Clavering

“ And my wife sent you to fetch me—a cunning afterthought when the first excuse had missed its mark. A very likely story, to be sure, but enough to hoodwink a dull-witted fool of a husband, eh? Reconcile husband and wife, and Mr. Lawrence Clavering may laugh in his sleeve—damn him!"
"It is the truth," I exclaimed in despair. "Believe it! Believe it!"
"The truth," he retorted with bitterest sneer, "the truth, and you are speaking it God, I believe truth itself would become a lie if you had the uttering of it! Believe you! ”

“ Mr. Harwell fell back against the opposite wall. “Clavering, Clavering,” he murmured with quaking lips; then, suddenly bounding forward, clutched the railing before him, and fixing me with his eyes, from which all the stoic calmness had gone down forever in flame and frenzy, gurgled into my ear: “You want to know who the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth is, do you? Look there, then: that is the man, Clavering!” And with a leap, he bounded from my side, and, swaying like a drunken man, disappeared from my gaze in the hall above. ”

“ In front of me there was a blur of light; the blur defined itself into four moving points of flame as I approached, and, or ever I was aware of it, I had plumped full into my Lord Derwentwater, who was walking homewards behind his torch-bearers to the lake.
"Come, my man," said he, "what manners are these?"
"The manners of a man in a desperate hurry," says I, "and so good night to you, my lord;" and I moved on one side.
"Lawrence Clavering!" he cried out and caught me by the arm. "The very man I would be speaking with." ”

“ Captain Clavering, who was sitting with his hat in his two hands between his knees, stared at the little foreigner. He had heard before of women poisoning their husbands, but never had heard a woman advocate the system as expedient. Nor had he often heard a woman advocate any system with the vehemence which Madame Gordeloup now displayed on this matter, and with an allusion which was so very pointed to the special position of his own sister-in-law. Did Lady Ongar agree with her? He felt as though he should like to know his Julia's opinions on that matter. ”

“ But Henry did not wish to go to London on this business immediately. He had made up his mind that he would not only take the rooms, but that he would also meet Lady Ongar at the station. He said nothing of this to Lady Clavering, as, perhaps, she might not approve; but such was his intention. He was wrong no doubt. A man in such cases should do what he is asked to do, and do no more. But he repeated to himself the excuse that Lady Clavering had made,—namely, that he was already the same as a married man, and that, therefore, no harm could come of his courtesy to his cousin's wife's sister. ”

“ Clavering," says she with her chin in the air. "You have learnt the soldier's forwardness of tongue. Let me pray you have learnt his——" And then, thinking, I suppose, from my demeanour that I was sufficiently abashed, she broke off of a sudden. "I would that I were a man," she cried, "and could swing a sword!"
She looked towards the little army which defiled between the fields, with the sun glinting upon musket and scabbard, and brought her clenched fist down upon the pommel of her saddle. ”

“ Look at Saul,"—Mr. Saul was the curate of Clavering—"he is always preaching and teaching. He is doing the best he can; and what a life of it he has. He has literally thrown off all worldly cares,—and consequently everybody laughs at him, and nobody loves him. I don't believe a better man breathes, but I shouldn't like his life."
At this point there was another pause, which lasted till the cigars had come to an end. Then, as he threw the stump into the fire, Mr. Clavering spoke again. "The truth is, Harry, that you have had, all your life, a bad example before you." ”

“ But what the plot was I knew not nor ever did; and had I laid the information against Lawrence Clavering then, I should myself have closed the avenues of knowledge."
"And what have you to say to that?" asked the judge of Herbert. "You will need more discretion if you are to save your neck." And he wagged his head at the prisoner.
"My Lord," answered Herbert, in a heat, "I shall not want for discretion so long as I do not go begging for justice."
I could see Mr. Doyle in the body of the court, nodding and frowning at his client in a great fluster. ”

“ Clavering! Between gentleman and cousins the word stinks—it positively stinks. Whatever little service I have done for you, calls for no such big-sounding name."
His voice, his looks, his gestures were such as a man notes only in a friend, and a friend that is perplexed by some unaccountable suspicion.
"But you spoke of honesty," he continued, throwing a knee across the other and spreading out his hands. "It is very true I played a trick on you in coming to Paris as your servant But it is a trick which my betters had used before me. ”

“ As they sipped the old port they sat round the dining-room fire, and Harry Clavering was forced to own to himself that he had never been more comfortable.
"Ah," said Burton, stretching out his slippered feet, "why can't it all be after-dinner, instead of that weary room at the Adelphi?"
"And all old port?" said Jones.
"Yes, and all old port. You are not such an ass as to suppose that a man in suggesting to himself a continuance of pleasure suggests to himself also the evils which are supposed to accompany such pleasure. ”

“ On the twenty-sixth I should be knocking at the door of Applegarth."
"Nay," said he, "you will be captured. You have risked enough for us, more than enough. Mr. Clavering, I cannot permit that you should go."
"Yet," said I, with a smile, "you will find that easier than to prevent me. You told me of a safe route between Applegarth and Ravenglass," I continued. "How long will it take a woman to traverse it?" ”

“ God help the man, be he king or serf, that takes his counsel! Look you, Mr. Clavering, a very dishonest, treacherous knave;" and he wagged his head at me. I was astonished at the outburst, since the Jacobites were wont to look with some deference towards Lord Bolingbroke.
"He is my kinsman," I said meekly, "and a very good friend to me;" and while Mr. Curwen was still humming and hawing in some confusion, his daughter came into the room, and gazing at his troubled face with some anxiety, put an end to the talk. ”

