A WOOLHOPIAN.
It is only fair towards Mr. Sharp to acquit him of all intention to
trust his wife with a very important secret, as long as he could help
it. He was well aware of the risk he ran in taking such a desperate
step; but the risk was forced upon him now by several circumstances.
Also, he wanted her aid just now, in a matter in which he could not
possibly have it without trusting her. Hence he resolved to make a
virtue of necessity, as the saying is, and at the same time get the
great relief which even a strong mind, in long scheming, obtains, by
having its burden shared.
This resolve of his was no sudden one. For several days he had made up
his mind, that when he should be questioned upon the subject--which he
foresaw must happen--he would earn the credit of candour, and the
grace of womanly gratitude, by making a clean breast of it. There
could be no better season than this. The house was quiet; his son was
away; the shadows of the coming evening softly fell before her step;
Cross Duck Lane looked very touching in the calm of twilight; and Mrs.
Sharp was in the melting mood. Therefore the learned and conscientious
lawyer perceived that the client's affairs, about which he was going
to busy himself, might safely wait for another day, while he was
sweeping his own hearth clean. So he locked the door, and looked out
of the window, where sparrows were swarming to their ivy roost; and
then he drew in the old lattice, and turned the iron tongue that
fastened it. Mrs. Sharp looked on, while some little suggestion of
fear came to qualify eagerness.
"Luke, I declare you quite make me nervous. I shall be afraid to go to
bed to-night. Really, a stranger, or a timid person, would think you
were going to confess a murder!"
"My dear, if you feel at all inclined to give way," Mr. Sharp
answered, as if glad to escape, "we will have out our talk
to-morrow--or, no--to-morrow I have an appointment at Woodstock. The
day after that we will recur to it. I see that it will be better so."
"Luke, is your mind astray? I quite fear so. Can you imagine that I
could wait for two days, after what you have told me?"
"My dear, I was only considering yourself. If you wish it, I will
begin at once. Only for your own sake, I must insist on your sitting
calmly down. There, my dear! Now, do not agitate yourself. There is
nothing to frighten anybody. It is the most simple thing; and you will
laugh, when you have heard it."
"Then I wish I had heard it, Luke. For I feel more inclined to cry
than laugh."
"Miranda, you must not be foolish. Such a thing is not at all like
you. Very well, now you are quite sedate. Now please not to interrupt
me once; but ask your questions afterwards. If you ask me a question I
shall stop, and go to the office with my papers." Mr. Sharp looked at
his wife; and she bowed her head in obedience. "To begin at the very
beginning," he said, with a smile to re-assure her, "you will do me
the justice to remember that I have worked very hard for my living.
And I have prospered well, Miranda, having you as both the foundation
and the crown of my prosperity. I was perfectly satisfied, as you
know, living quite up to my wishes, and putting a little cash by every
year of our lives, and paying on a heavy life-insurance, in case of my
own life dropping--for the sake of you and Christopher. You know all
that?"
"Darling Luke, I do. But you make me cry, when you talk like that."
"Very well. That is as it should be. We were as happy as need be
expected, until the great wrong befell us--the fierce injustice of
losing every farthing to which we were clearly entitled. You were the
proper successor to all the property of old Fermitage. That old
curmudgeon, and wholesale poisoner of the University, made a fool of
himself, towards his latter end, by marrying Miss Oglander. Old
Black-Strap, as of course we know, had no other motive for doing such
a thing, except his low ambition to be connected with a good old
family. Ever since he began life as a bottleboy, in the cellars of old
Jerry Pigaud----"
"He never did that, Luke. How can you speak so of my father's own
first cousin? He was an extremely respectable young man; my father
always said so."
"While he was making his money, Miranda, of course he was respectable.
And everybody respected him, as soon as he had made it. However, I
have not the smallest intention of reproaching the poor old villain.
He acted according to his lights, and they led him very badly. A
foolish ambition induced him to marry that pompous old maid, Joan
Oglander, who had been jilted by Commodore Patch, the son of the
famous captain. We all know what followed; the old man was but a doll
in the hands of his lady-wife. He left all the scrapings and screwings
of his life, for her to do what she pleased with--at least, everybody
supposes so."
"What do you mean, Luke?" asked Mrs. Sharp, having inkling of legal
surprises. "Do you mean that there is a later will? Has he done
justice to me, after all?"
"No, my dear. He never saved his soul by attending to his own kindred.
But he just had the sense to make a little change at last, when his
wife would not come near him. You know what he died of. It was coming
on for weeks; though at last it struck him suddenly. The port-wine
fungus of his old vaults grew into his lungs, and stopped them. It had
shown for some time in his face and throat; and his wife was afraid of
catching it. She took it to be some infectious fever, of which she is
always so terribly afraid. The old man knew that his time was short;
but take to his bed he would not. Of all born men the most stubborn he
was; as any man must be, to get on well. 'If I am to die of the
fungus,' he said, 'I will have a little more of it.' And he went, and
with his own hands hunted up a magnum of port, which had been laid by,
from the vintage of 1745, in the first days of Jerry Pigaud. But
before that, he had sent for me; and I was there when he opened it."
"Luke, you take my breath away. Such wonderful things I have never
heard. At least, not in our own family."
