Wylder's Hand

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

'Say what you will, but keep your temper—will you?' he answered, more like his angry self. But he checked the rising devil within him, and changed his tone; he did not want to quarrel—quite the reverse.

'I don't know really, Radie, why you should talk as you do. I don't want you to do anything—upon my honour I don't—only just to exercise your common sense—and you have lots of sense, Radie. Don't you think people have eyes to see, and ears and tongues in this part of the world? Don't you know very well, in a small place like this, they are all alive with curiosity? and if you choose to make such a tragedy figure, and keep moping and crying, and all that sort of thing, and look so funeste and miserable, you'll be sure to fix attention and set the whole d—d place speculating and gossiping? and really, Radie, you're making mountains of mole-hills. It is because you live so solitary here, and it is such a gloomy out-o'-the-way spot—so awfully dark and damp, nobody could be well here, and you really must change. It is the very temple of blue-devilry, and I assure you if I lived as you do I'd cut my throat before a month—you mustn't. And old Tamar, you know, such a figure! The very priestess of despair. She gives me the horrors, I assure you, whenever I look at her; you must not keep her, she's of no earthly use, poor old thing; and, you know, Radie, we're not rich enough—you and I—to support other people. You must really place yourself more cheerfully, and I'll speak to Chelford about Tamar. There's a very nice place—an asylum, or something, for old women—near—(Dollington he was going to say, but the associations were not pleasant)—near some of those little towns close to this, and he's a visitor, or governor, or whatever they call it. It is really not fair to expect you or me to keep people like that.'

'She has not cost you much hitherto, Stanley, and she will give you very little trouble hereafter. I won't part with Tamar.'

'She has not cost me much?' said Lake, whose temper was not of a kind to pass by anything. 'No; of course, she has not. I can't afford a guinea. You're poor enough; but in proportion to my expenses—a woman, of course, can live on less than half what a man can—I'm a great deal poorer than you; and I never said I gave her sixpence—did I? I have not got it to give, and I don't think she's fool enough to expect it; and, to say the truth, I don't care. I only advise you. There are some cheerful little cottages near the green, in Gylingden, and I venture to think, this is one of the very gloomiest and most uncomfortable places you could have selected to live in.'

Rachel looked drearily toward the window and sighed—it was almost a groan.

'It was cheerful always till this frightful week changed everything. Oh! why, why, why did you ever come?' She threw back her pale face, biting her lip, and even in that deepening gloom her small pearly teeth glimmered white; and then she burst into sobs and an agony of tears.

Captain Lake knew something of feminine paroxysms. Rachel was not given to hysterics. He knew this burst of anguish was unaffected. He was rather glad of it. When it was over he expected clearer weather and a calm. So he waited, saying now and then a soothing word or two.

'There—there—there, Radie—there's a good girl. Never mind—there—there.' And between whiles his mind, which, in truth, had a good deal upon it, would wander and pursue its dismal and perplexed explorations, to the unheard accompaniment of her sobs.

He went to the door, but it was not to call for water, or for old Tamar.
On the contrary, it was to observe whether she or the girl was listening.
But the house, though small, was built with thick partition walls, and
sounds were well enclosed in the rooms to which they belonged.

With Rachel this weakness did not last long. It was a gust—violent—soon over; and the 'o'er-charged' heart and brain were relieved. And she pushed open the window, and stood for a moment in the chill air, and sighed, and whispered a word or two over the closing flowers of her little garden toward the darkening glen, and with another great sigh closed the window, and returned.