 Chapter 42 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou This is the bravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 42 Elverston and its people So Millie and I drove through the gabled high street of Feltrum next day. We saw my gracious cousin smoking with a man like a groom at the door of the plume of Feathers. I drew myself back as we passed and Millie popped her head out of the window. I'm blessed, she said, laughing, if he hadn't his thumb to his nose and winding up his little finger the way he does with old Wyatt. L'amour, you know. And you may be sure he said something funny for Jim Jolliter was laughing with his pipe in his hand. I wish I had not seen him, Millie. I feel as if it were an ill omen. He always looked so cross and I dare say he wished us some ill, I said. No, no, you don't know Dudley. If he were angry he'd say nothing that's funny. No, he's not vexed, only shamming vexed. The scenery through which we passed was very pretty. The road brought us through a narrow and wooded glen. Such studies of ivied rocks and twisted roots, a little stream tinkled lonely through the hollow. Poor Millie, in her odd way she made herself companionable. I have sometimes fancied an enjoyment of natural scenery, not so much a faculty as an acquirement. It is so exquisite in the instructed, so strangely absent in uneducated humanity. But certainly with Millie it was inborn and hearty, and so she could enter into my raptures and requite them. Then over one of those beautiful Derbyshine walls we drove, and so into a wide wooded hollow, where was our first viewer of Cousin Monica's pretty gabled house, beautified with that indescribable air of shelter and comfort which belongs to an old English residence, with old timber grouped round it, and something in its aspect of the quaint old times and bygone merry-makings. Saying sadly but genially, come in, I bid you welcome. For two hundred years or more have I been the home of this beloved old family, whose generations I have seen in the cradle and in the coffin, and whose mirth and sorrows and hospitalities I remember. All their friends like you were welcome, and you like them will here enjoy the warm illusions that cheat the sad conditions of mortality, and like them you will go your way, and others succeed you, till at last I too shall yield to the general law of decay and disappear. By this time poor Millie had grown very nervous, a state which she described in such very odd phraseology as through me, in spite of myself, for I affected an impressive gravity in lecturing her upon her language into a hearty fit of laughter. I must mention, however, that in certain important points Millie was very essentially reformed. Her dress, though not very fashionable, was no longer absurd, and I had drilled her into speaking and laughing quietly, and for the rest I trusted to the indulgence, which is always, I think, more honestly and easily obtained from well-bred than from underbred people. Cousin Monica was out when we arrived, but we found that she had arranged a double-bedded room for me and Millie, greatly to our content, and Good Mary Quince was placed in a dressing-room beside us. We had only just commenced our toilet when our hostess entered, as usual in high spirits, welcomed and kissed us both again and again. She was indeed in extraordinary delight, for she had anticipated some stratagem or evasion to prevent our visit, and in her usual way she spoke her mind as frankly about Uncle Silas to poor Millie as she used to do of my dear father to me. I did not think he would let you come without a battle, and you know if he chose to be obstinate, it would not have been easy to get you out of the enchanting ground, for so it seems to be with that awful old wizard in the midst of it. I mean, Silas, your papa, my dear, honestly, is not he very like Michael Scott? I never saw him, answered poor Millie, at least the time aware of, she added, perceiving a smile, but I do think he's a thought like old Michael Dobbs, that sells the ferrets, maybe you mean him. Why, you told me more that you and Millie were reading Walter Scott's poems. Well, no matter, Michael Scott, my dear, was a dead wizard, with ever so much silvery hair lying in his grave for ever so many years, with just life enough to scowl when they took his book, and you'll find him in the lay of the last minstrel, exactly like your papa, my dear. And my people tell me that your brother Dudley has been seen drinking and smoking, about Feltron this week. How long does he remain at home? Not very long, eh? And, more dear, he has not been making love to you. Well, I see, of course he has, and, apropos of love-making, I hope that impudent creature Charles Oakley has not been teasing you with notes or verses. Indeed, but he has, though, interposed Miss Millie, a good deal to my chagrin, for I saw no particular reason for placing his verses in Cousin Monica's hands. So I confessed the two little copies of verses, with the qualification, however, that I did not know from whom they came. Well, now, dear Maude, have not I told you fifty times over to have nothing to say to him? I found out, my dear, he plays, and he is very much in debt. I've made a vow to pay no more for him. I've been such a fool, you have no notion. And I'm speaking, you know, against myself. It would be such a relief if he were to find a wife to support him. And he has been, I'm told, very sweet upon a rich old maid, a button-maker's sister, in Manchester. This arrow was well shot. But don't be frightened. You are richer as well as younger, and no doubt will have your first chance, my dear. And in the meantime, I dare say, those verses like Faustaf's Billet-Dew, you know, are doing double duty. I laughed, but the button-maker was a secret trouble to me, and I would have given I know not what that Captain Oakley were one of the company that I might treat him with the refined contempt which his desserts and my dignity demanded. Cousa Monica visit herself about Millie's toilet, and was a very useful lady's maid, chatting in her own way all the time. And at last, tapping Millie under the chin with her finger, she said, very complacently, I think I have succeeded, Miss Millie. Look in the glass. She really is a very pretty creature. And Millie blushed and looked with a shy gratification, which made her still prettier on the mirror. Millie indeed was very pretty. She looked much taller now that her dresses were made of the usual length. A little plump she was, beautifully fair, with such azure eyes and rich hair. The more you laugh, the better, Millie, for you've got very pretty teeth. Very pretty. And if you were my daughter, or if your father would become president of a college of magicians, and give you up to me, I venture to say I would place you very well, and even as it is, we must try, my dear. So down to the drawing-room we went, and Cousa Monica entered, leading us both by the hands. By this time the curtains were closed, and the drawing-room depended on the pleasant glow of the fire, and the slight provisional illumination usual before dinner. Here are my two cousins began, Lady Nones. This is Miss Ruthin of Gnoll, who might take the liberty of calling Maude, and this is Miss Millicent Ruthin, Silas's daughter, you know, whom I venture to call Millie. And they are very pretty, as you will see, when we get a little more light, and they know it very well themselves. And as she spoke, a frank-eyed, gentle, prettiest lady, not so tall as I, but with a very kind face, rose up from a book of prints, and smiling took her hands. She was by no means young, as I then counted youth, past thirty, I suppose, and with an air that was very quiet and friendly and engaging. She had never been a mere fashionable woman, plainly, but she had the ease and polish of the best society, and seemed to take a kindly interest both in Millie and me. And cousin Monica called her Mary, and sometimes Polly. That was all I knew of her for the present. So very pleasantly the time passed by, till the dressing-bell rang, and we ran away to our room. Did I say anything very bad? asked poor Millie, standing exactly before me, so soon as our door was shut. Nothing, Millie, you are doing admirably. And I do look a great fool, don't I? she demanded. You look extremely pretty, Millie, and not a bit like a fool. I watch everything. I think I'll learn it at last, but it comes a little troublesome at first, and they do talk different from what I used. You were quite right there. When we returned to the drawing-room we found the party already assembled and chatting evidently with spirit. The village doctor, whose name I forget, the small man, grey, with shrewd grey eyes, sharp and mulberry nose, whose conflagration extended to his rugged cheeks, and touched his chin and forehead, was conversing, no doubt agreeably, with Mary, as Cousin Monica called her guest. Over my shoulder Millie whispered, Mr. Carysborough, and Millie was quite right, that gentleman chatting with Lady Nollis, his elbow resting on the chimney-piece, was indeed our acquaintance of the windmill wood. He instantly recognised us, and met us with his pleased and intelligent smile. I was just trying to describe to Lady Nollis the charming scenery of the windmill wood, among which I was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance, Miss Ruffin. Even in this beautiful county I know of nothing prettier. Then he sketched it, as it were, with a few light but glowing words. What a sweet scene, said Cousin Monica. Only think of her never bringing me through it. She reserves it, I fancy, for her romantic adventures. And you, I know, are very benevolent, Tilbury, and all that kind of thing. But I'm not quite certain that you would have walked along that narrow parapet over a river to visit a sick old woman, if you had not happened to see two very pretty demoiselles on the other side. What an ill-natured speech! I must either forfeit my character for disinterested benevolence so justly admired, or disavow a motive that does such infinite credit to my taste! exclaimed Mr. Carersbrook. I think a charitable person would have said that a philanthropist, in prosecuting his virtuous but perilous vocation, was unexpectedly rewarded by a vision of angels. And with these angels loitered away the time which ought to have been devoted to good mother Hubbard, in her fit of lumbago, and returned, without having set eyes on that afflicted Christian, to amaze his worthy sister with poetic babblings about wooden imps and such pagan impieties. Rejoined Lady Nollis. Well, be just, he replied, laughing. Did not I go next day and see the patient? Yes, next day you went by the same route, in quest of the driads, I am afraid, and were rewarded by the spectacle of mother Hubbard. Well, nobody helped a humane man in difficulties, Mr. Carersbrook appealed. I do believe, said the Lady, whom as yet I knew only as Mary, that every word that Monica says is perfectly true. And if it be so, am I not all the more in need of help? Truth is simply the most dangerous kind of defamation, and I really think I am most cruelly persecuted. At this moment dinner was announced, and a meek and dapple little clergyman with smooth pink cheeks and tresses parted down the middle, whom I had not seen before, emerged from shadow. This little man was assigned to Millie, Mr. Carersbrook to me, and I know not how the remaining ladies divided the doctor between them. That dinner, the first at Elverston, I remember as a very pleasant repast. Everyone talked, it was impossible that conversation should flag where Lady Nollis was, and Mr. Carersbrook was very agreeable and amusing. At the other side of the table, the little pink curate I was happy to see was prattling away, with a modest fluency, in an undertone to Millie, who was following my instructions most conscientiously, and speaking in so low a key that I could hardly hear, at the opposite side, one word she was saying. That night Cousin Monica paid us a visit, as we sat chatting by the fire in our room, and I told