Chapter 17. Mr Slow's Chambers

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_ CHAPTER XVII. Mr Slow's Chambers

She came down late to breakfast on the following morning, not being present at prayers, and when she came down she wore a bonnet.

"I got myself ready, John, for fear I should keep you waiting."

Her aunt spoke to her somewhat more graciously than on the preceding evening, and accepted her apology for being late.

Just as she was about to start Lady Ball took her apart and spoke one word to her.

"No one can tell you better what you ought to do than your cousin John; but pray remember that he is far too generous to say a word for himself."

Margaret made no answer, and then she and her cousin started on foot across the grounds to the station. The distance was nearly a mile, and during the walk no word was said between them about the money. They got into the train that was to take them up to London, and sat opposite to each other. It happened that there was no passenger in either of the seats next to him or her, so that there was ample opportunity for them to hold a private conversation; but Mr Ball said nothing to her, and she, not knowing how to begin, said nothing to him. In this way they reached the London station at Waterloo Bridge, and then he asked her what she proposed to do next.

"Shall we go to Mr Slow's at once?" she asked.

To this he assented, and at her proposition they agreed to walk to the lawyer's chambers. These were on the north side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, near the Turnstile, and Mr Ball remarked that the distance was again not much above a mile. So they crossed the Strand together, and made their way by narrow streets into Drury Lane, and then under a certain archway into Lincoln's Inn Fields. To Miss Mackenzie, who felt that something ought to be said, the distance and time occupied seemed to be very short.

"Why, this is Lincoln's Inn Fields!" she exclaimed, as she came out upon the west side.

"Yes; this is Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Mr Slow's chambers are over there."

She knew very well where Mr Slow's chambers were situated, but she paused on the pavement, not wishing to go thither quite at once.

"John," she said, "I thought that perhaps we might have talked over all this before we saw Mr Slow."

"Talked over all what?"

"About the money that I want to give to my brother's family. Did not my aunt tell you of it?"

"Yes; she told me that you and she had differed."

"And she told you what about?"

"Yes," said he, slowly; "she told me what about."

"And what ought I to do, John?"

As she asked the question she caught hold of the lappet of his coat, and looked up into his face as though supplicating him to give her the advantage of all his discretion and all his honesty.

They were still standing on the pavement, where the street comes out from under the archway. She was gazing into his face, and he was looking away from her, over towards the inner railings of the square, with heavy brow and dull eye and motionless face. She was very eager, and he seemed to be simply patient, but nevertheless he was working hard with his thoughts, striving to determine how best he might answer her. His mother had told him that he might model this woman to his will, and had repeated to him that story which he had heard so often of the wrong that had been done to him by his uncle Jonathan. It may be said that there was no need for such repetition, as John Ball had himself always thought quite enough of that injury. He had thought of it for the last twenty years, almost hourly, till it was graven upon his very soul. He had been a ruined, wretched, moody man, because of his uncle Jonathan's will. There was no need, one would have said, to have stirred him on that subject. But his mother, on this morning, in the ten minutes before prayer-time, had told him of it all again, and had told him also that the last vestige of his uncle's money would now disappear from him unless he interfered to save it.

"On this very day it must be saved; and she will do anything you tell her," said his mother. "She regards you more than anyone else. If you were to ask her again now, I believe she would accept you this very day. At any rate, do not let those people have the money."

And yet he had not spoken to Margaret on the subject during the journey, and would now have taken her to the lawyer's chambers without a word, had she not interrupted him and stopped him.

Nevertheless he had been thinking of his uncle, and his uncle's will, and his uncle's money, throughout the morning. He was thinking of it at that moment when she stopped him--thinking how hard it all was, how cruel that those people in the New Road should have had and spent half his uncle's fortune, and that now the remainder, which at one time had seemed to be near the reach of his own children, should also go to atone for the negligence and fraud of those wretched Rubbs.

We all know with how strong a bias we regard our own side of any question, and he regarded his side in this question with a very strong bias. Nevertheless he had refrained from a word, and would have refrained, had she not stopped him.

When she took hold of him by the coat, he looked for a moment into her face, and thought that in its trouble it was very sweet. She leaned somewhat against him as she spoke, and he wished that she would lean against him altogether. There was about her a quiet power of endurance, and at the same time a comeliness and a womanly softness which seemed to fit her altogether for his wants and wishes. As he looked with his dull face across into the square, no physiognomist would have declared of him that at that moment he was suffering from love, or thinking of a woman that was dear to him. But it was so with him, and the physiognomist, had one been there, would have been wrong. She had now asked him a question, which he was bound to answer in some way:--"What ought I to do, John?"

