The Evil Guest - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Evil Guest
By J. Sheridan LeFanu
1895
"When Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin: and Sin, when it is
finished, bringeth forth Death."
About sixty years ago, and somewhat more than twenty miles from the
ancient town of Chester, in a southward direction, there stood a large,
and, even then, an old-fashioned mansion-house. It lay in the midst of a
demesne of considerable extent, and richly wooded with venerable timber;
but, apart from the somber majesty of these giant groups, and the
varieties of the undulating ground on which they stood, there was little
that could be deemed attractive in the place. A certain air of neglect
and decay, and an indescribable gloom and melancholy, hung over it. In
darkness, it seemed darker than any other tract; when the moonlight fell
upon its glades and hollows, they looked spectral and awful, with a sort
of churchyard loneliness; and even when the blush of the morning kissed
its broad woodlands, there was a melancholy in the salute that saddened
rather than cheered the heart of the beholder.
This antique, melancholy, and neglected place, we shall call, for
distinctness sake, Gray Forest. It was then the property of the younger
son of a nobleman, once celebrated for his ability and his daring, but
who had long since passed to that land where human wisdom and courage
avail naught. The representative of this noble house resided at the
family mansion in Sussex, and the cadet, whose fortunes we mean to sketch
in these pages, lived upon the narrow margin of an encumbered income, in
a reserved and unsocial discontent, deep among the solemn shadows of the
old woods of Gray Forest.
The Hon. Richard Marston was now somewhere between forty and fifty years
of age--perhaps nearer the latter; he still, however, retained, in an
eminent degree, the traits of manly beauty, not the less remarkable for
its unquestionably haughty and passionate character. He had married a
beautiful girl, of good family, but without much money, somewhere about
eighteen years before; and two children, a son and a daughter, had been
the fruit of this union. The boy, Harry Marston, was at this time at
Cambridge; and his sister, scarcely fifteen, was at home with her
parents, and under the training of an accomplished governess, who had
been recommended to them by a noble relative of Mrs. Marston. She was a
native of France, but thoroughly mistress of the English language, and,
except for a foreign accent, which gave a certain prettiness to all she
said, she spoke it as perfectly as any native Englishwoman. This young
Frenchwoman was eminently handsome and attractive. Expressive, dark eyes,
a clear olive complexion, small even teeth, and a beautifully-dimpling
smile, more perhaps than a strictly classic regularity of features, were
the secrets of her unquestionable influence, at first sight, upon the
fancy of every man of taste who beheld her.
Mr. Marston's fortune, never very large, had been shattered by early
dissipation. Naturally of a proud and somewhat exacting temper, he
actively felt the mortifying consequences of his poverty. The want of
what he felt ought to have been his position and influence in the county
in which he resided, fretted and galled him; and he cherished a resentful
and bitter sense of every slight, imaginary or real, to which the same
fruitful source of annoyance and humiliation had exposed him. He held,
therefore, but little intercourse with the surrounding gentry, and that
little not of the pleasantest possible kind; for, not being himself in a
condition to entertain, in that style which accorded with his own ideas
of his station, he declined, as far as was compatible with good breeding,
all the proffered hospitalities of the neighborhood; and, from his wild
and neglected park, looked out upon the surrounding world in a spirit of
moroseness and defiance, very unlike, indeed, to that of neighborly
good-will.
In the midst, however, of many of the annoyances attendant upon crippled
means, he enjoyed a few of those shadowy indications of hereditary
importance, which are all the more dearly prized, as the substantial
accessories of wealth have disappeared. The mansion in which he dwelt
was, though old-fashioned, imposing in its aspect, and upon a scale
unequivocally aristocratic; its walls were hung with ancestral portraits,
and he managed to maintain about him a large and tolerably respectable
staff of servants. In addition to these, he had his extensive demesne,
his deer-park, and his unrivalled timber, wherewith to console himself;
and, in the consciousness of these possessions, he found some imperfect
assuagement of those bitter feelings of suppressed scorn and resentment,
which a sense of lost station and slighted importance engendered. Mr.
Marston's early habits had, unhappily, been of a kind to aggravate,
rather than alleviate, the annoyances incidental to reduced means. He had
been a gay man, a voluptuary, and a gambler. His vicious tastes had
survived the means of their gratification. His love for his wife had been
nothing more than one of those vehement and headstrong fancies, which, in
self-indulgent men, sometimes result in marriage, and which seldom
outlive the first few months of that life-long connection. Mrs. Marston
was a gentle, noble-minded woman. After agonies or disappointment, which
none ever suspected, she had at length learned to submit, in sad and
gentle acquiescence, to her fate. Those feelings, which had been the
charm of her young days, were gone, and, as she bitterly felt, forever.
