and, what is worse,
a swindle! Ay, grow pale if you like; but I 'll repeat the word,--a
swindle! When a man wants to sell a pair of old boots, does he think
of charging for all the blacking he has put on them for the three years
before? And yet that is precisely what you dignify with the name of
compensation. Tell him if he built a house, that he lived in it; if he
fenced the land, that the neighbors' cattle made fewer trespasses; if
he drained, the soil was the drier. Your cry of compensation won't do,
Raper. I might as well ask an insurance office to pay me for taking care
of my health, and give me a bonus whenever I took castor oil!”
“The cases are not alike, sir. If his improvements be of a permanent
character--”
“Is this an office, Mister Raper, or is it a debating society?” broke in
Fagan. “My answer to Moore is, pay, and go--to the devil, if he likes.”
“Sir Harry Wheeler,” continued Joe, “writes from Cheltenham that he
thinks there must be a mistake about the bill for three hundred and
forty odd,--that it was included In the bond he gave in September last.”
“File a bill, send for Crowther, and let him proceed against him.”
“But I think he 's right, sir; the memorandum is somewhere here. I put
it amongst the W's; for we have no box for Sir Harry.”
“It's a nice way to keep accounts, Mister Raper; I must say it's very
creditable to you,” said Fagan, who, when any inaccuracy occurred,
always reproached Joe with the system that he rigidly compelled him
to follow. “Perhaps it's classical, however; maybe it's the way the
ancients did it! But I 'll tell you what, sir, you 'd cut an ugly figure
before the courts if you came to be examined; your Latin and Greek
wouldn't screen you there.”
“Here it is,--here's the note,” said Joe, who had all the while been
prosecuting his search. “It's in your own hand, and mentions that this
sum forms a portion of the debt now satisfied by his bond.”
“Cancel the bill, and tell him so. What's that letter yonder?”
“It is marked 'strictly private and confidential,' sir; but comes from
Walter Carew, Esq.”
“Then why not give it to me at once? Why keep pottering about every
trifle of no moment, sir?” said Fagan, as he broke the seal, and drew
near to the window to read. It was very brief, and ran thus:--
Dear Fagan,--Shylock could n't hold a candle to you; such
an infernal mess of interest, compound interest, costs, and
commission as you have sent me I never beheld! However, for
the present I must endure all your exactions, even to the
tune of fifty per cent. Let me have cash for the enclosed
three bills, for one thousand each, drawn at the old dates,
and, of course, to be 'done' at the old discount.
I have just taken a wife, and am in want of ready money to
buy some of the customary tomfooleries of the occasion.
Regards to Polly and her fat terrier.
Yours, in haste,
Walter Carew.
“Read that,” said Fagan, handing the letter to his clerk, while the
veins in his forehead swelled out with passion, and his utterance grew
hoarse and thick.
Raper carefully perused the note, and then proceeded to examine the
bills, when Fagan snatched them rudely from his hand.
“It was his letter I bade you read,--the gross insolence of his manner
of addressing me. Where's his account, Raper? How does he stand with
us?”
“That's a long affair to make out,” said Joe, untying a thick roll of
papers.
“I don't want details. Can you never understand that? Tell me in three
words how he stands.”
“Deeply indebted,--very deeply indebted, sir,” said Joe, poring over the
papers.
“Tell Crowther to come over this evening at six o'clock, and write to
Carew by this post, thus:--
“'Mr. Fagan regrets that in the precarious condition of the money
market he is obliged to return you the bills, herewith enclosed, without
acceptance. Mr. F., having some large and pressing claims to meet,
desires to call your attention to the accompanying memorandum, and
to ask at what early period it will be your convenience to make an
arrangement for its settlement.'
“Make out an account and furnish it, Raper; we'll see how he relishes
Shylock when he comes to read that.”
Joseph sat with the pen in his hand, as if deep in thought.
“Do you hear me, Raper?” asked Fagan, in a harsh voice.
“I do,” said the other, and proceeded to write.
“There's a judgment entered upon Carew's bond of February, isn't there?”
“There is! Crowther has it in his office.”
“That's right. We 'll see and give him a pleasant honeymoon.” And with
these words, uttered with an almost savage malevolence, he passed out
into the street.
