M. Varbarriere talks a little more freely.
After his valet left him, M. Varbarriere did not descend, but remained
in his dressing-room, thinking profoundly; and, after a while, he opened
his pocket-book, and began to con over a number of figures, and a
diagram to which these numbers seemed to refer.
Sometimes standing at the window, at others pacing the floor, and all
the time engrossed by a calculation, like a man over a problem in
mathematics.
For two or three minutes he had been thus engaged when Guy Strangways
entered the room.
"Ho! young gentleman, why don't you read your prayer-book?" said the old
man, with solemn waggery.
"I don't understand," said the young gentleman.
"No, you don't. I am the old sphynx, you see, and some of my riddles I
can't make out, even myself. My faith! I have been puzzling my head till
it aches over my notebook; and I saw you walking with that old lady,
Lady Alice Redcliffe, up and down so affectionately. _There_ is another
riddle! My faith! the house itself is an enigma. And Sir Jekyl--what do
you think of _him_; is he going to marry?"
"To marry!" echoed Guy Strangways.
"Ay, to marry. I do not know, but he is so sly. We must not let him
marry, you know; it would be so cruel to poor little Mademoiselle
Beatrix--eh?"
Guy Strangways looked at him doubtingly.
"He is pretty old, you know, but so am I, and _older_, my faith! But I
think he is making eyes at the _married_ ladies--eh?"
"I have not observed--perhaps so," answered Guy, carelessly. "He does
walk and talk a great deal with that pretty Madame Maberly."
"Madame Maberly? Bah!" And M. Varbarriere's "bah" sounded like one of
those long sneering slides played sometimes on a deep chord of a double
bass. "No, no, it is that fine woman, Miladi Jane Lennox."
"Lady Jane! I fancied she did not like him. I mean that she positively
_dis_liked him; and to say truth, I never saw, on his part, the
slightest disposition to make himself agreeable."
"I do not judge by words or conduct--in presence of others those are
easily controlled; it is when the eyes meet--you can't mistake. Bah! I
knew the first evening we arrived. Now see, you must have your eyes
about you, Guy. It is _your_ business, not mine. Very important to you,
mon petit garçon; of no sort of imaginable consequence to me, except as
your friend; therefore you shall watch and report to me. You
understand?"
Guy flushed with a glow of shame and anger, and looked up with gleaming
eyes, expecting to meet the deep-set observation of the old man. Had
their eyes encountered, perhaps a quarrel would have resulted, and the
fates and furies would have had the consequences in their hands; but M.
Varbarriere was at the moment reading his attorney's letter again. Guy
looked out of the window, and thought resolutely.
"One duplicity I have committed. It is base enough to walk among these
people masked, but to be a spy--_never_."
And he clenched his hand and pressed his foot upon the floor.
It was dreadful to know that these moral impossibilities were expected
of him. It was terrible to feel that a rupture with his best, perhaps
his only friend, was drawing slowly but surely on; but he was quite
resolved. Nothing on earth could tempt him to the degradation of which
his kinsman seemed to think so lightly.
Happily, perhaps, for the immediate continuance of their amicable
relations, the thoughts of M. Varbarriere had taken a new turn, or
rather reverted to the channel from which they had only for a few
minutes diverged.
"You were walking with that old woman, Lady Alice Redcliffe. She seemed
to talk a great deal. How did she interest you all that time?"
"To say truth, she did _not_ interest me all that time. She talked
vaguely about family afflictions, and the death of her son; and she
looked at me at first as if I were a brigand, and said I was very like
some one whom she had lost."
"Then she's a friendly sort of old woman, at least on certain topics,
and garrulous? Who's there? Oh! Jacques; very good, you need not stay."
The old gentleman was by this time making his toilet.
"Did she happen to mention a person named Gwynn, a housekeeper in her
service?"
"No."
"I'm glad she is an affable old lady; we shall be sure to hear something
useful," said the old gentleman, with an odd smile. "That housekeeper I
must see and sift. They tell me she's impracticable; _they_ found her
so. I shall see. While you live, Guy, do your own business; no one else
will do it, be sure. I did mine, and I've got on."
The old gentleman, who was declaiming before the looking-glass in his
shirt-sleeves and crimson silk suspenders, brushing up that pyramid of
grizzled hair which added to the solemnity of his effect, now got into
his black silk waistcoat. The dressing-bell had rung, and the candles
had superseded daylight.
"You'll observe all I told you, Guy. Sir Jekyl shan't marry--he would
grow what they call impracticable, like Madame Gwynn; Miss Beatrix,
_she_ shan't marry either--it would make, perhaps, new difficulties; and
you, I may as well tell you, _can't_ marry her. When you know the
reasons you will see that such an event _could not be contemplated_. You
understand?"
And he dropped his haircomb, with which he had been bestowing a last
finish on his spire of hair, upon his dressing-table, with a slight
emphasis.
"Therefore, Guy, you will understand you must not be a fool about that
young lady; there are many others to speak to; and if you allow yourself
to like her, you will be a miserable stripling till you forget her."
"There is no need, sir, to warn me; I have resolved to avoid any such
feeling. I have sense enough to see that there are obstacles
insurmountable to my ever cherishing that ambition, and that I never
could be regarded as worthy."
"Bravo! young man, that is what I like; you are as modest as the devil;
and _here_, I can tell you, modesty, which is so often silly, is as wise
as the serpent. You understand?"
The large-chested gentleman was now getting into his capacious coat,
having buttoned his jewelled wrist-studs in; so he contemplated himself
in the glass, with a touch and a pluck here and there.
"One word more, about that old woman. Talk to her all you please, and
let _her_ talk--and talk _more_ than you, so much the better; but
observe, she will question you about yourself and your connections, and
one word you shall not answer; observe she learns nothing from you, that
is, in the spirit of your solemn promise to me."
M. Varbarriere had addressed this peremptory reminder over his shoulder,
and now retouched his perpendicular cone of hair, which waved upwards
like a grey flame.
"Guy, you will be late," he called over his shoulder. "Come, my boy; we
must not be walking in with the entremets."
And he plucked out that huge chased repeater, a Genevan masterpiece,
which somehow harmonised, with his air of wealth and massiveness, and
told him he had hut eight minutes left; and with an injunction to haste,
which Guy, with a start, obeyed, this sable and somewhat mountainous
figure swayed solemnly from the room.
"Who _is_ that Monsieur Varbarriere?" inquired Lady Alice of her host,
as the company began to assemble in the drawing-room, before that
gentleman had made his appearance.
"I have not a notion."
"Are you serious? No, you're _not_ serious," served Lady Alice.
"I'm _always_ serious when I talk to you."
"Thank you. I'm sure that is meant for a compliment," said the old lady,
curtly.
"And I assure you I mean what I say," continued Sir Jekyl, not minding
the parenthesis. "I really don't know, except that he comes from
France--rather a large place, you know--_where_ he comes from. I have
not a notion what his business, calling, or trade may be."
"_Trade!_" replied Lady Alice, with dry dignity.
"Trade, to be sure. _You're_ a tradesman yourself, you know--a
miner--_I_ bought twenty-two shares in that for you in June last; you're
an iron ship-builder--you have fifteen in that; you're a 'bus-man--you
have ten there; and you were devilish near being a brewer, only it
stopped."
"Don't talk like a fool--a joint-stock company I hope is one thing, and
a--a--the other sort of thing quite another, I fancy."
"You fancy, yes; but it is not. It's a firm--Smith, Brown, Jones,
Redcliffe, and Co., omnibus drivers, brewers, and so forth. So if he's
not a rival, and doesn't interfere with _your_ little trade, I really
don't care, my dear little mamma, what sort of shop my friend
Varbarriere may keep; but as I said, I don't know; maybe he's too fine a
fellow to meddle, like us, with vats and 'busses."
"It appears odd that you should know absolutely nothing about your own
guests," remarked Lady Alice.
"Well, it would be odd, only I do," answered Sir Jekyl--"all one needs
to know or ask. He presented his papers, and comes duly accredited--a
letter from old Philander the Peer. Do you remember Peery still? I don't
mind him; he was always a noodle, though in a question of respectability
he's not quite nothing; and another from Bob Charteris--you don't know
him--Attaché at Paris; a better or more reliable quarter one could not
hear from. I'll let you read them to-morrow; they speak unequivocally
for his respectability; and I think the inference is even that he has a
soul above 'busses. Here he is."
M. Varbarriere advanced with the air of a magician about to conduct a
client to his magic mirror, toward Lady Alice before whom he made a low
bow, having been presented the day before, and he inquired with a grave
concern how she now felt herself and expressed with a sonorous suavity
his regrets and his hopes.
Lady Alice, having had a good account of him, received him on the whole
very graciously; and being herself a good Frenchwoman, the conversation
flowed on agreeably.