 CHAPTER 59. A Sudden Departure. Mary, said I, I am miserably anxious to hear what Madame may have to tell. She knows the state I am in, and she would not like so much trouble as to look in at my door to say a word. Did you hear what she told me? No, Miss Maud, she answered, rising and drawing nearer. She thinks we are going to France immediately, and to leave this place perhaps forever. Heaven be praised for that if it be so, Miss, said Mary, with more energy than was common with her. For there is no luck about it, and I don't expect to see you ever well or happy in it. You must take your candle, Mary, and make out her room upstairs. I found it accidentally myself one evening. But why it won't let me upstairs? Don't mind her, Mary. I tell you to go. You must try. I can't sleep till we hear. What direction is her room in, Miss? asked Mary. Somewhere in that direction, Mary, I answered, pointing. I cannot describe the turns, but I think you will find it if you go along the great passage to your left, on getting to the top of the stairs, till you come to the cross-galleries, and then turn to your left, and when you have passed four or perhaps five doors, you must be very near it, and I am sure she will hear if you call. But will she tell me? She is such a rummin', Miss, suggested Mary. Tell her exactly what I have said to you, and when she learns that you already know as much as I do, she may, unless indeed she wishes to torture me. If she won't, perhaps at least you can persuade her to come to me for a moment. Try, dear Mary. We can, but fail. Will you be very lonely, Miss, while I am away? asked Mary, uneasily as she lighted her candle. I can't help it, Mary. Go. I think if I heard we were going, I could almost get up and dance and sing. I can't bear this dreadful uncertainty any longer. If old Wyatt is outside, I'll come back and wait here a bit, till she is out of the way, said Mary, and, anyhow, I'll make all the haste I can. The drops in the salvoletely is here, Miss, by your hand, and with an anxious look at me, she made her exit softly, and did not immediately return, by which I concluded that she had found the way clear and had gained the upper story without interruption. This little anxiety ended, its subsistence was followed by a sense of loneliness, and with it of vague insecurity, which increased, at last, to such a pitch that I wondered at my own madness in sending my companion away, and at last my terrors so grew that I drew back into the farthest corner of the bed, with my shoulders to the wall, and my bedclothes huddled about me, with only a point opened to peep at, at last the door opened gently. Who's there? I cried, an extremity of horror, expecting I knew not whom. Me, Miss? whispered Mary Quince, to my unutterable relief, and with her candle flared, and a wild and pallid face, Mary Quince glided into the room, locking the door as she entered. I do not know how it was, but I found myself holding Mary fast, with both my hands, as we stood side by side on the floor. Mary, you are terrified! For God's sakes, what is the matter? I cried. No, Miss, said Mary faintly. Not much. I see it in your face. What is it? Let me sit down, Miss. I'll tell you what I saw. Only I'm just a bit queerish. Mary sat down by my bed. Get in, Miss. You'll take cold. Get into bed, and I'll tell you. It is not much. I did get into bed, and gazing on Mary's frightened face, I felt a corresponding horror. For Mercy's sake, Mary, say what it is. So again, assuring me, it was not much. She gave me in a somewhat diffuse and tangled narrative the following facts. On closing my door, she raised her candle above her head, and surveyed the lobby. And seeing no one there, she ascended the stairs swiftly. She passed along the great gallery to the left, and paused a moment at the cross gallery, and then recollected my directions clearly and followed the passage to the right. There are doors at each side, and she had forgotten to ask me which madame's was. She opened several. In one room she was frightened by a bat, which had very nearly put out her candle. She went on a little, paused, and began to lose heart in the dismal solitude. When on a sudden, a few doors farther on, she thought she heard madame's voice. She said that she knocked at the door, but, receiving no answer, and hearing madame still talking within, she opened it. There was a candle on the chimney-piece, and another in a stable lantern near the window. Madame was conversing voluply on the hearth, with her face toward the window, the entire frame of which had been taken from its place. Dickon Hawkees, the zamiel of the wooden leg, was supporting it with one hand, as it leaned imperfectly against the angle of the recess. There was a third figure standing, buttoned up in a sertu, with a bundle of tools under his arm, like a glazier, and with a silent thrill of fear. She distinctly recognized the features, as those of Dudley Rithon. To us him, miss, so sure as I sit here. Well, like that, they were as mute as mice. Three pairs of eyes were on me. I don't know what made me so study-like, but some it told me I should not make as though I know any but madame. And so I made a courtesy, as well as I could, and said, might I speak a word with you, please, on the lobby? Mr. Dudley was making belief by this time to look out the window, with his back to me, and I kept looking straight on, madame, and she said, They are mending my broken glass, Mary, walking between them and me, and coming close up to me very quick, and so she marched me backward out the door, protting all the time. When we were on the lobby, she took my candle from my hand, shutting the door behind her, and she held the light a bit behind her ear, so it was full on my face, as she looked sharp into it, and after a bit she said again, in her queer lingo, there was two pains broke in her room, and men sent for to mend it. I was awful frightened when I saw Mr. Dudley, for I could not believe any such thing before, and I don't know how I could look her in the face as I did and not show it. I was as smooth and cool as yonder chimney-piece, and she has an awful evil eye to stand against, but I never flinched, and I think she's puzzled, for as cunning as she is, whether I believe all she said, or knowed twas a pack of stories, so I told her your message, and she said she had not heard another word since, but she did believe we had not many more days here, and would tell you if she heard tonight, when she brought his soup to your uncle, in half an hour's time. I asked her, as soon as I could speak, whether she was perfectly certain as to the facts that the man in the certu was Dudley, and she made answer, I'd swat to him on that Bible, miss. So far from any longer wishing Madame's return that night, I trembled at the idea of it. Who could tell who might enter the room with her, when the door opened to admit her? Dudley, so soon as he recovered the surprise, had turned about, evidently anxious to prevent recognition. Dick and hockey stood glowering at her. Both might have hope of escaping recognition in the imperfect light, for the candle on the chimney-piece was flaring in the air, and the light from the lantern fell in spots and was confusing. What could that ruffian hockey's be doing in the house? Why was Dudley there? Could a more ominous combination be imagined? I puzzled my distracted head over all Mary Quince's details, but couldn't make nothing of their occupation. I know of nothing so terrifying as this kind of perpetual puzzling over ominous problems. You may imagine how the long hours of that night passed, and how my heart beat at every fancied sound outside my door. But morning came, and with its light, some reassurance. Early, Madame de la Regère made her appearance. She searched my eyes darkly and shrewdly, but made no illusion to Mary Quince's visit. Perhaps she expected some question from me, and, hearing none, thought it was well to leave the subject at rest. She had merely come in to say that she had heard nothing since, but was now going to make my uncle's chocolate. And that so soon as her interview was ended, she would see me again, and let me hear anything she should have gleaned. In a little while a knock came to my door, and Mary Quince was ordered by old Wyatt into my uncle's room. She returned flushed in a huge fuss to say that I was to be up and dressed for a journey in half an hour, and to go straight when dressed to my uncle's room. It was good news. At the same time it was a shock. I was glad I was stunned. I jumped out of bed and sat about my toilet with an energy quite new to me. Good Mary Quince was busily packing my boxes, and consulting as to what I should take with me, and what not. Was Mary Quince to accompany me? He had not said a word on that point, and I feared from his silence she was to remain. There was comfort, however, in this, that the separation would not be for long. I felt confident of that. And I was about to join Millie, whom I loved better than I could have believed before our separation. But whatsoever the conditions might be, it was an indescribable relief to have done with Bartram Hoff, and leave behind me its sinister lines of circumvillation, its haunted recesses, and the awful specters that had lately appeared within its walls. I stood too much in awe of my uncle to fail in presenting myself punctually at the close of the half hour. I entered his sitting room under the shadow of sour old Wyatt's high-called cap. She closed the door behind me, and the conference commenced. Madame de la Roger sat there, dressed and draped for a journey, and with a thick black lace veil on. My uncle rose, gaunt and venerable, and with a harsh and severe countenance. He did not offer his hand. He made me a kind of bow, more of repulsion than of respect. He remained in a standing position, supporting his crooked frame by his hand, which he leaned on a dispatch box. He glared on me steadily with his wild, phosphoric eyes, from under the dark brows I have described to you, now corrugated, in lines indescribably stern. You shall join my daughter at the pension in France. Madame