For them there was no recall they could not return; and, without
complaint or reproach, she yielded to what she felt was inevitable. It
was impossible to look at Mrs. Marston, and not to discern, at a glance,
the ruin of a surpassingly beautiful woman; a good deal wasted, pale, and
chastened with a deep, untold sorrow, but still possessing the outlines,
both in face and form, of that noble beauty and matchless grace, which
had made her, in happier days, the admired of all observers. But equally
impossible was it to converse with her, for even a minute, without
hearing, in the gentle and melancholy music of her voice, the sad echoes
of those griefs to which her early beauty had been sacrificed, an undying
sense of lost love, and happiness departed, never to come again.
One morning, Mr. Marston had walked, as was his custom when he expected
the messenger who brought from the neighboring post office his letters,
some way down the broad, straight avenue, with its double rows of lofty
trees at each side, when he encountered the nimble emissary on his
return. He took the letter-bag in silence. It contained but two
letters--one addressed to "Mademoiselle de Barras, chez M. Marston," and
the other to himself. He took them both, dismissed the messenger, and
opening that addressed to himself, read as follows, while he slowly
retraced his steps towards the house:--
Dear Richard,
I am a whimsical fellow, as you doubtless remember, and have lately
grown, they tell me, rather hippish besides. I do not know to which
infirmity I am to attribute a sudden fancy that urges me to pay you a
visit, if you will admit me. To say truth, my dear Dick, I wish to see a
little of your part of the world, and, I will confess it, en passant, to
see a little of you too. I really wish to make acquaintance with your
family; and though they tell me my health is very much shaken, I must
say, in self-defense, I am not a troublesome inmate. I can perfectly take
care of myself, and need no nursing or caudling whatever. Will you
present this, my petition, to Mrs. Marston, and report her decision
thereon to me. Seriously, I know that your house may be full, or some
other contretemps may make it impracticable for me just now to invade
you. If it be so, tell me, my dear Richard, frankly, as my movements are
perfectly free, and my time all my own, so that I can arrange my visit to
suit your convenience.
--Yours, &c.,
WYNSTON E. BERKLEY
P.S.--Direct to me at ---- Hotel, in Chester, as I shall probably be
there by the time this reaches you.
"Ill-bred and pushing as ever," quoth Mr. Marston, angrily, as he thrust
the unwelcome letter into his pocket. "This fellow, wallowing in wealth,
without one nearer relative on earth than I, and associated more nearly
still with me the--pshaw! not affection--the recollections of early and
intimate companionship, leaves me unaided, for years of desertion and
suffering, to the buffetings of the world, and the troubles of all but
overwhelming pecuniary difficulties, and now, with the cool confidence of
one entitled to respect and welcome, invites himself to my house. Coming
here," he continued, after a gloomy pause, and still pacing slowly
towards the house, "to collect amusing materials for next season's
gossip--stories about the married Benedick--the bankrupt beau--the outcast
tenant of a Cheshire wilderness"; and, as he said this, he looked at the
neglected prospect before him with an eye almost of hatred. "Aye, to see
the nakedness of the land is he coming, but he shall be disappointed. His
money may buy him a cordial welcome at an inn, but curse me if it shall
purchase him a reception here."
He again opened and glanced through the letter.
"Aye, purposely put in such a way that I can't decline it without
affronting him," he continued doggedly. "Well, then, he has no one to
blame but himself--affronted he shall be; I shall effectually put an end
to this humorous excursion. Egad, it is rather hard if a man cannot keep
his poverty to himself."
Sir Wynston Berkley was a baronet of large fortune--a selfish,
fashionable man, and an inveterate bachelor. He and Marston had been
schoolfellows, and the violent and implacable temper of the latter had as
little impressed his companion with feelings of regard, as the frivolity
and selfishness of the baronet had won the esteem of his relative. As
boys, they had little in common upon which to rest the basis of a
friendship, or even a mutual liking. Berkley was gay, cold, and
satirical; his cousin--for cousins they were--was jealous, haughty, and
relentless. Their negative disinclination to one another's society, not
unnaturally engendered by uncongenial and unamiable dispositions, had for
a time given place to actual hostility, while the two young men were at
Oxford. In some intrigue, Marston discovered in his cousin a
too-successful rival; the consequence was, a bitter and furious quarrel,
which, but for the prompt and peremptory interference of friends, Marston
would undoubtedly have pushed to a bloody issue. Time had, however,
healed this rupture, and the young men came to regard one another with
the same feelings, and eventually to re-establish the same sort of cold
and indifferent intimacy which had subsisted between them before their
angry collision.
