Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  She could contemplate Mark’s condition with complacency. But it was otherwise in the case of the women. Of her own sex she was profoundly suspicious. Cowardice is our weakness, thought she, and our strength is treachery, these Shadwells are two fools; but with the usual duplicity, with all her caresses, that woman has been jealous for nearly two months, and the sneak dared not betray it to her husband or move me from Raby; and now he has talked, of course, of sending me away, and she submits — angelic submission! — and without consulting him tells me I’m to go, and so, she fancies, pins him to that resolve, “and Miss Rachel, of course, she knew perfectly what her mamma was thinking of. I’m not angry, dear, only amused,” murmured Miss Marlyn, with a pale smile, in which was something both of malice and victory, as she gently rose and got her paper and envelopes.

  But when she sat down, with her pen in her fingers, she found that she was not in the vein of letter-writing, and she drew a crowd of profiles instead all over the sheet of paper, all the time in a deep reverie, finishing the noses and other features with a touch so careful and delicate that one might have fancied she was etching for her bread and fame.

  Looking carefully at one of these, which she held up before her eyes, she murmured, with a bitter smile, not seeing it, I think:

  “Bauldie! what an idea! Roger Temple, I may come back to you, Bauldie, if everything goes wrong, in ten years’ time. You’ll be nothing the worse of the wait. You’ll not have a tooth or a hair less, but you would not do to begin with; no, Bauldie, I must try my fortune before I spoil it. One brilliant chance already spoiled by a coup of ill fortune! Lady Wycherly, I should have been.” She set her teeth resolutely, and tapped her little knuckles fiercely on the dressing-table. “He could not have helped it — nothing could have prevented. Well, we must only try again. He’s quite gone — quite, quite, quite. I hate thinking of him. I’m always fancying that old face,” — she peeped over her shoulder,— “I have many years, and the game has many turns.”

  Here she hummed a little air, and a moment after she laughed. “Poor little Monsieur La Roque! with your nez retrousse and dolorous old face, what a lover you were, with your chassée and your pas de sylphide, and your little fiddle, my first lover, at fifty-nine years! You had your brilliant hopes all dashed in a moment by an impertinence of fortune. To be in the very act of winning two hundred thousand francs — the ball stopped — the croupier, with rouge on the tip of his tongue, and La Roque a made man, when down falls the house! and La Roque, croupier, roulette-table, company, candles, all, all — buried under fourteen feet of bricks, boards, plaster, tiles, and rubbish! Poor little La Roque! how you used, to relate the tragedy and your own extrication, after eight-and-twenty hours passed, between a hearthstone and a dead Jew, and yours and his discovery, reposing together like the ‘Babes in the Wood,’ only strewn over with a pack of cards, instead of leaves! Well, down fell my house also, at the moment of fortune, and — killed it, buried that stake; but I shall play again. I don’t give it up, like you! What a wicked, insane, ridiculous creature I am! Is there another such on earth?”

  And the young lady, who thus described herself, made a courtesy before the glass, and laughed gaily in her own beautiful face.

  This young lady came down in a little while, saint-like and sad. But Mrs. Shadwell was changed, cold, formal, quite a different Mrs. Shadwell, on whose pained and averted face the sad, appealing glances of Agnes Marlyn were wasted.

  I think the young lady had misgivings as to the good sense of her little experiment of that day.

  “Your mamma is angry?” said Miss Agnes to Rachel.

  “I never saw her angry; I have seen her offended, though,” said Rachel.

  “Well, offended; I did not mean that she is in a passion.”

  Rachel made no reply. They were now in the hall, going out for their walk.

  “Rachel!” said Miss Agnes, in the tone of a person goodhumouredly calling up a child from a nap.

  “Well?”

  “Come; why need we quarrel at present?”

  “I don’t understand you, Agnes; I don’t want to quarrel; and I don’t care to talk.” And Rachel was silent again.

  “Unsociable little woman! Because I have shown a momentary wickedness, for which I am sorry, you would put me in Coventry — your mamma would forgive me, but you can’t,” said Agnes.

