The Tenants of Malory, Volume 2 Read online

  Produced by Iona Vaughan, woodie4, Mark Akrigg and theOnline Distributed Proofreading Canada Team athttps://www.pgdpcanada.net (This file was produced fromimages generously made available by The InternetArchive/American Libraries.)

  THE

  TENANTS OF MALORY.

  (Reprinted from the "Dublin University Magazine.")

  THE

  TENANTS OF MALORY.

  A Novel.

  BY

  JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU,

  AUTHOR OF "UNCLE SILAS," "GUY DEVERELL," "THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD," ETC. ETC.

  IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II.

  LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1867.

  [_The Right of Translation is reserved._]

  LONDON: BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

  CONTENTS.

  CHAP. PAGE

  I.--IN THE OAK PARLOUR--A MEETING AND PARTING 1

  II.--JUDAEUS APELLA 12

  III.--MR. LEVI VISITS MRS. MERVYN 21

  IV.--MR. BENJAMIN LEVI RECOGNISES AN ACQUAINTANCE 32

  V.--A COUNCIL OF THREE 44

  VI.--MR. DINGWELL ARRIVES 56

  VII.--MR. DINGWELL MAKES HIMSELF COMFORTABLE 68

  VIII.--THE LODGER AND HIS LANDLADY 76

  IX.--IN WHICH MR. DINGWELL PUTS HIS HAND TO THE POKER 87

  X.--CLEVE VERNEY SEES THE CHATEAU DE CRESSERON 102

  XI.--SHE COMES AND SPEAKS 112

  XII.--CLEVE VERNEY HAS A VISITOR 125

  XIII.--THE REV. ISAAC DIXIE SETS FORTH ON A MISSION 136

  XIV.--OVER THE HERRING-POND 146

  XV.--MR. CLEVE VERNEY PAYS A VISIT TO ROSEMARY COURT 157

  XVI.--IN LORD VERNEY'S LIBRARY 176

  XVII.--AN OVATION 191

  XVIII.--OLD FRIENDS ON THE GREEN 205

  XIX.--VANE ETHERAGE GREETS LORD VERNEY 222

  XX.--REBECCA MERVYN READS HER LETTER 235

  XXI.--BY RAIL TO LONDON 252

  XXII.--LADY DORMINSTER'S BALL 264

  THETENANTS OF MALORY.

  CHAPTER I.

  IN THE OAK PARLOUR--A MEETING AND PARTING.

  "GOSSIPING place Cardyllian is," said Miss Anne Sheckleton, after theyhad walked on a little in silence. "What nonsense the people do talk. Inever heard anything like it. Did you ever hear such a galamathias?"

  The young lady walking by her side answered by a cold little laugh--

  "Yes, I suppose so. All small country towns _are_, I believe," said she.

  "And that good old soul, Mrs. Jones, she does invent the most absurdgossip about every body that imagination can conceive. Wilmot told methe other day that she had given her to understand that your father is amadman, sent down here by London doctors for change of air. I make it apoint never to mind one word she says; although her news, I confess,does amuse me."

  "Yes, it is, very foolish. Who are those Etherages?" said Margaret.

  "Oh! They are village people--oddities," said Miss Sheckleton. "From allI can gather, you have no idea what absurd people they are."

  "He was walking with them. Was not he?" asked the young lady.

  "Yes--I think so," answered her cousin.

  Then followed a long silence, and the elder lady at length said--

  "How fortunate we have been in our weather; haven't we? How beautifulthe hills look this evening!" said the spinster; but her words did notsound as if she cared about the hills or the light. I believe the twoladies were each acting a part.

  "Yes," said Margaret; "so they do."

  The girl felt as if she had walked fifty miles instead of two--quiteworn out--her limbs aching with a sense of fatigue; it was a trouble tohold her head up. She would have liked to sit down on the old stonebench they were passing now, and to die there like a worn-out prisoneron a march.

  Two or three times that evening as they sat unusually silent andlistless, Miss Anne Sheckleton peeped over her spectacles, lowering herwork for a moment, with a sad inquiry, into her face, and seemed on thepoint of speaking. But there was nothing inviting to talk, in Margaret'sface, and when she spoke there was no reference to the subject on whichMiss Sheckleton would have liked to speak.

