Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated), page 276
“Yes, yes, poor thing!”
She was thinking of poor Lady Marlowe, whom, with her usual perversity, although a step-daughter, she had loved very tenderly, and who in her last illness had tenanted these rooms, in which, seventeen years ago, this old lady had sat beside her and soothed her sickness, and by her tenderness, no doubt, softened those untold troubles which gathered about her bed as death drew near.
“How do you do, Mrs. Sinnott?” said stately Lady Alice, recovering her dry and lofty manner.
“Lady Alice Redcliffe, my grandmamma,” said Beatrix, in an undertoned introduction, in the housekeeper’s ear.
Mrs. Sinnott made a fussy little courtesy.
“Your ladyship’s apartments, which is at the other end of the gallery, please, is quite ready, my lady.”
“I don’t mean to have those rooms, though — that’s the reason I sent for you — please read this note, it is from Sir Jekyl Marlowe. By-the-bye, is your master at home?”
“No, he was out.”
“Well, be so good as to read this.”
And Lady Alice placed Beatrix’s note of invitation in Mrs. Sinnott’s hand, and pointed to a passage in the autograph of Sir Jekyl, which spoke thus: —
“P.S. — Do come, dearest little mamma, and you shall command everything. Choose your own apartments and hours, and, in short, rule us all. With all my worldly goods I thee endow, and place Mrs. Sinnott at your orders.”
“Well, Mrs. Sinnott, I choose these apartments, if you please,” said Lady Alice, sitting down stiffly, and thereby taking possession.
“Very well, my lady,” said Mrs. Sinnott, dropping another courtesy; but her sharp red nose and little black eyes looked sceptical and uneasy; “and I suppose, Miss,” here she paused, looking at Beatrix.
“You are to do whatever Lady Alice directs,” said the young lady.
“This here room, you know, Miss, is the dressing-room properly of the green chamber.”
“Lady Jane does not use it, though?” replied the new visitor.
“But the General, when he comes back,” insinuated Mrs. Sinnott.
“Of course, he shall have it. I’ll remove then; but in the meantime, liking these rooms, from old remembrances, best of any, I will occupy them, Beatrix; this as a dressing-room, and the apartment there as bedroom. I hope I don’t give you a great deal of trouble,” added Lady Alice, addressing the housekeeper, with an air that plainly said that she did not care a pin whether she did or not.
So this point was settled, and Lady Alice sent for her maid and her boxes; and rising, she approached the door of the green chamber, and pointing to it, said to Beatrix —
“And so Lady Jane has this room. Do you like her, Beatrix?”
“I can’t say I know her, grandmamma.”
“No, I dare say not. It is a large room — too large for my notion of a cheerful bedroom.”
The old lady drew near, and knocked.
“She’s not there?”
“No, she’s in the terrace-garden.”
Lady Alice pushed the door open, and looked in.
“A very long room. That room is longer than my drawingroom at Wardlock, and that is five and thirty feet long. Dismal, I say — though so much light, and that portrait — Sir Harry smirking there. What a look of duplicity in that face! He was an old man when I can remember him; an old beau; a wicked old man, rouged and whitened; he used to paint under his eyelashes, and had, they said, nine or ten sets of false teeth, and always wore a black curled wig that made his contracted countenance more narrow. There were such lines of cunning and meanness about his eyes, actually crossing one another. Jekyl hated him, I think. I don’t think anybody but a fool could have really liked him; he was so curiously selfish, and so contemptible; he was attempting the life of a wicked young man at seventy!”
Lady Alice had been speaking as it were in soliloquy, staring drearily on the clever portrait in gold lace and ruffles, stricken by the spell of that painted canvas into a dream.
“Your grandpapa, my dear, was not a good man; and I believe he injured my poor son irreparably, and your father. Well — these things, though never forgotten, are best not spoken of when people happen to be connected. For the sake of others we bear our pain in silence; but the heart knoweth its own bitterness.”
And so saying, the old lady drew back from the threshold of Lady Jane’s apartment, and closed the door with a stern countenance.
