_AN ODD PROPOSAL_
As I and Mary Quince returned from our walk that day, and had entered the
hall, I was surprised most disagreeably by Dudley's emerging from the
vestibule at the foot of the great staircase. He was, I suppose, in his
travelling costume--a rather soiled white surtout, a great coloured muffler
in folds about his throat, his 'chimney-pot' on, and his fur cap sticking
out from his pocket. He had just descended, I suppose, from my uncle's
room. On seeing me he stepped back, and stood with his shoulders to the
wall, like a mummy in a museum.
I pretended to have a few words to say to Mary before leaving the hall,
in the hope that, as he seemed to wish to escape me, he would take the
opportunity of getting quickly off the scene.
But he had changed his mind, it would seem, in the interval; for when I
glanced in that direction again he had moved toward us, and stood in the
hall with his hat in his hand. I must do him the justice to say he looked
horribly dismal, sulky, and frightened.
'Ye'll gi'e me a word, Miss--only a thing I ought to say--for your good; by
----, mind, it's for _your_ good, Miss.'
Dudley stood a little way off, viewing me, with his hat in both hands and a
'glooming' countenance.
I detested the idea of either hearing or speaking to him; but I had no
resolution to refuse, and only saying 'I can't imagine what you can wish to
speak to me about,' I approached him. 'Wait there at the banister, Quince.'
There was a fragrance of alcohol about the flushed face and gaudy muffler
of this odious cousin, which heightened the effect of his horribly dismal
features. He was speaking, besides, a little thickly; but his manner was
dejected, and he was treating me with an elaborate and discomfited respect
which reassured me.
'I'm a bit up a tree, Miss,' he said shuffling his feet on the oak floor.
'I behaved a d---- fool; but I baint one o' they sort. I'm a fellah as 'ill
fight his man, an' stan' up to 'm fair, don't ye see? An' _baint_ one o'
they sort--no, _dang_ it, I baint.'
Dudley delivered his puzzling harangue with a good deal of undertoned
vehemence, and was strangely agitated. He, too, had got an unpleasant way
of avoiding my eye, and glancing along the floor from corner to corner as
he spoke, which gave him a very hang-dog air.
He was twisting his fingers in his great sandy whisker, and pulling it
roughly enough to drag his cheek about by that savage purchase; and with
his other hand he was crushing and rubbing his hat against his knee.
'The old boy above there be half crazed, I think; he don't mean half as he
says thof, not he. But I'm in a bad fix anyhow--a regular sell it's been,
and I can't get a tizzy out of him. So, ye see, I'm up a tree, Miss; and he
sich a one, he'll make it a wuss mull if I let him. He's as sharp wi' me as
one o' them lawyer chaps, dang 'em, and he's a lot of I O's and rubbitch o'
mine; and Bryerly writes to me he can't gi'e me my legacy, 'cause he's got
a notice from Archer and Sleigh a warnin' him not to gi'e me as much as a
bob; for I signed it away to governor, he says--which I believe's a lie. I
may a' signed some writing--'appen I did--when I was a bit cut one night.
But that's no way to catch a gentleman, and 'twon't stand. There's justice
to be had, and 'twon't _stand_, I say; and I'm not in 'is hands that way.
Thof I may be a bit up the spout, too, I don't deny; only I baint agoin'
the whole hog all at once. I'm none o' they sort. He'll find I baint.'
Here Mary Quince coughed demurely from the foot of the stair, to remind me
that the conversation was protracted.
'I don't very well understand,' I said gravely; 'and I am now going
upstairs.'
'Don't jest a minute, Miss; it's only a word, ye see. We'll be goin' t'
Australia, Sary Mangles, an' me, aboard the _Seamew_, on the 5th. I'm
for Liverpool to-night, and she'll meet me there, an'--an', please God
Almighty, ye'll never see me more; an I'd rather gi'e ye a lift, Maud,
before I go: an' I tell ye what, if ye'll just gi'e me your written promise
ye'll gi'e me that twenty thousand ye were offering to gi'e the Governor,
I'll take ye cleverly out o' Bartram, and put ye wi' your cousin Knollys,
or anywhere ye like best.'
'Take me from Bartram--for twenty thousand pounds! Take me away from my
guardian! You seem to forget, sir,' my indignation rising as I spoke, 'that
I can visit my cousin, Lady Knollys, whenever I please.'
'Well, that is as it may be,' he said, with a sulky deliberation, scraping
about a little bit of paper that lay on the floor with the toe of his boot.
'It _is_ as it may be, and that is as I say, sir; and considering how you
have treated me--your mean, treacherous, and infamous suit, and your cruel
treason to your poor wife, I am amazed at your effrontery.'
I turned to leave him, being, in truth, in one of my passions.
'Don't ye be a flying out,' he said peremptorily, and catching me roughly
by the wrist, 'I baint a-going to vex ye. What a mouth you be, as can't see
your way! Can't ye speak wi' common sense, like a woman--dang it--for once,
and not keep brawling like a brat--can't ye see what I'm saying? I'll take
ye out o' all this, and put ye wi' your cousin, or wheresoever you list, if
ye'll gi'e me what I say.'