Joe Raper's daily life was a path on which the sunlight seldom fell; but
this day it seemed even darker than usual, and as he sat and wrote, many
a heavy sigh broke from him, and more than once did he lay down his pen
and draw his hand across his eyes. Still he labored on, his head bent
down over his desk, in that selfsame spot where he had spent his youth,
and was now dropping down into age unnoticed and unthought of. Of those
who came and went from that dreary room, who saw and spoke with him, how
many were there who knew him, who even suspected what lay beneath that
simple exterior! To some he was but the messenger of dark tidings, the
agent of those severe measures which Fagan not unfrequently employed
against his clients. To others he seemed a cold, impassive, almost
misanthropic being, without a tie to bind him to his fellow-man; while
not a few even ascribed to his influences all the harshness of
the “Grinder.” It is more than likely that he never knew of, never
suspected, the different judgments thus passed on him. So humbly did he
think of himself, so little disposed was he to fancy that he could be
an object of attention to any, the chances are that he was spared this
source of mortification. Humility was the basis of his whole character,
and by its working was every action of his simple life influenced. It
might be a curious subject of inquiry how far this characteristic was
fashioned by his habits of reading and of thought. Holding scarcely
any intercourse with the world of society, companionless as he was,
his associates were the great writers of ancient or modern times,--the
mighty spirits whose vast conceptions have created a world of their
own. Living amongst them, animated by their glorious sentiments, feeling
their thoughts, breathing their words, how natural that he should have
fallen back upon himself with a profound sense of his inferiority! How
meanly must he have thought of his whole career in life, in presence of
such standards!
Upon this day Joe never once opened a book; the little volumes which
lay scattered through his drawers were untouched, nor did he, as was
his wont, turn for an instant to refresh himself in the loved pages of
Metastasio or of Uhland. Whenever he had more than usual on hand, it was
his custom not to dine with the family, but to eat something as he sat
at his desk. Such was his meal now: a little bread and cheese, washed
down by a glass of water.
“Miss Polly hopes you'll take a glass of wine, Mr. Joe,” said a
maid-servant, as she appeared with a decanter in her hand.
“No! Thanks--thanks to Miss Polly; many thanks--and to you Margaret; not
to-day. I have a good deal to do.” And he resumed his work with that air
of determination the girl well knew brooked no interruption.
It was full an hour after sunset when he ceased writing; and then,
laying his head down between his hands, he slept,--the sound, heavy
sleep that comes of weariness. Twice or thrice had the servant to call
him before he could awake, and hear that “Miss Polly was waiting tea for
him.”
“Waiting for me!” cried he, in mingled shame and astonishment. “How
forgetful I am; how very wrong of me! Is Mr. Crowther here, Margaret?”
“He came an hour ago, sir.”
“Dear me, how I have forgotten myself!” And he began gathering up
his papers, the hard task of the day, in all haste. “Say I'm coming,
Margaret; tell Miss Polly I'm so sorry.” And thus with many an excuse,
and in great confusion, Raper hurried out of the office, and upstairs
into the drawing-room.
Fagan's house was, perhaps, the oldest in the street, and was remarkable
for possessing one of those quaint, old-fashioned windows, which,
projecting over the door beneath,-formed a species of little boudoir,
with views extending on either side. Here it was Polly's pleasure to
sit, and here she now presided at her tea-table; while in a
remote corner of the room her father and Mr. Crowther were deep in
conversation.
“Have you finished the statement? Where 's the account?” cried Fagan,
roughly interrupting the excuses that Raper was making for his absence.
“Here it is,--at least, so far as I was able to make it. Many of our
memoranda, however, only refer to verbal arrangements, and allude to
business matters transacted personally between you and Mr. Carew.”
“Listen to him, Crowther; just hear what he says,” said Fagan, angrily.
“Is not that a satisfactory way to keep accounts?”
“Gently, gently; let us go quietly to work,” said Crowther, a large,
fat, unwieldy man, with a bloated, red face, and an utterance rendered
difficult from the combined effects of asthma and over-eating. “Raper is
generally most correct, and your own memory is admirable. If Miss Polly
will give me a cup of her strongest tea, without any sugar, I 'll answer
for it I 'll soon see my way.”
When Raper had deposited the mass of papers on the table, and presented
the cup of tea to Crowther, he stole, half timidly, over to where Polly
sat.
“You must be hungry, Papa Joe,”--it was the name by which she called him
in infancy,--“for you never appeared at dinner. Pray eat something now.”
“I have no appetite, Polly,--that is, I have eaten already. I 'm quite
refreshed,” said he, scarcely thinking of what he said, for his eyes
were directed to the table where Crowther was seated, and where a kind
of supercilious smile on the attorney's face seemed evoked by something
in the papers before him.
“Some cursed folly of his own,--some of that blundering nonsense that
he fills his brains with!” cried Fagan, as he threw indignantly away
a closely written sheet of paper, the lines of which unmistakably
proclaimed verse.
Joe eyed the unhappy document wistfully for a second or two, and then,
with a stealthy step, he crept over, and threw it into the hearth.
“I found out the passage, Polly,” said he, in a whisper, so as not
to disturb the serious conference of the others; and he drew a few
well-thumbed leaves from his pocket, and placed them beside her, while
she bent over them till her glossy ringlets touched the page.
“This is the Medea,” said she; “but we have not read that yet.”
