CHAPTER XXXV.
HERBERT FITZGERALD IN LONDON.
On the following morning the whole household was up and dressed veryearly. Lady Fitzgerald--the poor lady made many futile attempts todrop her title, but hitherto without any shadow of success--LadyFitzgerald was down in the breakfast parlour at seven, as also wereAunt Letty, and Mary, and Emmeline. Herbert had begged his mothernot to allow herself to be disturbed, alleging that there was nocause, seeing that they all so soon would meet in London; but shewas determined that she would superintend his last meal at CastleRichmond. The servants brought in the trays with melancholy silence,and now that the absolute moment of parting had come the girls couldnot speak lest the tears should come and choke them. It was not thatthey were about to part with him; that parting would only be for amonth. But he was now about to part from all that ought to have beenhis own. He sat down at the table in his accustomed place, with aforced smile on his face, but without a word, and his sisters putbefore him his cup of tea, and the slice of ham that had been cut forhim, and his portion of bread. That he was making an effort they allsaw. He bowed his head down over the tea to sip it and took the knifein his hand, and then he looked up at them, for he knew that theireyes were on him; he looked up at them to show that he could stillendure it. But, alas! he could not endure it. The struggle was toomuch for him; he pushed his plate violently from him into the middleof the table, and dropping his head upon his hands he burst forthinto audible lamentations.
Oh, my friends! be not hard on him in that he was thus weeping like awoman. It was not for his lost wealth that he was wailing, nor evenfor the name or splendour that could be no longer his; nor was itfor his father's memory, though he had truly loved his father; norfor his mother's sorrow, or the tragedy of her life's history. Fornone of these things were his tears flowing and his sobs coming soviolently that it nearly choked him to repress them. Nor could hehimself have said why he was weeping.
It was the hundred small things from which he was parting for everthat thus disturbed him. The chair on which he sat, the carpet onthe floor, the table on which he leaned, the dull old picture of hisgreat-grandfather over the fireplace,--they were all his old familiarfriends, they were all part of Castle Richmond,--of that CastleRichmond which he might never be allowed to see again.
His mother and sisters came to him, hanging over him, and they joinedtheir tears together. "Do not tell her that I was like this," said heat last.
"She will love you the better for it if she has a true woman's heartwithin her breast," said his mother.
"As true a heart as ever breathed," said Emmeline through her sobs.
And then they pressed him to eat, but it was in vain. He knew thatthe food would choke him if he attempted it. So he gulped down thecup of tea, and with one kiss to his mother he rushed from them,refusing Aunt Letty's proffered embrace, passing through the line ofservants without another word to one of them, and burying himselfin the post-chaise which was to carry him the first stage on hismelancholy journey.
It was a melancholy journey all through. From the time that heleft the door at Castle Richmond that was no longer his own, tillhe reached the Euston Station in London, he spoke no word to anyone more than was absolutely necessary for the purposes of histravelling. Nothing could be more sad than the prospect of hisresidence in London. Not that he was without friends there, for hebelonged to a fashionable club to which he could still adhere if itso pleased him, and had all his old Oxford comrades to fall back uponif that were of any service to him. But how is a man to walk into hisclub who yesterday was known as his father's eldest son and the heirto a baronetcy and twelve thousand a year, and who to-day is knownas nobody's son and the heir to nothing? Men would feel so muchfor him and pity him so deeply! That was the worst feature of hispresent position. He could hardly dare to show himself more than wasabsolutely necessary till the newness of his tragedy was worn off.
Mr. Prendergast had taken lodgings for him, in which he was to remaintill he could settle himself in the same house with his mother. Andthis house, in which they were all to live, had also been taken,--upin that cheerful locality near Harrow-on-the-Hill, called St. John'sWood Road, the cab fares to which from any central part of London areso very ruinous. But that house was not yet ready, and so he wentinto lodgings in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Mr. Prendergast had chosenthis locality because it was near the chambers of that great Chancerybarrister, Mr. Die, under whose beneficent wing Herbert Fitzgeraldwas destined to learn all the mysteries of the Chancery bar. Thesanctuary of Mr. Die's wig was in Stone Buildings, immediately closeto that milky way of vice-chancellors, whose separate courts clusterabout the old chapel of Lincoln's Inn; and here was Herbert to sit,studious, for the next three years,--to sit there instead of at thevarious relief committees in the vicinity of Kanturk. And why couldhe not be as happy at the one as at the other? Would not Mr. Die beas amusing as Mr. Townsend; and the arguments of Vice-ChancellorStuart's court quite as instructive as those heard in the committeeroom at Gortnaclough?
