The remainder of the letter was brief.
“I do not say, Jekyl Marlowe, that I regret your illness. You have to thank a merciful Providence that it is unattended with danger; and it affords an opportunity for reflection, which may, if properly improved, lead to some awakening of conscience — to a proper estimate of your past life, and an amendment of the space that remains. I need hardly add, that an amended life involves reparation, so far as practicable, to all whom you or, in your interest, yours may have injured.
“In deep humiliation and sorrow,
“Alice Redcliffe.”
“I wish you were in a deep pond, you plaguy old witch. That fellow, Herbert Strangways — Varbarriere — he’s been talking to her. I know what she means by all that cant.”
Then he read over again the passages about “your victim,” and “General Lennox,” your “friend and guest.” And he knocked on the table, and called as well as he could— “Tomlinson,” who entered.
“Where’s General Lennox?”
“Can’t say, Sir Jekyl, please, sir— ‘avn’t saw him to-day.”
“Just see, please, if he’s in the house, and let him know that I’m ill, but very anxious to see him. You may say very ill, do you mind, and only wish a word or two.”
Tomlinson bowed and disappeared.
“Don’t care if he strikes me again. I’ve a word to say, and he must hear it,” thought Sir Jekyl.
But Tomlinson returned with the intelligence that General Lennox had gone down to the town, and was going to Slowton station; and his man, with some of his things, followed him to the Marlowe Arms, in the town close by.
In a little while he called for paper, pen, and ink, and with some trouble wrote an odd note to old General Lennox.
“General Lennox,
“You must hear me. By —— ,” and here followed an oath and an imprecation quite unnecessary to transcribe. “Your wife is innocent as an angel! I have been the fiend who would, if he could, have ruined her peace and yours. From your hand I have met my deserts. I lie now, I believe, on my deathbed. I wish you knew the whole story. The truth would deify her and make you happy. I am past the age of romance, though not of vice. I speak now as a dying man. I would not go out of the world with a perjury on my soul; and, by —— , I swear your wife is as guiltless as an angel. I am ill able to speak, but will see and satisfy you. Bring a Bible and a pistol with you — let me swear to every answer I make you; and if I have not convinced you before you leave, I promise to shoot myself through the head, and save you from all further trouble on account of
“Jekyl Marlowe.”
“Now see, Tomlinson, don’t lose a moment. Send a fellow running, do you mind, and let him tell General Lennox I’m in pain — very ill — mind and — and all that; and get me an answer; and he’ll put this in his hand.”
Sir Jekyl was the sort of master who is obeyed. The town was hardly three-quarters of a mile away. His messenger accomplished the distance as if for a wager.
The waiter flourished his napkin in the hall of the Marlowe Arms, and told him —
“No General, nothing was there, as he heerd.”
“Who do you want?” said the fat proprietress, with a red face and small eyes and a cap and satin bow, emerging from a side door, and superseding the waiter, who said— “A hofficer, isn’t it?” as he went aside.
“Oh! from the Manor,” continued the proprietress in a conciliatory strain, recognising the Marlowe button, though she did not know the man. “Can I do anything?”
And she instinctively dropped a courtesy — a deference to the far-off Baronet; and then indemnifying herself by a loftier tone to the menial.
“A note for General Lennox, ma’am.”
“General Lennox? — I know, I think, a millentery man, white-’aired and spare?”
“I must give it ‘im myself, ma’am, thankee,” said he, declining the fat finger and thumb of the curious hostess, who tossed her false ringlets with a little fat frown, and whiffled —
“Here, tell him where’s the tall, thin gemm’n, with white mistashes, that’s ordered the hosses — that’ll be him, I dessay,” she said to the waiter, reinstated, and waddled away with a jingle of keys in her great pocket. So to the back yard they went, the thin, little, elderly waiter skipping in front, with a jerk or two of his napkin.
“Thankee, that’s him,” said the messenger.
* * *
CHAPTER XXX.
About Lady Jane.
The General was walking up and down the jolty pavement with a speed that seemed to have no object but to tire himself, his walking-stick very tightly grasped, his lips occasionally contracting, and his hat now and then making a vicious wag as he traversed his beat.
“Hollo!” said the General, drawing up suddenly, as the man stood before him with the letter, accosting him with his hand to his cap. “Hey! well, sir?”
“Letter, please, sir.”
The General took it, stared at the man, I think, without seeing him, for a while, and then resumed his march, with his cane, sword-fashion, over his shoulder. The messenger waited, a little perplexed. It was not until he had made a third turn that the General, again observing the letter in his hand, looked at it, and again at the messenger, who was touching his cap, and stopping short, said —
“Well — ay! This? — aw — you brought it, didn’t you?”
So the General broke it open — he had not his glasses with him — and, holding it far away, read a few lines with a dreadful glare, and then bursting all on a sudden into such a storm of oaths and curses as scared the sober walls of that unmilitary hostelry, he whirled his walking-stick in the air, with the fluttering letter extended toward the face of the astounded messenger, as if in another second he would sweep his head off.
At the sound of this hoarse screech the kitchen-wench looked open-mouthed out of the scullery-window with a plate dripping in her hand. “Boots,” with his fist in a “Wellington,” held his blacking-brush poised in air, and gazed also; and the hostler held the horse he was leading into the stable by the halter, and stood at the door gaping over his shoulder.
“Tell your master I said he may go to hell, sir,” said the General, scrunching the letter like a snowball in his fist, and stamping in his fury.
What more he said I know not. The man withdrew, and, once or twice, turned about, sulkily, half puzzled and half angered, perhaps not quite sure whether he ought not to “lick” him.
“What’ll be the matter now?” demanded the proprietress, looking from under her balustrade of brown ringlets from the back door.
“‘Drat me if I know; he’s a rum un, that he be,” replied the man with the Marlowe button. “When master hears it he’ll lay his whip across that old cove’s shouthers, I’m thinking.”
“I doubt he’s not right in his head; he’s bin a-walkin’ up an’ down the same way ever since he ordered the chaise, like a man beside himself. Will ye put them horses to?” she continued, raising her voice; “why, the ‘arniss is on ‘em this half-hour. Will ye put ‘em to or no?” and so, in something of an angry panic, she urged on the preparations, and in a few minutes more General Lennox was clattering through the long street of the town, on his way to Slowton, and the London horrors of legal consultations, and the torture of the slow processes by which those whom God hath joined together are sundered.
“Send Donica Gwynn to me,” said Lady Alice to the servant whom her bell had summoned to Lady Mary’s boudoir.
When Donica arrived —
“Shut the door, Donica Gwynn,” said she, “and listen. Come a little nearer, please. Sir Jekyl Marlowe is ill, and, of course, we cannot all stay here.” Lady Alice looked at her dubiously.
“Fit o’ the gout, my lady, I’m told.”
“Yes, an attack of gout.”
“It does not hold long with him, not like his poor father, Sir Harry, that would lie six months at a time in flannel. Sir Jekyl, law bless you, my lady! He’s often ‘ad his toe as red as fire o
vernight, and before supper tomorrow walking about the house. He says, Tomlinson tells me, this will be nothink at all; an’ it might fret him sore, my lady, and bring on a worse fit, to see you all go away.”
“Yes, very true, Gwynn; but there’s something more at present,” observed Lady Alice, demurely.
Donica folded her hands, and with curious eyes awaited her mistress’s pleasure.
Lady Alice continued in a slightly altered tone —
“It’s not altogether that. In fact, Gwynn, there has been — you’re not to talk, d’ye see, — I know you don’t talk; but there has been — there has been a something — a quarrel — between Lady Jane and her husband, the General; and for a time, at least, she will remain with me at Wardlock, and I may possibly go abroad with her for a little.”
Donica Gwynn’s pale sharp face grew paler and sharper, as during this announcement she eyed her mistress askance from her place near the door; and as Lady Alice concluded, Donica dropped her eyes to the Turkey carpet, and seemed to read uncomfortable mysteries in its blurred pattern. Then Donica looked up sharply, and asked —
“And, please, my lady, what is your ladyship’s orders?”
“Well, Gwynn, you must get a ‘fly’ now from the town, and go on before us to Wardlock. We shall leave this probably in little more than an hour, in the carriage. Tell Lady Jane, with my compliments, that I hope she will be ready by that time — or no, you may give her my love — don’t say compliments — and say, I will either go and see her in her room, or if she prefer, I will see her here, or anywhere else; and you can ask her what room at Wardlock she would like best — do you mind? Whatever room she would like best she shall have, except mine, of course, and the moment you get there you’ll set about it.”
“Yes, ma’am, please, my lady.”
Donica looked at her mistress as if expecting something more; and her mistress looked away darkly, and said nothing.
“I’ll return, my lady, I suppose, and tell you what Miss Jane says, ma’am?”
“Do,” answered Lady Alice, and, closing her eyes, she made a sharp nod, which Donica knew was a signal of dismissal.
Old Gwynn, mounting the stairs, met Mrs. Sinnott with those keys of office which she had herself borne for so many years.
“Well, Mrs. Sinnott, ma’am, how’s the master now?” she inquired.
“Doctor’s not bin yet from Slowton, Mrs. Gwynn; we don’t know nothink only just what you heard this morning from Mr. Tomlinson.”
“Old Pratt, baint he here neither?”
“No, but the nurse be come.”
“Oh! respeckable, I hope? But no ways, Mrs. Sinnott, ma’am, take my advice, and on no account don’t you give her her will o’ the bottle; there’s none o’ them hospital people but likes it — jest what’s enough, and no more, I would say.”
“Oh! no! no!” answered Mrs. Sinnott, scornfully. “I knows somethink o’ them sort, too — leave ‘em to me.”
“Lady Alice going away this afternoon.”
“And what for, Mrs. Gwynn?” asked the housekeeper.
“Sir Jekyl’s gout.”
“Fidgets! Tiresome old lass, baint she? law,” said Mrs. Sinnott, who loved her not.
“She don’t know Sir Jekyl’s constitution like I does. Them little attacks o’ gout, why he makes nothink o’ them, and they goes and comes quite ‘armless. I’m a-going back to Wardlock, Mrs. Sinnott, this morning, and many thanks for all civilities while ‘ere, lest I should not see you when a-leavin’.”
So with the housekeeper’s smiles, and conventional courtesies, and shaking of hands, these ladies parted, and Mrs. Gwynn went on to the green chamber.
As she passed through the Window dressing-room her heart sank. She knew, as we are aware, a good deal about that green chamber, more than she had fancied Lady Jane suspected. She blamed herself for not having talked frankly of it last night. But Lady Jane’s éclat of passion at one period of their interview had checked her upon any such theme; and after all, what could the green chamber have to do with it? Had not the General arrived express very late last night? It was some London story that sent him down from town in that hurry, and Sir Jekyl laid up in gout too. Some o’ them jealous stories, and a quarrel over it. It will sure be made up again — ay, ay.
And so thinking, she knocked, and receiving no answer, she opened the door and peeped in. There was but a narrow strip of one shutter open.
“Miss Jennie, dear,” she called. Still no answer. “Miss Jennie, darling.” No answer still. She understood those sulky taciturnities well, in which feminine tempest sometimes subsides, and was not at all uneasy. On the floor, near the foot of the bed, lay the General’s felt hat and travelling coat. Standing, there, she drew the curtain and saw Lady Jane, her face buried in the pillow, and her long hair lying wildly on the coverlet and hanging over the bedside.
“Miss Jennie, dear — Miss Jennie, darling; it’s me — old Donnie, miss. Won’t you speak to me?”
Still no answer, and Donica went round, beginning to feel uneasy, to the side where she lay.
* * *
CHAPTER XXXI.
Lady Jane’s Toilet.
“Miss Jennie, darling, it’s me,” she repeated, and placed her fingers on the young lady’s shoulder. It was with an odd sense of relief she saw the young lady turn her face away.
“Miss Jennie, dear; it’s me — old Donnie — don’t you know me?” cried Donica once more. “Miss, dear, my lady, what’s the matter you should take on so? — only a few wry words — it will all be made up, dear.”
“Who told you — who says it will be made up?” said Lady Jane, raising her head slowly, very pale, and, it seemed to old Gwynn, grown so thin in that one night. “Don’t mind — it will never be made up — no, Donnie, never; it oughtn’t. Is my — is General Lennox in the house?”
“Gone down to the town, miss, I’m told, in a bit of a tantrum — going off to Lunnon. It’s the way wi’ them all — off at a word; and then cools, and back again same as ever.”
Lady Jane’s fingers were picking at the bedclothes, and her features were sunk and peaked as those of a fever-stricken girl.
“The door is shut to — outer darkness. I asked your God for mercy last night, and see what he has done for me!”
“Come, Miss Jennie, dear, you’ll be happy yet. Will ye come with me to Wardlock?”
“That I will, Donnie,” she answered, with a sad alacrity, like a child’s.
“I’ll be going, then, in half an hour, and you’ll come with me.”
Lady Jane’s tired wild eyes glanced on the gleam of light in the halfopen shutter with the wavering despair of a captive.
“I wish we were there. I wish we were — you and I, Donnie — just you and I.”
“Well, then, what’s to hinder? My missus sends her love by me, to ask you to go there, till things be smooth again ‘twixt you and your old man, which it won’t be long, Miss Jennie, dear.”
“I’ll go,” said Lady Jane, gliding out of her bed toward the toilet, fluttering along in her bare feet and nightdress. “Donnie, I’ll go.”
“That water’s cold, miss; shall I fetch hot?”
“Don’t mind — no; very nice. Oh, Donnie, Donnie, Donnie! my heart, my heart! what is it?”
“Nothink, my dear — nothink, darlin’.”
“I wish it was dark again.”
“Time enough, miss.”
“That great sun shining! They’ll all be staring. Well, let them.”
“Won’t you get your things on, darling? I’ll dress you. You’ll take cold.”
“Oh, Donnie! I wish I could cry. My head! I don’t know what it is. If I could cry I think I should be better. I must see him, Donnie.”
“But he’s gone away, miss.”
“Gone! Is he?”
“Ay, sure I told ye so, dear, only this minute. To Lunnon, I hear say.”
“Oh! yes, I forgot; yes, I’ll dress. Let us make haste. I wish I knew. Oh! Donnie, Donnie! oh! my heart,
Donnie, Donnie — my heart’s breaking.”
“There, miss, dear, don’t take on so; you’ll be better when we gets into the air, you will. What will ye put on? — here’s a purple mornin’ silk.”
“Yes; very nice. Thank you. Oh! Donnie, I wish we were away.”
“So we shall, miss, presently, please God. Them’s precious bad pins — Binney and Clew — bends like lead; there’s two on ‘em. Thompson’s mixed shillin’ boxes — them’s the best. Miss Trixie allays has ‘em. Your hair’s beautiful, miss, allays was; but dearie me! what a lot you’ve got! and so beautiful fine! I take it in handfuls — floss silk — and the weight of it! Beautiful hair, miss. Dearie me, what some ‘id give for that!”
Thus old Gwynn ran on; but fixed, pale, and wild was the face which would once have kindled in the conscious pride of beauty at the honest admiration of old Donnie, who did not rise into raptures for everyone and on all themes, and whose eulogy was therefore valuable.
“I see, Donnie — nothing bad has happened?” said Lady Jane, with a scared glance at her face.
“Bad? Nonsense! I told you, Miss Jennie, ‘twould all be made up, and so it will, please God, miss.”
But Lady Jane seemed in no wise cheered by her promises, and after a silence of some minutes, she asked suddenly, with the same painful look —
“Donnie, tell me the truth, for God’s sake; how is he?”
Donica looked at her with dark inquiry.
“The General is gone, you know, ma’am.”
“Stop — you know,” cried Lady Jane, seizing her fiercely by the arm, with a wild fixed stare in her face.
“Who?” said Donica.
“Not he. I mean— “
“Who?” repeated Gwynn.
“How is Sir Jekyl?”
It seemed as if old Donica’s breath was suspended. Shade after shade her face darkened, as with wide eyes she stared in the gazing face of Lady Jane, who cried, with a strange laugh of rage —
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 302