The devil tempts us not--'tis we tempt him,
Beckoning his skill with opportunity.
The more permanent effect of Esther's action in the trial was visible in
a meeting which took place the next day in the principal room of the
White Hart of Loamford. To the magistrates and other county gentlemen
who were drawn together about noon, some of the necessary impulse might
have been lacking but for that stirring of heart in certain
just-spirited men and good fathers among them, which had been raised to
a high pitch of emotion by Esther's maidenly fervor. Among these one of
the foremost was Sir Maximus Debarry, who had come to the assizes with a
mind, as usual, slightly rebellious under an influence which he never
ultimately resisted--the influence of his son. Philip Debarry himself
was detained in London, but in his correspondence with his father he had
urged him, as well as his uncle Augustus, to keep eyes and interest
awake on the subject of Felix Holt, whom, from all the knowledge of the
case he had been able to obtain, he was inclined to believe peculiarly
unfortunate rather than guilty. Philip had said he was the more anxious
that his family should intervene benevolently in this affair, if it were
possible, because he understood that Mr. Lyon took the young man's case
particularly to heart, and he should always regard himself as obliged to
the old preacher. At this superfineness of consideration Sir Maximus had
vented a few "pshaws!" and, in relation to the whole affair, had
grumbled that Phil was always setting him to do he didn't know
what--always seeming to turn nothing into something by dint of words
which hadn't so much substance as a mote behind them. Nevertheless he
was coerced; and in reality he was willing to do anything fair or
good-natured which had a handle that his understanding could lay hold
of. His brother, the rector, desired to be rigorously just; but he had
come to Loamford with a severe opinion concerning Felix, thinking that
some sharp punishment might be a wholesome check on the career of a
young man disposed to rely too much on his own crude devices.
Before the trial commenced, Sir Maximus had naturally been one of those
who had observed Esther with curiosity, owing to the report of her
inheritance, and her probable marriage to his once welcome but now
exasperating neighbor, Harold Transome; and he had made the emphatic
comment--"A fine girl! something thoroughbred in the look of her. Too
good for a Radical; that's all I have to say." But during the trial Sir
Maximus was wrought into a state of sympathetic ardor that needed no
fanning. As soon as he could take his brother by the buttonhole, he
said--
"I tell you what, Gus! we must exert ourselves to get a pardon for this
young fellow. Confound it! what's the use of mewing him up for four
years? Example? Nonsense. Will there be a man knocked down the less for
it? That girl made me cry. Depend upon it, whether she's going to marry
Transome or not, she's been fond of Holt--in her poverty, you know.
She's a modest, brave, beautiful woman. I'd ride a steeple-chase, old as
I am, to gratify her feelings. Hang it! the fellow's a good fellow if
she thinks so. And he threw out a fine sneer, I thought, at the Radical
candidate. Depend upon it, he's a good fellow at bottom."
The rector had not exactly the same kind of ardor, nor was he open too
precisely that process of proof which appeared to have convinced Sir
Maximus; but he had been so far influenced as to be inclined to unite in
an effort on the side of mercy, observing also that he "knew Phil would
be on that side." And by the co-operation of similar movements in the
minds of other men whose names were of weight, a meeting had been
determined on to consult about getting up a memorial to the Home
Secretary on behalf of Felix Holt. His case had never had the sort of
significance that could rouse political partisanship; and such interest
as was now felt in him was still more unmixed with that inducement. The
gentlemen who gathered in the room at the White Hart were--not as the
large imagination of the _North_ _Loamshire Herald_ suggested, "of all
shades of political opinion," but--of as many shades as were to be found
among the gentlemen of that county.
