Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “You are a good creature, Martha. I am sorry to pain you, but I pain myself, and you know why I ask these questions.”

  “Ay, Sir, and I’d rather hear ye ask them than see you sit as easy under all that as some does, that owed the poor fellow as much love as ever you did, and were as near akin.”

  “I am puzzled, Martha, and hitherto I have been baffled, but I won’t give it up yet. You say that the wretch who struck you was a singular-looking man, at least as you describe him. I know, Martha, I can rely upon your caution — you will not repeat to any one what passes in our interview.” He lowered his voice. “You do not think that this Mr. Longcluse — a rich gentleman, you know and a person who thinks he’s of some consequence, a person whom we must not look at, you know, as if he had two heads — you really don’t think that this Mr. Longcluse has any resemblance to the villain whom you saw stab my brother, and who struck you?”

  “Not he — no more than I have. No, no, Mr. Longcluse is quite another sort of face; but for all that, when he came in here, and I saw him before me, his face and his speech reminded me of that night.”

  “How was that, Martha? Did he resemble the other man — the man who was aiding?”

  “That fellow was hanged, ye’ll mind, Master David.”

  “Yes, but a likeness might have struck and startled you.”

  “No, Sir — no, Master David, not him; surely not him. I can’t bring it to mind, but it frightens me. It is queer, Sir. All I can say for certain is this, Master David. The minute I heard his voice, and got sight of his face, like that,” and she dropped her hand on the table, “the thought of that awful night came back, bright and cold, Sir, and them black shadows— ’twas all about me, I can’t tell how, and I hope I may never see him again.”

  “Do you think there was another man by, besides the two villains in the gig?” suggested David Arden.

  “Not a living soul except them and myself. Poor Master Harry said to Tom Clinton, ye’ll mind, for he lived half-an-hour after, and spoke a little, though faint and with great labour, and says he, ‘There were two: Yelland Mace killed me, and Tom Todry took the money.’ Tom Clinton heard him say that, and swore to it before the justice o’ peace, and after, on the trial. No, no, there wasn’t a soul there but they two villains, and the poor dear lad they murdered, and me and Tom Clinton, that might as well ‘a’ bin in York for any good we did. Oh, no, Heaven forbid I should be so unmannerly as to compare a gentleman like Mr. Longcluse to such folk as that! Oh, lawk, no, Sir! But there’s something, there’s a look — or a sound in his voice — I can’t get round it quite — but it reminds me of something about that night, with a start like, I can’t tell how — something unlucky and awful — and I would not see him again for a deal.”

  “Well, Martha, a thousand thanks. I’m puzzled, as I said. Perhaps it is only something strange in his face that caused that odd misgiving. For I who saw but one of the wretches engaged in the crime, the man who was convicted, who certainly did not in the slightest degree resemble Mr. Longcluse, experienced the same unpleasant sensation on first seeing him. I don’t know how it is, Martha, but the idea clings to me, as it does to you. Some light may come. Something may turn up. I can’t get it out of my mind that somehow — it may be circuitously — he has, at least, got the thread in his fingers that may lead us right. Goodnight, Martha. I have got the Bible with large print you wished for; I hope you will like the binding. And now, God bless you! It is time I should bid them goodnight upstairs. Farewell, my good old friend.” And, so saying, he shook her hard and shrivelled hand.

  His steps echoed along the long tiled passage, with its one dim light, and his mind was still haunted by its one obscure idea.

  “It is strange,” he thought, “that Martha and I — the only two living persons, I believe, who care still for poor Harry, and feel alike respecting the expiation that is due to his memory — should both have been struck with the same odd feeling on seeing Longcluse. From that white sinister face, it seems to me, I know not why, will shine the light that will yet clear all up.”

  CHAPTER XXI.

  A WALK BY MOONLIGHT.

  While Martha Tansey was telling her grisly story in the housekeeper’s room, and David Arden listening to the oft-told tale, for the sake of the possible new lights which the narration might throw upon his present theory, the little party in the drawingroom had their music and their talk. Mr. Longcluse sang the song which, standing beside Uncle David on the landing, near the great window on the staircase, we have faintly heard; and then he sang that other song, of the goblin wooer, at Alice’s desire.

