Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated), page 487
Youth enjoys a change of abode, and with the instinct of change and adventure proper to its energies, delights in a new scene.
Charles Fairfield accompanied his young wife, who was full of curiosity, and her head busy with a hundred plans, as in gay and eager spirits she surveyed her little empire.
“This is the garden — I tell you, lest you should mistake it for the forest where the enchanted princess slept, surrounded by great trees and thickets — it excels even the old garden at Wyvern. There are pear-trees, and plum, and cherry, and apple. Upon my word, I forgot they were so huge, and the jungles are raspberries and gooseberries and currants. Did you ever see such thickets, and nettles between. I’m afraid you’ll not make much of this. When I was a boy those great trees looked as big and mossgrown as they do now, and bore such odd crabbed little fruit, and not much even of that.”
“It will be quite beautiful when it is weeded, and flowers growing in the shade, and climbing plants trained up the stems of the trees, and it shan’t cost us anything; but you’ll see how wonderfully pretty it will be.”
“But what is to become of all your pretty plans, if flowers won’t grow without sun. I defy any fairy — even my own bright little one — to make them grow here; but, if you won’t be persuaded, by all means let us try. I think there’s sunshine wherever you go, and I should not wonder, after all, if nature relented, and beautiful miracles were accomplished under your influence.”
“I know you are laughing at me,” she said.
“No, darling — I’ll never laugh at you — you can make me believe whatever you choose; and now that we have looked over all the wild beauties of our neglected paradise, in which, you good little creature, you are resolved to see all kinds of capabilities and perfections — suppose we go now to the grand review of our goods and chattels, that you planned at breakfast — cups, saucers, plates, knives, forks, spoons, and all such varieties.”
“Oh, yes, let us come, Ry, it will be such fun, and so useful, and old Mrs. Tarnley said she would have a list made out,” said Alice, to whom the new responsibilities and dignities of her married state were full of interest and importance.
So in they came together, and called for old Mildred, with a list of their worldly goods; and they read the catalogue together, with every now and then a peal of irrepressible laughter.
“I had not an idea how near we were to our last cup and saucer,” said Charles, “and the dinner-service is limited to seven plates, two of which are cracked.”
The comic aspect of their poverty was heightened, perhaps, by Mrs. Tarnley’s peculiar spelling. The old woman stood in the doorway of the sitting-room while the revision was proceeding, mightily displeased at this levity, looking more than usually wrinkled and bilious, and rolling her eyes upon them, from time to time, with a malignant ogle.
“I was never good at the pen — I know that — but your young lady desired me, and I did my best, and very despickable it be, no doubt,” said Mildred, with grizzly scorn.
“Oh, my! I am so sorry — I assure you, Mrs. Tarnley — pray tell her, Charlie — we were laughing only at there being so few things left.”
“Left! I don’t know what ye mean by left, ma’am — there’s not another woman as ever I saw would keep his bit o’ delf and chaney half as long as me; I never was counted a smasher o’ things — no more I was.”
“But we didn’t think you broke them; did we, Charlie?” appealed poor little Alice, who, being new to authority, was easily bullied.
“Nonsense, old Mildred — don’t be a fool,” said Charles Fairfield, not in so conciliatory a tone as Alice would have wished.
“Well, fool’s easily said, and there’s no lack o’ fools, high or low, Master Charles, and I don’t pretend to be no scholar; but I’ve read that o’er much laughing ends, oft times, in o’er much crying — the Lord keep us all from grief.”
“Hold your tongue — what a bore you are,” exclaimed he, sharply.
Mrs. Tarnley raised her chin, and looked askance, but made no answer, she was bitter.
“Why the devil, old Mildred, can’t you try to look pleasant for once?” he persisted. “I believe there’s not a laugh in you, nor even a smile, is there?”
“I’m not much given to laughin’, thankee, sir, and there’s people, mayhap, should be less so, if they’d only take warnin’, and mind what they seed over night; and if the young lady don’t want me no longer, I’d be better back in the kitchen before the chicken burns, for Lilly’s out in the garden rootin’ out the potatoes for dinner.”
