J. S. Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (1864) - Chaps. XXI-XXV

Chapter XXI:  Arrivals
My father was dead - as suddenly as if he had been murdered. One of those fearful aneurisms that lie close to the heart, showing no outward sign of giving way in a moment, had been detected a good time since by Dr. Bryerly. My father knew what must happen, and that it could not be long deferred. He feared to tell me that he was soon to die. He hinted it only in the allegory of his journey, and left in that sad enigma some words of true consolation that remained with me ever after. Under his rugged ways was hidden a wonderful tenderness. I could not believe that he was actually dead. Most people for a minute or two, in the wild tumult of such a shock, have experienced the same skepticism. I insisted that the doctor should be instantly sent for from the village.
 ‘Well, Miss Maud, dear, I will send to please you, but it is all to no use. If only you saw him yourself you’d know that. Mary Quince, run you down and tell Thomas, Miss Maud desires he’ll go down this minute to the village for Dr. Elweys.’
 Every minute of the interval seemed to me like an hour. I don’t know what I said, but I fancied that if he were not already dead, he would lose his life by the delay. I suppose I was speaking very wildly, for Mrs. Rusk said -
 ‘My dear child, you ought to come in and see him; indeed but you should, Miss Maud. He’s quite dead an hour ago. You’d wonder all the blood that’s come from him - you would indeed; it’s soaked through the bed already.’
 ‘Oh, don’t, don’t, don’t, Mrs. Rusk.’
 ‘Will you come in and see him, just?
 ‘Oh, no, no, no, no!’
 ‘Well, then, my dear, don’t of course, if you don’t like; there’s no need. Would not you like to lie down, Miss Maud? Mary Quince, attend to her. I must go into the room for a minute or two.’
 I was walking up and down the room in distraction. It was a cool night; but I did not feel it. I could only cry: - ‘Oh, Mary, Mary! what shall I do? Oh, Mary Quince! what shall I do?’
 It seemed to me it must be near daylight by the time the Doctor arrived. I had dressed myself. I dared not go into the room where my beloved father lay.
 I had gone out of my room to the gallery, where I awaited Dr. Elweys, when I saw him walking briskly after the servant, his coat buttoned up to his chin, his hat in his hand, and his bald head shining. I felt myself grow cold as ice, and colder and colder, and with a sudden sten my heart seemed to stand still.
 I heard him ask the maid who stood at the door, in that low, decisive, mysterious tone which doctors cultivate -
 ‘In here?’
 And then, with a nod, I saw him enter.
 ‘Would not you like to see the Doctor, Miss Maud?’ asked Mary Quince.
 The question roused me a little.
 ‘Thank you, Mary; yes, I must see him.’
 And so, in a few minutes, I did. He was very respectful, very sad, semi-undertakerlike, in air and countenance, but quite explicit. I heard that my dear father ‘had died palpably from the rupture of some great vessel near the heart.’ The disease had, no doubt, been ‘long established, and is in its nature incurable.’ It is ‘consolatory in these cases that in the act of dissolution, which is instantaneous, there can be no suffering.’ These, and a few more remarks, were all he had to offer; and having had his fee from Mrs. Rusk, he, with a respectful melancholy, vanished.
 I returned to my room, and broke into paroxysms of grief, and after an hour or more grew more tranquil.
 From Mrs. Rusk I learned that he had seemed very well - better than usual, indeed - that night, and that on her return from the study with the book he required, he was noting down, after his wont, some passages which illustrated the text on which he was employing himself. He took the book, detaining her in the room, and then mounting on a chair to take down another book from a shelf, he had fallen, with the dreadful crash I had heard, dead upon the floor. He fell across the door, which caused the difficulty in opening it. Mrs. Rusk found she had not strength to force it open. No wonder she had given way to terror. I think I should have almost lost my reason.
 Everyone knows the reserved aspect and the taciturn mood of the house, one of whose rooms is tenanted by that mysterious guest.
 I do not know how those awful days, and more awful nights, passed over. The remembrance is repulsive. I hate to think of them. I was soon draped in the conventional black, with its heavy folds of crape. Lady Knollys came, and was very kind. She undertook the direction of all those details which were to me so inexpressibly dreadful. She wrote letters for me beside, and was really most kind and useful, and her society supported me indescribably. She was odd, but her eccentricity was leavened with strong common sense; and I have often thought since with admiration and gratitude of the tact with which she managed my grief.
 There is no dealing with great sorrow as if it were under the control of our wills. It is a terrible phenomenon, whose laws we must study, and to whose conditions we must submit, if we would mitigate it. Cousin Monica talked a great deal of my father. This was easy to her, for her early recollections were full of him.
 One of the terrible dislocations of our habits of mind respecting the dead is that our earthly future is robbed of them, and we thrown exclusively upon retrospect. From the long look forward they are removed, and every plan, imagination, and hope henceforth a silent and empty perspective. But in the past they are all they ever were. Now let me advise all who would comfort people in a new bereavement to talk to them, very freely, all they can, in this way of the dead. They will engage in it with interest, they will talk of their own recollections of the dead, and listen to yours, though they become sometimes pleasant, sometimes even laughable. I found it so. It robbed the calamity of something of its supernatural and horrible abruptness; it prevented that monotony of object which is to the mind what it is to the eye, and prepared the faculty for those mesmeric illusions that derange its sense.
 Cousin Monica, I am sure, cheered me wonderfully. I grow to love her more and more, as I think of all her trouble, care, and kindness.
 I had not forgotten my promise to dear papa about the key, concerning which he had evinced so great an anxiety. It was found in the pocket where he had desired me to remember he always kept it, except when it was placed, while he slept, under his pillow.
 ‘And so, my dear, that wicked woman was actually found picking the lock of your poor papa’s desk. I wonder he did not punish her - you know that is burglary.’
 ‘Well, Lady Knollys, you know she is gone, and so I care no more about her - that is, I mean, I need not fear her.’
 ‘No, my dear, but you must call me Monica - do you mind - I’m your cousin, and you call me Monica, unless you wish to vex me. No, of course, you need not be afraid of her. And she’s gone. But I’m an old thing, you know, and not so tender-hearted as you; and I confess I should have been very glad to hear that the wicked old witch had been sent to prison and hard labour - I should. And what do you suppose she was looking for - what did she want to steal? I think I can guess - what do you think?’
 ‘To read the papers; maybe to take bank-notes - I’m not sure,’ I answered.
 ‘Well, I think most likely she wanted to get at your poor papa’s will - that’s my idea.
 ‘There is nothing surprising in the supposition, dear,’ she resumed. ‘Did not you read the curious trial at York, the other day? There is nothing so valuable to steal as a will, when a great deal of property is to be disposed of by it. Why, you would have given her ever so much money to get it back again. Suppose you go down, dear - I’ll go with you, and open the cabinet in the study.’
 ‘I don’t think I can, for I promised to give the key to Dr. Bryerly, and the meaning was that he only should open it.’
 Cousin Monica uttered an inarticulate ‘H’m!’ of surprise or disapprobation.
 ‘Has he been written to?’
 ‘No, I do not know his address.’
 ‘Not know his address! come, that is curious,’ said Knollys, a little testily.
 I could not - no one now living in the house could furnish even a conjecture. There was even a dispute as to which train he had gone by - north or south - they crossed the station at an interval of five minutes. If Dr. Bryerly had been an evil spirit, evoked by a secret incantation, there could not have been more complete darkness as to the immediate process of his approach.
 ‘And how long do you mean to wait, my dear? No matter; at all events you may open the desk; you may find papers to direct you - you may find Dr. Bryerly’s address - you may find, heaven knows what.’
 So down we went - I assenting - and we opened the desk. How dreadful the desecration seems - all privacy abrogated - the shocking compensation for the silence of death!
 Henceforward all is circumstantial evidence - all conjectural - except the litera scripta, and to this evidence every note-book, and every scrap of paper and private letter, must contribute - ransacked, bare in the light of day - what it can.
