Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “Come in, sir, ye’r welcome, mon, and sit ye doun,” said the host, who, as getting fou and unco’ happy, had expanded as on all occasions of excitement, pleasurable or otherwise, was his wont, into his broad Scotch. “And what the deil’s gane wi’ that idle limmer, that should ‘a brought us up the broiled bones half an hour ago? Pull the bell, Mr. Levi, if it’s not inconvenient, and we’ll have them up in no time; and sit ye doun; nane but friends here, sir, and there’s a plate for ye, and a knife and fork, and the hizzie’s coming with a bit broil, for it’s ill speakin’ between a fou man and a fasting; no need of introduction to the company, sir. I think ye’ll a spoken wi’ my friend Mr. Larkin, and Mr. Levi, over the way, before now,” he added, with a sly jocularity.

  “Making merry, sir,” said Mr. Larkin with a heavenly smile, and his nose and other features in an unusual glow. “In an innocent way, my friend Mr. Gillespie — he’ll allow me to call him so — would insist on his hospitable privileges; and we have all heard the Caledonian proverb, it’s good, sir, to be merry and wise — merry and wise, sir. You see the force, Mr. Mr.— “

  “Dacre” said that gentleman. “Yes, Mr. Larkin, merry and wise; or as we south of the Tweed would say, tipsy and sober.”

  “I trust not the former, sir,” said Mr. Larkin, with a momentary grandeur. “I humbly trust not, sir. We are nowhere forbidden— “

  “Oh, no,” interrupted Dacre, “nowhere but in the streets, and then they fine you five shillings, which leaves an attorney but one and eightpence from his last fee.”

  “Ah, ha, Mr., Mr. Dacre, you are amusing; I’m always diverted when you please to be so. I can’t say, however, that I do much in legal practice. I’ve been much more connected with land; my friends lie chiefly in that direction. I have the honour to know a good many persons — old friends, attached more or less to my family — persons of distinction, in fact, and I have been drawn very much into the direction of their estates, and — liking me, and knowing all about me, so that— “

  “That’s all so interesting, Mr. Larkin,” said Mr. Dacre, “and — no, thanks, I’ll not take any,” he said, waving away the glass of punch which Mr. Gillespie had ladled from the bowl, and now presented. “But though I shan’t drink any myself, you must all fill bumpers, for I’ve come to tell you this, we are on the point of — victory!”

  “Victory! — Hout, mon, do you mean— “exclaimed Gillespie.

  Mr. Larkin, with his small rat-like eyes, looked on him intently, and Mr. Levi lowered his cigar, and with his great mouth agape, glared on him with his lurid black eyes.

  “Mean? Of course I mean immediate and certain, gentlemen. Jews, Christians, Scotchmen, fill your glasses, and drink to our success,” cried Mr. Dacre, giving the table a blow with his hand, that made plates and glasses jump and jingle, and caused the liquor in the punch-bowl to dance in concentric rings. “And if you don’t fill your glasses, this moment, to the brim, I’ll smash that bowl with a blow of my stick, and cut the heads off your candles at a stroke. Come, gentlemen, we are all friends, as you say.”

  “All friends,” they acquiesced in various tones of alacrity. “For as the great Roman martyr and moralist, Cataline, said— ‘Idem velle atque idem nolle, id demum firma amicitia est’ D — n you, drink your odious mixtures when I command you.”

  “Here, Larkin, ye deevil’s buckie, drink this. I tauld ye amang us, we’d mak a spune, or spoil a horn,” cried Gillespie, in high elation, forcing the tumbler of punch which Dacre had declined into Larkin’s hand, not minding though the nectar trickled over that good man’s knuckles.

  “Hollandsh and water for me,” said Mr. Levi, preparing accordingly.

  “And what for no — Leeberty Hall gentlemen, and here’s the hizzie wi’ the broiled banes, sir. Set it down here, lassie, and awa’ wi’ ye. That will do, shut to the door. And noo, sirs, we’ll drink to our success, sirs, and three times three.”

  Laughing gently at the absurdity of the ceremonial, Mr. Larkin, whose heart was beating fast with the ardour of avarice, and finding that he was in for it, joining with a childlike, smiling simplicity that was very delightful to witness.

  “Drink it all, sir. I’ve another toast to give you,” cried Mr. Dacre.

  So, with three times three, hip-hip, hurrah, and so forth, in their boyish mirth these innocent souls honoured Mr. Dacre’s toast, and Mr. Larkin playfully finished his honest bumper.

