Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “Sunset — yes,” he said; “I suppose so. I never understood art, or whatever it is. I dare say we have.”

  “It was particularly beautiful this evening,” said Sir Roke.

  “Oh, yes, I do recollect. I believe it was. You’re alone here? I hope I’m not very late.” He looked at his watch, and compared it with the clock over the chimneypiece.

  “I believe it is I who am unusually early” said Sir Roke. “We had rather a good game last night; but you pigeoned me, Mark. Suppose you look in on me tonight, and give me my revenge?”

  “No, thanks, no,” said Mark, drily, and even sternly.

  Mark’s attempt to talk and look as usual had broken down. In that sort of accomplishment the more artificial man beat him easily. But had Sir Roke known the adventure of the little French writing-desk, and what awful eyes had peeped into his foolish little letters, the acting would not have been so easy.

  “No, and why not? haven’t I an equity — a sort of right to my chance?” laughed Sir Roke, persuasively. The fact is, he reckoned upon the opportunity of the little game and conversation to remove the uncomfortable impression which he knew the surprise of that day had left upon the mind of Mark Shadwell.

  “I’ll not play tonight, thanks,” he said, abruptly, and looked for a moment in Sir Roke’s face, as if he meditated saying something unusual; but he checked himself, and added, only more in his accustomed way: “I’ve but a few minutes to dress — sorry to run away and leave you alone; but we shall all be here in two or three minutes.”

  And glancing again on the dial of the clock, as he might on the face of a man he hated, he disappeared.

  Sir Roke leaned with his elbow upon the mantlepiece, and smiled into the oldfashioned looking-glass over it, and laughed a little.

  “That fellow is perfectly wild, and ashamed to say what’s the matter with him. He’s great fun — delicious, isn’t it? Trying to smile, pale with rage, he’d like to fire a bullet through my head; he’s so jealous, and he dare not hint at the cause of his fury. Capital comedy! Inconvenient, perhaps; so we’ll quiet him tonight — quiet him tonight — we must part peaceably.”

  Miss Agnes Marlyn meanwhile had gone up the stairs, and reached her own sequestered room. She shut the door, and candle in hand, surveyed her beautiful features in her modest looking-glass; a little flushed her cheeks were, unnaturally bright her eyes. She had never seen that expression in her face before — excited, defiant, a little wicked and handsome, with a peculiar beauty. The strange look of disdain and shame and triumph met her from the homely glass, and a feeling of admiration thrilled her, and she smiled with a baleful divination.

  “Yes, you are beautiful,” she whispered, looking sidelong on herself. “There’s no one so beautiful, and beauty is power. Agnes! Agnes! is it wise? Yes, she stoops to conquer,” she repeated with the same bitter smile, reciting the title of the play that lay open in the ragged little volume upon her dressing-table: “her little foot will yet rest upon the neck of the man who thinks he has subdued her. Yes, Agnes, what others have done without more cleverness, and with half your beauty, you shall do. There is a brilliant future.”

  A momentary trance and a sigh, and then she glanced at that homely little silver watch that recalled her present poverty, and it suddenly reminded her that it was now near the dinner hour, and then she made a rapid toilet; and crossing the floor with her candle in her hand, the light fell suddenly on the ruin of her little desk.

  There were men and women, I dare say, on whose murdered bodies she could have looked with more composure than upon the fragments of that outraged desk.

  Who had done that?

  When Robinson Crusoe saw the footprint on the sand, and felt that his solitary dominion was invaded, and that perhaps the secrets on which his life depended were discovered, he was not, for the moment, chilled with so grim a horror.

  “Who has done it?”

  She stood erect, looking down on it motionless and pale, with a scowl of fear.

  Could she have laid it on the mantlepiece, and the cat — that ubiquitous marauder — have knocked it down upon the hearthstone?

  The hypothesis was a momentary relief — momentary only — for she remembered well having returned as she was leaving the room that day, and unlocked it to read a sentence in one of her secret letters, the exact phraseology of which she had forgotten. She distinctly remembered the very spot on the table where she had left it locked.

  “Good God! who has been here?”

