Lady Blandish, and others who professed an interest in the fortunes and
future of the systematized youth, had occasionally mentioned names of
families whose alliance according to apparent calculations, would not
degrade his blood: and over these names, secretly preserved on an open
leaf of the note-book, Sir Austin, as he neared the metropolis,
distantly dropped his eye. There were names historic and names
mushroomic; names that the Conqueror might have called in his
muster-roll; names that had been, clearly, tossed into the upper
stratum of civilized lifer by a millwheel or a merchant-stool. Against
them the baronet had written M. or Po. or Pr.—signifying, Money,
Position, Principles, favouring the latter with special brackets. The
wisdom of a worldly man, which he could now and then adopt, determined
him, before he commenced his round of visits, to consult and sound his
solicitor and his physician thereanent; lawyers and doctors being the
rats who know best the merits of a house, and on what sort of
foundation it may be standing.
Sir Austin entered the great city with a sad mind. The memory of his
misfortune came upon him vividly, as if no years had intervened, and it
were but yesterday that he found the letter telling him that he had no
wife and his son no mother. He wandered on foot through the streets the
first night of his arrival, looking strangely at the shops and shows
and bustle of the world from which he had divorced himself; feeling as
destitute as the poorest vagrant. He had almost forgotten how to find
his way about, and came across his old mansion in his efforts to regain
his hotel. The windows were alight—signs of merry life within. He
stared at it from the shadow of the opposite side. It seemed to him he
was a ghost gazing upon his living past. And then the phantom which had
stood there mocking while he felt as other men—the phantom, now flesh
and blood reality, seized and convulsed his heart, and filled its
unforgiving crevices with bitter ironic venom. He remembered by the
time reflection returned to him that it was Algernon, who had the house
at his disposal, probably giving a card-party, or something of the
sort. In the morning, too, he remembered that he had divorced the world
to wed a System, and must be faithful to that exacting Spouse, who, now
alone of things on earth, could fortify and recompense him.
Mr. Thompson received his client with the dignity and emotion due to
such a rent-roll and the unexpectedness of the honour. He was a thin
stately man of law, garbed as one who gave audience to acred bishops,
and carrying on his countenance the stamp of paternity to the parchment
skins, and of a virtuous attachment to Port wine sufficient to increase
his respectability in the eyes of moral Britain. After congratulating
Sir Austin on the fortunate issue of two or three suits, and being
assured that the baronet’s business in town had no concern therewith,
Mr. Thompson ventured to hope that the young heir was all his father
could desire him to be, and heard with satisfaction that he was a
pattern to the youth of the Age.
“A difficult time of life, Sir Austin!” said the old lawyer, shaking
his head. “We must keep our eyes on them—keep awake! The mischief is
done in a minute.”
“We must take care to have seen where we planted, and that the root was
sound, or the mischief will do itself in spite of, or under the very
spectacles of, supervision,” said the baronet.
His legal adviser murmured “Exactly,” as if that were his own idea,
adding, “It is my plan with Ripton, who has had the honour of an
introduction to you, and a very pleasant time he spent with my young
friend, whom he does not forget. Ripton follows the Law. He is articled
to me, and will, I trust, succeed me worthily in your confidence. I
bring him into town in the morning; I take him back at night. I think I
may say that I am quite content with him.”
“Do you think,” said Sir Austin, fixing his brows, “that you can trace
every act of his to its motive?”
The old lawyer bent forward and humbly requested that this might be
repeated.
“Do you”—Sir Austin held the same searching expression—“do you
establish yourself in a radiating centre of intuition: do you base your
watchfulness on so thorough an acquaintance with his character, so
perfect a knowledge of the instrument, that all its movements—even the
eccentric ones—are anticipated by you, and provided for?”
The explanation was a little too long for the old lawyer to entreat
another repetition. Winking with the painful deprecation of a deaf man,
Mr. Thompson smiled urbanely, coughed conciliatingly, and said he was
afraid he could not affirm that much, though he was happily enabled to
say that Ripton had borne an extremely good character at school.
