Le Fanu Joseph Sheridan
The Tenants of Malory. Volume 2
"Certainly, hope, there's always hope; everyone has something to vex them. I have, I know, Mrs. Mervyn; and I was just thinking what a charming drawing-room this is, and how delightful it must be, the quiet and comfort, and glow of such a room. There is no drawing-room on earth I should like so well," said good-natured Tom Sedley, whose sympathies were easy, and who liked saying a pleasant thing when he could; "And this is the letter, and here is a printed receipt, which, when you have been so kind as to sign it, I've promised to give my friend, Mr. Robson of the post-office."
"Thank you, sir; this is registered, they call it. I had one a long time ago, with the same kind of green ribbon round it. Won't you sit down while I sign this?"
"Many thanks," said Sedley, sitting down gravely at the table, and looking so thoughtful, and somehow so much at home, that you might have fancied his dream of living in the Steward's House had long been accomplished.
"I'd rather not get a letter, sir; I don't know the handwriting of this address, and a letter can but bring me sorrow. There is but one welcome chance which could befall me, and that may come yet, just a hope, sir. Sometimes it brightens up, but it has been low all to-day."
"Sorry you have been out of spirits, Mrs. Mervyn, I know what it is; I've been so myself, and I am so, rather, just now," said Tom, who was, in this homely seclusion, tending towards confidence.
"There are now but two handwritings that I should know; one is his, the other Lady Verney's; all the rest are dead; and this is neither."
"Well, Mrs. Mervyn, if it does not come from either of the persons you care for, it yet may tell you news of them," remarked Tom Sedley, sagely.
"Hardly, sir. I hear every three months from Lady Verney. I heard on Tuesday last. Thank God, she's well. No, it's nothing concerning her, and I think it may be something bad. I am afraid of this letter, sir —tell me I need not be afraid of it."
"I know the feeling, Mrs. Mervyn; I've had it myself, when duns were troublesome. But you have nothing of the kind in this happy retreat; which I really do envy you from my heart."
"Envy! Ah, sir – happy retreat! Little you know, sir. I have been for weeks and months at a time half wild with anguish, dreaming of the sea. How can he know?"
"Very true, I can't know; I only speak of it as it strikes me at the moment. I fancy I should so like to live here, like a hermit, quite out of the persecutions of luck and the nonsense of the world."
"You are wonderfully like at times, sir – it is beautiful, it is frightful – when I moved the candle then – "
"I'll sit any way you like best, Mrs. Mervyn, with pleasure, and you can move the candle, and try; if it amuses – no, I mean interests you."
If some of his town friends could have peeped in through a keyhole, and seen Tom Sedley and old Rebecca Mervyn seated at opposite sides of the table, in this very queer old room, so like Darby and Joan, it would have made matter for a comical story.
"Like a flash it comes!"
Tom Sedley looked at the wild, large eyes that were watching him – the round spectacles now removed – across the table, and could not help smiling.
"Yes, the smile– it is the smile! You told me, sir, your name was Sedley, not Verney."
"My name is Thomas Sedley. My father was Captain Sedley, and served through a part of the Peninsular campaign. He was not twenty at the battle of Vittoria, and he was at Waterloo. My mother died a few months after I was born."
"Was she a Verney?"
"No; she was distantly connected, but her name was Melville," said he.
"Connected. That accounts for it, perhaps."
"Very likely."
"And your father – dead?" she said, sadly.
"Yes; twenty years ago."
"I know, sir; I remember. They are all locked up there, sir, and shan't come out till old Lady Verney dies. But he was not related to the Verneys?"
"No, they were friends. He managed two of the estates after he left the army, and very well, I'm told."
"Sedley – Thomas Sedley – I remember the name. I did not know the name of Sedley – except on one occasion – I was sent for, but it came to nothing. I lived so much in the dark about things," and she sighed.
"I forgot, Mrs. Mervyn, how late it is growing, and how much too long I have stayed here admiring your pretty room, and I fear interrupting you," said Tom, suddenly remembering his dinner, and standing up – "If you kindly give me the receipt, I'll leave it on my way back."
Mrs. Mervyn had clipped the silken cord, and was now reading the letter, and he might as well have addressed his little speech to the china shepherdess, with the straw disc and ribbons on her head, in the bodice and short petticoat of flowered brocade, leaning against a tree, with a lamb with its hind leg and tail broken off, looking affectionately in her face.
"I can't make it out, sir; your eyes are young – perhaps you would read it to me – it is not very long."
