Uncle Silas - J. Sheridan Le Fanu (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📗

expecting to see some of those wolfish dogs which they had brought to the place prowling about the courtyard. Sometimes I prayed, and felt tranquillised, and fancied that I was perhaps to have a short interval of sleep. But the serenity was delusive, and all the time my nerves were strung hysterically. Sometimes I felt quite wild, and on the point of screaming. At length that dreadful night passed away. Morning came, and a less morbid, though hardly a less terrible state of mind. Madame paid me an early visit. A thought struck me. I knew that she loved shopping, and I said, quite carelessly⁠—

“Your yesterday’s shopping tempts me, Madame, and I must get a few things before we leave for France. Suppose we go into Feltram today, and make my purchases, you and I?”

She looked from the corner of her cunning eye in my face without answering. I did not blench, and she said⁠—

“Vary good. I would be vary ’appy,” and again she looked oddly at me.

“Wat hour, my dear Maud? One o’clock? I think that weel de very well, eh?”

I assented, and she grew silent.

I wonder whether I did look as careless as I tried. I do not know. Through the whole of this awful period I was, I think, supernatural; and I even now look back with wonder upon my strange self-command.

Madame, I hoped, had heard nothing of the order which prohibited my exit from the place. She would herself conduct me to Feltram, and secure, by accompanying me, my free egress.

Once in Feltram, I would assert my freedom, and manage to reach my dear cousin Knollys. Back to Bartram no power should convey me. My heart swelled and fluttered in the awful suspense of that hour.

Oh, Bartram-Haugh! how came you by those lofty walls? Which of my ancestors had begirt me with an impassable barrier in this horrible strait?

Suddenly I remembered my letter to Lady Knollys. If I were disappointed in effecting my escape through Feltram, all would depend upon it.

Having locked my door, I wrote as follows:⁠—

“Oh, my beloved cousin, as you hope for comfort in your hour of fear, aid me now. Dudley has returned, and is secreted somewhere about the grounds. It is a fraud. They all pretend to me that he is gone away in the Seamew; and he or they had his name published as one of the passengers. Madame de la Rougierre has appeared! She is here, and my uncle insists on making her my close companion. I am at my wits’ ends. I cannot escape⁠—the walls are a prison; and I believe the eyes of my gaolers are always upon me. Dogs are kept for pursuit⁠—yes, dogs! and the gates are locked against my escape. God help me! I don’t know where to look, or whom to trust. I fear my uncle more than all. I think I could bear this better if I knew what their plans are, even the worst. If ever you loved or pitied me, dear cousin, I conjure you, help me in this extremity. Take me away from this. Oh, darling, for God’s sake take me away!

“Your distracted and terrified cousin,

“Bartram-Haugh. Maud.”

I sealed this letter jealously, as if the inanimate missive would burst its cerements, and proclaim my desperate appeal through all the chambers and passages of silent Bartram.

Old Quince, greatly to cousin Monica’s amusement, persisted in furnishing me with those capacious pockets which belonged to a former generation. I was glad of this old-world eccentricity now, and placed my guilty letter, that, amidst all my hypocrisies, spoke out with terrible frankness, deep in this receptacle, and having hid away the pen and ink, my accomplices, I opened the door, and resumed my careless looks, awaiting Madame’s return.

“I was to demand to Mr. Ruthyn the permission to go to Feltram, and I think he will allow. He want to speak to you.”

With Madame I entered my uncle’s room. He was reclining on a sofa, his back towards us, and his long white hair, as fine as spun glass, hung over the back of the couch.

“I was going to ask you, dear Maud, to execute two or three little commissions for me in Feltram.”

My dreadful letter felt lighter in my pocket, and my heart beat violently.

“But I have just recollected that this is a market-day, and Feltram will be full of doubtful characters and tipsy persons, so we must wait till tomorrow; and Madame says, very kindly, that she will, as she does not so much mind, make any little purchases today which cannot conveniently wait.”

Madame assented with a courtesy to Uncle Silas, and a great hollow smile to me.

By this time Uncle Silas had raised himself from his reclining posture, and was sitting, gaunt and white, upon the sofa.

“News of my prodigal today,” he said, with a peevish smile, drawing the newspaper towards him. “The vessel has been spoken again. How many miles away, do you suppose?”

He spoke in a plaintive key, looking at me, with hungry eyes, and a horribly smiling countenance.

“How far do you suppose Dudley is today?” and he laid the palm of his hand on the paragraph as he spoke. “Guess!”

For a moment I fancied this was a theatric preparation to give point to the disclosure of Dudley’s real whereabouts.

“It was a very long way. Guess!” he repeated.

So, stammering a little and pale, I performed the required hypocrisy, after which my uncle read aloud for my benefit the line or two in which were recorded the event, and the latitude and longitude of the vessel at the time, of which Madame made a note in her memory, for the purpose of making her usual tracing in poor Milly’s Atlas.

I cannot say how it really was, but I fancied that Uncle Silas was all the time reading my countenance, with a grim and practised scrutiny; but nothing came of it, and we were dismissed.

Madame loved shopping, even for its own