her, I have just been telling Millie what an impression she has made. The pretty little clergyman, Ilon Aitpley, he has evidently quite lost his heart to her. I dare say who preach next Sunday on some of King Solomon's wise sayings about the irresistible strength of women. Yes, said Lady Nollis, or maybe on the sensible text, whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour, and so forth. At all events I may say Millie, whoso findeth a husband such as he, findeth a tolerably good thing. He is an exemplary little creature, second son of Sir Harry Biddlepen, with a little independent income of his own, beside his church revenues of ninety pounds a year, and I don't think a more harmless and docile little husband could be found anywhere, and I think, Miss Mord, you seemed a good deal interested too. I laughed and blushed, I suppose, and Cousin Monica, skipping after her want to quite another matter, said in her odd frank way, and how has Silas been? Not cross, I hope, or very odd. There was a rumour that your brother Dudley had gone a-soldering to India Millie, or somewhere, and that was all a story, for he has turned up just as usual. And what does he mean to do with himself? He has got some money now, your poor father's will, Mord. Surely he doesn't mean to go on lounging and smoking away his life among poachers and prize-fighters, and worse people. He ought to go to Australia like Thomas Swain, who, they say, is making a fortune, a great fortune, and coming home again. That's what your brother Dudley should do, if he has either sense or spirit. But I suppose he won't, too long abandoned to idleness and low company, and he'll not have a shilling left in a year or two. Does he know, I wonder, that his father has served a notice or something on Dr. Briley, telling him to pay sixteen hundred pounds of poor Austen's legacy to him, and saying that he has paid to debts of the young man and holds his acknowledgements to that amount? You won't have a guinea in a year if he stays here. I'd give fifty pounds he was in Van Diemen's land. Not that I care for the cub Millie any more than you do, but I really don't see any honest business he has in England. Millie gaped in a total puzzle, as Lady Nollis rattled on. You know, Millie, you must not be talking about this when you go home to Bartram, because Silas would prevent your coming to me any more if he thought I spoke so freely. But I can't help it. So you must promise to be more discreet than I. And I am told that all kinds of claims are about to be pressed against him, now that he is thought to have got some money, and he has been cutting down oak and selling the bark, Dr. Brailey has been told, in that windmill wood, and he has kilns there for burning charcoal, and got a man from Lancashire who understands it, hawk or something like that. I, hawk, stick and hawk, that pegged up, you know, Maud, said Millie. Well, I daresay, but a man of very bad character, Dr. Brailey says, and he has written to Mr. Danvers about it, that is what they call waste, cutting down and selling the timber and the oak bark and burning the willows and other trees that had turned into charcoal. It is all waste, and Dr. Brailey is about to put a stop to it. Has he got your carriage for you, Maud, and your horses? asked Kazimonica suddenly. They have not come yet, but in a few weeks, Dudley says positively. Kazimonica laughed a little and shook her head. Yes, Maud, the carriage and horses will always be coming in a few weeks till the time is over, and meanwhile the old travelling chariot and post-horses will do very well. And she laughed a little again. That's why the styles pulled away at the pailing, I suppose, and beauty, Meg Hawks, that is, is put there to stop us going through, for I often spied the smoke beyond the windmill, observed Millie. Kazimonica listened with interest and nodded silently. I was very much shocked. It seemed to me quite incredible. I think Lady Nullis read my amazement and my exalted estimate of the hennessness of the procedure in my face, for she said, You know we can't quite condemn Silas till we have heard what he has to say. He may have done it in ignorance, or it is just possible he may have the right. Quite true. He may have the right to cut down trees at Bartram Howe. At all events, I am sure he thinks he has, I echoed. The fact was that I would not avow to myself a suspicion of Uncle Silas. Any falsehood there opened an abyss beneath my feet into which I dared not look. And now, dear girls, good night, you must be tired. We breakfast at a quarter-past nine, not too early for you, I know. And so sane, she kissed us, smiling, and was gone. I was so unpleasantly occupied for some time after her departure with the neighbours said to be practised among the dense cover of the wind mill wood, that I did not immediately recollect that we had omitted to ask her any particulars about her guests. Who can Mary be? asked me. Cousin Monica says she's engaged to be married and I think I heard the doctor call her Lady Mary, and I intended asking her ever so much about her, but what she told us about cutting down the trees and all that quite put it out of my head. We shall have time enough tomorrow, however, to ask questions. I like her very much, I know. And I think, said Millie, it is to Mr. Carriesbrook that she's to be married. Do you, said I, remembering that he had sat beside her for more than a quarter of an hour after tea in very close and low-turned conversation and have you any particular reason? I asked. Well, I heard her once or twice call him dear and she called him his Christian name just like Lady Nollis did Ilbury I think and I saw him gear sly kiss as she was going upstairs. I laughed. Well Millie, I said, I remarked something myself I thought like confidential relations, but if you really saw them kiss on the staircase the question is pretty well settled. I laugh. You're not to say laugh. Well, more than. I did see them with the corner of my eye and my back turned when they did not think I could spy anything as plain as I see you now. I laughed again but I felt an odd pan something of mortification, something of regret as I stood before the glass unmaking my toilet preparatory to bed. Maud, Maud, fickle Maud what Captain Oakley already superseded and Mr. Carriesbrook, oh humiliation engaged. So I smiled on very much vexed and being afraid lest I had listened with too apparent an interest to this imposter I sang a verse of a gay little chancel and tried to think of Captain Oakley who somehow had become rather silly. End of Chapter 42 Chapter 43 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 43 News at Bartram Gate Millie and I, thanks to our early Bartram hours were first down next morning and so soon as cousin Monica appeared we attacked her. So Lady Mary is the fiancee of Mr. Carriesbrook said I, very cleverly and I think it was very wicked of you to try and involve me in a flirtation with him yesterday. And who told you that, pray, asked Lady Nullis with a pleasant little laugh. Millie and I discovered it simple as we stand here, I answered. But you did not flirt with Mr. Carriesbrook, Maud, did you? she asked. No, certainly not. But that was not your doing, wicked woman, but my discretion. And now that we know your secret you must tell us all about her and all about him. And in the first place, what is her name? Lady Mary, what? I demanded. Who would have thought you so cunning? Two country-misses, two little nuns from the cloisters of Bartram. Well, I suppose I must answer. It is vain trying to hide anything from you. But how on earth did you find out? We'll tell you that presently. But you shall first tell us who she is, I persisted. Well, that I will, of course, without compulsion. She is Lady Mary Carriesbrook, said Lady Nullis. A relation of Mr. Carriesbrook's, I asserted. Yes, a relation. But who told you he was Mr. Carriesbrook? asked Cousin Monica. Millie told me when we saw him he went to Millwood. And who told you, Millie? It was Lamour, answered Millie, with her blue eyes very wide open. What does the child mean, Lamour? You don't mean love, explained Lady Nullis, puzzled in her turn. I mean old Wyatt. She told me and the Governor. You're not to say that, I interposed. You mean your father, suggested Lady Nullis. Father told her and so I knew him. What could he mean? exclaimed Lady Nullis, laughing, as it were in soliloquy. And I did not mention his name, I recollect now. He recognised you and you him when you came into the room yesterday. And now you must tell me how you discovered that he and Lady Mary were to be married. So Millie restated her evidence and Lady Nullis laughed unaccountably heartily and she said they will be so confounded, but they deserve it. And remember, I did not say so. Oh, we acquit you. All I say is, such a deceitful, dangerous pair of girls or things considered, I never heard of before, exclaimed Lady Nullis. There's no such thing as conspiring in your presence. Good morning, I hope you slept well. She was addressing the ladies gentlemen who were just entering the room from the conservatory. You'll hardly sleep so well tonight when you have learned what eyes are upon you. Here are two very pretty detectives who have found out your secret and entirely by your imprudence and their own cleverness have discovered that you are a pair of betrothed lovers about to ratify your vows at the hymenial altar. I assure you, I did not tell of you. You betrayed yourselves. You will talk in that confidential way on sofas and call one another stealthily by your Christian names and actually kiss at the foot of the stairs. While a clever detective is scaling them, apparently with her back toward you, you must only take the consequences and be known prematurely as the hero and heroine of the forthcoming paragraph in the morning post. Millie and I were horribly confounded because a moniker was resolved to face us all upon the least formal terms possible and I believe she had set about it in the right way. And now girls, I am going to make a counter-discovery which I fear a little conflicts with yours. This Mr. Carriesbrook is Lord Ilbury, brother of this Lady Mary and it is all my fault for not having done my honours better but you see what clever matchmaking creatures they are. You can't think how flattered I am at being made the subject of a theory even a mistaken one by Miss Rothen. And so after our modest fit was over Millie and I were very merry like the rest and we all grew a great deal more intimate that morning. I think altogether those were the pleasantest and happiest days of my life gay, intelligent and kindly society at home charming excursions sometimes riding sometimes by carriage to distant points of beauty in the county evenings varied with music reading and spirited conversation now and then a visitor for a day or two and constantly some neighbour from the town or its dependencies dropped in. Of these I but remember tall old Miss Winteltop most entertaining of rustic old maids with her nice lace and thick satin and her small kindly round face pretty I dare say in other days and now frosty but kindly who told us such delightful old stories of the county in her fathers and grandfathers time who knew the lineage of every family in it and could recount all its jewels and elopements give us illustrative snatches from old election squibs from epitaphs until exactly where all the old world highway robberies have been committed how it fared with the chief delinquents after their sizes and above all where and of what sort the goblins and elves of the county had made themselves seen from the phantom post boy who every third night crossed windail maul by the old coach road to the fat old ghost in Muldbury velvet who showed his great face crutch and ruffles by moonlight at the bow window of the old courthouse that was taken down in 1803 you cannot imagine what agreeable evenings we passed in this society or how rapidly my good cousin Millie improved in it I remember well the intense suspense in which she and I awaited