Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 03Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Kenelm Chillingly — Volume 03
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
"Yes; Lord Glenalvon was my mother's uncle. But I wish to finish my
story before my father joins us. Alfred Fletwode did not marry till
long after the partnership in the bank. His father, at his desire,
had bought up the whole business, Mr. Jones having died. The bank was
carried on in the names of Fletwode and Son. But the father had
become merely a nominal or what I believe is called a 'sleeping'
partner. He had long ceased to reside in the county. The old house
was not grand enough for him. He had purchased a palatial residence
in one of the home counties; lived there in great splendour; was a
munificent patron of science and art; and in spite of his earlier
addictions to business-like speculations he appears to have been a
singularly accomplished, high-bred gentleman. Some years before his
son's marriage, Mr. Fletwode had been afflicted with partial
paralysis, and his medical attendant enjoined rigid abstention from
business. From that time he never interfered with his son's
management of the bank. He had an only daughter, much younger than
Alfred. Lord Eagleton, my mother's brother, was engaged to be married
to her. The wedding-day was fixed,--when the world was startled by
the news that the great firm of Fletwode and Son had stopped payment;
is that the right phrase?"
"I believe so."
"A great many people were ruined in that failure. The public
indignation was very great. Of course all the Fletwode property went
to the creditors. Old Mr. Fletwode was legally acquitted of all other
offence than that of overconfidence in his son. Alfred was convicted
of fraud,--of forgery. I don't, of course, know the particulars, they
are very complicated. He was sentenced to a long term of servitude,
but died the day he was condemned; apparently by poison, which he had
long secreted about his person. Now you can understand why my father,
who is almost gratuitously sensitive on the point of honour, removed
into a dark corner the portrait of Arabella Fletwode,--his own
ancestress, but also the ancestress of a convicted felon: you can
understand why the whole subject is so painful to him. His wife's
brother was to have married the felon's sister; and though, of course,
that marriage was tacitly broken off by the terrible disgrace that had
befallen the Fletwodes, yet I don't think my poor uncle ever recovered
the blow to his hopes. He went abroad, and died in Madeira of a slow
decline."
"And the felon's sister, did she die too?"
"No; not that I know of. Mrs. Campion says that she saw in a
newspaper the announcement of old Mr. Fletwode's death, and a
paragraph to the effect that after that event Miss Fletwode had sailed
from Liverpool to New York."
"Alfred Fletwode's wife went back, of course, to her family?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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