The Tenants of Malory, Volume 3

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  CHAPTER XXI.

  MR. LARKIN'S TWO MOVES.

  THE hatch of the Steward's House stood open, and Mr. Larkin entered.There was a girl's voice crying in the room next the hall, and heopened the door.

  The little girl was sobbing with her apron to her eyes, and hearingthe noise she lowered it and looked at the door, when the lank form ofthe bald attorney and his sinister face peering in met her eyes, andarrested her lamentation with a new emotion.

  "It's only I--Mr. Larkin," said he. He liked announcing himselfwherever he went. "I want to know how Mrs. Mervyn is now."

  "Gone dead, sir--about a quarter of an hour ago;" and the child'slamentation recommenced.

  "Ha! very sad. The doctor here?"

  "He's gone, sir."

  "And you're _certain_ she's dead?"

  "Yes, sure, sir," and she sobbed on.

  "Stop that," he said, sternly, "just a moment--thanks. I want to seeMr. Dingwell, the old gentleman who has been staying here--where ishe?"

  "In the drawing-room, sir, please," said the child, a good dealfrightened. And to the drawing-room he mounted.

  Light was streaming from a door a little open, and a fragrance also ofa peculiar tobacco, which he recognised as that of Mr. Dingwell'schibouque. There was a sound of feet upon the floor of the room above,which Mr. Larkin's ear received as those of persons employed inarranging the dead body.

  I would be perhaps wronging Mr. Dingwell, as I still call him, to saythat he smoked like a man perfectly indifferent. On the contrary, hiscountenance looked lowering and furious--so much so that Mr. Larkinremoved his hat, a courtesy which he had intended studiously to omit.

  "Oh! Mr. Dingwell," said he, "I need not introduce myself."

  "No, I prefer your withdrawing yourself and shutting the door," saidDingwell.

  "Yes, in a moment, sir. I merely wish to mention that Lord Verney--Imean your brother, sir--has fully apprized me of the conversationwith which you thought it prudent to favour him."

  "You'd rather have been the medium yourself, I fancy. Something to bemade of such a situation? Hey! but you _shan't_."

  "I don't know what you mean, sir, by something to be made. If I choseto mention your name and abode in the city, sir, you'd not enjoy thepower of insulting others long."

  "Pooh, sir! I've got _your_ letter and my brother's _secret_. I knowmy strength. I'm steering the fire-ship that will blow you all up, ifI please; and you talk of flinging a squib at me, you blockhead! Itell you, sir, you'll make nothing of me; and now you may as wellwithdraw. There are two things in this house you don't like, thoughyou'll have enough of them one day; there's death up stairs, sir, andsome thing very like the devil here."

  Mr. Larkin thought he saw signs of an approaching access of theDingwell mania, so he made his most dignified bow, and at the doorremarked, "I take my leave, sir, and when next we meet I trust I mayfind you in a very different state of mind, and one more favourable tobusiness."

  He had meditated a less covert sneer and menace, but modified hisspeech prudently as he uttered it; but there was still quite enoughthat was sinister in his face, as he closed the door, to strike Mr.Dingwell's suspicion.

  "Only I've got that fellow in my pocket, I'd say he was bent onmischief; but he's in my pocket; and suppose he did, no great matter,after all--only dying. I'm not gathering up my strength; no--I shallnever be the same man again--and life so insipid--and that poor olddoll up stairs. So many things going on under the stars, all ending_so_!"

  Yes--so many things. There was Cleve, chief mourner to-day, chattingnow wonderfully gaily, with a troubled heart, and a kind of growingterror, to that foolish victim who no more suspected him than he didthe resurrection of his uncle Arthur, smoking his chibouque only amile away.

  There, too, far away, is a pale, beautiful young mother, sitting onthe bed-side of her sleeping boy, weeping silently, as she looks onhis happy face, and--_thinks_.

  Mr. Dingwell arrayed in travelling costume, suddenly appeared beforeLord Verney again.

