Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family

Part 3, Chapter IV.
An Important Brief

Luke Ross sat on the edge of his table for a few minutes gazing into vacancy, and at times it was with a look akin to triumph that he pondered upon the fall of the man who had been his one enemy – him who had seemed to turn the whole current of his life.

But as the old man watched his countenance, a sadder, softer mood came over it, and he said, as he turned once more to meet his father’s eyes —

“Poor girl! It is terrible, indeed.”

“Very, very terrible, my boy; and they say poor Mrs Mallow is dying. Surely our poor parson has much to bear – much, indeed, to bear.”

There was a few minutes’ silence, and then Luke turned to his father, and his lips moved to speak, but no words came for a time. At last he said —

“Do you know where Mrs Cyril Mallow is staying, father?”

“Yes, my boy. Portlock told me, and asked me to go and see them if I came up.”

“Go, then, father, and if you can help him, do so. I cannot go, but you – you could. Help Mr Portlock if you can, and come to me for what you require. Poor girl,” he added, to himself, “what a fate it is. Poor girl – poor girl!”

“I – I didn’t think you would take on about it quite so much, my boy; but I thought I ought to tell you about it all.”

“Yes, yes, father; it was quite right. I am glad you came up.”

“It’s – it’s all about money, my boy, that Cyril Mallow has got into trouble.”

“Yes, father, I suppose so,” said Luke, whose thoughts were evidently in another direction.

“I liked Sage Portlock – I always did like her, my boy; and as you are getting on so well, and don’t want the money I’ve scraped up for you, I wouldn’t mind helping her in her trouble.”

“It’s very good of you, father,” said the young man, smiling sadly.

“But it would be like pouring money into a well if her husband gets hold of it.”

“If it is a case such as you describe, father,” said Luke, thoughtfully, “I doubt whether money would be of much good.”

The old man looked very anxiously at his son, even with a kind of awe, as if he were afraid of him.

“I don’t like to ask him,” he muttered, “I don’t like to ask him;” and he took out his old faded handkerchief and began nervously wiping his hands upon it, till Luke, in his abstraction, turned his eyes upon him with a vacant look that gradually became intense, as his father grew more nervous and troubled of mien.

As the old man shrank and avoided the gaze which drew him back, as it were, to look appealingly in the stern, searching eyes of his son, Luke spoke to him with the sharpness of one trying to master an evading witness, so that the old man started as the young barrister exclaimed —

“What is it, father? You are keeping something back.”

“I – I hardly liked to say it, my boy. Don’t be angry with me.”

“Angry with you! What nonsense, father. But speak out. What is it? You want to say something to me.”

“Ye-es, my boy, I do. But give me your hand, and don’t speak so sharp and angrily to me. I’m – I’m getting old and nervous now, and a very little seems to upset me. I don’t even like to walk amongst the tan-pits now, where I used to run without being a bit afraid. Thank you, my boy, thank you,” he continued, nervously, as Luke caught and held his hand.

“It’s a way I have of speaking, father,” he said. “Angry? With you? Why my dear father, how could I be?”

“I – I don’t know, my boy; but you promise me that you won’t be angry?”

“Not a bit, father,” cried Luke, with assumed cheeriness. “There, dad, I promise you I won’t even be cross if you have been and married a young wife.”

“Me? Married a young wife? Ha! ha! ha! That’s very funny of you, my boy, very funny; but I haven’t done that, Luke; I haven’t done that. I married at eight-and-thirty, Luke, and once was enough. But you won’t be angry?”

“No, no, not a bit. Now come, confess. What is it? I hope you haven’t been investing in some shaky company.”

“Oh no, my boy, not I. My bit of money has all been put in land, every hundred I could spare out of the business. But you said, my boy, you – you wanted to help Mrs Cyril.”

Luke’s countenance changed again, but he nodded, and said hastily —

“Yes, father, of course. What can I do?”

“She – she said – ”

“Who? Mrs Cyril Mallow?”

“Yes, my boy,” said the old man, clinging to him. “Mrs Cyril, she – she asked me to come and see you.”

“Sage – Mrs Mallow did?” cried Luke, sharply.

“You promised me, my boy, that you would not be cross with me,” quavered the old man.

