Guy Deverell. Volume 2 of 2

"Jennie," said he, with an effort, in a more natural tone, "I'm tired, very tired. We'll sleep. I'll tell you all in the morning. Go to sleep."

"Good-night," she murmured.

"That will do; go to sleep," he answered.

Gently, gently, she stole a peep at that pretty watch that stood in its little slanting stand at her bedside. There was still twenty minutes – Heaven be praised for its mercy! – and she heard old Lennox at the far side of this "great bed of Ware," making an ostentation of undressing. His boots tumbled on the floor. She heard his watchguard jingle on the stand, and his keys and purse dropped in turn on the table. She heard him adjust the chair, as usual, on which he was wont to deposit his clothes as he removed them; she fancied she even heard him yawn. Her heart was throbbing as though it would choke her, and she was praying as she never prayed before – for a reprieve. And yet her respiration was long and deep, as if in the sleep she was counterfeiting.

Lennox, at the other side, put off his muffler, his outer coat, the frock-coat he wore, the waistcoat. She dared not look round to observe his progress. But at last he threw himself on the bed with a groan of fatigue, and pulled the coverlet over him, and lay without motion, like a man in need of rest.

Lady Jane listened. She could not hear him breathe. She waited some five minutes, and then she murmured, "Arthur." No answer. "Arthur." Again no answer; and she raised herself on her elbow, cautiously, and listened; and after a little pause, quick as light she got out of bed, glided to the chimneypiece, and lighted a taper at the candle there, listened again for a moment, and on tiptoe, in bare feet, glided round the foot of the bed, and approached the recess at the other side of the bed's head, and instantly her fingers were on one of those little flowers in the ormolu arabesque that runs along the edge of the wooden casing.

Before she could turn it a gouty hand over her shoulder took hold of hers, and, with a low sudden cry, she saw her husband.

"Can't I do that for you? What is it?" said he.

Her lips were white, and she gazed in his face without saying a word.

He was standing there unbooted, in his trowsers, with those crimson silk suspenders on, with the embroidery of forget-me-nots, which she had described as "her work" – I am afraid inaccurately – a love-token – hypocrisy on hypocrisy.

Asmodeus, seated on the bed's head, smirked down sardonically on the tableau, and clapped his apish hands.

"Get to your bed there. If you make a sign, by – , I'll kill you."

She made no answer. She gazed at him dumbly. He was not like himself. He looked like a villain.

He did not lie down again. He sat by the little table, on which his watch, his keys, and loose shillings lay. The night was chill, but he did not feel it then.

He sat in his shirt-sleeves, his chin on his breast, eyeing from under his stern white brows the shadowy arch through which the figure was to emerge.

Suddenly he heard the swift steps of little, naked feet on the carpet come round the foot of the bed, and his wife wildly threw herself at his feet, and clasped them in an agony. He could feel every sinew in her arms vibrate in the hysterical strain of her entreaty.

"Oh, Arthur! oh, darling, take me away from this, for God's sake. Come down with me; come to the drawing-room, or to the dressing-room; take me away; you'll be happier, indeed you will, than ever you were; you'll never repent it, darling; do what I say. I'll be the best wife, indeed I will. See, I've been reading my Bible; look at it. I'm quite changed – quite changed. God only knows how changed. Oh, Arthur, Arthur, if you ever loved me, take me away; come from this room – come, you'll never repent it. Oh, Arthur, be wise, be merciful! The more you forgive the more you'll be loved. It is not I, but God says that. I'm praying to you as I would to Him, and He forgives us when we implore: take pity on me; you'll never be sorry. Have mercy, Arthur, have mercy – you are kind, I know you're kind, you would not ruin your wretched Jennie. Oh, take pity before it is too late, and take me from this dreadful room. You'll be glad, indeed you will; there never was such a wife as I'll be to you, the humblest, the most loving, and you'll be happier than ever you were. Oh, Arthur, Arthur, I'm praying to you as if you were God, for mercy; don't say no! Oh, can you; can you; can you?"

General Lennox was moved, but not from his course. He never saw before such a face of misery. It was like the despairing pleading of the last day. But alas! in this sort of quarrel there can be no compromise; reconciliation is dishonour.

"Go and lie down. It's all over between us," said he in a tone that left her no room for hope. With a low, long cry, and her fingers clasped over her forehead, she retraced her steps, and lay down, and quietly drew her icy feet into the bed, awaiting the inevitable. Lennox resumed his watch.

