Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  Devereux was in his mood. He was proud — he had no notion of apologising. But looking another way, and with his head rather high, he hoped Miss Lilias was better.

  Well, well, the spring was coming; and Parson Walsingham knew the spring restored little Lily. ‘She’s like a bird — she’s like a flower, and the winter is nearly past,’ (and the beautiful words of the ‘Song of Songs,’ which little Lily so loved to read, mingled like a reverie in his discourse, and he said), ‘the flowers will soon appear in the earth, the time of the singing birds will come, and the voice of the turtle be heard in our land.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Dick Devereux, in a voice that sounded strangely, ‘I have a request; may I make it? — a favour to beg. ’Tisn’t, all things remembered, very much. If I write a letter, and place it open in your hand — a letter, Sir — to Miss Lily — will you read it to her, or else let her read it? Or even a message — a spoken message — will you give it?’

  ‘Captain Devereux,’ said the doctor, in a reserved but very sad sort of way, ‘I must tell you that my dear child is by no means well. She has had a cold, and it has not gone away so soon as usual — something I think of her dear mother’s delicacy — and so she requires care, my little Lily, a great deal of care. But, thank God, the spring is before us. Yes, yes; the soft air and sunshine, and then she’ll be out again. You know the garden, and her visits, and her little walks. So I don’t fret or despair. Oh, no.’ He spoke very gently, in a reverie, after his wont, and he sighed heavily. ‘You know ’tis growing late in life with me, Captain Devereux,’ he resumed, ‘and I would fain see her united to a kind and tender partner, for I think she’s a fragile little flower. Poor little Lily! Something, I often think, of her dear mother’s delicacy, and I have always nursed her, you know. She has been a great pet;’ and he stopped suddenly, and walked to the window. ‘A great pet. Indeed, if she could have been spoiled, I should have spoiled her long ago, but she could not. Ah, no! Sweet little Lily!’

  Then quite firmly but gently Parson Walsingham went on: —

  ‘Now, the doctors say she mustn’t be agitated, and I can’t allow it, Captain Devereux. I gave her your message — let me see — why ’tis four, ay, five months ago. I gave it with a good will, for I thought well of you.’

  ‘And you don’t any longer — there, ’tis all out,’ broke in Devereux, fiercely.

  ‘Well, you know her answer; it was not lightly given, nor in haste, and first and last ’twas quite decided, and I sent it to you under my own hand.’

  ‘I thought you were a friend to me, Dr. Walsingham, and now I’m sure you’re none,’ said the young fellow, in the same bitter tone.

  ‘Ah, Captain Devereux, he can be no friend to you who is a friend to your faults; and you no friend to yourself if you be an enemy to him that would tell you of them. Will you like him the worse that would have you better?’

  ‘We’ve all faults, Sir; mine are not the worst, and I’ll have neither shrift nor absolution. There’s some reason here you won’t disclose.’

  He was proud, fierce, pale, and looked damnably handsome and wicked.

  ‘She gave no reason, Sir;’ answered Dr. Walsingham. No, she gave none; but, as I understood, she did not love you, and she prayed me to mention it no more.’

  ‘She gave no reason; but you know the reason,’ glared out Devereux.

  ‘Indeed, Sir, I do not know the reason,’ answered the rector.

  ‘But you know — you must — you meant — you, at least had heard some ill of me, and you no longer wish my suit to prosper.’

  ‘I have, indeed, of late, heard much ill of you, Captain Devereux,’ answered Dr. Walsingham, in a very deliberate but melancholy way, ‘enough to make me hold you no meet husband for any wife who cared for a faithful partner, or an honourable and a quiet home.’

  ‘You mean — I know you do — that Palmerstown girl, who has belied me?’ cried Devereux.

  ‘That unhappy young woman, Captain Devereux, her name is Glynn, whom you have betrayed under a promise of marriage.’

  That moment Devereux was on his feet. It was the apparition of Devereux; a blue fire gleaming in his eyes, not a word from his white lips, while three seconds might have ticked from Mrs. Irons’s prosy old clock on the stairhead; his slender hand was outstretched in appeal and defiance, and something half-celestial, half-infernal — the fallen angelic — in his whole face and bearing.

