Cleve at once satisfied him.
"Yes, of course. When poor Wimbledon looked as healthy and as strong as I do at this moment, about it—a long time ago. Poor Wimbledon!—he fancied, I suppose, I had some little turn, about it, for business—some of my friends do—and I accepted the trust when poor Wimbledon looked as little likely to be hurried into eternity, about it, as I do. I had a regard for him, poor Wimbledon, and he had a respect for me, and thought I could be of use to him after he was dead, and I have endeavoured, and people think I have. But Lady Wimbledon, the dowager, poor woman! She's very long-winded, poor soul, and gives me an infinity of trouble. One can't say to a lady, 'You are detaining me; you are wandering from the subject; you fail to come to the point.' It would be taking a liberty, or something, about it. I had not seen Lady Wimbledon, simple 'oman, for seven years or more. It's a very entangled business, and I confess it seems rather unfair, that I should have my time, already sufficiently occupied with other, as I think, more important affairs, so seriously interrupted and abridged. There's going to be a bill filed—yes, and a great deal of annoyance. She has one unmarried daughter, Caroline, about it, who is not to have any power over her money until she is thirty-one. She's not that now. It was hardly fair to me, putting it in trust so long. She is a very superior person—a young woman one does not meet with every day, about it; and—and very apprehensive—a great deal of mind—quite unusual. Do you know her?"
The viscount raised his eyes toward the ceiling with a smile that was mysterious and pleased.
Cleve did know that young lady of eight-and-twenty, and her dowager mamma, "simple 'oman," who had pursued him with extraordinary spirit and tenacity for several years, but that was past and over. Cleve experienced a thrill of pain at his heart. He suspected that the old torturing idea was again active in his uncle's mind.
Yes, he did know them—ridiculous old woman; and the girl—he believed she'd marry any one; he fancied she would have done him that honour at one time, and he fancied that the trust, if it was to end when she was thirty-one, could not be very long in force.
"My dear Cleve, don't you think that's rather an odd way of speaking of a young lady? People used not in my time—that is, when I was a young man of two or three-and-twenty, about it—to talk so of young ladies. It was not considered a thing that ought to be done. I—I never heard a word of the kind."
Lord Verney's chivalry had actually called a little pink flush to his old cheeks, and he looked very seriously still at the cornice, and tapped a little nervous tattoo with his pencil-case on the table as he did so.
"I really did not mean—I only meant—in fact, uncle, I tell you everything; and poor Caroline is so much older than I, it always struck me as amusing."
"Their man of business in matters of law is Mr. Larkington, about it. Our man, you know—you know him."
"Oh, yes. They could not do better. Mr. Larkin—a very shrewd fellow. I went, by-the-by, to see that old man, Dingwell."