J. S. Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (1864) - Chaps. VI-X

Chapter VI: A Walk in the Wood
Two little pieces of by-play in which I detected her confirmed my unpleasant suspicion. From the corner of the gallery I one day saw her, when she thought I was out and all quiet, with her ear at the keyhole of papa’s study, as we used to call the sitting-room next his bed-room. Her eyes were turned in the direction of the stairs, from which only she apprehended surprise. Her great mouth was open, and her eyes absolutely goggled with eagerness. She was devouring all that was passing there. I drew back into the shadow with a kind of disgust and horror. She was transformed into a great gaping reptile. I felt that I could have thrown something at her; but a kind of fear made me recede again toward my room. Indignation, however, quickly returned, and I came back, treading briskly as I did so. When I reached the angle of the gallery again. Madame, I suppose, had heard me, for she was half-way down the stairs.
 ‘Ah, my dear Cheaile, I am so glad to find you, and you are dress to come out. We shall have so pleasant walk.’
 At that moment the door of my father’s study opened, and Mrs. Rusk, with her dark energetic face very much flushed, stepped out in high excitement.
 ‘The Master says you may have the brandy-bottle, Madame and I’m glad to be rid of it - I am.’
 Madame courtesied with a great smirk, that was full of intangible hate and insult.
 ‘Better your own brandy, if drink you must!’ exclaimed Mrs. Rusk. ‘You may come to the store-room now, or the butler can take it.’
 And off whisked Mrs. Rusk for the back staircase.
 There had been no common skirmish on this occasion, but a pitched battle.
 Madame had made a sort of pet of Anne Wixted, an underchambermaid, and attached her to her interest economically by persuading me to make her presents of some old dresses and other things. Anne was such an angel!
 But Mrs. Rusk, whose eyes were about her, detected Anne, with a brandy-bottle under her apron, stealing up-stairs. Anne, in a panic, declared the truth. Madame had commissioned her to buy it in the town, and convey it to her bed-room. Upon this, Mrs. Rusk impounded the flask; and, with Anne beside her, rather precipitately appeared before ‘the Master.’ He heard and summoned Madame. Madame was cool, frank, and fluent. The brandy was purely medicinal. She produced a document in the form of a note. Doctor Somebody presented his compliments to Madame de la Rougierre, and ordered her a table-spoonful of brandy and some drops of laudanum whenever the pain of stomach returned. The flask would last a whole year, perhaps two. She claimed her medicine.
 Man’s estimate of woman is higher than woman’s own. Perhaps in their relations to men they are generally more trustworthy - perhaps woman’s is the juster, and the other an appointed illusion. I don’t know; but so it is ordained.
 Mrs. Rusk was recalled, and I saw, as you are aware, Madame’s procedure during the interview.
 It was a great battle - a great victory. Madame was in high spirits. The air was sweet - the landscape charming - I, so good - everything so beautiful! Where should we go? This way?
 I had made a resolution to speak as little as possible to Madame, I was so incensed at the treachery I had witnessed; but such resolutions do not last long with very young people, and by the time we had reached the skirts of the wood we were talking pretty much as usual.
 ‘I don’t wish to go into the wood, Madame.
 ‘And for what?’
 ‘Poor mamma is buried there.’
 ‘Is there the vault?’ demanded Madame eagerly.
 I assented.
 ‘My faith, curious reason; you say because poor mamma is buried there you will not approach! Why, cheaile, what would good Monsieur Ruthyn say if he heard such thing? You are surely not so unkain’, and I am with you. Allons. Let us come - even a little part of the way.’
 And so I yielded, though still reluctant.
 There was a grass-grown road, which we easily reached, leading to the sombre building, and we soon arrived before it.
 Madame de la Rougierre seemed rather curious. She sat down on the little bank opposite, in her most languid pose - her head leaned upon the tips of her fingers.
 ‘How very sad - how solemn!’ murmured Madame. ‘What noble tomb! How triste, my dear cheaile, your visit ‘ere must it be, remembering a so sweet maman. There is new inscription - is it not new?’ And so, indeed, it seemed.
 ‘I am fatigue - maybe you will read it aloud to me slowly and solemnly, my dearest Maud?’
 As I approached, I happened to look, I can’t tell why, suddenly, over my shoulder; I was startled, for Madame was grimacing after me with a vile derisive distortion. She pretended to be seized with a fit of coughing. But it would not do: she saw that I had detected her, and she laughed aloud.
