He now went on to less uncomfortable subjects, and talked very pleasantly. I could see Laura Grey looking at him as opportunity occurred; she was a good deal further in the shade than I and he. I fancied I saw him smile to himself, amused at baffling her curiosity, and he sat back a little further.
“I am quite sorry, Miss Ware,” he said, “that I am about to be in funds again. My friends by this time must be weaving my wings — those wings of tissue-paper that come by the post, and take us anywhere. I’m awfully sorry, for I’ve fallen in love with this place. I shall never forget it.” He said these latter words in a tone so low as to reach me only. I was sitting, as I mentioned, very much nearer the window than Laura Grey.
There was in this stranger for me — a country miss, quite inexperienced in the subtle flatteries of voice, manner, looks, which town-bred young ladies accept at their true value — a fascination before which suspicions and alarms melted away. His voice was low and sweet; he was animated, goodhumoured, and playful; and his features, though singular, and capable of very grim expression, were handsome.
He talked to me in the same low tone for a few minutes. Happening to look at Laura Grey, I was struck by the anger expressed in her usually serene and gentle face. I fancied that she was vexed at his directing his attentions exclusively to me, and I was rather pleased at my triumph.
“Ethel, dear,” she said, “don’t you think the air a little cold?”
“Oh, I so very much hope not,” he almost whispered to me.
“Cold?” said I. “I think it is so very sultry, on the contrary.”
“If you find it too cold, Miss Grey, perhaps you would do wisely, I think, to sit a little further from the window,” said Mr. Marston, considerately.
“I am not at all afraid for myself,” she answered a little pointedly, “but I am uneasy about Miss Ware. I do think, Ethel, you would do wisely to get a little further from that window.”
“But I do assure you I am quite comfortable,” I said, in perfect good faith.
I saw Mr. Marston glance for a moment with a malicious smile at Laura Grey. To me the significance of that smile was a little puzzling.
“I see you have got a piano there,” he said to me, in his low tones, not meant for her ear. “Miss Grey plays, of course?”
“Yes; very well indeed.”
“Well, then, would you mind asking her to play something?”
I had no idea at the time that he wanted simply to find occupation for her, and to fill her ears with her own music, while he talked on with me.
“Laura, will you play that pretty thing of Beethoven’s that you tried last night?” I asked.
“Don’t ask me, Ethel, dear, tonight; I don’t think I could,” she answered, I thought a little oddly.
“Perhaps, if Miss Grey knew,” he said, smiling, “that she would oblige a shipwrecked stranger extremely, and bind him to do her any service she pleases to impose in return, she might be induced to comply.”
“The more you expect from my playing, the less courage I have to play,” she said, in reply to his appeal, which was made, I fancied, in a tone of faint irony that seemed to suggest an oblique meaning; and her answer, I also fancied, was spoken as if answering that hidden meaning. It was very quietly done, but I felt the singularity of those tones.
“And why so? Do, I entreat — do play.”
“Shouldn’t I interrupt your conversation?” she answered.
“I’ll not allow you even that excuse,” he said; “I’ll promise (and won’t you, Miss Ware?) to talk whenever we feel inclined. There, now, it’s all settled, isn’t it? Pray begin.”
“No, I am not going to play tonight,” she said.
“Who would suppose Miss Grey so resolute; so little a friend to harmony? Well, I suppose we can do nothing; we can’t prevail; we can only regret.”
I looked curiously at Laura, who had risen, and was approaching the window, close to which she took a chair and sat down.
Mr. Marston was silent. I never saw man look angrier, although he smiled. To his white teeth and vivid eyes his dark skin gave marked effect; and to me, who knew nothing of the situation, the whole affair was most disagreeably perplexing. I was curious to see whether there would be any sign of recognition; but I was sitting at the side that commanded a full view of our guest, and the table so near me that Laura could not have introduced her chair without a very pointed disclosure of her purpose. If Mr. Marston was disposed to snarl and snap at Miss Grey, he very quickly subdued that desire. It would have made a scene, and frightened me, and that would never do.
In his most goodhumoured manner, therefore, which speedily succeeded this silent paroxysm, he chatted on, now and then almost whispering a sentence or two to me. What a contrast this gay, reckless, and in a disguised way, almost tender talk, presented to the cold, peculiar, but agreeable conversation of the ascetic enthusiast, in whom this dark-faced, animated man of the world had uncomfortably disturbed my faith!
Laura Grey was restless all this time, angry, frightened. I fancied she was jealous and wounded; and although I was so fond of her, it did not altogether displease me.
The sunlight failed. The reflected glow from the western sky paled into grey, and twilight found our guest still in his place at the window, with his knee on the bench, and his elbows resting on the window-stone, our candles being lighted, chatting, as I thought, quite delightfully, talking sense and nonsense very pleasantly mixed, and hinting a great many very agreeable flatteries.
Laura Grey at length took courage, or panic, which often leads in the same direction, and rising, said quietly, but a little peremptorily: “I am going now, Ethel.”
