<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>RALPH THE HEIR</h1>
<h4>by</h4>
<h2>ANTHONY TROLLOPE</h2>
<p><SPAN name="c1" id="c1"></SPAN> </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
<h4>SIR THOMAS.<br/> </h4>
<p>There are men who cannot communicate themselves to others, as there
are also men who not only can do so, but cannot do otherwise. And it
is hard to say which is the better man of the two. We do not
specially respect him who wears his heart upon his sleeve for daws to
peck at, who carries a crystal window to his bosom so that all can
see the work that is going on within it, who cannot keep any affair
of his own private, who gushes out in love and friendship to every
chance acquaintance; but then, again, there is but little love given
to him who is always wary, always silent as to his own belongings,
who buttons himself in a suit of close reserve which he never
loosens. Respect such a one may gain, but hardly love. It is natural
to us to like to know the affairs of our friends; and natural also, I
think, to like to talk of our own to those whom we trust. Perhaps,
after all that may be said of the weakness of the gushing and
indiscreet babbler, it is pleasanter to live with such a one than
with the self-constrained reticent man of iron, whose conversation
among his most intimate friends is solely of politics, of science, of
literature, or of some other subject equally outside the privacies of
our inner life.</p>
<p>Sir Thomas Underwood, whom I, and I hope my readers also, will have
to know very intimately, was one of those who are not able to make
themselves known intimately to any. I am speaking now of a man of
sixty, and I am speaking also of one who had never yet made a close
friend,—who had never by unconscious and slow degrees of affection
fallen into that kind of intimacy with another man which justifies
and renders necessary mutual freedom of intercourse in all the
affairs of life. And yet he was possessed of warm affections, was by
no means misanthropic in his nature, and would, in truth, have given
much to be able to be free and jocund as are other men. He lacked the
power that way, rather than the will. To himself it seemed to be a
weakness in him rather than a strength that he should always be
silent, always guarded, always secret and dark. He had lamented it as
an acknowledged infirmity;—as a man grieves that he should be
short-sighted, or dull of hearing; but at the age of sixty he had
taken no efficient steps towards curing himself of the evil, and had
now abandoned all idea of any such cure.</p>
<p>Whether he had been, upon the whole, fortunate or unfortunate in life
shall be left to the reader's judgment. But he certainly had not been
happy. He had suffered cruel disappointments; and a disappointment
will crush the spirit worse than a realised calamity. There is no
actual misfortune in not being Lord Mayor of London;—but when a man
has set his heart upon the place, has worked himself into a position
within a few feet of the Mansion House, has become alderman with the
mayoralty before him in immediate rotation, he will suffer more at
being passed over by the liverymen than if he had lost half his
fortune. Now Sir Thomas Underwood had become Solicitor-General in his
profession, but had never risen to the higher rank or more assured
emoluments of other legal offices.</p>
<p>We will not quite trace our Meleager back to his egg, but we will
explain that he was the only son of a barrister of moderate means,
who put him to the Bar, and who died leaving little or nothing behind
him. The young barrister had an only sister, who married an officer
in the army, and who had passed all her latter life in distant
countries to which her husband had been called by the necessity of
living on the income which his profession gave him. As a Chancery
barrister, Mr. Underwood,—our Sir Thomas,—had done well, living on
the income he made, marrying at thirty-five, going into Parliament at
forty-five, becoming Solicitor-General at fifty,—and ceasing to hold
that much-desired office four months after his appointment. Such
cessation, however, arising from political causes, is no
disappointment to a man. It will doubtless be the case that a man so
placed will regret the weakness of his party, which has been unable
to keep the good things of Government in its hands; but he will
recognise without remorse or sorrow the fact that the Ministry to
which he has attached himself must cease to be a Ministry;—and there
will be nothing in his displacement to gall his pride, or to create
that inner feeling of almost insupportable mortification which comes
from the conviction of personal failure. Sir Thomas Underwood had
been Solicitor-General for a few months under a Conservative Prime
Minister; and when the Conservative Minister went out of office, Sir
Thomas Underwood followed him with no feeling of regret that caused
