His was a curious errand. Indeed I think it would not be easy to find a parallel to it.
For here was an attorney calling upon a beautiful girl; to do what?
To soften her.
On a daughter; to do what?
To persuade her to permit him to lend her father £100 on insufficient security.
Well, he reminded her of his ancient obligations to her family, and assured her he could well afford to risk a hundred or even a thousand pounds. He then told her that her father had shown great pain at his refusal, and that he himself was human, and could not divest himself of gratitude, and pity, and good nature—all for £100. "In a word," said he, "I have brought the money; and you must give in for this once, and let me lend it him without more ado."
Miss Peyton was gratified, and affected; and a tear trembled a moment in her eye; but went indoors again, and left her firm as a rock, sprinkled with dew. She told him she could quite understand his feeling, and thanked him for it: but she had long and seriously weighed the matter, and could not release him from his promise. "No more of this base borrowing," said she, and clenched her white teeth indomitably.
He attacked her with a good many weapons; but she parried them all so gently yet so nobly, and so successfully, that he admired her more than ever.
Still, lawyers fight hard; and die very hard. Houseman got warm in his cause, and cross-examined this defendant; and asked her whether she would refuse to lend her father £100 out of a full purse.
This question was answered only by a flash of her glorious eyes, and a magnificent look of disdain at the doubt implied.
"Well, then," said Houseman, "be your father's surety for repayment with interest at six per centum; and then there will be nothing in the business to wound your dignity. I have many hundreds out at six per centum."
"Excuse me: that would be dishonest," said Kate; "I have no money to repay you with."
"But you have expectations."
"Nay, not I."
"I beg your pardon."
"Methinks I should know, sir. What expectations have I? and from whom?"
Houseman fidgeted on his seat; and then with some hesitation replied, "Well, from two that I know of.
"You are jesting, methinks, good Mr. Houseman," said she, reproachfully.
"Nay, dear Mistress Kate, I wish you too well to jest on such a theme."
The lawyer then fidgeted again on his seat in silence, sign of an inward struggle; during which Kate's eye watched him with some curiosity. At last his wavering balance inclined towards revealing something or other.
"Mistress Kate," said he, "my wife and I are both your faithful friends, and humble admirers: we often say you would grace a coronet: and wish you were as rich as you are good and beautiful."
Kate turned her lovely head away, and gave him her hand. That incongruous movement, so full of womanly grace and feeling, and the soft pressure of her white hand, completed her victory, and the remains of Houseman's reserve melted away.
"Yes, my dear young lady," said he, warmly, "I have good news for you: only, mind, not a living soul must ever know it from your lips. Why, I am going to do for you what I never did in my life before; going to tell you something that passed yesterday in my office. But then I know you: you are a young lady out of a thousand: I can trust you to be discreet, and silent; can I not?"
"As the grave."
"Well, then, my young mistress—in truth it was like a play, though the scene was but a lawyer's office—"
"Was it?" cried Kate. "Then you set me all of a flutter: you must sup here, and sleep here. Nay, nay," said she, her eyes sparkling with animation, "I'll take no denial. My father dines abroad: we shall have the house to ourselves."
Her interest was keenly excited: but she was a true woman, and must coquet with her very curiosity; so she ran off to see with her own eyes that sheets were aired, and a roasting fire lighted in the blue bedroom for her guest.
While she was away, a servant brought in Griffith Gaunt's letter, and a sheet of paper had to be borrowed to answer it.
The answer was hardly written and sent out to Griffith's servant, when supper and the fair hostess came in almost together.
After supper fresh logs were heaped on the fire, and the lawyer sat in a cosy arm-chair, and took out his diary, and several papers, as methodically as if he was going to lay the case by counsel before a judge of assize.
Kate sat opposite him with her grey eyes beaming on him all the time, and searching for the hidden meaning of everything he told her. During the recital which follows, her color often came and went, but those wonderful eyes never left the narrator's face a moment.
They put the attorney on his mettle, and he elaborated the matter more than I should have done: he articulated his topics; marked each salient fact by a long pause. In short he told his story like an attorney, and not like a Romancist. I cannot help that, you know; I'm not Procrustes.
Mr. Houseman's Little Narrative
"Wednesday, the seventeenth day of February, at about one of the clock, called on me at my place of business Mr. Griffith Gaunt, whom I need not hero describe, inasmuch as his person and place of residence are well known to the court—what am I saying?—I mean, well known to yourself, Mistress Kate.
"The said Griffith, on entering my room seemed moved, and I might say, distempered; and did not give himself time to salute me and receive my obeisance, but addressed me abruptly and said as follows: 'Mr. Houseman, I am come to make my will.'"
"Dear me!" said Kate: then blushed, and was more on her guard.
"I seated the young gentleman, and then replied that his resolution aforesaid did him credit, the young being as mortal as the old. I said further that many disasters had happened, in my experience, owing to the obstinacy with which men in the days of their strength shut their eyes to the precarious tenure, under which all sons of Adam hold existence; and so many a worthy gentleman dies in his sins. And, what is worse, dies intestate.
"But the said Griffith interrupted me with some signs of impatience, and asked me bluntly would I draw his will, and have it executed on the spot.
"I assented, generally; but I requested him by way of needful preliminary, to obtain for me a copy of Mr. Charlton's will, under which, as I have always understood, the said Griffith inherits whatever real estate he hath to bequeath.
"Mr. Griffith Gaunt then replied to me that Mr. Charlton's will was in London, and the exact terms of it could not be known until after the funeral: that is to say upon the nineteenth instant.
"Thereupon I explained to Mr. Gaunt that I must see and know what properties were devised in the will aforesaid, by the said Charlton, to Gaunt aforesaid, and how devised and described. Without this, I said, I could not correctly and sufficiently describe the same in the instrument I was now requested to prepare.
"Mr. Gaunt did not directly reply to this objection. But he pondered a little while, and then
