MR. CLEVE VERNEY PAYS A VISIT TO ROSEMARY COURT.
THAT evoked spirit, Dingwell, was now _functus officio_, and might be
dismissed. He was as much afraid of the light of London--even the
gaslight--as a man of his audacity could be of anything. Still he
lingered there.
Mr. Larkin had repeatedly congratulated the Verney peer, and his young
friend and patron, Cleve, upon his own masterly management, and the
happy result of the case, as he called it. And although, with scriptural
warning before him, he would be the last man in the world to say, "Is
not this great Babylon that I have builded?" Yet he did wish Lord
Viscount Verney, and Cleve Verney, M.P., distinctly to understand that
_he_, Mr. Larkin, had been the making of them. There were some
things--very many things, in fact, all desirable--which those
distinguished persons could effect for the good attorney of Glyngden,
and that excellent person in consequence presented himself diligently at
Verney House.
On the morning I now speak of, he was introduced to the library, where
he found the peer and his nephew.
"I ventured to call, my lord--how do you do, Mr. Verney?--to invite your
lordship's attention to the position of Mr. Dingwell, who is compelled
by lack of funds to prolong his stay in London. He is, I may say, most
anxious to take his departure quietly and expeditiously, for
Constantinople, where, I venture to think, it is expedient for all
parties, that his residence should be fixed, rather than in London,
where he is in hourly danger of detection and arrest, the consequence of
which, my lord;--it will probably have struck your lordship's rapid
apprehension already,--would be, I venture to think, a very painful
investigation of his past life, and a concomitant discrediting of his
character, which although, as your lordship would point out to me, it
cannot disturb that which is already settled, would yet produce an
unpleasant effect out of doors, which, it is to be feared, he would take
care to aggravate by all means in his power, were he to refer his
detention here, and consequent arrest, to any fancied economy on your
lordship's part."
"I don't quite follow you about it, Mr. Larkin," said Lord Verney, who
generally looked a little stern when he was puzzled. "I don't quite
apprehend the drift--be good enough to sit down--about it--of your
remarks, as they bear upon Mr. Dingwell's wishes, and my conduct. Do
_you_, Cleve?"
"I conjecture that Dingwell wants more money, and can't be got out of
London without it," said Cleve.
"Eh? Well, that _did_ occur to me; of _course_, that's plain
enough--about it--and _what_ a man that must be! and--God bless me!
about it--all the money he has got from me! It's incredible,
Mr.--a--_Larkin_, three hundred pounds, you know, and he wanted _five_,
and that absurdly enormous weekly payment besides!"
"Your lordship has exactly, as usual, touched the point, and
anticipated, with your wonted accuracy, the line at the other side; and
indeed, I may also say, all that may be urged by way of argument, _pro_
and _con_. It is a wonderful faculty!" added Mr. Larkin, looking down
with a contemplative smile, and a little wondering shake of the head.
"Ha, ha! Something of the same sort has been remarked in our family
about it," said the Viscount, much pleased. "It facilitates business,
rather, I should hope--about it."
The attorney shook his head, reflectively, raising his hands, and said,
"No one but a professional man can have an _idea_!"
"And what do you suggest?" asked Cleve, who was perhaps a little tired
of the attorney's compliments.
"Yes, what do you suggest, Mr.--Mr. _Larkin_? Your suggestion I should
be prepared to consider. Anything, Mr. Larkin, suggested by you _shall_
be considered," said Lord Verney grandly, leaning back in his chair, and
folding his hands.
"I am much--very much--flattered by your lordship's confidence. The
former money, I have reason to think, my lord, went to satisfy an old
debt, and I have reason to _know_ that his den has been discovered by
another creditor, from whom, even were funds at his disposal to leave
England to-night, escape would be difficult, if not impossible."
"How much money does he want?" asked Mr. Cleve Verney.
"A _moment_, a _moment_, please. I was going to say," said Lord Verney,
"if he wants money--about it--it would be desirable to state the
amount."