  She kneeled down and rummaged among the debris of the rosewood, broken glass, pens, little seals, keys, and the rest, for a second or two.

  “Not a letter left. The villain!”

  And up she started like a spectre, still staring on the ruin, and accidentally placed her hand upon the letters on the table.

  “Oh! ho — ha; here they are,” she gasped; and I think if her training had been at all different she would have said “Thank God!” She felt as if she were on the point of fainting.

  “I see it all now, that stupid maid. Yes, Mary dropped it, and here she has placed the letters together.”

  As she murmured this comfort, smiling with pale lips, she raised the little packet of letters.

  Alas! here was consternation anew. Miss Marlyn was one of those persons born with the genius of neatness, and no letter of hers ever returned to its berth in her desk unsheathed in its proper envelope. But here they were — all disarranged — a few in their envelopes. The greater part just doubled up as they had been laid down by the careless hand of the person who did not think it worth while, it seemed, to conceal the evidence of the outrage.

  The three letters of Sir Roke Wycherly lay at the top of the little pile, all out of their envelopes, and one had plainly been crumpled together in a strong hand as if in anger.

  Agnes Marlyn fenced with the conclusion no longer. The thing she had feared — the moment she saw the wreck upon the floor — was no longer disputable.

  More accomplished sinners than she would perhaps have been little dismayed after a few minutes, and bethought them of a mode of darning their broken cobwebs. But Miss Agnes Marlyn had some attributes which rather marred her art. There was a fiery vein of passion in her nature; also there was an odd pride, which reared and shied at trifles, of which others would have made nothing. To deceive with her was easy. It was from the vulgarity and detail of clumsy mendacity that she recoiled. She would not construct a card castle of lies that might fall flat at any moment, and leave her stolen bijouterie exposed. Her lies were chiefly of reserve. She had not quite the evil humility for a system of positive falsehood; her arrogance recoiled from the risk of failure, and who was worth the degradation.

  “Who is injured? I! He thinks it fine and tragic, this outrage of a brigand. Oh, quel gentilhomme! I will not go down this evening.”

  She sorted her letters — after all they were not very many — she tied them up, and placed the little parcel under her pillow —

  “I will keep guard over them here.”

  The dinner-bell rang; she heard it, and flushed suddenly with a flashing glance towards the door.

  “The idea! To think that I, after this, should sit down at the same table!”

  She did not collect or disturb the fragments of her little desk; she looked down upon them with a bitter smile.

  “Let them lie as he left them, to reproach a robber!” she said.

  Then she sat down at the dressing-table. Storm is not a term to describe the state of her mind. The analogy was rather in the lurid glow, the rolling smoke, and the sudden glare of a crater.

  “Whatever vacillation there may have been, whatever chance, he has ended all.”

  Then came a knock at her door: it was a servant, to tell Miss Marlyn that the little party were at dinner.

  Miss Marlyn had a headache, and could not leave her room.

  A few minutes later Rachel came into the room. I don’t know in what channel Miss Marlyn’s thoughts had been running at that moment; b
ut she rose very pale, and turned her large eyes on her companion, with a feeling like a shudder.

  “Oh, you?” she murmured.

  “Yes, Agnes, dear; you do look very poorly — you should lie down — can I do anything for you, you poor little thing?”

  “Nothing, dear; no.”

  “I’ll stay a little with you, at all events.”

  “No, dear; don’t stay!”

  “But you do look so poorly — I can’t leave you.”

  “You must leave me; yes, dear, you must,” said Agnes Marlyn, in a cold, almost a repulsive tone.

  “Is it really pain, dear Agnes; or have you heard anything that grieves you?”

  “I’ve heard nothing — no news — pain is the shortest word.”

  “But are you vexed with me?” pleaded Rachel.

  “Not the least, dear child — no — pain expresses it very well,” said Agnes Marlyn.

  “If you really mean pain, poor little Pucelle— “

  “Don’t call me that — nor any other pet name,” said Agnes, abruptly.

  “Something has vexed you, dear Agnes, and I am sure you will tell me what it is; but if you are suffering — if it is pain — you must lie down.”

