Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  These voices were not always in the room. They called, as she fancied, through the walls, very thick in that old house, from the neighbouring apartments, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other; sometimes they seemed to holloa from distant lobbies, and came muffled, but threateningly, through the long panelled passages. As they approached they grew furious, as if several voices were speaking together. Whenever, as I said, this worthy woman applied herself to her devotions, these horrible sentences came hurrying towards the door, and, in panic, she would start from her knees, and all then would subside except the thumping of her heart against her stays, and the dreadful tremors of her nerves.

  What these voices said, Mrs. Beckett never could quite remember one minute after they had ceased speaking; one sentence chased another away; gibe and menace and impious denunciation, each hideously articulate, were lost as soon as heard. And this added to the effect of these terrifying mockeries and invectives, that she could not, by any effort, retain their exact import, although their horrible character remained vividly present to her mind.

  For a long time the Squire seemed to be the only person in the house absolutely unconscious of these annoyances. Mrs. Beckett had twice made up her mind within the week to leave. A prudent woman, however, who has been comfortable for more than twenty years in a place, thinks oftener than twice before she leaves it. She and old Cooper were the only servants in the house who remembered the good old housekeeping in Squire Toby’s day. The others were few, and such as could hardly be accounted regular servants. Meg Dobbs, who acted as housemaid, would not sleep in the house, but walked home, in trepidation, to her father’s, at the gatehouse, under the escort of her little brother, every night. Old Mrs. Beckett, who was high and mighty with the make-shift servants of fallen Gylingden, let herself down all at once, and made Mrs. Kymes and the kitchenmaid move their beds into her large and faded room, and there, very frankly, shared her nightly terrors with them.

  Old Cooper was testy and captious about these stories. He was already uncomfortable enough by reason of the entrance of the two muffled figures into the house, about which there could be no mistake. His own eyes had seen them. He refused to credit the stories of the women, and affected to think that the two mourners might have left the house and driven away, on finding no one to receive them.

  Old Cooper was summoned at night to the oak parlour, where the Squire was smoking.

  “I say, Cooper,” said the Squire, looking pale and angry, “what for ha’ you been frightenin’ they crazy women wi’ your plaguy stories? d —— me, if you see ghosts here it’s no place for you, and it’s time you should pack. I won’t be left without servants. Here has been old Beckett, wi’ the cook and the kitchenmaid, as white as pipeclay, all in a row, to tell me I must have a parson to sleep among them, and preach down the devil! Upon my soul, you’re a wise old body, filling their heads wi’ maggots! and Meg goes down to the lodge every night, afeared to lie in the house — all your doing, wi’ your old wives’ stories, — ye withered old Tom o’ Bedlam!”

  “I’m not to blame, Master Charles. ’Tisn’t along o’ no stories o’ mine, for I’m never done tellin’ ‘em it’s all vanity and vapours. Mrs. Beckett ‘ill tell you that, and there’s been many a wry word betwixt us on the head o’t. Whate’er I may think,” said old Cooper, significantly, and looking askance, with the sternness of fear in the Squire’s face.

  The Squire averted his eyes, and muttered angrily to himself, and turned away to knock the ashes out of his pipe on the hob, and then turning suddenly round upon Cooper again, he spoke, with a pale face, but not quite so angrily as before.

  “I know you’re no fool, old Cooper, when you like. Suppose there was such a thing as a ghost here, don’t you see, it ain’t to them snipe-headed women it ‘id go to tell its story. What ails you, man, that you should think aught about it, but just what I think? You had a good headpiece o’ yer own once, Cooper, don’t be you clappin’ a goosecap over it, as my poor father used to say; d —— it, old boy, you mustn’t let ‘em be fools, settin’ one another wild wi’ their blether, and makin’ the folk talk what they shouldn’t, about Gylingden and the family. I don’t think ye’d like that, old Cooper, I’m sure ye wouldn’t. The women has gone out o’ the kitchen, make up a bit o’ fire, and get your pipe. I’ll go to you, when I finish this one, and we’ll smoke a bit together, and a glass o’ brandy and water.”

  Down went the old butler, not altogether unused to such condescensions in that disorderly and lonely household; and let not those who can choose their company, be too hard on the Squire who couldn’t.

