Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “It is not an opinion, I am quite certain of it.”

  “But suppose it were proved to you that she has, at three distinct times, threatened her own life while at Roydon; and that once, since she came here, she has not only threatened, but attempted it; would not that modify your opinion as to the expediency of removing at once all restraint and superintendence in her case?”

  “It’s quite untrue. I have no other answer. It is utterly false.”

  “I only say, as a supposition, suppose it were proved — — “

  “It would not make the least difference; I could not believe it,” she answered peremptorily; “I never shall.”

  The commissioner smiled and shook his head.

  “There is another odd circumstance deposed to here,” he resumes; “at a ball at a place called Wy — Wymering, I think it is; where she went with — with you, Miss Medwyn, to join the party of a Mrs. Tintern — — “

  “My wife,” interposed Mr. Tintern, softly.

  “Oh! I see, thanks; where Miss Vernon went to join Mrs. Tintern’s party,” continued the commissioner. “She insisted on visiting the gallery of the town-hall, before the company had assembled, and once more, in an unreal character, she presented herself as your servant, the deposition says.”

  “That was precisely in the same spirit; a mere whim; she had been looking forward, for a long time, to the ball, and was in such spirits, poor little thing!”

  Miss Medwyn was as near as possible crying again, and had to pull up suddenly.

  The commissioner offered no criticism on Miss Medwyn’s explanation. And after a little silence, for he saw she was agitated, he asked:

  “Perhaps you would like to look over Lady Vernon’s statement? There is no objection.”

  Miss Medwyn thanked him, and took the paper, which she read over, her face frowning a little, pale and scornful, as she did so.

  When she had conned it over, and returned the paper, he asked:

  “Have you anything, Miss Medwyn, by way of explanation, or generally, to state, which you think might throw light on this inquiry?”

  Miss Medwyn had a great deal to say, and said it, more than once, with great volubility, and in high scorn of all opposition. When her harangue was over, the commissioner thanked her very much, and rose, with a bow or two, and Doctor Antomarchi politely conducted her again to the waiting-room, where Mr. Marston received her with intense anxiety.

  Mr. Dawe had, on hearing his narrative, peremptorily forbidden his appearance as a witness, and blew up Maximilla roundly, in his proper laconics, for having permitted all that masquerading which now furnished the chief material of the case.

  Maximilla answered that she could not have prevented it; and that if that had never happened, still a case would not have been wanting, because it was plain, from different things in Barbara’s statement, that she had employed people to watch Maud wherever she went.

  As Mr. Marston and Maximilla Medwyn were now conversing, Mr. Dawe, whose chief object was to note carefully in his memory the facts on which the theory of Maud’s insanity was based, with a view to action of a different kind should this measure fail, had the pleasure of listening to Mercy Creswell’s description of what she had termed Maud’s “parrokism.”

  Then came an account of her attempt to get into the hall in pursuit of Lady Mardykes; of her throwing herself on the stairs, of what was called her violence, and ultimate reduction to submission under moral influences. Then Doctor Antomarchi made his statement, stronger, abler, more learned than the opinion of Doctor Malkin, and in conclusion he said:

  “This is a case, I admit, I should be happy to be relieved of. It is a case round which family feuds and jealousies gather and prepare for battle. We have never been in litigation here; and although I cannot conscientiously recommend Lady Vernon to take the young lady home, I should be very much obliged if she would remove her to some other house.”

  CHAPTER LXXXI.

  MAUD IS SUMMONED.

  “I should like,” said the commissioner, “to see the young lady now; and after that, Doctor Antomarchi, if you please, I could have a few words with you. Mr. Dawe, are you acquainted with Miss Vernon?”

  Mr. Dawe assented.

  “What do you say, Doctor Antomarchi, to Mr. Dawe’s remaining while Miss Vernon answers a few questions?”

  “I should be most happy if I were not certain that in her present state a meeting of the kind would be, as respects the progress of her recovery, almost the worst thing that could happen to Miss Vernon. I speak with the responsibility of her medical adviser; and I must request Mr. Dawe to withdraw, unless you, sir, should direct otherwise.”