 At the top of the desk lay two notes sealed, one to Cousin Monica, the other to me. Mine was a gentle and loving little farewell - nothing more - which opened afresh the fountains of my sorrow, and I cried and sobbed over it bitterly and long. The other was for ‘Lady Knollys.’ I did not see how she received it, for I was already absorbed in mine. But in awhile she came and kissed me in her girlish, goodnatured way. Her eyes used to fill with tears at sight of my paroxysms of grief. Then she would begin, ‘I remember it was a saying of his,’ and so she would repeat it - something maybe wise, maybe playful, at all events consolatory - and the circumstances in which she had heard him say it, and then would follow the recollections suggested by these; and so I was stolen away half by him, and half by Cousin Monica, from my despair and lamentation.
 Along with these lay a large envelope, inscribed with the words ‘Directions to be complied with immediately on my death.’ One of which was, ‘Let the event be forthwith published in the county and principal London papers.’ This step had been already taken. We found no record of Dr. Bryerly’s address.
 We made search everywhere, except in the cabinet, which I would on no account permit to be opened except, according to his direction, by Dr. Bryerly’s hand. But nowhere was a will, or any document resembling one, to be found. I had now, therefore, no doubt that his will was placed in the cabinet.
 In the search among my dear father’s papers we found two sheafs of letters, neatly tied up and labelled - these were from my uncle Silas.
 My cousin Monica looked down upon these papers with a strange smile; was it satire - was it that indescribable smile with which a mystery which covers a long reach of years is sometimes approached?
 These were odd letters. If here and there occurred passages that were querulous and even abject, there were also long passages of manly and altogether noble sentiment, and the strangest rodomontade and maunderings about religion. Here and there a letter would gradually transform itself into a prayer, and end with a doxology and no signature; and some of them expressed such wild and disordered views respecting religion, as I imagine he can never have disclosed to good Mr. Fairfield, and which approached more nearly to the Swedenborg visions than to anything in the Church of England.
 I read these with a solemn interest, but my cousin Monica was not similarly moved. She read them with the same smile - faint, serenely contemptuous, I thought - with which she had first looked down upon them. It was the countenance of a person who amusedly traces the working of a character that is well understood.
 ‘Uncle Silas is very religious?’ I said, not quite liking Lady Knollys’ looks.
 ‘Very,’ she said, without raising her eyes or abating her old bitter smile, as she glanced over a passage in one of his letters.
 ‘You don’t think he is, Cousin Monica?’ said I. She raised her head and looked straight at me.
 ‘Why do you say that, Maud?’
 ‘Because you smile incredulously, I think, over his letters.’
 ‘Do I?’ said she; ‘I was not thinking - it was quite an accident. The fact is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respecting him - no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not think Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I never could understand him - that’s all.’
 ‘I always felt so too; but that was because I was left to speculation, and to glean conjectures as I might from his portrait, or anywhere. Except what you told me, I never heard more than a few sentences; poor papa did not like me to ask questions about him, and I think he ordered the servants to be silent.’
 ‘And much the same injunction this little note lays upon me - not quite, but something like it; and I don’t know the meaning of it.’
 And she looked enquiringly at me.
 ‘You are not to be alarmed about your uncle Silas, because your being afraid would unfit you for an important service which you have undertaken for your family, the nature of which I shall soon understand, and which, although it is quite passive, would be made very sad if illusory fears were allowed to steal into your mind.’
 She was looking into the letter in poor papa’s handwriting, which she had found addressed to her in his desk, and emphasised the words, I suppose, which she quoted from it.
 ‘Have you any idea, Maud, darling, what this service may be?’ she enquired, with a grave and anxious curiosity in her countenance.
 ‘None, Cousin Monica; but I have thought long over my undertaking to do it, or submit to it, be it what it may; and I will keep the promise I voluntarily made, although I know what a coward I am, and often distrust my courage.’
 ‘Well, I am not to frighten you.’
 ‘How could you? Why should I be afraid? Is there anything frightful to be disclosed? Do tell me - you must tell me.’
 ‘No, darling, I did not mean that - I don’t mean that; - I could, if I would; I - I don’t know exactly what I meant. But your poor papa knew him better than I - in fact, I did not know him at all - that is, ever quite understood him - which your poor papa, I see, had ample opportunities of doing.’ And after a little pause, she added - ‘So you do not know what you are expected to do or to undergo.’
 ‘Oh! Cousin Monica, I know you think he committed that murder,’ I cried, starting up, I don’t know why, and I felt that I grew deadly pale.
 ‘I don’t believe any such thing, you little fool; you must not say such horrible things, Maud,’ she said, rising also, and looking both pale and angry. ‘Shall we go out for a little walk? Come, lock up these papers, dear, and get your things on; and if that Dr. Bryerly does not turn up to-morrow, you must send for the Rector, good Doctor Clay, and let him make search for the will - there may be directions about many things, you know; and, my dear Maud, you are to remember that Silas is my cousin as well as your uncle. Come, dear, put on your hat.’
 So we went out together for a little cloistered walk.

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Chapter XXII: Somebody in the Room with the Coffin
 When we returned, a ‘young’ gentleman had arrived. We saw him in the parlour as we passed the window. It was simply a glance, but such a one as suffices to make a photograph, which we can study afterwards, at our leisure. I remember him at this moment - a man of six-and-thirty - dressed in a grey travelling suit, not over-well made; light-haired, fat-faced, and clumsy; and he looked both dull and cunning, and not at all like a gentleman.
 Branston met us, announced the arrival, and handed me the stranger’s credentials. My cousin and I stopped in the passage to read them.
 ‘That’s your uncle Silas’s,’ said Lady Knollys, touching one of the two letters with the tip of her finger.
 ‘Shall we have lunch, Miss?’
 ‘Certainly.’ So Branston departed.
 ‘Read it with me, Cousin Monica,’ I said. And a very curious letter it was. It spoke as follows: -
 ‘How can I thank my beloved niece for remembering her aged and forlorn kinsman at such a moment of anguish?’
 I had written a note of a few, I dare say, incoherent words by the next post after my dear father’s death.
 ‘It is, however, in the hour of bereavement that we most value the ties that are broken, and yearn for the sympathy of kindred.’
 Here came a little distich of French verse, of which I could only read ciel and l’amour.
 ‘Our quiet household here is clouded with a new sorrow. How inscrutable are the ways of Providence! I - though a few years younger - how much the more infirm - how shattered in energy and in mind - how mere a burden - how entirely de trop - am spared to my sad place in a world where I can be no longer useful, where I have but one business - prayer, but one hope - the tomb; and he - apparently so robust - the centre of so much good - so necessary to you - so necessary, alas! to me - is taken! He is gone to his rest - for us, what remains but to bow our heads, and murmur, His will be done? I trace these lines with a trembling hand, while tears dim my old eyes. I did not think that any earthly event could have moved me so profoundly. From the world I have long stood aloof. I once led a life of pleasure - alas! of wickedness - as I now do one of austerity; but as I never was rich, so my worst enemy will allow I never was avaricious. My sins, I thank my Maker, have been of a more reducible kind, and have succumbed to the discipline which Heaven has provided. To earth and its interests, as well as to its pleasures, I have long been dead. For the few remaining years of my life I ask but quiet - an exemption from the agitations and distractions of struggle and care, and I trust to the Giver of all Good for my deliverance - well knowing, at the same time, that whatever befalls will, under His direction, prove best. Happy shall I be, my dearest niece, if in your most interesting and, in some respects, forlorn situation, I can be of any use to you. My present religious adviser - of whom I ventured to ask counsel on your behalf - states that I ought to send some one to represent me at the melancholy ceremony of reading the will which my beloved and now happy brother has, no doubt, left behind; and the idea that the experience and professional knowledge possessed by the gentleman whom I have selected may possibly be of use to you, my dearest niece, determines me to place him at your disposal. He is the junior partner in the firm of Archer and Sleigh, who conduct any little business which I may have from time to time; may I entreat your hospitality for him during a brief stay at Knowl? I write, even for a moment, upon these small matters of business with an effort - a painful one, but necessary. Alas! my brother! The cup of bitterness is now full. Few and evil must the remainder of my old days be. Yet, while they last, I remain always for my beloved niece, that which all her wealth and splendour cannot purchase - a loving and faithful kinsman and friend,
 SILAS RUTHYN.’
