Thatnight Lord Verney waited to hear the debate in the Commons—waited for the division,—and brought Cleve home with him in his brougham.
He explained to Cleve on the way how much better the debate might have been. He sometimes half regretted his seat in the Commons; there were so many things unsaid that ought to have been said, and so many things said that had better have been omitted. And at last he remarked—
"Your uncle Arthur, my unfortunate brother, had a great natural talent for speaking. It's a talent of the Verney's—about it. We all have it; andyouhave got it also; it is a gift of very decided importance in debate; it can hardly be over-estimated in that respect. Poor Arthur might have done very well, but he didn't, and he's gone—about it; and I'm very glad, for your ownsake, you are cultivating it; and it would be a very great misfortune, I've been thinking, if our family were not to marry, and secure a transmission of those hereditary talents and—and things—and—what's your opinion of Miss Caroline Oldys? I mean, quite frankly, what sort of wife you think she would make."
"Why, to begin with, she's been out a long time; but I fancy she's gentle—and foolish; and I believe her mother bullies her."
"I don't know what you call bullying, my good sir; but she appears to me to be a very affectionate mother; and as to her being foolish—about it—I can't perceive it; on the contrary, I've conversed with her a good deal—and things—and I've found her very superior indeed to any young woman I can recollect having talked to. She takes an interest in things which don't interest or—or—interest other young persons; and she likes to be instructed about affairs—and, my dear Cleve, I think where a young person of merit—either rightly or wrongly interpreting what she conceives to be your attentions—becomes decidedlyéprisof you, she ought to be—a—considered—her feelings, and things; and I thought I might as well mention my views, and go—about it—straight to the point; and I think you will perceive that it is reasonable, and that's theposition—about it; and you know, Cleve, in these circumstances you may reckon upon me to do anything in reason that may still lie in my power—about it."
"You have always been too kind to me."
"You shall find me so still. Lady Wimbledon takes an interest in you, and Miss Caroline Oldys will, I undertake to say, more and more decidedly as she comes to know you better."
And so saying, Lord Verney leaned back in the brougham as if taking a doze, and after about five minutes of closed eyes and silence he suddenly wakened up and said—
"It is, in fact, it strikes me, high time, Cleve, you should marry—about it—and you must have money, too; you want money, and you shall have it."
"I'm afraid money is not one ofCaroline'sstrong points."
"You need not trouble yourself upon that point, sir; ifI'm satisfied I fancyyoumay. I've quite enough for both, I presume; and—and so, we'll let that matter rest."
And the noble lord let himself rest also, leaning stiffly back with closed eyes, and nodding and swaying silently with the motion of the carriage.
I believe he was only ruminating after hismanner in these periods of apparent repose. He opened his eyes again, and remarked—
"I have talked over this affair carefully with Mr. Larkin—a most judicious and worthy person—about it—and you can talk to him, and so on, when he comes to town, and I should rather wish you to do so."
Lord Verney relapsed into silence and the semblance, at least, of slumber.
"So Larkin's at the bottom of it; I knew he was," thought Cleve, with a pang of hatred which augured ill for the future prospects of that good man. "He has made this alliance for the Oldys and Wimbledon faction, and I'm Mr.Larkin's parti, and am to settle the management of everything upon him; and what a judicious diplomatist he is—and how he has put his foot in it. A blundering hypocritical coxcomb—D—n him."
Then his thoughts wandered away to Larkin, and to his instrument, Mr. Dingwell, "who looks as if he came from the galleys. We have heard nothing of him for a year or more. Among the Greek and Malay scoundrels again, I suppose; the Turks are too good for him."
But Mr. Dingwell had not taken his departure, and was not thinking of any such stepyet, at least. He had business still on his hands, and a mission unaccomplished.
Still in the same queer lodgings, and more jealously shut up during the daytime than ever, Mr. Dingwell lived his odd life, professing to hate England—certainly in danger there—he yet lingered on for a set purpose, over which he brooded and laughed in his hermitage.
To so chatty a person as Mr. Dingwell solitude for a whole day was irksome. Sarah Rumble was his occasional resource, and when she brought him his cup of black coffee he would make her sit down by the wall, like a servant at prayers, and get from her all the news of the dingy little neighbourhood, with a running commentary of his own flighty and savage irony, and he would sometimes entertain her, between the whiffs of his long pipe, with talk of his own, which he was at no pains to adapt to her comprehension, and delivered rather for his own sole entertainment.
"The world, the flesh, and the devil, ma'am. The two first we know pretty well—hey? the other we take for granted. I suppose thereissomebody of the sort. We are all pigs, ma'am—unclean animals—and this is a sty we live in—slime and abomination. Strong delusion is, unseen, circling in the air. Our ideas of beauty, delights of sense, vanities of intellect—all a most comical and frightful cheat—egad! What fun we must be, ma'am, to the spirits whohavesightand intellect! I think, ma'am, we're meant for their pantomime—don't you? Our airs, and graces, and dignities, and compliments, and beauties, and dandies—our metal coronets, and lawn sleeves, and whalebone wigs—fun, ma'am, lots of fun! And here we are, a wonderful work of God. Eh? Come, ma'am—a word in your ear—allputrefaction—pah! nothing clean but fire, and that makes us roar and vanish—a very odd position we're placed in; hey, ma'am?"
Mr. Dingwell had at first led Sarah Rumble a frightful life, for she kept the door where the children were peremptorily locked, at which he took umbrage, and put her on fatigue duty, more than trebling her work by his caprices, and requiting her with his ironies and sneers, finding fault with everything, pretending to miss money out of his desk, and every day threatening to invoke Messrs. Levi and Goldshed, and invite an incursion of the police, and showing in his face, his tones—his jeers pointed and envenomed by revenge—that his hatred was active and fiendish.
But Sarah Rumble was resolute. He was not a desirable companion for childhood of either sex, and the battle went on for a considerable time; and poor Sarah in her misery besought Messrs. Levi and Goldshed, with many tears and prayers, that he might depart from her; and Levi lookedat Goldshed, and Goldshed at Levi, quite gravely, and Levi winked, and Goldshed nodded, and said, "A bad boy;" and they spoke comfortably, and told her they would support her, but Mr. Dingwell must remain her inmate, but they'd take care he should do her no harm.
