Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  “In my lady’s morning room, please, miss. But you can see her, my lady says, anywhere you please,” answered Latimer.

  “Then I should like to see her quietly, if you would tell her to come to my dressing-room, and tell some one to send Jones there, please, and I will go myself in two or three minutes to see her.”

  Latimer disappeared; and Maud in a minute more was running up the stairs to her room.

  We all lean a little fondly to the recollections of childhood, especially those images of very early memory, from which chance has long widely separated us.

  But Maud could not get up any great interest in this particular woman, Mercy Creswell. She was, as Maud remembered her, a red-haired, stunted, freckled girl of perhaps some sixteen years; plump, and broad, and strong, with a cunning and false gaiety in her fat face, and who laughed a great deal, not pleasantly, but rather maliciously, and at untoward times.

  Maud had a remembrance of an occasional slap or pinch, now and then, slyly bestowed by this short, freckled, laughing young lady, who rather liked getting her into a scrape now and then, and who used in playful moods, when they were running about the rooms together, and no one by, to run her into a corner, hold her to the wall, and make ugly faces, with her nose almost touching Maud’s, till the child would scream with fright and anger; and then she would fall into shrieks of laughter, and hug and kiss her a little more roughly than was necessary, and after this somewhat sore and uncomfortable reconciliation, she would charge her — for the love she bore her own, own poor little Mercy Creswell, who would be sent away if she did, never more to dress her doll, or trundle her cart, or roll her ball for her — not to tell nurse, or nursery-maid, or Miss Latimer, that they had had “a falling out.”

  Her recollections of this early attendant and, under the rose, playmate, therefore, were not quite as sunny as they might be. Still they were connected with happier days, or what now seemed happier, than those which had come later; and perhaps if Mercy Creswell was sometimes a disagreeable companion, it was to be attributed, in great measure, to the boisterous, and sometimes mischievous, spirits of very early girlhood.

  When she reached her dressing-room, Maud Vernon beheld, for the first time, for fourteen years, this same Mercy Creswell.

  The interval had not improved her personal appearance. Short and square, with a very fat, and rather flat face, mottled with very large freckles, and her red hair showing under her bonnet, she might have passed for a woman of the age, at least, of Don Quixote’s housekeeper. No one could have supposed that her age did not exceed thirty years. She smiled so ecstatically that she nearly shut up her cunning little eyes in rolls of fat wrinkles, while she blinked them very fast, as if tears were forcing their way from them; of which, I don’t think, there was any other sign. She was not prepossessing; but Maud could not find it in her heart to repulse her when whisking aside her green veil she rose on tip-toe, put her short arms round Maud’s neck, and kissing her energetically, said:

  “Ye’ll excuse the liberty, Miss Maud dear, but it is such a time since your own poor little Mercy has saw’d you. La! what a beautiful young lady you have growed up since then; well, to be sure, and me as small as ever. Well, la! it is a queer world, miss. I ‘a bin in many a place since Roydon nursery. La, miss! do you mind the big ball o’ red leather, and the black man with the cymbals, and all the toys and trumpets, dollies and donkeys. Well, dearie me! so there was, wasn’t there? La! and we was great friends, you and me, ye’ll excuse me saying so; and many a day’s play together we two has had; and I thought I’d ‘a heard o’ you married long ago, miss, but there’s time enough yet. ‘Twill be a lord, nothing less, whenever he comes; bless him.”

  “And you, Mercy, you have not married yet?” said Maud.

  “Me? La bless ye! not I, by no means, miss. Oh, la! what would I be doin’ with a husband? Oh, la! no.”

  “Well, as you say, there is time enough, Mercy; and what have you been doing ever since?”

  “La, miss! I could not answer that in a week. I was at service, after leaving here, first with Lady Mardykes.”

  “At Lady Mardykes’? I know her. I’m sure you had a pleasant time in her house?” said Maud, eagerly.

  “That it was; no pleasanter, miss; no end of great folks there, and music, and fine clothes, and all sorts, and play-acting, and dancing by night; and croquet and lawn billiards, and the like o’ that, all day; or driving off, with cold luncheons, to this place or that, nothing but grand people, and all sorts of fun; high jinks, the gentlemen used to call it.”

