 Chapter 1 of The Wyvern Mystery In the small breakfast parlour of Alton, a pretty girl, Miss Alice Maybell, with her furs and wrappers about her and a journey of forty miles before her, not by rail, to Wyvern, had stood up to hug and kiss her old aunt, and bid her good-bye. Now, do sit down again, you need not be in such a hurry, you're not to go for ten minutes or more, said the old lady, do there's a darling. If I'm not home before the sun goes down on, Mr. Fairfield will be so angry, said the girl, laying a hand on each shoulder of kind old lady Windale, and looking fondly, but also sadly into her face. Which Mr. Fairfield, dear, the old or the young one? Called Mr. Fairfield the squire, as we call him at Wyvern. He'll really be angry, and I'm a little bit afraid of him, and I would not vex him for the world. He's always been so kind. As she answered, the young lady blushed a beautiful crimson, and the old lady not observing it said, "'Indeed, I don't know why,' I said young. "'Young Mr. Fairfield is old enough, I think, to be your father. But I want to know how you like Lord Tremaine. I told you how much he liked you. I'm a great believer in first impressions. He was so charmed with you, when he saw you in Wyvern Church. Of course he ought to have been thinking of something better, but no matter. The fact was so. And now he is, I really think, in love very much, and who knows? He's such a charming person, and there's everything to make it. I don't know what word to use, but, you know, Tremaine is quite a beautiful place, and he does not owe a guinea.' "'You dear old aunt,' he said the girl, kissing her again on the cheek. Wicked old darling always making matches for me. If you'd remained in India, you'd have married me, I'm sure, to a native prince. Native fiddle-stick. Of course I could, if I had liked. But you never should have married a Mohammedan with my consent. Never mind, though. You're sure to do well. Marriages are made in heaven, and I really believe there's no use in plotting and planning. Though it was your darling Mamar, when we were both girls together, I said I should never consent to marry a soldier or live out of England, and I did marry a soldier and lived twelve years of my life in India. And she, poor darling, said again and again. She did not care who her husband might be, provided he was not a clergyman, nor a person living all year round in the country, that no power could induce her to consent to, and yet she did consent, and to both one and the other, and married a clergyman and a poor one, and lived and died in the country. So after all, there's not much use in planning beforehand. Very true, auntie. Not in the world, I believe. The girl was looking partly over her shoulder, out of the window, upwards towards the clouds, and she sighed heavily, and recollecting herself, looked again in her aunt's face and smiled. I wish you could have stayed a little longer here, said her aunt. I wish I could, she answered slowly. I was thinking of talking over a great many things with you. That is, of telling you all my long stories, but while those people were staying here I could not, and now there's not time. What long stories, my dear? Stupid stories, I should have said, answered Alice. Welcome! Is there anything to tell? Demanded the old lady, looking in her large dark eyes. Nothing worth telling. Nothing that is. And she paused for the continuation of her sentence. That is what, asked her aunt. I was going to talk to you, darling, answered the girl, but I could not in so short a time, so short a time as remains now. And she looked at her watch, a gift of old squire fairfields. I should not know how to make myself understood. I have so many hundred things, and all jumbled up in my head, and should not know how to begin. Well, I'll begin for you, come. Have any visitors looked in at Wyvern lately, said her aunt? Not one, she answered. No new faces? No, indeed. Are there any new neighbours, persisted the old lady? Not one. No, aunt, it isn't that. And where are these elderly young gentlemen, the two Mr. Fairfields, asked the old lady? The girl laughed and shook her head, wandering at present. Wyvern Fairfield is in London, and his charming younger brother, where is he? asked Lady Wendell. At some fair, I suppose, or horse-race, or goodness knows where, answered the girl. I was going to ask you whether there was an affair of the heart, said her aunt, but there does not seem much material. And what was the subject? Though I can't hear it all, you may tell me what it was to be about. About fifty things, or nothings. There's no one on earth, auntie darling, but you, I can talk anything over with, and I'll write, or if you let me, come again for a day or two very soon. May I? Of course, no, said her aunt Gailey, but we are not to be quite alone all the time, mind. There are people who would not forgive me if I were to do anything so selfish, but I promise you ample time to talk, you and I to ourselves, and now that I think I should like to hear by the post, if you'll write and say anything you like. You may be quite sure nobody shall hear a word about it. By this time they had got to the hall-door, I'm sure of that, darling, and she kissed the kind old lady. And you are quite sure you would not like a servant to travel with you? He could sit beside the driver. No, dear auntie, my trusty old Dilsabella sits inside to take care of me. Well, dear, are you quite sure I should not miss him in the least? Quite, dear aunt, I assure you. And you know you told me you were quite happy at Wyvern, said Lady Wendell, returning her farewell caress, and speaking low for a servant stood at the shay's door. Did I? Well, I shouldn't have said that, for I'm not happy, whispered Alice Maybell, and the tears sprang to her eyes as she kissed her old kinswoman. And then, with her arms still about her neck, there was a brief look from her large, brimming eyes while her lip trembled, and suddenly she turned, and before Lady Wendell had recovered from that little shock, her pretty guest was seated in the shay's the door shut, and she drove away. What can it be, poor little thing, thought Lady Wendell, as her eyes anxiously followed the carriage and its flight down the avenue. They've shot her pet pigeon, or the dog has killed her guinea pig, or old fairfield won't allow her to sit up till twelve o'clock at night reading her novel. Some childish misery, I dare say, poor little soul. But for all that she was not satisfied, and her poor pale troubled luck haunted her. Chapter 2 The Vale of Carwell In about an hour and a half this shay's reached the pied-horse, on Elverston Moor. Having changed horses at this inn, they resumed their journey, and Miss Alice Maybell, who had been sad and abstracted, now lowered the window beside her, and looked out upon the broad shaggy heath, rising in low hillocks, and breaking here and there into pools, a wild and on-the-hole monotonous and rather dismal expanse. How fresh and pleasant the air is here, and how beautiful the purple of the heath exclaimed the young lady with animation. There now, that's right, beautiful it is, my darling. That's how I like to see my child, pleasant like an api, and not mopin and dull like a sick bird. Be that way always, do, dear. You're a kind old thing, said the young lady, placing her slender hand fondly on her old nurse's arm. Good old dull Cibella, you're always to come with me wherever I go. It's just what old dull Cibella'd like, answered the old woman, who was fat, and liked her comforts, and loved Miss Alice more than many mothers loved their own children, and had answered the same reminders in the same terms, a good many thousand times in her life. Again the young lady was looking out of the window, not like one enjoying a landscape as it comes, but with something of anxiety in her countenance, with her head through the open window, and gazing forward as if in search of some expected object. Do you remember some old trees standing together at the end of the moor, and a ruined windmill on a hillock, she asked, suddenly? Well, answered dull Cibella, who was not of an observant turn. I suppose I do, Miss Alice, perhaps there is. I remembered very well, but not where it is, and when last we passed it was dark, murmured the young lady to herself rather than to dull Cibella, whom upon such points she did not much mind. Suppose we ask the driver. She tapped out the window behind the box, and signed to the man who looked over his shoulder. When he had pulled up, she opened the front window and said, There's a village a little way on, isn't there? Shoulden yesim. Two mile in a bit, he answered. Well, before we come to it, on the left there is a grove of tall trees and an old windmill, continued the pretty young lady looking pale. Grace's mill we call it, but it don't go this many a day. Yes, I daresay, and there is a road that turns off to the left just under that old mill. That'll be the road to Church Carwell. You must drive about three miles along that road. That'll be out of the way, ma'am. Three and three, and three back, six miles. I don't know about the horses. You must try, I'll pay you, listen. And she lowered her voice. There's one house, an old house on the way in the Vale of Carwell. It's called Carwell Grange, do you know it? Yesim, but there's no one living there. No matter, there is. There is an old woman who I want to see. That's where I want to go, and you must manage it. I shan't delay you many minutes, and you're to tell no one, either on the way or when you get home, and I'll give you two pounds for yourself. All right, he answered, looking hard in the pale face and large, dark eyes that gazed on him eagerly from the window. Thank you, Miss, all right. We'll wet their mouths by the Grange, or you wouldn't mind waiting till they get a mouthful of outside to say. No, certainly anything that is necessary. Only I have a good way still to go before evening, and you won't delay more than you can help. Get along, then, said the man briskly to the horses, and forthwith they were again in motion. The young lady pulled up the window and leaned back for some minutes in her place. And where are we going to, dear Miss Alice, inquired Dulsabella, who dimly apprehended that they were about to deviate from the straightway home and feared the old squire as other Wyvern folk did. A very little way, nothing of any consequence, and Dulsabella, if you really love me, as you say, one word about it, to living being at Wyvern or anywhere else you'll never say, you promise? You know me well, Miss Alice, I don't talk to no one, but I'm sorry like to hear there's anything like a secret. I dread secrets. You'd need not fear for this. It is nothing. No secret, if people were not unreasonable, and it won't be a secret long, perhaps. Only be true to me. True to you? Well, who should