 ‘Come here, dear cheaile. I was just reflecting how foolish is all this thing - the tomb - the epitaph. I think I would ‘av none - no, no epitaph. We regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only the folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down there is what you call haunt, my dear?’
 ‘Why?’ said I, flushing and growing pale again. I felt quite afraid of Madame, and confounded at the suddenness of all this.
 ‘Because Anne Wixted she says there is ghost. How dark is this place! and so many of the Ruthyn family they are buried here - is not so? How high and thick are the trees all round! and nobody comes near.’
 And Madame rolled her eyes awfully, as if she expected to see something unearthly, and, indeed, looked very like it herself.
 ‘Come away, Madame,’ I said, growing frightened, and feeling that if I were once, by any accident, to give way to the panic that was gathering round me, I should instantaneously lose all control of myself. ‘Oh, come away! do, Madame - I’m frightened.’
 ‘No, on the contrary, sit here by me. It is very odd, you will think, ma chêre - un goût bizarre, vraiment! - but I love very much to be near to the dead people - in solitary place like this. I am not afraid of the dead people, nor of the ghosts. ‘av you ever see a ghost, my dear?’
 ‘Do, Madame, pray speak of something else.’
 ‘Wat little fool! But no, you are not afraid. I ‘av seen the ghosts myself. I saw one, for example, last night, shape like a monkey, sitting in the corner, with his arms round his knees; very wicked, old, old man his face was like, and white eyes so large.’
 ‘Come away, Madame! you are trying to frighten me,’ I said, in the childish anger which accompanies fear. Madame laughed an ugly laugh, and said -
 ‘Eh bien! little fool! - I will not tell the rest if you are really frightened; let us change to something else.’
 ‘Yes, yes! oh, do - pray do.’
 ‘Wat good man is your father!’
 ‘Very - the kindest darling. I don’t know why it is, Madame, I am so afraid of him, and never could tell him how much I love him.’
 This confidential talking with Madame, strange to say, implied no confidence; it resulted from fear - it was deprecatory. I treated her as if she had human sympathies, in the hope that they might be generated somehow.
 ‘Was there not a doctor from London with him a few months ago? Dr. Bryerly, I think they call him.’
 ‘Yes, a Doctor Bryerly, who remained a few days. Shall we begin to walk towards home, Madame? Do, pray.’
 ‘Immediately, cheaile; and does your father suffer much?’
 ‘No - I think not.’
 ‘And what then is his disease?’
 ‘Disease! he has no disease. Have you heard anything about his health, Madame?’ I said, anxiously.
 ‘Oh no, ma foi - I have heard nothing; but if the doctor came, it was not because he was quite well.’
 ‘But that doctor is a doctor in theology, I fancy. I know he is a Swedenborgian; and papa is so well, he could not have come as a physician.’
 ‘I am very glad, ma chère, to hear; but still you know your father is old man to have so young cheaile as you. Oh, yes - he is old man, and so uncertain life is. ‘As he made his will, my dear? Every man so rich as he, especially so old, aught to ‘av made his will.’
 ‘There is no need of haste, Madame; it is quite time enough when his health begins to fail.’
 ‘But has he really compose no will?’
 ‘I really don’t know, Madame.’
 ‘Ah, little rogue! you will not tell - but you are not such fool as you feign yourself. No, no; you know everything. Come, tell me all about - it is for your advantage, you know. What is in his will, and when he wrote?’
 ‘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?

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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, what-ever 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 slippin 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 sheep-walks 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 half-way; 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 sheep-walk 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 grave-stones - 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.

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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 grave-stone, 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 a-coming?’
 ‘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, good-bye,’ 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 good-bye, 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.
 In a little while, along the path, I heard the clank of a step, and the gentleman in the green cutaway coat, sucking his cane, and eyeing me with an offensive familiar sort of stare the while, passed me by, rather hesitating as he did so. I was glad when he turned the corner in the little hollow close by, and disappeared. I stood up at once, and was reassured by a sight of Madame, not very many yards away, looking at the ruin, and apparently restored to her right mind. The last beams of the sun were by this time touching the uplands, and I was longing to recommence our walk home. I was hesitating about calling to Madame, because that lady had a certain spirit of opposition within her, and to disclose a small wish of any sort was generally, if it lay in her power, to prevent its accomplishment.
