Part 44 (1/2)
”I think I can explain that. Now tell me--what time do you expect--a certain event?”
Lady Ba.s.sett blushed and cast a hasty glance at the speaker; but he had a piece of paper before him, and was preparing to take down her reply, with the innocent face of a man who had asked a simple and necessary question in the way of business.
Then Lady Ba.s.sett looked at Mary Wells, and this look Mr. Rolfe surprised, because he himself looked up to see why the lady hesitated.
After an expressive glance between the mistress and maid, the lady said, almost inaudibly, ”More than three months;” and then she blushed all over.
Mr. Rolfe looked at the two women a moment, and seemed a little puzzled at their telegraphing each other on such a subject; but he coolly noted down Lady Ba.s.sett's reply on a card about the size of a foolscap sheet, and then set himself to write on the same card the other facts he had elicited.
While he was doing this very slowly, with great care and pains, the lady was eying him like a zoologist studying some new animal. The simplicity and straightforwardness of his last question won by degrees upon her judgment and reconciled her to her Inquisitor, the more so as he was quiet but intense, and his whole soul in her case. She began to respect his simple straightforwardness, his civility without a grain of gallantry, and his caution in eliciting all the facts before he would advise.
After he had written down his synopsis, looking all the time as if his life depended on its correctness, he leaned back, and his ordinary but mobile countenance was transfigured into geniality.
”Come,” said he, ”grandmamma has pestered you with questions enough; now you retort--ask me anything--speak your mind: these things should be attacked in every form, and sifted with every sieve.”
Lady Ba.s.sett hesitated a moment, but at last responded to this invitation.
”Sir, one thing that discourages me cruelly--my solicitor seems so inferior to Mr. Ba.s.sett's. He can think of nothing but objections; and so he does nothing, and lets us be trampled on: it is his being unable to cope with Mr. Ba.s.sett's solicitor, Mr. Wheeler, that has led me in my deep distress to trouble you, whom I had not the honor of knowing.”
”I understand your ladys.h.i.+p perfectly. Mr. Oldfield is a respectable solicitor, and Wheeler is a sharp country pract.i.tioner; and--to use my favorite Americanism--you feel like fighting with a blunt knife against a sharp one.”
”That is my feeling, sir, and it drives me almost wild sometimes.”
”For your comfort, then, in my earlier litigations--I have had sixteen lawsuits for myself and other oppressed people--I had often that very impression; but the result always corrected it. Legal battles are like other battles: first you have a skirmish or two, and then a great battle in court. Now sharp attorneys are very apt to win the skirmish and lose the battle. I see a general of this stamp in Mr. Wheeler, and you need not fear him much. Of course an antagonist is never to be despised; but I would rather have Wheeler against you than Oldfield. An honest man like Oldfield blunders into wisdom, the Lord knows how. Your Wheelers seldom get beyond cunning; and cunning does not see far enough to cope with men of real sagacity and forethought in matters so complicated as this. Oldfield, acting for Ba.s.sett, would have pushed rapidly on to an examination by the court. You would have evaded it, and put yourself in the wrong; and the inquiry, well urged, might have been adverse to Sir Charles. Wheeler has taken a more cunning and violent course--it strikes more terror, does more immediate harm; but what does it lead to? Very little; and it disarms them of their sharpest weapon, the immediate inquiry; for we could now delay and greatly prejudice an inquiry on the very ground of the outrage and unnecessary violence; and could demand time to get the patient as well as he was before the outrage. And, indeed, the court is very jealous of those who begin by going to a judge, and then alter their minds, and try to dispose of the case themselves. And to make matters worse, here they do it by straining an Act of Parliament opposed to equity.”
”I wish it may prove so, sir; but, meantime, Mr. Wheeler is active, Mr.
Oldfield is pa.s.sive. He has not an idea. He is a mere negative.”
”Ah, that is because he is out of his groove. A smattering of law is not enough here. It wants a smattering of human nature too.”
”Then, sir, would you advise me to part with Mr. Oldfield?”
”No. Why make an enemy? Besides, he is the vehicle of communication with the other side. You must simply ignore him for a time.”
”But is there nothing I can do, sir? for it is this cruel inactivity that kills me. Pray advise me--you know all now.”
Mr. Rolfe, thus challenged, begged for a moment's delay.
”Let us be silent a minute,” said he, ”and think hard.”
And, to judge by his face, he did think with great intensity.
”Lady Ba.s.sett,” said he, very gravely, ”I a.s.sume that every fact you and Mr. Angelo have laid before me is true, and no vital part is kept back. Well, then, your present course is--Delay. Not the weak delay of those who procrastinate what cannot be avoided; but the wise delay of a general who can bring up overpowering forces, only give him time.
Understand me, there is more than one game on the cards; but I prefer the surest. We could begin fighting openly to-morrow; but that would be risking too much for too little. The law's delay, the insolence of office, the up-hill and th.o.r.n.y way, would hurt Sir Charles's mind at present. The apathy, the cruelty, the trickery, the routine, the hot and cold fits of hope and fear, would poison your blood, and perhaps lose Sir Charles the heir he pines for. Besides, if we give battle to-day we fight the heir at law; but in three or four months we may have him on our side, and trustees appointed by you. By that time, too, Sir Charles will have got over that abominable capture, and be better than he was a week ago, constantly soothed and consoled--as he will be--by the hope of offspring. When the right time comes, that moment we strike, and with a sledge-hammer. No letters to the commissioners then, no pet.i.tioning Chancery to send a jury into the asylum, stronghold of prejudice. I will cut your husband in two. Don't be alarmed. I will merely give him, with your help, an _alter ego,_ who shall effect his liberation and ruin Richard Ba.s.sett--ruin him in damages and costs, and drive him out of the country, perhaps. Meantime you are not to be a lay figure, or a mere negative.”
”Oh, sir, I am so glad of that!”