  “I don’t think you had any business talking to mamma as you did, and looking at her, and smiling at her; I never felt so angry in my life,” said Rachel, with spirit.

  “You are not so angry with me as I am with myself; but I am unhappy, and misery is one of the many roads to wickedness, and so I have been odious; and then comes remorse — I am sorry. When you said I looked, and smiled, and talked, as I ought not, I might have said, as other girls would, ‘what can you mean?’ and looked innocently surprised, and all that; but I disdain that, and instead, I say, I am sorry!”

  Rachel looked at her, but there was inquiry and distrust in her eyes. Confidence dies, like love, from slight causes, and is sometimes as hard to give back.

  “I see you don’t like me; you will never like me again.”

  Rachel was silent.

  “No — never — but you may forgive, and bear with me while I stay; and when you have experienced half the sorrow I have, you may understand how grief makes us bitter, and bitterness makes us impatient of all good restraints. You cannot like me, I see you cannot even forgive me, perhaps; but at least you may pity and indulge me for the few days that I shall still ‘remain at Raby, and when I am gone, and your task ended, perhaps you will remember me less unkindly.”

  “Which way shall we walk, Agnes?” said Rachel, on whom this appeal of Agnes Marlyn’s did not act quite as usual.

  “You shall choose, Rachel; and you shall forgive me by-and-by,” said Agnes. “Do choose?”

  “I don’t care, really;” and Rachel looked half-disposed to turn back, and put off her walk to tomorrow.

  “Well, suppose we go towards Wynderfel?” V said Agnes.

  “I shan’t go to Wynderfel again for a long time; I have a horror of that place. Wretched Carmel Sherlock was taken there, and wounded, and we met Sir Roke Wycherly there also. I hate it; I think it a ghastly place,” said Rachel.

  “And it is too far away,” said Agnes, looking towards the dim summits of the distant trees that surround those old walls. The sun would have set by the time we had reached it; but suppose we just ramble a little among those trees close by; they are so noble, and the sun shines up among the grass between them so softly.”

  Rachel and Agnes walked on together.

  “What a pity it is you don’t know some thing of the world, my poor little Rachel,” said Miss Agnes, looking toward the setting sun. “I don’t mean the great world, or the bad world, but simply men and women — what our vicar calls human nature, and preaches about, although he doesn’t know anything about it either; it is bad living in a solitude like this — living among affectations — it is not simplicity, it is not even ignorance, for every recluse knows all the time what she herself is.”

  “I am not conscious of being anything I don’t seem,” said Rachel.

  “No, perhaps not; I dare say you know yourself very moderately; but you can take short, hard views of the few persons you meet; you can thank them as little as you please for what they do; the flatteries of a few dozen old servants who know they would not be tolerated in other houses; and the idolatry of your mamma — don’t be vexed — make you fancy yourself a paragon. Living in a desert, in the midst of prejudiced admiration, always has that effect, it would upon me, it has upon you — and you think it is only natural and right that all the world should admire, and love, and pet you; but, my dear, the meaning of the world is simply equality — the human republic; don’t you see égalité, liberté, fraternité! and with what measure you mete, it will be measured to you again.”

  “I think I saw papa this moment,” said Rachel, drily.

  “Oh!” murmured Miss Ag
nes.

  “Yes, walking down there, among the chestnut trees, where we are going; hadn’t we better tom? he might not like to be disturbed.”

  “Oh, yes — turn — to be sure!” said Miss Marlyn, a little peevishly. “Are we not curious people here, with all our simplicity, afraid of meeting one another; so many little rules and crotchets, formalities and distances, unconscious contempts, and absurd egotisms. Pray cry, à bas the whole thing! and vive the other true forms of common sense which I have named!”

  She turned, and they walked in another direction.

  “Yes, of course, if Mr. Shadwell was there.”

  Was Miss Marlyn beginning to sneer again? Rachel glanced at her quickly.

  “Well! I look at you again; do I look very wicked, or very mad? I don’t feel it. Here is the translation of my little speech,” said Miss Marlyn. “Your papa is my enemy, I am sorry to say, and being so, I should rather never see him more, that is all. Is it unnatural?”

