Mr. Levi, when Sarah Rumble gave him her lodger's message, did not, as he said, "vally it a turn of a half-penny." He could not be very ill if he could send his attendant out of doors, and deliver the terms in which his messages were to be communicated. Mr. Levi's diagnosis was that Mr. Dingwell's attack was in the region of the purse or pocket-book, and that the "dodge" was simply to get the partners and Mr. Larkin together for the purpose of extracting more money.
Mr. Larkin was in town, and he had written to that gentleman's hotel; also he had told Mr. Goldshed, who took the same view, and laughed in his lazy diapason over the weak invention of the enemy.
Levi accordingly took the matter very easily, and hours had passed before his visit, which was made pretty late in the afternoon, and he was smiling over his superior sagacity in seeingthrough Dingwell's little dodge, as he walked into the court, when an officious little girl, in her mother's bonnet, running by his knee, said, pompously—
"You'd better not go there, sir."
"And why so, chickabiddy?" inquired Mr. Levi, derisively.
"No, you'd better not; there's a gentleman as has took the fever there."
"Where?" said Mr. Levi, suddenly interested.
"In Mrs. Rumble's."
"Isthere?—how do you know?"
"Lucy Maria Rumbles, please, sir, she told me, and he'svery bad."
The fashion of Levi's countenance was changed as he turned from her suddenly, and knocked so sharply at the door that the canary, hanging from the window in his cage over the way, arrested his song, and was agitated for an hour afterwards.
So Mr. Levi was now thoroughly aroused to the danger that had so suddenly overcast his hopes, and threatened to swallow in the bottomless sea of death the golden stake he had ventured.
It was not, nevertheless, until eight o'clock in the evening, so hard a thing is it to collect three given men [what then must be the office of whipto Whig or Tory side of the House?] that the two Jews and Mr. Larkin were actually assembled in Mr. Dingwell's bed-room, now reeking with disinfectants and prophylactic fluids.
The party were in sore dismay, for the interesting patient had begun to maunder very preposterously in his talk. They listened, and heard him say—
"That's a lie—I say, I'd nail his tongue to the table. Bells won't ring for it—lots of bells in England; you'll not find 'emhere, though."
And then it went off into a mumbling, and Mr. Goldshed, who was listening disconsolately, exclaimed, "My eyesh!"
"Well, how do you like it, guv'nor? I said he'd walk the plank, and so he will," said Levi. "He will—he will;" and Levi clenched his white teeth, with an oath.
"There, Mr. Levi,pray, pray, none ofthat," said Mr. Larkin.
The three gentlemen were standing in a row, from afar off observing the patient, with an intense scrutiny of a gloomy and, I may say, a savage kind.
"He was an unfortunate agent—no energy, except for his pleasures," resentfully resumed Mr. Larkin, who was standing furthest back of the three speculators. "Indolent, impracticable enough toruin fifty cases; and now here he lies in a fever, contracted, you think, Mr. Levi, in some of his abominable haunts."
Mr. Larkin did not actually say "d—— him," but he directed a very dark, sharp look upon his acquaintance in the bed.
"Abawminable, to be sure, abawminable. Bah! It's all true. The hornies has their eye on him these seven weeks past—curse the beasht," snarled Mr. Levi, clenching his fists in his pockets, "and every da—a—m muff that helped to let me in for this here rotten business."
"Meaningme, sir?" said Mr. Larkin, flushing up to the top of his head a fierce pink.
Levi answered nothing, and Mr. Larkin did not press his question.
It is very easy to be companionable and good-humoured while all goes pleasantly. It is failure, loss, and disappointment, that try the sociable qualities; even those three amiable men felt less amicable under the cloud than they had under the sunshine.
So they all three looked in their several ways angrily and thoughtfully at the gentleman in the typhus fever, who said rather abruptly—
"She killed herself, sir; foolish 'oman! Capital dancing, gentlemen! Capital dancing, ladies!Capital—capital—admirable dancing. God help us!" and so it sunk again into mumbling.
"Capital da-a-ancing, and who pays the piper?" asked Mr. Goldshed, with a rather ferocious sneer. "It has cost us fifteen hundred to two thousand!"
"And a doctor," suggested Levi.
"Doctor, the devil! I say; I've paid through the nose," or, as he pronounced that organ through which his metallic declamation droned,noshe. "It's Mr. Larkin's turn now; it's all da-a-am rot; a warm fellow like you, Mr. Larkin, putting all the loss on me; how can I sta-a-an' that—sta-a-an' all the losses, and share the profits—ba-a-ah, sir; that couldn't pay nohow."
"I think," said Mr. Larkin, "it may be questionable how far a physician would be, just in this imminent stage of the attack, at all useful, or even desirable; but, Miss Rumble, if I understand you, he is quitecompos—I mean, quite, so to speak, in his senses, in the early part of the day."
He paused, and Miss Rumble from the other side of the bed contributed her testimony.
"Well, that being so," began Mr. Larkin, but stopped short as Mr. Dingwell took up his parable, forgetting how wide of the mark the sick man's interpolations were.
"That's a vulture over there—devilish odd birds," said Mr. Dingwell's voice, with an unpleasant distinctness; "you just tie a turban on a stick," and then he was silent.
Mr. Larkin cleared his voice and resumed—
"Well, as I was saying, when the attack, whatever it is, has developed itself, a medical man may possibly be available; but in the mean time, as he is spared the possession of his faculties, and we all agree, gentlemen, whatever particular form of faith may be respectively ours, that some respect is due to futurity; I would say, that a clergyman, at all events, might make him advantageously a visit to-morrow, and afford him an opportunity at least of considering the interests of his soul."
"Oh! da—a—m his shoul, it's hisbody. We must try to keep him together," said Mr. Goldshed, impatiently. "If he dies the money's all lost, every shtiver; if he don't, he's a sound speculation; we must raise a doctor among us, Mr. Larkin."
"It is highly probable indeed that before long the unfortunate gentleman may require medical advice," said Mr. Larkin, who had a high opinion of the "speculation," whose pulse was at this moment unfortunately at a hundred and twenty. "The fever, my dear sir, if such it be, will have declared itself in a day or two; in the meantime, nursingis all that is really needful, and Miss Rumble, I have no doubt, will take care that the unhappy gentleman is properly provided in that respect."
The attorney, who did not want at that moment to be drawn into a discussion on contributing to expenses, smiled affectionately on Miss Rumble, to whom he assigned the part of good Samaritan.
"He'll want some one at night, sir, please; I could not undertake myself, sir, for both day and night," said brown Miss Rumble, very quietly.
"There!That'sh it!" exclaimed Levi, with a vicious chuckle, and a scowl, extending his open hand energetically toward Miss Rumble, and glaring from Mr. Larkin to his partner.
"Nothing butpay; down with the dust, Goldshed and Levi. Bleed like a pair o' beashtly pigs, Goldshed and Levi,do! There's death in that fellow's face, I say. It's all bosh, doctors and nurses; throwing good money after bad, and then, five pounds to bury him, drat him!"
