“My wife was a tartar,” said he rather abruptly, “and she was always telling me I’d marry again before she was cold in her grave, and I made answer, ‘I’ve had enough of that market, I thank you; one wife in a life is one too many.’ But she wasn’t like you — no more than chalk to cheese — a head devil she was. Play me the ‘Week before Easter’ again, lass.”
And the young lady thrice over played that pretty but vulgar old air; and when she paused the gaunt old Squire chanted the refrain from the hearthrug, somewhat quaveringly and discordantly.
“You should have heard Tom Snedly sing that round a bowl of punch. My sons, a pair o’ dull dogs — we were pleasanter fellows then — I don’t care if they was at the bottom of the Lunnon canal. Gi’e us the ‘Lincolnshire Poacher,’ lass. Pippin-squeezing rascals — and never loved me. I sometimes think I don’t know what the world’s a comin’ to. I’d be a younger lad by a score o’ years, if neighbours were as I remember ‘em.”
At that moment entered old Tom Ward, who, like his master, had seen younger, if not better days, bearing something hot in a silver tankard on a little tray. Tom looked at the Squire. The Squire pointed to the little table by the hearthrug, and pulled out his great gold watch, and found it was time for his “nightcap.”
Tom was skilled in the brew that pleased his master, and stood with his shrewd gray eye on him, till he had swallowed his first glass, then the Squire nodded gruffly, and he knew all was right, and was relieved, for every one stood in awe of old Fairfield.
Tom was gone, and the Squire drank a second glass, slowly, and then a third, and stood up again with his back to the fire and filled his glass with the last precious drops of his cordial, and placed it on the chimneypiece, and looked steadfastly on the girl, whose eyes looked sad on the notes, while her slender fingers played those hilarious airs which Squire Fairfield delighted to listen to.
“Down in the mouth, lass — hey?” said the Squire with a suddenness that made the unconscious girl start.
When she looked up he was standing grinning upon her, from the hearthrug, with his glass in his fingers, and his face flushed.
“You girls, when you like a lad, you’re always in the dumps — ain’t ye? — mopin’ and moultin’ like a sick bird, till the fellow comes out wi’ his mind, and then all’s right, flutter and song and new feathers, and — come, what do you think o’ me, lass?”
She looked at him dumbly, with a colourless and frightened face. She saw no object in the room but the tall figure of the old man, flushed with punch, and leering with a horrid jollity, straight before her like a vivid magic-lantern figure in the dark. He was grinning and wagging his head with exulting encouragement.
Had Squire Fairfield, as men have done, all on a sudden grown insane; and was that leering mask, the furrows and contortions of which, and its glittering eyes, were fixing themselves horribly on her brain, a familiar face transformed by madness?
“Come, lass, do ye like me?” demanded the phantom.
“Well, you’re tongue-tied, ye little fool — shamefaced, and all that, I see,” he resumed after a little pause. “But you shall answer — ye must; you do — you like old Wyvern, the old Squire. You’d feel strange in another place — ye would, and a younger fellow would not be a tithe so kind as me — and I like ye well, chick-a-biddy, chick-a-biddy — ye’ll be my little queen, and I’ll keep ye brave satins and ribbons, and laces, and lawn; and I’ll gi’e ye the jewellery — d’ye hear? — necklaces, and earrings, and bodkins, and all the rest, for your own, mind; for the Captain nor Jack shall never hang them on wife o’ theirs, mind ye — and ye’ll be the grandest lady has ever bin in Wyvern this hundred years — and ye’ll have nothing to do but sit all day in the window, or ride in the coach, and order your maids about; and I’ll leave you every acre and stick and stone, and silver spoon, that’s in or round about Wyvern — for you’re a good lass, and I’ll make a woman of you; and I’d like to break them young rascals’ necks — they never deserved a shilling o’ mine; so gie’s your hand, lass, and the bargain’s made.”
So the Squire strode a step or two nearer, extending his huge bony hand, and Alice, aghast, stared with wide open eyes fixed on him, and exclaiming faintly, “Oh, sir! — oh, Mr. Fairfield!”
