Joseph Le Fanu - The Tenants of Malory. Volume 1

"You're very kind, sir; but I promised, if I am still in Cardyllian to-morrow, to run over to Ware, and dine with Verney."

" What Verney?"

"Cleve Verney."

"D – him."

"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Miss Charity, grimly.

"Boh! – I hate him – I hate all the Verneys," bawled old Vane Etherage, as if hating were a duty and a generosity.

"Oh – no, papa – you know you don't – that would be extremely wicked ," said Miss Charity, with that severe superiority with which she governed the Admiral.

"Begad, you're always telling me I'm wicked – and we know where the wicked go – that's catechism, I believe – so I'd like to know where's the difference between that and d – ing a fellow?" exclaimed the portly bust, and blew off his wrath with a testy laugh.

"I think we had better put off our bonnets and coats? – The language is becoming rather strong – and the tobacco," said Miss Charity, with dry dignity, to her sister, leaving the study as she did so.

"I thought it might be that Kiffyn Verney – the uncle fellow – Honourable Kiffyn Verney — dis -honourable, I call him – that old dog, sir, he's no better than a cheat – and I'd be glad of an opportunity to tell him so to his face, sir – you have no idea , sir, how he has behaved to me!"

"He has the character of being a very honourable, sir – I'm sorry you think so differently," said honest Tom Sedley, who always stood up for his friends, and their kindred – "and Cleve, I've known from my childhood, and I assure you, sir, a franker or more generous fellow I don't suppose there is on earth."

"I know nothing about the jackanape, except that he's nephew of his roguish uncle," said the florid old gentleman with the short high nose and double chin. "He wants to take up Llanderis, and he shan't have it. He's under covenant to renew the lease, and the devil of it is, that between me and Wynne Williams we have put the lease astray – and I can't find it – nor he either – but it will turn up – I don't care two-pence about it – but no one shall humbug me – I won't be gammoned, sir, by all the Verneys in England. Stuff – sir!"

Then the conversation took a happier turn. The weather was sometimes a little squally with the Admiral – but not often – genial and boisterous – on the whole sunny and tolerably serene – and though he sometimes threatened high and swore at his servants, they knew it did not mean a great deal, and liked him.

People who lived all the year round in Cardyllian, which from November to May, every year, is a solitude, fall into those odd ways and little self-indulgences which gradually metamorphose men of the world into humorists and grotesques. Given a sparse population, and difficult intercommunication, which in effect constitute solitude, and you have the conditions of barbarism. Thus it was that Vane Etherage had grown uncouth to a degree that excited the amazement of old contemporaries who happened, from time to time, to look in upon his invalided retirement at Cardyllian.

The ladies and Tom Sedley, in the drawing-room, talked very merrily at tea, while old Vane Etherage, in his study, with the door between the rooms wide open, amused himself with a nautical volume and his terrestrial globe.

"So," said Miss Agnes, "you admired the Malory young lady – Margaret, our maid says, she is called – very much to-day?"

"I did, by Jove. Didn't you?" said Tom, well pleased to return to the subject.

"Yes," said Agnes, looking down at her spoon – "Yes, I admired her; that is, her features are very regular; she's what I call extremely handsome; but there are prettier girls."

" Here do you mean?"

"Yes – here."

"And who are they?"

"Well, I don't say here now ; but I do think those Miss Dartmores, for instance, who were here last year, and who used to wear those blue dresses, were decidedly prettier. The heroine of Malory, whom you have fallen in love with, seems to me to want animation."

"Why, she couldn't show a great deal of animation over the Litany," said Tom.

"I did not see her then; I happened to be praying myself during the Litany," said Miss Agnes, recollecting herself.

"It's more than I was," said Tom.

"You ought not to talk that way, Mr. Sedley. It isn't nice . I wonder you can," said Miss Charity.

"I would not say it, of course, to strangers," said Tom. "But then, I'm so intimate here – and it's really true, that is, I mean, it was to-day."

"I wonder what you go to church for," said Miss Charity.

"Well, of course, you know, it's to pray; but I look at the bonnets a little, also; every fellow does. By Jove, if they'd only say truth, I'm certain the clergymen peep – I often saw them. There's that little fellow, the Rev. Richard Pritchard, the curate, you know – I'd swear I've seen that fellow watching you, Agnes, through the chink in the reading-desk door, while the sermon was going on; and I venture to say he did not hear a word of it."

"You ought to tell the rector, if you really saw that," said Miss Charity, severely.

"Pray do no such thing," entreated Agnes; "a pleasant situation for me!"

"Certainly, if Mr. Pritchard behaves himself as you describe," said Miss Charity; "but I've been for hours shut up in the same room with him – sometimes here, and sometimes at the school – about the children, and the widows' fund, and the parish charities, and I never observed the slightest levity; but you are joking, I'm sure."

"I'm not , upon my honour. I don't say it's the least harm. I don't see how he can help it; I know if I were up in the air – in a reading-desk, with a good chink in the door, where I thought no one could see me, and old Doctor Splayfoot preaching his pet sermon over my head — wouldn't I peep? – that's all."

"Well, I really think, if he makes a habit of it, I ought to speak to Doctor Splayfoot. I think it's my duty ," said Miss Charity, sitting up very stiffly, as she did when she spoke of duty; and when once the notion of a special duty got into her head, her inflexibility, as Tom Sedley and her sister Agnes knew, was terrifying.

"For mercy's sake, my dear Charry, do think of me ! If you tell Doctor Splayfoot he'll be certain to tell it all to Wynne Williams and Doctor Lyster, and Price Apjohn, and every creature in Cardyllian will know everything about it, and a great deal more, before two hours; and once for all, if that ridiculous story is set afloat, into the church door I'll never set my foot again."

Miss Agnes' pretty face had flushed crimson, and her lip quivered with distress.

"How can you be such a fool, Aggie! I'll only say it was at our seat – and no one can possibly tell which it was at – you or me; and I'll certainly tell Dr. Splayfoot that Mr. Sedley saw it."

"And I'll tell the Doctor," said Sedley, who enjoyed the debate immensely, "that I neither saw nor said any such thing."

"I don't think, Thomas Sedley, you'd do anything so excessively wicked!" exclaimed Miss Charity, a little fiercely.

"Try me," said Tom, with an exulting little laugh.

"Every gentleman tells the truth," thrust she.

"Except where it makes mischief," parried Tom, with doubtful morality and another mischievous laugh.

"Well, I suppose I had better say nothing of Christianity . But what you do is your own affair! my duty I'll perform. I shall think it over; and I shan't be ruffled by any folly intended to annoy me." Miss Charity's thin brown cheeks had flushed to a sort of madder crimson. Excepting these flashes of irritability, I can't charge her with many human weaknesses. "I'll not say who he looked at – I've promised that; but unless I change my present opinion, Dr. Splayfoot shall hear the whole thing to-morrow. I think in a clergyman any such conduct in church is unpardonable . The effect on other people is positively ruinous. You , for instance, would not have talked about such things in the light you do, if you had not been encouraged in it, by seeing a clergyman conducting himself so."