"Certainly, with pleasure" – and Tom Sedley sat down, and, spreading the letter on the table, under the candles, read as follows to the old lady opposite: —
"Private
"Madam, – As an old and intimate friend of your reputed husband, I take leave to inform you that he placed a sum of money in my hands for the use of your son and his, if he be still living. Should he be so, will you be so good as to let me know where it will reach him. A line to Jos. Larkin, Esq., at the Verney Arms, Cardyllian, or a verbal message, if you desire to see him, will suffice. Mr. Larkin is the solvent and religious attorney of the present Lord Verney, and you have my consent to advise with him on the subject.
"I have the honour to be,"Madam,"Your obedient servant,"J. Dingwell."
"P.S. – You are aware, I suppose, madam, that I am the witness who proved the death of the late Hon. Arthur Verney, who died of a low fever in Constantinople, in July twelve months."
"Died! My God! Died! did you say died?"
"Yes. I thought you knew. It was proved a year ago nearly. The elder brother of the present Lord Verney."
There followed a silence while you might count ten, and then came a long, wild, and bitter cry.
The little girl started up, with white lips, and said, "Lord bless us!" The sparrows in the ivy about the windows fluttered – even Tom Sedley was chilled and pierced by that desolate scream.
"I'm very sorry, really, I'm awfully sorry," Tom exclaimed, finding himself, he knew not how, again on his feet, and gazing at the white, imploring face of the trembling old woman. "I really did not know – I had not an idea you felt such an interest in any of the family. If I had known, I should have been more careful. I'm shocked at what I've done."
"Oh! Arthur – oh! Arthur. He's gone —after all, after all. If we could have only met for one minute, just for one look." She was drawing back the window-curtain, looking towards the dark Pendillion and the starless sea. "He said he'd come again – he went – and my heart misgave me. I said, he'll never come again – my beautiful Arthur – never – never – never. Oh, darling, darling. If I could even see your grave."
"I'm awfully sorry, ma'am; I wish I could be of any use," said honest Tom Sedley, speaking very low and kindly, standing beside her, with, I think, tears in his eyes. "I wish so much, ma'am, you could employ me any way. I'd be so glad to be of any use, about your son, or to see that Mr. Larkin. I don't like his face, ma'am, and would not advise your trusting him too much."
"Our little child's dead. Oh! Arthur – Arthur! – a beautiful little thing; and you, my darling, – that I watched for, so long – never to come again – never, never – never – I have no one now."
"I'll come to you and see you in the morning," said Tom.
And he walked home in the dark, and stopped on the summit of the hill, looking down upon the twinkling lights of the town, and back again toward solemn Malory, thinking of what he had seen, and what an odd world it was.
CHAPTER XXI
BY RAIL TO LONDON
About an hour later, Tom Sedley, in solitude, meditated thus —
"I wonder whether the Etherages" – (meaning pretty Miss Agnes) – "would think it a bore if I went up to see them. It's too late for tea. I'm afraid they mightn't like it. No one, of course, like Cleve now. They'd find me very dull, I dare say. I don't care, I'll walk up, and if I see the lights in the drawing-room windows, I'll try."
He did walk up; he did see the lights in the drawing-room windows; and he did try, with the result of finding himself upon the drawing-room carpet a minute after, standing at the side of Agnes, and chatting to Miss Charity.
"How is your father?" asked Tom, seeing the study untenanted.
"Not at all well, I think; he had an accident to-day. Didn't you hear?"
"Accident! No, I didn't."
"Oh! yes. Somehow, when Lord Verney and the other people were coming up here to-day, he was going to meet them, and among them they overturned his bath-chair, and I don't know really who's to blame. Captain Shrapnell says he saved his life; but, however it happened, he was upset and very much shaken. I see you laughing, Thomas Sedley! What on earth can you see in it to laugh at? It's so exactly like Agnes – she laughed! you did, indeed, Agnes, and if I had not seen it, with my own eyes, I could not have believed it!"
"I knew papa was not hurt, and I could not help laughing, if you put me to death for it, and they say he drove over Lord Verney's foot."
"That would not break my heart," said Sedley. "Did you hear the particulars from Cleve?"
"No, I did not see Mr. Verney to speak to, since the accident," said Miss Charity. "By-the-by, who was the tall, good-looking girl, in the seal-skin coat, he was talking to all the way to the jetty? I think she was Lady Wimbledon's daughter."
"So she was; has she rather large blue eyes?"
"Yes."
"Oh! it must be she; that's Miss Caroline Oldys. She's such a joke; she's elder than Cleve."
"Oh! that's impossible; she's decidedly younger than Mr. Cleve Verney, and, I think, extremely pretty."
"Well, perhaps she is younger, and I do believe she's pretty; but she's a fool, and she has been awfully in love with him for I don't know how many years – every one was laughing at it, two or three seasons ago; she is such a muff!"
"What do you mean by a muff?" demanded Charity.
"Well, a goose, then. Lord Verney's her guardian or trustee, or something; and they say, that he and Lady Wimbledon had agreed to promote the affair. Just like them. She is such a scheming old woman; and Lord Verney is such a – I was going to say, such a muff, – but he is such a spoon. Cleve's wide awake, though, and I don't think he'll do that for them."
