Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  Once or twice Doctor Jenner stole a glance at his wife, expecting the good woman, after her wont, to inquire how the sermon pleased him, what was the subject, and so forth.

  I think, if she had owned a nursery duly stocked, or had ever had such a pleasant and anxious little colony to look after, she might not have cared quite so much for the sermon, and someone else would have stitched them into their purple paper covers. People are never, of course, quite content with the thing that is. Nature hides away the ugliness of decay, disease, and death. There is, if we could fathom it, a profound mystery in the fact that man anticipates good from every change; and that the pain that belongs to every imaginable situation is hidden from all but those who suffer it.

  I think that these two people, living in the quaint grey house, with the tall piers, capped with stone balls, in front, between which swung the iron gate, flanked without by clumps of lofty elms, were possibly a happier pair than if they had obtained the wish of their hearts — a hope they had long ceased to cherish — a little child to look in their faces, and prattle and play about the trim, quiet rooms.

  Well, they had been twenty years married, and were childless. And, as it turned out, by an odd coincidence — for it chimed in with her own thoughts at the moment — the vicar, who had now risen, and was standing with his back to the fire, said at last —

  “I have finished the sermon, my love; and it treats a good deal of the case of Elkanah and Hannah.”

  “How very odd!” said Mrs. Jenner; “I can’t account for it.”

  “For what, Dolly?”inquired the vicar.

  “I dreamed last night that we had such a darling little child.

  I thought it lay sleeping, poor little thing! on my knees; and that while I was looking at it, you were reading aloud such a beautiful sermon about Hannah and Elkanah; and here it is — the very subject! And, oddly enough, I was thinking of it at the very moment!”

  “Very odd, my dear!” said the vicar— “very odd!”

  And he stepped over to her side, smiling, and kissed her cheek gently, and patting it, smiled still with great affection upon her, saying —

  “Dolly, my darling, we must not fret about the matter. Let us leave all in the hands of God, Who has given us one another, and this quiet and happy life. Remember the kind reproach of Elkanah to his beloved wife: ‘Am not I better to thee than ten sons?’ There is some good reason, or the God of all comfort would not deny us this. And is there not compensation? For my part, Dolly, when I look at you I feel that I already owe more love on earth than I can ever repay.”

  So they kissed very tenderly, and she said —

  “I’m sure it is true. But I don’t repine; you must not fancy that. It is only when my darling man is out, making his visits, that I do sometimes feel lonely, and think that if I had a little creature to play with— “

  “Little creature to play with, my dear? It might be a young man of twenty by this time,” said the vicar.

  “I don’t see why it should,” expostulated his wife. “But I can’t help wishing; and I know it would be delightful if a kind fairy would come, as happens in the old fairy-tale, and give us our wish, and a pretty present for the little creature at its christening.”

  At this moment the door opened, and the maid entered with a letter.

  It had the postmark. It had just arrived by the coach. It was for the vicar.

  “What an odd hand! Who is it?”

  The vicar had replaced his spectacles, and was standing with his side to the candle, and the letter open in his fingers. He had just begun to read it, but rumpled it round, to read the signature for his wife.

  “Hileria Pullen.”

  “What an odd name!” exclaimed Mrs. Jenner.

  “Yes,” said the vicar, “it is odd. Hilaria one could have understood; but Hileria — it is odd; it is barbarous. I never heard of the person. I don’t think I ever knew any one of that name. Pullen? No.”

  “What is the postmark? “asked his wife curiously.

  “Guildford, Surrey,” he answered. “I don’t know a soul who lives there.”

  He drew nearer to the candle, and read for a few seconds undisturbed.

  “Aren’t there some people related to you called Torquil?” he asked.

  “Yes, my second cousin, Janet Ayger married a Captain Torquil,” answered Dolly.

  “Well — yes. Listen to this,” said the vicar. “Shall I read it aloud for you, as well as I can?”

  “Do, like a darling,” said she, and the vicar began.

