The Baronet Pursues.
Sir Jekyl Marlowe was vexed when the letters came, and none from Pelter
and Crowe. There are people who expect miracles from their doctors and
lawyers, and, in proportion to their accustomed health and prosperity,
are unreasonable when anything goes wrong. The Baronet's notion was that
the legal firm in question ought to think and even dream of nothing else
than his business. It was an impertinence their expecting _him_ to think
about it. What were _they_ there for? He knew that London was a pretty
large place, and England still larger; and that it was not always easy
to know what everybody was about in either, and still less what each man
was doing on the Continent. Pelter and Crowe had some other clients too
on their hands, and had hitherto done very satisfactorily. But here was
a serious-looking thing--the first really uncomfortable occurrence which
had taken place under his reign--the first opportunity for exhibiting
common vigilance--and he ventured to say those fellows did not know
these Strangways people were in these kingdoms at all!
Sir Jekyl, though an idle fellow, was a man of action, so he ordered his
horse, and rode nine miles to the "Plough Inn," where he hoped to see
Mr. Strangways again, improve his intimacy, and prevail with the
gentlemen to return with him to Marlowe, and spend a fortnight there,
when, or the devil was in it, he should contrive to get at the bottom of
their plans.
He looked shrewdly in at the open door as he rode up, and halloed for
some one to take his horse. The little porch smiled pleasantly, and the
two gables and weather-cock, in the sunlight; and the farmer on the
broad and dingy panel, in his shirt-sleeves, low-crowned, broad-leafed
hat, crimson waistcoat, canary-coloured shorts, and blue stockings, and
flaxen wig, was driving his plump horses, and guilding his plough
undiscouraged, as when last he saw him.
Boots and Mrs. Jones came out. Sir Jekyl was too eager to wait to get
down; so from the saddle he accosted his buxom hostess, in his usual
affable style. The Baronet was not accustomed to be crossed and thwarted
as much as, I have been told, men with less money sometimes are; and he
showed his mortification in his face when he learned that the two
gentlemen had left very early that morning.
"This morning! Why you said yesterday they would not go till _evening_.
Hang it, I wish you could tell it right; and what the d--l do you mean
by Strangers? Call him Strangways, can't you. It's odd people can't say
names."
He must have been very much vexed to speak so sharply; and he saw,
perhaps, how much he had forgotten himself in the frightened look which
good Mrs. Jones turned upon him.
"I don't mean you, my good little soul. It's _their_ fault; and where
are they gone to? I wanted to ask them both over to Marlowe. Have you a
notion?"
"They took our horses as far as the 'Bell and Horns,' at Slowton." She
called shrilly to Boots, "They're not stoppin' at the 'Bell and Horns,'
sure. Come here, and tell Sir Jekyl Marlowe about Mr. Strangers."
"You said last night they were going to Awkworth;" and Sir Jekyl
chuckled scornfully, for he was vexed.
"They changed their minds, sir."
"Well, we'll say so. You're a wonderful fascinating sex. Egad! if you
could only carry anything right in your heads for ten minutes, you'd be
too charming." And at this point Boots emerged, and Sir Jekyl continued,
addressing him--
"Well, where are the gentlemen who left this morning?" asked he.
"They'll be at the 'Bell and Horns,' sir."
"Where's that?"
"Slowton, sir."
"I know. What hour did they go?"
"Eight o'clock, sir."
"Just seven miles. The Sterndale Road, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
And that was all Boots had to tell.
"Will ye please to come in, sir?" inquired Mrs. Jones.
"No, my good creature. I haven't time. The old gentleman--what's his
name?"
"I don't know, Sir, please. He calls the young gentleman Guy, and the
young gentleman calls him _sir_."
"And both the same name?"
"We calls 'em both Strangers, please, sir."
"I know. Servants, had they?"
"Yes, sir, please. But they sent 'em on."
"Rich--don't want for money, I suppose. Eh?"
"Oh! plenty money, sir."
"And the servants called the men Strangways, I suppose, eh?"
"Yes, Sir Jekyl, please; and so the letters came."
"You never happened to hear any other name?"
"No, Sir Jekyl."
"_Think._"
Mrs. Jones did think, but could recall nothing.
"Nothing with a D?"
"D, sir! What, sir?"
"No matter what," said the Baronet. "No name beginning with D--eh?"
"No, sir. You don't think they're going by a false name?" inquired the
lady, curiously.
"What the devil puts that in your head? Take care of the law; you must
not talk that way, you foolish little rogue."
"I did not know, sir," timidly answered Mrs. Jones, who saw in Sir
Jekyl, the Parliament-man, Deputy-Lieutenant, and Grand Juror, a great
oracle of the law.
"I only wanted to know whether you had happened to hear the name of the
elder of the two gentlemen, and could recollect what letter it begins
with."
"No, sir, please."
"So you've no more to tell me?"
"Nothing, sir."
"If they come back tell them I rode over to offer them some shooting,
and to beg they'd remember to come to Marlowe. You won't forget?"
"No sir."
"Do they return here?"
"I think not, sir."
"Well, I believe there's nothing else," and the Baronet looked up
reflectively, as if he expected to find a memorandum scribbled on the
blue sky, leaning with his hand on the back of his horse. "No, nothing.
You won't forget my message, that's all. Good-bye, my dear."
And touching the tips of his gloves to his lips, with a smile and a nod
he cantered down the Sterndale Road.
He pulled up at the "Bell and Horns," in the little town of Slowton, but
was disappointed. The entire party, servants and all, had taken the
train two hours before, at the station three miles away.
Now Sir Jekyl was blooded, and the spirit of the chase stirred within
him. So he rode down in his jack-boots, and pulled up his steaming horse
by the station, and he went in and made inquiry.
A man like him is received even at one of these cosmopolitan
rallying-points within his own county with becoming awe. The
station-master was awfully courteous, and the subaltern officials
awfully active and obliging, and the resources of the establishment
were at once placed at his sublime disposal. Unhappily, two branch lines
converge at this point, causing the usual bustle, and there was
consequently a conflict and confusion in the evidence; so that Sir
Jekyl, who laughed and chatted agreeably amidst all the reverential zeal
that surrounded him, could arrive at nothing conclusive, but leaned to
the view that the party had actually gone to Awkworth, only by rail,
instead of by road.
Sir Jekyl got on his horse and walked him through the town, uncertain
what to do next. This check had cooled him; his horse had his long trot
home still. It would not do to follow to Awkworth; to come in, after a
four-and-twenty miles' ride, bespattered like a courier, merely to
invite these gentlemen, _vivâ voce_, who had hardly had his note of
invitation a score hours. It would be making too much of them with a
vengeance.
As he found himself once more riding under the boughs of Marlowe, the
early autumnal evening already closing in, Sir Jekyl experienced one of
those qualms and sinkings of the heart, which overcome us with a vague
anticipation of evil.
The point of the road which he had now gained, commands a view of the
old hall of Marlowe, with that projecting addition, and its wide
bow-window, every pane of which was now flaming in the sunset light,
which indicated the green chamber.
The green chamber! Just at that moment the glare of its broad window
flashed with a melancholy and vengeful light upon his brain, busied
with painful retrospects and harassing conjecture.
Old Gwynn going away! It was an omen. Marlowe without old Gwynn. Troy
without its palladium. Old Gwynn going with something like a
denunciation on her lips! That stupid old woman at Wardlock, too, who
really knew nothing about it, undertaking also to prophesy! Out of the
mouths of babes and sucklings! There was no sense in it--scarcely
articulation. Still it was the croak of the raven--the screech of the
owl.
He looked across the gentle slope at the angle of the inauspicious room.
Why should old General Lennox be placed within the unhallowed precincts
of that chamber? The image of old Gwynn as she gabbled her grim protest
on the preceding night, rose before him like a ghost. What business was
it of hers, and how could she divine his motives? Still, if there was
anything wrong, did not this vehement warning make the matter worse.
An old man he felt himself on a sudden that evening, and for the first
time. There was some failure of the electric fire, and a subsidence of
the system. His enterprise was gone. Why should he take guilt, if such
it were, on his soul for vanity and vexation of spirit? If guilt it
were, was it not of a kind inexcusably cold-blooded and long-headed. Old
Gwynn, he did not like to lose you on those terms--just, too, as those
unknown actors were hovering at the wing, and about to step upon the
stage, this old man and young, who, instinctively he felt, were
meditating mischief against him. Mischief--_what_? Such, perhaps, as
might shatter the structure of his greatness, and strew its pinnacles in
the dust. Perhaps all this gloom was but the depression of a long ride,
and still longer fast. But he was accustomed to such occasional strains
upon his strength without any such results. Ah, no! He had come within
the edge of the shadow of judgment, and its darkness was stealing over
him, and its chill touched his heart.
These were the dreamy surmisings with which he rode slowly toward the
house, and a few good resolutions in a nebulous state hovered
uncomfortably about him.
No letter of any interest had come by the early post, and Sir Jekyl sat
down _tête-à-tête_ with his pretty daughter, in very dismal spirits, to
dinner.