Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu, page 217
‘But, Madame, I really know nothing of it. I can’t say whether there is a will or not. Let us talk of something else.’
‘But, cheaile, it will not kill Monsieur Ruthyn to make his will; he will not come to lie here a day sooner by cause of that; but if he make no will, you may lose a great deal of the property. Would not that be pity?’
‘I really don’t know anything of his will. If papa has made one, he has never spoken of it to me. I know he loves me — that is enough.’
‘Ah! you are not such little goose — you do know everything, of course. Come tell me, little obstinate, otherwise I will break your little finger. Tell me everything.’
‘I know nothing of papa’s will. You don’t know, Madame, how you hurt me. Let us speak of something else.’
‘You do know, and you must tell, petite dure-tête, or I will break a your little finger.’
With which words she seized that joint, and laughing spitefully, she twisted it suddenly back. I screamed while she continued to laugh.
‘Will you tell?’
‘Yes, yes! let me go,’ I shrieked.
She did not release it immediately however, but continued her torture and discordant laughter. At last she finally released my finger.
‘So she is going to be good cheaile, and tell everything to her affectionate gouvernante. What do you cry for, little fool?’
‘You’ve hurt me very much — you have broken my finger,’ I sobbed.
‘Rub it and blow it and give it a kiss, little fool! What cross girl! I will never play with you again — never. Let us go home.’
Madame was silent and morose all the way home. She would not answer my questions, and affected to be very lofty and offended.
This did not last very long, however, and she soon resumed her wonted ways. And she returned to the question of the will, but not so directly, and with more art.
Why should this dreadful woman’s thoughts be running so continually upon my father’s will? How could it concern her?
CHAPTER VII
CHURCH SCARSDALE
I think all the females of our household, except Mrs. Rusk, who was at open feud with her and had only room for the fiercer emotions, were more or less afraid of this inauspicious foreigner.
Mrs. Rusk would say in her confidences in my room —
‘Where does she come from? — is she a French or a Swiss one, or is she a Canada woman? I remember one of them when I was a girl, and a nice limb she was, too! And who did she live with? Where was her last family? Not one of us knows nothing about her, no more than a child; except, of course, the Master — I do suppose he made enquiry. She’s always at hugger-mugger with Anne Wixted. I’ll pack that one about her business, if she doesn’t mind. Tattling and whispering eternally. It’s not about her own business she’s a-talking. Madame de la Rougepot, I call her. She does know how to paint up to the ninety-nines — she does, the old cat. I beg your pardon, Miss, but that she is — a devil, and no mistake. I found her out first by her thieving the Master’s gin, that the doctor ordered him, and filling the decanter up with water — the old villain; but she’ll be found out yet, she will; and all the maids is afraid on her. She’s not right, they think — a witch or a ghost — I should not wonder. Catherine Jones found her in her bed asleep in the morning after she sulked with you, you know, Miss, with all her clothes on, whatever was the meaning; and I think she has frightened you, Miss and has you as nervous as anythink — I do,’ and so forth.
It was true. I was nervous, and growing rather more so; and I think this cynical woman perceived and intended it, and was pleased. I was always afraid of her concealing herself in my room, and emerging at night to scare me. She began sometimes to mingle in my dreams, too — always awfully; and this nourished, of course, the kind of ambiguous fear in which, in waking hours, I held her.
I dreamed one night that she led me, all the time whispering something so very fast that I could not understand her, into the library, holding a candle in her other hand above her head. We walked on tiptoe, like criminals at the dead of night, and stopped before that old oak cabinet which my father had indicated in so odd a way to me. I felt that we were about some contraband practice. There was a key in the door, which I experienced a guilty horror at turning, she whispering in the same unintelligible way, all the time, at my ear. I did turn it; the door opened quite softly, and within stood my father, his face white and malignant, and glaring close in mine. He cried in a terrible voice, ‘Death!’ Out went Madame’s candle, and at the same moment, with a scream, I waked in the dark — still fancying myself in the library; and for an hour after I continued in a hysterical state.
