Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  “He has not been quarrelling?” inquired she.

  “Ah, no, ma’am, he never quarrels — he is very quiet, and keeps to himself always — he thinks a wonderful deal of himself,” replied the servant.

  “But, you said that he is much changed — did you not?” continued the lady. For there was something strangely excited and unpleasant, at times, in the roan’s manner, which struck Mrs. Marston, and alarmed her curiosity. He had seemed like one charged with some horrible secret — intolerable, and yet, which he dared not reveal.

  “What,” proceeded Mrs. Marston, “is the nature of the change of which you speak?”

  “Why, ‘ ma’am, he is like one frightened; and in sorrow,” she replied; “he will sit silent, and now and then shaking his head, as if he wanted to get rid of something that is teazing him, for an hour together.”

  “Poor man!” said she.

  “And, then, when we are at meals, he will, all on a sudden, get up, and leave the table — and Jem Carney, that sleeps in the next room to him, says, that, almost as often as he looks through the little window between the two rooms, no matter what hour in the night, he sees Mr. Merton on his knees by the bedside, praying or crying, he don’t know which — but, any way, he is not happy — poor man! — , and that is plain enough.”

  “It is very strange,” said the lady, after a pause; “ but, I do think, and hope, after all, it will prove to have been no more than a transient, nervous depression.”

  “Well, ma’am, I do hope it is not his conscience that is coming against him, now,” said the maid; “We have no reason to suspect anything of the kind,” said Mrs. Marston, gravely; “quite the reverse — he has been always a particularly proper man.”

  “Oh; indeed,” responded the attendant, “goodness forbid I should say or think anything against him; but I could not help telling you my mind, ma’am, meaning no harm.”

  “And, how long is it since you observed this sad change in poor Merton?” persisted the lady.

  “Not, indeed, to say very long, ma’am,” replied ‘the girl; “somewhere about a week, or very little more — at least as we remarked, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Marston pursued her inquiries no further that night. But, although she affected to treat the matter thus lightly, it had, somehow, taken a painful hold upon her imagination, and left in her mind those undefinable and ominous sensations, which, in certain mental dispositions, seem to foreshadow the approach of unknown misfortune.

  For two or three days, everything went on smoothly, and pretty much as usual.. At the end of this brief interval, however, the attention of Mrs. Marston was recalled to the subject of her servant’s mysterious anxiety to leave, and give up his situation. Merton again stood before her, and repeated the intimation he had already given.

  “Really, Merton, this is very odd,” said the lady. “You like your situation, and yet you persist in desiring to leave it. What am I to think?”

  “Oh, ma’am,” said he, “I am unhappy; I am tormented, ma’am. I can’t tell you, ma’am — I can’t, indeed, ma’am!”

  “If anything weighs upon your mind, Merton, I would advise your consulting our good clergyman, Dr. Danvers,” urged the lady.

  The servant hung his head, and mused for a time gloomily; and then said, decisively —

  “No, ma’am — no use.”

  “And pray, Merton, how long is it since you first entertained this desire?” asked Mrs. Marston.

  “Since Sir Wynston Berkley came, ma’am,” answered he, “Has Sir Wynston annoyed you in any way?” continued she.

  “Far from it, ma’am,” he replied; “he is a very kind gentleman.”

  “Well, his man, then — is he a respectable, inoffensive person?” she inquired.

  “I never met a more so,” said the man, promptly, and raising his head.

  “What I wish to know is, whether your desire to go is connected with Sir Wynston and his servant?” said Mrs. Marston.

  The man hesitated, and shifted his position uneasily.

  “You need not answer, Merton, if you don’t wish it,” she said, kindly.

  “Why, ma’am, yes, it has something to say to them both,” he replied, with some agitation.

  “I really cannot understand this,” said she.

  Merton hesitated for some time, and appeared much troubled.

  “It was something, ma’am — something that Sir Wynston’s man said to me; and there it is out,” he said at last, with an effort.

  “Well, Merton” said she, “I won’t press you further; but I must say, that as this communication, whatever it may be, has caused you, unquestionably, very great uneasiness, it seems to me but probable that it affects the safety or the interests of some person — I cannot say of whom; and, if so, there can be no doubt that it is your duty to acquaint the person or persons so involved in the disclosure, with its purport.”

