Miss Verney

“ She came to Pauline and kissed with cold lips her cheek. "You have always been so kind and considerate to me. Yes, I am sure, without irreverence I can say you have been to me as welcome as the sun. I pray that you will always be happy. Ah, the dear fellow!" exclaimed Miss Verney, looking with the utmost affection to where Guy was now completing the circuit of her borders. "The dear fellow, how droll he must have thought it when I referred to you as Miss Grey. ”

“ So the great Lord Verney, with the flush of his brilliant successes in the town-hall still upon his thin cheeks, and a countenance dry and solemn, to which smiling came not easily, made the acquaintance of the Miss Etherages, and observed that the younger was "sweetly pretty, about it, and her elder sister appeared to him a particularly sensible young woman, and was, he understood, very useful in the charities, and things." ”

“ Here was some one who knew Dick as well as she did—should she say a partisan or an accomplice? A dim jealousy stirred beneath Mrs. Peyton's other emotions: she was undergoing the agony which the mother feels at the first intrusion on her privilege of judging her child; and her voice had a flutter of resentment.
"You must have a poor opinion of his character," she said.
Miss Verney did not remove her eyes, but her blush deepened beautifully. "I have, at any rate," she said, "a high one of his talent. I don't suppose many men have an equal amount of moral and intellectual energy." ”

“ Miss Verney tapped upon the window to summon Guy within again. When he was back in the drawing-room, she fluttered toward him and took his hand.
"My dear Mr. Hazlewood, for my father having been a sailor I must always be rather blunter than most people, I have to congratulate you. This dear child! My greatest friend in Wychford, and indeed really, so scattered now are all the people I have known, I might almost say, my greatest friend anywhere! You are a most enviable young man. But the secret is safe with me. No one shall know."
"I had to tell Miss Verney," Pauline explained. ”

“ It's that lovely Miss Verney, of course. She's much too good for you—an heiress, a beauty, and an orphan! But she's wonderful; and she really deserves you.'
He stopped her.
'How heartless you are!' he said admiringly.
'Really not, Cecil. I'm very fond of you. I'd be your best friend if you'd let me, but I shan't speak to you again or receive you at all unless you promise not to repeat that nonsense about marrying. I know how horridly obstinate you are! Please remember it's out of the question.'
At this moment the servant brought in a letter to Mrs Raymond. ”

“ Peyton as more alert and efficient. A melting grace of line and colour tempered her edges with the charming haze of youth; but it occurred to her critic that she might emerge from this morning mist as a dry and metallic old woman.
If Miss Verney suspected a personal application in Dick’s hospitality, it did not call forth in her the usual tokens of self-consciousness. Her manner may have been a shade more vivid than usual, but she preserved all her bright composure of glance and speech, so that one guessed, under the rapid dispersal of words, an undisturbed steadiness of perception. ”

“ She saw that Miss Verney was sincerely interested in Dick's work: it was the nature of her interest that remained in doubt. As if to solve this doubt, the girl presently reappeared alone on the threshold, and discovering Mrs. Peyton, advanced toward her with a smile.
"Are you tired of hearing us praise Mr. Peyton's things?" she asked, dropping into a low chair beside her hostess. "Unintelligent admiration must be a bore to people who know, and Mr. Darrow tells me you are almost as learned as your son." ”

“ For it was now plain to her that Miss Verney had not risked so much without first trying to gain her point at less cost: that if she had had to give herself as a prize, it was because no other bribe had been sufficient. This then, as the mother saw with a throb of hope, meant that Dick, who since Darrow's death had held to his purpose unwaveringly, had been deflected from it by the first hint of Clemence Verney's connivance. Kate had not miscalculated: things had happened as she had foreseen. ”

“ A horrid, unworthy jealousy of the lovely young girl turned a leaden screw in Terry Ricardo's breast. She hated herself for it; but it was there, and ached dully, with the same grinding ache which had banished all the joy of life and youth from her girlhood. She would conquer it soon, she told herself, and said aloud: "I promise you that Maud and I will do something for Miss Verney. We are on our way now to return a call of Mrs. Haynes, and we will ask for Miss Verney."
"She may refuse to see you," said Sir Ian, anxiously. ”

