Le Fanu Joseph Sheridan
Guy Deverell. Volume 2 of 2
CHAPTER XIII
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.
CHAPTER XIV
Pelter opens his mind
"Take a glass of claret. This is '34. Maybe you'd like some port better?"
"No, thanks, this will do very nicely," said the accommodating attorney. "Thirty-four? So it is, egad! and uncommon fine too."
"I hope you can give me a day or two – not business, of course – I mean by way of holiday," said Sir Jekyl. "A little country air will do you a world of good – set you up for the term."
Mr. Pelter smiled, and shook his head shrewdly.
"Quite out of the question, Sir Jekyl, I thank you all the same – business tumbling in too fast just now – I daren't stay away another day – no, no – ha, ha, ha! no rest for us, sir – no rest for the wicked. But this thing, you know, looks rather queerish, we thought – a little bit urgent: the other party has been so sly; and no want of money, sir – the sinews of war – lots of tin there."
"Yes, of course; and lots of tin here, too. I fancy fellows don't like to waste money only to hold their own; but, egad, if it comes to be a pull at the long purse, all the worse for them," threw in the Baronet.
"And their intending, you know, to set up this marriage," continued the attorney without minding; "and that Herbert Strangways being over here with the young pretender, as we call him, under his wing; and Strangways is a deuced clever fellow, and takes devilish sound view of a case when he lays his mind to it. It was he that reopened that great bankruptcy case of Onslow and Grawley, you remember."
Sir Jekyl assented, but did not remember.
"And a devilish able bit of chess-play that was on both sides – no end of concealed property – brought nearly sixty thousand pounds into the fund, egad! The creditors passed a vote, you remember – spoke very handsomely of him. Monstrous able fellow, egad!"
"A monstrous able fellow he'll be if he gets my property, egad! It seems to me you Pelter and Crowe are half in love with him," said Sir Jekyl, flushed and peevish.
"We'll hit him a hard knock or two yet, for all that – ha, ha! – or I'm mistaken," rejoined old Mr. Pelter.
"Do you know him?" inquired Sir Jekyl; and the servant at the same time appearing in answer to his previous summons, he said —
"Go to the parlour and tell Mr. Doocey – you know quietly– that I am detained by business, but that we'll join them in a little time in the drawing-room."
So the servant, with a reverence, departed.
"I say, do you?"
"Just a little. Seven years ago, when I was at Havre, he was stopping there too. A very gentlemanlike man – sat beside him twice at the table d'hôte. I could see he knew d – d well who I was – wide awake, very agreeable man, very – wonderful well-informed. Wonderful ups and downs that fellow's had – clever fellow – ha, ha, ha! – I mentioned you, Sir Jekyl; I wanted to hear if he'd say anything – fishing, hey? Old file, you know" – and the attorney winked and grinned agreeably at Sir Jekyl. "Capital claret this – cap-i-tal, by Jupiter! It came in natural enough. We were talking of England, you see. He was asking questions; and so, talking of country gentlemen, and county influence, and parliamentary life, you know, I brought in you, and asked him if he knew Sir Jekyl Marlowe." Another wink and a grin here. "I asked, a bit suddenly, you know, to see how he'd take it. Did not show, egad! more than that decanter – ha, ha, ha! – devilish cool dog – monstrous clever fellow – not a bit; and he said he did not know you – had not that honour; but he knew a great deal of you, and he spoke very handsomely – upon my honour – quite au – au – handsomely of you, he did."
"Vastly obliged to him," said Sir Jekyl; but though he sneered I think he was pleased. "You don't recollect what he said, I dare say?"
"Well, I cannot exactly."
"Did he mention any unpleasantness ever between us?" continued Sir Jekyl.
"Yes, he said there had, and that he was afraid Sir Jekyl might not remember his name with satisfaction; but he, for his part, liked to forget and forgive – that kind of thing, you know, and young fellows being too hot-headed, you know. I really – I don't think he bears you personally any ill-will."
"There has certainly been time enough for anger to cool a little, and I really, for my part, never felt anything of the kind towards him; I can honestly say that, and I dare say he knows it. I merely want to protect myself against – against madmen, egad!" said Sir Jekyl.
"I think that copy of a marriage settlement you showed me had no names in it," he resumed.