  “It is rather long, and I have only read a little way.”

  CHAPTER II.

  THE VICAR AND HIS WIFE ARE ADJURED.

  THE letter began thus: —

  ‘REVEREND SIR, — Please your divine, I am the woman by name Hileria Pullen, who cares the dearling child resently left an orphen by that angle of goodness the deseased Mrs. Mildmay, of Queen’s Snedley, and which I do suppose was well known to you and your lady, if she be still living; and Mr. Mildmay, whose lamentable departure likewise you saw, from a fall from his gig being in the papers — and the horse ran away, which caused his lamentable departure, a year before my mistress that was. Leaving her and her dearling infent, only eight months old, to lament his departure.’

  “These people are all new to me,” said the vicar, shaking his head a little, and lowering the letter to the table, as he looked on his wife.

  “Yes; that’s poor Alice. She married Mr. Mildmay, of Queen’s Snedley. I thought she took airs a little, and we have not written to one another this long time. Perhaps I wronged her; and so she’s gone, poor thing.”

  “And he also died, it seems, a year before; and this is the nurse, I suppose,” said the vicar.

  The vicar resumed:

  ‘Two days after my lamentable mistress died, Captain Torquil came to Queen’s Snedley, having given an order to Floss and Company for the funeral, which was done private. He has took the child and me to Guildford, where it and me at this present time is. We are comfortable in every particular as yet. Mrs. Torquil is here herself, but is not happy, nor, I think, in ‘ealth, to make it sootable for Miss Mildmay when she comes to grow up a bit to stay here, even if the captain was a saint upon earth — which it is far from so. Because, as I can make plain, I am very Unhappy about the dear child. He comes down here from London, sometimes every day for a bit, and sometimes he will not come for a week. Mrs. Torquil says she is a relative of your lady, and asked me after her very kindly, if she be still living, which I cannot tell, not having knewed the name.’

  “That’s true, isn’t it?” asked the vicar. “They are related?”

  “Yes, she is a cousin — not a first cousin — and I never saw very much of her. But go on, dear.”

  “Well-yes. Where was I? Oh! here.”

  And the vicar continued, thus:

  ‘But I am very anxious, please your divine, on account of the darling baby, you are aware it is only eighteen months old on the seventh of December last, and there is a many things you should know about; there being no near relative, and me in very great fear for the consequences. The captain is a pillite gentleman, and nice spoken to me. But I cannot write to your divine the cause of me being so very frightened as I am. For the captain he has been very kind to me, and I have nothing to complain. But has come to the nursery frequently, and looks at the child, and always offers me a drink, which is not the place of a gentleman to such as me; and having charge of the dearling child to offer me a drink, and press me to take it as he does.’

  “Very odd, indeed,” said Mrs. Jenner. “I wonder what aged person this is?”

  “I haven’t a notion, my dear,” answered the vicar.

  “But what can he mean by it?” repeated his wife, with dignity.

  “It is possibly mere good nature,” said her husband.

  “I hope so,” said Mrs. Jenner. “I don’t think it gentlemanlike.”

  “She may be an old woman, you know,” said the vicar.

  “Ext
remely unlikely,” said the good lady, with an offended air. “You may as well read on, Hugh.”

  The vicar read on therefore:

  ‘Being myself a many a year in the world, and having seen a great deal— ‘

  “Oh! then she is a person of a certain age,” said the vicar.

  “I’m glad she is. She’s the fitter person to take charge of children,” said his wife. “But I never heard any good of that Captain Torquil, and, Heaven forgive me if I wrong him, I don’t believe any; and I don’t say so without having heard a good deal about him. But read on, darling.”

  “Very good,” said the vicar. “I wonder what on earth she can want of me? however, we’ll see,” and he read on:

  ‘It seems to me the captain wants to take the management of the dearling baby out of my hands hole us bole us.’

  “She spells very oddly, “said the vicar.

  “Never mind. What more, darling?” said Mrs. Jenner.