“No, no, father, I am not cross, but you startled me by your words. Did she tell you to come to me?”

“Yes, my boy, she – she’s sadly altered, Luke, and so sweet and so humble. She wanted to go down on her knees to me, my boy, but I wouldn’t let her.”

“Tell me all, father,” cried Luke. “Why are you keeping this back?”

“I – I daren’t tell you, my boy, at first; I dare not, indeed.”

“Tell me now, quickly.”

“She told me to come to you, my boy; she said she had heard what a great counsel you had become.”

Luke made an impatient movement.

“And she said that she had no one to appeal to in her sore distress.”

“I am not her friend,” said Luke, coldly.

“But you will be, my boy, when I tell you that, sobbing bitterly, she asked me to come to you, and if you had one spark of feeling for her left, to try and save her husband.”

“She bade you come and say this, father?” cried Luke, with the beads of perspiration standing upon his brow.

“Yes, my son, for the sake of old times when you were girl and boy together.”

Luke drew his hand away, and leaping from the edge of the table where he had been sitting, began to pace the room once more, while the old man sat rubbing his hands up and down his knees and gazing at him aghast.

Just then there was a sharp knock, and the boy entered.

“Engaged,” said Luke, angrily. “I can see no one;” and the boy disappeared as if in alarm.

“I’m very, very sorry, my boy,” faltered old Michael; “but – ”

Luke stopped before him in his hurried walk.

“Tell me again, father. Did Sage Mallow say those words?”

“Yes, my boy, almost word for word. She said she was in despair, that money could not help her, she wanted some one to save her husband.”

“Not to help her,” said Luke, bitterly, “but to save that man.”

“Yes, my boy. It’s very shocking, for I’m afraid he’s a dreadful scamp; but you know what women are.”

“Yes,” said Luke, with a laugh that startled his father, “I know what women are.”

“The bigger scamp a man is the more they hold by him. Perhaps it’s quite right, but it’s very shocking.”

“Help her to save him,” muttered Luke. “I can’t do it. I can – not do it.”

The old man had now rolled his handkerchief up into a ball, and was pressing it and kneading it between his hands, as he gazed helplessly in his son’s face.

“I think if she had seen you, and asked you herself, you would have done it, Luke, my boy. She said that she believed you could save her husband, and that if he was condemned – ”

“I tell you if he were ten times condemned,” cried Luke, “I could not do it, father. It is madness to ask me, of all men, to fight on his behalf.”

“He – he did behave very badly to you, my boy. He’s a bad one, I’m afraid; but he is that poor creatures husband.”

“The only enemy I ever had, and you ask me to save him. It is not in human nature to do it. Why do you come and ask me such a thing?”

“You said you would not be angry with me, Luke; and she begged of me so hard, for the sake of the very old times, she said; and then she broke down, and said that if anything happened to her husband she should die.”

Luke walked to the window, and stood gazing out at the narrow lane below, with a great struggle going on in his breast. In his heart there was still left so tender an affection for Sage that he was ready to save her. For her sake he had given no thought to another of her sex, eschewing society, and devoting himself constantly to his profession; and now that his father had raised up before him, as it were, the face of the suffering wife, piteous and appealing, as she sent to him her message, asking, for the sake of old days, that he would come to her help, he felt that he must go – must devote his powers to saving the man she loved.

But it was impossible. He could not. He would not. He was but a man, he told himself, and this would be the work of an angel. No; he hated Cyril Mallow intensely, as the man who had robbed him of all he held dear, at the same time that he despised him in his honourable heart as a contemptible scoundrel who would sacrifice any one to gain his own ends.

Luke was not surprised to hear of Cyril being in fresh difficulties; he was ready, also, to believe that he was guilty, and he was asked to become this man’s advocate, to bring to bear his twelve years’ hard study and self-denial to try and save him from some richly-merited punishment. It was too much.

As he stood there, gazing out of the window, he seemed to see Cyril’s mocking, handsome, triumphant face, as he made him also his slave – one of those whose duty it was to try and drag him from the slough as soon as ever he thought proper to step in – one of those who were to lie down, that he might plant his foot upon the bended neck, step out into safety, and leave the helper in the mire.

