Uncle Silas, J. Sheridan Le Fanu [10 ebook reader .txt] 📗

pack o’ lies, I warrant. I s’pose you want to frighten Miss Maud here” (another crippled courtesy) “wi’ ghosts and like nonsense.”

“You’re out there: ’twas she told me; and much about it. Ghosts, indeed! I don’t vally them, not I; if I did, I know who’d frighten me,” and Milly laughed.

The old woman stuffed the key in her pocket, and her wrinkled mouth pouted and receded with a grim uneasiness.

“A harmless brat, and kind she is; but wild⁠—wild⁠—she will be wild.”

So whispered L’Amour in my ear, during the silence that followed, nodding shakily toward Milly over the banister, and she courtesied again as we departed, and shuffled off toward Uncle Silas’s room.

“The Governor is queerish this evening,” said Milly, when we were seated at our tea. “You never saw him queerish, did you?”

“You must say what you mean, more plainly, Milly. You don’t mean ill, I hope?”

“Well! I don’t know what it is; but he does grow very queer sometimes⁠—you’d think he was dead a’most, maybe two or three days and nights together. He sits all the time like an old woman in a swound. Well, well, it is awful!”

“Is he insensible when in that state?” I asked, a good deal alarmed.

“I don’t know; but it never signifies anything. It won’t kill him, I do believe; but old L’Amour knows all about it. I hardly ever go into the room when he’s so, only when I’m sent for; and he sometimes wakes up and takes a fancy to call for this one or that. One day he sent for Pegtop all the way to the mill; and when he came, he only stared at him for a minute or two, and ordered him out o’ the room. He’s like a child a’most, when he’s in one o’ them dazes.”

I always knew when Uncle Silas was “queerish,” by the injunctions of old L’Amour, whistled and spluttered over the banister as we came upstairs, to mind how we made a noise passing master’s door; and by the sound of mysterious to-ings and fro-ings about his room.

I saw very little of him. He sometimes took a whim to have us breakfast with him, which lasted perhaps for a week; and then the order of our living would relapse into its old routine.

I must not forget two kind letters from Lady Knollys, who was detained away, and delighted to hear that I enjoyed my quiet life; and promised to apply, in person, to Uncle Silas, for permission to visit me.

She was to be for the Christmas at Elverston, and that was only six miles away from Bartram-Haugh, so I had the excitement of a pleasant look forward.

She also said that she would include poor Milly in her invitation; and a vision of Captain Oakley rose before me, with his handsome gaze turned in wonder on poor Milly, for whom I had begun to feel myself responsible.

Volume II I An Arrival at Dead of Night

I have sometimes been asked why I wear an odd little turquoise ring⁠—which to the uninstructed eye appears quite valueless and altogether an unworthy companion of those jewels which flash insultingly beside it. It is a little keepsake, of which I became possessed about this time.

“Come, lass, what name shall I give you?” cried Milly, one morning, bursting into my room in a state of alarming hilarity.

“My own, Milly.”

“No, but you must have a nickname, like everyone else.”

“Don’t mind it, Milly.”

“Yes, but I will. Shall I call you Mrs. Bustle?”

“You shall do no such thing.”

“But you must have a name.”

“I refuse a name.”

“But I’ll give you one, lass.”

“And I won’t have it.”

“But you can’t help me christening you.”

“I can decline answering.”

“But I’ll make you,” said Milly, growing very red.

Perhaps there was something provoking in my tone, for I certainly was very much disgusted at Milly’s relapse into barbarism.

“You can’t,” I retorted quietly.

“See if I don’t, and I’ll give ye one twice as ugly.”

I smiled, I fear, disdainfully.

“And I think you’re a minx, and a slut, and a fool,” she broke out, flushing scarlet.

I smiled in the same unchristian way.

“And I’d give ye a smack o’ the cheek as soon as look at you.”

And she gave her dress a great slap, and drew near me, in her wrath. I really thought she was about tendering the ordeal of single combat.

I made her, however, a paralysing courtesy, and, with immense dignity, sailed out of the room, and into Uncle Silas’s study, where it happened we were to breakfast that morning, and for several subsequent ones.

During the meal we maintained the most dignified reserve; and I don’t think either so much as looked at the other.

We had no walk together that day.

I was sitting in the evening, quite alone, when Milly entered the room. Her eyes were red, and she looked very sullen.

“I want your hand, cousin,” she said, at the same time taking it by the wrist, and administering with it a sudden slap on her plump cheek, which made the room ring, and my fingers tingle; and before I had recovered from my surprise, she had vanished.

I called after her, but no answer; I pursued, but she was running too; and I quite lost her at the cross galleries.

I did not see her at tea, nor before going to bed; but after I had fallen asleep I was awakened by Milly, in floods of tears.

“Cousin Maud, will ye forgi’ me⁠—you’ll never like me again, will ye? No⁠—I know ye won’t⁠—I’m such a brute⁠—I hate it⁠—it’s a shame. And here’s a Banbury cake for you⁠—I sent to the town for it, and some taffy⁠—won’t ye eat it? and here’s a little ring⁠—’tisn’t as pretty as your own rings; and ye’ll wear it, maybe, for my sake⁠—poor Milly’s sake, before I was so bad to ye⁠—if ye forgi’ me; and I’ll look at breakfast, and if it’s on your finger I’ll know you’re friends wi’ me again; and if ye don’t, I won’t