TO tell her all about the boy!
John Tatham shovelled his papers into his portfolio, and shut it up with a snap of embarrassment, a sort of confession of weakness. He pushed back his chair with the same sharpness, almost making a noise upon the old Turkey carpet, and he touched his bell so that it sounded with a shrill electric ping, almost like a pistol-shot. Simmons understood all these signs, and he was very sympathetic when he came in to take Mr. Tatham’s last orders and help him on with his coat.
“Spoilt your evening’s work,” said Simmons, compassionately. “I knew they would. Ladies never should enter a gentleman’s chambers if I could help it. They’ve got nothing to do in the Temple.”
“You forget some men in the Temple are married, Simmons.”
“What does that matter?” said the clerk; “let ’em see their wives at home, sir. What I will maintain is that ladies have no business here.”
This was a little ungrateful, it must be said, for Simmons probably got off three-quarters of an hour earlier than he would have done had Mr. Tatham remained undisturbed. As it was, John had some ten minutes to wait before his habitual hansom drew up at the door.
It was not the first time by many times that Mr. Tatham had considered the question which he now took with him into his hansom, and which occupied him more or less all the way to Halkin Street. Lady Mariamne, however, had put it very neatly and very conclusively when she said that you can’t hide the heir to a peerage—more concisely at least than John had himself put it in his many thoughts on the subject—for, to tell the truth, John had never considered the boy in this aspect. That he should ever be the heir to a peerage had seemed one of those possibilities which so outrage nature, and are so very like fiction, that the sober mind rejects them with almost a fling of impatience. And yet how often they come true! He had never heard—a fact of which he felt partly ashamed, for it was an event of too much importance to be ignored by any one connected with Elinor—of Hal Compton’s death. John was not acquainted with Hal Compton any more than he was with other men who come and go in society, occasionally seen, but open to no particular remark. A son of Lord St. Serf—the best of the lot—a Compton with very little against him: these were things which he had heard said and had taken little notice of. Hal was healthier, less objectionable, a better life than Phil’s, and yet Hal was gone, who ought by all rights to have succeeded his invalid brother. It was true that the invalid brother, who had seen the end of two vigorous men, might also see out Phil. But that would make little difference in the position, unless indeed by modifying Elinor’s feelings and removing her reluctance to make her boy known. John shook his head as he went on with his thoughts, and decided within himself that this was the very reason why Phil Compton should survive and become Lord St. Serf, and make the imbroglio worse, if worse were possible. It had not required this to make it a hideous imbroglio, the most foolish and wanton that ever a woman made. He wondered at himself when he thought of it how he had ever consented to it, ever permitted such a state of affairs; and yet what could he have done? He had no right to interfere even in the way of advice, which he had given until everybody was sick of him and his counsels. He could not have betrayed his cousin. To tell her that she was conducting her affairs very foolishly, laying up untold troubles for herself, was what he had done freely, going to the very edge of a breach. And he had no right to do any more. He could not force her to adopt his method, neither could he betray her when she took her own way. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that John felt himself almost an accomplice, involved in this unwise folly, with a sort of responsibility for it, and almost guilt. It did not indeed change young Philip’s moral position in any way, or make the discovery that he had a father living more likely to shock and bewilder him that this discovery should come mingled with many extraneous wonders. And yet these facts did alter the circumstances. “You cannot hide the heir to a peerage.” Lady Mariamne was far, very far, from being a philosopher or a person of genius, and yet this which she had said was in reality quite unanswerable. Phil Compton might have been ignored for ever by his wife and child had he remained only the dis-Honourable Phil, a younger son and a nobody. But Phil Compton as Lord St. Serf could not be ignored. Elinor had been wise enough never to change her name, that is to say, she had been too proud to do so, though nobody knew of the existence of that prefix which was so inappropriate to her husband’s character. But now Mrs. Compton would no longer be her name; and Philip, the boy at the big northern grammar-school, would be Lord Lomond. An unlooked-for summons like this has sometimes the power of turning the heads of the heirs so suddenly ennobled, but it did anything but convey elation to John’s mind in the prospect of its effect upon his relations. Would she see reason now? Would she be brought to allow that something must be done, or would she remain obdurate to the end of the chapter? A great impatience with Elinor filled John’s mind. She was, as the reader knows, the only woman to John Tatham; but what does that matter? He did not approve of her any more on that account. He was even more conscious of the faults of which she was guilty. He was aware of her obstinacy, her determined adherence to her own way as no other man in the world was. Would she acknowledge now at last that she was wrong, and give in? I am obliged to confess that the giving in of Elinor was the last spectacle in heaven or earth which John Tatham could conceive.