"Bury? ho, no! the parish, the workhoushe-authorities shall bury him," said Mr. Goldshed, briskly.
"Dead—dead—dead, as a Mameluke—dead as a Janizary—eh? eh?—bowstrung!" exclaimed, Mr. Dingwell, and went off into an indistinct conversation in a foreign language.
"Stuff a stocking down his throat, will you?"urged Mr. Levi; a duty, however, which no one undertook.
"I see that cove's booked; he looks just like old Solomon's looked whenhehad it. It isn't no use; all rot, throwing good money arter bad, I say; let him be; let him die."
"I'llnotlet him die; no, he shan't. I'llmakehim pay. I made the Theatre of Fascination pay," said Mr. Goldshed serenely, alluding to a venture of his devising, by which the partnership made ever so much money in spite of a prosecution and heavy fines and other expenses.
"I say 'tisn't my principle to throw up the game, by no means—no—with my ball in hand, and the stakes in the pocket—never!"
Here Mr. Goldshed wagged his head slowly with a solemn smile, and Mr. Dingwell, from the bed, said with a moan—
"Move it, will you? That way—I wish you'd help—b-bags, sir—sacks, sir—awfully hard lying—full of ears and—ay—noses—egad!—why not? cut them all off, I say. D—n the Greeks! Will you move it?Domove that sack—it hurts his ribs—ribs—Inever got the bastinado."
"Not but what you deserved it," remarked Mr. Levi.
And Mr. Dingwell's babbling went on, but too indistinctly to be unravelled.
"I say," continued Mr. Goldshed, sublimely, "if that 'ere speculative thing in the bed there comes round, and gets all square and right, I'll make him pay. I'm not funked—who's afraid—wiry old brick!"
"I think so," acquiesced Mr. Larkin with gentle solemnity; "Mr. Dingwell is certainly, as you say, wiry. There are many things in his favour, and Providence, Mr. Goldshed—Providence is over us all."
"Providence, to be sure," said Mr. Goldshed, who did not disdain help from any quarter. "Where does he keep his money, ma'am?"
"Under his bolster, please, sir—under his head," answered Sarah Rumble.
"Take it out, please," said Mr. Goldshed.
She hesitated.
"Givethe man hish money, woman, ca-a-ant you?" bawled Mr. Levi fiercely, and extending his arm toward the bed.
"You had better—yes, ma'am, the money belongs to Messrs. Goldshed and Levi," said Mr. Larkin, interposing in the character of thevir pietate gravis.
Sally Rumble, recollecting Mr. Dingwell's direction, "Let 'em have the money, too, if they press for it," obeyed, and slid her hand under his bolster, and under his head, from the other sidewhere she was standing; and Dingwell, feeling the motion, I suppose, raised his head and stared with sunken eyes dismally at the three gentlemen, whom he plainly did not recognise, or possibly saw in the shapes of foxes, wolves, or owls, which Æsop would have metaphorically assigned them, and with a weary groan he closed his wandering eyes again, and sank down on the pillow.
Miss Rumble drew forth a roll of bank-notes with a string tied round them.
"Take the money, Levi," said Goldshed, drawing a step backward.
"Take it yourself, guv'nor," said Levi, waving back Miss Sally Rumble, and edging back a little himself.
"Well," said Goldshed, quietly, "I see you're afraid of that infection."
"I believe you," answered Levi.
"So am I," said Goldshed, uneasily.
"And no wonder!" added Mr. Larkin, anticipating himself an invitation to accept the questionable trust.
"Put them notes down on the table there," said Mr. Goldshed.
And the three gentlemen eyed the precious roll of paper as I have seen people at a chemical lecture eye the explodable compounds on the professor's table.
"I tell you what, ma'am," said Goldshed, "you'll please get a dry bottle and a cork, and put them notes into it, and cork it down, ma'am, and give it to Mr. Levi."
"And count them first, please, Miss Rumble—shan't she, Mr. Goldshed?" suggested Mr. Larkin.
"What for?—isn't the money ours?" howled Mr. Levi, with a ferocious stare on the attorney's meek face.
"Only, Mr. Goldshed, with a view to distinctness, and to prevent possible confusion in any future account," said Mr. Larkin, who knew that Dingwell had got money from the Verneys, and thought that if there was anything recovered from the wreck he had as good a right to his salvage as another.
Mr. Goldshed met his guileless smile with an ugly sneer, and said—
"Oh, count them, to be sure, for the gentleman. It isn't a ha'penny to me."
So Miss Rumble counted seventy-five pounds in bank notes and four pounds in gold, which latter Mr. Goldshed committed to her in trust for the use of the patient, and the remainder were duly bottled and corked down according to Mr. Goldshed's grotesque precaution, and in this enclosure Mr. Levi consented to take the money in hand, and so it was deposited for the night in the ironsafe in Messrs. Goldshed and Levi's office, to be uncorked in the morning by old Rosenthal, the cashier, who would, no doubt, be puzzled by the peculiarity of the arrangement, and with the aid of a cork-screw, lodged to the credit of the firm.
Mr. Goldshed next insisted that Dingwell's life, fortunately for that person, was too important to the gentlemen assembled there to be trifled with; and said that sage—
"We'll have the best doctor in London—six pounds' worth ofhim—d'y see? And under him a cleveryoungdoctor to look in four times a day, and we'll arrange with the young 'un on the principal of no cure no pay—that is, we'll give fifty pounds this day six weeks, if the party in bed here is alive at that date."
And upon this basis I believe an arrangement was actually completed. The great Doctor Langley, when he called, and questioned Miss Rumble, and inspected the patient, told Mr. Levi, who was in waiting, that the old gentleman had been walking about in a fever for more than a week before he took to his bed, and that the chances were very decidedly against his recovery.
A great anxiety overcame Mr. Larkin like a summer cloud, and the serene sunshine of that religious mind was overcast with storm andblackness. For the recovery of Mr. Dingwell were offered up, in one synagogue at least, prayers as fervent as any ever made for that of our early friend Charles Surface, and it was plain that never was patriarch, saint, or hero, mourned as the venerable Mr. Dingwell would be, by at least three estimable men, if the fates were to make away with him on this critical occasion.
The three gentlemen, as they left his room on the evening I have been describing, cast their eyes upon Mr. Dingwell's desk, and hesitated, and looked at one another, darkly, for a moment in silence.
"There'sh no reason why we shouldn't," drawled Mr. Goldshed.
"I object to the removal of the desk," said Mr. Larkin, with a shake of his head, closing his eyes, and raising his hand as if about to pronounce a benediction on the lid of it. "If he's spared it might become a very serious thing—I decidedly object."
"Who want'sh to take the man's desk!" drawled Mr. Goldshed, surlily.
"Who want'sh to take it?" echoed Levi, and stared at him with an angry gape.
"But there will be no harm, I shay, in looking what paper'sh there," continued Mr. Goldshed. "Does he get letters?"
"Only two, sir, please, as I can remember, since he came here."
"By po-sht, or by ha-a-an'?" inquired Goldshed.
