Walter Besant - The Ivory Gate, a new edition

Another man, also elderly, who sat next to the barrister, was a gentleman who sold an excellent business and retired, in order to betake himself more completely to toping. He drank in three taverns during the day. One was in Fleet Street, where he took his chop at three; one was near Drury Lane Theatre, where he dallied with a little whisky from five to nine; and this was the third. He was a quiet, happy, self-respecting, dignified old man. In the evening, he spoke not at all – for sufficient reasons; but he benevolently inclined his head if he was addressed.

Next to him sat a younger man, a solicitor, whose practice consisted in defending prisoners in the Police Courts. He had with him two friends, and he had a confident swagger, which passed for ability. Next to him and his friends was a house agent, who had been a member for an Irish borough: and there was a gentleman, whose wife sang in music halls, so that this fortunate person could – and did – sit about in taverns all day long. His appearance was that of a deboshed City clerk, as he was. Not to mention other members of the company, Checkley was there, occupying a chair next to the money-lender.

Here he was called Mr. Checkley. He came every evening at nine o'clock, Sundays included. Like the money-lender, he wanted his little distractions, and took them in this way. Here, too, he was among those who respected him, not so much on account of his public and private virtues, or for his eminence in the law, as his money. It is not often that a solicitor's clerk becomes a 'warm' man, but then it is not often that one of the calling deliberately proposes to himself early in life to save money, and lives till seventy-five steadily carrying out his object. If you are good at figures, you will understand how Mr. Checkley succeeded. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five he had an income which averaged about seventy-five pounds. He lived upon fifty pounds a year. From twenty-five to thirty-five he made an average of one hundred and fifty pounds: he still lived upon fifty pounds a year. At thirty-five he was induced by prudential considerations to marry: the lady, considerably his senior, had a thousand pounds. She was even more miserly than himself, and in a year or so after marriage, she fell into a decline, owing to insufficient nourishment, and presently expired. On the whole he calculated that he was the better man for the marriage by a thousand pounds. From thirty-five to forty-five his income rose to two hundred pounds: it then for twenty-five years stood at three hundred pounds a year; at the age of seventy Mr. Dering gave him four hundred pounds. Therefore, to sum up, he had put by out of his pay the sum of 11,675 l . – and this without counting the compound interest always mounting up from his investments, which were all of a careful kind such as he understood: tenement houses, of which he had a good number: shares in building societies: money lent on bills of sale or on mortgage. At home – Mr. Checkley lived on the ground floor of one of his own houses – he grew more miserly as he grew older. The standard of luxury is not high when fifty pounds a year covers all; but of late he had been trying to keep below even that humble amount. He conducted his affairs in the evening between his office hours and nine at his own house, or among the people where his property lay. It was in the district, visited by few, lying east of Gray's Inn Road: his own house was in a certain small square, a good half of the houses in which belonged to him.

At nine o'clock he arrived at the tavern. Here his drinks cost him nothing. A custom had grown up in the course of years for the money-lender to consult him on the many difficult points which arise in the practice of his profession. He was one of those who like to have one foot over the wall erected by the law, but not both. In other words, he was always trying to find out how far the law would allow him to go, and where it called upon him to stop. With this view he schemed perpetually to make his clients sign bonds under the delusion that they meant a hundredth part of what they really did mean. And as, like all ignorant men, he had the most profound belief in the power and the knowledge and the chicanery of lawyers, he was pleased to obtain Checkley's advice in return for Checkley's drinks.

It was a full gathering. The old clerk arrived late: he was gratified at hearing the ex-M.P. whispering to his friends that the new arrival was worth his twenty thousand pounds if a penny. He swelled with honourable pride. Yes. Twenty thousand pounds! And more – more. Who would have thought, when he began as an office boy, that he could ever achieve so much?

The money-lender, bursting with a new case, real or supposed, took his pipe out of his mouth and communicated it in a hoarse whisper.

'Suppose – ' it began.

'Then' – Checkley replied when the case was finished – 'you would lay yourself open to a criminal prosecution. Don't you go so much as to think of it. There was a case twenty-five years ago exactly like it. The remarks of the judge were most severe, and the sentence was heavy.'

'Ah!' The usurer's red face grew redder. 'Then it can't be thought of. Pity, too. There's a houseful of furniture and a shopful of stuff. And a young man as it would do good to him just to start fair again. Pity. – Put a name to it, Mr. Checkley.'

'Rum. Hot. With lemon,' replied the sage. 'You get more taste in your mouth, more upliftin' for your heart, as they say, more strengthenin' for the stomach, better value all round for your money out of rum than any other drink that I know.'

At this point, and before the waiter could execute the order, voices and steps were heard outside the room. The voices of two men. That of one loud, eager, noisy. That of the other quiet, measured, and calm.

Checkley sat upright suddenly and listened.

'That is young Cambridge,' said the old barrister. 'I thought he would be here – Saturday night and all.' He smiled, as if expectant of something, and drank off the rest of his beer at a draught.

'Most distinguished Cambridge man,' whispered the ex-M.P. to his friends. 'Wanst a Fellow of Cambridge College. Great scholar. Ornament to any circle. Dhrinks likes an oyster. Son of a Bishop too – Son of an Irish Bishop – Talks Greek like English. He'll come in directly. He's taking something outside. He's always half dhrunk to begin, and quite dhrunk to finish. But he only talks the better – being Oirish. Most remarkable man.'

The voice of this distinguished person Checkley knew. But the other voice? That he knew as well. And he could not remember whose voice it was. Very well indeed he remembered the sound of it. Some men never forget a face: some men never forget a shape or figure: some men never forget a voice: some men never forget a handwriting. A voice is the simplest thing, after all, to remember, and the most unchanging. From eighteen till eighty a man's voice changes not, save that in volume it decreases during the last decade: the distinguishing quality of the voice remains the same to the end.

'Have a drink, my dear fellow.' That was the voice of the Pride of Cambridge.

'Thanks. I don't want a drink.'

Whose voice was it? Checkley sat up eager for the door to be opened, and that doubt to be resolved.

It was opened. The two men came in first, the Cambridge man leading the way. He was a good-looking, smooth-faced man of thirty-two or so, with bright blue eyes – too bright – a fine face, full of delicacy and mobility, a high, narrow forehead, and quick sensitive lips; a man who was obviously in want of some one to take him in hand and control him: one of those men who have no will of their own, and fall naturally before any temptation which assails them. The chief temptation which assailed Freddy Carstone – it seems to stamp the man that his friends all called him Freddy – a Freddy is amiable, weak, beloved, and given to err, slip, fall, and give way – was the temptation to drink. He was really, as the ex-M.P. told his friends, a very fine scholar: he had been a Fellow of his college, but never received any appointment or office of Lecturer there on account of this weakness of his, which was notorious. When his Fellowship expired, he came to London, lived in Gray's Inn, and took pupils. He had the reputation of being an excellent coach if he could be caught sober. He was generally sober in the morning; often a little elevated in the afternoon; and always cheerfully – not stupidly – drunk at night.