The Guests Together.
Varbarriere marched slowly up, and entered his dressing-room with a
"glooming" countenance and a heavy heart. Everything looked as if he had
left it but half an hour ago. He poked the fire and sat down.
He felt like a surgeon with an operation before him. There was a
loathing of it, but he did not flinch.
Reader, you think you understand other men. Do you understand yourself?
Did you ever quite succeed in defining your own motives, and arriving at
the moral base of any action you ever did? Here was Varbarriere sailing
with wind and tide full in his favour, right into the haven where he
would be--yet to look in his face you would have said "_there_ is a
sorrowful man," and had you been able to see within, you would have
said, "_there_ is a man divided against himself." Yes, as every man
_is_. Several spirits, quite distinct, not blending, but pleading and
battling very earnestly on opposite sides, all in possession of the
"house"--but one dominant, always with a disputed sway, but always
carrying his point--always the prosperous bully.
Yes, every man is a twist of many strands. Varbarriere was compacted of
several Varbarrieres--one of whom was the stronger and the most
infernal. His feebler associates commented upon him--despised
him--feared him--sought to restrain him but knew they could not. He
tyrannised, and was to the outer world the one and indivisible
Varbarriere.
Monsieur Varbarriere the tyrant was about to bring about a _fracas_ that
night, against which the feebler and better Varbarrieres protested.
Varbarriere the tyrant held the knife over the throat of a faithless
woman--the better Varbarrieres murmured words of pity and of faint
remonstrance. Varbarriere the tyrant scrupled not to play the part of
spy and traitor for his ends; the nobler Varbarrieres upbraided him
sadly, and even despised him. But what were these feeble angelic
Varbarrieres? The ruler is the state, _l'état c'est moi!_ and
Varbarriere the tyrant carried all before him.
As the dark and somewhat corpulent gentleman before the glass adjusted
his necktie and viewed his shirt-studs, he saw in his countenance, along
with the terrible resolution of that tyrant, the sorrows and fears of
the less potent spirits; and he felt, though he would not accept, their
upbraidings and their truth; so with a stern and heavy heart he
descended to the drawing-room.
He found the party pretty nearly assembled, and the usual buzz and
animation prevailing, and he smiled and swayed from group to group, and
from one chair to another.
Doocey was glad, monstrous glad to see him.
"I had no idea how hard it was to find a good player, until you left
us--our whist has been totally ruined. The first night we tried Linnett;
he thinks he plays, you know; well, I do assure you, you never
_witnessed_ such a thing--such a _caricature_, by Jupiter--forgetting
your lead--revoking--_every_thing, by Jove. You may guess what a chance
we had--_my_ partner, I give you my honour, against old Sir Paul
Blunket, as dogged a player as there is in England, egad, and Sir Jekyl
there. We tried Drayton next night--the most conceited fellow on earth,
and _no head_--Sir Paul had him. I never saw an old fellow so savage.
Egad, they were calling one another names across the table--you'd have
_died_ laughing; but we'll have some play now you've come back, and I'm
very glad of it."
Varbarriere, while he listened to all this, smiling his fat dark smile,
and shrugging and bowing slightly as the tale required these evidences,
was quietly making his observations on two or three of the persons who
most interested him. Beatrix, he thought, was looking ill--certainly
much paler, and though very pretty, rather sad--that is, she was ever
and anon falling into little abstractions, and when spoken to, waking up
with a sudden little smile.
Lady Jane Lennox--she did not seem to observe him--was seated like a
sultana on a low cushioned seat, with her rich silks circling grandly
round her. He looked at her a little stealthily and curiously, as men
eye a prisoner who is about to suffer execution. His countenance during
that brief glance was unobserved, but you might have read there
something sinister and cruel.
"I forget--_had_ the Bishop come when you left us?" said Sir Jekyl,
laying his hand lightly from behind on the arm of Varbarriere. The
dark-featured man winced--Sir Jekyl's voice sounded unpleasantly in his
reverie.
"Ah! Oh! The Bishop? Yes--the Bishop was here when I left; he had been
here a day or two," answered Varbarriere, with a kind of effort.
"Then I need not introduce you--you're friends already," said Sir Jekyl.
At which moment the assembled party learned that dinner awaited them,
and the murmured arrangements for the procession commenced, and the
drawing-room was left to the click of the Louis Quatorze clock and the
sadness of solitude.
"We had such a dispute, Monsieur Varbarriere, while you were away," said
Miss Blunket.
"About me, I hope," answered the gentleman addressed, in tolerable
English, and with a gallant jocularity.
"Well, no--not about you," said old Miss Blunket, timidly. "But I so
wished for you to take part in the argument."
"And why wish for me?" answered the sardonic old fellow, amused, maybe
the least bit in the world flattered.
"Well, I think you have the power, Monsieur Varbarriere, of putting a
great deal in very few words--I mean, of making an argument so clear and
short."
Varbarriere laughed indulgently, and began to think Miss Blunket a
rather intelligent person.
"And what was the subject, pray?"
"Whether life was happier in town or country."
"Oh! the old debate--country mouse against town mouse," replied
Varbarriere.
"Ah, just so--so true--I don't think _any_one said that, and--and--I do
wish to know which side you would have taken."
"The condition being that it should be all country or all town, of
course, and that we were to retain our incomes?"
"Yes, certainly," said Miss Blunket, awaiting his verdict with a little
bit of bread suspended between her forefinger and thumb.
"Well, then, I should pronounce at once for the country," said
Varbarriere.
"I'm so glad--that's just what I said. I'm sure, said I, I should have
Monsieur Varbarriere on my side if he were here. I'm so glad I was
right. Did not you hear me say that?" said she, addressing Lady Jane
Lennox, whose steady look, obliquely from across the table a little
higher up, disconcerted her.
Lady Jane was not thinking of the debate, and asked in her quiet haughty
way--
"What is it?"
"Did I not say, yesterday, that Monsieur Varbarriere would vote for the
country, in our town or country argument, if he were here?"
"Oh! did you? Yes, I believe you did. I was not listening."
"And which side, pray, Lady Jane, would you have taken in that ancient
debate?" inquired Varbarriere, who somehow felt constrained to address
her.
"Neither side," answered she.
"What! neither town nor country--and how then?" inquired Varbarriere,
with a shrug and a smile.
"I think there is as much hypocrisy and slander in one as the other, and
I should have a new way--people living like the Chinese, in boats, and
never going on shore."
Varbarriere laughed--twiddled a bit of bread between his finger and
thumb, and leaned back, and looked down, still smiling, by the edge of
his plate; and was there not a little flush under the dark brown tint of
his face?
"That would be simply prison," ejaculated Miss Blunket.
"Yes, prison; and is not anything better than liberty with its
liabilities? Why did Lady Hester Stanhope go into exile in the East, and
why do sane men and women go into monasteries?"
Varbarriere looked at her with an odd kind of interest, and sighed
without knowing it; and he helped himself curiously to sweetbread, a
minute later, and for a time his share in the conversation flagged.
Lady Jane, he thought, was looking decidedly better than when he
left--very well, in fact--very well indeed--not at all like a person
with anything pressing heavily on her mind.
He glanced at her again. She was talking to old Sir Paul Blunket in a
bold careless way, which showed no sign of hidden care or fear.
"Have you been to town since?" inquired Sir Jekyl, who happened to catch
Varbarriere's eye at that moment, and availed himself of a momentary
lull in what we term the conversation, to put his question.
"No; you think I have been pleasuring, but it was good honest business,
I assure you."
"Lady Alice here fancied you might have seen the General, and learned
something about his plans," continued Sir Jekyl.
"What General?--Lennox--eh?" inquired Varbarriere.
"Yes. What's your question, Lady Alice?" said the Baronet, turning to
that lady, and happily not observing an odd expression in Varbarriere's
countenance.
"No question; he has not been to London," answered the old lady, drawing
her shawl which she chose to dine in about her, chillily.
"Is it anything _I_ can answer?" threw in Lady Jane, who, superbly
tranquil as she looked, would have liked to pull and box Lady Alice's
ears at that moment.
"Oh no, I fancy not; it's only the old question, when are we to see the
General; is he coming back at all?"
"I wish anyone could help me to an answer," laughed Lady Jane, with a
slight uneasiness, which might have been referred to the pique which
would not have been unnatural in a handsome wife neglected.
"I begin to fear I shall leave Marlowe without having seen him," said
Lady Alice, peevishly.
"Yes, and it is not complimentary, you know; he disappeared just the day
before you came, and he won't come back till you leave; men are such
mysterious fellows, don't you think?" said Sir Jekyl.
"It doesn't look as if he liked her company. Did he ever meet you, Lady
Alice?" inquired Sir Paul Blunket in his bluff way, without at all
intending to be uncivil.
"_That_, you think, would account for it; much obliged to you, Sir
Paul," said Lady Alice, sharply.
Sir Paul did not see it, or what she was driving at, and looked at her
therefore with a grave curiosity, for he did not perceive that she was
offended.
"Sir Paul has a way of hitting people very hard, has not he, Lady Alice?
and then leaving them to recover of themselves," said Sir Jekyl.
"There's not a great deal of civility wasted among you," observed Lady
Alice.
"I only meant," said Sir Paul, who felt that he should place himself
right, "that I could not see why General Lennox should avoid Lady Alice,
unless he was acquainted with her. There's nothing in that."
"By-the-bye, Lady Alice," said Sir Jekyl, who apprehended a possible
scene from that lady's temper, and like a good shepherd wished to see
his flock pasture peaceably together--"I find I can let you have any
quantity you like of that plant you admired yesterday. I forget its
name, and the Bishop says he has got one at the Palace with a scarlet
blossom; so, perhaps, if you make interest with him--what do you say, my
lord?"
So having engaged the good Bishop in floral conversation with that fiery
spirit, the Baronet asked Sir Paul whether he believed all that was said
about the great American cow; and what he thought of the monster
parsnip: and thus he set him and Lady Alice ambling on different tracts,
so that there was no risk of their breaking lances again.