"Those Cretans were always liars, Tom Sedley. That comes direct from the club. I can fancy old Shrapnell in the light of the bow-window, composing his farrago of dreams, and lies, and chuckling and cackling over it."
"Well, I don't say that Shrapnell had anything to do with it; but I did hear at first they thought you were gone about little Agnes Etherage."
"Oh! they found that out—did they?" said Cleve. "But you know those people—I mean the Cardyllian people—as well, or better than I, and really, as a kindness to me, and to save me the trouble of endless explanations to my uncle, I would be so much obliged if you would not repeat their follies—unless, of course, you happen to believe them."
Cleve did not look more cheerful as he drove away in a cab which he took to get rid of his friend Tom Sedley. It was mortifying to find how vain were his clever stratagems, and how the rustic chapmen of that Welsh village and their wives had penetrated his diplomacy. He thought he had killed the rumours about Malory, and yet that grain of mustard seed had grown while his eye was off it, with a gigantic luxuriance, and now was large enough to form a feature in the landscape, and quite visible from the windows of Ware—if his uncle should happen to visit that mansion—overtopping the roofs and chimneys of Cardyllian. His uncle meditated an early visit to Cardyllian, and a short stay at Ware, before the painters and gilders got possession of the house; a sort of ovation in demi-toilette, grand and friendly, and a foretaste of the splendours that were coming. Cleve did hope that those beasts would be quiet while Lord Verney was (as he in his grand manner termed it) "among them." He knew the danger of a vague suspicion seizing on his mind, how fast it clung, how it fermented like yeast, fantastic and obstinate as a foolish woman's jealousy—and as men sometimes will, he even magnified this danger. Altogether, Cleve was not causelessly anxious and alarmed. He had in the dark to navigate a channel which even in broad daylight tasked a good steersman.
When Cleve reached Verney House it was eight o'clock. Lord Verney had ordered his brougham at half-past, and was going down to the House; he had something to say on Lord Frompington's bill. It was not very new, nor very deep, nor very much; but he had been close at it for the last three weeks. He had amused many gentlemen—and sometimes even ladies—at many dinner parties, with a very exact recital of his views. I cannot say that they were exactly his, for they were culled, perhaps unconsciously, from a variety of magazine articles and pamphlets, which happened to take Lord Verney's view of the question.
It is not given to any mortal to have his heart's desire in everything. Lord Verney had a great deal of this world's good things—wealth, family, rank. But he chose to aim at official station, and here his stars denied him.
Some people thought him a goose, and some only a bore. He was, as we know, pompous, conceited, obstinate, also weak and dry. His grandfather had been a cabinet minister, respectable and silent; and was not he wiser, brighter, and more learned than his grandfather? "Why on earth should not he?" His influence commanded two boroughs, and virtually two counties. The minister, therefore, treated him with distinction; and spoke of him confidentially as horribly foolish, impracticable, and at times positively impertinent.
Lord Verney was subject to small pets and huffs, and sometimes was affronted with the Premier for four or five weeks together, although the fact escaped his notice. And when the viscount relented, he would make him a visit to quiet his mind, and show him that friendly relations were re-established; and the minister would say, "Here comes that d——d Verney; I suppose I must give him half-an-hour!" and when the peer departed, thinking he had made the minister happy, the minister was seriously debating whether Lord Verney's boroughs were worth the price of Lord Verney's society.
His lordship was now in that sacred apartment, his library; where not even Cleve had a right to disturb him uninvited. Preliminaries, however, were now arranged; the servant announced him, and Cleve was commanded to enter.
"I have just had a line to say I shall be in time at half-past ten o'clock, about it. Frompington's bill won't be on till then; and take that chair and sit down, about it, won't you? I've a good many things on my mind; people put things upon me. Some people think I have a turn for business, and they ask me to consider and direct matters about theirs, and I do what I can. There was poor Wimbledon, who died, about it, seven years ago. You remember Wimbledon—or—I say—you either remember him or you don't recollect him; but in either case it's of no importance. Let me see: Lady Wimbledon—she's connected with you, about it—your mother, remotely—remotely also with us, the Verneys. I've had a world of trouble about her settlements—I can't describe—I can't describe—I was not well advised, in fact, to accept the trust at all. Long ago, when poor Frompington—I mean poor Wimbledon, of course—have I been saying Wimbledon?"