“Tut, folly, nonsense, child; wait till all’s done, and thank me then, if ye will. I’ll make ye as fine as the queen, and finer.” Every now and then he emphasized his harangue by kissing her cheeks and lips, which added to her perplexity and terror, and made her skin flame with the boisterous rasp of his stubbled chin. “And ye’ll be my little duchess, my beauty; ye will, my queen o’ diamonds, you roguey-poguey-woguey, as cunning as a dog-fox;” and in the midst of these tumultuous endearments she managed to break away from the amorous ogre, and was out of the door, and up the stairs to her room, and old Dulcibella, before his tardy pursuit had reached the cross-door.
An hour has passed, and the young lady stood up, and placing her arms about her neck, kissed old Dulcibella.
“Will you take a candle, darling,” she said, “and go down and see whether the cross-door is shut?”
Down went Dulcibella, the stairs creaking under her, and the young lady, drying her eyes, looked at her watch, drew the curtain at the window, placed the candle on the table near it, and then, shading her eyes with her hand, looked out earnestly.
The window did not command the avenue, it was placed in the side of the house. A moonlighted view she looked out upon; a soft declivity, from whose grassy slopes rose grand old trees, some in isolation, some in groups of twos and threes, all slumbering in the hazy light and still air, and beyond rose, softer in the distance, gentle undulating uplands, studded with trees, and near their summits, more thickly clothed in forest.
She opened the window softly, and looking out, sighed in the fresh air of night, and heard from the hollow the distant rush and moan of running waters, and her eye searched the foreground of this landscape. The trunk of one of the great trees near the house seemed to become animated, and projected a human figure, nothing awful or ghastly — a man in a short cloak, with a wideawake hat on. Seeing the figure in the window, he lifted his hand, looking towards her, and approaching the side of the house with caution, glanced this way and that till he reached the house.
The old servant at the same time returned and told her that the door was locked as usual.
“You remain here, Dulcibella — no — I shan’t take a candle,” and with a heavy sigh she left the room, and treading lightly descended the stairs, and entered a wainscoted room, on the ground floor — with two windows, through which came a faint reflected light. Standing close to the nearer of these was the man with whom she had exchanged from the upper room the signals I have mentioned.
CHAPTER VIII.
NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH.
Swiftly she went to the window and raised it without noise, and in a moment they were locked in each other’s arms.
“Darling, darling,” was audible; and
“Oh, Ry! do you love me still?”
“Adore you, darling! adore you, my little violet, that grew in the shade — my only, only darling.”
“And I have been so miserable. Oh, Ry — that heart-breaking disappointment — that dreadful moment — you’ll never know half I felt; as I knocked at that door, expecting to see my own darling’s face — and then — I could have thrown myself from the rock over that glen. But you’re here, and I have you after all — and now I must never lose you again — never, never.”
“Lose me, darling; you never did, and never shall; but I could not go — I dare not. Every fellow, you know, owes money, and I’m in that sorry plight like the rest, and just what I told you would have happened, and that you know would have been worse; but I think that’s all settled, and lose me! not for one moment ever can you lose me, my beautiful idol.”
“Oh, yes — that’s so delightful, and Ry and his poor violet will be so happy, and he’ll never love anyone but her.”
“Never, darling, never.”
And he never did.
“Never — of course, never.”
“And I’m sure it could not be helped your not being at Carwell.”
“Of course it couldn’t — how could it! Don’t you know everything? You’re my own reasonable, wise little girl, and you would not like to bore and worry your poor Ry. I wish to God I were my own master, and you’d soon see then who loves you best in all the world.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure of it.”
“Yes, darling, you are; if we are to be happy, you must be sure of it. If there’s force in language, or proof in act, you can’t doubt me — you must know how I adore you — what motive on earth could I have in saying so, but one?”