“Oh! to be sure, and oh, Squire Fairfield!” chuckled he, mimicking the young lady, as he drew near; “ye need not be shy, nor scared by me, little Alice; I like you too well to hurt the tip o’ your little finger, look ye — and you’ll sleep on’t, and tell me all tomorrow morning.”
And he laid his mighty hands, that had lifted wrestlers from the earth, and hurled boxers headlong in his day, tremulously on her two little shoulders. “And ye’ll say goodnight, and gi’e me a buss; goodnight to ye, lass, and we’ll talk again in the morning, and ye’ll say naught, mind, to the boys, d —— n ‘em, till all’s settled — ye smooth-cheeked, bright-eyed, cherry-lipped little” ——
And here the ancient Squire boisterously “bussed” the young lady, as he had threatened, and two or three times again, till scrubbed by the white stubble of his chin, she broke away, with her cheeks flaming, and still more alarmed, reached the door.
“Say goodnight, won’t ye, hey?” bawled the Squire, still in a chuckle and shoving the chairs out of his way as he stumbled after her.
“Goodnight, sir,” cried she, and made her escape through the door, and under the arch that opened from the hall, and up the stairs toward her room, calling as unconcernedly as she could, but with tremulous eagerness to her old servant, “Dulcibella, are you there?” and immensely relieved when she heard her kindly old voice, and saw the light of her candle.
“I say — hallo — why wench, what the devil’s come over ye?” halloed the voice of the old man from the foot of the stairs. “That’s the trick of you rogues all — ye run away to draw us after; well, it won’t do — another time. I say, goodnight, ye wild bird.”
“Thank you, sir — good night, sir — good night, sir,” repeated the voice of Alice, higher and higher up the stairs, and he heard her door shut.
He stood with a flushed face, and a sardonic grin for a while, looking up the stairs, with his big bony hand on the banister, and wondering how young he was; and he laughed and muttered pleasantly, and resolved it should all be settled between them next evening; and so again he looked at his watch, and found that she had not gone, after all, earlier than usual, and went back to his fire, and rang the bell, and got a second ‘nightcap,’ as he called his flagon of punch.
Tom remarked how straight the Squire stood that night, with his back to the fire, eyeing him as he entered from the corners of his eyes, with a grin, and a wicked wag of his head.
“A dull dog, Tom. Who’s a-goin’ to hang ye? D — n ye, look brighter, or I’ll stir ye up with the poker. Never shake your head, man; ye may brew yourself a tankard o’ this, and ye’ll find you’re younger than ye think for, and some of the wenches will be throwing a sheep’s eye at you — who knows?”
Tom did not quite know what to make of this fierce lighting up of gaiety and benevolence. An inquisitive glance he fixed stealthily on his master, and thanked him dubiously — for he was habitually afraid of him; and as he walked away through the passages, he sometimes thought the letter that came that afternoon might have told of the death of old Lady Drayton, or some other relief of the estate; and sometimes his suspicions were nearer to the truth, for in drowsy houses like Wyvern, where events are few, all theses of conversation are valuable and speculation is active, and you may be sure that what was talked of in the town, was no mystery in the servants’ hall, though more gossipped over than believed.
Men who are kings in very small dominions are whimsical, as well as imperious — eccentricity is the companion of seclusion — and the Squire had a jealous custom, in his house, which was among the oddities of his despotism; it was simply this: the staircase up which Alice Maybell flew, that night, to old Dulcibella and her room, is that which ascends the northern wing of the house.
A strong door in the short passage leading to it from the hall, shuts it off from the rest of the building on that level.
For this young lady then, while she was still a child, Squire Fairfield had easily made an Oriental seclusion in his household, by locking, with his own hand, that door every night, and securing more permanently the doors which, on other levels, afforded access to the same wing.
He had a slight opinion of the other sex, and an evil one of his own, and would have no Romeo and Juliet tragedies. As he locked this door after Miss Alice Maybell’s “goodnight,” he would sometimes wag his head shrewdly and wink to himself in the lonely oak hall, as he dropped the key into his deep coat pocket— “safe bind, safe find,” “better sure than sorry,” and other wise saws seconding the precaution.
So this night he recollected the key, as usual, which in the early morning, when he drank his glass of beer at his room-door, he handed to old Mrs. Durdin, who turned it in the lock, and restored access for the day.
