With these words Mr. Dawe closed the longest speech he was ever known to deliver at a single spell; and in his face and voice there was something more threatening than they had ever evidenced before.
Whiter and whiter grew the handsome face of Lady Vernon as Mr. Dawe proceeded. She rose like an evoked spirit to his incantation, and stood with a countenance in which fear, and rage, and derision were blended with a force worthy of an evil spirit.
“I have listened to your hideous calumny till it is expended. Let it be your comfort that your last act has been worthy of all your former malignant intercourse with me, and that you leave a broken-hearted woman with a curse, and a falsehood, and a threat on your lips. It is our last meeting. I shall never hear your ill-omened voice again. I disdain your offers; I defy your threats.” She rang furiously at the bell. “And I command you never more to enter this house, or to presume to claim acquaintance with me.”
She turned and walked away from him, into the room.
Hearing the door open, she turned again, and said to the footman who had come in:
“This gentleman is going; show him to the hall-door.”
Dawe nodded sullenly at the door of the room, and said in his accustomed tones:
“I shall act strictly on what you have said to me: and as it can’t be mended, I accept the terms you prescribe. Farewell, Barbara.”
The little figure in the black wig withdrew at his customary gait; his dark wooden face presenting its solemn furrows and accustomed carving, and his voice and his whole demeanour, dry and phlegmatic, as if nothing of interest had occurred.
Trembling, Lady Vernon sat down. There is always a “devil’s advocate” to pervert the motives and distort the conduct of the saints, and so it had just been with her. His insults still quivered on her nerves. Does not Satan plague scrupulous consciences with doubts and upbraidings utterly fantastic? The “still small voice” within her had been whispering vaguely the same thing that now she had heard croaked with coarse distinctness by an external voice. It was this harmony and iteration that made that croaking voice eloquent, and when it ceased, left Lady Vernon trembling.
CHAPTER LXXIX.
LIGHT APPROACHES.
In a situation in any degree resembling Maud’s — a captivity in which all contact with the outer world, and all communication with friends, are effectually prevented — delays unexplained appear supernaturally long; time moves so slowly; the idea of neglect and oblivion is so often uppermost; and despair always near.
One morning, some time after the scene at Roydon between Lady Vernon and Mr. Dawe, Mercy Creswell appeared before Maud, with an unusually reserved countenance.
“You’ll be wanted downstairs, miss, at twelve o’clock, in the doctor’s office, to-day,” she said.
“And what is this for?” asked Maud, startled.
“Well, miss, I do believe it is a gentleman from the Lord High Chancellor as is come down to ask you some questions,” answered Mercy.
“Oh! oh! Really?” faltered Maud, with a secret prescience of a coming crisis. Her message had not been in vain, and here was the result of a powerful and friendly interposition.
“You need not to be frightened, miss, they won’t do you no harm. There was one came down here last year to see a very rich patient, and I dessay the Chancellor was making a nice thing of his money and estates, while he was locked up here; I should not wonder: anyhow, he would not let him out from here till he found he could not keep him shut up no longer. So before he took him out he sends one of his gentlemen down here to make, as we thought, all the fuss he could about letting him away and home again to manage his own business, but home he went for all that. His name was Hempenfeldt, a tall thin man of fifty, with a hooked nose, and gold hy-glass, and used to wear a white hat and blue frock-coat, and buff waistcoat, and them varnish boots.”
Maud looked at her watch. It was past eleven.
“Did you hever see the Honourable Mr. Marston, Lady Mardykes’s brother, miss?” inquired Mercy, who had grown to be on easy terms with the young lady in her charge.
“Yes, I have. What about him?” inquired Maud, as carelessly as if her heart had not fluttered up to her lips and dropped down dead again.
“Because I saw him, and a little black gentleman, just up to his elbow, talking to Doctor Antomarchi, and Miss Medwyn is in the waiting-room.”
Perhaps Mercy thought that these signs betokened the early liberation of Maud, and became more communicative as the likelihood of her again emerging into light, and becoming a personage in the living world, improved.
