The Morning.
Monsieur Varbarriere was standing all this while with his shadow to the door-post of the Window dressing-room, and his dark eyes fixed on the further door which admits to the green chamber. His bed-room 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, blood-stained, 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 down-stairs 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, half-past 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 drawing-room 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 Varbarriere, with a variety of subjects to think over, pursued his toilet.