 ‘Is not it a kind letter?’ I said, while tears stood in my eyes.
 ‘Yes,’ answered Lady Knollys, drily.
 ‘But don’t you think it so, really?’
 ‘Oh! kind, very kind,’ she answered in the same tone, ‘and perhaps a little cunning.’
 ‘Cunning! - how?’
 ‘Well, you know I’m a peevish old Tabby, and of course I scratch now and then, and see in the dark. I dare say Silas is sorry, but I don’t think he is in sackcloth and ashes. He has reason to be sorry and anxious, and I say I think he is both; and you know he pities you very much, and also himself a good deal; and he wants money, and you - his beloved niece - have a great deal - and altogether it is an affectionate and prudent letter: and he has sent his attorney here to make a note of the will; and you are to give the gentleman his meals and lodging; and Silas, very thoughtfully, invites you to confide your difficulties and troubles to his solicitor. It is very kind, but not imprudent.’
 ‘Oh, Cousin Monica, don’t you think at such a moment it is hardly natural that he should form such petty schemes, even were he capable at other times of practising so low? Is it not judging him hardly? and you, you know, so little acquainted with him.’
 ‘I told you, dear, I’m a cross old thing - and there’s an end; and I really don’t care two pence about him; and of the two I’d much rather he were no relation of ours.’
 Now, was not this prejudice? I dare say in part it was. So, too, was my vehement predisposition in his favour. I am afraid we women are factionists; we always take a side, and nature has formed us for advocates rather than judges; and I think the function, if less dignified, is more amiable.
 I sat alone at the drawing-room window, at nightfall, awaiting my cousin Monica’s entrance.
 Feverish and frightened I felt that night. It was a sympathy, I fancy, with the weather. The sun had set stormily. Though the air was still, the sky looked wild and storm-swept. The crowding clouds, slanting in the attitude of flight, reflected their own sacred aspect upon my spirits. My grief darkened with a wild presaging of danger, and a sense of the supernatural fell upon me. It was the saddest and most awful evening that had come since my beloved father’s death.
 All kinds of shapeless fears environed me in silence. For the first time, dire misgivings about the form of faith affrighted me. Who were these Swedenborgians who had got about him - no one could tell how - and held him so fast to the close of his life? Who was this bilious, bewigged, black-eyed Doctor Bryerly, whom none of us quite liked and all a little feared; who seemed to rise out of the ground, and came and went, no one knew whence or whither, exercising, as I imagined, a mysterious authority over him? Was it all good and true, or a heresy and a witchcraft? Oh, my beloved father! was it all well with you?
 When Lady Knollys entered, she found me in floods of tears, walking distractedly up and down the room. She kissed me in silence; she walked back and forward with me, and did her best to console me.
 ‘I think, Cousin Monica, I would wish to see him once more. Shall we go up?’
 ‘Unless you really wish it very much, I think, darling, you had better not mind it. It is happier to recollect them as they were; there’s a change, you know, darling, and there is seldom any comfort in the sight.’
 ‘But I do wish it very much. Oh! won’t you come with me?’
 And so I persuaded her, and up we went hand in hand, in the deepening twilight; and we halted at the end of the dark gallery, and I called Mrs. Rusk, growing frightened.
 ‘Tell her to let us in, Cousin Monica,’ I whispered.
 ‘She wishes to see him, my lady - does she?’ enquired Mrs. Rusk, in an under-tone, and with a mysterious glance at me, as she softly fitted the key to the lock.
 ‘Are you quite sure, Maud, dear?’
 ‘Yes, yes.’
 But when Mrs. Rusk entered bearing the candle, whose beam mixed dismally with the expiring twilight, disclosing a great black coffin standing upon trestles, near the foot of which she took her stand, gazing sternly into it, I lost heart again altogether and drew back.
 ‘No, Mrs. Rusk, she won’t; and I am very glad, dear,’ she added to me. ‘Come, Mrs. Rusk, come away. Yes, darling,’ she continued to me, ‘it is much better for you;’ and she hurried me away, and down-stairs again. But the awful outlines of that large black coffin remained upon my imagination with a new and terrible sense of death.
 I had no more any wish to see him. I felt a horror even of the room, and for more than an hour after a kind of despair and terror, such as I have never experienced before or since at the idea of death.
 Cousin Monica had had her bed placed in my room, and Mary Quince’s moved to the dressing-room adjoining it. For the first time the superstitious awe that follows death, but not immediately, visited me. The idea of seeing my father enter the room, or open the door and look in, haunted me. After Lady Knollys and I were in bed, I could not sleep. The wind sounded mournfully outside, and the small sounds, the rattlings, and strainings that responded from within, constantly startled me, and simulated the sounds of steps, of doors opening, of knockings, and so forth, rousing me with a palpitating heart as often as I fell into a doze.
 At length the wind subsided, and these ambiguous noises abated, and I, fatigued, dropped into a quiet sleep. I was awakened by a sound in the gallery - which I could not define. A considerable time had passed, for the wind was now quite lulled. I sat up in my bed a good deal scared, listening breathlessly for I knew not what.
 I heard a step moving stealthily along the gallery. I called my cousin Monica softly; and we both heard the door of the room in which my father’s body lay unlocked, some one furtively enter, and the door shut.
 ‘What can it be? Good Heavens, Cousin Monica, do you hear it?’
 ‘Yes, dear; and it is two o’clock.’
 Everyone at Knowl was in bed at eleven. We knew very well that Mrs. Rusk was rather nervous, and would not, for worlds, go alone, and at such an hour, to the room. We called Mary Quince. We all three listened, but we heard no other sound. I set these things down here because they made so terrible an impression upon me at the time.
 It ended by our peeping out, all three in a body, upon the gallery. Through each window in the perspective came its blue sheet of moonshine; but the door on which our attention was fixed was in the shade, and we thought we could discern the glare of a candle through the key-hole. While in whispers we were debating this point together, the door opened, the dusky light of a candle emerged, the shadow of a figure crossed it within, and in another moment the mysterious Doctor Bryerly - angular, ungainly, in the black cloth coat that fitted little better than a coffin - issued from the chamber, candle in hand; murmuring, I suppose, a prayer - it sounded like a farewell - as much frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing stepped cautiously upon the gallery floor, shutting and locking the door upon the dead; and then having listened for a second, the saturnine figure, casting a gigantic and distorted shadow upon the ceiling and side-wall from the lowered candle, strode lightly down the long dark passage, away from us.
 I can only speak for myself, and I can honestly say that I felt as much frightened as if I had just seen a sorcerer stealing from his unhallowed business. I think Cousin Monica was also affected in the same way, for she turned the key on the inside of the door when we entered. I do not think one of us believed at the moment that what we had seen was a Doctor Bryerly of flesh and blood, and yet the first thing we spoke of in the morning was Doctor Bryerly’s arrival. The mind is a different organ by night and by day.

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Chapter XXIII: I Talk with Doctor Bryerly
 Doctor Bryerly had, indeed, arrived at half-past twelve o’clock at night. His summons at the hall-door was little heard at our remote side of the old house of Knowl; and when the sleepy, half-dressed servant opened the door, the lank Doctor, in glossy black clothing, was standing alone, his portmanteau on its end upon the steps, and his vehicle disappearing in the shadows of the old trees.
