Mrs. Wardell received him very cordially; and Miss Gray, she scarcely knew why, rather coldly.
He sat down and took his cup of tea, and chatted agreeably about all sorts of things. But caparicious Laura Gray was still silently insensible to those secret glances of entreaty and rebuke which good Mrs. Wardell, floundering in the deep, threw upon her.
Perhaps Mr. Dacre fancied that the ladies had been quarrelling. I don’t know. But he could hardly fail to perceive the embarrassment that reigned in the drawingroom.
“One is allowed to admire China, when it is so beautiful as this, and so old,” said Alfred Dacre, trying a new subject, as he turned his tea-cup round upon its saucer with the tip of his finger; “and I am sure it has a history.”
“I dare say,” said Mrs. Wardell, catching at the chance, “you know all about it, Laura.”
“Yes, it is very old, I believe,” said she; “but I am a very bad chronicler, and, I am ashamed to say, I forget all about it.”
Here ensued another silence. Mrs. Wardell looked at her again with wild entreaty.
There was rather a difficulty in finding a subject. Miss Gray, notwithstanding, afforded not the slightest assistance. Mrs. Wardell, whose invention was slow, looked at her now, almost angrily, in vain; and Mr. Dacre perceiving the embarrassment, wondered when the mouse would come forth and the mountain cease to labour.
He talked a little more. But his remarks did not germinate. They were thrown on a barren surface. An inspiration reminded Mrs. Wardell, however, of a letter from her nephew, and she said, “I think I told you, Laura, didn’t I? that I had a letter from poor Philip Darwin, my nephew, Mr. Dacre, and he is so miserably in love, I think he’ll break his heart, poor fellow. What shall I advise him, Mr. Dacre?”
“I’m a poor authority,” said Alfred Dacre, “but love is said to be the business of those who have no business — suppose you find him something to do?”
“Oh! he has plenty to do — he’s in a cavalry regiment, and he’s breaking his heart, for they think they are going to India.”
“Oh! don’t be uneasy, he’ll cool there rapidly, notwithstanding the climate,” said Dacre, smiling.
“Heaven grant it, poor fellow,” said Mrs. Wardell.
“Heaven has nothing to do with it, I assure you,” said Dacre.
“Why, that sounds very odd — you’re not an Atheist” said Mrs. Wardell, a little brusquely.
“A very complete Atheist. I hardly believe even in Cupid,” he replied.
“Oh! I see you are joking, but there is an old saying, my nurse used to quote it,” said Mrs. Wardell, “that marriages are made in heaven.”
“Over tea-tables, and in drawingrooms, and by very odd angels, I believe. You see what a sceptic I am. Except as a spectator, however, I know nothing of marriage, and nothing, I may say, of love.” He laughed. “As a rule, however, marriage seldom seems quite to restore the human race to Paradise.”
“Some people are very happy in that state, Mr. Dacre,” said Mrs. Wardell, in a tone and with a look straight before her, meant to convey a sense of the felicity she, at least, had conferred, when in that state.
“Good heaven!” thought Miss Gray. “What can Julia Wardell mean by harping on love and marriage in this absurd way. He will certainly think that she and I have laid a plan to marry him. It is enough to make one cry.”
“Some people — yes, of course,” said he, “but our education, I mean that of men, is very much against making love our first much less our only passion, or marriage our chief source of happiness. We have so many pursuits and ambitions, and amusements, and all so engrossing, I can’t pretend to say which mode of making life’s journey is the easier — celibacy or wedlock, each has its drawbacks like the two chaises that Miss Edgeworth mentions at the Irish inn, the top’s out of one, and the bottom’s out of the other,” and he laughed again.
“I can quite understand young men laughing at marriage,” said the persistent Julia Wardell, “but not believing in love, that does amaze me.”
“Oh, but I do believe in it. I’d describe it as an inebriation followed by headache.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Mrs. Wardell.
