The Castle Inn: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

PEEPING TOM OF WALLINGFORD

To be an attorney-at-law, avid of practice and getting none; to be
called Peeping Tom of Wallingford, in the place where you would fain
trot about busy and respected; to be the sole support of an old mother,
and to be come almost to the toe of the stocking--these circumstances
might seem to indicate an existence and prospects bare, not to say arid.
Eventually they presented themselves in that light to the person most
nearly concerned--by name Mr. Peter Fishwick; and moving him to grasp at
the forlorn hope presented by a vacant stewardship at one of the
colleges, brought him by coach to Oxford. There he spent three days and
his penultimate guineas in canvassing, begging, bowing, and smirking;
and on the fourth, which happened to be the very day of Sir George's
arrival in the city, was duly and handsomely defeated without the honour
of a vote.

Mr. Fishwick had expected no other result; and so far all was well. But
he had a mother, and that mother entertained a fond belief that local
jealousy and nothing else kept down her son in the place of his birth.
She had built high hopes on this expedition; she had thought that the
Oxford gentlemen would be prompt to recognise his merit; and for her
sake the sharp-featured lawyer went back to the Mitre a rueful man. He
had taken a lodging there with intent to dazzle the town, and not
because his means were equal to it; and already the bill weighed upon
him. By nature as cheerful a gossip as ever wore a scratch wig and lived
to be inquisitive, he sat mum through the evening, and barely listened
while the landlord talked big of his guest upstairs, his curricle and
fashion, the sums he lost at White's, and the plate in his
dressing-case.

Nevertheless the lawyer would not have been Peter Fishwick if he had not
presently felt the stirrings of curiosity, or, thus incited, failed to
be on the move between the stairs and the landing when Sir George came
in and passed up. The attorney's ears were as sharp as a ferret's nose,
and he was notably long in lighting his humble dip at a candle which by
chance stood outside Sir George's door. Hence it happened that
Soane--who after dismissing his servant had gone for a moment into the
adjacent chamber--heard a slight noise in the room he had left; and,
returning quickly to learn what it was, found no one, but observed the
outer door shake as if some one tried it. His suspicions aroused, he was
still staring at the door when it moved again, opened a very little way,
and before his astonished eyes admitted a small man in a faded black
suit, who, as soon as he had squeezed himself in, stood bowing with a
kind of desperate audacity.

'Hallo!' said Sir George, staring anew. 'What do you want, my man?'

The intruder advanced a pace or two, and nervously crumpled his hat in
his hands. 'If your honour pleases,' he said, a smile feebly
propitiative appearing in his face, 'I shall be glad to be of service
to you.'

'Of service?' said Sir George, staring in perplexity. 'To me?'

'In the way of my profession,' the little man answered, fixing Sir
George with two eyes as bright as birds'; which eyes somewhat redeemed
his small keen features. 'Your honour was about to make your will.' 'My
will?' Sir George cried, amazed; 'I was about to--' and then in an
outburst of rage, 'and if I was--what the devil business is it of
yours?' he cried. 'And who are you, sir?'

The little man spread out his hands in deprecation. 'I?' he said. 'I am
an attorney, sir, and everybody's business is my business.'

Sir George gasped. 'You are an attorney!' he cried. 'And--and
everybody's business is your business! By God, this is too much!' And
seizing the bell-rope he was about to overwhelm the man of law with a
torrent of abuse, before he had him put out, when the absurdity of the
appeal and perhaps a happy touch in Peter's last answer struck him; he
held his hand, and hesitated. Then, 'What is your name, sir?' he
said sternly.

'Peter Fishwick,' the attorney answered humbly.

'And how the devil did you know--that I wanted to make a will?'

'I was going upstairs,' the lawyer explained. 'And the door was ajar.'

'And you listened?'

'I wanted to hear,' said Peter with simplicity.

'But what did you hear, sir?' Soane retorted, scarcely able to repress a
smile.

'I heard your honour tell your servant to lay out pen and paper, and to
bring the landlord and another upstairs when he called you in the
morning. And I heard you bid him leave your sword. And putting two and
two together, respected sir, 'Peter continued manfully,' and knowing
that it is only of a will you need three witnesses, I said to myself,
being an attorney--'

'And everybody's business being your business,' Sir George muttered
irritably.

'To be sure, sir--it is a will, I said, he is for making. And with your
honour's leave,' Peter concluded with spirit, I'll make it.'

