Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “I’m aware, sir, that he had talent, Mr. Dingwell, and could speak — about it. At Oxford he was considered the most promising young man of his time — almost.”

  “Yes, except you; but you were two years later.”

  “Yes, exactly. I was precisely two years later about it.”

  “Yes, my lord, you were always about it; so he told me. No matter what it was — a book, or a boot-jack, or a bottle of port, you were always about it. It was a way you had, he said — about it.”

  “I wasn’t aware that anyone remarked any such thing — about it,” said Lord Verney, very loftily.

  It dawned dimly upon him that Mr. Dingwell, who was a very irregular person, was possibly intoxicated. But Mr. Dingwell was speaking, though in a very nasal, odd voice, yet with a clear and sharp articulation, and in a cool way, not the least like a man in that sort of incapacity. Lord Verney concluded, therefore, that Mr. Dingwell was either a remarkably impertinent person, or most insupportably deficient in the commonest tact. I think he would have risen, even at the inconvenience of suddenly disturbing his flannelled foot, and intimated that he did not feel quite well enough to continue the conversation, had he not known something of Mr. Dingwell’s dangerous temper, and equally dangerous knowledge and opportunities; for had they not subsidized Mr. Dingwell, in the most unguarded manner, and on the most monstrous scale, pending the investigation and proof before the Lords? “It was inevitable,” Mr. Larkin said, “but also a little awkward; although they knew that the man had sworn nothing but truth.” Very awkward, Lord Verney thought, and therefore he endured Mr. Dingwell.

  But the “great Greek merchant,” as, I suppose half jocularly, he termed himself, not only seemed odious at this moment, by reason of his impertinence, but also formidable to Lord Verney, who, having waked from his dream that Dingwell would fly beyond the Golden Horn when once his evidence was given, and the coronet well fixed on the brows of the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney, found himself still haunted by this vampire bat, which hung by its hooked wing, sometimes in the shadows of Rosemary Court — sometimes in those of the old Steward’s House — sometimes hovering noiselessly nearer — always with its eyes upon him, threatening to fasten on his breast, and drain him.

  The question of money he would leave “to his discretion.” But what did his impertinence mean? Was it not minatory? And to what exorbitant sums in a choice of evils might not “discretion” point?

  “This d — d Mr. Dingwell,” thought Lord Verney “will play the devil with my gout. I wish he was at the bottom of the Bosphorus.”

  “Yes. And your brother, Arthur — there were points in which he differed from you. Unless I’m misinformed, he was a first-rate cricketer, the crack bat of their team, and you were nothing; he was one of the best Grecians in the university, and you were plucked.”

  “I — I don’t exactly see the drift of your rather inaccurate and extremely offensive observations, Mr. Dingwell,” said Lord Verney, wincing and flushing in the dark.

  “Offensive? Good heaven! But I’m talking to a Verney, to a man of genius; and I say, how the devil could I tell that truth could offend, either? With this reflection I forgive myself, and I go on to say what will interest you.”

  Lord Verney, who had recovered his presence of mind, here nodded, to intimate that he was ready to hear him.

  “Well, there were a few other points, but I need not mention them, in which you differed. You were both alike in this — each was a genius — you were an opaque and obscure genius, he a brilliant one; but each being a genius, there must have been a sympathy, notwithstanding his being a publican and you a — not exactly a Pharisee, but a paragon of prudence.”

  “I really, Mr. Dingwell, must request — you see I’m far from well, about it — that you’ll be so good as a little to abridge your remarks; and I don’t want to hear — you can easily, I hope, understand — my poor brother talked of in any but such terms as a brother should listen to.”

  “That arises, Lord Verney, from your not having had the advantage of his society for so very many years. Now, I knew him intimately, and I can undertake to say he did not care twopence what any one on earth thought of him, and it rather amused him painting infernal caricatures of himself, as a fiend or a monkey, and he often made me laugh by the hour — ha, ha, ha! he amused himself with revealed religion, and with everything sacred, sometimes even with you — ha, ha, ha — he had certainly a wonderful sense of the ridiculous.”

