Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “Well, she is a dear little creature, an affectionate little soul. I’ve always found her quite the same,” said Aunt Dinah.

  “I’m sure she is — I dare say — I don’t see why she shouldn’t, that is, as affectionate as other young ladies. You know it isn’t I who say she’s changed.”

  “I did not say she’s changed more than you. I think you don’t seem so kindly as you used, and more disposed to be disagreeable; and I think, considering you have been so long together, and are so soon to part, and life is so uncertain, I think it a pity; and you can’t see even how pretty she is looking.”

  “I must have been thinking of something else, for she is in particularly good looks;” and he added, quite like himself, “Yes, indeed, I think she improves every time I see her, but that may be the old partiality, you know. Goodnight, Aunt Dinah.”

  Aunt Dinah took both his hands to hers, and kissed him.

  “Goodnight, my dear William — my dear boy. You will never know, dear William, all the pain you have cost me. Pray, my dear child, for a reasonable spirit, and that you may have power to conquer the demon of pride — the besetting sin of youth, and, my dear William, you must reconsider the question of ordination, and pray for light. God bless you, and don’t forget to put out your candle. There” — another kiss— “Goodnight.”

  CHAPTER LI.

  A DREAM.

  AFFECTIONATE, indeed!” said William, “I do believe they have no other idea but to mortify and wound everyone that seems to like them — cats and monkeys.”

  William had closed the door; he poked his fire, and sat before it, eyeing it scornfully.

  “I can’t think why anyone likes them — why we go on liking them — they are so odious. I suppose they used not to be so. There’s Aunt Dinah — kind, true old Aunt Dinah — she never could have been a heartless, insolent creature, like that — never. We are all growing worse; the world will soon be ripe for judgment.”

  And William pulled off his coat as savagely as if he was going to fight “Old Crump” again, behind the chapel at Rugby.

  “I hate myself for liking her. No, I don’t like her — for admiring her; but she is pretty. She is — there’s no good in denying it — she’s awfully pretty — lovely! and till that great goose, Trevor, came and turned her head with his boots, and his gloves, and his house, and his trumpery, she was the nicest little creature in the world. Yes, there was no one like her; not one on earth, I’ll maintain.”

  And he knocked his hand so hard on the back of the chair beside him, that he thought his knuckles were bleeding.

  “I wish they were, by Jove!” he said. “I don’t care what happens, I don’t care if I was knocked to smash, to think of that great gawky goose. What on earth can she see in him? Such rot!”

  “Yes, she is — there’s no use in disputing it — she’s the prettiest girl I ever saw, in all my life? he went on, putting himself down and overbearing his affected indifference with honest vehemence. “Aunt Dinah has promised me her carte de visite. I’ll have it copied in large the first money I have, in Paris, at that great fellow’s there — and tinted; and I’ll make old Winnie get me a lock of her hair; I have the one safe when she was nine years old — so bright — who would have thought it would ever have grown so dark? Winnie will get it for me. If I asked her, she’d only refuse, or put me off some way. I’ll hang up her picture and the little drawing of Gilroyd in my garret in Paris, and I’ll be a jolly old bachelor. Marry in five years, indeed? My poor aunt might easily find something more likely to fret about. Yes, I’ll be the most tremendous, dry old quiz of a bachelor; and when she and her precious husband come to Paris, as they will some day, I’ll get a peep at her, perhaps, in the theatres and places, from some dark corner, and I’ll wonder what she will be like then — always handsome, those eyes, and her lips so scarlet, and her beautiful hair; and I’ll compare her with little Vi of Gilroyd. She may be handsomer and more showy, but the little Vi of Gilroyd will always be the brightest and best.”

  In this mood William rambled over many old recollections of the place and people he was leaving, and he laid his waistcoat on the chair much more gently than his coat; and he thought how Aunt Dinah had taught him to say his prayers long ago, under that friendly roof, and so down he kneeled and said them with a sadder heart, and rose up with a great sigh, and a sense of leavetaking that made his heart ache.

