Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  He found Captain Vivian in parley with the keeper.

  “Oh, Captain Vivian!” he exclaimed very naturally, “I had not an idea. I’m so glad to see you able to take a rod in your hand.”

  “Lady Vernon told me you were so good — — “

  “My dear sir, don’t say a word. I begged of Lady Vernon to send you here, if you cared for trout fishing, and indeed all Roydon guests are welcome. I hope you have had some sport. You must come up and take luncheon with us. I ought not, indeed, to say I’m glad to see you so well, for I am afraid it is a sign we are to lose you very soon. You’ll be joining your regiment, I suppose. Those bigwigs are so churlish about holidays. They forget they ever were young fellows themselves. Do come and have some luncheon.”

  This invitation, however, Captain Vivian very politely declined.

  “You are going to the ball tonight — Wymering — eh?” inquired Mr. Tintern.

  “Yes, I intend going; and your party are going, I suppose?” said the young man.

  “Oh, yes, we always show there; and Lady Vernon, is she going?” pursued Mr. Tintern.

  “No, Lady Vernon don’t feel quite up to it.”

  “Sending him,” thought Mr. Tintern, “to put people off their guard. Perhaps she doesn’t wish them to criticise her looks and demeanour in presence of the aspiring captain.”

  “Dear me, I’m so sorry: she complains sometimes of a headache,” said Mr. Tintern, affectionately. “By-the-bye, there’s about a mile of very good pike fishing at the other side. The men are busy cleaning the ponds just now; but if you are here in three weeks’ time — — “

  “No, I’m afraid I shan’t, thank you very much.”

  “Well, we must make an effort, and say a fortnight; will that do?”

  “A thousand thanks, but I’m afraid I have little more than a week.”

  “Oh! nonsense. I won’t believe it,” exclaimed Mr. Tintern very cheerfully.

  “I’m awfully sorry,” said Captain Vivian; “it is such a beautiful country, and so charming in every way. I could live here all my life with pleasure.”

  “I’m so glad to hear it has made so agreeable an impression. We may look to see you here again, I dare say, before long.”

  “You are very kind. I don’t know anything yet with certainty about my movements; they depend upon so many things. I’ve a note, by-the-bye, which I promised to leave at the Grange.”

  “As you won’t come to the house, I’ll take charge of it,” said Mr. Tintern. “I see it is for my wife. I dare say about the ball. She’s out; she’ll not be home for some hours. I think I may venture to open it.” He did, and glanced through it.

  “Oh, yes, pray tell Miss Vernon, my wife will be only too delighted to meet her and Miss Medwyn in the cloak-room. We shall be there at exactly halfpast ten. I hope that will answer Miss Vernon. My wife would write, but she has gone to Dallerton; but you will be so kind as to say Miss Vernon may look on it as quite settled.”

  So they parted very pleasantly; for Mr. Tintern, who was a shrewd man, had heard two or three things that cheered his heart in this little talk with Captain Vivian. He felt, indeed, in better spirits about Roydon and the probable continuance of Lady Vernon’s widowhood than he had enjoyed for nearly a fortnight.

  He had had losses lately. It would be too bad if everything were to go wrong.

  If we could sum up the amount of the sins and sorrows of the human race, purely mental and unexpressed, for the most part, that result from contingent remainders, destructible reversions, and possible godsends and windfalls, the total would be possibly rather shocking.

  The little oldfashioned town of Wymering is in a wonderful fuss this night. It is its great anniversary — its night of dissipation and glory. It is not only for the town a crisis and an event, but the country all round, with Wymering for a centre, feels the radiation and pulse of the excitement. For ten miles round almost every good county house sends in its carriage and horses and liveries, and for fifteen — ay, even twenty miles round — roll in occasional carriages with posthorses; and traps besides, of all sorts, come rattling into the High-street with young fellows in hilarious spirits, thinking of nothing but dances and flirtation; and sometimes of some one’s pretty face, without which the ball would be dark, and the music lifeless.

