Jermyn, Matthew

Lawyer; Mrs. Transome's former lover, a selfish and unscrupulous man. "He was grey, but still remarkably handsome; fat, but tall enough to bear that trial to man's dignity. There was as strong a suggestion of toilette about him as if he had been five-and-twenty instead of nearly sixty. He chose always to dress in black and was especially addicted to black satin waistcoats, which carried out the general sleekness of his appearance; and this, together with his white, fat, but beautifully-shaped hands, which he was in the habit of rubbing gently on his entrance into a room, gave him very much the air of a lady's physician." "Jermyn was able and politic enough to have commanded a great deal of success in his life, but he could not help being handsome, arrogant, fond of being heard, indisposed to any kind of comradeship, amorous and bland towards women, cold and selfcontained towards men." When a handsome and sentimental young man he had been Mrs. Transome's lover and had compromised her. He had used his hold over her to secure his own material advancement, and in managing the Transome estate had grown rich and had married and maintained an expensive family. When Harold Transome returns as heir to the Transome estate and discovers Mr. Jermyn's mismanagement and crookedness, he quarrels with him, and in a public quarrel Mr. Jermyn in forms Harold that he is his father.

<em>Felix Holt, the Radical</em>

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