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WYLDER’S HAND
days, would be attended with a danger which you will then understand. Won’t you trust me?’
‘And now for my advice,’ said Dorcas, smiling down in her mysterious way upon a crimson exotic near her feet.
‘Yes, darling, thank you. In sober earnest, your advice,’ answered Lake; ‘and you must advise me. Several of our neighbours – the Hillyards, the Ledwiches, the Wyndermeres, and ever
so many more – have spoken to me very strongly about contesting
the county, on the old Whig principles, at the election which is
now imminent. There is not a man with a chance of acceptance
to come forward, if I refuse. Now, you know what even moderate
success in the House, when family and property go together, may
accomplish. There are the Dodminsters. Do you think they would
ever have got their title by any other means? There are the Forresters – ‘
‘I know it all, Stanley; and at once I say, go on. I thought you must
have formed some political project, Mr. Wealdon has been with you
so often; but you tell me nothing, Stanley.’
‘Not, darling, till I know it myself. This plan, for instance, until
you spoke this moment, was but a question, and one which I could
not submit until I had seen Wealdon, and heard how matters stood,
and what chances of success I should really have. So, darling, you
have it all; and I am so glad you advise me to go on. It is fi ve-andthirty years since anyone connected with Brandon came forward.
But it will cost a great deal of money, Dorkie.’
‘Yes, I know. I’ve always heard it cost my uncle and Sir William
Camden fi fteen thousand pounds.’
‘Yes, it will be expensive, Wealdon thinks – very, this time. The
other side will spend a great deal of money. It often struck me as
a great mistake, that, where there is a good income, and a position
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
to be maintained, there is not a little put by every year to meet cases
like this – what they call a reserve fund in trading companies.’
‘I do not think there is much money. You know, Stanley.’
‘Whatever there is, is under settlement, and we cannot apply it,
Dorkie. The only thing to be done, it strikes me, is to sell a part of Five
Oaks.’
‘I’ll not sell any property, Stanley.’
‘And what do you propose, then?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t understand these things. But there are ways
of getting money by mortgages and loans, and paying them off, without losing the property.’
‘I’ve the greatest possible objection to raising money in that way.
It is, in fact, the fi rst step towards ruin; and nobody has ever done it
who has not regretted that he did not sell instead.’
‘I won’t sell Five Oaks, Stanley,’ said the young lady, seriously.
‘I only said a part,’ replied Stanley.
‘I won’t sell at all.’
‘Oh? And I won’t mortgage,’ said Stanley. ‘Then the thing can’t
go on?’
‘I can’t help it.’
‘But I’m resolved it shall,’ answered Stanley.
‘I tell you, Stanley, plainly, I will not sell. The Brandon estate
shall not be diminished in my time.’
‘Why, you perverse idiot, don’t you perceive you impair the estate as much by mortgaging as by selling, with ten times the ultimate danger. I tell you I won’t mortgage, and you shall sell.’
‘This, Sir, is the fi rst time I have been spoken to in such terms.’
‘And why do you contradict and thwart me upon business of
which I know something and you nothing? What object on earth
can I have in impairing the estate? I’ve as deep an interest in it as
you. It is perfectly plain we should sell; and I am determined we
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WYLDER’S HAND
shall. Come now, Dorcas – I’m sorry – I’m such a brute, you know,
when I’m vexed. You mustn’t be angry; and if you’ll be a good girl,
and trust me in matters of business –‘
‘Stanley, I tell you plainly once more, I never will consent to sell
one acre of the Brandon estates.’
‘Then we’ll see what I can do without you, Dorkie,’ he said in
a pleasant, musing way.
He was now looking down, with his sly, malign smile; and Dorcas could almost fancy two yellow lights refl ected upon the fl oor.
‘I shall protect the property of my family, Sir, from your folly or
your machinations; and I shall write to Chelford, as my trustee, to
come here to advise me.’
‘And I snap my fi ngers at you both, and meet you with defi ance;’ and
Stanley’s singular eyes glared upon her for a few seconds.
Dorcas turned in her grand way, and walked slowly toward the
door.
‘Stay a moment, I’m going,’ said Stanley, overtaking and confronting her near the door. ‘I’ve only one word. I don’t think you
quite know me. It will be an evil day for you, Dorkie, when you quarrel with me.’
He looked steadily on her, smiling for a second or two more, and
then glided from the conservatory.
It was the fi rst time Dorcas had seen Stanley Lake’s features in
that translated state which indicated the action of his evil nature,
and the apparition haunted her for many a day and night.
CHAPTER LVII
CONCERNING A NEW DANGER
WHICH THREATENED CAPTAIN
STANLEY LAKE
The ambitious captain walked out, sniffi ng, white, and incensed.
There was an air of immovable resolution in the few words which
Dorcas had spoken which rather took him by surprise. The captain
was a terrorist. He acted instinctively on the theory that any good
that was to be got from human beings was to be extracted from their
fears. He had so operated on Mark Wylder; and so sought to coerce
his sister Rachel. He had hopes, too, of ultimately catching the good
attorney napping, and leading him too, bound and docile, into his
ergastulum, although he was himself just now in jeopardy from that
quarter. James Dutton, too. Sooner or later he would get Master Jim
into a fi x, and hold him also spell-bound in the same sort of nightmare.
