Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  These last injunctions on the doorsteps had begun, perhaps in a willingness to let folk see and even hear that the visit was professional; and along with the lowering and awfully serious countenance with which they were delivered, had grown into a habit, so that, as now, he practised them even in solitude and darkness.

  Then Toole was seen to approach the Phœnix, in full blow, his cane under his arm. With his full-dressed wig on, he was always grand and Æsculapian, and reserved withal, and walked with a measured tread, and a sad and important countenance, which somehow made him look more chubby; and he was a good deal more formal with his friends at the inn-door, and took snuff before he answered them. But this only lasted some eight or ten minutes after a consultation or momentous visit, and would melt away insensibly in the glow of the club-parlour, sometimes reviving for a minute, when the little mirror that sloped forward from the wall, showed him a passing portrait of his grand wig and toggery. And it was pleasant to observe how the old fellows unconsciously deferred to this temporary self-assertion, and would call him, not Tom, nor Toole, but ‘doctor,’ or ‘Doctor Toole,’ when the fit was upon him.

  And Devereux, in his day, won two or three wagers by naming the doctor with whom Toole had been closeted, reading the secret in the countenance and by-play of their crony. When it had been with tall, cold, stately Dr. Pell, Toole was ceremonious and deliberate, and oppressively polite. On the other hand, when he had been shut up with brusque, half-savage, energetic Doctor Rogerson, Tom was laconic, decisive, and insupportably illbred, till, as we have said, the mirage melted away, and he gradually acquiesced in his identity. Then, little by little, the irrepressible gossip, jocularity, and ballad minstrelsy were heard again, his little eyes danced, and his waggish smiles glowed once more, ruddy as a setting sun, through the nectarian vapours of the punch-bowl. The ghosts of Pell and Rogerson fled to their cold dismal shades, and little Tom Toole was his old self again for a month to come.

  ‘Your most obedient, gentlemen — your most obedient,’ said Toole, bowing and taking their hands graciously in the hall— ‘a darkish evening, gentlemen.’

  ‘And how does your patient, doctor?’ enquired Major O’Neil.

  The doctor closed his eyes, and shook his head slowly, with a gentle shrug.

  ‘He’s in a bad case, major. There’s little to be said, and that little, Sir, not told in a moment,’ answered Toole, and took snuff.

  ‘How’s Sturk, Sir?’ repeated the silver spectacles, a little sternly.

  ‘Well, Sir, he’s not dead; but, by your leave, had we not better go into the parlour, eh?— ’tis a little chill, and, as I said, ’tis not all told in a moment — he’s not dead, though, that’s the sum of it — you first, pray proceed, gentlemen.’

  Dangerfield grimly took him at his word; but the polite major got up a little ceremonious tussle with Toole in the hall. However, it was no more than a matter of half-a-dozen bows and waves of the hand, and ‘after you, Sir;’ and Toole entered, and after a general salutation in the style of Doctor Pell, he established himself upon the hearthstone, with his back to the fire, as a legitimate oracle.

  Toole was learned, as he loved to be among the laity on such occasions, and was in no undue haste to bring his narrative to a close. But the gist of the matter was this — Sturk was labouring under concussion of the brain, and two terrific fractures of the skull — so long, and lying so near together, that he and Doctor Pell instantly saw ‘twould be impracticable to apply the trepan, in fact that ‘twould be certain and instantaneous death. He was absolutely insensible, but his throat was not yet palsied, and he could swallow a spoonful of broth or sack whey from time to time. But he was a dead man to all intents and purposes. Inflammation might set in at any moment; at best he would soon begin to sink, and neither he nor Doctor Pell thought he had the smallest chance of awaking from his lethargy for one moment. He might last two or three days, or even a week — what did it signify? — what was he better than a corpse already? He could never hear, see, speak, or think again; and for any difference it could possibly make to poor Sturk, they might clap him in his grave and cover him up tonight.

  Then the talk turned upon Nutter. Every man had his theory or his conjecture but Dangerfield, who maintained a discreet reserve, much to the chagrin of the others, who thought, not without reason, that he knew more about the state of his affairs, and especially of his relations with Lord Castlemallard, than perhaps all the world beside.

