Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  Mrs. Shadwell in her room was sitting by the fire, listening to a little narrative of Rachel’s, when Miss Marlyn looked in, paused, and retreated.

  I don’t know whether Rachel was talking about Miss Marlyn at the moment, but that young lady, during her few moments’ hesitation at the threshold, looked from one to the other with an amused smile — a scarcely perceptible sneer — which seemed to say: “I’ve surprised you in-high chat upon me; shouldn’t I be rather de trop here?”

  She acted provokingly well. Her air was that of a person trying to seem unconscious of her discovery, and suppressing every evidence of her amusement.

  “Call her back; tell her to come in,” said Mrs. Shadwell. Rachel did so, and in came Miss Agnes Marlyn.

  “Pray sit down; you had better sit near the fire, hadn’t you? It’s so very cold — isn’t it, Miss Marlyn?” said Mrs. Shadwell.

  “Very cold,” acquiesced Miss Marlyn, with a gentle emphasis which conveyed a covert meaning.

  Miss Marlyn sat down timidly — ceremoniously a little — and remained silent, after the manner of one admitted into a superior presence.

  “I hope you keep a good fire downstairs?” said Mrs. Shadwell.

  “You take a great deal too much trouble about me,” she answered, with a faint, unpleasant smile; “you do, indeed, Mrs. Shadwell.”

  “I should be very sorry, so long as you stay with us, that you were anything, by any accident, but perfectly comfortable, Miss Marlyn,” answered Amy.

  “I should be very happy to abridge that so kind anxiety,” said Agnes Marlyn, sadly, “if I could.”

  Mrs. Shadwell was silent — perhaps a little embarrassed — for assuredly she also, perhaps with more sincerity, wished Agnes Marlyn’s stay at Raby shortened; and yet she had no distinct ground of quarrel to allege.

  Miss Marlyn, looking down, smiled again. Rachel leaned back in her chair, with nearly closed eyes, as if in a reverie; she, too, was embarrassed — that kind of feeling is so contagious.

  Then followed a silence of some minutes, during which you might hear the hum of the little jet of flame that spurted from between the bars.

  “Don’t you think we are all going to sleep?” said Rachel, after some minutes had passed in this way, turning to Agnes.

  “I am not sleepy; my thoughts always amuse me,” said Agnes Marlyn, in her ambiguous way.

  Rachel looked at her a little vexed.

  “I suppose you were thinking of some of the amusing people you knew in France; at least, I hope you were not thinking of us; for it is not pleasant to be laughed at, or even smiled at, as you sometimes smile,” she said.

  Miss Marlyn did actually laugh very faintly here, turning away her head.

  “Rachel, dear!” said Mrs. Shadwell, in a tone of gentle reproof.

  “I’ve remarked lately that you laugh, Agnes, when I am serious, and are grave when I am merry. It is not pleasant,” said Rachel.

  “People such as I are not pleasant company. It is not my fault that I am here. You and your mamma, I hope, know how unwillingly I find myself detained; but as you are so frank, I will be candid also. Your papa is not able to pay me the small arrear of my salary. If I had other means I should go away to-day, and willingly forgive that little debt; but I have no money, and without money there is nothing to be done.”

  “Oh! Miss Marlyn! I had hoped you were not so anxious to leave us; and I assure you I would have spoken to Mr. Shadwell, had I known you were made uncomfortable by his delay.”

  Miss Marlyn, turning away slowly, smiled again, faintly and bitterly.

  “Many thanks; but I should not hesitate to speak myself to Mr. Shadwell, if I thought that speaking on the subject could be of any use; as it is, he asks me to await his convenience, and I suppose I must. You can’t be more anxious to dismiss me, than I am to resign; the difficulty is, perhaps, a little ridiculous, but we can’t help it, can we?”

  “You’re extremely impertinent,” said Rachel, with a fiery glance and a brilliant colour.

  “Rachel, dear, you mustn’t!” entreated her mother.

  “She has my leave to call me impertinent as often as she pleases,” said Miss Marlyn; “it only shows that I have reason in wishing to go, and when I please I can retaliate, for language is at everyone’s service, ain’t it? But I sha’n’t, though I need only pick up two or three unpleasant adjectives — insolent, beggarly, and so forth — and throw them back to you, but your caprices and insults shall not tempt me into such a meanness,” said Miss Marlyn, with the same bitter smile, and growing very pale, with an angry glare in her eyes.

