In the midst of this animation the butler whispered in the ear of the Rev. Dives Marlowe, who, with a grave face, but hardly perceived, slid away, and met the Doctor in the hall.
"Aw—see—this is a—rather nasty case, I am bound to tell you, Mr. Marlowe; he's in a rather critical state. He'll see you, I dare say, by-and-by, and I hope he'll get on satisfactorily. I hope he'll do; but I must tell you, it's a—it's a—serious case, sir."
"Nothing since?" asked Dives, a good deal shocked.
"Nothing since, sir," answered the Doctor, with a nod, and his eyebrows raised as he stood ruminating a little, with his fists in his pockets. "But—but—you'll do this, sir, if you please—you'll call in some physician, in whom you have confidence, for I'll tell you frankly, it's not a case in which I'd like to be alone."
"It's very sudden, sir; whom do you advise?" said Dives, looking black and pallid.
"Well, you know, it ought to be soon. I'd like him at once—you can't send very far. There's Ponder, I would not desire better, if you approve. Send a fellow riding, and don't spare horse-flesh, mind, to Slowton. He'll find Ponder there if he's quick, and let him bring him in a chaise and four, and pay the fellows well, and they'll not be long coming. They'd better be quick, for there's something must be done, and I can't undertake it alone."
Together they walked out to the stable-yard, Dives feeling stunned and odd. The Doctor was reserved, and only waited to see things in train. Almost while Dives pencilled his urgent note on the back of a letter, the groom had saddled one of the hunters and got into his jacket, and was mounted and away.
Dives returned to the house. From the steps he looked with a sinking heart after the man cantering swiftly down the avenue, and saw him in the distance like a dwindling figure in a dream, and somehow it was to him an effort to remember what it was all about. He felt the cold air stirring his dark locks, streaked with silver, and found he had forgot his hat, and so came in.
"You have seen a great deal of art, Monsieur Varbarriere," said Drayton, accosting that gentleman admiringly, in the outer hall, where they were fitting themselves with their "wide-awakes" and "jerries." "It is so pleasant to meet anyone who really understands it and has a feeling for it. You seem to me to lean more to painting than to statuary."
"Painting is the more popular art, because the more literal. The principles of statuary are abstruse. The one, you see, is a repetition—the other a translation. Colour is more than outline, and the painter commands it. The man with the chisel has only outline, and must render nature into white stone, with the natural condition of being inspected from every point, and the unnatural one, in solid anatomy, of immobility. It is a greater triumph, but a less effect."
Varbarriere was lecturing this morning, according to his lights, more copiously and ex cathedrâ than usual. Perhaps his declamations and antithesis represented the constraint which he placed on himself, like those mental exercises which sleepless men prescribe to wrest their minds from anxious and exciting preoccupations.
"Do you paint, sir?" asked Drayton, who was really interested.
"Bah! never. I can make just a little scratching with my pencil, enough to remind. But paint—oh—ha, ha, ha!—no. 'Tis an art I can admire; but should no more think to practise than the dance."
And the ponderous M. Varbarriere pointed his toe and made a mimic pirouette, snapped his fingers, and shrugged his round shoulders.
"Alas! sir, the more I appreciate the dance, the more I despair of figuring in the ballet, and so with painting. Perhaps, though, you paint?"
"Well, I just draw a little—what you call scratching, and I have tried a little tinting; but I'm sure it's very bad. I don't care about fools, of course, but I should be afraid to show it to anyone who knew anything about it—to you, for instance," said Drayton, who, though conceited, had sense enough at times to be a little modest.
"What is it?" said Miss Blunket, skipping into the hall, with a pretty little basket on her arm, and such a coquettish little hat on, looking so naïve and girlish, and so remarkably tattooed with wrinkles. "Shall I run away—is it a secret?"
"Oh, no; we have no secrets," said Drayton.
"No secrets," echoed Varbarriere.
"And won't you tell? I'm such a curious, foolish, wretched creature;" and she dropped her eyes like a flower-girl in a play.
What lessons, if we only could take them, are read us every hour! What a giant among liars is vanity! Here was this withered witch, with her baptismal registry and her looking-glass, dressing herself like a strawberry girl, and fancying herself charming!
"Only about my drawings—nothing."
"Ah, I know. Did Mr. Drayton show them to you?"
"No, Mademoiselle; I've not been so fortunate."
"He showed them to me, though. It's not any harm to tell, is it? and they really are—Well, I won't say all I think of them."
"I was just telling Monsieur Varbarriere, it is not everyone I'd show those drawings to. Was not I, Monsieur?" said Drayton, with a fine irony.
"So he was, upon my honour," said Varbarriere, gravely.
"He did not mean it, though," simpered Miss Blunket, "if you can't—I'll try to induce him to show them to you; they are——Oh! here is Beatrix."
"How is your papa now, Mademoiselle?" asked Varbarriere, anxious to escape.
"Just as he was, I think, a little low, the Doctor says."
"Ah!" said Varbarriere, and still his dark eyes looked on hers with grave inquiry.
"He always is low for a day or two; but he says this will be nothing. He almost hopes to be down this evening."
"Ah! Yes. That's very well," commented Varbarriere, with pauses between, and his steady, clouded gaze unchanged.
"We are going to the garden; are you ready, darling?" said she to Miss Blunket.
"Oh, quite," and she skipped to the door, smiling this way and that, as she stood in the sun on the step. "Sweet day," and she looked back on Beatrix and the invitation, glanced slightly on Drayton, who looked loweringly after them unmoved, and thought—
"Why the plague does she spoil her walks with that frightful old humbug? There's no escaping that creature."
We have only conjecture as to which of the young ladies, now running down the steps, Mr. Drayton's pronouns referred to.
"You fish to-day?" asked Varbarriere, on whose hands time dragged strangely.
"We were thinking of going down to that pretty place Gryston. Linnett was there on Saturday morning. It was Linnett's trout you thought so good at luncheon."