the answer from Bartram Howe to kind cousin Monica's application for an extension of our leave of absence it came and with it a note from Uncle Silas which was curious and therefore is printed here my dear Lady Nollis to your kind letter I say yes that is for another week not a fortnight with all my heart I'm glad to hear that my starlings chatter so pleasantly at all events the refrain is not that of sterns they can get out and do get out and shall get out as much as they please I am no jailer and shut up nobody but myself I have always thought that young people have too little liberty my principle has been to make little free men and women of them from the first in morals or together in intellect more than we allow self-education is that which abides and it only begins where constraint ends such is my theory my practice is consistent let them remain for a week longer as you say the horses shall be at Elverston on Tuesday the 7th I shall be more than usually sad and solitary till their return so pray I selfishly entreat do not extend their absence you will smile remembering how little my health will allow me to see of them even when at home but as Shoria so prettily says I stupidly forget the words but the sentiment is this although concealed by a silver wall of leaves impenetrable he is pursuing his favourite nymphs through the alleys and intricacies of a rustic labyrinth yet your songs your prattle and your laughter faint and far away inspire my fancy and through my ears I see your unseen smiles your blushes your floating tresses and your ivory feet and so though sad and happy though alone in company and such is my case one only request and I have done pray remind them of a promise made to me the book of life the fountain of life it must be drunk of night and morning or their spiritual life expires and now heaven bless and keep you my dear cousin and with all assurances of affection to my beloved niece and my child believe me ever yours affectionately Silas Ruffin said cousin Monika with a waggish smile and so girls you have Shulia and the evangelists the French rhinester in his alley and Silas in the valley of the shadow of death perfect liberty and a peremptory order to return in a week all illustrating one another poor Silas old as he is and the vision fits him I really rather liked his letter I was struggling hard to think well of him and cousin Monika knew it and I really think if I had not been by she would often have been less severe on him as we were all sitting pleasantly about the breakfast table a day or two after the sun shining on the pleasant wintry landscape cousin Monika suddenly exclaimed I quite forgot to tell you Charles Oakley has written to say he is coming on Wednesday I really don't want him put Charlie I wonder how they manage those doctor's certificates I know nothing ails him and he'd be much better with his regiment Wednesday how odd exactly the day after my departure I tried to look perfectly unconcerned Lady Nollis had addressed herself more to Lady Mary and Millie than to me because nobody in particular was looking at me not withstanding with my usual perversity I felt myself blushing with a brilliancy that may have been very becoming but which was so intolerably provoking that I would have risen and left the room but that matters would have been so infinitely worse I could have boxed my odious ears I could almost have jumped from the window I felt that Lord Elbury saw it I saw Lady Mary's eyes for a moment resting gravely on my tell-tail my lying cheeks for I really have begun to think much less celestially of Captain Oakley I was angry with Cousin Monica who, knowing my blushing infirmity have mentioned her nephew so suddenly while I was strapped by etiquette in my chair with my face to the window and two pair of most disconcerting eyes at least opposite I was angry with myself generally angry refused more tea rather dryly and was laconic to Lord Elbury all which of course was very cross and foolish and afterwards from my bedroom window I saw Cousin Monica and Lady Mary among the flowers under the drawing-room window talking as I instinctively knew of that little incident I was standing at the glass my odious stupid purged face I whispered furiously at the same time stamping on the floor and giving myself quite a smart slap on the cheek I can't go down I'm ready to cry I've a mind to return to Bartram today I'm always blushing and I wish that impudent Captain Oakley was at the bottom of the sea I was perhaps thinking more of Lord Elbury than I was aware and I am sure that if Captain Oakley had arrived that day I should have treated him with most unjustifiable rudeness notwithstanding this unfortunate blush the remainder of our visit passed very happily for me no one who has not experienced it can have an idea how intimate a small party such as ours will grow in a short time in a country house of course a young lady of a well-regulated mind cannot possibly care a pin about any one of the opposite sex until she is well assured that he is beginning, at least to like her better than all the world beside but I could not deny to myself that I was rather anxious to know more about Lord Elbury than I actually did know there was a peerage in its bright scarlet and gold uniform copulent and tempting upon the little marble table in the drawing room I have many opportunities of consulting it but I never could find courage to do so for an inexperienced person it would have been a matter of several minutes and during those minutes what awful risk of surprise and detection one day all being quiet I did venture and actually with a beating heart got so far as to find out the letter I L when I heard a step outside the door which opened a little bit and I heard Lady Nollis luckily arrested at the entrance talk some sentences outside her hand still upon the door handle I shut the book as Mrs Bluebeard mites the door of the chamber of horrors at the sound of her husband's step and skipped to a remote part of the room where cousin Nollis found me in a mysterious state of agitation on any other subject I would have questioned cousin Monica unhesitatingly upon this somehow I was dumb I distrusted myself and dreaded my odious habit of blushing and knew that I should look so horribly guilty and become so agitated and odd that she would have reasonably concluded that I had quite lost my heart to him after the lesson I had received and my narrow escape of detection in a very apt you may be sure I never trusted myself with the vicinity of that fat and cruel peerage which possessed the secret but would not disclose without compromising me in this state of tantalising darkness and conjecture I should have departed had not cousin Monica quite spontaneously relieved me the night before our departure she sat with us in our room chatting a little farewell gossip and what do you think of Ilbury she asked clever and accomplished and amusing and he sometimes appears to me very melancholy that is for a few minutes together and then I fancy with an effort to re-engage us in our conversation yes poor Ilbury he lost his brother only about five months since and he's only beginning to recover his spirits a little they were very much attached and people thought that he would have succeeded to the title had he lived because Ilbury is difficile or a philosopher or a Saint Kevin and in fact has begun to be treated as a premature old bachelor what a charming person his sister Lady Mary is she has made me promise to write to her as said I suppose such hypocrites are we to prove to cousin Nollis that I did not care particularly to hear anything more about him yes and so devoted to him he came down here and took the Grange for change of scene and solitude of all things the worst for a man in grief a morbid whim as he is beginning to find out for he is very glad to stay here and confesses that he is much better since he came his letters are still addressed to him as Mr. Carersbrook for he fancied if his rank were known that the county people would have been calling upon him and so he would have found himself soon involved in a some round of dinners and must have gone somewhere else you saw him Millie at Bartram before Maud came yes she had when he called there to see her father he thought as he had accepted the trusteeship that he could hardly residing so near a mitt to visit Silas he was very much struck and interested by him and he had a better opinion of him you are not angry Millie then some ill natured people I could name and he says that the cutting down of the trees will turn out to have been a mere slip but these slips don't occur with clever men in other things and some persons have a way of always making them in their own favour and to talk of other things I suspect that you and Millie will probably see Ilbury at Bartram for I think he likes you very much you did she mean both or only me so our pleasant visit was over Millie's good little curate had been much thrown in her way by a deep and dangerous cousin Monica he was most laudably steady and his flirtation advanced upon the field of theology where happily Millie's little reading had been concentrated a mild and earnest interest in poor pretty Millie's orthodoxy was the leading feature of his case and I was highly amused at her references to me when we had retired at night upon the points which she had disputed with him and her anxious reports of their low-toned conferences carried on upon as the questioned Ottoman where he patted and stroked his crossed leg as he smiled tenderly and shook his head at her questionable doctrine Millie's reverence for her instructor and his admiration grew daily and he was known among us as Millie's Confessor he took luncheon with us on the day of our departure and with an adroit privacy which in a layman would have been sly presented her in right of his holy calling with a little book the binding of which was medieval and costly and whose letterpress dealt in a way which he commended with some points on which she was not satisfactory and she found on the flyleaf presented to Miss Millicent Ruffin by an earnest well-wisher 1st of December, 1844 a text very neatly penned followed this and the presentation was made anxiously indeed but with a blush as well as the accustomed smile and with eyes that were lowered the early crimson son of December had gone down behind the hills before we took our seats in the carriage Lord Ilbury leaned with his elbow on the carriage window looking in and he said to me I really don't know what we shall do Miss Ruffin we shall all feel so lonely for myself I think I shall run away to Grange this appeared to me as nearly perfect eloquence as human lips could utter his hand still rested on the window and the reverent sprig-biddle-pen was standing with a saddened smirk on the door-steps when the whip smacked the horses scrambled into motion and away we rolled down the avenue leaving behind us the pleasantest house and hostess in the world and trotting fleekly into darkness towards Bartram Howe we were both rather silent Millie had her book in her lap and I saw her every now and then try to read her earnest well-wishers little inscription with the light to read by when we reached the great gate of Bartram Howe it was dark old Crown who kept the gate I heard him joining a Sicilian to make no avoidable noise at the whole door for the odd but startling reason that he believed my uncle would be dead by this time very much shocked and frightened we stopped the carriage and questioned the tremulous old porter Uncle Silas it seemed had been sillyish all yesterday and could not be woke this morning and the doctor had been here twice being now in the house is he better I asked tremblingly not as I'm aware on this he lay at God's mercy two hours ago and he's in heaven by this time drive on, drive fast I said to the driver don't be frightened Millie please heaven we shall find all going well after some delay during which my heart sank and I quite gave up Uncle Silas the agey little servant man opened the door and trotted