Guy Deverell I
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GUY DEVERELL • I
“Guy,” said he, “you’ll keep your promise – your word – your oath – that not one syllable of what passes between us is divulged to mortal, and that all those points on which I have enjoined reserve shall be held by you scrupulously secret.”
Guy bowed his acquiescence.
“What nonsense was that going on at the piano to-night? Well, you need not answer, but there must be no more of it. I won’t burden you with painful secrets. You will understand me hereafter; but no more of that – observe me.”
The old gentleman spoke this injunction with a lowering nod, and that deliberate and peremptory emphasis to which his metallic tones gave effect.
Guy heard this, leaning in an unchanged attitude on his elbow over the chimneypiece, in silence and with downcast eyes.
“Yes, Guy,” said the old man, walking suddenly up to him, and clapping his broad hand upon his shoulder, “I will complete the work I have begun for you. Have confidence in me, don’t mar it, and you shall know all, and after I am gone, perhaps admire the zealous affection with which I laboured in your interest. Good-night, and Heaven bless you, dear Guy;” and so they parted for the night.
Guy Strangways had all his life stood in awe of this reserved despotic uncle – kind, indulgent in matters of pleasure and of money, but habitually secret, and whenever he imposed a command, tyrannical. Yet Guy felt that even here there was kindness; and though he could not understand his plans, of his motives he could have no doubt.
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For M. Varbarriere, indeed, his nephew had a singular sort of respect. More than one-half of his character was enveloped in total darkness to his eyes. Of the traits that were revealed some were positively evil. He knew, by just one or two proofs, that he was proud and vindictive, and could carry revenge for a long time, like a cold stone, in his sleeve. He could break out into a devil of a passion, too, on occasion; he could be as unscrupulous, in certain ways, as Machiavel; and, it was fixed in Guy’s mind, had absolutely no religion whatsoever. What were the evidences? M. Varbarriere led a respectable life, and showed his solemn face and person in church with regularity, and was on very courteous relations with the clergy, and had built the greater part of a church in Pontaubrique, where prayers are, I believe, still offered up for him. Ought not all this to have satisfied Guy? And yet he knew quite well that solemn M. Varbarriere did not believe one fact, record, tradition, or article of the religion he professed, or of any other. Had he denounced, ridiculed, or controverted them? – Never. On the contrary, he kept a civil tongue in his head, or was silent. What, then, were the proofs which had long quite settled the question in Guy’s mind? They consisted of some half-dozen smiles and shrugs, scattered over some fifteen years, and delivered impressively at significant moments.
But with all this he was kindly. The happiness of a great number of persons depended upon M. Varbarriere, and they were happy. His wine-estates were well governed. His great silk-factory in the south was wisely and benevolently administered. He gave handsomely to every deserving charity.
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He smiled on children and gave them small coins. He loved flowers, and no man was more idolised by his dogs.
Guy was attached by his kindness, and he felt that be his moral system exactly what it might, he had framed one, and acted under it, and he instinctively imbibed for him that respect which we always cherish for the man who has submitted his conduct consistently to a code or principle self-imposed by intellect – even erring.
CHAPTER XXV
LADY ALICE TALKS WITH GUY
STRANGWAYS
When Guy had bid this man good-night and entered his chamber, he threw himself into his easy-chair beside the fire, which had grown low and grey in the grate. He felt both sad and alarmed. He now felt assured that M. Varbarriere was fashioning and getting together the parts of a machine which was to work evil against their host and his family. His family? His daughter Beatrix. He had no other.
Already implicated in deception, the reasons for which he knew not, the direction of which he only suspected – bound as he was to secrecy by promises the most sacred, to his stern old kinsman and benefactor, he dared not divulge the truth. Somehow the blow meditated, he was confident, against this Baronet, was to redound to his advantage. What a villain should he appear when all was over! Sir Jekyl his host, too, frank and hospitable – how could he have earned the misfortune, be it great or small, that threatened? And the image of Beatrix – like an angel – stood between her father and the unmasked villain, Guy, who had entered the house in a borrowed shape, ate and drank and slept, talked and smiled, and, he now feared, loved, and in the end – struck!
