CHAPTER VIII.
THE TRIUMVIRATE.
THAT night Lord Verney waited to hear the debate in theCommons--waited for the division,--and brought Cleve home with him inhis brougham.
He explained to Cleve on the way how much better the debate might havebeen. He sometimes half regretted his seat in the Commons; there wereso many things unsaid that ought to have been said, and so many thingssaid that had better have been omitted. And at last he remarked--
"Your uncle Arthur, my unfortunate brother, had a great natural talentfor speaking. It's a talent of the Verney's--about it. We all have it;and _you_ have got it also; it is a gift of very decided importance indebate; it can hardly be over-estimated in that respect. Poor Arthurmight have done very well, but he didn't, and he's gone--about it; andI'm very glad, for your own sake, you are cultivating it; and itwould be a very great misfortune, I've been thinking, if our familywere not to marry, and secure a transmission of those hereditarytalents and--and things--and--what's your opinion of Miss CarolineOldys? I mean, quite frankly, what sort of wife you think she wouldmake."
"Why, to begin with, she's been out a long time; but I fancy she'sgentle--and foolish; and I believe her mother bullies her."
"I don't know what you call bullying, my good sir; but she appears tome to be a very affectionate mother; and as to her beingfoolish--about it--I can't perceive it; on the contrary, I'veconversed with her a good deal--and things--and I've found her verysuperior indeed to any young woman I can recollect having talked to.She takes an interest in things which don't interest or--or--interestother young persons; and she likes to be instructed aboutaffairs--and, my dear Cleve, I think where a young person ofmerit--either rightly or wrongly interpreting what she conceives to beyour attentions--becomes decidedly _epris_ of you, she ought tobe--a--_considered_--her feelings, and things; and I thought I mightas well mention my views, and go--about it--straight to the point; andI think you will perceive that it is reasonable, and that's theposition--about it; and you know, Cleve, in these circumstances youmay reckon upon me to do anything in reason that may still lie in mypower--about it."
"You have always been too kind to me."
"You shall find me so still. Lady Wimbledon takes an interest in you,and Miss Caroline Oldys will, I undertake to say, more and moredecidedly as she comes to know you better."
And so saying, Lord Verney leaned back in the brougham as if taking adoze, and after about five minutes of closed eyes and silence hesuddenly wakened up and said--
"It is, in fact, it strikes me, high time, Cleve, you shouldmarry--about it--and you must have money, too; you want money, and youshall have it."
"I'm afraid money is not one of _Caroline's_ strong points."
"You need not trouble yourself upon that point, sir; if _I_'msatisfied I fancy _you_ may. I've quite enough for both, I presume;and--and so, we'll let that matter rest."
And the noble lord let himself rest also, leaning stiffly back withclosed eyes, and nodding and swaying silently with the motion of thecarriage.
I believe he was only ruminating after his manner in these periods ofapparent repose. He opened his eyes again, and remarked--
"I have talked over this affair carefully with Mr. Larkin--a mostjudicious and worthy person--about it--and you can talk to him, and soon, when he comes to town, and I should rather wish you to do so."
Lord Verney relapsed into silence and the semblance, at least, ofslumber.
"So Larkin's at the bottom of it; I knew he was," thought Cleve, witha pang of hatred which augured ill for the future prospects of thatgood man. "He has made this alliance for the Oldys and Wimbledonfaction, and I'm Mr. _Larkin's parti_, and am to settle the managementof everything upon him; and what a judicious diplomatist he is--andhow he has put his foot in it. A blundering hypocritical coxcomb--D--nhim."
Then his thoughts wandered away to Larkin, and to his instrument, Mr.Dingwell, "who looks as if he came from the galleys. We have heardnothing of him for a year or more. Among the Greek and Malayscoundrels again, I suppose; the Turks are too good for him."
But Mr. Dingwell had not taken his departure, and was not thinking ofany such step _yet_, at least. He had business still on his hands, anda mission unaccomplished.
Still in the same queer lodgings, and more jealously shut up duringthe daytime than ever, Mr. Dingwell lived his odd life, professing tohate England--certainly in danger there--he yet lingered on for a setpurpose, over which he brooded and laughed in his hermitage.
To so chatty a person as Mr. Dingwell solitude for a whole day wasirksome. Sarah Rumble was his occasional resource, and when shebrought him his cup of black coffee he would make her sit down by thewall, like a servant at prayers, and get from her all the news of thedingy little neighbourhood, with a running commentary of his ownflighty and savage irony, and he would sometimes entertain her,between the whiffs of his long pipe, with talk of his own, which hewas at no pains to adapt to her comprehension, and delivered ratherfor his own sole entertainment.