shakily down the steps to the carriage side Uncle Silas had been at death's door for hours the question of life had trembled in the scale but now the doctor said he might do where was the doctor in master's room he blooded him three hours ago I don't think that Millie was so frightened as I my heart beat and I was trembling so that I could hardly get upstairs End of Chapter 43 Chapter 44 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 44 A friend arises at the top of the great staircase I was glad to see the friendly face of Mary Quintz who stood candle in hand greeting us with many little courtesies and a very haggard and pallid smile very welcome miss hoping you are very well all well and you are well Mary and oh tell us quickly how is Uncle Silas we thought he was gone miss this morning but doing fairly now doctor says in a trance like I was helping Ob Wyatt most of the day and was there when doctor blooded him and he spoke at last but he must be awful weak he took a deal of blood from his arm miss I held the basin and he's better decidedly better I asked well he's better doctor says he taught some and doctor says if he goes off asleep again and begins a snoring like he did before we're to loose the bandage and let him bleed till he comes to his self again which it seems to me and Wyatt the same thing almost the same he's to be killed off hand for I don't believe he has a drop to spare as you'll say likewise miss if you'll please look in the basin this was not an invitation with which I cared to comply I thought I was going to faint I sat on the stairs and sipped a little water and quince sprinkled a little in my face and my strength returned Millie must have felt her father's danger more than I for she was affectionate and loved him from habit and relation although he was not kind to her but I was more nervous and more impetuous and my feelings both stimulated and overpowered me more easily the moment I was able to stand I said thinking of nothing but the one idea we must see him come Millie I entered his sitting room a common dip candle hanging like a tower of pizza with a dim long wick in a greasy candlestick profane the table of the fastidious invalid the light was a little better than darkness and I crossed the room swiftly still transfixed by the one idea of seeing my uncle his bedroom door beside the fireplace stood partly open and I looked in old Wyatt a white high-called ghost was pottering in her slippers in the shadow at the far side of the bed the doctor a stout little bald man with a porch and a big bunch of seals stood with his back to the fireplace which corresponded with that in the next room eyeing his patient through the curtains of the bed with a listless sort of importance the head of the large four poster rested against the opposite wall its foot was presented toward the fireplace but the curtains at the side which alone I could see from my position were closed the little doctor knew me and thinking me I suppose a person of consequence removed his hands from behind him suffering the skirts of his coat to fall forward and with great celerity and gravity made me a low but important bow then choosing more particularly to make my acquaintance he further advanced and with another reverence he introduced himself as Dr. Jolks in a murmured diapason he bowed me back again into my uncle's study and the light of old Wyatt's dreadful candle Dr. Jolks was suave and pompous I longed for a fussy practitioner who would have got over the ground in half the time coma madam coma Miss Ruthin your uncle I may tell you has been in a very critical state highly so coma of the most obstinate type he would have sunk he must have gone in fact had I not resorted to a very extreme remedy and bled him freely which happily told precisely as we could have wished a wonderful constitution a marvellous constitution prodigious nervous fibre the greatest pity in the world he won't give himself fair play his habits you know are quite I may say destructive we do our best we do all we can but if the patient won't cooperate it can't possibly end satisfactorily and Jolks accompanied this with an awful shrug is there anything do you think change of air what an awful complaint it is I exclaimed looking down and shook his head undertaker like why we can hardly call it a complaint Miss Ruthin I look upon it he has been poisoned he has had you understand me he pursued observing my startled look an overdose of opium you know he takes opium habitually he takes it in Lordnam he takes it in water and most dangerous of all he takes it solid in lozenges I've known people take it moderately I've known people take it to excess but they all were particular as to measure and that is exactly the point I've tried to impress upon him the habit of course you understand is formed there's no uprooting that but he won't measure he goes by the I am by sensation which I need not tell you Miss Ruthin is going by chance and opium as no doubt you are aware is strictly a poison a poison no doubt which habit will enable you to partake of I may say inconsiderable quantities without fatal consequences but still a poison and to exhibit a poison so is I need scarcely tell you to trifle with death he has been so threatened and for a time he changes his mode of dealing with it and then returns he may escape of course that is possible but he may any day overdo the thing I don't think the present crisis will result seriously I am very glad independently of the honour of making your acquaintance Miss Ruthin that you and your cousin have returned for however zealous I feel the servants are deficient in intelligence and as in the event of a recurrence of the symptoms which however is not probable I would beg to inform you of their nature and how exactly best to deal with them so upon these points he delivered us a pompous little lecture and begged that either Millie or I would remain in the room with the patient until his return at two or three o'clock in the morning a reappearance of the coma might be very bad indeed of course Millie and I did as we were directed we sat by the fire scarcely daring to whisper Uncle Silas about whom a new and dreadful suspicion began to haunt me lay still and motionless as if he were actually dead had he attempted to poison himself if he believed his position to be as desperate as Lady Nollis had described it was this after all improbable strange wild theories I had been told mixed up in his religion sometimes at an hour's interval a sign of life would come a moan from that tall cheated figure in the bed a moan and a pattering of the lips was it prayer? what was it? who could guess what thoughts were passing behind that white filleted forehead I had peeped at him a white cloth steeped in vinegar and water was folded around his head his great eyes were closed so were his marble lips his figure straight, thin and long, dressed in a white dressing-gam looked like a corpse laid out in the bed his gaunt bandaged arm lay outside the sheet that covered his body was this awful image of death we kept our vigil until prom Millie grew so sleepy that old Wyatt proposed that she should take her place and watch with me little as I liked the chrome with the high cold cap she would at all events keep awake which Millie could not and so at one o'clock this new arrangement began Mr. Dudley Ruffin is not at home I whispered to old Wyatt he went away with himself yesterday night to clop at a miss to see the wrestling it was to come off this morning was he sent for? not he and why not? this I'm thinking and the old woman grinned uglyly when is he to return when he wants money so we grew silent and again I thought of suicide and of the unhappy old man who just then whispered a sentence or two to himself with a sigh for the next hour he had been quite silent and old Wyatt informed me that she must go down for candles hours were already burnt down sockets there's a candle in the next room I suggested hating the idea of being left alone with the patient who, miss, I dare not set a candle but wax in his presence whispered the old woman scornfully I think if we were to stir the fire and put on a little more coal we should have a great deal of light he'll have the candles said Dame Wyatt doggedly and she tottered from the chamber muttering to herself and I heard her take her candle from the next room and depart shutting the outer door after her here was I then alone but for this unearthly companion whom I feared inexpressibly at two o'clock in the vast old house of Bartram I stirred the fire it was low and would not blaze I stood up and with my hand on the mantelpiece endeavoured to think of cheerful things but it was a struggle against wind and tide vein and so I drifted away into haunted regions Uncle Silas was perfectly still I would not suffer myself to think of the number of dark rooms and passages which now separated me from the other living tenants of the house I awaited with a false composure the return of old Wyatt over the mantelpiece was a looking-glass at another time this might have helped to entertain my solitary moments but now I did not like to venture a peep a small thick Bible lay on the chimney-piece and leaning its back against the mirror I began to reading it with a mind as attentively directed as I could while so engaged in turning over the leaves I lighted upon two or three odd-looking papers which had been folded into it one was a broad printed thing with names and dates written into blank spaces and was about the size of a quarter of a yard of very broad ribbon the others were mere scraps with dudly roughing penned in my cousin's vulgar round hand at the foot while I folded and replaced these I really didn't know what caused me to fancy that something was moving behind me as I stood with my back toward the bed I do not recollect any sound whatever but instinctively I glanced into the mirror and my eyes were instantly fixed by what I saw the figure of Uncle Silas rose up and dressed in a long white morning-gown slid over the end of the bed and with two or three swift noiseless steps stood behind me with a death-like scowl and a simper preternaturally tall and thin he stood for a moment almost touching me with the white bandage pinned across his forehead his bandage darned stiffly by his side and diving over my shoulder with his long thin hand he snatched the Bible and whispered over my head the serpent beguiled her and she did eat and after a momentary pause he glided to the farthest window and appeared to look out upon the midnight prospect it was cold but he did not seem to feel it with the same inflexible scowl and smile he continued to look out for several minutes and then with a great sigh he sat down on the side of his bed his face immovably turned towards me with the same painful look it seemed to me an hour before old Wyatt came back and never was Lover made happier at sight of his mistress than I to behold that withered crow you may be sure I did not prolong my watch there was now plainly no risk of my uncle's relapsing into lethargy I had a long hysterical fit of weeping when I got into my room with honest merry quints by my side whenever I closed my eyes the face of Uncle Silas was before me as I had seen it reflected in the glass the sorceries of Bartram were enveloping me once more next morning the doctor said he was quite out of danger but very weak Millie and I saw him and again in our afternoon walk we saw the doctor marching under the trees in the direction of Windmill Wood going down to see that poor girl there he said when he had made his salutation prodding with his levelled stick in the direction hawk or hawks I think beauty's sick, Maud explained Millie hawks she's upon my dispensary list yes said the doctor looking into his little notebook hawks and what is her complaint rheumatic fever not infectious not the least no more as we say Miss Ruffin and a broken leg and he laughed obligingly so soon as the doctor had departed Millie and I agreed to follow to hawks' cottage and inquire more particularly how she was to