  "I'm not going to plague you--only this. I've an idea I shall lose mylife if I don't go to London to-night, and I must catch the mailtrain. Tell your people to put the horses to your brougham, and dropme at Llwynan."

  Lord Verney chose to let his brother judge for himself in this matter,being only too glad to get rid of him.

  Shrieking through tunnels, thundering through lonely valleys, glidingover wide, misty plains, spread abroad like lakes, the mail train boreArthur Verney, and also--each unconscious of the other's vicinity--Mr.Jos. Larkin toward London.

  Mr. Larkin had planned a checkmate in two moves. He had been broodingover it in his mufflers, sometimes with his eyes shut, sometimes withhis eyes open--all night, in the corner of his carriage. When hestepped out in the morning, with his despatch-box in his hand, whomshould he meet in the cold gray light upon the platform, full front,but Mr. Dingwell. He was awfully startled.

  Dingwell had seen him, too; Larkin had felt, as it were, his quickglance touch him, and he was sure that Dingwell had observed hismomentary but significant change of countenance. He, therefore, walkedup to him, touched him on the arm, and said, with a smile--

  "I thought, sir, I recognized you. I trust you have an attendant? CanI do anything for you? Cold, this morning. Hadn't you better draw yourmuffler up a little about your face?" There was a significance aboutthis last suggestion which Mr. Dingwell could not mistake, and hecomplied. "Running down again to Malory in a few days, I suppose?"

  "Yes," said Dingwell.

  "So shall I, and if quite convenient to you, I should wish, sir, totalk that little matter over much more carefully, and--can I call acab for you? I should look in upon you to-day only I must be atBrighton, not to return till to-morrow, and very busy then, too."

  They parted. Dingwell did not like it.

  "He's at mischief. I've thought of _every_ thing, and I can't see_any_ thing that would answer _his_ game. I don't like his face."

  Dingwell felt very oddly. It was all like a dream; an unaccountablehorror overcame him. He sent out for a medicine that day, which theapothecary refused to give to Mrs. Rumble. But he wrote an explanatorynote alleging that he was liable to fits, and so got back just alittle, at which he pooh'd and psha'd, and wrote to some otherapothecaries, and got together what he wanted, and told Mrs. Rumble hewas better.

  He had his dinner as usual in his snuggery in Rosemary Court, and senttwo letters to the post by Mrs. Rumble. That to Lord Verney containedLarkin's _one_ unguarded letter inviting him to visit England, andwith all the caution compatible with being intelligible, but still notenough--suggesting the audacious game which had been so successfullyplayed. A brief and pointed commentary in Mr. Dingwell's handwriting,accompanied this.

  The other enclosed to Wynne Williams, to whose countenance he hadtaken a fancy; the certificate of his marriage to Rebecca Mervyn, anda reference to the Rev. Thomas Bartlett; and charged him to make useof it to quiet any unfavourable rumours about that poor lady, who wasthe only human being he believed who had ever cared much about him.

  When Wynne Williams opened this letter he lifted up his hands inwonder.

  "A miracle, by heaven!" he exclaimed. "The most providential andmarvellous interposition--the _only_ thing we wanted!"

  "Perhaps I was wrong to break with that villain, Larkin," brooded Mr.Dingwell. "We must make it up when we meet. I don't like it. When hesaw me this morning his face looked like the hangman's."

  It was now evening, and having made a very advantageous bargain withthe Hebrew gentleman who had that heavy judgment against the late Hon.Arthur Verney, an outlaw, &c.--Mr. Larkin played his first move, andamid the screams of Mrs. Rumble, old Dingwell was arrested on awarrant against the Hon. Arthur Verney, and went away, protesting itwas a false arrest, to the Fleet.

