Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “Miss Rachel is perfection,” said Carmel.

  “I didn’t mean nothing contrary,” said Clewson.

  “Think of such a man as that coming to marry her!” said Sherlock.

  “Well, it is a lift for her,” observed Mr. Clewson. “A very desirable halliance. He’s took a vilent fancy, I dessay; he’s that sort— “

  Carmel repeated, rather to himself than to his companion:

  “‘L’amour arrive en chantant, Et s’en retourne en pleurant.’

  “You may have read that — why not? French. Yes, he knows French; it’s in the Morte d’Arthur, and it’s very true.”

  And so Mr. Clewson went up and Mr. Sherlock down, and the little conference at the large window on the lobby came to an end.

  The Reverend Stour Temple paid a visit early next day at Raby. The two young ladies, Sir Roke, and Mark Shadwell, were at luncheon very sociably; and at this irregular meal, the vicar joined them in the dining-room.

  Mark did not like the vicar, but he welcomed him courteously.

  “You remember Roke Wycherly? Roke, you recollect Temple, at Oxford?”

  Sir Roke gave him two fingers, and one of his bleak smiles, as he looked up at him from his chair.

  “Charmed to see you, Temple; it’s so many years. Pray don’t count them. And you’re at Ridleston, here, Mark tells me. You were good at most things; you pulled a very good oar, and I remember you were a capital wicketkeeper. No cricket now-a-days, I dare say?” Stour Temple smiled with a sad and supercilious complacency over these recollections of his prowess.

  “Never played since I took orders. I suppose I could not stop a ball now. I’ve an objection to clergymen playing.”

  “I don’t see why they shouldn’t,” said Sir Roke; “they want exercise as much as laymen, I fancy, and it would prevent their growing so fat as some of them do.”

  “My duties afford me exercise enough,” he replied, with a smile; “by the time I get home, I shall have walked fourteen or fifteen miles.”

  “I wish they were all as active as you, Temple, I’ve a fellow down at Scarbrook; he rides at a walk on a horrid cob, and he’s as fat as I don’t know what; never visits his people, nor does a bit of good, from one year’s end to another. I wish the brute would get his apoplexy, and make a vacancy for a useful man like you.”

  The Reverend Stour Temple looked not flattered, but very grave, and even stem, and Mark thought, with some pleasure, that he was on the point of rebuking the baronet, whose temper might have exploded under that liberty. But it did not come, then, at least.

  The Reverend Stour Temple had not been five minutes in the room, indeed, when Mark perceived that there was something upon his mind. He was silent and thoughtful, and being an abstemious man, luncheon was to him a ceremony quickly over.

  “How pretty the old Tower of Raby and the village look from the summit of the wood!” said the vicar, awaking from a reverie, and speaking apropos of nothing. “There’s a market there to-day. I crossed the uplands, and you can’t think how pretty it looks, lying among the trees and enclosures beneath you. It would almost repay the walk, if you would venture so long a ramble,” he smiled, as he spoke to Rachel. “There are very fine clouds, too, to-day, for a background; such towering piles of vapour! I should have suspected thunder, but that it would be too soon. It’s hardly ten days since we had that thunderstorm.”

  “More than a fortnight,” said Mark Shadwell.

  “Ha?” said the vicar. “Time cheats us, Sir Roke, in the country.”

  “Suppose we make that our walk?” said Rachel, addressing Miss Marlyn.

  “Mr. Temple says it looks so well. I should like very much,” she said, with a timid glance towards the clergyman.

  He made, however, no sort of answer to this little overture, and said to Mark:

  “I crossed from Pennelston; that poor man I spoke to you about died this morning.”

  “Oh, did he? — poor fellow!” said Mark, with a slight flush, and looking at the landscape through the window. He thought Stour Temple’s cold eyes were upon him, and I rather think he had forgotten all about the farmer of Pennelstone and his wants. “Very sorry, poor fellow! You mustn’t go, Temple, I’ll be back in a moment, only to write a note in the study.”