Harold Transome had been energetically active in bringing about this
meeting. Over and above the stings of conscience and a determination to
act up to the level of all recognized honorableness, he had the powerful
motive of desiring to do what would satisfy Esther. His gradually
heightened perception that she had a strong feeling toward Felix Holt
had not made him uneasy. Harold had a conviction that might have seemed
like fatuity if it had not been that he saw the effect he produced on
Esther by the light of his opinions about women in general. The
conviction was, that Felix Holt could not be his rival in any formidable
sense. Esther's admiration for this eccentric young man was, he thought,
a moral enthusiasm, a romantic fervor, which was one among those many
attractions quite novel in his own experience; her distress about the
trouble of one who had been a familiar object in her former home, was no
more than naturally followed from a tender woman's compassion. The place
young Holt had held in her regard had necessarily changed its relations
now that her lot was so widely changed. It is undeniable, that what most
conduced to the quieting nature of Harold's conclusions was the
influence on his imagination of the more or less detailed reasons that
Felix Holt was a watchmaker, that his home and dress were of a certain
quality, that his person and manners--that, in short (for Harold, like
the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of
distinct ideas), Felix Holt was not the sort of a man a woman would be
in love with when she was wooed by Harold Transome.
Thus, he was sufficiently at rest on this point not to be exercising any
painful self-conquest in acting as the zealous advocate of Felix Holt's
cause with all persons worth influencing; but it was by no direct
intercourse between him and Sir Maximus that they found themselves in
co-operation, for the old baronet would not recognize Harold by more
than the faintest bow, and Harold was not a man to expose himself to a
rebuff. Whatever he in his inmost soul regarded as nothing more than a
narrow prejudice, he could defy, not with airs of importance, but with
easy indifference. He could bear most things good-humoredly where he
felt that he had the superiority. The object of the meeting was
discussed, and the memorial agreed upon without any clashing. Mr.
Lingon was gone home, but it was expected that his concurrence and
signature would be given, as well as those of other gentlemen who were
absent. The business gradually reached that stage at which the
concentration of interest ceases--when the attention of all but a few
who are more practically concerned drops off and disperses itself in
private chat, and there is no longer any particular reason why everybody
stays except that everybody is there. The room was rather a long one,
and invited to a little movement; one gentleman drew another aside to
speak in an undertone about Scotch bullocks; another had something to
say about the North Loamshire hunt to a friend who was the reverse of
good-looking, but who, nevertheless, while listening, showed his
strength of mind by giving a severe attention also to his full-length
reflection in the handsome tall mirror that filled the space between two
windows. And in this way the groups were continually shifting.
But in the meantime there were moving toward this room at the White Hart
the footsteps of a person whose presence had not been invited, and who,
very far from being drawn thither by the belief that he would be
welcome, knew well that his entrance would, to one person at least, be
bitterly disagreeable. They were the footsteps of Mr. Jermyn, whose
appearance that morning was not less comely and less carefully tended
than usual, but who was suffering the torment of a compressed rage,
which, if not impotent to inflict pain on another, was impotent to avert
evil from himself. After his interview with Mrs. Transome there had been
for some reasons a delay of positive procedures against him by Harold,
of which delay Jermyn had twice availed himself; first, to seek an
interview with Harold, and then to send him a letter. The interview had
been refused; and the letter had been returned, with the statement that
no communication could take place except through Harold's lawyers. And
yesterday Johnson had brought Jermyn the information that he would
quickly hear of the proceedings in Chancery being resumed: the watch
Johnson kept in town had given him secure knowledge on this head. A
doomed animal, with every issue earthed up except that where its enemy
stands, must, if it has teeth and fierceness, try its one chance without
delay. And a man may reach a point in his life in which his impulses are
not distinguished from those of a hunted brute by any capability of
scruples. Our selfishness is so robust and many-clutching, that, well
encouraged, it easily devours all sustenance away from our poor little
scruples.
