Yes, a distinct explanation, and, further, a due corroboration by proof of that explanation. It was all due to Monsieur Varbarriere, who had paid that debt to his credit and conscience, and behold what a picture! Three familiar figures, irrevocably transformed, and placed in what a halo of infernal light.
“The thing could not be helped, and, whether or no, it was only right. Why the devil should I help Jekyl Marlowe to deceive and disgrace that withered old gentleman? I don’t think it would have been a pleasant position for me.”
And all the respectabilities hovering near cried “hear, hear, hear!” and Varbarriere shook up his head, and looked magisterial over the havoc of the last livid scene of the tragedy he had prepared; and the porter crying “Slowton!” opened the door, and released him.
* * *
CHAPTER X.
Uncle and Nephew.
When he reached his room, having breakfasted handsomely in the coffee-room, and learned that early Mr. Rumsey had accomplished a similar meal in his own sitting-room, he repaired thither, and entered forthwith upon their talk.
It was a bright and pleasant morning; the poplar trees in front of the hotel were all glittering in the mellow early sunlight, and the birds twittering as pleasantly as if there was not a sorrow or danger on earth.
“Well, sir, true to my hour,” said Monsieur Varbarriere, in his deep brazen tones, as smiling and wondrously he entered the attorney’s apartment.
“Good morning, sir — how d’ye do? Have you got those notes prepared you mentioned?”
“That I have, sir, as you shall see, pencil though; but that doesn’t matter — no?”
The vowel sounded grandly in the upward slide of Varbarriere’s titanic double bass.
The attorney took possession of the pocketbook containing these memoranda, and answered —
“No, I can read it very nicely. Your nephew is here, by-the-bye; he came last night.”
“Guy? What’s brought him here?”
M. Varbarriere’s countenance was overcast. What had gone wrong? Some chamber in his mine had exploded, he feared, prematurely.
Varbarriere opened the door, intending to roar for Guy, but remembering where he was, and the dimensions of the place, he tugged instead at the bell-rope, and made his summons jangle wildly through the lower regions.
“Hollo!” cried Varbarriere from his threshold, anticipating the approaching waiter; “a young gentleman — a Mr. Guy Strangways, arrived last evening?”
“Strangways, please, sir? Strangways? No, sir, I don’t think we ‘av got no gentleman of that name in the ‘ouse, sir.”
“But I know you have. Go, make out where he is, and let him know that his uncle, Monsieur Varbarriere, has just arrived, and wants to see him — here, may I?” with a glance at the attorney.
“Certainly.”
“There’s some mischief,” said Varbarriere, with a lowering glance at the attorney.
“It looks uncommon like it,” mused that gentleman, sadly.
“Why doesn’t he come?” growled Varbarriere, with a motion of his heel like a stamp. “What do you think he has done? Some cursed sottise.”
“Possibly he has proposed marriage to the young lady, and been refused.”
“Refused! I hope he has.”
At this juncture the waiter returned.
“Well?”
“No, sir, please. No one hin the ‘ouse, sir. No such name.”
“Are you sure?” asked Varbarriere of the attorney, in an under diapason.
“Perfectly — said he’d wait here for you. I told him you’d be here this morning,” answered he, dolorously.
“Go down, sir, and get me a list of the gentlemen in the house. I’ll pay for it,” said Varbarriere, with an imperious jerk of his hand.
The ponderous gentleman in black was very uneasy, and well he might. So he looked silently out of the window which commands a view of the inn yard, and his eyes wandered over a handsome manure-heap to the chicken-coop and paddling ducks, and he saw three horses’ tails in perspective in the chiaro-oscuro of the stable, in the open door of which a groom was rubbing a curb chain. He thought how wisely he had done in letting Guy know so little of his designs. And as he gloomily congratulated himself on his wise reserve, the waiter returned with a slate, and a double column of names scratched on it.
Varbarriere having cast his eye over it, suddenly uttered an oath.
