Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  Paler still turned Alice at these words.

  “Tell them to go in there,” said he in a lower tone, indicating with his thumb over his shoulder, a sort of recess at the far end of the room, in which stood a table with some work on it.

  At a word from Alice old Dulcibella called Lilly Dogger into that distant “alcove,” as Mildred termed it.

  “It’s about that woman,” he continued, in a very low tone, “about that one — Bertha. That woman, you know, that’s in Hatherton Jail, you remember. There’s no good prosecuting that one. Poor Charles wouldn’t have allowed it at no price.”

  “He said so. I wouldn’t for the world,” she answered very faintly.

  “No, of course; he wished it, and we’d like to see his wishes complied with, poor fellow, now he’s gone,” acquiesced Harry with alacrity. “And you know about her?” he added, in a very low tone.

  “Oh no, no, Harry; no, please,” she answered imploringly.

  “Well, it wouldn’t do for you, you know, to be gettin’ up in the witness-box at the ‘sizes to hang her, ye know.”

  “Oh dear, Harry; no, I never could have thought of it.”

  “Well, you are not bound, luckily; nor no one. I saw Rodney to-day about it; there’s no recognizances — he only took the informations — and I said you wouldn’t prosecute; nor I won’t, I’m sure; and the crown won’t take it up, and so it will fall through, and end quietly — the best way for you; for, as I told him, you’re not in health to go down there to be battlin’ wi’ lawyers, and all sorts; ‘twould never answer you, ye know. So here’s a slip o’ paper I wrote, and I told him I knew you’d sign it — only sayin’ you have no notion of prosecutin’ that woman, nor moving more in the matter.”

  He placed it in her hand.

  “I’m sure it’s quite right; it’s just what I mean. Thank you, Harry; you’re very good.”

  “Get the ink and pen,” said Harry aloud to Dulcibella.

  “’Tis downstairs,” answered she. “I’ll fetch it.”

  And Dulcibella withdrew. Harry was poking about the shelves and the chimneypiece.

  “This is ink,” said he, “ain’t it?” So it was, and a pen. “I think it will write — try it, Ally.”

  So it was signed; and he had fairly described its tenor and effect to his widowed sister-in-law.

  “I’ll see Rodney this evening and show him this, to prevent his bothering you here about it. And,” he almost whispered, “you know about that woman? or you don’t — do you?”

  Her lips moved, but he could hear no words.

  “She was once a fine woman — ye wouldn’t think — a devilish fine woman, I can tell you; and she says — ye know ’twas more than likin’ — she says she has the whip hand o’ ye — first come, first served. She’s talkin o’ law, and all that. She says — but it won’t make no odds now, you know, what she says — well, she says she was his wife.”

  “Oh, God! — it’s a lie,” whispered the poor lady, with white lips, and staring at him with darkening eyes.

  “Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t,” he answered. “But it don’t much matter now; and I daresay we’ll hear nothing about it, and dead men’s past fooling, ye know. Good night, Ally, and God bless you; and take care o’ yourself, and don’t be crying your eyes out like that. And I’ll come again as soon as I can; and any business, you know, or anything, I’ll be always ready to do for you — and good night, Ally, and mind all I said.”

  Since those terrible words of his were spoken she had not heard a syllable. He took her icy hand. He looked for a puzzled moment in her clouded eyes, and nodded, and he called to the little girl in the adjoining room.

  “I’m going now, child, and do you look after your mistress.”

  By a coincidence or association — something suggested by Harry Fairfield’s looks, was it? — old Mildred Tarnley’s head was full of the Dutchwoman when Dulcibella came into the kitchen.

  “You took out the ink, Tom, when you was weighin’ them oats to-day,” said she, and out went Tom in search of that always errant and mitching article.

  “I was sayin’ to Tom as ye came in, Mrs. Crane, how I hoped to see that one in her place. I think I’d walk to Hatherton and back to see her hanged, the false jade, wi’ her knife, and her puce pelisse, and her divilry. Old witch!”

  “Lawk, Mrs. Tarnley, how can ye?”

  “Well, now Master Charles is under the mould, I wouldn’t spare her. What for shouldn’t Mrs. Fairfield make her pay for the pipe she danced to. It’s her turn now —

  ‘When you are anvil, hold you still, When you are hammer, strike your fill.’

