Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “On the 15th proximo” — Very well; on the 15th he would be in town, and hear his uncle upon this subject, involving his “private feelings” and “the most momentous interests of his house.” Could it be that his outcast uncle, who had been dragging out a villanous existence in Turkey, under the hospitable protection of the Porte — who was said to have killed the captain of a French man-of-war, in that contemplative retreat, and whom he was wont respectfully to call “the Old Man of the Mountains,” was dead at last?

  The postscript would bear this interpretation and a pompous liking for mystery, which was one of his uncle’s small weaknesses, would account for his withholding the precise information, and nursing, and making much of his secret, and delivering it at last, like a Cabinet manifesto or a Sessional address.

  “If the Old Man of the Mountains be really out of the way, it’s an important event for us!”

  And a dark smile lighted the young man’s face, as he thought of the long train of splendid consequences that would awake at his deathbed, and begin to march before his funeral.

  Ambition, they say, is the giant passion. But giants are placable and sleep at times. The spirit of emulation — the lust of distinction — hominum volitare per ora — digito monstrarier — in a wider, and still widening sphere — until all the world knows something about you — and so on and on — the same selfish aspiration, and at best, the same barren progress, till at last it has arrived — you are a thoroughly advertised and conspicuous mediocrity, still wishing, and often tired, in the midst of drudgery and importance and éclat, and then — on a sudden, the other thing comes — the first of the days of darkness which are many.

  “Thy house shall be of clay, A clot under thy head; Until the latter day, The grave shall be thy bed.”

  But nature has her flowers and her fruits, as well as those coarse grains and vegetables on which overgrown reputations are stall-fed. The Commons lobby, the division list, the bureau, Hansard, the newspapers, the dreary bombast of the Right Hon. Marcus Tullius Countinghouse, the ironies of Mr. Swelter, the jokes of Mr. Rasp, — enjoy these shams while your faith is great — while you may, now, in the days of thy youth, before your time comes, and knowledge chills, and care catches you, and you are drawn in and ground under the great old machine which has been thundering round and round, and bruising its proper grist, ever since Adam and Eve walked out of Eden.

  But beside all this delicious rape-cake and man-gold of politics, Cleve Verney had his transient perceptions of the flowers and fruits, as we say, that spring elsewhere. There are fancy, the regrets, the yearnings — something recluse in the human soul, which will have its day, a day, though brief it may be, of entire domination.

  Now it came to pass, among the trees of lonely Malory, at eventide, when the golden air was flooded with the vesper songs of small birds, and the long gray shadows were stretching into distance, that a little brown Welsh boy, with dark lively eyes, and a wire cage in his hand, suddenly stood before Miss Margaret Fanshawe, who awaking from a reverie, with a startled look — for intruders were there unknown — fixed her great eyes upon him.

  “You’ve climbed the wall, little gipsy,” said the beautiful lady, with a shake of her head and a little frown, raising her finger threateningly. “What! You say nothing? This is a lonely place; don’t you know there are ghosts here and fairies in Malory? And I’m one of them, perhaps,” she continued, softening a little, for he looked at her with round eyes of wonder and awe.

  “And what do you want here? and what have you got in that cage? Let me see it.”

  Breaking through an accidental cleft among the old trees, one sunset ray streamed on the face of this little Welsh Murillo; and now through the wires of the cage, gilding them pleasantly as he raised it in his hand, and showed two little squirrels hopping merrily within.

  “Squirrels! How curious! My poor little Whisk, there’s none like you, funny little Whisk, kind little Whisk, true little thing; you loved your mistress, and no one else, no one else. He’s buried there, under that large rose-bush; I won’t cry for you, little Whisk, any more, I said I wouldn’t.”

  She looked wistfully toward the rose-bush, and the little headstone she had girlishly placed at her favourite’s grave, and the little boy saw two great crystal tears glittering in her large eyes as she gazed; and she turned and walked a hasty step or two toward it. I don’t know whether they fell or were dried, but when she came back she looked as at first.