 At this moment the gentleman in the green coat returned, approaching me with a slow sort of swagger.
 ‘I say, Miss, I dropped a glove close by here. May you have seen it?’
 ‘No, sir,’ I said, drawing back a little, and looking, I dare say, both frightened and offended.
 ‘I do think I must ‘a dropped it close by your foot, Miss.’
 ‘No, sir,’ I repeated.
 ‘No offence, Miss, but you’re sure you didn’t hide it?’
 I was beginning to grow seriously uncomfortable.
 ‘Don’t be frightened, Miss; it’s only a bit o’ chaff. I’m not going to search.’
 I called aloud, ‘Madame, Madame!’ and he whistled through his fingers, and shouted, ‘Madame, Madame,’ and added, ‘She’s as deaf as a tombstone, or she’ll hear that. Gi’e her my compliments, and say I said you’re a beauty, Miss;’ and with a laugh and a leer he strode off.
 Altogether this had not been a very pleasant excursion. Madame gobbled up our sandwiches, commending them every now and then to me. But I had been too much excited to have any appetite left, and very tired I was when we reached home.
 ‘So, there is lady coming to-morrow?’ said Madame, who knew everything. ‘Wat is her name? I forget.’
 ‘Lady Knollys,’ I answered.
 ‘Lady Knollys - wat odd name! She is very young - is she not?’
 ‘Past fifty, I think.’
 ‘Hélas! She’s vary old, then. Is she rich?’
 ‘I don’t know. She has a place in Derbyshire.’
 ‘Derbyshire - that is one of your English counties, is it not?’
 ‘Oh yes, Madame,’ I answered, laughing. ‘I have said it to you twice since you came;’ and I gabbled through the chief towns and rivers as catalogued in my geography.
 ‘Bah! to be sure - of course, cheaile. And is she your relation?’
 ‘Papa’s first cousin.’
 ‘Won’t you present-a me, pray? - I would so like!’
 Madame had fallen into the English way of liking people with titles, as perhaps foreigners would if titles implied the sort of power they do generally with us.
 ‘Certainly, Madame.’
 ‘You will not forget?’
 ‘Oh no.’
 Madame reminded me twice, in the course of the evening, of my promise. She was very eager on this point. But it is a world of disappointment, influenza, and rheumatics; and next morning Madame was prostrate in her bed, and careless of all things but flannel and James’s powder.
 Madame was désolée; but she could not raise her head. She only murmured a question.
 ‘For ‘ow long time, dear, will Lady Knollys remain?’
 ‘A very few days, I believe.’
 ‘Hélas! ‘ow onlucky! maybe to-morrow I shall be better Ouah! my ear. The laudanum, dear cheaile!’
 And so our conversation for that time ended, and Madame buried her head in her old red cashmere shawl.

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Chapter IX: Monica Knolly
Punctually Lady Knollys arrived. She was accompanied by her nephew, Captain Oakley.
 They arrived a little before dinner; just in time to get to their rooms and dress. But Mary Quince enlivened my toilet with eloquent descriptions of the youthful Captain whom she had met in the gallery, on his way to his room, with the servant, and told me how he stopped to let her pass, and how ‘he smiled so ‘ansom.’
 I was very young then, you know, and more childish even than my years; but this talk of Mary Quince’s interested me, I must confess, considerably. I was painting all sort of portraits of this heroic soldier, while affecting, I am afraid, a hypocritical indifference to her narration, and I know I was very nervous and painstaking about my toilet that evening. When I went down to the drawing-room, Lady Knollys was there, talking volubly to my father as I entered - a woman not really old, but such as very young people fancy aged - energetic, bright, saucy, dressed handsomely in purple satin, with a good deal of lace, and a rich point - I know not how to call it - not a cap, a sort of head-dress - light and simple, but grand withal, over her greyish, silken hair.
 Rather tall, by no means stout, on the whole a good firm figure, with something kindly in her look. She got up, quite like a young person, and coming quickly to meet me with a smile -
 ‘My young cousin!’ she cried, and kissed me on both cheeks. ‘You know who I am? Your cousin Monica - Monica Knollys - and very glad, dear, to see you, though she has not set eyes on you since you were no longer than that paper-knife. Now come here to the lamp, for I must look at you. Who is she like? Let me see. Like your poor mother, I think, my dear; but you’ve the Aylmer nose - yes - not a bad nose either, and, come I very good eyes, upon my life - yes, certainly something of her poor mother - not a bit like you, Austin.’
