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WYLDER’S HAND
The fascination was disturbed by a noise at the other end of
the room, and I saw Lake standing close to him, and looking both
angry and frightened. Tom Wealdon looking odd, too, was close at
his elbow, and had his hand on Lake’s arm, like a man who would
prevent violence. I do not know in the least what had passed before,
but Lake said –
‘How the devil did he come in?’
‘Hush!’was all that Tom Wealdon said, looking at the gaunt
spectre with less of fear than inquisitiveness.
‘What are you doing here, Sir?’ demanded Lake, in his most unpleasant tones.
‘Prophesying,’ answered the phantom.
‘You had better write your prophecies in your room, Sir – had
not you? – and give them to the Archbishop of Canterbury to proclaim, when they are fi nished; we are busy here just now, and don’t
require revelations, if you please.’
The old man lifted up his long lean fi nger, and turned on him
with a smile which I hate even to remember.
‘Let him alone,’ whispered the Town Clerk, in a signifi cant whisper, ‘don’t cross him, and he’ll not stay long.’
‘You’re here, a scribe,’ murmured Uncle Lorne, looking upon
Tom Wealdon.
‘Aye, Sir, a scribe and a Pharisee, a Sadducee and a publican,
and a priest, and a Levite,’ said the functionary, with a wink at Lake.
‘Thomas Wealdon, Sir; happy to see you, Sir, so well and strong, and
likely to enlighten the religious world for many a day to come. It’s
a long time, Sir, since I had the honour of seeing you; and I’m always,
of course, at your command.’
‘Pshaw!’ said Lake, angrily.
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
The Town Clerk pressed his arm with a signifi cant side nod and
a wink, which seemed to say, ‘I understand him; can’t you let me
manage him?’
The old man did not seem to hear what they said; but his tall
fi gure rose up, and he extended the fi ngers of his left hand close to
the candle for a few seconds, and then held them up to his eyes, gazing on his fi nger-tips, with a horrifi ed sort of scrutiny, as if he saw
signs and portents gathered there, like Thomas Aquinas’ angels at
the needles’ points, and then the same cadaverous grin broke out
over his features.
‘Mark Wylder is in an evil plight,’ said he.
‘Is he?’ said Lake, with a sly scoff, though he seemed to me a good
deal scared. ‘We hear no complaints, however, and fancy he must be
tolerably comfortable notwithstanding.’
‘You know where he is,’ said Uncle Lorne.
‘Aye, in Italy; everyone knows that,’ answered Lake.
‘In Italy,’ said the old man, refl ectively, as if trying to gather up
his ideas, ‘Italy. Oh! yes, Vallombrosa – aye, Italy, I know it well.’
‘So do we, Sir; thank you for the information,’ said Lake, who
nevertheless appeared strangely uneasy.
‘He has had a great tour to make. It is nearly accomplished now;
when it is done, he will be like me, humano major. He has seen the
places which you are yet to see.’
‘Nothing I should like better; particularly Italy,’ said Lake.
‘Yes,’ said Uncle Lorne, lifting up slowly a different fi nger at
each name in his catalogue. ‘First, Lucus Mortis; then Terra Tenebrosa; next, Tartarus; after that, Terra Oblivionis; then Herebus;
then Barathrum; then Gehenna, and then Stagium Ignis.’
‘Of course,’ acquiesced Lake, with an ugly sneer, and a mock
bow.
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WYLDER’S HAND
‘And to think that all the white citizens were once men and
women!’ murmured Uncle Lorne, with a scowl.
‘Quite so,’ whispered Lake.
‘I know where he is,’ resumed the old man, with his fi nger on his
long chin, and looking down upon the carpet.
‘It would be very convenient if you would favour us with his address,’ said Stanley, with a gracious sneer.
‘I know what became of him,’ continued the oracle.
‘You are more in his confi dence than we are,’ said Lake.
‘Don’t be frightened – but he’s alive; I think they’ll make him
mad. It is a frightful plight. Two angels buried him alive in Vallombrosa by night; I saw it, standing among the lotus and hemlock.
