Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu

by J. Sheridan le Fanu

  “A gentleman, sir, as has took number seven, and expects a gentleman to call, but did not say who, which his name is Mr. Rumsey?”

  “Very good,” said Monsieur Varbarriere.

  Suddenly he recollected that General Lennox’s letter might have reached the postoffice, and, plucking a card from his case, wrote an order on it for his letters, which he handed to Boots, who trudged away to the postoffice close by.

  Varbarriere was half sorry now that he had opened his correspondence with old General Lennox so soon. He had no hope that Donica Gwynn’s reserves would have melted and given way so rapidly in the interview which had taken place. He was a man who cared nothing about penal justice, who had embraced the world’s ethics early, and looked indulgently on escapades of human nature, and had no natural turn for cruelty, although he could be cruel enough when an object was to be accomplished.

  “I don’t think I’d have done it, though he deserves it richly, and has little right to look for quarter at my hands.”

  And whichever of the gentlemen interested he may have alluded to, he cursed him under his breath ardently.

  In number seven there awaited him a tall and thin man of business, of a sad countenance and bilious, with a pale drab-coloured and barred muslin cravat, tied with as much precision as a curate’s; a little bald at the very top of his head; a little stooped at his shoulders. He did not smile as Monsieur Varbarriere entered the room. He bowed in a meek and suffering way, and looked as if he had spent the morning in reading Doctor Blewish’s pamphlet “On the Ubiquity of Disguised Cholera Morbus,” or our good Bishop’s well-known tract on “Self-Mortification.” There was a smell of cigars in the room, which should not have been had he known that Monsieur Varbarriere was to be here so early. His chest was weak, and the doctors ordered that sort of fumigation.

  Monsieur Varbarriere set his mind at ease by preparing himself to smoke one of the notable large cigars, of which he carried always a dozen rounds or so in his case.

  “You have brought the cases and opinions with you?” inquired Varbarriere.

  The melancholy solicitor replied by opening a tin box, from which he drew several sheafs of neatly labelled papers tied up in red tape; the most methodical and quiet of attorneys, and one of the most efficient to be found.

  “Smoke away; you like it, so do I; we can talk too, and look at these,” said Varbarriere, lighting his cigar.

  Mr. Rumsey bowed, and meekly lighted his also.

  Then began the conference on business.

  “Where are Gamford’s letters? — these? — ho!”

  And as Monsieur Varbarriere read them, puffing away as fast as a furnace, and threw each down as he would play a card, in turn, he would cry “Bah!”— “Booh!” — or, “Did you ever read such Galamathias?” — and, at last —

  “Who was right about that benet — you or I? I told you what he was.”

  “You will perceive just now, I think, sir, that there are some things of value there notwithstanding. You can’t see their importance until you shall have looked into the enlarged statement we have been enabled by the result of some fresh discoveries to submit to counsel.”

  “Give me that case. Fresh discoveries, have you? I venture to say, when you’ve heard my notes, you’ll open your eyes. No, I mean the cigar-case; well, you may give me that too.”

  So he took the paper, with its bluish briefing post pages, and broad margin, and the opinions of Mr. Serjeant Edgeways and Mr. Whaulbane, Q.C., copied in the same large, round hand at the conclusion.

  “Well, these opinions are stronger than I expected. There is a bit here in Whaulbane’s I don’t like so well — what you call fishy, you know. But you shall hear just now what I can add to our proofs, and you will see what becomes of good Mr. Whaulbane’s doubts and queries. You said always you did not think they had destroyed the deed?”

  “If well advised, they did not. I go that length. Because the deed, although it told against them while a claimant in the Deverell line appeared, would yet be an essential part of their case in the event of their title being attacked from the Bracton quarter; and therefore the fact is, they could not destroy it.”

  “They are both quite clear upon the question of secondary evidence of the contents of a lost deed, I see,” said Varbarriere, musingly, “and think our proof satisfactory. Those advocates, however — why do they? — always say their say with so many reserves and misgivings, that you begin to think they know very little more of the likelihoods of the matter, with all their pedantry, than you do yourself.”

  “The glorious uncertainty of the law!” ejaculated Mr. Rumsey, employing a phrase which I have heard before, and with the nearest approach to a macerated smile which his face had yet worn.

