CHAPTER XVI.
AN UNLOOKED-FOR VISITOR.
IN romances, it is usual for lovers to dream a great deal, and always ofthe objects of their adorations. We acquiesce gravely and kindly inthese conventional visions; but, on reflection, we must admit thatlovers have no faculty of dreaming, and of selecting the subjects oftheir dreams, superior to that of ordinary persons. Cleve, I allow, satup rather late that night, thinking, I venture to say, a great dealabout the beautiful young lady who, whether for good or ill, now hauntedhis thoughts incessantly; and with this brilliant phantom, he walkedromantically in the moonlight, by the chiming shingle of the sea. But Idon't know what his dreams were about, or that he had any dreams at all;and, in fact, I believe he slept very soundly, but awoke in the morningwith a vague anticipation of something very delightful and interesting.Why is it that when we first awake the pleasures or the horrors of thecoming day seem always most intense?
Another bright autumnal day, with just breeze enough to fill the sailsof the cutter. On his breakfast-table, from the post-office of Ware, laya letter, posted over-night, at Gylingden, by his newly revealed goodangel, "very truly, his," Jos. Larkin. It said--
"MY DEAR SIR,--The interview with which you this morning honoured me, conveyed more fully even than your note implies your wishes on the subject of it. Believe me, I needed no fresh incentive to exertion in a matter so pregnant with serious results, and shall be only too happy to expend thought, time, and money, in securing _with promptitude_ a successful termination of what in dilatory or inexperienced hands might possibly prove a most tedious and distressing case. I have before me directions of proofs on which I have partially acted, and mean in the sequel to do so completely. I may mention that there awaited me on my arrival a letter from my agent, to whom I more particularly referred in the conversation, which you were pleased to invite this morning, conveying information of very high importance, of which I shall be happy to apprise you in detail, when next I have the honour of a conference. I am not quite clear as to whether I mentioned this morning a person named Dingwell?--"
"No, you did not," interpolated Cleve.
"Who," continued the letter, "resides under circumstances of considerable delicacy on his part, at Constantinople, and who has hitherto acted as the correspondent and agent of the Jewish firm, through whom the Dowager Lady Verney and your uncle, the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney, were accustomed, with a punctuality so honourable to their feelings, to forward the respective annuities, which they were so truly considerate, as mutually to allow for the maintenance of the unfortunate deceased. This gentleman, Mr. Dingwell, has been unhappily twice a bankrupt in London, in early life, and there are still heavy judgments against him; and as he is the only witness discoverable, competent from his habits of regular communication with your lamented uncle for years, to depose to his identity and his death; it is unfortunate that there should exist, for the special reasons I have mentioned, considerable risk and difficulty in his undertaking to visit London, for the purpose of making the necessary depositions; and I fear he cannot be induced to take that step without some considerable pecuniary sacrifice on your part. This will necessarily form one of the topics for discussion at the proposed conference of the 15th prox.; and it is no small point in our favour satisfactorily to be assured that a witness to the cardinal points to which I have referred, is actually produceable, and at this moment in communication with me.
"I have the honour to be, dear Sir, "Very truly yours, "JOS. LARKIN. "The Lodge, Gylingden.
"P.S. I may mention that the Jewish firm to which I have referred, have addressed to me a letter, apprising me of the decease of the Hon. Arthur Verney, a step which, as terminating the annuities on which they received an annual percentage, they would not, I presume, have adopted, had they not been absolutely certain of the event, and confident also that we must, if they were silent, be otherwise apprised of it."
I think our old friend, Jos. Larkin, wrote this letter with severalviews, one of which was that, in the event of his thinking proper, someyears hence, notwithstanding his little flourishes of gratuitousservice, to unmuzzle the ox who had trod out the corn, and to send inhis little bill, it might help to show that he had been duly instructedto act in this matter at least by Mr. Cleve Verney. The other object,that of becoming the channel of negotiating terms with Mr. Dingwell,offered obvious advantages to a gentleman of acquisitive diplomacy andingenious morals.
Cleve, however, had not yet learned to suspect this Christian attorney,and the letter on the whole was highly satisfactory.
"Capital man of business, this Mr. Larkin! Who could have expected ananswer, and so full an answer, so immediately to his letter? That is thekind of attorney the world sighed for. Eager, prompt, clear, making hisclients' interests his own"--more literally sometimes than Cleve was yetaware--"disinterested, spirited, for was he not risking his time, skill,and even money, without having been retained in this matter, and witheven a warning that he might possibly never be so? Did he not also comein the livery of religion, and discuss business, as it were, in a whiterobe and with a palm in his hand? And was it not more unlikely that aman who committed himself every hour to the highest principles shouldpractise the lowest, than a person who shirked the subject of virtue,and thought religion incongruous with his doings?" Perhaps, Clevethought, there _is_ a little too much of that solemn flam. But who canobject if it helps to keep him straight?
