The House by the Churchyard, Page 55

  So Mr. Dangerfield became himself again, and applied himself keenly to his business.

  When I first thought of framing the materials which had accumulated in my hands into a narrative, dear little Lily Walsingham’s death was a sore trouble to me. 'Little' Lily I call her, but though slight, she was not little—rather tall, indeed.

  It was, however, the term I always heard connected with her pretty name in my boyhood, when the old people, who had remembered her very long ago, mentioned her, as they used, very kindly, a term of endearment that had belonged to her, and in virtue of the childlike charm that was about her, had grown up with her from childhood. I had plans for mending this part of the record, and marrying her to handsome Captain Devereux, and making him worthy of her; but somehow I could not. From very early times I had known the sad story. I had heard her beauty talked about in my childhood; the rich, clear tints, the delicate outlines, those tender and pleasant dimples, like the wimpling of a well; an image so pure, and merry, and melancholy withal, had grown before me, and in twilight shadows visited the now lonely haunts of her brief hours; even the old church, in my evening rambles along the uplands of the park, had in my eyes so saddened a grace in the knowledge that those slender bones lay beneath its shadows, and all about her was so linked in my mind with truth, and melancholy, and altogether so sacred, that I could not trifle with the story, and felt, even when I imagined it, a pang, and a reproach, as if I had mocked the sadness of little Lily’s fate; so, after some ponderings and trouble of mind I gave it up, and quite renounced the thought.

  And, after all, what difference should it make? Is not the generation among whom her girlish lot was cast long passed away? A few years more or less of life. What of them now? When honest Dan Loftus cited those lines from the 'Song of Songs,' did he not make her sweet epitaph? Had she married Captain Devereux, what would her lot have been? She was not one of those potent and stoical spirits, who can survive the wreck of their best affections, and retort injury with scorn. In forming that simple spirit, Nature had forgotten arrogance and wrath. She would never have fought against the cruelty of changed affections if that or the treasons of an unprincipled husband had come. His love would have been her light and life, and when that was turned away, like a northern flower that has lost its sun, she would have only hung her pretty head, and died, in her long winter. So viewing now the ways of wisdom from a distance, I think I can see they were the best, and how that fair, young mortal, who seemed a sacrifice, was really a conqueror.

  Puddock and Devereux on this eventful night, as we remember, having shaken hands at the door–steps, turned and went up stairs together, very amicably again, to the captain’s drawing–room.

  So Devereux, when they returned to his lodgings, had lost much of his reserve, and once on the theme of his grief, stormed on in gusts, and lulls, and thunder, and wild upbraidings, and sudden calms; and the good–natured soul of little Puddock was touched, and though he did not speak, he often dried his eyes quietly, for grief is conversant not with self, but with the dead, and whatever is generous moves us.

  'There’s no one stirring now, Puddock—I’ll put my cloak about me and walk over to the Elms, to ask how the rector is to–night,' said Devereux, muffling himself in his military mantle.

  It was only the restlessness of grief. Like all other pain, grief is haunted with the illusion that change means relief; motion is the instinct of escape. Puddock walked beside him, and they went swiftly and silently together.

  When they reached the other side of the bridge, and stood under the thorn–hedge fronting the leafless elms, Devereux was irresolute.

  'Would you wish me to enquire?' asked Puddock. Devereux held him doubtfully by the arm for a moment or two, and then said gently—

  'No, I thank you, Puddock—I’ll go—yes—I’ll go myself;' and so Captain Devereux went up to the door.

  John Tracy, at the steps, told him that he thought his master wished to speak with him; but he was not quite sure. The tall muffled figure therefore waited at the door while John went in to tell his master, and soon returned to say that Doctor Walsingham would be much obliged to him to step into the study.

  When the doctor saw Devereux, he stood up to meet him.

  'I hope, Sir,' said Devereux, very humbly, 'you have forgiven me.'

  The doctor took his hand and shook it very hard, and said, 'There’s nothing—we’re both in sorrow. Everyone—everyone is sorry, Sir, but you more.'

