CHAPTER CLXXXV.

THE LAWYER’S HEAD CLERK.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon of the day following the

incidents just related, that Mr. James Heathcote, the lawyer, was

seated at his writing-table in that private office which we have

already described to our readers,--when a low, timid knock at the door

fell upon his ears.

“Come in,” he exclaimed, in his short, abrupt, and almost brutal

manner, well knowing that the individual about to enter was the poor

wretch whom he bullied when in an ill-humour, and whom on all occasions

he was wont to make his vile agent and spaniel-like slave.

Creeping up as usual--rather than walking with the natural dignity of

a man--towards the table, Mr. Green bowed humbly and waited until his

dreaded, but also hated master should deign to give him leave to speak.

“Well, Mr. Green,” said Heathcote, after a pause of a few minutes,

during which he waited to see whether his grovelling serf would dare

to open his lips until he received permission,--for the lawyer was a

man who liked to ascertain the full extent of the power that he wielded

over his subordinates, and also to make _them_ feel that he _did_

exercise that power;--“well, Mr. Green, what news this afternoon?”

And, throwing himself back in his arm-chair, he passed his thin, yellow

hand through his iron-grey hair.

“If you please, sir, I have several things to report, as you were so

much engaged this morning that you could not give the time to hear

me,” observed Green, in that subdued and almost affrighted tone of

voice which years of servility had rendered habitual to him;--for such

is ever the case with those who mistake the most abasing sycophancy

for proofs of respect. And here we may observe that it is only in

the demoralising and degrading influence of Royal Courts that this

disgusting susurration is adopted as a species of homage to the

divinity raised up by man’s stupid and most reprehensible idolatry.

“Ah! I recollect--I was busy this morning,” exclaimed Mr. Heathcote.

“Well--what have you to report?”

“Please, sir,” resumed the trembling clerk, “Gregson the upholsterer

has put his affairs into the hands of Goodman and Meanwell, who have

got all his creditors save yourself, sir, to sign a letter of license;

and Mr. Goodman has been here this afternoon to say that unless you

will give your name also, his client must inevitably go into the

_Gazette_.”

“Then let him go--and to the devil also, if he chooses!” vociferated

Mr. Heathcote, flying into a passion--a most unusual thing with

one so cool, calculating, and self-possessed as he. “Goodman and

Meanwell are what are called _honest attorneys_--conscientious

lawyers--straightforward practitioners;--and they will exert all their

energies to carry their client through his difficulties. But I will

thwart them, Mr. Green--by God! I will thwart them; Gregson _shall_ go

into the _Gazette_--even if I lose every penny he owes me. I _hate_

your honest attorneys;”--and his lips were curled in bitter irony and

demoniac malignity. “Go on, sir!” he exclaimed savagely, as if it were

his wretched clerk who had irritated him.

“Thompson, sir--the defendant in Jones’s case, you know,” resumed Mr.

Green, “was arrested yesterday--in pursuance of your orders, sir.

I took the liberty of mentioning, sir, that his wife had just been

confined----”

“Well?” exclaimed Mr. Heathcote, impatiently.

“And that his eldest child was at the point of death, sir,” added

Green, more timidly than before.

“Well--what next?” demanded the attorney.

“The poor child has since died, sir.”

“The poor child, indeed! Who cares a fig about a child? Why--you are

growing quite soft-hearted, Mr. Green,” said Heathcote, in a tone of

cutting irony. “The _poor_ child, indeed! I suppose the wife has died

also?” he added, with heartless jocularity.

“Indeed, sir, I am sorry to say you are right in your conjecture,”

responded Green, scarcely venturing to make the announcement.

“No!--is it really the case, though?” exclaimed Heathcote, startled

for a moment at finding that what he had said as a brutal jest turned

out to be a solemn and shocking truth. “Well--what next?” he demanded,

mastering those emotions which he was ashamed at having betrayed.

“Thompson himself, sir--driven to despair by these numerous

afflictions--cut his throat in prison this afternoon,” added Mr. Green.

“Is this possible?” cried Mr. Heathcote, again excited to a degree more

powerful than the clerk had ever before observed: but speedily subduing

his feelings, by dint of a strong and almost superhuman effort--so

sudden and effective was it--he said, “Well--it is not my fault.

Maudlin sentimentalists will perhaps lay his death at my door----”

“I am afraid, sir, that _all_ the three deaths will be attributed to

you,” interrupted Green, with an affectation of exceeding meekness,

while from beneath his brows he darted a rapid glance of fiend-like

expression at his master--a glance which denoted how the man in his

secret soul feasted upon the pangs which now rent the heart of the

attorney.

“I am tough enough to bear everything that people may say of me, Mr.

Green,” observed Heathcote, in his usually cold tone of irony. “But

proceed with your communications.”

“Beale’s wife, sir, called this morning--you know Beale?--the man you

put into Whitecross Street prison, and whose wife and children have

been starving ever since----”

“Really, Mr. Green,” interrupted Heathcote, fixing a stern look upon

his clerk, “it would appear that you are purposely entering into minute

details this afternoon in order to annoy me. Of course I know who Beale

_is_----”

“_Was_, sir, if you please,” said Green, with difficulty concealing

the savage delight that he took in thus torturing--or, at least,

endeavouring to torture, his master.

