Mary Anerley by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (fun to read .txt) 📖

of family history."

"Madam, I will at once prepare a memorandum for your signature and your sister's."

The mind of Mr. Jellicorse was much relieved, although the relief was not untempered with misgivings. He sat down immediately at an ancient writing-table, and prepared a short order for delivery, to their trusty servant Jordas, of a certain box, with the letter C upon it, and containing title-deeds of Scargate Hall estate.

"I think it might be simpler not to put it so precisely," my lady Philippa suggested, "but merely to say a box containing the oldest of the title-deeds, as required for an impending antiquarian research."

Mr. Jellicorse made the amendment; and then, with the prudence of long practice, added, "The order should be in your handwriting, madam; will it give you too much trouble just to copy it?" "How can it signify, if it bears our signatures?" his client asked, with a smile at such a trifle; however, she sat down, and copied it upon another sheet of paper. Then Mr. Jellicorse, beautifully bowing, drew near to take possession of his own handwriting; but the lady, with a bow of even greater elegance, lifted the cover of the standing desk, and therein placed both manuscripts; and the lawyer perceived that he could say nothing.

"How delightful it is to be quit of business!" The hostess now looked hospitable. "We need not recur to this matter, I do hope. That paper, whatever it is, will be signed by both of us, and handed over to you, in your legal head-quarters, to-morrow. We must have the pleasure of sending you home in the morning, Mr. Jellicorse. We have bought a very wonderful vehicle, invented for such roads as ours, and to supersede the jumping-car. It is warranted to traverse any place a horse can travel, with luxurious ease to the passengers, and safety of no common description. Jordas will drive you; your horse can trot behind; and you can send back by it whatever there may be."

Mr. Jellicorse detested new inventions, and objected most strongly to any experiment made in his own body. However, he would rather die than plead his time of life in bar, and his faith in the dogman was unlimited. And now the gentle Mrs. Carnaby, who had gracefully taken flight from "horrid business," returned in an evening dress and with a sweetly smiling countenance, and very nearly turned the Jellicorsian head, snowy as it was, with soft attentions and delicious deference.

"I was treated like a prince," he said next day, when delivered safe at home, and resting among his rather dingy household gods. "There never could have been a more absurd idea than that notion of yours about my being put into wet sheets, Diana. Why, I even had my night-cap warmed; and a young woman came, with a blush upon her face, and a question whether I would be pleased to sleep in a gross of Naples stockings! Ah, to my mind, after all, it proves what I have always said--that there is nothing like old blood."

"Nothing like old blood for being made a fool of," his wife replied, with a coarseness which made him shiver, after Mrs. Carnaby. "They know what they are about, I'll lay a penny. Some roguery, no doubt, that they seek to lead you into. That is what their night-caps and stockings mean. How low it is to make a foreground of them!"

"Hush, my dear! I can not bear such want of charity. And what is even worse, you expose me to an action at law, with heavy damages."

The lawyer had sundry little qualms of conscience, which were deepened by his wife's sagacious words; and suddenly it struck him that the new-fangled vehicle which had brought him home so quietly from Scargate had shown a strange inability to stand still for more than two minutes at his side door. So much had he been hurried by the apparent straits of his charioteer that he ran out with box C without ever stopping to make an inventory of its contents--as he intended to do--or even looking whether the all-important deed was there. In fact, he had scarcely time to seal up the key in a separate package, hand it to Jordas, and take the order (now become a receipt) from the horny fist of the dogman, before Marmaduke, rendered more dashing by snow-drift, was away like a thunder-bolt--if such a thing there be, and if it has four legs.

"How could I have helped doing as I have done?" he whispered to himself, uncomfortably. "Here are two ladies of high position, and they send a joint order for their property. By-the-bye, I will just have a look at that order, now that there is no horse to jump over me." Upon going to the day file, he found the order right, transcribed from his own amended copy, and bearing two signatures, as it should do. But it struck him that the words "Eliza Carnaby" were written too boldly for that lady's hand; and the more he looked at them, the more he was convinced of it. That was no concern of his, for it was not his duty, under the circumstances of the case, to verify her signature. But this conviction drove him to an uncomfortable conclusion--"Miss Yordas intends to destroy that deed without her sister's knowledge. She knows that her sister's nerve is weaker, and she does not like to involve her in the job. A very brave, sisterly feeling, no doubt, and much the wiser course, if she means to do it. It is a bold stroke, and well worthy of a Yordas. But I hope, with all my heart, that she never can have thought of it. And she kept that order in my handwriting to make it look as if the suggestion came from me! And I am as innocent as any lamb is of the frauds that shall come to be written on his skin. The duty of attorney toward client prevents me from opening my lips upon the matter. But she is a deep woman, and a bold one too. May the Lord direct things aright! I shall retire, and let Robert have the practice, as soon as Brown's bankruptcy has worn out captious creditors. It is the Lord alone that doeth all things well."