de la Roger shall accompany you, said my uncle, delivering his directions with the stern monotony and measured pauses of a person dictating an important dispatch to a secretary. Old Mrs. Quince shall follow with me, or if alone in a week. You shall pass tonight in London, tomorrow night you proceed thence to Dover, and cross by the mail packet. You shall now sit down and write a letter to your cousin Monica Nahlus, which I will read first and then dispatch. Tomorrow you shall write a note to Lady Nahlus, from London, telling her how you have got over so much of your journey, and that you cannot write from Dover, as you must instantly start by the packet on reaching it. And that, until my affairs are a little settled, you cannot write to her from France. As it is of high importance to my safety, that no clue should exist as to our address. Intelligence, however, shall reach her through my attorneys, Archer and Slay, and I trust we shall return soon. You will, please, submit that latter note to Madame de la Roger, who has my directions to see that it contains no libles upon my character. Now sit down. So, with those unpleasant words tingling in my ears, I obeyed. Right, he said, when I was duly placed. You shall convey the substance of what I say in your own language. The imminent danger this morning announced of an execution. Remember the word, and he spelled it for me. Being put into this house, either this afternoon or tomorrow, compels me to anticipate my plans, and dispatch you for France this day, that you are starting with an attendant. Here an uneasy movement from Madame, whose dignity was perhaps excited. An attendant, he repeated, with a discordant emphasis. And you can, if you please, but I don't solicit that justice. Say that you have been as kindly treated here as my unfortunate circumstances would permit. That is all. You have just fifteen minutes to write. Begin. I wrote accordingly. My hysterical state had made me far less combative than I might have proved some months since. For there was much that was insulting as well as formidable in his manner. I completed my letter, however, to his satisfaction in the prescribed time. And he said, as he laid it and its envelope on the table, please to remember that this lady is not your attendant only, but that she has authority to direct every detail respecting your journey, and will make all the necessary payments on the way. You will please then implicitly to comply with her directions. The carriage awaits you at the hall door. Having thus spoken, and with another grim bow, and I wish you a safe and pleasant journey. He receded a step or two, and I, with an undefinable kind of melancholy, though also with a sense of relief, withdrew. My letter I afterwards found reached Lady Nullis, accompanied by one from Uncle Silas, who said, Dear Maude apprises me that she has written to tell you something of our movements. A sudden crisis in my miserable affairs compels a breakup as sudden here. Maude joins my daughter at the pension in France. I purposely omit the address, because I mean to reside in its vicinity, until this storm shall have blown over. And as the consequences of some of my unhappy entanglements might pursue me even there, I must only for the present spare you the pain and trouble of keeping a secret. I am sure that for some little time you will excuse the girl's silence. In the meantime you shall hear of them, and perhaps circuitously, from me. Our dear Maude started this morning in route for her destination, very sorry as I am, that she could not enjoy first a flying visit to Elverston. But in high spirits notwithstanding, at the new life and sights before her. At the door my beloved old friend, Mary Quince, awaited me. Am I going with you, Miss Maude? I burst into tears and clasped her in my arms. I'm not, said Mary, very sorrowfully. And I never was from you yet, Miss, since she wasn't the length of my arm. And kind old Mary began to cry with me. But you are coming in a few days, Mary Quince, expostulated Madame. I wonder you are such fool. What these two glee days? Bah, nonsense gal. And another farewell to poor Mary Quince, quite bewildered at the suddenness of her bereavement, a serious and tremulous bow from our little old butler on the steps. Madame bawling through the open window to the driver to make good speed, and remember that we had but nineteen minutes to reach the station. Away we went. Old Crowell's iron grill rolled back before us. I looked on the receding landscape, the giant trees, the palatial time-stained mansion, a strange conflict of feelings, sweet and bitter, rose, and mingled in the reverie. Had I been too hard and suspicious with the inhabitants of that old house of my family? Was my uncle justly indignant? Was I ever again to know such pleasant rambles, as some of those I had enjoyed with dear Millicent, through the wild and beautiful woodlands I was leaving behind me? And there, with my latest glimpse of the front of Bartram Hof, I beheld dear old Mary Quince gazing after us. Again my tears flowed. I waved my handkerchief from the window, and now the park wall hid all from view, and at a great pace, through the steep wooded glen. And with the rocky and precipitous character of a ravine, we glided. And when the road next emerged, Bartram Hof was a misty mass of forest and chimneys, slope and hollow, and we within a few minutes of the station. Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fenu Chapter 60 The Journey Waiting for the train as we stood upon the platform, I looked back again toward the wooded uplands of Bartram, and far behind, the fine range of mountains, azure and soft in the distance, beyond which lay beloved old Knoll, and my lost father and mother, and the scenes of my childhood never embittered except by the sible who sat beside me. Under happier circumstances I should have been, at my then early age, quite wild with pleasurable excitement upon entering London for the first time. But black care sat beside me, with her pale hand in mine, a voice of fear and warning, whose words I could not catch, was always in my ear. We drove through London, amid the glare of lamps, toward the west end, and for a little while the sense of novelty and curiosity overcame my despondency, and I peeped eagerly from the window, while Madame, who was in high good humour, spite of the fatigues of our long railway flight, screeched scraps of topographic information in my ear, for London was a picture book in which she was well read. That is Houston Square, my dear, Russell Square. Here is Oxford Street, hey, market. See, there is the Opera House, Helm Majesty's Theatre. See all the colleges waiting. And so on. Till we reached, at length, a little narrow street, which she told me was off Piccadilly, where we drew up before a private house, as it seemed to me, a family hotel, and I was glad to be at rest for the night. Fatigued with the peculiar fatigue of railway travelling, dusty, and a little chilly, with eyes aching and wearied, I ascended the stairs silently, our garrulous and bustling landlady leading the way, and telling her oft-told story of the house, its noble owner in old time, and how those fine drawing rooms were taken every year during the session by the Bishop of Rochette on Copley, and at last into our double-bedded room. I would feign to have been alone, but I was too tired and dejected to care very much for anything. At tea, Madame expanded in spirit, like a giant refreshed, and chattered and saying, and at last, seeing that I was nodding, advised my going to bed, while she ran across the street to see her dear old friend, Mademoiselle Saint-Eloy, who was sure to be up, and would be offended if she failed to make her ever so short a call. I cared little what she said, and was glad to be rid of her even for a short time, and was soon fast asleep. I saw her, I know not how much later, poking about the room, like a figure in a dream, and taking off her things. She had her breakfast in bed next morning, and I was, to my comfort, left to take mine in solitary possession of our sitting room, where I began to wonder how little annoyance I had as yet suffered from her company, and began to speculate upon the chances of my making the journey with tolerable comfort. Our hostess gave me five minutes of her valuable time, her talk ran chiefly upon nuns and convents, and her old acquaintance with Madame, and it seemed to me that she had at one time driven a kind of trade, no doubt profitable enough, in escorting young ladies to establishments on the continent. And although I did not then quite understand the tone in which she spoke to me, I often thought afterwards that Madame had represented me as a young person destined for the holy vocation of the veil. When she was gone I sat listlessly looking out of the window, and saw some chance equipages drive by, and now and then a fashionable pedestrian, and wondered if this quiet thoroughfare could really be one of the arteries, so near the heart of the tumultuous capital. I think my nervous vitality must have burnt very low just then, for I felt perfectly indifferent about all the novelty and world of wonders beyond, and should have hated to leave the dull tranquility of my window, for an excursion through the splendors of the unseen streets and palaces that surrounded me. It was one o'clock before Madame joined me, and finding me in this dull mood, she did not press me to accompany her in her drive, no doubt well pleased to be rid of me. After tea that evening as we sat alone in our room, she entertained me with some very odd conversation, at the time unintelligible, but which acquired a tolerably distinct meaning from the events that followed. Two or three times that day Madame appeared to me on the point of saying something of grave import, as she scanned me with her bleak wicked stare. It was a peculiarity of hers, that whenever she was pressed upon by an anxiety that really troubled her. Her countenance did not look sad or solicitous, as other peoples would, but simply wicked. Her great gaunt mouth was compressed and drawn down firmly at the corners, and