Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)
Page 294
“Perfectly — yes. You did not know me by the name of Varbarriere, which name I adopted on purchasing the Varbarriere estates shortly after I met you at Havre, on becoming a naturalised subject of France.”
“Wonderful little changed, Monsieur Barvarrian — fat, sir — a little stouter — in good case, Mr. Strangways; but six years, you know, sir, does not count for nothing — ha, ha, ha!”
“You have the goodness to flatter me, I fear,” answered Varbarriere, with a smile somewhat contemptuous, and in his deep tones of banter.
“This is my friend, Mr. Strangways, if he’ll allow me to call him so — Mr. Herbert Strangways, Sir Jekyl,” said the polite attorney, presenting his own guest to the Baronet.
“And so, Monsieur Varbarriere, I find I have an additional reason to rejoice in having made your acquaintance, inasmuch as it revives a very old one, so old that I almost fear you may have forgotten it. You remember our poor friend, Guy Deverell, and— “
“Perfectly, Sir Jekyl, and I was often tempted to ask you the same question; but — but you know there’s a melancholy — and we were so very happy here, I had not courage to invite the sadness of the retrospect, though a very remote one. I believe I was right, Sir Jekyl. Life’s true philosophy is to extract from the present all it can yield of happiness, and to bury our dead out of our sight.”
“I dare say — I’m much of that way of thinking myself. And — dear me! — I — I suppose I’m very much altered.” He was looking at Varbarriere, and trying to recover in the heavy frame and ponderous features before him the image of that Herbert Strangways whom, in the days of his early coxcombry, he had treated with a becoming impertinence.
“No — you’re wonderfully little changed — I say honestly — quite wonderfully like what I remember you. And I — I know what a transformation I am — perfectly,” said Varbarriere.
And he stood before Sir Jekyl, as he would display a portrait, full front — Sir Jekyl held a silver candlestick in his hand, Monsieur Varbarriere his in his — and they stood face to face — in a dream of the past.
Varbarriere’s mystic smile expanded to a grin, and the grin broke into a laugh — deep and loud — not insulting — not sneering.
In that explosion of sonorous and enigmatic merriment Sir Jekyl joined — perhaps a little hesitatingly and coldly, for he was trying, I think, to read the riddle — wishing to be quite sure that he might be pleased, and accept these vibrations as sounds of reconciliation.
There was nothing quite to forbid it.
“I see,” said Monsieur Varbarriere, in tones still disturbed by laughter, “in spite of your politeness, Sir Jekyl, what sort of impression my metamorphosis produces. Where is the rawboned youth — so tall and gawky, that, egad! London bucks were ashamed to acknowledge him in the street, and when they did speak could not forbear breaking his gawky bones with their jokes? — ha, ha, ha! Now, lo! here he stands — the grand old black swine, on hind legs — hog-backed — and with mighty paunch and face all draped in fat. Bah! ha, ha, ha! What a magician is Father Time! Look and laugh, sir — you cannot laugh more than I.”
“I laugh at your fantastic caricature, so utterly unlike what I see. There’s a change, it’s true, but no more than years usually bring; and, by Jove! I’d much rather any day grow a little full, for my part, than turn, like some fellows, into a scarecrow.”
“No, no — no scarecrow, certainly,” still laughed Varbarriere.
“Egad, no,” laughed the attorney in chorus. “No corners there, sir — ribs well covered — hey? nothing like it coming on winter;” and grinning pleasantly, he winked at Sir Jekyl, who somehow neither heard nor saw him, but said —
“Mr. Pelter, my law adviser here, was good enough to say he’d come to my room, which you know so well, Monsieur Varbarriere, and smoke a cigar. You can’t do better — pray let me persuade you.”
He was in fact tolerably easily persuaded, and the three gentlemen together — Sir Jekyl feeling as if he was walking in a dream, and leading the way affably — reached that snuggery which Varbarriere had visited so often before.
“Just one — they are so good,” said he. “We are to go to the drawingroom — aren’t we?”
“Oh, certainly. I think you’ll like these — they’re rather good, Mr. Pelter. You know them, Monsieur Varbarriere.”
“I’ve hardly ever smoked such tobacco. Once, by a chance, at Lyons, I lighted on a box very like these — that is, about a third of them — but hardly so good.”
“We’ve smoked some of these very pleasantly together,” said Sir Jekyl, cultivating genial relations.
Varbarriere, who had already one between his lips, grunted a polite assent with a nod. You would have thought that his whole soul was in his tobacco, as his dark eyes dreamily followed the smoke that thinly streamed from his lips. His mind, however, was busy in conjecturing what the attorney had come about, and how much he knew of his case and his plans. So the three gentlemen puffed away in silence for a time.
“Your nephew, Mr. Guy Strangways, I hope we are soon to see him again?” asked Sir Jekyl, removing his cigar for a moment.
“You are very good. Yes, I hope. In fact, though I call it business, it is only a folly which displeases me, which he has promised shall end; and whenever I choose to shake hands, he will come to my side. There is no real quarrel, mind,” and Varbarriere laughed, “only I must cure him of his nonsense.”
“Well, then we may hope very soon to see Mr. Strangways. I call him Strangways, you know, because he has assumed that name, I suppose, permanently.”
“Well, I think so. His real name is Deverell — a very near relation, and, in fact, representative of our poor friend Guy. His friends all thought it best he should drop it, with its sad associations, and assume a name that may be of some little use to him among more affluent relatives,” said M. Varbarriere, who had resolved to be frank as day and harmless as doves, and to disarm suspicion adroitly.
“A particularly handsome fellow — a distinguished-looking young man. How many things, Monsieur Varbarriere, we wish undone as we get on in life!”
The attorney lay back in his chair, his hands in his pockets, his heels on the carpet, his cigar pointing up to the ceiling, and his eyes closed luxuriously. He intended making a note of everything.
“I hope to get him on rapidly in the French service,” resumed Varbarriere, “and I can make him pretty comfortable myself while I live, and more so after I’m gone; and in the meantime I am glad to put him in a field where he must exert himself, and see something of labour as well as of life.”
There was a knock at the door, and the intelligence that Mr. Pelter’s luggage was in his room. He would have stayed, perhaps, but Sir Jekyl, smiling, urged haste, and as his cigar was out, he departed. When he was quite gone, Sir Jekyl rose smiling, and extended his hand to Varbarriere, who took it smiling in his own way; also, Sir Jekyl was looking in the face of the large man who stood before him, and returning his gaze a little cloudily; and laughing, both shook hands for a good while, and there was nothing but this lowtoned laughter between them.
“At all events, Herbert, I’m glad we have met, very glad — very, very. I did not think I’d have felt it quite this way. I’ve your forgiveness to ask for a great deal. I never mistook a man so much in my life. I believe you are a devilish good fellow; but — but I fancied, you know, for a long time, that you had taken a hatred to me, and — and I have done you great injustice; and I wish very much I could be of any use to — to that fine young fellow, and show any kindness worth the name towards you.”
Sir Jekyl’s eyes were moist, he was smiling, and he was shaking Varbarriere’s powerful hand very kindly. I cannot analyse his thoughts and feelings in that moment of confusion. It had overcome him suddenly — it had in some strange way even touched Varbarriere. Was there dimly seen by each a kindly solution of a life-long hatred — a possibility of something wise, perhaps self-sacrificing, that led to reconciliation and serenity in old days?
“Wonderful thing life is — terrible battle, life!” murmured Varbarriere, leaning against the wall, with his dark eyes raised to the far cornice, and looking away and through and beyond it into some far star.
There are times when your wideawake gentlemen dream a little, and Sir Jekyl laughed a pensive and gentle little laugh, shaking his head and smiling sadly in reply.
“Did you ever read Vathek?” asked the Baronet, “rather a good horror — the fire, you know — ah, ha! — that’s a fire every fellow has a spark of in him; I know I have. I’ve had everything almost a fellow wants; but this I know, if I were sure that death was only rest and darkness, there’s hardly a day I live I would not choose it.” And with this sentiment came a sincere and odd little laugh.
“My faith! I believe it’s true,” said Varbarriere with a shrug, and a faint smile of satiety on his heavy features.
“We must talk lots together, Herbert — talk a great deal. You’ll find I’m not such a bad fellow after all. Egad, I’m very glad you’re here!”
* * *
CHAPTER XVI.
A Rencontre in the Gallery.
It was time now; however, that they should make their appearance in the drawingroom; so, for the present, Varbarriere departed. He reached his dressing-room in an undefined state — a sort of light, not of battle fires, but of the dawn in his perspective; when, all on a sudden, came the image of a white-moustached, white-browed, grim old military man, glancing with a clear, cold eye, that could be cruel, from the first-class carriage window, up and down the platform of a gas-lit station, some hour and a half away from Slowton, and then sternly at his watch.
“The stupid old fogey!” thought Varbarriere, with a pang, as he revised his toilet hurriedly for the drawingroom. “Could that episode be evaded?”
There was no time to arrive at a clear opinion on this point, nor, indeed, to ascertain very clearly what his own wishes pointed at. So, in a state rather anarchic, he entered the gallery, en route for the drawingroom.
Monsieur Varbarriere slid forth, fat and black, from his doorway, with wondrous little noise, his bulk considered, and instantly on his retina, lighted by the lamp at the cross galleries, appeared the figure of a tall thin female, attired in a dark cloak and bonnet, seated against the opposite wall, not many steps away. Its head turned, and he saw Donica Gwynn. It was an odd sort of surprise; he had just been thinking of her.
“Oh! I did not think as you were here, sir; I thought you was in Lunnon.”
“Yet here I am, and you too, both unexpectedly.” A suspicion had crossed his mind. “How d’ye do, Mrs. Gwynn?”
“Well, I thank you, sir.”
“Want me here?”
“No, sir; I was wrote for by missus please.”
“Yes,” he said very slowly, looking hard at her. “Very good, Mrs. Gwynn; have you anything to say to me?”
It would not do, of course, to protract this accidental talk; he did not care to be seen tête-à-tête with Donica Gwynn in the gallery.
“No, sir, please, I han’t nothing to say, sir,” and she courtesied.
“Very well, Mrs. Gwynn; we’re quite secret, hey?” and with another hard look, but only momentary, in her face, he proceeded toward the head of the staircase.
“Beg parding, sir, but I think you dropt something.” She was pointing to a letter, doubled up, and a triangular corner of which stuck up from the floor, a few yards away.
“Oh! thank you,” said Varbarriere, quickly retracing his steps, and picking it up.
A terrible fact for the world to digest is this, that some of our gentlemen attorneys are about the most slobbering men of business to be found within its four corners. They will mislay papers, and even lose them; they are dilatory and indolent — quite the reverse of our sharp, lynx-eyed, energetic notions of that priesthood of Themis, and prone to every sort and description of lay irregularity in matters of order and pink tape.
Our friend Pelter had a first-rate staff, and a clockwork partner beside in Crowe, so that the house was a very regular one, and was himself, in good measure, the fire, bustle, and impetus of the firm. But every virtue has its peccant correspondent. If Pelter was rapid, decided, daring, he was also a little hand-over-hand. He has been seen in a hurry to sweep together and crunch like a snowball a drift of banknotes, and stuff them so impressed into the bottom of his greatcoat pocket! What more can one say?
This night, fussing out at his bedroom door, he plucked his scented handkerchief from his pocket, and, as he crossed his threshold, with it flirted forth a letter, which had undergone considerable attrition in that receptacle, and was nothing the whiter, I am bound to admit, especially about the edges, for its long sojourn there.
Varbarriere knew the handwriting and I. M. M. initials in the left-hand lower angle. So, with a nod and a smile, he popped it into his trowsers pocket, being that degree more cautious than Pelter.
Sir Jekyl was once more in high spirits. To do him justice, he had not affected anything. There had been an effervescence — he hardly knew how it came about. But his dangers seemed to be dispersing; and, at the worst, were not negotiation and compromise within his reach?
Samuel Pelter, Esq., gentleman attorney and a solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, like most prosperous men, had a comfortable confidence in himself; and having heard that Lady Alice Redcliffe was quarrelling with her lawyer, thought there could be no harm in his cultivating her acquaintance.
The old lady was sitting in a high-backed chair, very perpendicularly, with several shawls about and around her, stiff and pale; but her dusky eyes peered from their sunken sockets, in grim and isolated observation.
Pelter strutted up. He was not, perhaps, a distinguished-looking man — rather, I fear, the contrary. His face was broad and smirking, with a short, broad, blue chin, and a close crop of iron-grey on his round head, and plenty of crafty crow’s-feet and other lines well placed about.
He stood on the hearthrug, within easy earshot of Lady Alice, whom he eyed with a shrewd glance, “taking her measure,” as his phrase was, and preparing to fascinate his prey.
“Awful smash that, ma’am, on the Smather and Sham Junction,” said Pelter, having fished up a suitable topic. “Frightful thing — fourteen killed — and they say upwards of seventy badly hurt. I’m no chicken, Lady Alice, but by Jove, ma’am, I can’t remember any such casualty — a regular ca-tas-trophe, ma’am!”
And Pelter, with much feeling, gently lashed his paunch with his watch-chain and bunch of seals, an obsolete decoration, which he wore — I believe still wears.
Lady Alice, who glowered sternly on him during this speech, nodded abruptly with an inarticulate sound, and then looked to his left, at a distant picture.
“I trust I see you a great deal better, Lady Alice. I have the pleasure, I believe, to address Lady Alice Redcliffe — aw, haw, h’m,” and the attorney executed his best bow, a ceremony rather of agility than grace. “I had the honour of seeing you, Lady Alice Redcliffe, at a shower-flow — flower-show, I mean — in the year — let me see — egad, ma’am, twelve — no — no — thirteen years ago. How time does fly! Of course all them years — thirteen, egad! — has not gone for nothing. I dare say you don’t perceive the alterations in yourself — no one does — I wish no one else did — that was always my wish to Mrs. P. of a morning — my good lady, Mrs. Pelter — ha, ha, ha! Man can’t tether time or tide, as the Psalm says, and every year scribbles a wrinkle or two. You were suffering, I heard then, ma’am, chronic cough, ma’am — and all that. I hope it’s abated — I know it will, ma’am — my poor lady is a martyr to it — troublesome thing — very — awful troublesome! Lady Alice.”
There was no reply, Lady Alice was still looking sternly at the picture.
“I remember so well, ma’am, you were walking
a little lame then, linked with Lord Lumdlebury — (we have had the honour to do business occasionally for his lordship) — and I was informed by a party with me that you had been with Pincendorf. I don’t think much of them jockeys, ma’am, for my part; but if it was anything of a callosity— “
Without waiting for any more, Lady Alice Redcliffe rose in solemn silence to her full height, beckoned to Beatrix, and said grimly —
“I’ll change my seat, dear, to the sofa — will you help me with these things?”
Lady Alice glided awfully to the sofa, and the gallant Mr. Pelter instituted a playful struggle with Beatrix for possession of the shawls.
“I remember the time, miss, I would not have let you carry your share; but, as I was saying to Lady Alice Redcliffe— “
He was by this time tucking a shawl about her knees, which, so soon as she perceived, she gasped to Beatrix —
“Where’s Jekyl? — I can’t have this any longer — call him here.”
“As I was saying to you, Lady Alice, ma’am, our joints grow a bit rusty after sixty; and talking of feet, I passed the Smather and Slam Junction, ma’am, only two hours after the collision; and, egad! there were three feet all in a row cut off by the instep, quite smooth, ma’am, lying in the blood there, a pool as long as the passage upstairs — awful sight!”
Lady Alice rose up again, with her eyes very wide, and her mouth very close, apparently engaged in mental prayer, and her face angry and pink, and she beckoned with tremulous fingers to Sir Jekyl, who was approaching with one of his provoking smiles.
“I say, Mr. Pelter, my friend Doocey wants you over there; they’re at loggerheads about a law point, and I can’t help them.”
“Hey! if it’s practice I can give them a wrinkle maybe;” and away stumped the attorney, his fists in his pockets, smirking, to the group indicated by his host.
“Hope I haven’t interrupted a conversation? What can I do for you?” said Sir Jekyl, gaily.