Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (155 page)

Joseph’s name was still over the door; it was he who still signed the cheques; but this was only policy on the part of Morris, and designed to discourage other members of the tontine. In reality the business was entirely his; and he found it an inheritance of sorrows. He tried to sell it, and the offers he received were quite derisory. He tried to extend it, and it was only the liabilities he succeeded in extending; to restrict it, and it was only the profits he managed to restrict. Nobody had ever made money out of that concern except the capable Scot, who retired (after his discharge) to the neighbourhood of Banff and built a castle with his profits. The memory of this fallacious Caledonian Morris would revile daily, as he sat in the private office opening his mail, with old Joseph at another table, sullenly awaiting orders, or savagely affixing signatures to he knew not what. And when the man of the heather pushed cynicism so far as to send him the announcement of his second marriage (to Davida, eldest daughter of the Revd. Alexander McCraw), it was really supposed that Morris would have had a fit.

Business hours, in the Finsbury leather trade, had been cut to the quick; even Morris’s strong sense of duty to himself was not strong enough to dally within those walls and under the shadow of that bankruptcy; and presently the manager and the clerks would draw a long breath, and compose themselves for another day of procrastination. Raw Haste, on the authority of my Lord Tennyson, is half-sister to Delay; but the Business Habits are certainly her uncles. Meanwhile, the leather merchant would lead his living investment back to John Street like a puppy dog; and, having there immured him in the hall, would depart for the day on the quest of seal rings, the only passion of his life. Joseph had more than the vanity of man, he had that of lecturers. He owned he was in fault, although more sinned against (by the capable Scot) than sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained with mortifying comments on his whole career — to have his costume examined, his collar pulled up, the presence of his mittens verified, and to be taken out and brought home in custody, like an infant with a nurse. At the thought of it his soul would swell with venom, and he would make haste to hang up his hat and coat and the detested mittens, and slink upstairs to Julia and his notebooks. The drawing-room at least was sacred from Morris; it belonged to the old man and the young girl; it was there that she made her dresses; it was there that he inked his spectacles over the registration of disconnected facts and the calculation of insignificant statistics.

Here he would sometimes lament his connection with the tontine. ‘If it were not for that,’ he cried one afternoon, ‘he would not care to keep me. I might be a free man, Julia. And I could so easily support myself by giving lectures.’

‘To be sure you could,’ said she; ‘and I think it one of the meanest things he ever did to deprive you of that amusement. There were those nice people at the Isle of Cats (wasn’t it?) who wrote and asked you so very kindly to give them an address. I did think he might have let you go to the Isle of Cats.’

‘He is a man of no intelligence,’ cried Joseph. ‘He lives here literally surrounded by the absorbing spectacle of life, and for all the good it does him, he might just as well be in his coffin. Think of his opportunities! The heart of any other young man would burn within him at the chance. The amount of information that I have it in my power to convey, if he would only listen, is a thing that beggars language, Julia.’

‘Whatever you do, my dear, you mustn’t excite yourself,’ said Julia; ‘for you know, if you look at all ill, the doctor will be sent for.’

‘That is very true,’ returned the old man humbly, ‘I will compose myself with a little study.’ He thumbed his gallery of notebooks. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘I wonder (since I see your hands are occupied) whether it might not interest you — ’

‘Why, of course it would,’ cried Julia. ‘Read me one of your nice stories, there’s a dear.’

He had the volume down and his spectacles upon his nose instanter, as though to forestall some possible retractation. ‘What I propose to read to you,’ said he, skimming through the pages, ‘is the notes of a highly important conversation with a Dutch courier of the name of David Abbas, which is the Latin for abbot. Its results are well worth the money it cost me, for, as Abbas at first appeared somewhat impatient, I was induced to (what is, I believe, singularly called) stand him drink. It runs only to about five-and-twenty pages. Yes, here it is.’ He cleared his throat, and began to read.

