“I was afraid you were angry, and I’ve done nothing to vex you — nothing. You looked so angry — it’s so unreasonable and odd of you. But I am glad to see you, though you don’t seem glad to see me. You’ve been a long time away, Arthur, in London, very long. I hope all your business is settled, I hope. And I’m very glad to hear you’re not ill — indeed I am. Why are you vexed?”
“Vexed! ho! I’m vexed, am I? that’s odd.”
She was making a desperate effort to seem as usual, and talked on.
“We have had old Lady Alice Redcliffe here, my chaperon, all this while, if you please, and takes such ridiculous care of me, and locks me into my room every night. She means kindly, but it is very foolish.”
“Yes, it is, d — d foolish.”
“We have been employed very much as usual — walking, and driving, and croquet. Beatrix and I have been very much together, and Sir Paul and Lady Blunket still here. I don’t think we have had any arrival since you left us. Mr. Guy Strangways has gone away, and Monsieur Varbarriere returned to-day.”
She was gabbling as merrily as she could, feeling all the time on the point of fainting.
“And the diamonds came?” the General said, suddenly, with a sort of laugh.
“Oh! yes, the diamonds, so beautiful. I did not thank you in my letter — not half enough. They are beautiful — so exquisitely beautiful — brilliants — and so becoming; you have no idea. I hope you got my letter. Indeed I felt it all, every word, Arthur, only I could not say half what I wished. Don’t you believe me, Arthur?”
“Lie down, woman, and take your sleep; you sleep well? you all do — of course you sleep? Lie down.”
“You are angry, Arthur; you are excited; something has happened — something bad — what is it? For God’s sake, Arthur, tell me what it is. Why won’t you tell me?”
“Nothing — nothing strange — quite common.”
“Oh! Arthur, tell me at once, or kill me. You look as if you hated me.”
“Hate you! — There’s a hereafter. God sees.”
“I can’t understand you, Arthur; you wish to distract me. I’d rather know anything. For mercy’s sake speak out.”
“Lie you down, and wait.”
She did lie down. The hour of judgment had come as a thief in the night. The blood in her temples seemed to drum on the pillow. There was not a clear thought in her brain, only the one stunning consciousness.
“He knows all! I am ruined.” Yet the feminine instinct of finesse was not quite overpowered.
Having placed the candle on the chimneypiece, so that the curtain at the foot of the bed throw its shadow over that recess in which the sorcerer Varbarriere had almost promised to show the apparition, old Lennox sat down at the bedside, next this mysterious point of observation. Suddenly it crossed him, as a break of moonlight will the blackest night of storm, that he must act more wisely. Had he not alarmed his wife? — what signal might not be contrived to warn off her guilty accomplice?
“Jennie,” said he, with an effort, in a more natural tone, “I’m tired, very tired. We’ll sleep. I’ll tell you all in the morning. Go to sleep.”
“Goodnight,” she murmured.
“That will do; go to sleep,” he answered.
Gently, gently, she stole a peep at that pretty watch that stood in its little slanting stand at her bedside. There was still twenty minutes — Heaven be praised for its mercy! — and she heard old Lennox at the far side of this “great bed of Ware,” making an ostentation of undressing. His boots tumbled on the floor. She heard his watchguard jingle on the stand, and his keys and purse dropped in turn on the table. She heard him adjust the chair, as usual, on which he was wont to deposit his clothes as he removed them; she fancied she even heard him yawn. Her heart was throbbing as though it would choke her, and she was praying as she never prayed before — for a reprieve. And yet her respiration was long and deep, as if in the sleep she was counterfeiting.
Lennox, at the other side, put off his muffler, his outer coat, the frock-coat he wore, the waistcoat. She dared not look round to observe his progress. But at last he threw himself on the bed with a groan of fatigue, and pulled the coverlet over him, and lay without motion, like a man in need of rest.