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When Mr. Guy Strangways came down next morning he looked very pale. His breakfast was a sham. He talked hardly at all, and smiled but briefly and seldom.
M. Varbarriere, on the contrary, was more than usually animated, and talked in his peculiar vein rather more than was his wont; and after breakfast, Sir Jekyl placed his hand kindly on Guy Strangways’ arm as he looked dismally from the window. The young man almost started at the kindly pressure.
“Very glad to hear that Monsieur Varbarriere has changed his mind,” said Sir Jekyl, with a smile.
What change was this? thought Guy, whose thoughts were about other plans of his uncle’s, and he looked with a strange surprise in Sir Jekyl’s face.
“I mean his ill-natured idea of going so soon. I’m so glad. You know you have seen nothing yet, and we are going to kill a buck to-day, so you had better postpone the moor tomorrow, and if you like to take your rod in the afternoon, you will find – Barron tells me – some very fine trout, about half a mile lower down the stream than you fished yesterday – a little below the bridge.”
Guy thanked him, I fancy, rather oddly. He heard him in fact as if it was an effort to follow his meaning, and he really did feel relieved when his good-natured host was called away, the next moment, to settle a disputed question between the two sportsmen, Linnett and Doocey.
“How is grandmamma this morning?” inquired Sir Jekyl of Beatrix, before she left the room.
“Better, I think. She says she will take a little turn up and down the broad walk, by-and-by, and I am to go with her.”
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“Very pleasant for you, Trixie,” said her papa, with one of his chuckles. “So you can’t go with your ladies to Lonsted to-day?”
“No – it can’t be helped; but I’m glad poor granny can take her little walk.”
“Not a bit of you, Trixie.”
“Yes, indeed, I am. Poor old granny!”
The incredulous Baronet tapped her cheek with his finger, as he chuckled again roguishly, and with a smile and a shake of his head, their little talk ended.
In the hall he found Guy Strangways in his angling garb, about to start on a solitary excursion. He preferred it. He was very much obliged. He did not so much care for the chase, and liked walking even better than riding.
The Baronet, like a well-bred host, allowed his guests to choose absolutely their own methods of being happy, but he could not but perceive something in the young gentleman’s manner that was new and uncomfortable. Had he offended him – had anything occurred during the sitting after dinner last night? Well, he could not make it out, but his manner was a little odd and constrained, and in that slanting light from above, as he had stood before him in the hall, he certainly did look confoundedly like that other Guy whose memory was his chief spoil-sport. But it crossed him only like a neuralgic pang, to be forgotten a minute later. And so the party dispersed – some mounted, to the park; others away with the keeper and dogs for the moor; and Strangways, dejected, on his solitary river-side ramble.
His rod and fly-book were but pretexts – his object was solitude. It was a beautiful autumnal day, a low sun gilding the red
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and yellow foliage of wood and hedgerow, and the mellow songs of birds were quivering in the air. The cheer and the melancholy of autumn were there – the sadness of a pleasant farewell.
“It is well,” thought Strangways, “that I have been so startled into consciousness, while I yet have power to escape my fate – that beautiful girl! I did not know till last night how terrible I shall find it to say farewell. But, cost what it may, the word must be spoken. She will never know what it costs me. I may call it a dream, but even dreams of paradise are forgotten; my dream – never! All after-days dark without her. All my future life a sad reverie – a celestial remembrance – a vain yearning. These proud English people – and those dark designs, what are they? No, they shan’t hurt her – never. I’ll denounce him first. What is it to me what becomes of me if I have saved her – in so few days grown to be so much to me – my idol, my darling, though she may never know it?”
Guy Strangways, just five-and-twenty, had formed, on the situation, many such tremendous resolutions as young gentlemen at that period of life are capable of. He would speak to her no more; he would think of her no more; he would brave his uncle’s wrath – shield her from all possibility of evil – throw up his own stakes, be they what they might – and depart in silence, and never see Beatrix again.