  ‘And the notions of such a thing puts me to my wits end, and, ‘indeed, God alone is my chief hope.’

  “That, under all circumstances, I trust,” interpolated the vicar.

  ‘And I would wash my ends of it, and leave the place, was it not for that dearling baby, and the dreadful sin which it would lay on my soul — which the Lord forbid — and what may become of it I know not, if you will not see fit to come here and remove the poor little dearling. It will not do to write to me here, for it will fall, most likely, into the ends of the captain, which it would be a great break up, and the undoing of me; for he is, I hear, a very violent gentleman when he is crossed, and I should then be quite heartbroke about the dearling baby, for it would pass altogether into other ends, and so God only knows the consequence; and you being a parson, and acquainted with all goodness, will know what is right to be done by the poor innocent, and your own kin, and a great sin ‘twill be if you let the child come to evil. Great Heaven, if you but knew the hawful state I am in this hour, and the baby, poor innocent darling, in so great a danger, you would not fail to take coach for here — Guildford, Surrey, Old Hall, at the grocer’s in High Street, Samuel Folder’s, they will tell you of me; and as you hope for mercy yourself, come here and take away the child to stay in safety in your care.’

  That was the end of the letter; and when he had read it, he lowered it again to the table, and looked in his wife’s face, and she looked in his.

  CHAPTER III.

  VOICES IN THE HALL

  “I DON’T see, my love, do you,” said the vicar, “that I am called upon to take any step on this odd letter from a servant-maid? ““But, Hugh, dear, suppose she says true? Suppose there is a good reason for her alarm and urgency?”

  “People of that rank of life don’t understand ours. I don’t believe, Dolly, there is any reason such as an educated person would act on.”

  “And — I was just thinking, Hugh — does not this offer, as it were, from Providence of a little child of our kindred to take in, and protect, and educate, and love, I might say, very wonderfully? It might be such a darling-just eighteen months old, and a little orphan, poor little thing; and it must be a darling little creature, or she could not love it so very much.”

  “But, my dear, the woman may be mad. If I could be certain there was anything in it — but I don’t even understand what she means.”

  “Don’t you think she means that the child will be kidnapped, or made away with somehow?”

  “Well, suppose she does, is it not more likely that a woman in her rank of life should be either stupid, or tipsy, or even mad, than that Captain — what’s his name?-should meditate any such enormity?”

  “But you told us, Hugh, last Sunday, in that beautiful sermon on the text, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ that that was the very argument-wasn’t it? — by which that wicked man, Mr. Hume, attacked revealed religion.”

  “Very well argued, I allow, Dolly,” said the vicar, smiling and patting her cheek affectionately.

  “I am not sure, but I know it was something like it. And suppose, Hugh, dear, that anything bad did happen to the poor little child in consequence of your holding back and leaving it to its fate, would you ever forgive yourself? Think what a treasure it might be; and, oh, could you-could you feel quite happy if you resolve on leaving the poor little thing to take its chance after this warning?”

  “I see, my good little Dolly, you have set your heart on our burning our fingers with other people’s chestnuts,” said the vicar, who secretly was more of his wife’s way of feeling and thinking in the matter than he cared to avow; and even at the cost of the long joumey-a longer one than the rail makes of it — he was very well disposed to be urged into the affair. “I see you have made up your mind, and I suppose, with such a termagant for a wife, I may as well make up mine,” he continued merrily. “It would be odd, Dolly, if it turned out as you say, and supplied a little inmate for that one lonely nook in the house, the quiet room upstairs, that may be noisy enough yet. But you must give me time to arrange about my duty, and to speak to Stubbs and Mompesson. And you’ll allow me to pack my trunk, also. I think you will? And so we’ll see what’s to be done, and should anything come of it, I may be delayed. I may be absent two Sundays; and, do you observe, the letter is stamped ‘late.’

