It was time now; however, that they should make their appearance in the drawing-room; so, for the present, Varbarriere departed. He reached his dressing-room in an undefined state—a sort of light, not of battle fires, but of the dawn in his perspective; when, all on a sudden, came the image of a white-moustached, white-browed, grim old military man, glancing with a clear, cold eye, that could be cruel, from the first-class carriage window, up and down the platform of a gas-lit station, some hour and a half away from Slowton, and then sternly at his watch.
"The stupid old fogey!" thought Varbarriere, with a pang, as he revised his toilet hurriedly for the drawing-room. "Could that episode be evaded?"
There was no time to arrive at a clear opinion on this point, nor, indeed, to ascertain very clearly what his own wishes pointed at. So, in a state rather anarchic, he entered the gallery, en route for the drawing-room.
Monsieur Varbarriere slid forth, fat and black, from his doorway, with wondrous little noise, his bulk considered, and instantly on his retina, lighted by the lamp at the cross galleries, appeared the figure of a tall thin female, attired in a dark cloak and bonnet, seated against the opposite wall, not many steps away. Its head turned, and he saw Donica Gwynn. It was an odd sort of surprise; he had just been thinking of her.
"Oh! I did not think as you were here, sir; I thought you was in Lunnon."
"Yet here I am, and you too, both unexpectedly." A suspicion had crossed his mind. "How d'ye do, Mrs. Gwynn?"
"Well, I thank you, sir."
"Want me here?"
"No, sir; I was wrote for by missus please."
"Yes," he said very slowly, looking hard at her. "Very good, Mrs. Gwynn; have you anything to say to me?"
It would not do, of course, to protract this accidental talk; he did not care to be seen tête-à-tête with Donica Gwynn in the gallery.
"No, sir, please, I han't nothing to say, sir," and she courtesied.
"Very well, Mrs. Gwynn; we're quite secret, hey?" and with another hard look, but only momentary, in her face, he proceeded toward the head of the staircase.
"Beg parding, sir, but I think you dropt something." She was pointing to a letter, doubled up, and a triangular corner of which stuck up from the floor, a few yards away.
"Oh! thank you," said Varbarriere, quickly retracing his steps, and picking it up.
A terrible fact for the world to digest is this, that some of our gentlemen attorneys are about the most slobbering men of business to be found within its four corners. They will mislay papers, and even lose them; they are dilatory and indolent—quite the reverse of our sharp, lynx-eyed, energetic notions of that priesthood of Themis, and prone to every sort and description of lay irregularity in matters of order and pink tape.
Our friend Pelter had a first-rate staff, and a clockwork partner beside in Crowe, so that the house was a very regular one, and was himself, in good measure, the fire, bustle, and impetus of the firm. But every virtue has its peccant correspondent. If Pelter was rapid, decided, daring, he was also a little hand-over-hand. He has been seen in a hurry to sweep together and crunch like a snowball a drift of banknotes, and stuff them so impressed into the bottom of his great-coat pocket! What more can one say?
This night, fussing out at his bed-room door, he plucked his scented handkerchief from his pocket, and, as he crossed his threshold, with it flirted forth a letter, which had undergone considerable attrition in that receptacle, and was nothing the whiter, I am bound to admit, especially about the edges, for its long sojourn there.
Varbarriere knew the handwriting and I. M. M. initials in the left-hand lower angle. So, with a nod and a smile, he popped it into his trowsers pocket, being that degree more cautious than Pelter.
Sir Jekyl was once more in high spirits. To do him justice, he had not affected anything. There had been an effervescence—he hardly knew how it came about. But his dangers seemed to be dispersing; and, at the worst, were not negotiation and compromise within his reach?
Samuel Pelter, Esq., gentleman attorney and a solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, like most prosperous men, had a comfortable confidence in himself; and having heard that Lady Alice Redcliffe was quarrelling with her lawyer, thought there could be no harm in his cultivating her acquaintance.
The old lady was sitting in a high-backed chair, very perpendicularly, with several shawls about and around her, stiff and pale; but her dusky eyes peered from their sunken sockets, in grim and isolated observation.
Pelter strutted up. He was not, perhaps, a distinguished-looking man—rather, I fear, the contrary. His face was broad and smirking, with a short, broad, blue chin, and a close crop of iron-grey on his round head, and plenty of crafty crow's-feet and other lines well placed about.
He stood on the hearthrug, within easy earshot of Lady Alice, whom he eyed with a shrewd glance, "taking her measure," as his phrase was, and preparing to fascinate his prey.
"Awful smash that, ma'am, on the Smather and Sham Junction," said Pelter, having fished up a suitable topic. "Frightful thing—fourteen killed—and they say upwards of seventy badly hurt. I'm no chicken, Lady Alice, but by Jove, ma'am, I can't remember any such casualty—a regular ca-tas-trophe, ma'am!"
And Pelter, with much feeling, gently lashed his paunch with his watch-chain and bunch of seals, an obsolete decoration, which he wore—I believe still wears.
Lady Alice, who glowered sternly on him during this speech, nodded abruptly with an inarticulate sound, and then looked to his left, at a distant picture.
