It was past midnight when Audley Egerton summoned Randal. The statesman
was then alone, seated before his great desk, with its manifold
compartments, and engaged on the task of transferring various papers and
letters, some to the waste-basket, some to the flames, some to two great
iron chests with patent locks, that stood, open-mouthed, at his feet.
Strong, stern, and grim looked those iron chests, silently receiving the
relics of power departed; strong, stern, and grim as the grave. Audley
lifted his eyes at Randal’s entrance, signed to him to take a chair,
continued his task for a few moments, and then turning round, as if by
an effort he plucked himself from his master-passion,--Public Life, he
said, with deliberate tones,
“I know not, Randal Leslie, whether you thought me needlessly cautious,
or wantonly unkind, when I told you never to expect from me more than
such advance to your career as my then position could effect,--never to
expect from my liberality in life, nor from my testament in death, an
addition to your private fortunes. I see by your gesture what would
be your reply, and I thank you for it. I now tell you, as yet in
confidence, though before long it can be no secret to the world, that my
pecuniary affairs have been so neglected by me in my devotion to those
of the State, that I am somewhat like the man who portioned out his
capital at so much a day, calculating to live just long enough to make
it last. Unfortunately he lived too long.” Audley smiled--but the
smile was cold as a sunbeam upon ice-and went on with the same firm,
unfaltering accents. “The prospects that face me I am prepared for; they
do not take me by surprise. I knew long since how this would end, if
I survived the loss of office. I knew it before you came to me, and
therefore I spoke to you as I did, judging it manful and right to guard
you against hopes which you might otherwise have naturally entertained.
On this head, I need say no more. It may excite your surprise, possibly
your blame, that I, esteemed methodical and practical enough in the
affairs of the State, should be so imprudent as to my own.”
“Oh, sir! you owe no account to me.”
“To you, at least, as much as to any one. I am a solitary man; my few
relations need nothing from me. I had a right do spend what I possessed
as I pleased; and if I have spent it recklessly as regards myself, I
have not spent it ill in its effect on others. It has been my object for
many years to have no Private Life,--to dispense with its sorrows, joys,
affections; and as to its duties, they did not exist for me. I have
said.” Mechanically, as he ended, the minister’s hand closed the lid of
one of the iron boxes, and on the closed lid he rested his firm foot.
“But now,” he resumed, “I have failed to advance your career. True, I
warned you that you drew into a lottery; but you had more chance of
a prize than a blank. A blank, however, it has turned out, and the
question becomes grave,--What are you to do?”
Here, seeing that Egerton came to a full pause, Randal answered readily,
“Still, sir, to go by your advice.”
“My advice,” said Audley, with a softened look, “would perhaps be rude
and unpalatable. I would rather place before you an option. On the one
hand, recommence life again. I told you that I would keep your name
on your college books. You can return, you can take your degree, after
that, you can go to the Bar,--you have just the talents calculated to
succeed in that profession. Success will be slow, it is true; but, with
perseverance, it will be sure. And, believe me, Leslie, Ambition is only
sweet while it is but the loftier name for Hope. Who would care for a
fox’s brush if it had not been rendered a prize by the excitement of the
chase?”
“Oxford--again! It is a long step back in life,” said Randal, drearily,
and little heeding Egerton’s unusual indulgence of illustration. “A long
step back--and to what? To a profession in which one never begins to
rise till one’s hair is gray. Besides, how live in the mean while?”
“Do not let that thought disturb you. The modest income that suffices
for a student at the Bar, I trust, at least, to insure you from the
wrecks of my fortune.”
“Ah, sir, I would not burden you further. What right have I to such
kindness, save my name of Leslie?” And in spite of himself, as Randal
concluded, a tone of bitterness, that betrayed reproach, broke forth.
Egerton was too much the man of the world not to comprehend the
reproach, and not to pardon it.
“Certainly,” he answered calmly, “as a Leslie you are entitled to my
consideration, and would have been entitled perhaps to more, had I not
so explicitly warned you to the contrary. But the Bar does not seem to
please you?”
“What is the alternative, sir? Let me decide when I hear it,” answered
Randal, sullenly. He began to lose respect for the roan who owned he
could do so little for him, and who evidently recommended him to shift
for himself.
If one could have pierced into Egerton’s gloomy heart as he noted the
young man’s change of tone, it may be a doubt whether one would have
seen there pain or pleasure,--pain, for merely from the force of habit
he had begun to like Randal, or pleasure at the thought that he might
have reason to withdraw that liking. So lone and stoical had grown
the man who had made it his object to have no private life! Revealing,
however, neither pleasure nor pain, but with the composed calmness of a
judge upon the bench, Egerton replied,--
“The alternative is, to continue in the course you have begun, and still
to rely on me.”
“Sir, my dear Mr. Egerton,” exclaimed Randal, regaining all his usual
tenderness of look and voice, “rely on you! But that is all I ask. Only”
“Only, you would say, I am going out of power, and you don’t see the
chance of my return?”
“I did not mean that.”
“Permit me to suppose that you did: very true; but the party I belong to
is as sure of return as the pendulum of that clock is sure to obey the
mechanism that moves it from left to right. Our successors profess to
come in upon a popular question. All administrations who do that are
necessarily short-lived. Either they do not go far enough to please
present supporters, or they go so far as to arm new enemies in the
rivals who outbid them with the people. ‘T is the history of all
revolutions, and of all reforms. Our own administration in reality is
destroyed for having passed what was called a popular measure a year
ago, which lost us half our friends, and refusing to propose another
popular measure this year, in the which we are outstripped by the men
who hallooed us on to the last. Therefore, whatever our successors
do, we shall by the law of reaction, have another experiment of power
afforded to ourselves. It is but a question of time; you can wait for
it,--whether I can is uncertain. But if I die before that day arrives, I
have influence enough still left with those who will come in, to obtain
a promise of a better provision for you than that which you have lost.
The promises of public men are proverbially uncertain; but I shall
entrust your cause to a man who never failed a friend, and whose rank
will enable him to see that justice is done to you,--I speak of Lord
L’Estrange.”
“Oh, not he; he is unjust to me; he dislikes me; he--”
“May dislike you (he has his whims), but he loves me; and though for no
other human being but you would I ask Harley L’Estrange a favour, yet
for you I will,” said Egerton, betraying, for the first time in that
dialogue, a visible emotion,--“for you, a Leslie, a kinsman, however
remote, to the wife from whom I received my fortune! And despite all my
cautions, it is possible that in wasting that fortune I may have wronged
you. Enough: you have now before you the two options, much as you had
at first; but you have at present more experience to aid you in your
choice. You are a man, and with more brains than most men; think over it
well, and decide for yourself. Now to bed, and postpone thought till the
morrow. Poor Randal, you look pale!”
Audley, as he said the last words, put his hand on Randal’s shoulder,
almost with a father’s gentleness; and then suddenly drawing himself
up, as the hard inflexible expression, stamped on that face by years,
returned, he moved away and resettled to Public Life and the iron box.