A negro came to me, a black clergyman with white eyes, and remained beside me; and the angels imprisoned Mark; they put him
on duty forty days and forty nights, with his ear to the river listening
for voices; and when it was over we blessed them; and the clergyman
walked with me a long while, to-and-fro, to-and-fro upon the earth,
telling me the wonders of the abyss.’
‘And is it from the abyss, Sir, he writes his letters?’ enquired the Town
Clerk, with a wink at Lake.
‘Yes, yes, very diligent; it behoves him; and his hair is always
standing straight on his head for fear. But he’ll be sent up again, at
last, a thousand, a hundred, ten and one, black marble steps, and
then it will be the other one’s turn. So it was prophesied by the black
magician.’
‘I thought, Sir, you mentioned just now he was a clergyman,’
suggested Mr. Wealdon, who evidently enjoyed this wonderful
yarn.
‘Clergyman and magician both, and the chief of the lying prophets with thick lips. He’ll come here some night and see you,’ said
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
Uncle Lorne, looking with a cadaverous apathy on Lake, who was
gazing at him in return, with a sinister smile.
‘Maybe it was a vision, Sir,’ suggested the Town Clerk.
‘Yes, Sir; a vision, maybe,’ echoed the cavernous tones of the old
man; ‘but in the fl esh or out of the fl esh, I saw it.’
‘You have had revelations, Sir, I’ve heard,’ said Stanley’s mocking
voice.
‘Many,’ said the seer; ‘but a prophet is never honoured. We live in
solitude and privations – the world hates us – they stone us – they
cut us asunder, even when we are dead. Feel me – I’m cold and
white all over – I died too soon – I’d have had wings now only for
that pistol. I’m as white as Gehazi, except on my head, when that
blood comes.’
Saying which, he rose abruptly, and with long jerking steps
limped to the door, at which, I saw, in the shade, the face of a darkfeatured man, looking gloomily in.
When he reached the door Uncle Lorne suddenly stopped and
faced us, with a countenance of wrath and fear, and threw up his
arms in an attitude of denunciation, but said nothing. I thought for
a moment the gigantic spectre was about to rush upon us in an access of frenzy; but whatever the impulse, it subsided – or was diverted by some new idea; his countenance changed, and he beckoned as
if to some one in the corner of the room behind us, and smiled his
dreadful smile, and so left the apartment.
‘That d – d old madman is madder than ever,’ said Lake, in his
fellest tones, looking steadfastly with his peculiar gaze upon the
closed door. ‘Jermyn is with him, but he’ll burn the house or murder
some one yet. It’s all d – d nonsense keeping him here – did you see
him at the door? – he was on the point of assailing some of us. He
ought to be in a madhouse.’
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WYLDER’S HAND
‘He used to be very quiet,’ said the Town Clerk, who knew all
about him.
‘Oh! very quiet – yes, of course, very quiet, and quite harmless
to people who don’t live in the house with him, and see him but
once in half-a-dozen years; but you can’t persuade me it is quite so
pleasant for those who happen to live under the same roof, and are
liable to be intruded upon as we have been to-night every hour of
their existence.’
‘Well, certainly it is not pleasant, especially for ladies,’ admitted the
Town Clerk.
‘No, not pleasant – and I’ve quite made up my mind it sha’n’t go
on. It is too absurd, really, that such a monstrous thing should be enforced; I’ll get a private Act, next Session, and regulate those absurd
conditions in the will. The old fellow ought to be under restraint;
and I rather think it would be better for himself that he were.’
‘Who is he?’ I asked, speaking for the fi rst time.
‘I thought you had seen him before now,’ said Lake.
‘So I have, but quite alone, and without ever learning who he
was,’ I answered.
‘Oh! He is the gentleman, Julius, for whom in the will, under
which we take, those very odd provisions are made – such as I believe no one but a Wylder or a Brandon would have dreamed of.
It is an odd state of things to hold one’s estate under condition of
letting a madman wander about your house and place, making everybody in it uncomfortable and insecure and exposing him to the
imminent risk of making away with himself, either by accident or
design. I happen to know what Mark Wylder would have done – for
he spoke very fi ercely on the subject – perhaps he consulted you?’
‘No.’