"I trust I see you a great deal better, Lady Alice. I have the pleasure, I believe, to address Lady Alice Redcliffe—aw, haw, h'm," and the attorney executed his best bow, a ceremony rather of agility than grace. "I had the honour of seeing you, Lady Alice Redcliffe, at a shower-flow—flower-show, I mean—in the year—let me see—egad, ma'am, twelve—no—no—thirteen years ago. How time does fly! Of course all them years—thirteen, egad!—has not gone for nothing. I dare say you don't perceive the alterations in yourself—no one does—I wish no one else did—that was always my wish to Mrs. P. of a morning—my good lady, Mrs. Pelter—ha, ha, ha! Man can't tether time or tide, as the Psalm says, and every year scribbles a wrinkle or two. You were suffering, I heard then, ma'am, chronic cough, ma'am—and all that. I hope it's abated—I know it will, ma'am—my poor lady is a martyr to it—troublesome thing—very—awful troublesome! Lady Alice."
There was no reply, Lady Alice was still looking sternly at the picture.
"I remember so well, ma'am, you were walking a little lame then, linked with Lord Lumdlebury—(we have had the honour to do business occasionally for his lordship)—and I was informed by a party with me that you had been with Pincendorf. I don't think much of them jockeys, ma'am, for my part; but if it was anything of a callosity—"
Without waiting for any more, Lady Alice Redcliffe rose in solemn silence to her full height, beckoned to Beatrix, and said grimly—
"I'll change my seat, dear, to the sofa—will you help me with these things?"
Lady Alice glided awfully to the sofa, and the gallant Mr. Pelter instituted a playful struggle with Beatrix for possession of the shawls.
"I remember the time, miss, I would not have let you carry your share; but, as I was saying to Lady Alice Redcliffe—"
He was by this time tucking a shawl about her knees, which, so soon as she perceived, she gasped to Beatrix—
"Where's Jekyl?—I can't have this any longer—call him here."
"As I was saying to you, Lady Alice, ma'am, our joints grow a bit rusty after sixty; and talking of feet, I passed the Smather and Slam Junction, ma'am, only two hours after the collision; and, egad! there were three feet all in a row cut off by the instep, quite smooth, ma'am, lying in the blood there, a pool as long as the passage up-stairs—awful sight!"
Lady Alice rose up again, with her eyes very wide, and her mouth very close, apparently engaged in mental prayer, and her face angry and pink, and she beckoned with tremulous fingers to Sir Jekyl, who was approaching with one of his provoking smiles.
"I say, Mr. Pelter, my friend Doocey wants you over there; they're at logger-heads about a law point, and I can't help them."
"Hey! if it's practice I can give them a wrinkle maybe;" and away stumped the attorney, his fists in his pockets, smirking, to the group indicated by his host.
"Hope I haven't interrupted a conversation? What can I do for you?" said Sir Jekyl, gaily.
"What do you mean, Jekyl Marlowe—what can you mean by bringing such persons here? What pleasure can you possibly find in low and dreadful society?—none of your family liked it. Where did you find that man? How on earth did you procure such a person? If I could—if I had been well enough, I'd have rung the bell and ordered your servant to remove him. I'd have gone to my bed-room, sir, only that even there I could not have felt safe from his intrusions. It's utterly intolerable and preposterous!"
"I had no idea my venerable friend, Pelter, could have pursued a lady so cruelly; but rely upon me, I'll protect you."
"I think you had better cleanse your house of such persons; at all events, I insist they shan't be allowed to make their horrible sport of me!" said Lady Alice, darting a fiery glance after the agreeable attorney.
"Can you tell me, child, anything about that horrible fat old Frenchman, who has begun to speak English since his return?" asked Lady Jane Lennox of Beatrix, whom she stopped, just touching her arm with the tip of her finger, as she was passing. Lady Jane was leaning back indolently, and watching the movements of M. Varbarriere with a disagreeable interest.
"That's Monsieur Varbarriere," answered Beatrix.
"Yes, I know that; but who is he—what is he? I wish he were gone," replied she.
"I really know nothing of him," replied Beatrix, with a smile.
"Yes, you do know something about him: for instance, you know he's the uncle of that handsome young man who accompanied him." This Lady Jane spoke with a point which caused on a sudden a beautiful scarlet to tinge the young girl's cheeks.
Lady Jane looked at her, without a smile, without archness, with a lowering curiosity and something of pain, one might fancy, even of malignity.
Lady Jane hooked her finger in Beatrix's bracelet, and lowering her eyes to the carpet, remained silent, it seemed to the girl undecided whether to speak or not on some doubtful subject. With a vague interest Beatrix watched her handsome but sombre countenance, till Lady Jane appearing to escape from her thoughts, with a little toss of her beautiful head and a frown, said, looking up—
"Beatrix, I have such frightful dreams sometimes. I am ill, I think; I am horribly nervous to-night."
"Would you like to go to your room? Maybe if you were to lie down, Lady Jane—"
"By-and-by, perhaps—yes." She was still stealthily watching Varbarriere.
"I'll go with you—shall I?" said Beatrix.
"No, you shan't," answered Lady Jane, rudely.
"And why, Lady Jane?" asked Beatrix, hurt and surprised.
"You shall never visit my room; you are a good little creature. I could have loved you, Beatrix, but now I can't."
"Yet I like you, and you meet me so! why is this?" pleaded Beatrix.
"I can't say, little fool; who ever knows why they like or dislike? I don't. The fault, I suppose, is mine, not yours. I never said it was yours. If you were ever so little wicked," she added, with a strange little laugh, "perhaps I could; but it is not worth talking about," and with a sudden change from this sinister levity to a seriousness which oscillated strangely between cruelty and sadness, she said—
"Beatrix, you like that young man, Mr. Strangways?" Again poor Beatrix blushed, and was about to falter an exculpation and a protest; but Lady Jane silenced it with a grave and resolute "Yes—you like him;" and after a little pause, she added—"Well, if you don't marry him, marry no one else;" and shortly after this, Lady Jane sighed heavily.
