Le Fanu Joseph Sheridan
The Tenants of Malory. Volume 1
CHAPTER XXII
SIR BOOTH SPEAKS
The idea, perhaps, that sustained Cleve Verney in this move, was the sudden recurrence of his belief that Sir Booth would so clearly see the advantages of such a connexion as to forget his resentments.
Sir Booth was looking seaward, smoking a cigar, and watching the approach of the boat, which was still distant. As Cleve drew near, he saw Sir Booth eye him, he fancied, uneasily; and throwing back his head a little, and withdrawing his cheroot, ever so little from his lips, the Baronet demanded grimly —
"Wish to speak to me, sir?"
"Only a word, if you allow me," answered Cleve, approaching.
On ascertaining that he had to deal with a gentleman, Sir Booth was confident once more.
"Well, sir, I hear you," said he.
"You don't recognise me, Sir Booth; and I fear when I introduce myself, you will hardly connect my name with anything pleasant or friendly. I only ask a patient hearing, and I am sure your own sense of fairness will excuse me personally."
"Before you say, more, sir, I should like to know for whom you take me, and why; I don't recollect you– I think– I can't see very well – no one does in this sort of light; but I rather think, I never saw your face before, sir – nor you mine, I dare say – your guesses as to who I am, may be anything you please – and quite mistaken – and this is not a usual time, you know, for talking with strangers about business – and, in fact, I've come here for quiet and my health, and I can't undertake to discuss other people's affairs – I find my own as much as my health and leisure will allow me to attend to."
"Sir Booth Fanshawe, you must excuse me for saying I know you perfectly. I am also well aware that you seek a little repose and privacy here, and you may rely implicitly upon my mentioning your name to no one; in fact, I have been for some weeks aware of your residing at Malory, and never have mentioned it to any one."
"Ha! you're very kind, indeed – taking great care of me, sir; you are very obliging," said Sir Booth, sarcastically, "I'm sure; ha, ha! I ought to be very grateful. And to whom, may I ask, do I owe all this attention to my – my interests and comforts?"
"I am connected, Sir Booth, with a house that has unfortunately been a good deal opposed, in politics, to yours. There are reasons which make this particularly painful to me, although I have been by the direction of others, whom I had no choice but to obey, more in evidence in these miserable contests than I could wish; I've really been little more than a passive instrument in the hands of others, absolutely without power, or even influence of my own in the matter. You don't recognise me, but you have seen me elsewhere. My name is Cleve Verney."
Sir Booth had not expected this name, as his countenance showed. With a kind of jerk, he removed his cigar from his lips, sending a shower of red sparks away on the breeze, and gazing on the young man with eyes like balls of stone, ready to leap from their sockets. I dare say he was very near exploding in that sort of language which, on occasion, he did not spare. But he controlled himself, and said merely, clearing his voice first, —
"That will do, sir, the name's enough; I can't be supposed to wish to converse with any one of that name, sir – no more I do."
"What I have to say, Sir Booth, affects you, it interests you very nearly," answered Cleve.
"But, sir, I am going out in that boat – I wish to smoke my cigar – I've come down here to live to myself, and to be alone when I choose it," said Sir Booth, with suppressed exasperation.
"One word, I beg – you'll not regret it, Sir Booth," pleaded Cleve.
"Well, sir, come – I will hear it; but I tell you beforehand, I have pretty strong views as to how I have been used, and it is not likely to lead to much," said Sir Booth, with one of those sudden changes of purpose to which fiery men are liable.
So, as briefly and as persuasively as he could, Cleve Verney disclosed his own feelings, giving to the date of his attachment, skilfully, a retrospective character, and guarding the ladies of Malory from the unreasonable temper of this violent old man; and, in fact, from Cleve's statement you would have gathered that he was not even conscious that the ladies were now residing at Malory. He closed his little confession with a formal proposal.