 My father gave her a look as near a smile as I had seen there for a long time, shrewd, cynical, but kindly too, and said he -
 ‘So much the better, Monica, eh?’
 ‘It was not for me to say - but you know, Austin, you always were an ugly creature. How shocked and indignant the little girl looks! You must not be vexed, you loyal little woman, with Cousin Monica for telling the truth. Papa was and will be ugly all his days. Come, Austin, dear, tell her - is not it so?’
 ‘What! depose against myself! That’s not English law, Monica.’
 ‘Well, maybe not; but if the child won’t believe her own eyes, how is she to believe me? She has long, pretty hands - you have - and very nice feet too. How old is she?’
 ‘How old, child?’ said my father to me, transferring the question.
 She recurred again to my eyes.
 ‘That is the true grey - large, deep, soft - very peculiar. Yes, dear, very pretty - long lashes, and such bright tints! You’ll be in the Book of Beauty, my dear, when you come out, and have all the poet people writing verses to the tip of your nose - and a very pretty little nose it is!’
 I must mention here how striking was the change in my father’s spirit while talking and listening to his odd and voluble old Cousin Monica. Reflected from bygone associations, there had come a glimmer of something, not gaiety, indeed, but like an appreciation of gaiety. The gloom and inflexibility were gone, and there was an evident encouragement and enjoyment of the incessant sallies of his bustling visitor.
 How morbid must have been the tendencies of his habitual solitude, I think, appeared from the evident thawing and brightening that accompanied even this transient gleam of human society. I was not a companion - more childish than most girls of my age, and trained in all his whimsical ways, never to interrupt a silence, or force his thoughts by unexpected question or remark out of their monotonous or painful channel.
 I was as much surprised at the good-humour with which he submitted to his cousin’s saucy talk; and, indeed, just then those black-panelled and pictured walls, and that quaint, misshapen room, seemed to have exchanged their stern and awful character for something wonderfully pleasanter to me, notwithstanding the unpleasantness of the personal criticism to which the plain-spoken lady chose to subject me.
 Just at that moment Captain Oakley joined us. He was my first actual vision of that awful and distant world of fashion, of whose splendours I had already read something in the three-volumed gospel of the circulating library.
 Handsome, elegant, with features almost feminine, and soft, wavy, black hair, whiskers and moustache, he was altogether such a knight as I had never beheld, or even fancied, at Knowl - a hero of another species, and from the region of the demigods. I did not then perceive that coldness of the eye, and cruel curl of the voluptuous lip - only a suspicion, yet enough to indicate the profligate man, and savouring of death unto death.
 But I was young, and had not yet the direful knowledge of good and evil that comes with years; and he was so very handsome, and talked in a way that was so new to me, and was so much more charming than the well-bred converse of the humdrum county families with whom I had occasionally sojourned for a week at a time.
 It came out incidentally that his leave of absence was to expire the day after to-morrow. A Lilliputian pang of disappointment followed this announcement. Already I was sorry to lose him. So soon we begin to make a property of what pleases us.
 I was shy, but not awkward. I was flattered by the attention of this amusing, perhaps rather fascinating, young man of the world; and he plainly addressed himself with diligence to amuse and please me. I dare say there was more effort than I fancied in bringing his talk down to my humble level, and interesting me and making me laugh about people whom I had never heard of before, than I then suspected.
 Cousin Knollys meanwhile was talking to papa. It was just the conversation that suited a man so silent as habit had made him, for her frolic fluency left him little to supply. It was totally impossible, indeed, even in our taciturn household, that conversation should ever flag while she was among us.
 Cousin Knollys and I went into the drawing-room together, leaving the gentlemen - rather ill-assorted, I fear - to entertain one another for a time.
 ‘Come here, my dear, and sit near me,’ said Lady Knollys, dropping into an easy chair with an energetic little plump, ‘and tell me how you and your papa get on. I can remember him quite a cheerful man once, and rather amusing - yes, indeed - and now you see what a bore he is - all by shutting himself up and nursing his whims and fancies. Are those your drawings, dear?’
 ‘Yes, very bad, I’m afraid; but there are a few, better, I think in the portfolio in the cabinet in the hall.’
 ‘They are by no means bad, my dear; and you play, of course?’