  And if I was Mrs. Fairfield, maybe I wouldn’t make her smoke for all.”

  “I think my lady will do just what poor Master Charles wished, and I know nothing about the woman,” said Dulcibella, “only they all say she’s not right in her head, Mrs. Tarnley, and I don’t think she’ll slight his last word, and punish the woman; ‘twould be the same as sacrilege a’most; and what of her? Much matter about a wooden platter! and its ill burning the house to frighten the mice.”

  Harry Fairfield here sauntered into the kitchen, rolling unspoken thoughts in his mind. The conversation subsided at his approach; Dulcibella made her courtesy and withdrew, and said he to Tom, who was entering with the ink-bottle, —

  “Tom, run out, will ye, and get my nag ready for the road; I’ll be off this minute.”

  Tom departed promptly.

  “Well, Mildred,” said he, eyeing her darkly from the corners of his eyes, “sorrow comes unsent for.”

  “Ay, sure, she’s breakin’ her heart, poor thing.”

  “‘Twon’t break, I warrant, for all that,” he answered; “sorrow for a husband they say is a pain in the elbow, sharp and short.”

  “All along o’ that ugly Dutch beast. ’Twas an ill wind carried her to Carwell,” said Mildred.

  He shut his eyes and shook his head.

  “That couldn’t do nowhere,” said he, —

  “‘Two cats and one mouse, Two wives in one house.’”

  “Master Charles was no such fool. What for should he ever a’ married such as that? I couldn’t believe no such thing,” said Mrs. Tarnley, sharply.

  “‘Two dogs at one bone, Can never agree in one,’”

  repeated Harry, oracularly. “There’s no need, mind, to set folks’ tongues a ringin’, nor much good in tryin’ to hide the matter, for her people won’t never let it rest, I lay ye what ye please, — never. ‘Twill be strange news up at Wyvern, but I’m afeard she’ll prove it only too ready; ‘twill shame us finely.”

  “Well, let them talk— ‘As the bell clinks, so the fool thinks’ — and who the worse. I don’t believe it no how. He never would ha’ brought down the Fairfields to that, and if he had, he could not ha’ brought the poor young creature upstairs into such trouble and shame. I won’t believe it of him till it’s proved.”

  “I hope they may never prove it. But what can we do? You and I know how they lived here, and I have heard her call him husband as often as I have fingers and toes, but, bless ye, we’ll hold our tongues — you will, eh? won’t ye, Mildred? ye musn’t be talkin’.”

  “Talkin’! I ha’ nout to talk about. Fudge! man, I don’t believe it— ’tis a d —— d lie, from top to bottom.”

  “I hope so,” said he.

  “A shameless liar she was, the blackest I ever heard talk.”

  “Best let sleepin’ dogs be,” said he.

  There was some silver loose in his trousers’ pocket, and he was fumbling with it, and looking hard at Mildred as he spoke to her. Sometimes, between his finger and thumb, he held the shilling — sometimes the half-crown. He was mentally deciding which to part with, and it ended by his presenting Mildred with the shilling, and recommending her to apply this splendid “tip” to the purchase of tea.

  Some people experience a glow after they have done a great benevolence; as he walked into the stableyard, Harry experienced a sensation, bu
t it wasn’t a glow, a chill rather. Remembering the oblique look with which she eyed the silver coin in her dark palm, and her scant thanks, he was thinking what a beast he was to part with his money so lightly.

  Mildred Tarnley cynically muttered to herself in the kitchen, —

  “‘Farewell frost, Nothing got nor nothing lost.’

  Here’s a gift! Bless him! I mind the time a Fairfield would a’ been ashamed to give an old servant such a vails. Hoot! what’s the world a comin’ to? ’Tis time we was a goin’. But Master Harry was ever the same — a thrifty lad he was, that looked after his pennies sharply,” said old Mildred Tarnley, scornfully; and she dropped the coin disdainfully into a little tin porringer that stood on the dresser.

  And Tom came in, and the doors were made sure, and Mildred Tarnley made her modest cup of tea, and all was subsiding for the night.

  But Harry’s words had stricken Alice Fairfield. Perhaps those viewless arrows oftener kill than people think of. Up in her homely room Alice now lay very ill indeed.

