Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “Very well; he’s at Ware, now, for a few days.”

  “Ah! I dare say, and very well; a pretty boy — very pretty; but not like — no, not the least.”

  “I’ve heard people say he’s very like what his father was,” said Tom.

  “Oh! yes, I think so; there is a likeness,” acquiesced she.

  “His father’s been dead a long time, you know?”

  “I know; yes. Cleve is at Oxford or Cambridge by this time?” she continued.

  Tom Sedley shook his head and smiled a little.

  “Cleve has done with all that ever so long. He’s in the House of Commons now, and likely to be a swell there, making speeches, and all that.”

  “I know — I know. I had forgot how long it is since; he was a clever boy, wild, and talkative; yes, yes, he’ll do for Parliament, I suppose, and be a great man, some day, there. There was no resemblance though; and you, sir, are like him, he was so handsome — no one so handsome.”

  Tom Sedley smiled. He fancied he was only amused. But I am sure he was also pleased.

  “And I don’t know. I can make out nothing. No one can. There’s a picture. I think they’d burn it, if they knew. It is drawn in chalks by a French artist; they colour so beautifully. It hangs in my room. I pray before it, every morning, for him.”

  The old lady moaned, with her hands folded together, and still looking steadfastly in his face.

  “They’d burn it, I think, if they knew there was a picture. I was always told they were a cruel family. Well, I don’t know, I forgive him; I’ve forgiven him long ago. You are very like the picture, and even more like what I remember him. The picture was taken just when he came of age. He was twenty-seven when I first saw him; he was brilliant, a beautiful creature, and when I looked in his face I saw the sorrow that has never left me. You are wonderfully like, sir; but there’s a difference. You’re not so handsome.” Here was a blow to honest Tom Sedley, who again thought he was only amused, but was really chagrined.

  “There is goodness and kindness in your face; his had little of that, nothing soft in it, but everything brilliant and interesting; and yet you are wonderfully like.”

  She pressed her hand on her thin bosom.

  “The wind grows cold. A pain shoots through me while I look at you, sir. I feel as if I were speaking to a spirit, God help me! I have said more to you tonight, than I have spoken for ten years before; forgive me, sir, and thank you, very much.”

  She turned from him again, took one long look at the distant headland, and then, with a deep sigh, almost a sob, she hastened towards the door. He followed her.

  “Will you permit me to see you to the house?” he pleaded, with a benevolence I fear not quite disinterested. She was by this time at the door, from which with a gesture, declining his offer, she gently waved him back, and disappeared within it, without another word. He heard the key turned in the lock, and remained without, as wise with respect to his particular quest as he had arrived.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII.

  A VIEW FROM THE REFECTORY WINDOW.

  The old discoloured wall of Malory, that runs along the shore overshadowed by grand old timber, that looks to me darker than any other grove, is seven feet high, and as he could see neither through nor over it, and could not think of climbing it, after a few seconds spent in staring at the gray door, Tom Sedley turned about and walked down to the little hillock that stands by the roadside, next the strand, and from the top of this he gazed, during an entire cigar, upon the mullioned windows of Malory, and was gratified by one faint gleam of a passing candle from a gallery window.

  “That’s a nice old woman, odd as she is; she looks quite like a lady; she’s certainly not the woman we saw in church to-day; how well she looked; what a nice figure, that time, as she stood looking from the shore; that cloak thing is loose to be sure; but, by Jove, she might have been a girl almost; and what large eyes she has got, and a well-shaped face. She must have been quite charming, about a hundred years ago; she’s not the mother: she’s too old; a grand-aunt, perhaps; what a long talk we had, and I such a fool, listening to all that rubbish, and never getting in a word about the people, that peerless creature!”

  His walk home to Cardyllian was desultory and interrupted. I should not like to risk my credit by relating how often he halted on his way, and how long, to refresh his eyes with the dim outlines of the trees and chimneys of Malory; and how, very late and melancholy, and abstracted, he reached his crib in the Verney Arms.