  “It is possible not to like another, and yet not be their enemy,” said Rachel, gravely.

  Miss Agnes looked at her for a moment, and then, on a sudden, her sense of the ridiculous seemed irresistibly moved, for she laughed, long and merrily, not a sarcastic laugh, quite the contrary, a perfectly goodhumoured, and even goodnatured one, and the more grave Miss Rachel looked, the more heartily she laughed.

  Rachel struggled to maintain her gravity for a time, but the contagion eventually overpowered her, and she was constrained to join in her companion’s laughter; and they laughed in rivalry till they almost cried.

  “At last,” said Agnes, recovering, but still breathless, laying her hand lightly upon Rachel’s arm: “I’ve been lecturing you and you have been freezing me — so much satire, and so much dignity — and all thrown away, for we can’t quarrel; no, Rachel, we can’t, it is not in us. When we try it, laughter comes in, and the whole thing breaks down, and leaves us just as we were before, and — here we are.”

  And with these words her arms were about Rachel’s neck, and she kissed her; and Rachel returned the caress, saying:

  “I do believe, Pucelle, you are right, and it is no use trying to quarrel — but you have been very disagreeable.”

  “And odious; and you have been just as bad. And now, see, the sun is within half an inch of Feltram hill, and you know, as the vicar says, we must not let him go down on our wrath.”

  So she kissed her, and was kissed again, and very amicably the two girls returned from their walk.

  VOLUME III.

  CHAPTER I.

  SUSPENDED CHANGE.

  AFTER this little escapade Miss Agnes Marlyn seemed very penitent. Loving and pleasant with Rachel, and very contrite in presence of Mrs. Shadwell she was not content with this distant and imperfect expression of her regrets in presence of her offended “benefactress,” as she used to call her, but made long lamentations in her walks with Rachel, reproached herself, and was so désolé, and so engaged her companion to undertake her cause that Mrs. Shadwell forgave, and tried to forget the little scene which had seemed to suggest a suspicion of that kind of impertinence which no woman can tolerate.

  She had indeed lost the place she once had in Mrs. Shadwell’s affection. But she seemed content with the portion of regard that remained to her, and grateful for it.

  “I’m going away so soon, going so very soon, we must not have a clouded hour till that which is clouded by parting.”

  There seemed to have grown upon her, with her penitential and loving mood, an increased dislike of Mr. Shadwell, a systematic avoidance of him, which might result chiefly from wounded pride, but which might also have a more malignant antipathy for its basis. The distant apparition of this gloomy man, the wideawake-hat, the short weather-beaten velveteen coat and the gun, approaching among the trees startled her, as the sight of the distant ranger might the wary deer, or turned her course as it might the flight of a bird. Often, as she or Rachel walked together, Agnes would, on a sudden, change the direction of their route, and, perhaps, a minute later, Rachel would see the cause of this deviation in the distant figure of her father. In the house, too, the sound of his step would suffice to hush her music or her voice, and to arrest her step or withdraw it from the threshold of her door.

  This avoidance, too, was not unobserved by the object of it, and, I think, it made him secretly angry. He was suffering now, and things that would once have amused, or at most piqued him, now filled him with fury.

  A day or two had restored Agnes Marlyn very nearly to her former footing with Rachel. After all, there was nothing tangible to lay to her charge, and how could she keep up a quarrel upon a mere caprice of temper? In fact they were as good friends as ever; Agnes, when she pleased, could make herself very amusing and winning to her young companion, and now she did choose. So Rachel often insinuated a good word for Agnes in her occasional conversations with her mother. But Mrs. Shadwell made no answer on these occasions. She neither seemed pleased, nor the least disposed to discuss Miss Marlyn with her daughter, who wondered that her mamma, usually the most placable of mortals, could so resent a mere impertinence, already repented of with so much contrition.

  By one of those instinctive processes, which are accomplished in a moment of time, Miss Marlyn had undergone a transformation in the eyes of Mrs. Shadwell. Not all the logic of the subtlest sophist, not all the oratory of angels, could restore her to her former shape.

