Mr. Clavering

“ 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. ”

“ How many, young as Ralph Clavering, have been cut off in the midst of their evil doings! An old woman and her daughter, the occupants of the cottage, gladly consented to give up the best accommodation their small abode offered to their wealthy neighbours. Mr Clavering, who had just reached the Hall, scarcely comprehended at first what had happened. Lilly had to repeat her tale. At length, when he really understood what had occurred, like a frantic person he threw himself into the carriage, and ordered the coachman to drive on as fast as the horses could go. ”

“ 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." ”

“ It was long before the old rector could reconcile himself either to the new rector or his new son-in-law. Mrs. Clavering had now so warmly taken up Fanny's part, and had so completely assumed a mother's interest in her coming marriage, that Mr. Clavering, or Sir Henry, as we may now call him, had found himself obliged to abstain from repeating to her the wonder with which he still regarded his daughter's choice. But to Harry he could still be eloquent on the subject. "Of course it's all right now," he said. "He's a very good young man, and nobody would work harder in the parish. ”

“ Mr Clavering was incredulous as to her disinterestedness. Lilly took her part.
“I am sure, uncle, she nursed Ralph so kindly and gave up her cottage to him simply from kindness of heart,” she observed. “Had any young nobleman been thrown from his horse out hunting would you not have taken him in, and kept him till he was well, without thought of reward? Papa used to say that the poor feel as we do, and often more acutely, and that we should treat their feelings with the same consideration that we should those of the rich.” ”

“ 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?" ”

“ But I heard enough that evening from the clerk and servants, of the agitation he had shown on receiving it, to convince me I was upon a trail worth following. I accordingly put on my men, and for two days Mr. Clavering was subjected to the most rigid watch a man ever walked under. But nothing was gained by it; his interest in the murder, if interest at all, was a secret one; and though he walked the streets, studied the papers, and haunted the vicinity of the house in Fifth Avenue, he not only refrained from actually approaching it, but made no attempt to communicate with any of the family. ”

“ I exclaimed, "Surely the sheriff's men returned."
"In the evening; but they found no one at Applegarth. Dorothy and I with Mary Tyson were on our way to Carlisle. The other servants I sent to their homes. We have good friends at Carlisle, Mr. Clavering," he said, with one of his prodigiously cunning winks, "very good, safe friends. We said good-bye to them when your army had passed Carlisle, and so returned home."
"And Miss Curwen?" I asked. "What of her, since you come with us?"
"She will be safe at home now," said he, "and Mary Tyson is there to bear her company." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is Blackladies that he covets, the estate from which his father disinherited him, and he seeks to regain it as a reward for his zeal by pursuing me to my death, though it cost him perjury. There is but one fact alleged against me, my Lord, in all this, that I had possession of the medal. But it never belonged to me, and that Jervas Rookley knows. I shall call a witness to prove to you that it belonged to Mr. Clavering, and to explain why it was discovered in my room."
"Well, call your witness!" said the Judge.
"I do, my Lord," said Anthony Herbert. "I call Lawrence Clavering." ”

“ 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. ”

“ I think I see," he added, after a moment’s thought. "Pity you spoke to him; may have created an unfavorable impression; and everything depends upon your meeting without any distrust."
He rose and paced the floor.
"Well, we must move slowly, that is all. Give him a chance to see you in other and better lights. Drop into the Hoffman House reading-room. Talk with the best men you meet while there; but not too much, or too indiscriminately. Mr. Clavering is fastidious, and will not feel honored by the attentions of one who is hail-fellow-well-met with everybody. ”

“ Mary thinks that no life is like a clergyman's life. But, Harry, though mamma hasn't said so, I'm sure she thinks you are right. She won't say so as long as it may seem to interfere with anything papa may choose to say; but I'm sure she's glad in her heart."
"And I am glad in my heart, Fanny. And as I'm the person most concerned, I suppose that's the most material thing." Then they followed their father into the drawing-room.
"Couldn't you drive Mrs. Clavering over in the pony chair, and settle it between you," said Mr. Clavering to his curate. Mr. Saul looked disappointed. ”

“ A thousand busy men, with their various cares and purposes, had pushed themselves between us, and I was obliged to return to my office with my doubts unsolved.
I think I never experienced a longer day; but it passed, and at five o’clock I had the satisfaction of inquiring for Mr. Clavering at the Hoffman House. Judge of my surprise when I learned that his visit to my office was his last action before taking passage upon the steamer leaving that day for Liverpool; that he was now on the high seas, and all chance of another interview with him was at an end. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Oh, the fact that I let him go off so easily? That’s no proof. I never fiddle with the brakes till the car starts down-hill. But let that pass for the present; Mr. Clavering, then, did not explain himself before going? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. Clavering left R—— abruptly, a circumstance that would not be considered remarkable if Mr. Leavenworth, whose violent antipathy to Englishmen as husbands is publicly known, had not just returned from a journey.
“July 30. Mr. Clavering was seen in the parlor of Mr. Stebbins, the Methodist minister at F——, a town about sixteen miles from R——, where he was married to a lady of great beauty. Proved by Timothy Cook, a man in the employ of Mr. Stebbins, who was called in from the garden to witness the ceremony and sign a paper supposed to be a certificate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Belden’s conclusions were correct? That all the detectives interested in the affair would regard the question as settled, I did not doubt; but need it be? Was it utterly impossible to find evidence yet that Henry Clavering was, after all, the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth?
Filled with the thought, I looked across the room to the closet where lay the body of the girl who, according to all probability, had known the truth of the matter, and a great longing seized me. Oh, why could not the dead be made to speak? ”

“ He invariably spent his vacations with Ralph. Sometimes they made tours together on the Continent or elsewhere, but the winters were generally spent at Clavering Hall. Ralph was now as much loved and respected by the household and tenants as he had before been disliked, and all agreed that it would be a grievous pity if it should be proved that he was not the rightful heir, though it was acknowledged that a finer or better young gentleman than Mr John Hobby was not to be found. ”

“ Gryce’s example, and stared at the chimney-piece. “I cannot answer till I understand matters a little better,” I returned at length.
“There is not much to understand. Mr. Henry Clavering, a gentleman and a man of the world, resides at the Hoffman House. He is a stranger in town, without being strange; drives, walks, smokes, but never visits; looks at the ladies, but is never seen to bow to one. In short, a person whom it is desirable to know ”

“ His face, relieved forever from its mask of repression, turned towards me with the look of a despairing spirit. "Save! save!" he gasped. "Save her—Mary—they are sending a report—stop it!"
"Yes," broke in another voice. "If there is a man here who believes in God and prizes woman’s honor, let him stop the issue of that report." And Henry Clavering, dignified as ever, but in a state of extreme agitation, stepped into our midst through an open door at our right.
But at the sight of his face, the man in our arms quivered, shrieked, and gave one bound that would have overturned Mr. ”

“ That he had such faults and was subject to such weaknesses may be believed of him; but there may be a question whether as much evil would not be known of most men, let them be heroes or not be heroes, if their characters were, so to say, turned inside out before our eyes. Harry Clavering, fellow of his college, six feet high, with handsome face and person, and with plenty to say for himself on all subjects, was esteemed highly and regarded much by those who knew him, in spite of those little foibles which marred his character ”

“ 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." ”