her eyes glared with a dismal scowl. At last, she said suddenly, Are you ever grateful, Maude? I hope so, Madame, I answered. And how do you show your gratitude? For instance, would you do a great dearth for a person who would run whisky for your sake? It struck me all at once that she was sounding me about poor Meg Hakiz, whose fidelity not was standing the treason or cowardice of her lover, Tom Bryce, I never doubted. And I grew at once wary and reserved. I know of no opportunity, thank heaven, for any such service, Madame. How can anyone serve me at present by themselves incurring danger? What do you mean? Do you like, for example, to go to that flinch plonçon? Would you not like better some other arrangement? Of course, there are other arrangements I should like better, but I see no use in talking of them. They are not to be, I answered. What other arrangements do you mean, my dear Shire? inquired Madame. You mean, I suppose, you would like better to go to Lady Nollis. My uncle does not choose it at present, and except with his consent, nothing can be done. He will never consent, dear Shire. But he has consented, not immediately indeed, but in a short time when his affairs are settled. Lantana! They will never be settled, said Madame. At all events, for the present I am to go to France. Millie seems very happy, and I dare say I shall like it too. I am very glad to leave Bartram Hoff at all events. But your uncle will bring you back there, said Madame, dryly. It is doubtful whether he will ever return to Bartram himself, I said. Ah! said Madame, with a long-drawn nasal intonation. You think I hate you. You are quite long, dear Maud. I am, on the contrary, very much interested for you. I am, I assure you, dear Chaya. And she laid her great hand, with joints misshapen by old chill-blanes, upon the back of mine. I looked up in her face. She was not smiling. On the contrary, her wide mouth was drawn down at the corners, roofling, as before, and she gazed on my face with a scowl from her abysmal eyes. I used to think that the flair of that irony, which lighted her face so often, immeasurably worse than any other expression she could assume. But this lackluster stare and dismal collapse of feature was more wicked still. Suppose I should bring you to Lady Nollis, and place you in her charge. What would you do then, for poor Madame? said this dark specter. I was inwardly startled at these words. I looked into her unsearchable face, but could draw thence nothing but fear. Had she made the same overture only two days since, I think I would have offered her half my fortune, but circumstances were altered. I was no longer in the panic of despair. The lesson I had received from Tom Brice was fresh in my mind, and my profound distrust of her was uppermost. I saw before me only a tempter and a betrayer, and said, Do you mean to imply, Madame, that my guardian is not to be trusted, and that I ought to make my escape from him, and that you are really willing to aid me in doing so? This, you see, was turning the tables upon her. I looked her steadily in the face as I spoke. She returned my gaze with a strange stare and a gape, which haunted me long after, and it seemed as we sat in utter silence that each was rather horribly fascinated by the other's gaze. At last she shut her mouth sternly, and eyed me with a more determined and meaning scowl, and then said, in a low tone, I believe, Maud, that you are a cunning and wicked little thing. Wisdom is not cunning, Madame, nor is it wicked to ask your meaning in explicit language, I replied. And so, you clever shire, we too sit here, playing at the game of chess, over this heated table, to decide which shall destroy the other, is it not so? I will not allow you to destroy me, I retorted with a sudden flash. Madame stood up and rubbed her mouth with her open hand. She looked to me like some evil being seen in a dream. I was frightened. You were going to hurt me, I ejaculated, scarce knowing what I said. If I were, you deserve it. You are very malicious, Marcelle, or it may be only very stupid. A knock came to the door. Come in, I cried with a glad sense of relief. A maid entered. A letta, pleasem, she said, handing it to me. For me, snarled Madame, snatching it. I had seen my uncle's hand and the feltrum postmark. Madame broke the seal and read. It seemed but a word, for she turned it about after the first momentary glance, and examined the interior of the envelope, and then returned to the line she had already read. She folded the letter again, drawing her nails in a sharp pinch along the creases, as she stared in a blank, hesitating way at me. You are stupid, retail ingrate. I am employed by Missiolithym, and of course I am faithful to my employer. I do not want to talk to you. There, you may read that. She jerked the letter before me on the table. It contained but these words. Bartram Hof, 30th January, 1845. My dear Madame, be so good as to take the half-past eight o'clock train to Dover to-night. Beds are prepared. Yours very truly, Silas Rithon. I cannot say what it was in this short advice that struck me with fear. Was it the thick line beneath the word Dover that was so uncalled for, and gave me a faint but terrible sense of something pre-concerted? I said to Madame, Why is Dover underlined? I do not know, retail fool, no more than you. How can I tell what is passing in your uncle's head when he makes that mark Has it not a meaning, Madame? How can you talk like that? She answered more in her old way. You are either mocking at me, or you are becoming truly a fool. She rang the bell, called for our bill, saw our hostess, while I made a few hasty preparations in my room. You need not look after the chunks. They will follow us all right. Let us go, Shire. We have half an hour only to reach the train. No one ever fussed like Madame when the occasion offered. There was a cab at the door into which she hurried me. I assumed that she would give all needful directions, and lean back, very wary and sleepy already, though it was so early. Listening to her farewell screamed from the cab-step, and seeing her black cloak flitting and flapping this way and that, like the wings of a raven, disturbed over its prey. And she got, and away we drove through a glare of lamps and shop windows, still open, gas everywhere, and cabs, buses, and carriages, still thundering through the streets. I was too tired and too depressed to look at those things. Madame, on the contrary, had her head out the window till we reached the station. Where are the rest of the boxes? I asked, as Madame placed me in charge of her box and my bag in the office of the terminus. They will follow with boots in another cab, and will come safe with us in this plane. Mind those two, we will bring in the carriage with us. So into a carriage we got. In came Madame's box and my bag. Madame stood at the door, and, I think, frightened away, intending passengers by her size and shrillness. At last the bell rang her into her place. The door clapped, the whistle sounded, and we were off. END OF CHAPTER SIXTY CHAPTER SIXTY ONE OF UNCLE CYLUS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. UNCLE CYLUS by J. Sheridan LeFannu CHAPTER SIXTY ONE Our bed-chamber. I had passed a miserable night. And indeed, for many nights had not had my due proportion of sleep. Still, I sometimes fancy that I may have swallowed something in my tea that helped to make me so irresistibly drowsy. It was a very dark night, no moon, and the stars soon hid by the gathering clouds. Madame sat silent, and ruminating in her place with her rugs about her. I, in my corner, similarly enveloped, tried to keep awake. Madame plainly thought I was asleep already, for she stole a leather flask from her pocket and applied it to her lips, causing an aroma of brandy. But it was vain struggling against the influence that was stealing over me, and I was soon in a profound and dreamless slumber. Madame woke me at last in a huge fuss. She had got out all our things and hurried them away to a close carriage which was awaiting us. It was still dark and starless. We got along the platform, I half asleep, the porter carrying our rugs, by the glare of a pair of gas jets in the wall, and out by a small door at the end. I remember that Madame, contrary to her won't, gave the man some money. By the puzzling light of the carriage lamps we got in and took our seats. Go on! screamed Madame, and drew up the window with a great chuck. And we were enclosed in darkness and silence, the most favorable conditions for thought. My sleep had not restored me as it might, I felt feverish, fatigued, and still very drowsy, though unable to sleep as I had done. I dozed by fits and starts and laid awake, or half awake sometimes, not thinking but in a way imagining what kind of a place Dover would be. But too tired and listless, to ask Madame any questions, and merely seeing the hedges gray in the lamplight glide backward into darkness as I leaned back. We turned off the main road at right angles and drew up. Get down and push it, it is open! screamed Madame from the window. A gate, I suppose, was thus passed, for when we resumed our brisk trot, Madame bawled across the carriage. We are now in the otage grounds, and so all again was darkness and silence, and I fell into another dose, from which, on waking, I found that we had come to a standstill, and Madame was standing on the low step of an open door, paying the driver. She herself pulled her box and the bag in. I was too tired to care what had become of the rest of our luggage. I descended, glancing to the right and left, but there was nothing visible but a patch of light from the lamps on a paved ground and on the wall. We stepped into the hall, or vestibule, and Madame shut the door, and I thought I heard the key turn in it. We were in total darkness. Where are the lights, Madame? Where are the people? I asked, more awake than I had been. She passed three o'clock shy, but there is always light here. She was groping at the side, and in a moment more, lighted a Lucifer match, and so a bedroom candle. We were in a flagged lobby, under