“That is, in the case of most men. I should be afraid of love, because, with me, it would be a first and only love, and therefore violent enough to kill.” He spoke with a sadness almost enthusiastic, was silent for a moment, and then laughed. “But I have seen lovers, men who belonged to the profession, I may call it, and practised nothing else. I have watched the decline of passion and the veering of fancy. The vision fades, the charm expires, and love goes out. Now I fear the passion, because, with me, it might prove the reverse — a live-long madness. In a case like mine I could suppose something prodigious, I could suppose a man in love with his wife!”
“What do you mean, Mr. Dacre?” exclaimed Mrs. Wardell.
“Yes, that may happen,” he said, “because I believe there is nothing that may not happen, although, I allow, it is not likely.”
At this point of the dialogue, Miss Laura Gray got up as if she were looking for a book, or a letter, and, having slowly moved to the piano, she consummated the rudeness of the evening, in Mrs. Wardell’s opinion, by playing a piece of grand and melancholy music by Beethoven.
Up got Mr. Dacre, as that terrified lady thought, to leave the room. But, of course, it was with no such intent; on the contrary, he placed himself gently by the piano and listened, it seemed, in a kind of rapture.
CHAPTER XV.
BEETHOVEN.
WHEN the music ceased Dacre sighed, and, said he, “That music always agitates one — it moves one’s better nature, but it jars also — the spirit of anguish breathes through it — the pathetic and the victorious are soaring there, but all through is felt the vibration of a more than human pain.”
Miss Laura Gray laid her hands on her lap and sighed also. A short silence followed, and she in turn spoke.
“Did you ever happen to meet a gentleman named Guy de Beaumirail?”
To this sudden and distinct question he answered as distinctly.
“How very odd! I was at that very moment, by an association hardly definable, thinking of him. Yes, I do know a good deal of him, and more than I care to know.”
“Ardenbroke — you know him? — said it was not improbable,” said Miss Gray.
“Oh! did he?”
He looked steadily at her, as if expecting her to say more.
“And Ardenbroke said so?” he resumed. “Well, he was quite right in one sense, although he knows very well how I feel about it.”
“He is a very distant relation of ours — of mine, I believe, that is, or a connexion. I am a miserable genealogist; but I am curious to learn something about him, not the least from any interest in him, but for a different reason — something quite different.”
“Yes, I saw him once,” said Dacre, “very lately, and he’s an undeserving fellow. I could not avoid it, but I don’t talk about him — that is, as little as I can help.”
“But why?” asked Miss Gray.
He smiled and shook his head a little.
“He’s an awkward subject,” said he.
“Are you ashamed of him?”
“Not exactly; but — but he’s an awkward subject. He might have been very well, a great deal better than I am; and he chose to throw everything away, and he’s in a position which I consider disgraceful, and I — don’t — mention him.
He uttered this very gravely, and with a slow and deliberate emphasis.
Miss Gray was silent for a little, and then she said, “But I must ask another question — I saw you — I’m certain it was you — speaking to Ardenbroke at the opera on the night on which you were so good as to assist us on the occasion of our breakdown.”
Mr. Dacre acquiesced.
“And there was an old man in the same box with gray hair, and with a long face — a severe-looking old man.”
Dacre smiled a little, and nodded.
“
Now, I have a reason for asking, is that old man an enemy of Mr. de Beaumirail’s?”
“An enemy?”
“I mean — does he know Mr. de Beaumirail, and does he bear him an enmity?”
“I should say he does bear him ill-will. I know next to nothing of him, but this — that he is rich, and loves his money as people who have too much only can, and that he has lost a great deal by De Beaumirail’s break-up, and I fancy hates him accordingly.”
“Yes, and would like to pursue him?”
“I dare say,” said Dacre.
“Do you think he would go the length of writing an anonymous letter to determine a vacillating person in a hostile course against Mr. de Beaumirail?”
“It seems odd, but I really know very little about him — nothing, I may say, not even his name, for I forget it — a formal acquaintance of an hour — very slight indeed. He had a part of a box to dispose of and I took it; that is all I know personally of him, and that he is one of De Beaumirail’s creditors.”
