Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “Blood — blood — I dare say! Do you know me?” he whispered.

  “Know you — to be sure; but you’re hurt, Mr. Sherlock, sir. You’ve got a knock over the head, or something,” said Clewson.

  “Yes, sir — I’m very ill.”

  “I’ll help you, sir, to wash your head, Mr. Sherlock; and I’ve some plaster, sir; and your hand — it’s cut, isn’t it?” said Mr. Clewson, putting his foot out of the bed.

  “Eli? who told you my hand’s cut — cut? That it is, to the bone — to the bone!”

  “I’ll give you a lift, Mr. Sherlock, sir, and get it all right, if you please.”

  “Hush! Was that a call, sir, from Sir Roke’s room — Sir Roke Wycherly, Baronet?” said Carmel Sherlock.

  “No, sir — nothink, Mr. Sherlock — no I” said the man, listening nevertheless.

  “A. jibe, sir; an angel; shall we go and help him?” whispered Sherlock, wildly.

  “But he did not call, sir! The smallest trifle wakens him — he was getting to bed, Mr. Sherlock, more than an hour ago. I’m sure I wouldn’t wake him for somethink — he’s quiet now.”

  “Lethali somno exporrectus,” said Sherlock, and sighed. “Shall we come?”

  “Where?” asked Clewson.

  “To Sir Roke.”

  “I tell you, let him alone — can’t you? He’s asleepwhispered Clewson, testily.

  “Ay, ay; Homerus ‘Thanton’ et ‘Ypnon’ Germanos finxit. In there, sir, frater, fratrem amplectitur — brother embraces brother. My hand!”

  “Let me do it up for you, sir; pray do?” said Clewson, again essaying to rise.

  “No, sir, I’ll manage it — blood, to be sure — let Justice drink it; it is the milk she lives on, if a man catches the blade instead of the handle! an image of life — the way of death — a topsy-turvy world.”

  All this time he was groping on the floor; and looking for what he had dropped. He found it, and stood up.

  Mr. Clewson could not see it distinctly, for he thrust the hand that held it quickly under the breast of his coat, but he did see a momentary metallic gleam. It was either a very small bright-barrelled pistol, or as he inclined to conclude, a knife.

  “Ay, sir, the altar of Justice; between this and there a path of blood — the via lactea — and there you’ll find her sacrifice — like herself — blind, and cold!”

  Mr. Clewson seeing Carmel Sherlock, about whose growing eccentricities the servants had been talking, now again approaching his bedside, with the same dreadful expression of feature, and the unexplained blood-marks, and a knife, as he thought, in his hand, could stand his uncomfortable sensations no longer.

  “Jest you get away with you, please; don’t mind acoming to me, sir. What brings you here at this hour? It can’t be far from daylight.”

  “Ay, ay,” said Carmel Sherlock, and a strange craft and suspicion suddenly appeared in his face, and his eyes seemed to read Mr. Clewson’s thoughts with a dangerous scrutiny. “Ay, very unseasonable; but when a man cuts his hand, you wouldn’t have him go on bleeding — blood is life, you know — when a friend could stanch it; so I came up the back stair, and then hesitated to waken you.”

  “Well, I’ll do it up for you, if you like,” began Clewson.

  “No, I remember I have got it — better plaster — in my own room — the best — and it’s hardly bleeding now. Thanks, sir; thanks, good Samaritan.”

  “And what did you want of Sir Roke, sir?”

  “Well, Mrs. Wyndle says, you told her he has a medicine-chest, with everything in it, and I thought you might bring me to his room quietly; but I remembered he keeps his door bolted, and we couldn’t get in without disturbing him; and I don’t care about it, sir, for it has turned out next to nothing; so I’ll go to my bed — goodnight, sir, — I’m tired and sleepy.”

  Carmel, for a second or two after this little speech was closed, continued to fix a shrinking gaze on Clewson, and suddenly repeated his “goodnight!” and turned to depart.

  “Goodnight, sir,” said Clewson more civilly.