  “Caprices and insults, Miss Marlyn!” echoed Mrs. Shadwell, in amazement.

  “Caprices and insults, yes. I did not want to be petted. I came here as a governess: to take me up without a cause was caprice, to drop me without a cause, is insult; therefore I say caprice and insult. It is caprice, for instance, inviting me in here, when I know you dislike me; and insult from your daughter, calling me impertinent — I, who have authority here to direct your hours and instruction while I stay — and you’ll come down now, if you please, Miss Shadwell, and practise your duet.” Miss Marlyn spoke in a cold way, her beautiful face white with anger, and a steady fire gleaming from her eyes, as she rose from her seat, and with a slight motion, indicated the door to Rachel.

  “Authority!” repeated Mrs. Shadwell. “You forget, Miss Marlyn, that my daughter is quite past that age, and that I have never given you any such right.”

  “Oh, dear! I did not mean you, madam. I received it, of course, from Mr. Shadwell,” said Agnes, with the same insolent smile.

  “Your authority, I think, can hardly overrule mine, Miss Marlyn. I wish my daughter to remain here,” said Mrs. Shadwell, gently, but with a slight flush in her cheek.

  “I think, however, I am doing my duty, madam, in desiring Miss Shadwell to come to her music. It would, of course, be much pleasanter for me to sit idle, reading my book.”

  “Do, pray mamma, tell her to leave your room,” said Rachel, in her own way nearly as angry as Miss Marlyn.

  “I shall be too happy to leave this room,” said Miss Marlyn.

  “Anything so ridiculous!” exclaimed Rachel.

  “But it shall be to ascertain on exactly what footing I really am placed while I remain here,” continued Agnes Marlyn, and with a courtesy, she left the room.

  “Did you ever hear anything so impertinent in your life?” exclaimed Rachel. “I could not believe my ears. I wonder, mamma, you did not order her out of the room.”

  “She was angry, darling, and very rude; but I’m sure she will regret it when she reflects a little,” said Mrs. Shadwell.

  “She’s so ungrateful and odious! I could not have believed it of her. I suppose she’s gone down straight to papa, to the library; he’ll soon bring her to her senses — impudent creature!” said Rachel. “Is it true, I wonder, that papa has not got money to pay her. — I don’t believe it, do you?”

  “I don’t know, darling, I can’t say, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Shadwell. “She is so angry just now, that she would say almost anything; but it’s only too possible, there is nothing more miserable than worries about money, but I ought not to complain; they press so much more on your poor papa, they have quite worn out his spirits. It is so miserable, this fine place and house, and all the rents passing through his hands, merely to pay interest on mortgages and annuities to strangers, and so very little left to us to live upon.”

  “Agnes Marlyn, talking in the odd rude way she sometimes used — I don’t mean, of course, as she did just now — said that papa did not know anything about his own affairs; that he thought he had only twelve hundred a-year clear, and that he might easily have sixteen or seventeen hundred more, and that there is nearly five hundred a-year coming whenever an old man — I forget his name — dies; so that we might hold up our heads again, if only we had sense to look after our own business.”

  “Did she, really?” said Mrs. Shadwell, and, for a moment, looki
ng down in a pained meditation. She seemed to reflect on something different from an accession of wealth.

  “Yes,” said Rachel; “but it is not always easy to know when Agnes Marlyn is joking, and when in earnest.”

  Just as she reached this point the door opened, and Mr. Shadwell, followed closely by Miss Marlyn, entered the room.

  CHAPTER XII.

  MISS MARLYN’S TRIUMPH.

  Miss MARLYN had been weeping, and her handkerchief just touched her eyes, and was removed as she entered. Mark Shadwell looked pale and sternly on his wife and daughter, and said sharply, but slowly, “I’ve merely looked in to say, that Miss Marlyn, being here as your instructress, Rachel, is by you, while she remains, to be obeyed.”

  At the last emphatic word he paused.

