Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)
Page 438
Clayton, however, kept her at arm’s length ever after, and she hated him with a mysterious and intense acrimony.
So soon as the fury of this beautiful young woman, holding Raby against the siege of London attorneys, engineered by counsel learned in the law, a little cooled, and her cold, shrewd common sense asserted itself, she was more disposed to listen to reason, and so a treaty was concluded. Rachel charged the estate with an annuity to her, and she covenanted to trouble her and the estate no more. So this evil angel, so beautiful and fatal, her mission ended, vanished, and ceased to be seen and heard at Raby.
I have heard of her at different places — at Paris, at Florence, at Spa, at Vienna, at St. Petersburg, where occurred that fracas which I dare say you remember.
This ambiguous beauty is clever and admired, and carries with her a gentle gaiety, an angry heart, and many secrets. I am always expecting to hear more of her. Scarlet lip and pearly smile, and softest eddies of dimples; those brilliant blushes, and dark eyes, with liquid glances, shy and fiery, are still weaving spells, and turning heads, and setting new dramas in motion.
And so she is going up and down, and to and fro upon the earth. There are disappointments and revenges; deep works the “little billow” of that bosom. The fire is not quenched, and she is not happy.
Rachel is married, very happily, to Mr. Charles Mordant, of whom I know little, except that he is a very good fellow. Old Mervyn, his uncle, stopped the suit he had commenced, and the estate has benefited by that forbearance; but he paid off, besides, a smart mortgage. He has the young people to live with him at free quarters, and takes an interest in nursing the Raby estate, which is already emerging. Rachel will never live at Raby: it has too many melancholy and terrible associations.
One secret of that ill-omened house is, happily for her, hid alike from herself and the world. It concerns the murder of Sir Roke Wycherly, which happened thus.
Sir Roke, after a short nap in his chair, awoke. He got up and locked his door, which opened upon the lobby. The other room, which communicated with Clewson’s room, being bolted, you would have said that the baronet was tolerably secure. There was a fatality here, however. Just as he had completed the mysterious ceremony of unwigging, described at the inquest by Mr. Clewson, and donned that quaint cap in which he was found next morning dead in his chair, he heard a step approaching from the end of the gallery. The baronet had been expecting a note from Miss Marlyn all the evening. It was awkward, his nightcap being on his head instead of that extremely clever wig in which he usually met his friends. Still, he could not risk missing that note. It struck him, however, that the step might be that of Carmel Sherlock, whose crazy visit at his door he remembered uncomfortably; and rather to quiet a nervous feeling, than with the slightest idea that it might actually be employed, he took up the dagger which, in an evil hour for him, he saw shining upon the dressing-table, and then went quickly to his door and peeped out upon the gallery.
The step was not that of Carmel Sherlock, nor yet that which he half expected. It was the figure of Mark Shadwell, now very near his door, that appeared. He had intended passing on to his own room, but Roke Wycherly stopped him, and invited him in, with what to Mark seemed an irritating insincerity — satirical, inquisitive — which, he felt like an insult.
In a spirit of latent defiance then, Mark did turn into the room. Those who mean to teaze others, and amuse themselves with their irritations, should be very sure of their own tempers. Roke Wycherly being, in some respects, a man of the world, though naturally, as Mr. Clewson knew, a gentleman easily exasperated, could affect good humour where it suited him. But under the strain of circumstances, all affectations are liable to break down.
The cards were there, but Shadwell did not care to play, and the baronet talked a little in his usual ironical vein. There are rules to be observed, of course, in this kind of game, as in others, and I have no doubt that had Mark respected them, Sir Roke would have managed to keep his temper. But Mark Shadwell’s natural violence and isolated habits, were against all such regulated hostilities. He became utterly unparliamentary, and was quickly very much the more provoking of the two, and broke into insult so direct and galling, that the baronet, with a pallid smile, told him he lied, and at the same moment chucked the pen that lay on the table in his face.
The wizened malevolent smile, the retorted outrage, Mark’s long pent hate and ungovernable pride and violence, transported him.
As a man starts from his bed in the crisis of a frightful dream, in a moment, Mark stood freezing before his victim. The convulsive smile continued, there was something like a sob, and another, and a gush of blood flowed from the simpering mouth. Mark’s hands wildly pressed the wound, and the blood flowed warm and sluggishly through his fingers and over his wrists, and the changeless face of Roke Wycherly seemed to smile at efforts vain as the dream of rolling back time and undoing the past; and Mark felt, with a transport like madness, that the work of that blind moment was for him and for Roke to go on, and on, and on — through inexorable eternity.
