‘It is the full-length picture of Uncle Silas — I want to ask you about him.’
At mention of his name, my cousin gave me a look so sudden and odd as to amount almost to a start.
‘Your uncle Silas, dear? It is very odd, I was just thinking of him;’ and she laughed a little.
‘Wondering whether that little boy could be he.’
And up jumped active Cousin Monica, with a candle in her hand, upon a chair, and scrutinised the border of the sketch for a name or a date.
‘Maybe on the back?’ said she.
And so she unhung it, and there, true enough, not on the back of the drawing, but of the frame, which was just as good, in pen-and-ink round Italian letters, hardly distinguishable now from the discoloured wood, we traced —
‘Silas Aylmer Ruthyn, Ætate viii. 15 May, 1779.’
‘It is very odd I should not have been told or remembered who it was. I think if I had ever been told I should have remembered it. I do recollect this picture, though, I am nearly certain. What a singular child’s face!’
And my cousin leaned over it with a candle on each side, and her hand shading her eyes, as if seeking by aid of these fair and half-formed lineaments to read an enigma.
The childish features defied her, I suppose; their secret was unfathomable, for after a good while she raised her head, still looking at the portrait, and sighed.
‘A very singular face,’ she said, softly, as a person might who was looking into a coffin. ‘Had not we better replace it?’
So the pretty oval, containing the fair golden hair and large eyes, the pale, unfathomable sphinx, remounted to its nail, and the funeste and beautiful child seemed to smile down oracularly on our conjectures.
‘So is the face in the large portrait — very singular — more, I think, than that — handsomer too. This is a sickly child, I think; but the full-length is so manly, though so slender, and so handsome too. I always think him a hero and a mystery, and they won’t tell me about him, and I can only dream and wonder.’
‘He has made more people than you dream and wonder, my dear Maud. I don’t know what to make of him. He is a sort of idol, you know, of your father’s, and yet I don’t think he helps him much. His abilities were singular; so has been his misfortune; for the rest, my dear, he is neither a hero nor a wonder. So far as I know, there are very few sublime men going about the world.’
‘You really must tell me all you know about him, Cousin Monica. Now don’t refuse.’
‘But why should you care to hear? There is really nothing pleasant to tell.’
‘That is just the reason I wish it. If it were at all pleasant, it would be quite commonplace. I like to hear of adventures, dangers, and misfortunes; and above all, I love a mystery. You know, papa will never tell me, and I dare not ask him; not that he is ever unkind, but, somehow, I am afraid; and neither Mrs. Rusk nor Mary Quince will tell me anything, although I suspect they know a good deal.’
‘I don’t see any good in telling you, dear, nor, to say the truth, any great harm either.’
‘No — now that’s quite true — no harm. There can’t be, for I must know it all some day, you know, and better now, and from you, than perhaps from a stranger, and in a less favourable way.’
‘Upon my word, it is a wise little woman; and really, that’s not such bad sense after all.’
So we poured out another cup of tea each, and sipped it very comfortably by the fire, while Lady Knollys talked on, and her animated face helped the strange story.
‘It is not very much, after all. Your uncle Silas, you know, is living?’
‘Oh yes, in Derbyshire.’
‘So I see you do know something of him, sly girl! but no matter. You know how very rich your father is; but Silas was the younger brother, and had little more than a thousand a year. If he had not played, and did not care to marry, it would have been quite enough — ever so much more than younger sons of dukes often have; but he was — well, a mauvais sujet — you know what that is. I don’t want to say any ill of him — more than I really know — but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like other young men, and he played, and was always losing, and your father for a long time paid great sums for him. I believe he was really a most expensive and vicious young man; and I fancy he does not deny that now, for they say he would change the past if he could.
I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame — aged eight years — who was, a few springs later, ‘a most expensive and vicious young man,’ and was now a suffering and outcast old one, and wondering from what a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows, and how microscopic are the beginnings of the kingdom of God or of the mystery of iniquity in a human being’s heart.
