Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 07

								

grave and respectable cathedral city, in which once Richard Templeton,
Esq.,--saint, banker, and politician,--had exercised his dictatorial
sway.  "Sic transit gloria mundi!"  As he warmed his hands by the fire in
the large wainscoted apartment into which he was shown, his eye met a
full length engraving of his uncle, with a roll of papers in his
hand,--meant for a parliamentary bill for the turnpike trusts in the
neighbourhood of C-----.  The sight brought back his recollections of
that pious and saturnine relation, and insensibly the minister's thoughts
flew to his death-bed, and to the strange secret which in that last hour
he had revealed to Lumley,--a secret which had done much in deepening
Lord Vargrave's contempt for the forms and conventionalities of decorous
life.  And here it may be mentioned--though in the course of this volume
a penetrating reader may have guessed as much--that, whatever that
secret, it did not refer expressly or exclusively to the late lord's
singular and ill-assorted marriage.  Upon that point much was still left
obscure to arouse Lumley's curiosity, had he been a man whose curiosity
was very vivacious.  But on this he felt but little interest.  He knew
enough to believe that no further information could benefit himself
personally; why should he trouble his head with what never would fill his
pockets?
An audible yawn from the slim secretary roused Lord Vargrave from his
revery.
"I envy you, my young friend," said he, good-humouredly.  "It is a
pleasure we lose as we grow older,--that of being sleepy.  However, 'to
bed,' as Lady Macbeth says.  Faith, I don't wonder the poor devil of a
thane was slow in going to bed with such a tigress.  Good-night to you."

CHAPTER II.


MA fortune va prendre une face nouvelle.*

            RACINE. Androm., Act i. sc. 1.


* "My fortune is about to take a turn."
THE next morning Vargrave inquired the way to Mr. Winsley's, and walked
alone to the house of the brewer.  The slim secretary went to inspect the
cathedral.
Mr. Winsley was a little, thickset man, with a civil but blunt
electioneering manner.  He started when he heard Lord Vargrave's name,
and bowed with great stiffness.  Vargrave saw at a glance that there was
some cause of grudge in the mind of the worthy man; nor did Mr. Winsley
long hesitate before he cleansed his bosom of its perilous stuff.
"This is an unexpected honour, my lord: I don't know how to account for
it."
"Why, Mr. Winsley, your friendship with my late uncle can, perhaps,
sufficiently explain and apologize for a visit from a nephew sincerely
attached to his memory."
"Humph!  I certainly did do all in my power to promote Mr. Templeton's
interests.  No man, I may say, did more; and yet I don't think it was
much thought of the moment he turned his back upon the electors of
C-----.  Not that I bear any malice; I am well to do, and value no man's