“ His heart still yearned unceasingly after Paul Verney, the friend of his boyhood; and none of the young ladies in tights and spangles had been able to put out of his mind little Denise in her blue-checked apron, and her plait of yellow hair hanging down her back, and her downcast eyes and sweet way of speaking his name. ”

“ If I gave him up he would go away from Wychford and be free. Besides, perhaps then his father would pay his debts. Miss Verney, Mr. Hazlewood didn't like me, and I think Guy has quarreled with him over me. Oh, I'm the most miserable girl in England, and such a little time ago I was the happiest."
"Money," said Miss Verney, slowly and seeming to address her cats rather than Pauline. "The root of all evil! Yes, yes, it is. It's the root of all evil."
Pauline was a little heartened by Miss Verney's readiness to consider so seriously the monster that oppressed her thoughts ”

“ Burrell that if you'd set your heart on wedding such a poor ninny as Lord Verney—I beg pardon, ma'am, I'm sure he'll be a very nice young nobleman, when his beard begins to grow—'twas not likely a deaf old cat like his mistress could prevent him. And I told Lord Verney's man, ma'am—and an impudent fellow he is—that you'd soon teach the dowager her place, once you were mistress in Verney Hall. ”

“ Mistress Bellairs? Humph! And who's she got with her in tow now? Who did you say? Louder, child, louder. What makes you mumble so? Who? Verney—Lord Verney? Why, that's my nevvy. Tell him to come to me this minute. Do you hear, Selina, this minute! I won't have him fall into the net of widow Bellairs!"
The cockatoo top-knot nodded vehemently. Poor Miss Selina, agitated between consciousness that the whole Pump Room was echoing to Lady Maria's sentiments and terror of her patroness, took two steps upon her errand, and halted, fluttering. Lord Verney had flushed darkly purple. ”

“ I feel a hundred."
"I wish you could have seen Milly to-day."
"Perhaps she'll come over to-morrow. What a beautiful girl Miss Verney is."
"Oh, you saw her? She isn't looking her best now. The course of true love hasn't run smooth."
Terry did not tell Maud that Nora Verney had evidently been crying. She remarked that Sir Ian had said Miss Verney was in sorrow or trouble of some sort.
"Nobody knows what the exact truth is," Maud explained, with relish, "but—I wrote you about Ian Barr, old Sir Ian Hereward's son?" ”

“ Circumstances, by keeping them for a good deal of the time at the Rectory, made this easy; and Guy, exalted by the notion of the formal troth, never made it difficult.
Pauline tried to recapture more of the old interests of life at Wychford, and she was particularly attentive to Miss Verney, going often to see her in the little house at the top of the hill and sitting with her in the oblong garden whenever the August sun showed itself.
"I'm sure I'm sorry it's going to be a protracted engagement," said Miss Verney. "They are apt to place a great strain upon people. ”

“ Never mind, on with you:—
'Lord Verney begs to assure Sir Jasper that, so far from presuming to entertain any unlawful sentiments for Lady Standish, he has never addressed more than three words to her or as many glances at her in his-life; that his whole heart is given to another lady, the only woman he has ever loved and ever will love.'"
The pen nearly dropped from Lord Verney's fingers. ”

“ Kitty Bellairs deliberately turned the key in the lock, and put it in her pocket. Lord Verney started forward, but was arrested by the sound of his own name, pronounced in the most dulcet and plaintive tone he thought he had ever heard.
"Lord Verney," said Kitty, flinging back her cloak and hood and allowing her pretty brown curls, and a hint of the most perfect shape in Bath, to become visible to the young peer's bewildered gaze. "Lord Verney," said she, and clasped her hands, "a very, very unhappy woman has come to throw herself upon your compassion." ”

“ Love and Spring danced in Mistress Kitty's light heart and light heels as she tripped forth. And Love and Spring gathered and strove and sought outlet in Verney's soul as inevitably, and irresistibly, and almost as unconsciously as the sap in the young shoots that swayed under the caress of the breeze and amorously unfurled themselves to the sunlight.
*****
The Pump Room was cool and dim after the grey stone street upon which the young year's sunshine beat as fierce as its youth knew how. ”

