MR. LARKIN IS VIS-A-VIS WITH A CONCEALED COMPANION.
The time had now arrived when our friend Jos. Larkin was to refresh the
village of Gylingden with his presence. He had pushed matters forward
with wonderful despatch. The deeds, with their blue and silver stamps,
were handsomely engrossed--having been approved in draft by Crompton S.
Kewes, the eminent Queen's Counsel, on a case furnished by Jos. Larkin,
Esq., The Lodge, Brandon Manor, Gylingden, on behalf of his client, the
Reverend William Wylder; and in like manner on behalf of Stanley Williams
Brandon Lake, of Brandon Hall, in the county of ----, Esq.
In neither draft did Jos. Larkin figure as the purchaser by name. He did
not care for advice on any difficulty depending on his special relations
to the vendors in both these cases. He wished, as was his custom,
everything above-board, and such 'an opinion' as might be published by
either client in the 'Times' next day if he pleased it. Besides these
matters of Wylder and of Lake, he had also a clause to insert in a
private Act, on behalf of the trustees of the Baptist Chapel, at Naunton
Friars; a short deed to be consulted upon on behalf of his client, Pudder
Swynfen, Esq., of Swynfen Grange, in the same county; and a deed to be
executed at Shillingsworth, which he would take _en route_ for Gylingden,
stopping there for that night, and going on by next morning's train.
Those little trips to town paid very fairly.
In this particular case his entire expenses reached exactly £5 3_s._, and
what do you suppose was the good man's profit upon that small item?
Precisely £62 7_s._! The process is simple, Jos. Larkin made his own
handsome estimate of his expenses, and the value of his time to and from
London, and then he charged this in its entirety--shall we say
integrity--to each client separately. In this little excursion he was
concerned for no less than _five_.
His expenses, I say, reached exactly £5 3_s_. But he had a right to go to
Dondale's if he pleased, instead of that cheap hostelry near Covent
Garden. He had a right to a handsome lunch and a handsome dinner, instead
of that economical fusion of both meals into one, at a cheap
eating-house, in an out-of-the-way quarter. He had a right to his pint of
high-priced wine, and to accomplish his wanderings in a cab, instead of,
as the Italians say, 'partly on foot, and partly walking.' Therefore, and
on this principle, Mr. Jos. Larkin had 'no difficulty' in acting. His
savings, if the good man chose to practise self-denial, were his own--and
it was a sort of problem while he stayed, and interested him
curiously--keeping down his bill in matters which he would not have
dreamed of denying himself at home.
The only client among his wealthy supporters, who ever went in a grudging
spirit into one of these little bills of Jos. Larkin's, was old Sir
Mulgrave Bracton--the defunct parent of the Sir Harry, with whom we are
acquainted.
'Don't you think, Mr. Larkin, you could perhaps reduce _this_, just a
little?'
'Ah, the expenses?'
'Well, yes.'
Mr. Jos. Larkin smiled--the smile said plainly, 'what would he have me
live upon, and where?' We do meet persons of this sort, who would fain
'fill our bellies with the husks' that swine digest; what of that--we
must remember who we are--_gentlemen_--and answer this sort of
shabbiness, and every other endurable annoyance, as Lord Chesterfield
did--with a bow and a smile.
'I think so,' said the baronet, in a bluff, firm way.
'Well, the fact is, when I represent a client, Sir Mulgrave Bracton, of a
certain rank and position, I make it a principle--and, as a man of
business, I find it tells--to present myself in a style that is suitably
handsome.'
'Oh! an expensive house--_where_ was this, now?'
'Oh, Sir Mulgrave, pray don't think of it--I'm only too happy--pray, draw
your pen across the entire thing.'
'I think so,' said the baronet unexpectedly. 'Don't you think if we said
a pound a-day, and your travelling expenses?'
'Certainly--_any_thing--what_ever_ you please, Sir.'
And the attorney waved his long hand a little, and smiled almost
compassionately; and the little alteration was made, and henceforward he
spoke of Sir Mulgrave as not quite a pleasant man to deal with in money
matters; and his confidential friends knew that in a transaction in which
he had paid money out of his own pocket for Sir Mulgrave he had never got
back more than seven and sixpence in the pound; and, what made it worse,
it was a matter connected with the death of poor Lady Bracton! And he
never lost an opportunity of conveying his opinion of Sir Mulgrave,
sometimes in distinct and confidential sentences, and sometimes only by a
sad shake of his head, or by awfully declining to speak upon the subject.
In the present instance Jos. Larkin was returning in a heavenly frame of
mind to the Lodge, Brandon Manor, Gylingden. Whenever he was away he
interpolated 'Brandon Manor,' and stuck it on his valise and hat-case;
and liked to call aloud to the porters tumbling among the luggage--'Jos.
Larkin, Esquire, _Brandon Manor, if_ you please;' and to see the people
read the inscription in the hall of his dingy hostelry. Well might the
good man glow with a happy consciousness of a blessing. In small things
as in great he was prosperous.