  When he had got things tidy, as he said, he sat down in that big old kitchen, with his feet on the fender, the kitchen candle burning in a great brass candlestick, which stood on the deal table at his elbow, with the brandy bottle and tumblers beside it, and Cooper’s pipe also in readiness. And these preparations completed, the old butler, who had remembered other generations and better times, fell into rumination, and so, gradually, into a deep sleep.

  Old Cooper was half awakened by some one laughing low, near his head. He was dreaming of old times in the Hall, and fancied one of “the young gentlemen” going to play him a trick, and he mumbled something in his sleep, from which he was awakened by a stern deep voice, saying, “You wern’t at the funeral; I might take your life, I’ll take your ear.” At the same moment, the side of his head received a violent push, and he started to his feet. The fire had gone down, and he was chilled. The candle was expiring in the socket, and threw on the white wall long shadows, that danced up and down from the ceiling to the ground, and their black outlines he fancied resembled the two men in cloaks, whom he remembered with a profound horror.

  He took the candle, with all the haste he could, getting along the passage, on whose walls the same dance of black shadows was continued, very anxious to reach his room before the light should go out. He was startled half out of his wits by the sudden clang of his master’s bell, close over his head, ringing furiously.

  “Ha, ha! There it goes — yes, sure enough,” said Cooper, reassuring himself with the sound of his own voice, as he hastened on, hearing more and more distinct every moment the same furious ringing. “He’s fell asleep, like me; that’s it, and his lights is out, I lay you fifty — — “

  When he turned the handle of the door of the oak parlour, the Squire wildly called, “Who’s there?” in the tone of a man who expects a robber.

  “It’s me, old Cooper, all right, Master Charlie, you didn’t come to the kitchen after all, sir.”

  “I’m very bad, Cooper; I don’t know how I’ve been. Did you meet anything?” asked the Squire.

  “No,” said Cooper.

  They stared on one another.

  “Come here — stay here! Don’t you leave me! Look round the room, and say is all right; and gie us your hand, old Cooper, for I must hold it.” The Squire’s was damp and cold, and trembled very much. It was not very far from daybreak now.

  After a time he spoke again: “I’a done many a thing I shouldn’t; I’m not fit to go, and wi’ God’s blessin’ I’ll look to it — why shouldn’t I? I’m as lame as old Billy — I’ll never be able to do any good no more, and I’ll give over drinking, and marry, as I ought to ‘a done long ago — none o’ yer fine ladies, but a good homely wench; there’s Farmer Crump’s youngest daughter, a good lass, and discreet. What for shouldn’t I take her? She’d take care o’ me, and wouldn’t bring a head full o’ romances here, and mantua-makers’ trumpery, and I’ll talk with the parson, and I’ll do what’s fair wi’ everyone; and mind, I said I’m sorry for many a thing I ‘a done.”

  A wild cold dawn had by this time broken. The Squire, Cooper said, looked “awful bad,” as he got his hat and stick, and sallied out for a walk, instead of going to his bed, as Cooper besought him, looking so wild and distracted, that it was plain his object was simply to escape from the house. It was twelve o’clock when the Squire walked into the kitchen, where he was sure of fin
ding some of the servants, looking as if ten years had passed over him since yesterday. He pulled a stool by the fire, without speaking a word, and sat down. Cooper had sent to Applebury for the doctor, who had just arrived, but the Squire would not go to him. “If he wants to see me, he may come here,” he muttered as often as Cooper urged him. So the doctor did come, charily enough, and found the Squire very much worse than he had expected.

  The Squire resisted the order to get to his bed. But the doctor insisted under a threat of death, at which his patient quailed.

  “Well, I’ll do what you say — only this — you must let old Cooper and Dick Keeper stay wi’ me. I mustn’t be left alone, and they must keep awake o’ nights; and stay a while, do you. When I get round a bit, I’ll go and live in a town. It’s dull livin’ here, now that I can’t do nou’t, as I used, and I’ll live a better life, mind ye; ye heard me say that, and I don’t care who laughs, and I’ll talk wi’ the parson. I like ‘em to laugh, hang ‘em, it’s a sign I’m doin’ right, at last.”

  The doctor sent a couple of nurses from the County Hospital, not choosing to trust his patient to the management he had selected, and he went down himself to Gylingden to meet them in the evening. Old Cooper was ordered to occupy the dressing-room, and sit up at night, which satisfied the Squire, who was in a strangely excited state, very low, and threatened, the doctor said, with fever.