Was there something – ever so little – in the tone of this latter part of his brief speech, that reflected something of the confidence to which I have alluded, and stung the angry pride of this ruined man? He kept smoking his cigar a little faster, and looked steadily at the distant boat that was slowly approaching against the tide.
When Cleve concluded, the old man lowered his cigar and laughed shortly and scornfully.
"You do us a great deal of honour, Mr. Verney – too much honour, by – ," scoffed the Baronet.
"Be so good at all events as to answer me this one question frankly – yes or no. Is your uncle, Kiffyn Verney, aware of your speaking to me on this subject?"
"No, Sir Booth, he is not," said Cleve; "he knows nothing of it. I ought, perhaps, to have mentioned that at first."
"So you ought," said Sir Booth, brusquely.
"And I beg that you won't mention the subject to him."
"You may be very sure I shan't, sir," said the Baronet, fiercely. "Why, d – n it, sir, what do you mean? Do you know what you're saying? You come here, and you make a proposal for my daughter, and you think I should be so charmed, that rather than risk your alliance I should practise any meanness you think fit. D – n you, sir, how dare you suppose I could fancy your aspiring to my daughter a thing to hide like a mésalliance?"
"Nothing of the kind, Sir Booth."
"Everything of the kind, sir. Do you know who you are, sir? You have not a farthing on earth, sir, but what you get from your uncle."
"I beg your pardon – allow me, Sir Booth – I've six hundred a-year of my own. I know it's very little; but I've been thought to have some energies; I know I have some friends. I have still my seat in the House, and this Parliament may last two or three years. It is quite possible that I may quarrel with my uncle; I can't help it; I'm quite willing to take my chance of that; and I entreat, Sir Booth, that you won't make this a matter of personal feeling, and attribute to me the least sympathy with the miserable doings of my uncle."
Sir Booth listened to him, looking over the sea as before, as if simply observing the approach of the boat, but he spoke this time in a mitigated tone.
"You're no young man," said he, "if you don't owe money. I never knew one with a rich old fellow at his back who didn't."
He paused, and Cleve looked down.
"In fact, you don't know how much you owe. If you were called on to book up, d'ye see, there might remain very little to show for your six hundred a-year. You're just your uncle's nephew, sir, and nothing more. When you quarrel with him you're a ruined man."
"I don't see that– " began Cleve.
"But I do. If he quarrels with you, he'll never rest till he ruins you. That's his character. It might be very different if you had a gentleman to deal with; but you must look the thing in the face. You may never succeed to the title. We old fellows have our palsies and apoplexies; and you, young fellows, your fevers and inflammations. Here you are quite well, and a fever comes, and turns you off like a gaslight the day after; and, besides, if you quarrel he'll marry, and, where are you then? And I tell you frankly, if Mr. Kiffyn Verney has objections to me, I've stronger to him. There's no brother of mine disgraced. Why, his elder brother – it's contamination to a gentleman to name him."
"He's dead, sir; Arthur Verney is dead," said Cleve, who was more patient under Sir Booth's bitter language than under any other circumstances he would have been.
"Oh! Well, that does not very much matter," said Sir Booth. "But this is the upshot: I'll have nothing underhand – all above board, sir – and if Mr. Kiffyn Verney writes a proper apology – by – , he owes me one – and puts a stop to the fiendish persecutions he has been directing against me, and himself submits the proposal you have – yes – done me the honour to make, and undertakes to make suitable settlements, I shan't stand in the way; I shan't object to your speaking to my daughter, though I can't the least tell how she'll take it! and I tell you from myself I don't like it – I don't, by – , I don't like it. He's a bad fellow – a nasty dog, sir, as any in England – but that's what I say, sir, and I shan't alter; and you'll please never to mention the subject to me again except on these conditions. Except from him I decline to hear of it – not a word – and – and, sir, you'll please to regard my name as a secret; it has been hitherto; my liberty depends on it. Your uncle can't possibly know I'm here?" he added, sharply.