  “Ah, ma’am, there is nothing in what I heard that could touch anybody but myself. It was nothing but what others heard, without remarking it, or thinking about it. I can’t tell you any more, ma’am — but I am very unhappy, and uneasy in my mind.”

  As the man said this, he began to weep bitterly.

  The idea that his mind was affected, now seriously occurred to Mrs. Marston, and she resolved to convey her suspicions to her husband, and to leave him to deal with the case as to him should seem good.

  “Don’t agitate yourself so, Merton; I shall speak to your master upon what you have said; and you may rely upon it, that no surmise to the prejudice of your character has entered my mind,” said Mrs. Marston, very kindly.

  “Ah, ma’am, you are too good,” sobbed the poor man vehemently. “You don’t know me, ma’am; I never knew myself till lately. I am a miserable man. I am frightened at myself, ma’am — frightened terribly. Christ knows, it would be well for me I was dead this minute.

  “I am very sorry for your unhappiness, Merton,” said Mrs. Marston; “and, especially, that I can do nothing to alleviate it; I can but speak, as I have said, to your master, and he will give you your discharge, and manage whatever else remains to be done.”

  “God bless you, ma’am,” said the servant, still much agitated, and left her.

  Mr. Marston usually passed the early part of the day in active exercise, and she, supposing that he was, in all probability, at that moment far from the house, went to “mademoiselle’s” chamber, which was at the other end of the spacious house, to confer with her in the interval upon the strange application just urged by poor Merton.

  Just as she reached the door of Mademoiselle de Barras’s chamber, she heard voices within exerted in evident excitement. She stopped in amazement. They were those of her husband and mademoiselle. Startled, confounded, and amazed, she pushed open the door, and entered. Her husband was sitting — one hand clutched upon the arm of the chair he occupied, and the other extended, and clenched, as it seemed, with the emphasis of rage, upon the desk which stood upon the table. His face was darkened with the stormiest passions, and his gaze was fixed upon the Frenchwoman, who was standing with a look half-guilty, half-imploring, at a little distance.

  There was something, to Mrs. Marston, so utterly unexpected, and even so shocking, in this tableau, that she stood for some seconds pale and breathless, and gazing with a vacant stare of fear and horror from her husband to the French girl, and from her to her husband again. The three figures in this strange group remained fixed, silent, and aghast, for several seconds. Mrs. Marston endeavoured to speak; but, though her lips moved, no sound escaped her; and, from very weakness, she sank half-fainting into a chair.

  Marston rose, throwing, as he did so, a guilty and a furious glance at the young Frenchwoman, and walked a step or two toward the door; he hesitated, however, and turned, just as mademoiselle, bursting into tears, threw her arms round Mrs. Marston’s neck, and passionately exclaimed —

  “Protect me, madame, I implore, from the insults and suspicions of your husband.”

  Marston stood a l
ittle behind his wife, and he and the governess exchanged a glance of keen significance, as the latter sank, sobbing, like an injured child into its mother’s embrace, upon the poor lady’s tortured bosom.

  “Madame, madame — he says — Mr. Marston says, I have presumed to give you advice, and to meddle, and to interfere — that I am endeavouring to make you despise his authority. Madame, speak for me. Say, madame, have I ever done so — say, madame, am I the cause of bitterness and contumacy? Ah, mon dieu! c’est trop — it is too much, madame — I shall go — I must go, madame. Why, ah, why, did I stay for this?”

  As she thus spoke, mademoiselle again burst into a paroxysm of weeping, and again the same significant glance was interchanged.

  “Go — yes, you shall go,” said Marston, striding toward the window. “I will have no whispering or conspiring in my house; I have heard of your confidences and consultations. Mrs. Marston, I meant to have done this quietly,” he continued, addressing his wife; “I meant to have given Mademoiselle de Barras my opinion and her dismissal without your assistance; but it seems you wish to interpose. You are sworn friends, and never fail one another, of course, at a pinch. I take it for granted that I owe your presence at an interview which I am resolved shall be, as respects mademoiselle, a final one, to a message from that intriguing young lady — eh?”

