Aboutan hour after, a message came down from Malory for the doctor.
"How is his lordship?" asked the doctor, eagerly.
"No, it isn'thim, sure; it is the oldladyis taken very bad."
"Lady Wimbledon?"
"No, sure. Her ladyship's not there. Old Mrs. Mervyn."
"Oh!" said the doctor, tranquillized. "Old Rebecca Mervyn, is it? And what may be the matter with the poor old lady?"
"Fainting like; one fainting into another, sure; and her breath almost gone. She's very bad—as pale as a sheet."
"Is she talking at all?"
"No, not a word. Sittin' back in her chair, sure."
"Does she know you, or mind what you say to her?"
"Well,no. She's a-holdin' that old white-headed man's hand that's been so long bad there, and a-lookin' at him; but I don't think she hears nor sees nothin' myself."
"Apoplexy, or the heart, more likely," ruminated the doctor. "Will you call one of those pony things for me?"
And while the pony-carriage was coming to the door, he got a few phials together and his coat on, being in a hurry; for he was to play a rubber of billiards at the club for five shillings at seven o'clock.
In an hour's time after the interview with Arthur Verney, Lord Verney had wonderfully collected his wits. His effects in that department, it is true, were not very much, and perhaps the more easily brought together. He wrote two short letters—marvellously short for him—and sent down to the Verney Arms to request the attendance of Mr. Larkin.
Lord Verney was calm; he was even gentle; spoke, in his dry way, little, and in a low tone. He had the window-shutter opened quite, and the curtains drawn back, and seemed to have forgotten his invalided state, and everything but the revolution which in a moment had overtaken andengulfed him—to which great anguish with a dry resignation he submitted.
Over the chimney was a little oval portrait of his father, the late Lord Verney, taken when they wore the hair long, falling back upon their shoulders. A pretty portrait, refined, handsome, insolent. How dulled it was by time and neglect—how criss-crossed over with little cracks; the evening sun admitted now set it all aglow.
"A very good portrait. How has it been overlooked so long? It must be preserved; it shall go to Verney House. To Verney House? I forgot."
Mr. Jos. Larkin, in obedience to this sudden summons, was speedily with Lord Verney. With this call a misgiving came. The attorney smiled blandly, and talked in his meekest and happiest tones; but people who knew his face would have remarked that sinister contraction of the eye to which in moments of danger or treachery he was subject, and which, in spite of his soft tones and child-like smile, betrayed the fear or the fraud of that vigilant and dangerous Christian.
When he entered the room, and saw Lord Verney's face pale and stern, he had no longer a doubt.
Lord Verney requested Mr. Larkin to sit down,and prepare for something that would surprise him.
He then proceeded to tell Mr. Larkin that the supposed Mr. Dingwell was, in fact, his brother, the Hon. Arthur Verney, and that, therefore, he was not Lord Verney, but only as before, the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney.
Mr. Larkin saw that there was an up-hill game and a heavy task before him. It was certain now, and awful. This conceited and foolish old nobleman, and that devil incarnate, his brother, were to be managed, and those Jew people, who might grow impracticable; and doors were to be muffled, and voices lowered, and a stupendous secret kept. Still he did not despair—if people would only be true to themselves.
When Lord Verney came to that part of his brief narrative where, taking some credit dismally to himself for his penetration, he stated that "notwithstanding that the room was dark and his voice disguised, I recognized him; and you may conceive, Mr. Larkin, that when I made the discovery I was a good deal disturbed about it."
Mr. Larkin threw up his eyes and hands—
"Whata world it is, my dear Lord Verney! for so I persist in styling you still, for this will prove virtually no interruption."
At the close of his sentence the attorney lowered his voice earnestly.
"I don't follow you, sir, about it," replied Lord Verney, disconsolately; "for a man who has had an illness, he looks wonderfully well, and in good spirits and things, and as likely to live as I am, about it."
"My remarks, my lord, were directed rather to what I may term the animus—the design—of this, shall I call it,demonstration, my lord, on the part of your lordship's brother."
"Yes, of course, the animus, about it. But it strikes me he's as likely to outlive me as not."
"My lord, may I venture, in confidence and with great respect, to submit, that your lordship was hardly judicious in affording him a personal interview?"
"Why, I should hope my personal direction of that conversation, and—and things, has been such as I should wish," said the peer, very loftily.
