Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  “Yes — Sir Jekyl — how is he?”

  “Oh, Miss Jane! — oh, Miss Jane! — oh, Miss Jane! — and is that it?”

  Lady Jane’s face was dark with other fiercer passions.

  “Can’t you answer, and not talk?” said she.

  Donica’s eyes wandered to the far end of the room to the fatal recess, and she was shaking her head, as if over a tale of horror.

  “Yes, I see, you know it all, and you’ll hate me now, as the others will, and I don’t care.”

  Suspicions are one thing — faint, phantasmal; certainties quite another. Donica Gwynn looked appalled.

  “Oh! poor Miss Jennie!” she cried at last, and burst into tears. Before this old domestic Lady Jane was standing — a statue of shame, of defiance — the fallen angelic.

  “You’re doing that to make me mad.”

  “Oh! no, miss; I’m sorry.”

  There was silence for a good while.

  “The curse of God’s upon this room,” said Donica, fiercely, drying her eyes. “I wish you had never set foot in it. Come away, my lady. I’ll go and send at once for a carriage to the town, and we’ll go together, ma’am, to Wardlock. Shall I, ma’am?”

  “Yes, I’ll go,” said Lady Jane. “Let us go, you and I. I won’t go with Lady Alice. I won’t go with her.”

  “Goodbye, my lady; goodbye, Miss Jennie dear; I’ll be here again presently.”

  Dressed for the journey, with her cloak on and bonnet, Lady Jane sat in an armchair, haggard, listless, watching the slow shuffling of her own foot upon the floor, while Donica departed to complete the arrangements for their journey.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  The two Doctors consult.

  The doctor from Slowton had arrived at last. The horses, all smoking with the break-neck speed at which they had been driven, stood at the hall-door steps. The doctor himself, with Pratt and the nurse, were upstairs in the patient’s room. The Rev. Dives Marlowe, looking uncomfortable and bilious, hovered about the back stairs that led to Sir Jekyl’s apartment, to waylay the doctors on their way down, and listened for the sound of their voices, to gather from their tones something of their spirits and opinions respecting his brother, about whose attack he had instinctive misgivings. The interview was a long one. Before it was over Dives had gradually ascended to the room outside the Baronet’s, and was looking out of the window on the prospect below with the countenance with which one might look on a bad balance-sheet.

  The door opened, the doctors emerged — the Slowton man first, Pratt following, both looking grave as men returning from the sacrament.

  “Oh! Mr. Dives Marlowe — the Rev. Dives Marlowe,” murmured Pratt as the door was shut.

  The lean practitioner from Slowton bowed low, and the ceremony over —

  “Well, gentlemen?” inquired the Rev. Dives Marlowe.

  “We are about to compare notes, and discuss the case a little — Doctor Pratt and I — and we shall then, sir, be in a position to say something a — a — definite, we hope.”

  So the Rev. Dives withdrew to the stairhead, exchanging bows with the priests of Æsculapius, and there awaited the opening of the doors. When that event came, and the Rev. Dives entered —

  “Well, Mr. Marlowe,” murmured the Slowton doctor, a slight and dismal man of five-and-fifty— “we think, sir, that your brother, Sir Jekyl Marlowe, is not in immediate danger; but it would not be right or fair to conceal the fact that he is in a very critical state — highly so, in fact; and we think it better on the whole that some member of his family should advise him, if he has anything to arrange — a — a will, or any particular business, that he should see to it; and we think that — we are quite agreed upon this, Doctor Pratt?”

  Pratt bowed assent, forgetful that he had not yet heard what they were agreed on.

  “We think he should be kept very quiet; he’s very low, and must have claret. We have told the nurse in what quantities to administer it, and some other things; she’s a very intelligent woman, and your servants can take their directions from her.”

  Dives felt very oddly. We talk of Death all our lives, but know nothing about him until he stands in our safe homesteads suddenly before us, face to face. He is a much grizzlier object than we had fancied when busied with a brother or a child. What he is when he comes for ourselves, the few who have seen him waiting behind the doctor and live can vaguely remember.