On the other hand, strive to exclude it as he would, there was Sage’s appealing face, not the sweet girlish countenance he knew, but a face chastened by suffering, full of trust in him as in one who could and would help her in this supreme time of her trouble.

He fought against it, but in vain. He told himself that he should be mad to take up such a cause; that men would sneer and say evil things of him – that it was from no disinterested motives that he had done this thing; but there was ever the appealing face, the soft pleading eyes seeming to say to him, “I was weak and foolish, as well as cruel, in choosing as I did, but I humble myself now into the very dust, and ask you to forgive me and come to my help.”

Her very words seemed to say as much, and a strange thrill of triumph ran through him, as his eyes flashed, and for the moment he gloried in Cyril Mallow’s disgrace.

He put away the thoughts, though, as a shame unto him, and folding his arms, he tried to master himself, to get his mental balance once again, for it was terribly disturbed by the strange access of emotion that he felt.

No, he said, when he went down to Kilby Farm on that never-to-be-forgotten day, Sage Portlock’s life and his own, that had run on together for so long, had suddenly diverged, and they had been growing farther and farther apart ever since. He could not do this thing. It was impossible. It was a fresh act of cruelty on Sage’s part, and come what might he would not degrade himself by fighting Cyril Mallow’s cause, only afterwards, if he saved him, to reap the scoundrel’s contempt.

“And I should deserve it,” he said, half aloud.

“Yes, my boy,” quavered old Michael, eagerly, as he caught his son’s words and interpreted them to his own wishes. “God bless you, my boy, I knew you would, and she said she knew your good and generous heart, and that night by night she would teach her little ones to love and reverence your name, as they knelt down and prayed for God’s blessing on him who saved their father from disgrace.”

Luke Ross had opened his lips to stop his father’s enthusiastic words, when his excited fancy pictured before him the soft, sweet, careworn face of Sage, his old love, bending over her innocent children, and teaching them, as she held their little clasped hands, to join his name in their trusting prayers, and he was conquered.

He dared not turn, for his face was convulsed, but, sinking sidewise into a chair, he rested his head upon his arm, and, hearing his father approach, motioned with the hand that was free, for him to keep back.

But the old man did not heed the sign. He came forward and laid his trembling hand upon his son’s head.

“God bless you, my noble boy!” he said, fervently. “I knew you would.”

Neither spoke then for a time, and when Luke raised his face once more, it was very pale, as if he were exhausted by the fight.

“Why, father,” he said, cheerfully, “I’m behaving very badly to you. You must want something to eat.”

“No, my boy, I had something before I came in, for fear I should put you out. I don’t want anything else.”

“Till dinner-time, father,” said Luke, smiling. “You and I will dine together and enjoy ourselves.”

“But that poor woman, Luke?”

“We’ll settle all that, father, after dinner. You shall give me the address, and I will either get a fresh solicitor to take the matter up or consult with theirs.”

“But won’t you fight for them, my boy?”

“To be sure I will, father, and do my best. But you don’t understand these matters; an attorney has to draw up the brief.”

“Of course, yes, of course, my boy.”

“He brings it to me like this,” said Luke, taking up the one he had been studying, “with all the principal points of the case neatly written out, as a sort of history, giving me the particulars necessary, so that I can master them in a quick, concise way.”

“Yes, I see, my boy.”

“A good lawyer will, in consultation with his client, clear away all superfluous matter, leaving nothing but what is necessary for the counsel to know.”

“Yes, my sod, same as we first of all get rid of the refuse from a skin.”

“Exactly, father,” said Luke, smiling; “for clients often think matters of great moment that are worthless in a court of law.”

“To be sure, yes; people will talk too much, my boy, I know,” said the old man. “Why, Lukey, how I should like to hear you laying down the law in your wig and gown, my boy. How you must give it to ’em. I’ve read about you in the newspaper. Old Mr Mallow always brings one to me when he sees your name in, and shakes hands with me; and the tears come in the old fellow’s eyes as he says to me with a sigh, ‘Ah, Mr Ross, I wish I had had such a son.’”

“Why, father,” said Luke, smiling, and seeming himself once more, “it is a good job that you don’t live near me.”