Mr. Larkin, thus called on, cleared his voice, and his dove-like eyes
contracted, and assumed their rat-like look, and he said, watching Lord
Verney's face,--
"I am afraid, my lord, that less than three hundred----"
Lord Verney contracted his brows, and nodded, after a moment.
"Three hundred pounds. Less, I say, my lord, will not satisfy the
creditor, and there will remain something still in order to bring him
back, and to keep him quiet there for a time; and I think, my lord, if
you will go the length of _five_ hundred----"
"'Gad, it's growing quite serious, Mr.--Mr. Sir, I confess I don't half
understand this _person_, Mr. Ding--Dong--whatever it is--it's going
rather too _fast_ about it. I--I--and that's my clear opinion--" and
Lord Verney gazed and blinked sternly at the attorney, and patted his
fragrant pocket-handkerchief several times to his chin--"very
unreasonable and monstrous, and, considering all I've done, very
_ungrateful_."
"Quite so, my lord; monstrously ungrateful. I can't describe to your
lordship the trouble I have had with that extraordinary and, I fear I
must add, fiendish person. I allude, of course, my lord, in my
privileged character as having the honour of confidential relations with
your lordship, to that unfortunate man, Dingwell. I assure you, on one
occasion, he seized a poker in his lodgings, and threatened to dash my
brains out."
"Very good, sir," said Lord Verney, whose mind was busy upon quite
another point; "and suppose I _do_, what do we gain, I ask, by assisting
him?"
"Simply, my lord, he is so incredibly reckless, and, as I have said,
_fiendish_, that if he were disappointed, I do think he will stick at
nothing, even to the length of swearing that his evidence for your
lordship was _perjured_, for the purpose of being revenged, and your
generosity to him pending the inquiry, or rather the preparation of
proofs, would give a colour unfortunately even to that monstrous
allegation. Your lordship can have no idea--the elevation of your own
mind prevents it--of the desperate character with whom we have had to
deal."
"Upon my life, sir, a pleasant position you seem to have brought me
into," said Lord Verney, flushing a good deal.
"My lord, it was inevitable," said Mr. Larkin, sadly.
"I don't think he could have helped it, really," said Cleve Verney.
"And who says he could?" asked Lord Verney, tartly. "I've all along said
it could not well be helped, and that's the reason I _did_ it, don't
you see? but I may be allowed to say, I suppose, that the position is a
most _untoward_ one; and so it is, egad!" and Lord Verney got up in his
fidget, and walked over to the window, and to the chimney-piece, and to
the table, and fiddled with a great many things.
"I remember my late brother, Shadwell Verney--he's dead, poor
Shadwell--had a world of trouble with a fellow--about it--who used to
extort money from him--something I suppose--like this Mr. Ringwood--or I
mean--you know his name--till he called in the police, and put an end to
it."
"Quite true, my lord, quite true; but don't you think, my lord, such a
line with Mr. Dingwell might lead to a _fraycas_, and the possible
unpleasantness to which _I_ ventured to allude? _You_ have seen him, Mr.
Verney?"
"Yes; he's a beast, he really _is_; a little bit mad, I almost think."
"A little bit mad, precisely so; it really is, my lord, most melancholy.
And I am so clearly of opinion that if we quarrel definitively with Mr.
Dingwell, we may find ourselves in an extremely difficult position, that
were the case my own, I should have no hesitation in satisfying Mr.
Dingwell, even at a sacrifice, rather than incur the annoyance I
anticipate. If you allow me, my lord, to conduct the matter with Mr.
Dingwell, I think I shall succeed in getting him away quietly."
"It seems to me a very serious sum, Mr. Larkin," said Lord Verney.
"Precisely so, my lord; serious--very serious; but your lordship made a
remark once in my hearing which impressed me powerfully: it was to the
effect that where an object is to be accomplished, it is better to
expend a little too much power, than anything too little." I think that
Mr. Larkin invented this remark of Lord Verney's, which, however, his
lordship was pleased to recognise, notwithstanding.
So the attorney took his departure, to call again next day.