  The clergyman came, an old, gentle, “book-learned” man, and talked and prayed with him late that evening. After he had gone the Squire called the nurses to his bedside, and said:

  “There’s a fellow sometimes comes; you’ll never mind him. He looks in at the door and beckons, — a thin, hump-backed chap in mourning, wi’ black gloves on; ye’ll know him by his lean face, as brown as the wainscot: don’t ye mind his smilin’. You don’t go out to him, nor ask him in; he won’t say nout; and if he grows anger’d and looks awry at ye, don’t ye be afeared, for he can’t hurt ye, and he’ll grow tired waitin’, and go away; and for God’s sake mind ye don’t ask him in, nor go out after him!”

  The nurses put their heads together when this was over, and held afterwards a whispering conference with old Cooper. “Law bless ye! — no, there’s no madman in the house,” he protested; “not a soul but what ye saw, — it’s just a trifle o’ the fever in his head — no more.”

  The Squire grew worse as the night wore on. He was heavy and delirious, talking of all sorts of things — of wine, and dogs, and lawyers; and then he began to talk, as it were, to his brother Scroope. As he did so, Mrs. Oliver, the nurse, who was sitting up alone with him, heard, as she thought, a hand softly laid on the door-handle outside, and a stealthy attempt to turn it. “Lord bless us! who’s there?” she cried, and her heart jumped into her mouth, as she thought of the hump-backed man in black, who was to put in his head smiling and beckoning— “Mr. Cooper! sir! are you there?” she cried. “Come here, Mr. Cooper, please — do, sir, quick!”

  Old Cooper, called up from his doze by the fire, stumbled in from the dressing-room, and Mrs. Oliver seized him tightly as he emerged.

  “The man with the hump has been atryin’ the door, Mr. Cooper, as sure as I am here.” The Squire was moaning and mumbling in his fever, understanding nothing, as she spoke. “No, no! Mrs. Oliver, ma’am, it’s impossible, for there’s no sich man in the house: what is Master Charlie sayin’?”

  “He’s saying Scroope every minute, whatever he means by that, and — and — hisht! — listen — there’s the handle again,” and, with a loud scream, she added— “Look at his head and neck in at the door!” and in her tremour she strained old Cooper in an agonizing embrace.

  The candle was flaring, and there was a wavering shadow at the door that looked like the head of a man with a long neck, and a longish sharp nose, peeping in and drawing back.

  “Don’t be a d —— fool, ma’am!” cried Cooper, very white, and shaking her with all his might. “It’s only the candle, I tell you — nothing in life but that. Don’t you see?” and he raised the light; “and I’m sure there was no one at the door, and I’ll try, if you let me go.”

  The other nurse was asleep on a sofa, and Mrs. Oliver called her up in a panic, for company, as old Cooper opened the door. There was no one near it, but at the angle of the gallery was a shadow resembling that which he had seen in the room. He raised the candle a little, and it seemed to beckon with a long hand as the head drew back. “Shadow from the candle!” exclaimed Cooper aloud, resolved not to yield to Mrs. Oliver’s panic; and, candle in hand, he walked to the corner. There was nothing. He could not forbear peeping down the long gallery from this point, and as he moved the light, he saw precisely the same sort of shadow, a little further down, and as he advanced the same withdrawal, and beckon. “Gammon!” said he; “it is nout but the candle.” And on he went, growing half angry and half frightened at the persistency with which this ugly shadow — a literal shadow he was sure it was — presented itself. As he drew near the point where it now appeared, it seemed to collect itself, and nearly dissolve in the central panel of an old carved cabinet which he was now approaching.

  In the centre panel of this is a sort of boss carved into a wolf’s head. The light fell oddly upon this, and the fugitive shadow seemed to be breaking up, and rearranging itself as oddly. The eyeball gleamed with a point of reflected light, which glittered also upon the grinning mouth, and he saw the long, sharp nose of Scroope Marston, and his fierce eye looking at him, he thought, with a steadfast meaning.

