Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (ebook voice reader TXT) 📕

that through which we had entered. So we returned, and very tired, wondering, I sat down on the side of my bed and yawned.

“I hope they will call us in time for the packet,” I said.

“Oh yes, they never fail,” she answered, looking steadfastly on her box, which she was diligently uncording.

Uninviting as was my bed, I was longing to lie down in it; and having made those ablutions which our journey rendered necessary, I at length lay down, having first religiously stuck my talismanic pin, with the head of sealing-wax, into the bolster.

Nothing escaped the restless eye of Madame.

“Wat is that, dear cheaile?” she enquired, drawing near and scrutinising the head of the gipsy charm, which showed like a little ladybird newly lighted on the sheet.

“Nothing⁠—a charm⁠—folly. Pray, Madame, allow me to go to sleep.”

So, with another look and a little twiddle between her finger and thumb, she seemed satisfied; but, unhappily for me, she did not seem at all sleepy. She busied herself in unpacking and displaying over the back of the chair a whole series of London purchases⁠—silk dresses, a shawl, a sort of lace demi-coiffure then in vogue, and a variety of other articles.

The vainest and most slammakin of women⁠—the merest slut at home, a milliner’s lay figure out of doors⁠—she had one square foot of looking-glass upon the chimneypiece, and therein tried effects, and conjured up grotesque simpers upon her sinister and weary face.

I knew that the sure way to prolong this worry was to express my uneasiness under it, so I bore it as quietly as I could; and at last fell fast asleep with the gaunt image of Madame, with a festoon of grey silk with a cerise stripe, pinched up in her finger and thumb, and smiling over her shoulder across it into the little shaving-glass that stood on the chimney.

I awoke suddenly in the morning, and sat up in my bed, having for a moment forgotten all about our travelling. A moment more, however, brought all back again.

“Are we in time, Madame?”

“For the packet?” she enquired, with one of her charming smiles, and cutting a caper on the floor. “To be sure; you don’t suppose they would forget. We have two hours yet to wait.”

“Can we see the sea from the window?”

“No, dearest cheaile; you will see’t time enough.”

“I’d like to get up,” I said.

“Time enough, my dear Maud; you are fatigued; are you sure you feel quite well?”

“Well enough to get up; I should be better, I think, out of bed.”

“There is no hurry, you know; you need not even go by the next packet. Your uncle, he tell me, I may use my discretion.”

“Is there any water?”

“They will bring some.”

“Please, Madame, ring the bell.”

She pulled it with alacrity. I afterwards learnt that it did not ring.

“What has become of my gipsy pin?” I demanded, with an unaccountable sinking of the heart.

“Oh! the little pin with the red top? maybe it ’as fall on the ground; we weel find when you get up.”

I suspected that she had taken it merely to spite me. It would have been quite the thing she would have liked. I cannot describe to you how the loss of this little “charm” depressed and excited me. I searched the bed; I turned over all the bedclothes; I searched in and outside; at last I gave up.

“How odious!” I cried; “somebody has stolen it merely to vex me.”

And, like a fool as I was, I threw myself on my face on the bed and wept, partly in anger, partly in dismay.

After a time, however, this blew over. I had a hope of recovering it. If Madame had stolen it, it would turn up yet. But in the meantime its disappearance troubled me like an omen.

“I am afraid, my dear cheaile, you are not very well. It is really very odd you should make such fuss about a pin! Nobody would believe! Do you not theenk it would be a good plan to take a your breakfast in your bed?”

She continued to urge this point for some time. At last, however, having by this time quite recovered my self-command, and resolved to preserve ostensibly fair terms with Madame, who could contribute so essentially to make me wretched during the rest of my journey, and possibly to prejudice me very seriously on my arrival, I said quietly⁠—

“Well, Madame, I know it is very silly; but I had kept that foolish little pin so long and so carefully, that I had grown quite fond of it; but I suppose it is lost, and I must content myself, though I cannot laugh as you do. So I will get up now, and dress.”

“I think you will do well to get all the repose you can,” answered Madame; “but as you please,” she added, observing that I was getting up.

So soon as I had got some of my things on, I said⁠—

“Is there a pretty view from the window?”

“No,” said Madame.

I looked out and saw a dreary quadrangle of cut stone, in one side of which my window was placed. As I looked a dream rose up before me.

“This hotel,” I said, in a puzzled way. “Is it a hotel? Why this is just like⁠—it is the inner court of Bartram-Haugh!”

Madame clapped her large hands together, made a fantastic chassé on the floor, burst into a great nasal laugh like the scream of a parrot, and then said⁠—

“Well, dearest Maud, is not clever trick?”

I was so utterly confounded that I could only stare about me in stupid silence, a spectacle which renewed Madame’s peals of laughter.

“We are at Bartram-Haugh!” I repeated, in utter consternation. “How was this done?”

I had no reply but shrieks of laughter, and one of those Walpurgis dances in which she excelled.

“It is a mistake⁠—is it? What is it?”

“All a mistake, of course. Bartram-Haugh, it is so like Dover, as all philosophers know.”

I sat down in total silence, looking out into the deep and dark enclosure,