M. Varbarriere decides.
Varbarriere sat up on the side of his sofa.
"Who brought that woman, Gwynn, here? What do they want of her?" It was
only the formula by which interrogatively to express the suspicion that
pointed at Sir Jekyl and his attorney. "Soft words for me while
tampering with my witnesses, then laugh at me. Why did not I ask Lady
Alice whether she really wrote for her?"
Thus were his thoughts various as the ingredients of that soup called
harlequin, which figures at low French taverns, in which are floating
bits of chicken, cheese, potato, fish, sausage, and so forth--the
flavour of the soup itself is consistent, nevertheless. The tone of
Varbarriere's ruminations, on the whole, was decided. He wished to avert
the exposure which his interference alone had invited.
He looked at his watch--he had still a little more than half an hour for
remedial thought and action--and now, what is to be done to prevent _ce
vieux singe blanc_ from walking into the green chamber, and keeping
watch and ward at his wife's bedside until that spectre shall emerge
through the wall, whom with a curse and a stab he was to lay?
Well, what precise measures were to be taken? First he must knock up
Sir Jekyl in his room, and tell him positively that General Lennox was
to be at Marlowe by one o'clock, having heard stories in town, for the
purpose of surprising and punishing the guilty. Sir Jekyl would be sharp
enough to warn Lady Jane; or should he suggest that it would be right to
let her know, in order to prevent her from being alarmed at the temper
and melodramatics of her husband, and to secure that coolness and
preparation which were necessary? It required some delicacy and tact,
but he was not afraid. Next, he must meet General Lennox, and tell him
in substance that he had begun to hope that he had been himself
practised upon. Yes, that would do--and he might be as dark as he
pleased on the subject of his information.
Varbarriere lighted his bed-room candle, intending to march forthwith to
Sir Jekyl's remote chamber.
Great events, as we all know, turn sometimes upon small pivots. Before
he set out, he stood for a moment with his candle in one hand, and in
his reverie he thrust the other into the pocket of his voluminous black
trowsers, and there it encountered, unexpectedly, the letter he had that
evening picked up on the floor of the gallery. It had quite dropped out
of his mind. Monsieur Varbarriere was a Jupiter Scapin. He had not the
smallest scruple about reading it, and afterwards throwing it into the
fire, though it contained other men's secrets, and was another man's
property.
This was a letter from Sir Jekyl Marlowe to Pelter and Crowe, and was
in fact upon the special subject of Herbert Strangways. Unlucky subject!
unlucky composition! Now there was, of course, here a great deal of that
sort of communication which occurs between a clever attorney and his
clever client, which is termed "privileged," and is not always quite fit
to see the light. Did ever beauty read letter of compliment and
adoration with keener absorption?
Varbarriere's face rather whitened as he read, and his fat sneer was not
pleasant to see.
He got through it, and re-commenced. Sometimes he muttered and sometimes
he thought; and the notes of this oration would have read nearly thus:--
"So the question is to be opened whether the _anonymous payment_--he
lies, it was in _my name_!--through the bankers protects me technically
from pursuit; and I'm to be 'run by the old Hebrew pack from cover to
cover,' over the Continent--bravo!--till I vanish for seven years more."
Here Monsieur Varbarriere laughed in lurid contempt.
The letter went on in the same vein--contemptuous, cruel, he fancied.
Everyone _is_ cruel in self-defence; and in its allusions and spirit was
something which bitterly recalled the sufferings which in younger and
weaker days that same Baronet, pursuing the same policy, had inflicted
upon him. Varbarriere remembered when he was driven to the most
ignominious and risky shifts, to ridiculous disguises; he remembered his
image in the cracked shaving-glass in the garret in his lair near Notre
Dame--the red wig and moustache, and the goggles.
How easily an incautious poke will re-awake the dormant neuralgia of
toothache; and tooth, cheek, ear, throat, brain, are all throbbing again
in the re-induced anguish! With these sharp and vivid recollections of
humiliation, fear, and suffering, all stirred into activity by this
unlucky letter, that savage and vindictive feeling which had for so long
ruled the life of Herbert Strangways, and had sunk into an uneasy doze
under the narcotic of this evening's interview, rose up suddenly, wide
awake and energetic.
He looked at his watch. The minute-hand showed him exactly how long he
had been reading this confidence of client to attorney. "You will, will
you?" murmured Varbarriere, with his jaw a little fiercely set, and a
smile. "He will _checkmate_ me, he thinks, in two or three moves. He
does not see, clever fellow, that I will checkmate him in _one_!"