  “No — no — no, child; you’re very good, but you bore me. I won’t lie down; I shall remain here — and I shall remain alone. They’ll wonder what detains you — pray go. By and bye, you’ll hear me talked over, I dare say; you look at me as if I had two heads,” — Agnes laughed coldly— “but you will; and I don’t care many pins what’s said of me! It’s well they can’t hurt me, or dash me to pieces like that!” and she pointed, with a fierce and bitter smile, at her desk.

  “Why, it’s broken — your little desk — who did it?”

  “Cowards!” said Agnes, with a quiet scorn.

  “I can’t make it out; what has occurred? who dared to break it? do tell me. You must tell me what has happened,” exclaimed Rachel, shocked and excited.

  “Pray go down, there’s a dear girl, for I’m not going to tell you anything about it; no, not a word. I may, though, for I’m sure it will be a pleasant story. I shall choose my own time, however; and now I’ve said all I mean to say for the present — whatever my pain may be, solitude is the best cure for it. Goodbye!”

  “You won’t allow me to remain, then?”

  “No!” said Agnes, decisively.

  Rachel looked wounded.

  “Very well, Agnes; will you allow me to send you some dinner here?”

  ““What a question! how it shocks the sentiment of the situation!” answered the young lady, mockingly. “No, Rachel, seriously, I have been startled, and made angry, made almost faint, and that kind of thing does not leave one much appetite — and pray do believe me, dear, once for all, I choose to be alone. I know you mean kindly, but I must insist on it, and so goodbye, or goodnight, or whatever you please to make it.”

  “Well, then, as you will have it so, I will go; but you’ll allow me at least to send you candles, for you are very nearly in the dark?”

  Agnes made no answer.

  “And I’ll run up and see you just now again,” she said.

  Still the same ungracious silence.

  “Goodbye, dear Pucelle; I hope I shall find you a great deal better.”

  And as Pucelle made no sign, after another little pause, Rachel Shadwell ran down the stairs again.

  CHAPTER IX.

  BICKERING.

  THE dinner party at Raby that night was not quite so small as you may have supposed; Miss Marlyn’s place was unexpectedly filled by the vicar.

  The Reverend Stour Temple had to call on his errands at out-of-the-way times, as his parish business and long circuits brought him to the doors where they were to be done, unseasonably. He did not enjoy his occasional dinners at Raby. The loving little party at home, with its quaint admirations and perfect harmony, contrasted sweetly with the gloom and comfortless severity of Raby. He had no hope, either, of being of any use to Mark. They never approached the one subject on which the vicar wished to talk with him without uncomfortable results. Mark was conceited and irritable, and, where his superiority was touched, insolent. The vicar was too unbending — shall I say proud? — for his meek and patient calling; and, provided he spoke the thing that was true, he did not perhaps care sufficiently how or when. This great embassage is addressed to creatures weak, volatile, and violent; and needs a diplomacy the wisest, the most sensitive, the most patient. Perhaps, though the vicar was not conscious of it, the fault was not altogether Mark’s, that, when they met, they parted no better friends, and with no progress made.

  “Ho! Temple! I’m glad you’re here; I’m very glad!”

  “Many thanks! I’ve just been making inquiries and leaving a note — here it is — from my sister, with a message to Mrs. Shadwell.”

  “My wife sha’n’t have the message from any one but you; you shall deliver it yourself, and stay and help me to entertain Roke Wycherly.”

  “You are too good; but they expect me at home.”

  “The old excuse, but it sha’n’t do now,” said Mark, quickly.

  “And another; I have not walked to-day, but ridden, so my poor pony stands, with his bridle fastened at the doorsteps; he has carried me twenty miles to-day, and awaits me, I dare say, impatiently enough.”

  “We’ll make him comfortable here; we’ve room enough, I promise you, and though you mightn’t suppose it, there is some corn and hay, and I undertake a comfortable supper.”

  “I’m afraid— “ said the vicar, smiling, and shaking his head.

