Guy Deverell I

GUY DEVERELL • I

“There is no need, sir, to warn me; I have resolved to avoid any such feeling. I have sense enough to see that there are obstacles insurmountable to my ever cherishing that ambition, and that I never could be regarded as worthy.”

“Bravo! young man, that is what I like; you are as modest as the devil; and here, I can tell you, modesty, which is so often silly, is as wise as the serpent. You understand?”

The large-chested gentleman was now getting into his capacious coat, having buttoned his jewelled wrist-studs in; so he contemplated himself in the glass, with a touch and a pluck here and there.

“One word more, about that old woman. Talk to her all you please, and let her talk – and talk more than you, so much the better; but observe, she will question you about yourself and your connections, and one word you shall not answer; observe she learns nothing from you, that is, in the spirit of your solemn promise to me.”

M. Varbarriere had addressed this peremptory reminder over his shoulder, and now retouched his perpendicular cone of hair, which waved upwards like a grey flame.

“Guy, you will be late,” he called over his shoulder. “Come, my boy; we must not be walking in with the entremets.”

And he plucked out that huge chased repeater, a Genevan masterpiece, which somehow harmonised, with his air of wealth and massiveness, and told him he had hut eight minutes left; and with an injunction to haste, which Guy, with a start, obeyed, this sable and somewhat mountainous figure swayed solemnly from the room.

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JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU

“Who is that Monsieur Varbarriere?” inquired Lady Alice of her host, as the company began to assemble in the drawingroom, before that gentleman had made his appearance.

“I have not a notion.”

“Are you serious? No, you’re not serious,” served Lady Alice. “I’m always serious when I talk to you.”

“Thank you. I’m sure that is meant for a compliment,” said the old lady, curtly.

“And I assure you I mean what I say,” continued Sir Jekyl, not minding the parenthesis. “I really don’t know, except that he comes from France – rather a large place, you know – where he comes from. I have not a notion what his business, calling, or trade may be.”

“Trade!” replied Lady Alice, with dry dignity.

“Trade, to be sure. You’re a tradesman yourself, you know – a miner – I bought twenty-two shares in that for you in June last; you’re an iron ship-builder – you have fifteen in that; you’re a ‘bus-man – you have ten there; and you were devilish near being a brewer, only it stopped.”

“Don’t talk like a fool – a joint-stock company I hope is one thing, and a – a – the other sort of thing quite another, I fancy.”

“You fancy, yes; but it is not. It’s a firm – Smith, Brown, Jones, Redcliffe, and Co., omnibus drivers, brewers, and so forth. So if he’s not a rival, and doesn’t interfere with your little trade, I really don’t care, my dear little mamma, what sort of shop my friend Varbarriere may keep; but as I said, I don’t know; maybe he’s too fine a fellow to meddle, like us, with vats and ‘busses.”

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CHAPTER XXVIII

SOME PRIVATE TALK

OF VARBARRIERE AND LADY ALICE AT THE DINNER-TABLE

At dinner he was placed beside the old lady. He understood good cookery, and with him to dine was to analyse and contemplate. He was usually taciturn and absorbed during the process; but on this occasion he made an effort, and talked a good deal in a grave, but, as the old lady thought, an agreeable and kindly vein.

Oddly enough, he led the conversation to his nephew, and found his companion very ready indeed to listen, as perhaps he had anticipated, and even to question him on this theme with close but unavowed interest.

“He bears two names which, united, remind me of some of my bitterest sorrows – Guy was my dear son’s Christian name, and Mr. Strangways was his most particular friend; and there is a likeness too,” she continued, looking with her dim and clouded eyes upon Guy at the other side, whom fate had placed beside Miss Blunket – “a likeness so wonderful as to make me, at times, quite indescribably nervous; at times it is – how handsome! don’t you consider him wonderfully handsome? – at times the likeness is so exact as to become all but insupportable.”

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GUY DEVERELL • I

She glanced suddenly as she spoke, and saw an expression on the countenance of M. Varbarriere, who looked for no such inspection at that moment, which she neither liked nor understood.

No, it was not pleasant, connected with the tone in which she spoke, the grief and the agitation she recounted, and above all with the sad and horrible associations connected indissolubly in her mind with those names and features. It was a face both insincere and mocking – such a countenance as has perhaps shocked us in childhood, when in some grief or lamentation, looking up for sympathy, we behold a face in which lurks a cruel enjoyment, or a sense of an undivulged joke.

Perhaps he read in the old lady’s face something of the shock she experienced; for he said, to cover his indiscretion, “I was, at the moment, reminded of a strange mistake which once took place in consequence of a likeness. Some of the consequences were tragic, but the rest so ridiculous that I can never call the adventure to mind without feeling the comedy prevail. I was thinking of relating it, but, on recollection, it is too vulgar.”

M. Varbarriere, I am certain, was telling fibs; but he did it well. He did not hasten to change his countenance, but allowed that expression to possess his features serenely after she had looked, and only shifted it for a grave and honest one when he added –

“You think then, perhaps, that, my nephew had formerly the honour of being a companion of Mr. Redcliffe, your son?”

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JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU

“Oh, dear, no. He was about Jekyl’s age. I dare say I had lost him before that young man was born.”

“Oh! that surprises me very much. Monsieur Redcliffe – your son – is it possible he should have been so much older?”

“My son’s name was Deverell,” said the old lady, sadly. “Ah! that’s very odd. He, Guy, then, had an uncle who had

a friend of that name – Guy Deverell – long ago, in this country. That is very interesting.”

“Is not it?” repeated Lady Alice, with a gasp. “I feel, somehow, it must be he – a tall, slight young man.”

“Alas! madam, he is much changed if it be he. He must have been older than your son, madam. He must be, I think, near sixty now, and grown rather stout. I’ve heard him talk at times of his friend Guy Deverell.”

“And with affection, doubtless.”

“Well, yes, with affection, certainly, and with great indignation of his death – the mode of it.”

“Ah! yes,” said Lady Alice, flushing to the roots of her grey hair, and looking down on her plate.

Here there was silence for the space of a minute or more. “Yes, Monsieur Varbarriere; but you know, even though

we cannot always forget, we must forgive.”

“Champagne, my lady?” inquired the servant over her shoulder.

“No, thank you,” murmured Lady Alice.

M. Varbarriere took some and sipped it, wondering how Sir Jekyl contrived to get such wines, and mentally admitting that even in the champagne countries it would task him – M. Varbarriere – to find its equal. And he said –

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GUY DEVERELL • I

“Yes, Lady Alice, divine philosophy, but not easy to practise. I fear it is as hard to do one as the other.”

“And how is Mr. Strangways?” inquired Lady Alice.

They were talking very confidentially and in a low tone, as if old Strangways’ health was the subject of conspiracy.

“Growing old, Lady Alice; he has not spared himself; otherwise well.”

“And this, you say, is his nephew?” continued the old lady. “And you?”

“I am Guy’s uncle – his mother’s brother.” “And his mother, is she living?”

“No, poor thing! gone long ago.”

Lady Alice looked again unexpectedly into M. Varbarriere’s face, and there detected the same unreliable expression.

“Monsieur Varbarriere,” said old Lady Alice a little sternly in his ear, “you will pardon me, but it seems to me that you are trifling, and not quite sincere in all you tell me.”

In a moment the gravity of all the Chief Justices that ever sat in England was gathered in his massive face.

“I am shocked, madam, at your thinking me capable of trifling. How have I showed, I entreat, any evidences of a disposition so contrary to my feelings?”

“I tell you frankly – in your countenance, Monsieur Varbarriere; and I observed it before, Monsieur.”

“Believe me, I entreat, madam, when I assure you, upon the honour of a gentleman, every word I have said is altogether true. Nor would it be easy for me to describe how profound is my sympathy with you.”

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CHAPTER XXIX

THE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN RESUME CONVERSATION IN THE DRAWING-ROOM

“Dives, my boy,” said the Baronet, taking his stand beside his brother on the hearthrug, when the gentlemen had followed the ladies into the drawing-room, and addressing him comfortably over his shoulder, “the Bishop’s coming to-morrow.”

“Ho!” exclaimed Dives, bringing his right shoulder forward, so as nearly to confront his brother. They had both been standing side by side, with their backs, according to the good old graceful English fashion, to the fire.

“Here’s his note – came to-night. He’ll be here to dinner, I suppose, by the six o’clock fast train to Slowton.”

“Thanks,” said Dives, taking the note and devouring it energetically.

“Just half a dozen lines of three words each – always so, you know. Poor old Sammy! I always liked old Sammy – a good old cock at school he was – great fun, you know, but always a gentleman.”

Sir Jekyl delivered these recollections standing with his hands behind his back, and looking upwards with a smile to the ceiling, as the Rev. Dives Marlowe read carefully every word of the letter.

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JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU

“Sorry to see his hand begins to shake a little,” said Dives, returning the interesting manuscript.

“Time for it, egad! He’s pretty well on, you know. We’ll all be shaky a bit before long, Dives.”

“How long does he stay?”

“I think only a day or two. I have his first note up-stairs, if I did not burn it,” answered the Baronet.

“I’m glad I’m to meet him – very glad indeed. I think it’s five years since I met his lordship at the consecration of the new church of Clopton Friars. I always found him very kind – very. He likes the school-house fellows.”

“You’d better get up your parochial experiences a little, and your theology, eh? They say he expects his people to be alive. You used to be rather good at theology – usen’t you?”

Dives smiled. “Pretty well, Jekyl.”

“And what do you want of him, Dives?”

“Oh! he could be useful to me in fifty ways. I was thinking – you know there’s that archdeaconry of Priors.” Dives replied pretty nearly in a whisper.

“By Jove! yes – a capital thing – I forgot it;” and Sir Jekyl laughed heartily.

“Why do you laugh, Jekyl?” he asked, a little drily.

“I – I really don’t know,” said the Baronet, laughing on.

“I don’t see anything absurd or unreasonable in it. That archdeaconry has always been held by some one connected with the county families. Whoever holds it must be fit to associate with the people of that neighbourhood, who won’t be intimate, you know, with everybody; and the thing really is little

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