  “And how soon, sir, by what day, Mr., Mr. Dacre, when is the rent-day, sir? Ye ken what I mean; is it fixed yet? ‘twill come betimes, I warrant, hey?” said Mr. Gillespie, with a greedy chuckle, rubbing his hands.

  “In a week or ten days,” said Mr. Dacre.

  Mr. Gillespie made a great gasp, and an oath, and his hard-featured countenance puckered up with delight, like the face of a hoary old chimpanzee, while Mr. Levi bounced up with a loud “hooray!” and added with an oath of his own— “Then that stock’s looking up; newshe for the governor,” and another “hooray.”

  “And if it were permitted me,” said the bland voice of Mr. Larkin, “as in a friendly way, we are this evening indulging in a little goodhumoured badinage (he pronounced the word as it is spelt), I may be permitted to return Mr. — , my esteemed friend’s toast, by proposing the health of a person of very first-class merit indeed, whom we all here present desire to see happily united — a lady residing not a hundred miles from Old Brompton, and whom I may name “Name any lady of my acquaintance — dare to name her, and by heaven, I’ll fling you out of that window.”

  The accent of frenzy with which Dacre almost shrieked this threat was so sudden, his face was so bloodless, his eyes gleamed such livid hatred, and the clenched hand that was advanced toward the dumb-stricken attorney quivered with such extremity of passion, that the spectacle resembled rather the starting of an apparition from the floor than a transformation wrought by sudden anger.

  “Hey — guide us, Mr. Dacre,” cried Gillespie, extending his arm and hand with a soothing gesture; “ye wouldn’t, sure. Why, — douce Mr. Larkin — ye would na be for gieing douce Jos. Larkin, a craiga-thraw. Hout, mon, he never meant the least offence, sir, tisn’t in him. What don’t ye speak for yoursel, Mr. Larkin? Tell him, Levi, will ye?”

  Mr. Levi, so far from taking any trouble to smooth matters, seemed to think it a very pretty quarrel as it stood, and evidently enjoyed it more than a dog or cock fight, and was grinning and glowering at the group with undisguised interest and entertainment, from the mist of his tobacco smoke.

  “Allow me one moment,” said Mr. Larkin, persuasively. “I’m most unfortunate; and I beg to assure you— “

  “That will do — that’s enough,” interrupted Mr. Dacre; “only don’t do it again; you had better not.”

  Mr. Larkin threw himself back, with his arm over the back of his chair and his head thrown back, so that he looked mildly on the ceiling, and closed his eyes; for being a proud man, Mr. Larkin did not choose to admit himself frightened, and chose rather to appear patient and as much amused as a religious attorney ought to be.

  “And now we are all comfortable again, Mr. Dacre. Ye’ll drink a dram in friendship wi’ Mr. Larkin?” suggested Gillespie.

  “No,” said Dacre, recovering; “no; I’ll drink no drams, but I’ll give you, gentlemen, another toast. I give you Mr. Larkin. Mr. Larkin in the management of my estates — I don’t know a rogue in England I’d prefer. You shall have the management of them, Mr. Larkin; and you shall drink your own health, sir, or it’s all off. Gillespie, put a glass of brandy in his tumbler, and fill it up with punch.”

  “But, sir,” remonstrated Mr. Larkin, “I should be ill.”

  “Drunk, sir — drunk, you mean — and who the devil cares whether you are drunk or sober?”

  “I don’t say drunk, Mr. Dacre — there — there — pray don’t, pray don’t, Mr. Dacre — but if I were knocked up tomorrow. I have business, sir, as well as a position, I hope,” he said grandly.

  “All I say is this,” interrupted Dacre
, “if you don’t drink my toast — a bumper, sir — you don’t manage my estate; one guinea richer for me you never shall be, if I can prevent it.”

  “Hout, Mr. Larkin, what for do you fash yourself, and make such a fuss about your drap punch, and anger our gude friend, Mr. Dacre, for naething?” exclaimed Mr.

  “Gillespie, thrusting the tumbler into Mr. Larkin’s very reluctant hand.

  Mr. Levi, who, I’m afraid, was a little malicious, enjoyed his friend Mr. Larkin’s perplexity.

  “Well, sir, if I do this, I really must not be expected— “

  “You’ll not be expected to walk. Oh, no, we’ll drive you home in a hansham,” interposed Mr. Levi.

  “I say, I mean, it must end here — it really must,” expostulated Mr. Larkin, with as much dignity as he could rally.

  So that toast, also, was drunk with all the honours.

  “And ye say in a week, maybe, or ten days at maist?” said Mr. Gillespie, grinning, while his harsh red face looked redder in contrast with his white bristles.