  And the moment Carmel Sherlock had left the room and closed the door, cautious Mr. Clewson skipped noiselessly to it, from his bed, and bolted it, lest Mr. Sherlock should change his mind and return. That Mr. Sherlock was more than half-crazed was the opinion of the servants’ hall. The plight he was in tonight was by no means reassuring, and Mr. Clewson was very well pleased, for the first time in his life, at the precaution of that oldfashioned falling bolt, which secured Sir Roke’s door on the inside.

  When he was about to step once more into his bed, his attention was arrested by a sound in the stableyard, of which his window commanded a full view. To the window therefore he returned, and thence he saw Carmel Sherlock cross the paved yard toward the stables.

  It was a brilliant frosty moonlight; the walls, the ivy, the pavement, showed all in intense whiteness, and the figure of Carmel Sherlock, as he walked swiftly across the pavement, was sharply defined, and its shadow lay clear and black on the stones. A great stone trough stands in front of the huge old pump, and against its side lay a thick pronged pitchfork, a broom, and a shovel, and the sight of these homely implements seemed to arrest his attention, for he stopped suddenly, and took up the pitchfork and turned it over in his hands, and then placed it leaning against the pump; and he took from the breastpocket of his coat a knife — there was no mistake about it now — and turned haft and blade quickly about in his hands. Then suddenly he looked up at the house, at the same time thrusting the knife into his pocket again, searching window after window with his glance. Mr. Clewson stepped back quickly, forgetting that there was no light in his room.

  His eyes having run quickly along the windows, Mr. Sherlock took the pitchfork again in his hands, and went direct to a little iron grating, which let off the drain near the stable-door, and having first tried to pass the knife through its bars in vain, he then, with the prong of the pitchfork, forced two of them a little apart, and so dropped the knife in, and then carefully readjusted the grating. Then he looked up again at the windows, and proceeded to wash his hands and face hurriedly at the stone tank before the pump.

  Mr. Clewson watched him, with much curiosity, through these processes; hoping that he had been about no mischief, well knowing what an oddity he was, and willing to suppose the best, yet with a most uncomfortable misgiving.

  When Carmel Sherlock had completed his ablutions he walked to the stable-door, unlocked it, and disappeared for a little, returning in a few minutes leading the horse he usually rode saddled and bridled. Mr. Clewson then remembered that he had heard that Mr. Sherlock, when he had to visit a distant part of the estate, sometimes set out as early as three o’clock in the morning. He watched him till he unlocked the outer door and led the horse out of the yard. Mr. Clewson looked at his watch, in the light which the moon afforded, and found that it was halfpast three; and then he return to his bed a good deal quieted.

  “He’s a very quiet man, is Mr. Sherlock. I never heard of his quarrelling with no one. A nice man, and knows a deal o’ book-learning, he does. It’s just one of them early rides; and he’s cut his finger, and he took his revenge o’ the knife — he is sich a queer un. ‘Well,’ he’s broke up my night’s rest a bit, he has — the fool!”

  And with this remark, rather cold, Mr. Clewson laid himself surlily down in his bed for the third time that night, and was soon fast asleep.

  CHAPTER XV.

  APPLEBURY CHURCH.

  AT the pleasant old town of Applebury there was a cattle-fair next morning. By daybreak the whole town was in a bustle; and the High Street, which expands near the old Town Hall into a great, irregular, paved square, was already thronged with men, women, and children, and stalls and booths of all sorts. Applebury is thirteen miles away from Raby, and only eleven from the Vicarage.

  Two cows and a troop of sheep, belonging to my friend the Reverend Stour Temple, were there; and his brother, honest Roger, had, by earnest entreaty, supported by the eloquence of M
iss Barbara, who had long thought he wanted a holiday, persuaded him to ride to Applebury next morning.

  Down the narrow road overhung by noble ash-trees, which enters the antique town from the north, while the pleasant morning sun was glittering on the old gilt vane and clock of the church-tower, rode, on their trotting nags, a little cavalcade of three, — thin Stour Temple, fat Roger, and Charlie Mordant. Honest Roger, smiling cosily, and jogging breathlessly in his saddle, young Mordant in high spirits, and the vicar’s thin brown features smiling also pleasantly, and all the better of that ride in the exhilarating air of early morning.

  A little way down they had to slacken their pace, finding themselves involved among droves of cattle, farmers on horseback, and pedestrians, all tending into the town; and Bonnie came to a walk with a very red face and a great sigh of relief.

