第60章 Chapter XXV. Consultation.(1)

No second letter arrived. But a telegram was received from the lawyer toward the end of the week.

"Expect me to-morrow on business which requires personal consultation."

That was the message. In taking the long journey to Cumberland, Mrs. Linley's legal adviser sacrificed two days of his precious time in London. Something serious must assuredly have happened.

In the meantime, who was the lawyer?

He was Mr. Sarrazin, of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Was he an Englishman or a Frenchman?

He was a curious mixture of both. His ancestors had been among the persecuted French people who found a refuge in England, when the priest-ridden tyrant, Louis the Fourteenth, revoked the Edict of Nantes. A British subje ct by birth, and a thoroughly competent and trustworthy man, Mr. Sarrazin labored under one inveterate delusion; he firmly believed that his original French nature had been completely eradicated, under the influence of our insular climate and our insular customs. No matter how often the strain of the lively French blood might assert itself, at inconvenient times and under regrettable circumstances, he never recognized this foreign side of his character. His excellent spirits, his quick sympathies, his bright mutability of mind--all those qualities, in short, which were most mischievously ready to raise distrust in the mind of English clients, before their sentiment changed for the better under the light of later experience--were attributed by Mr. Sarrazin to the exhilarating influence of his happy domestic circumstances and his successful professional career. His essentially English wife; his essentially English children; his whiskers, his politics, his umbrella, his pew at church, his plum pudding, his _Times_ newspaper, all answered for him (he was accustomed to say) as an inbred member of the glorious nation that rejoices in hunting the fox, and believes in innumerable pills.

This excellent man arrived at the cottage, desperately fatigued after his long journey, but in perfect possession of his incomparable temper, nevertheless.

He afforded a proof of this happy state of mind, on sitting down to his supper. An epicure, if ever there was one yet, he found the solid part of the refreshments offered to him to consist of a chop. The old French blood curdled at the sight of it--but the true-born Englishman heroically devoted himself to the national meal. At the same time the French vivacity discovered a kindred soul in Kitty; Mr. Sarrazin became her intimate friend in five minutes. He listened to her and talked to her, as if the child had been his client, and fishing from the pier the business which had brought him from London. To Mrs. Presty's disgust, he turned up a corner of the table-cloth, when he had finished his chop, and began to conjure so deftly with the spoons and forks that poor little Kitty (often dull, now, under the changed domestic circumstances of her life) clapped her hands with pleasure, and became the joyous child of the happy old times once more. Mrs.

Linley, flattered in her maternal love and her maternal pride, never thought of recalling this extraordinary lawyer to the business that was waiting to be discussed. But Mrs. Presty looked at the clock, and discovered that her grandchild ought to have been in bed half-an-hour ago.

"Time to say good-night," the grandmother suggested.

The grandchild failed to see the subject of bed in the same light. "Oh, not yet," she pleaded; "I want to speak to Mr.--"

Having only heard the visitor's name once, and not finding her memory in good working order after the conjuring, Kitty hesitated. "Isn't your name something like Saracen?" she asked.

"Very like!" cried the genial lawyer. "Try my other name, my dear. I'm Samuel as well as Sarrazin."

"Ah, that'll do," said Kitty. Grandmamma, before I go to bed, I've something to ask Samuel."

Grandmamma persisted in deferring the question until the next morning. Samuel administered consolation before he said good-night. "I'll get up early," he whispered, "and we'll go on the pier before breakfast and fish."

Kitty expressed her gratitude in her own outspoken way. "Oh, dear, how nice it would be, Samuel, if you lived with us!" Mrs.

Linley laughed for the first time, poor soul, since the catastrophe which had broken up her home. Mrs. Presty set a proper example. She moved her chair so that she faced the lawyer, and said: "Now, Mr. Sarrazin!"

He acknowledged that he understood what this meant, by a very unprofessional choice of words. "We are in a mess," he began, "and the sooner we are out of it the better."

"Only let me keep Kitty," Mrs. Linley declared, "and I'll do whatever you think right."

"Stick to that, dear madam, when you have heard what I have to tell you--and I shall not have taken my journey in vain. In the first place, may I look at the letter which I had the honor of forwarding some days since?"

Mrs. Presty gave him Herbert Linley's letter. He read it with the closest attention, and tapped the breast-pocket of his coat when he had done.

"If I didn't know what I have got here," he remarked, "I should have said: Another person dictated this letter, and the name of the person is Miss Westerfield."

"Just my idea!" Mrs. Presty exclaimed. "There can't be a doubt of it."

"Oh, but there is a very great doubt of it, ma'am; and you will say so too when you know what your severe son-in-law threatens to do." He turned to Mrs. Linley. "After having seen that pretty little friend of mine who has just gone to bed (how much nicer it would be for all of us if we could go to bed too!), I think I know how you answered your husband's letter. But I ought perhaps to see how you have expressed yourself. Have you got a copy?"

"It was too short, Mr. Sarrazin, to make a copy necessary."

"Do you mean you can remember it?"

"I can repeat it word for word. This was my reply: I refuse, positively, to part with my child."

"No more like that?"

"No more."

Mr. Sarrazin looked at his client with undisguised admiration.