Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  “I didn’t touch yer shooder, ma’am,” began the girl, but was interrupted by a squawl from Mrs. Gillyflower, and “Daratta! what’s that?”

  The tiny toes that rested on her shoulder were in her grasp, instead of Mali’s fingers. Mall echoed Mrs. Gillyflower’s exclamation with a scream, as she beheld the same false hand for a moment on the old woman’s shoulder; and she bounced to the door with another bawl, where Martha clutched her with her right hand, hardly knowing what she did, with a “By Jen!” and a prayer.

  A laugh — and down jumped the girlish stranger from the top of the oldfashioned low bedstead where she had been hiding.

  “Ye did not see my shoes and stockings; I hid them in the bed, and my cloak is up there.”

  The girl was laughing heartily, and looked so merry and pretty, that if you had been there you would certainly have laughed with her.

  “Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Gillyflower, with the indignation of fright. “Of all the turns ye’ve ever served me, this is the warst!”

  What the other ill-turns may have been it would, perhaps, have puzzled our good old friend to recount.

  “To think o’ yer treatin’ me sa! I wouldn’t a’ believed the parson. Na, na, na, — nane o’ that,” die said, waving off the laughing girl. “Na, na — I’ve done wi’ ye. I did na think ’twas in ye. What a nafflin’ I was, to care tuppence about ye! Ye’ve sarved me right, and, bout in the way o’ civility, I’ll never speak word more till ye. I’ve done wi’ ye — I’ve done wi’ ye quite!”

  She had turned with dignity, and her hand was on the door, when the girl caught her.

  “No, no — not a bit; ye’ll never have done with me. Ye’ll kiss me before ye go out, and we’ll dance together, you and me; for you’re my darling always, and I’ll be yours again.”

  “To think o’ ye playin’ at peeping-hide, like a child! — there, don’t be a fool, let me go — and to give me that fright! Don’t ye be holdin me — let go, I desire.”

  But all wouldn’t do. The girl, with bare feet, laughing merrily, and not a bit daunted, pulled her out by the substantial waist, and, singing a meny tune, whisked the old lass round in spite of herself.

  “Ye let me go, miss, if ye please — tak’ yer hands away. I’m not going; I won’t, miss — we’re na’ that intimate.”

  But on went the song, and round and round sails the good lady, protesting; and the girl — didn’t she look roguish, wild, and pretty? — capered such pretty steps on her bare feet, that at last old Martha’s dignity broke down, and, perhaps from the very effort to look grave, she burst out laughing, and never was the dance so wild as then.

  “I don’t care,” screamed Martha. “I’m very angry, though I may be laughin’; and I’ll tell ye what— “

  But her laughter increased, and grew at last so continuous and uproarious, that it was vain contending with it; so giving herself up, she danced with her own goodwill, and set to her pretty partner, with her fat old arms “akimbo,” and tears of laughter, in the general chorus, running down her ruddy cheeks. And at last, all laughing, they came to a standstill, and old Martha said, panting:

  “Go to bed — I’m the biggest fool o’ the whole lot!”

  And she gave the girl a kiss on the cheek, and a little slap, and ran out of the room at a trot.

  CHAPTER XII.

  FORTUNETELLERS.

  NEXT DAY at eleven o’clock, quite contrary to his bookish custom, William took his rod and flies, and pulled on his huge fishing-boots. Four miles he had to walk before he could cast his flies on the trout-stream; but he had not reached the hedgerow of the first field that lies within the evening shadow of the gables of Haworth Hall, when he heard the sweet voice of the stranger, singing. The song, that came clear from the leafy distance over the field, was the same which he had heard from the wooded slopes by Dardale Moss, and the same rich voice trembled in the air:

  “The haw thorn-tree

  Is dear to me,

  The elver-stone likewise —

  The lonely air

  That lingers there,

  And thought that never dies.”

  He listened till the song was sung out, and its last sweet and melancholy note died away. And then, with a long sigh, he said: “I thought so. Yes, I thought the voice was the same, and now I know it. When I heard that song, I knew that I heard the call of fate; I would follow it over the world!”