  “I told you, Stour, — now didn’t I? — you’d like it,” said honest Roger, when they sat at breakfast in the Bull Inn parlour, with the broad fat backs of two farmers, busy over a bargain, against the window-stone, and a view of the steep roof and gilded clock of the Town Hall, the noble old tree that grows there, and the ever-moving panorama beneath it, touched with the pleasant morning sun. “I see you are enjoying it, my poor fellow and smiling inquiringly into his face, he pressed his brother’s knee gently with his fat hand.

  “So I do, Bonnie,” said Stour, with a very sweet smile, and pressing his own hand over Bonnie’s kindly paw. “Very much;. five years since I was in Applebury before. I never saw the old place look so pleasant; and I’m very much obliged to you and Barbara for making me come.”

  I think the kind blue eyes and fat smile of Bonnie, and the affectionate patting of his honest hand, had a great deal to do with the charm of the scene. “There’s some good in you and Barbara, after all, though you are a pair of despots.”

  So said the vicar, still] smiling; and in his heart there welled up the strong and tender love that would have said: “Bonnie and Barbara — brother and sister — my treasures! What are long walks, and now and then a trouble, and an obscure threadbare life, if only in the bright warm sunshine of your love, my darlings! For whom I bless God every hour.”

  “We are very comfortable, aren’t we?” said Roger, with a delighted little chuckle. “We are enjoying ourselves immensely; we are so cosy — ain’t we?”

  “Awfully!” acquiesced Mordant. “What a queer little town it is! Lucky to have such a fine day. There’s an odd name, isn’t it? On that red board with the gold frame over there. Don’t you see? — on that square brick house.”

  “Yes — yes — there,” said Roger, looking across, and as he did so blushing an ingenuous crimson. The name was Amos Martyr. Charles Mordant had made his little remark in all simplicity; and honest Roger, who was a little near-sighted, I believe, fancied, though with amazement, that he read a more interesting name.

  “Where is she? By Jove! you have seen some one,” said Charlie, gaily, and running to the window. “I must see her.”

  “I didn’t; upon my honour! No, she is not there.”

  “Who?” demanded Mordant.

  “Come, who is she, Roger?” urged Stour Temple, who enjoyed his good brother’s flights into the land of romance.

  “That fellow has been at his tricks,” said Roger, with a smile of bashful reproach at Charlie.

  “I have?” exclaimed Charlie.

  “Ho — ho — yes; do ask him what he has been doing over there? said Roger, smiling and shaking his head.

  “I never was over there in my life! Upon my honour, sir, I never was,” exclaimed Charles Mordant, earnestly, observing the direction of honest Roger’s short arm, and not knowing what accusation might be intended by his fat friend, smiling sheepishly.

  “Not you — you rogue! I say, Stour, ask him whether he knows how to use a paintbrush. By Jove! though, there’s Dick Larcom and his son, with the cows,” exclaimed Roger, interrupting his own rude and mysterious allusions. “Let us come out for goodness sake, and hear what offers he has got.”

  So forth they sallied; and in the hall Roger said in Charlie Mordant’s ear:

  “Isn’t it delightful we got poor Stour to come with us, glorious fellow! And killing himself with work — a perfect slave; but you must run over, like a dear fellow, and make them take that thing down; it oughtn’t to have been there at all — do, do now; and here’s Dick. Stour! here’s Dick Larcom with the cows.”

  So forth they sallied, among stalls and booths, and piles of gingerbread, and baskets of apples, in pursuit of Dick Larcom who was making his way to the green with the vicar’s cattle. But the vicar, being less interested than as a wise farmer he ought to have been, and haying an easy confidence that among his more skilled friends the cattle would be managed well enough, wandered away into devious lanes, and finally paid a visit to the old church, whose beautiful porch is so justly admired; and seeing that the door was open, the sexton being there employed in his vocation, the vicar stepped into the hallowed shade, taking off his hat.

