The House by the Churchyard

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  Sturk was incensed by the suspicion that Tom Toole knew something of his losses, 'the dirty, little, unscrupulous spy and tattler.' He was confident, however, that he could not know their extent. It was certainly a hard thing, and enough to exasperate a better man than Sturk, that the savings of a shrewd, and, in many ways, a self–denying life should have been swept away, and something along with them, by a few unlucky casts in little more than twelve months. And he such a clever dog, too! the best player, all to nothing, driven to the wall, by a cursed obstinate run of infernal luck. And he used to scowl, and grind his teeth, and nearly break the keys and shillings in his gripe in his breeches' pocket, as imprecations, hot and unspoken, coursed one another through his brain. Then up he would get, and walk sulkily to the brandy–flask and have a dram, and feel better, and begin to count up his chances, and what he might yet save out of the fire; and resolve to press vigorously for the agency, which he thought Dangerfield, if he wanted a useful man, could not fail to give him; and he had hinted the matter to Lord Castlemallard, who, he thought, understood and favoured his wishes. Yes; that agency would give him credit and opportunity, and be the foundation of his new fortunes, and the saving of him. A precious, pleasant companion, you may suppose, he was to poor little Mrs. Sturk, who knew nothing of his affairs, and could not tell what to make of her Barney’s eccentricities.

  And so it was, somehow, when Dangerfield spoke his greeting at Sturk’s ear, and the doctor turned short round, and saw his white frizzed hair, great glass eyes, and crooked, short beak, quizzical and sinister, close by, it seemed for a second as if the 'caw' and the carrion–crow of his dream was at his shoulder; and, I suppose, he showed his discomfiture a little, for he smiled a good deal more than Sturk usually did at a recognition.

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  IN WHICH MR. IRONS RECOUNTS SOME OLD RECOLLECTIONS ABOUT THE PIED HORSE AND THE FLOWER DE LUCE.

  It was so well known in Chapelizod that Sturk was poking after Lord Castlemallard’s agency that Nutter felt the scene going on before his eyes between him and Dangerfield like a public affront. His ire was that of a phlegmatic man, dangerous when stirred, and there was no mistaking, in his rigid, swarthy countenance, the state of his temper.

  Dangerfield took an opportunity, and touched Nutter on the shoulder, and told him frankly, in effect, though he wished things to go on as heretofore, Sturk had wormed himself into a sort of confidence with Lord Castlemallard.

  'Not confidence, Sir—talk, if you please,' said Nutter grimly.

  'Well, into talk,' acquiesced Dangerfield; 'and by Jove, I’ve a hard card to play, you see. His lordship will have me listen to Doctor Sturk’s talk, such as it is.'

  'He has no talk in him, Sir, you mayn’t get from any other impudent dunderhead in the town,' answered Nutter.

  'My dear Sir, understand me. I’m your friend,' and he placed his hand amicably upon Nutter’s arm; 'but Lord Castlemallard has, now and then, a will of his own, I need not tell you; and somebody’s been doing you an ill turn with his lordship; and you’re a gentleman, Mr. Nutter, and I like you, and I’ll be frank with you, knowing 'twill go no further. Sturk wants the agency. You have my good–will. I don’t see why he should take it from you; but—but—you see his lordship takes odd likings, and he won’t always listen to reason.'

  Nutter was so shocked and exasperated, that for a moment he felt stunned, and put his hand toward his head.

  'I think, Sir,' said Nutter, with a stern, deliberate oath, I’ll write to Lord Castlemallard this evening, and throw up his agency; and challenge Sturk, and fight him in the morning.'

  'You must not resign the agency, Sir; his lordship is whimsical; but you have a friend at court. I’ve spoken in full confidence in your secrecy; and should any words pass between you and Dr. Sturk, you’ll not mention my name; I rely, Sir, on your honour, as you may on my good–will;' and Dangerfield shook hands with Nutter significantly, and called to Irons, who was waiting to accompany him, and the two anglers walked away together up the river.

  Nutter was still possessed with his furious resolution to fling down his office at Lord Castlemallard’s feet, and to call Sturk into the lists of mortal combat. One turn by himself as far as the turnpike, however, and he gave up the first, and retained only the second resolve. Half–an–hour more, and he had settled in his mind that there was no need to punish the meddler that way: and so he resolved to bide his time—a short one.

  In the meanwhile Dangerfield had reached one of those sweet pastures by the river’s bank which, as we have read, delight the simple mind of the angler, and his float was already out, and bobbing up and down on the ripples of the stream; and the verdant valley, in which he and his taciturn companion stood side by side, resounded, from time to time, with Dangerfield’s strange harsh laughter; the cause of which Irons did not, of course, presume to ask.