  So, at last, tired, with a pale, wandering smile, she kissed the kindold spinster, and bid her good night. When she reached her room,however, she did not undress, but having secured her door, she sat downto her little desk, and wrote a letter; swiftly and resolutely the penglided over the page. Nothing added--nothing erased; each line remainedas she penned it first.

  Having placed this letter in its envelope, and addressed it to "CleveVerney, Esq., Ware," she opened her window. The air was mild; none ofthe sharpness in it that usually gives to nights at that time of year, afrosty foretaste of winter. So sitting by the window, which, placed inone of the gables of the old house, commands a view of the uplands ofCardyllian, and to the left, of the sea, and the misty mountains--shesat there, leaning upon her hand.

  Here, with the letter on her lap, she sat, pale as a meditating suicide,and looking dreamily over the landscape. It is, at times, some littleincident of by-play, or momentary hesitation of countenance, that givesits whole character and force to a situation. Before the retina ofMargaret one image was always visible, that of Cleve Verney as she sawhim to-day, looking under Agnes Etherage's bonnet, with interest, intoher eyes, as he talked and walked by her side, on the Green ofCardyllian.

  Of course there are false prophecies as well as true, in love; illusionsas well as inspirations, and fancied intimations may mislead. ButMargaret could not doubt here. All the time she smiled and assumed herusual tone and manner, there was an agony at her heart.

  Miss Fanshawe would trust no one with her secret. She was not like othergirls. Something of the fiery spirit of her southern descent she hadinherited. She put on the shawl and veil she had worn that day, unbarredthe hall-door, and at two o'clock, when Cardyllian was locked in thedeepest slumber, glided through its empty streets, to the little woodenportico, over which that day she had read "Post-office," and placed init the letter which next morning made quite a little sensation in thePost-office _coterie_.

  Under the awful silence and darkness of the old avenue, she reachedagain the hall-door of Malory. She stood for a moment upon the stepslooking seaward--I think towards Ware--pale as a ghost, with one slenderhand clenched, and a wild sorrow in her face. She cared very little, Ithink, whether her excursion were discovered or not. The messenger hadflown from her empty hand; her voice could not recall it, or delay itfor an hour--quite irrevocable, and all was over.

  She entered the hall, closed and barred the door again, ascended to herroom, and lay awake, through the long night, with her hand under hercheek, not stunned, not dreaming, but in a frozen apathy, in which shesaw all with a despairing clearness.

  Next day Cleve Verney received a note, in a hand which he knew not; buthaving read--could not mistake--a cold, proud note, with a gentlecruelty, ending all between them, quite decisively, and not deigning areason for it.

  I dare say that Cleve could not himself describe with much precision thefeelings with which h
e read this letter.

  Cleve Verney, however, could be as impetuous and as rash too, onoccasion, as other people. There was something of rage in his soul whichscouted all consequences. Could temerity be imagined more audacious thanhis?

  Right across from Ware to the jetty of Malory ran his yacht,audaciously, in open sea, in broad daylight. There is, in the DowerHouse, a long low room, wainscoted in black shining panels from floor toceiling, and which in old times was called the oak parlour. It has twodoors, in one of its long sides, the farther opening near the stairs,the other close to the hall door.

  Up the avenue, up the steps, into the hall, and, taking chance, intothis room, walked Cleve Verney, without encountering interruption oreven observation. _Fortuna favet fortibus_, so runs the legend in fadedgold letters, under the dim portrait of Sir Thomas Verney, in hisarmour, fixed in the panel of the hall. So it had proved with hisdescendant.

  Favoured by fortune, without having met a human being, and directed bythe same divinity it would seem, he had entered the room I havedescribed; and at the other end, alone, awaiting Miss Sheckleton, whowas to accompany her in a little ramble among the woods, stood MissFanshawe, dressed for her walk.

  In came Cleve pale with agitation; approached her quickly, and stoppedshort, saying--

  "I've come; I'm here to ask--how could you--my God!--how _could_ youwrite the letter you sent this morning?"

  Miss Fanshawe was leaning a little against the oak window-frame, anddid not change this pose, which was haughty and almost sullen.

  "_Why_ I wrote that letter, _no_ one has a right to ask me, and I shallsay no more than is contained in the letter itself." She spoke so coldlyand quietly that there seemed almost a sadness in her tones.