CHAPTER XXIII

The Morning

Monsieur Varbarriere was standing all this while with his shadow to the door-post of the Window dressing-room, and his dark eyes fixed on the further door which admits to the green chamber. His bed-room candle, which was dwindling, stood on the table at his elbow.

He heard a step crossing the lobby softly toward his own room, and whispered,

"Who's there?"

"Jacques Duval, at Monsieur's service."

Monsieur took his candle, and crossed the floor to meet Jacques, who was approaching, and he signed to him to stop. He looked at his watch. It was now twenty minutes past one.

"Jacques," said he, in a whisper, "there's no mistake about those sounds?"

"No, Monsieur, not at all."

"Three nights running, you say?"

"Monsieur is perfectly right."

"Steps, you say?"

"Yes, sir, footsteps."

"It could not have been the wind, the shaking or creaking of the floor or windows?"

"Ah no, Monsieur, not at all as that."

"The steps quick, not slow; wasn't it?"

"Quick, sir, as one in haste and treading lightly would walk."

"And this as you sat in the butler's room?"

"Monsieur recollects exactly."

Varbarriere knew that the butler's room exactly underlay that dingy library that abutted on Sir Jekyl's bedchamber, and on that account had placed his sentinel to watch there.

"Always about the same time?" he asked.

"Very nearly, Monsieur, a few minutes, sometimes before, sometimes after; only trifle, in effect nothing," answered Jacques.

"Jacques, you must leave my door open, so that, should I want you, you can hear me call from the door of that dressing-room; take care you keep awake, but don't move."

So saying, Varbarriere returned to his place of observation. He set down his candle near the outer door, and listened, glowering as before at the far one. The crisis was near at hand, so near that, on looking at his watch again, he softly approached the door of the green chamber, and there, I am sorry to say, he listened diligently.

But all was disappointingly silent for a while longer. Suddenly he heard a noise. A piece of furniture shoved aside it seemed, a heavy step or two, and the old man's voice exclaim "Ha!" with an interrogatory snarl in it. There was a little laugh, followed by a muffled blow or a fall, and a woman's cry, sharp and momentary – "Oh, God! oh, God!" and a gush of smothered sobs, and the General's grim voice calling "silence!" and a few stern words from him, and fast talking between them, and Lady Jane calling for light, and then more wild sobbing. There had been no sound of a struggle.

Varbarriere stood, stooping, scowling, open-mouthed, at the door, with his fingers on the handle, hardly breathing. At last he gasped —

"That d – old ape! has he hurt her?" He listened, but all was silent. Did he still hear smothered sobs? He could not be certain. His eyes were glaring on the panel of the door; but on his retina was a ghostly image of beautiful Lady Jane, blood-stained, with glazing eyes, like Cleopatra dying of her asps.

After a while he heard some words from the General in an odd ironical tone. Then came silence again – continued silence – half an hour's silence, and then a sound of some one stirring.

He knew the tread of the General about the room. Whatever was to occur had occurred. That was his conclusion. Perhaps the General was coming to his room to look for him. It was time he should withdraw, and so he did.

"You may get to your bed, Jacques, and come at the usual hour."

So, with his accustomed civilities, Monsieur Jacques disappeared. But old Lennox did not visit Varbarriere, nor even emerge from his room.

After an hour Varbarriere revisited the dressing-room next the green chamber. He waited long without hearing anything, and at length he heard a step – was it the General's again, or Sir Jekyl's? – whoever it was, he seemed to be fidgeting about the room, collecting and packing his things, Varbarriere fancied, for a journey; and then he heard him draw the writing-table a little, and place a chair near it, and as the candle was shining through the keyhole, he supposed the General had placed himself to write at it.

Something had happened, he felt sure. Had Lennox despatched Sir Jekyl, or Sir Jekyl wounded the General? Or had Lady Jane been killed? Or was all right, and no one of the actors stretched on the green baize carpet before the floats? He would believe that, and got quickly to his bed, nursing that comfortable conclusion the while. But when he shut his eyes, a succession of pale faces smeared with blood came and looked at him, and would not be ordered away. So he lighted his candle again, and tried to exorcise these visitors with the pages of a French Review, until very late sleep overtook him.

Jacques was in his room at the usual hour, eight o'clock; and Varbarriere started up in his bed at the sound of his voice, with a confused anticipation of a catastrophe. But the cheerful squire had nothing to relate except how charming was the morning, and to hand a letter to Monsieur.