"My lord, I have failed to make myself clear. I never questioned the consummate ability with which, no doubt, your lordship's part in that conversation was sustained. What I meant to convey is, that considering the immense distance socially between you, the habitual and undeviating eminence of your lordship's position, and the melancholy circle in which it has been your brother's lot to move, your meeting him face to face for the purpose of a personal discussion of your relations, may lead him to the absurd conclusion that your lordship is, in fact, afraid of him."
"That, sir, would be a very impertinent conclusion."
"Quite so, my lord, and render him proportionably impracticable. Now, I'll undertake to bring him to reason." The attorney was speaking very low and sternly, with contracted eyes and a darkened face. "He has been married to the lady who lives in the house adjoining, under the name of Mrs. Mervyn, and to my certain knowledge inquiries have been set in motion to ascertain whether there has not been issue of that marriage."
"You may set your mind perfectly at rest with regard to that marriage, Mr. Larkin; the whole thing was thoroughly sifted—and things—my father undertook it, the late Lord Verney, about it; and so it went on, and was quite examined, and it turned out the poor woman had been miserably deceived by a mock ceremony, and this mock thing was the wholething, and there's nothing more; the evidencewas very deplorable, and—and quite satisfactory."
"Oh! that's a great weight off my mind," said Larkin, trying to smile, and looking very much disappointed, "a great weight, my lord."
"I knew it would—yes," acquiesced Lord Verney.
"And simplifies our dealings with the other side; for if there had been a good marriage, and concealed issue male of that marriage, they would have used that circumstance toextort money."
"Well, I don't see how they could, though; for if there had been a child, about it—he'd have been heir apparent, don't you see? to the title."
"Oh!—a—yes—certainly, that's very true, my lord; but then there'snone, sothat'sat rest."
"I've just heard," interposed Lord Verney, "I may observe, that the poor old lady, Mrs. Mervyn, is suddenly and dangerously ill."
"Oh!isshe?" said Mr. Larkin very uneasily, for she was, if not his queen, at least a very valuable pawn upon his chess-board.
"Yes; the doctor thinks she's actually dying, poor old soul!"
"What a world! What is life? What is man?" murmured the attorney with a devoutfeeling of the profoundest vexation. "It was for this most melancholy character," he continued; "you'll pardon me, my lord, for so designating a relative of your lordship's—the Honourable Arthur Verney, who has sofraudulently, I will say, presented himself again as a living claimant. Your lordship is aware of course—I shall be going up to town possibly by the mail train to-night—that the law, if it were permitted to act, would remove that obstacle under the old sentence of the Court."
"Good God! sir, you can't possibly mean that I should have my brother caught and executed?" exclaimed Lord Verney, turning quite white.
"Quite the reverse, my lord. I'm—I'm unspeakably shocked that I should have so misconveyed myself," said Larkin, his tall bald head tinged to its top with an ingenuous blush. "Oh no, my lord, I understand the Verney feeling too well, thank God, to suppose anything, I will say, soentirelyobjectionable. I said, my lord, if it werepermitted, that is, allowed by simple non-interference— your lordship sees—and it is preciselybecausenon-interference must bring about that catastrophe—for I must not conceal from your lordship the fact that there is a great deal of unpleasant talk in the town of Cardyllian already—that I purpose running up to town to-night. There is a Jew firm, your lordship is aware, who have a very heavy judgment against him, and the persons of that persuasion are so interlaced, as I may say, in matters of business, that I should apprehend a communication to them from Goldshed and Levi, who, by-the-by, to my certain knowledge—whata world it is!—have a person here actually watching Mr. Dingwell, or in other words, the unhappy but Honourable Arthur Verney, intheirinterest." (This was in effect true, but the name of this person, which he did not care to disclose, was Josiah Larkin.) "If I were on the spot, I think I know a way effectually to stop all action of that sort."
"You think they'd arrest him, about it?" said Lord Verney.
"Certainly, my lord."
"It is very much to be deprecated," said Lord Verney.
"And, my lord, if you will agree to place the matter quite in my hands, and peremptorily to decline on all future occasions, conceding a personal interview, I'll stake my professional character, I effect a satisfactory compromise."
"I—I don't know—I don'tseea compromise—there's nothing that I see, tosettle," said Lord Verney.