And after a moment’s silence she dropped a little courtesy, and assuming permission, took her departure.
CHAPTER XIV.
A LETTER.
Alice looked a little paler, her husband a little discontented. Each had a different way of reading her unpleasant speech.
“Don’t mind that old woman, darling, don’t let her bore you. I do believe she has some as odious faults as are to be found on earth.”
“I don’t know what she means by a warning,” said Alice.
“Nor I, darling, I am sure; perhaps she has had a winding-sheet on her candle, or a coffin flew out of the fire, or a death-watch ticked in the wainscot,” he answered.
“A warning, what could she mean?” repeated Alice, slowly, with an anxious gaze in his eyes.
“My darling, how can you? A stupid old woman!” said he a little impatiently, “and thoroughly ill-conditioned. She’s in one of her tempers, just because we laughed, and fancied it was at her; and there’s nothing she’d like better than to frighten you, if she could. I’ll pack her off, if I find her playing any tricks.”
“Oh, the poor old thing, not for the world; she’ll make it up with me, you’ll find; I don’t blame her the least, if she thought that, and I’ll tell her we never thought of such a thing.”
“Don’t mind her, she’s not worth it — we’ll just make out a list of the things that we want; I’m afraid we want a great deal more than we can get, for you have married a fellow, in all things but love, as poor as a church mouse.”
He laughed, and kissed her, and patted her smiling cheek.
“Yes, it will be such fun buying these things; such a funny little dinner service, and breakfast things, and how far away is Naunton?”
“I’m not so sure we can get them at Naunton. Things come from London so easily now,” said he.
“Oh, but there is such a nice little shop, I remarked it in Naunton,” said she, eagerly.
“Oh, is there?” said he, “I forgot, I believe you drove through it.”
“I did,” she answered, “and the whole pleasure of getting them, would be buying them with you.”
“You kind little darling,” he said, with a faint smile, “so it would to me, I know, choosing them with you; but are you sure there is a place there?”
“Such a nice little shop, with a great red and blue jug, hanging over the door for a sign,” she insisted, cheerily, “and there is something pleasant, isn’t there, in the sort of queer rustic things one would meet in such an out-of-the-way place?”
“Yes, so there is, but, however, we’ll think about it, and, in fact, it doesn’t matter a farthing where we get them.”
Our friend Charles seemed put out a little, and his slight unaccountable embarrassment piqued her curiosity, and made her ever so little uncomfortable. She was still, however, a very young wife, and in awe of her husband. It was, therefore, rather timidly that she said, —
“And why, darling Ry, can’t we decide now, and go tomorrow, and choose our plates, and cups, and saucers? it would be such a pleasant little adventure to look forward to.”
“So it might, but we’ll have to make up our minds to have many days go by, and weeks too, here, with nothing pleasant to look forward to. You knew very well,” he continued, not so sharply, “when you married me, that I owed money, and was a poor miserable devil, and not my own master, and you really must allow me to decide what is to be done, when a trifle might any day run us into mischief. There now, your eyes are full of tears, how can you be so foolish?”
“But, indeed, Ry, I’m not,” she pleaded, smiling through them. “I was only sorry, I was afraid I had vexed you.”
“Vexed me! you darling; not the least, I am only teased to think I am obliged to deny you anything, much less to hesitate about gratifying so trifling a wish as this; but so it is, and such my hard fate; and though I seem to be vexed, it is not with you, you must not mistake, never, darling, with you; but in proportion as I love you, the sort of embarrassment into which you have ventured with your poor Ry, grieves and even enrages him, and the thought, too, that so small a thing would set it all to rights. But we are not the only people, of course, there are others as badly off, and a great deal worse; there now, darling, you must not cry, you really mustn’t; you must never fancy for a moment when anything happens to vex me, that I could be such a brute as to be angry with you; what’s to become of me, if you ever suffer such a chimera to enter your pretty little head? I do assure you, darling, I’d rather blow my brains out, than inflict a single unhappy hour upon you; there now, won’t you kiss me, and look quite happy again? and come, we’ll go out again; you did not see the kennel, and the brewhouse, and fifty other interesting ruins; we must be twice as happy as ever for the rest of the day.”