“What do you mean, sir?” demanded Heathcote, savagely.

“That Beale died in the infirmary at Whitecross Street last night,

sir,” responded Green, his tone and manner becoming more abjectly

obsequious in proportion as his internal joy augmented at the

increasing excitement and irritation of his master.

“The man was doubtless a drunkard, Green,” observed Heathcote, roughly:

“and therefore, when no longer able to get liquor, the reaction carried

him off.”

“I dare say, sir, that you know best--and I am sure you must be right,”

returned the clerk, with a low bow: “but the man’s friends _do_ say

that a more sober, hard-working, and deserving fellow did not exist.”

[Illustration]

“And therefore I suppose that _his_ death will be laid at my door!”

exclaimed Heathcote, now for the first time in his life glancing

timidly--almost appealing, at his clerk, as if to implore him to devise

some excuse or start some palliation that might ease his troubled

conscience.

But Green, whose very obsequiousness and servility afforded him the

means of venting his spite on his hated master, pretended to take the

observation as an assertion and not an interrogatory, and replied in

a humble tone, “Your foresight and knowledge of the world, sir, are

beyond all dispute; and, as you say, Beale’s death is certain to be

laid at your door. But of course you are perfectly indifferent to the

tittle-tattle of scandalous tongues.”

Heathcote rose from his seat--or rather started from it, and walked

rapidly up and down the room thrice. He felt sorely troubled; for,

hardened as his heart was--obdurate as his soul had become, he could

not shut out the whispering voice of conscience which now proclaimed

him to be the author of all the deaths that his clerk had enumerated.

And, while he was racked by these painful convictions, the thought

suddenly flashed to his brain that Green had displayed a savage delight

in detailing those horrors; and, man of the world as James Heathcote

was, it occurred to him, as a natural sequence to the suspicion just

mentioned, that his clerk hated and abhorred him.

Acting under the influence of these impressions, he stopped suddenly

short close by the spot where Green was standing; and he fixed

his snake-like gaze upon the shabbily-dressed, senile-looking,

self-debasing individual, who appeared to be maintaining his eyes bent

timidly and reverentially on the floor--as if his master’s emotions

were something too sacred to look upon.

“Green!--Mr. Green!” exclaimed Heathcote, laying his hand with such

abruptness and also with such violence upon the grovelling wretch’s

shoulder, that it made him start convulsively--though he knew all the

while that his master had accosted him, and was also gazing on him.

“Yes, sir!” cried the clerk, raising his eyes diffidently toward

Heathcote’s countenance.

“Do you conceive that the deaths of those people can be righteously

attributed to me?” demanded the lawyer, speaking in a low, measured,

and solemn tone, and looking as if he sought to read into the most

secret depths of his clerk’s soul: “do you, I say, dare to associate

any act or deed of mine with _their_ fate?” he asked, raising his

voice, while his face became terrible to gaze upon.

“Who?--I, sir!” ejaculated Green, as if in astonishment at the

questions put to him; and his own countenance assumed such a sinister

aspect that Heathcote surveyed him with increasing suspicion and

distrust.

“Yes--you!” cried the lawyer, ferociously. “Now, mark me, Green,” he

continued, in a lower and more composed tone of voice,--“if you dare

to harbour ill feelings towards me--if even a scintillation of such

feelings should transpire from your words or manner, I will crush you

as I would a worm--I will send you to Newgate--abandon you to your

fate--and, if necessary, _help_ to have you shipped for eternal exile.”

“My God! how have I deserved these implied reproaches--these terrible

menaces?” demanded Green, his countenance expressing real alarm, and

his whole frame shivering from head to heel.

“Perhaps you have _not_ deserved them--and in that case they will

serve as a warning,” said Heathcote, now becoming suddenly calm and

imperiously scornful: “but I think that you _did_ merit all I have

uttered--and now you know me better, perhaps, than you knew me before.

However, let all this pass. I do not for an instant suppose that I

possess your affection; but I will guard against the effects of your

hate. Answer me not, sir: you cannot wipe away the impressions which

this afternoon’s scene has conjured up in my mind. And now proceed with

anything more that you may have to tell me.”

“Fox, the ironmonger, sir,” resumed Green, in a more timid and servile

tone than ever, and with a manner so cowed and grovelling that it

completely veiled the strong pantings for revenge and the emotions of

bitter, burning hate which dwelt in the clerk’s secret soul,--“Fox, the

ironmonger, sir, has realised all his property and absconded.”

“Did I not tell you to issue execution against his goods without

delay?” demanded Heathcote, angrily.

“I obeyed your commands, sir, as soon as the usual forms were gone

through,” responded Green: “but in the interval the man, knowing the

steps you were taking against him, sold off everything and ran away--no

one can tell whither.”

