Felix Holt, the Radical

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  I doe believe that, as the gall has severall receptacles in several creatures, soe there's scarce any creature but hath that emunctorye somewhere.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

  Fancy what a game at chess would be if all the chessmen had passions andintellects, more or less small and cunning: if you were not onlyuncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain about yourown; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly;if your bishop, in disgust at your castling, could wheedle your pawnsout of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they arepawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might getcheckmate on a sudden. You might be the longest-headed of deductivereasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would beespecially likely to be beat, if you depended arrogantly on yourmathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces withcontempt.

  Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with the game a man has toplay against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for his instruments.He thinks himself sagacious, perhaps, because he trusts no bond exceptthat of self-interest: but the only self-interest he can safely rely onis what seems to be such to the mind he would use or govern. Can he everbe sure of knowing this?

  Matthew Jermyn was under no misgivings as to the fealty of Johnson. Hehad "been the making of Johnson"; and this seems to many men as a reasonfor expecting devotion, in spite of the fact that they themselves,though very fond of their own persons and lives, are not at all devotedto the Maker they believe in. Johnson was a most serviceablesubordinate. Being a man who aimed at respectability, a family man, whohad a good church-pew, subscribed for engravings of banquet pictureswhere there were portraits of political celebrities, and wished hischildren to be more unquestionably genteel than their father, hepresented all the more numerous handles of worldly motive by which ajudicious superior might get a hold on him. But this useful regard torespectability had its inconvenience in relation to such a superior: itwas a mark of some vanity and some pride, which, if they were nottouched just in the right handling-place, were liable to become raw andsensitive. Jermyn was aware of Johnson's weaknesses, and thought he hadflattered them sufficiently. But on the point of knowing when we aredisagreeable, our human nature is fallible. Our lavender-water, oursmiles, our compliments, and other polite falsities, are constantlyoffensive, when in the very nature of them they can only be meant toattract admiration and regard. Jermyn had often been unconsciouslydisagreeable to Johnson, over and above the constant offence of being anostentatious patron. He would never let Johnson dine with his wife anddaughters; he would not himself dine at Johnson's house when he was intown. He often did what was equivalent to poohpoohing his conversationby not even appearing to listen, and by suddenly cutting it short with aquery on a new subject. Jermyn was able and politic enough to havecommanded a great deal of success in his life, but he could not helpbeing handsome, arrogant, fond of being heard, indisposed to any kind ofcomradeship, amorous and bland toward women, cold and self-containedtoward men. You will hear very strong denials that an attorney's beinghandsome could enter into the dislike he excited; but conversationconsists a good deal in the denial of what is true. From the Britishpoint of view masculine beauty is regarded very much as it is in thedrapery business:--as good solely for the fancy department--for youngnoblemen, artists, poets, and the clergy. Some one who, like Mr. Lingon,was disposed to revile Jermyn (perhaps it was Sir Maximus), had calledhim "a cursed, sleek, handsome, long-winded, overbearing sycophant";epithets which expressed, rather confusedly, the mingled character ofthe dislike he excited. And serviceable John Johnson, himself sleek, andmindful about his broadcloth and his cambric fronts, had what heconsidered "spirit" enough within him to feel that dislike of Jermyngradually gathering force through years of obligation and subjection,till it had become an actuating motive disposed to use an opportunity;if it did not watch for one.

  It was not this motive, however, but rather the ordinary course ofbusiness, which accounted for Johnson's playing a double part as anelectioneering agent. What men do in elections is not to be classedeither among sins or marks of grace; it would be profane to includebusiness in religion, and conscience refers to failure, not to success.Still, the sense of being galled by Jermyn's harness was an additionalreason for cultivating all relations that were independent of him; andpique at Harold Transome's behavior to him in Jermyn's office perhapsgave all the more zest to Johnson's use of his pen and ink when he wrotea handbill in the service of Garstin, and Garstin's incomparable agent,Putty, full of innuendoes against Harold Transome, as a descendant ofthe Durfey-Transomes. It is a natural subject of self-congratulation toa man, when special knowledge, gained long ago without any forecast,turns out to afford a special inspiration in the present; and Johnsonfelt a new pleasure in the consciousness that he of all people in theworld next to Jermyn had the most intimate knowledge of the Transomeaffairs. Still better--some of these affairs were secrets of Jermyn's.If in an uncomplimentary spirit he might have been called Jermyn's "manof straw," it was a satisfaction to know that the unreality of the manJohn Johnson was confined to his appearance in annuity deeds, and thatelsewhere he was solid, locomotive, and capable of remembering anythingfor his own pleasure and benefit. To act with doubleness towards a manwhose conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that itdeserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy.

  By such causes it came to pass that Christian held in his hands a billin which Jermyn was playfully alluded to as Mr. German Cozen, who wongames by clever shuffling and odd tricks without any honor, and backedDurfey's crib against Bycliffe--in which it was adroitly implied thatthe so-called head of the Transomes was only the tail of theDurfeys--and that some said the Durfeys would have died out and lefttheir nest empty if it had not been for their German Cozen.

  Johnson had not dared to use any recollections except such as mightcredibly exist in other minds besides his own. In the truth of the case,no one but himself had the prompting to recall these out-worn scandals;but it was likely enough that such foul-winged things should be revivedby election heats for Johnson to escape all suspicion.

