Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “But he had his pride, dear Arthur; he was proud, and wished for a tombstone. When he was dying, he said, ‘I should like a monument — not of course in a cathedral, for I have been living so darkly, and a good deal talked about; but there’s an old church or abbey near Malory (that I’m sure was the name of the place) where our family has been accustomed to bury its quiet respectabilities and its mauvais sujets; and I think they might give me a pretty little monument there, quite quietly.’ I think you’ll do it, for you’re a grateful person, and like thinking people; and he certainly did a great deal for his family by going out of it, and the little vanity of a monument would not cost much, and, as he said himself, no one would ever see it; and I promised, if I ever had an opportunity, to mention the subject to your uncle.”

  Cleve bowed.

  “‘And,’ said he, ‘there will be a little conflict of feeling. I am sure they’d like the monument, but they would not make an ostentation of me. But remind them of my Aunt Deborah. Poor old girl! she ran away with a fiddler.’ Egad, sir! these were his very words, and I’ve found, on inquiring here, they were quite true. She ran away with a fiddler — egad! and I don’t know how many little fiddlers she had; and, by Jove! he said if I came back I should recognise a possible cousin in every street-fiddler I met with, for music is a talent that runs in families. And so, when Atropos cut his fiddlestring, and he died, she took, he said, to selling mutton pies, for her maintenance, in Chester, and being properly proud as a Verney, though as a fiddler’s widow necessitous, he said she used to cry, behind her little table, ‘Hot mutton pies!’ and then, sotto voce, ‘I hope nobody hears me;’ and you may rely upon that family anecdote, for I had it from the lips of that notorious member of your family, your uncle Arthur, and he hoped that they would comply with the tradition, and reconcile the Verney pride with Verney exigencies, and concede him the secret celebration of a monument.”

  “If you are serious — — “

  “Serious about a monument, sir! who the devil could be lively on such a subject?” and Mr. Dingwell looked unaccountably angry, and ground his teeth, and grew white. “A monument, cheap and nasty, I dare say; it isn’t much for a poor devil from whom you’ve got everything. I suppose you’ll speak to your uncle, sir.”

  “I’ll speak to him, sir.”

  “Yes, do, pray, and prevail. I’m not very strong, sir, and there’s something that remains for you and me to do, sir.”

  “What is that?”

  “To rot under ground, sir; and as I shall go first, it would be pleasant to me to be able to present your affectionate regards to your uncle, when I meet him, and tell him that you had complied with his little fancy about the monument, as he seemed to make a point that his name should not be blotted totally from the records of his family.”

  Cleve was rather confirmed in his suspicions about the sanity of this odious old man — as well he might — and, at all events, was resolved to endure him without a row.

  “I shall certainly remember, and mention all you have said, sir,” said Cleve.

  “Yes,” said the old man, in a grim meditation, looking down, and he chucked away the stump of his cigar, “it’s a devilish hard case, Kismet!” he muttered.

  “I suppose you find our London climate very different from that you have grown accustomed to?” said Cleve, approaching the point on which he desired some light.

  “I lived in London for a long time, sir. I was — as perhaps you know — junior partner in the great Greek house of Prinkipi and Dingwell — d —— n Prinkipi! say I. He ran us into trouble, sir; then came a smash, sir, and Prinkipi levanted, making a scapegoat of me, the most vilified and persecuted Greek merchant that ever came on ’Change! And, egad! if they could catch me, even now, I believe they’d bury me in a dungeon for the rest of my days, which, in that case, would not be many. I’m here, therefore, I may say, at the risk of my life.”

  “A very anxious situation, indeed, Mr. Dingwell; and I conclude you intend but a short stay here?”

  “Quite the contrary, sir. I mean to stay as long as I please, and that may be as long as I live.”

  “Oh! I had thought from something that Mr. Larkin said,” began Cleve Verney.

  “Larkin! He’s a religious man, and does not put his candle under a bushel. He’s very particular to say his prayers; and provided he says them, he takes leave to say what he likes beside.”

  Mr. Dingwell was shooting his arrows as freely as Cupid does; but Cleve did not take this satire for more than its worth.

