The Forlorn Hope: A Novel (Vol. 2 of 2)Yates, Edmund
General
The Forlorn Hope: A Novel (Vol. 2 of 2)
Yates, Edmund
Fiction
One day, on his return to his hotel after a long ramble, the waiter
who was specially devoted to his service received him with a pleasant
grin, and told him that a "post packet" of an enormous size awaited
him. The parcel which Wilmot found on his table was certainly large
enough to have created astonishment in the mind of anyone, more
especially a German waiter, accustomed only to the small square thin
letters of his nation. There was but one huge packet; no letter from
Sir Saville Rowe, nor from Mr. Foljambe, to whom Wilmot had also
written specially. Wilmot opened the envelope with an amount of
nervousness which was altogether foreign to his nature; his hand
trembled unaccountably; and he had to clear his eyes before he could
set to work to glance over the addresses of the score of letters which
it contained. He ran them over hurriedly; nothing from Sir Saville
Rowe, nothing from Mr. Foljambe, no line--but he had expected none
from any of the Kilsyths. He threw aside unopened a letter in
Whittaker's bold hand, a dozen others whose superscriptions were
familiar to him, and paused before one, the mere sight of which gave
him an inexplicable thrill. It was a long, broad, blue-papered
envelope, addressed in a formal legal hand to him at his house in
Charles-street, and marked "Immediate." There are few men but in their
time have had an uneasy sensation caused by the perusal of their own
name in that never-varying copying-clerk's caligraphy, with its thin
upstrokes and thick downstrokes, its carefully crossed t's and
infallibly dotted i's. Few but know the "further proceedings" which,
unless a settlement be made on or before Wednesday next, the writers
are "desired to inform" us, they will be "compelled to take." But
Chudleigh Wilmot was among those few. During the whole of his career
he had never owed a shilling which he could not have paid on demand,
and his experience of law in any way had been nil. And yet the sight
of this grim document had an extraordinarily terrifying effect upon
him. He turned it backwards and forwards, took it up and laid it down
several times, before he could persuade himself to break its seal, a
great splodge of red wax impressed with the letters "L. & L." deeply
cut. At length he broke it open. An enclosure fell from it to the
ground; but not heeding that, Wilmot held up the letter to the
fast-fading light, and read as follows:
"Lincoln's-Inn.
"Sir,--In accordance with instructions received from the late Mr.
Foljambe of Portland-place--"
The late Mr. Foljambe! He must be dreaming! He rubbed his eyes, walked
a little nearer to the window, and reperused the letter. No; there the
sentence stood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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