  ‘Possibly, poor fellow, he was not in a condition to have his accounts overhauled, and on changing an agency things sometimes come out that otherwise might have kept quiet. He was the sort of fellow who would go through with a thing; and if he thought the best way on going out of the agency was to go out of the world also, out he’d go. They were always a resolute family — Nutter’s great uncle, you know, drowned himself in that little lake — what do you call it? — in the county of Cavan, and ’twas mighty coolly and resolutely done too.’

  But there was a haunting undivulged suspicion in the minds of each. Every man knew what his neighbour was thinking of, though he did not care to ask about his ugly dreams, or to relate his own. They all knew what sort of terms Sturk and Nutter had been on. They tried to put the thought away, for though Nutter was not a joker, nor a songster, nor a story-teller, yet they liked him. Besides, Nutter might possibly turn up in a day or two, and in that case ‘twould go best with those who had not risked an atrocious conjecture about him in public. So every man waited, and held his tongue upon that point till his neighbour should begin.

  CHAPTER LVI.

  DOCTOR WALSINGHAM AND THE CHAPELIZOD CHRISTIANS MEET TO THE SOUND OF THE HOLY BELL, AND A VAMPIRE SITS IN THE CHURCH.

  The next day the Sabbath bell from the ivied tower of Chapelizod Church called all good church-folk round to their pews and seats. Sturk’s place was empty — already it knew him no more — and Mrs. Sturk was absent; but the little file of children, on whom the neighbours looked with an awful and a tender curiosity, was there. Lord Townshend, too, was in the viceregal seat, with gentlemen of his household behind, splendid in star and peruke, and eyed over their prayer-books by many inquisitive Christians. Nutter’s little pew, under the gallery, was void like Sturk’s. These sudden blanks were eloquent, and many, as from time to time the dismal gap opened silent before their eyes, felt their thoughts wander and lead them away in a strange and dismal dance, among the nodding hawthorns in the Butcher’s Wood, amidst the damps of night, where Sturk lay in his leggings, and powder and blood, and the beetle droned by unheeding, and no one saw him save the guilty eyes that gleamed back as the shadowy shape stole swiftly away among the trees.

  Dr. Walsingham’s sermon had reference to the two-fold tragedy of the week, Nutter’s supposed death by drowning, and the murder of Sturk. In his discourses he sometimes came out with a queer bit of erudition. Such as, while it edified one portion of his congregation, filled the other with unfeigned amazement.

  ‘We may pray for rain,’ said he on one occasion, when the collect had been read; ‘and for other elemental influence with humble confidence. For if it be true, as the Roman annalists relate, that their augurs could, by certain rites and imprecations, produce thunderstorms — if it be certain that thunder and lightning were successfully invoked by King Porsenna, and as Lucius Piso, whom Pliny calls a very respectable author, avers that the same thing had frequently been done before his time by King Numa Pompilius, surely it is not presumption in a Christian congregation,’ and so forth.

  On this occasion he warned his parishioners against assuming that sudden death is a judgment. ‘On the contrary, the ancients held it a blessing; and Pliny declares it to be the greatest happiness of life — how much more should we? Many of the Roman worthies, as you are aware, perished thus suddenly, Quintius Æmilius Lepidus, going out of his house, struck his great toe against the threshold and expired; Cneius Babius Pamphilus, a man of prætorian rank, died while asking a boy what o’clock it was; Aulus Manlius Torquatus, a ge
ntleman of consular rank, died in the act of taking a cheese-cake at dinner; Lucius Tuscius Valla, the physician, deceased while taking a draught of mulsum; Appius Saufeius, while swallowing an egg: and Cornelius Gallus, the prætor, and Titus Haterius, a knight, each died while kissing the hand of his wife. And I might add many more names with which, no doubt, you are equally familiar.’

  The gentlemen of the household opened their eyes; the officers of the Royal Irish Artillery, who understood their man, winked pleasantly behind their cocked hats at one another; and his excellency coughed, with his perfumed pockethandkerchief to his nose, a good deal; and Master Dicky Sturk, a grave boy, who had a side view of his excellency, told his nurse that the lord lieutenant laughed in church! and was rebuked for that scandalum magnatum with proper horror.

