Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  After this event Marston became excited and restless. He scarcely ate or slept, and his health seemed now as much scattered as his spirits had been before. One day he glided into the room in which, as we have said, it was Mrs. Marston’s habit frequently to sit alone. His wife was there, and, as he entered, she uttered an exclamation of doubtful joy and surprise. He sate down near her in silence, and for some time looked gloomily on the ground. She did not care to question him, and anxiously waited until he should open the conversation. At length he raised his eyes, and, looking full at her, asked abruptly— “Well, what about mademoiselle?”

  Mrs. Marston was embarrassed, and hesitated.

  “I told you what I wished with respect to that young lady some time ago, and commissioned you to acquaint her with my pleasure; and yet I find her still here, and apparently as much established as ever.”

  Again Mrs. Marston hesitated. She scarcely knew how to confess to him that she had not conveyed his message.

  “Don’t suppose, Gertrude, that I wish to find fault. I merely wanted to know whether you had told Mademoiselle de Barras that we were agreed as to the necessity or expediency, or what you please, of dispensing henceforward with her services, I perceive by your manner that you have not done so. I have no doubt your motive was a kind one, but my decision remains unaltered; and I now assure you again that I wish you to speak to her; I wish you explicitly to let her know my wishes and yours.”

  “Not mine, Richard,” she answered faintly.

  “Well, mine, then,” he replied, roughly; “we shan’t quarrel about that.”

  “And when — how soon — do you wish me to speak to her on this, to both of us, most painful subject?” asked she, with a sigh.

  “Today — this hour — this minute, if you can; in short the sooner the better,” he replied, rising. “I see no reason for holding it back any longer. I am sorry my wishes were not complied with immediately. Pray, let there be no further hesitation or delay. I shall expect to learn this evening that all is arranged.”

  Marston having thus spoken, left her abruptly, went down to his study with a swift step, shut himself in, and throwing himself into a great chair, gave a loose to his agitation, which was extreme.

  Meanwhile Mrs. Marston had sent for Mademoiselle de Barras, anxious to get through her painful task as speedily as possible. The fair French girl quickly presented herself.

  “Sit down, mademoiselle,” said Mrs. Marston, taking her hand kindly, and drawing her to the prie-dieu chair beside herself.

  Mademoiselle de Barras sate down, and, as she did so, read the countenance of her patroness with one rapid glance of her flashing eyes. These eyes, however, when Mrs. Marston looked at her the next moment, were sunk softly and sadly upon the floor. There was a heightened color, however, in her cheek, and a quicker heaving of her bosom, which indicated the excitement of an anticipated and painful disclosure. The outward contrast of the two women, whose hands were so lovingly locked together, was almost as striking as the moral contrast of their hearts. The one, so chastened, sad, and gentle; the other, so capable of pride and passion; so darkly excitable, and yet so mysteriously beautiful. The one, like a Niobe seen in the softest moonshine; the other, a Venus, lighted in the glare of distant conflagration.

  “Mademoiselle, dear mademoiselle, I am so much grieved at what I have to say, that I hardly know how to speak to you,” said poor Mrs. Marston, pressing her hand; “but Mr. Marston has twice desired me to tell you, what you will hear with far less pain than it costs me to say it.”

  Mademoiselle de Barras stole another flashing glance at her companion, but did not speak.

  “Mr. Marston still persists, mademoiselle, in desiring that we shall part.”

  “Est-il possible?” cried the Frenchwoman, with a genuine start.

  “Indeed, mademoiselle, you may well be surprised,” said Mrs. Marston, encountering her full and dilated gaze, which, however, dropped again in a moment to the ground. “You may, indeed, naturally be surprised and shocked at this, to me, most severe decision.”

  “When did he speak last of it?” said she, rapidly.

  “But a few moments since,” answered Mrs. Marston.

  “Ha,” said mademoiselle, and remained silent and motionless for more than a minute.

