XII. The Fellow of Delicacy
Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of goodfortune on the Doctor's daughter, resolved to make her happiness knownto her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some mentaldebating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be aswell to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrangeat their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or twobefore Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between itand Hilary.
As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearlysaw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldlygrounds--the only grounds ever worth taking into account--it was aplain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for theplaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel forthe defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn toconsider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainercase could be.
Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formalproposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, toRanelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to presenthimself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind.
Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the Temple,while the bloom of the Long Vacation's infancy was still upon it.Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he was yeton Saint Dunstan's side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full-blown wayalong the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker people, might haveseen how safe and strong he was.
His way taking him past Tellson's, and he both banking at Tellson's andknowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr.Stryver's mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightnessof the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattlein its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancientcashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr.Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular ironbars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everythingunder the clouds were a sum.
”Halloa!” said Mr. Stryver. ”How do you do? I hope you are well!”
It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for anyplace, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson's, that old clerksin distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though hesqueezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently readingthe paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as ifthe Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat.
The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he wouldrecommend under the circumstances, ”How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How doyou do, sir?” and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his mannerof shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson's who shookhands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in aself-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co.
”Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?” asked Mr. Lorry, in hisbusiness character.
”Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; Ihave come for a private word.”
”Oh indeed!” said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayedto the House afar off.
”I am going,” said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on thedesk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared tobe not half desk enough for him: ”I am going to make an offer of myselfin marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry.”
”Oh dear me!” cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at hisvisitor dubiously.
”Oh dear me, sir?” repeated Stryver, drawing back. ”Oh dear you, sir?What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?”
”My meaning,” answered the man of business, ”is, of course, friendly andappreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and--in short,my meaning is everything you could desire. But--really, you know, Mr.Stryver--” Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddestmanner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally,”you know there really is so much too much of you!”
”Well!” said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand,opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath, ”if I understand you,Mr. Lorry, I'll be hanged!”
Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards thatend, and bit the feather of a pen.
”D--n it all, sir!” said Stryver, staring at him, ”am I not eligible?”
”Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you're eligible!” said Mr. Lorry. ”If you sayeligible, you are eligible.”
”Am I not prosperous?” asked Stryver.
”Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous,” said Mr. Lorry.
”And advancing?”
”If you come to advancing you know,” said Mr. Lorry, delighted to beable to make another admission, ”nobody can doubt that.”
”Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?” demanded Stryver,perceptibly crestfallen.
”Well! I--Were you going there now?” asked Mr. Lorry.
”Straight!” said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk.
”Then I think I wouldn't, if I was you.”
”Why?” said Stryver. ”Now, I'll put you in a corner,” forensicallyshaking a forefinger at him. ”You are a man of business and bound tohave a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn't you go?”
”Because,” said Mr. Lorry, ”I wouldn't go on such an object withouthaving some cause to believe that I should succeed.”
”D--n _me_!” cried Stryver, ”but this beats everything.”
Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angryStryver.
”Here's a man of business--a man of years--a man of experience--_in_a Bank,” said Stryver; ”and having summed up three leading reasons forcomplete success, he says there's no reason at all! Says it with hishead on!” Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would havebeen infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off.
”When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; andwhen I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak ofcauses and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The younglady, my good sir,” said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, ”theyoung lady. The young lady goes before all.”
”Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver, squaring hiselbows, ”that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady atpresent in question is a mincing Fool?”
”Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver,” said Mr. Lorry,reddening, ”that I will hear no disrespectful word of that young ladyfrom any lips; and that if I knew any man--which I hope I do not--whosetaste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he couldnot restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady atthis desk, not even Tellson's should prevent my giving him a piece of mymind.”
The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver'sblood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to be angry;Mr. Lorry's veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, were inno better state now it was his turn.
”That is what I mean to tell you, sir,” said Mr. Lorry. ”Pray let therebe no mistake about it.”
Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stoodhitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him thetoothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying:
”This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me notto go up to Soho and offer myself--_my_self, Stryver of the King's Benchbar?”
”Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?”
”Yes, I do.”
”Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly.”
”And all I can say of it is,” laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, ”thatthis--ha, ha!--beats everything past, present, and to come.”
”Now understand me,” pursued Mr. Lorry. ”As a man of business, I amnot justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a man ofbusiness, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has carriedMiss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette andof her father too, and who has a great affection for them both, I havespoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think Imay not be right?”
”Not I!” said Stryver, whistling. ”I can't undertake to find thirdparties in common sense; I can only find it for myself. I suppose sensein certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It'snew to me, but you are right, I dare say.”
”What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myself--Andunderstand me, sir,” said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, ”Iwill not--not even at Tellson's--have it characterised for me by anygentleman breathing.”
”There! I beg your pardon!” said Stryver.
”Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say:--it might bepainful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful to DoctorManette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might be verypainful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with you. Youknow the terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to stand withthe family. If you please, committing you in no way, representing youin no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by the exercise of alittle new observation and judgment expressly brought to bear uponit. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test itssoundness for yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satisfiedwith it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what isbest spared. What do you say?”
”How long would you keep me in town?”
”Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in theevening, and come to your chambers afterwards.”
”Then I say yes,” said Stryver: ”I won't go up there now, I am not sohot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I shall expect you to lookin to-night. Good morning.”
Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such aconcussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against itbowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strengthof the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons werealways seen by the public in the act of bowing, and were popularlybelieved, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing inthe empty office until they bowed another customer in.
The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not havegone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground thanmoral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had toswallow, he got it down. ”And now,” said Mr. Stryver, shaking hisforensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was down, ”my wayout of this, is, to put you all in the wrong.”
It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he foundgreat relief. ”You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady,” said Mr.Stryver; ”I'll do that for you.”
Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o'clock,Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for thepurpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject ofthe morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and wasaltogether in an absent and preoccupied state.
”Well!” said that good-natured emissary, after a full half-hour ofbootless attempts to bring him round to the question. ”I have been toSoho.”
”To Soho?” repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. ”Oh, to be sure! What am Ithinking of!”
”And I have no doubt,” said Mr. Lorry, ”that I was right in theconversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate myadvice.”
”I assure you,” returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, ”that Iam sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father'saccount. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family; letus say no more about it.”
”I don't understand you,” said Mr. Lorry.
”I dare say not,” rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing andfinal way; ”no matter, no matter.”
”But it does matter,” Mr. Lorry urged.
”No it doesn't; I assure you it doesn't. Having supposed that there wassense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there isnot a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm isdone. Young women have committed similar follies often before, and haverepented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfishaspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have beena bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I amglad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thingfor me in a worldly point of view--it is hardly necessary to say I couldhave gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have notproposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no meanscertain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself tothat extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities andgiddinesses of empty-headed girls; you must not expect to do it, or youwill always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you,I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account.And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you,and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do;you were right, it never would have done.”
Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr.Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance ofshowering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head.”Make the best of it, my dear sir,” said Stryver; ”say no more about it;thank you again for allowing me to sound you; good night!”
Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryverwas lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling.