THE BOY WITH THE CAGE.
AT Ware a letter awaited Cleve, from his uncle, the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke
Verney. He read it after dinner, with his back to the fire, by a candle,
placed on the corner of the chimney-piece. He never was in any great
haste to open his uncle's letters, except when he expected a remittance.
I must allow they were not entertaining, and did not usually throw much
light upon anything. But it was not safe to omit a single line, for his
uncle knew them by rote, and in their after meetings asked him questions
upon some passages, and referred pointedly to others. Uncle Kiffyn was
in fact thin-skinned in his vanities, and was a person with whom it
would have been highly inconvenient to have been on any but the very
best terms.
Cleve had, therefore, to read these closely written despatches with more
attention than even his friend Dixie read his Bible. They were a sore
trouble, for their length was at times incredible.
As he read these letters, moans, and even execrations, escaped him, such
as poets describe as issuing from the abode of torment--"Good heavens!
mightn't he have said that in five words?" Then a "Pish!"--"Always
grumbling about that executorship. Why did he take it? I do believe he
likes it."
And then Cleve read,--"I see no reason why, with respect to you, I may
not exercise--as between ourselves, at least--an absolute unreserve with
relation to a fact of which, through a channel not necessary to
particularise, I have just received an authentic assurance, to the
effect, namely, that Sir Booth Fanshawe, whose ruin has been brought
about, partly by his virtual insanity in opposing me with an insensate
pertinacity and an intense ill feeling, on which I offer no observation,
but involving an expense to which his impaired means were obviously
inadequate, and partly by early follies, profligacies, and vices, is now
living concealed in the Rue de----, in Paris." Cleve laughed. "He is a
person to whom neither courtesy nor forbearance, as it appears to me,
can reasonably be held to be in any respect due from me. There has been
a recent order, charging him, as you may have seen by the public
papers, with L2,317 costs in the collateral suit connected with the
trust cause, in which I was, though I by no means sought the position,
the plaintiff, to foreclose the mortgage over Wycroft. I have written to
apprise Milbanke of the fact, that he may take such steps as the nature
of the case may suggest." "Well for Sir Booth he does not know he's so
near! What's this? A postscript! well"--"P.S.--I have opened my letter
to introduce this postscript, in consequence of a letter which has just
reached me in course of post from Mr. Jos. Larkin, a solicitor, who was
introduced to my notice about two years since by a member of the Brandon
family, and who is unquestionably a man of some ability in his position
in life. His letter is accompanied by a note from Messrs. Goldshed and
Levi, and the two documents involve considerations so sudden,
complicated, and momentous, that I must defer opening them, and request
your presence at Verney House on the 15th proximo, when I mean to visit
town for the purpose of arriving at a distinct solution of the several
reports thus submitted upon a subject intimately connected with my
private feelings, and with the most momentous interests of my house."
So abruptly ended the postscript, and for a moment Cleve was seriously
alarmed. Could those meddling fellows who had agents everywhere have
fished up some bit of Cardyllian gossip about his Malory romance?
He knew very well what the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney would think of that.
His uncle could make or mar him. He knew that he had dangerous
qualities, being a narrow man, with obstinate resentments. He was
stunned for a moment; but then he reflected that all the romance in
which he was living had been purely psychologic and internal, and that
there was no overt act to support the case which he might not confess
and laugh at.
"On the 15th proximo"--Very well; on the 15th he would be in town, and
hear his uncle upon this subject, involving his "private feelings" and
"the most momentous interests of his house." Could it be that his
out-cast uncle, who had been dragging out a villanous existence in
Turkey, under the hospitable protection of the Porte--who was said to
have killed the captain of a French man-of-war, in that contemplative
retreat, and whom he was wont respectfully to call "the Old Man of the
Mountains," was dead at last?
The postscript would bear this interpretation and a pompous liking for
mystery, which was one of his uncle's small weaknesses, would account
for his withholding the precise information, and nursing, and making
much of his secret, and delivering it at last, like a Cabinet manifesto
or a Sessional address.
"If the Old Man of the Mountains be really out of the way, it's an
important event for us!"
And a dark smile lighted the young man's face, as he thought of the long
train of splendid consequences that would awake at his death-bed, and
begin to march before his funeral.
