For a month and three days Mr. Jos. Larkin was left to ruminate2 without any new light upon the dusky landscape now constantly before his eyes. At the end of that time a foreign letter came for him to the Lodge3. It was not addressed in Mark Wylder’s hand — not the least like it. Mark’s was a bold, free hand, and if there was nothing particularly elegant, neither was there anything that could be called vulgar in it. But this was a decidedly villainous scrawl4 — in fact it was written as a self-educated butcher might pen a bill. There was nothing impressed on the wafer, but a poke6 of something like the ferrule of a stick.
The interior corresponded with the address, and the lines slanted7 confoundedly. It was, however, on the whole, better spelled and expressed than the penmanship would have led one to expect. It said —
‘MISTER LARKINS — Respeckted Sir, I write you, Sir, to let you know has how there is no more Chance you shud ear of poor Mr. Mark Wylder — of hose orrible Death I make bold to acquainte you by this writing — which is Secret has yet from all — he bing Hid, and made away with in the dark. It is only Right is family shud know all, and his sad ending — wich I will tell before you, Sir, in full, accorden to my Best guess, as bin8 the family Lawyer (and, Sir, you will find it usful to Tell this in secret to Capten Lake, of Brandon Hall — But not on No account to any other). It is orrible, Sir, to think a young gentleman, with everything the world can give, shud be made away with so crewel in the dark. Though you do not rekelect me, Sir, I know you well, Mr. Larkins, haven9 seen you hoffen when a boy. I wud not wish, Sir, no noise made till I cum — which I am returning hoame, and will then travel to Gylingden strateways to see you.
Sir, your obedient servant,
‘JAMES DUTTON.’
This epistle disturbed Mr. Jos. Larkin profoundly. He could recollect10 no such name as James Dutton. He did not know whether to believe this letter or not. He could not decide what present use to make of it, nor whether to mention it to Captain Lake, nor, if he did so, how it was best to open the matter.
Captain Lake, he was confident, knew James Dutton — why, otherwise, should that person have desired his intelligence communicated to him. At least it proved that Dutton assumed the captain to be specially11 interested in what concerned Mark Wylder’s fate; and in so far it confirmed his suspicions of Lake. Was it better to wait until he had seen Dutton, and heard his story, before hinting at his intelligence and his name — or was it wiser to do that at once, and watch its effect upon the gallant12 captain narrowly, and trust to inspiration and the moment for striking out the right course.
If this letter was true there was not a moment to be lost in bringing the purchase of the vicar’s reversion to a point. The possibilities were positively13 dazzling. They were worth risking something. I am not sure that Mr. Larkin’s hand did not shake a little as he took the statement of title again out of the Wylder tin box No. 2.
Now, under the pressure of this enquiry, a thing struck Mr. Larkin, strangely enough, which he had quite overlooked before. There were certain phrases in the will of the late Mr. Wylder, which limited a large portion of the great estate in strict settlement. Of course an attorney’s opinion upon a question of real property is not conclusive14. Still they can’t help knowing something of the barrister’s special province; and these words were very distinct — in fact, they stunted15 down the vicar’s reversion in the greater part of the property to a strict life estate.
Long did the attorney pore over his copy of the will, with his finger and thumb closed on his under lip. The language was quite explicit16 — there was no way out of it. It was strictly17 a life estate. How could he have overlooked that? His boy, indeed, would take an estate tail — and could disentail whenever — if ever — he came of age. But that was in the clouds. Mackleston-on-the-Moor, however, and the Great Barnford estate, were unaffected by these limitations; and the rental18 which he now carefully consulted, told him these jointly20 were in round numbers worth 2,300_l. a year, and improvable.
This letter of Dutton’s, to be sure, may turn out to be all a lie or a blunder. But it may prove to be strictly true; and in that case it will be every thing that the deeds should be executed and the purchase completed before the arrival of this person, and the public notification of Mark Wylder’s death.
‘What a world it is, to be sure!’ thought Mr. Larkin, as he shook his long head over Dutton’s letter. ‘How smoothly21 and simply everything would go, if only men would stick to truth! Here’s this letter — how much time and trouble it costs me — how much opportunity possibly sacrificed, simply by reason of the incurable22 mendacity of men.’ And he knocked the back of his finger bitterly on the open page.
Another thought now struck him for the first time. Was there no mode of ‘hedging,’ so that whether Mark Wylder were living or dead the attorney should stand to win?
Down came the Brandon boxes. The prudent23 attorney turned the key in the door, and forth24 came the voluminous marriage settlement of Stanley Williams Lake, of Slobberligh, in the county of Devon, late captain, &c., &c. of the second part, and Dorcas Adderley Brandon, of Brandon Hall, in the county of &c., &c. of the second part, and so forth. And as he read this pleasant composition through, he two or three times murmured approvingly, ‘Yes — yes — yes.’ His recollection had served him quite rightly. There was the Five Oaks estate, specially excluded from settlement, worth 1,400_l. a year; but it was conditioned that the said Stanley Williams Lake was not to deal with the said lands, except with the consent in writing of the said Dorcas, &c., who was to be a consenting party to the deed.