  Early next morning, in pursuance of a clever idea, Tom Sedley made, I admit, his most picturesque and becoming toilet. It consisted of his black velvet knickerbocker suit, with those refined jack-boots of shining leather, and the most charming jerry that had ever appeared in Cardyllian, and away he marched over the hill, while the good people of the town were champing their muffins and sipping their tea, to the back gate of Malory.

  It stood half open, and with as careless a boldness as he could assume, in he went and walked confidently up the straight farmyard lane, girt with high thorn hedges. Here, bribing a rustic who showed symptoms of churlishness, with half-a-crown, he was admitted into a sort of farmyard, under pretext of examining the old monastic chapel and refectory, now used as a barn, and some other relics of the friary, which tourists were wont to admire.

  From the front of the refectory there is a fine view of the distant mountains. Also, as Tom Sedley recollected, a foreground view, under the trees, in front of the hall-door, and there, with a sudden bound at his heart, he beheld the two ladies who had yesterday occupied the Malory pew, the old and the young, busy about the flowerbed, with garden gauntlets on, and trowel in hand.

  They were chatting together cheerily enough, but he could not hear what they said. The young lady now stood up from her work, in a dress which looked to him like plain holland.

  The young lady had pushed her hat a little back, and stood on the grass, at the edge of the flowers, with her trowel glittering in the early sun, in her slender right hand, which rested upon her left; her pretty right foot was advanced a little on the short grass, and showed just its tip, over the edge of the flowerbed. A homely dress and rustic appliances. But, oh! that oval, beautiful face!

  Tom Sedley — the “peeping Tom” of this story — from his deep monastic window, between the parting of the tall trees, looked down upon this scene in a breathless rapture. From the palmy days of the Roman Pantheon down, was ever Flora so adored?

  From under his Gothic arch, in his monkish shade, Tom could have stood, he fancied, for ever, gazing as friar has seldom gazed upon his pictured saint, on the supernatural portrait which his enthusiasm worshipped.

  The young lady, as I have described her, looking down upon her old companion, said something with a little nod, and smiled; then she looked up at the tree tops from where the birds were chirping; so Tom had a fair view of her wonderful face, and though he felt himself in imminent danger of detection, he could not move. Then her eyes with a sidelong glance, dropped on the window where he stood, and passed on instantly.

  With the instinct which never deceives us, he felt her glance touch him, and knew that he was detected. The young lady turned quietly, and looked seaward for a few moments. Tom relieved his suspense with a sigh; he hoped he might pass muster for a tourist, and that the privileges of such visitors had not been abridged by the recluses.

  The young lady then quietly turned and resumed her work, as if nothing had happened; but, I think, she said something to her elderly companion, for that slim lady, in a Tweed shawl, closely brooched across her breast, stood up, walked a step or two backward upon the grass, and looked straight up at the window, with the inquisitive frown of a person a little dazzled or near-sighted.

  Honest Tom Sedley, who was in a rather morbid state all this morning, felt his heart throb again, and drum against his ribs, as he affected to gaze in a picturesque absorption upon the distant headlands.

  The old lady, on the other hand, having distinctly see
n in the deep-carved panel of that antique wall, the full-length portrait of our handsome young friend, Tom Sedley, in his killing knickerbocker suit of black velvet, with his ivory-headed cane in his hand, and that “stunning” jerry which so exactly suited his countenance, and of which he believed no hatter but his own possessed the pattern, or could produce a similar masterpiece.

  The old lady with her hand raised to fend off the morning sun that came flickering through the branches on her wrinkled forehead, and her light gray eyes peering on him, had no notion of the awful power of her gaze upon that “impudent young man.”

  With all his might Tom Sedley gazed at the Welsh headlands, without even winking, while he felt the basilisk eye of the old spinster in gray Tweed upon him. So intense was his stare, that old Pendillion at last seemed to nod his mighty head, and finally to submerge himself in the sea. When he ventured a glance downward, he saw Miss Anne Sheckleton with quick steps entering the house, while the young lady had recommenced working at a more distant flowerbed, with the same quiet diligence.

