Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  So that night passed peacefully.

  Rachel — a changed Rachel still — though more like her early self, was now in the tiny garden of Redman’s Farm. The early spring was already showing its bright green through the brown of winter, and sun and shower alternating, and the gay gossiping of sweet birds among the branches, were calling the young creation from its slumbers. The air was so sharp, so clear, so sunny, the mysterious sense of coming life so invigorating, and the sounds and aspect of nature so rejoicing, that Rachel with her gauntlets on, her white basket of flower seeds, her trowel, and all her garden implements beside her, felt her own spring of life return, and rejoiced in the glad hour that shone round her.

  Lifting up her eyes, she saw Lord Chelford looking over the little gate.

  ‘What a charming day,’ said he, with his pleasant smile, raising his hat, ‘and how very pleasant to see you at your pretty industry again.’

  As Rachel came forward in her faded gardening costume, an old silk shawl about her shoulders, and hoodwise over her head, somehow very becoming, there was a blush — he could not help seeing it — on her young face, and for a moment her fine eyes dropped, and she looked up, smiling a more thoughtful and a sadder smile than in old days. The picture of that smile so gay and fearless, and yet so feminine, rose up beside the sadder smile that greeted him now, and he thought of Ondine without and Ondine with a soul.

  ‘I am afraid I am a very impertinent — at least a very inquisitive — wayfarer; but I could not pass by without a word, even at the risk of interrupting you. And the truth is, I believe, if it had not been for that chance of seeing and interrupting you, I should not have passed through Redman’s Dell to-day.’

  He laughed a little as he said this; and held her hands some seconds longer than is strictly usual in such a greeting.

  ‘You are staying at Brandon?’ said Rachel, not knowing exactly what to say.

  ‘Yes; Dorcas, who is always very good to me, made me promise to come whenever I was at Drackley. I arrived yesterday, and they tell me you stay so much at home, that possibly you might not appear in the upper world for two or three days; so I had not patience, you see.’

  It was now Rachel’s turn to laugh a musical little roulade; but somehow her talk was neither so gay, nor so voluble, as it used to be. She liked to listen; she would not for the world their little conversation ended before its time; but there was an unwonted difficulty in finding anything to say.

  ‘It is quite true; I am more a stay-at-home than I used to be. I believe we learn to prize home more the longer we live.’

  ‘What a wise old lady! I did not think of that; I have only learned that whatever is most prized is hardest to find.’

  ‘And spring is come again,’ continued Rachel, passing by this little speech, ‘and my labours recommence. And though the day is longer, there is more to do in it, you see.’

  ‘I don’t wonder at your being a stay-at-home, for, to my eyes, it is the prettiest spot of earth in all the world; and if you find it half as hard to leave it as I do, your staying here is quite accounted for.’

  This little speech, also, Rachel understood quite well, though she went on as if she did not.

  ‘And this little garden costs, I assure you, a great deal of wise thought. In sowing my annuals I have so much to forecast and arrange; suitability of climate, for we have sun and shade here, succession of bloom and contrast of colour, and ever so many other important things.’

  ‘I can quite imagine it, though it did not strike me before,’ he said, looking on her with a smile of pleasant and peculiar interest, which somehow gave a reality to this playful talk. ‘It is quite true; and I should not have thought of it — it is very pretty,’ and he laughed a gentle little laugh, glancing over the tiny garden.

  ‘But, after all, there is no picture of flowers, or still life, or even of landscape, that will interest long. You must be very solitary here at times — that is, you must have a great deal more resource than I, or, indeed, almost anyone I know, or this solitude must at times be oppressive. I hope so, at least, for that would force you to appear among us sometimes.’

  ‘No, I am not lonely — that is, not lonelier than is good for me. I have such a treasure of an old nurse — poor old Tamar — who tells me stories, and reads to me, and listens to my follies and temper, and sometimes says very wise things, too; and the good vicar comes often — this is one of his days — with his beautiful little boy, and talks so well, and answers my follies and explains all my perplexities, and is really a great help and comfort.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lord Chelford, with the same pleasant smile, ‘he told me so; and seems so pleased to have met with so clever a pupil. Are you coming to Brandon this evening? Lake asked William Wylder, perhaps he will be with us. I do hope you will come. Dorcas says there is no use in writing; but that you know you are always welcome. May I say you’ll come?’