  “Was the poor girl fool enough to accept his invitation?” inquired Miss Maubray.

  “That I really can’t say,” laughed Mr. Longcluse.

  “Yes, indeed, poor thing! I so hope she didn’t,” said Lady May.

  “It’s very likely she did,” interposed Sir Reginald, opening his eyes — every one thought he was dozing— “nothing more foolish, and therefore, nothing more likely. Besides, if she didn’t, she probably did worse. Better to go straight to the — — “

  “Oh, dear Reginald!” exclaimed Lady May.

  “Than by a tedious circumbendibus. I suppose her parents highly disapproved of the goblin; wasn’t that alone an excellent reason for going away with him?”

  And Sir Reginald closed his eyes again.

  “Perhaps,” said Miss Maubray aside to Vivian Darnley, “that romantic young lady may have had a cross papa, and thought that she could not change very much for the worse.”

  “Shall I tell that to Sir Reginald? — it would amuse him,” inquired Darnley.

  “Not as my remark; but I make you a present of it.”

  “Thanks; but that, even with your permission, would be a plagiarism, and robbing you of his applause.”

  Vivian Darnley was very inattentive to his own nonsense. He was talking very much at random, for his mind, and occasionally his eyes, were otherwise occupied.

  Alice Arden was sitting near the piano, and talking to Mr. Longcluse.

  “Is that meant to be a ghost, I wonder, in our sense, like the ghost of Wilhelm in the ballad of Leonora? or is the lover a demon?”

  “A demon, surely,” answered Longcluse, “a spirit appointed to her destruction. In an old ghostly writer there is a Latin sentence, Unicuique nascenti, adest dæmon vitæ mystagogus, which I will translate, ‘There is present at the birth of every human being a demon, who is the conductor of his life.’ Be it fortunate, or be it direful, to this supernatural influence he owes it all. So they thought; and to families such a demon is allotted also, and they prosper or wane as his function is ordained. I wonder whether such demons ever enter into human beings, and, in the shape of living men, haunt, plague, and ruin their predestinated victims.”

  This sort of mysticism for a time they talked, and then wandered away to other themes, and the talk grew general; and Mr. Longcluse, with a pang, discovered that it was late. He had something on his mind that night. He had an undivulged use, also, to which to apply David Arden. As the hour drew near it weighed more and more heavily at his heart. That hour must be observed; he wished to be away before it arrived. There was still ample time; but Lady May was now talking of going, and he made up his mind to say farewell.

  Lingeringly Mr. Longcluse took his leave. But go he must; and so, a last touch of the hand, a last look, and the parting is over. Downstairs he runs; his groom and his brougham are at the door. What a glorious moon! The white light upon all things around is absolutely dazzling. How sharp and black the shadows! How light and filmy rises the old house! How black the nooks of the thick ivy! Every drop of dew that hangs upon its leaves, or on the drooping stalks of the neglected grass, is transmuted into a diamond. As he stands for an instant upon the broad platform of the steps, he looks round him with a deep sigh, and with a strange smile of rapture. The man standing with the open door of the brougham in his hand caught his eye.

  “Go you down as far as the little church, be
fore you reach the ‘Guy of Warwick,’ in the village, quite close to this — you know it — and wait there for me. I shall walk.”

  The man touched his hat, shut the door, and mounted the box beside the driver, and away went the brougham. Mr. Longcluse lit a cigarette, and slowly walked down the broad avenue after the vehicle. By the time he had got about halfway, he heard the iron gates swing together, the sound of the wheels was lost in distance, and the feeling of seclusion returned. In the same vague intoxication of poetry and romance, he paused and looked round again, and sighed. The trunk of a great tree overthrown in the last year’s autumnal gales, with some of its boughs lopped off, lay on the grass at the edge of the avenue. There remained a little of his cigarette to smoke, and the temptation of this natural seat was irresistible; so he took it, and smoked, and gazed, and dreamed, and sometimes, as he took the cigarette from his lips, he sighed — never was man in a more romantic vein. He looked back on the noble front of the picturesque old house. The cold moonlight gleamed on most of the window-panes: but from a few tall windows glowed faintly the warmer light of candles. If anyone had ever felt the piercing storms of life, the treachery of his species, and the mendacity of the illusions that surround us, Longcluse was that man. He had accepted the conditions of life, and was a man of the world; but no boy of eighteen was ever more in love than he at this moment.

