Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  WHAT DOES SIR ROKE MEAN?

  MARK SHADWELL, like other solitary and discontented men, was given to building castles in the air. He had reared and tenanted many in his day; and once in occupation, he held to his tenancy, against all hints and even processes, with admirable tenacity, until the castle fell. He was not exacting in the matter of proof; very light material sufficed for their construction. Now, as we know, he had a theory in hand: like one of the old cagework houses, it stood in outline first, and Mark found brick and mortar as often as Sir Roke Wycherly talked, to build in the interstices.

  Mark liked making a cumulative case of this kind. As he and his guest stood on the hall-doorsteps to-day, for instance, admiring the long files of lofty timber that darkened the avenue, the baronet’s talk went off on other matters, and at last he made quite a little homily upon the dissipations of the gay world and their effects on the habits, characters, and worth of young ladies; and then he harangued on the graces of simplicity in such terms as satisfied him that he could only be thinking of Rachel.

  After dinner, over their glass of wine, again, Sir Roke made a picture of domestic, not rural life, which he contrasted in his own way with the sort of life he had hitherto led. Perhaps he really felt what he said, for of late his qualms and panics about his health had very much spoiled for him the flavour of his old life. It was merely like a spoken reverie, but was enough to contribute to the masonry of Mark’s chateau.

  “You must not grumble, Mark,” said Sir Roke again, “if you knew but all, you are better than I, with broken health, and no pursuit, and no tie, and placed on a d — d regimen, and forbidden nearly every enjoyment on earth! How would you like that?”

  Sir Roke was grumbling, in his way, now, and exaggerating, as grumblers will.

  “My money never did anything for me, to speak of. I never sat for any place; politically, I’m no more than you. I could, of course, if I had liked it, but I never cared.”

  “You might have put me in for Dowcastle, instead of that fellow Dingley. I might have done you some credit, and I would not have played you the trick he did, at all events,” said Mark, in whose heart that wrong had long been festering.

  “Now, that’s very true, Mark, so I might; but you know you did not hint it till it was too late: however, that sort of thing can be made all straight by and by; our parliaments don’t last for ever.”

  Here was another sign of an auspicious change, for Mark knew very well how sharp and short had been Sir Roke’s answer to the meditation he had employed in this matter of the borough of Dowcastle, and how he had pointedly said that “he wished Mark Shadwell were informed, once for all, that he did not think him in any respect suited to the House of Commons.”

  That evening as they stood near the fire in the drawingroom, Sir Roke sipping the chocolate which the accomplished Clewson prepared, for he was a little afraid of tea, and coffee was interdicted, said Mark, very low, on a sadden — he had been looking in a long reverie at Miss Agnes Marlyn, who was at the piano —

  “She is beautiful!”

  Mark’s solitude had given him careless habits. As Sir Roke glanced at him with his shrewd, hard, mean eye, Shadwell would have given something to recall his words.

  “Your daughter? Upon that question I shall certainly be found among the ayes.”

  “I think Miss Marlyn beautiful, at least very pretty, don’t you?” said Mark drily, and trying to rally. He was aware that Sir Roke knew perfectly whom he meant, and it was less suspicious to be frank.

  “Miss Marlyn?” repeated Sir Roke, “oh! I know; yes, very well, very pretty indeed, very, but her style is by no means so uncommon. My cousin Rachel’s beauty is more exquisite and more heavenly, I maintain.”

  Sir Roke was a little near-sighted, and through his tiny Parisian glasses he covertly inspected the young lady at the piano for a moment, and then putting them down, he said to Mark: “So “you admire Miss Marlyn; and I’m not surprised, she is very pretty.”

  There was nothing in this speech at all remarkable, nor anything tangible in the manner of its utterance; but Mark was stung by it. He knew what was passing in Sir Roke’s mind, and he fancied that he was aware of that fact and amused at it.