“ You represent her hope, her ideal of the world. Worldly one, I must say good night. Tell Miss Verney with my love that all her cats send their best respects and compliments and that Bellerophon particularly requests that his mistress will bring back whatever fish is in season at Scarborough. Oh, the funniest thing I've forgotten to tell you! Miss Peasey was chased by some bullocks across the big field behind the orchard! She was too priceless about it when she got home.
Pauline began to think it was impossible for her ever to have had the least worry in the course of her engagement. ”

“ His full lips endeavoured to sneer, but rage distorted them to a grimace through which his white teeth shone forth ferociously.
"Come, come, we understand each other," said he; "will you walk with me? There is no time like the present and a couple of friends are easy to come by."
"'Tis vastly well," said Lord Verney with an attempt at dignity that betrayed the boy in every line of him. Then all at once colour flushed into his face again, and his rigid demeanour was broken up. "Come, devil take it all, Sir Jasper," said he, "and what is it about?"
Sir Jasper threw bloodshot eyes upwards. ”

“ Aureole began to scribble feverishly on the back of her programme, which she then folded into a note.
“Take this round to the tenor of the quartette,” she commanded little Verney; “hurry up, or they’ll be gone,” for the spectators were already beginning to stir and disperse in the darkness, and the flaming footlights had one by one been extinguished. Verney obediently went. The missive ran as follows:
“Will you not stay your caravan an hour or two, and with your companions, give me the pleasure of your company this evening at my house by the pine trees? ”

“ De Verney, rosy-cheeked and babyish-looking, but about whom a morbid interest centres, because he collects jewels, and was said at one time to take morphia; and Miss de Verney, who "writes," and is utterly amazed and contemptuous when she finds someone who has never heard of her. ”

“ John Verney had an eager curiosity, not common in schoolboys, to know something about the countryside in which he dwelt. As a Lower Boy, whenever released from "Compulsory" and House-games, he used to wander with alert eyes and ears up and down the green lanes of Roxeth and Harrow Weald, enjoying fresh glimpses of the far-seen Spire, making friends with cottagers, picking up traditions of an older and more lawless [2] epoch, and, with these, an ever-increasing love and loyalty to Harrow. So Byron had wandered a hundred years before. ”

“ Indeed, I do not regret it—I do not seek to fight with Lord Verney now. Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper, rising and drawing the letter from his breast—"gentlemen, I shall neither eat nor sleep till I have found out the owner of this curl!"
He shook out the letter as he spoke, and fiercely thrust the tell-tale love-token under the noses of his amazed friends. "It is a red-haired man, you see! There lives no red-haired man in Bath but him I must forthwith spit or plug lest the villain escape me!" ”

“ Mr. Verney liked one with red roses, but Mary told him that nothing would ever induce Mrs. Wigram to wear anything but black. The girl in the shop recommended another kind, [156] trimmed with a very blue bird; but Mary had her own way.
Afterwards they bought a ball for the Barretts; and then they bought a postal order for eight shillings for Mrs. Carter, and half a crown for Mr. Eyles, and ten shillings for Mrs. Ryan, and fourteen shillings for Mrs. Pringle. It was most melancholy to see the beautiful sovereigns dropping into other people’s tills. ”

“ Laughing, Mistress Kitty closed the door behind his retreating figure.
"Now," said she.
"Oh, what have you done, what have you made me do?" cried Harry Verney in a sudden agony.
"Hush," said Mistress Kitty. "Did I not tell you your honour was safe with me? Do you not believe me?" said she meltingly. "Ah, Verney!" She put her hand to her head, and at her touch the mask fell. ”

“ Peyton, for instance, I’d much rather win the competition than—than be as disinterested as Mr. Darrow.”
Mrs. Peyton smiled. “I hope you won’t tell him so,” she said half seriously. “He is over-stimulated already; and he is so easily influenced by any one who—whose opinion he values.”
She stopped abruptly, hearing herself, with a strange inward shock, re-echo the words which another man’s mother had once spoken to her. Miss Verney did not seem to take the allusion to herself, for she continued to fix on Mrs. Peyton a gaze of impartial sympathy. ”