The library at Fairfield Gardens possessed two special attractions,
besides the books. It opened into a large conservatory; and it was
adorned by an admirable portrait of Mrs. Gallilee, painted by her
brother.
Waiting the appearance of the fair original, Mr. Mool looked at the
portrait, and then mentally reviewed the history of Mrs. Gallilee’s
family. What he did next, no person acquainted with the habits of
lawyers will be weak enough to believe. Mr. Mool blushed.
Is this the language of exaggeration, describing a human anomaly on the
roll of attorneys? The fact shall be left to answer the question. Mr.
Mool had made a mistake in his choice of a profession. The result of the
mistake was--a shy lawyer.
Attended by such circumstances as these, the history of the family
assumes, for the moment, a certain importance. It is connected with a
blushing attorney. It will explain what happened on the reading of the
Will. And it is sure beforehand of a favourable reception--for it is all
about money.
Old Robert Graywell began life as the son of a small farmer. He was
generally considered to be rather an eccentric man; but prospered,
nevertheless, as a merchant in the city of London. When he retired from
business, he possessed a house and estate in the country, and a handsome
fortune safely invested in the Funds.
His children were three in number:--his son Robert, and his daughters
Maria and Susan.
The death of his wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, was the first
serious calamity of his life. He retired to his estate a soured and
broken man. Loving husbands are not always, as a necessary consequence,
tender fathers. Old Robert’s daughters afforded him no consolation on
their mother’s death. Their anxiety about their mourning dresses so
disgusted him that he kept out of their way. No extraordinary interest
was connected with their prospects in life: they would be married--and
there would be an end of them. As for the son, he had long since placed
himself beyond the narrow range of his father’s sympathies. In the first
place, his refusal to qualify himself for a mercantile career had made
it necessary to dispose of the business to strangers. In the second
place, young Robert Graywell proved--without any hereditary influence,
and in the face of the strongest discouragement--to be a born painter!
One of the greatest artists of that day saw the boy’s first efforts, and
pronounced judgment in these plain words: “What a pity he has not got
his bread to earn by his brush!”
On the death of old Robert, his daughters found themselves (to use their
own expression) reduced to a trumpery legacy of ten thousand pounds
each. Their brother inherited the estate, and the bulk of the
property--not because his father cared about founding a family, but
because the boy had always been his mother’s favourite.
The first of the three children to marry was the eldest sister.
Maria considered herself fortunate in captivating Mr. Vere--a man of
old family, with a high sense of what he owed to his name. He had a
sufficient income, and he wanted no more. His wife’s dowry was settled
on herself. When he died, he left her a life-interest in his property
amounting to six hundred a year. This, added to the annual proceeds
of her own little fortune, made an income of one thousand pounds. The
remainder of Mr. Vere’s property was left to his only surviving child,
Ovid.
With a thousand a year for herself, and with two thousand a year for her
son, on his coming of age, the widowed Maria might possibly have been
satisfied--but for the extraordinary presumption of her younger sister.
Susan, ranking second in age, ranked second also in beauty; and yet, in
the race for a husband, Susan won the prize!
Soon after her sister’s marriage, she made a conquest of a Scotch
nobleman, possessed of a palace in London, and a palace in Scotland, and
a rent-roll of forty thousand pounds. Maria, to use her own expression,
never recovered it. From the horrid day when Susan became Lady
Northlake, Maria became a serious woman. All her earthly interests
centred now in the cultivation of her intellect. She started on that
glorious career, which associated her with the march of science. In only
a year afterwards--as an example of the progress which a resolute woman
can make--she was familiar with zoophyte fossils, and had succeeded in
dissecting the nervous system of a bee.
Was there no counter-attraction in her married life?
Very little. Mr. Vere felt no sympathy with his wife’s scientific
pursuits.
On her husband’s death, did she find no consolation in her son? Let
her speak for herself. “My son fills my heart. But the school, the
university, and the hospital have all in turn taken his education out of
my hands. My mind must be filled, as well as my heart.” She seized her
exquisite instruments, and returned to the nervous system of the bee.
In course of time, Mr. John Gallilee--“drifting about,” as he said of
himself--drifted across the path of science.
The widowed Mrs. Vere (as exhibited in public) was still a fine woman.
Mr. Gallilee admired “that style”; and Mr. Gallilee had fifty thousand
pounds. Only a little more, to my lord and my lady, than one year’s
income. But, invested at four percent, it added an annual two thousand
pounds to Mrs. Vere’s annual one thousand. Result, three thousand a
year, encumbered with Mr. Gallilee. On reflection, Mrs. Vere
accepted the encumbrance--and reaped her reward. Susan was no longer
distinguished as the sister who had her dresses made in Paris; and Mrs.