 In he came, sterner and sharper of aspect than usual.
 ‘I’ve been expected? I’m Doctor Bryerly. Haven’t I? So, let whoever is in charge of the body be called. I must visit it forthwith.’
 So the Doctor sat in the back drawing-room, with a solitary candle; and Mrs. Rusk was called up, and, grumbling much and very peevish, dressed and went down, her ill-temper subsiding in a sort of fear as she approached the visitor.
 ‘How do you do, Madam? A sad visit this. Is anyone watching in the room where the remains of your late master are laid?’
 ‘No.’
 ‘So much the better; it is a foolish custom. Will you please conduct me to the room? I must pray where he lies - no longer he! And be good enough to show me my bedroom, and so no one need wait up, and I shall find my way.’
 Accompanied by the man who carried his valise, Mrs. Rusk showed him to his apartment; but he only looked in, and then glanced rapidly about to take ‘the bearings’ of the door.
 ‘Thank you - yes. Now we’ll proceed, here, along here? Let me see. A turn to the right and another to the left - yes. He has been dead some days. Is he yet in his coffin?’
 ‘Yes, sir; since yesterday afternoon.’
 Mrs. Rusk was growing more and more afraid of this lean figure sheathed in shining black cloth, whose eyes glittered with a horrible sort of cunning, and whose long brown fingers groped before him, as if indicating the way by guess.
 ‘But, of course, the lid’s not on; you’ve not screwed him down, hey?’
 ‘No, sir.’
 ‘That’s well. I must look on the face as I pray. He is in his place; I here on earth. He in the spirit; I in the flesh. The neutral ground lies there. So are carried the vibrations, and so the light of earth and heaven reflected back and forward - apaugasma, a wonderful though helpless engine, the ladder of Jacob, and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. Thanks, I’ll take the key. Mysteries to those who will live altogether in houses of clay, no mystery to such as will use their eyes and read what is revealed. This candle, it is the longer, please; no - no need of a pair, thanks; just this, to hold in my hand. And remember, all depends upon the willing mind. Why do you look frightened? Where is your faith? Don’t you know that spirits are about us at all times? Why should you fear to be near the body? The spirit is everything; the flesh profiteth nothing.’
 ‘Yes, sir,’ said Mrs. Rusk, making him a great courtesy in the threshold.
 She was frightened by his eerie talk, which grew, she fancied, more voluble and energetic as they approached the corpse.
 ‘Remember, then, that when you fancy yourself alone and wrapt in darkness, you stand, in fact, in the centre of a theatre, as wide as the starry floor of heaven, with an audience, whom no man can number, beholding you under a flood of light. Therefore, though your body be in solitude and your mortal sense in darkness, remember to walk as being in the light, surrounded with a cloud of witnesses. Thus walk; and when the hour comes, and you pass forth unprisoned from the tabernacle of the flesh, although it still has its relations and its rights’ - and saying this, as he held the solitary candle aloft in the doorway, he nodded towards the coffin, whose large black form was faintly traceable against the shadows beyond - ‘you will rejoice; and being clothed upon with your house from on high, you will not be found naked. On the other hand, he that loveth corruption shall have enough thereof. Think upon these things. Good-night.’
 And the Swedenborgian Doctor stepped into the room, taking the candle with him, and closed the door upon the shadowy still-life there, and on his own sharp and swarthy visage, leaving Mrs. Rusk in a sort of panic in the dark alone, to find her way to her room the best way she could.
 Early in the morning Mrs. Rusk came to my room to tell me that Doctor Bryerly was in the parlour, and begged to know whether I had not a message for him. I was already dressed, so, though it was dreadful seeing a stranger in my then mood, taking the key of the cabinet in my hand, I followed Mrs. Rusk downstairs.
 Opening the parlour door, she stepped in, and with a little courtesy said, -
 ‘Please, sir, the young mistress - Miss Ruthyn.’
 Draped in black and very pale, tall and slight, ‘the young mistress’ was; and as I entered I heard a newspaper rustle, and the sound of steps approaching to meet me.
 Face to face we met, near the door; and, without speaking, I made him a deep courtesy.
 He took my hand, without the least indication on my part, in his hard lean grasp, and shook it kindly, but familiarly, peering with a stern sort of curiosity into my face as he continued to hold it. His ill-fitting, glossy black cloth, ungainly presence, and sharp, dark, vulpine features had in them, as I said before, the vulgarity of a Glasgow artisan in his Sabbath suit. I made an instantaneous motion to withdraw my hand, but he held it firmly.
 Though there was a grim sort of familiarity, there was also decision, shrewdness, and, above all, kindness, in his dark face - a gleam on the whole of the masterly and the honest - that along with a certain paleness, betraying, I thought, restrained emotion, indicated sympathy and invited confidence.
 ‘I hope, Miss, you are pretty well?’ He pronounced ‘pretty’ as it is spelt. ‘I have come in consequence of a solemn promise exacted more than a year since by your deceased father, the late Mr. Austin Ruthyn of Knowl, for whom I cherished a warm esteem, being knit besides with him in spiritual bonds. It has been a shock to you, Miss?’
 ‘It has, indeed, sir.’
 ‘I’ve a doctor’s degree, I have - Doctor of Medicine, Miss. Like St. Luke, preacher and doctor. I was in business once, but this is better. As one footing fails, the Lord provides another. The stream of life is black and angry; how so many of us get across without drowning, I often wonder. The best way is not to look too far before - just from one stepping-stone to another; and though you may wet your feet, He won’t let you drown - He has not allowed me.’
 And Doctor Bryerly held up his head, and wagged it resolutely.
 ‘You are born to this world’s wealth; in its way a great blessing, though a great trial, Miss, and a great trust; but don’t suppose you are destined to exemption from trouble on that account, any more than poor Emmanuel Bryerly. As the sparks fly upwards, Miss Ruthyn! Your cushioned carriage may overturn on the highroad, as I may stumble and fall upon the footpath. There are other troubles than debt and privation. Who can tell how long health may last, or when an accident may happen the brain; what mortifications may await you in your own high sphere; what unknown enemies may rise up in your path; or what slanders may asperse your name - ha, ha! It is a wonderful equilibrium - a marvellous dispensation - ha, ha!’ and he laughed with a shake of his head, I thought a little sarcastically, as if he was not sorry my money could not avail to buy immunity from the general curse.
 ‘But what money can’t do, prayer can - bear that in mind, Miss Ruthyn. We can all pray; and though thorns and snares, and stones of fire lie strewn in our way, we need not fear them. He will give His angels charge over us, and in their hands they will bear us up, for He hears and sees everywhere, and His angels are innumerable.’
 He was now speaking gently and solemnly, and paused. But another vein of thought he had unconsciously opened in my mind, and I said -
 ‘And had my dear papa no other medical adviser?’
 He looked at me sharply, and flushed a little under his dark tint. His medical skill was, perhaps, the point on which his human vanity vaunted itself, and I dare say there was something very disparaging in my tone.
 ‘And if he had no other, he might have done worse. I’ve had many critical cases in my hands, Miss Ruthyn. I can’t charge myself with any miscarriage through ignorance. My diagnosis in Mr. Ruthyn’s case has been verified by the result. But I was not alone; Sir Clayton Barrow saw him, and took my view; a note will reach him in London. But this, excuse me, is not to the present purpose. The late Mr. Ruthyn told me I was to receive a key from you, which would open a cabinet where he had placed his will - ha! thanks, - in his study. And, I think, as there may be directions about the funeral, it had better be read forthwith. Is there any gentleman - a relative or man of business - near here, whom you would wish sent for?’
 ‘No, none, thank you; I have confidence in you, sir.’
 I think I spoke and looked frankly, for he smiled very kindly, though with closed lips.