This speech of hers was delivered in a way that prevented evasion or girlish hypocrisy, and Beatrix had no answer but that blush which became her so; and dropping her eyes to the ground, she fell into a reverie, from which she was called up by Lady Jane, who said suddenly—
"What can that fat Monsieur Varbarriere be? He looks like Torquemada, the Inquisitor—mysterious, plausible, truculent—what do you think? Don't you fancy he could poison you in an ice or a cup of coffee; or put you into Cardinal Ballue's cage, and smile on you once a year through the bars?"
Beatrix smiled, and looked on the unctuous old gentleman with an indulgent eye, comparatively.
"I can't see him so melodramatically, Lady Jane," she laughed. "To me he seems a much more commonplace individual, a great deal less interesting and atrocious, and less like the abbot."
"What abbot?" said Lady Jane, sharply, "Now really that's very odd."
"I meant," said Beatrix, laughing, "the Abbot of Quedlinberg, in Canning's play, who is described, you know, as very corpulent and cruel."
"Oh, I forgot; I don't think I ever read it; but it chimed in so oddly with my dreams."
"How, what do you mean?" cried Beatrix, amused.
"I dreamed some one knocked at night at my door, and when I said 'come in,' that Monsieur Varbarriere put in his great face, with a hood on like a friar's, smiling like—like an assassin; and somehow I have felt a disgust of him ever since."
"Well, I really think he would look rather well in a friar's frock and hood," said Beatrix, glancing at the solemn old man again with a little laugh. "He would do very well for Mrs. Radcliff's one-handed monk, or Schedone, or some of those awful ecclesiastics that scare us in books."
"I think him positively odious, and I hate him," said Lady Jane, quietly rising. "I mean to steal away—will you come with me to the foot of the stair?"
"Come," whispered Beatrix; and as Lady Jane lighted her candle, in that arched recess near the foot of the stair, where, in burnished silver, stand the files of candles, awaiting the fingers which are to bear them off to witness the confidences of toilet or of dejection, she said—
"Well, as you won't take me with you, we must part here. Good-night, Lady Jane."
Lady Jane turned as if to kiss her, but only patted her on the cheek, and said coldly—
"Good-bye, little fool—now run back again."
When Lady Jane reached the gallery at the top of the staircase, she, too, saw Donica Gwynn seated where Varbarriere had spoken to her.
"Ha! Donica," cried she suddenly, in the accents of early girlhood, "I'm so glad to see you, Donica. You hardly know me now?"
And Lady Jane, in the light of one transient, happy smile, threw her jewelled arms round the neck of the old housekeeper, whose visits of weeks at a time to Wardlock were nearly her happiest remembrances of that staid old mansion.
"You dear old thing! you were always good to me; and I such a madcap and such a fury! Dull enough now, Donnie, but not a bit better."
"My poor Miss Jennie!" said old Donica Gwynn, with a tender little laugh, her head just a little on one side, looking on her old pet and charge with such a beautiful, soft lighting up of love in her hard old face as you would not have fancied could have beamed there. Oh! most pathetic mystery, how in our poor nature, layer over layer, the angelic and the evil, the mean and the noble, lie alternated. How sometimes, at long intervals, in the wintriest life and darkest face, the love of angels will suddenly beam out, and show you, still unwrecked, the eternal capacity for heaven.
"And grown such a fine 'oman—bless ye—I allays said she would—didn't I?"
"You always stood up for me, old Donnie Don. Come into my room with me now, and talk. Yes—come, and talk, and talk, and talk—I have no one, Bonnie, to talk with now. If I had I might be different—I mean better. You remember poor mamma, Donnie—don't you?"
"Dear! to be sure—yes, and a nice creature, and a pretty—there's a look in your face sometimes reminds me on her, Miss Jennie. And I allays said you'd do well—didn't I?—and see what a great match, they tell me, you a' made! Well well! and how you have grown!—a fine lady, bless you," and she laughed so softly over those thin, girlish images of memory, you'd have said the laugh was as far away and as sad as the remembrance.
"Sit down, Donnie Don," she said, when they had entered the room. "Sit down, and tell me everything—how all the old people are, and how the old place looks—you live there now? I have nothing to tell, only I'm married, as you know—and—and I think a most good-for-nothing creature."
"Ah, no, pretty Miss Jane, there was good in you always, only a little bit hasty, and that anyone as had the patience could see; and I knowed well you'd be better o' that little folly in time."
"I'm not better, Donnie—I'm worse—I am worse, Donnie. I know I am—not better."
"Well, dear! and jewels, and riches, and coaches, and a fine gentleman adoring you—not very young, though. Well, maybe all the better. Did you never hear say, it's better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave?"
"Yes, Donnie, it's very well; but let us talk of Wardlock—and he's not a fine man, Donnie, who put that in your head—he's old, and ugly, and"—she was going to say stupid, but the momentary bitterness was rebuked by an accidental glimpse of the casket in which his splendid present was secured—"and tell me about Wardlock, and the people—is old Thomas Jones there still?"
"No, he's living at Glastonhowe now, with his grandson that's married—very happy; but you would not believe how old he looks, and they say can't remember nothink as he used to, but very comfortable."
"And Turpin, the gardener?"
"Old Turpin be dead, miss, two years agone; had a fit a few months before, poor old fellow, and never was strong after. Very deaf he was of late years, and a bit cross sometimes about the vegetables, they do say; but he was a good-natured fellow, and decent allays; and though he liked a mug of ale, poor fellow, now and then, he was very regular at church."