"The world, the flesh, and the devil, ma'am. The two first we knowpretty well--hey? the other we take for granted. I suppose there _is_somebody of the sort. We are all pigs, ma'am--unclean animals--andthis is a sty we live in--slime and abomination. Strong delusion is,unseen, circling in the air. Our ideas of beauty, delights of sense,vanities of intellect--all a most comical and frightful cheat--egad!What fun we must be, ma'am, to the spirits who _have_ sight andintellect! I think, ma'am, we're meant for their pantomime--don't you?Our airs, and graces, and dignities, and compliments, and beauties,and dandies--our metal coronets, and lawn sleeves, and whalebonewigs--fun, ma'am, lots of fun! And here we are, a wonderful work ofGod. Eh? Come, ma'am--a word in your ear--all _putrefaction_--pah!nothing clean but fire, and that makes us roar and vanish--a very oddposition we're placed in; hey, ma'am?"
Mr. Dingwell had at first led Sarah Rumble a frightful life, for shekept the door where the children were peremptorily locked, at which hetook umbrage, and put her on fatigue duty, more than trebling her workby his caprices, and requiting her with his ironies and sneers,finding fault with everything, pretending to miss money out of hisdesk, and every day threatening to invoke Messrs. Levi and Goldshed,and invite an incursion of the police, and showing in his face, histones--his jeers pointed and envenomed by revenge--that his hatred wasactive and fiendish.
But Sarah Rumble was resolute. He was not a desirable companion forchildhood of either sex, and the battle went on for a considerabletime; and poor Sarah in her misery besought Messrs. Levi and Goldshed,with many tears and prayers, that he might depart from her; and Levilooked at Goldshed, and Goldshed at Levi, quite gravely, and Leviwinked, and Goldshed nodded, and said, "A bad boy;" and they spokecomfortably, and told her they would support her, but Mr. Dingwellmust remain her inmate, but they'd take care he should do her no harm.
Mr. Dingwell had a latch-key, which he at first used sparingly andtimidly; with time, however, his courage grew, and he was out more orless every night. She used to hear him go out after the littlehousehold was in bed, and sometimes she heard him lock the hall-door,and his step on the stairs when the sky was already gray with thedawn.
And gradually finding company such as he affected out of doors, Isuppose, he did not care so much for the seclusion of hisfellow-lodgers, and ceased to resent it almost, and made it up withSarah Rumble.
And one night, having to go up between one and two for a match-box tothe lobby, she encountered Mr. Dingwell coming down. She was dumb withterror, for she did not know him, and took him for a burglar, he beingsomehow totally changed--she was too confused to recollect exactly,only that he had red hair and whiskers, and looked stouter.
She did not know him in the least till he laughed. She was nearfainting, and leaned with her shoulder to the corner of the wall; andhe said--
"I've to put on these; you keep my secret, mind; you may lose me mylife, else."
And he took her by the chin, and gave her a kiss, and then a slap onthe cheek that seeme
d to her harder than play, for her ear tingledwith it for an hour after, and she uttered a little cry of fright, andhe laughed, and glided out of the hall-door, and listened for thetread of a policeman, and peeped slily up and down the court; andthen, with his cotton umbrella in his hand, walked quietly down thepassage and disappeared.
Sarah Rumble feared him all the more for this little rencontre and theshock she had received, for there was a suggestion of somethingfelonious in his disguise. She was, however, a saturnine and silentwoman, with few acquaintances, and no fancy for collecting orcommunicating news. There was a spice of danger, too, in talking ofthis matter; so she took counsel of the son of Sirach, who says, "Ifthou hast heard a word, let it die with thee, and, behold, it will notburst thee."
Sarah Rumble kept his secret, and henceforward, at such hours keptclose, when in the deep silence of the night she heard the faint creakof his stealthy shoe upon the stair, and avoided him as she would ameeting with a ghost.
Whatever were his amusements, Messrs. Goldshed and Levi grumbledsavagely at the cost of them. They grumbled because grumbling was aprinciple of theirs in carrying on their business.
"No matter how it turns out, keep always grumbling to the man who ledyou into the venture, especially if he has a claim to a share of theprofits at the close."
So whenever Mr. Larkin saw Messrs. Goldshed and Levi, he heardmourning and imprecation. The Hebrews shook their heads at theChristian, and chaunted a Jeremiad, in duet, together, and eachappealed to the other for the confirmation of the dolorous and bittertruths he uttered. And the iron safe opened its jaws and disgorged theprivate ledger of the firm, which ponderous and greasy tome was laidon the desk with a pound, and opened at this transaction--the matterof Dingwell, Verney, &c.; and Mr. Levi would run his black nail alongthe awful items of expenditure that filled column after column.
"Look at that--look here--look, will you?--look, I say: you neversawed an account like that--never--all this here--look--down--anddown--and down--and down--"
"Enough to frighten the Bank of England!" boomed Mr. Goldshed.
