“Is the woman alive still?” he resumed, perfectly carelessly. “If she is, pray do me the kindness to sift the story to the bottom. I never was married; but it is very clever of you to have collected so many of the apocryphal gospels that profess to record my life, and very good of you, I’m sure, to tell me what they say.”
“One can’t help hearing things, you know; and as you wished me to tell you all about these stories, I could not well refuse.”
“I can never thank you enough. Fame has, however, done me too much honour. I did not marry Vanhomrigh’s wife; and as to divorce, in this shameless and cold-blooded age, I don’t know why people ever think of it, seeing that marriage is itself a standing divorce, without the inconvenience or the scandal, and with this advantage, that husband and wife can resume one another whenever they choose. I’m not speaking my sentiments, mind, but those of a great many people of my acquaintance.”
“I quite understand,” said Mannering, and sipped a little claret.
“And quite to put an end to that part of the rumour, which, you see, is not pleasant. The next time you and I meet Ardenbroke together, I will ask him the question in your presence. When does he return, by-the-by?”
“I believe his stay in Scotland is likely to be longer than he expected. But, pray, don’t mind asking him, or, if you should, I have no right in the world to be present, and I should not like it.”
“Ah, Mr. Mannering, do you think that quite fair?” said Dacre, with a smile, and a little shake of his head. “I find you’re possessed of a variety of disagreeable stories about me — utterly untrue — and one of them such as no man ought to leave unanswered. Now, as I find you in a position to circulate that report, I put it to your honour — reflect — have I not a right to ask permission to arm you with its contradiction?”
“No man can help hearing reports as they circulate. You have contradicted that one in my presence,” said Charles, “and, of course, I can have no difficulty in saying I’ve heard you do so.”
“No; you’re very good — that’s quite true,” said Dacre, “and my denial will be accepted for precisely what it is worth — you are good enough to set as high a value almost as I do upon it — but it will be rated at the value the world places on all such currency. It is the denial simply of the person interested in denying it, don’t you see? and although you and I know it is true, the world wont, and in that bank it wont be accepted.”
“Unlucky for you, Mr. Dacre; but still I can’t see that I am called on to ask for, or publish Ardenbroke’s testimony in the, matter, and I must, once for all, decline the kind of prominence you are good enough to propose for me.”
“I wish, dear Mannering, I could agree with you;” and suddenly changing his subject with a change of tone, he said, “the sun is already down; and that beautiful moon — it will become more brilliant as the glow in the west fades away — delicious evening! What do you say to a walk across the fields?”
“Yes, quite charming,” said Charles, recovering.
“A glass of sherry before we start?” said Dacre— “Delicious evening, certainly! That sort of sky sets a fellow ruminating. What a background for a reverie — pleasant, of course, couleur de rose, old echoes mix in our music — we are always looking over our shoulders as we march on — retrospective creatures — we are. I was popular, I have been so consistently; of course, one can’t be popular, unless one is a great deal more amusing than I can ever hope or attempt to be, without money, for poverty is universally disgusting. I have good Spirits. I have a sort of commiseration for fools. I enjoy the ridiculous without exposing it; and I am under no constraint with knaves; in short, I am conscious of some ingredients of a man of the world.”
“That’s a character I don’t aspire to — I feel my incompetence. — I have not the moral talents,” said Charles.
“How tiresome,” added Mannering, inwardly — that fellow s incessant talk about himself!”
And recovering from this incoherent little digression, Dacre returned to his projected ramble over the sheepwalk.
“We can get through that little garden to the path, I know it perfectly. The walk is quite Arcadian; just at the other side of that foreground, you get into an undulating sheepwalk, wooded with old timber, and utterly solitary; the loneliest place you ever saw in your life; a very singular scene. I undertake to say you’ll never forget it while you live. But take some more wine, wont you?”
“Not any, thanks.”
“Some coffee.”
“No, thanks. Where does the path come out upon the old London road?”