"When last I saw him – a very short time since – he thought you were in France. You, of course, rely upon my honour, Sir Booth, that no one living shall hear from me one syllable affecting your safety."
"Very good, sir. I never supposed you would; but I mean every one – these boatmen, and the people here. No one is to know who I am; and what I've said is my ultimatum, sir. And I'll have no correspondence, sir – no attempt to visit any where. You understand. By – , if you do, I'll let your uncle, Mr. Kiffyn Verney, know the moment I learn it. Be so good as to leave me."
"Good night, sir," said Cleve.
Sir Booth nodded slightly.
The tall old man went stalking and stumbling over the shingle, toward the water's edge, still watching the boat, his cigar making a red star in the dusk, by which Christmass Owen might have steered; and the boatmen that night heard their mysterious steersman from Malory, as he sat with his hand on the tiller, talking more than usual to himself, now and then d – ing unknown persons, and backing his desultory babble to the waves, with oaths that startled those sober-tongued Dissenters.
Cleve walked slowly up that wide belt of rounded gray stones, that have rattled and rolled for centuries there, in every returning and retreating treating tide, and turned at last and looked toward the tall, stately figure of the old man now taking his place in the boat. Standing in the shadow, he watched it receding as the moonlight came out over the landscape. His thoughts began to clear, and he was able to estimate, according to his own gauges and rashness, the value and effect of his interview with the angry and embittered man.
He wondered at the patience with which he had borne this old man's impertinence – unparalleled impertinence; yet even now he could not resent it. He was the father of that beautiful Margaret. The interview was a mistake – a very mortifying ordeal it had proved – and its result was to block his path with new difficulties.
Not to approach except through the mediation of his Uncle Kiffyn! He should like to see how his uncle would receive a proposal to mediate in this matter. Not to visit – not to write – neither to see nor to hear of her! Submission to such conditions was not to be dreamed of. He trampled on them, and defied all consequences.
Cleve stood on the gray shingle looking after the boat, now running swiftly with the tide. A patch of seaweed, like an outstretched hand, lay at his feet, and in the fitful breeze lifted a warning finger, again, and again, and again.
CHAPTER XXIII
MARGARET HAS HER WARNING
Next evening, I believe, Cleve saw Margaret Fanshawe, by favour of that kindest of chaperons, Miss Anne Sheckleton, at the spot where by chance they had met before – at the low bank that fences the wood of Malory, near the steep road that descends by the old church of Llanderris.
Here, in the clear glow of sunset, they met and talked under the old trees, and the good old spinster, with her spectacles on, worked at her crochet industriously, and often peered over it this way and that, it must be confessed, nervously; and with a prudence with which Cleve would gladly have dispensed, she hurried this hazardous meeting to a close.
Not ten minutes later Margaret Fanshawe stood alone at the old refectory window, which commands through the parting trees a view of the sea and the distant headland, now filmed in the aerial lights of the sunset. I should not wonder if she had been drawn thither by the fanciful hope of seeing the passing sail of Cleve Verney's yacht – every sign and relic grows so interesting! Now is with them the season of all such things: romance has sent forth her angels; the woods, the clouds, the sea, the hills, are filled with them. Now is the play of fancy and the yearning of the heart – and the aching comes in its time.
Something sadder and gentler in the face than ever before. Undine has received a soul, and is changed. The boat has passed, and to catch the last glimpse of its white wing she crosses to the other side of the window, and stretches, with a long, strange gaze, till it is gone – quite gone – and everything on a sudden is darker.
With her hand still on the worn stone-shaft of the window, she leans and looks, in a dream, till the last faint tint of sunset dies on the gray mountain, and twilight is everywhere. So, with a sigh, a vague trouble, and yet a wondrous happiness at her heart, she turns to leave the stone-floored chamber, and at the head of the steps that lead down from its door she is startled.