"By 'and, sir, please; it was your Mr. Solomons as fetched 'em here, sir."
He lifted up the desk, swayed it gently, and shook it a little, looking at it as if it were a musical box about to strike up, and so set it down again softly. "There'sh papersh in that box," he hummed thoughtfully to himself.
"I think I may speak here," said Mr. Larkin, looking up sadly and loftily, as he placed his hat upon his bald head, "with some little authority as a professional man—if in no higher capacity—and I may take upon myself to say, that by no possibility can the contents of that desk affect the very simple and, in a certain sense, direct transactions in which our clients' interests, and in a degree ours also, are involved, and I object on higher grounds still, I hope, to any irregularity as respects that desk."
"If you're confident, Mr. Larkinsh, there'sh nothing in it can affect the bushiness we're on, I would not give you a cancel' Queen's head for the lot."
"Perfectly confident, my dear Mr. Goldshed."
"He'sh perfectly confident," repeated Mr. Levi in his guv'nor's ear, from over his shoulder.
"Come along then," said Mr. Goldshed, shuffling slowly out of the room, with his hands in his pockets.
"It's agreed then, gentlemen, there's no tampering with the desk?" urged Mr. Larkin, entreatingly.
"Shertainly," said Mr. Goldshed, beginning to descend the stairs.
"Shertainly," repeated Mr. Levi, following him.
And the three gentlemen, in grave and friendly guise, walked away together, over the flagged court. Mr. Larkin did not half like taking the arms of these gentlemen, but the quarter of the town was not one where he was likely to meet any of either the spiritual or the terrestrial aristocracy with whom he desired specially to stand well. So he moved along conscious, not unpleasantly, of the contrast which a high-bred gentleman must always present in juxtaposition with such persons as Goldshed and Levi. They walked through the dingy corridor called Caldwell Alley, and through Ive's Lane, and along the market, already flaring and glaring with great murky jets of gas wavering in the darkening stalls, and thence by the turn to the left intothe more open street, where the cab-stand is, and then having agreed to dine together at the "Three Roses" in Milk Lane in half an hour, the gentlemen parted—Messrs. Goldshed and Levi to fly in a cab to meet their lawyer at their office, and Mr. Larkin to fly westward to his hotel, to inquire for a letter which he expected. So smiling they parted; and, so soon as Mr. Larkin was quite out of sight, Mr. Levi descended from their cab, and with a few parting words which he murmured in Mr. Goldshed's ear, left him to drive away by himself, while he retraced his steps at his leisure to Rosemary Court, and finding the door of Miss Rumble's house open with Lucy Maria at it, entered and walked straight up to Mr. Dingwell's drawing-room, with a bunch of small keys in his hand, in his coat-pocket.
He had got just two steps into the room towards the little table on which the patient's desk stood, when from the other side of that piece of furniture, and the now open desk, there rose up the tall form of Mr. Jos. Larkin, of the Lodge.
The gentlemen eyed one another for a few seconds in silence, for the surprise was great. Mr. Larkin did not even set down the parcel of letters, which he had been sorting like a hand atwhist, when Mr. Levi had stepped in to divert his attention.
"I thought, Mr. Larkinsh, I might as well drop in just to give you a lift," said Levi, with an elaborate bow, a politeness, and a great smile, that rather embarrassed the good attorney.
"Certainly, Mr. Levi, I'm always happy to see you—always happy to seeanyman—I have never done anything I am ashamed of, nor shrunk from any duty, nor do I mean to do so now."
"Your hands looksh pretty full."
"Yes, sir,prettytolerably full, sir," said Mr. Larkin, placing the letters on the desk; "and I may add so doyours, Mr. Levi; those keys, as you observe, might have given one a lift in opening this desk, had I not preferred theothercourse," said Mr. Larkin, loftily, "of simply requesting Mr. Dingwell's friend, the lady at present in charge of his papers, to afford me, at her own discretion, such access to the papers possibly affecting my client as I may consider necessary or expedient, as his legal adviser."
"You have changed your view of your duty, rather; haven't you, Mr. Larkinsh?"
"No, sir,no; simply my action on a point of expediency. Of course, there was some weight, too, sir, in the suggestions made by a gentleman of Mr. Goldshed's experience and judgment; andI don't hesitate to say that his—his ideas had their proper weight with me. And I may say, once for all, Mr. Levi, I'll not be hectored, or lectured, orbulliedby you, Mr. Levi," added Mr. Larkin, in a new style, feeling, perhaps, that his logical and moral vein was not quite so happy as usual.
"Don't frighten ush, Larkins, pray don't, only just give me leave to see what them letters is about," said Levi, taking his place by him; "did you put any of them in your pocket?"
"No, sir; upon mysoul, Mr. Levi, I did no such thing," said Mr. Larkin, with a heartiness that had an effect upon the Jew. "The occasion is so serious that I hardly regret having used the expression," said Mr. Larkin, who had actually blushed at his own oath. "There was just one letter possibly worth looking at."
"That da-a-am foolish letter you wrote him to Constantinople?"
"I wrote himnofoolish letter, sir. I wrote him no letter, sir, I should fear to have posted on the market cross, or read from the pulpit, Mr. Levi. I only wonder, knowing all you do of Mr. Dingwell's unfortunate temper, and reckless habits of assertion, that you should attach the smallest weight to an expression thrown out by him in one of his diabolical and—and—lamentable frenzies. As to my having abstracted a letter of his—an imputation at which I smile—I can, happily, cite evidence other than my own." He waved his hand toward Miss Rumble. "This lady has happily, I will say, been in the room during my very brief examination of my client's half-dozen papers. Pray, madam, have I taken one of these—or, in fact, put it in my pocket?"
"No, sir, please," answered Miss Rumble, who spoke in good faith, having, with a lively remembrance of Mr. Dingwell's description of the three gentlemen who had visited the sick that day, as "three robbers," kept her eye very steadily upon the excellent Mr. Larkin, during the period of his search.
Mr. Levi would have liked to possess that letter. It would have proved possibly a useful engine in the hands of the Firm in future dealings with the adroit and high-minded Mr. Larkin. It was not to be had, however, if it really existed at all; and when some more ironies and moralities had been fired off on both sides, the gentlemen subsided into their ordinary relations, and ultimately went away together to dine on turtle, sturgeon, salmon, and I know not what meats, at the famous "Three Roses" in Milk Lane.
IfMr. Dingwell had been the most interesting, beautiful, and, I will add, wealthy of human beings, instead of being an ugly and wicked old bankrupt, Messrs. Goldshed, Levi, and Larkin could not have watched the progress of his complaint with greater trepidation, or hailed the first unequivocal symptoms of his recovery with more genuine delight. I doubt if any one of them would have experienced the same intense happiness at the restoration of wife, child, or parent.
They did not, it is true, re-assemble in Mr. Dingwell's apartments in Rosemary Court. There was not one of those gentlemen who did not set a proper value upon his own life; and they were content with the doctor's report. In due course, the oracle pronounced Mr. Dingwell out of danger, but insisted on change of air.