  It was to be feared that the old lady was taking steps for his expulsion. He preferred anticipating her measures, and not caring to be caught in the window, left the refectory, and walked down the stone stairs, whistling and tapping the wall with the tip of his cane.

  To him, as the old play-books say, entered from the side next the house, and just as he set the sole of his resplendent boot upon the paving-stones, a servant. Short, strong, and surly was the man. He did not seem disposed for violence, however, for he touched an imaginary hatbrim as he came up, and informed Mr. Sedley, who was properly surprised and pained to hear it, that he had in fact committed a trespass; that since it had been let, the place was no longer open to the inspection of tourists; and, in short, that he was requested to withdraw.

  Tom Sedley was all alacrity and regret. He had never been so polite to a groom in all his life. The man followed him down the back avenue, to see him out, which at another time would have stirred his resentment; and when he held the gate open for him to emerge, Tom gave him no less than three half-crowns — a prodigality whereat his eyes opened, if not his heart, and he made a gruff apology for the necessities imposed by duty, and Tom interrupted him with —

  “Quite right, perfectly right! you could do nothing else. I hope the la —— your master is not vexed. You must say I told you to mention how very much pained I was at having made such a mistake. Say that I, Mr. Sedley, regret it very much, and beg to apologise. Pray don’t forget. Good morning; and I’m very sorry for having given you so much trouble — this long walk.”

  This tenderness his bow-legged conductor was also in a mood to receive favourably. In fact, if he had not told him his name was Sedley, he might have settled affirmatively the question at that moment before his mind — whether the intruder from whom silver flowed so naturally and refreshingly might not possibly be the Prince of Wales himself, who had passed through the village of Ware, only seven miles away, three weeks before.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VIII.

  A NIGHT SAIL.

  Poor Tom Sedley! The little excitement of parting with the bull-necked keeper of his “garden of beauty”, over, his spirits sank. He could not act the unconscious tourist again, and re-commit the premeditated mistake of the morning. His exclusion was complete.

  Tom Sedley paid a visit that day at Hazelden, and was depressed, and dull, and absent to such a degree, that Miss Charity Etherage, after he had gone away, canvassed the matter very earnestly, and wondered whether he was quite well, and hoped he had not had bad news from London.

  I don’t know how Tom got over all that day; but at about four o’clock, having paid his penny at the toll-gate of the pier of Cardyllian, he was pacing up and down that breezy platform, and discussing with himself the possibility of remaining for another Sunday, on the chance of again seeing the Malory ladies in church. Lifting up his eyes, in his meditation, he saw a cutter less than a mile away, making swiftly for the pierhead, stooping to the breeze as she flew, and beating up the spray in sparkling clouds from her bows. His practised eye recognised at a glance the Wave, the victorious yacht of Cleve Verney. With this breeze it was a run without a tack from Ware jetty.

  In less than five minutes she furled her sails, and dropped anchor close to the pier stair, and Cleve Verney in another minute stepped upon it from his punt.

  “You’re to come back in her, to Ware, this evening,” said he, as they shook hands. “I’m so glad I’ve found you. I’ve to meet a friend at the Verney Arms, but our talk won’t take very long; and how have you been amusing yourself all day? Rather slow, isn’t it?”

  Tom Sedley told his story.

  “Well, and what’s the name?” inquired Cleve.

  “I can’t tell; they don’t know at the hotel; the Etherages don’t know. I asked Castle Edwards, and he doesn’t know either,” said Sedley.

  “Yes, but the fellow, the servant, who turned you out at Malory — — “

  “He did not turn me out. I was going,” interrupted Tom Sedley.

  “Well, who saw you out? You made him a present; he’d have told you, of course. Did he?”

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “Come, that’s being very delicate indeed! All I can say is, if I were as spoony as you are, on that girl, I’d have learned all about her long ago. It’s nothing to me; but if you find out her name, I know two or three fellows in town who know everything about everybody, and I’ll make out the whole story — that is, if she’s anybody.”

  “By Jove! that’s very odd. There he is, just gone into the Golden Lion, that groom, that servant, that Malory man,” exclaimed Tom Sedley very eagerly, and staring hard at the open door of the quaint little pot-house.