He was, for the first time, looking me in the face, but with contracted
eyes, and a countenance very much agitated.
'Money?' said I, with a prompt disdain.
'Ay, money--twenty thousand pounds--_there_. On or off?' he replied, with
an unpleasant sort of effort.
'You ask my promise for twenty thousand pounds, and you shan't have it.'
My cheeks were flaming, and I stamped on the ground as I spoke.
If he had known how to appeal to my better feelings, I am sure I should
have done, perhaps not quite that, all at once at least, but something
handsome, to assist him. But this application was so shabby and insolent!
What could he take me for? That I should suppose his placing me with Cousin
Monica constituted her my guardian? Why, he must fancy me the merest baby.
There was a kind of stupid cunning in this that disgusted my good-nature
and outraged my self-importance.
'You won't gi'e me that, then?' he said, looking down again, with a frown,
and working his mouth and cheeks about as I could fancy a man rolling a
piece of tobacco in his jaw.
'Certainly _not_, sir,' I replied.
'_Take_ it, then,' he replied, still looking down, very black and
discontented.
I joined Mary Quince, extremely angry. As I passed under the carved oak
arch of the vestibule, I saw his figure in the deepening twilight. The
picture remains in its murky halo fixed in memory. Standing where he last
spoke in the centre of the hall, not looking after me, but downward, and,
as well as I could see, with the countenance of a man who has lost a game,
and a ruinous wager too--that is black and desperate. I did not utter a
syllable on the way up. When I reached my room, I began to reconsider the
interview more at my leisure. I was, such were my ruminations, to have
agreed at once to his preposterous offer, and to have been driven, while he
smirked and grimaced behind my back at his acquaintances, through Feltram
in his dog-cart to Elverston; and then, to the just indignation of my
uncle, to have been delivered up to Lady Knolly's guardianship, and to
have handed my driver, as I alighted, the handsome fare of 20.000_l_. It
required the impudence of Tony Lumpkin, without either his fun or his
shrewdness, to have conceived such a prodigious practical joke.
'Maybe you'd like a little tea, Miss?' insinuated Mary Quince.
'What impertinence!' I exclaimed, with one of my angry stamps on the floor.
'Not you, dear old Quince,' I added. 'No--no tea just now.'
And I resumed my ruminations, which soon led me to this train of
thought--'Stupid and insulting as Dudley's proposition was, it yet involved
a great treason against my uncle. Should I be weak enough to be silent, may
he not, wishing to forestall me, misrepresent all that has passed, so as to
throw the blame altogether upon me?'
This idea seized upon me with a force which I could not withstand; and on
the impulse of the moment I obtained admission to my uncle, and related
exactly what had passed. When I had finished my narrative, which he
listened to without once raising his eyes, my uncle cleared his throat once
or twice, as if to speak. He was smiling--I thought with an effort, and
with elevated brows. When I concluded, he hummed one of those sliding
notes, which a less refined man might have expressed by a whistle of
surprise and contempt, and again he essayed to speak, but continued silent.
The fact is, he seemed to me very much disconcerted. He rose from his seat,
and shuffled about the room in his slippers, I believe affecting only to
be in search of something, opening and shutting two or three drawers, and
turning over some books and papers; and at length, taking up some loose
sheets of manuscript, he appeared to have found what he was looking for,
and began to read them carelessly, with his back towards me, and with
another effort to clear his voice, he said at last--
'And pray, what could the fool mean by all that?'
'I think he must have taken me for an idiot, sir,' I answered.
'Not unlikely. He has lived in a stable, among horses and ostlers; he has
always seemed to me something like a centaur--that is a centaur composed
not of man and horse, but of an ape and an ass.'
And upon this jibe he laughed, not coldly and sarcastically, as was his
wont, but, I thought, flurriedly. And, continuing to look into his papers,
he said, his back still toward me as he read--
'And he did not favour you with an exposition of his meaning, which, except
in so far as it estimated his deserts at the modest sum you have
named, appears to me too oracular to be interpreted without a kindred
inspiration?'
And again he laughed. He was growing more like himself.
'As to your visiting your cousin, Lady Knollys, the stupid rogue had only
five minutes before heard me express my wish that you should do so before
leaving this. I am quite resolved you shall--that is, unless, dear Maud,
you should yourself object; but, of course, we must wait for an invitation,
which, I conjecture, will not be long in coming. In fact, your letter
will naturally bring it about, and, I trust, open the way to a permanent
residence with her. The more I think it over, the more am I convinced, dear
niece, that as things are likely to turn out, my roof would be no desirable
shelter for you; and that, under all circumstances, hers would. Such were
my motives, Maud, in opening, through your letter, a door of reconciliation
between us.'
I felt that I ought to have kissed his hand--that he had indicated
precisely the future that I most desired; and yet there was within me a
vague feeling, akin to suspicion--akin to dismay which chilled and overcast
my soul.
'But, Maud,' he said, 'I am disquieted to think of that stupid jackanapes
presuming to make you such an offer! A creditable situation truly--arriving
in the dark at Elverston, under the solitary escort of that wild young man,
with whom you would have fled from my guardianship; and, Maud, I tremble as
I ask myself the question, would he have conducted you to Elverston at all?