“I find,” Sir Austin remarked, as sardonically he relaxed his
inspecting pose and mien, “there are fathers who are content to be
simply obeyed. Now I require not only that my son should obey; I would
have him guiltless of the impulse to gainsay my wishes—feeling me in
him stronger than his undeveloped nature, up to a certain period, where
my responsibility ends and his commences. Man is a self-acting machine.
He cannot cease to be a machine; but, though self-acting, he may lose
the powers of self-guidance, and in a wrong course his very vitalities
hurry him to perdition. Young, he is an organism ripening to the set
mechanic diurnal round, and while so he needs all the angels to hold
watch over him that he grow straight and healthy, and fit for what
machinal duties he may have to perform”...
Mr. Thompson agitated his eyebrows dreadfully. He was utterly lost. He
respected Sir Austin’s estates too much to believe for a moment he was
listening to downright folly. Yet how otherwise explain the fact of his
excellent client being incomprehensible to him? For a middle-aged
gentleman, and one who has been in the habit of advising and managing,
will rarely have a notion of accusing his understanding; and Mr.
Thompson had not the slightest notion of accusing his. But the
baronet’s condescension in coming thus to him, and speaking on the
subject nearest his heart, might well affect him, and he quickly
settled the case in favour of both parties, pronouncing mentally that
his honoured client had a meaning, and so deep it was, so subtle, that
no wonder he experienced difficulty in giving it fitly significant
words.
Sir Austin elaborated his theory of the Organism and the Mechanism, for
his lawyer’s edification. At a recurrence of the word “healthy” Mr.
Thompson caught him up:
“I apprehended you! Oh, I agree with you, Sir Austin! entirely! Allow
me to ring for my son Ripton. I think, if you condescend to examine
him, you will say that regular habits, and a diet of nothing but
law-reading—for other forms of literature I strictly interdict—have
made him all that you instance.”
Mr. Thompson’s hand was on the bell. Sir Austin arrested him.
“Permit me to see the lad at his occupation,” said he.
Our old friend Ripton sat in a room apart with the confidential clerk,
Mr. Beazley, a veteran of law, now little better than a document,
looking already signed and sealed, and shortly to be delivered, who
enjoined nothing from his pupil and companion save absolute silence,
and sounded his praises to his father at the close of days when it had
been rigidly observed—not caring, or considering, the finished dry old
document that he was, under what kind of spell a turbulent commonplace
youth could be charmed into stillness for six hours of the day. Ripton
was supposed to be devoted to the study of Blackstone. A tome of the
classic legal commentator lay extended outside his desk, under the
partially lifted lid of which nestled the assiduous student’s head—law
being thus brought into direct contact with his brain-pan. The
office-door opened, and he heard not; his name was called, and he
remained equally moveless. His method of taking in Blackstone seemed
absorbing as it was novel.
“Comparing notes, I daresay,” whispered Mr. Thompson to Sir Austin. “I
call that study!”
The confidential clerk rose, and bowed obsequious senility.
“Is it like this every day, Beazley?” Mr. Thompson asked with parental
pride.
“Ahem!” the old clerk replied, “he is like this every day, sir. I could
not ask more of a mouse.”
Sir Austin stepped forward to the desk. His proximity roused one of
Ripton’s senses, which blew a pall to the others. Down went the lid of
the desk. Dismay, and the ardours of study, flashed together in
Ripton’s face. He slouched from his perch with the air of one who means
rather to defend his position than welcome a superior, the right hand
in his waistcoat pocket fumbling a key, the left catching at his vacant
stool.
Sir Austin put two fingers on the youth’s shoulder, and said, leaning
his head a little on one side, in a way habitual to him, “I am glad to
find my son’s old comrade thus profitably occupied. I know what study
is myself. But beware of prosecuting it too excitedly! Come! you must
not be offended at our interruption; you will soon take up the thread
again. Besides, you know, you must get accustomed to the visits of your
client.”
So condescending and kindly did this speech sound to Mr. Thompson,
that, seeing Ripton still preserve his appearance of disorder and
sneaking defiance, he thought fit to nod and frown at the youth, and
desired him to inform the baronet what particular part of Blackstone he
was absorbed in mastering at that moment.