  I see the date corresponds. It has been a day longer making the journey than it ought; but that accounts for it. The last mail. They are so dilatory in that rank of life. Yes, we must reckon two Sundays’ absence. If you look at the map he pointed to a large map of England hanging on the screen— “you’ll see that it is a long way between this and Guildford.”

  By this time the vicar was a little fussed, and had begun to feel the distraction of the coming journey.

  Dorothy had got Hileria Pullen’s letter, and was reading it, over again.

  “Well, darling, may God bless the undertaking,” said the vicar, after a silence of some minutes, laying his hand kindly on his wife’s shoulder. “But the more I think of it, the more I am satisfied we are right.”

  She looked up, meeting his fond glance as fondly.

  “Yes, Hugh, it will be the longest separation we have had since we were married.”

  And these good people, who loved very fondly and kissed easily, kissed very tenderly again, and she laid her hand in his as he sat down by her side, and they looked with inexpressible affection and happiness in each other’s faces. I wonder if it was possible for two human beings to be happier; and yet the wish of these hearts was still to seek-quifit Mecaenas?

  As, hand locked in hand, they fell thus into a reverie, on a sudden the iron gate opened, a tramp of feet and the sound of voices reached the hall door, at which came a loud knock like a woundy pelt, as they say in that country, of a hammer. This was followed by a great peal of the bell, and was so startling that good Mrs. Jenner bounded with an ejaculation, and the vicar, holding his wife’s hand tighter than he intended, looked round to the window.

  There were several voices talking, and the bell rang again.

  “Some one ill, I’m afraid,” said the vicar, going to the head of the stairs to hurry the maid.

  She was already at the door, and he heard feet entering, and some talk, and the deep bass voice of Tom Shackles among the rest.

  “By the mess!” cried the lusty voice of the girl. “Here will be news for the master and mistress. In wi’ it here. By Jen!”

  The other voices meanwhile were talking loudly enough in the hall to make it no easy matter for the vicar, calling over the banister at the head of the stairs, to make himself heard.

  “Fetch it in!”

  Could it be some half-drowned body picked out of the lake, and brought in to recover or die, as God might please, in the vicar’s house?

  CHAPTER IV.

  IN WHICH A PERSON COMES TO MAKE A VISIT TO THE VICARAGE.

  THE talking in the hall continued, but Catherine Bell, the vicar’s servant, ran upstairs, and seeing her master calling unheeded over the banister, she accosted him from the landing be
low in these words, with a delighted grin on her ruddy face —

  “Oh, sir, beggin’ yer pardon, please, there be a bam coom.”

  “A child come. What child? Whose child? What’s the meaning of all this? Is that Tom Shackles I hear downstairs? Will you tell him to come up to the lobby? I shall never know what it is otherwise; and come yourself also.”

  And he put his head into the drawingroom and said, “Something that will interest you, my love. It never rains but it pours. A baby arrived, and coming up.”

  “Bring the child up with you; that is, if it is fit to come up, of course. How do you do, Shackles? Come up for a moment; we want to hear what it is.”

  “Here they come, dear,” he said, returning to the drawingroom, where his wife was standing near the door in a high state of excitement.

  “Is he coming?” she asked.

  “I’ll carry it. Gie’t to me, Tom, will ye?” said Catherine Bell, in a giggle of ecstacy, coming up the stairs with the baby lying across in her arms, looking like a bale of flannels, with a tweed shawl folded round it, and some thick veils pinned over its face.

  “Bring the darling here, near the candles,” said kind Dolly Jenner to her maid. “Lay it on my lap.”

  “The bonny bab! it’s sleepin’, ma’am.”

  “Oh! the darling!” pursued the vicar’s wife. “We must take care, Kitty, not to let the light on its eyes, the poor little thing!”

  “‘Twill be a bonny wee thing, I’ll warrant ye, ma’am. Shall I unpin the clout from its face?”

  “Do, Kitty, quickly,” answered the lady, who was looking down on the lace veil — which indicated the rank of this little outcast’s people — longing, if it were possible, to see through it to the little slumbering face that was hidden from her eager eyes.