It was the few furious words of the altercation and the crash of the decanter, overturned by Mark’s arm, that had startled Mr. Clewson from his slumbers. Then followed the quiet, and those mutterings of Mark’s solitary horror, which had deceived him.
As Mark left the room, pale as a spectre, with the dreadful evidences of bloodshed on his hands, he was observed by Agnes Marlyn, herself unseen. When he had gone, her curiosity drew her to Sir Roke’s door. It lay partly open. She listened — she knocked, to ascertain whether any one was in the room, and, finally, she entered. She thought something bad must have happened, but had no idea how bad. Courage was the attribute, perhaps, most remarkably pronounced in the strange character of that young girl. But the horrible revelation nearly overcame her. Even in that sickening moment her habit of never acting except on second thoughts, prevailed. Rapidly recovering herself, she distinctly saw the whole truth, and comprehended the value of her secret, and stole silently, her brain teeming with horror, wonder, and Castles in the air, to her room.
The confession of Carmel Sherlock explains the rest.
I linger over, these scenes. When business or pleasure calls me northward, I sometimes make a halt at the quaint little town of Raby, and saunter through the grand old park of the bygone Shadwells, admiring with a renewed interest its picturesque nooks and hollows, its magnificent timber, its sombre uplands, and broad westward slopes.
My latest visit was made toward the end of last October. I looked in upon my dear old friends at the Vicarage. They are all well, and by a happy chance I found the vicar himself at home.
One bit of news in that part of the world I learned. An heir has been born to the Mordants, and, I suppose, Rachel is now as happy as mortal well can be. I should have walked over to pay my respects to the young gentleman, had time sufficed. But, alas! the Railway, though an educator, is also a tyrant, and makes us count our minutes and keep tryst, under very disagreeable penalties. So, consulting my watch, I took my leave of those loved and simple friends.
The vicar accompanied me in my walk toward the town of Raby, where he had a call to make. We pursued the well-known path by Wynderfel. And when we reached the ruins, with mutual consent we paused before the silent doorway through which Carmel Sherlock had emerged on the day when he was captured.
“You have read the old Latin inscription cut in the stone of that doorway. It refers, evidently, to the gaze-lady,” said the vicar. “The more I think of that legend, the more curious it appears. I have, in my few leisure hours, been collecting materials. I shall find out something of the history of the two ladies who were supposed to have represented, in other centuries, that fatal spirit. Certainly, according to the old prophecy, she was due, as we say of ships, just at the time when Miss Marlyn appeared at Raby, and then, you know, it was to be for the disastrous extinction of the old family name; and see what accompanied it — I may say, what was brought about by it — a great scandal — murder, su
icide, and the predicted utter obliteration of the ancient name of Shadwell; and she had the mark of a star in her left hand, also — it tempts one to superstition.” The vicar smiled sadly. “And I hear, at intervals, of the wanderings of that mysterious young lady with a kind of interest — though I never liked her — and I should not wonder any day to learn that her clothes were found standing upright and empty, in her room, the form, that had filled them, vanished, like the lady in the German legend, you recollect, who had returned to her husband from the grave. But the sun is near the edge of the distant wood, and I’ve been delaying you, so let us be gone.”
So we turned toward Raby, and for a time, in silence, pursued our way thinking, and then talked of the neighbours, and their haps and mishaps, and sayings and doings, till the moment came for a kind farewell.
Raby is untenanted. But its wild and noble scenery, the picturesque ruins of Wynderfel, and the awful glen of Feltram, draw many a tourist and wandering artist to visit its haunted grounds. These memorials of a once famous race remain, but Shadwell of Wynderfel, or of Raby, a title which we meet with often in old county chronicles, and which mingles historically with others in the lists of splendour and of war, will turn up no more. It is “A LOST NAME.”
THE END
HAUNTED LIVES
Le Fanu’s tenth novel, Haunted Lives was serialised in the Dublin University Magazine between May and December 1868 and published by Tinsley in three volumes that same year.
The title page of the first edition
CONTENTS
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
VOLUME II.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
VOLUME III
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
TO
MRS. FITZGERALD,
OF FANE VALLEY,
THIS STORY IS INSCRIBED,
WITH KINDEST REGARDS,
AND MANY PLEASANT RECOLLECTIONS,
BY
THE AUTHOR.
VOLUME I.
CHAPTER I.
LAURA CHALLYS GRAY.
THE Old Brompton of my earlier recollections, with its silent lanes, its grass-plots, and flower-knots, its towering trees, and those sober old houses of dusky red brick faced with white stone, which, set round with tall flower-pots and flowering shrubs and roses, had a character of old-world comfort, and even grace, has faded and broken up like a sunset city of cloud.
