The viscount raised his eyes toward the ceiling with a smile that was mysterious and pleased.
Cleve did know that young lady of eight-and-twenty, and her dowager mamma, “simple ‘oman,” who had pursued him with extraordinary spirit and tenacity for several years, but that was past and over. Cleve experienced a thrill of pain at his heart. He suspected that the old torturing idea was again active in his uncle’s mind.
Yes, he did know them — ridiculous old woman; and the girl — he believed she’d marry any one; he fancied she would have done him that honour at one time, and he fancied that the trust, if it was to end when she was thirty-one, could not be very long in force.
“My dear Cleve, don’t you think that’s rather an odd way of speaking of a young lady? People used not in my time — that is, when I was a young man of two or three-and-twenty, about it — to talk so of young ladies. It was not considered a thing that ought to be done. I — I never heard a word of the kind.”
Lord Verney’s chivalry had actually called a little pink flush to his old cheeks, and he looked very seriously still at the cornice, and tapped a little nervous tattoo with his pencil-case on the table as he did so.
“I really did not mean — I only meant — in fact, uncle, I tell you everything; and poor Caroline is so much older than I, it always struck me as amusing.”
“Their man of business in matters of law is Mr. Larkington, about it. Our man, you know — you know him.”
“Oh, yes. They could not do better. Mr. Larkin — a very shrewd fellow. I went, by-the-by, to see that old man, Dingwell.”
“Ah, well, very good. We’ll talk of that by-and-by, if you please; but it has been occurring to my mind, Cleve, that — that you should look about you. In fact, if you don’t like one young lady, you may like another. It strikes me I never saw a greater number of pretty young women, about it, than there are at present in town. I do assure you, at that ball — where was it? — the place I saw you, and sent you down to the division — don’t you remember? — and next day, I told you, I think, they never said so much as ‘I’m obliged to you’ for what I had done, though it was the saving of them, about it. I say I was quite struck; the spectacle was quite charming, about it, from no other cause; and you know there is Ethel — I always said Ethel — and there can be no objection there; and I have distinct reasons for wishing you to be well connected, about it — in a political sense — and there is no harm in a little money; and, in fact, I have made up my mind, my dear Cleve, it is indispensable, and you must marry. I’m quite clear upon the point.”
“I can promise you, my dear uncle, that I shan’t marry without your approbation.”
“Well, I rather took that for granted,” observed Lord Verney, with dry solemnity.
“Of course. I only say it’s very difficult sometimes to see what’s wisest. I have you, I know, uncle, to direct me; but you must allow I have also your example. You relied entirely upon yourself for your political position. You made it without the aid of any such step, and I should be only too proud to follow your example.”
“A — yes — but the cases are different; there’s a difference, about it. As I said in the debate on the Jewish Disabilities, there arc no two cases, about it, precisely parallel; and I’ve given my serious consideration to the subject, and I am satisfied that for every reason you ought to choose a wife immediately; there’s no reason against it, and you ought to choose a wife, about it, immediately; and my mind is made up quite decidedly, and I have spoken repeatedly; but now I tell you I recognise no reason for further delay — no reason against the step, and every reason for it; and in short, I shall have no choice but to treat any dilatory procedure in the matter as amounting to a distinct trifling with my known wishes, desire, and opinion.”
And the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Verney smote his thin hand emphatically at these words, upon the table, as he used to do in his place in the House.
Then followed an impressive silence, the peer holding his head high, and looking a little flushed; and Cleve very pale, with the ghost of the smile he had worn a few minutes before.
There are instruments that detect and measure with a beautiful accuracy, the presence and force of invisible influences — heat, electricity, air, moisture. If among all these “meters” — electronometers, hygrometers, anemometers — an odynometer, to detect the presence and measure the intensity of hidden pain, were procurable, and applied to the breast of that pale, smiling young man at that moment, I wonder to what degree in its scale its index would have pointed!
Cleve intended to make some slight and playful remark, he knew not what, but his voice failed him.
He had been thinking of this possibility — of this hour — for many a day, as some men will of the Day of Judgment, and putting it aside as a hateful thought, possibly never to be embodied in fact, and here it was come upon him, suddenly, inevitably, in all its terrors.
