A little pause followed, and he came beside Miss Gray, and very low he said— “Yes; I am very glad, although some of what you said pained me acutely — very glad that I was here, because I feel, Miss Gray, that I know you better, and that, in spite of all, you trust me more.”
And so there came another little silence.
CHAPTER VI.
A STORY.
HAPPY Julia Wardell! Happy in your invincible placidity. What nerves! How charmingly organized for the uses of a chaperon. Not quite “hard of hearing,” but slightly muffled and indistinct, and so luxuriously prone to slumber! And happy Challys Gray in a companion so habitually floating away into dreamland, and so cheerfully ready at call to return. Lord Ardenbroke used to laugh at a chaperon so admirably chosen. Challis Gray and Mr. Dacre had both forgotten her existence for some minutes, and, in fact, her existence was not just then for them. In tranquil visions she at that moment nodded, making superb double chins, among the clouds; her worsteds on her lap, and one crochet-needle on the floor.
Alfred Dacre perceived the state of things, and was secretly happy. Challis Gray, too, knew it somehow, and did not care to disturb it. Then Alfred Dacre said, more like himself —
“In an old garden, that I loved when I was a boy — the picturesque may have had something to do with it — but it had the best gooseberries I ever eat; there were two time-honoured sun-dials, with fluted urnshaped stems, stained gray and green with mosses. They had inscriptions: one said ‘we must — the thing itself supplying the hiatus, die-all, thus telling of the sleep that brings an end of pain; and his brother answered tempus fugit — time flies — telling us to make all we can of the hour that is upon the wing. These solemn old dials preached. They could do little else, for the ancient standard fruit-trees had grown into a forest, and the sun seldom touched them; and so, as my mood varies, as hope comes or despair, I find myself again in the twinkling shadow, and read the old lesson ‘we must,’ or else tempus fugit, and life’s again a comedy.”
One or more of those precious minutes sped away in silence.
“One thing puzzles me,” said Miss Gray, looking up from a little reverie, “and that is, what the pleasure of concealing one’s antecedents, as the Americans say, one’s surroundings, history, and individuality, can possibly be.”
Dacre laughed.
“Why do you laugh?”
“Because I’m pleased. I think you are doing me a great honour. I venture to think that when you say all that, you are so good as to mean me.”
“I do mean you. But I don’t think it was fair to make me say so in direct terms; discussion is embarrassed by it.”
“But this must not,” said Dacre, with one of his gay laughs.
“I was not going to say anything very severe, however,” said she.
“I ought to be very grateful, for I must allow on this point no man is more open to attack,” said Dacre.
“I was only going to say, in a general way, I wonder why people are so secret. We ought to be very well acquainted by this time, and yet you are a total stranger to me.”
“How do you know? I may have been watching over you ever since you were a child, in quite another shape,” said he.
She looked at him, and he at her, and after his wont he laughed.
“If people choose to be secret, let them be secret, there is always a reason — but it is not always a wrong one. Suppose their mystery the talisman, not only of their happiness, but of their safety.”
“But why should innocent people require to pass themselves off for other persons?”
“Innocent people are liable to be injured by people who are not innocent; and it is sometimes very desirable to mystify them; but that is not my case. I have been acting strictly in the interest of others.”
“But then that kind of mystery defeats itself,” said she.
Dacre looked sharply at her.
“How?” said he.
“Why, it makes people so curious.”
“And our first mother fell by her curiosity,” said Dacre, with a faint smile and a shrug.
“Well, yes, so she did, but it was acted on by the serpent, and ended by her prying and —
“Perishing,” said Dacre.
“Very well — yes — that shows how dangerous it is to trifle with.”
“And why do I trifle with it — isn’t that the question?”
“Yes, because once it is thoroughly aroused, it is sure to carry all before it,” answered Miss Gray.
“Not always, and when it does — better it hadn’t, often,” said he, with a laugh. “I’ll tell you a story. I wish I could think where I read it.” He began again, “May I try to tell it?”
“Pray do.”
“Once on a time a young Irish earl — I forget his title, but we’ll look in Debrett — lived very solitary in a great old castle among the cliffs by the seaside. One night as he sat reading all alone a little white rat appeared on his table, and looked up in his face very winningly. He rather took a fancy to it — it looked so gentle — and next night just in the same way it appeared again. Lonely creatures easily become friends, and the earl and the little white rat grew fonder and fonder each of the other, and he tied a little ribbon of blue, the colour of true love, about its neck, and it slept on his pillow, and never left him day or night. Do I tire you?”
“No, pray go on.”
“This faithful little rat was always with him, till some friends came to pay him a visit at his castle. To them this mutual attachment was capital fun; and the Irish earl, who was a sensitive man, felt their ridicule acutely, and fiercely frightened away the little white rat as often as it appeared, which was a sad thing for both, for the earl sometimes reproached himself nearly as much as the little white rat seemed to suffer. But for the present it ended as I am about to tell you. I am afraid it is very long— “
“I assure you I like it extremely. Pray go on,” said Miss Gray.