And with such agreeable conversation they loitered a little at the door, and suddenly, with quick steps, there approached, and passed them by, an apparition.
It was old General Lennox. He had been walking in the park—about the grounds—he knew not where, since daybreak. Awfully stern he looked, fatigued, draggled he well might be, gloveless, one hand in his pocket, the other clenched on his thumb like a child's in a convulsion. His thoughts were set on something remote, for he brushed by the gentlemen, and not till he had passed did he seem to hear Drayton's cheery salutation, and stopping and turning towards them suddenly, he said, very grimly—
"Beg your pardon—"
"Nothing, General, only wishing you good-morning," answered Drayton.
"Yes, charming morning. I've been walking. I've been out—a—thank you," and that lead-coloured and white General vanished like a wicked ghost.
"'Gad, he looks as if he'd got a licking. Did you ever see a fellow look so queer?"
"He's been overworking his mind—business, you know—wants rest, I suspect," said Varbarriere, with a solemn nod.
"They say fellows make themselves mad that way. I wonder has he had any breakfast; did you see his trowsers all over mud?"
"I half envy your walk to Gryston," said Varbarriere, glancing up towards the fleecy clouds and blue sky, and down again to the breezy landscape. "It's worth looking at, a very pretty bit, that steep bridge and glen."
"No notion of coming; maybe you will?"
Varbarriere smiled and shook his head.
"No angler, sir, never was," he said.
"A bad day, rather, at all events," said Drayton; "a grey day is the thing for us."
"Ah, yes, a grey day; so my nephew tells me; a pretty good angler, I believe."
Varbarriere did not hear Drayton's answer, whatever it was; he was thinking of quite other things, and more and more feverishly every minute. The situation was for him all in darkness. But there remained on his mind the impression that something worse even than a guilty discovery had occurred last night, and the spectre that had just crossed them in the hall was not a sight to dissipate those awful shadows.
Old General Lennox stopped a servant on the stairs, and learned from the staring domestic where Lady Alice Redcliffe then was.
That sad and somewhat virulent old martyr was at that moment in her accustomed haunt, Lady Mary's boudoir, and in her wonted attitude over the fire, pondering in drowsy discontent over her many miseries, when a sharp knock at the door startled her nerves and awakened her temper.
Her "come in" sounded sharply, and she beheld for the first time in her life the General, a tall lean old man, with white bristles on brow and cheek, with his toilet disordered by long and rather rapid exercise, and grim and livid with no transient agitation.
"Lady Alice Redcliffe?" inquired he, with a stiff bow, remaining still inclined, his eyes still fixed on her.
"I am Lady Alice Redcliffe," returned that lady, haughtily, having quite forgotten General Lennox and all about him.
"My name is Lennox," he said.
"Oh, General Lennox? I was told you were here last night," said the old lady, scrutinising him with a sort of surprised frown; his dress and appearance were a little wild, and not in accordance with her ideas on military precision. "I am happy, General Lennox, to make your acquaintance. You've just arrived, I dare say?"
"I arrived yesterday—last night—last night late. I—I'm much obliged. May I say a word?"
"Certainly, General Lennox," acquiesced the old lady, looking harder at him—"certainly, but I must remind you that I have been a sad invalid, and therefore very little qualified to discuss or advise;" and she leaned back with a fatigued air, but a curious look nevertheless.
"I—I—it's about my wife, ma'am. We can—we can't live any longer together." He was twirling his gold eyeglass with trembling fingers as he spoke.
"You have been quarrelling—h'm?" said Lady Alice, still staring hard at him, and rising with more agility than one might have expected; and shutting the door, which the old General had left open, she said, "Sit down, sir—quarrelling, eh?"
"A quarrel, madam, that can never be made up—by ——, never." The General smote his gouty hand furiously on the chimneypiece as he thus spake.
"Don't, General Lennox, don't, pray. If you can't command yourself, how can you hope to bear with one another's infirmities? A quarrel? H'm."
"Madam, we've separated. It's worse, ma'am—all over. I thought, Lady—Lady—I thought, madam, I might ask you, as the only early friend—a friend, ma'am, and a kinswoman—to take her with you for a little while, till some home is settled for her; here she can't stay, of course, an hour. That villain! May —— damn him."
"Who?" asked Lady Alice, with a kind of scowl, quite forgetting to rebuke him this time, her face darkening and turning very pale, for she saw it was another great family disgrace.
"Sir Jekyl Marlowe, ma'am, of Marlowe, Baronet, Member of Parliament, Deputy Lieutenant," bawled the old General, with shrill and trembling voice. "I'll drag him through the law courts, and the divorce court, and the House of Lords." He held his right fist up with its trembling knuckles working, as if he had them in Sir Jekyl's cravat, "drag him through them all, ma'am, till the dogs would not pick his bones; and I'll shoot him through the head, by ——, I'll shoot him through the head, and his family ashamed to put his name on his tombstone."
Lady Alice stood up, with a face so dismal it almost looked wicked.
"I see, sir; I see there's something very bad; I'm sorry, sir; I'm very sorry; I'm very sorry."
She had a hand of the old General's in each of hers, and was shaking them with a tremulous clasp.
Such as it was, it was the first touch of sympathy he had felt. The old General's grim face quivered and trembled, and he grasped her hands too, and then there came those convulsive croupy sobs, so dreadful to hear, and at last tears, and this dried and bleached old soldier wept loud and piteously. Outside the door you would not have known what to make of these cracked, convulsive sounds. You would have stopped in horror, and fancied some one dying. After a while he said—
"Oh! ma'am, I was very fond of her—I was, desperately. If I could know it was all a dream, I'd be content to die. I wish, ma'am, you'd advise me. I'll go back to India, I think; I could not stay here. You'll know best, madam, what she ought to do. I wish everything the best for her—you'll see, ma'am—you'll know best."
"Quite—quite; yes, these things are best settled by men of business. There are papers, I believe, drawn up, arranged by lawyers, and things, and I'm sorry, sir—"
And old Lady Alice suddenly began to sob.