“Don’t say that, my boy,” said the old man, looking quite aghast. “I – I was thinking how nice it would be if I could get nearer to you.”

“You’d spoil me with flattery,” said Luke.

“Nay, nay, my boy,” said the old man, seriously. “I never told you aught but the truth, and if I saw a fault I’d out with it directly.”

“You always were the best of fathers,” cried Luke, clasping the old man’s hand.

“And – and I thank God, my boy, for His blessings on my old age,” quavered the old man, with the weak tears in his eyes – “You were always the best of sons.”

They sat hand clasped in hand for a few moments, and then the old man said softly —

“God will bless you for your goodness to that poor woman, my boy. I know it has been a hard fight, but you have won. It is heaping coals of fire on your enemy’s head to do good to him, and maybe afterwards Cyril Mallow may repent. But, Luke, my boy,” he cried, cheerfully, “I’m a stupid old man, only you must humour me.”

“How, father?”

“Let me see you, just for a minute, in your wig and gown.”

“Nonsense, father!”

“But I should like it, my boy.” Luke rose to humour him, putting on wig and gown, and making the old man rub his hands with gratification as he gazed at the clear, intelligent face, with its deeply set, searching eyes.

“I’ll be bound to say you puzzle and frighten some of them, my boy,” said the old man. “And that’s a brief, is it?”

“Yes, father,” said Luke, smiling down on the old man, so full of childlike joy.

“Ah, yes,” said the old man, putting on a pair of broad-rimmed spectacles, and then reading – “Jones versus Lancaster.”

“Hah! yes, nicely written; better than this fifty gs. What does that mean?”

“Fifty guineas, father.”

“Indeed! And which was it, Jones or Lancaster, who stole the fifty guineas?”

“Neither, father. That is a common-pleas case of some importance, and the fifty guineas is my fee.”

“Your fee?” cried the old man. “You don’t mean to tell me that you get fifty-two pounds ten shillings, my boy, for your fee?”

“Yes, father, I do now,” said his son, smiling.

“Bless my soul! Why, Luke, you ought to grow rich.”

“Well, I suppose so, father; but I don’t much care. I should like to grow famous, and make myself a name.”

“And you will, my boy – you will,” cried the old man, as Luke slipped off his legal uniform, and replaced the wig and gown.

“Time proves all things, father.”

“And may I look? I won’t tell. Is this another brief?”

“Yes, father; I get plenty now.”

“But – but – you are not paid fifty guineas a-piece for them, my boy?”

“Yes, father, I take nothing below that fee now, and even then I get more than I can undertake.”

The old man threw himself back in his chair, and, after a struggle, drew out of his trousers pocket a reddish canvas bag, and untied the string around the neck.

“Why, what are you going to do, father?” said Luke.

“I’m going to pay my son the fee for the brief in Cyril Mallow’s case, and I’m as proud as proud to have it to do.”

“No, no,” cried Luke; “that must not be.”

“But I will, my boy, I will,” said the old man.

“No, no, father, I could not take it. You would hurt me if you pressed it.”

“But I’ve plenty of money, my boy.”

“So have I, father, and I could not do my duty in that defence if it was a matter of payment. If I take that brief,” he said, solemnly, “my payment is Sage Mallow’s thanks and her children’s prayers.”

The old man sat thinking for a few moments.

“You are right, my boy, you are right,” he said, replacing his bag. “And, of course, all I have is yours. But you will take the brief, Luke, my boy?”

“Yes, father, if I can I will.”

“Then you will,” cried the old man, joyously.

“Hah, let’s look at that. It’s a big one, Luke;” and he picked up, with his eyes sparkling with paternal pride, the brief brought in that morning by Mr Swift. “Hah! this has been altered,” said the old man. “It was twenty-five guineas, and that’s crossed out, and they’ve written fifty. I’ll bet twopence they offered you twenty-five first, and you wouldn’t take it.”

“Quite right, father,” said Luke, upon whom his father’s enjoyment came like so much sunshine in a dull life.

“Quite right, my boy, quite right. Let ’em know your value. You’re a man of business, Luke. Now, what’s this, my boy?”

“I really don’t know, father, only that it is for the prosecution in an important criminal case.”

“Criminal case, eh? And you haven’t studied it, then?”

