Varbarriere the Tyrant debates with the weaker Varbarrieres.
"May I see you, Monsieur Varbarriere, to-morrow, in the room in which I
saw you to-day, at any hour you please after half-past eleven?" inquired
Lady Alice, a few minutes after that gentleman had approached her.
"Certainly, madam; perhaps I can at this moment answer you upon points
which cause you anxiety; pray command me."
And he sate like a corpulent penitent on a low prie-dieu chair beside
her knee, and inclined his ear to listen.
"It is only to learn whether my--my poor boy's son, my grandson, the
young man in whom I must feel so deep an interest, is about to return
here?"
"I can't be quite certain, madam, of that; but I can promise that he
will do himself the honour to present himself before you, whenever you
may please to appoint, at your house of Wardlock."
"Yes, that would be better still. He could come there and see his old
grandmother. I would like to see him soon. I have a great deal to say to
him, a great deal to tell him that would interest him; and the pictures;
I know you will let him come. Do you really mean it, Monsieur
Varbarriere?"
M. Varbarriere smiled a little contemptuously, and bowed most
deferentially.
"Certainly madam, I mean what I say; and if I did _not_ mean it, still I
would say I do."
There was something mazy in this sentence which a little bewildered old
Lady Alice's head, and she gazed on Varbarriere with a lack-lustre
frown.
"Well, then, sir, the upshot of the matter is that _I may_ rely on what
you say, and expect my grandson's visit at Wardlock?"
"Certainly, madam, you _may_ expect it," rejoined Varbarriere,
oracularly.
"And pray, Monsieur Varbarriere, are you married?" inquired the old
lady, with the air of a person who had a right to be informed.
"Alas, madam, may I say Latin?--Infandum, regina, jubes renovare
dolorem; you stir up my deepest grief. I am, indeed, what you call an
old bachelor."
"Well, so I should suppose; I don't see what business you would have had
to marry."
"Nor I either," he replied.
"And you are very rich, I suppose."
"The rich man never says he is rich, and the poor man never says he is
poor. What shall I say? Pretty well! Will that do?"
"H'm, yes; you ought to make a settlement, Monsieur Varbarriere."
"On your grandson, madam?"
"Yes, my grandson, he's nothing the worse of that, sir--and your
nephew."
"Madam, the idea is beneficent, and does honour to your heart. I have,
to say truth, had an idea of doing something for him by my will, though
not by settlement; you are quite in advance of me, madam--I shall
reflect."
Monsieur Varbarriere was, after his wont, gravely amusing himself, so
gravely that old Lady Alice never suspected an irony. Old Lady Alice had
in her turn taken up the idea of a solution of all family variance, by a
union between Guy Deverell and Beatrix, and her old brain was already at
the settlements.
"Lady Alice, you must positively give us up our partner, Monsieur
Varbarriere, our game is arrested; and, egad, Pelter, poor fellow, is
bursting with jealousy!"
Lady Alice turned disdainfully from Sir Jekyl.
"Monsieur Varbarriere, pray don't allow me to detain you now. I should
be very glad to see you, if you had no particular objection, to-morrow."
"Only too happy; you do me, madam, a great deal of honour;" and with a
bow and a smile Monsieur Varbarriere withdrew to the whist-table.
He did not play that night by any means so well as usual. Doocey, who
was his partner, was, to say the least, disappointed, and Sir Jekyl and
Sir Paul made a very nice thing of it, in that small way which makes
domestic whist-players happy and serene. When they wound up, Doocey was
as much irritated as a perfectly well-bred gentleman could be.
"Well, Sir Paul; we earned our winnings, eh? Four times the trick
against honours, not bad play, I think," said Sir Jekyl, as they rose.
"Captain Doocey thinks our play had nothing to do with it," observed Sir
Paul, with a faint radiance of complacent banter over his bluff face, as
he put his adversary's half-crowns into his trowsers pocket.
"I never said _that_, Sir Paul, of course; you mistake me, but _we_
might, don't you think, Monsieur Varbarriere, have played a little
better? for instance, we should have played our queen to the lead of
spades. I'm sure that would have given us the trick, don't you see, and
you would have had the lead, and played diamonds, and forced Sir Jekyl
to ruff with his ace, and made my knave good, and that would have given
us the lead and trick."
"Our play goes for nothing, you see, Sir Paul," said Sir Jekyl.
"No; Captain Doocey thinks play had nothing to do with it," said Sir
Paul Blunket.
"'Gad, I think play had everything to do with it--not _yours_, though,"
said Doocey, a little tartly.
"I must do you _all_ justice," interposed Varbarriere, "you're all
right--everyone played well except me. I do pretty well when I'm in the
vein, but I'm not to-night; it was a very bad performance. I played
execrably, Captain Doocey."
"Oh! no, I won't allow that; but you know once or twice you certainly
did not play according to your own principles, I mean, and I couldn't
therefore see exactly what you meant, and I dare say it was as much my
fault as yours."
And Doocey, with his finger on Varbarriere's sleeve, fell into one of
those _resumés_ which mysteriously interest whist-players, and
Varbarriere listened to his energetic periods with his hands in his
pockets, benignant but bored, and assented with a good grace to his own
condemnation. And smothering a yawn as he moved away, again pleaded
guilty to all the counts, and threw himself on the mercy of the court.
"What shall we do to-morrow?" exclaimed Sir Jekyl, and he heard a voice
repeat "to-morrow," and so did Varbarriere. "I'll turn it over, and at
breakfast I'll lay half a dozen plans before you, and you shall select.
It's a clear frosty night; we shall have a fine day. You don't leave us,
Mr. Pelter, till the afternoon, d'ye see? and mind, Lady Alice Redcliffe
sits in the boudoir, at the first landing on the great stair; the
servant will show you the way; don't fail to pay her a visit, d'ye mind,
Pelter; she's huffed, you left her so suddenly; don't mind her at first;
just amuse her a little, and I think she's going to change her lawyer."
Pelter, with his hands in his pockets, smiled shrewdly and winked on Sir
Jekyl.
"Thanks; I know it, I heard it; you can give us a lift in that quarter,
Sir Jekyl, and I shan't forget to pay my respects."
When the ladies had gone, and the gentlemen stood in groups by the fire,
or sat listless before it, Sir Jekyl, smiling, laid his hand on
Varbarriere's shoulder, and asked him in a low tone--
"Will you join Pelter in my room, and wind up with a cigar?"
"I was going, that is, tempted, only ten minutes ago, to ask leave to
join your party," began Varbarriere.
"It is not a party--we should be only three," said Sir Jekyl, in an
eager whisper.
"All the more inviting," continued Varbarriere, smiling. "But I suddenly
recollected that I shall have rather a busy hour or two--three or four
letters to write. My people of business in France never give me a
moment; they won't pay my rent or cork a bottle, my faith! without a
letter."
"Well, I'm sorry you can't; but you must make it up to me, and see, you
must take two or three of these to your dressing-room," and he presented
his case to M. Varbarriere.
"Ha! you are very good; but, _no_; I like to connect them with your
room, they must not grow too common, they shall remain a treat. No, no,
I won't; ha, ha, ha! Thank you very much," and he waved them off,
laughing and shaking his head.
Somehow he could not brook accepting this trifling present. To be sure,
here he was a guest at free quarters, but at this he stuck; he drew back
and waved away the cigar-case. It was not logical, but he could not help
it.
When Pelter and Sir Jekyl sat in the Baronet's chamber, under their
canopy of tobacco-smoke over their last cigar,
"See, Pelter," said Sir Jekyl, "it won't do to _seem_ anxious; the fact
is I'm _not_ anxious; I believe he has a lot of money to leave that
young fellow. Suppose they marry; the Deverells are a capital old
family, don't you see, and it will make up everything, and stop people
talking about--about old nonsense. I'll settle all, and I don't care a
curse, and I'll not be very long in the way. I can't keep always young,
I'm past fifty."
"Judging by his manner, you know, I should say any proposition you may
have to make he'd be happy to listen to," said Mr. Pelter.
"You're sleepy, Pelter."
"Well, a little bit," said the attorney, blinking, yawning, and grinning
all together.
"And, egad, I think you want to be shaved," said Sir Jekyl, who did not
stand on ceremony with his attorney.
"Should not wonder," said Mr. Pelter, feeling his chin over sleepily
with his finger and thumb. "My shave was at half-past four, and what is
it now?--half-past eleven, egad! I thought it was later. Good-night, Sir
Jekyl--those _are_ cigars, magnificent, by Jove!--and about that
Strangways' business, I would not be in too great a hurry, do you see? I
would not open anything, till I saw whether they were going to move, or
whether there was anything in it. I would not put it in his head, d'ye
see, hey?" and from habit Pelter winked.
And with that salutation, harmless as the kiss apostolic, Mr. Pelter,
aided by a few directions from Sir Jekyl, toddled away to his bedchamber
yawning, and the Baronet, after his wont, locked himself into his room
in very tolerable spirits.
There was a sofa in Varbarriere's dressing-room, on which by this time,
in a great shawl dressing-gown, supine lay our friend; like the painted
stone monument of the Chief Justice of Chester in Wardlock church, you
could see on the wall sharply defined in shadow the solemn outline of
his paunch. He was thinking--not as we endeavour to trace thought in
narrative, like a speech, but crossing zigzag from point to point, and
back and forward. A man requires an audience, and pen and paper, to
think in train at all. His ideas whisked and jolted on somewhat in this
fashion:--
"It is to be _avoided_, if possible. My faith! it is now just twelve
o'clock! A dangerous old block-head. I must avoid it, if only for time
to think in. There was nothing this evening to imply such
relations--Parbleu! a pleasant situation if it prove all a mistake.
These atrabilious countrymen and women of mine are so odd, they may
mislead a fellow accustomed like me to a more intriguing race and a
higher _finesse_. Ah! no; it is certainly true. The _fracas_ will end
everything. That old white monkey will be sure to blunder me into it.
Better reconsider things, and wait. What shall I tell him? No excuse, I
must go through with it, or I suppose he will call for pistols--curse
him! I'll give Sir Jekyl a hint or two. He must see her, and make all
ready. The old fool will blaze away at me, of course. Well! I shall
fight him or not, as I may be moved. No one in this country need fight
now who does not wish it. Rather a comfortable place to live in, if it
were not for the climate. I forgot to ask Jacques whether Guy took all
his luggage! What o'clock now? Come, by my faith! it is time to
decide."