  “Ay,” said Varbarriere, in his metallic tones of banter, “the glorious uncertainty of the law. That must be true, for you’re always saying it; and it must be pleasant too, if one could only see it; for, my faith! you look almost cheerful while you say it.”

  “It makes counsel cautious, though it does not cool clients when they’re once fairly blooded,” said Mr. Rumsey. “A client is a wonderful thing sometimes. There would not be half the money made of our profession if men kept their senses when they go into law; but they seldom do. Lots of cool gamblers at every other game, but no one ever keeps his head at law.”

  “That’s encouraging; thank you. Suppose I take your advice, and draw stakes?” said Varbarriere.

  “You have no notion,” said Mr. Rumsey, resignedly.

  “Well, I believe you’re right, monsieur; and I believe I am right too; and if you have any faith in your favourite oracles, so must you; but, have you done your cigar? Well, take your pen for a moment and listen to me, and note what I say. When Deverell came down with his title-deeds to Marlowe, they gave him the Window dressing-room for his bedroom, and the green chamber, with the bed taken down, for his dressing-room; and there he placed his papers, with the key turned in the door. In the morning his attorney came. It was a meeting about a settlement of the mortgage; and when the papers were overhauled it was found that that deed had been abstracted. Very good. Now listen to what I have to relate concerning the peculiar construction of that room.”

  So Monsieur Varbarriere proceeded to relate minutely all he had ascertained that day, much to the quiet edification of Mr. Rumsey, whose eyes brightened, and whose frontal wrinkles deepened as he listened.

  “I told you I suspected some legerdemain about that room long ago; the idea came to me oddly. When on a visit to the Marquis de Mirault he told me that in making alterations in the chateau they had discovered a false door into one of the bedrooms. The tradition of this contrivance, which was singularly artful, was lost. It is possible that the secret of it perished with its first possessor. By means of this door the apartment in question was placed in almost immediate conjunction with another, which, except through this admirably concealed door, could not be reached from it without a long circuit. The proximity of the rooms, in fact, had been, by reason of the craft with which they were apparently separated, entirely overlooked.”

  The attorney observed, sadly —

  “The French are an ingenious people.”

  “The curiosity of my friend was excited,” continued Varbarriere, “and with some little search among family records he found that this room, which was constructed in the way of an addition to the chateau, had been built about the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the marquisate of one of the line, who was celebrated as un homme à bonnes fortunes, you understand, and its object was now quite palpable.”

  “A man, no doubt, of ability — a long-headed gentleman,” mused the melancholy attorney.

  “Well, at Marlowe I saw a collection of elevations of the green chamber, as it is called, built only two or three years later — and, mind this, by the same architect, an Italian, called Paulo Abruzzi, a remarkable name, which I perfectly remembered as having been mentioned by my friend the Marquis as the architect of his ancestral reli
c of Cupid’s legerdemain. But here is the most remarkable circumstance, and to which my friend Sir Jekyl quite innocently gave its proper point. The room under this chamber, and, of course, in the same building, was decorated with portraits painted in the panel, and one of them was this identical Marquis de Mirault, with the date 1711, and the Baronet was good enough to tell me that he had been a very intimate friend, and had visited his grandfather, at Marlowe.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII.

  M. Varbarriere’s Plans.

  Varbarriere solemnly lighted a cigar, and squinted at its glowing point with his great dark eyes, in which the mild attorney saw the lurid reflection. When it was well lighted he went on —

  “You may suppose how this confirmed my theory. I set about my inquiries quietly, and was convinced that Sir Jekyl knew all about it, by his disquietude whenever I evinced an interest in that portion of the building. But I managed matters very slyly, and collected proof very nearly demonstrative; and at this moment he has not a notion who I am.”

  “No. It will be a surprise when he does learn,” answered the attorney, sadly.

  “A fine natural hair-dye is the air of the East Indies: first it turns light to black, and then black to grey. Then, my faith! — a bronzed face with plenty of furrows, a double chin, and a great beard to cover it, and eleven stone weight expanded to seventeen stone — Corpo di Bacco! — and six pounds!”

  And Monsieur Varbarriere laughed like the clang and roar of a chime of cathedral bells.

  “It will be a smart blow,” said the attorney, almost dreamily.

  “Smash him,” said Varbarriere. “The Deverell estate is something over five thousand a-year; and the mesne rates, with four per cent. interest, amount to 213,000l.”

  “He’ll defend it,” said the knight of the sorrowful countenance, who was now gathering in his papers.

  “I hope he will,” growled Varbarriere, with a chuckle. “He has not a leg to stand on — all the better for you, at all events; and then I’ll bring down that other hammer on his head.”

  “The criminal proceedings?” murmured the sad attorney.

  “Ay. I can prove that case myself — he fired before his time, and killed him, I’m certain simply to get the estate. I was the only person present — poor Guy! Jekyl had me in his pocket then. The rascal wanted to thrust me down and destroy me afterwards. He employed that Jew house, Röbenzahl and Isaacs — the villain! Luck turned, and I am a rich fellow now, and his turn is coming. Vive la justice éternelle! Vive la bagatelle! Bravo! Bah!”

  Monsieur Varbarriere had another pleasant roar of laughter here, and threw his hat at the solemn attorney’s head.

  “You’ll lunch with me,” said Varbarriere.

  “Thanks,” murmured the attorney.

  “And now the war — the campaign — what next?”

  “You’ll make an exact note,” the attorney musingly replied, “of what that woman Wynn or Gwynn can prove; also what the Lord Bishop of what’s-his-name can prove; and it strikes me we shall have to serve some notice to intimidate Sir Jekyl about that red-leather box, to prevent his making away with the deed, and show him we know it is there; or perhaps apply for an order to make him lodge the deed in court; but Tom Weavel — he’s always in town — will advise us. You don’t think that woman will leave us in the lurch?”

  “No,” said Varbarriere, as if he was thinking of something else. “That Donica Gwynn, you mean. She had that green chamber to herself, you see, for a matter of three years.”

  “Yes.”

  “And she’s one of those old domestic Dianas who are sensitive about scandal — you understand — and she knows what ill-natured people would say; so I quieted her all I could, and I don’t think she’ll venture to recede. No; she certainly won’t.”

  “How soon can you let me have the notes, sir?”

  “Tomorrow, when I return. I’ve an appointment to keep by rail tonight, and I’ll make a full memorandum from my notes as I go along.”

  “Thanks — and what are your instructions?”

  “Send back the cases with copies of the new evidence.”

  “And assuming a favourable opinion, sir, are my instructions to proceed?”

  “Certainly, my son, forthwith — the grass it must not grow under our feet.”

  “Of course subject to counsel’s opinion?” said the attorney, sadly.

  “To be sure.”

  “And which first — the action or the indictment? or both together?” asked Mr. Rumsey.

  “That for counsel too. Only my general direction is, let the onset be as sudden, violent, and determined as possible. You see?”

  The attorney nodded gently, tying up his last bundle of papers as softly as a lady might knot her ribbon round the neck of her lap-dog.

  “You see?”

  “Yes, sir; your object is destruction. Delenda est Carthago — that’s the word,” murmured Mr. Rumsey, plaintively.

  “Yes — ha, ha! — what you call double him up!” clanged out Varbarriere, with an exulting oath and a chuckle.

  The attorney had locked up his despatch-box now, and putting the little bunch of keys deep into his trowsers pocket, he said, “Yes, that’s the word; but I suppose you have considered— “

  “What? I’m tired considering.”

  “I was going to say whether some more certain result might not be obtainable by negotiation; that is, if you thought it a case for negotiation.”

  “What negotiation? What do you mean?”

  “Well, you see there are materials — there’s something to yield at both sides,” said the attorney, very slowly, in a diplomatic reverie.

  “But why should you think of a compromise? — the worst thing I fancy could happen to you.”

  There was a general truth in this. It is not the ferryman’s interest to build a bridge, nor was it Mr. Rumsey’s that his client should walk high and dry over those troubled waters through which it was his privilege and profit to pilot him. But he had not quite so much faith in this case as Monsieur Varbarriere had, and he knew that his wealthy and resolute client could grow savage enough in defeat, and had once or twice had stormy interviews with him after failures.

  “If the young gentleman and young lady liked one another, for instance, the conflicting claims might be reconciled, and a marriage would in that case arrange the difference.”

  “There’s nothing very deep in that,” snarled Varbarriere, “but there is everything impracticable. Do you think Guy Deverell, whose father that lache murdered before my eyes, could ever endure to call him father? Bah! If I thought so I would drive him from my presence and never behold him more. No, no, no! There is more than an estate in all this — there is justice, there is punishment.”

  Monsieur Varbarriere, with his hands in his pockets, took a turn up and down the room, and his solemn steps shook the floor, and his countenance was agitated by violence and hatred.

  The pale, thin attorney eyed him with a gentle and careworn observation. His respected client was heaving with a great toppling swagger as he to-ed and fro-ed in his thunderstorm, looking as black as the Spirit of Evil.

  This old-maidish attorney was meek and wise, but by no means timid. He was accustomed to hear strong language, and sometimes even oaths, without any strange emotion. He looked on this sort of volcanic demonstration scientifically, as a policeman does on drunkenness — knew its stages, and when it was best left to itself.

  Mr. Rumsey, therefore, poked the fire a little, and then looked out of the window.

  “You don’t go to town tonight?”

  “Not if you require me here, sir.”

  “Yes, I shall have those memoranda to give you — and tell me now, I think you know your business. Do you think, as we now stand, success is certain?”

  “Well, sir, it certainly is very strong — very; but I need not tell you a case will sometimes take a queer turn, and I never like to tell a client that anything is absolutely certain — a case is sometimes carried
out of its legitimate course, you see; the judges may go wrong, or the jury bolt, or a witness may break down, or else a bit of evidence may start up — it’s a responsibility we never take on ourselves to say that of any case; and you know there has been a good deal of time — and that sometimes raises a feeling with a jury.”

  “Ay, a quarter of a century, but it can’t be helped. For ten years of that time I could not show, I owed money to everybody. Then, when I was for striking on the criminal charge for murder, or manslaughter, or whatever you agreed it was to be, you all said I must begin with the civil action, and first oust him from Guy Deverell’s estate. Well, there you told me I could not move till he was twenty-five, and now you talk of the good deal of time — ma foi! — as if it was I who delayed, and not you, messieurs. But enough, past is past. We have the present, and I’ll use it.”

  “We are to go on, then?”

  “Yes, we’ve had to wait too long. Stop for nothing, drive right on, you see, at the fastest pace counsel can manage. If I saw the Deverell estate where it should be, and a judgment for the mesne rates, and Sir Jekyl Marlowe in the dock for his crime, I don’t say I should sing nunc dimittis; but, parbleu, sir, it would be very agreeable — ha! ha! ha!”

  * * *

  CHAPTER VIII.

  Tempest.

  “Does Mr. Guy Deverell know anything of the measures you contemplate in his behalf?” inquired the attorney.

  “Nothing. Do you think me a fool? Young men are such asses!”

  “You know, however, of course, that he will act. The proceedings, you know, must be in his name.”

  “Leave that to me.”

  Varbarriere rang the bell and ordered luncheon. There were grouse and trout — he was in luck — and some cream cheese, for which rural delicacy he had a fancy. They brew very great ale at Slowton, like the Welsh, and it was a novelty to the gentleman of foreign habits, who eat as fastidiously as a Frenchman, and as largely as a German. On the whole it was satisfactory, and the high-shouldered, Jewish-looking sybarite shook hands in a very friendly way with his attorney in the afternoon, on the platform at Slowton, and glided off toward Chester, into which ancient town he thundered, screaming like a monster rushing on its prey; and a victim awaited him in the old commercial hotel; a tall, white-headed military-looking man, with a white moustache twirled up fiercely at the corners; whose short pinkish face and grey eyes, as evening deepened, were pretty constantly presented at the window of the coffee-room next the street door of the inn. From that post he saw all the shops and gas-lamps, up and down the street, gradually lighted. The gaselier in the centre of the coffee-room, with its six muffed glass globes, flared up over the rumpled and coffee-stained morning newspapers and the almanac, and the battered and dissipated-looking railway guide, with corners curled and back coming to pieces, which he consulted every ten minutes through his glasses.