Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  Off one of these galleries the young lady enters her own room — stately, comfortable, luxurious — looks around with a goodnatured recognition, and has hardly begun to take off her dusty things, and prepare to make her toilet, when her maid passes in through the dressing-room door, smiling.

  CHAPTER XII.

  BARBARA VERNON.

  By no means old is this maid. Some six-and-thirty years, perhaps. She has carried Maud in her arms when she was a little thing, and dressed her; sat by her bed and told her fairy-tales in the nursery.

  “Welcome home, Miss Maud,” smiles Jones.

  “And how have you been?” says the young lady, taking her by the hand, and kissing her affectionately on one cheek and the other. “As for me, I’ve been flourishing. I almost think, old Jones, if I had only had you with me, I should never have come back again.”

  “La, miss, how you talk!”

  “I’ve been leading a wild, free life. Did you ever see so much dust, Jones, on any human being?”

  “Indeed, you are in a pickle, miss. Charles said you came in a fly with one horse. I wonder her ladyship did not send a carriage to Wybourne to meet you.”

  “Mamma has other things and people to think about,” said the young lady, a little bitterly. “But I dare say if I had asked I should have had it; though, indeed, I shouldn’t have liked it.”

  “Your hand’s all sunburnt, miss.”

  “I’ve been sketching; and I never could sketch with a glove on.”

  “Well, dear me, it was a fancy going in these queer things! Why, I would not be seen in such things myself, miss, much less you. You’d best bundle off that dress, miss, as quick as you can. La! it is thick with dust. Phiew!”

  “Help me, Jones, help me.” And as she continued her toilet she asked: “Is mamma yet talking of making her usual journey?”

  “Not a word, miss, of any one stirring yet. Norris would know. She has not heard nothing.”

  “The Tinterns’ carriage was here today — I passed it at the gate. Do you know who called?”

  “Mr. Tintern and Mrs. They was here nigh half an hour. Leave them alone for ‘aving their eyes about ‘em, miss. There ain’t a tack druv in the house, or a slate loose, but it’s known down at the Grange before it’s noticed here.”

  “I think, Jones, they reckon upon — don’t pull my hair.” By this time she was sitting in her dressing-gown before the glass, with her dark, golden-brown hair hanging over her shoulders in such profusion, that it seemed incredible how such masses could find growing room in one little head. Jones was brushing out its folds.

  “I’m not pulling it, indeed, miss,” she protested.

  “Yes, you were, Jones. Don’t ever contradict me. Has either of my special horrors — Mr. Smelt — he’s the clergyman or dissenter, something in black, the sleek fat man that comes so often — has he been here since?”

  “He may ‘ave, miss; but — — “

  “But you don’t know. Well, the other — Doctor Malkin?”

  “Oh, dear yes, miss. He was here, please, on Friday last.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, miss, please. Her ladyship sent for me to the shield room. She only asked whether I could remember for certain, miss, what day you were to return ‘ome to Wybourne with Miss Medwyn.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, miss, she had it down in a book, and read it to me, and I said ’twas right. You said early — the seventeenth.”

  “And did she say anything more?”

  “No, please, miss, nothing more. Only she said, ‘That’s all, you need not wait.’”

  “And what about Doctor Malkin?”

  “He was showed in, miss, please, just as I was going out. And I heard her order Edward not to let any visitor in; and that was all, please.”

  “Do you know the name of this place, parish, and county, Jones?” says the young lady, carelessly.

  “Well, I ought to by this time, miss,” laughs Jones.

  “I don’t think you do. The name of this place is Bœotia, and it is famous for its dulness, and Doctor Malkin is one of the six inhabitants who can think and talk a little. He is an agreeable man, and — put a pin there — an unpleasant-looking man. I like talking to him; but I think, on the whole, I should not be sorry if he were laid in the Red Sea, as poor nurse Barnwell used to say. What do you think of him?”