  Mark Shadwell did not quite understand the pain he felt, nor even in what particular nerves it was seated. He had no more pretensions to morality than other men who had lived, like him, an early life of dissipation. It was not worth his while to wear a mask before Roke, who knew him as well as he knew Roke; but a sentiment was combined with his mere admiration of Miss Agnes Marlyn; she was growing dear to him. If he had looked this secret in the face, I do not say that he would have had nerve to act as he ought; but he must have seen incidents in the situation enough to appal him. His pride was wounded on a sudden. He had unveiled to the lynx-eyed cynicism of Roke the secret which was almost a secret to his own soul. He was angry with him, angry also with himself — yes, very angry with himself — for was he not a philosopher? had he not long ago renounced the illusions of his youth? was he not a friar of the order of David Hume, as well as a theologian of the school of Voltaire?

  Of the two men who stood side by side on the hearthrug, I am quite sure that Sir Roke was the worst. Both of the earth earthy, unennobled by the only influence that can improve our sorry moral plight — Mark’s nature, with its great faults, perversities, and early stains, was yet the better.

  He had never been the cruel epicurean that Roke was. Generous and even tender impulses had visited him sometimes, and occasionally disturbed his selfishness, and something of passion had mingled in his early profligacy. Even now he was living partly in a delusion, and he loved, in his sharp debates with the Reverend Stour Temple, to challenge that severe censor to pick a hole in his morality. He liked sarcastically to pit himself against the vicar’s best parishioners. He would have liked to make Roke speak out what he knew was in his mind, for the sake of answering him according to his temper. But Roke would do no such thing. He would enjoy his suspicion discreetly with an insulting reserve.

  Miss Marlyn was playing still. Sir Roke approached Rachel, who, I suppose, did not receive him encouragingly, for in a few minutes he glided to the piano, and stood by the side of the performer. He beat time with a little wave of his hand, and smiled and whispered something; a compliment on her music, Mark assumed.

  What he really said was this: “So you’ve been doing me a kind office, with your pretty companion? she won’t speak to me — she won’t look at me. What sort of person must she think me? You must allow me to view this in my own way, and to regard it as of the best imaginable augury. Pray remember how very soon I shall be ordering my wings and be off to town. Was I very ill-tempered, to-day? I hope n’ot.”

  Here came a great roulade, and the bass grew very loud; so that he contented himself with smiling, and marking the time with a little oscillation of his hand.

  Mark Shadwell, standing by the chimneypiece with his coffee-cup in his hand, looked at his invalid wife, to whose side by this time Sir Roke had transferred himself.

  “That sneering beast thinks every fellow like himself. I never lived a life like his. I despise a man who does.”

  His glance wandered to Miss Agnes Marlyn, and then dropped to the ground; he leaned on the mantlepiece, and his reverie was of the afternoon, some time ago, when in that irregular apartment, hall, vestibule, all in one, of the Star and Garter, in the quaint High Street of Raby, waiting to see old Brent about his cob, the ‘bus from the distant railway station set down a passenger at the open door, who entered in her cloak.

  He knew nothing of her — he had forgotten all about Miss Marlyn’s intended arrival. He saw a plain dress, but a wonderfully beautiful girl; and he made way for her as for a princess. There is an impulse, not of admiration simply, but of respect in our first sight of a beautiful woman; because we intuitively reverence power of every kind, and beauty in a woman is power. The momentary scene was fixed in his mind for ever. In the shadow of
that homely hall, so queerly misshapen, doors and galleries opening on it, the clumsy stairs mounting through an arch on one side, the bow-window of the bar projecting at the other, had appeared this young figure, and face, and all was glorified by her beauty.

  “I have been like a father to her — a guardian — the shabby fellow!”

  Mark Shadwell mentally presented himself with the most unexceptionable certificate; and with that in his pocket, glanced a contemptuous defiance at his kinsman, who smiled and chatted on, quite unconscious of the lightning that forked and flickered so near him.

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  CARMEL SHERLOCK KNOCKS AT AMY’S DOOR.

  MRS. SHADWELL went early that evening to her dressing-room. Dolly Wyndle, their usual conference ended, had gone about her business. With solitude came dejection. The sick lady, supporting her head upon her thin hand, began to think of what would be when she was gone. “Agnes Marlyn will not desert my poor Rachel; wise above her years, and kind, I don’t think Mark will disturb that. But then she is so young a creature; every way, difficulties. Perhaps Mark will go up to town and live there, as he always wished, leaving them here. He will marry very soon a pain thrilled her, though she smiled a forlorn little smile. “I wonder whether he will ever think of his poor little Amy! No one will ever love him so well again and her eyes filled slowly with tears.

