Guy Deverell, v. 1 of 2
by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu · English · Gutenberg #41228 · 423,250 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Guy Deverell, v. 1 of 2
Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
Release date: October 29, 2012 [eBook #41228]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUY DEVERELL, V. 1 OF 2 ***
COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS.
VOL. 803.
GUY DEVERELL BY J. S. LE FANU.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
* * * * *
GUY DEVERELL.
BY J. S. LE FANU,
AUTHOR OF "UNCLE SILAS," ETC.
_COPYRIGHT EDITION._
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
1865.
_The Right of Translation is reserved._
* * * * *
TO THAT WRITER,
SO GENIAL, SO BRILLIANT, SO PHILOSOPHIC,
WHOM ALL THE WORLD READS AS
HARRY LORREQUER AND AS CORNELIUS O'DOWD,
AND TO THAT FRIEND
HOW LOVED AND HONOURED!
KNOWN TO THE PRIVILEGED AS
CHARLES LEVER,
THIS STORY,
HOW UNWORTHY AN OFFERING ALL BUT HE WILL PERCEIVE,
IS DEDICATED
BY
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
I. Sir Jekyl Marlowe at the Plough Inn 1
II. The Baronet visits Wardlock Manor 12
III. Concerning two Remarkable Persons who appeared
in Wardlock Church 25
IV. The Green Chamber at Marlowe 35
V. Sir Jekyl bethinks him of Pelter and Crowe 46
VI. Sir Jekyl's Room is visited 56
VII. The Baronet pursues 63
VIII. The House begins to fill 71
IX. Dinner 79
X. Inquiries have been made by Messrs. Pelter and
Crowe 88
XI. Old Gryston Bridge 97
XII. The Strangers appear again 106
XIII. In the Drawing-room 114
XIV. Music 122
XV. M. Varbarriere converses with his Nephew 131
XVI. Containing a Variety of Things 141
XVII. The Magician draws a Diagram 150
XVIII. Another Guest prepares to come 159
XIX. Lady Alice takes Possession 167
XX. An Altercation 174
XXI. Lady Alice in Bed 182
XXII. How Everything went on 191
XXIII. The Divan 200
XXIV. Guy Strangways and M. Varbarriere converse 208
XXV. Lady Alice talks with Guy Strangways 215
XXVI. Some talk of a Survey of the Green Chamber 223
XXVII. M. Varbarriere talks a little more freely 230
XXVIII. Some private Talk of Varbarriere and Lady Alice
at the Dinner-table 238
XXIX. The Ladies and Gentlemen resume Conversation
in the Drawing-room 243
XXX. Varbarriere picks up Something about Donica Gwynn 250
XXXI. Lady Jane puts on her Brilliants 259
XXXII. Conciliation 266
XXXIII. Lady Jane and Beatrix play at Croquet 274
XXXIV. General Lennox receives a Letter 281
XXXV. The Bishop at Marlowe 290
XXXVI. Old Scenes recalled 296
XXXVII. In which Lady Alice pumps the Bishop 304
GUY DEVERELL.
CHAPTER I.
Sir Jekyl Marlowe at the Plough Inn.
The pretty little posting station, known as the Plough Inn, on the Old
London Road, where the Sterndale Road crosses it, was in a state of fuss
and awe, at about five o'clock on a fine sharp October evening, for Sir
Jekyl Marlowe, a man of many thousand acres, and M.P. for the county,
was standing with his back to the fire, in the parlour, whose bow-window
looks out on the ancient thoroughfare I have mentioned, over the row of
scarlet geraniums which beautify the window-stone.
"Hollo!" cried the Baronet, as the bell-rope came down in answer to an
energetic but not angry pull, and he received Mrs. Jones, his hostess,
who entered at the moment, with the dismantled bell-handle still in his
hand. "At my old tricks, you see. I've been doing you a mischief, hey?
but we'll set it right in the bill, you know. How devilish well you
look! wonderful girl, by Jove! Come in, my dear, and shut the door. Not
afraid of me. I want to talk of ducks and mutton-chops. I've had no
luncheon, and I'm awfully hungry," said the comely Baronet in a
continued chuckle.
The Baronet was, by that awful red-bound volume of dates, which is one
of the melancholy drawbacks of aristocracy, set down just then, and by
all whom it might concern, ascertainable to be precisely forty-nine
years and three months old; but so well had he worn, and so cleverly was
he got up, that he might have passed for little more than forty.
He was smiling, with very white teeth, and a gay leer on pretty Mrs.
Jones, an old friend, with black eyes and tresses, and pink cheeks, who
bore her five-and-thirty years as well almost as he did his own burthen.
The slanting autumnal sun became her, and she simpered and courtesied
and blushed the best she could.
"Well, you pretty little devil, what can you do for me--hey? You know
we're old friends--hey? What have you got for a hungry fellow? and don't
stand at the door there, hang it--come in, can't you? and let me hear
what you say."
So Mrs. Jones, with a simpering bashfulness, delivered her bill of fare
off book.
The Baronet was a gallant English gentleman, and came of a healthy race,
though there were a 'beau' and an archbishop in the family; he could
rough it good-humouredly on beefsteak and port, and had an accommodating
appetite as to hours.
"That will do very nicely, my dear, thank you. You're just the same dear
hospitable little rogue I remember you--how long is it, by Jove, since I
stopped here that day, and the awful thunderstorm at night, don't you
recollect? and the whole house in such a devil of a row, egad!" And the
Baronet chuckled and leered, with his hands in his pockets.
"Three years, by Jove, I think--eh?"
"Four years in August last, Sir Jekyl," she answered, with a little toss
of her head and a courtesy.
"Four years, my dear--four devils! Is it possible? why upon my life it
has positively improved you." And he tapped her cheek playfully with his
finger. "And what o'clock is it?" he continued, looking at his watch,
"just five. Well, I suppose you'll be ready in half-an-hour--eh, my
dear?"
"Sooner, if you wish, Sir Jekyl."
"No, thank you, dear, that will do very nicely; and stay," he added,
with a pluck at her pink ribbon, as she retreated: "you've some devilish
good port here, unless it's all out--old Lord Hogwood's stock--eh?"
"More than two dozen left, Sir Jekyl; would you please some?"
"You've hit it, you wicked little conjurer--a bottle; and you must give
me a few minutes after dinner, and a cup of coffee, and tell me all the
news--eh?"
The Baronet, standing on the threadbare hearthrug, looked waggishly, as
it were, through the panels of the shut door, after the fluttering cap
of his pretty landlady. Then he turned about and reviewed himself in the
sea-green mirror over the chimneypiece, adjusted his curls and whiskers
with a touch or two of his fingers' ends, and plucked a little at his
ample silk necktie, and shook out his tresses, with his chin a little
up, and a saucy simper.
But a man tires even of that prospect; and he turned on his heel, and
whistled at the smoky mezzotint of George III. on the opposite wall.
Then he turned his head, and looked out through the bow-window, and his
whistling stopped in the middle of a bar, at sight of a young man whom
he espied, only a yard or two before the covered porch of the little
inn.
This young gentleman was, it seemed, giving a parting direction to some
one in the doorway. He was tall, slender, rather dark, and decidedly
handsome. There were, indeed, in his air, face, and costume, that
indescribable elegance and superiority which constitute a man
"distinguished looking."
When Sir Jekyl beheld this particularly handsome young man, it was with
a disagreeable shock, like the tap on a big drum, upon his diaphragm. If
anyone had been there he would have witnessed an odd and grizzly change
in the pleasant Baronet's countenance. For a few seconds he did not
move. Then he drew back a pace or two, and stood at the further side of
the fire, with the mantelpiece partially between him and the young
gentleman who spoke his parting directions, all unconscious of the
haggard stare which made Sir Jekyl look a great deal less young and
good-natured than was his wont.
This handsome young stranger, smiling, signalled with his cane, as it
seemed, to a companion, who had preceded him, and ran in pursuit.
For a time Sir Jekyl did not move a muscle, and then, with a sudden
pound on the chimneypiece, and a great oath, he exclaimed--
"I could not have believed it! What the devil can it mean?"
Then the Baronet bethought him--"What confounded stuff one does talk and
think, sometimes! Half the matter dropt out of my mind. Twenty years
ago, by Jove, too. _More_ than that, egad! How could I be such an ass?"
And he countermarched, and twirled on his heel into his old place, with
his back to the fire, and chuckled and asked again--
"How the plague _could_ I be such a fool?"
And after some more of this sort of catechism he began to ruminate oddly
once more, and, said he--
"It's plaguy _odd_, for all that."
And he walked to the window, and, with his face close to the glass,
tried in vain to see the stranger again. The bow-window did not command
the road far enough to enable him to see any distance; and he stuck his
hat on his head, and marched by the bar, through the porch, and,
standing upon the road itself, looked shrewdly in the same direction.
But the road makes a bend about there, and between the hedgerows of that
wooded country the vista was not far.
With a cheerful air of carelessness, Sir Jekyl returned and tapped on
the bar window.
"I say, Mrs. Jones, who's that good-looking young fellow that went out
just now?"
"The gentleman in the low-crowned hat, sir, with the gold-headed cane,
please?"
"Yes, a tall young fellow, with large dark eyes, and brown hair."
"That will be Mr. Strangers, Sir Jekyl."
"Does he sleep here to-night?"
"Yes, sir, please."
"And what's his business?"
"Oh, dear! No business, Sir Jekyl, please. He's a real gentleman, and no
end of money."
"I mean, how does he amuse himself?"
"A looking after prospects, and old places, and such like, Sir Jekyl.
Sometimes riding and sometimes a fly. Every day some place or other."
"Oh! pencils and paint-boxes--eh?"
"I aven't seen none, sir. I can't say how that will be."
"Well, and what is he about; where is he gone; where is he now?"
demanded the Baronet.
"What way did Mr. Strangers go, Bill, just now?" the lady demanded of
boots, who appeared at the moment.
"The Abbey, ma'am."
"The Abbey, please, Sir Jekyl."
"The Abbey--that's Wail Abbey--eh? How far is it?"
"How far will it be, Bill?"
"'Taint a mile all out, ma'am."
"Not quite a mile, Sir Jekyl."
"A good ruin--isn't it?" asked the Baronet.
"Well, they do say it's _very_ much out of repair; but I never saw it
myself, Sir Jekyl."
"Neither did I," said Sir Jekyl. "I say, my good fellow, you can point
it out, I dare say, from the steps here?"
"Ay, please, Sir Jekyl."
"You'll have dinner put back, Sir--please, Sir Jekyl?" asked Mrs. Jones.
"Back or forward, _any_ way, my dear child. Only I'll have my walk
first."
And kissing and waving the tips of his fingers, with a smile to Mrs.
Jones, who courtesied and simpered, though her heart was perplexed with
culinary solicitudes "how to keep the water from getting into the trout,
and prevent the ducks of overroasting," the worthy Baronet, followed by
Bill, stept through the porch, and on the ridge of the old high-road,
his own heart being oddly disturbed with certain cares which had given
him a long respite; there he received Bill's directions as to the route
to the Abbey.
It was a clear frosty evening. The red round sun by this time, near the
horizon, looked as if a tall man on the summit of the western hill might
have touched its edge with his finger. The Baronet looked on the
declining luminary as he buttoned his loose coat across his throat, till
his eyes were almost dazzled, thinking all the time of nothing but that
handsome young man; and as he walked on briskly toward the Abbey, he saw
little pale green suns dancing along the road and wherever else his
eyes were turned.
"I'll see this fellow face to face, and talk a bit with him. I dare say
if one were near he's not at all so like. It _is_ devilish odd though;
twenty-five years and not a relation on earth--and dead--hang him! Egad,
its like the Wandering Jew, and the what do you call 'em, _vitæ_. Ay,
here it is."
He paused for a moment, looking at the pretty stile which led a little
pathway across the fields to the wooded hollow by the river, where the
ruin stands. Two old white stone, fluted piers, once a doorway, now
tufted with grass, and stained and worn by time, and the stile built up
between.
"I know, of course, there's nothing in it; but it's so odd--it _is_ so
_devilish_ odd. I'd like to know all about it," said the Baronet,
picking the dust from the fluting with the point of his walking-cane.
"Where has he got, I wonder, by this time?" So he mounted the stile, and
paused near the summit to obtain a commanding view.
"Well, I suppose he's got among the old walls and rubbish by this time.
I'll make him out; he'll break cover."
And he skipped down the stile on the other side, and whistled a little,
cutting gaily in the air with his cane as he went.
But for all he could do the same intensely uncomfortable curiosity
pressed upon him as he advanced. The sun sank behind the distant hills,
leaving the heavens flooded with a discoloured crimson, and the faint
silver of the moon in the eastern sky glimmered coldly over the fading
landscape, as he suddenly emerged from the hedged pathway on the rich
meadow level by the slow river's brink, on which, surrounded by lofty
timber, the ruined Abbey stands.
The birds had come home. Their vesper song had sunk with the setting
sun, and in the sad solitude of twilight the grey ruins rose dimly
before him.
"A devilish good spot for a picnic!" said he, making an effort to
recover his usual agreeable vein of thought and spirits.
So he looked up and about him, and jauntily marched over the sward, and
walked along the line of the grey walls until he found a doorway, and
began his explorations.
Through dark passages, up broken stairs, over grass-grown piles of
rubbish, he peeped into all sorts of roofless chambers. Everything was
silent and settling down into night. At last, by that narrow doorway,
which in such buildings so oddly gives entrance here and there into vast
apartments, he turned into that grand chamber, whose stone floor rests
on the vaults beneath; and there the Baronet paused for a moment with a
little start, for at the far end, looking towards him, but a little
upward, with the faint reflected glow that entered through the tall row
of windows, on the side of his face and figure, stood the handsome young
man of whom he was in pursuit.
The Baronet being himself only a step or two from the screw stairs, and
still under the shadow of the overhanging arch in the corner, the
stranger saw nothing of him, and to announce his approach, though not
much of a musician, he hummed a bar or two briskly as he entered, and
marched across and about as if thinking of nothing but architecture or
the picturesque.
"Charming ruin this, sir," exclaimed he, raising his hat, so soon as he
had approached the stranger sufficiently near to make the address
natural. "Although I'm a resident of this part of the world, I'm ashamed
to say I never saw it before."
The young man raised his hat too, and bowed with a ceremonious grace,
which, as well as his accent, had something foreign in it.
"While I, though a stranger, have been unable to resist its fascination,
and have already visited it three times. You have reason to be proud of
your county, sir, it is full of beauties."
The stranger's sweet, but peculiar, voice thrilled the Baronet with a
recollection as vivid and detested. In fact this well-seasoned man of
the world was so much shocked that he answered only with a bow, and
cleared his voice, and chuckled after his fashion, but all the time felt
a chill creeping over his back.
There was a broad bar of a foggy red light falling through the ivy-girt
window, but the young man happened to stand at that moment in the shadow
beside it, and when the Baronet's quick glance, instead of detecting
some reassuring distinction of feature or expression, encountered only
the ambiguous and obscure, he recoiled inwardly as from something
abominable.
"Beautiful effect--beautiful sky!" exclaimed Sir Jekyl, not knowing very
well what he was saying, and waving his cane upwards towards the fading
tints of the sky.
The stranger emerged from his shadow and stood beside him, and such
light as there was fell full upon his features, and as the Baronet
beheld he felt as if he were in a dream.
CHAPTER II.
The Baronet Visits Wardlock Manor.
In fact Sir Jekyl would have been puzzled to know exactly what to say
next, so odd were his sensations, and his mind so pre-occupied with a
chain of extremely uncomfortable conjecture, had not the handsome young
gentleman who stood beside him at the gaping window with its melancholy
folds of ivy, said--
"I have often tried to analyse the peculiar interest of ruins like
these--the mixture of melancholy and curiosity. I have seen very many
monasteries abroad--perhaps as old as this, even older--still peopled
with their monks, with very little interest indeed, and no sympathy; and
yet here I feel a yearning after the bygone age of English monasticism,
an anxiety to learn all about their ways and doings, and a sort of
reverence and sadness I can't account for, unless it be an expression of
that profound sympathy which mortals feel with every expression of decay
and dissolution."
The Baronet fancied that he saw a lurking smile in the young man's face,
and recoiled from psychologic talk about mortality.
"I dare say you're right, sir, but I am the worst metaphysician in the
world." He thought the young man smiled again. "In your liking for the
picturesque, however, I quite go with you. Do you intend extending your
tour to Wales and Scotland?"
"I can hardly call this little excursion a tour. The fact is, my
curiosity is pretty much limited to this county; there are old reasons
which make me feel a very particular interest in it," said the young
man, with a very pointed carelessness and a smile, which caused the
Baronet inwardly to wince.
"I should be very happy," said Sir Jekyl, "if you would take Marlowe in
your way: there are some pictures there, as well as some views you might
like to see. I am Sir Jekyl Marlowe, and own two or three places in this
county, which are thought pretty--and, may I give you my card?"
The snowy parallelogram was here presented and accepted with a mutual
bow. The stranger was smiling oddly as Sir Jekyl introduced himself,
with an expression which he fancied he could read in spite of the dark,
as implying "rather old news you tell me."
"And--and--what was I going to say?--oh!--yes--if I can be of any use to
you in procuring access to any house or place you wish to see, I shall
be very happy. You are at present staying at my occasional quarters, the
'Plough.' I'm afraid you'll think me very impertinent and intrusive; but
I should like to be able to mention your name to some of my friends, who
don't usually allow strangers to see their places."
This was more like American than English politeness; but the Baronet was
determined to know all about the stranger, commencing with his name,
and the laws of good breeding, though he knew them very well, were not
likely to stand long in his way when he had made up his mind to
accomplish an object.
"My name is Guy Strangways," said the stranger.
"O--ho--it's very odd!" exclaimed the Baronet, in a sharp snarl, quite
unlike his previous talk. I think the distance between them was a little
increased, and he was looking askance upon the young gentleman, who made
him a very low foreign bow.
There was a silence, and just then a deep metallic voice from below
called, "Guy--hollo!"
"Excuse me--just a moment," and the young man was gone. The Baronet
waited.
"He'll be back," muttered Sir Jekyl, "in a minute."
But the Baronet was mistaken. He waited at that open window, whistling
out upon the deepening twilight, till the edges of the ivy began to
glitter in the moonbeams, and the bats to trace their zigzags in the
air; and at last he gave over expecting.
He looked back into the gloomy void of that great chamber, and listened,
and felt rather angry at his queer sensations. He had not turned about
when the stranger withdrew, and did not know the process of his
vanishing, and for the first time it struck him, "who the plague could
the fellow who _called_ him be?"
On the whole he wished himself away, and he lighted a cigar for the sake
of its vulgar associations, and made his way out of the ruins, and
swiftly through darkened fields toward the Old London Road; and was
more comfortable than he cared to say, when he stepped through the porch
into the open hall of the "Plough," and stopped before the light at the
bar, to ask his hostess once more, quite in his old way, whether Mr.
Strangways had returned.
"No, not yet; always uncertain; his dinner mostly overdone."
"Has he a friend with him?"
"Yes, sir, sure."
"And what is he like?"
"Older man, Sir Jekyl, a long way than young Mr. Guy Strangways; some
relation I do think."
"When do they leave you?"
"To-morrow evening, with a chaise and pair for Aukworth."
"Aukworth? why, that's another of my properties!--ha, ha, ha, by Jove!
Does he know the Abbey here is mine?"
"I rayther think not, Sir Jekyl. Would you please to wish dinner?"
"To be sure, you dear little quiz, dinner by all means; and let them get
my horses to in half-an-hour; and if Mr. Strangways should return before
I go, I'd like to see him, and don't fail to let me know--do ye see?"
Dinner came and went, but Mr. Strangways did not return, which rather
vexed Sir Jekyl, who, however, left his card for that gentleman,
together with an extremely polite note, which he wrote at the bar with
his hat on, inviting him and his companion to Marlowe, where he would be
at home any time for the next two months, and trusted they would give
him a week before they left the country.
It was now dark, and Sir Jekyl loitered under the lamplight of his
chaise for a while, in the hope that Mr. Strangways would turn up. But
he did not; and the Baronet jumped into the vehicle, which was forthwith
in motion.
He sat in the corner, with one foot on the cushion, and lighted a cigar.
His chuckling was all over, and his quizzing, for the present. Mrs.
Jones had not a notion that he was in the least uneasy, or on any but
hospitable thoughts intent. But anyone who now looked in his face would
have seen at a glance how suddenly it had become overcast with black
care.
"Guy Strangways!" he thought; "those two names, and his wonderful
likeness! Prowling about this county! Why this more than another? He
seemed to take a triumphant pleasure in telling me of his special fancy
for this county. And his voice--a tenor they call it--I hate that sweet
sort of voice. Those d---- singing fellows. I dare say he sings. They
never do a bit of good. It's very odd. It's the same voice. I forgot
that odd silvery sound. The _same_, by Jove! I'll come to the bottom of
the whole thing. D---- me, I will!"
Then the Baronet puffed away fast and earnestly at his cigar, and then
lighted another, and after that a third. They steadied him, I dare say,
and helped to oil the mechanism of thought. But he had not recovered his
wonted cheer of mind when the chaise drew up at a pair of time-worn
fluted piers, with the gable of an old-fashioned dwelling-house
overlooking the road at one side. An iron gate admitted to a courtyard,
and the hall door of the house was opened by an old-fashioned footman,
with some flour on the top of his head.
Sir Jekyl jumped down.
"Your mistress quite well, hey? My daughter ready?" inquired the
Baronet. "Where are they? No, I'll not go up, thank you; I'll stay
here," and he entered the parlour. "And, do you see, you just go up and
ask your mistress if she wishes to see me."
