The Familiar by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (book club books .TXT) 📖
- Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
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resolution, perhaps with some murderous object in
perspective, to watch and follow the unfortunate gentleman.
Even this hypothesis was not a very pleasant one; yet it
was plain that if Barton could ever be convinced that there
was nothing preternatural in the phenomenon which he had
hitherto regarded in that light, the affair would lose all
its terrors in his eyes, and wholly cease to exercise upon
his health and spirits the baleful influence which it had
hitherto done. He therefore reasoned, that if the annoyance
were actually escaped by mere locomotion and change of
scene, it obviously could not have originated in any
supernatural agency.
FLIGHT
YIELDING to their persuasions, Barton left Dublin for
England accompanied by General Montague. They posted
rapidly to London, and thence to Dover, whence they took the
packet with a fair wind for Calais. The General’s
confidence in the result of the expedition on Barton’s
spirits had risen day by day since their departure from the
shores of Ireland; for to the inexpressible relief and
delight of the latter, he had not since then so much as
even once fancied a repetition of those impressions which
had, when at home, drawn him gradually down to the very
depths of despair.
This exemption from what he had begun to regard as the
inevitable condition of his existence, and the sense of
security which began to pervade his mind, were inexpressibly
delightful; and in the exultation of what he considered his
deliverance, he indulged in a thousand happy anticipations
for a future into which so lately he had hardly dared to
look; and, in short, both he and his companion secretly
congratulated themselves upon the termination of that
persecution which had been to its immediate victim a
source of such unspeakable agony.
It was a beautiful day, and a crowd of idlers stood upon
the jetty to receive the packet and enjoy the bustle of the
new arrivals. Montague walked a few paces in advance of his
friend, and as he made his way through the crowd a little
man touched his arm and said to him, in a broad provincial
patois:
“Monsieur is walking too fast; he will lose his sick
comrade in the throng, for, by my faith, the poor gentleman
seems to be fainting.”
Montague turned quickly, and observed that Barton did
indeed look deadly pale. He hastened to his side.
“My dear fellow, are you ill?” he asked anxiously.
The question was unheeded, and twice repeated, ere Barton
stammered —
“I saw him — by –-, I saw him!”
“Him! — the wretch — who — where now? — where is he?” cried
Montague, looking around him.
“I saw him — but he is gone,” repeated Barton, faintly.
“But where — where? For God’s sake speak,” urged Montague,
vehemently.
“It is but this moment — here,” said he.
“But what did he look like — what had he on — what did he
wear — quick, quick,” urged his excited companion, ready to
dart among the crowd and collar the delinquent on the spot.
“He touched your arm — he spoke to you — he pointed to me.
God be merciful to me, there is no escape,” said Barton, in
the low, subdued tones of despair.
Montague had already bustled away in all the flurry of
mingled hope and rage; but though the singular personnel of
the stranger who had accosted him was vividly impressed upon
his recollection, he failed to discover among the crowd even
the slightest resemblance to him.
After a fruitless search, in which he enlisted the
services of several of the bystanders, who aided all the
more zealously as they believed he had been robbed, he at
length, out of breath and baffled, gave over the attempt.
“Ah, my friend, it won’t do,” said Barton, with the faint
voice and bewildered, ghastly look of one who had been
stunned by some mortal shock; “there is no use in
contending; whatever it is, the dreadful association between
me and it is now established — I shall never escape — never!”
“Nonsense, nonsense, my dear Barton; don’t talk so,” said
Montague, with something at once of irritation and dismay;
“you must not, I say; we’ll jockey the scoundrel yet; never
mind, I say — never mind.”
It was, however, but labour lost to endeavour henceforward
to inspire Barton with one ray of hope; he became
desponding.
This intangible and, as it seemed, utterly inadequate
influence was fast destroying his energies of intellect,
character, and health. His first object was now to return
to Ireland, there, as he believed, and now almost hoped,
speedily to die.
To Ireland accordingly he came, and one of the first faces
he saw upon the shore was again that of his implacable and
dreaded attendant. Barton seemed at last to have lost not
only all enjoyment and every hope in existence, but all
independence of will besides. He now submitted himself
passively to the management of the friends most nearly
interested in his welfare.
With the apathy of entire despair he implicitly assented
to whatever measures they suggested and advised; and as a
last resource it was determined to remove him to a house of
Lady L–-‘s, in the neighbourhood of Clontarf, where, with
the advice of his medical attendant, who persisted in his
opinion that the whole train of consequences resulted merely
from some nervous derangement, it was resolved that he was
to confine himself strictly to the house, and make use only
of those apartments which commanded a view of an enclosed
yard, the gates of which were to be kept jealously locked.
Those precautions would certainly secure him against the
casual appearance of any living form that his excited
imagination might possibly confound with the spectre which,
as it was contended, his fancy recognized in every figure
that bore even a distant or general resemblance to the
peculiarities with which his fancy had at first invested it.