Varbarriere's mind was not upon letters that morning, but on matters nearer home.

"General Lennox has not been down-stairs yet?"

"No, Monsieur."

"Nor Sir Jekyl?"

"No, Monsieur."

"Where's my watch? there – yes – eight o'clock. H'm. When does Lady Jane's maid go to her?"

"Not until the General has advanced himself pretty well in his toilet, the entrance being through his dressing-room."

"The General used to be down early?"

"Yes, Monsieur, half-past eight I remember."

"And Sir Jekyl?"

"About the same hour."

"And Lady Jane is called, I suppose, a little before that hour?"

"Yes, about a quarter past eight, Monsieur. Will Monsieur please to desire his cup of coffee?"

"Yes, everything – quickly – I wish to dress; and what's this? a letter."

It was from Guy Deverell, as Varbarriere saw at a glance, and not through the post.

"My nephew hasn't come?" sternly demanded Varbarriere, with a kind of start, on reading the signature, which he did before reading the letter.

"No, Monsieur, a young man has conveyed it from Slowton."

Whereupon Varbarriere, with a striped silk nightcap of many colours pending over his corrugated forehead, read the letter through the divided bed-curtains.

His nephew, it appeared, had arrested his course at Birmingham, and turned about, and reached Slowton again about the hour at which M. Varbarriere had met old Lennox in the grounds of Marlowe.

"What a fanfaronnade! These young fellows – what asses they are!" sneered Varbarriere.

It was not, in truth, very wise. This handsome youth announced his intention to visit Marlowe that day, to see Monsieur Varbarriere for, perhaps, the last time before setting forth for Algeria, where he knew a place would at once be found for him in the ranks of those brave soldiers whom France had sent there. His gratitude to his uncle years could never abate, but it was time he should cease to task his generosity, and he was quite resolved henceforward to fight his way single-handed in the world, as so many other young fellows did. Before taking his departure he thought he should present himself to say his adieux to M. Varbarriere – even to his host, Sir Jekyl Marlowe; and there was a good deal more of such stuff.

"Sir Jekyl! stuff! His uncle! lanterns! He wants to see that pretty Miss Beatrix once more! voila tout! He has chosen his time well. Who knows what confusion may be here to day? No matter."

By this time he had got his great quilted dressing-gown about him, in the folds of which Varbarriere looked more unwieldy still than in his drawing-room costume.

"I must read about that Algeria; have they got any diseases there? plague – yellow fever – ague! By my faith! if the place is tolerably healthy, it would be no such bad plan to let the young fool take a turn on that gridiron, and learn thoroughly the meaning of independence."

So Monsieur Varbarriere, with a variety of subjects to think over, pursued his toilet.

CHAPTER XXIV

The Doctor's Visit

Sir Jekyl's hour was eight o'clock, and punctually his man, Tomlinson, knocked at his door.

"Hollo! Is that Tomlinson?" answered the voice from within.

"Yes, sir, please."

"See, Tomlinson, I say, it's very ridiculous; but I'm hanged if I can stir, that confounded gout's got hold of my foot again. You'll have to force the door. Send some one down to the town for Doctor Pratt – d'ye see? – and get me some handkerchiefs, and don't be all day."

The faithful Tomlinson listening, with a snowy shirt and a pair of socks on his arm and the tips of his fingers fiddling with the door-handle, listening at the other side of the panel, with forehead inclined forward and mouth open, looked, I am sorry to say, a good deal amused, although he answered in a concerned tone; and departed to execute his orders.

"Guv'nor took in toe again," he murmured, with a solemn leer, as he paused before the butler's broad Marseilles waistcoat.

"As how?" inquired he.

"The gout; can't stir a peg, and he's locked hisself in, as usual, over night."

"Lawk!" exclaimed the butler, and I dare say both would have liked to laugh, but neither cared to compromise himself.

"Chisel and mallet, Mr. Story, we shall want, if you please, and some one to go at once for the doctor to the town."

"I know – yes – hinstantly," ejaculated the butler.