  “I’ll buy one of these little things, they are very pretty, and I’ll call it Frisk; and I’ll please myself by thinking it’s little Whisk’s brother; it may be, you know,” she said, unconsciously taking the little boy into the childish confidence. “What would you sell one of those little things for? perhaps you would not like to part with it, but I’ll make it very happy, I shall be very kind to it.”

  She paused, but the little fellow only looked still silently and earnestly in her face.

  “Is he deaf or dumb, or a sprite — who are you?” said the girl, looking at him curiously.

  A short sentence in Welsh, prettiest of all pretty tongues, with its pleasant accent, was the reply.

  “Then all my fine sentences have been thrown away, and not one word has he understood!”

  Looking at his impenetrable face, and thus speaking, she smiled; and in that sudden and beautiful radiance he smiled merrily also.

  All this happened under the trees close by the old Refectory wall, at the angle of which is a small door admitting into the stableyard. Opening this she called “Thomas Jones!” and the Cardyllian “helper,” so called, answered the invocation quickly.

  “Make out from that little boy, what he is willing to take for one of his squirrels,” said she, and listened in suspense while the brief dialogue in Welsh proceeded.

  “He says, my lady, he does not know, but will go home and ask; and if you give him a shilling for earnest, he’ll leave the cage here. So you may look at them for some time, my lady — yes, sure, and see which you would find the best of the two.”

  “Oh, that’s charming!” said she, nodding and smiling her thanks to the urchin, who received the shilling and surrendered the cage, which she set down upon the grass in triumph; and seating herself upon the turf before them, began to talk to the imprisoned squirrels with the irrepressible delight with which any companionable creature is welcomed by the young in the monotony and sadness of solitude.

  The sun went down, and the moon rose over Malory, but the little brown boy returned not. Perhaps his home was distant. But the next morning did not bring him back, nor the day, nor the evening; and, in fact, she saw his face no more.

  “Poor little deserted squirrels! — two little foundlings! — what am I to think? Tell me, cousin Anne, was that little boy what he seemed, or an imp that haunts these woods, and wants to entangle me by a bargain uncompleted; or a compassionate spirit that came thus disguised to supply the loss of poor little Whisk; and how and when do you think he will appear again?”

  She was lighting her bedroom candle in the faded old drawingroom of Malory, as, being about to part for the night, she thus addressed her gray cousin Anne. That old spinster yawned at her leisure, and then said —

  “He’ll never appear again, dear.”

  “I should really say, to judge by that speech, that you knew something about him,” said Margaret Fanshawe, replacing her candle on the table as she looked curiously in her face.

  The old lady smiled mysteriously.

  “What is it?” said the girl; “you must tell me — you shall tell me. Come, cousin Anne, I don’t go to bed tonight till you tell me all you know.”

  The young lady had a will of her own, and sat down, it might be for the night, in her chair again.

  “As to knowing, my dear, I really know nothing; but I have my suspicions.”

  “H-m!” said Margaret, for a moment dropping her eyes to the table, so that only their long silken fringes were visible. Then she raised them once more gravely to her kin
swoman’s face. “Yes, I will know what you suspect.”

  “Well, I think that handsome young man, Mr. Cleve Verney, is at the bottom of the mystery,” said Miss Sheckleton, with the same smile.

  Again the young lady dropped her eyes, and was for a moment silent. “Was she pleased or dis-pleased? Proud and sad her face looked.

  “There’s no one here to tell him that I lost my poor little squirrel. It’s quite impossible — the most unlikely idea imaginable.”

  “I told him on Sunday,” said Miss Sheckleton, smiling.

  “He had no business to talk about me.”

  “Why, dear, unless he was a positive brute, he could not avoid asking for you; so I told him you were désolé about your bereavement — your poor little Whisk, and he seemed so sorry and kind; and I’m perfectly certain he got these little animals to supply its place.”

  “And so has led me into taking a present?” said the young lady, a little fiercely— “he would not have taken that liberty — — “

  “Liberty, my dear?”