say truth I am afraid it was rather for the sake of giving our walk a purpose and a point of termination than for any real charitable interest we might have felt in the patient over the inequalities of the upland slope clumped with trees we reached the gabled cottage with its neglected little farmyard a rheumatic old woman was the only attendant and having turned her ear in an attitude of attention she introduced us to gradually exalted keys to inquire how Meg was she informed us in very loud tones that she had long lost her hearing and was perfectly deaf and added considerably when the man comes in and he'll tell you what you want through the door of a small room at the further end of that in which we were we could see a portion of the narrow apartment of the patient and hear her moans and the doctor's voice you'll see him Millie when he comes out let us wait here we stood upon the doorstone awaiting him the sounds of suffering have moved my compassion and interested us for the sick girl blessed if here isn't pegged tops said Millie and the weather-stained red coat the swarthy forbidding face and sooted locks of old hawks loomed in sight as he stumped studying himself with his stick over the uneven pavement of the yard he touched his hat gruffly to me but did not seem half to like our being where we were for he took surly and scratched his head under his wide awake your daughter is very ill I'm afraid said I I should be cussing me a handful like her mother did said pegged top I hope her room is comfortable poor thing that's it she'd be comfortable enough I warrant more on her eye now to dicken when did her illness commence I asked day and mare were shot Saturday I talked a bit with the workers folk but they won't gear now to dang them and how be I to do it it'll be always hard bread with silas and a deal harder now she's tending pains and won't stand much longer damn and if she keeps on that way I'll just cut see other workers fellas are like that the doctor gives his services for nothing I said and does nothing bless him no more no that old death gammon there that cuss me three tisses a week and ain't worth a fuss no more no Meg there that's making all she can of them pains they'll be all of falling on me and thinks I don't know it eh we'll see all this time he was cutting a bit of tobacco into shreds of window stone a working man be same as her horse if he bent cared he can't work it isn't in him and with these words having by this time stuffed his pipe with tobacco he poked the deaf lady who was pattering around with her back toward him rather viciously with the point of his stick and signed for a light it bent in him you can't get it out of him no more no you draw smoke out of this and he raised his pipe an inch or two with his thumb on the bowl wrapped baggy and fire it isn't in it maybe I can be of some use I said thinking maybe he rejoined by this time he received from the old deaf Abigail a flaming roll of brown paper and touching his hat to me he withdrew lighting his pipe and sending up little white puffs like the salute of a departing ship so he did not care to hear how his daughter was and had only come here to light his pipe just then the doctor emerged we have been waiting to hear how your poor patient is today I said very ill indeed and utterly neglected I fear if she were equal to it but she's not I think she ought to be removed at the hospital immediately that poor old woman is quite deaf and the man is so surly and selfish could you recommend a nurse who would stay here till she's better I will pay her with pleasure and anything you might think be good for the poor girl so this was settled on the spot Dr. Jokes was kind like most men if he's calling and undertook to send the nurse from Feltrum with a few comforts for the patient and he called Dickon to the yard gate and as opposed told him of the arrangement and Millie and I went to the poor girl's door and asked may we come in there was no answer so with the conventional construction of silence we entered her look showed how ill she was we adjusted her bed clothes and darkened the room we did what we could for her noting beside what her comfort chiefly required she did not answer any questions she did not thank us I should almost have fancied that she had not perceived our presence had I not observed her dark sunken eyes once or twice turned up towards my face with a dismal look of wonder and inquiry the girl was very ill and we went every day to see her sometimes she would answer our questions sometimes not thoughtful observance surly she seemed and as people like to be thanked I sometimes wonder that we continued to throw our bread upon these ungrateful waters Millie was especially impatient under this treatment and protested against it and finally refused to accompany me into poor beauty's bedroom I think my good Meg said I one day as I stood by her bed she was now recovering with the sure reassent of youth that you ought to thank Miss Millie now not thank her said beauty doggily very well Meg I only thought I'd ask you for I think you ought as I spoke she very gently took just the tip of my finger which hung close to her coverlet in her fingers and drew it beneath and before I was aware burying her head in the clothes she suddenly clasped my hand in both of hers to her lips and kissed it passionately again and again sobbing I felt her tears I tried to withdraw my hand but she held it with an angry pull and she continued to kiss it do you wish to say anything my poor Meg I asked now miss she sobbed gently and she continued to kiss my hand and weep but suddenly she said I won't thank Millie for it's a you it paint her she hadn't the thought no no it's a you miss I cried heartily in the dark last night thinking of the apples my father wracked me on the head with his stick it was kind of you and very bad of me I wish you beat me miss you're better to me than father or mother better to me than her and I wish I could die for you miss for I'm not fit to look at you I was surprised I began to cry I could have hugged poor Meg I did not know her history I have never learned it since I spoke with the most utter self-abasement before me it was no religious feeling it was a kind of expression of her love and worship of me all the more strange that she was naturally very proud there was nothing she would not have born from me except the slightest suspicion of her entire devotion or that she could in the most trifling way wrong or deceived me I'm not young now I have had my sorrows that wealth virtually unlimited can command and through the retrospect a few bright and pure lights quiver along my life's dark stream dark but for them and these are shared not by the splendour of a splendid fortune but by two or three of the simplest and kindest remembrances such as the poorest and homeliest life may count up and beside which in the quiet hours of memory all artificial triumphs pale and disappear for they are never quenched by time or distance being founded on the affections and so far heavenly End of Chapter 44 Chapter 45 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou this LibriVox recordings in the public domain Chapter 45 a chapter full of lovers we had about this time a pleasant and quite unexpected visit from Lord Ilbury he had come to pay his respects understanding that my Uncle Silas was sufficiently recovered to see visitors and I think I'll run upstairs first and see him if he admits me and then I have ever so long a message from my sister Mary for you and Miss Millicent but I had better dispose of my business first don't you think so and I shall return in a few minutes and as he spoke our tremulous old butler returned to say that Uncle Silas would be happy to see him so he departed and you can't think how pleasant our homely sitting-room looked with his coat and stick in it guarantees of his return do you think Millicent he is going to speak about the timber you know that cousin Nollis spoke of I do hope not so do I said Millicent I wish he'd stayed a bit longer with us first for if he does we'll turn him out of doors and we'll see no more of him exactly my dear Millicent and he's so pleasant and good-natured and he likes you awful well he does I'm sure he likes us both equally Millicent he talked a great deal to you at Elverston and used to ask you so often to sing those two pretty languorship ballads I said but you know when you were at your controversies and religious exercises in the window in the church the reverence sprigs bitter pen you're a weary and nonsense moored how could I help answering when he dodged me up and down my testamenting and catechism and I most ate him I tell you and cousin Nollis you're such fools I do and whatever you say the Lord likes you uncommon and well you know it you hussy I know no such thing and you don't think it you hussy and I really don't care who doesn't except my relations and I make the Lord a present to you if you'll have him in this stream we were talking when he re-entered the room a little sooner than we had expected to see him Millicent who you are to recollect was only in process of reformation and still retained something of the Derbyshire Dairymaid gave me a little clandestine pinch on the arm just as he made his appearance I just refused a present from her said odious Millie in answer to his inquiring look because I knew she could not spare it the effect of all this was that I blushed one of my overpowering blushes people told me they became me very much I hope so for them his fortune was frequent and I think nature owed me that compensation it places you both in a most becoming light said Lord Ilbury quite innocently I really don't know which most to admire the generosity of the offer or of the refusal well it was kind if you but knew I most tempted to tell him said Millie I checked her with a really angry look and said perhaps you have not observed it but I really think for a sensible person my cousin Millie here talks more nonsense than any twenty other girls a twenty girl power that's an immense compliment I have the greatest respect for nonsense I owe it so much and I really think if nonsense were banished the earth would grow insupportable thank you Lord Ilbury said Millie who had grown quite easy in his company during our long visit at Elverston and I tell you Miss Maud if you grow saucy I'll accept your present and what will you say then I really don't know but just now I want to ask Lord Ilbury why he thinks my uncle looks neither I nor Millie have seen him since his illness very much weaker I think but he may be gaining strength still as my business was not quite pleasant I thought it better to postpone it and if you think it would be right I'll write to Dr Briley to ask him to postpone the discussion for a little time I at once assented and thanked him indeed if I had had my way the subject should never have been mentioned I felt so hard-hearted and rapacious but Lord Ilbury explained that the trustees were constrained by the provisions of the will and that I really had no power to release them and I hope that Uncle Silas also understood all this and now, said he we've returned to Grange my sister and I and it is nearer than Elverston so that we are really neighbours and Mary once Lady Nollis shows us a visit you know and you really must come at the same time it will be so very pleasant the same party exactly meeting in a new scene and we have not half explored our neighbourhood and I've got down all those Spanish engravings I told you of and the Venetian missiles and all the rest I think I remember very accurately the things you were most interested by and they're all there and really you must promise you're a very humilicent Ruffin and I forgot to mention you know you complained that you were ill supplied with books so Mary thought she would allow her to share her supply they are the new books you know and when you have read yours you and she can exchange what girl was ever quite frank about her likings I don't think I was more of a cheat than others but I never could tell