"Of course, my dear. We all accept wonders with quietude, till they
come home to us. Well, when he fetched out this old bottle, it was
fungus inside from heel to neck. He held it up against the light, and
the glass being whiter than now they make, and the wine gone almost
white with age, there you could see this extraordinary growth, like
cords in the bottle, and valves across it, and a long yellow sheath
like a crocus-flower. I had never seen anything like it before; but he
knew all about it. 'Ah, I know a genleman,' he grunted in his
throat--he never could say 'gentleman,' as you remember--'a genleman
as would give a hundred guineas for this here bottle! Quibbles, he
shouldn't have it for a thousand! My boy, you and I will drink it. Say
no, and I'll cut off your wife with a half-penny!' Miranda, what could
I do but try to humour him to the utmost? If I had had the smallest
inkling of the iniquitous will he had made, of course, I never would
have sat on the head of the cask, down in his dingy and reeking
vaults, by the hour together, to please him. But never mind that--in a
moment he took a long-handled knife, or chopper, and holding the
bottle upright, struck off the neck and a part of the shoulder, as
straight as a line, at the level of the wine. 'Not many men could do
that,' he said; 'none of your clumsy cork-screwers for me! Now,
Quibbles, here's a real treat for you! Talk of beeswing, my boy,
here's a beehive!' And really it was more like eating than drinking
wine; for all the body was gone into the fungus. Nastier stuff I never
tasted; but, luckily, he took the lion's share. 'Now, Quibbles, I'll
tell you a secret,' he said, after swallowing at least a quart; 'a
very pretty girl came and kissed me t'other day, in among these very
bottles. Such a little duck--not a bit ashamed or afeared of my
fungus, as my missus is. And her breath was as sweet as the violets of
'20! "Well now, my little dear," thinks I, as I stood back and looked
at her, "that was kind of you to kiss an old man a-dying of port wine
fungus! And if he only lives another day, you shall have the right to
kiss the Royal family, if you cares to do it." Quibbles, I wouldn't
call in you, nor any other thief of a lawyer. Lawyers are very well
over a glass; but keep 'em outside of the cellar, say I. Very good
company, in their way; but the only company I put trust in is the one
I have dealt with all my life,--and many a thousand pounds I have paid
them--The Royal Wine Company of Oporto. So now, if anything happens to
me--though I am not in such a hurry to be binned away, and walled up
for the resurrection--Quibbles, wait six months; and then you go to
the Royal Oporto Company, and ask for a genleman of the name of Jolly
Fellows.'"
"Now, Luke, I am all anxiety to hear," exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, with a
sudden interruption, "what was the end of this very strange affair. I
perceive now that I have foreseen the whole of it. But it is not right
that you should speak so long, without one morsel of refreshment. It
is many hours since you dined, my dear, and a very poor dinner you had
of it. You shall have a glass of white wine, and a slice of tongue,
between a little cold roll and butter. It will not in any way
interrupt you. I can get it all for you, without ringing the bell.
Only let me ask you one thing first--why have you never told me this
till now?"
"Because, Miranda, it would disturb your mind. And I know that you
cannot endure suspense. Moreover, I scarcely knew what to think of it.
Poor old Fermitage (what with the fungus already in his tubes, and
what he was taking down) might be talking sheer nonsense for all that
I knew. And indeed, for a long time I treated it so; and I had no
stomach for a voyage to Oporto, upon mere speculation, and for the
benefit only of some pretty girl. Then I found out, by the purest
chance, that no voyage to Oporto was needful, that old 'Port-wine'
(who departed on his cask to a better world, the day after his magnum)
meant nothing more than the London stores and agency of the Oporto
Company. And even after that I made one expedition to the Minories,
all for nothing. Two or three very polite young dons stared at me, and
thought I was come to chaff them, or perhaps had turned up from their
vaults top-heavy, when I asked for 'Senhor Jolly Fellows.' And so I
came away, and lost some months, and might never have thought it worth
while to go again, except for another mere accident."
"My dear, what a chapter of accidents!" cried Mrs. Sharp, while
feeding him. "I thought that you were a great deal too clever to allow
any room for accidents."
"Women think so. Men know better," the lawyer replied sententiously;
his ability was too well-known to need his vindication. "And, Miranda,
you forget that I had as yet no personal interest in the question. But
when I happened to have a Portuguese gentleman as a client--a man who
had spent many years in England--and happened to be talking of our
language to him, I told him one part of the story, and asked if he
could throw any light on it. He told me at once that the name which
had so puzzled me must be Gelofilos--a Portuguese surname, by no means
common. And the next time I was in town, I had occasion to call in St.
John's Street, and found myself, almost by accident again, not far
from the Company's offices."
"Mr. Sharp, you left such a thing to chance, when you knew that it
might pull down that dreadful woman's insolence!"
"My dear, it is not the duty of my life to mitigate feminine
arrogance. And to undertake such a crusade, gratis! I am equal to a
bold stroke, as you will see, if your patience lasts--but never to
such a vast undertaking. When it comes before me, in the way of
business, naturally I take it up. But this was no business of my own;
and the will was proved, and assets called in; for the old rogue did
not owe one penny. Well, I went again, and this time I got hold of the
right man---- Miranda, I hear the bell!"
The new office-bell, the successor to the one that succumbed to Russel
Overshute, rang as hard as ring it could. A special messenger was come
from London, and in half an hour Mr. Luke Sharp was sitting on the box
of the night up mail.