“Not yet. I was going to finish Jones versus Lancaster first.”

“And this is re Esdaile, eh? What’s that? Esdaile, Esdaile, and Co. Why, that’s the name of the wine-merchants’ firm where Cyril Mallow was partner.”

“What?” roared Luke.

He snatched the brief from his father’s hand, tore it open, and as the leaves fluttered in his trembling hand he sank back in a chair, looking like one who had received some deadly blow.

Part 3, Chapter V.
A Hard Duty

Old Michael Ross was at his son’s side on the instant.

“Are you ill, my boy? Tell me what it is! You frighten me, Luke! – you frighten me!”

“I shall be better directly, father,” panted Luke, with a strange look in his face.

“But you are ill. Let me send for brandy.”

“No, no; I am better now! It is nothing. But tell me, father, I thought that man became partner with a Mr Walker?”

“Yes, my boy; I believe it was a very old firm, trading as Esdaile and Co. No other names appeared.”

“Good heavens!” muttered Luke, who kept glancing at the brief and turning over its leaves.

“Why, Luke!” exclaimed the old man, excitedly, as the state of the case flashed upon him. “You are not already engaged in this affair?”

“I am, father,” he said, with a strange pallor gathering in his face. “I have undertaken the prosecution of Cyril Mallow on behalf, it seems, of Mr Walker’s executors, and I shall have to try and get him convicted.”

Father and son sat gazing blankly in each other’s eyes, thinking of the future; and as Luke pondered on the position into which he had been thrown by fate, he saw that he should be, as it were, the hand of Nemesis standing ready to strike the heartless spendthrift down – that he was to be his own avenger of the wrongs that he had suffered from his enemy, and that no greater triumph could be his than that of pointing out, step by step, to the jury, the wrongdoings of this man, who would be standing in the felon’s dock quailing before him, looking in his eyes for mercy, but finding none.

He shuddered at the picture, for soon fresh faces appeared there – that of Sage, standing with supplicating hands and with her tearful, dilated eyes, seeming to ask him for pity for her children’s sake. Then he saw the white-haired rector gazing at him piteously, and the suffering invalided mother who worshipped her son. Both were there, asking him what they had done that he should seek to convict him they loved.

He looked up, and saw that his father was watching him with troubled face.

“This – this is very terrible, my boy,” he said. “I ought to have been sooner. But – but – must you take that side?”

“I have promised, father. I would give anything to have been under the same promise to you. But I cannot, I will not stand up and accuse Cyril Mallow. Strive how I would, I should fight my hardest to get a verdict against him, and I could not afterwards bear the thought. I will get off taking this brief. Stay here while I go out.”

He took his hat, and was driven to his solicitors, where he had an interview with Mr Swift, and proposed that that gentleman should retire the brief from his hands.

Mr Swift smiled, and shook his head.

“No, Mr Ross,” he said; “I have given you your price, and after a chat with my partner, he agreed that I had done right. The matter is settled, sir! I could not hear of such a thing.”

Luke was in no mood to argue with him then, but went back to his chambers, dined with his father, and then sat up half the night studying the brief, not with the idea of being for the prosecution, but so as to know how Cyril Mallow stood.

It was a long brief, and terrible in its array of charges against Sage’s husband. As he read on, Luke found that the executors of Cyril’s partner, the late Mr Walker, were determined upon punishing him who had wrought his ruin. The wine business had been a good and very lucrative one until Mr Walker had been tempted into taking a partner, whose capital had not been needed, the object really being to find a junior who would relieve the senior from the greater part of the anxiety and work.

Cyril then had been received into the partnership, and a great deal of the management had after a short time been left to him, a position of which he took advantage to gamble upon the Stock Exchange with the large sums of money passing through their hands, with just such success as might have been expected, and the discovery that Cyril had involved the firm in bankruptcy broke Mr Walker’s heart, the old man dying within a week of the schedule being filed.

Worse was behind: the executors charged Cyril with having forged his partner’s name to bills, whereon he had raised money, signing not merely the name of the firm, but his own and his partner’s name, upon the strength of which money had been advanced by two bill discounters, both of whom were eager to have him punished.