I be true to if not to you, darling? And never a word about it will pass old Dulsabella's lips. Talk who will, and are we pretty near it? Very near, I think. It's only to see an old woman and get some information from her. Nothing, only I don't wish it to be talked about, and I know you won't. Not a word, dear. I never talk to anyone, not I, for all the world. In a few minutes more, they crossed a little bridge, spanning a brawling stream, and the shades turned the corner of a by-road, to the left, under the shadow of a group of tall and somber elms, overtopped by the ruthless shadow of the old windmill. Utterly lonely was the road, but at first with only a solitariness that partook of the wildness and melancholy of the moor, which they had been traversing. Soon, however, the uplands at either side drew nearer, grew steeper, and the scattered bushes gathered into groups and rose into trees, thickening as the road proceeded. Steeper grew the banks higher and gloomier, precipitous rocks showed their fronts overtopped by trees and copes. The hollow, which they had entered by the old windmill, had deepened into a valley, and was now contracted to a dark glen overgrown by forest, and relieved from utter silence only by the moan and tinkle of the brook that wound its way through stones and rambles in its unseen depths. Along the side of this melancholy glen, about halfway down, run the narrow road, near the point where they now were. It makes an ascent, and as they were slowly mounting this an open carriage, a shabby, hired, nondescript vehicle appeared in the deep shadow at some distance, descending towards them. The road is so narrow that two carriages could not pass one another without risk. Here and there, the inconvenience is provided against by a recess in the bank, and into one of these the distant carriage drew aside. A tall female figure, with feet extended on the opposite cushion, sat or rather reclined in the back seat. There was no one else in the carriage. She was wrapped in gray tweed and the driver had now turned his face towards her and was plainly receiving some orders. Miss Maybell, as the carriage entered this melancholy pass, had grown more and more anxious and pale and silent, was looking forward through the window as they advanced. At sight of this vehicle drawn up before them, a sudden fear chilled the young lady with perhaps a remote presence. End of chapter two. Chapter three of The Wyvern Mystery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by John Brandon. The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheridan Lafano. Chapter three, The Grange. The excited nerves of children, people the darkness of the nursery with phantoms. The moral and mental darkness of suspense. Provokes after its sort a similar phantasmagoria. Alice Maybell's heart grew still and her cheeks paled as she looked with most unreasonable alarm upon the carriage which had come to a standstill. There was, however, the sense of a great stake, of great helplessness, of great but undefined possible mischiefs, such as to the lookout of a rich galleon in the old by radical days, would have made a strange sail on the high seas, always an anxious object on the horizon. And now Miss Alice Maybell was not reassured by observing the enemy's driver get down and taking the horses by the head, back the carriage far enough across the road to obstruct their passage. And this had clearly been done by the direction of the lady in the carriage. They had now reached the point of obstruction, the driver pulled up. Miss Maybell had lowered the chase window and was peeping. She saw a tall woman wrapped up and reclining, as I have said. Her face she could not see for it was thickly veiled. But she held her hand from which she had pulled her glove to her ear. And it was not a very young hand nor very refined, lean and masculine, on the contrary, and its veins and sinews rather strongly marked. The woman was listening evidently with attention and her face veiled as it was, was turned away so as to bring her ear towards the speakers in the expected colloquy. Miss Alice Maybell saw the driver exchange a look with hers that seemed to be token old acquaintance. I say, give us room to pass, will ye? said Miss Maybell's man. Where will you be going to? inquired the other and followed the question with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder toward the lady and the tweed wrappers, putting out his tongue and winking at the same time. To Church Carwell answered the man. To Church Carwell, mom repeated the driver over his shoulder to the reclining figure. What to do there? said she in a sharp undertone and with a decided foreign accent. What to do there? repeated the man. Change husses and go on. On where? repeated the lady to her driver. On where? repeated he. Doubting, fibbed Miss Maybell's man. And the same repetition ensued. Not going to the Grange prompted the lady in the same undertone and foreign accent and the question was transmitted as before. What Grange demanded the driver? Carwell Grange, no. Miss Alice Maybell was very frightened and she heard this home question put and relieved by the audacity of her friend on the box who continued. Now then, you move out of that. The tall woman and the wrappers nodded and her driver accordingly pulled the horses aside with another grin and a wink to his friend and Miss Maybell drove by to her own great relief. The reclining figure did not care to turn her face enough to catch a passing sight of the people whom she had thus arbitrarily detained. She went her way toward Grange's mill and Miss Maybell pursuing hers toward Carwell Grange was quickly out of sight. A few minutes more and the glen expanded gently so as to leave a long oval pasture of two or three acres visible beneath. With the little stream winding its way through the soft sward among scattered trees, two or three cows were peacefully grazing there and at the same point a converging hollow made its way into the glen at their right and through this also spread the forest under whose shadow they had already been driving for more than two miles. Into this from the main road diverged a rudder track with a rather steep ascent. This by-road leads up to the Grange, rather a stiff pull. The driver had to dismount and lead his horses and once or twice expressed doubts as to whether they could pull their burden up the hill. Alice Maybell however offered not to get out. She was nervous and like a frightened child who gets its bedclothes about his head, the instinct of concealment prevailed and she trembled lest some other inquirer should cross her way less easily satisfied than the first. They soon reached a level platform under the deep shadow of huge old trees, nearly meeting overhead. The horse-cawing of a rookery came mellowed by short distance on the air. For all else the place was silence itself. The man came to the door of the carriage to tell his fare that they had reached the Grange. Stay where you are, Dulcy Bella. I shan't be away many minutes, said the young lady looking pale as if she was going to execution. I will miss Alice, but you must get a bit to eat dear. You're hungry. I know by your looks get a bit of bread and butter. Yes, yes, Dulcy, said the young lady, not having heard a syllable of this little speech as looking curiously at the old place under whose walls they had arrived, she descended from the chase. Under the leafy darkness stood two time-stained piers of stone with a wicket opened in the gate. Through this she peeped into a paved yard, all grass grown and surrounded by a high wall with a fine mantle of ivy through which showed dimly the neglected doors and windows of out offices and stables. At the right rose three stories high with melancholy gables and tall chimneys, the old stone house. So this was Carwell Grange. Nettles grew in the corners of the yard in tufts of grass and the chinks of the stone steps, and the worn masonry was tinted with moss and lichens, and all around rose the solemn melancholy screen of darksome foliage, high over the surrounding walls and outcropping the gray roof of the house. She hesitated at the door and then raised the latch, but a bolt secured it, another hesitation and she ventured to knock with the stone. That was probably placed there for the purpose. A lean old woman whose countenance did not indicate a pleasant temper put out her head from a window and asked, well, and what brings you here? I expected to see a friend here. She answered timidly, and you are Mrs. Charlie, I think. I'm the person, answered the woman, and I was told to show you this in that you would admit me. And she handed her through the iron bars of the window a little oval picture in a shag green case, hardly bigger than a penny piece. The old lady turned it to the light and looked hard at it, saying, I, I, my old eyes, they won't see as they used to, but it is so. The old misses, yes, it's all right, Miss, and she viewed the young lady with some curiosity, but her tones were much more respectful as she handed her back the miniature. I'll open the door, please, um, and almost instantly Miss Mayvelle heard the bolts withdrawn. Would you please walk in, my lady? I can only bring you into the kitchen. The apples is in the parlor and the big room's full of straw and the rest of them is locked up. It'll be master, I know who you'll be looking after. The young lady lashed deeply. The question was hardly shaped in the most delicate way. There was a woman in a barouche, I think they call it, asking, was anyone here? And asking very sharp after master, and I told her he wasn't here this many a day, nor like to be. And was that made me a bit shy, are you? You'll understand, just for a bit. And is he? Is your master? And she looked round the interior of the house. No, he ain't come. But there's a letter. What's your name? She added abruptly with a sudden access of suspicion. Miss Mayvelle, answered she. Yes, well, you'll excuse me, Miss, but I was told to be sharp and wide awake, you see. Will you come into the kitchen? And without awaiting her answer, the old woman led the way into the kitchen, a melancholy chamber with two narrow windows, darkened by the trees not far off that overshadowed the house. A crooked little curd dog with protruding ribs and an air of starvation flew furiously at Miss Mayvelle as she entered and was rolled over on his back by a lusty kick from the old woman's shoe. And a cat sitting before the fire bounced under the table to escape the chances of battle. A little bit of fire smoldered in a corner of the grate, an oak stool, a deal chair, and a battered balloon-backed one imported from better company in a crazed and faded state, a drone weaker in the joints and more ragged and dirty in its antique finery in its present fallen fortunes. There was some cracked delft on the dresser and