It was not from malice. The worthy attorney had much more of
that leaven than he. Stanley Lake did not care to smash any man, except such as stood in his way. He had a mercantile genius, and never
exercised his craft, violence and ferocity, on men or objects, when
no advantage was obtainable by so doing. When, however, fortune
so placed them that one or other must go to the wall, Captain Stanley Lake was awfully unscrupulous. But, having disabled, and struck
him down, and won the stakes, he would have given what remained
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WYLDER’S HAND
of him his cold, white hand to shake, or sipped claret with him at
his own table, and told him stories, and entertained him with sly,
sarcastic sallies, and thought how he could make use of him in an
amicable way.
But Stanley Lake’s cold, commercial genius, his craft and egotism, were frustrated occasionally by his temper, which, I am afraid,
with all its external varnish, was of the sort which is styled diabolical. People said also, what is true of most terrorists, that he was himself quite capable of being frightened; and also, that he lied with too
fertile an audacity: and, like a man with too many bills afl oat, forgot
his endorsements occasionally, and did not recognise his own acceptances when presented after an interval. Such were some of this
dangerous fellow’s weak points. But on the whole it was by no means
a safe thing to cross his path; and few who did so came off altogether
scathless.
He pursued his way with a vague feeling of danger and rage,
having encountered an opposition of so much more alarming
a character than he had anticipated, and found his wife not only
competent ferre aspectum to endure his maniacal glare and scowl,
but serenely to defy his violence and his wrath. He had abundance
of matter for thought and perturbation, and felt himself, when the
images of Larcom, Larkin, and Jim Dutton crossed the retina of his
memory, some thrill of the fear which ‘hath torment’ – the fear
of a terrible coercion which he liked so well to practise in the case
of others.
In this mood he paced, without minding in what direction he
went, under those great rows of timber which over-arch the pathway leading toward Redman’s Dell – the path that he and Mark
Wylder had trod in that misty moonlight walk on which I had seen
them set out together.
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
Before he had walked fi ve minutes in this direction, he was
encountered by a little girl in a cloak, who stopped and dropped
a courtesy. The captain stopped also, and looked at her with a stare
which, I suppose, had something forbidding in it, for the child was
frightened. But the wild and menacing look was unconscious, and
only the refl ection of the dark speculations and passions which were
tumbling and breaking in his soul.
‘Well, child,’ said he, gently, ‘I think I know your face, but I forget your name.’
‘Little Margery, please Sir, from Miss Lake at Redman’s Farm,’
she replied with a courtesy.
‘Oh! to be sure, yes. And how is Miss Rachel?’
‘Very bad with a headache, please, Sir.’
‘Is she at home?’
‘Yes, Sir, please.’
‘Any message?’
‘Yes, Sir, please – a note for you, Sir;’ and she produced a note,
rather, indeed, a letter.
‘She desired me, Sir, please, to give it into your own hand, if
I could, and not to leave it, please, Sir, unless you were at home when
I reached.’
He read the direction, and dropped it unopened into the pocket
of his shooting coat. The peevish glance with which he eyed it betrayed a presentiment of something unpleasant.
‘Any answer required?’
‘No, Sir, please – only to leave it.’
‘And Miss Lake is quite well?’
‘No, Sir, please – a bad headache to-day.’
‘Oh! I’m very sorry, indeed. Tell her so. She is at home, is she?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
426
WYLDER’S HAND
‘Very well; that’s all. Say I am very sorry to hear she is suffering;
and if I can fi nd time, I hope to see her to-day; and remember to say
I have not read her letter, but if I fi nd it requires an answer, it shall
have one.’
He looked round like a man newly awakened, and up among the
great boughs and interlacing foliage of the noble trees, and the child
made him two courtesies, and departed towards Redman’s Farm.
Lake sauntered back slowly toward the Hall. On his way, a rustic
seat under the shadow invited him, and he sat down, drawing Rachel’s letter from his pocket.
What a genius they have for teasing! How women do contrive to
waste our time and patience over nonsense! How ingeniously perverse their whimsies are! I do believe Beelzebub employs them still,
as he did in Eden, for the special plague of us, poor devils. Here’s
a lecture or an exhortation from Miss Radie, and a quantity of infi nitely absurd advice, all which I am to read and inwardly digest, and
discuss with her whenever she pleases. I’ve a great mind to burn it
quietly.’
But he applied his match, instead, to his cigar; and having got it
well lighted, he leaned back, and broke the seal, and read this letter, which, I suspect, notwithstanding his preliminary thoughts, he
fancied might contain matter of more practical import: –
‘I write to you, my beloved and only brother, Stanley, in an altered state of mind, and with clearer views of duty than, I think,
I have ever had before.’
‘Just as I conjectured,’ muttered Stanley, with a bitter smile, as he
shook the ashes off the top of his cigar – ‘a woman’s homily.’
He read on, and a livid frown gradually contracted his forehead
as he did so.
