There is something awful always in the spectacle of such a sick-bed as that beside which Rachel had just stood. But not quite so dreadful is the sight as are the imaginings and the despair of absence. So reassuring is the familiar spectacle of life, even in its subsidence, so long as bodily torture and mental aberration are absent.
In the meanwhile, on his return to the library, Lord Chelford found his dowager mother in high chat with the attorney, whom she afterwards pronounced ‘a very gentlemanlike man for his line of life.’
The conversation, indeed, was chiefly that of Lady Chelford, the exemplary attorney contributing, for the most part, a polite acquiescence, and those reflections which most appositely pointed the moral of her ladyship’s tale, which concerned altogether the vagaries of Mark Wylder — a subject which piqued her curiosity and irritated her passions.
It was a great day for Jos. Larkin; for by the time Lord Chelford returned the old lady had asked him to stay for dinner, which he did, notwithstanding his morning dress, to his great inward satisfaction, because he could henceforward mention, ‘the other day, when I dined at Brandon,’ or ‘old Lady Chelford assured me, when last I dined at Brandon;’ and he could more intimately speak of ‘our friends at Brandon,’ and ‘the Brandon people,’ and, in short, this dinner was very serviceable to the excellent attorney.
It was not very amusing this interchange of thought and feeling between
Larkin and the dowager, upon a theme already so well ventilated as Mark
Wylder’s absconding, and therefore I let it pass.
After dinner, when the dowager’s place knew her no more, Lord Chelford resumed his talk with Larkin.
‘I am quite confirmed in the view I took at first,’ he said. ‘Wylder has no claim upon me. There are others on whom much more naturally the care of his money would devolve, and I think that my undertaking the office he proposes, under his present strange circumstances, might appear like an acquiescence in the extraordinary course he has taken, and a sanction generally of his conduct, which I certainly can’t approve. So, Mr. Larkin, I have quite made up my mind. I have no business to undertake this trust, simple as it is.’
‘I have only, my lord, to bow to your lordship’s decision; at the same time I cannot but feel, my lord, how peculiar and painful is the position in which it places me. There are rents to be received by me, and sums handed over, to a considerable — I may say, indeed, a very large amount: and my friend Lake — Captain Lake — now, unhappily, in so very precarious a state, appears to dislike the office, also, and to anticipate annoyance, in the event of his consenting to act. Altogether, your lordship will perceive that the situation is one of considerable, indeed very great embarrassment, as respects me. There is, however, one satisfactory circumstance disclosed in his last letter. His return, he says, cannot be delayed beyond a very few months, perhaps weeks; and he states, in his own rough way, that he will then explain the motives of his conduct to the entire satisfaction of all those who are cognizant of the measures which he has adopted — no more claret, thanks — no more — a delicious wine — and he adds, it will then be quite understood that he has acted neither from caprice, nor from any motive other than self-preservation. I assure you, my lord, that is the identical phrase he employs — self-preservation. I all along suspected, or, rather, I mean, supposed, that Mr. Wylder had been placed in this matter under coercion — a — a threat.’
‘A little more wine?’ asked Lord Chelford, after another interval.
‘No — no more, I thank you. Your lordship’s very good, and the wine, I may say, excellent — delicious claret; indeed, quite so — ninety shillings a dozen, I should venture to say, and hardly to be had at that figure; but it grows late, I rather think, and the trustees of our little Wesleyan chapel — we’ve got a little into debt in that quarter, I am sorry to say — and I promised to advise with them this evening at nine o’clock. They have called me to counsel more than once, poor fellows; and so, with your lordship’s permission, I’ll withdraw.’
Lord Chelford walked with him to the steps. It was a beautiful night — very little moon, but that and the stars wonderfully clear and bright, and all things looking so soft and airy.
‘Try one of these,’ said the peer, presenting his cigar case.
Larkin, with a glow of satisfaction, took one of these noble cigars, and rolled it in his fingers, and smelt it.