  “Good Lord, sir!” said Dives, “is he really in that state? I had no idea.”

  “Don’t mistake us, sir. We don’t say he may not, if everything goes right, do very well. Only the case is critical, and we should deceive you if we shrank from telling you so; is not that your view, Doctor — Dr. Pratt?”

  Dr. Pratt was of course quite clear on the point.

  “And you are in very able hands here,” and the Slowton doctor waved his yellow fingers and vouchsafed a grave smile and nod of approbation toward Pratt, who wished to look indifferent under the compliment, but simpered a little in spite of himself.

  The Rev. Dives Marlowe accompanied the two doctors downstairs, looking like a man going to execution.

  “You need not be afraid, sir,” said Dives, laying his hand on the Slowton leech’s sleeve. The grave gentleman stopped and inclined his ear to listen, and the three stood huddled together on the small landing, Dives’ nervous fingers in the banister.

  “I don’t quite see, sir,” observed the doctor.

  “I give him up, sir; you need not be afraid to tell me.”

  “You are right, perhaps, to give him up; but I always say exactly what I think. Doctor — a — Pratt and I — we tell you frankly — we think him in a very critical state; but it’s quite on the cards he may recover; and we have given very full directions to the nurse, who appears to be a very intelligent person; and don’t let him shift his attitude unnecessarily, it may prejudice him, and be in fact attended with danger — very serious danger; and Doctor Pratt shall look in at five o’clock — you were so good as to say, Doctor Pratt, you would look in at five. Doctor Pratt will look in then, and do anything that may be necessary; and if there should be the slightest symptom of hæmorrhage send for him instantly, and the nurse knows what to do; and I think — I think I have said everything now.”

  “Hæmorrhage, sir! But what hæmorrhage? Why, what hæmorrhage is apprehended?” asked Dives, amazed.

  “Internal or external it may occur,” said the doctor; and Pratt, coughing and shaking his chops, interposed hurriedly and said —

  “Yes, there may be a bleeding, it may come to that.”

  “He has bled a great deal already, you are aware,” resumed the Slowton doctor, “and in his exhausted state a return of that might of course be very bad.”

  “But I don’t understand,” persisted Dives. “I beg pardon, but I really must. What is this hæmorrhage? it is not connected with gout, is it?”

  “Gout, sir! no; who said gout? A bad wound, that seems to run toward the lung,” answered the Slowton man.

  “Wound! how’s this? I did not hear,” and Dives looked frightened, and inquiringly on Pratt, who said —

  “Not hear, didn’t you? Why, Sir Jekyl undertook to tell you, and would not let me. He took me in for a while, poor fellow, quite, and said ’twas gout, that’s all. I’m surprised he did not tell you.”

  “No — no — not a word; and — and you think, sir, it may begin bleeding afresh?”

  “That’s what we chiefly apprehend. Farewell, sir. I find I have not a moment. I must be at Todmore in three quarters of an hour. A sad case that at Todmore; only a question of a few days, I’m afraid; and a very fine young fellow.”

  “Yes,” said Dives— “I — I — it takes me by surprise. Pray, Dr. Pratt, don’t go for a moment,” and he placed his hand on his arm.

  “Farewell, sir,” said the Slowton doctor, and putting up his large gold watch, and bowing gravely, he ran at a quiet trot down the stairs, and jumped into his chaise at the back entrance, and
vanished.

  “You did not tell me,” began Dives.

  “No,” said Pratt, promptly, “he said he’d tell himself, and did not choose me.”

  “And you think — you think it’s very bad?”

  “Very bad, sir.”

  “And you think he’ll not get over it?”

  “He may not, sir.”

  “It’s frightful, Doctor, frightful. And how was it, do you know?”

  “No more than the man in the moon. You must not tease him with questions, mind, to-day. In a day or two you may ask him. But he said, upon his honour, no one was to blame but himself.”

  “Merciful Heavens! sir. To think of his going this way!”

  “Very sad, sir. But we’ll do all we can, and possibly may pull him through.”

