MR. DINGWELL THINKS OF AN EXCURSION.
IF Mr. Dingwell had been the most interesting, beautiful, and, I will
add, wealthy of human beings, instead of being an ugly and wicked old
bankrupt, Messrs. Goldshed, Levi, and Larkin could not have watched
the progress of his complaint with greater trepidation, or hailed the
first unequivocal symptoms of his recovery with more genuine delight.
I doubt if any one of them would have experienced the same intense
happiness at the restoration of wife, child, or parent.
They did not, it is true, re-assemble in Mr. Dingwell's apartments in
Rosemary Court. There was not one of those gentlemen who did not set a
proper value upon his own life; and they were content with the
doctor's report. In due course, the oracle pronounced Mr. Dingwell out
of danger, but insisted on change of air.
Well, that could be managed, of course. It _must_ be managed, for did
not the doctor say, that without it the patient might not ultimately
recover. If it could have been dispensed with, the risk would have
been wisely avoided. But Mr. Dingwell's recovery depended on it, and
Mr. Dingwell must be _made_ to recover.
Whither should they send him? Stolen treasure or murdered body is
jealously concealed by the malefactor; but not more shrinkingly than
was Mr. Dingwell by those gentlemen who had him in charge. Safe enough
he was while he remained in his dingy seclusion in Rosemary Court,
where he lay as snugly as Asmodeus in the magician's phial, and secure
against all but some such accident as the irruption of the student Don
Cleophas Leandro Peres Zambullo, through the skylight. But where was
to be found a rural habitation--salubrious and at the same time
sufficiently secret. And if they did light upon one resembling that
where the water-fiends played their pranks--
"On a wild moor, all brown and bleak,
Where broods the heath-frequenting grouse,
There stood a tenement antique--
Lord Hoppergollop's country house.
"Here silence reigned with lips of glue,
And undisturbed, maintained her law,
Save when the owl cried--'Whoo! whoo! whoo!'
Or the hoarse crow croaked--'Caw! caw! caw!'"
If I say they did find so eligible a mansion for their purpose, was it
likely that their impracticable and incorrigible friend, Mr. Dingwell,
would consent to spend six weeks in the "deserted mansion" as
patiently as we are told Molly Dumpling did?
I think not. And when the doctor talked of country air, the patient
joked peevishly about the "grove of chimneys," and "the sweet shady
side of Pall Mall."
"I think, Mrs. Rumble," said he, one day, "I'm not going to die this
bout at all events. I'm looking better, I think--eh?"
"Looking very bad, sir, please. I can't see no improvement," said
Sarah Rumble.
"Well, ma'am, you try to keep my spirits up, thank you. I'm shut up
too much--that's the sole cause of it _now_. If I could creep out a
bit at night."
"God forbid, sir."
"Thank you, ma'am, again. I say if I could get out a little I should
soon get my strength back again; but sitting in this great padded
chair I might as well be in bed; can't go out in the daytime you
know--too many enemies. The owl's been moulting, ma'am--devilish
sick--the moulting owl. If the old bird could flutter out a bit. I'm
living like a _monk_, I was going to say--egad, I wish I was. Give me
those d---- bitters; they haven't done me a bit of good--thanks."
"If you was to go to the country, sir," insinuated Miss Sarah Rumble.
"Yes, if I _was_, as you express it, I should die in a week. If air
could have killed me, the curious atmosphere of this charming court
would have killed me long ago. I'm not one of those air-plants, ma'am.
What I want is a little fillip, ma'am--a little amusement--anything
out of this prison; and I'm not going to squat on a moor, or to roost
in a wood, to please a pack of fellows that don't care if I were on
the treadmill, provided they could take me out whenever they want me.
My health, indeed! They simply want me out of the way. My health!
Their consideration for me is truly affecting. We'll not mind the
bitters, yet. It's time for my claret."
He drank it, and seemed to doze for a little. Mrs. Rumble quickly
settled the medicine bottles and other things that had been put out of
their places, every now and then looking at the sunken face of the old
man, in his death-like nap--his chin sunk on his breast, the stern
carving of his massive forehead, the repulsive lines of a grim
selfishness, and a certain evil shadow, made that face in its repose
singularly unlovely.
Suddenly he waked.