 ‘And you may be sure, Miss Ruthyn, your confidence shall not be disappointed.’ Here was a long pause. ‘But you are very young, and you must have some one by in your interest, who has some experience in business. Let me see. Is not the Rector, Dr. Clay, at hand? In the town? - very good; and Mr. Danvers, who manages the estate, he must come. And get Grimston - you see I know all the names - Grimston, the attorney; for though he was not employed about this will, he has been Mr. Ruthyn’s solicitor a great many years: we must have Grimston; for, as I suppose you know, though it is a short will, it is a very strange one. I expostulated, but you know he was very decided when he took a view. He read it to you, eh?’
 ‘No, sir.’
 ‘Oh, but he told you so much as relates to you and your uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn, of Bartram-Haugh?’
 ‘No, indeed, sir.’
 ‘Ha! I wish he had.’
 And with these words Doctor Bryerly’s countenance darkened.
 ‘Mr. Silas Ruthyn is a religious man?’
 ‘Oh, very!’ said I.
 ‘You’ve seen a good deal of him?’
 ‘No, I never saw him,’ I answered.
 ‘H’m? Odder and odder! But he’s a good man, isn’t he?’
 ‘Very good, indeed, sir - a very religious man.’
 Doctor Bryerly was watching my countenance as I spoke, with a sharp and anxious eye; and then he looked down, and read the pattern of the carpet like bad news, for a while, and looking again in my face, askance, he said -
 ‘He was very near joining us - on the point. He got into correspondence with Henry Voerst, one of our best men. They call us Swedenborgians, you know; but I dare say that won’t go much further, now. I suppose, Miss Ruthyn, one o’clock would be a good hour, and I am sure, under the circumstances, the gentlemen will make a point of attending.’
 ‘Yes, Dr. Bryerly, the notes shall be sent, and my cousin, Lady Knollys, would I am sure attend with me while the will is being read - there would be no objection to her presence?’
 ‘None in the world. I can’t be quite sure who are joined with me as executors. I’m almost sorry I did not decline; but it is too late regretting. One thing you must believe Miss Ruthyn: in framing the provisions of the will I was never consulted - although I expostulated against the only very unusual one it contains when I heard it. I did so strenuously, but in vain. There was one other against which I protested - having a right to do so - with better effect. In no other way does the will in any respect owe anything to my advice or dissuasion. You will please believe this; also that I am your friend. Yes, indeed, it is my duty.’
 The latter words he spoke looking down again, as it were in soliloquy; and thanking him, I withdrew.
 When I reached the hall, I regretted that I had not asked him to state distinctly what arrangements the will made so nearly affecting, as it seemed, my relations with my uncle Silas, and for a moment I thought of returning and requesting an explanation. But then, I bethought me, it was not very long to wait till one o’clock - so he@, at least, would think. I went up-stairs, therefore, to the ‘school-room,’ which we used at present as a sitting-room, and there I found Cousin Monica awaiting me.
 ‘Are you quite well, dear?’ asked Lady Knollys, as she came to meet and kiss me.
 ‘Quite well, Cousin Monica.’
 ‘No nonsense, Maud! you’re as white as that handkerchief - what’s the matter? Are you ill - are you frightened? Yes, you’re trembling - you’re terrified, child.’
 ‘I believe I am afraid. There is something in poor papa’s will about Uncle Silas - about me. I don’t know - Doctor Bryerly says, and he seems so uncomfortable and frightened himself, I am sure it is something very bad. I am very much frightened - I am - I am. Oh, Cousin Monica! you won’t leave me?’
 So I threw my arms about her neck, clasping her very close, and we kissed one another, I crying like a frightened child - and indeed in experience of the world I was no more.

Chapter XXIV: The Opening of the Will
 Perhaps the terror with which I anticipated the hour of one, and the disclosure of the unknown undertaking to which I had bound myself, was irrational and morbid. But, honestly, I doubt it; my tendency has always been that of many other weak characters, to act impetuously, and afterwards to reproach myself for consequences which I have, perhaps, in reality, had little or no share in producing.
 It was Doctor Bryerly’s countenance and manner in alluding to a particular provision in my father’s will that instinctively awed me. I have seen faces in a nightmare that haunted me with an indescribable horror, and yet I could not say wherein lay the fascination. And so it was with his - an omen, a menace, lurked in its sallow and dismal glance.
 ‘You must not be so frightened, darling,’ said Cousin Monica. ‘It is foolish; it is, really; they can’t cut off your head, you know: they can’t really harm you in any essential way. If it involved a risk of a little money, you would not mind it; but men are such odd creatures - they measure all sacrifices by money. Doctor Bryerly would look just as you describe, if you were doomed to lose £500, and yet it would not kill you.’
 A companion like Lady Knollys is reassuring; but I could not take her comfort altogether to heart, for I felt that she had no great confidence in it herself.
 There was a little French clock over the mantelpiece in the school-room, which I consulted nearly every minute. It wanted now but ten minutes of one.
 ‘Shall we go down to the drawing-room, dear?’ said Cousin Knollys, who was growing restless like me.
 So down-stairs we went, pausing by mutual consent at the great window at the stair-head, which looks out on the avenue. Mr. Danvers was riding his tall, grey horse at a walk, under the wide branches toward the house, and we waited to see him get off at the door. In his turn he loitered there, for the good Rector’s gig, driven by the Curate, was approaching at a smart ecclesiastical trot.
 Doctor Clay got down, and shook hands with Mr. Danvers; and after a word or two, away drove the Curate with that upward glance at the windows from which so few can refrain.
 I watched the Rector and Mr. Danvers loitering on the steps as a patient might the gathering of surgeons who are to perform some unknown operation. They, too, glanced up at the window as they turned to enter the house, and I drew back. Cousin Monica looked at her watch.
 ‘Four minutes only. Shall we go to the drawing-room?’
 Waiting for a moment to let the gentlemen get by on the way to the study, we, accordingly, went down, and I heard the Rector talk of the dangerous state of Grindleston bridge, and wondered how he could think of such things at a time of sorrow. Everything about those few minutes of suspense remains fresh in my recollection. I remember how they loitered and came to a halt at the corner of the oak passage leading to the study, and how the Rector patted the marble head and smoothed the inflexible tresses of William Pitt, as he listened to Mr. Danvers’ details about the presentment; and then, as they went on, I recollect the boisterous nose-blowing that suddenly resounded from the passage, and which I then referred, and still refer, intuitively to the Rector.
 We had not been five minutes in the drawing-room when Branston entered, to say that the gentlemen I had mentioned were all assembled in the study.
 ‘Come, dear,’ said Cousin Monica; and leaning on her arm I reached the study door. I entered, followed by her. The gentlemen arrested their talk and stood up, those who were sitting, and the Rector came forward very gravely, and in low tones, and very kindly, greeted me. There was nothing emotional in this salutation, for though my father never quarrelled, yet an immense distance separated him from all his neighbours, and I do not think there lived a human being who knew him at more than perhaps a point or two of his character.
 Considering how entirely he secluded himself, my father was, as many people living remember, wonderfully popular in his county. He was neighbourly in everything except in seeing company and mixing in society. He had magnificent shooting, of which he was extremely liberal. He kept a pack of hounds at Dollerton, with which all his side of the county hunted through the season. He never refused any claim upon his purse which had the slightest show of reason. He subscribed to every fund, social, charitable, sporting, agricultural, no matter what, provided the honest people of his county took an interest in it, and always with a princely hand; and although he shut himself up, no one could say that he was inaccessible, for he devoted hours daily to answering letters, and his checque-book contributed largely in those replies. He had taken his turn long ago as High Sheriff; so there was an end of that claim before his oddity and shyness had quite secluded him. He refused the Lord-Lieutenancy of his county; he declined every post of personal distinction connected with it. He could write an able as well as a genial letter when he pleased; and his appearances at public meetings, dinners, and so forth were made in this epistolary fashion, and, when occasion presented, by magnificent contributions from his purse.