  CHAPTER V.

  THE HEIR OF THE FAIRFIELDS.

  At dead of night Alice was very ill, and Tom was called up to ride across Cressley Common for the Wykeford doctor. Worse and worse she grew. In this unknown danger — without the support of a husband’s love or consolation— “the pains of hell gat hold of her,” the fear of death was upon her. Glad was she in her lonely terrors to hear the friendly voice of Doctor Willett as he came up the stairs, with a heavy, booted step, in hurried conversation with old Dulcibella Crane, who had gone down to meet him on hearing the sound of his arrival.

  In lower tones the doctor put his questions when he had arrived in his patient’s room, and his manner became stern, and his measures prompt, and it was plain that he was very much alarmed.

  Alice Fairfield was in danger — in so great danger that he would have called in the Hatherton doctor, or any other, to share his responsibility, if the horse which Tom drove had not had as much as he could do that night in the long trot — and partly canter — to Wykeford and back again to the Grange.

  Alice’s danger increased, and her state became so alarming that the doctor was afraid to leave his patient, and stayed that night at the Grange.

  In the morning he sent Tom to Hatherton with a summons for his brother physician, and now this quaint household grew thoroughly alarmed.

  The lady was past the effort of speaking, almost of thinking, and lay like a white image in her bed. Old Dulcibella happily had charge of the money, not much, which Alice had for present use; so the doctors had their fees, and were gone, and Doctor Willett, of Wykeford, was to come again in the evening, leaving his patient, as he said, quieter, but still in a very precarious state.

  When the Wykeford doctor returned he found her again too ill to think of leaving her. At midnight Tom was obliged to mount, and ride away to Hatherton for the other doctor.

  Before the Hatherton doctor had reached the Grange, however, a tiny voice was crying there — a little spirit had come, a scion of the Fairfield race.

  Mrs. Tarnley wrote to Harry Fairfield to Wyvern to announce the event, which she did thus: —

  “SIR,

  “Master Harey, it has came a sirprise. Missis is this mornin’ gev burth to a boy and air; babe is well, but Missis Fairfield low and dangerous.

  “Your servant, “MILDRED TARNLEY.”

  Dulcibella, without consulting Mildred, any more than Mildred did her, wrote also a letter, gentler and more gracious, but certainly no better spelled. When these reached Wyvern, Harry was from home.

  It was not till four days had passed that Harry Fairfield arrived in the afternoon.

  He had thrown his horse’s bridle to Tom in the stable yard, and appeared suddenly before Mildred Tarnley in the kitchen door.

  “Well, how’s the lady in the straw?” inquired Harry, looking uncomfortable, but smiling his best. “How is Miss Alice?”

  “Mrs. Fairfield’s very bad, and the doctor han’t much hopes of her. She lies at God’s mercy, sir.”

  “She’ll be better, you’ll find. She’ll be all right soon. And when was it — you put no date to your note?”

  “On Friday, I think. We’re so put about here I scarce know one day from t’other.”

  “She’ll be better. Is anyone here with her?”

  “A nurse from Hatherton.”

  “No one else? I thought Lady Wyndale might a’ come.”

  “I was goin’ to send over there, but Doctor Willett said no.”

  “Did he? Why?”

  “Not yet a bit; he says she’d be in his way and no use, and maybe worrit her into a fever.”

  “Very like,” said Harry; “and how’s the boy — isn’t it a boy?”

  “Boy — yes, sir, a fine thumpin’ baby — and like to do well, and will prove, belike, a true, open-handed Fairfield, and a brave Squire o’ Wyvern.”

  “Well, that’s as it may be. I’ll not trouble him. I have more than enough to my share as it is — and there’s some things that’s better never than late, and I’ll live and die a bachelor. I’ve more years than my teeth shows.”

  And Harry smiled and showed his fine teeth.

  “There’s Fairfields has took a wife later than you,” said she, eyeing him darkly.

  “Too wise, old girl. You’ll not catch me at that work. Wives is like Flanders’ mares, as the Squire says, fairest afar off.”

  “Hey?” snarled old Mildred, with a prolonged note.

  “No, lass, I don’t want, nohow, to be Squire o’ Wyvern — there’s more pains than gains in it; always one thing or t’other wrong — one begs and t’other robs, and ten cusses to one blessin’. I don’t want folks to say o’ me as they does of some — Harry’s a hog, and does no good till he dies.”