Mr. Dingwell had a latch-key, which he at first used sparingly and timidly; with time, however, his courage grew, and he was out more or less every night. She used to hear him go out after the little household was in bed, and sometimes she heard him lock the hall-door, and his step on the stairs when the sky was already gray with the dawn.
And gradually finding company such as he affected out of doors, I suppose, he did not care so much for the seclusion of his fellow-lodgers, and ceased to resent it almost, and made it up with Sarah Rumble.
And one night, having to go up between one and two for a match-box to the lobby, she encountered Mr. Dingwell coming down. She was dumb with terror, for she did not know him, and took him for a burglar, he being somehow totally changed—she was too confused to recollect exactly, only that he had red hair and whiskers, and looked stouter.
She did not know him in the least till helaughed. She was near fainting, and leaned with her shoulder to the corner of the wall; and he said—
"I've to put on these; you keep my secret, mind; you may lose me my life, else."
And he took her by the chin, and gave her a kiss, and then a slap on the cheek that seemed to her harder than play, for her ear tingled with it for an hour after, and she uttered a little cry of fright, and he laughed, and glided out of the hall-door, and listened for the tread of a policeman, and peeped slily up and down the court; and then, with his cotton umbrella in his hand, walked quietly down the passage and disappeared.
Sarah Rumble feared him all the more for this little rencontre and the shock she had received, for there was a suggestion of something felonious in his disguise. She was, however, a saturnine and silent woman, with few acquaintances, and no fancy for collecting or communicating news. There was a spice of danger, too, in talking of this matter; so she took counsel of the son of Sirach, who says, "If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee, and, behold, it will not burst thee."
Sarah Rumble kept his secret, and henceforward, at such hours kept close, when in the deep silence of the night she heard the faint creak ofhis stealthy shoe upon the stair, and avoided him as she would a meeting with a ghost.
Whatever were his amusements, Messrs. Goldshed and Levi grumbled savagely at the cost of them. They grumbled because grumbling was a principle of theirs in carrying on their business.
"No matter how it turns out, keep always grumbling to the man who led you into the venture, especially if he has a claim to a share of the profits at the close."
So whenever Mr. Larkin saw Messrs. Goldshed and Levi, he heard mourning and imprecation. The Hebrews shook their heads at the Christian, and chaunted a Jeremiad, in duet, together, and each appealed to the other for the confirmation of the dolorous and bitter truths he uttered. And the iron safe opened its jaws and disgorged the private ledger of the firm, which ponderous and greasy tome was laid on the desk with a pound, and opened at this transaction—the matter of Dingwell, Verney, &c.; and Mr. Levi would run his black nail along the awful items of expenditure that filled column after column.
"Look at that—look here—look, will you?—look, I say: you never sawed an account like that—never—all this here—look—down—and down—and down—and down—"
"Enough to frighten the Bank of England!" boomed Mr. Goldshed.
"Look down thish column," resumed Levi, "and thish, and thish, and thish—there's nine o' them—and not one stiver on th' other side. Look, look, look, look,look! Daam, it'sh all a quaag, and a quickshand—nothing but shink and shwallow, and give ush more"—and as he spoke Levi was knocking the knuckles of his long lean fingers fiercely upon the empty columns, and eyeing Larkin with a rueful ferocity, as if he had plundered and half-murdered him and his partner, who sat there innocent as the babes in the wood.
Mr. Larkin knew quite well, however, that so far from regretting their investment, they would not have sold their ventures under a very high figure indeed.
"And that beast Dingwell, talking as if he had us all in quod, by ——, and always whimperin', and whinin', and swearin' for more—why you'd say, to listen to his rot, 'twashimhadusunder his knuckle—you would—the lunatic!"
"And may I ask what he wants just at present?" inquired Mr. Larkin.
"What he always wants, and won't be easy never till he gets it—a walk up the mill, sir, and his head cropped, and six months' solitary, and a touch of corporal now and again. I neversaw'd a cove as wanted a teazin' more; that's what he wants. What he's looking for, of course, is different, only he shan't get it, nohow. And I think, looking at that book there, as I showed you this account in—considering what me and the gov'nor here has done—'twould only be fair you should come down with summut, if you goes in for the lottery, with other gentlemen as pays their pool like bricks, and never does modest, by no chance."
"He has pushed that game a little too far," said Mr. Larkin; "I have considered his feelings a great deal too much."
"Yesh, butwehave feelinsh. TheGov'norhas feelinsh; I havefeelinsh. Think what state our feelinsh is in, lookin' at that there account," said Mr. Levi, with much pathos.
Mr. Larkin glanced toward the door, and then toward the window.
"We are quitealone?" said he, mildly.
"Yesh, without you have the devil in your pocket, as old Dingwell saysh," answered Levi, sulkily.
"For there are subjects of a painful nature, as you know, gentlemen, connected with this particular case," continued Mr. Larkin.
"Awful painful; but we'll sta-an' it," said Goldshed, with unctuous humour; "we'll sta-an'it, but wishes it over quick;" and he winked at Levi.
"Yesh, he wishes it over quick," echoed Levi; "the gov'nor and me, we wishes it over quick."
"And so do I,mostassuredly; but we must have a little patience. If deception does lurk here—and you know I warned you I suspected it—we must not prematurely trouble Lord Verney."
"He might throw up the sponge, he might, Iknow," said Levi, with a nod.
"I don't know what course Lord Verney might think it right in such a case to adopt; I only know that until I am in a position to reduce suspicion to certainty, it would hardly consist with right feeling to torture his mind upon the subject. In the meantime he is—a—growing"——
"Growing warm in his berth," said Goldshed.
"Establishing himself, I should say, in his position. He has been incurring, I need hardly tell you, enormous expense in restoring (I might sayre-building) the princely mansions of Ware, and of Verney House. He applied much ready money to that object, and has charged the estates with nearly sixty thousand pounds besides." Mr. Larkin lowered his tones reverentially at the mention of so considerable a sum.