* * *
CHAPTER XX.
An Altercation.
Almost at the same moment Sir Jekyl entered the hexagon, or, as it was more pleasantly called, the Window dressing-room, from the lobby. He was quite radiant, and, in that warm evening light, struck Lady Alice as looking quite marvellously youthful.
“Well, Jekyl Marlowe, you see you have brought me here at last,” said the old lady, extending her hand stiffly, like a wooden marionette, her thin elbow making a right angle.
“So I have; and I shall always think the better of my eloquence for having prevailed. You’re a thousand times welcome, and not tired, I hope; the journey is not much after all.”
“Thanks; no, the distance is not much, the fatigue nothing,” said Lady Alice, drawing her fingers horizontally back from his hospitable pressure. “But it is not always distance that separates people, or fatigue that depresses one.”
“No, of course; fifty things; rheumatism, temper, hatred, affliction: and I am so delighted to see you! Trixie, dear, would not grandmamma like to see her room? Send for— “
“Thank you, I mean to stay here,” said Lady Alice.
“Here!” echoed Sir Jekyl, with a rather bewildered smile.
“I avail myself of the privilege you give me; your postscript to Beatrix’s note, you know. You tell me there to choose what rooms I like best,” said the old lady, drily, at the same time drawing her bag toward her, that she might be ready to put the documents in evidence, in case he should dispute it.
“Oh! did I?” said the Baronet, with the same faint smile.
Lady Alice nodded, and then threw back her head, challenging contradiction by a supercilious stare, her hand firmly upon the bag as before.
“But this room, you know; it’s anything but a comfortable one — don’t you think?” said Sir Jekyl.
“I like it,” said the inflexible old lady, sitting down.
“And I’m afraid there’s a little difficulty,” he continued, not minding. “For this is General Lennox’s dressing-room. Don’t you think it might be awkward?” and he chuckled agreeably.
“General Lennox is absent in London, on business,” said Lady Alice, grim as an old Diana; “and Jane does not use it, and there can be no intelligible objection to my having it in his absence.”
There was a little smile, that yet was not a smile, and a slight play about Sir Jekyl’s nostrils, as he listened to this speech. They came when he was vicious; but with a flush, he commanded himself, and only laughed slightly, and said —
“It is really hardly a concern of mine, provided my guests are happy. You don’t mean to have your bed into this room, do you?”
“I mean to sleep there,” she replied drily, stabbing with her long forefinger toward the door on the opposite side of the room.
“Well, I can only say I’d have fancied, for other reasons, these the very last rooms in the house you would have chosen — particularly as this really belongs to the green chamber. However, you and Lady Jane can arrange that between you. You’d have been very comfortable where we would have put you, and you’ll be very uncomfortable here, I’m afraid; but perhaps I’m not making allowance for the affection you have for Lady Jane, the length of time that has passed since you’ve seen her, and the pleasure of being so near her.”
There was an agreeable irony in this; for the Baronet knew that they had never agreed very well together, and that neither spoke very handsomely of the other behind her back. At the same time, this was no conclusive proof of unkindness on Lady Alice’s part, for her goodwill sometimes showed itself under strange and uncomfortable disguises.
“Beatrix, dear, I hope they are seeing to your grandmamma’s room; and you’ll want candles, it is growing dark. Altogether I’m afraid you’re very uncomfortable, little mother; but if you prefer it, you know, of course I’m silent.”
With these words he kissed the old lady’s chilly cheek, and vanished.
As he ran down the darkening stairs the Baronet was smiling mischievously; and when, having made his long straight journey to the foot of the back stairs, he reascended, and passing through the two little anterooms, entered his own homely bedchamber, and looked at his handsome and wonderfully preserved face in the glass, he laughed outright two or three comfortable explosions at intervals, and was evidently enjoying some fun in anticipation.
When, a few minutes later, that proud sad beauty, Lady Jane, followed by her maid, sailed rustling into the Window dressing-room — I call it so in preference — and there saw, by the light of a pair of wax candles, a stately figure seated on the sofa at the further end in grey silk draperies, with its feet on a boss, she paused in an attitude of sublime surprise, with just a gleam of defiance in it.
