 Chapter 1 of Uncle Silas, A Tale of Bartram Howe This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Uncle Silas, A Tale of Bartram Howe by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou Chapter 1 Austin Ruthin of Knoll and his daughter It was winter, that is, about the second week in November and great gusts were rattling at the windows and wailing and thundering among our tall trees and ivied chimneys. A very dark night and a very cheerful fire blazing a pleasant mixture of good round coal and spluttering dry wood in a genuine old fireplace in a somber old room. Black wainscotting glimmered up to the ceiling in small ebony panels a cheerful clump of wax candles on the tea table many old portraits, some grim and pale others pretty and some very graceful and charming hanging from the walls. Few pictures except portraits long and short were there. On the whole I think you would have taken the room for our parlour. It was not like our modern notion of a drawing room. It was a long room too and every way capacious but irregularly shaped. A girl of a little more than seventeen looking, I believe, younger still slight and rather tall with a great deal of golden hair dark grey eyed and with accountants rather sensitive and melancholy sitting at the tea table in a reverie I was that girl. The only other person in the room the only person in the house related to me was my father. He was Mr. Ruthen of Knoll so called in his county but he had many other places was of a very ancient lineage who had refused the baronetage often and it was said even of I County being of a proud and defiant spirit and thinking themselves higher in station and purer of blood than two thirds of the nobility into whose ranks it was said they had been invited to enter. All of this family law I knew but little and vaguely only what is to be gathered from the fireside talk of old retainers in the nursery. I am sure my father loved me and I know I loved him. With the sure instinct of childhood I apprehended his tenderness although it was never expressed in common ways but my father was an oddity he had been early disappointed in Parliament where it was his ambition to succeed though a clever man he failed there where very inferior men did extremely well then he went abroad and became a connoisseur and a collector took a part on his return in literary and scientific institutions and also in the foundation and direction of some charities but he tired of this mimic government and gave himself up to a country life not that of a sportsman but rather of a student staying sometimes at one of his places and sometimes at another and living a secluded life rather late in life he married a beautiful young wife died leaving me their only child to his care this bereavement I have been told changed him made him more odd and taciturn than ever and his temper also accepted to me more severe there was also some disgrace about his younger brother my uncle Silas which he felt bitterly he was now walking up and down this spacious old room extending round an angle at the far end was very dark in that quarter it was his want to walk up and down thus without speaking an exercise which used to remind me of Chateau Brion's father in the great chamber of the Chateau de Combourg at the far end he nearly disappeared in the gloom and then returning emerged for a few minutes like a portrait with a background of shadow again in silence faded nearly out of view this monotony in silence would have been terrifying to a person less accustomed to it than I as it was it had its effect I have known my father a whole day without once speaking to me though I loved him very much I was also much in awe of him while my father paced the floor my thoughts were employed about the events of a month before so few things happened at Nole out of the accustomed routine that a very trifling occurrence was enough to set people wondering and conjecturing in that serene household my father lived in remarkable seclusion except for a ride he hardly ever left the grounds of Nole and I don't think it happened twice in the year that a visitor sojourned among us there was not even that mild religious butthole which sometimes besets the wealthy and moral recluse my father had left the Church of England for some odd set I forget its name and ultimately became, I was told, a Swedenborgian but he did not care to trouble me upon the subject so the old carriage brought my governess when I had one the old housekeeper, Mrs Rusk and myself to the parish church every Sunday my father, in the view of the honest rector who shook his head over him a cloud without water carried about of winds and a wandering star to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness corresponded with the minister of his church and was provokingly contented with his own fertility and illumination and Mrs Rusk who was a sound and bitter churchwoman said he fancied his sore visions and talked with angels like the rest of that rubbish I don't know that she had any better foundation than analogy and conjecture for charging my father with supernatural pretensions and in all points when her orthodoxy was not concerned she loved her master and was a loyal housekeeper I found her one morning superintending preparations for the reception of a visitor in the hunting room it was called from the pieces of tapestry that covered its walls representing scenes a la woovermans of falconry and the chase dogs, hawks, ladies gallants and pages in the midst of whom Mrs Rusk in black silk was rummaging draws counting linen and issuing orders who is coming Mrs Rusk well she only knew his name it was a Mr Briley my papa expected him to dinner and to stay for some days I guess he is one of those creatures dear for I mentioned his name just to Dr Clay the rector and he says there is a Dr Briley a great conjurer among the Swedenborg set and that's him I do suppose in my hazing notion of these sectaries there was mingled a suspicion of necromancy and a weird freemasonry something of awe and antipathy Mr Briley arrived time enough to dress at his leisure before dinner he entered the drawing room a tall lean man all in ungainly black with a white choker and either a black wig or black hair dressed in imitation of one a pair of spectacles and a dark sharp short visage rubbing his large hands together he whom he plainly regarded merely as a child he sat down before the fire crossed his legs and took up a magazine this treatment was mortifying and I remember very well the resentment of which he was quite unconscious his stay was not very long not one of us divide the object of his visit and he did not pre-possess us favorably he seemed restless as men of busy habits do in country houses and took walks and a drive and read in the library and wrote half a dozen letters his bedroom and dressing room were at the side of the gallery directly opposite to my father's which had a sort of anti-room en suite in which were some of his theological books the day after Mr Briley's arrival I was about to see whether my father's water carafe and glass had been duly laid on the table this anti-room and in doubt whether he was there I knocked at the door I suppose they were too intent on other matters to hear but receiving no answer I entered the room my father was sitting in his chair with his coat and waistcoat off Mr Briley kneeling on a stool beside him rather facing him his black scratch wig leaning close to my father's grizzled hair there was a large tome of their divinity law I suppose open on the table close by the lank black figure of Mr Briley stood up and he concealed something quickly in the breast of his coat my father stood up also looking paler I think than I ever saw him till then and he pointed grimly to the door and said go Mr Briley pushed me gently back with his hands to my shoulders down from his dark features with an expression quite unintelligible to me I had recovered myself in a second and withdrew without a word the last thing I saw at the door was the tall slim figure in black and the dark significant smile following me and then the door was shut and locked and the two Swedenborgians were left to their mysteries I remember so well the kind of shock and disgust that I felt in a certainty that I had surprised them at some perhaps debasing incantation a suspicion of this Mr Briley of the ill-fitting black coat the white choker and a sort of fear came upon me and I fancied he was asserting some kind of mastery over my father which very much alarmed me I fancied all sorts of dangers in the enigmatic smile I preached the image of my father as I had seen him it might be confessing to this man in black who was I knew not what haunted me with the disagreeable uncertainties of a mind very uninstructed as to the limits of the marvellous I mentioned it to no one but I was immensely relieved when the sinister visitor took his departure the morning after and it was upon this occurrence that my mind was now employed someone said that Dr Johnson resembled a ghost who must be spoken to before it will speak but my father in whatever else he may have resembled a ghost did not in that particular for no one but I in his household and I very seldom dared to address him until first addressed by him I had no notion how singular this was until I began to go out a little into some relations and found no such rule in force anywhere else as I leaned back in my chair thinking this phantasm of my father came and turned and vanished with a solemn regularity it was a peculiar figure strongly made, thick set with a face large and very stern he wore a loose black velvet coat and waistcoat it was however the figure of an elderly rather than an old man though he was then path 70 but firm and with no sign of feebleness I remember the start with which not suspecting that he was close by me I lifted my eyes and saw that large rugged countenance looking fixedly on me from less than a yard away after I saw him he continued to regard me for a second or two and then taking one of the heavy candlesticks in his gnarled hand he beckoned me to follow him which in silence and wondering I accordingly did he led me across the hall where there were lights burning and into a lobby by the foot of the back stairs and so into his library it is a long narrow room with two tall slim windows at the far end now draped in dark curtains dusky it was with but one candle and he paused near the door at the left hand side of which stood in those days an old-fashioned press or cabinet of carved oak in front of this he stopped he had odd absent