Kitabı oku: «The Tenants of Malory. Volume 3», sayfa 8
CHAPTER XV.
CLAY RECTORY BY MOONLIGHT
As the attorney made his astounding announcement, Cleve had felt as if his brain, in vulgar parlance, turned! In a moment the world in which he had walked and lived from his school-days passed away, and a chasm yawned at his feet. His whole future was subverted. A man who dies in delusion, and awakes not to celestial music and the light of paradise, but to the trumpet of judgment and the sight of the abyss, will quail as Cleve did.
How he so well maintained the appearance of self-possession while Mr. Larkin remained, I can't quite tell. Pride, however, which has carried so many quivering souls, with an appearance of defiance, through the press-room to the drop, supported him.
But now that scoundrel was gone. The fury that fired him, the iron constraint that held him firm was also gone, and Cleve despaired.
Till this moment, when he was called on to part with it all, he did not suspect how entirely his ambition was the breath of his nostrils, or how mere a sham was the sort of talk to which he had often treated Margaret and others about an emigrant's life and the Arcadian liberty of the Antipodes.
The House-of-Commons life – the finest excitement on earth – the growing fame, the peerage, the premiership in the distance – the vulgar fingers of Jos. Larkin had just dropped the extinguisher upon the magic lamp that had showed him these dazzling illusions, and he was left to grope and stumble in the dark among his debts, with an obscure wife on his arm, and a child to plague him also. And this was to be the end! A precarious thousand a-year – dependent on the caprice of a narrow, tyrannical old man, with a young wife at his ear, and a load of debts upon Cleve's shoulders, as he walked over the quag!
It is not well to let any object, apart from heaven, get into your head and fill it. Cleve had not that vein of insanity which on occasion draws men to suicide. In the thread of his destiny that fine black strand was not spun. So blind and deep for a while was his plunge into despair, that I think had that atrabilious poison, which throws out its virus as suddenly as latent plague, and lays a felo-de-se to cool his heels and his head in God's prison, the grave – had a drop or two, I say, of that elixir of death been mingled in his blood, I don't think he would ever have seen another morrow.
But Cleve was not thinking of dying. He was sure – in rage, and blasphemy, and torture, it might be – but still he was sure to live on. Well, what was now to be done? Every power must be tasked to prevent the ridiculous catastrophe which threatened him with ruin; neither scruple, nor remorse, nor conscience, nor compunction should stand in the way. We are not to suppose that he is about to visit the Hon. Miss Caroline Oldys with a dagger in one hand and a cup of poison in the other, nor with gunpowder to blow up his uncle and Ware, as some one did Darnley and the house of Kirk of Field. Simply his mind was filled with the one idea, that one way or another the thing must be stopped.
It was long before his ideas arranged themselves, and for a long time after no plan of operations which had a promise of success suggested itself. When at length he did decide, you would have said no wilder or wickeder scheme could have entered his brain.
It was a moonlight night. The scene a flat country, with a monotonous row of poplars crossing it. This long file of formal trees marks the line of a canal, fronting which at a distance of about a hundred yards stands a lonely brick house, with a few sombre elms rising near it; a light mist hung upon this expansive flat. The soil must have been unproductive, so few farmsteads were visible for miles around. Here and there pools of water glimmered coldly in the moonlight; and patches of rushes and reeds made the fields look ragged and neglected.
Here and there, too, a stunted hedge-row showed dimly along the level, otherwise unbroken, and stretching away into the haze of the horizon. It is a raw and dismal landscape, where a murder might be done, and the scream lose itself in distance unheard – where the highwayman, secure from interruption, might stop and plunder the chance wayfarer at his leisure – a landscape which a fanciful painter would flank with a distant row of gibbets.
The front of this square brick house, with a little enclosure, hardly two yards in depth, and a wooden paling in front, and with a green moss growing damply on the piers and the door-steps, and tinging the mortar between the bricks, looks out upon a narrow old road, along which just then were audible the clink and rattle of an approaching carriage and horses.
It was past one o'clock. No hospitable light shone from the windows, which on the contrary looked out black and dreary upon the vehicle and steaming horses which pulled up in front of the house.
Out got Cleve and reconnoitred.
"Are you quite sure?"
"Clay Parsonage – yes, sir," said the driver.