“How d’ y’ do, Jenny, my dear?” said a voice, on which, as on the tones of an old piano, a few years had told a good deal, but which she recognised with some little surprise, for notwithstanding Lady Alice’s note accepting the Baronet’s invitation, he had talked and thought of her actually coming to Marlowe as a very unlikely occurrence indeed.
“Oh! oh! Lady Alice Redcliffe!” exclaimed the young wife, setting down her bedroom candle, and advancing with a transitory smile to her old kinswoman, who half rose from her throne and kissed her on the cheek as she stooped to meet her salutation. “You have only arrived a few minutes; I saw your carriage going round from the door.”
“About forty minutes — hardly an hour. How you have filled up, Jane; you’re quite an imposing figure since I saw you. I don’t think it unbecoming; your embonpoint does very well; and you’re quite well?”
“Very well — and you?”
“I’m pretty well, dear, a good deal fatigued; and so you’re a wife, Jennie, and very happy, I hope.”
“I can’t say I have anything to trouble me. I am quite happy, that is, as happy as other people, I suppose.”
“I hear nothing but praises of your husband. I shall be so happy to make his acquaintance,” continued Lady Alice.
“He has had to go up to town about business this morning, but he’s to return very soon.”
“How soon, dear?”
“In a day or two,” answered the young wife.
“Tomorrow?” inquired Lady Alice, drily.
“Or next day,” rejoined Lady Jane, with a little stare.
“Do you really, my dear Jane, expect him here the day after tomorrow?”
“He said he should be detained only a day or two in town.”
Old Lady Alice shook her incredulous head, looking straight before her.
“I don’t think he can have said that, Jane, for he wrote to a friend of mine, the day before yesterday, mentioning that he should be detained by business at least a week.”
“Oh! did he?”
“Yes, and Jekyl Marlowe, I dare say, thinks he will be kept there longer.”
“I should fancy I am a better opinion, rather, upon that point, than Sir Jekyl Marlowe,” said Lady Jane, loftily, and perhaps a little angrily.
The old lady, with closed lips, at this made a little nod, which might mean anything.
“And I can’t conceive how it can concern Sir Jekyl, or even you, Lady Alice, what business my husband may have in town.”
It was odd how sharp they were growing upon this point.
“Well, Sir Jekyl’s another thing; but me, of course, it does concern, because I shall have to give him up his room again when he returns.”
“What room?” inquired Lady Jane, honestly puzzled.
“This room,” answered the old lady, like one conscious that she drops, with the word, a gage of battle.
“But this is my room.”
“You don’t use it, Lady Jane. I wish to occupy it. I shall, of course, give it up on your husband’s return; in the meantime I deprive you of nothing by taking it. Do I?”
“That’s not the question, Lady Alice. It is my room — it is my dressing-room — and I don’t mean to give it up to any one. You are the last person on earth who would allow me to take such a liberty with you. I don’t understand it.”
“Don’t be excited, my dear Jenny,” said Lady Alice — an exhortation sometimes a little inconsistently administered by members of her admirable sex when they are themselves most exciting.
“I’m not in the least excited, Lady Alice; but I’ve had a note from you,” said Lady Jane, in rather a choking key.
“You have,” acquiesced her senior.
“And I connect your extraordinary intrusion here, with it.”
Lady Alice nodded.
“I do, and — and I’m right. You mean to insult me. It is a shame — an outrage. What do you mean, madam?”
“I’d have you to remember, Jane Chetwynd (the altercation obliterated her newly-acquired name of Lennox), that I am your relation and your senior.”
“Yes, you’re my cousin, and my senior by fifty years; but an old woman may be very impertinent to a young one.”
“Compose yourself, if you please, compose yourself,” said Lady Alice, in the same philosophic vein, but with colour a little heightened.
