Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  Aunt Becky and Gertrude drew up at the Elms, the rector’s house, with everything very handsome about them, and two laced footmen, with flambeaux, and went in to see little Lily, on their way to the ball, and to show their dresses, which were very fine, indeed, and to promise to come next day and tell her all the news; for Lily, as I mentioned, was an invalid, and balls and flicflacs were not for her.

  Little Lily smiled her bright girlish smile, and threw both her arms round grand Aunt Becky’s neck.

  ‘You good dear Aunt Becky, ’twas so kind and like you to come — you and Gertie. And oh, Geminie! what a grand pair of ladies!’ and she made a little rustic courtesy, like Nell in the farce. ‘And I never saw this before (a near peep at Gertrude’s necklace), and Aunt Becky, what beautiful lace. And does not she look handsome, Gertie? I never saw her look so handsome. She’ll be the finest figure there. There’s no such delicate waist anywhere.’ And she set her two slender little forefingers and thumbs together, as if spanning it. ‘You’ve no chance beside her, Gertie; she’ll set all the young fellows a-sighing and simpering.’

  ‘You wicked little rogue! I’ll beat you black and blue, for making fun of old Aunt Becky,’ cried Miss Rebecca, and ran a little race at her, about two inches to a step; her fan raised in her finger and thumb, and a jolly smile twinkling in her face, for she knew it was true about her waist, and she liked to be quizzed by the daring little girl. Her diamonds were on too, and her last look in her mirror had given her a satisfactory assurance, and she always played with little Lily, when they met; everyone grew gay and girlish with her.

  So they stayed a full quarter of an hour, and the footman coughing laboriously outside the window reminded Aunt Rebecca at last how time flew; and Lily was for sitting down and playing a minuet and a country dance, and making them rehearse their steps, and calling in old Sally to witness the spectacle before they went; and so she and Aunt Becky had another little sportive battle — they never met, and seldom parted, without one. How was it that when gay little Lily provoked these little mimic skirmishes Aunt Becky would look for a second or two an inexpressibly soft and loving look upon her, and become quite girlish and tender? I think there is a way to every heart, and some few have the gift to reach it unconsciously and always.

  So away rustled the great ladies, leaving Lily excited, and she stood at the window, with flushed cheek, and her fingers on the sash, looking after them, and she came back with a little smile and tears in her eyes. She sat down, with a bright colour in her cheeks, and did play a country dance, and then a merry old Irish air, full of frolic and spirit, on the harpsichord; and gentle old Sally’s face peeped in with a wistful smile, at the unwonted sounds.

  ‘Come, sober old Sally, my sweetheart! I’ve taken a whim in my head, and you shall dress me, for to the ball I’ll go.’

  ‘Tut, tut, Miss Lily, darling,’ said old Sally, with a smile and a shake of the head. ‘What would the doctors say?’

  ‘What they please, my darling.’

  And up stood little Lily, with her bright colour and lustrous eyes.

  ‘Angel bright!’ said the old woman, looking in that beloved and lovely young face, and quite ‘filling up,’ as the saying is, ‘there is not your peer on earth — no — not one among them all to compare with our Miss Lilias,’ and she paused, smiling, and then she said— ‘But, my darling, sure you know you weren’t outside the door this five weeks.’

  ‘And is not that long enough, and too long, to shut me up, you cruel old woman? Come, come, Sally, girl, I’m resolved, and to the ball I’ll go; don’t be frightened. I’ll cover my head, and send in for Aunt Becky, and only just peep in, muffled up, for ten minutes; and I’ll go and come in the chair, and what harm can I take by it?’

  Was it spirit? Did she want to show the folk that she did not shrink from meeting somebody; or that, though really ill, she ventured to peep in, through sheer liking for the scrape of the fiddle, and the fun, to show them that at least she was not heart-sick? Or was it the mysterious attraction, the wish to see him once more, just through her hood, far away, with an unseen side glance, and to build endless speculations, and weave the filmy web of hope, for who knows how long, out of these airy tints, a strange, sad smile, or deep, wild glance, just seen and fixed for ever in memory? She had given him up in words, but her heart had not given him up. Poor little Lily! She hoped all that was so bad in him would one day mend. He was a hero still — and, oh! she hoped, would be true to her. So Lily’s love, she scarce knew how, lived on this hope — the wildest of all wild hopes — waiting on the reformation of a rake.