‘Austin — your papa — was very kind to him — very; but then, you know, he’s an oddity, dear — he is an oddity, though no one may have told you before — and he never forgave him for his marriage. Your father, I suppose, knew more about the lady than I did — I was young then — but there were various reports, none of them pleasant, and she was not visited, and for some time there was a complete estrangement between your father and your uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the very occasion which some people said ought to have totally separated them. Did you ever hear anything — anything very remarkable — about your uncle?’
‘No, never, they would not tell me, though I am sure they know. Pray go on.’
‘Well, Maud, as I have begun, I’ll complete the story, though perhaps it might have been better untold. It was something rather shocking — indeed, very shocking; in fact, they insisted on suspecting him of having committed a murder.’
I stared at my cousin for some time, and then at the little boy, so refined, so beautiful, so funeste, in the oval frame.
‘Yes, dear,’ said she, her eyes following mine; ‘who’d have supposed he could ever have — have fallen under so horrible a suspicion?’
‘The wretches! Of course, Uncle Silas — of course, he’s innocent?’ I said at last.
‘Of course, my dear,’ said Cousin Monica, with an odd look; ‘but you know there are some things as bad almost to be suspected of as to have done, and the country gentlemen chose to suspect him. They did not like him, you see. His politics vexed them; and he resented their treatment of his wife — though I really think, poor Silas, he did not care a pin about her — and he annoyed them whenever he could. Your papa, you know, is very proud of his family — he never had the slightest suspicion of your uncle.’
‘Oh no!’ I cried vehemently.
‘That’s right, Maud Ruthyn,’ said Cousin Monica, with a sad little smile and a nod. ‘And your papa was, you may suppose, very angry.’
‘Of course he was,’ I exclaimed.
‘You have no idea, my dear, how angry. He directed his attorney to prosecute, by wholesale, all who had said a word affecting your uncle’s character. But the lawyers were against it, and then your uncle tried to fight his way through it, but the men would not meet him. He was quite slurred. Your father went up and saw the Minister. He wanted to have him a Deputy-Lieutenant, or something, in his county. Your papa, you know, had a very great influence with the Government. Beside his county influence, he had two boroughs then. But the Minister was afraid, the feeling was so very strong. They offered him something in the Colonies, but your father would not hear of it — that would have been a banishment, you know. They would have given your father a peerage to make it up, but he would not accept it, and broke with the party. Except in that way — which, you know, was connected with the reputation of the family — I don’t think, considering his great wealth, he has done very much for Silas. To say truth, however, he was very liberal before his marriage. Old Mrs. Aylmer says he made a vow then that Silas should never have more than five hundred a year, which he still allows him, I believe, and he permits him to live in the place. But they say it is in a very wild, neglected state.’
‘You live in the same county — have you seen it lately, Cousin
Monica?’
‘No, not very lately,’ said Cousin Monica, and began to hum an air abstractedly.
CHAPTER XIII
BEFORE AND AFTER BREAKFAST
Next morning early I visited my favourite full-length portrait in the chocolate coat and topboots. Scanty as had been my cousin Monica’s notes upon this dark and eccentric biography, they were everything to me. A soul had entered that enchanted form. Truth had passed by with her torch, and a sad light shone for a moment on that enigmatic face.
There stood the roué — the duellist — and, with all his faults, the hero too! In that dark large eye lurked the profound and fiery enthusiasm of his ill-starred passion. In the thin but exquisite lip I read the courage of the paladin, who would have ‘fought his way,’ though single-handed, against all the magnates of his county, and by ordeal of battle have purged the honour of the Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic tracery of the nostril I detected the intellectual defiance which had politically isolated Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy of his county, whose retaliation had been a hideous slander. There, too, and on his brows and lip, I traced the patience of a cold disdain. I could now see him as he was — the prodigal, the hero, and the martyr. I stood gazing on him with a girlish interest and admiration. There was indignation, there was pity, there was hope. Some day it might come to pass that I, girl as I was, might contribute by word or deed towards the vindication of that long-suffering, gallant, and romantic prodigal. It was a flicker of the Joan of Arc inspiration, common, I fancy, to many girls. I little then imagined how profoundly and strangely involved my uncle’s fate would one day become with mine.