"Clever man that Mr.--Mr. Larkin--vastly clever," said Lord Verney. "I
rather think there's a great deal in what he says--it's very
disgusting--about it; but one must consider, you know--there's no harm
in considering--and--and that Mr.--Dong--Dingleton, isn't it?--about
it--a most offensive person. I must consider--I shall think it over, and
give him my ideas to-morrow."
Cleve did not like an expression which had struck him in the attorney's
face that day, and he proposed next day to write to Mr. Dingwell, and
actually did so, requesting that he would be so good as to call at
Verney House.
Mr. Dingwell did not come; but a note came by post, saying that the
writer, Mr. Dingwell, was not well enough to venture a call.
What I term Mr. Larkin's rat-like eyes, and a certain dark and even
wicked look that crosses the attorney's face, when they appear, had left
a profound sense of uncertainty in Cleve's mind respecting that
gentleman's character and plans. It was simply a conviction that the
attorney meditated something odd about Mr. Dingwell, and that no good
man could look as he had looked.
There was no use in opening his suspicion, grounded on so slight a thing
as a look, to his uncle, who, though often timid and hesitating, and in
secret helpless, and at his wits' end for aid in arriving at a decision,
was yet, in a matter where vanity was concerned, or a strong prejudice
or caprice involved, often incredibly obstinate.
Mr. Larkin's look teased Cleve. Larkin might grow into an influence very
important to that young gentleman, and was not lightly to be quarrelled
with. He would not quarrel with him; but he would see Dingwell, if
indeed that person were still in London; a fact about which he had
begun to have some odd misgivings. The note was written in a straight,
cramp hand, and Mr. Larkin's face was in the background always. He knew
Mr. Dingwell's address; an answer, real or forged, had reached him from
it. So, full of dark dreams and conjectures, he got into a cab, and
drove to the entrance of Rosemary Court, and knocked at Miss Sarah
Rumble's door.
That good lady, from the shadow, looked suspiciously on him.
"Is Mr. Dingwell at home?"
"Mr. Dingwell, sir?" she repeated.
"Yes. Is he at home?"
"Mr. Dingwell, sir? _No_ sir."
"Does not Mr. Dingwell live here?"
"There _was_ a gentleman, please, sir, with a name like that. Go _back_,
child," she said, sharply to Lucy Maria, who was peeping in the
background, and who might not be edified, perhaps, by the dialogue. "Beg
parding, sir," she continued, as the child disappeared; "they _are_ so
tiresome! There was an old gentleman lodging here, sir, please, which
his name was like that I do remember."
Cleve Verney did not know what to think.
"Is there anyone in the house who knows Mr. Dingwell? I've come to be of
use to him; perhaps he could see me. Will you say Mr. Verney?"
"Mr.--_what_, sir, please?"
"Verney--here's my card; perhaps it is better."
As the conversation continued, Miss Rumble had gradually come more and
more forward, closing the door more and more as she did so, so that she
now confronted Cleve upon the step, and could have shut the door at her
back, had he made any attempt to get in; and she called over her
shoulder to Lucy Maria, and whispered something, and gave her, I
suppose, the card; and in a minute more Miss Rumble opened the door
wide, and showed "the gentleman" upstairs, and told him on the lobby she
hoped he would not be offended, but that she had such positive orders as
to leave her no choice; and that in fact Mr. Dingwell was in the
drawing-room, and would be happy to see him, and almost at the same
moment she threw open the door and introduced him, with a little
courtesy, and--
"This way, please, sir; here's the gentleman, please, sir."
There he _did_ find Mr. Dingwell, smoking a cigar, in his fez, slippers,
and pea-green silk dressing-gown, with a cup of black coffee on the
little table beside him, his _Times_ and a few magazines there also. He
looked, in vulgar parlance, "seedy," like an old fellow who had been
raking the night before, and was wofully tired, and in no very genial
temper.
"Will you excuse an old fellow, Mr. Verney, and take a chair for
yourself? I'm not very well to-day. I suppose, from your note, you
thought I had quitted London. It was not to be expected so old a plant
should take root; but it's sometimes not worth moving 'em again, and
they remain where they are, to wither, ha, ha, ha!"