On the morning of his arrival in London he drove to his lodgings, andfound a note there from Mr. Prendergast asking him to dinner on thatday, and promising to take him to Mr. Die on the following morning.Mr. Prendergast kept a bachelor's house in Bloomsbury Square, notvery far from Lincoln's Inn--just across Holborn, as all Londonersknow; and there he would expect Herbert at seven o'clock. "I willnot ask any one to meet you," he said, "because you will be tiredafter your journey, and perhaps more inclined to talk to me than tostrangers."
Mr. Prendergast was one of those old-fashioned people who think thata spacious substantial house in Bloomsbury Square, at a rent of ahundred and twenty pounds a year, is better worth having than anarrow, lath and plaster, ill-built tenement at nearly double theprice out westward of the Parks. A quite new man is necessarilyafraid of such a locality as Bloomsbury Square, for he has no chanceof getting any one into his house if he do not live westward. Whowould dine with Mr. Jones in Woburn Terrace, unless he had knownMr. Jones all his days, or unless Jones were known as a top sawyerin some walk of life? But Mr. Prendergast was well enough knownto his old friends to be allowed to live where he pleased, and hewas not very anxious to add to their number by any new fashionableallurements.
Herbert sent over to Bloomsbury Square to say that he would be thereat seven o'clock, and then sat himself down in his new lodgings. Itwas but a dingy abode, consisting of a narrow sitting-room lookingout into the big square from over a covered archway, and a narrowerbedroom looking backwards into a dull, dirty-looking, crooked street.Nothing, he thought, could be more melancholy than such a home. Butthen what did it signify? His days would be passed in Mr. Die'schambers, and his evenings would be spent over his law books withclosed windows and copious burnings of the midnight oil. For Herberthad wisely resolved that hard work, and hard work alone, couldmitigate the misery of his present position.
But he had no work for the present day. He could not at once unpackhis portmanteau and begin his law studies on the moment. It was aboutnoon when he had completed the former preparation, and eaten suchbreakfast as his new London landlady had gotten for him. And thebreakfast had not of itself been bad, for Mrs. Whereas had been adaughter of Themis all her life, waiting upon scions of the law sincefirst she had been able to run for a penn'orth of milk. She had beenlaundress on a stairs for ten years, having married a law stationer'sapprentice, and now she owned the dingy house over the covered way,and let her own lodgings with her own furniture; nor was she oftenwithout friends who would recommend her zeal and honesty, and makeexcuse for the imperiousness of her ways and the too great fluency ofher by no means servile tongue.
"Oh, Mrs.--," said Herbert. "I beg your pardon, but might I ask yourname?"
"No offence, sir; none in life. My name's Whereas. Martha Whereas,and 'as been now for five-and-twenty year. There be'ant many of thegen'lemen about the courts here as don't know some'at of me. And Iknew some'at of them too, before they carried their wigs so grandly.My husband, that's Whe
reas,--you'll all'ays find him at the littlestationer's shop outside the gate in Carey Street. You'll know himsome of these days, I'll go bail, if you're going to Mr. Die; anywaysyou'll know his handwrite. Tea to your liking, sir? I all'ays getscream for gentlemen, sir, unless they tells me not. Milk a 'alfpenny,sir; cream tuppence; three 'alfpence difference; hain't it, sir? Sonow you can do as you pleases, and if you like bacon and heggs toyour breakfastesses you've only to say the words. But then the heggshain't heggs, that's the truth; and they hain't chickens, but some'atbetwixt the two."
And so she went on during the whole time that he was eating, movingabout from place to place, and putting back into the places whichshe had chosen for them anything which he had chanced to move; nowdusting a bit of furniture with her apron, and then leaning on theback of a chair while she asked him some question as to his habitsand future mode of living. She also wore a bonnet, apparently asa customary part of her house costume, and Herbert could not helpthinking that she looked very like his Aunt Letty.