of myself it is quite true that this duplicity and reserve deceives our hypocrisies are forced upon some of our sex by the acuteness and vigilance of all in this field of inquiry but if we are sly we are also link side capital detectives most ingenious in fitting together the bits and dovetails of a cumulative case and in those affairs of love and liking have a terrible exploratory instinct and so for the most part when detected we are found out not only to be in love but to be rogues moreover Lady Mary was very kind but had Lady Mary for her own mere motion taken all this trouble was there no more energetic influence at the bottom of that welcome chest of books which arrived only half an hour later the circulating library of those days was not the epidemic and ubiquitous influence to which it has grown and there were many places where it could not find you out altogether that evening Bartram had acquired a peculiar beauty a bright and mellow glow in which even its gate posts and wheelbarrow were interesting and next day came a little cloud Dudley appeared you may be sure he wants money said Millie he and father had words this morning he took a chair at our luncheon found fault with everything in his own laconic dialect ate a good deal notwithstanding and was sulky and with Millie snappish to me on the contrary when Millie went into the hall he was mild and whimpering and disposed to be confidential there's the Governor says he hasn't a bob damned if I know how an old fella in his bedroom muddles away money at that rate I don't suppose he thinks I can get along without him and he knows them trustees won't give me a tizzy till they get what they call an opinion Dangham Briley says he doubts it must all go under settlement they'll settle me nicely if they do and Governor knows all about it and won't give me a dang brass farthing in me with bills to pay and lawyers dangham writing letters he knows some of that himself as Governor and he might have consideration a bit for his own flesh and blood I say but he never does now for nobody's self I'll sell his books and his jewels next fit he takes that's how I'll fit him this amiable young man glouring with his elbows on the table and his fingers in his great whiskers followed his homily when clergyman appended the blessing with a muttered variety a very different matter now moored he said pathetically leaning back suddenly in his chair with all his conscious beauty and misfortunes in his face is not it hard lines I thought the appeal was going to shape itself into an application for money but it did not I never know the real beauty first chop of course I mean that wasn't kind along with it and I'm a fella as can't get along without sympathy that's why I say it and isn't it hard lines now say it's hard lines ain't it moored I did not know exactly what hard lines meant but I said I suppose it is very disagreeable and with this concession not caring to hear any more in the same vein I rose intending to take my departure no that's just it I knew you'd say it moored you're a kind lass you be this isn't your pretty face I like you awful I do there's not a handsome a lass in Liverpool London itself nowhere he had seized my hand and trying to place his arm about my waist essayed that salute which I had so narrowly escaped on my first introduction don't sir I exclaimed in high indignation escaping at the same moment from his grasp no offence lass no harm moored you must not be so shy we're cousins you know and I wouldn't hurt you moored no more and I'd knocked my head off I wouldn't I did not wait to hear the rest of his tender protestations but without showing how nervous I was I glided out of the room quietly making an orderly retreat the more meritorious as I heard him call after me persuasively come back moored what you feared on last come back I say do now there's a good wench as Millie and I were taking our walk that day in the direction of the windmill wood to which in consequence perhaps of some secret order we had now free access we saw beauty for the first time since her illness in the little yard throwing grain to the poultry how do you find yourself today Meg I am very glad to see you able to be about again but I hope it is not too soon we were standing at the barred gate of the little enclosure and quite close to Meg who however did not choose to raise her head but continuing to shower her grain and potato skins among her hens and chickens said in a low tone further-baint insight looked just round a bit and say if you see him but Dickens dusky red costume was nowhere visible so Meg looked up pale and thin and with her old grave observant eyes and she said quietly it isn't that I'm not glad to see you but if father was to spy me talking friendly with you now that I'm hearty and you having no more call to me he'd be always watching and thinking I was telling the tales and how can he want me to worry for you for money Miss Maud and it isn't here he'd spend it but in the Feltrum putises he would and he want for nothing that's good for us but that's how it would be and he'd always be adjoining for a licking of eye said don't mind me Miss Maud and Aponon might do you a good turn someday a few days after this little interview with Meg as Millie and I were walking briskly for it was a clear frosty day along the pleasant slopes of the Sheepwalk we were overtaken by Dudley Ruffin it was not a pleasant surprise there was this mitigation however we were on foot and he was driving in a dog cart along the track leading to the moor with his dogs and gun he brought his horse for a moment to a walk and with a careless nod to me removing his short pipe from his mouth he said Governor's calling for you Millie and he told me to send you slip home to him if I saw you and I think he'll give you some money but you better take him while he's in the humour lath or may have you'll go long without and with these words apparently intent on his game he nodded again and piping mouth drove at a quick chop over the slope of the hill and disappeared so I agreed to await Millie's return while she ran home and rejoiced me where I was away she ran in high spirits and I wandered listlessly about in search of some convenient spot to sit down upon for I was a little tired she had not been gone five minutes when I heard a step approaching and looking round saw the dog cart close by the horse browsing on the short grass happily roughing within a few paces of me you see Maude I've been thinking why you're so vexed with me and I thought I'd just come back and ask you what I may have done to anger you so there's no sin in that I think is there I'm not angry I did not say so I hope that's enough I said startled and notwithstanding my speech very angry for I felt instinctively that Millie's dispatch homeward was a mere trick and I the dupe of this course strategy well then if you've been angry so much the better Maude I only want to know why you're afraid of me I never struck a man foul much less hurt a girl in my days besides Maude I like she to you well to hurt she damn it last year my cousin you know and cousins is always together and loving life and none says again in it I've nothing to explain there is nothing to explain I've been quite friendly I said hurriedly friendly well if they're bane to cram how can you think it friendly Maude when you weren't almost shake hands with me it's enough to make a fella swear or cry almost why do you like aggravating a poor devil not benching ill natured little puss Maude and I like in you so well you're the prettiest laughing Derby there's nothing I wouldn't do for you and he backed his declaration with an oath be so good then as to re-enter your dog cart and drive away I replied very much in sense now there it is again you can't speak me civil another fella fly out and maybe kiss you for spite I ain't a sort I'm all for coaxing and kindness and you won't let me what be a driving at Maude I think I've said it very plainly sir that I wish to be alone you've nothing to say except utter nonsense and I've heard quite enough once for all I beg sir that you will be so good as to leave me well now look here Maude I'll do anything you like Bermie if I don't if you'll only just be kind to me like cousins should what did I ever do to vex you if you think I like any less better than you some fella at Elverston's I've been talking maybe snout but lies and nonsense not but there's lots of wenches like me well enough though I be a plain lad and speaks my mind straight out I can't see that you are so frank sir as you describe you have just played a shabby trick to bring about this absurd and most disagreeable interview and supposing I did send that full milli out of the way to talk a bit with you here where's your mum dang it lass you mustn't be too hard didn't I say I'd do whatever you wished and you won't said I you mean to get along out with this well now I will there no use of course asking you to kiss and be friends before I go as cousins should well don't be riled glass I'm not asking it only mind I do like you're awful and I'll find you in better humour another time and I'll make you like me at last and with these words to my comfort he addressed himself to his horse and pipe and was soon honestly on his way to the Moor End of Chapter 45 Chapter 46 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan LaFannou this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 46 The Rivals all the time that Dudley chose to persecute me with his odious society I continued to walk at a brisk pace toward home so that I had nearly reached the house where Millie met me with a note which had arrived for me by the post in her hand here Millie are Moor verses he is a very persevering poet whoever he is so I broke the seal but this time it was prose and the first words were Captain Oakley I confess to an odd sensation as these remarkable words met my eye it might possibly be a proposal I did not wait to speculate however but read the sentences traced in the identical handwriting which had copied the lines with which I had been twice favoured Captain Oakley presents his compliments to Miss Ruffin and trusts she will excuse his venturing to ask whether during his short visit at Feltrum he might be permitted to pay his respects at Bartram Howe he had been making a short visit to his aunt and could not find himself so near without at least attempting to renew an acquaintance which he has never ceased to cherish in memory if Miss Ruffin would be so good as to favour him with ever so short a reply to the question he ventures most respectfully to ask her decision would reach him at the Hall Hotel Feltrum well he's a roundabout fella anyhow couldn't he come up and see you they poets as they do love writing long yarns don't they and with this reflection Millie took the note and read it through again it's jolly polite anyhow isn't it more said Millie who had conned it over and accepted it as a model composition I must have been I think naturally a rather shrewd girl and considering how very little I had seen of the world nothing in fact I often wondered now at the sage conclusions at which I arrived were I to answer this handsome and cunning fool according to his folly in what position should I find myself no doubt my reply would induce a rejoinder and that compel another note from me and that invite yet another from him and however this might improve in warmth they were sure not to abate was it his impertinent plan with this show of respect and ceremony to drag me into a clandestine correspondence inexperienced girl as I was I fired at the idea of becoming his dupe and fancying perhaps that there was more in merely answering his note than it would have amounted to I said that kind of thing may answer very well with button makers but ladies don't like it what would your papa think of it if he found that I had been writing to him and seeing him without his permission if he wanted to see me he could have I really did not know exactly what he could have done he could have timed his visit to Lady Nollis