  “May I repeat my request, if it does not appear to you very unreasonable?” again interrupted Lord Verney, “and may I entreat to know what it is you wish me to understand about it, in as few words as you can, sir?”

  “Certainly, Lord Verney; it is just this. As I have got materials, perfectly authentic, from my deceased friend, both about himself — horribly racy, you may suppose — ha, ha, ha — about your granduncle Pendel — you’ve heard of him, of course — about your aunt Deborah, poor thing, who sold mutton pies in Chester, — I was thinking — suppose I write a memoir — Arthur alone deserves it; you pay the expenses; I take the profits, and I throw you in the copyright for a few thousand more, and call it, ‘Snuffed-out lights of the Peerage,’ or something of the kind? I think something is due to Arthur — don’t you?”

  “I think you can hardly be serious, Mr. — Mr. — — “

  “Perfectly serious, upon my soul, my lord. Could anything be more curious? Eccentricity’s the soul of genius, and you’re proud of your genius, I hope.”

  “What strikes me, Mr. Dingwell, amounts, in short, to something like this. My poor brother, he has been unfortunate, about it, and — and worse, and he has done things, and I ask myself why there should be an effort to obtrude him, and I answer myself, there’s no reason, about it, and therefore I vote to have everything as it is, and I shall neither contribute my countenance, about it, nor money to any such undertaking, or — or — undertaking.”

  “Then my book comes to the ground, egad.”

  Lord Verney simply raised his head with a little sniff, as if he were smelling at a snuff-box.

  “Well, Arthur must have something, you know.”

  “My brother, the Honourable Arthur Kiffyn Verney, is past receiving anything at my hands, and I don’t think he probably looked for anything, about it, at any time from yours.”

  “Well, but it’s just the time for what I’m thinking of. You wouldn’t give him a tombstone in his lifetime, I suppose, though you are a genius. Now, I happen to know he wished a tombstone. You’d like a tombstone, though not now — time enough in a year or two, when you’re fermenting in your lead case.”

  “I’m not thinking of tombstones at present, sir, and it appears to me that you are giving yourself a very unusual latitude — about it.”

  “I don’t mean in the mausoleum at Ware. Of course that’s a place where people who have led a decorous life putrify together. I meant at the small church of Penruthyn, where the scamps await judgment.”

  “I — a — don’t see that such a step is properly for the consideration of any persons — about it — outside the members of the Verney family, or more properly, of any but the representatives of that family,” said Lord Verney, loftily, “and you’ll excuse my not admitting, or — or, in fact, admitting any right in anyone else.”

  “He wished it immensely.”

  “I can’t understand why, sir.”

  “Nor I; but I suppose you all get them — all ticketed — eh? and I’d write the epitaph, only putting in essentials, though, egad! in such a life it would be as long as a newspaper.”

  “I’ve already expressed my opinion, and — and things, and I have nothing to add.”

  “Then the tombstone comes to the ground also?”

  “Anything more, sir?”

  “But, my lord, he showed an immense consideration for you.”

  “I don’t exactly recollect how.”

  “By dying — you’ve got hold of everything, don’t you see, and you grudge him a tablet in the lit
tle church of Penruthyn, by gad! I told your nephew he wished it, and I tell you he wished it; it’s not stinginess, it’s your mean pride.”

  “You seem, Mr. Dingwell, to fancy that there’s no limit to the impertinence I’ll submit to.”

  “I’m sure there’s none almost — you better not ring the bell — you better think twice — he gave me that message, and he also left me a mallet — quite a toy — but a single knock of it would bring Verney House, or Ware, or this place, about your ears.”

  The man was speaking in quite another voice now, and in the most awful tones Lord Verney had ever heard in his life, and to his alarmed and sickly eyes it seemed as if the dusky figure of his visitor were dilating in the dark like an evoked Genii.

  “I — I think about it — it’s quite unaccountable — all this.” Lord Verney was looking at the stranger as he spoke, and groping with his left hand for the oldfashioned bell-rope which used to hang near him in the library in Verney House, forgetting that there was no bell of any sort within his reach at that moment.