an archway at the right, and at the left of which opened long flagged passages lost in darkness. A winding stair barely wide enough to admit Madame, dragging her box, led upward under a doorway, in a corner at the right. But where are we to go? There is no one, I said, looking round in wonder. It certainly was a strange reception at an hotel. Never mind, my dear Shire, they know me here, and I have always the same room ready when I light for it. Follow me quietly. So she mounted, carrying the candle. The stair was steep and the march long. We halted at the second landing and entered a gaunt, grimy passage. All the way up we had not heard a single sound of life, nor seen a human being, nor so much as passed a gaslight. And so I did. The room was large and lofty, but shabby and dismal. There was a tall, four-post bed, with its foot beside the window, hung with dark green curtains of some plush or velvet texture, that looked like a dusty pall. The remaining furniture was scant and old, and a ravilled square of threadbare carpet covered a patch of floor at the bedside. The room was grim and large and had a cold, vault-like atmosphere, as if long uninhabited. But there were cylinders in the grate and under it. The imperfect light of our mutton-fat candle made all this look still more comfortless. Madame placed the candle on the chimney-piece, locked the door, and put the key in her pocket. I always do in hotel, said she, with a wink at me. And then with a long, ah, expressive of fatigue and relief, she threw herself into a chair. So ill we are at last, said she. I'm glad. There's your bed, Maud. Mine is in the dressing-room. She took the candle and I went in with her. A shabby press-bed, a chair, and table were all its furniture. It was rather a closet than a dressing-room, and had no door except through that which we had entered. So we returned. And, very tired, wondering, I sat down on the side of my bed and yawned. I hope they will call us in time for the packet. I said, Ah yes, they never fare. She answered, looking steadfastly on her box, which she was diligently uncording. Uninviting as was my bed, I was longing to lie down in it. And having made those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length lay down. Having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin with the head of ceiling-wax into the bolster, nothing escaped the restless eye of Madame. What is that, dear Shia? She inquired, drawing near and scrutinizing the head of the gypsy charm, which showed like a little lady-bird newly lighted on the sheet. Nothing, a charm, a folly. Pray, Madame, allow me to go to sleep. So, with another look and a little twiddle between her fingers and thumb, she seemed satisfied. But unhappily for me she did not seem at all sleepy. She busied herself in unpacking and displaying over the back of the chair a whole series of London purchases. Silk dresses, a shawl, a sort of lace demi-quaffure, then in vogue, and a variety of other articles. The vainest and most slammican of women, the merest slot at home, a milliner's lay figure out of doors. She had one square foot of looking-glass upon the chimney-piece, and therein tried effacts and conjured up grotesque simpers upon her sinister and weary face. I knew that the sure way to prolong this worry was to express my uneasiness under it, so I bore it as quietly as I could, and at last fell fast asleep with the gaunt image of Madame, with a festoon of grey silk, with a cerise stripe, pinched up in her finger and thumb, and smiling over her shoulder across it into a little shaving-glass that stood on the chimney. I awoke suddenly in the morning, and sat up in my bed, having for a moment forgotten all about our travelling. A moment more, however, brought all back again. Are we in time, Madame? Fawzi packet, she inquired, with one of her charming smiles, and cutting a caper on the floor. To be sure, you don't suppose they would forget. We have two hours yet to wait. Can we see the sea from the window? No, dearest child, you will see it time enough. I'd like to get up, I said. Time enough, my dear Maud. You are fatigued. Are you sure you feel quite well? Well enough to get up. I should be better, I think, out of bed. There is no hurry, you know. You need not even to go by the next packet. Your uncle, he tell me, I may use my discretion. Is there any water? They will bring some. Please, Madame, ring the bell. She pulled it with alacrity. I afterwards learnt that it did not ring. What has become of my gypsy pen? I demanded, with an unaccountable sinking of the heart, Oh, the little pin we see red top. Maybe it as full on the ground. We will find it when you get up. I suspect she had taken it merely to spite me. It would have been quite the thing she would have liked. I cannot describe to you how the loss of this little charm depressed and excited me. I searched the bed. I turned over all the bed clothes. I searched in and outside. At last I gave up. How odious! I cried. Somebody has stolen it merely to vex me. And, like a fool as I was, I threw myself on my face on the bed and wept. Partly in anger, partly in dismay. After a time, however, this blew over. I had a hope of recovering it. If Madame had stolen it, it would turn up yet. But, in the meantime, its disappearance troubled me like an omen. I am afraid, my dear Shire, you are not very well. It is really very odd you should make such force about a pin. Nobody would believe. Do you not think it would be a good plan to take a your breakfast in your bed? She continued to urge this point for some time. At last, however, having by this time quite recovered my self-command, and resolved to preserve ostensibly fair terms with Madame, who could contribute so essentially to make me wretched during the rest of my journey, and possibly to prejudice me very seriously on my arrival, I said quietly, Well, Madame, I know it is very silly. But I had kept that foolish little pin so long and so carefully. That I had grown quite fond of it. But I suppose it is lost. And I must content myself, though I cannot laugh as you do. So I will get up now and dress. I think you will do well to get Aussie with pose, you can, answered Madame. But as you please, she added, observing that I was getting up. So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said, Is there a pretty view from the window? No, said Madame. I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone, in one side of which my window was placed. As I looked, a dream rose up before me. This hotel, I said in a puzzled way. Is it a hotel? Why, this is just like— It is the inner courtyard of Bartram Hof! Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic chassé on the floor, burst into a great nasal laugh, like the scream of a parrot, and then said, Well, Dieu est maud, il n'est pas levéltric. I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in stupid silence. A spectacle which renewed Madame's peals of laughter. We are at Bartram Hof, I repeated in utter consternation. How was this done? I had no reply, but shrieks of laughter. And one of those wall purges stances in which she excelled. It is a mistake. Is it? What is it? All a mistake, of course. Bartram Hof is so like Dover, as all philosophers know. I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark enclosure, and trying to comprehend the reality and the meaning of all this. Well, Madame, I suppose you will be able to satisfy my uncle of your fidelity and intelligence. But it seems to me that his money has been ill-spent, and his directions anything but well-observed. Aha, never mind. I think you will forgive me, laughed Madame. Her tone frightened me. I began to think, with a vague but overpowering sense of danger, that she had acted under the Machiavellian direction of her superior. You have brought me back, then, by my uncle's orders. Did I say so? No, but what you have said can have no other meaning. Though I can't believe it. And why have I been brought here? What is the object of all this duplicity and trick? I will know. It is not possible that my uncle, a gentleman and a kinsman, can be privy to so disreputable a manoeuvre. First you will eat your breakfast, dear Maude. Next you can tell your story to your uncle. Once you're with him, and then you shall hear what he thinks of my so terrible misconduct. What nonsense, child! Can you not think how many things may happen to change your uncle's plans? Is he not in danger to be arrested? But you are a child still. You cannot have intelligence more than a child. Dress yourself, and I will order a brook feast. I could not comprehend the strategy which had been practiced on me. Why had I been so shamelessly deceived? If it were decided that I should remain here, for what imaginable reason had I been sent so far on my journey to France? Why had I been conveyed back with such mystery? Why was I removed to this uncomfortable and desolate room, on the same floor with the apartment in which Charc had met his death? And with no window commanding the front of the house, and no view but the deep and weed-choked court, that looked like a deserted churchyard in a city? I suppose I may go to my own room, I said. Not today, my dear child, for it was our disarrange when we go away. It will be ready again in two pre-days. Where is Mary Quince, I asked? Mary Quince. She has followed us to France, said Madame, making what in Ireland they call a ball. They are not sure where they will go, or what they will do for day or two more. I will go and get brook feast. I do for a moment. Madame was out of the door, as she said this, and I thought I heard the key turn in the lock. End of Chapter 61 Chapter 62 of Uncle Silas This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Lefenu Chapter 62 A well-known face looks in. You who have never experienced it can have no idea how angry and frightened you become under the sinister insult of being locked into a room, as on trying the door I found I was. The key was in the lock, I could see it through the hole. I called after Madame, I shook at the solid oak door, beat upon it with my hands, kicked it, but all to