“He and these visitors had to depart together for England, and as the earl crossed the plank into the ship the little white rat ran before his feet. His friends laughed, of course, and the thin-skinned earl, in a frenzy of cowardice, kicked it into the sea, in which with a splash and a squeak it disappeared. So ends Fytte the first. May I go on?”
“Pray do,” said she. “Though your sensitive earl, now bereft of the odd society which suited him best, is not an interesting person, I should still like to know how he fared.”
“He returned to his castle, melancholy and solitary, and missed the little white rat, but it did not come. Months passed away? and at last came the long nights, winds, and wintry weather. One night it was blowing hard and very dark as he satiate in his library, when on a sudden he heard a gun at sea, and another, and another. It was plain there was a ship in distress. With all his faults this earl had courage and goodnature, and with a few stout rowers he was soon pulling seaward, guided now and then by the glare of the gun over sky and sea, in the most heroic danger. He could now see dimly the outline of a great oldfashioned ship labouring in the sea, lighted up now and then in the blaze of its own cannon. Before they could reach it, however, the ship went down. But something was left floating where she sank, which with an effort they got into the boat, and found a lady in a white dress, and, as it seemed, lifeless. Not till they reached the castle she recovered slowly. She spoke a foreign language which nobody knew, but picked up English very soon, and the end of it was that he fell in love, and could think only of her. He asked her often about the ship she came in — her family, her home, and country, and also why she always wore a broad velvet band about her throat. But upon all this she was silent, and grew so melancholy whenever he asked that at length he ceased to inquire, and ventured but one question more; he asked her — to marry him. The lady consented, but exacted a promise in return. He was never more to inquire into those mysteries on which she had implored his forbearance. So the promise was given, they were married, and they lived in perfect love, and the glory of their enchanted be
atitude was darkened only by this one reserve. I think I’ve put Mrs. Wardell to sleep — have I?”
“Never mind — she nods and wakens like Homer — she will be all the brighter for this momentary eclipse. Pray go on,” said Miss Gray.
“Well, it is nearly ended — all was serenity and sunshine. But still the earl had his own trouble — the unsatisfied curiosity on which his lips were sealed. When one morning early, standing by his wife’s bedside, as she lay asleep, with her throat uncovered, his eye rested on the broad band of black velvet. The temptation was irresistible, for her scissors hung on her chatelaine at the bed’s side, so he clipped the black velvet across, and he saw around her throat beneath it a blue ribbon, as with a wild cry his wife started up in the bed. At the same moment something jumped on the floor, and, looking down, he saw the little white rat with the blue ribbon round its neck run across the room, and again looking back he saw the bed untreasured of its mistress, and neither she nor the little white rat was ever again beheld in that lonely lord’s castle. So ends the story. It is Bluebeard’s moral, you see, a little more tenderly conveyed.”
“I’m too much obliged to you, Mr. Dacre, to quarrel with your moral at present.”
“No, Miss Gray, as I said before, you are not obliged to me. I think you made me a promise?”
“Yes, so I did. Well, I’m not a bit obliged to you — if so it must be — but recollect I’ve not promised to aid in mystifying myself.”
“How do you mean, Miss Gray?”
“I mean,” she laughed, “that if I can, I’ll find it all out.”
“No; I’m sure you’ll not try.”
“And, pray, why should I not?”
“Because you said you wished to thank me.”
“So I do,” said she.
“Well, Miss Gray, let your silence thank me. Spare me all inquiry. In a very little time, I may tell you everything. I know you are jesting, but I am grave enough, and mean what I say. In the meantime, think no more of it. Sufficient unto the day, you know — and the day will come.”
“Not an evil day, I hope?” she said merrily.
“Good or evil,” said he; “who can look into futurity? For me, it grows darker than ever — a darkness in which, as they say, I cannot see my own hand.”
“But there are some things one can foresee?” pleaded Laura, gaily.
“One’s breakfast; yes — but there’s a haze even over that; more over dinner; and so you find yourself in dense fog before you have well set out on your excursion into next week.”
“Yes; of course there are all the uncertainties that depend upon sickness and death?” she said.
“And change?” he added sadly.
“Oh, yes; but change comes slowly,” said she.
He shook his head.
“Suddenly sometimes,” he said.
“Well, yes — material changes; houses may fall flat in a moment; ships blow up; old gentlemen drop down in apoplexys,” began Laura.
“No, no; I mean quite honestly,” said he.
“How do you mean?” asked Miss Gray.
“I mean it quite fairly, that minds change in a moment.”
“Oh, you mean a whim? I don’t think a whimsical person has a mind at all,” said Miss Gray, and looked for a moment a little hard at him; and she added, “I think, Mr. Dacre, somehow, there is always a suspicion of a conundrum in what you say?’
“And myself the subject of the riddle?” he laughed. “Well no, I was not, for a moment, thinking of myself, but quite another person’s case, in which the mind, as you say, changed like a trick in a pantomime; all happened in a moment; a great affection, struck with the lightning of a single word, was killed. I saw it — it was quite irrevocable — and often recurs wamingly to my recollection.”
“Your recollections seem generally very happy, Mr. Dacre,” said she; “a great deal happier, I fancy, than mine.”