“Not a mile from this.”
Charles pushed open the glass-door, and walked a few steps into the quaint little garden, and looked westward, where the quickly fading tints of a splendid sunset still flushed and gilded the sky.
Dacre touched the bell —
“This is all right, is it?”
“Yes, sir, to be paid by the old gentleman — Scotch, I think he is, sir, upstairs, we know him here, sir.”
“Yes, and there’s a message. Where is Captain Transom?”
“Talking outside with the gentleman as played in the match, sir.”
“Well, tell him that Mr. Mannering has gone across the fields, and will meet him about a mile on the road to London. Tell the driver to pull up at the Seven Oaks, stile; he knows it; and say to Captain Transom that Mr. Mannering will probably be there before he arrives, and don’t let him delay here.”
Then Dacre walked out and joined Charles Mannering among the trees and flowers in the deepening twilight.
CHAPTER XIV.
A MOONLIT WALK.
THROUGH a little wicket in the hedge Mr. Dacre led him, and at the other side of the narrow bye-road on which it opened was a stile, by which they mounted to the path he had indicated.
“How rapidly that sunset glow is fading,” said Dacre, “the transition from sunset to moonlight, how beautiful it is! There is a brief struggle of the two — the dark crisis of the process. To me, it always seemed like the passing of a life, from this beautiful world to the more beautiful world of spirits, through the momentary darkness of death.”
“But what of Transom?” said Charles, who was not much of a poet, “we can’t leave him behind.”
“It’s all right, he’s gone on in your carriage to meet you at the stile, a little way on. Let us get up this little steep, and from the top you’ll see that pretty Arcadia. How balmy and delicious the air is this evening?”
“Yes, certainly, it is,” said Charles, stopping for a moment, and looking upward to the stars.
“This is about the most puzzling light,” said Dacre; “by the time we reach that little eminence the struggle will have ended, and the moonlight will prevail.”
They sauntered slowly up the slope in silence, and by the time they reached its crest, a brilliant moonlight silvered the landscape below them.
“Now, look there; is not it charming — that wavy slope, studded with straggling clumps of trees? You can’t see the road; the sward looks as if it passed unbroken into those misty low grounds, miles away. I think it quite beautiful. It is so parklike, neglected, and solitary.”
“Yes, it does look like a place where an ambuscade would have you at a disadvantage,” said Charles Mannering. “A sheepwalk, you say?”
“Well, you may be a painter — I know you’re a musician — but there’s no tempting you to be a poet,” said Dacre, with a faint laugh. “You are determined to be an Englishman. You can see objects now pretty well — the trunk of that tree, for instance. I can see all the knots and wrinkles in it, and it’s twenty yards away.” He looked at his watch. “Yes, I can see it perfectly,” and he looked shrewdly down the slope as if in search of some distant object. “Let us get on; how sharp our shadows look upon the grass.”
“Yes, the mist has nearly melted; it is like a frosty moonlight,” said Charles, as they marched lightly along, side by side, “and yet the air is so soft.”
“Yes, a frosty mo
onlight,” agreed Dacre, “and before we reach that group of birch trees — how wonderfully light and graceful they are, and those silvery stems — before we get there it will be more intense still. I never saw such moonlight on an English landscape; just as if it came for us. It is, really, come on purpose.”
He stopped on a little eminence again as it seemed searching in the distance for some expected object.
“Looking for anything?” inquired Mannering.
“Yes — a — nothing very particular — we’ll see it time enough — my carriage, and a friend waiting in it. I expect it — that’s all. It certainly is a delicious night, and, as you say, a miraculously brilliant moonlight. There yes, that’s it, I think.”
“Where?” asked Mannering, who stopped at his side.
“Do you see that little, broken eminence at your right, with an ash tree growing by it?”
“Yes,” said Charles, pointing towards it.
“That’s what I mean. Well, a good deal further on is a clump of several trees — oaks they are — and a little to the right of them is a carriage, I think,” said Dacre, in a slow conjectural way.