“No, Polly; you remember that we kept it for the winter nights; we
agreed Tieck and Chamisso were better for summer evenings--'Quando
ridono i prati,' as Petrarch says;” and her eyes brightened, and her
cheek glowed as he spoke. “How beautiful was that walk we took on Sunday
evening last! That little glen beside the river, so silent, so still,
who could think it within a mile or two of a great city? What a
delightful thing it is to think, Polly, that they who labor hard in the
week--and there are so many of them!--can yet on that one day of rest
wander forth and taste of the earth's freshness.
“'L; oro e le perle--i fîor vermegli ed i bianchi.'”
“Confound your balderdash!” cried Fagan, passionately; “you've put me
out in the tot--seventeen and twelve, twenty-nine--two thousand nine
hundred pounds, with the accruing interest. I don't see that he has
added the interest.”
Mr. Crowther bent patiently over the document for a few minutes, and
then, taking off his spectacles, and wiping them slowly, said, in
his blandest voice: “It appears to me that Mr. Raper has omitted
to calculate the interest. Perhaps he would kindly vouchsafe us his
attention for a moment.”
Raper was, however, at that moment deaf to all such appeals; his spirit
was as though wandering free beneath the shade of leafy bowers or along
the sedgy banks of some clear lake.
“You remember Dante's lines, Polly, and how he describes--
“'La divina foresta--
Che agli occhi tempera va il nuovo giorno,
Senza piu aspettar lasciai la riva,
Preudendo la campagna lento lento.'
How beautiful the repetition of the word 'lento;' how it conveys the
slow reluctance of his step!”
“There is, to my thinking, even a more graceful instance in Metastasio,”
said Polly:--
“'L' onda che mormora, Fra sponda e sponda, L' aura che tremola, Fra
fronda e fronda.”
“Raper, Raper,--do you hear me, I say?” cried Fagan, as he knocked
angrily with his knuckles on the table.
“We are sorry, Miss Fagan,” interposed Crowther, “to interrupt such
intellectual pleasure, but business has its imperative claims.”
“I 'm ready--quite ready, sir,” said Joe, rising in confusion, and
hastening across the room to where the others sat.
“Take a seat, sir,” said Fagan, peremptorily; “for here are some points
which require full explanation. And I would beg to remind you that if
the cultivation of your mind, as I have heard it called, interferes with
your attention to office duties, it would be as well to seek out some
more congenial sphere for its development than my humble house. I'm
too poor a man for such luxurious dalliance, Mr. Raper.” These words,
although spoken in a whisper, were audible to him to whom they were
addressed, and he heard them in a state of half-stupefied amazement.
“For the present, I must call your attention to this. What is it?”
Raper was no sooner in the midst of figures and calculations than all
his instincts of office-life recalled him to himself, and he began
rapidly but clearly to explain the strange and confused-looking
documents which were strewn before him, and Crowther could not but feel
struck by the admirable memory and systematic precision which alone
could derive information from such disorderly materials. Even Fagan
himself was so carried away by a momentary impulse of enthusiasm as to
say, “When a man is capable of such a statement at this, what a disgrace
that he should fritter away his faculties with rhymes and legends!”
“Mr. Raper is a philosopher, sir; he despises the base pursuits and
grovelling ambitions of us lower mortals,” said Crowther, with a
well-feigned humility.
“We must beg of him to lay aside his philosophy, then, for this evening,
for there is much to be done yet,” said Fagan, untying a large bundle
of letters. “This is the correspondence of the last year,--the most
important of all.”
“Large sums! large sums, these!” said Crowther, glancing his eyes over
the papers. “You appear to have placed a most unlimited confidence in
this young gentleman,--a very well merited trust, I have no doubt.”
Fagan made no reply, but a slight contortion of his mouth and eyebrows
seemed to offer some dissent to the doctrine.
“I have kept the tea waiting for you, Papa Joe,” said Polly, who took
the opportunity of a slight pause to address him; and Raper, like an
escaped schoolboy, burst away from his task at a word.
“I have just remembered another instance, Polly,” said he, “of what we
were speaking; it occurs in Schiller,--
“'Es bricht sich die Wellen mit Macht--mit Macht.'”
“Take your books to your room, Polly,” said Fagan, harshly; “for I see
that as long as they are here, we have little chance of Mr. Raper's
services.”
Polly rose, and pressed Joe's hand affectionately, and then, gathering
up the volumes before her, she left the room. Raper stood for a second
or two gazing at the door after her departure, and then, heaving a faint
sigh, muttered to himself:--
“I have just recalled to mind another,--
“'Eine Blüth', eine Blüth' mir brich,
Vom den Baum im Garten.'
Quite ready, sir,” broke he in suddenly, as a sharp summons from Fagan's
knuckles once more admonished him of his duty; and now, as though the
link which had bound him to realms of fancy was snapped, he addressed
himself to his task with all the patient drudgery of daily habit.