  Devereux did not say anything, being moved, as I suppose. But he had drawn his cloak about his face, and was looking down.

  'There was a little message—only a word or two,' said the doctor; 'but everything of hers is sacred.'

  He turned over some papers in his desk, and chose one. It was in Lily’s pretty handwriting.

  'I am charged with this little message. Oh, my darling!' and the old man cried bitterly.

  'Pray, read it—you will understand it—'tis easily read. What a pretty hand it was!'

  So Devereux took the little paper, and read just the words which follow:—

  'My beloved father will, I hope, if he thinks it right, tell Captain Richard Devereux that I was not so unkind and thankless as I may have seemed, but very grateful for his preference, of which I know, in many ways, how unworthy I was. But I do not think we could have been happy; and being all over, it is a great comfort to friends who are separated here, that there is a place where all may meet again, if God will; and as I did not see or speak with him since my dear father brought his message, I wished that so much should be said, and also to say a kind good–bye, and give him all good wishes.

  'LILIAS.'

  'Friday evening.'

  Captain Richard Devereux read this simple little record through, and then he said:—

  'Oh, Sir, may I have it—isn’t it mine?'

  We who have heard those wondrous aërial echoes of Killarney, when the breath has left the bugle and its cadences are silent, take up the broken links of the lost melody with an answer far away, sad and celestial, real, yet unreal, the fleeting yet lingering spirit of music, that is past and over, have something in memory by which we can illustrate the effect of these true voices of the thoughts and affections that have perished, returning for a few charmed moments regretfully and sweetly from the sea of eternal silence.

  And so that sad and clear farewell, never repeated, was long after, in many a lonely night, answered by the voice of Devereux.

  'Did she—did she know how I loved her? Oh, never, never! I’ll never love any but you. Darling, darling—you can’t die. Oh, no, no, no! Your place knows you still; your place is here—here—here.'

  And he smote his breast over that heart which, such as it was, cherished a pure affection for her.

  CHAPTER XCI.

  CONCERNING CERTAIN DOCUMENTS WHICH REACHED MR. MERVYN, AND THE WITCHES' REVELS AT THE MILLS.

  I would be ashamed to say how, soon after Dangerfield had spoken to Mr. Mervyn in the church–yard on the Sunday afternoon, when he surprised him among the tombstones, the large–eyed young gentleman, with the long black hair, was at his desk, and acting upon his suggestion. But the Hillsborough was to sail next day; and Mr. Mervyn’s letter, containing certain queries, and an order for twenty guineas on a London house, glided in that packet with a favouring breeze from the Bay of Dublin, on its way to the London firm of Elrington Brothers.

  On the morning of the day whose events I have been describing in the last half–dozen chapters, Mr. Mervyn received his answer, which was to the following effect:—

  'SIR,—Having made search for the Paper which you enquire after, we have Found one answering your description in a General way; and pursuant to your request and Direction, beg leave to forward you a Copy thereof, together with a copy of a letter concerning it, received by the same post from Sir Philip Drayton, of Drayton Hall, Sometime our Client, and designed in Part to explain his share in the matter. Your order for twenty guineas, on Messrs. Trett and Penrose, hath come to hand, an
d been duly honoured, and we thankfully Accept the same, in payment for all trouble had in this matter. '&c, &c, &c.'

  The formal document which it enclosed said:—

  'This is to certify that Charles Archer, Esq., aged, as shortly before his death he reported himself, thirty–five years, formerly of London, departed this life, on the 4th August, 1748, in his lodgings, in the city of Florence, next door to the "Red Lion," and over against the great entrance of the Church of the Holy Cross, in the which, having conformed to the holy Roman faith, he is buried.—Signed this 12th day of August, 1748.

  'PHILIP DRAYTON, Baronet.

  'GAETANO MELONI, M.D.

  'ROBERT SMITH, Musician.

  'We three having seen the said Charles Archer during his sickness, and after his decease.'

  Then followed the copy of the baronet’s letter to his attorneys, which was neither very long nor very business–like.

