The Tenants of Malory Volume II Part 11

Larkin, seriously alarmed for the Queen's peace and his own precious character, and for the personal safety of his capitalist and his witness.

Mr. Larkin confronted the Jew, with his great hands upon Mr. Levi's shoulders, so as to prevent his advance; but that slender Hebrew, who was an accomplished sparrer, gave the G.o.dly attorney a jerk by the elbows which quite twirled him about, to his amazement and chagrin.

"'Andsh off, old chap," said the Jew, grimly, to Mr. Larkin, who had not endured such a liberty since he was at his cheap day-school, nearly forty years ago.

But Mr. Larkin interposed again, much alarmed, for behind him he thought he heard the clink of the fire-irons.

"He thinks he may say what he pleases," cried the old man's voice furiously, with a kind of choking laugh.

"No, sir--no, Mr. Dingwell--I a.s.sure you--_do_, Mr. Levi--how _can_ you mind him?" he added in an undertone, as he stood between.

"I _don't_ mind him, Mr. Larkin: only I won't let no one draw it that sort. I won't stand a lick of a poker for no one; he shan't come that over me"--and concurrently with this the shrill voice of Mr. Dingwell was yelling--

"Because I'm--because I'm--I'm--every d--d little whipper-snapper--because they think I'm down, the _wretches_, I'm to submit to their insults!"

"I _don't_ want to hurt him, Mr. Larkin; if I did, I'd give'm his tea in a mug this minute; but I don't, I say--only he shan't lift a poker to _me_."

"No one, my dear sir, has touched a poker; no one, Mr. Levi, ever dreamed of such a thing. Pray, my dear sir, my dear Mr. Dingwell, don't misconceive; we use slang phrases, now and then, without the _least_ meaning or disrespect: it has become quite the ton_g_. I a.s.sure you--it was only last week, at Nyworth Castle, where I had the honour to be received, Lady Mary Wrangham used the phrase _yarn_, for a long story."

"D--n you, can't you answer my question?" said Mr. Dingwell, more in his accustomed vein.

"Certainly, sir, we'll reply to it. Do, Mr. Levi, _do_ leave the room; your presence at this moment only leads to excitement."

Levi, for a moment, pondered fiercely, and then nodded a sulky acquiescence.

"I shall overtake you in the court, Mr. Levi, if you can wait two or three minutes there."

The Jew nodded over his shoulder, and was gone.

"Mr. Dingwell, sir, I can't, I a.s.sure you. It's not in my power; it is in the hands of quite other people, on whom, ultimately, of course, these expenses will fall, to sanction the outlay by way of weekly allowance, which you suggest. It is true I am a contributor, but not exactly in cash; only in money's worth--advice, experience, and technical knowledge. But I will apply in the proper quarter, without delay. I wish, Mr. Dingwell, I _were_ the party; you and I would not, I venture to think, be long in settling it between us."

"No, to be sure, you're all such liberal fellows--it's always some one else that puts us under the screw," laughed Mr. Dingwell, discordantly, with his face still flushed, and his hand trembling visibly, "you never have the stock yourselves--not you,--there's always, Mr. Sheridan tells us, you know, in that capital play of his, a d----d unconscionable fellow in the background, and in Shakspeare's play, _Shylock_, you remember, he hasn't the money himself, but Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of his tribe, will furnish him. Hey! I suppose they gave the immortal Shakspeare a squeeze in his day; he understood 'em. But Shylock and Tubal are both dead and rotten long ago. It's a comfort you can't escape death, with all your cunning, d--n you."

But Mr. Larkin spoke peaceably to Mr. Dingwell. The expense, up to a certain time, would, of course, fall upon Mr. Kiffyn Verney; after that, however, Mr. Larkin and the Jew firm would feel it. But be it how it might, they could not afford to quarrel with Mr. Dingwell; and Mr.

Dingwell was a man of a flighty and furious temper.

CHAPTER X.

CLEVE VERNEY SEES THE CHATEAU DE CRESSERON.

I FANCY that these estimates, on a rather large scale, moved by Mr.

Dingwell, were agreed to, for sufficient reasons, by the parties interested in disputing them.

Mr. Dingwell kept very close during the daytime. He used to wander listlessly to and fro, between his bed-room and his drawing-room, with his hands in the pockets of his dressing-gown, and his feet in a pair of hard leather slippers, with curled-up toes and no heels, that clattered on the boards like sabots.

Miss Sarah Rumble fancied that her lodger was a little shy of the windows; when he looked out into the court, he stood back a yard or more from the window-sill.

Mr. Larkin, indeed, made no secret of Mr. Dingwell's uncomfortable position, in his conferences with the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney. Mr.

Dingwell had been a bankrupt, against whom many transactions to which the Court had applied forcible epithets, had been proved; to whom, in fact, that tribunal had refused quarter; and who had escaped from its fangs by a miracle. There were judgments, however, in force against him; there was a warrant procurable any day for his arrest; he was still "in contempt;" I believe he was an "outlaw;" and, in fact, there was all but a price set on his head. Thus, between him and his outcast acquaintance, the late Hon. Arthur Verney, had subsisted some strong points of sympathy, which had no doubt helped to draw them into that near intimacy which stood the Hon. Kiffyn, no less than Mr. Dingwell (to whose mill it was bringing very comfortable grist), so well in stead, at this moment.