“I don’t know what you mean — you’re a disgraceful old woman. I’ll complain to my husband, and I’ll tell Sir Jekyl Marlowe. Either you or I must leave this house tonight,” declaimed Lady Jane, with a most beautiful blush, and eyes flashing lurid lightnings.
“You forget yourself, my dear,” said the old lady, rising grimly and confronting her.
“No, I don’t, but you do. It’s perfectly disgusting and intolerable,” cried Lady Jane, with a stamp.
“One moment, if you please — you can afford to listen for one moment, I suppose,” said the old lady, in a very low, dry tone, laying two of her lean fingers upon the snowy arm of the beautiful young lady, who, with a haughty contraction and an uplifted head, withdrew it fiercely from her touch. “You forget your maid, I think. You had better tell her to withdraw, hadn’t you?”
“I don’t care; why should I?” said Lady Jane, in a high key.
“Beatrix, dear, run into my bedroom for a moment,” said “Granny” to that distressed and perplexed young lady, who, accustomed to obey, instantly withdrew.
* * *
CHAPTER XXI.
Lady Alice in Bed.
“We may be alone together, if you choose it; if not, I can’t help it,” said Lady Alice, in a very low and impressive key.
“Well, it’s nothing to me,” said Lady Jane, more calmly and sullenly— “nothing at all — but as you insist — Cecile, you may go for a few minutes.”
This permission was communicated sulkily, in French.
“Now, Jane, you shall hear me,” said the old lady, so soon as the maid had disappeared and the doors were shut; “you must hear me with patience, if not with respect — that I don’t expect — but remember you have no mother, and I am an old woman and your kinswoman, and it is my duty to speak— “
“I’m rather tired standing,” interrupted Lady Jane, in a suppressed passion. “Besides, you say you don’t want to be overheard, and you can’t know who may be on the lobby there,” and she pointed with her jewelled fingers at the door. “I’ll go into my bedroom, if you please; and I have not the slightest objection to hear everything you can possibly say. Don’t fancy I’m the least afraid of you.”
Saying which Lady Jane, taking up her bedroom candle, rustled out of the room, without so much as looking over her shoulder to see whether the prophetess was following.
She did follow, and I dare say her lecture was not mitigated by Lady Jane’s rudeness. That young lady was lighting her candles on her dressing-table when her kinswoman entered and shut the door, without an invitation. She then seated herself serenely, and cleared her voice.
“I live very much out of the world — in fact, quite to myself; but I learn occasionally what my relations are doing; and I was grieved, Jane, to hear a great deal that was very unpleasant, to say the least, about you.”
Something between a smile and a laugh was her only answer.
“Yes, extremely foolish. I don’t, of course, say there was anything wicked, but very foolish and reckless. I know perfectly how you were talked of; and I know also why you married that excellent but old man, General Lennox.”
“I don’t think anyone talked about me. Everybody is talked about. There has been enough of this rubbish. I burnt your odious letter,” broke in Lady Jane, incoherently.
“And would, no doubt, burn the writer, if you could.”
As there was no disclaimer, Lady Alice resumed.
“Now, Jane, you have married a most respectable old gentleman; I dare say you have nothing on earth to conceal from him — remember I’ve said all along I don’t suppose there is — but as the young wife of an old man, you ought to remember how very delicate your position is.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, generally,” answered the old lady, oracularly.
“I do declare this is perfectly insufferable! What’s the meaning of this lecture? I’m as little likely, madam, as you are to disgrace myself. You’ll please to walk out of my room.”
“And how dare you talk to me in that way, young lady; how dare you attempt to hector me like your maid there?” broke out old Lady Alice, suddenly losing her self-command. “You know what I mean, and what’s more, I do, too. We both know it — you a young bride — what does Jekyl Marlowe invite you down here for? Do you think I imagine he cares twopence about your stupid old husband, and that I don’t know he was once making love to you? Of course I do; and I’ll have nothing of the sort here — and that’s the reason I’ve come, and that’s why I’m in that dressing-room, and that’s why I’ll write to your husband, so sure as you give me the slightest uneasiness; and you had better think well what you do.”