“Well, certainly, uncle, — as you wish it. I must look about me — seriously. I know you wish me to be happy. I’m very grateful; you have always bestowed so much of your thought and care upon me — too good, a great deal.”
So spoke the young man — white as that sheet of paper on which his uncle had been pencilling two or three of what he called his thoughts — and almost as unconscious of the import of the words he repeated.
“I’m glad, my dear Cleve, you are sensible that I have been, I may say, kind; and now let me say that I think Ethel has a great deal in her favour. There are others, however, I am well aware, and there is time to look about, but I should wish something settled this season — in fact, before we break up, about it; in short I have, as I said, made up my mind. I don’t act without reasons; I never do, and mine are conclusive; and it was on this topic, my dear Cleve, I wished to see you. And now I think you may as well have some dinner. I’m afraid I’ve detained you here rather long.”
And Lord Verney rose, and moved toward a bookcase with Hansard in it, to signify that the conference was ended, and that he desired to be alone in his study.
* * *
CHAPTER XVII.
AN OVATION.
Cleve had no dinner; he had supped full of horrors. He got on his coat and hat, and appeared nowhere that evening, but took an immense walk instead, in the hope I dare say of tiring out his agony — perhaps simply because quietude and uninterrupted thought were unendurable.
Next day hope began a little to revive. An inventive mind is inexhaustible; and are not the resources of delay always considerable?
Who could have been acting upon his uncle’s mind in this matter? The spring of Lord Verney’s action was seldom quite within himself. All at once he recollected that he had come suddenly upon what seemed an unusually secret conference between his uncle and Mr. Larkin about ten days since; it was in the library. He was sure the conversation had some reference to him. His uncle looked both annoyed and embarrassed when he came into the room; even the practised countenance of Mr. Larkin betrayed some faint signs of confusion.
Larkin he knew had been down in the neighbourhood of Ware, and probably in Cardyllian. Had anything reached him about the Malory romance? Mr. Larkin was a man who would not stick at trifles in hunting up evidence, and all that concerned him would now interest Mr. Larkin, and Cleve had too high an opinion of that gentleman’s sagacity not to assume that if he had obtained the clue to his mystery he would make capital of the secret with Lord Verney. Viscera magnorum domuum — nothing like secret relations — confidences, — and what might not come of this? Of course, the first result would be a peremptory order on which Lord Verney had spoken last night. The only safety for the young man, it will be concluded, is to marry him suitably forthwith.
And — by Jove! — a flash of light! He had it! The whole thing was clear now. Yes; he was to be married to Caroline Oldys, because Mr. Larkin was the professional right hand of that family, and so the attorney would glide ultimately into the absolute command of the House of Verney!
To think of that inde
scribably vulgar rogue’s actually shaping the fortunes and meting out the tortures of Cleve Verney.
How much of our miseries result from the folly of those who would serve us! Here was Viscount Verney with, as respected Cleve, the issues of life very much in his fingers, dropping through sheer imbecility into the coarse hands of that odious attorney!
Cleve trembled with rage as he thought of the degradation to which that pompous fool, Lord Verney, was consigning him, yet what was to be done? Cleve was absolutely at the disposal of the peer, and the peer was unconsciously placing himself in the hands of Mr. Larkin, to be worked like a puppet, and spoken for by the Pharisaical attorney.
Cleve’s theory hung together plausibly. It would have been gross folly to betray his jealousy of the attorney, whose opportunities with his uncle he had no means of limiting or interrupting, and against whom he had as yet no case.
He was gifted with a pretty talent for dissimulation; Mr. Larkin congratulated himself in secret upon Cleve’s growing esteem and confidence. The young gentleman’s manner was gracious and even friendly to a degree that was quite marked, and the unconscious attorney would have been startled had he learned on a sudden how much he hated him.
Ware — that great house which all across the estuary in which its princely front was reflected, made quite a feature in the landscape sketched by so many tourists, from the pier on the shingle of Cardyllian on bright summer days, was about to be rehabilitated, and very splendid doings were to follow.