It behoved Mr. Dingwell, therefore, to exercise caution. Many years had pa.s.sed since he figured as a London trader. But time, the obliterator, in some cases works slowly; or rather, while the pleasant things of memory are sketched in with a pencil, the others are written in a bold, legible, round hand, as it were, with a broad-nibbed steel pen, and the best durable j.a.panned ink; on which Father Time works his India-rubber in vain, till his gouty old fingers ache, and you can fancy him whistling curses through his gums, and knocking his bald pate with his knuckles. Mr. Dingwell, on the way home, was, to his horror, half recognised by an ancient c.o.c.kney at Malta. Time, therefore, was not to be relied upon, though thirty years had pa.s.sed; and Mr. Dingwell began to fear that a debtor is never forgotten, and that the man who is thoroughly dipt, like the lovely woman who stoops to folly, has but one way to escape consequences, and that is to die--a step which Mr.

Dingwell did not care to take.

The meeting on the 15th, at the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney's house, Mr.

Dingwell was prevented by a cold from attending. But the note of his evidence sufficed, and the consultation, at which Mr. Larkin a.s.sisted, was quite satisfactory. The eminent parliamentary counsel who attended, and who made, that session, nearly fifty-thousand pounds, went to the heart of the matter direct; was reverentially listened to by his junior, by the parliamentary agent, by the serious Mr. Larkin, at whom he thrust sharp questions, in a peremptory and even fierce way, like a general in action, to whom minutes are everything; treated them once or twice to a recollection or short anecdote, which tended to show what a clever, sharp fellow the parliamentary counsel was, which, indeed, was true; and talked to no one quite from a level, except to one Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney, to whom he spoke confidentially in his ear, and who himself quickly grew into the same confidential relations.

"I'm glad you take my view--Mr.--Mr. Forsythe--very happy about it, that we should be in accord. I've earned some confidence in my opinion, having found it more than once, I may say, come out right; and it gives me further confidence that you take my view," said the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney, grandly.

That eminent parliamentary counsel, Forsythe, was on his way to the door, when Mr. Verney interposed with this condescension.

"Oh! Ha! Do I? Very happy. What is it?" said Forsythe, smiling briskly, glancing at his watch and edging towards the door, all together.

"I mean the confident view--the cheerful--about it," said the Hon. Mr.

Verney, a little flushed, and laying his thin hand on his counsel's arm.

"Certainly--confident, of course, smooth sailing, _quite_. I see no hitch _at present_."

Mr. Forsythe was now, more decidedly, going. But he could not treat the Hon. Kiffyn Verney quite like an ordinary client, for he was before him occasionally in Committees of the House of Commons, and was likely soon to be so in others of the Lords, and therefore, chafing and smiling, he hesitated under the light pressure of the old gentleman's stiff fingers.

"And you know the, I may say, _absurd_ state of the law, about it--there was, you know, my unfortunate brother, Arthur--you are aware--_civiliter mortuus_, stopping the way, you know, for nearly twenty years, about it, ever since my poor father, Lord Verney, you know, expired, about it, and I've been, as you know, in the most painful position--_absurd_, you know."

"_Quite_ so; I'm _afraid_--" Forsythe was again edging toward the door.

"And I always contended that where the heir was civilly dead, about it, the law should make proper provision--don't you see?"

"Quite so, only _fair_--a very wise and politic statute--and I wish very much, with your experience, you'd turn your attention to draw one. I'm obliged to be off now, to meet the New Discount directors; consultation at my chambers."

And so, smiling, Forsythe, Q.C., did vanish, at last.

All this over, Mr. Cleve Verney proposed to himself a little excursion, of a day or two, to Paris, to which his uncle saw no objection.

Not very far from the ancient town of Caen, where the comparative quietude of Normandy, throughout the throes of the great revolution, has spared so many relics of the bygone France, is an old chteau, still habitable--still, after a fas.h.i.+on, comfortable--and which you may have at a very moderate rent indeed.

Here is an old wood, cut in a quincunx; old ponds stocked with carp; great old stables gone to decay; and the chteau itself, is indescribably picturesque and sad.

It is the Chteau de Cresseron--withdrawn in historic seclusion, amid the glories and regrets of memory, quite out of the tide of modern traffic.

Here, by the side of one of the ponds, one evening, was an old lady, throwing in little bits of bread to the carp that floated and flitted, like golden shadows, this way and that, as the crumbs sank in the water, when she heard a well-known voice near her which made her start.

"Good heavens! Mr. Verney! _You_ here?" she exclaimed, with such utter wonderment, her little bit of bread raised in her fingers, that Cleve Verney, though in no merry mood, could not help smiling.

"Yes--here indeed--and after all, is it quite so wonderful?" said he.

"Well, of course you know, Mr. Verney, I'm very glad to see you. Of course, you know _that_; but I'm very far from being certain that you have done a wise or a prudent thing in coming here, and I don't know that, under the circ.u.mstances, I _ought_ to be glad to see you; in fact, I'm afraid it is _very rash_," said Miss Sheckleton, growing more decided as she proceeded.