Well, that could be managed, of course. Itmustbe managed, for did not the doctor say, thatwithout it the patient might not ultimately recover. If it could have been dispensed with, the risk would have been wisely avoided. But Mr. Dingwell's recovery depended on it, and Mr. Dingwell must bemadeto recover.
Whither should they send him? Stolen treasure or murdered body is jealously concealed by the malefactor; but not more shrinkingly than was Mr. Dingwell by those gentlemen who had him in charge. Safe enough he was while he remained in his dingy seclusion in Rosemary Court, where he lay as snugly as Asmodeus in the magician's phial, and secure against all but some such accident as the irruption of the student Don Cleophas Leandro Peres Zambullo, through the skylight. But where was to be found a rural habitation—salubrious and at the same time sufficiently secret. And if they did light upon one resembling that where the water-fiends played their pranks—
"On a wild moor, all brown and bleak,Where broods the heath-frequenting grouse,There stood a tenement antique—Lord Hoppergollop's country house."Here silence reigned with lips of glue,And undisturbed, maintained her law,Save when the owl cried—'Whoo! whoo! whoo!'Or the hoarse crow croaked—'Caw! caw! caw!'"
"On a wild moor, all brown and bleak,Where broods the heath-frequenting grouse,There stood a tenement antique—Lord Hoppergollop's country house."Here silence reigned with lips of glue,And undisturbed, maintained her law,Save when the owl cried—'Whoo! whoo! whoo!'Or the hoarse crow croaked—'Caw! caw! caw!'"
"On a wild moor, all brown and bleak,Where broods the heath-frequenting grouse,There stood a tenement antique—Lord Hoppergollop's country house.
"Here silence reigned with lips of glue,And undisturbed, maintained her law,Save when the owl cried—'Whoo! whoo! whoo!'Or the hoarse crow croaked—'Caw! caw! caw!'"
If I say they did find so eligible a mansion for their purpose, was it likely that their impracticable and incorrigible friend, Mr. Dingwell, would consent to spend six weeks in the "deserted mansion" as patiently as we are told Molly Dumpling did?
I think not. And when the doctor talked of country air, the patient joked peevishly about the "grove of chimneys," and "the sweet shady side of Pall Mall."
"I think, Mrs. Rumble," said he, one day, "I'm not going to die this bout at all events. I'm looking better, I think—eh?"
"Looking very bad, sir, please. I can't see no improvement," said Sarah Rumble.
"Well, ma'am, you try to keep my spirits up, thank you. I'm shut up too much—that's the sole cause of itnow. If I could creep out a bit at night."
"God forbid, sir."
"Thank you, ma'am, again. I say if I could get out a little I should soon get my strength back again; but sitting in this great padded chair I might as well be in bed; can't go out in the daytime you know—too many enemies. The owl's been moulting, ma'am—devilish sick—the moulting owl. If the old bird could flutter out a bit. I'm living like amonk, I was going to say—egad, I wish I was. Give me those d—— bitters; they haven't done me a bit of good—thanks."
"If you was to go to the country, sir," insinuated Miss Sarah Rumble.
"Yes, if Iwas, as you express it, I should die in a week. If air could have killed me, the curious atmosphere of this charming court would have killed me long ago. I'm not one of those air-plants, ma'am. What I want is a little fillip, ma'am—a little amusement—anything out of this prison; and I'm not going to squat on a moor, or to roost in a wood, to please a pack of fellows that don't care if I were on the treadmill, provided they could take me out whenever they want me. My health, indeed! They simply want me out of the way. My health! Their consideration for me is truly affecting. We'll not mind the bitters, yet. It's time for my claret."
He drank it, and seemed to doze for a little. Mrs. Rumble quickly settled the medicine bottles and other things that had been put out of their places, every now and then looking at the sunken face of the old man, in his death-like nap—his chin sunk on his breast, the stern carving of his massive forehead, the repulsive lines of a grim selfishness, and a certain evil shadow, made that face in its repose singularly unlovely.
Suddenly he waked.
"I say, Mrs. Rumble, I've been thinking—what about that old clergyman you mentioned—that Mr. Bartlett. I think Iwillsee him—suppose he lectures me; his hard words won't break my bones, and I think he'd amuse me; so you may as well get him in, any time—I don't care when."
Sarah Rumble was only too glad to give her wicked tenant a chance, such as it was, and next day, at about one o'clock, a gentle-looking old clergyman, with thin white hair, knocked at his door, and was admitted. It was the Rev. Thomas Bartlett.
"I can't rise, sir, to receive you—you'll excuse me; but I'm still very ill," said Mr. Dingwell.
"Pray don't stir, sir," said the clergyman.
"Ican't," said Mr. Dingwell. "Willyoukindly sit in that chair, near the fire? What I have to say is private, and if you please we'll speak very low. My head isn't recovered yet."
"Certainly," said the old gentleman, placing himself as Dingwell wished.
"Thank you very much, sir. Now I can manage it. Isn't your name Thomas, sir—the Reverend Thomas Bartlett?" said Mr. Dingwell, looking at him shrewdly from under his white eyebrows.
"That's my name, sir."
"Myname's Dingwell. You don't remember? I'll try to bring it to your mind. About twenty-nine years ago you were one of the curates at St. Wyther's in the Fields?"
"Yes, sir, I was," answered the clergyman, fixing his eyes in turn inquisitively on him.
"I was the witness—do you remember me, now—to the ceremony, when that unfortunate fellow, Verney, married Miss—I have a note of her name—hang it!—Rebecca, was it?—Yes, Rebecca—it was Rebecca Mervyn. You married Verney to Miss Mervyn, andIwitnessed it."
"I remember very well, sir, that a gentleman did accompany Mr. Verney; and I remember the marriage extremely well, because there occurred very distressing circumstances respecting that Mr. Verney not very long after, which fixed that marriage in my mind; but having seen you once only, sir, I can't pretend to recollect your face."
"There has been some time, too, sir, since then," said Mr. Dingwell, with a cynical sneer, and a shrug. "But I think I should have recognized you; that's perhaps owing to my having a remarkably retentive memory for faces; however it's of no great consequence here. It isn't a matter of identification at all. I only want to know, as Verney's dead, whether you can tell what has become of that poor lady, or can findany clue to her whereabouts—there was a baby—a little child—if they are still living."
"She did write to me twice, sir, within a few years after the marriage. He treated her very ill, sir," said the clergyman.
"Infamously, I fancy," said Dingwell; "and how long ago was that, sir?"
"Oh! a long time; twenty—ay, five—ay, eight-and-twenty years since," said the old gentleman.
Dingwell laughed.
His visitor stared.
"Yes, it's a good while," said Mr. Dingwell; "and looking over that gulf, sir, you may fill your glass, and sing—
"'Many a lad I liked is dead,And many a lass grown old.'
"'Many a lad I liked is dead,And many a lass grown old.'
"'Many a lad I liked is dead,And many a lass grown old.'