  “Yes, in a week, maybe, or ten days at maist,” repeated Dacre, with a very angry glance. “I — you — didn’t I tell you so before?”

  “Troth, sirs, this affair we must all admit is no that ill managed,” said Gillespie; “a delicate matter, sirs, and deevilish weel managed. Mr. Goldshed will say so and what say you, Mr. Levi — the best cast ye’ve made this mony a day. Eh?”

  “A long way, shirs, by a long chalk, Mr. Gillespie,” said Mr. Levi, gravely shaking his black ringlets; “and I think it’s only due to Mr. Dacre, we should drink his health, shir, like the rest, with all the honours, Mr. Gillespie.”

  “What for no,” thundered Gillespie, “I gi’ ye the health of our esteemed friend, Mr. Dacre. Mix yer brandy and water, will ye, ye neer-do-weel, Levi, and come, Mr. Larkin, where’s yer tumbler? ay, we have it; come now, lad, we’ll fit ye in a minute.”

  Mr. Larkin rosier than he was, perhaps, ever seen before, shook his head solemnly, and raised his large hands, also, in silence.

  “And double-shotted,” added Levi.

  “Double-shotted,” echoed the white-headed Scot. “What for no,” and he halffilled Mr. Larkin’s tumbler with whisky, and completed the bumper with punch.

  But Mr. Larkin waved it back with a dignified abhorrence; in his present state he seemed to draw more upon gesture than language, and certainly was very red and pompous.

  “Hout, fie, hout, fie, Mr. Larkin, ye’ll not refuse, mon,” cried Gillespie.

  “Disagree, sir,” murmured Larkin, loftily and thickly.

  “Nonsense, mon, are ye daft?” whispered Gillespie, energetically, “drink your drap punch, sir, and don’t anger the gentleman; ye’ll no refuse, sir; why, mon, ‘twad be the ruin ‘o ye.”

  “And shleep here,” said Levi, “theresh a nishe four-poshter in the front parlour; there he goesh all right.”

  “Vey unfair, sir, no’ right, very wrong, I say,” murmured Mr. Larkin, reproachfully.

  “Now for it,” cried Gillespie.

  “Mind, gentlemen, I protest, and I’ll — I’ll shleep here, I think,” said Mr. Larkin with a melancholy shake of his head, and he drank his tumbler of punch slowly, while Gillespie was making his speech, and he looked still redder and more solemn, and nothing would induce him to utter another word.

  “He’s afraid — lest he should forget himself and say a something true, the beast!”

  So shouted Dacre, and with a savage laugh he ran downstairs and got into his brougham, and when the door was shut he buried his face in his hands.

  “This is the last profanation. Oh, Laura, darling, forgive, forgive, forgive.”

  That night was a great scandal, I’m sorry to say, at the hotel of the unexceptionable Josiah Howard Larkin, Esq., of the Lodge, Brandon Park, Gylingdon, who was dropped at its door by a little Jew calling himself “the Rev. Tobiashe Philpott,” who stated that he had stumbled upon him while lying in a state of insensibility, near the Black Jack tavern, in Milk Lane, in company with a Roman Catholic clergyman, and a billiard-marker, all suffering from overpowering indisposition. When the admirable gentleman was carried in by “boots” and the cabman, and placed upon a bench in the hall, his chin upon his breast, he smiled, murmuring indistinctly, “blesh ye, my friendsh, and r’memb’r I’m poorle — poorly, shir, vey poorle — wheresh th’ pillow?”

  This kind of babble, and a powerful fragrance of punch, aided the diagnosis of “boots,” who, with the waiter, got him, faintly resisting, to his bed; and Mr. Larkin in the morning was more formal and reserved with the people of the inn than usual, and received a Wesleyan deputation on the subject of a chapel at Gylingdon, with a severe headache.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  DE BEAUMIRAIL SEES VISITORS.

  DE Beaumirail the prisoner was ill next morning, but the malady of this scamp was, as beseemed it, very different from that of the serious attorney, who was bullied into an indiscretion, and received a Methodist deputation about the same hour, with a stupid punch headache throbbing in his temples.

  De Beaumirail was moping about his room pale, dejected, and with a hectic in his cheek that made his eyes look strangely bright.

  He saw his insolvent doctor dawdling about the court, and tapped a summons on the pane of glass with his pencil-case, and beckoned him to come up. With a lazy smile the doctor waved a salutation, and sauntered upstairs.

  “You wont believe me,” said the doctor, “but you’re as full of hysteria as a schoolgirl, and you have a touch of that nasty sinking that so many poor devils get from being shut up too long in one place.”