Maud knew now that battle was actually waged in her behalf, and that a few hours might see her free, and on her way to Wybourne with dear old Maximilla Medwyn.
But, oh, no! she would not allow herself to believe anything so incredible. It could not happen. To admit a hope so immense would be to insure a plunge into the deepest hell of disappointment. And yet that hope possessed her, and she was nearly wild with its excitement.
“Do you think Miss Medwyn will be allowed to see me?” asked Maud.
“I don’t know, miss; they was jealous of you seeing any one; and I’m sure there’s no good in you asking, whatever they may say when she does.”
Maud, being quite of the same opinion, made no move, well knowing that Maximilla would leave no stone unturned to obtain a few minutes’ sight of her.
Mr. Darkdale arrived, with a knock at the sitting-room door. His business was to deliver a formal intimation from Doctor Antomarchi that Miss Vernon was to hold herself in readiness to come to his room, at twelve o’clock, to answer some questions which an official person would have to put to her, and to request that she would be good enough not to leave her rooms until his messenger should arrive to conduct her to his office.
In a state of suspense Maud awaited Antomarchi’s summons in her sitting-room. Twelve o’clock came, and no summons yet. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour passed. The little timepiece in her room struck one.
Mr. Darkdale arrived a minute or two later. He looked stern and thoughtful. Mercy Creswell was summoned. She was to go alone with Mr. Darkdale. Miss Vernon was to be so good as to await her, or his, return where she was. These attendants would wait upon her in the mean time.
Two of the stalwart housemaids in the Glarewoods uniform entered quietly, and stood near the door.
Mercy Creswell looked a little disagreeably surprised at the occurrence; but she accompanied Mr. Darkdale in silence; and Maud remained in utter ignorance of all that was taking place downstairs, upon the issue of the ordeal that was to decide her fate.
In less than ten minutes Mercy Creswell returned, looking hot and agitated. The temporary attendants were withdrawn, and Maud, being alone with her maid, questioned her as to what was going on.
“I’m not to tell nothing about it, miss; them’s my orders.”
“The inquiry is about me, isn’t it? Surely you can tell me so much,” urged Maud.
“Well, yes, miss; it is about you, and not another thing will I say about it. Where’s the use of me running that risk without no good to no one?”
Mercy was obstinate and held to her resolution spite of all Maud’s importunities and promises of secrecy; and Maud in the burning fever of her agitation walked from room to room, and from window to window, unable to rest for a moment.
If she could only tell how it was going! By what right was she excluded from her own trial? How unfairly her case might be dealt with! And, oh! but to think of all that depends on the next hour.
In the waiting-room Mr. Marston and old Miss Medwyn had met Mr. Dawe, and were in high chat when Mr. Tintern was shown in. He had not perhaps expected to meet Miss Vernon’s friends in such force. He knew only that he was to see Mr. Dawe there. He would have preferred not meeting Miss Medwyn. He smiled pensively, and shook hands, and shrugged pathetically over the melancholy state of things which had called them there.
“And poor Lady Vernon, what a deplorable thing for her! Only think, a
mother, you know, and all that kind of thing; so awfully distressing! I know, for my part, I should rather lose a child by death outright, and be spared the anguish of such an affliction as this.”
He looked round upon them with a sad shake of the head, and a slow wave of his hand, which was intended generally to indicate Miss Vernon, the lunatic asylum, its inmates and apparatus; and this pantomime terminated in a slight but expressive elevation of the eyes and hand, and another desolate shrug.
“Lady Vernon lives in hopes,” he continued, liking, I fancy, to talk rather than to be talked to, on this subject. “She thinks this will not be a very tedious — a — a — illness. All this is, of course, quite dark at Roydon. No one there — I have not even mentioned it to my wife — not a human being but I and Doctor Malkin — — “
“Ho! Doctor Malkin! Well, that does not surprise me,” exclaimed Miss Medwyn, in an angry parenthesis.
