Willing to Die: A Novel

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

he funeral was over; but the old house of Dorracleugh was not quiet again till the night fell, and there was no more to-ing and fro-ing in the stable-yard, and the last tenant had swallowed his last draught of beer, and mounted and ridden away through the mist, over the fells, to his distant farm.

The moon shone peacefully over mere and fell, and on the time-worn church of Golden Friars, and through the window, bright, on the grey flags that lie over Sir Harry Rokestone. Never did she keep serener watch over the first night of a mortal's sleep in his last narrow bed.

Richard Marston saw this pure light, and musing, looked from the window. It shone, he thought, over his wide estate. Beyond the mere, all but Clusted, for many a mile was his own. At this side, away in the direction of distant Haworth, a broad principality of moss and heath, with scattered stretches of thin arable and pasture, ran side by side with the Mardykes estate, magnificent in vastness, if not in rental.

His dreams were not of feudal hospitality and the hearty old-world life. His thoughts were far away from this grand scenery or lonely Dorracleugh. Ambition built his castles in the air; nothing very noble. It was not even the tawdry and tradesman-like ambition of modern times. He had no taste for that particular form of meanness, nor patience for its drudgery. He would subscribe to election funds, place his county influence at the disposal of the minister; spend money on getting and keeping a seat; be found in his place whenever a critical vote was impending; and by force of this, and of his county position, and the old name—for he would take the name of Rokestone, in spite of his uncle's awkward direction about his epitaph, and no one could question his relationship—by dint of all this, with, I daresay, the influence of a high marriage, he hoped to get on, not from place to place, but what would answer him as well, from title to title. First to revive the baronetage, and then, after some fifteen or twenty years more of faithful service, to become Baron Rokestone, of Dorracleugh.

It was not remorse, then, that kept the usurper's eyes wide open, as he lay that night in the dark in his bed, his brain in a fever. His conscience had no more life in it than the window-stone. It troubled him with no compunction. There was at his heart, on the contrary, a vindictive elation at having defeated with so much simplicity the unnatural will of his uncle.

Bright rose the sun next morning over Dorracleugh, a sun of good omen. Richard Marston had appointed three o'clock as the most convenient hour for all members of the conference, for a meeting and a formality. A mere formality, in truth, it was, a search for the will of Sir Harry Rokestone. Mr. Blount had slept at Dorracleugh. Mr. Jarlcot, a short, plump man, of five-and-fifty, with a grave face and a bullet head, covered with short, lank, black hair, accompanied by his confidential man, Mr. Spaight, arrived in his gig, just as the punctual clock of Dorracleugh struck three.

Very soon after the old vicar rode up, on his peaceable pony, and came into the drawing-room, where the little party were assembled, with sad, kind face, and gentle, old-fashioned ceremony, with a little powdering of dust in the wrinkles of his clerical costume.

It was with a sense of pleasant satire that Richard Marston had observed old Lemuel Blount ever since he had been assured that the expected will was not forthcoming. These holy men, how they love an annuity! Not that they like money, of course; that's Mammon; but because it lifts them above earthy cares, and gives them the power of relieving the wants of their fellow-Christians. How slyly the old gentleman had managed it! How thoughtful his appointing himself guardian to the young lady! What endless opportunities his powers over the settlements would present of making handsome terms for himself with an intending bridegroom!

On arriving, in full confidence that the will was safe in its iron repository, Christian could not have looked more comfortable when he enjoyed his famous prospect from the delectable mountains. But when it turned out that the will was nowhere, the same Christian, trudging on up the hill of difficulty in his old "burdened fashion," could not have looked more hang-dog and overpowered than he.

His low spirits, his sighs and ejaculations, amused Richard Marston extremely. When he heard him say to himself, when first he learned that the vicar had looked into the safe and found nothing, "How sad! How strange! How very sad!" as he stood at the window, with his head lowered, and his fingers raised, he was tempted to rebuke his audacity with some keen and cautious irony; but those who win may laugh—he could afford to be good-humoured, and a silent sneer contented him.