  “I’m going there, to Carsbrook, on Monday next,” said Maud, who was full of this visit.

  “Well to be you, miss,” said Mercy Creswell, looking down and coughing a little; “and I would not wonder, miss, if I was to be there myself,” she added, looking up again, and screwing her mouth together, and drawing in her breath through the circular orifice, while she raised her eyebrows with a lackadaisical ogle at the window.

  “Oh? Really! Well, mind you must make me out if you should,” said Maud, gaily.

  “I’ll be sure to,” she answered, with one of her sly giggles.

  “It is a great black-and-white house, very large, ain’t it?” said Maud, smiling.

  “La! How did ye find that out?” Mercy Creswell continued, with the same irrepressible giggle.

  “You see I know more about it than you fancied,” continued Maud. “It is three stories high, and close under the windows there is an oldfashioned flower-garden, with the croquet ground in the middle, and the lawn billiards and all that, and an old mulberry-tree growing in the middle of it; and it is surrounded on three sides by a tall hedge clipped like a wall, with here and there an arch cut through it, something like the yew cloisters behind the shield-room here, only very much larger.”

  “Why, you must ‘a bin there, miss,” her visitor cried, half stifled with laughter.

  “No, never; and there are ever so many bedrooms, and more guests generally than you could number — all kinds of great, and wise, and clever, and famous people.”

  As Maud proceeded, her short, fat visitor in her shawl and big bonnet was actually obliged to get up and stump about the room, so extravagant her laughter by degrees became.

  “You see I know something about it,” continued Maud, laughing also. “As you used to say to me, long ago, a little bird told me. But I shall soon be there, I hope, to see for myself; and I believe every one is made to feel quite at home there immediately; and it is such a hospitable house, every one says. Your only difficulty is, how to get away; and, by-the-bye, do you know Doctor Antomarchi?”

  “I ‘a heard of him once or twice,” screamed Mercy Creswell, almost suffocated with laughter.

  “Now listen to me. We have laughed enough,” said Maud. “You mustn’t laugh. I can’t get you to tell me anything; you do nothing but laugh; and I really wished so much to hear about him. I and Miss Medwyn saw him at the Wymering ball, and we were both so curious. Can you tell me anything about him?”

  “Not I, miss.”

  “Well, if you like, Jones shall make you a wager that he will be there at the same time,” continued the young lady, a little puzzled by her fat friend’s irrepressible and continued screams of laughter, and beginning to feel the infection a little more herself; “and the Spanish ambassador; he will be there also.”

  “Oh! Oh, la! Oh, miss, stop! Oh, oh, oh, you’re a killing of me. I’m — I’m — I’m not able to — to — oh, la! ha, ha, ha! catch my breath.” And fat Mercy Creswell, clinging to the corner of a wardrobe, actually shook with laughter till tears rolled plentifully down her big cheeks; and Maud, and her maid Jones, who was nevertheless disgusted by the vulgar familiarity and noise of the clumsy Miss Creswell, were drawn in spite of themselves, and joined at last vehemently and hilariously in the chorus.

  “Well, don’t mind me,” at last sobbed Miss Creswell, recovering slowly, “I always was one, oh, ho, ho! that laughs at nothing. I do; I’m as tired now, my dear — oh, ho
, ho! — as if I ran up to the top o’ the fells of Golden Friars, and la! but that’s high enough; but how did you hear all about it, so exact, Miss Maud dear; where in the world — — “

  “I may as well tell you, then,” she answered, also recovering. “I heard everything about it from Miss Medwyn; you must remember her very well. She has been there very often, and she, I know, will be staying there at the same time that I am.”

  But at this moment Miss Mercy experienced another relapse, nearly as long and violent, every now and then, half-articulately, blurting out, in sobs and gasps amidst the screaming roulades of her laughter: “Oh la! ha, ha! Miss Med — Med — oh, ho! ho! — Medwyn — la! ha, ha, ha! She’s so staid, she is — she’s so nice. La! ha, ha, ha!” and so on.

  When at length a lull came, Miss Vernon, who was protected by its impertinence from any tendency to join in this last explosion of her old under-nursery-maid’s merriment, said gravely:

  “Mamma has not been very well; she has been complaining of headache; and I think we are making a good deal of noise. I don’t know how far off it may be heard.”

