The Battle of Life. A Love Story

“And so, if Mr. Britain will oblige us with a mouthful of ink,” said Mr. Snitchey, returning to the papers, “we’ll sign, seal, and deliver as soon as possible, or the coach will be coming past before we know where we are.”

If one might judge from his appearance, there was every probability of the coach coming past before Mr. Britain knew where he was; for he stood in a state of abstraction, mentally balancing the Doctor against the lawyers, and the lawyers against the Doctor, and their clients against both; and engaged in feeble attempts to make the thimble and nutmeg-grater (a new idea to him) square with anybody’s system of philosophy; and, in short, bewildering himself as much as ever his great namesake has done with theories and schools. But Clemency, who was his good Genius – though he had the meanest possible opinion of her understanding, by reason of her seldom troubling herself with abstract speculations, and being always at hand to do the right thing at the right time – having produced the ink in a twinkling, tendered him the further service of recalling him to himself by the application of her elbows; with which gentle flappers she so jogged his memory, in a more literal construction of that phrase than usual, that he soon became quite fresh and brisk.

How he labored under an apprehension not uncommon to persons in his degree, to whom the use of pen and ink is an event, that he couldn’t append his name to a document, not of his own writing, without committing himself in some shadowy manner, or somehow signing away vague and enormous sums of money; and how he approached the deeds under protest, and by dint of the Doctor’s coercion, and insisted on pausing to look at them before writing (the cramped hand, to say nothing of the phraseology, being so much Chinese to him), and also on turning them round to see whether there was anything fraudulent, underneath; and how, having signed his name, he became desolate as one who had parted with his property and rights; I want the time to tell. Also, how the blue bag containing his signature, afterwards had a mysterious interest for him, and he couldn’t leave it; also, how Clemency Newcome, in an ecstasy of laughter at the idea of her own importance and dignity, brooded over the whole table with her two elbows like a spread eagle, and reposed her head upon her left arm as a preliminary to the formation of certain cabalistic characters, which required a deal of ink, and imaginary counterparts whereof she executed at the same time with her tongue. Also how, having once tasted ink, she became thirsty in that regard, as tigers are said to be after tasting another sort of fluid, and wanted to sign everything, and put her name in all kinds of places. In brief, the Doctor was discharged of his trust and all its responsibilities; and Alfred, taking it on himself, was fairly started on the journey of life.

“Britain!” said the Doctor. “Run to the gate, and watch for the coach. Time flies, Alfred!”

“Yes, Sir, yes,” returned the young man, hurriedly. “Dear Grace! a moment! Marion – so young and beautiful, so winning and so much admired, dear to my heart as nothing else in life is – remember! I leave Marion to you!”

“She has always been a sacred charge to me, Alfred. She is doubly so now. I will be faithful to my trust, believe me.”

“I do believe it, Grace. I know it well. Who could look upon your face, and hear your earnest voice, and not know it! Ah, good Grace! If I had your well-governed heart, and tranquil mind, how bravely I would leave this place to-day!”

“Would you?” she answered, with a quiet smile.

“And yet, Grace – Sister, seems the natural word.”

“Use it!” she said quickly, “I am glad to hear it, call me nothing else.”

“And yet, Sister, then,” said Alfred, “Marion and I had better have your true and stedfast qualities serving us here, and making us both happier and better. I wouldn’t carry them away, to sustain myself, if I could!”

“Coach upon the hill-top!” exclaimed Britain.

“Time flies, Alfred,” said the Doctor.

Marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the ground; but this warning being given, her young lover brought her tenderly to where her sister stood, and gave her into her embrace.

“I have been telling Grace, dear Marion,” he said, “that you are her charge; my precious trust at parting. And when I come back and reclaim you, dearest, and the bright prospect of our married life lies stretched before us, it shall be one of our chief pleasures to consult how we can make Grace happy; how we can anticipate her wishes; how we can show our gratitude and love to her; how we can return her something of the debt she will have heaped upon us.”

