Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  “I am, I assure you, very sorry, and have enjoyed your hospitality much — very much; but we can’t rest long, you know: we hold a good many strings, and matters won’t wait our convenience.”

  “I’m only afraid you are overworked; but, of course, I understand how you feel, and shan’t press,” said Sir Jekyl.

  “And I was looking for you to-day in the library,” resumed the Bishop, “anxious for a few minutes, on a subject I glanced at when I arrived.”

  “I — I know,” said Sir Jekyl, a little hesitatingly.

  “Yes, the dying wish of poor Sir Harry Marlowe, your father,” murmured the Bishop, looking into his claret-glass, which he slowly turned about by the stem; and, to do him justice, there was not a quarter of a glassful remaining in the bottom.

  “I know — to be sure. I quite agree with your lordship’s view. I wish to tell you that — quite, I assure you. I don’t — I really don’t at all understand his reasons; but, as you say, it is a case for implicit submission. I intend, I assure you, actually to take down that room during the spring. It is of no real use, and rather spoils the house.”

  “I am happy, my dear Sir Jekyl, to hear you speak with so much decision on the subject — truly happy;” and the venerable prelate laid his hand with a gentle dignity on the cuff of Sir Jekyl’s dress-coat, after the manner of a miniature benediction. “I may then discharge that quite from my mind?”

  “Certainly — quite, my lord. I accept your views implicitly.”

  “And the box — the other wish — you know,” murmured the Bishop.

  “I must honestly say, I can’t the least understand what can have been in my poor father’s mind when he told me to — to do what was right with it — was not that it? For I do assure you, for the life of me, I can’t think of anything to be done with it but let it alone. I pledge you my honour, however, if I ever do get the least inkling of his meaning, I will respect it as implicitly as the other.”

  “Now, now, that’s exactly what I wish. I’m perfectly satisfied you’ll do what’s right.”

  And as he spoke the Bishop’s countenance brightened, and he drank slowly, looking up toward the ceiling, that quarter of a glass of claret on which he had gazed for so long in the bottom of the crystal chalice.

  Just then the butler once more inclined his head from the back of Sir Jekyl’s chair, and presented a card to his master on the little salver at his left side. It bore the inscription, “Mr. Pelter, Camelia Villa,” and across this, perpendicularly, after the manner of a joint “acceptance” of the firm, was written— “Pelter and Crowe, Chambers, Lincoln’s Inn Fields,” in bold black pencilled lines.

  “Why did not you tell me that before?” whispered the Baronet, tartly, half rising, with the card in his hand.

  “I was not haware, Sir Jekyl. The gentleman, said his name exactly like Pullet.”

  “In the library? Well — tell him I’m coming,” said Sir Jekyl; and his heart sank, he knew not why.

  “Beg your pardon, my lord, for a moment — my man of business, all the way from London, and I fancy in a hurry. I shall get rid of him with a word or two — you’ll excuse me? Dives, will you oblige me — take my place for a moment, and see that the bottle does not stop; or, Doocey, will you? — Dives is doing duty at the foot.”

  Doocey had hopes that the consultation with the butler portended a bottle of that wonderful Constantia which he had so approved two days before, and took his temporary seat hopefully.

  Sir Jekyl, with a general apology and a smile glided away without fuss, and the talk went on much as before.

  When the parlour-door shut behind Sir Jekyl, his face darkened. “I know it’s some stupid thing,” he thought, as he walked down the gallery with rapid steps, toward the study, the sharp air agitating, as he did so, his snowy necktie and glossy curls.

  “How d’ye do, Mr. Pelter? — very happy to see you. I had not a notion it was you — the stupid fellow gave me quite another name. Quite well, I hope?”

  “Quite well, Sir Jekyl, I thank you — a — quite well,” said the attorney, a stoutish, short, wealthy-looking man, with a massive gold chain, a resolute countenance, and a bullet head, with close-cut greyish hair.

  Pelter was, indeed, an able, pushing fellow, without Latin or even English grammar, having risen in the office from a small clerkship, and, perhaps, was more useful than his gentlemanlike partner.