  "I don't think you can really mean it," said Cleve, "I'm _sure_ youcan't; you can't _possibly_ think that any one would use another so,without a reason."

  "_Not_ without a reason," said she.

  "But I say, surely I have a right to hear it," urged Cleve. "Is it fairto condemn me, as your letter does, unheard, and to punish me, inignorance?"

  "_Not_ in ignorance; at this moment, you _know_ the reason perfectly,"replied the girl, and he felt as if her great hazel eyes lighted up allthe dark labyrinths of his brain, and disclosed every secret that lurkedthere.

  Cleve was for a moment embarrassed, and averted his eyes. It was true.He _did_ know; he could not fail to guess the cause. He had been cursinghis ill luck all the morning, and wondering what malign caprice couldhave led her, of all times and places, at that moment, to the Green ofCardyllian.

  In the "Arabian Nights," that delightful volume which owes nothing totrick or book-craft, and will preserve its charm undimmed through allthe mutations of style and schools, which, projecting its images fromthe lamp and hues of a dazzling fancy, can no more be lectured intoneglect than the magic lantern, and will preserve its popularity whilethe faculty of imagination and the sense of colour remain, we allremember a parallel. In the "Sultan's Purveyor's Story," where thebeautiful favourite of Zobaide is about to make the bridegroom of herlove quite happy, and in the moment of his adoration, starts uptransformed with a "lamentable cry," and hate and fury in her aspect,all about an unfortunate "ragout made with garlic," and thereupon, withher own hand and a terrible scourge, lashes him, held down by slaves,into a welter of blood, and then orders the executioner to strike off,at the wrist, his offending hand.

  "_Yes!_ you _do_ know, self-convicted, _why_ I think it better for boththat we should part now--better that we should thus early be undeceived;with little pain and less reluctance, forget the precipitation and follyof an hour, and go our several ways through life apart. You are fickle;you are selfish; you are reckless; you are quite unworthy of the loveyou ask for; if you are trifling with that young lady, Miss Etherage,how cruel and unmanly! and if _not_, by what right do you presume tostand here?"

  Could he ever forget that beautiful girl as he saw her before him there,almost terrible--her eyes--the strange white light that seemed toflicker on her forehead--her attitude, Italian more than English,statuesque and wild?

  On a sudden came another change, sad as a broken-hearted death andfarewell--the low tone--the fond lingering--of an unspeakable sorrow,and eternal leave-taking.

  "In either case my resolution is taken. I have said _Farewell_; and Iwill see you no more--no more--never."

  And as she spoke, she left the room by the door that was beside her.

  It was a new sensation for Cleve Verney to feel as he did at thatmoment. A few steps he followed toward the door, and then hesitated.Then with a new impulse, he did follow and open it. But she was gone.Even the sound of her step was lost.

  He turned back, and paused for a minute to collect his thoughts. Ofcourse this must not be. The idea of giving her up so, was simplenonsense, and not to be listened to.

  The door at which the young lady had left the room but two or threeminutes before, now opened, and Miss Sheckleton's natty figure and kindold face came in. Quite aghast she looked at him.

  "For God's sake, Mr. Verney, why are you here? How _can_ you be sorash?" she almost gasped. "You _must_ go, _instantly_."

  "How could you advise the cruelty and folly of that letter?" he said,impetuously.

  "What letter?"

  "Oh! Miss Sheckleton, do let us be frank; only say what have I done orsaid, or thought, that I should be condemned and discarded without ahearing?"

  Hereupon Miss Sheckleton, still urging his departure in frightenedwhispers, protested her innocence of his meaning, and at last bethoughther of persuading him, to leave the house, and meet her for the purposeof explaining all, of which he soon perceived she was honestly ignorant,in their accustomed trysting-place.

  There, accordingly, among the old trees, they met, and discussed, andshe blamed and pitied him; and promised, with such caution as old ladiesuse in speaking for the resolves of the young of their own sex, thatMargaret should learn the truth from her, although she could not ofcourse say what she might think of it, taking as she did such decided,and, sometimes, strange views of things.

  So they parted kindly. But Cleve's heart was disquieted within him, andhis sky this evening was wild and stormy.