  ‘But, darling Miss Lily, don’t you know the poor master would break his heart if he thought you could do such a wild thing as to go out again ‘the doctors’ orders, at this time o’ night, and into that hot place, and out again among the cold draughts.’

  Little Lily paused.

  ‘’Tis only a step, Sally; do you honestly think it would vex him?’

  ‘Vex him, darling? no, but break his heart. Why, he’s never done asking about you, and — oh! its only joking you are, my darling, that’s all.’

  ‘No, Sally, dear love, I meant it,’ said little Lily, sadly; ‘but I suppose it was a wild thought, and I’m better at home.’

  And she played a march that had somehow a dash of the pathetic in it, in a sort of reverie, and she said:

  ‘Sally, do you know that?’

  And Sally’s gentle face grew reflective, and she said:

  ‘Sure, Miss Lily, that’s the tune — isn’t it — the Artillery plays when they march out to the park?’

  Lily nodded and smiled, and the tune moved on, conjuring up its pictured reverie. Those review days were grand things when little Lily was a child — magnanimous expenditure of hair and gunpowder was there. There sat General Chattesworth, behind his guns, which were now blazing away like fun, wearing his full uniform, point cravat and ruffles, and that dignified and somewhat stern aspect which he put on with the rest of his review-day costume, bestriding his cream-coloured charger, Bombardier, and his plume and powdered ails de pigeon, hardly distinguishable from the smoke which enveloped him, as a cloud does a demigod in an allegorical picture.

  Chord after chord brought up all this moving pageant, unseen by Sally’s dim old eyes, before the saddened gaze of little Lily, whose life was growing to a retrospect. She stood in the sunny street, again a little child, holding old Sally by the hand, on a soft summer day. The sentries presented arms, and the corps marched out resplendent. Old General Chattesworth, as proud as Lucifer, on Bombardier, who nods and champs, prancing and curvetting, to the admiration of the women; but at heart the mildest of quadrupeds, though passing, like an impostor as he was, for a devil incarnate; the band thundering melodiously that dashing plaintive march, and exhilarating and firing the souls of all Chapelizod. Up went the windows all along the street, the rabble-rout of boys yelled and huzzaed like mad. The maids popped their mob-caps out of the attics, and giggled, and hung out at the risk of their necks. The serving men ran out on the hall-door steps. The village roués emerged in haste from their public houses. The whole scene round and along from top to bottom, was grinning and agape. Nature seemed to brighten up at sight of them; and the sun himself came out all in his best, with an unparalleled effulgence.

  Yes, the town was proud of its corps, and well it might. As gun after gun, with its complement of men and its lieutenant fireworkers, with a ‘right wheel,’ rolled out of the gate upon the broad street, not a soul could look upon the lengthening pageant of blue and scarlet, with its symmetrical diagonals of snowy belt and long-flapped white cartouche boxes, moving together with measured swing; its laced cocked-hats, leggings, and courtly white shorts and vests, and ruffles, and all its buttons and brasses flashing up to the sun, without allowing it was a fine spirited sight.

  And Lily, beholding the phantom regiment, with mournful eyes, played their grand sad march proudly as they passed.

  They looked so dashing and so grand; they were
the tallest, shapeliest fellows. Faith, I can tell you, it was no such trifle, pulling along all those six and four pounders; and they needed to be athletic lads; and the officers were, with hardly an exception, martial, highbred gentlemen, with aristocratic bearing, and some of them, without question, confoundedly handsome.

  And always there was one light, tall shape; one dark handsome face, with darker, stranger eyes, and a nameless grace and interest, moving with the march of the gay pageant, before her mind’s eye, to this harmonious and regretful music, which, as she played on, and her reverie deepened, grew slower and more sad, till old Sally’s voice awoke the dreamer. The chords ceased, the vision melted, and poor little Lily smiled sadly and kindly on old Sally, and took her candle, and went up with her to her bed.

  CHAPTER LX.

  BEING A CHAPTER OF HOOPS, FEATHERS, AND BRILLIANTS, AND BUCKS AND FIDDLERS.