This was a day of surprises. Cleve had gone up to his room to replenishhis cigar-case, when a chaise drove up to the hall door of Ware, andlooking out he beheld with a sense of dismay his uncle's man, Mr.Ridley, descending from his seat on the box, and opening the door of thevehicle, from which the thin stiff figure of the Hon. Kiffyn FulkeVerney descended, and entered the house.
Could the devil have hit upon a more ill-natured plan for defeating thedelightful hopes of that day? Why could not that teasing old man staywhere he was? Heaven only knows for how many days he might linger atWare, lecturing Cleve upon themes on which his opinion was not worth apin, directing him to write foolish letters, and now and then asking himto _obleege_ him by copying papers of which he required duplicates,benumbing him with his chilly presence, and teasing him by hisexactions.
Cleve groaned when he saw this spectacle from his window, and mutteredsomething, I don't care what.
"Let him send for me if he wants me. I shan't pretend to have seen him,"was Cleve's petulant resolve. But a knock at his room door, with aninvitation from his uncle to visit him in the library, settled thequestion.
"How d'ye do, Cleve?" and his uncle, who was sitting in a great chair atthe table, with some letters, noted, and folded into long slimparallelograms, already before him, put forth a thin hand for him toshake, throwing back his head, and fixing his somewhat dull grey eyes withan imperious sort of curiosity upon him, he said, "Yes--yes--recruiting. Iwas always in favour of making the most of the recess, about it. You makethe most of it. I saw Winkledon and your friend Colonel Tellerton atDyce's yesterday, and talked with 'em about it, and they both agreed withme, we are pretty sure of a stormy session, late sittings, and no end ofdivisions, and I am glad you are taking your holiday so sensibly. The_Wave's_ here, isn't she? And you sail in her a good deal, I dare say,about it, and you've got yourself a good deal sunburnt. Yes, the sun doesthat; and you're looking very well, about it, I think, very well indeed."
To save the reader trouble, I mention here, that the Hon. Kiffyn FulkeVerney has a habit of introducing the words "about it," as everybody isaware who has the honour of knowing him, without relation to theirmeaning, but simply to caulk, as it were, the seams of his sentences, tostop them where they open, and save his speech from foundering for wantof this trifling half-pennyworth of oakum.
"Very lonely, sir, Ware is. You've come to stay for a little timeperhaps."
"Oh! no. Oh, dear no. My view upon that subject
is very decided indeed,as you know. I ask myself this question,--What good can I possibly do,about it, by residing for any time at Ware, until my income shall havebeen secured, and my proper position ascertained and recognised? I findmyself, by the anomalous absurdity of our existing law, placed in aposition, about it, of so much difficulty and hardship, that althoughthe people must feel it very much, and the county regret it, I feel itonly due to myself, to wash my hands about it, of the entire thing forthe present, and to accept the position of a mere private person, whichthe existing law, in its wisdom, imposes upon me--don't you see?"
"It certainly is," acquiesced Cleve, "a gross absurdity that thereshould be no provision for such a state of things."
"Absurdity! my dear sir, I don't call it _absurdity_ at all, I call itrank injustice, and a positive _cruelty_," said the feeble voice of thisold gentleman with an eager quaver in it, while, as always occurred whenhe was suddenly called on for what he called his "sentiments" upon thisintolerable topic, a pink flush suffused his thin temples and narrowforehead. "Here I am, about it, invested by opinion, don't you see, anda moral constraint, with the liabilities of a certain position, and yetexcluded from its privileges and opportunities. And what, I ask myself,can come of such a thing, except the sort of thing, about it, which wesee going on? Don't you see?"
"Any news of any kind from the East, sir?" asked Cleve.
"Well, now, wait--a--a--I'll come to it--I'm coming to that. I wrote toyou to say that you were to meet me in town, d'ye see, on the fifteenth,and I mean to have a Mr. Larkin, an attorney, a very proper person inhis rank of life--a very proper person--about it, to meet us and producehis papers, and make his statement again. And I may tell you that he'sof opinion, and under the impression, that poor Arthur is _dead_, aboutit; and now you'll read this letter--very good, and now this--very good,and now this."
As he handed these papers over to Cleve in succession, the younggentleman thought his uncle's air a little grander than usual, andfancied there was a faint simper of triumph discernible under theimposing solemnity of his looks.