Lady Jane listened. She could not hear him breathe. She waited some five minutes, and then she murmured, “Arthur.” No answer. “Arthur.” Again no answer; and she raised herself on her elbow, cautiously, and listened; and after a little pause, quick as light she got out of bed, glided to the chimneypiece, and lighted a taper at the candle there, listened again for a moment, and on tiptoe, in bare feet, glided round the foot of the bed, and approached the recess at the other side of the bed’s head, and instantly her fingers were on one of those little flowers in the ormolu arabesque that runs along the edge of the wooden casing.
Before she could turn it a gouty hand over her shoulder took hold of hers, and, with a low sudden cry, she saw her husband.
“Can’t I do that for you? What is it?” said he.
Her lips were white, and she gazed in his face without saying a word.
He was standing there unbooted, in his trowsers, with those crimson silk suspenders on, with the embroidery of forget-me-nots, which she had described as “her work” — I am afraid inaccurately — a love-token — hypocrisy on hypocrisy.
Asmodeus, seated on the bed’s head, smirked down sardonically on the tableau, and clapped his apish hands.
“Get to your bed there. If you make a sign, by —— , I’ll kill you.”
She made no answer. She gazed at him dumbly. He was not like himself. He looked like a villain.
He did not lie down again. He sat by the little table, on which his watch, his keys, and loose shillings lay. The night was chill, but he did not feel it then.
He sat in his shirtsleeves, his chin on his breast, eyeing from under his stern white brows the shadowy arch through which the figure was to emerge.
Suddenly he heard the swift steps of little, naked feet on the carpet come round the foot of the bed, and his wife wildly threw herself at his feet, and clasped them in an agony. He could feel every sinew in her arms vibrate in the hysterical strain of her entreaty.
“Oh, Arthur! oh, darling, take me away from this, for God’s sake. Come down with me; come to the drawingroom, or to the dressing-room; take me away; you’ll be happier, indeed you will, than ever you were; you’ll never repent it, darling; do what I say. I’ll be the best wife, indeed I will. See, I’ve been reading my Bible; look at it. I’m quite changed — quite changed. God only knows how changed. Oh, Arthur, Arthur, if you ever loved me, take me away; come from this room — come, you’ll never repent it. Oh, Arthur, be wise, be merciful! The more you forgive the more you’ll be loved. It is not I, but God says that. I’m praying to you as I would to Him, and He forgives us when we implore: take pity on me; you’ll never be sorry. Have mercy, Arthur, have mercy — you are kind, I know you’re kind, you would not ruin your wretched Jennie. Oh, take pity before it is too late, and take me from this dreadful room. You’ll be glad, indeed you will; there never was such a wife as I’ll be to you, the humblest, the most loving, and you’ll be happier than ever you were. Oh, Arthur, Arthur, I’m praying to you as if you were God, for mercy; don’t say no! Oh, can you; can you; can you?”
General Lennox was moved, but not from his course. He never saw before such a face of misery. It was like the despairing pleading of the last day. But alas! in this sort of quarrel there can be no compromise; reconciliation is dishonour.
“Go and lie down. It’s all over between us,” said he in a tone that left her no room for hope. With a low, long cry, and her fingers clasped over her forehead, she retraced her steps, and lay down, and quietly drew her icy feet into the bed, awaiting the inevitable. Lennox resumed his watch.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Morning.
Monsieur Varbarriere was standing all this while with his shadow to the doorpost of the Window dressi
ng-room, and his dark eyes fixed on the further door which admits to the green chamber. His bedroom candle, which was dwindling, stood on the table at his elbow.
He heard a step crossing the lobby softly toward his own room, and whispered,
“Who’s there?”
“Jacques Duval, at Monsieur’s service.”
Monsieur took his candle, and crossed the floor to meet Jacques, who was approaching, and he signed to him to stop. He looked at his watch. It was now twenty minutes past one.
“Jacques,” said he, in a whisper, “there’s no mistake about those sounds?”
“No, Monsieur, not at all.”
“Three nights running, you say?”
“Monsieur is perfectly right.”
“Steps, you say?”
“Yes, sir, footsteps.”
“It could not have been the wind, the shaking or creaking of the floor or windows?”
“Ah no, Monsieur, not at all as that.”
“The steps quick, not slow; wasn’t it?”