  Things now looked very awful, and he wrote to Mr. Larkin at his hotel,begging of him to come and satisfy "some fools" that he was Mr.Dingwell. But Jos. Larkin was not at his inn. He had not been therethat day, and D
ingwell began to think that Jos. Larkin had, perhaps,told the truth for once, and was actually at Brighton. Well, one nightin the Fleet was not very much; Larkin would appear next morning, andLarkin could, of course, manage the question of identity, and settleeverything easily, and they would shake hands, and make it up. Mr.Dingwell wondered why they had not brought him to a sponging-house,but direct to the prison. But as things were done under the advice ofMr. Jos. Larkin, in whom I have every confidence, I suppose there wasa reason.

  Mr. Dingwell was of a nature which danger excites rather than cows.The sense of adventure was uppermost. The situation by an odd reactionstimulated his spirits, and he grew frolicsome. He felt a recklessnessthat recalled his youth. He went down to the flagged yard, and madean acquaintance or two, one in slippers and dressing-gown, another inan evening coat buttoned across his breast, and without much show ofshirt. "Very amusing and gentlemanlike men," he thought, "though outat elbows a little;" and not caring for solitude, he invited them tohis room, to supper; and they sat up late; and the gentleman in theblack evening coat--an actor in difficulties--turned out to be aclever mimic, an inimitable singer of comic songs, and an admirable_raconteur_--"a very much cleverer man than the Prime Minister, egad!"said Mr. Dingwell.

  One does see very clever fellows in odd situations. The race is notalways to the swift. The moral qualities have something to do with it,and industry everything; and thus very dull fellows are often in veryhigh places. The curse implies a blessing to the man who accepts itscondition. "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." Labour isthe curse and the _qualification_, also; and so the dullard who toilsshall beat the genius who idles.

  Dingwell enjoyed it vastly, and _lent_ the pleasant fellow a pound,and got to his bed at three o'clock in the morning, glad to havecheated so much of the night. But tired as he was by his journey ofthe night before, he could not sleep till near six o'clock, when hefell into a doze, and from it he was wakened oddly.

  It was by Mr. Jos. Larkin's "second move." Mr. Larkin has greatmalice, but greater prudence. No one likes better to give the man whohas disappointed him a knock, the condition being that he disturbs nointerest of his own by so doing. Where there is a properconsideration, no man is more forgiving. Where interest and revengepoint the same way, he hits very hard indeed.

  Mr. Larkin had surveyed the position carefully. The judgment of thecriminal court was still on record, _nullum tempus occurrit_, &c. Itwas a case in which a pardon was very unlikely. There was but one wayof placing the head of the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney firmly inthe vacant coronet, and of establishing him, Jos. Larkin Esq., of theLodge, in the valuable management of the estates and affairs of thatwealthy peerage. It was by dropping the extinguisher upon the flame ofthat solitary lamp, the Hon. Arthur Verney. Of course Jos. Larkin'shand must not appear. He himself communicated with no official person.That was managed easily and adroitly.

  He wrote, too, from Brighton to Lord Verney at Malory, the day afterhis interview with that ex-nobleman, expressing the most seriousuneasiness, in consequence of having learned from a London legalacquaintance at Brighton, that a report prevailed in certain quartersof the city, that the person styling himself Mr. Dingwell had provedto be the Hon. Arthur Verney, and that the Verney peerage was, inconsequence, once more on the shelf. "I treated this report slightly,in very serious alarm notwithstanding for your brother's safety,"wrote Mr. Larkin, "and your lordship will pardon my expressing myregret that you should have mentioned, until the Hon. Arthur Verneyhad secured an asylum outside England, the fact of his being stillliving, which has filled the town unfortunately with conjecture andspeculation of a most startling nature. I was shocked to see him thismorning on the public platform of the railway, where, very possibly,he was recognised. It is incredible how many years are needed toobliterate recollection by the hand of time. I quietly entreated himto conceal his face a little, a precaution which, I am happy to add,he adopted. I am quite clear that he should leave London asexpeditiously and secretly as possible, for some sequestered spot inFrance, where he can, without danger, await your lordship's decisionas to plans for his ultimate safety. May I entreat your lordship'sinstantaneous attention to this most urgent and alarming subject. Ishall be in town to-morrow evening, where my usual address will reachme, and I shall, without a moment's delay, apply myself to carry outwhatever your lordship's instructions may direct."