something was stewing in a tall saucepan covered with a broken plate. And to this the old woman directed her attention first, stirring its contents and peering into it for a while. And when she had replaced it carefully, she took the letter from her pocket and gave it to Miss Mayvelle, who read it standing near the window. As she read this letter, which was a short one, the young lady looked angry. With bright eyes and a brilliant flush, then pale. And then the tears started to her eyes and turning quite away from the old woman and still holding up the letter as if reading it, she wept in silence. The old woman, if she saw this, evinced no sympathy but continued to fidget about muttering to herself, shoving her miserable furniture this way or that, arranging her crockery on the dresser, visiting the saucepan that sat patiently on the embers and sometimes kicking the dog with an unwomanly curse when he growled. Trying her eyes, the young lady took her departure and with a heavy heart left this dismal abode. But with the instinct of propitiation, strong in the unhappy and with the melancholy hope of even buying a momentary sympathy, she placed some money in the dark hand of the crone who made her a courtesy and a thankless thanky-miss on the step as her eye counted over the silver with a greedy ogle that lay on her lean palm. Nothing for nothing. On the whole, a somewhat mercenary type of creation is the human. The post-boy reminded the young lady as she came to the chased door that she might as well gratify him there and then with the two pounds which she had promised. And this done, she took her place beside old Dulcy Bella who had dropped into a reverie near a kindua dose. And so without adventure, they retraced their way and once more passing under the shadow of Grace's mill entered on their direct journey to Wyvern. The sun was near the western horizon and through the melancholy tints of sunset over a landscape undulating and wooded that spread before them as they entered the short broad avenue that leads through two files of noble old trees to the gray front of many chimneyed Wyvern. End of chapter 3, recording by John Brandon. Chapter 4 of Wyvern Mystery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheraton-Lefano. Chapter 4, The Old Squire and Alice Maybell. Wyvern is a very pretty old house. It is built of a light gray stone in the later Tudor style. A portion of it is overgrown with thick ivy. It stands not far away from the high road among grand old trees and is one of the most interesting features in a richly wooded landscape that rises into little hills and breaking into rocky and forest darkened glens and sometimes into dimpling hollows where the cattle pasture beside Pleasant Brooks presents one of the prettiest countries to be found in England. The Old Squire, Henry Fairfield, has seen his summer and his autumn days out. It is winter with him now. He is not a pleasant picture of an English Squire, but such nonetheless as the old portraits on the walls of Wyvern here and there to testify, the family of Fairfield have occasionally turned out. He is not cheery nor kindly. Bleak, dark and austere as a northern winter is the age of that gaunt old man. He is too proud to grumble and never asked anyone for sympathy, but it is plain that he parts with his strength and his pleasures bitterly. Of course, seeing the old churchyard down in the hollow at the left as he stands of an evening on the steps, thoughts will strike him. He does not acquiesce in death. He resents the order of things, but he keeps his repinings to himself and retaliates his mortification on the people about him. Though his hair is snowy and his shoulders stooped, there is that in his length of bone and his stature that accords with the tradition of his early prowess and activity. He has long been a widower full 30 years. He has two sons and no daughter, two sons whom he does not much trust, neither of them young, Charles and Henry. By no means young are they, the Elginow 43, the younger only a year or two less. Charles has led a wandering life and tried a good many things. He had been fond of play and other expensive follies. He had sobered, however, people thought and it might be his mission, not withstanding his wild and wasteful young days, to pay off the debts of the estate. Henry the Younger saw an eschewed dealer in horses, liked being king of his company, condescended to strong ale, made love to the bar made at the George in the little town of Wyvern and affected the conversation of dog fanciers, horse jockeys, wrestlers and similar celebrities. The old squire was not much considered and less beloved by his sons. The gauntel man was, however, more feared by these matured scions than their pride would have easily allowed. The fears of childhood survive its pleasures, something of the ghostly terrors of the nursery haunt us through life. And the tyrant of early days maintains a strange and unavowed ascendancy over the imagination, long after his real power to inflict pain or privation has quite come to an end. As this tall, grim, handsome old man moves about the room as he stands or sits down or turns eastward at the creed in church, as he marches slowly toppling along the terrace with his gold-headed cane in his hand, surveying the long familiar scenes, which will soon bloom and brown no more for him, with sullen eyes, thinking his solitary thoughts. As in the long summer evenings, he dozes in the great chair by the fire, which even in the dog days smolders in the drawing room grate, looking like a gigantic effigy of winter, a pair of large and soft gray eyes follow or steal towards him, removed what observed, whatever an anon returning. People have remarked this and talked it over and laughed and shook their heads and built odd speculation upon it. Alice Mayville had grown up from orphan childhood under the roof of Wyvern. The All-Squire had been, after a fashion, kind to that pretty wave of humanity, which a chance wave of fortune had thrown at his door. She was the child of a distant cousin who had happened being a clergyman to die in occupation of the vicarage of Wyvern. Her young mother lay under the branches of two gray trees in the lonely corner of the village churchyard. And not two years later the vicar died and was buried beside her. Melancholy gentle vicar. Some good judges, I believe, pronounced his sermons admirable, cedarly clothed with kindly patients visiting his poor. Very frugal, his pretty young wife and he were yet happy in the light and glow of the true love that is eternal. He was to her the non-paril of vickers, the loveliest, wisest, wittiest and best of men. She to him, what shall I say? The same beautiful first love, never a day older, every summer through new gold on her rich hair and a softer, brighter bloom on her cheeks and made her dearer and dearer than he could speak. He could only look and feel his heart swelling with a vein yearning to tell the love that lighted his face with its glory and called a mist to his kind eye. And then came a time when she had a secret to tell her willy. Full of a wild fear and delight in their tiny drawing room, clasped in each other's arms, they wept for joy and a kind of wonder and some dim, unspoken trembling of fear and loved one another, it seemed, as it were more desperately than ever. And then as he read aloud to her in the evenings, her pretty fingers were busy with a new sort of work, full of wonderful and delightful interest. A little guest was coming, a little creature with an immortal soul that was to be as clever and handsome as willy. And, oh, willy darling, don't you hope I may live to see it? Ah, willy, would not it be sad? And then the vicar smiling through tears would put his arms round her and comfort her breaking into a rapturous castle building and a painting of pictures of this great new happiness and treasure that was coming. And so in due time the little caps and frocks and all the tiny wardrobe were finished and the day came when the long-pictured treasure was to come. It was there, but its young mother's eyes were dim and the pretty hands that had made its little dress and long to clasp it were laid beside her, never to stir again. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Yes, blessed be the name of the Lord for that love that outlives the separation of death that saddens and glorifies memory with its melancholy light and illuminates far futurity with a lamp whose trembling ray is the thread that draws us toward heaven. Blessed in giving and in taking, blessed for the yearning remembrances and for the agony of hope. The little baby, the relic, the treasure was there, poor little forlorn baby, and with this little mute companion to look at and said by his sorrow was stealing away into a wonderful love and in this love a consolation and a living fountain of sympathy with his darling who was gone. A trouble of a new kind had come. Squire Fairfield, who wanted money, raised a claim for rent for the vicarage at its little garden. The vicar hated law and feared it and would no doubt have submitted. But this was a battle in which the bishop took command and insisted on fighting it out. It was a tedious business. It had lasted two years nearly and was still alive and angry when the Reverend William Maybell took a cold which no one thought would signify. A brother clergyman from Williford kindly undertook his duty for one Sunday and on the next he had died. The Wyvern doctor said the visvite was wanting. He had lived quite too low and had not stamina and so sank like a child. But there was more. When on Sundays as the sweet bell of Wyvern trembled in the air, the vicar had walked alone up to the old gray porch and saw the two trees near the ivy nook of the churchyard wall. A homesickness yearned at his heart. And when the hour came, his spirit acquiesced. In death. Old Squire Fairfield knew that it was the bishop who really and as I believe rightly opposed him. Or to this day the vicarage pays no rent. But the proud and violent man chose to make the vicar feel his resentment. Ivy held him with a gloomy and thunderous aspect. Never a word more would he exchange with him. He turned his back upon him. He forbid him the footpath across the fields of Wyvern that made the way to church shorter. He walked out of church grimly when his sermon began. He turned the vicar's cow off the common and made him every way feel the weight of his displeasure. Well now the vicar was dead. He had borne it all very gently and sadly. And it was over, a page in the past. No line erasable, no line addable forever. So Parsons dead and buried serve him right, said the Squire of Wyvern, thankless rascal. You go down and tell them I must have the house up on the 24th and if they don't go, you bundle them out, Thomas Rook. There'll be the vicar's little child there. Moves to