"I'll—I'll do what I can for the poor thing," she said. "I'll take her to Wardlock—it's quite solitary—no prying people—and then to—perhaps it's better to go abroad; and you'll not make it public sooner than it must be; and it's a great blow to me, sir, a terrible blow. I wish she had placed herself more under direction; but it's vain looking back—she always refused advice, poor, poor wretched thing! Poor Jennie! We must be resigned, sir; and—and, sir, for God's sake, no fighting—no pistoling. That sort of thing is never heard of now; and if you do, the whole world will be ringing with it, and the unfortunate creature the gaze of the public before she need be, and perhaps some great crime added—some one killed. Do you promise?"
"Ma'am, it's hard to promise."
"But you must, General Lennox, or I'll take measures to stop it this moment," cried Lady Alice, drying her eyes and glaring at him fiercely.
"Stop it! who'll stop it?" holloed the General with a stamp.
"You'll stop it, General," exclaimed the old lady; "your own common sense; your own compassion; your own self-respect; and not the less that a poor old woman that sympathises with you implores it."
There was here an interval.
"Ma'am, ma'am, it's not easy; but I will—I will, ma'am. I'll go this moment; I will, ma'am; I can't trust myself here. If I met him, ma'am, by Heaven I couldn't."
"Well, thank you, thank you, General Lennox—do go; there's not much chance of meeting, for he's ill; but go, don't stay a moment, and write to me to Wardlock, and you shall hear everything. There—go. Good-bye."
So the General was gone, and Lady Alice stood for a while bewildered, looking at the door through which he had vanished.
It is well when these sudden collapses of the overwrought nerves occur. More dejected, more broken, perhaps, he looked, but much more like the General Lennox whom his friends remembered. Something of the panic and fury of his calamity had subsided, too; and though the grief must, perhaps, always remain pretty much unchanged, yet he could now estimate the situation more justly, and take his measures more like a sane man.
In this better, if not happier mood, Varbarriere encountered him in that overshadowed back avenue which leads more directly than the main one to the little town of Marlowe.
Varbarriere was approaching the house, and judged, by the General's slower gait, that he was now more himself.
The large gentleman in the Germanesque felt hat raised that grotesque head-gear, French fashion, as Lennox drew nigh.
The General, with two fingers, made him a stern, military salute in reply, and came suddenly to a standstill.
"May I walk a little with you, General Lennox?" inquired Varbarriere.
"Certainly, sir. Walk? By all means; I'm going to London," rejoined the General, without, however, moving from the spot where he had halted.
"Rather a long stretch for me," thought Varbarriere, with one of those inward thrills of laughter which sometimes surprise us in the gravest moods and in the most unsuitable places. He looked sober enough, however, and merely said—
"You, know, General, there's some one ill up there," and he nodded mysteriously toward the house.
"Is there? Ay. Well, yes, I dare say," and he laughed with a sudden quaver. "I was not sure; the old woman said something. I'm glad, sir."
"I—I think I know what it is, sir," said Varbarriere.
"So do I, sir," said the General, with another short laugh.
"You recollect, General Lennox, what you promised me?"
"Ay, sir; how can I help it?" answered he.
"How can you help it! I don't quite see your meaning," replied Varbarriere, slowly. "I can only observe that it gives me new ideas of a soldier's estimate of his promise."
"Don't blame me, sir, if I lost my head a little, when I saw that villain there, in my room, sir, by ——" and the General cursed him here parenthetically through his clenched teeth; "I felt, sir, as—as if the sight of him struck me in the face—mad, sir, for a minute—I suppose, mad, sir; and—it occurred. I say, sir, I can't help it—and I couldn't help it, by —— I couldn't."
Varbarriere looked down with a peevish sneer on the grass and innocent daisies at his feet, his heel firmly placed, and tapping the sole of his boot from that pivot on the sward, like a man beating time to a slow movement in an overture.
"Very good, sir! It's your own affair. I suppose you've considered consequences, if anything should go wrong?"
And without awaiting an answer, he turned and slowly pursued his route toward the house. I don't suppose, in his then frame of mind, the General saw consequences very clearly, or cared about them, or was capable, when the image of Sir Jekyl presented itself, of any emotions but those of hatred and rage. He had gone now, at all events; the future darkness; the past irrevocable.
In the hall Varbarriere met the Reverend Dives Marlowe.
"Well, sir, how is Sir Jekyl?" asked he.
The parson looked bilious and lowering.
"To say truth, Monsieur, I can't very well make out what the Doctor thinks. I suspect he does not understand very well himself. Gout, he says, but in a very sinking state; and we've sent for the physician at Slowton; and altogether, sir, I'm very uneasy."
I suppose if the blow had fallen, the reverend gentleman would in a little while have become quite resigned, as became him. There were the baronetcy and some land; but on the whole, when Death drew near smirking, and offered on his tray, with a handsome black pall over it, these sparkling relics of the late Sir Jekyl Marlowe, Bart., the Rev. Dives turned away; and though he liked these things well enough, put them aside honestly, and even with a sort of disgust. For Jekyl, as I have said, though the brothers could sometimes exchange a sharp sally, had always been essentially kind to him; and Dives was not married, and, in fact, was funding money, and in no hurry; and those things were sure to come to him if he lived, sooner or later.
"And what, may I ask, do you suppose it is?" inquired Varbarriere.
"Well, gout, you know—he's positive; and, poor fellow, he's got it in his foot, and a very nasty thing it is, I know, even there. We all of us have it hereditarily—our family." The apostle and martyr did not want him to suppose he had earned it. "But I am very anxious, sir. Do you know anything of gout? May it be there and somewhere else at the same time? Two members of our family died of it in the stomach, and one in the head. It has been awfully fatal with us."