“None, none, darling, darling Ry — it’s only my folly, and you’ll forgive your poor foolish little bird; and oh, Ry, is not this dreadful — but better, I suppose, that is, when a few miserable hours are over, and I gone — and we happy — your poor little violet and Ry happy together for the rest of our lives.”
“I think so, I do, all our days; and you understand everything I told you?”
“Everything — yes — about tomorrow morning — quite.”
“The walk isn’t too much?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“And old Dulcibella shall follow you early in the day to Draunton — you remember the name of the house?”
“Yes, the Tanzy Well.”
“Quite right, wise little woman, and you know, darling, you must not stir out — quiet as it is, you might be seen; it is only a few hours’ caution, and then we need not care; but I don’t want pursuit, and a scene, and to agitate my poor little fluttered bird more than is avoidable. Even when you look out of the window keep your veil down; and — and just reach the Tanzy House, and do as I say, and you may leave all the rest to me. Wait a moment — who’s here? No — no — nothing. But I had better leave you now — yes, darling — it is wiser — some of the people may be peeping, and I’ll go.”
And so a tumultuous goodnight, wild tears, and hopes, and panic, and blessings, and that brief interview was over.
The window was shut, and Alice Maybell in her room — the lovers not to meet again till forty miles away; and with a throbbing heart she lay down, to think and cry, and long for the morning she dreaded.
Morning came, and the breakfast hour, and the old Squire over his cup of coffee and rasher, called for Mrs. Durdin, the housekeeper, and said he —
“Miss Alice, I hear, is ailing this morning; ye can see old Dulcibella, and make out would she like the doctor should look in, and would she like anything nice for breakfast — a slice of the goose-pie, or what? and send down to the town for the doctor if she or old Dulcibella thinks well of it, and if it should be in church time, call him out of his pew, and find out what she’d like to eat or drink;” and with his usual gruff nod he dismissed her.
“I should be very happy to go to the town if you wish, sir,” said Charles Fairfield, desiring, it would seem, to reestablish his character for politeness, “and I’m extremely sorry, I’m sure, that poor Ally — I mean, that Miss Maybell — is so ill.”
“You won’t cry though, I warrant; and there’s people enough in Wyvern to send of her messages without troubling you,” said the Squire.
The Captain, however fiercely, had let this unpleasant speech pass unchallenged.
The old Squire was two or three times at the foot of the stairs before church-time, bawling inquiries after Miss Alice’s health, and messages for her private ear, to old Dulcibella.
The Squire never missed church. He was as punctual as his ancestor, old Sir Thomas Fairfield, who was there every Sunday and feast-day, lying on his back praying, in tarnished red, blue, and gold habiliments of the reign of James I., in which he died, and took form of painted stone, and has looked straight up, with his side to the wall, and his hands joined in supplication ever since. If the old Squire did not trouble himself with reading, nor much with prayer, and thought over such topics as suited him, during divine service — he at least went through the drill of the rubrics decorously, and stood erect, sat down, or kneeled, as if he were the ordained fugleman of his tenantry assembled in the old church.
Captain Fairfield, a handsome fellow, n
otwithstanding his years, with the keen blue eye of his race — a lazy man, and reserved, but with the hot blood of the Fairfields in his veins, which showed itself dangerously on occasion, occupied a corner of this great oak enclosure, at the remote end from his father. Like him he pursued his private ruminations with little interruption from the liturgy in which he ostensibly joined. These ruminations were, to judge from his countenance, of a saturnine and sulky sort. He was thinking over his father’s inhospitable language, and making up his mind, for though indolent, he was proud and fiery, to take steps upon it, and to turn his back, perhaps for many a day, on Wyvern.
The sweet old organ of Wyvern pealed, and young voices swelled the chorus of love and praise, and still father and son were confronted in dark antipathy. The Vicar read his text from Holy Writ, and preached on the same awful themes; the transitoriness of our days; love, truth, purity, eternal life, death eternal; and still this same unnatural chill and darkness was between them. Moloch sat unseen by the old man’s side, and in the diapason of the organ moaned his thirst for his sacrifices. Evil spirits amused the young man’s brain with pictures of his slights and wrongs, and with their breath heated his vengeful heart. The dreams of both were interrupted by the Vicar’s sonorous blessing, and they shook their ears, and kneeled down, and their dreams came back again.
