“Come in, come in, pray, and shut the door. You’ll be — you’ll be shocked, sir. He’s gone — gone. Poor Jekyl! It’s a terrible thing. He’s gone, sir, quite suddenly.”
His puffy, bilious hand was on Varbarriere’s arm with a shifting pressure, and Varbarriere made no answer, but looked in his face sternly and earnestly.
“There’s that poor girl, you know — my niece. And — and all so unexpected. It’s awful, sir.”
“I’m very much shocked, sir. I had not an idea there was any danger. I thought him looking very far from actual danger. I’m very much shocked.”
“And — and things a good deal at sixes and sevens, I’m afraid,” said Dives— “law business, you know.”
“Perhaps it would be well to detain Mr. Pelter, who is, I believe, still here,” suggested Varbarriere.
“Yes, certainly; thank you,” answered Dives, eagerly ringing the bell.
“And I’ve a chaise at the door,” said Varbarriere, appropriating Guy’s vehicle. “A melancholy parting, sir; but in circumstances so sad, the only kindness we can show is to withdraw the restraint of our presence, and to respect the sanctity of affliction.”
With which little speech, in the artificial style which he had contracted in France, he made his solemn bow, and, for the last time for a good while, shook the Rev. Dives, now Sir Dives Marlowe, by the hand.
When our friend the butler entered, it was a comfort to see one countenance on which was no trace of flurry. Nil admirari — his manner was a philosophy, and the convivial undertaker had acquired a grave suavity of demeanour and countenance, which answered all occasions — imperturbable during the comic stories of an after-dinner sederunt — imperturbable now on hearing the other sort of story, known already, which the Rev. Dives Marlowe recounted, and offered, with a respectful inclination, his deferential but very short condolences.
Varbarriere in the meanwhile looked through the hall vestibule and from the steps, in vain, for his nephew! He encountered Jacques, however, but he had not seen Guy, which when Varbarriere, who was in one of his deep-seated fusses, heard, he made a few sotto voce ejaculations.
“Tell that fellow — he’s in the stableyard, I dare say — who drove Mr. Guy from Slowton, to bring his chaise round this moment; we shall return. If his horses want rest, they can have it in the town, Marlowe, close by; I shall send a carriage up for you; and you follow, with all our things, immediately for Slowton.”
So Jacques departed, and Varbarriere did not care to go upstairs to his room. He did not like meeting people; he did not like the chance of hearing Beatrix cry again; he wished to be away, and his temper was savage. He could have struck his nephew over the head with his cane for detaining him.
But Guy had been summoned elsewhere. As he walked listlessly before the house, a sudden knocking from the great window of Lady Mary’s boudoir caused him to raise his eyes, and he saw the grim apparition of old Lady Alice beckoning to him. As he raised his hat, she nodded at him, pale, scowling like an evil genius, and beckoned him fiercely up with her crooked fingers.
Another bow, and he entered the house, ascended the great stair, and knocked at the door of the boudoir. Old Lady Alice’s thin hand opened it. She nodded in the same inauspicious way, pointed to a seat, and shut the door before she spoke.
Then, he still standing, she took his hand, and said, in tones unexpectedly soft and fond —
“Well, dear, how have you been? It seems a long time, although it’s really nothing. Quite well, I hope?”
Guy answered, and inquired according to usage; and the old lady said —
“Don’t ask for me; never ask. I’m never well — always the same, dear, and I hate to think of myself. You’ve heard the dreadful intelligence — the frightful event. What will become of my poor niece? Everything in distraction. But Heaven’s will be done. I shan’t last long if this sort of thing is to continue — quite impossible. There — don’t speak to me for a moment. I wanted to tell you, you must come to me; I have a great deal to say,” she resumed, having smelt a little at her vinaigrette; “but not just now. I’m not equal to all this. You know how I’ve been tried and shattered.”
Guy was too well accustomed to be more than politely alarmed by those preparations for swooning which Lady Alice occasionally saw fit to make; and in a little while she resumed —
“Sir Jekyl has been taken from us — he’s gone — awfully suddenly. I wish he had had a little time for preparation. Ho, dear! poor Jekyl! Awful! But we all bow to the will of Providence. I fear there has been some dreadful mismanagement. I always said and knew that Pratt was a quack — positive infatuation. But there’s no good in looking to secondary causes, Won’t you sit down?”
Guy preferred standing. The hysterical ramblings of this selfish old woman did not weary or disgust him. Quite the contrary; he would have prolonged them. Was she not related to Beatrix, and did not this kindred soften, beautify, glorify that shrivelled relic of another generation, and make him listen to her in a second-hand fascination?
“You’re to come to me — d’ye see? — but not immediately. There’s a — there’s some one there at present, and I possibly shan’t be at home. I must remain with poor dear Beatrix a little. She’ll probably go to Dartbroke, you know; yes, that would not be a bad plan, and I of course must consider her, poor thing. When you grow a little older you’ll find you must often sacrifice yourself, my dear. I’ve served a long apprenticeship to that kind of thing. You must come to Wardlock, to my house; I have a great deal to say and tell you, and you can spend a week or so there very pleasantly. There are some pictures and books, and some walks, and everybody looks at the monuments in the church. There are two of them — the Chief Justice of Chester and Hugo de Redcliffe — in the “Gentleman’s Magazine.” I’ll show it to you when you come, and you can have the carriage, provided you don’t tire the horses; but you must come. I’m your kinswoman — I’m your relation — I’ve found it all out — very near — your poor dear father.”
Here Lady Alice dried her eyes.
“Well, it’s time enough. You see how shattered I am, and so pray don’t urge me to talk any more just now. I’ll write to you, perhaps, if I find myself able; and you write to me, mind, directly, and address to Wardlock Manor, Wardlock. Write it in your pocketbook or you’ll forget it, and put “to be forwarded” on it. Old Donica will see to it. She’s very careful, I think; and you promise you’ll come?”
Guy did promise; so she said —
“Well, dear, till we meet, goodbye; there, God bless you, dear.”
And she drew his hand toward her, and he felt the loose soft leather of her old cheek on his as she kissed him, and her dark old eyes looked for a moment in his, and then she dismissed him with —
“There, dear, I can’t talk any more at present; there, farewell. God bless you.”
Down through that changed, mysterious house, through which people now trod softly, and looked demure, and spoke little on stair or lobby, and that in whispers, went Guy Deverell, and glanced upward, involuntarily, as he descended, hoping that he might see the beloved shadow of Beatrix on the wall, or even the hem of her garment; but all was silent and empty, and in a few seconds more he was again in the chaise, sitting by old Varbarriere, who was taciturn and ill-tempered all the way to Slowton.
By that evening all the visitors but the Rev. Dives Marlowe and old Lady Alice, who remained with Beatrix, had taken flight. Even Pelter, after a brief consultation with Dives, had fled Londonwards, and the shadow and silence of the chamber of death stole out under the door and pervaded all the mansion.
That evening Lady Alice recovered sufficient strength to write a note to Lady Jane, telling her that in consequence of the death of Sir Jekyl, it became her duty to remain with her niece for the present at Marlowe. It superadded many religious reflections thereupon; and offering to her visitor at Wardlock the use of that asylum, and the society and attendance of Donica Gwynn, it concluded with many wholesome wishes for the
spiritual improvement of Lady Jane Lennox.
Strangely enough, these did not produce the soothing and elevating effect that might have been expected; for when Lady Jane read the letter she tore it into strips and then into small squares, and stamped upon the fragments more like her fierce old self than she had appeared for the previous four-and-twenty hours.
“Come, Donica, you write to say I leave this tomorrow, and that you come with me. You said you’d wish it — you must not draw back. You would not desert me?”
I fancy her measures were not quite so precipitate, for some arrangements were indispensable before starting for a long sojourn on the Continent. Lady Jane remained at Wardlock, I believe, for more than a week; and Donica, who took matters more peaceably in her dry way, obtained, without a row, the permission of Lady Alice to accompany the forlorn young wife on her journey.
* * *
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Something more of Lady Jane Lennox.
“See, Doctor Pratt — how do you do? — you’ve been upstairs. I — I was anxious to see you — most anxious — this shocking, dreadful occurrence,” said the Reverend Dives Marlowe, who waylaid the Doctor as he came down, and was now very pale, hurrying him into the library as he spoke, and shutting the door. “The nurse is gone, you know, and all quiet; and — and the quieter the better, because, you know, that poor girl Beatrix my niece, she has not a notion there was any hurt — a wound, you see, and knows nothing in fact. I’ll go over and see that Slowton doctor — a — a gentleman. I forget his name. There’s no need — I’ve considered it — none in the world — of a — a — that miserable ceremony, you know.”
“I don’t quite follow you, sir,” observed Doctor Pratt, looking puzzled.
“I mean — I mean a — a coroner — that a — — “
“Oh! I see — I — I see,” answered Pratt.
“And I went up, poor fellow; there’s no blood — nothing. It may have been apoplexy, or any natural cause, for anything I know.”
“Internal hæmorrhage — an abrasion, probably, of one of the great vessels; and gave way, you see, in consequence of his over-exerting himself.”
“Exactly; a blood-vessel has given way — I see,” said the Reverend Dives; “internal hæmorrhage. I see, exactly; and I — I know that Slowton doctor won’t speak any more than you, my dear Pratt, but I may as well see him, don’t you think? And — and there’s really no need for all that terrible misery of an inquest.”
“Well, you know, it’s not for me; the — the family would act naturally.”
“The family! why, look at that poor girl, my niece, in hysterics! I would not stake that — that hat there, I protest, on her preserving her wits, if all that misery were to be gone through.”
“Does Lady Alice know anything of it?”
“Lady Alice Redcliffe? Quite right, sir — very natural inquiry; — not a syllable. She’s, you know, not a — a person to conceal things; but she knows and suspects nothing; and no one — that nurse, you told me, thought the hurt was an operation — not a soul suspects.”
And thus the Reverend Dives agreed with himself that the scandal might be avoided; and thus it came to pass that the county paper, with a border of black round the paragraph, announced the death of Sir Jekyl Marlowe, Baronet, at the family residence of Marlowe Manor, in this county, the immediate cause of his death being the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs, attended by internal hæmorrhage. By the death of Sir Jekyl Marlowe, it further stated, “a seat in Parliament and a deputy lieutenancy for this county become vacant.” Then came a graceful tribute to Sir Jekyl’s value as a country gentleman, followed by the usual summary from the “Peerage,” and the fact that, leaving no male issue, he would be succeeded in his title and the bulk of his estates by his brother, the Reverend Dives Marlowe.
So in due course this brother figured as the Reverend Sir Dives Marlowe, and became proprietor of Marlowe Manor, where, however, he does not reside, preferring his sacred vocation, and the chance of preferment — for he has grown, they say, very fond of money — to the worldly life and expensive liabilities of a country gentleman.
The Reverend Sir Dives Marlowe, Bart., is still unmarried. It is said, however, that he was twice pretty near making the harbour of matrimony. Lady Bateman, the relict of Sir Thomas, was his first object, and matters went on satisfactorily until the stage of business was arrived at; when unexpectedly the lovers on both sides were pulled up and thrown on their haunches by a clause in Sir Thomas’s will, the spirit of which is contained in the Latin words, durante viduitate. Over this they pondered, recovered their senses, shook hands, and in the name of prudence parted good friends, which they still are.
The second was the beautiful and accomplished Miss D’Acre. In earlier days the Reverend Dives would not have dreamed of anything so imprudent. Time, however, which notoriously does so much for us, if he makes us sages in some particulars, in others, makes us spoonies. It is hard to say what might have happened if a more eligible bridegroom had not turned up in George St. George Lighton, of Seymour Park, Esq. So that Dives’ love passages have led to nothing, and of late years he has attempted no further explorations in those intricate ways.
I may as well here mention all I know further about Lady Jane Lennox. I cannot say exactly how soon she left Wardlock, but she did not await Lady Alice’s return, and, I think, has never met her since.
Sir Jekyl Marlowe’s death was, I suppose, the cause of the abandonment of General Lennox’s resolution to proceed for a divorce. He remained in England for fully four months after the Baronet’s death, evidently awaiting any proceedings which the family might institute, in consequence, against him. Upon this point he was fiercely obstinate, and his respectable solicitor even fancied him “cracked.” With as little fracas as possible, a separation was arranged — no difficult matter — for the General was open-handed, and the lady impatient only to be gone. It was a well-kept secret; the separation, of course, a scandal, but its exact cause enveloped in doubt. A desperate quarrel, it was known, had followed the General’s return from town, but which of the younger gentlemen, then guests at Marlowe, was the hero of the suspicion, was variously conjectured. The evidence of sojourners in the house only deepened the mystery. Lady Jane had not shown the least liking for anyone there. It was thought by most to have a reference to those old London stories which had never been quite proved. A few even went the length of conjecturing that something had turned up about the old General, which had caused the explosion.
With an elderly female cousin, Donica Gwynn, and her maid, she went abroad, where she has continued nearly ever since, living rather solitarily, but not an outcast — a woman who had been talked about unpleasantly, but never convicted — perhaps quite blameless, and therefore by no means excluded.
But a secret sorrow always sat at her heart. The last look of that bad man, who, she believed, had loved her truly though guiltily — summoned as he talked with her — irrevocably gone. Where was he now? How was it with him?
“Oh, Jekyl! Jekyl! If I could only know if we are ever to meet again — forgiven!”
With fingers clasped together under her cloak, and eyes upturned to the stars in the beautiful Italian skies, she used, as she walked to and fro alone on the terrace of her villa, to murmur these agonised invocations. The heedless air received them; the silent stars shone cold above, inexorably bright. But Time, who dims the pictures, as well as heals the wounds of the past, spread his shadows and mildews over these ghastly images; and as her unselfish sorrow subsided, the sense of her irrevocable forfeiture threw its everlengthening shadow over her mind.
“I see how people think — some wonder at me, some accept me, some flatter me — all suspect me.”
So thought she, with a sense of sometimes nearly insupportable loneliness, of resentment she could not express, and of restlessness — dissatisfied with the present, hopeless of the future. It was a life without an object, without a retrospect — no technical compromise, but somehow a
fall — a fall in which she bitterly acquiesced, yet which she fiercely resented.
I don’t know that her Bible has yet stood her in stead much. She has practised vagaries — Tractarian sometimes, and sometimes Methodist. But there is a yearning, I am sure, which will some day lead her to hope and serenity.
It is about a year since I saw the death of General Lennox in the “Times,” an event which took place rather suddenly at Vichy. I am told that his will contains no allusion to Lady Jane. This, however, was to have been expected, for the deed of separation had amply provided for her; so now she is free. But I have lately heard from old Lady Alice, who keeps her memory and activity wonderfully, and maintains a correspondence with old Donnie Gwynn, that she shows no symptom of a disposition to avail herself of her liberty. I have lived long enough to be surprised at nothing, and therefore should not wonder if hereafter she should do so.
* * *
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Last.
Old Lady Alice, who liked writing and reading letters, kept up an active correspondence with her grandson, and that dutiful young gentleman received them with an interest, and answered them with a punctuality that did him honour.
Shortly after Lady Jane Lennox’s departure from Wardlock, Lady Alice Redcliffe and her fair young charge, Beatrix, arrived at that discreet old dower house. Old Lady Alice, who, when moved, could do a goodnatured thing, pitying the solitariness of her pretty guest, so soon as she thought her spirits would bear it, invited first the Miss Radlowes, and afterwards the Miss Wynkletons — lively young ladies of Beatrix’s time of life — who helped to make Wardlock less depressing. These hospitalities led to “invites;” and so the time passed over without the tedium that might have been looked for, until the period drew near when Beatrix was to make the Italian tour she had arranged with that respectable and by no means disagreeable family, the Fentons of Appleby. A rumour reached Guy that Drayton was to be one of the party. This certainly was not pleasant. He alluded to it in his next letter, but Lady Alice chose to pass the subject by.
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 306