  It was a mighty grand affair, this ball of the Royal Irish Artillery. General Chattesworth had arrived that morning, just in time to preside over the hospitalities — he could not contribute much to the dancing — and his advent, still a little lame, but looking, as his friends told him, ten years younger for his snug little fit of the gout at Buxton, reinstated Aunt Becky in her place of power, to the secret disappointment of Madame Strafford, who had set her heart on doing the honours, and rehearsed for weeks, over her toilet, and even in bed, her little speeches, airs, and graces.

  Lord Castlemallard was there, of course — and the gay and splendid Lady Moira — whom I mention because General Chattesworth opened the ball in a minuet with her ladyship — hobbling with wonderful grace, and beaming with great ceremonious smiles through his honourable martyrdom. But there were more than a score of peers there beside, with their peeresses in tall feathers, diamonds, and monstrous hoops. And the lord lieutenant was very near coming — and a lord lieutenant in those days, with a parliament to open, and all the regalia of his office about him, was a far greater personage than, in our democratic age, the sovereign in person.

  Captain Cluffe had gone down in a chair to Puddock’s lodgings, to borrow a pair of magnificent knee-buckles. Puddock had a second pair, and Cluffe’s own had not, he thought, quite recovered their good looks since that confounded ducking on the night of the serenade. The gallant captain, learning that Puddock and Devereux intended walking — it was only a step across to the barrack-yard — and finding that Puddock could not at the moment lay his hand upon the buckles, and not wishing to keep the chair longer — for he knew delay would inflame the fare, and did not like dispensing his shillings —

  ‘Hey! walk? I like the fancy,’ cried the gay captain, sending half-a-crown down stairs to his ‘two-legged ponies,’ as people pleasantly called them. ‘I’d rather walk with you than jog along in a chair by myself, my gay fellows, any day.’

  Most young fellows of spirit, at the eve of a ball, have their heads pretty full. There is always some one bright particular star to whom, even as they look on their own handsome features in the mirror, their adoration is paid.

  Puddock’s shoebuckles flashed for Gertrude Chattesworth, as he turned out his toes. For her his cravat received its last careless touch — his ruffles shook themselves, and fell in rich elegance about his plump little hands. For her his diamond ring gleamed like a burning star from his white little finger; and for her the last fragrance was thrown over his pockethandkerchief, and the last ogle thrown upon his looking-glass. All the interest of his elaborate toilet — the whole solemn process and detail — was but a worship of his divinity, at which he officiated. Much in the same way was Cluffe affected over his bedizenment in relation to his own ladylove; but in a calmer and more long-headed fashion. Devereux’s toilet most of the young fellows held to be perfection; yet it seemed to trouble him less than all the rest. I believe it was the elegant and slender shape that would have set off anything, and that gave to his handsome costume and ‘properties’ an undefinable grace not their own. Indeed, as he leaned his elbow upon the window sash, looking carelessly across the river, he did not seem much to care what became of the labours of his toilet.

  ‘I have not seen her since I came; and now I’m going to this stupid ball on the chance of meeting her there. And she’ll not come — she avoids me — the chance of meeting her — and she’ll not come. Well! if she be not kind to me, what care I for whom she be? And what great matter, after all, if she were there. She’d be, I suppose, on her high horse — and — and ’tis not a feather to me. Let her take her own way. What care I? If she’s happy, why shouldn’t I — why shouldn’t I?’

  Five minutes after: —

  ‘Who the plague are these fellows in the Phœnix? How the brutes howl over their liquor!’ said Devereux, as he and Puddock, at the doorsteps, awaited Cluffe, who was fixing his buckles in the drawingroom.

  ‘The Corporation of Tailors,’ answered Puddock, a little loftily, for he was not inwardly pleased that the precincts of the ‘Phœnix’ should be profaned by their mechanical orgies.

  Through the open bow window of the great oak parlour of the inn was heard the mighty voice of the president, who was now in the thick of his political toasts.

  ‘Odds bud!’ lisped little Puddock, ‘what a stentorian voice!’

  ‘Considering it issues from a tailor!’ acquiesced Devereux, who thought he recognised the accents, and hated tailors, who plagued him with long bills and dangerous menaces.