Every little incident about Madame furnished a topic of eager discussion among the maids. More or less covertly, they nearly all hated and feared her. They fancied that she was making good her footing with ‘the Master;’ and that she would then oust Mrs. Rusk — perhaps usurp her place — and so make a clean sweep of them all. I fancy the honest little housekeeper did not discourage that suspicion.
About this time I recollect a pedlar — an odd, gipsified-looking man — called in at Knowl. I and Catherine Jones were in the court when he came, and set down his pack on the low balustrade beside the door.
All sorts of commodities he had — ribbons, cottons, silks, stockings, lace, and even some bad jewellry; and just as he began his display — an interesting matter in a quiet country house — Madame came upon the ground. He grinned a recognition, and hoped ‘Madamasel’ was well, and ‘did not look to see her here.’
‘Madamasel’ thanked him. ‘Yes, vary well,’ and looked for the first time decidedly ‘put out.’
‘Wat a pretty things!’ she said. ‘Catherine, run and tell Mrs. Rusk. She wants scissars, and lace too — I heard her say.’
So Catherine, with a lingering look, departed; and Madame said —
‘Will you, dear cheaile, be so kind to bring here my purse, I forgot on the table in my room; also, I advise you, bring your.’
Catherine returned with Mrs. Rusk. Here was a man who could tell them something of the old Frenchwoman, at last! Slyly they dawdled over his wares, until Madame had made her market and departed with me. But when the coveted opportunity came, the pedlar was quite impenetrable. ‘He forgot everything; he did not believe as he ever saw the lady before. He called a Frenchwoman, all the world over, Madamasel — that wor the name on ‘em all. He never seed her in partiklar afore, as he could bring to mind. He liked to see ‘em always, ‘cause they makes the young uns buy.’
This reserve and oblivion were very provoking, and neither Mrs. Rusk nor Catherine Jones spent sixpence with him; — he was a stupid fellow, or worse.
Of course Madame had tampered with him. But truth, like murder, will out some day. Tom Williams, the groom, had seen her, when alone with him, and pretending to look at his stock, with her face almost buried in his silks and Welsh linseys, talking as fast as she could all the time, and slipping money, he did suppose, under a piece of stuff in his box.
In the mean time, I and Madame were walking over the wide, peaty sheepwalks that lie between Knowl and Church Scarsdale. Since our visit to the mausoleum in the wood, she had not worried me so much as before. She had been, indeed, more than usually thoughtful, very little talkative, and troubled me hardly at all about French and other accomplishments. A walk was a part of our daily routine. I now carried a tiny basket in my hand, with a few sandwiches, which were to furnish our luncheon when we reached the pretty scene, about two miles away, whither we were tending.
We had started a little too late; Madame grew unwontedly fatigued and sat down to rest on a stile before we had got halfway; and there she intoned, with a dismal nasal cadence, a quaint old Bretagne ballad, about a lady with a pig’s head: —
‘This lady was neither pig nor maid,
And so she was not of human mould;
Not of the living nor the dead.
Her left hand and foot were warm to touch;
Her right as cold as a corpse’s flesh!
And she would sing like a funeral bell, with a ding-dong tune.
The pigs were afraid, and viewed her aloof;
And women feared her and stood afar.
She could do without sleep for a year and a day;
She could sleep like a corpse, for a month and more.
No one knew how this lady fed —
On acorns or on flesh.
Some say that she’s one of the swine-possessed,
That swam over the sea of Gennesaret.
A mongrel body and demon soul.
Some say she’s the wife of the Wandering Jew,
And broke the law for the sake of pork;
And a swinish face for a token doth bear,
That her shame is now, and her punishment coming.’
And so it went on, in a gingling rigmarole. The more anxious I seemed to go on our way, the more likely was she to loiter. I therefore showed no signs of impatience, and I saw her consult her watch in the course of her ugly minstrelsy, and slyly glance, as if expecting something, in the direction of our destination.