take it in, Squire. Asked Thomas Rook after a hesitation. You may or the bishop, damn him. I'm a poor man and for the bishop he's not like to, let him try the workhouse at the Squire where many a better man's brat is. And he gave Thomas Rook a look that might have knocked him down and turned his back on him and walked away. A week or so after, he went down himself to the vicarage with Tom Rook. Old, dulcy Bella Crane went over the lower part of the house with Tom. And the Squire strode up the stairs and stooping his tall head as he entered the door, walked into the first room he met with in a surly mood. The clatter of his boots prevented his hearing till he had got well into the room, the low crying of a little child in a cradle. He stayed his step for a moment. He had quite forgotten that unimportant being and he half turned to go out again, but changed his mind. He stooped over the cradle and the little child's crying ceased. It was a very pretty face and large eyes, still wet with tears, that looked up with an earnest wondering gaze at him from out the tiny blankets. Old, dulcy Bella Crane had gone down and the solitude, no doubt, affrighted it. And there was consolation, even in the presence of the grim Squire, into whose face those large eyes looked with innocent trust. Who would have thought it? Below lay the little image of utter human weakness, above stooped a statue of inflexibility and power, a strong statue with a grim contracted eye. There was a heart steeled against man's remonstrance and a pride that would have burst into fury at a hint of reproof. Below lay the mere wonder and vagueness of dumb infancy. Could contest be imagined more hopeless? But the faithful creator, who loved the poor vicar, had brought those eyes to meet. The little child's crying was hushed. Big tears hung in its great wondering eyes and the little face looked up pale and forlorn. It was a gaze that lasted while you might count four or five. But its mysterious work of love was done. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made. Squire Fairfield walked round this room and went out and examined the others and went downstairs in silence. And when he was going out at the hall door, he stopped and looked at old Dulcy Bella Crane, who stood curtsying at it in great fear and said he, the child will be better at home with me, I'll but Wyvern and I'll send down for it and you in the afternoon till something settled. And on this invitation, little Alice Maybell and her nurse Dulcy Bella Crane came to Wyvern Manor and had remained there now for 20 years. End of chapter four, recording by John Brandon. Chapter five of the Wyvern Mystery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by John Brandon. The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheraton-Lefonow. Chapter five. The Terrace Garden. Alice Maybell grew up very pretty, not a riot beauty, without much color, rather pale indeed. And a little sad. What struck one at first sight was a slender figure with a prettiness in every motion, a clear tinted oval face with very large dark eyes, such as Chaucer describes in his beauties as I.E.'s gray as glass. With very long lashes, her lips of a very brilliant red with even little teeth. And when she smiled, a great many tiny soft dimples. This pretty creature led a lonely life at Wyvern. Between her and the young squires, Charles and Henry, there intervened the great gulf of 20 years. She was left very much to herself. Sometimes she rode into the village with the old squire. She sat in the Wyvern pew every Sunday, but except on those and like occasions, the townsfolk saw little of her. Tain't after her father or mother she takes with them heirs of hers, there was no pride in the vicar. Well, poor Mrs. Maybell. And she'll never be like her mother, a nice little thing she was. So said Mrs. Ford of the George Inn at Wyvern. But what she called pride was in reality shyness. About Mrs. Maybell, there was a very odd rumor floating in the town. It had got about that this beautiful young lady was in love with old squire Fairfield, or at least with his estate of Wyvern. The village doctor was standing with his back to his drawing room fire and the newspaper in his left hand lowered to his knee as he held forth to his wife and romantic old Mrs. Diaper at the tea table. If she is in love with that old man, as they say, take my word for it. She'll not be long out of a mad house. How do you mean, my dear, asked his wife? I mean it is not love at all, but incipient mania. Her lonely life up there at Wyvern would make any girl odd and it's setting her mad. That's how I mean. My dear sir, remonstrated, fat Mrs. Diaper, who has learned it as well as romantic. Romance takes every whimsical shape at times. Vanessa was in love with Dean Swift and very young men were passionately in love with Nenon Dellenclose. Tut stuff. Did I ever hear? Exclaimed Mrs. Buttle derisively. Who ever thought of love or romance in the matter? The young lady thinks it would be very well to be mistress of Wyvern and secure comfortable jointure. And so it would. And if she can make that unfortunate old man fancy her in love with him, she'll bring him to that. I have very little doubt. I never knew a quiet mix that wasn't sly, smooth water. In fact, through the little town of Wyvern, trot out for the most part from the forest grounds and old gray manor house of the same name, it came to be buzzed abroad. And about that, whether for love or from a most of more sane, though less refined, pretty Miss Alice Maybell had set her heart on marrying her surly old benefactor whose years were enough for her grandfather. It was an odd idea to get into people's heads. But why were her large, soft gray eyes always following the squire by stealth? And after all, what is incredible of the insanity of ambition or the subtlety of women? In the stable yard of Wyvern, Master Charles had his foot in the stirrup and the old fellow with a mulberry colored face and little gray eyes who held the stirrup leather at the other side said grinning, I wish ye may get it. Get what? said Charles Fairfield, arresting his spring for a moment and turning his dark and still handsome face with a hard look at the man. For there was something dry and sly in his face and voice. What we was talking of, the old house and the land, said the man. Hey, is that all? said the young squire, as he was still called at four and 40, throwing himself lightly into the saddle. I'm pretty easy about that. Why, what's the matter? What if the old fellow took it in his head to marry? Marry, eh? Well, if he did, I don't care. But what the devil makes you talk like that? Why, man, there's black and white, seal and parchment for that. The house and acres are settled, Tom. And who do you think would marry him? You're the last to hear it. Any child in the town could tell you, Miss Alice Maybell. Oh, do they really? I did not think of that. Said the young squire, first looking in old Tom's hard gray eyes, then for a moment at his own boot thoughtfully. And then he swung himself into the saddle and struck his spur in his horse's side. And away he plunged without another word. He don't like it, not a bit, said Tom, following him with a scant's look as he rode down the avenue. No more do I. She's always a watchin' of the squire. An old Harry does throw a sheep's eye at her. And she's a likely lass. What though he be old, it's an old rat that won't eat cheese. As Tom stood thus, he received a poke on the shoulder with the end of a stick. And looking round, saw old squire Harry. The squire's face was threatening. Turn round, damn you! What were you saying to that boy of mine? Nothing, as I remember, lied Tom bluntly. Come, what was it? Said the hard old voice sternly. I said, black-eyed, be the better of a brushin' boot. That's all, I mined. You lie. I saw you look over your shoulder before you said it. And while he was talkin', he saw me a comin', and he looked away. I caught he at it. He pair of false, pratten scoundrels. Ye were talkin' of me. Come, what did he say, sirrah? Nara, a word about ye. Ye lie, out we it, sir, or I'll make your head sing like the church bell. And he shook his stick in his great tremulous fist with a look that Tom knew well. Nara, a word about you from first to last, said Tom. And he cursed and swore in support of his statement, for a violent master makes liars of his servants. And the servile vices crop up fast and rank under the shadow of tyranny. I don't believe you, said the squire, irresolutely. You're a liar, Tom, a black liar. Ye'll choke we ye lies some day, you fool. But the squire seemed partly appeased and stood with the point of his stick now upon the ground, looking down on little Tom with a somewhat grim and dubious visage. And after a few moments' silence, he asked, where's Miss Alice? Taking a walk, sir, where, I say. She went towards the terrace garden, answered Tom, and toward the terrace garden walked with a stately, tottering step, the old squire, with his great mastiff at his heels, under the shadow of tall trees, one side of their rugged stems lighted with the yellow sunset, the other in soft gray, while the small birds were singing pleasantly high over his head among quivering leaves. He entered the garden, ascending five worn steps of stone between two weather-worn stone urns. It is a pretty garden, all the prettier, though sadder for its neglected state. Tall trees over top its walls from without, and those gray walls are here and there overgrown with a luxuriant mantle of ivy. Within are yew trees and wonderfully tall old myrtles, laurels not headed down for 50 years, and grown from shrubs into straggling melancholy trees. Its broad walls are now overgrown with grass, and it has the air and solitude of a ruin. In this conventional seclusion, seated under the shade of a great old tree, he saw her, the old-fashioned rustic seat on which she sat is confronted by another, with what was once a gravel walk between. More erect, shaking himself up as it were, he strode slowly tort her. Her head was supported by her hand, her book on her lap. She seemed lost in a reverie, as he approached unawares over the thick carpet of grass and weeds. Well, lass, what brings you here? You'll be sneezing and coughing for this, won't you? Sneezing and coughing. A moist, dark nook ye've chosen. Squire Harry placing himself nevertheless on the seat opposite. She started at the sound of his voice, and as she looked up in his face, he saw that she had been crying. The Squire said nothing but stiffly scuffled and poked the weeds and grass at his feet for a while, with the end of his stick, and whistled low, some dreary old bars to himself. At length he set abruptly, but in a kind tone. You're no child now, you've grown up. You're a well-thriven, handsome young woman, little Alice. There's not one to compare, wee