Cleve shook the little wooden gate, which was locked; so he climbed the paling, and knocked and rang loud and long at the hall-door.
The driver at last reported a light in an upper window.
Cleve went on knocking and ringing, and the head of the Rev. Isaac Dixie appeared high in the air over the window-stool.
"What do you want, pray?" challenged that suave clergyman from his sanctuary.
"It's I – Cleve Verney. Why do you go to bed at such hours? I must see you for a moment."
"Dear me! my dear, valued pupil! Who could have dreamed? – I shall be down in one moment."
"Thanks – I'll wait;" and then to the driver he said – "I shan't stay five minutes; mind, you're ready to start with me the moment I return."
Now the hall-door opened. The Rev. Isaac Dixie – for his dress was a compromise between modesty and extreme haste, and necessarily very imperfect – stood in greater part behind the hall-door; a bed-room candlestick in his fingers, smiling blandly on his "distinguished pupil," who entered without a smile, without a greeting – merely saying: —
"Where shall we sit down for a minute, old Dixie?"
Holding his hand with the candle in it across, so as to keep his flowing dressing-gown together; and with much wonder and some misgivings, yet contriving his usual rosy smile, he conducted his unexpected visitor into his "study."
"I've so many apologies to offer, my very honoured and dear friend; this is so miserable, and I fear you are cold. We must get something; we must, really, manage something – some little refreshment."
Dixie placed the candle on the chimney-piece, and looked inquiringly on Cleve.
"There's some sherry, I know, and I think there's some brandy."
"There's no one up and about?" inquired Cleve.
"Not a creature," said the Rector; "no one can hear a word, and these are good thick walls."
"I've only a minute; I know you'd like to be a bishop, Dixie?"
Cleve, with his muffler and his hat still on, was addressing the future prelate, with his elbow on the chimney-piece.
"Nolo episcopari, of course, but we know you would, and there's no time now for pretty speeches. Now, listen, you shall be that, and you shall reach it by two steps – the two best livings in our gift. I always keep my word; and when I set my heart on a thing I bring it about, and so sure as I do any good, I'll bend all my interest to that one object."
The Rev. Isaac Dixie stared hard at him, for Cleve looked strangely, and spoke as sternly as a villain demanding his purse. The Rector of Clay looked horribly perplexed. His countenance seemed to ask, "Does he mean to give me a mitre or to take my life, or is he quite right in his head?"
"You think I don't mean what I say, or that I'm talking nonsense, or that I'm mad. I'm not mad, it's no nonsense, and no man was ever more resolved to do what he says." And Cleve who was not given to swearing, did swear a fierce oath. "But all this is not for nothing; there's a condition; you must do me a service. It won't cost you much – less trouble, almost, than you've taken for me to-night, but you must do it."
"And may I, my dear and valued pupil, may I ask?" began the rev. gentleman.
"No, you need not ask, for I'll tell you. It's the same sort of service you did for me in France," said Cleve.
"Ah! ah!" ejaculated the clergyman, very uneasily. "For no one but you, my dear and admirable pupil, could I have brought myself to take that step, and I trust that you will on reconsideration – "
"You must do what I say," said Cleve, looking and speaking with the same unconscious sternness, which frightened the Rector more than any amount of bluster. "I hardly suppose you want to break with me finally, and you don't quite know all the consequences of that step, I fancy."
"Break with you? my admirable patron! desert my dear and brilliant pupil in an emergency? Certainly not. Reckon upon me, my dear Mr. Verney, whenever you need my poor services, to the uttermost. To you all my loyalty is due, but unless you made a very special point of it, I should hesitate for any other person living, but yourself, to incur a second time – "
"Don't you think my dear, d – d old friend, I understand the length, and breadth, and depth, of your friendship; I know how strong it is, and I'll make it stronger. It is for me– yes, in my own case you must repeat the service, as you call it, which you once did me, in another country."
The Rev. Isaac Dixie's rosy cheeks mottled all over blue and yellow; he withdrew his hand from his dressing-gown, with an unaffected gesture of fear; and he fixed a terrified gaze upon Cleve Verney's eyes, which did not flinch, but encountered his, darkly and fixedly, with a desperate resolution.