  There is a church–yard cough—I don’t see why there may not be a church–yard laugh. In Dangerfield’s certainly there was an omen—a glee that had nothing to do with mirth; and more dismaying, perhaps, than his sternest rebuke. If a man is not a laugher by nature, he had better let it alone. The bipeds that love mousing and carrion have a chant of their own, and nobody quarrels with it. We respect an owl or a raven, though we mayn’t love him, while he sticks to his croak or to–whoo. 'Tisn’t pleasant, but quite natural and unaffected, and we acquiesce. All we ask of these gentlemanlike birds is, that they mistake not their talent—affect not music; or if they do, that they treat not us to their queer warblings.

  Irons, with that never–failing phantom of a smile on his thin lips, stood a little apart, with a gaff and landing–net, and a second rod, and a little bag of worms, and his other gear, silent, except when spoken to, or sometimes to suggest a change of bait, or fly, or a cast over a particular spot; for Dangerfield was of good Colonel Venables' mind, that 'tis well in the lover of the gentle craft to associate himself with some honest, expert angler, who will freely and candidly communicate his skill unto him.'

  Dangerfield was looking straight at his float; but thinking of something else. Whenever Sturk met him at dinner, or the club, the doctor’s arrogance and loud lungs failed him, and he fell for a while into a sort of gloom and dreaming; and when he came slowly to himself, he could not talk to anyone but the man with the spectacles; and in the midst of his talk he would grow wandering and thoughtful, as if over some half–remembered dream; and when he took his leave of Dangerfield it was with a lingering look and a stern withdrawal, as if he had still a last word to say, and he went away in a dismal reverie. It was natural, that with his views about the agency, Sturk should regard him with particular interest. But there was something more here, and it did not escape Dangerfield, as, indeed, very little that in anywise concerned him ever did.

  'Clever fellow, Doctor Sturk,' said the silver spectacles, looking grimly at the float. 'I like him. You remember him, you say, Irons?'

  'Ay, Sir,' said Blue–chin: 'I never forget a face.' 'Par nobile,' sneered the angler quietly.' In the year '45, eh—go on.'

  'Ay, Sir; he slept in the "Pied Horse," at Newmarket, and was in all the fun. Next day he broke his arm badly, and slept there in the closet off Mr. Beauclerc’s room that night under laudanum, and remained ten days longer in the house. Mr. Beauclerc’s chamber was the "flower de luce." Barnabus Sturk, Esq. When I saw him here, half the length of the street away, I knew him and his name on the instant. I never forget things.'

  'But he don’t remember you?'

  'No,' smiled Blue–chin, looking at the float also.

  'Two–and–twenty–years. How came it he was not summoned?'

  'He was under laudanum, and could tell nothing.'

  'Ay,' said the spectacles, 'ay,' and he let out some more line. 'That’s deep.'

  'Yes, Sir, a soldier was drownded in that hole.'

  'And Dr. Toole and Mr. Nutter don’t love him—both brisk fellows, and have fought.'

  Blue–chin smiled on.

  'Very clever d
og—needs be sharp though, or he’ll come to—ha!' and a gray trout came splashing and flickering along the top of the water upon the hook, and Irons placed the net in Dangerfield’s outstretched hand, and the troutling was landed, to the distant music of 'God save the King,' borne faintly on the air, by which the reader perceives that the band were now about to put up their instruments, and the gay folk to disperse. And at the same moment, Lord Castlemallard was doing old General Chattesworth the honour to lean upon his arm, as they walked to and fro upon the parade–ground by the river’s bank, and the general looked particularly grand and thoughtful, and my lord was more than usually gracious and impressive, and was saying:—

  ''Tis a good match every way: he has good blood in his veins, Sir, the Dangerfields of Redminster; and you may suppose he’s rich, when he was ready to advance Sir Sedley Hicks thirty–five thousand pounds on mortgage, and to my certain knowledge has nearly as much more out on good securities; and he’s the most principled man I think I ever met with, and the cleverest dog, I believe, in these kingdoms; and I wish you joy, General Chattesworth.'

  And he gave the general snuff out of his box, and shook hands, and said something very good, as he got into his carriage, for he laughed a good deal, and touched the general’s ribs with the point of his gloved finger; and the general laughed too, moderately, and was instantaneously grave again, when the carriage whirled away.

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  SHOWING HOW POOR MRS. MACNAMARA WAS TROUBLED AND HAUNTED TOO, AND OPENING A BUDGET OF GOSSIP.