“Number 10 — that’s the gentleman. Go to number 10, and tell him his uncle wants him here,” roared Varbarriere, as if on the point of knocking the harmless waiter down. “Read there!” he thundered, placing the slate, with a clang, before the meek attorney, who read opposite to number 10, “Mr. G. Deverell.”
He pursed his mouth and looked up lackadaisically at his glowering client, saying only “Ha!”
A minute after and Guy Deverell in person entered the room. He extended his hand deferentially to M. Varbarriere, who on his part drew himself up black as night, and thrust his hands half way to the elbows in his trowsers pockets, glaring thunderbolts in the face of the contumacious young man.
“You see that?” jerking the slate with another clang before Guy. “Did you give that name? Look at number ten, sir.” Varbarriere was now again speaking French.
“Yes, sir, Guy Deverell — my own name. I shall never again consent to go by any other. I had no idea what it might involve — never.”
The young man was pale, but quite firm.
“You’ve broken your word, sir; you have ended your relations with me,” said Varbarriere, with a horrible coldness.
“I am sorry, sir — I have broken my promise, but when I could not keep it without a worse deception. To the consequences, be they what they may, I submit, and I feel, sir, more deeply than you will ever know all the kindness you have shown me from my earliest childhood until now.”
“Infinitely flattered,” sneered Varbarriere, with a mock bow. “You have, I presume, disclosed your name to the people at Marlowe as frankly as to those at Slowton?”
“Lady Alice Redcliffe called me by my true name, and insisted it was mine. I could not deny it — I admitted the truth. Mademoiselle Marlowe was present also, and heard what passed. In little more than an hour after this scene I left Marlowe Manor. I did not see Sir Jekyl, and simply addressed a note to him saying that I was called away unexpectedly. I did not repeat to him the disclosure made to Lady Alice. I left that to the discretion of those who had heard it.”
“Their discretion — very good — and now, Monsieur Guy Deverell, I have done with you. I shan’t leave you as I took you up, absolutely penniless. I shall so place you as to enable you with diligence to earn your bread without degradation — that is all. You will be so good as to repair forthwith to London and await me at our quarters in St. James’s Street. I shall send you, by next post, a cheque to meet expenses in town — no, pray don’t thank me; you might have thanked me by your obedience. I shan’t do much more to merit thanks. Your train starts from hence, I think, in half an hour.”
Varbarriere nodded angrily, and moved his hand towards the door.
“Farewell, sir,” said Guy, bowing low, but proudly.
“One word more,” said Varbarriere, recollecting suddenly; “you have not arranged a correspondence with any person? answer me on your honour.”
“No, sir, on my honour.”
“Go, then. Adieu!” and Varbarriere turned from him brusquely, and so they parted.
“Am I to understand, sir,” inquired the attorney, “that what has just occurred modifies our instructions to proceed in those cases?”
“Not at all, sir,” answered Varbarriere, firmly.
“You see the civil proceedings must all be in the name of the young gentleman — a party who is of age — and you see what I mean.”
“I undertake personally the entire responsibility; you are to proceed in the name of Guy Deverell, and what is more, use the utmost despatch, and spare no cost. When shall we open the battle?”
“Why, I dare say next term.”
“That is less than a month hence?”
“Yes, sir.”
“By my faith, his hands will be pretty full by that time,” said Varbarriere, exultingly. “We must have the papers out again. I can give you all this day, up to halfpast five o’clock. We must get the new case into shape for counsel. You run up to town this evening. I suspect I shall follow you tomorrow; but I must run over first to Marlowe. I have left my things there, and my servant; and I suppose I must take a civil leave of my enemy — there are courtesies, you know — as your prizefighters shake hands in the ring.”
The sun was pretty far down in the west by the time their sederunt ended. M. Varbarriere got into his short mantle and mufflers, and donned his ugly felt hat, talking all the while in his deep metallic tones, with his sliding cadences and resounding emphases. The polite and melancholy attorney accompanied his nutritious client to the door, and after he had taken his seat in his vehicle, they chatted a little earnestly through the window, agreeing that they had grown very “strong” indeed — anticipating nothing but victory, and in confidential whispers breathing slaughter.
As Varbarriere, with his thick arm stuffed through one of the upholstered leathern loops with which it is the custom to flank the windows of all sorts of carriages, and his large varnished boot on the vacant cushion at the other side, leaned back and stared darkly and dreamily through the plate glass on the amber-tinted landscape, he felt rather oddly approaching such persons and such scenes — a crisis with a remoter and more tremendous crisis behind — the thing long predicted in the whisperings of hope — the real thing long dreamed of, and now greeted strangely with a mixture of exultation and disgust.
There are few men, I fancy, who so thoroughly enjoy their revenge as they expected. It is one of those lusts which has its goût de revers— “sweet in the mouth, bitter in the belly;” one of those appetites which will allow its victim no rest till it is gratified, and no peace afterward. Now, M. Varbarriere was in for it, he was already coming under the solemn shadow of its responsibilities, and was chilled. It involved other people, too, besides its proper object — people who, whatever else some of them might be, were certainly, as respected him and his, innocent. Did he quail, and seriously think of retiring re infectâ? No such thing! It is wonderful how steadfast of purpose are the disciples of darkness, and how seldom, having put their hands to the plough, they look back.
All this while Guy Deverell, in exile, was approaching London with brain, like every other, teeming with its own phantasmagoria. He knew not what particular danger threatened Marlowe Manor, which to him was a temple tenanted by Beatrix alone, the living idol whom he worshipped. He was assured that somehow his consent, perhaps cooperation, was needed to render the attack effectual, and here would arise his opportunity, the self-sacrifice which he contemplated with positive pleasure, though, of course, with a certain awe, for futurity was a murky vista enough beyond it.
Varbarriere’s low estimate of young men led him at once to conclude that this was an amorous escapade, a bit of romance about that pretty wench, Mademoiselle Beatrix. Why not? The fool, fooling according to his folly, should not arrest wisdom in her march. Varbarriere was resolved to take all necessary steps in his nephew’s name, without troubling the young man with a word upon the subject. He would have judgment and execution, and he scoffed at the idea that his nephew, Guy, would take measures to have him — his kinsman, guardian, and benefactor — punished for having acted for his advantage without his consent.
* * *
CHAPTER XI.
In Lady Mary’s Boudoir.
The red sunset had faded into darkness as M. Varbarriere descended from his carriage at the doorsteps of Marlowe. The dressing-bell had not yet rung. Everyone was quite well, the solemn butler informed him graciously, as if he had kept them in health expressly to oblige M. Varbarriere. That gentleman’s dark countenance, however, was not specially illuminated on the occasion. The intelligence he really wanted referred to old Lady Alice, to whom the inexcusable folly and perfidy of Guy had betrayed his name.
Upon this point he had grown indescribably uncomfortable as he drew near to the house. Had the old woman been conjecturing and tattling? Had she called in Sir Jekyl himself to counsel? How was he, Varbarriere, to meet Sir Jekyl? He must learn from Lady Alice’s lips how the land lay.
“And Lady Alice,” he murmured with a lowering countenance, “pretty well, I hope? Downstairs to-day, eh?”
The butler had not during his entire visit heard the “foreign chap” talk so much English before.
“Lady Halice was well in ‘ealth.”
“In the drawingroom?”
“No, sir, in Lady Mary’s boudoir.”
“And Sir Jekyl?”
“In ‘is hown room, sir.”
“Show me to the boudoir, please; I have a word for Lady Alice.”
A few moments more and he knocked at the door of that apartment, and was invited to enter with a querulous drawl that recalled the association of the wild cat with which in an irreverent moment he had once connected that august old lady.
So Varbarriere entered and bowed and stood darkly in the door-frame, reminding her again of the portrait of a fat and cruel burgomaster. “Oh! it’s you? come back again, Monsieur Varbarriere? Oh! — I’m very glad to see you.”
“Very grateful — very much flattered; and your ladyship, how are you?”
“Pretty well — ailing — always ailing — delicate health and cruelly tortured in mind. What else can I expect, sir, but sickness?”
“I hope your mind has not been troubled, Lady Alice, since I had the honour of last seeing you.”
“Now, do you really hope that? Is it possible you can hope that my mind, in the state in which you left it has been one minute at ease since I saw you? Beside, sir, I have heard something that for reasons quite inexplicable you have chosen to conceal from me.”
“May I ask what it is? I shall be happy to explain.”
“Yes, the name of that young man — it is not Strangways, that was a falsehood; his name, sir, is Guy Deverell!”
And saying this Lady Alice, after her wont, wept passionately.
“That is perfectly true, Lady Alice; but I don’t see what value that information can have, apart from the explanatory particulars I promised to tell you; but not for a few days. If, however, you desire it, I shall postpone the disclosure no longer. You will, I am sure, first be so good as to tell me, though, whether anyone but you knows that the foolish young man’s name is Deverell?”
“No; no one, except Beatrix, not a creature. She was present, but has been, at my request, perfectly silent,” answered Lady Alice, eagerly, and gaped darkly at Varbarriere, expecting his revelation.
M. Varbarriere thought, under the untoward circumstances, that a disclosure so imperfect as had been made to Lady Alice was a good deal more dangerous than one a little fuller. He therefore took that lady’s hand very reverentially, and looking with his full solemn eyes in her face, said —
“It is not only true, madam, that his name is Guy Deverell, but equally true that he is the lawful son, as well as the namesake, of that Guy Deverell, your son, who perished by the hand of Sir Jekyl Marlowe in a duel. Shot down foully, as that Mr. Strangways avers who was his companion, and who was present when the fatal event took place.”
“Gracious Heaven, sir! My son married?”
“Yes, madam, married more than a year before his death. All the proofs are extant, and at this moment in England.”
“Married! my boy married, and never told his mother! Oh, Guy, Guy, Guy is it credible?”
“It is not a question, madam, but an absolute certainty, as I will show you whenever I get the papers to Wardlock.”
“And to whom, sir, pray, was my son married?” demanded Lady Alice, after a long pause.
“To my sister, madam.”
Lady Alice gaped at him in astonishment.
“Was she a person at all hi
s equal in life? — a person of — of any education, I mean?” inquired Lady Alice, with a gasp, sublimely unconscious of her impertinence.
“As good a lady as you are,” replied Varbarriere, with a swarthy flush upon his forehead.
“I should like to know she was a lady, at all events.”
“She was a lady, madam, of pure blood, incapable of a mean thought, incapable, too, of anything low-bred or impertinent.”
His sarcasm sped through and through Lady Alice without producing any effect, as a bullet passes through a ghost.
“It is a great surprise, sir, but that will be satisfactory. I suppose you can show it?”
Varbarriere smiled sardonically and answered nothing.
“My son married to a Frenchwoman! Dear, dear, dear! Married! You can feel for me, monsieur, knowing as I do nothing of the person or family with whom he connected himself.”
Lady Alice pressed her lean fingers over her heart, and swept the wall opposite, with dismal eyes, sighing at intervals, and gasping dolorously.
The old woman’s egotism and impertinence did not vex him long or much. But the pretence of being absolutely above irritation from the feminine gender, in any extant sage, philosopher, or saint, is a despicable affectation. Man and woman were created with inflexible relations; each with the power in large measure or in infinitesimal doses, according to opportunity, to infuse the cup of the other’s life with sweet or bitter — with nectar or with poison. Therefore great men and wise men have winced and will wince under the insults of small and even of old women.
“A year, you say, before my poor boy’s death?”
“Yes, about that; a little more.”
“Mademoiselle Varbarriere! H’m,” mused Lady Alice.
“I did not say Varbarriere was the name,” sneered he, with a deep-toned drawl.
“Why, you said, sir, did not you, that the Frenchwoman he married was your sister?”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 291