ways and talked more to himself I believe than to all the rest of the world put together she won't understand he whispered looking at me inquirily no she won't will she then there was a pause during which he brought forth from his breast pocket a small bunch of some half dozen keys on one of which he looked frowningly every now and then balancing it a little before his eyes between his finger and thumb as he deliberated I knew him too well of course to interpose a word they are easily frightened they are I better do it another way and pausing he looked in my face as he might upon a picture they are yes I have better do it another way another way yes and she'll not suspect she'll not suppose then he looked steadfastly upon the key and from it to me suddenly lifting it up and said abruptly see child and after a second or two remember this key it was oddly shaped and unlike others yes sir I always called him sir it opens that and he tapped it sharply on the door of the cabinet in the daytime it is always here at which word he dropped it into his pocket again you see and at night so you hear me yes sir you won't forget this cabinet oak next the door on your left you won't forget no sir pity she's a girl and so young a girl and so young no sense giddy you say you'll remember yes sir it behoves you he turned round and looked full upon me like a man who has taken a sudden resolution and I think for a moment he had made up his mind to tell me a great deal more but if so he changed it again and after another pause he said slowly and sternly you will tell nobody what I have said under pain of my displeasure oh no sir good child except he resumed under one contingency that is in case I should be absent and Dr Briley you recollect the thin gentleman in spectacles and a black wig who spent three days here last month should come and inquire for the key you understand in my absence yes sir so he kissed me on the forehead and said let us return which accordingly we did in silence the storm outside like a dirge on a great organ accompanying our flitting end of chapter 1 chapter 2 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan LeFannou this LibriVox recording is in the public domain chapter 2 Uncle Silas when we reached the drawing room I resumed my chair and my father his slow and regular walk to and fro in the great room perhaps it was the uproar of the wind that disturbed the ordinary tenor of his thoughts but whatever was the cause certainly he was unusually talkative that night after an interval of nearly half an hour he drew near again and sat down in a high-backed armchair beside the fire and nearly opposite to me and looked at me steadfastly for some time as was his want before speaking and said he you must have a governess in cases of this kind I merely set down my book or work as might be and adjusted myself to listen without speaking your French is pretty well and your Italian but you have no German your music may be pretty good I'm no judge yes I believe there are accomplished ladies finishing governesses they call them who undertake more than any one teacher would have professed in my time and do it very well she can prepare you and next winter then you shall visit France and Italy where you may be accomplished as highly as you please thank you sir you shall it is nearly six months since Miss Eleton left you too long without a teacher and then followed an interval Dr Briley will ask you about that key and what it opens you show all to him and no one else but I said for I had a great terror of disobeying him in ever so minute a matter you will then be absent sir how am I to find the key he smiled on me suddenly a bright but wintry smile it seldom came and was very transitory and kindly though mysterious true child I'm glad you are so wise that you will find I have provided for and you shall know exactly where to look you have remarked how solidarily I live you fancy perhaps I have not got a friend and you are nearly right nearly but not all together I have a very sure friend one a friend whom I once misunderstood appreciate I wondered silently whether it could be Uncle Silas he'll make me a call someday soon I'm not quite sure when I won't tell you his name you'll hear that soon enough and I don't want to talk to and I must make a little journey with him you'll not be afraid of being left alone for a time and you have promised sir I answered with another question my curiosity and anxiety overcoming my awe he took my questioning very good humbly well promise no child but I'm under condition he's not to be denied I must make the excursion with him the moment he calls I have no choice but on the whole I rather like it remember I say I rather like it and he smiled again with the same meaning that was at once stern the exact perpet of these sentences remained fixed in my mind so that even at this distance of time I'm quite sure of them a person quite unacquainted with my father's habitually abrupt and odd way of talking would have fancied that he was possibly a little disordered in his mind but no such suspicion for a moment troubled me I was quite sure that he spoke of a real person who was coming and that his journey was something momentous and when the visitor of whom he spoke did come and he departed with him upon that mysterious excursion I perfectly understood his language and his reasons for saying so much and yet so little you are not to suppose that all my hours were passed in the sort of conference and isolation of which I have just given you a specimen and singular and even awful as were sometimes my tetatets with my father I had grown so accustomed to his strange ways and had so unbounded a confidence in his affection that they never depressed or agitated me in the manner you might have supposed I had a great deal of quite a different sort of chat with good old Mrs. Rusk and very pleasant talks with Mary Quince my somewhat ancient maid and besides this I had now and then a visit of a week or so at the house of some one of our country neighbours and occasionally a visitor but this I must own very rarely at nole there had come now a little pause in my father's revelations and my fancy wandered away upon a flight of discovery who I again thought could this intending visitor be who was to come armed with the prerogative to make my stay at home father forthwith leave his household goods his books and his child to whom he clung and set forth on an unknown nighterrentry who but Uncle Silas I thought that mysterious relative whom I had never seen who was it had in old times been very darkly hinted to me unspeakably unfortunate or unspeakably vicious whom I had seldom heard my father mention and then in a hurried way and with a pained, thoughtful look once only he had said anything from which I could gather my father's opinion of him and then it was so slight and enigmatic that I might have filled in the character very nearly as I please it happened thus one day Mrs. Rathck was in the Oak Room I being then about fourteen she was removing a stain from a tapestry chair and I watched the process with a childish interest she sat down to rest herself she had been stooping over her work and threw her head back for her neck was weary and in this position she fixed her eyes on a portrait that hung before her it was a full length and represented a singularly handsome young man dark slender, elegant in a costume then quite obsolete though I believe it was seen at the beginning of this century with leather pantaloons and top boots a buff waistcoat and a chocolate coloured coat and the hair long and brushed back there was a remarkable elegance with a delicacy in the features but also a character of resolution and ability that quite took the portrait out of the category of mere phops or fine men when people looked at it for the first time I have so often heard the exclamation what a wonderfully handsome man and then what a clever face an Italian greyhound stood by him and some slender columns and a rich drapery in the background but though the accessories were of the luxurious sort and the beauty as I have said refined there was a masculine force in that slender oval face and a fire in the large shadowy eyes which were very peculiar and quite redeemed it from the suspicion of effeminacy it's not that Uncle Silas said I yes dear answered Mrs Rusk looking with her resolute little face quietly on the portrait he must be a very handsome man Mrs Rusk don't you think so I continued he was my dear yes but it is 40 years since that was painted the date is there in the corner in the shadow that comes from his foot and 40 years I can tell you makes a change in most of us and Mrs Rusk laughed in a cynical good humour there was a little pause both still looking on the handsome man in top boots and I said and why Mrs Rusk is Papa always so sad about Uncle Silas what's that child said my father's voice very near I looked round with a start and flushed and faltered receding a step from him no harm dear you have said nothing wrong when you were serving my alarm you said I was always sad I think about Uncle Silas well I don't know how you gather that but if I were I will now tell you it would not be unnatural your uncle is a man of great talents great faults and great wrongs his talents have not availed him his faults are long ago repented of and his wrongs I believe he feels less than I do but they are deep did she say any more madam he demanded abruptly of Mrs Rusk nothing sir with a stiff little curtsy answered Mrs Rusk who stood in awe of him and there is no need child he continued addressing himself to me that you should think more of him at present clear your head of Uncle Silas one day perhaps you will know him yes very well and understand how villains have injured him then my father retired and at the door he said Mrs Rusk a word if you please beckoning to that lady who trotted after him to the library I think he then laid some injunction upon the housekeeper which was transmitted by her to Mary Quince for from that time forth I could never lead either to talk with me about Uncle Silas they let me talk on but we reserved and silent themselves and seemed embarrassed sometimes pettish and angry when I pressed for information thus curiosity was peaked and round the slender portrait in the leather pantaloons and top boots gathered many coloured circles of mystery and the handsome features seemed to smile down upon my baffled curiosity with a provoking significance why is it that this form of ambition curiosity which entered into the temptation of our first parent is especially