  “He may think it natural I should wish to be gone, and so I do,” continued the old man, setting down his coffee cup, “if I could get away without the trouble of going, or was sure of a tolerably comfortable berth, at my journey’s end; but I’m old, and travelling shakes me to pieces, and I have enemies elsewhere, as well as here; and the newspapers have been printing sketches of my life and adventures, and poking up attention about me, and awakening the slumbering recollection of persons by whom I had been, in effect, forgotten, every-where. No rest for the wicked, sir. I’m pursued; and, in fact, what little peace I might have enjoyed in this, the closing period of my life, has been irreparably wrecked by my visit and public appearance here, to place your uncle, and by consequence you, in the position now secured to you. What do you think of me?”

  “I think, sir, you have done us a great service; and I know we are very much obliged,” said Cleve, with his most engaging smile.

  “And do you know what I think of myself? I think I’m a d —— d fool, unless I look for some advantage.”

  “Don’t you think, sir, you have found it, on the whole, advantageous, your coming here?” insinuated Cleve.

  “Barren, sir, as a voyage on the Dead Sea. The test is this — what have I by it? not five pounds, sir, in the world. Now, I’ve opened my mind a little to you upon this subject, and I’m of the same mind still; and if I’ve opened Aladdin’s garden to you, with its fruitage of emeralds, rubies, and so forth, I expect to fill my snuff-box with the filings and chippings of your gigantic jewellery.”

  Cleve half repented his visit, now that the presence of the insatiable Mr. Dingwell, and his evident appetite for more money, had justified the representations of the suspected attorney.

  “I shall speak to Mr. Larkin on the subject,” said Cleve Verney.

  “D —— n Larkin, sir! Speak to me.”

  “But, Mr. Dingwell, I have really, as I told you before, no authority to speak; and no one has the least power in the matter but my uncle.”

  “And what the devil did you come here for?” demanded Mr. Dingwell, suddenly blazing up into one of his unaccountable furies. “I suppose you expected me to congratulate you on your success, and to ask leave to see your uncle in his coronet — ha, ha, ha! — or his cap and bells, or whatever he wears. By —— sir, I hope he holds his head high, and struts like a peacock, and has pleasant dreams; time enough for nightmares, sir, hereafter, eh? Uneasy rests the head that wears the crown! Good evening, sir; I’ll talk to Mr. Larkin.”

  And with these words Mr. Dingwell got up, looking unaccountably angry, and made a half-sarcastic, half-furious bow, wherewith he dismissed Mr. Cleve Verney, with more distinct convictions than ever that the old gentleman was an unmitigated beast, and more than half a lunatic.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XVI.

  IN LORD VERNEY’S LIBRARY.

  Who should light upon Cleve that evening as he walked homeward but our friend Tom Sedley, who was struck by the anxious pallor and melancholy of his face.

  Goodnatured Sedley took his arm, and said he, as they walked on together, —

  “Why don’t you smile on your luck, Cleve?”

  “How do you know what my luck is?”

  “All the world knows that pretty well.”

  “All the world knows everything but its own business.”

  “Well, people do say that your uncle has lately got the oldest peerage — one of them — in England, and an estate of thirty-seven thous
and a year, for one thing, and that you are heir-presumptive to these trifles.”

  “And that heirs-presumptive often get nothing but their heads in their hands.”

  “No, you’ll not come Saint Denis nor any other martyr over us, my dear boy; we know very well how you stand in that quarter.”

  “It’s pleasant to have one’s domestic relations so happily arranged by such very competent persons. I’m much obliged to all the world for the parental interest it takes in my private concerns.”

  “And it also strikes some people that a perfectly safe seat in the House of Commons is not to be had for nothing by every fellow who wishes it.”

  “But suppose I don’t wish it.”

  “Oh! we may suppose anything.”

  Tom Sedley laughed as he said this, and Cleve looked at him sharply, but saw no uncomfortable meaning in his face.

  “There is no good in talking of what one has not tried,” said he. “If you had to go down to that tiresome House of Commons every time it sits; and had an uncle like mine to take you to task every time you missed a division — you’d soon be as tired of it as I am.”

  “I see, my dear fellow, you are bowed down under a load of good luck.” They were at the door of Tom Sedley’s lodgings by this time, and opening it, he continued, “I’ve something in my room to show you; just run up with me for a minute, and you’ll say I’m a conjuror.”