"Why, you look as much frightened as if I asked you to commit a crime; you marvellous old fool, you hardly think me mad enough for that?"
"I hardly know, Mr. Verney, what I think," said Dixie, looking with a horrible helplessness into his face.
"Good God! sir; it can't be anything wrong?"
"Come, come, sir; you're more than half asleep. Do you dare to think I'd commit myself to any man, by such an idiotic proposal? No one but a lunatic could think of blasting himself, as you – but you can't suppose it. Do listen, and understand if you can; my wife, to whom you married me, is dead, six months ago she died; I tell you she's dead."
"Dear me! I'm very much pained, and I will say shocked; the deceased lady, I should not, my dear pupil, have alluded to, of course; but need I say, I never heard of that affliction?"
"How on earth could you? You don't suppose, knowing all you do, I'd put it in the papers among the deaths?"
"No, dear me, of course," said the Rev. Isaac Dixie, hastily bringing his dressing-gown again together. "No, certainly."
"I don't think that sort of publication would answer you or me. You forget it is two years ago and more, a good deal more. I don't though, and whatever you may, I don't want my uncle to know anything about it."
"But, you know, I only meant, you hadn't told me; my dear Mr. Verney, my honoured pupil, you will see – don't you perceive how much is involved; but this—couldn't you put this upon some one else? Do —do think."
"No, in no one's power, but yours, Dixie;" and Cleve took his hand, looking in his face, and wrung it so hard that the rev. gentleman almost winced under the pressure, of administering which I dare say Cleve was quite unconscious. "No one but you."
"The poor – the respected lady – being deceased, of course you'll give me a note to that effect under your hand; you'll have no objection, in this case, to my taking out a special licence?"
"Special devil! are you mad? Why, anyone could do it with that. No, it's just because it is a little irregular, nothing more, and exacts implicit mutual confidence, that I have chosen you for it."
Dixie looked as if the compliment was not an unmixed pleasure.
"I still think, that – that having performed the other, there is some awkwardness, and the penalties are awful," said he with increasing uneasiness, "and it does strike me, that if my dear Mr. Verney could place his hand upon some other humble friend, in this particular case, the advantages would be obvious."
"Come, Dixie," said Cleve, "I'm going; you must say yes or no, and so decide whether you have seen the last of me; I can't spend the night giving you my reasons, but they are conclusive. If you act like a man of sense, it's the last service I shall ever require at your hands, and I'll reward you splendidly; if you don't, I not only cease to be your friend, but I become your enemy. I can strike when I like it – you know that; and upon my soul I'll smash you. I shall see my uncle to-morrow morning at Ware, and I'll tell him distinctly the entire of that French transaction."
"But – but pray, my dear Mr. Verney, do say, did I refuse —do I object? you may command me, of course. I have incurred I may say a risk for you already, a risk in form."
"Exactly, in form; and you don't increase it by this kindness, and you secure my eternal gratitude. Now you speak like a man of sense. You must be in Cardyllian to-morrow evening. It is possible I may ask nothing of you; if I do, the utmost is a technical irregularity, and secrecy, which we are both equally interested in observing. You shall stay a week in Cardyllian mind, and I, of course, frank you there and back, and while you remain – it's my business. It has a political aspect, as I shall explain to you by-and-bye, and so soon as I shall have brought my uncle round, and can avow it, it will lead the way rapidly to your fortune. Shall I see you in Cardyllian to-morrow evening?"
"Agreed, sir! – agreed, my dear Mr. Verney. I shall be there, my dear and valued pupil —yes."
"Go to the Verney Arms; I shall probably be looking out for you there; at all events I shall see you before night."
Verney looked at his watch, and repeated "I shall see you to-morrow;" and without taking leave, or hearing as it seemed the Rev. Isaac Dixie's farewell compliments and benedictions, he walked out in gloomy haste, as if the conference was not closed, but only suspended by the approaching parenthesis of a night and a day.
From the hall-table the obsequious divine took the key of the little gate, to which, in slippers and dressing-gown, he stepped blandly forth, and having let out his despotic pupil, and waved his adieu, as the chaise drove away, he returned, and locked up his premises and house, with a great load at his heart.
CHAPTER XVI.