And so this little cloud, light and swift, but still a cloud, blew over, and the sun shone out warm and brilliant again.
The buildings, which enclosed three sides of the quadrangle which they were now examining, were, with the exception of the stables, in such a state of dilapidation as very nearly to justify in sober earnest the term “ruins,” which he had half jocularly applied to them.
“You may laugh as you will,” said Alice, “but I think this might be easily made quite a beautiful place — prettier even than Wyvern.”
“Yes, very easily,” he laughed, “if a fellow had two or three thousand pounds to throw away upon it. Whenever I have — and I may yet, — you may restore, and transform, and do what you like, I’ll give you carte blanche, and in better hands I believe neither house nor money could be placed. No one has such taste — though it is hardly for me to say that.”
Just at that moment the clank of a horseshoe was heard on the pavement, and, turning his head, Charles saw his man, Tom Sherwood, ride into the yard. Tom touched his hat and dismounted.
“A letter, sir.”
“Oh!” said Charles, letting go his wife’s arm, and walking quickly towards him.
The man handed him a letter. Alice was standing, forgotten for the time, on the middle of the pavement, while her husband opened and read his letter.
When he had done he turned about and walked a few steps towards her, but still thinking anxiously and plainly not seeing her, and he stopped and read it through again.
“Oh, darling, I beg your pardon, I’m so stupid. What were we talking about? Oh! yes, the house, this old place. If I live to succeed to Wyvern you shall do what you like with this place, and we’ll live here if you like it best.”
“Well, I don’t think I should like to live here always,” she said, and paused.
She was thinking of the odd incident of the night before, and there lurked in one dark corner of her mind just the faintest image of horror, very faint, but still genuine, and which, the longer she looked at it grew the darker; “and I was going to ask you if we could change our room.”
“I think, darling,” said he, looking at her steadily, “the one we have got is almost the only habitable bedroom in the house, and certainly the most comfortable, but if you like any other room better — have you been looking?”
“No, darling, only I’m such a coward, and so foolish; I fancied I saw something when I was going into it last night — old Mrs. Tarnley was quite close to me.”
“If you saw her it was quite enough to frighten any one. But what was it — robber, or only a ghost?” he asked.
“Neither, only a kind of surprise and a fright. I did not care to talk about it last night, and I thought it would have quite passed away by to-day; but I can’t quite get rid of it — and, shall I tell it all to you now?” answered Alice.
“You must tell me all, by-and-by,” he laughed; “you shall have any room you like better, only remember they’re all equally old; and now, I have a secret to tell you. Harry is coming to dine with us; he’ll be here at six — and — look here, how oddly my letters come to me.”
And he held the envelope he had just now opened by the corner before her eyes. It was thus: —
“Mr. Thomas Sherwood, Post Office, Naunton, To be called for.”
“There’s evidence of the caution I’m obliged to practise in that part of the world. The world will never be without sin, poverty, and attorneys; and there is a cursed fellow there with eyes wide open and ears erect, and all sorts of poisoned arrows of the law to shoot at poor wayfarers like me; and that’s the reason why I’d rather buy our modest teacups in London, and not be so much as heard of in Naunton. Don’t look so frightened, little woman, every fellow has a dangerous dun or two, and I’m not half so much in peril as fifty I could name. Only my father’s angry, you know, and when that quarrel gets to be known it mayn’t help my credit, or make duns more patient. So I must keep well earthed here till the dogs are quiet again; and now, my wise little housekeeper will devise dinner enough for our hungry brother, who will arrive, in two hours’ time, with the appetite that Cressley Common gives every fellow with as little to trouble him as Harry has.”
CHAPTER XV.
HARRY ARRIVES.