"I know Sirachs, did nigh thirty thoushand o' that," said Mr. Goldshed.
"And that tends to—to—as I may say,steadyhim in his position; and I may mention, in confidence, gentlemen, that there are other measures on thetapis" (he pronounced taypis) "which will further and still more decidedly fix him in his position. It would pain us all deeply, gentlemen, that a premature disclosure of my uneasiness should inspire his lordship with a panic in which he might deal ruinously with his own interests, and, in fact, as you say, Mr. Levi, throw up the—the"——
"Sponge," said Levi, reflectively.
"But I may add," said Mr. Larkin, "that I am impatiently watching the moment when it may become my duty to open my suspicions fully to Lord Verney; and that I have reason to know that that moment cannot now be distant."
"Here's Tomlinshon comin' up, gov'nor," said Mr. Levi, jumping off the table on which he had been sitting, and sweeping the great ledger into his arms, he pitched it into its berth in the safe, and locked it into that awful prison-house.
"I said he would," said Goldshed, with a lazy smile, as he unlocked a door in the lumbering office table at which he sat. "Don't bring outthem overdue renewals; we'll not want them till next week."
Mr. Tomlinson, a tall, thin man, in faded drab trousers, with a cotton umbrella swinging in his hand, and a long careworn face, came striding up the court.
"You won't dothatfor him?" asked Levi.
"No, not to-day," murmured Mr. Goldshed, with a wink. And Mr. Tomlinson's timid knock and feeble ring at the door were heard.
And Mr. Larkin put on his well-brushed hat, and pulled on his big lavender gloves, and stood up at his full length, in his black glossy coat, and waistcoat and trowsers of the accustomed hue, and presents the usual lavender-tinted effect, and a bland simper rests on his lank cheeks, and his small pink eyes look their adieux upon Messrs. Goldshed and Levi, on whom his airs and graces are quite lost; and with his slim silk umbrella between his great finger and thumb, he passes loftily by the cotton umbrella of Mr. Tomlinson, and fancies, with a pardonable egotism, that that poor gentleman, whose head is full of his bill-book and renewals, and possible executions, and preparing to deceive a villanous omniscience, and to move the compassion of Pandemonium—is thinking ofhim, and mistakinghim, possibly, for a peer, or for some other type of British aristocracy.
The sight of that unfortunate fellow, Tomlinson, with a wife, and a seedy hat, and children, and a cotton umbrella, whose little business was possibly about to be knocked about his ears, moved a lordly pity in Mr. Larkin's breast, and suggested contrasts, also, of many kinds, that were calculated to elate his good humour; and as he stepped into the cab, and the driver waited to know "where," he thought he might as well look in upon the recluse of Rosemary Court, and give him, of course with the exquisite tact that was peculiar to him, a hint or two in favour of reason and moderation; for really itwas quitetrue what Mr. Levi had said about the preposterous presumption of a person in Mr. Dingwell's position affecting the airs of a dictator.
So being in the mood to deliver a lecture, to the residence of that uncomfortable old gentleman he drove, and walked up the flagged passage to the flagged court-yard, and knocked at the door, and looked up at the square ceiling of sickly sky, and strode up the narrow stairs after Mrs. Rumble.
"How d'ye do, sir? Yoursoul, particularly, quite well, I trust. Your spiritual concerns flourishing to-day?" was the greeting of Mr. Dingwell's mocking voice.
"Thanks, Mr. Dingwell; I'm very well," answered Mr. Larkin, with a bow which was meant to sober Mr. Dingwell's mad humour.
Sarah Rumble, as we know, had a defined fear of Mr. Dingwell, but also a vague terror; for there was a great deal about him ill-omened and mysterious. There was a curiosity, too, active within her, intense and rather ghastly, about all that concerned him. She did not care, therefore, to get up and go away from the small hole in the carpet which she was darning on the lobby, and through the door she heard faintly some talk she didn't understand, and Mr. Dingwell's voice, at a high pitch, said—
"D—— you, sir, do you think I'm a fool? Don't you think I'veyour letter, and a copy of my own? If we draw swords, egad, sir, mine's the longer and sharper, as you'll feel. Ha, ha, ha!"
"Oh, lawk!" gasped Sarah Rumble, standing up, and expecting the clash of rapiers.
"Your face, sir, is as white and yellow—you'll excuse me—as an old turban. I beg your pardon; but I want you to understand that I see you're frightened, and that I won't be bulliedbyyou."
"I don't suppose, sir, you meditate totally ruining yourself," said Mr. Larkin, with dignity.
"I tell you, sir, if anything goes wrong with me, I'll make a clean breast of it—everything—ha, ha, ha!—upon my honour—and we two shall grill together."
Larkin had no idea he was going in for so hazardous and huge a game when he sat down to play. His vision was circumscribed, his prescience small. He looked at the beast he had imported, and wished him in a deep grave in Scutari, with a turbaned-stone over his head, the scheme quashed, and the stakes drawn.
But wishing would not do. The spirit was evoked—in nothing more manageable than at first; on the contrary, rather more insane. Nerve was needed, subtlety, patience, and he must manage him.
"Why the devil did you bring me here, sir, if you were not prepared to treat me properly? You know my circumstances, and you want to practise on my misfortunes, you vile rogue, to mix me up in your fraudulent machinations."
"Pray, sir, not so loud. Do—docommand yourself," remonstrated Larkin, almost affectionately.
"Do you think I'm come all this way, at the risk of my life, to beyourslave, you shabby, canting attorney? I'd better be where I was, or in kingdom come. By Allah! sir, youhaveme, and I'm yourmaster, and you shan't buy my soul for a piastre."
There came a loud knock at the hall-door, and if it had been a shot and killed them both, the debaters in the drawing-room could not have been more instantaneously breathless.
Down glided Sarah Rumble, who had been expecting this visit, to pay the taxman.