"Poor old Turpin dead! I never heard it—and old? he used to wear a kind of flaxen wig."
"Old! dearie me, that he was, miss, you would not guess how old—there's eighty-five years on the grave-stone that Lady Alice put over him, from the parish register, in Wardlock churchyard, bless ye!"
"And—and as I said just now about my husband, General Lennox, that he was old—well, he is old, but he's a good man, and kind, and such a gentleman."
"And you love him—and what more is needed to make you both happy?" added Donica; "and glad I am, miss, to see you so comfortably married—and such a nice, good, grand gentleman; and don't let them young chaps be coming about you with their compliments, and fine talk, and love-making."
"What do you mean, woman? I should hope I know how to behave myself as well as ever Lady Alice Redcliffe did. It is she who has been talking to you, and, I suppose, to every one, the stupid, wicked hag."
"Oh, Miss Jennie, dear!"
"Well, Donnie, don't talk about her; talk about Wardlock, and the people, and the garden, and the trees, and old Wardlock church," said Lady Jane, subsiding almost as suddenly as she flamed up. "Do you remember the brass tablet about Eleanor Faukes, well-beloved and godly, who died in her twenty-second year, in the year of grace sixteen hundred and thirty-four? See how I remember it! Poor Eleanor Faukes! I often think of her—and do you remember how you used to make me read the two lines at the end of the epitaph? 'What you are I was; what I am you shall be.' Do you remember?"
"Ay, miss, that I do. I wish I could think o' them sorts o' things allays—it's very good, miss."
"Perhaps it is, Donnie. It's very sad and very horrible, at all events, death and judgment," answered Lady Jane.
"Have you your old Bible yet, miss?"
"Not here," answered Lady Jane, colouring a little; but recollecting, she said, "I have got a very pretty one, though," and she produced a beautiful volume bound in velvet and gold.
"A deal handsomer, Miss Jennie, but not so well read, I'm afeared," said Donica Gwynn, looking at the fresh binding and shining gilt leaves.
"There it is, Donnie Don; but I feel like you, and I do like the old one best, blurred and battered; poor old thing, it looked friendly, and this like a fashionable chaplain. I have not seen it for a long time, Donnie; perhaps it's lost, and this is only a show one, as you see."
And after a few seconds she added, a little bitterly, almost angrily, "I never read my Bible now. I never open it," and then came an unnatural little laugh.
"Oh! Miss Jennie, dear—I mean my Lady Jane—don't say that, darling—that way, anyhow, don't say it. Why should not you read your Bible, and love it, better now nor ever, miss—the longer you live the more you'll want it, and when sorrow comes, what have you but that?"
"It's all denunciation, all hard names, and threats, Donnie. If people believed themselves what they say every Sunday in church, miserable sinners, and I dare say they are, they'd sicken and quake at sight of it. I hope I may come to like it some day, Donnie," she added, with a short sigh.
"I mind, Miss Jennie—I mean my Lady Jane."
"No, you're to call me Jennie still, or I'll drop Donnie Don, and call you Mrs. Gwynn," said Lady Jane, with her hands on Donica's thin shoulders, playfully, but with a very pensive face and tone.
Donica smiled for a moment, and then her face saddened too, and she said—
"And I mind, Miss Jennie, when it was the same way with me, only with better reason, for I was older than you, and had lived longer than ever you did without a thought of God; but I tell you, miss, you'll find your only comfort there at last; it is not much, maybe, to the like o' me, that can't lay her mind down to it, but it's somethink; ay, I mind the time I durst not open it, thinking I'd only meet summat there to vex me. But 'tisn't so: there's a deal o' good nature in the Bible, and ye'll be sure to stumble on somethink kind whenever you open it."
Lady Jane made no answer. She looked down with a careworn gaze on her white hand, the fleeting tenement of clay; jewelled rings glimmered on its fingers—the vanities of the world, and under it lay the Bible, the eternal word. She was patting the volume with a little movement that made the brilliants flash. You would have thought she was admiring her rings, but that her eyes were so sad and her gaze so dreamy.
"And I hear the mistress, Lady Alice, a-coming up—yes, 'tis her voice. Good-night, Miss Jennie, dear."
"Good-night, dear old Donnie."
"And you'll promise me you'll read a bit in it every night."
"Where's the use in promising, Donnie? Don't we promise everything—the whole Christian religion, at our baptism—and how do we keep it?"
"You must promise you'll read, if 'twas only a verse every night, Miss Jennie, dear—it may be the makin' o' ye. I hear Lady Alice a-calling."
"You're a good old thing—I like you, Donnie—you'd like to make me better—happier, that is—and I love you—and I promise for this night, at all events, I will read a verse, and maybe more, if it turns out good-natured, as you say. Good-night."
And she shook old Gwynn by both hands, and kissed her; and as she parted with her, said—
"And, Donnie, you must tell my maid I shan't want her to-night—and I will read, Donnie—and now, good-night again."
So handsome Lady Jane was alone.
"It seems to me as if I had not time to think—God help me, God help me," said Lady Jane. "Shall I read it? That odious book, that puts impossibilities before us, and calls eternal damnation eternal justice!"
"Good-night, Jane," croaked Lady Alice's voice, and the key turned in the door.
With a pallid glance from the corners of her eyes, of intense contempt—hatred, even, at the moment, she gazed on the door, as she sate with her fingers under her chin; and if a look could have pierced the panels, hers would have shot old Lady Alice dead at the other side. For about a minute she sat so, and then a chilly little laugh rang from her lips; and she thought no more for a while of Lady Alice, and her eyes wandered again to her Bible.