  And now his candle was out, and he soon fast asleep; and again he had a dream so strange that I must relate it.

  The scenery of his dream, as before, presented simply the room in which he lay, with the flickering firelight in which he had gone to sleep. He lay, in his vision, in his bed, just as he really did, with his back to the fire and looking towards the curtains, which were closed on the side between him and the door, when he heard a sound of naked feet running up to his chamber door, which was flung open with a precipitation which made the windows rattle, and his bed-curtain was drawn aside, and Miss Perfect, with only a sheet, as it seemed, wrapt over her night dress, and with a face white, and fixed with horror, said, “Oh, my God! William, I’m dead — don’t let me go!” and under the clothes she clasped his wrist with a hand that felt like cold metal. The figure crouched, with its features advanced towards his, and William Maubray could neither speak nor move, and lay so for some time, till with a “Ho!” he suddenly recovered the power of motion, and sprang out of bed at the side farthest from the visionary Aunt Dinah; and as he did so, he distinctly felt the grasp of a cold hand upon his wrist, which, just as before, vanished as he recovered the full possession of his waking faculties, leaving, however, its impression there.

  William lighted his candle at the fire, and listened for a long time before he could find courage to look to the Other side of the bed. When he did, however, no sign of Aunt Dinah, sane or mad, was there. The door was shut, and the old fashioned furniture stood there prim and faded as usual, and everything maintained its old serenity. On his wrist, however, were the marks of a recent violent pressure, and William was seized with an uncontrollable anxiety about Aunt Dinah which quite overcame his panic; and getting on his clothes, and making a preliminary survey of the gallery, which was still and empty, he hurried to Aunt Dinah’s door and knocked.

  “It’s I — William. How are you, aunt? are you quite well?” asked he, in reply to her.

  “Who’s there? what’s all that?”

  “I, William.”

  “Come in, child: you may. I’m in my bed: what takes you out of yours?”

  “I had a dream, and fancied you were in my room, and — and ill.”

  “Pooh, pooh, my dear William, get back to your room. It is all a fancy. I’ve been here in bed for an hour or more, reading my dear father’s sermon on the Woman of Endor.”

  . There she was, sitting up in a flannel dressing gown, with the sometime dean’s large and legible manuscript before her, and no doubt investigating, with the lights thrown by Elihu Bung, the phenomena in which the witch of those remote times dealt.

  “I heard you talk a little time ago,” said Aunt Dinah, after a short and curious stare at William’s pallid countenance.

  “No,” said William, “I didn’t; I heard it too. It was that in fact that partly alarmed me. It is very odd.”

  “Were there knockings?” inquired she.

  “No, no knocking,” said William; “it opened, with a push.”

  “What, my dear?” demanded Aunt Dinah, sitting very erect as she gazed with a dark curiosity in William’s face, and abandoned the dean’s manuscript on the coverlet “The door,” he answered. “It is very odd. It’s the most horrid thing I ever heard of. I’m sorry I slept in that room.”

  CHAPTER LII.

  NEXT MORNING.

  AUNT DINAH leaned on her thin hand, looking with something like fear at William fixed and silently.

  “What o’clock is it, aunt?” asked he.

  “Three minutes to four,” she replied, consulting her broad old gold watch, and then holding it to he
r ear. “Yes; three minutes to four. I thought it was later. You saw something, William Maubray — you did. You have seen something: haven’t you?”

  So William, bit by bit, scared and very uncomfortable, recounted his adventure, to which Miss Perfect listened attentively, and she said —

  “Yes — it is remarkable — very wonderful — if anything can be said to be particularly so, where all is marvellous. I understand it, quite.”

  “And what is it?” asked he.

  “The spirit key again — my name and image — don’t you see? and ‘don’t let me go,’ and the other intimation — take it all together, it’s quite plain.”

  “Do tell me, dear aunt, what you mean?”