  Lightly he strode to the tall trees and thicket that are grouped at the point from which the song was audible. And now he could see her, though his view was interrupted by the hanging bough that interposed. She was sitting on a stile, leaning lightly on the ivy-grown stem of a great ash-tree, and with a little dog sitting beside her, to which she was talking gayly.

  She ceased her prattling on seeing William through the screen of leaves, and as she saw him turn from the path and approach, she stepped down upon the grass.

  “I heard your song,” said William. “You were sitting on the stile, among that ivy, with that spray of sweetbrier nodding over your shoulders. You see I lost nothing. They call you ‘Sweetbrier,’ as you won’t help them to another name, and I think it so wild and pretty. I shall never ask your real name; when you like to tell me, if ever that time comes, I shall be very happy. I heard your song, and I could not resist turning aside. For, one evening, as I was trudging over the moss, dull and lonely enough, a different sort of fellow from what I have grown to be, I heard that very song before, little knowing what was coming. I love that song, and it makes me sad, and

  “‘The hawthorn-tree

  Is dear to me,

  The elver-stone likewise.’

  For, when I think of the song, I always see the hawthorn-tree and the old stone where I saw you first; and I’ll never forget them, or the song, or that evening. I came just to tell you who has sent me to fish in the Dwyle, four miles away; and I’ll go tomorrow, with my gun, across the moss. I’ll give up my books — I think I do little good over them now. It is easy to keep one’s eyes upon the page, but who will tie the fancy there? And the more I thing of it, the more I love the idea of the wild free life. And I’m going all the way, I said, to-day and tomorrow, and everyday, thinking of you — just because you told me — just in the hope to please you.” He lowered his voice as he spoke.

  “Whatever’ s best for yourself, sir, you will know. I’m only a poor girl, and can’t tell what will answer gentlefolk,” she replied, in a low tone, and in that odd grave way, which somehow chilled and, in a manner, awed him.

  William’s conventual theories had been strengthened by one or two trifles told him by old Martha respecting their guest First on Friday she had eaten no meat Secondly, she had described some odd circumstances about the burial of “her sister” — a sister, more probably, William thought. A circular piece of silk, bound with ribbons of red and blue, was laid over her heart; a gospel, or “scapular” (as William concluded), and a white cloth was placed on her feet, and a white cap, of a peculiar shape, on her head; and some of the things that had belonged to her were solemnly burnt. He would have given a great deal for a book, or a learned friend, in his solitude, to satisfy him upon his theory that all this indicated the costume and practice of some conventual order.

  And further — proving how little worth was that crucial test which he fancied he was applying — she had told old Martha, with an odd little laugh, that she had never been in a Church-of-England place of worship before, but that “there was no harm in it, for her mother had once been in one.” With a dispensation he was satisfied they might anywhere.

  Then there was that in her manner that was very peculiar, when she wished him to understand that he was to stand aloof — something proud, gentle, dignified, which was his very ideal of the nun-like.

  “Some time or other, perhaps, you will tell me your name,” he said, “but that is a sign, you say, of confidence, and may be a long way off; but I have an old entreaty to plead again. You called me ‘Sir.’ Now, if you won’t call me by nay name, don�
�t at least call me that; but why not call me ‘Willie,’ as Martha does? I’ll only ask it when we are alone, just as we are now; and if I could make any one so happy by so slight a thing, why won’t you?”

  “Well, there — Willie — Willie — Willie,” she repeated, very sweetly, with a silence between each time; and there was a little laugh running lowly through it, but something for a moment almost fond in the tone and look.

  “You’ve said it. I thought you never would. I wish I could tell how grateful I am to you. Oh, wonderful stranger! I wish I could see into the future.”

  She laughed. “Where’s the good? Why should the coming time be happier than the past? Rich folks look sour enough often, and lords and ladies ain’t always pleasantest.”

  “I wish I could believe in gypsies,” said William. “I’d ride twenty miles to have my fortune told, but I’m not likely to meet them here; they never come this way. You’ve had your fortune told, I daresay?”