  The clock of the town-hall has struck nine, and the Roydon carriage and liveries stop at the door of the Old Hall Inn. Miss Max and Miss Vernon get down, and their two maids also.

  Captain Vivian, with Captain Bamme, who has begged a seat to Wymering, are coming on later.

  The ladies have run upstairs to their rooms; the maids and boxes follow.

  Miss Max cowers over the little bit of fire, that smoulders in the grate of the large room. Miss Vernon is looking from the window to the lights of the town-hall over the way, and up and down the High-street, in a glow of excitement, which, to a town young lady, after a season or two, would have been incomprehensible and amusing.

  “Max, will you touch that bell? We must see Mr. Lomax.”

  The host of the Old Hall appears forthwith, in answer to the summons of his Roydon guests.

  “Mr. Lomax,” says Maud, as soon as he appears at the stair head, “you must give me an order for Miss Medwyn and her maid to go to the gallery of the town-hall. She wishes to see how the room looks.”

  Mr. Lomax makes his bow, and in the lobby writes the order, and gives it to Miss Vernon’s maid.

  A few minutes later Jones was spreading, with light and careful fingers upon the wide coverlet of the bed, the dress which had arrived only that morning from London.

  In very marked contrast with this, and the splendours which Jones was preparing, including the diamond stars which were to flash from her dark brown hair, and were now strewn on the dressing-table, was the present costume of pretty Miss Vernon.

  Before the glass she stood in the identical dark serge dress and little black hat, and the very boots and gloves, which she wore at Cardyllion. The beautiful face that looks out of the glass, smiled darkly in hers.

  “Come, dear Max, here is the order. It is only a step across the street.”

  Jones and Maximilla’s maid were fussing over gloves and satin boots, and fifty things, in the dressing-room.

  “Didn’t you say a quarter past nine in the gallery of the town-hall?” said Maud, looking still at her own pretty face in the glass.

  “Yes, dear, and mind, Maud, this is the very last piece of masquerading I’ll ever be led into; I don’t care how you coax and flatter me. What an old fool I have been!”

  With this protest, Miss Max shook her head with a smile, and lifting her hands she said:

  “With this act I take leave of my follies for ever, remember. I really don’t know how it is you make such a fool of me, whenever you please; I don’t understand how it is you have got such an unaccountable influence over me; I only know that there doesn’t exist a person on earth for whom I would have perpetrated so many absurdities, and told so many fibs, and I say, once for all, that this is the very last time I’ll ever be a Jack-pudding for any one, while I live.”

  Miss Maud was before the cheval-glass, so Maximilla had to betake herself to a mirror of more moderate dimensions, before which she made a few slight adjustments of her staid brown silk, and her bonnet, and her velvet cloak, and then turning to Maud, she exclaimed:

  “Oh, my dear, are you really coming in that serge? You are such a figure.”

  “Now come, you say this is to be the last appearance of Cinderella in her work-a-day costume, and you must not interfere. You shall change all with a touch of your wand when the hour comes. But, in the mean time, I’m to be as shabby and threadbare as I please. Come, it’s ten minutes past nine; I should like to be in the gallery before he comes. You told him not to be there a moment before the hour?”

  “To be sure I did, poor fellow; and I don’t know which, he or I, is the greater fool.”

  With these words Maximilla Medwyn led the way down the broad stai
rcase, and the two ladies, side by side, tripped swiftly across the village street. Miss Max handed her order from Mr. Lomax to the woman who already kept guard at the door, through which they reached the flight of narrow stairs which communicated with the gallery.

  They mounted quickly, and entered the gallery. At the opposite end of this really handsome room is a corresponding gallery allotted to the musicians, half a dozen of whom were already on the benches, in high chat, pulling about their music, and uncasing their instruments. A quart pot, from the Old Hall, and a frothy tumbler, stood in the ledge, showing that they were already disposed to make merry. The gas candelabra were but imperfectly lighted; workmen were walking up and down the long room, with light tread, in tenderness to the waxed floor, completing arrangements, while their employers bawled their orders from one end of the room to the other; one steward was already present, garrulous and fussy, whom Maud, with some alarm, recognised as young Mr. Hexton, of Hexton Hall. Devoutly she hoped he might not take it into his head to visit the galleries.