"Look down thish column," resumed Levi, "and thish, and thish, andthish--there's nine o' them--and not one stiver on th' other side.Look, look, look, look, _look_! Daam, it'sh all a quaag, and aquickshand--nothing but shink and shwallow, and give ush more"--and ashe spoke Levi was knocking the knuckles of his long lean fingersfiercely upon the empty columns, and eyeing Larkin with a ruefulferocity, as if he had plundered and half-murdered him and hispartner, who sat there innocent as the babes in the wood.
Mr. Larkin knew quite well, however, that so far from regretting theirinvestment, they would not have sold their ventures under a very highfigure indeed.
"And that beast Dingwell, talking as if he had us all in quod, by ----,and always whimperin', and whinin', and swearin' for more--why you'dsay, to listen to his rot, 'twas _him_ had _us_ under his knuckle--youwould--the lunatic!"
"And may I ask what he wants just at present?" inquired Mr. Larkin.
"What he always wants, and won't be easy never till he gets it--a walkup the mill, sir, and his head cropped, and six months' solitary, anda touch of corporal now and again. I never saw'd a cove as wanted ateazin' more; that's what he wants. What he's looking for, of course,is different, only he shan't get it, nohow. And I think, looking atthat book there, as I showed you this account in--considering what meand the gov'nor here has done--'twould only be fair you should comedown with summut, if you goes in for the lottery, with other gentlemenas pays their pool like bricks, and never does modest, by no chance."
"He has pushed that game a little too far," said Mr. Larkin; "I haveconsidered his feelings a great deal too much."
"Yesh, but _we_ have feelinsh. The _Gov'nor_ has feelinsh; I have_feelinsh_. Think what state our feelinsh is in, lookin' at that thereaccount," said Mr. Levi, with much pathos.
Mr. Larkin glanced toward the door, and then toward the window.
"We are quite _alone_?" said he, mildly.
"Yesh, without you have the devil in your pocket, as old Dingwellsaysh," answered Levi, sulkily.
"For there are subjects of a painful nature, as you know, gentlemen,connected with this particular case," continued Mr. Larkin.
"Awful painful; but we'll sta-an' it," said Goldshed, with unctuoushumour; "we'll sta-an' it, but wishes it over quick;" and he winkedat Levi.
"Yesh, he wishes it over quick," echoed Levi; "the gov'nor and me, wewishes it over quick."
"And so do I, _most_ assuredly; but we must have a little patience. Ifdeception does lurk here--and you know I warned you I suspected it--wemust not prematurely trouble Lord Verney."
"He might throw up the sponge, he might, I _know_," said Levi, with anod.
"I don't know what course Lord Verney might think it right in such acase to adopt; I only know that until I am in a position to reducesuspicion to certainty, it would hardly consist with right feelingto torture his mind upon the subject. In the meantime heis--a--growing"----
"Growing warm in his berth," said Goldshed.
"Establishing himself, I should say, in his position. He has beenincurring, I need hardly tell you, enormous expense in restoring (Imight say _re-building_) the princely mansions of Ware, and of VerneyHouse. He applied much ready money to that object, and has charged theestates with nearly sixty thousand pounds besides." Mr. Larkin loweredhis tones reverentially at the mention of so considerable a sum.
"I know Sirachs, did nigh thirty thoushand o' that," said Mr.Goldshed.
"And that tends to--to--as I may say, _steady_ him in his position;and I may mention, in confidence, gentlemen, that there are othermeasures on the _tapis_" (he pronounced taypis) "which will furtherand still more decidedly fix him in his position. It would pain us alldeeply, gentlemen, that a premature disclosure of my uneasiness shouldinspire his lordship with a panic in which he might deal ruinouslywith his own interests, and, in fact, as you say, Mr. Levi, throw upthe--the"----
"Sponge," said Levi, reflectively.
"But I may add," said Mr. Larkin, "that I am impatiently watching themoment when it may become my duty to open my suspicions fully to LordVerney; and that I have reason to know that that moment cannot now bedistant."
"Here's Tomlinshon comin' up, gov'nor," said Mr. Levi, jumping off thetable on which he had been sitting, and sweeping the great ledger intohis arms, he pitched it into its berth in the safe, and locked it intothat awful prison-house.
"I said he would," said Goldshed, with a lazy smile, as he unlocked adoor in the lumbering office table at which he sat. "Don't bring outthem overdue renewals; we'll not want them till next week."
Mr. Tomlinson, a tall, thin man, in faded drab trousers, with a cottonumbrella swinging in his hand, and a long careworn face, came stridingup the court.
"You won't do _that_ for him?" asked Levi.
"No, not to-day," murmured Mr. Goldshed, with a wink. And Mr.Tomlinson's timid knock and feeble ring at the door were heard.