“If my memory is always in high spirits, it is the worst sign of my life. The more celestial the life, the sadder the memory. I can quite understand why your retrospect is toned with melancholy.”
Laura Gray was looking out vaguely on a landscape painted with black on the darkest gray, with a few small stars glimmering intensely in the little piece of sky straight above them. He thought, as he looked, that he saw a clear blush steal over her cheek, and a listening smile just traceable on her lip; but of her eyes he could see only the long silken fringes.
How pretty that stolen smile — that pleased blush — how beautiful he thought her!
CHAPTER VII.
STRANGE MUSIC.
“DOES she like me?” he thought, with a strange struggle at his heart, as he looked on that beautiful vision; “oh, does she like me — is it possible?”
Was it possible? What is impossible in the land of love — that world of illusions, recklessness, and miracles; and was he not conscious of his romantic beauty, and of that sad celestial tenor in which trembled the spirit of regret and passion; and had he not other fascinations also?
Mr. Dacre was one of those conceited persons who never in ordinary cases question their powers of conquest. He had but to obtain access to Guildford House, and where he chose to direct those subtle and romantic influences, imagination must be dazzled, and hearts enslaved.
But this confidence belonged to the man who was himself indifferent. As an interest quite new to him began insensibly to steal into his heart, a scepticism, also new, began to affright him. The serpent who, we suppose, approaches to charm its prey with the peculiar spell of its eye, is encountered by a more potent charm, and becomes itself enthralled under the superior fascination of a basilisk.
Let us beg Mr. Dacre’s pardon for so sinister a mythologic parallel. We who watch his operations are at liberty to form what conjecture we please. Of one thing only we are certain in the situation — if he has lost any part of his confidence or his liberty, he has succumbed not to design, but to a power, and he has been made acquainted with some of those sincerities which he had overlooked in his own character.
This man, hitherto so confident of success, was now elated, or trembled at every look of hers, and wondered at his own secret agitations. He was angry with himself for abdicating his superiority, and often disdainfully vowed to reassert it. Dacre had grown out of some of the conceit of very early days. Still he had enough left to feel at times his pride wounded by his situation, and still more so by his entire uncertainty as to whether he had made the slightest impression even upon her fancy.
He took a chair close by her, and he said— “How you like looking through that window into the dark. I have observed you do so, Miss Gray, so often — and yet you complain of mystery.”
“As if everything was not a mystery,” she said, still looking out with the same smile and a little sigh— “yes, everything.”
“Everything beautiful, Miss Gray, I’ve felt it so; and there are mysteries which to me, I am sure, are better still mysterious — I mean, I should rather bear uncertainty than incur a danger of despair.”
“Despair is a very grand word, Mr. Dacre, and belongs to tragedy, and epic poems, and theology.”
“Yes; and is not one’s own life and experience the vital fountain from which we draw the life of every epic? Theology; yes, every man, even the sceptic, has a theology of his own — and oh, Miss Gray, why smile at tragedy, whose life is all a comedy? Mine has long had nothing in it but — the sort of dolorous ingredient you laugh at.”
“I think you are very ungrateful to talk so,” said Miss Gray.
“Ungrateful! To whom?” asked Dacre. “To Heaven,” she answered. “It is so much a habit with people to talk in that discontented way, all in the wantonness of luxury and ingratitude. I dare say, Mr. Dacre, girl as I am, I have had more to grieve me than ever you have; but I believe it is only we who suffer from that kind of grief: your nobler sex is, people say, quite above that kind of folly — grieving, I mean, for other people.”
“I wish, Miss Gray, you did not think quite s
o meanly of me,” he said sadly, with something imploring in his great eyes.
“Not you; no, I ought not to have included you. It was very ungrateful of me — I don’t indeed,” she said quickly.
She was looking eagerly in his face, blushing very much. Her lips were parted, and he could just see the little glimmering edge of her tiny teeth, as for a moment she gazed on him with this beautiful glow of earnestness: and then she looked from the window again, and her eyes dropped, but the blush continued.
“Miss Gray,” he said very low, “some time or other I shall be able, and you will permit me, to tell you something of my life — now, I can’t. But you’ll see then, you will, indeed, how full of grief and pride and folly it has been. You will see the bad, and you will see, also, the good. You’ll think me wicked — but you’ll see I can be noble; and you’ll see how I have — adored you.”
He was very pale, with the light of intense excitement in his eyes. He took her hand and held it in both his.
The colour fled from her cheeks, and she returned his passionate gaze with a strange look, one that was very melancholy, but which also had fear in it. She looked on the point of bursting into tears.
A moment more, and still it was a pale, steadfast gaze that she fixed on him. He fancied he read in it an agony of doubt. This white stare of wonder and fear continued for some seconds, but her hand remained unresistingly locked in his.
“I did not dream of saying this when I came here. If it seems insane and audacious, at least it was not premeditated; it was just that I have grown to adore you, and — it was irrepressible.”
Still not a word from Challys Gray, but her hand lay quite passively in his.
“Oh, Challys, darling, will you say nothing?”
Challys only pressed her other hand to her temple, and with a great sigh she whispered —
“It seems all a dream — what shall I say? — is he to go?”
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 469