  Cleve, not to be got into good spirits that evening, followed him upstairs, thinking of something else.

  “I’ve got a key to your melancholy, Cleve,” said he, leading the way into his drawingroom. “Look there,” and he pointed to a clever copy in crayons of the famous Beatrice Cenci, which he had hung over his chimneypiece.

  Tom Sedley laughed, looking in Cleve’s eyes. A slight flush had suddenly tinged his visitor’s face, as he saw the portrait. But he did not seem to enjoy the joke, on the contrary, he looked a little embarrassed and angry. “That’s Guido’s portrait — well, what about it?” he asked, rather surlily.

  “Yes, of course; but who is it like?”

  “Very few, I dare say, for it is very pretty; and except on canvas, there is hardly such a thing as a pretty girl to be seen. Is that all? for the life of me, I can’t see where the conjuring lies.”

  “Not in the picture, but the likeness; don’t you see it?”

  “No” said Cleve. “I must go; are you coming?”

  “Not see it!” said Tom. “Why if it were painted for her, it could not be more like. Why, it’s the Flower of Cardyllian, the Star of Malory. It is your Miss Fanshawe — my Margaret — our Miss Margaret Fanshawe. I’m making the fairest division I can, you see; and I would not be without it for all the world.”

  “She would be very much gratified if she heard it. It is so flattering to a young lady to have a fellow buy a coloured lithograph, and call it by her name, and crack jokes and spout mock heroics over it. It is the modern way of celebrating a lady’s name. Don’t you seriously think, Sedley, it would be better to smash it with a poker, and throw it into the fire, than go on taking such liberties with any young lady’s name?”

  “Upon my honour, Cleve, you mistake me; you do me great injustice. You used to laugh at me, you know, when I’m quite sure, thinking over it now, you were awfully gone about her yourself. I never told any one but you why I bought that picture; it isn’t a lithograph, but painted, or drawn, or whatever they call it, with chalks, and it cost five guineas; and no one but you ever heard me mention Miss Fanshawe’s name, except the people at Cardyllian, and then only as I might mention any other, and always with respect.”

  “What does it signify?” interrupted Cleve, in the middle of a forced yawn. “I’m tired to-day, and cross — don’t you see; and man delights not me, nor woman neither. So, if you’re coming, come, for I must go.”

  “And, really, Cleve, the Cardyllian people do say (I’ve had letters) that you were awfully in love with her yourself, and always haunting those woods of Malory while she was there, and went away immediately she left, and have never been seen in Cardyllian since.”

  “Those Cretans were always liars, Tom Sedley. That comes direct from the club. I can fancy old Shrapnell in the light of the bow-window, composing his farrago of dreams, and lies, and chuckling and cackling over it.”

  “Well, I don’t say that Shrapnell had anything to do with it; but I did hear at first they thought you were gone about little Agnes Etherage.”

  “Oh! they found that out — did they?” said Cleve. “But you know those people — I mean the Cardyllian people — as well, or better than I, and really, as a kindness to me, and to save me the trouble of endless explanations to my uncle, I would be so much obliged if you would not repeat their follies — unless, of course, you happen to believe them.”

  Cleve did not look more cheerful as he drove away in a cab which he took to get rid of his friend Tom Sedley. It was mortifying to find how vain were his clever stratagems, and how the rustic chapmen of that Welsh village and their wives had penetrated his diplomacy. He thought he had killed the rumours about Malory, and yet that grain of mustard seed had grown while his eye was off it, with a gigantic luxuriance, and now was large enough to form a feature in the landscape, and quite visible from the windows of Ware — if his uncle should happen to visit that mansion — overtopping the roofs and chimneys of Cardyllian. His uncle meditated an early visit to Cardyllian, and a short stay at Ware, before the painters and gilders got possession of the house; a sort of ovation in demi-toilette, grand and friendly, and a foretaste of the splendours that were coming. Cleve did hope that those beasts would be quiet while Lord Verney was (as he in his grand manner termed it) “among them.” He knew the danger of a vague suspicion seizing on his mind, how fast it clung, how it fermented like yeast, fantastic and obstinate as a foolish woman’s jealousy — and as men sometimes will, he even magnified this danger. Altogether, Cleve was not causelessly anxious and alarmed. He had in the dark to navigate a channel which even in broad daylight tasked a good steersman.