  “That is a gentleman, Heaven forgive me, I can’t abide, miss,” answered Jones. “I hate his face. I always feel in low spirits after I see it.”

  “Well, anything more?” continues Miss Maud. “When are the people coming to hear grandpapa’s will read?”

  “Tomorrow, I believe, miss. But, as yet, Mr. Eccles has not got no orders about it. He said so after dinner in the ‘ousekeeper’s room yesterday.”

  “And is there anything going to be — a tea and plumcake for the school-children, or a meeting of missionaries, or anything of any kind?”

  “Nothing, miss, please, as I ‘ave heard of, but — — “

  “You’ll knock down that china, Jones.”

  “What, miss?”

  “My ring — my Dresden dancers.”

  “Oh! The little man and woman with one arm akimbo and the other up. I saw them all the time.”

  “Well, take great care. I’m sure I shall kill you if you break them. You were going to tell me there is nothing going to be, except something — what is it?”

  “Oh! I know; yes, miss, the conseckeration of the monument in the church. That will be tomorrow evening, miss.”

  “Oh! Really? Well, that was a whim! Give me those earrings. No, not those — the others; not those either. Don’t you see the little ones. Thanks. Yes. I must run down and see mamma, I suppose, though I’m very sure she doesn’t care if she did not see my face for a year, or — for ever.”

  “La, miss! you must not talk like that. Your mamma’s a very religious lady — the most so, as every one knows, in the county — I might say in all England — and it’s just her way; the same with every one, a little bit high and distant like; but it ain’t fit, miss, you should say that.”

  “No, Jones, we can’t agree, mamma and I. Give me that small enamel brooch — the little one with the lady’s head set in gold. Thanks. She does not like me” — the young lady was standing before the glass, and I dare say was well pleased, for she looked splendidly handsome— “and the reason is just this, every one else flatters her. You and all the other sneaks. I never do, although I am sometimes a little afraid of her like the rest. I’m nervous, I don’t know why; but it’s not cowardice. I never flatter her.”

  “No, miss, it ain’t that; it’s only you don’t try her. You won’t go the right way about it.”

  “There’s no use, Jones — you only vex me. I’ve often felt that I would give the world to throw my arms about her neck and kiss her; but somehow I can’t; she won’t let me. Perhaps she tries; but she can’t love me; and so it always was, as far back as I can remember, and so it will always be, and I’ve made up my mind to it; it can’t be helped.”

  So Miss Maud Vernon walked along the gallery, and went down the broad stairs, passing many ancestors who stood by, at the right and the left, against the wall, as she did so, and singing low to herself as she went, with a clear and rich voice, an Italian air quite new to the solemn people in the picture-frames, at whom she looked listlessly, thinking neither of them nor of her song as she passed by.

  Mr. Tarpey, the groom of the chambers, was fussing with the decorations of the hall as she passed.

  “Can you tell me where her ladyship is?” she inquired.

  “Her ladyship, I think, is still in the library. Please, shall I see, miss?”

  “Don’t mind. I’ll try myself. Is her ladyship alone?”

  “I think so, miss.”

  He crossed the hall, and opened the second door from the great entrance, which stood wide open, in this sultry weather, by Lady Vernon’s command, the two tall footmen, in their blue and gold liveries, ke
eping guard there.

  Maud glanced through the open hall-door as she crossed the hall; she would have been rather pleased to see a carriage approaching; she did not care for a very long interview with her mother; but there was no sign of a visitor in sight.

  “Thanks, I’ll go alone,” she said, dispensing with the escort of Mr. Tarpey; and passing through two spacious rooms, she reached the door of the library. Lady Vernon treated that apartment as her private cabinet, and from her childhood Maud had been accustomed to respect it.

  Maud has no liking for the coming interview. She would, now, have liked to put it off, and as she crosses the Turkey carpet that muffles her tread, her step slackens. She stops at the door and raises her hand to knock, but she doesn’t knock; she hesitates; she has a great mind to turn back, and wait till her mother sends for her. But, perhaps, that would not do. She has been at home nearly an hour, and it is time she should ask Lady Vernon how she does.