ye, of all the lasses that come to Wyvern Church. Ye bear the bell, ye do, ye bear the bell. Ye know it, don't ye? Come say, lass. Don't ye know there's none to compare, wee ye? Thank you, sir. It's very good of you to think so. You're almost so kind, said pretty Alice, looking very earnestly up in his face. Her large, tearful eyes wider than usual, and wondering, and perhaps hoping, for what might come next. I'll be kinder maybe, never ye mind. Ye like Wyvern Lass, the old house? Well, it's snug it is. It's a good old English house. None of your thin brick walls and Greek pillars and scrapo, rotten plaster, like my lord Ryebroke's sprawling house. They think so fine, but they don't think it. Only they say so, and they lie just to flatter the peer. Damn them. They go to London and learn courteous ways there. That wasn't so when I was a boy. A good old gentleman that kept house and hounds here was more by a long score, than half a dozen fine loon and lords. And you're handsome, or Alice, and a deal better. And a better lady, too, than the best of them painted fine ladies that's too nice to eat good beef or mutton and can't call a cabbage a cabbage, I'm told, and would turn up their eyes like a duck in thunder. If a body told them to put on their patents and walk out as my mother used to look over the poultry. But what was that you were saying? I forget. I don't think, sir, I don't remember, was I saying anything? I don't recollect, said Alice, who knew that she had contributed nothing to the talk. And you like Wyvern, pursued the old man, with a gruff sort of kindness? Well, you're right, it's not been a bad home for ye, and ye'd grieve to leave it. I, you're right, there's no place like it, there's no air like it, and ye love Wyvern, and ye shan't leave it, Alice. Alice Maybell looked hard at him, she was frightened and also agitated. She grew suddenly pale, but the squire, not observing this, continued. That is, unless ye'd be the greatest fool in the countryside. Ye'd miss Wyvern, and the old woods, and glens, and spinnies, and mayhap ye'd miss the old man a bit too, not so old as they give out though, and isn't always the old dog gives in first, mind ye. Nor the youngen, that's the best dog, neither. I don't care that stick for my sons. No more than day for me, that's reason. There no comfort to me, nor never was. There'd be devilish glad I was carried out a Wyvern hall feet foremost. Oh, sir, you can't think. Hold your little fool's tongue, I'm wiser than you. If it weren't for you, child, I don't see much my life would be good for. You don't wish me dead, like those cubs. Hold your tongue, lass. I see someone's been frightening you. But I'm not gonna die for a bit. Don't you take on, gie's your hand. And he took it and held it fast in his massive grasp. You've been crying ye fool. Them fellow's been sayin' I'm breakin' up. It's a damned lie. I've a mind to send them about their business. I'd do it as ready as put a horse over a three-foot wall, but I've 12 years life left in me yet. I'm good for 14 years if I live as long as my father did. And he took his time about it and no one heard me grumble. And I'll take mine. Don't you be a fool. I tell you there's no one gonna die here that I know of. There's gentle blood in your veins, and you're a kind lass. And I'll take care of you, mind. I'll do it, and I'll talk to you again. And so saying, he gave her hand-departing shake and let it drop. And rising he turned away and strode stiffly from the garden. He was not often so valuable, and now the whole of this talk seemed to Alice Maybell a riddle. He could not be thinking of marrying, but was he thinking of leaving her the house and a provision for her life? End of Chapter 5 Recording by John Brandon Chapter 6 of The Wyvern Mystery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheridan LeFannou Chapter 6 The Old Squire Unlike Himself He talked very little that night in the old-fashioned drawing room, where Alice played his favourite old heirs for him on the piano, which he still called the harpsichord. He sat, sometimes dozing, sometimes listening to her music, in the great chair by the fire. He ruminated, perhaps, but he did not open the subject whatever it might be, which he had hinted at. But before ten o'clock came, he got up and stood with his back to the fire. Is there any age at which folly has quite done with us, and we cease from building castles in the air? My wife was a tartar, said he rather abruptly, and she was always telling me I'd marry again before she was cold in her grave, and I made answer, I've had enough of that market, I thank you. One wife in a life is one too many. But she wasn't like you, no more than chalk to cheese, a head-devil she was. Play me the week before Easter again, lass. And the young lady, thrice-over, played that pretty but vulgar old heir, and when she paused, the gaunt old squire chanted the refrain from the hearth-rug, favoringly and discordantly. You should have heard Tom Snedley sing that round a bowl of punch. My sons, a pair of dull dogs, we were pleasanter fellows then. I don't care if they was at the bottom of the London canal. Geass the Lincolnshire poacher lass, pipping, squeezing rascals, and never loved me, I sometimes think I don't know what the world's come into. I'd be a younger lad by a scorey years if neighbours were as I remember them. At that moment entered old Tom Ward, who, like his master, had seen younger if not better days, bearing something hot in a silver tankard on a little tray. Tom looked at the squire. The squire pointed to the little table by the hearth-rug and pulled out his great gold watch, and found it was time for his nightcap. Tom was skilled in the brew that pleased his master, and stood with his shrewd grey eye on him till he had swallowed his first glass. Then the squire nodded gruffly, and he knew all was right and was relieved, for everyone stood in awe of old Fairfield. Tom was gone, but the squire drank a second glass, slowly, and then a third, and stood up again with his back to the fire and filled his glass with the last precious drops of his cordial, and placed it on the chimney-piece, and looked steadfastly on the girl, whose eyes looked sad on the notes, while her slender fingers played those hilarious airs which Squire Fairfield delighted to listen to. Down in the mouth, lass, hey! said the squire, with a suddenness that made the unconscious girl start. When she looked up, he was standing grinning upon her from the hearth-rug, with his glass in his fingers, and his face flushed. You girls, when you like a lad, you're always in the dumps, ain't ye? Mopin and molten, like a sick bird, till the fellow comes out with his mind, and then all's right, flutter and song and new feathers, and—come! What do you think of me, lass? She looked at him, dumbly, with a colourless and frightened face. She saw no object in the room, but the tall figure of the old man, flushed with punch and leering with a horrid jollity, straight before her like a vivid magic lantern figure in the dark. He was grinning and wagging his head with exulting encouragement. Had squire fairfield, as men have done, all on a sudden grown insane, and was that leering mask, the furrows and contortions of which, and its glittering eyes, were fixing themselves horribly on her brain, a familiar face transformed by madness, Come, lass! Do you like me? demanded the phantom. Well, you're tongue-tied, you little fool, shame-faced and all that I see, he resumed after a little pause, but you shall answer, you must. You do, you like old Wyvern, the old squire. You'd feel strange in another place, you would, and a younger fellow would not be a tithes as kind as me, and I like ye well. Chickabiddy, chickabiddy, you'll be my little queen, and I'll keep ye brave satins and ribbons and laces and lawn, and I'll give ye the jewel-rager here, necklaces and earrings and bodkins and all the rest, for your own mind, for the captain nor Jack shall never hang them on wife of theirs, mind ye, and ye'll be the grandest lady has ever been in Wyvern this hundred years, and ye'll have nothing to do but sit all day in the window or ride in the coach and order your maids about, and I'll leave you every acre and stick and stone and silver spoon that's in or round about Wyvern, for you're a good lass, and I'll make a woman of you, and I'd like to break them young rascals' necks, they never deserved a shillin' of mine, so geese your hand, lass, and the bargains made. So the squire strode a stepple to nearer, extending his huge bony hand, and Alice aghast stared with wide open eyes fixed on him and exclaiming faintly, oh sir, obis to Fairfield, oh, to be sure, and oh, squire Fairfield, chuckled he, mimicking the young lady as he drew near, ye need not be shy nor scared by me, little Alice, I like you too well to hurt the tip of your little finger, lucky, and you'll sleep on't, and tell me all tomorrow morning, and he laid his mighty hands that had lifted wrestlers from the earth and hurled Boxer's headlong in his day, tremulously on her two little shoulders, and ye'll say good night and give me a bus, good night, she lass, and we'll talk again in the morning, and ye'll say not mine to the boys, damm'em, till all's settled, ye smooth, cheek bright-eyed cherry lip-little, and here the ancient squire boisterously bussed the young lady as he had threatened, and two or three times again till, scrubbed by the white stubble of his chin, she broke away with her cheeks flaming, and still more alarmed reached the door, say good night, won't ye, hey, bawled the squire still in a chuckle and shoving the chairs out of his way as he stumbled after her, good night, sir, cried she, and made her escape through the door and under the arch that opened from the hall and up the stairs toward her room, calling as unconcernedly as she could, but with tremulous eagerness, to her old servant, Dosabella, are you there? and immensely relieved when she heard her kindly old voice and saw the light of her candle. I say hello, why wench, what the devils come over ye, hallowed the voice of the old man from the foot of the stairs. That's the trick of you rogues all, ye run away to draw us after, well it won't do. Another time. I say good night ye wild bird. Thank you, sir. Good night, sir, good night, sir, repeated the voice of Alice higher and higher up the stairs, and he heard her door shut. He stood with a flushed face and a sardonic grin for a while, looking up the stairs with his big bony hand on the banister and wondering how young he was. And he laughed and muttered pleasantly and resolved it should all be settled between them next evening. And so again he looked at his watch and found that she had not gone, after all, earlier than usual, and went back to his fire and rang the bell and got a second nightcap, as he called his