When she had sung to her heart’s content, up rose Madame, and began to walk onward silently. I saw her glance once or twice, as before, toward the village of Trillsworth, which lay in front, a little to our left, and the smoke of which hung in a film over the brow of the hill. I think she observed me, for she enquired —
‘Wat is that a smoke there?’
‘That is Trillsworth, Madame; there is a railway station there.’
‘Oh, le chemin de fer, so near! I did not think. Where it goes?’
I told her, and silence returned.
Church Scarsdale is a very pretty and odd scene. The slightly undulating sheepwalk dips suddenly into a wide glen, in the lap of which, by a bright, winding rill, rise from the sward the ruins of a small abbey, with a few solemn trees scattered round. The crows’ nests hung untenanted in the trees; the birds were foraging far away from their roosts. The very cattle had forsaken the place. It was solitude itself.
Madame drew a long breath and smiled.
‘Come down, come down, cheaile — come down to the churchyard.’
As we descended the slope which shut out the surrounding world, and the scene grew more sad and lonely. Madame’s spirits seemed to rise.
‘See ‘ow many gravestones — one, two hundred. Don’t you love the dead, cheaile? I will teach you to love them. You shall see me die here to-day, for half an hour, and be among them. That is what I love.’
We were by this time at the little brook’s side, and the low churchyard wall with a stile, reached by a couple of stepping-stones, across the stream, immediately at the other side.
‘Come, now!’ cried Madame, raising her face, as if to sniff the air; ‘we are close to them. You will like them soon as I. You shall see five of them. Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira! Come cross quickily! I am Madame la Morgue — Mrs. Deadhouse! I will present you my friends, Monsieur Cadavre and Monsieur Squelette. Come, come, leetle mortal, let us play. Ouaah!’ And she uttered a horrid yell from her enormous mouth, and pushing her wig and bonnet back, so as to show her great, bald head. She was laughing, and really looked quite mad.
‘No, Madame, I will not go with you,’ I said, disengaging my hand with a violent effort, receding two or three steps.
‘Not enter the churchyard! Ma foi — wat mauvais goût! But see, we are already in shade. The sun he is setting soon — where well you remain, cheaile? I will not stay long.’
‘I’ll stay here,’ I said, a little angrily — for I was angry as well as nervous; and through my fear was that indignation at her extravagances which mimicked lunacy so unpleasantly, and were, I knew, designed to frighten me.
Over the stepping-stones, pulling up her dress, she skipped with her long, lank legs, like a witch joining a Walpurgis. Over the stile she strode, and I saw her head wagging, and heard her sing some of her ill-omened rhymes, as she capered solemnly, with many a grin and courtesy, among the graves and headstones, towards the ruin.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SMOKER
Three years later I learned — in a way she probably little expected, and then did not much care about — what really occurred there. I learned even phrases and looks — for the story was related by one who had heard it told — and therefore I venture to narrate what at the moment I neither saw nor suspected. While I sat, flushed and nervous, upon a flat stone by the bank of the little stream, Madame looked over her shoulder, and perceiving that I was out of sight, she abated her pace, and turned sharply towards the ruin which lay at her left. It was her first visit, and she was merely exploring; but now, with a perfectly shrewd and businesslike air, turning the corner of the building, she saw, seated upon the edge of a gravestone, a rather fat and flashily-equipped young man, with large, light whiskers, a jerry hat, green cutaway coat with gilt buttons, and waistcoat and trousers rather striking than elegant in pattern. He was smoking a short pipe, and made a nod to Madame, without either removing it from his lips or rising, but with his brown and rather good-looking face turned up, he eyed her with something of the impudent and sulky expression that was habitual to it.
‘Ha, Deedle, you are there! an’ look so well. I am here, too, quite alon; but my friend, she wait outside the churchyard, by-side the leetle river, for she must not think I know you — so I am come alon.’
‘You’re a quarter late, and I lost a fight by you, old girl, this morning,’ said the gay man, and spat on the ground; ‘and I wish you would not call me Diddle. I’ll call you Granny if you do.’
‘Eh bien! Dud, then. She is vary nice — wat you like. Slim waist, wite teeth, vary nice eyes — dark — wat you say is best — and nice leetle foot and ankle.’