Six o’clock came, and seven, and not until halfpast seven, when they had nearly given him up, did Henry Fairfield arrive at the Grange.
“How does Madam Fairfield?” bawled Master Harry, as he strode across the floor, and kissed Alice’s pretty cheek. “Odds bobbins! — as the man says in the playhouse — I believe I bussed ye, did I? But don’t let him be angry; I wasn’t thinkin’, Charlie, no more than the fellow that put farmer Gleeson’s fippun-note in his pocket last Trutbury fair. And how’s all wi’ ye, Charlie, hey? I’m glad to see the old house is standing still with a roof on since last gale. And how do ye like it, Alice? Rayther slow I used to think it; but you two wise heads are so in love wi’ one another ye’d put up in the pound, or the cowhouse, or the horse-pond, for sake o’ each other’s company. ‘I loved her sweet company better than meat,’ as the song says; and that reminds me — can the house afford a hungry man a cut o’ beef or mutton and a mug of ale? I asked myself to dinner, ye know, and that’s a bargain there’s two words to, sometimes.”
Master Harry was a wag, after a clumsy rustic fashion — an habitual jester, and never joked more genially than when he was letting his companion in for what he called a “soft thing,” in the shape of an unsound horse or a foolish wager.
His jocularity was supposed to cover a great deal of shrewdness, and some dangerous qualities also.
While their homely dinner was being got upon the table, honest Harry quizzed the lord and lady of Carwell Grange in the same vein of delicate banter, upon all their domestic arrangements, and when he found that there was but one sitting-room in a condition to receive them, his merriment knew no bounds.
“Upon my soul, you beat the cobbler in the song that ‘lived in a stall, that served him for parlour, and kitchen, and hall,’ for there’s no mention of the cobbler’s wife, and he, being a single man, you know, you and your lady double the wonder, don’t ye, Alice, two faces under a hood, and a devilish pinched little hood, too, heh? ha, ha, ha!”
“When did you get to Wyvern?” asked Charles Fairfield, after a considerable pause.
“Last night,” answered his brother.
“You saw the old man?”
“Not till morning,” answered Henry, with a waggish leer, and a sly glance at Alice.
It was lost, however, for the young lady was looking dreamily and sadly away, thinking, perhaps, of the old Squire, not without self-upbraidings, and hearing nothing, I am sure, of all they said.
“Did you breakfast with him?”
“By Jove, I did, sir.”
“Well?”
“Well? Nothing particular, only let me see how long his stick is — his stick and his arm, together — say five feet six. Well, I counsel you, brother, not to go within five foot six inches of the old gentleman till he cools down a bit, anyhow.”
“No, we’ll not try that,” said Charles, “and he may cool down, as you say, or nurse his wrath, as he pleases, it doesn’t much matter to me; he was very angry, but sometimes the thunder and flame blow off, you know, and the storm hurts no one.”
“I hope so,” said Henry, with a sort of laugh. “When I tell you to keep out of the way, mind, I’m advising you against myself. The more you and the old boy wool each other the better for Hal.”
“He can’t unsettle the place, Harry — not that I want to see him — I never owed him much love, and I think now he’d be glad to see me a beggar.”
Harry laughed again.
“Did you ever hear of a bear with a sore head?” said Harry. “Well, that’s him, at present, and I give you fair notice, I think he’ll leave all he can away from you.”
“So let him; if it’s to you, Harry, I don’t grudge it,” said the elder son.
“That’s a handsome speech, bless the speaker. Can you give me a glass of brandy? This claret I never could abide,” said Harry, with another laugh; “besides it will break you.”
“I’ve but two bottles, and they have been three years here. Yes, you can have brandy, it’s here.”
“I’ll get it,” said Alice, brightening up in the sense of her housekeeping importance. “It’s — I think it’s in this, ain’t it?” she said, opening one of the presses inserted in the wainscot.
“Let me, darling, it’s there, I ought to know, I put it there myself,” said Charles, getting up, and taking the keys from her and opening another cupboard.