  “I have had no message, Richard,” said Mrs. Marston; “I don’t know — do tell me, for God’s sake, what is all this about?” and as the poor lady thus spoke, her overwrought feelings found a vent in a violent flood of tears.

  “Yes, madam, that is the question. I have asked him frequently what is all this anger, all these reproaches about — what have I done,” interposed mademoiselle, with indignant vehemence, standing erect, and viewing Marston with a flashing eye and a flushed cheek. “Yes, I am called conspirator, meddler, intriguante — ah, madame, it is intolerable.”

  “But what have I done, Richard?” urged the poor lady, stunned and bewildered— “how have I offended you?”

  “Yes, yes,” continued the Frenchwoman, with angry volubility— “what has she done, that you call contumacy and disrespect? Yes, dear madame, there is the question; and if he cannot answer, is it not most cruel to call me conspirator, and spy, and intriguante, because I talk to my dear madame, who is my only friend in this place?”

  “Mademoiselle de Barras, I need no declamation from you; and pardon me, Mrs. Marston, nor from you either,” retorted he; “I have my information from one on whom I can rely — let that suffice. Of course you are both agreed in a story. I dare say you are ready to swear you never so much as canvassed my conduct, and my coldness and estrangement — eh? these are the words, are not they?”

  “I have done you no wrong, sir — madame can tell you. Je ne le jamais faite — I am no mischief-maker; no, I never was such a thing — was I, mar dame?” persisted the governess— “bear witness for me.”

  “I have told you my mind, Mademoiselle de Barras,” interrupted Marston; “I will have no altercation, if you please. I think, Mrs. Marston, we have had enough of this; may I accompany you hence?”

  So saying, he took the poor lady’s passive hand, and led her from the room. Mademoiselle stood in the centre of the apartment, alone, erect, with heaving breast and burning cheek — beautiful, thoughtful, guilty — the very type of the fallen angelic. We must leave her there for a time, her heart all confusion, her mind darkness; various courses before her, and as yet without resolution to choose among them — a lost spirit, borne on the eddies of the storm — fearless and self-reliant, but with no star to guide her on her dark, malign, and forlorn way.

  Mrs. Marston, in her own room, reviewed the agitating scene through which she had just been so unexpectedly carried. The tremendous suspicion which, at the first disclosure of the tableau we have described, smote the heart and brain of the poor lady with the stun of a thunderbolt, had been, indeed, subsequently disturbed, and afterwards contradicted; but the shock of her first impression remained still upon her mind and heart. She felt still through every nerve the vibrations of that maddening terror and despair which had overcome her senses for a moment. The surprise, the shock, the horror, outlived the obliterating influence of what followed. She was in this agitation when Mademoiselle de Barras entered her chamber, resolved with all her art to second and support the success of her prompt measures in the recent critical emergency. She had come, she said, to bid her dear madame farewell, for she was resolved to go. Her own room had been invaded, that insult and reproach might be heaped upon her — how utterly unmerited, Mrs. Marston knew. She had been called by every foul name which applied to the spy and the maligner; she could not bear it. Some one had evidently been endeavouring to procure her removal, and bad but too effectually succeeded. Mademoiselle was determined to go early the next morning; nothing should prevent or retard her departure; her resolution was taken. In this strain did mademoiselle run on, but in a subdued and melancholy tone, and weeping profusely.

  The wild and ghastly suspicions which had for a moment flashed terribly upon the mind of Mrs. Marston, had faded away under the influences of reason and reflection, although, indeed, much painful excitement still remained, before Mademoiselle de Barras had visited her room. Marston’s temper she knew but too well; it was violent, bitter, and impetuous; and though he cared little, if at all, for her, she had ever perceived that he was angrily jealous of the slightest intimacy or confidence by which any other than himself might establish an influence over her mind. That he had learned the subject of some of her most interesting conversations with mademoiselle, she could not doubt; for he had violently upbraided that young lady in her presence with having discussed it, and here now was mademoiselle herself taking refuge with her from galling affront and unjust reproach, incensed, wounded, and weeping. The whole thing was consistent; all the circumstances bore plainly in the same direction; the evidence was conclusive; and Mrs. Marston’s thoughts and feelings respecting her fair young confidante, quickly found their old level, and flowed on tranquilly and sadly in their accustomed channel.