"No, the case is all put like a moot point, not a name in it. It's all nonsense, too, because every man in my profession knows a copying clerk never has a notion of the meaning of anything – letter, deed, pleading – nothing he copies – not an iota, by Jove!"
"Finish the bottle; you must not send it away," said Sir Jekyl.
"Thanks, I'm doing very nicely; and now as they may open fire suddenly, I want to know" – here the attorney's eyes glanced at the door, and his voice dropped a little – "any information of a confidential sort that may guide us in – in – "
"Why, I fancy it's all confidential, isn't it?" answered Sir Jekyl.
"Certainly – but aw – but – I meant – you know – there was aw – a – there was a talk, you know, about a deed. Eh?"
"I – I —yes, I've heard – I know what you mean," answered Sir Jekyl, pouring a little claret into his glass. "They – those fellows – they lost a deed, and they were d – d impertinent about it; they wanted – you know it's a long time ago – to try and slur my poor father about it – I don't know exactly how, only, I think, there would have been an action for slander very likely about it, if it had not stopped of itself."
Sir Jekyl sipped his claret.
"I shan't start till three o'clock train to-morrow, if you have anything to say to me," said the attorney, looking darkly and expectingly in Sir Jekyl's face.
"Yes, I'll think over everything. I'd like to have a good talk with you in the morning. You sleep here, you know, of course."
"Very kind. I hope I shan't be in your way, Sir Jekyl. Very happy."
Sir Jekyl rang the bell.
"I shan't let you off to-morrow, unless you really can't help it," he said; and, the servant entering, "Tell Mrs. Sinnott that Mr. Pelter remains here to-night, and would wish —do you? – to run up to your room. Where's your luggage?"
"Precious light luggage it is. I left it at the hotel in the town – a small valise, and a – "
"Get it up here, do you mind, and let us know when Mr. Pelter's room is ready."
"Don't be long about dressing; we must join the ladies, you know, in the drawing-room. I wish, Pelter, there was no such thing as business; and that all attorneys, except you and Crowe, of course, were treated in this and the next world according to their deserts," an ambiguous compliment at which Pelter nodded slyly, with his hands in his pockets.
"You'll have to get us all the information you can scrape together, Sir Jekyl. You see they may have evidence of that deed – I mean the lost one, you know – and proving a marriage and the young gentleman legitimate. It may be a serious case – upon my word a very serious case – do you see? And term begins, you know, immediately so there really is no time to lose, and there's no harm in being ready."
"I'll have a long talk with you about it in the morning, and I am devilish glad you came – curse the whole thing!"
The servant here came to say that Mr. Pelter's room was ready, and his luggage sent for to the town.
"Come up, then – we'll look at your room."
So up they went, and Pelter declared himself charmed.
"Come to my room, Mr. Pelter – it's a long way off, and a confoundedly shabby crib; but I've got some very good cigars there," said Sir Jekyl, who was restless, and wished to hear the attorney more fully on this hated business.
CHAPTER XV
The Pipe of Peace
Sir Jekyl marched Mr. Pelter down the great stair again, intending to make the long journey rearward. As they reached the foot of the stairs, Monsieur Varbarriere, candle in hand, was approaching it on the way to his room. He was walking leisurely, as large men do after dinner, and was still some way off.
"By Jove! Why did not you tell me?" exclaimed the attorney, stopping short. "By the law! you've got him here."
"Monsieur Varbarriere?" said the Baronet.
"Mr. Strangways, sir —that's he."
"That Strangways!" echoed the Baronet.
"Herbert Strangways," whispered Mr. Pelter, and by this time M. Varbarriere was under the rich oak archway, and stopped, smiling darkly, and bowing a little to the Baronet, who was for a moment surprised into silence.
"How do you do, Mr. Strangways, sir?" said the attorney, advancing with a shrewd resolute smile, and extending his hand.
M. Varbarriere, without the slightest embarrassment, took it, bowing with a courtly gravity.
"Ah, Monsieur Pelter? – yes, indeed – very happy to meet you again."
"Yes, sir – very happy, Mr. Strangways; so am I. Did not know you were in this part of the world, Mr. Strangways, sir. You remember Havre, sir?"