  “I don’t know how it is, doctor, but I do think there is something quite wrong here in my heart I think.”

  “Pooh,” said’ the doctor, “your heart, indeed.”

  And he popped his ear to De Beaumirail’s waistcoat, and listened for a while.

  “No, sir, sound as a bell,” said he, “but you oughtn’t to be drinking that cursed tea in the morning, lowering the action of the heart, and working your nerves into hysteria. I can’t get you’ to see that a regimen that would do you no harm if you were knocking about the world, wont, answer here, sir, especially after five or six years’ incarceration. By Jove, sir, I’ve had to come under rule myself, a little gin-and-water, sir, I take, and I assure you the effect a glass or two produces is quite ridiculous, sir; there’s no one feels for us, what’s everybody’s business, sir, is nobody’s business, and so, sir, we are left here to rot under this murderous system and put to a slow — that’s her, the new woman, is it? in the window — third from the corner — old: woman, the Dowager Lady Flammock, poor old devil! — put to a slow torture, sir, and killed by inches, for the crime of being poor!”

  “A disgusting crime it is, doctor, we must admit,” said De Beaumirail, with a shrug.

  “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest, sir,” said the doctor; “rich people enough, sir, to speak ill of us, without our joining.

  “Doctor,” said he, “you’re a goodnatured fellow, but I think there’s something wrong; you fellows were never known yet to tell a man when there was anything amiss with his heart.”

  “Well, it’s a nervous heart, and a weak heart, sir, that’s all — and that’s the reason, I’m always telling you to give up tea and cigars.”

  “You are a goodnatured fellow, very goodnatured, doctor. But upon my honour, you need not fancy you’d frighten me; there’s nothing now within the circle of possibilities so welcome as death.”

  “There again, that’s the way, sir, you depress your spirits, and if your spirits go down, the system goes down; it’s only one thing of course, but still it’s something,” said the doctor.

  “May I live a year?” asked De Beaumirail.

  “Nonsense,” said the doctor.

  “Two?”

  “Yes, three; you may live thirty years, sir, if you’ll only be advised; you have just a nervous heart, don’t you see; and if you persist in ill-treating it, why it may resent it, and
organic disease, might result.”

  “Three years. Well, doctor, three years is a long day.”

  “And thirty is longer,” said the doctor; “will you come out and take a little stroll up and down? There’s sun on the other side of the court — summer, sir, beautiful.”

  “Thanks, no; I expect a friend here every moment.”

  “Well, my dear sir, you’re not to let your spirits down, mind; and there’s Mark Wagget looking for me. I’ll run down, and you know where to find me, not a hundred miles from Farringdon-street, if you should happen to want me.”

  And with this joke, which did service pretty often, the doctor went downstairs whistling, and stumbled into the court, where he hailed his friend; and they strolled and shuffled about together, and seemed to have no lack of lazy banter, till Mark growing serious, pulled a coffee-stained Times out of his greatcoat pocket. A greatcoat with a hole in the elbow, was oddly enough, a garment which Mark had worn all that unusually hot summer — and the two luminaries under a bushel, put their heads together over an essay which affected them in their public capacity as prisoners in the Fleet, and nodded and talked over it earnestly.

  De Beaumirail, in a blank state of mind, watching the consultation of these worthies, as he leaned against his window-shutter, was recalled to other things, by a knock at his door, and his gentle friend, good Mr. Parker, came in.

  “My kind and good friend,” said De Beaumirail, taking the old man’s hand in both his own. “I can only say how infinitely obliged I am. Your letter reached me half an hour ago; you have done all I wished; you will understand hereafter how good a work you’ve aided. But, for me nothing good can ever come. Some few vain agitations, sir; I’ve always been sanguine, hope has been my intoxication, and I have drunk deep enough of the cup of madness. I shall taste it no more: a crisis with me is at hand, sir; the somnambulist you have known so long, is waked at last, and finds himself on the angle of a precipice from which there is no descent but to be dashed to pieces. Fancy three vultures, sir, and an eagle in the air employed to strike down quarry for them — it is a monstrous dream — all false but their cadaverous appetites. I’ll write to you by-and-by; you’ll understand our Christian friend, Larkin, better when I do; and, sir, I believe I shan’t live very long; there’s something fatal, something has begun, the seed is sown, and the harvest will soon be white for the reaper; perhaps I shan’t see you again, sir, till you come to read your good books to me, which then, you know, I shan’t have strength to escape from” — he smiled— “but meanwhile you’ll write to me; I’ll tell you what about — time enough.”