And Mr. Larkin put on his well-brushed hat, and pulled on his biglavender gloves, and stood up at his full length, in his black glossycoat, and waistcoat and trowsers of the accustomed hue, and presentsthe usual lavender-tinted effect, and a bland simper rests on his lankcheeks, and his small pink eyes look their adieux upon Messrs.Goldshed and Levi, on whom his airs and graces are quite lost; andwith his slim silk umbrella between his great finger and thumb, hepasses loftily by the cotton umbrella of Mr. Tomlinson, and fancies,with a pardonable egotism, that that poor gentleman, whose head isfull of his bill-book and renewals, and possible executions, andpreparing to deceive a villanous omniscience, and to move thecompassion of Pandemonium--is thinking of _him_, and mistaking him,possibly, for a peer, or for some other type of British aristocracy.
The sight of that unfortunate fellow, Tomlinson, with a wife, and aseedy hat, and children, and a cotton umbrella, whose little businesswas possibly about to be knocked about his ears, moved a lordly pityin Mr. Larkin's breast, and suggested contrasts, also, of many
kinds,that were calculated to elate his good humour; and as he stepped intothe cab, and the driver waited to know "where," he thought he might aswell look in upon the recluse of Rosemary Court, and give him, ofcourse with the exquisite tact that was peculiar to him, a hint or twoin favour of reason and moderation; for really it _was quite_ truewhat Mr. Levi had said about the preposterous presumption of a personin Mr. Dingwell's position affecting the airs of a dictator.
So being in the mood to deliver a lecture, to the residence of thatuncomfortable old gentleman he drove, and walked up the flaggedpassage to the flagged court-yard, and knocked at the door, and lookedup at the square ceiling of sickly sky, and strode up the narrowstairs after Mrs. Rumble.
"How d'ye do, sir? Your _soul_, particularly, quite well, I trust.Your spiritual concerns flourishing to-day?" was the greeting of Mr.Dingwell's mocking voice.
"Thanks, Mr. Dingwell; I'm very well," answered Mr. Larkin, with a bowwhich was meant to sober Mr. Dingwell's mad humour.
Sarah Rumble, as we know, had a defined fear of Mr. Dingwell, but alsoa vague terror; for there was a great deal about him ill-omened andmysterious. There was a curiosity, too, active within her, intense andrather ghastly, about all that concerned him. She did not care,therefore, to get up and go away from the small hole in the carpetwhich she was darning on the lobby, and through the door she heardfaintly some talk she didn't understand, and Mr. Dingwell's voice, ata high pitch, said--
"D---- you, sir, do you think I'm a fool? Don't you think I've _yourletter_, and a copy of my own? If we draw swords, egad, sir, mine'sthe longer and sharper, as you'll feel. Ha, ha, ha!"
"Oh, lawk!" gasped Sarah Rumble, standing up, and expecting the clashof rapiers.
"Your face, sir, is as white and yellow--you'll excuse me--as an oldturban. I beg your pardon; but I want you to understand that I seeyou're frightened, and that I won't be bullied _by_ you."
"I don't suppose, sir, you meditate totally ruining yourself," saidMr. Larkin, with dignity.
"I tell you, sir, if anything goes wrong with me, I'll make a cleanbreast of it--_everything_--ha, ha, ha!--upon my honour--and we twoshall grill together."
Larkin had no idea he was going in for so hazardous and huge a gamewhen he sat down to play. His vision was circumscribed, his presciencesmall. He looked at the beast he had imported, and wished him in adeep grave in Scutari, with a turbaned-stone over his head, the schemequashed, and the stakes drawn.
But wishing would not do. The spirit was evoked--in nothing moremanageable than at first; on the contrary, rather more insane. Nervewas needed, subtlety, patience, and he must manage him.
"Why the devil did you bring me here, sir, if you were not prepared totreat me properly? You know my circumstances, and you want to practiseon my misfortunes, you vile rogue, to mix me up in your fraudulentmachinations."
"Pray, sir, not so loud. Do--_do_ command yourself," remonstratedLarkin, almost affectionately.
"Do you think I'm come all this way, at the risk of my life, to be_your_ slave, you shabby, canting attorney? I'd better be where I was,or in kingdom come. By Allah! sir, you _have_ me, and I'm your_master_, and you shan't buy my soul for a piastre."
There came a loud knock at the hall-door, and if it had been a shotand killed them both, the debaters in the drawing-room could not havebeen more instantaneously breathless.
Down glided Sarah Rumble, who had been expecting this visit, to paythe taxman.
And she had hardly taken his receipt, when Mr. Larkin, very pink,endeavouring to smile in his discomfiture, and observing with a balmycondescension, "A sweet day, Mrs. Rumble," appeared in the hall, shookhis ears a little, and adjusted his hat, and went forth, and RosemaryCourt saw him no more for some time.