CLEVE VERNEY, as we know, was a young gentleman in whose character were oddly mingled impetuosity and caution. A certain diplomatic reserve and slyness had often stood him in stead in the small strategy of life, and here, how skillfully had he not managed his visits to Penruthyn, and hid from the peering eyes of Cardyllian his walks and loiterings about the enchanted woods of Malory.
Visiting good Mrs. Jones’s shop next day to ask her how she did, and gossip a little across the counter, that lady, peering over her spectacles, received him with a particularly sly smile, which, being prone to alarms just then, he noted and did not like.
Confidential and voluble as usual, was this lady, bringing her black lace cap and purple ribbons close to the brim of Mr. Verney’s hat, as she leaned over the counter, and murmured her emphatic intelligence and surmises deliberately in his ear. She came at last to say —
“You must be very solitary, we all think, over there, at Ware, sir; and though you have your yacht to sail across in, and your dog-cart to trot along, and doesn’t much mind, still it is not con venient, you know, for one that likes this side so much better than the other. We think, and wonders, we all do, you wouldn’t stay awhile at the Verney Arms, over the way, and remain among us, you know, and be near everything you might like; the other side, you know, is very dull; we can’t deny that, though its quite true that Ware is a very fine place — a really beautiful place — but it is lonely, we must allow; mustn’t we?”
“Awfully lonely,” acquiesced Cleve, “but I don’t quite see why I should live at the Verney Arms, notwithstanding.”
“Well, they do say — you mustn’t be angry with them, you know — but they do, that you like a walk to Malory,” and this was accompanied with a wonderfully cunning look, and a curious play of the crow’s-feet and wrinkles of her fat face, and a sly, gentle laugh. “But I don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind what?” asked Cleve, a little sharply.
“Well, I don’t mind what they say, but they do say you have made acquaintance with the Malory family — no harm in that, you know.”
“No harm in the world, only a lie,” said Cleve, with a laugh that was not quite enjoying. “I wish they would manage that introduction for me; I should like it extremely. I think the young lady rather pretty — don’t you? — and I should not object to pay my respects, if you think it would not be odd. My Cardyllian friends know so much better than I what is the right thing to do. The fact is, I don’t know one of our own tenants there, except for taking off my hat twice to the only sane one of the party, that old Miss Anne — Anne —something— you told me —”
“Sheckleton that will be,” supplemented Mrs. Jones.
“Sheckleton. Very well; and my real difficulty is this — and upon my honour, I don’t know how to manage it. My grandmother, Lady Verney, puts me under orders — and you know she does not like to be disobeyed — to go and see poor old Rebecca, Mrs. Mervyn, you know, at the steward’s house, at Malory; and I am looking for a moment when these people are out of the way, just to run in for five minutes, and ask her how she does. And my friend, Wynne Williams, won’t let me tell Lady Verney how odd these people are, he’s so afraid of her hearing the rumour of their being mad. But the fact is, whenever I go up there and peep in through the trees, I see some of them about the front of the house, and I can’t go up to the door, of course, without annoying them, for they wish to be quite shut up; and the end of it is, I say, that, among them, I shall get blown up by Lady Verney, and shan’t know what to answer — by Jove! But you may tell my friends in Cardyllian, I am so much obliged to them for giving me credit for more cleverness than they have had in effecting an introduction; and talking of me about that pretty girl, Miss — oh! — what’s her name? — at Malory. I only hope she’s not mad; for if she is I must be also.”
Mrs. Jones listened, and looked at him more gravely, for his story hung pretty well together, and something of its cunning died out of the expression of her broad face. But Cleve walked away a little disconcerted, and by no means in a pleasant temper with his good neighbours of Cardyllian; and made that day a long visit at Hazelden, taking care to make his approaches as ostentatiously as he could. And he was seen for an hour in the evening, walking on the green with the young ladies of that house, Miss Charity flanking the little line of march on one side, and he the other, pretty Miss Agnes, of the golden locks, the pretty dimples, and brilliant tints, walking between, and listening, I’m afraid, more to the unphilosophic prattle of young Mr. Verney than to the sage conversation, and ............