This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net>
and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
By George Meredith
1905
Laying of ghosts is a public duty, and, as the mystery of the apparitionthat had frightened little Clare was never solved on the stage of eventsat Raynham, where dread walked the Abbey, let us go behind the scenes amoment. Morally superstitious as the baronet was, the character of hismind was opposed to anything like spiritual agency in the affairs of men,and, when the matter was made clear to him, it shook off a weight ofweakness and restored his mental balance; so that from this time he wentabout more like the man he had once been, grasping more thoroughly thegreat truth, that This World is well designed. Nay, he could laugh onhearing Adrian, in reminiscence of the ill luck of one of the familymembers at its first manifestation, call the uneasy spirit, Algernon'sLeg.
Mrs. Doria was outraged. She maintained that her child hadseen—— Not to believe in it was almost to rob her of her personalproperty. After satisfactorily studying his old state of mind in her,Sir Austin, moved by pity, took her aside one day and showed her that herGhost could write words in the flesh. It was a letter from the unhappylady who had given Richard birth,—brief cold lines, simply telling himhis house would be disturbed by her no more. Cold lines, but penned bywhat heart-broken abnegation, and underlying them with what anguish ofsoul! Like most who dealt with him, Lady Feverel thought her husband aman fatally stern and implacable, and she acted as silly creatures willact when they fancy they see a fate against them: she neither petitionedfor her right nor claimed it: she tried to ease her heart's yearning bystealth, and, now she renounced all. Mrs. Doria, not wanting in thefamily tenderness and softness, shuddered at him for accepting thesacrifice so composedly: but he bade her to think how distracting to thisboy would be the sight of such relations between mother and father. Afew years, and as man he should know, and judge, and love her. "Let thisbe her penance, not inflicted by me!" Mrs. Doria bowed to the System foranother, not opining when it would be her turn to bow for herself.
Further behind the scenes we observe Rizzio and Mary grown older, muchdisenchanted: she discrowned, dishevelled,—he with gouty fingers on agreasy guitar. The Diaper Sandoe of promise lends his pen for smallhires. His fame has sunk; his bodily girth has sensibly increased. Whathe can do, and will do, is still his theme; meantime the juice of thejuniper is in requisition, and it seems that those small hires cannot beperformed without it. Returning from her wretched journey to herwretcheder home, the lady had to listen to a mild reproof from easy-goingDiaper,—a reproof so mild that he couched it in blank verse: for, seldomwriting metrically now, he took to talking it. With a fluent sympathetictear, he explained to her that she was damaging her interests by theseproceedings; nor did he shrink from undertaking to elucidate wherefore.Pluming a smile upon his succulent mouth, he to