Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Haugh. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
solemn!' murmured Madame. 'What noble tomb! How triste, my dear cheaile, your visit 'ere must it be, remembering a so sweet maman. There is new inscription—is it not new?' And so, indeed, it seemed.
'I am fatigue—maybe you will read it aloud to me slowly and solemnly, my dearest Maud?'
As I approached, I happened to look, I can't tell why, suddenly, over my shoulder; I was startled, for Madame was grimacing after me with a vile derisive distortion. She pretended to be seized with a fit of coughing. But it would not do: she saw that I had detected her, and she laughed aloud.
'Come here, dear cheaile. I was just reflecting how foolish is all this thing—the tomb—the epitaph. I think I would 'av none—no, no epitaph. We regard them first for the oracle of the dead, and find them after only the folly of the living. So I despise. Do you think your house of Knowl down there is what you call haunt, my dear?'
'Why?' said I, flushing and growing pale again. I felt quite afraid of Madame, and confounded at the suddenness of all this.
'Because Anne Wixted she says there is ghost. How dark is this place! and so many of the Ruthyn family they are buried here—is not so? How high and thick are the trees all round! and nobody comes near.'
And Madame rolled her eyes awfully, as if she expected to see something unearthly, and, indeed, looked very like it herself.
'Come away, Madame,' I said, growing frightened, and feeling that if I were once, by any accident, to give way to the panic that was gathering round me, I should instantaneously lose all control of myself. 'Oh, come away! do, Madame—I'm frightened.'
'No, on the contrary, sit here by me. It is very odd, you will think, ma chêre—un goût bizarre, vraiment!—but I love very much to be near to the dead people—in solitary place like this. I am not afraid of the dead people, nor of the ghosts. 'Av you ever see a ghost, my dear?'
'Do, Madame, pray speak of something else.'
'Wat little fool! But no, you are not afraid. I 'av seen the ghosts myself. I saw one, for example, last night, shape like a monkey, sitting in the corner, with his arms round his knees; very wicked, old, old man his face was like, and white eyes so large.'
'Come away, Madame! you are trying to frighten me,' I said, in the childish anger which accompanies fear. Madame laughed an ugly laugh, and said—
'Eh bien! little fool!—I will not tell the rest if you are really frightened; let us change to something else.'
'Yes, yes! oh, do—pray do.'
'Wat good man is your father!'
'Very—the kindest darling. I don't know why it is, Madame, I am so afraid of him, and never could tell him how much I love him.'
This confidential talking with Madame, strange to say, implied no confidence; it resulted from fear—it was deprecatory. I treated her as if she had human sympathies, in the hope that they might be generated somehow.
'Was there not a doctor from London with him a few months ago? Dr. Bryerly, I think they call him.'
'Yes, a Doctor Bryerly, who remained a few days. Shall we begin to walk towards home, Madame? Do, pray.'
'Immediately, cheaile; and does your father suffer much?'
'No—I think not.'
'And what then is his disease?'
'Disease! he has no disease. Have you heard anything about his health, Madame?' I said, anxiously.
'Oh no, ma foi—I have heard nothing; but if the doctor came, it was not because he was quite well.'
'But that doctor is a doctor in theology, I fancy. I know he is a Swedenborgian; and papa is so well he could not have come as a physician.'
'I am very glad, ma chère, to hear; but still you know your father is old man to have so young cheaile as you. Oh, yes—he is old man, and so uncertain life is. 'As he made his will, my dear? Every man so rich as he, especially so old, aught to 'av made his will.'
'There is no need of haste, Madame; it is quite time enough when his health begins to fail.'
'But has he really compose no will?'
'I really don't know, Madame.'
'Ah, little rogue! you will not tell—but you are not such fool as you feign yourself. No, no; you know everything. Come, tell me all about—it is for your advantage, you know. What is in his will, and when he wrote?'
'But, Madame, I really know nothing of it. I can't say whether there is a will or not. Let us talk of something else.'
'But, cheaile, it will not kill Monsieur Ruthyn to make his will; he will not come to lie here a day sooner by cause of that; but if he make no will, you may lose a great deal of the property. Would not that be pity?'
'I really don't know anything of his will. If papa has made one, he has never spoken of it to me. I know he loves me—that is enough.'
'Ah! you are not such little goose—you do know everything, of course. Come tell me, little obstinate, otherwise I will break your little finger. Tell me everything.'
'I know nothing of papa's will. You don't know, Madame, how you hurt me. Let us speak of something else.'
'You do know, and you must tell, petite dure-tête, or I will break a your little finger.'
With which words she seized that joint, and laughing spitefully, she twisted it suddenly back. I screamed while she continued to laugh.
'Will you tell?'
'Yes, yes! let me go,' I shrieked.
She did not release it immediately however, but continued her torture and discordant laughter. At last she finally released my finger.
'So she is going to be good cheaile, and tell everything to her affectionate gouvernante. What do you cry for, little fool?'
'You've hurt me very much—you have broken my finger,' I sobbed.
'Rub it and blow it and give it a kiss, little fool! What cross girl! I will never play with you again—never. Let us go home.'
Madame was silent and morose all the way home. She would not answer my questions, and affected to be very lofty and offended.
This did not last very long, however, and she soon resumed her wonted ways. And she returned to the question of the will, but not so directly, and with more art.
Why should this dreadful woman's thoughts be running so continually upon my father's will? How could it concern her?
CHAPTER VII
CHURCH SCARSDALE
I think all the females of our household, except Mrs. Rusk, who was at open feud with her and had only room for the fiercer emotions, were more or less afraid of this inauspicious foreigner.
Mrs. Rusk would say in her confidences in my room—
'Where does she come from?—is she a French or a Swiss one, or is she a Canada woman? I remember one of them when I was a girl, and a nice limb she was, too! And who did she live with? Where was her last family? Not one of us knows nothing about her, no more than a child; except, of course, the Master—I do suppose he made enquiry. She's always at hugger-mugger with Anne Wixted. I'll pack that one about her business, if she doesn't mind. Tattling and whispering eternally. It's not about her own business she's a-talking. Madame de la Rougepot, I call her. She