I was interrupted by Captain Oakley’s voice at the window. He was leaning on the windowsill, and looking in with a smile — the window being open, the morning sunny, and his cap lifted in his hand.
‘Good-morning, Miss Ruthyn. What a charming old place! quite the setting for a romance; such timber, and this really beautiful house. I do so like these white and black houses — wonderful old things. By-the-by, you treated us very badly last night — you did, indeed; upon my word, now, it really was too bad — running away, and drinking tea with Lady Knollys — so she says. I really — I should not like to tell you how very savage I felt, particularly considering how very short my time is.’
I was a shy, but not a giggling country miss. I knew I was an heiress; I knew I was somebody. I was not the least bit in the world conceited, but I think this knowledge helped to give me a certain sense of security and self-possession, which might have been mistaken for dignity or simplicity. I am sure I looked at him with a fearless enquiry, for he answered my thoughts.
‘I do really assure you, Miss Ruthyn, I am quite serious; you have no idea how very much we have missed you.’
There was a little pause, and, like a fool, I lowered my eyes, and blushed.
‘I — I was thinking of leaving to-day; I am so unfortunate — my leave is just out — it is so unlucky; but I don’t quite know whether my aunt Knollys will allow me to go.’
‘I? — certainly, my dear Charlie, I don’t want you at all,’ exclaimed a voice — Lady Knollys’s — briskly, from an open window close by; ‘what could put that in your head, dear?’
And in went my cousin’s head, and the window shut down.
‘She is such an oddity, poor dear Aunt Knollys,’ murmured the young man, ever so little put out, and he laughed. ‘I never know quite what she wishes, or how to please her; but she’s so goodnatured; and when she goes to town for the season — she does not always, you know — her house is really very gay — you can’t think — — ‘
Here again he was interrupted, for the door opened, and Lady Knollys entered. ‘And you know, Charles,’ she continued, ‘it would not do to forget your visit to Snodhurst; you wrote, you know, and you have only tonight and tomorrow. You are thinking of nothing but that moor; I heard you talking to the gamekeeper; I know he is — is not he, Maud, the brown man with great whiskers, and leggings? I’m very sorry, you know, but I really must spoil your shooting, for they do expect you at Snodhurst, Charlie; and do not you think this window a little too much for Miss Ruthyn? Maud, my dear, the air is very sharp; shut it down, Charles, and you’d better tell them to get a fly for you from the town after luncheon. Come, dear,’ she said to me. ‘Was not that the breakfast bell? Why does not your papa get a gong? — it is so hard to know one bell from another.’
I saw that Captain Oakley lingered for a last look, but I did not give it, and went out smiling with Cousin Knollys, and wondering why old ladies are so uniformly disagreeable.
In the lobby she said, with an odd, goodnatured look —
‘Don’t allow any of his lovemaking, my dear. Charles Oakley has not a guinea, and an heiress would be very convenient. Of course he has his eyes about him. Charles is not by any means foolish; and I should not be at all sorry to see him well married, for I don’t think he will do much good any other way; but there are degrees, and his ideas are sometimes very impertinent.’
I was an admiring reader of the Albums, the Souvenirs, the Keepsakes, and all that flood of Christmas-present lore which yearly irrigated England, with pretty covers and engravings; and floods of elegant twaddle — the milk, not destitute of water, on which the babes of literature were then fed. On this, my genius throve. I had a little album, enriched with many gems of original thought and observation, which I jotted down in suitable language. Lately, turning over these faded leaves of rhyme and prose, I lighted, under this day’s date, upon the following sage reflection, with my name appended: —
‘Is there not in the female heart an ineradicable jealousy, which, if it sways the passions of the young, rules also the advice of the aged? Do they not grudge to youth the sentiments (though Heaven knows how shadowed with sorrow) which they can no longer inspire, perhaps even experience; and does not youth, in turn, sigh over the envy which has power to blight?