Under these circumstances, whatever suspicion Marston might have felt on
the receipt of the unexpected, and indeed unaccountable proposal, which had
just reached him, he certainly had little reason to complain of any
violation of early friendship in the neglect with which Sir Wynston had
hitherto treated him. In deciding to decline his proposed visit, however,
Marston had not consulted the impulses of spite or anger. He knew the
baronet well; he knew that he cherished no good will towards him, and
that in the project which he had thus unexpectedly broached, whatever
indirect or selfish schemes might possibly be at the bottom of it, no
friendly feeling had ever mingled. He was therefore resolved to avoid the
trouble and the expense of a visit in all respects distasteful to him,
and in a gentlemanlike way, but, at the same time, as the reader may
suppose, with very little anxiety as to whether or not his gay
correspondent should take offence at his reply, to decline, once for all,
the proposed distinction.
With this resolution, he entered the spacious and somewhat dilapidated
mansion which called him master; and entering a sitting room,
appropriated to his daughter's use, he found her there, in company with
her beautiful French governess. He kissed his child, and saluted her
young preceptress with formal courtesy.
"Mademoiselle," said he, "I have got a letter for you; and, Rhoda," he
continued, addressing his pretty daughter, "bring this to your mother,
and say, I request her to read it."
He gave her the letter he himself had just received, and the girl tripped
lightly away upon her mission.
Had he narrowly scrutinised the countenance of the fair Frenchwoman, as
she glanced at the direction of that which he had just placed in her
hand, he might have seen certain transient, but very unmistakable
evidences of excitement and agitation. She quickly concealed the letter,
however, and with a sigh, the momentary flush which it had called to her
cheek subsided, and she was tranquil as usual.
Mr. Marston remained for some minutes--five, eight, or ten, we cannot say
precisely--pretty much where he had stood on first entering the chamber,
doubtless awaiting the return of his messenger, or the appearance of his
wife. At length, however, he left the room himself to seek her; but,
during his brief stay, his previous resolution had been removed. By what
influence we cannot say; but removed completely it unquestionably was,
and a final determination that Sir Wynston Berkley should become his
guest had fixedly taken its place.
As Marston walked along the passages which led from this room, he
encountered Mrs. Marston and his daughter.
"Well," said he, "you have read Wynston's letter?"
"Yes," she replied, returning it to him; "and what answer, Richard, do
you purpose giving him?"
She was about to hazard a conjecture, but checked herself, remembering
that even so faint an evidence of a disposition to advise might possibly
be resented by her cold and imperious lord.
"I have considered it, and decided to receive him," he replied.
"Ah! I am afraid--that is, I hope--he may find our housekeeping such as
he can enjoy," she said, with an involuntary expression of surprise; for
she had scarcely had a doubt that her husband would have preferred
evading the visit of his fine friend, under his gloomy circumstances.
"If our modest fare does not suit him," said Marston, with sullen
bitterness, "he can depart as easily as he came. We, poor gentlemen, can
but do our best. I have thought it over, and made up my mind."
"And how soon, my dear Richard, do you intend fixing his arrival?" she
inquired, with the natural uneasiness of one upon whom, in an
establishment whose pretensions considerably exceeded its resources, the
perplexing cares of housekeeping devolved.
"Why, as soon as he pleases," replied he, "I suppose you can easily have
his room prepared by tomorrow or next day. I shall write by this mail,
and tell him to come down at once."
Having said this in a cold, decisive way, he turned and left her, as it
seemed, not caring to be teased with further questions. He took his
solitary way to a distant part of his wild park, where, far from the
likelihood of disturbance or intrusion, he was often wont to amuse
himself for the live-long day, in the sedentary sport of shooting
rabbits. And there we leave him for the present, signifying to the
distant inmates of his house the industrious pursuit of his unsocial
occupation, by the dropping fire that sullenly, from hour to hour, echoed
from the remote woods.
Mrs. Marston issued her orders; and having set on foot all the necessary
preparations for so unwonted an event as a stranger's visit of some
duration, she betook herself to her little boudoir--the scene of many an
hour of patient but bitter suffering, unseen by human eye, and unknown,
except to the just Searcher of hearts, to whom belongs mercy--and
vengeance.