  This church of Applebury is, I think, about the darkest in England, the eastern window being of stained glass, and under the shadow of two enormous elm-trees. Coming out of the bright sun, this gloom strikes the visitor, so that one would fancy there was scarcely light in the building to read by. He stood for a little, just within the threshold of the door, looking up and around, as such visitors will; and, glancing at his left hand, some five or six yards away from the entrance, he saw a man, in a loose wrapper, with a hat in his hand, standing, and, as he felt, staring at him. The vicar could not see his features distinctly, only his white eyeballs, as in silence he watched him without motion.

  One of the frequenters of this fair of Applebury the vicar took him to be, who had sauntered there, like himself, to see what the inside of the old church was like.

  The man made a short, shuffling step or two backward, as if irresolute, and the vicar, fancying a recognition, instinctively made a step or two in advance, and saw Carmel Sherlock, just with that amount of surprise which in imperfect light induces a momentary uncertainty.

  “You’ve come here for me, sir?” demanded Sherlock, in tones that were low and stem.

  “Far from it,” answered the vicar, with a slight smile. “I was a little surprised, on the contrary, to see you here; and indeed, in this light it is not easy to know any one.”

  “I’ve been here longer — in tenebria — and everything is clear. I saw you distinctly; there is some of your cattle at the fair, sir — and so we have found one another. You had no news, last night, from Raby?”

  “No, none at all,” answered the vicar, looking at him attentively.

  “Well, I’ve a message. There’s no one following you, no one outside — no one watching us?”

  And Carmel Sherlock, who had been drawing near, peeped from the door, and through the quiet porch.

  “No, I’m quite alone here — my brother and young Mr. Mordant are at the fair; but what is the message?”

  “Only this, sir; they want you at Raby; there is great anxiety there, sir — an unexpected calamity, and it is your duty to be there. You may be of use — it is a house of affliction, today.”

  “What has happened? — who is ill, or — who is it?” asked Stour Temple.

  “I have nothing, sir, to tell more than — Ha! yes, I hear the horse.”

  “Where are you going now, Mr. Sherlock?” inquired the vicar.

  “Home, sir,” said he, with à start.

  “Do pray let me know how I can be of use, and what has happened,” pleaded Stour Temple, who was alarmed.

  “They’ll tell you when you get there — if they like. There’s no more for me to say than I have said. Receive me as a messenger, sir, who tells what is needful, and no more. This morning, sir, Raby is a house of trouble, and you will be expected there. Leave this town, and be where you are wanted; that is my message. You will do as pleases you best. Ha! here it is.”

  And Carmel Sherlock stepped quickly through the porch, in
front of which stood a horse saddled, a boy holding its bridle.

  “I beg pardon, Mr. Sherlock,” said the vicar, following and laying his hand upon his arm; “pray relieve me, if you can — pray tell me — if any one at Raby is dead?”

  .”I’ve told you all I have to tell,” said Carmel Sherlock, with a dark stare, and stamping with wild impatience on the flags. “Just that — they want you.” And in another moment he was in the saddle, and, riding at a swift pace down the solitary lane that runs in front of the old church, was immediately out of sight. Stour Temple fancied he had never seen any one, in full possession of his physical strength and activity, look so ill as Carmel Sherlock. There was also that in his countenance he had never seen before. Altogether, he did not well know what to make of him.

  “Suppose the poor fellow’s mad,” thought the vicar. “I should have my ride to Raby for nothing; but no, it has not come to that — always eccentric, but quite sane — where he chooses to talk rationally. No, it is not a vision. Something has happened.”

  Now so it was, the vicar could no longer feel happy sauntering about the little town of Applebury, and back to the Bull Inn went he, and he called for the reckoning, and called for his nag, and he left a little note for Roger, who he knew was well furnished with money, accounting for his departure; and he mounted his beast, and trotted away by the old road that leads to Raby.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  THE DARK CHAMBER OF WHITE DEATH.

  IT was little past ten o’clock when the vicar, amid the sweet and solemn landscape that surrounds Raby, approached the lordly gateway of that mansion, with the defiant demi-griffins, with wings expanded, keeping guard upon its lofty piers. With an anxiety that increased as he approached, Stour Temple scrutinized the hall-door and the windows in search of some sign that might help his suspense to a conclusion. There was no one in the gatehouse, an occurrence not rare in those disorderly precincts. He dismounted under the aerial shadow of the huge trees that embower the gateway, and led his horse in upon the stately and melancholy avenue.