But when she had gone and taken the breakfast things with her, thenbegan the tedium of the day. It seemed to him as though he had nomeans of commencing his life in London until he had been with Mr.Prendergast or Mr. Die. And so new did it all feel to him, so strangeand wonderful, that he hardly dared to go out of the house by himselfand wander about the premises of the Inn. He was not absolutely astranger in London, for he had been elected at a club before he hadleft Oxford, and had been up in town twice, staying on each occasionsome few weeks. Had he therefore been asked about the metropolissome four months since at Castle Richmond, he would have professedthat he knew it well. Starting from Pall Mall he could have gone toany of the central theatres, or to the Parks, or to the houses ofParliament, or to the picture galleries in June. But now in thatdingy big square he felt himself to be absolutely a stranger; andwhen he did venture out he watched the corners, in order that hemight find his way back without asking questions.
And then he roamed round the squares and about the little courts, andfound out where were Stone Buildings,--so called because they areso dull and dead and stony-hearted: and as his courage increased hemade his way into one of the courts, and stood up for a while on anuncomfortable narrow step, so that he might watch the proceedings asthey went on, and it all seemed to him to be dull and deadly. Therewas no life and amusement such as he had seen at the Assize Court incounty Cork, when he was sworn in as one of the Grand Jury. Therethe gentlemen in wigs--for on the Munster circuit they do wear wigs,or at any rate did then--laughed and winked and talked togetherjoyously; and when a Roman Catholic fisherman from Berehaven wasput into the dock for destroying the boat and nets of a Protestantfisherman from Dingle in county Kerry, who had chanced to come thatway, "not fishing at all, at all, yer honour, but just souping," asthe Papist prisoner averred with great emphasis, the gentlemen ofthe robe had gone to the fight with all the animation and courageof Matadors and Picadors in a bull-ring. It was delightful to seethe way in which Roman Catholic skill combated Protestant fury,with a substratum below of Irish fun which showed to everybody thatit was not all quite in earnest;--that the great O'Fagan and thegreat Fitzberesford could sit down together afterwards with all thepleasure in life over their modicum of claret in the barristers' roomat the Imperial hotel. And then the judge had added to the life ofthe meeting, helping to bamboozle and make miserable a wretch of awitness who had been caught in the act of seeing the boat smashedwith a fragment of rock, and was now, in consequence, being impaledalive by his lordship's assistance.
"What do you say your name is?" demanded his lordship, angrily.
"Rowland Houghton," said the miserable stray Saxon tourist who had sounfortunately strayed that way on the occasion.
"What?" repeated the judge, whose ears were sharper to such sounds asO'Shaughnessy, Macgillycuddy, and O'Callaghan.
"Rowland Houghton," said the offender, in his distress; quicker,louder, and perhaps not more distinctly than before.
"What does the man say?" said the judge, turning his head downtowards a satellite who sat on a bench beneath his cushion.
The gentleman appealed to pronounced the name for the judge's hearingwith a full rolling Irish brogue, that gave great delight through allthe court; "R-rowland Hough-h-ton, me lor-r-d."
Whereupon his lordship threw up his hands in dismay. "Oulan Outan!"said he. "Oulan Outan! I never heard such a name in my life!" Andthen, having thoroughly impaled the wicked witness, and addedmaterially to the amusement of the day, the judge wrote down thename in his book; and there it is to this day, no doubt, Oulan Outan.And when one thinks of it, it was monstrous that an English witnessshould go into an Irish law court with such a name as RowlandHoughton.
But here, in the dark dingy court to which Herbert had penetratedin Lincoln's Inn, there was no such life as this. Here, whateverskill there might be, was of a dark subterranean nature, quiteunintelligible to any minds but those of experts; and as for fury orfun, there was no spark either of one or of the other. The judge satback in his seat, a tall, handsome, speechless man, not asleep, forhis eye from time to time moved slowly from the dingy barrister whowas on his legs to another dingy barrister who was sitting with hishands in his pockets, and with his eyes fixed upon the ceiling. Thegentleman who was in the act of pleading had a huge open paper inhis hand, from which he droned forth certain legal quiddities of thedullest and most uninteresting nature. He was in earnest, for therewas a perpetual energy in his drone, as a droning bee might drone whowas known to drone louder than other drones. But it was a continuousenergy supported by perseverance, and not by impulse; and seemed tocome of a fixed determination to continue the reading of that papertill all the world should be asleep. A great part of the world aroundwas asleep; but the judge's eye was still open, and one might saythat the barrister was resolved to go on till that eye should havebecome closed in token of his success.