 If my father had been less goodnatured in the sporting relations of his vast estates, or less magnificent in dealing with his fortune, or even if he had failed to exhibit the intellectual force which always characterised his letters on public matters, I dare say that his oddities would have condemned him to ridicule, and possibly to dislike. But every one of the principal gentlemen of his county, whose judgment was valuable, has told me that he was a remarkably able man, and that his failure in public life was due to his eccentricities, and in no respect to deficiency in those peculiar mental qualities which make men feared and useful in Parliament.
 I could not forbear placing on record this testimony to the high mental and the kindly qualities of my beloved father, who might have passed for a misanthrope or a fool. He was a man of generous nature and powerful intellect, but given up to the oddities of a shyness which grew with years and indulgence, and became inflexible with his disappointments and affliction.
 There was something even in the Rector’s kind and ceremonious greeting which oddly enough reflected the mixed feelings in which awe was not without a place, with which his neighbours had regarded my dear father.
 Having done the honours - I am sure looking woefully pale - I had time to glance quietly at the only figure there with which I was not tolerably familiar. This was the junior partner in the firm of Archer and Sleigh who represented my uncle Silas - a fat and pallid man of six-and-thirty, with a sly and evil countenance, and it has always seemed to me, that ill dispositions show more repulsively in a pale fat face than in any other.
 Doctor Bryerly, standing near the window, was talking in a low tone to Mr. Grimston, our attorney.
 I heard good Dr. Clay whisper to Mr. Danvers -
 ‘Is not that Doctor Bryerly - the person with the black - the black - it’s a wig, I think - in the window, talking to Abel Grimston?’
 ‘Yes; that’s he.’
 ‘Odd-looking person - one of the Swedenborg people, is not he?’ continued the Rector.
 ‘So I am told.’
 ‘Yes,’ said the Rector, quietly; and he crossed one gaitered leg over the other, and, with fingers interlaced, twiddled his thumbs, as he eyed the monstrous sectary under his orthodox old brows with a stern inquisitiveness. I thought he was meditating theologic battle.
 But Dr. Bryerly and Mr. Grimston, still talking together, began to walk slowly from the window, and the former said in his peculiar grim tones -
 ‘I beg pardon, Miss Ruthyn; perhaps you would be so good as to show us which of the cabinets in this room your late lamented father pointed out as that to which this key belongs.’
 I indicated the oak cabinet.
 ‘Very good, ma’am - very good,’ said Doctor Bryerly, as he fumbled the key into the lock.
 Cousin Monica could not forbear murmuring -
 ‘Dear! what a brute!’
 The junior partner, with his dumpy hands in his pocket, poked his fat face over Mr. Grimston’s shoulder, and peered into the cabinet as the door opened.
 The search was not long. A handsome white paper enclosure, neatly tied up in pink tape, and sealed with large red seals, was inscribed in my dear father’s hand: - ‘Will of Austin R. Ruthyn, of Knowl.’ Then, in smaller characters, the date, and in the corner a note - ‘This will was drawn from my instructions by Gaunt, Hogg, and Hatchett, Solicitors, Great Woburn Street, London, A.R.R.’
 ‘Let me have a squint at that indorsement, please, gentlemen,’ half whispered the unpleasant person who represented my uncle Silas.
 ‘’Tisn’t an indorsement. There, look - a memorandum on an envelope,’ said Abel Grimston, gruffly.
 ‘Thanks - all right - that will do,’ he responded, himself making a pencil-note of it, in a long clasp-book which he drew from his coat-pocket.
 The tape was carefully cut, and the envelope removed without tearing the writing, and forth came the will, at sight of which my heart swelled and fluttered up to my lips, and then dropped down dead as it seemed into its place.
 ‘Mr. Grimston, you will please to read it,’ said Doctor Bryerly, who took the direction of the process. ‘I will sit beside you, and as we go along you will be good enough to help us to understand technicalities, and give us a lift where we want it.’ ‘It’s a short will,’ said Mr. Grimston, turning over the sheets ‘very - considering. Here’s a codicil.’
 ‘I did not see that,’ said Doctor Bryerly.
 ‘Dated only a month ago.’
 ‘Oh!’ said Doctor Bryerly, putting on his spectacles. Uncle Silas’s ambassador, sitting close behind, had insinuated his face between Doctor Bryerly’s and the reader’s of the will.
 ‘On behalf of the surviving brother of the testator,’ interposed the delegate, just as Abel Grimston had cleared his voice to begin, ‘I take leave to apply for a copy of this instrument. It will save a deal of trouble, if the young lady as represents the testator here has no objection.’
 ‘You can have as many copies as you like when the will is proved,’ said Mr. Grimston.
 ‘I know that; but supposing as all’s right, where’s the objection?’
 ‘Just the objection there always is to acting irregular,’ replied Mr. Grimston.
 ‘You don’t object to act disobliging, it seems.’
 ‘You can do as I told you,’ replied Mr. Grimston.
 ‘Thank you for nothing,’ murmured Mr. Sleigh.
 And the reading of the will proceeded, while he made elaborate notes of its contents in his capacious pocket-book.
 ‘I, Austin Alymer Ruthyn Ruthyn, being, I thank God, of sound mind and perfect recollection,’ &c, &c.; and then came a bequest of all his estates real, chattels real, copyrights, leases, chattels, money, rights, interests, reversions, powers, plate, pictures, and estates and possessions whatsoever, to four persons - Lord Ilbury, Mr. Penrose Creswell of Creswell, Sir William Aylmer, Bart., and Hans Emmanuel Bryerly, Doctor of Medicine, ‘to have and to hold,’ &c. &c. Whereupon my Cousin Monica ejaculated ‘Eh?’ and Doctor Bryerly interposed -
 ‘Four trustees, ma’am. We take little but trouble - you’ll see; go on.’
 Then it came out that all this multifarious splendour was bequeathed in trust for me, subject to a bequest of £15,000. to his only brother, Silas Aylmer Ruthyn, and £3,500. each to the two children of his said brother; and lest any doubt should arise by reason of his, the testator’s decease as to the continuance of the arrangement by way of lease under which he enjoyed his present habitation and farm, he left him the use of the mansion-house and lands of Bartram-Haugh, in the county of Derbyshire, and of the lands of so-and-so and so-and-so, adjoining thereto, in the said county, for the term of his natural life, on payment of a rent of 5 shillings. per annum, and subject to the like conditions as to waste, &c., as are expressed in the said lease.
 ‘By your leave, may I ask is them dispositions all the devises to my client, which is his only brother, as it seems to me you’ve seen the will before?’ enquired Mr. Sleigh.
 ‘Nothing more, unless there is something in the codicil,’ answered Dr. Bryerly.
 But there was no mention of him in the codicil.
 Mr. Sleigh threw himself back in his chair, and sneered, with the end of his pencil between his teeth. I hope his disappointment was altogether for his client. Mr. Danvers fancied, he afterwards said, that he had probably expected legacies which might have involved litigation, or, at all events, law costs, and perhaps a stewardship; but this was very barren; and Mr. Danvers also remarked, that the man was a very low practitioner, and wondered how my uncle Silas could have commissioned such a person to represent him.
 So far the will contained nothing of which my most partial friend could have complained. The codicil, too, devised only legacies to servants, and a sum of £1,000, with a few kind words, to Monica, Lady Knollys, and a further sum of £3,000 to Dr. Bryerly, stating that the legatee had prevailed upon him to erase from the draft of his will a bequest to him to that amount, but that, in consideration of all the trouble devolving upon him as trustee, he made that bequest by his codicil; and with these arrangements the permanent disposition of his property was completed.
 But that direction to which he and Doctor Bryerly had darkly alluded, was now to come, and certainly it was a strange one. It appointed my uncle Silas my sole guardian, with full parental authority over me until I should have reached the age of twenty-one, up to which time I was to reside under his care at Bartram-Haugh, and it directed the trustees to pay over to him yearly a sum of £2,000 during the continuance of the guardianship for my suitable maintenance, education, and expenses.