MAUD AYLMER RUTHYN.’
‘He has not been making love to me,’ I said rather tartly, ‘and he does not seem to me at all impertinent, and I really don’t care the least whether he goes or stays.’
Cousin Monica looked in my face with her old waggish smile, and laughed.
‘You’ll understand those London dandies better some day, dear Maud; they are very well, but they like money — not to keep, of course — but still they like it and know its value.’
At breakfast my father told Captain Oakley where he might have shooting, or if he preferred going to Dilsford, only half an hour’s ride, he might have his choice of hunters, and find the dogs there that morning.
The Captain smiled archly at me, and looked at his aunt. There was a suspense. I hope I did not show how much I was interested — but it would not do. Cousin Monica was inexorable.
‘Hunting, hawking, fishing, fiddle-de-dee! You know, Charlie, my dear, it is quite out of the question. He is going to Snodhurst this afternoon, and without quite a rudeness, in which I should be involved too, he really can’t — you know you can’t, Charles! and — and he must go and keep his engagement.’
So papa acquiesced with a polite regret, and hoped another time.
‘Oh, leave all that to me. When you want him, only write me a note, and I’ll send him or bring him if you let me. I always know where to find him — don’t I, Charlie? — and we shall be only too happy.’
Aunt Monica’s influence with her nephew was special, for she ‘tipped’ him handsomely every now and then, and he had formed for himself agreeable expectations, besides, respecting her will. I felt rather angry at his submitting to this sort of tutelage, knowing nothing of its motive; I was also disgusted by Cousin Monica’s tyranny.
So soon as he had left the room, Lady Knollys, not minding me, said briskly to papa, ‘Never let that young man into your house again. I found him making speeches, this morning, to little Maud here; and he really has not two pence in the world — it is amazing impudence — and you know such absurd things do happen.’
I was vexed, and therefore spoke courageously. ‘His compliments were not to me; they were all to the house,’ I said, drily.
‘Quite as it should be — the house, of course; it is that he’s in love with,’ said Cousin Knollys.
’Twas on a widow’s jointure land,
The archer, Cupid, took his stand.’
‘Hey! I don’t quite understand,’ said my father, slily.
‘Tut! Austin; you forget Charlie is my nephew.’
‘So I did,’ said my father.
‘Therefore the literal widow in this case can have no interest in view but one, and that is yours and Maud’s. I wish him well, but he shan’t put my little cousin and her expectations into his empty pocket — not a bit of it. And there’s another reason, Austin, why you should marry — you have no eye for these things, whereas a clever woman would see at a glance and prevent mischief.’
‘So she would,’ acquiesced my father, in his gloomy, amused way. ‘Maud, you must try to be a clever woman.’
‘So she will in her time, but that is not come yet; and I tell you, Austin Ruthyn, if you won’t look about and marry somebody, somebody may possibly marry you.’
‘You were always an oracle, Monica; but here I am lost in total perplexity,’ said my father.
‘Yes; sharks sailing round you, with keen eyes and large throats; and you have come to the age precisely when men are swallowed up alive like Jonah.’
‘Thank you for the parallel, but you know that was not a happy union, even for the fish, and there was a separation in a few days; not that I mean to trust to that; but there’s no one to throw me into the jaws of the monster, and I’ve no notion of jumping there; and the fact is, Monica, there’s no monster at all.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘But I’m quite sure,’ said my father, a little drily. ‘You forget how old I am, and how long I’ve lived alone — I and little Maud;’ and he smiled and smoothed my hair, and, I thought, sighed.
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 220