“Do you think he would be a likely person to write an anonymous letter with the purpose I have mentioned?”
“I was told he is a man of business, and I don’t think it likely that he would take that trouble. Was the letter to Ardenbroke?”
“No, to another person, a creditor, who could have given De Beaumirail his liberty, by simply signing an agreement for his discharge, and declined to do so, and the anonymous writer urged a persistence in that refusal.”
“Oh! that settles it. It could not have been he, for he, being creditor himself, to a large amount, could prevent his discharge until he paid him his uttermost farthing?”
“I see — yes, I suppose so,” said Miss Gray, thoughtfully.
“And how did this creditor act under the pressure of his anonymous adviser?” asked Dacre.
“It was no pressure to her. She had already determined on leaving him in prison.”
“She? — Good heavens! then it was a woman! What beasts those tradespeople are where money is concerned,” exclaimed Alfred Dacre.
“Worse — not a tradeswoman, but a lady,” said Miss Laura Gray.
“A lady — a lady no longer. She’s self-degraded,” said Dacre; “don’t you think a woman so unsexed and so divested of all good, deserves to be made an example of?”
“Then you are one of those chivalrous lawgivers who would punish women, whom you term the weaker sex, as severely as men?” said Laura Gray.
“More severely, in certain cases,” he replied. “Where they are wicked they are more fiendish than men. Nature has made them softer and purer, most of what is generous in life, all of what is generous in love, belongs to women, and where they commit cold and malignant cruelties they sin against nature, and become very paragons of monsters?”
“And what would you have done to this lady?” inquired Miss Gray. “Burn her alive?”
“No, on second thoughts I should leave her to the chances of reprisal and to the equities of eternity. May I ask, do you really know anything of this person?”
“I do — yes.”
“Is she a Jewess, or is she a Christian?”
“A Christian!” answered Laura Gray, “by profession at least.”
“Well, I know more of De Beaumirail than I have seen. He has injured me probably as much as any other man living. I don’t admire Guy de Beaumirail. I divide his character, so far as it is known to me, into three parts — one part I despise, another I hate, and in the third I see rudiments of good. I have no particular wish to say one word in excuse or defence of him, but I don’t envy the lady who, being a Christian, as you say, believes her Bible, and reads there the parable of the debtor whom his Lord forgave, and who afterwards took his fellow-servant by the throat, saying ‘pay me that thou owest.’”
Mr. Dacre did not speak with enthusiasm. He seemed cool enough about the scamp De Beaumirail, and the menacing words uttered so coldly, acquired a strong force by reason of a latent contrast.
“There are cases in which reason will not direct us. Our coachman, I remember, one night, put out the carriage lamps — I think it was snowing, he said he could see better without them, by the very faint light in the heavens. That light for me is instinct, and my carriage lamps are reason, and in this puzzle I put it out, and rely upon the faint light from above. I am that wicked Christian you condemn, and I’ll play that music of Beethoven’ s again. When I was a very little thing, my poor sister, a good many years older than I, used to play it, and I used to see tears fill her eyes, and flow down her cheeks. It inspires me.”
She began to play again that strange music, without leaving Mr. Dacre time for answer, apology, or explanation.
“I never cry, I hate tears; but that air half breaks my heart,” she said, “and when I grow irresolute and perplexed, I play it, and light rises up for me in darkness, and courage returns to my heart.”
“I had not an idea, Miss Gray, — I owe you a thousand apologies;” pleaded Mr. Dacre, with great humility.
“Not one, no indeed. It is only that you don’t understand this distracting case; you don’t know the facts, you don’t know my motives. And now I must tell you something, and also ask your assistance.”
As she uttered this last sentence she glanced again at good Mrs. Wardell, whom she had already observed nodding in her chair. Billy Winkie, the Dustman, as in the mythology of the nursery, the angel of sleep was termed in my nonage, had visited her, and just at that moment Miss Gray did not choose to observe, or to disturb her nap.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONSULTATION.
