Roland Yorke: A Sequel to "The Channings"Wood, Henry, Mrs.
General
Roland Yorke: A Sequel to "The Channings"
Wood, Henry, Mrs.
Detective and mystery stories; English fiction -- 19th century
The Rev. William Yorke, Minor Canon of Helstonleigh Cathedral,
Chaplain of Hazledon, and Rector of Coombe Lee, was bidden to it. He
was not very nearly related to the deceased (his father and Sir
Richard had been second cousins), but he was undoubtedly a rising man
in the Church, and Sir Vincent thought fit to remember the connection.
The clergyman stood in the relationship of brother-in-law to Hamish
Channing; and it was at Hamish's house he stayed during the brief
stay--two days--of his sojourn in town.
Another, honoured with an invitation, was Gerald Yorke. Roland was not
of a particularly exacting disposition, but he did think he, the
eldest, ought not to have been passed over for his younger brother.
Oughts don't go for much, however, in some things, as Roland knew.
Gerald belonged to the great world: he had, fashionable chambers,
fashionable friends, fashionable attire, and a fashionable drawl; his
private embarrassments were nothing to Sir Vincent; in fact they might
be said to be fashionable too: and so Gerald, the consequential, was
bidden to a seat in a mourning-coach, with feathers nodding on the
four horses' heads.
Roland was ignored. Not more entirely so than if Sir Vincent had never
heard there was such a man in the world. A lawyer's clerk, enjoying a
pound a week and a turn-up bedstead, who took copying home to do at
twopence a page, and avowed he had just been nearly on the point of
turning hot-pie vendor, was clearly not an individual fit to be
suffered in contact with a deceased baronet, even though it were only
to follow him to the tomb of his forefathers. But, though Roland was
not there, his master was Mr. Greatorex. And Mr. Greatorex, as
solicitor and confidential man of business to the late Sir Richard,
occupied no unimportant post in the procession.
It was late in the afternoon; and the mortal remains, bereft of all
their attendant pomp and plumes and scutcheons had been left in their
resting-place, when a mourning coach drew up to Mr. Channing's, out of
which stepped William and Gerald Yorke. Roland, happening to be there,
watched the descent from the drawing-room window side by side with
Nelly Channing, and it may be questioned which of the two looked on
with the more unsophisticated interest. Mr. Greatorex had not been
quite so unmindful of Roland's claims to be considered as Sir Vincent
was, and had told him he might take holiday on the day of his uncle's
funeral, by remaining away from the office.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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