“I’m so stupid!” said Alice, blushing, as she surrendered them, “and so useless; but you’re always right, Charlie.”
“He’s a wonderful fellow, ain’t he?” said Harry, winking agreeably at Charles; “I never knew a bran new husband that wasn’t. Wait a bit and the gold rubs off the gingerbread — Didn’t old Dulcibella — how’s she? — never buy you a gingerbread husband down at Wyvern Fair? and they all went, I warrant, the same road; the gilding rubs away, and then off with his head, and eat him up slops! That’s not bad cognac — where do you get it? — don’t know, of course; well, it is good.”
“Glad you like it, Harry,” said his brother. “It was very kind of you coming over here so soon; you must come often — won’t you?”
“Well, you know, I thought I might as well, just to tell you how things was — but, mind, is anyone here?”
He looked over his shoulder to be sure that the old servant was not near.
“Mind you’re not to tell the folk over at Wyvern that I came here, because you know it wouldn’t serve me, noways, with the old chap up there, and there’s no use.”
“You may be very easy about that, Harry. I’m a banished man, you know. I shall never see the old man’s face again; and rely on it, I shan’t write.”
“I don’t mean him alone,” said Harry, replenishing his glass; “but don’t tell any of them Wyvern people, nor you, Alice. Mind — I’m going back tonight, as far as Barnsley, and from there I’ll go to Dawling, and round, d’ye mind, south, by Leigh Watton, up to Wyvern, and I’ll tell him a thumpin’ lie if he asks questions.”
“Don’t fear any such thing, Harry,” said Charles.
“Fear! I’m not afeard on him, nor never was.”
“Fancy, then,” said Charles.
“Only,” continued Harry, “I’m not like you — I han’t a house and a bit o’ land to fall back on; d’ye see? He’d have me on the ropes if I vexed him. He’d slap Wyvern door in my face, and stop my allowance, and sell my horses, and leave me to the ‘sizes and the lawyers for my rights; and I couldn’t be comin’ here spongin’ on you, you know.”
“You’d always be welcome, Harry,” said Charles.
“Always,” echoed his wife, in whom everyone who belonged to Charlie had a welcome claim.
But Harry went right on with his speech without diverging to thank them.
“And you’ll be snug enough here, you see, and I might go whistle, and dickins a chance I’ll ha’ left but to go list or break horses, or break stones, by jingo; and I ha’ run risks enough in this thing o’ yours — not but I’m willin’ to run more, if need be; but there’s no good in getting myself into pound, you know.”
“By me, Harry. You don’t imagine I could be such a fool,” exclaimed Charles.
“Well, I think ye’ll allow I stood to ye like a brick, and didn’t funk nothin’ that was needful — and I’d do it over again — I would.”
Charles took one hand of the generous fellow, and Alice took the other, and the modest benefactor smiled gruffly and flushed a little, and looked down as they poured forth in concert their acknowledgments.
“Why, see how you two thanks me. I always says to fellows, ‘keep your thanks to yourselves, and do me a good turn when it lies in your ways.’ There’s the sort o’ thanks that butters a fellow’s parsnips — and so — say no more.”
CHAPTER XVI.
A PARTY OF THREE.
“I’d tip you a stave, only I’ve got a hoarseness since yesterday, and I’d ask Alice to play a bit, only there’s no piano here to kick up a gingle with, and Charlie never sang a note in his life, and” — standing before the fire, he yawned long and loud— “by Jove, that wasn’t over civil of me, but old friends need not be stiff, and I vote we yawn all round for company; and I’ll forgive ye, for my hour’s come, and I’ll be taking the road.”
“I wish so much I had a bed to offer you, Harry; but you know all about it — there hasn’t been time to arrange anything,” said Charles.
“Won’t you stay and take some tea?” urged Alice.
“I never could abide it, child; thank ye all the same,” said he, “I’d as soon drink a mug o’ whey.”
“And what about the gray hunter — you did not sell him yet?” asked Charles.
“I don’t well know what to do about him,” answered his brother. “I’d a sold him for fifty, only old Clinker wouldn’t pass him for sound. Clinker and me, we had words about that.”