  Then the good doctor told them that the blood of the murdered man cried to heaven. That they might comfort themselves with the assurance that the man of blood would come to judgment. He reminded them of St. Augustan’s awful words, ‘God hath woollen feet, but iron hands;’ and he told them an edifying story of Mempricius, the son of Madan, the fourth king of England, then called Britaine, after Brute, who murdered his brother Manlius, and mark ye this, after twenty years he was devoured by wild beasts; and another of one Bessus— ’tis related by Plutarch — who having killed his father, was brought to punishment by means of swallows, which birds, his guilty conscience persuaded him, in their chattering language did say to one another, that Bessus had killed his father, whereupon he bewrayed his horrible crime, and was worthily put to death. ‘The great Martin Luther,’ he continued, ‘reports such another story of a certain Almaigne, who, when thieves were in the act of murdering him, espying a flight of crows, cried aloud, “Oh crows, I take you for witnesses and revengers of my death.” And so it fell out, some days afterwards, as these same thieves were drinking in an inn, a flight of crows came and lighted on the top of the house; whereupon the thieves, jesting, said to one another, “See, yonder are those who are to avenge the death of him we despatched t’other day,” which the tapster overhearing, told forthwith to the magistrate, who arrested them presently, and thereupon they confessed, and were put to death.’ And so he went on, sustaining his position with strange narratives culled here and there from the wilderness of his reading.

  Among the congregation that heard this sermon, at the eccentricities of which I have hinted, but which had, beside, much that was striking, simply pathetic, and even awful in it, there glided — shall I say — a phantom, with the light of death, and the shadows of hell, and the taint of the grave upon him, and sat among these respectable persons of flesh and blood — impenetrable — secure — for he knew there were but two in the church for whom clever disguises were idle and transparent as the air. The blue-chinned sly clerk, who read the responses, and quavered the Psalms so demurely, and the white-headed, silver-spectacled, upright man, in my Lord Castlemallard’s pew, who turned over the leaves of his prayer-book so diligently, saw him as he was, and knew him to be Charles Archer, and one of these at least, as this dreadful spirit walked, with his light burning in the noonday, dogged by inexorable shadows through a desolate world, in search of peace, he knew to be the slave of his lamp.

  CHAPTER LVII.

  IN WHICH DR. TOOLE AND MR. LOWE MAKE A VISIT AT THE MILLS, AND RECOGNISE SOMETHING REMARKABLE WHILE THERE.

  After church, Dr. Toole walking up to the Mills, to pay an afternoon visit to poor little Mrs. Nutter, was overtaken by Mr. Lowe, the magistrate who brought his tall, iron-gray hunter to a walk as he reached him.

  ‘Any tidings of Nutter?’ asked he, after they had, in the old world phrase, given one another the time of day.

  ‘Not a word,’ said the doctor; ‘I don’t know what to make of it; but you know what’s thought. The last place he was seen in was his own garden. The river was plaguy swollen Friday night, and just where he stood it’s deep enough, I can tell you; often I bathed there when I was a boy. He was consumedly in the dumps, poor fellow; and between ourselves, he was a resolute dog, and atrabilious, and just the fellow to make the jump into kingdom-come if the maggot bit: and you know his hat was fished out of the river a long way down. They dragged next morning, but — pish!— ’twas all nonsense and moonshine; why, there was water enough to carry him to Ringsend in an hour. He was a good deal out of sorts, as I said, latterly — a shabby design, Sir, to thrust him out of my Lord Castlemallard’s agency; but that’s past and gone; and, besides, I have reason to know there was some kind of an excitement — a quarrel it could not be — poor Sally Nutter’s too mild and quiet for that; but a — a — something — a — an — agitation — or a bad news — or something — just before he went out; and so, poor Nutter, you see, it looks very like as if he had done something rash.’

  Talking thus, they reached the Mills by the river side, not far from Knockmaroon.

  On learning that Toole was about making a call there, Lowe gave his bridle to a little Chapelizod ragamuffin, and, dismounting, accompanied the doctor. Mrs. Nutter was in her bed.

  ‘Make my service to your mistress,’ said Toole, ‘and say I’ll look in on her in five minutes, if she’ll admit me.’ And Lowe and the doctor walked on to the garden, and so side by side down to the river’s bank.

