A Visitor in the Library.
The company were now pecking at those fruits over which Sir Jekyl was
wont to chuckle grimly, making pleasant satire on his gardener, vowing
he kept an Aladdin's garden, and that his greengages were emeralds, and
his gooseberries rubies.
In the midst of the talk, the grave and somewhat corpulent butler stood
behind his master's chair, and murmured something mildly in his ear.
"What's his name?" inquired Sir Jekyl.
"Pullet, please, sir."
"Pullet! I never heard of him. If he had come a little earlier with a
knife and fork in his back, we'd have given a good account of him."
His jokes were chuckled to Lady Alice, who received them drowsily.
"Where have you put him?"
"In the library, please, sir."
"What kind of looking person?"
"A middlish sort of a person, rayther respectable, I should say, sir;
but dusty from his journey."
"Well, give him some wine, and let him have dinner, if he has not had it
before, and bring in his card just now."
All this occurred without exciting attention or withdrawing Sir Jekyl
from any sustained conversation, for he and Lady Alice had been left
high and dry on the bank together by the flow and ebb of talk, which at
this moment kept the room in a rattle; and Sir Jekyl only now and then
troubled her with a word.
"Pullet!" thought Sir Jekyl, he knew not why, uneasily. "Who the devil's
Pullet, and what the plague can Pullet want? It can't be Paulett--can
it? There's nothing on earth Paulett can want of me, and he would not
come at this hour. Pullet--Pullet--let us see." But he _could_ not see,
there was not a soul he knew who bore that name.
"He's eating his dinner, sir, the gentleman, sir, in the small parlour,
and says you'll know him quite well, sir, when you see him," murmured
the butler, "and more--"
"Have you got his card?"
"He said, sir, please, it would be time enough when he had heat his
dinner."
"Well, so it will."
And Sir Jekyl drank a glass of claret, and returned to his ruminations.
"So, I shall know Pullet quite well when I see him," mused the Baronet,
"and he'll let me have his card when he has had his dinner--a cool
gentleman, whatever else he may be." About this Pullet, however, Sir
Jekyl experienced a most uncomfortable suspense and curiosity. A bird of
ill omen he seemed to him--an angel of sorrow, he knew not why, in a
mask.
While the Baronet sipped his claret, and walked quite alone in the midst
of his company, picking his anxious steps, and hearing strange sounds
through his valley of the shadow of death, the promiscuous assemblage of
ladies and gentlemen dissolved itself. The fair sex rose, after their
wont, smiled their last on the sable file of gentlemen, who stood
politely, napkin in hand, simpering over the backs of their chairs, and,
some of them majestically alone, others sliding their fair hands
affectionately within the others' arms, glided through the door in
celestial procession.
"I shall leave you to-morrow, Sir Jekyl," began the Bishop, gravely,
changing his seat to one just vacated beside his host, and bringing with
him his principal chattels, his wine-glasses and napkin.
"I do hope, my lord, you'll reconsider that," interrupted Sir Jekyl,
laying his fingers kindly on the prelate's purple sleeve. A dismal cloud
in Sir Jekyl's atmosphere was just then drifting over him, and he clung,
as men do under such shadows, to the contact of good and early
friendship.
"I am, I assure you, very sorry, and have enjoyed your hospitality
much--_very_ much; but we can't rest long, you know: we hold a good many
strings, and matters won't wait our convenience."
"I'm only afraid you are overworked; but, of course, I understand how
you feel, and shan't press," said Sir Jekyl.
"And I was looking for you to-day in the library," resumed the Bishop,
"anxious for a few minutes, on a subject I glanced at when I arrived."
"I--I _know_," said Sir Jekyl, a little hesitatingly.
"Yes, the dying wish of poor Sir Harry Marlowe, your father," murmured
the Bishop, looking into his claret-glass, which he slowly turned about
by the stem; and, to do him justice, there was not a quarter of a
glassful remaining in the bottom.
"I know--to be sure. I quite agree with your lordship's view. I wish to
tell you that--quite, I assure you. I don't--I _really_ don't at all
understand his reasons; but, as you say, it is a case for implicit
submission. I intend, I assure you, actually to take down that room
during the spring. It is of no real use, and rather spoils the house."
"I am happy, my dear Sir Jekyl, to hear you speak with so much decision
on the subject--truly happy;" and the venerable prelate laid his hand
with a gentle dignity on the cuff of Sir Jekyl's dress-coat, after the
manner of a miniature benediction. "I _may_ then discharge _that_ quite
from my mind?"
"Certainly--quite, my lord. I accept your views implicitly."
"And the _box_--the other wish--you know," murmured the Bishop.
"I must honestly say, I can't the least understand what can have been in
my poor father's mind when he told me to--to do what was right with
it--was not that it? For I do assure you, for the life of me, I can't
think of anything to _be_ done with it but let it _alone_. I pledge you
my honour, however, if I ever do get the least inkling of his meaning, I
will respect it as implicitly as the other."
"Now, now, that's exactly what I wish. I'm perfectly satisfied you'll do
what's right."
And as he spoke the Bishop's countenance brightened, and he drank
slowly, looking up toward the ceiling, that quarter of a glass of claret
on which he had gazed for so long in the bottom of the crystal chalice.
Just then the butler once more inclined his head from the back of Sir
Jekyl's chair, and presented a card to his master on the little salver
at his left side. It bore the inscription, "Mr. Pelter, Camelia Villa,"
and across this, perpendicularly, after the manner of a joint
"acceptance" of the firm, was written--"Pelter and Crowe, Chambers,
Lincoln's Inn Fields," in bold black pencilled lines.
"Why did not you tell me that before?" whispered the Baronet, tartly,
half rising, with the card in his hand.
"I was not haware, Sir Jekyl. The gentleman, said his name exactly like
Pullet."
"In the library? Well--tell him I'm coming," said Sir Jekyl; and his
heart sank, he knew not why.
"Beg your pardon, my lord, for a moment--my man of business, all the way
from London, and I fancy in a hurry. I shall get rid of him with a word
or two--you'll excuse me? Dives, will you oblige me--take my place for a
moment, and see that the bottle does not stop; or, Doocey, will
you?--Dives is doing duty at the foot."
Doocey had hopes that the consultation with the butler portended a
bottle of that wonderful Constantia which he had so approved two days
before, and took his temporary seat hopefully.
Sir Jekyl, with a general apology and a smile glided away without fuss,
and the talk went on much as before.
When the parlour-door shut behind Sir Jekyl, his face darkened. "I know
it's some _stupid_ thing," he thought, as he walked down the gallery
with rapid steps, toward the study, the sharp air agitating, as he did
so, his snowy necktie and glossy curls.
"How d'ye do, Mr. Pelter?--very happy to see you. I had not a notion it
was you--the stupid fellow gave me quite another name. Quite well, I
hope?"
"Quite well, Sir Jekyl, I thank you--a--quite well," said the attorney,
a stoutish, short, wealthy-looking man, with a massive gold chain, a
resolute countenance, and a bullet head, with close-cut greyish hair.
Pelter was, indeed, an able, pushing fellow, without Latin or even
English grammar, having risen in the office from a small clerkship, and,
perhaps, was more useful than his gentlemanlike partner.
"Well--a--well, and what has brought you down here? Very glad to see
you, you know; but you would not run down for fun, I'm afraid," said Sir
Jekyl.
"Au--no--au, well, Sir Jekyl, it has turned out, sir--by gad, sir, I
believe them fellows _are_ in England, after all!"
"What do you mean by them fellows?" said Sir Jekyl, with a very dark
look, unconsciously repeating the attorney's faulty grammar.
"Strangways and Deverell, you know--I mean them--Herbert Strangways, and
a young man named Deverell--they're in England, I've been informed, very
private--and Strangways has been with Smith, Rumsey, and Snagg--the
office--you know; and there is something on the stocks there."
As the attorney delivered this piece of intelligence he kept his eye
shrewdly on Sir Jekyl, rather screwed and wrinkled, as a man looks
against a storm.
"Oh!--is that all? There's nothing very alarming, is there, in
that?--though, d---- me, I don't see, Mr. Pelter, how you reconcile
your present statement with what you and your partner wrote to me
twice within the last few weeks."
"Very true, Sir Jekyl; perfectly true, sir. Our information misled us
totally; they have been devilish sharp, sir--devilish sly. We never were
misled before about that fellow's movements--not that they were ever of
any real importance."
"And why do you think them--but maybe you don't--of more consequence
now?"
Pelter looked unpleasantly important, and shook his head.
"What _is_ it--I suppose I may _know_?" said Sir Jekyl.
"It looks queerish, Sir Jekyl, there's no denying that--in fact, very
queerish indeed--both me and my partner think so. You recollect the
deed?"
"No--devil a deed--d---- them all!--I don't remember one of them. Why,
you seem to forget it's nearly ten years ago," interrupted the Baronet.
"Ah!--no--not _ten_--the copy of the deed that we got hold of,
pretending to be a marriage settlement. It was brought us, you know, in
a very odd way, but quite fair."
"Yes, I do remember--yes, to be sure--that thing you thought was a
forgery, and put in our way to frighten us. Well, and do you fancy
that's a genuine thing now?"
"I always thought it might--I think it _may_--in fact, I think it _is_.
We have got a hint they rely on it. And here's a point to be noted: the
deed fixes five-and-twenty as the period of his majority; and just as he
attains that age, his father being nearly that time dead, they put their
shoulders to the wheel."
"Put their d--d numbskulls under it, you mean. How can they move--how
can they stir? I'd like to know how they can touch my title? I don't
care a curse about them. What the plague's frightening you and Crowe
_now_? I'm blest if I don't think you're growing old. Why can't you
stick to your own view?--you say one thing one day and another the next.
Egad, there's no knowing where to have you."
The Baronet was talking bitterly, scornfully, and with all proper
contempt of his adversaries, but there's no denying he looked very pale.
"And there certainly is activity there; cases have been with counsel on
behalf of Guy Deverell, the son and heir of the deceased," pursued Mr.
Pelter, with his hands in his pockets, looking grimly up into the
Baronet's face.
"Won't you sit down?--do sit down, Pelter; and you haven't had wine?"
said Sir Jekyl.
"Thanks--I've had some sherry."
"Well, you must have some claret. I'd like a glass myself."
He had rung the hell, and a servant appeared.
"Get claret and glasses for two."
The servant vanished deferentially.
"I'm not blaming you, mind; but is it not odd we should have known
nothing of this son, and this pretended marriage till now?"
"Odd!--oh dear, no!--you don't often know half so much of the case at
the other side--nothing at all often till it's on the file."
"Precious satisfactory!" sneered Sir Jekyl.
"When we beat old Lord Levesham, in Blount and Levesham, they had not a
notion, no more than the man in the moon, what we were going on, till we
produced the release, and got a direction, egad." And the attorney
laughed over that favourite recollection.