Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  ‘It was only on Tuesday — the night, you know, I fired the pistol at the robbers, near the dog-house, through the coach window, returning all alone from Smock-alley Theatre. I was thinking, upon my honour, if I had your parts, my dear Devereux, and could write, as I know you can, I’d make a variation upon every play of Shakespeare, that should be strictly moulded upon it, and yet in no respect recognisable.’

  ‘Ay, like those Irish airs that will produce tears or laughter, as they are played slow or quick; or minced veal, my dear Puddock, which the cook can dress either savoury or sweet at pleasure; or Aunt Rebecca, that produces such different emotions in her different moods, and according to our different ways of handling her, is scarce recognisable in some of them, though still the same Aunt Becky,’ answered Devereux, knocking at Irons’ door.

  ‘No, but seriously, by sometimes changing an old person to a young, sometimes a comical to a melancholy, or the reverse, sometimes a male for a female, or a female for a male — I assure you, you can so entirely disguise the piece, and yet produce situations so new and surprising —— .’

  ‘I see, by all the gods at once, ’tis an immortal idea! Let’s take Othello — I’ll set about it tomorrow — tonight, by Jove! A gay young Venetian nobleman, of singular beauty, charmed by her tales of “anthropophagites and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,” is seduced from his father’s house, and married by a middle-aged, somewhat hard-featured black woman, Juno, or Dido, who takes him away — not to Cyprus — we must be original, but we’ll suppose to the island of Stromboli — and you can have an eruption firing away during the last act. There Dido grows jealous of our hero, though he’s as innocent as Joseph; and while his valet is putting him to bed he’ll talk to him and prattle some plaintive little tale how his father had a man called Barbarus. And then, all being prepared, and his bedroom candle put out, Dido enters, looking unusually grim, and smothers him with a pillow in spite of his cries and affecting entreaties, and —— By Jupiter! here’s a letter from Bath, too.’

  He had lighted the candles, and the letter with its great red eye of a seal, lying upon the table, transfixed his wandering glance, and smote somehow to his heart with an indefinite suspense and misgiving.

  ‘With your permission, my dear Puddock?’ said Devereux, before breaking the seal; for in those days they grew ceremonious the moment a point of etiquette turned up. Puddock gave him leave, and he read the letter.

  ‘From my aunt,’ he said, throwing it down with a discontented air; and then he read it once more, thought for a while, and put it into his pocket. ‘The countess says I must go, Puddock. She has got my leave from the general; and hang it — there’s no help for it — I can’t vex her, you know. Indeed, Puddock, I would not vex her. Poor old aunt — she has been mighty kind to me — no one knows how kind. So I leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Not to stay away!’ exclaimed Puddock, much concerned.

  ‘I don’t know, dear Puddock. I know no more than the man in the moon what her plans are. Lewis, you know, is ordered by the doctors to Malaga; and Loftus — honest dog — I managed that trifle for him — goes with him; and the poor old lady, I suppose, is in the vapours, and wants me — and that’s all. And Puddock, we must drink a bowl of punch together — you and I — or something — anything — what you please.’

  And so they sat some time longer, and grew very merry and friendly, and a little bit pathetic in their several ways. And Puddock divulged his secret but noble flame for Gertrude Chattesworth, and Devereux sang a song or two, defying fortune, in his sweet, sad tenor; and the nymph who skipt up and down stairs with the kettle grew sleepy at last; and Mrs. Irons rebelled in her bed, and refused peremptorily to get up again, to furnish the musical topers with rum and lemons, and Puddock, having studied his watch — I’m bound to say with a slight hiccough and supernatural solemnity — for about five minutes, satisfied himself it was nearly one o’clock, and took an affecting, though soldier-like leave of his comrade, who, however, lent him his arm down the stairs, which were rather steep; and having with difficulty dissuaded him from walking into the clock, the door of which was ajar, thought it his duty to see the gallant little lieutenant home to his lodgings; and so in the morning good little Puddock’s head ached. He had gone to bed with his waistcoat and leggings on — and his watch was missing and despaired of, till discovered, together with a lemon, in the pocket of his surtout, hanging against the wall; and a variety of other strange arrangements came to light, with not one of which could Puddock connect himself.