  ‘Hey! — look at that,’ said Toole, with a start, in a hard whisper; and he squeezed Lowe’s arm very hard, and looked as if he saw a snake.

  It was the impression in the mud of the same peculiar footprint they had tracked so far in the park. There was a considerable pause, during which Lowe stooped down to examine the details of the footmark.

  ‘Hang it — you know — poor Mrs. Nutter — eh?’ said Toole, and hesitated.

  ‘We must make a note of that — the thing’s important,’ said Mr. Lowe, sternly fixing his gray eye upon Toole.

  ‘Certainly, Sir,’ said the doctor, bridling; ‘I should not like to be the man to hit him — you know; but it is remarkable — and, curse it, Sir, if called on, I’ll speak the truth as straight as you, Sir — every bit, Sir.’

  And he added an oath, and looked very red and heated.

  The magistrate opened his pocketbook, took forth the pattern sole, carefully superimposed it, called Toole’s attention, and said —

  ‘You see.’

  Toole nodded hurriedly; and just then the maid came out to ask him to see her mistress.

  ‘I say, my good woman,’ said Lowe; ‘just look here. Whose footprint is that — do you know it?’

  ‘Oh, why, to be sure I do. Isn’t it the master’s brogues?’ she replied, frightened, she knew not why, after the custom of her kind.

  ‘You observe that?’ and he pointed specially to the transverse line across the heel. ‘Do you know that?’

  The woman assented.

  ‘Who made or mended these shoes?’

  ‘Bill Heaney, the shoemaker, down in Martin’s-row, there— ’twas he made them, and mended them, too, Sir.’

  So he came to a perfect identification, and then an authentication of his paper pattern; then she could say they were certainly the shoes he wore on Friday night — in fact, every other pair he had were then on the shoe-stand on the lobby. So Lowe entered the house, and got pen and ink, and continued to question the maid and make little notes; and the other maid knocked at the parlour door with a message to Toole.

  Lowe urged his going; and somehow Toole thought the magistrate suspected him of making signs to his witness, and he departed ill at ease; and at the foot of the stairs he said to the woman —

  ‘You had better go in there — that stupid Lynn is doing her best to hang your master, by Jove!’

  And the woman cried —

  ‘Oh, dear, bless us!’

  Toole was stunned and agitated, and so with his hand on the clumsy banister he strode up the dark staircase, and round the little corner in the lobby, to Mrs. Nutter’s door.

  ‘Oh, Madam, ‘twill all come right, be sure,’ said Toole, uncomfortably, responding to a vehement and ramb
ling appeal of poor Mrs. Nutter’s.

  ‘And do you really think it will? Oh, doctor, doctor, do you think it will? The last two or three nights and days — how many is it? — oh, my poor head — it seems like a month since he went away.’

  ‘And where do you think he is? Do you think it’s business?’

  ‘Of course ’tis business, Ma’am.’

  ‘And — and — oh, doctor! — you really think he’s safe?’

  ‘Of course, Madam, he’s safe — what’s to ail him?’

  And Toole rummaged amongst the old medicine phials on the chimneypiece, turning their labels round and round, but neither seeing them nor thinking about them, and only muttering to himself with, I’m sorry to say, a curse here and there.

  ‘You see, my dear Ma’am, you must keep yourself as quiet as you can, or physic’s thrown away upon you; you really must,’ said Toole.

  ‘But doctor,’ pleaded the poor lady, ‘you don’t know — I — I’m terrified — I — I — I’ll never be the same again,’ and she burst into hysterical crying.

  ‘Now, really, Madam — confound it — my dear, good lady — you see — this will never do’ — he was uncorking and smelling at the bottles in search of ‘the drops’— ‘and — and — here they are — and isn’t it better, Ma’am, you should be well and hearty — here drink this — when — when he comes back — don’t you see — than — a — a— ‘

  ‘But — oh, I wish I could tell you. She said — she said — the — the — oh, you don’t know— ‘

  ‘She — who? Who said what?’ cried Toole, lending his ear, for he never refused a story.

  ‘Oh! Doctor, he’s gone — I’ll never — never — I know I’ll never see him again. Tell me he’s not gone — tell me I’ll see him again.’