Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  My loneliness was very agreeably relieved one day, as I was walking home from Penruthyn Priory, by meeting Mr. Carmel. He joined me, and we sauntered towards home in very friendly talk. He was to make a little stay at the steward’s house. We agreed to read I Promessi Sposi together. Malory was recovering its old looks. I asked him all the news that he was likely to know and I cared to hear.

  “Where was Lady Lorrimer?” I inquired.

  Travelling, he told me, on the Continent, he could not say where. “We must not talk of her,” he said, with a shrug and a laugh. “I think, Miss Ware, we were never so near quarrelling upon any subject as upon Lady Lorrimer, and I then resolved never again to approach that irritating topic.”

  So with common consent we talked of other things, among which I asked him:

  “Do you remember Mr. Marston?”

  “You mean the shipwrecked man who was quartered for some days at the steward’s house?” he asked. “Yes — I remember him very well.” He seemed to grow rather pale as he looked at me, and added, “Why do you ask?”

  “Because,” I answered, “you told me that he was in good society, and I have not seen him anywhere — not once.”

  “He was in society; but he’s not in London, nor in England now, I believe. I once knew him pretty well, and I know only too much of him. I know him for a villain; and had he been still in England I should have warned you again, Miss Ethel, and warned your mamma, also, against permitting him to claim your acquaintance. But I don’t think he will be seen again in this part of the world — not, at all events, until after the death of a person who is likely to live a long time.”

  “But what has he done?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you — I can’t tell you how cruelly he has wounded me,” he answered. “I have told you in substance all I know, when I say he is a villain.”

  “I do believe, Mr. Carmel, your mission on earth is to mortify my curiosity. You won’t tell me anything of any one I’m the least curious to hear about.”

  “He is a person I hate to talk of, or even to think of. He is a villain — he is incorrigible — and, happen what may, a villain, I think, he will be to the end.”

  I was obliged to be satisfied with this, for I had learned that it was a mere waste of time trying to extract from Mr. Carmel any secret which he chose to keep.

  Here, then, in the old scenes, our quiet life began for awhile once more. I did not see more of Mr. Carmel now than formerly, and there continued the slightly altered tone, in talk and manner, which had secretly so sorely vexed me in town, and which at times I almost ascribed to my fancy.

  Mr. Carmel’s stay at Malory was desultory, too, as before; he was often absent for two or three days together. During one of these short absences, there occurred a very trifling incident, which, however, I must mention.

  The castle of Cardyllion is a vast ruin, a military fortress of the feudal times, built on a great scale, and with prodigious strength. Its ponderous walls and towers are covered thick with ivy. It is so vast that the few visitors who are to be found there when the summer is over, hardly disquiet its wide solitudes and its silence. For a time I induced Miss Pounden to come down there nearly every afternoon, and we used to bring our novels, and she, sometimes her work; and we sat in the old castle, feeling, in the quiet autumn, as if we had it all to ourselves. The inner court is nearly two hundred feet square, and, ascending a circular stair in the angle next the great gate, you find yourself at the end of a very dark stone-floored corridor, running the entire length of the building. This long passage is lighted at intervals by narrow loopholes placed at the left; and in the wall to the right, after having passed several doors, you come, about mid-way, to one admitting to the chapel. It is a small stone-floored chamber, with a lofty groined roof, very gracefully proportioned; a tall stone-shafted window admits a scanty light from the east, over the site of the dismantled altar; deep shadow prevails everywhere else in this pretty chapel, which is so dark in most parts that, in order to read or work, one must get directly under the streak of light that enters through the window, necessarily so narrow as not to compromise the jealous rules of mediæval fortification. A small arch, at each side of the door, opens a view of this chamber from two small rooms, or galleries, reached by steps from this corridor.

