In the Drawing-Room.
Sir Jekyl heard snatches of conversation, sometimes here, sometimes
there.
Guy Strangways was talking to Beatrix, and the Baronet heard him say,
smiling--
"But you don't, I'm sure, believe in the elixir of life; you only mean
to mystify us." He was looking more than ever--identical with that other
person, whom it was not pleasant to Sir Jekyl to be reminded
of--horribly like, in this white waxlight splendour.
"But there's another process, my uncle, Monsieur Varbarriere, says, by
slow refrigeration: you are first put to sleep, and in that state
frozen; and once frozen, without having suffered death, you may be kept
in a state of suspended life for twenty or thirty years, neither
conscious, nor growing old; arrested precisely at the point of your
existence at which the process was applied, and at the same point
restored again whenever for any purpose it may be expedient to recall
you to consciousness and activity."
One of those restless, searching glances which the solemn, portly old
gentleman in black directed, from time to time, as he indulged his
taciturn gulosity, lighted on the Baronet at this moment, and Sir Jekyl
felt that they exchanged an unintentional glance of significance. Each
averted his quickly; and Sir Jekyl, with one of his chuckles, for the
sake merely of saying something, remarked--
"I don't see how you can restore people to life by freezing them."
"He did not speak, I think, of restoring life--did you, Guy?" said the
bell-toned diapason of the old gentleman, speaking his nasal French.
"Oh, no--suspending merely," answered the young man.
"To restore life, you must have recourse, I fancy, to a higher process,"
continued the sage, with an ironical gravity, and his eye this time
fixed steadily on Sir Jekyl's; "and I could conceive none more
embarrassing to the human race, _under certain circumstances_," and he
shrugged slowly and shook his head.
"How delightful!--no more death!" exclaimed enthusiastic Miss Blunket.
"Embarrassing, of course, I mean, to certain of the survivors."
This old gentleman was hitting his tenderest points rather hard and
often. Was it by chance or design? Who was he?
So thought the Baronet as he smiled and nodded.
"Do you know who that fat old personage is who dresses like an
undertaker and looks like a Jew?" asked Captain Drayton of Beatrix.
"I think he is a relative of Mr. Strangways."
"And who is Mr. Strangways?"
"He's at my right, next me," answered she in a low tone, not liking the
very clear and distinct key in which the question was put.
But Captain Drayton was not easily disconcerted, being a young gentleman
of a bold and rather impertinent temperament, and he continued leaning
back in his chair and looking dreamily into his hock-glass.
"Not a friend of yours, is he?"
"Oh, no."
"Really--not a friend. You're _quite_ certain?"
"Perfectly. We never saw either--that is, papa met them at some posting
place on his way from London, and invited them; but I think he knows
nothing more."
"Well, I did not like to say till I knew, but I think him--the old
fellow--I have not seen the young man--a most vulgar-looking old person.
He's a wine-jobber, or manager of a factory, or something. You never
saw--I know Paris by heart--you _never saw_ such a thing in gentlemanly
society there."
And the young lady heard him say, _sotto voce_, "Brute!" haughtily to
himself, as an interjection, while he just raised the finger-tips of the
hand which rested on the table, and let them descend again on the snowy
napery. The subject deserved no more troublesome gesture.
"And where is the young gentleman?" asked Captain Drayton, after a
little interval.
Beatrix told him again.
"Oh! _That's_ he! Isn't his French very bad--did it strike you? Bad
_accent_--I can tell in a moment. That's not an accent one hears
anywhere."
Oddly enough, Sir Jekyl at the same time, with such slight interruptions
as his agreeable attentions to Lady Blunket imposed, was, in the
indistinct way in which such discussions are mentally pursued, observing
upon the peculiarities of his two new guests, and did not judge them
amiss.
The elder was odd, take him for what country you pleased. Bearded like a
German, speaking good French, with a good accent, but in the loud full
tones of a Spaniard, and with a quality of voice which resounds in the
synagogue, and a quietude of demeanour much more English than
continental. His dress, such as I have described it, fine in material,
but negligent and easy, though odd. Reserved and silent he was, a little
sinister perhaps, but his bearing unconstrained and gracious when he
spoke. There was, indeed, that odd, watchful glance from under his heavy
eyebrows, which, however, had nothing sly, only observant, in it. Again
he thought, "Who could he be?" On the whole, Sir Jekyl was in nowise
disposed to pronounce upon him as Captain Drayton was doing a little way
down the table; nor yet upon Guy Strangways, whom he thought, on the
contrary, an elegant young man, according to French notions of the
gentlemanly, and he knew the French people a good deal better than the
youthful Captain did.
The principal drawing-room of Marlowe is a very large apartment, and
people can talk of one another in it without any risk of detection.
"Well, Lady Jane," said the Baronet, sitting down before that handsome
woman, and her husband the General, so as to interrupt a conjugal
_tête-à-tête_, probably a particularly affectionate one, for he was to
leave for London next day. "I saw you converse with Monsieur
Varbarriere. What do you think of him?"
"I don't think I conversed with him--did I? He talked to me; but I
really did not take the trouble to think about him."
The General laughed triumphantly, and glanced over his shoulder at the
Baronet. He liked his wife's contempt for the rest of the sex, and her
occasional--_only_ occasional--enthusiasm for him.
"Now you are much too clever, Lady Jane, to be let off so. I really want
to know something about him, which I don't at present; and if anyone can
help me to a wise conjecture, you, I am certain, can."
"And don't you really know who he is?" inquired General Lennox, with a
haughty military surprise.
"Upon my honour, I have not the faintest idea," answered Sir Jekyl. "He
may be a cook or a rabbi, for anything I can tell."
The General's white eyebrows went some wrinkles up the slanting ascent
of his pink forehead, and he plainly looked his amazement that Lady Jane
should have been subjected at Marlowe to the risk of being accosted on
equal terms by a cook or a rabbi. His lips screwed themselves
unconsciously into a small o, and his eyes went in search of the
masquerading menial.
"We had a cook," said the General, still eyeing M. Varbarriere, "at
Futtychur, a French fellow, fat like that, but shorter--a capital cook,
by Jove! and a very gentlemanly man. He wore a white cap, and he had a
very good way of stewing tomatas and turkeys, I think it was, and--yes
it was--and a monstrous gentlemanlike fellow he was; rather too
expensive though; he cost us a great deal," and the General winked
slyly. "I had to speak to him once or twice. But an uncommon
gentlemanlike man."
"He's not a cook, my dear. He may be a banker, perhaps," said Lady Jane,
languidly.
"You have exactly hit my idea," said Sir Jekyl. "It was his knowing all
about French banking, General, when you mentioned that trick that was
played you on the Bourse."
At this moment the massive form and face of M. Varbarriere was seen
approaching with Beatrix by his side. They were conversing, but the
little group we have just been listening to dropped the discussion of M.
Varbarriere, and the Baronet said that he hoped General Lennox would
have a fine day for his journey, and that the moon looked particularly
bright and clear.
"I want to show Monsieur Varbarriere the drawings of the house, papa;
they are in this cabinet. He admires the architecture very much."
The large enchanter in black made a solemn bow of acquiescence here, but
said nothing and Beatrix took from its nook a handsome red-leather
portfolio, on the side of which, in tall golden letters, were the
words--
VIEWS AND ELEVATIONS
OF
MARLOWE MANOR HOUSE.
PAULO ABRUZZI,
ARCHITECT.
1711.
"Capital drawing, I am told. He was a young man of great promise," said
Sir Jekyl, in French. "But the style is quite English, and, I fear, will
hardly interest an eye accustomed to the more graceful contour of
southern continental architecture."
"Your English style interests me very much. It is singular, and suggests
hospitality, enjoyment, and mystery."
Monsieur Varbarriere was turning over these tinted drawings carefully.
"Is not that very true, papa--hospitality, enjoyment, mystery?" repeated
Beatrix. "I think that faint character of mystery is so pleasant. We
have a mysterious room here." She had turned to M. Varbarriere.
"Oh, a dozen," interrupted Sir Jekyl. "No end of ghosts and devils, you
know. But I really think you excel us in that article. I resided for
five weeks in a haunted house once, near Havre, and the stories were
capital, and there were some very good noises too. We must get Dives to
tell it by-and-by; he was younger than I, and more frightened."
"And Mademoiselle says you have a haunted apartment here," said the
ponderous foreigner with the high forehead and projecting brows.
"Yes, of course. We are very much haunted. There is hardly a crooked
passage or a dark room that has not a story," said Sir Jekyl. "Beatrix,
why don't you sing us a song, by-the-bye?"
"May I beg one other favour first, before the crowning one of the song?"
said M. Varbarriere, with an imposing playfulness. "Mademoiselle, I am
sure, tells a story well. Which, I entreat, is the particular room you
speak of?"
"We call it the green chamber," said Beatrix.
"The green chamber--what a romantic title!" exclaimed the large
gentleman in black, graciously; "and where is it situated?" he pursued.
"We must really put you into it," said Sir Jekyl.
"Nothing I should like so well," he observed, with a bow.
"That is, of course, whenever it is deserted. You have not been plagued
with apparitions, General? Even Lady Jane--and there are no ghost-seers
like ladies, I've observed--has failed to report anything horrible."
His hand lay on the arm of her chair, and, as he spoke, for a moment
pressed hers, which, not choosing to permit such accidents, she, turning
carelessly and haughtily toward the other speakers, slipped away.