AN ALARM
Cleve reached the station, eight miles away from the dismal swamp I have described, in time to catch the mail train. From Llwynan he did not go direct to Ware, but drove instead to Cardyllian, and put up at the Verney Arms early next morning.
By ten o'clock he was seen, sauntering about the streets, talking with old friends, and popping into the shops and listening to the gossip of the town. Cleve had a sort of friendliness that answered all electioneering purposes perfectly, and that was the measure of its value.
Who should he light upon in Castle Street but Tom Sedley! They must have arrived by the same train at Llwynan. The sight of Tom jarred intensely upon Cleve Verney's nerves. There was something so strange in his looks and manner that Sedley thought him ill. He stopped for a while to talk with him at the corner of Church Street, but seemed so obviously disposed to escape from him, that Sedley did not press his society, but acquiesced with some disgust and wonder in their new relations.
Tom Sedley had been with Wynne Williams about poor Vane Etherage's affairs. Honest Wynne Williams was in no mood to flatter Lord Verney, the management of whose affairs he had, he said, "resigned." The fact was that he had been, little by little, so uncomfortably superseded in his functions by our good friend Jos. Larkin, and the fashion of Lord Verney's countenance was so manifestly changed, that honest Wynne Williams felt that he might as well do a proud thing, and resign, as wait a little longer for the inevitable humiliation of dismissal.
"I'm afraid my friend the admiral is in bad hands; worse hands than Larkin's he could hardly have fallen into. I could tell you things of that fellow, if we had time – of course strictly between ourselves, you know – that would open your eyes. And as to his lordship – well, I suppose most people know something of Lord Verney. I owe him nothing, you know; it's all ended between us, and I wash my hands of him and his concerns. You may talk to him, if you like; but you'll find you might as well argue with the tide in the estuary there. I'd be devilish glad if I could be of any use; but you see how it is; and to tell you the truth, I'm afraid it must come to a regular smash, unless Lord Verney drops that nasty litigation. There are some charges, you know, upon the property already; and with that litigation hanging over it, I don't see how he's to get money to pay those calls. It's a bad business, I'm afraid, and an awful pity. Poor old fellow! – a little bit rough, but devilish good-hearted."
Tom Sedley went up to Hazelden. The Etherage girls knew he was coming, and were watching for him at the top of the steep walk.
"I've been talking, as I said I would, to Wynne Williams this morning," he said, after greetings and inquiries made and answered, "and he had not anything important to advise; but he has promised to think over the whole matter."
"And Wynne Williams is known to be the cleverest lawyer in the world," exclaimed Miss Charity, exulting. "I was afraid, on account of his having been so lately Lord Verney's adviser, that he would not have been willing to consult with you. And will he use his influence, which must be very great, with Lord Verney?"
"He has none; and he thinks it would be quite useless my talking to him."
"Oh! Is it possible? Well, if he said that, I never heard such nonsense in the course of my life. I think old Lord Verney was one of the very nicest men I ever spoke to in the course of my life; and I'm certain it is all that horrid Mr. Larkin, and a great mistake; for Lord Verney is quite a gentleman, and would not do anything so despicable as to worry and injure papa by this horrid business, if only you would make him understand it; and I do think, Thomas Sedley, you might take that trouble for papa."
"I'll go over to Ware, and try to see Lord Verney, if you think my doing so can be of the least use," said Tom, who knew the vanity of arguing with Miss Charity.
"Oh, do," said pretty Agnes, and that entreaty was, of course, a command; so without going up to see old Etherage, who was very much broken and ill, his daughters said; and hoping possibly to have some cheering news on his return, Tom Sedley took his leave for the present, and from the pier of Cardyllian crossed in a boat to Ware.
On the spacious steps of that palatial mansion, as Mr. Larkin used to term it, stood Lord Verney, looking grandly seaward, with compressed eyes, like a near-sighted gentleman as he was.
"Oh! is she all right?" said Lord Verney.
"I – I don't know, Lord Verney," replied Tom Sedley. "I came to" —
"Oh – aw – Mr. – Mr. – how d'ye do, sir," said Lord Verney, with marked frigidity, not this time giving him the accustomed finger.
"I came, Lord Verney, hoping you might possibly give me five minutes, and a very few words, about that unfortunate business of poor Mr. Vane Etherage."