And she had hardly taken his receipt, when Mr. Larkin, very pink, endeavouring to smile in his discomfiture, and observing with a balmy condescension, "A sweet day, Mrs. Rumble," appeared in the hall, shook his ears a little, and adjusted his hat, and went forth, and Rosemary Court saw him no more for some time.
Mr. Larkingot into his cab, and ordered the cabman, in a loud voice, to drive to Verney House.
"Didn't he know Verney House? He thought every cabman in London knew Verney House! The house of Lord Viscount Verney, in —— Square. Why it fills up a whole side of it!"
He looked at his watch. He had thirty-seven minutes to reach it in. It was partly to get rid of a spare half hour, that he had paid his unprofitable visit to Rosemary Court.
Mr. Larkin registered a vow to confer no more with Mr. Dingwell. He eased his feelings by making a note of this resolution in that valuable little memorandum book which he carried about with him in his pocket.
"Saw Mr. Dingwell this day—as usual impracticable and ill-bred to a hopeless degree—waste of time and worse—resolved that this gentleman beinginaccessible to reason, is not to be argued, but DEALT with, should occasion hereafter arise for influencing his conduct."
Somewhere about Temple Bar, Mr. Larkin's cab got locked in a string of vehicles, and he put his head out of window, not being sorry for an opportunity of astonishing the citizens by calling to the driver—
"I say, my good fellow, can't you get on? I told Lord Verney to expect me at half-past one. Do, pray, get me out of this,anyway, and you shall have a gratuity of half-a-crown. Verney House is a good way from this.Dotry. His lordship will be as much obliged to you as I am."
Mr. Larkin's assiduities and flatteries were, in truth, telling upon Lord Verney, with whom he was stealing into a general confidence which alarmed many people, and which Cleve Verney hated more than ever.
With the pretty mansion of Hazelden, the relations, as Lord Verney would have said of the House of Ware, were no longer friendly. This was another instance of the fragility of human arrangements, and the vanity of human hopes. The altar had been erected, the swine sacrificed, and the augurs and haruspices on both sides had predicted nothing but amity and concord. Game, fruit, and venison, went and came,—"Much goodmay it do your good heart." "It was ill-killed," &c. Master Shallow and Master Page could not have been more courteous on such occasions. But on thefête champêtrehad descended a sudden procella. The roses were whirling high in the darkened air, the flatteries and laughter were drowned in thunder, and the fiddles and glasses smashed with hailstones as large as potatoes.
A general election had come and gone, and in that brief civil war old Vane Etherage was found at the wrong side. In Lord Verney's language neighbour meant something like vassal, and Etherage who had set up his banner and arrayed his power on the other side, was a rebel—the less forgivable that he had, as was authentically demonstrated, by this step himself inflicted that defeat in the county which had wounded Lord Verney to the quick.
So silence descended upon the interchange of civil speeches; the partridges and pheasants, winged from Ware in a new direction, and old Vane Etherage stayed his friendly hand also; and those tin cases of Irish salmon, from the old gentleman's fisheries, packed in ice, as fresh as if they had sprung from the stream only half an hour before, were no longer known at Ware; and those wonderful fresh figs, green and purple, which Lord Verney affected, for which Hazeldenis famous, and which Vane Etherage was fond of informing his guests were absolutely unequalled in any part of the known world! England could not approach them for bulk and ripeness, nor foreign parts—and he had eaten figs wherever figs grow—for aroma and flavour, no longer crossed the estuary. Thus this game of beggar-my-neighbour began. Lord Verney recalled his birds, and Mr. Etherage withdrew his figs. Mr. Etherage lost his great black grapes; and Lord Verney sacrificed his salmon, and in due time Lord Verney played a writ, and invited an episode in a court of law, and another, more formidable, in the Court of Chancery.
So the issues of the war were knit again, and Vane Etherage was now informed by his lawyers there were some very unpleasant questions mooted affecting the title to the Windermore estate, for which he payed a trifling rent to the Verneys.
So, when Larkin went into Verney House, he was closeted with its noble master for a good while, and returning to a smaller library—devoted to blue books and pamphlets—where he had left a despatch-box and umbrella during his wait for admission to his noble client, he found Cleve busy there.
"Oh, Mr. Larkin. How d'ye do? Anythingto say to me?" said the handsome young man, whose eye looked angry though he smiled.
"Ah, thanks. No—no, Mr. Verney. I hope and trust I see you well; but no, I had not any communication to make. Shall I be honoured, Mr. Verney, with any communication from you?"
"I've nothing to say, thanks, except of course to say how much obliged I am for the very particular interest you take in my affairs."
"I should be eminently gratified, Mr. Verney, to merit your approbation; but I fear, sir, as yet I can hardly hope to have merited your thanks," said Mr. Larkin, modestly.
"You won't let me thank you; but I quite understand the nature and extent of your kindness. My uncle is by no means so reserved, and he has told me very frankly the care you have been so good as to take of me. He's more obliged even than I am, and so, I am told, is Lady Wimbledon also."
Cleve had said a great deal more than at starting he had at all intended. It would have been easy to him to have dismissed the attorney without allusion to the topic that made him positively hateful in his eyes; but it was not easy to hint at it, and quite command himself also, and the result illustrated the general fact that total abstinence is easier than moderation.
Now the effect of this little speech of Cleve's upon the attorney, was to abash Mr. Larkin, and positively to confound him, in a degree quite unusual in a Christian so armed on most occasions with that special grace called presence of mind. The blood mounted to his hollow cheeks, and up to the summit of his tall bald head; his eyes took their rat-like character, and looked dangerously in his for a second, and then down to the floor, and scanned his own boots; and he bit his lip, and essayed a little laugh, and tried to look innocent, and broke down in the attempt. He cleared his voice once or twice to speak, but said nothing; and all this time Cleve gave him no help whatsoever, but enjoyed his evident confusion with an angry sneer.
"I hope Mr. Cleve Verney," at length Mr. Larkin began, "where duty and expediency pull in opposite directions, I shall always be found at the right side."
"The winning side at all events," said Cleve.
"Therightside, I venture to repeat. It has been my misfortune to be misunderstood more than once in the course of my life. It is our duty to submit to misinterpretation, as to other afflictions, patiently. I hope I have done so. My first duty is to my client."