  They were quite to themselves, she and Maximilla, except for a little knot of Wymering womankind, who were leaning over, at the other end of the gallery, far too much engrossed by their own conversation to take any notice of them.

  As the moment approached, the question, “Will he come? will he come?” was repeating itself strangely at Maud’s heart. The noise in the lower part of the building had subsided, having moved away to the refreshment and cloak-rooms, from which its hum was but faintly heard, and the confidential murmur of the party at the other end of the gallery, who were discussing dresses, which they have, no doubt, been making for this great occasion, was rather reassuring.

  “I think I’m fast,” said Miss Max, holding her watch to her ear. “I wish we had not told him not to come before the time; we should have found him waiting.”

  At that moment the bells from the old church steeple, scarcely a hundred yards away, chimed the quarter, and, like a spirit evoked by the summons, Mr. Marston opened the door of the gallery and came in.

  Smiling, to cover his real agitation, he came quickly to Miss Max, who rose with a very kind alacrity to greet him.

  “Was ever mortal more punctual? It is quite a virtue, now-a-days, being in time to meet a friend,” she said, approvingly, as she gave him her hand.

  “It is only too easy not to be late,” he said, extending his hand in turn to the young lady in the dark serge, with glowing eyes, and a smile. “The difficulty is not to be too soon.”

  He came next Miss Maud, and seating himself beside her, took her hand again very gently, and said, very low, looking in her eyes, “It is so like a dream!”

  CHAPTER XXXVI.

  IN THE GALLERY.

  “What a beautiful clear evening it is,” said Miss Max, doing her best to find a topic. “The stars look almost as brilliant as they do in a frost. You have come a long way, Mr. Marston, I dare say.”

  “Coming here, it seemed nothing,” he answered, with a look at the young lady.

  “It was a very fine night, also, when we took leave after our little tea-party at Cardyllion, do you remember?”

  “I do remember,” he said very gently.

  “You’ll turn up at the ball, of course?” answered Miss Max.

  “That depends on who are going,” he answered. “Is there the least chance of your being there?”

  “Who? I?” with a little laugh, said Miss Maud, to whom, nearly in a whisper, the question had been addressed.

  “I think that was a cruel question,” she continued, “that is, if you remembered what I said, when we last spoke about this ball.”

  “I remember every syllable you said, not only about this ball,” he answered, “but about everything else we talked of. I ought not to have asked, perhaps, but changes, you know, are perpetually occurring, and you, I think, forget how very long it is since I last saw you.”

  “The interval has brought no change for me — no good change, I mean,” she answered. “I shall be rather busy tonight, and tired enough in the morning, I dare say. My gay cousin, Maximilla, is going, or coming, shall I say, as we are here, to the ball with a young lady whose dress I have seen.” And here Miss Maud laughed very merrily. “And I shall have, I think, to help her maid to put it on her.”

  “Maud, will you be quiet?” said the old lady, very much vexed. “I — I — well, it is very disagreeable.”

  “It vexes her my telling it; but it is quite true,” whispered Maud. “I must see that young lady’s maid in ten minutes.”

  “You don’t mean to say you are going, so soon?” exclaimed Mr. Marston.

  “I must leave this in about ten minutes,” said Maud.

  “Well, I believe you must,” put in Miss Max; “and so must I, for that matter. And, Mr. Marston, your sister is to be at the ball; she is coming with the Tinterns; of course you will look in? And I really want to introduce you to a very particular friend, and you must look in; if you don’t, I give you my word, I’ll never answer a note of yours again as long as I live.”

  “Under that threat I shall certainly turn up,” he said.

  He glanced at Maud, and thought she looked a little sad.

  “Where will you be when the ball commences?” he inquired, with a hope that he might have divined the cause of those looks. “Here?”

  “Certainly not. Oh, no!”