“Not a living person but he and I, and Lady Vernon herself, in all that part of the world, has the least idea there is anything of the kind; and you know we may look to see her very soon, I do hope, quite as we could wish.”
“Very soon, I should hope, Mr. Tintern; sooner even than some of her friends expect,” said Maximilla, with a tart emphasis. “She is under very special restraint here. They won’t permit me so much as to see her! What can be the reason of that? I don’t suppose I can hurt her; and as to my share of the danger, I’m quite willing to risk that, ha ha, ha! — poor little Maud!” and with these words Maximilla Medwyn suddenly burst into tears.
Mr. Tintern looked with much feeling at Mr. Dawe; but a blacker shadow seemed to have gathered about that odd figure.
Mr. Marston, at the further end of the long room, was trying to read some papers connected with the proceedings, but his eye every moment wandered to the door, through which he expected the summons of a messenger from the commissioner.
Maximilla’s tears disconcerted Mr. Tintern, who walked first to the window, and then to Mr. Dawe, to whom, with another shrug, he murmured:
“Most harrowing! No place for ladies, this!”
Mr. Dawe grunted.
Maximilla’s sobs did not last long. A footman entered and presented a little note to Mr. Dawe.
Mr. Dawe read it. The eyes of Mr. Marston and Miss Medwyn were now directed on him very anxiously.
“It is all right,” said Mr. Dawe, in his dry tones.
“Thank God!” exclaimed Maximilla. And Mr. Marston looked as if he would have said the same.
Mr. Tintern eyed them curiously. What was “all right?” He would have given something to know.
Mr. Dawe walked up to Maximilla briskly, and saying, “Read that,” placed the note in her hands.
It said:
Dear Mr. Dawe, — I have very great pleasure in saying that Mr. Commissioner Steele has no objection, under the circumstances of this case, to your being present, although your request, coming from one who is not related to the family, is not usual; and the only condition he imposes is, that you make no public use of what you are permitted to witness; and he reserves to himself, of course, the right of dispensing with your presence at any time he may express a wish to be more to himself. I write this with pleasure, as I look upon your presence as a protection to myself.
Yours truly,
Michael Antomarchi.
P.S. — You are at liberty to accompany Mr. Tintern when the commissioner sends for him.
This summons was not long in coming.
Mr. Tintern looked with an air of studied curiosity and polite surprise at Mr. Dawe as that gentleman accompanied him.
Mr. Dawe did not care. Those looks did not overawe him.
CHAPTER LXXX.
BEFORE THE COMMISSIONER.
They found the commissioner, with Doctor Antomarchi, in the oval-room, to which the servant conducted them.
Mr. Commissioner Steele is a tall, gentlemanlike looking man, with a dark face, closely shaved, black curly hair, a little streaked with white, growing close over his broad, but not high, forehead. He looks at them with eyes nearly shut, and a little frown, after the manner of near-sighted people, and he is twirling round his finger an eyeglass. He rises, and receives these gentlemen with a short bow, and looks to Doctor Antomarchi to explain them. The doctor, who has seen them before, does so.
“Oh! Mr. Dawe? The gentleman who wishes to be present on behalf of Miss Vernon?” asked the commissioner.
“Yes,” said Antomarchi.
“Have you considered, Doctor Antomarchi,” hesitated Mr. Tintern, “whether Lady Vernon would quite wish that arrangement? The young lady’s mother,” he explains to the commissioner, “she is naturally extremely anxious that as little as possible of this very painful case should become generally known; she wished it, in fact, as private as possible.”
“Yes; but in this case it is not a simple relation of mother and child,” said Mr. Steele, fluently, while arranging his papers. “The young lady has quite different interests, and on a very great scale; and it is only reasonable that some one, in whom her relations have confidence, should be permitted, in her interest, to hear what passes. Mr. Tintern, you are a magistrate?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The depositions in this matter, were sworn before you?”
“They were, sir.”
