Monsieur Varbarriere talks with Donica Gwynn.
The footman opened the door in deshabille and unshorn, with a
countenance that implied his sense of the impertinence of this
disturbance of his gentlemanlike retirement. There was, however, that in
the countenance of Monsieur Varbarriere, as well as the intangible but
potent "aura" emitted by wealth, which surrounded him--an influence
which everybody feels and no one can well define, which circumambiates a
rich person and makes it felt, nobody knows how, that he _is_
wealthy--that brought the flunky to himself; and adjusting his soiled
necktie hastily with one hand, he ran down to the heavy but commanding
countenance that loomed on his from the window of the vehicle.
"This is Wardlock?" demanded the visitor.
"Wardlock Manor?--yes, sir," answered the servant.
"I've a note from Lady Alice Redcliffe, and a few words to Mrs. Gwynn
the housekeeper. She's at home?"
"Mrs. Gwynn?--yes, sir."
"Open the door, please," said Monsieur Varbarriere, who was now speaking
good frank English with wonderful fluency, considering his marked
preference for the French tongue elsewhere.
The door flew open at the touch of the footman; and Monsieur Varbarriere
entered the staid mansion, and was shown by the servant into the
wainscoted parlour in which Lady Alice had taken leave of the ancient
retainer whom he was about to confer with.
When Mrs. Gwynn, with that mixture of curiosity and apprehension which
an unexpected visit is calculated to inspire, entered the room, very
erect and natty, she saw a large round-shouldered stranger, standing
with his back toward her, arrayed in black, at the window, with his
grotesque high-crowned hat on.
Turning about he removed this with a slight bow and a grave smile, and
with his sonorous foreign accent inquired--
"Mrs. Gwynn, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir, that is my name, if you please."
"A note, Mrs. Gwynn, from Lady Alice Redcliffe."
And as he placed it in the thin and rather ladylike fingers of the
housekeeper, his eyes rested steadily on her features, as might those of
a process-server, whose business it might be hereafter to identify her.
Mrs. Gwynn read the note, which was simply an expression of her
mistress's wish that she should answer explicitly whatever questions the
gentleman, M. Varbarriere, who would hand it to her, and who was,
moreover, a warm friend of the family, might put to her.
When Mrs. Gwynn, with the help of her spectacles, had spelled through
this letter, she in turn looked searchingly at Monsieur Varbarriere, and
began to wonder unpleasantly what line his examination might take.
"Will you, Mrs. Gwynn, allow me the right to sit down, by yourself
taking a chair?" said Monsieur Varbarriere, very politely, smiling
darkly, and waving his hand toward a seat.
"I'm very well as I am, I thank you, sir," replied Gwynn, who did not
very much like the gentleman's looks, and thought him rather like a
great roguish Jew pedlar whom she had seen long ago at the fair of
Marlowe.
"Nay, but pray sit down--I can't while you stand--and our conversation
may last some time--pray do."
"I can talk as well, sir, one way as t'other," replied she, while at the
same time, with a sort of fidgeted impatience, she did sit down and fold
her hands in her lap.
"We have all, Mrs. Gwynn, a very high opinion of you; I mean Lady Alice
and the friends of her family, among whom I reckon myself."
"It's only of late as I came to my present misses, you're aware, sir,
'aving been, from, I may say, my childhood in the Marlowe family."
"I know--the Marlowe family--it's all one, in fact; but I may say, Mrs.
Gwynn, that short, comparatively, as has been your time with Lady Alice,
you are spoken of with more respect and liking by that branch of the
family than by Sir Jekyl."
"I've done nothing to disoblege Sir Jekyl, as Lady Alice knows. Will you
be so kind, sir, as to say what you want of me, having business to
attend to up-stairs?"
"Certainly, it is only a trifle or two."
Monsieur Varbarriere cleared his voice.
"Having ascertained all about that _secret door_ that opens into the
green chamber at Marlowe, we would be obliged to you to let us know at
what time, to your knowledge, it was first used."
His large full eyes, from under his projecting brows, stared full upon
her shrinking gaze as he asked this question in tones deep and firm, but
otherwise as civil as he could employ.
It was vain for Mrs. Gwynn to attempt to conceal her extreme agitation.
Her countenance showed it--she tried to speak, and failed; and cleared
her throat, and broke down again.
"Perhaps you'd like some water," said Varbarriere, rising and
approaching the bell.
"No," said Donica Gwynn, rising suddenly and getting before him. "Let
be."
He saw that she wished to escape observation.
"As you please, Mrs. Gwynn--sit down again--I shan't without your
leave--and recover a little."
"There's nothing wrong with me, sir," replied Donica, now in possession
of her voice, very angrily; "there's nothing to cause it."
"Well, Mrs. Gwynn, it's quite excusable; I know all about it."
"What _are_ you, a builder or a hartist?"
"Nothing of the kind; I'm a gentleman without a profession, Mrs. Gwynn,
and one who will not permit you to be compromised; one who will protect
you from the slightest suspicion of anything unpleasant."
"I don't know what you're a-driving at," said Mrs. Gwynn, still as white
as death, and glancing furiously.
"Come, Mrs. Gwynn, you're a sensible woman. You _do_ know _perfectly_.
You have maintained a respectable character."
"Yes, sir!" said Donica Gwynn, and suddenly burst into a paroxysm of
hysterical tears.
"Listen to me: you have maintained a respectable character, I know it:
nothing whatever to injure that character shall ever fall from my lips;
no human being--but two or three just as much interested in concealing
all about it as you or I--shall ever know anything about it; and Sir
Jekyl Marlowe has consented to take it down, so soon as the party at
present at Marlowe shall have dispersed."
"Lady Alice--I'll never like to see her again," sobbed Donica.
"Lady Alice has no more suspicion of the existence of that door than the
Pope of Rome has; and what is more, never shall. You may rely upon me to
observe the most absolute silence and secrecy--nay, more, if necessary
for the object of concealment--so to mislead and mystify people, that
they can never so much as surmise the truth, _provided_--pray observe
me--_provided_ you treat me with the most _absolute candour_. You must
not practise the least reserve or concealment. On tracing the slightest
shadow of either in your communication with me, I hold myself free to
deal with the facts in my possession, precisely as may seem best to
myself. You understand?"
"Not Lady Alice, nor none of the servants, nor--nor a creature living,
please."
"_Depend_ on me," said Varbarriere.
"Well, sure I may; a gentleman would not break his word with such as
me," said Donica, imploringly.
"We can't spend the whole day repeating the same thing over and over,"
said Varbarriere, rather grimly; "I've said my say--I know everything
that concerns _you_ about it, without your opening your lips upon the
subject. You occupied that room for two years and a half during Sir
Harry's lifetime--you see I know it all. _There!_ you are perfectly
safe. I need not have made you any promise, but I do--perfectly safe
with me--and the room shall vanish this winter, and no one but ourselves
know anything of that door--do you understand?--_provided_--"
"Yes, sir, please--and what do you wish to know more from me? I don't
know, I'm sure, why I should be such a fool as to take on so about it,
as if _I_ could help it, or was ever a bit the worse of it myself.
There's been many a one has slep' in that room and never so much as
knowd there was a door but that they came in by."
"To be sure; so tell me, do you recollect Mr. Deverell's losing a paper
in that room?"
"Well, I do mind the time he said he lost it there, but I know no more
than the child unborn."
"Did Sir Harry never tell you?"
"They said a deal o' bad o' Sir Harry, and them that should a' stood up
for him never said a good word for him. Poor old creature!--I doubt if
he had pluck to do it. I don't think he had, poor fellow!"
"Did he ever _tell_ you he had done it? Come, remember your promise."
"No, upon my soul--never."
"Do you _think_ he took it?"
Their eyes met steadily.
"Yes, I do," said she, with a slight defiant frown.
"And _why_ do you think so?"
"Because, shortly after the row began about that paper, he talked with
me, and said there was something a-troubling of him, and he wished me to
go and live in a farm-house at Applehythe, and keep summat he wanted kep
safe, as there was no one in all England so true as me--poor old fellow!
He never told me, and I never asked. But I laid it down in my own mind
it was the paper Mr. Deverell lost, that's all."
"Did he ever show you that paper?"
"No."
"Did he tell you where it was?"
"He never said he had it."
"Did he show you where that thing was which he wanted you to take charge
of?"
"Yes, in the press nigh his bed's head."
"Did he open the press?"
"Ay."
"Well?"
"He showed me a sort of a box, and he said that was all."
"A little trunk of stamped red leather--was that like it?"
"That was just it."
"Did he afterwards give it into anybody's charge?"
"I know no more about it. I saw it there, that's all. I saw it once, and
never before nor since."
"Is there more than one secret door into that room?" pursued
Varbarriere.
"More than one; no, never as I heard or thought."
"Where is the door placed with which _you_ are acquainted?"
"Why? Don't you know?"
"Suppose I know of two. We have discovered a second. Which is the one
you saw used? _Come!_"
Parenthetically it is to be observed that no such discovery had been
made, and Varbarriere was merely fishing for information without
disclosing his ignorance.
"In the recess at the right of the bed's head."
"Yes; and how do you open it? I mean from the green chamber?"
"I never knowd any way how to open it--it's from t'other side. There's a
way to bolt it, though."
"Ay? How's that?"
"There's an ornament of scrowl-work, they calls it, bronze-like, as runs
down the casing of the recess, shaped like letter esses. Well, the
fourteenth of them, reckoning up from the bottom, next the wall, turns
round with your finger and thumb; so if anyone be in the green chamber,
and knows the secret, they can stop the door being opened."
"I see--thank you. You've been through the passage leading from Sir
Harry's room that was--Sir Jekyl Marlowe's room, at the back of the
house, to the secret door of the green chamber?"
"No, never. I know nothink o' that, no more nor a child."
"No?"
"No, nothink at all."
Varbarriere had here been trying to establish another conjecture.
There was a pause. Varbarriere, ruminating darkly, looked on Donica
Gwynn. He then closed his pocket-book, in which he had inscribed a few
notes, and said--
"Thank you, Mrs. Gwynn. Should I want anything more I'll call again; and
you had better not mention the subject of my visit. Let me see the
pictures--that will be the excuse--and do _you_ keep _your_ secret, and
I'll keep mine."
"No, I thank you, sir," said Donica, drily, almost fiercely, drawing
back from his proffered douceur.
"Tut, tut--pray do."
"No, I thank you."
So he looked at the pictures in the different rooms, and at some old
china and snuff-boxes, to give a colour to his visit; and with polite
speeches and dark smiles, and a general courtesy that was unctuous, he
took his leave of Donica Gwynn, whom he left standing in the hall with a
flushed face and a sore heart.