  Rachel smiled sadly on the snowdrops at her feet, and shook her head a little.

  ‘No, I must stay at home this evening — I mean I have not spirits to go to Brandon. Thank Dorcas very much from me — that is, if you really mean that she asked me.’

  ‘I am so sorry — I am so disappointed,’ said Lord Chelford, looking gravely and enquiringly at her. He began, I think, to fancy some estrangement there. ‘But perhaps tomorrow — perhaps even to-day — you may relent, you know. Don’t say it is impossible.’

  Rachel smiled on the ground, as before; and then, with a little sigh and a shake of her head, said —

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I must tell Dorcas she was right — you are very inexorable and cruel.’

  ‘I am very cruel to keep you here so long — and I, too, am forgetting the vicar, who will be here immediately, and I must meet him in a costume less like the Woman of Endor.’

  Lord Chelford, leaning on the little wicket, put his arm over, and she gave him her hand again.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Well, I suppose I, too, must say goodbye; and I’ll say a great deal more,’ said he, in a peculiar, odd tone, that was very firm, and yet indescribably tender. And he held her slender hand, from which she had drawn the gauntlet, in his. ‘Yes, Rachel, I will — I’ll say everything. We are old friends now — you’ll forgive me calling you Rachel — it may be perhaps the last time.’

  Rachel was standing there with such a beautiful blush, and downcast eyes, and her hand in his.

  ‘I liked you always, Rachel, from the first moment I saw you — I liked you better and better — indescribably — indeed, I do; and I’ve grown to like you so, that if I lose you, I think I shall never be the same again.’

  There was a very little pause, the blush was deeper, her eyes lower still.

  ‘I admire you, Rachel — I like your character — I have grown to love you with all my heart and mind — quite desperately, I think. I know there are things against me — there are better-looking fellows than I — and — and a great many things — and I know very well that you will judge for yourself — quite differently from other girls; and I can’t say with what fear and hope I await what you may say; but this you may be sure of, you will never find anyone to love you better, Rachel — I think so well — and — and now — that is all. Do you think you could ever like me?’

  But Rachel’s hand, on a sudden, with a slight quiver, was drawn from his.

  ‘Lord Chelford, I can’t describe how grateful I am, and how astonished, but it could never be — no — never.’

  ‘Rachel, perhaps you mean my mother — I have told her everything — she will receive you with all the respect you so well deserve; and with all her faults, she loves me, and will love you still more.’

  ‘No, Lord Chelford, no.’ She was pale now, and looking very sadly in his eyes. ‘It is not that, but only that you must never, never speak of it again.’

  ‘Oh! Rachel, darling, you must not say that — I love you so — so desperately, you don’t know.’

  ‘I can say nothing
else, Lord Chelford. My mind is quite made up — I am inexpressibly grateful — you will never know how grateful — but except as a friend — and won’t you still be my friend? — I never can regard you.’

  Rachel was so pale that her very lips were white as she spoke this in a melancholy but very firm way.

  ‘Oh, Rachel, it is a great blow — maybe if you thought it over! — I’ll wait any time.’

  ‘No, Lord Chelford, I’m quite unworthy of your preference; but time cannot change me — and I am speaking, not from impulse, but conviction. This is our secret — yours and mine — and we’ll forget it; and I could not bear to lose your friendship — you’ll be my friend still — won’t you? Goodbye.’

  ‘God bless you, Rachel!’ And he hurriedly kissed the hand she had placed in his, and without a word more, or looking back, he walked swiftly down the wooded road towards Gylingden.

  So, then, it had come and gone — gone for ever.

  ‘Margery, bring the basket in; I think a shower is coming.’

  And she picked up her trowel and other implements, and placed them in the porch, and glanced up towards the clouds, as if she saw them, and had nothing to think of but her gardening and the weather, and as if her heart was not breaking.