  This Mark Shadwell said with the intention of seeing the vicar no more that day; for he was always uncomfortable in his presence, and so had made a step or two towards the door, when the vicar said:

  “Will you excuse my asking just two or three minutes with you, in the study? only a word or two.”

  “Certainly,” said Shadwell, as cheerfully as he could, “whenever you please.”

  He crossed the hall, vexed and in a petty suspense that irritated him, shut his study door rather sharply behind him, walked across it, pulled out an old quarto, and read with a sour countenance, on its back, the harmless inscription, “Histoire des Voyages, tom viii.,” and having read this inscription several times over, he threw it on the table a little roughly.

  “That fellow’s a sort of irritant,” he said. “I never met him yet that he hadn’t something to pester about. I wonder what it is now?”

  Intuitively Mark Shadwell felt that it was something more than usually annoying.

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  A WARNING WORD.

  THE vicar, meanwhile, loitered away a few minutes beside Sir Roke in the dining-room window, to allow Shadwell time to write his imaginary note.

  “I had heard, Sir Roke, that you were here.”

  “Oh!” said Sir Roke, with one of his smiles and faint bows.

  “And I should have been over here to pay my respects before now, had my time been my own.

  “Sir Roke smiled and bowed a little, and laid his hand upon the vicar’s arm:

  “My dear Temple, I should not have stood on ceremony with you,” said he. “I meant to run over to the Vicarage — which, I am told, is quite a little Paradise — and see you before I left the country.”

  “Very good of you,” answered the vicar. “I’ve been anxious to see you from the moment I heard you were here. I’ve been wishing very much to speak to you.” He looked on Sir Roke for a moment as if he were on the point of opening his case, whatever it might be; but the young ladies were chatting in the room, and, after a moment’s reflection, he continued: “I came to-day hardly hoping for an opportunity, and I thought it, on the whole, a better plan to write what was in my mind, and — I’ve put it in this letter.”

  Sir Roke nodded affably as he took it.

  “And, I’m afraid, it’s tedious; but will you kindly read it through?” said the vicar.

  “Certainly — rely upon me — every syllable — and give it my best attention too,” answered Sir Roke, graciously.

  “That’s all I ask, Sir Roke,” replied Stour Temple.

  “How grand that fellow looks! That letter’s to ask me for the presentation to Scarbrook; and you’d fancy he was going to ask my leave to build a church or an hospital. Sanctimonious rogues!” So thought Sir Roke, and said aloud, “I’ll not open it note, dear Temple; I’ll wait for a quiet opportunity; isn’t it better?”

  “Certainly!” acquiesced he; “and it’s time I were going.”

  So the Reverend Stour Temple took his leave, and went direct to the well-known door of Shadwell’s study, and found that gentleman awaiting him impatiently.

  “Well, Temple, what is it? I’ve been playing the devil somewhere, or you wouldn’t have something particular to tell me. Pray go on; I’m prepared for something uncomfortable,” and he laughed a little viciously.

  “Sorry my mission is not generally pleasanter,” said the vicar; “but you mistake me now. I’m not going to blame any one. I’ve sought this opportunity only to say a word of warning.”

  “Well, thank you — I’m all ear,” he replied, as gaily as he could.

  “I have had a letter from a friend — a resident at Darmonville — and I think I’m bound to tell you that it concerns Miss Agnes Marlyn, now dome
sticated in your family, and that it conveys a rather — in my mind — a very unfavourable impression of that young lady.”

  “That’s very odd!” said Mark, sharply, and looking rather aghast.

  “Not so odd in a French boarding-school as it might in an English one,” said the Reverend Stour Temple. “Recollect, I say only unfavourable. What I have to report does not amount to criminality. God forbid I should seem to intend more than I have warrant for; but her conduct there was characterised by great deceit and unpardonable indiscretion.” Mark Shadwell looked full in the vicar’s eyes, rather pale, and he seemed altogether more shocked than a man of the world might have been expected to be, on learning that a young governess had been, in matters of mere decorum, a degree less discreet than seemed fit to the Reverend Stour Temple.