  We had placed our camp-stools nearly under this window, and were both reading; when I raised my eyes they encountered those of a very remarkable-looking old man, whom I instantly recognised, with a start. It was the man whom we used, long ago, to call the Knight of the Black Castle. His well-formed, bronzed face and features were little changed, except for those lines that time deepens or produces. His dark, fierce eyes were not dimmed by the years that had passed, but his long black hair, which was uncovered, as tall men in those low passages were obliged to remove their hats, was streaked now with grey. This stern old man was gazing fixedly on me, from the arch beside the door, to my left, as I looked at him, and he did not remove his eyes as mine met his. Sullen, gloomy, stern was the face that remained inflexibly fixed in the deep shadow which enhanced its pallor. I turned with an effort to my companion, and said:

  “Suppose we come out, and take a turn in the grounds.”

  To which, as indeed to everything I proposed, Miss Pounden assented.

  I walked for a minute or two about the chapel before I stole a glance backward at the place where I had seen the apparition. He was gone. The arch, and the void space behind, were all that remained; there was nothing but deep shadow where that face had loomed. I asked Miss Pounden if she had seen the old man looking in; she had not.

  Well, we left the chapel, and retraced our steps through the long corridor, I watching through the successive loopholes for the figure of the old man pacing the grass beneath; but I did not see him. Down the stairs we came, I peeping into every narrow doorway we passed, and so out upon the grassy level of the inner court. I looked in all directions there, but nowhere could I see him. Under the arched gateway, where the portcullis used to clang, we passed into the outer court, and there I peeped about, also in vain.

  I dare say Miss Pounden, if she could wonder at anything, wondered what I could be in pursuit of; but that most convenient of women never troubled me with a question.

  Through the outer gate, in turn, we passed, and to Richard Pritchard’s lodge, at the side of the gate admitting visitors from Castle Street to the castle grounds. Tall Richard Pritchard, with his thin stoop, his wideawake hat, brown face, lantern jaws, and perpetual smirk, listened to my questions, and answered that he had let in such a gentleman, about ten minutes before, as I described. This gentleman had given his horse to hold to a donkey-boy outside the gate, and Richard Pritchard went on to say, with his usual volubility, and his curious interpolation of phrases of politeness, without the slightest regard to their connection with the context, but simply to heighten the amiability and polish of his discourse:

  “And he asked a deal, miss, about the family down at Malory, I beg your pardon; and when he heard you were there, miss, he asked if you ever came down to the town — yes, indeed. So when I told him you were in the castle now — very well, I thank you, miss — he asked whereabout in the castle you were likely to be — yes, indeed, miss, very true — and he gave me a shilling — he did, indeed — and I showed him the way to the chapel — I beg your pardon, miss — where you very often go — very true indeed, miss; and so I left him at the top of the stairs. Ah, ha! yes, indeed, miss; and he came back just two or three minutes, and took his horse and rode down towards the water gate — very well, I thank you, miss.”

  This was the substance of Richard Pritchard’s information. So, then, he had ridden down Castle Street and out of the town. It was odd his caring to have that look at me. What could he mean by it? His was a countenance ominous of nothing good. After so long an interval, it was not pleasant to see it again, especially associated with inquiries about Malory and its owners, and the sinister attraction which had drawn him to the chapel to gaze upon me, an
d, as I plainly perceived, by no means with eyes of liking. The years that had immediately followed his last visit, I knew had proved years of great loss and peril to papa. May heaven avert the omen! I silently prayed. I knew that old Rebecca Torkill could not help to identify, him, for I had been curious on the point before. She could not bring to her recollection the particular scene that had so fixed itself upon my memory; for, as she said, in those evil years there was hardly a day that did not bring down some bawling creditor from London to Malory in search of papa.

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  RUSTICATION.