"I'm no client of yours, sir."
"Well, conceding that, sir, to youruncle—to LordVerney, I will say—to his views of what the interests of his house demand, and to his feelings."
"Lord Verney has been good enough to consultme, hitherto, upon this subject; a not quite unnatural confidence, I venture to think; more than you seem to suspect. He seems to think, and so do I, that I've a voice in it, and has not left me absolutely in the hands—in a matter of so much importance and delicacy—of his country lawyer."
"I had no power in this case, sir; not even of mentioning the subject to you, who certainly, in one view, are more or less affected by it."
"Thank you for the concession," sneered Cleve.
"I make it unaffectedly, Mr. Cleve Verney," replied Larkin, graciously.
"My uncle, Lord Verney, has given me leave to talk to you upon the subject. I venture to decline that privilege. I prefer speaking to him. He seems to think thatIought to be allowed to advise a little in the matter, and that with every respect forhiswishes;minealso are entitled to be a little considered. Should I ever talk to you, Mr. Larkin, it shan't be to ask your advice. I'm detaining you, sir, and I'm also a little busy myself."
Mr. Larkin looked at the young man a second or two a little puzzled; but encountering only a look of stern impatience, he made his best bow, and the conference ended.
A few minutes later, in came our old friend, Tom Sedley.
"Oh! Sedley! Very glad to see you here; but I thought you did not want to see my uncle just now; and this is the most likely place, except the library, to meet him in."
"He's gone; I saw him go out this moment. I should not have come in otherwise; and you mustn't send me away, dear Cleve, I'm in such awful trouble. Everything has gone wrong with us at Hazelden. You know that quarrying company—the slates, thatodiousfellow, Larkin, led him into, before the election and all the other annoyances began."
"You mean the Llanrwyd company?"
"Yes; so I do."
"But that's quite ruined, you know. Sit down."
"I know. He has lost—frightfully—and Mr. Etherage must pay up ever so much in calls beside; and unless he can get it on a mortgage of the Windermore estate, he can't possibly pay them—and I've been trying, and the result is just this—they won't lend it anywhere till the litigation is settled."
"Well, what can I do?" said Cleve, yawning stealthily into his hand, and looking very tired. I am afraid these tragic confidences of Tom Sedley's did not interest Cleve very much; rather bored him, on the contrary.
"They won't lend, I say, while this litigation is pending."
"Depend upon it they won't," acquiesced Cleve.
"And in the meantime, you know, Mr. Etherage would be ruined."
"Well, I see; but, I say again, what can I do?"
"I want you to try if anything can be done with Lord Verney," said Tom, beseechingly.
"Talk to my uncle? I wish, dear Tom, you could teach me how to do that."
"It can't do any harm, Cleve—it can't," urged Tom Sedley, piteously.
"Nor one particle of good. You might as well talk to that picture—I do assure you, you might."
"But it could be no pleasure to him to ruin Mr. Etherage!"
"I'm not so sure of that; between ourselves, forgiving is not one of his weaknesses."
"But I say it's quite impossible—an old family, and liked in the county—it would be a scandal for ever!" pleaded Tom Sedley, distractedly.
"Not worse than that business of Booth Fanshawe," said Cleve, looking down; "no, he never forgives anything. I don't think he perceives he's taking a revenge; he has notmindenough for repentance," said Cleve, who was not in good humour with his uncle just then.
"Won't you try? you're such an eloquent fellow, and there's really so much to be said."
"I do assure you, there's no more use than in talking to the chimney-piece; if you make a point of it, of course, I will; but, by Jove, you could hardly choose a worse advocate just now, for he's teasing me to do what Ican'tdo. If you heard my miserable story, it would make you laugh; it's like a thing in apetite comédie, and it's breaking my heart."
"Well, then, you'll try—won't you try?" said Tom, overlooking his friend's description of his own troubles.
"Yes; as you desire it, I'll try; but I don't expect the slightest good from it, and possibly some mischief," he replied.
"A thousand thanks, my dear Cleve; I'm going down to-night. Would it be too much to ask you for a line, or, if it'sgoodnews, a telegram to Llwynan."
"I may safely promise you that, I'm sorry to say, without risk of trouble. You mustn't thinkme unkind, but it would be cruel to let you hope when there is not, really, a chance."
So Tom drove away to his club, to write his daily love letter to Agnes Etherage, in time for post; and to pen a few lines for old Vane Etherage, and try to speak comfortably to that family, over whose pretty home had gathered so awful a storm.
"That night a child might understandThe de'il had business on his hand."
"That night a child might understandThe de'il had business on his hand."
"That night a child might understandThe de'il had business on his hand."
I endedmy last chapter with mention of a metaphoric storm; but a literal storm broke over the city of London on that night, such as its denizens remembered for many a day after. The lightning seemed, for more than an hour, the continuous pulsations of light from a sulphurous furnace, and the thunder pealed with the cracks and rattlings of one long roar of artillery. The children, waked by the din, cried in their beds in terror, and Sarah Rumble got her dress about her, and said her prayers in panic.
After a while the intervals between the awful explosions were a little more marked, and Miss Rumble's voice could be heard by the children, comforting and reassuring in the brief lulls; although had they known what a fright their comforter was herself in, their confidence in her would have been impaired.
Perhaps there was a misgiving in Sarah Rumble's mind that the lightnings and thunders of irate heaven were invoked by the presence of her mysterious lodger. Was even she herself guiltless, in hiding under her roof-tree that impious old sinner, whom Rosemary Court disgorged at dead of night, as the churchyard does a ghost—about whose past history—whose doings and whose plans, except that they were wicked—she knew no more than about those of an evil spirit, had she chanced, in one of her spectre-seeing moods, to spy one moving across the lobby.
