LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1468, 31 October 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

PROCTOU'S CASE.

By Mr.s. Casiiel Hoey.

Chapter a

Talk of tho roraano'3 of love, indeed ! Thc.e in twioe as much romance in money, to my mind ; even money by itself, to say nothing of it in combination with love. Am 1 serious? 1 newr was more serious in my life; ami as I've been f»r forty odd years clerk to Mcsts. IN'immo, lirst father and son, and then son, successor to father, in this town of Ipswich, I'm like'y to know what seriousness means Lawyers everywhere, and their clerks too, get a pretty correct view of human live 3 ; but especially in quietgoing country towns, because you go on with peoples histo y in place l ! of this kind. r > ou don't get it in fits and starts, seeing people in moments of difficulty and trouble, and all as they are with no make-believe about ther;\ r.nd then losirjg si; ht of them, uei'er knowing what has come of them or their troubles, any more. You know all about then, their fathers and mothers before them, their wives with them, and, their children after them ; their small byginnirjgs snri'iotitneo, and tho bits oi money thoy put by from i\mv to time ; how nobodies grow to be somebodies, and die out; how

new places spring up, snd old yd aces change hands. It's a'l unstable, it's all dissolving views everywhere; but the sa .da are rob quite so shifting, the eanvas is not rolled off quite so quickly in country places as in your big city. We knew a great deal about people's hwlories at Nimmo's, and m<>st of the traditions of then spectable old linn were lodged in my h-ad. How much surprised some of the people, whom I was in the habit of meet ing every d«y or yoars, would have been, if they had been aware of all that I knew about them; and what a very little way their airs of consequence and their little fibs went with me. These airs and fibs are as plen'y in country t.'Wns as in big cities, but they get found out more readily, because one has more time to notice them. And I give you my word, going back to my point, that I have known no family secrets or troubles in which love played nearly so large or so romantic a part as money. Cculd 1 state a case off-hand ? I could : there's the story of the Proctors—it'a only one out of scores, but it comes the readiest. When I first saw Bernard Proctor and his handsome young wife I was a youngster, newly promoted to a high stool in Mr Nimmo's office. Very proud of myself I was in those days, and you could not easily have persuaded me that a greater man than Lawyer Nimmo was to be found nearer to the market cross than Windsor Castle, or that King William himself would Dot have been the better of his advice. Bernard Proctor first came to consult Mr Nimmo about a purchase, and his pretty wi'e came with him. Mr Nimmo was busy in the back parlour, and as his guest was Sir Henry Hartletop himself, he c >uld not even be told that Mr Proctor was waiting, so that the n*w-comers had to sit down in the office; and so they did, very cosy, and very n ar one another en the horse-hair bench, aod I had a good look at Mrs Proctor while I pretended to be writing. She was as blithe and bonny as she could bo, with blue eyes aud a fice fresh comp'exi n, and a happy look that did one good to sees'rnard Proctor was a good deal older than his wife, and had a hard loi k about him, as well he might have, for he had been moneygathering all his life, and I know nothing, except money-spending in evil pleasure all his life, that hardens a man's face like that. Mr iMinmo went to the noor with Sir Henry H-irtletop when bis busins3 was settled, and then he looked into the office. Mr and Mrs Prootor both stood up, and I, who, even then, knew all the tones in Mr Nimmo's voice perfectly, was well aware when he spoks that these were not sueh clients as he put en his very best wanntrs for. ' Come after that house, I suppose,' said Mr Nimmo, as he opened the door leading into his room, and Mrs Proctor passed on ' Bather odd. >'• ir Hecry Hartletop has just been here about it.'