Ripton hesitated an instant, and blundered out, with dubious
articulation, “The Law of Gravelkind.”
“What Law?” said Sir Austin, perplexed.
“Gravelkind,” again rumbled Ripton’s voice.
Sir Austin turned to Mr. Thompson for an explanation. The old lawyer
was shaking his law-box.
“Singular!” he exclaimed. “He will make that mistake! What law, sir?”
Ripton read his error in the sternly painful expression of his father’s
face, and corrected himself. “Gavelkind, sir.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Thompson, with a sigh of relief. “Gravelkind, indeed!
Gavelkind! An old Kentish”—He was going to expound, but Sir Austin
assured him he knew it, and a very absurd law it was, adding, “I should
like to look at your son’s notes, or remarks on the judiciousness of
that family arrangement, if he had any.”
“You were making notes, or referring to them, as we entered,” said Mr.
Thompson to the sucking lawyer; “a very good plan, which I have always
enjoined on you. Were you not?”
Ripton stammered that he was afraid he hid not any notes to show, worth
seeing.
“What were you doing then, sir?”
“Making notes,” muttered Ripton, looking incarnate subterfuge.
“Exhibit!”
Ripton glanced at his desk and then at his father; at Sir Austin, and
at the confidential clerk. He took out his key. It would not fit the
hole.
“Exhibit!” was peremptorily called again.
In his praiseworthy efforts to accommodate the keyhole, Ripton
discovered that the desk was already unlocked. Mr. Thompson marched to
it, and held the lid aloft. A book was lying open within, which Ripton
immediately hustled among a mass of papers and tossed into a dark
corner, not before the glimpse of a coloured frontispiece was caught by
Sir Austin’s eye.
The baronet smiled, and said, “You study Heraldry, too? Are you fond of
the science?”
Ripton replied that he was very fond of it—extremely attached, and
threw a further pile of papers into the dark corner.
The notes had been less conspicuously placed, and the search for them
was tedious and vain. Papers, not legal, or the fruits of study, were
found, that made Mr. Thompson more intimate with the condition of his
son’s exchequer; nothing in the shape of a remark on the Law of
Gavelkind.
Mr. Thompson suggested to his son that they might be among those scraps
he had thrown carelessly into the dark corner. Ripton, though he
consented to inspect them, was positive they were not there.
“What have we here?” said Mr. Thompson, seizing a neatly folded paper
addressed to the Editor of a law publication, as Ripton brought them
forth, one by one. Forthwith Mr. Thompson fixed his spectacles and read
aloud:
“To the Editor of the ‘Jurist.’
“Sir,—In your recent observations on the great case of Crim”—
Mr. Thompson hem’d! and stopped short, like a man who comes
unexpectedly upon a snake in his path. Mr. Beazley’s feet shuffled. Sir
Austin changed the position of an arm.
“It’s on the other side, I think,” gasped Ripton.
Mr. Thompson confidently turned over, and intoned with emphasis.
“To Absalom, the son of David, the little Jew usurer of Bond Court,
Whitecross Gutters, for his introduction to Venus, I O U Five pounds,
when I can pay.
“Signed: RIPTON THOMPSON.”
Underneath this fictitious legal instrument was discreetly appended:
“(Mem. Document not binding.)”
There was a pause: an awful under-breath of sanctified wonderment and
reproach passed round the office. Sir Austin assumed an attitude. Mr.
Thompson shed a glance of severity on his confidential clerk, who
parried by throwing up his hands.
Ripton, now fairly bewildered, stuffed another paper under his father’s
nose, hoping the outside perhaps would satisfy him: it was marked
“Legal Considerations.” Mr. Thompson had no idea of sparing or
shielding his son. In fact, like many men whose self-love is wounded by
their offspring, he felt vindictive, and was ready to sacrifice him up
to a certain point, for the good of both. He therefore opened the
paper, expecting something worse than what he had hitherto seen,
despite its formal heading, and he was not disappointed.