differently at all events he has no right to place me in an embarrassing situation and I am certain cousin Nollis would say so and I think his note both shabby and impertinent decision was not with me an intellectual process when quite cool I was the most undecided of mortals but once my feelings were excited I was prompt and bold I'll give the note to Uncle Silas I said quickening my pace toward home he'll know what to do but Millie who I fancy had no objection to a little romance which the young officer proposed told me that she could not see her father that he was ill and not speaking to anyone and aren't you making a plaguey row about nothing I lay a guinea if you had never set eyes on Lord Ilbury you'd have told him to come and see you don't talk like a fool Millie you never knew me do anything deceitful Lord Ilbury has no more to do with it you know very well than the man in the moon I was altogether very indignant I did not speak another word to Millie the proportions of the house are so great that it is a much longer walk than you would suppose from the hall door to Uncle Silas's room but I did not cool all that way and it was not till I had just reached the lobby and saw the sour jealous face the high call of Old Wyatt and felt the influence of that neighbourhood that I paused to reconsider I fancied there was a cool consciousness of success behind all the deferential phraseology of Captain Oakley which netled me extremely no there could be no doubt I tapped softly at the door what is it now miss snarled the quarrelous old woman with her shriveled fingers on the door handle can I see my uncle for a moment he's tired and not a word from him all day long not ill though awful bad in the night said the old crone with a sudden savage glare in my face as if I had brought it about oh I'm very sorry I had not heard a word of it no one does but Old Wyatt there's Millie there never asked neither his own child weakness or what one of them fits you slide away in one of them some day but no one but Old Wyatt and no no ask word about it that's how it'll be will you please hand him this note if he's well enough to look at it and say I am at the door she took it with a peevish nod and a grunt closing the door in my face and in a few minutes returned come in will you said Dame Wyatt and I appeared Uncle Silas who after his nightly horror lay extended on a sofa with his faded yellow silk dressing-gown about him his long white hair hanging toward the ground and that wild and feeble smile lighting his face a glimmer I feared to look upon his long thin arms lay by his sides with hands and fingers that stirred knot except when now and then with a feeble motion he wet his temples and forehead with odour cologne from a glass saucer placed beside him excellent girl dutiful warden niece murmured the oracle heaven reward you your frank dealing is your own safety and my peace sit you down and say who is this Captain Oakley when you made his acquaintance what his age, fortune and expectations and who the aunt he mentions upon all these points I satisfied him as fully as I was able Wyatt the white drops he called in a thin stern voice I'll write a line presently I can't see visitors and of course you can't receive young captains before you've come out farewell God bless you dear Wyatt was dropping the white restorative into a wine-glass and the room was redolent of ether I was glad to escape the figures and whole mise-en-scène were unearthly Well Millie I said as I met her in the hall your papa is going to write to him I sometimes wonder whether Millie was right and how I should have acted a few months earlier next day whom should we meet in the windmill wood but Captain Oakley the spot where this interesting long contra occurred was near that ruinous bridge on my sketch of which I had received so many compliments it was so great a surprise that I had not time to recollect my indignation and having received him so affably I found it impossible during our brief interview to recover my lost attitude after our greetings were over and some compliments neatly made he said I had such a curious note from Mr Silas Ruffin I am sure he thinks me a very impertinent fellow which was really anything but inviting I'm extremely rude in fact but I could not quite see that because he does not want me to evade his bedroom an incursion I never dreamed of I was not to present myself to you who had already honoured me with your acquaintance with the sanction of those who were most interested in your welfare and who were just as well qualified as he I fancy to say who were qualified for such an honour my uncle Mr Silas Ruffin you are aware is my guardian and this is my cousin his daughter this was an opportunity of becoming a little lofty and I improved it he raised his hat and bowed to Millie I'm afraid I've been very rude and stupid Mr Ruffin of course has a perfect right to in fact I was not the least aware that I had the honour of so near a relations and exquisite scenery you have I think this country round Feltrum particularly fine and this Bartram Howe is by venture to say about the very most beautiful spot in this beautiful region I do assure you I am tempted beyond measure to make Feltrum and the whole hotel my headquarters for at least a week I only regret the foliage but your trees show wonderfully even in winter so many of them have got that ivy about them they say it spoils trees but it certainly beautifies them I have just 10 days leave unexpired I wish I could induce you to advise me how to apply them what shall I do Mr Ruffin I'm the worst person in the world to make plans even for myself so troublesome what do you say suppose you try Wales or Scotland and climb up some of those fine mountains that look so well in winter I should much prefer Feltrum I so wish you would recommend it what is this pretty plant we call that Maud's Myrtle she planted it and it's very pretty when it's full in blow said Millie our visit to Elverston have been of immense use to us both by you he said very softly with a momentary corresponding glance may I ever so little just to leave and without waiting for permission he held a sprig of it next to his waistcoat yes it goes very prettily with those buttons they are very pretty buttons are they not Millie a present a souvenir I dare say this was a terrible hit at the button maker and I thought he looked a little oddly at me but my countenance was so bewitchingly simple that I suppose his suspicions were allayed now it was very odd of me I must confess to talk in this way and to receive all those tender allusions from a gentleman about whom I had spoken and felt so sharply only the evening before but Feltrum was abominably lonely a civilised person was a valuable wafer or stray in that region of the picturesque and the brutal and to my lady reader especially because she will probably be hardest upon me I put it can you not recollect any such folly in your own past can you not in as many minutes call to mind at least six similar inconsistencies of your own practising for my part I really can't see the advantage of being the weaker sex if we are always to be as strong as our masculine neighbours there was indeed no revival of the little sentiment which I had once experienced when these things once expire I do believe they are as hard to revive as our dead lapdogs dinipigs and parrots it was my perfect coolness which enabled me to chat so agreeably with the refined captain who plainly thought me his captive and was probably now and then thinking what was to be done to utilise that little bit of Bartram or to beautify some other when he should see fit to become its master as we rambled over these wild beautiful grounds it was just about then that Millie nudged me rather vehemently and whispered look there I followed with mine the direction of her eyes and saw my odious cousin Dudley in a flagrant pair of cross-barred pectops and what Millie before her reformation used to call other slops of corresponding atrocity approaching our refined little party with great strides I really think that Millie was very nearly ashamed of him I certainly was I had no apprehension however of the scene which was imminent the charming captain mistook him probably for some rustic servant of the place for he continued his agreeable remarks up to the very moment when Dudley whose face was pale with anger and whose rapid advance had not served to cool him without recollecting to salute the Millie or me a costidate elegant companion as follows there is a wrong box here don't you think he had planted himself directly in his front and looked unmistakably menacing may I speak to him will you excuse me said the captain blindly aye there excuse you ready enough I just say you're to deal with me though benchy in the wrong box now I'm not conscious sir of being in a box at all replied the captain with severe disdain you are disposed to get up a row let us if you please get a little apart from the ladies if that is your purpose I mean to turn you out of this the way you came if you make a row so much there was for you for I'll lick you to fits tell him not to fight whispered Millie he'll have no chance with Dudley I saw Dickon Hawks grinning over the pailing on which he leaned Mr. Hawks I said joined Millie with me toward that promising mediator pray prevent unpleasantness and go between them and get licked to both sides rather not miss Anki grin Dickon tranquilly who are you sir demanded our romantic acquaintance with military sternness I'll tell you who you are your Oakley has stopped at the hall that governor wrote overnight not to dare show your nose inside the grounds you're a half starved captain come down here to look for a wife and before Dudley could finish his sentence Captain Oakley then whose face no regimentals could possibly have been more scarlet at that moment struck with his switch at Dudley's handsome features I don't know how it was done by some devilish cantrip slight a smack was heard and the captain lay on his back on the ground with his mouth full of blood how do you like the taste of that raw Dickon from his post of observation in an instant Captain Oakley was on his feet again hapless looking quite frantic and striking out at Dudley who was ducking and dipping quite coolly and again the same horrid sound only this time it was double like a quick postman's knock and Captain Oakley was on the grass again tapped his smeller by thundered Dickon with a roar of laughter come away Millie I'm growing ill said I drop it Dudley I tell you you kill him screamed Millie but the devoted captain whose nose and mouth and shirt front formed now but one great patch of blood and who was bleeding beside over one eye dashed at him again I turned away I felt quite faint and on the point of crying with mere horror hammer away at his knocker bellowed Dickon in a frenzy of delight he'll break it now if he ain't ready cried Millie alluding as I after was understood Captain's Grecian nose Bravo little one the captain was considerably the taller another smack and I suppose Captain Oakley fell once more hooray the dinner service again but would Dickon stick to that over the same ground subsoil I say he ain't enough yet in a perfect tremor of disgust I was making as quick a retreat as I could and as I did I heard Captain Oakley shriek hoarsely you're a deep-rised fighter I can't box you I told you I'd lick you to fits hooted Dudley but you're the son of a gentleman but you shall fight me as a gentleman a yell of hooting laughter from Dudley and Dickon followed this sally give my love to the colonel and think of me when you're looking in the glass won't you and so you're going after all well follow what's left of your nose but some of your ivories didn't you on the grass these and many similar jibes followed the mangled captain in his retreat End of Chapter 46 Chapter 47 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 47 Dr. Briley reappears no one who has not experienced it can imagine the disgust and horror which such a spectacle as we have been forced