The younger sister had one hand in his; the other rested on her sister’s neck. She looked into that sister’s eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, with a gaze in which affection, admiration, sorrow, wonder, almost veneration, were blended. She looked into that sister’s face, as if it were the face of some bright angel. Calm, serene, and cheerful, it looked back on her and on her lover.

“And when the time comes, as it must one day,” said Alfred, – “I wonder it has never come yet: but Grace knows best, for Grace is always right, – when she will want a friend to open her whole heart to, and to be to her something of what she has been to us, – then, Marion, how faithful we will prove, and what delight to us to know that she, our dear good sister, loves and is loved again, as we would have her!”

Still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and turned not – even towards him. And still those honest eyes looked back, so calm, serene, and cheerful, on herself and on her lover.

“And when all that is past, and we are old, and living (as we must!) together – close together; talking often of old times,” said Alfred – “these shall be our favorite times among them – this day most of all; and telling each other what we thought and felt, and hoped and feared, at parting; and how we couldn’t bear to say good bye” —

“Coach coming through the wood,” cried Britain.

“Yes! I am ready – and how we met again, so happily, in spite of all; we’ll make this day the happiest in all the year, and keep it as a treble birth-day. Shall we, dear?”

“Yes!” interposed the elder sister, eagerly, and with a radiant smile. “Yes! Alfred, don’t linger. There’s no time. Say good bye to Marion. And Heaven be with you!”

He pressed the younger sister to his heart. Released from his embrace, she again clung to her sister; and her eyes, with the same blended look, again sought those so calm, serene, and cheerful.

“Farewell my boy!” said the Doctor. “To talk about any serious correspondence or serious affections, and engagements, and so forth, in such a – ha ha ha! – you know what I mean – why that, of course, would be sheer nonsense. All I can say is, that if you and Marion should continue in the same foolish minds, I shall not object to have you for a son-in-law one of these days.”

“Over the bridge!” cried Britain.

“Let it come!” said Alfred, wringing the Doctor’s hand stoutly. “Think of me sometimes, my old friend and guardian, as seriously as you can! Adieu, Mr. Snitchey! Farewell, Mr. Craggs!”

“Coming down the road!” cried Britain.

“A kiss of Clemency Newcome for long acquaintance' sake – shake hands, Britain – Marion, dearest heart, good bye! Sister Grace! remember!”

The quiet household figure, and the face so beautiful in its serenity, were turned towards him in reply; but Marion’s look and attitude remained unchanged.

The coach was at the gate. There was a bustle with the luggage. The coach drove away. Marion never moved.

“He waves his hat to you, my love,” said Grace. “Your chosen husband, darling. Look!”

The younger sister raised her head, and, for a moment, turned it. Then turning back again, and fully meeting, for the first time, those calm eyes, fell sobbing on her neck.

“Oh, Grace. God bless you! But I cannot bear to see it, Grace! It breaks my heart.”

PART THE SECOND

Snitchey and Craggs had a snug little office on the old Battle Ground, where they drove a snug little business, and fought a great many small pitched battles for a great many contending parties. Though it could hardly be said of these conflicts that they were running fights – for in truth they generally proceeded at a snail’s pace – the part the Firm had in them came so far within that general denomination, that now they took a shot at this Plaintiff, and now aimed a chop at that Defendant, now made a heavy charge at an estate in Chancery, and now had some light skirmishing among an irregular body of small debtors, just as the occasion served, and the enemy happened to present himself. The Gazette was an important and profitable feature in some of their fields, as well as in fields of greater renown; and in most of the Actions wherein they shewed their generalship, it was afterwards observed by the combatants that they had had great difficulty in making each other out, or in knowing with any degree of distinctness what they were about, in consequence of the vast amount of smoke by which they were surrounded.