"I'm unfortunately just going out in a boat – about it; and I can't just now afford time, Mr. – a – Mr." —
"Sedley is my name," suggested Sedley, who knew that Lord Verney remembered him perfectly.
"Sedley – Mr. Sedley; yes. As I mentioned, I'm going in a boat. I'm sorry I can't possibly oblige you; and it is very natural you, who are so intimate, I believe, with Mr. Etherage, should take that side of the question – about it; but I've no reason to call those proceedings unfortunate; and – and I don't anticipate – and, in fact, people usually look after their own concerns – about it." Lord Verney, standing on the steps, was looking over Sedley's head, as he spoke, at the estuary and the shipping there.
"I'm sure, Lord Verney, if you knew how utterly ruinous, how really deplorable, the consequences of pursuing this thing – I mean the lawsuit against him – may be – I am sure– you would stop it all."
Honest Tom spoke in the belief that in the hesitation that had marked the close of the noble lord's remarks there was a faltering of purpose, whereas there was simply a failure of ideas.
"I can't help your forming opinions, sir, though I have not invited their expression upon my concerns and – and affairs. If you have anything to communicate about those proceedings, you had better see Mr. Larkin, my attorney; he's the proper person. Mr. Etherage has taken a line in the county to wound and injure me, as, of course, he has a perfect right to do; he has taken that line, and I don't see any reason why I should not have what I'm entitled to. There's the principle of government by party, you're aware; and we're not to ask favours of those we seek to wound and injure – about it; and that's my view, and idea, and fixed opinion. I must wish you good morning, Mr. Sedley. I'm going down to my boat, and I decline distinctly any conversation upon the subject of my law business; I decline it distinctly, Mr. Sedley – about it," repeated the peer peremptorily; and as he looked a good deal incensed, Tom Sedley wisely concluded it was time to retire; and so his embassage came to an end.
Lord Verney crossed the estuary in his yacht, consulting his watch from time to time, and reconnoitering the green and pier of Cardyllian through his telescope with considerable interest. A little group was assembled near the stair, among whose figures he saw Lady Wimbledon. "Why is not Caroline there?" he kept asking himself, and all the time searching that little platform for the absent idol of his heart.
Let us deal mercifully with this antiquated romance; and if Miss Caroline Oldys forebore to say, "Go up, thou baldhead," let us also spare the amorous incongruity. Does any young man love with the self-abandonment of an old one? Is any romance so romantic as the romance of an old man? When Sancho looked over his shoulder, and saw his master in his shirt, cutting capers and tumbling head-over-heels, and tearing his hair in his love-madness, that wise governor and man of proverbs forgot the grotesqueness of the exhibition in his awe of that vehement adoration. So let us. When does this noble frenzy exhibit itself in such maudlin transports, and with a self-sacrifice so idolatrously suicidal, as in the old? Seeing, then, that the spirit is so prodigiously willing, let us bear with the spectacle of their infirmities, and when one of these sighing, magnanimous, wrinkled Philanders goes by, let us not hiss, but rather say kindly, "Vive la bagatelle!" or, as we say in Ireland, "More power!"
He was disappointed. Miss Caroline Oldys had a very bad headache, Lady Wimbledon said, and was in her room, in care of her maid, so miserable at losing the charming sail to Malory.
Well, the lover was sorely disappointed, as we have said; but there was nothing for it but submission, and to comfort himself with the assurances of Lady Wimbledon that Caroline's headaches never lasted long, and that she was always better for a long time, when they were over. This latter piece of information seemed to puzzle Lord Verney.
"Miss Oldys is always better after an attack than before it," said Cleve, interpreting for his uncle.
"Why, of course. That's what Lady Wimbledon means, as I understand it," said Lord Verney, a little impatiently. "It's very sad; you must tell me all about it; but we may hope to find her, you say, quite recovered when we return?"
Cleve was not of the party to Malory. He returned to the Verney Arms. He went up to Lady Wimbledon's drawing-room with a book he had promised to lend her, and found Miss Caroline Oldys.
Yes, she was better. He was very earnest and tender in his solicitudes. He was looking ill, and was very melancholy.
Two hours after her maid came in to know whether she "pleased to want anything?" and she would have sworn that Miss Caroline had been crying. Mr. Cleve had got up from beside her, and was looking out of the window.