“I want fifty pounds very much, if I could get it,” said Charles.
“I never knew a fellow that didn’t want fifty very bad, if he could get it,” laughed Harry; “but you’ll not be doin’ that bad, I’m afeard, if ye get half the money.”
“The devil! — do you really — why I thought, with luck, I might get seventy. I’m hard up, Harry, and I know you’ll do your best for me,” said Charles, to whom this was really a serious question.
“And with luck so you might; but chaps isn’t easy done these times; and though I swear it’s only his mouth, he steps short at the off side, and a fellow with an eye in his head won’t mistake his action.”
“You will do the best you can for me, Harry, I know,” said Charles, who knew nothing about horses, and was lazy in discussion. “But it’s rather a blow just now, when a poor devil wants every shilling he can get together, to find himself fifty pounds nearly out of pocket.”
Was it fancy, or did Alice’s pretty ear hear truly? It seemed to her that the tone in which Charlie spoke was a little more sour than need be, that it seemed to blame her as the cause of altered circumstances, and to hint, though very faintly, an unkind repentance. His eye met hers; full and sad it looked, and his heart smote him, for the intangible reproof was deserved.
“And here’s the best little wife in the world,” he said, “who would save a lazy man like me a little fortune in a year, and make that unlucky fifty pounds, if I could but get it, do as much as a hundred.”
And his hand was fondly placed on her shoulder, as he looked in her loving eyes.
“A good housewife is she, that’s something,” said Harry, who was inspecting his spur. “Though by Jove it was hardly at Wyvern she learned thrift.”
“All the more merit,” said Charles, “it’s all her wise, good little self.”
“No, no; I can’t take all that praise; it’s your great kindness, Charlie. But I’ll try. I’ll learn all I can, and I’m sure the real secret is to be very anxious to do it well.”
“Ay, to be sure,” interrupted Harry, who, having completed his little arrangement, placed his foot again on the ground. “The more you like it the better you’ll do it — pare the cheeses, skin the flints, kill the fleas for the hide and tallow, pot the potato-skins, sweat the shillin’s and all that, and now I’ll be going. Good night, Alice. Will you let Charlie see me down to the end o’ the lane, and I’ll send him safe back to you? Come along, Charlie. God bless you, girl, and I’ll look in again whenever I have a bit o’ news to tell ye.”
And with that elegant farewell, he shook Alice by the hand and clapped her on the shoulder, and “chucked” her under the chin.
“And don’t ye be faint-hearted, mind, ‘twill all come right, and I didn’t think this place was so comfortable as it is. It is a snug old house with a bit o’ coal and a faggot o’ wood, and a pair o’ bright eyes, and a glass o’ that, a man might make shift for a while. I’d do it myself. I didn’t think it was so snug by half, and I’d rayther stay here tonight by a long chalk than ride to Barnsley, I can tell ye. Come, Charlie, it’s time I should be on the road; and she says, don’t you, Alice, you may see me a bit o’ the way.”
And so the leavetaking came to an end, and Charlie and Harry went out together; and Alice wondered what had induced Harry to come all that way for so short a visit, with so very little to tell. Perhaps, however, his own business, for he was always looking after horses, and thought nothing of five-and-thirty miles, had brought him to the verge of Cressley Common, and if so, he w
ould have come on the few additional miles, if only to bait his horse and get his dinner.
Perhaps the old Squire at Wyvern had broken out more angrily, and was threatening something in which there was real danger to Charlie, which the brothers did not choose to tell her. A kindly secrecy and considerate, but seldom unsuspected, and being so often fifty-fold more torturing than downright ghastly frankness.
There had been a little chill and shadow over the party of three, she thought. Charlie thought his brother Harry the most thorough partisan that ever man had, and the most entirely sympathetic. If that were so, and should not he know best? Harry had certainly laughed and joked after his fashion, and enjoyed himself, and there could not be much wrong. But Charlie — was not there something more upon his mind than she quite knew? She stood too much in awe of her husband to follow them, as she would have wished, and implore of them if there was any new danger to let her hear it all. In her ear was the dismal iteration, as it were, of this little “death-watch,” and sighing, she got up and opened the window-shutter and looked out upon the moonlighted scene.
