Your fellow-man?--Divide the epithet:
Say rather, you're the fellow, he the man.
When Christian quitted the Free School with the discovery that the young
lady whose appearance had first startled him with an indefinable
impression in the market-place was the daughter of the old Dissenting
preacher who had shown so much agitated curiosity about his name, he
felt very much like an uninitiated chess-player, who sees that the
pieces are in a peculiar position on the board, and might open the way
for him to give checkmate, if he only knew how. Ever since his interview
with Jermyn, his mind had been occupied with the charade it offered to
his ingenuity. What was the real meaning of the lawyer's interest in
him, and in his relations with Maurice Christian Bycliffe? Here was a
secret; and secrets were often a source of profit, of that agreeable
kind which involved little labor. Jermyn had hinted at profit which
might possibly come through him; but Christian said inwardly, with
well-satisfied self-esteem, that he was not so pitiable a nincompoop as
to trust Jermyn. On the contrary, the only problem before him was to
find out by what combination of independent knowledge he could outwit
Jermyn, elude any purchase the attorney had on him through his past
history, and get a handsome bonus, by which a somewhat shattered man of
pleasure might live well without a master. Christian, having early
exhausted the more impulsive delights of life, had become a sober
calculator; and he had made up his mind that, for a man who had long ago
run through his own money, servitude in a great family was the best kind
of retirement after that of a pensioner; but if a better chance offered,
a person of talent must not let it slip through his fingers. He held
various ends of threads, but there was danger of pulling at them too
impatiently. He had not forgotten the surprise which had made him drop
the punch-ladle, when Mr. Crowder, talking in the steward's room, had
said that a scamp named Henry Scaddon had been concerned in a lawsuit
about the Transome estate. Again, Jermyn was the family lawyer of the
Transomes; he knew of the exchange of names between Scaddon and
Bycliffe; he clearly wanted to know as much as he could about Bycliffe's
history. The conclusion was not remote that Bycliffe had had some claim
on the Transome property, and that a difficulty had arisen from his
being confounded with Henry Scaddon. But hitherto the other incident
which had been apparently connected with the interchange of names--Mr.
Lyon's demand that he should write down the name Maurice Christian,
accompanied with the question whether that were his whole name--had had
no visible link with the inferences arrived at through Crowder and
Jermyn.
The discovery made this morning at the Free School that Esther was the
daughter of the Dissenting preacher at last suggested a possible link.
Until then, Christian had not known why Esther's face had impressed him
so peculiarly; but the minister's chief association for him was with
Bycliffe, and that association served as a flash to show him that
Esther's features and expression, and still more her bearing, now she
stood and walked, revived Bycliffe's image. Daughter? There were various
ways of being a daughter. Suppose this were a case of adoption; suppose
Bycliffe were known to be dead, or thought to be dead. "Begad, if the
old parson had fancied the original father was come to life again, it
was enough to frighten him a little. Slow and steady," Christian said to
himself; "I'll get some talk with the old man again. He's safe enough:
one can handle him without cutting one's self. I'll tell him I knew
Bycliffe, and was his fellow-prisoner. I'll worm out the truth about
this daughter. Could pretty Annette have married again, and married this
little scare-crow? There's no knowing what a woman will not do."
Christian could see no distinct result for himself from his industry;
but if there were to be any such result, it must be reached by following
out every clue; and to the non-legal mind there are dim possibilities in
law and heirship which prevent any issue from seeming too miraculous.
The consequence of these meditations was, that Christian hung about
Treby more than usual in his leisure time, and that on the first
opportunity he accosted Mr. Lyon in the street with suitable civility,
stating that since the occasion which had brought them together some
weeks before he had often wished to renew their conversation, and, with
Mr. Lyon's permission, would now ask to do so. After being assured, as
he had been by Jermyn, that this courier, who had happened by some
accident to possess the memorable locket and pocket-book, was certainly
not Annette's husband, and was ignorant whether Maurice Christian
Bycliffe were living or dead, the minister's mind had become easy again;
his habitual lack of interest in personal details rendering him
gradually oblivious of Jermyn's precautionary statement that he was
pursuing enquiries, and that if anything of interest turned up, Mr. Lyon
should be made acquainted with it. Hence, when Christian addressed him,
the minister, taken by surprise and shaken by the recollections of
former anxieties, said, helplessly--
"If it is business, sir, you would perhaps do better to address yourself
to Mr. Jermyn."
He could not have said anything that was a more valuable hint to
Christian. He inferred that the minister had made a confidant of Jermyn,
and it was needful to be wary.
"On the contrary, sir," he answered, "it may be of the utmost importance
to you that what passes between us should not be known to Mr. Jermyn."
Mr. Lyon was perplexed, and felt at once that he was no more in clear
daylight concerning Jermyn than concerning Christian. He dared not
neglect the possible duty of hearing what this man had to say, and he
invited him to proceed to Malthouse Yard, where they could converse in
private.
