M. Varbarriere orders his Wings.
In her own way, with interjections, and commentary and occasional pauses for the sake of respiration, old Lady Alice related the substance of what the Bishop had communicated to her.
“And what do you suppose, Monsieur Varbarriere, to have been the contents of that red leather box?” asked Lady Alice.
Monsieur Varbarriere smiled mysteriously and nodded.
“I fancy, Lady Alice, I have the honour to have arrived at precisely the same conclusion with yourself,” said he.
“Well, I dare say. You see now what is involved. You understand now why I should be, for his own sake, more than ever grieved that my boy is gone,” she said, trembling very much.
Monsieur Varbarriere bowed profoundly.
“And why it is, sir, that I do insist on your explaining your broken phrase of the other evening.”
Monsieur Varbarriere in his deep oak frame stood up tall, portly, and erect. A narrow window, with stained heraldic emblazonry, was partly behind him, and the light from above fell askance on one side of his massive countenance, throwing such dark downward bars of shadow on his face, that Lady Alice could not tell whether he was scowling or smiling, or whether the effect was an illusion.
“What phrase, pray, does your ladyship allude to?” he inquired.
“You spoke of my boy — my poor Guy — as if you knew more of him than you cared to speak — as if you were on the point of disclosing, and suddenly recollected yourself,” replied Lady Alice.
“You mean when I had the honour to converse with you the night before last in the drawing-room,” said he, a little brusquely, observing that the old lady was becoming vehemently excited.
“Yes; when you left me under the impression that you thought my son still living,” half screamed Lady Alice, like a woman in a fury.
“Bah!” thundered the sneering diapason of Monsieur Varbarriere, whose good manners totally forsook him in his angry impatience, and his broad foot on the floor enforced his emphasis with a stamp.
“What do you mean, you foreign masquerader, whom nobody knows? What can it be? Sir, you have half distracted me. I’ve heard of people getting into houses — I’ve heard of magicians — I’ve heard of the devil — I have heard of charlatans, sir. I’d like to know what right, if you know nothing of my dear son, you have to torture me with doubts— “
“Doubts!” repeated Varbarriere, if less angrily, even more contemptuously. “Pish!”
“You may say pish, sir, or any rudeness you please; but depend upon this, if you do know anything of any kind, about my darling son, I’ll have it from you if there be either laws or men in England,” shrieked Lady Alice.
Varbarriere all at once subsided, and looked hesitatingly. In tones comparatively quiet, but still a little ruffled, he said —
“I’ve been, I fear, very rude; everyone that’s angry is. I think you are right. I ought never to have approached the subject of your domestic sorrow. It was not my doing, madame; it was you who insisted on drawing me to it.”
“You told me that you had seen my son, and knew Mr. Strangways intimately.”
“I did not!” cried Varbarriere sternly, with his head thrown back; and he and Lady Alice for a second or two were silent. “That is, I beg pardon, you misapprehended me. I’m sure I never could have said I had seen your son, Mr. Guy Deverell, or that I had a particularly intimate acquaintance with Mr. Strangways.”
“It won’t do,” burst forth Lady Alice again; “I’ll not be fooled — I won’t be fooled, sir.”
“Pray, then, pause for one moment before you have excited an alarm in the house, and possibly decide me on taking my leave for ever,” said Varbarriere, in a low but very stern tone. “Whatever I may be — charlatan, conjurer, devil — if you but knew the truth, you would acknowledge yourself profoundly and everlastingly indebted to me. It is quite true that I am in possession of facts of which you had not even a suspicion; it is true that the affairs of those nearest to you in blood have occupied my profoundest thoughts and most affectionate care. I believe, if you will but exercise the self-command of which I have no doubt you are perfectly capable, for a very few days, I shall have so matured my plans as to render their defeat impracticable. On the other hand, if you give me any trouble, or induce the slightest suspicion anywhere that I have taken an interest of the kind I describe, I shall quit England, and you shall go down to your grave in darkness, and with the conviction, moreover, that you have blasted the hopes for which you ought to have sacrificed not your momentary curiosity only, but your unhappy life.”
Lady Alice was awed by the countenance and tones of this strange man, who assumed an authority over her, on this occasion, which neither of her deceased lords had ever ventured to assert in their lifetimes.
Her fearless spirit would not, however, succumb, but looked out through the cold windows of her deep-set eyes into the fiery gaze of her master, as she felt him, daringly as before.
After a short pause, she said —
“You would have acted more wisely, Monsieur Varbarriere, had you spoken to me on other occasions as frankly as you have just now done.”
“Possibly, madame.”
“Certainly, monsieur.”
M. Varbarriere bowed.
“Certainly, sir. But having at length heard so much, I am willing to concede what you say. I trust the delay may not be long. — I think you ought to tell me soon. I suppose we had better talk no more in the interim,” she added, suddenly turning as she approached the threshold of the room, and recovering something of her lofty tone— “upon that, to me, terrible subject.”
“Much better, madame,” acquiesced M. Varbarriere.
“And we meet otherwise as before,” said the old lady, with a disdainful condescension and a slight bow.
“I thank you, madame, for that favour,” replied M. Varbarriere, reverentially, approaching the door, which, as she drew near to withdraw, he opened for her with a bow, and they parted.
“I hope she’ll be quiet, that old grey wildcat. I must get a note from her to Madame Gwynn. The case grows stronger; a little more and it will be irresistible, if only that stupid and ill-tempered old woman can be got to govern herself for a few days.”
That evening, in the drawing-room, Monsieur Varbarriere was many degrees more respectful than ever to that old grey wildcat, at whom that morning he had roared in a way so utterly ungentlemanlike and ferocious.
People at a distance might have almost fancied a sexagenarian caricature of a love-scene. There had plainly been the lovers’ quarrel. The lady carried her head a little high, threw sidelong glances on the carpet, had a little pink flush in her cheeks, and spoke little; listened, but smiled not; while the gentleman sat as close as he dare, and spoke earnestly and low.
Monsieur Varbarriere was, in fact, making the most of his time, and recovering all he could of his milder influence over Lady Alice, and did persuade and soften; and at length he secured a promise of the note he wanted to Mrs. Gwynn, pledging his honour that she would thoroughly approve the object of it, so soon as he was at liberty to disclose it.
That night, taking leave of Sir Jekyl, Monsieur Varbarriere said —
“You’ve been so good as to wish me to prolong my visit, which has been to me so charming and so interesting. I have ventured, therefore, to enable myself to do so, by arranging an absence of two days, which I mean to devote to business which will not bear postponement.”
“Very sorry to lose you, even for the time you say; but you must leave your nephew, Mr. Strangways, as a hostage in our hands to secure your return.”
“He shall remain, as you are so good as to desire it, to enjoy himself. As for me, I need no tie to hold me to my engagement, and only regret every minute stolen for other objects from my visit.”
There was some truth in these complimentary speeches. Sir Jekyl was now quite at ease as to the character of his guests, whom he had at first connected with an often threatened attack, which he profoundly dreaded, however lightly he might talk of its chances of success. The host, on the whole, liked his guests, and really wished their stay prolonged; and Monsieur Varbarriere, who silently observed many things of which he did not speak, was, perhaps, just now particularly interested in his private perusal of that little romance which was to be read only at Marlowe Manor.
“I see, Guy, you have turned over a new leaf — no fooling now — you must not relapse, mind. I shall be away for two days. If longer, address me at Slowton. May I rely on your good sense and resolution — knowing what are our probable relations with this family — to continue to exercise the same caution as I have observed in your conduct, with much satisfaction, for the last two evenings? Well, I suppose I may. If you cannot trust yourself — fly. Get away — pack. You may follow me to Slowton, make what excuse you please; but don’t loiter here. Good-night.”
Such was the farewell spoken by Varbarriere to his nephew, as he nodded his good-night on the threshold of their dressing-room.
In the morning Monsieur Varbarriere’s place knew him no more at the breakfast-table. With his valise, despatch-box, and desk, he had glided away, in the frosty sunlight, in a Marlowe post-chaise, to the “Plough Inn,” on the Old London Road, where, as we know, he had once sojourned before. It made a slight roundabout to the point to which his business really invited his route; and as he dismissed his vehicle here, I presume it was done with a view to mystify possible inquirers.
At the “Plough Inn” he was received with an awful bustle and reverence. The fame of the consideration with which he was entertained at Marlowe had reached that modest hostelry, and Monsieur Varbarriere looked larger, grander, more solemn in its modest hall, than ever; his valise was handled with respect, and lifted in like an invalid, not hauled and trundled like a prisoner; and the desk and despatch-box, as the more immediate attendants on his person, were eyed with the respect which such a confidence could not fail to inspire.
So Monsieur Varbarriere, having had his appetising drive through a bright country and keen air, ate his breakfast very comfortably; and when that meal was over, ordered a “fly,” in which he proceeded to Wardlock, and pulled up at the hall-door of Lady Alice’s reserved-looking, but comfortable old redbrick mansion.