Henry Northcote

The final consultation of Northcote and his client took place in the open street in the heavily raining December afternoon, with their backs against Mr. Whitcomb’s brass plate. The spot selected for their last utterances on this momentous affair was incongruous indeed, but each had grown so impatient of the other, that if their last words were spoken here, the clash of their mental states was the less likely to invite disaster than in a more formal council-chamber of four walls.

The robust common sense of the solicitor had never shown itself to be more incisive than now as he stood with his back to his own door, under a dripping umbrella, his hat pushed to the back of his head, and his trousers turned up beyond his ankles. His twenty years of immensely successful practice, his exact knowledge of human nature, his ruthless worldliness, his reverence for the hard fact, stood forth here in the oddest contrast with the somewhat “special” and rarefied quality of this youthful advocate whom he had seen fit to entrust with so important a case.

“It’s a pity, it’s a pity,” he brought himself to say at last, his veneer falling off a little under the stress of his chagrin, and revealing a glimpse of the baffled human animal beneath. “It is a serious mistake to have made; but we have got to stand to it. You are not the man for this class of work, to speak bluntly. You are either too deep or you are not deep enough. But as I say, we have got to stand to it now. My last words will be to urge you to put as good a face upon it as you can.”

“In other words,” said Northcote, stiffening, “you will look to me to do my best.”

“I don’t put it in that form exactly,” said the solicitor, midway between exasperation and a desire to be courteous. “I want you fully to appreciate that you are handling an extremely tough job, and I merely want you to make the best of it, that’s all.”

“I will tell you, Mr. Whitcomb,” said Northcote, striving in vain to avert the explosion that had been gathering for so long, “that if it were not now the eleventh hour, if I had not pledged myself to this thing more deeply than you know, if it were not a matter of life and death to me as well as to your client, I would throw your brief back at you rather than submit to this. It will be time enough for you to get upon your platform when I have made a hash of everything.”

“Yes, I think you are entitled to say that,” said the solicitor impartially, having made a successful effort to recapture his own serenity. “I have no right to talk as I am doing; I have never done so to any one else. I suspect you have got on my nerves a bit.”

“Yes, the whole matter throws back to the clash of our temperaments,” said Northcote, unable to cloak his own irritation now that it had walked abroad. “It is a pity that we ever attempted to work together. Yet for one who envelops himself in the serene air of reason, you are somewhat illogical, are you not? You enter the highways and hedges in search of a particular talent; you have the fortune to light upon it; and then you turn and rend its unhappy possessor for possessing it.”

“As I say, my dear boy, this particular talent of yours—or is it your temperament?—you see I am not up in these technical names—has got on my nerves a little.”

“And your temperament, my friend, to indulge a tu quoque, is covered with a hard gritty outer coating, for which I believe the technical name is ‘practicality,’ which positively sets one’s teeth on edge.”

“So be it; we part with mutual recriminations. But this is my last word. Firmly as I believe I have committed an error of judgment, if to-morrow you can prove that I have deceived myself, you will not find me ungrateful. I can speak no fairer; and this you must take for my apology. It is not too much to say that since I have come to know you I have ceased to recognize myself.”

“I accept your amende” said Northcote, without hesitation. “I see I have worried you, but if I might presume to address advice to the fount of all experience, never, my dear Mr. Whitcomb, attempt to formulate a judgment upon that which you cannot possibly understand.”

“After to-morrow there is a remote chance that I may come to heed your advice. In the meantime we will shake hands just to show that malice is not borne. Don’t forget that you will be the first called to-morrow, at half-past ten. It is quite likely to last all day.”

The solicitor turned into his offices and Northcote sauntered along Chancery Lane. The twilight which had enveloped the city all day was now yielding to the authentic hues of evening. The dismal street-lamps were already lit, the gusts of rain, sleet, and snow of the previous night had been turned into a heavy downpour which had continued without intermission since the morning. The pavements were bleached by the action of water, but a miasma arose from the overburdened sewers, whose contents flowed among the traffic and were churned by its wheels into a paste of black mud. Northcote was splashed freely with this thick slushy mixture, even as high as his face, by the countless omnibuses; and in crossing from one pavement to another he had a narrow escape from being knocked down by a covered van.

It was in no mood of courage that the young man pushed his way to his lodgings through the traffic and the elbowing crowds who thronged the narrow streets. Even the mental picture that was thrown before his eyes of this garret which had already devoured his youth had the power to make him feel colder than actually he was. Never had he felt such a depression in all the long term of his privation as now in wending his way towards it laboriously, heavily, with slow-beating pulses.

He was sore, disappointed, angry; his pride was wounded by the attitude of his client. His self-centred habit caused him to take himself so much for granted, that at first he could discern no reason for this volte-face. In his view it was inconsiderate to withhold the moral support of which at this moment he stood so much in need. Truly the lot of obscurity was hard; its penalties were of a kind to bring many a shudder to a proud and sensitive nature. The patronizing insolence of one whom he despised was beginning to fill him with a bootless rage, yet in his present state how impotent he was before it. He must suffer such things, and suffer them gladly, until that hour dawned in which his powers announced themselves.

That time was to-morrow—terrible, all-piercing, yet entrancing thought! The measure of his talent would then be proclaimed. Yet all in an instant, like a lightning-flash shooting through darkness, for the first time the true nature of his task was revealed to him. Doubt took shape, sprang into being. Its outline seemed to loom through the dismal shadows cast by the lamps in the street. Who and what was he, after all, in comparison with a task of such immensity? With startling and overwhelming force the solicitor’s meaning was suddenly unfolded to him.