  Poor little wandering soul — troubled about many things! Then came the thought of death. Oh! was her failing health, or the coming of that ghastly change, a frightful dream? A horror of great darkness, and the fears of death had fallen upon her, and there came the shuddering and wailing of panic. To this, an awful calm succeeded, and she lifted up her clasped hands, and her eyes and her trembling heart to God in dumb supplication.

  Many sensible people had long set down pretty little sick Mrs. Shadwell as a fool — yet she had accomplishments — could draw — was a musician — was, as the phrase is, “well-informed,” — could tell a good book from a dull one — and talked when her spirits served, pleasantly and intelligently about most things. But though not a mental, I am afraid she was a moral fool. She had not courage to fight any one — to wound any one — to suspect any one — to hold her own, in short, in this world of cunning and ferocity; and when she lay down at night, she was troubled to think that anyone, on earth, was “out with her,” and busy with little plans for reconciliation. And had she not given herself up to an idiotic idolatry of a husband who could no longer see any good in her priceless love, or, pleasantness in her unconscious adulation. Eyes had he and saw not, ears and heard not, and yet her worship never flagged, and she sat by a dead love in that wildest and saddest insanity which will not believe in death, but watches, and hopes, and waits for its awaking.

  After a while, in the silence that followed, came a sudden knock at her door.

  “Who’s there?” she asked, starred, for she heard no step approach the door.

  “I, ma’am, I — Carmel Sherlock — shall I come in?”

  “Come in.”

  And Carmel entered, looking very pale-looking, indeed, like a man, faint from pain.

  “Thank you, ma’am, you’re very good. I’ve something on my mind — something to say;” he closed the door, jealously looking at her all the while, with a troubled face, and his large eyes dilated with fear. “Don’t be frightened, but I must go, ma’am; I must leave Raby. The place where I’ve been so happy — dreaming — dreaming,” he groaned.

  “What is it? What do you mean, Mr. Sherlock?” asked she, surprised.

  “I’m come to say, I must go, ma’am — I must,” and he groaned again. “I must go, and I don’t like to tell Mr. Shadwell — my benefactor — because it would cause a — a struggle; he would try to keep me; and if he were to succeed — oh! if! — I won’t look at it; I must go tonight.”

  “Pray, Mr. Sherlock, be quite frank, and do let me know your reasons.”

  “Oh! ma’am — my dear, good lady, you mustn’t ask — I can’t. It isn’t — it isn’t to be told.”

  “But Mr. Shadwell will be so pained — you will be an irreparable loss. I really don’t know what he’s to do, if you leave him. Surely you’ll consider him — I know you will.”

  “I will — I do — I always do — Oh! ma’am, I’m not ungrateful. I should have been cast away upon the wastes of life, but for him. I owe him all — my life — my life — but this would never do; it scares me; it won’t be battled with or denied — just — just a whisper that has caught my ear.”

  “One word of all this I can’t understand,” said she: “I hardly think you intend I should.”

  “Better not,” he said, and clasped his hands hard together. “So many years, and to frighten you at last! No, no! it could not be.”

  “If anything has happened to make you less happy than you were, I think you ought to tell me. It’s very odd, and hardly kind to think of going away without assigning a reason; there’s nothing that could possibly frighten me in any you are likely to give.” She paused; but though she said this, she did feel nervous as well as curious; there was so much anguish in Carmel’s dark stare.

  “It would frighten you,” he whispered; and looking round the cornice of the room, he laid his hand on his head, as if to control some pressure there. She remembered the sarcastic bulletins with which Mark Shadwell often favoured her, to the effect that Carmel was growing decidedly madder and madder every day.

  “Now, I’ve made up my mind, Mr. Sherlock,” said she, with something of her old spirit, and shocked to think of his leaving at such an hour; “you’ll stay tonight, whatever the cause; you won’t go — at my earnest request, and as a kindness to me — you’ll remain!”