Mr. Jellicorse knew that he had done his best; and though doubtful of the turn which things had taken, with some exclusion of his agency, he felt (though his conscience told him not to feel it) that here was one true source of joy. That impudent, dashing, unprofessional man, who was always poking his vile unarticled nose into legal business, that fellow of the name of Mordacks, now would have no locus standi left. At least a hundred and fifty firms, of good standing in the county, detested that man, and even a judge would import a scintillula juris into any measure which relieved the country of him. Meditating thus, he heard a knock.


CHAPTER LI


STAND AND DELIVER

The day was not far worn as yet; and May month having come at last, the day could stand a good deal of wear. With Jordas burning to exhibit the wonders of the new machine (which had been bought upon his advice), and with Marmaduke conscious of the new gloss on his coat, all previous times had been beaten--as the sporting writers put it; that is to say, all previous times of the journey from Scargate to Middleton, for any man who sat on wheels. A rider would take a shorter cut, and have many other advantages; but for a driver the time had been the quickest upon record.

Mr. Jellicorse, exulting in his safety, had imprinted the chaste salute upon his good wife's cheek at ten minutes after one o'clock; when the clerks in the office with laudable promptitude (not expecting him as yet) had unanimously cast down pen, and betaken hand and foot toward knife and fork. Instead of blaming them, this good lawyer went upon that same road himself, with the great advantage that the road to his dinner lay through his own kitchen. At dinner-time he had much to tell, and many large helps to receive, of interest and of admiration, especially from his pet child Emily (who forgot herself so largely as to lick her spoon while gazing), and after dinner he was not without reasons for letting perhaps a little of the time slip by. Therefore, by the time he had described all dangers, discharged his duty to all comforts, and held the little confidential talk with his wife and himself above recorded, the clock had made its way to half past three.

Mrs. Jellicorse and Emily were gone forth to pay visits; the clerks, shut away in their own room, were busy, scratching up a lovely case for nisi prius; the cook had thrown the sifted cinders on the kitchen fire, and was gone with the maids to exchange just a few constitutional words with the gardener; and the whole house was drowsy with that by-time when light and shadow seem to mix together, and far-away sounds take a faint to and fro, as if they were the pendulum of silence.

"That is Emily's knock. Impatient child! Come back for her mother's gloves, or something. All the people are out; I must go and let her in."

With these words, and a little placid frown--because a soft nap was impending on his eyelids, and yet they were always glad to open on his favorite--the worthy lawyer rose, and took a pinch of snuff to rouse himself; but before he could get to the door, a louder and more impatient rap almost made him jump.

"What a hurry you are in, my dear! You really should try to learn some little patience."

While he was speaking, he opened the door; and behold, there was no little girl, but a tall and stately gentleman in horseman's dress, and of strong commanding aspect.

"What is your pleasure, sir?" the lawyer asked, while his heart began to flutter; for exactly such a visitor had caused him scare of his life, when stronger by a quarter of a century than now.

"My pleasure, or rather my business, is with Mr. Jellicorse, the lawyer."

"Then, sir, you have come to the right man for it. My name is Jellicorse, and greatly at your service. Allow me the honor of inviting you within."

"My name is Yordas--Sir Duncan Yordas," said the stranger, when seated in the lawyer's private room. "My father, Philip Yordas, was a client of yours, and of other legal gentlemen before he came to you. Upon the day of his death, in the year 1777, you prepared his will, which you have since found to be of no effect, except as regards his personal estate, and about one-eighth part of the realty. Of the bulk of the land, including Scargate Hall, he could not dispose, for the simple reason that it had been strictly entailed by a deed executed by my grandfather and his wife in 1751. Under that entail I take in fee, for it could not have been barred without me; and I never concurred in any disentailing deed, and my father never knew that such was needful."

"Excuse me, Sir Duncan, but you seem to be wonderfully apt with the terms of our profession."

"I could scarcely be otherwise, after all that I have had to do with law, in India. Our first object is to apply our own laws, and our second to spread our religion. But no more of that. Do you admit the truth of a matter so stated that you can not fail to grasp it?"