‘Fragrant — wonderfully fragrant!’ he observed, meekly, with a connoisseur’s shake of the head.
The night was altogether so charming that Lord Chelford was tempted. So he took his cap, and lighted his cigar, too, and strolled a little way with the attorney.
He walked under the solemn trees — the same under whose airy groyning Wylder and Lake had walked away together on that noteworthy night on which Mark had last turned his back upon the grand old gables and twisted chimneys of Brandon Hall.
This way was rather a round, it must be confessed, to the Lodge — Jos, Larkin’s peaceful retreat. But a stroll with a lord was worth more than that sacrifice, and every incident which helped to make a colourable case of confidential relations at Brandon — a point in which the good attorney had been rather weak hitherto — was justly prized by that virtuous man.
If the trustees, Smith the pork-butcher, old Captain Snoggles, the Town Clerk, and the rest, had to wait some twenty minutes in the drawingroom at the Lodge, so much the better. An apology was, perhaps, the best and most modest shape into which he could throw the advertisement of his dinner at Brandon — his confidential talk with the proud old dowager, and his after-dinner ramble with that rising young peer, Lord Chelford. It would lead him gracefully into detail, and altogether the idea, the situation, the scene and prospect, were so soothing and charming, that the good attorney felt a silent exaltation as he listened to Lord Chelford’s two or three delighted sentences upon the illimitable wonders and mysteries glimmering in the heavens above them.
The cigar was delicious, the air balmy and pleasant, his digestion happy, the society unexceptionably aristocratic — a step had just been gained, and his consideration in the town and the country round improved, by the occurrences of the evening, and his whole system, in consequence, in a state so serene, sweet and satisfactory, that I really believe there was genuine moisture in his pink, dovelike eyes, as he lifted them to the heavens, and murmured, ‘Beautiful, beautiful!’ And he mistook his sensations for a holy rapture and silent worship.
Cigars, like other pleasures, are transitory. Lord Chelford threw away his stump, tendered his case again to Mr. Larkin, and then took his leave, walking slowly homewards.
CHAPTER XL.
THE ATTORNEY’S ADVENTURES ON THE WAY HOME.
Mr. Jos. Larkin was now moving alone, under the limbs of the Brandon trees. He knew the path, as he had boasted to Lord Chelford, from his boyhood; and, as he pursued his way, his mind got upon the accustomed groove, and amused itself with speculations respecting the vagaries of Mark Wylder.
‘I wonder what his lordship thinks. He was very close — very’ ruminated Larkin; ‘no distinct ideas about it possibly; and did not seem to wish to lead me to the subject. Can he know anything? Eh, can he possibly? Those high fellows are very knowing often — so much on the turf, and all that — very sharp and very deep.’
He was thinking of a certain noble lord in difficulties, who had hit a client of his rather hard, and whose affairs did not reflect much credit upon their noble conductor.
‘Aye, I dare say, deep enough, and intimate with the Lakes. He expects to be home in two months’ time. He’s a deep fellow too; he does not like to let people know what he’s about. I should not be surprised if he came tomorrow. Lake and Lord Chelford may both know more than they say. Why should they both object merely to receive and fund his money? They think he wants to get them into a fix — hey? If I’m to conduct his business, I ought to know it; if he keeps a secret from me, affecting all his business relations, like this, and driving him about the world like an abscon
ding bankrupt, how can I advise him?’
All this drifted slowly through his mind, and each suggestion had its collateral speculations; and so it carried him pleasantly a good way on his walk, and he was now in the shadow of the dense copsewood that mantles the deep ravine which debouches into Redman’s Dell.
The road was hardly two yards wide, and the wood walled it in, and overhung it occasionally in thick, irregular masses. As the attorney marched leisurely onward, he saw, or fancied that he saw, now and then, in uncertain glimpses, something white in motion among the trees beside him.
