The Complete Wyvern Mystery (All 3 Volumes in One Edition). Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

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СКАЧАТЬ William Maybell took a cold, which no one thought would signify. A brother clergyman from Willowford kindly undertook his duty for one Sunday, and on the next he had died.

      The Wyvern doctor said the vis-vitæ was wanting -- he had lived quite too low, and had not stamina, and so sank like a child.

      But there was more. When on Sundays, as the sweet bell of Wyvern trembled in the air, the Vicar had walked alone up to the old gray porch, and saw the two trees near the ivied nook of the churchyard-wall, a home sickness yearned at his heart, and when the hour came his spirit acquiesced in death.

      Old Squire Fairfield knew that it was the Bishop who really, and, as I believe, rightly opposed him, for to this day the vicarage pays no rent; but the proud and violent man chose to make the Vicar feel his resentment. He beheld him with a gloomy and thunderous aspect, never a word more would he exchange with him; he turned his back upon him; he forbid him the footpath across the fields of Wyvern, that made the way to church shorter. He walked out of church grimly when his sermon began. He turned the Vicar's cow off the common, and made him every way feel the weight of his displeasure.

      Well, now the Vicar was dead. He had borne it all very gently and sadly, and it was over, a page in the past, no line erasable, no line addible for ever.

      "So, Parson's dead and buried; serve him right," said the Squire of Wyvern. "Thankless rascal. You go down and tell them I must have the house up on the 24th, and if they don't go, you bundle 'em out, Thomas Rooke."

      "There'll be the Vicar's little child there; who's to take it in, Squire?" asked Tom Rooke, after a hesitation.

      "You may, or the Bishop, d---- him."

      "I'm a poor man, and, for the Bishop, he's not like to----"

      "Let 'em try the workhouse," said the Squire, "where many a better man's brat is."

      And he gave Tom Rooke a look that might have knocked him down, and turned his back on him and walked away.

      A week or so after he went down himself to the vicarage with Tom Rooke. Old Dulcibella Crane went over the lower part of the house with Tom, and the Squire strode up the stairs, and stooping his tall head as he entered the door, walked into the first room he met with, in a surly mood.

      The clatter of his boots prevented his hearing, till he had got well into the room, the low crying of a little child in a cradle. He stayed his step for a moment. He had quite forgotten that unimportant being, and he half turned to go out again, but changed his mind. He stooped over the cradle, and the little child's crying ceased. It was a very pretty face and large eyes, still wet with tears, that looked up with an earnest wondering gaze at him from out the tiny blankets.

      Old Dulcibella Crane had gone down, and the solitude, no doubt, affrighted it, and there was consolation even in the presence of the grim Squire, into whose face those large eyes looked with innocent trust.

      Who would have thought it? Below lay the little image of utter human weakness; above stooped a statue of inflexibility and power, a strong statue with a grim contracted eye. There was a heart, steeled against man's remonstrance, and a pride that would have burst into fury at a hint of reproof. Below lay the mere wonder and vagueness of dumb infancy. Could contest be imagined more hopeless! But "the faithful Creator," who loved the poor Vicar, had brought those eyes to meet.

      The little child's crying was hushed; big tears hung in its great wondering eyes, and the little face looked up pale and forlorn. It was a gaze that lasted while you might count four or five. But its mysterious work of love was done. "All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made."

      Squire Fairfield walked round this room, and went out and examined the others, and went downstairs in silence, and when he was going out at the hall-door he stopped and looked at old Dulcibella Crane, who stood courtesying at it in great fear, and said he, --

      "The child'll be better at home wi' me, up at Wyvern, and I'll send down for it and you in the afternoon, till -- something's settled."

      And on this invitation little Alice Maybell and her nurse, Dulcibella Crane, came to Wyvern Manor, and had remained there now for twenty years.

      Chapter V.

      The Terrace Garden

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      Alice Maybell grew up very pretty; not a riant beauty, without much colour, rather pale, indeed, and a little sad. What struck one at first sight was a slender figure, with a prettiness in every motion. A clear-tinted oval face, with very large dark gray eyes, such as Chaucer describes in his beauties as "ey-es gray as glass," with very long lashes; her lips of a very brilliant red, with even little teeth, and when she smiled a great many tiny soft dimples.

      This pretty creature led a lonely life at Wyvern. Between her and the young squires, Charles and Henry, there intervened the great gulf of twenty years, and she was left very much to herself.

      Sometimes she rode into the village with the old Squire; she sat in the Wyvern pew every Sunday; but except on those and like occasions, the townsfolk saw little of her.

      "'Taint after her father or mother she takes with them airs of hers; there was no pride in the Vicar or poor Mrs. Maybell, and she'll never be like her mother, a nice little thing she was."

      So said Mrs. Ford of the George Inn at Wyvern -- but what she called pride was in reality shyness.

      About Miss Maybell there was a very odd rumour afloat in the town. It had got about that this beautiful young lady was in love with old Squire Fairfield--or at least with his estate of Wyvern.

      The village doctor was standing with his back to his drawing-room fire, and the newspaper in his left hand lowered to his knee -- as he held forth to his wife, and romantic old Mrs. Diaper -- at the tea-table.

      "If she is in love with that old man, as they say, take my word for it, she'll not be long out of a mad-house."

      "How do you mean, my dear?" asked his wife.

      "I mean it is not love at all, but incipient mania. Her lonely life up there at Wyvern, would make any girl odd, and it's setting her mad -- that's how I mean."

      "My dear sir," remonstrated fat Mrs. Diaper, who was learned as well as romantic, "romance takes very whimsical shape at times; Vanessa was in love with Dean Swift, and very young men were passionately in love with Ninon de l'Enclos."

      "Tut -- stuff -- did I ever hear!" exclaimed Mrs. Buttle, derisively, "who ever thought of love or romance in the matter? The young lady thinks it would be very well to be mistress of Wyvern, and secure a comfortable jointure, and so it would; and if she can make that unfortunate old man fancy her in love with him, she'll bring him to that, I have very little doubt. I never knew a quiet minx that wasn't sly -- smooth water."

      In fact, through the little town of Wyvern, shut out for the most part from the forest grounds, and old gray manor-house of the same name, it came to be buzzed abroad and about that, whether for love, or from a motive more sane, though less refined, pretty Miss Alice Maybell had set her heart on marrying her surly old benefactor, whose years were enough for her grandfather.

      It was an odd idea to get into people's heads; but why were her large soft gray eyes always following the Squire by stealth?

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