By this time Sir Jekyl was poking up the fire and frowning down on the
bars, with the flickering glare shooting over his face.
"Can the old woman have anything to do with it? Pooh! no. I'd like to
see her. But who knows what sort of a temper she's in?"
As he thus ruminated, the domestic with the old-fashioned livery and
floured head returned to say that his mistress would be happy to see
him.
The servant conducted him up a broad stair with a great oak banister,
and opening a drawing-room door, announced--
"Sir Jekyl Marlowe."
He was instantly in the room, and a tall, thin old lady, with a sad and
stately mien, rose up to greet him.
"How is little mamma?" cried the Baronet, with his old chuckle. "An age
since we met, hey? How well you look!"
The old lady gave her thin mittened hand to her son-in-law, and looked
a grim and dubious sort of welcome upon him.
"Yes, Jekyl, an age; and only that Beatrix is here, I suppose another
age would have passed without my seeing you. And an old woman at my
years has not many ages between her and the grave."
The old lady spoke not playfully, but sternly, like one who had suffered
long and horribly, and who associated her sufferings with her visitor;
and in her oblique glance was something of deep-seated antipathy.
"Egad! you're younger than I, though you count more years. You live by
clock and rule, and you show it. You're as fresh as that bunch of
flowers there; while I am literally knocking myself to pieces--and I
know it--by late hours, and all sorts of nonsense. So you must not be
coming the old woman over me, you know, unless you want to frighten me.
And how is Beatrix? How do, Beatrix? All ready, I see. Good child."
Beatrix at this moment was entering. She was tall and slightly formed,
with large dark eyes, hair of soft shadowy black, and those tints of
pure white and rich clear blush, scarlet lips, and pearly teeth, and
long eyelashes, which are so beautiful in contrast and in harmony. She
had the prettiest little white nose, and her face was formed in that
decided oval which so heightens the charm of the features. She was not a
tragic heroine. Her smile was girlish and natural--and the little ring
of pearls between her lips laughed beautifully--and her dimples played
on chin and cheek as she smiled.
Her father kissed her, and looked at her with a look of gratification,
as he might on a good picture that belonged to him; and turning her
smiling face, with his finger and thumb upon her little dimpled chin,
toward Lady Alice, he said--
"Pretty well, this girl, hey?"
"I dare say, Jekyl, she'll do very well; she's not formed yet, you
know,"--was stately Lady Alice's qualified assent. She was one of that
school who are more afraid of spoiling people than desirous of pleasing
them by admiration. "She promises to be like her darling mother; and
that is a melancholy satisfaction to me, and, of course, to you. You'll
have some tea, Jekyl?"
The Baronet was standing, hat in hand, with his outside coat on, and his
back to the fire, and a cashmere muffler loosely about his throat.
"Well, as it is here, I don't mind."
"May I run down, grandmamma, and say good-bye to Ellen and old Mrs.
Mason?"
"Surely--you mean, of course to the parlour? You may have them there."
"And you must not be all night about it, Beatrix. We'll be going in a
few minutes. D'ye mind?"
"I'm quite ready, papa," said she; and as she glided from the room she
stole a glance at her bright reflection in the mirror.
"You are always in a hurry, Jekyl, to leave me when you chance to come
here. I should be sorry, however, to interfere with the pleasanter
disposition of your time."
"Now, little mother, you mustn't be huffed with me. I have a hundred
and fifty things to look after at Marlowe when I get there. I have not
had a great deal of time, you know--first the session, then three months
knocking about the world."
"You never wrote to me since you left Paris," said the old lady, grimly.
"Didn't I? That was very wrong! But you knew those were my holidays, and
I detest writing, and you knew I could take care of myself; and it is so
much better to tell one's adventures than to put them into letters,
don't you think?"
"If one could tell them all in five minutes," replied the old lady,
drily.
"Well, but you'll come over to Marlowe--you really must--and I'll tell
you everything there--the truth, the whole truth, and as much more as
you like."
This invitation was repeated every year, but like Don Juan's to the
statue, was not expected to lead to a literal visit.
"You have haunted rooms there, Jekyl," she said, with an unpleasant
smile and a nod. "You have not kept house in Marlowe for ten years, I
think. Why do you go there now?"
"Caprice, whim, what you will," said the Baronet, combing out his
favourite whisker with the tips of his fingers, while he smiled on
himself in the glass upon the chimneypiece, "I wish _you'd_ tell me, for
_I_ really don't know, except that I'm tired of Warton and Dartbroke, as
I am of all monotony. I like change, you know."
"Yes; you _like change_," said the old lady, with a dignified sarcasm.
"I'm afraid it's a true bill," admitted Sir Jekyl, with a chuckle, "So
you'll come to Marlowe and see us there--won't you?"
"No, Jekyl--certainly _not_," said the old lady, with intense emphasis.
A little pause ensued, during which the Baronet twiddled at his whisker,
and continued to smile amusedly at himself in the glass.
"I wonder you could think of asking me to Marlowe, considering all that
has happened there. I sometimes wonder at myself that I can endure to
see you at all, Jekyl Marlowe; and I don't think, if it were not for
that dear girl, who is so like her sainted mother, I should ever set
eyes on you again."
"I'm glad we have that link. You make me love Beatrix better," he
replied. He was now arranging the elaborate breast-pin with its tiny
chain, which was at that date in vogue.
"And so you are going to keep house at Marlowe?" resumed the lady,
stiffly, not heeding the sentiment of his little speech.
"Well, so I purpose."
"I don't like that house," said the old lady, with a subdued fierceness.
"Sorry it does not please you, little mother," replied Sir Jekyl.
"You know I don't like it," she repeated.
"In that case you need not have told me," he said.
"I choose to tell you. I'll say so as often as I see you--as often as I
like."
It was an odd conference--back to back--the old lady stiff and
high--staring pale and grimly at the opposite wall. The Baronet looking
with a quizzical smile on his handsome face in the mirror--now plucking
at a whisker--now poking at a curl with his finger-tip--and now in the
same light way arranging the silken fall of his necktie.
"There's nothing my dear little mamma can say, I'll not listen to with
pleasure."
"There is much I might say you could not listen to with pleasure." The
cold was growing more intense, and bitter in tone and emphasis, as she
addressed the Italian picture of Adonis and his two dogs hanging on the
distant wall.
"Well, with _respect_, _not_ with pleasure--no," said he, and tapped his
white upper teeth with the nail of his middle finger.
"Assuming, then, that you speak truth, it is high time, Jekyl Marlowe,
that you should alter your courses--here's your daughter, just come out.
It is ridiculous, your affecting the vices of youth. Make up as you
will--you're past the middle age--you're an elderly man now."
"You can't vex me that way, you dear old mamma," he said, with a
chuckle, which looked for the first time a little vicious in the glass.
"We baronets, you know, are all booked, and all the world can read our
ages; but you women manage better--you and your two dear sisters,
Winifred and Georgiana."
"They are _dead_," interrupted Lady Alice, with more asperity than
pathos.
"Yes, I know, poor old souls--to be sure, peers' daughters die like
other people, I'm afraid."
"And when they do, are mentioned, if not with sorrow, at least with
decent respect, by persons, that is, who know how to behave themselves."
There was a slight quiver in Lady Alice's lofty tone that pleased Sir
Jekyl, as you might have remarked had you looked over his shoulder into
the glass.
"Well, you know, I was speaking not of deaths but births, and only going
to say if you look in the peerage you'll find all the men, poor devils,
pinned to their birthdays, and the women left at large, to exercise
their veracity on the point; but you need not care--you have not
pretended to youth for the last ten years I think."
"You are excessively impertinent, sir."
"I _know_ it," answered Sir Jekyl, with a jubilant chuckle.
A very little more, the Baronet knew, and Lady Alice Redcliffe would
have risen gray and grim, and sailed out of the room. Their partings
were often after this sort.
But he did not wish matters to go quite that length at present. So he
said, in a sprightly way, as if a sudden thought had struck him--
"By Jove, I believe I _am devilish_ impertinent, without knowing it
though--and you have forgiven me so often, I'm sure you _will_ once
more, and I am really so much obliged for your kindness to Beatrix. I
am, indeed."
So he took her hand, and kissed it.
CHAPTER III.
Concerning two Remarkable Persons who appeared in Wardlock Church.
Lady Alice carried her thin Roman nose some degrees higher; but she
said--
"If I say anything disagreeable, it is not for the pleasure of giving
you pain, Jekyl Marlowe; but I understand that you mean to have old
General Lennox and his artful wife to stay at your house, and if so, I
think it an arrangement that had better be dispensed with. I don't think
her an eligible acquaintance for Beatrix, and you know very well she's
_not_--and it is not a respectable or creditable kind of thing."
"Now, what d--d fool, I beg pardon--but who the plague has been filling
your mind with those ridiculous stories--my dear little mamma? You know
how ready I am to confess; you _might_ at least; I tell you everything;
and I do assure you I _never_ admired her. She's good looking, I know;
but so are fifty pictures and statues I've seen, that don't please me."
"Then it's true, the General and his wife are going on a visit to
Marlowe?" insisted Lady Alice, drily.
"No, they are not. D---- me, I'm not thinking of the General and his
wife, nor of any such d--d trumpery. I'd give something to know who the
devil's taking these cursed liberties with my name."
"Pray, Jekyl Marlowe, command your language. It can't the least signify
who tells me; but you see I do sometimes get a letter."
"Yes, and a precious letter too. Such a pack of lies did any human being
ever hear fired off in a sentence before? I'm _épris_ of Mrs. General
Lennox. Thumper number one! She's a lady of--I beg pardon--easy virtue.
Thumper number two! and I invite her and her husband down to Marlowe, to
make love of course to her, and to fight the old General. Thumper number
three!"
And the Baronet chuckled over the three "thumpers" merrily.
"Don't talk slang, if you please--gentlemen don't, at least in
addressing ladies."
"Well, then, I won't; I'll speak just as you like, only you must not
blow me up any more; for really there is no cause, and we here only two
or three minutes together, you know; and I want to tell you something,
or rather to ask you--do you ever hear anything of those _Deverells_,
you know?"
Lady Alice looked quite startled, and turned quickly half round in her
chair, with her eyes on Sir Jekyl's face. The Baronet's smile subsided,
and he looked with a dark curiosity in hers. A short but dismal silence
followed.
"You've heard from them?"
"No!" said the lady, with little change in the expression of her face.
"Well, _of_ them?"
"No," she repeated; "but _why_ do you ask? It's _very_ strange!"
"_What's_ strange? Come, now, you _have_ something to say; tell me what
it is."
"I wonder, Jekyl, you ask for them, in the first place."
"Well--well, of course; but what next?" murmured the Baronet, eagerly:
"why is it so strange?"
"Only because I've been thinking of them--a great deal--for the last few
days; and it seemed very odd your asking; and in fact I fancy the same
thing has happened to us both."
"Well, may be; but what _is_ it?" demanded the Baronet, with a sinister
smile.
"I have been startled; most painfully and powerfully affected; I have
seen the most extraordinary resemblance to my beautiful, _murdered_
Guy."
She rose, and wept passionately, standing with her face buried in her
handkerchief.
Sir Jekyl frowned with closed eyes and upturned face, waiting like a
patient man bored to death, for the subsidence of the storm which he had
conjured up. Very pale, too, was that countenance, and contracted for a
few moments with intense annoyance.
"I saw the same fellow," said the Baronet, in a subdued tone, so soon as
there was a subsidence, "this evening; he's at that little inn on the
Sterndale Road. Guy Strangways he calls himself; I talked with him for a
few minutes; a gentlemanly young man; and I don't know what to make of
it. So I thought I'd ask you whether _you_ could help me to a guess;
and that's all."
The old lady shook her head.
"And I don't think you need employ quite such hard terms," he said.
"I don't want to speak of it at all," said she; "but if I do I can't say
less; nor I won't--no, never!"
"You see it's very odd, those two names," said Sir Jekyl, not minding;
"and as you say, the likeness so astonishing--I--I--what do _you_ think
of it?"
"Of course it's an accident," said the old lady.
"I'm glad you think so," said he, abruptly.
"Why, what could it be? you don't believe in apparitions?" she replied,
with an odd sort of dryness.
"I rather think not," said he; "I meant he left no very near relation,
and I fancied those Deverell people might have contrived some trick, or
intended some personation, or something, and I thought that you,
perhaps, had heard something of their movements."
"Nothing--what could they have done, or why should they have sought to
make any such impression? I don't understand it. It is very
extraordinary. But the likeness in church amazed and shocked me, and
made me ill."
"In church, you say?" repeated Sir Jekyl.
"Yes, in church," and she told him in her own way, what I shall tell in
mine, as follows:--
Last Sunday she had driven, in her accustomed state, with Beatrix, to
Wardlock church. The church was hardly five hundred yards away, and the
day bright and dry. But Lady Alice always arrived and departed in the
coach, and sat in the Redcliffe seat, in the centre of the gallery. She
and Beatrix sat face to face at opposite sides of the pew.
As Lady Alice looked with her cold and steady glance over the
congregation in the aisle, during the interval of silence that precedes
the commencement of the service, a tall and graceful young man, with an
air of semi-foreign fashion, entered the church, accompanied by an
elderly gentleman, of whom she took comparatively little note.
The young man and his friend were ushered into a seat confronting the
gallery. Lady Alice gazed and gazed transfixed with astonishment and
horror. The enamelled miniature on her bosom was like; but there, in
that clear, melancholy face, with its large eyes and wavy hair, was a
resurrection. In that animated sculpture were delicate tracings and
touches of nature's chisel, which the artist had failed to represent,
which even memory had neglected to fix, but which all now returned with
the startling sense of identity in a moment.
She had put on her gold spectacles, as she always did on taking her
seat, and opened her "Morning Service," bound in purple Russia, with its
golden clasp and long ribbons fringed with the same precious metal, with
the intent to mark the proper psalms and lessons at her haughty leisure.
She therefore saw the moving image of her dead son before her, with an
agonizing distinctness that told like a blight of palsy on her face.
She saw his elderly companion also distinctly. A round-shouldered man,
with his short caped cloak still on. A grave man, with a large, high,
bald forehead, a heavy, hooked nose, and great hanging moustache and
beard. A dead and ominous face enough, except for the piercing glance of
his full eyes, under very thick brows, and just the one you would have
chosen out of a thousand portraits, for a plotting high-priest or an old
magician.
This magus fixed his gaze on Lady Alice, not with an ostentation of
staring, but sternly from behind the dark embrasure of his brows; and
leaning a little sideways, whispered something in the ear of his young
companion, whose glance at the same moment was turned with a dark and
fixed interest upon the old lady.
It was a very determined stare on both sides, and of course ill-bred,
but mellowed by distance. The congregation were otherwise like other
country congregations, awaiting the offices of their pastor, decent,
listless, while this great stare was going on, so little becoming the
higher associations and solemn aspect of the place. It was, with all its
conventional screening, a fierce, desperate scrutiny, cutting the dim
air with a steady congreve fire that crossed and glared unintermittent
by the ears of deceased gentlemen in ruffs and grimy doublets, at their
posthumous devotions, and brazen knights praying on their backs, and
under the eyes of all the gorgeous saints, with glories round their
foreheads, in attitudes of benediction or meekness, who edified
believers from the eastern window.
Lady Alice drew back in her pew. Beatrix was in a young-lady reverie,
and did not observe what was going on. There was nothing indeed to make
it very conspicuous. But when she looked at Lady Alice, she was shocked
at her appearance, and instantly crossed, and said--
"I am afraid you are ill, grandmamma; shall we come away?"
The old lady made no answer, but got up and took the girl's arm, and
left the seat very quietly. She got down the gallery stairs, and halted
at the old window on the landing, and sate there a little, ghastly and
still mute.
The cold air circulating upward from the porch revived her.
"I am better, child," said she, faintly.
"Thank Heaven," said the girl, whose terror at her state proved how
intensely agitated the old lady must have been.
Mrs. Wrattles, the sextoness, emerging at that moment with repeated
courtesies, and whispered condolence and inquiries, Lady Alice, with a
stiff condescension, prayed her to call her woman, Mason, to her.
So Lady Alice, leaning slenderly on Mason's stout arm, insisted that
Beatrix should return and sit out the service; and she herself, for the
first time within the memory of man, returned from Wardlock church on
foot, instead of in her coach. Beatrix waited until the congregation had
nearly disgorged itself and dispersed, before making her solitary
descent.
When she came down, without a chaperon, at the close of the rector's
discourse, the floured footman in livery, with his gold-headed cane,
stood as usual at the coach door only to receive her, and convey the
order to the coachman, "home."
The churchyard gate, as is usual, I believe, in old places of that kind,
opens at the south side, and the road to Wardlock manor leads along the
churchyard wall and round the corner of it at a sharp angle just at the
point where the clumsy old stone mausoleum or vault of the Deverell
family overlooks the road, with its worn pilasters and beetle-browed
cornice.
Now that was a Sunday of wonders. It had witnessed Lady Alice's
pedestrian return from church, an act of humiliation, almost of penance,
such as the memory of Wardlock could furnish no parallel to; and now it
was to see another portent, for her ladyship's own gray horses, fat and
tranquil beasts, who had pulled her to and from church for I know not
how many years, under the ministration of the careful coachman, with
exemplary sedateness, on this abnormal Sabbath took fright at a musical
performance of two boys, one playing the Jew's harp and the other
drumming tambourine-wise on his hat, and _suadente diabolo_ and so
forth, set off at a gallop, to the terror of all concerned, toward home.
Making the sharp turn of the road, where the tomb of the Deverells
overhangs it from the churchyard, the near-gray came down, and his
off-neighbour reared and plunged frightfully.
The young lady did not scream, but, very much terrified, she made
voluble inquiries of the air and hedges from the window, while the
purple coachman pulled hard from the box, and spoke comfortably to his
horses, and the footman, standing out of reach of danger, talked also in
his own vein.
Simultaneously with all this, as if emerging from the old mausoleum,
there sprang over the churchyard fence, exactly under its shadow, that
young man who had excited emotions so various in the Baronet and in Lady
Alice, and seized the horse by the head with both hands, and so
cooperated that in less than a minute the two horses were removed from
the carriage, and he standing, hat in hand, before the window, to assure
the young lady that all was quite safe now.
So she descended, and the grave footman, with the Bible and Prayer-book,
followed her steps with his gold-headed rod of office, while the lithe
and handsome youth, his hat still in air which stirred his rich curls,
walked beside her with something of that romantic deference which in one
so elegant and handsome has an inexpressible sentiment of the tender in
it.
He walked to the door of Wardlock Manor, and I purposely omit all he
said, because I doubt whether it would look as well in this
unexceptionable type as it sounded from his lips in Beatrix Marlowe's
pretty ear.
If the speaker succeed with his audience, what more can oratory do for
him? Well! he was gone. There remained in Beatrix's ear a music; in her
fancy a heaven-like image--a combination of tint, and outline, and
elegance, which made every room and scene without it lifeless, and every
other object homely. These little untold impressions are of course
liable to fade and vanish pretty quickly in absence, and to be
superseded even sooner. Therefore it would be unwarranted to say that
she was in love, although I can't deny that she was haunted by that
slightly foreign young gentleman.
This latter portion of the adventure was not divulged by old Lady Alice,
because Beatrix, I suppose, forgot to tell her, and she really knew
nothing about it. All the rest, her own observation and experience, she
related with a grim and candid particularity.
CHAPTER IV.
The Green Chamber at Marlowe.
So the Baronet, with a rather dreary chuckle, said:--
"I don't think, to say truth, there is anything in it. I really can't
see why the plague I should bore myself about it. You know your pew in
the middle of the gallery, with that painted hatchment thing, you
know...."
"Respect the dead," said Lady Alice, looking down with a dry severity on
the table.
"Well, yes; I mean, you know, it is so confoundedly conspicuous, I can't
wonder at the two fellows, the old and young, staring a bit at it, and,
perhaps, at _you_, you know," said Sir Jekyl, in his impertinent vein.
"But I agree with you they are no ghosts, and I really shan't trouble my
head about them any more. I wonder I was such a fool--hey? But, as you
say, you know, it is unpleasant to be reminded of--of those things; it
can't be helped now, though."
"Now, nor ever," said Lady Alice, grimly.
"Exactly; neither now, nor ever," repeated Sir Jekyl; "and we both know
it can't possibly be poor--I mean anyone concerned in that transaction;
so the likeness must be accidental, and therefore of no earthly
significance--eh?"
Lady Alice, with elevated brows, fiddled in silence with some crumbs on
the table with the tip of her thin finger.
"I suppose Beatrix is ready; may I ring the bell?"
"Oh! here she is. Now, bid grandmamma good-night," said the Baronet.
So slim and pretty Beatrix, in her cloak, stooped down and placed her
arms about the neck of the old lady, over whose face came a faint flush
of tender sunset, and her old grey eyes looked very kindly on the
beautiful young face that stooped over her, as she said, in a tone that,
however, was stately--
"Good-bye, my dear child; you are warm enough--you are certain?"
"Oh! yes, dear grandmamma--my cloak, and this Cashmere thing."
"Well, darling, good-night. You'll not forget to write--you'll not fail?
Good-night, Beatrix, dear--good-bye."
"Good-night," said the Baronet, taking the tips of her cold fingers
together, and addressing himself to kiss her cheek, but she drew back in
one of her whims, and said, stiffly, "There, not to-night. Good-bye,
Jekyl."
"Well," chuckled he, after his wont, "another time; but mind, you're to
come to Marlowe."
He did not care to listen to what she replied, but he called from the
stairs, as he ran down after his daughter--
"Now, mind, I won't let you off this time; you really must come.