Eight-and-twenty years! Gad, sir, she's had time to grow gray; and to be dead and buried; and to serve a handsome period of her term in purgatory. I forgot, though;youdon't follow me there. I was thinking of the French curé, who made part of my journey here with me."
"No, sir; Church of England, thank God; the purest faith; the most scriptural, I believe, on earth. You, sir, I assume, are of the same Church," said he.
"Well, I can't say I am, sir; nor a Catholic, nor a Quaker," said the invalid.
"I hope, sir, there's no tendency to rationalism?"
"No, sir, I thank you; to no ism whatsoever invented by any other man; Dingwellism for Dingwell; Smithism for Smith. Every man has a right to his opinion, in my poor judgment."
"And pray, sir, if neither Romanist nor Protestant, whatareyou?" inquired the clergyman, as having a right to ask.
"Porcus de gruge epicuri, at your service," said the sick man, with a feeble smirk.
"I had hoped, sir, it might have been for some profitable purpose you had sent for me," said the disappointed pastor.
"Well, sir, I was baptized in the Church of England, although I don't subscribe the Articles; so I served in your regiment, you see, though I don't wear the uniform any longer."
"I thought, sir, you might have wished some conversation upon religious subjects."
"And haven't we had it, sir?—sorry we don't agree. I'm too old to turn out of my own way; but, though I can't learn yours, I shall be happy to teach you something of mine, if you wish it."
"I think, sir, as I have other calls to make," said the old clergyman, much offended, and risingto take his leave as he spoke. "I had better wish you a good afternoon."
"Pray, sir, stay a moment; I never knew a clergyman in such a hurry before to leave a sick man; as no man knows, according to your theory, when he's going to be converted—and how should I? The mildew of death is whitening each of us at this moment; the last golden sands are running out. D— it, give me a chance."
This incongruous harangue was uttered so testily—even fiercely—that the good clergyman was puzzled, and began to doubt in what state his fever might have left Mr. Dingwell's brain.
"Don't you see, sir? Do sit down—a little patience won't do either of us any harm."
"Certainly, sir," hesitated the clergyman, looking hard at him, "but I have not a great deal of time."
"Nor I a great deal of strength; I shan't keep you long, sir."
The Rev. Thomas Bartlett sat down again, and glanced meekly an invitation to Mr. Dingwell to begin.
"Nine-and-twenty years, sir, since you married that unlucky pair. Now, I need not say by what particular accidents, for the recollection is painful, I was in after-life thrown into the society of that unfortunate ill-used dog, poorArthur Verney; I knew him intimately. I was the only friend he had left, and I was with him when he died, infamously neglected by all his family. He had just got his half-yearly payment of a beggarly annuity, on which he subsisted;he—the rightful Viscount Verney, and the head of his family—ha, ha, ha! By Jove, sir, I can't help laughing, though I pity him. Having that little sum in his hand, said he to me, 'You take charge of this for my son, if you can find him; and I rely on your friendship to look him up if ever you revisit England; this is for him; and he was baptized by the Rev. Thomas Bartlett, as my wife wrote to tell me just eight-and-twenty years ago, and he, no doubt, can enable you to trace him.' That's whathesaid—what sayyou, sir?"
"Old Lady Verney placed the child in charge of the gentleman who then managed the Verney property. I heard all about it from a Mr. Wynne Williams, a Welsh lawyer. The child died when only a year old; you knowhewould have been the heir apparent."
"Poor Arthur saidno, sir. I asked him—a Scotch marriage, or some of those crooked wed-locks on which they found bigamies and illegitimacies. 'No,' Arthur said, 'he has no technical case, and he may be miserably poor; this is all I can do, and I charge you with it.' Itwas very solemn, sir. Where does that lawyer live?"
"At this moment I can't recollect, sir—some place near which the Verneys have estates."
"Cardyllian?"
"The very place, sir."
"I know it, sir; I've been there when I was a boy. And his name wasWynneWilliams?"
"Ithinkit was," said the clergyman.
"And you have nothing more to say about the poor child?" asked Mr. Dingwell.
"Thereisnothing more, I fancy, sir," said Mr. Bartlett. "Can I give you any more information?"
"Not any, sir, that I can think of at present. Many thanks, Mr. Bartlett, for your obliging call. Wait a moment for the servant."
And Mr. Dingwell, thinking fiercely, rang his hand-bell long and viciously.
"Ha! Mrs. Rumble; you'll show this gentleman out. Good-bye, sir, and many thanks."
"Good day, sir."
"Ha, ha, ha! It's a good subject, and a fertile!" muttered Mr. Dingwell, so soon as he was alone.
For the rest of that evening Mr. Dingwell seemed to find ample amusement in his own thoughts, and did not trouble Mrs. Rumble withthat contemptuous and cynical banter, which she was obliged to accept, when he pleased, for conversation.
The only thing she heard him say was—"I'll gothere."
Now Malory had already been proved to be a safe hiding place for a gentleman in Mr. Dingwell's uncomfortable circumstances. The air was unexceptionable, and Lord Verney was easily persuaded to permit the old man to sojourn, for a few weeks, in the Steward's House, under the care of old Mrs. Mervyn's servant, aided by one provided by Messrs. Goldshed and Levi.
There were two rooms in the steward's house which old Mrs. Mervyn never used, and some furniture removed from the Dower House adjoining, rendered them tolerably comfortable. A letter from old Lady Verney opened and explained the request, which amounted to a command, that she would permit the invalid, in whom Lord Verney took an interest, to occupy, for a fortnight or so, the spare rooms in the Steward's House.
So all was made ready, and the day fixed for Mr. Dingwell's arrival.
Mr. Dingwell, already much more like himself, having made the journey by easy stages, was approaching Malory by night, in a post-chaise. Fatigue, sickness, or some other cause, perhaps, exasperated his temper specially that night.
Well made up in mufflers, his head was frequently out at the window.
"The old church, by Jove!" he muttered, with a dismal grin, as going slowly down the jolty hill: beneath the ancient trees, the quaint little church of Llanderris and its quiet churchyard appeared at the left of the narrow road, white in the moonlight.
"A new crop of fools, fanatics, and hypocrites come up, since I remember them, and the old ones gone down to enrich that patch of ground and send up their dirty juice in nettles, and thistles, and docks. 'In sure and certain hope.' Why should not they, the swine! as well as theirmasters, cunning, and drunken, and sneaks. I'd like to pay a fellow to cut their epitaphs. Why should I spare them a line of truth. Here I am, plain Mr. Dingwell. They don't care much about me; and when my Lord Verney went down the other day, to show them what a fool they have got for a master, amid congenial rejoicings, I don't hear that they troubled their heads with many regrets for my poor friend Arthur. Ha! There's the estuary, and Pendillion. These things don't change, my Lord Verney. Pity Lord Verney doesn't wear as well as Pendillion. There is Ware, over the water, if we had light to see it—to think of that shabby little whey-faced fool! Here we are; these are the trees of Malory, egad!"
And with a shrug he repeated Homer's words, which say—"As are the generations of leaves, such are those of men."