Varbarriere shook his head. He had never had a declared attack, and had no light to throw on the sombre prospect. The fact is, if that solemn gentleman had known for certain exactly how matters stood, and had not been expecting the arrival of his contumacious nephew, he would have been many miles on his way to London by this time.
"You know—you know, sinking seems very odd as a symptom of common gout in the great toe," said Dives, looking in his companion's face, and speaking rather like a man seeking than communicating information. "We must not frighten the ladies, you know; but I'm very much afraid of something in the stomach, eh? and possibly the heart."
"After all, sir," said Varbarriere, with a brisk effort, "Doctor—a—what's his name?—he's but a rural practitioner—an apothecary—is not it so?"
"The people here say, however, he's a very clever fellow, though," said Dives, not much comforted.
"We may hear a different story when the Slowton doctor comes. I venture to think we shall. I always fancied when gout was well out in the toe, the internal organs were safe. Oh! there's the Bishop."
"Just talking about poor Jekyl, my lord," said Dives, with a sad smile of deference, the best he could command.
"And—and how is my poor friend and pupil, Sir Jekyl?—better, I trust," responded the apostle in gaiters and apron.
"Well, my lord, we hope—I trust everything satisfactory; but the Doctor has been playing the sphinx with us, and I don't know exactly what to make of him."
"I saw Doctor Pratt for a moment, and expressed my wish to see his patient—my poor pupil—before I go, which must be—yes—within an hour," said the Bishop, consulting his punctual gold watch. "But he preferred my postponing until Doctor—I forget his name—very much concerned, indeed, that a second should be thought necessary—from Slowton—should have arrived. It—it gives me—I—I can't deny, a rather serious idea of it. Has he had many attacks?"
"Yes, my lord, several; never threatened seriously, but once—at Dartbroke, about two years ago—in the stomach."
"Ah! I forgot it was the stomach. I remember his illness though," said the Bishop, graciously.
"Not actually the stomach—only threatened," suggested Dives, deferentially. "I have made acquaintance with it myself, too, slightly; never so sharply as poor Jekyl. I wish that other doctor would come! But even at best it's not a pleasant visitor."
"I dare say—I can well suppose it. I have reason to be very thankful. I've never suffered. My poor father knew what it was—suffered horribly. I remember him at Buxton for it—horribly."
The Bishop was fond of this recollection, people said, and liked it to be understood that there was gout in the family, though he could not show that aristocratic gules himself.
At this moment Tomlinson approached, respectfully—I might even say religiously—and with such a reverence as High-Churchmen make at the creed, accosted the prelate, in low tones like distant organ-notes, murmuring Sir Jekyl's compliments to "his lordship, and would be very 'appy to see his lordship whenever it might be his convenience." To which his lordship assented, with a grave "Now, certainly, I shall be most happy," and turning to Dives—
"This, I hope, looks well. I fancy he must feel better. Let us hope;" and with slightly uplifted hand and eyes, the good Bishop followed Tomlinson, feeling so oddly as he threaded the same narrow half-lighted passages, whose corners and panelling came sharply on his memory as he passed them, and ascended the steep back stair with the narrow stained-glass slits, by which he had reached, thirty years ago, the sick-chamber of the dying Sir Harry Marlowe.
The Bishop sighed, looking round him, as he stood on the lobby outside the little ante-room. The light fell through the slim coloured orifice opposite on the oak before him, just as it did on the day he last stood there. The banisters, above and below, looked on him like yesterday's acquaintances; and the thoughtful frown of the heavy oak beams overhead seemed still knit over the same sad problem.
"Thirty years ago!" murmured the Bishop, with a sad smile, nodding his silvery head slightly, as his saddened eyes wandered over these things. "What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou so regardest him?"
Tomlinson, who had knocked at the Baronet's door, returned to say he begged his lordship would step in.
So with another sigh, peeping before him, he passed through the small room that interposed, and entered Sir Jekyl's, and took his hand very kindly and gravely, pressing it, and saying in the low tone which becomes a sick-chamber—
"I trust, my dear Sir Jekyl, you feel better."
"Thank you, pretty well; very good of you, my lord, to come. It's a long way, from the front of the house—a journey. He told me you were in the hall."
"Yes, it is a large house; interesting to me, too, from earlier recollections."
"You were in this room, a great many years ago, with my poor father. He died here, you know."
"I'm afraid you're distressing yourself speaking. Yes; oddly enough, I recognised the passages and back stairs; the windows, too, are peculiar. The furniture, though, that's changed—is not it?"
"So it is. I hated it," replied Sir Jekyl. "Balloon-hacked blue silk things—faded, you know. It's curious you should remember, after such a devil of a time—such a great number of years, my lord. I hated it. When I had that fever here in this room—thirteen—fourteen years ago—ay, by Jove, it's fifteen—they were going to write for you."
"Excuse me, my dear friend, but it seems to me you are exerting yourself too much," interposed the prelate again.
"Oh dear no! it does me good to talk. I had all sorts of queer visions. People fancy, you know, they see things; and I used to think I saw him—my poor father, I mean—every night. There were six of those confounded blue-backed chairs in this room, and a nasty idea got into my head. I had a servant—poor Lewis—then a very trustworthy fellow, and liked me, I think; and Lewis told me the doctors said there was to be a crisis on the night week of the first consultation—seven days, you know."
"I really fear, Sir Jekyl, you are distressing yourself," persisted the Bishop, who did not like the voluble eagerness and the apparent fatigue, nevertheless, with which he spoke.
"Oh! it's only a word more—it doesn't, I assure you—and I perceived he sat on a different chair, d'ye see, every night, and on the fourth night he had got on the fourth chair; and I liked his face less and less every night. You know he hated me about Molly—about nothing—he always hated me; and as there were only six chairs, it got into my head that he'd get up on my bed on the seventh, and that I should die in the crisis. So I put all the chairs out of the room. They thought I was raving; but I was quite right, for he did not come again, and here I am;" and with these words there came the rudiments of his accustomed chuckle, which died out in a second or two, seeming to give him pain.