  “Do you mind? Obeyed” he repeated. “I have no notion of anything else, or of being plagued by your tempers and contradiction. I think, Miss Marlyn, you required her to go down to her music, didn’t you?”

  “I asked Miss Shadwell to come to her usual practice,” said Agnes Marlyn, with a suffering air, in a very subdued tone. “I do not wish to have power, I hate it; I only wish to know what is required of me, if what I say is to be done, then I am accountable; but I should so much prefer to have none, to have no authority, no power, no right. You do not know, sir, how unhappy it makes me; I am so miserable, so hated, so helpless.”

  A few tears fell here on Miss Marlyn’s soft cheek, and her little speech suddenly broke down.

  “Pray, don’t distress yourself, Miss Marlyn. I insist that you shall be treated with proper respect while you remain here. You’ll remember, if you please— “he continued, addressing his daughter, “that you are to obey Miss Marlyn as your instructress, and to treat her as my guest, and in all respects as your own equal where she is not your superior — your equal in birth, your superior in attainments. Do you think it can be any pleasure to her listening to your discords and blunders at the piano, and performing the thankless task of teaching you? What do you mean? What are you dreaming of? Go down this moment; and while Miss Marlyn remains, you shall obey her implicitly.”

  “But mamma was here,” said Rachel, frightened, but also excited and angry; “and Miss Marlyn was extremely rude to her, and ordered me out of the room in the most insulting way, and wished to annoy mamma by doing so; and I always thought I should obey mamma, and not her, when mamma was by.”

  “Your mamma knows how to take care of herself, I hope— “began Mark Shadwell in a sterner tone.

  “Oh, Mr. Shadwell, pray — pray do not consider me!” pleaded Miss Marlyn, pathetically. “I only wish to know what my duties are; it is so miserable any misunderstanding. I am always so unfortunate! Do, I implore, with me whatever Mrs. Shadwell likes best.”

  “You shall be respected here, Miss Marlyn,” said Mark, in a high tone.

  “And so, I’m ‘sure you think should mamma,” said Rachel. “And Miss Marlyn has been most impertinent to her, and overbearing to me.”

  “Oh! Rachel, darling! how can you say so?” exclaimed Miss Marlyn, with an appealing look.

  But this little dialogue was peremptorily brought to a close by Mark Shadwell’s commanding his daughter, with a stamp on the floor, to go instantly, as Miss Marlyn had already desired her, downstairs to her music.

  As Miss Marlyn followed her pupil from the room, she stole a glance at Mrs. Shadwell strangely at variance with her recent tears — a look of lurking triumph and insult that stung her to the heart.

  This sudden scene, more violent in action by force of its looks and tones than its mere dialogue thus set down would convey, was fruitful in feminine tears; not only were Agnes Marlyn’s young cheeks wet, but Mrs. Shadwell wept and trembled.

  She had been bullied, and mortified, and humbled before that insolent young lady, who had provoked that collision for the direct purpose of appealing to the partial judgment of her husband.

  Oh! cruel, wicked girl, what had that poor sick lady done to provoke the torture of that triumph? Oh! Mark, Mark, she thought, how could you forsake the wife of your youth, and requite her unchanged adoration with that deep and ruthless perfidy?

  “Oh, Mark!” she exclaimed; “Oh, Mark! you don’t know how you have wounded me. If you knew all you would not have slighted me so before Rachel, and before that insulting, wicked girl.”

  And speaking this, for her, unparalleled invective, she threw her arms about her husband’s neck, and wept passionately on that breast which her head had not lain upon for years. Mark was disconcerted for a moment, and placed his hand almost fondly on her head. But recollecting himself, he gently removed her, his hand still resting not unkindly on her shoulder. She was clinging to him, looking up with such an imploring agony, and her poor swollen eyelids and wet cheeks moved Mark for a moment with a feeling of compunction.

  “Come, Amy!” he said, “don’t let us have a scene all about nothing. You women are all made up of exaggerations; that wicked girl, as you call her, Miss Marlyn” — Mark’s face as he looked down upon his wife was ghastly pale— “has, I think, simply done her duty, and so will you when you reflect. I can’t, of course, say what you were all talking about before I came in. It’s merely, so far as I can see, making mountains of molehills; but I’m quite certain — whether you had a scene or not before I came — that you will see the absurdity of treating this wretched little squabble as if it were something of — of importance.”