Mrs. Marston had but two friends to whom she had ever spoken upon the
subject nearest her heart--the estrangement of her husband, a sorrow to
which even time had failed to reconcile her. From her children this grief
was carefully concealed. To them she never uttered the semblance of a
complaint. Anything that could by possibility have reflected blame or
dishonor upon their father, she would have perished rather than have
allowed them so much as to suspect. The two friends who did understand
her feelings, though in different degrees, were, one, a good and
venerable clergyman, the Rev. Doctor Danvers, a frequent visitor and
occasional guest at Gray Forest, where his simple manners and unaffected
benignity and tenderness of heart had won the love of all, with the
exception of its master, and commanded even his respect. The second was
no other than the young French governess, Mademoiselle de Barras, in
whose ready sympathy and consolatory counsels she found no small
happiness. The society of this young lady had indeed become, next to that
of her daughter, her greatest comfort and pleasure.
Mademoiselle de Barras was of a noble though ruined French family, and a
certain nameless elegance and dignity attested, spite of her fallen
condition, the purity of her descent. She was accomplished--possessed of
that fine perception and sensitiveness, and that ready power of
self-adaptation to the peculiarities and moods of others, which we term
tact--and was, moreover, gifted with a certain natural grace, and manners
the most winning imaginable. In short, she was a fascinating companion;
and when the melancholy circumstances of her own situation, and the sad
history of her once rich and noble family, were taken into account, with
her striking attractions of person and air, the combination of all these
associations and impressions rendered her one of the most interesting
persons that could well be imagined. The circumstances of Mademoiselle de
Barras's history and descent seemed to warrant, on Mrs. Marston's part, a
closer intimacy and confidence than usually subsists between parties
mutually occupying such a relation.
Mrs. Marston had hardly established herself in this little apartment,
when a light foot approached, a gentle tap was given at the door, and
Mademoiselle de Barras entered.
"Ah, mademoiselle, so kind--such pretty flowers. Pray sit down," said the
lady, with a sweet and grateful smile, as she took from the tapered
fingers of the foreigner the little bouquet, which she had been at the
pains to gather.
Mademoiselle sat down, and gently took the lady's hand and kissed it. A
small matter will overflow a heart charged with sorrow--a chance word, a
look, some little office of kindness--and so it was with mademoiselle's
bouquet and gentle kiss. Mrs. Marston's heart was touched; her eyes
filled with bright tears; she smiled gratefully upon her fair and humble
companion, and as she smiled, her tears overflowed, and she wept in
silence for some minutes.
"My poor mademoiselle," she said, at last, "you are so very, very kind."
Mademoiselle said nothing; she lowered her eyes, and pressed the poor
lady's hand.
Apparently to interrupt an embarrassing silence, and to give a more
cheerful tone to their little interview, the governess, in a gay tone, on
a sudden said--
"And so, madame, we are to have a visitor, Miss Rhoda tells me--a
baronet, is he not?"
"Yes, indeed, mademoiselle--Sir Wynston Berkley, a gay London gentleman,
and a cousin of Mr. Marston's," she replied.
"Ha--a cousin!" exclaimed the young lady, with a little more surprise in
her tone than seemed altogether called for--"a cousin? oh, then, that is
the reason of his visit. Do, pray, madame, tell me all about him; I am so
much afraid of strangers, and what you call men of the world. Oh, dear
Mrs. Marston, I am not worthy to be here, and he will see all that in a
moment; indeed, indeed, I am afraid. Pray tell me all about him."
She said this with a simplicity which made the elder lady smile, and
while mademoiselle re-adjusted the tiny flowers which formed the bouquet
she had just presented to her, Mrs. Marston good-naturedly recounted to
her all she knew of Sir Wynston Berkley, which, in substance, amounted to
no more than we have already stated. When she concluded, the young
Frenchwoman continued for some time silent, still busy with her
flowers. But, suddenly, she heaved a deep sigh, and shook her head.
"You seem disquieted, mademoiselle," said Mrs. Marston, in a tone
of kindness.
"I am thinking, madame," she said, still looking upon the flowers which
she was adjusting, and again sighing profoundly, "I am thinking of what
you said to me a week ago; alas!"
"I do not remember what it was, my good mademoiselle--nothing, I am
sure, that ought to grieve you--at least nothing that was intended to
have that effect," replied the lady, in a tone of gentle encouragement.
"No, not intended, madame," said the young Frenchwoman, sorrowfully.