Ambition, they say, is the giant passion. But giants are placable
and sleep at times. The spirit of emulation--the lust of
distinction--_hominum volitare per ora--digito monstrarier_--in a
wider, and still widening sphere--until all the world knows something
about you--and so on and on--the same selfish aspiration, and at best,
the same barren progress, till at last it has arrived--you are a
thoroughly advertised and conspicuous mediocrity, still wishing, and
often tired, in the midst of drudgery and importance and _eclat_,
and then--on a sudden, the _other_ thing comes--the first of the
days of darkness which are many.
"Thy house shall be of clay,
A clot under thy head;
Until the latter day,
The grave shall be thy bed."
But nature has her flowers and her fruits, as well as those coarse
grains and vegetables on which overgrown reputations are stall-fed. The
Commons lobby, the division list, the bureau, Hansard, the newspapers,
the dreary bombast of the Right Hon. Marcus Tullius Countinghouse, the
ironies of Mr. Swelter, the jokes of Mr. Rasp,--enjoy these shams while
your faith is great--while you may, now, in the days of thy youth,
before your time comes, and knowledge chills, and care catches you, and
you are drawn in and ground under the great old machine which has been
thundering round and round, and bruising its proper grist, ever since
Adam and Eve walked out of Eden.
But beside all this delicious rape-cake and man-gold of politics, Cleve
Verney had his transient perceptions of the flowers and fruits, as we
say, that spring elsewhere. There are fancy, the regrets, the
yearnings--something recluse in the human soul, which will have its day,
a day, though brief it may be, of entire domination.
Now it came to pass, among the trees of lonely Malory, at eventide, when
the golden air was flooded with the vesper songs of small birds, and the
long gray shadows were stretching into distance, that a little brown
Welsh boy, with dark lively eyes, and a wire cage in his hand, suddenly
stood before Miss Margaret Fanshawe, who awaking from a reverie, with a
startled look--for intruders were there unknown--fixed her great eyes
upon him.
"You've climbed the wall, little gipsy," said the beautiful lady, with a
shake of her head and a little frown, raising her finger threateningly.
"What! You say nothing? This is a lonely place; don't you know there are
ghosts here and fairies in Malory? And I'm one of them, perhaps," she
continued, softening a little, for he looked at her with round eyes of
wonder and awe.
"And what do you want here? and what have you got in that cage? Let me
see it."
Breaking through an accidental cleft among the old trees, one sunset ray
streamed on the face of this little Welsh Murillo; and now through the
wires of the cage, gilding them pleasantly as he raised it in his hand,
and showed two little squirrels hopping merrily within.
"Squirrels! How curious! My poor little Whisk, there's none like you,
funny little Whisk, kind little Whisk, true little thing; you loved your
mistress, and no one else, no one else. He's buried there, under that
large rose-bush; I won't cry for you, little Whisk, any more, I said I
wouldn't."
She looked wistfully toward the rose-bush, and the little headstone she
had girlishly placed at her favourite's grave, and the little boy saw
two great crystal tears glittering in her large eyes as she gazed; and
she turned and walked a hasty step or two toward it. I don't know
whether they fell or were dried, but when she came back she looked as at
first.
"I'll buy one of these little things, they _are_ very pretty, and I'll
call it Frisk; and I'll please myself by thinking it's little Whisk's
brother; it _may_ be, you know," she said, unconsciously taking the
little boy into the childish confidence. "What would you sell one of
those little things for? perhaps you would not like to part with it, but
I'll make it very happy, I shall be very kind to it."
She paused, but the little fellow only looked still silently and
earnestly in her face.
"Is he deaf or dumb, or a sprite--who are you?" said the girl, looking
at him curiously.
A short sentence in Welsh, prettiest of all pretty tongues, with its
pleasant accent, was the reply.
"Then all my fine sentences have been thrown away, and not one word has
he understood!"
Looking at his impenetrable face, and thus speaking, she smiled; and in
that sudden and beautiful radiance he smiled merrily also.
All this happened under the trees close by the old Refectory wall, at
the angle of which is a small door admitting into the stable-yard.
Opening this she called "Thomas Jones!" and the Cardyllian "helper," so
called, answered the invocation quickly.