  CHAPTER LIII.

  THE VICAR’S COMPLICATIONS, WHICH LIVELY PEOPLE HAD BETTER NOT READ.

  William Wylder’s reversion was very tempting. But Lawyer Larkin knew the value of the precious metals, and waited for more data. The more he thought over his foreign correspondence, and his interview with Lake, the more steadily returned upon his mind the old conviction that the gallant captain was deep in the secret, whatever it might be.

  Whatever his motive — and he always had a distinct motive, though sometimes not easily discoverable — he was a good deal addicted now to commenting, in his confidential talk, with religious gossips and others, upon the awful state of the poor vicar’s affairs, his inconceivable prodigality, the unaccountable sums he had made away with, and his own anxiety to hand over the direction of such a hopeless complication of debt, and abdicate in favour of any competent skipper the command of the water-logged and foundering ship.

  ‘Why, his Brother Mark could get him cleverly out of it — could not he?’ wheezed the pork-butcher.

  ‘More serious than you suppose,’ answered Larkin, with a shake of his head.

  ‘It can’t go beyond five hundred, or say nine hundred — eh, at the outside?’

  ‘Nine hundred — say double as many thousand, and I’m afraid you’ll be nearer the mark. You’ll not mention, of course, and I’m only feeling my way just now, and speaking conjecturally altogether; but I’m afraid it is enormous. I need not remind you not to mention.’

  I cannot, of course, say how Mr. Larkin’s conjectures reached so prodigious an elevation, but I can now comprehend why it was desirable that this surprising estimate of the vicar’s liabilities should prevail. Mr. Jos. Larkin had a weakness for enveloping much of what he said and wrote in an honourable mystery. He liked writing private or confidential at top of his notes, without apparent right or even reason to impose either privacy or confidence upon the persons to whom he wrote. There was, in fact, often in the good attorney’s mode of transacting business just a soupçon or flavour of an arrière pensée of a remote and unseen plan, which was a little unsatisfactory.

  Now, with the vicar he was imperative that the matter of the reversion should be strictly confidential — altogether ‘sacred,’ in fact.

  ‘You see, the fact is, my dear Mr. Wylder, I never meddle in speculative things. It is not a class of business that I like or would touch with one of my fingers, so to speak,’ and he shook his head gently; ‘and I may say, if I were supposed to be ever so slightly engaged in these risky things, it would be the ruin of me. I don t like, however, sending you into the jaws of the City sharks — I use the term, my dear Mr. Wylder, advisedly — and I make a solitary exception in your case; but the fact is, if I thought you would mention the matter, I could not touch it even for you. There’s Captain Lake, of Brandon, for instance — I should not be surprised if I lost the Brandon business the day after the matter reached his ears. All men are not like you and me, my dear Mr. Wylder. The sad experience of my profession has taught me that a suspicious man of the world, without religion, my dear Mr. Wylder,’ and he lifted his pink eyes, and shook his long head and long hands in unison— ‘without religion — will imagine anything. They can’t understand us.’

  Now, the fifty pounds which good Mr. Larkin had procured for the improvident vicar, bore interest, I am almost ashamed to say, at thirty per cent. per annum, and ten per cent. more the first year. But you are to remember that the security was altogether speculative; and Mr. Larkin, of course, made the best terms he could.

  Annual premium on a policy for £100 [double insurance } £ s. d. being insisted upon by lender, to cover contingent ex- } 10 0 0 penses, and life not insurable, a delicacy of the lungs } being admitted, on the ordinary scale] }

  Annuity payable to lender, clear of premium, the } 7 10 0

  security being unsatisfactory }

  —— —— —— —

  £17 10 0

  Ten pounds of which (the premium), together with four pounds ten shillings for expenses, &c. were payable in advance. So that thirty-two pounds, out of his borrowed fifty, were forfeit for these items within a year and a month. In the meantime the fifty pounds had gone, as we know, direct to Cambridge; and he was called upon to pay forthwith ten pounds for premium, and four pounds ten shillings for ‘expenses.’ Quod impossibile.

