Mrs. Quickenham was three or four years older than her sister, and Mr. Quickenham was twelve years older than his wife. The lawyer therefore was considerably senior to the clergyman. He was at the Chancery bar, and after the usual years of hard and almost profitless struggling, had worked himself up into a position in which his income was very large, and his labours never ending. Since the days in which he had begun to have before his eyes some idea of a future career for himself, he had always been struggling hard for a certain goal, struggling successfully, and yet never getting nearer to the thing he desired. A scholarship had been all in all to him when he left school; and, as he got it, a distant fellowship already loomed before his eyes. That attained was only a step towards his life in London. His first brief, anxiously as it had been desired, had given no real satisfaction. As soon as it came to him it was a rung of the ladder already out of sight. And so it had been all through his life, as he advanced upwards, making a business, taking a wife to himself, and becoming the father of many children. There was always something before him which was to make him happy when he reached it. His gown was of silk, and his income almost greater than his desires; but he would fain sit upon the Bench, and have at any rate his evenings for his own enjoyment. He firmly believed now, that that had been the object of his constant ambition; though could he retrace his thoughts as a young man, he would find that in the early days of his forensic toils, the silent, heavy, unillumined solemnity of the judge had appeared to him to be nothing in comparison with the glittering audacity of the successful advocate. He had tried the one, and might probably soon try the other. And when that time shall have come, and Mr. Quickenham shall sit upon his seat of honour in the new Law Courts, passing long, long hours in the tedious labours of conscientious painful listening; then he will look forward again to the happy ease of dignified retirement, to the coming time in which all his hours will be his own. And then, again, when those unfurnished hours are there, and with them shall have come the infirmities which years and toil shall have brought, his mind will run on once more to that eternal rest in which fees and salary, honours and dignity, wife and children, with all the joys of satisfied success, shall be brought together for him in one perfect amalgam which he will call by the name of Heaven. In the meantime, he has now come down to Bullhampton to enjoy himself for four days—if he can find enjoyment without his law papers.
Mr. Quickenham was a tall, thin man, with eager gray eyes, and a long projecting nose, on which, his enemies in the courts of law were wont to say, his wife would hang a kettle, in order that the unnecessary heat coming from his mouth might not be wasted. His hair was already grizzled, and, in the matter of whiskers, his heavy impatient hand had nearly altogether cut away the only intended ornament to his face. He was a man who allowed himself time for nothing but his law work, eating all his meals as though the saving of a few minutes in that operation were matter of vital importance, dressing and undressing at railroad speed, moving ever with a quick, impetuous step, as though the whole world around him went too slowly. He was shortsighted, too, and would tumble about in his unnecessary hurry, barking his shins, bruising his knuckles, and breaking most things that were breakable—but caring nothing for his sufferings either in body or in purse so that he was not reminded of his awkwardness by his wife. An untidy man he was, who spilt his soup on his waistcoat and slobbered with his tea, whose fingers were apt to be ink-stained, and who had a grievous habit of mislaying papers that were most material to him. He would bellow to the servants to have his things found for him, and would then scold them for looking. But when alone he would be ever scolding himself because of the faults which he thus committed. A conscientious, hardworking, friendly man he was, but one difficult to deal with; hot in his temper, impatient of all stupidities, impatient often of that which he wrongly thought to be stupidity, never owning himself to be wrong, anxious always for the truth, but often missing to see it, a man who would fret grievously for the merest trifle, and think nothing of the greatest success when it had once been gained. Such a one was Mr. Quickenham; and he was a man of whom all his enemies and most of his friends were a little afraid. Mrs. Fenwick would declare herself to be much in awe of him; and our Vicar, though he would not admit as much, was always a little on his guard when the great barrister was with him.
How it had come to pass that Mr. Chamberlaine had not been called upon to take a part in the Cathedral services during Passion week cannot here be explained; but it was the fact, that when Mr. Quickenham arrived at Bullhampton, the Canon was staying at The Privets. He had come over there early in the week—as it was supposed by Mr. Fenwick with some hope of talking his nephew into a more reasonable state of mind respecting Miss Lowther; but, according to Mrs. Fenwick’s uncharitable views, with the distinct object