  Agnes talked plaintively to Rachel of her approaching departure.

  “I have written this morning,” she used to say, “to my only friend in London, Mademoiselle Du Chatelet, whom I knew two years ago at Madame de la Perriere’s school — too good, much too good, for that place. She gave up her situation there, being shy and grave, and is now housekeeper in an institution in London.” The reader will remember that the “Institution” was the famous “Dignum’s Cigar Saloons,” and that her “housekeeping” consisted in presenting cigars and counters, with the prettiest taper fingers and dimpling smiles, with the prettiest little lace coiffure, and a perfectly Parisian get-up, across a table at the foot of the great stairs there, to the gentlemen who, from ten o’clock P.M., began to pass up that splendidly illuminated ascent. “I have entreated her to look out for me some little convenient nook, where I may very quietly hide my foolish head, until some situation, quiet, and perhaps more humble than my present one, turns up.”

  I don’t believe, however, that her friend, Mademoiselle Du Chatelet, was conscious of any such intimation or request contained in any one of the letters with which her old friend, from time to time, enlightened and amused her.

  Agnes Marlyn had herself, in a low musical minor, alluded hastily once or twice, in Mrs. Shadwell’s presence, to her approaching departure. But Mrs. Shadwell evinced no intention whatever of interrupting her preparations, or of discussing the subject with her.

  Miss Marlyn’s heart swelled, but not with any tender regrets, under this insensibility.

  As in the solitude of her room she undressed that night, she smiled:

  “The stupid little woman! with her airs and hauteurs. How I laugh at her! Is there, madame, never more than one way of reaching a point? It may not be so easy a matter to put me out of Raby. There are none of you here so holy that you frighten me. This kind goeth not forth so easily.”

  “Why does not that woman go about her business?” demanded Mark of his wife, rather savagely, next day.

  “She says she’s going immediately,” answered she. “I have said nothing to delay her departure — I can’t hasten it, you know, Mark, for even if I were to try to do so, I could not. She has a right to remain here nearly a fortnight longer.”

  “The devil she has!”

  “I wrote down the date on which I gave her notice, as you wished.”

  “I hate that charming young woman,” said Mark.

  “Hate her?”

  “Well, that’s too strong — but I don’t like her.”

  “I did not know that, Mark, you only said you tho
ught her useless.”

  “I dare say. If she were useful, of course, — but then, she is not, so without fear of removing a valuable person, I may say that I dislike her.”

  “But why dislike her, Mark?” asked his wife, who had grown curious in some things, of late.

  “Because I think she laughs at us; I don’t care a farthing, of course. Do you like her?”

  “I think she is a little odd — but I think Rachel likes her very much.”

  “You don’t,” said he.

  “Why should I not?”

  “Oh! come, you know you don’t; and why do you look at me as if I had two heads, when I say I feel as you do?”

  “I — I really did not intend, Mark— “

  “Ho! but you did it,” said Mark, with a short laugh of scorn, who did not choose to be looked at either in that way or in curiosity. “You looked as if you intended to see through me, and read my soul.”

  Amy’s usually pale face actually flushed a little.

  “I had no such idea, I assure you, Mark.”

  “Yes, you had, I don’t know what for, though, and I can’t say I much care.”

  He walked over to the window, and stood there for a while looking out, and suddenly turned about, saying:

  “I think you have all got a way of peering at me — I don’t know what you want, it is the most offensive thing on earth. If there’s anything you want to know, you’ve got the use of your tongues, I suppose. Why the devil can’t you put your questions? I wish I could assure you, Amy,” he added, with a change of tone, perceiving how frightened his poor little wife looked, “that there is nothing, neither ill luck nor good, concealed from you. I hide nothing, absolutely, and you can’t imagine, when one is harassed by never-ending real vexations, a» I am, about which, heaven knows! I have never made a secret; how it pesters one to be watched and wondered at as if I were a witch, or the man in the ‘Iron Mask!’ I hate Agnes Marlyn, if you want to know, simply because I think she laughs at us.”