  “I’m not going to take poor dear Arthur’s mallet out of my pocket, for the least tap of it would make all England ring and roar, sir. No, I’ll make no noise; you and I, sir, tête-à-tête. I’ll have no go-between; no Larkin, no Levi, no Cleve; you and I’ll settle it alone. Your brother was a great Grecian, they used to call him Ÿ´ÅÃõÅà — Ulysses. Do you remember? I said I was the great Greek merchant? We have made an exchange together. You must pay. What shall I call myself, for Dingwell isn’t my name. I’ll take a new one — To ¼µ½ ÀÁÉÄ¿½ ŸÅĹ½ þµ±ÅÄ¿½ µÀ¹º±»µ¹ — µÀµ¹´±½´µ ´¹µÆµu³µ º±¹ µ¾É ·½ ²µ»¿Å Ÿ´ÅÃÃŽ ¿½¿¼±¶µÃ¸±¹ µÆ·. In English — at first he called himself Outis — Nobody; but so soon as he had escaped, and was out of the javelin’s reach, he said that he was named Odusseus — Ulysses, and here he is. This is the return of Ulysses!”

  There had been a sudden change in Mr. Dingwell’s Yankee intonation. The nasal tones were heard no more. He approached the window, and said, with a laugh, pulling the shutter more open —

  “Why, Kiffyn, you fool, don’t you know me?”

  There was a silence.

  “My great God! my great God of heaven!” came from the white lips of Lord Verney.

  “Yes; God’s over all,” said Arthur Verney, with a strange confusion, between a sneer and something more genuine.

  There was a long pause.

  “Ha, ha, ha! don’t make a scene! Not such a muff?” said Dingwell.

  Lord Verney was staring at him with a face white and peaked as that of a corpse, and whispering still— “My God! my great God!” so that Dingwell, as I still call him, began to grow uneasy.

  “Come; don’t you make mountains of molehills. What the devil’s all this fuss about? Here, drink a little of this.” He poured out some water, and Lord Verney did sip a little, and then gulped down a good deal, and then he looked at Arthur again fixedly, and groaned.

  “That’s right — never mind. I’ll not hurt you. Don’t fancy I mean to disturb you. I can’t, you know, if I wished it ever so much. I daren’t show — I know it. Don’t suppose I want to bully you; the idea’s impracticable. I looked in merely to tell you, in a friendly way, who I am. You must do something handsome for me, you know. Devil’s in it if a fellow can’t get a share of his own money, and, as I said before, we’ll have no go-betweens, no Jews or attorneys. D — n them all — but settle it between ourselves, like brothers. Sip a little more water.”

  “Arthur, Arthur, I say, yes; good God, I feel I shall have a good deal to say; but — my head, and things — I’m a little perplexed still, and I must have a glass of wine, about it, and I can’t do it now; no, I can’t.”

  “I don’t live far away, you know; and I’ll look in tomorrow — we’re not in a hurry.”

  “It was a strange idea, Arthur. Good Lord, have mercy on me!”

  “Not a bad one; eh?”

  “Very odd, Arthur! — God forgive you.”

  “Yes, my dear Kiffyn, and you, too.”

  “The coronet — about it? I’m placed in a dreadful position, but you shan’t be compromised, Arthur. Tell them I’m not very well, and some wine, I think — a little chill.”

  “And tomorrow I can look in again, quietly,” said the Greek merchant, “or whenever you like, and I shan’t disclose our little confidence.”

  “It’s going — everything, everything; I shall see it by-and-by,” said Lord Verney, helplessly.

  And thus the interview ended, and Mr. Dingwell in the hall gave the proper alarm about Lord Verney.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XX.

  A BREAKDOWN.

  About an hour after, a message came down from Malory for the doctor.

  “How is his lordship?” asked the doctor, eagerly.

  “No, it isn’t him, sure; it is the old lady is 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 and engulfed 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 childlike 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 b
efore 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 —

  “What a 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.”