The pale old woman, with large, earnest eyes, was at the foot of this stone stair, with her hand on the rude banister. It seemed to Margaret as if she had been waiting for her. Her great vague eyes were looking into hers as she appeared at the door.
Margaret arrested her step, and a little frown of fear for a moment curved her eyebrows. She did fear this old Rebecca Mervyn with an odd apprehension that she had something unpleasant to say to her.
"I'm coming up to you," said the old woman, sadly, still looking at her as she ascended the steps.
Margaret's heart misgave her, but somehow she had not nerve to evade the interview, or rather, she had felt that it was coming and wished it over.
Once or twice in passing, the old woman had seemed to hesitate, as if about to speak to her, but had changed her mind and passed on. Only the evening before, just at the hour when the last ray of the sun comes from the west, and all the birds are singing their last notes, as she was tying up some roses, on the short terrace round the corner of the old mansion, she turned and raised her eyes, and in the window of the old building called the "Steward's House," the lattice being open, she saw, looking steadfastly upon her, from the shadows within, the pale face of this old woman. In its expression there was something ominous, and when she saw Margaret looking straight at her, she did not turn away, but looked on sadly, as unmoved as a picture, till Margaret, disconcerted, lowered her eyes, and went away.
As this old woman ascended the stairs, Margaret crossed the floor to the window – light is always reassuring – and leaning at its side, looked back, and saw Rebecca Mervyn already within the spacious chamber, and drawing near slowly from the shadow.
"You wish to speak to me, Mrs. Mervyn?" said the young lady, who knew her name, although now for the first time she spoke to her.
"Only a word. Ah! – yes – you are – very beautiful," she said, with a deep sigh, as she stood looking at her, with a strange sadness and compassion in her gaze, that partook of the past, and the prophetic.
A little blush – a little smile – a momentary gleam of that light of triumph, in beauty so beautiful – showed that the fair apparition was mortal.
"Beauty! – ah! – yes! If it were not here, neither would they. Miss Margaret! – poor thing! I've seen him. I knew him, although it is a great many years," said old Rebecca. "The moment my eyes lighted on him, I knew him; there is something about them all, peculiar – the Verneys, I mean. I should know a Verney anywhere, in any crowd, in any disguise. I've dreamt of him, and thought of him, and watched for him, for – how many years? God help me, I forget! Since I was as young as you are. Cleve Verney is handsome, but there were others, long before – oh! ever so much more beautiful. The Verney features – ah! – yes – thinking always, dreaming, watching, burnt into my brain; they have all some points alike. I knew Cleve by that; he is more like that than to his younger self; a handsome boy he was – but, I beg pardon, it is so hard to keep thoughts from wandering."
This old woman, from long solitude, I suppose, talked to others as if she were talking to herself, and rambled on, flightily and vaguely. But on a sudden she laid her hand upon Margaret's wrist, and closing it gently, held her thus, and looked in her face with great concern.
"Why does he come so stealthily? death comes so, to the young and beautiful. My poor sister died in Naples. No one knew there was danger the day before she was sent away there, despaired of. Well may I say the angel of death – beautiful, insidious – that's the way they come – stealthily, mysterious – when I saw his handsome face about here – I shuddered – in the twilight – in the dark."
Margaret's cheek flushed, and she plucked her wrist to disengage it from the old woman's hand.
"You had better speak to my cousin, Miss Sheckleton. It is she who receives Mr. Verney when he comes. She has known him longer than I; at least, made his acquaintance earlier," said the young lady. "I don't, I confess, understand what you mean. I've been trying, and I can't; perhaps she will?"
"I must say this; it is on my mind," said the old woman, without letting her hand go. "There is something horrible in the future. You do not know the Verneys. They are a cruel race. It would be better to suffer an evil spirit into the house. Poor young lady! To be another innocent victim! Break it off – expel him! Shut out, if you can, his face from your thoughts and memory. It is one who knows them well who warns you. It will not come to good."