  “She does not know,” Carmel groaned, “ she doesn’t, what she’s doing! Why will she ask it — dis iratis? Oh! madam, yon mustn’t — oh I spare me that one command!”

  “I will ask you — I do — you must not go tonight — I insist upon it — don’t think of it: in the morning you will see things differently. I entreat you to grant me this one kindness.” There was a pause of a few seconds.

  “I will, madam,” said he, shaking his head, nevertheless, as if he had said “no.”

  “The day after tomorrow — you must stay till then; there arc many things, you know, to arrange — you mustn’t go till then. Promise this — you shall promise — I know you will!” And, with these words, poor Mrs. Shadwell, who in her energy had risen from her sofa, took his hand kindly, and repeated her entreaty.

  “I will, madam, I obey you in this; I promise — take it — my hand — cruentum! There — Good God, madam, my hand!” He withdrew it, and looked into her eyes with a very odd stare, and muttered: “Well were it for that man that he had never been born! My hand — it looks all wrong to me! I wish, ma’am, you had ordered me rather to get it smashed in a mill-crank!”

  “Till the day after tomorrow, you have promised to remain,” she said, passing by this odd parenthesis. “I am satisfied now, and thank you, Mr. Sherlock, thank you very much — and goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, ma’am. I am constrained— “He paused, with his hand on the door-handle, and looked at her as if on the point of speaking; after a few doubtful seconds, however, to her relief, he changed his mind, and, with a great sigh, he said merely “Good - night, ma’am,” and left the room, closing the door gently, leaving her a great deal more excited and agitated than she had fancied herself during the flighty interview he bad just given her. Odd he always was; but now his language, like the incipient mutterings of actual insanity, was wild and ominous. She was grieved and shocked, and felt on the point of bursting into tears.

  “Poor, kind, gentle Carmel! — what can it be?” she wondered, as she stood very pale, where he had left her.

  Very glad she was to hear a step approaching. This time it was her husband who entered.

  “Oh, Mark, I’m so glad you have come. Poor Carmel Sherlock has been here, and seemed so excited and strange.”

  “I told you, Amy, he’s
odd — you don’t see so much of him as I do — a little bit mad; you would not believe me,” and Mark laughed. But his merriment in her ear was not reassuring. It sounded like laughter heard in a dismal dream.

  “Oh, Mark, dear, you could not laugh if you knew how very strange he looked, and ill. I’m so afraid there’s something very seriously wrong.”

  “Now, come,” said Mark, a little inconsistently, “you must not be absurd. You fancy Carmel’s mad — he’s no more mad than you or I. He has very odd ways, I grant, and theories — it’s merely solitude and reading, and this vile wilderness; but with that dreamy way of his, he’s as wideawake and sharp as any lawyer in Westminster — you may take my word for it. I know him better than any man living — at accounts and business with him every day — as sound and clear a head as any in England — no more mad than the Lord Chancellor.”

  Mark was, in fact, arguing with himself, and blowing and brushing away the little suspicions that were, as his frightened wife spoke, gathering over his own mind.

  “I promised to play a little piquet with Roke in his room tonight,” he resumed; “he asked me. You remember what I said yesterday about him — you do, of course. Now, all I say is this — you’ll leave it entirely to me; and, mind, there’s to be none of that talking him over, you know, that women are so fond of; by Jove! I only wonder any girls ever married — they sit like a secret committee on every fellow that pays them the least attention, and pick him to pieces, and laugh at him, till I wonder how any of them can have the face to marry him, and I’m certain that’s the sole reason why half the disappointments take place that do. Now, mind, you mustn’t allow it, nor any tattle of old Wyndle’s, and Miss Marlyn must not be laughing with her over Roke’s wrinkles, and nonsense, if he has any. All I say is this — just leave the matter in my hands. Ill speak to Rachel myself, if she’s disposed to be foolish — she sha’n’t be allowed to sacrifice herself. There aren’t six girls coming out in London, next season, who’d refuse Roke Wycherly. Pretty stuff! Of course she’s to be quite free — but— ‘that’s all.”