 You have now a sufficient outline of my father’s will. The only thing I painfully felt in this arrangement was, the break-up - the dismay that accompanies the disappearance of home. Otherwise, there was something rather pleasurable in the idea. As long as I could remember, I had always cherished the same mysterious curiosity about my uncle, and the same longing to behold him. This was about to be gratified. Then there was my cousin Milicent, about my own age. My life had been so lonely, that I had acquired none of those artificial habits that induce the fine-lady nature - a second, and not always a very amiable one. She had lived a solitary life, like me. What rambles and readings we should have together! what confidences and castle-buildings! and then there was a new country and a fine old place, and the sense of interest and adventure that always accompanies change in our early youth.
 There were four letters all alike with large, red seals, addressed respectively to each of the trustees named in the will. There was also one addressed to Silas Alymer Ruthyn, Esq., Bartram-Haugh Manor, &c. &c., which Mr. Sleigh offered to deliver. But Doctor Bryerly thought the post-office was the more regular channel. Uncle Silas’s representative was questioning Doctor Bryerly in an under-tone.
 I turned my eyes on my cousin Monica - I felt so inexpressibly relieved - expecting to see a corresponding expression in her countenance. But I was startled. She looked ghastly and angry. I stared in her face, not knowing what to think. Could the will have personally disappointed her? Such doubts, though we fancy in after-life they belong to maturity and experience only, do sometimes cross our minds in youth. But the suggestion wronged Lady Knollys, who neither expected nor wanted anything, being rich, childless, generous, and frank. It was the unexpected character of her countenance that scared me, and for a moment the shock called up corresponding moral images.
 Lady Knollys, starting up, raised her head, so as to see over Mr. Sleigh’s shoulder, and biting her pale lip, she cleared her voice and demanded -
 ‘Doctor Bryerly, pray, sir, is the reading concluded?’
 ‘Concluded? Quite. Yes, nothing more,’ he answered with a nod, and continued his talk with Mr. Danvers and Abel Grimston.
 ‘And to whom,’ said Lady Knollys, with an effort, ‘will the property belong, in case - in case my little cousin here should die before she comes of age?’
 ‘Eh? Well - wouldn’t it go to the heir-at-law and next of kin?’ said Doctor Bryerly, turning to Abel Grimston.
 ‘Ay - to be sure,’ said the attorney, thoughtfully.
 ‘And who is that?’ pursued my cousin.
 ‘Well, her uncle, Mr. Silas Ruthyn. He’s both heir-at-law and next of kin,’ pursued Abel Grimston.
 ‘Thank you,’ said Lady Knollys.
 Doctor Clay came forward, bowing very low, in his standing collar and single-breasted coat, and graciously folded my hand in his soft wrinkled grasp -
 ‘Allow me, my dear Miss Ruthyn, while expressing my regret that we are to lose you from among our little flock - though I trust but for a short, a very short time - to say how I rejoice at the particular arrangement indicated by the will we have just heard read. My curate, William Fairfield, resided for some years in the same spiritual capacity in the neighbourhood of your, I will say, admirable uncle, with occasional intercourse with whom he was favoured - may I not say blessed? - a true Christian Churchman - a Christian gentleman. Can I say more? A most happy, happy choice.’ A very low bow here, with eyes nearly closed, and a shake of the head. ‘Mrs. Clay will do herself the honour of waiting upon you, to pay her respects, before you leave Knowl for your temporary sojourn in another sphere.’
 So, with another deep bow - for I had become a great personage all at once - he let go my hand cautiously and delicately, as if he were setting down a curious china tea-cup. And I courtesied low to him, not knowing what to say, and then to the assembly generally, who all bowed. And Cousin Monica whispered, briskly, ‘Come away,’ and took my hand with a very cold and rather damp one, and led me from the room.

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Chapter XXV: I Hear from Uncle Silas
 Without saying a word, Cousin Monica accompanied me to the school-room, and on entering she shut the door, not with a spirited clang, but quietly and determinedly.
 ‘Well, dear,’ she said, with the same pale, excited countenance, ‘that certainly is a sensible and charitable arrangement. I could not have believed it possible, had I not heard it with my ears.’
 ‘About my going to Bartram-Haugh?’
 ‘Yes, exactly so, under Silas Ruthyn’s guardianship, to spend two - three - of the most important years of your education and your life under that roof. Is that, my dear, what was in your mind when you were so alarmed about what you were to be called upon to do, or undergo?’
 ‘No, no, indeed. I had no notion what it might be. I was afraid of something serious,’ I answered.
 ‘And, my dear Maud, did not your poor father speak to you as if it was something serious?’ said she. ‘And so it is, I can tell you, something serious, and very serious; and I think it ought to be prevented, and I certainly will prevent it if I possibly can.’
 I was puzzled utterly by the intensity of Lady Knollys’ protest. I looked at her, expecting an explanation of her meaning; but she was silent, looking steadfastly on the jewels on her right-hand fingers, with which she was drumming a staccato march on the table, very pale, with gleaming eyes, evidently thinking deeply. I began to think she had a prejudice against my uncle Silas.
 ‘He is not very rich,’ I commenced.
 ‘Who?’ said Lady Knollys.
 ‘Uncle Silas,’ I replied.
 ‘No, certainly; he’s in debt,’ she answered. ‘But then, how very highly Doctor Clay spoke of him!’ I pursued.
 ‘Don’t talk of Doctor Clay. I do think that man is the greatest goose I ever heard talk. I have no patience with such men,’ she replied.
 I tried to remember what particular nonsense Doctor Clay had uttered, and I could recollect nothing, unless his eulogy upon my uncle were to be classed with that sort of declamation.
 ‘Danvers is a very proper man and a good accountant, I dare say; but he is either a very deep person, or a fool - I believe a fool. As for your attorney, I suppose he knows his business, and also his interest, and I have no doubt he will consult it. I begin to think he best man among them, the shrewdest and the most reliable, is that vulgar visionary in the black wig. I saw him look at you, Maud, and I liked his face, though it is abominably ugly and vulgar, and cunning, too; but I think he’s a just man, and I dare say with right feelings - I’m sure he has.’
 I was quite at a loss to divine the gist of my cousin’s criticism.
 ‘I’ll have some talk with Dr. Bryerly; I feel convinced he takes my view, and we must really think what had best be done.’
 ‘Is there anything in the will, Cousin Monica, that does not appear?’ I asked, for I was growing very uneasy. ‘I wish you would tell me. What view do you mean?’
 ‘No view in particular; the view that a desolate old park, and the house of a neglected old man, who is very poor, and has been desperately foolish, is not the right place for you, particularly at your years. It is quite shocking, and I will speak to Doctor Bryerly. May I ring the bell, dear?’
 ‘Certainly;’ and I rang it.
 ‘When does he leave Knowl?’
 I could not tell. Mrs. Rusk, however, was sent for, and she could tell us that he had announced his intention of taking the night train from Drackleton, and was to leave Knowl for that station at half-past six o’clock.
 ‘May Rusk give or send him a message from me, dear?’ asked Lady Knollys.
 Of course she might.
 ‘Then please let him know that I request he will be so good as to allow me a very few minutes, just to say a word before he goes.’
 ‘You kind cousin!’ I said, placing my two hands on her shoulders, and looking earnestly in her face; ‘you are anxious about me, more than you say. Won’t you tell me why? I am much more unhappy, really, in ignorance, than if I understood the cause.’
 ‘Well, dear, haven’t I told you? The two or three years of your life which are to form you are destined to be passed in utter loneliness, and, I am sure, neglect. You can’t estimate the disadvantage of such an arrangement. It is full of disadvantages. How it could have entered the head of poor Austin - although I should not say that, for I am sure I do understand it, - but how he could for any purpose have directed such a measure is quite inconceivable. I never heard of anything so foolish and abominable, and I will prevent it if I can.’