A month or six weeks’ absolute seclusion under these
conditions, it was hoped might, by interrupting the series
of these terrible impressions, gradually dispel the
predisposing apprehensions, and the associations which had
confirmed the supposed disease, and rendered recovery
hopeless.
Cheerful society and that of his friends was to be
constantly supplied, and on the whole, very sanguine
expectations were indulged in, that under the treatment thus
detailed the obstinate hypochondria of the patient might at
length give way.
Accompanied, therefore, by Lady L–-, General Montague
and his daughter — his own affianced bride — poor
Barton — himself never daring to cherish a hope of his
ultimate emancipation from the horrors under which his life
was literally wasting away — took possession of the
apartments, whose situation protected him against the
intrusions from which he shrank with such unutterable
terror.
After a little time, a steady persistence in this system
began to manifest its results in a very marked though
gradual improvement, alike in the health and spirits of the
invalid. Not, indeed, that anything at all approaching
complete recovery was yet discernible. On the contrary, to
those who had not seen him since the commencement of his
strange sufferings, such an alteration would have been
apparent as might well have shocked them.
The improvement, however, such as it was, was welcomed
with gratitude and delight, especially by the young lady,
whom her attachment to him, as well as her now singularly
painful position, consequent on his protracted illness,
rendered an object scarcely one degree less to be
commiserated than himself.
A week passed — a fortnight — a month — and yet there had
been no recurrence of the hated visitation. The treatment
had, so far forth, been followed by complete success. The
chain of associations was broken. The constant pressure
upon the over-tasked spirits had been removed, and, under
these comparatively favourable circumstances, the sense of
social community with the world about him, and something of
human interest, if not of enjoyment, began to reanimate him.
It was about this time that Lady L–- who, like most old
ladies of the day, was deep in family receipts, and a great
pretender to medical science, dispatched her own maid to the
kitchen garden with a list of herbs, which were there to be
care fully culled and brought back to her housekeeper for
the purpose stated. The handmaiden, however, returned with
her task scarce half completed, and a good deal flurried and
alarmed. Her mode of accounting for her precipitate retreat
and evident agitation was odd and, to the old lady,
startling.
SOFTENED
IT appeared that she had repaired to the kitchen garden,
pursuant to her mistress’s directions, and had there begun
to make the specified election among the rank and neglected
herbs which crowded one corner of the enclosure; and while
engaged in this pleasant labour she carelessly sang a
fragment of an old song, as she said, “to keep herself
company.” She was, however, interrupted by an ill-natured
laugh; and, looking up, she saw through the old thorn hedge,
which surrounded the garden, a singularly ill-looking little
man, whose countenance wore the stamp of menace and
malignity, standing close to her at the other side of the
hawthorn screen.
She described herself as utterly unable to move or speak,
while he charged her with a message for Captain Barton, the
substance of which she distinctly remembered to have been to
the effect that he, Captain Barton, must come abroad as
usual, and show himself to his friends out of doors, or else
prepare for a visit in his own chamber.
On concluding this brief message, the stranger had, with a
threatening air, got down into the outer ditch, and, seizing
the hawthorn stems in his hands, seemed on the point of
climbing through the fence — a feat which might have been
accomplished without much difficulty.
Without, of course, awaiting this result, the
girl — throwing down her treasures of thyme and rosemary — had
turned and run, with the swiftness of terror, to the house.
Lady L–- commanded her, on pain of instant dismissal, to
observe an absolute silence respecting all that passed of
the incident which related to Captain Barton; and, at the
same time, directed instant search to be made by her men in
the garden and the fields adjacent. This measure, however,
was as usual unsuccessful, and, filled with indefinable
misgivings, Lady L–- communicated the incident to her
brother. The story, however, until long afterwards, went no
further, and, of course, it was jealously guarded from
Barton, who continued to amend though slowly.
Barton now began to walk occasionally in the court-yard
which I have mentioned, and which, being enclosed by a high
wall, commanded no view beyond its own extent. Here he,
therefore, considered himself perfectly secure: and, but for
a careless violation of orders by one of the grooms, he
might have enjoyed, at least for some time longer, his
much-prized immunity. Opening upon the public road, this
yard was entered by a wooden gate, with a wicket in it, and
was further defended by an iron gate upon the outside.
Strict orders had been given to keep both carefully locked;
but, spite of these, it had happened that one day, as Barton
was slowly pacing this narrow enclosure in his accustomed
walk, and reaching the farther extremity was turning to
retrace his steps, he saw the boarded wicket ajar, and the
face of his tormentor immovably looking at him through the
iron bars. For a few seconds he stood riveted to the
earth — breathless and bloodless — in the fascination
of that dreaded gaze, and then fell helplessly
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