Herbert remained there for an hour, thinking that he might learnsomething that would be serviceable to him in his coming legalcareer; but at the end of the hour the same thing was going on,--thejudge's eye was still open, and the lawyer's drone was stillsounding; and so he came away, having found himself absolutely dozingin the uncomfortable position in which he was standing.
At last the day wore away, and at seven o'clock he found himself inMr. Prendergast's hall in Bloomsbury Square; and his hat and umbrellawere taken away from him by an old servant looking very much like Mr.Prendergast himself;--having about him the same look of the stiffnessof years, and the same look also of excellent preservation and care.
"Mr. Prendergast is in the library, sir, if you please," said the oldservant; and so saying he ushered Herbert into the back down-stairsroom. It was a spacious, lofty apartment, well fitted up for alibrary, and furnished for that purpose with exceeding care;--such aroom as one does not find in the flashy new houses in the west, wherethe dining-room and drawing-room occupy all of the house that isvisible. But then, how few of those who live in flashy new houses inthe west require to have libraries in London!
As he entered the room Mr. Prendergast came forward to meet him,and seemed heartily glad to see him. There was a cordiality abouthim which Herbert had never recognized at Castle Richmond, and anappearance of enjoyment which had seemed to be almost foreign to thelawyer's nature. Herbert perhaps had not calculated, as he shouldhave done, that Mr. Prendergast's mission in Ireland had not admittedof much enjoyment. Mr. Prendergast had gone there to do a job ofwork, and that he had done, very thoroughly; but he certainly had notenjoyed himself.
There was time for only few words before the old man again enteredthe room, announcing dinner; and those few words had no referencewhatever to the Castle Richmond sorrow. He had spoken of Herbert'slodging, and of his journey, and a word or two of Mr. Die, and thenthey went in to dinner. And at dinner too the conversation whollyturned upon indifferent matters, upon reform at Oxford, the stateof parties, and of the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the Irish LowChurch clergymen, on all of which subjects Herbert found tha
t Mr.Prendergast had a tolerably strong opinion of his own. The dinner wasvery good, though by no means showy,--as might have been expected ina house in Bloomsbury Square--and the wine excellent, as might havebeen expected in any house inhabited by Mr. Prendergast.
And then, when the dinner was over, and the old servant had slowlyremoved his last tray, when they had each got into an arm-chair,and were seated at properly comfortable distances from the fire, Mr.Prendergast began to talk freely; not that he at once plunged intothe middle of the old history, or began with lugubrious force torecapitulate the horrors that were now partly over; but gradually heveered round to those points as to which he thought it good that heshould speak before setting Herbert at work on his new London life.
"You drink claret, I suppose?" said Mr. Prendergast, as he adjusted aportion of the table for their evening symposium.
"Oh yes," said Herbert, not caring very much at that moment what thewine was.
"You'll find that pretty good; a good deal better than what you'llget in most houses in London nowadays. But you know a man alwayslikes his own wine, and especially an old man."
Herbert said something about it being very good, but did not givethat attention to the matter which Mr. Prendergast thought thatit deserved. Indeed, he was thinking more about Mr. Die and StoneBuildings than about the wine.
"And how do you find my old friend Mrs. Whereas?" asked the lawyer.
"She seems to be a very attentive sort of woman."
"Yes; rather too much so sometimes. People do say that she neverknows how to hold her tongue. But she won't rob you, nor yet poisonyou; and in these days that is saying a very great deal for a womanin London." And then there was a pause, as Mr. Prendergast sipped hiswine with slow complacency. "And we are to go to Mr. Die to-morrow, Isuppose?" he said, beginning again. To which Herbert replied that hewould be ready at any time in the morning that might be suitable.
"The sooner you get into harness the better. It is not only that youhave much to learn, but you have much to forget also."
"Yes," said Herbert, "I have much to forget indeed; more than I canforget, I'm afraid, Mr. Prendergast."
"There is, I fancy, no sorrow which a man cannot forget; that is,as far as the memory of it is likely to be painful to him. Youwill not absolutely cease to remember Castle Richmond and all itscircumstances; you will still think of the place and all the peoplewhom you knew there; but you will learn to do so without the painwhich of course you now suffer. That is what I mean by forgetting."
"Oh, I don't complain, sir."
"No, I know you don't; and that is the reason why I am so anxiousto see you happy. You have borne the whole matter so well that I amquite sure that you will be able to live happily in this new life.That is what I mean when I say that you will forget Castle Richmond."