"Yes, that odious book! with just power enough to distract us, without convincing—to embitter our short existence, without directing it; I hate it."
So she said, and looked as if she would have flung it into the farthest corner of the room. She was spited with it, as so many others are, because it won't do for us what we must do for ourselves.
"When sorrow comes, poor Donnie says—when it comes—little she knows how long it has been here! Life—such a dream—such an agony often. Surely it pays the penalty of all its follies. Judgment indeed! The all-wise Creator sitting in judgment upon creatures like us, living but an hour, and walking in a dream!"
This kind of talk with her, as with many others, was only the expression of a form of pain. She was perhaps in the very mood to read, that is, with the keen and anxious interest that accompanies and indicates a deep-seated grief and fear.
It was quite true what she said to old Donica. These pages had long been sealed for her. And now, with a mixture of sad antipathy and interest, as one looks into a coffin, she did open the book, and read here and there in a desultory way, and then, leaning on her hand, she mused dismally; then made search for a place she wanted, and read and wept, wept aloud and long and bitterly.
The woman taken, and "set in the midst," the dreadful Pharisees standing round. The Lord of life, who will judge us on the last day, hearing and saving! Oh, blessed Prince, whose service is perfect freedom, how wise are thy statutes! "More to be desired are they than gold—sweeter also than honey." Standing between thy poor tempted creatures and the worst sorrow that can befall them—a sorrow that softens, not like others, as death approaches, but is transformed, and stands like a giant at the bedside. May they see thy interposing image—may they see thy face now and for ever.
Rest for the heavy-laden! The broken and the contrite he will not despise. Read and take comfort, how he dealt with that poor sinner. Perfect purity, perfect mercy. Oh, noblest vision that ever rose before contrite frailty! Lift up the downcast head—let the poor heart break no more—you shall rise from the dust an angel.
Suddenly she lifted up her pale face, with an agony and a light on her countenance, with hands clasped, and such a look from the abyss, in her upturned eyes.
Oh! was it possible—could it be true? A friend—such a friend!
Then came a burst of prayer—wild resolutions—agonised tears. She knew that in all space, for her, was but one place of safety—to lie at the wounded feet of her Saviour, to clasp them, to bathe them with her tears. An hour—more—passed in this agony of stormy hope breaking in gleams through despair. Prayer—cries for help, as from the drowning, and vows frantic—holy, for the future.
"Yes, once more, thank God, I can dare with safety—here and now—to see him for the last time. In the morning I will conjure old Lady Alice to take me to Wardlock. I will write to London. Arthur will join me there. I'd like to go abroad—never into the world again—never—never—never. He will be pleased. I'll try to make amends. He'll never know what a wretch I've been. But he shall see the change, and be happier. Yes, yes, yes." Her beautiful long hair was loose, its rich folds clasped in her strained fingers—her pale upturned face bathed in tears and quivering—"The Saviour's feet!—No happiness but there—wash them with my tears—dry them with this hair." And she lifted up her eyes and hands to heaven.
Poor thing! In the storm, as cloud and rack fly by, the momentary gleam that comes—what is it? Do not often these agitations subside in darkness? Was this to be a lasting sunshine, though saddened for her? Was she indeed safe now and for ever?
But is there any promise that repentance shall arrest the course of the avenger that follows sin on earth? Are broken health or blighted fame restored when the wicked man "turneth away from the wickedness that he hath committed;" and do those consequences that dog iniquity with "feet of wool and hands of iron," stay their sightless and soundless march so soon as he begins to do "that which is lawful and right?" It is enough for him to know that he that does so "shall save his soul alive."
"May I see you, Monsieur Varbarriere, to-morrow, in the room in which I saw you to-day, at any hour you please after half-past eleven?" inquired Lady Alice, a few minutes after that gentleman had approached her.
"Certainly, madam; perhaps I can at this moment answer you upon points which cause you anxiety; pray command me."
And he sate like a corpulent penitent on a low prie-dieu chair beside her knee, and inclined his ear to listen.
"It is only to learn whether my—my poor boy's son, my grandson, the young man in whom I must feel so deep an interest, is about to return here?"
"I can't be quite certain, madam, of that; but I can promise that he will do himself the honour to present himself before you, whenever you may please to appoint, at your house of Wardlock."
"Yes, that would be better still. He could come there and see his old grandmother. I would like to see him soon. I have a great deal to say to him, a great deal to tell him that would interest him; and the pictures; I know you will let him come. Do you really mean it, Monsieur Varbarriere?"
M. Varbarriere smiled a little contemptuously, and bowed most deferentially.
"Certainly madam, I mean what I say; and if I did not mean it, still I would say I do."
There was something mazy in this sentence which a little bewildered old Lady Alice's head, and she gazed on Varbarriere with a lack-lustre frown.
"Well, then, sir, the upshot of the matter is that I may rely on what you say, and expect my grandson's visit at Wardlock?"
"Certainly, madam, you may expect it," rejoined Varbarriere, oracularly.
"And pray, Monsieur Varbarriere, are you married?" inquired the old lady, with the air of a person who had a right to be informed.
"Alas, madam, may I say Latin?—Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem; you stir up my deepest grief. I am, indeed, what you call an old bachelor."
"Well, so I should suppose; I don't see what business you would have had to marry."
"Nor I either," he replied.
"And you are very rich, I suppose."
"The rich man never says he is rich, and the poor man never says he is poor. What shall I say? Pretty well! Will that do?"
