Guy Deverell II

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.

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“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

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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.”

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“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.

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“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.”

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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.”

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“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.”

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“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 rawboned 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

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