‘I do not know, Stanley, what your feelings may be. Mine have
been the same ever since that night in which I was taken into a con-
427
JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
fi dence so dreadful. The circumstances are fearful; but far more
dreadful to me, the mystery in which I have lived ever since. I sometimes think I have only myself to blame. But you know, my poor
brother, why I consented, and with what agony. Ever since, I have
lived in terror, and worse, in degradation. I did not know, until it
was too late, how great was my guilt. Heaven knows, when I consented to that journey, I did not comprehend its full purpose, though
I knew enough to have warned me of my danger, and undertook it
in great fear and anguish of mind. I can never cease to mourn over
my madness. Oh! Stanley, you do not know what it is to feel, as I do,
the shame and treachery of my situation; to try to answer the smiles
of those who, at least, once loved me, and to take their hands; to kiss
Dorcas and good Dolly; and feel that all the time I am a vile impostor, stained incredibly, from whom, if they knew me, they would
turn in horror and disgust. Now, Stanley, I can bear anything but
this baseness – anything but the life-long practice of perfi dy – that,
I will not and cannot endure. Dorcas must know the truth. That
there is a secret jealously guarded from her, she does know – no
woman could fail to perceive that; and there are few, Stanley, who
would not prefer the certainty of the worst, to the anguish of such
relations of mystery and reserve with a husband. She is clever, she is
generous, and has many noble qualities. She will see what is right,
and do it. Me she may hate, and must despise; but that were to me
more endurable than friendship gained on false pretences. I repeat,
therefore, Stanley, that Dorcas must know the whole truth. Do not
suppose, my poor brother, that I write from impulse – I have deeply
thought on the subject.’
‘Deeply,’ repeated Stanley, with a sneer.
‘And the more I refl ect, the more am I convinced – if you will
not tell her, Stanley, that I must. But it will be wiser and better, terrible as it may be, that the revelation should come from you, whom
428
WYLDER’S HAND
she has made her husband. The dreadful confi dence would be more
terrible from any other. Be courageous then, Stanley; you will be
happier when you have disclosed the truth, and released, at all
events, one of your victims.
‘Your sorrowful and only sister,
‘RACHEL.’
On fi nishing the letter, Stanley rose quickly to his feet. He had
become gradually so absorbed in reading it, that he laid his cigar
unconsciously beside him, and suffered it to go out. With downcast look, and an angry contortion, he tore the sheets of note-paper
across, and was on the point of reducing them to a thousand little
snow fl akes, and giving them to the wind, when, on second thoughts,
he crumpled them together, and thrust them into his breast pocket.
His excitement was too intense for foul terms, or even blasphemy. With the edge of his nether lip nipped in his teeth, and his
clenched hands in his pockets, he walked through the forest trees
to the park, and in his solitudes hurried onward as if his life depended on his speed. Gradually he recovered his self-possession. He
sat down under the shade of a knot of beech trees, overlooking that
ill-omened tarn, which we have often mentioned, upon a lichenstained rock, his chin resting on his clenched hand, his elbow on his
knee, and the heel of his other foot stamping out bits of the short,
green sod.
‘That d – d girl deserves to be shot for her treachery,’ was the
fi rst sentence that broke from his white lips.
It certainly was an amazing outrage upon his self-esteem, that
the secret which was the weapon of terror by which he meant to
rule his sister Rachel, should, by her slender hand, be taken so easily
from his grasp, and lifted to crush him.
The captain’s plans were not working by any means so smoothly
as he had expected. That sudden stab from Jos. Larkin, whom he al-
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JOSEPH SHERIDAN L E FANU
ways despised, and now hated – whom he believed to be a fi fth-rate,
pluckless rogue, without audacity, without invention; whom he was
on the point of tripping up, that he should have turned short and
garotted the gallant captain, was a provoking turn of fortune.
That when a dire necessity subjugated his will, his contempt, his
rage, and he inwardly decided that the attorney’s extortion must be
submitted to, his wife – whom he never made any account of in the
transaction, whom he reckoned carelessly on turning about as he
pleased, by a few compliments and cajoleries – should have started
up, cold and infl exible as marble, in his path, to forbid the payment
of the black mail, and expose him to the unascertained and formidable consequences of Dutton’s story, and the disappointed attorney’s
vengeance – was another stroke of luck which took him altogether
by surprise.
And to crown all, Miss Radie had grown tired of keeping her own
secret, and must needs bring to light the buried disgraces which all
concerned were equally interested in hiding away for ever.
Stanley Lake’s position, if all were known, was at this moment
formidable enough. But he had been fi fty times over, during his brief
career, in scrapes of a very menacing kind; once or twice, indeed, of
the most alarming nature. His temper, his craft, his impetus, were
always driving him into projects and situations more or less critical.
Sometimes he won, sometimes he failed; but his audacious energy
hitherto had extricated him. The diffi culties of his present situation
were, however, appalling, and almost daunted his semi-diabolical
energies.
From Rachel to Dorcas, from Dorcas to the attorney, and from
him to Dutton, and back again, he rambled in the infernal litany
he muttered over the inauspicious tarn, among the enclosing banks
and undulations, and solitary and lonely woods.
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