Then he shut tho door behind him, and that wa'j all I saw of tho Proctors on that occasion ; which I shoul I not have rememberel at all, had it not been associated with a rumour that reached us in the office that \ery day, that things were go ng very wr ng at Hartletop 'I hingi don't go wrong with a fine old family estate without some member or other of tl,e fine old family being t) blame in the matter; and ia this c*se the helping hand was lent by Sir Henry's rnly son, Mr Frederick, who would have broken the Bank of Eugland if he had had a chauce, and lived loDg enough. As it vv'«s, he broke a 1 he cou d, including hit* mother's heart; and we began to hear that Sir Henry was parting with property in every direction, that the line timber in the park was being thinned at a gr at rate, and that the Ha 1 would shortly be shut up At our office we had reason to know that a portion • f these lumours was true, for Sir Henry Hartletop owned several houses in the town of ipswieh, and in the outlying cointry immediately adjacent; and he employed Mr Nimmo to sell them, first singly, than two or three at a time. Finally they were all sold, and the H <rtletop proprieto ship in everything outside the gates of the Hall came to an end. A good deal of copying of the documents relative to those sales fell to my snai", and thus 1 came to know that Bernard Proctor was buying most of trie housg property that Sir Henry B artlctop was selling, and in a quiet unpretending way he was taking root in the place. I never knew exactly what his origin was; and it does not matter. He had been a workman in some trade, his pretty wife had brought him a little money, and a lucky invention had procured him a share in a factory, in which he had done vary well, Nobody knew how well, until long afterwards. He was the luckiest man in mouey-making I ever knew, and perhaps the moat d strus:ful of all others who had made money. He and his wife occupied a substantial house about half-a mile out of the town, and though the gentry did not recognise them, they were taken up by many of the leading townspeople, and they were bidding fair to be reckoned among those somebodies whom I have seen in the course of my life developed from nobodies. All this did not happen very quickly; it might have been five years or thereabouts from the time T first mw the Procter* until the manner of Mr Nimmo had entirely changen 1 towards his house-purchasing client. To do bim justice, it never changed towards his house selling one; he conducted Sir Henry Hartletop as deferentially to the streetdo >r on the las'; day hir Henry was ever seen at our office as on the first, and I never saw him look more sad than he looked when the broken and feeb'e gentleman rode away. Only a few weeks la'or, Sir Henry Partletop was dead, and Sir Frederi k had left the country. It will not take me long to tell tho story of the next ten years. First, the Hall was let to a rich manufacturer with the park and gardens, all complete, for two years ; and then, when he and bis family bit the place, the house was shut up. the gardens were neglected, and the park was all let for' gracing, up to the very windows. We did not hear much of Sir Frederick, and tho little we did hear was no good. \ had been for some time chief eVk at TV r Niinrno's, when we received directions from Sir Frederick to have " a corner of the house " made ready for the reception of Lady Hartletop and her daughter. Nobody knew anything about them, beyond the facts that SiHYpderiek had married a foreigner, and had only one child, a daughter— u circumstances which was generally regarded as serving him right, for Ipswich people did not like Tho mother and daughter arrived, and were installed at the Hall, literacy in a corner of the great house, with two servants, ono a foreign woman, whom they bad brought with them to wait upon them there. Tho mother was a tall, pale, black eyed, slend r s lent lady, who looked as if sh ' and sorrow had long beonso familiar that indifference had come of it; the daught v was a lovely child of six or s.eyea, a fair little darling, who would, ;i wa" to see, grow up the image oj; Sir Frederick's mother. The tvTyi, lived as quiet as mice in the great house, on a very small allowance, that was paid to Lady Hartletop through our office, and very often advanced, to my knowledge, out of Mr Nimrao's own pocket, when tho remittances were in arrear. All th:3 time things were prospering with tit© Proctors, and the more the Hall d ,/indied and waned in th<j more Mr Proctor of The Mouns, &., he (called the big house, which stood on ground as ilat as a table, seemed to grow in sub.Unce and position. Mrs Proctor was luthor more than blithe and bonny by this time ; she waa downright fat, znd had a double chin. Her two fine boys, Hcrnard and Richard, were ton pride < f her life, and Id.n't suppose she had a trouble in tho world then, oi - for some years after, except it \va3 that Bernard, as he grew out of childhood, bads fair to bo remarkably like his father. An od I source of trouble, t > a loving wife ! Yes, that seem* fc'UO. hut it :'s easily explained to■>. Pjoofcorhad made his money,, a. d in #?,a beginning, at lea*t, h d worked very jm-d for it; it was i o wonder he and have it constantly in his thoughts. But it was another thing that Bernard siouid munoy, as bo d d, from the time when, his nature could he read with aoy certainty,

with a thirst and a concentration that could not be hidden or ignored. The boys were sent to an excellent school, and well-taught in all the Bcho ling which th<=ir tather had nut, and there the ruling passion of Bernard came out strongly. His f *ther laughed at it when the br>y was a child and u-ed to hoard his halfpence, and seli his tops and marbles ; he rather admired it when the child became a hoy, but his mother disliked and feared it She had not found it impossible to love a money loving man; but then her husband did not ove only money ; whereas, it really seemed that her son had no power of loving an} thing else. We knew a good deal about the Proctors at our office; Mr Mmmo—it Was Nimmo succe-isor before tha two boys left school—did all Bernard Proctor's business for him. It was of a simple kind, because he stuck to house-property as his invariable investment, being an uneducated man, with firm conviction that every speculation was a swindle, and a rooted distrust of securities, whether Government or otherwise (To be continued.)