no purpose. I rushed into the next room forgetting, if indeed I had observed it, that there was no door from it upon the gallery. I turned round in an angry and dismayed perplexity, and like prisoners and romances examined the windows. I was shocked and frightened on discovering in reality what they occasionally find, a series of iron bars crossing the window. They were firmly secured in the oak woodwork of the window frame, and each window was, besides, so compactly skewed down that it could not open. This bedroom was converted into a prison. A momentary hope flashed on me. Perhaps all the windows were secured alike. But it was no such thing. These jail-like precautions were confined to the windows to which I had access. For a few minutes I felt quite distracted, but I bethought me that I must now, if ever, control my terrors, and exert whatever faculties I possessed. I stood upon a chair and examined the oakwork. I thought I detected marks of new chiseling here and there. The screws too looked new, and they, and the scars on the woodwork, were freshly smeared over with some coloured stuff by way of disguise. While I was making these observations I heard the keys stealthily stirred. I suspected that Madame wished to surprise me. Her approaching steps indeed was seldom audible. She had the soft tread of the feline tribe. I was standing in the centre of the room confronting her when she entered. Why did you lock the door, Madame? I demanded. She slipped in suddenly with an insidious smirk, and locked the door hastily. Hish! whispered Madame, raising her broad palm, and then screwing in her cheeks, she made an ogle over her shoulder in the direction of the passage. Hish! be quiet, Shire, will you, and I will tell you everything presently. She paused, with her ear laid to the door. Now I can speak, Michelle. I will tell you there is belief in the house, totally for such important failures. They have another as bad as themselves to make a list of the furniture. We must keep them out of these looms, dear mud. You left the key in the door on the outside, I retorted. That was not to keep them out, but me in, Madame. Did I leave the key in the door? Ejaculated Madame, with both hands raised, and such a genuine look of consternation as for a moment shook me. It was the nature of this woman's deceptions that they often puzzled. Though they seldom convinced me. I really think, Maud, all those soft, frequent changes and excitements, they will overturn my poor head. And the windows are secured with iron bars. What are they for? I whispered sternly, pointing with my finger at these grim securities. That is for Maud's in forty years. When Sir Philip Elmer was to reside here, and had this loomed for his children's nursery, and was afraid they should fall out. But if you look, you will find these bars have been put here very recently. The screws in March are quite new. Indeed, Ejaculated Madame, with prolonged emphasis, in precisely the same consternation. Why, my dear, they told me downstairs what I ever tell you, when I ask the reason. And Madame mounted on a chair, and made her scrutiny with much curiosity. But could not agree with me as to the very recent date of the carpentry. There is nothing, I think, so exasperating as that sort of falsehood, which affects not to see what is quite palpable. Do you mean to say, Madame, that you really think those chisellings and screws are forty years old? How can I tell, Shire? What does signify whether it is forty or only fourteen years? We have other things to think about. Those villain mean I am glad to see bar and butt, and lock and key, at least to our room, to keep such phalos out. At that moment, a knock came to the door, and Madame's nasal, in moment, answered promptly, and she opened the door, stealthily popping out her head. Oh, Zatti's all right, you go long, nothing more, go away. Who's there? I cried. Hold your tongue, said Madame, imperiously to the visitor, whose voice I fancied I recognized. Gault lay, out slipped Madame again, locking the door, but this time she returned immediately, bearing a tray with breakfast. I think she fancied that I would perhaps attempt to break away and escape, but I had no such thought at that moment. She hastily set down the tray on the floor at the threshold, locking the door as before. My share of breakfast was a little tea, but Madame's digestion was seldom disturbed by her sympathies, and she ate voraciously. During this process there was a silence, unusual in her company, but when her meal was ended she proposed a reconnaissance, professing much uncertainty as to whether my uncle had been arrested or not. And in case the poor old gentleman be put in what you call stone chug, where are we to go, my dear maud? To nor do to Everston, you must direct. And so she disappeared, turning the key in the doors before. It was an old custom of hers, locking herself in her room and leaving the key in the lock, and the habit prevailed, for she left it there again. With a heavy heart I completed my simple toilet, wondering all the while how much of Madame's story might be false, and how much, if any, true. Then I looked out upon the dingy courtyard below, in its deep, damp shadow, and thought, how could an assassin have scaled that height in safety, and entered so noiselessly as not to awake in the slumbering game-ster? Then there were the iron bars across my window, but a fool I had been to object to that security. I was laboring hard to reassure myself, and keep all ghastly suspicions at arm's length, but I wished that my room had been to the front of the house, with some view lastysmal. Lost in these ruminations of fear as I stood at the window, I was startled by the sound of a sharp tread in the lobby, and by the key turning in the lock of my door. In a panic I sprang back into the corner, and stood with my eyes fixed upon the door. It opened a little. In the black head of Meg Hawkees was introduced. Oh, Meg! I cried. Thank God! I guessed was you, Miss Maude. I am feared, Miss. The miller's daughter was pale, and her eyes, I thought, were red and swollen. Oh, Meg! For God's sakes, what is it all? I daren't come in. The olden's gone down and locked the cross-door and left me to watch. They think I care not about she, no more nor themselves. I don't know all, but some at more nor her. They tell her not. She going to get to drink. She's so gonna drink. They say she's not safe, and awful quarrelsome. I hear a deal when Father and Master Dudley be a-talking at the mill. They think coming in and out, I don't mind, but I put one thing and another together, and don't she eat nor drink not here, Miss? Hide this away. It's black enough, but wholesome anyhow. And she slipped a piece of a coarse loaf from under her apron. Hide it, mind. Drink not but the water in the jug there. It's clean spring. Oh, Meg! I know what you mean! I said, faintly. I miss. I'm feared they'll try it. They'll try to make away with you somehow. I'm going to your friends out of dark. I dare not try it no sooner. I'll get away to Elverston, to your lady-cousin, and I'll bring them back with me, in a wren. So keep a good heart, lass. Meg Hakees will stand to ye. Ye were better to me than Father and Mother and a- And she clasped me round the waist, and buried her head in my dress. And I'll give me life for ye, darling, and if they hurt ye, I'll kill myself. She recovered her sterner mood quickly. Not a word, lass, she said, in her old tone. Don't ye try to get away. They'll kill ye, ye can't do it. Leave it to me. It won't be whatever it is till two or three o'clock in the morning. I'll have them here a long four, so keep a brave heart. There's it, darling. I suppose she heard, or fancied, she heard, a step approaching. For she said, Hish! Her pale, wild face vanished. The door shut quickly and softly, and the key turned again in the lock. Meg, in her rude way, had spoken softly, almost under her breath. But no prophecy shrieked by the pythonus ever thundered so madly in the ears of the hearer. I daresay that Meg fancied I was marvelously little moved by her words. I felt my gaze grow intense and my flesh and bones literally freeze. She did not know that every word she spoke seemed to burst like a blaze in my brain. She had delivered her frightful warning, and told her story coarsely and bluntly which, in effect, means distinctly and concisely. And, I daresay, the announcement so made, like a quick, bold incision in surgery, was more tolerable than the slow, imperfect mangling, which falters and recedes and equivocates with torture. Madame was long away. I sat down at the window and tried to appreciate my dreadful situation. I was stupid. The imagery was all frightful. But I beheld it as we sometimes see horrors, heads cut off and houses burnt, in a dream, and without the corresponding emotions. It did not seem as if all of this was really happening to me. I remember sitting at the window and looking and blinking at the opposite side of the building, like a person unable but striving to see an object distinctly, and every minute pressing my hand to the side of my head and saying, Oh, it won't be. It won't be. Oh, no. Never. It could not be. And in this stunned state, Madame found me on her return. But the valley of the shadow of death has its varieties of dread. The horror of great darkness is disturbed by voices and illumined by sights. There are periods of incapacity and collapse followed by paroxysms of active terror. Thus in my journey during those long hours I found it, agonies subsiding into lethargies and these breaking again into frenzy. I sometimes wonder how I carried my reason safely through the ordeal. Madame locked the door and amused herself with her own business, without minding me, humming little nasal snatches of French airs as she smirked on her silken purchases, displayed in the daylight. Suddenly it struck me that it was very dark, considering how early it was. I looked at my watch. It seemed to me a great effort of concentration to understand it. Four o'clock it said. Four o'clock it would be dark at five night in one hour. Madame, what o'clock is it? Is