Once in Mr. Lyon's study, Christian opened the dialogue by saying that
since he was in this room before it had occurred to him that the anxiety
he had observed in Mr. Lyon might be owing to some acquaintance with
Maurice Christian Bycliffe--a fellow-prisoner in France, whom he,
Christian, had assisted in getting freed from his imprisonment, and who,
in fact, had been the owner of the trifles which Mr. Lyon had recently
had in his possession and had restored. Christian hastened to say that
he knew nothing of Bycliffe's history since they had parted in France,
but that he knew of his marriage with Annette Ledru, and had been
acquainted with Annette herself. He would be very glad to know what
became of Bycliffe, if he could, for he liked him uncommonly.
Here Christian paused; but Mr. Lyon only sat changing color and
trembling. This man's bearing and tone of mind were made repulsive to
him by being brought in contact with keenly-felt memories, and he could
not readily summon the courage to give answers or ask questions.
"May I ask if you knew my friend Bycliffe?" said Christian, trying a
more direct method.
"No, sir; I never saw him."
"Ah! well--you have seen a very striking likeness of him. It's
wonderful--unaccountable; but when I saw Miss Lyon at the Free School
the other day, I could have sworn she was Bycliffe's daughter."
"Sir!" said Mr. Lyon, in his deepest tone, half rising, and holding by
the arms of his chair, "these subjects touch me with too sharp a point
for you to be justified in thrusting them on me out of mere levity. Is
there any good you seek or any injury you fear in relation to them?"
"Precisely, sir. We shall come to an understanding. Suppose I believed
that the young lady who goes by the name of Miss Lyon was the daughter
of Bycliffe?"
Mr. Lyon moved his lips silently.
"And suppose I had reason to suspect that there would be some great
advantage for her if the law knew who was her father?"
"Sir!" said Mr. Lyon, shaken out of all reticence. "I would not conceal
it. She believes herself to be my daughter. But I will bear all things
rather than deprive her of a right. Nevertheless I appeal to the pity of
any fellow-man, not to thrust himself between her and me, but to let me
disclose the truth to her myself."
"All in good time," said Christian. "We must do nothing rash. Then Miss
Lyon is Annette's child?"
The minister shivered as if the edge of a knife had been drawn across
his hand. But the tone of this question, by the fact that it intensified
his antipathy to Christian, enabled him to collect himself for what must
be simply the endurance of a painful operation. After a moment or two he
said more coolly, "It is true, sir. Her mother became my wife. Proceed
with any statement which may concern my duty."
"I have no more to say than this: if there's a prize that the law might
hand over to Bycliffe's daughter, I am much mistaken if there isn't a
lawyer who'll take precious good care to keep the law hoodwinked. And
that lawyer is Mat Jermyn. Why, my good sir, if you've been taking
Jermyn into your confidence, you've been setting the fox to keep off the
weasel. It strikes me that when you were made a little anxious about
those articles of poor Bycliffe's, you put Jermyn on making enquiries of
me. Eh? I think I am right?"
"I do not deny it."
"Ah!--it was very well you did, for by that means I've found that he's
got hold of some secrets about Bycliffe which he means to stifle. Now,
sir, if you desire any justice for your daughter--step-daughter, I
should say--don't so much as wink to yourself before Jermyn; and if
you've got any papers or things of that sort that may come in evidence,
as these confounded rascals the lawyers call it, clutch them tight, for
if they get into Jermyn's hands they may soon fly up the chimney. Have I
said enough?"
"I had not purposed any further communication with Mr. Jermyn, sir;
indeed, I have nothing further to communicate. Except that one fact
concerning my daughter's birth, which I have erred in concealing from
her, I neither seek disclosures nor do I tremble before them."
"Then I have your word that you will be silent about this conversation
between us? It is for your daughter's interest, mind."
"Sir, I shall be silent," said Mr. Lyon, with cold gravity. "Unless,"
he added, with an acumen as to possibilities rather disturbing to
Christian's confident contempt for the old man--"unless I were called
upon by some tribunal to declare the whole truth in this relation; in
which case I should submit myself to that authority of investigation
which is a requisite of social order."
Christian departed, feeling satisfied that he had got the utmost to be
obtained at present out of the Dissenting preacher, whom he had not
dared to question more closely. He must look out for chance lights, and
perhaps, too, he might catch a stray hint by stirring the sediment of
Mr. Crowder's memory. But he must not venture on enquiries that might be
noticed.
When Mr. Lyon was alone he paced up and down among his books, and
thought aloud, in order to relieve himself after the constraint of this
interview. "I will not wait for the urgency of necessity," he said more
than once. "I will tell the child without compulsion. And then I shall
fear nothing. And an unwonted spirit of tenderness has filled her of
late. She will forgive me."