  Malory was not visited that year by either papa or mamma. I had been so accustomed to a lonely life there that my sojourn in that serene and beautiful spot never seemed solitary. Besides, town life would open again for me in the early spring. Had it not been for that near and exciting prospect, without Laura Grey, I might possibly have felt my solitude more; but the sure return to the whirl and music of the world made my rural weeks precious. They were to end earlier even than our return to town. I was written for, to Roydon, where mamma and papa then were making a short visit, and was deposited safely in that splendid but rather dull house by Miss Pounden, who sped forthwith to London, where I suppose she enjoyed her liberty her own quiet way.

  I enjoyed very much our flitting from country-house to country-house, and the more familiar society of that kind of life. As these peregrinations and progresses, however, had no essential bearing upon my history, I shall mention them only to say this. At Roydon I met a person whom I very little expected to see there. The same person afterwards turned up at a very much pleasanter house — I mean Lady Mardykes’s house at Carsbrook, where a really delightful party were assembled. Who do you think this person was? No titled person — not known to the readers of newspapers, except as a name mentioned now and then as forming a unit in a party at some distinguished house; no brilliant name in the lists of talent; a man apparently not worth propitiating on any score: and yet everywhere, and knowing everybody! Who, I say, do you suppose he was? Simply Doctor Droqville! In London I had seen him very often. He used to drop in at balls or garden-parties for an hour or two, and vanish. There was a certain decision, animation, and audacity in his talk, which seemed, although I did not like it, to please better judges very well. No one appeared to know much more about him than I did. Some people, I suppose, like mamma, did know quite enough; but by far the greater part took him for granted, and seeing that other people had him at their houses, did likewise.

  Very agreeably the interval passed; and in due time we found ourselves once more in London.

  My second season wanted something of the brilliant delirium of the first; and yet, I think I enjoyed it more. Papa was not in such spirits by any means. I dare say, as my second season drew near its close, he was disappointed that I was not already a peeress. But papa had other grounds for anxiety; and very anxious he began to look. It was quite settled now that at the next election he was to stand for the borough of Shillingsworth, with the support of the Government. Every one said he would do very well in the House; but that we ought to have begun earlier. Papa was full of it; but somehow not quite so sanguine and cheery as he used to be about his projects. I had seen ministers looking so haggard and overworked, and really suffering at times, that I began to think that politics were as fatiguing a pursuit almost as pleasure. The iron seemed to have entered into poor papa’s soul already.

  Although our breakfast hour was late, mamma was hardly ever down to it, and I not always. But one day when we did happen to be all three at breakfast together, he put down his newspaper with a rustle on his knee, and said to mamma, “I have been intending to ask you this long time, and I haven’t had an opportunity — or at least it has gone out of my head when I might have asked; have you been writing lately to Lady Lorrimer?”

  “Yes, I — at least, I heard from her, a little more than a week ago — a very kind letter — she wrote from Naples — she has been there for the winter.”

  “And quite well?”

  “Complaining a little, as usual; but I suppose she is really quite well.”

  “I wish she did not hate me quite so much as she does,” said papa. “I’d write to her myself — I dare say you haven’t answered her letter?”

  “Well, really, you know, just now it is not easy to find time,” mamma began.

  “Oh! hang it, time! Why, you forget you have really nothing to do,” answered papa, more tartly than I had ever heard him speak to mamma before. “You don’t answer her letters, I think; at least not for months after you get them! I don’t wish you to flatter her — I wish that as little as you do — but I think you might be civil — where’s the good of irritating her?”

  “I never said I saw any,” answered mamma, a little high.

  “No; but I see the mischief of it,” he continued; “it’s utter folly — and it’s not right, besides. You’ll just lose her, that’ll be the end of it — she is the only one of your relations who really cares anything about you — and she intends making Ethel a present — diamonds — it is just, I do believe, that she wishes to show what she intends further. You are the person she would naturally like to succeed her in anything she has to leave; and you take such a time about answering her letters, you seem to wish to vex her. You’ll succeed at last — and, I can tell you, you can’t afford to throw away friendship just now. I shall want every friend, I mean every real friend, I can count upon. More than you think depends on this affair. If I’m returned for Shillingsworth, I’m quite certain I shall get something very soon — and if I once get it, depend upon it, I shall get on. Some people would say I’m a fool for my pains, but it is money very well spent — it is the only money, I really think, I ever laid out wisely in my life, and it is a very serious matter our succeeding in this. Did not your aunt Lorrimer say that she thought she would be at Golden Friars again this year?”