Up the avenue of Malory they were driving, and Dingwell looked out with a dismal curiosity upon the lightless front of the old house.
"Cheerful reception!" he muttered. "Suppose we pick a hole in your title—a hole in yourpocket—hey!"
Dingwell's servant was at the door of the steward's house as they drew up, and helped the snarling old invalid down.
When he got to the room the servant said—
"There's coffee, and everythink as you desired."
"I'll take breath first, if you please—coffee afterwards."
"Mrs. Mervyn hopes, sir, as how you'll parding her to-night, being so late, and not in good 'ealth herself, which she would been hup to receive you hotherwise," said the man, delivering his message eloquently.
"Quite time enough to-morrow, and to-morrow—and to-morrow; and I don't care if our meeting creeps away, as that remarkable person, William Shakespeare, says—'in this petty pace.' This is more comfortable, egad! than Rosemary Court. I don't care, I say, if it creeps in that pretty pace, till we are both in heaven. What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba? So help me off with these things."
Lord Verney, on whom, in his moods, Mr. Dingwell commented so fully, was dispensing his hospitalities just then, on the other side of the estuary, at his princely mansion of Ware. The party was, it is true, small—very small, in fact. Lady Wimbledon had been there, and the Hon. Caroline Oldys, but they were now visiting Cardyllian at the Verney Arms.
Mr. Jos. Larkin, to his infinite content, was at Ware, and deplored the unchristian feelings displayed by Mr. Wynne Williams, whom he had by this time formally supplanted in the management of Lord Verney's country affairs, and who had exhibited "a nasty feeling," he "might say a petulance quite childish," last Sunday, when Mr. Larkin had graced Cardyllian Church with his personal devotions, and refused to vacate, in his favour, the small pew which he held as proprietor of Plasdwllyn, but which Mr. Larkin chose to think he occupied in virtue of his former position of solicitor to Lord Verney.
Cleve Verney being still in London, received one morning from his uncle the following short and astounding note, as he sat at breakfast:—
"My Dear Cleve—The time having arrived for taking that step, which the stability of our house of Verney has long appeared to demand, all preliminaries being satisfactorily adjusted, and the young lady and Lady Wimbledon, with a very small party of their relations, as you may have observed by the public papers, at present at the hotel of Cardyllian, nothing remains unaccomplished by way of preparation, but your presence at Ware, which I shall expect on Friday next, when you can meet Miss Caroline Oldys in those new and more defined relations which our contemplated alliance suggests. That event isarranged to take place on the Wednesday following. Mr. Larkin, who reports to me the substance of a conversation with you, and who has my instructions to apprise you fully of any details you may desire to be informed of, will see you on the morning of to-morrow, in the library at Verney House, at a quarter-past eleven o'clock. He leaves Ware by the mail train to-night. You will observe that the marriage, though not strictly private, is to be conducted withoutéclat, and has not been anywhere announced. This will explain my not inviting you to bring down any friend of yours to Ware for the occasion."
"My Dear Cleve—The time having arrived for taking that step, which the stability of our house of Verney has long appeared to demand, all preliminaries being satisfactorily adjusted, and the young lady and Lady Wimbledon, with a very small party of their relations, as you may have observed by the public papers, at present at the hotel of Cardyllian, nothing remains unaccomplished by way of preparation, but your presence at Ware, which I shall expect on Friday next, when you can meet Miss Caroline Oldys in those new and more defined relations which our contemplated alliance suggests. That event isarranged to take place on the Wednesday following. Mr. Larkin, who reports to me the substance of a conversation with you, and who has my instructions to apprise you fully of any details you may desire to be informed of, will see you on the morning of to-morrow, in the library at Verney House, at a quarter-past eleven o'clock. He leaves Ware by the mail train to-night. You will observe that the marriage, though not strictly private, is to be conducted withoutéclat, and has not been anywhere announced. This will explain my not inviting you to bring down any friend of yours to Ware for the occasion."
So it ends with the noble lord's signature, and a due attestation of the state of his affections towards Cleve.
With the end of his uncle's letter, an end of that young gentleman's breakfast—only just begun—came also.
Cleve did not start up and rap out an oath. On the contrary, he sat very still, with something, almost a smile, on his pale, patient face. In a little while he folded the letter up gently, and put it in his pocket. Then he did get up and go to the window looking out upon the piece of ground at the rear of Verney House, and the sooty leaves and sparrows that beautified it. Fora long time he enjoyed that view, and then took a swift walk for nearly half an hour in the streets—drowsy, formal streets—in that quarter of the town, involving little risk of interruption.
His wife—what a hell was now in that word! and why? Another man would have found in it a fountain of power and consolation. His wife, his little boy, were now in France. He thought of them both sourly enough. He was glad they were so far off. Margaret would have perceived the misery of his mind. She would have been poking questions at him, and he would neither have divulged nor in anything have consulted her. In the motive of this reserve, which harmonised with his character, may have mingled a suspicion thathisinterest and hers might not, in this crisis, have required quite the same treatment.
It was about eleven o'clock as he entered Verney House again. In a quarter of an hour more that villanous attorney, to whose vulgar machinations he attributed his present complicated wretchedness, would be with him.
Without any plan, only hating that abominable Christian, and resolved to betray neither thought nor emotion which could lead him to suspect, ever so faintly, the truth, he at length heard him announced, as a man who has seen his death-warrant hears the approach of the executioner.Mr. Larkin entered, with his well-brushed hat in his hand, his bald head shining as with a glory, a meek smile on his lips, a rat-like shrinking observation in his eyes.
"Oh! Mr. Larkin," said Mr. Cleve Verney, with a smile. "My uncle said you would look in to-day. We have often talked the matter over together, you know, my uncle and I, and I'm not sure that you can tell me very much that I don't know already. Sit down, pray."
"Thanks. I think it was chiefly to let you know what he can do foryou. I need not say to you, my dear Mr. Verney, how generous Lord Verney is, and what an uncle, Mr. Verney, he has been toyou."
Here was a little glance of the pink eyes at the ceiling, and a momentary elevation of his large hand, and a gentle, admiring shake of the bald head.
"No; of course. It is entirely as his attorney, sir, acquainted with details which he has directed you to mention to me, that he speaks of your call here. I had a letter this morning."
"Quite so. It was to mention that although he could not, of course, in prudence, under the circumstances, think ofsettlinganything—which amounts, in fact, to an alienation—a step which in justice to himself and the integrity of thefamily estates, he could not concede or contemplate; he yet—and he wishes it at the same time to be understood, strictly, as his present intention—means to make you an allowance of a thousand pounds a year."
"Rather a small allowance, don't you think, for a man with a seat in the House to marry on?" observed Cleve.
"Pardon me; but he does not contemplate your immediate marriage, Mr. Verney," answered Larkin.
"Rather a sudden change of plan, considering that he fixed Wednesday next, by his letter," said Cleve, with a faint sneer.
"Pardon me, again; but that referred to his own marriage—Lord Verney's contemplated marriage with the Honourable Miss Oldys."
"Oh!" said Cleve, looking steadily down on the table. "Oh! to be sure."