At first he did not mind; but it continued, and grew gradually unpleasant. It might be a goat, a white goat; but no, it was too tall for that. Had he seen it at all? Aye! there it was, no mistake now. A poacher, maybe? But their poachers were not of the dangerous sort, and there had not been a robber about Gylingden within the memory of man. Besides, why on earth should either show himself in that absurd way?
He stopped — he listened — he stared suspiciously into the profound darkness. Then he thought he heard a rustling of the leaves near him, and he hallooed, ‘Who’s there?’ But no answer came.
So, taking heart of grace, he marched on, still zealously peering among the trees, until, coming to an opening in the pathway, he more distinctly saw a tall, white figure, standing in an ape-like attitude, with its arms extended, grasping two boughs, and stooping, as if peeping cautiously, as he approached.
The good attorney drew up and stared at this gray phantasm, saying to himself, ‘Yes,’ in a sort of quiet hiss.
He stopped in a horror, and as he gazed, the figure suddenly drew back and disappeared.
‘Very pleasant this!’ said the attorney, after a pause, recovering a little. ‘What on earth can it be?’
Jos. Larkin could not tell which way it had gone. He had already passed the midway point, where this dark path begins to descend through the ravine into Redman’s Dell. He did not like going forward — but to turn back might bring him again beside the mysterious figure. And though he was not, of course, afraid of ghosts, nor in this part of the world, of robbers, yet somehow he did not know what to make of this gigantic gray monkey.
So, not caring to stay longer, and seeing nothing to be gained by turning back, the attorney buttoned the top button of his coat, and holding his head very erect, and placing as much as he could of the path between himself and the side where the figure had disappeared, marched on steadily. It was too dark, and the way not quite regular enough, to render any greater speed practicable.
From the thicket, as he proceeded, he heard a voice — he had often shot woodcocks in that cover — calling in a tone that sounded in his ears like banter, ‘Mark — Mark — Mark — Mark.’
He stopped, holding his breath, and the sound ceased.
‘Well, this certainly is not usual,’ murmured Mr. Larkin, who was a little more perturbed than perhaps he quite cared to acknowledge even to himself. ‘Some fellow perhaps watching for a friend — or tricks, maybe.’
Then the attorney, trying his supercilious smile in the dark, listened again for a good while, but nothing was heard except those whisperings of the wind which poets speak of. He looked before him with his eyebrows screwed, in a vain effort to pierce the darkness, and the same behind him; and then after another pause, he began uncomfortably to move down the path once more.
In a short time the same voice, with the same uncertain echo among the trees, cried faintly, ‘Mark — Mark,’ and then a pause; then again, ‘Mark — Mark — Mark,’ and then it grew more distant, and sounded among the trees and reverberations of the glen like laughter.
‘Mark — ha — ha — hark — ha — ha — ha — hark — Mark — Mark — ha — ha — hark!’
‘Who’s there?’ cried the attorney, in a tone rather ferocious from fright, and stamping on the path. But his summons and the provocation died away together in the profoundest silence.
Mr. Jos. Larkin did not repeat his challenge. This cry of ‘Mark!’ was beginning to connect itself uncomfortably in his mind with his speculations about his wealthy client, which in that solitude and darkness began to seem not so entirely pure and disinterested as he was in the habit of regarding them, and a sort of wood-demon, such as a queer little schoolfellow used long ago to read a tale about in an old German storybook, was now dogging his darksome steps, and hanging upon his flank with a vindictive design.
Jos. Larkin was not given to fancy, nor troubled with superstition. His religion was of a comfortable, punctual, businesslike cast, which according with his genius — denied him, indeed, some things for which, in truth, he had no taste — but in no respect interfered with his main mission upon earth, which was getting money. He had found no difficulty hitherto in serving God and Mammon. The joint business prospered. Let us suppose it was one of those falterings of faith, which try the best men, that just now made him feel a little queer, and gave his thoughts about Mark Wylder, now grown habitual, that new and ghastly complexion which made the situation so unpleasant.
He wished himself more than once well out of this confounded pass, and listened nervously for a good while, and stared once more, half-frightened, in various directions, into the darkness.