Mr Finsbury (according to his own report) contributed about four hundred and ninety-nine five-hundredths of the interview, and elicited from Abbas literally nothing. It was dull for Julia, who did not require to listen; for the Dutch courier, who had to answer, it must have been a perfect nightmare. It would seem as if he had consoled himself by frequent appliances to the bottle; it would even seem that (toward the end) he had ceased to depend on Joseph’s frugal generosity and called for the flagon on his own account. The effect, at least, of some mellowing influence was visible in the record: Abbas became suddenly a willing witness; he began to volunteer disclosures; and Julia had just looked up from her seam with something like a smile, when Morris burst into the house, eagerly calling for his uncle, and the next instant plunged into the room, waving in the air the evening paper.

It was indeed with great news that he came charged. The demise was announced of Lieutenant-General Sir Glasgow Biggar, KCSI, KCMG, etc., and the prize of the tontine now lay between the Finsbury brothers. Here was Morris’s opportunity at last. The brothers had never, it is true, been cordial. When word came that Joseph was in Asia Minor, Masterman had expressed himself with irritation. ‘I call it simply indecent,’ he had said. ‘Mark my words — we shall hear of him next at the North Pole.’ And these bitter expressions had been reported to the traveller on his return. What was worse, Masterman had refused to attend the lecture on ‘Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability’, although invited to the platform. Since then the brothers had not met. On the other hand, they never had openly quarrelled; Joseph (by Morris’s orders) was prepared to waive the advantage of his juniority; Masterman had enjoyed all through life the reputation of a man neither greedy nor unfair. Here, then, were all the elements of compromise assembled; and Morris, suddenly beholding his seven thousand eight hundred pounds restored to him, and himself dismissed from the vicissitudes of the leather trade, hastened the next morning to the office of his cousin Michael.

Michael was something of a public character. Launched upon the law at a very early age, and quite without protectors, he had become a trafficker in shady affairs. He was known to be the man for a lost cause; it was known he could extract testimony from a stone, and interest from a gold-mine; and his office was besieged in consequence by all that numerous class of persons who have still some reputation to lose, and find themselves upon the point of losing it; by those who have made undesirable acquaintances, who have mislaid a compromising correspondence, or who are blackmailed by their own butlers. In private life Michael was a man of pleasure; but it was thought his dire experience at the office had gone far to sober him, and it was known that (in the matter of investments) he preferred the solid to the brilliant. What was yet more to the purpose, he had been all his life a consistent scoffer at the Finsbury tontine.

It was therefore with little fear for the result that Morris presented himself before his cousin, and proceeded feverishly to set forth his scheme. For near upon a quarter of an hour the lawyer suffered him to dwell upon its manifest advantages uninterrupted. Then Michael rose from his seat, and, ringing for his clerk, uttered a single clause: ‘It won’t do, Morris.’

It was in vain that the leather merchant pleaded and reasoned, and returned day after day to plead and reason. It was in vain that he offered a bonus of one thousand, of two thousand, of three thousand pounds; in vain that he offered, in Joseph’s name, to be content with only one-third of the pool. Still there came the same answer: ‘It won’t do.’

‘I can’t see the bottom of this,’ he said at last. ‘You answer none of my arguments; you haven’t a word to say. For my part, I believe it’s malice.’

The lawyer smiled at him benignly. ‘You may believe one thing,’ said he. ‘Whatever else I do, I am not going to gratify any of your curiosity. You see I am a trifle more communicative today, because this is our last interview upon the subject.’

‘Our last interview!’ cried Morris.

‘The stirrup-cup, dear boy,’ returned Michael. ‘I can’t have my business hours encroached upon. And, by the by, have you no business of your own? Are there no convulsions in the leather trade?’

‘I believe it to be malice,’ repeated Morris doggedly. ‘You always hated and despised me from a boy.’

‘No, no — not hated,’ returned Michael soothingly. ‘I rather like you than otherwise; there’s such a permanent surprise about you, you look so dark and attractive from a distance. Do you know that to the naked eye you look romantic? — like what they call a man with a history? And indeed, from all that I can hear, the history of the leather trade is full of incident.’

‘Yes,’ said Morris, disregarding these remarks, ‘it’s no use coming here. I shall see your father.’

‘O no, you won’t,’ said Michael. ‘Nobody shall see my father.’

‘I should like to know why,’ cried his cousin.

‘I never make any secret of that,’ replied the lawyer. ‘He is too ill.’

‘If he is as ill as you say,’ cried the other, ‘the more reason for accepting my proposal. I will see him.’