So it was Sunday— “better day, better deed” — when a smouldering quarrel broke suddenly into fire and thunder in the manorhouse of Wyvern.
There is, we know, an estate of £6,000 a year, in a ring fence, round this old house. It owes something alarming, but the parish, village, and manor of Wyvern have belonged, time out of mind, to the Fairfield family.
A very red sunset, ominous of storm, floods the western sky with its wild and sullen glory. The leaves of the great trees from whose recesses the small birds are singing their cheery serenade, flash and glimmer in it, as if a dew of fire had sprinkled them, and a blood-red flush lights up the brown feathers of the little birds.
These Fairfields are a handsome race — showing handsome, proud English faces. Brown haired, sometimes light, sometimes dark, with generally blue eyes, not mild, but fierce and keen.
They are a race of athletes; tall men, famous all that country round, generation after generation, for prowess in the wrestling ring, at cudgels, and other games of strength. Famous, too, for worse matters. Strong-willed, selfish, cruel, on occasion, but with a generosity and courage that make them in a manner popular. The character of the Fairfields has the vices, and some of the better traits of feudalism.
Charles Fairfield had been making up his mind to talk to his father. He had resolved to do so on his way home from church. With the cool air and clearer light, outside the porch, came a subsidence of his haste, and nodding here and there to friend or old acquaintance, as he strode through the churchyard, he went a solitary way home, instead of opening his wounds and purposes then to his father.
“Better at home; better at Wyvern; in an hour or so I’ll make all ready, and see him then.”
So home, if home it was, by a lonely path, looking gloomily down on the daisies, strode Charles Fairfield.
CHAPTER IX.
IN WHICH THE SQUIRE LOSES HIS GOLDHEADED CANE.
The sun, as I have said, was sinking among the western clouds with a melancholy glare; Captain Fairfield was pacing slowly to and fro upon the broad terrace that extends, with a carved balustrade, and many a stone flower-pot, along the rear of the old house. The crows were winging their way home, and the air was vocal with their faint cawings high above the gray roof, and the summits of the mighty trees, now glowing in that transitory light. His horse was ready saddled, and his portmanteau and other trifling effects had been despatched some hours before.
“Is there any good in bidding him goodbye?” hesitated the Captain.
He was thinking of descending the terrace steps at the further end, and as he mounted his horse, leaving his valedictory message with the man who held it. But the spell of childhood is not easily broken when it has been respected for so many after-years. The Captain had never got rid of the childish awe which began before he could remember. The virtues are respected; but such vices as pride, violence, and hardheartedness in a father, are more respected still.
Charles could approach a quarrel with that old despot; he could stand at the very brink, and with a resentful and defiant eye scan the abyss; but he could not quite make up his mind to the plunge. The old beast was so utterly violent and incalculable in his anger that no one could say to what weapons and extremities he might be driven in a combat with him, and where was the good in avowed hostilities? Must not a very few years, now, bring humiliation and oppression to an end?
Charles Fairfield was saved the trouble of deciding for himself, however, by the appearance of old Squire Harry, who walked forth from the handsome stone door-case upon the terrace, where his son stood ready for departure.
The old man was walking with a measured tread, holding his head very high, with an odd flush on his face, and a sardonic smile, and he was talking inaudibly to himself. Charles saw in all this the signs of storm. In the old man’s hand was a letter firmly clutched. If he saw his son, who expected to be accosted by him, he passed him by with as little notice as he bestowed on the tall rose-tree that grew in the stone pot by his side.