  Indeed, he was ‘dithguthted’ at his condition; and if upon the occasion just described he had allowed himself to be somewhat ‘intoxicated with liquor,’ I must aver that I do not recollect another instance in which this worthy little gentleman suffered himself to be similarly overtaken. Now and then a little ‘flashy’ he might be, but nothing more serious — and rely upon it, this was no common virtue in those days.

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  IN WHICH CAPTAIN DEVEREUX’S FIDDLE PLAYS A PRELUDE TO ‘OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY.’

  There was some little undefinable coolness between old General Chattesworth and Devereux. He admired the young fellow, and he liked good blood in his corps, but somehow he was glad when he thought he was likely to go. When old Bligh, of the Magazine, commended the handsome young dog’s good looks, the general would grow grave all at once, and sniff once or twice, and say, ‘Yes, a good-looking fellow certainly, and might make a good officer, a mighty good officer, but he’s wild, a troublesome dog.’ And, lowering his voice, ‘I tell you what, colonel, as long as a young buck sticks to his claret, it is all fair; but hang it, you see, I’m afraid he likes other things, and he won’t wait till after dinner — this between ourselves, you know. ’Tis not a button to me, by Jupiter, what he does or drinks, off duty; but hang it, I’m afraid some day he’ll break out; and once or twice in a friendly way, you know, I’ve had to speak with him, and, to say truth, I’d rather he served under anyone else. He’s a fine fellow, ’tis a pity there should be anything wrong, and it would half break my heart to have to take a public course with him; not, you know, that it has ever come to anything like that — but — but I’ve heard things — and — and he must pull up, or he’ll not do for the service.’ So, though the thing did not amount to a scandal, there was a formality between Devereux and his commanding officer, who thought he saw bad habits growing apace, and apprehended that ere long disagreeable relations might arise between them.

  Lord Athenry had been no friend to Devereux in his nonage, and the goodnatured countess, to make amends, had always done her utmost to spoil him, and given him a great deal more of his own way, as well as of plumcake, and Jamaica preserves, and afterwards a great deal more money, than was altogether good for him. Like many a worse person, she was a little bit capricious, and a good deal selfish; but the young fellow was handsome. She was proud of his singularly good looks, and his wickedness interested her, and she gave him more money than to all the best public charities to which she contributed put together. Devereux, indeed, being a fast man, with such acres as he inherited, which certainly did not reach a thousand, mortgaged pretty smartly, and with as much personal debt beside, of the fashionable and refined sort, as became a young buck of bright though doubtful expectations — and if the truth must be owned, sometimes pretty nearly pushed into a corner — was beholden, not only for his fun, but, occasionally for his daily bread and even his liberty, to those benevolent doles.

  He did not like her peremptory summons; but he could not afford to quarrel with his bread and butter, nor to kill by undutiful behaviour the fair, plump bird whose golden eggs were so very convenient. I don’t know whether there may not have been some slight sign in the handwriting — in a phrase, perhaps, or in the structure of the composition, which a clever analysis might have detected, and which only reached him vaguely, with a foreboding that he was not to see Chapelizod again so soon as usual when this trip was made. And, in truth, his aunt had plans. She desi
gned his retirement from the Royal Irish Artillery, and had negociated an immediate berth for him on the Staff of the Commander of the Forces, and a prospective one in the household of Lord Townshend; she had another arrangement ‘on the anvil’ for a seat in Parliament, which she would accomplish, if that were possible; and finally a wife. In fact her ladyship had encountered old General Chattesworth at Scarborough only the autumn before, and they had had, in that gay resort, a good deal of serious talk (though serious talk with the good countess never lasted very long), between their cards and other recreations, the result of which was, that she began to think, with the good general, that Devereux would be better where one unlucky misadventure would not sully his reputation for life. Besides, she thought Chapelizod was not safe ground for a young fellow so eccentric, perverse, and impetuous, where pretty faces were plentier than good fortunes, and at every tinkling harpsichord there smiled a possible mesalliance. In the town of Chapelizod itself, indeed, the young gentleman did not stand quite so high in estimation as with his aunt, who thought nothing was good or high enough for her handsome nephew, with his good blood and his fine possibilities. The village folk, however, knew that he was confoundedly dipped; that he was sometimes alarmingly pestered by duns, and had got so accustomed to hear that his uncle, the earl, was in his last sickness, and his cousin, the next heir, dead, when another week disclosed that neither one nor the other was a bit worse than usual, that they began to think that Devereux’s turn might very possibly never come at all. Besides, the townspeople had high notions of some of their belles, and not without reason. There was Miss Gertrude Chattesworth, for instance, with more than fourteen thousand pounds to her fortune, and Lilias Walsingham, who would inherit her mother’s money, and the good rector’s estate of twelve hundred a year beside, and both with good blood in their veins, and beautiful princesses too. However, in those days there was more parental despotism than now. The old people kept their worldly wisdom to themselves, and did not take the young into a scheming partnership; and youth and beauty, I think, were more romantic, and a great deal less venal.