"Perfectly – yes. You did not know me by the name of Varbarriere, which name I adopted on purchasing the Varbarriere estates shortly after I met you at Havre, on becoming a naturalised subject of France."
"Wonderful little changed, Monsieur Barvarrian – fat, sir – a little stouter – in good case, Mr. Strangways; but six years, you know, sir, does not count for nothing– ha, ha, ha!"
"You have the goodness to flatter me, I fear," answered Varbarriere, with a smile somewhat contemptuous, and in his deep tones of banter.
"This is my friend, Mr. Strangways, if he'll allow me to call him so – Mr. Herbert Strangways, Sir Jekyl," said the polite attorney, presenting his own guest to the Baronet.
"And so, Monsieur Varbarriere, I find I have an additional reason to rejoice in having made your acquaintance, inasmuch as it revives a very old one, so old that I almost fear you may have forgotten it. You remember our poor friend, Guy Deverell, and – "
"Perfectly, Sir Jekyl, and I was often tempted to ask you the same question; but – but you know there's a melancholy– and we were so very happy here, I had not courage to invite the sadness of the retrospect, though a very remote one. I believe I was right, Sir Jekyl. Life's true philosophy is to extract from the present all it can yield of happiness, and to bury our dead out of our sight."
"I dare say – I'm much of that way of thinking myself. And – dear me! – I – I suppose I'm very much altered." He was looking at Varbarriere, and trying to recover in the heavy frame and ponderous features before him the image of that Herbert Strangways whom, in the days of his early coxcombry, he had treated with a becoming impertinence.
"No – you're wonderfully little changed – I say honestly – quite wonderfully like what I remember you. And I – I know what a transformation I am – perfectly," said Varbarriere.
And he stood before Sir Jekyl, as he would display a portrait, full front – Sir Jekyl held a silver candlestick in his hand, Monsieur Varbarriere his in his – and they stood face to face – in a dream of the past.
Varbarriere's mystic smile expanded to a grin, and the grin broke into a laugh – deep and loud – not insulting – not sneering.
In that explosion of sonorous and enigmatic merriment Sir Jekyl joined – perhaps a little hesitatingly and coldly, for he was trying, I think, to read the riddle – wishing to be quite sure that he might be pleased, and accept these vibrations as sounds of reconciliation.
There was nothing quite to forbid it.
"I see," said Monsieur Varbarriere, in tones still disturbed by laughter, "in spite of your politeness, Sir Jekyl, what sort of impression my metamorphosis produces. Where is the raw-boned youth – so tall and gawky, that, egad! London bucks were ashamed to acknowledge him in the street, and when they did speak could not forbear breaking his gawky bones with their jokes? – ha, ha, ha! Now, lo! here he stands – the grand old black swine, on hind legs – hog-backed – and with mighty paunch and face all draped in fat. Bah! ha, ha, ha! What a magician is Father Time! Look and laugh, sir – you cannot laugh more than I."
"I laugh at your fantastic caricature, so utterly unlike what I see. There's a change, it's true, but no more than years usually bring; and, by Jove! I'd much rather any day grow a little full, for my part, than turn, like some fellows, into a scarecrow."
"No, no – no scarecrow, certainly," still laughed Varbarriere.
"Egad, no," laughed the attorney in chorus. "No corners there, sir – ribs well covered – hey? nothing like it coming on winter;" and grinning pleasantly, he winked at Sir Jekyl, who somehow neither heard nor saw him, but said —
"Mr. Pelter, my law adviser here, was good enough to say he'd come to my room, which you know so well, Monsieur Varbarriere, and smoke a cigar. You can't do better – pray let me persuade you."
He was in fact tolerably easily persuaded, and the three gentlemen together – Sir Jekyl feeling as if he was walking in a dream, and leading the way affably – reached that snuggery which Varbarriere had visited so often before.
"Just one– they are so good," said he. "We are to go to the drawing-room – aren't we?"
"Oh, certainly. I think you'll like these – they're rather good, Mr. Pelter. You know them, Monsieur Varbarriere."
"I've hardly ever smoked such tobacco. Once, by a chance, at Lyons, I lighted on a box very like these – that is, about a third of them – but hardly so good."