  “Then, Mr. Dawe, I must ask you to retire,” says the commissioner, making him a little bow.

  Mr. Dawe rose, and returned it with a nod; the servant conducted him to the waiting-room; and Doctor Antomarchi turned the key in the door through which he had retreated.

  Doctor Antomarchi and Mr. Commissioner Steele had a little bit of earnest conversation. The long period of Miss Vernon’s suspense at length expired.

  Never did imprisoned lady in the Reign of Terror hear herself summoned to the presence of the tremendous Fouquier Tinville with a colder pang of horror than that which unnerved Maud Vernon, at the tap at her door, and the intimation that the time had come, and her presence was required by the commissioner.

  “Are there many people in the room with him?” Maud asked, rising quickly, very pale, and feeling a little dizzy.

  “Only the doctor, please, miss.”

  The young lady followed the servant; Mercy Creswell stumping after, with a supernaturally solemn countenance.

  Maud did not know how she reached the office door. At sight of that solid barrier, its well varnished panels and oak veining, her heart bounded as if it would suffocate her.

  “Wait a moment,” she whispered to the man who was about opening the door to announce her. “Not yet.”

  She must not seem flurried. All for her depended on her perfect self-possession in presence of this stranger, who held the key of her prison.

  She signed to the man, who opened the door; and she heard her name announced.

  Now she is in the room. Antomarchi, whom she distrusts and fears, rises and makes her a very grave and ceremonious bow. She turns from that smooth face, that frightens her, to the commissioner, who has also risen, and makes her a less elaborate bow. Intelligent, energetic, narrow, utterly unsympathetic, is the face of her judge. Instinctively she is dismayed by it.

  She sits down, hardly knowing what she does, in a chair opposite the commissioner. He asks her some question, the purport of which she does not distinctly catch. She sees nothing but that cold, shrewd, self-complacent face which dismays her.

  The stern ringing voice of Antomarchi repeats the question, and she turns. He is looking at her. She finds herself under the spell of those baleful eyes.

  “Mr. Commissioner Steele asked you whether you are aware that you are sworn to have on three distinct occasions, at Roydon, threatened to take away your life?’”

  “I was not aware, that is, I don’t know what is said against me,” she says with, an effort, and a little confusedly.

  “May I ask her a few questions?” inquires Antomarchi.

  “Do, pray,” acquiesces the commissioner.

  He bowed to Mr. Steele, and then said:

  “Be so good as to look a little this way.” She had averted her eyes. “I want to be assured that you hear me.”

  She submitted, and he proceeded.

  “You are frank, Miss Vernon, and would not mislead this inquiry. Did you not intend to commit suicide at Roydon?”

  Miss Vernon faltered; she tried instinctively to raise her hand to her eyes, but she did not raise it higher than her throat, where she felt a great ball rising.

  “I’m sorry to press you, but we must accept your silence as an admission,” said the cold bass of Antomarchi. “Is it not true,” he persisted, sternly, “that you intended suic
ide, three distinct times, when at Roydon?”

  “I — I can’t,” faltered Maud.

  “I know you can’t,” he repeated, “and you could not there, I believe.”

  “I could not there — I believe — if — if —— What am I saying? Oh, God! what am I saying?”

  “Never regret speaking candidly to friends; Mr. Commissioner Steele, of whom you seem so much in awe, can have no object in this inquiry but what tends to your good. Now, as to what occurred here — upstairs — when you told Mercy Creswell you would make away with yourself, and she locked you into your room in consequence, and you then threw up the window. Come, be frank, Miss Vernon, did you not do so with the intention of taking away your life, by throwing yourself from it; you confessed it.”

  “Did I — did I confess it? I confessed — — “ she murmured, with white lips.

  “You did — that’s right — it is hardly necessary to do so again, but if you can deny it, or explain it, you are at liberty to do so.”

  Mr. Steele was, while this was passing, glancing at his notes, and marking the papers before him with his pen, and saw nothing of the fatuised look that had stolen over Maud’s face, and if he had, would have attributed it to her imputed mental condition.