  “Well — a — well, and what has brought you down here? Very glad to see you, you know; but you would not run down for fun, I’m afraid,” said Sir Jekyl.

  “Au — no — au, well, Sir Jekyl, it has turned out, sir — by gad, sir, I believe them fellows are in England, after all!”

  “What do you mean by them fellows?” said Sir Jekyl, with a very dark look, unconsciously repeating the attorney’s faulty grammar.

  “Strangways and Deverell, you know — I mean them — Herbert Strangways, and a young man named Deverell — they’re in England, I’ve been informed, very private — and Strangways has been with Smith, Rumsey, and Snagg — the office — you know; and there is something on the stocks there.”

  As the attorney delivered this piece of intelligence he kept his eye shrewdly on Sir Jekyl, rather screwed and wrinkled, as a man looks against a storm.

  “Oh! — is that all? There’s nothing very alarming, is there, in that? — though, d —— me, I don’t see, Mr. Pelter, how you reconcile your present statement with what you and your partner wrote to me twice within the last few weeks.”

  “Very true, Sir Jekyl; perfectly true, sir. Our information misled us totally; they have been devilish sharp, sir — devilish sly. We never were misled before about that fellow’s movements — not that they were ever of any real importance.”

  “And why do you think them — but maybe you don’t — of more consequence now?”

  Pelter looked unpleasantly important, and shook his head.

  “What is it — I suppose I may know?” said Sir Jekyl.

  “It looks queerish, Sir Jekyl, there’s no denying that — in fact, very queerish indeed — both me and my partner think so. You recollect the deed?”

  “No — devil a deed — d —— them all! — I don’t remember one of them. Why, you seem to forget it’s nearly ten years ago,” interrupted the Baronet.

  “Ah! — no — not ten — the copy of the deed that we got hold of, pretending to be a marriage settlement. It was brought us, you know, in a very odd way, but quite fair.”

  “Yes, I do remember — yes, to be sure — that thing you thought was a forgery, and put in our way to frighten us. Well, and do you fancy that’s a genuine thing now?”

  “I always thought it might — I think it may — in fact, I think it is. We have got a hint they rely on it. And here’s a point to be noted: the deed fixes five-and-twenty as the period of his majority; and just as he attains that age, his father being nearly that time dead, they put their shoulders to the wheel.”

  “Put their d — d numbskulls under it, you mean. How can they move — how can they stir? I’d like to know how they can touch my title? I don’t care a curse about them. What the plague’s frightening you and Crowe now? I’m blest if I don’t think you’re growing old. Why can’t you stick to your own view? — you say one thing one day and another the next. Egad, there’s no knowing where to have you.”

  The Baronet was talking bitterly, scornfully, and with all proper contempt of his adversaries, but there’s no denying he looked very pale.

  “And there certainly is activity there; cases have been with counsel on behalf of Guy Deverell, the son and heir of the deceased,” pursued Mr. Pelter, with his hands in his pockets, looking grimly up into the Baronet’s face.

  “Won’t you sit down? — do sit down, Pelter; and you haven’t had wine?” said Sir Jekyl.

  “Thanks — I’ve had some sherry.”

  “Well, you must have some claret. I’d like a glass myself.”

  He had rung the hell, and a servant appeared.

&n
bsp; “Get claret and glasses for two.”

  The servant vanished deferentially.

  “I’m not blaming you, mind; but is it not odd we should have known nothing of this son, and this pretended marriage till now?”

  “Odd! — oh dear, no! — you don’t often know half so much of the case at the other side — nothing at all often till it’s on the file.”

  “Precious satisfactory!” sneered Sir Jekyl.

  “When we beat old Lord Levesham, in Blount and Levesham, they had not a notion, no more than the man in the moon, what we were going on, till we produced the release, and got a direction, egad.” And the attorney laughed over that favourite recollection.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XIV.

  Pelter opens his mind.

  “Take a glass of claret. This is ‘34. Maybe you’d like some port better?”

  “No, thanks, this will do very nicely,” said the accommodating attorney. “Thirty-four? So it is, egad! and uncommon fine too.”

  “I hope you can give me a day or two — not business, of course — I mean by way of holiday,” said Sir Jekyl. “A little country air will do you a world of good — set you up for the term.”

  Mr. Pelter smiled, and shook his head shrewdly.

  “Quite out of the question, Sir Jekyl, I thank you all the same — business tumbling in too fast just now — I daren’t stay away another day — no, no — ha, ha, ha! no rest for us, sir — no rest for the wicked. But this thing, you know, looks rather queerish, we thought — a little bit urgent: the other party has been so sly; and no want of money, sir — the sinews of war — lots of tin there.”

  “Yes, of course; and lots of tin here, too. I fancy fellows don’t like to waste money only to hold their own; but, egad, if it comes to be a pull at the long purse, all the worse for them,” threw in the Baronet.

  “And their intending, you know, to set up this marriage,” continued the attorney without minding; “and that Herbert Strangways being over here with the young pretender, as we call him, under his wing; and Strangways is a deuced clever fellow, and takes devilish sound view of a case when he lays his mind to it. It was he that reopened that great bankruptcy case of Onslow and Grawley, you remember.”

  Sir Jekyl assented, but did not remember.

  “And a devilish able bit of chess-play that was on both sides — no end of concealed property — brought nearly sixty thousand pounds into the fund, egad! The creditors passed a vote, you remember — spoke very handsomely of him. Monstrous able fellow, egad!”

  “A monstrous able fellow he’ll be if he gets my property, egad! It seems to me you Pelter and Crowe are half in love with him,” said Sir Jekyl, flushed and peevish.

  “We’ll hit him a hard knock or two yet, for all that — ha, ha! — or I’m mistaken,” rejoined old Mr. Pelter.

  “Do you know him?” inquired Sir Jekyl; and the servant at the same time appearing in answer to his previous summons, he said —

  “Go to the parlour and tell Mr. Doocey — you know quietly — that I am detained by business, but that we’ll join them in a little time in the drawingroom.”

  So the servant, with a reverence, departed.

  “I say, do you?”

  “Just a little. Seven years ago, when I was at Havre, he was stopping there too. A very gentlemanlike man — sat beside him twice at the table d’hôte. I could see he knew d — d well who I was — wide awake, very agreeable man, very — wonderful well-informed. Wonderful ups and downs that fellow’s had — clever fellow — ha, ha, ha! — I mentioned you, Sir Jekyl; I wanted to hear if he’d say anything — fishing, hey? Old file, you know” — and the attorney winked and grinned agreeably at Sir Jekyl. “Capital claret this — cap-i-tal, by Jupiter! It came in natural enough. We were talking of England, you see. He was asking questions; and so, talking of country gentlemen, and county influence, and parliamentary life, you know, I brought in you, and asked him if he knew Sir Jekyl Marlowe.” Another wink and a grin here. “I asked, a bit suddenly, you know, to see how he’d take it. Did not show, egad! more than that decanter — ha, ha, ha! — devilish cool dog — monstrous clever fellow — not a bit; and he said he did not know you — had not that honour; but he knew a great deal of you, and he spoke very handsomely — upon my honour — quite au — au — handsomely of you, he did.”

  “Vastly obliged to him,” said Sir Jekyl; but though he sneered I think he was pleased. “You don’t recollect what he said, I dare say?”

  “Well, I cannot exactly.”

  “Did he mention any unpleasantness ever between us?” continued Sir Jekyl.

  “Yes, he said there had, and that he was afraid Sir Jekyl might not remember his name with satisfaction; but he, for his part, liked to forget and forgive — that kind of thing, you know, and young fellows being too hotheaded, you know. I really — I don’t think he bears you personally any ill-will.”

  “There has certainly been time enough for anger to cool a little, and I really, for my part, never felt anything of the kind towards him; I can honestly say that, and I dare say he knows it. I merely want to protect myself against — against madmen, egad!” said Sir Jekyl.

  “I think that copy of a marriage settlement you showed me had no names in it,” he resumed.

  “No, the case is all put like a moot point, not a name in it. It’s all nonsense, too, because every man in my profession knows a copying clerk never has a notion of the meaning of anything — letter, deed, pleading — nothing he copies — not an iota, by Jove!”

  “Finish the bottle; you must not send it away,” said Sir Jekyl.

  “Thanks, I’m doing very nicely; and now as they may open fire suddenly, I want to know” — here the attorney’s eyes glanced at the door, and his voice dropped a little— “any information of a confidential sort that may guide us in — in — — “

  “Why, I fancy it’s all confidential, isn’t it?” answered Sir Jekyl.

  “Certainly — but aw — but — I meant — you know — there was aw — a — there was a talk, you know, about a deed. Eh?”

  “I — I — yes, I’ve heard — I know what you mean,” answered Sir Jekyl, pouring a little claret into his glass. “They — those fellows — they lost a deed, and they were d — d impertinent about it; they wanted — you know it’s a long time ago — to try and slur my poor father about it — I don’t know exactly how, only, I think, there would have been an action for slander very likely about it, if it had not stopped of itself.”

  Sir Jekyl sipped his claret.

  “I shan’t start till three o’clock train tomorrow, if you have anything to say to me,” said the attorney, looking darkly and expectingly in Sir Jekyl’s face.

  “Yes, I’ll think over everything. I’d like to have a good talk with you in the morning. You sleep here, you know, of course.”

  “Very kind. I hope I shan’t be in your way, Sir Jekyl. Very happy.”

  Sir Jekyl rang the bell.

  “I shan’t let you off tomorrow, unless you really can’t help it,” he said; and, the servant entering, “Tell Mrs. Sinnott that Mr. Pelter remains here tonight, and would wish — do you? — to run up to your room. Where’s your luggage?”

  “Precious light luggage it is. I left it at the hotel in the town — a small valise, and a — — “

  “Get it up here, do you mind, and let us know when Mr. Pelter’s room is ready.”

  “Don’t be long about dressing; we must join the ladies, you know, in the drawingroom. I wish, Pelter, there was no such thing as business; and that all attorneys, except you and Crowe, of course, were treated in this and the next world according to their deserts,” an ambiguous compliment at which Pelter nodded slyly, with his hands in his pockets.

  “You’ll have to get us all the information you can scrape together, Sir Jekyl. You see they may have evidence of that deed — I mean the lost one, you know — and proving a marriage and the young gentleman legitimate. It may be a serious case — upon my word a very serious case
— do you see? And term begins, you know, immediately so there really is no time to lose, and there’s no harm in being ready.”

  “I’ll have a long talk with you about it in the morning, and I am devilish glad you came — curse the whole thing!”

  The servant here came to say that Mr. Pelter’s room was ready, and his luggage sent for to the town.

  “Come up, then — we’ll look at your room.”

  So up they went, and Pelter declared himself charmed.

  “Come to my room, Mr. Pelter — it’s a long way off, and a confoundedly shabby crib; but I’ve got some very good cigars there,” said Sir Jekyl, who was restless, and wished to hear the attorney more fully on this hated business.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XV.

  The Pipe of Peace.

  Sir Jekyl marched Mr. Pelter down the great stair again, intending to make the long journey rearward. As they reached the foot of the stairs, Monsieur Varbarriere, candle in hand, was approaching it on the way to his room. He was walking leisurely, as large men do after dinner, and was still some way off.

  “By Jove! Why did not you tell me?” exclaimed the attorney, stopping short. “By the law! you’ve got him here.”

  “Monsieur Varbarriere?” said the Baronet.

  “Mr. Strangways, sir — that’s he.”

  “That Strangways!” echoed the Baronet.

  “Herbert Strangways,” whispered Mr. Pelter, and by this time M. Varbarriere was under the rich oak archway, and stopped, smiling darkly, and bowing a little to the Baronet, who was for a moment surprised into silence.

  “How do you do, Mr. Strangways, sir?” said the attorney, advancing with a shrewd resolute smile, and extending his hand.

  M. Varbarriere, without the slightest embarrassment, took it, bowing with a courtly gravity.

  “Ah, Monsieur Pelter? — yes, indeed — very happy to meet you again.”

  “Yes, sir — very happy, Mr. Strangways; so am I. Did not know you were in this part of the world, Mr. Strangways, sir. You remember Havre, sir?”