Venner

“ Richard Venner.
The Widow was particularly pleased with this accidental meeting. Had heard Mr. Venner's name frequently mentioned. Hoped his uncle was well, and his charming cousin,—was she as original as ever? Had often admired that charming creature he rode: we had had some fine horses. Had never got over her taste for riding, but could find nobody that liked a good long gallop since—well—she could n't help wishing she was alongside of him, the other day, when she saw him dashing by, just at twilight. ”

“ Vera murmured. "But do not let us waste too much time regretting the last three years; and do not let us waste too much time at all, or we shall lose our train."
"That is bringing one back to earth with a vengeance," Venner laughed. "But come along and let us get all the business over, and we can look eagerly forward to the pleasure of afterwards." ”

“ At a period of life when many have been living on the capital of their acquired knowledge and their youthful stock of sensibilities until their intellects are really shallower and their hearts emptier than they were at twenty, Dudley Venner was stronger in thought and tenderer in soul than in the first freshness of his youth, when he counted but half his present years. ”

“ Venner came back for his beast, he was as wild as if he had just been lassoed, screaming, kicking, rolling over to get rid of his saddle, and when his rider was at last mounted, jumping about in a way to dislodge any common horseman. To all this Dick replied by sticking his long spurs deeper and deeper into his flanks, until the creature found he was mastered, and dashed off as if all the thistles of the Pampas were pricking him. ”

“ It is true that part of Dr. Venner's letter put the idea into my mind. I do not pretend to pose as a superhumanly clever person, but I am not without talent, and my genius is in my power to twist every accident to my own advantage.
It was my master's custom to dispose of his correspondence while I prepared his bath after awaking him. As I re-entered his bed-chamber to announce his bath ready, I found him standing before the fireplace in his dressing-gown, watching the transmutation of Sir Charles Venner's missive into ashes in the grate. ”

“ Nothing could be more unstudied. As for Dudley Venner, no beauty in all the world could have so soothed and magnetized him as the very repose and subdued gentleness which the Widow had thought would make the best possible background for her own more salient and effective attractions. ”

“ My long illness had made a changed man of me, and if I could have believed in Marion's avowals, I would have been as happy as a king to mend my ways for her sweet sake, and never do a shady thing again. Once or twice I tried my best to induce her to explain to me the mysteries connected with Sir Charles Venner's secret society of consumptives which I had been unable to fathom. ”

“ Venner said grimly. "Anything but that. Why, three years ago that man was as poor and desperate as the most wretched outcast who walks the streets of London to-night. And one thing you may be certain of—wherever you dine from now to your dying day, you will be under the roof of no more diabolical scoundrel than the creature who calls himself Mark Fenwick."
There was a deep note in Venner's voice that did not fail to stimulate Gurdon's curiosity. He glanced again at the millionaire, who appeared to be talking in some foreign tongue with his companion. ”

“ Sir Charles Venner is a consumptive, with at most a year of life before him. Men cling to life most dearly when their days are numbered. Moreover, well he knows, this surgeon, that if he kills me he must hang! ”

“ Venner has any kind of suspicion about his nephew,—whether he has any notion that he's a dangerous sort of fellow,—or whether he feels safe to have him about, or has even taken a sort of fancy to him. ”

“ Did he know that Sir Alfred Venner's woods were out of bounds? Did he know that, in consequence of complaints from Sir Alfred Venner, Sir Alfred Venner's woods were more out of bounds than any other out of bounds woods in the entire county that did not belong to Sir Alfred Venner? He did? Ah! No, the word for his guidance in this emergency, he felt instinctively, was 'mum'. Time might provide him with a solution. He might, for instance, abstract the cups secretly from their resting-place, place them in the middle of the football field, and find them there dramatically after morning school. ”

“ I never saw a woman with a more thoroughbred air. She is looking this way."
Just for a moment the girl turned her head, and Venner caught a full sight of her face. It was only for an instant; then the fair head was turned again, and the girl appeared to resume her dinner. Venner jumped from his chair and took three strides across the room. He paused there as if struggling to regain possession of himself; then he dropped into his chair again, shielding his face from the light with his hands. Gurdon could see that his companion's face had turned to a ghastly grey. ”

“ So Dudley Venner felt, and would have thought, if he had let his thoughts breathe the air of his soul. But the Doctor read through words and thoughts and all into the father's consciousness. There are states of mind which may be shared by two persons in presence of each other, which remain not only unworded, but unthoughted, if such a word may be coined for our special need. Such a mutually interpenetrative consciousness there was between the father and the old physician. ”

“ Gurdon fell in readily enough with the suggestion. Indeed, there was nothing else for it. He took his number and key from the sleepy clerk in the office, and made his way upstairs to Venner's bedroom.
"I'll just have one cigarette before I turn in," he said. "It seems as if Fate had ordained that I am to keep in close touch with the leading characters of the mystery. By the way, we never took the trouble to find out who the handsome cripple was."
"That is very easily done in the morning," Venner replied. "A striking personality like that is not soon lost sight of. ”

“ Not more than ten minutes had elapsed when, thanks to the use of the telephone, Gurdon had reached the Grand Empire Hotel. In a few hurried words, Venner gave him a brief outline of what had happened. There was no time to lose.
"Of course, it is a risk," Venner said, "and I am not altogether sure that I am justified in taking advantage of this little slip on the part of my wife. What do you think?" ”

“ She shall have a chance to try, at any rate!”
Such was the self-sacrificing disposition with which Richard Venner, Esq., a passenger by the Condor from Valparaiso, set foot upon his native shore, and turned his face in the direction of Rockland, The Mountain, and the mansion-house. He had heard something, from time to time, of his New-England relatives, and knew that they were living together as he left them. ”