Gallilee was not now subjected to the indignity of getting a lift in
Lady Northlake’s carriage.
What was the history of Robert, during this interval of time? In two
words, Robert disgraced himself.
Taking possession of his country house, the new squire was invited to
contribute towards the expense of a pack of hounds kept by subscription
in the neighbourhood, and was advised to make acquaintance with his
fellow-sportsmen by giving a hunt-breakfast. He answered very politely;
but the fact was not to be concealed--the new man refused to encourage
hunting: he thought that noble amusement stupid and cruel. For the same
reason, he refused to preserve game. A last mistake was left to make,
and he made it. After returning the rector’s visit, he failed to
appear at church. No person with the smallest knowledge of the English
character, as exhibited in an English county, will fail to foresee that
Robert’s residence on his estate was destined to come, sooner or later,
to an untimely end. When he had finished his sketches of the picturesque
aspects of his landed property, he disappeared. The estate was not
entailed. Old Robert--who had insisted on the minutest formalities
and details in providing for his dearly-loved wife--was impenetrably
careless about the future of his children. “My fortune has no value now
in my eyes,” he said to judicious friends; “let them run through it all,
if they please. It would do them a deal of good if they were obliged to
earn their own living, like better people than themselves.” Left free to
take his own way, Robert sold the estate merely to get rid of it. With
no expensive tastes, except the taste for buying pictures, he became a
richer man than ever.
When their brother next communicated with them, Lady Northlake and Mrs.
Gallilee heard of him as a voluntary exile in Italy. He was building a
studio and a gallery; he was contemplating a series of pictures; and he
was a happy man for the first time in his life.
Another interval passed--and the sisters heard of Robert again.
Having already outraged the sense of propriety among his English
neighbours, he now degraded himself in the estimation of his family,
by marrying a “model.” The letter announcing this event declared, with
perfect truth, that he had chosen a virtuous woman for his wife. She sat
to artists, as any lady might sit to any artist, “for the head only.”
Her parents gained a bare subsistence by farming their own little morsel
of land; they were honest people--and what did brother Robert care for
rank? His own grandfather had been a farmer.
Lady Northlake and Mrs. Gallilee felt it due to themselves to hold a
consultation, on the subject of their sister-in-law. Was it desirable,
in their own social interests, to cast Robert off from that moment?
Susan (previously advised by her kind-hearted husband) leaned to the
side of mercy. Robert’s letter informed them that he proposed to live,
and die, in Italy. If he held to this resolution, his marriage would
surely be an endurable misfortune to his relatives in London. “Suppose
we write to him,” Susan concluded, “and say we are surprised, but
we have no doubt he knows best. We offer our congratulations to Mrs.
Robert, and our sincere wishes for his happiness.”
To Lady Northlake’s astonishment, Mrs. Gallilee adopted this indulgent
point of view, without a word of protest. She had her reasons--but they
were not producible to a relative whose husband had forty thousand a
year. Robert had paid her debts.
An income of three thousand pounds, even in these days, represents a
handsome competence--provided you don’t “owe a duty to society.” In
Mrs. Gallilee’s position, an income of three thousand pounds represented
genteel poverty. She was getting into debt again; and she was meditating
future designs on her brother’s purse. A charming letter to Robert
was the result. It ended with, “Do send me a photograph of your lovely
wife!” When the poor “model” died, not many years afterwards, leaving
one little daughter, Mrs. Gallilee implored her brother to return to
England. “Come, dearest Robert, and find consolation and a home, under
the roof of your affectionate Maria.”
But Robert remained in Italy, and was buried in Italy. At the date of
his death, he had three times paid his elder sister’s debts. On
every occasion when he helped her in this liberal way, she proved her
gratitude by anticipating a larger, and a larger, and a larger legacy if
she outlived him.
Knowing (as the family lawyer) what sums of money Mrs. Gallilee had
extracted from her brother, Mr. Mool also knew that the advances thus
made had been considered as representing the legacy, to which she might
otherwise have had some sisterly claim. It was his duty to have warned
her of this, when she questioned him generally on the subject of the
Will; and he had said nothing about it, acting under a most unbecoming
motive--in plain words, the motive of fear. From the self-reproachful
feeling that now disturbed him, had risen that wonderful blush which
made its appearance on Mr. Mool’s countenance. He was actually ashamed
of himself. After all, is it too much to have suggested that he was a
human anomaly on the roll of attorneys?