 ‘Yes - that is, a little - pretty well, I hope.’
 ‘I dare say. I must hear you by-and-by. And how does your papa amuse you? You look bewildered, dear. Well, I dare say, amusement is not a frequent word in this house. But you must not turn into a nun, or worse, into a puritan. What is he? A Fifth-Monarchy-man, or something - I forget; tell me the name, my dear.’
 ‘Papa is a Swedenborgian, I believe.’
 ‘Yes, yes - I forgot the horrid name - a Swedenborgian, that is it. I don’t know exactly what they think, but everyone knows they are a sort of pagans, my dear. He’s not making one of you, dear - is he?’
 ‘I go to church every Sunday.’
 ‘Well, that’s a mercy; Swedenborgian is such an ugly name, and besides, they are all likely to be damned, my dear, and that’s a serious consideration. I really wish poor Austin had hit on something else; I’d much rather have no religion, and enjoy life while I’m in it, than choose one to worry me here and bedevil me hereafter. But some people, my dear, have a taste for being miserable, and provide, like poor Austin, for its gratification in the next world as well as here. Ha, ha, ha! how grave the little woman looks! Don’t you think me very wicked? You know you do; and very likely you are right. Who makes your dresses, my dear? You are such a figure of fun!’
 ‘Mrs. Rusk, I think, ordered this dress. I and Mary Quince planned it. I thought it very nice. We all like it very well.’
 There was something, I dare say, very whimsical about it, probably very absurd, judged at least by the canons of fashion, and old Cousin Monica Knollys, in whose eye the London fashions were always fresh, was palpably struck by it as if it had been some enormity against anatomy, for she certainly laughed very heartily; indeed, there were tears on her cheeks when she had done, and I am sure my aspect of wonder and dignity, as her hilarity proceeded, helped to revive her merriment again and again as it was subsiding.
 ‘There, you mustn’t be vexed with old Cousin Monica,’ she cried, jumping up, and giving me a little hug, and bestowing a hearty kiss on my forehead, and a jolly little slap on my cheek. ‘Always remember your cousin Monica is an outspoken, wicked old fool, who likes you, and never be offended by her nonsense. A council of three - you all sat upon it - Mrs. Rusk, you said, and Mary Quince, and your wise self, the weird sisters; and Austin stepped in, as Macbeth, and said, ‘What is’t ye do?’ you all made answer together, ‘A something or other without a name!’ Now, seriously, my dear, it is quite unpardonable in Austin - your papa, I mean - to hand you over to be robed and bedizened according to the whimsies of these wild old women - aren’t they old? If they know better, it’s positively fiendish. I’ll blow him up - I will indeed, my dear. You know you’re an heiress, and ought not to appear like a jack-pudding.’
 ‘Papa intends sending me to London with Madame and Mary Quince, and going with me himself, if Doctor Bryerly says he may make the journey, and then I am to have dresses and everything.’
 ‘Well, that is better. And who is Doctor Bryerly - is your papa ill?’
 ‘Ill; oh no; he always seems just the same. You don’t think him ill- looking ill, I mean?’ I asked eagerly and frightened.
 ‘No, my dear, he looks very well for his time of life; but why is Doctor What’s-his-name here? Is he a physician, or a divine, or a horse-doctor? and why is his leave asked?’
 ‘I - I really don’t understand.’
 ‘Is he a what d’ye call’em - a Swedenborgian?’
 ‘I believe so.’
 ‘Oh, I see; ha, ha, ha! And so poor Austin must ask leave to go up to town. Well, go he shall, whether his doctor likes it or not, for it would not do to send you there in charge of your Frenchwoman, my dear. What’s her name?’
 ‘Madame de la Rougierre.’

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Chapter X: Lady Knollys Removes a Coverlet
Lady Knollys pursued her enquiries.
 ‘And why does not Madame make your dresses, my dear? I wager a guinea the woman’s a milliner. Did not she engage to make your dresses?’
 ‘I - I really don’t know; I rather think not. She is my governess - a finishing governess, Mrs. Rusk says.’
 ‘Finishing fiddle! Hoity-toity! and my lady’s too grand to cut out your dresses and help to sew them? And what does she do? I venture to say she’s fit to teach nothing but devilment - not that she has taught you much, my dear - yet at least. I’ll see her, my dear; where is she? Come, let us visit Madame. I should so like to talk to her a little.’