There was, of course, nothing for it but to submit. I confess I was angry. But it would certainly not have been dignified to show my resentment in Mr. Marston’s presence. I therefore acquiesced with careless goodhumour. The stranger bid us a reluctant goodnight, and Laura shut down the window, and drew the little bolt across the window-sash, with, as it seemed to me, a rather inconsistent parade of suspicion. With this ungracious dismissal he went away in high goodhumour, notwithstanding.
“Why need we leave the drawingroom so very early?” said I, in a pet.
“We need not go now, as that man is gone,” she said, and quickly closed the window-shutters, and drew the curtains.
Laura, when she had made these arrangements, laid her hand on my shoulder, and looked with great affection and anxiety in my face.
“You are vexed, darling, because I got rid of that person.”
“No,” said I; “but I’m vexed because you got rid of him rudely.”
“I should have prevented his staying at the window for a single minute, if I had been quite sure he is the person I suppose. If he is — oh! how I wish he were a thousand miles away!”
“I don’t think you would be quite so hard upon him, if he had divided his conversation a little more equally,” I said with the bluntness of vexation.
Laura hardly smiled. There was a pained, disappointed look in her face, but the kindest you can imagine.
“No, Ethel, I did not envy your good fortune. There is no one on earth to whom I should not prefer talking.”
“But who is he?” I urged.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Surely you can say the name of the person you take him for?” I insisted.
“I am not certain; if he be the person he resembles, he took care to place himself so that I could not, or, at least, did not, see him well; there are two or three people mixed up in a great misfortune, whom I hate to name, or think of. I thought at one time I recognised him; but afterwards I grew doubtful. I never saw the person I mean more than twice in my life; but I know very well what he is capable of; his name is Marston; but I am not at all certain that this is he.”
“You run away with things,” I said. “How do you know that Mr. Carmel’s account may not be a very unfair one?”
“I don’t rely on Mr. Carmel’s account of Mr. Marston, if this is he.
I knew a great deal about him. You must not ask me how that was, or anything more. He is said to be, and I believe it, a bad, selfish, false man. I am terrified when I think of your having made his acquaintance. If he continues here, we must go up to town. I am half distracted. He dare not give us any trouble there.”
“How did he quarrel with Mr. Carmel?” I asked, full of curiosity.
“I never heard; I did not know that he was even acquainted with him; but I think you may be perfectly certain that everything he said about Mr. Carmel is untrue. He knows that Mr. Carmel warned us against making his acquaintance; and his reason for talking as he does, is simply to discredit him. I dare say he’ll take an opportunity of injuring him also. There is not time to hear from Mr. Ware. The only course, if he stays here for more than a day or two, is, as I said, to run up to your papa’s house in town, and stay there till he is gone.”
Again my belief in Mr. Marston was shaken; and I reviewed my hard thoughts of Mr. Carmel with something like compunction. The gloom and pallor of Laura’s face haunted me.
CHAPTER XVII.
LEMUEL BLOUNT.
Next morning, at about halfpast ten, as Laura and I sat in our breakfast-room, a hired carriage with two horses, which had evidently been driven at a hard pace, passed our window at a walk. The driver, who was leading his beasts, asked a question of Thomas Jones, who was rolling the gravel on the courtyard before the window; and then he led them round the corner toward the steward’s house. The carriage was empty; but in another minute it was followed up by the person whom we might presume to have been its occupant. He turned towards our window as he passed, so that we had a full view of this new visitor.
He was a man who looked past sixty, slow-paced, and very solemn; he was dressed in a clumsy black suit; his face was large, square, and sallow; his cheek and chin were smoothly shorn and blue. His hat was low-crowned, and broad in the brim. He had a cotton umbrella in his big gloved hand, and a coloured pockethandkerchief sticking out of his pocket. A great bunch of seals hung from his watch-chain under his black waistcoat. He was walking so slowly that we had no difficulty in observing these details; and he stopped before the hall-door, as if doubtful whether he should enter there. A word, however, from Thomas Jones set him right, and he in turn disappeared round the corner.
We did not know what to make of this figure, whom we now conjectured to have come in quest of the shipwrecked stranger.
Thomas Jones ran round before him to the door of the steward’s house, which he opened; and the newcomer thanked him with a particularly kind smile. He knocked on chance at the door to the right, and the voice of our unknown guest told him to come in.
“Oh, Mr. Blount!” said the young gentleman, rising, hesitating, and then tendering his hand very respectfully, and looking in the sensible, vulgar face of the old man as if he were by no means sure how that tender might be received. “I hope, sir, I have not quite lost your friendship. I hope I retain some, were it ever so little, of the goodwill you once bore me. I hope, at least, that you will allow me to say that I am glad to see you: I feel it.”