  Such being the old countess’s programme — a plan, according to her lights, grand and generous, she might have dawdled over it, for a good while, for she did not love trouble. It was not new; the airy castle had been some years built, and now, in an unwonted hurry, she wished to introduce the tenant to the well-aired edifice, and put him in actual possession. For a queer little attack in her head, which she called a fainting fit, and to which nobody dared afterwards to make allusion, and which she had bullied herself and everybody about her into forgetting, had, nevertheless, frightened her confoundedly. And when her helpless panic and hysterics were over, she silently resolved, if the thing were done, then ‘twere well ‘twere done quickly.

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  IN WHICH LILIAS HEARS A STAVE OF AN OLD SONG AND THERE IS A LEAVETAKING BESIDE THE RIVER.

  Devereux’s move was very sudden, and the news did not reach the Elms till his groom had gone on to Island-bridge with the horses, and he himself, booted and spurred, knocked at the door. The doctor was not at home; he had ridden into Dublin. Of course it was chiefly to see him he had gone there.

  ‘And Miss Walsingham?’

  She was also out; no, not in the garden. John thought maybe at old Miss Chattesworth’s school; or, Sally said, maybe at Belmont; they did not know.

  Devereux looked into the large room at the right hand of the hall, with the fair sad portrait of Lilias’s young mother smiling, from the wall. Like her, too — and the tall glasses of flowers — and the harpsichord open, with the music she would play, just as usual, that evening, he supposed; and he stood at the door, looking round the room, booted and spurred, as I have said, with his cocked hat held to his breast, in a reverie. It was not easy for old Sally to guess what was passing in his mind, for whenever he was sad he smiled, but with the somewhat of bitter in his smile, and when he suffered he used to joke.

  Just at that moment Lilias Walsingham was walking along the high street of the village to the King’s House, and stopping to say a goodnatured little word to old Jenny Creswell, was overtaken by mild Mrs. Sturk, who was walking her little menagerie into the park.

  ‘And oh! dear Miss Walsingham, did you hear the news? she said; ‘Captain Devereux is gone to England, and I believe we sha’n’t see him here again.’

  Lilias felt that she grew pale, but she patted one of the children on the head, and smiled, and asked him some foolish little question.

  ‘But why don’t you listen, dear Miss Lilias? You don’t hear, I think,’ said Mrs. Sturk.

  ‘I do hear, indeed; when did he go?’ she asked, coldly enough.

  ‘About half an hour ago,’ Mrs. Sturk thought: and so, with a word or two more, and a kissing of hands, the good lady turned, with her brood, up the park lane, and Lily walked on to pay her visit to Mrs. Colonel Stafford, feeling all the way a strange pang of anger and disappointment.

  ‘To think of his going away without taking leave of my father!’

  And when she reached the hall-door of the King’s House for a moment she forgot what she had come for, and was relieved to find that good Mrs. Strafford was in town.

