Wylder's Hand

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  CHAPTER XVII.

  RACHEL LAKE SEES WONDERFUL THINGS BY MOONLIGHT FROM HER WINDOW.

  Though Rachel was unfit for letter-writing, she was still more unfit forslumber. She leaned her temple on her hand, and her rich light hair halfcovered her fingers, and her amazing interview with Dorcas was againpresent with her, and the same feeling of bewilderment. The suddennessand the nature of the disclosures were dream-like and unreal, and theimage of Dorcas remained impressed upon her sight; not like Dorcas,though the same, but something ghastly, wan, glittering, and terrible,like a priestess at a solitary sacrifice.

  It was late now, not far from one o'clock, and around her the terriblesilence of a still night. All those small sounds lost in the hum ofmidday life now came into relief--a ticking in the wainscot, a crack nowand then in the joining of the furniture, and occasionally the tap of amoth against the window pane from outside, sounds sharp and odd, whichmade her wish the stillness of the night were not so intense.

  As from her little table she looked listlessly through the window, shesaw against the faint glow of the moonlight, the figure of a man whoseized the paling and vaulted into the flower garden, and with a fewswift, stumbling strides over the flower-beds, reached the window, andplacing his pale face close to the glass, she saw his eyes glitteringthrough it; he tapped--or rather beat on the pane with his fingers--andat the same time he said, repeatedly: 'Let me in; let me in.'

  Her first impression, when she saw this person cross the little fence atthe road-side was, that Mark Wylder was the man. But she was mistaken;the face and figure were Stanley Lake's.

  She would have screamed in the extremity of her terror, but that hervoice for some seconds totally failed her; and recognising her brother,though like Rhoda, in Holy Writ, she doubted whether it was not hisangel, she rose up, and with an awful ejaculation, she approached thewindow.

  'Let me in, Radie; d-- you, let me in,' he repeated, drumming incessantlyon the glass. There was no trace now of his sleepy jeering way. Rachelsaw that something was very wrong, and beckoned him toward the porch insilence, and having removed the slender fastenings of the door, itopened, and he entered in a rush of damp night air. She took him by thehand, and he shook hers mechanically, like a man rescued from shipwreck,and plainly not recollecting himself well.

  'Stanley, dear, what's the matter, in Heaven's name?' she whispered, sosoon as she had got him into her little drawing-room.

  'He has done it; d-- him, he has done it,' gasped Stanley Lake.

  He looked in her face with a glazed and ashy stare. His hat remained onhis head, overshadowing his face; and his boots were soiled with clay,and his wrapping coat marked, here and there, with the green of the stemsand branches of trees, through which he had made his way.

  'I see, Stanley, you've had a scene with Mark Wylder; I warned you ofyour danger--you have had the worst of it.'

  'I spoke to him. He took a course I did not expect. I'm not well.'

  'You've broken your promise. I see you have used _me_. How base; howstupid!'

  'How could I tell he was such a _fiend_?'

  'I told you how it would be. He has frightened you,' said Rachel, herselffrightened.

  'D-- him; I wish I had done as you said. I wish I had never come here.Give me a glass of wine. He has ruined me.'

  'You cruel, wretched creature!' said Rachel, now convinced that he hadcompromised her as he threatened.

  'Yes, I was wrong; I'm sorry; things have turned out different. Who'sthat?' said Lake, grasping her wrist.

  'Who--where--Mark Wylder?'

  'No; it's nothing, I believe.'

  'Where is he? Where have you left him?'

  'Up there, at the pathway, near the stone steps.'

  'Waiting there?'

  'Well, yes; and I don't think I'll go back, Radie.'

  'You _shall_ go back, Sir, and carry my message; or, no, I could nottrust you. I'll go with you and see him, and disabuse him. How couldyou--how _could_ you, Stanley?'

  'It was a mistake, altogether; I'm sorry, but I could not tell there wassuch a devil on the earth.'

  'Yes, I told you so. _He_ has frightened _you_' said Rachel.

  'He _has_, _maybe_. At any rate, I was a fool, and I think I'm ruined;and I'm afraid, Rachel, you'll be inconvenienced too.'

  'Yes, you have made him savage and brutal; and between you, I shall becalled in question, you wretched fool!'

  Stanley was taking these hard terms very meekly for a savage youngcoxcomb like him. Perhaps they bore no very distinct meaning just then tohis mind. Perhaps it was preoccupied with more exciting ideas; or, it maybe, his agitation and fear cried 'amen' to the reproach; at all events,he only said, in a pettish but deprecatory sort of way--

  'Well, where's the good of scolding? how can I help it now?'

  'What's your quarrel? why does he wait for you there? why has he sent youhere? It must concern _me_, Sir, and I insist on hearing it all.'

  'So you shall, Radie; only have patience just a minute--and give me alittle wine or water--anything.'

  'There is the key. There's some wine in the press, I think.'

  He tried to open it, but his hand shook. He saw his sister look at him,and he flung the keys on the table rather savagely, with, I dare say, acurse between his teeth.

  There was running all this time in Rachel's mind, and had been almostsince the first menacing mention of Wylder's name by her brother, anindistinct remembrance of something unpleasant or horrible. It may havebeen mere fancy, or it may have referred to something long agoimperfectly heard. It was a spectre of mist, that evaporated before shecould fix her eyes on it, but was always near her elbow.

  Rachel took the key with a faint gleam of scorn on her face and broughtout the wine in silence.