Good-night, _au revoir_--good-night."
I really think that exemplary old lady hated the Baronet, who called her
"little mamma," and invited her every year, without meaning it, most
good-naturedly, to join his party under the ancestral roof-tree. He took
a perverse sort of pleasure in these affectionate interviews, in
fretting her not very placid temper--in patting her, as it were,
wherever there was a raw, and in fondling her against the grain; so that
his caresses were cruel, and their harmony, such as it was, amounted to
no more than a flimsy deference to the scandalous world.
But Sir Jekyl knew that there was nothing in this quarter to be gained
in love by a different tactique; there was a dreadful remembrance, which
no poor lady has ostrich power to digest, in the way; it lay there,
hard, cold, and irreducible; and the morbid sensation it produced was
hatred. He knew that "little mamma," humanly speaking, ought to hate
him. His mother indeed she was not; but only the step-mother of his
deceased wife. Mother-in-law is not always a very sweet relation, but
with the prefix "step" the chances are, perhaps, worse.
There was, however, as you will by-and-by see, a terrible accident, or
something, always remembered, gliding in and out of Wardlock Manor like
the Baronet's double, walking in behind him when he visited her, like
his evil genius, and when they met affectionately, standing by his
shoulder, black and scowling, with clenched fist.
Now pretty Beatrix sat in the right corner of the chariot, and Sir
Jekyl, her father, in the left. The lamps were lighted, and though there
was moonlight, for they had a long stretch of road always dark, because
densely embowered in the forest of Penlake. Tier over tier, file behind
file, nodding together, the great trees bent over like plumed warriors,
and made a solemn shadow always between their ranks.
Marlowe was quite new to Beatrix; but still too distant, twelve miles
away, to tempt her to look out and make observations as she would on a
nearer approach.
"You don't object to my smoking a cigar, Beatrix? The smoke goes out of
the window, you know," said the Baronet, after they had driven about a
mile in silence.
What young lady, so appealed to by a parent, ever did object? The fact
is, Sir Jekyl did not give himself the trouble to listen to her answer,
but was manifestly thinking of something quite different, as he lighted
his match.
When he threw his last stump out of the window they were driving through
Penlake Forest, and the lamplight gleamed on broken rows of wrinkled
trunks and ivy.
"I suppose she told you all about it?" said he, suddenly pursuing his
own train of thought.
"Who?" inquired Beatrix.
"I never was a particular favourite of her's, you know--grandmamma's, I
mean. She does not love me, poor old woman! And she has a knack of
making herself precious disagreeable, in which I try to imitate her,
for peace' sake, you know; for, by George, if I was not uncivil now and
then, we could never get on at all."
Sir Jekyl chuckled after his wont, as it were, between the bars of this
recitative, and he asked--
"What were the particulars--the adventure on Sunday--that young fellow,
you know?"
Miss Beatrix had heard no such interrogatory from her grandmamma, whose
observations in the church-aisle were quite as unknown to her; and thus
far the question of Sir Jekyl was a shock.
"Did not grandmamma tell you about it?" he pursued.
"About what, papa?" asked Beatrix, who was glad that it was dark.
"About her illness--a young fellow in a pew down in the aisle staring at
her. By Jove! one would have fancied that sort of thing pretty well
over. Tell me all about it."
The fact was that this was the first she had heard of it.
"Grandmamma told me nothing of it," said she.
"And did not you see what occurred? Did not you see him staring?" asked
he.
Beatrix truly denied.
"You young ladies are always thinking of yourselves. So you saw nothing,
and have nothing to tell? That will do," said Sir Jekyl, drily; and
silence returned.
Beatrix was relieved on discovering that her little adventure was
unsuspected. Very little was there in it, and nothing to reflect blame
upon her. From her exaggeration of its importance, and her quailing as
she fancied her father was approaching it, I conclude that the young
gentleman had interested her a little.
And now, as Sir Jekyl in one corner of the rolling chariot brooded in
the dark over his disappointed conjectures, so did pretty Beatrix in the
other speculate on the sentences which had just fallen from his lips,
and long to inquire some further particulars, but somehow dared not.
Could that tall and handsome young man, who had come to her rescue so
unaccountably--the gentleman with those large, soft, dark eyes, which
properly belong to heroes--have been the individual whose gaze had so
mysteriously affected her grandmamma? What could the associations have
been that were painful enough so to overcome that grim, white woman? Was
he a relation? Was he an outcast member of that proud family? Or, was he
that heir-at-law, or embodied Nemesis, that the yawning sea or grave
will sometimes yield up to plague the guilty or the usurper?
For all or any of these parts he seemed too young. Yet Beatrix fancied
instinctively that he could be no other than the basilisk who had
exercised so strange a spell over her grim, but withal kind old
kinswoman.
Was there not, she thought, something peculiar in the look he threw
across the windows of old stone-fronted Wardlock manor--reserved,
curious, half-smiling--as if he looked on an object which he had often
heard described, and had somehow, from personal associations or
otherwise, an interest in? It was but a momentary glance just as he took
his leave; but there was, she thought, that odd character in it.
By this time the lamps were flashing on the village windows and
shop-fronts; and at the end of the old gabled street, under a canopy of
dark trees, stood the great iron gate of Marlowe.
Sir Jekyl rubbed the glass and looked out when they halted at the gate.
The structures of his fancy had amused him, rather fearfully indeed, and
he was surprised to find that they were entering the grounds of Marlowe
so soon.
He did not mind looking out, or speaking to the old gamekeeper, who
pulled open the great barriers, but lay back in his corner sullenly, in
the attitude of a gentleman taking a nap.
Beatrix, however, looked out inquisitively, and saw by the misty
moonlight a broad level studded with majestic timber--singly, in clumps,
and here and there in solemn masses; and soon rose the broad-fronted
gabled house before them, with its steep roofs and its hospitable clumps
of twisted chimneys showing black against the dim sky.
Miss Marlowe's maid, to whom the scene was quite as new as to her
mistress, descended from the back seat, in cloaks and mufflers, and
stood by the hall-door steps, that shone white in the moonlight, before
their summons had been answered.
Committing his daughter to her care, the Baronet--who was of a bustling
temperament, and never drank tea except from motives of
gallantry--called for Mrs. Gwynn, the housekeeper, who presently
appeared.
She was an odd-looking woman--some years turned of fifty, thin, with a
longish face and a fine, white, glazed skin. There was something queer
about her eyes: you soon discovered it to arise from their light colour
and something that did not quite match in their pupils.
On entering the hall, where the Baronet had lighted a candle, having
thrown his hat on the table, and merely loosed his muffler and one or
two buttons of his outside coat, she smiled a chill gleam of welcome
with her pale lips, and dropped two sharp little courtesies.
"Well, old Donica, and how do ye do?" said the Baronet, smiling, with a
hand on each thin grey silk shoulder. "Long time since I saw you. But,
egad! you grow younger and younger, you pretty old rogue;" and he gave
her pale, thin cheek a playful tap with his fingers.
"Pretty well, please, Sir Jekyl, thank ye," she replied, receding a
little with dry dignity. "Very welcome, sir, to Marlowe. Miss Beatrix
looks very well, I am happy to see; and you, sir, also."
"And you're glad to see us, I know?"
"Certainly, sir, glad to see you," said Mrs. Gwynn, with another short
courtesy.
"The servants not all come? No, nor Ridley with the plate. He'll arrive
to-morrow; and--and we shall have the house full in little more than a
week. Let us go up and look at the rooms; I forget them almost, by
Jove--I really do--it's so long since. Light you another, and we'll do
very well."
"You'll see them better by daylight, sir. I kept everything well aired
and clean. The house looks wonderful--it do," replied Mrs. Gwynn,
accompanying the Baronet up the broad oak stairs.
"If it looks as fresh as you, Donica, it's a miracle of a house--egad!
you're a wonder. How you skip by my side, with your little taper, like a
sylph in a ballet, egad!"
"You wear pretty well yourself, Sir Jekyl," drily remarked the
white-faced sylph, who had a sharp perpendicular line between her
eyebrows, indicative of temper.
"So they tell me, by Jove. We're pretty well on though, Donnie--eh?
Everyone knows my age--printed, you know, in the red book. You've the
advantage of me there--eh, Don?"
"I'm just fifty-six, sir, and I don't care if all the world knewd it."
"All the world's curious, I dare say, on the point; but I shan't tell
them, old Gwynn," said Sir Jekyl.
"Curious or no, sir, it's just the truth, and I don't care to hide it.
Past that folly now, sir, and I don't care if I wor seventy, and a
steppin' like a--"
"A sylph," supplied he.
"Yes--a sylph--into my grave. It's a bad world, and them that's suffered
in it soon tires on it, sir."
"_You_ have not had a great deal to trouble you. Neither chick, nor
child, nor husband, egad! So here we are."
They were now standing on the gallery, at the head of the great
staircase.
"These are the rooms your letter says are not furnished--eh? Let us come
to the front gallery."
So, first walking down the gallery in which they were, to the right, and
then entering a passage by a turn on the left, they reached the front
gallery which runs parallel to that at the head of the stairs.
"Where have you put Beatrix?"
"She wished the room next mine, please, sir, up-stairs," answered the
housekeeper.
"Near the front--eh?"
"The left side, please, sir, as you look from the front," replied she.
"_From_ the front?" he repeated.
"From the front," she reiterated.
"Over there, then?" he said, pointing upward to the left.
"That will be about it, sir," she answered.
"How many rooms have we here in a row?" he asked, facing down the
gallery, with its file of doors at each side.
"Four bed-rooms and three dressing-rooms at each side."
"Ay, well now, I'll tell you who's coming, and how to dispose of them."
So Sir Jekyl quartered his friends, as he listed, and then said he--
"And the large room at the other end, here to the right--come along."
And Sir Jekyl marched briskly in the direction indicated.
"Please, sir," said the slim, pale housekeeper, with the odd leer in her
eye, overtaking him quietly.
"Ay, here it is," said he, not minding her, and pushing open the door of
a dressing-room at the end of the gallery. "Inside this, I remember."
"But that's the green chamber, sir," continued Mrs. Gwynn, gliding
beside him as he traversed the floor.
"The room we call Sir Harry's room, I know--capital room--eh?"
"I don't suppose," began the pale lady, with a sinister sharpness.
"Well?" he demanded, looking down in her face a little grimly.
"It's the green chamber, sir," she said, with a hard emphasis.
"You said so before, eh?" he replied.
"And I did not suppose, sir, you'd think of putting anyone there," she
continued.
"Then you're just as green as the chamber," said Sir Jekyl, with a
chuckle.
And he entered the room, holding the candle high in air, and looking
about him a little curiously, the light tread and sharp pallid face of
Donica Gwynn following him.
CHAPTER V.
Sir Jekyl bethinks him of Pelter and Crowe.
The Baronet held his candle high in air, as I have said, as he gazed
round him inquisitively. The thin housekeeper, with her pale lips
closed, and her odd eyes dropped slantingly toward the floor, at the
corner of the room, held hers demurely in her right finger and thumb,
her arms being crossed.
The room was large, and the light insufficient. Still you could not help
seeing at a glance that it must be, in daylight, a tolerably cheerful
one. It was roomy and airy, with a great bow-window looking to the front
of the building, of which it occupied the extreme left, reaching about
ten feet from the level of the more ancient frontage of the house. The
walls were covered with stamped leather, chiefly green and gold, and the
whole air of the room, even in its unarranged state, though somewhat
quaint and faded, was wonderfully gay and cozy.
"This is the green chamber, sir," she repeated, with her brows raised
and her eyes still lowered askance, and some queer wrinkles on her
forehead as she nodded a sharp bitter emphasis.
"To be sure it is, damme!--why not?" he said, testily, and then burst
into a short laugh.
"You're not a going, I suppose, Sir Jekyl, to put anyone into it?" said
she.
"I don't see, for the life of me, why I should not--eh? a devilish
comfortable room."
"Hem! I can't but suppose you are a joking me, Sir Jekyl," persisted the
gray silk phantom.
"Egad! you forget how old we're growing; why the plague should I quiz
you! I want the room for old General Lennox, that's all--though I'm not
bound to tell you for whom I want it--am I?"
"There's a plenty o' rooms without this one, Sir Jekyl," persevered the
lady, sternly.
"Plenty, of course; but none so good," said he, carelessly.
"No one ever had luck that slept in it," answered the oracle, lifting
her odd eyes and fixing them on Sir Jekyl.
"I don't put them here for luck. We want to make them comfortable,"
answered Sir Jekyl, poking at the furniture as he spoke.
"You know what was your father's wish about it, sir?" she insisted.
"My father's wish--egad, he did not leave many of his wishes
unsatisfied--eh?" he answered, with another chuckle.
"And your poor lady's wish," she said, a good deal more sharply.
"I don't know why the devil I'm talking to you, old Gwynn," said the
Baronet, turning a little fiercely about.
"_Dying_ wishes," emphasised she.
"It is time, Heaven knows, all that stuff should stop. You slept in it
yourself, in my father's time. I remember you, here, Donica, and I don't
think I ever heard that you saw a ghost--did I?" he said, with a
sarcastic chuckle.
She darted a ghastly look to the far end of the chamber, and then, with
a strange, half-frozen fury, she said--
"I wish you good-night, Sir Jekyl," and glided like a shadow out of the
room.
"Saucy as ever, by Jupiter," he ejaculated, following her with his
glance, and trying to smile; and as the door shut, he looked again down
the long apartment as she had just done, raising the candle again.
The light was not improved of course by the disappearance of Mrs.
Gwynn's candle, and the end of the room was dim and unsatisfactory. The
great four-poster, with dark curtains, and a plume at each corner, threw
a vague shadow on the back wall and up to the ceiling, as he moved his
candle, which at the distance gave him an uncomfortable sensation, and
he stood for a few seconds sternly there, and then turned on his heel
and quitted the room, saying aloud, as he did so--
"What a d--d fool that old woman is--always _was_!"
If there was a ghost there, the Baronet plainly did not wish it to make
its exit from the green chamber by the door, for he locked it on the
outside, and put the key in his pocket. Then, crossing the dressing-room
I have mentioned, he entered the passage which crosses the gallery in
which he and Mrs. Gwynn, a few minutes before, had planned their
dispositions. The dressing-room door is placed close to the window
which opens at the end of the corridor in the front of the house.
Standing with his back to this, he looked down the long passage, and
smiled.
For a man so little given to the melodramatic, it was a very well
expressed smile of mystery--the smile of a man who knows something which
others don't suspect, and would be surprised to learn.
It was the Baronet's fancy, as it had been his father's and his
grandfather's before him, to occupy very remote quarters in this old
house. Solitary birds, their roost was alone.
Candle in hand, Sir Jekyl descended the stairs, marched down the long
gaunt passage, which strikes rearward so inflexibly, and at last reaches
the foot of a back staircase, after a march of a hundred and forty feet,
which I have measured.
At top of this was a door at his left, which he opened, and found
himself in his own bed-room.
You would have said on looking about you that it was the bed-room of an
old campaigner or of a natty gamekeeper--a fellow who rather liked
roughing it, and had formed tastes in the matter like the great Duke of
Wellington. The furniture was slight and plain, and looked like
varnished deal; a French bed, narrow, with chintz curtains, and a plain
white coverlet, like what one might expect in a barrack dormitory or an
hospital; a little strip of carpet lying by the bed, and a small square
of Turkey carpet under the table by the fire, hardly broke the shining
uniformity of the dark oak floor; a pair of sporting prints decorated
the sides of the chimneypiece, and an oil-portrait of a grey hunter
hung in the middle. There were fishing-rods and gun-cases, I dare say
the keys were lost of many, they looked so old and dingy.
The Baronet's luggage, relieved of its black japanned casings, lay on
the floor, with his hat-case and travelling-desk. A pleasant fire burnt
in the grate, and a curious abundance of wax-lights, without which Sir
Jekyl, such was his peculiarity, could not exist, enlivened the chamber.
As he made his toilet at his homely little dressing-table, he bethought
him suddenly, and rang the bell in his shirt-sleeves.
"My letters."
"Yes, sir."
And up came a salver well laden with letters, pamphlets, and newspapers,
of all shapes and sizes.
"And tell Miss Beatrix I shan't have any tea, and get some brandy from
Mrs. Gwynn, and cold water and a tumbler, and let them leave me
alone--d'ye see?--and give me that."
It was a dressing-gown which Tomlinson's care had already liberated from
its valise, and expanded before the fire.
The Baronet's tastes, as we might see, were simple. He could dine on a
bit of roast mutton, and a few glasses of sherry. But his mutton was
eight years old, and came all the way from Dartbroke, and his sherry
cost more than other men's Madeira, and he now lighted one of those
priceless cigars, which so many fellows envied, and inhaled the
disembodied aroma of a tobacco which, perhaps, Jove smokes in his easy
chair on Olympus, but which I have never smelt on earth, except when Sir
Jekyl dispensed the inestimable treasures of his cigar-case.
Now, the Baronet stood over his table, with a weed between his lips,
tall in his flowered silk dressing-gown, his open hands shoving apart
the pile of letters, as a conjurer at an exhibition spreads his pack of
cards.
"Ha! poor little thing!" he murmured, with a sly simper, in a petting
tone, as he plucked an envelope, addressed in a lady's hand, between two
fingers, caressingly, from the miscellaneous assortment.
He looked at it, but reserved it as a _bon-bouche_ in his waistcoat
pocket, and pursued his examination.
There were several from invited guests, who were either coming or not,
with the customary expressions, and were tossed together in a little
isolated litter for conference with Mrs. Gwynn in the morning.
"Not a line from Pelter and Crowe! the d--d fellows don't waste their
ink upon me, except when they furnish their costs. It's a farce paying
fellows to look after one's business--no one ever does it but yourself.
If those fellows were worth their bread and butter, they'd have known
all about this thing, whatever it is, and I'd have had it all _here_,
d---- it, to-night."
Sir Jekyl, it must be confessed, was not quite consistent about this
affair of the mysterious young gentleman; for, as we have seen, he
himself had a dozen times protested against the possibility of there
being anything in it, and now he was seriously censuring his respectable
London attorneys for not furnishing him with the solid contents of this
"windbag."
But it was only his talk that was contradictory. Almost from the moment
of his first seeing that young gentleman, on the open way under the sign
of the "Plough," there lowered a fantastic and cyclopean picture, drawn
in smoke or vapour, volcanic and thunderous, all over his horizon, like
those prophetic and retrospective pageants with which Doree loves to
paint his mystic skies. It was wonderful, and presaged unknown evil; and
only cowed him the more that it baffled analysis and seemed to mock at
reason.
"Pretty fellows to keep a look-out! It's well I can do it for
myself--who knows where we're driving to, or what's coming? Signs
enough--whatever they mean--he that runs may read, egad! Not that
there's anything in it _necessarily_. But it's not about drawing and
ruins and that stuff--those fellows have come down here. Bosh! looking
after my property. I'd take my oath they are advised by some lawyer; and
if Pelter and Crowe were sharp, they'd know by whom, and all about it,
by Jove!"
Sir Jekyl jerked the stump of his cigar over his shoulder into the grate
as he muttered this, looking surlily down on the unprofitable papers
that strewed the table.
He stood thinking, with his back to the fire, and looking rather cross
and perplexed, and so he sat down and wrote a short letter. It was to
Pelter and Crowe, but he began, as he did not care which got it, in his
usual way--
"MY DEAR SIR,--I have reason to suspect that those ill-disposed
people, who have often threatened annoyance, are at last seriously
intent on mischief. You will be good enough, therefore, immediately
to set on foot inquiries, here and at the other side of the water,
respecting the movements of the D---- family, who, I fancy, are at
the bottom of an absurd, though possibly troublesome,
demonstration. I don't fear them, of course. But I think you will
find that some members of that family are at present in this
country, and disposed to be troublesome. You will see, therefore,
the urgency of the affair, and will better know than I where and
how to prosecute the necessary inquiries. I do not, of course,
apprehend the least _danger_ from their machinations; but you have
always thought _annoyance_ possible; and if any be in store for me,
I should rather not have to charge it upon our supineness. You
will, therefore, exert your vigilance and activity on my behalf,
and be so good as to let me know, at the earliest possible
day--which, I think, need not be later than Wednesday next--the
result of your inquiries through the old channels. I am a little
disappointed, in fact, at not having heard from you before now on
the subject.
"Yours, my dear sir, very sincerely,
"JEKYL M. MARLOWE."
Sir Jekyl never swore on paper, and, as a rule, commanded his temper
very creditably in that vehicle. But all people who had dealings with
him knew very well that the rich Baronet was not to be trifled with. So,
understanding that it was strong enough, he sealed it up for the
post-office in the morning, and dropped it into the post-bag, and with
it the unpleasant subject for the present.
And now, a little brandy and water, and the envelope in the well-known
female hand; and he laughed a little over it, and looked at himself in
the glass with a vaunting complacency, and shook his head playfully at
the envelope. It just crossed his sunshine like the shadow of a flying
vapour--"that cross-grained old Gwynn would not venture to meddle?" But
the envelope was honestly closed, and showed no signs of having been
fiddled with.
He made a luxury of this little letter, and read it in his easy chair,
with his left leg over the arm, with the fragrant accompaniment of a
weed.
"Jealous, by Jove!" he ejaculated, in high glee; "little fool, what's
put that in your head?"
"Poor, little, fluttering, foolish thing!" sang the Baronet, and then
laughed, not cynically, but indulgently rather.
"How audacious the little fools are upon paper! Egad, it's a wonder
there is not twice as much mischief in the world as actually happens. We
must positively burn this little extravagance."
But before doing so he read it over again; then smiling still, he
gallantly touched it to his lips, and re-perused it, as he drew another
cigar from the treasury of incense which he carried about him. He
lighted the note, but did not apply it to his cigar, I am bound to
say--partly from a fine feeling, and partly, I am afraid, because he
thought that paper spoiled the flavour of his tobacco. So, with a
sentimental smile, a gentle shrug, and a sigh of the Laurence Sterne
pattern, he converted that dangerous little scrawl into ashes--and he
thought, as he inhaled his weed--
"It is well for you, poor little fanatics, that we men take better care
of you than you do of yourselves, sometimes!"
No doubt; and Sir Jekyl supposed he was thinking only of his imprudent
little correspondent, although there was another person in whom he was
nearly interested, who might have been unpleasantly compromised also, if
that document had fallen into other hands.
CHAPTER VI.
Sir Jekyl's Room is Visited.
It was near one o'clock. Sir Jekyl yawned and wound his watch, and
looked at his bed as if he would like to be in it without the trouble of
getting there; and at that moment there came a sharp knock at his door,
which startled him, for he thought all his people were asleep by that
time.
"Who's there?" he demanded in a loud key.
"It's me, sir, please," said Donica Gwynn's voice.
"Come in, will you?" cried he; and she entered.
"Are you sick?" he asked.
"No, sir, thank you," she replied, with a sharp courtesy.
"You look so plaguy pale. Well, I'm glad you're not. But what the deuce
can you want of me at this hour of night? Eh?"
"It's only about that room, sir."
"Oh, curse the room! Talk about it in the morning. You ought to have
been in your bed an hour ago."
"So I was, sir; but I could not sleep, sir, for thinking of it."
"Well, go back and think of it, if you must. How can I stop you? Don't
be a fool, old Gwynn."
"No more I will, sir, please, if I can help, for fools we are, the most
on us; but I could not sleep, as I said, for thinking o't; and so I
thought I'd jist put on my things again, and come and try if you, sir,
might be still up."
"Well, you see I'm up; but I want to get to bed, Gwynn, and not to talk
here about solemn bosh; and you must not bore me about that green
chamber--do you see?--to-night, like a good old girl; it will do in the
morning--won't it?"
"So it will, sir; only I could not rest in my bed, until I said, seeing
as you mean to sleep in this room, it would never do. It won't. I can't
stand it."
"Stand what? Egad! it seems to me you're demented, my good old Donica."
"No, Sir Jekyl," she persisted, with a grim resolution to say out her
say. "You know very well, sir, what's running in my head. You know it's
for no good anyone sleeps there. General Lennox, ye say; well an' good.
You know well what a loss Mr. Deverell met with in that room in Sir
Harry, your father's time."
"And you slept in it, did not you, and saw something? Eh?"
"Yes, I _did_" she said, in a sudden fury, with a little stamp on the
floor, and a pale, staring frown.
After a breathless pause of a second or two she resumed.
"And you know what your poor lady saw there, and never held up her head
again. And well you know, sir, how your father, Sir Harry, on his
death-bed, desired it should be walled up, when you were no more than a
boy; and your good lady did the same many a year after, when _she_ was a
dying. And I tell ye, Sir Jekyl, ye'll sup sorrow yourself yet if you
don't. And take a fool's counsel, and shut up that door, and never let
no one, friend or foe, sleep there; for well I know it's not for
nothing, with your dead father's dying command, and your poor dear
lady's dying entreaty against it, that you put anyone to sleep there. I
don't know who this General Lennox may be--a good gentleman or a bad;
but I'm sure it's for no righteous reason he's to lie there. You would
not do it for nothing."
This harangue was uttered with a volubility, which, as the phrase is,
took Sir Jekyl aback. He was angry, but he was also perplexed and a
little stunned by the unexpected vehemence of his old housekeeper's
assault, and he stared at her with a rather bewildered countenance.
"You're devilish impertinent," at last he said, with an effort. "You
rant there like a madwoman, just because I like you, and you've been in
our family, I believe, since before I was born; you think you may say
what you like. The house is mine, I believe, and I rather think I'll do
what I think best in it while I'm here."
"And you going to sleep in this room!" she broke in. "What else can it
be?"
"You mean--what the devil do you mean?" stammered the Baronet again,
unconsciously assuming the defensive.
"I mean you know very well _what_, Sir Jekyl," she replied.
"It was my father's room, hey?--when I was a boy, as you say. It's good
enough for his son, I suppose; and I don't ask _you_ to lie in the green
chamber."
"_I'll_ be no party, sir, if you please, to any one lying there," she
observed, with a stiff courtesy, and a sudden hectic in her cheek.
"Perhaps you mean because my door's a hundred and fifty feet away from
the front of the house, if any mischief should happen, I'm too far
away--as others were before me--to prevent it, eh?" said he, with a
flurried sneer.
"What I mean, I mean, sir--you ought not; that's all. You won't take it
amiss, Sir Jekyl--I'm an old servant--I'm sorry, sir; but I'a made up my
mind what to do."
"You're not thinking of any folly, surely? You seemed to me always too
much afraid, or whatever you call it, of the remembrance, you know, of
what you _saw_ there--eh?--_I_ don't know, of course, _what_--to speak
of it to me. I never pressed you, because you seemed--you know you
did--to have a horror; and surely you're not going now to talk among the
servants or other people. You can't be far from five-and-thirty years in
the family."
"Four-and-thirty, Sir Jekyl, next April. It's a good while; but I won't
see no more o' that; and unless the green chamber be locked up, at the
least, and used no more for a bed-room, I'd rather go, sir. Nothing may
happen, of course, Sir Jekyl--it's a hundred to one nothing _would_
happen; but ye see, sir, I've a feeling about it, sir; and there has
been these things ordered by your father that was, and by your poor
lady, as makes me feel queer. Nothing being done accordingly, and I
could not rest upon it, for sooner or later it would come to this, and
stay I could not. I judge no one--Heaven forbid,--Sir Jekyl--oh, no! my
own conscience is as much as I can look to; so sir, if you please, so
soon as you can suit yourself I'll leave, sir."
"Stuff! old Gwynn; don't mind talking to-night," said the Baronet, more
kindly than he had spoken before; "we'll see about it in the morning.
Good-night. We must not quarrel about nothing. I was only a school-boy
when you came to us, you know."
But in the morning "old Gwynn" was resolute. She was actually going, so
soon as the master could suit himself. She was not in a passion, nor in
a panic, but in a state of gloomy and ominous obstinacy.
"Well, you'll give me a little time, won't you, to look about me?" said
the Baronet, peevishly.
"Such is my intention, sir."
"And see, Gwynn, not a word about that--that green chamber, you know, to
Miss Beatrix."
"As you please, sir."
"Because if you begin to talk, they'll all think we are haunted."
"Whatever you please to order, sir."
"And it was not--it was my grandfather, you know, who built it."
"Ah, so it was, sir;" and Gwynn looked astonished and shook her head, as
though cowed by the presence of a master-spirit of evil.
"One would fancy you saw his ghost, Gwynn; but he was not such a devil
as your looks would make him, only a bit wild, and a favourite with the
women, Gwynn--always the best judge of merit--hey? Beau Marlowe they
called him--the best dressed man of his day. How the devil could such a
fellow have any harm in him?"
There is a fine picture, full length, of Beau Marlowe, over the
chimneypiece of the great hall of Marlowe. He has remarkably
gentlemanlike hands and legs; the gloss is on his silk stockings still.
His features are handsome, of that type which we conventionally term
aristocratic; high, and smiling with a Louis-Quatorze insolence. He
wears a very fine coat of cut velvet, of a rich, dusky red, the
technical name of which I forget. He was of the gilded and powdered
youth of his day.
He certainly was a handsome fellow, this builder of the "green chamber,"
and he has not placed his candle under a bushel. He shines in many parts
of the old house, and has repeated himself in all manner of becoming
suits. You see him, three-quarters, in the parlour, in blue and silver;
you meet him in crayon, and again in small oil, oval; and you have him
in half a dozen miniatures.
We mention this ancestor chiefly because when his aunt, Lady Mary, left
him a legacy, he added the green chamber to the house.
It seems odd that Sir Jekyl, not fifty yet, should have had a
grandfather who was a fashionable and wicked notoriety of mature years,
and who had built an addition to the family mansion so long as a
hundred and thirty years ago. But this gentleman had married late, as
rakes sometimes do, and his son, Sir Harry, married still
later--somewhere about seventy; having been roused to this uncomfortable
exertion by the proprietorial airs of a nephew who was next in
succession. To this matrimonial explosion Sir Jekyl owed his entrance
and agreeable sojourn upon the earth.
"I won't ask you to stay now; you're in a state. I'll write to town for
Sinnott, as you insist on it, but you won't leave us in confusion, and
you'll make her _au fait_--won't you? Give her any hints she may
require; and I know I shall have you back again when you cool a little,
or at all events when we go back to Dartbroke; for I don't think I shall
like this place."
So Donica Gwynn declared herself willing to remain till Mrs. Sinnott
should arrive from London; and preparations for the reception of guests
proceeded with energy.
CHAPTER VII.
The Baronet Pursues.
Sir Jekyl Marlowe was vexed when the letters came, and none from Pelter
and Crowe. There are people who expect miracles from their doctors and
lawyers, and, in proportion to their accustomed health and prosperity,
are unreasonable when anything goes wrong. The Baronet's notion was that
the legal firm in question ought to think and even dream of nothing else
than his business. It was an impertinence their expecting _him_ to think
about it. What were _they_ there for? He knew that London was a pretty
large place, and England still larger; and that it was not always easy
to know what everybody was about in either, and still less what each man
was doing on the Continent. Pelter and Crowe had some other clients too
on their hands, and had hitherto done very satisfactorily. But here was
a serious-looking thing--the first really uncomfortable occurrence which
had taken place under his reign--the first opportunity for exhibiting
common vigilance--and he ventured to say those fellows did not know
these Strangways people were in these kingdoms at all!
Sir Jekyl, though an idle fellow, was a man of action, so he ordered his
horse, and rode nine miles to the "Plough Inn," where he hoped to see
Mr. Strangways again, improve his intimacy, and prevail with the
gentlemen to return with him to Marlowe, and spend a fortnight there,
when, or the devil was in it, he should contrive to get at the bottom of
their plans.
He looked shrewdly in at the open door as he rode up, and halloed for
some one to take his horse. The little porch smiled pleasantly, and the
two gables and weather-cock, in the sunlight; and the farmer on the
broad and dingy panel, in his shirt-sleeves, low-crowned, broad-leafed
hat, crimson waistcoat, canary-coloured shorts, and blue stockings, and
flaxen wig, was driving his plump horses, and guilding his plough
undiscouraged, as when last he saw him.
Boots and Mrs. Jones came out. Sir Jekyl was too eager to wait to get
down; so from the saddle he accosted his buxom hostess, in his usual
affable style. The Baronet was not accustomed to be crossed and thwarted
as much as, I have been told, men with less money sometimes are; and he
showed his mortification in his face when he learned that the two
gentlemen had left very early that morning.
"This morning! Why you said yesterday they would not go till _evening_.
Hang it, I wish you could tell it right; and what the d--l do you mean
by Strangers? Call him Strangways, can't you. It's odd people can't say
names."
He must have been very much vexed to speak so sharply; and he saw,
perhaps, how much he had forgotten himself in the frightened look which
good Mrs. Jones turned upon him.
"I don't mean you, my good little soul. It's _their_ fault; and where
are they gone to? I wanted to ask them both over to Marlowe. Have you a
notion?"
"They took our horses as far as the 'Bell and Horns,' at Slowton." She
called shrilly to Boots, "They're not stoppin' at the 'Bell and Horns,'
sure. Come here, and tell Sir Jekyl Marlowe about Mr. Strangers."
"You said last night they were going to Awkworth;" and Sir Jekyl
chuckled scornfully, for he was vexed.
"They changed their minds, sir."
"Well, we'll say so. You're a wonderful fascinating sex. Egad! if you
could only carry anything right in your heads for ten minutes, you'd be
too charming." And at this point Boots emerged, and Sir Jekyl continued,
addressing him--
"Well, where are the gentlemen who left this morning?" asked he.
"They'll be at the 'Bell and Horns,' sir."
"Where's that?"
"Slowton, sir."
"I know. What hour did they go?"
"Eight o'clock, sir."
"Just seven miles. The Sterndale Road, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
And that was all Boots had to tell.
"Will ye please to come in, sir?" inquired Mrs. Jones.
"No, my good creature. I haven't time. The old gentleman--what's his
name?"
"I don't know, Sir, please. He calls the young gentleman Guy, and the
young gentleman calls him _sir_."
"And both the same name?"
"We calls 'em both Strangers, please, sir."
"I know. Servants, had they?"
"Yes, sir, please. But they sent 'em on."
"Rich--don't want for money, I suppose. Eh?"
"Oh! plenty money, sir."
"And the servants called the men Strangways, I suppose, eh?"
"Yes, Sir Jekyl, please; and so the letters came."
"You never happened to hear any other name?"
"No, Sir Jekyl."
"_Think._"
Mrs. Jones did think, but could recall nothing.
"Nothing with a D?"
"D, sir! What, sir?"
"No matter what," said the Baronet. "No name beginning with D--eh?"
"No, sir. You don't think they're going by a false name?" inquired the
lady, curiously.
"What the devil puts that in your head? Take care of the law; you must
not talk that way, you foolish little rogue."
"I did not know, sir," timidly answered Mrs. Jones, who saw in Sir
Jekyl, the Parliament-man, Deputy-Lieutenant, and Grand Juror, a great
oracle of the law.
"I only wanted to know whether you had happened to hear the name of the
elder of the two gentlemen, and could recollect what letter it begins
with."
"No, sir, please."
"So you've no more to tell me?"
"Nothing, sir."
"If they come back tell them I rode over to offer them some shooting,
and to beg they'd remember to come to Marlowe. You won't forget?"
"No sir."
"Do they return here?"
"I think not, sir."
"Well, I believe there's nothing else," and the Baronet looked up
reflectively, as if he expected to find a memorandum scribbled on the
blue sky, leaning with his hand on the back of his horse. "No, nothing.
You won't forget my message, that's all. Good-bye, my dear."
And touching the tips of his gloves to his lips, with a smile and a nod
he cantered down the Sterndale Road.
He pulled up at the "Bell and Horns," in the little town of Slowton, but
was disappointed. The entire party, servants and all, had taken the
train two hours before, at the station three miles away.
Now Sir Jekyl was blooded, and the spirit of the chase stirred within
him. So he rode down in his jack-boots, and pulled up his steaming horse
by the station, and he went in and made inquiry.
A man like him is received even at one of these cosmopolitan
rallying-points within his own county with becoming awe. The
station-master was awfully courteous, and the subaltern officials
awfully active and obliging, and the resources of the establishment
were at once placed at his sublime disposal. Unhappily, two branch lines
converge at this point, causing the usual bustle, and there was
consequently a conflict and confusion in the evidence; so that Sir
Jekyl, who laughed and chatted agreeably amidst all the reverential zeal
that surrounded him, could arrive at nothing conclusive, but leaned to
the view that the party had actually gone to Awkworth, only by rail,
instead of by road.
Sir Jekyl got on his horse and walked him through the town, uncertain
what to do next. This check had cooled him; his horse had his long trot
home still. It would not do to follow to Awkworth; to come in, after a
four-and-twenty miles' ride, bespattered like a courier, merely to
invite these gentlemen, _vivâ voce_, who had hardly had his note of
invitation a score hours. It would be making too much of them with a
vengeance.
As he found himself once more riding under the boughs of Marlowe, the
early autumnal evening already closing in, Sir Jekyl experienced one of
those qualms and sinkings of the heart, which overcome us with a vague
anticipation of evil.
The point of the road which he had now gained, commands a view of the
old hall of Marlowe, with that projecting addition, and its wide
bow-window, every pane of which was now flaming in the sunset light,
which indicated the green chamber.
The green chamber! Just at that moment the glare of its broad window
flashed with a melancholy and vengeful light upon his brain, busied
with painful retrospects and harassing conjecture.
Old Gwynn going away! It was an omen. Marlowe without old Gwynn. Troy
without its palladium. Old Gwynn going with something like a
denunciation on her lips! That stupid old woman at Wardlock, too, who
really knew nothing about it, undertaking also to prophesy! Out of the
mouths of babes and sucklings! There was no sense in it--scarcely
articulation. Still it was the croak of the raven--the screech of the
owl.
He looked across the gentle slope at the angle of the inauspicious room.
Why should old General Lennox be placed within the unhallowed precincts
of that chamber? The image of old Gwynn as she gabbled her grim protest
on the preceding night, rose before him like a ghost. What business was
it of hers, and how could she divine his motives? Still, if there was
anything wrong, did not this vehement warning make the matter worse.
An old man he felt himself on a sudden that evening, and for the first
time. There was some failure of the electric fire, and a subsidence of
the system. His enterprise was gone. Why should he take guilt, if such
it were, on his soul for vanity and vexation of spirit? If guilt it
were, was it not of a kind inexcusably cold-blooded and long-headed. Old
Gwynn, he did not like to lose you on those terms--just, too, as those
unknown actors were hovering at the wing, and about to step upon the
stage, this old man and young, who, instinctively he felt, were
meditating mischief against him. Mischief--_what_? Such, perhaps, as
might shatter the structure of his greatness, and strew its pinnacles in
the dust. Perhaps all this gloom was but the depression of a long ride,
and still longer fast. But he was accustomed to such occasional strains
upon his strength without any such results. Ah, no! He had come within
the edge of the shadow of judgment, and its darkness was stealing over
him, and its chill touched his heart.
These were the dreamy surmisings with which he rode slowly toward the
house, and a few good resolutions in a nebulous state hovered
uncomfortably about him.
No letter of any interest had come by the early post, and Sir Jekyl sat
down _tête-à-tête_ with his pretty daughter, in very dismal spirits, to
dinner.
CHAPTER VIII.
The House begins to Fill.
Beatrix was fond of her father, who was really a good-natured man, in
the common acceptance of the term, that is to say, he had high animal
spirits, and liked to see people pleasant about him, and was probably as
kind as a tolerably selfish and vicious man can be, and had a liking,
moreover, for old faces, which was one reason why he hated the idea of
his housekeeper's leaving him. But Beatrix was also a little in awe of
him, as girls often are of men of whom they see but little, especially
if they have something of the masculine decision of temper.
"You may all go away now," said the Baronet suddenly to the servants,
who had waited at dinner; and when the liveried phantoms had withdrawn,
and the door had closed on the handsome calves of tall and solemn
Jenkins, he said--
"Nothing all day--no adventure, or visitor, Trixie--not a word of news
or fun, I dare say?"
"Nothing--not a creature, papa; only the birds and dogs, and some new
music."
"Well, it is not much worse than Wardlock, I suppose; but we shall have
a gay house soon--at all events plenty of people. Old General Lennox is
coming. His nephew, Captain Drayton, is very rich; he will be Lord
Tewkesbury--that is, if old Tewkesbury doesn't marry; and, at all
events, he has a very nice property, and does not owe a guinea. You need
not look modest, Trixie. You may do just as you please, only I'd be
devilish glad you liked one another--there, don't be distressed, I say;
I'll mention it no more if you don't like; but he'll be here in a few
days, and you mayn't think him so bad."
After this the Baronet drank two glasses of sherry in silence, slowly,
and with a gloomy countenance, and then, said he--
"I think, Trixie, if you were happily placed, I should give the whole
thing up. I'm tired of that cursed House of Commons. You can't imagine
what a bore it is, when a fellow does not want anything from them, going
down there for their d----d divisions. I'm not fit for the hounds
either. I can't ride as I used--egad! I'm as stiff as a rusty hinge when
I get up in the morning. And I don't much like this place, and I'm tired
to death of the other two. When you marry I'll let them, or, at all
events, let them alone. I'm tired of all those servants. I know they're
robbing me, egad! You would not believe what my gardens cost me last
year, and, by Jove, I don't believe all that came to my table was worth
two hundred pounds. I'll have quite a different sort of life. I haven't
any time to myself, looking after all those confounded people one must
keep about them. Keepers, and gardeners, and devil knows who beside. I
don't like London half as well as the Continent. I hate dinner-parties,
and the season, and all the racket. It doesn't pay, and I'm growing
old--you'll not mind if I smoke it?" (he held a cigar between his
fingers)--"a complaint that doesn't mend by time, you know. Oh! yes, I
_am_ old, you little rogue. Everybody knows I'm just fifty; and the fact
is I'm tired of the whole thing, stock, lock, and barrel; and I believe
what little is to be got of life is best had--that is, if you know how
to look for it--abroad. A fellow like me who has got places and
properties--egad! they expect him to live _pro bono publico_, and not to
care or think twopence about himself--at least it comes to that. How is
old Gwynn?"
"Very well, I think."
"And what has she to say for herself; what about things in general?"
"She's not very chatty, poor old Gwynn, and I think she seems a
little--just ever so little--cross."
"So she does--damnably cross. She was always a bit of a vixen, and she
isn't improving, poor old thing; but don't be afraid, I like old Donnie
for all that, though I don't think I ever quite understood her, and I
don't expect either." These observations concluded the conversation
subsided, and a long silence supervened.
"I wonder who the devil he is," said the Baronet abruptly, as he threw
the stump of his cigar into the fire. "If it's a fluke, it's as like a
miracle as anything I ever saw."
He recollected that he was talking without an interlocutor, and looked
for a moment hesitatingly at his daughter.
"And your grandmamma told you nothing of her adventure in church?"
"No, papa--not a word."
"It seems to me, women can hold their tongues sometimes, but always in
the wrong places."
Here he shook the ashes of his cigar into the grate.
"Old Granny's a fool--isn't she, Trixie, and a little bit vicious--eh?"
Sir Jekyl put his question dreamily, in a reverie, and it plainly needed
no answer. So Beatrix was spared the pain of making one; which she was
glad of, for Lady Alice was good to her after her way, and she was fond
of her.
"We must ask her to come, you know. You write. Say I thought _you_ would
have a better chance of prevailing. She won't, you know; and so much the
better."
So as the Baronet rose, and stood gloomily with his back to the fire;
the young lady rose also, and ran away to the drawing-room and her desk;
and almost at the same moment a servant entered the room, with a letter,
which had come by the late post.
Oddly enough, it had the Slowton postmark.
"Devilish odd!" exclaimed Sir Jekyl, scowling eagerly on it; and seating
himself hastily on the side of a chair, he broke it open and read at the
foot the autograph, "Guy Strangways."
It was with the Napoleonic thrill, "I have them, then, these English!"
that Sir Jekyl read, in a gentlemanlike, rather foreign hand, a
ceremonious and complimentary acceptance of his invitation to Marlowe,
on behalf both of the young man and of his elder companion. His
correspondent could not say exactly, as their tour was a little
desultory, where a note would find them; but as Sir Jekyl Marlowe had
been so good as to permit them to name a day for their visit, they would
say so and so.
"Let me see--what day's this--why, that will be"--he was counting with
the tips of his fingers, pianowise, on the table--"Wednesday week, eh?"
and he tried it over again with nature's "Babbage's machine" and of
course with an inflexible result. "Wednesday week--Wednesday," and he
heaved a great sigh, like a man with a load taken off him.
"Well, I'm devilish glad. I hope nothing will happen to stop them now.
It can't be a _ruse_ to get quietly off the ground? No--that would be
doing it too fine." He rang the bell.
"I want Mrs. Gwynn."
The Baronet's spirit revived within him, and he stood erect, with his
back to the fire, and his hands behind him, and when the housekeeper
entered, he received her with his accustomed smile.
"Glad to see you, Donnie. Glass of sherry? No--well, sit down--won't
take a chair!--why's that? Well, we'll be on pleasanter terms
soon--you'll find it's really no choice of mine. I can't help using that
stupid green room. Here are two more friends coming--not till Wednesday
week though--two gentlemen. You may put them in rooms beside one
another--wherever you like--only not in the garrets, of course. _Good_
rooms, do ye see."
"And what's the gentlemen's names, please, Sir Jekyl," inquired Mrs.
Gwynn.
"Mr. Strangways, the young gentleman; and the older, as well as I can
read it, is Mr. Varbarriere."
"Thank ye, sir."
The housekeeper having again declined the kindly distinction of a glass
of sherry, withdrew.
In less than a week guests began to assemble, and in a few days more old
Marlowe Hall began to wear a hospitable and pleasant countenance.
The people were not, of course, themselves all marvels of agreeability.
For instance, Sir Paul Blunket, the great agriculturist and eminent
authority on liquid manures, might, as we all know, be a little livelier
with advantage. He is short and stolid; he wears a pale blue muslin
neck-handkerchief with a white stripe, carefully tied. His countenance,
I am bound to say, is what some people would term heavy--it is frosty,
painfully shaven, and shines with a glaze of transparent soap. He has
small, very light blue round eyes, and never smiles. A joke always
strikes him with unaffected amazement and suspicion. Laughter he knows
may imply ridicule, and he may himself possibly be the subject of it. He
waits till it subsides, and then talks on as before on subjects which
interest him.
Lady Blunket, who accompanies him everywhere, though not tall, is stout.
She is delicate, and requires nursing; and, for so confirmed an
invalid, has a surprising appetite. John Blunket, the future baronet, is
in the Diplomatic Service, I forget exactly where, and by no means
young; and lean Miss Blunket, at Marlowe with her parents, though known
to be older than her brother, is still quite a girl, and giggles with
her partner at dinner, and is very _naïve_ and animated, and sings arch
little chansons discordantly to the guitar, making considerable play
with her eyes, which are black and malignant.
This family, though neither decorative nor entertaining, being highly
respectable and ancient, make the circuit of all the good houses in the
county every year, and are wonderfully little complained of. Hither also
they had brought in their train pretty little Mrs. Maberly, a cousin,
whose husband, the Major, was in India--a garrulous and good-humoured
siren, who smiled with pearly little teeth, and blushed easily.
At Marlowe had already assembled several single gentlemen too. There was
little Tom Linnett, with no end of money and spirits, very good-natured,
addicted to sentiment, and with a taste for practical joking too, and a
very popular character notwithstanding.
Old Dick Doocey was there also, a colonel long retired, and well known
at several crack London clubs; tall, slight, courtly, agreeable, with a
capital elderly wig, a little deaf, and his handsome high nose a little
reddish. Billy Cobb--too, a gentleman who could handle a gun, and knew
lots about horses and dogs--had arrived.
Captain Drayton had arrived: a swell, handsome, cleverish, and
impertinent, and, as young men with less reason will be, egotistical. He
would not have admitted that he had deigned to make either plan or
exertion with that object, but so it happened that he was placed next to
Miss Beatrix, whom he carelessly entertained with agreeable ironies, and
anecdotes, and sentiments poetic and perhaps a little vapid. On the
whole, a young gentleman of intellect, as well as wealth and
expectations, and who felt, not unnaturally, that he was overpowering.
Miss Beatrix, though not quite twenty, was _not_ overpowered, however,
neither was her heart pre-occupied. There was, indeed, a shadow of
another handsome young gentleman--only a shadow, in a different
style--dark, and this one light; and she heart-whole, perhaps
fancy-free, amused, delighted, the world still new and only begun to be
explored. One London season she had partly seen, and also made her
annual tour twice or thrice of all the best county-houses, and so was
not nervous among her peers.
CHAPTER IX.
Dinner.
Of the two guests destined for the green chamber, we must be permitted
to make special mention.
General and Lady Jane Lennox had come. The General, a tall, soldier-like
old gentleman, who held his bald and pink, but not very high forehead,
erect, with great grey projecting moustache, twisted up at the corners,
and bristling grey eyebrows to correspond, over his frank round grey
eyes--a gentleman with a decidedly military bearing, imperious but
kindly of aspect, good-natured, prompt, and perhaps a little stupid.
Lady Jane--everybody knows Lady Jane--the most admired of London belles
for a whole season. Golden brown hair, and what young Thrumly of the
Guards called, in those exquisite lines of his, "slumbrous eyes of
blue," under very long lashes and exquisitely-traced eyebrows, such
brilliant lips and teeth, and such a sweet oval face, and above all, so
beautiful a figure and wonderful a waist, might have made one marvel how
a lady so well qualified for a title, with noble blood, though but a
small _dot_, should have wrecked herself on an old general, though with
eight thousand a year. But there were stories and reasons why the
simple old officer, just home from India, who knew nothing about London
lies, and was sure of his knighthood, and it was said of a baronetage,
did not come amiss.
There were people who chose to believe these stories, and people who
chose to discredit them. But General Lennox never had even heard them;
and certainly, it seemed nobody's business to tell him now. It might not
have been quite pleasant to tell the General. He was somewhat muddled of
apprehension, and slow in everything but fighting; and having all the
old-fashioned notions about hair-triggers, and "ten paces," as the
proper ordeal in a misunderstanding, people avoided uncomfortable topics
in his company, and were for the most part disposed to let well alone.
Lady Jane had a will and a temper; but the General held his ground
firmly. As brave men as he have been henpecked; but somehow he was not
of the temperament which will submit to be bullied even by a lady; and
as he was indulgent and easily managed, that tactique was the line she
had adopted. Lady Jane was not a riant beauty. Luxurious, funeste,
sullen, the mystery and melancholy of her face was a relief among the
smirks and simpers of the ball-room, and the novelty of the style
interested for a time even the _blazé_ men of twenty seasons.
Several guests of lesser note there were; and the company had sat down
to dinner, when the Reverend Dives Marlowe, rector of the succulent
family living of Queen's Chorleigh, made his appearance in the parlour,
a little to the surprise of his brother the Baronet, who did not expect
him quite so soon.
The Rector was a tall man and stalwart, who had already acquired that
convex curve which indicates incipient corpulence, and who, though
younger than his brother, looked half a dozen years his senior. With a
broad bald forehead, projecting eyebrows, a large coarse mouth, and with
what I may term the rudiments of a double chin--altogether an ugly and
even repulsive face, but with no lack of energy and decision--one looked
with wonder from this gross, fierce, clerical countenance to the fine
outlines and proportions of the Baronet's face, and wondered how the two
men could really be brothers.
The cleric shook his brother's hand in passing, and smiled and nodded
briefly here and there, right and left, and across the table his
recognition, and chuckled a harsher chuckle than his brother's, as he
took his place, extemporized with the quiet legerdemain of a consummate
butler by Ridley; and answered in a brisk, abrupt voice the smiling
inquiries of friends.
"Hope you have picked up an appetite on the way, Dives," said the
Baronet. Dives generally carried a pretty good one about with him. "Good
air on the way, and pretty good mutton here, too--my friends tell me."
"Capital air--capital mutton--capital fish," replied the ecclesiastic,
in a brisk, business-like tone, while being a man of nerve, he got some
fish, although that esculent had long vanished, and even the entrées had
passed into history, and called over his shoulder for the special
sauces which his soul loved, and talked, and compounded his condiments
with energy and precision.
The Rector was a shrewd and gentlemanlike, though not a very pretty,
apostle, and had made a sufficient toilet before presenting himself, and
snapped and gobbled his fish, in a glossy, single-breasted coat, with
standing collar; a ribbed silk waistcoat, covering his ample chest,
almost like a cassock, and one of those transparent muslin dog-collars
which High Churchmen affect.
"Well, Dives," cried Sir Jekyl, "how do the bells ring? I gave them a
chime, poor devils" (this was addressed to Lady Blunket at his elbow),
"by way of compensation, when I sent them Dives."
"Pretty well; they don't know how to pull 'em, I think, quite," answered
Dives, dabbing a bit of fish in a pool of sauce, and punching it into
shape with his bit of bread. "And how is old Parson Moulders?" continued
the Baronet, pleasantly.
"I haven't heard," said the Hector, and drank off half his glass of
hock.
"Can't believe it, Dives. Here's Lady Blunket knows. He's the aged
incumbent of Droughton. A devilish good living in my gift; and of course
you've been asking how the dear old fellow is."
"I haven't, upon my word; not but I ought, though," said the Rev. Dives
Marlowe, as if he did not see the joke.
"He's very severe on you," simpered fat Lady Blunket, faintly, across
the table, and subsided with a little cough, as if the exertion hurt
her.
"Is he? Egad! I never perceived it." The expression was not clerical,
but the speaker did not seem aware he had uttered it. "How dull I must
be! Have you ever been in this part of the world before, Lady Jane?"
continued he, turning towards General Lennox's wife, who sat beside him.
"I've been to Wardlock, a good many years ago; but that's a long way
from this, and I almost forget it," answered Lady Jane, in her languid,
haughty way.
"In what direction is Wardlock," she asked of Beatrix, raising her
handsome, unfathomable eyes for a moment.
"You can see it from the bow-window of your room--I mean that
oddly-shaped hill to the right."
"That's from the green chamber," said the Rector. "I remember the view.
Isn't it?"
"Yes. They have put Lady Jane in the haunted room," said Beatrix,
smiling and nodding to Lady Jane.
"And what fool, pray, told you that," said the Baronet, perhaps just a
little sharply.
"Old Gwynn seems to think so," answered Beatrix, with the surprised and
frightened look of one who fancies she has made a blunder. "I--of course
we know it is all folly."
"You must not say that--you shan't disenchant us," said Lady Jane.
"There's nothing I should so like as a haunted room; it's a charming
idea--isn't it, Arthur?" she inquired of the General.
"We had a haunted room in my quarters at Puttypoor," observed the
General, twiddling the point of one of his moustaches. "It was the
store-room where we kept pickles, and olives, and preserves, and plates,
and jars, and glass bottles. And every night there was a confounded
noise there; jars, and bottles, and things tumbling about, made a devil
of a row, you know. I got Smith--my servant Smith, you know, a very
respectable man--uncommon steady fellow, Smith--to watch, and he did. We
kept the door closed, and Smith outside. I gave him half-a-crown a night
and his supper--very well for Smith, you know. Sometimes he kept a
light, and sometimes I made him sit in the dark with matches ready."
"Was not he very much frightened?" asked Beatrix, who was deeply
interested in the ghost.
"I hope you gave him a smelling-bottle?" inquired Tom Linnett, with a
tender concern.
"Well, I don't suppose he was," said the General, smiling
good-humouredly on pretty Beatrix, while he loftily passed by the
humorous inquiry of the young gentleman. "He was, in fact, on dooty, you
know; and there were occasional noises and damage done in the
store-room--in fact, just the same as if Smith was not there."
"Oh, possibly Smith himself among the bottles!" suggested Linnett.
"He always got in as quick as he could," continued the General; "but
could not see anyone. Things were broken--bottles sometimes."
"How very strange," exclaimed Beatrix, charmed to hear the tale of
wonder.
"We could not make it out; it was very odd, you know," resumed the
narrator.
"_You_ weren't frightened, General?" inquired Linnett.
"_No_, sir," replied the General, who held that a soldier's courage,
like a lady's reputation, was no subject for jesting, and conveyed that
sentiment by a slight pause, and a rather alarming stare from under his
fierce grey eyebrows. "No one was frightened, I suppose; we were all men
in the house, sir."
"At home, I think, we'd have suspected a rat or a cat," threw in the
Rector.
"Some did, sir," replied the General; "and we made a sort of a search;
but it wasn't. There was a capital tiled floor, not a hole you could put
a ramrod in; and no cat, neither--high windows, grated; and the door
always close; and every now and then something broken by night."
"Delightful! That's what Mrs. Crowe, in that charming book, you know,
"The Night Side of Nature," calls, I forget the name; but it's a German
word, I think--the noisy ghost it means. Racket--something, isn't it,
Beet?" (the short for Beatrix). "I do so _devour_ ghosts!" cried sharp
old Miss Blunket, who thought Beatrix's enthusiasm became her; and chose
to exhibit the same pretty fanaticism.
"I didn't _say_ it was a ghost, mind ye," interposed the General, with a
grave regard for his veracity; "only we were puzzled a bit. There _was_
something there we all knew; and something that could reach up to the
high shelves, and break things on the floor too, you see. We had been
watching, off and on, I think, some three or four weeks, and I heard one
night, early, a row in the store-room--a devil of a row it was; but
Smith was on dooty, as we used to say, that night, so I left it to him;
and he could have sung out, you know, if he wanted help--poor fellow!
And in the morning my native fellow told me that poor Smith was dead in
the store-room; and, egad! so he was, poor fellow!"
"How awful!" exclaimed Beatrix.
And Miss Blunket, in girlish horror, covered her fierce black eyes with
her lank fingers.
"A bite of a cobra, by Jove! above the knee, and another on the hand. A
fattish fellow, poor Smith, the natives say they go faster--that sort of
man; but no one can stand a fair bite of a cobra--I defy you. We killed
him after."
"What! _Smith?_" whispered Linnett in his neighbour's ear.
"He lay in a basket; you never saw such a brute," continued the General;
"he was very near killing another of my people."
"So _there_ was your ghost?" said Doocey, archly.
"Worse than a ghost," observed Sir Paul Blunket.
"A dooced deal," acquiesced the General gravely.
"You're very much annoyed with vermin out there in India?" remarked Sir
Paul.
"So we are, sir," agreed the General.
"It's very hard, you see, to meet with a genuine ghost, Miss Marlowe;
they generally turn out impostors," said Doocey.
"I should like to think my room was haunted," said Lady Jane.
"Oh! _dear_ Lady Jane, how _can_ you be so _horribly_ brave?" cried Miss
Blunket.
"We have no cobras here, at all events," said Sir Paul, nodding to Sir
Jekyl, with the gravity becoming such a discovery.
"No," said Sir Jekyl, gloomily. I suppose he was thinking of something
else.
The ladies now floated away like summer clouds, many-tinted, golden,
through the door, which Doocey held gracefully open; and the mere
mortals of the party, the men, stood up in conventional adoration, while
the divinities were translated, as it were, before their eyes, and
hovered out of sight and hearing into the resplendent regions of
candelabra and mirrors, nectar and ambrosia, tea and plum-cake, and
clouds of silken tapestry, and the musical tinkling of their own
celestial small-talk.
CHAPTER X.
Inquiries have been made by Messrs, Pelter and Crowe.
Before repairing to bed, such fellows, young or old, as liked a talk and
a cigar, and some sherry--or, by'r lady, brandy and water--were always
invited to accompany Sir Jekyl to what he termed the back settlement,
where he bivouacked among deal chairs and tables, with a little
camp-bed, and plenty of wax candles and a brilliant little fire.
Here, as the Baronet smoked in his homely little "hut," as he termed it,
after his guests had dispersed to their bed-rooms, the Rev. Dives
Marlowe that night knocked at the door, crying, "May I come in, Jekyl?"
"Certainly, dear Dives."
"You really mean it?"
"Never was parson so welcome."
"By Jove!" said the Rector, "it's later than I thought--you're sure I
don't bore you."
"Not sure, but you _may_, Dives," said Sir Jekyl, observing his
countenance, which was not quite pleasant. "Come in, and say your say.
Have a weed, old boy?"
"Well, well--a--we're alone. I don't mind--I don't generally--not that
there's any harm; but some people, very good people, object--the weaker
brethren, you know."
"Consummate asses, we call them; but weaker brethren, as you say, does
as well."
The Rector was choosing and sniffing out a cigar to his heart's content.
"Milk for babes, you know," said the Rector, making his preparations.
"Strong meats--"
"And strong cigars; but you'll find these as mild as you please. Here's
a match."
The Rector sat down, with one foot on the fender, and puffed away
steadily, looking into the fire; and his brother, at the opposite angle
of the fender, employed himself similarly.
"Fine old soldier, General Lennox," said the cleric, at last. "What stay
does he make with you?"
"As long as he pleases. Why?" said Sir Jekyl.
"Only he said something to-night in the drawing-room about having to go
up to town to attend a Board of the East India Directors," answered the
parson.
"Oh, did he?"
"And I think he said the day after to-morrow. I thought he told you,
perhaps."
"Upon my life I can't say--perhaps he did," said Sir Jekyl, carelessly.
"Lennox is a wonderful fine old fellow, as you say, but a little bit
slow, you know; and his going or staying would not make very much
difference to me."
"I thought he told his story pretty well at dinner--that haunted room
and the cobra, you remember," said the Rector.
The Baronet grunted an assent, and nodded, without removing his cigar.
The brothers conducted their conversation, not looking on one another,
but each steadily into the grate.
"And, apropos of haunted rooms, Lady Jane mentioned they are in the
green chamber," continued the Rector.
"Did she? I forgot--so they are, I think," answered the Baronet.
Here they puffed away in silence for some time.
"You know, Jekyl, about that room? Poor Amy, when she was dying, made
you promise--and you did promise, you know--and she got me to promise to
remind you to shut it up; and then, you know, my father wished the
same," said the Rector.
"Come, Dives, my boy, somebody has been poking you up about this. You
have been hearing from my old mother-in-law, or talking to her, the
goosey old shrew!"
"Upon my honour!" said the Rector, solemnly resting the wrist of his
cigar-hand upon the black silk vest, and motioning his cheroot
impressively, "you are quite mistaken. One syllable I have not heard
from Lady Alice upon the subject, nor, indeed, upon any other, for two
months or more."
"Come, come, Dives, old fellow, you'll not come the inspired preacher
over me. Somebody's been at you, and if it was not poor old Lady Alice
it was stupid old Gwynn. You need not deny it--ha! ha! ha! your speaking
countenance proclaims it, my dear boy."
"I'm not thinking of denying it. Old Donica Gwynn did write to me," said
the pastor.
"Let me see her note?" said Sir Jekyl.
"I threw it in the fire; but I assure you there was nothing in it that
would or could have vexed you. Nothing, in fact, but an appeal to me to
urge you to carry out the request of poor Amy, and not particularly well
spelt or written, and certainly not the sort of thing I should have
liked anyone to see but ourselves, so I destroyed it as soon as I had
read it."
"I'd like to have known what the plague could make you come here two
days--of course I'm glad to see you--two days before you intended, and
what's running in your mind."
"Nothing in particular--nothing, I assure you, but this. I'm certain it
will be talked about--it will--the women will talk. You'll find there
will be something very unpleasant; take my advice, my dear Jekyl, and
just do as you promised. My poor father wished it, too--in fact,
directed it, and--and it ought to be done--you know it ought."
"Upon my soul I know no such thing. I'm to pull down my house, I
suppose, for a sentiment? What the plague harm does the room to anybody?
It doesn't hurt me, nor you."
"It may hurt _you_ very much, Jekyl."
"I can't see it; but if it does, that's my affair," said Sir Jekyl,
sulkily.
"But, my dear Jekyl, surely you ought to consider your promise."
"Come, Dives, no preaching. It's a very good trade, I know, and I'll do
all I can for you in it; but I'm no more to be humbugged by a sermon
than you are. Come! How does the dog I sent you get on? Have you bottled
the pipe of port yet, and how is old Moulders, as I asked you at dinner?
Talk of shooting, eating and drinking, and making merry, and getting up
in your profession--by-the-bye, the Bishop is to be here in a fortnight,
so manage to stay and meet him. Talk of the port, and the old parson's
death, and the tithes small and great, and I'll hear you with respect,
for I shall know you are speaking of things you understand, and take a
real interest in; but pray don't talk any more about that stupid old
room, and the stuff and nonsense these women connect with it; and, once
for all, believe me when I say I have no notion of making a fool of
myself by shutting up or pulling down a room which we want to use--I'll
do no such thing," and Sir Jekyl clenched the declaration with an oath,
and chucking the stump of his cigar into the fire, stood up with his
back to it, and looked down on his clerical Mentor, the very
impersonation of ungodly obstinacy.
"I had some more to say, Jekyl, but I fancy you don't care to hear it."
"Not a word of it," replied the Baronet.
"That's enough for me," said the parson, with a wave of his hand, like a
man who has acquitted himself of a duty.
"And how soon do you say the Bishop is to be here?" he inquired, after a
pause.
"About ten days, or _less_--egad! I forget," answered Sir Jekyl, still a
good deal ruffled.
The Rector stood up also, and hummed something like "Rule Britannia" for
a while. I am afraid he was thinking altogether of himself by this time,
and suddenly recollecting that he was not in his own room, he wished his
brother good-night, and departed.
Sir Jekyl was vexed. There are few things so annoying, when one has made
up his mind to a certain course, as to have the unavowed misgivings and
evil auguries of one's own soul aggravated by the vain but ominous
dissuasions of others.
"I wish they'd keep their advice to themselves. What hurry need there
be? Do they want me to blow up the room with old Lennox and his wife in
it? I don't care twopence about it. It's a gloomy place." Sir Jekyl was
charging the accidental state of his own spirits upon the aspect of the
place, which was really handsome and cheerful, though antique.
"They're all in a story, the fools! What is it to me? I don't care if I
never saw it again. They may pull it down after Christmas, if they like,
for me. And Dives, too, the scamp, talking pulpit. He thinks of nothing
but side-dishes and money. As worldly a dog as there is in England!"
Jekyl Marlowe could get angry enough on occasion, but he was not prone
to sour tempers and peevish humours. There was, however, just now,
something to render him uncomfortable and irritable, and that was that
his expected guests, Mr. Guy Strangways and M. Varbarriere had not kept
tryste. The day appointed for their visit had come and gone, and no
appearance made. In an ordinary case a hundred and fifty accidents might
account for such a miscarriage; but there was in this the unavowed
specialty which excited and sickened his mind, and haunted his steps and
his bed with suspicions; and he fancied he could understand a little how
Herod felt when he was mocked of the wise men.
Next morning's post-bag brought Sir Jekyl two letters, one of which
relieved, and the other rather vexed him, though not very profoundly.
This latter was from his mother-in-law, Lady Alice, in reply to his
civil note, and much to his surprise, accepting his invitation to
Marlowe.
"Cross-grained old woman! She's coming, for no reason on earth but to
vex me. It shan't though. I'll make her most damnably welcome. We'll
amuse her till she has not a leg to stand on; we'll take her an
excursion every second day, and bivouac on the side of a mountain, or in
the bottom of a wet valley. We'll put the young ponies to the phaeton,
and Dutton shall run them away with her. I'll get up theatricals, and
balls, and concerts; and I'll have breakfast at nine instead of ten.
I'll entertain her with a vengeance, egad! We'll see who'll stand it
longest."
A glance at the foot of the next letter, which was a large document, on
a bluish sheet of letter-paper, showed him what he expected, the
official autograph of Messrs. Pelter and Crowe; it was thus expressed--
"MY DEAR SIR JEKYL MARLOWE,--
"Pursuant to yours of the --th, and in accordance with the
instructions therein contained, we have made inquiries, as therein
directed, in all available quarters, and have received answers to
our letters, and trust that the copies thereof, and the general
summary of the correspondence, which we hope to forward by this
evening's post, will prove satisfactory to you. The result seems to
us clearly to indicate that your information has not been well
founded, and that there has been no movement in the quarter to
which your favour refers, and that no member--at all events no
prominent member--of that family is at present in England. In
further execution of your instructions, as conveyed in your favour
as above, we have, through a reliable channel, learned that Messrs.
Smith, Rumsey, and Snagg, have nothing in the matter of Deverell at
present in their office. Nor has there been, we are assured, any
correspondence from or on the part of any of those clients for the
last five terms or more. Notwithstanding, therefore, the
coincidence of the date of your letter with the period to which, on
a former occasion, we invited your attention, as indicated by the
deed of 1809--"
"What the plague is that?" interpolated Sir Jekyl. "They want me to
write and ask, and pop it down in the costs;" and after a vain endeavour
to recall it, he read the passage over again with deliberate emphasis.
"Notwithstanding, therefore, the coincidence of the date of your
letter with the period to which, on a former occasion, we invited
your attention, as indicated by the deed of 1809, we are clear upon
the evidence of the letters, copies of which will be before you as
above by next post, that there is no ground for supposing any
unusual activity on the part or behalf of the party or parties to
whom you have referred.
"Awaiting your further directions,
"I have the honour to remain,
"My dear Sir Jekyl Marlowe,
"Your obedient servant,
"N. CROWE.
"For PELTER and CROWE.
"Sir Jekyl Marlowe, Bart.
"Marlowe, Old Swayton."
When Sir Jekyl read this he felt all on a sudden a dozen years younger.
He snapped his fingers, and smiled, in spite of himself. He could
hardly bring himself to acknowledge, even in soliloquy, how immensely
he was relieved. The sun shone delightfully: and his spirits returned
quite brightly. He would have liked to cricket, to ride a
steeple-chase--anything that would have breathed and worked him well,
and given him a fair occasion for shouting and cheering.
CHAPTER XI.
Old Gryston Bridge.
Very merry was the Baronet at the social breakfast-table, and the whole
party very gay, except those few whose natures were sedate or
melancholic.
"A tremendous agreeable man, Sir Jekyl--don't you think so, Jennie?"
said General Lennox to his wife, as he walked her slowly along the
terrace at the side of the house.
"I think him intolerably noisy, and sometimes absolutely vulgar,"
answered Lady Jane, with a languid disdain, which conveyed alike her
estimate of her husband's discernment and of Sir Jekyl's merits.
"Well, I thought he was agreeable. Some of his jokes I think, indeed,
had not much sense in them. But sometimes I don't see a witty thing as
quick as cleverer fellows do, and they were all laughing, except you;
and I don't think you like him, Jennie."
"I don't dislike him. I dare say he's a very worthy soul; but he gives
me a headache."
"He _is_ a little bit noisy, maybe. Yes, he certainly _is_," acquiesced
the honest General, who in questions of taste and nice criticism, was
diffident of his own judgment, and leaned to his wife's. "But I thought
he was rather a pleasant fellow. I'm no great judge; but I like to see
fellows laughing, and that sort of thing. It looks good-humoured, don't
you think?"
"I hate good-humour," said Lady Jane.
The General, not knowing exactly what to say next, marched by her side
in silence, till Lady Jane let go his arm, and sat down on the rustic
seat which commands so fine a view, and, leaning back, eyed the
landscape with a dreamy indolence, as if she was going to "cut" it.
The General scanned it with a military eye, and his reconnoitering
glance discerned, coming up the broad walk at his right, their host,
with pretty Mrs. Maberly on his arm, doing the honours plainly very
agreeably.
On seeing the General and Lady Jane, he smiled, quickened his pace, and
raised his hat.
"So glad we have found you," said he. "Charming weather, isn't it? _You_
must determine, Lady Jane, what's to be done to-day. There are two
things you really ought to see--Gryston Bridge and Hazelden Castle. I
assure you the great London artists visit both for studies. We'll take
our luncheon there, it's such a warm, bright day--that is, if you like
the plan--and, which do you say?"
"My husband always votes for me. What does Mrs. Maberly say?" and Lady
Jane looked in her face with one of her winning smiles.
"Yes, what does Mrs. Maberly say?" echoed the General, gallantly.
"So you won't advise?" said the Baronet, leaning toward Lady Jane, a
little reproachfully.
"I won't advise," she echoed, in her indolent way.
"Which is the best?" inquired Mrs. Maberly, gleefully. "What a charming
idea!"
"For my part, I have a headache, you know, Arthur--I told you, dear; and
I shall hardly venture a long excursion, I think. What do you advise
to-day?"
"Well, I think it might do you good--hey? What do _you_ say, Sir Jekyl?"
"So very sorry to hear Lady Jane is suffering; but I really think your
advice, General Lennox--it's so very fine and mild--and I think it might
amuse Lady Jane;" and he glanced at the lady, who, however, wearing her
bewitching smile, was conversing with Mrs. Maberly about a sweet little
white dog, with long ears and a blue ribbon, which had accompanied her
walk from the house.
"Well, dear, Sir Jekyl wants to know. What do you say?" inquired the
General.
"Oh, pray arrange as you please. I dare say I can go. It's all the
same," answered Lady Jane, without raising her eyes from silvery little
Bijou, on whom she bestowed her unwonted smiles and caresses.
"You belong to Beatrix, you charming little fairy--I'm sure you do; and
is not it very wicked to go out with other people without leave, you
naughty little truant?"
"You must not attack her so. She really loves Beatrix; and though she
has come out just to take the air with me, I don't think she cares
twopence about me; and I know I don't about her."
"What a cruel speech!" cried pretty Mrs. Maberly, with a laugh that
showed her exquisite little teeth.
"The _fact_ is cruel--if you will--not the speech--for she can't hear
it," said Sir Jekyl, patting Bijou.
"So they _act_ love to your face, poor little dog, and say what they
please of you behind your back," murmured Lady Jane, soothingly, to
little Bijou, who wagged his tail and wriggled to her feet. "Yes, they
do, poor little dog!"
"Well, I shall venture--may I? I'll order the carriages at one. And
we'll say Gryston Bridge," said Sir Jekyl, hesitating notwithstanding,
inquiry plainly in his countenance.
"Sir Jekyl's waiting, dear," said General Lennox, a little imperiously.
"I really don't care. _Yes_, then," she said, and, getting up, she took
the General's arm and walked away, leaving Mrs. Maberly and her host to
their _tête-à-tête_.
Gryston Bridge is one of the prettiest scenes in that picturesque part
of the country. A river slowly winds its silvery way through the level
base of a beautifully irregular valley. No enclosure breaks the dimpling
and undulating sward--for it is the common of Gryston--which rises in
soft pastoral slopes at either side, forming the gentle barriers of the
valley, which is closed in at the further end by a bold and Alpine hill,
with a base rising purple and domelike from the plain; and in this
perspective the vale of Gryston diverges, and the two streams, which at
its head unite to form the slow-flowing current of the Greet, are lost
to sight. Trees of nature's planting here and there overhang its stream,
and others, solitarily or in groups, stud the hill-sides and the soft
green plain. A strange row of tall, gray stones, Druidic or monumental,
of a bygone Cyclopean age, stand up, time-worn and mysterious, on a
gentle slope, with a few bending thorn and birch trees beside them, in
the near distance; and in the foreground, the steep, Gothic bridge of
Gretford, or Gryston, spans the river, with five tall arches, and a
loop-holed gate-house, which once guarded the pass, now roofless and
ruined.
In this beautiful and sequestered scene the party from Marlowe had
loitered away that charming afternoon. The early sunset had been rapidly
succeeded by twilight, and the moon had surprised them. The servants
were packing up hampers of plates and knives and forks, and getting the
horses to for the return to Marlowe; while, in the early moonlight a
group stood upon the bridge, overlooking from the battlement the sweet
landscape in its changing light.
Sir Jekyl could see that Captain Drayton was by Beatrix's side, and
concluded, rightly, I have no doubt, that his conversation was tinted by
the tender lights of that romantic scenery.
"The look back on this old bridge from those Druidic stones there by
moonlight is considered very fine. It is no distance--hardly four
hundred steps from this--although it looks so misty," said the Baronet
to Lady Jane, who leaned on his arm. "Suppose we make a little party,
will you venture?"
I suppose the lady acquiesced, for Sir Jekyl ordered that the carriages
should proceed round by the road, and take them up at the point where
these Druidic remains stand.
The party who ventured this little romantic walk over the grass, were
General Lennox, in charge of the mature Miss Blunket, who loved a frolic
with all her girlish heart; Sir Jekyl, with Lady Jane upon his arm; and
Captain Drayton, who escorted Beatrix. Marching gaily, in open column,
as the General would have said, they crossed the intervening hollow, and
reached the hillock, on which stand these ungainly relics of a bygone
race; and up the steep bank they got, each couple as best they could.
Sir Jekyl and Lady Jane, for he knew the ground, by an easy path, were
first to reach the upper platform.
Sir Jekyl, I dare say, was not very learned about the Druids, and I
can't say exactly what he was talking about, when on a sudden he
arrested both his step and his sentence, for on one of these great
prostrate stones which strew that summit, he saw standing, not a dozen
steps away, well illuminated by the moon, the figure of that very Guy
Strangways, whom he so wished and hated to see--whom he had never beheld
without such strange sensations, and had not expected to see again.
The young man took no note of them apparently. He certainly did not
recognise Sir Jekyl, whose position placed his face in the shade, while
that of Mr. Strangways was full in the white light of the moon.
They had found him almost in the act of descending from his pedestal;
and he was gone in a few moments, before the Baronet had recovered from
his surprise.
The vivid likeness which he bore to a person whom the Baronet never
wished to think of, and the suddenness of his appearance and his
vanishing, had reimpressed him with just the same secret alarms and
misgivings as when first he saw him; and the serene confidence induced
by the letter of Messrs. Pelter and Crowe was for a moment demolished.
He dropped Lady Jane's arm, and forgetting his chivalry, strode to the
brow of the hillock, over which the mysterious young man had
disappeared. He had lost sight of him, but he emerged in a few seconds,
about fifty yards away, from behind a screen of thorn, walking swiftly
toward the road close by, on which stood a chaise, sharp in the misty
moonlight.
Just in time to prevent his shouting after the figure, now on the point
of re-entering the vehicle, he recollected and checked himself. Confound
the fellows, if they did not appreciate his hospitality, should he run
after them; or who were they that he should care a pin about them? Had
he not Pelter and Crowe's letter? And suppose he did overtake and engage
the young rogue in talk, what could he expect but a parcel of polite
lies. Certainly, under the circumstances, pursuit would have been
specially undignified; and the Baronet drew himself up on the edge of
the eminence, and cast a haughty half-angry look after the young
gentleman, who was now stepping into the carriage; and suddenly he
recollected how very ill he had treated Lady Jane, and he hastened to
rejoin her.
But Sir Jekyl, in that very short interval, had lost something of his
spirits. The sight of that young man had gone far to undo the
tranquillising effect of his attorneys' letter. He would not have cared
had this unchanged phantom of the past and his hoary mentor been still
in England, provided it were at a distance. But here they were, on the
confines of his property, within a short drive of Marlowe, yet affecting
to forget his invitation, his house, and himself, and detected prowling
in its vicinity like spies or poachers by moonlight. Was there not
something insidious in this? It was not for nothing that so well-bred a
person as that young man thus trampled on all the rules of courtesy for
the sake of maintaining his incognito, and avoiding the obligations of
hospitality.
So reasoned Sir Jekyl Marlowe, and felt himself rapidly relapsing into
that dreamy and intense uneasiness, from which for a few hours he had
been relieved.
"A thousand apologies, Lady Jane," cried he, as he ran back and
proffered his arm again. "I was afraid that fellow might be one of a
gang--a very dangerous lot of rogues--poachers, I believe. There were
people robbed here about a year ago, and I quite forgot when I asked you
to come. I should never have forgiven myself--so selfishly
forgetful--never, had you been frightened."
Sir Jekyl could, of course, tell fibs, especially by way of apology, as
plausibly as other men of the world. He had here turned a negligence
skilfully into a gallantry, and I suppose the lady forgave him.
The carriages had now arrived at the bend of this pretty road; and our
Marlowe friends got in, and the whole cortège swept away merrily towards
that old mansion. Sir Jekyl had been, with an effort, very lively all
the way home, and assisted Lady Jane to the ground, smiling, and had a
joke for General Lennox as he followed; and a very merry party mustered
in the hall, prattling, laughing, and lighting their candles, to run
up-stairs and dress for a late dinner.
CHAPTER XII.
The Strangers appear again.
Sir Jekyl was the last of the party in the hall; and the last joke and
laugh had died away on the lobby above him, and away fled his smiles
like the liveries and brilliants of Cinderella to the region of
illusions, and black care laid her hand on his shoulder and stood by
him.
The bland butler, with a grave bow, accosted him in mild accents--
"The two gentlemen, sir, as you spoke of to Mrs. Sinnott, has arrived
about five minutes before you, sir; and she has, please sir, followed
your directions, and had them put in the rooms in the front, as you
ordered, sir, should be kept for them, before Mrs. Gwynn left."
"_What_ two gentlemen?" demanded Sir Jekyl, with a thrill. "Mr.
Strangways and M. Varbarriere?"
"Them, sir, I think, is the names--Strangways, leastways, I am sure on,
'aving lived, when young, with a branch of the Earl of Dilbury's family,
if you please, sir--which Strangways is the name."
"A good-looking young gentleman, tall and slight, eh?"
"Yes, sir; and a heavy gentleman haccompanies him--something in years--a
furriner, as I suppose, and speaking French or Jarmin; leastways, it is
not English."
"Dinner in twenty minutes," said Sir Jekyl, with the decision of the
Duke of Wellington in action; and away he strode to his dressing-room in
the back settlements, with a quick step and a thoughtful face.
"I shan't want you, Tomlinson, you need not stay," said he to his man;
but before he let him go, he asked carelessly a word or two about the
new guests, and learned, in addition to what he already knew, nothing
but that they had brought a servant with them.
"So much the worse," thought Sir Jekyl; "those confounded fellows hear
everything, and poke their noses everywhere. I sometimes think that
rascal, Tomlinson, pries about here."
And the Baronet, half-dressed, opened the door of his study, as he
called it, at the further end of his homely bedchamber, and looked
round.
It is or might be a comfortable room, of some five-and-twenty feet
square, surrounded by bookshelves, as homely as the style of the
bed-room, stored with volumes of the "Annual Register," "Gentleman's
Magazine," and "Universal History" sort--long rows in dingy
gilding--moved up here when the old library of Marlowe was broken up.
The room had a dusty air of repose about it. A few faded pieces of
old-fashioned furniture, which had probably been quartered here in
genteel retirement, long ago, when the principal sitting-rooms were
undergoing a more modern decoration.
Here Sir Jekyl stood with a sudden look of dejection, and stared
listlessly round on the compact wall of books that surrounded him,
except for the one door-case, that through which he had entered, and the
two windows, on all sides. Sir Jekyl was in a sort of collapse of
spirits. He stepped dreamily to the far shelf and took down a volume of
Old Bailey Reports, and read the back of it several times, then looked
round once more dejectedly, and blew the top of the volume, and wondered
at the quantity of dust there, and replacing it, heaved a deep sigh.
Dust and death are old associations, and his thoughts were running in a
gloomy channel.
"Is it worth all this?" he thought. "I'm growing tired of it--utterly.
I'm half sorry I came here; perhaps they are right. It might be a
devilish good thing for me if this rubbishy old house were burnt to the
ground--and I in it, by Jove! 'Out, out, brief candle!' What's that
Shakspeare speech?--'A tale told by an idiot--a play played by an
idiot'--egad! I don't know why I do half the things I do."
When he looked in the glass he did not like the reflection.
"Down in the mouth--hang it! this will never do," and he shook his
curls, and smirked, and thought of the ladies, and bustled away over his
toilet; and when it was completed, as he fixed in his jewelled
wrist-buttons, the cold air and shadow of his good or evil angel's wing
crossed him again, and he sighed. Capricious were his moods. Our wisdom
is so frivolous, and our frivolities so sad. Is there time here to
think out anything completely? Is it possible to hold by our
conclusions, or even to remember them long? And this trifling and
suffering are the woof and the warp of an eternal robe--wedding garment,
let us hope--maybe winding-sheet, or--toga molesta.
Sir Jekyl, notwithstanding his somewhat interrupted toilet, was in the
drawing-room before many of his guests had assembled. He hesitated for a
moment at the door, and turned about with a sickening thrill, and walked
to the table in the outer hall, or vestibule, where the post-bag lay. He
had no object in this countermarch, but to postpone for a second or two
the meeting with the gentlemen whom, with, as he sometimes fancied, very
questionable prudence, he had invited under his roof.
And now he entered, frank, gay, smiling. His eyes did not search, they
were, as it were, smitten instantaneously with a sense of pain, by the
image of the young man, so handsome, so peculiar, sad, and noble, the
sight of whom had so moved him. He was conversing with old Colonel
Doocey, at the further side of the fireplace. In another moment Sir
Jekyl was before him, his hand very kindly locked in his.
"Very happy to see you here, Mr. Strangways."
"I am very much honoured, Sir Jekyl Marlowe," returned the young
gentleman, in that low sweet tone which he also hated. "I have many
apologies to make. We have arrived two days later than your note
appointed; but an accident--"
"Pray, not a word--your appearance here is the best compensation you
can make me. Your friend, Monsieur Varbarriere, I hope--"
"My uncle--yes; he, too, has the honour. Will you permit me to present
him? Monsieur Varbarriere," said the young man, presenting his relative.