  She knocks at the door, and hears a clear voice call “Come in.”

  She turns the handle accordingly, and steps into a spacious room, hung with gilded leather; the blinds are down, the sun by this time shining on this side of the house, and a mellow, cathedral-like dimness prevails. There are three or four antique bookcases, carved in ponderous relief, through the leaves and scrolls of which are grinning grotesque and ugly faces, rich with a cynical Gothic fancy, and overhung by fantastic cornices, crowned with the heraldic shield and supporters of the Vernons. They are stored with gilded volumes; portraits hang here, as in other parts of this rich old house, and cold marble busts gleam on pedestals from the corners.

  Sitting at a table in the middle of this room is a very handsome woman of forty years or upwards, with skin smooth as ivory, and jet-black hair, divided in the middle, and brought down over her white temples and small pretty ears smoothly in the simple classic fashion, now out of date. Her finely pencilled black eyebrows, and her features with a classic elegance of outline, carry an expression of cold hauteur. Her slight embonpoint becomes her grave but rich dress, which is that of a woman of rank and wealth, by no means indifferent to the impression produced by externals.

  This lady, with one handsome foot upon a stool, and a desk before her, is in a leisurely way writing a letter, over which she bends just the least thing in the world. Her pose is decidedly elegant.

  The lady glances slightly toward the door. Her large grey eyes, under their long lashes, rest for a moment on her daughter. She does not smile; the pen is still in her fingers. She says, simply, in her clear and rather sweet tones, “Oh, Maud? I will speak to you in a few minutes, when I have put this into its envelope. Won’t you sit down?” And so she continues to write.

  The young lady flashes back a rather fiery glance in return for this cool welcome, and does not sit down, but walks instead, with a quick step, to the window, pulls the blind aside, and looks out perseveringly.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

  Lady Vernon having enclosed and addressed her letter, added it to the little pack of about six others at her left. Then looking up, she said:

  “So, you are quite well, Maud, and you arrived at a quarter past three?”

  “Quite well, mamma, thanks. I suppose it was about that time; and I hope you are very well.”

  “I am well, thanks; and I wished to mention that when you, as you told me, fixed the seventeenth for your return to the Hermitage with Maximilla Medwyn, I was under a mistake, and did not see, till too late, that the seventeenth would be Sunday; and I should not have given my sanction to your travelling for pleasure on Sunday. I wished to mention that particularly. I told Maximilla I should be happy to receive her any day this week. Is she coming do you know?”

  “She would have come with me this morning, but she had so much to say to her servants, and so many things to arrange, that she could not leave home till after dinner at soonest, so she hopes to be here at ten tonight; and if anything should happen to prevent her, you are to have a note, by post, in the morning.”

  “She will be in time, at all events, for the bishop’s sermon tomorrow,” says Lady Vernon. “The monument will be uncovered at five o’clock. The bishop arrives at six. He has to consecrate the new church at Eastover, before he comes here, and then he goes on, after his sermon, to Wardlake, for the evening meeting of the church missions.”

  Miss Vernon is hardly so much interested in all this as her mother is, although even she recites the programme a little dryly. But dry as is her recital, it is not often that she volunteers so much information to her daughter.

  “And what can the bishop have to say about the monument, to lead him so much out of his way, poor old man?”

  “The bishop seems to think that his having been the dearest friend that Mr. Howard had on earth, constitutes some little claim upon him,” says Lady Vernon, haughtily, in a cold tone, and with her fine grey eyes fixed on her daughter.

  “Oh! I did not know,” says Maud, a little apologetically.

  “No, of course you did not; you seldom do know, or care to know anything that interests me,” says the elder lady, with her fine brows a little higher.