So things proceeded. Pratt, M. D., the medical practitioner of the village, whose yellow hall door and broad brass plate, and shop window round the corner, with the two time-honoured glass jars, one of red the other of green fluid, representing physic in its most attractive hues, were not more widely known than his short, solemn, red face, blue chin, white whiskers, and bald pate, was roused by the messenger's summons, at his toilet, and peeped over his muslin blind to discover the hand that was ringing so furiously among his withered hollyhocks; and at the same time Tomlinson and the butler were working with ripping chisel, mallet, and even a poker, to effect an entrance.

"Ha! Dives," said the Baronet, as that divine, who had heard the sad news, presented himself at the now open door. "I sent for you, my dear fellow. A horrid screw in my left toe this time. Such a spoil-sport! curse it, but it won't be anything. I've sent for Pratt, and you'll tell the people at breakfast, you know, that I'm a prisoner; only a trifle though, I hope – down to dinner maybe. There's the gong – run down, like a dear fellow."

"Not flying – well fixed in the toe, eh?" said Dives, rather anxiously, for he did not like Sir Jekyl's constrained voice and sunken look.

"Quite fixed – blazing away – just the thing Pratt likes – confounded pain though. Now run down, my dear fellow, and make my excuses, but say I hope to be down to dinner, mind."

So, with another look, Dives went down, not quite comfortable, for on the whole he liked Jekyl, who had done a great deal for him; he did not like tragedies, he was very comfortable as he stood, and quite content to await the course of nature.

"Is that d – d doctor ever coming?" asked Sir Jekyl, dismally.

"He'll be here, sir, please, in five minutes – so he said, sir."

"I know, but there's been ten since, curse him."

"Shall I send again, sir?" asked Tomlinson.

"Do; say I'm in pain, and can't think what the devil's keeping him."

Beatrix in a moment more came running up in consternation.

"How do you feel now, papa? Gout, is it not?" she asked, having obtained leave to come in; "not very bad, I hope."

The Baronet smiled with an effort.

"Gout's never very pleasant, a hot thumb-screw on one's toe, my dear, but that's all; it will be nothing. Pratt's coming, and he'll get me right in a day or two – only the great toe. I beg pardon for naming it so often – very waspish though, that's all. Don't stay away, or the people will fancy something serious; and possibly I may be down, in a slipper though, to dinner. So run down, Trixie, darling."

And Trixie, with the same lingering look that Dives had cast on him, only more anxious, betook herself to the parlour as he had desired.

In a little while Doctor Pratt had arrived. As he toddled through the hall he encountered the Rev. Dives on his way to the breakfast-parlour. Pratt had suffered some rough handling and damage at the hands of Time, and Dives was nothing the better of the sarcastic manipulations of the same ancient god, since they had last met. Still they instantly recognised, and shook hands cordially, and when the salutation was over —

"Well, and what's wrong with the Baronet?"

"Gout; he drinks two glasses of port, I've observed, at dinner, and it always disagrees with him. Pray do stop it – the port, I mean."

"Hand or foot?"

"The great toe – the best place, isn't it?"

"No better, sir. There's nothing, nothing of the stomach? – I brought this in case," and he held up a phial.

"No, but I don't like his looks; he looks so haggard and exhausted."

"H'm, I'd like to see him at once; I don't know his room though."

So Dives put him in charge of a guide, and they parted.

"Well, Sir Jekyl, how d'ye do, hey? and how's all this? Old enemy, hey – all in the foot – fast in the toe – isn't he?" began the Doctor as he entered the Baronet's room.

"Ay, in the toe. Sit down there, Pratt, beside me."

"Ah, ha! nervous; you think I'll knock him, eh? Ha, ha, ha! No, no, no! Don't be afraid. Nothing wrong in the stomach – no chill – retching?"

"No."

"Head all right, too; nothing queer there?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing in the knuckles – old acquaintance, you know, when you meet, sometimes a squeeze by the hand, eh? Ha, ha, ha!"

"No, nothing in the hand," said the Baronet, a little testily.

"Nor any wandering sensations here, you know, and there, hey?" said the little fellow, sitting down briskly by his patient.

"No; curse it."

"Troublesome to talk, hey?" asked Pratt, observing that he seemed faint, and talked low and with effort.

"No – yes – that is, tired."

"I see, no pain; all nicely fixed in the toe; that could not be better, and what do you refer it to? By Jove, it's eighteen, nineteen months since your last! When you came down to Dartbroke, for the Easter, you know, and wrote to me for the thing with the ether, hey? You've been at that d – d bin, I'm afraid, the forbidden fruit, hey? Egad, sir, I call it fluid gout, and the crust nothing but chalk-stone."