  “You can’t explain, or deny it — I am to infer that,” persisted Antomarchi; “you can’t.”

  “I can’t — can I? — I can’t — oh! what is it? — I feel so strangely.” She shook her ears as if a fly was humming at them, and lifted her pretty fingers towards her temple vaguely.

  “You say you can’t, and that is quite enough — I expected no less from your candour; and as you say you feel a little oddly, it will perhaps be better that you should return to your room, if Mr. Commissioner has no objection?”

  “Certainly not,” acquiesced the official, who, with half-closed eyes, was now eyeing Miss Vernon curiously.

  “You may go, Miss Vernon. See Miss Vernon to her room,” said Antomarchi to the servant. “Instantly, please; she is agitated.”

  Maud was standing now, and looked a little about her, bewildered, as if newly awakened from sleep.

  “Oh! what is it? What have I said? let me remember — — “

  “Never regret having spoken truth, Miss Vernon,” said Antomarchi; “you must go,” he said sternly to her, and added quickly in a whisper to Mr. Steele, “If she stays we shall have a paroxysm.”

  The commissioner, who had no fancy for anything of the kind, rose at the same moment, and made a hasty bow.

  “Oh, sir; no, don’t send me back; have mercy on me! It is false,” she screamed. “If I said anything against myself, I retract it all. You are here to try me; God sees us; oh, my last hope!”

  This last cry was heard in the passage as the door shut; and the commissioner and Doctor Antomarchi were left tête-à-tête.

  The doctor smiled and shrugged.

  “Retract, retract; they all retract after an admission. People who don’t know something of them, as you and I do, have no notion how much cunning belongs to that state, and how little scruple. You see the excitement she has gone away in, and simply from having seen you and me! What would it be if she were to see an intimate friend? How could we separate them? And yet, I venture to say, Miss Medwyn thinks it a great hardship she has not had an interview with the young lady — I should not wonder if the patient became violent; I rather expect to be sent for.”

  This, and a good deal more, said Doctor Antomarchi; and, after some conversation, invited the commissioner to luncheon which that semi-judicial functionary, having first consulted his Bradshaw, agreed to partake of; and over it he relaxed, and conversed about fifty things, very pleasantly, and laughed over the agreeable doctor’s amusing stories. While upstairs, Maud Vernon, on her knees, with her face buried in the coverlet, writhed and sobbed wildly in the solitude of an immeasurable despair.

  CHAPTER LXXXII.

  DOCTOR DAMIAN.

  Mr. Tintern had more than was pleasant to think of, as he glided homeward upon the rails. His matrimonial plans for his daughter had found in that young lady a very stubborn resistance. He could divine no reason for it; and he took to sulking and bullying by turns. It was very desirable to establish his daughter just now, and to secure the particular son-in-law who sought the young lady’s hand, because he was very wealthy, and, owing to peculiar circumstances, in a position to make certain difficulties of a very pressing nature easy to Mr. Tintern. He had “gone into a mine,” which was insolvent; and he had made the directors an offer, by way of compromise, which would save him; and his intended son-in-law was one of these directors. There was another trouble, a foolish bank speculation, in which the same gentleman had also a potent influence, and might modify the urgency and rapidity of coming calls, of which Mr. Tintern, as well he might, stood much in fear. Mr. Tintern, therefore, in his homeward drive, had ample matter for reflection. On his arrival at the Grange, he asked for Miss Ethel. There was an inexplicable cloud over the household. The servants were solemn and laconic. No one knew distinctly where she was; and all were agreed in referring him to Mrs. Tintern, who was not very well, and in her room.

  Up the stairs, with very uncomfortable qualms and vague misgivings, he ran; and, in the darkened room of his wife, learned that Ethel had eloped!

  All was mystery. Mrs. Tintern had not a great deal of energy or judgment in an emergency. She had sent a carriage express to the town of Roydon to bring the Reverend Mr. Foljambe, the vicar, and Mr. Puntles, the antiquary, to advise her in her perplexity. The assistance of these admirably selected counsellors did not result in very much; except, indeed, that the occurrence became speedily well known throughout the whole town of Roydon.