  “Well, go; give him a pound, it’s well worth it,” laughed Cleve. “I’m serious, if you want to learn it; no fellow like that can resist a pound; and if you tell me the name, I’ll make you out all the rest, I really will, when we get to town. There, don’t let him get off, and you’ll find me at the Verney Arms.”

  So saying, Cleve nodding his irresolute friend toward the Golden Lion, walked swiftly away to meet the Reverend Isaac Dixie. But Dixie was not at the Chancery; only a letter, to say that “most unhappily” that morning, Clay Rectory was to undergo an inspection by a Commissioner of Dilapidations; but that, D.V., he would place himself next day, at the appointed hour, at his honoured pupil’s disposal.

  “Those shovel-hatted martinets! they never allow a minute for common sense, or anything useful — always pottering over their clerical drill and pipeclay,” said Cleve, who, when an idea once entered his mind, pursued it with a terrible concentration, and hated an hour’s delay.

  So out he came disappointed, and joined Sedley near the Golden Lion.

  They said little for a time, but walked on, side by side, and found themselves sauntering along the road toward Malory together.

  “Well, Sedley, I forgot, — what about the man? Did he tell you anything?”

  “I do believe if a fellow once allows a girl to get into his head, ever so little, he’s in a sort of way drunk — worse than drunk — systematically foolish,” said honest Sedley, philosophizing. “I’ve been doing nothing but idiotic things ever since church time yesterday.”

  “Well, but what did he say?”

  “He took the pound, and devil a thing he said. He wouldn’t tell anything about them. I give you leave to laugh at me. I know I’m the greatest ass on earth, and I think he’s the ugliest brute I ever saw, and the most uncivil; and, by Jove, if I stay here much longer, I think he’ll get all my money from me. He doesn’t ask for it, but I go on giving it to him; I can’t help it; the beast!”

  “Isn’t there a saying about a sage, or something and his money being soon parted?” asked Cleve. “I think if I were so much gone about a girl as you are, and on such easy terms with that fellow, and tipped him so handsomely, I’d have learned her name, at least, before now.”

  “I can’t; everything
goes wrong with me. Why should I risk my reason, and fall in love with the moon? The girl wouldn’t look at me; by Jove, she’ll never even see me; and it’s much better so, for nothing can possibly come of it, but pain to me, and fun to every one else. The late train does not stop at our station. I can’t go tonight; but, by Jove, I’ll be off in the morning. I will. Don’t you think I’m right, Cleve?”

  Tom Sedley stopped short, and faced his friend — who was, in most matters, his oracle — earnestly laying his hand upon his arm. Cleve laughed at his vehemence, for he knew Tom’s impulsive nature, his generous follies, and terrible impetuosity, and, said he— “Right, Tom; always a philosopher! Nothing like the radical cure, in such a case, absence. If the cards won’t answer, try the dice, if they won’t do, try the balls. I’m afraid this is a bad venture; put your heart to sea in a sieve! No, Tom, that precious freightage is for a more substantial craft. I suppose you have seen your last of the young lady, and it would be a barren fib of friendship to say that I believe you have made any impression. Therefore, save yourself, fly, and try what absence will do, and work and play, and eating and drinking, and sleeping abundantly in a distant scene, to dissipate the fumes of your intoxication, steal you away from the enchantress, and restore you to yourself. Therefore I echo — go.”

  “I’m sure you think it, though you’re half joking,” said Tom Sedley.

  “Well, let us come on. I’ve half a mind to go up myself and have a peep at the refectory,” said Cleve.

  “To what purpose?”

  “Archæology,” said Cleve.

  “If you go in there, after what occurred this morning, by Jove, I’ll not wait for you,” said Sedley.

  “Well, come along; there’s no harm, I suppose, in passing by. The Queen’s highway, I hope, isn’t shut up,” answered Verney.

  Sedley sighed, looked towards Malory, and not being in a mood to resist, walked on toward the enchanted forest and castle, by his companion’s side.