"Well, what was it? Perhaps you misunderstood; perhaps I can explain what
I said," replied Mrs. Marston, affectionately.
"Ah, madame, you think--you think I am unlucky," answered the young
lady, slowly and faintly.
"Unlucky! Dear mademoiselle, you surprise me," rejoined her companion.
"I mean--what I mean is this, madame; you date unhappiness--if not its
beginning, at least its great aggravation and increase," she answered,
dejectedly, "from the time of my coming here, madame; and though I know
you are too good to dislike me on that account, yet I must, in your eyes,
be ever connected with calamity, and look like an ominous thing."
"Dear mademoiselle, allow no such thought to enter your mind. You do me
great wrong, indeed you do," said Mrs. Marston, laying her hand upon the
young lady's, kindly.
There was a silence for a little time, and the elder lady resumed:--"I
remember now what you allude to, dear mademoiselle--the increased
estrangement, the widening separation which severs me from one
unutterably dear to me--the first and bitter disappointment of my life,
which seems to grow more hopelessly incurable day by day."
Mrs. Marston paused, and, after a brief silence, the governess said:--
"I am very superstitious myself, dear madame, and I thought I must have
seemed to you an inauspicious inmate--in short, unlucky--as I have said;
and the thought made me very unhappy--so unhappy, that I was going to
leave you, madame--I may now tell you frankly--going away; but you have
set my doubts at rest, and I am quite happy again."
"Dear mademoiselle," cried the lady, tenderly, and rising, as she spake,
to kiss the cheek of her humble friend; "never--never speak of this
again. God knows I have too few friends on earth, to spare the kindest
and tenderest among them all. No, no. You little think what comfort I
have found in your warm-hearted and ready sympathy, and how dearly I
prize your affection, my poor mademoiselle."
The young Frenchwoman rose, with downcast eyes, and a dimpling, happy
smile; and, as Mrs. Marston drew her affectionately toward her, and
kissed her, she timidly returned the embrace of her kind patroness. For a
moment her graceful arms encircled her, and she whispered to her, "Dear
madame, how happy--how very happy you make me."
Had Ithuriel touched with his spear the beautiful young woman, thus for a
moment, as it seemed, lost in a trance of gratitude and love, would that
angelic form have stood the test unscathed? A spectator, marking the
scene, might have observed a strange gleam in her eyes--a strange
expression in her face--an influence for a moment not angelic, like a
shadow of some passing spirit, cross her visibly, as she leaned over the
gentle lady's neck, and murmured, "Dear madame, how happy--how very happy
you make me." Such a spectator, as he looked at that gentle lady, might
have seen, for one dreamy moment, a lithe and painted serpent, coiled
round and round, and hissing in her ear.
A few minutes more, and mademoiselle was in the solitude of her own
apartment. She shut and bolted the door, and taking from her desk the
letter which she had that morning received, threw herself into an
armchair, and studied the document profoundly. Her actual revision and
scrutiny of the letter itself was interrupted by long intervals of
profound abstraction; and, after a full hour thus spent, she locked it
carefully up again, and with a clear brow, and a gay smile, rejoined her
pretty pupil for a walk.
We must now pass over an interval of a few days, and come at once to the
arrival of Sir Wynston Berkley, which duly occurred upon the evening of
the day appointed. The baronet descended from his chaise but a short
time before the hour at which the little party, which formed the family
at Gray Forest were wont to assemble for the social meal of supper. A few
minutes devoted to the mysteries of the toilet, with the aid of an
accomplished valet, enabled him to appear, as he conceived, without
disadvantage at this domestic reunion.
Sir Wynston Berkley was a particularly gentleman-like person. He was
rather tall, and elegantly made, with gay, easy manners, and something
indefinably aristocratic in his face, which, however, was a little more
worn than his years would have strictly accounted for. But Sir Wynston
had been a roue, and, spite of the cleverest possible making up, the
ravages of excess were very traceable in the lively beau of fifty.
Perfectly well dressed, and with a manner that was ease and gaiety
itself, he was at home from the moment he entered the room. Of course,
anything like genuine cordiality was out of the question; but Mr. Marston
embraced his relative with perfect good breeding, and the baronet
appeared determined to like everybody, and be pleased with everything. He
had not been five minutes in the parlor, chatting gaily with Mr. and Mrs.
Marston and their pretty daughter, when Mademoiselle de Barras entered
the room. As she moved towards Mrs. Marston, Sir Wynston rose, and,
observing her with evident admiration, said in an undertone, inquiringly,
to Marston, who was beside him--