'Confound your impudence,' Sir George answered, and stared at him,
marvelling at the little man's shrewdness.

Peter smiled in a sickly fashion. 'If your honour would but allow me?'
he said. He saw a great chance slipping from him, and his voice was
plaintive.

It moved Sir George to compassion. 'Where is your practice?' he asked
ungraciously.

The attorney felt a surprising inclination to candour. 'At Wallingford,'
he said, 'it should be. But--' and there he stopped, shrugging his
shoulders, and leaving the rest unsaid.

'_Can_ you make a will?' Sir George retorted.

'No man better,' said Peter with confidence; and on the instant he drew
a chair to the table, seized the pen, and bent the nib on his thumbnail;
then he said briskly, 'I wait your commands, sir.'

Sir George stared in some embarrassment--he had not expected to be taken
so literally; but, after a moment's hesitation, reflecting that to write
down his wishes with his own hand would give him more trouble, and that
he might as well trust this stranger as that, he accepted the situation.
'Take down what I wish, then,' he said. 'Put it into form afterwards,
and bring it to me when I rise. Can you be secret?'

'Try me,' Peter answered with enthusiasm. 'For a good client I would
bite off my tongue.'

'Very well, then, listen!' Sir George said. And presently, after some
humming and thinking, 'I wish to leave all my real property to the
eldest son of my uncle, Anthony Soane,' he continued.

'Right, sir. Child already in existence, I presume? Not that it is
absolutely necessary,' the attorney continued glibly. 'But--'

'I do not know,' said Sir George.

'Ah!' said the lawyer, raising his pen and knitting his brows while he
looked very learnedly into vacancy. 'The child is expected, but you have
not yet heard, sir, that--'

'I know nothing about the child, nor whether there is a child,' Sir
George answered testily. 'My uncle may be dead, unmarried, or alive and
married--what difference does it make?'

'Certainty is very necessary in these things,' Peter replied severely.
The pen in his hand, he became a different man. 'Your uncle, Mr. Anthony
Soane, as I understand, is alive?'

'He disappeared in the Scotch troubles in '45,' Sir George reluctantly
explained, 'was disinherited in favour of my father, sir, and has not
since been heard from.'

The attorney grew rigid with alertness; he was like nothing so much as a
dog, expectant at a rat-hole. 'Attainted?' he said.

'No!' said Sir George.

'Outlawed?'

'No.'

The attorney collapsed: no rat in the hole. 'Dear me, dear me, what a
sad story!' he said; and then remembering that his client had profited,
'but out of evil--ahem! As I understand, sir, you wish all your real
property, including the capital mansion house and demesne, to go to the
eldest son of your uncle Mr. Anthony Soane in tail, remainder to the
second son in tail, and, failing sons, to daughters--the usual
settlement, in a word, sir.'

'Yes.'

'No exceptions, sir.'

'None.'

'Very good,' the attorney answered with the air of a man satisfied so
far. 'And failing issue of your uncle? To whom then, Sir George?'

'To the Earl of Chatham.'

Mr. Fishwick jumped in his seat; then bowed profoundly.

'Indeed! Indeed! How very interesting!' he murmured under his breath.
'Very remarkable! Very remarkable, and flattering.'

Sir George stooped to explain. 'I have no near relations,' he said
shortly. 'Lord Chatham--he was then Mr. Pitt--was the executor of my
grandfather's will, is connected with me by marriage, and at one time
acted as my guardian.'

Mr. Fishwick licked his lips as if he tasted something very good. This
was business indeed! These were names with a vengeance! His face shone
with satisfaction; he acquired a sudden stiffness of the spine. 'Very
good, sir,' he said. 'Ve--ry good,' he said. 'In fee simple, I
understand?'

'Yes.'

'Precisely. Precisely; no uses or trusts? No. Unnecessary of course.
Then as to personalty, Sir George?'

'A legacy of five hundred guineas to George Augustus Selwyn, Esquire, of
Matson, Gloucestershire. One of the same amount to Sir Charles Bunbury,
Baronet. Five hundred guineas to each of my executors; and to each of
these four a mourning ring.'

'Certainly, sir. All very noble gifts!' And Mr. Fishwick smacked his
lips.