When you have lived as long in the world as I, you will appreciate its
wickedness more justly.' Here there was a little pause.
'I know, my dear, that were he convinced of his legal marriage with that
young woman,' he resumed, perceiving how startled I looked, 'such an idea,
of course, would not have entered his head; but he does not believe any
such thing. Contrary to fact and logic, he does honestly think that his
hand is still at his disposal; and I certainly do suspect that he would
have employed that excursion in endeavouring to persuade you to think as he
does. Be that how it may, however, it is satisfactory to me to know that
you shall never more be troubled by one word from that ill-regulated young
man. I made him my adieux, such as they were, this evening; and never more
shall he enter the walls of Bartram-Haugh while we two live.'
Uncle Silas replaced the papers which had ostensibly interested him so
much, and returned. There was a vein which was visible near the angle
of his lofty temple, and in moments of agitation stood out against the
surrounding pallor in a knotted blue cord; and as he came back smiling
askance, I saw this sign of inward tumult.
'We can, however, afford to despise the follies and knaveries of the world,
Maud, as long as we act, as we have hitherto done, with perfect confidence
in each other. Heaven bless you, dear Maud! Your report troubled me, I
believe, more than it need--troubled me a good deal; but reflection assures
me it is nothing. He is gone. In a few days' time he will be on the sea. I
will issue my orders to-morrow morning, and he will never more, during his
brief stay in England, gain admission to Bartram-Haugh. Good-night, my good
niece; I thank you.'
And so I returned to Mary Quince, on the whole happier than I had left
her, but still with the confused and jarring vision I could not interpret
perpetually rising before me; and as, from time to time, shapeless
anxieties agitated me, relieving them by appeals to Him who alone is wise
and strong.
Next day brought me a goodnatured gossiping letter from dear Milly,
written in compulsory French, which was, in some places, very difficult
to interpret. She gave me a very pleasant account of the place, and her
opinion of the girls who were inmates, and mentioned some of the nuns with
high commendation. The language plainly cramped poor Milly's genius; but
although there was by no means so much fun as an honest English letter
would have brought me, there could be no mistake about her liking the
place, and she expressed her honest longing to see me in the most
affectionate terms.
This letter came enclosed in one to my uncle, from the proper authority
in the convent; and as there was neither address within, nor post-mark
without, I was as much in the dark as ever as to poor Milly's whereabouts.
Pencilled across the envelope of this letter, in my uncle's hand, were the
words, 'Let me have your answer when sealed, and I will transmit it.--S.R.'
When, accordingly, some days later, I did place my letter to Milly in my
uncle's hands, he told me the reason of his reserves on the subject.
'I thought it best, dear Maud, not to plague you with a secret, and Milly's
present address is one. It will in a few weeks become the rallying-point of
our diverse routes, when you shall meet her, and I join you both. Nobody,
until the storm shall have blown over, must know where I am to be found,
except my lawyer; and I think you would prefer ignorance to the trouble of
keeping a secret on which so much may depend.'
This being reasonable, and even considerate, I acquiesced.
In that interval there reached me such a charming, gay, and affectionate
letter--a very _long_ letter, too--though the writer was scarcely seven
miles away, from dear Cousin Monica, full of pleasant gossip, and
rose-coloured and golden castles in the air, and the kindest interest in
poor Milly, and the warmest affection for me.
One other incident varied that interval, if possible more pleasantly than
those. It was the announcement, in a Liverpool paper, of the departure of
the _Seamew_, bound for Melbourne; and among the passengers were reported
'Dudley Ruthyn, Esquire, of Bartram-H., and Mrs. D. Ruthyn.'
And now I began to breathe freely, I plainly saw the end of my probation
approaching: a short excursion to France, a happy meeting with Milly, and
then a delightful residence with Cousin Monica for the remainder of my
nonage.
You will say then that my spirits and my serenity were quite restored. Not
quite. How marvellously lie our anxieties, in filmy layers, one over the
other! Take away that which has lain on the upper surface for so long--the
care of cares--the only one, as it seemed to you, between your soul and the
radiance of Heaven--and straight you find a new stratum there. As physical
science tells us no fluid is without its skin, so does it seem with this
fine medium of the soul, and these successive films of care that form upon
its surface on mere contact with the upper air and light.
What was my new trouble? A very fantastic one, you will say--the illusion
of a self-tormentor. It was the face of Uncle Silas which haunted me.
Notwithstanding the old pale smile, there was a shrinking grimness, and the
always-averted look.
Sometimes I fancied his mind was disordered. I could not account for the
eerie lights and shadows that flickered on his face, except so. There was
a look of shame and fear of me, amazing as that seems, in the sheen of his
peaked smile.
I thought, 'Perhaps he blames himself for having tolerated Dudley's
suit--for having urged it on grounds of personal distress--for having
altogether lowered, though under sore temptation, both himself and his
office; and he thinks that he has forfeited my respect.'
Such was my analysis; but in the _coup-d'oeil_ of that white face that
dazzled me in darkness, and haunted my daily reveries with a faded light,
there was an intangible character of the insidious and the terrible.