The Strangers appear again.
Sir Jekyl was the last of the party in the hall; and the last joke and
laugh had died away on the lobby above him, and away fled his smiles
like the liveries and brilliants of Cinderella to the region of
illusions, and black care laid her hand on his shoulder and stood by
him.
The bland butler, with a grave bow, accosted him in mild accents--
"The two gentlemen, sir, as you spoke of to Mrs. Sinnott, has arrived
about five minutes before you, sir; and she has, please sir, followed
your directions, and had them put in the rooms in the front, as you
ordered, sir, should be kept for them, before Mrs. Gwynn left."
"_What_ two gentlemen?" demanded Sir Jekyl, with a thrill. "Mr.
Strangways and M. Varbarriere?"
"Them, sir, I think, is the names--Strangways, leastways, I am sure on,
'aving lived, when young, with a branch of the Earl of Dilbury's family,
if you please, sir--which Strangways is the name."
"A good-looking young gentleman, tall and slight, eh?"
"Yes, sir; and a heavy gentleman haccompanies him--something in years--a
furriner, as I suppose, and speaking French or Jarmin; leastways, it is
not English."
"Dinner in twenty minutes," said Sir Jekyl, with the decision of the
Duke of Wellington in action; and away he strode to his dressing-room in
the back settlements, with a quick step and a thoughtful face.
"I shan't want you, Tomlinson, you need not stay," said he to his man;
but before he let him go, he asked carelessly a word or two about the
new guests, and learned, in addition to what he already knew, nothing
but that they had brought a servant with them.
"So much the worse," thought Sir Jekyl; "those confounded fellows hear
everything, and poke their noses everywhere. I sometimes think that
rascal, Tomlinson, pries about here."
And the Baronet, half-dressed, opened the door of his study, as he
called it, at the further end of his homely bedchamber, and looked
round.
It is or might be a comfortable room, of some five-and-twenty feet
square, surrounded by bookshelves, as homely as the style of the
bed-room, stored with volumes of the "Annual Register," "Gentleman's
Magazine," and "Universal History" sort--long rows in dingy
gilding--moved up here when the old library of Marlowe was broken up.
The room had a dusty air of repose about it. A few faded pieces of
old-fashioned furniture, which had probably been quartered here in
genteel retirement, long ago, when the principal sitting-rooms were
undergoing a more modern decoration.
Here Sir Jekyl stood with a sudden look of dejection, and stared
listlessly round on the compact wall of books that surrounded him,
except for the one door-case, that through which he had entered, and the
two windows, on all sides. Sir Jekyl was in a sort of collapse of
spirits. He stepped dreamily to the far shelf and took down a volume of
Old Bailey Reports, and read the back of it several times, then looked
round once more dejectedly, and blew the top of the volume, and wondered
at the quantity of dust there, and replacing it, heaved a deep sigh.
Dust and death are old associations, and his thoughts were running in a
gloomy channel.
"Is it worth all this?" he thought. "I'm growing tired of it--utterly.
I'm half sorry I came here; perhaps they are right. It might be a
devilish good thing for me if this rubbishy old house were burnt to the
ground--and I in it, by Jove! 'Out, out, brief candle!' What's that
Shakspeare speech?--'A tale told by an idiot--a play played by an
idiot'--egad! I don't know why I do half the things I do."
When he looked in the glass he did not like the reflection.
"Down in the mouth--hang it! this will never do," and he shook his
curls, and smirked, and thought of the ladies, and bustled away over his
toilet; and when it was completed, as he fixed in his jewelled
wrist-buttons, the cold air and shadow of his good or evil angel's wing
crossed him again, and he sighed. Capricious were his moods. Our wisdom
is so frivolous, and our frivolities so sad. Is there time here to
think out anything completely? Is it possible to hold by our
conclusions, or even to remember them long? And this trifling and
suffering are the woof and the warp of an eternal robe--wedding garment,
let us hope--maybe winding-sheet, or--toga molesta.
Sir Jekyl, notwithstanding his somewhat interrupted toilet, was in the
drawing-room before many of his guests had assembled. He hesitated for a
moment at the door, and turned about with a sickening thrill, and walked
to the table in the outer hall, or vestibule, where the post-bag lay. He
had no object in this countermarch, but to postpone for a second or two
the meeting with the gentlemen whom, with, as he sometimes fancied, very
questionable prudence, he had invited under his roof.
And now he entered, frank, gay, smiling. His eyes did not search, they
were, as it were, smitten instantaneously with a sense of pain, by the
image of the young man, so handsome, so peculiar, sad, and noble, the
sight of whom had so moved him. He was conversing with old Colonel
Doocey, at the further side of the fireplace. In another moment Sir
Jekyl was before him, his hand very kindly locked in his.
"Very happy to see you here, Mr. Strangways."
"I am very much honoured, Sir Jekyl Marlowe," returned the young
gentleman, in that low sweet tone which he also hated. "I have many
apologies to make. We have arrived two days later than your note
appointed; but an accident--"
"Pray, not a word--your appearance here is the best compensation you
can make me. Your friend, Monsieur Varbarriere, I hope--"
"My uncle--yes; he, too, has the honour. Will you permit me to present
him? Monsieur Varbarriere," said the young man, presenting his relative.
A gentleman at this summons turned suddenly from General Lennox, with
whom he had been talking; a high-shouldered, portly man, taller a good
deal when you approached him than he looked at first; his hair, "all
silvered," brushed up like Louis Philippe's, conically from his
forehead; grey, heavily projecting eyebrows, long untrimmed moustache
and beard; altogether a head and face which seemed to indicate that
combination of strong sense and sensuality which we see in some of the
medals of Roman Emperors; a forehead projecting at the brows, and keen
dark eyes in shadow, observing all things from under their grizzled
pent-house; these points, and a hooked nose, and a certain weight and
solemnity of countenance, gave to the large and rather pallid aspect,
presented suddenly to the Baronet, something, as we have said, of the
character of an old magician. Voluminous plaited black trousers,
slanting in to the foot, foreshadowed the peg-top of more recent date; a
loose and long black velvet waistcoat, with more gold chain and
jewellery generally than Englishmen are accustomed to wear, and a wide
and clumsy black coat, added to the broad and thick-set character of his
figure.
As Sir Jekyl made his complimentary speech to this gentleman, he saw
that his steady and shrewd gaze was attentively considering him in a
way that a little tried his patience; and when the stranger spoke it was
in French, and in that peculiar metallic diapason which we sometimes
hear among the Hebrew community, and which brings the nasals of that
tongue into sonorous and rather ugly relief.
"England is, I dare say, quite new to you, Monsieur Varbarriere?"
inquired Sir Jekyl.
"I have seen it a very long time ago, and admire your so fine country
very much," replied the pallid and bearded sage, speaking in French
still, and in those bell-like tones which rang and buzzed unpleasantly
in the ear.
"You find us the same foggy and tasteless islanders as before," said the
host. "In art, indeed, we have made an advance; _there_, I think, we
have capabilities, but we are as a people totally deficient in that fine
decorative sense which expresses itself so gracefully and universally in
your charming part of the world."
When Sir Jekyl talked of France, he was generally thinking of Paris.
"We have our barbarous regions, as you have; our vineyards are a dull
sight after all, and our forest trees you, with your grand timber, would
use for broom-sticks."
"But your capital; why every time one looks out at the window it is a
fillip to one's spirits. To me, preferring France so infinitely, as I
do," said Sir Jekyl, replying in his guest's language, "it appears a
mystery why any Frenchman, who can help it, ever visits our dismal
region."
The enchanter here shrugged slowly, with a solemn smile.
"No wonder our actions are mysterious to others, since they are so often
so to ourselves."
"You are best acquainted with the south of France?" said Sir Jekyl,
without any data for such an assumption, and saying the reverse of what
he suspected.
"Very well with the south; pretty well, indeed, with most parts."
Just at this moment Mr. Ridley's bland and awful tones informed the
company that dinner was on the table, and Sir Jekyl hastened to afford
to Lady Blunket the support of his vigorous arm into the parlour.
It ought to have been given to Lady Jane; but the Blunket was a huffy
old woman, and, on the score of a very decided seniority, was indulged.
Lady Blunket was not very interesting, and was of the Alderman's
opinion, that conversation prevents one's tasting the green fat; Sir
Jekyl had, therefore, time, with light and careless glances, to see
pretty well, from time to time, what was going on among his guests.
Monsieur Varbarriere had begun to interest him more than Mr. Guy
Strangways, and his eye oftener reviewed that ponderous and solemn face
and form than any other at the table. It seemed that he liked his
dinner, and attended to his occupation. But though taciturn, his shrewd
eyes glanced from time to time on the host and his guests with an air of
reserved observation that showed his mind was anything but sluggish
during the process. He looked wonderfully like some of those enchanters
whom we have seen in illustrations of Don Quixote.
"A deep fellow," he thought, "an influential fellow. That gentleman
knows what he's about; that young fellow is in his hands."