  Old Cooper stood gazing upon this sight, unable to move, till he saw the face, and the figure that belonged to it, begin gradually to emerge from the wood. At the same time he heard voices approaching rapidly up a side gallery, and Cooper, with a loud “Lord a-mercy on us!” turned and ran back again, pursued by a sound that seemed to shake the old house like a mighty gust of wind.

  Into his master’s room burst old Cooper, half wild with fear, and clapped the door and turned the key in a twinkling, looking as if he had been pursued by murderers.

  “Did you hear it?” whispered Cooper, now standing near the dressing-room door. They all listened, but not a sound from without disturbed the utter stillness of night. “God bless us! I doubt it’s my old head that’s gone crazy!” exclaimed Cooper.

  He would tell them nothing but that he was himself “an old fool,” to be frightened by their talk, and that “the rattle of a window, or the dropping o’ a pin” was enough to scare him now; and so he helped himself through that night with brandy, and sat up talking by his master’s fire.

  The Squire recovered slowly from his brain fever, but not perfectly. A very little thing, the doctor said, would suffice to upset him. He was not yet sufficiently strong to remove for change of scene and air, which were necessary for his complete restoration.

  Cooper slept in the dressing-room, and was now his only nightly attendant. The ways of the invalid were odd: he liked, half sitting up in his bed, to smoke his churchwarden o’ nights, and made old Cooper smoke, for company, at the fireside. As the Squire and his humble friend indulged in it, smoking is a taciturn pleasure, and it was not until the Master of Gylingden had finished his third pipe that he essayed conversation, and when he did, the subject was not such as Cooper would have chosen.

  “I say, old Cooper, look in my face, and don’t be afeared to speak out,” said the Squire, looking at him with a steady, cunning smile; “you know all this time, as well as I do, who’s in the house. You needn’t deny — hey? — Scroope and my father?”

  “Don’t you be talking like that, Charlie,” said old Cooper, rather sternly and frightened, after a long silence; still looking in his face, which did not change.

  “What’s the good o’ shammin’, Cooper? Scroope’s took the hearin’ o’ yer right ear — you know he did. He’s looking angry. He’s nigh took my life wi’ this fever. But he’s not done wi’ me yet, and he looks awful wicked. Ye saw him — ye know ye did.”

  Cooper was awfully frightened, and the odd smile on t
he Squire’s lips frightened him still more. He dropped his pipe, and stood gazing in silence at his master, and feeling as if he were in a dream.

  “If ye think so, ye should not be smiling like that,” said Cooper, grimly.

  “I’m tired, Cooper, and it’s as well to smile as t’other thing; so I’ll even smile while I can. You know what they mean to do wi’ me. That’s all I wanted to say. Now, lad, go on wi’ yer pipe — I’m goin’ asleep.”

  So the Squire turned over in his bed, and lay down serenely, with his head on the pillow. Old Cooper looked at him, and glanced at the door, and then halffilled his tumbler with brandy, and drank it off, and felt better, and got to his bed in the dressing-room.

  In the dead of night he was suddenly awakened by the Squire, who was standing, in his dressing-gown and slippers, by his bed.

  “I’ve brought you a bit o’ a present. I got the rents o’ Hazelden yesterday, and ye’ll keep that for yourself — it’s a fifty — and give t’ other to Nelly Carwell, tomorrow; I’ll sleep the sounder; and I saw Scroope since; he’s not such a bad ‘un after all, old fellow! He’s got a crape over his face — for I told him I couldn’t bear it; and I’d do many a thing for him now. I never could stand shilly-shally. Goodnight, old Cooper!”

  And the Squire laid his trembling hand kindly on the old man’s shoulder, and returned to his own room. “I don’t half like how he is. Doctor don’t come half often enough. I don’t like that queer smile o’ his, and his hand was as cold as death. I hope in God his brain’s not aturnin’!”

  With these reflections, he turned to the pleasanter subject of his present, and at last fell asleep.

  In the morning, when he went into the Squire’s room, the Squire had left his bed. “Never mind; he’ll come back, like a bad shillin’,” thought old Cooper, preparing the room as usual. But he did not return. Then began an uneasiness, succeeded by a panic, when it began to be plain that the Squire was not in the house. What had become of him? None of his clothes, but his dressing-gown and slippers, were missing. Had he left the house, in his present sickly state, in that garb? and, if so, could he be in his right senses; and was there a chance of his surviving a cold, damp night, so passed, in the open air?