flagon of punch. Tom remarked how straight the squire stood that night with his back to the fire, eyeing him as he entered from the corners of his eyes with a grin and a wicked wag of his head. A dull dog, Tom, who's it gonna hang ye? Damn ye, look brighter or I'll stir ye up with the poker. Never shake your head, man, ye may brew yourself a tankard of this and you'll find you're younger than you think for, and some of the wenches will be throwing a sheep's eye at you, who knows? Tom did not quite know what to make of this fierce lighting up of gaiety and benevolence, an inquisitive glance he fixed stealthily on his master and thanked him dubiously, for he was habitually afraid of him, and as he walked away through the passages he sometimes thought the letter that came that afternoon might have told of the death of old Lady Drayton or some other relief of the estate, and sometimes his suspicions were nearer to the truth, for in drowsy houses like Wyvern where events are few, all feces of conversation are valuable and speculation is active, and you may be sure that what was talked of in the town was no mystery in the servants' hall, though more gossiped over than believed. Men who are kings in very small dominions are whimsical as well as imperious, eccentricity is the companion of seclusion, and the squire had a jealous custom in his house, which was among the oddities of his despotism. It was simply this. The staircase up which Alice Maybell flew that night to Old Dorsabella and her room is that which ascends the northern wing of the house. A strong door in the short passage leading to it from the hall shuts it off from the rest of the building on that level. For this young lady then, while she was still a child, Squire Fairfield had easily made an oriental seclusion in his household by locking with his own hand that door every night and securing more permanently the doors which on other levels afforded access to the same wing. He had a slight opinion of the other sex and an evil one of his own and would have no Romeo and Juliet tragedies. As he locked this door after Miss Alice Maybell's good night he would sometimes wag his head shrewdly and wink to himself in the lonely oak hall as he dropped the key into his deep coat pocket. Safe find, safe find, better sure than sorry, and otherwise soars seconding the precaution. So this night he recollected the key as usual which in the early morning when he drank his glass of beer at his room door he handed to old Mrs. Durden who turned it in the lock and restored access for the day. This custom was too ancient, reaching back beyond her earliest memory to suggest the idea of an affront and so it was acquiescin' and never troubled Miss Maybell. The lock was not tampered with, the door was never passed, although the squire versed in old soars was simple to rely on that security against a power that laughs at locksmiths. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of the Wyvern Mystery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou Chapter 7 The Squire's Eldest Son Comes Home Thus was old Squire Fairfield unexpectedly transformed and much to the horror of pretty Alice Maybell appeared in the character of a lover, grim, ungainly, and without the least chance of that brighter transformation which ultimately more than reconciles beauty to her conjugal relations with the Beast. Grotesque and even ghastly it would have seemed at any time but now it was positively dismaying and poor troubled little Alice Maybell on reaching her room sat down on the side of her bed and to the horror and bewilderment of old Dossabella kept bitterly and long. The harmless gable of the old nurse who placed herself by her side patting her all the time upon the shoulder was as the sound of a humming in the woods in summertime or the crooning of a brook. Though her ear was hardly conscious of it perhaps it soothed her. Next day there was a little stir at Wyvern for Charles or as he was often called Captain Fairfield arrived. This elderly young gentleman as Lady Windale called him led a listless life there. He did not much affect rustic amusements. He fished now and then but cared little for shooting and less for hunting. His time hung heavy on his hands and he did not well know what to do with himself. He smoked and strolled about a good deal and rode into Wyvern and talked with the townspeople but the country plainly bored him and not the less that his sojourn had been in London and the contrast made matters worse. Alice Maybell had a headache that morning and not caring to meet the squire earlier than was inevitable chose to say so. The captain, who travelling by the mail had arrived at eight o'clock took his place at the breakfast table at nine and received for welcome a gruff nod from the squire and the tacit permission to grasp the knuckles which he grudgingly extended to him to shake. In that little drama in which the old squire chose now to figure his son Charles was confoundedly in the way. Well, and what were you doing in London all this time? grumbled squire Harry when he had finished his rasher and his cup of coffee after a long hard look at Charles who in happy unconsciousness crunched his toast and read the county paper. I beg your pardon sir, I didn't hear. What were you saying? said Charles looking up and lowering the paper. Ah yes, I was saying I don't think you went all the way to London to say your prayers in St Paul's. You've been loosing money in those hells and places when your pockets full away you go and leave it with them tang-blaggards and back you come as empty as a broken sack and so on. Come now, how much rent do you take by the year from that place your full of a mother left you, the tartar boy? I think sir, about three hundred a year. answered Charles. Three hundred and eighty, said the old man with a grin and a wag of the head. I'm not so old that I can't remember that. Three hundred and eighty. And you flung that away in London taverns and operas on dancers and dicers and you come back here without a shilling left to bless yourself to ride my horses and drink my wine and you call that fair play. Come along here and followed by his mastiff he marched stiffly out of the room. Charles was surprised at this explosion and sat looking after the grim old man not knowing well what to make of it for Squire Harry was open-hearted enough and never counted the cost of his hospitalities and had never grudged him his home at Wyvern before. Much he knows about it, thought Charles. Time enough though. If I'm de-trop here I can take my portmanteau and umbrella and make my bow and go cheerfully. The tall captain however did not look cheerful but pale and angry as he stood up and kicked the newspaper which fell across his foot fiercely. He looked out the window with one hand in his pocket in sour rumination. Then he took his rod and flies and cigar case and strolled down to the river wherein that engrossing and monotonous delight celebrated of old by Venables and Walton he dreamed away the dull hours. Blessed resource for those mysterious mortals to whom nature accords it stealing away as they wander solitary along the devious river bank the memory, the remorse and the miseries of life like the flow and music of the shadowy lethy. This captain did not look like the man his father had described him an anxious man rather than a man of pleasure a man who was no sooner alone than he seemed to brood over some intolerable care and except during the exercise of his gentle craft his looks were seldom happy or serene. The hour of dinner came a party of three by no means well assorted the old squire in no genial mood and awfully silent Charles silent and abstracted too his body sitting there eating its dinner and his soul wandering with black care in the phantoms by far off sticks the young lady had her own thoughts to herself uncomfortable thoughts at last the squire spoke to the intruder with a look that might have laid him in the Red Sea in my time young fellows were more alive and had something to say for themselves I don't want your talk myself over my vitals I should have spoke to her Tisn't civil to earn the way in my day I don't think ye asked her how are ye since she came back London manners maybe Oh but I assure you I did I could not have made such an omission Alice will tell you I was not quite so stupid said Charles raising his eyes and looking at her not that it signifies mind ye the crack of a whip whether ye did or no continued the squire but ye may as well remember that ye're not brother and sister exactly and ye'll call her Miss Maybell and not Alice no longer the captain stared the old squire looked resolutely at the brandy flask from which he was pouring into his tumbler Alice Maybell's eyes were lowered to the edge of her plate and with the tip of her finger she fiddled with the crumbs on the tablecloth she did not know what to say or what might be coming so soon as the squire had quite compounded his brandy and water he lifted his surly eyes to his son with a flush on his aged cheek and wagged his head with a wrackler grimness and silence descended again for a time upon the three kinsfolk this uncomfortable party I suppose were off again each on their own thoughts in another minute but no one said a word for some time by the by Alice Miss Maybell I mean I saw in London a little picture that would have interested you said the captain an enameled miniature of Marie Antoinette a pretty little thing only the size of your watch you can't think how spirited and beautiful it was and why the dickens didn't you buy it and make her a compliment of it much good telling her how pretty it was said the squire sulkily it wasn't for want of money damn it in my day a young fellow would be ashamed to talk of such a thing without he had it in his pocket to make an offer of and the old squire muttered sardomically to his brandy and water and neither Miss Alice nor Captain Fairfield knew well what to say the old man seemed bent on extinguishing every little symptom of a lighting up of the gloom which his presence induced they came at last into the drawing room the squire took his accustomed place by the fire in due time came his nightcap Miss Alice played his airs over and over on the piano the captain yawned stealthily into his hand at intervals and at last stole away well Ali here we are at last girl that moping rascals gone to his bed I thought he'd never a gone and now come here you little fool I want to talk to you come I say what the devil be you feared on I'd like to see the fellow would be uncivil to you my wife as soon as the lawyers can write out the parchment the best settlements has ever been made on a fairfield's wife since my great uncle's time why you look as frightened you pretty little fool as if I was a goon to rob you instead of making you lady a wyvern and giving you every