"Everything, my lord. Pardon me—your lordship mentioned that, in point of fact, you are no longer Lord Verney; that being so—technically, of course—measures must be taken—in short, a—a quietarrangementwith your lordship's brother, to prevent any disturbance, and I undertake to effect it, my lord; the nature of which will be to prevent the return of the title to abeyance, and of the estates to the management of the trustees, whose claim for mesneratesand the liquidation of the mortgage, I need not tell your lordship, would be ruinous to you."
"Why, sir—Mr. Larkin—I can hardly believe, sir—you can't mean, or think it possible, sir, that I should lend myself to a deception, and—and sit in the House of Peers by afraud, sir! I'd much ratherdiein the debtor's prison, about it; and I consider myself dishonoured by having involuntarily heard such an—an idea."
Poor, pompous, foolish Lord Verney stood up, so dignified and stern in the light of his honest horror, that Mr. Larkin, who despised him utterly, quailed before a phenomenon he could not understand.
Nothing confounded our friend Larkin, as a religious man, so much as discovering, after he had a little unmasked, that his client would not follow, and left him, as once or twice had happened, alone with his dead villanous suggestion, to account for it how he could.
"Oh dear!—surely, my lord, your lordship did notimagine," said Mr. Larkin, doing his best, "I was—I, in fact—Isupposedacase. I only went the length of saying that I think—and withsorrowI think it—that your lordship's brother has in view anadjustmentof his claim, and meant toextract, I fear, a sum ofmoneywhen he disclosed himself, and conferred with your lordship. I meant, merely, of course, that as he thought this I wouldlethim think it, and allow him to disclose his plans, with a view, of course, to deal with that information—first, ofcourse, with a view to your lordship'shonour, and next your lordship's safety; but if your lordship did not see your wayclearlyto it"——
"No, I don't see—I think it most objectionable—about it. I know all that concerns me; and I have written to two official persons—one, I may say, the Minister himself—apprizing them of the actual position of the title, and asking some information as to how I should proceed in order to divest myself of it and the estates."
"Just what I should have expected from your lordship's exquisite sense of honour," said Mr. Larkin, with a deferential bow, and a countenance black as thunder.
That gigantic machine of torture which he had been building and dove-tailing, with patient villany, at Lord Verney's word fell with a crash, like an enchanted castle at its appointed spell. Well was it for Lord Verney that the instinct of honour was strong in him, and that he would not suffer his vulgar tempter to beguile him into one indefensible concealment. Had he fallen, that tempter would have been his tyrant. He would have held everything in trust for Mr. Jos. Larkin. The effigy of Lord Verney would, indeed, have stood, on state occasions, robed and coronetted, with his order, driven down to the House, and sat there among hereditary senators; all around him, would have been brilliant and luxurious, and the tall bald head of the Christian attorney would have bowed down before the out-going and the in-coming of the phantom. But the real peer would have sat cold and dark enough, in Jos. Larkin's dungeon—his robe on the wall, a shirt of Nessus—his coronet on a nail, a Neapolitan "cap of silence"—quite tame under the rat-like eye of a terror from which he never could escape.
There was a silence here for some time. Lord Verney leaned back with closed eyes, exhausted. Mr. Larkin looked down on the carpet smiling faintly, and with the tip of one finger scratching his bald head gently. The attorney spoke—"Might I suggest, for the safety of your lordship's unhappy brother, that the matter should be kept strictly quiet—just for a day or two, until I shall have made arrangements for his—may I term it—escape."
"Certainly," said Lord Verney, looking away a little. "Yes—thatmust, of course, be arranged; and—and this marriage—I shall leave that decision entirely in the hands of the young lady." Lord Verney was a little agitated. "And I think, Mr. Larkin, I have said everything at present. Good evening."
As Mr. Larkin traversed the hall of Malory, scratching the top of his bald head with one finger, in profound and black rumination, I am afraid his thoughts and feelings amounted to a great deal of cursing and swearing.
"Sweet evening," he observed suddenly to the surprised servant who opened the door for him. He was now standing at the threshold, with his hands expanded as if he expected rain, and smiling villianously upward toward the stars.
"Sweet evening," he repeated, and then biting his lip and looking down for a while on the gravel, he descended and walked round the corner to the Steward's House.