  “Folk do like an estate, though,” said Mildred, with another shrewd look.

  “Ay, if all’s straight and clear, but I don’t like debts and bother, and I a’ seen how the old boy’s worried that way till he’s fit to drown himself in the pond. I can do something, buyin’ or sellin’; and little and often, you know, fills the purse.”

  Mildred was silent.

  “They do say — I mean, I knows it for certain, there is a screw loose — and you know where, I think — but how can I help that? The Dutchwoman, I know, can prove her marriage to poor Charlie, but never you blab — no more will I. There was no child o’ that marriage — neither chick nor child, so, bein’ as she is, ’tis little to her how that sow’s handled. ‘Twould be a pity poor Charlie’s son should lose his own; and ye may tell Alice I’m glad there’s a boy, and that she’ll ha’ no trouble from me, but all the help I can, and that’s a fact, and that’s God’s truth.”

  “Well, well, that is queer! — I never heard man speak as you speak.”

  There was a cynical incredulity in Mildred Tarnley’s tone.

  “Listen, now — here we be alone, eh?” said he, looking round.

  “Ye may say so,” she said, with a discontented emphasis.

  “I’d tell you a thing in a minute, old Tarnley, only they say old vessels must leak. Will you be staunch? Will ye hold your tongue on’t if I tell you a thing?”

  “Ay,” said Mildred.

  “Because one barking dog sets all the street a barking, ye know,” he added.

  “Ye know me well, Master Harry. I could hold my tongue always when there was need.”

  “And that’s the reason I’m going to talk to you,” said Harry, “and no one knows it, mind, but yourself, and if it gets out I’ll know who to blame.”

  “‘Twon’t get out for me,” said Mildred, looking hard at him.

  “One devil drubs another, they say, and if the young Squire upstairs has a foot in the mud I’ve one in the mire,” said Harry. “If his hat has a hole, my shoe has another. And ’tis a bad bargain where both are losers.”

  “Well, I can’t see it nohow. I don’t know what you’re drivin’ at; but I think you’re no fool, Master Harry; ye never was that, and it
’s a cunning part, I’ve heered, to play the fool well.”

  And Harry did look very cunning as she cited this saw, and for a moment also a little put out. But he quickly resumed, and staring in her face surlily, said he, —

  “Well, I am cunnin’; I hope I am; and you’re a little bit that way yourself, old Mildred; no fool, anyhow, that ever I could see.”

  “Crafty I may be, I ha’ lived years and seen folk enough to make me, but my heart weren’t set never on pelf.

  ‘A thousand pounds and a bottle of hay Is all one at doom’s-day.’”

  “So it is,” said he, “but there’s a good many days ‘twixt this and doom’s-day yet and money’ll do more than my lord’s letter, any place, and I’ll not deny I’d like Wyvern well enough if my hand was free to lay on it. But I a’ thought it well over, and it wouldn’t fit me nohow. I can’t.”

  “Ye’re the first Fairfield I ever heered say that Wyvern wouldn’t fit him,” said she.

  “Is that beer in the jug?” he asked, nodding toward a brown jug that stood on the dresser.

  “Yes, sir. Would ye like a drink?”

  “Ay, if it baint stale.”

  “Fresh drew, just as you was coming in, sir,” said she, setting it down on the table. “I’ll fetch ye a glass.”

  “Never mind a glass, a rantin’ dog like me can drink out of a well-bucket, much less a brown jug,” and clutching it carelessly by the handle he quaffed as long and deep a draught as his ancestor and namesake might after his exhausting flight from Worcester a couple of hundred years before.

  “You are puzzled, old girl, and don’t know whether I be in jest or earnest. But, good or bad, wives must be had — you know, and you never heard of a Fairfield yet that was lucky in a wife, or hadn’t a screw loose sometime about they sort o’ cattle; and ye’re an old servant, Mildred, and though you be a bit testy, you’re true, and I may tell ye things I wouldn’t tell no one, not the Governor, not my little finger; I’d burn my shirt if it knew; and ye won’t tell no one, upon your soul, and as ye hope to be saved?”

  “I can keep counsel, I’m good at that,” said Mildred.