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

see you do know something of him, sly girl! but no matter. You know how very rich your father is; but Silas was the younger brother, and had little more than a thousand a year. If he had not played, and did not care to marry, it would have been quite enough⁠—ever so much more than younger sons of dukes often have; but he was⁠—well, a mauvais sujet⁠—you know what that is. I don’t want to say any ill of him⁠—more than I really know⁠—but he was fond of his pleasures, I suppose, like other young men, and he played, and was always losing, and your father for a long time paid great sums for him. I believe he was really a most expensive and vicious young man; and I fancy he does not deny that now, for they say he would change the past if he could.”

I was looking at the pensive little boy in the oval frame⁠—aged eight years⁠—who was, a few springs later, “a most expensive and vicious young man,” and was now a suffering and outcast old one, and wondering from what a small seed the hemlock or the wallflower grows, and how microscopic are the beginnings of the kingdom of God or of the mystery of iniquity in a human being’s heart.

“Austin⁠—your papa⁠—was very kind to him⁠—very; but then, you know, he’s an oddity, dear⁠—he is an oddity, though no one may have told you before⁠—and he never forgave him for his marriage. Your father, I suppose, knew more about the lady than I did⁠—I was young then⁠—but there were various reports, none of them pleasant, and she was not visited, and for some time there was a complete estrangement between your father and your uncle Silas; and it was made up, rather oddly, on the very occasion which some people said ought to have totally separated them. Did you ever hear anything⁠—anything very remarkable⁠—about your uncle?”

“No, never, they would not tell me, though I am sure they know. Pray go on.”

“Well, Maud, as I have begun, I’ll complete the story, though perhaps it might have been better untold. It was something rather shocking⁠—indeed, very shocking; in fact, they insisted on suspecting him of having committed a murder.”

I stared at my cousin for some time, and then at the little boy, so refined, so beautiful, so funeste, in the oval frame.

“Yes, dear,” said she, her eyes following mine; “who’d have supposed he could ever have⁠—have fallen under so horrible a suspicion?”

“The wretches! Of course, Uncle Silas⁠—of course, he’s innocent?” I said at last.

“Of course, my dear,” said Cousin Monica, with an odd look; “but you know there are some things as bad almost to be suspected of as to have done, and the country gentlemen chose to suspect him. They did not like him, you see. His politics vexed them; and he resented their treatment of his wife⁠—though I really think, poor Silas, he did not care a pin about her⁠—and he annoyed them whenever he could. Your papa, you know, is very proud of his family⁠—he never had the slightest suspicion of your uncle.”

“Oh, no!” I cried vehemently.

“That’s right, Maud Ruthyn,” said Cousin Monica, with a sad little smile and a nod. “And your papa was, you may suppose, very angry.”

“Of course he was,” I exclaimed.

“You have no idea, my dear, how angry. He directed his attorney to prosecute, by wholesale, all who had said a word affecting your uncle’s character. But the lawyers were against it, and then your uncle tried to fight his way through it, but the men would not meet him. He was quite slurred. Your father went up and saw the Minister. He wanted to have him a Deputy-Lieutenant, or something, in his county. Your papa, you know, had a very great influence with the government. Beside his county influence, he had two boroughs then. But the Minister was afraid, the feeling was so very strong. They offered him something in the Colonies, but your father would not hear of it⁠—that would have been a banishment, you know. They would have given your father a peerage to make it up, but he would not accept it, and broke with the party. Except in that way⁠—which, you know, was connected with the reputation of the family⁠—I don’t think, considering his great wealth, he has done very much for Silas. To say truth, however, he was very liberal before his marriage. Old Mrs. Aylmer says he made a vow then that Silas should never have more than five hundred a year, which he still allows him, I believe, and he permits him to live in the place. But they say it is in a very wild, neglected state.”

“You live in the same county⁠—have you seen it lately, Cousin Monica?”

“No, not very lately,” said Cousin Monica, and began to hum an air abstractedly.

XIII Before and After Breakfast

Next morning early I visited my favourite full-length portrait in the chocolate coat and top-boots. Scanty as had been my cousin Monica’s notes upon this dark and eccentric biography, they were everything to me. A soul had entered that enchanted form. Truth had passed by with her torch, and a sad light shone for a moment on that enigmatic face.

There stood the roué⁠—the duellist⁠—and, with all his faults, the hero too! In that dark large eye lurked the profound and fiery enthusiasm of his ill-starred passion. In the thin but exquisite lip I read the courage of the paladin, who would have “fought his way,” though single-handed, against all the magnates of his county, and by ordeal of battle have purged the honour of the Ruthyns. There in that delicate half-sarcastic tracery of the nostril I detected the intellectual defiance which had politically isolated Silas Ruthyn and opposed him to the landed oligarchy of his county, whose retaliation had been a hideous slander. There, too, and on his brows and lip, I traced the patience of a