  "Yes, he has an idea of my judgment--about it," said Lord Verney whenhe had read this letter, "and a feeling about the family--veryloyal--yes, he's a very loyal person; I shall turn it over, Iwill--I'll write to him."

  Mr. Dingwell, however, had been wakened by two officers with a warrantby which they were ordered to take his body and consign it to agaoler. Mr. Dingwell read it, and his instinct told him that Jos.Larkin was at the bottom of his misfortune, and his heart sank.

  "Very well, gentlemen," said he, briskly, "very good; it is not forme; my name is Dingwell, and my solicitor is Mr. Jos. Larkin, and allwill be right. I must get my clothes on, if you please."

  And he sat up in the bed, and bit his lip, and raised his eyebrows,and shrugged his shoulders drearily.

  "Poor linnet--ay, ay--she was not very wise, but the only one--I'vebeen a great fool--let us try."

  There came over his face a look of inexpressible fatigue andsomething like resignation--and he looked all at once ten years older.

  "I'll be with you, I'll be with you, gentlemen," he said very gently.

  There was a flask with some noyeau in it, relics of last night'smerry-making, to which these gentlemen took the liberty of helpingthemselves.

  When they looked again at their prisoner he was lying nearly on hisface, in a profound sleep, his chin on his chest.

  "Choice stuff--smell o' nuts in it," said constable Ruddle, lickinghis lips. "Git up, sir; ye can take a nap when you git there."

  There was a little phial in the old man's fingers; the smell ofkernels was stronger about the pillow. "The old man of the mountains"was in a deep sleep, the deepest of all sleeps--death.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  CONCLUSION.

  AND now all things with which, in these pages, we are concerned, arecome to that point at which they are best settled in a very few words.

  The _one_ point required to establish Sedley's claim to thepeerage--the validity of the marriage--had been supplied by old ArthurVerney, as we have seen, the night before his death.

  The late Lord Verney of unscrupulous memory, Arthur's father, had, itwas believed, induced Captain Sedley, in whose charge the infant hadbeen placed, to pretend its death, and send the child in reality toFrance, where it had been nursed and brought up as his. He wasdependent for his means of existence upon his employment as manager ofhis estates, under Lord Verney; and he dared not, it was thought, fromsome brief expressions in a troubled letter among the papers placed byold Mrs. Mervyn in Wynne Williams's hands, notwithstanding manyqualms of conscience, disobey Lord Verney. And he was quieted furtherby the solemn assurance that the question of the validity of thepretended marriage had been thoroughly sifted, and that it was provedto have been a nullity.

  He carefully kept, however, such papers as were in his possessionrespecting the identity of the child, and added a short statement ofhis own. If that old Lord Verney had suspected the truth that themarriage was valid, as it afterwards proved, he was the only member ofhis family who did so. The rest had believed honestly the story thatit was fraudulent and illusory. The apparent proof of the child'sdeath had put an end to all interest in further investigating thequestion, and so the matter rested, until time and events brought allto light.

  The dream that made Malory beautiful in my eyes is over. The image ofthat young fair face--the beautiful lady of the chestnut hair andgreat hazel eyes haunts its dark woods less palpably, and the glowingshadow fades, year by year, away.

  In sunny Italy, where her mother was born, those eyes having lookedtheir last on Cleve and on "the boy," and up, in clouded hope toheaven--were closed, and the slender
bones repose. "I think, Cleve,you'll sometimes remember your poor Margaret. I know you'll always bevery kind to the little boy--_our_ darling, and if you marry again,Cleve, _she'll_ not be a trouble to you, as I have been; and you said,you'll sometimes think of me. You'll forget all my jealousy, andtemper, and folly, and you'll say--'Ah, she loved me.'"