  Gazing back at the dim glow that flushed through the tall window-blinds of the distant drawingroom, his fancy weaving all those airy dreams that passion lives in, this pale, solitary man — whom no one quite knew, who trusted no one, who had his peculiar passions, his sorrows, his fears, and strange remembrances; everything connected with his origin, vicissitudes, and character, except this one wild hope, locked up, as it were, in an iron casket, and buried in a grave fathoms deep — was now floated back, he knew not how, to that time of sweet perturbation and agonising hope at which the youth of Shakespeare’s time were wont to sigh like a furnace, and indite woeful ballads to their mistress’s eyebrows. Now he saw lights in an upper room. Imagination and conjecture were in a moment at work. No servant’s apartment, its dimensions were too handsome; and had not Sir Reginald mentioned that his room was upon a level with the hall? Just at this moment Lady May’s carriage drove down the avenue and past him. Yes, she had run up direct to her room on bidding Lady May goodnight. How he drank in these rosy lights through his dark eyes! and how their tremble seemed to quicken the pulsations of his heart! Gradually his thoughts saddened, and his face grew dark.

  “Two doors in life — only in this life, if all bishops and curates speak truth — one or other shut for ever in the next. The gate to heaven, the gate to hell. Heaven! Facilis decensus. Life is such a sophism. Yet even those canting dogs in the pulpit can’t bark away the truth. God sees not with our eyes! Revealed religion — Mahomet, Moses, Mormon, Borgia! What is the first lesson inscribed by his Maker on every man’s heart, instinct, intellect? I read the mandate thus: ‘Take the best care you can of number one.’ Bah! ‘It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.’”

  Uncle David’s carriage now drove by.

  “There goes that sharp girl — pretty, vain — and they’re all vain; they ought to be vain; they could not please if they were not. Vain she is — devoured, mind, soul, passion, by vanity. Yes, and power — the lust of power, conquest, acquisition. She’s greedy and crafty, I daresay. Oh! Alice, who was ever quite like you? The most beautiful, the best, my darling! Oh! enchantress, work the miracle, and make this forlorn man what he might be!”

  It passed like a magic-lantern picture, and was gone. The distant clang of the iron gate was heard again, the avenue was deserted and silent, and Longcluse once more alone in his dream. He was looking towards the house, sometimes breaking into a few murmured words, sometimes smoking, and just as his cigarette was out he saw a figure approaching. It was Uncle David, who was walking down the avenue. It so happened that his mind was at that moment busy with Mr. Longcluse, and it was with an odd little shock, therefore, that he saw the very man — whom he fancied by that time to be at least two miles away — rise up in his path, and stand before him, smiling, in the moonlight.

  “Oh! — Mr. Longcluse?” exclaimed David Arden, coming suddenly to a halt.

  “So it is,” said Longcluse, with a little laugh. “You are surprised to find me here, and I fancied I had seen your carriage go on.”

  “So you did; it is waiting near the gate for me. Can I give you a seat into town?”

  “Thanks,” said Longcluse, smiling; “mine is waiting for me a little further on.”

  Longcluse walked slowly on toward the gate, with David Arden at his side.

  “My ward, Miss Maubray, has gone on with Lady May, and Darnley went with them. So I’m not such a brute as I should be if I were making a young lady wait while I was enjoying the moonlight.”

  “It was this wonderful moon that led me, also, into this night-ramble on foot,” said Mr. Longcluse; “I found the temptation absolutely irresistible.”