"I say, Mrs. Rumble, I've been thinking--what about that old clergyman
you mentioned--that Mr. Bartlett. I think I _will_ see him--suppose he
lectures me; his hard words won't break my bones, and I think he'd
amuse me; so you may as well get him in, any time--I don't care when."
Sarah Rumble was only too glad to give her wicked tenant a chance,
such as it was, and next day, at about one o'clock, a gentle-looking
old clergyman, with thin white hair, knocked at his door, and was
admitted. It was the Rev. Thomas Bartlett.
"I can't rise, sir, to receive you--you'll excuse me; but I'm still
very ill," said Mr. Dingwell.
"Pray don't stir, sir," said the clergyman.
"I _can't_," said Mr. Dingwell. "Will _you_ kindly sit in that chair,
near the fire? What I have to say is private, and if you please we'll
speak very low. My head isn't recovered yet."
"Certainly," said the old gentleman, placing himself as Dingwell
wished.
"Thank you very much, sir. Now I can manage it. Isn't your name
Thomas, sir--the Reverend Thomas Bartlett?" said Mr. Dingwell, looking
at him shrewdly from under his white eyebrows.
"That's my name, sir."
"_My_ name's Dingwell. You don't remember? I'll try to bring it to
your mind. About twenty-nine years ago you were one of the curates at
St. Wyther's in the Fields?"
"Yes, sir, I was," answered the clergyman, fixing his eyes in turn
inquisitively on him.
"I was the witness--do you remember me, now--to the ceremony, when
that unfortunate fellow, Verney, married Miss--I have a note of her
name--hang it!--Rebecca, was it?--_Yes, Rebecca_--it was Rebecca
Mervyn. You married Verney to Miss Mervyn, and _I_ witnessed it."
"I remember very well, sir, that a gentleman did accompany Mr. Verney;
and I remember the marriage extremely well, because there occurred
very distressing circumstances respecting that Mr. Verney not very
long after, which fixed that marriage in my mind; but having seen you
once only, sir, I can't pretend to recollect your face."
"There has been some time, too, sir, since then," said Mr. Dingwell,
with a cynical sneer, and a shrug. "But I think I should have
recognized you; that's perhaps owing to my having a remarkably
retentive memory for faces; however it's of no great consequence here.
It isn't a matter of identification at all. I only want to know, as
Verney's dead, whether you can tell what has become of that poor lady,
or can find any clue to her whereabouts--there was a baby--a little
child--if they are still living."
"She did write to me twice, sir, within a few years after the
marriage. He treated her very ill, sir," said the clergyman.
"Infamously, I fancy," said Dingwell; "and how long ago was that,
sir?"
"Oh! a long time; twenty--ay, five--ay, eight-and-twenty years since,"
said the old gentleman.
Dingwell laughed.
His visitor stared.
"Yes, it's a good while," said Mr. Dingwell; "and looking over that
gulf, sir, you may fill your glass, and sing--
"'Many a lad I liked is dead,
And many a lass grown old.'
Eight-and-twenty years! Gad, sir, she's had time to grow gray; and to
be dead and buried; and to serve a handsome period of her term in
purgatory. I forgot, though; _you_ don't follow me there. I was
thinking of the French cure, who made part of my journey here with
me."
"No, sir; Church of England, thank God; the purest faith; the most
scriptural, I believe, on earth. You, sir, I assume, are of the same
Church," said he.
"Well, I can't say I am, sir; nor a Catholic, nor a Quaker," said the
invalid.
"I hope, sir, there's no tendency to rationalism?"
"No, sir, I thank you; to no ism whatsoever invented by any other man;
Dingwellism for Dingwell; Smithism for Smith. Every man has a right to
his opinion, in my poor judgment."
"And pray, sir, if neither Romanist nor Protestant, what _are_ you?"
inquired the clergyman, as having a right to ask.
"_Porcus de gruge epicuri_, at your service," said the sick man, with
a feeble smirk.
"I had hoped, sir, it might have been for some profitable purpose you
had sent for me," said the disappointed pastor.
"Well, sir, I was baptized in the Church of England, although I don't
subscribe the Articles; so I served in your regiment, you see, though
I don't wear the uniform any longer."
"I thought, sir, you might have wished some conversation upon
religious subjects."
"And haven't we had it, sir?--sorry we don't agree. I'm too old to
turn out of my own way; but, though I can't learn yours, I shall be
happy to teach you something of mine, if you wish it."