  “Well, dear Miss Maud, I hope you ain’t offended, miss; but, dearie me, I could not but laugh a bit, thinking of old Miss Medwyn among all them queer dancers, and fiddlers, and princes, and play-actors, and flute-players; I hope you’ll hexcuse the noise I ‘a made, seein’ I really could not help it, miss, by no chance. I know Lady Mardykes well; why shouldn’t I, having lived in her service for a many years? and a very great lady she is, and well liked, as I well know; and her papa, Lord Warhampton, a’most the greatest man in England; no wonder she should have all the highest in the land in her house, whenever she so pleases. But, la! ha, ha, ha! It’s a queer world. Who’d ‘a thought. There is sich queer things happens.”

  This time, her laughter was but an amused giggle, and she did not lose her command over it.

  “Have you had luncheon?” inquired Maud.

  “I thank you, miss, hearty, in the ‘ousekeeper’s room, before I came up to see her ladyship,” answered short Miss Mercy, with a comfortable sigh, blowing her nose a little, and adjusting her big bonnet and old green veil, and smoothing her red tresses, while, still out of breath, she tried to recover the fatigues of her long fit of laughter. “Well, Miss Maud dear, and how are ye?” inquired Mercy, suddenly returning from gay to grave.

  “Oh, very well, thanks; and so are you; and you haven’t married, you tell me, so you have nothing on earth to trouble you. I wish we were all like the trees, Mercy; they live very long and very happily, I dare say, longer, certainly, and more quietly than we do a great deal, and I don’t hear of any marrying or giving in marriage among them.”

  “Not they, not a bit; they’re never married, and why should we, miss? That’s a very wise saying,” acquiesced Mercy Creswell, very gravely looking at her.

  “If you really think so,” said Maud, “you are a wise woman; I have been trying to convince my maid Jones, but I’m afraid she is still rather in favour of the vulgar way of thinking.”

  “Well, miss, you’ll not find me so. I make my own clothes, miss, and I think my own thoughts,” said Mercy, with a wise nod.

  “You are a woman after my own heart then,” said Maud, gaily.

  “And how are you, miss?” repeats Mercy Creswell.

  “I told you I am very well, thanks,” says Maud.

  “None o’ them headaches you used to have when you was a little thing?”

  “Oh, no! I sometimes have a little nervous pain from cold over my eye; neuralgia they call it; but that is nothing, it never continues very long.”

  “It never gets into your eye?” asked Mercy, staring steadily and gravely at the suspected organ, and screwing her lips together uneasily all the time. “Them pains, they say, sometimes begins in the eyes, miss.”

  Maud laughed.

  “But Heaven only knows, as you say, miss. I dare say you are right, whatever you think; for every one knows best about their own pains. Sich is the will of Heaven — so we leave them things to wiser heads, miss, and I’m sure where you’re going you’ll be comfortable and amused.”

  “If I’m not, Mercy, I shall be the first visitor at that pleasant house who ever had such a complaint to make.”

  Mercy was suddenly very near exploding in a new fit of laughing, but she mastered it. “Well, miss, I’ll be there, I think — not unlikely,” said Mercy.

  “As a servant?” asked Miss Maud.

  “Well, as an attendant, I would say,” answered she.

  “Oh!”

  “And if I am, I’ll be sure, I hope, to see you, miss, if you gives permission; and I’m sure I desires nothing but your ‘ealth and ‘appiness, miss. Why should I? And I must be going now, Miss Maud. Goodbye to you, miss.” And again, but more solemnly, the short woman extended her thick arms, and rising to her toes, kissed Miss Vernon, and with a more ceremonious politeness, took her leave of “Miss Jones,” the lady’s-maid, who regarded her with a refined and polite disgust.

  So the squat figure of Miss Mercy Creswell disappeared, and Maud, for a time, lost sight of that uncouth reminder of old times and the Roydon nursery.

  CHAPTER LIII.

  THE DOCTOR RETURNS.