He went over these circumstances as he drove through all of London that is to some people worth calling London, on that dark January night, passing from the light of the busy streets into the comparative darkness of those in which people live, without in the least remarking where he was going, except in his thoughts. He had not the least intention of accepting the invitation of Lady Mariamne, nor did his mind dwell upon her or the change that age had wrought in her. But yet the Compton family had gained an interest in John’s eyes which it did not possess even at the time when Elinor’s marriage first brought its name into his thoughts. Philip—young Philip—the boy, as John called him in his own mind, in fond identification—was as near John’s own child as anything ever could be in this world. He had many nephews and nieces belonging to him by a more authentic title, but none of these was in the least like Philip, whom none of all the kindred knew but himself, and who, so far as he was aware, had but one kinsman in the world, who was Uncle John. He had followed the development of the boy’s mind always with a reference to those facts of which Philip knew nothing, which would be so wonderful to him when the revelation came. To John that little world at Lakeside—where the ladies had made an artificial existence for themselves, which was at the same time so natural, so sweet, so full of all the humanities and charities—was something like what we might suppose this erring world to be to some archangel great enough to see how everything is, not great enough to give the impulse that would put it right. If the great celestial intelligences are allowed to know and mark out perverse human ways, how much impatience with us must mingle with their tenderness and pity! John Tatham had little perhaps that was heavenly about him, but he loved Elinor and her son, and was absolutely free of selfishness in respect to them. Never, he was aware, could either woman or child be more to him than they were now. Nay, they were everything to him, but on their own account, not his; he desired their welfare absolutely, and not his own through them. Elinor was capable at any moment of turning upon him, of saying, if not in words, yet in undeniable inference, what is it to you? and the boy, though he gladly referred to Uncle John when Uncle John was in the way, took him with perfect composure as a being apart from his life. They were everything to him, but he was nothing to them. His whole heart was set upon their peace, upon their comfort and well-being, but as much apart from himself as if he had not been.
Mr. Tatham was dining out that night, which was a good thing for him to distract his thoughts from this problem, which he could only torment himself about and could not solve; and there was an evening party at the same house—one of those quieter, less-frequented parties which are, people in London tell you, so much more agreeable than in the crowd of the season. It was a curious kind of coincidence that at this little assembly, which might have been thought not at all in her way, he met Lady Mariamne, accompanied by her daughter, again. It was not in her way, being a judge’s house, where frivolity, though it had a certain place, was not the first element. But then when there are few things to choose from, people must not be too particular, and those who cannot have society absolutely of their own choosing, are bound, as in other cases of necessity, to take what they can get. And then Dolly liked to hear people talking of things which she did not understand. When Lady Mariamne saw that John Tatham was there she gave a little shriek of satisfaction, and rushed at him as if they had been the dearest friends in the world. “So delighted to see you again,” she cried, giving everybody around the idea of the most intimate relationship. “It was the most wonderful good fortune that I got my Toto home in safety, poor darling; for you know, Mr. Tatham, you would not give him any tea, and Dolly, who is quite unnatural, pitched him into the carriage and simply sat upon him—sat upon him, Mr. Tatham! before I could interfere. Oh, you do not know half the trials a woman has to go through! And now please take me to have some coffee or something, and let us finish the conversation we were having when Dolly made me go away.”
John could not refuse his arm, nor his services in respect to the coffee, but he was mute on the subject on which his companion was bent. He tried to divert her attention by some questions on the subject of Dolly instead.
“Dolly! oh, yes, she’s a girl of the period, don’t you know—not what a girl of the period used to be in our day, Mr. Tatham, when those nasty newspaper people wrote us down. Look at her talking to those two men, and laying down the law. Now, we never laid down the law; we knew best about things in our sphere—dress, and the drawing-room, and what people were doing in society. But Dolly would tell you how to manage your next great case, Mr. Tatham, or she could give one of those doctor-men a wrinkle about cutting off a leg. Gracious, I should have fainted only to hear of such a thing! Tell me, are those doctor-men supposed to be in society?” Lady Mariamne cried, putting up her thin shoulder (which was far too like a specimen of anatomy) in the direction of a famous physician who was blandly smiling upon the instruction which Miss Dolly assuredly intended to convey.
“As much as lawyer-men are in society,” replied John.
“Oh, Mr. Tatham, such nonsense! Lawyers have always been in society. What are the Attorney General and Lord Chancellor and so forth? They are all lawyers; but I never heard of a doctor that was in the Cabinet, which makes all the difference. Here is a quiet corner, where nobody can disturb us. Sit down; it will be for all the world like sitting out a dance together: and tell me about Nell and her boy.”
“And what if I have nothing to tell?” said John, who did not feel at all like sitting out a dance; but, on the contrary, was much more upright and perpendicular than even a queen’s counsel of fifty has any need to be.