  With slow steps Dives began to ascend the stairs toward his brother’s room. He recollected that he had not bid Pratt goodbye, and gave him his adieux over the banister; and then, with slow and creaking steps, mounted, and paused on the lobby, to let his head clear and to think how he should accost him.

  Dives was not a Churchman to pester people impertinently about their sins; and out of the pulpit, where he lashed the vice but spared the man, he was a well-bred divine, and could talk of sheep, and even of horses, and read everything from St. Paul to Paul de Kock; and had ridden till lately after the hounds, and gave recherché little dinners, such as the New Testament character whose name, with a difference in pronunciation, he inherited might have praised, and well-iced champagne, which, in his present uncomfortable state, that fallen gentleman would have relished. And now he stood in a sombre mood, with something of panic at the bottom of it, frightened that the ice upon which men held Vanity Fair, and roasted oxen, and piped and danced, and gamed, should prove so thin; and amazed to see his brother drowning among the fragments in that black pool, and no one minding, and he unable to help him.

  And it came to him like a blow and a spasm. “The special minister of Christ! — am I what I’m sworn to be? Can I go in and talk to him of those things that concern eternity with any effect? Will he mind me? Can I even now feel the hope, and lead the prayer as I ought to do?”

  And Dives, in a sort of horror, as from the pit, lifted up his eyes, and prayed “have mercy on me!” and saw a misspent hollow life behind, and judgment before him; and blamed himself, too, for poor Jekyl, and felt something of the anguish of his namesake in the parable, and yearned for the safety of his brother.

  Dives, in fact, was frightened for himself and for Jekyl, and in those few moments, on the lobby, his sins looked gigantic and the vast future all dismay; and he felt that, bad as poor Jekyl might be, he was worse — a false soldier — a Simon Magus — chaff, to be burnt up with unquenchable fire!

  “I wish to God the Bishop had stayed over this night,” said Dives, with clasped hands, and again turning his eyes upward. “We must send after him. I’ll write to implore of him. Oh, yes, he’ll come.”

  Even in this was a sense of relief; and treading more carefully, he softly turned the handle of the outer door, and listened, and heard Jekyl’s cheerful voice say a few words to the nurse. He sighed with a sense of relief, and calling up a sunnier look, he knocked at Jekyl’s halfopen door, and stepped to his bedside.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  Varbarriere in the Sick-room.

  “Well, Jekyl, my dear fellow — and how do you feel now? There, don’t; you must not move, they told me,” said Dives, taking his brother’s hand, and looking with very anxious eyes in his face, while he managed his best smile.

  “Pretty well — nothing. Have they been talking? What do they say?” asked Sir Jekyl.

  “Say? Well, not much; those fellows never do; but they expect to have you all right again, if you’ll just do what you’re bid, in a week or two.”

  “Pratt’s coming at five,” he said. “What is it now?”

  Dives held his watch to Jekyl, who nodded.

  “Do you think I’ll get over it, Dives?” he asked at length, rather ruefully.

  “Get over? To be sure you will,” answered Dives, doing his best. “It might be better for you, my dear Jekyl, if it were a little more serious. We all need to be pulled up a little now and then. And there’s nothing like an alarm of — of that kind for making a man think a little; for, after all, health is only a long day, and a recovery but a reprieve. The sentence stands against us, and we must, sooner or later, submit.”

  “Yes, to be sure. We’re all mortal, Dives — is not that your discovery?” said Sir Jekyl.

  “A discovery it is, my dear fellow, smile as we may — a discovery to me, and to you, and to all — whenever the truth, in its full force, opens on our minds.”

  “That’s when we’re going to die, I suppose,” said Sir Jekyl.

  “Then, of course; but often, in the mercy of God, long before it. That, in fact, is what we call people’s growing serious, or religious; their perceiving, as a fact, that they are mortal, and resolving to make the best preparation they can for the journey.”

  “Come, Dives, haven’t those fellows been talking of me — eh? — as if I were worse than you say?” asked the Baronet, oddly.

  “The doctors, you mean? They said exactly what I told you. But it is not, my dear Jekyl, when we are sick and frightened, and maybe despairing, that these things are best thought on; but when we are, like you and me, likely to live and enjoy life — then is the time. I’ve been thinking myself, my dear Jekyl, a good deal for some time past. I have been living too much in the spirit of the world; but I hope to do better.”

  “To do better — to be sure. You’ve always been hoping to do better; and I’ve given you a lift or two,” said the Baronet, who, in truth, never much affected his brother’s pulpit-talk, as he called it, and was falling into his old cynical vein.

  “But, seriously, my dear fellow, I do. My mind has been troubled thinking how unworthy I have been of my calling, and how fruitless have been my opportunities, my dear brother, with you. I’ve never improved them; and I’d be so glad — now we are likely to have a few quiet days — if you’ll let me read a little with you.”

  “Sermons, do you mean?” interposed the Baronet.

  “Well, what’s better? — a little of the Bible?”

  “Come now, Dives, those doctors have been shaking their heads over me. I say, you must tell me. Do they say I’m in a bad way?”

  “They think you’ll recover.”

  “Did they tell you what it is?”

  “Yes. A wound.”

  “They had no business, d —— them,” said Sir Jekyl, flushing.

  “Don’t, don’t, my dear Jekyl; they could not help it. I pressed that doctor — I forget his name — and he really could not help saying.”

  “Well, well, it doesn’t much signify; I’d have told you myself by-and-by. But you must not tell — I’ve a reason — you must not tell anyone, mind. It was my fault, and I’m greatly to blame; and I’ll tell you in a little while — a day or two — all about it.”

  “Yes, so you can. But, my dear Jekyl, you look much fatigued; you are exerting yourself.”

  Here the nurse interposed with the claret-jug, and intimated that the Rev. Dives was making her patient feverish, and indeed there was an unpleasantly hot hectic in each cheek. But the Baronet had no notion of putting himself under the command of the supernumerary, and being a contumacious and troublesome patient, told her to sit in the study and leave him alone.

  “I’ve a word to say, Dives. I must see that fellow Herbert Strangways.”

  “Who?” said Dives, a good deal alarmed, for he feared that his brother’s mind was wandering.

  “Herbert — that fellow Varbarriere. I forgot I had not told you. Herbert Strangways, you remember; they’re the same. And I want to see him. Better now than tomorrow. I may be feverish then.”

  “By Jove! It’s very surprising. Do you really mean— “

  “Yes; he is. I do; they are the same. You remember Herbert,
of course — Herbert Strangways — the fellow I had that long chase after all over Europe. He has things to complain of, you know, and we might as well square the account in a friendlier way, eh? — don’t you think?”

  “And was it he — was there any altercation?” stammered Dives.

  “That did this, you mean,” said Sir Jekyl, moving his hand toward the wound. “Not a bit — no. He seems reasonable; and I should like — you know they are very old blood, and there’s nothing against it — that all should be made up. And if that young fellow and Beatrix — don’t you see? Is Tomlinson there?”

  “In the outer room,” said Dives.

  “Call him. Tomlinson, I say, you take my compliments to Monsieur Varbarriere, and say, if he has no objection to see me for a few minutes here, I should be very happy. Try and make him out, and bring me word.”

  So Tomlinson disappeared.

  “And, Dives, it tires me; — so will you — I’m sure you will — see Pelter, after we’ve spoken with that fellow Herbert, and consult what we had best do, you know. I dare say the young people would come to like one another — he’s a fine young fellow; and that, you know, would be the natural way of settling it — better than law or fighting.”

  “A great deal — a great deal, certainly.”

  “And you may tell him I have that thing — the deed, you know — my poor father— “

  “I — I always told you, my dear Jekyl, I’d rather know nothing of all that — in fact, I do know nothing; and I should not like to speak to Pelter on that subject. You can, another time, you know,” said Dives.

  “Well, it’s in the red trunk in there.”

  “Pray, dear Jekyl, don’t — I assure you I’d rather know nothing — I — I can’t; and Pelter will understand you better when he sees you. But I’ll talk to him with pleasure about the other thing, and I quite agree with you that any reasonable arrangement is better than litigation.”

  “Very well, be it so,” said Sir Jekyl, very tired.