If there was really something ‘unsound in the state of Lake’s relations,’ and that he could be got to consider Lawyer Larkin as a friend worth keeping, that estate might be had a bargain — yes, a great bargain.
Larkin walked off to Brandon, but there he learned that Captain Brandon Lake as he now chose to call himself, had gone that morning to London.
‘Business, I venture to say, and he went into that electioneering without ever mentioning it either.’
So thought Larkin, and he did not like this. It looked ominous25, and like an incipient26 sliding away of the Brandon business, Well, no matter, all things worked together for good. It was probably well that he should not be too much shackled27 with considerations of that particular kind in the important negotiation28 about Five Oaks.
That night he posted a note to Burlington, Smith, and Co., and by Saturday night’s post there came down to the sheriff an execution for 123_l. and some odd shillings, upon a judgment29 on a warrant to confess, at the suit of that firm, for costs and money advanced, against the poor vicar, who never dreamed, as he conned30 over his next day’s sermon with his solitary31 candle, that the blow had virtually descended32, and that his homely33 furniture, the silver spoons his wife had brought him, and the two shelves half full of old books which he had brought her, and all the rest of their little frugal34 trumpery35, together with his own thin person, had passed into the hands of Messrs. Burlington, Smith, and Co.
The vicar on his way to the chapel passed Mr. Jos. Larkin on the green — not near enough to speak — only to smile and wave his hand kindly36, and look after the good attorney with one of those yearning37 grateful looks, which cling to straws upon the drowning stream of life.
The sweet chapel bell was just ceasing to toll38 as Mr. Jos. Larkin stalked under the antique ribbed arches of the little aisle39. Slim and tall, he glided40, a chastened dignity in his long upturned countenance41, and a faint halo of saint-hood round his tall bald head. Having whispered his orisons into his well-brushed hat and taken his seat, his dove-like eyes rested for a moment upon the Brandon seat.
There was but one figure in it — slender, light-haired, with his yellow moustache and pale face, grown of late a little fatter. Captain Brandon Lake was a very punctual church-goer since the idea of trying the county at the next election had entered his mind. Dorcas was not very well. Lord Chelford had taken his departure, and your humble42 servant, who pens these pages, had gone for a few days to Malwich. There was no guest just then at Brandon, and the captain sat alone on that devotional dais, the elevated floor of the great oaken Brandon seat.
There were old Brandon and Wylder monuments built up against the walls. Figures cut in stone, and painted and gilded43 in tarnished44 splendour, according to the gorgeous barbarism of Elizabeth’s and the first James’s age; tablets in brass45, marble-pillared monuments, and a couple of life-sized knights46, armed cap-à-pie, on their backs in the aisle.
There is a stained window in the east which connoisseurs47 in that branch of mediaeval art admire. There is another very fine one over the Brandon pew — a freak, perhaps, of some of those old Brandons or Wylders, who had a strange spirit of cynicism mingling48 in their profligacy49 and violence.
Reader, you have looked on Hans Holbein’s ‘Dance of Death,’ that grim, phantasmal pageant50, symbolic51 as a dream of Pharaoh; and perhaps you bear in mind that design called ‘The Elector,’ in which the Prince, emerging from his palace gate, with a cloud of courtiers behind, is met by a poor woman, her little child by the hand, appealing to his compassion52, despising whom, he turns away with a serene53 disdain54. Beneath, in black letter, is inscribed55 the text ‘Princeps induetur maerore et quiescere faciam superbiam potentium‘— and gigantic Death lays his fingers on the great man’s ermine tippet.
It is a copy of this, which, in very splendid colouring, fills the window that lights the Brandon state seat in the chapel. The gules and gold were reflected on the young man’s head, and with a vain augury57, the attorney read again the solemn words from Holy Writ5, ‘Princeps induetur maerore.’ The golden glare rested like a glory on his head; but there was also a gorgeous stain of blood that bathed his ear and temple. His head was busy enough at that moment, though it was quite still, and his sly eyes rested on his Prayer-book; for Sparks, the millionaire clothier, who had purchased Beverley, and was a potent56 voice in the Dollington Bank, and whose politics were doubtful, and relations amphibious, was sitting in the pew nearly opposite, and showed his red, fat face and white whiskers over the oak wainscoting.
Jos. Larkin, like the rest of the congregation, was by this time praying, his elbows on the edge of the pew, his hands clasped, his thumbs under his chin, and his long face and pink eyes raised heavenward, with now and then a gentle downward dropping of the latter. He was thinking of Captain Lake, who was opposite, and, like him, praying.
He was thinking how aristocratic he looked and how well, in externals, he became the Brandon seat; and there were one or two trifles in the captain’s attitude and costume of which the attorney, who, as we know, was not only good, but elegant, made a note. He respected his audacity58 and his mystery, and he wondered intensely what was going on in that small skull59 under the light and glossy60 hair, and anxiously guessed how vitally it might possibly affect him, and wondered what his schemes were after the election — quiescere faciam superbiam potentium; and more darkly about his relations with Mark Wylder — Princeps induetur maerore.