He turned slowly round and walked with her, away from their destination, round by the south side of the square, and then up along the blank wall on the east side, nearly to the passage into Holborn, and back again all round the enclosed space. She, while she was speaking to him and listening to him, hardly remembered where she was or whither she was going.

"I thought," said he, in answer to her question, "that you intended to ask Mr Slow's advice?"

"I didn't mean to do more than tell him what should be done. He is not a friend, you know, John."

"It's customary to ask lawyers their advice on such subjects."

"I'd rather have yours, John. But, in truth, what I want you to say is, that I am right in doing this,--right in keeping my promise to my brother, and providing for his children."

"Like most people, Margaret, you want to be advised to follow your own counsel."

"God knows that I want to do right, John. I want to do nothing else, John, but what's right. As to this money, I care but little for it for myself."

"It is your own, and you have a right to enjoy it."

"I don't know much about enjoyment. As to enjoyment, it seems to me to be pretty much the same whether a person is rich or poor. I always used to hear that money brought care, and I'm sure I've found it so since I had any."

"You've got no children, Margaret."

"No; but there are all those orphans. Am I not bound to look upon them as mine, now that he has gone? If they don't depend on me, whom are they to depend on?"

"If your mind is made up, Margaret, I have nothing to say against it. You know what my wishes are. They are just the same now as when you were last with us. It isn't only for the money I say this, though, of course, that must go a long way with a man circumstanced as I am; but, Margaret, I love you dearly, and if you can make up your mind to be my wife, I would do my best to make you happy."

"I hadn't meant you to talk in that way, John," said Margaret.

But she was not much flurried. She was now so used to these overtures that they did not come to her as much out of the common way. And she gave herself none of that personal credit which women are apt to take to themselves when they find they are often sought in marriage. She looked upon her lovers as so many men to whom her income would be convenient, and felt herself to be almost under an obligation to them for their willingness to put up with the incumbrance which was attached to it.

"But it's the only way I can talk when you ask me about this," said he. Then he paused for a moment before he added, "How much is it you wish to give to your brother's widow?"

"Half what I've got left."

"Got left! You haven't lost any of your money have you, Margaret?"

Then she explained to him the facts as to the loan, and took care to explain to him also, very fully, the compensatory fact of the purchase by the railway company. "And my promise to him was made after I had lent it, you know," she urged.

"I do think it ought to be deducted; I do indeed," he said. "I am not speaking on my own behalf now, as for the sake of my children, but simply as a man of business. As for myself, though I do think I have been hardly used in the matter of my uncle's money, I'll try to forget it. I'll try at any rate to do without it. When I first knew you, and found--found that I liked you so much, I own that I did have hopes. But if it must be, there shall be an end of that. The children don't starve, I suppose."

"Oh, John!"

"As for me, I won't hanker after your money. But, for your own sake, Margaret--"

"There will be more than enough for me, you know; and, John--"

She was going to make him some promise; to tell him something of her intention towards his son, and to make some tender of assistance to himself; being now in that mind to live on the smallest possible pittance, of which I have before spoken, when he ceased speaking or listening, and hurried her on to the attorney's chambers.

"Do what you like with it. It is your own," said he. "And we shall do no good by talking about it any longer out here."

So at last they made their way up to Mr Slow's rooms, on the first floor in the old house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and were informed that that gentleman was at home. Would they be pleased to sit down in the waiting-room?

There is, I think, no sadder place in the world than the waiting-room attached to an attorney's chambers in London. In this instance it was a three-cornered room, which had got itself wedged in between the house which fronted to Lincoln's Inn Fields, and some buildings in a narrow lane that ran at the back of the row. There was no carpet in it, and hardly any need of one, as the greater part of the floor was strewed with bundles of dusty papers. There was a window in it, which looked out from the point of the further angle against the wall of the opposite building. The dreariness of this aspect had been thought to be too much for the minds of those who waited, and therefore the bottom panes had been clouded, so that there was in fact no power of looking out at all. Over the fireplace there was a table of descents and relationship, showing how heirship went; and the table was very complicated, describing not only the heirship of ordinary real and personal property, but also explaining the wonderful difficulties of gavelkind, and other mysteriously traditional laws. But the table was as dirty as it was complicated, and the ordinary waiting reader could make nothing of it. There was a small table in the room, near the window, which was always covered with loose papers; but these loose papers were on this occasion again covered with sheets of parchment, and a pale-faced man, of about thirty, whose beard had never yet attained power to do more than sprout, was sitting at the table, and poring over the parchments. Round the room, on shelves, there was a variety of iron boxes, on which were written the names of Mr Slow's clients,--of those clients whose property justified them in having special boxes of their own. But these boxes were there, it must be supposed, for temporary purposes,--purposes which might be described as almost permanently temporary,--for those boxes which were allowed to exist in absolute permanence of retirement, were kept in an iron room downstairs, the trap-door into which had yawned upon Miss Mackenzie as she was shown into the waiting-room. There was, however, one such box open, on the middle of the floor, and sundry of the parchments which had been taken from it were lying around it.