  As they thus talked, Mr. Longcluse had formed the resolution of choosing that moment for a confidence which, considering how slender was his acquaintance with Mr. David Arden, was, to say the least, a little bold and odd. They had not very far to walk before reaching the gate, so, a little abruptly turning the course of their talk, Mr. Longcluse said, with a chilly little laugh, and a smile more pallid than ever in the moonlight —

  “By-the-bye, we were talking of that shocking occurrence in the Saloon Tavern; and connected with it, I have had two threatening letters.”

  “Indeed!” said David Arden.

  “Fact, I assure you,” said Mr. Longcluse, with a shrug and another cold little laugh.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  MR. LONGCLUSE MAKES AN ODD CONFIDENCE.

  David Arden looked at Mr. Longcluse with a sudden glance, that was, for a moment, shrinking and sharp. This confidence connected with such a scene chimed in, with a harmony that was full of pain, with the utterly vague suspicions that had somehow got into his imagination.

  “Yes, and I have been a little puzzled,” continued Longcluse. “They say the man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client; but there are other things besides law to which the spirit of the canon more strongly still applies. I think you could give me just the kind of advice I need, if you were not to think my asking it too great a liberty. I should not dream of doing so if the matter were simply a private one, and began and ended in myself; but you will see in a moment that public interests of some value are involved, and I am a little doubtful whether the course I am taking is in all respects the right one. I have had two threatening letters; would you mind glancing at them? The moon is so brilliant, one has no difficulty in reading. This is the first. And may I ask you, kindly, until I shall have determined, I hope, with your aid, upon a course, to treat the matter as quite between ourselves? I have mentioned it to but one other person.”

  “Certainly,” said David, “you have a right to your own terms.”

  He took the letter and stopped short where he was, unfolding it. The light was quite sufficient, and he read the odd and menacing letter which Mr. Longcluse had received a few evenings before, as we know, at Lady May’s. It was to the following effect:

  “SIR, — The unfortunate situation in which you stand, the proof being so, as you must suppose, makes it necessary for you to act considerately, and no nonsense can be permitted by your well wishers. The poor man has his conscience all one as as the rich, and must be cautious as well as him. I can not put myself in no dainger for you, Sir, nor won’t hold back the truth, so welp me. I have heerd tell of your boote bin took away. I would be happy to lend an and, Sir, to recover that property. How all will end otherwise I regrett. Knowing well who it will be that takes so mutch consern for your safety, you cannot doubt who I am, and if you wishes to meat me quiet to consult, you need only to name the place and time in the times newspaper, which I sees it every day. It must be put part in one days times, for the daite, s
aying a friend will show on sich a night, and in next days times for the place, saying the dogs will meet at sich and sich a place, and it shall hev the attenshen of your

  FAST FREND.”

  “That’s a cool letter, upon my word,” said David Arden. “Have you an idea who wrote it?”

  “Yes, a very good guess. I’ll tell you all that if you allow me, just now. I should say, indeed, an absolute certainty, for I have had another this afternoon with the name of the writer signed, and he turns out to be the very man whom I suspected. Here it is.”

  David Arden’s curiosity was piqued. He took the last note and read as follows: —

  “SIR, — My last Letter must have came to Hand, and you been in reseet of it since the 11th instant, has took no Notice thereoff, I have No wish for justice, as you may Suppose, and has no Fealing against you Mr. Longcluse Persanelly and to shew you plainly that Such is the case, I will meet you for an intervue if such is your Wishes in your Own house, if you should Rayther than name another place. I do not objeck To one frend been Present providing such Be not a lawyer. The subjek been Dellicat, I will Attend any hour and Place you appoint. If you should faile I must put my Proofs in the hands of the police, for I will take it for a sure sine of guilt if you fail after this to appoint for a meating.

  “I remain, Sir, Your obedient servent, “PAUL DAVIES.

  “No. 2 Rosemary Court.”

  “Well, that’s pretty frank,” said Longcluse, observing that he had read to the end.

  “Extremely. What do you suppose his object to be — to extort money?”