‘Will you?’ said Michael, and he rose and rang for his clerk.

It was now time, according to Sir Faraday Bond, the medical baronet whose name is so familiar at the foot of bulletins, that Joseph (the poor Golden Goose) should be removed into the purer air of Bournemouth; and for that uncharted wilderness of villas the family now shook off the dust of Bloomsbury; Julia delighted, because at Bournemouth she sometimes made acquaintances; John in despair, for he was a man of city tastes; Joseph indifferent where he was, so long as there was pen and ink and daily papers, and he could avoid martyrdom at the office; Morris himself, perhaps, not displeased to pretermit these visits to the city, and have a quiet time for thought. He was prepared for any sacrifice; all he desired was to get his money again and clear his feet of leather; and it would be strange, since he was so modest in his desires, and the pool amounted to upward of a hundred and sixteen thousand pounds — it would be strange indeed if he could find no way of influencing Michael. ‘If I could only guess his reason,’ he repeated to himself; and by day, as he walked in Branksome Woods, and by night, as he turned upon his bed, and at meal-times, when he forgot to eat, and in the bathing machine, when he forgot to dress himself, that problem was constantly before him: Why had Michael refused?

At last, one night, he burst into his brother’s room and woke him.

‘What’s all this?’ asked John.

‘Julia leaves this place tomorrow,’ replied Morris. ‘She must go up to town and get the house ready, and find servants. We shall all follow in three days.’

‘Oh, brayvo!’ cried John. ‘But why?’

‘I’ve found it out, John,’ returned his brother gently.

‘It? What?’ enquired John.

‘Why Michael won’t compromise,’ said Morris. ‘It’s because he can’t. It’s because Masterman’s dead, and he’s keeping it dark.’

‘Golly!’ cried the impressionable John. ‘But what’s the use? Why does he do it, anyway?’

‘To defraud us of the tontine,’ said his brother.

‘He couldn’t; you have to have a doctor’s certificate,’ objected John.

‘Did you never hear of venal doctors?’ enquired Morris. ‘They’re as common as blackberries: you can pick ‘em up for three-pound-ten a head.’

‘I wouldn’t do it under fifty if I were a sawbones,’ ejaculated John.

‘And then Michael,’ continued Morris, ‘is in the very thick of it. All his clients have come to grief; his whole business is rotten eggs. If any man could arrange it, he could; and depend upon it, he has his plan all straight; and depend upon it, it’s a good one, for he’s clever, and be damned to him! But I’m clever too; and I’m desperate. I lost seven thousand eight hundred pounds when I was an orphan at school.’

‘O, don’t be tedious,’ interrupted John. ‘You’ve lost far more already trying to get it back.’

CHAPTER II. In Which Morris takes Action

Some days later, accordingly, the three males of this depressing family might have been observed (by a reader of G. P. R. James) taking their departure from the East Station of Bournemouth. The weather was raw and changeable, and Joseph was arrayed in consequence according to the principles of Sir Faraday Bond, a man no less strict (as is well known) on costume than on diet. There are few polite invalids who have not lived, or tried to live, by that punctilious physician’s orders. ‘Avoid tea, madam,’ the reader has doubtless heard him say, ‘avoid tea, fried liver, antimonial wine, and bakers’ bread. Retire nightly at 10.45; and clothe yourself (if you please) throughout in hygienic flannel. Externally, the fur of the marten is indicated. Do not forget to procure a pair of health boots at Messrs Dail and Crumbie’s.’ And he has probably called you back, even after you have paid your fee, to add with stentorian emphasis: ‘I had forgotten one caution: avoid kippered sturgeon as you would the very devil.’ The unfortunate Joseph was cut to the pattern of Sir Faraday in every button; he was shod with the health boot; his suit was of genuine ventilating cloth; his shirt of hygienic flannel, a somewhat dingy fabric; and he was draped to the knees in the inevitable greatcoat of marten’s fur. The very railway porters at Bournemouth (which was a favourite station of the doctor’s) marked the old gentleman for a creature of Sir Faraday. There was but one evidence of personal taste, a vizarded forage cap; from this form of headpiece, since he had fled from a dying jackal on the plains of Ephesus, and weathered a bora in the Adriatic, nothing could divorce our traveller.