  “Oh! Mark, it is of importance! it is — it is — it is — you know it is; yes, darling, very important. Oh! Mark, do send her away, I implore of you; you don’t know how miserable I am.”

  Mark was again disconcerted, perhaps agitated; but he affected to laugh.

  “Come, come, Amy! you mustn’t be foolish; you’re not a child!”

  “Oh, Mark, darling! this isn’t foolish. Oh, darling! do as I ask you, and you’ll say it was wise.”

  “Well, of course, if you make it important, it is important,” said Mark, with a sudden and odd change of manner. “There’s a crisis in everything. I will do as you say; — she shall go. She leaves Raby tomorrow morning.

  Long threatening comes at last, as old Wyndle says. I am utterly sick of this state of things.”

  “Don’t blame me, Mark, dear!”

  “I blame no one; no, I know too well things come about of themselves, and — and I hate suspense. It was to be, I suppose, and it has come,” said Mark.

  “Thank you, Mark, dear! I’m so grateful.”

  “Don’t thank me; you needn’t. You’re not to suppose, because I don’t talk about what’s passing, that I don’t see it. I have observed — I could not help it — how from having petted and caressed Miss Marlyn — making, perhaps, too much of her — you have come to hate her, and to show her that you hate her — caprice and insult” — (how had he come to find these words?) “Of course, it’s another worry; but I have resolved to put an end to the whole thing.”

  “I’m sorry you think I’m to blame; but, indeed, I’m not. And, Mark, there are some little jewels — I never wear them — and would it not be well to send them up to town and sell them, and that would make paying Miss Marlyn quite easy.”

  “That’s my affair; no, keep them. You need not speak to Miss Marlyn. I don’t wish another scene. I’ll tell her to be ready to go by the two o’clock train tomorrow. She must leave this at eleven.”

  And, so saying, Mark abruptly left the room. Amy Shadwell watched his departure with a strange alarm. There was more in the impression that remained upon her than the occasion seemed to warrant. What resolution had he taken? What was about to happen? A sinister presentiment terrified her.

  The scene that had just agitated her, in her weak state, was followed by violent nervous palpitations, and intense hysterical excitement.

  Very late that night Amy Shadwell, under the influence of a strong narcotic, lying in her husband’s room, with only a faint night-light burning, and the uncertain flame of the fire, awakened she knew not how, saw her husba
nd standing by her bed. Her face was turned from the light, which flickered dimly on his face, as he looked down closely into hers. His countenance was sorrow-stricken and sullen, she could see; and standing erect, his gaze unrewarded, for her features were quite in darkness, he sighed heavily, and remained looking down with the same dismal aspect, for a time; then once more he stooped his face, and whispered very low:

  “Amy! Amy!”

  In the action of the opiate she had taken there was something that resembled a luxurious catalepsy. With a sufficient effort of will, no doubt she could have roused herself to reply, but the languor and serenity of her state held her in a drowsy spell. There was a dim sense of pleasure in protracting the unwonted scene. There was something of grief and tenderness in Mark Shadwell’s countenance that held her in a strange suspense, and she watched his movements, and heard his words, with the curiosity that accompanies an interesting dream.

  “Have I done her justice — have I understood her quite? Too late now,” he said, faintly.

  And again he stooped down and gazed into her darkened face, and seemed to listen for her breathing.

  “She’s asleep — so best. Her lot is happier than mine!”

  So saying, he walked gently to the fireplace, and stood there, looking ruefully into the embers.

  She watched him with increasing intensity — her heart beat fast in the suspense. She expected him to return to her bedside; she debated within her own mind whether she should speak to him, but a sort of spell restrained her. He looked on her again, long and steadily. And now she saw his shadow on the wall moving — was it towards her? No — the door opened, and he was gone.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  MARK SHADWELL LEAVES RABY.

  MARK SHADWELL, when he closed the door of his wife’s room, went direct to his own, where were candles burning. He opened his desk, and taking a letter from it, written by his own hand, and not yet folded, he read it through, and with the deep sigh and anxious look of a man still irresolute, he placed it in its envelope and sealed it.