Herbert bethought himself of Clara Desmond, and of the woman whom hehad seen in the cabin, and reflected that even at present he had noright to be unhappy.
"I suppose you have no thought of going back to Ireland?" said Mr.Prendergast.
"Oh, none in the least."
"On the whole I think you are right. No doubt a family connection isa great assistance to a barrister, and there would be reasons whichwould make attorneys in Ireland throw business into your hands at anearly period of your life. Your history would give you an _eclat_there, if you know what I mean."
"Oh, yes, perfectly; but I don't want that."
"No. It is a kind of assistance which in my opinion a man should notdesire. In the first place, it does not last. A man so bouyed up isapt to trust to such support, instead of his own steady exertions;and the firmest of friends won't stick to a lawyer long if he can getbetter law for his money elsewhere."
"There should be no friendship in such matters, I think."
"Well, I won't say that. But the friendship should come of theservice, not the service of the friendship. Good, hard, steady, andenduring work,--work that does not demand immediate acknowledgmentand reward, but that can afford to look forward for its results,--itis that, and that only which in my opinion will insure to a manpermanent success."
"It is hard though for a poor man to work so many years without anincome," said Herbert, thinking of Lady Clara Desmond.
"Not hard if you get the price of your work at last. But you canhave your choice. A moderate fixed income can now be had by anybarrister early in life,--by any barrister of fair parts and soundacquirements. There are more barristers now filling salaried placesthan practising in the courts."
"But those places are given by favour."
"No; not so generally,--or if by favour, by that sort of favour whichis as likely to come to you as to another. Such places are not givento incompetent young men because their fathers and mothers ask forthem. But won't you fill your glass?"
"I am doing very well, thank you."
"You'll do better if you'll fill your glass, and let me have thebottle back. But you are thinking of the good old historical dayswhen you talk of barristers having to wait for their incomes.There has been a great change in that respect,--for the better, asyou of course will think. Now-a-days a man is taken away from hisboat-racing and his skittle-ground to be made a judge. A little lawand a great fund of physical strength--that is the extent of thedemand." And Mr. Prendergast plainly showed by the tone of his voicethat he did not admire the wisdom of this new policy of which hespoke.
"But I suppose a man must work five years before he can earnanything," said Herbert, still despondingly; for five years is a longtime to an expectant lover.
"Fifteen years of unpaid labour used not to be thought too great aprice to pay for ultimate success," said Mr. Prendergast, almostsighing at the degeneracy of the age. "But men in those days wereambitious and patient."
"And now they are ambitious and impatient," suggested Herbert.
"Covetous and impatient might perhaps be the truer epithets," saidMr. Prendergast with grim sarcasm.
It is sad for a man to feel, when he knows that he is fast going downthe hill of life, that the experience of old age is to be no longervalued nor its wisdom appreciated. The elderly man of this day thinksthat he has been robbed of his chance in life. When he was in hisfull physical vigour he was not old enough for mental success. He wasstill winning his spurs at forty. But at fifty--so does the worldchange--he learns that he is past his work. By some unconscious andunlucky leap he has passed from the unripeness of youth to the decayof age, without even knowing what it was to be in his prime. A manshould always seize his opportunity; but the changes of the times inwhich he has lived have never allowed him to have one. There has beenno period of flood in his tide which might lead him on to fortune.While he has been waiting patiently for high water the ebb has comeupon him. Mr. Prendergast himself had been a successful man, and hisregrets, therefore, were philosophical rather than practical. As forHerbert, he did not look upon the question at all in the same lightas his elderly friend, and on the whole was rather exhilarated bythe tone of Mr. Prendergast's sarcasm. Perhaps Mr. Prendergast hadintended that such should be its effect.
The long evening passed away cosily enough, leaving on Herbert's mindan impression that in choosing to be a barrister he had certainlychosen the noblest walk of life in which a man could earn his bread.Mr. Prendergast did not promise him either fame or fortune, nor didhe speak by any means in high enthusiastic language; he said much ofthe necessity of long hours, of tedious work, of Amaryllis left byherself in the shade, and of Neaera's locks unheeded; but neverthelesshe spoke in a manner to arouse the ambition and satisfy the longingsof the young man who listened to him. There were much wisdom in whathe did, and much benevolence also.
And then at about eleven o'clock, Herbert having sat out the secondbottle of claret, betook himself to his bed at the lodgings over thecovered way.