hard to resist knowledge is power and power of one sort or another is a secret lust of human souls and here is beside the sense of exploration the indefinable interest of a story and above all something forbidden to stimulate the consumatious appetite End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 3 A New Face I think it was about a fortnight after that conversation in which my father had expressed his opinion and given me the mysterious charge about the old oak cabinet in his library as already detailed that I was one night sitting at the great drawing room window lost in the melancholy reveries of night and in admiration of the moonlighted scene I was the only occupant of the room and the lights near the fire at its farther end hardly reached to the window at which I sat the shorn grass sloped gently downward from the windows till it met the broad level on which stood in clumps or solitarily scattered some of the noblest timber in England whore in the moonbeams stood those graceful trees in their moveless shadows upon the grass and in the background crowning the undulations of the distance in masses were piled those woods among which lay the solitary tomb where the remains of my beloved mother rested The air was still the silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon and the frosty stars blinked brightly Everyone knows the effect of such a scene on a mind already saddened fancies and regrets float mystically in the dream and the scene affects us with a strange mixture of memory and anticipation like some sweet old air heard in the distance As my eyes rested on those to me funeral but glorious woods which formed the background of the picture my thoughts recurred to my father's mysterious intimations and the image of the approaching visitor and the thought of the unknown journey saddened me In all that concerned his religion from very early association there was to me something of the unearthly and spectral When my dear mama died I was not nine years old and I remember two days before the funeral they came to know where she died a thin little man with large black eyes and a very grave dark face He was shut up a good deal with his dear father who was in deep affliction and Mrs. Rusk used to say it is rather odd to see him praying with that little scare crow from London and good Mr. Clay ready at call in the village much good that little black whippersnapper will do him with that little black man on the day after the funeral I was sent out for some reason for a walk my governess was ill I know the house and I dare say the maids made as much of a holiday as they could I remember feeling a sort of awe of this little dark man but I was not afraid of him for he was gentle though sad and seemed kind he led me into the garden the Dutch garden we used to call it with a balustrade and statues at the father front laid out in a carpet pattern of brilliantly coloured flowers I came down the broad flight of con stone steps into this and we walked in silence to the balustrade the base was too high at the spot where we reached it for me to see over but holding my hand he said look through that my child well you can't but I can see beyond it shall I tell you what I see ever so much I see a cottage with a steep roof that looks like gold in the sunlight there are tall trees throwing soft shadows round it and flowering shrubs I can't say what only the colours are beautiful growing by the walls and windows and two little children are playing among the stems of the trees and we are on our way there and in a few minutes shall be under those trees ourselves and talking to those little children yet now to me it is but a picture in my brain and to you but a story told by me which you believe come dear let us be going so we descended the steps at the right and side by side walked along the grass laying between tall trim walls of evergreens the way was in deep shadow for the sun was near the horizon but suddenly we turned to the left and there we stood in rich sunlight among the many objects he had described is this your house my little men he asked of the children pretty little rosy boys who assented and he leaned with his open hand against the stem of one of the trees and with a grave smile he nodded down to me saying you see now and hear and feel for yourself that both the vision and the story were quite true but come on my dear we have further to go and relapsing into silence we had a long ramble through the wood the same on which I was now looking in the distance every now and then he made me sit down to rest and he in amusing solemn sort of way would relate some little story reflecting even to my childish mind a strange suspicion of a spiritual meaning but different from what honest Mrs. Rusk used to expound to me from the parables and somehow startling in its very vagueness thus entertained though a little awfully I accompanied the dark mysterious little whippersnapper through the woodland glades we came to me quite unexpectedly in the deep silver shadows upon the grey pillard temple forefronted with a slanting pedestal of like and stained steps the lonely sepulcher in which I had the morning before seen poor mama laid at the sight the fountains of my grief reopened and I cried bitterly repeating mama mama little mama and so went on weeping and calling wildly to the deaf and the silent there was a stone bench some ten steps away from the tomb sit down beside me my child said the grave man with the black eyes very kindly and gently now what do you see there he asked pointing horizontally with his stick towards the centre of the opposite structure oh that that place where poor mama is yes a stone wall with pillars too high for either you or me to see over but here he mentioned a name which I think must have been Swedenborg from what I afterward learnt of his tenets and revelations I only know that it sounded to me like the name of a magician in a fairy tale I fancied he lived in the wood which surrounded us and I began to grow frightened as he proceeded but Swedenborg sees beyond it over and through it and has told me all that concerns us to know he says your mama is not there she's taken away I cried starting up and with streaming eyes gazing on the building which though I stamped my feet in my distraction I was afraid to approach oh is mama taken away where is she where have they brought her to I was uttering unconsciously very nearly the question with which Mary in the gray of that wondrous morning on which she stood by the empty sepulcher accosted the figure standing near your mama is alive but too far away to see or hear us Swedenborg standing here can see and hear her and tells me all he sees just as I told you in the garden about the little boys and the cottage and the trees and flowers which you could not see you believed him when I told you so I can tell you now as I did then and we are both I hope walking onto the same place just as we did to the trees and cottage you will surely see with your own eyes how true the description is which I give you I was very frightened for I feared that when he had done his narrative we were to walk on through the wood into that place of wonders and of shadows where the dead were visible he leaned his elbow on his knee and his forehead on his hand which shaded his downcast eyes in that attitude he described to me a beautiful landscape radiant with a wondrous light in which rejoicing my mother moved along an airy path ascending among mountains of fantastic height and peaks melting in celestial colouring into the air and people with human beings translated into the same image beauty and splendour and when he had ended his relation he rose took my hand and smiling gently down on my pale wondering face he said the same words he had spoken before come dear let us go oh no no no not now I said resisting and very much frightened home I mean dear we cannot walk to the place I have described we can only reach it through the gate of death to which we are all tending young and old with sure steps and where is the gate of death I asked in a sort of whisper as we walked together holding his hand and looking stealthily he smiled sadly and said when sooner or later the time comes as Hagar's eyes were opened in the wilderness and she beheld the fountain of water so shall each of us see the door open before us and enter in and be refreshed for a long time following this walk I was very nervous but also for the awful manner in which Mrs. Rusk received my statement with stern lips and upturned hands and eyes and an angry ex postulation I do wonder at you Mary Quince letting the child walk into the wood with that limb of darkness it is a mercy he did not show her the devil of writing her out of her senses in that lonely place of these Swedenborgians indeed I know no more than I might learn from good Mrs. Rusk's very inaccurate talk two or three of them crossed in the course of my early life like magic lantern figures the disc of my very circumscribed observation all outside was and is darkness I once tried to read one of their books upon the future state heaven and hell but I grew after a day or two so nervous as I laid it aside it is enough for me to know that their founder either saw or fancity saw amazing visions which so far from superseding confirmed and interpreted the language of the Bible and as dear Papa accepted their ideas I am happy in thinking that they did not conflict with the supreme authority of Holy Writ leaning on my hand I was now looking upon that solemn wood white and shadowy in the moonlight but a long time after that ramble with the visionary I fancied the gate of death hidden only by a strange glummer and the dazzling land of ghosts was situate and I suppose these earlier associations gave to my reverie about my father's coming visitor a wilder and a sadder tinge End of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan LeFannu this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 4 Madame de la Rougière On a sudden on the grass before me stood an odd figure a very tall woman in grey draperies nearly white under the moon curtsying extraordinarily low and rather fantastically I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow features which I did not know smiling very unpleasantly on me and the moment it was plain that I saw her the grey woman began gobbling and cackling shrilly I could not distinctly hear what through the window and gesticulating oddly with her long hands and arms as she drew near the window I flew to the fireplace and rang the bell frantically and seeing her still there