A gentleman at this summons turned suddenly from General Lennox, with
whom he had been talking; a high-shouldered, portly man, taller a good
deal when you approached him than he looked at first; his hair, "all
silvered," brushed up like Louis Philippe's, conically from his
forehead; grey, heavily projecting eyebrows, long untrimmed moustache
and beard; altogether a head and face which seemed to indicate that
combination of strong sense and sensuality which we see in some of the
medals of Roman Emperors; a forehead projecting at the brows, and keen
dark eyes in shadow, observing all things from under their grizzled
pent-house; these points, and a hooked nose, and a certain weight and
solemnity of countenance, gave to the large and rather pallid aspect,
presented suddenly to the Baronet, something, as we have said, of the
character of an old magician. Voluminous plaited black trousers,
slanting in to the foot, foreshadowed the peg-top of more recent date; a
loose and long black velvet waistcoat, with more gold chain and
jewellery generally than Englishmen are accustomed to wear, and a wide
and clumsy black coat, added to the broad and thick-set character of his
figure.
As Sir Jekyl made his complimentary speech to this gentleman, he saw
that his steady and shrewd gaze was attentively considering him in a
way that a little tried his patience; and when the stranger spoke it was
in French, and in that peculiar metallic diapason which we sometimes
hear among the Hebrew community, and which brings the nasals of that
tongue into sonorous and rather ugly relief.
"England is, I dare say, quite new to you, Monsieur Varbarriere?"
inquired Sir Jekyl.
"I have seen it a very long time ago, and admire your so fine country
very much," replied the pallid and bearded sage, speaking in French
still, and in those bell-like tones which rang and buzzed unpleasantly
in the ear.
"You find us the same foggy and tasteless islanders as before," said the
host. "In art, indeed, we have made an advance; _there_, I think, we
have capabilities, but we are as a people totally deficient in that fine
decorative sense which expresses itself so gracefully and universally in
your charming part of the world."
When Sir Jekyl talked of France, he was generally thinking of Paris.
"We have our barbarous regions, as you have; our vineyards are a dull
sight after all, and our forest trees you, with your grand timber, would
use for broom-sticks."
"But your capital; why every time one looks out at the window it is a
fillip to one's spirits. To me, preferring France so infinitely, as I
do," said Sir Jekyl, replying in his guest's language, "it appears a
mystery why any Frenchman, who can help it, ever visits our dismal
region."
The enchanter here shrugged slowly, with a solemn smile.
"No wonder our actions are mysterious to others, since they are so often
so to ourselves."
"You are best acquainted with the south of France?" said Sir Jekyl,
without any data for such an assumption, and saying the reverse of what
he suspected.
"Very well with the south; pretty well, indeed, with most parts."
Just at this moment Mr. Ridley's bland and awful tones informed the
company that dinner was on the table, and Sir Jekyl hastened to afford
to Lady Blunket the support of his vigorous arm into the parlour.
It ought to have been given to Lady Jane; but the Blunket was a huffy
old woman, and, on the score of a very decided seniority, was indulged.
Lady Blunket was not very interesting, and was of the Alderman's
opinion, that conversation prevents one's tasting the green fat; Sir
Jekyl had, therefore, time, with light and careless glances, to see
pretty well, from time to time, what was going on among his guests.
Monsieur Varbarriere had begun to interest him more than Mr. Guy
Strangways, and his eye oftener reviewed that ponderous and solemn face
and form than any other at the table. It seemed that he liked his
dinner, and attended to his occupation. But though taciturn, his shrewd
eyes glanced from time to time on the host and his guests with an air of
reserved observation that showed his mind was anything but sluggish
during the process. He looked wonderfully like some of those enchanters
whom we have seen in illustrations of Don Quixote.
"A deep fellow," he thought, "an influential fellow. That gentleman
knows what he's about; that young fellow is in his hands."
CHAPTER XIII.
In the Drawing-Room.
Sir Jekyl heard snatches of conversation, sometimes here, sometimes
there.
Guy Strangways was talking to Beatrix, and the Baronet heard him say,
smiling--
"But you don't, I'm sure, believe in the elixir of life; you only mean
to mystify us." He was looking more than ever--identical with that other
person, whom it was not pleasant to Sir Jekyl to be reminded
of--horribly like, in this white waxlight splendour.
"But there's another process, my uncle, Monsieur Varbarriere, says, by
slow refrigeration: you are first put to sleep, and in that state
frozen; and once frozen, without having suffered death, you may be kept
in a state of suspended life for twenty or thirty years, neither
conscious, nor growing old; arrested precisely at the point of your
existence at which the process was applied, and at the same point
restored again whenever for any purpose it may be expedient to recall
you to consciousness and activity."
One of those restless, searching glances which the solemn, portly old
gentleman in black directed, from time to time, as he indulged his
taciturn gulosity, lighted on the Baronet at this moment, and Sir Jekyl
felt that they exchanged an unintentional glance of significance. Each
averted his quickly; and Sir Jekyl, with one of his chuckles, for the
sake merely of saying something, remarked--
"I don't see how you can restore people to life by freezing them."
"He did not speak, I think, of restoring life--did you, Guy?" said the
bell-toned diapason of the old gentleman, speaking his nasal French.
"Oh, no--suspending merely," answered the young man.
"To restore life, you must have recourse, I fancy, to a higher process,"
continued the sage, with an ironical gravity, and his eye this time
fixed steadily on Sir Jekyl's; "and I could conceive none more
embarrassing to the human race, _under certain circumstances_," and he
shrugged slowly and shook his head.
"How delightful!--no more death!" exclaimed enthusiastic Miss Blunket.
"Embarrassing, of course, I mean, to certain of the survivors."
This old gentleman was hitting his tenderest points rather hard and
often. Was it by chance or design? Who was he?
So thought the Baronet as he smiled and nodded.
"Do you know who that fat old personage is who dresses like an
undertaker and looks like a Jew?" asked Captain Drayton of Beatrix.
"I think he is a relative of Mr. Strangways."
"And who is Mr. Strangways?"
"He's at my right, next me," answered she in a low tone, not liking the
very clear and distinct key in which the question was put.
But Captain Drayton was not easily disconcerted, being a young gentleman
of a bold and rather impertinent temperament, and he continued leaning
back in his chair and looking dreamily into his hock-glass.
"Not a friend of yours, is he?"
"Oh, no."
"Really--not a friend. You're _quite_ certain?"
"Perfectly. We never saw either--that is, papa met them at some posting
place on his way from London, and invited them; but I think he knows
nothing more."
"Well, I did not like to say till I knew, but I think him--the old
fellow--I have not seen the young man--a most vulgar-looking old person.
He's a wine-jobber, or manager of a factory, or something. You never
saw--I know Paris by heart--you _never saw_ such a thing in gentlemanly
society there."
And the young lady heard him say, _sotto voce_, "Brute!" haughtily to
himself, as an interjection, while he just raised the finger-tips of the
hand which rested on the table, and let them descend again on the snowy
napery. The subject deserved no more troublesome gesture.
"And where is the young gentleman?" asked Captain Drayton, after a
little interval.
Beatrix told him again.
"Oh! _That's_ he! Isn't his French very bad--did it strike you? Bad
_accent_--I can tell in a moment. That's not an accent one hears
anywhere."
Oddly enough, Sir Jekyl at the same time, with such slight interruptions
as his agreeable attentions to Lady Blunket imposed, was, in the
indistinct way in which such discussions are mentally pursued, observing
upon the peculiarities of his two new guests, and did not judge them
amiss.
The elder was odd, take him for what country you pleased. Bearded like a
German, speaking good French, with a good accent, but in the loud full
tones of a Spaniard, and with a quality of voice which resounds in the
synagogue, and a quietude of demeanour much more English than
continental. His dress, such as I have described it, fine in material,
but negligent and easy, though odd. Reserved and silent he was, a little
sinister perhaps, but his bearing unconstrained and gracious when he
spoke. There was, indeed, that odd, watchful glance from under his heavy
eyebrows, which, however, had nothing sly, only observant, in it. Again
he thought, "Who could he be?" On the whole, Sir Jekyl was in nowise
disposed to pronounce upon him as Captain Drayton was doing a little way
down the table; nor yet upon Guy Strangways, whom he thought, on the
contrary, an elegant young man, according to French notions of the
gentlemanly, and he knew the French people a good deal better than the
youthful Captain did.
The principal drawing-room of Marlowe is a very large apartment, and
people can talk of one another in it without any risk of detection.
"Well, Lady Jane," said the Baronet, sitting down before that handsome
woman, and her husband the General, so as to interrupt a conjugal
_tête-à-tête_, probably a particularly affectionate one, for he was to
leave for London next day. "I saw you converse with Monsieur
Varbarriere. What do you think of him?"
"I don't think I conversed with him--did I? He talked to me; but I
really did not take the trouble to think about him."
The General laughed triumphantly, and glanced over his shoulder at the
Baronet. He liked his wife's contempt for the rest of the sex, and her
occasional--_only_ occasional--enthusiasm for him.
"Now you are much too clever, Lady Jane, to be let off so. I really want
to know something about him, which I don't at present; and if anyone can
help me to a wise conjecture, you, I am certain, can."
"And don't you really know who he is?" inquired General Lennox, with a
haughty military surprise.
"Upon my honour, I have not the faintest idea," answered Sir Jekyl. "He
may be a cook or a rabbi, for anything I can tell."
The General's white eyebrows went some wrinkles up the slanting ascent
of his pink forehead, and he plainly looked his amazement that Lady Jane
should have been subjected at Marlowe to the risk of being accosted on
equal terms by a cook or a rabbi. His lips screwed themselves
unconsciously into a small o, and his eyes went in search of the
masquerading menial.
"We had a cook," said the General, still eyeing M. Varbarriere, "at
Futtychur, a French fellow, fat like that, but shorter--a capital cook,
by Jove! and a very gentlemanly man. He wore a white cap, and he had a
very good way of stewing tomatas and turkeys, I think it was, and--yes
it was--and a monstrous gentlemanlike fellow he was; rather too
expensive though; he cost us a great deal," and the General winked
slyly. "I had to speak to him once or twice. But an uncommon
gentlemanlike man."
"He's not a cook, my dear. He may be a banker, perhaps," said Lady Jane,
languidly.
"You have exactly hit my idea," said Sir Jekyl. "It was his knowing all
about French banking, General, when you mentioned that trick that was
played you on the Bourse."
At this moment the massive form and face of M. Varbarriere was seen
approaching with Beatrix by his side. They were conversing, but the
little group we have just been listening to dropped the discussion of M.
Varbarriere, and the Baronet said that he hoped General Lennox would
have a fine day for his journey, and that the moon looked particularly
bright and clear.
"I want to show Monsieur Varbarriere the drawings of the house, papa;
they are in this cabinet. He admires the architecture very much."
The large enchanter in black made a solemn bow of acquiescence here, but
said nothing and Beatrix took from its nook a handsome red-leather
portfolio, on the side of which, in tall golden letters, were the
words--
VIEWS AND ELEVATIONS
OF
MARLOWE MANOR HOUSE.
PAULO ABRUZZI,
ARCHITECT.
1711.
"Capital drawing, I am told. He was a young man of great promise," said
Sir Jekyl, in French. "But the style is quite English, and, I fear, will
hardly interest an eye accustomed to the more graceful contour of
southern continental architecture."
"Your English style interests me very much. It is singular, and suggests
hospitality, enjoyment, and mystery."
Monsieur Varbarriere was turning over these tinted drawings carefully.
"Is not that very true, papa--hospitality, enjoyment, mystery?" repeated
Beatrix. "I think that faint character of mystery is so pleasant. We
have a mysterious room here." She had turned to M. Varbarriere.
"Oh, a dozen," interrupted Sir Jekyl. "No end of ghosts and devils, you
know. But I really think you excel us in that article. I resided for
five weeks in a haunted house once, near Havre, and the stories were
capital, and there were some very good noises too. We must get Dives to
tell it by-and-by; he was younger than I, and more frightened."
"And Mademoiselle says you have a haunted apartment here," said the
ponderous foreigner with the high forehead and projecting brows.
"Yes, of course. We are very much haunted. There is hardly a crooked
passage or a dark room that has not a story," said Sir Jekyl. "Beatrix,
why don't you sing us a song, by-the-bye?"
"May I beg one other favour first, before the crowning one of the song?"
said M. Varbarriere, with an imposing playfulness. "Mademoiselle, I am
sure, tells a story well. Which, I entreat, is the particular room you
speak of?"
"We call it the green chamber," said Beatrix.
"The green chamber--what a romantic title!" exclaimed the large
gentleman in black, graciously; "and where is it situated?" he pursued.
"We must really put you into it," said Sir Jekyl.
"Nothing I should like so well," he observed, with a bow.
"That is, of course, whenever it is deserted. You have not been plagued
with apparitions, General? Even Lady Jane--and there are no ghost-seers
like ladies, I've observed--has failed to report anything horrible."
His hand lay on the arm of her chair, and, as he spoke, for a moment
pressed hers, which, not choosing to permit such accidents, she, turning
carelessly and haughtily toward the other speakers, slipped away.
CHAPTER XIV.
Music.
"And pray, Mademoiselle Marlowe, in what part of the house is this so
wonderful room situated?" persisted the grave and reverend signor.
"Quite out of the question to describe to one who does not already know
the house," interposed Sir Jekyl. "It is next the six-sided
dressing-room, which opens from the hatchment gallery--that is its exact
situation; and I'm afraid I have failed to convey it," said Sir Jekyl,
with one of his playful chuckles.
The Druidic-looking Frenchman shrugged and lifted his fingers with a
piteous expression of perplexity, and shook his head.
"Is there not among these drawings a view of the side of the house where
this room lies?" he inquired.
"I was looking it out," said Beatrix.
"I'll find it, Trixie. Go you and sing us a song," said the Baronet.
"I've got them both, papa. Now, Monsieur Varbarriere, here they are.
This is the front view--this is the side."
"I am very much obliged," said Monsieur examining the drawings
curiously. "The room recedes. This large bow-window belongs to it. Is
it not so?--wide room?--how long? You see I want to understand
everything. Ah! yes, here is the side view. It projects from the side of
the older building, I see. How charming! And this is the work of the
Italian artist? The style is quite novel--a mixture partly
Florentine--really very elegant. Did he build anything more here?"
"Yes, a very fine row of stables, and a temple in the grounds," said Sir
Jekyl. "You shall see them to-morrow."
"The chamber green. Yes, very clever, very pretty;" and having eyed them
over again carefully, he said, laying them down--
"A curious as well as a handsome old house, no doubt. Ah! very curious,
I dare say," said the sage Monsieur Varbarriere. "Are there here the
ground plans?"
"We have them somewhere, I fancy, among the title-deeds, but none here,"
said Sir Jekyl, a little stiffly, as if it struck him that his visitor's
curiosity was a trifle less ceremonious than, all things considered, it
might be.
Pretty Beatrix was singing now to her own accompaniment; and Captain
Drayton, twisting the end of his light moustache, stood haughtily by her
side. The music in his ear was but a half-heard noise. Indeed, although
he had sat out operas innumerable, like other young gentlemen, who would
sit out as many hours of a knife-grinder's performance, or of a railway
whistle, if it were the fashion, had but an imperfect recollection of
the airs he had paid so handsomely to hear, and was no authority on
music of any sort.
Now Beatrix was pretty--more than pretty. Some people called her lovely.
She sang in that rich and plaintive contralto--so rare and so
inexplicably moving--the famous "Come Gentil," from Don Pasquale. When
she ceased, the gentleman at her other side, Guy Strangways, sighed--not
a complimentary--a real sigh.
"That is a wonderful song, the very spirit of a serenade. Such
distance--such gaiety--such sadness. Your Irish poet, Thomas Moore,
compares some spiritual music or kind voice to sunshine spoken. This is
_moonlight_--moonlight _sung_, and _so_ sung that I could dream away
half a life in listening, and yet sigh when it ceases."
Mr. Guy Strangway's strange, dark eyes looked full on her, as with an
admiring enthusiasm he said these words.
The young lady smiled, looking up for a moment from the music-stool, and
then with lowered eyes again, and that smile of gratification which is
so beautiful in a lovely girl's face.
"It is quite charming, really. I'm no musician, you know; but I enjoy
good music extravagantly, especially singing," said Captain Drayton. "I
don't aspire to talk sentiment and that kind of poetry." He was,
perhaps, near using a stronger term--"a mere John Bull; but it _is_,
honestly, charming."
He had his glass in his eye, and turned back the leaf of the song to the
title-page.
"Don Pasquale--yes. Sweet opera that. How often I have listened to
Mario in it! But never, Miss Marlowe, with more real pleasure than to
the charming performance I have just heard."
Captain Drayton was not making his compliment well, and felt it somehow.
It was clumsy--it was dull--it was meant to override the tribute offered
by Guy Strangways, whose presence he chose, in modern phrase, to ignore;
and yet he felt that he had, as he would have expressed it, rather "put
his foot in it;" and, with just a little flush in his cheek and rather
angry eyes, he stooped over the piano and read the Italian words half
aloud.
"By-the-bye," he said, suddenly recollecting a topic, "what a sweet
scene that is of Gryston Bridge? Have you ever been to see it before?"
"Once since we came, we rode there, papa and I," answered Miss Marlowe.
"It looked particularly well this evening--quite beautiful in the
moonlight."
"Is it possible, Miss Marlowe, that _you_ were there this evening? I and
my uncle stopped on our way here to admire the exquisite effect of the
steep old bridge, with a wonderful foreground of Druidic monuments, as
they seemed to me."
"Does your father preserve that river?" asked Captain Drayton, coolly
pretermitting Mr. Strangways altogether.
"I really don't know," she replied, in a slight and hurried way that
nettled the Captain; and, turning to Guy Strangways, she said, "Did you
see it _from_ the bridge?"
"No, Mademoiselle; from the mound in which those curious stones are
raised," answered Mr. Strangways.
Captain Drayton felt that Miss Marlowe's continuing to talk to Mr.
Strangways, while _he_ was present and willing to converse, was
extremely offensive, choosing to entertain a low opinion in all respects
of that person. He stooped a little forward, and stared at the stranger
with that ill-bred gaze of insolent surprise which is the peculiar
weapon of Englishmen, and which very distinctly expresses, "who the
devil are you?"
Perhaps it was fortunate for the harmony of the party that just at this
moment, and before Captain Drayton could say anything specially
impertinent, Sir Jekyl touched Drayton on the shoulder, saying--
"Are you for whist?"
"No, thanks--I'm no player."
"Oh! Mr. Strangways--I did not see--do _you_ play?"
Mr. Strangways smiled, bowed, and shook his head.
"Drayton, did I present you to Mr. Strangways?" and the Baronet made the
two young gentlemen technically known to one another--though, of course,
each knew the other already.
They bowed rather low, and a little haughtily, neither smiling. I
suppose Sir Jekyl saw something a little dangerous in the countenance of
one at least of the gentlemen as he approached, and chose to remind
them, in that agreeable way, that he was present, and wished them
acquainted, and of course friendly.
He had now secured old Colonel Doocey to make up his party--the sober
old Frenchman and Sir Paul Blunket making the supplementary two; and
before they had taken their chairs round the card-table, Captain Drayton
said, with a kind of inclination rather insolent than polite--
"You are of the Dilbury family, of course? I never knew a Strangways
yet--I mean, of course, a Strangways such as one would be likely to
meet, you know--who was not."
"You know one now, sir; for I am not connected ever so remotely with
that distinguished family. My family are quite another Strangways."
"No doubt quite as respectable," said Captain Drayton, with a bow, a
look, and a tone that would have passed for deferential with many; but
which, nevertheless, had the subtle flavour of an irony in it.
"Perhaps more so; my ancestors are the Strangways of Lynton; you are
aware they had a peerage down to the reign of George II."
Captain Drayton was not as deep as so fashionable and moneyed a man
ought to have been in extinct peerages, and therefore he made a little
short supercilious bow, and no answer. He looked drowsily toward the
ceiling, and then--
"The Strangways of Lynton are on the Continent or something--one does
not hear of them," said Captain Drayton, slightly but grandly. "We are
the Draytons of Drayton Forest, in the same county."
"Oh! then my uncle is misinformed. He thought that family was extinct,
and lamented over it when we saw the house and place at a distance."
Captain Drayton coloured a little above his light yellow moustache. He
was no Drayton, but a remotely collateral Smithers, with a queen's
letter constituting him a Drayton.
"Aw--yes--it is a fine old place--quite misinformed. I can show you our
descent if you wish it."
If Drayton had collected his ideas a little first he would not have made
this condescension.
"Your descent is high and pure--_very_ high, I assume--mine is only
respectable--presentable, as you say, but by no means so high as to
warrant my inquiring into that of other people."
"Inquiry! of course. I did not say inquiry," and with an effort Captain
Drayton almost laughed.
"Nothing more dull," acquiesced Mr. Strangways slightly.
Both gentlemen paused--each seemed to expect something from the
other--each seemed rather angrily listening for it. The ostensible
attack had all been on the part of the gallant Captain, who certainly
had not been particularly well bred. The Captain, nevertheless, felt
that Mr. Strangways knew perfectly all about Smithers, and that Smithers
really had not one drop of the Drayton blood in his veins; and he felt
in the sore and secret centre of his soul that the polished, handsome
young gentleman, so easy, so graceful, with that suspicion of a foreign
accent and of foreign gesture, had the best of the unavowed battle. He
had never spoken a word or looked a look in the course of this little
dialogue which could have suggested an idea of altercation, or any kind
of mutual unpleasantness, to the beautiful young girl; who, with one
hand on the keys of the piano, touched them so lightly with her fingers
as to call forth a dream of an air rather than the air itself.
To her Guy Strangways turned, with his peculiar smile--so winning, yet
so deep--an enigmatic smile that had in it a latent sadness and
fierceness, and by its very ambiguousness interested one.
"I upbraid myself for losing these precious moments while you sit here,
and might, perhaps, be persuaded to charm us with another song."
So she was persuaded; Captain Drayton still keeping guard, and
applauding, though with no special goodwill toward the unoffending
stranger.
