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

depart. I will send your money to you by Mrs. Rusk; and if you look for another situation, you had better not refer to me. Now be so good as to leave me.”

Madame seemed to be in a strange perplexity. She bridled up, dried her eyes fiercely, and dropped a great courtesy, and then sailed away towards the door. Before reaching it she stopped on the way, turning half round, with a peaked, pallid glance at my father, and she bit her lip viciously as she eyed him. At the door the same repulsive pantomime was repeated, as she stood for a moment with her hand upon the handle. But she changed her bearing again with a sniff, and with a look of scorn, almost heightened to a sneer, she made another very low courtesy and a disdainful toss of her head, and so disappeared, shutting the door rather sharply behind her.

XIX Au Revoir

Mrs. Rusk was fond of assuring me that Madame “did not like a bone in my skin.” Instinctively I knew that she bore me no goodwill, although I really believe it was her wish to make me think quite the reverse. At all events I had no desire to see Madame again before her departure, especially as she had thrown upon me one momentary glance in the study, which seemed to me charged with very peculiar feelings.

You may be very sure, therefore, that I had no desire for a formal leave-taking at her departure. I took my hat and cloak, therefore, and stole out quietly.

My ramble was a sequestered one, and well screened, even at this late season, with foliage; the pathway devious among the stems of old trees, and its flooring interlaced and groined with their knotted roots. Though near the house, it was a sylvan solitude; a little brook ran darkling and glimmering through it, wild strawberries and other woodland plants strewed the ground, and the sweet notes and flutter of small birds made the shadow of the boughs cheery.

I had been fully an hour in this picturesque solitude when I heard in the distance the ring of carriage-wheels, announcing to me that Madame de la Rougierre had fairly set out upon her travels. I thanked heaven; I could have danced and sung with delight; I heaved a great sigh and looked up through the branches to the clear blue sky.

But things are oddly timed. Just at this moment I heard Madame’s voice close at my ear, and her large bony hand was laid on my shoulder. We were instantly face to face⁠—I recoiling, and for a moment speechless with fright.

In very early youth we do not appreciate the restraints which act upon malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us where conscience is wanting. Quite alone, in this solitary spot, detected and overtaken with an awful instinct by my enemy, what might not be about to happen to me at that moment?

“Frightened as usual, Maud,” she said quietly, and eyeing me with a sinister smile, “and with cause you think, no doubt. Wat ’av you done to injure poor Madame? Well, I think I know, little girl, and have quite discover the cleverness of my sweet little Maud. Eh⁠—is not so? Petite carogne⁠—ah, ha, ha!”

I was too much confounded to answer.

“You see, my dear cheaile,” she said, shaking her uplifted finger with a hideous archness at me, “you could not hide what you ’av done from poor Madame. You cannot look so innocent but I can see your pretty little villany quite plain⁠—you dear little diablesse.

“Wat I ’av done I ’av no reproach of myself for it. If I could explain, your papa would say I ’av done right, and you should thank me on your knees; but I cannot explain yet.”

She was speaking, as it were, in little paragraphs, with a momentary pause between each, to allow its meaning to impress itself.

“If I were to choose to explain, your papa he would implore me to remain. But no⁠—I would not⁠—notwithstanding your so cheerful house, your charming servants, your papa’s amusing society, and your affectionate and sincere heart, my sweet little maraude.

“I am to go to London first, where I ’av, oh, so good friends! next I will go abroad for some time; but be sure, my sweetest Maud, wherever I may ’appen to be, I will remember you⁠—ah, ha! Yes; most certainly, I will remember you.

“And although I shall not be always near, yet I shall know everything about my charming little Maud; you will not know how, but I shall indeed, everything. And be sure, my dearest cheaile, I will some time be able to give you the sensible proofs of my gratitude and affection⁠—you understand.

“The carriage is waiting at the yew-tree stile, and I must go on. You did not expect to see me⁠—here; I will appear, perhaps, as suddenly another time. It is great pleasure to us both⁠—this opportunity to make our adieux. Farewell! my dearest little Maud. I will never cease to think of you, and of some way to recompense the kindness you ’av shown for poor Madame.”

My hand hung by my side, and she took, not it, but my thumb, and shook it, folded in her broad palm, and looking on me as she held it, as if meditating mischief. Then suddenly she said⁠—

“You will always remember Madame, I think, and I will remind you of me beside; and for the present farewell, and I hope you may be as ’appy as you deserve.”

The large sinister face looked on me for a second with its latent sneer, and then, with a sharp nod and a spasmodic shake of my imprisoned thumb, she turned, and holding her dress together, and showing her great bony ankles, she strode rapidly away over the gnarled roots into the perspective of the trees, and I did not awake, as it were, until she had quite disappeared in the distance.

Events of this kind made