"Make out from that little boy, what he is willing to take for one of
his squirrels," said she, and listened in suspense while the brief
dialogue in Welsh proceeded.
"He says, my lady, he does not know, but will go home and ask; and if
you give him a shilling for earnest, he'll leave the cage here. So you
may look at them for some time, my lady--yes, sure, and see which you
would find the best of the two."
"Oh, that's charming!" said she, nodding and smiling her thanks to the
urchin, who received the shilling and surrendered the cage, which she
set down upon the grass in triumph; and seating herself upon the turf
before them, began to talk to the imprisoned squirrels with the
irrepressible delight with which any companionable creature is welcomed
by the young in the monotony and sadness of solitude.
The sun went down, and the moon rose over Malory, but the little brown
boy returned not. Perhaps his home was distant. But the next morning did
not bring him back, nor the day, nor the evening; and, in fact, she saw
his face no more.
"Poor little deserted squirrels!--two little foundlings!--what am I to
think? Tell me, cousin Anne, was that little boy what he seemed, or an
imp that haunts these woods, and wants to entangle me by a bargain
uncompleted; or a compassionate spirit that came thus disguised to
supply the loss of poor little Whisk; and how and when do you think he
will appear again?"
She was lighting her bed-room candle in the faded old drawing-room of
Malory, as, being about to part for the night, she thus addressed her
gray cousin Anne. That old spinster yawned at her leisure, and then
said--
"He'll _never_ appear again, dear."
"I should really say, to judge by that speech, that you knew something
about him," said Margaret Fanshawe, replacing her candle on the table as
she looked curiously in her face.
The old lady smiled mysteriously.
"What is it?" said the girl; "you must tell me--you _shall_ tell me.
Come, cousin Anne, I don't go to bed to-night till you tell me all you
know."
The young lady had a will of her own, and sat down, it might be for the
night, in her chair again.
"As to knowing, my dear, I really _know nothing_; but I have my
_suspicions_."
"H-m!" said Margaret, for a moment dropping her eyes to the table, so
that only their long silken fringes were visible. Then she raised them
once more gravely to her kinswoman's face. "Yes, I _will_ know _what_
you suspect."
"Well, I think that handsome young man, Mr. Cleve Verney, is at the
bottom of the mystery," said Miss Sheckleton, with the same smile.
Again the young lady dropped her eyes, and was for a moment silent. "Was
she pleased or _dis_-pleased? Proud and sad her face looked.
"There's no one here to tell him that I lost my poor little squirrel.
It's quite impossible--the most unlikely idea imaginable."
"_I_ told him on Sunday," said Miss Sheckleton, smiling.
"He had no business to talk about me."
"Why, dear, unless he was a positive brute, he could not avoid asking
for you; so I told him you were _desole_ about your bereavement--your
poor little Whisk, and he seemed so sorry and kind; and I'm perfectly
certain he got these little animals to supply its place."
"And so has led me into taking a present?" said the young lady, a little
fiercely--"he would not have taken that liberty----"
"_Liberty_, my dear?"
"Yes, _liberty_; if he did not think that we were fallen, ruined
people----"
"Now, my dear child, your father's _not_ ruined, I maintain it; there
will be more left, I'm very certain, than he supposes; and I could have
almost beaten you the other day for using that expression in speaking to
Mr. Verney; but you _are_ so _impetuous_--and then, could any one have
done a more thoughtful or a kinder thing, and in a more perfectly
delicate way? He _has_n't made you a present; he has only contrived that
a purchase should be thrown in your way, which of all others was exactly
what you most wished; he has not appeared, and never _will_ appear in
it; and I know, for my part, I'm very much obliged to him--_if_ he has
done it--and I think he admires you too much to run a risk of offending
you."
"What?"
"I do--I think he admires you."
The girl stood up again, and glanced at the mirror, I think, pleased,
for a moment--and then took her candle, but paused by the table, looking
thoughtfully. Was she paler than usual? or was it only that the light of
the candle in her hand was thrown upward on her features? Then she said
in a spoken meditation--
"There are dreams that have in them, I think, the germs of insanity;
and the sooner we dissipate them, don't you think, the better and the
wiser?"
She smiled, nodded, and went away.
Whose dreams did she mean? Cleve Verney's, Miss Sheckleton's, or--could
it be, her own?