  Christian could gather only dim and uncertain inferences from this flatirony and heavy joking; but one chief thing was clear to him. He hadbeen right in his conjecture that Jermyn's interest about Bycliffe hadits source in some claim of Bycliffe's on the Transome property. Andthen, there was that story of the old bill-sticker's, which, closelyconsidered, indicated that the right of the present Transomes depended,or, at least, had depended on the continuance of some other lives.Christian in his time had gathered enough legal notions to be aware thatpossession by one man sometimes depended on the life of another; that aman might sell his own interest in property, and the interest of hisdescendants, while a claim on that property would still remain to someone else than the purchaser, supposing the descendants became extinct,and the interests they had sold were at an end. But under whatconditions the claim might be valid or void in any particular case, wasall darkness to him. Suppose Bycliffe had any such claim on the Transomeestates: how was Christian to know whether at the present moment it wasworth anything more than a bit of rotten parchment? Old Tommy Trounsemhad said that Johnson knew all about it. But even if Johnson were stillabove-ground--and all Johnsons are mortal--he might still be anunderstrapper of Jermyn's, in which case his knowledge would be on thewrong side of the hedge for the purposes of Henry Scaddon. His immediatecare must be to find out all he could about Johnson. He blamed himselffor not having questioned Tommy further while he had him at command; buton this head the bill-sticker could hardly know more than the lessdilapidated denizens of Treby.

  Now it had happened that during the weeks in which Christian had been atwork trying to solve the enigma of Jermyn's interest about Bycliffe,Johnson's mind also had been somewhat occupied with suspicion andconjecture as to new information on the subject of the old Bycliffeclaims which Jermyn intended to conceal from him. The letter which,after his intervie
w with Christian, Jermyn had written with a sense ofperfect safety to his faithful ally Johnson, was, as we know, written toa Johnson who had found his self-love incompatible with thatfaithfulness of which it was supposed to be the foundation. Anythingthat the patron felt it inconvenient for his obliged friend and servantto know, became by that very fact an object of peculiar curiosity. Theobliged friend and servant secretly doted on his patron's inconvenience,provided that he himself did not share it; and conjecture naturallybecame active.

  Johnson's legal imagination, being very differently furnished fromChristian's, was at no loss to conceive conditions under which theremight arise a new claim on the Transome estates. He had before him thewhole history of the settlement of those estates made a hundred yearsago by John Justus Transome, entailing them, whilst in his possession,on his son Thomas and his heirs-male, with remainder to the Bycliffes infee. He knew that Thomas, son of John Justus, proving a prodigal, had,without the knowledge of his father, the tenant in possession, sold hisown and his descendants' rights to a lawyer-cousin named Durfey; that,therefore, the title of the Durfey-Transomes, in spite of that oldDurfey's tricks to show the contrary, depended solely on the purchase ofthe "base fee" thus created by Thomas Transome; and that the Bycliffeswere the "remainder men" who might fairly oust the Durfey-Transomes ifever the issue of the prodigal Thomas went clean out of existence, andceased to represent a right which he had bargained away from them.

  Johnson, as Jermyn's subordinate, had been closely cognizant of thedetails concerning the suit instituted by successive Bycliffes, of whomMaurice Christian Bycliffe was the last, on the plea that the extinctionof Thomas Transome's line had actually come to pass--a weary suit, whichhad eaten into the fortunes of two families, and had only made thecankerworms fat. The suit had closed with the death of Maurice ChristianBycliffe in prison but before his death, Jermyn's exertions to getevidence that there was still issue of Thomas Transome's line surviving,as a security of the Durfey title, had issued in the discovery of aThomas Transome at Littleshaw, in Stonyshire, who was the representativeof the pawned inheritance. The death of Maurice had made this discoveryuseless--had made it seem the wiser part to say nothing about it; andthe fact had remained a secret known only to Jermyn and Johnson. Noother Bycliffe was known or believed to exist, and the Durfey-Transomesmight be considered safe, unless--yes, there was an "unless" whichJohnson could conceive: an heir or heiress of the Bycliffes--if such apersonage turned out to be in existence--might sometime raise a new andvalid claim when once informed that wretched old Tommy Trounsem thebill-sticker, tottering drunkenly on the edge of the grave, was the lastissue remaining above-ground from that dissolute Thomas who played hisEsau part a century before. While the poor old bill-sticker breathed,the Durfey-Transomes could legally keep their possession in spite of apossible Bycliffe proved real; but not when the parish had buried thebill-sticker.

  Still, it is one thing to conceive conditions, and another to see anychance of proving their existence. Johnson at present had no glimpse ofsuch a chance; and even if he ever gained the glimpse, he was not surethat he should ever make any use of it. His enquiries of Medwin, inobedience to Jermyn's letter, had extracted only a negative as to anyinformation possessed by the lawyers of Bycliffe concerning a marriage,or expectation of offspring on his part. But Johnson felt not the lessstung by curiosity to know what Jermyn had found out: that he had foundsomething in relation to a possible Bycliffe, Johnson felt pretty sure.And he thought with satisfaction that Jermyn could not hinder him fromknowing what he already knew about Thomas Transome's issue. Many thingsmight occur to alter his policy and give a new value to facts. Was itcertain that Jermyn would always be fortunate?

  When greed and unscrupulousness exhibit themselves on a grand historicalscale, and there is a question of peace or war or amicable partition, itoften occurs that gentlemen of high diplomatic talents have their mindsbent on the same object from different points of view. Each, perhaps, isthinking of a certain duchy or province, with a view to arranging theownership in such a way as shall best serve the purposes of thegentleman with high diplomatic talents in whom each is more especiallyinterested. But these select minds in high office can never miss theiraims from ignorance of each other's existence or whereabouts. Their hightitles may be learned even by common people from every pocket almanac.

  But with meaner diplomats, who might be mutually useful, such ignoranceis often obstructive. Mr. John Johnson and Mr. Christian, otherwise Mr.Scaddon, might have had a concentration of purpose and an ingenuity ofdevice fitting them to make a figure in the parcelling of Europe, andyet they might never have met, simply because Johnson knew nothing ofChristian, and because Christian did not know where to find Johnson.