  “It seems odd we should hear it in this roundabout way; and it strikes me as a little too vague and intangible to consist quite with the laws of fair-play — to say nothing of charity,” said he, with a rather dubious sneer, after a little pause.

  “It reaches you in a circuitous way, because Miss Marlyn was recommended in the absence of the principal of the school, Madame de la Perriere, who, rightly or wrongly, was afterwards reluctant to disturb Miss Marlyn’s position here, hoping that she would conduct herself with more discretion in your house.”

  “And nothing could be more unexceptionable,” interposed Mark Shadwell.

  “And so far from being vague, the statement is very precise indeed. The young lady is ascertained to have let herself out of the school at night, on no less than five several occasions, by means of a’ key improperly obtained. On three of these occasions she met the friend or agent of a gentleman, whom Madame de la Perriere says she believes, or hopes, to have been seeking her privately in marriage; and on the two last occasions she met the gentleman himself, in the house, however, of Madame DuBois a shoemaker. This woman used to meet her at the wicket of the school-garden, conduct her to and from her house — so they say — and remain in the room during the entire interview; and, with the exception of this piece of — what shall I term it? — this Madame DuBois was always accounted a person of unexceptionable good conduct. These are the facts, so far as they are known; and, to that extent, they seem to me positively reprehensible as well as suspicious; and it seemed to me right that you should be made aware of the particulars of the impropriety of which the young person now placed in an intimacy with Miss Shadwell is capable.”

  “Well — ha! — yes — I still can hardly believe it. If Miss Marlyn is not a fit person to be here, what business had those people sending her? Of course, if we begin angling for stories and gossip, we’ll get enough of them. I think I did all that was right when I applied to the head of the school; and there has been a very good account of her, and she has been everything we could wish since she’s been here; and I do wish people would not wait until all the expense has been gone to of bringing her over to this delicious place, and then begin collecting — I mean sending over — the tattle of an idle French town, and expect me — who haven’t a guinea, by Jove! — to throw away money by handfuls, for no better reason.”

  “The occurrences I have mentioned are perfectly ascertained,” said the vicar, whose cold self-possession was never ruffled by Mark Shadwell’s hard words. “If the statement consisted of mere gossip, as you suppose, I should not have troubled you with it — I should not have repeated it anywhere, and I should not have given it a moments consideration myself; but all I have related is true; and were I the head of a household in which Miss Marlyn filled the delicate and important place which she occupies here, I should at once withdraw my confidence, and no consideration would induce me to retain her services.”

  “Yes, that’s all very fine!” said Mark Shadwell; “nothing easier than managing imaginary families, and lecturing other people on their duties, and practising all the virtues of the decalogue by proxy.”

  Mark Shadwell was always irritated by the officious morality of the vicar, and by his unaffected serenity under his attacks. It was an assumption of superiority, and galled his pride.

  “Of course, I’m a mere child,” he went on, “I know, and quite below the serious notice of a divine of the Church of England; but I may be supposed to know something about my own affairs. Miss Marlyn is, so far as I can see, quite a lady. We have found her perfectly satisfactory, and she has been a companion to my poor wife in her solitude, and very kind, and I really don’t know how she could get on without her.”

  The Reverend Stour Temple remained provokingly silent and attentive, and, as usual, Mark’s choler rose.

  “And I don’t see, with you, that, making common allowance for exaggeration, there’s any case for turning this young lady adrift on the world; I think, on the contrary, it would be monstrous. Of course, I’ll consider it; I’ll talk it over with my wife. You have not spoken to her, have you?” he asked, sharply.

  “Certainly not,” answered the vicar.

  “No — I’m the proper person to do that, I fancy.”

  “Of course,” said the clergyman.

  “And, in fact, I shall leave the whole thing very much in her hands.”

  “I’ve done now, I hope, at least, my duty; and, I may add, a very painful one. I did not seek the information I have communicated; but, having received it, I could not in conscience reserve it from you.”

  “No — well, it’s off your mind now, and we can best advise about it, don’t you think — my wife and I?”