"H'm, yes; you ought to make a settlement, Monsieur Varbarriere."
"On your grandson, madam?"
"Yes, my grandson, he's nothing the worse of that, sir—and your nephew."
"Madam, the idea is beneficent, and does honour to your heart. I have, to say truth, had an idea of doing something for him by my will, though not by settlement; you are quite in advance of me, madam—I shall reflect."
Monsieur Varbarriere was, after his wont, gravely amusing himself, so gravely that old Lady Alice never suspected an irony. Old Lady Alice had in her turn taken up the idea of a solution of all family variance, by a union between Guy Deverell and Beatrix, and her old brain was already at the settlements.
"Lady Alice, you must positively give us up our partner, Monsieur Varbarriere, our game is arrested; and, egad, Pelter, poor fellow, is bursting with jealousy!"
Lady Alice turned disdainfully from Sir Jekyl.
"Monsieur Varbarriere, pray don't allow me to detain you now. I should be very glad to see you, if you had no particular objection, to-morrow."
"Only too happy; you do me, madam, a great deal of honour;" and with a bow and a smile Monsieur Varbarriere withdrew to the whist-table.
He did not play that night by any means so well as usual. Doocey, who was his partner, was, to say the least, disappointed, and Sir Jekyl and Sir Paul made a very nice thing of it, in that small way which makes domestic whist-players happy and serene. When they wound up, Doocey was as much irritated as a perfectly well-bred gentleman could be.
"Well, Sir Paul; we earned our winnings, eh? Four times the trick against honours, not bad play, I think," said Sir Jekyl, as they rose.
"Captain Doocey thinks our play had nothing to do with it," observed Sir Paul, with a faint radiance of complacent banter over his bluff face, as he put his adversary's half-crowns into his trowsers pocket.
"I never said that, Sir Paul, of course; you mistake me, but we might, don't you think, Monsieur Varbarriere, have played a little better? for instance, we should have played our queen to the lead of spades. I'm sure that would have given us the trick, don't you see, and you would have had the lead, and played diamonds, and forced Sir Jekyl to ruff with his ace, and made my knave good, and that would have given us the lead and trick."
"Our play goes for nothing, you see, Sir Paul," said Sir Jekyl.
"No; Captain Doocey thinks play had nothing to do with it," said Sir Paul Blunket.
"'Gad, I think play had everything to do with it—not yours, though," said Doocey, a little tartly.
"I must do you all justice," interposed Varbarriere, "you're all right—everyone played well except me. I do pretty well when I'm in the vein, but I'm not to-night; it was a very bad performance. I played execrably, Captain Doocey."
"Oh! no, I won't allow that; but you know once or twice you certainly did not play according to your own principles, I mean, and I couldn't therefore see exactly what you meant, and I dare say it was as much my fault as yours."
And Doocey, with his finger on Varbarriere's sleeve, fell into one of those resumés which mysteriously interest whist-players, and Varbarriere listened to his energetic periods with his hands in his pockets, benignant but bored, and assented with a good grace to his own condemnation. And smothering a yawn as he moved away, again pleaded guilty to all the counts, and threw himself on the mercy of the court.
"What shall we do to-morrow?" exclaimed Sir Jekyl, and he heard a voice repeat "to-morrow," and so did Varbarriere. "I'll turn it over, and at breakfast I'll lay half a dozen plans before you, and you shall select. It's a clear frosty night; we shall have a fine day. You don't leave us, Mr. Pelter, till the afternoon, d'ye see? and mind, Lady Alice Redcliffe sits in the boudoir, at the first landing on the great stair; the servant will show you the way; don't fail to pay her a visit, d'ye mind, Pelter; she's huffed, you left her so suddenly; don't mind her at first; just amuse her a little, and I think she's going to change her lawyer."
Pelter, with his hands in his pockets, smiled shrewdly and winked on Sir Jekyl.
"Thanks; I know it, I heard it; you can give us a lift in that quarter, Sir Jekyl, and I shan't forget to pay my respects."
When the ladies had gone, and the gentlemen stood in groups by the fire, or sat listless before it, Sir Jekyl, smiling, laid his hand on Varbarriere's shoulder, and asked him in a low tone—
"Will you join Pelter in my room, and wind up with a cigar?"
"I was going, that is, tempted, only ten minutes ago, to ask leave to join your party," began Varbarriere.
"It is not a party—we should be only three," said Sir Jekyl, in an eager whisper.
"All the more inviting," continued Varbarriere, smiling. "But I suddenly recollected that I shall have rather a busy hour or two—three or four letters to write. My people of business in France never give me a moment; they won't pay my rent or cork a bottle, my faith! without a letter."
"Well, I'm sorry you can't; but you must make it up to me, and see, you must take two or three of these to your dressing-room," and he presented his case to M. Varbarriere.
"Ha! you are very good; but, no; I like to connect them with your room, they must not grow too common, they shall remain a treat. No, no, I won't; ha, ha, ha! Thank you very much," and he waved them off, laughing and shaking his head.
Somehow he could not brook accepting this trifling present. To be sure, here he was a guest at free quarters, but at this he stuck; he drew back and waved away the cigar-case. It was not logical, but he could not help it.
When Pelter and Sir Jekyl sat in the Baronet's chamber, under their canopy of tobacco-smoke over their last cigar,
"See, Pelter," said Sir Jekyl, "it won't do to seem anxious; the fact is I'm not anxious; I believe he has a lot of money to leave that young fellow. Suppose they marry; the Deverells are a capital old family, don't you see, and it will make up everything, and stop people talking about—about old nonsense. I'll settle all, and I don't care a curse, and I'll not be very long in the way. I can't keep always young, I'm past fifty."