"Now, you'll promise me not to talk so much at a time till you're better. I am glad, sir—very glad, Sir Jekyl, to have enjoyed your hospitality, and to have even this opportunity of thanking you for it. It is very delightful to me occasionally to find myself thus beholden to my old pupils. I have had the pleasure of spending a few days with the Marquis at Queen's Dykely; in fact, I came direct from him to you. You recollect him—Lord Elstowe he was then? You remember Elstowe at school?"
"To be sure; remember him very well. We did not agree, though—always thought him a cur," acquiesced Sir Jekyl.
The Bishop cleared his voice.
"He was asking for you, I assure you, very kindly—very kindly indeed, and seems to remember his school-days very affectionately, and—and pleasantly, and quite surprised me with his minute recollections of all the boys."
"They all hated him," murmured Sir Jekyl. "I did, I know."
"And—and I think we shall have a fine day. I drive always with two windows open—a window in front and one at the side," said the Bishop, whose mild and dignified eyes glanced at the windows, and the pleasant evidences of sunshine outside, as he spoke, "I was almost afraid I should have to start without the pleasure of saying good-bye. You remember the graceful farewell in Lucretius? I venture to say your brother does. I made your class recite it, do you remember?"
And the Bishop repeated three or four hexameters with a look of expectation at his old pupil, as if looking to him to take up the recitation.
"Yes, I am sure of it. I think I remember; but, egad! I've quite forgot my Latin, any I knew," answered the Baronet, who was totally unable to meet the invitation; "I—I don't know how it is, but I'm sorry you have to go to-day, very sorry;—sorry, of course, any time, but particularly I feel as if I should get well again very soon—that is, if you were to stay. Do you think you can?"
"Thank you, my dear Marlowe, thank you very much for that feeling," said the good Bishop, much gratified, and placing his old hand very kindly in that of the patient, just as Sir Jekyl suddenly remembered his doing once at his bedside in the sick-house in younger days, long ago, when he was a school-boy, and the Bishop master; and both paused for a moment in one of those dreams of the past that make us smile so sadly.
The Bishop looked at his watch, and smiled, shaking his head.
"Time flies. I must, I fear, take my leave."
"Before you go," said Sir Jekyl, "I must tell you I've been thinking over my promise about that odious green chamber, and I'll pledge you my honour I'll fulfil it. I'll not leave a stone of it standing; I won't, I assure you. To the letter I'll fulfil it."
"I never doubted it, my dear Sir Jekyl."
"And must you really leave me to-day?"
"No choice, I regret."
"It's very unlucky. You can't think how your going affects me. It seems so odd and unlucky, so depressing just now. I'd have liked to talk to you, though I'm in no danger, and know it. I'd like to hear what's to be said, clergymen are generally so pompous and weak; and to be sure," he said, suddenly recollecting his brother, "there's Dives, who is neither—who is a good clergyman, and learned. I say so, of course, my lord, with submission to you; but still it isn't quite the same—you know the early association; and it makes me uncomfortable and out of spirits your going away. You don't think you could possibly postpone?"
"No, my dear friend, quite impossible; but I leave you—tell him I said so—in excellent hands; and I'm glad to add, that so far as I can learn you're by no means in a dying state."
The Bishop smiled.
"Oh! I know that," said Sir Jekyl, returning that cheerful expansion; "I know that very well, my Lord: a fellow always knows pretty well when he's in anything of a fix—I mean his life at all in question; it is not the least that, but a sort of feeling or fancy. What does Doctor Pratt say it is?"
"Oh! gout, as I understand."
"Ah! yes, I have had a good deal in my day. Do you think I could tempt you to return, maybe, when your business—this particular business, I mean—is over?"
The Bishop smiled and shook his head.
"I find business—mine at least—a very tropical plant; as fast as I head it down, it throws up a new growth. I was not half so hard worked, I do assure you, when I was better able to work, at the school, long ago. You haven't a notion what it is."
"Well, but you'll come back some time, not very far away?"
"Who knows?" smiled the Bishop. "It is always a temptation. I can say that truly. In the meantime, I shall expect to hear that you are much better. Young Marlowe—I mean Dives," and the Bishop laughed gently at the tenacity of his old school habits, "will let me hear; and so for the present, my dear Sir Jekyl, with many, many thanks for a very pleasant sojourn, and with all good wishes, I bid you farewell, and may God bless you."
So having shaken his hand, and kissing his own as he smiled another farewell at the door, the dignified and good prelate disappeared mildly from the room, Jekyl following him with his eyes, and sighing as the door closed on him.
As Sir Jekyl leaned back against his pillows, there arrived a little note, in a tall hand; some of the slim l's, b's, and so on, were a little spiral with the tremor of age.
"Lady Halice Redcliffe, Sir Jekyl, please sir, sends her compliments and hopes you may be able to read it, and will not leave for Warlock earlier than half-past one o'clock."
"Very well. Get away and wait in the outer room," said Sir Jekyl, flushing a little, and looking somehow annoyed.
"I hate the sight of her hand. It's sealed, too. I wish that cursed old woman was where she ought to be; and she chooses now because she knows I'm ill, and can't bear worry."
Sir Jekyl twirled the little note round in his fingers and thumb with a pinch. The feverish pain he was suffering did not improve his temper, and he was intemperately disposed to write across the back of the unopened note something to this effect:—"Ill and suffering; the pleasure of your note might be too much for me; pray keep it till to-morrow."
But curiosity and something of a dread that discovery had occurred prompted him to open it, and he read—
"Having had a most painful interview with unhappy General Lennox, and endured mental agitation and excitement which are too much for my miserable health and nerves, I mean to return to Wardlock as early to-day as my strength will permit, taking with me, at his earnest request, your victim."
"D—n her!" interposed Sir Jekyl through his set teeth.