For a moment Sir George looked his offence; then seeing that the
attorney's ecstasy was real and unaffected, he smiled. 'To my
land-steward two hundred guineas,' he said; 'to my house-steward one
hundred guineas, to the housekeeper at Estcombe an annuity of twenty
guineas. Ten guineas and a suit of mourning to each of my upper
servants not already mentioned, and the rest of my personalty--'

'After payment of debts and funeral and testamentary expenses,' the
lawyer murmured, writing busily.

Sir George started at the words, and stared thoughtfully before him: he
was silent so long that the lawyer recalled his attention by gently
repeating, 'And the residue, honoured sir?'

'To the Thatched House Society for the relief of small debtors,' Sir
George answered, between a sigh and a smile. And added, 'They will not
gain much by it, poor devils!'

Mr. Fishwick with a rather downcast air noted the bequest. 'And that is
all, sir, I think?' he said with his head on one side. 'Except the
appointment of executors.'

'No,' Sir George answered curtly. 'It is not all. Take this down and be
careful. As to the trust fund of fifty thousand pounds'--the attorney
gasped, and his eyes shone as he seized the pen anew. 'Take this down
carefully, man, I say,' Sir George continued. 'As to the trust fund left
by my grandfather's will to my uncle Anthony Soane or his heirs
conditionally on his or their returning to their allegiance and claiming
it within the space of twenty-one years from the date of his will, the
interest in the meantime to be paid to me for my benefit, and the
principal sum, failing such return, to become mine as fully as if it had
vested in me from the beginning--'

'Ah!' said the attorney, scribbling fast, and with distended cheeks.

'I leave the said fund to go with the land.'

'To go with the land,' the lawyer repeated as he wrote the words. 'Fifty
thousand pounds! Prodigious! Prodigious! Might I ask, sir, the date of
your respected grandfather's will?'

'December, 1746,' Sir George answered.

'The term has then nine months to run?'

'Yes.'

'With submission, then it comes to this,' the lawyer answered
thoughtfully, marking off the points with his pen in the air. 'In the
event of--of this will operating--all, or nearly all of your property,
Sir George, goes to your uncle's heirs in tail--if to be found--and
failing issue of his body to my Lord Chatham?'

'Those are my intentions.'

'Precisely, sir,' the lawyer answered, glancing at the clock. 'And they
shall be carried out. But--ahem! Do I understand, sir, that in the event
of a claimant making good his claim before the expiration of the nine
months, you stand to lose this stupendous, this magnificent sum--even in
your lifetime?'

'I do,' Sir George answered grimly. 'But there will be enough left to
pay your bill.'

Peter stretched out his hands in protest, then, feeling that this was
unprofessional, he seized the pen. 'Will you please to honour me with
the names of the executors, sir?' he said.

'Dr. Addington, of Harley Street.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And Mr. Dagge, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, attorney-at-law.'

'It is an honour to be in any way associated with him,' the lawyer
muttered, as he wrote the name with a flourish. 'His lordship's man of
business, I believe. And now you may have your mind at ease, sir,' he
continued. 'I will put this into form before I sleep, and will wait on
you for your signature--shall I say at--'

'At a quarter before eight,' said Soane. 'You will be private?'

'Of course, sir. It is my business to be private. I wish you a very good
night.'

The attorney longed to refer to the coming meeting, and to his sincere
hope that his new patron would leave the ground unscathed. But a duel
was so alien from the lawyer's walk in life, that he knew nothing of the
punctilios, and he felt a delicacy. Tamely to wish a man a safe issue
seemed to be a common compliment incommensurate with the occasion; and a
bathos. So, after a moment of hesitation, he gathered up his papers, and
tip-toed out of the room with an absurd exaggeration of respect, and a
heart bounding jubilant under his flapped waistcoat.

Left to himself, Sir George heaved a sigh, and, resting his head on his
hand, stared long and gloomily at the candles. 'Well, better be run
through by this clown,' he muttered after a while, 'than live to put a
pistol to my own head like Mountford and Bland. Or Scarborough, or poor
Bolton. It is not likely, and I wish that little pettifogger had not put
it into my head; but if a cousin were to appear now, or before the time
is up, I should be in Queer Street. Estcombe is dipped: and of the money
I raised, there is no more at the agent's than I have lost in a night at
Quinze! D----n White's and that is all about it. And d----n it, I shall,
and finely, if old Anthony's lad turn up and sweep off the three
thousand a year that is left. Umph, if I am to have a steady hand
to-morrow I must get to bed. What unholy chance brought me into
this scrape?'

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