There were but two chairs in the room besides the one occupied by the man at the table, and these were taken by John Ball and his cousin. She sat herself down, armed with patience, indifferent to the delay and indifferent to the dusty ugliness of everything around her, as women are on such occasions. He, thinking much of his time, and somewhat annoyed at being called upon to wait, sat with his chin resting on his umbrella between his legs, and as he did so he allowed his eyes to roam around among the names upon the boxes. There was nothing on any one of those up on the shelves that attracted him. There was the Marquis of B----, and Sir C. D----, and the Dowager Countess of E----. Seeing this, he speculated mildly whether Mr Slow put forward the boxes of his aristocratic customers to show how well he was doing in the world. But presently his eye fell from the shelf and settled upon the box on the floor. There, on that box, he saw the name of Walter Mackenzie.

This did not astonish him, as he immediately said to himself that these papers were being searched with reference to the business on which his cousin was there that day; bur suddenly it occurred to him that Margaret had given him to understand that Mr Slow did not expect her. He stepped over to her, therefore, one step over the papers, and asked her the question, whispering it into her ear.

"No," said she, "I had no appointment. I don't think he expects me."

He returned to his seat, and again sitting down with his chin on the top of his umbrella, surveyed the parchments that lay upon the ground. Upon one of them, that was not far from his feet, he read the outer endorsements written as such endorsements always are, in almost illegible old English letters--

"Jonathan Ball, to John Ball, junior--Deed of Gift."

But, after all, there was nothing more than a coincidence in this. Of course Mr Slow would have in his possession all the papers appertaining to the transfer of Jonathan Ball's property to the Mackenzies; or, at any rate, such as referred to Walter's share of it. Indeed, Mr Slow, at the time of Jonathan Ball's death, acted for the two brothers, and it was probable that all the papers would be with him. John Ball had known that there had been some intention on his uncle's part, before the quarrel between his father and his uncle, to make over to him, on his coming of age, a certain property in London, and he had been told that the money which the Mackenzies had inherited had ultimately come from this very property. His uncle had been an eccentric, quarrelsome man, prone to change his mind often, and not regardful of money as far as he himself was concerned. John Ball remembered to have heard that his uncle had intended him to become possessed of certain property in his own right the day that he became of age, and that this had all been changed because of the quarrel which had taken place between his uncle and his father. His father now never spoke of this, and for many years past had seldom mentioned it. But from his mother he had often heard of the special injury which he had undergone.

"His uncle," she had said, "had given it, and had taken it back again,--had taken it back that he might waste it on those Mackenzies."

All this he had heard very often, but he had never known anything of a deed of gift. Was it not singular, he thought, that the draft of such a deed should be lying at his foot at this moment.

He showed nothing of this in his face, and still sat there with his chin resting on his umbrella. But certainly stronger ideas than usual of the great wrongs which he had suffered did come into his head as he looked upon the paper at his feet. He began to wonder whether he would be justified in taking it up and inspecting it. But as he was thinking of this the pale-faced man rose from his chair, and after moving among the papers on the ground for an instant, selected this very document, and carried it with him to his table. Mr Ball, as his eyes followed the parchment, watched the young man dust it and open it, and then having flattened it with his hand, glance over it till he came to a certain spot. The pale-faced clerk, accustomed to such documents, glanced over the ambages, the "whereases," the "aforesaids," the rich exuberance of "admors.," "exors.," and "assigns," till he deftly came to the pith of the matter, and then he began to make extracts, a date here and a date there. John Ball watched him all the time, till the door was opened, and old Mr Slow himself appeared in the room.