  “Yes, liberty; if he did not think that we were fallen, ruined people — — “

  “Now, my dear child, your father’s not ruined, I maintain it; there will be more left, I’m very certain, than he supposes; and I could have almost beaten you the other day for using that expression in speaking to Mr. Verney; but you are so impetuous — and then, could any one have done a more thoughtful or a kinder thing, and in a more perfectly delicate way? He hasn’t made you a present; he has only contrived that a purchase should be thrown in your way, which of all others was exactly what you most wished; he has not appeared, and never will appear in it; and I know, for my part, I’m very much obliged to him — if he has done it — and I think he admires you too much to run a risk of offending you.”

  “What?”

  “I do — I think he admires you.”

  The girl stood up again, and glanced at the mirror, I think, pleased, for a moment — and then took her candle, but paused by the table, looking thoughtfully. Was she paler than usual? or was it only that the light of the candle in her hand was thrown upward on her features? Then she said in a spoken meditation —

  “There are dreams that have in them, I think, the germs of insanity; and the sooner we dissipate them, don’t you think, the better and the wiser?”

  She smiled, nodded, and went away.

  Whose dreams did she mean? Cleve Verney’s, Miss Sheckleton’s, or — could it be, her own?

  * * *

  CHAPTER XIV.

  NEWS ABOUT THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS.

  Next morning Margaret Fanshawe was unusually silent at breakfast, except to her new friends the squirrels, whose cage she placed on a little table close by, and who had already begun to attach themselves to her. To them she talked, as she gave them their nuts, a great deal of that silvery nonsense which is pleasant to hear as any other pleasant sound in nature. But good old Miss Sheckleton thought her out of spirits.

  “She’s vexing herself about my conjectures,” thought the old lady. “I’m sorry I said a word about it. I believe I was a fool, but she’s a greater one. She’s young, however, and has that excuse.”

  “How old are you, Margaret?” said she abruptly, after a long silence.

  “Twenty-two, my last birthday,” answered the young lady, and looked, as if expecting a reason for the question.

  “Yes; so I thought,” said Miss Sheckleton. “The twenty-third of June — a midsummer birthday — your poor mamma used to say — the glow and flowers of summer — a brilliant augury.”

  “Brilliantly accomplished,” added the girl; “don’t you think so, Frisk, and you, little Comet? Are you not tired of Malory already, my friends? My cage is bigger, but so am I, don’t you see; you’d be happier climbing and hopping among the boughs. What am I to you, compared with liberty? I did not ask for you, little fools, did I? You came to me; and I will open the door of your cage some day, and give you back to the unknown — to chance — from which you came.”

  “You’re sad to-day, my child,” said Miss Sheckleton, laying her hand gently on her shoulder. “Are you vexed at what I said to you last night?”

  “What did you say?”

  “About these little things — the squirrels.”

  “No, darling, I don’t care. Why should I? They come from Fortune, and that little brown boy. They came no more to me than to you,” said the girl carelessly. “Yes, another nut; you shall, you little wonders!”

  “Now, that’s just what I was going to say. I might just as well have bought them as you; and I must confess I coloured my guess a little, for I only mentioned poor Whisk in passing, and I really don’t know that he heard me; and I think if he had thought of getting a squirrel for us, he’d have asked leave to send it to me. I could not have objected to that, you know; and that little boy may be ill, you know; or something may have happened to delay him, and he’ll turn up; and you’ll have to make a bargain, and pay a fair price for them yet.”

  “Yes, of course; I never thought anything else — eventually; and I knew all along you were jesting. I told these little creatures so this morning, over and over again. If they could speak they would say so. Would not you, you two dear little witches?”

  So she carried out her pets with her, and hung their cage among the boughs of the tree that stood by the rustic seat to which she used to take her book.

  “Well, I’ve relieved her mind,” thought Miss Sheckleton.

