Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  You cannot imagine what agreeable evenings we passed in this society, or how rapidly my good Cousin Milly improved in it. I remember well the intense suspense in which she and I awaited the answer from Bartram-Haugh to kind Cousin Monica’s application for an extension of our leave of absence.

  It came, and with it a note from Uncle Silas, which was curious, and, therefore, is printed here: —

  ‘MY DEAR LADY KNOLLYS, — To your kind letter I say yes (that is, for another week, not a fortnight), with all my heart. I am glad to hear that my starlings chatter so pleasantly; at all events the refrain is not that of Sterne’s. They can get out; and do get out; and shall get out as much as they please. I am no gaoler, and shut up nobody but myself. I have always thought that young people have too little liberty. My principle has been to make little free men and women of them from the first. In morals, altogether — in intellect, more than we allow — self-education is that which abides; and it only begins where constraint ends. Such is my theory. My practice is consistent. Let them remain for a week longer, as you say. The horses shall be at Elverston on Tuesday, the 7th. I shall be more than usually sad and solitary till their return; so pray, I selfishly entreat, do not extend their absence. You will smile, remembering how little my health will allow me to see of them, even when at home; but as Chaulieu so prettily says — I stupidly forget the words, but the sentiment is this— “although concealed by a sylvan wall of leaves, impenetrable — (he is pursuing his favourite nymphs through the alleys and intricacies of a rustic labyrinth) — yet, your songs, your prattle, and your laughter, faint and far away, inspire my fancy; and, through my ears, I see your unseen smiles, your blushes, your floating tresses, and your ivory feet; and so, though sad, am happy; though alone, in company;” — and such is my case.

  ‘One only request, and I have done. Pray remind them of a promise made to me. The Book of Life — the fountain of life — it must be drunk of, night and morning, or their spiritual life expires.

  ‘And now, Heaven bless and keep you, my dear cousin; and with all assurances of affection to my beloved niece and my child, believe me ever yours affectionately.

  ‘SILAS RUTHYN.’

  Said Cousin Monica, with a waggish smile —

  ‘And so, girls, you have Chaulieu and the evangelists; the French rhymester in his alley, and Silas in the valley of the shadow of death; perfect liberty, and a peremptory order to return in a week; — all illustrating one another. Poor Silas! old as he is, I don’t think his religion fits him.’

  I really rather liked his letter. I was struggling hard to think well of him, and Cousin Monica knew it; and I really think if I had not been by, she would often have been less severe on him.

  As we were all sitting pleasantly about the breakfast table a day or two after, the sun shining on the pleasant wintry landscape, Cousin Monica suddenly exclaimed —

  ‘I quite forgot to tell you that Charles Oakley has written to say he is coming on Wednesday. I really don’t want him. Poor Charlie! I wonder how they manage those doctors’ certificates. I know nothing ails him, and he’d be much better with his regiment.’

  Wednesday! — how odd. Exactly the day after my departure. I tried to look perfectly unconcerned. Lady Knollys had addressed herself more to Lady Mary and Milly than to me, and nobody in particular was looking at me. Notwithstanding, with my usual perversity, I felt myself blushing with a brilliancy that may have been very becoming, but which was so intolerably provoking that I would have risen and left the room but that matters would have been so infinitely worse. I could have boxed my odious ears. I could almost have jumped from the window.

  I felt that Lord Ilbury saw it. I saw Lady Mary’s eyes for a moment resting gravely on my tell-tale — my lying cheeks — for I really had begun to think much less celestially of Captain Oakley. I was angry with Cousin Monica, who, knowing my blushing infirmity, had mentioned her nephew so suddenly while I was strapped by etiquette in my chair, with my face to the window, and two pair of most disconcerting eyes, at least, opposite. I was angry with myself — generally angry — refused more tea rather dryly, and was laconic to Lord Ilbury, all which, of course, was very cross and foolish; and afterwards, from my bedroom window, I saw Cousin Monica and Lady Mary among the flowers, under the drawingroom window, talking, as I instinctively knew, of that little incident. I was standing at the glass.