Madame smiled leeringly. Dud smoked on.
‘Go on,’ said Dud, with a nod of command.
‘I am teach her to sing and play — she has such sweet voice!
There was another interval here.
‘Well, that isn’t much good. I hate women’s screechin’ about fairies and flowers. Hang her! there’s a scarecrow as sings at Curl’s Divan. Such a caterwauling upon a stage! I’d like to put my two barrels into her.’
By this time Dud’s pipe was out, and he could afford to converse.
‘You shall see her and decide. You will walk down the river, and pass her by.’
‘That’s as may be; howsoever, it would not do, nohow, to buy a pig in a poke, you know. And s’pose I shouldn’t like her, arter all?’
Madame sneered, with a patois ejaculation of derision.
‘Vary good! Then some one else will not be so ‘ard to please — as you will soon find.’
‘Some one’s bin a-lookin’ arter her, you mean?’ said the young man, with a shrewd uneasy glance on the cunning face of the French lady.
‘I mean precisely — that which I mean,’ replied the lady, with a teazing pause at the break I have marked.
‘Come, old ‘un, none of your d —— old chaff, if you want me to stay here listening to you. Speak out, can’t you? There’s any chap as has bin a-lookin’ arter her — is there?’
‘Eh bien! I suppose some.’
‘Well, you suppose, and I suppose — we may all suppose, I guess; but that does not make a thing be, as wasn’t before; and you tell me as how the lass is kep’ private up there, and will be till you’re done educating her — a precious good ‘un that is!’ And he laughed a little lazily, with the ivory handle of his cane on his lip, and eyeing Madame with indolent derision.
Madame laughed, but looked rather dangerous.
‘I’m only chaffin’, you know, old girl. You’ve bin chaffin’ — w’y shouldn’t I? But I don’t see why she can’t wait a bit; and what’s all the d —— d hurry for? I’m in no hurry. I don’t want a wife on my back for a while. There’s no fellow marries till he’s took his bit o’ fun, and seen life — is there! And why should I be driving with her to fairs, or to church, or to meeting, by jingo! — for they say she’s a Quaker — with a babby on each knee, only to please them as will be dead and rotten when I’m only beginning?’
‘Ah, you are such charming fellow; always the same — always sensible. So I and my friend we will walk home again, and you go see Maggie Hawkes. Good-a-by, Dud — good-a-by.’
‘Quiet, you fool! — can’t ye?’ said the young gentleman, with the sort of grin that made his face vicious when a horse vexed him. ‘Who ever said I wouldn’t go look at the girl? Why, you know that’s just what I come here for — don’t you? Only when I think a bit, and a notion comes across me, why shouldn’t I speak out? I’m not one o’ them shilly-shallies. If I like the girl, I’ll not be mug in and mug out about it. Only mind ye, I’ll judge for myself. Is that her acoming?’
‘No; it was a distant sound.’
Madame peeped round the corner. No one was approaching.
‘Well, you go round that a-way, and you only look at her, you know, for she is such fool — so nairvous.’
‘Oh, is that the way with her?’ said Dud, knocking out the ashes of his pipe on a tombstone, and replacing the Turkish utensil in his pocket. ‘Well, then, old lass, goodbye,’ and he shook her hand. ‘And, do ye see, don’t ye come up till I pass, for I’m no hand at play-acting; an’ if you called me “sir,” or was coming it dignified and distant, you know, I’d be sure to laugh, a’most, and let all out. So goodbye, d’ye see, and if you want me again be sharp to time, mind.
From habit he looked about for his dogs, but he had not brought one. He had come unostentatiously by rail, travelling in a third-class carriage, for the advantage of Jack Briderly’s company, and getting a world of useful wrinkles about the steeplechase that was coming off next week.
So he strode away, cutting off the heads of the nettles with his cane as he went; and Madame walked forth into the open space among the graves, where I might have seen her, had I stood up, looking with the absorbed gaze of an artist on the ruin.