  “And, surely — I have so much to say. It is two months since I saw you, and you can’t think how I have longed for this little meeting, and lived, ever since, upon the hope of it. You can’t think of reducing it, after all, to a few minutes!”

  Miss Max understood, though she did not hear the terms of it, this ardent murmur close to Maud’s pretty ear, and she said, goodnaturedly:

  “I have not had time yet to read old Heyrick’s letter, and I really must finish it, Mr. Marston. I know you’ll excuse me for a moment.”

  And this spacious document, which she luckily had about her, Miss Medwyn unfolded, and proceeded to peruse, with her glasses to her eyes, greatly to the relief of Mr. Marston.

  “I have ever so much to say, and I’ve been looking forward to this chance of telling you a great deal — everything; and — may I say it? yes, I do say it — I thought you did not seem so friendly as our old acquaintance might have warranted. You were cold and indifferent — I am sure it is all right; but, oh! if you knew how it pained me — as if you did not care ever so little to see your old Cardyllion friend again. And I, who have never thought of any one but you all that time! And — oh, Heaven! — if you knew how it tortures me, thinking of the cruel injustice of fortune that condemns you to a life of so much trouble and anxiety, and how I have longed to tell you how I honour you, how, if I dare speak it, I adore you; how, every day, I long to lay myself and all my hopes at your feet. But you will never like me; you will never care for me. It never yet was the way to be loved to love too madly.”

  “What am I to say to all this? Who am I? You may know something of Miss Medwyn, my cousin Maximilla, but of me you can know nothing. There are inequalities everywhere. I have often wished that fortune had placed me exactly where she is. But good people tell us that whatever is is best, and now you must promise me this — you must, if our acquaintance is to go on — that you will not talk to me so wildly any more. Why can’t we be very good friends, and grow better acquainted, and come, at last, to know one another? Why should you try to force me to say begone, and to lose an acquaintance: I who have so few? I think that is utterly selfish.”

  Her cheeks were flushed with a beautiful colour, and there was an angry fire in her vexed eyes as she said this.

  “I must go away in a few minutes, but I shall be back again somewhere about this room tonight, and you will have little difficulty in finding me again to say goodbye. As for me, I feel sad tonight, as if I were parting with an old friend and a quiet life. I am half sorry I came here.”

  She pressed Miss Max’s arm lightly as she spoke, and that lady lowering her letter, looked rather shar
ply round on her, a little vexed.

  “What is it, dear? I wish you would allow me to read my letter,” said the old lady.

  “It is time to go. I must go, at least,” said Maud.

  “Well, go you shall,” replied the old lady, crumpling up her letter, and standing erect, with her head a little high. “There’s nothing to delay me a moment.”

  And relenting a little, she added:

  “Mr. Marston, would you mind seeing me across the street? We are going to the Old Hall Inn, exactly opposite.”

  You may suppose that Mr. Marston was very much at her service.

  “Shall I be sure to find you?” he murmured, very earnestly, to Maud, as they turned to go.

  “I think so,” she said. “Now, you must take care of my cousin.”

  The young lady went down, and crossed the street at the other side of Miss Max, and seeing her maid about to mount the staircase of the inn, she joined her, passed her by with a word, and ran up the stairs, without once turning her pretty head to look back on her friends in the hall.

  Maximilla was vexed for her friend, Mr. Marston.

  “I did not say, in my answer, because it embarrasses me, sometimes, trying to write what I feel, how very nice I thought your letter — how particularly nice!”

  “Oh, Miss Medwyn, do you think she will ever like me?”

  “I only know she ought, Mr. Marston; but, as you see, she is an odd girl. One thing I assure you, you have a very fast friend in me, and, mind you don’t fail me. You must come to the ball, for I want to introduce you to the only person living who, I think, has an influence with her. I shall expect you at about a quarter to eleven. I shall be sure to be there about then, and so shall my friend. Goodbye, till then.”

  And without giving him time to answer, and with a very kind smile, she nodded, ran up the broad stairs, and disappeared.

  CHAPTER XXXVII.