  “It all connects, dear William, with what I told you; the grasp of that hand links you with the spirit world; the image was mine — my double, I do suppose. Hand me that snuff-box. It spoke as if after my death; it urged upon you to maintain your correspondence with me-’don’t let me go’ — and it plainly intimates that I shall have the power of doing as I promised and certainly shall, in case you should meditate disregarding my solemn warning about your marriage, and think of uniting yourself, William dear, to anyone, before the expiration of five years — there’s the whole thing in a nutshell.”

  “May I sit here for a little?” asked William, who from childish years had been accustomed to visit his aunt’s room often, and when she was ill used to sit there and read for her.

  “Certainly, my dear: but don’t go to sleep and fall into the fire.”

  Aunt Dinah resumed her sermon, with now and then a furtive reference to Elihu Bung, concealed under her pillow, and William Maubray sat near the bed with his feet on the fender: and thus for nearly five minutes — he looking on the bars, and she on her sermon and her volume of reference — at the end of that time she laid it again on the coverlet, and looked for some time thoughtfully on the back of William’s head; and she said so suddenly as to make him start —

  “Five years is nothing: it’s quite ridiculous making a fuss about it I’ve known girls engaged that time, and longer, too: for ten and even twelve years.”

  “Pretty girls they must have been by that time,” thought William, who was recovering from the panic of his vision. — .

  “And I think they made fonder couples than people that are married three weeks after their engagement,” added Aunt Dinah. “Therefore do have a little patience.”

  “But I’m in no hurry about anything,” said William; “least of all about marriage. I have not an idea; and if I had I couldn’t; and my honest belief is I shall die an old bachelor.”

  “H’m! I never mind what people say on that subject,” said Miss Perfect; “but I hope what you’ve experienced tonight will be a warning. Yes, dear William, I’m very glad it has happened; it is always well to know the truth — it may affright, but when it comes in the shape of warning it is always welcome — that is it ought to be.

  II — needed nothing more to convince me, but you did, and you’ve got it. Depend upon it, if you disobey you are a ruined man all your days; and if I die before the time, I’ll watch you as an old gray cat watches a mouse — ha, ha, ha! and if you so much as think of it, I’ll plague you — I will. Yes, William, I’ll save you in spite of yourself, and mortal was never haunted and tormented as you’ll be, till you give it up.”

  William could not have forborne a joke, though a kindly one, upon such a speech at another time; but somehow now he could not. The spectre of Aunt Dinah cowering at his bedside was present with him, and when she bid him goodnight, although he was ashamed to confess his trepidation, he hated a return to that oldfashioned room where he had twice experienced the same kind of visitation.

  When he returned he made up his fire, drew his window curtains wide open to admit -the earliest streak of sunrise, pulled his bed-curtains back to the posts, and placed his candle on the table in the centre of the room, resolved that Aunt Dinah’s double should not at all events steal on him unawares.

  At last the pleasant October morning came. The wind that had blown wildly in the night was quiet now, having left its spoil of yellow leaves strewn upon the lawn or rustling over the gravel walks.

  The cheerful yellow light cleared the room of all unearthly shadows, and the song of birds refreshed his ears, as he made his early toilet.

  The joyous bark of little Psyche scampering before the windows, the call of the driver to his team, the whistling of birds, the voices of the inmates of the house, and at last the laugh of Violet Darkwell from the porch.

  Beautiful music! like merry spirits in the air departing, soon to be heard no more. He stood with his hand on his half open door — smiling — scarcely breathing — listening, as never did Fanatico per la musica, to the favourite roulade of prima donna. It ceased — he listened still, and then sighed in the silence, and seemed to himself to waken.

  In his ear that music sounded sadly, and his heart I was full as he ran down the stairs smiling. And pretty Violet’s slender figure was leaning at the side of the; porch; and she looked up, knowing his step, with a smile, the old kindly smile, for a moment, and then, its character a little changed, something of the inscrutable but beautiful reserves of girlhood, which baffled, and interested, and pained William so. He would have liked to have called her Vi. The name was at his lips;! but there was something of pride, which even thus, while his boat is on the shore and his bark is on the sea,; restrained him.