  There was then, I don’t know whether there is not now, a little path leading by the river bank from Chapelizod to Island-bridge, just an angler’s footpath, devious and broken, but withal very sweet and pretty. Leaving the King’s House, she took this way home, and as she walked down to the river bank, the mortified girl looked down upon the grass close by her feet, and whispered to the daisies as she went along— ‘No, there’s no more kindness nor friendliness left in the world; the people are all cold creatures now, and hypocrites; and I’m glad he’s gone.’

  She paused at the stile which went over the hedge just beside an old fluted pier, with a grass-grown urn at top, and overgrown with a climbing rose-tree, just such a study as a young lady might put in her album; and then she recollected the long letter from old Miss Wardle that Aunt Becky had sent her to read, with a request, which from that quarter was a command, that she should return it by six o’clock, for Aunt Becky, even in matters indifferent, liked to name hours, and nail people sharp and hard to futile appointments and barren punctualities.

  She paused at the stile; she liked the old pier; its partner next the river was in fragments, and the ruin and the survivor had both been clothed by good Mrs. Strafford — who drew a little, and cultivated the picturesque — with the roses I have mentioned, besides woodbine and ivy. She had old Miss Wardle’s letter in her hand, full, of course, of shocking anecdotes about lunatics, and the sufferings of Fleet prisoners, and all the statistics, and enquiries, and dry little commissions, with which that worthy lady’s correspondence abounded. It was open in her hand, and rustled sharp and stiffly in the air, but it was not inviting just then. From that point it was always a pretty look down or up the river; and her eyes followed with the flow of its waters towards Inchicore. She loved the river; and in her thoughts she wondered why she loved it — so cold, so unimpressible — that went shining and rejoicing away into the sea. And just at that moment she heard a sweet tenor, with a gaiety somehow pathetic, sing not far away the words she remembered —

  ‘And she smiled upon the stream,

  Like one that smiles at folly,

  A dreamer on a dream.’

  Devereux was coming — it was his playful salutation. Her large eyes dropped to the ground with the matchless blush of youth. She was strangely glad, but vexed at having changed colour; but when he came up with her, in the deep shadow thrown by the old pier, with its thick festooneries, he could not tell, he only knew she looked beautiful.

  ‘My dreams take wing, but my follies will not leave me. And you have been ill, Miss Lilias?’

  ‘Oh, nothing; only a little cold.’

  ‘And I am going — I only knew last night — really going away.’ He paused; but the young lady did not feel called upon to say anything, and only allowed him to go on. In fact, she was piqu
ed, and did not choose to show the least concern about his movements. ‘And I’ve a great mind now that I’m departing this little world,’ and he glanced, it seemed to her, regretfully towards the village, ‘to put you down, Miss Lily, if you will allow it, in my codicil for a legacy — — ‘

  She laughed a pleasant little careless laugh. How ill-natured! but, oh! wasn’t it musical.

  ‘Then I suppose, if you were not to see me for some time, or maybe for ever, the village folks won’t break their hearts after Dick Devereux?’

  And the gipsy captain smiled, and his eyes threw a soft violet shadow down upon her; and there was that in his tone which for a moment touched her with a strange reproach, like a bar of sweet music.

  But little Lily was spirited; and if he, so early a friend, could go away without bidding goodbye, why he should not suppose she cared.

  ‘Break our hearts? Not at all, perhaps; but of course I — the parson’s daughter — I should, and old Moore, the barber, and Pat Moran, the hackney coachman, and Mrs. Irons your fat landlady, you’ve been so very good to all of us, you know.’

  ‘Well,’ he interrupted, ‘I’ve left my white surtout to Moran: a hat, let me see, and a pair of buckles to Moore; and my glass and china to dear Mrs. Irons.’

  ‘Hat — buckles — surtout — glass — china — gone! Then it seems to me your earthly possessions are pretty nearly disposed of, and your worldly cares at an end.’

  ‘Yes; very nearly, but not quite,’ he laughed. ‘I have one treasure left — my poor monkey; he’s a wonderful fellow — he has travelled half over the world, and is a perfect fine gentleman — and my true comrade until now. Do you think Dr. Walsingham, of his charity, would give the poor fellow free quarters at the Elms?’