  The laughter of this uncomfortable Mercy Creswell remained in Maud Vernon’s ears. She would have fancied that there was something odd about Lady Mardykes’s house, if she had not known, by inference, from her mother, and directly from Maximilla Medwyn, that it was in every way unexceptionable. The woman could hardly have been tipsy. So Maud referred her unexplained merriment to something ridiculous which might have befallen in her own social level, the recollection of which irresistibly tickled her.

  Lady Vernon was happier that day. A letter had reached her from her true, but hardly loving, friend, old Richard Dawe. It told her that Captain Vivian had made an excursion, he knew not whither, on the day on which he had passed through the town of Roydon; but that he had returned the same evening, and that the doctor having pronounced that he had been doing too much, he, Mr. Dawe, had exacted a promise from him, not again to attempt a journey for ten days. He had named that time particularly, in consequence of Lady Vernon’s letter.

  “I am not qualified,” he said, “to speak about such feelings; but I will say, cure yourself of your excessive fondness for that young man. You have placed yourself in an agonising position. Make the effort; see him no more. I spare you. Commiserate yourself.”

  Notwithstanding its severe tone and unpalatable advice, this letter had cheered her. Maud would have left Roydon before his possible return. Her soul may have acquiesced, in secret, in the wisdom of old Dawe’s advice. But it was the recognition of one beholding himself in a glass, and straightway oblivion followed.

  Lady Vernon had some charitable visits to pay, on two days in the week, in Roydon. Some fifty pensioners, more or less decayed, endured her occasional calls and lectures in consideration of the substantial comforts that attended a place on her list. On some days she would visit two, on others nearly a score.

  Lady Vernon filled the rôle of the Christian matron with punctilious completeness. She had her great charities and her small; her tens of thousands to bestow, and her sixpences; her influential committees and powerful societies, and her grumbling and querulous old women in their garrets. She would make a flannel petticoat or build a church.

  Lady Vernon bore herself to all her friends and acquaintances as an unexceptionable type of Christian life. She would tell herself, as she meditated in her solitude, that she could not remember having ever acted, in a single instance, contrary to her conscience.

  Lady Vernon had violated authority a little once or twice. She and authority had differed, and she had taken her own course. But who was right, she or authority? Need I say?

  Of course she had things to vex her. She had more; secret afflictions and dreadful recollections, of which but one person now living, except herself, knew anything.

  For years she had been silently, though unconsciously
, battling with remorse. She was battling with the same fiend now. But was not Satan writhing under her heel? Did she not stand, resting on her spear, unscathed in her panoply, like the angel of wisdom, purity, and courage? What were these internal questionings, doubtings, and upbraidings, but the malignant sophistries of the Evil One accusing the just?

  Lady Vernon had made two or three of her domiciliary visits, and was emerging from between the poplars that stood one at each side of old Mr. Martin’s door, when her eye lighted upon the figure of Doctor Malkin, in his black frock-coat, newly arrived from his journey, looking a little fagged, but smiling politely, and raising his hat.

  The doctor had just made his toilet, and was on his way to Roydon Hall to pay his respects to his patroness.

  Lady Vernon smiled, but looked suddenly a little paler, as she saw her family physician thus unexpectedly near her.

  “How d’ye do, Doctor Malkin? I did not think you could have been home so early,” said Lady Vernon. “You intend calling at Roydon Hall to-day?”

  “I was actually on my way,” said Doctor Malkin, smiling engagingly, with his hat still in his hand, and the sun glancing dazzlingly on his bald head. “At any hour that will best suit you, Lady Vernon, I shall be most happy to wait upon you.”

  “I shall be going home now; I have made my little round of visits.”

  “And left a great many afflicted hearts comforted,” interpolated the appreciative doctor.

  “And I mean to return by the path,” she continued, not choosing to hear the doctor’s little compliment. “Open that door, please,” she said to the footman, who contrived with a struggle, without dropping the volumes he was charged with, to disengage a key from his pocket, and open a wicket in the park wall, which at this point runs only a few yards in the rear of the houses. “And, as you say, you were on your way to Roydon Hall, you may as well, if you don’t mind, come by the path with me.”

  The doctor was only too happy.

  The footman stood by the open door, which was only about a dozen steps away; and Lady Vernon stopped for a moment, and said to him: