One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
ceased to show sign of since the revelation of Lakelands. Her
only regret was on account of the exclusion of Colney Durance
from the party, because of happy memories associating
him with the Seine-land, and also that his bilious criticism
of his countrymen was moderated by a trip to the Continent.
Fenellan reported Colney to be ‘busy in the act of
distilling one of his Prussic acid essays.’ Fenellan would have
jumped to go. He informed Victor, as a probe, that the business
of the Life Insurance was at periods ‘fearfully necrological!
Inexplicably, he was not invited. Did it mean, that he
was growing dull? He looked inside instead of out, and lost
the clue.
His behaviour on the evening of the departure showed
plainly what would have befallen Mr. Sowerby on the expedition,
had not he as well as Colney been excluded. Two
carriages and a cab conveyed the excursionists, as they merrily
called themselves, to the terminus. They were Victor’s
guests; they had no trouble, no expense, none of the nipper
reckonings which dog our pleasures; the state of pure bliss.
Fenellan’s enviousness drove him at the Rev. Mr. Barmby
until the latter jumped to the seat beside Nesta in her carriage,
Mademoiselle de Seilles and Mr. Sowerby facing them.
Lady Grace Halley, in the carriage behind, heard Nesta’s
laugh; which Mr. Barmby had thought vacuous, beseeming
little girls, that laugh at nothings. She questioned Fenellan.
‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I merely mentioned that the Rev. gentleman
carries his musical instrument at the bottom of his
trunk.’
She smiled: ‘And who are in the cab?’
‘Your fiddles are in the cab, in charge of Peridon and Catkin.
Those two would have writhed like head and tail of a
worm, at a division on the way to the station. Point a finger
at Peridon, you run Catkin through the body. They’re a fabulous
couple.’
Victor cut him short. ‘I deny that those two are absurd.’
‘And Catkin’s toothache is a galvanic battery upon Peridon.’
Nataly strongly denied it. Peridon and Catkin pertained
to their genial picture of the dear sweet nest in life; a dale
never traversed by the withering breath they dreaded.
Fenellan then, to prove that he could be as bad in his way
as Colney, fell to work on the absent Miss Priscilla Graves
and Mr. Pempton, with a pitchfork’s exaltation of the sacred
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