  'Why the plague don’t you make the scoundrel, Jekyl, pay? His mother’s dead only t’other day, and he must be full of money. I’ve scarce a marvedy in hand, now; so let him have a writ in his, drat him. About that certificate, I’m almost sorry I signed it. I’ve bin thinking 'tis like enough I may be troubled about it. So you may tell 'em I know no more only what is there avouched. No more I do. He played at a faro–table here, and made a very pretty figure. But I hear now from Lord Orland that there are many bad reports of him. He was the chief witness against that rogue, Lord Dunoran, who swallowed poison in Newgate, and, they say, leaned hard against him, although he won much money of him, and swore with a blood–thirsty intention. But that is neither here nor there; I mean ill reports of his rogueries at play, and other doings, which, had I sooner known, my name had not bin to the paper. So do not make a noise about it, and maybe none will ask for’t. As for Jack Jekyl, why not take the shortest way with him. You’re very pitiful fellows; but I wish o' my conscience you’d take some pity o' me, and not suffer me to be bubbled,' &c., &c.

  There was only a sentence or two more, referring in the same strain to other matters of business, of which, in the way of litigation, he seemed to have no lack, and the letter ended.

  'I’ll go direct to London and see these people, and thence to Florence. Gaetano Meloni—he may be living—who knows? He will remember the priest who confessed him. A present to a religious house may procure—in a matter of justice, and where none can be prejudiced, for the case is very special—a dispensation, if he be the very Charles Archer—and he may—why not?—have disclosed all on his death–bed. First, I shall see Mr. Dangerfield—then those attorneys; and next make search in Florence; and, with the aid of whatever I can glean there, and from Irons, commence in England the intensest scrutiny to which a case was ever yet subjected.'

  Had it not been so late when he found this letter on his return, he would have gone direct with it to the Brass Castle; but that being quite out of the question, he read it again and again. It is wonderful how often a man will spell over and over the same commonplace syllables, if they happen to touch a subject vitally concerning himself, and what theories and speculations he will build upon the accidental turn of a phrase, or the careless dash of a pen.

  As we see those wild animals walk their cages in a menagerie, with the fierce instincts of suppressed action rolling in the vexed eye and vibrating in every sinew, even so we behold this hero of the flashing glance and sable locks treading, in high excitement, the floor of the cedar parlour. Every five minutes a new hope—a new conjecture, and another scrutiny of the baronet’s letter, or of the certificate of Archer’s death, and hour after hour speeding by in the wild chase of successive chimeras.

  While Mr. Justice Lowe’s servant was spurring into town at a pace which made the hollow road resound, and struck red flashes from the stones, up the river, at the Mills, Mistress Mary Matchwell was celebrating a sort of orgie. Dirty Davy and she were good friends again. Such friendships are subject to violent vicissitudes, and theirs had been interrupted by a difference of opinion, of which the lady had made a note with a brass candlestick over his eye. Dirty Davy’s expressive feature still showed the green and yellow tints of convalescence. But there are few philosophers who forgive so frankly as a thorough scoundrel, when it is his interest to kiss and be friends. The candlestick was not more innocent of all unpleasant feeling upon the subject than at that moment was Dirty Davy.

  Dirty Davy had brought with him his chief clerk, who was a facetious personage, and boozy, and on the confidential footing of a common rascality with his master, who, after the fashion of Harry V. in his nonage, condescended in his frolics and his cups to men of low estate; and Mary Matchwell, though fierce and deep enough, was not averse on occasion, to partake of a bowl of punch in sardonic riot, with such agreeable company.

  Charles Nutter’s unexpected coming to life no more affected Mary Matchwell’s claim than his supposed death did her spirits. Widow or wife, she was resolved to make good her position, and the only thing she seriously dreaded was that an intelligent jury, an eminent judge, and an adroit hangman, might remove him prematurely from the sphere of his conjugal duties, and forfeit his worldly goods to the crown.

  Next morning, however, a writ or a process of some sort, from which great things were expected, was to issue from the court in which her rights were being vindicated. Upon the granting of this, Mistress Matchwell and Dirty Davy—estranged for some time, as we have said,—embraced. She forgot the attorney’s disrespectful language, and he the lady’s brass candlestick, and, over the punch–bowl of oblivion and vain glory, they celebrated their common victory.