“ Gerald Venner and Mr. James Gurdon. But there is one thing I don't know, and that is why you have thrust yourself into this diabolical business. You must be brave men, or absolutely unconscious of the terrible danger you are running. If either of you are friends of Fenwick's—"
"Not for a moment," Venner cried. "You pay us a poor compliment indeed if you take us to be in any way friendly with that scoundrel."
"And yet you are here," Zary went on. "You are spying on the movements of my friend, Le Fenu. You have contrived to obtain possession of the keys of his house for no other purpose. Why?" ”

“ She took a half-sheet of note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a country “merchant's clerk” adds up two and threepence (New-England nomenclature) and twelve and a half cents, figure by figure, and fraction by fraction, before he can be sure they will make half a dollar, without cheating somebody. After much consideration the list reduced itself to the following names: Mr. Richard Venner and Mrs. Blanche Creamer, the lady at whose house she had met him,—mansion-house breed,—but will come,—soft on Dick; Dudley Venner,—take care of him herself ”

“ It was on the third day that Venner began to see daylight. One of the evening papers had come out with a startling letter which seemed to point to a clue, though it conveyed nothing to the police. Venner came round to Gurdon's rooms with a copy of the evening paper in his hand. He laid it before his friend and asked him to read the letter, which, though it contained but a few lines, was of absorbing interest to both of them.
"You see what this man says?" Venner remarked. "He appears to be a workingman who got himself into trouble over a drinking bout. ”

“ Richard Venner was a young man of remarkable experience for his years. He ran less risk, therefore, in exposing himself to the temptations and dangers of a great city than many older men, who, seeking the livelier scenes of excitement to be found in large towns as a relaxation after the monotonous routine of family life, are too often taken advantage of and made the victims of their sentiments or their generous confidence in their fellow-creatures. ”

“ We shall have to run the risk of losing sight of the cripple; anything is better than leaving that panel open for the servants to discover in the morning."
Venner could see for himself at once that there was no help for it, so without any further discussion on the matter, the two men hurried down the stairs, their feet making no noise on the thick carpet, and then they darted through the hole into the house next door. ”

“ In return, he had much to tell of his father, now dead,—the only one of the Venners, beside themselves, in whose fate his uncle was interested. With Elsie, he was subdued and almost tender in his manner; with the few visitors whom they saw, shy and silent,—perhaps a little watchful, if any young man happened to be among them.
Young fellows placed on their good behavior are apt to get restless and nervous, all ready to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick Venner had his half-tamed horse with him to work off his suppressed life with. ”

“ There were different versions of the expressions he had used at the onset of his complaint,--some of the reported exclamations involving a breach of propriety, to say the least,--but it was agreed that a man in an attack of neuralgy wasn't to be judged of by the rules that applied to other folks.
The company soon after this retired from the supper-room. The mansion-house gentry took their leave, and the two-story people soon followed. Mr. Bernard had stayed an hour or two, and left soon after he found that Elsie Venner and her father had disappeared. ”

“ The same remark applies with equal force to Miss Le Fenu—I mean your wife."
"I can quite understand that," Venner said. "It has been much the same with me, though I must confess that I was so happy last night that I could not sleep at all. By the way, have you any information as to your father's movements? He probably knows by this time that his house has been given over to a gang of swindlers."
"He does," Evors said. "I have had a telegram from him this morning to say that he will be home some time in the course of the day ”

“ Vennar was universally regarded as an impostor and dubbed ‘England's Joy,’ a name which gave him peculiar annoyance. In 1614 he wrote a vehement protest, entitled ‘An Apology: written by Richard Vennar of Lincolnes Inne, abusively called Englands Joy. To represse the contagious ruptures of the infected multitude. ... London. Printed by Nicholas Okes.’ The work is divided into two parts, of which the first is autobiographical, and the second relates Vennar's exertions to obtain the abolition of imprisonment for debt in England. ”

“ Verner kept it no secret that his nephew Lionel was to be his heir; and, as such, Lionel was universally regarded on the estate. “Always provided that you merit it,” Mr. Verner would say to Lionel in private; and so he had said to him from the very first. “Be what you ought to be—what I fondly believe my brother Lionel was: a man of goodness, of honour, of Christian integrity; a gentleman in the highest acceptation of the term—and Verner’s Pride shall undoubtedly be yours. But if I find you forget your fair conduct, and forfeit the esteem of good men, so surely will I leave it away from you.” ”

“ I made notes of the whole affair, and took the securities into my possession, and then calmly waited long, long hours; I could not tell how long, for I was waked up from a kind of stupor by the sound of a door opening, and then I heard the voice I knew so well—that of M. Vernay.
“You need not stay; I can bring up all I need. Give me a lucifer.” ”

“ Henry Venn laboured through life in the interests of a cause which seemed to him among the highest, and which even those who hold entirely different opinions must admit to be a worthy one, the elevation that is, moral and spiritual, of the lower races of mankind. ”

“ M. Vernay came about once a week to dinner, and contrived then, and indeed at all times, to give my uncle the idea that I was in need of much teaching as regarded business matters.
“How many years do you think, Charles” (we were cousins, reader) , “it will take you to learn to conduct papa’s business?”
“How many months you mean, Victorine. These practical men, your father and M. Vernay, are greatly mistaken in their estimate of me: they fancy that because I never looked into a day-book, or journal, or ledger before I came here, I shall be years learning their use; it’s a mistake of theirs. ”

“ Verner is not of a covetous nature; she is not unjust, and I believe that she would wish the estate willed to Lionel, rather than to her sons. She knows no good reason why it should not be willed to him. And for those sons—do you suppose either of them would have gone out to Australia, had he been cognisant that he was heir to Verner’s Pride? ”