"I should be sorry it was for any such purpose; but I am happy to find
you still here, for I was really anxious to call and thank you."
"_Anxious_--to _thank me_! Are you really _serious_, Mr. Verney?" said
Dingwell, lowering his cigar again, and looking with a stern smile in
his visitor's face.
"Yes, sir; I _did_ wish to call and tell you," said Cleve, determined
not to grow angry; "and I _am_ here to say that we are very much
obliged."
"_We?_"
"Yes; my uncle and I."
"Oh, yes; well, it _is_ something. I hope the coronet becomes him, and
his robes. I venture to say he has got up the masquerading properties
already; it's a pity there isn't a coronation or something at hand; and
I suppose he'll put up a monument to my dear friend Arthur--a mangy old
dog he was, you'll allow me to say, though he was my friend, and very
kind to me; and I, the most grateful fellow he ever met; I've been more
grieved about him than any other person I can remember, upon my soul and
honour--and a devilish dirty dog he was."
This last reflection was delivered in a melancholy aside, after the
manner of a soliloquy, and Cleve did not exactly know how to take this
old fellow's impertinence.
"Arthur Verney--poor fellow! your uncle. He had a great deal of the
pride of his family, you know, along with utter degradation. Filthy
dog!--pah!" And Mr. Dingwell lifted both his hands, and actually used
that unpleasant utensil called a "spittoon," which is seen in taverns,
to give expression, it seemed, to his disgust.
"But he had his pride, dear Arthur; he was proud, and wished for a
tombstone. When he was dying, he said, 'I should like a monument--not of
course in a cathedral, for I have been living so darkly, and a good deal
talked about; but there's an old church or abbey near Malory (that I'm
sure was the name of the place) where our family has been accustomed to
bury its quiet respectabilities and its _mauvais sujets_; and I think
they might give me a pretty little monument there, quite quietly.' I
think you'll do it, for you're a grateful person, and like thinking
people; and he certainly did a great deal for his family by going out of
it, and the little vanity of a monument would not cost much, and, as he
said himself, no one would ever see it; and I promised, if I ever had an
opportunity, to mention the subject to your uncle."
Cleve bowed.
"'And,' said he, 'there will be a little conflict of feeling. I am sure
they'd like the _monument_, but they would not make an ostentation of
_me_. But remind them of my Aunt Deborah. Poor old girl! she ran away
with a fiddler.' Egad, sir! these were his very words, and I've found,
on inquiring here, they were quite true. She ran away with a
fiddler--egad! and I don't know how many little fiddlers she had; and,
by Jove! he said if I came back I should recognise a possible cousin in
every street-fiddler I met with, for music is a talent that runs in
families. And so, when Atropos cut his fiddlestring, and he died, she
took, he said, to selling mutton pies, for her maintenance, in Chester,
and being properly proud as a Verney, though as a fiddler's widow
necessitous, he said she used to cry, behind her little table, 'Hot
mutton pies!' and then, _sotto voce_, 'I hope nobody hears me;' and you
may rely upon that family anecdote, for I had it from the lips of that
notorious member of your family, your uncle Arthur, and he hoped that
they would comply with the tradition, and reconcile the Verney pride
with Verney exigencies, and concede him the secret celebration of a
monument."
"If you are serious----"
"Serious about a monument, sir! who the devil could be lively on such a
subject?" and Mr. Dingwell looked unaccountably angry, and ground his
teeth, and grew white. "A monument, cheap and nasty, I dare say; it
isn't much for a poor devil from whom you've got everything. I suppose
you'll speak to your uncle, sir."
"I'll speak to him, sir."
"Yes, _do_, pray, and prevail. I'm not very strong, sir, and there's
something that remains for you and me to do, sir."
"What is that?"
"To rot under ground, sir; and as I shall go first, it would be pleasant
to me to be able to present your affectionate regards to your uncle,
when I meet him, and tell him that you had complied with his little
fancy about the monument, as he seemed to make a point that his name
should not be blotted totally from the records of his family."
Cleve was rather confirmed in his suspicions about the sanity of this
odious old man--as well he might--and, at all events, was resolved to
endure him without a row.