His talk was so cold and wicked; his temper so fiendish; his nocturnal disguises and outgoings so obviously pointed to secret guilt; and his relations with the meek Mr. Larkin, and with those potent Jews, who, grumbling and sullen, yet submitted to his caprices, as genii to those of the magician who has the secret of command,—that Mr. Dingwell had in her eyes something of a supernatural horror surrounding him. In the thunderstorm, Sarah Rumble vowed secretly to reconsider the religious propriety of harbouring this old man; and amid these qualms, it was with something of fear and anger that, in a silence between the peals of the now subsiding storm, she heard the creak of his shoe upon the stair.
That even on such a night, with the voice ofdivine anger in the air, about his ears, he could not forego his sinister excursion, and for once at these hours remain decorously in his rooms! Her wrath overcame her fear of him. She wouldnothave her house burnt and demolished over her head, with thunderbolts, forhisdoings.
She went forth, with her candle in her hand, and stood at the turn of the banister, confronting Mr. Dingwell, who, also furnished with a candle, was now about midway down the last flight of stairs.
"Egeria, in the thunder!" exclaimed the hard, scoffing tones of Mr. Dingwell; whom, notwithstanding her former encounter with him, she would hardly have recognised in his ugly disguise.
"A hoffle night for anyone to go out, sir," she said, rather sternly, with a courtesy at the same time.
"Hoffle, is it?" said Mr. Dingwell, amused, with mock gravity.
"The hofflest, sir, I think I hever 'ave remembered."
"Why, ma'am, it isn'training; I put my hand out of the window. There's none of that hoffle rain, ma'am, that gives a fellow rheumatism. I hope there's no unusual fog—is there?"
"There, sir;" exclaimed she, as another loudpeal rattled over Rosemary Court, with a blue glare through the lobby window and the fanlight in the hall. She paused, and lifted her hand to her eyes till it subsided, and then murmured an ejaculation.
"I like thunder, my dear. It reminds me of your name, dear Miss Rumble;" and he prolonged the name with a rolling pronunciation. "Shakespeare, you know, who says everything better than anyone else in the world, makes that remarkable old gentleman, King Lear, say, 'Thunder,rumblethy bellyfull!' Of course,Iwould not saythatin a drawing-room, or to you; but kings are so refined they may say thingswecan't, and a genius like Shakespeare hits it off."
"I would not go out, sir, on such a night, without I was very sure it was about somethinggoodI was a-going," said Miss Rumble, very pale.
"You labour under electro-phobia, my dear ma'am, and mistake it for piety. I'm not a bit afraid of that sort of artillery, ma'am. Here we are, two or three millions of people in this town; and two or three million of shots, and we'll see by the papers, I venture to say, not three shots tell. Don't you think if Jupiter really meant mischief he could manage something better?"
"I know, sir, it ought to teach us"—here she winced and paused; for another glare, followedby another bellow of the thunder, "long, loud, and deep," interposed. "It should teach us some godly fear, if we has none by nature."
Mr. Dingwell looked at his watch.
"Oh! Mr. Dingwell, it is hoffle. I wish you would only see it, sir."
"Seethethunder—eh?"
"My poor mother. She always made us go down on our knees, and say our prayers—she would—while the thunder was."
"You'd have had rather long prayers to-night. How your knees must have ached—egad! I don't wonder you dread it, Miss Sarah."
"And so Ido, Mr. Dingwell, and so I should. Which I think all other sinners should dread it also."
"Meaningme."
"And take warning of the wrath to come."
Here was another awful clap.
"Hoffle it is, Mr. Dingwell, and a warnin' toyou, sent special, mayhap."
"Hardly fair to disturb all the town forme, don't you think?"
"You're an old man, Mr. Dingwell."
"And you're an old woman, Miss Sarah," said he—not caring to be reminded of his years by other people, though he playfully called himself on occasions an old "boy"—"as old as Abraham's wife, whose namesake you are, though you have not lighted on an Abraham yet, nor become the mother of a great nation."
"Old enough to be good enough, as my poor mother used to say, sir; I am truly; and sorry I am, Mr. Dingwell, to see you, on this hoffle night, bent on no good. I'm afraid, sir—oh, sir, sir, oughtn't you think, with them sounds in your ears, Mr. Dingwell?"
"The most formidable thunder, my dear Sarah, proceeds from the silvery tongue of woman. I can stand any other.Itfrightens me. So, egad, if you please, I'll take refuge in the open air, and go out, and patter a prayer."
And with a nod and a smirk, having had fooling enough, he glided by Miss Rumble, who made him an appalled courtesy, and, setting down his candle on the hall-table, he said, touching his false whiskers with his finger tips, "Mind, not a word about these—upon my soul——you'dbetternot."
She made another courtesy. He stopped and looked at her for an answer.
"Can't youspeak?" he said.
"No, sir—sure—not a word," she faltered.
"Good girl!" he said, and opened the door, with his latch-key in his pocket, on pitchy darkness, which was instantaneously illuminated bythe lightning, and another awful roar of thunder broke over their heads.
"The voice of heaven in warning!" she murmured to herself, as she stood by the banisters, dazzled by the gleam, and listening to the reverberation ringing in her ears. "I pray God he may turn back yet."
He looked over his shoulder.
"Another shot, Miss Rumble—missed again, you see." He nodded, stepped out upon the flags, and shut the door. She heard his steps in the silence that followed, traversing the court.
"Oh dear! but I wish hewasgone, right out—a hoffle old man he is. There's a weight on my conscience like, and a fright in my heart, there is, ever since he camed into the 'ouse. He is so presumptious. To see that hold man made hup with them rings and whiskers, like a robber or a play-actor! And defyin' the blessed thunder of heaven—a walking hout, a mockin' and darin' it, at these hours—Ohlaw!"
The interjection was due to another flash and peal.
"I wouldn't wonder—no more I would—if that flash was the death o' 'im!"
Sally Rumbleknocked at the usual hour at the old man's door next morning.
"Come in, ma'am," he answered, in a weary, peevish voice. "Open the window-shutter, and give me some light, and hand me my watch, please."
All which she did.
"I have not closed my eyes from the time I lay down."
"Not ailing, sir, I hope?"
"Just allow me to count, and I'll tell you, my dear."
He was trying his pulse.