and fearing that she might break into the room I flew out of the door very much frightened and met Branston the butler in the lobby There's a woman at the window I gasped, turn her away please If I had said a man I suppose fat Branston would have summoned and sent forward a detachment of footmen as it was he bowed gravely with her Yesum Shalman and with an air of authority approached the window I don't think that he was pleasantly impressed himself by the first sight of our visitor but he stopped short some steps of the window and demanded rather sternly what you're doing there woman To this summons her answer which occupied a little time was inaudible to me but Branston replied I wasn't aware mom I heard nothing but you'll go round that way you'll see the hall door steps and I'll speak to the master do as he shall order the figure said something and pointed Yes that's it and you can't miss the door and Mr. Branston returned slowly down the long room and halted with out turned pumps and grave inclination before me and the faintest amount of interrogation in the announcement pleaseum she says she's the governess the governess what governess Branston was too well-bred to smile and he said thoughtfully perhaps I best ask the master to which I assented and away strode the flat pumps of the butler to the library I stood breathless in the hall every girl at my age knows how much is involved in such an advent I also heard Mrs. Rusk in a minute or two more emerge I suppose from the study she walked quickly and uttered sharply to herself an evil trick in which she indulged when much put about I should have been glad of a word with her but I fancied she was vexed and would not have talked satisfactorily she did not however come my way merely crossing the hall with her quick energetic step was it really the arrival of a governess was that apparition which had impressed me so unpleasantly to take the command of me was it alone with me to haunt me perpetually with her sinister looks and shrilly gavel I was just making up my mind to go to Mary Quince and learn something definite when I heard my father's step approaching from the library so I quietly re-entered the drawing room but with an anxious and throbbing heart when he came in as usual he patted me on the head gently with a kind of smile I began his silent walk up and down the room I was yearning to question him on the point that just then engrossed me so disagreeably but the oar in which I stood of him forbade after a time he stopped at the window the curtain of which I had drawn and the shutter partly opened and he looked out perhaps with associations of his own on the scene I had been contemplating it was not for nearly an hour after that my father suddenly after his want in a few words apprised me of the arrival of madame de la Rougière to be my governess highly recommended and perfectly qualified my heart sank with a sure presage of ill I already disliked distrusted and feared her I had more than an apprehension of her temper and fear of possibly abused authority the large featured smirking phantom saluting me so oddly in the moonlight retained ever after its peculiar and unpleasant hold upon my nerves well miss Maud dear I hope you'll like your new governess for it's more than I do just at present at least said Mrs Rusk sharply she was awaiting me in my room I hate them French women they're not natural I think I gave her her supper in my room she eats like a wolf she does the great raw-boned animal I wish you saw her in bed as I did I put her next to the clock room she'll hear the hours betimes I'm thinking you never saw such a sight the great long nose and hollow cheeks of her and oh such a mouth I felt almost like little red riding hood I did miss here Honest Mary Quince who enjoyed Mrs Rusk satire a weapon in which she was not herself strong laughed outright turned down the bed Mary she's very agreeable she is just now all newcomers is but she did not get many compliments from me miss no I rather think not I wonder why honest English girls won't answer the gentry for governesses instead of them gaping scheming wicked foreigners forgive me I think they're all alike next morning I made acquaintance with Madame de la Rougière she was tall, masculine a little ghastly perhaps and draped in purple silk with a lace cap and great bands of black hair too thickened black perhaps the correspond quite naturally with her bleached and sallow skin her hollow jaws and the fine but grim wrinkles traced about her brows and eyelids she smiled she nodded and then for a good while she scanned me in silence smiling eye and a stern smile and how is she named what is mamoiselle's name said the tall stranger Maud madame Maud what's pretty name Ebia I am very sure my dear Maud she will be very good little girl he's not so and I'm sure I shall love you very much and what have you been learning Maud my dear chère music French German eh? yes a little and I had just begun the use of the globes when my governess went away I nodded towards the globes which stood near her as I said this ah yes the globes and she spun one of them with her great hand je vous expliquerai tous la fin madame de la rougière I found was always quite ready to explain everything à fond but somehow her explication as she termed them were not very intelligible and when pressed her temper woke up so that I preferred after a while accepting the exposition just as they came madame was on an unusually large scale a circumstance which made some of her traits more startling and altogether rendered her in her strange way more awful in the eyes of a nervous child I may say such as I was she used to look at me for a long time sometimes with the peculiar smile I have mentioned and a great finger upon her lip like the illusion priestess on the vase she would sit too sometimes for an hour together looking into the fire or out of the window plainly seeing nothing and with an odd fixed look of something like triumph very nearly a smile on her cunning face she was by no means a pleasant grovelnaut for a nervous girl of my years sometimes she had accesses of a sort of hilarity which frightened me still more than her graver moods and I would describe these by and by the end of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 5 Sights and Noises There is not an old house in England of which the servants and young people who live in it do not cherish some traditions of the ghostly Noel has its shadows noises and marvellous records Rachael Rathen the beauty of Queen Anstheim who died of grief for the handsome Colonel Norbrook who was killed in the low countries walks the house by night in crisp and sounding silks she is not seen only heard the tapping of her high heeled shoes the sweep and rustle of her brocades her sighs as she pauses in the galleries near the bedroom doors and sometimes on stormy nights her sobs there is beside the link man a lank dark-faced black-haired man in a sable suit with a link or torch in his hand it usually only smoulders with a deep red glow as he visits his beat the library is one of the rooms he sees to unlike Lady Rachael as the maids called her he is seen only never heard his steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and carpet the lurid glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure and face and except when much perturbed his link never blazes on those occasions however as he goes his rands he ever and anon whirls it around his head and it bursts into a dismal flame this is a fearful omen and always portends some dire full crisis or calamity it occurs only once or twice in a century I don't know whether Madame had heard anything of these phenomena but she did report which very much frightened me and Mary Quince she asked us who walked in the gallery on which her bedroom opened making a rustling sound with her dress and going down the stairs and breathing long breaths here and there twice she said she had stood at her door in the dark listening to these sounds and once she called to know who it was there was no answer but the person plainly turned back and hurried towards her with an unnatural speed which made her jump within her door and shut it when first such tales are told they excite the nerves of the young and the ignorant intensely but the special effect I have found soon wears out the tale simply takes its place with the rest it was with Madame's narrative about a week after its relation I had my experience of a similar sort Mary Quince went downstairs for a night light leaving me in bed a candle burning in the room and being tired I fell asleep before her return when I awoke the candle had been extinguished but I heard a step softly approaching I jumped up quite forgetting the ghost and thinking only of Mary Quince and opened the door expecting to see the light of her candle instead all was dark and near me I heard the fall of a bare foot on the oak floor it was as if someone had stumbled I said Mary but no answer came only a rustling of clothes and a breathing at the other side of the gallery which passed off towards the upper staircase I turned into my room freezing with horror and clapped my door the noise wakened Mary Quince who had returned and gone to her bed half an hour before about a fortnight after this Mary Quince a very voracious spinster reported to me that having got up to fix the window which was rattling at about four o'clock in the morning she saw a light shining from the library window she could swear to its being a strong light streaming through the chinks of the shutter and moving no doubt the link was waved behind his head by the angry link man these strange occurrences helped I think just then to make me nervous I prepared the way for the odd sort of ascendancy which through my sense of the mysterious and supernatural that repulsive French woman was gradually and it seemed without effort establishing over me some dark points of her character speedily emerged from the prismatic mist with which she had enveloped it Mrs Rask's observation about the agreeability of newcomers I found to be true for as Madame began to lose that character her good humour abated very perceptibly and she began to show gleams of another sort of temper that was lurid and dangerous notwithstanding this she was in the habit of always having her Bible open by her and was all steely attentive at morning and evening services and asked my father with great humility to lend her some translations of Swedenborg's books she laid much to heart when we went out for our walk if the weather were bad we generally made our