"I think, sir, as I have other calls to make," said the old clergyman,
much offended, and rising to take his leave as he spoke. "I had
better wish you a good afternoon."
"Pray, sir, stay a moment; I never knew a clergyman in such a hurry
before to leave a sick man; as no man knows, according to your theory,
when he's going to be converted--and how should I? The mildew of death
is whitening each of us at this moment; the last golden sands are
running out. D-- it, give me a chance."
This incongruous harangue was uttered so testily--even fiercely--that
the good clergyman was puzzled, and began to doubt in what state his
fever might have left Mr. Dingwell's brain.
"Don't you see, sir? Do sit down--a little patience won't do either of
us any harm."
"Certainly, sir," hesitated the clergyman, looking hard at him, "but I
have not a great deal of time."
"Nor I a great deal of strength; I shan't keep you long, sir."
The Rev. Thomas Bartlett sat down again, and glanced meekly an
invitation to Mr. Dingwell to begin.
"Nine-and-twenty years, sir, since you married that unlucky pair. Now,
I need not say by what particular accidents, for the recollection is
painful, I was in after-life thrown into the society of that
unfortunate ill-used dog, poor Arthur Verney; I knew him intimately.
I was the only friend he had left, and I was with him when he died,
infamously neglected by all his family. He had just got his
half-yearly payment of a beggarly annuity, on which he subsisted;
_he_--the rightful Viscount Verney, and the head of his family--ha,
ha, ha! By Jove, sir, I can't help laughing, though I pity him. Having
that little sum in his hand, said he to me, 'You take charge of this
for my son, if you can find him; and I rely on your friendship to look
him up if ever you revisit England; this is for him; and he was
baptized by the Rev. Thomas Bartlett, as my wife wrote to tell me just
eight-and-twenty years ago, and he, no doubt, can enable you to trace
him.' That's what _he_ said--what say _you_, sir?"
"Old Lady Verney placed the child in charge of the gentleman who then
managed the Verney property. I heard all about it from a Mr. Wynne
Williams, a Welsh lawyer. The child died when only a year old; you
know _he_ would have been the heir apparent."
"Poor Arthur said _no_, sir. I asked him--a Scotch marriage, or some
of those crooked wed-locks on which they found bigamies and
illegitimacies. 'No,' Arthur said, 'he has no technical case, and he
may be miserably poor; this is all I can do, and I charge you with
it.' It was very solemn, sir. Where does that lawyer live?"
"At this moment I can't recollect, sir--some place near which the
Verneys have estates."
"Cardyllian?"
"The very place, sir."
"I know it, sir; I've been there when I was a boy. And his name was
_Wynne_ Williams?"
"I _think_ it was," said the clergyman.
"And you have nothing more to say about the poor child?" asked Mr.
Dingwell.
"There _is_ nothing more, I fancy, sir," said Mr. Bartlett. "Can I
give you any more information?"
"Not any, sir, that I can think of at present. Many thanks, Mr.
Bartlett, for your obliging call. Wait a moment for the servant."
And Mr. Dingwell, thinking fiercely, rang his hand-bell long and
viciously.
"Ha! Mrs. Rumble; you'll show this gentleman out. Good-bye, sir, and
many thanks."
"Good day, sir."
"Ha, ha, ha! It's a good subject, and a fertile!" muttered Mr.
Dingwell, so soon as he was alone.
For the rest of that evening Mr. Dingwell seemed to find ample
amusement in his own thoughts, and did not trouble Mrs. Rumble with
that contemptuous and cynical banter, which she was obliged to accept,
when he pleased, for conversation.
The only thing she heard him say was--"I'll go _there_."
Now Malory had already been proved to be a safe hiding place for a
gentleman in Mr. Dingwell's uncomfortable circumstances. The air was
unexceptionable, and Lord Verney was easily persuaded to permit the
old man to sojourn, for a few weeks, in the Steward's House, under the
care of old Mrs. Mervyn's servant, aided by one provided by Messrs.
Goldshed and Levi.
There were two rooms in the steward's house which old Mrs. Mervyn
never used, and some furniture removed from the Dower House adjoining,
rendered them tolerably comfortable. A letter from old Lady Verney
opened and explained the request, which amounted to a command, that
she would permit the invalid, in whom Lord Verney took an interest, to
occupy, for a fortnight or so, the spare rooms in the Steward's House.
So all was made ready, and the day fixed for Mr. Dingwell's arrival.