him unhappiness. But when afterwards the same party came back to
power, and he, having lost his election at the borough which he had
represented, was passed over without a word of sympathy or even of
assumed regret from the Minister, then he was wounded. It was true,
he knew, that a man, to be Solicitor-General, should have a seat in
Parliament. The highest legal offices in the country are not to be
attained by any amount of professional excellence, unless the
candidate shall have added to such excellence the power of supporting
a Ministry and a party in the House of Commons. Sir Thomas Underwood
thoroughly understood this;—but he knew also that there are various
ways in which a lame dog may be helped over a stile,—if only the
lame dog be popular among dogs. For another ex-Solicitor-General a
seat would have been found,—or some delay would have been
granted,—or at least there would have been a consultation, with a
suggestion that something should be tried. But in this case a man
four years his junior in age, whom he despised, and who, as he was
informed, had obtained his place in Parliament by gross bribery, was
put into the office without a word of apology to him. Then he was
unhappy, and acknowledged to himself that his spirit was crushed.</p>
<p>But he acknowledged to himself at the same time that he was one
doomed by his nature to such crushing of the spirit if he came out of
the hole of his solitude, and endeavoured to carry on the open fight
of life among his fellow-men. He knew that he was one doomed to that
disappointment, the bitterest of all, which comes from failure when
the prize has been all but reached. It is much to have become
Solicitor-General, and that he had achieved;—but it is worse than
nothing to have been Solicitor-General for four months, and then to
find that all the world around one regards one as having failed, and
as being, therefore, fit for the shelf. Such were Sir Thomas
Underwood's feelings as he sat alone in his chambers during those
days in which the new administration was formed,—in which days he
was neither consulted nor visited, nor communicated with either by
message or by letter. But all this,—this formation of a Ministry, in
which the late Solicitor-General was not invited to take a
part,—occurred seven years before the commencement of our story.</p>
<p>During those years in which our lawyer sat in Parliament as Mr.
Underwood,—at which time he was working hard also as a Chancery
barrister, and was, perhaps, nearer to his fellow-men than he had
ever been before, or was ever destined to be afterwards,—he resided,
as regarded himself almost nominally, at a small but pretty villa,
which he had taken for his wife's sake at Fulham. It was close upon
the river, and had well-arranged, though not extensive, shrubbery
walks, and a little lawn, and a tiny conservatory, and a charming
opening down to the Thames. Mrs. Underwood had found herself unable
to live in Half-moon Street; and Mr. Underwood, not unwillingly, had
removed his household gods to this retreat. At that time his
household gods consisted of a wife and two daughters;—but the wife
had died before the time came at which she could have taken on
herself the name of Lady Underwood. The villa at Fulham was still
kept, and there lived the two girls, and there also Sir Thomas, had
he been interrogated on the subject, would have declared that he also
was domiciled. But if a man lives at the place in which he most often
sleeps, Sir Thomas in truth lived at his chambers at Southampton
Buildings. When he moved those household gods of his to the villa, it
was necessary, because of his duties in Parliament, that he should
have some place in town wherein he might lay his head, and therefore,
I fear not unwillingly, he took to laying his head very frequently in
the little bedroom which was attached to his chambers.</p>
<p>It is not necessary that we should go back to any feelings which
might have operated upon him during his wife's lifetime, or during
the period of his parliamentary career. His wife was now dead, and he
no longer held a seat in Parliament. He had, indeed, all but
abandoned his practice at the Bar, never putting himself forward for
the ordinary business of a Chancery barrister. But, nevertheless, he
spent the largest half of his life in his chambers, breakfasting
there, reading there, writing there, and sleeping there. He did not
altogether desert the lodge at Fulham, and the two girls who lived
there. He would not even admit to them, or allow them to assert that
he had not his home with them. Sometimes for two nights together, and
sometimes for three, he would be at the villa,—never remaining
there, however, during the day. But on Sundays it may almost be said
that he was never at home. And hence arose the feeling that of all,
this went the nearest to create discord between the father and the
daughters. Sir Thomas was always in Southampton Buildings on Sundays.