 ‘But she is ill,’ I answered, and all this time I was ready to cry for vexation, thinking of my dress, which must be very absurd to elicit so much unaffected laughter from my experienced relative, and I was only longing to get away and hide myself before that handsome Captain returned.
 ‘Ill! is she? what’s the matter?’
 ‘A cold - feverish and rheumatic, she says.’
 ‘Oh, a cold; is she up, or in bed?’
 ‘In her room, but not in bed.’
 ‘I should so like to see her, my dear. It is not mere curiosity, I assure you. In fact, curiosity has nothing on earth to do with it. A governess may be a very useful or a very useless person; but she may also be about the most pernicious inmate imaginable. She may teach you a bad accent, and worse manners, and heaven knows what beside. Send the housekeeper, my dear, to tell her that I am going to see her.’
 ‘I had better go myself, perhaps,’ I said, fearing a collision between Mrs. Rusk and the bitter Frenchwoman.
 ‘Very well, dear.’
 And away I ran, not sorry somehow to escape before Captain Oakley returned.
 As I went along the passage, I was thinking whether my dress could be so very ridiculous as my old cousin thought it, and trying in vain to recollect any evidence of a similar contemptuous estimate on the part of that beautiful and garrulous dandy. I could not - quite the reverse, indeed. Still I was uncomfortable and feverish - girls of my then age will easily conceive how miserable, under similar circumstances, such a misgiving would make them.
 It was a long way to Madame’s room. I met Mrs. Rusk bustling along the passage with a housemaid.
 ‘How is Madame?’ I asked.
 ‘Quite well, I believe,’ answered the housekeeper, drily. ‘Nothing the matter that I know of. She eat enough for two to-day. I wish I could sit in my room doing nothing.’
 Madame was sitting, or rather reclining, in a low arm-chair, when I entered the room, close to the fire, as was her wont, her feet extended near to the bars, and a little coffee equipage beside her. She stuffed a book hastily between her dress and the chair, and received me in a state of langour which, had it not been for Mrs. Rusk’s comfortable assurances, would have frightened me.
 ‘I hope you are better, Madame,’ I said, approaching.
 ‘Better than I deserve, my dear cheaile, sufficiently well. The people are all so good, trying me with every little thing, like a bird; here is café - Mrs. Rusk - a, poor woman, I try to swallow a little to please her.’
 ‘And your cold, is it better?’
 She shook her head languidly, her elbow resting on the chair, and three finger-tips supporting her forehead, and then she made a little sigh, looking down from the corners of her eyes, in an interesting dejection.
 ‘Je sens des lassitudes in all the members - but I am quaite ‘appy, and though I suffer I am console and oblige des bontés, ma chère, que vous avez tous pour moi;’ and with these words she turned a languid glance of gratitude on me which dropped on the ground.
 ‘Lady Knollys wishes very much to see you, only for a few minutes, if you could admit her.’
  ’Vous savez les malades see never visitors,’ she replied with a startled sort of tartness, and a momentary energy. ‘Besides, I cannot converse; je sens de temps en temps des douleurs de tête - of head, and of the ear, the right ear, it is parfois agony absolutely, and now it is here.’
 And she winced and moaned, with her eyes closed and her hand pressed to the organ affected.
 Simple as I was, I felt instinctively that Madame was shamming. She was over-acting; her transitions were too violent, and beside she forgot that I knew how well she could speak English, and must perceive that she was heightening the interest of her helplessness by that pretty tessellation of foreign idiom. I there-fore said with a kind of courage which sometimes helped me suddenly -
 ‘Oh, Madame, don’t you really think you might, without much inconvenience, see Lady Knollys for a very few minutes?’
 ‘Cruel cheaile! you know I have a pain of the ear which makes me ‘orribly suffer at this moment, and you demand me whether I will not converse with strangers. I did not think you would be so unkain, Maud; but it is impossible, you must see - quite impossible. I never, you know, refuse to take trouble when I am able - never - never.’
 And Madame shed some tears, which always came at call, and with her hand pressed to her ear, said very faintly,
 ‘Be so good to tell your friend how you see me, and how I suffer, and leave me, Maud, for I wish to lie down for a little, since the pain will not allow me to remain longer.’
 So with a few words of comfort which could not well be refused, but I dare say betraying my suspicion that more was made of her sufferings than need be, I returned to the drawing-room.