Thehatch of the Steward's House stood open, and Mr. Larkin entered. There was a girl's voice crying in the room next the hall, and he opened the door.
The little girl was sobbing with her apron to her eyes, and hearing the noise she lowered it and looked at the door, when the lank form of the bald attorney and his sinister face peering in met her eyes, and arrested her lamentation with a new emotion.
"It's only I—Mr. Larkin," said he. He liked announcing himself wherever he went. "I want to know how Mrs. Mervyn is now."
"Gone dead, sir—about a quarter of an hour ago;" and the child's lamentation recommenced.
"Ha! very sad. The doctor here?"
"He's gone, sir."
"And you'recertainshe's dead?"
"Yes, sure, sir," and she sobbed on.
"Stop that," he said, sternly, "just a moment—thanks. I want to see Mr. Dingwell, the old gentleman who has been staying here—where is he?"
"In the drawing-room, sir, please," said the child, a good deal frightened. And to the drawing-room he mounted.
Light was streaming from a door a little open, and a fragrance also of a peculiar tobacco, which he recognised as that of Mr. Dingwell's chibouque. There was a sound of feet upon the floor of the room above, which Mr. Larkin's ear received as those of persons employed in arranging the dead body.
I would be perhaps wronging Mr. Dingwell, as I still call him, to say that he smoked like a man perfectly indifferent. On the contrary, his countenance looked lowering and furious—so much so that Mr. Larkin removed his hat, a courtesy which he had intended studiously to omit.
"Oh! Mr. Dingwell," said he, "I need not introduce myself."
"No, I prefer your withdrawing yourself and shutting the door," said Dingwell.
"Yes, in a moment, sir. I merely wish to mention that Lord Verney—I mean your brother, sir—has fully apprized me of the conversationwith which you thought it prudent to favour him."
"You'd rather have been the medium yourself, I fancy. Something to be made of such a situation? Hey! but youshan't."
"I don't know what you mean, sir, by something to be made. If I chose to mention your name and abode in the city, sir, you'd not enjoy the power of insulting others long."
"Pooh, sir! I've gotyourletter and my brother'ssecret. I know my strength. I'm steering the fire-ship that will blow you all up, if I please; and you talk of flinging a squib at me, you blockhead! I tell you, sir, you'll make nothing of me; and now you may as well withdraw. There are two things in this house you don't like, though you'll have enough of them one day; there's death up stairs, sir, and some thing very like the devil here."
Mr. Larkin thought he saw signs of an approaching access of the Dingwell mania, so he made his most dignified bow, and at the door remarked, "I take my leave, sir, and when next we meet I trust I may find you in a very different state of mind, and one more favourable to business."
He had meditated a less covert sneer and menace, but modified his speech prudently as heuttered it; but there was still quite enough that was sinister in his face, as he closed the door, to strike Mr. Dingwell's suspicion.
"Only I've got that fellow in my pocket, I'd say he was bent on mischief; but he's in my pocket; and suppose he did, no great matter, after all—only dying. I'm not gathering up my strength; no—I shall never be the same man again—and life so insipid—and that poor old doll up stairs. So many things going on under the stars, all endingso!"
Yes—so many things. There was Cleve, chief mourner to-day, chatting now wonderfully gaily, with a troubled heart, and a kind of growing terror, to that foolish victim who no more suspected him than he did the resurrection of his uncle Arthur, smoking his chibouque only a mile away.
There, too, far away, is a pale, beautiful young mother, sitting on the bed-side of her sleeping boy, weeping silently, as she looks on his happy face, and—thinks.
Mr. Dingwell arrayed in travelling costume, suddenly appeared before Lord Verney again.
"I'm not going to plague you—only this. I've an idea I shall lose my life if I don't go to London to-night, and I must catch the mail train. Tell your people to put the horses to your brougham, and drop me at Llwynan."
Lord Verney chose to let his brother judge for himself in this matter, being only too glad to get rid of him.
Shrieking through tunnels, thundering through lonely valleys, gliding over wide, misty plains, spread abroad like lakes, the mail train bore Arthur Verney, and also—each unconscious of the other's vicinity—Mr. Jos. Larkin toward London.