In short, the more Luke Ross studied, the more he found that the black roll of iniquity was unfolding itself, so that at last he threw down the brief, heartsick with disgust and misery, feeling as he did that if half, nay, a tithe of that which was charged against Cyril were true, no matter who conducted prosecution or defence, the jury was certain to convict him of downright forgery and swindling, and seven or ten years’ penal servitude would be his sentence.

It needed no dull, cheerless morning for Luke’s spirits to be at the lowest ebb when he met his father at breakfast, the old man looking very weak, careworn, and troubled, as they sat over the barely-tasted meal.

Luke hardly spoke, but sat there thinking that he would make a fresh appeal to Mr Swift to relieve him of so terrible a charge, and expecting each moment that his father would again implore him to retire from the prosecution and take up the defence. At last the old man spoke.

“I’ve been lying awake all night, thinking about that, my boy,” he said, “and I’m very, very sorry.”

“Father,” said Luke, “it seems almost more than one can bear.”

“I said to myself that my boy was too noble not to forgive one who had done wrong to him in the past, and I said, too, that it would be a fine thing for him to show people how he was ready to go and fight on his old rival’s behalf.”

“And I will, father, or retire from the case altogether,” said Luke, eagerly.

“No, my son, no,” said the old man; “I have not long to live, and I should not like that little time to be embittered by the thought that I had urged my son to do a dishonourable act.”

“Oh, no,” cried Luke, “I will press them, and they will let me retire.”

“But if they refused again, my boy, it would be dishonourable to draw back after you had promised to do your best. No, my boy, there is the finger of God in it all, and you must go on. Poor girl, poor girl! it will be terrible for her, but we cannot fight against such things.”

“But I could not plead my cause with her eyes reproaching me,” said Luke, half to himself.

“But you must, my boy,” cried the old man. “I lay awake all last night, Luke, and I prayed humbly for guidance to do what was right, and it seemed to me that the good counsel came.”

“Father!” exclaimed Luke, gazing in the old man’s face.

“It will be painful, my boy, but we must not shrink from our duty because it is a difficult one to perform. I am a weak old fellow, and very ignorant, but I know that here my son will be a minister of justice against a bad and wicked man. For he is a bad – a wicked man, my boy, who has stopped at nothing to gratify his own evil ends.”

“But how can I proceed against him, father?”

“Because it is your duty; and, feeling what you do against him, you will guard your heart lest you should strike too hard; and it is better so. Luke, my boy, you will be just; while, if another man prosecutes him, he will see in him only the forger and the cheat, and fight his best to get him condemned.”

It was true, and Luke sat back thinking.

“Yesterday, my boy, I prayed you to undertake this man’s defence; I withdraw it all now: take back every word, and I will go and tell poor Sage Mallow why.”

“No, no, father,” cried Luke; “if I cannot defend, neither will I prosecute.”

“You must, my boy – you have given your word. If you drew back now I should feel that it would go worse against this man.”

“But mine, father, should not be the hand to strike him down,” cried Luke.

“We are not our own masters here, my boy,” said the old man, speaking in a low and reverent tone. “My Luke has never shrunk from his duty yet, and never will.”

Luke sank back in silence, and for a long time no word was spoken. Then he suddenly rose and rang the bell.

“See if Mr Serjeant Towle is in,” he said to the boy, and upon the report being received that the serjeant was within, Luke descended and had ten minutes’ conversation with that great legal luminary, who, after a little consideration, said, as Luke rose to go —

“Well, yes, Ross, I will, if it’s only for the sake of giving you a good thrashing. You are going on too fast, and a little check will do you good. If I take the brief I shall get him off. Send his solicitors to me.”

Five minutes later Luke was with his father.

“Go and see Mrs Mallow at once, father,” he said, “and bid her tell her solicitors to wait upon Mr Serjeant Towle.”

“Yes, my boy – Mr Serjeant Towle,” said the old man, obediently.

“He will require an enormous fee, father, which you will pay.”

“Yes, my boy, of course. Is – is he a great man?”

“One of the leading counsel at the bar; and if Cyril Mallow can be got off, Serjeant Towle is the man for the task.”

“But, my boy – ” began the old man.

“Don’t hesitate, father, but go,” cried Luke; and the old man hurried off.