  But oddly enough, she found the young lady not sad, but rather cross and fierce all that afternoon — talking more bitterly than ever to her squirrels, about Malory, and with an angry kind of gaiety, of her approaching exile to France.

  “It is not always easy to know how to please young ladies,” thought Miss Sheckleton. “They won’t always take the trouble to know their own minds. Poor thing! It is very lonely — very lonesome, to be sure; — and this little temper will blow over.”

  So, full of these thoughts, Miss Sheckleton repaired to that mysterious study door within which Sir Booth, dangerous as a caged beast, paced his floor, and stormed and ground his teeth, over — not his own vices, prodigalities, and madness, but the fancied villanies of mankind — glared through his window in his paroxysms, and sent his curses like muttered thunder across the sea over the head of old Pendillion — and then would subside, and write long, rambling, rubbishy letters to his attorneys in London, which it was Miss Sheckleton’s business to enclose and direct, in her feminine hand, to her old friend Miss Ogden, of Bolton Street, Piccadilly, who saw after the due delivery of these missives, and made herself generally useful during the mystery and crisis of the Fanshawe affairs.

  Outside the sombre precincts of Malory Margaret Fanshawe would not go. Old Miss Sheckleton had urged her. Perhaps it was a girlish perversity; perhaps she really disliked the idea of again meeting or making an acquaintance. At all events, she was against any more excursions. Thus the days were dull at Malory, and even Miss Sheckleton was weary of her imprisonment.

  It is a nice thing to hit the exact point of reserve and difficulty at which an interest of a certain sort is piqued, without danger of being extinguished. Perhaps it is seldom compassed by art, and a fluke generally does it. I am absolutely certain that there was no design here. But there is a spirit of contrariety — a product of pride, of a sensitiveness almost morbid, of a reserve gliding into duplicity, a duplicity without calculation — which yet operates like design. Cleve was piqued — Cleve was angry. The spirit of the chase was roused, as often as he looked at the dusky woods of Malory.

  And now he had walked on three successive days past the old gateway, and on each of them, loitered long on the wind-beaten hill that overlooks the grounds of Malory. But in vain. He was no more accustomed to wait than Louis XIV. Now wonder he grew impatient, and meditated the wildest schemes — even that of walking up to the hall-door, and asking to see Sir Booth and Miss Sheckleton, and, if need be, Miss Fanshawe. He only knew that, one way or another, he must see
her. He was a young man of exorbitant impatience, and a violent will, and would control events.

  There are consequences, of course, and these subjugators are controlled in their turn. Time, as mechanical science shows us, is an element in power; and patience is in durability. God waits, and God is might. And without patience we enter not into the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of power, and the kingdom of eternity.

  Cleve Verney’s romance, next morning, was doomed to a prosaic interruption. He was examining a chart of the Cardyllian estuary, which hangs in the library, trying to account for the boat’s having touched the bank at low water, at a point where he fancied there was a fathom to spare, when the rustic servant entered with —

  “Please, sir, a gentleman which his name is Mr. Larkin, is at the door, and wishes to see you, sir, on partickler business, please.”

  “Just wait a moment, Edward. Three fathom — two — four feet — by Jove! So it is. We might have been aground for five hours; a shame there isn’t a buoy there — got off in a coach, by Jove! Larkin? Has he no card?”

  “Yes, sir, please.”

  “Oh! yes — very good. Mr. Larkin — The Lodge. Does he look like a gatekeeper?”

  “No, sir, please; quite the gentleman.”

  “What the devil can he want of me? Are you certain he did not ask for my uncle?”

  “Yes, sir — the Honourable Mr. Verney — which I told him he wasn’t here.”

  “And why did not you send him away, then?”

  “He asked me if you were here, and wished to see you partickler, sir.”

  “Larkin — The Lodge; what is he like — tall or short — old or young?” asked Cleve.

  “Tall gentleman, please, sir — not young — helderley, sir, rayther.”

  “By Jove! Larkin? I think it is. — Is he bald — a long face, eh?” asked Cleve with sudden interest.