  ‘My odious, stupid, perjured face’ I whispered, furiously, at the same time stamping on the floor, and giving myself quite a smart slap on the cheek. ‘I can’t go down — I’m ready to cry — I’ve a mind to return to Bartram to-day; I am always blushing; and I wish that impudent Captain Oakley was at the bottom of the sea.’

  I was, perhaps, thinking more of Lord Ilbury than I was aware; and I am sure if Captain Oakley had arrived that day, I should have treated him with most unjustifiable rudeness.

  Notwithstanding this unfortunate blush, the remainder of our visit passed very happily for me. No one who has not experienced it can have an idea how intimate a small party, such as ours, will grow in a short time in a country house.

  Of course, a young lady of a well-regulated mind cannot possibly care a pin about any one of the opposite sex until she is well assured that he is beginning, at least, to like her better than all the world beside; but I could not deny to myself that I was rather anxious to know more about Lord Ilbury than I actually did know.

  There was a ‘Peerage,’ in its bright scarlet and gold uniform, corpulent and tempting, upon the little marble table in the drawingroom. I had many opportunities of consulting it, but I never could find courage to do so.

  For an inexperienced person it would have been a matter of several minutes, and during those minutes what awful risk of surprise and detection. One day, all being quiet, I did venture, and actually, with a beating heart, got so far as to find out the letter ‘Il,’ when I heard a step outside the door, which opened a little bit, and I heard Lady Knollys, luckily arrested at the entrance, talk some sentences outside, her hand still upon the door-handle. I shut the book, as Mrs. Bluebeard might the door of the chamber of horrors at the sound of her husband’s step, and skipped to a remote part of the room, where Cousin Knollys found me in a mysterious state of agitation.

  On any other subject I would have questioned Cousin Monica unhesitatingly; upon this, somehow, I was dumb. I distrusted myself, and dreaded my odious habit of blushing, and knew that I should look so horribly guilty, and become so agitated and odd, that she would have reasonably concluded that I had quite lost my heart to him.

  After the lesson I had received, and my narrow escape of detection in the very act, you may be sure I never trusted myself in the vicinity of that fat and cruel ‘Peerage,’ which possessed the secret, but would not disclose without compromising me.

  In this state of tantalizing darkness and conjecture I should have departed, had not Cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved me.

  The night before our departure she sat with us in our room, chatting a little farewell gossip.

  ‘And what do you think of Ilbury?’ she asked.

  ‘I think him clever and accomplished, and amusing; but he sometimes appears to me very melancholy — that is, for a few minutes together — and then, I fancy, with an effort, reengages in our conversation.’

  ‘Yes, poor Ilbury! He lost his brother only about five months since, and is only beginning to recover his spirits a little. They were very much attached, and people thought that he would have succeeded to the title, had he lived, because Ilbury is difficile — or a philosopher — or a Saint Kevin; and, in fact, has begun to be treated as a premature old bachelor.’

  ‘What a charming person his sister, Lady Mary, is. She has made me promise to write to her,’ I said, I suppose — such hypocrites are we — to prove to Cousin Knollys that I did not care particularly to hear anything more about him.

  ‘Yes, and so devoted to him. He came down here, and took The Grange, for change of scene and solitude — of all things the wors
t for a man in grief — a morbid whim, as he is beginning to find out; for he is very glad to stay here, and confesses that he is much better since he came. His letters are still addressed to him as Mr. Carysbroke; for he fancied if his rank were known, that the county people would have been calling upon him, and so he would have found himself soon involved in a tiresome round of dinners, and must have gone somewhere else. You saw him, Milly, at Bartram, before Maud came?’

  Yes, she had, when he called there to see her father.

  ‘He thought, as he had accepted the trusteeship, that he could hardly, residing so near, omit to visit Silas. He was very much struck and interested by him, and he has a better opinion of him — you are not angry, Milly — than some ill-natured people I could name; and he says that the cutting down of the trees will turn out to have been a mere slip. But these slips don’t occur with clever men in other things; and some persons have a way of always making them in their own favour. And, to talk of other things, I suspect that you and Milly will probably see Ilbury at Bartram; for I think he likes you very much.’

  You; did she mean both, or only me?