"I think you will see," he read on, "that this house is no longer a befitting residence for your poor innocent girl. As I am charged for a time with the care of the ruined wife of your friend and guest, you will equally see that it is quite impossible to offer my darling Beatrix an asylum at Wardlock. The Fentons, however, will, I am sure, be happy to receive her. She must leave Marlowe, of course, before I do. While here, she is under my care; but this house is no home for her; and you can hardly wish that she should be sacrificed in the ruin of the poor wife whom you have made an outcast."
"Egad! it's the devil sent that fiend to torture me so. It's all about, I suppose," exclaimed Sir Jekyl, with a gasp. "Unlucky! The stupid old fribble, to think of his going off with his story to that Pharisaical old tattler!"
The remainder of the letter was brief.
"I do not say, Jekyl Marlowe, that I regret your illness. You have to thank a merciful Providence that it is unattended with danger; and it affords an opportunity for reflection, which may, if properly improved, lead to some awakening of conscience—to a proper estimate of your past life, and an amendment of the space that remains. I need hardly add, that an amended life involves reparation, so far as practicable, to all whom you or, in your interest, yours may have injured.
"In deep humiliation and sorrow,
"Alice Redcliffe."
"I wish you were in a deep pond, you plaguy old witch. That fellow, Herbert Strangways—Varbarriere—he's been talking to her. I know what she means by all that cant."
Then he read over again the passages about "your victim," and "General Lennox," your "friend and guest." And he knocked on the table, and called as well as he could—"Tomlinson," who entered.
"Where's General Lennox?"
"Can't say, Sir Jekyl, please, sir—'avn't saw him to-day."
"Just see, please, if he's in the house, and let him know that I'm ill, but very anxious to see him. You may say very ill, do you mind, and only wish a word or two."
Tomlinson bowed and disappeared.
"Don't care if he strikes me again. I've a word to say, and he must hear it," thought Sir Jekyl.
But Tomlinson returned with the intelligence that General Lennox had gone down to the town, and was going to Slowton station; and his man, with some of his things, followed him to the Marlowe Arms, in the town close by.
In a little while he called for paper, pen, and ink, and with some trouble wrote an odd note to old General Lennox.
"General Lennox,
"You must hear me. By ——," and here followed an oath and an imprecation quite unnecessary to transcribe. "Your wife is innocent as an angel! I have been the fiend who would, if he could, have ruined her peace and yours. From your hand I have met my deserts. I lie now, I believe, on my death-bed. I wish you knew the whole story. The truth would deify her and make you happy. I am past the age of romance, though not of vice. I speak now as a dying man. I would not go out of the world with a perjury on my soul; and, by ——, I swear your wife is as guiltless as an angel. I am ill able to speak, but will see and satisfy you. Bring a Bible and a pistol with you—let me swear to every answer I make you; and if I have not convinced you before you leave, I promise to shoot myself through the head, and save you from all further trouble on account of
"Jekyl Marlowe."
"Now see, Tomlinson, don't lose a moment. Send a fellow running, do you mind, and let him tell General Lennox I'm in pain—very ill—mind and—and all that; and get me an answer; and he'll put this in his hand."
Sir Jekyl was the sort of master who is obeyed. The town was hardly three-quarters of a mile away. His messenger accomplished the distance as if for a wager.
The waiter flourished his napkin in the hall of the Marlowe Arms, and told him—
"No General, nothing was there, as he heerd."
"Who do you want?" said the fat proprietress, with a red face and small eyes and a cap and satin bow, emerging from a side door, and superseding the waiter, who said—"A hofficer, isn't it?" as he went aside.
"Oh! from the Manor," continued the proprietress in a conciliatory strain, recognising the Marlowe button, though she did not know the man. "Can I do anything?"
And she instinctively dropped a courtesy—a deference to the far-off Baronet; and then indemnifying herself by a loftier tone to the menial.
"A note for General Lennox, ma'am."
"General Lennox?—I know, I think, a millentery man, white-'aired and spare?"
"I must give it 'im myself, ma'am, thankee," said he, declining the fat finger and thumb of the curious hostess, who tossed her false ringlets with a little fat frown, and whiffled—
"Here, tell him where's the tall, thin gemm'n, with white mistashes, that's ordered the hosses—that'll be him, I dessay," she said to the waiter, reinstated, and waddled away with a jingle of keys in her great pocket. So to the back yard they went, the thin, little, elderly waiter skipping in front, with a jerk or two of his napkin.
"Thankee, that's him," said the messenger.
The General was walking up and down the jolty pavement with a speed that seemed to have no object but to tire himself, his walking-stick very tightly grasped, his lips occasionally contracting, and his hat now and then making a vicious wag as he traversed his beat.
"Hollo!" said the General, drawing up suddenly, as the man stood before him with the letter, accosting him with his hand to his cap. "Hey! well, sir?"
"Letter, please, sir."
The General took it, stared at the man, I think, without seeing him, for a while, and then resumed his march, with his cane, sword-fashion, over his shoulder. The messenger waited, a little perplexed. It was not until he had made a third turn that the General, again observing the letter in his hand, looked at it, and again at the messenger, who was touching his cap, and stopping short, said—
"Well—ay! This?—aw—you brought it, didn't you?"
So the General broke it open—he had not his glasses with him—and, holding it far away, read a few lines with a dreadful glare, and then bursting all on a sudden into such a storm of oaths and curses as scared the sober walls of that unmilitary hostelry, he whirled his walking-stick in the air, with the fluttering letter extended toward the face of the astounded messenger, as if in another second he would sweep his head off.
At the sound of this hoarse screech the kitchen-wench looked open-mouthed out of the scullery-window with a plate dripping in her hand. "Boots," with his fist in a "Wellington," held his blacking-brush poised in air, and gazed also; and the hostler held the horse he was leading into the stable by the halter, and stood at the door gaping over his shoulder.
"Tell your master I said he may go to hell, sir," said the General, scrunching the letter like a snowball in his fist, and stamping in his fury.
What more he said I know not. The man withdrew, and, once or twice, turned about, sulkily, half puzzled and half angered, perhaps not quite sure whether he ought not to "lick" him.