  ‘May my merciful Creator strike me dead, here at your feet, Doctor Walsingham, but ’tis a lie,’ cried he. ‘I never promised — she’ll tell you. I thought she told you long ago. ’Twas that devil incarnate, her mother, who forged the lie, why or wherefore, except for her fiendish love of mischief, I know not.’

  ‘I cannot tell, Sir, about your promise,’ said the doctor gravely; ‘with or without it, the crime is heinous, the cruelty immeasurable.’

  ‘Dr. Walsingham,’ cried Dick Devereux, a strange scorn ringing in his accents, ‘with all your learning you don’t know the world; you don’t know human nature; you don’t see what’s passing in this very village before your eyes every day you live. I’m not worse than others; I’m not half so bad as fifty older fellows who ought to know better; but I’m sorry, and ’tisn’t easy to say that, for I’m as proud, proud as the devil, proud as you; and if it were to my Maker, what more can I say? I’m sorry, and if Heaven forgives us when we repent, I think our wretched fellow-mortals may.’

  ‘Captain Devereux, I’ve nothing to forgive,’ said the parson, kindly.

  ‘But I tell you, Sir, this cruel, unmeaning separation will be my eternal ruin,’ cried Devereux. ‘Listen to me — by Heaven, you shall. I’ve fought a hard battle, Sir! I’ve tried to forget her — to hate her — it won’t do. I tell you, Dr. Walsingham, ’tis not in your nature to comprehend the intensity of my love — you can’t. I don’t blame you. But I think, Sir — I think I might make her like me, Sir. They come at last, sometimes, to like those that love them so — so desperately: that may not be for me, ’tis true. I only ask to plead my own sad cause. I only want to see her — gracious Heaven — but to see her — to show her how I was wronged — to tell her she can make me what she will — an honourable, pure, self-denying, devoted man, or leave me in the dark, alone, with nothing for it but to wrap my cloak about my head, and leap over the precipice.’

  ‘Captain Devereux, why will you doubt me? I’ve spoken the truth. I have already said I must not give your message; and you are not to suppose I dislike you, because I would fain have your faults mended.’

  ‘Faults! have I? To be sure I have. So have you, more, Sir, and worse than I, maybe,’ cried Devereux, wild again; ‘and you come here in your spiritual pride to admonish and to lecture, and to insult a miserable man, who’s better, perhaps, than yourself. You’ve heard ill of me? you hear I sometimes drink maybe a glass too much — who does not? you can drink a glass yourself, Sir; drink more, and show it less than I maybe; and you listen to every damned slander that any villain, to whose vices and idleness you pander with what you call your alms, may be pleased to invent, and you deem yourself charitable; save us from such charity! Charitable, and you refuse to deliver my miserable message: hardhearted Pharisee!’

  It is plain poor Captain Devereux was not quite himself — bitter, fierce, half-mad, and by no means so polite as he ought to have been. Alas! as Job says, ‘ye imagine to reprove words; and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind.’

  ‘Yes, hardhearted, unrelenting Pharisee.’ The torrent roared on, and the wind was up; it was night and storm with poor Devereux. ‘You who pray every day — oh — damnable hypocrisy — lead us not into temptation — you neither care nor ask to what courses your pride and obstinacy are driving me — your fellow-creature.’

  ‘Ah, Captain Devereux, you are angry with me, and yet it’s not my doing; the man that is at variance with himself will hardly be at one with others. You have said much to me that is unjust, and, perhaps, unseemly; but I won’t reproach you; your anger and t
rouble make wild work with your words. When one of my people falls into sin, I ever find it is so through lack of prayer. Ah! Captain Devereux, have you not of late been remiss in the duty of private prayer?’

  The captain laughed, not pleasantly, into the ashes in the grate. But the doctor did not mind, and only said, looking upward — .

  ‘Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.’

  There was kindness, and even tenderness, in the tone in which simple Dr. Walsingham spoke the appellative, brother; and it smote Devereux now, as sometimes happens with wayward fellows, and his better nature was suddenly moved.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sir — I am. You’re too patient — I’m very sorry; ’tis like an angel — you’re noble, Sir, and I such an outcast. I — I wish you’d strike me, Sir — you’re too kind and patient, Sir, and so pure — and how have I spoken to you? A trial, Sir, if you can forgive me — one trial — my vice — you shall see me changed, a new man. Oh, Sir, let me swear it. I am, Sir — I’m reformed; don’t believe me till you see it. Oh! good Samaritan, — don’t forsake me — I’m all one wound.’