The Squire walked down the terrace, southward, towards the steps, the wild sunset sky to his right, the flaming windows of the house to his left. When he had gone on a few steps, his tall son followed him. Perhaps he thought it better that Squire Harry should be informed of his intended departure from his lips than that he should learn it from the groom who held the bridle of his horse.
The Squire did not descend the steps, however; he stopped short of them, and sat down in one of the seats that are placed at intervals under the windows. He leaned with both hands on his cane, the point of which he ground angrily into the gravel; in his fingers was still crumpled the letter. He was looking down with a very angry face, illuminated by the wild western sky, shaking his head and muttering.
The tall, brown Captain stalked towards him, and touched his hat, according to his father’s reverential rule.
“May I say a word, sir?” he asked.
The old man stared in his face and nodded fiercely, and with this ominous invitation he complied.
“You were pleased, sir,” said he, “yesterday to express an opinion that, with the income I have, I ought to support myself, and no longer to trouble Wyvern. It was stupid of me not to think of that myself — very stupid — and all I can do is to lose no time about it; and so I have sent my traps away, and am going to follow now, sir; and I couldn’t go, of course, sir, without saying farewell to you and — — “ He was on the point of adding— “thanking you for all your kindness;” but he recollected himself. Thank him, indeed! No, he could not bring himself to that. “And I am leaving now, sir, and goodbye.”
“Ho, turning your back on Wyvern, like all the rest! Well, sir, the world’s wide, you can choose your road. I don’t ask none o’ ye to stay and see me off — not I. I’ll not be without some one when I die to shut down my eyes, I dare say. Get ye gone.”
“I thought, sir — in fact I was quite convinced,” said Charles Fairfield, a little disconcerted, “that you had quite made up your mind, as I have mine, sir.”
“So I had, sir — so I had. Don’t suppose I care a rush, sir, who goes — not a d — d rush — not I. Better an empty house than a bad tenant.”
Up rose the old man as he spoke, “Away with them, say I; bundle ‘em out — off wi’ them, bag and baggage; there’s more like ye — read that,” and he thrust the letter at him like a pistol, and leaving it in his hand, turned and stalked slowly up the terrace, while the Captain read the following note: —
“SIR, — I hardly venture to hope that you will ever again think of me with that kindness which circumstances compel me so ungratefully to requite. I owe you more than I can ever tell. I began to experience your kindness in
my infancy, and it has never failed me since. Oh, sir, do not, I entreat, deny me one last proof of your generosity — your forgiveness. I leave Wyvern, and before these lines are in your hand, I shall have found another home. Soon, I trust, I shall be able to tell my benefactor where. In the meantime may God recompense you, as I never can, for all your goodness to me. I leave the place where all my life has passed amid continual and unmerited kindness with the keenest anguish. Aggravated by my utter inability at present to repay your goodness by the poor acknowledgment of my confidence. Pray, sir, pardon me; pray restore me to your good opinion, or, at least if you cannot forgive and receive me again into your favour, spare me the dreadful affliction of your detestation, and in mercy try to forget
“Your unhappy, but ever grateful “ALICE MAYBELL.”
When Charles Fairfield, having read this through, raised his eyes, they lighted on the old man, returning, and now within a few steps of him.
“Well, there’s a lass for ye! I reared her like a child o’ my own — better, kinder than ever child was reared, and she’s hardly come to her full growth when she serves me like that. D — n ye, are ye tongue-tied? what do you think of her?”
“It would not be easy, sir, on that letter, to pronounce,” said Charles Fairfield, disconcerted. “There’s nothing there to show what her reasons are.”
“Ye’r no Fairfield — ye’r not, ye’r none. If ye were, ye’d know when ye’r house was insulted; but ye’r none; ye’r a cold-blooded sneak, and no Fairfield.”
“I don’t see that anything I could say, sir, would mend the matter,” said the Captain.
“Like enough; but I’ll tell ye what I think of her,” thundered the old man, half beside himself. And his language became so opprobrious and frantic, that his son said, with a proud glare and a swarthy flush on his face,
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 484