  Some score pages back, when we were all assembled at the King’s House, my reader, perhaps, may not have missed our fat and consequential, but on the whole, good–natured acquaintance, Mrs. Macnamara; though, now I remember, he did overhear the gentle Magnolia, in that little colloquy in which she and Aunt Becky exchanged compliments, say, in substance, that she hoped that amiable parent might be better next day. She was not there, she was not well. Of late Mrs. Macnamara had lost all her pluck, and half her colour, and some even of her fat. She was like one of those portly dowagers in Numbernip’s select society of metamorphosed turnips, who suddenly exhibited sympathetic symptoms of failure, grew yellow, flabby, and wrinkled, as the parent bulb withered and went out of season. You would not have known her for the same woman.

  A tall, pale female, dressed in black satin and a black velvet riding hood, had made her two visits in a hackney–coach; but whether these had any connexion with the melancholy change referred to, I don’t, at this moment, say. I know that they had a very serious bearing upon after events affecting persons who figure in this true history. Whatever her grief was she could not bring herself to tell it. And so her damask cheek, and portly form, and rollicking animal spirits continued to suffer.

  The major found that her mind wandered at piquet. Toole also caught her thinking of something else in the midst of his best bits of local scandal; and Magnolia several times popped in upon her large mother in tears. Once or twice Toole thought, and he was right, that she was on the point of making a disclosure. But her heart failed her, and it came to nothing. The little fellow’s curiosity was on fire. In his philosophy there was more in everything than met the eye, and he would not believe Magnolia, who laughed at him, that she did not know all about it.

  On this present morning poor Mrs. Macnamara had received a note, at which she grew pale as the large pat of butter before her, and she felt quite sick as she thrust the paper into her pocket, and tried to smile across the breakfast table at Magnolia, who was rattling away as usual, and the old major who was chuckling at her impudent mischief over his buttered toast and tea.

  'Why, mother dear,' cried Mag suddenly, 'what the plague ails your pretty face? Did you ever see the like? It’s for all the world like a bad batter pudding! I lay a crown, now, that was a bill. Was it a bill? Come now, Mullikins (a term of endearment for mother). Show us the note. It is too bad, you poor dear, old, handsome, bothered angel, you should be fretted and tormented out of your looks and your health, by them dirty shopkeepers' bills, when a five–pound note, I’m certain sure, 'id pay every mothers skin o' them, and change to spare!' And the elegant Magnolia, whose soiclainet and Norwich crape petticoat were unpaid for, darted a glance of reproach full upon the major’s powdered head, the top of which was cleverly presented to receive it, as he swallowed in haste his cup of tea, and rising suddenly, for his purse had lately suffered in the service of the ladies, and wanted rest—

  'Tis nothing at all but that confounded egg,' he said, raising that untasted delicacy a little towards his nose. 'Why the divil will you go on buying our eggs from that dirty old sinner, Poll Delany?' And he dropped it from its cup plump into the slop–basin.

  'A then maybe it was,' said poor Mrs. Mac, smiling as well as she could; 'but I’m better.'

  'No you’re not, Mullikins,' interposed Magnolia impatiently. 'There’s Toole crossing the street, will I call him up?'

  'Not for the world, Maggy darling. I’d have to pay him, and where’s the money to come from?'

  The major did not hear, and was coughing besides; and recollecting that he had a word for the adjutant’s ear, took his sword off the peg where it hung, and his cocked hat, and vanished in a twinkling.

  'Pay Toole, indeed! nonsense, mother,' and up went the window.

  'Good–morrow to your nightcap, doctor!'

  'And the top of the morning to you, my pretty Miss chattering Mag, up on your perch there,' responded the physician.

  'And what in the world brings you out this way at breakfast time, and where are you going?—Oh! goosey, goosey gander, where do you wander?'

  'Up stairs, if you let me,' said Toole, with a flourish of his hand, and a gallant grin, 'and to my lady’s chamber.'

  'And did you hear the news?' demanded Miss Mag.

  The doctor glanced over his shoulder, and seeing the coast clear, he was by this time close under the little scarlet geranium pots that stood on the window–sill.

  'Miss Chattesworth, eh?' he asked, in a sly, low tone.

  'Oh, bother her, no. Do you remember Miss Anne Marjoribanks, that lodged in Doyle’s house, down there, near the mills, last summer, with her mother, the fat woman with the poodle, and the—don’t you know?'

  'Ay, ay; she wore a flowered silk tabby sacque, on band days,' said Toole, who had an eye and a corner in his memory for female costume, 'a fine showy—I remember.' 'Well, middling: that’s she.'

  'And what of her?' asked Toole, screwing himself up as close as he could to the flower–pots.

