human
Luke, I declare you quite make me nervous. I shall be afraid to go to bed to-night. Really, a stranger, or a timid person, would think you were going to confess a murder!
gpt
My dear, if you feel at all inclined to give way, Mr. Sharp answered, as if glad to escape,
human
Luke, is your mind astray? I quite fear so. Can you imagine that I could wait for two days, after what you have told me?
gpt
My dear, I was only considering yourself. If you wish it, I will begin at once. Only for your own sake, I must insist on your sitting calmly down. There, my dear! Now, do not agitate yourself. There is nothing to frighten anybody. It is the most simple thing; and you will laugh, when you have heard it.
human
Then I wish I had heard it, Luke. For I feel more inclined to cry than laugh.
gpt
Miranda, you must not be foolish. Such a thing is not at all like you. Very well, now you are quite sedate. Now please not to interrupt me once; but ask your questions afterwards. If you ask me a question I shall stop, and go to the office with my papers. Mr. Sharp looked at his wife; and she bowed her head in obedience.
human
To begin at the very beginning, he said, with a smile to re-assure her,
gpt
Darling Luke, I do. But you make me cry, when you talk like that.
human
Very well. That is as it should be. We were as happy as need be expected, until the great wrong befell us--the fierce injustice of losing every farthing to which we were clearly entitled. You were the proper successor to all the property of old Fermitage. That old curmudgeon, and wholesale poisoner of the University, made a fool of himself, towards his latter end, by marrying Miss Oglander. Old Black-Strap, as of course we know, had no other motive for doing such a thing, except his low ambition to be connected with a good old family. Ever since he began life as a bottleboy, in the cellars of old Jerry Pigaud----
gpt
He never did that, Luke. How can you speak so of my father's own first cousin? He was an extremely respectable young man; my father always said so.
human
While he was making his money, Miranda, of course he was respectable. And everybody respected him, as soon as he had made it. However, I have not the smallest intention of reproaching the poor old villain. He acted according to his lights, and they led him very badly. A foolish ambition induced him to marry that pompous old maid, Joan Oglander, who had been jilted by Commodore Patch, the son of the famous captain. We all know what followed; the old man was but a doll in the hands of his lady-wife. He left all the scrapings and screwings of his life, for her to do what she pleased with--at least, everybody supposes so.
gpt
What do you mean, Luke? asked Mrs. Sharp, having inkling of legal surprises.
human
Do you mean that there is a later will? Has he done justice to me, after all?
gpt
No, my dear. He never saved his soul by attending to his own kindred. But he just had the sense to make a little change at last, when his wife would not come near him. You know what he died of. It was coming on for weeks; though at last it struck him suddenly. The port-wine fungus of his old vaults grew into his lungs, and stopped them. It had shown for some time in his face and throat; and his wife was afraid of catching it. She took it to be some infectious fever, of which she is always so terribly afraid. The old man knew that his time was short; but take to his bed he would not. Of all born men the most stubborn he was; as any man must be, to get on well. 'If I am to die of the fungus,' he said, 'I will have a little more of it.' And he went, and with his own hands hunted up a magnum of port, which had been laid by, from the vintage of 1745, in the first days of Jerry Pigaud. But before that, he had sent for me; and I was there when he opened it.
human
Luke, you take my breath away. Such wonderful things I have never heard. At least, not in our own family.
gpt
Of course, my dear. We all accept wonders with quietude, till they come home to us. Well, when he fetched out this old bottle, it was fungus inside from heel to neck. He held it up against the light, and the glass being whiter than now they make, and the wine gone almost white with age, there you could see this extraordinary growth, like cords in the bottle, and valves across it, and a long yellow sheath like a crocus-flower. I had never seen anything like it before; but he knew all about it. 'Ah, I know a genleman,' he grunted in his throat--he never could say 'gentleman,' as you remember--'a genleman as would give a hundred guineas for this here bottle! Quibbles, he shouldn't have it for a thousand! My boy, you and I will drink it. Say no, and I'll cut off your wife with a half-penny!' Miranda, what could I do but try to humour him to the utmost? If I had had the smallest inkling of the iniquitous will he had made, of course, I never would have sat on the head of the cask, down in his dingy and reeking vaults, by the hour together, to please him. But never mind that--in a moment he took a long-handled knife, or chopper, and holding the bottle upright, struck off the neck and a part of the shoulder, as straight as a line, at the level of the wine. 'Not many men could do that,' he said; 'none of your clumsy cork-screwers for me! Now, Quibbles, here's a real treat for you! Talk of beeswing, my boy, here's a beehive!' And really it was more like eating than drinking wine; for all the body was gone into the fungus. Nastier stuff I never tasted; but, luckily, he took the lion's share. 'Now, Quibbles, I'll tell you a secret,' he said, after swallowing at least a quart; 'a very pretty girl came and kissed me t'other day, in among these very bottles. Such a little duck--not a bit ashamed or afeared of my fungus, as my missus is. And her breath was as sweet as the violets of '20! Well now, my little dear,
human
that was kind of you to kiss an old man a-dying of port wine fungus! And if he only lives another day, you shall have the right to kiss the Royal family, if you cares to do it.
gpt
Now, Luke, I am all anxiety to hear, exclaimed Mrs. Sharp, with a sudden interruption,
human
Because, Miranda, it would disturb your mind. And I know that you cannot endure suspense. Moreover, I scarcely knew what to think of it. Poor old Fermitage (what with the fungus already in his tubes, and what he was taking down) might be talking sheer nonsense for all that I knew. And indeed, for a long time I treated it so; and I had no stomach for a voyage to Oporto, upon mere speculation, and for the benefit only of some pretty girl. Then I found out, by the purest chance, that no voyage to Oporto was needful, that old 'Port-wine' (who departed on his cask to a better world, the day after his magnum) meant nothing more than the London stores and agency of the Oporto Company. And even after that I made one expedition to the Minories, all for nothing. Two or three very polite young dons stared at me, and thought I was come to chaff them, or perhaps had turned up from their vaults top-heavy, when I asked for 'Senhor Jolly Fellows.' And so I came away, and lost some months, and might never have thought it worth while to go again, except for another mere accident.
gpt
My dear, what a chapter of accidents! cried Mrs. Sharp, while feeding him.
human
I thought that you were a great deal too clever to allow any room for accidents.
gpt
Women think so. Men know better, the lawyer replied sententiously; his ability was too well-known to need his vindication.
human
And, Miranda, you forget that I had as yet no personal interest in the question. But when I happened to have a Portuguese gentleman as a client--a man who had spent many years in England--and happened to be talking of our language to him, I told him one part of the story, and asked if he could throw any light on it. He told me at once that the name which had so puzzled me must be Gelofilos--a Portuguese surname, by no means common. And the next time I was in town, I had occasion to call in St. John's Street, and found myself, almost by accident again, not far from the Company's offices.
gpt
Mr. Sharp, you left such a thing to chance, when you knew that it might pull down that dreadful woman's insolence!
human
My dear, it is not the duty of my life to mitigate feminine arrogance. And to undertake such a crusade, gratis! I am equal to a bold stroke, as you will see, if your patience lasts--but never to such a vast undertaking. When it comes before me, in the way of business, naturally I take it up. But this was no business of my own; and the will was proved, and assets called in; for the old rogue did not owe one penny. Well, I went again, and this time I got hold of the right man---- Miranda, I hear the bell!