  A sage servant, on a steady horse, was sent off, at a jog-trot, to the nearest railway station to make inquiry, and returned some hours later a little tipsy, and in other respects as wise as he set out.

  The only clue to the mysterious disappearance of the young lady was that a carriage had been seen for some time on the narrow road in the rear of the Grange, where the wooded ground affords the closest cover for an unobserved approach. The same carriage, or one very like it, had been seen in the village of Crowpton, near which five roads meet; and here, in bewilderment, the pursuit was, after a time, abandoned.

  When Mr. Tintern arrived, nearly five hours had passed since Miss Tintern’s flight. That did not deter him, however; he started without delay, and did not return until late next day, to find that Mrs. Tintern had received a short and rather distracted letter from her daughter, who was, in fact, married to Captain Vivian. For many hours after his arrival, under this great blow to all his plans, Mr. Tintern quite forgot Roydon Hall and its concerns.

  Lady Vernon was, however, far too important an influence in the general scheme of his speculations, to be long out of his thoughts. Lady Vernon, therefore, had a note from him, a part of which she did not very well understand, not at all in Mr. Tintern’s usual neat style.

  It said that not knowing whether Lady Vernon was well enough to see him, he had been compelled, without even taking off his hat at the Grange, to run on upon business of the very most momentous kind. He had been in attendance at Glarewoods, and he and Antomarchi were both of opinion that the commissioner took precisely the same view of the case in which so many concur, who are profoundly and painfully interested in the case of Miss Vernon. “Captain Vivian, whom, owing to special circumstances with which I shall acquaint you, I cannot, for a moment, dismiss from my thoughts, has behaved like a villain. It pains me to apply that term to any person who was ever honoured by your notice or consideration.”

  At that moment, not a living creature, except Mr. and Mrs. Tintern, and the absconding lover, was aware that Captain Vivian had any but the slightest acquaintance with Miss Ethel Tintern, or dreamed of connecting her disappearance with him.

  Lady Vernon, who was always perfectly up in the Roydon news, without making the least apparent effort to learn it, had heard of Ethel’s flight, without knowing whether
quite to believe it or not, or, in any case, caring about it. Mr. Tintern’s words respecting Captain Vivian — Elwyn, as she called him — she, with a morbid terror, referred to the suspicion that was nearest her own heart. Fate seemed driving her into a corner. Must she avow the grand folly and humiliation of her life? Must that proud, conspicuous woman stand in the gaze of the world in abject penance?

  In the mean time Mr. Marston, furnished with a report of what had taken place before the commissioner, noted down from the careful narrative of Mr. Dawe, ran up to London that night to talk the matter over with an able Chancery Q.C., who always lingered late in town, and who was leader in all the Warhampton business. This gentleman knew Mr. Steele officially, and could estimate the view he was likely to take.

  “Damian’s establishment, and Damian’s opinion, stand very high in our court,” he said. “Antomarchi has only appeared once or twice, second fiddle, you know; Damian’s thinking the depositions sufficient, will go a great way; and the evidence is so strong and clear — — “

  “So plausible and audacious,” said Marston.

  “That I am quite satisfied,” continued the barrister, “there is not a chance of getting the court to order the young lady’s discharge. I don’t think by habeas corpus, at common law, with such evidence, you would have the smallest chance, either. You must lie by for a time, and if it be as her friends think, the medical people there will find it out, and all ultimately be as you would wish. But I should not advise public proceedings. They would fail; and the young lady occupying so conspicuous a position, the affair would become the talk of all England. It is better to wait.”

  A gloomy and distracted letter Marston wrote to Maximilla Medwyn; and one as gloomy, but more reserved, to Mr. Dawe.

  What was he now to do? Inaction in such a state of things was intolerable! A few hours later saw him at Brighton, on the doorsteps of the house in which Mr. Damian for the time resided; it was night, and the moon shining, and a thin chill mist made sea, and shipping, and houses vague.