"That alliance will be celebrated on Wednesday, as proposed."
Mr. Larkin paused, and Cleve felt that his odious eyes were reading his countenance. Cleve could not help turning pale, but there was no other visible symptom of his dismay.
"Yes; the letter was a little confused. He has been urging me to marry, and I fancied he had made up his mind to expedite my affair; andit is rather a relief to me to be assured it is his own, for I'm in no particular hurry—quite the reverse. Is there anything more?"
"I meant to askyouthat question, Mr. Verney. I fancied you might possibly wish to put some questions to me. I have been commissioned, within certain limits, to give you any information you may desire." Mr. Larkin paused again.
Cleve's blood boiled. "Within certain limits, more in my uncle's confidence than I am, that vulgar, hypocritical attorney!" He fancied beside that Mr. Larkin saw what a shock the news was, and that he liked, with a mean sense of superiority, making him feel that he penetrated his affectation of indifference.
"It's very thoughtful of you; but if anything strikes me I shall talk to my uncle. There are subjects that would interest me more than those on which he would be at all likely to talk with you."
"Quite possibly," said Mr. Larkin. "And what shall I report to his lordship as the result of our conversation?"
"Simply the truth, sir."
"I don't, I fear, make myself clear. I meant to ask whether there was anything you wished me to add. You can always reckon upon me, Mr. Verney, to convey your views to Lord Verney,if there should ever happen to be anything you feel a delicacy about opening to his lordship yourself."
"Yes, I shall write to him," answered Cleve, drily.
And Cleve Verney rose, and the attorney, simpering and bowing grandly, took his departure.
As the attorney made his astounding announcement, Cleve had felt as if his brain, in vulgar parlance,turned! In a moment the world in which he had walked and lived from his school-days passed away, and a chasm yawned at his feet. His whole future was subverted. A man who dies in delusion, and awakes not to celestial music and the light of paradise, but to the trumpet of judgment and the sight of the abyss, will quail as Cleve did.
How he so well maintained the appearance of self-possession while Mr. Larkin remained, I can't quite tell. Pride, however, which has carried so many quivering souls, with an appearance of defiance, through the press-room to the drop, supported him.
But now that scoundrel was gone. The fury that fired him, the iron constraint that held him firm was also gone, and Cleve despaired.
Till this moment, when he was called on to part with it all, he did not suspect how entirely his ambition was the breath of his nostrils, or how mere a sham was the sort of talk to which he had often treated Margaret and others about an emigrant's life and the Arcadian liberty of the Antipodes.
The House-of-Commons life—the finest excitement on earth—the growing fame, the peerage, the premiership in the distance—the vulgar fingers of Jos. Larkin had just dropped the extinguisher upon the magic lamp that had showed him these dazzling illusions, and he was left to grope and stumble in the dark among his debts, with an obscure wife on his arm, and a child to plague him also. And this was to be the end! A precarious thousand a-year—dependent on the caprice of a narrow, tyrannical old man, with a young wife at his ear, and a load of debts upon Cleve's shoulders, as he walked over the quag!
It is not well to let any object, apart from heaven, get into your head and fill it. Cleve had not that vein of insanity which on occasion draws men to suicide. In the thread of his destiny that fine black strand was not spun. So blind and deep for a while was his plunge into despair, that I think had that atrabilious poison, which throws out its virus as suddenly as latent plague, andlays afelo-de-seto cool his heels and his head in God's prison, the grave—had a drop or two, I say, of that elixir of death been mingled in his blood, I don't think he would ever have seen another morrow.
But Cleve was not thinking of dying. He was sure—in rage, and blasphemy, and torture, it might be—but still hewassure to live on. Well, what was now to be done? Every power must be tasked to prevent the ridiculous catastrophe which threatened him with ruin; neither scruple, nor remorse, nor conscience, nor compunction should stand in the way. We are not to suppose that he is about to visit the Hon. Miss Caroline Oldys with a dagger in one hand and a cup of poison in the other, nor with gunpowder to blow up his uncle and Ware, as some one did Darnley and the house of Kirk of Field. Simply his mind was filled with the one idea, that one way or another the thingmustbe stopped.
It was long before his ideas arranged themselves, and for a long time after no plan of operations which had a promise of success suggested itself. When at length he did decide, you would have said no wilder or wickeder scheme could have entered his brain.
It was a moonlight night. The scene a flat country, with a monotonous row of poplarscrossing it. This long file of formal trees marks the line of a canal, fronting which at a distance of about a hundred yards stands a lonely brick house, with a few sombre elms rising near it; a light mist hung upon this expansive flat. The soil must have been unproductive, so few farmsteads were visible for miles around. Here and there pools of water glimmered coldly in the moonlight; and patches of rushes and reeds made the fields look ragged and neglected.
Here and there, too, a stunted hedge-row showed dimly along the level, otherwise unbroken, and stretching away into the haze of the horizon. It is a raw and dismal landscape, where a murder might be done, and the scream lose itself in distance unheard—where the highwayman, secure from interruption, might stop and plunder the chance wayfarer at his leisure—a landscape which a fanciful painter would flank with a distant row of gibbets.
The front of this square brick house, with a little enclosure, hardly two yards in depth, and a wooden paling in front, and with a green moss growing damply on the piers and the door-steps, and tinging the mortar between the bricks, looks out upon a narrow old road, along which just then were audible the clink and rattle of an approaching carriage and horses.
It was past one o'clock. No hospitable light shone from the windows, which on the contrary looked out black and dreary upon the vehicle and steaming horses which pulled up in front of the house.
Out got Cleve and reconnoitred.
"Are you quite sure?"
"Clay Parsonage—yes, sir," said the driver.
Cleve shook the little wooden gate, which was locked; so he climbed the paling, and knocked and rang loud and long at the hall-door.
The driver at last reported a light in an upper window.
Cleve went on knocking and ringing, and the head of the Rev. Isaac Dixie appeared high in the air over the window-stool.
"What do you want, pray?" challenged that suave clergyman from his sanctuary.
"It's I—Cleve Verney. Why do you go to bed at such hours? I must see you for a moment."
"Dear me! my dear, valued pupil! Who could have dreamed?—I shall be down in one moment."
"Thanks—I'll wait;" and then to the driver he said—"I shan't stay five minutes; mind, you're ready to start with me the moment I return."
Now the hall-door opened. The Rev. Isaac Dixie—for his dress was a compromise between modesty and extreme haste, and necessarily very imperfect—stood in greater part behind the hall-door; a bed-room candlestick in his fingers, smiling blandly on his "distinguished pupil," who entered without a smile, without a greeting—merely saying:—
"Where shall we sit down for a minute, old Dixie?"
Holding his hand with the candle in it across, so as to keep his flowing dressing-gown together; and with much wonder and some misgivings, yet contriving his usual rosy smile, he conducted his unexpected visitor into his "study."
"I've so many apologies to offer, my very honoured and dear friend; this is so miserable, and I fear you are cold. We must get something; we must, really, manage something—some little refreshment."
