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

your uncle for my visit; and I really am very glad, for I’m sure I shall look as young as Hebe after him. But who is this? Who are you, my dear?”

This was addressed to poor Milly, who stood at the corner of the chimneypiece, staring with her round eyes and plump cheeks in fear and wonder upon the strange lady.

“How stupid of me,” I exclaimed. “Milly, dear, this is your cousin, Lady Knollys.”

“And so you are Millicent. Well, dear, I am very glad to see you.” And Cousin Monica was on her feet again in an instant, with Milly’s hand very cordially in hers; and she gave her a kiss upon each cheek, and patted her head.

Milly, I must mention, was a much more presentable figure than when I first encountered her. Her dresses were at least a quarter of a yard longer. Though very rustic, therefore, she was not so barbarously grotesque, by any means.

IV Cousin Monica and Uncle Silas Meet

Cousin Monica, with her hands upon Milly’s shoulders, looked amusedly and kindly in her face. “And,” said she, “we must be very good friends⁠—you funny creature, you and I. I’m allowed to be the most saucy old woman in Derbyshire⁠—quite incorrigibly privileged; and nobody is ever affronted with me, so I say the most shocking things constantly.”

“I’m a bit that way, myself; and I think,” said poor Milly, making an effort, and growing very red; she quite lost her head at that point, and was incompetent to finish the sentiment she had prefaced.

“You think? Now, take my advice, and never wait to think my dear; talk first, and think afterwards, that is my way; though, indeed, I can’t say I ever think at all. It is a very cowardly habit. Our cold-blooded cousin Maud, there, thinks sometimes; but it is always such a failure that I forgive her. I wonder when your little pre-Adamite butler will return. He speaks the language of the Picts and Ancient Britons, I dare say, and your father requires a little time to translate him. And, Milly dear, I am very hungry, so I won’t wait for your butler, who would give me, I suppose, one of the cakes baked by King Alfred, and some Danish beer in a skull; but I’ll ask you for a little of that nice bread and butter.”

With which accordingly Lady Knollys was quickly supplied; but it did not at all impede her utterance.

“Do you think, girls, you could be ready to come away with me, if Silas gives leave, in an hour or two? I should so like to take you both home with me to Elverston.”

“How delightful! you darling,” cried I, embracing and kissing her; “for my part, I should be ready in five minutes; what do you say, Milly?”

Poor Milly’s wardrobe, I am afraid, was more portable than handsome; and she looked horribly affrighted, and whispered in my ear⁠—

“My best petticoat is away at the laundress; say in a week, Maud.”

“What does she say?” asked Lady Knollys.

“She fears she can’t be ready,” I answered, dejectedly.

“There’s a deal of my slops in the wash,” blurted out poor Milly, staring straight at Lady Knollys.

“In the name of wonder, what does my cousin mean?” asked Lady Knollys.

“Her things have not come home yet from the laundress,” I replied; and at this moment our wondrous old butler entered to announce to Lady Knollys that his master was ready to receive her, whenever she was disposed to favour him; and also to make polite apologies for his being compelled, by his state of health, to give her the trouble of ascending to his room.

So Cousin Monica was at the door in a moment, over her shoulder calling to us, “Come, girls.”

“Please, not yet, my lady⁠—you alone; and he requests the young ladies will be in the way, as he will send for them presently.”

I began to admire poor Giblets as the wreck of a tolerably respectable servant.

“Very good; perhaps it is better we should kiss and be friends in private first,” said Cousin Knollys, laughing; and away she went under the guidance of the mummy.

I had an account of this tête-à-tête afterwards from Lady Knollys.

“When I saw him, my dear,” she said, “I could hardly believe my eyes; such white hair⁠—such a white face⁠—such mad eyes⁠—such a deathlike smile. When I saw him last, his hair was dark; he dressed himself like a modern Englishman; and he really preserved a likeness to the full-length portrait at Knowl, that you fell in love with, you know; but, angels and ministers of grace! such a spectre! I asked myself, is it necromancy, or is it delirium tremens that has reduced him to this? And said he, with that odious smile, that made me fancy myself half insane⁠—

“ ‘You see a change, Monica.’

“What a sweet, gentle, insufferable voice he has! Somebody once told me about the tone of a glass flute that made some people hysterical to listen to, and I was thinking of it all the time. There was always a peculiar quality in his voice.

“ ‘I do see a change, Silas,’ I said at last; ‘and, no doubt, so do you in me⁠—a great change.’

“ ‘There has been time enough to work a greater than I observe in you since you last honoured me with a visit,’ said he.

“I think he was at his old sarcasms, and meant that I was the same impertinent minx he remembered long ago, uncorrected by time; and so I am, and he must not expect compliments from old Monica Knollys.

“ ‘It is a long time, Silas; but that, you know, is not my fault,’ said I.

“ ‘Not your fault, my dear⁠—your instinct. We are all imitative creatures: the great people ostracised me, and the small ones followed. We are very like turkeys, we have so much good sense and so much generosity. Fortune, in a freak, wounded my head, and the whole brood were upon me, pecking and gobbling, gobbling and pecking, and you