it evening? I cried with my hand to my forehead, like a person puzzled. Two, three minutes past four. It had five minutes to four when I came upstairs, answered she, without interrupting her examination of a piece of darned lace which she was holding close to her eyes at the window. Oh, Madame, Madame, I'm frightened! cried I, with a wild and piteous voice, grasping her arm and looking up, as shipwrecked people may their last to heaven, into her inexorable eyes. Madame looked frightened too, I thought, as she stared into my face. At last she said, rather angrily, and shaking her arm loose, What do you mean, Shia? Oh, save me, Madame! Oh, save me! Oh, save me, Madame! I pleaded, with the wild monotony of perfect terror, grasping and clinging to her dress and looking up, with an agonized face, into the eyes of that shadowy atropos. Save you, indeed! Save, what ne'ez-elle? Oh, Madame, oh, dear Madame, for God's sake, only get me away. Get me away from this, and I'll do everything you ask me all my life. I will, indeed, Madame, I will. Oh, save me, save me, save me! I was clinging to Madame as to my guardian angel in my agony. And who told you, Shia, you are in any danger? demanded Madame, looking down on me with a black and witch-like stare. I am, Madame, I am in great danger. Oh, Madame, think of me! Take pity on me. I have none to help me. There is no one but God and you. Madame, all this time, viewed me with the same dismal stare, like a sorceress reading futurity in my face. Well, maybe you are. How can I tell? Maybe your uncle is mad. Maybe you are mad. You have been my enemy always. Why should I care? Again, I burst into a wild entreaty, and, clasping her fast, poured forth my supplications with the bitterest of death. I have no confidence in you, little mod. You are a little log, Petite traetresser. Reflect, if you can, how you have always treat Madame. You are the timp to ruin me. You conspire with the bad domestics at nore to destroy me, and you expect me here to take your part. You would never listen to me. You had no mercy for me. You joined to hunt me away from your house like wolf. There, what you expect to find me now. Bah! This terrific bah, with a long nasal yell of scorn, ran in my ears like a clap of thunder. I say you are mad, Petite Encelante. To suppose I should care for you, more than the poor hare it will care for the hound, more than the bird who has escaped, we love thee wasler. I do not care. I ought not care. It is your turn to suffer. Lie down on your bed there, and suffer quietly. CHAPTER 63 OF UNCLE CYLUS This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. UNCLE CYLUS by J. Sheridan LeFannu. CHAPTER 63 SPICED CLARATE I did not lie down, but I despaired. I walked round and round the room, wringing my hands in utter distraction. I threw myself at the bedside, on my knees. I could not pray. I could only shiver and moan with hands clasped, and eyes of horror turned up to heaven. I think madame was, in her malignant way, perplexed. That some evil was intended me, I am sure she was persuaded. But I daresay Meg Hakiz had said rightly in telling me that she was not fully in their secrets. The first paroxysm of despair subsided into another state. All at once my mind was filled with the idea of Meg Hakiz, her enterprise, and my chances of escape. There is one point at which the road to Elverston makes a short ascent. There is a sudden curve there, two great ash trees, with a roadside style between, at the right side, covered with ivy. Driving back and forward I did not recollect having particularly remarked this point in the highway. But now it was before me, in the thin light of the thinnest segment of moon and the figure of Meg Hakiz for back towards me, always ascending toward Elverston. It was constantly the same picture, the same motion without progress, the same dreadful suspense and impatience. I was now sitting on the side of the bed, looking wistfully across the room. When I did not see Meg Hakiz, I beheld Madame, darkly eyeing first one, then another point of the chamber, evidently puzzling over some problem. And in one of her most savage moods, sometimes muttering to herself, sometimes protruding, and sometimes screwing up with her great mouth. She went into her own room, where she remained I think nearly ten minutes. And on her return, there was that flash in her eyes, the glow of her face, and the peculiar fragrance that surrounded her, that showed she had been partaking of her favorite restorative. I had not moved since she left my room. She paused about the middle of the floor and looked at me with what I can only describe as her wild beast stare. You are valley-secret family, you wuthens. You are so cunning. I hate the cunning people. By my faith I will see Mr. Silas withen and ask what he mean. I heard him tell old Wyatt that Mr. Dudley is gone away tonight. He shall tell me everything, or else I will make a sheke a mutt osufler que je vis. Madame's words had hardly ceased, when I was again watching Meg Hakiz on the steep road, mounting, but never reaching, the top of the eclivity on the way to Elverston, and mentally praying that she might be brought safely there. Vain prayer of an agonized heart. Meg's journey was already frustrated. She was not to reach Elverston in time. Madame revisited her apartment, and returned not, I think, improved in temper. She walked about the room, hustling the scanty furniture hither and thither as she encountered it. She kicked her empty box out of her way, with a horrid crash, and a curse in French. She strode and swaggered round the room, muttering all the way, and turning the corners of her course with a furious whisk. At last, out of the door she went. I think she fancied she had not been sufficiently taken into confidence, as to what was intended for me. It was now growing late, and yet no sucker. I was seized, I remember, with a dreadful icy shivering. I was listening for signals of deliverance, at ever distant sound, half-stiffled with a palpitation, these sounds piercing my ear with a horrible and exaggerated distinctness. Oh, Meg! Oh, cousin Monica! Oh, come! Oh, heaven! Have mercy! Lord, have mercy! I thought I heard a roaring and jangle of voices. Perhaps it came from Uncle Silas' room. It might be the tipsy violence of Madame. It might, merciful heaven, be the arrival of friends. I started to my feet. I listened, quavering with attention. Was it in my brain? Was it real? I was at the door, and it seemed to open of itself. Madame had forgotten to lock it. She was losing her head a little by this time. The key stood in the gallery door beyond. It too was open. I fled wildly. There was a subsiding sound of voices in my uncle's room. I was, I know not how, on the lobby of the Great Stairhead outside my uncle's apartment. My hand was on the banisters, my foot on the first step. When below me and against the faint light that glimmered through the great window on the landing, I saw a bulky human form ascending, and a voice said, HUSH! I staggered back, and at that instant, fancied with a thrill of conviction, I heard Lady Nollis' voice in Uncle Silas' room. I don't know how I entered the room. I was there like a ghost. I was frightened at my own state. Lady Nollis was not there. No one but Madame, and my guardian. I can never forget the look that Uncle Silas fixed on me, as he cowered seemingly as appalled as I. I think I must have looked like a phantom, newly risen from the grave. What's that? Where do you come from? whispered he. Death! Death! was my whispered answer, as I froze with terror where I stood. What does she mean? What does all this mean? said Uncle Silas, recovering wonderfully and turning with a withering sneer on Madame. Do you think it right to disobey my plain directions and let her run about the house at this hour? Death! Death! Oh, pray to God for you and me! I whispered in the same dreadful tones. My Uncle stared strangely at me again, and after several horrible seconds, in which he seemed to have recovered himself, he said, sternly and coolly, You give too much place to your imagination, niece. Your spirits are in an odd state. You ought to have advice. Oh, Uncle pity me. Oh, Uncle, you are good. You're kind. You're kind when you think. You could not. You could not. Could not. Oh, think of your brother that was always so good to you. He sees me here. He sees us both. Oh, save me, Uncle. Save me, and I'll give up everything to you. I'll pray to God to bless you. I'll never forget your goodness and mercy. But don't keep me in doubt. If I'm to go, oh, for God's sake, shoot me now. You are always odd, niece, and begin to fear you are insane. He replied in the same stern, icy tone. Oh, Uncle. Oh, am I? Am I mad? I hope not. But you'll conduct yourself like a sane person if you wish to enjoy the privileges of one. Then, with his finger pointing at me, he turned to Madame and said, in a tone of suppressed ferocity, what is the meaning of this? Why is she here? Madame was gabbling volubly, but to me it was only a shrilly noise. My whole soul was concentrated in my Uncle, the arbiter of my life, before whom I stood in the wildest agony of supplication. That night was dreadful. The people I saw dizzily, made of smoke or shining vapor, smiling or frowning. I could have passed my hand through them. They were evil spirits. There's no ill intended you. By God there's none, said my Uncle, for the first time violently agitated. Madame told you why we've changed your room. You told her about the bailiffs did not you. With a stamp of fury he demanded of Madame, whose nasal roulades of talk were running on, like an accompaniment all the time. She had indeed told me only a few hours since, and now it sounded to me like the echo of something heard a month ago or more. You can't go about the house, damn it, with bailiffs in occupation. There now, there's the whole thing. Get to your room, Maud, and don't vex me. There's a good girl. He was trying to smile as he spoke these last words, and with quavering soft tones to quiet me. But the old scowl was there, the smile was corpse-like and contorted, and the softness of his