  ‘May the friends of the Marquis of Kildare be ever blessed with the tailor’s thimble,’ declaimed the portentous toast master. ‘May the needle of distress be ever pointed at all mock patriots; and a hot needle and a burning thread to all sewers of sedition!’ and then came an applauding roar.

  ‘And may you ride into town on your own goose, with a hot needle behind you, you roaring pigmy!’ added Devereux.

  ‘The Irish cooks that can’t relish French sauce!’ enunciated the same grand voice, that floated, mellowed, over the field.

  ‘Sauce, indeed!’ said Puddock, with an indignant lisp, as Cluffe, having joined them, they set forward together; ‘I saw some of them going in, Sir, and to look at their vulgar, unthinking countenances, you’d say they had not capacity to distinguish between the taste of a quail and a goose; but, by Jove! Sir, they have a dinner. You’re a politician, Cluffe, and read the papers. You remember the bill of fare — don’t you? — at the Lord Mayor’s entertainment in London.’

  Cluffe, whose mind was full of other matters, nodded his head with a grunt.

  ‘Well, I’ll take my oath,’ pursued Puddock, ‘you couldn’t have made a better dinner at the Prince of Travendahl’s table. Spanish olea, if you please — ragou royal, cardoons, tendrons, shellfish in marinade, ruffs and rees, wheat-ears, green morels, fat livers, combs and notts. ’Tis rather odd, Sir, to us who employ them, to learn that our tailors, while we’re eating the dinners we do — our tailors, Sir, are absolutely gorging themselves with such things — with our money, by Jove!’

  ‘Yours, Puddock, not mine,’ said Devereux. ‘I haven’t paid a tailor these six years. But, hang it, let’s get on.’

  So, in they walked by the barrack-yard, lighted up now with a splendid red blaze of torches, and with different emotions, entered the already crowded ball-room.

  Devereux looked round the room, among nodding plumes and flashing brilliants, and smirking old bucks, and simpering young ones, amidst the buzz of two or three hundred voices, and the thunder and braying of the band. There were scores of pretty faces there — blondes and brunettes — blue eyes and brown — and more spirit and animation, and, I think, more grace too, in dance and talk, than the phlegmatic affectation of modern days allows; and there were some bright eyes that, not seeming to look, yet recognised, with a little thrill at the heart, and a brighter flush, the brilliant, proud Devereux — so handsome, so impulsive, so unfathomable — with his gipsy tint, and great enthusiastic eyes, and strange melancholy, sub-acid smile. But to him the room was lifeless, and the hour was dull, and the music but a noise and a j
ingle.

  ‘I knew quite well she wasn’t here, and she never cared for me, and I — why should I trouble my head about her? She makes her cold an excuse. Well, maybe yet she’ll wish to see Dick Devereux, and I far away. No matter. They’ve heard slanders of me, and believe them. Amen, say I. If they’re so light of faith, and false in friendship to cast me off for a foul word or an idle story — curse it — I’m well rid of that false and foolish friendship, and can repay their coldness and aversion with a light heart, a bow, and a smile. One slander I’ll refute — yes — and that done, I’ll close this idle episode in my cursed epic, and never, never think of her again.’

  But fancy will not be controlled by resolutions, though ne’er so wise and strong, and precisely as the captain vowed ‘never’ — away glided that wild, sad sprite across the moonlit river, and among the old black elms, and stood unbidden beside Lilias. Little Lily, as they used to call her five years ago; and Devereux, who seemed to look so intently and so strangely on the flash and whirl of the dancers, saw but an old fashioned drawingroom, with roses clustering by the windows, and heard the sweet rich voice, to him the music of Ariel, like a far-off dirge — a farewell — sometimes a forgiveness — and sometimes the old pleasant talk and merry little laugh, all old remembrances or vain dreams now.

  But Devereux had business on his hands that night, and about eleven o’clock he had disappeared. ’Twas easy to go and come in such a crowd, and no one perceive it.

  But Puddock was very happy and excited. Mervyn, whom he had once feared, was there, a mere spectator, however, to witness that night’s signal triumph. He had never danced so much with Miss Gertrude before, that is to say, at a great ball like this at which there was a plenty of bucks with good blood and lots of money; and indeed, it seemed to favour the idea of his success that Aunt Rebecca acknowledged him only with a silent and by no means gracious courtesy.