The Familiar by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (book club books .TXT) 📖

CHAPTER I

FOOTSTEPS

 

I WAS a young man at the time, and intimately acquainted

with some of the actors in this strange tale; the impression

which its incidents made on me, therefore, were deep and

lasting. I shall now endeavour, with precision, to relate

them all, combining, of course, in the narrative, whatever I

have learned from various sources, tending, however

imperfectly, to illuminate the darkness which involves its

progress and termination.

 

Somewhere about the year 1794, the younger brother of a

certain baronet, whom I shall call Sir James Barton,

returned to Dublin. He had served in the navy with some

distinction, having commanded one of His Majesty’s frigates

during the greater part of the American war. Captain Barton

was apparently some two or three-and-forty years of age. He

was an intelligent and agreeable companion when he pleased

it, though generally reserved, and occasionally even moody.

 

In society, however, he deported himself as a man of the

world, and a gentleman. He had not contracted any of the

noisy brusqueness sometimes acquired at sea; on the

contrary, his manners were remarkably easy, quiet, and even

polished. He was in person about the middle size, and

somewhat strongly formed — his countenance was marked with

the lines of thought, and on the whole wore an expression of

gravity and melancholy. Being, however, as I have said, a

man of perfect breeding, as well as of good family and in

affluent circumstances, he had, of course, ready access to

the best society of Dublin without the necessity of any

other credentials.

 

In his personal habits Mr. Barton was unexpensive. He

occupied lodgings in one of the then fashionable streets in

the south side of the town — kept but one horse and one

servant — and though a reputed free-thinker, yet lived an

orderly and moral life — indulging neither in gaming,

drinking, nor any other vicious pursuit — living very much to

himself, without forming intimacies, or choosing any

companions, and appearing to mix in gay society rather for

the sake of its bustle and distraction, than for any

opportunities it offered of interchanging thought or feeling

with its votaries.

 

Barton was, therefore, pronounced a saving, prudent,

unsocial sort of fellow, who bid fair to maintain his

celibacy alike against stratagem and assault, and was likely

to live to a good old age, die rich, and leave his money to

an hospital.

 

It was now apparent, however, that the nature of Mr

Barton’s plans had been totally misconceived. A young lady,

whom I shall call Miss Montague, was at this time introduced

into the gay world by her aunt, the Dowager Lady L–-.

Miss Montague was decidedly pretty and accomplished, and

having some natural cleverness and a great deal of gaiety,

became for a while a reigning toast.

 

Her popularity, however, gained her for a time nothing

more than that unsubstantial admiration which, however

pleasant as an incense to vanity, is by no means necessarily

antecedent to matrimony — for, unhappily for the young lady

in question, it was an understood thing that, beyond her

personal attractions, she had no kind of earthly provision.

Such being the state of affairs, it will readily be believed

that no little surprise was consequent upon the appearance

of Captain Barton as the avowed lover of the penniless Miss

Montague.

 

His suit prospered, as might have been expected, and in a

short time it was communicated by old Lady L–- to each of

her hundred-and-fifty particular friends in succession, that

Captain Barton had actually tendered proposals of marriage,

with her approbation, to her niece, Miss Montague, who had,

moreover, accepted the offer of his hand, conditionally upon

the consent of her father, who was then upon his homeward

voyage from India, and expected in two or three weeks at the

furthest.

 

About this consent there could be no doubt — the delay,

therefore, was one merely of form — they were looked upon as

absolutely engaged, and Lady L–-, with a rigour of

old-fashioned decorum with which her niece would, no doubt,

gladly have dispensed, withdrew her thenceforward from all

further participation in the gaieties of the town.

 

Captain Barton was a constant visitor, as well as a

frequent guest at the house, and was permitted all the

privileges of intimacy which a betrothed suitor is usually

accorded. Such was the relation of parties, when the

mysterious circumstances which darken this narrative first

began to unfold themselves.

 

Lady L–- resided in a handsome mansion at the north side

of Dublin, and Captain Barton’s lodgings, as we have already

said, were situated at the south. The distance intervening

was considerable, and it was Captain Barton’s habit

generally to walk home without an attendant, as often as he

passed the evening with the old lady and her fair charge.

 

His shortest way in such nocturnal walks lay, for a

considerable space, through a line of street which had as

yet merely been laid out, and little more than the

foundations of the houses constructed.

 

One night, shortly after his engagement with Miss Montague

had commenced, he happened to remain unusually late, in

company with her and Lady L–-. The conversation had

turned upon the evidences of revelation, which he had

disputed with the callous scepticism of a confirmed infidel.

What were called “French principles” had in those days found

their way a good deal into fashionable society, especially

that portion of it which professed allegiance to Whiggism,

and neither the old lady nor her charge were so perfectly

free from the taint as to look upon Mr. Barton’s views as any

serious objection to the proposed union.

 

The discussion had degenerated into one upon the

supernatural and the marvellous, in which he had pursued

precisely the same line of argument and ridicule. In all

this, it is but truth to state, Captain Barton was guilty of

no affectation — the doctrines upon which he insisted, were,

in reality, but too truly the basis of his own fixed belief,

if so it might be called; and perhaps not the least strange

of the many strange circumstances connected with my

narrative was the fact that the subject of the fearful

influences I am about to describe was himself, from the

deliberate conviction of years, an utter disbeliever in what

are usually termed preternatural agencies.

 

It was considerably past midnight when Mr. Barton took his

leave and set out upon his solitary walk homeward. He had

now reached the lonely road, with its unfinished dwarf walls

tracing the foundations of the projected row of houses on

either side — the moon was shining mistily, and its imperfect

light made the road he trod but additionally dreary — that

utter silence which has in it something indefinably exciting

reigned there and made the sound of his steps, which alone

broke it, unnaturally loud and distinct.

 

He had proceeded thus some way, when he, on a sudden,

heard other footfalls, pattering at a measured pace, and, as

it seemed, about two score steps behind him.

 

The suspicion of being dogged is at all times unpleasant:

it is, however, especially so in a spot so lonely: and this

suspicion became so strong in the mind of Captain Barton,

that he abruptly turned about to confront his pursuer, but,

though there was quite sufficient moonlight to disclose any

object upon the road he had traversed, no form of any kind

was visible there.

 

The steps he had heard could not have been the

reverberation of his own, for he stamped his foot upon the

ground, and walked briskly up and down, in the vain attempt

to awake an echo; though by no means a fanciful person,

therefore, he was at last fain to charge the sounds upon his

imagination, and treat them as an illusion. Thus satisfying

himself he resumed his walk, and before he had proceeded a

dozen paces the mysterious footfall was again audible from

behind, and this time, as if with the special design of

showing that the sounds were not the responses of an echo,

the steps sometimes slackened nearly to a halt, and

sometimes hurried for six or eight strides to a run, and

again abated to a walk.

 

Captain Barton, as before, turned suddenly round, and with

the same result — no object was visible above the deserted

level of the road. He walked back over the same ground,

determined that, whatever might have been the cause of the

sounds which had so disconcerted him,