Tales and Novels, vol 8 | Page 4

to law, and may prevent me from being driven to the performance of this most painful professional duty."
"Duty! professional duty!" repeated Buckhurst: "as if I did not understand all those _cloak-words_, and know how easy it is to put them on and off at pleasure!"
"To some it may be, but not to me," said Alfred, calmly.
Anger started into Buckhurst's countenance: but conscious how inefficacious it would be, and how completely he had laid himself open, the dean answered, "You are the best judge, sir. But I trust--though I don't pretend to understand the honour of lawyers--I trust, as a gentleman, you will not take advantage against me in this suit, of any thing my openness has shown you about the parsonage."
"You trust rightly, Mr. Dean," replied Alfred, in his turn, with a look not of anger, but of proud indignation; "you trust rightly, Mr. Dean, and as I should have expected that one who has had opportunities of knowing me so well ought to trust."
"That's a clear answer," said Buckhurst. "But how could I tell?--so much jockeying goes on in every profession--how could I tell that a lawyer would be more conscientious than another man? But now you assure me of it--I take it upon your word, and believe it in your case. About the accommodation--accommodation means money, does not it?--frankly, I have not a shilling. But Mrs. Falconer is all accommodation. Try what you can do with her--and by the way you began, I should hope you would do a great deal," added he, laughing.
Alfred would not undertake to speak to his lady, unless the dean would, in the first instance, make some sacrifice. He represented that he was not asking for money, but for a relinquishment of a claim, which he apprehended not to be justly due: "And the only use I shall ever make of what you have shown me here, is to press upon your feelings, as I do at this moment, the conviction of the injustice of that claim, which I am persuaded your lawyers only instigated, and that you will abandon."
Buckhurst begged him not to be persuaded of any such thing. The instigation of an attorney, he laughing said, was not in law counted the instigation of the devil--at law no man talked of feelings. In matters of property judges did not understand them, whatever figure they might make with a jury in criminal cases--with an eloquent advocate's hand on his breast.
Alfred let Buckhurst go on with his vain wit and gay rhetoric till he had nothing more to say, knowing that he was hiding consciousness of unhandsome conduct. Sticking firmly to his point, Alfred showed that his client, though gentle, was resolved, and that, unless Buckhurst yielded, law must take its course--that though he should never give any hint, the premises must be inspected, and disgrace and defeat must follow.
Forced to be serious, fretted and hurried, for the half-hour bell before dinner had now rung, and the dean's stomach began to know canonical hours, he exclaimed, "The upshot of the whole business is, that Mr. Alfred Percy is in love, I understand, with Miss Sophia Leicester, and this fifteen hundred pounds, which he pushes me to the bare wall to relinquish, is eventually, as part of her fortune, to become his. Would it not have been as fair to have stated this at once?"
"No--because it would not have been the truth."
"No!--You won't deny that you are in love with Miss Leicester?"
"I am as much in love as man can be with Miss Leicester; but her fortune is nothing to me, for I shall never touch it."
"Never touch it! Does the aunt--the widow--the cunning widow, refuse consent?"
"Far from it: the aunt is all the aunt of Miss Leicester should be--all the widow of Dr. Leicester ought to be. But her circumstances are not what they ought to be; and by the liberality of a friend, who lends me a house, rent free, and by the resources of my profession, I am better able than Mrs. Leicester is to spare fifteen hundred pounds: therefore, in the recovery of this money I have no personal interest at present. I shall never receive it from her."
"Noble! Noble!--just what I could have done myself--once! What a contrast!"
Buckhurst laid his head down upon his arms flat on the table, and remained for some moments silent--then, starting upright, "I'll never claim a penny from her--I'll give it all up to you! I will, if I sell my band for it, by Jove!"
"Oh! what has your father to answer for, who forced you into the church!" thought Alfred.
"My dear Buckhurst," said he, "my dear dean--"
"Call me Buckhurst, if you love me."
"I do love you, it is impossible to help it, in spite of--"
"All my faults--say it out--say it out--in spite of