I believe there may have been, at one time, some little foundation in fact for the theory which supposed the higher powers favourable to such a consummation. But time tests the value of such schemes, and it would seem that Lady Wimbledon had come to the conclusion that the speculation was a barren one: for, this night, in her dressing-gown, with her wig off, and a silken swathing about her bald head, she paid a very exciting visit to her daughter's room, and blew her up in her own awful way, looking like an angry Turk. "She wondered how any person with Caroline's experience could be such an idiot as to let that young man go on making a fool of her. He had no other idea but the one of making a fool of her before the world. She, Lady Wimbledon, would have no more of any such insensate folly – her prospects should not be ruined, if she could prevent it, and prevent it she could and would– there should be an end of that odious nonsense; and if she chose to make herself the laughing-stock of the world, she, Lady Wimbledon, would do her duty and take her down to Slominton, where they would be quiet enough at all events; and Cleve Verney, she ventured to say, with a laugh, would not follow her."
The young lady was in tears, and blubbered in her romantic indignation till her eyes and nose were inflamed, and her mamma requested her to look in the glass, and see what a figure she had made of herself, and made her bathe her face for an hour, before she went to bed.
There was no other young lady at Ware, and Cleve smiled in his own face, in his looking-glass, as he dressed for dinner.
"My uncle will lose no time – I did not intend this; but I see very well what he means, and he'll be disappointed and grow suspicious, if I draw back; and she has really nothing to recommend her, poor Caroline, and he'll find that out time enough, and meanwhile I shall get over some months quietly."
There was no great difficulty in seeing, indeed, that the noble host distinguished Lady Wimbledon and her daughter. And Lord Verney, leaning on Cleve's arm, asked him lightly what he thought of Miss Caroline Oldys; and Cleve, who had the gift of presence of mind, rather praised the young lady.
"My uncle would prefer Ethel, when he sees a hope in that direction, I shan't hear much more of Caroline, and so on – and we shall be growing older – and the chapter of accidents – and all that."
For a day or two Lord Verney was very encouraging, and quite took an interest in the young lady, and showed her the house and the place, and unfolded all the plans which were about to grow into realities, and got Cleve to pull her across the lake, and walked round to meet them, and amused the young man by contriving that little opportunity. But Lady Wimbledon revealed something to Lord Verney, that evening, over their game of ecarté, which affected his views.
Cleve was talking to the young lady, but he saw Lord Verney look once or twice, in the midst of a very serious conversation with Lady Wimbledon, at Caroline Oldys and himself, and now without smiling.
It was Lady Wimbledon's deal, but she did not deal, and her opponent seemed also to have forgotten the cards, and their heads inclined one toward the other as the talk proceeded.
It was about the hour when ladies light their bed-room candles, and ascend. And Lady Wimbledon and Caroline Oldys had vanished in a few minutes more, and Cleve thought, "She has told him something that has given him a new idea." His uncle was rather silent and dry for the rest of that evening, but next morning seemed pretty much as usual, only Lord Verney took an opportunity of saying to him —
"I have been considering, and I have heard things, and, with reference to the subject of my conversation with you, in town, I think you ought to direct your thoughts to Ethel, about it – you ought to have money – don't you see? It's very important – money – very well to be le fils de ses [oe]uvres, and that kind of thing; but a little money does no harm; on the contrary, it is very desirable. Other people keep that point in view; I don't see why we should not. I ask myself this question: – How is it that people get on in the world? And I answer – in great measure by amassing money; and arguing from that, I think it desirable you should have some money to begin with, and I've endeavoured to put it logically, about it, that you may see the drift of what I say." And he made an excuse and sent Cleve up to town next day before him.
I have been led into an episode by Miss Charity's question about Miss Caroline Oldys; and returning to Hazelden, I find Tom Sedley taking his leave of the young ladies for the night, and setting out for the Verney Arms with a cigar between his lips.
Next morning he walked down to Malory again, and saw old Rebecca, who seemed, in her odd way, comforted on seeing him, but spoke little – almost nothing; and he charged her to tell neither Dingwell, of whom he had heard nothing but evil, nor Jos. Larkin, of whom he had intuitively a profound suspicion, – anything about her own history, or the fate of her child, but to observe the most cautious reserve in any communications they might seek to open with her. And having delivered this injunction in a great variety of language, he took his leave, and got home very early to his breakfast, and ran up to London, oddly enough, in the same carriage with Cleve Verney.
