The Ordeal of Richard Feverel | Page 3

forthwith. He dismissed her with a purse the next day.
Once, when he was seven years old, the little fellow woke up at night to
see a lady bending over him. He talked of this the neat day, but it was
treated as a dream; until in the course of the day his uncle Algernon
was driven home from Lobourne cricket-ground with a broken leg.
Then it was recollected that there was a family ghost; and, though no
member of the family believed in the ghost, none would have given up
a circumstance that testified to its existence; for to possess a ghost is a
distinction above titles.
Algernon Feverel lost his leg, and ceased to be a gentleman in the
Guards. Of the other uncles of young Richard, Cuthbert, the sailor,
perished in a spirited boat expedition against a slaving negro chief up
the Niger. Some of the gallant lieutenant's trophies of war decorated the
little boy's play-shed at Raynham, and he bequeathed his sword to
Richard, whose hero he was. The diplomatist and beau, Vivian, ended
his flutterings from flower to flower by making an improper marriage,
as is the fate of many a beau, and was struck out of the list of visitors.
Algernon generally occupied the baronet's disused town-house, a
wretched being, dividing his time between horse and card exercise:
possessed, it was said, of the absurd notion that a man who has lost his
balance by losing his leg may regain it by sticking to the bottle. At least,
whenever he and his brother Hippias got together, they never failed to
try whether one leg, or two, stood the bottle best. Much of a puritan as
Sir Austin was in his habits, he was too good a host, and too thorough a
gentleman, to impose them upon his guests. The brothers, and other
relatives, might do as they would while they did not disgrace the name,

and then it was final: they must depart to behold his countenance no
more.
Algernon Feverel was a simple man, who felt, subsequent to his
misfortune, as he had perhaps dimly fancied it before, that his career
lay in his legs, and was now irrevocably cut short. He taught the boy
boxing, and shooting, and the arts of fence, and superintended the
direction of his animal vigour with a melancholy vivacity. The
remaining energies of Algernon's mind were devoted to animadversions
on swift bowling. He preached it over the county, struggling through
laborious literary compositions, addressed to sporting newspapers, on
the Decline of Cricket. It was Algernon who witnessed and chronicled
young Richard's first fight, which was with young Tom Blaize of
Belthorpe Farm, three years the boy's senior.
Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius of the family. It was
his ill luck to have strong appetites and a weak stomach; and, as one is
not altogether fit for the battle of life who is engaged in a perpetual
contention with his dinner, Hippias forsook his prospects at the Bar,
and, in the embraces of dyspepsia, compiled his ponderous work on the
Fairy Mythology of Europe. He had little to do with the Hope of
Raynham beyond what he endured from his juvenile tricks.
A venerable lady, known as Great-Aunt Grantley, who had money to
bequeath to the heir, occupied with Hippias the background of the
house and shared her candles with him. These two were seldom seen
till the dinner hour, for which they were all day preparing, and probably
all night remembering, for the Eighteenth Century was an admirable
trencherman, and cast age aside while there was a dish on the table.
Mrs. Doris Foray was the eldest of the three sisters of the baronet, a
florid affable woman, with fine teeth, exceedingly fine light wavy hair,
a Norman nose, and a reputation for understanding men; and that, with
these practical creatures, always means the art of managing them. She
had married an expectant younger son of a good family, who deceased
before the fulfilment of his prospects; and, casting about in her mind
the future chances of her little daughter and sole child, Clare, she
marked down a probability. The far sight, the deep determination, the

resolute perseverance of her sex, where a daughter is to be provided for
and a man to be overthrown, instigated her to invite herself to Raynham,
where, with that daughter, she fixed herself.
The other two Feverel ladies were the wife of Colonel Wentworth and
the widow of Mr. Justice Harley: and the only thing remarkable about
them was that they were mothers of sons of some distinction.
Austin Wentworth's story was of that wretched character which to be
comprehended, that justice should be dealt him, must be told out and
openly; which no one dares now do.
For