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

a secret trouble to me; and I would have given I know not what that Captain Oakley were one of the company, that I might treat him with the refined contempt which his deserts and my dignity demanded.

Cousin Monica busied herself about Milly’s toilet, and was a very useful lady’s maid, chatting in her own way all the time; and, at last, tapping Milly under the chin with her finger, she said, very complacently⁠—

“I think I have succeeded, Miss Milly; look in the glass. She really is a very pretty creature.”

And Milly blushed, and looked with a shy gratification, which made her still prettier, on the mirror.

Milly indeed was very pretty. She looked much taller now that her dresses were made of the usual length. A little plump she was, beautifully fair, with such azure eyes, and rich hair.

“The more you laugh the better, Milly, for you’ve got very pretty teeth⁠—very pretty; and if you were my daughter, or if your father would become president of a college of magicians, and give you up to me, I venture to say I would place you very well; and even as it is we must try, my dear.”

So down to the drawing-room we went; and Cousin Monica entered, leading us both by the hands.

By this time the curtains were closed, and the drawing-room dependent on the pleasant glow of the fire, and the slight provisional illumination usual before dinner.

“Here are my two cousins,” began Lady Knollys: “this is Miss Ruthyn, of Knowl, whom I take the liberty of calling Maud; and this is Miss Millicent Ruthyn, Silas’s daughter, you know, whom I venture to call Milly; and they are very pretty, as you will see, when we get a little more light, and they know it very well themselves.”

And as she spoke, a frank-eyed, gentle, prettyish lady, not so tall as I, but with a very kind face, rose up from a book of prints, and, smiling, took our hands.

She was by no means young, as I then counted youth⁠—past thirty, I suppose⁠—and with an air that was very quiet, and friendly, and engaging. She had never been a mere fashionable woman plainly; but she had the ease and polish of the best society, and seemed to take a kindly interest both in Milly and me; and Cousin Monica called her Mary, and sometimes Polly. That was all I knew of her for the present.

So very pleasantly the time passed by till the dressing-bell rang, and we ran away to our room.

“Did I say anything very bad?” asked poor Milly, standing exactly before me, so soon as our door was shut.

“Nothing, Milly; you are doing admirably.”

“And I do look a great fool, don’t I?” she demanded.

“You look extremely pretty, Milly; and not a bit like a fool.”

“I watch everything. I think I’ll learn it at last; but it comes a little troublesome at first; and they do talk different from what I used⁠—you were quite right there.”

When we returned to the drawing-room, we found the party already assembled, and chatting, evidently with spirit.

The village doctor, whose name I forget, a small man, grey, with shrewd grey eyes, sharp and mulberry nose, whose conflagration extended to his rugged cheeks, and touched his chin and forehead, was conversing, no doubt agreeably, with Mary, as Cousin Monica called her guest.

Over my shoulder, Milly whispered⁠—

“Mr. Carysbroke.”

And Milly was quite right: that gentleman chatting with Lady Knollys, his elbow resting on the chimneypiece, was, indeed, our acquaintance of the Windmill Wood. He instantly recognised us, and met us with his pleased and intelligent smile.

“I was just trying to describe to Lady Knollys the charming scenery of the Windmill Wood, among which I was so fortunate as to make your acquaintance, Miss Ruthyn. Even in this beautiful county I know of nothing prettier.”

Then he sketched it, as it were, with a few light but glowing words.

“What a sweet scene!” said Cousin Monica: “only think of her never bringing me through it. She reserves it, I fancy, for her romantic adventures; and you, I know, are very benevolent, Ilbury, and all that kind of thing; but I am not quite certain that you would have walked along that narrow parapet, over a river, to visit a sick old woman, if you had not happened to see two very pretty demoiselles on the other side.”

“What an ill-natured speech! I must either forfeit my character for disinterested benevolence, so justly admired, or disavow a motive that does such infinite credit to my taste,” exclaimed Mr. Carysbroke. “I think a charitable person would have said that a philanthropist, in prosecuting his virtuous, but perilous vocation, was unexpectedly rewarded by a vision of angels.”

“And with these angels loitered away the time which ought to have been devoted to good Mother Hubbard, in her fit of lumbago, and returned without having set eyes on that afflicted Christian, to amaze his worthy sister with poetic babblings about wood-nymphs and such pagan impieties,” rejoined Lady Knollys.

“Well, be just,” he replied, laughing; “did not I go next day and see the patient?”

“Yes; next day you went by the same route⁠—in quest of the dryads, I am afraid⁠—and were rewarded by the spectacle of Mother Hubbard.”

“Will nobody help a humane man in difficulties?” Mr. Carysbroke appealed.

“I do believe,” said the lady whom as yet I knew only as Mary, “that every word that Monica says is perfectly true.”

“And if it be so, am I not all the more in need of help? Truth is simply the most dangerous kind of defamation, and I really think I’m most cruelly persecuted.”

At this moment dinner was announced, and a meek and dapper little clergyman, with smooth pink cheeks, and tresses parted down the middle, whom I had not seen before, emerged from shadow.

This little man was assigned to Milly, Mr. Carysbroke to me, and I know not how the remaining ladies divided the doctor between them.

That dinner, the first at Elverston, I remember as a very pleasant repast. Everyone talked⁠—it was impossible