In the vague warning of this old woman, there was an echo of an indefinite fear that had lain at her own heart, for days. Neither, apart, was anything; but one seconding the other was ominous and depressing.
"Let me go, please," she said, a little brusquely; "it is growing dark, and I must go in. I'm sure, however, you mean what you say kindly; and I thank you for the intention – thank you very much."
"Yes – go – I shall stay here; from here one can see across to Pendillion, and the sea there; it will come again, I know it will, some day or night. My old eyes are weary with watching. I should know the sail again, although it is a long, long time – I've lost count of the years."
Thus saying, she drew near the window, and without a word of farewell to Margaret, became absorbed in gazing; and Margaret left her, ran lightly down the steps, and in a minute more was in the house.
CHAPTER XXIV
SIR BOOTH IN A PASSION
Days passed, during which Cleve Verney paid stolen visits at Malory, more cautiously managed than ever; and nearly every afternoon did the good people of Cardyllian see him walk the green, to and fro, with the Etherage girls, so that the subject began to be canvassed very gravely, and even Miss Charity was disposed to think that he certainly did like Agnes, and confided to her friend, Mrs. Brindley, of "The Cottage," that if Aggie married, she should give up. Nothing could induce her, Miss Charity, to marry, she solemnly assured her friends.
And I must do that spinster the justice to say, that there was not the faintest flavour of sour grapes in the acerbity with which she pronounced against the "shocking folly of girls marrying," for she might undoubtedly have been married, having had in her youth several unexceptionable offers, none of which had ever moved her.
I know not what hopes Sir Booth may have founded upon his conversation with Cleve Verney. Men in the Baronet's predicament nurse their hopes fondly, and their mustard seeds grow rapidly into great trees, in whose branches they shelter their families, and roost themselves. He grew gracious at times in the contemplation of brilliant possibilities, and one day, to her amazement and consternation, opened the matter briefly to Miss Sheckleton, who fancied that she was discovered, and he on the point of exploding, and felt as if she were going to faint.
Happily for her, he fancied that Cleve must have seen Margaret accidentally during some of his political knight-errantries in the county which he had contested with Sir Booth. We know, as well as Miss Sheckleton, how this really was.
Sir Booth's dreams, however, were broken with a crash. To Miss Anne Sheckleton came a letter from Sir Booth's attorneys, informing the Baronet that Mr. Kiffyn Fulke Verney had just served them with a notice which seemed to threaten a wantonly vexatious and expensive proceeding, and then desired to know what course, having detailed the respective consequences of each, he would wish them to take.
Now Sir Booth broke into one of his frenzies, called up Miss Sheckleton, damned and cursed the whole Verney family, excommunicated them, and made the walls of Malory ring with the storm and thunder he launched at the heads of the ancient race who had built them.
Scared and pale Miss Anne Sheckleton withdrew.
"My dear, something has happened: he has had a letter from his law people, and Mr. Kiffyn Verney has directed, I think, some unexpected proceedings. How I wish they would stop these miserable lawsuits, and leave your papa at peace. Your papa's attorneys think they can gain nothing by worrying him, and it is so unfortunate just now."
So spoke Miss Sheckleton, who had found Margaret, with her bullfinch and her squirrels, in that pretty but melancholy room which is darkened by the old forest, through whose shafted stems shadowy perspectives open, and there, as in the dimness of a monastic library, she was busy over the illumination of her vellum Psalter, with gold and ultramarine, and all other vivid pigments.
Margaret stood up, and looked in her face rather pale, and with her small hand pressed to her heart.
"He's very angry," added Miss Sheckleton, with a dark look, and a nod.
"Are we going to leave this?" inquired the girl in almost a whisper.
"He did not say; I fancy not. No, he'd have said so the first thing," answered the old lady.
"Well, we can do nothing; it can't be helped, I suppose?" said Miss Margaret, looking down very sadly on her mediæval blazonry.
"Nothing, my dear! nothing on earth. No one can be more anxious that all this kind of thing should cease, than Cleve Verney, as you know; but what can even he do?" said Miss Sheckleton.