“NOW, I am going to ask you two, or three questions, and you must not think them very odd, until you have heard my reasons,” said Miss Laura Gray, looking thoughtfully at a little ring on her finger.
“I shall be only too happy, if I can answer them,” said he.
“Has it ever happened to you to receive an anonymous letter?” she asked.
“No, never, unless you so called such things as boys used to send about on St. Valentine’s day.”
“No, oh no. I mean a letter assuming a grave tone, affecting to criticise conduct, to exhort, and perhaps to menace,” said she.
“No, never.”
“Then you can hardly understand the way in which such a letter haunts one, the feeling of conjecture, suspicion, and insecurity.”
“Pardon me, I can, very well. I once knew a person almost at his wits’ ends, from no other cause — an anonymous letter. I think I mentioned that I was fortunate enough to hunt down the writer of it. I assure you it cost a great deal of thought, and some resolution, but I succeeded.”
Miss Laura Challys Gray, still looking at her ring, knit her pretty eyebrows slightly in momentary thought.
“I may as well tell you, this letter was written to me, and the fact is, though I did not mind it at first, I have grown perfectly miserable about it, and I can’t rest till I find out who wrote it.”
“In my researches I was very lucky. It is once in a hundred times one would have a chance of detecting such a thing; but do you really care?” said he.
“I do, indeed, more than I can describe,” she answered.
“I wish so much I could be of the least use. Do you suspect any particular person?”
“No one.”
“And why should you care, then?”
“I can’t help it, it has made me quite nervous. It is so very strange.”
“I wish I had more time at your disposal; but command me, pray, in any way you think may be useful,” said he.
“Well, thanks; you are very kind. Ardenbroke, my cousin, you know him, told me that you are acquainted with Mr. de Beaumirail’s relations; in fact, that some of them are connected with you, and so I thought you would perhaps be able to form a probable conjecture as to who his enemy might be, for he admits himself in the letter to be a relation.”
“He may have a great many whom I have never even heard of,” said Dacre; “but my best consideration and exertions are at your service.”
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“The letter is in the room, would you mind just looking at it?”
And she unlocked her desk and produced the mysterious letter.
“Am I to read it?” said he, as he took it in his fingers.
“Certainly,” she replied. “It is an odd, letter, and contained that locket, which is a very pretty thing, a toy of some little value,” she said, turning the brilliants in the light, so as to make them flash.
“That came from some person who could afford to part with a little money, and the tone of the letter is earnest. I am, however, totally without even a guess. The fact is I know very little about his relations — and what an odd seal — gallant and ghastly; do you read anything of menace in it?”
“Well, no, that did not strike me,” and she smiled, but not like a person amused.
“I have now, I think, fixed the whole thing pretty well in my memory; nothing very remarkable about the paper, thick note paper, red wax, posted at Charing Cross — I shall bear everything in my mind.”
“It is so kind of you, Mr. Dacre; I’m sure I am a great fool, but I can’t help it; I can’t get it for a moment out of my mind; even my dreams are troubled with it.”
“I don’t wonder,” said he gravely. “I can quite understand it. I think I should be miserable myself, in such a state of conjecture and uncertainty.”
“Your business, I’m afraid, will prevent your recollecting it,” pleaded Miss Laura Gray.
“It is much more likely that your commission, Miss Gray, should make me forget my business; I suspect I shall think of very little else.”
“It is very kind — you need not mention it before Mrs. Wardell, who has not been attending, unless you happen to discover something about it; that is, if you should call here again.”
“I shall certainly call, if you allow me, tomorrow evening. I have already formed a theory; I shall test it very soon; possibly I may have something to tell. If my guess proves a right one, your intuition warned you well, for that letter indicates a danger, which, if it cost me my life, I will defeat.”
Whether Mr. Alfred Dacre spoke these words with more emphasis than he had used before, or that some sense of discomfort had brought it about, at this point in their conversation, Mrs. Wardell wakened with a snort, and said, “Yes, dear, I — I — where’s the dog?”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 446