A little platform of grass stood between the wall of the house and the precipitous edge of the vale of Marlow. Tall trees stood lonely and silent sentinels without the old gray walls, and a low ivied parapet guarded the sudden descent of the riven and wooded cliff. The broken screen of the solemn forest foreground showed in the distance the thicker masses of the wood that topped the summit of the further side of that sombre glen. Stiller, sadder scene fancy never painted.
She had opened the shutter, uncertain whether the window commanded the point from which her husband and his brother might be expected to emerge, for the geography of this complicated house was still new to her, and disappointed, she lingered in contemplation of a view which so well accorded with the melancholy of her lonely misgivings.
How soon in the possession of our heart’s desire comes the sense of disappointment, and the presence of the worm, and promise of the blight among the flowers of our vernal days. Pitch the tent or drop the anchor where we may, always a new campaign opening, always a new voyage beginning — quiet nowhere.
“I dare say it is only my folly — that nothing has gone wrong, and that they have no secrets to hide from me. I have no one else; he would not shut me out from his confidence, and leave me quite alone. No, Ry, you could not.”
With a full heart she turned again from the window.
“He’ll come again in a minute; he’ll not walk far with Harry.”
She went to the door, and opening it, listened. She heard a step enter the passage from the stableyard, and called to ask who was there. It was only Tom, who had let out Master Harry’s horse, and opened the gate for him. He led it out, and they walked together — Master Harry with the bridle in his hand, and Master Charles walking beside him. They took the narrow way along the little glen towards Cressley Common.
She knew that he would return probably in a few minutes; and more and more she wondered what those minutes might contain, she partly wondered at her own anxiety. So she returned to the room and waited there for him. But he remained longer away than she expected. The teathings were on the table deserted. The fire flickered its genial invitation in vain, and she, growing more uncomfortable and lonely, and perhaps a little high at being thus forsaken, went upstairs to pay old Dulcibella Crane a visit.
CHAPTER XVII.
MILDRED TARNLEY’S WARNING STORY.
As she reached the top of the stairs she called to the old servant, not, I think, caring to traverse the haunted flooring that intervened alone. She heard Dulcibella talking, and a moment after her old nurse appeared, and standing by her shoulder Mildred Tarnley.
“Oh, Mrs. Tarnley! I’m so glad to see you — you’ve been paying Dulcibella a visit. Pray, come back, and tell me some stories about this old house; you’ve been so long here, and know it so well, that you must have a great deal to tell.”
The old woman, with the unpleasant face, made a stiff courtesy.
“At your service, ma’am,” she said, ungraciously.
“That is if it don’t inconvenience you,” pleaded Alice, who was still a little afraid of her.
“’Tis as you please, ma’am,” said the old servant, with another dry courtesy.
“Well, I’m so glad you can come. Dulcibella, have we a little bit of fire? Oh, yes, I see — it looks so cheerful.”
So they entered the oldfashioned bedroom.
“I hope, Mrs. Tarnley, I’m not keeping you from your tea?”
“No, I thank ye, ma’am. I’ve ‘ad my tea an hour agone,” answered the old woman.
“And you must sit down, Mrs. Tarnley,” urged Alice.
“I’ll stand, if ye please, ma’am,” said the withered figure perversely.
“I should be so much happier if you would sit down, Mildred,” urged her young mistress; “but if you prefer it — I only mean that whatever is most comfortable to you you should do. I wanted so much to hear something about this old house. You remember what happened when I was coming upstairs with you — when I was so startled.”
“I didn’t see it, miss — ma’am. I only heard you say summat,” answered Mildred Tarnley.
“Oh, yes, I know; but you spoke to-day of a warning, and you looked when it happened as if you had heard of it before.”
The old woman raised her chin, and with her hands folded together made another courtesy, which mutually seemed to say, —
“If you have anything to ask, ask it.”
“Do you remember,” inquired Alice, “having ever heard of anything strange being seen at that passage near the head of the stairs?”
“I ought, ma’am,” answered the old woman discreetly.
“And what was it?” inquired Alice.
“I don’t know, ma’am, would the master be pleased if he was to hear I was talkin’ o’ such things to you,” suggested Mildred.
“He’d only laugh as I should, I assure you. I’m not the least a coward; so you need not be afraid of my making a fool of myself. Now, do tell me what it was!”
“Well, ma’am, you’ll be pleased to remember ’tis you orders me, in case Master Charles should turn on me about it; but, as you say, ma’am, there’s many thinks ’tis all nothin’ but old ‘oman’s tales and fribble-frabble; and ’tisn’t for me to say — — “
“I’ll take all the blame to myself,” said Alice.
“There’s no blame in’t as I’m aware on; and if there was I wouldn’t ask no one to take it on themselves more than their right share; and that I’d take leave to lay on them myself, without stoppin’ to ask whether they likes it or no; but only I told you, ma’am, that I should have your orders, and wi’ them I’ll comply.”
“Yes, certainly, Mrs. Tarnley — and now do kindly go on,” said Alice.
“Well, please, ma’am, you’ll tell me what you saw?”
“A heavy black drapery fell from the top of the arch through which we pass to the gallery outside the door, and for some seconds closed up the entire entrance,” answered the young lady.
“Ay, ay, no doubt that’s it; but there was no drapery there, ma’am, sich as this world’s loom ever wove. Them as weaves that web is light o’ hand and heavy o’ heart, and the de’el himself speeds the shuttle,” and as she said this the old woman smiled sourly. “I was talking o’ that very thing to Mrs. Crane here when you came up, ma’am.”
“Yes,” said old Dulcibella, quietly; “it was very strange, surely.”
“And there came quite a cloud of dust from it rolling along the floor,” continued Alice.
“Yes, so there would — so there does; ’tis always so,” said Mrs. Tarnley, with the same faint ugly smile; “not that there’s a grain o’ dust in all the gallery, for the child Lily Dogger and me washed it out and swept it clean. Dust ye saw; but that’s no real dust, like what the minister means when he says, ‘Dust to dust.’ No, no, a finer dust by far — the dust o’ death. No more clay in that than in yon smoke, or the mist in Carwell
Glen below; no dust at all, but sich dust as a ghost might shake from its windin’ sheet — an appearance, ye understand; that’s all, ma’am — like the rest.”
Alice smiled, but old Mildred’s answering smile chilled her, and she turned to Dulcibella; but good Mrs. Crane looked in her face with round eyes of consternation and a very solemn countenance.
“I see, Dulcibella, if my courage fails I’m not to look to you for support. Well, Mrs. Tarnley, don’t mind — I shan’t need her help; and I’m not a bit afraid, so pray go on.”
“Well, ye see, ma’am, this place and the house came into the family, my grandmother used to say, more than a hundred years ago; and I was a little thing when I used to hear her say so, and there’s many a year added to the tale since then; but it was in the days o’ Sir Harry Fairfield. They called him Harry Boots in his day, for he was never seen except in his boots, and for the matter o’ that seldom out o’ the saddle; for there was troubles in them days, and militia and yeomanry, and dear knows what all — and the Fairfields was ever a bold, daredevil stock, and them dangerous times answered them well — and what with dragooning, and what with the hunting-field, I do suppose his foot was seldom out o’ the stirrup. So my grandmother told me some called him Booted Fairfield and more called him Harry Boots — that was Sir Harry Fairfield o’ them days.”
“I think I’ve seen his picture, haven’t I? — at Wyvern. It’s in the hall, at the far end from the door, near the window, with a long wig and lace cravat, and a great steel breast-plate?” inquired Alice.
“Like enough, miss — ma’am, I mean — I don’t know, I’m sure — but he was a great man in his time, and would have his picture took, no doubt. His wife was a Carwell — an heiress — there’s not a Carwell in this country now, nor for many a day has been. ’Twas she brought Carwell Grange and the Vale o’ Carwell to the Fairfields — poor thing — pretty she was. Her picture was never took to Wyvern, and much good her land, and houses, and good looks done her. The Fairfields was wild folk. I don’t say there wasn’t good among ‘em, but whoever else they was good to, they was seldom kind to their wives. Hard, bad husbands they was — that’s sure.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 488