  While Mademoiselle de Barras was thus, with the persevering industry of the spider, repairing the meshes which a chance breath had shattered, she would, perhaps, have been in her turn shocked and startled, could she have glanced into Marston’s mind, and seen, in what was passing there, the real extent of her danger.

  Marston was walking, as usual, alone, and in the most solitary region of his lonely park. One hand grasped his walking-stick, not to lean upon it, but as if it were the handle of a battle-axe; the other was buried in his bosom; his dark face looked upon the ground, and he strode onward with a slow but energetic step, which had the air of deep resolution. He found himself at last in a little churchyard, lying far among the wild forest of his demesne, and in the midst of which, covered with ivy and tufted plants, now ruddy with autumnal tints, stood the ruined walls of a little chapel. In the dilapidated vault close by, lay buried many of his ancestors, and under the little wavy hillocks of fern and nettles, slept many an humble villager. He sat down upon a worn tombstone in this lowly ruin, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground, he surrendered his spirit to the stormy and evil thoughts which he had invited. Long and motionless he sat there, while his foul fancies and schemes began to assume shape and order. The wind rushing through the ivy roused him for a moment, and as he raised his gloomy eye, it alighted accidentally upon a skull, which some wanton hand had fixed in a crevice of the wall; he averted his glance quickly, but almost as quickly refixed his gaze upon the impassive symbol of death, with an expression lowering and contemptuous, and with an angry gesture struck it down among the weeds with his stick. He left the place, and wandered on through the woods.

  “Men can’t control the thoughts that flit across their minds,” he muttered, as he went along, “any more than they can direct the shadows of the clouds that sail above them. They come and pass, and leave no stain behind. What, then, of omens, and that wretched effigy of death? Stuff — psha! Murder,
indeed! I’m incapable of murder. I have drawn my sword upon a man in fair duel; but murder! Out upon the thought — out, out upon it.”

  He stamped upon the ground with a pang at once of fury and horror. He walked on a little, stopped again, and folding his arms, leaned against an ancient tree.

  “Mademoiselle de Barras, vous etes une traîtresse, and you shall go. Yes, go you shall; you have deceived me, and we must part.”

  He said this with melancholy bitterness; and, after a pause, continued —

  “I will have no other revenge. No; though, I dare say, she will care but little for this — very little, if at all.”

  “And then, as to the other person,” he resumed, after a pause. “It is not the first time he has acted like a trickster. He has crossed me before, and I will choose an opportunity to tell him my mind. I won’t mince matters with him either, and will not spare him one insulting syllable that he deserves. He wears a sword, and so do I; if he pleases, he may draw it; he shall have the opportunity; but, at all events, I will make it impossible for him to prolong his disgraceful visit at my house.”

  On reaching home and his own study, the servant, Merton, presented himself, and his master, too deeply excited to hear him then, appointed the next day for the purpose. There was no contending against Marston’s peremptory will, and the man reluctantly withdrew. Here was apparently a matter of no imaginable moment — whether this menial should be discharged on that day, or on the morrow and yet mighty things were involved in the alternative.

  There was a deeper gloom than usual over the house. The servants seemed to know that something had gone wrong, and looked grave and mysterious. Marston was more than ever dark and moody. Mrs. Marston’s dimmed and swollen eyes showed that she had been weeping. Mademoiselle absented herself from supper, on the plea of a bad headache. Rhoda saw that something, she knew not what, had occurred to agitate her elders, and was depressed and anxious. The old clergyman whom we have already mentioned, bad called, and stayed to supper. Dr. Danvers was a man of considerable learning, strong sense, and remarkable simplicity of character. His thoughtful blue eye, and well-marked countenance, were full of gentleness and benevolence, and elevated by a certain natural dignity, of which purity and goodness, without one debasing shade of self-esteem and arrogance, were the animating spirit. Mrs. Marston loved and respected this good minister of God, and many a time had sought and found, in his gentle and earnest counsels, and in the overflowing tenderness of his sympathy, much comfort and support in the progress of her sore and protracted earthly trial. Most especially at one critical period in her history had he endeared himself to her, by interposing, and successfully, to prevent a formal separation, which (as ending for ever the one hope that cheered her on, even in the front of despair) she would probably not long have survived.