  “Don’t refuse me this time,” said Mark, with an odd entreaty in his manner, which the clergyman observed, and the more that Mark was not very hard to put off with an excuse on ordinary occasions. It struck him that Mark had some special reason for pressing him. There was a little hesitation, and Stour Temple’s dark eyes looked for a moment with a grave inquiry in his face.

  “Yes, I see you will, you’re going to stay; you won’t refuse,” said Mark Shadwell, and prevailed.

  So the after-dinner tête-à-tête with Sir Roke Wycherly was avoided, and no wonder Mark Shadwell disliked it.

  There was something excited, Stour Temple thought, in his host’s manner, which suggested a suspicion of a quarrel; but Sir Roke’s ease and gaiety rebuked the idea, and the vicar, still fancying that there was something wrong, did not know exactly what to think.

  He was not a man, however, to be a bit put out by the suspicion of a quarrel, and he chatted quite as usual during dinner, and was glad to perceive that whoever else the persons in disgrace might be, Mrs. Shadwell and Rachel were just as usual.

  Miss Marlyn, the only absent person, had a headache. Had Mark Shadwell taken some decided step respecting her, and was she about to leave Raby? Yes, Mark must have had a scene with her, and her headache was a result of it. He looked at Rachel’s innocent and pretty face, and he was glad. He had an ill opinion of that beautiful Miss Agnes, and she knew it.

  When the ladies departed, these three gentlemen began to talk. They were not well assorted. The vicar was not a flexible man, and Mark Shadwell was in one of his moods. So the conversation ran not smoothly on, but jolted and dragged, and made sudden starts and stops.

  The baronet seemed in high spirits. He was amused, he was affable, he was gay. The vicar might have observed that Mark talked little to him, and that his eye was surly, though he did his office, as Sir Roke’s host, rather ceremoniously — a coldness, an elevation which amused Sir Roke, I dare say, and the suspicion that it did so made Mark angrier. But the vicar was not a man of observation, and took no trouble to theorise on what he saw. His account to his sister was:

  “Sir Roke was very chatty, and seemed better than when I last saw him; he leaves tomorrow. Mr. Shadwell was a little out of spirits.”

  “And Sir Roke goes away tomorrow?” said his sister.

  “Yes, and I’m very glad he does.”

  “Glad, dear! And why glad?” asked his good sist
er, a little curious.

  “I don’t think that Raby is the kind of place that suits Sir Roke. I don’t think he cares for their society.”

  “Dear me! and MR Shadwell so agreeable a man when he chooses.”

  “Yery agreeable — as I am — in this out-of-the-way corner of the world; but not so agreeable, I am afraid, to a man who sees and hears clever men in the capitals of the world.”

  “But why are you glad he is going? That, I’m sure, is not your reason — I mean, your only one.”

  “You are right, dear, and I’ll tell you my other this day twelvemonth, if I remember it; sooner, perhaps, but not tonight.”

  At present, however, he is one of the party of three, and the conversation which devolves chiefly upon him and Sir Roke has just taken this turn:

  “He was one of those fellows,” said the baronet, “who are, by some people, emphatically styled gentlemen.”

  “Don’t you think that’s rather a vague term, now-a-days at least? It had a meaning, no doubt. Would you undertake to define it now?” interposed Mark Shadwell, suddenly. The vicar fancied a suspicion of a sneer in the question, and was rather confirmed by the lines of Mark’s countenance as he asked it.

  “It’s too complex an idea for me,” laughed Sir Roke, with a shake of his head. “Temple must give us his idea — do, pray.”

  “Don’t you think old Chaucer has given us a fair outline of a gentleman? you remember:

  “‘A knight there was, and that a worthy man,

  That from the tymé that he ferst began

  To ryden out, he lovede chyvalrye

  Trouthe and honour, freedom and curtesie,

  At mortal battles had he ben fiftene,

  And foughten for our feith at Tramassene.

  And though that he was worthy, he was wys,

  And of his port as meke as is a mayde.

  He never yit no vilonye ne sayde

  In all his lyf, unto no maner wight,

  He was a verray perfight gentil knight.’”

  The vicar concluded his little recitation, and Mark Shadwell repeated: