Uncle and Nephew.
When he reached his room, having breakfasted handsomely in the
coffee-room, and learned that early Mr. Rumsey had accomplished a
similar meal in his own sitting-room, he repaired thither, and entered
forthwith upon their talk.
It was a bright and pleasant morning; the poplar trees in front of the
hotel were all glittering in the mellow early sunlight, and the birds
twittering as pleasantly as if there was not a sorrow or danger on
earth.
"Well, sir, true to my hour," said Monsieur Varbarriere, in his deep
brazen tones, as smiling and wondrously he entered the attorney's
apartment.
"Good morning, sir--how d'ye do? Have you got those notes prepared you
mentioned?"
"That I have, sir, as you shall see, pencil though; but that doesn't
matter--no?"
The vowel sounded grandly in the upward slide of Varbarriere's titanic
double bass.
The attorney took possession of the pocket-book containing these
memoranda, and answered--
"No, I can read it very nicely. Your nephew is here, by-the-bye; he came
last night."
"Guy? What's brought him here?"
M. Varbarriere's countenance was overcast. What had gone wrong? Some
chamber in his mine had exploded, he feared, prematurely.
Varbarriere opened the door, intending to roar for Guy, but remembering
where he was, and the dimensions of the place, he tugged instead at the
bell-rope, and made his summons jangle wildly through the lower regions.
"Hollo!" cried Varbarriere from his threshold, anticipating the
approaching waiter; "a young gentleman--a Mr. Guy Strangways, arrived
last evening?"
"Strangways, please, sir? Strangways? No, sir, I don't think we 'av got
no gentleman of that name in the 'ouse, sir."
"But I know you _have_. Go, make out where he is, and let him know that
his uncle, Monsieur Varbarriere, has just arrived, and wants to see
him--_here_, may I?" with a glance at the attorney.
"Certainly."
"There's some mischief," said Varbarriere, with a lowering glance at the
attorney.
"It looks uncommon like it," mused that gentleman, sadly.
"Why doesn't he come?" growled Varbarriere, with a motion of his heel
like a stamp. "What do you think he has done? Some cursed sottise."
"Possibly he has proposed marriage to the young lady, and been refused."
"Refused! I hope he has."
At this juncture the waiter returned.
"Well?"
"No, sir, please. No one hin the 'ouse, sir. No such name."
"Are you sure?" asked Varbarriere of the attorney, in an under diapason.
"Perfectly--said he'd wait here for you. I told him you'd be here this
morning," answered he, dolorously.
"Go down, sir, and get me a list of the gentlemen in the house. I'll pay
for it," said Varbarriere, with an imperious jerk of his hand.
The ponderous gentleman in black was very uneasy, and well he might. So
he looked silently out of the window which commands a view of the inn
yard, and his eyes wandered over a handsome manure-heap to the
chicken-coop and paddling ducks, and he saw three horses' tails in
perspective in the chiaro-oscuro of the stable, in the open door of
which a groom was rubbing a curb chain. He thought how wisely he had
done in letting Guy know so little of his designs. And as he gloomily
congratulated himself on his wise reserve, the waiter returned with a
slate, and a double column of names scratched on it.
Varbarriere having cast his eye over it, suddenly uttered an oath.
"Number 10--that's the gentleman. Go to number 10, and tell him his
uncle wants him here," roared Varbarriere, as if on the point of
knocking the harmless waiter down. "Read there!" he thundered, placing
the slate, with a clang, before the meek attorney, who read opposite to
number 10, "Mr. G. Deverell."
He pursed his mouth and looked up lackadaisically at his glowering
client, saying only "Ha!"
A minute after and Guy Deverell in person entered the room. He extended
his hand deferentially to M. Varbarriere, who on his part drew himself
up black as night, and thrust his hands half way to the elbows in his
trowsers pockets, glaring thunderbolts in the face of the contumacious
young man.
"You see _that_?" jerking the slate with another clang before Guy. "Did
_you_ give that name? Look at number _ten_, sir." Varbarriere was now
again speaking French.
"Yes, sir, Guy Deverell--my own name. I shall never again consent to go
by any other. I had no idea what it might involve--never."
The young man was pale, but quite firm.
"You've broken your word, sir; you have ended your relations with me,"
said Varbarriere, with a horrible coldness.
"I am sorry, sir--I _have_ broken my promise, but when I could not keep
it without a worse deception. To the consequences, be they what they
may, I submit, and I feel, sir, more deeply than you will ever know all
the kindness you have shown me from my earliest childhood until now."
"Infinitely flattered," sneered Varbarriere, with a mock bow. "You have,
I presume, disclosed your name to the people at Marlowe as frankly as to
those at Slowton?"
"Lady Alice Redcliffe called me by my true name, and insisted it was
mine. I could not deny it--I admitted the truth. Mademoiselle Marlowe
was present also, and heard what passed. In little more than an hour
after this scene I left Marlowe Manor. I did not see Sir Jekyl, and
simply addressed a note to him saying that I was called away
unexpectedly. I did not repeat to him the disclosure made to Lady Alice.
I left that to the discretion of those who had heard it."
"Their _discretion_--very good--and now, Monsieur Guy Deverell, I have
_done_ with you. I shan't leave you as I took you up, absolutely
penniless. I shall so place you as to enable you with diligence to earn
your bread without degradation--that is all. You will be so good as to
repair forthwith to London and await me at our quarters in St. James's
Street. I shall send you, by next post, a cheque to meet expenses in
town--no, pray don't thank me; you might have thanked me by your
obedience. I shan't do much more to merit thanks. Your train starts from
hence, I think, in half an hour."
Varbarriere nodded angrily, and moved his hand towards the door.
"Farewell, sir," said Guy, bowing low, but proudly.
"One word more," said Varbarriere, recollecting suddenly; "you have not
arranged a correspondence with any person? answer me on your honour."
"No, sir, on my honour."
"Go, then. Adieu!" and Varbarriere turned from him brusquely, and so
they parted.
"Am I to understand, sir," inquired the attorney, "that what has just
occurred modifies our instructions to proceed in those cases?"
"Not at all, sir," answered Varbarriere, firmly.
"You see the civil proceedings must all be in the name of the young
gentleman--a party who is of age--and you see what I mean."
"I undertake personally the entire responsibility; you are to proceed in
the name of Guy Deverell, and what is more, use the utmost despatch, and
spare no cost. When shall we open the battle?"
"Why, I dare say next term."
"That is less than a month hence?"
"Yes, sir."
"By my faith, his hands will be pretty full by that time," said
Varbarriere, exultingly. "We must have the papers out again. I can give
you all this day, up to half-past five o'clock. We must get the new case
into shape for counsel. You run up to town this evening. I suspect I
shall follow you to-morrow; but I must run over first to Marlowe. I have
left my things there, and my servant; and I suppose I must take a civil
leave of my enemy--there are courtesies, you know--as your
prize-fighters shake hands in the ring."
The sun was pretty far down in the west by the time their sederunt
ended. M. Varbarriere got into his short mantle and mufflers, and donned
his ugly felt hat, talking all the while in his deep metallic tones,
with his sliding cadences and resounding emphases. The polite and
melancholy attorney accompanied his nutritious client to the door, and
after he had taken his seat in his vehicle, they chatted a little
earnestly through the window, agreeing that they had grown very "strong"
indeed--anticipating nothing but victory, and in confidential whispers
breathing slaughter.
As Varbarriere, with his thick arm stuffed through one of the
upholstered leathern loops with which it is the custom to flank the
windows of all sorts of carriages, and his large varnished boot on the
vacant cushion at the other side, leaned back and stared darkly and
dreamily through the plate glass on the amber-tinted landscape, he felt
rather oddly approaching such persons and such scenes--a crisis with a
remoter and more tremendous crisis behind--the thing long predicted in
the whisperings of hope--the real thing long dreamed of, and now greeted
strangely with a mixture of exultation and disgust.
There are few men, I fancy, who so thoroughly enjoy their revenge as
they expected. It is one of those lusts which has its _goût de
revers_--"sweet in the mouth, bitter in the belly;" one of those
appetites which will allow its victim no rest _till_ it is gratified,
and no peace _afterward_. Now, M. Varbarriere was in for it, he was
already coming under the solemn shadow of its responsibilities, and was
chilled. It involved other people, too, besides its proper
object--people who, whatever else some of them might be, were certainly,
as respected him and his, innocent. Did he quail, and seriously think of
retiring _re infectâ_? No such thing! It is wonderful how steadfast of
purpose are the disciples of darkness, and how seldom, having put their
hands to the plough, they look back.
All this while Guy Deverell, in exile, was approaching London with
brain, like every other, teeming with its own phantasmagoria. He knew
not what particular danger threatened Marlowe Manor, which to him was a
temple tenanted by Beatrix alone, the living idol whom he worshipped. He
was assured that somehow his consent, perhaps cooperation, was needed to
render the attack effectual, and here would arise his opportunity, the
self-sacrifice which he contemplated with positive pleasure, though, of
course, with a certain awe, for futurity was a murky vista enough beyond
it.
Varbarriere's low estimate of young men led _him_ at once to conclude
that this was an amorous escapade, a bit of romance about that pretty
wench, Mademoiselle Beatrix. Why not? The fool, fooling according to his
folly, should not arrest wisdom in her march. Varbarriere was resolved
to take all necessary steps in his nephew's name, without troubling the
young man with a word upon the subject. He would have judgment and
execution, and he scoffed at the idea that his nephew, Guy, would take
measures to have him--his kinsman, guardian, and benefactor--punished
for having acted for his advantage without his consent.