  So our pleasant visit was over. Milly’s good little curate had been much thrown in her way by our deep and dangerous cousin Monica. He was most laudably steady; and his flirtation advanced upon the field of theology, where, happily, Milly’s little reading had been concentrated. A mild and earnest interest in poor, pretty Milly’s orthodoxy was the leading feature of his case; and I was highly amused at her references to me, when we had retired at night, upon the points which she had disputed with him, and her anxious reports of their lowtoned conferences, carried on upon a sequestered ottoman, where he patted and stroked his crossed leg, as he smiled tenderly and shook his head at her questionable doctrine. Milly’s reverence for her instructor, and his admiration, grew daily; and he was known among us as Milly’s confessor.

  He took luncheon with us on the day of our departure, and with an adroit privacy, which in a layman would have been sly, presented her, in right of his holy calling, with a little book, the binding of which was mediaeval and costly, and whose letter-press dealt in a way which he commended, with some points on which she was not satisfactory; and she found on the fly-leaf this little inscription:— ‘Presented to Miss Millicent Ruthyn by an earnest well-wisher, 1st December 1844.’ A text, very neatly penned, followed this; and the ‘presentation’ was made unctiously indeed, but with a blush, as well as the accustomed smile, and with eyes that were lowered.

  The early crimson sun of December had gone down behind the hills before we took our seats in the carriage.

  Lord Ilbury leaned with his elbow on the carriage window, looking in, and he said to me —

  ‘I really don’t know what we shall do, Miss Ruthyn; we shall all feel so lonely. For myself, I think I shall run away to Grange.’

  This appeared to me as nearly perfect eloquence as human lips could utter.

  His hand still rested on the window, and the Rev. Sprigge Biddlepen was standing with a saddened smirk on the door steps, when the whip smacked, the horses scrambled into motion, and away we rolled down the avenue, leaving behind us the pleasantest house and hostess in the world, and trotting fleetly into darkness towards Bartram-Haugh.

  We were both rather silent. Milly had her book in her lap, and I saw her every now and then try to read her ‘earnest well-wisher’s’ little inscription, but there was not light to read by.

  When we reached the great gate of Bartram-Haugh it was dark. Old Crowl, who kept the gate, I heard enjoining the postilion to make no avoidable noise at the hall-door, for the odd but startling reason that he believed my uncle ‘would be dead by this time.’

  Very much shocked and frightened, we stopped the carriage, and questioned the tremulous old porter.

  Uncle Silas, it seemed, had been ‘silly-ish’ all yesterday, and ‘could not be woke this morning,’ and ‘the doctor had been here twice, being now in the house.’

  ‘Is he better?’ I asked, tremblingly.

  ‘Not as I’m aweer on, Miss; he lay at God’s mercy two hours agone; ‘appen he’s in heaven be this time.’

  ‘Drive on — drive fast,’ I said to the driver. ‘Don’t be frightened, Milly; please Heaven we shall find all going well.’

  After some delay, during which my heart sank, and I quite gave up Uncle Silas, the aged little servant-man opened the door, and trotted shakily down the steps to the carriage side.

  Uncle Silas had been at death’s door for hours; the question of life had trembled in the scale; but now the doctor said ‘he might do.’

  ‘Where was the doctor?’

  ‘In master’s room; he blooded him three hours agone.’

  I don’t think that Milly was so frightened as I. My heart beat, and I was trembling so that I could hardly get upstairs.

  CHAPTER XLIV

  A FRIEND ARISES

  At the top of the great staircase I was glad to see the friendly face of Mary Quince, who stood, candle in hand, greeting us with many little courtesies, and a very haggard and pallid smile.

  ‘Very welcome, Miss, hoping you are very well.’

  ‘All well, and you are well, Mary? and oh! tell us quickly how is Uncle Silas?’

  ‘We thought he was gone, Miss, this morning, but doing fairly now; doctor says in a trance like. I was helping old Wyat most of the day, and was there when doctor blooded him, an’ he spoke at last; but he must be awful weak, he took a deal o’ blood from his arm, Miss; I held the basin.’