  Under advice, M. M. had acquiesced, pending her vigorous legal proceedings, in poor little Sally Nutter’s occupying her bed–room in the house for a little while longer. The beleagured lady was comforted in her strait by the worthy priest, by honest Dr. Toole, and not least, by that handsome and stalworth nymph, the daring Magnolia. That blooming Amazon was twice on the point of provoking the dismal sorceress, who kept her court in the parlour of the Mills, to single combat. But fortune willed it otherwise, and each time the duel had been interrupted in its formal inception, and had gone no further than that spirited prologue in which the female sex so faithfully preserve the tradition of those thundering dialogues which invariably precede the manual business of the Homeric fray.

  This was the eve of a great triumph and a memorable gala. Next morning, Sally Nutter was to be scalped, roasted, and eaten up, and the night was spent in savage whoopings, songs and dances. They had got a reprobate blind fiddler into the parlour, where their punch–bowl steamed—a most agreeable and roistering sinner, who sang indescribable songs to the quaver of his violin, and entertained the company with Saturnalian vivacity, jokes, gibes, and wicked stories. Larry Cleary, thou man of sin and music! methinks I see thee now. Thy ugly, cunning, pitted face, twitching and grinning; thy small, sightless orbs rolling in thy devil’s merriment, and thy shining forehead red with punch.

  In the kitchen things were not more orderly; M. M.'s lean maid was making merry with the bailiff, and a fat and dreadful trollop with one eye—tipsy, noisy, and pugnacious.

  Poor little Sally Nutter and her maids kept dismal vigil in her bed–room. But that her neighbours and her lawyer would in no sort permit it, the truth is, the frightened little soul would long ago have made herself wings, and flown anywhere for peace and safety.

  It is remarkable how long one good topic, though all that may be said upon it has been said many scores of times, will serve the colloquial purposes of the good folk of the kitchen or the nursery. There was scarcely half–an–hour in the day during which the honest maids and their worthy little mistress did not discuss the dreadful Mary Matchwell. They were one and all, though in different degrees, indescribably afraid of her. Her necromantic pretensions gave an indistinctness and poignancy to their horror. She seemed to know, by a diabolical intuition, what everybody was about—she was so noiseless and stealthy, and always at your elbow when you least expected. Those large dismal eyes
of hers, they said, glared green in the dark like a cat’s; her voice was sometimes so coarse and deep, and her strength so unnatural, that they were often on the point of believing her to be a man in disguise. She was such a blasphemer, too; and could drink what would lay a trooper under the table, and yet show it in nothing but the superintensity of her Satanic propensities. She was so malignant, and seemed to bear to all God’s creatures so general a malevolence, that her consistent and superlative wickedness cowed and paralysed them. The enigma grew more horrible every day and night, and they felt, or fancied, a sort of influence stealing over them which benumbed their faculty of resistance, and altogether unstrung their nerves.

  The grand compotation going on in the parlour waxed louder and wilder as the night wore on. There were unseen guests there, elate and inspiring, who sat with the revellers—phantoms who attend such wassail, and keep the ladle of the punch–bowl clinking, the tongue of the songster glib and tuneful, and the general mirth alive and furious. A few honest folk, with the gift of a second sight in such matters, discover their uncanny presence—leprous impurity, insane blasphemy, and the stony grin of unearthly malice—and keep aloof.

  To heighten their fun, this jovial company bellowed their abominable ballads in the hall, one of them about 'Sally M’Keogh,' whose sweetheart was hanged, and who cut her throat with his silver–mounted razor, and they hooted their gibes up the stairs. And at last Mary Matchwell, provoked by the passive quietude of her victim, summoned the three revellers from the kitchen, and invaded the upper regions at their head—to the unspeakable terror of poor Sally Nutter—and set her demon fiddler a scraping, and made them and Dirty Davy’s clerk dance a frantic reel on the lobby outside her bed–room door, locked and bolted inside, you may be sure.