Mr. Larkin had planned a checkmate in two moves. He had been brooding over it in his mufflers, sometimes with his eyes shut, sometimes with his eyes open—all night, in the corner of his carriage. When he stepped out in the morning, with his despatch-box in his hand, whom should he meet in the cold gray light upon the platform, full front, but Mr. Dingwell. He was awfully startled.
Dingwell had seen him, too; Larkin had felt, as it were, his quick glance touch him, and he was sure that Dingwell had observed his momentary but significant change of countenance. He, therefore, walked up to him, touched him on the arm, and said, with a smile—
"I thought, sir, I recognized you. I trust you have an attendant? Can I do anything for you? Cold, this morning. Hadn't you better draw your muffler up a little about your face?" Therewas a significance about this last suggestion which Mr. Dingwell could not mistake, and he complied. "Running down again to Malory in a few days, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Dingwell.
"So shall I, and if quite convenient to you, I should wish, sir, to talk that little matter over much more carefully, and—can I call a cab for you? I should look in upon you to-day only I must be at Brighton, not to return till to-morrow, and very busy then, too."
They parted. Dingwell did not like it.
"He's at mischief. I've thought ofeverything, and I can't seeanything that would answerhisgame. I don't like his face."
Dingwell felt very oddly. It was all like a dream; an unaccountable horror overcame him. He sent out for a medicine that day, which the apothecary refused to give to Mrs. Rumble. But he wrote an explanatory note alleging that he was liable to fits, and so got back just a little, at which he pooh'd and psha'd, and wrote to some other apothecaries, and got together what he wanted, and told Mrs. Rumble he was better.
He had his dinner as usual in his snuggery in Rosemary Court, and sent two letters to the post by Mrs. Rumble. That to Lord Verney contained Larkin'soneunguarded letter inviting himto visit England, and with all the caution compatible with being intelligible, but still not enough—suggesting the audacious game which had been so successfully played. A brief and pointed commentary in Mr. Dingwell's handwriting, accompanied this.
The other enclosed to Wynne Williams, to whose countenance he had taken a fancy; the certificate of his marriage to Rebecca Mervyn, and a reference to the Rev. Thomas Bartlett; and charged him to make use of it to quiet any unfavourable rumours about that poor lady, who was the only human being he believed who had ever cared much about him.
When Wynne Williams opened this letter he lifted up his hands in wonder.
"A miracle, by heaven!" he exclaimed. "The most providential and marvellous interposition—theonlything we wanted!"
"Perhaps I was wrong to break with that villain, Larkin," brooded Mr. Dingwell. "We must make it up when we meet. I don't like it. When he saw me this morning his face looked like the hangman's."
It was now evening, and having made a very advantageous bargain with the Hebrew gentleman who had that heavy judgment against the late Hon. Arthur Verney, an outlaw, &c.—Mr. Larkin played his first move, and amid the screams of Mrs. Rumble, old Dingwell was arrested on a warrant against the Hon. Arthur Verney, and went away, protesting it was a false arrest, to the Fleet.
Things now looked very awful, and he wrote to Mr. Larkin at his hotel, begging of him to come and satisfy "some fools" that he was Mr. Dingwell. But Jos. Larkin was not at his inn. He had not been there that day, and Dingwell began to think that Jos. Larkin had, perhaps, told the truth for once, and was actually at Brighton. Well, one night in the Fleet was not very much; Larkin would appear next morning, and Larkin could, of course, manage the question of identity, and settle everything easily, and they would shake hands, and make it up. Mr. Dingwell wondered why they had not brought him to a sponging-house, but direct to the prison. But as things were done under the advice of Mr. Jos. Larkin, in whom I have every confidence, I suppose there was a reason.
Mr. Dingwell was of a nature which danger excites rather than cows. The sense of adventure was uppermost. The situation by an odd reaction stimulated his spirits, and he grew frolicsome. He felt a recklessness that recalled his youth. He went down to the flagged yard, and made anacquaintance or two, one in slippers and dressing-gown, another in an evening coat buttoned across his breast, and without much show of shirt. "Very amusing and gentlemanlike men," he thought, "though out at elbows a little;" and not caring for solitude, he invited them to his room, to supper; and they sat up late; and the gentleman in the black evening coat—an actor in difficulties—turned out to be a clever mimic, an inimitable singer of comic songs, and an admirableraconteur—"a very much cleverer man than the Prime Minister, egad!" said Mr. Dingwell.