He took himself for granted no more. He must be mad to have gone so far without having paused to subject himself to the self-criticism that is so salutary. How could he blame the solicitor whose eminently practical mind had resented this inaccessibility to the ordinary rules of prudence? Was he not the veriest novice in his profession, without credentials of any kind? And yet he arrogated to himself the right to embark upon a line of conduct that was in direct opposition to the promptings of a mature judgment.

How could he have been so sure of this supreme talent? It had never been brought to test. The only measure of it was his scorn of others, the scorn of the unsuccessful for those who have succeeded. The passion with which it had endowed him was nothing more, most probably, than a monomania of egotism. How consummate was the folly which could mistake the will for the deed, the vaulting ambition for the thing itself!

On the few occasions, some seven or eight in all, in which he had turned an honest guinea, mostly at the police-court, he had betrayed no surprising aptitude for his profession. There had been times, even in affairs so trivial, when his highly strung nervous organization had overpowered the will. He had not been exempt from the commission of errors; he recalled with horror that once or twice it had fallen to his lot to be put out of countenance by his adversary; while once at least he had drawn down upon himself the animadversions of the presiding deity. Surely there was nothing in this rather pitiful career to provide a motive for this overweening arrogance.

He grew the more amazed at his own hardihood as he walked along. To what fatal blindness did he owe it that from the beginning his true position had not been revealed to him? Where were the credentials that fitted him to undertake a task so stupendous? What achievement had he to his name that he should venture to launch his criticisms against those who had been through the fray and had emerged victorious? How could he have failed to appreciate that abstract theory was never able to withstand the impact of experience! It was well enough in the privacy of his garret to conceive ideas and to sustain his faculties with dreams of a future that could never be, but once in the arena, when the open-mouthed lion of the actual lay in his path, he would require arms more puissant than these.

To overcome those twin dragons Tradition and Precedent, behind which common and vulgar minds entrenched themselves so fearlessly, the sword of the sophist would not avail. It would snap in his fingers at the first contact with these impenetrable hides. His blade must be forged of thrice-welded steel if he were to have a chance on the morrow. He had decided to promulgate like a second Napoleon the doctrine of force, and for his only weapon he had chosen a dagger of lath. Well might Mr. Whitcomb smile with contempt. Where would he find himself if he dared to preach the most perilous of gospels, if he could not support it with an enormous moral and physical power?

For years he had dwelt in a castle which he had built out of air, secure in the belief that he was endowed in ample measure with attributes whose operations were so diverse yet so comprehensive, that in those rare instances in which they were united they became superhuman in their reach. An Isaiah or a Cromwell did not visit the world once in an era. How dare such a one as he fold his nakedness in the sacred mantle of the gods! It was the act of one whose folly was too rank even to allow him to pose as a charlatan. If he ventured to deliver one-half of these astonishing words he had prepared for the delectation of an honest British jury, these flatulent pretensions would be unveiled, he would be mocked openly, his ruin would be complete and irretrievable.

Never had irresolution assailed him so powerfully. This review at the eleventh hour of the unwarrantable estimate he had formed of himself rendered it imperative that he should change his plans. The opinion of others, acknowledged masters of the profession in which he was so humble a tyro, was incontrovertible. Evidence in support of a perfectly rational plea was provided for him, would be ready in court. His client had demanded that it should be used. To disregard that demand would be to rebuff his only friend, one of great influence who had been sent to his aid in his direst hour. And it was for nothing better than a whim that he was prepared to yield his all. No principle was at stake, no sacrifice of dignity was involved. That which his patron had asked of him was so natural, so admirably humane, that the mere act of refusal would be rendered unpardonable unless it were vindicated by complete success. No other justification was possible, not only in the eyes of himself and in those of his client, but no less was exacted of him by the hapless creature whose life was in his keeping.

Stating it baldly, let him fail in the superhuman feat which had been imposed upon him by a disease which he called ambition, and this wretched woman would expiate his failure upon the gallows. Had any human being a right to incur such a penalty, a right to pay such a price in the pursuit of his own personal and private aims? The middle course was provided for him. It would deliver the accused and himself from this intolerable peril; it opened up a path of safety for them both.

Already he could observe with a scarifying clearness, that here and now, at the eleventh hour, he must defer to the irresistible impact of the circumstances. The risk was too grave; he was thrusting too cruel a responsibility upon his flesh and blood. He must hasten to make terms with that grossly material world of the hard fact which he scorned so much. He must submit to one of those pitiful compromises which he yearned to defy; and in so doing he must betray a talent which had inflicted indescribable torments upon him.

His address to the jury of his countrymen, that surprising impromptu prepared at leisure, must be given up. Not a word could be used of this demand for an acquittal which was to mark an epoch in English justice. He must begin again on a lower note.

Just before reaching the archway through which he had to pass to reach his own door, he turned into a post-office, and despatched to his mother two sovereigns out of the ten he had received from the solicitor. Enclosing a scrap of paper with the order, he wrote these words upon it: “My first great case is called to-morrow. Life or death for Prisoner and Advocate—which?” Having posted the letter he ascended the stairs to his garret.

He groped his way up to it. Shuddering with despair he unlocked the door and flung it open. An impenetrable darkness covered the room. He stood on the threshold searching his damp clothes for a match. He found a solitary one sequestered in a corner of a pocket; but all attempts to strike it failed. He then proceeded to grope his way forward through the room, reached the table, and after knocking down several articles was able to place his hand upon that which he sought. He kindled a light, and the lamp having been replenished with oil that morning was able to maintain it. The fire had burned out long ago; all the coal had been used, and the fresh quantity he had purchased had not arrived. His overcoat was soaked with rain, his trousers were damp, and the room had already become cold. He rummaged out an old sweater that had stood him in good stead in his football days, from a box beneath the bed, removed his wet overcoat and pulled this garment over his jacket. He then filled his pipe and sat down beside the lamp.