A little later in the day, old Lady Calthorpe, a cousin of Lady Wimbledon's, very feeble and fussy, and babbling in a querulous treble, was pushed out in her Bath-chair, Cleve and Miss Caroline Oldys accompanying, to the old castle of Cardyllian.
On the step of the door of the Verney Arms, as they emerged, whom should they meet, descending from the fly that had borne him from Llwynan, but the Rev. Isaac Dixie. That sleek and rosy gentleman, with flat feet, and large hands, and fascinating smile, was well pleased to join the party, and march blandly beside the chair of the viscountess, invigorating the fainting spirit of that great lady by the balm of his sympathy and the sunshine of his smile.
So into the castle they went, across the nearly obliterated moat, where once a drawbridge hung, now mantled with greenest grass, under the grim arches, where once the clanging portcullis rose and fell, and into the base court, and so under other arches into the inner court, surrounded by old ivy-mantled walls.
In this seclusion the old Lady Calthorpe stopped her chair to enjoy the sweet air and sunshine, and the agreeable conversation of the divine, and Cleve offered to guide Miss Caroline Oldys through the ruins, an exploration in which she seemed highly interested.
Cleve spoke low and eloquently, but I don't think it was about the architecture. Time passed rapidly, and at last Miss Oldys whispered —
"We've been too long away from Lady Calthorpe. I must go back. She'll think I have deserted her."
So they emerged from the roofless chambers and dim corridors, and Cleve wished from the bottom of his heart that some good or evil angel would put off his uncle's nuptials for another week, and all would be well —well!
Yes – what was "well," if one goes to moral ideals for a standard? We must run risks – we must set one side of the book against the other. What is the purpose and the justification of all morality but happiness? The course which involves least misery is alternatively the moral course. And take the best act that ever you did, and place it in that dreadful solvent, the light of God's eye, and how much of its motive will stand the test? Yes – another week, and all will be well; and has not a fertile mind like his, resource for any future complication, as for this, that may arise?
Captain Shrapnell was not sorry to meet this distinguished party as they emerged, and drew up on the grass at the side, and raised his hat with a reverential smile, as the old lady wheeled by, and throwing a deferential concern suddenly into his countenance, he walked a few paces beside Cleve, while he said —
"You've heard, of course, about your uncle, Lord Verney?"
"No?" answered Cleve, on chance.
"No?– Oh? – Why it's half an hour ago. I hope it's nothing serious; but his groom drove down from Malory for the doctor here. Something wrong with his head – suddenly, I understand, and Old Lyster took his box with him, and a bottle of leeches – that looks serious, eh? – along with him."
Shrapnell spoke low, and shook his head.
"I – I did not hear a word of it. I've been in the castle with old Lady Calthorpe. I'm very much surprised."
There was something odd, shrewd old Shrapnell fancied in the expression of Cleve's eye, which for a moment met his. But Cleve looked pale and excited, as he said a word in a very low tone to Miss Oldys, and walked across the street accompanied by Shrapnell, to the doctor's shop.
"Oh!" said Cleve, hastily stepping in, and accosting a lean, pale youth, with lank, black hair, who paused in the process of braying a prescription in a mortar as he approached. "My uncle's not well, I hear – Lord Verney – at Malory?"
The young man glanced at Captain Shrapnell.
"The doctor told me not to mention, sir; but if you'd come into the back-room" —
"I'll be with you in a moment," said Cleve Verney to Shrapnell, at the same time stepping into the sanctum, and the glass door being shut, he asked, "What is it?"
"The doctor thought it must be apoplexy, sir," murmured the young man, gazing with wide open eyes, very solemnly, in Cleve's face.
"So I fancied," and Cleve paused, a little stunned; "and the doctor's there, at Malory, now?"
"Yes, sir; he'll be there a quarter of an hour or more by this time," answered the young man.
Again Cleve paused.
"It was not fatal– he was still living?" he asked very low.
"Yes, sir – sure."
Cleve, forgetting any form of valediction, passed into the shop.
"I must drive down to Malory," he said; and calling one of those pony carriages which ply in Cardyllian, he drove away, with a wave of his hand to the Captain, who was sorely puzzled to read the true meaning of that handsome mysterious face.