The offices of Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs stood convenient with an open door, down two smooth steps in the market-place: so that any angry farmer inclining towards hot water, might tumble into it at once. Their special council-chamber and hall of conference was an old back room up stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which seemed to be knitting its brows gloomily in the consideration of tangled points of law. It was furnished with some high-backed leathern chairs, garnished with great goggle-eyed brass nails, of which, every here and there, two or three had fallen out; or had been picked out, perhaps, by the wandering thumbs and forefingers of bewildered clients. There was a framed print of a great judge in it, every curl in whose dreadful wig had made a man’s hair stand on end. Bales of papers filled the dusty closets, shelves, and tables; and round the wainscoat there were tiers of boxes, padlocked and fireproof, with people’s names painted outside, which anxious visitors felt themselves, by a cruel enchantment, obliged to spell backwards and forwards, and to make anagrams of, while they sat, seeming to listen to Snitchey and Craggs, without comprehending one word of what they said.

Snitchey and Craggs had each, in private life as in professional existence, a partner of his own. Snitchey and Craggs were the best friends in the world, and had a real confidence in one another; but Mrs. Snitchey, by a dispensation not uncommon in the affairs of life, was, on principle, suspicious of Mr. Craggs, and Mrs. Craggs was, on principle, suspicious of Mr. Snitchey. “Your Snitcheys indeed,” the latter lady would observe, sometimes, to Mr. Craggs; using that imaginative plural as if in disparagement of an objectionable pair of pantaloons, or other articles not possessed of a singular number; “I don’t see what you want with your Snitcheys, for my part. You trust a great deal too much to your Snitcheys, I think, and I hope you may never find my words come true.” While Mrs. Snitchey would observe to Mr. Snitchey, of Craggs, “that if ever he was led away by man he was led away by that man; and that if ever she read a double purpose in a mortal eye, she read that purpose in Craggs’s eye.” Notwithstanding this, however, they were all very good friends in general: and Mrs. Snitchey and Mrs. Craggs maintained a close bond of alliance against “the office,” which they both considered a Blue chamber, and common enemy, full of dangerous (because unknown) machinations.

In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made honey for their several hives. Here sometimes they would linger, of a fine evening, at the window of their council-chamber, overlooking the old battle-ground, and wonder (but that was generally at assize time, when much business had made them sentimental) at the folly of mankind, who couldn’t always be at peace with one another, and go to law comfortably. Here days, and weeks, and months, and years, passed over them; their calendar, the gradually diminishing number of brass nails in the leathern chairs, and the increasing bulk of papers on the tables. Here nearly three years’ flight had thinned the one and swelled the other, since the breakfast in the orchard; when they sat together in consultation, at night.

Not alone; but with a man of thirty, or about that time of life, negligently dressed, and somewhat haggard in the face, but well-made, well-attired, and well-looking, who sat in the arm-chair of state, with one hand in his breast, and the other in his dishevelled hair, pondering moodily. Messrs. Snitchey and Craggs sat opposite each other at a neighbouring desk. One of the fire-proof boxes, unpadlocked and opened, was upon it; a part of its contents lay strewn upon the table, and the rest was then in course of passing through the hands of Mr. Snitchey, who brought it to the candle, document by document, looked at every paper singly, as he produced it, shook his head, and handed it to Mr. Craggs, who looked it over also, shook his head, and laid it down. Sometimes they would stop, and shaking their heads in concert, look towards the abstracted client; and the name on the box being Michael Warden, Esquire, we may conclude from these premises that the name and the box were both his, and that the affairs of Michael Warden, Esquire, were in a bad way.

“That’s all,” said Mr. Snitchey, turning up the last paper. “Really there’s no other resource. No other resource.”

“All lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed and sold, eh?” said the client, looking up.

“All,” returned Mr. Snitchey.

“Nothing else to be done, you say?”

“Nothing at all.”

The client bit his nails, and pondered again.

“And I am not even personally safe in England? You hold to that; do you?”

“In no part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,” replied Mr. Snitchey.

“A mere prodigal son with no father to go back to, no swine to keep, and no husks to share with them? Eh?” pursued the client, rocking one leg over the other, and searching the ground with his eyes.

Mr. Snitchey coughed, as if to deprecate the being supposed to participate in any figurative illustration of a legal position. Mr. Craggs, as if to express that it was a partnership view of the subject, also coughed.

“Ruined at thirty!” said the client. “Humph!”