Did Sir Thomas go to church? The Miss Underwoods did go to church
very regularly, and thought much of the propriety and necessity of
such Sunday exercises. They could remember that in their younger days
their father always had been there with them. They could remember,
indeed, that he, with something of sternness, would require from them
punctuality and exactness in this duty. Now and again,—perhaps four
times in the year,—he would go to the Rolls Chapel. So much they
could learn, But they believed that beyond that his Sundays were kept
holy by no attendance at divine service. And it may be said at once
that they believed aright.</p>
<p>Sir Thomas's chambers in Southampton Buildings, though they were dull
and dingy of aspect from the outside, and were reached by a staircase
which may be designated as lugubrious,—so much did its dark and
dismantled condition tend to melancholy,—were in themselves large
and commodious. His bedroom was small, but he had two spacious
sitting-rooms, one of which was fitted up as a library, and the other
as a dining-room. Over and beyond these there was a clerk's
room;—for Sir Thomas, though he had given up the greater part of his
business, had not given up his clerk; and here the old man, the
clerk, passed his entire time, from half-past eight in the morning
till ten at night, waiting upon his employer in various capacities
with a sedulous personal attention to which he had probably not
intended to devote himself when he first took upon himself the duties
of clerk to a practising Chancery barrister. But Joseph Stemm and Sir
Thomas were not unlike in character, and had grown old together with
too equal a step to admit of separation and of new alliance. Stemm
had but one friend in the world, and Sir Thomas was that friend. I
have already said that Sir Thomas had no friend;—but perhaps he felt
more of that true intimacy, which friendship produces, with Stemm
than with any other human being.</p>
<p>Sir Thomas was a tall thin man, who stooped considerably,—though not
from any effect of years, with a face which would perhaps have been
almost mean had it not been rescued from that evil condition by the
assurance of intelligence and strength which is always conveyed by a
certain class of ugliness. He had a nose something like the great
Lord Brougham's,—thin, long, and projecting at the point. He had
quick grey eyes, and a good forehead;—but the component parts of his
countenance were irregular and roughly put together. His chin was
long, as was also his upper lip;—so that it may be taken as a fact
that he was an ugly man. He was hale, however, and strong, and was
still so good a walker that he thought nothing of making his way down
to the villa on foot of an evening, after dining at his club.</p>
<p>It was his custom to dine at his club,—that highly respectable and
most comfortable club situated at the corner of Suffolk Street, Pall
Mall;—the senior of the two which are devoted to the well-being of
scions of our great Universities. There Sir Thomas dined, perhaps
four nights in the week, for ten months in the year. And it was said
of him in the club that he had never been known to dine in company
with another member of the club. His very manner as he sat at his
solitary meal,—always with a pint of port on the table,—was as well
known as the figure of the old king on horseback outside in the
street, and was as unlike the ordinary manner of men as is that
unlike the ordinary figures of kings. He had always a book in his
hand,—not a club book, nor a novel from Mudie's, nor a magazine, but
some ancient and hard-bound volume from his own library, which he had
brought in his pocket, and to which his undivided attention would be
given. The eating of his dinner, which always consisted of the joint
of the day and of nothing else, did not take him more than five
minutes;—but he would sip his port wine slowly, would have a cup of
tea which he would also drink very slowly,—and would then pocket his
book, pay his bill, and would go. It was rarely the case that he
spoke to any one in the club. He would bow to a man here and
there,—and if addressed would answer; but of conversation at his
club he knew nothing, and hardly ever went into any room but that in
which his dinner was served to him.</p>
<p>In conversing about him men would express a wonder how such a one had
ever risen to high office,—how, indeed, he could have thriven at his
profession. But in such matters we are, all of us, too apt to form
confident opinions on apparent causes which are near the surface, but
which, as guides to character, are fallacious. Perhaps in all London
there was no better lawyer, in his branch of law, than Sir Thomas
Underwood. He had worked with great diligence; and though he was shy
to a degree quite unintelligible to men in general in the ordinary
intercourse of life, he had no feeling of diffidence when upon his
legs in Court or in the House of Commons. With the Lord Chancellor's
wife or daughters he could not exchange five words with comfort to
himself,—nor with his lordship himself in a drawing-room; but in
Court the Lord Chancellor was no more to him than another lawyer whom
he believed to be not so good a lawyer as himself. No man had ever
succeeded in browbeating him when panoplied in his wig and gown; nor
had words ever been wanting to him when so arrayed. It had been
suggested to him by an attorney who knew him in that way in which
attorneys ought to know barristers, that he should stand for a
certain borough;—and he had stood and had been returned. Thrice he
had been returned for the same town; but at last, when it was
discovered that he would never dine with the leading townsmen, or
call on their wives in London, or assist them in their little private
views, the strength of his extreme respectability was broken
down,—and he was rejected. In the meantime he was found to be of
value by the party to which he had attached himself. It was
discovered that he was not only a sound lawyer, but a man of great
erudition, who had studied the experience of history as well as the
wants of the present age. He was one who would disgrace no
Government,—and he was invited to accept the office of