Dixie placed the candle on the chimney-piece, and looked inquiringly on Cleve.
"There's some sherry, I know, and Ithinkthere's some brandy."
"There's no one up and about?" inquired Cleve.
"Not a creature," said the Rector; "no one can hear a word, and these are good thick walls."
"I've only a minute; I know you'd like to be a bishop, Dixie?"
Cleve, with his muffler and his hat still on, was addressing the future prelate, with his elbow on the chimney-piece.
"Nolo episcopari, of course, but weknowyou would, and there's no time now for pretty speeches. Now, listen, you shall bethat, and you shall reach it by two steps—the two best livings in our gift. I always keep my word; and when I set my heart on a thing I bring it about, and so sure as I do any good, I'll bend all my interest to that one object."
The Rev. Isaac Dixie stared hard at him, for Cleve looked strangely, and spoke as sternly as a villain demanding his purse. The Rector of Clay looked horribly perplexed. His countenance seemed to ask, "Does he mean to give me a mitre or to take my life, or is he quite right in his head?"
"You think I don't mean what I say, or that I'm talking nonsense, or that I'm mad. I'm not mad, it's no nonsense, and no man was ever more resolved to do what he says." And Cleve who was not given to swearing, did swear a fierce oath. "But all this is not for nothing; there's a condition; you must do me a service. It won't cost you much—less trouble, almost, thanyou've taken for me to-night, but youmustdo it."
"And may I, my dear and valued pupil, may I ask?" began the rev. gentleman.
"No, you need not ask, for I'll tell you. It's the same sort of service you did for me in France," said Cleve.
"Ah! ah!" ejaculated the clergyman, very uneasily. "For no one butyou, my dear and admirable pupil, could I have brought myself to take that step, and I trust that you will on reconsideration——"
"Youmustdo what I say," said Cleve, looking and speaking with the same unconscious sternness, which frightened the Rector more than any amount of bluster. "I hardly suppose you want to break with me finally, and you don't quite know all the consequences of that step, I fancy."
"Break withyou? my admirable patron! desert my dear and brilliant pupil in an emergency?Certainlynot. Reckon upon me, my dear Mr. Verney, wheneveryou need my poor services, to theuttermost. Toyou allmy loyalty is due, but unless you made a very special point of it, I should hesitate for any other person living,butyourself, to incur a second time——"
"Don't you think my dear, d—d old friend, I understand the length, and breadth, and depth,of your friendship; I know how strong itis, and I'll make itstronger. Itisforme—yes, in my own case you must repeat the service, as you call it, which you once did me, in another country."
The Rev. Isaac Dixie's rosy cheeks mottled all over blue and yellow; he withdrew his hand from his dressing-gown, with an unaffected gesture of fear; and he fixed a terrified gaze upon Cleve Verney's eyes, which did not flinch, but encountered his, darkly and fixedly, with a desperate resolution.
"Why, you look as much frightened as if I asked you to commit a crime; you marvellous old fool, you hardly think me mad enough forthat?"
"I hardly know, Mr. Verney, what I think," said Dixie, looking with a horrible helplessness into his face.
"Good God! sir; it can't be anythingwrong?"
"Come, come, sir; you're more than half asleep. Do youdareto think I'd commit myself to any man, by such an idiotic proposal? No one but a lunatic could think ofblastinghimself, as you—but youcan'tsuppose it. Do listen, and understand if you can; my wife, to whom you married me, isdead, six months ago shedied; I tell you she'sdead."
"Dear me! I'm very much pained, and I will sayshocked; the deceased lady, I should not, my dear pupil, have alluded to, of course; but need I say, I never heard of that affliction?"
"How on earth could you? You don't suppose, knowing all you do, I'd put it in the papers among thedeaths?"
"No, dear me, of course," said the Rev. Isaac Dixie, hastily bringing his dressing-gown again together. "No, certainly."
"I don't think that sort of publication would answer you or me. You forget it is two years ago and more, agood dealmore.Idon't though, and whateveryoumay,Idon't want my uncle to know anything about it."
"But, you know, I only meant, you hadn't told me; my dear Mr. Verney, my honoured pupil, you will see—don't you perceive how much is involved; butthis—couldn't you put this upon some one else? Do—dothink."
"No, innoone's power, butyours, Dixie;" and Cleve took his hand, looking in his face, and wrung it so hard that the rev. gentleman almost winced under the pressure, of administering which I dare say Cleve was quite unconscious. "No one butyou."
"The poor—the respected lady—being deceased, of course you'll give me a note to thateffect under your hand; you'll have no objection, in this case, to my taking out a special licence?"
"Special devil! are you mad? Why, anyone could do it with that. No, it's just because it is a littleirregular, nothing more, and exacts implicit mutual confidence, that I have chosen you for it."
Dixie looked as if the compliment was not an unmixed pleasure.
"I still think, that—that having performed the other, there is some awkwardness, and the penalties are awful," said he with increasing uneasiness, "and it does strike me, that if my dear Mr. Verney could place his hand upon some other humble friend, in this particular case, the advantages would be obvious."
"Come, Dixie," said Cleve, "I'mgoing; you must say yes or no, and so decide whether you have seen the last of me; I can't spend the night giving you my reasons, but they are conclusive. If you act like a man of sense, it's the last service I shall ever require at your hands, and I'll reward yousplendidly; if you don't, I not only cease to be your friend, but I become yourenemy. I can strike when I like it—you knowthat; and upon my soul I'll smash you. I shall see my uncle to-morrow morning at Ware, and I'll tell himdistinctly the entire of that French transaction."
"But—but pray, my dear Mr. Verney, do say,didI refuse—doIobject? you may command me, of course. I have incurred I may say a risk for you already, a risk inform."
"Exactly,in form; and you don't increase it by this kindness, and you secure my eternal gratitude. Now you speak like a man of sense. You must be in Cardyllian to-morrow evening. It is possible I may asknothingof you; if I do, the utmost is a technical irregularity, and secrecy, which we are both equally interested in observing. You shall stay a week in Cardyllian mind, and I, of course, frank you there and back, and while you remain—it's my business. It has a political aspect, as I shall explain to you by-and-bye, and so soon as I shall have brought my uncle round, and can avow it, it will lead the way rapidly toyourfortune. Shall I see you in Cardyllian to-morrow evening?"
"Agreed, sir!—agreed, my dear Mr. Verney. I shall be there, my dear and valued pupil—yes."
"Go to the Verney Arms; I shall probably be looking out for you there; at all events I shall see you before night."
Verney looked at his watch, and repeated "Ishall see you to-morrow;" and without taking leave, or hearing as it seemed the Rev. Isaac Dixie's farewell compliments and benedictions, he walked out in gloomy haste, as if the conference was not closed, but only suspended by the approaching parenthesis of a night and a day.
From the hall-table the obsequious divine took the key of the little gate, to which, in slippers and dressing-gown, he stepped blandly forth, and having let out his despotic pupil, and waved his adieu, as the chaise drove away, he returned, and locked up his premises and house, with a great load at his heart.