"A--well, that's all, at present; and immediately on receiving the firstof these I wrote to the consul there--a very proper man, very wellconnected; I was, I may say, instrumental in getting his appointment forhim--saying he'd obleege me by instituting inquiry and communicating theresult, and possibly I may hear before the fifteenth; and I should bevery glad, about it, to learn or know something definite, in which case,you see, there would be a natural solution of the complication, and poorArthur's death, about it, would clear up the whole thing, as in fact itdoes in all such cases, don't you see?"
"Of course, sir, perfectly."
"And as to mourning and all that, about it, I don't quite see my way;no, I don't; because, d'ye see, I rather think there should be nothingof the kind: but it's time enough to decide what the house of Verney areto do when I shall have all the circumstances, don't you see, andeverything."
Cleve acquiesced.
"And if the dissolution comes next autumn--as they apprehend itmay--you'll have no annoyance from the old quarter--Sir BoothFanshawe--he's quite ruined--about it; and he's been obliged to leavethe country; he's in France, I understand, and I've directed our peoplein town to follow up the proceedings as sharply as possible. He hasnever spared me, egad, and has often distressed me very seriously by hismalevolent and utterly wanton opposition where he had absolutely nochance whatever, and knew it, nor any object, I give you my honour,except to waste my money, when, owing to the absurd and cruel position Iwas placed in, he knew very well I could not have a great deal to throwaway. I look upon a person of that kind as a mere nuisance; and I lookupon it as a matter of dooty and of principle, about it, which one owesto society, don't you see, to exterminate them like vermin. And if youwant to stop it, you mustn't let him off when you've got the advantageat last, don't you see? You must follow it up, and show evil-disposedpeople that if they choose to play that game they _may_, but that youwon't let 'em off, about it, and that."
These were not very pleasant words in Cleve's ears.
"And, egad, sir, I'll make an example of that person--I owe it to theprinciple of fair political warfare, about it. What business had he torun me into six thousand pounds expense for nothing, when he had notreally a hundred pounds at the time he could call his own? And I askmyself, where's the good of laws if there's no way of reaching a personwho commits, from the worst possible motives, an outrage like that, andgoes on doing that sort of thing, about it?"
Here the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney paused for a minute, and then lookedat his watch.
"Just ten minutes still left me. I'll ask you to touch the bell, Cleve.I'm going to the railway--to Llwynan, about it, and to see the people atHeathcote Hall; and I've been thinking you ought to turn over in yourmind what I said last Easter, when we were at Dawling Hill. If thisaffair of poor Arthur's should turn out to be quite true, I think theconnection would recommend itself to most people," he said, grandly,"and in fact you might strengthen yourself very materially, about it.You could not do better than marry Ethel; depend upon it, the connectionwill serve you. Her uncle, you know--always some of that family--in theCabinet; and Dorminster, they say--every one says it--Winkledon, forinstance, and Colonel Tellers, about it--they both said the other dayhe'll very probably be Minister. Every one says that sort of thing,about it; and it has been my opinion a long time before people generallybegan to say so, and things of that sort, don't you see?"
As a general rule, Cleve knew that there was no use in fighting anyfavourite point with his uncle. He acquiesced and relied upon dilatoryopportunities and passive resistance; so now he expressed himself mostgratefully for the interest he had always taken in him, and seemed tolend an attentive ear, while the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney rambled onupon this theme in his wise and quietly dictatorial way. It was one ofhis pleasantest occupations, and secretly pleased his self-love, thismanagement of Cleve Verney--really a promising young man--and whom hemagnified, as he did everything else that belonged to him, and whosesuccesses in the House, and growth in general estimation, he quietlytook to himself as the direct consequence of his own hints andmanipulations, and his "keeping the young man straight about it."
"He has an idea--the young man has--that I know something about it--thatI have seen some public life, and known people--and things of that sort.He is a young man who can take a hint, and, egad, I think I've kept himpretty straight about it up to this, and put him on a right track, andthings; and if I'm spared, I'll put him on, sir. I know pretty wellabout things, and you see the people talk to me, and they listen to me,about it, and I make him understand what he's about, and things."
And then came the parting. He gave Cleve ten pounds, which Mrs. Jones,the draper's wife, used to distribute for him among certain poor peopleof Cardyllian. So his small soul was not destitute of kindliness, afterits fashion; and he drove away from Ware, and Cleve stood upon thesteps, smiling, and waving his hand, and repeating, "On the fifteenth,"and then suddenly was grave.