“ However, as I say, I found him at the last, and when General Wills marched into Preston Market-place at seven o'clock of the Monday morning, Mr. Lawrence Clavering, with a blue apron about his waist, was taking down the shutters from the apothecary's shop, while Mr. Curwen, much broken by fatigue and disappointment, lay abed in an attic of the house, with Ashlock to tend on him.
All that day, which was Monday the 14th of November, I lived in a jumping anxiety. For the shop from morn to night was beset with people seeking remedies for the wounded. ”

“ Saul would, at any rate, keep his word. "Interview, indeed!" said the rector. "It is the man's audacity that most astonishes me. It passes me to think how such a fellow can dare to propose such a thing. What is it that he expects as the end of it?" Then Harry endeavoured to repeat what Mr. Saul had said as to his own expectations, but he was quite aware that he failed to make his father understand those expectations as he had understood them when the words came from Mr. Saul's own mouth. Harry Clavering had acknowledged to himself that it was impossible not to respect the poor curate. ”

“ Or find himself supplanted by some man younger than himself whose cursed audacity and dramatized youthfulness would have accustomed the facile public to some new brand of pap flavored with red pepper. The world was marching to the tune of youth, damn it (Mr. Clavering was beginning to feel elderly at thirty-four) , but it was hard to shake out the entrenched. He had his public hypnotized. He could sell ten copies of a book where a reviewer could sell one. His word on a play was final—or almost. Personal mention of any of the Sophisticates added a cubit to reputation. ”

“ Now, as mean and irreligious persons are wont to do, they retaliated by treating him with neglect. Mr Clavering, whose fears for his son’s life were fully aroused, only rushed out of the cottage for a few minutes at a time to calm his agitation, or to give way to his grief, and then hurried back to his bedside. He had sent for the housekeeper to attend on Ralph, but Mrs Gammage declined coming on the plea that her mistress required her attendance, and that her own health was so delicate that she should die of cold in Dame Harvey’s cottage. ”

“ But if she will make him happy that is everything. I have never thought much about money myself. If I find any comfort in these tidings it is for his sake, not for my own. I would sooner remain as I am." This was not altogether untrue, and yet he was thinking of the big house and the hunting.
"What will be done about the living?" It was early in the morning when Mrs. Clavering asked this question. She had thought much about the living during the night. And so had the rector;—but his thoughts had not run in the same direction as hers. ”

“ I seem to see an old woman with a colossal will.... But I'd like to know the name of that whitewash she uses. It may come in handy some day. Not for another ten years, though. Oh, Lee! it's good to be really young and not have to be flattened out on a table under broiling X-Rays and have your poor old feminine department cranked up.... I wonder just how adventurous men are?"'
But Clavering, although seething, merely smiled. He knew himself to be like the man who has had a virulent attack of small-pox and is immune for the rest of his life. ”

“ Read them, and keep them safely. Should trouble arise with her after my death, confront her with them. Use your own discretion about showing them or not to my nephew Edmund. But should she acquiesce in the just will I have made, and when all things are settled on a sure foundation, then destroy the letters, unseen by any eye save your own; I do not wish to expose her needlessly.—R. C."
Lady Clavering had not acquiesced in the will, and she was still going on with her threatened and most foolish action. ”

“ And turning away in horror, she moaned: "Who that ever looks at me now will forget that a man—such a man!—dared to think that, because I was in mortal perplexity, I would accept the murder of my best friend as a relief from it!" Her horror was unbounded. "Oh, what a chastisement for folly!" she murmured. "What a punishment for the love of money which has always been my curse!"
Henry Clavering could no longer restrain himself, leaping to her side, he bent over her. "Was it nothing but folly, Mary? Are you guiltless of any deeper wrong? ”

“ Even his cousin had rebuked him for his treachery to Florence; but what would his cousin have said had he known all? And then what good had he done;—or rather what evil had he not done? In his attempt on behalf of Lady Clavering had he not, in truth, interfered without proper excuse, and fairly laid himself open to anger from his cousin? And he felt that he had been an ass, a fool, a conceited ass, thinking that he could produce good, when his interference could be efficacious only for evil. ”

“ And this same habit of mind was repeated in their betters, though in a less rude degree. Therefore I thought it did behove me to practise some dissimulation lest either my friends or my enemies should get the wind of my business. So again I said—
"The painter stays at Keswick. And where does he lodge?"
"In the High Street," said Lady Derwentwater; and she named the house.
"But, Mr. Clavering," added the husband, with a laugh, "the painter has a wife, very young and not ill-looking; and he is very jealous. ”

“ I had either to yell in my fury or deal the man beneath some tremendous blow in my hatred. I did not dare to shriek, so I struck the blow. Demanding his name from Mr. Raymond, and hearing that it was, as I expected, Clavering, I flung caution, reason, common sense, all to the winds, and in a moment of fury denounced him as the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth.
The next instant I would have given worlds to recall my words. What had I done but drawn attention to myself in thus accusing a man against whom nothing could of course be proved! ”

“ With a look whose evil triumph I cannot describe, he put his hand into the arm of the waiting detective, and in another moment would have been led from the room; when Mary, crushing down the swell of emotions that was seething in her breast, lifted her head and said:
“No, Trueman Harwell; I cannot give you even that thought for your comfort. Wealth so laden would bring nothing but torture. I cannot accept the torture, so must release the wealth. From this day, Mary Clavering owns nothing but what comes to her from the husband she has so long and so basely wronged.” ”

“ And Madame Gordeloup, rising in her energy from her seat for the purpose, strove to throw upon Harry such another glance as the injured, insulted wife had thrown upon her foul-tongued, dying lord.
"She will marry," said Madame Gordeloup, changing her tone with a suddenness that made Harry start; "yes, she will marry of course. Your English widows always marry if they have money. They are wrong, and she will be wrong; but she will marry."
"I do not know how that may be," said Harry, looking foolish.
"I tell you I know she will marry, Mr. Clavering; I told Edouard so yesterday. ”