  Well! they talked some time longer, and parted kindly.

  CHAPTER LXVII.

  IN WHICH A CERTAIN TROUBLED SPIRIT WALKS.

  Mr. Dangerfield was at the club that night, and was rather in spirits than otherwise, except, indeed, when poor Charles Nutter was talked of. Then he looked grave, and shrugged, and shook his head, and said —

  ‘A bad business, Sir; and where’s his poor wife?’

  ‘Spending the night with us, poor soul,’ said Major O’Neill, mildly, ‘and hasn’t an idaya, poor thing; and indeed, I hope, she mayn’t hear it.’

  ‘Pooh! Sir, she must hear it; but you know she might have heard worse, Sir, eh?’ rejoined Dangerfield.

  ‘True for you, Sir,’ said the major, suspending the filling of his pipe to direct a quiet glance of significance at Dangerfield, and then closing his eyes with a nod.

  And just at this point in came Spaight.

  ‘Well, Spaight!’

  ‘Well, Sir.’

  ‘You saw the body, eh?’ and a dozen other interrogatories followed, as, cold and wet with melting snow, dishevelled, and storm-beaten — for it was a plaguy rough night — the young fellow, with a general greeting to the company, made his way to the fire.

  ‘’Tis a tremendous night, gentlemen, so by your leave I’ll stir the fire — and, yes, I seen him, poor Nutter — and, paugh, an ugly sight he is, I can tell you; here Larry, bring me a rummer-glass of punch — his right ear’s gone, and a’most all his right hand — and screeching hot, do you mind — an’, phiew — altogether ’tis sickening — them fishes, you know — I’m a’most sorry I went in — you remember Dogherty’s whiskey shop in Ringsend — he lies in the back parlour, and wondherful little changed in appearance.’

  And so Mr. Spaight, with a little round table at his elbow, and his heels over the fender, sipped his steaming punch, and thawed inwardly and outwardly, as he answered their questions and mixed in their speculations.

  Up at the Mills, which had heard the awful news, first from the Widow Macan, and afterwards from Pat Moran, the maids sat over their tea in the kitchen in high excitement and thrilling chat— ‘The poor master!’ ‘Oh, the poor man!’ ‘Oh, la, what’s that?’ with a start and a peep over the shoulders. ‘And oh, dear, and how in the world will the poor little misthress ever live over the news?’ And so forth, made a principal part of their talk. There was a good accompaniment of wind outside, and a soft pelting of snow on the window panes, ‘and oh, my dear life, but wasn’t it dark!’

  Up went Moggy, with her thick-wicked kitchen candle, to seek repose; and Betty, resolving not to be long behind, waited only ‘to wash up her plates’ and slack down the fire, having made up her mind, for she grew more nervous in solitude, to share Moggy’s bed for that night.

  Moggy had not been twenty minutes gone, and her task was nearly ended, when— ‘Oh, blessed saints!’ murmured Betty, with staring eyes, and dropping the sweeping-brush on the flags, she heard, or thought she heard, her master’s step, which was peculiar, crossing the floor overhead.

  She listened, herself as pale as a corpse, and nearly as breathless; but there was nothing now but the muffled gusts of the storm, and the close soft beat of the snow, so she listened and listened, but nothing came of it.

  ‘’Tis only the vapours,’ said Betty, drawing a long breath, and doing her best to be cheerful; and so she finished her labours, stopping every now and then to listen, and humming tunes very loud, in fits and starts. Then it came to her turn to take her candle and go up stairs; she was a good half-hour later than Moggy — all was quiet within the house — only the sound of the storm — the creak and rattle of its strain, and the hurlyburly of the gusts over the roof and chimneys.

  Over her shoulder she peered jealously this way and that, as with flaring candle she climbed the stairs. How black the window looked on the lobby, with its white patterns of snow flakes in perpetual succession sliding down the panes. Who could tell what horrid face might be looking in close to her as she passed, secure in the darkness and that drifting white lace veil of snow? So nimbly and lightly up the stairs climbed Betty, the cook.