‘No? well, he intended locking him quietly into the suite of three
apartments, you know, at the far end of the old gallery, and giving
355
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
him full command of the mulberry garden by the little private stair,
and putting a good iron door to it; so that “my beloved brother, Julius, at present affl icted in mind” (Lake quoted the words of the will,
with an unpleasant sneer), should have had his apartments and his
pleasure grounds quite to himself.’
‘And would that arrangement of Mr. Wylder’s have satisfi ed the
conditions of the will?’ said the Town Clerk.
‘I rather think, with proper precautions, it would. Mark Wylder
was very shrewd, and would not have run himself into a fi x,’ answered Lake. ‘I don’t know any man shrewder; he is, certainly.’
And Lake looked at us, as he added these last words, in turn,
with a quick, suspicious glance, as if he had said something rash, and
doubted whether we had observed it.
After a little more talk, Lake and the Town Clerk resumed their
electioneering conference, and the lists of electors were passed under their scrutiny, name by name, like slides under the miscroscope.
There is a great deal in nature, physical and moral, that had
as well not be ascertained. It is better to take things on trust, with
something of distance and indistinctness. What we gain in knowledge by scrutiny is sometimes paid for in a ghastly sort of disgust.
It is marvellous in a small constituency of 300 average souls, what
a queer moral result one of these business-like and narrow investigations which precede an election will furnish. How you fi nd them
rated and classifi ed – what odd notes you make to them in the margin; and after the trenchant and rapid vivisection, what sinister scars
and seams remain, and how gaunt and repulsive old acquaintances
stand up from it.
The Town Clerk knew the constituency of Dollington at his fi ngers’ ends; and Stanley Lake quietly enjoyed, as certain minds will,
the nefarious and shabby metamorphosis which every now and
then some familiar and respectable burgess underwent, in the spell
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WYLDER’S HAND
of half-a-dozen dry sentences whispered in his ear; and all this minute information is trustworthy and quite without malice.
I went to my bed-room, and secured the door, lest Uncle Lorne,
or Julius, should make me another midnight visit. So that mystery
was cleared up. Neither ghost nor spectral illusion, but fl esh and
blood – though in my mind there has always been a horror of
a madman akin to the ghostly or demoniac.
I do not know how late Tom Wealdon and Stanley Lake sat up
over their lists; but I dare say they were in no hurry to leave them,
for a dissolution was just then expected, and no time was to be lost.
When I saw Tom Wealdon alone next day in the street of Gylingden, he walked a little way with me, and, said Tom, with a grave
wink –
‘Don’t let the captain up there be hard on the poor old gentleman. He’s quite harmless – he would not hurt a fl y. I know all about
him; for Jack Ford and I spent fi ve weeks in the Hall, about twelve
years ago, when the family were away and thought the keeper was
not kind to him. He’s quite gentle, and sometimes he’d make you die
o’ laughing. He fancies, you know, he’s a prophet; and says he’s that
old Sir Lorne Brandon that shot himself in his bed-room. Well, he is
a rum one; and we used to draw him out – poor Jack and me. I never
laughed so much, I don’t think, in the same time, before or since.
But he’s as innocent as a child – and you know them directions
in the will is very strong; and they say Jos. Larkin does not like the
captain a bit too well – and he has the will off, every word of it; and
I think, if Captain Lake does not take care, he may get into trouble;
and maybe it would not be amiss if you gave him a hint.’
Tom Wealdon, indeed, was a good-natured fellow: and if he had
had his way, I think the world would have gone smoothly enough
with most people.
CHAPTER XLIX
LARCOM, THE BUTLER,
VISITS THE ATTORNEY
Now I may as well mention here an occurrence which, seeming
very insignifi cant, has yet a bearing upon the current of this tale,
and it is this. About four days after the receipt of the despatches to
which the conference of Captain Lake and the attorney referred,
there came a letter from the same prolifi c correspondent, dated 20th
March, from Genoa, which altogether puzzled Mr. Larkin. It commenced thus: –
‘Genoa: 20th march.
‘DEAR LARKIN, – I hope you did the three commissions all
right. Wealdon won’t refuse, I reckon – but don’t let Lake guess
what the 150 l. is for. Pay Martin for the job when fi nished; it is
under 60 l. . mind; and get it looked at fi rst.’