  “Well — no,” said the girl “Well, you’ve very likely heard others told theirs, and seen the whole thing?”

  “Oh, very often,” answers she, gayly.

  “I wish I could believe in it,” said he. “I’ve heard of very curious things they’ve told — things that came out quite true — and also what they told people about their past lives. I think you are a believer. How do you think they make it all out?”

  “By the planets, and the lines on the hand, and the lines on the forehead.”

  “Will you tell my fortune?” said William Haworth, smiling.

  “I will,” said she, quietly. “You cross my hand with silver.”

  And so he did, still smiling; and she took the coin gravely, and dropping it into her pocket she took his hand, and held it, looking sometimes for a moment at its palm, and then, long and gravely, in his face.

  William would have liked to listen to his fortune so told for the whole day long; and speaking low and fluently, and standing near his side, she said: —

  “Although you are young, you have had sorrow, and you sometimes think to yourself it has done yon good. You think you are better and wiser than if you had never known grief — d’ye mind what I say? You do not care for a great many people, but them you do like you like well and long. You are very true-hearted — d’ye mind what I say? — and you never were very much in love, but only a trifle; and one was dark, and there was another, with light hair and blue eyes — d’ye mind what I say? But the greatest love’s to come yet and the one that will last all your days — do you mind what I say? But you are very true, and will be married well to a lady that thinks a great deal of you — do you mind what I say? — and is very rich, and you’ll come to be a very great man, and you’ll have a great estate; and although you think you’re going to India, you’ll never go there — d’ye mind what I say? — and you’ll come to be a great man, here, at home, in England, and you’ll live long. And now put your hand in your pocket, and take any money you like in it and wish — that will do. You will suffer a good deal before three years are over, but after that you will be very happy; and you will see the lady then, for the first time, that you are to marry, and— “

  “That will do; you are breaking down now. You began very well,” he laughed, and shook his head. “But no — I must go to the real gypsies to have my future told. You did gue9S my poor story — my past life — very well; you are so clever, you do everything well; but now you have predicted that which can never be — a sheer impossibility. No — I must tell jour fortune. Let me try — won’t you?”

  She smiled; for a moment, her little white teeth appeared, and she extended her slender hand, and he took it.

  “Cross your hand with silver,” said she, and she restored William’s shilling.

  So he held her hand, and he looked in her face — looked in her face, and held her hand — in a dream. Never was man so near speaking madness, but he did not: —

  “You are a young lady, who parted with her nearest relations on earth, to find nearer in heaven, and who discovered, almost too late, that she had forsaken friends for tyrants, hope for despair, and liberty for a prison. You can repeat more Latin on your knees than many a Cambridge or Oxford man can upon his feet. You have discovered that silence is not quiet, nor solitude content. You found that you had exchanged a mother for a stepmother, and a home for a penitentiary. You have yielded more duty and found less love, and you have grown more wise and less patient. You have turned away in time from a dark and cruel mistake, and returned to light and duty. There are many people who admire you, and feel an interest in you, and there is one who loves you — a poor fellow, very lonely, not very happy, very little worth a thought or care of yours, except for that. He loves you — he thinks that no such creature ever saw the light before; he would lay down his life for you, and he holds your little hand in his, and he is where he would always be — by your side.”

  “You’ve told my fortune all wrong, sir,” she said, withdrawing her hand; “it is all as far away as the sea.”

  What was it in that tone and manner that was so magical? To him it seemed that an invisible curtain had dropped between them. No vulgar airs, no toss of the head, no affected scorn, were there. Nothing could be quieter, more gentle, sadder even; her head was high, but her eyes were lowered. All was proud, cold, melancholy. Nothing was there in tone or look the least unkind, yet what could be more peremptory?

  He had promised there should be no such talk. He had broken his word, and she had called him “Sir.” He was horribly confounded and ashamed, and full of silent self-reproach.

  “I’ve broken my promise. I’ve done very wrong. I’ve talked like a fool, but you must make it up. You’ll shake hands — won’t you — and say we are friends again?”