This custom was too ancient — reaching back beyond her earliest memory — to suggest the idea of an affront, and so it was acquiesced in and never troubled Miss Maybell; the lock was not tampered with, the door was never passed, although the Squire, versed in old saws, was simple to rely on that security against a power that laughs at locksmiths.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SQUIRE’S ELDEST SON COMES HOME.
Thus was old Squire Fairfield unexpectedly transformed, and much to the horror of pretty Alice Maybell, appeared in the character of a lover, grim, ungainly, and without the least chance of that brighter transformation which ultimately more than reconciles “beauty” to her conjugal relations with the “beast.”
Grotesque and even ghastly it would have seemed at any time. But now it was positively dismaying, and poor troubled little Alice Maybell, on reaching her room, sat down on the side of her bed, and to the horror and bewilderment of old Dulcibella, wept bitterly and long.
The harmless gabble of the old nurse, who placed herself by her side, patting her all the time upon the shoulder, was as the sound of a humming in the woods in summer time, or the crooning of a brook. Though her ear was hardly conscious of it, perhaps it soothed her.
Next day there was a little stir at Wyvern, for Charles — or as he was oftener called, Captain Fairfield — arrived. This “elderly young gentleman,” as Lady Wyndale called him, led a listless life there. He did not much affect rustic amusements; he fished now and then, but cared little for shooting, and less for hunting. His time hung heavy on his hands, and he did not well know what to do with himself. He smoked and strolled about a good deal, and rode into Wyvern and talked with the townspeople. But the country plainly bored him, and not the less that his sojourn had been in London, and the contrast made matters worse. Alice Maybell had a headache that morning, and not caring to meet the Squire earlier than was inevitable, chose to say so.
The Captain, who, travelling by the mail, had arrived at eight o’clock, took his place at the breakfast-table at nine, and received for welcome a gruff nod from the Squire, and the tacit permission to grasp the knuckles which he grudgingly extended to him to shake.
In that little drama in which the old Squire chose now to figure, his son Charles was confoundedly in the way.
“Well, and what were you doin’ in Lunnon all this time?” grumbled Squire Harry when he had finished his rasher and his cup of coffee, after a long, hard look at Charles, who, in happy unconsciousness, crunched his toast, and read the county paper.
“I beg your pardon, sir, I didn’t hear — you were saying?” said Charles, looking up and lowering the paper.
“Hoo — yes — I was saying, I don’t think you went all the way to Lunnon to say your prayers in St. Paul’s; you’ve bin losing money in those hells and places; when your pocket’s full away you go and leave it wi’ them town blackguards, and back you come as empty as a broken sack to live on me, and so on. Come, now, how much rent do you take by the year from that place your fool of a mother left ye — the tartar! — hey?”
“I think, sir, about three hundred a year,” answered Charles.
“Three hundred and eighty,” said the old man, with a grin and a wag of his head. “I’m not so old that I can’t remember that — three hundred and eighty; and ye flung that away in Lunnon taverns and operas, on dancers and dicers, and ye come back here without a shillin’ left to bless yourself, to ride my horses and drink my wine; and ye call that fair play. Come along, here.”
And, followed by his mastiff, he marched stiffly out of the room.
Charles was surprised at this explosion, and sat looking after the grim old man, not knowing well what to make of it, for Squire Harry was openhearted enough, and never counted the cost of his hospitalities, and had never grudged him his home at Wyvern before.
“Much he knows about it,” thought Charles; “time enough, though. If I’m de trop here I can take my portmanteau and umbrella, and make my bow and go cheerfully.”
The tall Captain, however, did not look cheerful, but pale and angry, as he stood up and kicked the newspaper, which fell across his foot, fiercely. He looked out of the window, with one hand in his pocket, in sour rumination. Then he took his rod and flies and cigar-case, and strolled down to the river, where, in that engrossing and monotonous delight, celebrated of old by Venables and Walton, he dreamed away the dull hours.
Blessed resource for those mysterious mortals to whom nature accords it — stealing away, as they wander solitary along the devious river-bank, the memory, the remorse, and the miseries of life, like the flow and music of the shadowy Lethe.
This Captain did not look like the man his father had described him — an anxious man, rather than a man of pleasure — a man who was no sooner alone than he seemed to brood over some intolerable care, and, except during the exercise of his “gentle craft,” his looks were seldom happy or serene.
The hour of dinner came. A party of three, by no means well assorted. The old Squire in no genial mood and awfully silent. Charles silent and abstracted too; his body sitting there eating its dinner, and his soul wandering with black care and other phantoms by far-off Styx. The young lady had her own thoughts to herself, uncomfortable thoughts.
At last the Squire spoke to the intruder, with a look that might have laid him in the Red Sea.
“In my time young fellows were more alive, and had something to say for themselves. I don’t want your talk myself over my victuals, but you should ‘a spoke to her’tisn’t civil— ‘tweren’t the way in my day. I don’t think ye asked her ‘How are ye?’ since ye came back. Lunnon manners, may be.”
“Oh, but I assure you I did. I could not have made such an omission. Alice will tell you I was not quite so stupid,” said Charles, raising his eyes, and looking at her.
“Not that it signifies, mind ye, the crack of a whip, whether ye did or no,” continued the Squire; “but ye may as well remember that ye’re not brother and sister exactly, and ye’ll call her Miss Maybell, and not Alice no longer.”
The Captain stared. The old Squire looked resolutely at the brandy-flask from which he was pouring into his tumbler. Alice Maybell’s eyes were lowered to the edge of her plate, and with the tip of her finger she fiddled with the crumbs on the tablecloth. She did not know what to say, or what might be coming.
So soon as the Squire had quite compounded his brandy-and-water he lifted his surly eyes to his son with a flush on his aged cheek, and wagged his head with oracular grimness, and silence descended again for a time upon the three kinsfolk.
This uncomfortable party, I suppose, were off again, each on their own thoughts, in another minute. But no one said a word for some time.
“By-the-bye, Alice — Miss Maybell, I mean — I saw in London a little picture that would have interested you,” said the Captain, “an enamelled miniature of Marie Antoinette, a pretty little thing, only the size of your watch; you can’t think how spirited and beautiful it was.”
“And why the dickens didn’t y
e buy it, and make her a compliment of it? Much good tellin’ her how pretty it was,” said the Squire, sulkily; “’twasn’t for want o’ money. D —— it, in my day a young fellow ‘d be ashamed to talk o’ such a thing without he had it in his pocket to make an offer of;” and the old Squire muttered sardonically to his brandy-and-water, and neither Miss Alice nor Captain Fairfield knew well what to say. The old man seemed bent on extinguishing every little symptom of a lighting up of the gloom which his presence induced.
They came at last into the drawingroom. The Squire took his accustomed place by the fire. In due time came his “nightcap.” Miss Alice played his airs over and over on the piano. The Captain yawned stealthily into his hand at intervals, and at last stole away.
“Well, Ally, here we are at last, girl. That moping rascal’s gone to his bed; I thought he’d never ‘a gone. And now come here, ye little fool, I want to talk to ye. Come, I say, what the devil be ye afeared on? I’d like to see the fellow ‘d be uncivil to you. My wife, as soon as the lawyers can write out the parchments, the best settlements has ever bin made on a Fairfield’s wife since my great uncle’s time. Why, ye look as frightened, ye pretty little fool, as if I was a-going to rob ye, instead of making ye lady o’ Wyvern, and giving ye every blessed thing I have on earth. That’s right!”
He had taken her timid little hand in his bony and tremulous grasp.
“I’ll have ye grander than any that ever has been” — he was looking in her face with an exulting glare of admiration— “and I’ll give ye the diamonds for your own, mind, and I’ll have your picture took by a painter. There was never a lady o’ Wyvern fit to hold a candle to ye, and I’m a better man than half the young fellows that’s going; and ye’ll do as ye like — wi’ servants, and house, and horses and all — I’ll deny ye in nothing. And why, sweetheart, didn’t you come down this morning? Was you ailing, child — was pretty Ally sick in earnest?”
“A headache, sir. I — I have it still — if — if you would not mind, I’ll be better, sir, in my room. I’ve had a very bad headache. It will be quite well, I dare say, by tomorrow. You are very kind, sir; you have always been very kind, sir; I never can thank you — never, never, sir, as I feel.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 483