He stepped across the papers to shake hands with his client, and then shook hands also with Mr Ball, whom he knew. His eye glanced at once down to the box, and after that over towards the pale-faced clerk. Mr Ball perceived that the attorney had joined in his own mind the operation that was going on with these special documents, and the presence of these two special visitors; and that he, in some measure, regretted the coincidence. There was something wrong, and John Ball began to consider whether the old lawyer could be an old scoundrel. Some lawyers, he knew, were desperate scoundrels. He said nothing, however; but, obeying Mr Slow's invitation, followed him and his cousin into the sanctum sanctorum of the chambers.

"They didn't tell me you were here at first," said the lawyer, in a tone of vexation, "or I wouldn't have had you shown in there."

John Ball thought that this was, doubtless, true, and that very probably they might not have been put in among those papers had Mr Slow known what was being done.

"The truth is," continued the lawyer, "the Duke of F----'s man of business was with me, and they did not like to interrupt me."

Mr Slow was a grey-haired old man, nearer eighty than seventy, who, with the exception of a fortnight's holiday every year which he always spent at Margate, had attended those same chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields daily for the last sixty years. He was a stout, thickset man, very leisurely in all his motions, who walked slowly, talked slowly, read slowly, wrote slowly, and thought slowly; but who, nevertheless, had the reputation of doing a great deal of business, and doing it very well. He had a partner in the business, almost as old as himself, named Bideawhile; and they who knew them both used to speculate which of the two was the most leisurely. It was, however, generally felt that, though Mr Slow was the slowest in his speech, Mr Bideawhile was the longest in getting anything said. Mr Slow would often beguile his time with unnecessary remarks; but Mr Bideawhile was so constant in beguiling his time, that men wondered how, in truth, he ever did anything at all. Of both of them it may be said that no men stood higher in their profession, and that Mr Ball's suspicions, had they been known in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's Inn, would have been scouted as utterly baseless. And, for the comfort of my readers, let me assure them that they were utterly baseless. There might, perhaps, have been a little vanity about Mr Slow as to the names of his aristocratic clients; but he was an honest, painstaking man, who had ever done his duty well by those who had employed him.

Is it not remarkable that the common repute which we all give to attorneys in the general is exactly opposite to that which every man gives to his own attorney in particular? Whom does anybody trust so implicitly as he trusts his own attorney? And yet is it not the case that the body of attorneys is supposed to be the most roguish body in existence?

The old man seemed now to be a little fretful, and said something more about his sorrow at their having been sent into that room.

"We are so crowded," he said, "that we hardly know how to stir ourselves."

Miss Mackenzie said it did not signify in the least. Mr Ball said nothing, but seated himself with his chin again resting on his umbrella.

"I was so sorry to see in the papers an account of your brother's death," said Mr Slow.

"Yes, Mr Slow; he has gone, and left a wife and very large family."

"I hope they are provided for, Miss Mackenzie."

"No, indeed; they are not provided for at all. My brother had not been fortunate in business."

"And yet he went into it with a large capital,--with a large capital in such a business as that."

John Ball, with his chin on the umbrella, said nothing. He said nothing, but he winced as he thought whence the capital had come. And he thought, too, of those much-meaning words: "Jonathan Ball to John Ball, junior--Deed of gift."

"He had been unfortunate," said Miss Mackenzie, in an apologetic tone.

"And what will you do about your loan?" said Mr Slow, looking over to John Ball when he asked the question, as though inquiring whether all Miss Mackenzie's affairs were to be talked over openly in the presence of that gentleman.

"That was a gift," said Miss Mackenzie.

"A deed of gift," thought John Ball to himself. "A deed of gift!"

"Oh, indeed! Then there's an end of that, I suppose," said Mr Slow.

"Exactly so. I have been explaining to my cousin all about it. I hope the firm will be able to pay my sister-in-law the interest on it, but that does not seem sure."

"I am afraid I cannot help you there, Miss Mackenzie."

"Of course not. I was not thinking of it. But what I've come about is this." Then she told Mr Slow the whole of her project with reference to her fortune; how, on his death-bed, she had promised to give half of all that she had to her brother's wife and family, and how she had come there to him, with her cousin, in order that he might put her in the way of keeping her promise.

Mr Slow sat in silence and patiently heard her to the end. She, finding herself thus encouraged to speak, expatiated on the solemnity of her promise, and declared that she could not be comfortable till she had done all that she had undertaken to perform. "And I shall have quite enough for myself afterwards, Mr Slow, quite enough."