  “Miss — mind I’m calling you rightly — Miss Violet Darkwell, I’m so glad I’ve found you so early,” he ‘ said, smiling, “my hours — I ought to say minutes — are so precious. I go at halfpast ten, and I hardly saw or heard you last night, you were so anxious to be off.”

  “You forget how wise we all were, and wisdom, though ’tis a very good thing, is not lively; and its chief use, I suppose, is that — a sort of lullaby, for I’m sure nobody ever minds it. You don’t nor I, nor darling grannie: and I think if you wanted to be put to sleep there would be nothing like having a tranquil old sage, like Winnie Dobbs, at your bedside to repeat a string of her sayings, like ‘Early to bed and early to rise make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise;’ and besides being very wise, I think you were just, if it is not very disrespectful to say so, ever so little cross, so that altogether I thought it best to go to bed and to sleep as fast as I could.”

  “I quite forget. Was I cross? I dare say I was. I think ill-temper is one expression of suffering; and I have not been very happy lately,” said William.

  “You have been strangely misrepresented, then,” said the young lady, slily.

  “So I have; and I do so wish you’d stop about that nonsense. You can’t conceive unless you knew the people— “

  “I thought she was very pretty,” interrupted Miss Darkwell, innocently.

  “So she is — perhaps — I dare say; but pretty or plain, as I said before, I’m not in love with her. Pm not in love, thank Heaven, with anyone and I”

  “Come in to prayers, William, dear,” Aunt Dinah called aloud from the parlour door, “I’ve had breakfast early, expressly for you, and you must not delay it.”

  CHAPTER LIII.

  THE FLOWER.

  AT breakfast the little party had a great deal to talk about, topics of hope, and topics of regret, glanced at in all sorts of spirits, sad and cheerful, black spirits and white, blue spirits and gray; but on the whole one would have said, looking on and a stranger to all that was possibly passing within, that it was a cheerful meal.

  “Five miles and a half to the station, and the up train at eleven forty-five.” The cab, or whatever it is, will be here at halfpast ten, and then goodbye. Farewell, perhaps, for three years to Gilroyd,” so said William, as he and Violet Darkwell stood side by side, looking out from the window, upon the glowing autumnal landscape.

  “Three years! you don’t mean to say you’d stay away all that time, without ever coming to see grannie?”

  “Of course if she wants me I’ll come; but should she not, and
should she at the same time continue, as I hope she will, quite well, and should I be kept close to my work, as I expect, it’s sure to turn out as I say. Three years — yes, it is a long time — room for plenty of changes, and changes enough, great ones, there will be, no doubt.’’ The uplands of Revington formed the background of the pretty prospect before him, and it needed the remembrance of the promise he had made to Aunt Dinah to prevent his speaking with less disguise, for he always felt of late an impetuous longing almost fierce to break through conventional hypocrisies, and lay bare his wounded heart, and upbraid, and implore, in the wildest passion before Violet Darkwell. To be alone with her, and yet say nothing of all that was swelling and rolling at his heart — was pain. And yet to be alone with her, even in this longing and vain anguish, and near her, was a strange despairing delight.

  “Oh, yes, everyone changes, every day almost, except dear grannie and old Winnie Dobbs. I’m sure I change, and so do you, and what won’t three years do? You’ve changed very much, and not for the better,” and saying this Miss Violet laughed.

  “My changes, be they what they may, don’t seem to trouble you much,” replied William.

  “Trouble? — not at all. I dare say they are improvements, though I don’t like them,” laughed she.

  “I don’t think I’m a bit changed. I know I’m not, in fact. Tell me any one thing in which I’m changed.”

  “Well, it is generally; you have grown so disagreeable, that’s all — it is not much to me, but I dare say it will be to other people,” said she.

  “I’m disagreeable — yes, of course — because I have my opinion about men and things, and fools and nonsense. I don’t know anything I’ve said to you, at least since I came yesterday, that could annoy you. I have not mentioned a single subject that could possibly even interest you. I dare say it is tiresome my talking so much as Aunt Dinah makes me, about myself. But I couldn’t help it.”