  He took a tall-stemmed Venetian glass that stood upon the cabinet, anantique decoration, and filled it with sherry--a strange revival of oldservice! How long was it since lips had touched its brim before, andwhose? Lovers', maybe, and how. How long since that cold crystal hadglowed with the ripples of wine? This, at all events, was its lastservice. It is an old legend of the Venetian glass--its shivering attouch of poison; and there are those of whom it is said, 'the poison ofasps is under their lips.'

  'What's that?' ejaculated Rachel, with a sudden shriek--that whisperedshriek, so expressive and ghastly, that you, perhaps, have once heard inyour life--and her very lips grew white.

  'Hollo!' cried Lake. He was standing with his back to the window, andsprang forward, as pale as she, and grasped her, with a white leer thatshe never forgot, over his shoulder, and the Venice glass was shivered onthe ground.

  'Who's there?' he whispered.

  And Rachel, in a whisper, ejaculated the awful name that must not betaken in vain.

  She sat down. She was looking at him with a wild, stern stare, straightin the face, and he still holding her arm, and close to her.

  'I see it all now,' she whispered.

  'Who--what--what is it?' said he.

  'I could not have fancied _that_,' she whispered with a gasp.

  Stanley looked round him with pale and sharpened features.

  'What the devil is it! If that scoundrel had come to kill us you couldnot cry out louder,' he whispered, with an oath. 'Do you want to wakeyour people up?'

  'Oh! Stanley,' she repeated, in a changed and horror-stricken way. 'Whata fool I've been. I see it at last; I see it all now,' and she waved herwhite hands together very slowly towards him, as mesmerisers move theirs.

  There was a silence of some seconds, and his yellow ferine gaze met hersstrangely.

  'You were always a sharp girl, Radie, and I think you do see it,' he saidat last, very quietly.

  'The witness--the witness--the dreadful witness!' she repeated.

  'I'll show you, though, it's not so bad as you fancy. I'm sorry I did nottake your advice; but how, I say, could I know he was such a devil? Imust go back to him. I only came down to tell you, because Radie, youknow you proposed it yourself; _you_ must come, to
o--you _must_, Radie.'

  'Oh, Stanley, Stanley, Stanley!'

  'Why, d-- it, it can't be helped now; can it?' said he, with a peevishmalignity. But she was right; there was something of the poltroon in him,and he was trembling.

  'Why could you not leave me in peace, Stanley?'

  'I can't go without you, Rachel. I won't; and if we don't we're bothruined,' he said, with a bleak oath.

  'Yes, Stanley, I knew you were a coward,' she replied, fiercely andwildly.

  'You're always calling names, d-- you; do as you like. I care less thanyou think how it goes.'

  'No, Stanley; you know me too well. Ah! No, you sha'n't be lost if I canhelp it.' Rachel shook her head as she spoke, with a bitter smile and adreadful sigh.

  Then they whispered together for three or four minutes, and Rachelclasped her jewelled fingers tight across her forehead, quite wildly, fora minute.

  'You'll come then?' said Stanley.

  She made no answer, and he repeated the question.

  By this time she was standing; and without answering, she beganmechanically to get on her cloak and hat.

  'You must drink some wine first; he may frighten you, perhaps. You _must_take it, Rachel, or I'll not go.'

  Stanley Lake was swearing, in his low tones, like a swell-mobsmanto-night.

  Rachel seemed to have made up her mind to submit passively to whatever herequired. Perhaps, indeed, she thought there was wisdom in his advice. Atall events she drank some wine.

  Rachel Lake was one of those women who never lose their presence of mind,even under violent agitation, for long, and who generally, even whenhighly excited, see, and do instinctively, and with decision, what isbest to be done; and now, with dilated eyes and white face, she walkednoiselessly into the kitchen, listened there for a moment, then stolelightly to the servants' sleeping-room, and listened there at the door,and lastly looked in, and satisfied herself that both were stillsleeping. Then as cautiously and swiftly she returned to herdrawing-room, and closed the window-shutters and drew the curtain, andsignalling to her brother they went stealthily forth into the night air,closing the hall-door, and through the little garden, at the outer gateof which they paused.

  'I don't know, Rachel--I don't like it--I'm not fit for it. Go backagain--go in and lock your door--we'll not go to him--_you_ need not, youknow. He may stay where he is--let him--I'll not return. I say, I'll seehim no more. I'll get away. I'll consult Larkin--shall I? Though thatwon't do--he's in Wylder's interest--curse him. What had I best do? I'mnot equal to it.'

  'We _must_ go, Stanley. You said right just now; be resolute--we are bothruined unless we go. You have brought it to that--you _must_ come.'

  'I'm not fit for it, I tell you--I'm not. You were right, Radie--I thinkI'm not equal to a business of this sort, and I won't expose you to sucha scene. _You're_ not equal to it either, I think,' and Lake leaned onthe paling.

  'Don't mind me--you haven't much hitherto. Go or stay, I'm equally ruinednow, but not equally disgraced; and go we must, for it is _your only_chance of escape. Come, Stanley--for shame!'

  In a few minutes more they were walking in deep darkness and silence,side by side, along the path, which diverging from the mill-road,penetrates the coppice of that sequestered gorge, along the bottom ofwhich flows a tributary brook that finds its way a little lower down intothe mill-stream. This deep gully in character a good deal resemblesRedman's Glen, into which it passes, being fully as deep, and wooded tothe summit at both sides, but much steeper and narrower, and thereforemany shades darker.

  They had now reached those rude stone steps, some ten or fifteen innumber, which conduct the narrow footpath up a particularly steepacclivity, and here Lake lost courage again, for they distinctly heardthe footsteps that paced the platform above.