Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - THE SCREAM - 60 Horror Tales in One Edition

“Yes, sir.”

His manner had changed, and I had returned to my accustomed formalities.

It was only a few days later that Dr. Bryerly actually did arrive at Knowl, quite unexpectedly, except, I suppose, by my father. He was to stay only one night.

He was twice closeted in the little study up-stairs with my father, who seemed to me, even for him, unusually dejected, and Mrs. Rusk inveighing against “them rubbitch,” as she always termed the Swedenborgians, told me “they were making him quite shaky-like, and he would not last no time, if that lanky, lean ghost of a fellow in black was to keep prowling in and out of his room like a tame cat.”

I lay awake that night, wondering what the mystery might be that connected my father and Dr. Bryerly. There was something more than the convictions of their strange religion could account for. There was something that profoundly agitated my father. It may not be reasonable, but so it is. The person whose presence, though we know nothing of the cause of that effect, is palpably attended with pain to anyone who is dear to us, grown odious, and I began to detest Dr. Bryerly.

It was a grey, dark morning, and in a dark pass in the gallery, near the staircase, I came full upon the ungainly Doctor, in his glossy black suit.

I think, if my mind had been less anxiously excited on the subject of his visit, or if I had not disliked him so much, I should not have found courage to accost him as I did. There was something sly, I thought, in his dark, lean face; and he looked so low, so like a Scotch artisan in his Sunday clothes, that I felt a sudden pang of indignation, at the thought that a great gentleman, like my father, should have suffered under his influence, and I stopped suddenly, instead of passing him by with a mere salutation, as he expected, “May I ask a question, Doctor Bryerly?”

“Certainly.”

“Are you the friend whom my father expects?”

“I don’t quite see.”

“The friend, I mean, with whom he is to make an expedition to some distance, I think, and for some little time?”

“No,” said the Doctor, with a shake of his head.

“And who is he?”

“I really have not a notion, Miss.”

“Why, he said that you knew,” I replied.

The Doctor looked honestly puzzled.

“Will he stay long away? pray tell me.”

The Doctor looked into my troubled face with inquiring and darkened eyes, like one who half reads another’s meaning; and then he said a little briskly, but not sharply —

“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure, Miss; no, indeed, you must have mistaken; there’s nothing that I know.”

There was a little pause, and he added —

“No. He never mentioned any friend to me.” I fancied that he was made uncomfortable by my question, and wanted to hide the truth. Perhaps I was partly right.

“Oh! Doctor Bryerly, pray, pray, who is the friend, and where is he going.”

“I do assure you,” he said, with a strange sort of impatience, “I don’t know; it is all nonsense.”

And he turned to go, looking, I think, annoyed and disconcerted.

A terrific suspicion crossed my brain like lightning.

“Doctor, one word,” I said, I believe, quite wildly. “Do you — do you think his mind is at all affected?”

“Insane?” he said, looking at me with a sudden, sharp inquisitiveness, that brightened into a smile. “Pooh, pooh! Heaven forbid! not a saner man in England.”

Then with a little nod he walked on, carrying, as I believed, notwithstanding his disclaimer, the secret with him. In the afternoon Doctor Bryerly went away.

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FOR MANY DAYS after our quarrel, Madame hardly spoke to me. As for lessons, I was not much troubled with them. It was plain, too, that my father had spoken to her, for she never after that day proposed our extending our walks beyond the precincts of Knowl.

Knowl, however, was a very considerable territory, and it was possible for a much better pedestrian than I to tire herself effectually, without passing its limits. So we took occasionally long walks.

After some weeks of sullenness, during which for days at a time she hardly spoke to me, and seemed lost in dark and evil abstraction, she once more, and somewhat suddenly, recovered her spirits, and grew quite friendly. Her gaieties and friendliness were not reassuring, and in my mind presaged approaching mischief and treachery. The days were shortening to the wintry span. The edge of the red sun had already touched the horizon as Madame and I, overtaken at the warren by his last beams, were hastening homeward.

A narrow carriage-road traverses this wild region of the park, to which a distant gate gives entrance. On descending into this unfrequented road, I was surprised to see a carriage standing there. A thin, sly postilion, with that pert, turned-up nose which the old caricaturist Woodward used to attribute to the gentlemen of Tewkesbury, was leaning on his horses, and looked hard at me as I passed. A lady who sat within looked out, with an extra-fashionable bonnet on, and also treated us to a stare. Very pink and white cheeks she had, very black glossy hair and bright eyes — fat, bold, and rather cross, she looked — and in her bold way she examined us curiously as we passed.

I mistook the situation. It had once happened before than an intending visitor at Knowl had entered the place by that park-road, and lost several hours in a vain search for the house.

“Ask him, Madame, whether they want to go to the house; I dare say they have missed their way,” whispered I.

“Eh bien, they will find again. I do not choose to talk to post-boys; allons!”

But I asked the man as we passed, “Do you want to reach the house?”

By this time he was at the horses’ heads, buckling the harness.

“Noa,” he said in a surly tone, smiling oddly on the winkers, but, recollecting his politeness he added, “Noa, thankee, misses, it’s what they calls a picnic; we’ll be takin’ the road now.”

He was smiling now on a little buckle with which he was engaged.

“Come — nonsense!” whispered Madame sharply in my ear, and she whisked me by the arm, so we crossed the little stile at the other side.

Our path lay across the warren, which undulates in little hillocks. The sun was down by this time, blue shadows were stretching around us, colder than the splendid contrast of the burnished sunset sky.

Descending over these hillocks we saw three figures a little in advance of us, not far from the path we were tracing. Two were standing smoking and chatting at intervals; one tall and slim, with a high chimney-pot, worn a little on one side, and a white great-coat buttoned up to the chin; the other shorter and stouter, with a dark-coloured wrapper. These gentlemen were facing rather our way as we came over the edge of the eminence, but turned their backs on perceiving our approach. As they did so, I remember so well each lowered his cigar suddenly with the simultaneousness of a drill. The third figure sustained the picnic character of the group, for he was repacking a hamper. He stood suddenly erect as we drew near, and a very ill-looking person he was, low-browed, square-chinned, and with a broad, broken nose. He wore gaiters, and was a little bandy, very broad, and had a closely-cropped bullet head, and deep-set little eyes. The moment I saw him, I beheld the living type of the burglars and bruisers whom I had so often beheld with a kind of scepticism in Punch. He stood over his hamper and scowled sharply at us for a moment; then with the point of his foot he jerked a little fur cap that lay on the ground into his hand, drew it tight over his lowering brows, and called to his companions, just as we passed him —“Hallo! mister. How’s this?”