The old man bowed his head, holding it a little on one side while the stranger spoke; it was the attitude of listening rather than of respect. When the young gentleman had done speaking, his visitor raised his head again. The young man smiled faintly, and still extended his hand, looking very pale. Mr. Blount did not smile in answer; his countenance was very sombre, one might say sad.
“I never yet, sir, refused the hand of any man living when offered to me in sincerity, especially that of one in whom I felt, I may say, at one time a warm interest, although he may have given me reason to alter the opinion I then entertained of him.”
Thus speaking, he gravely took the young man’s hand, and shook it in a thoughtful, melancholy way, lowering his head again as he had done before.
“I don’t ask how my uncle feels towards me,” said the young man, half inquiringly.
“You need not,” answered the visitor.
“I am at all events very much obliged to you,” said the young man, humbly, “for your friendship, Mr. Blount. There is, I know, but one way of interesting your sympathy, and that is by telling you frankly how deep and true my repentance is; how I execrate my ingratitude; how I deplore my weakness and criminality.” He paused, looking earnestly at the old man, who, however, simply bowed his head again, and made no comment.
“I can’t justify anything I have done; but in my letter I ventured to say a few words in extenuation,” he continued. “I don’t expect to soften my uncle’s just resentment, but I am most anxious, Mr. Blount, my best friend on earth, to recover something, were it ever so little, of the ground I have lost in your opinion.”
“Time, sir, tries all things,” answered the newcomer, gently; “if you mean to lead a new life, you will have opportunity to prove it.”
“Was my uncle softened, ever so little, when he heard that the Conway Castle had gone down?” asked the young man, after a short silence.
“I was with him at breakfast when the morning paper brought the intelligence,” said Mr. Blount. “I don’t recollect that he expressed any regret.”
“I dare say; I can quite suppose it; I ought to have known that he was pleased rather.”
“No; I don’t think he was pleased. I rather think he exhibited indifference,” answered Mr. Blount.
With some grim remarks I believe the young man’s uncle had received the sudden news of his death.
“Did my uncle see the letter I wrote to you, Mr. Blount?”
“No.”
“And why not?”
“You will not think, I hope, that I would for any consideration use a phrase that could wound you unnecessarily when I tell you?”
“Certainly not.”
“Your letter mentioned that you had lost your papers and money in the ship. Now, if it should turn out that you had, in short, misstated anything — — “
“Told a lie, you mean,” interrupted the young man, his face growing white, and his eyes gleaming.
“It would have been discourteous in me to say so, but such was my meaning,” he answered, with a very kind look. “It has been one object with me during my life to reconcile courtesy with truth. I am happy in the belief that I have done so, and I believe during a long life I have never once offended against the laws of politeness. Had you deceived him so soon again it would have sunk you finally and for ever. I thought it advisable, therefore, to give you an opportunity of reconsidering the statements of your letter before committing you by placing them before him as fact.”
The young man flushed suddenly. It was his misfortune that he could not resent suspicion, however gross, although he might wince under the insult, all the more that it was just. Rather sulkily he said:
“I can only repeat, sir, that I have not a shilling, nor a cheque; I left every paper and every farthing I possessed in my despatch-box, in my berth. Of course, I can’t prove it; I can only repeat that every guinea I had in the world has gone to the bottom.”
Mr. Blount raised his head. His square face and massive features confronted the younger man, and his honest brown eyes were fixed upon him with a grave and undisguised inquiry.
“I don’t say that you have any certainty of recovering a place in your uncle’s esteem, but the slightest prevarication in matters of this kind would be simply suicidal. Now, I ask you, sir, on your honour, did no part of your money, or of your papers, go by rail either to Bristol or to London?”
“Upon my honour, Mr. Blount, not a farthing. I had only about ten pounds in gold, all the rest was in letters of credit and cheques; and, bad as I am, I should scarcely be fool enough to practise a trick, which, from its nature, must be almost instantaneously self-exposed. My uncle could have stopped payment of them; probably he has done so.”
“I see you understand something of business, sir.”
“I should have understood a great deal more, Mr. Blount, and been a much better man, if I had listened to you long ago.
I hope, in future, to be less my own adviser, and more your pupil.”
To this flattering speech the old man listened attentively, but made no answer.
“Your letter followed me to Chester,” said Mr. Blount, after an interval. “I received it last night. He was in London when I saw him last; and my letter, telling him that you are still living, may not reach him, possibly, for some days. Thus, you see, you would have the start of him, if I may so describe it, without rudeness; and you are aware he has no confidence in you; and, certainly, if you will permit me to say so, he ought not to have any. I have a note of the number of the cheque; you can write a line saying that you have lost it, and requesting that payment may be stopped; and I will enclose it to Messrs. Dignum and Budget.”
“There’s pen and ink here; I’ll do it this moment. I thought you had renounced me also; and I was going to write again to try you once more, before taking to the high road,” he said, with dismal jocularity.
It wrung the pride of the young man sorely to write the note. But the bitter pill was swallowed; and he handed it, but with signs of suppressed anger, to Mr. Blount.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 625