"We've smoked some of these very pleasantly together," said Sir Jekyl, cultivating genial relations.
Varbarriere, who had already one between his lips, grunted a polite assent with a nod. You would have thought that his whole soul was in his tobacco, as his dark eyes dreamily followed the smoke that thinly streamed from his lips. His mind, however, was busy in conjecturing what the attorney had come about, and how much he knew of his case and his plans. So the three gentlemen puffed away in silence for a time.
"Your nephew, Mr. Guy Strangways, I hope we are soon to see him again?" asked Sir Jekyl, removing his cigar for a moment.
"You are very good. Yes, I hope. In fact, though I call it business, it is only a folly which displeases me, which he has promised shall end; and whenever I choose to shake hands, he will come to my side. There is no real quarrel, mind," and Varbarriere laughed, "only I must cure him of his nonsense."
"Well, then we may hope very soon to see Mr. Strangways. I call him Strangways, you know, because he has assumed that name, I suppose, permanently."
"Well, I think so. His real name is Deverell – a very near relation, and, in fact, representative of our poor friend Guy. His friends all thought it best he should drop it, with its sad associations, and assume a name that may be of some little use to him among more affluent relatives," said M. Varbarriere, who had resolved to be frank as day and harmless as doves, and to disarm suspicion adroitly.
"A particularly handsome fellow – a distinguished-looking young man. How many things, Monsieur Varbarriere, we wish undone as we get on in life!"
The attorney lay back in his chair, his hands in his pockets, his heels on the carpet, his cigar pointing up to the ceiling, and his eyes closed luxuriously. He intended making a note of everything.
"I hope to get him on rapidly in the French service," resumed Varbarriere, "and I can make him pretty comfortable myself while I live, and more so after I'm gone; and in the meantime I am glad to put him in a field where he must exert himself, and see something of labour as well as of life."
There was a knock at the door, and the intelligence that Mr. Pelter's luggage was in his room. He would have stayed, perhaps, but Sir Jekyl, smiling, urged haste, and as his cigar was out, he departed. When he was quite gone, Sir Jekyl rose smiling, and extended his hand to Varbarriere, who took it smiling in his own way; also, Sir Jekyl was looking in the face of the large man who stood before him, and returning his gaze a little cloudily; and laughing, both shook hands for a good while, and there was nothing but this low-toned laughter between them.
"At all events, Herbert, I'm glad we have met, very glad – very, very. I did not think I'd have felt it quite this way. I've your forgiveness to ask for a great deal. I never mistook a man so much in my life. I believe you are a devilish good fellow; but – but I fancied, you know, for a long time, that you had taken a hatred to me, and – and I have done you great injustice; and I wish very much I could be of any use to – to that fine young fellow, and show any kindness worth the name towards you."
Sir Jekyl's eyes were moist, he was smiling, and he was shaking Varbarriere's powerful hand very kindly. I cannot analyse his thoughts and feelings in that moment of confusion. It had overcome him suddenly – it had in some strange way even touched Varbarriere. Was there dimly seen by each a kindly solution of a life-long hatred – a possibility of something wise, perhaps self-sacrificing, that led to reconciliation and serenity in old days?
Varbarriere leaned his great shoulders to the wall, his hand still in Sir Jekyl's, still smiling, and looked almost sorrowfully, while he uttered something between a long pant and a sigh.
"Wonderful thing life is – terrible battle, life!" murmured Varbarriere, leaning against the wall, with his dark eyes raised to the far cornice, and looking away and through and beyond it into some far star.
There are times when your wide-awake gentlemen dream a little, and Sir Jekyl laughed a pensive and gentle little laugh, shaking his head and smiling sadly in reply.
"Did you ever read Vathek?" asked the Baronet, "rather a good horror – the fire, you know – ah, ha! – that's a fire every fellow has a spark of in him; I know I have. I've had everything almost a fellow wants; but this I know, if I were sure that death was only rest and darkness, there's hardly a day I live I would not choose it." And with this sentiment came a sincere and odd little laugh.
"My faith! I believe it's true," said Varbarriere with a shrug, and a faint smile of satiety on his heavy features.
"We must talk lots together, Herbert – talk a great deal. You'll find I'm not such a bad fellow after all. Egad, I'm very glad you're here!"