“Quick, sir, as one in haste and treading lightly would walk.”
“And this as you sat in the butler’s room?”
“Monsieur recollects exactly.”
Varbarriere knew that the butler’s room exactly underlay that dingy library that abutted on Sir Jekyl’s bedchamber, and on that account had placed his sentinel to watch there.
“Always about the same time?” he asked.
“Very nearly, Monsieur, a few minutes, sometimes before, sometimes after; only trifle, in effect nothing,” answered Jacques.
“Jacques, you must leave my door open, so that, should I want you, you can hear me call from the door of that dressing-room; take care you keep awake, but don’t move.”
So saying, Varbarriere returned to his place of observation. He set down his candle near the outer door, and listened, glowering as before at the far one. The crisis was near at hand, so near that, on looking at his watch again, he softly approached the door of the green chamber, and there, I am sorry to say, he listened diligently.
But all was disappointingly silent for a while longer. Suddenly he heard a noise. A piece of furniture shoved aside it seemed, a heavy step or two, and the old man’s voice exclaim “Ha!” with an interrogatory snarl in it. There was a little laugh, followed by a muffled blow or a fall, and a woman’s cry, sharp and momentary— “Oh, God! oh, God!” and a gush of smothered sobs, and the General’s grim voice calling “silence!” and a few stern words from him, and fast talking between them, and Lady Jane calling for light, and then more wild sobbing. There had been no sound of a struggle.
Varbarriere stood, stooping, scowling, open-mouthed, at the door, with his fingers on the handle, hardly breathing. At last he gasped —
“That d —— old ape! has he hurt her?” He listened, but all was silent. Did he still hear smothered sobs? He could not be certain. His eyes were glaring on the panel of the door; but on his retina was a ghostly image of beautiful Lady Jane, bloodstained, with glazing eyes, like Cleopatra dying of her asps.
After a while he heard some words from the General in an odd ironical tone. Then came silence again — continued silence — half an hour’s silence, and then a sound of some one stirring.
He knew the tread of the General about the room. Whatever was to occur had occurred. That was his conclusion. Perhaps the General was coming to his room to look for him. It was time he should withdraw, and so he did.
“You may get to your bed, Jacques, and come at the usual hour.”
So, with his accustomed civilities, Monsieur Jacques disappeared. But old Lennox did not visit Varbarriere, nor even emerge from his room.
After an hour Varbarriere revisited the dressing-room next the green chamber. He waited long without hearing anything, and at length he heard a step — was it the General’s again, or Sir Jekyl’s? — whoever it was, he seemed to be fidgeting about the room, collecting and packing his things, Varbarriere fancied, for a journey; and then he heard him draw the writing-table a little, and place a chair near it, and as the candle was shining through the keyhole, he supposed the General had placed himself to write at it.
Something had happened, he felt sure. Had Lennox despatched Sir Jekyl, or Sir Jekyl wounded the General? Or had Lady Jane been killed? Or was all right, and no one of the actors stretched on the green baize carpet before the floats? He would believe that, and got quickly to his bed, nursing that comfortable conclusion the while. But when he shut his eyes, a succession of pale faces smeared with blood came and looked at him, and would not be ordered away. So he lighted his candle again, and tried to exorcise these visitors with the pages of a French Review, until very late sleep overtook him.
Jacques was in his room at the usual hour, eight o’clock; and Varbarriere started up in his bed at the sound of his voice, with a confused anticipation of a catastrophe. But the cheerful squire had nothing to relate except how charming was the morning, and to hand a letter to Monsieur.
Varbarriere’s mind was not upon letters that morning, but on matters nearer home.
“General Lennox has not been downstairs yet?”
“No, Monsieur.”
“Nor Sir Jekyl?”
“No, Monsieur.”
“Where’s my watch? there — yes — eight o’clock. H’m. When does Lady Jane’s maid go to her?”
“Not until the General has advanced himself pretty well in his toilet, the entrance being through his dressing-room.”
“The General used to be down early?”
“Yes, Monsieur, halfpast eight I remember.”
“And Sir Jekyl?”
“About the same hour.”
“And Lady Jane is called, I suppose, a little before that hour?”
“Yes, about a quarter past eight, Monsieur. Will Monsieur please to desire his cup of coffee?”
“Yes, everything — quickly — I wish to dress; and what’s this? a letter.”
It was from Guy Deverell, as Varbarriere saw at a glance, and not through the post.
“My nephew hasn’t come?” sternly demanded Varbarriere, with a kind of start, on reading the signature, which he did before reading the letter.
“No, Monsieur, a young man has conveyed it from Slowton.”
Whereupon Varbarriere, with a striped silk nightcap of many colours pending over his corrugated forehead, read the letter through the divided bed-curtains.
His nephew, it appeared, had arrested his course at Birmingham, and turned about, and reached Slowton again about the hour at which M. Varbarriere had met old Lennox in the grounds of Marlowe.
“What a fanfaronnade! These young fellows — what asses they are!” sneered Varbarriere.
It was not, in truth, very wise. This handsome youth announced his intention to visit Marlowe that day, to see Monsieur Varbarriere for, perhaps, the last time before setting forth for Algeria, where he knew a place would at once be found for him in the ranks of those brave soldiers whom France had sent there. His gratitude to his uncle years could never abate, but it was time he should cease to task his generosity, and he was quite resolved henceforward to fight his way single-handed in the world, as so many other young fellows did. Before taking his departure he thought he should present himself to say his adieux to M. Varbarriere — even to his host, Sir Jekyl Marlowe; and there was a good deal more of such stuff.
“Sir Jekyl! stuff! His uncle! lanterns! He wants to see that pretty Miss Beatrix once more! voila tout! He has chosen his time well. Who knows what confusion may be here to day? No matter.”
By this time he had got his great quilted dressing-gown about him, in the folds of which Varbarriere looked more unwieldy still than in his drawingroom costume.
“I must read about that Algeria; have they got any diseases there? plague — yellow fever — ague! By my faith! if the place is tolerably healthy, it would be no such bad plan to let the young fool take a turn on that gridiron, and learn thoroughly the meaning of independence.”
So Monsieur Varba
rriere, with a variety of subjects to think over, pursued his toilet.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Doctor’s Visit.
Sir Jekyl’s hour was eight o’clock, and punctually his man, Tomlinson, knocked at his door.
“Hollo! Is that Tomlinson?” answered the voice from within.
“Yes, sir, please.”
“See, Tomlinson, I say, it’s very ridiculous; but I’m hanged if I can stir, that confounded gout’s got hold of my foot again. You’ll have to force the door. Send some one down to the town for Doctor Pratt — d’ye see? — and get me some handkerchiefs, and don’t be all day.”
The faithful Tomlinson listening, with a snowy shirt and a pair of socks on his arm and the tips of his fingers fiddling with the door-handle, listening at the other side of the panel, with forehead inclined forward and mouth open, looked, I am sorry to say, a good deal amused, although he answered in a concerned tone; and departed to execute his orders.
“Guv’nor took in toe again,” he murmured, with a solemn leer, as he paused before the butler’s broad Marseilles waistcoat.
“As how?” inquired he.
“The gout; can’t stir a peg, and he’s locked hisself in, as usual, over night.”
“Lawk!” exclaimed the butler, and I dare say both would have liked to laugh, but neither cared to compromise himself.
“Chisel and mallet, Mr. Story, we shall want, if you please, and some one to go at once for the doctor to the town.”
“I know — yes — hinstantly,” ejaculated the butler.
So things proceeded. Pratt, M. D., the medical practitioner of the village, whose yellow hall door and broad brass plate, and shop window round the corner, with the two time-honoured glass jars, one of red the other of green fluid, representing physic in its most attractive hues, were not more widely known than his short, solemn, red face, blue chin, white whiskers, and bald pate, was roused by the messenger’s summons, at his toilet, and peeped over his muslin blind to discover the hand that was ringing so furiously among his withered hollyhocks; and at the same time Tomlinson and the butler were working with ripping chisel, mallet, and even a poker, to effect an entrance.
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 298