blessed thing I have on earth that's right he had taken her timid little hand in his bony and tremulous grasp I'll have ye grander than any that ever has been he was looking in her face with an exulting glare of admiration and I'll give ye the diamonds for your own mind and I'll have your picture took by a painter there was never a lady a wyvern fit to hold a candle to ye and I'm a better man than half the young fellows that's going and ye'll do as ye like with servants and house and horses and all I'll deny ye in nothing and why sweetheart didn't you come down this morning was you ailing child was pretty alley sick in earnest a headache sir I have it still if you would not mind I'll be better sir in my room I've had a very bad headache it will be quite well I dare say by tomorrow you you are very kind sir you have always been very kind sir I never can thank you never never sir as I feel tuh folly nonsense child wait till all's done and thank me then if ye will I'll make ye as fine as the queen and finer every now and then he emphasised his harang by kissing her cheeks and lips which added to her perplexity and terror and made her skin flame with the boisterous rasp of his stubble chin and ye'll be my little duchess my beauty ye will my queen of diamonds you roguey pokey woguey as cunning as a dog fox and in the midst of these tumultuous endearments she managed to break away from the amorous ogre and was out of the door and up the stairs to her room and Old Dolce Bella before his tardy pursuit had reached the cross-door an hour has passed and the young lady stood up and placing her arms about her neck kissed Old Dolce Bella will you take a candle darling she said and go down to see whether the cross-door is shut down went Dolce Bella the stairs creaking under her and the young lady drying her eyes looked at her watch drew the curtain at the window placed the candle on the table near it and then shading her eyes with her hand looked out earnestly the window did not command the avenue it was placed in the side of the house a moonlighted view she looked out upon a soft declivity from whose grassy slopes rose grand old trees some in isolation some in groups of twos and threes all slumbering in the hazy light and still air and beyond rose softer in the distance gentle undulating uplands studded with trees and near their summits more thickly clothed in forest she opened the window softly and looking outside in the fresh air of night and heard from the hollow the distant rush and moan of running waters and her eyes searched the foreground of this landscape the trunk of one of the great trees near the house seemed to become animated and projected a human figure nothing awful or ghastly a man in a short cloak with a wide awake hat on seeing the figure in the window he lifted his hand looking towards her and approaching the side of the house with caution glanced this way and that till he reached the house the old servant at the same time returned and told her that the door was locked as usual you remain here dorsabella no, I shan't take a candle and with a heavy sigh she left the room and treading lightly descended the stairs and entered a wainscotted room on the ground floor with two windows through which came a faint reflected light standing close to the nearer of these was the man with whom she had exchanged from the upper room the signals I have mentioned End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of the Wyvern Mystery this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Wyvern Mystery by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou Chapter 8 Never Did Run Smooth Swiftly she went to the window and raced it without noise and in a moment they were locked in each other's arms Darling, darling, was audible and, oh, Rai, do you love me still? Adore you, darling, adore you my little violet that grew in the shade my only, only darling and I have been so miserable, oh, Rai that heart-breaking disappointment that dreadful moment you'll never know half I felt as I knocked at that door expecting to see my own darling's face and then I could have thrown myself from the rock over that glen but you're here and I have you after all and now I must never lose you again never, never lose me, darling, you never did and you never shall but I could not go, I dare not every fellow you know owes money and I'm in that sorry plight like the rest and just what I told you would have happened and that you know would have been worse but I think that's all settled and lose me not for one moment ever can you lose me, my beautiful idol oh yes, that's so delightful and Rai and his poor violet will be so happy and he'll never love anyone but her never, darling, never and he never did never, of course, never and I'm sure it could not be helped you're not being at car well of course it couldn't, how could it don't you know everything you're my own reasonable wise little girl and you would not like to bore and worry your poor Rai I wish to God I were my own master you'd soon see then who loves you best in all the world oh yes, I'm sure of it yes, darling, you are if we are to be happy you must be sure of it if there's force in language or proof in act you can't doubt me you must know how I adore you what motive on earth could I have in saying so but one none, none, darling, darling Rai it's only my folly and you'll forgive your poor foolish little bird and oh Rai, it's not this dreadful but better I suppose that is when a few miserable hours are over and I gone and we happy your poor little violet and Rai happy together for the rest of our lives I think so I do all our days and you understand everything I told you everything, yes about tomorrow morning quite the walk isn't too much oh nothing and old Dossabella shall follow you early in the day to Drompton you remember the name of the house yes, the Tansy Well quite right wise little woman no darling, you must not stir out quiet as it is you might be seen it is only a few hours' caution and then we need not care but I don't want pursuit and a scene and to agitate my poor little fluttered bird more than is avoidable even when you look out of the window keep your veil down and just reach the Tansy House and do as I say and you may leave all the rest to me wait a moment, who's here? no, no, nothing but I had better leave you now yes darling, it is wiser some of the people may be peeping and I'll go and so a tumultuous good night wild tears and hopes and panic and blessings and that brief interview was over the window was shut and Alice Maybell in her room the lovers not to meet again till forty miles away and with a throbbing heart she lay down to think and cry and long for the morning she dreaded morning came and the breakfast hour and the old squire over his cup of coffee and rasher called for Mrs. Durden the housekeeper and said he Miss Alice I hear is ailing this morning you can see old Dossabella and make out would she like the doctor should look in and would she like anything nice for breakfast a slice of the goose pie or what and send down to the tang for the doctor if she or old Dossabella thinks well of it and if it should be in church time call him out of his pew and find out what she'd like to eat or drink and with his usual gruff nod he dismissed her I should be very happy to go into town if you wish sir said Charles Fairfield desiring it would seem to re-establish his character for politeness and I'm extremely sorry I'm sure that poor Ali I mean that Miss Maybell is so ill you won't cry though I warrant there's people enough in Wyvern to send her messages without trouble in you said the squire the captain however fiercely had let this unpleasant speech pass unchallenged the old squire was two or three times at the foot of the stairs before church time bawling inquiries after Miss Alice's health and messages for her private ear to old Dossabella the squire never missed church he was as punctual as his ancestor old Sir Thomas Fairfield who was there every Sunday and feast day lying on his back praying in tarnished red blue and gold habiliments of the reign of James I in which he died and took the form of painted stone and has looked straight up with his side to the wall and his hands joined in supplication ever since if the old squire did not trouble himself with reading nor much with prayer and thought over such topics as suited him during divine service he at least went through the drill of the rubrics decorously and stood erect, sat down or kneeled as if he were the ordained fugulman of his tenetry assembled in the old church Captain Fairfield a handsome fellow notwithstanding his years with the keen blue eyes of his race a lazy man and reserved but with the hot blood of the Fairfields in his veins which showed itself dangerously on occasion occupied a corner of this great oak enclosure at the remote end from his father like him he pursued his private ruminations with little interruption from the liturgy in which he ostensibly joined these ruminations were to judge from his countenance of a satinine and sulky sort he was thinking over his father's inhospitable language and making up his mind for though indolent he was proud and fiery to take steps upon it and to turn his back perhaps for many a day on Wyvern the sweet old organ of Wyvern peeled and young voices swelled the chorus of love and praise and still father and son were confronted in dark antipathy the vicar read his text from Holy Ritt and preached on the same awful themes the transitoriness of our days love, truth, purity, eternal life, death eternal and still this same unnatural chill and darkness was between them Molok sat unseen by the old man's side and in the diapason of the organ moaned his thirst for his sacrifices evil spirits amused the young man's brain with pictures of his slights and wrongs and with their breath heated his vengeful heart the dreams of both were interrupted by the vicar's sonorous blessing and they shook their ears and kneeled down and their dreams came back again so it was Sunday, better day, better deed when a smouldering quarrel broke suddenly into fire and thunder in the manor house of Wyvern there is, we know, an estate of six thousand pounds a year in a ring fence round this old house it owes something alarming but the parish, village and manor of Wyvern have belonged time out of mind to the Fairfield family a very red sunset, ominous of storm floods the western sky with its wild and sullen glory the leaves of the great trees from whose recesses the small birds are singing their cheery serenade flash and glimmer in it as if a dew of fire had sprinkled them and a blood red flush lights up the brown feathers of the little birds these fairfields are a handsome race showing handsome, proud English faces brown haired, sometimes light, sometimes dark with generally blue eyes, not mild