The Familiar, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu [people reading books txt] 📗

CHAPTER VII

FLIGHT

 

YIELDING to their persuasions, Barton left Dublin for

England accompanied by General Montague. They posted

rapidly to London, and thence to Dover, whence they took the

packet with a fair wind for Calais. The General’s

confidence in the result of the expedition on Barton’s

spirits had risen day by day since their departure from the

shores of Ireland; for to the inexpressible relief and

delight of the latter, he had not since then so much as

even once fancied a repetition of those impressions which

had, when at home, drawn him gradually down to the very

depths of despair.

 

This exemption from what he had begun to regard as the

inevitable condition of his existence, and the sense of

security which began to pervade his mind, were inexpressibly

delightful; and in the exultation of what he considered his

deliverance, he indulged in a thousand happy anticipations

for a future into which so lately he had hardly dared to

look; and, in short, both he and his companion secretly

congratulated themselves upon the termination of that

persecution which had been to its immediate victim a

source of such unspeakable agony.

 

It was a beautiful day, and a crowd of idlers stood upon

the jetty to receive the packet and enjoy the bustle of the

new arrivals. Montague walked a few paces in advance of his

friend, and as he made his way through the crowd a little

man touched his arm and said to him, in a broad provincial

patois:

 

“Monsieur is walking too fast; he will lose his sick

comrade in the throng, for, by my faith, the poor gentleman

seems to be fainting.”

 

Montague turned quickly, and observed that Barton did

indeed look deadly pale. He hastened to his side.

 

“My dear fellow, are you ill?” he asked anxiously.

 

The question was unheeded, and twice repeated, ere Barton

stammered —

 

“I saw him — by –-, I saw him!”

 

“Him! — the wretch — who — where now? — where is he?” cried

Montague, looking around him.

 

“I saw him — but he is gone,” repeated Barton, faintly.

 

“But where — where? For God’s sake speak,” urged Montague,

vehemently.

 

“It is but this moment — here,” said he.

 

“But what did he look like — what had he on — what did he

wear — quick, quick,” urged his excited companion, ready to

dart among the crowd and collar the delinquent on the spot.

 

“He touched your arm — he spoke to you — he pointed to me.

God be merciful to me, there is no escape,” said Barton, in

the low, subdued tones of despair.

 

Montague had already bustled away in all the flurry of

mingled hope and rage; but though the singular personnel of

the stranger who had accosted him was vividly impressed upon

his recollection, he failed to discover among the crowd even

the slightest resemblance to him.

 

After a fruitless search, in which he enlisted the

services of several of the bystanders, who aided all the

more zealously as they believed he had been robbed, he at

length, out of breath and baffled, gave over the attempt.

 

“Ah, my friend, it won’t do,” said Barton, with the faint

voice and bewildered, ghastly look of one who had been

stunned by some mortal shock; “there is no use in

contending; whatever it is, the dreadful association between

me and it is now established — I shall never escape — never!”

 

“Nonsense, nonsense, my dear Barton; don’t talk so,” said

Montague, with something at once of irritation and dismay;

“you must not, I say; we’ll jockey the scoundrel yet; never

mind, I say — never mind.”

 

It was, however, but labour lost to endeavour henceforward

to inspire Barton with one ray of hope; he became

desponding.

 

This intangible and, as it seemed, utterly inadequate

influence was fast destroying his energies of intellect,

character, and health. His first object was now to return

to Ireland, there, as he believed, and now almost hoped,

speedily to die.

 

To Ireland accordingly he came, and one of the first faces

he saw upon the shore was again that of his implacable and

dreaded attendant. Barton seemed at last to have lost not

only all enjoyment and every hope in existence, but all

independence of will besides. He now submitted himself

passively to the management of the friends most nearly

interested in his welfare.

 

With the apathy of entire despair he implicitly assented

to whatever measures they suggested and advised; and as a

last resource it was determined to remove him to a house of

Lady L–-‘s, in the neighbourhood of Clontarf, where, with

the advice of his medical attendant, who persisted in his

opinion that the whole train of consequences resulted merely

from some nervous derangement, it was resolved that he was

to confine himself strictly to the house, and make use only

of those apartments which commanded a view of an enclosed

yard, the gates of which were to be kept jealously locked.

 

Those precautions would certainly secure him against the

casual appearance of any living form that his excited

imagination might possibly confound with the spectre which,

as it was contended, his fancy recognized in every figure

that bore even a distant or general resemblance to the

peculiarities with which his fancy had at first invested it.

 

A month or six weeks’ absolute seclusion under these

conditions, it was hoped might, by interrupting the series

of these terrible impressions, gradually dispel the

predisposing apprehensions, and the associations which had

confirmed the supposed disease, and rendered recovery

hopeless.

 

Cheerful society and that of his friends was to be

constantly supplied, and on the whole, very sanguine

expectations were indulged in, that under the treatment thus

detailed the obstinate hypochondria of the patient might at

length give way.

 

Accompanied, therefore, by Lady L–-, General Montague

and his daughter — his own affianced bride — poor

Barton — himself never daring to cherish a hope of his

ultimate emancipation from the horrors under which his life

was literally wasting away — took possession of the

apartments, whose situation protected him against the

intrusions from which he shrank with such unutterable

terror.

 

After a little time, a steady persistence in this system

began to manifest its results in a very marked though

gradual improvement, alike in the health and spirits of the

invalid. Not, indeed, that anything at all approaching

complete recovery was yet discernible. On the contrary, to

those who had not seen him since the commencement of his

strange sufferings, such an alteration would have been

apparent as might well have shocked them.

 

The improvement, however, such as it was, was welcomed

with gratitude and delight, especially by the young lady,

whom her attachment to him, as well as her now singularly

painful position, consequent on his protracted illness,

rendered an object scarcely one degree less to be

commiserated than himself.

 

A week passed — a fortnight — a month — and yet there had

been no recurrence of the hated visitation. The treatment

had, so far forth, been followed by complete success. The

chain of associations was broken. The constant pressure

upon the over-tasked spirits had been removed, and, under

these comparatively favourable circumstances, the sense of

social community with the world about him, and something of

human interest, if not of enjoyment, began to reanimate him.

 

It was about this time that Lady L–- who, like most old

ladies of the day, was deep in family receipts, and a great

pretender to medical science, dispatched her own maid to the

kitchen garden with a list of herbs, which were there to be

care fully culled and brought back to her housekeeper for

the purpose stated. The handmaiden, however, returned with

her task scarce half completed, and a good deal flurried and

alarmed. Her mode of accounting for her precipitate retreat

and evident agitation was odd and, to the old lady,

startling.