In the mean time, before the architects and contractors, the plumbers, and painters, and carpenters, and carvers, and gilders had taken possession, and before those wonderful artists in stucco who were to encrust and overspread the ceilings with noble designs, rich and graceful and light, of fruit and flowers and cupids, and from memory, not having read the guide-book of Cardyllian and its vicinity for more than a year, I should be afraid to say what arabesques, and imagery beside, had entered with their cements and their scaffolding; and before the three brother artists had got their passports for England who were to paint on the panels of the doors such festive pieces as Watteau loved. In short, before the chaos and confusion that attend the throes of that sort of creation had set in, Lord Verney was to make a visit of a few days to Ware, and was to visit Cardyllian and to receive a congratulatory address from the corporation of that ancient town, and to inspect the gas-works (which I am glad to say are hid away in a little hollow), and the two fountains which supply the town — constructed, as the inscription tells, at the expense of “the Right Honourable Kiffyn Fulke, Nineteenth Viscount Verney, and Twenty-ninth Baron Penruthyn, of Malory.” What else his lordship was to see, and to do, and to say on the day of his visit the county and other newspapers round about printed when the spectacle was actually over, and the great doings matter of history.
There were arches of evergreens and artificial flowers of paper, among which were very tolerable hollyhocks, though the roses were startling. Under these, Lord Viscount Verney and the “distinguished party” who accompanied him passed up Castle Street to the town-hall, where he was received by the mayor and town-councillors, accompanied and fortified by the town-clerk and other functionaries, all smiling except the mayor, on whom weighed the solemn responsibility of having to read the address, a composition, and no mean one, of the Rev. Dr. Splayfoot, who attended with parental anxiety “to see the little matter through,” as he phrased it, and was so awfully engaged that Mrs. Splayfoot, who was on his arm, and asked him twice, in a whisper, whether the tall lady in purple silk was Lady Wimbledon, without receiving the slightest intimation that she was so much as heard, remarked testily that she hoped he would not write many more addresses, inasmuch as it made him illbred to that degree that if the town-hall had fallen during the reading, he never would have perceived it till he had shaken his ears in kingdom-come. Lord Verney read his answer, which there was much anxiety and pressure to hear.
“Now it really was beautiful — wasn’t it?” our friend Mrs. Jones, the draper, whispered, in particular reference to that part of it, in which the viscount invoked the blessing of the Almighty upon himself and his doings, gracefully admitting that in contravention of the Divine will and the decrees of heaven, even he could not be expected to accomplish much, though with the best intentions. And Captain Shrapnell, who felt that the sentiment was religious, and was anxious to be conspicuous, standing with his hat in his hand, with a sublime expression of countenance, said in an audible voice— “Amen.”
All this over, and the building inspected, the distinguished party were conducted by the mayor, the militia band accompanying their march — [air— “The Meeting of the Waters”] — to the “Fountains” in Gunner’s Lane, to which I have already alluded.
Here they were greeted by a detachment of the Llanwthyn Temperance Union, headed by short, fat Thomas Pritchard, the interesting apostle of total abstinence, who used to preach on the subject alternately in Welsh and English in all the towns who would hear his gospel, in most of which he was remembered as having been repeatedly fined for public intoxication, and known by the familiar pet-name of “Swipey Tom,” before his remarkable conversion.
Mr. Pritchard now led the choir of the Lanwthyn Temperance Union, consisting of seven members, of various sizes, dressed in their Sunday costume, and standing in a row in front of fountain No. 1 — each with his hat in his left hand and a tumbler of fair water in his right.
Good Mrs. Jones, who had a vague sense of fun, and remembered anecdotes of the principal figure in this imposing spectacle, did laugh a little modestly into her handkerchief, and answered the admonitory jog of her husband’s elbow by pleading— “Poor fellows! Well, you know it is odd — there’s no denying that you know;” and from the background were heard some jeers from the excursionists who visited Cardyllian for that gala, which kept Hughes, the Cardyllian policeman, and Evans, the other “horney,” who had been drafted from Llwynan, to help to overawe the turbulent, very hot and active during that part of the ceremony.
Particularly unruly was John Swillers, who, having failed as a publican in Liverpool, in consequence of his practice of drinking the greater part of his own stock in trade, had migrated to “The Golden Posts” in Church Street, Cardyllian, where he ceased to roll his barrel, set up his tressels, and had tabernacled for the present, drinking his usual proportion of his own liquors, and expecting the hour of a new migration.