"Judging by his manner, you know, I should say any proposition you may have to make he'd be happy to listen to," said Mr. Pelter.
"You're sleepy, Pelter."
"Well, a little bit," said the attorney, blinking, yawning, and grinning all together.
"And, egad, I think you want to be shaved," said Sir Jekyl, who did not stand on ceremony with his attorney.
"Should not wonder," said Mr. Pelter, feeling his chin over sleepily with his finger and thumb. "My shave was at half-past four, and what is it now?—half-past eleven, egad! I thought it was later. Good-night, Sir Jekyl—those are cigars, magnificent, by Jove!—and about that Strangways' business, I would not be in too great a hurry, do you see? I would not open anything, till I saw whether they were going to move, or whether there was anything in it. I would not put it in his head, d'ye see, hey?" and from habit Pelter winked.
And with that salutation, harmless as the kiss apostolic, Mr. Pelter, aided by a few directions from Sir Jekyl, toddled away to his bedchamber yawning, and the Baronet, after his wont, locked himself into his room in very tolerable spirits.
There was a sofa in Varbarriere's dressing-room, on which by this time, in a great shawl dressing-gown, supine lay our friend; like the painted stone monument of the Chief Justice of Chester in Wardlock church, you could see on the wall sharply defined in shadow the solemn outline of his paunch. He was thinking—not as we endeavour to trace thought in narrative, like a speech, but crossing zigzag from point to point, and back and forward. A man requires an audience, and pen and paper, to think in train at all. His ideas whisked and jolted on somewhat in this fashion:—
"It is to be avoided, if possible. My faith! it is now just twelve o'clock! A dangerous old block-head. I must avoid it, if only for time to think in. There was nothing this evening to imply such relations—Parbleu! a pleasant situation if it prove all a mistake. These atrabilious countrymen and women of mine are so odd, they may mislead a fellow accustomed like me to a more intriguing race and a higher finesse. Ah! no; it is certainly true. The fracas will end everything. That old white monkey will be sure to blunder me into it. Better reconsider things, and wait. What shall I tell him? No excuse, I must go through with it, or I suppose he will call for pistols—curse him! I'll give Sir Jekyl a hint or two. He must see her, and make all ready. The old fool will blaze away at me, of course. Well! I shall fight him or not, as I may be moved. No one in this country need fight now who does not wish it. Rather a comfortable place to live in, if it were not for the climate. I forgot to ask Jacques whether Guy took all his luggage! What o'clock now? Come, by my faith! it is time to decide."
Varbarriere sat up on the side of his sofa.
"Who brought that woman, Gwynn, here? What do they want of her?" It was only the formula by which interrogatively to express the suspicion that pointed at Sir Jekyl and his attorney. "Soft words for me while tampering with my witnesses, then laugh at me. Why did not I ask Lady Alice whether she really wrote for her?"
Thus were his thoughts various as the ingredients of that soup called harlequin, which figures at low French taverns, in which are floating bits of chicken, cheese, potato, fish, sausage, and so forth—the flavour of the soup itself is consistent, nevertheless. The tone of Varbarriere's ruminations, on the whole, was decided. He wished to avert the exposure which his interference alone had invited.
He looked at his watch—he had still a little more than half an hour for remedial thought and action—and now, what is to be done to prevent ce vieux singe blanc from walking into the green chamber, and keeping watch and ward at his wife's bedside until that spectre shall emerge through the wall, whom with a curse and a stab he was to lay?
Well, what precise measures were to be taken? First he must knock up Sir Jekyl in his room, and tell him positively that General Lennox was to be at Marlowe by one o'clock, having heard stories in town, for the purpose of surprising and punishing the guilty. Sir Jekyl would be sharp enough to warn Lady Jane; or should he suggest that it would be right to let her know, in order to prevent her from being alarmed at the temper and melodramatics of her husband, and to secure that coolness and preparation which were necessary? It required some delicacy and tact, but he was not afraid. Next, he must meet General Lennox, and tell him in substance that he had begun to hope that he had been himself practised upon. Yes, that would do—and he might be as dark as he pleased on the subject of his information.
Varbarriere lighted his bed-room candle, intending to march forthwith to Sir Jekyl's remote chamber.
Great events, as we all know, turn sometimes upon small pivots. Before he set out, he stood for a moment with his candle in one hand, and in his reverie he thrust the other into the pocket of his voluminous black trowsers, and there it encountered, unexpectedly, the letter he had that evening picked up on the floor of the gallery. It had quite dropped out of his mind. Monsieur Varbarriere was a Jupiter Scapin. He had not the smallest scruple about reading it, and afterwards throwing it into the fire, though it contained other men's secrets, and was another man's property.
This was a letter from Sir Jekyl Marlowe to Pelter and Crowe, and was in fact upon the special subject of Herbert Strangways. Unlucky subject! unlucky composition! Now there was, of course, here a great deal of that sort of communication which occurs between a clever attorney and his clever client, which is termed "privileged," and is not always quite fit to see the light. Did ever beauty read letter of compliment and adoration with keener absorption?
Varbarriere's face rather whitened as he read, and his fat sneer was not pleasant to see.
He got through it, and re-commenced. Sometimes he muttered and sometimes he thought; and the notes of this oration would have read nearly thus:—
"So the question is to be opened whether the anonymous payment—he lies, it was in my name!—through the bankers protects me technically from pursuit; and I'm to be 'run by the old Hebrew pack from cover to cover,' over the Continent—bravo!—till I vanish for seven years more." Here Monsieur Varbarriere laughed in lurid contempt.