Now, this letter had _preceded_ all that had occurred this evening to
soften old animosities--though, strictly examined, that was not very
much. It did not seem quite logical then, that it should work so sudden
a revolution. I cannot, however, say positively; for in Varbarriere's
mind may have long lain a suspicion that Sir Jekyl was not now
altogether what he used to be, that he did not quite know all he had
inflicted, and that time had made him wiser, and therefore gentler of
heart. If so, the letter had knocked down this hypothesis, and its
phrases, one or two of them, were of that unlucky sort which not only
recalled the thrill of many an old wound, but freshly galled that vanity
which never leaves us, till ear and eye grow cold, and light and sound
are shut out by the coffin-lid.
So Varbarriere, being quite disenchanted, wondered at his own illusions,
and sighed bitterly when he thought what a fool he had been so near
making of himself. And thinking of these things, he stared grimly on his
watch, and by one of those movements that betray one's abstraction, held
it to his ear, as if he had fancied it might have gone down.
There it was, thundering on at a gallop. The tread of unseen fate
approaching. Yes, it was time he should go. Jacques peeped in.
"You've done as I ordered?"
"Yes Monsieur."
"Here, lend me a hand with my cloak--very good. The servants, the
butler, have they retired?"
"So I believe, Monsieur."
"My hat--thanks. The lights all out on the stairs and lobbies?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"Go before--is that lighted?"
"Yes, sir."
This referred to one of those little black lanterns which belong to
Spanish melodrama, with a semi-cylindrical horn and a black slide. We
have most of us seen such, and handled if not possessed them.
"Leporello! hey, Jacques?" smiled Varbarriere sardonically, as he drew
his short black cloak about him.
"Monsieur is always right," acquiesced the man, who had never heard of
Leporello before.
"Get on, then."
And the valet before, the master following, treading cautiously, they
reached the stair-head, where Varbarriere listened for a moment, then
descended and listened again at the foot, and so through the hall into
the long gallery, near the end of which is a room with a conservatory.
This they entered. The useful Jacques had secured the key of the glass
door into the conservatory, which also opened the outer one; and
Varbarriere, directing him to wait there quietly till his return,
stepped out into the open air and faint moonlight. A moment's survey was
enough to give him the lie of the ground, and recognising the file of
tufted lime-trees, rising dark in the mist, he directed his steps
thither, and speedily got upon the broad avenue, bordered with grass and
guarded at either side by these rows of giant limes.
On reaching the carriage-way, standing upon a slight eminence,
Varbarriere gazed down the misty slope toward the gate-house, and then
toward Marlowe Manor, in search of a carriage or a human figure. Seeing
none, he strolled onward toward the gate, and soon _did_ see, airy and
faint in the haze and distance, a vehicle approaching. It stopped some
two hundred yards nearer the gate than he, a slight figure got out, and
after a few words apparently, the driver turned about, and the slim,
erect figure came gliding stiffly along in his direction. As he
approached Varbarriere stood directly before him.
"Ha! here I am waiting, General," said Varbarriere, advancing. "I--I
suppose we had better get on at once to the house?"
General Lennox met him with a nod.
"Don't care, sir. Whatever you think best," answered the General, as
sternly as if he were going into action.
"Thanks for your confidence, General. I think so;" and side by side they
walked in silence for a while toward the house.
"Lady Alice Redcliffe here?"
"Yes, sir."
"That's well. And, sir," he continued, suddenly stopping short, and
turning full on Varbarriere--"for God's sake, _do_ you think it is
_certainly true_?"
"You had better come, sir, and judge for yourself," pursued Varbarriere.
"D---- you, sir--you think I'll wait over your cursed riddles. I'd as
soon wait in hell, sir. You don't know, sir--it's the tortures of the
damned. Egad, no man has a right--no man could stand it."
"I think it _is_, sir. I think it's _true_, sir. I _think_ it's true.
I'm nearly _sure_ it's true," answered Varbarriere, with a pallid frown,
not minding his anathema. "How _can_ I say more?"
General Lennox looked for a while on the ground, then up and about
dismally, and gave his neck a little military shake, as if his collar
sat uneasily.
"A lonely life for me, sir. I wish to God the villain had shot me
first. I was very fond of her, sir--desperately fond--madness, sir. I
was thinking I would go back to India. Maybe you'll advise with me, sir,
to-morrow? I have no one."