  ‘And he’s better — decidedly better?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, he’s better, doctor says; he talked some, and doctor says if he goes off asleep again, and begins a-snoring like he did before, we’re to loose the bandage, and let him bleed till he comes to his self again; which, it seems to me and Wyat, is the same thing a’most as saying he’s to be killed offhand, for I don’t believe he has a drop to spare, as you’ll say likewise, Miss, if you’ll please look in the basin.’

  This was not an invitation with which I cared to comply. I thought I was going to faint. I sat on the stairs and sipped a little water, and Quince sprinkled a little in my face, and my strength returned.

  Milly must have felt her father’s danger more than I, for she was affectionate, and loved him from habit and relation, although he was not kind to her. But I was more nervous and more impetuous, and my feelings both stimulated and overpowered me more easily. The moment I was able to stand I said — thinking of nothing but the one idea —

  ‘We must see him — come, Milly.’

  I entered his sitting-room; a common ‘dip’ candle hanging like the tower of Pisa all to one side, with a dim, long wick, in a greasy candlestick, profaned the table of the fastidious invalid. The light was little better than darkness, and I crossed the room swiftly, still transfixed by the one idea of seeing my uncle.

  His bedroom door beside the fireplace stood partly open, and I looked in.

  Old Wyat, a white, high-cauled ghost, was pottering in her slippers in the shadow at the far side of the bed. The doctor, a stout little bald man, with a paunch and a big bunch of seals, stood with his back to the fireplace, which corresponded with that in the next room, eyeing his patient through the curtains of the bed with a listless sort of importance.

  The head of the large four-poster rested against the opposite wall. Its foot was presented toward the fireplace; but the curtains at the side, which alone I could see from my position, were closed.

  The little doctor knew me, and thinking me, I suppose, a person of consequence, removed his hands from behind him, suffering the skirts of his coat to fall forward, and with great celerity and gravity made me a low but important bow; then choosing more particularly to make my acquaintance he further advanced, and with another reverence he introduced himself as Doctor Jolks, in a murmured diapason. He bowed me back again into my uncle’s study, and the light of old Wyat’s dreadful candle.

  Doctor Jolks was suave and pompous. I longed for a fussy practitio
ner who would have got over the ground in half the time.

  Coma, madam; coma. Miss Ruthyn, your uncle, I may tell you, has been in a very critical state; highly so. Coma of the most obstinate type. He would have sunk — he must have gone, in fact, had I not resorted to a very extreme remedy, and bled him freely, which happily told precisely as we could have wished. A wonderful constitution — a marvellous constitution — prodigious nervous fibre; the greatest pity in the world he won’t give himself fair play. His habits, you know, are quite, I may say, destructive. We do our best — we do all we can, but if the patient won’t cooperate it can’t possibly end satisfactorily.’

  And Jolks accompanied this with an awful shrug. ‘Is there anything? Do you think change of air? What an awful complaint it is,’ I exclaimed.

  He smiled, mysteriously looking down, and shook his head undertakerlike.

  ‘Why, we can hardly call it a complaint, Miss Ruthyn. I look upon it he has been poisoned — he has had, you understand me,’ he pursued, observing my startled look, ‘an overdose of opium; you know he takes opium habitually; he takes it in laudanum, he takes it in water, and, most dangerous of all, he takes it solid, in lozenges. I’ve known people take it moderately. I’ve known people take it to excess, but they all were particular as to measure, and that is exactly the point I’ve tried to impress upon him. The habit, of course, you understand is formed, there’s no uprooting that; but he won’t measure — he goes by the eye and by sensation, which I need not tell you, Miss Ruthyn, is going by chance; and opium, as no doubt you are aware, is strictly a poison; a poison, no doubt, which habit will enable you to partake of, I may say, in considerable quantities, without fatal consequences, but still a poison; and to exhibit a poison so, is, I need scarcely tell you, to trifle with death. He has been so threatened, and for a time he changes his haphazard mode of dealing with it, and then returns; he may escape — of course, that is possible — but he may any day overdo the thing. I don’t think the present crisis will result seriously. I am very glad, independently of the honour of making your acquaintance, Miss Ruthyn, that you and your cousin have returned; for, however zealous, I fear the servants are deficient in intelligence; and as in the event of a recurrence of the symptoms — which, however, is not probable — I would beg to inform you of their nature, and how exactly best to deal with them.’