  “Madame,” she cried at last, mournfully, “I suppose, then, I must go; but it tears my heart to leave you and dear Miss Rhoda. I would be very happy if, before departing, you would permit me, dear madame, once more to assure Mr. Marston of my innocence, and, in his presence, to call heaven to witness how unjust are all his suspicions.”

  “Do so, mademoiselle, and I will add my earnest assurances again; though, heaven knows,” she said, despondingly, “I anticipate little success; but it is well to leave no chance untried.”

  Marston was sitting, as we have said, in his library. His agitation had given place to a listless gloom, and he leaned back in his chair, his head supported by his hand, and undisturbed, except by the occasional fall of the embers upon the hearth. There was a knock at the chamber door. His back was towards it, and, without turning or moving, he called to the applicant to enter. The door opened — closed again: a light tread was audible — a tall shadow darkened the wall: Marston looked round, and Mademoiselle de Barras was standing before him. Without knowing how or why, he rose, and stood gazing upon her in silence.

  “Mademoiselle de Barras!” he said, at last, in a tone of cold surprise.

  “Yes, poor Mademoiselle de Barras,” replied the sweet voice of the young Frenchwoman, while her lips hardly moved as the melancholy tones passed them.

  “Well, mademoiselle, what do you desire?” he asked, in the same cold accents, and averting his eyes.

  “Ah, monsieur, do you ask? — can you pretend to be ignorant? Have you not sent me a message, a cruel, cruel message?”

  She spoke so low and gently, that a person at the other end of the room could hardly have heard her words.

  “Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras, I did send you a message,” he replied, doggedly. “A cruel one you will scarcely presume to call it, when you reflect upon your own conduct, and the circumstances which have provoked the measures I have taken.”

  “What have I done, Monsieur? — what circumstances do you mean?” asked she, plaintively.

  “What have you done! A pretty question, truly. Ha, ha!” he repeated, bitterly, and then added, with suppressed vehemence, “ask your own heart, mademoiselle.”

  “I have asked, I do ask, and my heart answers — nothing,” she replied, raising her fine melancholy eyes for a moment to his face.

  “It lies, then,” he retorted, with a fierce scoff.

  “Monsieur, before heaven I swear, you wrong me foully,” she said, earnestly, clasping her hands together.

  “Did ever woman say she was accused rightly, mademoiselle?” retorted

  Marston, with a sneer.

  “I don’t know — I don’t care. I only know that I am innocent,” continued she, piteously. “I call heaven to witness you have wronged me.”

  “Wronged you! — why, after all, with what have I charged you?” said he, scoffingly; “but let that pass. I have formed my opinions, arrived at my conclusions. If I have not named them broadly, you at least seem to understand their nature thoroughly. I know the world. I am no novice in the arts of women, mademoiselle. Reserve your vows and attestations for schoolboys and simpletons; they are sadly thrown away upon me.”

  Marston paced to and fro, with his hands thrust into his pockets, as he thus spoke.

  “Then you don’t, or rather you will not believe what I tell you?” said she, imploringly. “No,” he answered, drily and slowly, as he passed her. “I don’t, and I won’t (as you say) believe one word of it; so, pray spare yourself further trouble about the matter.”

  She raised her head, and darted after him a glance that seemed absolutely to blaze, and at the same time smote her little hand fast clenched upon her breast. The words, however, that trembled on her pal
e lips were not uttered; her eyes were again cast down, and her fingers played with the little locket that hung round her neck.

  “I must make, before I go,” she said, with a deep sigh and a melancholy voice, “one confidence — one last confidence: judge me by it. You cannot choose but believe me now: it is a secret, and it must even here be whispered, whispered, whispered!”