The early autumn evening had begun to redden the western clouds, as Guy Strangways, returning, approached the fine old house, and passing a thick group of trees and underwoods, he suddenly found himself before Beatrix and Lady Alice. I dare say they had been talking about him, for Beatrix blushed, and the old lady stared at him from under her grey
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brows, with lurid half-frightened eyes, as she leaned forward, her thin fingers grasping the arms of the rustic chair, enveloped in her ermine-lined mantle.
Lady Alice looked on him as an old lady might upon a caged monster – with curiosity and fear. She was beginning to endure his presence, though still with an awe nearly akin to horror – though that horror was fast disappearing – and there was a strange yearning, too, that drew her towards him.
He had seen Beatrix that morning. The apparition had now again risen in the midst of his wise resolutions, and embarrassed him strangely. The old lady’s stare, too, was, you may suppose, to a man predisposed to be put out, very disconcerting. The result was that he bowed very low indeed before the ladies, and remained silent, expecting, like a ghost, to be spoken to.
“Come here, sir, if you please,” said the old lady, with an odd mixture of apprehension and command. “How d’ye do, Mr. Strangways? I saw you yesterday you know, at dinner; and I saw you some weeks since at Wardlock Church. I have been affected by a resemblance. Merciful Heaven, it is miraculous! And things of that sort affect me now more than they once might have done. I’m a sickly old woman, and have lost most of my dearest ties on earth, and cannot expect to remain much longer behind them.”
It was odd, but the repulsion was still active, while at the same time she was already, after a fashion, opening her heart to him.
It was not easy to frame an answer, on the moment, to this strange address. He could only say, as again he bowed low –
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“I do recollect, Lady Alice, having seen you in Wardlock Church. My uncle, Monsieur Varbarriere – “
At this point the handsome young gentleman broke down. His uncle had whispered him, as they sat side by side –
“Look at that old lady costumed in mourning, in the seat in the gallery with the marble tablet and two angels – do you see? – on the wall behind. That is Lady Alice Redcliffe. I’ll tell you more about her by-and-by.”
“By-and-by,” as Guy Strangways had come to know, indicated in M. Varbarriere’s vocabulary that period which was the luminous point in his perspective, at which his unexplained hints and proceedings would all be cleared up. The sudden rush of these recollections and surmises in such a presence overcame Guy Strangways, and he changed colour and became silent.
The old lady, however, understood nothing of the causes of his sudden embarrassment, and spoke again.
“Will you forgive an old woman for speaking with so little reserve? – your voice, too, sir, so wonderfully resembles it – wonderfully.”
Old Lady Alice dried her eyes a little here, and Guy, who felt that his situation might soon become very nearly comical, said very gently –
“There are, I believe, such likenesses. I have seen one or two such myself.” And then to Beatrix, aside, “My presence and these recollections, I fear, agitate Lady Alice.”
But the old lady interposed in a softened tone – “No, sir; pray don’t go; pray remain. You’ve been walking, fishing. What a sweet day, and charming scenery near here. I know it all very well. In my poor girl’s lifetime I was a great deal here. She was
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very accomplished – she drew beautifully – poor thing; my pretty Beatrix here is very like her. You can’t remember your poor mamma? No, hardly.”
All this time Lady Alice was, with aristocratic ill-breeding, contemplating the features of Guy Strangways, as she might a picture, with saddened eyes. She was becoming accustomed to the apparition. It had almost ceased to frighten her; and she liked it even, as a help to memory.
Five minutes later she was walking feebly up and down the plateau, in the last level beams of the genial sunset, leaning on the arm of the young man, who could not refuse this courtesy to the garrulous old lady, although contrary to his prudent resolutions – it retained him so near to Beatrix.
“And, Mr. Strangways, it is not every day, you know, I can walk out; and Trixie here will sometimes bring her work into the boudoir – and if you would pay me a visit there, and read or talk a little, you can’t think what a kindness you would do me.” What could he do but hear and smile, and declare how happy it would make him? Although here, too, he saw danger to his wise resolutions. But have not the charities of society
their claims?
These were their parting words as they stood on the stone platform, under the carved armorial bearings of the Marlowes, at the hall-door; and old Lady Alice, when she reached her room, wept softer and happier tears than had wet her cheeks for many a year.