  If listeners seldom hear good of themselves, it is also true that peepers sometimes see more than they like; and Betty, the cook, as she reached the landing, glancing askance with ominous curiosity, beheld a spectacle, the sight of which nearly bereft her of her senses.

  Crouching in the deep doorway on the right of the lobby, the cook, I say, saw something — a figure — or a deep shadow — only a deep shadow — or maybe a dog. She lifted the candle — she peeped under the candlestick: ’twas no shadow, as I live, ’twas a well-defined figure!

  He was draped in black, cowering low, with the face turned up. It was Charles Nutter’s face, fixed and stealthy. It was only while the fascination lasted — while you might count one, two, three, deliberately — that the horrid gaze met mutually. But there was no mistake there. She saw the stern dark picture as plainly as ever she did. The light glimmered on his white eyeballs.

  Starting up, he struck at the candle with his hat. She uttered a loud scream, and flinging stick and all at the figure, with a great clang against the door behind, all was swallowed in instantaneous darkness; she whirled into the opposite bedroom she knew not how, and locked the door within, and plunged head-foremost under the bedclothes, half mad with terror.

  The squall was heard of course. Moggy heard it, but she heeded not; for Betty was known to scream at mice, and even moths. And as her door was heard to slam, as was usual in panics of the sort, and as she returned no answer, Moggy was quite sure there was nothing in it.

  But Moggy’s turn was to come. When spirits ‘walk,’ I’ve heard they make the most of their time, and sometimes pay a little round of visits on the same evening.

  This is certain; Moggy was by no means so great a fool as Betty in respect of hobgoblins, witches, banshees, pookas, and the world of spirits in general. She eat heartily, and slept soundly, and as yet had never seen the devil. Therefore such terrors as she that night experienced were new to her, and I can’t reasonably doubt the truth of her narrative. Awaking suddenly in the night, she saw a light in the room, and heard a quiet rustling going on in the corner, where the old white-painted press showed its front from the wall. So Moggy popped her head through her thin curtains at the side, and — blessed hour! — there she saw the shape of a man looking into the press, the doors being wide open, and the appearance of a key in the lock.

  The shape was very like her master. The saints between us and harm! The glow was reflected back from the interior of the press, and showed the front part of the figure in profile with a sharp line of light. She said he had some sort of thick slippers over his boots, a dark coat, with the cape buttoned, and a hat flapping over his face; coat and hat and all, sprinkled over with snow.

  As if he heard the rustle of the curtain, he turned toward the bed, an
d with an awful ejaculation she cried, ‘’Tis you, Sir!’

  ‘Don’t stir, and you’ll meet no harm,’ he said, and over he posts to the bedside, and he laid his cold hand on her wrist, and told her again to be quiet, and for her life to tell no one what she had seen, and with that she supposed she swooned away; for the next thing she remembered was listening in mortal fear, the room being all dark, and she heard a sound at the press again, and then steps crossing the floor, and she gave herself up for lost; but he did not come to the bedside any more, and the tread passed out at the door, and so, as she thought, went down stairs.

  In the morning the press was locked and the door shut, and the hall-door and back-door locked, and the keys on the hall-table, where they had left them the night before.

  You may be sure these two ladies were thankful to behold the gray light, and hear the cheerful sounds of returning day; and it would be no easy matter to describe which of the two looked most pallid, scared, and jaded that morning, as they drank a hysterical dish of tea together in the kitchen, close up to the window, and with the door shut, discoursing, and crying, and praying over their tea-pot in miserable companionship.

  CHAPTER LXVIII.

  HOW AN EVENING PASSES AT THE ELMS, AND DR. TOOLE MAKES A LITTLE EXCURSION; AND TWO CHOICE SPIRITS DISCOURSE, AND HEBE TRIPS IN WITH THE NECTAR.

  Up at the Elms, little Lily that night was sitting in the snug, oldfashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still in doctors’ hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there was a look — an outline — a light — something, in little Lily’s fair, girlish face, that, with a strange momentary agony, brought back the remembrance of her mother’s stricken beauty, and plaintive smile. But then his darling’s gay talk and pleasant ways would reassure him, and she smiled away the momentary shadow.