“Then all your intelligence is evil this afternoon, Mr. Green?” said

Heathcote. “What about Mrs. Sefton?”

“The spy that I set to watch her has reported her removal from Kentish

Town to a house at Bayswater, sir,” answered Green; “and as she has a

young lady with her--a Miss Vernon, it appears--she does not seem to be

busying herself in any way that might interfere with your interests.”

“But that insolent young nobleman--that Lord William Trevelyan?”

demanded Heathcote.

“I do not think he is troubling himself any more in the business, sir,”

answered Green.

“Good and well!” ejaculated the attorney. “These latter tidings

constitute something like an agreeable set-off in respect to all your

former communications. Hah!” he cried, suddenly interrupting himself,

as the clock proclaimed the hour: “five already! Well, you may go now,

Green--and see that your spies keep a good look-out upon the movements

of Mrs. Sefton and Lord William Trevelyan.”

“I will, sir,” was the reply; and the clerk bowed himself out of the

office.

Half an hour afterwards Mr. Green was wending his way towards the

aristocratic quarters of the West End; and at length he entered a

respectable-looking public-house in the neighbourhood of Portland Place.

Having called for some refreshment, he took up the newspaper to while

away the time until the arrival of the person whom he was expecting:

but he could not settle his thoughts to the perusal of the journal. He

read an article through, from beginning to end; and, when he reached

the termination, he had not retained a single idea of the subject.

The fact was that the man’s mind was excited and bewildered by the

scene which had taken place that afternoon with his master. He

felt that he had been trampled upon--treated with every possible

indignity--despised, menaced, and almost spit upon;--and he was

compelled to suffer all--to bear everything--to endure those flagrant

wrongs, without daring to murmur.

“But I will be avenged--terribly avenged!” thought he within himself,

as he bent over the table in the public-house parlour, supporting

his head upon his two hands: “yes--even though I should sacrifice

myself, I will be avenged sooner or later. For years and years have

I been his slave--his menial--his instrument--his tool;--and he has

kept me in such utter subjection that it was not until lately I

remembered that I really possessed a soul and a spirit of my own.

The hard-hearted--cruel--remorseless wretch! I hate and abhor him

with a malignant hatred and a savage abhorrence. No words are strong

enough--no terms sufficiently potent to convey even to myself an idea

of the magnitude of that aversion which I now entertain for him. But

if he has me in his power in one way, he is at my mercy in many other

others. He little suspects how deep an insight I possess into his

affairs--his machinations--his dark plots. He thinks that I behold but

the surface: he knows not that I have fathomed to the bottom!”

At this point in the clerk’s musings, the door of the parlour was

opened, and a respectable-looking man, dressed in black, but with a

white cravat entered the room.

“You are somewhat behind your time, Mr. Fitzgeorge,” said Green, as

this individual--who was Lord William Trevelyan’s valet--seated himself

by the clerk’s side.

“Only a few minutes,” responded Fitzgeorge. “And now to business

without delay. It is fortunate that we are all alone in this parlour at

present: otherwise I should have proposed to adjourn to a private room.

Have you thought well of the subject I mentioned to you yesterday?”

“I have,” was the answer, delivered in a tone of decision: “and I

am prepared to meet your wishes. But remember that I told you how

completely I am in the power of the villain Heathcote; and if he were

to discover that your noble master received his information through

me----”

“He cannot possibly detect your instrumentality in the business,

provided you do not betray yourself,” said Fitzgeorge.

“Then I cannot hesitate to serve you,” responded Green.

“Here are a hundred pounds in advance of the sum promised you,”

continued the valet, producing bank-notes to the amount named; “and the

other moiety shall be paid the moment the information you are about to

give me shall have proved to be correct.”

“Ah! it is a long--long time since I could call so much money my own,”

said Green, with a deep sigh, as he gazed upon the notes--half doubting

whether it were possible that they were about to find their way into

his pocket.

“Take up the money and use despatch--for my time is precious,”

exclaimed Fitzgeorge.

The clerk followed the first suggestion with amazing alacrity; and his

sinister countenance was now as radiant with joy as such a face could

be.

“Your master is generous--very generous,” he said, as soon as the

notes were secured in his waistcoat-pocket; “and I will serve him to

the utmost of my power. The mad-house to which Sir Gilbert Heathcote

has been consigned, is kept by Dr. Swinton, and is situated in the

neighbourhood of the new church facing the end of the Bethnal Green

Road.”

“I am well acquainted with the locality,” said Fitzgeorge. “The church

you speak of is in the Cambridge Road, and stands at one of the angles

of the Green?”

“Precisely so,” answered the clerk; “and the lunatic asylum looks upon

the Green itself, its back windows commanding a view of Globe Town. But

here is the exact address,” continued the man, producing a card from

his pocket.

“That is all I require,” said Fitzgeorge. “Three days hence you can

meet me here again; and if in the meantime I should have discovered

that Sir Gilbert Heathcote is really confined in Dr. Swinton’s asylum,

the other hundred pounds shall be handed over to you.”

The valet and the clerk then separated.