Solicitor-General by a Minister who had never seen him out of the
House of Commons. "He is as good a lawyer as there is in England,"
said the Lord Chancellor. "He always speaks with uncommon clearness,"
said the Chancellor of the Exchequer. "I never saw him talking with a
human being," said the Secretary to the Treasury, deprecating the
appointment. "He will soon get over that complaint with your
assistance," said the Minister, laughing. So Mr. Underwood became
Solicitor-General and Sir Thomas;—and he so did his work that no
doubt he would have returned to his office had he been in Parliament
when his party returned to power. But he had made no friend, he had
not learned to talk even to the Secretary of the Treasury;—and when
the party came back to power he was passed over without remorse, and
almost without a regret.</p>
<p>He never resumed the active bustle of his profession after that
disappointment. His wife was then dead, and for nearly a twelvemonth
he went about, declaring to attorneys and others that his
professional life was done. He did take again to a certain class of
work when he came back to the old chambers in Southampton Buildings;
but he was seen in Court only rarely, and it was understood that he
wished it to be supposed that he had retired. He had ever been a
moderate man in his mode of living, and had put together a sum of
money sufficient for moderate wants. He possessed some twelve or
fourteen hundred a year independent of anything that he might now
earn; and, as he had never been a man greedy of money, so was he now
more indifferent to it than in his earlier days. It is a mistake, I
think, to suppose that men become greedy as they grow old. The
avaricious man will show his avarice as he gets into years, because
avarice is a passion compatible with old age,—and will become more
avaricious as his other passions fall off from him. And so will it be
with the man that is open-handed. Mr. Underwood, when struggling at
the Bar, had fought as hard as any of his compeers for comfort and
independence;—but money, as money, had never been dear to him;—and
now he was so trained a philosopher that he disregarded it
altogether, except so far as it enabled him to maintain his
independence.</p>
<p>On a certain Friday evening in June, as he sat at dinner at his club,
instead of applying himself to his book, which according to his
custom he had taken from his pocket, he there read a letter, which as
soon as read he would restore to the envelope, and would take it out
again after a few moments of thought. At last, when the cup of tea
was done and the bill was paid, he put away letter and book together
and walked to the door of his club. When there he stood and
considered what next should he do that evening. It was now past eight
o'clock, and how should he use the four, five, or perhaps six hours
which remained to him before he should go to bed? The temptation to
which he was liable prompted him to return to his solitude in
Southampton Buildings. Should he do so, he would sleep till ten in
his chair,—then he would read, and drink more tea, or perhaps write,
till one; and after that he would prowl about the purlieus of
Chancery Lane, the Temple, and Lincoln's Inn, till two or even three
o'clock in the morning;—looking up at the old dingy windows, and
holding, by aid of those powers which imagination gave him, long
intercourse with men among whom a certain weakness in his physical
organisation did not enable him to live in the flesh. Well the
policemen knew him as he roamed about, and much they speculated as to
his roamings. But in these night wanderings he addressed no word to
any one; nor did any one ever address a word to him. Yet the world,
perhaps, was more alive to him then than at any other period in the
twenty-four hours.</p>
<p>But on the present occasion the temptation was resisted. He had not
been at home during the whole week, and knew well that he ought to
give his daughters the countenance of his presence. Whether that
feeling alone would have been sufficient to withdraw him from the
charms of Chancery Lane and send him down to the villa may be
doubted; but there was that in the letter which he had perused so
carefully which he knew must be communicated to his girls. His niece,
Mary Bonner, was now an orphan, and would arrive in England from
Jamaica in about a fortnight. Her mother had been Sir Thomas's
sister, and had been at this time dead about three years. General
Bonner, the father, had now died, and the girl was left an orphan,
almost penniless, and with no near friend unless the Underwoods would
befriend her. News of the General's death had reached Sir Thomas
before;—and he had already made inquiry as to the fate of his niece
through her late father's agents. Of the General's means he had known
absolutely nothing,—believing, however, that they were confined to
his pay as an officer. Now he was told that the girl would be at
Southampton in a fortnight, and that she was utterly destitute. He
declared to himself as he stood on the steps of the club that he
would go home and consult his daughters;—but his mind was in fact
made up as to his niece's fate long before he got home,—before he
turned out of Pall Mall into St. James's Park. He would sometimes
talk to himself of consulting his daughters; but in truth he very
rarely consulted any human being as to what he would do or leave
undone. If he went straight, he went straight without other human
light than such as was given to him by his own intellect, his own
heart, and his own conscience. It took him about an hour and a half
to reach his home, but of that time four-fifths were occupied, not in
resolving what he would do in this emergency, but in deep grumblings
and regrets that there should be such a thing to be done at all. All
new cares were grievous to him. Nay;—old cares were grievous, but
new cares were terrible. Though he was bold in deciding, he was very
timid in looking forward as to the results of that decision. Of
course the orphan girl must be taken into his house;—and of course
he must take upon himself the duty of a father in regard to her.</p>
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