Tom Sedley was angry with Cleve, I am afraid not upon any very high principle. If Cleve had trifled with the affections of Miss Caroline Oldys, I fear he would have borne the spectacle of her woes with considerable patience. But if the truth must be told, honest Tom Sedley was leaving Cardyllian in a pet. Anger, grief, jealousy, were seething in his good-natured heart. Agnes Etherage —his little Agnes – she had belonged to him as long as he could remember; she was gone, and he never knew how much he had liked her until he had lost her.
Gone? No; in his wanton cruelty this handsome outlaw had slain his deer – had shot his sweet bird dead, and there she lay in the sylvan solitude she had so beautified —dead; and he – heartless archer – went on his way smiling, having darkened the world for harmless Tom Sedley. Could he like him ever again?
Well, the world brooks no heroics now; there are reserves. Men cultivate a thick skin – nature's buff-coat – in which, with little pain and small loss of blood, the modern man-at-arms rides cheerily through life's battle. When point or edge happen to go a little through, as I have said, there are reserves. There is no good in roaring, grinning, or cursing. The scathless only laugh at you; therefore wipe away the blood quietly and seem all you can like the rest. Better not to let them see even that. Is there not sometimes more of curiosity than of sympathy in the scrutiny? Don't you even see, at times, just the suspicion of a smile on your friend's pitying face, as he prescribes wet brown paper or basilicon, or a cob-web, according to his skill?
So Tom and Cleve talked a little – an acquaintance would have said, just as usual – and exchanged newspapers, and even laughed a little now and then; but when at Shillingsworth the last interloper got out, and Tom and Cleve were left to themselves, the ruling idea asserted itself, and Sedley looked hurriedly out of the window, and grew silent for a time, and pretended not to hear Cleve when he asked him whether he had seen the report of Lord Verney's visit to Cardyllian, as displayed in the county paper of that day, which served to amuse him extremely.
"I don't think," said Tom Sedley, at last, abruptly, "that nice, pretty little creature, Agnes Etherage – the nicest little thing, by Jove, I think I ever saw – I say she is not looking well."
"Is not she really?" said Cleve, very coolly cutting open a leaf in his magazine.
"Didn't you observe?" exclaimed Tom, rather fiercely.
"Well, no, I can't say I did; but you know them so much better than I," answered Cleve; "it can't be very much; I dare say she's well by this time."
"How can you speak that way, Verney, knowing all you do?"
"Why, what do I know?" exclaimed Cleve, looking up in unaffected wonder.
"You know all about it —why she's out of spirits, why she's looking so delicate, why she's not like herself," said Tom, impatiently.
"Upon my soul I do not," said Cleve Verney, with animation.
"That's odd, considering you've half broken her heart," urged Tom.
"I broken her heart?" repeated Cleve. "Now, really, Sedley, do pray think what you're saying."
"I say I think you've broken her heart, and her sister thinks so too; and it's an awful shame," insisted Tom, very grimly.
"I really do think the people want to set me mad," said Cleve, testily. "If anyone says that I have ever done anything that could have made any of that family, who are in their senses, fancy that I was in love with Miss Agnes Etherage, and that I wished her to suppose so, it is simply an untruth. I never did, and I don't intend; and I can't see, for the life of me, Tom Sedley, what business it is of yours. But thus much I do say, upon my honour, it is a lie. Miss Charity Etherage, an old maid, with no more sense than a snipe, living in that barbarous desert, where if a man appears at all, during eight months out of the twelve, he's a prodigy, and if he walks up the street with a Cardyllian lady, he's pronounced to be over head and ears in love, and of course meditating marriage – I say she's not the most reliable critic in the world in an affair of that sort; and all I say is, that I've given no grounds for any such idea, and I mean it, upon my honour; and I've seldom been so astonished in my life before."
There was an air of frank and indignant repudiation in Cleve's manner and countenance, which more even than his words convinced Tom Sedley, who certainly was aware how little the Cardyllian people knew of the world, and what an eminently simple maiden in all such matters the homely Miss Charity was. So Tom extended his hand and said —
"Well, Cleve, I'm so glad, and I beg your pardon, and I know you say truth, and pray shake hands; but though you are not to blame – I'm now quite sure you're not – the poor girl is very unhappy, and her sister very angry."
"I can't help that. How on earth can I help it? I'm very sorry, though I'm not sure that I ought to care a farthing about other people's nonsense, and huffs, and romances. I could tell you things about myself, lots of things you'd hardly believe —real dreadful annoyances. I tell you Tom, I hate the life I'm leading. You only see the upper surface, and hardly that. I'm worried to death, and only that I owe so much money, and can't get away, I can tell you – I don't care two pins whether you believe it or not – I should have been feeding sheep in Australia a year ago."
"Better where you are, Cleve."
"How the devil do you know? Don't be offended with me, Tom, only make allowances, and if I sometimes talk a bit like a Bedlamite don't repeat my ravings; that's all. Look at that windmill; isn't it pretty?"