"What'll be the matter now?" demanded the proprietress, looking from under her balustrade of brown ringlets from the back door.
"'Drat me if I know; he's a rum un, that he be," replied the man with the Marlowe button. "When master hears it he'll lay his whip across that old cove's shouthers, I'm thinking."
"I doubt he's not right in his head; he's bin a-walkin' up an' down the same way ever since he ordered the chaise, like a man beside himself. Will ye put them horses to?" she continued, raising her voice; "why, the 'arniss is on 'em this half-hour. Will ye put 'em to or no?" and so, in something of an angry panic, she urged on the preparations, and in a few minutes more General Lennox was clattering through the long street of the town, on his way to Slowton, and the London horrors of legal consultations, and the torture of the slow processes by which those whom God hath joined together are sundered.
"Send Donica Gwynn to me," said Lady Alice to the servant whom her bell had summoned to Lady Mary's boudoir.
When Donica arrived—
"Shut the door, Donica Gwynn," said she, "and listen. Come a little nearer, please. Sir Jekyl Marlowe is ill, and, of course, we cannot all stay here." Lady Alice looked at her dubiously.
"Fit o' the gout, my lady, I'm told."
"Yes, an attack of gout."
"It does not hold long with him, not like his poor father, Sir Harry, that would lie six months at a time in flannel. Sir Jekyl, law bless you, my lady! He's often 'ad his toe as red as fire overnight, and before supper to-morrow walking about the house. He says, Tomlinson tells me, this will be nothink at all; an' it might fret him sore, my lady, and bring on a worse fit, to see you all go away."
"Yes, very true, Gwynn; but there's something more at present," observed Lady Alice, demurely.
Donica folded her hands, and with curious eyes awaited her mistress's pleasure.
Lady Alice continued in a slightly altered tone—
"It's not altogether that. In fact, Gwynn, there has been—you're not to talk, d'ye see,—I know you don't talk; but there has been—there has been a something—a quarrel—between Lady Jane and her husband, the General; and for a time, at least, she will remain with me at Wardlock, and I may possibly go abroad with her for a little."
Donica Gwynn's pale sharp face grew paler and sharper, as during this announcement she eyed her mistress askance from her place near the door; and as Lady Alice concluded, Donica dropped her eyes to the Turkey carpet, and seemed to read uncomfortable mysteries in its blurred pattern. Then Donica looked up sharply, and asked—
"And, please, my lady, what is your ladyship's orders?"
"Well, Gwynn, you must get a 'fly' now from the town, and go on before us to Wardlock. We shall leave this probably in little more than an hour, in the carriage. Tell Lady Jane, with my compliments, that I hope she will be ready by that time—or no, you may give her my love—don't say compliments—and say, I will either go and see her in her room, or if she prefer, I will see her here, or anywhere else; and you can ask her what room at Wardlock she would like best—do you mind? Whatever room she would like best she shall have, except mine, of course, and the moment you get there you'll set about it."
"Yes, ma'am, please, my lady."
Donica looked at her mistress as if expecting something more; and her mistress looked away darkly, and said nothing.
"I'll return, my lady, I suppose, and tell you what Miss Jane says, ma'am?"
"Do," answered Lady Alice, and, closing her eyes, she made a sharp nod, which Donica knew was a signal of dismissal.
Old Gwynn, mounting the stairs, met Mrs. Sinnott with those keys of office which she had herself borne for so many years.
"Well, Mrs. Sinnott, ma'am, how's the master now?" she inquired.
"Doctor's not bin yet from Slowton, Mrs. Gwynn; we don't know nothink only just what you heard this morning from Mr. Tomlinson."
"Old Pratt, baint he here neither?"
"No, but the nurse be come."
"Oh! respeckable, I hope? But no ways, Mrs. Sinnott, ma'am, take my advice, and on no account don't you give her her will o' the bottle; there's none o' them hospital people but likes it—jest what's enough, and no more, I would say."
"Oh! no! no!" answered Mrs. Sinnott, scornfully. "I knows somethink o' them sort, too—leave 'em to me."
"Lady Alice going away this afternoon."
"And what for, Mrs. Gwynn?" asked the housekeeper.
"Sir Jekyl's gout."
"Fidgets! Tiresome old lass, baint she? law," said Mrs. Sinnott, who loved her not.
"She don't know Sir Jekyl's constitution like I does. Them little attacks o' gout, why he makes nothink o' them, and they goes and comes quite 'armless. I'm a-going back to Wardlock, Mrs. Sinnott, this morning, and many thanks for all civilities while 'ere, lest I should not see you when a-leavin'."
So with the housekeeper's smiles, and conventional courtesies, and shaking of hands, these ladies parted, and Mrs. Gwynn went on to the green chamber.
As she passed through the Window dressing-room her heart sank. She knew, as we are aware, a good deal about that green chamber, more than she had fancied Lady Jane suspected. She blamed herself for not having talked frankly of it last night. But Lady Jane's éclat of passion at one period of their interview had checked her upon any such theme; and after all, what could the green chamber have to do with it? Had not the General arrived express very late last night? It was some London story that sent him down from town in that hurry, and Sir Jekyl laid up in gout too. Some o' them jealous stories, and a quarrel over it. It will sure be made up again—ay, ay.
And so thinking, she knocked, and receiving no answer, she opened the door and peeped in. There was but a narrow strip of one shutter open.
"Miss Jennie, dear," she called. Still no answer. "Miss Jennie, darling." No answer still. She understood those sulky taciturnities well, in which feminine tempest sometimes subsides, and was not at all uneasy. On the floor, near the foot of the bed, lay the General's felt hat and travelling coat. Standing, there, she drew the curtain and saw Lady Jane, her face buried in the pillow, and her long hair lying wildly on the coverlet and hanging over the bedside.
"Miss Jennie, dear—Miss Jennie, darling; it's me—old Donnie, miss. Won't you speak to me?"