His eye was on the window now and then it dropped, with a vague presage61, upon the sleek62 head of the daring and enigmatical captain, reading the Litany, from ‘battle, murder, and sudden death, good Lord deliver us,’ and he almost fancied he saw a yellow skull over his shoulder glowering63 cynically64 on the Prayer-book. So the good attorney prayed on, to the edification of all who saw, and mothers in the neighbouring seats were specially careful to prevent their children from whispering or fidgeting.
When the service was over Captain Lake went across to Mr. Sparks, and asked him to come to Brandon to lunch. But the clothier could not, and his brougham whirled him away to Naunton Friars. So Stanley Lake walked up the little aisle toward the communion table, thinking, and took hold of the railing that surrounded the brass monument of Sir William de Braundon, and seemed to gaze intently on the effigy65, but was really thinking profoundly of other matters and once or twice his sly sidelong glance stole ominously66 to Jos. Larkin, who was talking at the church door with the good vicar.
In fact, he was then and there fully19 apprising67 him of his awful situation; and poor William Wylder looking straight at him, with white face and damp forehead, was listening stunned68, and hardly understanding a word he said, and only the dreadful questions rising to his mouth, ‘Can anything be done? Will the people come to-day?’
Mr. Larkin explained the constitutional respect for the Sabbath.
‘It would be better, Sir — the publicity69 of an arrest’ (it was a hard word to utter) ‘in the town would be very painful — it would be better I think, that I should walk over to the prison — it is only six miles — and see the authorities there, and give myself up.’
And his lip quivered; he was thinking of the leave-taking — of poor Dolly and little Fairy.
‘I’ve a great objection to speak of business to-day,’ said Mr. Larkin, holily; ‘but I may mention that Burlington and Smith have written very sternly; and the fact is, my dear Sir, we must look the thing straight in the face; they are determined70 to go through with it; and you know my opinion all along about the fallacy — you must excuse me, seeing all the trouble it has involved you in — the infatuation of hesitating about the sale of that miserable71 reversion, which they could have disposed of on fair terms. In fact, Sir, they look upon it that you don’t want to pay them and of course, they are very angry.’
‘I’m sure I was wrong. I’m such a fool!’
‘I must only go to the Sheriff the first thing the morning and beg of him to hold over that thing, you know, until I have heard from Burlington and Smith; and I suppose I may say to them that you see the necessity of disposing of the reversion, and agree to sell it if it be not too late.’
The vicar assented72; indeed, he had grown, under this urgent pressure, as nervously73 anxious to sell as he had been to retain it.
‘And they can’t come to-day?’
‘Certainly not.’
And poor William Wylder breathed again in the delightful74 sense of even momentary75 escape, and felt he could have embraced his preserver.
‘I’ll be very happy to see you to-morrow, if you can conveniently look in — say at twelve, or half-past, to report progress.’
So that was arranged; and again in the illusive76 sense of deliverance, the poor vicar’s hopes brightened and expanded. Hitherto his escapes had not led to safety, and he was only raised from the pit to be sold to the Ishmaelites.
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1
chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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ruminate
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| v.反刍；沉思 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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scrawl
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| vt.潦草地书写；n.潦草的笔记，涂写 | |
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writ
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| n.命令状，书面命令 | |
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poke
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| n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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slanted
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| 有偏见的； 倾斜的 | |
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bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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10
recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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stunted
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| adj.矮小的；发育迟缓的 | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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rental
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| n.租赁，出租，出租业 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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jointly
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| ad.联合地，共同地 | |
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smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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incurable
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| adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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incipient
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| adj.起初的，发端的，初期的 | |
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shackled
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| 给（某人）带上手铐或脚镣( shackle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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negotiation
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| n.谈判，协商 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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conned
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| adj.被骗了v.指挥操舵( conn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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frugal
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| adj.节俭的，节约的，少量的，微量的 | |
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trumpery
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| n.无价值的杂物；adj.（物品）中看不中用的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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tarnished
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| （通常指金属）（使）失去光泽，（使）变灰暗( tarnish的过去式和过去分词 )； 玷污，败坏 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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connoisseurs
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| n.鉴赏家，鉴定家，行家( connoisseur的名词复数 ) | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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profligacy
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| n.放荡，不检点，肆意挥霍 | |
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pageant
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| n.壮观的游行；露天历史剧 | |
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symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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55
inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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potent
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| adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的 | |
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augury
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| n.预言，征兆，占卦 | |
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audacity
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| n.大胆，卤莽，无礼 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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presage
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| n.预感，不祥感；v.预示 | |
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sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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glowering
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| v.怒视( glower的现在分词 ) | |
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cynically
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| adv.爱嘲笑地，冷笑地 | |
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effigy
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| n.肖像 | |
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ominously
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| adv.恶兆地，不吉利地；预示地 | |
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apprising
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| v.告知，通知( apprise的现在分词 )；评价 | |
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stunned
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| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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70
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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74
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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75
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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illusive
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| adj.迷惑人的，错觉的 | |
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