“Yes, I see — it is, I think,” said Mannering.
“It certainly is,” said Dacre in a tone of relief. “Well, it has been a very charming walk. So sweet a night tempts one to linger.
There had been growing in Dacre’s manner, Charles thought, something distrait and odd that was oppressive. He paused, and placed his hand gently on Charles’s arm, and smiling faintly, he said —
“And now, dear Mannering, to resume — I was going to say, a little more at length, what I venture to hope, and even to expect from your kindness.”
“Resume, you say?”
“Yes, if you allow me.”
“All right,” said Charles, “I’ll hear you with pleasure.”
“I hope — in fact I am sure — I have only to throw myself on your good feeling to ensure the few and reasonable concessions which on reflection appear to me, under the circumstances I shall describe, quite indispensable.’’
These words sounded very unpleasantly in Charles Mannering’s ears, and he felt for a moment as if he had misheard him.
“And, on consideration, I have every hope they will strike yon in the same light,” continued Dacre. “Suppose we go on slowly toward those trees; the stile is there, and both carriages now — don’t you see two?”
“Yes, I believe there are,” said Charles, who began to feel as if he were walking in a dream.
“I mentioned, you recollect, what I thought myself warranted in expecting from your own sense of justice, with respect to the absurd, and, in some of its consequences, cruel rumour, which I have too much reason to believe you have been the instrument, of course with the most honourable intentions, of reviving.”
“I thought, Mr. Dacre, I had made myself sufficiently clear upon that matter.”
“Quite — perfectly clear; but with your intelligence and good feeling, I don’t at all despair of bringing you to see it a little differently — in fact, to take precisely my view of what is fair in this case, before we reach that clump of trees, which it wont take us five minutes to do.”
“Very well,” said Charles.
“Yes, both carriages are there,” said Dacre, who had been continuing his scrutiny while he talked.
“Yes, I do see them now,” acquiesced Charles.
“And about what I was saying — we none of us like, my dear Mr. Mannering, the idea of constraint — the consciousness that we are watched, and the feeling that behind our backs all sorts of stories are being collected, and, perhaps, being retailed. Would you mind not walking quite so fast? Thanks; and it is not merely disagreeable; positive inconvenience, and even injury may result from it.”
“I don’t care a farthing who watches me” said Charles.
“That is because you are so frank and manly, and have in reality nothing to conceal. Now, it is not quite so with me — at this moment I can’t be frank — in the interest altogether of others. I can’t be, in that sense, manly. Serious mischief to others might result from my making my presence in London known, except to a very few; and, my dear Mannering, I am going to represent to you how hard you have been upon me — to make my little complaint and appeal; and I shan’t tire you — you shall know all that is in my mind in three minutes’ time.”
CHAPTER XV.
THE ULTIMATUM.
“AN appeal ad misericordiam,” thought Charles, with a secret satisfaction. “He’ll be disappointed in me; I’m not, I rather think, a person to he flattered or cajoled. He thinks I have an influence at Guildford House, and he intends to use it. Yery good, Mr. Dacre, we shall see.”
“I have persuaded you to come and dine with me in this out-of-the-way place,” continued Dacre, “shall I confess it? — with an object. With you I can afford to be perfectly candid, and I shall speak with the confidence of a brother. Ah! Mr. Mannering, Mr. Mannering, you have been treating me very oddly; haven’t you?” He smiled archly, and shook his head as he placed his hand gently on Charles Mannering’s arm. “You followed me when I took my leave, on the night of my visit to your chambers; you followed me, on another night, all the way to the Fleet, when I went to see that miserable fellow, Guy de Beaumirail; and you have been busy among your Mends, at the clubs, collecting all the old women’s tales affecting me that your gossiping friends could bring to mind — scandals, falsehoods, I do assure you, if you but knew the circumstances, the most incredible, and the blackest; and with this evidence, you array a case for the ear of that very tribunal by which we all desire to be favourably heard, and at least fairly judged — private friendship. Ah! my good friend, is that generous, or just, or at all the measure by which you would have it measured to you again?”