  The vicar answered nothing, he only bowed; and said he:

  “I sha’n’t interrupt you further, I must go; how long, by-the-bye, does Sir Roke remain here?”

  “Two or three days.”

  “Farewell.”

  Mark Shadwell walked with him to the steps, and standing above his demi-griffins, nodded and waved his hand, with a very sombre smile, to the retreating vicar.

  Mark was indeed very much disturbed. He had not the slightest notion of telling this story, elaborately, to his wife. “Women do run away with things so.” Neither had he a thought of dismissing Miss Marlyn. But a responsibility was cast upon him which he hated; also a doubt troubled him to a degree which he could not have anticipated. How had the vicar learned this? He might know a great deal more; that is, detail — particulars, which, although they did not affect the moral of the story, yet interested him intensely.

  “I say, Temple,” he called after the vicar, following him; “one word.”

  The clergyman tamed about and paused.

  “I forgot; you’ll be returning this way, sha’n’t you? — just about our dinner-hour — you must come and dine with us — you really must.”

  “You’re very good, but I fear— “

  “Pray do — it will be really a kindness. I make it a point; you won’t refuse.”

  “You are very kind,” repeated Stour Temple, looking down for a moment on the grass by his feet, and thinking.

  “Yes, you will come?”

  “Very well — yes — many thanks,” said the vicar; and with a second farewell he took his departure, and Mark Shadwell stood for a while looking after his receding figure, not knowing, quite distinctly, why it was that so trifling a story had so utterly confounded him.

  VOLUME II.

  CHAPTER I.

  THE VICAR TAKES HIS HAT.

  Sir Roke Wycherly took a little desultory walk with the young ladies, and was very chatty and agreeable; directing, however, his conversation principally, as perhaps was natural, to Rachel, who was beginning to get over the little shock of her companion’s absurd conversation of yesterday.

  It was not until Sir Roke had ended, for that bout, his compliments and gaieties, and put off his smiles and his walking coat, in his dressing-room, and collapsed on a sudden into that bitter, peevish, and formidable man of snarls, scowls, and wrinkles, with whom Mr.

  Clewson had to do, that he saw and remembered the letter which the Reverend Stour Temple had placed in his hand. He enjoyed a certain sort of psy
chology, and broke the seal with an anticipation of amusement.

  Nothing akin to amusement awaited him, however. The supercilious radiance with which he had opened it vanished before he had read half-a-dozen lines, and gradually his face darkened and corrugated like that of an angry monkey.

  Mr. Clewson, making arrangements at the dressing-table, heard distinctly the hissings and splutterings of the high pressure.

  Sir Roke folded the letter but half read, and with a hand that trembled with anger, thrust it into his dressing-gown pocket.

  The fact is, there was a shadow of disappointment, if not of dismay, in the rage that agitated Sir Roke’s countenance.

  “Upon my soul, Mr. Stour Temple, you’ve got on a bit since I had last the pleasure of meeting you! You are one of those saints whose religion is made up of fire and brimstone, and impertinence — you think you may insult any one in any way that pleases your vulgar arrogance, provided you do it in the name of the thirty-nine articles.”

  If at this moment Sir Roke had encountered the vicar, he would have given him a piece of his mind, together with some expletives better omitted. But the baronet, except when his virulent temper overcame him, was a particularly cool man: without natural affection, without impracticable resentments, with all his malignities under the supreme guidance and control of convenience.

  By dinner-time he had cooled down perfectly. Disliking the vicar intensely, he was not in the slightest danger of meeting him with any evidences of irritation.

  The Reverend Stour Temple was there, and sat beside Amy Shadwell, with whom he talked, and very little with the other guests: unusually grave, and, at times, abstracted; and was not Mark Shadwell more silent, too, than usual? Had it not been for Sir Roke, indeed, the tide of conversation would have ebbed utterly, and all lain flat, black, and dismal.

  “I think you walk too much. Are not you overdoing it a little, Temple?” said his host, observing his look of fatigue. “Take some sherry — that light wine is nothing when one’s tired.”