There was a great deal more, but these were the passages which
perplexed Larkin. He unlocked the iron safe, and took out the sheaf
of Wylder’s letters, and conned the last one over very carefully.
‘Why,’ said he, holding the text before his eyes in one hand and
with the fi ngers of the other touching the top of his bald forehead,
‘Tom Wealdon is not once mentioned in this, nor in any of them; and
this palpably refers to some direction. And 150 l. ? – no such sum
has been mentioned. And what is this job of Martin’s? Is it Martin
of the China Kilns, or Martin of the bank? That, too, plainly refers
to a former letter – not a word of the sort. This is very odd indeed.’
358
WYLDER’S HAND
Larkin’s fi nger-tips descended over his eyebrow, and scratched
in a miniature way there for a few seconds, and then his large long
hand descended further to his chin, and his under-lip was, as usual in deep thought, fondled and pinched between his fi nger and
thumb.
‘There has plainly been a letter lost, manifestly. I never knew
anything wrong in this Gylingden offi ce. Driver has been always
correct; but it is hard to know any man for certain in this world.
I don’t think the captain would venture anything so awfully hazardous. I really can’t suspect so monstrous a thing; but, unquestionably,
a letter has been lost – and who’s to takeit?’
Larkin made a fuller endorsement than usual on this particular
letter, and ruminated over the correspondence a good while, with
his lip between his fi nger and thumb, and a shadow on his face, before he replaced it in its iron drawer.
‘It is not a thing to be passed over,’ murmured the attorney, who
had come to a decision as to the fi rst step to be taken, and he thought
with a qualm of the effect of one of Wylder’s confi dential notes getting into Captain Lake’s hands.
While he was buttoning his walking boots, with his foot on the
chair before the fi re, a tap at his study door surprised him. A hurried
glance on the table satisfying him that no secret paper or despatch
lay there, he called –
‘Come in.’
And Mr. Larcom, the grave butler of Brandon, wearing outside his portly person a black garment then known as a ‘zephyr,’
a white choker, and black trousers, and well polished, but rather
splay shoes, and, on the whole, his fat and serious aspect considered,
being capable of being mistaken for a church dignitary, or at least
for an eminent undertaker, entered the room with a solemn and
gentlemanlike reverence.
359
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
‘Oh, Mr. Larcom! a message, or business?’ said Mr. Larkin, urbanely.
‘Not a message, Sir; only an enquiry about them few shares,’ answered Mr. Larcom, with another serene reverence, and remaining
standing, hat in hand, at the door.
‘Oh, yes; and how do you do, Mr. Larcom? Quite well, I trust.
Yes – about the Naunton Junction. Well, I’m happy to tell you – but
pray take a chair – that I have succeeded, and the directors have allotted you fi ve shares; and it’s your own fault if you don’t make two
ten-and-six a share. The Chowsleys are up to six and a-half, I see
here,’ and he pointed to the ‘Times.’ Mr. Larcom’s fat face smiled, in
spite of his endeavour to keep it under. It was part of his business to
look always grave, and he coughed, and recovered his gravity.
‘I’m very thankful, Sir,’ said Mr. Larcom, ‘very.’
‘But do sit down, Mr. Larcom – pray do,’ said the attorney, who
was very gracious to Larcom. ‘You’ll get the scrip, you know, on executing, but the shares are allotted. They sent the notice for you
here. And – and how are the family at Brandon – all well, I trust?’
Mr. Larcom blew his nose.
‘All, Sir, well.’
‘And – and let me give you a glass of sherry, Mr. Larcom, after your walk. I can’t compete with the Brandon sherry, Mr. Larcom.
Wonderful fi ne wine that! – but still I’m told this is not a bad wine
notwithstanding.’
Larcom received it with grave gratitude, and sipped it, and spoke
respectfully of it.
‘And – and any news in that quarter of Mr. Mark
Wylder – any – any surmise? I – you know – I’m interested for all
parties.’
‘Well, Sir, of Mr. Wylder, I can’t say as I know no more than he’s
been a subjek of much unpleasant feelin’, which I should say there
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