in part to witness leaves upon the mind of a young person of my peculiar temperament it affected ever after my involuntary estimate of the principal actors in it an exhibition of such thorough inferiority accompanied by such a shock to the feminine sense of elegance is not forgotten by any woman Captain Oakley had been severely beaten by a smaller man it was pitiable and also undignified and Millie's anxieties about his teeth and nose though in a certain sense horrible had also a painful suspicion of the absurd people say on the other hand that superior prowess even in such barbarous contests inspires in our sex an interest akin to admiration I can positively say in my case it was quite the reverse Dudley Ruthins stood lower than ever in my estimation it was by reason of these brutal and cold blooded associations after this I lived in constant apprehension of being summoned to my uncle's room and being called on for an explanation of my meeting with Captain Oakley which notwithstanding my perfect innocence looked suspicious but no such inquisition resulted perhaps he did not suspect me or perhaps he thought not in his haste all women are liars and did not care to hear what I might say I rather lean to the latter interpretation the exchequer just now I suppose by some means was replenished for next morning Dudley set off upon one of his fashionable excursions as poor Millie thought then to Wolverhampton and the same day Dr. Briley arrived Millie and I from my room window saw him step from his vehicle to the court-child a lean man with sandy hair and whiskers was in the shades with him Dr. Briley descended in the unchangeable black suit that always looked new and never fitted him the doctor looked care-worn and older I thought by several years than when I last saw him he was not shown up to my uncle's room on the contrary Millie who was more actively curious than I ascertained that our tremulous butler informed him that my uncle was not sufficiently well for an interview whereupon Dr. Briley had penciled a note the reply to which was a method from Uncle Silas saying that he would be happy to see him in five minutes as Millie and I were conjecturing what it might mean and before the five minutes had expired Mary Quince entered why have bid me to tell you miss your uncle wants you this minute when I entered his room Uncle Silas was seated at the table with his death before him he looked up could anything be more dignified suffering and venerable I sent for you dear he said very gently extending his thin white hand and taking mine which he held affectionately while he spoke because I desire to have no secrets and wish you thoroughly to know all that concerns your own interests while subject to my guardianship and I am happy to think my beloved niece that you are quite my candour oh here is the gentleman sit down dear Dr. Briley was advancing as it seemed to shake hands with Uncle Silas who however rose with a severe and haughty air not the least overacted and made him a slow ceremonious bow I wondered how the only doctor could confront so tranquilly that astounding statue of altar a faint and weary smile rather sad and contemptuous was the only sign he showed of feeling his repulse how do you do miss he said extending his hand and greeting me after his ungallant fashion as if it were an afterthought I think I may as well take a chair sir said Dr. Briley sitting down serenely near the table and crossing his ungainly legs my uncle bowed you understand the nature of the business sir do you wish Miss Ruffin to remain asked Dr. Briley I sent for her sir replied my uncle in a very gentle and sarcastic tone a smile on his thin lips and his strangely contorted eyebrows raised for a moment contemptuously this gentleman my dear Maud thinks proper to insinuate that I am robbing you it surprises me a little and no doubt you I've nothing to conceal and wished you to be present while he favours me more particularly with his views I'm right I think in describing it as a robbery sir why said Dr. Briley thoughtfully for he was treating the matter as one of right and not of feeling it would be certainly taking that which does not belong to you and converting it to your own use but at the worst it would more resemble thieving I think than robbery I saw uncle Silas's lip eyelid and thin cheek quiver and shrimp as if with a thrill of tic-du-lureur as Dr. Briley spoke this unconsciously insulting answer my uncle had however the self-command which is learned at the gaming table he shrugged with a chilly sarcastic your note says waste I think sir yes waste the felling and sale of timber in the windmill wood and selling of oak bark and burning of charcoal as I'm informed so Briley is sadly and quietly as a man might relate a piece of intelligence from the newspaper detective or private spies of your own or perhaps my servants bribed with my poor brother's money a very high-minded procedure nothing of the kind sir my uncle sneered I mean sir there has been no undue canvas for evidence and the question is simply one of right and it is our duty to see that this inexperienced young lady is not defrauded by her uncle by anyone said Dr. Briley with a natural impenetrability that excited my admiration of course you come armed with an opinion said my smiling uncle insinuatingly the cases before Mr. Sargent grinders these big wigs don't return their cases sometimes so quickly as we could wish then you have no opinions my uncle my solicitor is quite clear upon it and it seems to me there can be no question raised but for form's sake yeah for form's sake you take one and in the meantime upon a nice question of law the surmises of a thick-headed attorney genius a path my beg pardon physician a sufficient warrant for telling my niece and ward in my presence that I am defrauding her my uncle leaned back in his chair and smiled with a contemptuous patience over Dr. Briley's head as he spoke I don't know whether I use that expression sir but I am speaking merely in a technical sense I mean to say that whether by mistake or otherwise you are exercising a power which you don't lawfully possess and that the effect of that is to impoverish the estate and by so much as it benefits you to wrong this young lady I'm a technical defrauder I see and your manner conveys the rest I thank my God sir I am a very different man from what I once was Uncle Silas was speaking in a low tone and with extraordinary deliberation I remember when I should have certainly knocked you down sir or tried it at least for a great deal yes but seriously sir what do you propose asked Dr. Briley sternly and a little flushed for I think the old man was stirred within him and though he did not raise his voice his manner was excited I propose to defend my right sir moment Uncle Silas very grim I'm not without an opinion though you are you seem to think sir that I have a pleasure in annoying you you are quite wrong I hate you constitutionally I hate it but don't you see sir the position I'm placed in I wish I could please everyone and do my duty Uncle Silas bowed and smiled I brought with me the Scotch steward from Tolkingdon your estate miss and if you let us we will visit the spot and make a note of what we observe that is assuming that you admit waste the merely question our law if you please sir you and your Scotchman shall do no such thing and bearing in mind that I neither deny nor admit anything you will please further never more to present yourself under any pretext whatsoever either in this house or the grounds of Bartram Howe during my lifetime Uncle Silas rose up with the same glassy smile and scow in token that the interview was ended goodbye sir said Dr. Briley with a sad and thoughtful air for a moment he said to me do you think miss you could afford me a word in the hall not a word sir snarled Uncle Silas with a white flash from his eyes there was a pause sit where you are Maud another pause if you have anything to say to my ward sir you will please say it here Dr. Briley's dark and homely face was turned on me with an expression of unspeakable compassion going to say that if you think of any way in which I can be of the least service miss I am ready to act that's all mind any way he hesitated looking at me with the same expression as if he had something more to say but he only repeated that's all miss won't you shake hands Dr. Briley before you go I said eagerly approaching him without a smile with the same sad anxiety in his face with his mind as it seemed to me on something else and he resolute whether to speak it or be silent he took my fingers in a very cold hand and holding it so and slowly shaking it his grave and troubled glance unconsciously rested on Uncle Silas's face while in a sad tone and absent way he said goodbye miss and before that sad gaze my uncle averted his strange eyes quickly and looked oddly to the window in a moment more Dr. Briley let my hand go with a sigh and with an abrupt little nod to me he left the room and I heard the dismalest of sounds the retreating footsteps of a true friend lost lead us not into temptation if we pray so we must not mock the eternal majesty of heaven by walking into temptation of our own accord this irraculous sentence was not uttered by my uncle until Dr. Briley had been gone at least five minutes I forbid him in my house Maude first because his perfectly unconscious insolence tries my patience nearly beyond endurance and again because I have heard unfavourable reports of him on the question of right which he disputes I am perfectly informed I am your tenant my dear niece when I am gone you will learn how scrupulous I have been you will see how under the pressure of the most agonising pecuniary difficulties the terrific penalty of a misspent youth I have been careful never by a hair's breadth to transgress the strict line of my legal privileges alike as your tenant Maude and as your guardian how amid frightful agitations I have kept myself by the miraculous strength and grace vouchsafed me pure the world he resumed after a short pause has no faith in any man's conversion it never forgets what he was it never believes in anything better it is an inexorable and stupid judge what I was I will describe in blacker terms and with more heartfelt detestation than my traduces a reckless prodigal a godless profligate such I was what I am I am if I had no hope beyond this world of all men most miserable but with that hope a sinner saved then he waxed eloquent and mystical I think his Swedenborgian studies had crossed his notions of religion with strange lights I never could follow him quite in these excursions into the region of symbolism I only recollect that he talked of the deluge and the waters of Mara and said I am washed I am sprinkled and then pausing bathed his sin temples and forehead with odour cologne which was perhaps suggested by his imagery of sprinkling and so forth thus refreshed he sighed and smiled and passed to the subject of Dr. Briley of Dr. Briley I know that he is sly that he loves money was born poor and makes nothing by his profession but he possesses many thousand pounds under my poor brother's will of your money and he has glided with all his money into the acting trusteeship with all its multitudinous opportunities of your immense property that is not doing so badly for a visionary Swedenborgian such a man must prosper but if he expected to make money of me he is disappointed money however he will make of his trusteeship as you will see it is a dangerous resolution but if he will seek the life of Divas I wish him is to find the death of Lazarus but whether like Lazarus he be born of angels into Abraham's bosom or like the rich man only dies and is buried and the rest neither living nor dying do I desire his company Uncle Silas here seems suddenly overtaken by exhaustion he leaned back with a ghastly look and his lean features glistened with a dew of faintness I screamed for Wyatt but he soon recovered sufficiently to smile like his odd smile and with it and his frown nodded and waved me away End of Chapter 47