One does see very clever fellows in odd situations. The race is not always to the swift. The moral qualities have something to do with it, and industry everything; and thus very dull fellows are often in very high places. The curse implies a blessing to the man who accepts its condition. "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." Labour is the curse and thequalification, also; and so the dullard who toils shall beat the genius who idles.
Dingwell enjoyed it vastly, andlentthe pleasant fellow a pound, and got to his bed at three o'clock in the morning, glad to have cheated so much of the night. But tired as he was by his journey of the night before, he could not sleeptill near six o'clock, when he fell into a doze, and from it he was wakened oddly.
It was by Mr. Jos. Larkin's "second move." Mr. Larkin has great malice, but greater prudence. No one likes better to give the man who has disappointed him a knock, the condition being that he disturbs no interest of his own by so doing. Where there is a proper consideration, no man is more forgiving. Where interest and revenge point the same way, he hits very hard indeed.
Mr. Larkin had surveyed the position carefully. The judgment of the criminal court was still on record,nullum tempus occurrit, &c. It was a case in which a pardon was very unlikely. There was but one way of placing the head of the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney firmly in the vacant coronet, and of establishing him, Jos. Larkin Esq., of the Lodge, in the valuable management of the estates and affairs of that wealthy peerage. It was by dropping the extinguisher upon the flame of that solitary lamp, the Hon. Arthur Verney. Of course Jos. Larkin's hand must not appear. He himself communicated with no official person. That was managed easily and adroitly.
He wrote, too, from Brighton to Lord Verney at Malory, the day after his interview with that ex-nobleman, expressing the most serious uneasiness, in consequence of having learned from a London legal acquaintance at Brighton, that a report prevailed in certain quarters of the city, that the person styling himself Mr. Dingwell had proved to be the Hon. Arthur Verney, and that the Verney peerage was, in consequence, once more on the shelf. "I treated this report slightly, in very serious alarm notwithstanding for your brother's safety," wrote Mr. Larkin, "and your lordship will pardon my expressing my regret that you should have mentioned, until the Hon. Arthur Verney had secured an asylum outside England, the fact of his being still living, which has filled the town unfortunately with conjecture and speculation of a most startling nature. I was shocked to see him this morning on the public platform of the railway, where, very possibly, he was recognised. It is incredible how many years are needed to obliterate recollection by the hand of time. I quietly entreated him to conceal his face a little, a precaution which, I am happy to add, he adopted. I am quite clear that he should leave London as expeditiously and secretly as possible, for some sequestered spot in France, where he can, without danger, await your lordship's decision as to plans for his ultimate safety. May I entreat your lordship's instantaneous attention to this most urgent and alarmingsubject. I shall be in town to-morrow evening, where my usual address will reach me, and I shall, without a moment's delay, apply myself to carry out whatever your lordship's instructions may direct."
"Yes, he has an idea of my judgment—about it," said Lord Verney when he had read this letter, "and a feeling about the family—very loyal—yes, he's a very loyal person; I shall turn it over, I will—I'll write to him."
Mr. Dingwell, however, had been wakened by two officers with a warrant by which they were ordered to take his body and consign it to a gaoler. Mr. Dingwell read it, and his instinct told him that Jos. Larkin was at the bottom of his misfortune, and his heart sank.
"Very well, gentlemen," said he, briskly, "very good; it is not for me; my name is Dingwell, and my solicitor is Mr. Jos. Larkin, and all will be right. I must get my clothes on, if you please."
And he sat up in the bed, and bit his lip, and raised his eyebrows, and shrugged his shoulders drearily.
"Poor linnet—ay, ay—she was not very wise, but the only one—I've been a great fool—let us try."
There came over his face a look of inexpressiblefatigue and something like resignation—and he looked all at once ten years older.
"I'll be with you, I'll be with you, gentlemen," he said very gently.
There was a flask with some noyeau in it, relics of last night's merry-making, to which these gentlemen took the liberty of helping themselves.
When they looked again at their prisoner he was lying nearly on his face, in a profound sleep, his chin on his chest.
"Choice stuff—smell o' nuts in it," said constable Ruddle, licking his lips. "Git up, sir; ye can take a nap when you git there."
