Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 181: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AcE foul forgery! But, Ah! Mr. Timperley, you might suffer all the consequences of your past mis- deeds, and the memories of my father-in-law and my wife might remain subject to any obloquy or suspicion which may at any time have been thrown upon them, were it not that I possess a daughter who I now know to be the most virtuous, the most amiable, and the most generous of her sex! Yes —I have sufficiently watched her proceedings, and by other means have I sufficiently espied her ac- tions! Ah, you start at that word espied ? You doubtless think it strange that a father should place spies to watch his daughter! But I tell you again that I will believe in no human virtue until I shall have tried it: I will have faith in nothing which is not incontrovertibly proved unto me! Well, then, I repeat, I am now satisfied with my Agnes; and ere many hours shall have elapsed will she be folded in my arms. I think, Mr. Tim- perley,” added Lord Ormsby, rising from his seat, ‘“that we can have now nothing more to say. We have sufficiently discussed the past ;—and as for the present, I have orly to take possession of these deeds which you have looked out and sorted for me.” * But as to the future, my lord,” interjected the attorney, with an obsequious bow, “if you should need my professional services “ “Rest assured, Mr. Timperley,” said Ormsby, breaking in upon the lawyer’s speech with all the cynical bitterness of a retort, “rest assured that if I require your services, I shall not hesitate to avail myself of them. And who can tell? I have seen the Red Indian in the Far West have recourse to the serpent to borrow that serpent’s venom where- in to dip the points of his arrows ere going forth to fight an enemy. Why, then, should not I is “ My lord, I pray you to remember,” said Mr. Timperley, with a malignant gleaming of his small reptile-like eyes, “that your illustration is one somewhat calculated to give offence. Unless in- deed Ha! Ha!’—and Mr. Timperley suddenly deemed it expedient to change his look and tone; “‘ your lordship is pleased to be facetious !” “ Ah! facetious?” was the curt ejaculation that broke from Ormsby’s lips. ‘“ Yes—doubtless one has a humour for facetiousness after being knocked about the world for some nineteen years as I have been! And think you not, Mr. Timperley, that it is enough to make a man merry and put him into good humour with the entire human race, to have seen what I have seen and to have known what I have knownP Perhaps you will next ask me to come and dance at some ball or take my part in a merry-making? Look at this hair! You know what my age is—and you can tell therefore whether a person in his forty-fourth year ought in the natural course of thiugs to be as grev as T am? Oh!” he exclaimed, with the supremest scorn alike in his tone and in the ex- pression of his countenance, “it was a lucky hit on your part, Mr. Timperley, when you attributed facetiousness unto me /” There was so much withering irony in the lan- guage thus addressed by Lord Ormsby to the attorney, that the latter was almost overwhelmed by the power of his words. “ I beg your lordship’s pardon,” he said, shrink- ing, quailing, and trembling: “1 amsure I did not mean to offend - AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. “Enough, Mr. Timperley! enough!” inter- rupted the nobleman. Lord Ormsby now proceeded to secure about his person the various packages of papers which Mr. Timperley had prepared for him; and when he had done this, he turned towards the lawyer, on whom he fixed his brilliant black eves with a look that might pierce into the very depths of the soul; and he said, “ You are sure that every requisite paper is there P—that nothing is wanting P” “T am sure of it, my lord,” answered Tim- perley. ‘ Your lordship must comprehend that if it suited me to give you any of the papers, it was to my interest to put them all into your posses- slon.” “Tt was thus that I calculated,’ remarked Ormsby: then pulling from his pocket-book a number of bank-notes, he went on to observe, “Here are five hundred pounds. On the day when you see the newspapers announcing that my claims have been recognised by the Government, and that nothing remains to be fulfilled but the formality of obtaining the recognition of my title by a Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords, you may send one of your clerks to me, and I will remit you a similar amount.” Mr. Timperley bowed very low on beholding the bank-notes; but it was almost to the very floor that he bent when he received this additional proof of what he conceived to be Ormsby’s munificence, The nobleman comprehended what was passing in his mind; and with one of those withering sneers which so often swept over his countenance, he said, “ Do not think, Mr. Timperley, that you owe anything to mere abstract generosity on my part. It is not so! I love you not sufficiently to give you acrust to save you from starvation if I boe- held you plunged down in the deepest vortex of misery. But if I cannot be generous towards you as a fellow-creature, I can at least be just while dealing with you as a professional man. You kept those papers as a matter of calculation, with the hope that some day or another they would produce a recompense. Well then, you have served me by so keeping them; because, although it is perfectly true that with the knowledge that I now possess of the whole chain of lineage, step by step and link by link, I might instruct any other clever practitioner to get together the requisite docu- ments, it would nevertheless be a work of time, trouble, and expense. All this you have saved me ; and you are therefore deserving of your ree ward just in the same way that a labourer is worthy of his hire. Do not therefore for a single moment flatter yourself that it is through any friendly feeling towards yow personally that I am thus acting: it is from a sense of duty and of jus- tice only.” “I do not the less thank your lordship,” said Mr. Timperley, with an obsequious bow. “ But I am grieved to find that there fs still so much bit- terness lurking in your soul towards me.” “ Bitterness towards you ?” exclaimed Ormsby. Bitterness ?” he repeated: and then he stepped back a pace or two, and slowly surveyed the lawyer from head to foot and from foot to head, as if to assure himself that the individual thus standing before him could possibly entertain any reasonable doubt as to the existence of such cause of bitter- ness. “ Think you, Mr. Timperley, that L have CONIC DOOKSaGO© nn