promenade up and down the broad terrace in front of the windows sullen and malign at times she used to look and as suddenly she would pat me on the shoulder caressingly and smile with a grotesque benignity asking tenderly are you fatigued my Cher or are you cold at first these abrupt transitions puzzled me sometimes half frightened me savouring I fancied of insanity the key however was accidentally supplied and I found that these accesses of demonstrative affection were sure to supervise whenever my father's face was visible through the library windows I did not know well what to make of this woman whom I feared with a vein of superstitious dread I hated being alone with her after dusk in the schoolroom she would sometimes sit for half an hour at a time with her wide mouth drawn down at the corners and a scowl looking into the fire if she saw me looking at her she would change all this on the instant affect the sort of languor and lean her head upon her hand and ultimately have recourse to her bible but I fancied she did not read but pursued her own dark ruminations for I observed that the open book might often lie for half an hour or more under her eyes and yet the leaf never turned I should have been glad to be assured that she prayed when on her knees or read when that book was before her I should have felt that she was more canny and human as it was those external pieties made a suspicion of a hollow contrast with realities that helped to scare me yet it was but a suspicion I could not be certain our rector and the curate with whom she was very gracious and anxious about my collects and catechism had an exalted opinion of her in public places her affection for me was always demonstrative in like manner she contrived conferences with my father she was always making excuses to consult him about my reading and to confide in him her sufferings as I learned from my contumacy and temper the fact is I was altogether quiet and submissive but I think she had a wish to reduce me to a state of the most abject bondage she had designs of domination and subversion regarding the entire household I now believe worthy of the evil spirit sometimes fanciful my father beckoned me into the study one day and said he you ought not to give poor madame so much pain she is one of the few persons who take an interest in you why should she have so often to complain of your ill temper and disobedience why should she be compelled to ask my permission to punish you don't be afraid I won't concede that but in so kind a person it argues that I am a judge affection I can't command respect and obedience I may and I insist on your rendering both to madame but sir I said rouse into courage by the gross injustice of the charge I have always done exactly as she bid me and never said one disrespectful word to madame I don't think child you are the best judge of that go and amend and with a displeased look he pointed to the door my heart swelled with the sense of wrong and as I reached the door I turned to say another word but I could not and only burst into tears there don't cry little maud only let us do better for the future there there there has been enough and he kissed my forehead and gently put me out and closed the door in the school room I took courage and with some warmth up braided madame what wicked child moaned madame dimuly read aloud those three yes those three chapters of the bible my dear maud there was no special fitness in those particular chapters and when they were ended she said in a sad tone now dear you must commit to memory this pretty prayer for humility of art it was a long one and in a state of profound irritation I got through the task mrs. rusk hated her she said she stole wine into brandy whenever the opportunity offered that she was always asking her for such stimulants and pretending pains in her stomach here perhaps there was exaggeration but I knew it was true that I had been at different times dispatched on that errand thanks for brandy to mrs rusk who at last came to her bedside with pills and a mustard blister only and was hated irrevocably ever after I felt all this was done to torture me but a day is a long time to a child and they forgive quickly it was always with a sense of danger that I heard madame say she must go and see mrs. raffin in the library and I think a jealousy of her growing influence was an ingredient in the destination in which honest mrs rusk held her End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan LaFannou this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 6 A Walk in the Wood two little pieces of biplane which I detected her confirmed my unpleasant suspicion from the corner of the gallery I one day saw her when she thought I was out and all quiet with her ear at the keyhole of papa's study as we used to call the sitting room next to his bedroom her eyes were turned in the direction of the stairs from which only she apprehended surprise her great mouth was open and her eyes absolutely gobbled with eagerness she was devouring all that was passing there I drew back into the shadow with a kind of disgust and horror she was transformed into a great gaping reptile I felt that I could have thrown something at her but a kind of fear made me recede again toward my room indignation however quickly returned and I came back treading briskly as I did so when I reached the angle of the gallery again madame I suppose had heard me for she was half way down the stairs ah my dear shy I am so glad to find you and you are dressed so come out we shall have so pleasant walk at that moment the door of my father's study opened and mrs. rusk with her dark energetic face very much flushed stepped out in high excitement the master says you may have the brandy bottle madame and I'm glad to be rid of it I am madame curts it with a great smirk that was full of intangible hate and insult better your own brandy if drink you must exclaimed mrs. rusk you may come to the storeroom now or the butler can take it and off whisked mrs. rusk for the back staircase there had been no common skirmish on this occasion but a pitched battle madame had made a sort of pet of unwixted and under chamber made and attached her to her interest economically by persuading me to make her presence of some old dresses and other things Anne was such an angel but mrs. rusk whose eyes were about her detected Anne with a brandy bottle under her apron stealing upstairs Anne in a panic declared the truth madame had commissioned her to buy it in the town and convey it to her bedroom upon this mrs. rusk impounded the flask and with Anne beside her rather precipitately appeared before the master he heard and summoned madame madame was cool frank and fluent the brandy was purely medicinal she produced a document in the form of a note doctor somebody presented his compliments to madame de la rougière and ordered her a tablespoon of brandy and some drops of lordnum whenever the pain of stomach returned the flask would last a whole year perhaps too she claimed her medicine man's estimate of woman is higher than woman's own perhaps in their relations to men they are genuinely more trustworthy perhaps woman's is the juster and the other an appointed illusion I don't know but so it is ordained mrs. rusk was recalled and I saw as you are aware madame's procedure during the interview it was a great battle a great victory madame was in high spirits the air was sweet the landscape charming I so good everything so beautiful where should we go this way I have made a resolution to speak as little as possible to madame I was so incensed at the treachery I had witnessed but such resolutions do not last long with very young people and by the time we had reached the skirts of the wood we were talking pretty much as usual I don't wish to go into the wood madame and for what poor mamar is buried there is there the vault demanded madame eagerly I assented my faith curious reason you say because poor mamar is buried there that you will not approach why chow what would good mrs. ruskin say if he heard such thing you are surely not so uncane and I am with you alon let us come even a little part of the way and so I yielded though still reluctant there was a grass grown road which we easily reached leading to the somber building and we soon arrived to before it madame de la rougière seemed rather curious she sat down on the little bank opposite in her most languid pose her head leaned upon the tips of her fingers how very sad how solemn murmured madame what noble tomb how trist my dear child your visitor must be remembering a so sweet mamar there is new inscription is it not new and so indeed it seemed I am fatigued maybe you will read it aloud to me slowly and solemnly my dearest maude as I approached I happened to look I can't tell why suddenly over my shoulder I was startled for madame was grimacing after me with a vile derisive distortion she pretended to be seized with a fit of coughing but it would not do she saw that I had detected her and she laughed aloud come here dear child I was just reflecting how foolish is all this thing the tomb the epitaph I think I would have none no epitaph we regard them first for the oracle of the dead and find them after the folly of the living so I despise do you think your house of knoll down there is what you call aunt, my dear why said I flushing and growing pale again I felt quite afraid of madame and confounded at the suddenness of all this because Anne wixed it she says there is ghost how dark is this place and so many of the Wretham family they are buried here so how high and thicker the trees all round and nobody comes near and madame rolled her eyes awfully as if she expected to see something unearthly and indeed looked very like it herself come away madame I said growing frightened and feeling that if I were once by any accident to give way to the panic that was gathering round me I should instantaneously lose all control of myself oh come away do madame, I'm frightened no, on the contrary sit here by me it is very odd you will think my chair angoubiza vraiment but I love very much to be near the dead people in solitary place like this I am not afraid of the dead people nor of the ghosts have you ever seen a ghost my dear do madame, pray speak of something else what little fool but no, you are not afraid I have seen a ghost myself I saw one for example last night shaped like a monkey sitting in the corner with his arms round his knees very wicked old old man his face was like and white eyes so large come away madame you are trying to frighten me I said