  'Come up and I’ll tell you,' and she shut down the window and beckoned him slily, and up came Toole all alive.

  Miss Magnolia told her story in her usual animated way, sometimes dropping her voice to a whisper, and taking Toole by the collar, sometimes rising to a rollicking roar of laughter, while the little doctor stood by, his hands in his breeches' pockets, making a pleasant jingle with his loose change there, with open mouth and staring eyes, and a sort of breathless grin all over his ruddy face. Then came another story, and more chuckling.

  'And what about that lanky long may–pole, Gerty Chattesworth, the witch?—not that anyone cares tuppence if she rode on a broom to sweep the cobwebs off the moon, only a body may as well know, you know,' said Miss Mag, preparing to listen.

  'Why, by Jupiter! they say—but d’ye mind, I don’t know, and faith I don’t believe it—but they do say she’s going to be married to—who do you think now?' answered Toole.

  'Old Colonel Bligh, of the Magazine, or Dr. Walsingham, may be,' cried Mag, with a burst of laughter; 'no young fellow would be plagued with her, I’m certain.'

  'Well, ha, ha! you are a conjuror, Miss Mag, to be sure. He’s not young—you’re right there—but then, he’s rich, he is, by Jove! there’s no end of his—well, what do you say now to Mr. Dangerfield?'

  'Dangerfield! Well' (after a little pause), 'he’s ugly enough and old enough too, for the matter of that; but he’s as rich as a pork–pie; and if he’s worth half what they say
, you may take my word for it, when he goes to church it won’t be to marry the steeple.'

  And she laughed again scornfully and added—

  ''Twas plain enough from the first, the whole family laid themselves out to catch the old quiz and his money. Let the Chattesworths alone for scheming, with all their grand airs. Much I mind them! Why, the old sinner was not an hour in the town when he was asked over the way to Belmont, and Miss dressed out there like a puppet, to simper and flatter the rich old land agent, and butter him up—my Lord Castlemallard’s bailiff—if you please, ha, ha, ha! and the Duchess of Belmont, that ballyrags every one round her, like a tipsy old soldier, as civil as six, my dear Sir, with her "Oh, Mr. Dangerfield, this," and her "Dear Mr. Dangerfield, that," and all to marry that long, sly hussy to a creature old enough to be her grandfather, though she’s no chicken neither. Faugh! filthy!' and Miss Magnolia went through an elegant pantomime of spitting over her shoulder into the grate.

  Toole thought there was but one old fellow of his acquaintance who might be creditably married by a girl young enough to be his granddaughter, and that was honest Arthur Slowe; and he was going to insinuate a joke of the sort; but perceiving that his sly preparatory glance was not pleasantly responded to, and that the stalworth nymph was quite in earnest, he went off to another topic.

  The fact is that Toole knew something of Miss Mag’s plans, as he did of most of the neighbours' beside. Old Slowe was, in certain preponderating respects, much to be preferred to the stalworth fireworker, Mr. Lieutenant O’Flaherty. And the two gentlemen were upon her list. Two strings to a bow is a time–honoured provision. Cupid often goes so furnished. If the first snap at the critical moment, should we bow–string our precious throttles with the pieces? Far be it from us! Let us waste no time in looking foolish; but pick up the gray–goose shaft that lies so innocently at our feet among the daisies; and it’s odds but the second plants it i' the clout.' The lover, the hero of the piece, upon whose requited passion and splendid settlements the curtain goes down, is a role not always safely to be confided to the genius and discretion of a single performer. Take it that the captivating Frederick Belville, who is announced for the part, is, along with his other qualifications, his gallantry, his grace, his ringlets, his pathetic smile, his lustrous eyes, his plaintive tenor, and five–and–twenty years—a little bit of a rip—rather frail in the particular of brandy and water, and so, not quite reliable. Will not the prudent manager provide a substitute respectably to fill the part, in the sad event of one of those sudden indispositions to which Belville is but too liable! It may be somewhat 'fat and scant of breath,' ay, and scant of hair and of teeth too. But though he has played Romeo thirty years ago, the perruquier, and the dentist, and the rouge–pot, and the friendly glare of the foot–lights will do wonders; and Podgers—steady fellow!—will be always at the right wing, at the right moment, know every line of his author, and contrive to give a very reasonable amount of satisfaction to all parties concerned. Following this precedent, then, that wise virgin, Miss Magnolia, and her sagacious mamma, had allotted the role in question to Arthur Slowe, who was the better furnished for the part, and, on the whole, the stronger 'cast.' But failing him, Lieutenant O’Flaherty was quietly, but unconsciously, as the phrase is,'under–studying' that somewhat uncertain gentleman.