 At that moment Mrs. Rusk announced that Doctor Bryerly would see Lady Knollys at any time she pleased before his departure.
 ‘It shall be this moment, then,’ said the energetic lady, and up she stood, and made that hasty general adjustment before the glass, which, no matter under what circumstances, and before what sort of creature one’s appearance is to be made, is a duty that every woman owes to herself. And I heard her a moment after, at the stair-head, directing Branston to let Dr. Bryerly know that she awaited him in the drawing-room.
 And now she was gone, and I began to wonder and speculate. Why should my cousin Monica make all this fuss about, after all, a very natural arrangement? My uncle, whatever he might have been, was now a good man - a religious man - perhaps a little severe; and with this thought a dark streak fell across my sky.
 A cruel disciplinarian! had I not read of such characters? - lock and key, bread and water, and solitude! To sit locked up all night in a dark out-of-the-way room, in a great, ghosty, old-fashioned house, with no one nearer than the other wing. What years of horror in one such night! Would not this explain my poor father’s hesitation, and my cousin Monica’s apparently disproportioned opposition? When an idea of terror presents itself to a young person’s mind, it transfixes and fills the vision, without respect of probabilities or reason.
 My uncle was now a terrible old martinet, with long Bible lessons, lectures, pages of catechism, sermons to be conned by rote, and an awful catalogue of punishments for idleness, and what would seem to him impiety. I was going, then, to a frightful isolated reformatory, where for the first time in my life I should be subjected to a rigorous and perhaps barbarous discipline.
 All this was an exhalation of fancy, but it quite overcame me. I threw myself, in my solitude, on the floor, upon my knees, and prayed for deliverance - prayed that Cousin Monica might prevail with Doctor Bryerly, and both on my behalf with the Lord Chancellor, or the High Sheriff, or whoever else my proper deliverer might be; and when my cousin returned, she found me quite in an agony.
 ‘Why, you little fool! what fancy has taken possession of you now?’ she cried.
 And when my new terror came to light, she actually laughed a little to reassure me, and she said -
 ‘My dear child, your uncle Silas will never put you through your duty to your neighbour; all the time you are under his roof you’ll have idleness and liberty enough, and too much, I fear. It is neglect, my dear, not discipline, that I’m afraid of.’
 ‘I think, dear Cousin Monica, you are afraid of something more than neglect,’ I said, relieved, however.
 ‘I am afraid of more than neglect,’ she replied promptly; ‘but I hope my fears may turn out illusory, and that possibly they may be avoided. And now, for a few hours at least, let us think of something else. I rather like that Doctor Bryerly. I could not get him to say what I wanted. I don’t think he’s Scotch, but he is very cautious, and I am sure, though he would not say so, that he thinks of the matter exactly as I do. He says that those fine people, who are named as his co-trustees, won’t take any trouble, and will leave everything to him, and I am sure he is right. So we must not quarrel with him, Maud, nor call him hard names, although he certainly is intolerably vulgar and ugly, and at times very nearly impertinent - I suppose without knowing, or indeed very much caring.’
 We had a good deal to think of, and talked incessantly. There were bursts and interruptions of grief, and my kind cousin’s consolations. I have often since been so lectured for giving way to grief, that I wonder at the patience exercised by her during this irksome visit. Then there was some reading of that book whose claims are always felt in the terrible days of affliction. After that we had a walk in the yew garden, that quaint little cloistered quadrangle - the most solemn, sad, and antiquated of gardens.
 ‘And now, my dear, I must really leave you for two or three hours. I have ever so many letters to write, and my people must think I’m dead by this time.’
 So till tea-time I had poor Mary Quince, with her gushes of simple prattle and her long fits of vacant silence, for my companion. And such a one, who can con over by rote the old friendly gossip about the dead, talk about their ways, and looks, and likings, without much psychologic refinement, but with a simple admiration and liking that never measured them critically, but always with faith and love, is in general about as comfortable a companion as one can find for the common moods of grief.
 It is not easy to recall in calm and happy hours the sensations of an acute sorrow that is past. Nothing, by the merciful ordinance of God, is more difficult to remember than pain. One or two great agonies of that time I do remember, and they remain to testify of the rest, and convince me, though I can see it no more, how terrible all that period was.
 Next day was the funeral, that appalling necessity; smuggled away in whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved one leaves home, without a farewell, to darken those doors no more; henceforward to lie outside, far away, and forsaken, through the drowsy heats of summer, through days of snow and nights of tempest, without light or warmth, without a voice near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes, to scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We have just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trembling faith. And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem.
 I was glad in a sort of agony when it was over. So long as it remained to be done, something of the catastrophe was still suspended. Now it was all over.
 The house so strangely empty. No owner - no master! I with my strange momentary liberty, bereft of that irreplaceable love, never quite prized until it is lost. Most people have experienced the dismay that underlies sorrow under such circumstances.
 The apartment of the poor outcast from life is now dismantled. Beds and curtains taken down, and furniture displaced; carpets removed, windows open and doors locked; the bedroom and anteroom were henceforward, for many a day, uninhabited. Every shocking change smote my heart like a reproach.
 I saw that day that Cousin Monica had been crying for the first time, I think, since her arrival at Knowl; and I loved her more for it, and felt consoled. My tears have often been arrested by the sight of another person weeping, and I never could explain why. But I believe that many persons experience the same odd reaction.
 The funeral was conducted, in obedience to his brief but peremptory direction, very privately and with little expense. But of course there was an attendance, and the tenants of the Knowl estate also followed the hearse to the mausoleum, as it is called, in the park, where he was laid beside my dear mother. And so the repulsive ceremonial of that dreadful day was over. The grief remained, but there was rest from the fatigue of agitation, and a comparative calm supervened.
 It was now the stormy equinoctial weather that sounds the wild dirge of autumn, and marches the winter in. I love, and always did, that grand undefinable music, threatening and bewailing, with its strange soul of liberty and desolation.
 By this night’s mail, as we sat listening to the storm, in the drawing-room at Knowl, there reached me a large letter with a great black seal, and a wonderfully deep-black border, like a widow’s crape. I did not recognise the handwriting; but on opening the funereal missive, it proved to be from my uncle Silas, and was thus expressed: -

 ‘MY DEAREST NIECE, - This letter will reach you, probably, on the day which consigns the mortal remains of my beloved brother, Austin, your dear father, to the earth. Sad ceremony, from taking my mournful part in which I am excluded by years, distance, and broken health. It will, I trust, at this season of desolation, be not unwelcome to remember that a substitute, imperfect - unworthy - but most affectionately zealous, for the honoured parent whom you have just lost, has been appointed, in me, your uncle, by his will. I am aware that you were present during the reading of it, but I think it will be for our mutual satisfaction that our new and more affectionate relations should be forthwith entered upon. My conscience and your safety, and I trust convenience, will thereby be consulted. You will, my dear niece, remain at Knowl, until a few simple arrangements shall have been completed for your reception at this place. I will then settle the details of your little journey to us, which shall be performed as comfortably and easily as possible. I humbly pray that this affliction may be sanctified to us all, and that in our new duties we may be supported, comforted, and directed. I need not remind you that I now stand to you in loco parentis, which means in the relation of father, and you will not forget that you are to remain at Knowl until you hear further from me.
 ‘I remain, my dear niece, your most affectionate uncle and guardian,
                                                                                      SILAS RUTHYN.’

‘P.S. - Pray present my respects to Lady Knollys, who, I understand, is sojourning at Knowl. I would observe that a lady who cherishes, I have reason to fear, unfriendly feelings against your uncle, is not the most desirable companion for his ward. But upon the express condition that I am not made the subject of your discussions - a distinction which could not conduce to your forming a just and respectful estimate of me - I do not interpose my authority to bring your intercourse to an immediate close.’