in the childish anger which accompanies fear madame laughed and ugly laughed and said maybe a little fool I will not tell the rest if you are really frightened let us change to something else yes, yes, oh do pray do what good man is your father very the kindest darling I don't know why it is madame so afraid of him and never could tell him how much I love him this confidential talking with madame strange to say implied no confidence it resulted from fear it was deprecatory I treated her as if she had human sympathies in the hope that they might be generated somehow was there not a doctor from London with him a few months ago doctor brierly I think they call him yes, doctor brierly who remained a few days shall we begin to walk towards home madame do pray immediately child does your father suffer much no, I think not and what then is his disease disease he has no disease have you heard anything about his health madame I said anxiously oh no madame I have heard nothing but if the doctor came it was not because he was quite well but that doctor is a doctor in theology I fancy I know he is a sweet and bogey and papa is so well he could not have come as a physician I am very glad my chef to hear but still you know your father is old man to have so young child as you oh yes he is old man how certain life is has he made his will my dear every man so rich as he especially so old ought to have made his will there is no need of haste madame it is quite time enough when his health begins to fail but has he really composed no will I really don't know madame ah little rogue you will not tell but you are not such fool yourself no no you know everything come tell me all about it is for your advantage you know what is in his will and when he wrote madame I really know nothing of it I can't say whether there is a will or not let us talk of something else but sure it will not kill monsieur rethan to make his will he will not come to lie here a day sooner of that but if he make no will you may lose a great deal of the property would not that be a pity I really don't know anything of his will if papa has made one he has never spoken of it to me I know he loves me that is enough ah you are not such little goose you do know everything of course come tell me little obstinate otherwise I will break your little finger tell me everything I know nothing of papa's will you don't know madame how you hurt me let us speak of something else you do know and you must tell petite duetette or I will break your little finger with which words she sees that joint and laughing spitefully she twisted it suddenly back I screamed while she continued to laugh will you tell yes yes let me go I shrieked she did not release it immediately however but continued her torture and discordant laughter at last she finally released my finger so she is going to be good child and tell everything to her affectionate gouvernante what do you cry for little fool you've hurt me very much you have broken my finger I sobbed rub it and blow it and give it a kiss little fool what cross girl I will never play with you again never let us go home madame was silent and morose all the way home she would not answer my questions and effected to be very lofty and offended this did not last very long however and she soon resumed her wanted ways and she returned to the question of the will but not so directly and with more art why should this dreadful woman's thoughts be running so continually upon my father's will how could it concern her End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 7 Church Scarstale I think all the females of our household except Mrs. Rusk who was at open feud with her and had only room for the fiercer emotions were more or less afraid of this inauspicious foreigner Mrs. Rusk would say in her confidences in my room where does she come from is she a French or a Swiss one or is she a Canada woman I remember one of them when I was a girl and a nice limb she was too and who did she live with where was her last family not one of us knows anything about her no more than a child except of course the master I do suppose he made inquiry she's always a hugger mugger with Anne Wichsted I'll pat that one about her business if she doesn't mind cattling and whispering eternally it's not about her own business she's a talking Madame de la Rouge Pot she does know how to paint up to the 99s she does the old cat I beg your pardon myth but that she is a devil and no mistake I found her out first by her thieving the master's gin that the doctor ordered him and filling the decanter up with water the old villain but she'll be found out yet she will and all the maids is afraid of her she's not right they think a witch or a ghost I wonder Catherine Jones found her in her bed asleep in the morning after she sucked with you you know miss with all her clothes on whatever was the meaning and I think she has frightened you miss and has you as nervous as anything I do and so forth it was true I was nervous and growing rather more so and I think this cynical woman perceived and intended it and was pleased I was always afraid of her concealing herself in my room and emerging at night to scare me she begun sometimes to mingle in my dreams too always awfully and this nourished of course the kind of ambiguous fear in which in waking hours I held her I dreamed one night that she led me all the time whispering something so very fast that I could not understand her into the library holding a candle in her other hand above her head we walked on tiptoe like criminals at the dead of night and stopped before that old oak cabinet which my father had indicated in so odd a way to me I felt that we were about some contraband practice there was a key in the door which I experienced a guilty horror at turning she whispering in the same unintelligible way all the time at my ear I did turn it the door opened quite softly and within stood my father his face white and malignant and glaring close in mine he cried in a terrible voice death out went madame's candle and at the same moment with a screen I waked in the dark still fancying myself in the library and for an hour after I continued in a hysterical state every little incident about madame furnished a topic of eager discussion among the maids more or less covertly they nearly all hated and feared her they fancied that she was making good her footing with the master and that she would then oust mrs. rusk perhaps usurp her place and so make a clean sweep of them all I fancy the honest little housekeeper did not discourage that suspicion about this time I recollect a peddler an odd gypsified looking man called in at knoll I and kathryn jones were in the court when he came and set down his pack on the low balustrade by the door all sorts of commodities he had ribbons, cotton, silks stockings, lace and even some bad jewellery and just as he began his display an interesting matter in a quiet country house madame came upon the ground he grinned in recognition and hoped madame azele was well and did not look to see her here madame azele thanked him yeah it's very well and looked for the first time decidedly put out what a pretty things she said kathryn run and tell mrs. rusk sises and lace too I heard her say so kathryn with a lingering look departed and madame said will you dear child be so kind to bring here my purse I forgot on the table in my room also I advise you bring your kathryn returned with mrs. rusk here was a man who could tell them something of the old french man at last slyly they dawdled over his wares until madame had made her market and departed with me but when the coveted opportunity came the peddler was quite impenetrable he forgot everything he did not believe as he ever saw the lady before he called a french woman all the world over madame azele that were the name on them all and he never seed her in particular or as he could bring to mind he liked to see him always because they make the young'ems buy this reserve and oblivion were very provoking and neither mrs. rusk nor kathryn jones spent sixpence with him he was a stupid fellow or worse of course madame had tampered with him but truth like murder will out some day tom williams the groom had seen her when alone with him and pretending to look at his stock with her face almost buried in his silks and Welsh linses talking as fast as she could all the time and slipping money he did suppose under a piece of stuff in his box in the meantime I and madame were walking over the wide pt sheep walks that lie between knoll and church scarstale our visit to the mausoleum in the wood she had not worried me so much as before she had been indeed more than usually thoughtful very little talkative and troubled me hardly at all about French and other accomplishments a walk was a part of our daily routine I now carried a tiny basket in my hand with a few sandwiches which were to furnish our luncheon when we reached the pretty scene about two miles away with a wee attending we had started a little too late madame grew unwantedly fatigued and sat down to rest on a stile before we had got half way and there she intoned with a dismal nasal cadence a quaint old britain ballad about a lady with a pink's head this lady was neither pink nor made and so she was not of human mould not of the living nor the dead her left hand and foot were warm to touch her right as cold as a corpse's flesh and she would sing like a funeral bell with a ding dong tune the pigs were afraid and viewed her aloof the women feared her and stood afar she could do without sleep for a year and a day she could sleep like a corpse for a month and more no one knew how this lady fed on acorns or on flesh some say that she's one of the swine possessed that swam over the sea of genocerette a mongrel body and demon soul some say she's the wife of the wandering Jew and broke the law for the sake of pork and a swinish face for a token doth bear that her shame is now and her punishment coming and so it went on in a jingling rigmarole the more anxious I seemed to go on our way the more likely she was to loiter I therefore showed no signs of impatience and I saw her consult her watch in the course of her ugly minstrelsy and slightly glance as if expecting something in the direction of our destination when she had sung to her heart's content up rose madame and began to walk onward silently I saw her glance once or twice as before toward the village of Trilsworth which lay in front a little to our left and the smoke of which hung in a film over the brow of the hill I think she observed me for she inquired what is that smoke there that is Trilsworth madame there is a railway station there oh Lushmandu fair so near I did not think where it goes I told her and silence returned Church Skarsdale is a very pretty and odd scene the slightly undulating sheep walk dips suddenly into a wide glen in the lap of which by a bright winding rail rise from the sword the ruins of a small abbey with a few solemn trees scattered round the crow's nets hung untenanted in the trees the birds were foraging far away from their roosts the very cattle had forsaken the place it was solitude itself madame drew a long breath and smiled come down come down child come down to the church yard as we descended the slope which shut out the surrounding world and the scene grew more sad and lonely madame's spirits seemed to rise see how many gravestones one two hundred don't you love the dead child I will teach you to love them you shall see me die here today for half an hour and be among them that is what I love we were by this time at the little brooks side and the low church yard wall with a style reached by a couple of stepping stones across the stream immediately at the other side come now cried madame raising her face as if to sniff the air we are close to them you will like them soon as I you shall see five of them ah saira saira saira come cross quickly I am madame la morgue mrs. dead house I will present you my friends ms. kadav ms. squelette come come little mortal let us play wah and she uttered a horrid yell from her enormous mouth and pushing her weakened bonnet back so as to show her great bold head she was laughing and really looked quite mad no madame I will not go with you I said disengaging my hand with a violent effort receding two or three steps not enter the churchyard ma foie what morgue but see we are already in shade the sun he is setting soon where will you remain child I will not stay long I'll stay here I said a little angrily for I was angry as well as nervous and through my fear was that indignation at her extravagances which mimicked lunacy so unpleasantly and were designed to frighten me over the stepping stones pulling up her dress she skipped with her long length legs like a witch joining a well-purchase over the style she strode and I saw her head wagging and heard her sing some of her ill omened rhymes and she capered solemnly with many a grin and curtsy among the graves and headstones towards the ruin Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou this Librivox recording is in the public domain Chapter 8 The Smoker three years later I learned in a way she probably little expected and then did not much care about what really occurred there I learned even phrases and looks for the story was related by one who had heard it and therefore I venture to narrate what at the moment I neither saw nor suspected while I sat flushed and nervous upon a flat stone by the bank of the little stream madame looked over her shoulder and perceiving that I was out of sight she abated her pace and turned sharply towards the ruin which lay at her left it was her first visit and she was merely exploring but now with a perfectly shrewd and business like air turning the corner of the building she saw seated upon the edge of a gravestone a rather fat and flashily equipped young man with large light whiskers a gerry hat green cutaway coat with gilt buttons and waistcoat and trousers rather striking than elegant in pattern he was smoking a short pipe and made a nod to madame without either removing it from his lips or rising but with his brown and rather good-looking face turned up he eyed her with something of the impudence and sulky expression that was habitual to it ah, deagle, you are there and look so well I am here too quite alone but my friend she wait outside the churchyard beside the little river for she must not think I know you so I am calm alone you are a quarter late and I lost a fight by you old girl this morning said the gay man and spat on the ground and I wish you would not call me diddle I'll call you granny if you do maybe I'm dead then she is very nice what do you like slim waist white teeth very nice eyes dark what you say is best a nice little foot and ankle madame smiled leeringly dud smoked on go on said dud with a nod of command I am teacher to sing and play she had such sweet voice there was another interval here well that isn't much good I hate women screeching about fairies and flowers hang her there's a scarecrow as sings at curl's divan such a catawalling upon a stage I'd like to put my two barrels into her by this time dud's pipe was out and he could afford to converse you shall see her and decide you will walk down the river and pass her by that's as may be now so ever it would not do know how to buy a pig in a poke you know and suppose I shouldn't like her after all madame sneered into our ejaculation of derision very good then someone else will not be so odd to please as you will soon find someone's been a looking after are you mean? said the young man with a shrewd uneasy glance on the cunning face of the French lady I mean precisely that which I mean replied the lady with a teasing pause at the break I have marked come olden none of your dear old chaff if you want me to stay here listening to you speak out can't you there's any chaff has been a looking after is there may be yeah I suppose some well you suppose and I suppose we may all suppose I guess but that does not make a thing be as wasn't before tell me how the lasses kept private up here and will be till you're done educating her a precious good nat is and he laughed a little lazily with the ivory handle of his cane on his lip and I madame with indolent derision madame laughed but looked rather dangerous I'm only chaffing you know old girl you've been chaffing why shouldn't I but I don't see why she can't wait a bit and what's all the deed hurry for I'm in no hurry I don't want to wife on my back for a while there's no fellow marries till he's took his bit of fun and seen life is there and why should I be driving with her to fares or to church or to meeting by jingo for they say she's a quaker with a babby on each knee only to please them as we'll be dead and rotten when I'm only beginning yeah you are such a charming fellow always the same always sensible so I and my friend we will walk home again and you go see Maggie Ox goodbye dead goodbye quiet you fool can't she said the young gentleman with a sort of grin that made his face vicious when a horse vexed him whoever said I wouldn't go look at the girl why you know that's what I come here for don't you only when I think a bit and a notion comes across me why shouldn't I speak out I'm not one of them shilly shallies if I like the girl I'll not be mugging and mug out about it only mind you I'll judge for myself is that her a coming no it was a distant sound Madame Peach around the corner no one was approaching well you go that way and you only look at her you know for she is such fool so nervous oh is that the way with her said dad knocking out the ashes of his pipe on a tombstone and replacing the Turkish utensil in his pocket well then old lass goodbye and he shook her hand and you see don't come up till I pass for I'm no hand at play acting and if you called me sir I was coming in dignified and distant you know I'd be sure to laugh almost and let it out so goodbye GC and if you want me again be sharp to time mind from habit he looked about for his dogs but he had not brought one he had come unauthenticiously by rail travelling in a third class carriage for the advantage of Jack Bridalis company and getting a world of useful wrinkles about the steeple chase that was coming off next week so he showed away cutting off the heads of the nettles with his cane as he went and madame walked forth into the open space among the graves where I might have seen her had I stood up looking with the absorbed gaze of an artist on the ruin in a little while along the path I heard the clank of a step and the gentleman in the green cutaway coat sucking his cane and eyeing me with an offensive familiar sort of stare the while passed me by rather hesitating as he did so I was glad when he turned the corner in the little hollow close by and disappeared I stood up at once and was reassured by a sight of madame not very many yards away looking at the ruin and apparently restored to her right mind the last beams of the sun by this time touching the uplands and I was longing to recommend our walk home I was hesitating about calling to madame because that lady had a certain spirit of opposition within her and to disclose a small wish of any sort was generally if it lay in her power to prevent its accomplishment at this moment the gentleman in the green coat returned approaching me with a slow sort of swagger I say miss I dropped a glove close by here may you have seen it no sir I said drawing back a little and looking I dare say both frightened and offended I do think I must have dropped it close by your foot miss no sir I repeated no offence miss but you're sure you didn't hide it I was beginning to grow seriously uncomfortable don't be frightened miss it's only a bit of chaff I'm not going to search I called her loud madame madame and he whistled through his fingers and shouted madame madame and added she's as deaf as a tombstone or she'll hear that gear my compliment and say I said you're a beauty miss and with a laugh and a leer he strode off altogether this had not been a very pleasant excursion madame gobbled up our sandwiches commending them every now and then to me but I had been too much excited to have any appetite left and very tired I was when we reached home so there is lady coming tomorrow said madame who knew everything what is her name I forget lady nollis I answered lady nollis what odd name she is very young is she not past 50 I think Ella she's very old then is she rich I don't know she has a place in Derbyshire Derbyshire that is one of your English counties is it not oh yes madame I answered laughing I have said it to you twice since you came and I gabbled through the chief towns and rivers as catalogued in my geography but to be sure of course chair and is she your relation Papa's first cousin won't you present to me pray I would so like madame had fallen into the English way of liking people with titles as perhaps foreigners would if titles implied the sort of power they do generally with us certainly madame you will not forget oh no madame reminded me twice in the course of the evening of my promise she was very eager on this point but it is a world of disappointment influenza and rheumatics and next morning madame was prostrate in her bed and careless of all things but flannel and James's powder madame was desolate but she could not raise her head she only murmured a question for how long time dear will lady nullies remain very few days I believe hey la oh unlucky maybe tomorrow I shall be better my ear the lordnum dear child and so our conversation for that time ended and madame buried her head in her old red cashmere shore end of chapter 8 chapter 9 of Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Lafannou this lip of ox recording as in the public domain chapter 9 Monica Nullies punctually lady Nullies arrived she was accompanied by her nephew captain Oakley they arrived a little before dinner just in time to get to their rooms and dress but mary quince enlivened my toilet with eloquent descriptions of the youthful captain whom she had met in the gallery on his way to his room and told me how he stopped to let her pass and how he smiled so handsome I was very young then you know and more childish even than my years but this talk of mary quince interested me I must confess considerably I was painting all sorts of portraits of this heroic soldier while affecting I'm afraid a hypocritical indifference to her narration I was very nervous and painstaking about my toilet that evening when I went down to the drawing room lady Nullies was there talking voluably to my father as I entered a woman not really old but such as very young people fancy aged energetic bright saucy just handsomely in purple satin with a good deal of lace and a rich point I know not how to call it her cap a sort of headdress light and simple but grand with all over her greyish silken hair rather tall by no means stout on the whole a good firm figure with something kindly in her look she got up quite like a young person and coming quickly to meet me with a smile my young cousin she cried and kissed me on both cheeks you know who I am Monica Monica Nullies I'm very glad dear to see you though she has not set eyes on you since you were no longer than that paper knife now come here to the lamp for I must look at you who is she like let me see like your poor mother I think my dear but you've the Elmer nose yes not a bad nose either and come very good eyes upon my life yes certainly something of her poor mother not a bit like you Austin my father gave her a look as near a smile as I had seen there for a long time shrewd cynical but kindly too and said he so much the better Monica Ray it was not for me to say but you know Austin you always were an ugly creature how shocked and indignant the little girl looks you must not be vexed you loyal little woman with cousin Monica for telling the truth the power was and will be ugly all his days come Austin dear tell her it's not it's so what dispose against myself that's not English law Monica well maybe not but if the child won't believe her own eyes how is she to believe me she has long pretty hands you have and very nice feet too how old is she how old child said my father to me transferring the question she recurred again to my eyes that is the true grey large deep soft very peculiar yes dear very pretty long lashes and such bright tints you'll be in the book of beauty my dear when you come out and have all the poet people writing verses to the tip of your nose and a very pretty little nose it is I must mention here how striking was the change in my father's spirit while talking and listening to his odd and valuable old cousin Monica reflected from bygone associations there had come a glimmer of something not gaiety indeed but like an appreciation of gaiety the gloom and inflexibility were gone and there was an evident encouragement of the incessant sallies of his bustling visitor how morbid must have been the tendencies of his habitual solitude I think appeared from the evident thawing and brightening that accompanied even this transient gleam of human society I was not a companion more childish than most girls of my age and trained in all his whimsical ways never to interrupt a silence or force his thoughts by unexpected question or remark out of their monotonous or painful channel I was as much surprised at the good humour with which he submitted to his cousin's saucy talk and indeed just then those black panelled and pictures dwelled and that quaint misshapen room seemed to have exchanged their stern and awful character for something wonderfully pleasanter to me not withstanding the unpleasantness of the personal criticism to which the plain spoken lady chose to subject me just at that moment captain Oakley joined us he was my first actual vision of that awful and distant world of fashion of whose splendours I had already read something in the three-volumed Gospel of the circulating library handsome, elegant with features almost feminine and soft wavy black hair whiskers and moustache he was altogether such a night cold or even fancied at gnoll a hero of another species and from the region of the demigods I did not then perceive that coldness of the eye and cruel curl of the voluptuous lip only a suspicion yet enough to indicate the profligate man and savouring of death unto death but I was young and had not yet the direful knowledge of good and evil that comes with years and he was so very handsome and talked in a way that was so new to me and was so much more charming than the well-bred converse of the Humjong County families with whom I had occasionally so joined for a week at a time it came out incidentally that his leave of absence was to expire the day after tomorrow a lily-push and pang of disappointment followed this announcement already I was sorry to lose him so soon we begin to make a property of what pleases us I was shy but not awkward I was flattered by the attention of this amusing perhaps rather fascinating young man of the world and he plainly addressed himself with diligence to amuse and please me I dare say there was more effort than I fancied in bringing his talk down to my humble level and interesting me and making me laugh about people whom I had never heard of before than I then suspected Cousin Nollies meanwhile was talking to Papa it was just the conversation that suited a man so silent as habit had made him for her frolic fluency left him little to supply it was totally impossible indeed even in our taciturn household that conversation should ever flag while she was among us Cousin Nollies and I went into the drawing-room together leaving the gentleman rather ill-assorted I fear to entertain one another for a time come here my dear and sit near me said Lady Nollies dropping into an easy chair with an energetic little plump and tell me how you and your Papa get on I can remember him quite a cheerful man once and rather amusing yes indeed and now you see what a bore he is all by shutting himself up and nursing his whims and fancies your drawings dear yes very bad I'm afraid but there are a few better I think in the portfolio in the cabinet in the hall there by no means bad my dear and you play of course yes that is a little pretty well I hope I dare say I must hear you by and by and how does your Papa amuse you you look bewildered dear well I dare say amusement is not a frequent word in this house but you must not turn into a nun or worse into a Puritan what is he a fifth monarchy man or something I forget tell me the name my dear Papa is a Swedenborgian I believe yes yes I forgot the horrid name a Swedenborgian that is it I don't know exactly what they think but everyone knows they are a sort of pagans my dear he's not making one of you dear is he I go to church every Sunday well that's a mercy Swedenborgian is such an ugly name besides they're all likely to be damned my dear and that's a serious consideration I really wish poor Austin had hit on something else I'd much rather have no religion and enjoy life while I'm in it than choose one to worry me here and bedevil me hereafter but some people my dear have a taste of being miserable and provide like poor Austin for its gratification in the next world as well as here how grave the little woman looks don't you think me very wicked you know you do and very likely you are right who makes your dresses my dear you are such a figure of fun Mrs. Rask I think ordered this dress I and Mary Quince planned it I thought it very nice people like it very well there was something I dare say very whimsical about it probably very absurd judged at least by the cannons of fashion and old cousin Monica Knowles in whose eye the London fashions were always fresh was palpably struck by it as if it had been some enormity against anatomy for she certainly laughed very heartily indeed there were tears on her cheeks when she had done and I am sure my aspect of wonder and dignity as her hilarity proceeded helped to revive her merriment again and again as it was subsiding there you mustn't be vexed with old cousin Monica she cried jumping up and giving me a little hug and bestowing a hearty kiss on my forehead and a jolly little slap on my cheek always remember your cousin Monica is an outspoken wicked old fool who likes you and never be offended by her nonsense a council of three you all sat upon it Mrs Rusk you said and Mary Quince and your wise self the weird sisters and Austin stepped in as Macbeth and said what is it you do and all made answer together as something or other without a name now seriously my dear it is quite unpardonable in Austin to hand you over to be robes and beddersons according to the whimsies of these wild old women aren't they old if they know better it's positively fiendish I will indeed my dear you know you're an heiress and ought not to appear like a jack pudding Papa intends sending me to London with Madame and Mary Quince and going with me himself if Dr Briley says he may make the journey I am to have dresses and everything well that is better and who is Dr Briley is your papa ill ill oh no he always seems just the same you don't think him ill it looking ill I mean I asked eagerly and frightened no my dear he looks very well for his time of life but why is Dr what's his name here is he a physician or a divine or a horse doctor and why is his leave asked I really don't understand is he what you call him a Swedenborgian I believe so I see and so poor Austin must ask leave to go up to town well go he shall whether he's not to like it or not for it would not do to send you there in charge of your French woman my dear what's her name Madame de la Rougière end of chapter 9