‘If I thought there could be anything the least wrong or reprehensible — we are all fallible — in my allowing my mind to turn so much upon my client, I can certainly say I should be very far from allowing it — I shall certainly consider it — and I may promise myself to decide in a Christian spirit, and if there be a doubt, to give it against myself.’
This resolution, which was, he trusted, that of a righteous man, was, I am afraid, the effect rather of fright than reflection, and employed in that sense somewhat in the manner of an exorcism — whispered rather to the ghost than to his conscience.
I am sure Larkin did not himself suppose this. On the contrary, he really believed, I am convinced, that he scouted the ghost, and had merely volunteered this salutary self-examination as an exercise of conscience. He could not, however, have doubted that he was very nervous — and that he would have been glad of the companionship even of one of the Gylingden shopkeepers, through this infested bit of wood.
Having again addressed himself to his journey, he was now approaching that part of the path where the trees recede a little, leaving a considerable space unoccupied at either side of his line of march. Here there was faint moonlight and starlight, very welcome; but a little in advance of him, where the copsewood closed in again, just above those stone steps which Lake and his sister Rachel had mounted together upon the night of the memorable rendezvous, he fancied that he again saw the gray figure cowering among the foremost stems of the wood.
It was a great shock. He stopped short — and as he stared upon the object, he felt that electric chill and rising of the hair which accompany supernatural panic.
As he gazed, however, it was gone. Yes. At all events, he could see it no more. Had he seen it there at all? He was in such an odd state he could not quite trust himself. He looked back hesitatingly. But he remembered how very long and dark the path that way was, and how unpleasant his adventures there had been. And although there was a chance that the gray monkey was lurking somewhere near the path, still there was now but a short space between him and the broad carriage track down Redman’s Dell, and once upon that he considered himself almost in the street of Gylingden.
So he made up his mind, and marched resolutely onward, and had nearly reached that point at which the converging screen of thicket again overshadows the pathway, when close at his side he saw the tall, white figure push itself forward among the branches, and in a startling undertone of enquiry, like a conspirator challenging his brother, a voice — the same which he had so often heard during this walk — cried over his shoulder,
‘Mark Wylder!’
Larkin sprung back a pace or two, turning his face full upon the challenger, who in his turn was perhaps affrighted, for the same voice uttered a sort of strangled shriek, and he heard the branches c
rack and rustle as he pushed his sudden retreat through them — leaving the attorney more horrified than ever.
No other sound but the melancholy soughing of the night-breeze, and the hoarse murmur of the stream rising from the stony channel of Redman’s Dell, were now, or during the remainder of his walk through these haunted grounds, again audible.
So, with rapid strides passing the dim gables of Redman’s Farm, he at length found himself, with a sense of indescribable relief, upon the Gylingden road, and could see the twinkling lights in the windows of the main street.
CHAPTER XLI.
IN WHICH SIR FRANCIS SEDDLEY MANIPULATES.
At about two o’clock Buddle was called up, and spirited away to Brandon in a dog-cart. A haemorrhage, perhaps, a sudden shivering, and inflammation — a sinking, maybe, or delirium — some awful change, probably — for Buddle did not return.
Old Major Jackson heard of it, in his early walk, at Buddle’s door. He had begun to grow more hopeful. But hearing this he walked home, and replaced the dress-coat and silk stockings he had ventured to remove, promptly in his valise, which he buckled down and locked — swallowed with agitated voracity some fragments of breakfast — got on his easy boots and gaiters — brushed his best hat, and locked it into its leather case — placed his rug, greatcoat, and umbrella, and a rough walking-stick for service, and a gold-tipped, exquisite cane, for duty on promenades of fashion, neatly on top of his valise, and with his old white hat and shooting-coat on, looking and whistling as much as possible as usual, he popped carelessly into John Hobbs’s stable, where he was glad to see three horses standing, and he mentally chose the black cob for his flight to Dollington.
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 186