  The attorney had nothing for it but to try to induce the lender to let him have another fifty pounds, pending the investigation of title — another fifty, of which he was to get, in fact, eighteen pounds. Somehow, the racking off of this bitter vintage from one vessel into another did not seem to improve its quality. On the contrary, things were growing decidedly more awful.

  Now, there came from Messrs. Burlington and Smith a peremptory demand for the fourteen pounds ten shillings, and an equally summary one for twenty-eight pounds fourteen shillings and eight pence, their costs in this matter.

  When the poor vicar received this latter blow, he laid the palm of his hand on the top of his head, as if to prevent his brain from boiling over. Twenty-eight pounds fourteen shillings and eight pence! Quod impossibile. again.

  When he saw Larkin, that conscientious guardian of his client’s interests scrutinised the bill of costs very jealously, and struck out between four and five pounds. He explained to the vicar the folly of borrowing insignificant and insufficient sums — the trouble, and consequently the cost, of which were just as great as of an adequate one. He was determined, if he could, to pull him through this. But he must raise a sufficient sum, for the expense of going into title would be something; and he would write sharply to Burlington, Smith, and Co., and had no doubt the costs would be settled for twenty-three pounds. And Mr. Jos. Larkin’s opinion upon the matter was worthy of respect, inasmuch as he was himself, under the rose, the ‘Co.’ of that firm, and ministered its capital.

  ‘The fact is you must, my dear Mr. Wylder, make an effort. It won’t do peddling and tinkering in such a case. You will be in a worse position than ever, unless you boldly raise a thousand pounds — if I can manage such a transaction upon a security of the kind. Consolidate all your liabilities, and keep a sum in hand. You are well connected — powerful relatives — your brother has Huxton, four hundred, a year, whenever old — the — the present incumbent goes — and there are other things beside — but you must not allow yourself to be ruined through timidity; and if you go to the wall without an effort, and allow yourself to be slurred in public, what becomes of your chance of preferment?’

  And now ‘title’ went up to Burlington, Smith, and Co. to examine and approve; and from that firm, I am sorry to say, a bill of costs was coming, when deeds were prepared and all done, exceeding three hundred and fifty pounds; and there was a little reminder from good
Jos. Larkin for two hundred and fifty pounds more. This, of course, was to await Mr. Wylder’s perfect convenience. The vicar knew him — he never pressed any man. Then there would be insurances in proportion; and interest, as we see, was not trifling. And altogether, I am afraid, our friend the vicar was being extricated in a rather embarrassing fashion.

  Now, I have known cases in which goodnatured debauchees have interested themselves charitably in the difficulties of forlorn families; and I think I knew, almost before they suspected it, that their generous interference was altogether due to one fine pair of eyes, and a pretty tournure, in the distressed family circle. Under a like half-delusion, Mr. Jos. Larkin, in the guise of charity, was prosecuting his designs upon the vicar’s reversion, and often most cruelly and most artfully, when he frankly fancied his conduct most praiseworthy.

  And really I do not myself know, that, considering poor William’s liabilities and his means, and how many chances there were against that reversion ever becoming a fact, that I would not myself have advised his selling it, if a reasonable price were obtainable.

  ‘All this power will I give thee,’ said the Devil, ‘and the glory of them; for that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it.’ The world belongs to the rascals. It is like ‘the turf,’ where, everyone admits, an honest man can hardly hold his own. Jos. Larkin looked down on the seedy and distracted vicar from an immense moral elevation. He heard him talk of religion with disgust. He owed him costs, and, beside, costs also to Burlington, Smith, and Co. Was there not Talkative in ‘Pilgrim’s Progress?’ I believe there are few things more provoking than that a man who owes you money, and can’t pay the interest, should pretend to religion to your face, except, perhaps, his giving sixpence in charity.

  The attorney was prosperous. He accounted for it by his attributes, and the blessing that waits on industry and integrity. He did not see that luck and selfishness had anything to do with it. No man ever failed but through his own fault — none ever succeeded but by his deservings. The attorney was in a position to lecture the Rev. Mr. Wylder. In his presence, religion, in the vicar’s mouth, was an impertinence.