“You have brought with you the original depositions?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Be so kind as to hand them to me. Thanks; Mr. Dawe, while I read these, you can read the attested copies which Doctor Antomarchi will be so good as to give you.”
Doctor Antomarchi placed the papers before Mr. Dawe, who received them with one of his stiff bows, and read them with characteristic care.
“Lady Vernon is not here?” asked the commissioner.
“No,” answered Antomarchi.
“Nor that man, Elihu Lizard?”
“He is not here.”
“These affidavits are very strong. Lady Vernon deposes that her daughter, the subject of this inquiry, has for some years exhibited a growing eccentricity and violence, which have caused her extreme anxiety; that latterly these peculiarities had, in her opinion, become distinctly morbid, and that on a certain evening, the date of which she states, Miss Vernon intimated an intention of putting an end to her own life. That this had been preceded by two distinct occurrences of a similar kind, within little more than a year antecedent to the last threat of this sort, at Roydon Hall.”
The commissioner paused and looked at Mr. Dawe.
“Doctor Malkin, the family physician, states that the young lady is of a highly nervous temperament, with strange ideas, such as are popularly termed flighty, that she is hysterical and impetuous, and without sufficient self-control to counteract the obvious tendencies of such a mental and nervous condition. That with this knowledge of predisposing causes at work, he cannot refer the facts set out in Lady Vernon’s and Elihu Lizard’s depositions to any cause other than insanity too considerably developed to be safely committed to any but the constant supervision and treatment of an able physician, residing under the same roof, and experienced in the treatment of insanity. He says he cannot undertake the responsibility of advising Lady Vernon to keep the young lady at home, an experiment which has often been attended, he remarks, especially when suicidal tendencies have existed, with fatal consequences. That is very strong, you observe,” he said, throwing his head back, and glancing at Mr. Dawe.
Mr. Dawe grunted.
“You think that very strong?” said the commissioner.
“No,” said Mr. Dawe, “I don’t mind Lady Vernon; and the Roydon doctor is in her pocket. He thinks what she thinks, and she thinks whatever she likes.”
Mr. Commissioner Steele popped his glass in his eye and stared at this outspoken little man, as he might at a curious creature in a menagerie, and then he resumed.
“Well, here’s Elihu Lizard,” said the commissioner, who had opened another paper; “I think here perhaps it will be as well to ask Miss Medwyn
to be good enough to come in — she may, possibly, have something to explain.”
Mr. Steele leaned back in his chair, and Doctor Antomarchi again touched the bell, and the servant in a minute more announced Miss Medwyn.
The commissioner rose and made his bow. Miss Medwyn glanced shrewdly at him, to ascertain what manner of man the judge might be.
“I’ll tell you what Elihu Lizard states, if you please, Miss Medwyn, and you can make any remarks that strike you.”
“So I shall,” said Miss Medwyn.
“He swears he followed Miss Vernon from place to place.”
“Who sent him?” asked Mr. Dawe.
“I know no more than the affidavit states; you have the copy. He found that she acted with very marked eccentricity during a tour she made with her cousin, that was you, Miss Medwyn; she concealed her name, and passed herself off as a Miss Maud Guendoline; she represented herself as being, and the deponent seems to think, for the time, actually believed the statement, obliged to make her livelihood by selling her water-colour sketches; she told people that she was miserably poor, and, in social position, extremely humble; and Elihu Lizard believes that, at the time, she seriously thought that all these statements were true.”
“She thought no such thing,” said Miss Medwyn. “It was all done in the spirit of frolic; just what any young creature a little wayward, and quite wild with spirits, as she was, in the enjoyment of a little holiday, would do; and no one ever dreamed of supposing her mad.”
“Did she tell you, Miss Medwyn, during your excursion, at any time, that she did not believe these representations herself?”
“No, certainly, it was quite unnecessary; she knew that such an idea had never entered my mind.”
“You have a strong opinion, then, in favour of Miss Vernon’s sanity?”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 611