Margaret looked through the window, down the sylvan glade, and sighed.
"His uncle, Kiffyn Verney," resumed Anne Sheckleton, "is such a disagreeable, spiteful man, and such a feud has been between them, I really don't see how it is to end; but Cleve, you know, is so clever, and so devoted, I'm sure he'll find some way."
Margaret sighed again, and said, —
"Papa, I suppose, is very angry."
I think Sir Booth Fanshawe was the only person on earth whom that spirited girl really feared. I'm afraid there was not much good in that old man, and that most of the things I have heard of him were true. Unlike other violent men, he was not easily placable; and generally, when it was not very troublesome, remembered and executed his threats. She remembered dimly scenes between him and her dead mother. She remembered well her childish dread of his severity, and her fear of his eye and his voice had never left her.
Miss Sheckleton just lifted her fingers in the air, and raised her eyes to the ceiling, with a little shake of her head.
Margaret sighed again. I suppose she was thinking of that course of true love that never yet ran smooth, upon which the freightage of her life was ventured.
Her spinster friend looked on her sad, pale face, gazing dreamily into the forest. The solemn shadow of the inevitable, the sorrows of human life, had now for the first time begun to touch her young face. The old story was already telling itself to her, in those ominous musical tones that swell to solemn anthem soon; and sometimes, crash and howl at last over such wreck, and in such darkness as we shut our eyes and ears upon, and try to forget.
Old Anne Sheckleton's face saddened at the sight with a beautiful softness. She laid her thin hand on the girl's shoulder, and then put her arms about her neck, and kissed her, and said, – "All will come right, darling, you'll see;" and the girl made answer by another kiss; and they stood for a minute, hand locked in hand, and the old maid smiled tenderly, a cheerful smile but pale, and patted her cheek and nodded, and with another kiss, left the room, with a mournful presage heavy at her heart.
As she passed, the stern voice of Sir Booth called to her.
"Yes," she answered.
"A word or two," he said, and she went to his room.
"I've been thinking," said he, looking at her steadily and fiercely – had some suspicion lighted up his mind since he had spoken to her? – "that young man, Cleve Verney; I believe he's still at Ware. Do you know him?"
"I should know his appearance. I saw him two or three times during that contest for the county, two years since; but he did not see me, I'm sure."
This was an evasion, but the vices of slavery always grow up under a tyranny.
"Well, Margaret– does she correspond with any one?" demanded he.
"I can answer for it, positively. Margaret has no correspondence. She writes to no one," she answered.
"That fellow is still at Ware. So, Christmass Owen told me last night – a place of the Verneys, at the other side – and he has got a boat. I should not wonder if he were to come here, trying to see her."
So Sir Booth followed out his hypothesis, and waxed wroth, and more wroth as he proceeded, and so chafed himself into one of his paroxysms of temper. I know not what he said; but when she left him, poor Miss Sheckleton was in tears, and, trembling, told Margaret, that if it were not for her, she would not remain another day in his house. She related to Margaret what had passed, and said, —
"I almost hope Cleve Verney may not come again while we remain here. I really don't know what might be the consequence of your papa's meeting him here, in his present state of exasperation! Of course to Cleve it would be very little; but your existence, my poor child, would be made so miserable! And as for me, I tell you frankly, I should be compelled to leave you. Every one knows what Booth Fanshawe is when he is angry – how cruel he can be. I know he's your father, my dear, but we can't be blind to facts, and we both know that his misfortunes have not improved his temper."
Cleve nevertheless saw the ladies that day, talked with them earnestly and hurriedly, for Miss Anne Sheckleton was nervous, and miserable till the interview ended, and submitted to the condition imposed by that kindly and panic-stricken lady, which was on no account to visit Malory as heretofore for two or three days, by the end of which time she hoped Sir Booth's anger and suspicions might have somewhat subsided.