  And these last words return, though the lips that spoke them come nomore; and he _is_ very kind to that handsome boy--frank, generous, andfiery like her, with the great hazel eyes and beautiful tints, and thefine and true affections. At times comes something in the smile, inthe tone as he talks, in the laugh that thrills his heart with astrange yearning and agony. Vain remorse! vain the yearnings; for thelast words are spoken and heard; not one word _more_ while the heavensremain, and mortals people the earth!

  * * * * *

  Sedley--Lord Verney we should style him--will never be a politician,but he has turned out a thoroughly useful business-like and genialcountry gentleman. Agnes, now Lady Verney, is, I will not say howhappy; I only hope not too happy.

  Need I say that the cloud that lowered for a while over the house ofHazelden has quite melted into air, and that the sun never shonebrighter on that sweet landscape? Miss Etherage is a great heiressnow, for Sedley, as for sake of clearness I call him still, refused a_dot_ with his wife, and that handsome inheritance will all belong toCharity, who is as emphatic, obstinate, and kind-hearted as ever. Theadmiral has never gone down the mill-road since his introduction tothe Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney at the foot of the hill. He rollsin his chair safely along the level uplands, and amuses himself withoccasional inspections of Ware through his telescope; and tells littleAgnes, when he sees her, what she was doing on a certain day, and askswho the party with the phaeton and grays, who called on Thursday attwo o'clock, were, and similar questions; and likes to hear the news,and they say is growing more curious as years increase. He and Charityhave revived their acquaintance with _ecarte_ and _piquet_, and playfor an hour or so very snugly in the winter evenings. Miss Charity isa little cross when she loses, and won't let old Etherage play morethan his allotted number of games; and locks up the cards; and isgrowing wife-like with the admiral; but is quite devoted to him, andwill make him live, I think, six years longer than any one else could.

  Sedley wrote a very kind letter to the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney, toset his mind at ease about _mesne rates_, and any other claimswhatsoever, that might arise against him, in consequence of histemporary tenure of the title and estates, and received from Vichy avery affronted reply, begging him to take whatever course he might beadvised, as he distinctly objected to being placed under any kind ofpersonal obligation, and trusted that he would not seek to place sucha construction upon a compulsory respect for the equities of thesituation, and the decencies enforced by public opinion; and hedeclared his readiness to make any sacrifice to pay him whatever hisstrict legal rights entitled him to the moment he had made up his mindto exact them.

  The Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney is, of course, quite removed from hissphere of usefulness and distinction--parliamentary life--and spendshis time upon the Continent, and is remarkably reserved andimpertinent, and regarded with very general respect and hatred.

  Sedley has been very kind, for Cleve's sake, to old Sir BoothFanshawe, with whom he is the only person on earth who has aninfluence.

  He wrote to the baronet, who was then in Paris, disclosing the secretof Cleve's marriage. The old man burst into one of his frenzies, andwrote forthwith a frantic letter direct to his mortal enemy, the Hon.Kiffyn Fulke Verney, railing at Cleve, railing at _him_, and callingupon him, in a tone of preposterous menace, to punish his nephew! Hadhe been left to himself, I dare say he would have made Cleve feel hisresentment. But thus bullied he said--"Upon my life I'll do no suchthing. I'm in the habit of thinking before I take steps, aboutit--with Booth Fanshawe's permission, I'll act according to my ownjudgment, and I dare say the girl has got some money, and if it werenot good for Cleve in some way, that old person would not be soangry." And so it ended for the present.

  The new Lord Verney went over expressly to see him, and in the sameconversation, in which he arranged some law business in thefriendliest way, and entirely to Sir Booth Fanshawe's satisfaction, hediscussed the question of Cleve's marriage. At first the baronet wasincensed; but when the hurly-burly was done he came to see, with ourfriend Tom, whose peerage gave his opinion weight on the subject ofmarriages and family relations, that the alliance was not so bad--onthe contrary, that it had some very strong points to recommend it.