Since Harold would not give Jermyn access to him, that vigorous attorney
was resolved to take it. He knew all about the meeting at the White
Hart, and he was going thither with the determination of accosting
Harold. He thought he knew what he should say, and the tone in which he
should say it. It would be a vague intimation, carrying the effect of a
threat, which should compel Harold to give him a private interview. To
any counter-consideration that presented itself in his mind--to anything
that an imagined voice might say--the imagined answer arose, "That's all
very fine, but I'm not going to be ruined if I can help it--least of
all, ruined in that way." Shall we call it degeneration or gradual
development--this effect of thirty additional winters on the
soft-glancing, versifying young Jermyn?
When Jermyn entered the room at the White Hart he did not immediately
see Harold. The door was at the extremity of the room, and the view was
obstructed by groups of gentlemen with figures broadened by overcoats.
His entrance excited no particular observation: several persons had come
in late. Only one or two, who knew Jermyn well, were not too much
preoccupied to have a glancing remembrance of what had been chatted
about freely the day before--Harold's irritated reply about his agent,
from the witness box. Receiving and giving a slight nod here and there,
Jermyn pushed his way, looking round keenly, until he saw Harold
standing near the other end of the room. The solicitor who had acted for
Felix was just then speaking to him, but having put a paper into his
hand turned away; and Harold, standing isolated, though at no great
distance from others, bent his eyes on the paper. He looked brilliant
that morning; his blood was flowing prosperously. He had come in after a
ride, and was additionally brightened by rapid talk and the excitement
of seeking to impress himself favorably, or at least powerfully, on the
minds of neighbors nearer or more remote. He had just that amount of
flush which indicates that life is more enjoyable than usual; and as he
stood with his left hand caressing his whisker, and his right holding
the paper and his riding-whip, his dark eyes running rapidly along the
written lines, and his lips reposing in a curve of good-humor which had
more happiness in it than a smile, all beholders might have seen that
his mind was at ease.
Jermyn walked quickly and quietly close up to him. The two men were of
the same height, and before Harold looked round Jermyn's voice was
saying, close to his ear, not in a whisper, but in a hard, incisive,
disrespectful and yet not loud tone--
"Mr. Transome, I must speak to you in private."
The sound jarred through Harold with a sensation all the more
insufferable because of the revulsion from the satisfied, almost elated,
state in which it had seized him. He started and looked round into
Jermyn's eyes. For an instant, which seemed long, there was no sound
between them, but only angry hatred gathering in the two faces. Harold
felt himself going to crush this insolence: Jermyn felt that he had
words within him that were fangs to clutch this obstinate strength, and
wring forth the blood and compel submission. And Jermyn's impulse was
the more urgent. He said, in a tone that was rather lower, but yet
harder and more biting--
"You will repent else--for your mother's sake."
At that sound, quick as a leaping flame, Harold had struck Jermyn across
the face with his whip. The brim of the hat had been a defense. Jermyn,
a powerful man, had instantly thrust out his hand and clutched Harold
hard by the clothes just below the throat, pushing him slightly so as to
make him stagger.
By this time everybody's attention had been called to this end of the
room, but both Jermyn and Harold were beyond being arrested by any
consciousness of spectators.
"Let me go, you scoundrel!" said Harold, fiercely, "or I'll be the death
of you."
"Do," said Jermyn, in a grating voice; "_I am your father_."
In the thrust by which Harold had been made to stagger backward a
little, the two men had got very near the long mirror. They were both
white; both had anger and hatred in their faces; the hands of both were
upraised. As Harold heard the last terrible words he started at a
leaping throb that went through him, and in the start turned his eyes
away from Jermyn's face. He turned them on the same face in the glass
with his own beside it, and saw the hated fatherhood reasserted.
The strong man reeled with a sick faintness. But in the same moment
Jermyn released his hold, and Harold felt himself supported by the arm.
It was Sir Maximus Debarry who had taken hold of him.
"Leave the room, sir!" the baronet said to Jermyn, in a voice of
imperious scorn. "This is a meeting of gentlemen."
"Come, Harold," he said, in the old friendly voice, "come away with
me."