“Oh, sit down, please! I never could bear a man standing over me, as if he had swallowed a poker. Why did she go off and leave Phil? Where did she go to? I told you I went off on my own hook to that horrid place where they lived, and knocked up the old clergyman and the woman who wanted me to put on a shawl over one of the prettiest gowns I ever had. Fancy, the Vandal! But they knew nothing at all of her there. Where is Nell, Mr. Tatham? You don’t pretend not to know. And the boy? Why he must be about eighteen—and if St. Serf were to die—— Mr. Tatham, you know it is quite, quite intolerable, and not to be borne! I don’t know what steps Phil has taken. He has been awfully good—he has never said a word. To hear him you would think she was far too nice to be mixed up with a set of people like us. But now, you know, he must be got hold of—he must, he must! Why, he’d be Lomond if St. Serf were to die! and everybody would be crying out, ‘Where’s the heir?’ After Phil there’s the Bagley Comptons, and they would set up for being heirs presumptive, unless you can produce that boy.”
“But the boy is not mine that I should produce him,” said John.
“Oh, Mr. Tatham! when Nell is your relation, and always, always was advised by you. You may tell that to the Marines, or anybody that will believe it. You need not think you can take me in.”
“I hope not to take in anybody. If being advised by me means persistently declining to do what I suggest and recommend——”
“Oh, then, you are of the same opinion as I am!” said Lady Mariamne. “Bravo! now we shall manage something. If you had been like that years ago when I used to go to you, don’t you remember, to beg you to smooth things down—but you would never see it, till the smash came.”
“I wish,” said John, not without a little bitterness, “that I could persuade you how little influence I have. There are some women, I suppose, who take advice when it is given to them; but the women whom I have ever had anything to do with, I am sorry to say——”
“I’ll promise,” cried Lady Mariamne, putting her hands and rings together in an attitude of supplication, “to do what you tell me faithfully, if you’ll advise me where I’ll find the boy. Oh, let Nell alone, if you want to keep her to yourself—I sha’n’t spoil sport, Mr. Tatham, I promise you,” she cried, with her shrill laugh; “only tell me where I’ll find the boy. What is it you want, Dolly, coming after me like a policeman? Don’t you see I am busy? We are sitting out the dance, Mr. Tatham and I.”
Dolly did not join in her mother’s laugh nor unbend in the least. “As there is no dancing,” she said, “and everybody is going, I thought you would prefer to go too.”
“But we shall see you to-morrow, Mr. Tatham? Now, I cannot take any refusal. You must come, if it were only for Toto’s sake; and Dolly will go out, I hope, on one of her great works and will not come to disturb us, just when I have persuaded you to speak—for you were just going to open your mouth. Now you know you were! Five o’clock to-morrow, Mr. Tatham, whatever happens. Now remember! and you are to tell me everything.” She held up her finger to him, half threatening, half coaxing, and then, with a peal of laughter, yielded to Dolly, and was taken away.
“I did not know, Tatham,” said the Judge who was his host, “that you were on terms of such friendship with Lady Mariamne.”
“Nor did I,” said John Tatham, with a yawn.
“Queer thing this is about that old business, in which her brother was mixed up—haven’t you heard? one of those companies that came to smash somewhere about twenty years ago. The manager absconded, and there was something queer about the books. Well, the fellow, the manager, has been caught at last, and there will be a trial. It’s in your way—you will be offered a brief, no doubt, with refreshers every day, you lucky fellow. I have just as much trouble and no refreshers. What a fool a man is, Tatham, ever to change the Bar for the Bench! Don’t you do it, my dear fellow—take a man’s advice who knows.”
“At least I shall wait till I am asked,” said John.
“Oh, you will be asked sooner or later—but don’t do it—take example by those who have gone before you,” said the great functionary, shaking his learned head.
And the Judge’s wife had also a word to say. “Mr. Tatham,” she said, as he took his leave, “I know now what I have to do when I want to secure Lady Mariamne—I shall ask you.”
“Do you often want to secure Lady Mariamne?” said John.
“Oh, it is all very well to look as if you didn’t care! She is, perhaps, a little passée, but still a great many people think her charming. Isn’t there a family connection?” Lady Wigsby said, with a curiosity which she tried not to make too apparent, for she was acquainted with the ways of the profession, and knew that was the last thing likely to procure her the information she sought.
“It cannot be called a connection. There was a marriage—which turned out badly.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Tatham, if the question was indiscreet! I hear Lord St. Serf is worse again, and not likely to last long; and there is some strange story about a lost heir.”
“Good-night, Lady Wigsby,” John replied.
And he added, “Confound Lord St. Serf,” under his breath, as he went down-stairs.
But it was not Lord St. Serf, poor man, who had done him no harm, whom John wished to be confounded because at last, after many threatenings, he was about to be so ill-advised as to die. It was some one very different. It was the woman who for much more than twenty years had been the chief object of John Tatham’s thoughts.