tones was more dreadful than another man's ferocity. There, Madame, she'll go quite gently, and you can call if you want help. Don't let it happen again. Come, Maud, said Madame, encircling but not hurting my arm with her grip. Let us go, my flint. I did go. You will wonder, as well you may. As you may wonder at the docility with which strong men walk through the press room to the drop, and thank the people of the prison for their civility when they bid them goodbye, and facilitate the fixing of the rope and adjusting of the cap. Have you never wondered that they don't make a last battle for life with the unscrupulous energy of terror instead of surrendering it so gently in cold blood on a silent calculation, the arithmetic of despair? I went upstairs with Madame like a synambulist. I rather quickened my step as I drew near my room. I went in and stood a phantom at the window, looking into the dark quadrange, a thin glimmer of crescent hung in the frosty sky, and all heaven was strewn with stars. Over the steep roof at the other side spread on the dark azure of the night, this glorious blazingry of the unfathomable Creator. To me a dreadful scroll, inexorable eyes, the cloud of cruel witnesses, looking down and freezing brightness on my prayers, and agonies. I turned about and sat down, leaning my head upon my arms. Then suddenly I sat up, as for the first time the picture of Uncle Silas's littered room and the traveling bags and black boxes piled on the floor by his table. The desk, hat case, umbrella, coats, rugs, and mufflers, all ready for a journey, reached my brain and suggested a thought. The mise-en-scene had remained in every detail, fixed upon my retina, and how I wondered, when is he going, how soon? Is he going to carry me away and place me in a madhouse? Am I—am I mad? I began to think. Is this all a dream? Or is it real? I remember how a thin, polite gentleman, with a tall, grizzled head and a black velvet waistcoat, came into the carriage on our journey, and said a few words to me, how Madame whispered him something, and he murmured, Oh, very gently, with raised eyebrows, and a glance at me, and, since forward, spoke no more to me, only to Madame, and at the next station carried his hat and other traveling chattels into another carriage. Had she told him I was mad? These horrid bars, Madame always with me, the direful hints that dropped from my uncle. My own terrific sensations, all these evidences revolved in my brain, and presented themselves in turn, like writings on a wheel of fire. There came a knock to the door. Oh, Meg, was it she? No. Old Wyatt whispered Madame something about her room. So Madame re-entered, with a little silver tray and flagon in her hand and a glass. Nothing came from Uncle Silas in an un-gentleman-like fashion. Drink, mod! said Madame, raising the cover, and evidently enjoying the fragrant steam. I could not. I might have done so had I been able to swallow anything, for I was too distracted to think of Meg's warning. Madame suddenly recollected her mistake of that evening, and tried the door. But it was duly locked. She took the key from her pocket and placed it in her breast. You will have these looms to yourself, Michelle. I shall sleep downstairs to-night. She poured out some of the hot claret into the glass abstractedly, and drank it off. Tea's very good. I'd blank without ink. But tea's very good. Why don't you drink some? I could not, I repeated, and Madame boldly helped herself. Valley polite, certainly, to Madame. Was it to send nothing at all for her? So she pronounced her. Bought is all a same thing. And so she ran on in her tipsy vein, which was loud and sarcastic, with a fierce laugh now and then. Afterwards I heard that they were afraid of Madame, who was given to cross-purposes and violent in her cups. She had been noisy and quarrelsome downstairs. She was under the delusion that I was to be conveyed away that night to a remote and safe place. And she was to be handsomely compensated for services and evidence to be afterwards given. She was not to be trusted, however, with the truth. That was to be known, but to three people on earth. I never knew, but I believe that the spiced claret which Madame drank was drugged. She was a person who could, I have been told, drink a great deal without exhibiting any change from it, but an inflamed color and furious temper. I can only state for certain what I saw, and that was, that shortly after she had finished the claret, she laid down upon my bed, and, I now know, fell asleep. I then thought she was feigning sleep only, and that she was really watching me. About an hour after this, I suddenly heard a little clink in the yard beneath. I peeped out, but saw nothing. The sound was repeated, however, sometimes more frequently, sometimes at long intervals. At last, in the deep shadow next to the farther wall, I thought I could discover a figure, sometimes erect, sometimes stooping and bowing toward the earth. I could see this figure only in the rudest outline mingling in the dark, like a thunderbolt that smote my brain. They are making my grave. After this first dreadful stun, I grew quite wild, and ran up and down the room, wringing my hands and gasping prayers to heaven. Then a calm stole over me. Such a dreadful calm as I could fancy, glide over one who floated in a boat, under the shadow of the trader's gate, leaving life and hope and trouble behind. Shortly after, there came a very low tap at my door, then another, like a tiny post-knock. I could never understand why it was I made no answer. Had I done so, and thus shown that I was awake, it might have sealed my fate. I was standing in the middle of the floor staring at the door, which I expected to see open, and admit I knew not what troops of specters. End of Chapter 63 Chapter 64 of Uncle Silas This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fenu Chapter 64 The Hour of Death It was a very still night, and frosty. My candle had long burnt out. There was still a faint moonlight, which fell in a square of yellow on the floor near the window, leaving the rest of the room, in what, to an eye less accustomed than mine, had become to that faint light, would have been total darkness. Now I am sure I heard a soft whispering outside my door. I knew that I was in a state of siege. The crisis was come, and strange to say, I felt myself grow all at once resolute and self-possessed. It was not a subsistence, however, of the dreadful excitement, but a sudden screwing up of my nerves to a pinch such as I cannot describe. I suppose the people outside moved with great caution, and the perfect solidity of the floor, which had not anywhere a creaking board in it, favored their noiseless movements. It was well for me that there were, in the house, three persons whom it was part of their plan to mystify respecting my fate. This alone compelled the extreme caution of their proceedings. They suspected that I had placed furniture against the door, and they were afraid to force it, lest a crash, a scream, perhaps a long and shrilly struggle, might follow. I remained for a space which I cannot pretend to estimate. In the same posture, afraid to stir, afraid to move my eye from the door, a very peculiar grating sound above my head startled me from my watch, something of the character of sawing only more crunching, and with a faint continued rumble in it, utterly inexplicable. It sounded over that portion of the roof, which was farthest from the door, toward which I now glided. And as I took my stand under cover of the projecting angle of a clumsy old press that stood close by it, I perceived the room a little darkened, and I saw a man descend and take his stand upon the window stone. He let go a rope, which, however, was still fast around his body, and employed both his hands with apparently some exertion about something at the side of the window, which, in a moment more, in one mass, bars in all, swung noiselessly open, admitting the frosty night air, and the man, whom I now distinctly saw to be Dudley Rithin, kneeled on the sill and stepped after a moment's listening into the room. His foot made no sound upon the floor, his head was bare, and he wore his usual short shooting jacket. I cowered to the ground in my post of observation. He stood, as it seemed to me, irresolutely for a moment, and then drew from his pocket an instrument which I distinctly saw against the faint moonlight. Imagine a hammer, one end of which has been beaten out into a longish tapering spike, with a handle something longer than usual. He drew stealthily to the window, and seemed to examine this hurriedly, and tested its strength with a twist or two of his hand, and then he adjusted it very carefully in his grasp, and made two or three little experimental picks with it in the air. I remained perfectly still, with a terrible composure, crouched in my hiding-place, my teeth clenched, and prepared to struggle like a Tigris for my life when discovered. I thought his next measure would be to light a match. I saw a lantern, I fancied, on the window sill, but this was not his plan. He stole, in a groping way, which seemed strange to me, who could distinguish objects in this light, to the side of my bed, the exact position of which he evidently knew. He stooped over Madame was breathing in the deep respiration of heavy sleep. Suddenly, but softly, he laid, as it seemed to me, his left hand over her face, and nearly at the same instant there came a scrunching blow, an unnatural shriek, beginning small and swelling for two or three seconds into a yell, such as our imagined and haunted houses, accompanied by a convulsing sound, as the motion of running and the arms drumming on the bed, and then another blow, and with a horrid gasp he recoiled a step or two, and stood perfectly still. I heard a horrible trimmer quivering through the joints and curtains of the bedstead, the convulsions of the murdered woman. It was a dreadful sound, like the shaking of a tree and rustling of leaves. Then once more he steps to the side of the bed, and I heard another of those horrid blows, and silence, and another, and more silence, and the diabolical surgery was ended. For a few seconds I think I was on the point of fainting, but a gentle stir outside the door, close to my ear, startled me, and proved that there had been a watcher posted outside. There was a little tapping at the door. Who's that? whispered Dudley Horsley. A friend answered a sweet voice, and a key was introduced. The door quickly unlocked, and Uncle Silas entered. I saw that frail, tall white figure, the venerable silver locks that resembled those upon the honored head of John Wesley, and his thin white hand, the back of which hung so close to my face that I feared to breathe. I could see his fingers twitching nervously. The smell of perfumes and of ether entered the room with him. Dudley was trembling now like a man in an egg you fit. Look what you made me do, he said maniacally. Steady, sir, said the old man, close beside me. Yes, you damned old murderer, I've a mind to do for you. There, Dudley, like a dear boy, don't give way. It's done, right or wrong we can't help it. You must be quiet, said the old man with a stern gentleness. Dudley groaned. Whoever advised it, you're a gainer, Dudley, said Uncle Silas. Then there was a pause. I hope that was not heard, said Uncle Silas. Dudley walked to the window and stood there. Come, Dudley, you and Hawkees must use expedition. You know you must get that out of the way. I've done too much. I won't do not. I'll not touch it. I wished my hand was off first. I wish I was a soldier. Do as he like, you and Hawkees. I won't go nigh it, damn you both, and that. And he hurled the hammer with all his force upon the floor. Come, come, be reasonable, Dudley, dear boy. There's nothing to fear but your own folly. You won't make a noise. Oh, oh, my God, said Dudley, hoarsely, and wiped his forehead with his open hand. There now you'll be all well in a minute, continued the old man. You said Twit didn't hurt her. If I'd have known she'd a screech like that, I'd never done it. Twit was a damn lie. You're the damnedest villain on earth. Come, Dudley, said the old man under his breath, but very sternly. Make up your mind. If you don't choose to go on, it can't be helped. Only it's a pity you began. For you it is a good deal. It does not much matter for me. I, for you, echoed Dudley through his set teeth. The old talk. Well, sir, snarled the old man in the same low tones. You should have thought of all this before. It's only taking leave of the world a year or two sooner, but a year or two something. I'll leave you to do as you please. Stop, will you? Stop here. I know it's a fixed thing now. If a fella does a thing he's damned for, you might let him talk a bit anyhow. I don't care much if I was shot. There now. There. Just stick to that and don't run off again. There's a box in a bag here. We must change the direction and take them away. The box has some jewels. Can you see them? I wish we had a light. No, I'd rather not. I can see well enough. I wish we were out of this. Here's the box. Pull it to the window, said the old man, to my inexpressible relief, advancing at last a few steps. Coolness was given me in that dreadful moment, and I knew that all depended on my being prompt and resolute. I stood up swiftly. I often thought, if I had happened to wear silk instead of the cashmere I had on that night, its Russell would have betrayed me. I distinctly saw the tall, stooping figure of my uncle, and the outline of his venerable tresses as he stood between me and the dull light of the window, like a shape-cutten card. He was saying, just to there, and pointed with his long arm at the contrasting patch of moonlight which lay squared upon the floor. The door was about a quarter open, and just as Dudley began to drag Madame's heavy box, with my jewel case in it, across the floor from her room, inhaling a great breath with a mental prayer for help, I glided on Tiptoe from the room, and found myself on the gallery floor. I turned to my right, simply by chance, and followed a long gallery in the dark, not running. I was too fearful of making the least noise. But walking with the Tiptoe swiftness of terror, at the termination of this was a cross gallery, one end of which, that was to my left, terminated in a great window, through which the dusky night view was visible. With the instinct of terror I chose the darker, and turned again to my right, hurrying through this long and nearly dark passage. I was terrified by a light about thirty feet before me, emerging from the ceiling. In spotted patches, this light fell through the door and sides of a stable lantern, and showed me a ladder, down which, from an open skylight, I suppose, for the cool night air floated in my face, came Dickon Hawkees, notwithstanding his maimed condition, with so much celerity as to leave me hardly a moment for consideration. He sat on the last round of the ladder, and tightened the strap of his wooden leg. At my left was a door case open but no door, I entered. It was a short passage about six feet long, leading perhaps to a back stair, but the door at the end was locked. It was forced to stand in this recess then, which afforded no shelter, while pegtops stumped by with his lantern in his hand. I fancied he had some idea of listening to his master unperceived, for he stopped close to my hiding-place, blew out the candle, and pinched along snuff with his horny finger and thumb. Having listened for a few seconds, he stumped stealthily along the gallery which I had just transversed, and turned the corner in the direction of the chamber where the crime had just been committed, and the discovery was impending. I could see him against the broad window, which in the daytime lighted this long passage, and the moment he had passed the corner I resumed my flight. I descended a stair corresponding with that back stair, as I am told, up which Madame had led me only the night before. I tried the outer door. To my wild surprise it was open. In a moment I was upon the step, in the free air, and as instantaneously was seized by the arm in the grip of a man. It was Tom Bryce, who had already betrayed me, and who was now, in Sir Two and Hat, waiting to drive the carriage with the guilty father and son from the scene of their abhorred outrage. Chapter 65 of Uncle Silas This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Uncle Silas by Jay Sheridan Le Fenu. Chapter 65. In the Oak Parlor So it was vain. I was trapped and all was over. I stood before him on the step, the white moon shining on my face. I was trembling so that I wonder I could stand, my helpless hands raised towards him. And I looked up in his face, a long, shuddering moan. It was all I uttered. The man, still holding my arm, looked, I thought frightened into my white, dumb face. Suddenly he said in a wild, fierce whisper, Never say another word. I had not uttered one. They shan't hurt you, miss. Get ye in, I don't care a damn. It was uncouth speech. To me it was the voice of an angel. With a burst of gratitude that sounded in my own ears like a laugh, I thanked God for those blessed words. In a moment more he had placed me in the carriage. And almost instantly we were in motion, very cautiously while crossing the court, until he had got the wheels upon the grass, and then at a rapid pace, improving his speed as the distance increased. He drove along the side of the back approach to the house, keeping on the grass, so that our progress, though swaying like that of a ship in a swell, was very nearly as noiseless. The gate had been left unlocked. He swung it open, and remounted the box, and we were now beyond the spell of Bartram Hof, thundering heaven be praised, along the queen's highway, right in the route to Elverston. It was literally a gallop. Through the chariot windows I saw Tom stand as he drove, and every now and then throw an awful glance over his shoulder, where we pursued. Never was agony of prayer like mine, as with clasped hands and wild stare I gazed through the window on the road, whose trees and hedges and gabled cottages were chasing one another backward at so giddy a speed. We were now ascending that identical steep, with the giant ash trees at the right and the style between, which my vision of Meghachese had presented all that night, when my excited eye detected a running figure within the hedge. I saw the head of someone crossing the style in pursuit, and I heard Bryce's name shriek. Drive on! On! On! I screamed, but Bryce pulled up. I was on my knees on the floor of the carriage, with clasped hands, expecting capture when the door opened, and Meghachese, pale as death, her cloak drawn over her black tresses, looked in. Oh, ho, ho! Thank God! she screamed. Shake hands, lass. Tom, you're a gooden. He's a good lad, Tom. Come, Megh, you must sit by me, I said, recovering all at once. Megh made no demure. Take my hand, I said, offering mine to her disengaged one. I can't miss. My arms broke. And so it was, poor thing. She had been espied and overtaken in her errand of mercy for me. And her ruffian father had felled her with his cudgel, and locked her into the cottage, whence, however, she had contrived to escape, and was now flying to Elverston, having tried in vain to get a hearing in Feltrum, whose people had been for hours in bed. The door being shut upon Megh, the steaming horses were instantly at a gallop again. Tom was still watching as before, with many an anxious glance to rearward, for pursuit. Again he pulled up and came to the window. Oh, what is it? cried I. About that letter, miss. I couldn't help. Twas Dickon, he found it in my pocket. That's all. Oh, yes. No matter. Thank you. Thank heaven. Are we near Elverston? Will be a mile, miss. And please him to mind, I had no finger in it. Thanks. Thank you. You're very good. I shall always thank you, Tom, as long as I live. At length we entered Elverston. I think I was half-wild. I don't know how I got into the hall. I was in the Oak Parlor, I believe, when I saw Cousin Monica. I was standing, my arms extended. I could not speak, but I ran with a loud, long scream into our arms. I forget a great deal after that. End of Chapter 65