but fierce and keen they are a race of athletes, tall men famous all that country round generation after generation for prowess in the wrestling ring at cudgels and other games of strength famous too for worse matters strong-willed, selfish, cruel on occasion but with a generosity and courage that make them in a manner popular the character of the fairfields has the vices and some of the better traits of feudalism Charles Fairfield had been making up his mind to talk to his father he had resolved to do so on his way home from church with the cool air and clearer light outside the porch came a subsidence of his haste and nodding here and there to friend or old acquaintance as he strobe through the church yard he went a solitary way home instead of opening his wounds and purposes then to his father better at home, better at wyvern in an hour or so I'll make all ready and see him then so home, if home it was by a lonely path looking gloomily down on the daisies strode Charles Fairfield End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 in which the squire loses his golden-headed cane the sun, as I have said was sinking among the western clouds with a melancholy glare Captain Fairfield was pacing slowly to and fro upon the broad terrace that extends with a carved bolstrade and many a stone flowerpot along the rear of the old house the crows were winging their way home and the air was vocal with their faint clawings high above the grey roof and the summits of the mighty trees now glowing in that transitory light his horse was ready saddled and his portmanteau and other trifling effects had been dispatched some hours before is there any good in bidding him goodbye? hesitated the captain he was thinking of descending the terrace steps at the further end as he mounted his horse leaving his valovictory message with the man who held it but the spell of childhood is not easily broken when it has been respected for so many after-years the captain had never got rid of the childish awe which began before he could remember the virtues are respected but such vices as pride, violence and hard-heartedness in a father are more respected still Charles could approach a quarrel with that old despot he could stand at the very brink and with a resentful and defiant eye scan the abyss but he could not quite make up his mind to the plunge the old beast was so utterly violent and incalculable in his anger that no one could say to what weapons and extremities he might be driven in a combat with him and where was the good in avowed hostilities must not a very few years now bring humiliation and oppression to an end Charles Fairfield was saved the trouble of deciding for himself however by the appearance of old squire Harry who walked forth from the handsome stone door case upon the terrace where his son stood ready for departure the old man was walking with a measure tread holding his head very high with an odd flush on his face and a sardonic smile and he was talking inaudibly to himself Charles saw in all of this the signs of storm in the old man's hand was a letter firmly clutched if he saw his son who expected to be accosted by him he passed him by with as little notice as he bestowed on the tall rose tree that grew in the stone pot by his side the squire walked down the terrace southward towards the steps the wild sunset sky to his right the flaming windows of the house to his left when he had gone on a few steps his tall son followed him perhaps he thought it better that squire Harry should be informed of his intended departure from his lips than that he should learn it from the groom who held the bridle of his horse the squire did not descend the steps however he stopped short of them and sat down in one of the seats that are placed at intervals under the windows he leaned with both hands on his cane the point of which he ground angrily into the gravel in his fingers was still crumpled the letter he was looking down with a very angry face illuminated by the wild western sky shaking his head and muttering the tall brown captain stalked towards him and touched his hat according to his father's revelential rule may I have a word sir he asked the old man stared in his face and nodded fiercely and with this ominous invitation he complied you were pleased sir said he yesterday to express an opinion that with the income I have I ought to support myself and no longer to trouble Wyvern it was stupid of me not to think of that myself very stupid and all I can do is to lose no time about it and so I have sent my traps away and I am going to follow now sir and I couldn't go of course sir without saying farewell to you and he was on the point of adding thanking you for all your kindness but he recollected himself thank him indeed no he could not bring himself to that and I am leaving now sir and goodbye oh turning your back on Wyvern like all the rest well sir the world's wide you can choose your road I don't ask none of you to stay and see me off not I I'll not be without someone when I die I'll shut down my eyes I dare say get ye gone I thought sir in fact I was quite convinced said Charles Fairfield a little disconcerted that you had quite made up your mind as I have mine sir so I had sir so I had don't suppose I care a rush sir who goes not a damned rush not I better an empty house than a bad tenet up rose the old man as he spoke away with them say I bundle them out off with them bag and baggage there's more like he read that and he thrust the letter at him like a pistol and leaving it in his hand turned and stalked slowly up the terrace while the captain read the following note sir I hardly ventured to hope that you will ever again think of me with that kindness which circumstances compel me so ungrateful to requite I owe you more than I can ever tell I began to experience your kindness in my infancy and it has never failed me since oh sir do not I entreat denying me one last proof of your generosity your forgiveness I leave Wyvern and before these lines are in your hand I shall have found another home soon I trust I shall be able to tell my benefactor where in the meantime may God recompense you as I never can for all your goodness to me I leave the place where all my life has passed amid continual and unmerited kindness with the keenest anguish aggravated by my utter inability at present to repay your goodness by the poor acknowledgement of my confidence pray sir pardon me pray restore me to your good opinion or at least if you cannot forgive and receive me again into your favor spare me the dreadful affliction of your detestation and in mercy try to forget you're unhappy but ever grateful Alice Maybell when Charles Fairfield having read this through raised his eyes they lighted on the old man returning and now within a few steps of him well there's a last for you I reared her like a child on my own better kinder than ever a child was reared and she's hardly come to her full growth when she serves me like that damn you are you tongue tied what do you think of her it would not be easy sir on that letter to pronounce said Charles Fairfield disconcerted there's nothing there to show what her reasons are you're no fair field you're not you're none if you were you'd know when your house was insulted but you're none you're cold-blooded sneak and no fair field I don't see anything I could say sir would mend the matter said the captain like enough but I'll tell you what I think of her thundered the old man half beside himself and his language became so appropriate and frantic that his son said with a proud glare and a swarthy flush on his face I'd take my leave sir for language like that I'll not stay to hear but you'll not take your leave sir till I choose and you shall stay yelled the old squire placing himself between the captain and the steps and I like to know why you shouldn't hear her called what she is blank and uh blank because she's my wife sir retorted Charles Fairfield whitening with fury she is is she said the old man after a long gaping pause then you're a worse scoundrel you black-hearted swindler than I took you for and you'll take that and trembling with fury he whirled his heavy cane in the air but before it could descend Charles Fairfield caught the hand that held it none of that none of that sir he said with grim menace and fierce purpose sought to rest the cane free do you want me to do it the gripe of old squire harry was still powerful and it required an exertion of the younger man's entire strength to wring the walking stick from his grasp over the terrace bull straight it flew whirling and old squire harry in the struggle lost his feet and fell heavily on the flags there was blood already on his temple and white furrowed cheek stunned the young man's blood was up the wicked blood of the fairfields but he hesitated stopped and turned the old squire had got to his feet again and was holding giddily by the ball-straight his hat still lay on the ground his cane was gone the proud old squire was a tower dismantled to be met and foiled so easily in a feat of strength to have gone down at the first tussle with the youngster whom he despised as a milk-sob and a miss molly was to the old Hercules who still bragged of his early prowess and was once the lord of the wrestling ring for five and twenty miles round perhaps for the moment the maddest drop in the cup of his humiliation squire harry with his trembling hand clutched on the stone ball-straight his tall figure swaying a little had drawn himself up and held his head high and defiantly there was a little quiver in his white old features a wild smile in his eyes and on his thin hard lips showing the teeth that time had left him and the blood that patched his white hair trickled down over his temple Charles Fairfield was agitated and felt that he could have burst into tears that it would have been a relief to fall on his knees before him for pardon but the iron pride of the Fairfields repulsed this better emotion he did however approach hurriedly with an excited and troubled countenance and he said hastily I'm awfully sorry but it wasn't my fault you'd know it wasn't no Fairfield ever stood to be struck yet I only took the stick sir damn it if it had been my mother I could not have done it more gently I could not help your tripping I couldn't then I'm awfully sorry bye and you won't remember it against me say you won't it's the last time you'll ever see me in life and there's no use imparting at worse odds that we need and won't you shake hands sir I say son charlie you've spilt my blood said the old man may god damn you for it and if you ever come into Wyvern after this there's breath in my body I'll shoot you like a poacher and with this paternal speech squire harry turned his back and tottered stately and grimly into the house end of chapter 9 this recording is by kailey monahan