 ‘Captain Oakley has been here, my dear, and fancying, I suppose, that you had left us for the evening, has gone to the billiard-room, I think,’ said Lady Knollys, as I entered.
 That, then, accounted for the rumble and smack of balls which I had heard as I passed the door.
 ‘I have been telling Maud how detestably she is got up.’
 ‘Very thoughtful of you, Monica!’ said my father.
 ‘Yes, and really, Austin, it is quite clear you ought to marry; you want some one to take this girl out, and look after her, and who’s to do it? She’s a dowdy - don’t you see? Such a dust! And it is really such a pity; for she’s a very pretty creature, and a clever woman could make her quite charming.’
 My father took Cousin Monica’s sallies with the most wonderful good-humour. She had always, I fancy, been a privileged person, and my father, whom we all feared, received her jolly attacks, as I fancy the grim Front-de-Boeufs of old accepted the humours and personalities of their jesters.
 ‘Am I to accept this as an overture?’ said my father to his voluble cousin.
 ‘Yes, you may, but not for myself, Austin - I’m not worthy. Do you remember little Kitty Weadon that I wanted you to marry eight-and-twenty years ago, or more, with a hundred and twenty thousand pounds? Well, you know, she has got ever so much now, and she is really a most amiable old thing, and though you would not have her then, she has had her second husband since, I can tell you.’
 ‘I’m glad I was not the first,’ said my father.
 ‘Well, they really say her wealth is absolutely immense. Her last husband, the Russian merchant, left her everything. She has not a human relation, and she is in the best set.’
 ‘You were always a match-maker, Monica,’ said my father, stopping, and putting his hand kindly on hers. ‘But it won’t do. No, no, Monica; we must take care of little Maud some other way.’
 I was relieved. We women have all an instinctive dread of second marriages, and think that no widower is quite above or below that danger; and I remember, whenever my father, which indeed was but seldom, made a visit to town or anywhere else, it was a saying of Mrs. Rusk -
 ‘I shan’t wonder, neither need you, my dear, if he brings home a young wife with him.’
 So my father, with a kind look at her, and a very tender one on me, went silently to the library, as he often did about that hour.
 I could not help resenting my Cousin Knollys’ officious recommendation of matrimony. Nothing I dreaded more than a step-mother. Good Mrs. Rusk and Mary Quince, in their several ways, used to enhance, by occasional anecdotes and frequent reflections, the terrors of such an intrusion. I suppose they did not wish a revolution and all its consequences at Knowl, and thought it no harm to excite my vigilance.
 But it was impossible long to be vexed with Cousin Monica.
 ‘You know, my dear, your father is an oddity,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind him - I never did. You must not. Cracky, my dear, cracky - decidedly cracky!’
 And she tapped the corner of her forehead, with a look so sly and comical, that I think I should have laughed, if the sentiment had not been so awfully irreverent.
 ‘Well, dear, how is our friend the milliner?’
 ‘Madame is suffering so much from pain in her ear, that she says it would be quite impossible to have the honour - ‘
 ‘Honour - fiddle! I want to see what the woman’s like. Pain in her ear, you say? Poor thing! Well, dear, I think I can cure that in five minutes. I have it myself, now and then. Come to my room, and we’ll get the bottles.
 So she lighted her candle in the lobby, and with a light and agile step she scaled the stairs, I following; and having found the remedies, we approached Madame’s room together.
 I think, while we were still at the end of the gallery, Madame heard and divined our approach, for her door suddenly shut, and there was a fumbling at the handle. But the bolt was out of order.
 Lady Knollys tapped at the door, saying - ‘we’ll come in, please, and see you. I’ve some remedies, which I’m sure will do you good.’
 There was no answer; so she opened the door, and we both entered. Madame had rolled herself in the blue coverlet, and was lying on the bed, with her face buried in the pillow, and enveloped in the covering.
 ‘Perhaps she’s asleep?’ said Lady Knollys, getting round to the side of the bed, and stooping over her.
 Madame lay still as a mouse. Cousin Monica set down her two little vials on the table, and, stooping again over the bed, began very gently with her fingers to lift the coverlet that covered her face. Madame uttered a slumbering moan, and turned more upon her face, clasping the coverlet faster about her.
 ‘Madame, it is Maud and Lady Knollys. We have come to relieve your ear. Pray let me see it. She can’t be asleep, she’s holding the clothes so fast. Do, pray, allow me to see it.’