“You admit, Mr. Dacre,” said Charles, “that you are practising, necessarily just now, a strict reserve. That, of course, is a matter entirely for yourself, and which, I’m quite aware, it would be most impertinent of me to remark on; in fact, I can have no interest in it so long as it does not involve -anyone who has a natural claim upon my care, and — and that sort of thing. But those circumstances of concealment, you know, don’t do so well to found new acquaintances and intimacies upon, especially in families where there is so little experience and knowledge of the world, as in that at Guildford House; and as they know absolutely nothing, except a word or two, of no real importance, from Ardenbroke, whom you have put under conditions of reserve — I, as one of Miss Gray’s few relations, and the only one at present near her, think myself obliged to inquire a little, and, in fact, take some little trouble, such as a brother, if she had one, ought to take in such a case; and I can’t see that in doing so I commit the slightest impertinence.”
“How provoking, dear Mannering, that we should so entirely differ in opinion in a thing so nearly affecting both of us — I may say personally affecting us. Would you mind stopping here for a moment? We have got so near the road, and I want ever so little talk with you quietly. Thanks.” He looked upward for a moment with a meditative smile. The transparent azure of heaven opened above him with hardly a filmy cloud in its great concave; and the brightness of the moon was almost dazzling. Etherealized in that wonderful light, his handsome features for a moment moved the admiration even of Charles Mannering. For a few seconds the faint, fixed smile was seen in that light, and then Mr. Dacre looked, still smiling, in Charles Mannering’s face.
“I wish so much, my dear Mannering, I could persuade you to take a different view of your duty.”
A pause occurred here, but Mannering made no sign.
“Because otherwise the situation becomes so painful.”
There was another pause, but Charles only looked down, and switched the grass slightly with his cane; he was not going to recede.
“For I can’t allow that kind of thing to go on, do you see; I can’t, really, for one hour more.”
Charles looked up in his face, with an inquisitive sternness; he did not quite see
his drift. Dacre’s handsome features still wore that faint smile, and he shook his head gently.
“No, indeed, Mr. Mannering: I’m sorry it has come to this, but I can’t. We must understand one another; I shall be perfectly explicit; and I still venture to hope that, on reflection, you will see the reasonableness of what I have to propose.”
Here was a wait of a second or more.
“Pray go on. I don’t see — I confess I don’t understand at present,” said Charles Mannering a little stiffly.
“Well, as I say, I still speak in hope. I have one or two very simple and, I think, fair conditions to propose. If you agree with me in so thinking, and consequently accept them, we continue good friends; if not, why then it is very unlucky, and I’m very sorry.”
“And what are your conditions, as you call them?” asked Charles.
“Yes, my conditions; well, they are just these — you have followed me about on two occasions, to my knowledge; well, it is only fair that I should ask that all that sort of thing, whether done by yourself, or your friend, or your servant, should totally cease; you have been making inquiries about me, the places I frequent, and so on. I have to entreat of you to make no more inquiries about me. That’s also quite clear.”
Here was a silence while you could count two, but Charles Mannering made no sign.
“You have been collecting foolish stories about me, and possibly retailing them; I quite excuse you, but I must stipulate also that all that shall absolutely cease; and lastly, dear Mannering, not at all seeing in your remote cousinship your obligation to charge yourself with the duties of a brother to Miss Gray, and not choosing while myself employed by that lady upon a difficult and not unimportant affair, to be watched and misapprehended, I have one more earnest and friendly request to submit, and that is, that for the present your visits at Guildford House shall be discontinued.”
At this last demand Charles Mannering flushed up to his temples.
“By Jove!” said he, with an angry laugh, “that’s cool, isn’t it? I don’t think I ever heard anything so impertinent in all my life, by heaven!”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 459