"No – I haven't," croaked the Baronet savagely.

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Doctor, drumming on his fat knee with his stethoscope. "Won't admit – won't allow, hey?" As he spoke he was attempting to take him by the wrist.

"Pulse? How are we there, eh?"

"Turn that d – d fellow out of the room, and bolt the door, will you?" muttered Sir Jekyl, impatiently.

"Hey? I see. How are you, Mr. Tomlinson – no return of that bronchial annoyance, eh? I'll ask you just now – we'll just make Sir Jekyl Marlowe a little more comfortable first, and I've a question or two – we'd be as well alone, you see – and do you mind? You'll be in the way, you know; we may want you, you know."

So the docile Tomlinson withdrew with a noiseless alacrity, and Doctor Pratt, in deference to his patron, bolted the mangled door.

"See, Pratt, you're tiring me to death, with your beastly questions. Wait, will you? Sit down. You'll promise me you won't tell this to anyone."

"What?"

"Do hold your tongue, like a dear fellow, and listen. Upon your honour, you don't tell, till I give you leave, what's the matter with me. Come – d – you; yes or no?"

"Well, you know I must, if you insist; but I'd rayther not."

"You must. On your honour you won't tell, and you'll call it gout?"

"Why – why, if it is not gout, eh? don't you see? it would not do."

"Well, good morning to you, Doctor Pratt, for I'm hanged if you prescribe for me on any other terms."

"Well, don't you see, I say I must, if you insist, don't you see; it may be – it may be – egad! it might be very serious to let you wait."

"You promise?"

"Yes, I do. There!"

"Gout, mind, and nothing else; all gout, upon your honour."

"Aw, well! Yes."

"Upon your honour; why the devil can't you speak!"

"Upon my honour, of course."

"You kill me, making me talk. Well, 'tisn't in the toe – it's up here," and he uncovered his right shoulder and chest, showing some handkerchiefs and his night-shirt soaked in blood.

"What the devil's all this?" exclaimed the Doctor, rising suddenly, and the ruddy tints of his face fading into a lilac hue. "Why – why, you're hurt; egad, you're hurt. We must examine it. What is it with – how the plague did it all come about?"

"The act of God," answered Sir Jekyl, with a faint irony in his tone.

"The – ah! – well, I don't understand."

"I mean the purest accident."

"Bled a lot, egad! These things seem pretty dry – bleeding away still? You must not keep it so hot – the sheet only."

"I think it's stopped – the things are sticking – I feel them."

"So much the better; but we must not leave it this way – and – and I daren't disturb it, you know, without help, so we'll have to take Tomlinson into confidence."

"'Gad, you'll do no such thing."

"But, my dear sir, I must tell you, this thing, whatever it is, looks very serious. I can tell you, it's not to be trifled with, and this sort of nonsense may be as much as your life's worth, egad."

"You shan't," said Sir Jekyl.

"You'll allow me to speak with your brother?"

"No, you shan't."

"Ho, now, Sir Jekyl, really now – "

"Promised – your honour."

"'Tisn't a fair position," said the practitioner, shaking his head, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, and staring dismally at the blood-stained linen. "I'll tell you what we must do – there are two supernumeraries I happen to know at the county hospital, and Hicks is a capital nurse. I'll write a line and they'll send her here. There's a room in there, eh? yes, well, she can be quartered there, and talk with no one but you and me; in fact, see no one except in your presence, don't you see? and egad, we must have her, or I'll give up the case."

"Well, yes; send for her."

CHAPTER XXV

The Patient interrogated

So Doctor Pratt scribbled a few lines on the back of his card, and Tomlinson was summoned to the door, and told to expedite its despatch, and "send one of the men in a dog-cart as hard as he could peg, and to be sure to see Doctor Hoggins," who had been an apprentice once of honest Pratt's.

"Tell her not to wait for dressing, or packing, or anything. She'll come just as she is, and we'll send again for her things, d'ye mind? and let him drive quick. It's only two miles, he must not be half an hour about it;" and in a low whisper, with a frown and a nod, he added to Tomlinson on the lobby, "I want her here."

So he sat down very grave by Sir Jekyl, and took his pulse, very low and inflammatory, he thought.

"You lost a good deal of blood? It is not all here, eh?"

"No; I lost some beside."

"Mind, now, don't move. You may bring it on again; and you're not in a condition to spare any. How did it happen?"