The letter went on in the same vein—contemptuous, cruel, he fancied. Everyone is cruel in self-defence; and in its allusions and spirit was something which bitterly recalled the sufferings which in younger and weaker days that same Baronet, pursuing the same policy, had inflicted upon him. Varbarriere remembered when he was driven to the most ignominious and risky shifts, to ridiculous disguises; he remembered his image in the cracked shaving-glass in the garret in his lair near Notre Dame—the red wig and moustache, and the goggles.
How easily an incautious poke will re-awake the dormant neuralgia of toothache; and tooth, cheek, ear, throat, brain, are all throbbing again in the re-induced anguish! With these sharp and vivid recollections of humiliation, fear, and suffering, all stirred into activity by this unlucky letter, that savage and vindictive feeling which had for so long ruled the life of Herbert Strangways, and had sunk into an uneasy doze under the narcotic of this evening's interview, rose up suddenly, wide awake and energetic.
He looked at his watch. The minute-hand showed him exactly how long he had been reading this confidence of client to attorney. "You will, will you?" murmured Varbarriere, with his jaw a little fiercely set, and a smile. "He will checkmate me, he thinks, in two or three moves. He does not see, clever fellow, that I will checkmate him in one!"
Now, this letter had preceded all that had occurred this evening to soften old animosities—though, strictly examined, that was not very much. It did not seem quite logical then, that it should work so sudden a revolution. I cannot, however, say positively; for in Varbarriere's mind may have long lain a suspicion that Sir Jekyl was not now altogether what he used to be, that he did not quite know all he had inflicted, and that time had made him wiser, and therefore gentler of heart. If so, the letter had knocked down this hypothesis, and its phrases, one or two of them, were of that unlucky sort which not only recalled the thrill of many an old wound, but freshly galled that vanity which never leaves us, till ear and eye grow cold, and light and sound are shut out by the coffin-lid.
So Varbarriere, being quite disenchanted, wondered at his own illusions, and sighed bitterly when he thought what a fool he had been so near making of himself. And thinking of these things, he stared grimly on his watch, and by one of those movements that betray one's abstraction, held it to his ear, as if he had fancied it might have gone down.
There it was, thundering on at a gallop. The tread of unseen fate approaching. Yes, it was time he should go. Jacques peeped in.
"You've done as I ordered?"
"Yes Monsieur."
"Here, lend me a hand with my cloak—very good. The servants, the butler, have they retired?"
"So I believe, Monsieur."
"My hat—thanks. The lights all out on the stairs and lobbies?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Go before—is that lighted?"
"Yes, sir."
This referred to one of those little black lanterns which belong to Spanish melodrama, with a semi-cylindrical horn and a black slide. We have most of us seen such, and handled if not possessed them.
"Leporello! hey, Jacques?" smiled Varbarriere sardonically, as he drew his short black cloak about him.
"Monsieur is always right," acquiesced the man, who had never heard of Leporello before.
"Get on, then."
And the valet before, the master following, treading cautiously, they reached the stair-head, where Varbarriere listened for a moment, then descended and listened again at the foot, and so through the hall into the long gallery, near the end of which is a room with a conservatory.
This they entered. The useful Jacques had secured the key of the glass door into the conservatory, which also opened the outer one; and Varbarriere, directing him to wait there quietly till his return, stepped out into the open air and faint moonlight. A moment's survey was enough to give him the lie of the ground, and recognising the file of tufted lime-trees, rising dark in the mist, he directed his steps thither, and speedily got upon the broad avenue, bordered with grass and guarded at either side by these rows of giant limes.
On reaching the carriage-way, standing upon a slight eminence, Varbarriere gazed down the misty slope toward the gate-house, and then toward Marlowe Manor, in search of a carriage or a human figure. Seeing none, he strolled onward toward the gate, and soon did see, airy and faint in the haze and distance, a vehicle approaching. It stopped some two hundred yards nearer the gate than he, a slight figure got out, and after a few words apparently, the driver turned about, and the slim, erect figure came gliding stiffly along in his direction. As he approached Varbarriere stood directly before him.
"Ha! here I am waiting, General," said Varbarriere, advancing. "I—I suppose we had better get on at once to the house?"
General Lennox met him with a nod.
"Don't care, sir. Whatever you think best," answered the General, as sternly as if he were going into action.
"Thanks for your confidence, General. I think so;" and side by side they walked in silence for a while toward the house.
"Lady Alice Redcliffe here?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's well. And, sir," he continued, suddenly stopping short, and turning full on Varbarriere—"for God's sake, do you think it is certainly true?"
"You had better come, sir, and judge for yourself," pursued Varbarriere.
"D—— you, sir—you think I'll wait over your cursed riddles. I'd as soon wait in hell, sir. You don't know, sir—it's the tortures of the damned. Egad, no man has a right—no man could stand it."
"I think it is, sir. I think it's true, sir. I think it's true. I'm nearly sure it's true," answered Varbarriere, with a pallid frown, not minding his anathema. "How can I say more?"
General Lennox looked for a while on the ground, then up and about dismally, and gave his neck a little military shake, as if his collar sat uneasily.
"A lonely life for me, sir. I wish to God the villain had shot me first. I was very fond of her, sir—desperately fond—madness, sir. I was thinking I would go back to India. Maybe you'll advise with me, sir, to-morrow? I have no one."