The party broke up early. The ladies trooped to their bed-room candles
and ascended the great staircase, chatting harmoniously, and bidding
mutual sweet goodnights as in succession they reached their doors. The
gentlemen, having sat for awhile lazily about the fire, or gathered
round the tray whereon stood sherry and seltzer water, repaired also to
the cluster of bedchamber candlesticks without, and helped themselves,
talking together in like sociable manner.
"Would you like to come to my room and have a cigar, Monsieur
Varbarriere?" asked the Baronet in French.
Monsieur was much obliged, and bowed very suavely, but declined.
"And you, Mr. Strangways?"
He also, with many thanks, a smile and a bow, declined.
"My quarters are quite out of reach of the inhabited part of the
house--not very far from two hundred feet from this spot, by Jove! right
in the rear. You must really come to me there some night; you'll be
amused at my deal furniture and rustic barbarism; we often make a party
there and smoke for half an hour."
So, as they were not to be persuaded, the Baronet hospitably accompanied
them to their rooms, at the common dressing-room door of which stood
little Jacque Duval with his thin, bronzed face, candle in hand, bowing,
to receive his master.
CHAPTER XV.
M. Varbarriere converses with his Nephew.
Here then Sir Jekyl bid them good-night, and descended the great
staircase, and navigated the long line of passage to the back stairs
leading up to his own homely apartment.
The elder man nodded to Jacque, and moved the tips of his fingers
towards the door--a silent intimation which the adroit valet perfectly
understood; so, with a cheerful bow, he withdrew.
There was a gay little spluttering fire in the grate, which the
sharpness of the night made very pleasant. The clumsy door was shut, and
the room had an air of comfortable secrecy which invited a talk.
It was not to come, however, without preparation. He drew a chair before
the fire, and sat down solemnly, taking a gigantic cigar from his case,
and moistening it diligently between his lips before lighting it. Then
he pointed to a chair beside the hearth, and presented his cigar-case to
his young companion, who being well versed in his elder's ways, helped
himself, and having, like him, foreign notions about smoking, had of
course no remorse about a cigar or two in their present quarters.
Up the chimney chiefly whisked the narcotic smoke. Over the ponderous
features and knotted forehead of the sage flushed the uncertain light of
the fire, revealing all the crows' feet--all the lines which years,
thought, passion, or suffering had traced on that large, sombre, and
somewhat cadaverous countenance, reversing oddly some of its shadows,
and glittering with a snakelike brightness on the eyes, which now gazed
grimly into the bars under their heavy brows.
The large and rather flat foot, shining in French leather, of the portly
gentleman in the ample black velvet waistcoat, rested on the fender, and
he spoke not a word until his cigar was fairly smoked out and the stump
of it in the fire. Abruptly he began, without altering his pose or the
direction of his gaze.
"You need not make yourself more friendly with any person here than is
absolutely necessary."
He was speaking French, and in a low tone that sounded like the boom of
a distant bell.
Young Strangways bowed acquiescence.
"Be on your guard with Sir Jekyl Marlowe. Tell him _nothing_. Don't let
him be kind to you. He will have no kind motive in being so. Fence with
his questions--don't answer them. Remember he is an artful man without
any scruple. I know him and all about him."
M. Varbarriere spoke each of these little sentences in an isolated way,
as a smoker might, although he was no longer smoking, between his puffs.
"Therefore, not a word to him--no obligations--no intimacy. If he
catches you by the hand, even by your little finger, in the way of
friendship, he'll cling to it, so as so impede your _arm_, should it
become necessary to exert it."
"I don't understand you, sir," said the young man, in a deferential
tone, but looking very hard at him.
"You _partly_ don't understand me; the nature of my direction, however,
is clear. Observe it strictly."
There was a short silence here.
"I don't understand, sir, what covert hostility can exist between us;
that is, why I should, in your phrase, keep my hand free to exert it
against him."
"No, I don't suppose you do."
"And I can't help regretting that, if such are our possible relations, I
should find myself as a guest under his roof," said the young man, with
a pained and almost resentful look.
"You can't help regretting, and--you can't help the circumstance,"
vibrated his Mentor, in a metallic murmur, his cadaverous features
wearing the same odd character of deep thought and apathy.
"I don't know, with respect to _him_--I know, however, how it has
affected me--that I have felt unhappy, and even guilty since this
journey commenced, as if I were a traitor and an impostor," said the
young man, with a burst of impatience.
"Don't, sir, use phrases which reflect back upon _me_," said the other,
turning upon him with a sudden sternness. "All you have done is by my
direction."
The ample black waistcoat heaved and subsided a little faster than
before, and the imposing countenance was turned with pallid fierceness
upon the young man.
"I am sorry, uncle."
"So you should--you'll see one day how little it is to me, and how much
to you."
Here was a pause. The senior turned his face again toward the fire. The
little flush that in wrath always touched his forehead subsided slowly.
He replaced his foot on the fender, and chose another cigar.
"There's a great deal you don't see now that you will presently. I did
not want to see Sir Jekyl Marlowe any more than you did or do; but I did
want to see this place. You'll know hereafter why. I'd rather not have
met him. I'd rather not be his guest. Had he been as usual at Dartbroke,
I should have seen all I wanted without that annoyance. It is an
accident his being here--another, his having invited me; but no false
ideas and no trifling chance shall regulate, much less stop, the action
of the machine which I am constructing and will soon put in motion."
And with these words he lighted his cigar, and after smoking for a while
he lowered it, and said--
"Did Sir Jekyl put any questions to you, with a view to learn
particulars about you or me?"
"I don't recollect that he did. I rather think not; but Captain Drayton
did."
"I know, _Smithers_?"
"Yes, sir."
"With an object?" inquired the elder man.
"I think not--merely impertinence," answered Guy Strangways.
"You are right--it is nothing to him. I do not know that even Marlowe
has a suspicion. Absolutely impertinence."
And upon this M. Varbarriere began to smoke again with resolution and
energy.
"You understand, Guy; you may be as polite as you please--but no
friendship--nowhere--you must remain quite unembarrassed."
Here followed some more smoke, and after it the question--
"What do you think of the young lady, Mademoiselle Marlowe?"
"She sings charmingly, and for the rest, I believe she is agreeable; but
my opportunities have been very little."
"What do you think of our fellow Jacque--is he trustworthy?"
"Perfectly, so far as I know."
"You never saw him peep into letters, or that kind of thing?"
"Certainly not."
"There is a theory which must be investigated, and I should like to
employ him. You know nothing against him, nor do I."
"Suppose we go to our beds?" resumed the old gentleman, having finished
his cigar.
A door at either side opened from the dressing-room, by whose fire they
had been sitting.
"See which room is meant for me--Jacque will have placed my things
there."
The young man did as he was bid, and made his report.
"Well, get you to bed, Guy, and remember--no friendships and no
follies."
And so the old man rose, and shook his companion's hand, not smiling,
but with a solemn and thoughtful countenance, and they separated for the
night.
Next morning as the Rev. Dives Marlowe stood in his natty and
unexceptionable clerical costume on the hall-door steps, looking with a
pompous and, perhaps, a somewhat forbidding countenance upon the morning
prospect before him, his brother joined him.
"Early bird, Dives, pick the worm--eh? Healthy and wise already, and
wealthy to be. Slept well, eh?"
"Always well here," answered the parson. He was less of a parson and
more like himself with Jekyl than with anyone else. His brother was so
uncomfortably amused with his clerical airs, knew him so well, and so
undisguisedly esteemed him of the earth earthy, that the cleric,
although the abler as well as the better read man, always felt
invariably a little sheepish before him, in his silk vest and
single-breasted coat with the standing collar, and the demi-shovel,
which under other eyes he felt to be imposing properties.
"You look so like that exemplary young man in Watt's hymns, in the
old-fashioned toggery, Dives--the fellow with the handsome round
cheeks, you know, piously saluting the morning sun that's rising with a
lot of spokes stuck out of it, don't you remember?"
"I look like something that's ugly, I dare say," said the parson, who
had not got up in a good temper. "There never was a Marlowe yet who
hadn't ugly points about him. But a young man, though never so ugly, is
rather a bold comparison--eh? seeing I'm but two years your junior,
Jekyl."
"Bitterly true--every word--my dear boy. But let us be pleasant. I've
had a line to say that old Moulders is very ill, and really dying this
time. Just read this melancholy little bulletin."
With an air which seemed to say, "well, to please you," he took the note
and read it. It was from his steward, to mention that the Rev. Abraham
Moulders was extremely ill of his old complaint, and that there was
something even worse the matter, and that Doctor Winters had said that
morning he could not possibly get over this attack.
"Well, Dives, there is a case of 'sick and weak' for you; you'll have
prayers for him at Queen's Chorleigh, eh?"
"Poor old man!" said Dives, solemnly, with his head thrown back, and his
thick eyebrows elevated a little, and looking straight before him as he
returned the note, "he's very ill, indeed, unless this reports much too
unfavourably."
"Too favourably, you mean," suggested the Baronet.
"But you know, poor old man, it is only wonderful he has lived so long.
The old people about there say he is eighty-seven. Upon my word, old
Jenkins says he told him, two years ago, himself, he was eighty-five;
and Doctor Winters, no chicken--just sixty--says his father was in the
same college with him, at Cambridge, nearly sixty-seven years ago. You
know, my dear Jekyl, when a man comes to that time of life, it's all
idle--a mere pull against wind and tide, and everything. It is appointed
unto all men once to die, you know, and the natural term is threescore
years and ten. All idle--all in vain!"
And delivering this, the Rev. Dives Marlowe shook his head with a
supercilious melancholy, as if the Rev. Abraham Moulders' holding out in
that way against the inevitable was a piece of melancholy bravado,
against which, on the part of modest mortality, it was his sad duty to
protest.
Jekyl's cynicism was tickled, although there was care at his heart, and
he chuckled.
"And how do you know you have any interest in the old fellow's demise?"
The Rector coughed a little, and flushed, and looked as careless as he
could, while he answered--
"I said nothing of the kind; but you have always told me you meant the
living for me. I've no reason, only your goodness, Jekyl."
"No goodness at all," said Jekyl, kindly. "You shall have it, of course.
I always meant it for you, Dives, and I wish it were better, and I'm
very glad, for I'm fond of you, old fellow."
Hereupon they both laughed a little, shaking hands very kindly.
"Come to the stable, Dives," said the Baronet, taking his arm. "You must
choose a horse. You don't hunt now?"
"I have not been at a cover for _ten_ years," answered the reverend
gentleman, speaking with a consciousness of the demi-shovel.
"Well, come along," continued the Baronet. "I want to ask you--let's be
serious" (everybody likes to be serious over his own business). "What do
you think of these foreign personages?"
"The elder, I should say, an able man," answered Dives; "I dare say
could be agreeable. It is not easy to assign his exact rank though, nor
his profession or business. You remarked he seems to know something in
detail and technically of nearly every business one mentions."
"Yes; and about the young man--that Mr. Guy Strangways, with his foreign
accent and manner--did anything strike you about him?"
"Yes, certainly, could not fail. The most powerful likeness, I think, I
ever saw in my life."
They both stopped, and exchanged a steady and anxious look, as if each
expected the other to say more; and after a while the Rev. Dives Marlowe
added, with an awful sort of nod--
"Guy Deverell."
The Baronet nodded in reply.
"Well, in fact, he appeared to me something _more_ than like--the
same--identical."
"And old Lady Alice saw him in Wardlock Church, and was made quite
ill," said the Baronet gloomily. "But you know he's gone these thirty
years; and there is no necromancy now-a-days; only I wish you would take
any opportunity, and try and make out all about him, and what they want.
I brought them here to pump them, by Jove; but that old fellow seems
deuced reserved and wary. Only, like a good fellow, if you can find or
make an opportunity, you must get the young fellow on the subject--for I
don't care to tell you, Dives, I have been devilish uneasy about it.
There are things that make me confoundedly uncomfortable; and I have a
sort of foreboding it would have been better for me to have blown up
this house than to have come here; but ten to one--a hundred to
one--there's nothing, and I'm only a fool."
As they thus talked they entered the gate of the stable-yard.
CHAPTER XVI.
Containing a Variety of Things.
"Guy Deverell left no issue," said Dives.
"No; none in the world; neither chick nor child. I need not care a brass
farthing about any that can't inherit, if there were any; but there
isn't one; there's no real danger, you see. In fact, there _can't_ be
_any_--eh? _I_ don't see it. Do _you_? You were a sharp fellow always,
Dives. _Can_ you see anything threatening in it?"
"_It! What?_" said the Rev. Dives Marlowe. "I see _nothing--nothing
whatever--absolutely_ nothing. Surely you can't fancy that a mere
resemblance, however strong, where there can't possibly be identity, and
the fact that the young man's name is Guy, will make a case for alarm!"
"Guy _Strangways_, you know," said Sir Jekyl.
"Well, what of Strangways? I don't see."
"Why, Strangways, you remember, or _don't_ remember, was the name of the
fellow that was always with--with--that cross-grained muff."
"With Guy Deverell, you mean?"
"Ay, with him that night, and constantly, and abroad I think at those
German gaming-places where he played so much."
"I forgot the name. I remember hearing there _was_ a person in your
company that unlucky night; but you never heard more of him?"
"No, of course; for he owed me a precious lot of money;" and from habit
he chuckled, but with something of a frown. "He could have given me a
lot of trouble, but so could I him. My lawyers said he could not
seriously affect me, but he might have annoyed me; and I did not care
about the money, so I did not follow him; and, as the lawyers say, we
turned our backs on one another."
"Strangways," murmured the Rector, musingly.
"Do you remember him now?" asked Sir Jekyl.
"No; that is, I'm not sure. I was in orders then though, and could
hardly have met him. I am sure I should recollect him if I had. What was
he like?"
"A nasty-looking Scotch dog, with freckles--starved and tall--a hungry
hound--large hands and feet--as ugly a looking cur as you ever beheld."
"But Deverell, poor fellow, was a bit of a dandy--wasn't he? How did he
come to choose such a companion?"
"Well, maybe he was not quite as bad as he describes, and his family was
good, I believe; but there must have been something more, he hung about
him so. Yes, he _was_ a most objectionable-looking fellow--so awkward,
and not particularly well dressed; but a canny rascal, and knew what he
was about. I could not make out what use Deverell made of him, nor
exactly what advantage he made of Deverell."
"I can't for the life of me, see, Jekyl, anything in it except a
resemblance, and that is positively nothing, and a Christian name, that
is all, and Guy is no such uncommon one. As for Strangways, he does not
enter into it at all--a mere accidental association. Where is that
Strangways--is he living?"
"I don't know now; ten years ago he was, and Pelter and Crowe thought he
was going to do me some mischief, a prosecution or something, they
thought, to extort money; but I knew they were wrong. I had a reason--at
least it was unlikely, because I rather think he had repaid me that
money about then. A year or so before a large sum of money was lodged to
my account by Herbert Strangways, that was his name, at the
International Bank in Lombard Street; in fact it was more than I thought
he owed me--interest, I suppose, and that sort of thing. I put Pelter
and Crowe in his track, but they could make out nothing. The bank people
could not help us. Unluckily I was away at the time and the lodgment was
two months old when I heard of it. There were several raw Scotch-looking
rascals, they said, making lodgments about then, and they could not tell
exactly what sort of fellow made this. I wanted to make out about him.
What do you think of it?"
"I don't see anything suspicious in it. He owed you the money and chose
to pay."
"He was protected by the Statute of Limitations, my lawyer said, and I
could not have recovered it. Doesn't it look odd?"
"Those Scotch fellows."
"He's not Scotch, though."
"Well, whatever he is, if he has good blood he's proud, perhaps, and
would rather pay what he owes than not."
"Well, of course, a fellow's glad of the money; but I did not like it;
it looked as if he wanted to get rid of the only pull I had on him, and
was going to take steps to annoy me, you see."
"That's ten years ago?"
"Yes."
"Well, considering how short life is, I think he'd have moved before now
if he had ever thought of it. It is a quarter of a _century_ since poor
Deverell's time. It's a good while, you know, and the longer you wait in
matters of that kind the less your chance;" and with a brisk decision
the Rector added, "I'll stake, I think, all I'm worth, these people have
no more connection with poor Deverell than Napoleon Bonaparte, and that
Strangways has no more notion of moving any matter connected with that
unhappy business than he has of leading an Irish rebellion."
"I'm glad you take that view--I know it's the sound one. I knew you
_would_. I think it's just a little flicker of gout. If I had taken
Vichy on my way back I'd never have thought of it. I've no one to talk
to. It's a comfort to see you, Dives. I wish you'd come oftener." And he
placed his hand very kindly on his brother's shoulder.
"So I will," said Dives, not without kindness in his eyes, though his
mouth was forbidding still. "You must not let chimeras take hold of you.
I'm very glad I was here."
"Did you remark that fat, mountainous French fellow, in that cursed suit
of black, was very inquisitive about the green chamber?" asked Sir
Jekyl, relapsing a little.
"No, I did not hear him mention it; what was it?" asked Dives.
"Well, not a great deal; only he seemed to want to know all about that
particular room and its history, just as if there was already something
in his head about it."
"Well, I told you, Jekyl," said Dives, in a subdued tone and looking
away a little, "you ought to do something decisive about that room, all
things considered. If it were mine, I can tell you, I should pull it
down--not, of course, in such a way as to make people talk and ask
questions, but as a sort of improvement. I'd make a conservatory, or
something; you _want_ a conservatory, and the building is positively
injured by it. It is not the same architecture. You might put something
there twice as good. At all events I'd get rid of it."
"So I will--I _intend_--I think you're right--I really do. But it was
brought about by little Beatrix talking about haunted rooms, you know,
and that sort of nonsense," said Sir Jekyl.
"Oh! then she mentioned it? He only asked questions about what she told
him. Surely you're not going to vex yourself about that?"
Sir Jekyl looked at him and laughed, but not quite comfortably.
"Well, I told you, you know, I do believe it's great; and whatever it
is, I know, Dives, you've done me a great deal of good. Come, now, I've
a horse I think you'll like, and you shall have him; try him to-day, and
I'll send him home for you if he suits you."
While the groom was putting up the horse, Sir Jekyl, who was quick and
accurate of eye, recognised the dark-faced, intelligent little valet,
whom he had seen for a moment, candle in hand, at the dressing-room
door, last night, to receive his guests.
With a deferential smile, and shrug, and bow, all at once, this little
gentleman lifted his cap with one hand, removing his German pipe with
the other.
He had been a courier--clever, active, gay--a man who might be trusted
with money, papers, diamonds. Beside his native French, he spoke English
very well, and a little German. He could keep accounts, and write a neat
little foreign hand with florid capitals. He could mend his own clothes,
and even his shoes. He could play the flute a little, and very much the
fiddle. He was curious, and liked to know what was taking place. He
liked a joke and the dance, and was prone to the tender passion, and
liked, in an honest way, a little bit of intrigue, or even espionage.
Such a man he was as I could fancy in a light company of that marvellous
army of Italy, of which Napoleon I. always spoke with respect and
delight.
In the stable-yard, as I have said, the Baronet found this dark sprite
smoking a German pipe; and salutations having been exchanged, he bid him
try instead two of his famous cigars, which he presented, and then he
questioned him on tobacco, and on his family, the theatres, the
railways, the hotels; and finally Sir Jekyl said,
"I wish you could recollect a man like yourself--I want one
confoundedly. I shall be going abroad in August next year, and I'd give
him five thousand francs a year, or more even, with pleasure, and keep
him probably as long as he liked to stay with me. Try if you can
remember such a fellow. Turn it over in your mind--do you see? and I
don't care how soon he comes into my service."
The man lifted his cap again, and bowed even lower, as he undertook to
"turn it over in his mind;" and though he smiled a great deal, it was
plain his thoughts were already seriously employed in turning the
subject over, as requested by the Baronet.
Next morning M. Varbarriere took a quiet opportunity, in the hall, of
handing to his host two letters of introduction, as they are called--one
from the Baronet's old friend, Charteris, attached to the embassy at
Paris--a shrewd fellow, a man of the world, amphibious, both French and
English, and equally at home on either soil--speaking unmistakably in
high terms of M. Varbarriere as of a gentleman very much respected in
very high quarters. The other was equally handsome. But Charteris was
exactly the man whose letter in such a case was to be relied upon.
The Baronet glanced over these, and said he was very glad to hear from
his friend Charteris--the date was not a week since--but laughed at the
formality, regretting that he had not a note from Charteris to present
in return, and then gracefully quoted an old French distich, the
sentiment of which is that "chivalry proclaims itself, and the gentleman
is no more to be mistaken than the rose," and proceeded to ask his
guest, "How is Charteris--he had hurt his wrist when I saw him last--and
is there any truth in the report about his possible alliance with that
rich widow?" and so forth.
When Sir Jekyl got into his sanctum I am afraid he read both letters
with a very microscopic scrutiny, and he resolved inwardly to write a
very sifting note to Charteris, and put it upon him, as an act of
friendship, to make out every detail of the past life and adventures of
M. Varbarriere, and particularly whether he had any young kinsman,
nephew or otherwise, answering a certain description, all the items of
which he had by rote.
But writing of letters is to some people a very decided bore. The
Baronet detested it, and his anxieties upon these points being
intermittent, the interrogatories were not so soon despatched to his
friend Charteris.
Old General Lennox was away for London this morning; and his host took a
seat beside him in the brougham that was to convey him to the station,
and was dropped on the way at the keeper's lodge, when he bid a kind and
courteous adieu to his guest, whom he charged to return safe and soon,
and kissed his hand, and waved it after the florid smiling countenance
and bushy white eyebrows that were protruded from the carriage-window as
it glided away.
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