Over the heads of the spectators and the admiring natives of Cardyllian were heard such exhortations as “Go it, Swipey.” “There’s gin in that,” “Five shillin’s for his vorship, Swipey,” “I say, Swipey Tom, pay your score at the Golden Posts, will ye?” “Will ye go a bit on the stretcher, Swipey?” “Here’s two horneys as ‘ll take ye home arter that.”
And these interruptions, I am sorry to say, continued, notwithstanding the remonstrances which Mr. Hughes addressed almost pathetically to John Swillers of the Golden Posts, as a respectable citizen of Cardyllian, one from whose position the police were led to expect assistance and the populace an example. There was something in these expostulations which struck John Swillers, for he would look with a tipsy solemnity in Hughes’s face while he delivered them, and once took his hand, rather affectionately, and said, “That’s your sort.” But invariably these unpleasant interpolations were resumed, and did not cease until this moral exhibition had ended with the last verse of the temperance song, chanted by the deputation with great vigour, in unison, and which, as the reader will perceive, had in it a Bacchanalian character, which struck even the gravest listeners as a hollow mockery: —
Refreshing more than sinful swipes, The weary man Who quaffs a can, That sparkling foams through leaden pipes.
Chorus.
Let every man Then, fill his can, And fill the glass Of every lass In brimming bumpers sparkling clear, To pledge the health of Verney’s Peer!
And then came a chill and ghastly “hip-hip, hurrah,” and with some gracious inquiries on Lord Verney’s part, as to the numbers
, progress, and finances of “their interesting association,” and a subscription of ten pounds, which Mr. John Swillers took leave to remark, “wouldn’t be laid out on water, by no means,” the viscount, with grand and radiant Mr. Larkin at his elbow, and frequently murmuring in his ear — to the infinite disgust of my friend, Wynne Williams, the Cardyllian attorney, thus out-strutted and out-crowed on his own rustic elevation — was winning golden opinions from all sorts of men.
The party went on, after the wonders of the town had been exhausted, to look at Malory, and thence returned to a collation, at which toasts were toasted and speeches spoken, and Captain Shrapnell spoke, by arrangement, for the ladies of Cardyllian in his usual graceful and facetious manner, with all the puns and happy allusions which a month’s private diligence, and, I am sorry to say, some shameless plagiarisms from three old numbers of poor Tom Hood’s “Comic Annual,” could get together, and the gallant captain concluded by observing that the noble lord whom they had that day the honour and happiness to congratulate, intended, he understood, everything that was splendid and liberal and handsome, and that the town of Cardyllian, in the full radiance of the meridian sunshine, whose golden splendour proceeded from the south— “The cardinal point at which the great house of Ware is visible from the Green of Cardyllian” — (hear, hear, and laughter)— “there remained but one grievance to be redressed, and that set to rights, every ground of complaint would slumber for ever, he might say, in the great bed of Ware” — (loud cheers and laughter)— “and what was that complaint? He was instructed by his fair, lovely, and beautiful clients — the ladies of Cardyllian — some of whom he saw in the gallery, and some still more happily situated at the festive board” — (a laugh). “Well, he was, he repeated, instructed by them to say that there was one obvious duty which the noble lord owed to his ancient name — to the fame of his public position — to the coronet, whose golden band encircled his distinguished brow — and above all, to the ancient feudal dependency of Cardyllian” — (hear, hear)— “and that was to select from his county’s beauty, fascination, and accomplishment, and he might say loveliness, a partner worthy to share the ermine and the coronet and the name and the — ermine” (hear, hear) “of the ancient house of Verney” (loud cheers); “and need he add that when the selection was made, it was hoped and trusted and aspired after, that the selection would not be made a hundred miles away from the ivied turrets, the feudal ruins, the gushing fountains, and the spacious town-hall of Cardyllian” (loud and long-continued cheering, amid which the gallant captain, very hot, and red, and smiling furiously, sat down with a sort of lurch, and drank off a glass of champagne, and laughed and giggled a little in his chair, while the “cheering and laughter” continued).
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 366