  “Oh yes, sir,” she said, and they shook hands and parted And William went away with a heart beating fast — troubled.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  THE BLACK PULLET.

  “When will Mrs. Gillyflower come home?” asked the stranger.

  “Oh, by nightfall.”

  “Well, and you say the master will be home by sunsetting too. The shadows are stretching, lass, and the air a little sharp; the Squire will be a hungry man by the time he comes back. What have ye for his supper?”

  It was the red round of beef, and potatoes — dinner and supper, all in one. “Come, we’ll give him a better supper than that — a bit of hot meat Go you and kill a fowl.”

  The girl protested, in her broad north-country patois. ‘

  “Go, Mall — do as I bid ye,” repeated the guest “She’ll be stark starin’ mad!” expostulated Mall.

  “Go you and kill the fowl; I’ll take the blame myself; there shan’t a wry word fall on you.”

  “But,” reasoned the girl, “it should a’ bin killed; it would be too soon to roast it.”

  “He’ll not be home for three hours. Leave that to me. I’ll show you how to dress it — and he’ll say he never eat one half so good before. Go you — talk no more, but kill the fowl; and come back quick to me, and I’ll tell you what to do next.”

  There was a cool high tone here that Mall, somehow, could not disobey.

  Never was cooking so odd. So very strange, indeed, was the process that I had better describe it.

  Mall, indeed, expostulated — sometimes in profound anxiety as to what would follow when Mrs. Gillyflower, having returned, discovered the unauthorized slaughter of the pullet — and then aghast at the astounding directions imposed by the damsel who had taken the command of the kitchen in the absence of old Martha. Sometimes Mall would stand agape, and gasp “Agoy!” or “By Jen!”

  Sometimes, half frightened, she would look perplexed, in her face — thinking that their eccentric guest had gone stark daft — and sometimes bursting into irrepressible screams of laughter, till, as she said, she “clean kinkt wi’ laughin’!” She lost all power, for a time, either to resist or to obey.

  This curious procedure took place, to make it odder still, not in the kitchen, but
in the little field, close to the gate of the yard, under the trees, in the open air.

  The imperious beauty there compelled Mall to scoop out a little hollow in the ground with a spade. In this she kindled a fire of peat and sticks. That dope, she ordered Mall, aiding herself with great solicitude, to twist a strong rope of straw.

  The next step reduced Mall, with sheer convulsions of laughter, almost to a fainting condition. The bird, with all its feathers on, was wound up in this Straw-rope, so that nothing but a sort of ball of straw appeared. It was next covered up in the hot ashes, which had by this time accumulated in the hole, and the peat and wood fire was heaped up, round and upon it. After this she made Mall take the potatoes she had washed for boiling, and, instead of placing them in a pot, carry them out to the fire in the field; and there she buried them — one here, another there — in the embers, in serene contempt of Mall’s terrified expostulations and screams of laughter.

  “And mind ye, I cook the dinner today; and if I see your potato-pot on the fire, I’ll break it with one whack of the poker; and ye’ll do just as I bid ye, neither more nor less, Mall Darrell.”

  When these preparations were accomplished, the young lady’s solicitude seemed at an end, and she was able to converse on indifferent matters with her accustomed passion or levity.

  She sat down on the grass near the fire, now a glowing, smouldering heap. She had the dog and the cat out to keep her company (for she loved pets), and the cage of the bullfinch on her knee; and to these companions she talked and whistled, while Mall made her more rational dispositions in the kitchen.

  Then the girl would return to have a peep at the bonfire, and fall again into Shrieks of laughter. And the young priestess of this strange sacrifice would make her sit down on the grass beside her; and she would sing her a song, or tell her a story of a murder in Epping Forest, or of two horses and a tipsy dealer drowned one snowy night in a flooded ford, or of the woman’s ghost that was seen nursing and fondling the neglected child in the lonely tent. She grew into great spirits — wild spirits — beside this extemporized fire, and sang again and danced on the grass; and after a time, on a sudden, she grew sad, and she said: