Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated), page 363
Such a systematic, and even dangerous defiance of everything good, he had never encountered before. Such a person exactly as this Mr. Dingwell he could not have imagined. There was, he feared, a vein of insanity in that unfortunate man.
He had seen quite enough of the horrid adroitness of Mr. Dingwell’s horse-play, and felt such qualms whenever that animal capered and snorted, that he contented himself with musing and wondering over his idiosyncrasies, and adopted a soothing treatment with him — talked to him in a friendly, and even tender way — and had some vague plans of getting him ultimately into a madhouse.
But Mr. Dingwell was by this time getting into his cab, with a drapery of mufflers round him, and telling the man through the front window to drive to Rosemary Court; he threw himself back into a corner, and chuckled and snorted in a conceited ecstasy over his victory, and the money which was coming to minister to no good in this evil world.
Cleve Verney leaned back in his chair, and there rose before him a view of a moonlighted wood, an old château, with its many peaked turrets, and steep roofs, showing silvery against the deep, liquid sky of night, and with a sigh, he saw on the white worn steps, that beautiful, wonderful shape that was his hope and his fate; and as he leaned on his hand, the Reverend Isaac Dixie, whose name had strangely summoned this picture from the deep sea of his fancy, entered the room, smiling rosily, after his wont, and extending his broad hand, as he marched with deliberate strides across the floor, as much as to say— “Here I am, your old tutor and admirer, who always predicted great things for you; I know you are charmed, as I am; I know how you will greet me.”
“Ha! old Dixie,” and Cleve got up, with a kind of effort, and not advancing very far, shook hands.
“So you have got your leave — a week — or how long?”
“I’ve arranged for next Sunday, that’s all, my dear Mr. Verney; some little inconvenience, but very happy — always happy.”
“Come, I want to have a talk with you,” said Cleve, drawing the clergyman to a chair. “Don’t you remember — you ought, you know — what Lord Sparkish (isn’t it?) says in Swift’s Polite Conversations— ‘’Tis as cheap sitting as standing.’”
The clergyman took the chair, simpering bashfully, for the allusion was cruel, and referred to a time when the Reverend Isaac Dixie, being as yet young in the ways of the world, and somewhat slow in apprehending literary ironies, had actually put his pupil through a grave course of “Polite Conversation,” which he picked up among some odd volumes of the works of the great Dean of St. Patrick’s, on the schoolroom shelf at Malory.
“And for my accomplishment of saying smart things in a polite way, I am entirely obliged to you and Dean Swift,” said Cleve, mischievously.
“Ah! ah! you were always fond of a jest, my dear Mr. Verney; you liked poking fun, you did, at your old tutor; but you know how that really was — I have explained it so often; still, I do allow, the jest is not a bad one.”
But Cleve’s mind was already on quite another subject.
“And now, Dixie,” said he, with a sharp glance into the clergyman’s eyes, “you know, or at least you guess, what it is I want you to do for me?”
The clergyman looked down by his gaiter, with his head a little a-one-side, and his mouth a little pursed; and said he, after a momentary silence, —
“I really, I may say, unaffectedly, assure you that I do not.”
“You’re a queer fellow, old Dixie,” said Cleve; “you won’t be vexed, but you are always a little bit too clever. I did not tell you exactly, but I told you enough to enable you to guess it. Don’t you remember our last talk? Come now, Dixie, you’re no muff.”
“I hope not, my dear Cleve; I may be, but I don’t pretend to that character, though I have still, I apprehend, much to learn in the world’s ways.”
“Yes, of course,” said the young man; and tapped his small teeth that glittered under his moustache, with the end of his pencil-case, while he lazily watched the face of the clergyman from under his long lashes.
“And I assure you,” continued the clergyman, “if I were to pretend that I did apprehend your intentions, I should be guilty of an inaccuracy amounting, in fact, to an untruth.”
He thought he detected something a little mocking in the handsome face of the young gentleman, and could not tell, in the shadow of the window-curtain, whether those even white teeth were not smiling at him outright; and a little nettled, but not forgetting himself, he went on, —
“You know, my dear Cleve, it is nothing on earth to me — absolutely; I act merely to oblige — merely, I mean, to be useful — if in my power, consistently with all other considerations, and I speak, I humbly, but confidently hope, habitually the truth” ——
“Of course you do,” said the young gentleman, with emphasis, and growing quite serious again. “It is very kind, I know, your coming all this way, and managing your week’s absence; and you may for the present know just as little or as much of the matter as you please; only mind, this is — not of course in any wrong sense — a dark business — awfully quiet. They say that, in England, a talent for speaking may raise a man to anything, but I think a talent for holding one’s tongue is sometimes a better one. And — I’m quite serious, old Dixie — I’ll not forget your fidelity to me, upon my honour — really, never; and as you know, I may yet have the power of proving it.”
The Rev. Isaac Dixie folded his hands, and hung his head sideways in a meek modesty, and withal smiled so rosily and gloriously, as he sate in front of the window, that had it happened an hour before sunrise, the sparrows in the ivy all along the stable walls, would undoubtedly have mistaken it for the glow of Aurora, and commenced their chirping and twittering salutations to the dawn an hour too soon.
“It is very gratifying, very, you cannot readily estimate, my dear, and — may I not say? — my illustrious pupil, how gratifying to me, quite irrespective of all those substantially kind intentions which you are pleased to avow in my behalf, to hear from your lips so frank and — may I say, — almost affectionate a declaration; so just an estimate of my devotion to your interests, and I may say, I hope, of my character generally?”
The Rector of Clay was smiling with a huge bashfulness, and slowly folding and rubbing one hand over the other, with his head gently inclined, and his great blue chin upon his guileless, single-breasted, black silk bosom, as he spoke all this in mellow effusion.
“Now, Dixie,” said the young man, while a very anxious expression for the first time showed itself in his face, “I want you to do me a kindness — a kindness that will tie me to you all the days of my life. It is something, but not much; chiefly that you will have to keep a secret, and take some little trouble, which I know you don’t mind; but nothing serious, not the slightest irregularity, a trifle, I assure you, and chiefly, as I said, that you will have to keep a secret for me.”
Dixie also looked a good deal graver as he bowed his acquiescence, trying to smile on, and still sliding his hands softly, one over the other.
“I know you guess what it is — no matter — we’ll not discuss it, dear Dixie; it’s quite past that now. You’ll have to make a little trip for me — you’ll not mind it; only across what you used to call the herring-pond; and you must wait at the Silver Lion at Caen; it is the best place there — I wish it was better — not a soul will you see — I mean English, no one but quite French people; and there is quite amusement, for a day or so, in looking over the old town. Just wait there, and I’ll let you know everything before you have been two days there. I’ve got your passport; you shall have no trouble. And you need not go to a bank; there’s gold here; and you’ll keep it, and spend it for me till I see you; and you must go to-day.”
“And, of course, I know it is nothing wrong, my dear Cleve; but we are told to avoid even the appearance of evil. And in any case, I should not, of course, for the world offend your uncle — Lord Verney, I may call him now — the head of the family, and my very kind patron; for I trust I never forget a kindness; and if it should turn out to be anything which by any chance he might misinterpret, I may reckon upon your religious silence, my dear Cleve, as respects my name?”
“Silence! of course — I’d die before I should tell, under any pressure. I think you know I can keep a secret, and my own especially. And never trust my honour more if your name is ever breathed in connexion with any little service you may render me.”
He pressed the Rev. Isaac Dixie’s hand very earnestly as he spoke.
“And now, will you kindly take charge of this for me, and do as I said?” continued Cleve, placing the gold in Dixie’s not unwilling hand. “And on this paper I have made a note of the best way — all about the boat and the rest; and God bless you, my dear Dixie, goodbye.”
“And God bless you, my dear Cleve,” reciprocated the clergyman, and they shook hands again, and the clergyman smiled blandly and tenderly; and as he closed the door, and crossed the hall, grew very thoughtful, and looked as if he were getting into a possible mess.
Cleve, too, was very pale as he stood by the window, looking into the sooty garden at the back of Verney House.
* * *
CHAPTER XIV.
OVER THE HERRING-POND.
Like the vision that had visited Cleve as he sate in the breakfast-room of Verney House, awaiting the Rev. Isaac Dixie, the old Château de Cresseron shared that night in the soft yet brilliant moonlight. That clergyman — vulgar I am afraid; worldly, perhaps; certainly not beautiful — had undertaken this foreign mission into the land of romance; and among its shadows and enchanted lights, and heroic phantoms, looked, I am afraid, incongruous, as the long-eared, shaggy head of Bottom in the fairy-haunted wood near Athens.
In the ancient town of Caen, in the Silver Lion, the Rev. Isaac Dixie that evening made himself partially understood, and altogether comfortable. He had an excellent dinner, and partook, moderately of course, of the very best vintage in the crypt of that venerable inn. Why should he not? Was he not making harmless holiday, and guilty of no extravagance; for had not Mr. Cleve Verney buckled a long purse to his girdle, and told him to dip his fingers in it as often and as deep as he pleased? And if he undertook the task — trod out Cleve Verney’s corn, surely it was no business of his to call for a muzzle, and deny himself his heart’s content.
In that exquisite moonlight, having had his cup of coffee, the Rev. Isaac Dixie made a loitering promenade: everything was bewitching — a little wonderful, he fancied — a little strange — from his shadow, that looked so sharp on the white road, to the gothic fronts and gables of old carved houses, emitting ruddy glimmerings from diamond casemates high in air, and half-melting in the deep liquid sky, gleaming with stars over his head.
All was perfectly French in language and costume: not a note of the familiar English accent mingled in the foreign hum of life. He was quite at his ease. To all censorious eyes he walked invisible; and, shall I tell it? Why not? For in truth, if his bishop, who abhors that narcotic, and who, I am sure, never reads novels, and therefore cannot read it here, learns nothing of it, the telling can hurt nobody. He smoked three great cheroots, mild and fragrant, that evening, in the ancient streets of Caen, and returned to his inn, odorous of that perfume.
It would have been altogether a delicious excursion, had there not been a suspense and an anxiety to trouble the divine. The Rev. Isaac Dixie regretted now that he had not asked Cleve to define his object. He suspected, but did not know its nature. He had no idea how obstinately and amazingly the problem would recur to his mind, and how serious would grow his qualms as the hour of revelation drew near.
The same moon is shining over the ancient streets of Caen, and over smoke-canopied Verney House, and over the quaint and lonely Château de Cresseron. In a tapestried room in this old French house candles were burning, the window open, and Margaret Fanshawe sitting at it, and looking out on the moonlit woods and waters, and breathing the still air, that was this night soft as summer, in the raptures of a strange dream: a dream no more; the uncertainty is over, and all her griefs. No longer is she one of that forlorn race that hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. She is not born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward, but translated. Is it so? Alas! alas! the angelic voice has not yet proclaimed “that God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.” These words are for the glorified, who have passed the gates of death.
In this bliss, as in all that pertains to love, reason has small share. The heart rejoices as the birds sing. A great suspense — the greatest care that visits the young heart — has ended in a blessed certainty, and in so far the state resembles heaven; but, as in all mortal happiness, there mingles in this also a sadness like distant music.
Old Sir Booth Fanshawe is away on one of his mysterious journeys, and cannot return for three or four days, at soonest. I do not know whether things are beginning to look brighter with Sir Booth, or whether his affairs are being “managed” into utter ruin. Meanwhile, the evil spirit has departed from the house, and the spirit of music has come, music with yet a cadence of sadness in it.
This fair, quaint landscape, and beautiful moonlight! Who ever looks on such a scene that does not feel a melancholy mingling in his delight?
“The moon shines bright: — in such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees, And they did make no noise; in such a night, Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents, Where Cresid lay that night. In such a night Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand, Upon the wild seabanks, and waved her love To come again to Carthage.”
Thus, in the visions of the Seer who lies in Stratford-on-Avon, moonlight and love and melancholy are related; and so it is, and will be, to the end of time, till mortal love is no more, and sadness ends, and the moon is changed to blood, and all things are made new.
And now over the moonlit water, through the boughs of the old trees, the still night air is thrilled with a sweet contralto — a homely song — the echo of childish days and the nursery. Poor Milly! her maid who died so early, whose lover was a young sailor, far away, used to sing it for her in the summer evenings, when they sat down under the hawthorns, on Winnockhough, looking toward the sea, though the sea was many a mile away: —
“As Eve went forth from Paradise, She, weeping, bore away One flower that, reared, in tears and sighs, Is growing to this day.
“Where’er the children of the fall Are toiling to this hour, It blooms for each, it blooms for all, And Love we call this flower.
“Red roses of the bygone year Are mingled with the mould, And other roses will appear Where they grew pale and old.
“But where it grew, no other grows, No bloom restores the sere; So this resembles not the rose, And knows no other year.
“So, welcome, when thy bloom is red, The glory of thy light; And welcome when thy bloom is shed, The long sleep of my night.”
And now the song is ended, and, listening, nature seems to sigh; and looking toward the old château, the front next you is in shadow, the window is open, and within you see two ladies. The elder is standing by the girl, who sits still at the open window, looking up into the face of her old friend — the old friend who has known, in the early days of romance, what love is, for whom now “the bloom is shed, and mingling with the mould,” but who remembers sadly the blush and glory of its light that died five-and-thirty years ago upon Canadian snows.
Gently the old lady takes her hand, and sits beside her girlish kinswoman, and lays her other hand over that, and smiles with a strange look of affection, and admiration, and immeasurable compassion, that somehow seems to translate her, it is so sad and angelic. I cannot hear what she is saying, but the young lady looks up, and kisses her thin cheek, and lays her head upon her old shoulder.
Behind, high over the steep roofs and pinnacles, and those glimmering weather-vanes, that seem sometimes to melt quite away, hangs the moon, unclouded — meet emblem of a pure love — no longer crossed by the sorrows of true love’s course — Dian the Chaste, with her sad, pure, and beautifully misleading light — alas! the emblem, also, of mutation.
In a few concise and somewhat dry sentences, as old prison stones bear the records which thin hands, long since turned to dust, have carved, the world’s corridors and corners bear the tracings of others that were busy two thousand years ago; and the inscriptions that tell the trite story of human fears and sadness, cut sharp and deep in the rock, tell simply and briefly how Death was the King of Terrors, and the shortness of Life the bitter wonder, and black Care the companion of the wayfarers who marched by the same route to the same goal, so long ago. These gigantic griefs and horrors are all in a nutshell. A few words tell them. Their terror is in their truth. There is no use in expanding them: they are sublimely simple. Among the shadowy men and women that people these pages, I see them everywhere — plots too big and complicated to be got, by any compression, within the few pages and narrow covers of the book of their lives: Care, in her old black weeds, and Death, with stealthy foot and blow like thunder.
Twelve months had come and gone for ever since the Reverend Isaac Dixie made that little trip to Caen, every month bringing his portion of blossom, fruit, or blight to every mortal. All had gone well and gloriously in this Verney Peerage matter.
The death of the late Honourable Arthur Verney was proved; and the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney, as next heir, having complied with the proper forms, duly succeeded to the ancient peerage of the Verneys. So the dream was accomplished more splendidly, perhaps, than if the prize had come earlier, for the estates were in such condition as they had never attained to since the great rebellion; and if Viscount Verney was not among the more potent of his peers, the fault was not in the peerage and its belongings.