There was a little phial in the old man's fingers; the smell of kernels was stronger about the pillow. "The old man of the mountains" was in a deep sleep, the deepest of all sleeps—death.
Andnow all things with which, in these pages, we are concerned, are come to that point at which they are best settled in a very few words.
Theonepoint required to establish Sedley's claim to the peerage—the validity of the marriage—had been supplied by old Arthur Verney, as we have seen, the night before his death.
The late Lord Verney of unscrupulous memory, Arthur's father, had, it was believed, induced Captain Sedley, in whose charge the infant had been placed, to pretend its death, and send the child in reality to France, where it had been nursed and brought up as his. He was dependent for his means of existence upon his employment as manager of his estates, under Lord Verney; and he dared not, it was thought, from some brief expressions in a troubled letter among the papers placed by old Mrs. Mervyn in Wynne Williams's hands, notwithstanding many qualmsof conscience, disobey Lord Verney. And he was quieted further by the solemn assurance that the question of the validity of the pretended marriage had been thoroughly sifted, and that it was proved to have been a nullity.
He carefully kept, however, such papers as were in his possession respecting the identity of the child, and added a short statement of his own. If that old Lord Verney had suspected the truth that the marriage was valid, as it afterwards proved, he was the only member of his family who did so. The rest had believed honestly the story that it was fraudulent and illusory. The apparent proof of the child's death had put an end to all interest in further investigating the question, and so the matter rested, until time and events brought all to light.
The dream that made Malory beautiful in my eyes is over. The image of that young fair face—the beautiful lady of the chestnut hair and great hazel eyes haunts its dark woods less palpably, and the glowing shadow fades, year by year, away.
In sunny Italy, where her mother was born, those eyes having looked their last on Cleve and on "the boy," and up, in clouded hope to heaven—were closed, and the slender bones repose. "I think, Cleve, you'll sometimes remember yourpoor Margaret. I know you'll always be very kind to the little boy—ourdarling, and if you marry again, Cleve,she'llnot be a trouble to you, as I have been; and you said, you'll sometimes think of me. You'll forget all my jealousy, and temper, and folly, and you'll say—'Ah, she loved me.'"
And these last words return, though the lips that spoke them come no more; and heisvery kind to that handsome boy—frank, generous, and fiery like her, with the great hazel eyes and beautiful tints, and the fine and true affections. At times comes something in the smile, in the tone as he talks, in the laugh that thrills his heart with a strange yearning and agony. Vain remorse! vain the yearnings; for the last words are spoken and heard; not one wordmorewhile the heavens remain, and mortals people the earth!
Sedley—Lord Verney we should style him—will never be a politician, but he has turned out a thoroughly useful business-like and genial country gentleman. Agnes, now Lady Verney, is, I will not say how happy; I only hope not too happy.
Need I say that the cloud that lowered for a while over the house of Hazelden has quite melted into air, and that the sun never shone brighter on that sweet landscape? Miss Etherage is agreat heiress now, for Sedley, as for sake of clearness I call him still, refused adotwith his wife, and that handsome inheritance will all belong to Charity, who is as emphatic, obstinate, and kind-hearted as ever. The admiral has never gone down the mill-road since his introduction to the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney at the foot of the hill. He rolls in his chair safely along the level uplands, and amuses himself with occasional inspections of Ware through his telescope; and tells little Agnes, when he sees her, what she was doing on a certain day, and asks who the party with the phaeton and grays, who called on Thursday at two o'clock, were, and similar questions; and likes to hear the news, and they say is growing more curious as years increase. He and Charity have revived their acquaintance withécartéandpiquet, and play for an hour or so very snugly in the winter evenings. Miss Charity is a little cross when she loses, and won't let old Etherage play more than his allotted number of games; and locks up the cards; and is growing wife-like with the admiral; but is quite devoted to him, and will make him live, I think, six years longer than any one else could.
Sedley wrote a very kind letter to the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney, to set his mind at ease aboutmesne rates, and any other claims whatsoever, that might arise against him, in consequence of his temporary tenure of the title and estates, and received from Vichy a very affronted reply, begging him to take whatever course he might be advised, as he distinctly objected to being placed under any kind of personal obligation, and trusted that he would not seek to place such a construction upon a compulsory respect for the equities of the situation, and the decencies enforced by public opinion; and he declared his readiness to make any sacrifice to pay him whatever his strict legal rights entitled him to the moment he had made up his mind to exact them.
The Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney is, of course, quite removed from his sphere of usefulness and distinction—parliamentary life—and spends his time upon the Continent, and is remarkably reserved and impertinent, and regarded with very general respect and hatred.
Sedley has been very kind, for Cleve's sake, to old Sir Booth Fanshawe, with whom he is the only person on earth who has an influence.
He wrote to the baronet, who was then in Paris, disclosing the secret of Cleve's marriage. The old man burst into one of his frenzies, and wrote forthwith a frantic letter direct to his mortal enemy, the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney, railing at Cleve, railing athim, and calling uponhim, in a tone of preposterous menace, to punish his nephew! Had he been left to himself, I dare say he would have made Cleve feel his resentment. But thus bullied he said—"Upon my life I'll do no such thing. I'm in the habit of thinking before I take steps, about it—with Booth Fanshawe's permission, I'll act according to my own judgment, and I dare say the girl has got some money, and if it were not good for Cleve in some way, that old person would not be so angry." And so it ended for the present.
The new Lord Verney went over expressly to see him, and in the same conversation, in which he arranged some law business in the friendliest way, and entirely to Sir Booth Fanshawe's satisfaction, he discussed the question of Cleve's marriage. At first the baronet was incensed; but when the hurly-burly was done he came to see, with our friend Tom, whose peerage gave his opinion weight on the subject of marriages and family relations, that the alliance was not so bad—on the contrary, that it had some very strong points to recommend it.
The Rev. Isaac Dixie has not got on in the Church, and is somehow no favourite at Ware. The Hon. Miss Caroline Oldys is still unmarried, and very bitter on the Verneys, uncle and nephew; people don't understand why, thoughthe reader may. Perhaps she thinks that the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney ought to have tried again, and was too ready to accept a first refusal. Her hatred of Cleve I need not explain.
With respect to Mr. Larkin, I cite an old Dutch proverb, which says, "Those who swim deep and climb high seldom die in their beds." In its fair figurative sense it applies satisfactorily to the case of that profound and aspiring gentleman who, as some of my readers are aware, fell at last from a high round of the ladder of his ambition, and was drowned in the sea beneath. No—not drowned; that were too painless, and implies extinction. He fell, rather, upon that black flooring of rock that rims the water, and was smashed, but not killed.
It was, as they will remember, after his introduction to the management of the affairs of the Wylder, Brandon, and Lake families, and on the eve, to all appearance, of the splendid consummation of his subtle and audacious schemes, that in a moment the whole scaffolding of his villany gave way, and he fell headlong—thenceforth, helpless, sprawling, backbroken, living on from year to year, and eating metaphoric dust, like the great old reptile who is as yet mangled but not killed.
Happy fly the years at Ware. Many fair children have blessed the union of pretty Agnes Etherage and the kindly heir of the Verneys. Cleve does not come himself; he goes little to any gay country houses. A kind of lassitude or melancholy is settling and deepening upon him. To one passage of his life he looks back with a quickly averted glance, and an unchanging horror—the time when he was saved from a great crime, as it were, by the turning of a die. "Those three dreadful weeks," he says within himself, "when I wasmad!" But his handsome son is constantly at Ware, where he is beloved by its master and mistress like one of their own children. One day Lord Verney ran across to Malory in his yacht, this boy with him. It was an accidentaltête-à-tête, and he talked to the boy a great deal of his "poor mama," as he sauntered through the sunny woods of Malory; and he brought him to the refectory, and pointed out to him from the window, the spot where he had seen her, with her trowel in her hand, as the morning sun threw the shadow of the spreading foliage over her, and he described her beauty to him; and he walked down with him to Cardyllian, the yacht was appointed to meet them at the pier, and brought him into the church, to the pew where he was placed, andshowed him the seat where she and Anne Sheckleton sat on the Sunday when he saw her first, and looked for a while silently into that void shadow, for it is pleasant and yet sad to call up sometimes those old scenes and images that have made us feel, when we were younger; and somehow good Lady Verney did not care to hear her husband upon this theme.
So for the present the story of the Verneys of Malory is told. Years hence, when we shall not be here to read it, the same scenes and family may have a new story to tell; for time, with his shuttle and the threads of fate, is ever weaving new romance.