  As she spoke, the color fled from her face, and her tones became so strange and resolute, that Marston turned short upon his heel, and stopped before her. She looked in his face; he frowned, but lowered his eyes. She drew nearer, laid her hand upon his shoulder, and whispered for a few moments in his ear. He raised his face suddenly: its features were sharp and fixed; its hue was changed; it was livid and moveless, like a face cut in gray stone. He staggered back a little and a little more, and then a little more, and fell backward. Fortunately, the chair in which he had been sitting received him, and he lay there insensible as a corpse. When at last his eyes opened, there was no gleam of triumph, no shade of anger, nothing perceptible of guilt or menace, in the young woman’s countenance. The flush had returned to her cheeks; her dimpled chin had sunk upon her full white throat; sorrow, shame, and pride seemed struggling in her handsome face, and she stood before him like a beautiful penitent, who has just made a strange and humbling shrift to her father confessor.

  Next day, Marston was mounting his horse for a solitary ride through his park, when Doctor Danvers rode abruptly into the courtyard from the back entrance. Marston touched his hat, and said —

  “I don’t stand on forms with you, doctor, and you, I know, will waive ceremony with me. You will find Mrs. Marston at home.”

  “Nay, my dear sir,” interrupted the clergyman, sitting firm in his saddle, “my business lies with you today.”

  “The devil it does!” said Marston, with discontented surprise.

  “Truly it does, sir,” repeated he, with a look of gentle reproof, for the profanity of Marston’s ejaculation, far more than the rudeness of his manner, offended him; “and I grieve that your surprise should have somewhat carried you away— “

  “Well, then, Doctor Danvers,” interrupted Marston, drily, and without heeding his concluding remark, “if you really have business with me, it is, at all events, of no very pressing kind, and may be as well told after supper as now. So, pray, go into the house and rest yourself: we can talk together in the evening.”

  “My horse is not tired,” said the clergyman, patting his steed’s neck; “and if you do not object, I will ride by your side for a short time, and as we go, I can say out what I have to tell.”

  “Well, well, be it so,” said Marston, with suppressed impatience, and without more ceremony, he rode slowly along the avenue, and turned off upon the soft sward in the direction of the wildest portion of his wooded demesne, the clergyman keeping close beside him. They proceeded some little way at a walk before Doctor Danvers spoke.

  “I have been twice or thrice with that unhappy man,” at length he said.

  “What unhappy man? Unhappiness is no distinguishing singularity, is it?” said Marston, sharply.

  “No, truly, you have well said,” replied Doctor Danvers. “True it is that man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. I speak, however, of your servant, Merton — a most unhappy wretch.”

  “Ha! you have been with him, you say?” replied Marston, with evident interest and anxiety.

  “Yes, several times, and conversed with him long and gravely,” continued the clergyman.

  “Humph! I thought that had been the chaplain’s business, not yours, my good friend,” observed Marston.

  “He has been unwell,” replied Dr. Danvers; “and thus, for a day or two, I took his duty, and this poor man, Merton, having known something of me, preferred seeing me rather than a stranger; and so, at the chaplain’s desire and his, I continued my visits.”

  “Well, and you have taught him to pray and sing psalms, I suppose; and what has come of it all?” demanded Marston, testily.

  “He does pray, indeed, poor man! and I trust his prayers are heard with mercy at the throne of grace,” said his companion, in his earnestness disregarding the sneering tone of his companion. “He is full of compunction, and admits his guilt.”

  “Ho! that is well — well for himself — well for his soul, at least; you are sure of it; he confesses; confesses his guilt?”

  Marston put his question so rapidly and excitedly, that the clergyman looked with a slight expression of surprise; and recovering himself, he added, in an unconcerned tone —

  “Well, well — it was just as well he did so; the evidence is too clear for doubt or mystification; he knew he had no chance, and has taken the seemliest course; and, doubtless, the best for his hopes hereafter.”

  “I did not question him upon the subject,” said Doctor Danvers; “I even declined to hear him speak upon it at first; but he told me he was resolved to offer no defense, and that he saw the finger of God in the fate which had overtaken him.”

  “He will plead guilty, then, I suppose?” suggested Marston, watching the countenance of his companion with an anxious and somewhat sinister eye.