"Just as I thought, egad. The pale horse in the Revelation, ma'am, he's running a gallop in my pulse; it has been threatening the last three days, and now I'm in for it, and I should not be surprised, Miss Sally, if it ended in a funeral in our alley."
"God forbid, sir."
"Amen, with all my heart. Ay, the pale horse; my head's splitting; oblige me with the looking-glass, and a little less light will answer. Thank you—very good. Just draw the curtain open at the foot of the bed; please, hold it nearer—thank you. Yes, a ghost, ma'am—ha, ha—at last, I do suppose. My eyes, too—I've seen pits, with the water drying up, hollow—ay, ay; sunk—and—now—did you see? Well, look at my tongue—here"—and he made the demonstration; "you never saw a worse tongue thanthat, I fancy; that tongue, ma'am, is eloquent,Ithink."
"Please God, sir, you'll soon be better."
"Draw the curtain a bit more; the light falls oddly, or—does it?—my face. Did you ever see, ma'am, a face so nearly the colour of a coffin-plate?"
"Don't be talking, sir, please, of no such thing," said Sally Rumble, taking heart of grace, for women generally pluck up a spirit when they see a man floored by sickness. "I'll make you some whey or barley-water, or would you like some weak tea better?"
"Ay; will you draw the curtain close again, and take away the looking-glass? Thanks. I believe I've drunk all the water in the carafe. Whey—well, I suppose it's the right thing;caudlewhen we're comingin, andwhey, ma'am, when we're goingout. Baptism of Infants, Burial of the Dead! My poor mother, how she did put us through the prayer-book, and Bible—Bible. Dear me."
"There's a very good man, sir, please—the Rev. Doctor Bartlett, though he's gone rather old. He came in, and read a deal, and prayed, every day with my sister when she was sick, poor thing."
"Bartlett? What's his Christian name? You need not speak loud—it plays the devil with my head."
"The Reverend Thomas Bartlett, please, sir."
"Of Jesus?"
"What, sir, please?"
"JesusCollege."
"Don't know, I'm sure, sir."
"Is he old?"
"Yes, sir, past seventy."
"Ha—well I don't care a farthing about him," said Mr. Dingwell.
"Will you, please, have in the apothecary, sir? I'll fetch him directly, if you wish."
"No—noapothecary,noclergyman; I don't believe in the Apostles' Creed, ma'am, and I do believe in the jokes about apothecaries. If I'm to go, I'll go quietly, if you please."
Honest Sally Rumble was heavy at heart to see this old man, who certainly did look ghastly enough to suggest ideas of the undertaker and the sexton, in so unsatisfactory a plight as to his immortal part. Was he a Jew?—there wasn't a hair on his chin—or a Roman Catholic?—or a member of any one of those multitudinous forms of faith which she remembered in a stout volume, adorned with woodcuts, and entitled "A Dictionary of all Religions," in a back parlour of her grand-uncle, the tallow-chandler?
"Give me a glass of cold water, ma'am," said the subject of her solicitude.
"Thank you—that's the best drink—slop, I think you call it—a sick man can swallow."
Sally Rumble coughed a little, and fidgeted, and at last she said: "Please, sir, would you wish I should fetch any other sort of a minister?"
"Don't plague me, pray; I believe in the prophet Rabelais andje m'en vais chercher un grand peutêtre—the two great chemists, Death, who is going to analyse, and Life, to re-combine me. I tell you, ma'am, my head is bursting; I'm very ill; I'll talk no more."
She hesitated. She lingered in the room, in her great perplexity; and Mr. Dingwell lay back, with a groan.
"I'll tell you what you may do: go down toyour landlord's office, and be so good as to say to either of those d——d Jew fellows—I don't care which—that I am as you see me; it mayn't signify, it may blow over; but I've an idea it is serious; and tell them I said they had better know that I amvery ill, and that I've taken no step about it."
With another weary groan Mr. Dingwell let himself down on his pillow, and felt worse for his exertion, and very tired and stupid, and odd about the head, and would have been very glad to fall asleep; and with one odd pang of fear, sudden and cold, at his heart, he thought, "I'm going to die—I'm going to die—at last—I'm going to die."
The physical nature in sickness acquiesces in death; it is the instructed mind that recoils; and the more versed about the unseen things of futurity, unless when God, as it were, prematurely glorifies it, the more awfully it recoils.
Mr. Dingwell was not more afraid than other sinners who have lived for the earthy part of their nature, and have taken futurity pretty much for granted, and are now going to test by the stake ofthemselvesthe value of their loose guesses.
No; he had chanced a great many things, and they had turned out for the most part better than he expected. Oh! no; the whole court,and the adjoining lanes, and, in short, the whole city of London, must go as he would—lots of company, it was not to be supposed it was anything very bad—and he was so devilish tired,over-fatigued—queer—worse than sea-sickness—that headache—fate—the change—an end—what was it? At all events, a rest, a sleep—sleep—could not be very bad; lots of sleep, sir, and the chance—the chance—oh, yes, things go pretty well, and I have not had my good luck yet. I wish I could sleep a bit—yes, let kingdom-come be all sleep—and so a groan, and the brain duller, and more pain, and the immense fatigue that demands the enormous sleep.
When Sarah Rumble returned, Mr. Dingwell seemed, she thought, a great deal heavier. He made no remark, as he used to do, when she entered the room. She came and stood by the bed-side, but he lay with his eyes closed, not asleep; she could see by the occasional motion of his lips, and the fidgety change of his posture, and his weary groanings. She waited for a time in silence.
"Better, sir?" she half-whispered, after a minute or two.
"No," he said, wearily.
Another silence followed, and then she asked, "Would you like a drink, Mr. Dingwell, sir?"
"Yes—water."
So he drank a very little, and lay down again.
Miss Sarah Rumble stayed in the room, and nearly ten minutes passed without a word.
"What did he say?" demanded Mr. Dingwell so abruptly that Sarah Rumble fancied he had been dreaming.
"Who, sir, please?"
"The Jew—landlord," he answered.
"Mr. Levi's a-coming up, sir, please—he expected in twenty minutes," replied she.