This little excursion to London would cost him, as I said, exactly £5
3_s._ It might have cost him £13 10_s._ and at that sum his expenses
figured in his ledger; and as he had five clients on this occasion, the
total reached £67 10_s._, leaving a clear profit, as I have mentioned, of
£62 7_s._ on this item.
But what was this little tip from fortune, compared with the splendid
pieces of scrivenery in his despatch box. The white parchment--the blue
and silver stamps in the corner--the German text and flourishes at the
top, and those broad, horizontal lines of recital, `habendum,' and so
forth--marshalled like an army in procession behind his march of triumph
into Five Oaks, to take the place of its deposed prince? From the
captain's deed to the vicar's his mind glanced fondly.
He would yet stand the highest man in his county. He had found time for a
visit to the King-at-Arms and the Heralds' Office. He would have his
pictures and his pedigree. His grandmother had been a Howard. Her branch,
indeed, was a little under a cloud, keeping a small provision-shop in the
town of Dwiddleston. But this circumstance need not be in prominence. She
was a Howard--_that_ was the fact he relied on--no mortal could gainsay
it; and he would be, first, J. Howard Larkin, then Howard Larkin, simply;
then Howard Larkin Howard, and the Five Gaks' Howards would come to be
very great people indeed. And the Brandons had intermarried with other
Howards, and Five Oaks would naturally, therefore, go to Howards; and so
he and his, with clever management, would be anything but _novi homines_
in the county.
'He shall be like a tree planted by the water-side, that will bring forth
his fruit in due season. His leaf also shall not wither. So thought this
good man complacently. He liked these fine consolations of the Jewish
dispensation--actual milk and honey, and a land of promise on which he
could set his foot. Jos. Larkin, Esq., was as punctual as the clock at
the terminus. He did not come a minute too soon or too late, but
precisely at the moment which enabled him, without fuss, and without a
tiresome wait, to proceed to the details of ticket, luggage, selection of
place, and ultimate ascension thereto.
So now having taken all measures, gliding among the portmanteaus,
hand-barrows, and porters, and the clangorous bell ringing, he mounted,
lithe and lank, into his place.
There was a pleasant evening light still, and the gas-lamps made a
purplish glow against it. The little butter-cooler of a glass lamp
glimmered from the roof. Mr. Larkin established himself, and adjusted his
rug and mufflers about him, for, notwithstanding the season, there had
been some cold, rainy weather, and the evening was sharp; and he set his
two newspapers, his shilling book, and other triumphs of cheap literature
in sundry shapes, in the vacant seat at his left hand, and made
everything handsome about him. He glanced to the other end of the
carriage, where sat his solitary fellow-passenger. This gentleman was
simply a mass of cloaks and capes, culminating in a queer battered felt
hat; his shoulders were nestled into the corner, and his face buried
among his loose mufflers. They sat at corners diagonally opposed, and
were, therefore, as far apart as was practicable--an arrangement, not
sociable, to be sure, but on the whole, very comfortable, and which
neither seemed disposed to disturb.
Mr. Larkin had a word to say to the porter from the window, and bought
one more newspaper; and then looked out on the lamplit platform, and saw
the officials loitering off to the clang of the carriage doors; then came
the whistle, and then the clank and jerk of the start. And so the brick
walls and lamps began to glide backward, and the train was off.
Jos. Larkin tried his newspaper, and read for ten minutes, or so, pretty
diligently; and then looked for a while from the window, upon receding
hedgerows and farmsteads, and the level and spacious landscape; and then
he leaned back luxuriously, his newspaper listlessly on his knees, and
began to read, instead, at his ease, the shapeless, wrapt-up figure
diagonally opposite.
The quietude of the gentleman in the far corner was quite singular. He
produced neither tract, nor newspaper, nor volume--not even a pocket-book
or a letter. He brought forth no cigar-case, with the stereotyped, 'Have
you any objection to my smoking a cigar?' He did not even change his
attitude ever so little. A burly roll of cloaks, rugs, capes, and loose
wrappers, placed in the corner, and _tanquam cadaver_, passive and
motionless.
I have sometimes in my travels lighted on a strangely shaped mountain,
whose huge curves, and sombre colouring have interested me indefinably.
In the rude mass at the far angle, Mr. Jos. Larkin, I fancy, found some
such subject of contemplation. And the more he looked, the more he felt
disposed to look.
As they got on there was more night fog, and the little lamp at top shone
through a halo. The fellow-passenger at the opposite angle lay back, all
cloaks and mufflers, with nothing distinct emerging but the felt hat at
top, and the tip--it was only the tip now--of the shining shoe on the
floor.
The gentleman was absolutely motionless and silent. And Mr. Larkin,
though his mind was pretty universally of the inquisitive order, began in
this particular case to feel a special curiosity. It was partly the
monotony and their occupying the carriage all to themselves--as the two
uncommunicative seamen did the Eddystone Lighthouse--but there was,
beside, an indistinct feeling, that, in spite of all these wrappers and
swathings, he knew the outlines of that figure; and yet the likeness must
have been of the rudest possible sort.
He could not say that he recognised anything distinctly--only he fancied
that some one he knew was sitting there, unrevealed, inside that mass of
clothing. And he felt, moreover, as if he ought to be able to guess who
he was.