  The Rev. Isaac Dixie has not got on in the Church, and is somehow nofavourite at Ware. The Hon. Miss Caroline Oldys is still unmarried,and very bitter on the Verneys, uncle and nephew; people don'tunderstand why, though the reader may. Perhaps she thinks that theHon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney ought to have tried again, and was too readyto accept a first refusal. Her hatred of Cleve I need not explain.

  With respect to Mr. Larkin, I cite an old Dutch proverb, which says,"Those who swim deep and climb high seldom die in their beds." In itsfair figurative sense it applies satisfactorily to the case of thatprofound and aspiring gentleman who, as some of my readers are aware,fell at last from a high round of the ladder of his ambition, and wasdrowned in the sea beneath. No--not drowned; that were too painless,and implies extinction. He fell, rather, upon that black flooring ofrock that rims the water, and was smashed, but not killed.

  It was, as they will remember, after his introduction to themanagement of the affairs of the Wylder, Brandon, and Lake families,and on the eve, to all appearance, of the splendid consummation of hissubtle and audacious schemes, that in a moment the whole scaffoldingof his villany gave way, and he fell headlong--thenceforth, helpless,sprawling, backbroken, living on from year to year, and eatingmetaphoric dust, like the great old reptile who is as yet mangled butnot killed.

  Happy fly the years at Ware. Many fair children have blessed the unionof pretty Agnes Etherage and the kindly heir of the Verneys. Clevedoes not come himself; he goes little to any gay country houses. Akind of lassitude or melancholy is settling and deepening upon him. Toone passage of his life he looks back with a quickly averted glance,and an unchanging horror--the time when he was saved from a greatcrime, as it were, by the turning of a die. "Those three dreadfulweeks," he says within himself, "when I was _mad_!" But his handsomeson is constantly at Ware, where he is beloved by its master andmistress like one of their own children. One day Lord Verney ranacross to Malory in his yacht, this boy with him. It was an accidental_tete-a-tete_, and he talked to the boy a great deal of his "poormama," as he sauntered through the sunny woods of Malory; and hebrought him to the refectory, and pointed out to him from the window,the spot where he had seen her, with her trowel in her hand, as themorning sun threw the shadow of the spreading foliage over her, and hedescribed her beauty to him; and he walked down with him toCardyllian, the yacht was appointed to meet them at the pier, andbrought him into the church, to the pew where he was placed, andshowed him the seat where she and Anne Sheckleton sat on the Sundaywhen he saw her first, and looked for a while silently into that voidshadow, for it is pleasant and yet sad to call up sometimes those oldscenes and images that have made us feel, when we were younger; andsomehow good Lady Verney did not care to hear her husband upon thistheme.

  So for the present the story of the Verneys of Malory is told. Yearshence, when we shall not be here to read it, the same scenes andfamily may have a new story to tell; for time, with his shuttle andthe threads of fate, is ever weaving new romance.

  END OF VOL III.

  BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS

  +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note:-- | | | | Punctuation errors have been corrected. | | | | The following suspe
cted printer's errors have been addressed.| | | | Page 14. chesnut changed to chestnut. | | (rich chestnut hair) | | | | Page 44. than clever changed to clever than. | | (more clever than I) | | | | Page 74. negociation changed to negotiation. | | (engaged in a great negotiation) | | | | Page 98. reeluse changed to recluse. | | (look in upon the recluse) | | | | Page 98 taet changed to tact. | | (with the exquisite tact) | | | | Page 98. dietator changed to dictator. | | (the airs of a dictator) | | | | Page 127. mattrass changed to mattress. | | (the feather-bed and the mattress) | | | | Page 162. duplicate word 'give' deleted. | | (Can I give you any more) | | | | Page 234. spo e changed to spoke. | | (as he spoke) | | | | Page 250. villanously changed to villainously. | | (and smiling villainously) | | | | Page 257. accompapanied changed to accompanied. | | (accompanied this) | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+