Mr. Dingwell groaned; and two or three minutes more elapsed, and silence seemed to have re-established itself in the darkened chamber, when Mr. Dingwell raised himself up with a sudden effort, and he said—
"Sarah Rumble, fetch me my desk." Which she did, from his sitting-room.
"Put your hand under the bolster, and you'll find two keys on a ring, and a pocket-book.Yes.Now, Sarah Rumble, unlock that desk. Very good. Put out the papers on the coverlet before me; first bolt the door. Thank you, ma'am. There are a parcel of letters among those, tied across with a red silk cord—just so. Put them in my hand—thank you—and place all the rest back again neatly—neatly, if you please. Nowlock the desk; replace it, and come here; but first give me pen and ink, and bolt the door—try it again."
And as she did so he scrawled an address upon the blank paper in which these letters were wrapt.
The brown visage of his grave landlady was graver than ever, as she returned to listen for further orders.
"Mrs. Sarah Rumble, I take you for an honest person; and as I may die this time, I make a particular request ofyou—take this little packet, and slip it between the feather-bed and the mattress, as near the centre as your arm will reach—thank you—remember it's there. If I die, ma'am, you'll find a ten-pound note wrapped about it, which I give to you; you need not thank—that will do. The letters addressed as they are you will deliver, without showing them, orsaying one word to anyonebut to the gentleman himself, into whose hands you must deliver them. You understand?"
"Yes, sir, please; I'm listening."
"Well,attend. There are two Jew gentlemen—your landlord, Mr. Levi, and theoldJew, who have been with me once or twice—you knowthem; that makestwo; and there is Mr. Larkin, the tall gentleman who has been twice here withthem, with the lavender waistcoat and trousers, the eye-glass with the black ribbon, the black frock coat—heigho! oh, dear, my head!—the red grizzled whiskers, and bald head."
"The religious gentleman, please, sir?"
"Exactly; the religious gentleman. Well,attend. The two Jews and the religious gentleman together makethree; and those three gentlemen arerobbers."
"What, sir?"
"Robbers—robbers! Don't you know what 'robbers' means? They are all threerobbers. Now, I don't think they'll want to fiddle with my money till I'm dead."
"Oh, Lord, sir!"
"'Oh, Lord!' of course. That will do. They won't touch my money till I'm dead, if they trust you; but theywillwant my desk—at least Larkin will. I shan't be able to look after things, for my head is very bad, and I shall be too drowsy—soon knocked up; so give 'em the desk, if they ask for it, and these keys from under the pillow; and if they ask you if there are any other papers, sayno; and don't you tell them one word about the letters you've put between the beds here. If you betray me—you're a religious woman—yes—and believe in God—may God d—n you; and He will, for you'll be accessory tothe villany of those three miscreants. And now I've done what in me lies; and that is all—my last testament."
And Mr. Dingwell lay down wearily. Sarah Rumble knew that he was very ill; she had attended people in fever, and seen them die. Mr. Dingwell was already perceptibly worse. As she was coming up with some whey, a knock came to the door, and opening it she saw Mr. Levi, with a very surly countenance, and his dark eyes blazing fiercely on her.
"How'sh Dingwell now?" he demanded, before he had time to enter, and shut the door; "worse, is he?"
"Well, he's duller, sir."
"In his bed? Shut the door."
"Yes, sir, please. Didn't get up this morning. He expected you two hours ago, sir."
Levi nodded.
"What doctor did you fetch?" he asked.
"No doctor, please, sir. I thought you andhimwould choose."
Levi made no answer; so she could not tell by his surly face, which underwent no change, whether he approved or not. He looked at his watch.
"Larkin wasn't here to-day?"
"Mr. Larkin? No, sir, please."
"Show me Dingwell's room, till I have a look at him," said the Jew, gloomily.
So he followed her up-stairs, and entered the darkened room without waiting for any invitation, and went to the window, and pulled open a bit of the shutter.
"What's it for?" grumbled Dingwell indistinctly from his bed.
"So you've bin and done it, you have," said the Jew, walking up with his hands in his pockets, and eyeing him from a distance as he might a glandered horse.
Dingwell was in no condition to retort on this swarthy little man, who eyed him with a mixture of disgust and malignity.
"How long has he been thish way?" said the Jew, glowering on Sarah Rumble.
"Only to-day in bed, please, sir; but he has bin lookin' awful bad this two or three days, sir."
"Do you back it forfever?"
"I think it'sfever, sir."
"I s'pose you'd twig fever fasht enough? Seen lotsh of fever in your time?"
"Yes, sir, please."
"Itishfever, ten to one in fifties. Black death going, ma'am—myluck. Look at him there, d——n him, he'sh got it."
Levi looked at him surlily for a while with eyes that glowed like coals.
"This comsh o' them cursed holes you're always a-going to; there's always fever and everything there, you great old buck goat."
Dingwell made an effort to raise himself, and mumbled, half awake—
"Let me—I'll talk to him—how dare you—when I'm better—quiet"—and he laid down his head again.
"When youare, you cursed sink. Look at all we've lost by you."
He stood looking at Dingwell savagely.
"He'lldie," exclaimed he, making an angry nod, almost a butt, with his head toward the patient, and he repeated his prediction with a furious oath.
"See, you'll send down to the apothecary's for that chloride of lime, and them vinegars and things—or—no; you must wait here, for Larkin will come; and don't you let him go, mind. Me and Mr. Goldshed will be here in no time. Tell him the doctor's coming; and us—and I'll send up them things from the apothecary, and you put them all about in plates on the floor and tables. Bad enough to lose our money, and cursed bad; but I won't take this—come out o' this room—ifIcan help."
And he entered the drawing-room, shutting Dingwell's door, and spitting on the floor, and then he opened the window.
"He'lldie—do youthinkhe'll die?" he exclaimed again.
"He's in the hands of God, sir," said Sally Rumble.
"He won't be long there—he'll die—I say hewill—he will;" and the little Jew swore and stamped on the floor, and clapped his hat on his head, and ran down the stairs, in a paroxysm of business and fury.