  When Cleve reached Verney House it was eight o’clock. Lord Verney had ordered his brougham at halfpast, and was going down to the House; he had something to say on Lord Frompington’s bill. It was not very new, nor very deep, nor very much; but he had been close at it for the last three weeks. He had amused many gentlemen — and sometimes even ladies — at many dinner parties, with a very exact recital of his views. I cannot say that they were exactly his, for they were culled, perhaps unconsciously, from a variety of magazine articles and pamphlets, which happened to take Lord Verney’s view of the question.

  It is not given to any mortal to have his heart’s desire in everything. Lord Verney had a great deal of this world’s good things — wealth, family, rank. But he chose to aim at official station, and here his stars denied him.

  Some people thought him a goose, and some only a bore. He was, as we know, pompous, conceited, obstinate, also weak and dry. His grandfather had been a cabinet minister, respectable and silent; and was not he wiser, brighter, and more learned than his grandfather? “Why on earth should not he?” His influence commanded two boroughs, and virtually two counties. The minister, therefore, treated him with distinction; and spoke of him confidentially as horribly foolish, impracticable, and at times positively impertinent.

  Lord Verney was subject to small pets and huffs, and sometimes was affronted with the Premier for four or five weeks together, although the fact escaped his notice. And when the viscount relented, he would make him a visit to quiet his mind, and show him that friendly relations were reestablished; and the minister would say, “Here comes that d —— d Verney; I suppose I must give him half-an-hour!” and when the peer departed, thinking he had made the minister happy, the minister was seriously debating whether Lord Verney’s boroughs were worth the price of Lord Verney’s society.

  His lordship was now in that sacred apartment, his library; where not even Cleve had a right to disturb him uninvited. Preliminaries, however, were now
arranged; the servant announced him, and Cleve was commanded to enter.

  “I have just had a line to say I shall be in time at halfpast ten o’clock, about it. Frompington’s bill won’t be on till then; and take that chair and sit down, about it, won’t you? I’ve a good many things on my mind; people put things upon me. Some people think I have a turn for business, and they ask me to consider and direct matters about theirs, and I do what I can. There was poor Wimbledon, who died, about it, seven years ago. You remember Wimbledon — or — I say — you either remember him or you don’t recollect him; but in either case it’s of no importance. Let me see: Lady Wimbledon — she’s connected with you, about it — your mother, remotely — remotely also with us, the Verneys. I’ve had a world of trouble about her settlements — I can’t describe — I can’t describe — I was not well advised, in fact, to accept the trust at all. Long ago, when poor Frompington — I mean poor Wimbledon, of course — have I been saying Wimbledon?”

  Cleve at once satisfied him.

  “Yes, of course. When poor Wimbledon looked as healthy and as strong as I do at this moment, about it — a long time ago. Poor Wimbledon! — he fancied, I suppose, I had some little turn, about it, for business — some of my friends do — and I accepted the trust when poor Wimbledon looked as little likely to be hurried into eternity, about it, as I do. I had a regard for him, poor Wimbledon, and he had a respect for me, and thought I could be of use to him after he was dead, and I have endeavoured, and people think I have. But Lady Wimbledon, the dowager, poor woman! She’s very long-winded, poor soul, and gives me an infinity of trouble. One can’t say to a lady, ‘You are detaining me; you are wandering from the subject; you fail to come to the point.’ It would be taking a liberty, or something, about it. I had not seen Lady Wimbledon, simple ‘oman, for seven years or more. It’s a very entangled business, and I confess it seems rather unfair, that I should have my time, already sufficiently occupied with other, as I think, more important affairs, so seriously interrupted and abridged. There’s going to be a bill filed — yes, and a great deal of annoyance. She has one unmarried daughter, Caroline, about it, who is not to have any power over her money until she is thirty-one. She’s not that now. It was hardly fair to me, putting it in trust so long. She is a very superior person — a young woman one does not meet with every day, about it; and — and very apprehensive — a great deal of mind — quite unusual. Do you know her?”