  “Yes, I think so; why?” said mamma, listlessly.

  “Because she must have some influence over that beast Rokestone — I often wonder what devil has got hold of my affairs, or how Rokestone happens to meet me at so many points — and if she would talk to him a little, she might prevent his doing me a very serious mischief. She is sure to see him when she goes down there.”

  “He’s not there often, you know; I can always find a time to go to Golden Friars without a chance of seeing him. I shall never see him again, I hope.” I thought mamma sighed a little, as she said this. “But I’ll write and ask Lady Lorrimer to say whatever you wish to him, when her visit to Golden Friars is quite decided on.”

  So the conversation ended, and upon that theme was not resumed, at least within my hearing, during the remainder of our stay in town.

  My journal, which I kept pretty punctually during that season, lies open on the table before me. I have been aiding my memory with it. It has, however, helped me to nothing that bears upon my story. It is a register, for the most part, of routine. Now we lunched with Lady This — now we went to the Duchess of So-and-so’s garden-party — every night either a ball, or a musical party, or the opera. Sometimes I was asked out to dinner, sometimes we went to the play. Ink and leaves are discoloured by time. The score years and more that have passed, have transformed this record of frivolity into a solemn and melancholy Mentor. So many of the names that figure there have since been carved on tombstones! Among those that live still, and hold their heads up, there is change everywhere — some for better, some for worse; and yet riven, shattered, scattered, as this muster-roll is, with perfect continuity and solidity, that smiling Sadduceeic world without a home, the community that lives out of doors, and accepts, as it seems to me, satire and pleasure in lieu of the affections, lives and works on upon its old principles and aliment; diamonds do not fail, nor liveries, nor highbred horses, nor pretty faces, nor witty men, nor chaperons, nor fools, nor rascals.

  I must tell you, however, what does not distinctly appear in this diary. Among the many so-called admirers who asked for dances in the ba
ll-room, were two who appeared to like me with a deeper feeling than the others. One was handsome Colonel Saint-George Dacre, with an estate of thirty thousand a year, as my friends told mamma, who duly conveyed the fact to me. But young ladies, newly come out and very much danced with, are fastidious, and I was hard to please. My heart was not preoccupied, but even in my lonely life I had seen men who interested me more. I liked my present life and freedom too well, and shrank from the idea of being married. The other was Sir Henry Park, also rich, but older. Papa, I think, looked even higher for me, and fancied that I might possibly marry so as to make political connection for him. He did not, therefore, argue the question with me; but overrating me more than I did myself, thought he was quite safe in leaving me free to do as I pleased.

  These gentlemen, therefore, were, with the most polite tenderness for their feelings, dismissed — one at Brighton, in August; the other, a little later, at Carsbrook, where he chose to speak. I have mentioned these little affairs in the order in which they occurred, as I might have to allude to them in the pages that follow.

  Every one has, once or twice, in his or her life, I suppose, commenced a diary which was to have been prosecuted as diligently and perseveringly as that of Samuel Pepys. I did, I know, oftener than I could now tell you; I have just mentioned one of mine, and from this fragmentary notebook I give you the following extracts, which happen to help my narrative at this particular point.

  “At length, thank Heaven! news of darling Laura Grey. I can hardly believe that I am to see her so soon. I wonder whether I shall be able, a year hence, to recall the delight of this expected moment. It is true, there is a great deal to qualify my happiness, for her language is ominous. Still it will be delightful to meet her, and hear her adventures, and have one of our good long talks together, such as made Malory so happy.