The “Legal Considerations” related to the Case regarding, which Ripton
had conceived it imperative upon him to address a letter to the Editor
of the “Jurist,” and was indeed a great case, and an ancient; revived
apparently for the special purpose of displaying the forensic abilities
of the Junior Counsel for the Plaintiff, Mr. Ripton Thompson, whose
assistance the Attorney-General, in his opening statement,
congratulated himself on securing; a rather unusual thing, due probably
to the eminence and renown of that youthful gentleman at the Bar of his
country. So much was seen from the copy of a report purporting to be
extracted from a newspaper, and prefixed to the Junior Counsel’s
remarks, or Legal Considerations, on the conduct of the Case, the
admissibility and non-admissibility of certain evidence, and the
ultimate decision of the judges.
Mr. Thompson, senior, lifted the paper high, with the spirit of one
prepared to do execution on the criminal, and in the voice of a
town-crier, varied by a bitter accentuation and satiric sing-song tone,
deliberately read:
“VULCAN _v_. MARS.
“The Attorney-General, assisted by Mr. Ripton Thompson, appeared on
behalf of the Plaintiff. Mr. Serjeant Cupid, Q.C., and Mr. Capital
Opportunity, for the Defendant.”
“Oh!” snapped Mr. Thompson, senior, peering venom at the unfortunate
Ripton over his spectacles, “your notes are on that issue, sir! Thus
you employ your time, sir!”
With another side-shot at the confidential clerk, who retired
immediately behind a strong entrenchment of shrugs, Mr. Thompson was
pushed by the devil of his rancour to continue reading:
“This Case is too well known to require more than a partial summary of
particulars”...
“Ahem! we will skip the particulars, however partial,” said Mr.
Thompson. “Ah!—what do you mean here, sir,—but enough! I think we may
be excused your Legal Considerations on such a Case. This is how you
employ your law-studies, sir! You put them to this purpose? Mr.
Beazley! you will henceforward sit alone. I must have this young man
under my own eye. Sir Austin! permit me to apologize to you for
subjecting you to a scene so disagreeable. It was a father’s duty not
to spare him.”
Mr. Thompson wiped his forehead, as Brutus might have done after
passing judgment on the scion of his house.
“These papers,” he went on, fluttering Ripton’s precious lucubrations
in a waving judicial hand, “I shall retain. The day will come when he
will regard them with shame. And it shall be his penance, his
punishment, to do so! Stop!” he cried, as Ripton was noiselessly
shutting his desk, “have you more of them, sir; of a similar
description? Rout them out! Let us know you at your worst. What have
you there—in that corner?”
Ripton was understood to say he devoted that corner to old briefs on
important cases.
Mr. Thompson thrust his trembling fingers among the old briefs, and
turned over the volume Sir Austin had observed, but without much
remarking it, for his suspicions had not risen to print.
“A Manual of Heraldry?” the baronet politely, and it may be ironically,
inquired, before it could well escape.
“I like it very much,” said Ripton, clutching the book in dreadful
torment.
“Allow me to see that you have our arms and crest correct.” The baronet
proffered a hand for the book.
“A Griffin between two Wheatsheaves,” cried Ripton, still clutching it
nervously.
Mr. Thompson, without any notion of what he was doing, drew the book
from Ripton’s hold; whereupon the two seniors laid their grey heads
together over the title-page. It set forth in attractive characters
beside a coloured frontispiece, which embodied the promise displayed
there, the entrancing adventures of Miss Random, a strange young lady.
Had there been a Black Hole within the area of those law regions to
consign Ripton to there and then, or an Iron Rod handy to mortify his
sinful flesh, Mr. Thompson would have used them. As it was, he
contented himself by looking Black Holes and Iron Rods at the detected
youth, who sat on his perch insensible to what might happen next,
collapsed.
Mr. Thompson cast the wicked creature down with a “Pah!” He, however,
took her up again, and strode away with her. Sir Austin gave Ripton a
forefinger, and kindly touched his head, saying, “Good-bye, boy! At
some future date Richard will be happy to see you at Raynham.”
Undoubtedly this was a great triumph to the System!