Still no answer, and Donica went round, beginning to feel uneasy, to the side where she lay.
"Miss Jennie, darling, it's me," she repeated, and placed her fingers on the young lady's shoulder. It was with an odd sense of relief she saw the young lady turn her face away.
"Miss Jennie, dear; it's me—old Donnie—don't you know me?" cried Donica once more. "Miss, dear, my lady, what's the matter you should take on so?—only a few wry words—it will all be made up, dear."
"Who told you—who says it will be made up?" said Lady Jane, raising her head slowly, very pale, and, it seemed to old Gwynn, grown so thin in that one night. "Don't mind—it will never be made up—no, Donnie, never; it oughtn't. Is my—is General Lennox in the house?"
"Gone down to the town, miss, I'm told, in a bit of a tantrum—going off to Lunnon. It's the way wi' them all—off at a word; and then cools, and back again same as ever."
Lady Jane's fingers were picking at the bedclothes, and her features were sunk and peaked as those of a fever-stricken girl.
"The door is shut to—outer darkness. I asked your God for mercy last night, and see what he has done for me!"
"Come, Miss Jennie, dear, you'll be happy yet. Will ye come with me to Wardlock?"
"That I will, Donnie," she answered, with a sad alacrity, like a child's.
"I'll be going, then, in half an hour, and you'll come with me."
Lady Jane's tired wild eyes glanced on the gleam of light in the half-open shutter with the wavering despair of a captive.
"I wish we were there. I wish we were—you and I, Donnie—just you and I."
"Well, then, what's to hinder? My missus sends her love by me, to ask you to go there, till things be smooth again 'twixt you and your old man, which it won't be long, Miss Jennie, dear."
"I'll go," said Lady Jane, gliding out of her bed toward the toilet, fluttering along in her bare feet and night-dress. "Donnie, I'll go."
"That water's cold, miss; shall I fetch hot?"
"Don't mind—no; very nice. Oh, Donnie, Donnie, Donnie! my heart, my heart! what is it?"
"Nothink, my dear—nothink, darlin'."
"I wish it was dark again."
"Time enough, miss."
"That great sun shining! They'll all be staring. Well, let them."
"Won't you get your things on, darling? I'll dress you. You'll take cold."
"Oh, Donnie! I wish I could cry. My head! I don't know what it is. If I could cry I think I should be better. I must see him, Donnie."
"But he's gone away, miss."
"Gone! Is he?"
"Ay, sure I told ye so, dear, only this minute. To Lunnon, I hear say."
"Oh! yes, I forgot; yes, I'll dress. Let us make haste. I wish I knew. Oh! Donnie, Donnie! oh! my heart, Donnie, Donnie—my heart's breaking."
"There, miss, dear, don't take on so; you'll be better when we gets into the air, you will. What will ye put on?—here's a purple mornin' silk."
"Yes; very nice. Thank you. Oh! Donnie, I wish we were away."
"So we shall, miss, presently, please God. Them's precious bad pins—Binney and Clew—bends like lead; there's two on 'em. Thompson's mixed shillin' boxes—them's the best. Miss Trixie allays has 'em. Your hair's beautiful, miss, allays was; but dearie me! what a lot you've got! and so beautiful fine! I take it in handfuls—floss silk—and the weight of it! Beautiful hair, miss. Dearie me, what some 'id give for that!"
Thus old Gwynn ran on; but fixed, pale, and wild was the face which would once have kindled in the conscious pride of beauty at the honest admiration of old Donnie, who did not rise into raptures for everyone and on all themes, and whose eulogy was therefore valuable.
"I see, Donnie—nothing bad has happened?" said Lady Jane, with a scared glance at her face.
"Bad? Nonsense! I told you, Miss Jennie, 'twould all be made up, and so it will, please God, miss."
But Lady Jane seemed in no wise cheered by her promises, and after a silence of some minutes, she asked suddenly, with the same painful look—
"Donnie, tell me the truth, for God's sake; how is he?"
Donica looked at her with dark inquiry.
"The General is gone, you know, ma'am."
"Stop—you know," cried Lady Jane, seizing her fiercely by the arm, with a wild fixed stare in her face.
"Who?" said Donica.
"Not he. I mean—"
"Who?" repeated Gwynn.
"How is Sir Jekyl?"
It seemed as if old Donica's breath was suspended. Shade after shade her face darkened, as with wide eyes she stared in the gazing face of Lady Jane, who cried, with a strange laugh of rage—
"Yes—Sir Jekyl—how is he?"
"Oh, Miss Jane!—oh, Miss Jane!—oh, Miss Jane!—and is that it?"
Lady Jane's face was dark with other fiercer passions.
"Can't you answer, and not talk?" said she.
Donica's eyes wandered to the far end of the room to the fatal recess, and she was shaking her head, as if over a tale of horror.
"Yes, I see, you know it all, and you'll hate me now, as the others will, and I don't care."
Suspicions are one thing—faint, phantasmal; certainties quite another. Donica Gwynn looked appalled.
"Oh! poor Miss Jennie!" she cried at last, and burst into tears. Before this old domestic Lady Jane was standing—a statue of shame, of defiance—the fallen angelic.
"You're doing that to make me mad."
"Oh! no, miss; I'm sorry."
There was silence for a good while.
"The curse of God's upon this room," said Donica, fiercely, drying her eyes. "I wish you had never set foot in it. Come away, my lady. I'll go and send at once for a carriage to the town, and we'll go together, ma'am, to Wardlock. Shall I, ma'am?"
"Yes, I'll go," said Lady Jane. "Let us go, you and I. I won't go with Lady Alice. I won't go with her."
"Good-bye, my lady; good-bye, Miss Jennie dear; I'll be here again presently."
Dressed for the journey, with her cloak on and bonnet, Lady Jane sat in an arm-chair, haggard, listless, watching the slow shuffling of her own foot upon the floor, while Donica departed to complete the arrangements for their journey.