  “His words seem to imply so much,” answered he; “and having thus frankly owned his guilt, and avowed his resolution to let the law take its due course in his case, without obstruction or evasion, I urged him to complete the grand work he had begun, and to confess to you, or to some other magistrate fully, and in detail, every circumstance connected with the perpetration of the dreadful deed.”

  Marston knit his brows, and rode on for some minutes in silence. At length he said, abruptly —

  “In this, it seems to me, sir, you a little exceeded your commission.”

  “How so, my dear sir?” asked the clergyman.

  “Why, sir,” answered Marston, “the man may possibly change his mind before the day of trial, and it is the hangman’s office, not yours, my good sir, to fasten the halter about his neck. You will pardon my freedom; but, were this deposition made as you suggest, it would undoubtedly hang him.”

  “God forbid, Mr. Marston,” rejoined Danvers, “that I should induce the unhappy man to forfeit his last chances of escape, and to shut the door of human mercy against himself, but on this he seems already resolved; he says so; he has solemnly declared his resolution to me; and even against my warning, again and again reiterated the same declaration.”

  “That I should have thought quite enough, were I in your place, without inviting a detailed description of the whole process by which this detestable butchery was consummated. What more than the simple knowledge of the man’s guilt does any mortal desire; guilty, or not guilty, is the plain question which the law asks, and no more; take my advice, sir, as a poor Protestant layman, and leave the acts of the confessional and inquisition to Popish priests.”

  “Nay, Mr. Marston, you greatly misconceive me; as matters stand, there exists among the coroner’s jury, and thus among the public, some faint and unfounded suspicion of the possibility of Merton’s having had an accessory or accomplice in the perpetration of this foul murder.”

  “It is a lie, sir — a malignant, d —— d lie — the jury believe no such thing, nor the public neither,” said Marston, starting in his saddle, and speaking in a voice of thunder; “you have been crammed with lies, sir; malicious, unmeaning, vindictive lies; lies invented to asperse my family, and torture my feelings; suggested in my presence by that scoundrel Mervyn, and scouted by the common sense of the jury.”

  “I do assure you,” replied Doctor Danvers, in a voice which seemed scarcely audible, after the stunning and passionate explosion of Marston’s wrath, “I did not imagine that you could feel thus sorely upon the point; nay, I thought that you yourself were not without such painful doubts.”

  “Again, I tell you, sir,” said Marston, in a tone somewhat calmer, but no less stern, “such doubts as you describe have no existence; your unsuspecting ear has been alarmed by a vindictive wretch, an old scoundrel who has scarce
a passion left but spite towards me; few such there are, thank God; few such villains as would, from a man’s very calamities, distil poison to kill the peace and character of his family.”

  “I am sorry, Mr. Marston,” said the clergyman, “you have formed so ill an opinion of a neighbor, and I am very sure that Mr. Mervyn meant you no ill in frankly expressing whatever doubts still rested on his mind, after the evidence was taken.”

  “He did — the scoundrel!” said Marston, furiously striking his hand, in which his whip was clutched, upon his thigh; “he did mean to wound and torture me; and with the same object he persists in circulating what he calls his doubts. Meant me no ill, forsooth! why, my great God, sir, could any man be so stupid as not to perceive that the suggestion of such suspicions — absurd, contradictory, incredible as they were — was precisely the thing to exasperate feelings sufficiently troubled already, and not content with raising the question, where it was scouted, as I said, as soon as named, the vindictive slanderer proceeds to propagate and publish his pretended surmises — d —— n him.”

  “Mr. Marston, you will pardon me when I say that, as a Christian minister, I cannot suffer a spirit so ill as that you manifest, and language so unseemly as that you have just uttered, to pass unreproved,” said Danvers, solemnly. “If you will cherish those bitter and unchristian feelings, at least for the brief space that I am with you, command your fierce, unbecoming words.”

  Marston was about to make a sneering retort, but restrained himself, and turned his head away.