"I shall certainly remember, and mention all you have said, sir," said
Cleve.
"Yes," said the old man, in a grim meditation, looking down, and he
chucked away the stump of his cigar, "it's a devilish hard case,
Kismet!" he muttered.
"I suppose you find our London climate very different from that you have
grown accustomed to?" said Cleve, approaching the point on which he
desired some light.
"I lived in London for a long time, sir. I was--as perhaps you
know--junior partner in the great Greek house of Prinkipi and
Dingwell--d----n Prinkipi! say I. He ran us into trouble, sir; then came
a smash, sir, and Prinkipi levanted, making a scapegoat of me, the most
vilified and persecuted Greek merchant that ever came on 'Change! And,
egad! if they could catch me, even now, I believe they'd bury me in a
dungeon for the rest of my days, which, in that case, would not be many.
I'm here, therefore, I may say, at the risk of my life."
"A very anxious situation, indeed, Mr. Dingwell; and I conclude you
intend but a short stay here?"
"Quite the contrary, sir. I mean to stay as long as I please, and that
may be as long as I live."
"Oh! I had thought from something that Mr. Larkin said," began Cleve
Verney.
"Larkin! He's a religious man, and does not put his candle under a
bushel. He's very particular to say his prayers; and provided he says
_them_, he takes leave to say what he likes beside."
Mr. Dingwell was shooting his arrows as freely as Cupid does; but Cleve
did not take this satire for more than its worth.
"He may think it natural I should wish to be gone, and so I do,"
continued the old man, setting down his coffee cup, "if I could get away
without the trouble of going, or was sure of a tolerably comfortable
berth, at my journey's end; but I'm old, and travelling shakes me to
pieces, and I have enemies elsewhere, as well as here; and the
newspapers have been printing sketches of my life and adventures, and
poking up attention about me, and awakening the slumbering recollection
of persons by whom I had been, in effect, forgotten, _every_-where. No
rest for the wicked, sir. I'm pursued; and, in fact, what little peace I
might have enjoyed in this, the closing period of my life, has been
irreparably wrecked by my visit and public appearance here, to place
your uncle, and by consequence _you_, in the position now secured to
you. What do you think of me?"
"I think, sir, you have done us a great service; and I know we are very
much obliged," said Cleve, with his most engaging smile.
"And do you know what I think of myself? I think I'm a d----d fool,
unless I look for some advantage."
"Don't you think, sir, you have found it, on the whole, advantageous,
your coming here?" insinuated Cleve.
"Barren, sir, as a voyage on the Dead Sea. The test is this--what have I
by it? not five pounds, sir, in the world. Now, I've opened my mind a
little to you upon this subject, and I'm of the same mind still; and if
I've opened Aladdin's garden to you, with its fruitage of emeralds,
rubies, and so forth, I expect to fill my snuff-box with the filings and
chippings of your gigantic jewellery."
Cleve half repented his visit, now that the presence of the insatiable
Mr. Dingwell, and his evident appetite for more money, had justified the
representations of the suspected attorney.
"I shall speak to Mr. Larkin on the subject," said Cleve Verney.
"D----n Larkin, sir! Speak to me."
"But, Mr. Dingwell, I have really, as I told you before, no authority to
speak; and no one has the least power in the matter but my uncle."
"And what the devil did you come here for?" demanded Mr. Dingwell,
suddenly blazing up into one of his unaccountable furies. "I suppose you
expected me to congratulate you on your success, and to ask leave to see
your uncle in his coronet--ha, ha, ha!--or his cap and bells, or
whatever he wears. By ---- sir, I hope he holds his head high, and
struts like a peacock, and has pleasant dreams; time enough for
nightmares, sir, hereafter, eh? Uneasy rests the head that wears the
crown! Good evening, sir; I'll talk to Mr. Larkin."
And with these words Mr. Dingwell got up, looking unaccountably angry,
and made a half-sarcastic, half-furious bow, wherewith he dismissed Mr.
Cleve Verney, with more distinct convictions than ever that the old
gentleman was an unmitigated beast, and more than half a lunatic.