  Maud coloured suddenly, with an impatient movement of her head. She was not sitting down, only standing near the table, drumming on it with her finger-tops, and she felt for a moment as if she could have stamped.

  She answered, however, without any show of excitement except in her brilliant colour and eyes.

  “I did not know, mamma, that this monument to Mr. Howard interested you particularly.”

  “No, not particularly,” said handsome Lady Vernon, sternly, for she was one of those persons who don’t brook contradiction, and who interpret discussion as a contradiction. “Mr. Howard was the best vicar we ever had here, or ever shall have; and, in his way, a benefactor to this parish. The bishop, who admired and loved him, as much as one man could another, suggested that for such a man, in the field of his labours, having lain in his grave more than a score of years unrecorded by a single line, it was time that a monument should be raised. He wished a beautiful one, and so I believe it is. His name is first in the list of subscribers, and it is his idea, and it is he who has taken a lead in it; and, therefore, though interested, I am not particularly interested in the personal degree which your emphasis would imply.”

  “Well, all I can say is, I’m very unlucky, mamma.”

  “I think you are unlucky,” replied her mother, coldly, turning her head slowly away, and looking at the pendule over the chimney.

  “Have you anything to ask me, Maud?” inquired Lady Vernon, after a little interval.

  “Nothing, thanks, mamma,” said Maud, with her head a little high. “I’m afraid I have bored you coming in when you were busy. But having been away ten days, I thought it would have been wrong, or at least odd, if I had not come to see you to ask you how you were.”

  “So it would,” said Lady Vernon. “Will you touch the bell?” She did so.

  “Well, mamma, I suppose there’s nothing more?”

  “Nothing, Maud.”

  Maud’s heart swelled with bitterness as she left the room, and shut the door gently.

  “No father, no mother, no near relation!” she thought, impetuously. “I love Cousin Max better than fifty such mammas. There are girls who would hate her. But I can’t. Why am I cursed with this cruel yearning for her love? And she can’t love me — she won’t have my love. I think she wishes me to hate her.”

  When Maud was a little thing, as far back as she could remember, her idea of a “mamma” was an embodiment of power, and something to be afraid of. Seldom seen except when the spirited little girl became unmanageable; then there would be a rustling of silk and a flutter of lace in the nursery, and the handsome figure, the proud still face and large grey eyes were before her. This phantom instantly cowed her. It always looked severe, and never smiled, and its sweet cold tones were dreadful. The child’s instinct could see dislike, hidden from maturer observers, in those fine ey
es, and never heard a tender note in that harmonious voice.

  Miss Maud passed out through the suite of rooms, and encountered Lady Vernon’s footman going in to take her letters.

  In the hall, serious Mr. Eccles, the gentlemanlike butler, was passing upon his business with the quiet importance and gravity of office.

  The young lady had a word to say.

  “Is any one expected to dinner to-day?”

  “Yes, miss — five; the vicar and Mrs. Foljambe; his curate, the Reverend Mr. Doody; and Mr. Puntle and Doctor Malkin. There was an invitation for Captain Bamme; but he is absent on militia business, and it is thought not probable, miss, he will return in time.”

  Anything was better than a tête-à-tête with Lady Vernon; a situation which Lady Vernon herself seemed to deprecate as strongly as her daughter, for it did not occur usually six times in a year.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  GUESTS AND NEIGHBOURS.

  When, that evening, Miss Maud entered the vast drawingroom, it was some minutes past eight. The outer world was in twilight, but lamps glowed faintly here, upon the thick silken curtains, and lofty mirrors, and pictures, and treasures of china, and upon figures of people assembled for dinner. The little party was almost lost in the great void, as Miss Maud made her journey, over a comparatively gloomy desert of thick carpet, to the group illuminated by the soft light of the lamps.

  Tall old Mr. Foljambe, the vicar, was entertaining Lady Vernon with his bland and dignified conversation. Doctor Malkin would have liked that post, but the vicar came first, and seized it.