Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “And you did urge him?”

  “Certainly, Lady Alice,” said the Bishop, with dignity. “I viewed it in the light of a duty, and a very sacred one, to do so.”

  “He told you the reason, then?” inquired Lady Alice.

  “He gave me no reason on earth for his wish; perhaps, had he been spared for another day, he would have done so; but he expressed himself strongly indeed, with a kind of horror, and spoke of the Italian who built, and his father who ordered it, in terms of strong disapprobation, and wished frequently it had never been erected. Perhaps you would like to take a little turn. How very pretty the flowers still are!”

  “Very. No, thank you, I’ll sit a little. And there was something more. I know perfectly there was, my lord; what was it, pray?” answered the old lady.

  “It was merely something that I took charge of,” said the Bishop, cautiously.

  “You need not be so reserved with me, my lord; I’m not, as you very well know, a talking old woman, by any means. I know something of the matter already, and have never talked about it; and as the late Lady Marlowe was my poor daughter by marriage, you may talk to me, I should hope, a little more freely than to a total stranger.”

  The Bishop, I fancy, thought there was something in this appeal, and was, perhaps, amused at the persistency of women, for he smiled sadly for a second or two on his gaiter, and he said, looking before him with his head a little on one side —

  “You give me credit, my dear Lady Alice, for a great deal more reserve than I have, at least on this occasion, exercised. I have very little to disclose, and I am not forbidden by any promise, implied or direct, to tell you the very little I know.”

  He paused.

  “Well, my lord, pray go on,” insisted Lady Alice.

  “Yes, on the whole,” said the Bishop, thoughtfully, “I prefer telling you. In the room in which he died, in this house, there is, or was, a sort of lock-up place.”

  “That was the room in which Jekyl now sleeps,” interrupted Lady Alice.

  “I am not aware.”

  “The room at the extreme back of the house. You go through a long passage on the same level as the hall, and then, at the head of the far backstair, into a small room on your left, and through that into the bedroom, I mean. It was there, I know, his coffin lay, for I saw him in it.”

  “As well as I recollect, that must have been the room. I know it lay as you describe. He gave me some keys that were placed with his purse under his pillow, and directed me to open the press, and take out a box, resembling a small oak plate-chest, which I did, and, by his direction, having unlocked it, I took out a very little trunk-shaped box, covered with stamped red leather, and he took it from me, and the keys, and that time said no more.”

  “Well?”

  “In the evening, when I returned, he said he had been thinking about it, and wished to place it and the key in my care, as his boy was not of age, and it contained something, the value of which, as I understood, might be overlooked, and the box mislaid. His direction to me was to give it to his son, the present Sir Jekyl, on his coming of age, and to tell him from him that he was to do what was right with it. I know those were his words, for he was exhausted, and not speaking very distinctly; and I repeated them carefully after him, and as he said, ‘correctly;’ after a short time he added, ‘I think I shall tell you more about it tomorrow;’ but, as I told you, he was unable to speak next morning.”

  “And what did that red box contain?” asked Lady Alice.

  “I can’t tell. I never unlocked it. I tied it round with a tape and sealed it, and so it remained.”

  “Then, Jekyl got it when he came of age?”

  “I had him, about that time, at my house. He examined the box, and, when he had satisfied himself as to its contents, he secured it again with his own seal, and requested me to keep it for him for some short time longer.”

  “Have you got it still in your possession?”

  “No. I thought it best to insist at last on his taking it into his own keeping. I’ve brought it with me here — and I gave it to him on the day of my arrival.”

  “Very heavy, was it?”

  “On the contrary, very light.”

  “H’m! Thank you, my lord; it is very good of you to converse so long with an old woman such as I.”

  “On the contrary, Lady Alice, I am much obliged to you. The fact is, I believe it is better to have mentioned these circumstances. It may, perhaps, prove important that some member of the family should know exactly what took place between me and the late Sir Harry Marlowe during his last illness. You now know everything. I have reminded him, as I thought it right, of the earnest injunction of his father, first with respect to that room, the green chamber; and he tells me that he means to comply with it when his party shall have broken up. And about the other matter, the small box, I mentioned that he should do what is right with it. He asked me if I had seen what the box contained; and on my saying no, he added that he could not tell what his father meant by telling him to do what was right with it — in fact, that he could do nothing with it.”

  “Quite an Italian evening!” exclaimed the Bishop, after a pause, rising, and offering his arm to Lady Alice.

  And so their conference ended.

  Next day, contrary to her secluded custom, and for the first time, Lady Alice glided feebly into the new library of Marlowe, of which all the guests were free.

  Quite empty, except of that silent company in Russia leather and gold, in vellum, and other fine suits; all so unobtrusive and quiet; all so obsequiously at her service; all ready to speak their best, their brightest, and wisest thoughts, or to be silent and neglected, and yet never affronted; always alert to serve and speak, or lie quiet.

  Quite deserted! No, not quite. There, more than half hidden by that projection and carved oak pilaster, sate Monsieur Varbarriere, in an easy-chair and a pair of gold spectacles, reading easily his vellum quarto.

  “Pretty room!” exclaimed Lady Alice in soliloquy, so soon as she had detected the corpulent and grave student.

  Monsieur Varbarriere laid down his book with a look of weariness, and seeing Lady Alice, smiled benignly, and rose and bowed, and his sonorous bass tones greeted her courteously from the nook in which he stood framed in oak, like a portrait of a rich and mysterious burgomaster.

  “What a pretty room!” repeated the old lady; “I believe we are tête-à-tête.”

  “Quite so; I have been totally alone; a most agreeable surprise, Lady Alice. Books are very good company; but even the best won’t do always; and I was beginning to weary of mine.”

  M. Varbarriere spoke French, so did Lady Alice; in fact, for that gentleman’s convenience, all conversations with him in that house were conducted in the same courtly language.

  Lady Alice looked round the room to satisfy herself that they were really alone; and having made her commendatory criticisms on the apartment once more,

  “Very pretty,” echoed Monsieur Varbarriere; “I admire the oak, especially in a library, it is so solemn and contemplative. The Bishop was here to-day, and admired the room very much. An agreeable and good man the Bishop appears to be.”

  “Yes; a good man; an excellent man. I had a very interesting conversation with him yesterday. I may as well tell you, Monsieur Varbarriere — I know I may rely upon you — I have not come to my time of life without knowing pretty well, by a kind of instinct, whom I may trust; and I well know how you sympathise with me about my lost son.”

  “Profoundly, madame;” and Monsieur Varbarriere, with his broad and brown hand on his breast, bowed slowly and very deep.

  * * *

  CHAPTER II.

  M. Varbarriere orders his Wings.

  In her own way, with interjections, and commentary and occasional pauses for the sake of respiration, old Lady Alice related the substance of what the Bishop had communicated to her.

  “And what do you suppose, Monsieur Varbarriere, to have been the contents of that red leather box?
” asked Lady Alice.

  Monsieur Varbarriere smiled mysteriously and nodded.

  “I fancy, Lady Alice, I have the honour to have arrived at precisely the same conclusion with yourself,” said he.

  “Well, I dare say. You see now what is involved. You understand now why I should be, for his own sake, more than ever grieved that my boy is gone,” she said, trembling very much.

  Monsieur Varbarriere bowed profoundly.

  “And why it is, sir, that I do insist on your explaining your broken phrase of the other evening.”

  Monsieur Varbarriere in his deep oak frame stood up tall, portly, and erect. A narrow window, with stained heraldic emblazonry, was partly behind him, and the light from above fell askance on one side of his massive countenance, throwing such dark downward bars of shadow on his face, that Lady Alice could not tell whether he was scowling or smiling, or whether the effect was an illusion.

  “What phrase, pray, does your ladyship allude to?” he inquired.

  “You spoke of my boy — my poor Guy — as if you knew more of him than you cared to speak — as if you were on the point of disclosing, and suddenly recollected yourself,” replied Lady Alice.

  “You mean when I had the honour to converse with you the night before last in the drawingroom,” said he, a little brusquely, observing that the old lady was becoming vehemently excited.

  “Yes; when you left me under the impression that you thought my son still living,” half screamed Lady Alice, like a woman in a fury.

  “Bah!” thundered the sneering diapason of Monsieur Varbarriere, whose good manners totally forsook him in his angry impatience, and his broad foot on the floor enforced his emphasis with a stamp.

  “What do you mean, you foreign masquerader, whom nobody knows? What can it be? Sir, you have half distracted me. I’ve heard of people getting into houses — I’ve heard of magicians — I’ve heard of the devil — I have heard of charlatans, sir. I’d like to know what right, if you know nothing of my dear son, you have to torture me with doubts— “

  “Doubts!” repeated Varbarriere, if less angrily, even more contemptuously. “Pish!”

  “You may say pish, sir, or any rudeness you please; but depend upon this, if you do know anything of any kind, about my darling son, I’ll have it from you if there be either laws or men in England,” shrieked Lady Alice.

  Varbarriere all at once subsided, and looked hesitatingly. In tones comparatively quiet, but still a little ruffled, he said —

  “I’ve been, I fear, very rude; everyone that’s angry is. I think you are right. I ought never to have approached the subject of your domestic sorrow. It was not my doing, madame; it was you who insisted on drawing me to it.”

  “You told me that you had seen my son, and knew Mr. Strangways intimately.”

  “I did not!” cried Varbarriere sternly, with his head thrown back; and he and Lady Alice for a second or two were silent. “That is, I beg pardon, you misapprehended me. I’m sure I never could have said I had seen your son, Mr. Guy Deverell, or that I had a particularly intimate acquaintance with Mr. Strangways.”

  “It won’t do,” burst forth Lady Alice again; “I’ll not be fooled — I won’t be fooled, sir.”

  “Pray, then, pause for one moment before you have excited an alarm in the house, and possibly decide me on taking my leave for ever,” said Varbarriere, in a low but very stern tone. “Whatever I may be — charlatan, conjurer, devil — if you but knew the truth, you would acknowledge yourself profoundly and everlastingly indebted to me. It is quite true that I am in possession of facts of which you had not even a suspicion; it is true that the affairs of those nearest to you in blood have occupied my profoundest thoughts and most affectionate care. I believe, if you will but exercise the self-command of which I have no doubt you are perfectly capable, for a very few days, I shall have so matured my plans as to render their defeat impracticable. On the other hand, if you give me any trouble, or induce the slightest suspicion anywhere that I have taken an interest of the kind I describe, I shall quit England, and you shall go down to your grave in darkness, and with the conviction, moreover, that you have blasted the hopes for which you ought to have sacrificed not your momentary curiosity only, but your unhappy life.”

  Lady Alice was awed by the countenance and tones of this strange man, who assumed an authority over her, on this occasion, which neither of her deceased lords had ever ventured to assert in their lifetimes.

  Her fearless spirit would not, however, succumb, but looked out through the cold windows of her deep-set eyes into the fiery gaze of her master, as she felt him, daringly as before.

  After a short pause, she said —

  “You would have acted more wisely, Monsieur Varbarriere, had you spoken to me on other occasions as frankly as you have just now done.”

  “Possibly, madame.”

  “Certainly, monsieur.”

  M. Varbarriere bowed.

  “Certainly, sir. But having at length heard so much, I am willing to concede what you say. I trust the delay may not be long. — I think you ought to tell me soon. I suppose we had better talk no more in the interim,” she added, suddenly turning as she approached the threshold of the room, and recovering something of her lofty tone— “upon that, to me, terrible subject.”

  “Much better, madame,” acquiesced M. Varbarriere.

  “And we meet otherwise as before,” said the old lady, with a disdainful condescension and a slight bow.

  “I thank you, madame, for that favour,” replied M. Varbarriere, reverentially, approaching the door, which, as she drew near to withdraw, he opened for her with a bow, and they parted.

  “I hope she’ll be quiet, that old grey wildcat. I must get a note from her to Madame Gwynn. The case grows stronger; a little more and it will be irresistible, if only that stupid and ill-tempered old woman can be got to govern herself for a few days.”

  That evening, in the drawingroom, Monsieur Varbarriere was many degrees more respectful than ever to that old grey wildcat, at whom that morning he had roared in a way so utterly ungentlemanlike and ferocious.

  People at a distance might have almost fancied a sexagenarian caricature of a love-scene. There had plainly been the lovers’ quarrel. The lady carried her head a little high, threw sidelong glances on the carpet, had a little pink flush in her cheeks, and spoke little; listened, but smiled not; while the gentleman sat as close as he dare, and spoke earnestly and low.

  Monsieur Varbarriere was, in fact, making the most of his time, and recovering all he could of his milder influence over Lady Alice, and did persuade and soften; and at length he secured a promise of the note he wanted to Mrs. Gwynn, pledging his honour that she would thoroughly approve the object of it, so soon as he was at liberty to disclose it.

  That night, taking leave of Sir Jekyl, Monsieur Varbarriere said —

  “You’ve been so good as to wish me to prolong my visit, which has been to me so charming and so interesting. I have ventured, therefore, to enable myself to do so, by arranging an absence of two days, which I mean to devote to business which will not bear postponement.”

  “Very sorry to lose you, even for the time you say; but you must leave your nephew, Mr. Strangways, as a hostage in our hands to secure your return.”

  “He shall remain, as you are so good as to desire it, to enjoy himself. As for me, I need no tie to hold me to my engagement, and only regret every minute stolen for other objects from my visit.”

  There was some truth in these complimentary speeches. Sir Jekyl was now quite at ease as to the character of his guests, whom he had at first connected with an often threatened attack, which he profoundly dreaded, however lightly he might talk of its chances of success. The host, on the whole, liked his guests, and really wished their stay prolonged; and Monsieur Varbarriere, who silently observed many things of which he did not speak, was, perhaps, just now particularly interested in his private perusal of that little romance which was to be read only at Marlowe Manor.


  “I see, Guy, you have turned over a new leaf — no fooling now — you must not relapse, mind. I shall be away for two days. If longer, address me at Slowton. May I rely on your good sense and resolution — knowing what are our probable relations with this family — to continue to exercise the same caution as I have observed in your conduct, with much satisfaction, for the last two evenings? Well, I suppose I may. If you cannot trust yourself — fly. Get away — pack. You may follow me to Slowton, make what excuse you please; but don’t loiter here. Goodnight.”

  Such was the farewell spoken by Varbarriere to his nephew, as he nodded his goodnight on the threshold of their dressing-room.

  In the morning Monsieur Varbarriere’s place knew him no more at the breakfast-table. With his valise, despatch-box, and desk, he had glided away, in the frosty sunlight, in a Marlowe postchaise, to the “Plough Inn,” on the Old London Road, where, as we know, he had once sojourned before. It made a slight roundabout to the point to which his business really invited his route; and as he dismissed his vehicle here, I presume it was done with a view to mystify possible inquirers.

  At the “Plough Inn” he was received with an awful bustle and reverence. The fame of the consideration with which he was entertained at Marlowe had reached that modest hostelry, and Monsieur Varbarriere looked larger, grander, more solemn in its modest hall, than ever; his valise was handled with respect, and lifted in like an invalid, not hauled and trundled like a prisoner; and the desk and despatch-box, as the more immediate attendants on his person, were eyed with the respect which such a confidence could not fail to inspire.

  So Monsieur Varbarriere, having had his appetising drive through a bright country and keen air, ate his breakfast very comfortably; and when that meal was over, ordered a “fly,” in which he proceeded to Wardlock, and pulled up at the hall-door of Lady Alice’s reserved-looking, but comfortable old redbrick mansion.