When regretful memory names a place, as I name Old Brompton, I always find it call up a special picture, and always the same. Mine is no bigger than a cabinet picture. Through a short perspective, the rugged columns of half-a-dozen old trees, under shadow, with a patch of broken flickering light, I see little more than the lower half of the tall old drawingroom window — dusky brick, and a worn setting of old Caen stone. On the broad window-stone stand some flower-pots; I know not the names of the flowers, trembling stars and cups of blue and crimson; and from the chiar’oscuro of the room within leans over them the prettiest face, I almost think, this mortal world ever saw.
Beautiful cousin, Laura Challys Gray! A pretty music rings in your name, for me — with those sad notes that come from the distant past, and die in the far future.
I close my eyes, and I see you, your violet eyes, and rich brown tresses, with their golden folds, the delicate oval of your face, and your crimson lips. Oh! pretty Laura — odd, wayward, misunderstood, full of faults — with many perfections, I am sure, that others possessed not — I am going to jot down my recollections of you, and what I know of a story as odd as your character.
In this house, at the open drawingroom window, Charles Mannering — a tall young man, with a face kind, frank, and also sensitive — was standing, looking westward, where the sun was nearing the horizon, with the glow of a coming sunset. I think there is a pleasant sentiment in the artificial rurality of such a scene, and he could fancy, among the urns and roses under the distant groups of ruddy chimneys, melting in the misty light of evening, a pretty powdered Daphne ogling her piping Philander across her crook.
He liked being employed, too, by his pretty cousin. Here was a commission which had given him a world of trouble — to find her just such a house in the oldfashioned suburbs of London as he had lighted upon.
She ought to have arrived half an hour before. He was standing, as I have said, at the open drawingroom window. He was nervous about her decision upon the manner in which he had executed his commission. Her letter was in his pocket; and, while he was amusing himself with an imaginary dialogue with her, the carriage arrived at the gate, and was admitted. It was a chariot, prettiest of all carriages — why discarded now I cannot imagine — four posthorses, and two postillions. They had travelled up from Gray Forest in the oldfashioned way — by the road and posting stations — not then on that line, superseded by rail. Hot and dusty were the horses that were pulled up at the steps. He ran down, and handed his pretty cousin from the carriage, and then her elderly kinswoman and companion, fat and rather amiable, and not very active. The springs yielded to her weight, of which that sagacious lady was as conscious as the elephant, and she leaned upon his shoulder, and then upon his arm, with a cautious emphasis that made him stagger.
Good Mrs. Wardell — that was her name — came in, very red, talking and giggling, and wheezing a little, and sat down in the dining-room to divide her journey, and recruit before essaying the stairs, under care of her maid, much the more elegantly got up of the two. Charles ran upstairs to the drawingroom, where he had seen his cousin, light of foot, already looking from the window, as he lent Mrs. Wardell his arm up the steps.
Miss Laura Challys Gray was still standing between the voluminous silk curtains, looking out through one of the tall windows, as he entered the room. In shadow and reflected lights there is sometimes a transparent effect which heightens beauty; and I think he never saw her look so love
ly as when she turned towards him from the light, as he entered. I pause for a moment to recall that pretty image.
She had removed her little bonnet, which dangled by its ribbon at one side from her slender fingers. Her rich brown hair, so wonderfully voluminous, in the shadow showed its golden glimmer where the dusky sunset touched it. Her large violet eyes, under the long curve of their lashes, were turned upon him. Nearly in shadow, her beautiful lips, with a light just touched in crimson, parted, and very grave. What a beautiful oval that little face was, and how richly her shadowy brown hair parted low above her brows. As she looked at him this pretty face was thoughtful and nun-like, and after a little silence she said, with a very imposing seriousness: —
“I think I shall like this out-of-the-way house, and the fifteen trees, and the half-acre of grass.”
“Oh, I assure you, there’s a good deal more than you see from this. I should say there are at least two acres altogether, and fifty trees, reckoning — — “
“Reckoning the roses?” she laughed.
“No; the lilacs and laburnums, which are enormous, and deserve to be counted in,” said he.
“I think I shall like it,” she repeated a little imperiously, as much as to say, “It is your place to listen at present, and mine to speak.” “It looks old, and homely, and secluded. It has a monastic air; and has not the slightest pretension to elegance, and is perfectly dull — thank you. You have acquitted yourself, so far as I see, to admiration. I can’t pronounce absolutely, however, until I look about me a little more.”
She spoke with such perfect good faith, and such an air of gravity and wisdom, that he was on the point of laughing.
But that would not have done: for Challys Gray, as she liked to style herself, was an imperious little queen; and when she was serious, expected all the world to be grave also.