Mr Slow did not say a word till she had done, and even then he seemed to delay his speech. John Ball never raised his face from his umbrella, but sat looking at the lawyer, whom he still suspected of roguery. And if the lawyer were a rogue, what then about his cousin? It must not be supposed that he suspected her; but what would come of her, if the fortune she held were, in truth, not her own?

"I have told my cousin all about it," continued Margaret, "and I believe that he thinks I am doing right. At any rate, I would do nothing without his knowing it."

"I think she is giving her sister-in-law too much," said John Ball.

"I am only doing what I promised," urged Margaret.

"I think that the money which she lent to the firm should, at any rate, be deducted," said John Ball, speaking this with a kind of proviso to himself, that the words so spoken were intended to be taken as having any meaning only on the presumption that that document which he had seen in the other room should turn out to be wholly inoperative and inefficient at the present moment. In answer to these side-questions or corollary points as to the deduction or non-deduction of the loan, Mr Slow answered not a word; but when there was silence between them, he did make answer as to the original proposition.

"Miss Mackenzie," he said, "I think you had better postpone doing anything in this matter for the present."

"Why postpone it?" said she.

"Your brother's death is very recent. It happened not above a fortnight since, I think."

"And I want to have this settled at once, so that there shall be no distress. What's the good of waiting?"

"Such things want thinking of, Miss Mackenzie."

"But I have thought of it. All I want now is to have it done."

A slight smile came across the puckered grey face of the lawyer as he felt the imperative nature of the instruction given to him. The lady had come there not to be advised, but to have her work done for her out of hand. But the smile was very melancholy, and soon passed away.

"Is the widow in immediate distress?" asked Mr Slow.

Now the fact was that Miss Mackenzie herself had been in good funds, having had ready money in her hands from the time of her brother Walter's death; and for the last year she had by no means spent her full income. She had, therefore, given her sister-in-law money, and had paid the small debts which had come in, as such small debts will come in, directly the dead man's body was under ground. Nay, some had come in and had been paid while the man was yet dying. She exclaimed, therefore, that her sister-in-law was not absolutely in immediate want.

"And does she keep the house?" asked the lawyer.

Then Miss Mackenzie explained that Mrs Tom intended, if possible, to keep the house, and to take some lady in to lodge with her.

"Then there cannot be any immediate hurry," urged the lawyer; "and as the sum of money in question is large, I really think the matter should be considered."

But Miss Mackenzie still pressed it. She was very anxious to make him understand--and of course he did understand at once--that she had no wish to hurry him in his work. All that she required of him was an assurance that he accepted her instructions, and that the thing should be done with not more than the ordinary amount of legal delay.

"You can pay her what you like out of your own income," said the lawyer.

"But that is not what I promised," said Margaret Mackenzie.

Then there was silence among them all. Mr Ball had said very little since he had been sitting in that room, and now it was not he who broke the silence. He was still thinking of that deed of gift, and wondering whether it had anything to do with Mr Slow's unwillingness to undertake the commission which Margaret wished to give him. At last Mr Slow got up from his chair, and spoke as follows:

"Mr Ball, I hope you will excuse me; but I have a word or two to say to Miss Mackenzie, which I had rather say to her alone."

"Certainly," said Mr Ball, rising and preparing to go.

"You will wait for me, John," said Miss Mackenzie, asking this favour of him as though she were very anxious that he should grant it.

Mr Slow said that he might be closeted with Miss Mackenzie for some little time, perhaps for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. John Ball looked at his watch, and then at his cousin's face, and then promised that he would wait. Mr Slow himself took him into the outer office, and then handed him a chair; but he observed that he was not allowed to go back into the waiting-room.

There he waited for three-quarters of an hour, constantly looking at his watch, and thinking more and more about that deed of gift. Surely it must be the case that the document which he had seen had some reference to this great delay. At last he heard a door open, and a step along a passage, and then another door was opened, and Mr Slow reappeared with Margaret Mackenzie behind him. John Ball's eyes immediately fell on his cousin's face, and he could see that it was very pale. The lawyer's wore that smile which men put on when they wish to cover the disagreeable seriousness of the moment.

"Good morning, Miss Mackenzie," said he, pressing his client's hand.

"Good morning, sir," said she.

The lawyer and Mr Ball then touched each other's hands, and the former followed his cousin down the steps out into the square. _

Read next: Chapter 18. Tribulation

Read previous: Chapter 16. Lady Ball's Grievance

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